Daily Equestria Life With Monster Girl

by Estee

First published 26th of February, 2019

Yesterday, she was a sweet, somewhat old-fashioned exchange student trying to find her place in a strange culture. Today, Centorea Shianus is a new world's greatest terror.

It had been hard enough, being one of the first. With the walls dropped, leaving her nation, her herd, traveling to Japan and trying to exist among so many strangers... every day had been a challenge. But she'd tried. Day by day, hoofstep by hoofstep, she'd felt she was finding her place in the human world.

But now there are no humans. No other demis or liminals. Nothing to anchor her. She exists among tiny horses and the scent of their fear, or at least what little of it drifts into her cell.

For nopony can look at a centaur and see anything but a monster.

(Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages -- and the TVTropes page just went live.)

Abomination

They had brought the monster down and in doing so, believed themselves to have saved the world.

Some among the townsfolk were still trying to reconcile that they had been the ones to do it. The settlement wasn't particularly noteworthy: it was fairly old, rather isolated, and tended to treat news as something which took place at a great distance. It was the sort of place where the announcement of a disaster would bring a sad, empathetic statement of 'Well, these things happen,' and such would include the implication that none of those things would ever happen here. But the monster had come to their town, appearing during the evening transition between celestial bodies. It was currently being dragged down their moonlit main street in a net -- well, several nets: it had taken a bulk of ropes to get the entire thing wrapped -- behind them. Destiny had chosen them for the test, and they had won.

It was something which a number couldn't quite believe. Many of those with horns were repeatedly, almost compulsively projecting light towards minor bits of detritus in the road: surrounding, lifting, and dropping again. The ones with wings, currently pushing their hooves against the cobbled streets as their part in helping to drag the burden, kept taking off: the limit of each flight was the length of their mouth-gripped tow rope. And the ones who lacked both... they froze every so often, strained their ears in all directions. In all cases, the behavior was exactly like that of a being who had nearly lost a limb and kept shaking it to make sure it was still there.

None of them could understand the monster, and that had surprised a few: the stories said that the last one (just a few moons ago, far too fresh in memory) had spoken their language. This one didn't. Oh, it had vocalized, and done so several times during those moments when it wasn't crying out from the pain of their attacks. There had almost seemed to be multiple languages involved: some of the sounds had possessed a near-liquid tonal quality, while others had been harsher. But the town was isolated, and didn't really host anything worth coming to see. It seldom had visitors from the rest of the nation, let alone what lay beyond -- and so none who lived there knew how to perform the complicated working which would lead to temporary translation.

Not that it mattered. It was a monster. They didn't care what it had to say, because they knew what it had come to do. Something they had stopped.

They had saved the world.

They were still trying to figure out what newborn heroes were supposed to do in the aftermath. For starters, they hadn't actually killed the thing. It had been a matter of some debate, especially since they knew what it did -- but a few were aware that the last one had been captured, it had seemed that they should take the same route, and... they didn't know how to kill, not when it came to making themselves complete the act. They'd had it down, hooves had been held over its head, and --

-- it had looked at them.

It was hideous. Monstrous. A nightmare escaped into reality, and that very much included its eyes. Eyes which were too small and set at the front of the skull: the marks of a predator. But the color...

It had blue eyes, half-closed from pain. And they couldn't understand the monster, not for anything it might have been trying to say -- but somehow, the one whose hoof had been braced over the bridge of the snout (nose, a tiny afterthought of one) had seen the resignation. The moisture coating the little orbs.

The first tear.

Monsters cried as a means of deceit. Monsters faked pain as a lure. This was a monster. But it was beaten, and a police department whose only true expertise was in resolving domestic squabbles by addressing all involved with their full names... their chief hadn't been able to do it.

There was an excuse, of course. Part of that came from the last one, merely captured. The rest was that the monster, having been beaten, was no longer their problem.

So they had bound it, and that had taken some work. Chains were available, as were cuffs: sometimes domestic squabbles needed a visual reminder that another stage was available. But the monster was huge. It had towered over all of them. One of the few who had been to the capital eventually declared it was just about the same size as the elder of their rulers, and those who had paid the most attention to the stories had shuddered. It was huge, it was far too large -- but they'd stopped the monster before it had become any bigger. A monster which was the size of the elder had been dealt with: the last one hadn't stopped there.

Still, it had required some adjustments. Chains had been attached to each other: it was the only way to stretch things out enough to get all four legs bound. And then there was the... other part. That had been less distance to cover, but they hadn't initially thought to bring a chain for something which none of them had personally seen.

Some of the town's residents, those who hadn't heard the sound of battle from inside their homes, who were only reacting to the sporadic cheering which broke out as the monster was dragged along, or looked out a window when they heard the shaky laughter which came from reactions to jokes that were only funny because they'd lived... they were staring at the monster now. The ones who had battled had already had their chance, and even they would find themselves looking.

For some, looking brought shame, because so much of the body could be seen as beautiful. Get the tattered black draping fabric out of the way, clean up the fur, get some of the mud off, ignore the clotted blood from various wounds and the tiny new ones which were opening up from being dragged along the road while trapped in nets... get past all that and there was still the sheer size of the thing, but to say you found no appeal in a body so large was to insult their leaders, and so it was something few would vocalize.

But the fur, properly groomed, would be a rich brown. The hooves were in excellent condition, and the legs were powerful. (Some of them had felt that power directly, because the monster had attacked them. It was a monster: attacking was what it did. The fact that they had initially gone after it on sight didn't factor into their personal equation.) The tail... even with mud and worse coating so much of it, they could tell it was a rich shade of blonde. And the torso was healthy, the rib cage wide and proud, strong muscles offering the attraction which came from raw physical power.

More than a few looked at that, and so many felt the shame that came from finding any degree of appeal. But it was something which always shattered quickly. There was beauty in that large body, a certain level of wounded ideal along the torso --

-- right up until it bent, distorted, hideously warped into the other torso.

There was no fur anywhere on that portion, and the bare pink skin which emerged from the sleeves and neck of the dirty white cloth garment was mottled from dirt and fast-emerging bruises. Shortly below the shoulder blades, the flesh further distorted forward, twin mounds which repeatedly deformed from pressure as the monster was pulled across the stones. The residents who had studied the greater world were reminded of a distant nation to the east and the twin-horned beings who lived there, realized that physical quality might mark this monster as a female, and the most intelligent considered that it might even explain something of what had happened. The last monster had been a male, and it had drained. This one had...

There was a sword.

None of them had ever seen swords before, not directly. Swords were something which existed in books, a weapon which the twin-horned could wield -- but very few of them chose to go that route. They had no true experience of swords, and so did not know that in some ways, to call it a sword was to grant it the favor of a surprisingly relaxed definition. It was a sword in the same way that a scaled-up toy boat could be called a ship.

It was proportionate to the creature's hideous second torso, the length of those extra limbs. It was properly balanced. But it wasn't metal, and it had no edge. The places where the slicing surfaces should have been honed to fatal perfection had been rounded and smoothed. There were still ways in which the sword could do some damage: it had weight to it, and a curious density. The monster, swinging the weapon with all of that hideous strength, had the potential to break something if it hit just the right weak spot, and a number of the combatants were sporting their own bruises. But realistically, the only things the sword could hope to cut were vapor and light, and the residents were dragging it along in a secondary net some twenty body lengths behind them, with all refusing to touch it because until the moment they'd brought the monster down, that was exactly what it had been doing.

(Perhaps that was the difference between males and females of the monstrous breed. Males drained. Females cut. None were sure which was worse.)

They didn't know what to do with the sword. They had already decided on the monster's fate: namely, that determining such would be the problem of another. And it was too large for the dusty jail cells, things where the walls suddenly didn't look solid enough -- but the settlement was an old one, and so the first family in had maintained their castle across the generations. A castle which had a rather extensive sort of wine cellar, and it wouldn't take all that much to convert it back into a prison. One resident had galloped ahead, alerted the owner, and so bottles were being hastily shifted. The monster would have a place to both begin the first stage of its well-earned rot and await the rest.

The procession dragged it through the streets. They laughed, because they were alive and they had saved the world. Occasionally, a resident would steel herself enough to emerge with a camera, and the procession would pause for pictures because this level of heroism had to be recorded. They began to plan a celebration which would last through the night. They ignored the little cries of pain which the female could not choke back, because they were merely the sounds of a monster. They could not understand it, and believed it could not understand them.

They were wrong.

It could not render their speech into comprehensible sentences: to it, the sounds were neighs and whinnies, nickers and desperate snorts. But it recognized that there was a language there, and even if the words could not be deciphered -- some of the emotions could. So many of its own kind made those sounds when they were very young, before true speech came. It had also grown up among those who resembled the captors in form: larger and with more limited colors, having subtracted wings and horns and the capacity for true thought. These were tiny and mostly bright, with some pastels and a very few shades which it might have considered normal, they were talking -- but in so many ways, their body language was the same. It could see some of what they were saying, or at least the intent behind the words.

And there was more than that. The monster, even with that afterthought nose, possessed a singularly excellent sense of smell: magnitudes sharper than that of her captors. Spend enough time among a species, come to know them, and it would become possible to detect certain emotions through scent. The female had never encountered this triad of creatures before -- but there were ways in which they resembled what it had known. Others where they even resembled the monster. And so the odors were largely unfamiliar, but there were so many of the creatures and when the bundle of ropes and chains was being dragged along in their wake, with nothing to do other than think about failure and despair and the fast-approaching inevitability of a final fate... it was time in which to recognize commonalities.

The monster couldn't understand their words. But the blue eyes saw their postures: the sensitive nose took in their massed scent. And so it knew that no matter how much bravado was being displayed, the stallions rearing up to make themselves look larger, the mares slamming hooves down in the little stomps of domination -- they were afraid. Every last one of them was afraid.

The procession moved down the settlement's main street. It periodically stopped for celebration and pictures, compulsive lights and short bursts of flight, and all of it happened within an invisible cloud of unrelenting terror.

But they had saved the world. (That was how they perceived the events. There was no other way they could perceive it.) And to them, that meant their part was almost over. They just needed to confine the thing for a while, and then --

-- well, actually, 'and then' felt like a variable. The town lacked many things, and the total absence of those who could vanish from one location and appear in another suddenly felt like a major flaw. It would have been the fastest way to set up the relay race of information, for they were a long way from the capital. But instead, the first stage would need to take place through flight. That would slow things somewhat, but the residents were fairly sure their leaders would know about the situation by morning. The problem, and final fate of the monster, would be transferred to those with authority. They would manage everything, the town's residents would undoubtedly collect their honors, and none would ever have to resist the urge to glance back at a monster again.

So many had looked at the familiar portion of that body. But always, their gazes moved to the warped. To unfamiliar limbs which subdivided at the ends, to those predatory eyes. The hideous features. Perfectly proper ears which had been disturbingly shifted to the sides of the head. The tight gathering of blonde hair (with no proper streak down neck and back) at the top, and the long strands which had broken free.

(Some of those with horns had tried to grab the distorted head with their light. It had made them feel as strange as they had when they'd tried to coat her weapon, and they'd quickly stopped. Every one of those residents had stopped thinking about it, and so none could have predicted the events which would occur before their sun returned.)

Its legs were chained, and the locks were holding. The -- other limbs -- had been bound. It hadn't escaped, and so it wouldn't escape.

They had won.

Eventually, under the lights of moon, glowing devices, and camera flashes, they reached the castle.

The current owner (a mare, and far too young to be holding her title) had been waiting for them, had been told what was coming, and still wound up pressed against a corner in fear. Several residents moved to reassure her as the main procession split: one group dragging the monster towards the ramp into the cellars, while a second tried to find a place they could store its weapon. Storage which would, ideally, involve none of them being near the thing or touching it in any way.

Finally, they had it in front of the proper door: the one with all the evacuated bottles lined up along both sides of the hallway. Some rather awkward maneuvering was required to get the oversized body through the gap, and one impact gave them the chance to ignore the single cry which could not be choked back. And then they checked the locks, made sure everything was functioning properly, and headed back towards the light. One of their number would be set to guard, and that assignment would shift throughout the night. But all would have the chance to join in the townwide party. A celebration for the heroes they hadn't known they could be.

They had saved the world.

And within her stinking cell, a girl who had once wished to be a knight, lost in a strange land, beaten and half-broken and awaiting what she was sure would be her death, with none left to watch her, finally allowed her emotions to fully flow forth.

Centorea Shianus closed her eyes, and the young centaur wept.

Unnatural

It wasn't her first cell, and that might have said something about life in the Kurusu household. The residents -- herself very much included, even when she tried so hard to ride herd over the rest of the group, keep some occasional degree of control and, with much less success, retain some portion of dignity -- had an outright talent for finding trouble: something which actually became worse when they worked in groups. And it was true that part of her original intent in joining the student exchange problem, the experiment which had started to introduce the once-hidden liminals into human society, was to find some way of becoming a true knight -- and knights were certainly expected to deal with disasters. She just hadn't been expecting quite so many of them.

Not her first cell, and that was with the hastily, horribly-written laws which guided interaction between the liminals and the planet's majority species in putrid play: something where one moment of being caught simply defending herself could have so easily led to deportation. But it was the first time she'd been in one alone. At least one of Cerea's friends --

My friends call me Cerea.

-- had always been confined with her. It gave her someone to plan with. Or more often, someone who, if not necessarily capable of true help because few things were more pointless than trying to construct an intelligent course of action through Papi, was at least there. At the absolute minimum, she'd had company.

My friends are gone.

She shivered as more of her body heat was stolen by the cold stone floor. (She'd been dumped on her left side, and those bruises were screaming accordingly.) The chains rattled.

It also wasn't her first time being tied up, and that number was much closer to triple digits: something which definitely said a few words about life in the Kurusu household, or at least about having to deal with a certain (a mind which was trained towards politeness to the point of near-absurdity automatically edited out a number of terms) housemate. Living with Rachnera involved a number of daily adjustments, which included a frequent need to glance up. That particular liminal claimed to be an ambush predator, one who was simply practicing her daily routine so as not to lose her edge and it wasn't as if anyone ever got hurt, so what was the problem? The problem was in having a housemate who treated tying others up in spider silk as something which potentially came with its own fetish, and Cerea was afraid it actually did: she'd seen the smile on the other's face as she tried to struggle free, watched the near-sexual delight passing through all six insectile eyes. Cerea was regularly bound by an expert.

She would laugh at this.
She would laugh at me.
She always laughs when I can't get free.

There had been a lot of laughter.

Her eyes closed again, and it took a few seconds for the shame to pretend it was receding.

The next thought was an echo, and possibly an inevitable one: My friends are gone. Friends, and those who were somewhat less.

Or rather, they weren't there for her: they couldn't be. They were still in Japan. There was no one there for her at all. It was just Cerea, the chains, and the cell. And she'd wanted to be a true knight, the stories had knights captured all the time (which was really surprising when she considered how effective a knight was supposed to be at combat, but she supposed the best way into a few castles was through being initially defeated) and if she had ever even pretended a right to the title...

She was alone. She was lost on a scale she had never imagined to exist, and that was after having experienced the displacement which came from flying thousands of miles away from home (in the cargo section of the plane, no less: it had taken six layers of blankets to reach Japan and she'd still been sick for a week) to live among a species which she'd only known through stories, rumor, and -- something her mother had never caught her at.

But then there had been Japan, and the household. The person she had so hoped would love her, and the chaos which always seemed to prevent her best chance. Friends to go with that. Some closer to rivals, others sisters, one just barely escaping the definition of enemy. A life of chaos and confusion and, looking back, frequently-repaired clothing because as long as there were enough threads left, nothing was going to get her into a local store to shop for replacements. An odd sort of life at best, but it was her life and frequent bindings aside, there had been ways in which she'd been getting used to it. And always, she'd believed that all she needed to make the subject of her growing love return her feelings, to truly become his knight, was a single moment. The right moment, just as it existed in all of the best stories. Her chance.

Then there had been the road.
The forest.
Everything else.

She'd broken into a full-scale gallop upon seeing the upper levels of the town (or at least the best speed her injured body could achieve) because it had not only indicated civilization, it had been a familiar one. Part of her had only seen that the distant buildings had an old-world European style to them, that had to mean people, and so she hadn't truly thought about scale or some of the odder touches until she'd vaulted the last line of obscuring bushes and --

They attacked me.
They defeated me.

She'd been defeated a lot, since leaving home. As a prospective knight, she had a won-loss record closer to that of a professional jobber, and only a portion came from the restrictions placed on her by those horribly-written laws. In this case, she'd been taken down by sheer numbers, by light and wind. Things she'd had no way to expect, and that part of the shame was still there. It was always there, when she lost. It never truly departed.

Cerea had possessed no real way of expecting to see little horses (or a tripled odd distortion of same), especially given the direction of the wind and the minimal scents which had reached her. Nothing would have made her believe that they would attack on sight.

But they had. She'd fought. She'd stayed on her hooves for a while, done some damage to the other side. But in time, they'd surrounded her, cut off all retreat. Brought her down. The one mare had been about to stomp into her skull --

-- and then they'd bound her.

It was possible that they had her tied up pending trial, if any existed for someone who had been attacked on sight. Or they could have been waiting for the professional executioner.

They're so scared...

It was also possible that they'd never seen anything quite like her, just as she'd previously seen nothing exactly like them. She'd gone through some fear during her initial time among humans, done her best to hide it. Some of the stranger liminals still disturbed her. But to just attack...

Even now, the scent of their terror was drifting into her cell. She wondered if it would be the last thing she ever sensed.

But the chains had rattled...

Cerea twisted her upper torso as best she could against the net. Looked around.

The cell, like the castle, seemed ancient: the rough-hewn stone which made up the walls wouldn't have been out of place in the oldest settled portions of France. Portions of the jammed-together boulders which made up the floor could be used for the slow rasping of rope -- but that would be too slow, especially when she didn't know how long she had. Besides, that was a secondary layer: the chains had priority.

There were some empty wine racks scattered around the edge of the room. Nothing useful.

The door -- that was mostly wood. Heavy wood, but she was a centaur and it wasn't a particularly large door, with very little in the way of metal reinforcements. A few good kicks might take it out. And as for anyone who might be on the other side -- the door also possessed what could be seen as a minor defect: the little barred window which allowed any jailer to peer in would be, if she was standing, on a level with her lower sternum.

But that lets them see I'm standing.

There were no eyes there yet, and -- she took a deep breath -- yes, one of the little horses was in the hallway. A scared little horse. Possibly too frightened to peer in all the time.

Her friends were gone. She didn't know where home was, and they had her weapon -- or rather, her poor excuse for one: the laws meant she wasn't allowed to carry anything real. But Cerea felt herself to know this much: to stay might be to die. The forest had held its terrors -- but she'd beaten the first two. Being back there was better than being here.

No one to help her. No one to save her (and a true knight shouldn't need saving). She had to do it herself. At the very least, she had the option to die trying. And she would try, because --

-- she was regularly bound by an expert.

She'd just shivered, and the chains had rattled. There was slack, and it existed because the little horses weren't experts. With Rachnera, Cerea would try to shift an arm and her right hind hoof would kick her own backside. These bonds hadn't been rendered with skill, practice, or anything outside of what was suddenly starting to feel like total improvisation.

I know how good she is. Too good, because she's caught me dozens of times. The horses caught me once. These aren't professional bonds.

A knight would work with that.

Rachnera had explained it to her, mostly to watch Cerea's frustration. There were certain issues involved in tying up a centaur, and the largest came from their raw strength. Cerea didn't have the near-supernatural advantages possessed by some of her housemates, but physical power was readily available -- something which thickly-woven cords of spider silk negated. The metal was just about as bad.

But that wasn't the only problem. Strictly speaking, Rachnera had the largest body in the household, at least when figuring for the spider portion which made up her lower half. And that part of her form was built from chitin, exoskeleton relying as much on hydraulic pressure for movement as musculature. Put it together with the more humanoid half and the majority of the total lacked flexibility. Portions of that liminal's body were forever out of its owner's reach, and no amount of contorting could change that.

Centaurs were just about as big. But unlike the hybrid specimens which made up the arachne, a being trying to reconcile two completely different types of bodies, centaurs were fully warm-blooded mammals. And dealing with a form so large across the span of eons had encouraged the species to evolve a certain degree of double-jointing just to reach the far ends of their own backs.

Cerea wasn't as flexible as Suu: merely possessing a skeleton prevented that degree of contortion. But she could move in ways which humans found unnatural, and so seldom did because it was already hard enough to make her hoped-for love feel attraction towards her. And now she needed to.

It started with her arms, because she needed to have her hands free in order to have any hope at all. Arms which had been bound behind her back. She could feel the metal against her wrists -- but not against the entire circumference.

She twisted her neck, raised her bound arms behind her, managed to get a glimpse. Twisted again until she was able to see her forehooves, which actually took a lot more work.

It's the same kind of chain.

They had bound her arms the same way they'd bound her legs: the only difference seemed to be a knot in the links which kept rubbing against her spine. And hooves weren't flexible -- but hands were. The cuffs were already a little too large for her wrists. All she needed to do was compress...

It hurt. Centaurs tended to be double-jointed over most of their human body -- but hands had limits. Still, it was possible to, with a lot of effort and squeezing, make a hand smaller than the diameter of the wrist, and the metal of the cuffs provided a surface to compress against. She also wound up scraping off quite a bit of skin, and had to bite back a yelp -- but the blood was making things that much slicker. Slowly, surely, one side was coming free --

-- two huge green eyes were staring at her through the bars.

She smelled the fear, pulled her lips back from her teeth. The eyes vanished, and she heard hoofsteps retreating across the stone floor. That part went on for a while.

Cerea waited a few seconds. Resumed, and with one more flow of red, she had her right hand back.

It made the next part easier: the right could squeeze the left before it went through the cuff. And then she carefully, quietly slipped the metal down across her fur until it silently rested on the stone floor, hidden on the other side of her body. Progress. If any of the horses got within arm's reach, she could now get her punches tangled in the net.

The centaur took a closer look at the discarded chain. Each cuff had a lock, and a keyhole. The latter seemed odd. The ones with the horns, who had created light -- that light had moved things. But what about the ones without the horns? Keys in the mouth didn't feel practical.

Still, it was a lock. And she was strong -- but the majority of that was in her lower body. An ogre could pull chains apart by hand: she didn't doubt Tionishia would be capable of it, although someone would have to give that gentle soul a rather good explanation for the why.

I'm no better than second to everyone --

-- no. Look at the lock.

She looked.

I don't know how to pick a lock.

Not that she had much choice but to try. Even with an awkward reach and limited visibility, it was make an attempt or wait to see what the little horses would do next. She didn't have a lot of faith in the little horses. But she did have a tool, something all the applicable stories said was just what she needed...

She'd read a lot of stories, when she was young. It had taught her about knights, and the blocked-off world. She'd believed in the stories, much of that had been wrong, and she still believed in most of it because reading had been the majority of what a confined community was allowed to do.

Another check of the viewport bars, and then her hands carefully moved up.

Cerea had a lot of hair: head and tail both. The human portion grew quickly, needed frequent trimming and could rapidly become too much for easy management. (Everyone in the household had their own reason for tying up the bathroom, and Cerea's was a near-addiction level need for the hair dryer.) It meant she generally had to pin some of it up. And weren't hairpins supposed to be the perfect tool for picking locks?

More awkward contorting, which included wriggling around on the floor to hide as much of herself as possible from casual sight: she remembered to take the discarded chain with her. It aggravated bruises, opened a few of the smaller slow-clotting wounds. But in time, she managed it, and the metal hairpin was poked towards the lock --

-- where it promptly skidded away from the hole.

She frowned. Pushed again, using a little more strength, and so nearly started when the tip skidded across the metal surrounding the keyhole in a way which seemed as if it almost had to produce more sound than a light scratching.

Is it magnetized?

If so, the magnet was ridiculously powerful for its size. She pushed with increasing amounts of power, and nothing she did could get the hairpin into the keyhole. It was simply repelled, every time.

Cerea took a slow breath.

All right. But that's just with metal.

She had a lot of hair, and so needed a proportionate number of hairpins. The limited finances of an exchange student meant they couldn't all be quality. She was almost certain that the cheap plastic ones would break off inside the lock as soon as she put any pressure on a tumbler -- but they were what she had to use, and they certainly wouldn't be affected by a magnet.

More careful movement, recovering the lesser pin. The awkward angling was shifted until she had the best possible view of the first lock: the one around her left ankle. She bent a little more, winced at the compression along the bruised area (because of course the horses had kicked at those very obvious targets), put the tip into the keyhole --

-- and red light fountained from the lock, light which was filled with the same sparks that had danced around those glowing horns.

It was a small display, no more than would have been seen from an energetic sparkler, and so her body hid all of it. But she still had to repress another start, and wound up doing it again a second later, at the moment when the lock simply fell open.

The centaur stared at it for as long as she could risk giving it attention: all of two seconds. And then she looked at the cheap hairpin --

-- they are attacking her from all directions, and she can't defend herself. It is a vulnerability of the centaur body: the number of opponents required to surround is a quantity which can easily overwhelm. For a centaur, guarding one's right flank isn't a casual feat, and there are so many of the little horses, too many to stop. And the ones with the wings keep blasting wind into her eyes, and now one with a horn sends light towards her, light she instinctively realizes is meant to hurt --

-- the swing is reflexive, because that's what practice swords are for: developing the necessary skills to reflex level without anyone becoming injured. (She isn't allowed to carry a real one, because of those laws. She sometimes believes she never will.) Something is trying to hurt her, so she swings. It won't do anything, she realizes that even as it's happening, and naturally the only result is that the sword cuts through the light.

But the light isn't deflected. It falls apart in a shower of sparks and fast-fading violet spray. The little horse who projected the beam staggers. And she doesn't have time to think about that because another one is about to kick her and --

-- she had time to think about it now.

She looked at the next lock.

My name is Centorea Shianus.

Not the Lady Shianus. I'm not a knight. Maybe I never will be.

Maybe I'll die here.

(She wished she could see her mother again.)

I. am. leaving.

Distorted

His name was Blue Flamer, and he really didn't deserve any of it.

The young stallion was a rookie police officer, and held that status in a way where every word in the description needed to be capitalized, along with using a few italics and the occasional strategic touch of boldface. This didn't mean he was bad at his job: he had the mark for the work, and had been steadily boosting his skills through training. He simply lacked confidence. In a settled zone where most problems could be resolved by a careful recitation of all participants' full names (because the implication said that if the officer knew that, then there was a plethora of potential embarrassments waiting right behind it), he tended to stammer. And he'd been late to the fight against the monster, something else which hadn't been his fault: he'd just been on the other side of town when everything started.

His fellow officers rather liked him. There was a sincerity to his eagerness, and the misery which crashed his expression whenever he felt he'd gotten something wrong inspired a completely natural desire to groom his ears while telling him everything would be all right, which wasn't exactly practical in a police station. So as an alternative, with his having missed the true opportunity to prove himself, his coworkers had thoughtfully provided another one: the first guard shift outside the monster's cell. He wouldn't miss too much of the party and when he finally joined it, they could talk up his courage in standing as the first line of defense against the monster, preferably in front of a few smiling (and lightly inebriated) mares. They all felt it would go a long way towards building his confidence, not to mention getting around the problem he had with talking to mares by getting a few to speak with him.

He wasn't a bad pony. He was just... scared.

It was just him outside the cell -- well, technically, his current position (far end of the approach hallway) still counted as 'outside the cell'. Yes, there was another line of defense, just in case, but... right then and there, it was him. A single young unicorn and the monster on the other side of the distant door.

He could smell it. (He didn't know how sharp its own sense of smell was, and it wouldn't have helped.) He was about average for a pony there: there were things he could pick up on, and so much more which he missed. But the monster had its own scent. Some of that came from mud: the thing, along with its garments, had been rather dirty when it had first appeared, and that status hadn't exactly been improved by the drag through the streets. But it had clearly been exerting itself before the fight, something which both accounted for the first group of wounds and intensified its natural odor.

The worst part of the smell was that which was almost familiar. It almost matched the delicate natural perfume which could arise from the fur of a healthy young mare, only it was... off. (Perhaps the injuries had something to do with that.) But it could never be that enticing scent, because there was something else mixed in. Something which probably arose from the other torso. The hideous part.

He had risked a glance (because a guard had to check on the prisoner), felt his legs go into reverse when the monster had exposed its teeth. But it had been enough to get a sense of the thing, and -- he had been trying to imagine it as a pony. What would it have been? An earth pony, as that strength suggested? (There was far too much bulk for a pegasus, let alone a unicorn.) What would it -- or she, some of his fellows thought it was a female -- have looked like?

Part of Blue wanted to imagine that. And every time he came close, the scent reached his snout, and the warping crashed back in.

The totality smelled like nothing he'd ever scented before. Fur and flesh, added to mud and skin and other and --

-- blood.

It smelled like blood.

(His legs tried to back away again. The base of his tail bumped against a wall.)

Well, that was natural: the monster had been injured. He'd seen that. It was bruised -- it was so easy to see the bruises on the parts without fur -- and battered, with a number of cuts. So it was bleeding, and that blood smelled like blood should. Perhaps all blood was the same, once you got that far down. It was just that... it had smelled like blood from the very start, and he could only hope that all of it was the monster's own.

But that scent was getting stronger.

It's hurt.

It's a monster.

A soft, choked-back whimper wafted through the gaps in the bars. The scent intensified yet again.

It's hurt.

They had called for their leaders, and... well, strictly speaking, having them arrive to find a dead monster would probably just mean an unoccupied cell within what would have been its final, inevitable destination. But there were rules about how you were supposed to treat prisoners, and while he'd only ever applied them to ponies...

Blue had grown up in the town, had never really left it. His experience of the world was limited to something much less than a single square gallop. It wasn't the sort of town where the farmers hosted much in the way of tenants, but there were a few. He'd seen alpacas, and to be seen was to be spit on. Gotten dirty while breaking up fights between pigs. But that was the total extent of his other-species experience: working with tenants. When it came to those who held their own nations, he'd never even met a donkey. He didn't know how to deal with something which possessed that level of command over their own sapience. He just knew that the thing on the other side of the door was a monster.

But he also knew it was in pain.

(His legs were beginning to shift, again without conscious intent.)

Could it bleed out before anypony arrived? He didn't believe it possible -- but the increased strength of that blood scent wasn't fading. Perhaps monster blood didn't clot in the same way. And what about food? Did it live on magic alone, stealing the power of others for its sustenance, or was grass required? What about hay or fruit? And this was a monster: nothing said it would be adverse to -- he automatically gulped back the sudden nausea -- meat. At the very least, it probably needed to drink...

The monster had been in at least one fight before breaching the town's border, and perhaps that was why they'd won: it had already been pained. But he didn't know how much pain it was in. What that pain, untreated, might result in.

(A few body lengths had been gained.)

Blue was guarding the monster. But as a police officer (a marked one, whose deepest understanding of the job occasionally arose from the soul), he also had an obligation towards it: the single most basic. To make sure it didn't die on his watch.

Slowly, he approached the door. Listening.

The monster's breathing was slightly ragged. (He had seen it breathe. Too many things moved.) There was a little scrabble of keratin on stone, but that was as normal as anything could be with the creature: just hooves moving across the floor. There were enough gaps in the nets for a hoof or two to stick out, and the monster had been in a position where contact was possible.

Admittedly, it was a rather light sort of scrabble. If it had been a pony, he would have thought the minimal noise represented the sound of something trying to move very carefully. But it was a monster.

How was he supposed to communicate with it? His best option was probably to just bring in a bucket of water, place it near the hideous head, and see if the thing tried to drink. He could do the same with food, although he wasn't looking forward to any attempt at finding meat. But for first aid... police officer training included some of that, and he could render minor assistance to a pony. This was a monster. He wasn't sure what he could do there, if that was anything at all. It was possible that every physician in town would fail --

-- but the blood smelled the same.

Blue kept forcing himself forward. He was nearly at the door now, just about at the point where he could be able to look through the bars and check on the thing: he paused to brace himself accordingly.

Bottles were lined up along the wall, and being so close was making him wonder if the owner would miss one.

He was really hoping it didn't need help with toiletries.

Try to just -- look at the torso. The proper torso.

He didn't want to even do that much. (He knew some of the other officers had a term for mares with attractive bodies and repellent features, and thought it sounded like ButHerFace. In this case, it was ButEverythingFromTheWhiteGarmentOnUp.) But to check how badly it was injured, he would need to do a full-body examination, and that included everything which was warped.

The thought froze him again. More illness was swallowed back, and he listened.

It stopped moving.

It's breathing, but it isn't moving.

I should get in there --

-- it could be a trap --

-- it's my job --

He was shivering slightly, standing in that stone hallway. The outer expression of the inner war, the message of his mark battling with the more primitive drive of his fear. It meant he never quite reached the door, and so he wasn't in any direct danger when the entire thing jumped.

The sound came at the same instant as the movement, the moment when his widening green eyes saw that the bolts had just been jolted halfway out of the hinges. It was a familiar sound, because there were farmers in the area and he'd visited their homes during harvest season. It was the sound of extremely powerful hooves impacting against wood, only magnified.

Blue didn't have time to think. There was no chance to move. But he wasn't on the other side of the door, and so he didn't get hurt when the next impact sundered the hinges entirely, shot it out of the frame and into the opposing wall -- after it took care of what had been in the way.

Glass shattered. Several rather fine vintages died, and an old saying almost randomly passed through Blue's near-frozen mind, something Connemara ponies had supposedly been known to claim: that when you died, you would be suspended upside-down in a barrel filled with all the alcohol you'd ever spilled and if that was enough to drown you, then -- well, that was where his memory ran out. But it was presumed that since you were already dead, the next part had to be really bad.

The monster, who'd clearly had time to land, plant, and spin, was visibly huge enough that shattering everything in the hallway wasn't going to put it at any real risk, plus there would be some issues in finding a properly-sized barrel.

It plunged through the door. The blue eyes (forward-set, predatory eyes) had already spotted him, and the thing crossed the scant distance before he could move, the second torso dipped towards his level and the hands lunged forward, got a grip at the base of his forelegs and lifted --

-- it wasn't quite done moving yet and so in the middle of everything, he felt his back hit the wall. It was enough to make him lose the sensation of points jabbing into his fur.

It had just lifted him, and seemed to have done so almost casually. Its lips were pulled back from its teeth again. The furious blue eyes were staring directly into his, and it made him want to look anywhere else. But in one location, there was blood flowing from scraped skin. Another found covered mounds of flesh heaving from the anger in the monster's breaths. And to look at the face...

The mouth opened, as he initially failed to muster any degree of horn corona in his overwhelming terror. As he waited to die.

Its hot breath hit his snout.

"Où est mon épée?"

The little cerulean horned horse frantically neighed.

Cerea knew she needed all the time she could get: it was possible that the sound of her breakout had been audible on the upper levels, and reinforcements could already be on the way -- but somehow, that still left a moment for feeling stupid. The stallion couldn't understand her, and she had no way of verbally communicating with him. She was capable of producing horse noises: the flexible vocal chords of her species provided there -- but it wasn't a matter of simulating natural sounds any more. She was dealing with a language, and she would have no idea what she was saying --

-- hard-sparking green light was starting to build around its horn, the glow matching the exact shade of the horse's eyes. The light which could attack.

Her left hand pressed the horse more firmly against the wall, allowing the stone to take some of the weight while freeing up her right for a few seconds. It let her poke the plastic hairpin into its horn.

The glow fizzled, winked out. The pony winced, and its expression somehow carried across a sudden feeling of deep-seated nausea. The horn remained dark.

"Right," she rather pointlessly said, and had to fight back the blush. (She had been told she was one of the world's greatest blushers. She'd had far too much practice.)

She wished she had her ascot. If she couldn't talk to the stallion, then leaving him free to call for help was an even bigger mistake -- but she couldn't bind his jaw with the red cloth. It was somewhere in the forest, where the first drops of her blood had been absorbed by strange soil.

But she needed to communicate with him. She had to find out where her sword was, the only thing which might give her a chance. There were knights bold and daring accomplishing great feats in any number of stories and despite her deep faith in them, Cerea almost suspected the greatest among their number might still encounter some difficulty in escaping a castle while armed with a hairpin.

There was no point in trying to use any other language she knew. (Several, and she'd continued to study Japanese after moving to that nation, hoping to achieve a native level of fluency. She loved the formality of the tongue, the multiple levels available for offering respect.) But there were ways of communicating which didn't require sound.

She twisted her right arm, shook it a few times to get the blood flowing, let her run down her hand. Quickly smeared the wall in three sharp slashes: one for the grip, another for the hilt, and the longest represented the blade. The horse's fearful eyes watched every movement, and she watched the intelligent mind behind them take in the shape. Spotted the recognition.

Cerea knew the next word was equally pointless, and yet found herself saying it anyway.

"Where?"

Blue stared at the image. The sword made of blood. The thing which could do so much damage if the monster took it back.

He was in some pain: the impact against the wall hadn't been too bad, but the currently-unbalanced grip meant too much of his weight was resting on a single joint. And there was a lingering feeling of deep illness, something which seemed to radiate from his horn -- but he was still able to think.

The monster furiously nodded at the image. Looked at him again. Waited.

I can't --

-- he could. It was close by.

Strictly speaking, it shouldn't have been. Anything seized should have gone into the evidence locker, something a police department with very little need for one still possessed. In fact, it had all of the standard enchantments and then some, because the unused part of the budget had to be spent on something. Whenever you took custody of evidence or an item which was just dangerous, you trotted with it through the frame which projected the initial screening spell. Then you picked one of the open-front cubes which created the second screen, opened the door which was receded into the properly-sized face, placed the item into the container and its third layer of enchantments, and that was the whole problem. Everypony had realized that to bring something so hostile to magic through magic might completely disrupt the station's security. It could potentialy negate it, and the only way to prove it wouldn't happen was through giving the disaster a chance to strike.

So the sword had been put in the castle. Given a room to itself, one where all of the devices and wonders had been cleared out first. Left completely alone within its binding of ropes, so that nopony would have to touch it.

He could bring the monster to it. Or rather, he could bring the monster to the upper levels. Create a chance for the escape to be seen, and thus stopped. There were other residents in the castle, and it wasn't as if the monster could be missed. All he needed was for a single pony to spot them, gallop for the outside, sound the alarm.

But he would be putting that pony at risk. The monster could catch her (he was picturing a mare), as it had caught him. It was his job to assume the risks. To protect. And if he could just get to a window...

It was looking at him again, with that predatory gaze. He wished it would stop.

I can't do anything down here.

He would have to take it to the ramp. Bring it into the upper levels, and hope for his chance.

Blue tilted his head to the left. Made something of a show out of looking up.

The monster slowly nodded. (It could do that much in making itself understood, and he stared at the bruises which mottled the neck.) Gradually, it knelt down, sliding him along the wall as it did so, maintaining the pressure. The right arm went back, and he heard a tearing sound.

A ragged length of black fabric came forward. Then it went around his jaw, and all he could smell was the monster's blood.

The left hand let go. And before he could move, it firmly grabbed his horn.

She was just glad there wasn't more of a gap in their sizes: having to move with her upper torso leaning to the left would have been too awkward, especially since she wasn't --

-- they are not getting me into that shop. They had very nearly succeeded on the last attempt: Miia had pretended they were taking her out for a surprise, the blindfold was just part of the fun, but the treatment used to make lace brilliantly white had a certain drifting residue and she'd picked it up at the moment the door opened, with the initially-blind break for the unseen horizon coming a heartbeat later. It wasn't as if Miia had been able to keep up, not with the way she had to move, and even with Papi's surprising speed in the air...

...no better than second to...

...it didn't matter. They weren't there. (Miia would have hated the castle, the cold stone relentlessly pulling heat from an ectothermic body.) She knew where they were. Cerea was the one who was lost. Gripping the horn of a little horse as it reluctantly led her forward, somewhere far from home.

That reluctance wasn't exactly hidden. An unwrapped mouth would have still left her unable to understand its neighs, but the body language was writ larger than the actual body. It didn't want to be doing this. She had no reason to believe it was taking her the right way, and had already made tentative plans to release it and race through the hallways if it seemed as if there was any possibility that she was being led towards a trap. Reinforcements would have also counted, especially without her weapon.

Weapon. It was strange to think of the sword that way, especially in light of the way she typically used it: to wit, she couldn't. Oh, she was proficient enough -- but at best, when facing humans, she might get to make a display of strength by taking out her temper on a water bottle. She couldn't touch them. Other liminals and demis -- those could be fought: the laws had no restrictions about battling her own kind, let alone the myriad of others. But against humans, the ones who so often seemed to be looking for any opportunity to hurt her...

The head of their strange household wasn't like that (although such had taken a little while to realize: the first impression had been horrible). And that was why she had ultimately started to love him.

She wanted to fight for him. To be his knight. But the laws stayed her hand so much of the time, she couldn't even bluff when everyone knew what those laws were, and during the rare occasions when she could do something -- she was holding a plastic sword without an edge.

She was a centaur, and that meant her body was a weapon. A kick in the right place could kill --

-- but the best knights don't have to kill --

-- and yet she had continued to find herself in situations where her strength meant nothing. Where her skills were meaningless. Where, to be dismally frank about it, the newly species-integrated world mostly seemed to exist as a series of means for shredding her blouse. (It was torn in a few places now, but mostly around the sleeves and waist: an almost-refreshing break from routine.) She fought, she lost, and if she was lucky, she got to cover herself with her arms as best she could before galloping off to find a quiet place. Something isolated, somewhere she could weep in solitude.

To find love. To be a knight. Those had been the goals of her new life, and so she was both repeatedly and doubly a failure.

Right now, all she wanted to do was find her way home. And so much of her expected to fail at that too.

But the stallion trotted, if reluctantly. She followed. And he was leading her up.

She looked around as they emerged on the next level. More stone for the construction, but the surfaces were smoother, seeming more like a home. (It helped to be away from the smell of wine.) The hallway was also rather extensively decorated. Alcoves had been hollowed into the sides, and the majority of them hosted sculpture. Not always well: some portion of the statues occasionally jutted into the hall, and Cerea had to steer carefully around them. The lighting felt oddly dim, and the only movements she could hear were their own.

But she could hear the little horses. The sounds were distorted, weakened through distance and stone -- but the sounds were there, although the source was probably outside.

She knew what horses sounded like when they were happy. This was similar -- but she'd never heard it in such quantity.

They were happy. They might have been celebrating something, out there in the streets of their strange town.

Cerea felt she knew what the celebration was about.

She looked down at the stallion, and found herself regarding one of the icons which had been branded into his fur -- no, it was the fur itself, the strands forming a rather exacting pattern. Some sort of badge, with a matching image on the other hip. She couldn't smell any dye. It looked natural.

Her flanks were only partially covered by the torn skirt: there had been enough damage to reveal some portion of her own hips. To show where no icon was present. Simply fur, dirt, and slow-drying blood.

She'd caught the stallion looking at that part of her body. Over and over, as if his gaze had been pulled inwards towards vacuum. And she didn't understand why.

There weren't any ponies: it was a relief, and it was also a nightmare.

The relief came from realizing that the castle's residents had been, for just about all intents and purposes, evacuated. There was a party going on outside, and so most of the town's oldest family (plus servants) had apparently ventured forth to play their part in it. Additionally, even with officers posted, some of them had been understandably nervous about having a monster in their wine cellar: Blue could easily imagine a few ponies heading for the hotel, which at least gave those business owners something to do for once. It meant they wouldn't get hurt.

The nightmare had him in the corridors with a monster keeping a tight grasp on his horn. The inner corridors, because his guard post had been the first line of defense and the main entrance to the cellar was near the center. There were at least two more officers posted outside the castle. He needed a window. One good kick could hurt the monster enough for it to let go, and after that -- well, in theory, he just had to hit the glass horn-first.

If he could get up enough momentum to even try. If the glass wasn't reinforced by spells and for a castle this old, it almost had to be. If...

The main door would be easier. But there was still a benefit to leading the monster past a town-facing window: the chance that somepony might be looking at the castle and so would see a monster go by. It was in his best interests to try and lead the thing towards the perimeter. They'd beaten it once.

If he could just find the perimeter.

It was a big castle, and he hadn't spent a lot of time in it. He basically knew the path down to the repurposed wine cellar, and something about the way his horn was being grasped... whatever had produced that feeling of illness was still there, if at a lesser level.

(It was possible that the females could only drain by touch. That the monster was directly, slowly pulling his magic away, and he kept looking at the warped shadow which fell over him. Waited for it to grow.)

It wasn't painful: he would have expected that having the core of his being ripped free would hurt. But it was disorienting, and that was literal. He couldn't quite seem to keep track of where he was supposed to go. Left and right first became confused, then threatened to switch with back and front. And the monster had to be getting suspicious. There were times when he risked looking up at it and found that tiny nose slightly upturned, testing the air. He couldn't tell if its eyes were narrowed from his current angle, not when the eyes were so small to begin with. And it required a fairly extreme, very visible head tilt to risk such glances: anything more subtle and the mounds got in the way.

He looked at the way those mounds constantly, subtly shifted with just about every movement and breath the monster took, and the word Yearrggh... went through his mind, with company. The monster had many ways of inspiring nausea.

But he had to focus. He had to remember where he was supposed to be going. He had to get help.

Statues. More statues. Some doors, very few of which had statues behind them: she was opening everything she could. This occasionally required a double foreleg dip so her left elbow could press on a lever: when her right hand got involved, she could feel little indentations in the wood, and the dim light was still sufficient to reveal tooth marks.

A place where no one had hands.

It made her think of Papi. Harpies had flight -- but they had paid a price for that. Their bodies, by necessity, were small and thin: it was easy to mistake an adult for a youth who'd barely reached adolescence. Metabolisms could be far too quick: any truly extended effort would require food immediately after, and the desperate raids on any source available had led to a few of the legends which had survived segregation. And unlike some of the other flying liminal species, harpies had but four limbs.

Where arms should have been, harpies had wings. And just before the full span of those wings swooped out and down -- a single protruding talon, and bone to press it against. It was all Papi had for hands, all any harpy had. And she didn't see it as a price which had been paid, because flight was too dear. The fact that she could barely make her way through ground life and its constant need for manipulation didn't matter, mostly because Papi seldom thought about it -- or much of anything else.

Cerea suspected Papi would have loved the little horses, largely because so many were brightly hued. But to adjust into a world without hands... that might have been easy for her, where so little else was.

You had to look after Papi, because she could seldom look after herself. (The exception was combat. The wing talon was almost useless. The three on each foot could rend flesh.) She was the same age as the rest of them, and her lack of intellect still made her the baby of the group. Trying to keep the harpy from getting into trouble could be a near-constant demand on Cerea's time -- but she'd been a lone foal, there had never been the chance for a sister and --

-- I have to get home.

The stallion was staggering a bit, and it didn't feel intentional. Like he was starting to weaken.

Is that from the hairpin? She'd been keeping it pressed tightly against the horn --

-- and then she saw it.

The corridor ended in a T-intersection. There was a side door plus two statutes to move past before getting there (with one of those statutes significantly poking into the hallway, a very large, poorly-balanced effort that looked as if the sculptor had removed every human element from a gryphon and left nothing but the animal) -- but that would put her at the partially-open door at the exact center of the passage. The one where a familiar glint off metallic paint had just reached her eyes.

She saw it. Her sword, and did so in the first moment she'd ever truly wanted it.

Cerea saw it, and so did the stallion.

She missed the moment when his eyes widened. Had no way to know about the desperation which had just seized his thoughts, the self-hatred at having somehow led her to where she wanted to go. Neither of them understood why the door had been left open, and it would take long hours of questioning before any admitted to having accidentally dragged the blade into contact with the lock. But it was her sword, she focused the entirety of her being on that, and so misplaced the stallion until the moment when he kicked her.

She yelped: she couldn't help it. Even with a rather ineffective kick to the side, that foreleg had already been bruised.

The renewed pain loosened her grip.

The illness began to drop away.

It wasn't instant: he still didn't feel entirely like himself. But it was enough for focus, to see the monster wildly glance between himself and the sword. To make a choice, and the huge body began to gallop forward, leaned to get past the statue, had a new rent placed in a sleeve when the new angle wasn't quite sufficient. Heading directly for the door at a speed he couldn't match --

-- but he didn't have to. His corona got there first.

Green energy (still wavering around the edges, sparks dim and flickering) surrounded the door, began to pull it closed. Prepared to hold it against anything the monster could bring to bear.

He wasn't spectacularly powerful for a unicorn: his field strength was above average, but it wasn't as if he'd been anywhere close to getting into the Gifted School. He was merely prepared to commit everything he had, and his corona began to surge around his horn as he pushed.

The monster's right shoulder went into the fast-closing door, and all of that hideous strength pushed right back. All of the mass, and the spike of pain which began between his eyes told him something about just how much mass there was. It was more than he could ever hope to lift, exponentially so, he couldn't fight like this and --

There would be other questions, before the next stage began. Many of them, and a rather forceful series would take his tactics apart. He could have switched focus, pulled on a single hoof, tried to yank the monster off-balance and hoped it would crash to the floor. There was always the option to twist ears: that kind of pain distracted most creatures from their current goals. But he was (although he did not realize it) the victim of stories. He had arrived too late to the battle and so had been told about the sword, with recent history already beginning to distort into legend. Blue knew what the sword had done, and also knew what ponies had told themselves it could do. The two were rapidly becoming confused. And so his priority was to keep the monster away from it, he already had the door in his field, his eyes were starting to water as his horn's corona went double, a single moment of switching targets would allow it to go through and it was already winning, the door was opening more and more by the second, he forced himself to trot forward in the faint hopes that lesser distance would allow him to apply more force, past the side door, up to the statues...

Green flashed and surged, within that hallway, and Blue had no way to know that he should have already lost. How tired the monster was, and how hurt. It wasn't the creature's first night in pony lands, and every hour had taken a toll. It had been beaten in the fight, wounded, had already lost so much blood. Its own strength was beginning to ebb. But what remained was enough.

It pushed, and he screamed as the light broke, the pressure too much to bear. The double corona winked out, and he crashed to the stone floor.

He barely had the strength to raise his head. To see it seize sword and scabbard, quickly untangling both from the nets, using the confiscated belt to put them in their proper place. All he could do, as a monster was set free, was watch the end of his world begin all over again.

Blue could merely watch, and it was the only sense which seemed to be fully operating after giving so much to his desperate effort. He was only slightly aware of the stone below his barrel. He felt as if he could barely hear.

But somehow, the sound of the side door opening still reached him, as did the little gasp.

The castle's current owner, a young mare known to be less than proficient at parties, rushed forth. Dropped down to mauve knees, her chin moving forward to press against his forehead. Basic medical attention: checking for a fever.

But then she saw it.

It had donned its weapon, found some means of turning within the little room until it was facing in their direction.

They had no way to read the expression on its face, for it was the face of a monster.

It charged.

It was galloping directly for them. And Blue tried, he delved within himself for anything that might be remaining, he sought one last burst of strength, enough to push a mare who was paralyzed by terror to safety, get her away from the inevitable trampling, but there was nothing left and

it jumped.

The monster went over them, easily clearing both bodies and nearly cracking its head on the ceiling in the process -- but the upper impact was avoided. Instead, its flank merely hit the griffon statute, and they heard the cry of the beast, scented the latest flow of blood.

It landed, staggered somewhat from the pain. Instinctively glanced down its flank, trying to see how bad the wound was --

-- it had hit the statue. It knew that. So did Blue, because he could see the results.

The monster was huge. Heavy. And a precariously-balanced sculpture, impacted by a monster, was starting to tilt into the hallway. It was about to fall and when it did so, there would be two ponies underneath: one too frightened to escape, the other too exhausted to move. The first two fatalities of the monster's reign.

He was supposed to protect ponies.

He had failed.

Blue closed his eyes and waited for the final surge of pain.

The impact was followed by a scream.

Then he realized neither had been his.

He looked up, and the monster was standing over them. He could see barrel, belly, powerful legs, and little more, right up until he managed a glance to the side.

It had spun, jumped again: the heavy hooves landing around them had been the impact. The scream had come when the statue had toppled into the monster's flank.

It screamed again, threw all of its weight to that side, and the statue moved. Straightened, then fell backwards. Crashing into the alcove.

The monster staggered a little more. The huge body moved over them, with none of the hooves coming close to impact. It barely managed a turn, angled itself to look down at them, and the expression was mostly unreadable. It was possible to see the pain.

Then it ran.

It wasn't all that hard to find the point of exit: the castle had several windows on the ground floor, the one which faced the open pasture that stood between structure and the forest border (and incidentally faced away from the rest of the town) was very large, and while the glass had in fact been reinforced by numerous security spells, the monster had apparently hit it sword-first.

After that -- there were hoofprints in the dirt for a while, heading for the trees. And once they crossed the border, the search stopped. It had to stop, because the residents knew they needed help.

The tales were flying, and some of that was literal: pegasi had a certain advantage in spreading gossip. Some of those who hadn't been there were the ones who swore they knew exactly what had happened. Blue tried to speak, was backed by the young noble, and both had to struggle to keep their words from being lost: something which became all the worse with one barely able to stay conscious, wearily forcing himself towards morning.

But he didn't have to wait quite that long, for ninety minutes prior to the arrival of daylight, the sun came to them.

It had brought company.

The questioning began in earnest, conducted by those who could listen. And when it ended, the elder looked to the younger, for the younger was once again there to be sought.

That pony nodded. A simple movement, one which almost managed to contain the sheer power behind it.

"Begin the hunt," the younger ordered them.

And with both that and the statement which followed, the world changed.

"We will join it."

Warped

She needed to stop, and she could not.

Galloping through the strange forest under what little moonlight dappled through the trees, when Cerea had already been awake for... she wasn't sure. It was simply a number which worked out to 'too long'. There had been the road, then the forest, and everything which had followed excluded opportunities for true rest. You slept when you were safe and at best, she'd been able to find the most temporary of shelters: camped in the shadow of boulders which could at least prevent approaches from the stone-blocked side. But then a new scent would drift into her nostrils, instincts which had been unable to drop below high alert responded by jolting her back to consciousness, she would need to move again...

There had been battles before reaching the town, and it could be argued that she'd won them simply because she had reached it. But each encounter had left her with fresh wounds. There had been no chance to recover, just about nothing for rest. The fight against the little horses had seen her completely beaten, and just before she'd escaped...

Her flank hurt. It felt as if the muscles on the impacted side were caving in. There was something within her very much like the sensation of tearing, it hit her anew every time she moved, and she couldn't stop moving.

She needed rest. Treatment. Food, and her exertion was turning that aspect into a rapidly-increasing problem. A body so large (and she had gone through a lot in the household just from trying to keep the others from learning any actual mass-related numbers) required a proportionate amount of intake. At the peak of her appetite, Cerea could treat a full buffet table as her first course. She was banned from every all-you-can-eat establishment in her host city. And she was a herbivore -- well, technically so, and most of that was by choice. She could live on grass if she absolutely had to -- but if that was all which was available, it would take a tremendous amount just to get her from day to day. It also included the requirement to stop and graze. And in this strange place...

Normally, the unfamiliarity attached to most of the plant life wouldn't have been a problem. (The season was: to the best of her judgment, it was mid-autumn, and so quite a bit of it was dead.) She could simply scent when something was safe to consume, and had done so shortly after her arrival.

And then the most enticing meal she'd found had tried to kill her.

Tired. Hungry. Hurt. She had been trying to make her lungs store the Second Breath which she was sure she was going to need, and she couldn't find the required focus. Her night vision had limits, she knew nothing of the terrain around her except that it was hostile, every hoofstep sent vibrations crashing through her body to do what damage they could or, just as often, remind her of the wounds which were already there. And she couldn't stop, because it wouldn't take long for the little horses to learn she'd escaped. This was their land: she assumed they had ways of moving quickly through it. Lesser size didn't necessarily equate to lesser speed, she couldn't do anything about hiding her own tracks when she was just galloping, familiarity with the terrain would allow them to catch up and... there was another aspect. The thing which made her keep looking up.

She had to stay under the canopy provided by the trees. But maintaining any degree of movement meant eventually giving in to her body's needs and so when the sweet scent wafted towards her, she reluctantly turned towards the stream.

The cold water felt too good on her face, and that scared her.

She had lowered herself as much as she could, trying to suppress every little moan. Scooped up the liquid in cupped hands, done her best not to drink too quickly: allowing herself to guzzle would likely mean having all of it come right back up again. And whenever she wasn't drinking, her eyes sought the sky.

There were trees in the vicinity of the stream, and some of them were sturdy -- but none of the branches stretched out enough to fully shield any portion. It gave her a clear view, and part of the current terror was that the same could so easily be said coming the other way.

It was a clear night, the first fully clear night since she had become lost, and that was part of why she was a little bit cold: no clouds to insulate the land.

(She should have been colder.)

It let her see the sky. And because she could see it, because she had to look...

Centaurs, like so many other liminals, had a rather dubious relationship with the moon. (About half of the orb had emerged from the forever-cycling shadow, and it had been slowly waxing.) When it was full... that was when her instincts were at their peak, and there were ways in which that could be an advantage: she reacted more quickly, with movements coming from something faster than thought. But it could also be harder to think, and if anything had truly been on her mind when the full moon rose, any goal... the decorum which forbid the most direct means of seeking it might vanish. She had to guard many things when the moon was full, and the first was herself -- especially after the first such cycle spent in Japan had seen her fail.

She almost wished the moon was full. Enhanced instincts and a quicker reaction time would have helped her, and she knew it would become easier to temporarily dismiss the pain. But...

...she could also see the stars.

It was mid-autumn here. It hadn't been in Japan. And it was true that the lower hemisphere would have a different season, but it would have been the opposing one. She could see the stars, and...

The oldest legends, the tales from the time before segregation -- they claimed centaurs had been the first astronomers, had gifted that science to humans. (They had done so because that had been their role in the world: the tutors and protectors of a species which frankly needed a little help.) It was considered honorable for a centaur to master astronomy -- but having been confined prevented the opportunity for many direct studies. And Cerea's interests had never really trotted in that direction: she had preferred the role of the knight to that of the teacher. Her relative lack of interest in the science had disappointed her mother, but... well, it was hardly Cerea's only means of doing that. Disappointing her mother was something of a regular event, very nearly a sport, and it was yet another thing where the typical result meant something had been lost.

She didn't know the stars, not as strongly as her mother felt she should. But she couldn't find a single familiar constellation. And the moon itself -- she could see it clearly now, and something felt wrong. A subconscious recognition that certain craters were absent, and the new ones weren't close enough to pass. An entire night sky existing within an uncanny atmospheric valley.

The human majority had been shocked when integration was first announced, and part of that had come from the implication of how much they'd missed. They had believed themselves to have just about completed their exploration of the world, and they had been horribly wrong. A lot could be hidden, especially if you had ways of keeping people from looking. Multiple species had carefully slipped into deliberate cracks. Centaurs had made their homes in the secret places, and knowing that such areas could exist --

-- she didn't know where she was. But even with the strange plant life, the creatures, and (initially) the altered season -- she'd believed herself to be on Earth, because she knew how much could be hidden. After all, she herself had spent most of her life as incarnated rumor.

Months ago, she had made the choice to become one of the first. To go among the humans as part of the great integration experiment, and there had been ways in which that made her feel lost every day. Becoming part of a world all at once: no dipping a hoof into strange waters, simply plunging in and hoping not to drown. But if everything had gone wrong, if the laws had tripped her up or worse, her love had rejected her -- there would be a plane flying home. She could limp back. Return to the herd, with the comfort of familiar sights and scents almost sufficient to make her forget that she had disappointed her parent yet again.

But now she could see the sky. And even without having mastered astronomy, she knew she had not been brought to a hidden place in the southern hemisphere. The sky was wrong.

She was lost. Perhaps more lost than anyone had ever been. Lost, hurt, scared, and... cold.

But she wasn't cold enough.

There were ways to roughly gauge the temperature on that chill night. (One of them was embarrassing, and the horror of displacement was temporarily dampened by relief: at the very least, no one could see her.) And centaurs were quite literally hot-blooded: her body's natural temperature matched that of a horse. She had hoped that it would make her love think well of her, encourage him to cuddle with -- well, the portions of her body which were most familiar to him, at least to start. In reality, it mostly made Miia curl up with her on chill mornings and, because it was Miia, curl around.

It was cold enough that Miia would have wrapped her hours ago, the lamia sleepily resisting any attempt to get pressuring scales away from fur. But Cerea didn't feel all that cold. Her body might have been reacting that way, but her mind said she was, at most, lightly chill. In fact, as far as the temperature went, the longer she moved, the more comfortable she seemed to become.

It was something else to be afraid of.

She was resilient, with tremendous endurance: she was a centaur. But there had been battles. Too little rest, not enough food. Even centaurs had their limits, and --

-- her wet palm moved along her flank, and her fur was coated in red.

Wounded.

Without treatment. For days.

There was a foe she couldn't run from, and it was moving with her.

All she could do was hope to find a place of rest. Somewhere she could eat, sleep, recover. Let her body do the work. She was a centaur: she had to be strong enough for that. Just once, she had to be strong enough --

-- her ears perked, twisted towards the not-distant-enough sound of whirring wings. Large wings, and all four legs compulsively jerked, got her upright again: a simple jump cleared the stream. She was too exposed when she was away from the canopy: her best chance to remain hidden was obscuring the view from the air. It turned every drink into a risk.

But without water, she would die.

If I can't rest...

The little horses were hunting her, on the ground and from the sky. She had to keep moving.

It was getting worse.

The sun rose, and the world felt as if it was starting to blur. Greenery blended together, right up until the moment something came out of it. None of the little horses had caught up to her, but there were other things in the forest. One of them managed to bite her left hind leg before she drove it back, and she couldn't be sure she had removed all of the splinters from the freshest of wounds.

Time seemed to be warping. It was morning, and then it was noon: she didn't retain much memory from anything in between. She found water every so often, but not enough: every time she stopped, the wings caught up --

-- was she only imagining wings? So much could be arising from within, as what should have been a chill day turned into a falsely comfortable one, then began to tilt towards an unsubtle heat.

It didn't matter. She heard wings and she moved. Some of the scarce surviving fruit was recognizable, and she took what she could. (The fruit tasted like -- she wasn't sure. Taste had been the first thing to go.) She was taking in just enough calories to stay upright, and that was a status which wouldn't maintain for long.

The forest just kept going on, and she didn't understand that because she had already found an inhabited area. There were wild places on Earth, more than the humans had ever suspected -- but where something lived, it was hard to travel more than a few miles without coming across a road. At the very least, she should have found a cell tower by now, but she hadn't seen any telephone poles in the town, it was possible that the little horses didn't have them... and no matter how far she went, there was just more forest..

She was trying to follow the sun: that at least kept her moving in a consistent direction. She tried not to think about the moments when its position appeared to jump, and that effort was aided by the increasing times when she couldn't seem to think at all.

Cerea kept moving. It was the only thing she could do, without the chance for rest, the offering of true shelter. She moved because she was being chased, because she was a centaur and the fading belief that such would somehow be enough to save her was part of what kept her going forward. The rest was the growing fire which prevented her from thinking about much of anything else, including how much she should have been fearing it.

There were times when she heard hooves. Others had her pick up on wings. The sounds pressed against her, even when she wasn't sure they existed. But it didn't matter, for the only real thing was the chase.

The sun crested, dipped. Night came, the temperature crashed, and she didn't notice. She was traveling with her own source of heat, and the burning rose as it continued to spread.

Eventually, she stopped feeling hungry, and was no longer capable of worrying about it. Didn't know that calories had run out, and she was now moving solely on the sheer stubbornness which so many felt was the truest hallmark of her species. Running on hope.

But she kept moving. She had no other choice.

She would run until the moment when she would never move again.

There was a tree, an unusually large one: the facing side of the trunk presented a surface nearly the length of her body before truly starting to curve. Its bark was exceptionally dark, even under the moonlight. So much light was reaching it, for every last one of its leaves had fallen, and the branches stretched out far enough to prevent anything else from growing in the area: it was the sole occupant of its own little clearing. Broad, pronged flat pieces of little death had layered themselves around the base. It was something like a maple, a little like a redwood, and very much like the last thing she might ever know.

Her breathing had become ragged hours ago. The scant surviving portion of her skirt was completely saturated, and the blouse's soaked state had already moved beyond humiliating. The difference was that for her upper torso, the moisture came from sweat, liquid she could no longer afford to lose. For the lower, it was froth. It had been froth for some time, and if she had known the exact duration, the knowledge alone might have dropped her.

She could no longer run. Each hoof was raised just enough to let it drag a shallow trench through the leaves.

They're right behind me.

She had been thinking that for some time. It was becoming the last thought she truly could hold onto. It was close to turning into the last one she might ever have.

I need to hide.

There was... there was a tree. There was a tree and it wasn't trying to kill her. It was so big. She could... go around to the other side. Sink down behind the trunk. Rest in a bed of leaves, perhaps cover herself with leaves. It was a plan. It made perfect sense, because just about everything did in the midst of the inner fire.

I pinned my hair back up. To keep it from getting tangled in wood and worse during the run. They won't see that. If I tuck my tail close...

She... just needed a few minutes. That was all. Just a few minutes and then she would recover. A little rest. There had to be that much, or soon there would be nothing at all.

She limped forward, put out a hand. Clotted blood rubbed into the bark.

It was a nice sort of tree. Papi would have been happy to perch in it, while Lala undoubtedly had something morbid to say about the setting: the rest of them would have then spent hours in explaining it to Papi and Suu. She could almost hear the dullahan: some kind of fully predictable comment regarding the inevitability of death. How every autumn was the world entering a mass self-inflicted burial, because that was the sort of thing dullahans loved to talk about, endlessly. Fortunately, there was always the option to stuff something in Lala's mouth or, given a dullahan, to just stuff her head in a cabinet.

She isn't here.

She said she would be there for us when we died.

She isn't here. So I'm not going to die.

Her upper torso swayed, leaned forward. Bruised flesh compressed against the bark, and the angle allowed her forehead to contact wood.

Blue eyes began to close.

Kimihito...

-- and some forty feet behind her, she heard hooves step onto dead leaves.

She turned, and reflexes brought her hand to the sword's hilt. Forced her eyes to open, made herself see. She hadn't been able to muster the Second Breath, and it meant she was reaching for strength she no longer truly had. But she still found a way to turn, and unearthed no means of understanding what she saw.

This horse wasn't quite so little.

The mare took another step, and that which was not a mane twisted, with border shifting as little lights flashed within the dark flow. The large wings were half-unfurled, and something deep was radiating from a horn which the moonlight caressed. All of that found a final way of registering with Cerea as she looked into the dark eyes, saw the intelligence behind the narrowed lids. But there was something which reached her before any of that, a level of recognition which went down to the soul.

Cerea had been in the presence of power before. Most of the time, it was petty, and that was bad. Occasionally, it was petty and political: that was worse. But there had been a few encounters with true strength, the aura of confidence and control which could radiate deep into the night. Even now, with the fire burning, she knew what that looked like, felt like. There was no escaping it.

In height, the mare was still somewhat less than Cerea. In presence, it dominated the world.

Her foreknees began to dip, and she initially believed it to be mere courtesy. Then she remembered that she was in the presence of an enemy, and one of the final efforts straightened her legs again.

The mare took another step. Cerea just barely managed to register the partial armor resting against sternum and forelegs. The saddlebags... those were harder to see, because wisps of fog were rising from the mare's fur.

She had already seen three separate subspecies branches within the population of little horses. This was something more than a fourth.

It didn't matter. Her sword was in her hand, and that finally meant something.

The mare continued to approach, and any scent of fear which might have existed was carried away by the mist. It simply kept coming, in no hurry at all, with the dark eyes silently drinking in the length of the blade.

The horn's glow abruptly increased, and a bolt of dark energy lanced forth.

Cerea's hand moved, did so without true thought. And when the blade deflected the strange light, when the bolt went into the leaves and she saw the mare's wing joints briefly loosen, there was a moment when the fire told her she could win.

But her hand had barely moved. It hadn't needed to, and it would be some time before she realized the mare had been aiming for the sword.

The enemy quietly nodded to herself, and then another bolt was launched. Cerea moved --

-- the primary bolt was deflected, and her arm had to move into a given position for that. The secondary, trailing a split-second behind, had been aimed for the exact spot where her wrist would have needed to be.

She cried out in pain as her hand compulsively opened, as the sword dropped, tricked by nothing more than a basic feint. And then the dark energy flared around the horn, projected forward faster than she could move, coated her body and pushed.

All four knees folded, and did so at the same instant when her arms were slammed against her sides. Another surge pressed on the full length of her back, and a brief spray of leaves flew into the air at the site of impact.

Her sword was less than two feet from her hand. Two feet and what little remained of a lifetime.

The mare, posture showing nothing more than simple satisfaction, nodded again. The dark eyes narrowed a little more, and the head tilted. Staring down at her, which carried the impression of a fully natural action. It gave Cerea a full view of the horn's lowered point.

She strained against the dark light which covered her from shoulders to hooves. All it did was make her skin tingle, as if a limb had begun to fall asleep and taken the rest of her body along for the final ride. And...

...there was something else. One more sensation finding a way to register with her senses, because it was something she hadn't felt for hours.

The light was cool.

It was like being outside the house in early autumn, when the cruelest heat of summer had passed and a touch of chill was the most welcome thing imaginable. It was the soft breeze ruffling her fur at the end of a long run. It was the reminder that comfort came from more than sunlight, and there were times when the best part of existence was realizing that the night had its own way of being alive and everything which moved within the darkness was welcome to seek that joy.

It was cool, the first thing to bank the fire in hours. It let her think.

And it let her see the rest of the dark light sort something out from the contents of the now-open left saddlebag. The metal which emerged and floated forward, coming towards her head.

She jerked, twisted, tried to break the prison. But nothing did any good: the light was stronger than she was, and the metal kept coming. It was a flat silver disk with a thin black opal set in the center, about half the size of her palm, with multiple threads of silver wire trailing from one end. Wire which twisted and warped as it came closer to her, stretched out into new configurations which seemed more than sufficient to wrap around her throat and that was where it was aimed --

-- the disc touched her skin, clung there. The thin wires went under her jawline, up the left side of her face, the tips touched the base of her ear, and

the horse neighed.

It was still a neigh. That was a familiar sound, even with the new layers of complexity worked into that basic vocalization. But somewhere within Cerea's mind, at the moment the wire touched her, it became something more.

"Greetings, centaur."

She froze, paralyzed by words. By the sound of something she could understand, and the ice laced into the commanding syllables.

The layer of dark light around the mare's horn increased, and the next bolt moved between branches, went into the sky. Cerea's eyes automatically followed it, and so she saw the downwards-pointing arrow silhouetted against the night.

"I wonder," the mare softly, darkly said (and the cold power in that voice was so controlled), "if you are capable of appreciating the effort involved. Translation spells... the most common requires a pony who speaks both of the languages to be directly involved, and their comprehension is simply loaned to another for a time. Inept efforts might temporarily sacrifice the caster's own knowledge, and that state lasts until the thaums finally drain. An improved version merely requires that anypony within a fairly large radius know the needed tongue. But the most advanced..." and her voice dropped slightly as she took another hoofstep, came closer still "...that is almost impossible. The one which reaches deep, to the very concept of language itself, and so can allow the comprehension of something never before heard. Across the centuries, only a few have been able to work that spell. And with so few able to use it... the number of devices made to cast it suffer accordingly. In the modern nights, only five such survive, and the newest was created three hundred years before my Return. You are wearing one of our greatest treasures, something only brought under Moon when the new is found. Our best hope for true communication when a species first steps into the light."

She couldn't speak, not in the presence of that aura. All she could do was listen. Wait. Watch as the hornpoint came closer.

"You comprehend my words," the mare steadily went on. (More fog rose from that dark fur, spread through the clearing and sank into the leaves.) "I perceive that within your eyes, centaur. The magic functions -- when it should not. Because in the rough shape of your form, you are something other than new to us. We have learned from experience -- and what the more recent experience teaches is that at the instant the device touched you, it would have lost its charge. Become nothing more than jewel and metal, its thaums stolen by flesh and fur. But it continues to function. It functions because it retains its power, the same way mine did not enter you. My own strength is retained: something I suspected would occur, once the truth of events had been untangled from the mere perception of them. Something beyond our experience..."

The mare was about fifteen feet away now. The perfect distance for a lunge.

"You are not new," she stated. "And yet it would seem you are. I looked at the photographs, before the hunt began. Fair --" a very direct look at Cerea's lower torso "-- and foul." Moving that dark regard first to the upper, then back to the face. "Let us see how deep the foulness goes."

And stopped moving.

"Your name," the mare ordered.

She swallowed. The saliva moistened her tongue.

"...Cer --" No. This wasn't a friend. "Centorea Shianus."

Her own speech emerged as words: she could hear them within her ears. But there seemed to be a certain overlay of nicker.

A slow nod. "The lack of imagination of your parents is noted," the mare dryly said. "What is your --" and there was a moment of confusion, as if two words had been said at once "-- territory/origin?"

It took a moment to reconcile the overlap and in her weariness and confusion, she went with the second. "France." There was even enough in her for a little audible pride.

The mare's features briefly contorted and even with Cerea unable to truly read the expression, she could tell it had harshened. (The flaring of the horn's light provided an additional clue.)

"That suggests a nation," the mare darkly stated. "There were never enough of your kind to create one, not with the way you were --" another overlap, tripled this time "-- born/appeared/manifested -- and a single specimen was disaster sufficient for a lifetime." And with decibels surging, "Where is this nation?"

"I..." The light around the horn was spiking. "...I don't know..."

(A somewhat more fevered thought noted that she was being distressingly informal. Apologies were probably required.)

"You do not know," the mare semi-repeated.

"I don't -- do not know where I am. How I got here. I was just -- it was a morning gallop, and the road --"

She stopped. She didn't know how to explain what she didn't understand.

The mare looked at her, under moonlight and shadows, as the fog began to layer itself against the entrapping light. Just -- looked.

"You struggle," the mare softly said. "But that is all you can do. Strength against magic, when you have no strength left. I see your wounds, centaur. I see the froth sliding from your coat. I attempted to search for you while you slept, and so I know that you have not. Everything the townsponies told us about -- and none of it is in you. It is carried in a weapon you can no longer touch. And so to the next question." The next words were spat, and the moonlight reflected off the thin coating of fresh ice upon the leaves. "What is your association with Tirek?"

All Cerea knew was that it sounded like a name.

"...who?" Was that respectful enough? "...whom?"

The mare blinked.

"All of this power touching you," the mare finally said, "and your size has remained consistent. The only fluctuations were encountered within some of the more distorted tales. But for the sake of completion: are you intending to become any larger?"

Cerea's eyes involuntarily went down to the only area which might apply.

"Um," she replied, and had no idea where to go from there.

Dryly, "In the anatomical sense, I understand what those are typically meant for. So unless you are indicating that such is where you store your power --" which was immediately followed by "-- and it is rather easy to spot a blush of that intensity, especially without having to gaze through fur. So I shall take that as a no."

Cerea, who really hadn't wanted to discuss the impressive duration of centaur puberty, went along with the denial quickly enough to make the world blur.

The blur lingered. Her head began to drop.

The coolness had helped. But it had only done so for a little while.

"In form, you are nightmare," the mare decided, and did so while receding into the distance. Without moving, which struck Cerea as an interesting sort of trick. "In soul..."

Her breath caught in her throat, emerged as a rasp.

"For now, you are my prisoner," the mare softly said. "But for one who took what would have been a fatal blow for two of my charges, it has the chance to potentially become something more towards... protective custody --"

Cerea's eyes closed.

"Centaur?"

The only response came from fingers going limp and froth falling onto dark leaves.

The mare lunged forward then, pressed her chin against the exposed forehead. This was followed by backing away until she had a full view of the wounds, and the red which flared around the edges.

She glanced towards the sky, adjusted the position of the arrow to have it pointing precisely at the fallen sword, then shifted her body until she was standing next to the warped form. Leaned in, touched flanks.

The dark corona flashed, and a tiny shower of hairpins fell onto vacated ground.

Aberrant

The two middle-aged unicorn stallions who currently occupied the revived post of Royal Physician (one diagnostician, one surgeon, both effectively married to each other in all ways but the legal and sexual) had discovered the job came with a few unusual requirements. They both had to be extremely good at keeping secrets: not only did having any understanding of alicorn biology (and worse, origins) place their own conjectures into Classified files, but rumors of alicorn colds tended to lead into major stock market dips. When dealing with the medical needs of a species which numbered in the single digits, a certain degree of desperate improvisation was frequently essential. It helped if you weren't easily startled, and both of them were now almost used to the thunder which announced the younger's displeasure with the most recent procedure. And on the whole, you had to be ready for anything -- but when managing the health of the elder, 'anything' had required proper equipment. This had led to the creation of a singular examination table, one which had been designed to accommodate a form of that sheer size. It did a lot to make the elder just a little more comfortable (which was already essential for somepony who had both an effective phobia regarding needles and a way to melt them) while negating the need to shove a lot of smaller tables together. It also effectively negated the need for praying onto Sun that no sudden shifts in body weight would lead to that large body tumbling into a sudden gap, and did so after it had already happened.

There were four ponies in the highly-secured offices within the Lunar Wing, and they were standing next to examination tables which had been shoved together: the one meant for the elder, and that typically used by the younger. There had been no other choice. The unresponsive patient was too large for a standard table, and when it came to overflowing that which was used by the elder... torsos weren't supposed to bend that way.

The doctors had called the siblings in. (They could do that, when it was a medical matter. They were the only two ponies in the nation who had the authority to make those mares follow certain categories of order, and it usually didn't keep the diagnostician from sleeping for more than one night in five.) And they had been conducting the briefing while speaking in what nearly amounted to normal tones, at least after the terror had been subtracted out.

"-- and we have no starting point," the surgeon groaned. (Muscular for a unicorn, with a warm brown coat and shaved-away mane.) "We went through the Canterlot Archives, Princesses, and when it comes to centaur medicine, the only solid thing we found was suggestions for treating any wounds they inflicted. The anatomical charts are open guesswork --" a soft snort: the thick black tail twitched "-- and based on our examination of her, somepony was making some lousy guesses."

"Nothing at all," the elder quietly said. "Not even in the oldest part of the stacks?"

"There's actually more in the newest," the diagnostician sighed. (White, thin, with a mane which just about outmassed the rest of him.)

"I fail to understand," the younger frowned. "Why would there be recent publications?"

"They're self-help books." (The sudden flare of anger made the diagnostician sound slightly less like a mare.) "Your Magic Is Back And So Are You. Helping ponies deal with the trauma of Tirek, mostly through repeating the same useless things which have been in self-help books for generations and adding the word 'Tirek' a few dozen times. Crisis response through instant book sales, Princess. And they do nothing. I read through seven of them and the only thing they made me think about was --"

He abruptly stopped as his head went up, and slightly to the right. (The other three, with well-practiced ease, ignored it.)

The surgeon took over. "We've examined her as closely as we can: all the spells and devices we could utilize. Princesses, there are ways in which we could usually try to treat any mammal, just because mammals share some basic arrangements: the location of vital arteries, the placement of certain organs. But with her -- some of the organs are in new locations, and we've verified at least one set of duplicates. And that's not even getting into her digestive system!"

"Is there something wrong there as well?" the younger inquired.

"It's functional," the surgeon helplessly declared. "It's just... stretched."

The diagnostician's head came back down. "-- but why would reparations need to apply six generations later?" (They initially ignored that too, although there would eventually be a lively debate over just what the actual fantasy had been.) "Princesses, this is what it comes down to. There are certain procedures which apply to everything living, like cleaning and dressing the wounds. We've done that. A very few medicines will work on any mammal, at least once the dosage is adjusted for body mass: that potentially gives us a painkiller for her --"

"-- mchanga," the elder softly guessed.

The smaller stallion nodded. "That's what we'll try. But she could have a bad reaction, Princess, because nopony's ever treated a centaur with it before. It could kill her. Any potion or drug we use could be fatal."

"And universal status doesn't help us with the infection," the surgeon grimly stated, "because there are no antibiotics which are that broad-spectrum. We can try the ones which work on the most species and hope -- but if we're wrong, we could damage some of her organs. Organs we don't know how to treat. One crisis might kill her."

"She's resilient," the diagnostician told them. "Exceptionally so: we've already seen that in the tests. If we can break the infection, the rest should heal on its own. But without that..."

The younger looked to the elder, who silently nodded.

"Then the infection," the younger told the physicians, "shall be burned out."

They stared at her. (The dual capacity for doing so wasn't quite a job requirement, but it wasn't far off either.)

"Princess," the surgeon tried, "it's already gone into the body: you can see some of the red streaks along the arms. And she has them in other places." The monster had been put back into the remnants of its clothing before the siblings had arrived, although the stallions weren't certain whose dignity they were trying to protect. "If it was just on the surface, we could --" he swallowed "-- try flame: the burn scars would be better than letting the infection run free. But it's too far along for that, too far for even --" another gulp "-- amputation. Her own fever isn't enough to stop it, and raising her body temperature enough to kill the infection would also kill her. We can't generate inner heat where the radiance is directed so precisely as to harm nothing except the infection --"

But that was when the elder stepped forward.

The white head dipped towards the monster's body. A corona of sunlight danced around the horn.

"Doctors Bear," the elder quietly said, "let us show you a little trick..."

The filly's prison exists within a gap in the world.

Such vacuums take some effort to arrange. There are times when land has to be purchased, and that has actually become easier: modern technology means such things can be done without requiring buyer and seller to be on the same continent, let alone within one room. But human advancement makes other aspects harder. Satellites can only be rerouted so many times, and the fear that someone will spot the code which tells the lens to not record a given location...

It used to be easier. Humans were more respectful of ownership, or at least easier to scare off when the borders had been breached. They ran, and all they carried back were stories: things which could be dismissed as the ravings of a drunk who'd read too many stories as a child. Every border guard carried a flask and when you caught up to fallen quarry, you left them smelling that much worse for both wear and credibility.

But there have been cameras for decades now. (Some of the fae among the liminals got caught that way, and so many strings had to be pulled in order to falsely make the entire thing appear in the history books as a hoax.) The filly is eight, and she knows all about cameras. She's been taught to avoid them at all costs and years from now, when somepony enters her shared household under the lie of filming a documentary, she will not be the first to suspect so much as the first to fear.

Cameras are a threat. Still images are bad: moving ones are worse. She is eight, and the herd talks in hushed tones about digital cameras. Images which are easy to fake, becoming easier with every passing year, and perhaps that will give them some protection. Making something come across as a hoax is simpler than ever. But the hidden communities around the world have to keep doing it. They feel as if they are forever one sighting away from being exposed.

Worse: one capture.

The herd exists within a gap in the world, for few recognize how large France truly is. Land can be acquired, was purchased centuries ago, and humans stayed away. (Mostly away. There is a time every year when humans are brought into the gap, and they must always be made to forget. The filly doesn't know about that yet: just that a night exists where every child is put to bed early, with none knowing why.) The herd has a forest and some clearings, space enough to farm, room aplenty for schools and contests and games of all sorts.

There's also a cemetery. That takes up a lot of room.

The filly's mother wants her to participate in every game, sometimes comes close to outright shoving her in because the filly's mother is among the strongest and therefore the filly had better put on a good showing. The herd expects that of the filly, her mother expects that and --

-- her mother... pushes the filly forward, always expecting more of her. Pushes in strange ways, as if simultaneously insisting that the filly must take part while -- and the filly only sees this in rare glimpses, when the racecourse passes that part of the segregated stands and she gets a glimpse of her mother's face -- still being afraid of what could happen when she does. Her mother pushes too hard sometimes and so the filly often feels that there's no fun in the games, just an unrelenting drive insisting that the filly must succeed, will succeed, even when the competition is older and faster and just better and...

The filly does well enough. But so much of the time, she comes in second. And that's not good enough. It disappoints her mother, and the filly has so many ways of doing that as to make it a sport of its own. She retreats to her room, to the stories which don't question or judge her, she tries not to get caught crying and --

Her mother loves her: the filly knows that. Sometimes, after a really bad game, her mother comes into the room and cradles the filly's head against warmth and softness. Sings to the filly, singing without true lyrics in the rising and falling croon which those flexible vocal chords can so easily provide. The filly loves being cuddled that way, and hates that the surest means of finding such comfort is through losing.

Her mother loves her. But her mother pushes, all the time, and sometimes the filly feels as if a young back will break.

Her mother loves her. Her father... she doesn't see much of her father, because her father is a stallion. A stallion is a colt who's grown up and the filly is not allowed to be among the colts unless adults are present. Colts are crude and angry and, far too often, stupid. Her mother doesn't seem to think stallions are much better. None of the mothers seem to think that, and so fillies are supervised closely whenever colts and stallions are about. They play separately. They're educated in facilities which exist on opposing sides of the gap. A society which has been segregated away from the humans has one more level of dividing line to inflict.

The filly should have more friends among the other children, because her mother is among the strongest and that would normally invite a certain degree of formal approach. (A society so confined has great need for formality, as there is nowhere for any true argument to go.) But the filly is being pushed too hard. No one really likes playing with the one who's always being told to beat you, and the filly can never protest, can't say that she just wants to have fun without worrying about placement and recognition and honors. To be among others where her mother can see her (and that happens far too often) is to know the challenge will be coming. That she has to prove herself again, and nothing she does is ever enough proof.

So the filly gallops back to her books, because then she can pretend she's studying: after all, it only takes seconds to swap one out with another book. Her mother respects studying, because fillies are supposed to be smart (while colts are stupid) and it's traditional to study.

There's a day where her mother catches her studying -- or at least, that's what actually gets caught. Her mother is in a rare good mood, because the filly didn't come in second in the last race. (It helped not to be going against older fillies for once.) And her mother tells the filly that one day, maybe she can take up a duty of their species. To go among the humans and teach, because humans frankly need a little help. Her mother smiles, leaves, and --

-- the filly doesn't try to retrieve the other book, the one with knights and valor and victory in it. She just stands there and looks out the window of the old house, because just about all the houses are old and her mother's line has lived in the same house for centuries. Anything new has to be brought in through connections and smuggling and double-blinds. Every contact with the outside (even the necessary one) is a risk, and so such contacts are kept to a minimum.

The herd has been hiding within the gap for centuries. The same gap. And for centuries, fillies whose mothers loved them said that the next generation would be the one which fulfilled the ancient duties. To be a teacher. To be a knight. To...

...leave.

The filly looks out the window, at the same old view, and realizes her granddam said that to her mother. Her mother just said it to her. She will say it to her own child, and nothing will ever change.

And she runs.

She bursts from the house, arm over her face so that none can see the tears streaming. She gallops through forest and clearings, and there is no square foot of soil which her hooves can pound against which thousands of the lost, the lied to didn't already touch before they were confined one final time within the cemetery.

Since the moment of her birth, she has existed within a gap in the world. It's where she lives. It's where her kind might as well have always lived, and it is where every last one of them will die.

She gallops through her prison, eventually collapses against a too-familiar tree and cries herself out, at least for what will show. The inner weeping will continue for years to come.

Eventually, she forces herself back to her hooves, goes to a stream, cleans her face before trotting back, because to be late for dinner will disappoint her mother.

She trots for home and in dream, she believes that ancient house is the only one she will ever know.

In dream, dark eyes watch her from a hidden place in the phantom woods.

The younger watches the filly until the nightscape begins to shake, jolted by the force of the approaching wakening. And when she can stay no longer, she silently nods to herself before vanishing.

The next judgment will wait for the day.

Twisted

In Cerea's opinion, the other species didn't even wake up properly.

It wasn't just the morning stretch. (Centaurs had a rather unique way of stretching, and many of those who watched it wound up with phantom pains in their own joints.) It had taken some time in the household before she'd realized that the human body had prioritized its wake-up alarm around hearing: the noises created by the desperate group struggle to keep Miia out of the kitchen would alert her beloved long before the near-fatal scents which arose from the group's failure did. And with the lamia... based on Cerea's experience, Miia's initial alert was registered thermally, because that was her body's greatest weakness: sense when the temperature was dropping too low and move towards heat -- something which could become more difficult when the lethargy caused by cold slowed her down.

Admittedly, there were times when it was important to prioritize one sense over another: Rachnera's presence in the household meant the residents were now extremely attuned to the sound of spider legs scuttling across the ceiling. But for centaurs, the most powerful sense was smell and so when Cerea began to wake up in the newest of prisons, those impressions were what registered first.

Cotton, linen, with both added to old feathers. This eventually resolved into the realization that she was on a bed -- no, on multiple beds which had been pressed together: she could feel the little gap under her barrel. Centaurs didn't use beds: in fact, one of Japan's greatest delights was the tatami mat. A little resilience with a touch of give was fine: a downy mattress felt as if it offered no true support at all.

Stone. A lot of it, all around her. Ancient stone, or at least stone which didn't see a lot in the way of cleaning. The same could be said for the paper...

Binding glue.

...books. The wood scents were probably rising off the furniture: she could almost recognize some of the types, the same way some of the trees in the strange forest had almost been oaks. One nearby piece was very nearly mahogany. But there was something else there, added to the faint miasma of varnish.

Age had its own scent, something which never entirely went away. Cerea was intimately familiar with every aspect of it because from the moment of her birth, her little piece of the world had been old. Wherever she was, it had been constructed centuries ago, and most of the intervening time appeared to have passed with very little in the way of dusting.

Stone, wood, cloth, paper, and -- metal.

This is a cell.

Cerea opened her eyes, brushed too much hair away from her face, and so verified she was right. But at the same time...

It was a prison cell: the reinforcements on the door (added to the fact that her side only had the backplate of the lock) proved it. But it was also something out of a story.

She'd read the books. There were times when a knight had to be captured, still more when they broke into a castle to rescue their lady (and it only took a little mental editing to render that image into a lord). And since it was a story, there were dungeons of all sorts, chains mounted into stone and torture devices which the author never quite finished describing, although Cerea sometimes suspected Rachnera had grown up with a few fully illustrated editions. But that wasn't all that was present, because in stories -- and, for that matter, in certain parts of history -- some prisoners would be important. Furthermore, a few of the captors would have a certain dignity within their evil, and so recognized that you really shouldn't imprison nobility the same way you imprisoned everyone else.

Not everyone realized that, of course: in particular, Meroune's mother had a way of rigging cells which brought maximum comfort for anyone who could breathe water: everyone else just suffered a minimum of drowning. But for those who did... some cells would be richly furnished. Beds (for the species which used them) would be elaborate. The furnishings would be expensive, the lighting would be perfect for reading something from the extensive library, and the bathroom would be stocked with the best shampoos. (A species which possessed both fur and hair had a major need for shampoo.) And Cerea had read about such cells, heard that a few survived on Earth in the oldest of the human castles and a few liminal keeps...

This wasn't quite it.

For starters, there was the bed, or the three which had been shoved together to create something which didn't quite add up to one. The musty scent rising from the library shelves indicated that no new volumes had been added in some time, and a deeper breath suggested that the editions present might qualify for a printing earlier than 'first.' And of course all of the proportions on everything were off, because it had all been made for little horses.

There was a flat silver disc, one with a black opal set into the center, sitting on a nightstand. Wire trailed down the edges.

Cerea found herself looking at it for a while.

The -- other horse...

She felt she remembered most of that. The dark mare, the one with wings and horn both. The one who had spoken to her, the one who'd possessed that presence...

Captured. But -- not chained this time. She'd been placed in the sort of cell you offered to a noble --

-- or a knight.

I don't deserve --

Cerea took a deep breath, and felt fabric strain against her skin. That was normal, and would remain so for as long as she fought off any and all attempts to take her shopping. However, some of the locations for that strain were new.

The next examination, out of necessity, was of herself.

The wounds (cuts dressed, a few bruises exposed) were healing, and doing so with the typical efficiency of centaur biology: the degree of recovery indicated she'd been asleep for at least two days. The infection, however -- that had been defeated, and she wasn't entirely sure how. With segregation broken, every liminal species (for those which had participated in the exchange program) had been desperately trying to send medicines and guidebooks to the host cities, just in case their children got into trouble. Centaurs had medicine which would take out infections, and a supply of it had gone with her to Japan -- but she knew she was too far from home for any such thing to be here.

But they have magic.

In some ways, it might have been unfair to say that Cerea believed in magic, in the same way that you wouldn't normally describe a bird as believing in flight. Cerea knew magic was out there: she simply had a few differing opinions about the way it manifested. Cerea knew about the magic which arose from ritual, the little effects which were generated from people doing things the same way over and over while believing in the results, and also felt that those rituals were a little different in each nation because of course everyone wasn't going to believe the exact same thing. And in a very real way, stories were rituals: no matter how many times you read them, it was the same results leading to an identical ending. So if you just read the right things...

Cerea had attempted to study Japan through reading its stories and learning about the magic inherent in its people's rituals, and so had come to the conclusion that the single best way to meet her future beloved was through donning a cross between a schoolgirl's uniform and office worker's formal wear, then charging up and down alleyways as if she was horribly late for something. A lack of initial results had made her wonder if she also needed to place the traditional piece of toast in her mouth.

The local magic could translate speech and heal wounds. However, it didn't seem to be capable of doing much for clothing.

Her blouse and skirt (or what had remained of both) were gone, and she tried not to blush too strongly at the thought of having been undressed. Instead, someone had found a rather basic, dull-grey pullover shirt and then pulled it over her. It had enough room for her breasts until the moment she attempted to breathe, and then it pulled against everything except her arms. It had a distinct way of cutting into her armpits, but the sleeves seemed to have been designed for someone with much larger biceps, and the cuffs had been folded back a few times.

When it came to her lower torso... the majority of the little horses had been nude. (She'd seen a few exceptions here and there while being dragged through the town.) But still, someone had made an effort to cover that as well, and the 'effort' took the form of grabbing the nearest large piece of fabric, roughly stitching it to the back of the shirt, getting some degree of draping on the flanks, and calling it a day. Based purely on the crosscut underlayer feel against her fur and the red plaid pattern on top, Cerea was almost completely sure she was wearing a repurposed tablecloth. It looked all the worse against the rich purple velvet of the bed.

It took two attempts to stand up: she was still recovering, and trotting across mattresses wasn't easy: she nearly had a hind leg drop into a gap. But she gained her hooves in time, made it to floor level, trotted across carpeted stone to the other door and ducked to go through.

The bathroom was almost proper. Admittedly, it took some time to figure out the tap arrangement, plus the sink was far too low and naturally, so was the mirror. But it had a trench, and a continual-flow one at that. She'd been stuck with human toilets for...

...the wince was automatic. Centaurs -- well, there were things you could do with the creations of the human world, and there were things a species with buttocks which were wider than the toilet couldn't -- and that was before you got into the rest of the anatomical issues, very much including the fact that for a centaur, crouch-and-squat wasn't really an option. The bathrooms in the shared household were, out of necessity, rather complicated -- but there was only so much room available, and so Cerea had been stuck with a lot of improvising. Not to mention that during her fevered gallop, she had been more or less -- well, yes, you could do it on the run, but it was just so undignified.

Someone had cleaned her. It wasn't just the wounds: her skin had been scrubbed (and she tried not to blush again). A portion of the dirt had been removed from fur and tail. However, no one had washed her hair, and far too much of it was cascading down her body: she'd clearly lost some pins, and she had a very good idea as to which ones they had been.

She took care of herself as best she could. She missed her grooming equipment: the long-handled brushes would have been a comfort. Then she thought about the time her beloved had helped to brush her, the dream she'd had on that same night where she'd been carefully instructing him about when to avoid the sensitive areas near her tail, and then her dream self had told him just when it was right to --

-- she washed her face again, got rid of the tear tracks. Redid her hair with the limited number of metal pins, mourned the state of her tail. Pushed back the sleeves enough to see another little wound, one which had been expertly dressed because it had been expertly inflicted, purely out of necessity.

So they have IVs, or something like them. And more, since she hadn't woken up on a soaked mattress. The little horses had been -- taking care of her, and doing so without nets and chains. But she was still in a cell --

-- which was when someone knocked on the door.

Her first well-taught instinct was to frown at the rudeness: only the youngest children kicked to announce themselves. The follow-up thought reminded her that she was the only being in the area with hands (well, the immediate area: the shirt wasn't new and so suggested there was something around which at least had shoulders and arms) and tapping with hooves was the lone available option.

One of her jailers. And being oddly polite about it, even for a noble's cell (which Cerea didn't strictly deserve), especially when dealing with someone who had already escaped once. But... the sky was wrong, the world was strange, and --

-- I have nowhere to go.

The polite knock repeated itself, and was followed by a soft whinny. Cerea carefully turned, ducked out of the bathroom, and went to the nightstand.

They had left it for her. They meant for her to use it. And so she picked it up, pressed it against her throat and winced as she felt the wire snake its way up to her ear.

"I'm awake," she tried. And hungry. Being fed by IV kept the body going, but the stomach still wanted to know where the real food was.

The pause from the other side of the door felt like a startled one, as if that party hadn't really been expecting a reply.

"...yes," the voice eventually said. Female, and not that old: for a human, Cerea would have been guessing a half-decade past her own years. "So before I open the door..."

This pause, however, felt free to be openly awkward.

"...I need you to understand what's going to happen."

Cerea waited.

"I'm taking you to an upper level," the unseen mare stated. "I mean, it won't just be me. I'm just the one who'll be trotting next to you. And talking to you. In case you have any questions, and I'm pretty sure you do. We're going to get you some food. And after you eat, you're going to speak with the Princesses."

Cerea blinked.

"Princesses?" She spoke with one princess just about every day (which had eventually taken a certain amount of aura off the experience), although it was hard to get the topic away from romantic tragedy --

'-- I'm awake.' I'm being kept in a noble's cell. It doesn't matter if I don't deserve it. I have to act like it.

Her speech had -- been less than acceptable. Admittedly, part of that had come from the difficulty of being formal with those who were fighting you, and she supposed she could blame illness for some of it -- but those were excuses. She had to bring her standards back up, especially since she was about to be taken in front of Princesses.

"They're going to meet you." Another awkward pause. "Well, meet you again. For one. Mine. And... um... talk about what's going to happen next. But that's all that'll happen. Nopony is going to hurt you. Not unless you try to hurt somepony else. And I'd really rather you didn't do that. Because I'm very good with wind. Very good. And in this case, I'd... rather not be. Princess Luna doesn't want me to show you that, not today. She just wants you to -- come up. Okay?"

She was being treated more honorably. She needed to reflect that.

"Very well," Cerea said, and wondered if that had been formal enough.

"I'm opening the door now," the mare said, and Cerea heard the little tremble in the tones. "Right now. I'm --"

-- it opened, and the little winged horse almost instantly jumped backwards.

Some would have insisted that it couldn't have been helped. She had been chosen for her bravery. For her ability to be steadfast in the face of the unknown. To use the fear instead of giving in to it and, in this case, her skills with wind currents were making sure that the scent of her own fear was being utilized to coat the ceiling. But she hadn't been expecting movement, and so Cerea's instinctive change in stance startled her, made wings flare as magic prepared to conduct forward.

But then she saw what that stance was. And the centaur had already recognized that some aspects of body language translated directly, made the little horse's physical positions more readable than their expressions. The same applied going the other way.

The little mare had no way of accounting for the forward-swept arms and open hands, presented with their palms up. But she knew what a foreleg dip meant. The little bow of the head. And for whatever might have been lacking in physical language, the word filled in the gap.

"Lady," Cerea softly breathed, and held her curtsy.

Huge silver eyes (which were just slightly brighter than the well-polished armor) blinked. Deep black wings awkwardly rustled.

"Um," the little horse tried. "I'm... um... 'lady'?"

Cerea's eyes came up just enough to look over the armor again.

"You are a knight." There was rapture in the statement. "I am in the presence of a true knight..."

Another blink, followed by a slightly worried glance at the three little horses who were serving as backup. Cerea, who couldn't read their expressions and didn't have the right sight line anyway, could only scent that all of them were afraid. She had no way to see that two of them were grinning, and the third had managed a smirk.

"I'm a Guard," the winged horse tried. "I... guess that's a little like a knight?"

Cerea wasn't buying it. All she'd had to do was feel the little horse's presence, and that had told her that the winged mare was everything like a knight: this apparently included the humility. "As you say, Lady," and she straightened. A knight...

She was standing within the aura of her dream. Wherever she was, it was a place which had knights. Real ones...

There was a moment, standing within her cell, where she almost felt the agony of displacement beginning to fade. But then she thought of her beloved, and simply adjusted her posture to show more respect.

"I'm Nightwatch," the little mare said, staring up at her (and that with some rather awkward angling of the neck). "I'm on the Lunar shift. It's... about two --" and then there was another one of those verbal overlaps "-- durations/periods/hours away from Moon-raising. That's enough time to eat. We're going to take you up to one of the Lunar kitchens, because they aren't quite active yet. You'll eat there. And then you'll meet the Princesses."

Cerea nodded, since she knew that gesture was understood. But the exact linguistics used had just begged a certain question. It wasn't the use of 'somepony': as with the overlap, she assumed the magic had a few potential flaws. It wasn't even the fact that Moon seemed to come with its own audible capital. It was something else.

"The Princesses?"

The little mare nodded back.

"Is the Queen away?" -- and almost froze. She knew she'd just been rude. Not only did she have no way of knowing what the current state of the royal family was, if the Queen was even alive (much less if a King was involved), but there was every chance that the children were being given responsibilities as preparation for rulership. Besides, it wasn't as if Cerea rated a queen, and the last one she'd met hadn't been worth the title --

-- the silver eyes had gone hard.

"There's no queen," Nightwatch harshly stated. "We don't have queens. Any nation which wants a queen is welcome to have one, and to keep us out of it. Our highest ruling rank is Princess. We have two."

Cerea blinked, which did nothing to fight back the growing blush.

"Princess," she tried.

Nightwatch solidly nodded. The black wings arced.

"Then the elder is in charge?"

A subtle wind current was beginning to rustle feathers. "They're both in charge," the little mare said. "They are equal in the co-rulership/consortium/bilateral monarchy. They lead our nation. That's how things are. It's how they should be." This was punctuated by a tiny hoof stomp -- and then, slowly, the wings settled back into a rest position.

More casually, with most of the fear still wind-pressed against the ceiling, "Are you hungry?"

"...yes," Cerea managed.

"Okay," Nightwatch said. "Follow us, then. Me. Mostly me." Started to turn -- paused, glanced back and up. "Um. I'm a pegasus. If that translates. Those of us with wings are pegasi. Except for the Princesses. If that helps."

It did, although Cerea mostly felt embarrassed about having had to be told. A pegasus. The legends said centaurs had originated in Greece: in fact, the original native centaur tongue was a heavily-mutated form of that language. (It was possible for a centaur and Greek native to understand each other somewhat if both parties involved spoke very slowly -- something which, given the nature of both language and speakers, pretty much never happened.) She should have remembered what she'd been taught of that history. Her mother would have been so disappointed --

-- I'm about to meet the leaders of a nation.

For that much alone, it didn't matter that she was lost, or that she was about to speak with little horses. Somewhere within Cerea's mind, a number of story-taught vocabulary switches flipped over to ARMED.

It was a proper castle, which was to say it had been built to survive several sieges, possibly through outlasting them. The amount of food kept in the one kitchen would have gotten most defensive forces through at least a week or, in Cerea's case, the appetizer.

She had her escorts, and they stayed with her: the lone pegasus, two stallions whom she was reminded were called unicorns, and the strongest-looking male was an earth pony. They all seemed to think of themselves as ponies, and Cerea thought about how the term often designated size more than youth, then wondered if there were any real horses about. Their castles were probably larger.

Once they reached the upper (ground) level, walls shifted to marble. There were alcoves, and more artwork: Cerea found a kinetic gryphon sculpture -- still with nothing human in it -- to be rather dubious. (It also triggered a phantom pain in that part of her flank, but the muscles seemed to have almost completely healed.) She had plenty of opportunities to look at her surroundings, largely because that was all there was to look at.

A castle so seemingly large -- one which hosted the leaders of a nation -- should have had a staff to match, and there were times when she could hear them off in the distance: hooves scrambling across marble, fading wingbeats. But that was it. The kitchen had seen food left out for her, the hallways had been cleared for her passage. They were keeping the local population away from her, but for the knights who were meant to stop her if she tried anything, and -- she was lost, weaponless, and determined to at least make an attempt towards true courtesy while in the presence of the Princesses. Even if the sentence was harsh, she could try to meet her fate with dignity. She had to be capable of that much.

But they'd just about emptied the castle for her, or at least the limited portions where she was allowed to tread. There should have been so many more of the ponies, and she'd only seen her escorts. No others would be forced to deal with the monster.

Food. Art. Kitchen equipment, and she'd needed a moment to recognize a vertical ice cream churn. A newspaper...

It had to be a newspaper: the configuration of the folded pages was about right, as was the smell of cheap paper and printer's ink. She got a glimpse of black-and-white photography in the abandoned document which had been sitting at the far end of the kitchen counter -- but then she'd seen the text, and so learned the magic didn't work on anything which had to be read. The symbols stayed just that: symbols, ones where she couldn't even begin to guess at the words behind them.

Not that she had much of a chance, as there had been all of ten seconds to examine the thing from a distance before Nightwatch had looked in the same direction, instantly taken off, snatched up the newspaper in her mouth, and dropped the thing into a trash bin.

Cerea had wondered about that. The need to hide something which she couldn't read, along with how bad the ink had to taste. But then she'd spotted the carrots, and they had been --

-- strange.

She'd found some fruit in the mid-autumn woods, shortly after her arrival. It had been surprisingly good, especially for wild and late in the season. And the carrots were beautiful, they were clearly professionally grown, she had braced herself so as not to drop into open rapture in front of witnesses and -- it had been a carrot. A perfectly-recognizable, normal carrot. But it was if the root had been grown in soil which had one vital mineral missing, something which didn't affect the nutrition or appearance, but -- missing. It was a carrot, it was good, and it wasn't all it should have been.

The bread was wonderful. The pastries went beyond that. But with every vegetable, every piece of fruit -- there was an absent piece, and she couldn't tell what it was.

She thought about that as her personal escort brought her deeper into the castle, and the sunlight which occasionally reached them began to dim.

"We're almost there," Nightwatch said. "They're using the Lunar throne room, even though it's still daylight." Another awkward pause, and feathers rustled again. It was easy to spot: the pegasus' natural hue was outstandingly dark. She couldn't blend into any shadows because she created a patch of deeper shade within them, and standing in the castle's lighting (recessed, and Cerea was having real trouble picking out the source) made every movement exceedingly visible. "Um. Princess Luna's normally awake now, and Princess Celestia wouldn't be sleeping for a while yet. So normally it would be the Solar throne room, since Sun hasn't been lowered yet. But this is Princess Luna's baliwick/category --" the silver wire almost seemed to hiss, and then settled on "-- dominion. That means she's in charge."

"Dominion?" Cerea tried.

"They're... each in charge of different aspects of law," Nightwatch replied. "Princess Celestia can advise, the same way Princess Luna would advise her for another dominion. But the decision is Princess Luna's."

Life. Death. Imprisonment.

She had no weapon. No magic of her own, and she'd already experienced what the dark mare was capable of. A nation full of such powers...

She had tried to run. But now she knew what she'd been running from, and so there was no point to trying again.

They trotted. Hoofsteps echoed in empty halls.

"This is the Moonrise Gate," Nightwatch finally announced, and Cerea looked at the silver-shot marble, the ornamentation around the doors. "They're expecting you. Um. But you knew that. Just -- go in."

She didn't, not immediately. She had to be polite. She had to be at her best. And so she knocked.

There was the brief sound of paper shuffling, and then a rather imperious voice stated "Enter." A familiar voice.

...oh no...

...maybe that's another knight. With her aura, she would have to be a knight, at the very least. She's guarding the Princesses in their throne room.

Or...

Cerea swallowed. Squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, felt the shirt pinch her again.

...well, it would have made the loss slightly easier to justify in front of her mother...

She opened the door and, with head down, trotted inside.

The aura hit her first. The sheer power in that room, the strength and patience and age almost drove her to all four knees, and that wasn't a good posture for a centaur to begin with. Instead, she allowed the pressure of that aura to drive her into the deepest curtsy of her life, and was momentarily grateful to the ugly shirt for keeping everything in place.

The imperious voice wasn't impressed. "A gesture of respect, I believe. However, I prefer the testimony of words and actions. Straighten yourself, centaur."

She did.

The dark mare was seated upon the throne, one so elevated as to have a ramp leading up to it, something which had Cerea craning her neck just to fail at making direct eye contact. (She was almost completely sure she wasn't supposed to look directly into royal eyes without permission.) And standing at the right side of the base was the first true horse she'd seen, at least when gauged by size alone: the wings and horn took something away from that status while adding an extra level of power. A white mare with purple eyes, and different hues in that strange flow of what wasn't quite a mane.

She saw their strength. She could feel their majesty.

Princesses. To be in the presence of this much power rendered 'queen' into a bad joke.

"We have yet to be formally introduced," the dark mare stated, and 'formally' lodged behind Cerea's eyes. "You may address me as Princess Luna, should the occasion arise where such an address is required. And you stand before Princess Celestia as well. The first centaur to be the presence of the full consortium/leadership without attacking or being attacked, in -- some time."

She could feel her shoulders starting to shake.

"This," the white mare said (and that voice had the beauty found in the sharpest of antique blades, sitting patiently on a wall, beautiful and disregarded until the moment someone found the need to cut), "is not a trial. Please don't mistake it for one. We will speak to you, you will speak with us, and there will be a judgment of sorts. But it isn't a criminal matter, especially as there are no charges currently outstanding against you."

The dark mare softly snorted. "In the most absolute sense," she stated, "we could have visited the statutes which cover the inciting of riots. However, such generally imply that the inciting party do more than vault greenery."

"They attacked you," the softer voice reminded them (and it was 'them' now, as the ponies had come in behind Cerea). "On sight. And there is a reason for that, one we will have to explain in time. They had motive for their fear, and..."

The white head dipped.

"...I understand that," the taller Princess went on. "I can justify it. I've been going over it again and again. The exact scenario: a centaur appearing from nowhere, so soon after Tirek, and I can't see any other way they should have acted." The huge rib cage slowly shifted. "I can explain and excuse their actions. We both can."

Tirek. A name from the forest, and Cerea still didn't know who that was.

"We can justify," the dark Princess said. "But in time, we must also account. And that time may come. But for now..." A surprisingly small nod, directly to Cerea. "...is there a statement you wish to make before us?"

Several hundred stories, most of which had been written by authors who saw research as something which only got in the way of a good tale, carefully lined up behind Cerea's tongue.

She thought about everything she'd ever read regarding knightly speech. Hoped the silver disc knew terms it could render her words into. Took a deep breath (but not too deep, in case that offended), and let fly.

"Prithee, miladies --" mimares? "-- allowst me the chance to thank thou for any chance at greetings. Zounds, for I hath not expected any opportunity to make amends with thee regarding any disturbance. Thusly and truly, I shalt spake --"

She wasn't quite making eye contact, and so didn't get to see the dark Princess' ears go straight back. She also wasn't looking in quite the right direction to spot the sudden contortion in the white mare's features, and had no way to know what it represented. However, her own ears did rotate at the sound of wings going limp, along with the sudden thud of hindquarters on marble as Nightwatch discovered a rather abrupt need to sit down hard.

Cerea, who didn't have the air current direction to pick up on what was really going on, assumed it was something to do with taking an assigned position and kept right on going. "-- as if under oath, for thou hast no reason to trust me, and only by swearing upon my blade --" more awkwardly "-- or any blade thou mightst happen to have available --"

The white mare made a rather odd choking sound.

"-- Moon's craters!" the dark Princess half-shouted, and powerful legs nearly flung that body fully upright. "Centaur, I realize you have only the most passing acquaintance with me, and so have no means of recognizing any irony regarding the source of what is said next. But regardless, it will be said. Your speech is overly, ridiculously, painfully formal. Please reacquaint yourself with the concept of contractions. Immediately."

The syllables fell apart in her mouth, briefly leaving behind a wounded 'pitchkettled' which she'd never had a proper place for. Her body responded accordingly, with facility and experience.

The white mare sighed. "There's no need to feel embarrassed," she said. "Just -- talk to us. Normally."

"But..." Cerea weakly protested. "You're -- you're royalty..."

"Yes," the dark Princess replied. "We are. But we are not your royalty, and so neither of us can give you an order. Simply regard it as an extremely sincere recommendation."

Her head went down again, leaving her looking at a very familiar, miserably-shifting view.

"...what do you want me to talk about?"

Another sigh from the larger. "You told Princess Luna that you're from a place called unknown/unfamiliar nation/Prance/not Prance," the translation stuttered.

"Yes," Cerea miserably replied. Even her formality had failed... "But... that's where I was born. It wasn't where I was living before I came here. I was in a nation called Japan."

She missed the matching slow nods. "And how did you come to be here?" the dark mare asked.

"It's... hard to explain. I don't know what happened..."

A simple, rather soft statement from the dark Princess. (Cerea, in her misery, completely missed the intonation of request.) "Try."

She runs.

It's something she does every morning, when the weather permits it, and today is no worse than moderately foggy. Sometimes when the weather doesn't permit it, and then she returns to the household chilled or soaked ('soaked' is worse, especially if Suu is dehydrated) and has to groom herself again. She runs because she can. She knows she has to return to her host's residence eventually, she knows she risks questions if anyone finds her too far away from that household -- but she's allowed to run. The poorly-written laws at least pretend to understand that much: a centaur needs to run. But it's not the only reason she takes a morning gallop whenever the conditions allow it.

She runs because she doesn't know every last one of these streets by heart.

She runs because there's a chance to go a little further every day.

She runs because there's a horizon and if she just keeps galloping, she might be able to reach it.

There are still borders, still walls, ways in which those horrible laws imprisoned her and every other liminal who's become part of the great experiment. But she runs because now there's a chance that if she just tries hard enough, there might be a chance to gallop anywhere. To go out into the world as a full part of it, for the rest of her life. To gallop with her beloved astride her back, his knight and steed and lover and...

She allows herself to dream, when she's running. Her body takes care of itself, and it frees the mind for fantasy. There are times when she can almost feel his weight on her back. His hands on her... actually, that's been a frequent problem on those occasions when she has to carry him, but she's not used to carrying a rider and when the jolting threatens to shake him off, he just grabs. It happened the first time and it took her a while to forgive him for that.

She's been wondering about purchasing tack. Something to make it easier for him, and save the other contact for when -- for when they're both ready.

It has to be her. She has to win this time. She can't come in second. Not for this.

I'm no better than second to --

She's also trying to run away from those thoughts, and there are times when she almost gets a lead.

She runs, and she always tries to find new streets to gallop down. Part of that is because she can explore. Some is due to the fact that a few people have complained about being woken up by pounding hooves: she gallops very early, before the rest of the household can rise. And she's also learning which houses host those who hold phones up to their windows and record the sight of a fast-galloping centaur for private review or worse, public upload. She recently became aware that she has something of a fanbase online and has already decided that if she's very lucky, she'll never have to meet any of them. (She made the mistake of reading her own Comments sections.) She's carrying her sword this morning just in case she runs across any of them or, in a world where the laws were a little more just, over.

She runs for the joy of it and today, because she started even earlier than usual, she finds a new street.

It's a quiet-seeming one. She looks down it as her body instinctively shifts into the left turn, and all she sees are three houses, fairly scattered with large lawns between each. All three are on the right: the left holds a light touch of what isn't quite forest. The community has been expanding, and so any woods are simply holding territory until someone decides an estate would be more fitting.

Beyond that, the fog takes over. But it doesn't matter. She runs in rain and wind and cold: the only exception is ice, because hooves have a way of skidding out. It's not that chill, as fog goes, especially not this time of year. And by the time she reaches the place where the fog blocks her sight, she'll be able to see more.

Besides, it's a new street. She has to explore.

So she gallops. She's starting to really get the pace now, feeling the heat moving through the muscles. The joy. And she's moving within a mobile window of newness: fresh territory opens up for her as she gallops forward, the fog closes in behind her and hides the recently-familiar. It's like she's been given her own personal portal of discovery, and she wishes she had someone in the household whom she could talk to about it, but... Papi and Suu don't understand, Rachnera would laugh it off, Lala probably has a long morbid talk prepared on the mystical significance of fog, Meroune would find some way of turning it into a metaphor for tragically drowning (although how a mermaid is supposed to manage that remains a mystery), and Miia generally manages to take it personally. She could tell her beloved, but... she still has so much trouble talking to him about the little things.

He holds her hand, when he sees she's having trouble. He holds her hand, and she never wants him to stop. That's how she knows she loves him.

A house flickers by on the right. It's an interesting architectural style. She tends to notice such things, after spending so much of her life looking at the same buildings.

Then another one flickers. It flickers into something with a metal railing in front of it, where a fence should have been. It flickers so that there's no house on the other side. Then it flickers back.

It takes a moment for her to truly notice, with so much of her focused on the run. And then she glances backwards, already beginning to convince herself it was just a trick of the light, and the house is there. But it's made of wood now. Rough-hewn wood, like logs were just cross-stacked on top of each other. Then there's another flicker and it's metal, but the surfaces are too smooth and she looks directly behind her as her heart starts to pound all the faster, as she tries to tell herself that it's a dream and nothing more, she twists flexible joints until she's looking straight back and then she breaks into the fastest gallop of her life.

The fog is still there, defining the limits of her window. A few wisps of it. And behind that is nothing. Sensory vacuum, an absence of sight and sound and matter, a solid wall of obliterated perceptions and it is moving forward. It is moving towards her and where it crosses, there is nothing at all.

She sees it, and she knows that if it flows over her, she will be nothing.

She gallops. It's all she can do. She accelerates, finds her best speed and then surpasses it. Her entire being becomes something which can do no more than run. And beneath her hooves, the road is asphalt for a few seconds before it turns into mud and the change nearly trips her: the recovery takes place on planks. Houses are wood. Plaster. Sod. There's a car next to her on the road, she just barely sees the driver's face and what she mostly sees is that it's orange in the split-second she has before the car is gone.

There are pines on her left and caves on her right. Now it's a pineapple grove and domes made of animal skins. Something hovering and something reaching for her as the vacuum flows faster, she slams her left arm over her chest and tries to run faster still, she whips her tail against her flanks to protect it, the road is dirt and cobblestones and trestles and there's a little fog left behind her and around her, but the vacuum is eating that and she puts on one last burst of speed and nearly runs into a tree.

She barely manages to go around it, and not without contact: the scraping puts the first tear in her skirt, and harsh bark draws a new world's first blood.

There's too many trees. She can't straightline gallop any more: she's losing speed. She has to glance back, see how much safety she has left and when she does so, she finds more forest. True forest, locked in mid-autumn. The fog is gone. The road is gone.

She slows, dismisses the frantic rule of instinct, allows thought to resume control. And it might be a liminal trick. It's possible that she found the lingering defenses around an old gap (although of a kind she's never heard of), or that a prankster species has been having fun with her. Well, that's something where the laws don't stay her hand: if something capable of illusion was playing games with her, it'll find a competitor willing to take revenge. But she's pretty sure such effects are limited in scope. Much more limited than what just happened.

A team, then. She'll just search until she finds them. Until the road returns. And her hand will stay near the hilt, for when she does find them.

And it's possible, looking back, that she had already realized what had happened, at least on some level. That her mind was coming up with excuses, trying to protect her for as long as possible. But her hand stayed near the hilt, and so that was what truly protected her. What kept her alive.

The fog was gone.
The road was gone.
Everything was...

A soft yellow glow floated a mug towards her and when she scented the pure water, she drank.

"Thank you." Small words. Inadequate.

"You're tired," the taller Princess quietly said. "You're still recovering, and that took a lot out of you. Maybe we should stop for the night."

The dark mare briefly closed her eyes. "Simply attempting to explain --" paused "-- a 'handheld movie camera which instantly places its pictures onto distant screens' took some time. But I believe we have the essence of your passage. Two questions, and then we end this session." Looking down at Cerea. "Can you manage two?"

She nodded.

"The place at which you arrived," the dark Princess began. "Did you mark it in any way?"

Cerea blinked. "Yes." Her skirt had already been torn: she'd removed a small strip of fabric and tied it around a low branch. Marking the center of the illusion, making sure she had something she could return to.

"So you could find it again."

She had to be honest (although she was still wishing she could be more formal). "Not without a lot of looking. The first fight --"

"-- we will come to that," her most recent captor said. "If necessary, in time. I will currently assume it left you disoriented." (Cerea nodded.) "But there is a place to be found. Something which we can examine. However, given the estimated time since your arrival, some portion of the corona/field residue signature may have faded..."

The dark mare thought about it. Nodded to herself.

"Return to your quarters." A glance at the escorts. "And take her there. Rest as much as you can, centaur. We may not have time for a second session, not if we wish for there to be anything remaining which can still be used."

Another nod.

"Tonight, we plan," she told Cerea. "Tomorrow, we seek out your arrival point. And we will see what we can do about returning you to your home."

The siblings mutually watched the Moonrise Gate close behind the somewhat-dirty tail, which had been drooped from exhaustion and stun. Listened until the echoes of hooves faded.

"She reminds me of Twilight," the elder finally said.

The younger blinked. "Do tell."

A little sigh, glancing up at the throne. "It's the fear more than anything. That constant terror of saying the wrong thing and having everything fall apart. You didn't know her when she was at her worst with that. You only met her after she started climbing out of that pit. But you've talked to her enough times..."

A slow nod. "Yes. The trepidation. That every verbal hoofstep could be the last. She was afraid of that. But..."

After the pause had stretched out for a while, "But what?"

"Did you notice that it was the only thing she was fearful of?"

The elder frowned. "I don't take your meaning, Luna."

This time, the younger sighed. "Perhaps I was perceiving the wrong aspect. Or... I am simply more attuned to such things. Too much so."

"I didn't really notice," the elder admitted -- followed by, with a light smirk, "Maybe I was too distracted by the sound of your being out-Lunaed."

"Oh, do shut up," the younger grumbled.

There was a brief period of compliance.

"So you're sending her home," the elder finally tried.

"If we can." Dryly, "Immigration is my dominion, sister. Therefore, the same can be said for deportation. I barely understood so much of what she said, even with the device doing what I presume was its best. Even some of the memories I encouraged to emerge from dream were difficult to interpret. But I recognize that she comes from far away. Somewhere we could gallop towards for all of the cycles to come and still never reach. She does not belong here, and there are those who miss her. She needs to go home." More softly, "At the very least, let those who retain their parents not lose their remaining time with them."

Starkly, "And if we can't send her back?"

"We must," the younger simply stated as her horn ignited, and dark energy brought the newspaper out from behind the throne. Floated it down to the elder, displayed the front page as a simple reminder.

It wasn't a particularly good picture: most of the facial features were obscured by the net, although that might have been a mercy for the more fragile readers. But it was clear enough for a limb count. And of course, there was no way to miss the Canterlot Tattler's triple-layered headline.

CENTAUR SPOTTED IN PALIMYNO!

The Monster Escapes!

WHAT IS THE PALACE HIDING?

Uncomprehending

It was possible to learn a lot about the book just from the printing style. Several of what might be possibly be individual letters had been rendered in something closer to portrait than calligraphy, and not all of them came at the start of what she was guessing to be paragraphs: the majority of such elaborate works could be found there, but others appeared at the end of character bursts, with a few strays in the middle. Moving to the page border found heavily-stylized ink vines braiding through each other in a way which Cerea couldn't quite disassociate from the more solid animated ones in the forest: simply looking at the edge design was making her neck ache. And truly major events found little pieces of art darting in and out of the lines, a chase conducted in near-shimmering images throughout the story.

It told Cerea that the ponies had been through a period of illuminated text, just like certain portions of medieval Europe. The rendering of the art suggested an Impressionist surge had taken place with at least partial overlap, and the solidity of the original ink transfer told her that an engraving plate had been used. The book smelled old, had the must of centuries lingering in permanent aura, she'd been incredibly careful about opening the cover -- but the colors were still fairly bright, and that said a lot about their ink.

Or the magic they use to preserve it.

Was that possible? Invoking magic made it feel as if just about anything was. Spells to make books last...

She knew a lot about old books, because most of hers had been something close to ancient. Cerea knew how to be careful with them. The required delicacy of her touch had reached the point where she could go into a manga shop, read an entire volume on the premises (presuming she could both get into the aisle and no one asked her to move), then put it back onto the shelf without leaving the faintest ghost of a crease upon the spine. (Not that she generally would because like so many other natives of France, Cerea regarded manga as something which would be better worth examining once it finally managed to completely grow up. A nation which often treated comics as high art wasn't entirely ready to grant full respect for a relative youngling.) She was aware that some of these books were older than a few of the ones upon her own shelves. Admittedly they weren't quite as delicate: she'd noticed some fairly heavy reinforcements on the corners, which went nicely with the front cover and its lingering bite marks.

Opening books by mouth. Nosing to the next page. The necessities of a world without hands. And she wondered how the painting had been done: if the arts were the exclusive realm of those who could move things with hornlight, whether thin brushes were strapped to forelegs, or -- if it was just done by mouth. She was vaguely aware that human artists dealing with various degrees of disability had worked that way, and when an entire species had no other choice...

The book (one of a hundred and fifty-three in the cell: there had been plenty of time to count them) told her a lot just through the way it looked. But it couldn't tell her the most crucial thing, and so Cerea, who hadn't quite found a comfortable place on the stone floor, miserably gazed down at the bright colors, knowing none of it was her fault while still feeling as if she'd somehow failed again.

But I'm going back to him --

-- no. I can't think about it that way. Not yet.

There was a place for optimism and in Cerea's life, that location just about always seemed to be well away from her quarters. The dark Princess had said that they would see what they could do about sending her back. They would try. But the promise had been for attempt, not success. She could be back in Japan tomorrow, or -- it might take longer. Pinning all of her hopes on an instantaneous return just left that much more to be dashed. But there was a chance to return to her love --

-- is he all right?

He probably was. He had an odd knack for survival, something which was a necessity just to live through a few expressions of liminal affection: in particular, Miia's tail hugs had a way of compressing the rib cage (just before collapsing the lungs), Meroune liked to kiss while fully in her environment and could neglect little things like 'let my partner come up for air', and Suu's affection occasionally went past (and through) the slime girl's membrane. But he wasn't indestructible. He was tough for a human, but he needed help with so many things because he was human, and -- realistically, hosting seven liminal girls meant there were both a lot of situations which demanded help and just about as many opportunities to get hurt. Cerea did her best to ride herd over the household, but she didn't always succeed and without her moderating influence -- it was moderating, no matter what Rachnera insisted on calling it --

-- and what are they doing?

The initial answer arose from fear, with the inner images showing a race where one participant had been disqualified after leaving the track. Not even second any more: a competition where she'd outright lost, her love claimed by scales or fins or, worst of all, spider legs. But she managed to banish most of it, because she knew that wasn't right -- or rather, it wasn't a scenario which would come true just yet. Yes, some in the household would certainly find their own path to his affections to be somewhat more clear without a centaur body in the way. But none of them, not even Rachnera, would have made an immediate move. Because in a way, the household was something like a family, and...

I vanished.
I've been gone for days.

If her absence continued... there would be readjustment. A sorting of the new order, and some of that might lead to fresh vacancies: she could easily picture terrified parents pulling their children home. But given how long she'd been missing -- they were still looking for her.

It was so easy to picture the events. Cerea went for morning runs: the entire household knew that, although it had taken a while before the fact had truly stuck with Papi. The duration of those gallops was a variable, and so they wouldn't have been too concerned until she'd missed breakfast. After that... another hour before they went out into the neighborhood? Papi searching from the air, and flying always seemed to help the harpy concentrate on what needed to be done. Meroune, once bundled into her wheelchair, had the least trouble dealing with the more skittish neighbors: a simple hairstyle adjustment added to the blanket hiding her fins and hands clasped in her lap so that none could see how they were webbed -- the mermaid could effectively pass for human, at least for a little while, and so it would have been she who went door to door (at least for those places without front stairs), asking if anyone had seen or heard something. Rachnera was more likely to just drop in on people and if the trees were tall enough, some of that would be from overhead.

Once that had failed, Ms. Smith would have been summoned and since it wouldn't have been noon yet, the unfair presumption would have had her first words upon arrival as a protest regarding having to be up so early. The truth was that their government liaison was nightmarishly lazy -- right up until the moment someone gave her a job which couldn't be passed onto someone else. She would have been the one to both call and direct the police, along with utilizing available liminal forces. Doppel and Zombina would have taken over on house calls, with Manako doing her best to trace Cerea's hoofsteps. Before mid-afternoon, uniformed officers would be on every street and shortly after that, the media might become involved. Broadcasting her picture. Asking people to call, Email, make contact to tell them anything they knew.

And eventually, someone would have contacted her mother. Told that parent that her daughter had found yet another way to disappoint her. Kidnapped or worse. Potentially having lost the fight of her life through forfeit.

Because that was one of the nightmares. The laws were so poorly written, and there were humans who hated the integration. There were crimes committed against liminals who couldn't even defend themselves without being removed from the country, and while the humans were, in theory, equally subject to prosecution -- they attacked in groups. Traveling packs of alibis.

There had already been assaults against some of the exchange students: Cerea herself had once been on the absolute edge of being pushed off that cliff. So many of the liminals feared that it would eventually become worse. The potential to become worse was always there, and that was in a nation which had at least tried to participate in the great experiment.

(There was a reason Cerea had found herself so far from home. The moment when she had wondered if she could ever think of herself as French again.)

Humans became angry, the miasma of fear expressing itself as anger clogged the air, and -- she would hesitate. Because to defend herself might see her escorted to the airport, her love lost forever, and given the choice between that and suffering a few blows...

With humans, she hesitated, when a just world would have let her attack. And Rachnera mocked her for it.

Rachnera had her own method of dealing with the problem.

"It cannot continue to work," Cerea had insisted within the echoing confines of the huge bathroom. (She was typically extremely formal with the arachne, at least for spoken terms: the strictly inner vulgarities occasionally managed to get a censored word in.) "You are relying on fear. That they will be so terrified of what you might do after they report you as to say nothing. Eventually, one of them will find their spine. A few words to the wrong people and Smith will no longer be able to save you. Fear doesn't last."

"So you claim," Rachnera had countered, lazily lacing hardshelled fingers around each other. A small construct was beginning to emerge between them.

"And your webs hardly vanish. You're leaving behind evidence --"

This was interrupted by a shrug. "-- so call it evidence. It still means someone has to testify." Three visible eyes (the right tier) joined the wicked fanged grin: the others were obscured by light purple hair. "It'll never get that far."

"It has to." And Cerea didn't know how she felt about that. She didn't like the arachne, she didn't feel as if she ever would or could, and losing Rachnera would mean one less problem in the house, that much less competition for her love's time -- but to see that rival deported...

"I use their fear." Another shrug. "It's easy."

Which was when Cerea had partially turned away, all the better to conceal the mutter. "For you."

But it was still heard. Rachnera often overheard things, to the point where Cerea wasn't entirely sure that the ears on the human portion were the only ones.

Softly, "Oh, is that today's issue?" A skittering noise: the big body getting closer, eight legs forever scuffing against the floor. "They look at me and they're afraid, because arachnophobia is something which humans simply need to be reminded that they've always had. But when they look at you, when their gaze moves to that which isn't part of their own bodies... that's not what they perceive, is it? They see something they've tamed. Broken. Not so much partner as servant, not so much servant as slave. They see you, and they can't be afraid because they feel like their entire species has already won..."

She refused to look back. Forced the sudden surge of anger into her features, made them go blank and stiff. But her spine was tight from tail to neck, and she could feel her shoulders beginning to shake.

Somehow, Rachnera's unseen pause felt like a thoughtful one.

"Which creature," the arachne finally said, "kills more humans than any other in the world?"

Nothing would have made Cerea turn. "Spiders." Because of course it was going to be spiders.

It produced a merry giggle. "Oh, if only. No, Cerea, the honor of greatest reaper goes to the mosquitoes. It's the malaria, you see. You might never believe me if I gave you the true number, but -- it's not a small one. They do their best, and never think about what they're doing at all. And then, on the tier just under that, you have the multitude of deaths from allergic reactions, which brings us to wasps and bees and hornets --" and the delighted peal was just a little too quick "-- oh my! Too soon?"

She forced her hand away from her face, went to war with the blush and lost.

I tried. I did everything I could and one still got through...

"But not spiders," Rachnera mournfully said, the regret as faked as the apology. "At best? Billions of humans, and perhaps two dozen spider-caused deaths in a particularly busy year. In fact, do you know which animal regularly bests those numbers by a factor of three or more?"

"I do not care --"

"-- horses."

Hands of flesh abruptly went limp. The ones covered in chitin made soft skittering sounds as they moved against each other.

"Yes," Rachnera thoughtfully continued. "Horses. All that strength, all of the mass -- and I think a girl so dedicated to hiding her true weight from the world will know exactly how deadly that combination can be. A hoof kicked into a human skull is something of an impediment to living. And still they think they have you tamed, conquered, enslaved... until the whip hand comes down one too many times. They know you're stronger than they are, Cerea. It's why they feel they have to conquer you. Because if they don't..."

Hard digits pressed something against her palm: softer fingers automatically closed.

"Maybe they need a reminder," Rachnera had whispered, and a pointed tongue flicked against the furry ear. "Of who could be in charge, if she wasn't so nice..."

Eight legs sprung into a leap. The scuttling moved to the ceiling, eventually wandering into a hallway.

And after a while, Cerea had looked at the miniature silken whip in her hand.

She didn't like the arachne. She wasn't sure she ever would. However, in terms of sheer physical power -- if nothing else, they had that in common. But in how humans reacted to it...

I want...

She looked at the book in her hands again. The colors, the artistry, and everything else.

-- there was a whinny from outside the door, one which almost seemed to have a question mark attached.

She didn't reach for the disk immediately: she had to wipe her eyes first. "Yes?"

"I heard..." An awkward pause. "Um. I heard something," the little horse went on. "It was sort of like... can I come in?"

Cerea had no right to order a knight away from anything, especially as the prisoner being watched. "Yes."

There were a few equally-awkward metallic sounds, and then the door opened. Cerea had to drop her gaze in order to watch the deep black pegasus hesitantly enter, and it let her see the three other Guards who were still posted in the corridor.

"Is something wrong?" the little mare asked, with her right hind leg carefully nudging the door mostly shut.

"No," Cerea lied.

"Oh. Um. Because it sounded like -- um. If it was one of us, it would have been..." Feathers rustled, possibly from sheer embarrassment. "Did you have any questions about tomorrow?"

She was aware that the subject was being changed, and she welcomed the switch. "I didn't understand what the Princess said about --" what had the word been? "-- residue? Signatures?"

"Oh," Nightwatch said. Hooves slowly, reluctantly shuffled closer. "Um... with magic... everypony who does magic works in it their own way. It's sort of like mouthwriting. No two ponies are going to produce a character/letter/concept which is exactly the same shape. And it's possible to see/feel/know or learn a little about the caster, and the spell, by examining the signature. But it's something which fades. You only have so long before there isn't anything to work with at all, not which could be understood. There's ways where we would already be past the limit. But the palace has a few things which could help. Princess Luna is taking them out of the armory tonight. And tomorrow, we'll try to find where you arrived, before the signature fades to the point where even those devices won't do any good."

Cerea slowly nodded. "So the longer she waits, the less there is to learn."

"Yes. Normally we'd try to plan a little more, but there's no chance." The little mare softly sighed. "And that's why I have to go off-shift in two hours, because Princess Luna wants me to come along. The palace has medicines/potions for staff members who need to sleep in a hurry because of a shift change, but I hate..." Stopped, and feathers rustled again. "Um. You should probably sleep too, but we can't give you any potions, because we don't know how they'd work on you. Maybe if you... read yourself to sleep --"

"-- I can't read."

The pressure of humiliation squeezed blue eyes shut, and Cerea turned her head away: it kept any tears out of sight and this time, she'd managed to suppress the little sob.

"Um," the pegasus initially tried: this was followed by a rather weak "What?"

"I can't..." Her breath caught in her throat. "I..."

I don't know you, and all you know about me is that I'm something you're afraid of. But after tomorrow, I may never see you again.

Or the pony could wind up guarding her cell for months. But somehow, it felt as if this particular humiliation had a chance to stay behind. Locked away in the cell forever.

"...I used to read a lot of stories," Cerea softly said, still without looking at the mare. "I still do. But for a while, stories were -- everything. And there are books in this cell, and I was thinking... that I'd never read any of them. That no one from my home ever has. I had shelves full of stories no one's seen, I took a book down, and... I forgot that the spell doesn't let me read." And there was nothing left for keeping the pain from her words. "I'm surrounded by stories I'll never know..."

Cerea never saw the silver eyes blink. She could only listen as the hooves shuffled again.

"Um," Nightwatch said, and part of the warm breath wafted across Cerea's fingers. "The Tale Of The Second Sunrise. Recorded and translated by Frith Inlé. It's... a collection of what would normally be foal stories, but these don't come from our nation. Um. The tales are foreign: the printing was local. So this was probably put here for someone who was temporarily held during a war and knew our language. And they're old stories. I know they're not taught in our schools, and I'm not sure most yaks can still be bothered."

Yaks. Ponies and yaks: it made Cerea briefly wonder about deer. "Oh. Thank you."

Another warm breath.

"Um. So. 'Ice thirsts for light. Ice tries to capture that which some would say harms it. But it longs for that touch, for it does not bring pain. Only change. The two are so often confused --'"

Cerea's eyes shot open.

The little pegasus backed up before raising her head, allowed the centaur to briefly look directly into silver. Moved forward again.

"I don't think it's a long one," Nightwatch decided. "Less than two hours, anyway. So. 'This is the tale of the ice which loved the light, and some would say the ice paid the price for bringing it forth...'"

The two females listened to the words, for it was a story both ancient and new. In time, it ended, and the pegasus tried to nudge the sleepy centaur towards the bed. Soft protests came back, and the larger body eventually settled in against a slightly different patch of floor, leaning against the bookcase for support.

The black pegasus glanced back through the doorway as she cleared its threshold, and then silently sealed the cell.

Grotesque

The loaned shirt had told her there was something which locally existed that had shoulders and arms. Magic and tools combined to provide a level of technology, and it was possible that whatever was working with a more standard variety of limbs had created some of it. However, the return of her original clothing suggested that in a place where the majority of the locals were covered by nothing but their fur, nothing was capable of laundry or fabric repair service.

Then again, upon closer examination, there hadn't been all that much left to clean or save.

"Um," Nightwatch awkwardly said, wincing as Cerea unfolded what remained of the blouse. "Um... the -- torso? Upper torso -- um... the torso part is mostly intact. Except for the rents on the sides. And the back. And nothing gets quintail stains out, unless it's from fur. We've tried."

Cerea was still looking. "It happens," she tried, because in her experience, it happened rather frequently, only along the front: it was both where most of the strain was typically located and a too-frequent target for... just about everything. "So that's my skirt." Just barely keeping the question mark off the end.

One of the earth ponies carefully raised his head, offering the full bag up to her hand.

"That's a skirt?" Nightwatch asked, light stun openly filling her voice.

It covered Cerea's buttocks (and getting her tail through the provided gap could take some work) while failing to surround her legs in tubes of fabric, and it didn't reach the floor: therefore, it was a skirt. It also happened to have all the style of a car's draping tarpaulin and did about as much to hide the shape of what was underneath.

Quite a few female centaurs wore skirts. Knights got to wear barding. Even without the formal title, Cerea had gained a set which had accompanied her to Japan: training gear which didn't have to be made from plastic -- but it was still training gear. While giving it a decent polish (up to two hours: three if the inspection was being conducted by her mother) would make it pass for something suitable, it wasn't the highest-quality metal, some of the joints weren't as smooth as they should have been, the breastplate pinched her exactly where the name implied, and it was understood that she would only gain her real armor when she had both reached her full adult size and won her title. The second factor had been the true sticking point.

"Yes," she carefully replied, setting the blouse down before extracting the larger garment from the bag and shaking it out. One gap quickly caught her attention.

...well, it's not as embarrassing here. They go around with that part of their body on display all the time. Although now that she thought about it... well, it wasn't as if she made a practice of inspecting that area, but she was sure she hadn't actually seen anything. And that applied to mares and stallions.

Maybe they have some sort of trick valve. If I looked --

Cerea wrenched her gaze back to what was left of the skirt. (Looking was rude and besides, when it came to that purpose, she was too far above the stallions and all of the mares were facing the wrong way.) All things considered, she was best off with the tablecloth for now.

One of the stallions spoke up: a unicorn, visibly larger than all but the male earth pony, and quite a bit older than the rest of the group. The most experienced, the one who clearly played the part of advisor to the younger members of the group -- and Cerea's nose told her that his fear had only been banished from sight. "In the event that we can send you back today," that stallion told her, "the Princess wants you to take all of your things with you. As many as we can find."

Her mind ran it through an additional translation and came up with Cutting down on contamination. But that was a hopeless cause: there were scraps of lost fabric all over the forest, and she didn't know what had happened to her sword. For that matter, she was still short several hairpins. And that wasn't all.

It's probably broken.

It wasn't working anyway. Not that it could work here. Even if they had something similar... Well, that was the stuff of fantasy, and the type which went beyond mere magic: it was hard enough to get two supposedly-compatible pieces working with each other, and it took a poor writer to assume items with fully separate origins would just cooperate. It was currently junk, and it was littering some part of the forest. She would look for it, but she didn't expect to see the thing.

Another major gap in the skirt indicated where the second pocket had once been, and that was actually more distressing. She was supposed to carry her identification at all times: this was partially to prove her legal temporary residency on demand, and the rest was apparently because Japan had decided it was possible for some of its citizens to confuse a centaur with something else. (Cerea had first presumed that no one could be that stupid and, after gaining some experience, had revised that to 'Anyone that stupid isn't going to be convinced by identification anyway.') Losing her ID was good for three hours of punishment, with all of it spent in the line which required multiple international calls and faxed documents before lining up a replacement. She already knew the agency wasn't going to accept her excuse for having lost it.

"I understand," she told them. (It took a moment before the words emerged, used for internally glaring at the part of her which had just semi-sarcastically decided that remaining lost was a very good reason for not dealing with integration bureaucracy.) "This is everything I still had. I did lose some things in the forest, but I don't know where." And she had retained her scabbard, the leather-and-metal straps were fully intact, but -- it was empty.

The stallion nodded. "If we can find them," he told her, "they'll go back with you. But the priority is getting you home. So you're ready to go?"

She'd groomed herself as best she could. (Still no long-handled brushes, and she'd been reluctant to ask.) Food had been provided: not just meals before departure had come around, but a supply to take with her, along with a canteen which she swore had been designed for opening by hand. There had to be other species...

Then again, hornlight seemed to have its privileges. But so did wings, and she supposed the earth ponies had their own magic. Based on the name, it probably had something to do with rocks.

"Yes." They're looking for me. They're waiting for me. He's --

-- no. It was too early to hope. "How long will it take to get there?"

Several ponies blinked at her.

"How -- long?" Nightwatch finally tried.

The translator made it possible to recognize vocal confusion, and Cerea didn't understand why it was there. "We're at least a few kilometers away, correct?" She hadn't seen the current castle from the outside, but she'd been taken through enough of it to recognize that it was big: any structure so massive would have been visible from any point in that first town. "So there's travel time. And --" she tried not to wince "-- when you take me outside..."

It was possible that she was about to be marched into a very large box, one with both just enough air holes to keep her alive and a lot of sheer black fabric draped over them to prevent the ponies from peeking within. Keeping the population from having to see the monster.

"Um," Nightwatch initially said.

That turned out to be the less incredulous explanation.

The dark Princess came to them.

The sound of hoofsteps reached them first: greater mass being planted with more strength. The aura was right behind that and finally, tiny twinkles from something very much like mane-captured stars reflected off the stone.

She was wearing saddlebags again, exceptionally full ones which bulged in awkward ways from the odd shapes within. An orange earth pony stallion in silver armor was trotting at her right, a light green unicorn mare matched the pace on the left, and the already-present Guards were openly staring at the group.

"Princess," the large unicorn stallion quickly said, "where are they?"

"I presume you mean the typical expected parties," the Princess dryly replied. "The Bearers have a mission and cannot be pulled away from it: this means the direct services of Magic are not currently available. However, should we not succeed in an immediate return, I will request that she examine our results. And while I had hoped to retain the performer, she is currently serving as consultant to their cause." A soft snort. "While there are benefits to the ongoing repair of that relationship, there are also certain detriments. Having the two of them studying our findings together might result in a laboratory door which never opens again."

The stallion wasn't quite done. "What about Sunbur --"

"-- I would prefer the services of a party who possesses the potential to be in this corridor while conscious," the Princess sharply cut in. "That one has a difficult enough time dealing with the world beyond his chart-cluttered window: asking him to step into a wild zone would result in my levitating his fallen form along until he once again awoke, likely just long enough to perceive that I had not been bluffing about bringing him regardless." This snort was decidedly louder. "Should I make the decision to involve him, Bulkhead, you will know through the room I dedicate to his excess notes and the padding layered onto the floor, as falling onto said notes seldom protects him during subsequent faints."

Bulkhead took a step forward.

"I don't like you going out there again. Especially after what you did last night."

And now Cerea was staring at him. At the knight speaking harshly to his lady, with the words brought forth by the needs of duty.

(She wasn't offended: part of a knight's role was to keep their master safe in spite of themselves, and evidence had proven that her own love could get into trouble simply from taking out the garbage. It was just a shock to see someone else doing it.)

"Somepony has to wear the signature scanner," the Princess coolly declared. "As the pony with the most experience in interpreting its findings --"

"-- I didn't like you confronting her alone either," and his snort had been just as loud as that of the dark mare. (He didn't look at Cerea when he said that. He didn't have to.) "Especially when you didn't tell us that was what you were going to do. We turned around and you were gone --"

"-- in the event that she had been like Tirek," the Princess stridently stated, "confronting her as a group would have been a mistake, as there would have been that much more to drain. She was captured. And now we will attempt to send her home." The dark gaze moved up to Cerea's eye level. "Centaur?"

The mare was royalty, and that was most of why Cerea put up with it: the remainder came from lingering doubt as to whether she'd earned anything else. But it was beginning to truly register now, outside of fever and throne room: Cerea had told the Princess her name, and she hadn't been addressed by it once.

"Yes?" she replied, and waited for the rest.

The Princess trotted closer. "We are teleporting." The large head tilted slightly to the left. "Did that translate properly? You are familiar with the term?"

From stories. It was still enough to let her nod.

"We know that you can be transported in such a fashion," the dark mare said, "as that is how I brought you to the palace: the nature of your medical emergency did not allow for anything slower. Therefore, it can be presumed safe to do so a second time. However..." The pause lasted for a full breath. "...during the initial teleport, you were unconscious. So I am advising you to close your eyes and keep them that way, until I tell you it is safe to open them again -- and that will not be immediate: covering that distance requires a small amount of time. You have no direct experience of the between, or training in calling upon memories to form a shield. A realm which provides no input for the senses has been known to disorient the mind, and we will need you to be fully focused when the search begins."

Another nod. It seemed to be the current limits of her conversational capacity.

"And the process is easier when there is direct contact," the Princess continued. "So we will need to touch." A long, slow look at Cerea's upper torso. "I will permit you to place a hand upon my back. Briefly. And..." This regard roamed the full length and breadth of the centaur's form. "...in order to better manage the total mass, there shall be multiple transports."

So it had come to this: ponies were talking about her weight...

(For a centaur, she was exceptionally fit. But Cerea had made several mistakes before traveling to Japan, and one of the most damaging had been a carefully-studied collection of exactly the wrong articles.)

"Counting the centaur and myself," the dark mare went on, "we will travel as a party of seven, and we will do so on hoof: the search has reached the point where scouting from the air will no longer be effective. There are sufficient hours of daylight remaining for us to cross a considerable distance."

Nightwatch's legs reluctantly moved forward. "Um," the little knight awkwardly began, "have you slept?"

"Sufficiently," the dark Princess steadily replied.

"A normal sufficiency," the pegasus valiantly tried, "or --"

The dark left foreleg came partially up, slowly went back down. "I appreciate your concern. But this search, conducted as a group, requires daylight. We could bring illuminating devices or rely on corona light, but I wish to limit the total amount of magic we are both carrying and using. In part, this is meant to keep the readings from becoming contaminated and additionally... we are, in many ways --" a glance at Cerea "-- already risking enough."

"But --" Nightwatch attempted.

"-- and the subject," the Princess stated, "is now closed." She stepped forward again, silver-shod hooves moving easily on stone, and passed through a gap in the line of Guards. Shifted until she was standing on Cerea's left, about a foot away.

"Your hand upon my back, centaur," the dark mare ordered. "And close your eyes."

It left Cerea with a moment where she was relying on her remaining senses. Listening to the sped-up breathing of the smaller ponies as they watched the touch. Scenting not just the constant fog of their fear, but a sharp surge of what she guessed to be shock.

And then there was the Princess.

The back was... solid. Exceptionally so, and she hadn't quite expected that: the seemingly-ethereal nature of mane and tail had somehow suggested an equal lack of perceived mass for the body. But the spine was under the center of her palm: the peak of a vertebra poked into her skin. Powerful muscles stretched out to the sides, and there was a slight sensation of movement as the mare steadily breathed.

She smelled something like the scents of the other three subspecies combined, only with additional factors. Her fur was slightly cool to the touch, and exceptionally soft.

"Now," the Princess said.

Sound stopped. Scent vanished. The floor went out from beneath Cerea's hooves, and all four legs briefly scrambled for purchase before she realized she was standing on nothing. There was enough time to take a breath, and something which was neither air nor vacuum sent her body reeling as every instinct tried to figure out how it was possible to survive within absence --

-- dead leaves crunched beneath her hooves, and the scents of an autumn day drifted up to her. There was also a heavy overlay of paint and wood.

"We have arrived at the base camp," the Princess told her. "Lift your hand, and then you may open your eyes."

Cerea did, and saw -- a hollow wooden structure with no floor and closed double-doors leading out. It was somewhat larger than the average toolshed.

"This," the Princess informed her, "is a gatehouse. Each settlement is meant to have at least one: larger populations have them scattered throughout their settled zone. They provide those who can teleport with a safe location in which to arrive: something meant to be forever empty unless somepony is using it. During emergencies, they allow the thrones to dispatch select forces with efficiency -- presuming any enemy did not think to cut off the gatehouses, or render them less than safe. And they can be constructed rather quickly. This one is but hours old." The horn ignited with dark energy, and the coated doors swung upon. "Does this part of the wild zone look familiar?"

Cerea stared.

They had been in the hallway outside her cell, and now they were back in the forest -- only this time, there were three ponies standing outside the gatehouse, their attention smoothly shifting to the opening doors in the split-second before they saw her.

Spines stiffened. Jaws went tight, and the newest fear cloud began to spread.

"I..." She swallowed. "I'm not sure."

A slow nod. "I hardly expect you to have memorized every hoofstep of your journey," the Princess stated as she moved forward, the cool back shifting away from Cerea's reach. "And your current view is rather narrow. However, this is the last place in which I was able to verify your previous presence -- at least from the air."

She left the gatehouse, and Cerea began to follow her out into the little clearing. A section of the forest which was fully exposed to early afternoon sun and clear sky, no more than fifty feet across at the widest point. The size of the space meant the depth of drifting leaves was fairly minimal, and so it was possible to see where a number of stained ones had been crushed into the soil by desperately stamping hooves. Another, significantly larger portion of earth looked as if something had recently exploded outwards, with a very large, rather irregularly-shaped mass having been pulled up from beneath: the soil wasn't just disturbed, it was disrupted, and a series of partially-filled pits were surrounded by dark debris. A small portion of that was rocks, stone encrusted in deep soil. The larger percentage came from bones.

"Your hoofprints, I believe," the dark mare said, and inclined her head towards them. "Along with what I am presuming is your blood."

The young centaur swallowed again, for now she knew exactly where she was.

They came up from the ground...

"You saw what you presumed to be the protruding portion of a root vegetable, correct?" the Princess not-quite-asked. "It would have both looked and smelled edible, and for the very little it might be worth, it is. If you can wrench it free from the end of the tentacle. Something of a delicacy for those who feel the refinement of their tastes is best reflected by the total number of digits on the restaurant's bill."

"...how did you find this?" She couldn't even smell the creature now, and the blast of its emergence had fouled her nostrils for hours.

The Princess glanced back at her.

"I knew the direction from which you had entered the town," royalty calmly said. "That provided a place to begin. I also considered that you would have had no need to conceal yourself from an aerial search until such was initiated and those moving through trees tend to tilt towards open spaces. The duration of the hunt, combined with the distance covered, gave me some idea of your fairly impressive ground speed, and you told me how many Moon-raisings had passed since your arrival. So I ranged outwards from that starting point, checking any clearing I could find from the air along that general direction, also working under the theory that those who are lost, even in cloudy weather, will try to track either water or the movement of Sun and Moon -- and streams are fairly plentiful in this area, so you would have possessed no desperate need to remain near a riverbank. Additionally, I can see perfectly in the dark, and the Royal Physicians took a number of pictures while you were being examined. This allowed me to memorize your hoofprint."

The dark mare lightly, almost casually shrugged, and Cerea had just enough left within her own shock to recognize the movement as having been exactly that.

"I also happen," the Princess added, "to be capable of flying rather quickly." Another look at the trampled area. "So I tracked your path from the air, as far as I could. And when I found what seemed to be the last clearing along the general trail, I extracted the wounded root angler, memorized the location, then teleported back to the palace and retrieved a gatehouse team. They have been guarding this spot since." And now that dark gaze moved back to Cerea. "But this is the point at which aerial surveys cease to help: not only does the wild zone becomes too thick, but one of the devices we will be utilizing is distressingly short-range. A maximum effectiveness of two hoofwidths. We can no longer search from the air. And so we will proceed on the ground. Centaur?"

Cerea managed a blink.

"Your hindquarters," the Princess noted, "are still within the gatehouse. As I have already indicated that such spaces need to remain empty?"

After a few seconds, a stunned mind managed to direct four legs into a forward stagger.

She worked all that out. Overnight.

There were many kinds of power, and this mare seemed to possess all of them.

"Good," the Princess decided as Cerea cleared the structure. "Wait here."

She did: she had no other choice. She watched as the flash of light took the dark mare away, and waited upon her former battleground as the gatehouse team stared at her. As the little ponies fought against the urge to run.

It took a little while before everyone arrived: the Princess stated (with some annoyance) that one Guard had abruptly decided to use the nearest trench before they left, and that had held the process up. The earth ponies were brought in last, and stayed in the closed gatehouse with the Princess for a few minutes before emerging.

"Very well," the Princess finally said. "We are assembled. However, there is still something we are waiting for --" with not-at-all concealed grouchiness "-- and I had hoped it would be here by now. But the delay does provide time for giving the centaur a briefing regarding our chosen devices." Dark light opened the lids of the saddlebags, delved and sorted. Three objects emerged.

The light green unicorn mare took a too-slow breath. "That's a lot," she simply stated.

"Yes," the dark Princess replied. "It is." Turned towards Cerea, and the floating items shifted with her. "I wish for you to understand how we will be proceeding. This is a thaum compass." And it looked very much like a normal one, only with a diameter slightly larger than a hoof and a height to match. The inner needle was currently rotated towards the west. "It points towards sources of magic. But it is not the most reliable of guides. In particular, it can be disoriented by any relatively localized use, and has to be told to ignore a given source: it took some time to convince it not to constantly indicate me. As such, it is meant to be a secondary factor in our search. This --" thick goggles, crystalline lenses within a housing of brass, all sized for a pony's eyes -- "is a signature scanner. It also detects magic. Any magic, although some forms require the wearer to be fairly close. And it does so when those signatures have faded to a level where a pony's own senses cannot detect them. But it presents that information visually, and such requires a significant amount of experience to interpret."

Cerea, for lack of anything better to do during the discussion of a subject she knew nothing about, tried nodding again.

Her ears twitched, and it took her a second to recognize the sound of multiple large wings moving in from the east. Another moment was required before she fought back the urge to flee again.

"Lastly," the Princess told her, "this is our analyzer." A center-indented electrum disk with runes lining the edge: even with the dark light covering it, the metal shimmered as if it had been coated in the thinnest film of soap. "It is capable of recognizing any spells which it has previously encountered. It can also compare aspects of a new working to anything it already knows, and suggest what the fresh creation was meant to do. This is the piece where the range issue is the most severe, and the device itself is slightly more scarce than your loaned translator. New thaum compasses can be constructed, albeit with significant effort. A damaged signature scanner can be repaired. A wounded analyzer is gone." Staring directly into Cerea's eyes now, the dark gaze lancing through a gap between floating metal. "Do you understand?"

"Yes." Which was a partial truth. She knew what the -- devices -- were supposed to do. Cerea just didn't understand why she was being cautioned like this. It wasn't as if she was going to use the things --

-- the Princess' head lifted, turned to the east as the bearers of those wings came into view. But she wasn't really looking at the pegasi. Her attention was focused on what they were towing beneath them.

The small flock descended over the clearing, didn't touch down. Instead, they simply released the mouth-held tow ropes at the instant the net touched the leaves, and then quickly flew away.

"So I would appreciate your efforts," the Princess darkly stated, "in doing your best not to have that thing touch it."

Cerea's eyes were focused on her sword (and the little bag next to it), and so she didn't see the ponies backing away from it. She only heard hooves crunching across leaves.

She also picked up on Bulkhead's rather loud gulp. "Princess," the oldest knight shakily said, "we -- I hate to say this, but we could use that. Something which wounds magic --"

"-- yes," his lady interrupted. "I have spent some time considering the possibilities." And even without being able to read pony expressions, Cerea could hear the mix of revulsion and fascination within the steady voice. "But as a weapon, we would have some trouble in wielding it. A sword cannot be effectively used with teeth clamped upon its grip, and I am told that those who tried to lift it that way became ill until they stopped. There is no way to encase it within a field. It could be given to a protector, someone with hands who was utterly trusted --" the dark eyes briefly closed "-- and the first entity who came to mind has been dead for -- some time. And he had his own magic, something which merely holding the sword might negate. To think is to possess some form of power: to touch that thing is to have that power quelled. None can use it. None who were born upon our soil."

"But it could break enchantments!" the light green unicorn suddenly insisted. "Things like Poison Joke, or what Joyous went through --"

"-- by repeatedly hitting the victim with the blade until the curse was eliminated?" the Princess asked. "Is that how it would work? Should the cursed one carry the sword at all times, effectively trading ailments? And there is but one sword. Does it still suppress magic if broken into pieces? What if fragments are lost? Stolen? And what happens if someone shaves off a portion which is small enough to be ingested? A new kind of poison..." She slowly shook her head. "There are many ways to use the sword, Abjura, and so many seem to be beneficial -- but keeping it is a risk. One which comes with fearsome consequences. And --"

The dark eyes went to Cerea again.

"-- we are not its owners. Place that within its scabbard. Quickly. And do not draw it unless you see no other choice."

She slowly trotted forward, and more leaves crunched as her hooves stepped into the net's spaces. Foreknees bent, and she carefully lifted the sword.

"...how do you feel when you touch that?" Abjura breathed. "Sick? Weak?"

The typical answer would have been useless. "Normal," Cerea quietly replied, for the sword only wounded magic, and she had none. She sheathed the blade, then knelt down again, collecting the bag before turning back to face the others.

"And the translator functioned while she held it," the Princess exhaled. "As your widening eyes suggest you can still understand me, it also does so with the blade concealed. The few experiments we conducted at the site more than suggested direct contact was required. Simply do not have it touch disk, wire, or any device at all. I would also be rather offended by any contact made with us." The dark gaze moved around the clearing. "I trust you recall having been here now?"

"Yes." (As words went, that one seemed to be doing a lot of work.) She opened the bag.

"And how much time had passed since your arrival -- yes, we were presuming those were also yours, especially given the effects. Keep them away from the wire."

Cerea, who had already been getting ready to pin up some more of her hair, fought back the blush, lost, and simply started shifting the metal pins towards that side. "A few hours." She was certain of that: time only blurred during fights and fever.

Another slow exhale. "Good. If we are fortunate, we may approach the rough vicinity of your arrival before Sun is lowered. And your point of entry for this clearing?"

She had been tracking along the path of the cloud-shrouded sun: Cerea's right hand gestured.

The Princess nodded. "The thaum compass was already indicating something in that general direction. Let us proceed."

The procession carefully trotted into the deeper woods: the Princess near the lead, with Guards both leading and flanking her. The remainder moved with Cerea, and it didn't take long to notice that they were proceeding at a distance which put them just beyond the combined reach of arm and blade. Even Nightwatch was --

-- she's a knight. It... makes sense. She has to think about her lady, about threats, and...

She trotted, accompanied by the group without ever being part of it.

They were trying to send her home.

She was surrounded by a mobile chasm, one which had been filled by fear. Some of it was her own. She had been attacked in this forest, over and over. She had nearly died...

I want to go home.

It wasn't the steadiest procession. Stories left a lot of little details out, and one of what turned out to be the major omissions regarded the occasional need for someone to step behind a tree. (Not too far away: she'd noticed that all of the ponies generally did their best to stay in sight of each other, and that was the lone exception.) Every so often, the Princess would pause, snort, and something about the dark eyes suggested a steadily-elevating level of irritation, one which had initially been launched from a point well above sea level. This frequently led to the thaum compass being rapped with a silver-coated forehoof or, at the moment Cerea finally identified the scent of frustration, knocked against a tree. It wasn't too long after that before it became possible to hear royalty darkly muttering under its breath.

Most of the Guards were rather studiously ignoring it, and their posture said they were doing so in that special way which told Cerea they were actually paying exacting attention to their lady's behavior while doing their best not to get caught. She didn't quite have the knack for that lack of attention, and so Nightwatch eventually flew just a little closer.

"It's okay," the small knight tried to softly reassure her. "She's just... been up too long."

Cerea blinked. "It's only --" four in the afternoon? Five? Was this place so different as to have its days be a new length? "-- oh." Because she'd just remembered. "She was looking for my path at night." Which meant Cerea had kept royalty up well past its bedtime, and the wince settled in. "So she hasn't rested..."

It seldom took very long for her to conclude that most things were her fault. Actual involvement only shortened the process.

"That's not it," the pegasus said, wings moving in a way which somehow maintained a sort of mobile hover. (Cerea couldn't work that out. It should have taken hummingbird speed to accomplish that, and the limbs weren't going anywhere near that fast. Magic seemed to be involved.) "She's always awake at night. Um. Usually she gets up a duration/hour or two before Sun-lowering and goes to bed about the same after Moon is brought down." With a sudden surge of defensiveness, "And she can be awake any time she likes, no matter what anypony says. Sun doesn't burn her, and it never will. Writing down lies doesn't make them true."

Which was when it finally hit her. Sun-lowering?

"But she sleeps during the day," the pegasus went on, the near-whispering voice just a little steadier. "And Sun doesn't hurt her, but too much of it and she..." Their faces were different. The winces were just about the same. (The pony's was actually easier to spot: eye size did a lot there.) "She just starts feeling... irritated. Edgy. And it's not just the lack of sleep, she didn't sleep enough no matter what she told Bulkhead. It's just Sun and being awake for too long at the wrong time." With the tone of gossip, "The Solar shift told me that Princess Celestia gets the same way during all-nighters. It's just -- who they are --"

"-- we have phoenixes in the area," that irritated voice dryly announced.

"Princess?" one of the earth ponies asked. (Cerea didn't say a word. She was just automatically bracing herself for having to deal with the world's foremost level of misplaced, fully unjustified ego.)

"I know exactly what that particular tilt of the needle means. Along with the fact that if it continues to attempt upwards movement, it will break -- for the third time, dismiss that before I open your lid and -- perfect. It seems they are mating. I suppose this means we can look forward to a char of dragons next. At least that would provide the occasion for exercise..." A snort, another rap of the light-held compass, and the dark mare moved on.

Cerea needed a second.

"Phoenixes..."

"Yes?" Nightwatch asked.

"...they're -- birds, right?"

"Um. Yes." A too-long pause. "Except for the one Princess Celestia keeps as a pet. That's more of a menace."

"So what are gryphons?"

The pegasus abruptly tossed her head, as if trying to dislodge something from one ear. "Did you say griffons?"

"I... guess so. The ones in the statues..."

"They have their own nation. We're at peace." Another pause. "Well, we're at peace now."

"And the statues represent what they look like?"

"Yes," Nightwatch replied, the confusion wafting in wing-shifted air. "Except for that kinetic one we passed. Their beaks only have that much blood when they're eating. Why?" And with a surge of mental flight, "Do you have them where you came from? Griffons?"

"...yes."

"So what do they look like?"

Cerea tried to find a starting place.

"They have hands --"

-- and then she saw it.

I know that tree.

I circled it a few times because I was -- trying to pick a direction. Somewhere to start. That's my hooftrack in the dirt...

"Princess?" (And wished she'd somehow been more formal, even as the dark mare glanced back at her.) "We're close."

The Princess looked her over, with most of that regard staying near Cerea's eyes. Shifted her attention back to the thaum compass.

"It is... somewhat more intense up ahead," she stated. "Assuming the interference from phoenix reproduction has been factored out. Let us open our own senses. Can anypony feel anything?"

Abjura took a slow step forward. Her head moved from left to right, then up and down, as if the horn was somehow testing the density of the air.

"It's..." A quick head shake. "Something happened. But it's too faint for me. It's like trying to find a shape in drifting smoke. I can't retain anything..."

The Princess frowned, closed her eyes: the light-held devices bobbed and dipped.

"Not smoke," the dark mare softly countered. "Water. Or rather... a dry riverbed. The place where something once flowed --"

Her head abruptly tossed, and stars shifted within the strange mane.

"Now why are my thoughts proceeding down that exact path?" royalty carefully asked itself. "Air to water. Water to riverbed, and it feels as if there is another hoofstep yet to come. Forward, all of you. And be on your guard. I sense nothing powerful enough to be active -- but that does not mean it could not become active again."

They shifted forward. Every horn seemed to be testing the air now. Pegasus wings rustled in strange patterns, and the earth ponies looked as if they were listening to something no one else could hear.

And then they were there.

The trees were much more widely-spaced, but that was just for the trunks: the branches were more than sufficient to cover the gaps. In spring and summer, all light would have been dappled green: for mid-autumn, there were just enough dead leaves clinging to their former source of life to make any view of the sky uncertain. They had room to move, but only at ground level: any attempt made by the pegasi to reach a higher elevation would have quickly found itself working through a maze of wood.

A slight breeze was moving in from the north: cold air shifted fur and feathers, made Cerea's right arm automatically begin to shift forward in case covering was required. They could hear animal noises in the forest: it was possible to identify a squirrel's chatter, and the strange birdsong had some chance to be that of a phoenix. (The song which arose from those Cerea dearly wished to forget usually sounded like exceptionally mindless gossip.) At the southern edge of that auditory range, a harsh surface scraped against bark. It somehow felt as if there was a familiar aspect to that sound, something which aborted the covering motion and dropped Cerea's hand closer to the sword's hilt.

But there was also a strip of black fabric around a low branch.

"Your marker," the Princess said. "Many would not have thought to provide such a detail. Abjura, take the analyzer. I shall utilize the signature scanner." The dark light shifted: one bubble sent the disc towards the light green mare, while a secondary portion brought brass down over her own fur. "Let us see..."

Cerea watched, and for nearly half a minute, there was very little to look at. Six ponies: three moving around the clearing, two standing still, and one hovering nearby.

Several of the disc's runes brightened. Two flashed, once each. Then they did it again, only faster. And again...

"What is this?" Abjura breathed as the display increased its speed. "It's digging deep, Princess. It doesn't know the exact spell, but it's finding something in common with a previous encounter. It's just something from a long time ago, something it has to reach for..."

The brass-covered head didn't look at the unicorn. It was staring into the woods.

"The next hoofstep," the Princess softly said. "A logical progression, and we never would have perceived the final link had it not been for the device. Air to water, water to riverbed -- and riverbed to mud."

One of the earth ponies looked up at that. "Princess -- I don't know what you're seeing, but when we get back, I need to --"

"Be calm, Acrolith." (The multi-hued mare's breathing slowed.) "None of you can perceive what I can through these lenses, and so explanation is needed. I must try to explain, because this is something I have never seen before -- and yes, I am aware of what it means to hear those words emerging from my throat. To translate the perceptions..."

A long moment of silence, during which the flashing of the runes steadied. Somewhere to the south, a piece of wood was abruptly sundered. It was something Cerea mostly registered on a subconscious level: the wind was wrong for registering the nature of the true danger -- but her hand tightly closed on the sword's grip.

She felt her shoulders go uneven, her posture lightly listing to one side. The length of the day was blamed, and a simple effort brought her upright again.

"Imagine magic as hues," the dark mare quietly told them. "Simple enough to do, given the way coronas manifest. Every effect as its own color. But those colors are most distinct when they are separated. Bring red and yellow too close, and the viewer might believe there was a single orange working present. And with every additional overlapping shade, the perceived color continues to shift. Add too many, superimpose to the point where everything blends...”

They were all watching her, and so none truly noticed when two of the Guards sat down, their expressions mutually shifting to something Cerea would have been unable to interpret as a dazed smile. The young centaur simply watched the Princess turn towards her, and caught a glimpse of the eyes behind the lenses.

"Add enough colors, and all one can perceive is a murky brown," the Princess declared. "Everything sluggishly flowing in the same direction, barely functioning. A working as relentless, unstoppable mass pressing against a barrier until sheer weight collapses the wall. This is a mudslide."

Abjura slowly nodded. "But it's a mudslide with intent," the unicorn said. "I think somepony directed it. Multiple ponies, and... that shouldn't be possible, to get that many together on one effect without the disparities in their signatures ruining everything. The limit on the Combiner is three." She stared down at the disc. "But what I'm seeing here -- yes. This was a deliberate attempt to corpuscle."

And if she had known more, it would have been the moment when Cerea truly reacted. When she began to search for the threat. But she had some experience with the translator now, believed she understood a few of the faults: 'somepony' was presumed to be one of them. Having 'corpuscle' reach her wire-touched ear simply made her wait to see what the near-overlapping next word would be, the magic struggling to retrieve the proper term.

But the Princess regally nodded.

"Sanctity," the dark mare agreed. "Sanctity and steak. Triplets?"

It was still the wrong assumption: that magic was something which ran on its own sort of battery, especially since the Princess had mentioned charges during their first meeting. Cerea now believed that charge to be running out, wasn't completely sure how to communicate the problem when communication itself was on the verge of becoming impossible. She moved forward, her free hand frantically gesturing to the jewel, trying to make herself understood.

But then the Princess' wing joints loosened. Feathers splayed across the forest floor, and did so at the same moment when the male pegasus calmly perched in a tree.

"Carpet!" he declared. "Ursury shadows!"

A much larger piece of wood broke, still to the south. Cerea heard something rough scrape, and that noise was nearly lost in the solid triple impact of shell into dirt, an announcement of impending arrival made by something which no longer had any need to move silently.

She spun to face it, and initially took a wing to the face for her trouble.

"Quiver!" Nightwatch wailed, the frantically-flapping little knight moving in rough ellipses. "Avatar uneven, frantic cabal --"

But the Princess was the one who found what felt like the right word, a single moment of desperate focus giving a name to the monster which broke through the branches, almost leisurely moving towards smiling, sitting, flapping meals.

"Neurocypher!"

After the first encounter... that was when Cerea had almost expected the memory to fade. You went through a nightmare and once the daylight touched you, the terror began to blur, smear, thin out. Eventually, unless you did your best to fix every aspect of it, deliberately reliving it again and again, all you would remember was that you had been scared. The details went missing and with those gone, the fear itself would be lost.

But it had happened during the day. It had been real. It was still real, when nightmare was all it ever should have been.

The basic form was actually fairly easy to describe. You took a crab's leg, tinted it to a particularly nauseating shade of brown-tinged puce. Expanded it until the full arc of the joints could just about shadow a centaur's body from head to tail. Add tiny spikes to the armor, ones which weren't so much sharp as abrasive: close contact would take layers off skin. (A few strategic cracks had to be placed at this time, mostly around the joints.) Then you added two more legs just like it, spaced evenly around an armored circle, something roughly the diameter of a small car, with the underside just about as high off the ground as the roof.

And once you'd imagined that -- you pictured another just like it. Inverted it, stacked the second directly on top of the first, gave it two bands of partially-exposed musculature at the joining seam. One allowed some degree of rotation, let the halves shift independently. The second was where the eyes were, or that which passed for eyes. Normally, there would have been a full circle of black orbs evenly spaced around the perimeter, something which took in all light and gave back nothing except malice. This particular specimen was down two.

There was no point to looking for the mouth, for that was on the underside. A mouth larger than the pony it would lower itself onto, a pony who couldn't think about running or fighting or anything at all, a pony who simply sat among the leaves and merrily chatted about muddles and masks as the monster closed in with its tripod half-limping gait, the serrated fangs preparing to descend.

The second encounter had given it a name. The first made a pointed limb freeze, because three of the remaining eyes had just spotted what was galloping in from the north.

Strictly speaking, the thing didn't need to be treated with all that much formality -- but battle cries had rules all their own.

"Greetings, monster!" Cerea shouted. "I see thou dost remember me!"

And the sword slammed into the closest leg. Or rather, a selected portion of it.

She wasn't on the best terms with Rachnera. It was possible to find multiple liminal species who weren't exactly fond of the arachne, and ancient wars meant dusty battle tactics were available. This was so much bigger, had both the wrong arrangement of limbs and less of them -- but there weren't any webs. And when you were fighting something with this kind of armor, a coating which followed so many of chitin's rules, there was a basic tactic. You didn't worry about the armor itself: even with centaur strength and the dense plastic of the sword, it took a serious swing to put a crack in that shell (and she'd managed a few). Because the creature needed to be capable of movement. It couldn't shuffle on fully-frozen limbs, it needed flexibility, and armor could only overlap so much.

It meant you went for the joints and in Cerea's case, she went for the one she'd already cracked.

The little ravine in the shell deepened, spread, and there was a grinding sound, something which was nothing at all like a scream because the thing couldn't scream. It had no language with which to protest, and there would have been no excuses it cared to make. It simply knew it had felt pain, that something which had caused it pain was back, and pain wasn't something it knew how to deal with. Its magic would approach before it did, sedating the prey in advance. It fed, and nothing felt pain at all. It was incapable of realizing that some of its victims even laughed as they died, because that was the behavior which randomly-firing neurons had picked at the last.

It killed, and so it survived. That was how the world was supposed to work. It killed, it reproduced, and it lacked the intellect to realize that enough years of those behaviors would lead to a natural death. It couldn't think about death. Thought was something it destroyed.

But it had memory, even if those recollections lacked a true sense of time. There had been a new kind of prey. It had moved towards the prey, because that was what it did. Its magic had done the work, and so it was time to feed.

Then the prey had moved.

The prey was back, keeping it from reaching the little meals. And the tripod shifted, moving backwards in that strange limping gait, something which was only happening because armor was so slow to heal. It rotated the upper circle, tried to catch the prey with one of those limbs, but the prey jumped and all it could do was brush against the prey's lower back.

There was a tearing sound, and the noise hadn't come from flesh. Stitches had given way, and a rather ugly repurposed tablecloth fell to the forest floor. The black orbs saw the movement: one tracked it, another focused on the moving prey, and the most local third ceased to function forever because a plastic sword with no true edge was still perfectly capable of being jammed directly into an eye.

It rotated as much as it could, flailed its limbs. But it didn't know what to do: it had no true knowledge at all. The armor was meant to give it protection against that which could attack at a distance and when that happened, it would retreat. Close quarters combat was beyond the realm of every instinct it possessed. It was being driven away from subdued prey, its upper limbs broke branches as its body was driven backwards towards a clearing, it twisted this way and that and another branch broke and came down on the prey's left shoulder.

The impact staggered the prey, made it lose focus. A lower limb shifted, raised, the terminal point lined up --

-- and leaves blasted into its surviving eyes, with the gust sending a few into broken sockets. A gust which went around the centaur, because the pony who'd created it was just that good with wind.

Nightwatch, easily twenty-five meters above the ground, flapped her wings again, and the monster retreated from Cerea, lost more ground to the pain of debris pelting against wounds.

"You don't radiate up much, do you?" the pegasus shouted, and the increased distance between centaur and monster made it safe to look up towards the sound. "Because you can't! It's a torus, not a sphere! I remember that now, I remember what you are!"

And there was more than that in the sky: larger wings beating against the air, silver-covered legs shifting in a strange pattern beneath the Princess' body, blackening vapor was rapidly coalescing between limbs --

"-- no!" the Guard yelled. "Princess, it'll go for the sword first! You can't --"

"-- the sword," the Princess calmly said, "is not metal."

Her forehooves slammed into the newly-created cloud.

Cerea wasn't sure how old she'd been when her mother had formally taught her about thunder. Three or four, probably. She did have a distinct memory of having been told to count the seconds between flash and boom: every extra moment of delay meant the strike was that much further away. Storms visited places where she had never been, and it hadn't taken all that many more years before the jealousy had set in.

There was light, and then there was sound. It always happened in that order. But when the origin point was about eighty feet over your head, there was no perceptible delay. There was only the explosion which still echoed in pressed-back ears, and the flash which felt as if it had seared itself into her retinas.

She blinked until she could properly see the monster's corpse (a monster she hadn't even properly defeated, something where she'd needed to be saved), and she shook her head until she could hear again. The process took more than long enough for the ponies to reach her: some trotting, some landing, and all staring.

The Princess' horn sent dark light onto brass, lifted it away and revealed unreadable features.

"It now occurs to me," the dark mare quietly said, "that, even in my haste to reach this site before all residue had faded, I might have spent more time inquiring as to what you had faced in the wild zone." She slowly shook her head. "A special danger of the neurocypher: the more intense one's thoughts, the more easily those thoughts are disrupted. With all of us trying to deduce what had brought you here, there were none to watch for the signs. None who knew what those signs were. And you were not affected. I have previous experience with the abominations, where nopony else here does. I have needed to bring myself down to instinct before, to get out of range before striking as a being which could once again think. But it would have required leaving its range. In that time, with the thing already so close..."

She looked up at Cerea.

"You are shaking," the Princess stated.

It was adrenaline. She frequently found herself shaking after a fight: unused energy with nowhere to go. "It's nothing."

"Is the wound on your back also nothing?"

Cerea looked.

I didn't even feel that.

"It's just a scrape in the fur. There's barely any blood --"

"-- you have already been through one infection, and I was informed that antibiotics are not universal between all species. However, topical disinfectants are, and so Bulkhead is carrying a quantity in his saddlebags. Allow him to apply the liquid before the next medical crisis arrives. At a distance, please. The sounds produced by cleansing can be worse than those forced by the wounds."

The centaur slowly trotted away, with the unicorn stallion following. The rest of the group stayed near the corpse, and silently held that position until they heard the first distant hiss emerge from between clenched teeth.

"Abjura," Luna finally began, "before anything else happens, while we have privacy: the analyzer. Your speech before the attack indicated that it had produced a result. Did it recognize the exact spell?"

Slowly, "No. Just a commonality with another working. Something old, something I don't think anypony's cast in my lifetime. The general category of effect."

Silence.

"You do not wish to tell me," Luna observed. "I will not blame her for whatever --"

The word wasn't spoken so much as extracted. "-- summoning."

(At the far right of the group, silver eyes slowly closed.)

"So the working tried to bring her here," Luna calmly said.

"Tried to bring something." There was helplessness in those words. "Was there any residue on her body?"

"Not that the scanner showed. But she was carrying the sword: extended contact might have dispelled it. I failed to perceive so much as a single lingering thaum from the teleport. You are suggesting that the caster missed their true target?"

"I'm saying it's possible --" and the unicorn took a deep breath. "-- no. I'm lying. I'm saying I can't tell. But I don't think it was a natural effect. I was hoping she'd just stumbled into one of the deep places, but with this..." Another. "It's not impossible, but the only reason I'm saying that is because the rules are different in the deep places. They're just about as bad as chaos terrain. There's a chance it was an accident -- but it's a small one."

"And reversing the effect? Sending her back tonight?"

Sun was starting to dip now.

"...you're the Princess," Abjura finally replied. "I was hoping --"

"-- Princess," Luna softly countered, "still does not mean 'deity'. So we cannot simply reopen the passage. We will need further study, and possibly the combined services of Twilight Sparkle and Ms. Lulamoon. But even with their help, we will likely be hosting her for weeks. Moons..."

There were possibilities beyond that. Everypony knew what they were, and so nopony voiced any of them.

"What if the press figures out she's in the palace?" Acrolith finally asked, timing the words to get past the next hiss. "We could try to claim she was placed in Tartarus." A long pause. "We -- we might even have to --"

"-- no," Nightwatch stated, and still did not open her eyes.

"Just to have them see her go in, in front of the cameras." Acrolith protested. "We could bring her out right after --"

"-- no --"

"-- the decision is mine," Luna interrupted. "The decision also happens to be 'no.'"

A curl of smoke rose from the scorched shell, dissipated into dimming sky.

"Then what can we do with her?" Abjura softly asked. "After Tirek, what place does the world have for a centaur?"

And nopony said anything at all.

Otherworldly

There were times when the sisters needed to speak in privacy, and that occasionally provided a challenge. Some Guards could be overprotective: those who were often reluctant to let their charges get too far out of sight didn't particularly appreciate any order to back off and would generally interpret the command as something which had merely instructed them to find a place where they wouldn't be spotted. The shortest-tenured staff members occasionally decided that if anything was so crucial as to require a lack of untrustworthy eavesdroppers, then somepony trustworthy had better be listening: those ponies either grew out of it in a hurry or discovered that their tenure wasn't going to become any longer. And in the first year following the younger's Return, those of the Solar staff had been a little too careful about staying close during any interaction, just in case It Happened Again -- even when none of them were entirely sure as to just what had happened in the first place.

(However, that portion had slowly faded, and now the only times when true fear manifested was when the sisters were unsupervised during times of diplomacy. The younger could often be viewed as diplomacy's alternative option. In the eyes of the other nations, she was what you got instead of diplomacy, and very few palace ponies truly understood the effectiveness of having a bright smile being backed up by a lashing tail.)

But the staff merely worked in the palace, while the siblings had supervised its construction. There were secret passages whose floors had only been touched by eight hooves, marble panels that swung open at the touch of a corona which had been selected from a list of two. Both sisters had times when they had to slip away, and so multiple methods and pathways existed to allow exactly that. The sisters had a way of vanishing when they most needed to do so, and any Guard incapable of being temporarily reassured by the signature-radiating notes they would mutually leave behind on their respective thrones was a Guard who needed some more experience.

(They could generally get away with two hours. After that, a truly good Guard was going to come looking anyway.)

The siblings had several places available for such conferences. A few took place in the secret passages themselves, quite a number had been hosted by a forever-otherwise-closed tower, and one of the most recent was currently a little too close to a space that wasn't generally occupied: neither was about to risk having the subject of their discussion overhear any of it. In this case, the younger had waited until about two hours before Sun-raising was due, then woken the elder and brought her into the palace gardens.

The exactingly-landscaped portions which held no statues were themed. Each section represented part of their nation, hosted plants which grew most naturally in that territory: it was possible to trot across the whole of a miniature continent in about an hour. For this conference, they had gone to the newest section: that which held blooms that could wait years for the lightest touch of water, using a single brief shower as the chance to spring forth. Life lurking under the surface of the sand, not so much dormant as endlessly patient.

It had taken quite a bit of pegasus magic to set up the proper conditions, reliably keep the humidity present in so much of the gardens away from the little dunes. But the replication had been exacting, and so those who visited the new addition learned a basic fact of the desert: that no matter how much Sun beat down on near-bleached grains during the day, Moon still ruled the night. Under Moon, the desert was cold. It meant that every so often, the elder would adjust her body's radiance, fighting back the external chill: for the younger, just noticing low temperatures was generally a deliberate act.

But they were both cold on that night under the cloudless sky, if only within. The implications had come with their own ice.

The younger finished her review of the previous day's events. Looked to the elder, and waited.

"I don't even know where to start," the elder sighed. A little more dryly, "Just the fact that somepony's come up with a way to let that many unicorns truly combine their efforts... that's a weapons-grade working, Luna. The old limit was three, and you thought this casting involved...?"

"An exact number cannot be determined," the younger replied. "It is the nature of the mudslide itself: one might notice a slightly lighter hue in the flow, but watching it too closely provides time for the observer to be buried. And my instincts say there was a single caster directing from the center of it: somepony forcing the disparate signatures into something less than harmony. Not having them work together so much as refusing to allow the smaller channels any chance at escape. A single director..." A thoughtful pause was followed by "But for contributors? I would estimate a minimum of several dozen, and the upper limit may be well beyond that."

"The least aspect of this is something we need to reverse-thaumgineer as quickly as possible," the elder half-groaned. "Because we are going to need a counter to it, and fast. That many unicorns truly working together could take out anypony -- us included. We have to be capable of negating the central caster."

"Assuming it allows cooperation on any working," the younger observed. "It may have been designed for this casting alone."

"I'm not willing to make that assumption just yet," the elder darkly decided, and a huge white forehoof compulsively shoved sand away. "It's too dangerous." (The younger nodded.) "And then we get into the fact that this massed magical effort, something where we can't figure out the true number of casters and thaums involved, was used for a summoning. Nopony's attempted a summoning in..."

Purple eyes closed. The pastel hues of the half-tangible tail fell still.

The younger knew better than to wait. "Sister?"

"...me," the elder softly said. "As far as I know, the last true summoning attempt was me." Her eyes opened, and the tired gaze sought out sky-lofted craters. "I can safely say it failed."

The younger sighed. "Tia..."

"Me," the elder sadly repeated. "But it was nothing like what you described, Luna. Nothing at all. I remember... a sense of reaching out. It was almost physical, like I was being stretched. As if I was standing at the bottom of Apnea's Pit and trying to touch Moon. It... started to hurt after a while. After it failed, I felt like I'd been in a taffy pull for weeks... "

Each instinctively moved a little closer to the other, still facing each other across the sands. Both gave the past some time to pretend it could fade.

Eventually, "Did you ever formally ban summoning spells? During my abeyance?"

The elder snorted. "It's one of those things where forbidding it doesn't exactly matter to anypony who was intending to cast it in the first place. And to slap a saddle on that, it's also like banning unicorns from balancing their entire bodies on hornpoint: you know it's virtually impossible and it's going to fail anyway, so you just picture thousands of crashes and don't think about the one pony who could actually pull it off. It's not so much forbidden as ignored, Luna: when there's an entire category of magic which just about nopony can work, a lot of unicorns just decide they're going to fail too, and the scant remainder finds out the hard way. Plus there isn't much need for summoning. I failed, and I knew what I was reaching towards. Most casters are just -- biting into the dark. Pushing their snouts into the abyss and clamping down onto the first thing they touch. You can't even be sure that what you're pulling back is worth it. I always felt as if Discord had a talon in the casting, because so many of the results seemed to be random."

"But not all," the younger quietly said. "We know some are deliberate. Controlled, even if that which came was not. We were there."

"Clover's Pass."

"Yes."

Tails curled in, covered their marks.

"I could have wished to never remember that again," the elder sighed. "I probably did a few times, especially after you weren't there to take the nightmares away..."

A plain statement of "I will be there tonight."

"But if this brings it back for you -- Luna, you've never been able to control your own --"

"-- it does not matter," the younger lied. "Let us focus on the present again. A group of unicorns, united by a working we have never seen before, trying to summon something. The calling spell itself may be an old working, or it may be new: neither of us had ever heard the journey described by the one who was summoned. But the analyzer has recorded what it could, and those results shall be studied by our best researchers." A pause. "We will have to tell the Bearers, sister, once their current mission is complete. And the performer shall need to stay in Ponyville for a time."

"Trixie with a new kind of magic to study and steadily-building wanderlust, researching in direct tandem with Twilight -- when this generation's Magic is up against something she's never tried before." The elder almost smiled. "We may have to reconfigure the disaster relief budget again."

And then she frowned.

"You have thought of something," the younger quickly said. "Speak."

"They missed," the larger mare slowly stated. "Badly."

"It is still possible that they were trying to summon her," the younger hastily interjected. "We should not dismiss the chance of her being a fully innocent victim, but as we have no concept of what the casters were attempting to bring, she may have been the true target --"

"-- not what I meant, Luna." Both forehooves were now dragging little trenches into the cold sand. "Why summon anything into the wild zone? What's there which she was meant to interact with? If they somehow knew about her, if they had a spell which could see into where she came from and knew what that thing could do -- I can picture summoning her to fight against magic. But you were there, and the most magic in the area came from the residue."

"There was the neurocypher, and she seemed to be immune," the younger considered. "But there are other means to combat that monster. And, put mildly, much simpler ones." Visibly thinking harder, forehead creasing near the horn, "The only hoofprints in the area were hers -- and then ours. I saw no physical signs of prior pony presence..." Slowly nodding, "A summoning would generally attempt to bring that which was called into the presence of the casters, the better to try and assert some form of control immediately. You are correct, sister: whatever they meant to summon, whether that was her or another entity -- it was most likely not meant to arrive in the wild zone. They gave her a road, and it fell short of the destination."

"We'll dispatch teams to study the area," the elder decided. "See if there's anything we're missing, just in case there is some major magic out there. One of the deep places, chaos terrain -- anything. But for now, let's work from the idea that they missed. At the very least, she arrived out of their detection range, or too far away for them to reach her in time."

"And this is where the press rather typically works against us," the younger irritably declared. "If they did not mean to summon her, then it is possible that they have no idea of what occurred. But if her arrival was their intent... then there have been headlines. Photographs. For those who pay attention to what is, on this occasion, accurately labeled as 'news,' the nation is aware that a centaur has appeared in Equestria -- and the remainder of the herd would have been told by friends and family, for it is best to be on alert." Darkly, "On watch for the monster. We may have a group attempting to summon centaurs, doing so with unknown magic for a purpose we can barely begin to guess at -- and if a single one of them happens to be either capable of reading or less than allergic to outside air, they know they succeeded."

"Kick this in," the elder glumly added. "They also know that we were involved in the search. And since nopony's seen her since, the very natural suspicion -- currently being distorted into full-fledged conspiracy by a few of the finer 'editorial' columns -- is that we have her. Which in this case, we actually do." A little more dryly, "I'm not sure if it's coincidence or irony that we actually had the 'weapon of mass destruction' argument, only we were talking about the sword. But in this case, the pro-Diarchy papers largely think we took her down quietly and put her in Tartarus: whatever reasons we have for delaying the formal announcement are --" she winced "-- they say 'classified,' and I swear I can see Raque's fieldwriting placing a superimposed 'ineffable'. Those who are a little more against us..."

"Remember Tirek," the younger finished. "All too clearly. And in that half-spoken, 'you cannot prove we meant to imply that' way which they have all mastered, suggest we have some undefined reason to use his powers for our own ends."

The sisters looked at each other. There were times when such was necessary, and more when they simply needed the reminder that the act was once again possible.

"All of this," the younger quietly said, "over a single terrified child."

The elder blinked. "...child?"

The dark head dipped. "I misspoke. Based on what the doctors were able to determine, added to what little I have been able to glean about her life through her nightscape... most likely late adolescence. Standing within the threshold of adulthood."

The white mare managed a smile. "Young enough to dream," the tones of memory declared, "and old enough to start acting on them. We were that age once..."

"I would like to believe," the younger softly replied, "that we still are."

Silence for a while, as the sky began to lighten and the endless call of duty approached.

"Afraid of so much," the younger finally said. "Of what brought her here. Of never being able to go home. But in combat, she postpones her fear, and does so when so many others might not." Almost a whisper, "And with me... with me..."

Carefully, with the left foreleg now carefully reaching across the gap, "Luna?"

The younger didn't reach back. "Nothing, Tia. Nothing worth discussing, not on this night. Simply a matter which has been on my mind for -- some time, and one I will speak with you about once I have resolved it. I vow that this will not go unspoken -- but I am, in a way, attempting to analyze another kind of signature. Grant me that time."

The elder slowly nodded. "As long as we talk."

"We shall." And both knew it was a promise.

The same feeling for both now, a sort of pressure against their hips. As if the fur of their marks was slowly gaining mass.

"You're still visiting her dreams?"

The younger simply nodded.

Oh so very carefully, as if the words themselves might collapse the sand beneath them, "What are they like?"

Silence.

"Luna --"

Sharply, "-- it is my code, sister." The surge of anger was familiar, and colder than the mist rising from dark fur. "I never asked for the ability to dreamwalk, to visit the nightscapes of others. To hear the calls which emerge from the midst of nightmare. I am aware that so much of the time, I could be viewed as an intruder, at least during those occasions when others do not simply call me a voyeur. When there was a chance that she was an invader, I went into her dreams and told you something of what I had learned, because to not do so would threaten our nation. The same as I did in every war where the act was possible at all. Now... I am simply trying to understand the place she came from. To understand her. And unless a crisis appears, or the knowledge I gain becomes necessary to protect or save, it stays with me. I cannot grant her privacy, not when we still do not understand what happened or why. But what few of her secrets I might glean -- they remain in my custody, so that I might be worthy of my burden."

It was one of their oldest fights, something which had reached the point where every possible feint and counter had been memorized. Each knew exactly which words came next and that was why the elder drew on a thousand years of isolation before looking away, all the better not to say them.

Finally, a cautious "...Tia?" broke the silence, accompanied by an outstretched dark foreleg.

"It's funny," the elder softly stated, with her tone openly declaring that it was anything but. "I missed the arguments. Even the ones we should have settled a long time ago. I missed the bad times because at least they were times we had together..."

The white head slowly turned back. Hooves gently touched, and the sky lightened a little more.

"We've talked," the elder quietly said. "We both know what the situation is. We've consulted with each other. But what you're seeing as the solution --"

"-- the necessary," the younger carefully cut in. "As Zepyhra would have said, the needful. I wished to do what I feel she needs. But I also needed to speak with you about the risks. They are --" this time, the dark features turned away for a moment "-- considerable."

"If you go through with this, making the offer -- then it's in your dominion," the elder reminded her. "I can advise. But it's your decision, Luna. What are you going to do?"

The younger looked at the elder again, shifted a little closer while maintaining contact.

"We cannot imprison her indefinitely," she said. "Even if the summoning was for her. To charge an innocent with 'having been chosen by another' -- it is a poor choice of crime. And should it truly have been a miscasting, then we would be locking her away for having been in the wrong place when uncontrolled magic struck." Dryly, "I am certain that Sombra would have told us that our mutual leadership style was finally improving."

The elder wryly nodded. "And I have no illusions about the truth not getting out. There was a time when some of the staff members were using the cells to meet for -- private moments." Which was followed by a weary shrug. "Arguably my fault for putting in the beds. And while they're sworn to protect palace interests, some of the dates they give limited tours to aren't. They don't even have to reach her cell. They just need to see that there's Guards watching an occupied cell, and the story will spread from there."

"Not in the cells," the younger said. "Never in Tartarus. We could certainly grant her land somewhere nopony ever goes, away from all of the settled zones and air paths, a gallop to herself, and..." Stopped, took a slow breath. "I protect her privacy, Tia, as far as I can. But I must say this: it would be far too close to what she had before. She is..."

The elder waited, as the sky brightened and stars faded. Waited until she realized there was no reason to wait any longer.

"It's a risk," the white mare finally said. "She's going to be at risk for every day she's here. And it's more than the public reactions, the things we can't stop. When that cult --" winced -- "'group' -- we may still go with 'cult' after we learn a little more -- when they find out what's going on... Luna, what do we tell her?"

"As much as we can," the younger replied. With faint sarcasm, "Recently, it has felt as if not providing details has a way of working against us." And back to normal tones. "Additionally, all I can do is make the offer. She must accept it. And she should not make that decision without being aware of those risks."

"Agreed --" and then purple eyes widened from the shock of fast-arriving memory. "What about the Princess Haylee gambit?"

The younger started at her sibling. Laughed.

"You recall that?"

"I remember needing three days to get the streets cleaned up afterwards. And that was with six deliberate downpours."

"Yes. Well. Elephants," the younger observed as red began to underlight the dark fur. "Admittedly, other than that initial aftermath, it was successful. For a time. But in this case, Tia, I do not feel it is in anypony's best interests for us to imply the existence of a centaur nation. We are having enough trouble with a very real single sapient without dealing with citizen terrors regarding a visit from imaginary thousands. And you know that. So why would you ever propose such a tactic?"

Wickedly, "It has been a while since the last parade. And since I personally haven't seen elephants in decades --"

The blush wasn't exactly fading. "-- and since I was the one attempting to assemble most of the downpours, I can safely state that if you desire to send elephants marching through Canterlot's streets, you may take responsibility for the cleanup. We have cobblestone now, Tia, and I wish you fortune in finding a means of effectively washing out the hollows." A dark gaze tilted towards the sky. "Which brings us to our time. Together?"

The elder smiled. "Please."

They focused. Concentrated. Sent thoughts and dreams of tomorrow up invisible, unbreakable threads.

There were ways in which it was an everyday sort of miracle. It was the miracle required for every day to exist and in performing it together, the sisters felt blessed.

"You never did tell me where you got the elephants."

"True."

"...you're still not telling me where you got the elephants."

"Correct."

"Because?"

"Because I am fairly certain you would still be angry. Additionally, our relationship with the majority of zebra kraals is currently stable, I can think of at least one subsection of Pundamilia Makazi where the statute of limitations will never run out, it has been eleven hundred and four years since the last time I was sentenced to death, and I would like to maintain that streak. Are you hungry?"

Another hour, so that both could share a meal. (There was no longer an argument among the kitchen staffs about whether that meal was called brinner or dinfast, mostly because the sisters' ears were both attuned to the words and had the reaction directly wired to their hooves.) And then they went down to the cell.

The centaur (the girl, the elder forced, trying it on for size and finding it to be an awkward fit), demonstrating the typical timing of the late adolescent/early adult, had been in the restroom. They'd waited for her, which gave the younger some time to finally discover exactly where that one missing book had wound up. And then they were facing a sapient who was wearing an ill-fitting shirt which had been left behind by a visiting minotaur ambassador three generations ago, plus a repurposed and recently-reattached tablecloth.

They talked. She listened, and her hooves shuffled awkwardly. There were times when her arms went behind her upper back: bringing them forward again showed the hands pressure-marked with red.

Every so often, the blue eyes would close. Unreadable features twisted under silver wire, scrunched before the first tear welled from between tightly-pressed lids. And the younger stepped closer.

"We will continue our efforts towards sending you home," she stated. "But we do not know how much time may be required. And --" she took a deep, unseen breath "-- it may not be possible to perform that magic without the assistance of those who worked the original casting. We may need the one who directed that effort: any notes they have recorded regarding the spell, at the very least."

"And we can't keep you in the cells," the elder gently added, "because you don't deserve it. But at the same time..."

"Tirek," the younger finished. "Nopony can see you without thinking of him."

"Who..." The girl swallowed, brought up her right arm and wiped her eyes on the folded-back sleeve. "...who's Tirek? I know it's a name..."

They told her.
What he had done.
What he was.

"...no," the girl whispered. "I -- I'm not --"

The younger stepped a little closer still. The girl stayed where she was, and the only movements from the centaur were produced by trembling.

"It is all they know," the dark mare quietly, too-steadily told her. "No living citizen had seen a centaur before Tirek came. There were never enough of them to create a nation, for they did not so much breed as appear. He was their first encounter, and everypony who came within his range found the core of themselves pulled away. It was violation on a level few could have imagined. One could argue that we are still attempting to heal a nation in which much of the population was effectively raped. And they are healing, because their magic was returned and the time they spent without it is being glossed over in so many waking hours -- but when they sleep, the nightmares remind them of what took place. What they still fear, for he is alive, and their dreams care nothing for the fact that he is imprisoned, with his power broken. All the dreams know is the terror."

"He stole our magic," the elder softly added. "All magic. He would have destroyed the world, and even the nations he didn't reach know that. You bring it all back simply by existing, because trauma cares little for logic -- and that is why the ponies of Palimyno attacked you on sight."

"And then ponies saw what that thing did when you were holding it," the younger said. (A little closer still. The girl still hadn't moved.) "You wounded magic. It gave them an additional association, and that story has spread. Worse: it has warped. Ponies tell themselves what they believe happened, and then they tell those who write it down. I do not doubt that some minds have already created a menace worse than Tirek, and it has blonde hair and brown fur. They will look at you, and they will see nothing more than a monster. That is what we face, centaur. We are battling an enemy formed from imagination. We are fighting stories. And so many will have already decided which tales to tell themselves." The next words were spat. "The things which, in spite of anything new they might see or experience, they will choose to believe."

The girl was shaking faster now. Hair was being vibrated free from the pins, and the mounds had their own way of trembling.

"But --" the younger carefully went on, and unfurled her left wing.

The elder watched, kicked the surprise to its proper place in the queue, for the time since her sister's Return had seen a near-total absence of casual touching with anypony other than her. But the wing arched forward, the tip made contact with the girl's right foreleg, and the centaur did not move.

"-- being the subject of a story is not a crime," the dark mare told the girl. "Nor is being the focus of false belief, or possessing any degree of resemblance to what came before. We are judging you by your actions -- and with those actions, you have saved pony lives."

"I... I hit the statue in the first place," the girl weakly protested. "I was saving ponies from my own mistake, and I didn't tell you about the neurocypher --"

"-- and I did not ask," the younger interrupted. "Listen to me, centaur. We cannot keep you in the cells, not when you do not deserve them. You could stay voluntarily, as our guest -- but given enough time, those outside the palace would learn of your presence: it is inevitable. And the longer we keep you as a poorly mouth-gripped secret, the worse the citizenry's reaction shall be."

"We could give you an island to yourself," the older added. "Send in supplies, bring you back when it's time to send you home. But --" the white head dipped "-- that could be a long time in isolation. And that's just another kind of prison."

"Or," the younger offered, "we welcome you. We bring you out in front of the citizenry, flanking you. Show them that we are not afraid, and hope that given our example and enough time, some of their fear will fade. But..."

The wingtip shifted slightly against the foreleg. The girl didn't seem to notice.

"...it will not be all," the dark mare finished. "It will never be all, for you have enemies whom you have yet to meet. Those who have a vested interest in hating you --"

"-- I'm used to it."

The centaur's gaze had dropped, a split-second before the stark words emerged. Her arms were at her sides, and both hands were balled into fists.

They looked at her for a few seconds.

"Not on this scale," the younger quietly observed. "For until we find your path home, there is no retreat point. No place of safety, no people waiting to greet you. You have been hated with purposeful intent, centaur: I do not doubt that. But this will be something beyond what you have experienced. Something no one should ever go through -- and yet at the moment we place you under Moon's light, another kind of sentence begins."

"And it's more than that," the elder added, making the words gentle in the futile hopes of lessening their impact. "We told you that somepony brought you here: possibly by accident, potentially with intent. If it's the latter -- then as soon as we say you're here, once we bring you into the public eye, you become a target. They may try to retrieve you." Carefully, "And that could give us our best chance to send you home, because it potentially lets us find out who they are -- but at the same time, they might succeed. They might manage to snatch you away, before we can do anything. And since we have no way of knowing what they'd planned for you..."

The girl breathed and for a full half-minute, that was almost all she did. The blonde tail hung limp, shoulders trembled, and fingernails bit deep into palms.

"We will do our best to protect you," the younger told her. "But honesty requires us to tell you the whole of it: that there is a chance we will not succeed. You could return to your home tomorrow, centaur. But it might require moons of time to open your road, or more. And until then..."

"Protective custody, on a voluntary basis, while knowing that we can't keep it up forever," the elder said. "Your own territory, but -- yours alone. Or we do everything we can to make you part of our nation for as long as you're here, with the understanding that we can never totally succeed, and simply trying may risk your life."

The dark wing folded, and the centaur reacted no more to the loss of contact than its establishment. Not visibly.

"You have the day to make the choice," the younger concluded. "But ultimately, that choice is yours alone."

No response. They hadn't expected one.

"Is there anything you want to ask us?" the elder offered. "Anything at all?"

"Any options you have thought of," the younger added, "where we have not?"

The strange head moved in negation. (It was odd, how that was the same.) But the blue eyes were still downcast. There had been no attempt to look at the siblings. She wasn't looking at much of anything.

"We will see you shortly after Sun is lowered," the younger told her.

They turned. Began to leave --

"-- a hour after sunset," the centaur softly asked, barely choking back the sob. "Please, if you can. I need one extra hour. There's... someone I need to talk to."

Unloveable

She waited until the last echoes of their hoofsteps had faded, gave herself a little time beyond that as her hands clenched ever-tighter with effort, ragged fingernails nearly cutting into her palms, and knew it didn't matter. There were guards outside the cell, and while they seldom made any attempt to look inside --

-- because none of them can stand to look at me --

-- they could hear so much of what she did. She would be unable to conceal all of it from those high-lofted twisting ears, and she didn't doubt that every last bit of what they observed would be reported to their leaders. In that sense, there was no privacy, no hopes for concealing what was about to come.

But the dark mare and white horse didn't need to hear it directly. She couldn't stand the thought of having them as any degree of true witness, not for this. And so Cerea waited until she was sure they were gone, that the only ones watching her were those who always did, and it was only then that she allowed herself to collapse.

As it turned out, the bed had a purpose. She couldn't really sleep on it, and it didn't even serve as a decent place for waking rest. But with all four legs folded under her body, her upper torso fallen forward as much as it could, arms reaching out for anything which might serve as her bruised breasts painfully compressed against the mattress -- there were worse ways to futilely conceal tears than by sobbing into a pillow.

Her face was buried in fabric. She could smell feathers and soap and bleach, the ancient pillowcase was still mostly white and so the ponies had bleach, but she couldn't smell detergent or softeners or any of the thousands of chemical combinations which had assaulted her during those first days among humans, a sensory near-overload which had just about put her on edge from the moment she'd stepped into it, something which had made it so hard just to be polite when nearly every part of her had wanted to run away, gallop until she'd escaped from the horrible stinking world...

I...

She tried to rally, because she knew how it looked from the outside (not that anyone wanted to see her). A weakling. Someone who couldn't deal with the most minor problems. A filly whose response to the smallest push was total collapse.

...knights don't -- they don't cry...

Strictly speaking, this wasn't true. Knights in stories were permitted tears or rather, rare circumstances would permit them to indulge in the singular. Watch an ancestral home burn, mourn the lost potential of those whom destiny had selected to be their foe, perhaps think about the bonds of duty, and a single drop of unwitnessed moisture was perfectly appropriate. Inelegant sobbing, however, seemed to be the exclusive realm of the ones who sat in their cells and waited for rescue.

Knights didn't cry, not on this level. But she wasn't a knight. She never would be.

Lost. Displaced. The terms she had been using for her situation were lies. She had been kidnapped. And it had been days now, days which could turn into months or moons, she might as well start calling them moons because days would accumulate, press down on her with their unrelenting weight, press her deeper into truly foreign soil until her hooves were mired beyond extraction. Until everything was buried.

She had allowed the first seeds of hope to bloom, after that initial meeting with the Princesses. They wanted to send her home, and so it seemed possible that she could go home. But it was magic they didn't understand, created by ponies they might not be able to find, ponies who could find her first. Or it was possible that she had never been the intended target, everything which had happened was simply a grotesque accident and the ones who had destroyed her life would never know. They would resume their casting, try to bring in whatever they had been seeking, and her presence was nothing more than a headline which triggered shivers in all who read it. Instinctive fear of the monster.

She had permitted herself the dubious blessing of hope, and it now seemed as if that had been the mistake. Hope was pain. Hope was self-directed torture. Hope was what had sent her out into human society in the first place: savage, desperate, unreasoning hope. Hope was the refusal to accept reality because you had lied to yourself until the falsehoods accumulated into something very much like belief: the lie that there might be something better out there if only you tried...

Hope had bloomed. But those new shoots were fragile and as Cerea's tears soaked the pillow, the afterthought nose starting to run (because that always happened when she cried for too long, it made her look stupid and she hated it), inner hooves stomped down every sprig of green they could find.

They would look for her: that hoped-for love, friends and rivals, their assigned government liaison and all the forces under her command. In time, her mother would arrive in Japan because it wasn't as if that parent was going to trust anyone to retrieve her daughter properly. They would search, they would do everything they could and then they would --

-- give up.

That's already started.

It's been too many days. Too long with no signs, no clues. They'll start to think I was taken out of the area. They'll expand the search. But in their hearts, it'll be something else. They won't let themselves think it, not for a while, and even Lala might need another week to say it. But she'll be the first, because she'll decide she has to make them confront it. To turn them away from hope so they can face reality. She'll tell them that --

Hope was over.

-- I'm dead.

They need to recognize that I'm dead.

(Powerful hands clutched at the pillow. Little rents opened in the casing, and multihued down began to drift onto the blankets.)

Would there be a funeral? She couldn't see her mother permitting it, not in Japan, for none of her kind had been interred away from that overcrowded cemetery, and there was no body to bury. It was hard to even picture allowing a simple marker for such a disappointment and --

she loves me

-- even if it did happen, her beloved wouldn't be allowed to attend. No human would be brought into the gap, not for that, not when her mother might blame humans for having allowed it to happen, if any time could be taken away from blaming the lost daughter for having been so weak as to die --

she loves me
she loves me

-- and to permit other liminals... no. There wouldn't be a ceremony, any attempt to say farewell. It wasn't as if anyone would even attend because when it came to interaction with her peers, her life had been filled with forced competitions and contests against those who so often crossed the finish line first. None of that had allowed her to make any...

...to make...

She would never go home. She would never be a knight. She would spend what little might be left of her life among those who could only see her as a monster. And there was more than that.

No one will ever love me.

There was nothing in her which could argue with that. Not now, not here, not among ponies. With humans...

...why hadn't she wanted her own kind? Yes, stallions were coarse and rough and frankly stupid, but that was just how they were and mares had managed to deal with it for centuries. There had to be a way of looking at a stallion which made you feel something other than revulsion, and she'd never found it. She'd gone among humans to seek love, and

I didn't know
I didn't know

she'd been so stupid. To think that because some part of her body was familiar to them, that because her features were right

I'm not beautiful or pretty or

and her upper torso could be seen as

but they don't see it that way, not where I

that it would be a place to start. That they would first look at what they knew, and eventually they would come to love the whole. To love her. Except, of course, for what had just occurred to her as an extremely practical and rather belated realization: they could kiss her and cuddle and hug (for she so loved to be hugged) and there could be so many expressions of affection granted to familiar anatomy -- but at the instant it went any further, she would have been asking someone to have sex with a horse.

He loves me.
He cares about me. All of us.

And away from house and world, divorced from all hope, the next thought finally arrived.

But that doesn't mean it's love.

He -- could have loved me. I thought that if we just had enough time, if I could get him away from the others, if he just got to know me --

-- why would anyone who truly knew her ever bother to love her?

He held my hand.
He held my hand and I never wanted him to let go.

That was over too.

No one will ever even touch me.

Kicks didn't count.

How much contact had there been, with her beloved? A fair amount. Never enough. And looking back, forcing herself to be honest at the end of all hope -- so much of it had been initiated by her. She'd asked for his help in grooming, because she wanted him to become accustomed to touching that part of her body: that horrible hope that it would help him to love all of her. It was also another reason for getting him on her lower back, and --

-- how many times did he grab at me, when I shifted too fast for him to adjust?
How many times did I shift on purpose?

She put him at risk of falling and he grabbed for purchase. Grabbed at her breasts. Had she wanted him to touch her there? To have him long for armfuls of softness? The first time, a true accident, because she hadn't considered what would happen after a lifetime without a rider, she'd been angry with him and it had taken a long time to get past it -- but after that? Had it all been a ploy on her part, a subconscious game to make him touch her there? To feel how human she was, at least in that part --

except that as far as he's concerned I'm

-- and want to experience it again? She loved hugs, she loved being hugged, but she seldom got the chance, hardly ever had anyone who would touch her and --

-- how many times did I pull him against me?
To protect him.
To thank him.
To check for fever.
To have an excuse for having him touch me.

It was worse than that.

How many times did I put myself in a situation where I would be embarrassed and start to blush, just so he would hold my hand?

Rachnera would catch me, and he would free me. He would help groom the silk out of my fur. He would be brushing me and telling me it was all right and he would hold my hand and I'd tell him there were some strands over there and he could try to remove those too and if he just touched me enough, if there were enough excuses for making him touch me, it was time together where he was touching me and if we had enough time together and he just got used to me he would love --

-- he --

-- he didn't love me.

(Perhaps he had.)

He never would have loved me.

(Perhaps he could have.)
(It didn't seem to matter any more.)

No one will ever love me.

Three fingers went through the pillowcase. She raised her head just enough to blow her nose.

...who did she want him to love?

It was a strange thought, and all the stranger for how sudden and sincere it was. But she wanted him to be happy. She'd lied to herself about being the one who could do that, along with protecting him: something else where she’d failed over and over. But she was no better than second to anyone, and when it came to protecting...

...no. She wouldn't. When it came to familiar anatomy, Tionishia almost had everyone else beaten. With the exception of the lone horn protruding from the forehead and some odd angles on the ears, everything the ogre had was human: there just happened to be a lot of it. And she could certainly protect. But there was also a certain innocence there, and it existed on a level which made dating difficult: Tionishia's idea of a good time was a tea party, and there was still a chance that half the attending guests would be made of rags and porcelain.

Zombina, however, was very much an adult in body and mind. And she was fully human, or had once been. She also happened to be dead, which presented a certain barrier to many forms of intimacy: for starters, love bites were right out. And neither she nor the ogre were actually part of the household.

Not Suu. Not Papi. Not Mero.

She shuddered.

Not Rachnera.

Not that she felt Rachnera truly loved him, at least not so much as the arachne loved getting in the way. Rachnera's passions centered around inducing reactions, and it now seemed as if constantly trolling the others by making them think she was a true part of the game... It gave her frequent cause for satisfaction. Rachnera respected their host, and that was rare enough for one of the spiders. But she didn't love him.

So it was Miia or Lala. And Miia was almost like a sister to Cerea, albeit a sibling of a separate species who had a bad habit of sleepily wrapping her on cold mornings. She knew Miia wasn't a bad match for him, although there was a risk of death which was constant and dual: being on the receiving end of her loving or eating her cooking, make your choice. But with Lala...

In body, the dullahan was effectively human: just with a different skin color and strange sclerae. (The fact that the head was detachable was something you almost got used to: coming across that head in unexpected places guaranteed the adjustment process was never complete, and Lala had refused to explain that one time with the dishwasher.) Admittedly, she had something which almost approached an inverted aura: the opposite of presence. If she wasn't talking, it was possible for the housemates to forget Lala was in the room, or even within the residence. And she had a propensity towards drama which was generally found in the worst of teen vampire romance novels or worse, those who had recently read them --

-- but she was kind. As patient as the grave. Just about as all-embracing. And when it came to protecting, she would guard her beloved unto death. And beyond.

Lala or Miia. It would never be her (and she had almost convinced herself it never could have been), so she wanted it to be one of them. She was almost glad to have settled it.

Her ears twisted, tilted back and focused on the sounds coming from the hallway. Awkwardly-shifting hooves, almost shuffling in place. As she'd expected, they'd been able to hear her crying, and none of them had any idea what to do about the situation. After all, who could understand what would upset a monster? It was best not to come in, really. No one should get too close, lest she rip their magic away.

She hadn't been expecting any of them to enter anyway. Not during the day shift.

Cerea cried for a while, because her home was forever lost. She cried because she would never see her family again, because she would never have anyone love her, because everything and everyone she knew was gone and she would forever be looked at as being nothing more than a monster. She wept into the pillow because to believe all of that would be true forever was easier than feeling it could change, because hope felt like poison. It was the sugar which sweetened a future she could never reach, even as it steadily rotted everything from within.

She cried because in so many ways, every dream she'd ever had was dead, and there was only one person who cared enough to mourn.

She cried until the tears ran out, until all she could do was sniffle against saturated fabric. And then she forced herself to stand up, went into the restroom and filled cupped hands with water, splashed it against her features until her face was clean.

Some time was spent in attempting laundry. She'd both soaked and stained the pillow, along with causing a degree of damage. She wanted to be a good guest.

And then she waited for sunset. For the arrival of the only voice she wanted to hear.

She finished her recounting, and the deep black pegasus awkwardly stared up at her.

"Um," Nightwatch said. "Why?"

Cerea's initial response was to simply tilt her head in confusion: the realization that the expression probably wasn't recognizable came a split-second too late. "Why...?" But the tone was asking for clarification.

The wings twitched into a minor adjustment of position: feathers rustled. (Her wings were always moving when she was near Cerea: slowly, often subtly -- but they moved, and so the air around the pegasus' body shifted to suit.) "Why do you want to know what I think?"

She managed to fake a weak smile, and realized that meant nothing either -- but did so just in time to recognize that having had it be a tight-lipped one was a good thing: she understood something about horse body language, she was among ponies, and showing teeth could be taken as a sign of aggression.

"There are worse things," Cerea quietly said, "than seeking the counsel of a knight. What do you think I should do?"

The pegasus slowly, unsteadily sat down. The tail splayed a bit. Her wings kept moving.

"The cells aren't realistic," the Guard finally said. "Not forever. Sometimes ponies on the staff -- um. They... um. They take --" and it was just barely possible to spot skin going red under dark fur "-- breaks. Together. They take breaks down here, because they think most ponies have forgotten the cells are even under the palace. And they're right, mostly. But eventually, there's going to be ponies who take a break, and -- somepony will say something. Eventually."

Cerea silently nodded.

"There's lots of islands," Nightwatch continued. "Places off the coast which are legally part of Equestria --" (Which finally told Cerea the nation's name, or at least what the translator had decided to provide for it.) "-- but aren't ever used: only two islands have settlements, and nopony was planning on starting a new one any time in the next few years. There's legends which say the Princesses used at least one for a private prison --" Stopped. Blinked. "-- um..."

The centaur remained quiet and still. She was standing at the furthest point away from the door, hindquarters half-pressed into a corner (and part of a bookcase), and she hadn't taken a single step forward since she'd heard the Guard arrive and softly called out the request to have that pony enter her cell. It seemed best to keep some distance between them. To make the meeting that much less disturbing.

"...anyway," the pony forced herself to go on, "they're very private. And some of them are kind of pretty. So it wouldn't be hard to find a nice one for you, something where anything harmful could be cleared out. It's not impossible for somepony to find you there, or someone from one of the other nations. But spells could be set up to fight that. Make it a little more hidden..."

"Creating a gap," Cerea quietly said, "in the world."

The pegasus blinked again. “...yes."

The centaur waited.

"It would be pretty safe," Nightwatch said. "And warm, if they picked a good one. Plus I -- guess it's possible to get used to wild weather? But it would be -- um. It would be... you'd just be -- there -- are you okay?"

No. "I'm fine," Cerea lied. "Why?"

"Because..." The tail shifted somewhat. "...I usually can't really tell what you're feeling. Not from your face. But just now, you looked -- you almost looked like someone who was -- hurting." More awkwardly, "Or like someone who'd already been hurt, and they were remembering going through it. Someone who didn't ever want to do that again..."

It was Cerea's turn to blink.

I'm trying to learn how to read them...

The process wasn't exactly one-way.

"It's nothing,” she lied again. "And the -- other option?"

The pony was quiet for a while.

"What did you do?" The dark head tilted up a little more, made eye contact. "In your home. Um. I mean for a living."

Cerea sighed. "I... didn't." The shame started to rise up again: she knew how much she cost to house, all the damage she and the others had caused, how little she'd contributed in return --

It doesn't matter.

"I was a student," she made herself finish. "An exchange student, if that translates."

The pegasus nodded. "We have a few. Um. Not very many. But sometimes, one of the other nations will agree to a swap."

So at least that had been understood -- but it was about to get harder. "It's..." How could she even put it? "...new. I was one of the first. It's..."

The pegasus was waiting.

Cerea sighed. Just try. If only because trying was a prerequisite for failing. "There's a dominant species, where I come from. And centaurs aren't it. There -- aren't all that many of us, compared to the humans."

"Humans," the pony carefully said. "We don't have those. What do they look like?"

Cerea carefully brought her right hand to her waist, leveled her open palm, then slowly raised it until her fingers brushed against her hair.

"Only with different ears," she said. "And no horse bodies. Two legs."

Which was when the centaur truly learned what pony nausea looked like.

"Oh," Nightwatch tried. "Um... how many are there?"

"Enough to hide from," Cerea quietly replied. "And it wasn't just centaurs. There were a lot of species, like the gryphons I know. Ones who were a little like humans, but not enough. We thought -- they would be afraid of us. They were, once, and then there were so many more of them, enough to destroy us. So we hid ourselves away. But we couldn't stay hidden forever. Something happened, and -- we came out. A few of us were chosen to go into human cities as the first wave of exchange students. To become part of their world. To let them get used to us..."

To find the ones who would love us.
Who would love me.

And she'd failed.

"So that no one would be afraid any more," the pegasus quietly finished.

Cerea nodded.

Almost too softly, barely audible at all. "Did it work?"

Seconds passed. Time in which they were just looking at each other.

"...no." Cerea's head dipped, eyes nearly closing. "Some people accepted us. Others didn't. It was never going to be everyone: it never could be. There were a lot of humans who hated us. Hated me. But there was one man who --" and stopped.

It hadn't been in time. "Who what?"

"It doesn't matter," Cerea said, because she'd told herself it didn't. "Not now." And then, with open bitterness, because she'd spent so much time in inner cursing against her luck after she'd found out, "Besides, he was into legs."

Nightwatch's silver gaze moved down. Very, very slowly.

"But you have nice legs," the mare awkwardly decided. "Um. I mean, they're a little long, but they're very shapely. Strong. Powerful. They're good legs. Um. Better than mine. And he didn't like them?"

Cerea winced.

"It's..." and sighed. "Here..." She forced her hooves to move forward, because the cell was well-furnished and in a touch right out of the best stories, those furnishings included a writing desk, so that the prisoner might write long letters to their beloved regarding their sad fate. Destined never to be mailed, of course, but the important thing was that you got to write it down. Besides, it allowed the author to quote extensive tragic passages and those gave Mero something to do, which was mostly quoting them all over again.

She awkwardly angled her body, adjusted a few times until she was at a roughly appropriate height and could see what she was doing. Dipped the quill, then began to work.

Because a proper knight (which she would never be) was expected to master more than combat. You had to know the ins and outs of courtly etiquette. It helped to have some understanding of politics. And it seemed to be an absolute requirement that each candidate master at least one artistic skill. In Cerea's case... she could sing, but that was true for just about every mare: the flexibility of the centaur voice box gave the species a rather impressive range. Still, she was better than average there. Just not first.

But she could also sketch. Not well: she wasn't particularly good at composing from pure imagination, considered herself to be rubbish with color balance, and often required a model. But it was enough to reproduce something she'd seen a few times, with a fair amount of detail.

The quill moved. She tried to fix a few errors, wound up mostly smearing them into different errors, and eventually started over on a second sheet.

"Human leg," she eventually said, and held up the paper. "And that's one of their ears on the right."

The pegasus stared.

"Ugh," Nightwatch opinionated. "Oh... feet... ugh... um..." A quick swallow, which trapped most of the increased nausea. "So you were a student...?"

"Sort of," Cerea sighed, placing the sketch back on the desk. "I didn't actually get to attend the schools. They were refitting houses to accommodate us, but the schools were taking too long and some of the principals for the prestigious academies were actively fighting having us there. They had enough power to stall. It meant I wound up taking --" and her next words made the wire hiss "-- a lot of online courses. By email."

The little Guard tilted her head to the right. Shook it a few times, twisted her ears back and forth.

"You went to school," she eventually said, "by sending mail through the air with electric fire?"

Cerea blinked.

They don't have computers.

"...yes?"

"Your home," a sincerely-impressed pegasus decided, "has more in common with us than I thought." And before Cerea could respond to that, "What were you going to do when you graduated?"

She wasn't a knight.
She had never been one.
She never could have been.

"It doesn't matter," the girl quietly replied. "I... was trying to do something stupid. Something I wasn't right for. I just didn't figure it out in time."

"You can fight, though," Nightwatch said. "You could have --"

"-- I lost." Blue eyes briefly closed. "A lot."

"You're breathing," the pegasus gently countered. "That usually means you won."

It usually meant I'd been humiliated. And that her blouse had been torn again, with everyone staring at what shifted with every breath.

"And you carry -- that thing," Nightwatch continued. "You're good with it." Thoughtfully, "Did all the students carry one? So they could defend themselves if someone --"

Cerea's response was instinctive, unstoppable, and both dark ears flattened against the skull.

"-- that's what it sounds like when you laugh," the pegasus forced out.

"I'm sorry --"

"-- or when you laugh and you're not happy." The wings stretched, continued their slow shifts. "When you laugh because you hate something and laughing feels easier than screaming."

The girl stared at the adult.

"I laugh like that sometimes," Nightwatch evenly stated. "On the worst days. Why did you laugh?"

The centaur took a slow breath, felt the shirt pull against her. Watched the mare listen as Cerea told her about the laws.

"That's not the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Nightwatch said.

"Really?"

"No. I've been guarding Princess Luna since two weeks after the Return. I've spent a lot of time with her, so I'm usually there when somepony opens their mouth and lets their dumb fall out. I've heard a lot of stupidity." The dark tail was lashing. "But you did just take over second place. First is still that griffon astronomer who tried to get into the Lunar throne room so he could lecture her about how Moon didn't exist. He never got in. She came out. And he left. Faster than he'd arrived. And that was with his legs iced up."

"...oh." (She didn't have trouble with the idea of someone having said that a perfectly visible celestial body wasn't real. There were still humans insisting that a lot of their kind had suddenly chosen to move around in rubber suits.)

"You can't even protect yourself," the mare slowly said. "That's... that's just..." She took a deep breath. "But you want to know what I think. About your staying in Equestria. About trying to just -- be. Um. Being yourself while you're here. Among us." And again. "You really want to know?"

Cerea nodded, because that was the same for both. Waited.

The little pegasus took one more breath. Gathered her strength, and said what had to be said.

"You scare me."

Cerea's eyes closed. Her shoulders slumped as both hands fell open, and a blonde tail went limp.

"I..." She heard the pegasus swallow. "I was there. When Tirek... he..." And now those wings had accelerated into something approaching a flap. "...Guards... get in the way. We buy time. It's what we're supposed to do. I got in the way for somepony else when I knew what would happen, and he... it was like being kicked by a mountain. Kicked in my soul. I go back there sometimes when I sleep, and... there's too many of us. She can't help all of us, not every night. I see you, and I think about him. I see you and I'm scared. The first time I opened your cell door, I used my magic to shift the air around me, so you wouldn't smell how scared I was, because sometimes we can smell fear on each other and I thought you might be able to do that too. I move the air all the time when I'm near you, enough that it makes my wings ache after I leave. I'm scared..."

The weight of that unscented fear multiplied itself by the unknown population of a nation, pressed against the full length of Cerea's back, began to drive her into the floor --

-- and then the wingbeats stopped.

Feathers rustled. Stilled as they moved into the rest position.

"Wait a few seconds," the little mare softly said. "Just... wait. Let the air currents go back to normal. Please."

It wasn't that she waited, really. She was in a cell. She had nowhere to go, nowhere she could ever go, and so the time simply passed until the fear filled the air again, went into her nostrils and soaked into her brain and --

-- the blue eyes opened. Looked into silver.

"You're scared," Cerea quietly stated.

The pegasus silently nodded.

"But you're... you're not that scared," the girl softly observed. "It's closer to being nervous. Worried --"

"-- you didn't have to save us, in the forest," Nightwatch said. "You could have run. Nopony could have stopped you, not in time, not when we couldn't think. It's hard to fight a neurocypher directly, even for an earth pony: it takes so much strength to crack the shell and it's a bad idea, just staying close. But you went after it. With that -- thing... with a sword which doesn't even have an edge. For the second time. Ponies could have died, and you fought." More softly, "You were trying to drive it back, weren't you? Away from us. That's why our heads cleared, because you were getting it out of range and you were wounding its magic with every blow. You tried to protect us on instinct. And..."

Her wings flared. Flapped.

They were still looking at each other: direct eye contact. But there was no longer any need to look down.

Nightwatch hovered, just about two feet away from Cerea's face. It was close enough for the wind from her wings to ruffle blonde hair, even as it blew the papers off the writing desk.

"...it's harder to be afraid of someone," the little mare quietly observed, "after you've read her a story. After you've seen that she's... scared too, scared without a flock or herd she can ask for help. Scared because she's so far from home and alone, scared because there's monsters, things she doesn't understand in a place she’s never known, and still, when something happens -- she doesn't run. She fights. For the ones she's afraid of."

And Cerea couldn't move. She just felt her hair shifting across her face, blown loose from the pins. The warmth of the pegasus' breath.

"It won't ever be everypony," Nightwatch told her. "There's always going to be ponies who are afraid of you, and so it won't ever be everypony who accepts you. But... it also won't be everypony who's afraid of you. Not forever. And if there was somepony who tried to bring you here, on purpose, if they come to take you -- I’ll fight for you."

Silence, but for the soft sounds of the hover which created the face-to-face meeting, a hover which never should have worked. Something which only magic allowed to exist at all.

"...you're crying."

Cerea nodded.

"Is it because you're sad?"

"...yes." With a weak smile, one which was careful not to show teeth. "Mostly. And scared. Lady --"

With a little huff of insistence, "Guard. Um. Nightwatch."

"-- what am I supposed to do now?"

Cerea wondered if the pony's expression represented a smile.

"I don't know. What did you decide?"

"So we are now in a regretfully familiar place," the dark Princess said from her place sitting high on the raised throne. "Needing to keep the secret while simultaneously expanding the conspiracy."

"We're buying time," the white horse (standing near the throne's base) added. "Part of that is for making you presentable."

Cerea looked from one to the other, felt the breeze from the ongoing hover at her left side, produced by the only Guard who had entered the meeting. "Presentable?"

"You are still injured," the elevated mare stated as the dark gaze moved across bruises and contusions. "Visibly so. You heal rather quickly, but you have yet to finish the process. And one could argue that bringing you to the populace in such a battered state would be preferable because they would see that you can be beaten -- but I would prefer for you to be healthy."

"We also need to begin educating you," the taller observed. "Not just about our nation and the world. About what you're facing, and who."

The dark mare nodded. "Additionally," she said, "while the initial portion of the proceedings will be concealed from sight, the legality of the total shall be visibly brought over the stile. As of this moment, you are no longer intruder or invader. But in order to grant you our full protection, it is necessary to apply another definition. One which comes with its own paperwork --"

The cool gaze turned into more of a squint.

"-- is that a wince?"

Cerea tried (and failed) to force her features into some form of neutrality.

"I ask because in order to more properly understand each other, it is necessary that each of us become educated in the other's expressions," the dark Princess declared. "Also because I am fairly certain you are wincing."

I just did this... "Yes." She was probably going to be introduced to the pony equivalent to Ms. Smith. Cerea wondered if it would be possible to get that mare out of bed for the first meeting in under a week.

"Good," that mare decided. "So that is a wince. Be assured that I will remember what it looks like. You will also require a tutor --"

"-- I can do some of that," Nightwatch quickly said. Which was followed by a more awkward "Um. Well. I spend a lot of time in her cell anyway." Hastily, "Outside her cell." A deep breath. "...in?”

Both Princesses were now looking at the pegasus, and Cerea couldn’t figure out the identical expression.

“A portion,” the dark mare slowly said. “As you wish, Nightwatch. But your mark is hardly for teaching, and you are known to be less than fully expert in history. We may need to add experts at a later date, especially given the legal requirements.” (The pegasus nodded.) “But with your participation, we can begin immediately.”

And she looked at Cerea.

“We will continue our efforts to send you home,” the dark Princess stated. “But until that night arrives -- welcome to Equestria, centaur.” The silver-shod left forehoof came up, briefly pressed against the moon-embossed metal plate. “Let us hope none of us have too-frequent cause to regret this.”

In a way, that was when it all truly began.

And when Cerea looked back at the last, she would realize it had also been the moment when it all ended.

Nightmarish

From the edge of nightmare, she watches the centaur run.

So many of the dreams have centered around running, and there are several reasons for that. The ongoing imprisonment is not the least of them, for to confine just about any sapient will eventually lead to a nightscape where the captured can run free -- if only for a time. And with ponies... there has always been a part of the pony mind which longs for the gallop, demands that cold air enter lungs which feel as if they're catching fire, hooves pounding against the solid world as a constant declaration of my path, my will, my home. Even pegasi aren't immune, and those who never descend below the vapors will still find their nightscape selves racing across a dream of pastures. Everypony visits that pasture eventually, and perhaps it serves as a preview to what awaits them in the shadowlands. The last pasture. The final fields.

Some part of a pony always wants to gallop and in this aspect, the dark mare suspects the centaur isn't the least bit different. She longs to run, and so part of the observer's mind notes that they have to find a way for the girl to get some exercise. To release a tiny portion of the stress, for to confine a pony for too long... well, perhaps centaurs suffer from their own version of Stable Syndrome: the reason why the primary aspect of so many punishments starts with confinement. After a while, some ponies will do just about anything to be free again, and most of them start with lying about a personal reform.

In other dreams, she has found the girl running because the cell door only exists in the waking world. Running because she wants, needs to run. Running because she's lost, she doesn't know where she is or how she got here or if there's any way home, but if she just runs, home will eventually appear. All she has to do is spend the rest of her life running through everything which isn't her home and whatever's left is where she belongs.

It took a while for the dark mare to realize where that dream was truly headed. That the girl was trying to run down infinity, and the intruder managed to twist just before everything would have gone wrong.

She is watching the girl run, and is doing so from concealment. Not that the girl would know to look for her, or have any concept of how the intruder might manifest -- but concealment nonetheless, for some are more attuned to their nightscapes than others, more readily sense intrusion, and a near-secret of the nightscape is that while only the dark mare may wander, all have the potential to manipulate. Some more than others, yes: anypony fully lacking in imagination generally just recreates their waking time all over again, and those would be doing well just to deliberately change the color of a pebble. But for those who are aware they are dreaming, who realize somepony is there... if they think to do so, they can fight her. Not well, most of the time: she has the benefit of both power and experience, can usually spot a potential attack simply because she's seen that tactic before. But some fight, and -- she's still not completely sure what the girl is capable of. It's best to be cautious.

Just about everything is mutable in the nightscape, for those aware of the dream -- but to purposefully alter one's appearance is one of the hardest things there is. In dream, the true self-identity tends to emerge: without a setting to encourage and stabilize the change, the dreamer generally appears as they truly perceive themselves. (Even now, after so much time, it takes a minor effort of will for the dark mare to appear in the form everypony expects.) It can make concealment difficult, and so the dark mare tends to use the environment. In this case, it's simple: the girl has not thought to look up. She has -- other concerns, and it lets the observer use a piece of dream-woven cloud as both support and camouflage.

The vapor keeps pace overhead, as the girl runs. And there are so many reasons to run, for the joy of it, the need, the desperate search for home...

...but this is a nightmare.

The girl runs within the mobile window created by shifting fog because oblivion chases her. And if she stops, she will die.

The road changes again under pounding hooves, and the girl nearly stumbles. There have been too many surfaces during the mad gallop, and the dark mare doesn't understand what some of them are: the cruel-seeming black which both captures and radiates heat was especially nauseating. But it's easy to recognize trestle ties, and the girl tries to make her hooves land on the railroad's wooden planks, does her best to do so without losing speed, and the wall of nothing just keeps coming. It is currently ten body lengths behind her and where it crosses, the rails do not evaporate. They simply are not -- or worse, never were.

She is running because there is no other choice. She is running because to stop moving will mean she ceases to exist. Her hooves shift across a changing landscape, and the body racing across a new kind of chaos terrain sees some of its anatomy vibrate, while other portions shake, bounce --

-- twist.

In dream, the true self-identity tends to emerge. The way the dreamer might forever perceive themselves at the core, no matter how many centuries of tarnish build up on the exterior. And in dream... the girl is not as she appears in the waking world. The world around her is unstable, changing from instant to instant, and the girl...

She loses a step to a shift in the road, and the body sheds muscle tone. There are times when she is too thin, almost sickly. Another stumble finds her visibly overweight. One instant shows dimmed eyes, another finds twisting ears which will never hear the doom approaching, the sickening hiss of air meeting its end.

The girl gallops, and it's not good enough because while the nature of the flaw might vary from moment to moment, there is always something wrong with her. Something which renders all her efforts into a joke, and yet she runs because her failure will serve as the final punchline --

-- and yet she runs.

And now she is running towards something.

It takes the dark mare a second to recognize it, that the forward edge of the fog is beginning to part. That there's someone standing there, a being she can't quite make out. A biped, possibly, one with dark hair, and she can see those arms moving forward, hands palms-up, reaching for the girl, who puts on a final effort, leaning forward, trying to touch --

-- the insect legs erupt from the fog, nearly as tall as the biped and moving so much more quickly. Smooth chitin scoops inwards, presses against ribs and stomach as a low-pitched female giggle shakes the world.

The biped is pulled backwards into the fog. Vanishes as the giggling becomes a chorus, joined by lower tones, and the dark mare wonders if the last expression she saw was meant to be a smile.

The girl stops moving.

The body is sickly and overweight and half-lame and completely still. She stands with slumped shoulders and closed eyes, simply waiting for oblivion to reach her, for there is no reason to run anymore. And the vacuum surges forward, the girl refuses to move and

the dark mare twists.

It takes too much: it always has. Slow, subtle changes, or simply working with what the dreamer has already provided -- that's second nature now. Suggestions generally need a channel: perhaps this road goes where you wished to be, or the scent (for the mare has already noticed that the girl's dreams include scent) will remind you of something important. But to take an entire nightscape and wrench it... that is like redirecting lightning, and doing so at the moment of impact against the mare's own body. Feeling the first instant of electrocution and doing anything to keep it from becoming the last.

The intruder nearly loses the supporting cloud in the tremendous effort, has to find room in the silent-yet-half-screamed instructions for reminding herself that gravity is purely optional here. The rest banishes the fog, turns the road into a narrow path between familiar trees, sends the nightscape to a fully natural spring in a world which has never known the gentle care of pegasus weather control or the encouraging song which earth ponies send through the soil. It shreds the danger while shedding years, and the girl's form stabilizes as it shrinks, for the self of memory had yet to trick itself into such levels of distortion --

-- and then there is a filly standing in too-familiar woods.

The dark mare collapses across what little remains of the false vapor, presses a forehoof against her aching head and is momentarily surprised at contact with the horn.

You are home. The nightmare fades, for you are home. Safe. Let yourself be home...

The filly, whose blouse and arms are now dapple-tinted by sunlight moving through leaves, abruptly looks up.

The dark mare curls her body (which seems to be somewhat smaller now), tucks into a tight ball of what may be about to become rather unwelcome life. For to twist still takes too much, and turning nightmare to dream is the sort of thing which can alert a dreamer to intrusion. Make them recognize not only that somepony is present, but that there might be a means to fight -- and the first strike would come in an instant when the dark mare has yet to center again, is still trying to recover her strength. If a battle begins now --

-- but then the filly turns her attention back to the trees. To an adult who's just barely visible through bushes and branches and foliage, an adult who has no idea the filly is there.

You are home, the dark mare softly reminds the filly. Home...

And now the filly is moving. Hooves step carefully, trying to make every impact land on noise-absorbing soil. She's tracking the adult from a distance, watching her move. And the dark mare holds the dream together as long as she can, but the rhythms of the sleep cycle move on and she can just barely keep the girl in her own past long enough to get some sense of what might be happening. The filly isn't just observing the adult, and tracking might only be part of it. She's -- looking for something --

-- but then the trees shake. The ground vibrates, the sky begins to dissipate, and the intruder is in her throne room again. Thinking about everything which was seen, trying to make sense of it.

It could be argued that there was no need to twist. The nightmare would not have killed the centaur. (It is almost impossible to craft a killing dream, and the exceptions are things which should never happen again.) But the waking would have been harsh, a mind recoiling from the edge of what would have felt so much like death. Trauma added onto trauma, and... the girl had

stopped.
Completely stopped.
Knowing what was coming, what would happen, and she'd -- stopped.

The intrusions will continue.

Cerea was staring at the huge stack of unreadable forms and the paperwork, using the dark power which came from having that much bureaucracy concentrated in one place, appeared to be staring right back. It didn't help to have at least two of the symbol-heavy characters resemble eyes.

"Um," a worried Nightwatch said, which really didn't accomplish anything.

The centaur sighed.

"I just did this," she quietly observed, mostly to herself. "And at least they were written in French." Technically, anyway: it hadn't taken all that long to realize that the exchange student program application forms had actually been composed in Bureaucrat. "I don't even know how to start..."

"I can read them to you," the pegasus offered. "And help you fill it out. But some of it... um. I don't think we can do all of it together. There's another pony involved, or there should be. He'll be the one who gets you through most of it. I think the Department just sent this over in advance. Because the palace requested the forms, and the forms arrived before the pony. But..." Silver eyes had focused on the top sheet. "Some of the requirements can't apply to you, not without some help."

"Like what?" If nothing else, she was vaguely curious about the exact nature of the approaching disaster.

"Birth paperwork from a recognized nation, as proof of identity. Um. It's not like you were carrying any..."

Cerea sighed. "I had an --" and wondered how the disc would translate it "-- identification card. Something which showed that I'd filled out all the forms already. It was supposed to substitute." Her herd had kept written records of all births and deaths, and such had been official enough to be accepted by some of the human governments. "But it's somewhere in the forest."

"And your nation isn't recognized," Nightwatch went on -- stopped. Feathers awkwardly rustled. "Um. I know you have one, but it's not a good idea to make anypony think about that for too long." Dark legs reluctantly shifted a little closer to the writing desk, with wings flaring out in alarm as the old wood creaked under triplicate weight. "But we've had residents get through without that before. Yapper did, and the Princess intervened on her behalf."

"Yapper?" She wasn't entirely sure how the disc translated names: there seemed to be a good chance that 'Nightwatch' was just the original root definition of whatever the pegasus was truly called, or that Cerea was just getting part of the little knight's title. 'Yapper', however, seemed to imply a certain set of traits, none of which would ever stop talking long enough to let anyone ask what they were.

"Um..." The Guard took a slow breath. "She's part of the palace staff. Maintenance. Usually on the Lunar shift. You'll probably see her eventually. I..." and even for the pegasus, the pause felt exceptionally awkward "...think that should wait for a while."

Okay... But she trusted the little knight. "So not having papers is a problem, but you think the Princess --" wait "-- which Princess?"

"Princess Luna," Nightwatch clarified. "It's her dominion. And usually when somepony on the Lunar shift says 'the', it's her. The Solars mean Princess Celestia. It's just -- how we talk." The dark tail shifted slightly. "Anyway, she should be able to get you past that, because she's done it before for someone else, so there's precedent. But there's trickier parts. Like..." and the pegasus swallowed. "...communication. Anyone who's going to be staying for -- a while -- needs to understand the language and be capable of responding." More quickly, "That doesn't always mean speech. There's a sort of language which some mute ponies use, but it... um... it's built on foreleg gestures, tail movements, and --" with a very reluctant look up "-- ear positioning. And your ears are in the wrong place to start with. Plus not all that many ponies understand signing. But right now, you're relying on magic, and if anypony challenges you, or the palace needs the device back..."

Cerea took a slow breath, felt the shirt pull against her again: the sensation increased as she raised her right hand towards her neck. All right. It was something like --

"...I mean, nopony expects a new arrival to be fluent when they cross the border! Um. Well, some ponies do. Not... very nice ponies. So there's time to learn. But you're... you're not..." Another, deeper gulp. "...Tirek. You're not him. I have to remember that you're -- anyway, he could speak Equestrian. But just because he could doesn't mean you can. I don't know if --" and the silver eyes finally focused on what was happening. "-- don't take that off! We can't --"

But the overlay of meaning vanished as the metal lost contact with Cerea's ear, leaving nothing more than a frantic whinny and a little horse who was staring up at her, one foreleg now desperately gesturing towards the freshly-removed disc.

Cerea shook her head, because they had that in common. Took another, deeper breath, placed the palm of her left hand against her own throat and felt the faint vibrations of her own pulse. Opened her mouth. Tried.

The pegasus blinked. And after that response repeated three more times, Cerea replaced the disc.

Almost desperate, "Did you understand me? And what did I say?" Because that was a subject of some concern. "It's something I've heard outside the door a few times, before I can get the disc on, usually when there's hooves getting close. I thought I had it memorized, but I couldn't be sure --"

"-- um," and the undertone was pure amazement. "You said... that you were coming on shift. Roughly." More quickly (because Cerea's expression was already beginning to fall), "Roughly for meaning. You had the sounds right, but that's not the exact words. It's just how we announce that we're taking a turn. Something Guards say to each other. You --" and the pegasus was staring again, with the silver gaze growing bright "-- you can speak..."

"...I can mimic," Cerea softly countered. "Our foals make sounds like yours when they're young, before their first words in our language." Doing so as an adult was regarded as having kicked all civilization away, but it wasn't as if her mother was going to know about this particular bit of disappointment for a while. "We don't lose the capacity. So I can make the right sounds, but if I don't have the disc on, then I don't know what any of them mean. And it's not always easy to connect them when I'm using the magic, because I don't know if the disc is rearranging your syntax. Like if... every sentence in your language starts with the verb, but I hear it in what would be my normal place because that's just how the spell works."

"But you could learn," Nightwatch quickly said. "You just need a teacher, and time. And... um. Did you know that you sounded a lot like Balistraria just then? Like almost exactly? Because she always announces when she's coming on shift, every time, so if you picked it up from anypony --"

"We're good mimics." Although that was a generalization and when it came to herself... she was no better than second.

The dark tail abruptly twitched.

"Um. You've been listening."

Cerea nodded.

"With the disc off," the little knight added.

Again. It was the only way to hear the full complexities of the natural sounds.

"...what did you hear us say?"

"I don't know," the centaur girl rather reasonably replied. "The disc was off. Why?"

"Because there was this thing with Bulkhead and..." Another twitch, with this one coming a little closer to lash. "...um. It was early, so maybe you were just getting up. And didn't have the disc on yet. And heard it." Black ears went straight back. "Um..."

But that was when the hoof rapped on the cell door, and both females stopped. A second later, Acrolith pushed it open.

"We've cleared a path," the layer-hued earth pony mare told them. "The Princess wants their first meeting to take place away from the cells. Follow me up."

And then she was waiting in what felt like a rather informal sort of conference room, something where the padding on the benches showed a few old food stains and the paintings... well, it wasn't as if Cerea had the background to truly appreciate pony art. It was possible that having the frames set at those askew angles was actually supposed to mean something significant, or at least something other than 'the decorator was tipsy.' Which stood in not-quite-contrast to the artwork, where she was almost certain the painter had just been drunk.

The room smelled somewhat of old herbs and drinks which hadn't quite been finished. There was a mug on the center table, about one-quarter full with a creamy yellow fluid. It let her identify a source, for some of the Guards walked around smelling like -- well, like the liquid. Usually at the beginning of a shift or near the end. Or towards the middle. Plus there was one who, in retrospect, must have been bathing in it.

The scent told her that it was safe for her to consume, and she left it right where it was because it was only a quarter-full and she didn't know who'd had the rest of it. Additionally, it was possible for someone to walk in on her while she was finishing it off, and that was why her ears were twitching forward. Listening for the sounds of approach.

She was meeting someone. Someone important. She had to make a good impression, insofar as that was even possible. She couldn't help looking like a monster. She could keep her hands off the leftovers.

Cerea stood and waited, fully aware of Nightwatch's presence on the other side of the closed door. Tried not to shuffle her hooves too badly and, after the delay stretched out a little more, switched that to an equally non-successful attempt at preventing her fingers from clenching. Trying to hear anyone who might be getting closer, figuring out what she could potentially say or do to calm them, give herself that much more of a chance...

The curtsy seemed to be doing fairly well so far. At least, no one had run away from her screaming on the two previous occasions when she'd performed one. As opening gestures went, that seemed to be fairly encouraging --

"-- just a little suspicious."

A stallion's voice. Somewhat gruff, more than a little irritated and making no effort to suppress any of it, which added an element of shock when she instantly identified the next speaker.

"And what," the dark mare lightly said, "could possibly be making you react with suspicion?"

"Previous experience," the stallion instantly replied. "This isn't the first time you've summoned me to the palace at night, Princess."

"Ah. But this time --" and there was a lilt in the mare's tones "-- there are no butcher shops involved. Nor has there been any other degree of culture clash or misunderstanding which we must discuss, preferably before the opinion columns can do the same. Your charges have been exceptionally well-behaved this moon, and so you are clearly performing your task at the level I would expect from you."

The only thing darker than royalty's eyes was the unseen stallion's voice.

"And you still summoned me to the palace."

A pause.

"True," the Princess casually replied.

"A very empty palace," the stallion added. "I haven't seen anypony since we came up the second ramp. Why is that?"

"And now you have," the Princess countered as hoofsteps sounded on marble, the sound less distorted now that the corner had been rounded. "For there is Nightwatch. Have the two of you met? I find first meetings to be rather important. Nightwatch, this is --"

"-- we've seen each other," the stallion interrupted. "Princess, you brought me here at night."

"Yes." And lilting had nearly become levity. "As you are under my dominion, and so you can be summoned when the need arises, because I am your Princess and so promptly responding to my summons is generally seen as both a sign of courtesy and a rationale for retaining employment. That you generally work the Solar shift simply requires an extra degree of need --"

"-- into an almost-empty section of the palace. When there's been rumors flying and galloping around --"

The levity fell away.

"Rumors," the dark mare repeated -- and then her tones shifted back. "Well, I am certain we will be discussing that shortly. For now, I have summoned you here to perform your duty. The one under my dominion, which you retain because you are the pony who is most suited to fill that position. All I require is that you do so again, to the best of your ability, with an absolute minimum of future Moon-lit conferences because absolutely no problems will have arisen."

The door opened. Just a crack, just enough to let Cerea see a fraction of the dark mare on the other side. Nothing else.

"So simply step around me," the Princess stated, "and meet your newest charge." A pause. "Oh, and close your eyes first."

What is she...?

"Princess," the stallion said, and there was something other than deference in that voice, "if I hadn't been suspicious before --"

"-- this is an order," the dark mare told him. "Close your eyes. Step around me. Go inside. Open them again."

Light moved across the wood, pushed it open a little more. The Princess stepped aside, and the stallion, eyes squeezed shut in something very close to pain, entered the room.

There was something about the unicorn which reminded her of Ms. Smith, but it did so as an opposing aspect. The government employee who theoretically supervised the Kurusu household generally possessed an aura which suggested that the effort required to make a single phone call on anyone's behalf justified a three-week vacation just for recovery. The stallion moved in a way which directly stated that if he were to suddenly fall into a coma, it would simply be to catch up on sleep.

His fur was an exceptionally dark blue, with the exception of a few graying hairs near the muzzle: Cerea, who could only equate such things to horses, guessed that he might be middle-aged. The icon on his flanks displayed a rather plain octagon, albeit one of a fairly bright red. The black mane and tail looked as if they either hadn't been groomed for a week or had been groomed in a hurry by somepony who'd been awake for the majority of that time.

He stopped. His nostrils twitched. Eyelids shot open, revealing a brighter blue than his fur. Something almost sky-hued, the color of the warmest summer days.

Cerea instantly dropped into a full curtsy.

It was a rather low version, one which put her outswept right hand about two feet from the pony's face. As far as showing deep respect went, it was about as deep as her knees would allow her to go without buckling and sending her crashing into the ground breasts-first, which really wasn't the best way to make a good impression. This version was professional, expertly executed and, when it ended, left her staring almost directly into a slightly-opened mouth.

There was a new scent of fear in the room, and Cerea had expected that to happen no matter what she did. But it was the secondary layer.

"As I did not gain a chance at the earlier introduction," the Princess said from her place within the now fully-open doorway, "allow me to perform this particular version. This is --"

"No," the stallion said.

The dark mare ignored it. "-- your newest --"

"No." And he began to turn. "No. No, no, no. No-no-no. No." The black tail was lashing. "No, no no, no-ho-HO. No no no, no no, no no no no, no, no, noooooooo..." Heading directly for the doorway, hooves stomping into marble as if trying to crack it, head and horn lowered to an angle which seemed to identify his ruler as nothing more than a temporary obstacle.

The Princess' horn ignited. Dark light projected forward, surrounded the stallion, lifted his body about three inches off the floor and performed a precise 180° rotation while all four coated legs futility marched on air.

"NO." the stallion declared, and did so almost directly to Cerea's still-lowered face.

She straightened: there didn't seem to be anything else she could do. It let her see the Princess over his back, and...

...Cerea still wasn't completely sure what the equivalent of a pony smile looked like. She was very much hoping that the dark mare's expression wasn't it.

"Centaur --" the Princess began.

"No."

"-- allow me to introduce Crossing Guard, who is the current head of our Immigration Department. And if he wishes to remain in that position, he might be well-advised to cease his protests --"

"...no..." the stallion half-whispered, perhaps just to put it on the record.

"-- and greet his newest charge."

The unicorn twisted within the corona and found that while his legs remained confined, his neck was perfectly free to turn enough for a degree of desperate eye contact with his liege.

"There were rumors," he frantically said. "Rumors that you'd captured it --"

"Her," the Princess calmly cut in. "You have dealt with sufficient species to recognize the rather prominent signs of a female."

Cerea fought back most of the wince and none of the blush.

"-- after the fight, that it -- she was being kept in the palace while you figured out what to do with her, but... but..." He couldn't seem to get his mouth to completely close. "Princess, I -- you know what's going to happen, there's only one thing which can happen --"

"You brought in Yapper," the dark mare almost placidly said.

"There are warrens all over Equestria living in relative peace with adjacent settled zones! There's even some trade here and there! It was time for Yapper!"

"Something we only recognized in retrospect," the Princess countered.

"But she's still had problems, she's always going to have some problems, and..."

He turned away. Forced himself to face Cerea, and that bright blue gaze roamed over her, losing the last degree of warmth as it crossed the repurposed tablecloth.

"I trust you," he told the Princess, and did so without looking at her. "I trust that you weren't tricked. That you wouldn't be doing this if she didn't deserve it. But you have to know what's going to happen. It's going to be every headline, every time. It's going to be everything. They're going to focus on her and they won't stop. Princess, there has to be some other way --"

"-- several," the dark mare cut him off. "And yet this is the one which was chosen, for imprisonment and exile do not suit one who deserves her chance. You are at the head of Immigration. You have seen butcher shops introduced into the Heart, helped to rewrite the rulebooks for sports which suddenly need to accommodate a single kudu's twisting horns. This is a sapient. She is peaceful, and will remain so as long as no violence is directed against her. She has recently arrived in our nation, and it may be some time before she is able to return home." Her head lowered slightly, with the dark energy around the horn showing the faintest hints of tiny spikes. "One might argue that she qualifies as a refugee -- if one does not simply label her as the victim of a foalnapping, for her arrival was involuntary. We are trying to send her home, Crossing. But until that day, she has earned her chance at a new one. And making that chance fully legal and supervised is your duty."

Her volume had never changed. Only the intensity of words and that singular stare.

The corona lowered the stallion, gently placed him back onto the marble before winking out.

"There's going to be riots," Crossing Guard stated.

"We will do our best to avoid them," the Princess calmly replied. "I will be rather disappointed in you if the count reaches too far into the plural."

"Organization/conspiracy/CUNET's going to go after her. All of the opposition papers. Everypony."

It felt as if he was talking about someone who wasn't there.

"Mr. Guard?" Cerea tried.

The disc, after rapidly passing through several terms which threatened to blister the tips of her ears, eventually rendered the resulting sounds as "You wait."

Cerea shut up.

"This has been discussed," the Princess said.

He turned to face his ruler. "And the reason you didn't tell me I was being brought here to process a centaur?"

"Well," the dark mare shrugged, "if we are to be completely sincere with each other, especially as I recognize that you have been speaking with something less than full decorum towards me... there is no living pony of your generation who possesses more experience in dealing with the other sapient races. You have done your best to understand them, to bring them into our society, to defuse the conflicts which arise when cultures inevitably clash. There are times when you have managed to think as they do. A rare talent, Crossing, and one which the palace needs more than ever. And as the pony who not only possesses so much experience, but one who thought he was sacrificing his magic by drawing Tirek's attention so his department's staff could escape... I wished to see how you would deal with a centaur on first sight when you knew, simply based on the fact that I had brought you to her, that she was no threat."

He took an exceptionally slow breath.

"We've known each other for a while now."

"Nearly two and a half years," the Princess said. "Since I resumed that part of my duties."

"We've had a few meetings."

"Yes. With and without soy."

"You also just wanted to see my face."

Cerea was really hoping that wasn't a smile.

"I believe I said that," the Princess stated. "I will expect you back tomorrow, at whatever hour your duties permit. To assist her with the paperwork. Fully legal, Crossing. I wish this to be tied with a full/unbreakable/," and then, much to Cerea's surprise, "latigo knot."

The stallion tightly nodded. Turned to face Cerea again.

"Tomorrow," he said.

She managed to nod back.

"Tomorrow," the Princess said. "For now, return to your family. Please pass on my best wishes to Tarter." She stepped aside, freeing the passage, and so the last view Cerea had of her new supervisor was of a hard-lashing tail.

The Princess stepped into the room. "A strong first meeting, I think," she said. "In all truth, better than I had expected. However, the fact that rumors have reached him..." She slowly shook her head. "One could see it as a chance for those who hear the stories to consider the thought in advance. And one probably should not. So. Shall we move on to your second meeting?"

Cerea blinked.

"Someone else? Tonight?"

"Yes," the dark mare said. "As we are trying to prepare you in all aspects. Follow me, centaur."

I don't think he likes me.

It wasn't a good thought to have about the individual who was effectively going to be in charge of her. But then, she'd never gotten the impression that Ms. Smith liked her very much either. Admittedly, that was because the household tended to create a lot of work for someone who claimed a medical allergy to responsibility...

"This particular meeting," the Princess said, trotting slightly ahead down the marble corridor, "was actually the more difficult to arrange."

"Oh," Cerea said, mostly because she hadn't said much of anything during the first meeting and, given the way she'd been discussed, was feeling the need to remind herself that she was still there.

"We actually have a preference in the matter," was the oddly disgruntled follow-up. "But as it so happens, there is a mission, and we have no way to know when it will end. So rather than wait for the return of our first choice, Princess Celestia and I have been scouring the ranks for a worthy second. Somepony flexible. Open-minded. And who could, of course, be sworn to secrecy."

"Oh," Cerea tried, mostly because it had worked before.

The next words were so chill as to drop the temperature in the hallway by five degrees. "Being willing to actually follow through on their claims was also seen as a positive."

Cerea looked closely at the lashing tail, along with the way some of the stars within it seemed to be rearranging themselves.

"I don't --"

"-- generations," the Princess irritably declared. "There have been generations of them, and they all possess the same false battlecry. 'I can work with you!', they will declare. 'You are an inspiration to me!' Keeping in mind that they do so without ever having been in our presence. Most of the declarations emerge at parties, and float into the air on a sea of drink. And when they are challenged to prove themselves? Brought into the palace to confirm their boasts? What happens then, I ask you?"

She didn't even know what they were talking about, and the temperature was continuing to drop. "I'm --"

"-- one claimed hysterical blindness."

"...what?"

"The inability to see. Or rather, the inability to see us. In fact, for the rest of his life, he declared that only a single rather narrow range could still be registered by his vision." The dark mare snorted. "You might find it rather interesting that his work had already been reflecting such."

In lieu of response, Cerea's arms moved to cover her chest. A glance up found icicles beginning to form on the ceiling.

"Oh, and there was that one who said she simply needed some privacy in order to work. Which I imagine she eventually found after crossing the third border and changing her name for the sixth time."

"Um..."

"I would be neglectful if I failed to mention the pony who found a means of mistaking us for parade floats."

"Er." The air felt as if it was thickening in her nostrils. There was a mild burn entering her lungs, and she wished it would relocate to her skin. Scenting anything was starting to become impossible, and the olfactory world blurred blue.

"And I continue to do my duty to history by never mentioning her name," the Princess spat: the globule bounced off the floor. "Although at the very least, her efforts were put on public display prior to the age of photography."

"Oh."

"Regardless, I will not rest until I find that one painting."

Cerea swallowed. Her hands briefly rubbed against her goosebump-covered arms, then quickly went back to where they had been.

"However," the Princess said, "in this case... we found somepony who has experience in the other nations. And lacking in her own label, which appears to help the process."

Label?

A dark suspicion began to move on hoof edge through Cerea's mind. The primary effect was to make the chill spread faster.

"A humble practitioner of her craft," the dark mare added. "Which in this case means that all the space generally occupied by ego has instead been devoted to talent. And so I am confident in her ability to work with you."

The air was actually beginning to warm again, which was mostly indicated by the little patter of meltwater from above. Cerea, whose frozen sensation was now fully internal, didn't notice.

"I --"

"So. This door..."

The dark energy opened it, and an elderly bespectacled unicorn mare jumped roughly a meter straight back before falsely recovering into a weak, frantic smile. One which fully ignored all of the supplies which had just been jolted from her saddlebags, which included the pins and spools and needles and everything else which Cerea's desperate eyes was sending as direct alert signals to all four legs. Everything except the worst of it, which only needed an extra horrible second to appear.

"Hello," the quavering voice managed, and pale yellow light unfurled the measuring tape. "So where would you like me to start?"

There were several ways to regard what instantly followed. For starters, from Cerea's perspective, logic happened.

The Princess disagreed.

"...and that's the arms done," the elderly mare said. "Raise them, please."

Both of Cerea's bare arms went up.

"Thank you."

"You are welcome," the Princess said from her place at Cerea's side. Her eyes were tightly closed, and the dark head was facing away from the centaur girl. "Are they raised sufficiently?"

"Yes..." The tape slowly floated forward. Cerea's eyes watched it approach, at least for those moments when she could focus her gaze at all. Most of her time in the room had found them rolled partially back or, as with the current case, treating every levitated object as it it was the most recent shark to emerge from an endless frenzy.

"You are fortunate," the Princess softly said.

Cerea didn't say anything.

"In that I am rather uniquely qualified to recognize a phobic reaction."

And, in fact, couldn't.

"Even when it manifests in the body of a centaur. The commonalities help, of course. The rearing back, the attempt to pivot on a single hoof, the desperate blind gallop for any available exit... clearly a phobia in play. As I explained to Corsetiere Garter, at least once the screams had stopped."

At all.

"The majority of which were yours."

No matter how hard she tried.

"Admittedly, the exact reason why you would display such a reaction upon learning that somepony wished to clothe you remains a mystery. Regardless, we proceed."

The measuring tape moved close enough for Cerea to see the symbols on it. She assumed some of them were numbers, and knew the results were about to be humiliating.

"You could stop struggling," the Princess quietly suggested. "I can feel you straining against my field. I am also perfectly capable of holding you perfectly still for a very long time, with the exception of when I am asked to move some portion of your undressed body. Nor can you blush hotly enough to burn your way out. And since the evidence suggests that we are best off getting this over with..."

The evil, accursed, horrifying tape dropped down.

"So let's do the bust measurement," the seamstress said. "Underbust first, of course. Lift, please."

The dark corona focused. Intensified.

Please let me die.

She didn't get her wish.

"And overbust." The old mare squinted. "Let's see. Fullest part..."

Please don't let her say it out loud.

She didn't get that one either.

Inappropriate

From the outside, the filly's behavior appears normal. It could be argued that she is beginning her investigations rather earlier than the majority, but her mother is among the strongest, her mother pushes and so the filly feels that anything she does too soon already has a countering vote for too late. In any case, it's something which just about every filly in the herd eventually does, because it's expected of them. She just happens to have taken an interest somewhat sooner than the rest of her generation.

Her mother -- doesn't object, because that curiosity shows that the filly is taking responsibility. Of course, responsibility is the sort of thing which you're just supposed to take more and more into an even-increasing burden while no one ever carries the smallest part of the earlier weights away, so the new isn't permitted to claim any time away from the old. The filly is training and studying and competing and trying to steal hours in which she can just read -- but now she's doing this too.

Then again, it's not as if it's taking time away from being with her friends.

Her mother permits the new activity, for it is something the filly will be expected to do as an adult and there's nothing wrong with taking an early interest. Of course, even a filly for whom the expectations are high (too high, forever too high, and the moments when she feels she's getting close to any level of true accomplishment are immediately followed by the ones where the goal line moves kilometers away), there's only so much a girl of her age can do, and so it isn't taken all that seriously at first.

Well... her mother takes it seriously (because of course her mother does) and so the girl is given her first practice sword. But for those she's accompanying... they're reluctant to expose a child to danger. Not that danger generally intrudes, but -- no one in the herd can ever be sure of when the next breach might occur, and few like to think about the things which might need to be done in the name of keeping their gap secure. Those actions haven't been necessary in generations, especially not with alcohol among their supplies to go with well-trained skills in inflicting concussions, but -- they can't be sure, and it's nothing which should ever be done in front of a filly.

Additionally, she has a bedtime.

So she accompanies the day patrols during what have always been the lowest-risk hours, and they aren't entirely sure what to do with her. One of the strongest has told them to allow the trot-alongs, but... well, she's too young to truly participate, they're not comfortable with discussing certain realities of the duty in front of a child, and centaur culture hasn't really caught onto the concept of 'mascot'. There's a distinct level of discomfort when she goes along on the routes, and it's something she can't figure out how to overcome. She's getting better at leaping physical hurdles (except that whenever she clears them all, her mother almost immediately raises the ones along her training runs until the parent finds a height which the filly can't reach), but she has no idea how to get over social barriers. The other fillies don't talk to her because of the way her mother pushes, she hasn't tried talking to the colts because all such meetings are closely supervised (and colts are stupid anyway), and when it comes to adults... the years form a chasm which can't be breached.

Still... she's allowed to accompany them. They answer a few questions, and while she's not really good at the subtleties of prying without having her inquiries being identified as exactly that, those on patrols frequently have very little to do other than speak with each other. The tones may be low and hushed (because if anything did happen, giving an intruder sound to move towards is a double-edged blade), but they still form words, and the filly knows how to listen.

There are times when the mares almost forget she's there, start to discuss matters occurring within the herd which might qualify as gossip for the more inquisitive adults. (Even with the great formality required by the pressure exerted from the gap, gossip still exists: every society needs its pressure valve, and many half-whispered words emerge as something close to hissing steam.) If the filly had been old enough to understand some of the terms, she would have been able to acquire an impressive range of blackmail material -- but it's not what she's there for. Adult matters belong to mares and stallions, those who've been trapped within for so much longer. She's a child, and that means she can think more clearly. She can prioritize. And what she's really interested in is the patrols themselves.

She examines the equipment they carry, those things used to disable and discredit any intruding humans. She listens to discussions of tactics. She follows at a distance of a few hoofsteps as they check the borders, because just about every adult mare spends some time on the patrols: it's the only way to try and maintain the security of their land. She's just learning about everything sooner than most, because she's taken an interest. As far as she's concerned, it's something she has to do, and it has to be done now.

The filly has realized that her world is a prison.
There are certain obligations for those trapped within prisons. They begin with exploring the limits of the cell.
And if those who keep you within are willing to let you memorize their patrol routes...

The mountain which hosted the capital had a surprising number of plateaus. It was more than enough to allow multiple facilities to operate on fairly level ground, there always seemed to be just enough of those surfaces available for whatever ponies might need to do, and just about nopony had ever questioned that.

Under normal circumstances, traveling about a third of the way around the mountain's curve would discover the Guard training area. There were obstacle courses, training dummies which had been kicked by generations of ponies who were both trying to master combat and very actively imagining that every hoof was actually slamming into their drill instructors. There was a group canteen, although it was seldom used: Guards were generally trained in fairly small numbers, and the march back to the city in search of real food served as bonding time and additional exercise. For the same reason, the barracks mostly served as a place to store your day clothes (for the few who wore them), although the showers saw a lot of use. Hot water always seemed to run out a little too quickly, and the massage setting on the showerheads had been installed as an act of careful cruelty.

Nothing about the training area was classified. Very few Canterlot residents had bothered to learn where it was, because Guards were mostly something which existed as background scenery: where you had Princesses (or rather, for a very long time, the singular), you were going to have Guards who moved with them, kept an eye on them, and as long as those Guards remained background scenery, it could be presumed that the world was operating at something fairly close to normalcy. But for those who knew the location, the only thing which generally prevented them from visiting was the length of the hike. As the area was seldom under active use, multiple centuries' worth of adolescents had decided the place was their exclusive playground: races would be conducted through the obstacle courses, training dummies were granted multiple names at the moment of impact (along with multiple degrees, because all the years of taking on new identities meant the wooden simulacrums were now theoretically qualified to teach every school course which existed), and more than a few fumbling attempts at romance had been launched within the barracks. A very few would come back as adults, and generally found that they'd improved in everything but the last.

Under normal circumstances, anypony could potentially visit at just about any time they wished. In this case, the approach was being made at two hours before Sun-raising, and the oldest mare in the world had just found a dark shield dome in her way.

She slowly shook her head as she looked up at the slow-rising curve, and the borders of her mane twisted a little faster. The white horn was carefully angled forward until it was a few tail strands away from contact, and the lightest touch of sunlight was allowed to manifest upon something which was not quite bone. A little more leaning, just enough contact for the caster to recognize that a rather familiar signature was making itself known, and then she waited until the energy directly in front of her shimmered, thinned, and ultimately provided a hole which was just slightly too small for ready passage.

The elder grumbled a little, because there was nopony present to hear such a mundane expression of simple emotion. (Additionally, it was her sister, there was every chance the size issue had been a deliberate one, and so she was entitled to grumble.) And then she bent her knees, awkwardly angled her head, tried to compress wings beyond the normal rest position and did so against a rib cage which had just released every last tenth-bit of air...

Eventually, she found herself at the track.

The ground-level racing area was one of the constants: a basic oval where the turf had been pounded into solidity by generations of racing hooves. (The sky version, for pegasi being timed in their flight, was intermittent: any pegasus cloud construct needed regular use in order to maintain itself, because the magic of the molding requested its long-term power from those in attendance. To abandon anything made of clouds for too long was to find no more than dissipating vapor when you got back, and those who liked to indulge in long vacations took house sitting very seriously.) Just about any Guard had to be capable of moving quickly: a candidate needed a lot of talent in other areas before a below-average hoof speed would be overlooked. Hundreds of ponies had been timed on this track, enough of them had passed their tests in order to maintain that constant background presence, and... some of them had died because in the end, they had been exactly fast enough to get in the way.

The elder closed purple eyes for a moment, witnessed the too-long procession of the lost moving across the inner stage. And when she opened them again, she was watching a centaur run.

Her sibling was standing within a designated spot a few body lengths away from the right outer edge of the track, something which had been used by those who often shouted their criticisms to the world and so was perfectly suited to host that pony. The dark horn was lit: maintaining the shield, along with simply holding a small flattened mostly-steel circle in a bubble at her right. And she paid no visible attention to the ongoing approach of the elder, simply choosing to watch the girl who was galloping around the track, with those dark eyes seemingly focused on pounding hooves.

The girl was running, and it was just about all she was doing. The blue eyes (so much worse at checking to the sides than those of a pony: a special vulnerability of so many predators) were doing little more than watching the path in front of her. Arms shifted in strange ways, because bipeds naturally moved those limbs as they walked or ran, an extra means of keeping balance and -- this was a sapient with four legs. It changed the pattern, and even a mare who had known more than a thousand years of life hadn't seen enough centaurs to have those motions memorized.

There was some sweat on her skin, with more saturating her clothing. Even under the light of a shield-distorted Moon, a portion of the latter was approaching translucency: she had clearly been moving for some time. Every so often, little drops were blown off her body by a breeze from overhead.

Purple eyes watched the girl run, and had to shift fairly quickly in order to keep doing so. Most of that attention was committed to the movement: a portion kept going back to the clothing. The majority of the soft whistle was suppressed. But every so often, she would focus on her own sibling.

"You are up rather early," the younger said, not bothering to glance back at the elder. "Surprisingly so. I would expect your normal excuse to be an inability to sleep, but as you have a distinct habit of interrupting whenever I am attempting to do or see something interesting..."

She didn't bother to dignify that part with a response. "Why is she out here?"

"Stable Syndrome."

The elder blinked. "You think --"

"-- I have reason to believe she is susceptible," the younger quietly said. "There are things she has in common with us, and high among them is the need to run. Those who have committed no crimes should not be confined within cells, her situation is unique, she has a desire to simply see anything new and... she has been trapped within the walls for far too long." A slow breath. "Additionally, I recently -- and inadvertently -- caused her a degree of trauma, and I have yet to find a psychiatrist whom we could sufficiently trust to treat her. There are worse ways to deal with the residue of such an experience than movement."

"What did you do?" Because the younger had many (generally deliberate) ways of inspiring terror and in the modern day, the worst was completely inadvertent.

Luna sighed. It was a rather soft sound, especially coming from a fairly large body. It was also something which most ponies didn't expect from that half of the Diarchy: anger, frequently, eyes fading to white, in the worst of their nightmares, but something so simple as a sigh...

"Attempted to arrange for her clothing," the younger softly replied. "Let us leave it at that for now, except to say that her reaction was -- significant. Enough so that I felt it best to simply finish the process of measurement immediately rather than subject her to multiple attempts."

Celestia blinked.

"She was wearing clothing when she reached Palimyno," the elder observed. "Does she only get dressed when she's going out for runs?"

There was just enough of a laugh to identify the mirth as having been derisive. "She in no way qualifies as one of our own extremists." With the snort being even more so. "Those who insist that all clothing exists for the sole intent of sexual enticement, cruelly forcing the viewing parties to fantasize about what cannot be seen, and that even the thickest of garments worn for the coldest of winter days do not represent an attempt to ward off frostbite so much as unlicensed prostitution." And that was followed by a slow head shake. "I was rather hoping that they would have died out during abeyance, but the lifespan for that level of idiocy appears to be indefinite."

"I did manage to get the protests down to an annual event," Celestia sighed. "So how normal is clothing for --" and stopped, having spotted the potential violation of her sibling's code just a little too late --

-- but there was no reaction. "It is normal for the females of her species as a whole," Luna replied. "It does not breach her privacy to tell you that, sister. Under normal circumstances, she is clothed, and would only be found nude in situations of privacy, medical needs, or --" the hesitation went on for a little too long "-- embarrassment. We would do well to avoid situations in which others decide they must see what level of horror exists beneath her garments, especially as she currently has no defenses against the rudest of unicorns. It is not the clothing she fears, Tia: she needs that. It was having to be fitted."

"Why?" A simple question, and a risky one.

"If I knew that," the younger evenly said, "then the answer likely would qualify as a breach of her privacy."

The centaur approached, and focused blue eyes failed to notice the two alicorns standing off to the side. Then she was in front of them, hair and tail streaming out behind her. Then with a gust of wind and rustle of feathers, she was beyond.

This time, a little more of the whistle made it to open air, although it wasn't quite enough to mask the tiny click.

"It is more impressive than you might think," Luna observed, and took a glance at the circle: one of the little brass plungers along the top had just been pressed down. "A fine piece of clockwork, this stopwatch... and it continues to demonstrate what I had verified on previous passes. She has been maintaining that rate."

"That fast," Celestia said, and didn't bother to repress any of the stun.

"We had already gained some idea of her ground speed during the search for her arrival point," Luna reminded her sibling. "It now appears that I should have factored in an increased subtractive variable for her wounded state. And given that she has some healing distance to yet cross before becoming fully restored, it may be safe to assume that her true maximum is somewhat beyond this. Not faster than either of us, Tia, and hardly able to outrace a pegasus -- but I can think of no unicorn who would be able to match her pace, and any earth ponies would only accomplish the feat within the safety of legend."

"Without magic," Celestia quietly observed. "Without being -- us. It's just her."

"Simple biology," Luna agreed -- then added "I imagine the clothing helps."

It was instinctive. It was also inevitable, and it took an effort to stop looking.

"Well..." The sudden awkwardness didn't seem to know what to do with itself (which did feel oddly appropriate). "She's not... shifting..."

"As is the purpose of the underlayer," Luna agreed. "Clearly well-constructed, as befits an expert."

"But the outer..."

"Provides coverage. The draping of her flanks is rather well done, is it not?" Luna's gaze followed the centaur around the far curve. "Although the designer did leave those small windows of exposure. I suppose she is simply used to doing so, even when designing for a child --"

She stopped. The dark eyes briefly closed.

"-- I believe I now understand why I continue to say that," Luna softly observed, with her eyes once again tracking the run. "A portion of her form matches ours, and so I think of her in our terms. And I wonder how that will taint the ways in which others treat her, for those who find a means of not perceiving her as a monster..."

"Some ponies have the same problem with Saddle Arabians," Celestia quietly reminded her sibling.

"Yes. Well, in that instance, it is more towards both sides having found a reason to look down at each other." Which triggered a small snort. "Which is somewhat easier on their end, at least from the physical aspect. Still, with her, it may become a factor. And now that I have realized what is happening, I shall do my best to guard against it."

And then they were watching her run again.

"There is something rather strange about her breathing," Luna frowned. "Did you notice?"

Celestia tried to focus, and found her attempt hindered by the obvious. "It may just seem that way because of what she's wearing --"

"-- no: the undergarments continue to succeed at their task," Luna decided. "Watch her ribs, Tia."

After a too-long moment, "...which set?"

"The lower," Luna clarified.

The elder frowned. "Luna, her breathing is --" and went through several hasty internal revisions before finishing with "-- kind of obvious."

"I am uncertain," the younger replied. "I have been watching her run for some time, and -- there is something which takes place in the lower. Something which has only happened during the run, and that has been both intermittent and partial. But I am convinced there is a degree of shift, of a sort which would be associated with breath."

"Her lungs," Celestia firmly said, "are in her upper torso." Even with the undergarments performing at peak efficiency, there was a certain amount of rather visible movement.

"Yes," Luna agreed. "They are. Two of them are."

"...Luna?"

"The Doctors Bear," the younger reminded her, "indicated that they had discovered at least one --"

She paused for a moment, as the girl ran by them again. (There was another click.) This time, a few small drops of sweat hit the siblings from overhead.

"I cannot fault her for that," Luna passively said as she indulged in a light full-body shake, trying to get rid of the moisture before it could fully soak into her fur. "This has been proceeding for some time and regardless of her own speed, she has never been an endurance flier."

"I'm surprised you brought a Guard for this," Celestia admitted. (Evaporating the water was easier, and so steam briefly rose from the white coat.)

"She asked to come," Luna explained. "In fact, one might say that within the bounds of protocol, she was somewhat -- insistent."

Which brought out a small smile from the elder. "It's a good sign."

"Yes." But it didn't prevent the sigh. "And an entire continent remains."

And back to watching.

"It's warmer than the schedule dictated," Celestia observed. "Especially for autumn."

"The weather team only maintains this area when training is in progress," Luna responded. "Additionally, I tweaked the local conditions somewhat, to increase her comfort. As her current garments lack something in the way of insulation."

All right. Let's just get it over with.

"Luna -- there's been... certain changes in fashion. I know you haven't exactly had the chance to see this -- version of it --" and who had? "-- especially for her kind of form. But when it comes to what she's wearing, she's in..."

It was surprisingly hard to say. Part of it was simply due to the nature of that lone listening audience, and the rest came from the sudden realization that she'd fallen into the same trap as her sibling: something which was all the more apparent as the remaining deliberate gaps in that garment shifted with the run.

"I am aware," Luna steadily replied, "that she is wearing a negligee. Based on the degree of red which was suffusing her skin upon meeting her in the cell, the same can be said for the wearer."

"...did you ask for one?"

"No. I commissioned the services of a pony whose talent is for a foreign art, and her first efforts naturally delivered the things she knew best. The price of a specialist. I have already informed her that based on the wearer's reaction, something less -- sheer would be rather desirable, and so we now await cotton and linen." Luna slowly shook her head. "I look forward to the end of the Bearers' current mission for many reasons, Tia: to know that they have succeeded, that they are alive and safe and whole. But to a much lesser degree, I simply wish for the Lady Rarity to take up some part of this task."

"Oh." Celestia squinted a little. "Are those torso ties -- upper torso... part of the design? They look a lot rougher than the rest of it."

A soft snort. "Nightwatch is of the opinion that the centaur used some of her hairpins and the fringe of a towel to sew the most prominent deliberate gap shut. Neglecting to do the same for those on the flanks is simply a matter of not having perceived the need."

More watching. The centaur accelerated a little. The pegasus, whose wish for water was now beginning to radiate from her feathers, did her best to keep up.

"Rarity?"

"Are you now doubting her ability? Admittedly, you were somewhat tentative during the original proposal."

"I've mostly been afraid to commission her for us because we might lose the first six workdays to the faint," Celestia admitted. "But when it comes to designing for someone who isn't a pony... let's just say I got a scroll about sandals. And it wasn't a particularly happy scroll."

Luna frowned. "What are sandals?"

The elder, who was still thinking about the too-small gap in the shield, kept the reply at "Exactly," and took some small pleasure in the younger's snort. "Luna?"

"Perhaps not the best of times to ask a question," her sibling decided. "Not if you truly have a reasonable expectation of not being sent to find your answers within the Archives --"

"-- is she beautiful?"

And for a moment, the only sound left was pounding hooves.

"That," the younger slowly said, "strikes me as a rather odd query. The rationale for your inquiry?"

"Because I've been watching her run," the elder replied. "And if she was a pony -- a pony displaying that kind of speed and strength, with that form --"

"You were never much for mares," the younger harshly broke in. "In fact, disallowing one rather recent and somewhat artificial exception, you have never been anything for mares, and this is not even --"

"-- which doesn't prevent me from seeing the beauty in athleticism, Luna," the elder quietly cut her off. "Not just the body, but the way that body moves. It's part of what draws so many to the Games: the joy of seeing ponies performing at their peak. There's something to that. There always has been. I've seen it in so many species during their own events. A griffon going in for the swoop, a minotaur executing a pin, a zebra heading for the finish line in the Ziara Kuu -- athletes all. And watching her run... that's as close as I've come to seeing her as a pony, because that part of her, when she's exerting herself... it's something to see. It's... beautiful."

Silence.

"The experience begins to lose something," the younger tightly said, "as one's gaze moves up."

It couldn't be argued, and so the elder didn't try. Trotting on the absolute edge of her sibling's code was hard enough. "You said that wearing clothing was normal for the females of her species."

"Correct. The males frequently prefer to go shirtless." The younger frowned. "I have just experienced a realization: our rather dubious fortune actually could have been considerably worse. Our chances of successful introduction into our society would have been decidedly lessened with a male."

It took a moment before she decided not to ask -- at least, not just yet. "That means you've seen enough of her people in her dreams to have some idea of what's normal for them."

Far too many seconds passed. It was enough for the centaur to go by them again, and the stopwatch distractedly clicked.

"To a degree." The younger watched the girl move towards the first curve. "I am beginning to wonder if we should attempt to adjust her hairstyle before introducing her to the public. Make it into something which has some resemblance to a mane." With a tiny snort, "Additionally, assuming that the translator ended its overlap on the proper term, I overheard enough discussion between herself and Nightwatch to learn that her current style is referred to as a ponytail. I can almost guarantee that somepony will be offended --"

"-- to watch her gallop," the elder broke in, "is to recognize a sort of beauty. It takes an effort, but... it's there, Luna. And you're the only one in the world who's seen enough of her species to have some idea of how they might perceive each other. So I saw the harmony in her movements, and I wondered... is she beautiful?"

The half-tangible tail twisted, and six of its stars slowly dimmed.

"I do not know," the younger softly answered. "There is only one sapient on the continent who could answer that question, and she is exactly the wrong person to ask. Let her gallop, Tia. She needs to gallop, in the last nights when she can do so without price or penalty. For there will be times to come when her deepest dreams arise from the desire to flee."

Like so many things, it started with something small.

Technically speaking, couriers were supposed to stay within the air paths, and it was the sort of speech which the true professionals regarded as a mere technicality. Yes, it was true that the sky had its own share of monsters, and air paths had been constructed in order to create the same kind of relative safety which the roads and rails offered to the ground. There were protective techniques woven through layers of atmosphere: carefully-set border temperatures discouraged some forms of intruder, wind shear deflected a number of others, and if all else failed, thunderheads were set at regular intervals to allow just about any pegasus access to near-instant offense.

But as with roads and rails, part of that safety came from the routing: if there was a known problem area, something impossible to completely clear out, a constant source of risk -- then the natural solution was to divert around it. It meant very few of the paths were perfectly straight lines, because a continent where so little had been truly tamed had a lot of risk to offer. And for a courier who was trying to shave some time off their route, with one package to drop off in a given settled zone, three more to pick up there and the delivery point for the smallest new one was three gallops away, with only so many hours they could safely spend in flight per day...

They were supposed to stay within the air paths. A true professional would look at their target schedule, think about the weight and distance added to the sheer number of deliveries plus ponies who were oddly slow on the payments if they believed the package to be so much as a single minute late -- although such receiving parties always managed to get the complaint letter to the head office in record time -- and then they would do what they insisted their mark required. (The arguments of their empty tip bag were vocally regarded as secondary.)

Couriers left the paths all the time. There were ways in which they arguably served as scouts for new air paths: any route which could be crossed in safety over and over again would be extensively discussed at those eateries where couriers congregated (because the other things you could always count on a courier to gossip about were bad clients and cheap food). Knowledge of the trail would spread, an increasing number of couriers would use it to the point where somepony in government noticed and, rather than deliver a chew-out lecture which was just going to be ignored anyway, would simply draw the thing onto the next route expansion map and start arranging for thunderhead encampments.

This route, however, was nowhere close to that level of recognition. In fact, prior to the desperate diversion which cut through the wind shear and sent a single young mare into the unknown, it hadn't existed as anything approaching a route, or a trail, or anything except a really bad idea. Couriers tended to ignore the warnings on those parts of the map which existed between destinations -- but that had limits. Because there were places you weren't supposed to go, areas which the air paths went around for a reason. Chaos terrain wasn't limited to the ground, because that would be a rule and as such, went against the general principle. A deep place could be found at high altitude. And some sections were simply forbidden, with the map saying no more than Classified, at least where the warning symbol didn't read Death.

But she was new to the job. She had the mark for the work, and was still in that stage of youth where she foolishly believed that the icon would protect her from anything so mundane as a mistake. She was new and inexperienced and didn't have the maps memorized yet, had barely spoken to anypony at the best eateries because she was still learning where those were, it was one of her first major assignments and the tip bag around her neck was empty and she was going to be late.

She was many things. For starters, she was completely unaware of her own mortality.

So she took what she perceived as a shortcut, because there was a Point A and a Point B and all she had to do in the name of making up for lost time was to take the shortest distance between them. Any monster which was already occupying that portion of the map was something she could outfly. It wasn't even that much to cross, compared to the winding route which went around... whatever was in the center, because that was Classified. But she had no intention of intruding on the government's privacy and, if caught, would just say she'd gotten lost and clearly the best way to get her out of the area was through escorting her to the other side of the air path.

Fly straight through. Keep her awareness focused on the atmospheric currents, trying to pick up on the presence of monsters before they ever saw her. She wasn't about to spend much time looking down because that was probably where the Classified stuff was, plus she'd grown up in a cloud city and still couldn't quite see 'down' as being important. Just -- go from one side to the other, with her mark guiding the way. There couldn't be anything easier.

So she flew.

As it turned out, she couldn't have seen much of anything. She told herself that it was wild weather, that the heavy clouds around her were a good thing. Wild weather outside the air paths and settled zones was a normal occurrence, something so natural that ponies who were far too used to control saw it as being just the opposite and in this case, they would have been right.

She kept her attention on the air currents, because the potential ammunition all around her was incidentally preventing her from seeing anything. She didn't look down, and she wouldn't have spotted much in any case, for the heavy cloud cover of the air was just about matched by the fog along the ground. (The first visual indicators were some time away, and they too would be missed.) She just pushed her body forward, and she was enjoying herself, because the feeling of being the first to take this shortcut (she'd told herself that she was the first, and she was very close to being right) was just too good. A little risk, a touch of potential danger which wasn't actually manifesting, combining into a very special sort of adrenaline high --

-- she was in the center of an exceptionally thick cloud bank when it happened, something where all she could truly see was the cloud itself. Even pegasus sight revealed little more than the uniform damp chill of the moisture, and she was mostly thinking about how with a good tip from the job, she could pay for saddlebags which had been worked to be waterproof, was just glad that her current shipment couldn't be damaged by the moisture --

-- and then the world twisted.

It would be a long time before she described it to anypony. She didn't know that many couriers yet, and a mare who was still trying to establish her reputation wasn't going to talk about a moment of weakness. Yes, couriers passed on information about potential shortcuts, and that included the reasons why some were never taken, but -- she was desperate, she'd been flying for longer than she should have, and so when her ears roared and her sense of balance seemed to drop away, the sleek torso wracked by sudden contortions as her wings became twin pieces of dragging weight and the fall began...

She wasn't thinking: a pegasus in midair trouble frequently didn't. Her body was trying to recover on instinct alone, find a wing configuration which would allow for an emergency glide, something which could bring her to safety within whatever Classified thing was below --

-- and it ended.

Orientation came back, all at once. Her wings flared to their full span, flapped, the empty tip bag swung to the back of her neck and she was fine.

She spent most of the remaining crossing watching herself for signs that it was happening again. Her first suspicion was Manière's disease, and that was a fear which put nearly all of her focus onto her own body. But she reached Point B without any further incidents, got all the way to her destination, collected a fairly decent tip, found a place to stop which had a mirror and the pink eye tinge wasn't there. She didn't have to spend three days in bed, barely able to move towards a restroom without tripping over her own hooves. She was fine.

So she told herself that she'd been a little tired. She'd been in the air for too long, she'd ignored the signs which were telling her to rest (which a marked courier could just push through anyway), she'd lost it for a second (only a second!), and she didn't tell anypony because admitting to weakness wasn't the best way to build her reputation. Besides, an error which had been survived was also called 'experience'.

So she splashed some water in her face, watched as that which landed on the vapor floor was reabsorbed by the cloud, then left the restroom and went to order her meal.

It started with something small.

Uncivilized

The mirror had been placed at what was, for her, a fairly awkward height. It meant some fairly uncertain adjustments of legs and overall posture were required in order to get the relevant area within the reflection and even then, certain portions went off the top and, because it was her, the sides.

Even so, she carefully worked on her overall position until she had the maximum possible aligned with the silvered glass. And then Cerea bounced.

It was an extremely rough, very limited sort of bounce: the starting bend of her knees meant she really couldn't get a lot of upwards momentum without completely abandoning her hard-won position and in any case, truly exerting herself in that direction would have meant cracking her skull on the cell's ceiling. But it was still a bounce, and her stare stayed focused on the reversed results in the mirror.

Nothing broke. There was no sound of rent fabric to go with the metallic screech of dying hooks. Nothing came crashing free. The bra, and that which it insisted on containing, remained exactly where it was. There was simply a little bobble of soft flesh along the artfully-exposed upper regions, because such could be desirable for those required by species to wear the things and so the creator had (wrongfully) decided that Cerea might like to indulge in low-cut blouses now and again. The dark Princess had already sent back a request for something more enclosed (especially with winter on the approach): the unicorn had responded with the first sweater and, apparently still working under the same impression, had made sure the upper part included easily-opened buttons.

Cerea's relationship with her own build could be readily described as 'convoluted'. There was pride because at the absolute minimum, her body was that of a proper centaur -- and one who hadn't exactly completed puberty just yet: given enough time, she fully expected to match or surpass her mother's size. But it was a centaur's body, she'd left the herd, and when you went among...

It doesn't matter.
(Or it mattered more than ever, as a subset of an issue which could never be overcome.)

There were a few who were larger than she (and her feelings about that were decidedly complicated): she hardly represented the farthest end of the bell curve. But even so, anything she tried to wear would quickly surrender: there was rather more vibration and jolting from a centaur's movement than a human's, largely due to the additional pair of legs. There were times when she'd sworn that there was no physical contact required and bras sundered in her mere presence. It was just one of the factors which kept her out of lingerie shops, added to the reluctance to be measured (because Japan's residents had what she felt was a completely unhealthy fascination with those numbers) and the fact that she... wasn't with her herd any more.

Realistically, she recognized that a bra which hadn't died during that first gallop (and it had felt so good to run) wasn't going to be defeated by a mere bounce. (And bounced again anyway.) But the fact that nothing had torn yet was making her wonder if magic was involved. And just that it was just so well-made...

She more-or-less stood in front of the mirror, clad in nothing more than the soft white bra, and thought.

The Princess mentioned other species. The existence of her first loaner shirt had suggested something existed which had arms: the services of the visiting unicorn told Cerea that at least one of them had humanoid mammary glands. She was starting to wonder just where (and what) they were, and -- whether having her own bras being so well-made meant the majority of their females were built on her own level. It was possible that the unicorn had simply upscaled, but that had never worked with anything made by humans. Or the mare's experiences could be limited to a single previous client --

-- would it have been easier? If I'd reached a biped village first? Because I'd be a little more familiar, at least for one portion, and...

No. She'd been told that the entire world knew of Tirek. There were no humans, which meant nothing fully matched her from the waist up. And in any case, it seemed likely that every species Cerea might encounter would regard her as having too many limbs.

Still...

The centaur girl slowly shook her head (and watched the movement of Too Much Hair in the mirror: that needed a trim). She was among ponies. The Princesses were the ones who were willing to welcome her, and while she might eventually meet someone from a biped species, this was where she had to take her first chance. To simply abandon this nation for another without even trying -- it was something much less than honorable.

They had given her clothing, and new pieces arrived every day. They were semi-regularly taking her out to what she'd been told were training grounds, giving her that chance to run. She'd even mustered the courage to ask about her sword, because she'd wanted to practice -- and that feeling was something she hadn't experienced in years. Training with the plastic blade had been entertaining enough for a child: the teenager had eventually started to see it as an insult, while the exchange student perceived nothing more than an endless exercise in frustration. But now that it could serve as an actual weapon...

But all they'd told her was that it was being moved, and the process was apparently taking a while. The palace was trying to have the blade travel under heavy security: some of that meant using routes no one would ever think to watch, with other portions of the path requiring that the escorts abandon roads entirely. It slowed everything down. And since no magic could be used to speed that movement, the transport needed more time.

They hadn't told her exactly where the sword was, and...

They want me to take it back to Japan. If I go home. (She could try to think of it as 'when,' and doing so sent waves of pain through her soul.) Because they don't want it here, any more than they want me here. They want me to take it back -- but it doesn't mean they'll let me have it. Not for as long as I'm in their nation.

Asking to practice with it had effectively been asking for a weapon, for she was going to be introduced into a nation filled with those who were afraid of her for the second time and... there were certain memories of Japan which made possession of a usable weapon into a comfort. But when it came to any imminent return... the Princesses hadn't said a word.

She didn't know what they intended for the sword, and she was unsure as to whether she should even ask. They were giving her so much: clothing, a chance to run, and those felt like debts which needed to be repaid. But she had no magic of her own, nothing which could fight back against anything fearful ponies might try against her. It was, in some ways, worse than the laws: at least those had offered the opportunity to trade integration for deportation in a single flurry of striking hooves.

She missed her sword, and that was a strange feeling indeed.

Clothing. Exercise --

-- a hoof rapped against the cell's door, followed by what was becoming a very distinctive whinny. It was easy to know when Nightwatch was announcing her arrival, if only because no other pony's vocalizations had so many awkward pauses.

Cerea carefully took the disc from its resting place on the edge of the sink, held it to her throat, and winced in discomfort as silver crawled up to her ear. It was an experience which didn't seem to become any less awkward with repetition, and the nature of the visit meant there was a lot of that ahead.

"I'll be out in a minute," she called as her left hand went for the newest blouse: something tan in hue, and only twice as sheer as she would have wished. (Sadly, this represented an improvement.) "I'm just getting dressed."

"Oh," the mare said from the other side of the cell door. "Um. Take your time. We can start the lesson whenever you're ready."

-- education.

The black pegasus' latest nicker went on for a little over a second. There was a bit of rise to the first part of the sound, followed by a tiny click as the tongue touched the roof of the equine mouth, and the whole thing ended with a hint of snort.

Nightwatch nodded to Cerea, who carefully put the disc back on. The pegasus took a breath.

"'Directions'," the mare supplied, and briefly glanced down at the lesson planner again. "Because you're probably going to get lost a lot. It's a big city, at least when you get close enough to see how big it is." She hesitated. "Um. There's a natural optical illusion at the main entrance. The whole city just sort of dips behind the Gate, so if you're looking at it from a distance, you mostly see the Gate and the palace. Not that you've gotten the chance. But it's most visible if you're seeing everything from Ponyville."

"What's Ponyville?" felt like a perfectly natural question.

"The closest settled zone to us," Nightwatch replied. "You can get there in a few hours on hoof. Less if you're flying, or if you're taking a train." The dark features twisted into what Cerea could now identify as a full wince. "Um. Not that you can fly. And trains might be a bad idea for a while, because it could be a lot of ponies in what's going to feel like a very small space --"

Which was the point where Cerea recognized the need to save the little knight from herself. "Lady --"

"-- where they can't get away from you, except that the pegasi might go out the emergency windows and I guess if the train isn't going that fast yet, some of the earth ponies could just jump for it -- oh... um..."

"-- it's all right," Cerea sighed. Trains -- steam-powered ones -- but not anything automotive. They pull their own carts. A previous vocabulary lesson had established balloons, and Cerea had been proud to hear they existed because they were French. (This had led to a natural inquiry regarding zeppelins. As it turned out, the ponies had them -- and typically treated them as a means for day cruises which carried passengers, refreshments, and very little else because even with magic, the basic rule for a zeppelin remained the same: you could have all the space you wished, as long as you didn't fill it with anything.) But air power, when it came to Equestria, seemed to be mostly limited to the possession of wings. Then again, the ability to control winds meant the potential to make a balloon go where you wanted...

But the disc's desperate, frequently-failed attempt to translate concepts had eventually taught Cerea that there was just about nothing around which was purely mechanical. No airplanes, a complete lack of trucks, and 'gasoline' had apparently been rendered in Nightwatch's ears as 'smelly liquid fire which makes things move when it explodes': that hadn't exactly helped.

Still, there were a thousand kinds of innovation which could be introduced to the ponies -- by a trained scientist holding degrees in at least six different fields, and that worthy would need to either possess a fully-eidetic memory or have arrived carrying a tablet which was holding a full library's worth of reference guides. The latter required working rather quickly, although Cerea supposed the sheer level of improbability which had already been met wouldn't need to stretch all that much to include a solar charger.

She was an exchange student whose truest field of study had been aimed at what she'd hoped would be her eventual knighthood. This meant cultural studies, art, etiquette (not that her lessons there were being allowed to locally hold), combat, and linguistics. Technologically speaking, Cerea knew how to operate a smithy, and the only thing any human ever needed to solve the mystery of Damascus steel was to ask a centaur. Personally introducing the quadruped equivalent of a Model T wasn't going to happen and given what the quest for oil had done to her own world, Cerea suspected the ponies might be better off.

"So the full sentence is 'I need directions'," Nightwatch awkwardly (and only partially) recovered. "Now you try it."

Cerea carefully took the disc off.

It was a tedious process. The only way to hear the full complexities of the pony language was to do so with unaided ears: with the disc on, the overlapping translation masked out some of the subtleties. Learning which word she'd just been given meant letting the wire crawl up the side of her face again, reviewing meant doing it all again for every single term, and it made extended lessons both repetitious and discomforting.

The centaur girl took a slow breath (which didn't sunder anything either), carefully arranging mouth, tongue, and vocal chords into what felt like the proper pattern. ("Sny hinhah cwseeeort," was the closest phonetic approximation to the result and at that, the alphabet was lacking at least six letters. It also presumed that in the event of having gotten it right during an appropriate situation, anyone she addressed would be willing to do something which wasn't fleeing.)

The pegasus proudly nodded, then pointed her right forehoof at the disc. Cerea put it back on.

"You don't even have an accent," the mare declared. "Um. Well, you probably do. Mine. I just don't hear it because it's mine and hearing your own accent is harder than hearing your own voice on a phonograph." A little more hesitantly, "And you're still listening to us when we're outside, aren't you?"

Cerea nodded. She was nowhere near the point where she could guess at what a new word might be through breaking down its components (and it was possible the pony language didn't function that way), but the more familiarity she had with the basic sounds, the better.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," the little knight timidly proposed. "At all."

"Why not? The more exposure, the better: that's the same for mastering any language. I didn't really start to master Japanese until I was hearing people speak it every day --"

"-- because we're Guards," Nightwatch carefully cut in. "And Guards say things."

Cerea blinked. Frowned. "Palace secrets?" was her first guess. "Information which is classified, but everyone can discuss it outside the door because they know I don't understand?"

"Things," the pegasus awkwardly repeated. "Just.. things. Um. Ask me for directions again. I think we need to repeat that one a few times." She glanced down at the vocabulary sheet which had been placed on the center mattress in front of her extended forelegs: Cerea wasn't using the bed, and the mare felt more comfortable on top of the sheets. "We've got nine more words after that. Followed by reviewing the last three nights. And then we'll work on reading some more."

That was easier, because no disc removal was required and it was something Cerea could study on her own. Nightwatch would nose the paper over to Cerea, then read the first word on the list. Cerea wrote down the meaning in French, and then she had her own vocabulary guide. Reading was proceeding faster than speech, in no small part because there were still completely unfamiliar books in the cell and it was giving the centaur incentive.

The little mare softly, unexpectedly sighed, and Cerea's attention immediately focused on lowered ears and a drooping tail. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not good at this," the Guard quietly replied. "This should be done by a real teacher. But the Princesses still can't find one, because just about everypony attending the weather colleges already speaks Equestrian. It's the same for the Gifted School."

Which led to the first phrase Cerea had asked to be taught, followed by her very first word. The ones she'd felt she was going to need more than any others. "I don't understand..." had no companion more natural than "Sorry."

"Weather colleges are for pegasi," Nightwatch explained. "Mostly, and it's not only about weather: it's just what they're called. It's where our strongest master their magic. Sometimes there's a griffon taking notes, because even if they can't do any of it, they want to find out how it's done. Or someone from another nation sits in for a while. But the Gifted School is for unicorns, and it's for their own magic."

"And earth ponies? Where do they study?"

The mare's features were unreadable, and might have remained so long after Cerea learned every basic pony expression. You didn't often encounter someone trying to deal with a concept for the very first time. "...at home? I guess their magic doesn't require a lot of specialized tutoring. You don't need classes in how to be strong, and when it comes to the Effect --"

"Sorry?"

But the mare was fully self-distracted. "-- that's sort of automatic, isn't it? I mean, there's stuff like wasteland. Arcolith can do wasteland. That's part of why she came along, when we were trying to find your arrival point. But I never really thought about where she would have learned it. Maybe it's like a unicorn's trick: she just knew how to do it at the moment her magic appeared...?"

Cerea felt as if she was at least ten questions behind, which wasn't much of a change over the usual eight. "What's 'wasteland'?"

"She gets close to a plant and it dies," Nightwatch stated, and Cerea could hear the sincere admiration in the pegasus' voice. "If she wants it to. It can be better than hitting it with lightning, because a lot of the most dangerous plants are electrically resistant. Um. Probably because we've been fighting them with lightning for so long. But nothing stops wasteland. She just doesn't like doing it because it makes her feel sick." Which was followed by a sigh. "It doesn't change my being a lousy teacher. I don't have the mark for this and sometimes, if you don't have a mark, you shouldn't be doing it at all --"

Twelve questions back, losing ground coming up on the turn. She'd learned what a mark was: the icon near the pony's hips. She understood that it was important, that it seemed to focus magic in some ways relating to a pony's skills -- but it didn't define everything an individual could do, and Cerea had no idea how a pony got one. It was possible that they were present at birth, sorting the entire nation into predetermined castes. Or they could appear later in life, it was possible that some ponies never got one...

But there were hundreds of things she needed to know about, and marks felt as if they were pretty far back on the list. Right now, she needed to learn how to speak and read. And no matter what Nightwatch might feel --

"-- I'm learning," Cerea quietly answered. (She tended to keep her voice low around the pegasus, moved a little more slowly so as not to startle the one who wasn't quite as afraid.) "I think that means you're teaching."

Silver eyes blinked. Slowly, the dark features worked into what Cerea now knew was a pony's smile.

"What else are you doing tonight?"

"One more lesson. Then I have to meet Mr. Guard for more paperwork." Both of which were being done upstairs, because her cell needed cleaning and the best way to do that was for her not to be in it. There were members of the maintenance staff who were aware the lower levels were currently in use, and none of them were even remotely comfortable with the prospect of working while Cerea was carefully cringed into a corner or, given her size, against most of a wall. "And then I'm back here."

"No doctors?"

"Not tonight." The two unicorn stallions had come down on the previous evening, spending nearly two hours in the cell -- and the initial round of questions had centered on herbs. Cerea had already been through one medical crisis (and wasn't entirely sure how it had been resolved): the physicians were trying to prevent a second. This meant asking her what centaurs ate when they were feeling ill. She'd been able to provide a few names, and some of them turned out to be plants which grew in both worlds -- but there were others which seemed to be unique to her own, and she didn't know how to synthesize the drugs which various herds had worked out across centuries of liminal history. At best, she'd been able to give them a mild stomach tonic, two antihistamines, and a rather dubious chance at a sleep aid. They'd already known how to work with willow bark.

"I'll see you when you get back," Nightwatch offered, and inclined her tail towards the nearest bookshelf. "We'll pick up from Chapter Four."

Cerea smiled (while being careful not to show teeth), because the first three had shown it to be a good story. The danger was just beginning to appear on the horizon, but she had some concept of its scope and possessed no idea for how the protagonists would deal with it. She wanted to know the rest and until she picked up a lot more vocabulary, that could only be done through having the pegasus read to her.

"Thank you," she said, because it was the thing she was most thankful for. Just having someone willing to stay in the cell with her, reading a story. The one who wasn't as afraid.

"So what's your next lesson?"

Cerea winced.

"What are you doing?"

"My torso's too low --"

"-- which torso?" the old earth pony mare demanded, and gray-white fur rippled from the sheer indignity of it all. As with every other pony, Cerea could scent the fear rising from that coat, and she wasn't sure it would ever change -- but for this pony, there was a chance that the primary terror had a different source. Spending the vast majority of her life in a society with no room for change had introduced her to those who liked it that way, and she suspected this mare's greatest fear stemmed from the chance that every day wouldn't be exactly like every other: learning that the most recent calendar spaces now included the need to teach a centaur had already fulfilled that. It didn't take the disc to hear Tradition in every word, because Etiquette arose from Tradition and when the mare spoke, so did the capital letters.

This was etiquette training, because Someone Who Is So Different needed to be among the Common Folk without Disturbing Them Any More Than Necessary. It meant learning about body posture, and so much of that was natural to Cerea -- for a certain majority percentage of her form.

Ponies had their own body language, and some of that matched Cerea's own. But there were other sapients who had to learn how to go among ponies, communicating as naturally as possible, and that meant cross-species etiquette advisors existed. Cerea suspected this specimen was a permanent part of the palace staff, and so might be similar to what was encountered in the United Kingdom before a meeting with the Queen: this is where you stand, you can only raise your head to this angle, and you never, ever spoke first. This was an etiquette advisor who had apparently met dozens of visiting dignitaries, hastily training bipeds and quadrupeds alike before meetings with the two royals could begin. The mare was used to all of that --

"The upper," Cerea awkwardly said. "I'm dipped too low." The bra wasn't fully designed to prevent that angle of movement. "I'm..." and the blush began to rise "...sliding. This is just blocking --"

"So use your left foreleg! As a Civilized mare would!"

"My legs don't bend that way," the girl desperately protested. "Ms. Manners --"

"-- then what exactly," the mare huffed, "are we supposed to do with your arms?"

-- but her training was intended for those who either had a pair of legs and arms each, or four legs and 'arms' were distant rumor. Cerea's natural count was four legs and two arms added to a single perpetual burn of embarrassment and no matter how Ms. Manners worked the math, the centaur wound up being over the limit.

"This," the earth pony stated, "is ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. How is anypony supposed to operate under These Conditions?"

Cerea, whose too-low dip was progressively causing more and more blonde hair to slip in front of her face, was starting to ask the same question. And some of that fall was now dragging on the floor because she really needed a trim, plus this wasn't a good position to be holding, her forelegs were bent far too much, but she still had an arm free and there was a table edge nearby. If she could just brace herself with the palm --

"What is that arm doing?"

"It's --"

"-- I am certain," the mare declared, "that if I was so Unfortunate as to possess arms, I would know where they were at all times. Seeing as how they are rather permanently attached and since they are extending from your shoulders, I don't know how you're losing track of them." Followed by, in the tones of highest offense, "Also, in that position, with your arm outstretched, your horns would be gouging the edge of the table. Are you aware of how old that table is? The damage you would be doing to a Historic Heirloom of the nation itself?"

"I don't have horns..." A dark thought was allowed to flash a frozen image within inner vision.

You could have gotten Tionishia. She has a horn.
She would have curtsied. Bowed. Jumped up and down in delight just to meet you, because I'm pretty sure she would just love ponies. It wouldn't be Etiquette, but it would be Sincere.
You would also be down by one chandelier and most of what's in that china cabinet, because when an ogre jumps up and down, the vibrations have to go somewhere.
Oh, and then there's Rachnera. You would either be bound in silk by now or trying to figure out a courteous position for pedipalps. The silk would be easier.

"I fail to see how that is My Problem," Ms. Manners huffed. "I am pointing out what would happen if you did. So you should avoid that, in case you ever do." The mare sniffed. "Six limbs. Six and one or more forehead protrusions would naturally be next, if only because the world sees a lifetime of Service to the Thrones and wishes to punish it. So I fully expect you to grow a horn, as that is what would inconvenience me. Move your hand."

"I -- " Her foreknees were beginning to shake. "I should straighten up --"

"-- a proper Greeting Stance," the earth pony stated, "would not straighten until released. And would be performed using one torso." She took a measured, angry step closer. "Move the hand."

Cerea moved.

Then she moved again, with the second shift considerably more involuntarily.

"OW! HOW DARE YOU! THE PRINCESS WILL HEAR ABOUT --"

"Sorry!" About several things and her new position wasn't the least of them, because her torsos were connected and the only way for the upper to slam into the floor like that was to have the lower assume a posture which could only be maintained for a split-second before the whole thing crashed sideways, which was why that one presumably-equally-important-bench wasn't any more and the china cabinet had gone through the sort of internal redesign generally associated with a color-blind earthquake. "I'm sorry! I'm --"

And she was in fact sorry about the damage, along with how horribly awkward she looked and the chance that someone who wished to be a knight wouldn't be able to learn etiquette. There just happened to be a moment when she wasn't completely sure she felt the same way about the inadvertent snout slap.

"Have you ever been arrested?"

She was still learning pony expressions. Body posture was easier: so many of those echoed the horses she knew, while others could be found in centaur forms. This one told her that Crossing Guard was tired, and it also let her know that absolutely nothing had changed because he'd been tired during every meeting.

He was part of the Solar staff, and Cerea now understood that to be those who worked the majority of their hours during the day. But he'd been coming to the palace at night, because that was when he was available. For Cerea, it was a little easier: she had to be fully alert during Nightwatch's teaching sessions, and so her waking time had slowly been sliding into the Lunar shift. But he was seeing her after having already put in a full workday, just to make sure her paperwork was sorted out. That everything was legal, and that was part of what made him tired.

"Er," Cerea said.

Her answers usually made it worse.

"So you've been arrested," the weary unicorn stallion translated from the awkward. His eyes briefly moved around the temporary workroom, visibly searching marble walls for something which might save him from the details. The decorations had nothing to contribute.

"...yes. A few times." Which was being rather generous towards 'few,' along with mortally offending any dictionaries in the area.

Steadily, "Any convictions?"

"...no." Technically, the entire household had once been assigned community service, but it had been revoked after the community had realized having seven inexpert liminal girls trying to serve it wasn't the best idea. (No one had ever figured out what Suu had done to the park's flower clock, although Papi's signature had been writ large in talon scratches all over the merry-go-round.) "It was mostly just temporary holding."

"Mostly," Crossing Guard repeated. A bright red corona briefly flickered around his horn, and another piece of paper came off the top of the desk's tall stack. Three meetings had brought it about a third of the way down, and Cerea wondered why the light was showing spikes around the edges.

"The mother of one of my friends had us imprisoned for a while," Cerea awkwardly said. "Without charges."

The unicorn took a slow breath, and a "Because...?" beckoned Cerea to her doom.

"Because she's the queen of her people and she can do that. Until someone finds out about it, anyway." The blush was working its way towards her neck. "There was nearly an international incident once we got out, and some countries stopped taking exchange students from her area. A few more cut off trade. Because she's --" it was hardly polite, but Meroune had given her permission to say it "-- sort of... crazy?"

The previous breath was repeated. There was a chance that it had been exactly the same breath, because the head of Immigration didn't seem to be getting any oxygen out of it.

"A queen," he carefully attempted to summarize. "Put you in a cell."

"With my friends," Cerea added. It would have been 'helpfully added', but she wasn't really sure it was helping.

"With no charges."

"And then she tried to drown us," the centaur girl said, mostly for the sake of completion. "But it all set off a lot of political problems. It's not as if there's going to be a war, but no one wants to deal with her now."

"Because," the pony tried, "she's crazy."

Cerea nodded.

"And you're friends with one of her children. Still."

Again, only with extra awkwardness.

"That's queens for you," Crossing sighed. "I think I can put that down as 'detainment only'."

"...okay," was the best she could initially do, and the eventual "Thank you," felt ill-timed.

The unicorn slowly shook his head: a mane which had already become disheveled over the course of too many normal work hours failed to settle back into any kind of groomed position. "I'd normally say we had an advantage here, since it's apparently impossible for anypony to contact your homeland and check any of this," he said, "but it also means I'm relying on you to be completely honest with me."

"I'm trying --"

"-- I believe you," he crudely interrupted. "Some of what you've been saying is too embarrassing for anyone to just make up."

The hornlight picked up a quill, and he scribbled a few things on the paper. The only word Cerea recognized was 'No.'

"Is anyone --"

"-- anypony --" came in on the downbeat.

"-- going to try and check?"

"Yes," Crossing Guard starkly said. "I would reasonably expect that when the palace sees fit to grant a centaur immigrant status, somepony is going to investigate -- no, wait. I lied."

Cerea, feeling he hadn't, just waited for the rest of the sarcasm.

"It's going to be a plural. Lots of someponies. Combing the world for hints of a centaur nation and when they can't find one, they'll just use the lack of confirmation as freedom to start some really interesting rumors." The spikes around the enveloped quill began to display ragged edges. "We're going to do our best to suggest you're a singularity: something which isn't likely to be repeated. But they already know about Tirek. One is an aberration. Two gets that much closer to population. It means ponies are going to be looking for the third through thousandth, and some of the papers will tell them to check in every shadow." He snorted. "They'll have a nation in their heads, too many of them, and the invasion will start from their own closets. We'll be lucky to keep things at one riot..."

She'd been trying not to think about that, ponies getting hurt because of her, and so she desperately tried to change the subject. "I understand why they'd be afraid of more centaurs --"

"-- oh, good," was the desert-dry response. "You understand."

"-- but maybe if you implied a mixed nation? One where I'm just part of a really small minority? That's how it was in Japan." Which was when the idea kicked her in the right flank. "What if you said I was a diplomat from that country --"

"-- if you're looking for diplomatic immunity," and he ignored her frantic nod, "we don't use it. Too many problems. And even if we did, we'd need an exchange of papers between nations. Also an exchange of diplomats. So we're forging a country out of paperwork and asking somepony to get lost for what might be a very long time. And again, somepony's going to go looking." More scribbling ensued, and Cerea's twitching ears picked up a tiny cracking sound from the quill. "That's this section done. Next up is --"

A sheet floated down from the stack. He glanced at it.

The words were far too quick. "-- we can skip this part for now." And the next piece of paper slammed down on top of the ignored one.

"What is it?" Because there was a new scent in the room, something which had only arisen when he'd seen the words. "Is there a problem?"

"It's something we can't deal with yet," he harshly declared. "We'll answer this one when the time comes. And that time isn't now."

He smells worried...

Had there been anything on that page she'd recognized? One small word had looked vaguely familiar, but it had been covered so quickly --

"It's not a concern at this time," the unicorn stated (and now that scent was increasing). "Leave it at that. We've got enough of this to get through as it is." He glanced at the covering sheet. "Which brings us to detailing your previous travels --"

It was a half-second away from being a simul-wince.

"-- through nations nopony has ever heard of," Crossing Guard finished, "in a place we can't reach."

The quill broke in half.

The hornlight winked out. Separate sections of feather dropped onto different parts of the page. The ink simply went everywhere.

"I'm going home," the unicorn stated. "It's been too long a day for this, and I'm not going to let it become too long a night on top of it. I'll take you down to the cells, and then I'm leaving."

"We're supposed to call for a Guard," Cerea quickly said. "To bring me down --"

"-- I know where the cells are," Crossing Guard snorted as he started to turn away from the desk. "I've also been in the palace enough times to know how to reach them. And you, as an immigrant to Equestria, are my charge, which means that in appropriate circumstances, you follow my orders. I want to go home and I'm not waiting half an hour for somepony to finish their wake-up juice break. So I'm giving you an order. Follow me."

He had authority and in that, he was much like Ms. Smith. With both officials, the alternative to doing what they ordered was to not do it. In fact, you could expect to never do anything they told you again, only at a distance of several thousand kilometers: the explanation for why you hadn't done it would be directed at a parent, who really wouldn't want to hear any of it because Cerea would have failed.

Her eyes briefly closed as her head dipped forward, and she meekly followed her superior out of the room. Eight hooves began to work their way down what was becoming a familiar corridor. Cerea had been brought through what felt like every cleared backroad for the lower levels of the palace, and that meant she knew to turn left --

-- he turned right.

"It's that way," she risked, and let one arm point because that was just part of what arms were for and if the disc hadn't made another mistake, then Ms. Manners was the worst-named pony in the world.

"It's faster this way," the unicorn countered. "That path winds around too much."

"But --" was an even bigger risk.

"I'm pretty sure I gave you an order."

Cerea knew about orders. Her herd had a great need for formality, and one of the ways it ensured the maintenance of a confined community was through expressing ideas as orders. And she had been in training to become a knight, you couldn't even think about that kind of goal if you weren't willing to do what your liege commanded...

A knight had to know everything about orders. And the first thing the books taught you --

"It's the wrong thing to do."

"So is losing your paperwork," Crossing Guard darkly said. "Mostly because I'd have to fill it out all over again, from scratch, and we'd also lose all that time. But it's an interesting thought. Now are you coming or not?"

I'm not supposed to move around the palace by myself.
There's supposed to be at least one Guard, or one of the Princesses. And there always has to be some warning.
This is wrong.

A knight obeyed orders. But a knight also had an obligation to evaluate those commands. And that was why the books taught you to watch out for the stupid ones.

"I --"

He snorted, and did so at the same moment his horn ignited. A spiking red loop of light projected around her right wrist, then yanked.

It gave her an instant impression of his strength, or at least the amount he was committing to the effort. His current power didn't match that of the dark Princess: in Cerea's opinion, he wasn't capable of lifting her. But that didn't seem to matter very much, because she had no natural defenses, no way to get the light off her body, and what strength he did have had just yanked on her arm.

She felt the strain in her right shoulder, and instinct shifted her forward in the name of preventing injury. But he kept pulling, not even looking at her, angry hooves pounding against marble as he marched ahead, and her own hooves were skidding --

"-- we shouldn't be doing this!" she tried again, because words were most of what she had left. Cerea didn't know if it was possible to fight against the pull, to break the light with effort instead of sword, or what would happen to the unicorn if she somehow managed it. That seemed to make talking into the primary option. "There's a reason --"

Another snort as he went around a corner, she wanted to plant her hooves and push backwards, so much of her wanted to test and see what happened next, but he was her superior and the order was stupid and she didn't know what disobedience would bring --

"-- bad things happen when you go out of bounds!" Cerea gasped, and that was where words momentarily ran out because the next yank felt as if it had almost dislocated her shoulder. She had to go forward, just to stop the pain. "We can't --"

It put her around the corner, into a part of the palace she'd never seen. It let her get a view of the unicorn's corona, the light now oddly double-layered around the horn, with the lower portion fading towards white.

It also gave her a view of the opening door. The unicorn mare who casually poked her head out into the corridor, a pony she'd never seen before, one whose expression took no effort to recognize as a sneer.

She automatically looked to the left, checking the hallway. Examined the right --

-- there was a moment when she had only seen Crossing Guard, and Cerea didn't recognize the way in which that sneer began to distort. The air currents in the corridor were wrong for her to scent any degree of confusion, and no pony around her had behaved in a
manner which would let her learn disdain.

Then the mare spotted Cerea.

There was a scream.

It was a very familiar scream, because Cerea had heard it coming from more than a dozen pony throats at the moment she'd vaulted the greenery into that first town. It was loud, it echoed, it lost nothing to the sound of desperately-racing hooves, and it seemed to go on for a very long time.

The unicorn stallion blankly stared after the now-departed source, and the loop of light vanished from Cerea's arm, even as the sound of hooves pounding towards them began to cut through the noise.

"You were trying to tell me," he slowly said, "that the Guard makes sure the path is clear before you move. That anypony who sees you is a pony who already knows you're here. That's right, isn't it?"

"...yes." She had to fight the urge to rub her shoulder, and was rapidly losing the battle against the one which insisted that she cry.

Softly, "I'm sorry. I should have thought about that. I should have listened. I --" and his spine slumped "-- treated you like you didn't know anything. Like a disobedient child." Barely a whisper now. "Why would I...?"

"Mr. Guard?"

"Bad things happen," the unicorn quietly continued, "when I try to get home. I'm sorry."

"Who -- who was that?"

"That," the stallion said, "was the worst-case scenario." His ears moved in concert with Cerea's, orienting on fast-approaching ponies. "I'll tell the Princess exactly what happened. I'll make sure she knows it was my fault. But this was supposed to be about introducing you to the nation, when everything was ready..."

His head slumped, and did so at the same moment the hornlight vanished.

"I'm not going home, unless the Princess fires me. And even then, I'll ask for one last shift. Nopony's sleeping much tonight," Crossing Guard quietly declared, and did so at the moment a panicked Nightwatch came flying down the corridor. "Because there's only one chance to make the smallest portion of this work again."

It felt like far too many other moments in her life. Every last one had her knowing what was coming next, feeling it was all somehow her fault, and finding herself with no means of stopping it...

"You're making your debut tomorrow."

Loathsome

She had been told to remove the translator: something which had come across as being all too close to a true order. And so when it came to speech alone, she could not truly understand what the dark Princess was saying to Crossing Guard in the empty conference room, not for more than one hard-learned word in twenty. Every so often, a soft conjunction or understated definitive article would rise from the flow of tightly-controlled neighs and whinnies, and their weight would press down on the black mane, put a middle-aged head that much closer to collapsing into its own neck.

He was staring at the floor as she spoke, with Cerea motionless on his immediate left. The black tail was completely still, and there seemed to be just a little more grey in his muzzle.

None of the dark mare's vocalizations were particularly loud. Her hooves did not scrape at the floor, and the horn never approached another's flesh. But the temperature was slowly, steadily dipping with every new set of incomprehensible words, eventually reaching the point where Cerea's right arm automatically went up in the usual pointless attempt to hide the results. And while the unknown terms themselves seemed steady and even...

She had the option of watching the mare's posture, even when all that indicated was simple calm. Scent told her very little, especially when the miasma of fear and shame rising from Crossing Guard blocked out so much else, and anything which came off the dark mare tended to die in the cold. But there was also that strange mane and tail, something no other little horse possessed, and no matter how the words came across...

The four minutes of questioning had seen several flares. A number of constellations had rearranged themselves. Cerea, who had never taken the strongest interest in astronomy, technically became the first centaur in over four centuries to directly witness a supernova and distantly considered the occasion wasted.

The actions of the false stars seemed to serve as a reflection of how the Princess truly felt. But all the girl could do was stand silently, with her left hand fallen limply open and her own head down, excessive hair occasionally falling before her eyes. Trapped in a room with artwork she didn't seem to be capable of appreciating, with benches she couldn't rest upon and books she was unable to read, listening to words she didn't understand coming from someone whose mood she fully recognized.

To Cerea, the mare was expressing the soft rage which came from someone who was dealing with a fundamental level of incurable disappointment and so in the whole of that strange world, she was the most familiar thing.

Finally, there was something which seemed to be a last word. This was followed by the mare's head tilting right, with the horn indicating the door. And Crossing Guard, never raising his gaze from silver-shot marble, slowly trotted out, a half-limp left hind hoof wearily nudging the door shut behind him.

The dark Princess shifted her head again: the horn pointed towards the translator, its wires strewn across the table. Cerea slowly reached over (which required an awkward lean) and put it on.

"I will have somepony take you back to your quarters," the mare softly told her. "I advise you to gain whatever degree of rest you can. There are matters which need to be arranged, and doing so with expedience will require Princess Celestia to join the effort."

More hair fell in front of her face. A natural consequence from having her chin drop so harshly.

"I'm sorry --" was automatic, and rather well-practiced.

Just as softly, with no edge to it at all. "-- precisely which of your actions do you feel requires apology?"

Cerea's gaze shifted. Just enough to see steady eyes and stars.

"I am," the dark Princess quietly told her, "rather familiar with fear." None of those false stars dimmed. "Not only the ways it expresses itself, but the myriad of means it will use when attempting disguise. For some, it tries to masquerade as control. For if the cause of terror can be dominated, then how could it ever be something which requires fear at all? I had not believed Crossing to be that sort of pony, but..."

The mare's head dipped, very slightly. She took a slow breath, one which pulled that much more heat out of the room, and then her eyes came up again.

"He told me," she added, "that he felt he had treated you as a child. And he did not understand why. But I believe I do. For there is that aspect of you which echoes us, and so there is also vacuum. Something which will give so many their excuse for disguising fear under the weak trappings of dismissal..."

"I don't understand." Apologies. Incomprehension. Put them together and the pairing seemed to make up ninety percent of her vocabulary.

The mare looked at Cerea's skirt --

-- no: the fabric covering her left hip. Kept looking for three long seconds, and then returned to the girl's face.

(The dark mare could look at her directly. It stood out, especially when almost no one else would.)

"You have no mark," the dark Princess stated. "A pony's form in that portion of your being, if on a scale seldom seem. Almost completely familiar. And no mark. For us, something which indicates youth and a life which has yet to find its direction. But for you... it is the natural state. Permanent. Even in their terror, they will see you existing in a state of perpetual childhood, and it will give them yet another excuse for their actions."

She shook her head. Constellations slowly shifted back towards their original positions.

"Rest, while you still can," royalty continued. "Eat and drink, for you will need strength. There will be a briefing provided regarding some of those you shall be facing. Your part will be played some hours from now, on a fully public stage. But no action of yours created the events of this night, and so there are no apologies required."

The mare turned, began to trot towards the closed door --

-- stopped.

"I did not dismiss him from service," she steadily added. "Regardless of his own repeatedly-stated wishes on the matter. And he will continue to supervise your integration into our society."

"...what?" was all Cerea had.

"He believed that his actions warranted it," the mare stated. "He almost begged for termination of duty. But he has been through much before this night, in the name of that duty. He recognizes his error, and..."

The dark tail twitched.

"...I would rather have you watched by somepony whose duties have become that much personal," the Princess told her. "By a stallion who knows that he must correct for his behavior. That he has an obligation to do the right thing." Her ears flexed, rotated slightly backwards. "In the modern vernacular, centaur, he owes you one. Perhaps several. And I believe he will do whatever is necessary to clear that intangible debt. Wait here for your escort: I shall see you before the press conference begins."

Dark energy opened the door. What felt like a fully unnoticed back kick made it vibrate in its frame for nearly ten seconds, and it took longer than that before the last echoes of impact faded away. The girl stayed where she was, shivering in the new cold. Forced herself to stay that way, until the sound of hoofsteps was gone.

And then her hands were clenched, her upper ribs were heaving, she was gasping for air over and over but she couldn't seem to retain anything for more than a few seconds, lungs unable to process basic functions while the Second Breath became an impossible rumor, her eyes were streaming and she was beating her hands against the table as her hooves cantered in place, legs fully beyond her control as the panic attack (the first in so many years) tore through her and a voice which could duplicate so many sounds rose and fell through an orchestra of agony, never finding a single word before settling into a final note of despair...

The sheer duration of the elder's life had allowed her to learn many truths, and her sister's presence in the rather plain bedroom served to reassert one of the most basic: nopony ever woke somepony up at that hour for a good reason.

The briefing was fairly quick. (She'd also learned that the biggest disasters didn't require that much time to summarize.)

"All right," the elder began as powerful legs kicked the last of the blankets away, because nothing was all right and so it was best to get that lie out of the way immediately. "The first hoofstep is not letting the Tattler have the benefit of an exclusive."

The younger nodded. "Fortunately, we have some time. She managed to slip out of the palace before anypony knew what had happened --"

"-- starting from a section she wasn't supposed to be in," the white mare groaned, carefully planting huge forehooves upon well-worn carpet. "I am more than sick of having her sneaking off, Luna, poking around in every corner she can reach for something she can distort. And she's actually got something for once, something real, something she's going to use --"

"-- several hours from now," the younger quickly cut in. "She is incapable of teleportation, and the Tattler is reluctant to cover the expense of an air carriage, let alone having a more talented caster deliver her to the gatehouse closest to their offices. That means she likely galloped the whole way, and she is not particularly fleet of hoof: by my estimate, she is still slightly short of the building. Once she arrives, the article itself requires regurgitation --"

"-- writing --"

"-- I chose the more accurate term. Additionally, there is likely to be a sketch with carefully-added inaccuracies, and all of that must be placed within the printing machinery. Most likely displacing whatever had originally been intended for the front page, as nothing else may now take that space."

The elder nodded as she gained her hind hoofing: yellow briefly projected in the general direction of casually-discarded regalia, then winked out in favor of other priorities. "They can't publish a morning edition without operating in your hours, and there's only so fast they can work. We'll get the staff to send a short piece to every paper -- including the Tattler, since they'll need something to bury under the weight loss ads. Telling them we have her, we're introducing her --" A brief frown covered a portion of the rising fear as the white mare began to head towards the doors. "-- not at sunrise: there's no way we can have everything set up by sunrise --"

"-- Moon-raising," the younger suggested. "The beginning of my hours, the end of yours. We flank her together, at a time when both of us are truly capable. And it will be a true press conference, so the meeting will take place in my Courtyard."

"Which gives us a full day with the news racing across the continent," the elder reminded her sibling. "So the next missive is for the Canterlot police. We'll send Guards out to coordinate with them. I can drop scrolls into every other police department on the continent, but there's only so many Guards, and even with teleportation escorts working full-time.... we can't send that many reinforcements, we need the majority of our own ponies for Canterlot..."

"They will still know to watch for mass panic," the younger told her with a fully-false calm, hastening to follow the longer stride into the hallway. "Simply being aware that such may occur --"

Darkly, "-- what do you mean, 'may?' I should go into Ponyville myself and have Miranda put the Trio on lockdown --"

"-- will allow them to stop much of it before it truly takes hold." More quickly, "And send an additional round of scrolls, sister: to the weather coordinators of each settled zone."

There were times when each simply knew how the other thought. "Direct schedule override. Damp and chill. Early snow for every team which can arrange it -- Sun's spots, we're going to have a weather-based postponement of a hoofball match, there hasn't been a hoofball rainout in three centuries and the Tide's home crowd comes close to full-scale riot just for a win..." That was worth another groan.

"It cannot be helped," the younger said (and now they were beginning to pass members of the Lunar staff, ponies jolted into full awareness from seeing the sisters moving together at an hour where nothing good could be happening). "Damp, chill, and snow, sister. Being so deep into autumn works in our favor, as the pegasi will not need to create so extreme a shift. It is something which will prevent a few riots from forming."

"Excepting the ones started by ponies who freak out every time the schedule is so much as a degree off," the elder grumbled, because that too could be a mask. "I could wish this was Nightmare Night: at least then, we could have claimed the world's best disguise... Okay. General statement to the press, weather override..." Her mind was still racing, because there were times when directing actions during a crisis was simply a matter of being able to channel panic a little better than everypony else. "Do we risk a separate exclusive?"

The younger blinked, then glanced back at the small parade of ponies who were beginning to trail in their mutual wake. "Your meaning?"

"If we move quickly," the elder tried, "we could have somepony interview her. A direct counter to what's going to be in the Tattler. Her own words --"

"-- she may not be ready for such a personal conference," the younger reluctantly countered. "Especially with no true briefing on what she can say, and what she must not. Additionally, all of it will cost us time: finding the reporter, bringing that one here -- and speech requires its own portion of the clock, as does the transcription. I do not believe it is possible to have it happen and still see the results reach the morning edition."

"Princesses?" came from behind them. "What's going on? It sounds like something just --"

"-- follow us, Moonstone," the younger broke in. "We will have need of you shortly."

"Is it..." A tiny gulp from the shimmer-white earth pony. "is it the centaur?"

"Yes. And it is also not her fault." Now fully aware of the audience, "Princess Celestia, do you wish to make the attempt?"

White legs accelerated to the fullest extent they could risk indoors with witnesses present: some of the less sturdy followers began to drop back. "If we can get somepony in here within an hour, with one of us supervising the entire interview --" purple eyes half-closed, quickly recovered from the wince "-- which is probably going to be the impossible part. Try, but I'm expecting to fail. How many protesters do you think we're going to get?"

Not without dark humor, "What is the current population of Canterlot?"

The elder told her.

"Ah," the younger said. "Subtract the employees of the Bugle and the majority of the palace staff. Additionally, I believe we can trust Fancypants to remain on our side. And there you have the theoretical maximum."

"I wish he was at our side for this," the white mare sighed. "He's still in Trottingham. If we had him unofficially representing the nobles..."

"Can he be safely extracted?"

This time, the purple eyes went up. A dark gaze followed, and then both mares were looking at the ceiling. Or rather, at a tower well above.

"No," the elder decided as they both hit the first down ramp: the ever-increasing retinue braced for the slope. "Not even for this. But I'll get him on board as soon as he comes home. Any other ideas for racing a first-time starter?"

There were times when each simply knew how the other thought, and such occasions were not as frequent as they could have been. The sisters were, in many times, very different ponies. There were aspects in which each reflected the other, added to one in which each carried the other... but that deepest reflection was an ancient one. The centuries had seen both change, although not so much that the mares who had once set out into chaos could no longer recognize themselves in the most secret of inner mirrors.

Still... the same thought could occur to both, and do so within a singular moment. But they wouldn't always act on that thought the same way. The viewpoint of day encroaching into night: the perspective of protective shadow gazing towards revealing light. They were very different mares, and those differences were what allowed the Diarchy to function. Viewpoints which could debate, approach, and reconcile.

Older and younger. The last living links to so much of what had truly happened. Those who had survived.

But they knew each other. They reflected each other. And so this time, both had the same thought, at the same moment. They saw it in the eyes of the other, and so they also saw the instant when each rejected it.

"The thing I would most wish to aid us," the younger darkly stated, "remains useless."

The elder nodded. And with still more ponies desperately trying to follow, they headed for the main conference room. They needed to write, plan, try to cover every contingency while knowing that such was impossible, do whatever they could to stabilize their nation in the face of a phantom threat. Everything which was practical and necessary.

But neither could make herself believe in prayer.

Freakish

The briefing book had been rather hastily compiled. Pictures had been poorly glued to pages: some of the glossy borders went off the edge, and moving the sheets too fast could send the images into distant corners of the cell. Words had been frantically scribbled onto paper, no one had found any time for binding -- and then one of the little horses had remembered that Cerea couldn't read the thing. Nightwatch had been dispatched accordingly, and so Cerea had learned that the creamy yellow drink which scented the breath of so many Guards was called wake-up juice (or at least, that was as close to the real name as the disc could get). The pegasus had spent the final daylight hours in treating it as a substitute for all other nutrition, and her feathers would occasionally vibrate accordingly.

"Can you remember who all of them are?" the little knight frantically asked. "You have to remember who all of them are. Not necessarily their names, but what each one looks like, and the position they'll probably take. Um. The position in their articles. The next articles. The ones after tonight --"

She'd learned Japanese to a (barely) workable conversational level in four months: being constantly surrounded by natives had rapidly improved her fluency. "Yes. But... you said this won't change their minds..."

Silver eyes winced shut. "Um. Not for most of them. But that's because the best ones won't have an opinion -- um..." It was possible to watch inner words frantically rearranging themselves. "I mean, they'll just tell ponies what happens, and they'll keep their own feelings out of it. There's still a few who can do that. But --" The black head lunged forward, sorted out two sheets and eventually recovered the associated photographs. "-- there's the ones who'll come in with their minds made up. Everything which happens... won't, not the way it really did. Not in a way which makes them think, because they've already decided what it means. For starters, Ms. Marshdew is going to support you --"

"-- how do you know?" That seemed important. "Did you speak to her? Has anyone --"

"-- anypony," Nightwatch desperately corrected: something which actually came with a lash of the tail. "You have to try and say that! I can hear it when you say 'anyone!' They're two separate words! 'Anyone' is for someone who isn't a pony, or a really mixed group! And it's going to be just about all ponies tonight --"

The pegasus blinked.

"-- except for the ones who aren't," the little knight groaned. "Sun and Moon, it's going to be Dejected and Gracie at the very least, and nopony put pages together for them --"

"-- who?" Because there were a thousand times to worry about, a million reasons to lock herself in the bathroom (not that any part of a cell locked from the inside, but she could try to jam her hind hooves against the door) and just about all of them had conspired to try and keep her from sleeping -- but a question gave her something to think about for a precious second. Something which wasn't another vision of fast-approaching disaster.

It also let her focus, and that felt as if it was becoming more difficult by the minute. Sheer emotional exhaustion had sent her into collapse shortly before sunrise, and the few inner images which hadn't tried to prevent that turned out to have saved their efforts for jolting her awake again. By her best estimate, she'd gotten about three hours of sleep, and the longest single increment had been twenty minutes.

Centaurs entered REM sleep somewhat more quickly and frequently than humans, and those dreams typically included every sense. It currently didn't seem to be a good thing.

"International press!" It was all too close to a wail, and the sound nearly drowned out that which came from the approaching hoofsteps. "Let me think, let me think... um.... Dejected is going to take the worst possible view, but he's going to base that in facts. He won't try to say you'll destroy the world, because the Princesses will tell everypony you can't and he usually takes them at their word. He'll just say something about how the riots will burn down Canterlot. And Equestria. Maybe the Burning Lands, but I'm not sure anypony would notice."

Her back went tight with fear: something which began at the nape of her neck and ended at the base of her tail, with that blonde fall beginning to frantically lash. "He's..." She was picturing riots now or rather, she was picturing them again --

-- move back for the doors, try to get them closed, the police are supposed to protect us and maybe they won't get through the doors --

Wingtips appeared to be on the verge of wringing themselves. Wingtips weren't supposed to do that. "He's a donkey! Just about everyone in Eeyorus is going to read about his worst-case scenario because that's most of what donkeys come up with on their own anyway! And Gracie won't say much on a first meeting. She'll be watching to see how many times everypony else gets to you, and how often you score something on them, because that'll tell her something about where you stand. She might poke and prod a little, but when it's a group, she prefers to let everypony else do most of the work. And then she'll know if she can dominate you. So remember: Dejected will make everything as bad as possible, but everypony usually ignores him unless he writes something they thought of themselves. And Gracie's going to be like most griffons during a first meeting, only lazier -- we didn't tell you about griffons, Moon's craters, you don't know about how griffons think --"

The more solid of the hoofsteps stopped, and a powerful forehoof pushed open the cell door.

"Picture any group of adolescents attempting to determine where each ranks in a chain of power," the dark mare offered. "One where those who are strongest generally feel they have an obligation towards the weak, the weakest truly need that help, the middle grouping tends to vibrate back and forth within a limited range, and those trapped just below the top link often conspire to fling the current occupant down, because they have yet to understand the responsibility which comes with victory. And now you understand enough about griffons for a first meeting. Especially when it comes to Gracie Topside, whose first response to the appearance of Tirek was to find an interesting perch from which to report on events while hoping somepony else would launch the first interview." She strode into the cell. "As I recall, that tactic bought her some time before her own magic was drained, which amounted to roughly forty seconds. Disrobe."

Cerea blinked, which at least served to distract her from thoughts of talking donkeys and the associated memory of four increasingly-bad movies. (She still couldn't quite reconcile a humanity-free gryphon.)

"You want me to..." they're nude they're mostly all nude all the time so maybe she wants me out there without anything on so I'll be more like them but she wants me to go out there naked

An elderly, bespectacled unicorn followed the Princess in: quavering jasmine light deposited a bundle of cloth on the center mattress.

"Only to your undergarments," the dark mare clarified. "And then put these on."

"Are they holding up, dear?" Corsetiere Garter timidly inquired.

"Um..." It could have come from Nightwatch, and Cerea wished it had. "...it's -- better than anything I've ever had. They've lasted for days..."

"Days?" the unicorn carefully asked.

"Days," Cerea just-as-carefully repeated, because she wasn't sure how to explain about the previous high-activity record: roughly twenty minutes --

-- I charged down my mother.

It had been done in the name of her beloved, to stay with the one whom

I loved him.
He never could have loved me.

she'd wanted, and she still wasn't sure how she felt about that memory. There had been an expression on the elder's face at the moment Cerea had committed to the fight, something which bore traces of the usual disappointment -- but there had also been another aspect. Something the daughter had almost never seen --

"I'll come back to refit you, of course," the old mare said, and completely missed Cerea's tail abruptly knocking most of the papers onto the floor. "I know a growing girl when I measure one. But this will do for tonight."

"If you disrobe," the Princess tightly declared. "Now, centaur. Moon will be raised soon, and most of the attendees have already gathered. Which includes the ones whom the Guards are doing their best to keep outside the Courtyard. We have very little true control over how long this will last, let alone what has already transpired throughout the day --"

"-- what happened?" She had to know. She had to find out if it was her --

"-- we expected fear," the Princess interrupted. "Fear manifested. And because we were ready for its appearance, it did not manage to gather true momentum within the capital. Pockets which were isolated, broken up, and dealt with as individuals. No fatalities, and only a few minor injuries. Do not concern yourself with any of it."

Is she lying to me?

Cerea didn't know. She understood the body language of horses -- but those of her home were incapable of anything more than the most basic falsehood: the lie of calm while a rider mounted, quickly replaced by the joy of sending that human into the dirt. The dark mare was exponentially more complex, and the steady gaze remained unreadable.

"But citizens have the freedom to gather -- although in this case, we have told them to remain outside the palace walls," the Princess continued. "And so a few have come as close as they dare. You do not appear to be disrobing."

There's nothing to be embarrassed about. They don't see me as attractive. They can't --

They only saw her as a monster.

She forced her arms to move, and unsteady fingers fumbled with the buttons of the blouse.

"There," the dark mare directed once the process was complete, watching Cerea's deep breaths with the neutrality of total disinterest. (The intake of air allowed her to smell other ponies, waiting in the hallway. She could scent how frightened they were.) "First the white underlayer, and then the sweater. Pink: what I am told is a calming shade. Fuzzy, to soften your outline. Warrens of angora rabbits were shaved for this, and so it should provide sufficient warmth. It also fully covers you from neck to wrists and upper waist, hiding some of the visible aspects of your strength from those who might be disturbed by it."

She slipped both on. Neither piece had been designed to reveal the slightest hint of cleavage, and both draped loosely. Her breasts created the usual projecting bra-clad shelf -- there was nothing to be done about that -- but the fabric didn't thin from strain as it passed over those curves, and the rest of it gave her upper torso a certain formlessness.

"The skirt," the dark mare directed. "This is somewhat more of a risk. I wish for them to see that which is familiar -- but the more which is exposed, the greater the chance that they will only perceive your physical prowess. So a compromise: the fall comes to the knees." The intensity of the gaze went directly into Cerea's eyes. "It is possible that somepony may inquire regarding marks. Those in Palimyno reported your lack of icon, but there may still be a question as to whether your species has the potential to manifest one. In the meantime, it is best to cover what most would perceive as rather belated absence."

She put it on. Like the sweater, it had a strange softness to it, and the gentle touch felt wrong against tensed fur and skin.

"Did you read the briefing sheets?" A pause. "You had them read to you. Do you recall their contents? Those whom you may be speaking with, at least for what might soon be left of the throng?"

Left? Her voice went with "Yes."

"What you can say," the dark mare continued, "and what you cannot? Remember: we are trying to create a degree of sympathy, at least as far as that might have the potential to exist."

It could be said that the story which the palace had created was a true one. It could also be said that omission was its own kind of lie, and one of Cerea's few intact desperate (and fraying) hopes was that it wouldn't be said tonight. "Yes."

"Then we turn to your hair," the Princess declared, and two slim, trembling mares stepped in. "Kneel."

Cerea carefully lowered herself. Flickering green light and nimble teeth began to work at the loose strands.

"Down the center of her back, and keep it there," royalty directed. "Attempt to suggest the position of a greatly-extended mane. Braid it if you must. Centaur, remove the pins so that they may work freely." Careful evaluation moved to Cerea's covered buttocks. "No more than the lightest curling for her tail: that can stand --" and paused again. "Centaur, do you have a preferred style there?"

He brushed my tail.

"I just... keep it clean," she lied, and tried not to think about the way Nightwatch's silver eyes had just focused on her.

I thought he liked curls.
I thought he could love me.

"It is a fine tail," the dark mare neutrally commented. "Well-proportioned. Excellent fall. I would normally discourage photography designed for the limited interests of a rather selective audience, but in this case, I am actively hoping for at least one pony in the world to consider that someone cannot be such a threat if she has such a fine tail." The evaluation began to move again. "You are clean, and your wounds have healed: that much has been accomplished. Now: you had mentioned that you are capable of scenting when something is safe for you to eat, if not when it is considering attack. Are you capable of consuming wake-up juice?"

"Yes." Although she wasn't sure about the prospective taste.

"Good. Because I am aware that your sleep was limited, and we only have so many edibles which contain natural caffeine. Unless you are willing to risk tea or --" the next word was nearly spat "-- coffee --"

Cerea blinked again.

As a filly, caffeine had been... hard to come by. Just about everything had to be smuggled into her gap in the world, and when it came to tea... those plants didn't grow in France, although the available crops meant the herd had very little trouble flavoring anything which did make it through. Similarly, it had been impossible to cultivate coffee, and just getting a can of soda could be a two-month wait as the shipment moved between double-blinds and drop sites. But then there had been Japan, and...

Caffeine had several purposes in the household. Cerea loved the formality of a tea ceremony, although she was much better with ceremony than tea. Suu simply took the new liquid in through her membrane and because caffeine could be a dehydrator, the next moisture-seeking attack might be a jittery one. Miia typically failed to see that her mix had gone to mauve until the coughing began, Lala indulged in Irish coffee, Meroune preferred tiny sips of wine, few things were more terrifying than the already-energetic Papi on a soda rush, and Rachnera...

The memory almost made her smile. Because Rachnera's body took many things from its spider portion, and one of the most prominent was that caffeine got the arachne drunk. It didn't even take that much: two small cups put her on the ceiling, while four created a slowly-rocking ball of chitin and legs. One which spent most of the night singing off-key.

There hadn't been a lot of opportunities to seek revenge for the frequent bindings while in the household, and one of the few Cerea had ever managed began with an energy drink.

"I can manage coffee," she told the Princess. Coffee where you just trot into a store and look for the right aisle...

The dark mare blinked.

"We will," a sincere voice stated, "try to avoid having the press learn about that. Except for those who might find it to be the greatest commonality. Coffee, then. I shall have some brought to you."

She was starting to feel the weight of the braid against her back. It went poorly with the pressure of everything which was waiting outside.

Twice. This is twice now...

(Technically, it was the third time.)

The dark mare watched, as the hairdressers (manedressers?) made her ready. So did the elderly unicorn, and the little knight who felt like the closest thing Cerea had in the world to a --

"Centaur?" Cerea looked up. (From this position, it was slightly up.) "Something has just occurred to me, and thankfully done so while there was still time to potentially resolve it."

She waited.

Thoughtfully, "Do you have another name? Something we can introduce you by?"

...what?

"I told you my name," was the immediate protest. "In the forest." And with everything which had happened, everything she felt was about to happen, the thinnest sliver of anger began to slip through. "And all you've ever called me is --"

"-- by what you declared yourself to be named," the dark mare quickly countered. "With a touch of what I am assuming to be your native tongue's feminine form, but we lack that and so I turned to the neutral." With what felt like false patience, "I happen to recall a comment regarding the lack of imagination possessed by your parents, and I will keep my hooves planted against that ground." One of those forehooves stomped: half of the cell vibrated. "'Centaur Centaur'. I cannot perceive how they could have made less of an effort. And so it would behoove us to have something else we could introduce you by: a nickname, a fillyhood fancy, anything -- simply to prevent the citizenry from being reminded of your species every time you are addressed."

There were several things she could have done, and flinging the enchanted, suddenly-incompetent disc across the cell felt like it might have been the least of them. Instead, she allowed herself a tiny indulgence on that fast-approaching night, something she so seldom got the chance to do with both complete legitimacy and accuracy.

The girl held her now lightly-shaking position against the cell floor, and silently blamed her mother.

'Centorea'.
The lead family in the valley. One of the oldest, the strongest. So of course we had one of the original surnames.
But then she named me 'Centorea'.
She wanted me to live with that. Every day from the moment I knew what a name was, and what it meant. To live with it, and to live up to it.
Every time anyone addressed me, they told me I was a centaur.
That I had to be a centaur.
That there was nothing there other than a centaur.
She wanted everyone to know that.

As names went, it hadn't been much. However, when viewed as a fervent wish --

-- no.
She doesn't get that.
Not after --

"-- your hands," the dark mare softly noted, "are clenching. When added to the shaking, I would consider that to be an unusual reaction." Just a little more quietly, "If I have given offense, then there will be a time for apology: I recognize that I may have inadvertently trotted upon some level of cultural taboo. But it is a necessary query. I must know if there is anything else they can call you." And once again, the girl missed the true tone. "Please."

"I..."

She swallowed.

Rachnera had happily informed her that it was a town in the northern part of Italy, one which seemingly existed solely for the restoration of furniture, and had saved that little fact for the moment when the centaur's weight had once again shattered an inadequate wooden support. After that, she'd done a little research of her own and discovered it was also half the description for a medical condition, something which generally applied to those in catatonic states. That you could move their limbs to new positions, and they would just -- stay there.

But it was something more than either of those bits of trivia. Because there was a reason she so seldom brought it out, especially when she'd never had any real opportunity to use it within her own herd. After a while, she'd been -- saving it. For the right time, for the right people. A few short, precious months of hearing it, and now...

It meant something, if only to her. It wasn't supposed to be casual. Because the little horses were afraid of her, they were almost all afraid, and to bring that out in front of them...

It was asking an entire terrified world to be her friend.

Blue eyes briefly squeezed shut. Her hands fell open. Pink fabric rose and fell.

"...Cerea."

The dark mare nodded.

"Cerea," Princess Luna repeated. "So it shall be."

Miscreated

Her hoofsteps echoed in concert with the memories.

Smuggled into the area, and teleportation could be viewed as an improvement over being transported in what her nose had quickly told her was a trailer meant for moving racehorses: the manure cleaning had been something less than thorough. Kept out of sight until the time came, and then the procession towards the doors, the chance to step out under open sky --

(It had been the second time.)

-- in front of watching eyes, the world filling in its gaps as introductions were finally made...

...but there was a reason why Cerea had wound up in Japan. It was something which had started at the moment those older doors had opened, it had sent her thousands of miles from what they'd told her had never been her home, and when it happened here (because this time, 'if' felt like the impossibility), she would have nowhere left to go.

So much of the final trot was familiar. The guards escorting the procession were ponies instead of humans? Then they were still guards. And the scent of fear was there, she couldn't believe it would ever truly fade -- but there were other aspects now, ones which had initially emerged from a completely different species. Nervous anticipation. An undercurrent of dread. The terror which only came about when facing the new.

The humans who brought them to the doors had been like that, on that first day of a new world.
Then they had emerged into the true fear.
And then it had all gone wrong.

It was familiar, and so the past tried to overlap the present. Hoofsteps came all too close to echoing boots. The ancient nature of one hallway was easily mistaken for another. She could glance down at Acrolith, see the study earth pony mare clearing the path ahead -- but lose focus for a single second, and the top of the mane would twist into deep blue, gain a thin line of silver-white trim around the peak as a Parisian police officer made a visible effort to keep his right hand away from the grip of the gun.

But the scents were those of ponies, and they kept her anchored within the moment. Swimming through the more recent ocean of fear.

There were other new aspects, of course. The Princesses were trotting at each other's sides, close to the front of the strange procession. (There were Guards in front of them, watching the path -- and more behind Cerea, probably present in the increasingly-likely event that she made a break for it.) On that earlier day, France's president had been nowhere near the conference: for the pony nation, royalty had chosen to directly take the lead.

Their movements were steady. Every hoofstep seemed to have been planned in advance. But looking at the strange mane of the white mare showed the borders of those colors twisting against each other, and the dark Princess wasn't displaying twinkling stars so much as a series of steadily-increasing flares.

The partial armor worn by each had been polished. Heavily, to the point where light bouncing between marble and regalia might have needed nothing more than a slight touch of wavelength compression to successfully lase.

It reminded Cerea of her mother, because her parent was among the strongest and so would often show up at herd meetings wearing highly-polished armor. It tended to be the sort of polish which suggested that the mare wearing it had put in five minutes more than you had (and that even if you put in an extra hour, she would still find a way to go for five over-and-above minutes). The presence of that armor made a statement: the same one the Princesses were silently making. And as with Cerea's mother, it wasn't a suggestion that the protection was actually needed. The message was simpler than that.

Royalty moved through its palace, something where the hallways no longer had any need to be cleared in advance of Cerea's passage. (They had come across a few on the staff who were seeing her for the first time, and she'd tried not to look at the trembling bodies as they pressed themselves into alcoves.) And with every hoofstep, the polished armor told the world We Are In Charge Here.

There were times when Cerea could simply sense the aura which came from power. The Princesses seemed to feel their populace needed a reminder.

A gold-armored female pegasus flew up to the white mare, hovered near her head. "We just got five more, Princess."

"Are the conditions holding?" the regal horse quietly asked.

"We're okay so far." Wing patterns briefly twisted into an awkward sort of flap. "But the rivers are going to be a little low for a while: the weather team wasn't ready for this, and --"

"-- the necessary moisture," the dark mare patiently cut in, "had to be taken from somewhere. And the Courtyard itself?"

"The divide is there for the fall." Back to the white mare. "We could use a little help with the heat, though."

"When I get in there," the taller Princess steadily promised. "I know the Solar shift nearly flew themselves into froth for this, Glimmerglow. I'll do my part."

Two unicorn stallions (one white and slim, the other brown and muscular) briefly registered their presence near Cerea's right flank as a twinned gust of nerves before moving into actual view: eight legs scrambled to reach the Princesses.

"Ready," the white one said as he caught up, with the thick black mane displaying more stability than his voice. "As we're going to be."

"Good," Princess Luna told him. "Because I am certain that we will be hearing at least one question regarding contagion, and it will help to have professionals standing by to declare idiocy. Thank you, Doctor Bear." Her gaze moved towards his partner. "And Doctor Bear, I see your field is carrying -- folded charts?"

The brown stallion nodded. "We're going to try and sell them on sexual dimorphism," the larger unicorn said. "If it becomes necessary. In this case, it helps that she doesn't have cloven hooves or fur on her upper portions, and the absence of --"

"-- should we push her sleeves back?" the taller Princess cut in. "Emphasize the skin?"

He winced. "Princess..."

She managed a smile. "I know: you're a surgeon, not an image consultant. But we might consider doing that at some point."

The nod was a fairly weak one. "Anyway, the idea is that we can't make anypony see her as something other than a centaur -- but by using gender as a dividing line, we may be able to put a little distance between her and Tirek. Best-case, we can add 'subspecies' to that."

"But that won't be easy," the thinner male said. "Not when they both affect magic. Most ponies are going to be thinking --"

His head went up, and slightly to the right. All four legs continued to move at the same pace, and the brown stallion leaned into him just in time to steer the smaller away from the first crash.

"It's still worth trying," Princess Celestia decided.

One more body went past Cerea, head down and horn lit. Some of the wind produced by Nightwatch's wings got through the glow, and the tall stack of carried papers shifted slightly at the top.

"Ready," Crossing Guard told Princess Luna, and said no more.

"Good," she told him. "As we are nearly there..."

The procession moved through new sections of the palace. Cerea still didn't know how large the structure was: just that there were portions where the marble had silver flecking, and that was where she'd spent the majority of her time when out of the cell. Other parts showed gold. There was at least one layer below, many more above, and she couldn't say anything about the view because there had been a policy about keeping her well away from the closed windows -- but it didn't feel like they'd come that far up. There was a chance they were at ground level. And ponies joined the little parade while others moved ahead or dropped back, while all Cerea could was silently keep pace and try to focus on where she was. On the when.

"...are you okay?"

She glanced at the black pegasus, whose near-hover had placed silver eyes directly on the most natural view line. Replied on the same level of whisper. "...no. I do not think that..." She swallowed. "I don't think anyone could be okay right now. But I'm still going to try."

The little knight nodded --

-- and the front of the procession reached two large silver-bordered doors. Portals which faintly vibrated from the accumulated force of hoofsteps, something which had been added to what Cerea's twisting ears insisted was a faint whisper. A whistle of air current around the frame, perhaps, or some tiny intruding fraction of another sound produced by whatever was on the other side...

"Stop," Princess Luna told Cerea, and her hooves nearly tangled in the attempt to hold up. "This is where we leave you for a time. Princess Celestia and I shall initially speak to the press together. While accompanied by selected members of the government and palace staff --"

"-- but if male unicorns had curled horns, you'd never be able to find anypony free on the weekends --"

"-- and thank you, Doctor Bear," the white mare sighed. "We're going to prepare them for you, as best we can. And when we think they're ready, we'll bring you out. So for now, just try to stay away from the doors. We don't want anypony to get a look at you when they initially open, or if somepony needs to duck back in for a minute."

She automatically took two hoofsteps back: one blind spot-occupying Guard shifted just in time to keep from being accidentally trodden.

"This may require some time," the dark Princess stated. "But it is preferable to have you waiting nearby than to create an additional delay through bringing you up from the cell after we are finished. And we will not teleport you, because having you appear from nowhere will undoubtedly exacerbate a number of what we are expecting to be extant issues. Nightwatch?" The little knight instantly focused. "Stay with her. You emerge when she does. However, keep two body lengths between you. A watcher, but not a warden."

"Yes, Princess," Nightwatch evenly replied.

"All right," the white mare said. "Does anypony need a restroom?"

Multiple heads shook. (Cerea decided it wouldn't help.)

"Then we're as ready as we're probably never going to be," Solar royalty wearily announced. "Here we go..."

Light surrounded her horn, projected forward to coat the doors in a shimmer of sunlight-yellow. Pushed, and --

-- Cerea was too far back to truly see anything, especially when trying to look past the bulk of the white body. There was a brief glimpse of patterned stone, the impression of open space beyond, and a blast of sound, so many words that the wire started with a hiss and quickly accelerated towards shriek, dozens of partial syllables twisting within her ears as the cold surged into the hallway, her arm came up and her ears went back and --

"-- wait for us," Princess Luna softly told her. "We will do what we can to clear the path."

Royalty moved forward as large white wings unfurled, began to subtly shift. Part of the retinue followed. The doors closed.

And Cerea waited.

She seemed to have an odd awareness of her own ears.

It was the sort of thing which usually resulted from a rather base level of prank: someone in the household would go up to another one of the girls, whisper "Did you ever realize that you have a tongue?" (or any other portion of anatomy) and in the case of those who had them, they would then spend the next hour trying to rid themselves of the constant sensation that there was a tongue in their mouth and they weren't entirely sure what to do about that. As pranks went, it was fully effective against five-sevenths of the group: Suu could simply reabsorb the part, and Papi had been known to forget about things which were attached.

In this case... when it came to comparing the features of her head against those of a pony, ears were what came closest to matching. But it was, in many ways, a cosmetic similarity: some degree of resemblance in the overall shape, with an added range of motion. Pony ears were just about set towards the apex for both sides of the skull, were larger in proportion to the head than Cerea's and didn't narrow as much or as quickly while moving towards the tips. They also lacked the little tufts of fur at the very ends, and the default position was just about straight up.

For Cerea... her ears didn't have a human shape

ears down and back, under my hair
I'm okay if they don't see my ears

but they did share the placement. (Many little things about human anatomy still shocked her, and the fact that the entire species could only fix on a noise through turning their entire heads was the sort of disturbance which could make obsessive thinking about tongues into an improvement.) It still gave her a fairly good rotational range, and subtle muscles allowed for some small degree of cupping to focus sound. But they were on the sides of her head, and... there were still ponies in the hallway. Nightwatch, and a small selection of observing Guards.

"Do you need anything else to eat?" the little pegasus softly asked. "Drink?"

Her stomach was already churning. "No. But thank you."

The awkward pause hovered on Cerea's right. "Do you want... um... anything?"

I want to go home.

"Different ears," was what actually slipped out.

"Um. ...what?"

Because it was harder for her to press her ear against a door. She couldn't exactly do it subtly --

-- all right, it wasn't as if humans were all that subtle about it either. But at least their ears had been designed for a better fit. In fact, now that she thought about it (because it was so much better than thinking about what might be going on outside, or remembering what once had), it was as if whatever had created humans had basically said 'You know, eventually, these two-legged things are going to be listening at doors, assuming they can ever think of them. We'd better set something up in advance.' Meanwhile, she had to rotate, and then she had to cup at best she could so as not to miss any sound which might make it through, and then she had to figure for the fact that she wasn't exactly casually leaning against the wall in order to acquire that position in the first place, plus there were awkward angles of head and neck to consider, one shoulder was probably curled inwards and as for what was probably going to wind up happening to that one breast...

"...nothing," Cerea sighed, because she also wasn't supposed to be anywhere close to the door and listening at the wall wouldn't do much.

She had been straining to pick up sound from the outside. Hear any portion of what was going on. But just about nothing reached her: at most, she occasionally got a tiny susurrus, the undercurrent babble of voices without any meaning.

They were talking about her, where she could not hear them. There had been times when the herd had done that, speaking in what was meant to be perfect privacy just before her mother had arrived, wearing armor polished to a level which could blind --

"It's been a while," Nightwatch observed, perhaps under the delusion that doing so would somehow help. "About forty minutes, I think."

Cerea's hooves briefly cantered in place against the marble.

"Um," the little knight continued. "I didn't think it would be this long. But there's a lot to talk about. I guess it could be this long. Since it already has been. Or it could be longer --"

The heavy left-side door opened. A lesser cold trotted through, with warmth close behind -- but very little sound followed them. There was a distant sort of rumble, something rising and falling as it worked with the need to stop for more oxygen. But for that which most immediately awaited them, the world seemed to be holding its breath.

"We took it as far as we could," the white mare quietly told the waiting group. "And we got them quieted down. They're as ready as they're going to be, and -- that may not be ready enough."

"Some things arise from instinct," the dark Princess said, with that steady gaze focusing on Cerea's eyes. "And when the herd decides that the time for thinking may have ended, not all will be capable of retaining rationality. You..." A slow breath, and a single wisp of fog rose from her fur. "...are likely about to see something which we did our best to prevent. A reaction. Because in the most realistic outcome, all we accomplished was to convince the strongest among them to hold their ground."

"Please don't judge them," the white mare softly asked. "Not for this. Nearly all of them live in Canterlot, and... just about all of them were attacked. Seeing you for the first time -- it won't ever be any worse than that. But we're going to do exactly what we discussed. Trot out with you. I'll be on your left. Princess Luna will be on your right. Without fear."

They said they would stay with us...

And the words slipped out. Just barely a whisper, only audible in the near-silence of the marble hallway -- but they emerged, and so they could never be taken back.

"...are you afraid of me?"

Her hands immediately went behind her back, clutched at each other as her head went down, and blue eyes closed with shame.

Something touched her right flank, poking lightly against the skirt. A wingtip, barely registered and visibly unacknowledged.

"No," Princess Luna said. "We are simply afraid for you. Arms at your sides. Hands open. Matching our pace. With us now, Cerea."

The brown ears twitched.

'Cerea.'
She called me --

It didn't mean anything. It was the only thing the disc wouldn't render as 'centaur'. It didn't represent the near-sisterly bustle of the household, or a quiet word from the one she had so hoped would be her love...

But she had heard her truest name, and so her eyes opened again.

Flanked by royalty, in the company of a true knight, Cerea walked into the light.

Too much light.

It should have taken hours of careful thought to fully reconstruct the events of eight seconds, something which would have been further slowed by the steady heat of humiliation. Under normal circumstances, there would have been no way to track events as they were happening, not even for someone with a lifetime of knightly training: there was simply too much happening at once.

But nothing was normal about that night, and the newest level of strangeness began at the moment the moon's light touched her, streamed across skin, sweater, and fur in something close to a caress before it reached down to her core and yanked.

Time slowed. Every sensation intensified. Instinct surged towards the master controls and did its best to shove Reason into the stinking trailer.

The moon was full.

It was the first thing she was aware of: for an endless horrible instant, it was the only thing she was aware of. And she didn't know what this world's lunar cycle was, but she had been outside for exercise at the track, the sky had been visible and the moon...

She recognized that it should not have been, and did so in a moment when she was trying to reconcile anything but that which came from her senses, every channel of input turned up beyond its maximum. But nothing she could do would make it anything other than what it was: the clearest, largest full moon she had ever seen. It was something which put all supermoons to shame. It didn't dominate the sky: it almost was the sky. It gave her a perfectly clear view of every crater, it was something which would have given an astronomer fits as they tried to make the choice between once-in-a-lifetime observations or pointlessly trying to flee before that life ended, and it probably would have made Papi screech about how it was the third day again and the harpy still didn't have the right masks.

It was something which existed at any moment when night was upon an occupied Lunar courtyard, and she had no way of knowing that. She only felt the heat surging under her skin as her heartbeat accelerated, lungs working so smoothly that the Second Breath would be the product of a casual wish. The moon was full, and...

Almost every liminal had that dubious relationship with the orb, although the exact nature of the channel and its results would vary. With centaurs... with Cerea, it was an amplifier. On the first night under a full moon in Japan, she had still been looking for a host family. She'd been granted an unusual degree of freedom to begin with: most of the exchange students could only venture out if their government-assigned host was with them, but the herd (or rather, her mother) had convinced the program that a centaur needed to find her own match, and so Cerea had begun her search. She still wasn't sure if toast would have changed the results.

That had been the foremost thought at the moment the light first touched her in Japan, and so it had seemed perfectly sensible to extend her search into the night. All night, every night until the moon waned again, and what she'd mostly learned was that patrolling police officers liked to check IDs multiple times (while having no interest in hosting, despite a knight's obvious match with law enforcement), while the majority of those stumbling home at that hour were good for nothing else. But in the household, during that time when it had just been her (failed) beloved, Miia, and Papi... she had been thinking about... the same thing as the other two girls. She'd just hung on a little longer before the desire had overwhelmed her, had even told herself that she was just entering his bedroom in order to defend him -- but there had been two rivals, she had to be the one who claimed him, she couldn't come in second and --

-- what would have happened, had she beaten them? She didn't know. She had never faced her instincts on that level before, not when the males of her own species repulsed her, and she had lost. But she knew what the worst case was. The thing which had seen her cage herself during every full moon which followed.

It wouldn't have been seduction.
It wouldn't have been love.
It would have been horror.

It had taken some time before the shame had pretended to fade, something which had been true for all of them: even Papi understood how bad it had almost become, at least once sunlight had returned. Every full moon after that had seen the girls locking themselves away, trying to keep him safe, and each successive new addition to the household had agreed to follow that code. He had escaped them once, and only the belief that he had been injured had shocked them back to their senses. They couldn't risk having it ever happen again.

But he was gone. (She was still telling herself that he never could have loved her.) There was no desire. The moonlight reached within her, and what it amplified was desperation, frustration, the anger which she had been repressing from the moment she'd learned that there might not be any way to return home and there was the possibility of spending the rest of her life as the only one of her kind, friendless and loveless in a world which reeked of fear.

It reached all of that, and the mix which had been building from the moment of her arrival surged.

Less than a second, and she was struggling to hang on. To remain a being of thought instead of turning into something ruled by instinct. (The Princesses had yet to realize something was wrong, hadn't had enough time to pick up on the change in her breathing.) But there was so much else competing for her attention, every sense fully open, and in the endless moment when the light first touched her, she registered every last bit of it.

Look to the sky and there was the moon, the largest and fullest moon any centaur had ever seen. A circle of small, exceptionally dark clouds which nature never would have allowed to be so close to the ground, and those were about to become important. But beyond that, there was only swirling white.

She had seen some of what the little winged ponies could do during the first fight, and Nightwatch had tried to explain a few of the intricate ways in which pegasus magic worked. Cerea now understood that the species had some capacity for controlling the weather, something which became easier when done by groups (although for some yet-unknown reason, the groups couldn't be too large). She'd seen the dark Princess casually adjust the temperature with a few flaps of her wings, and felt the mare's anger chill the world. But this was another level entirely, autumn night forced into something close to blizzard. Cold and wind and blasting snow, nearly whiteout conditions -- but they were something which existed only beyond the boundaries of the courtyard.

(They were entering a courtyard, one which had been paved with huge flat opalescent stones. She was just starting to register that: the ornate columns which set the borders for the vast open perimeter, the benches set out for those who had assembled there. Easily sixty meters across the most narrow portion, perhaps double that for the widest part of the oval.)

Where she was... brisk, a little breezy, and both conditions seemed to microscopically mollify with every shift of a white feather. But outside the courtyard, snow was coming down in sheets. It seemed to have been doing so for some time: a carefully-shoveled (plowed?) path indicated where the majority of attendees had entered, and there was something which vaguely resembled a huge open-faced copper grating next to that corridor: the snowpile next to it was steadily melting.

Autumn within the courtyard, winter beyond, and not a single snowflake reached Cerea. (She would have welcomed the cold. Anything which calmed the inner fire.) And somewhere within the surrounding storm, there was shouting, echoes pulled across the space between worlds to emerge anew from pony throats, and she realized too late that her first look at the gathering was actually a desperate search for yellow vests.

But there were none, although some of the ponies were still dressed for the weather which lay beyond the invisible border: others had placed their heavy jackets underneath the sturdy wooden single-occupancy benches. One was still moving down a wide, carefully-arranged aisle. A few were wearing hats, and what she guessed to be band-trapped press passes rustled lightly in the breeze.

None of them were shouting. (Those vocalizations were the property of the protestors, somewhere out in the white, and she distantly wondered at the level of dedication required to keep a protest going in that.) They weren't speaking at all. They had simply all focused their complete attention upon her, doing so at the instant she had become visible, and in the moment when she truly began to look at them --

There was just enough time to make an initial estimate, during the stretching of the seconds. At least seventy ponies for the portion directly in front of her, probably more to the sides. She finally saw a living gryphon (griffin?) and wondered how anyone was supposed to read an expression upon the inflexible beak. But she saw them all after days of never being with more than six or seven, after a time when the number who could stand to be near her was usually closer to one, and...

...she hadn't seen them in this kind of gathering. Not when they weren't attacking her, or celebrating her defeat. There were at least seventy of them, and they were --

-- small.

They were all so small.

The white Princess was still the only true horse among them. These were ponies. Some of them would have barely reached her upper waist: the tallest would have had their features lost in the shadow of her breasts. And every last one had magic of some kind, but when she compared them to her own body, even the sturdiest earth ponies seemed small and weak and

"Of who could be in charge, if she wasn't so nice..."

It almost made her jump. The memory of words arrived as something close to speech, and the phantom touch of a pointed tongue flicked against her right ear. But there was a sense which had yet to be heard from, she was already operating on the edge of overwhelm and when the next impression reached her, pushing in on altered breezes...

How to describe it, to someone who wasn't a centaur? When she finally tried to tell Nightwatch about her perception of what had happened, she would turn to something she thought the pegasus might understand: electricity. About seventy ponies, just within her immediate visual perception. More than that in the olfactory world, although it would take some time to truly sort them out as individuals. They mostly existed as intertwining currents within flow tides, because pegasi had a different base scent than a unicorn, who wouldn't smell like an earth pony, and nothing duplicated the scent which arose from royalty.

So imagine each pony as their own generator. In any given moment, they would be producing sparks of scent: things which arose from mood, health, simple existence. And when Cerea had first emerged, some of those generators had been running at settings which she was slowly learning to recognize. The sub-aspects of fear: anticipation, nervousness, worry and trepidation. But then they had truly seen her, and...

Every piece of internal machinery begins to ramp up production. Voltage surges. Scattered at various points across the courtyard, six of those generators surge into overdrive. Every setting instantly dials up to the maximum, and a burst of pheromonal lightning blurs white-hot off the fur. The energy seeks a conductive surface and so even as the pony starts to move, the wind is carrying that power to the nearest pieces of biological hardware.

It makes contact, sinks in through skin as much as snout. And where it touches, those generators begin to flare...

It's not quite instantaneous, because air requires time in which to travel, and reflexes can only respond so quickly. But the surging parties are spread throughout the group. Each one serves as a fresh epicenter for a traveling series of flares. Every victim, regardless of what their own state had been, responds to the terror. Every one of them starts to produce fear. And it's possible to see a few struggle against it: ears go bolt-upright before twisting backwards, lungs work too quickly, a tail lashes against the owner's flanks over and over again in an attempt to provide new input, anything else to focus upon, and so she also sees one deliberately bite his own lower lip. Some fight, wings twisting, hornlight pushing against their own skin, and there are those who win. The settings begin to dial down, much more slowly than they had surged up. But breathing slows. Eyes focus. What remains is still filled with fear, but it has some control over that state. A sapient being choosing how to respond, and those who win can choose to stay where they are.

But all around the victorious, those who have lost their battles are still surging. Their production brings the intensity of the invisible electricity up and up, until what's starting to fill the courtyard is at a temperature which threatens to melt all resolve. Nightwatch's wingbeats falter. The Princesses tense and when she senses that, she nearly loses the last of her hope.

Later, she will recognize this as her second experience with the phenomenon: the first came when she vaulted the greenery and landed in the pony town, and it is only the full moon (or the way her body has responded to what it believes to be the expression of that orb) which allows her to track it so closely now. A few succumb immediately, their defeat spreads out, even those who win contribute, and --

-- there are gaps. Three of them, all producing their own variations of scent, beings which can't be ponies. They may be able to recognize the lightning, but they can't conduct it. They serve as tiny breaks in the storm, and they aren't enough.

Fear conducts.
Terror surges.
Every pony serves as a conductor.
And the lightning burns away rationality, sears individuality into something smaller than dust.
There are a few ponies left before her.
The rest is the herd.

It looks at her through more than a hundred eyes. It needs to react, and there is some portion which evaluates her, measures its sheer cumulative mass against her own and comes up with a total which has her begin to reach for a weapon which isn't there --

-- but it knows what happened the last time it encountered something with this arrangement of limbs. It remembers the violation, the wrenching removal of its core. Something very much like a rape of the soul.

It can't go through that again, something which cannot think has been reduced to a pair of choices -- and the first is impossible. Because if the herd moves, it can trample her. She will be kicked to death within seconds, and the mindless beating will continue until hooves are stomping into bone fragments and pulp. The herd can kill her, the herd knows that, the simple mercy of a single mare who had regained herself at the last cannot happen here --

-- but she is flanked by the two most powerful entities in the nation. Those whom, in a state without true thought, the herd can only see as that which stands against it, something which can stop it, and so the herd knows victory is impossible.

It cannot fight.
And for the parts of it which, until a moment ago, lived and breathed as pegasi, the 'flight' part becomes literal.

Wings flare, send those portions towards the white. Endless sets of legs kick out, get their owners upright and make them gallop down the nearest available path to safety. And one has his horn flare with brilliant blue, a burst of light which takes him with it, but the rest are flying and running and for the most part, they are doing so using those wide, carefully-arranged, channeling aisles.

The herd flees. It has to run, if it wants to live. And the paths it takes brings it under waiting dark clouds which have Guards hovering above them.

Silver-coated hooves slam into vapor, and every last milliliter of cold moisture dumps onto the herd.

The shock is almost instant. The majority of generators momentarily short out. Some trip over their own legs (and four legs offer a multitude of options for how that can happen), a few slow and get hit from behind by the ones who didn't. And a number continue on no matter what, race into the white where the cold and moisture dampen and dissipate their scents, chased by Guards who can easily catch those who cannot think, get them in front of something which generates heat before illness sets in. But the rest...

The herd begins to fall apart, doing so almost as quickly as it formed. Pupils snap back to their full size. Tails untuck themselves.

Eight seconds.

"And this," Princess Celestia quietly, evenly said as her wings slowly settled into the rest position, "is why we requested that you honestly ask yourselves whether you were ready. Why we took so much time to let you try to internally prepare. Some of you were ready. For the rest... we are here. I'm asking you to remember that. No matter how you feel about what she might represent, even with what you went through... we're here. The full Diarchy, standing ready. We've told you she's harmless. And if you believe she isn't... then also believe that we aren't."

"Gather by the heater," Princess Luna added. "We will have two additional ones brought in, along with using the palace's desaturator to separate water from fur. And once everypony is dry and warm, the next stage will begin."

"She'll talk to you," the white mare continued. "She'll answer your questions, as best she can. So will we. And after that..." It was a deliberate pause, one meant to create the opportunity for hope to bloom, and so it was also the moment in which it tried to die. "...maybe you won't be afraid any more."

And the girl couldn't move. Moon-heightened instincts burned through her, and she didn't lift a single hoof. For to move just then would have been to run, and she would have run until the moment when she would never move again.

Eight seconds.

Eight seconds as a preview for the rest of her life.

Lurid

She had been sent back through the doors, put out of sight while those within the courtyard were dried, warmed, and given a second chance to brace themselves for her presence. Royalty had softly debated that for a moment, considering whether keeping her there the whole time would give the crowd that much more opportunity to become accustomed -- but they had also felt it was something which would keep the previous base state from fully returning, and so the temporary banishment had occurred.

Waiting again, with her body away from the moonlight. She was trying to tell herself that helped, but... the first exposure had already taken place. It took effort not to clench her hands, her hooves kept trying to canter, she wanted to run and she wanted to gallop and when she thought about the possibility of spending a lifetime in watching herds either flee from her or move in for the kill, she almost wanted to hit something.

But she was about to meet them, at least if the same thing didn't happen again. She had to retain control, because her limited direct experience with being the subject of human media had suggested what would take place if the press conference were to be postponed. The newspapers would only have a single topic for their articles: the panic. She had appeared, they had run, and then she had been hastily concealed once again. Days of paragraphs which discussed nothing more than the possibility of seeing that recur every time a pony spotted her, with no soaking clouds prepared to shock her victims back to sanity.

It had to be tonight. And that meant she had to hang on, retain full control, act as nothing more than a fully rational being, because it wasn't as if anything could be done about the moon.

She suspected the guards around her knew something was wrong: it wasn't as if she was holding back every last physical sign, especially as those were a relatively safe place to channel what was happening inside. They probably didn't know how to interpret flushed skin. But for the rest of it... she felt they'd decided that witnessing the mass panic had shaken her, and there was some truth to that. It just wasn't the whole of it.

It had been, if looked at from a strictly rational viewpoint, fairly educational. Especially the part where a few among the crowd had potentially, instinctively decided that the best preparation for fleeing was through dumping all unnecessary weight.

The horses of her home couldn't vomit, and so some forms of rather basic illness had the potential to be fatal. Cerea could, although she had wondered if the sensation was more wrenching for centaurs. And as it turned out, so could ponies. She hadn't been expecting that.

Go figure.

The left-side door opened again.

"We resume," Princess Luna told her, carefully stepping inside. "There are... somewhat fewer to face now. A number came to the conclusion that they could not be in the Courtyard without succumbing a second time, and so they departed accordingly."

"I still don't know where Tombstone wound up," the white mare sighed.

"He chose to teleport out," the other Princess stated. "Without true thought. That meant his destination would have likely been whatever he subconsciously saw as the place of greatest safety. If that was within his range, then that is where he appeared. And as he has not returned, the first assumption is that he chose to remain there."

"Most dams," Princess Celestia wearily indicated, "rearrange the colt's bedroom after the stallion moves out."

"In which case, neither of us knows where he once lived and his recoiled form had a chance to land upon a mattress." The dark mare's exasperation was expressing itself as twitching flight feathers and flaring stars. "Cerea, are you prepared?"

"...yes," was the most she could manage.

"Then here we go," Princess Celestia told her, already moving back into that flanking position. "Again. Stay with us..."

More words drifted up from behind Cerea. The disc took its time about stuttering through the overlapping terms before settling upon one which it seemed to feel its wearer would comprehend, and so the girl inadvertently learned that the ponies might have some form of cinema. There really didn't seem to be any other reason for the half-muttered overheard comment (something which Acrolith had probably made to herself) to have been rendered as "Take two..."

Princess Luna was on her right, the white mare at the left, and both kept pace as Cerea forced her legs to trot forward. Back into courtyard, moonlight, and the miasma of terror.

There was something less of that last now, at least when compared to what had been present at the moment of her retreat. Part of that was because the first scents had dissipated with time, and there was also a lower population present to create new ones. It meant that what was present didn't threaten to overwhelm the olfactory world, at least at that moment of first (second) contact, and so she gained the opportunity to look around a little more.

The opalescent paving stones shimmered in the moonlight. Some of the benches were slightly out of alignment: hastily pushed back upright after the herd's attempted departure had knocked them over. There were two more of the copper grates, and a few ponies were staying close to the heat. It was a little warmer overall -- but the storm continued to swirl outside, rendering the courtyard into a vacuum within a world of white. She could still hear the rhythmic sounds which came from the chanting of distant protesters, but the disc failed to render those faint noises into words.

Sight found the original gaps in the olfactory world before scent itself did: a natural survey of the crowd (now down to less than fifty) spotted the griffon again, then a well-groomed yak who was more than a little undersized when compared to what Cerea considered to be the real thing, and finally stopped with the donkey.

Vision told her more than scent did, even under the full moon. Because at the moment she reached into the olfactory realm, Cerea hit a wall.

Most of the ponies in front of her could be scented, and those odors changed in the way she'd been expecting: the surge into fresh fear, complete with harshened breathing and self-lashing tails. But at the far right of the group, odor stopped, and did so at the place where the fur of those waiting rippled, shifting straight up --

-- three of the ponies broke. Two stallions, one mare, and all on the blocked side of the wind wall. Rushed for the aisle, and galloped out into the night. The remainder shivered, shook -- then slowly refocused on Cerea. Evaluating her through the invisible cloud which saturated the air, and too many of their expressions were unreadable.

The Princesses silently watched the departure of the trio, then led Cerea up a small ramp to a minor stone dais, one which rested about eighty feet away from the palace doors. Nightwatch accompanied the procession, staying at the ordered distance.

The few ponies who'd been waiting on the dais itself shuffled a bit: the doctors went towards the left, while Crossing Guard silently shifted right. Cerea reached the forward edge, her forehooves stopping just behind the little elevated rim: something which didn't quite reach her ankles.

The crowd stared at her, and there was a moment when she was almost grateful for that because it was still a crowd. Some trembled. Others were locked into something closer to a faint vibration. And there were those she recognized from the pictures, along with one mare whom --

Princess Celestia took a deep breath.

"Thank you for staying," she gently told those who remained. "I know it's not always easy to meet the demands of your profession. Not when your marks ask you to be present at events which others would flee from, so that you can tell them what had happened at the last. And that's what we're asking you to do now. To remain, and to report events to those who could not be here."

Purple eyes looked to the right. (It was possible to recognize the brief moment of shock when they found a vertical break in the sight line.) The other mare took the cue.

"I say the following," Princess Luna continued, "for the benefit of our guest. We have representatives present from both multiple publications and nations. There are also those here on behalf of --" and Cerea felt the temperature dip "-- what shall be described as 'special interest groups,' who insisted that they be granted a chance at presence. After a rather spectacular display of claiming what they perceived as their rights, it was decided to let them enter the Courtyard." The dark eyes made a rather pointed survey of the area. "Following what I am hoping was the final round of departures, I believe we currently have four remaining."

She wasn't always all that good with the dark mare's tones. Spotting underlayers of meaning was somewhat easier.

Ponies they didn't get to brief me on. Cerea forced her tail to remain limp.

"And this summary is also for her," the white mare calmly went on, the borders of that strange mane shifting slowly with each word. "Because she was waiting while we talked to you, and so she doesn't know exactly what we said."

She had an idea. There had been more words in the cell, while her hair was still being braided. (She could feel the oddly-focused weight following the curve of her upper spine, and it was something else to distract her under the moonlight.) The Princesses had worked out every stage of the plan, at least for the parts they could directly control. The things they would do.

The large white rib cage swelled with the pressure of an exceptionally deep breath. Feathers rustled.

"You are looking at the victim of a crime," Princess Celestia told the gathering. "She stands upon the dais of her own free will, waiting to speak with you. But when it comes to her presence in this nation --" a little more softly "-- that's something she didn't choose. She was a student, studying a foreign culture. Something stole her away from that, and it brought her to us. Lost in a culture she never knew existed, something she hadn't even imagined could exist. Wrenched away from her home and everything she had ever known."

The white wings spread. One of them arched over Cerea's lower back.

"I would appreciate it," the larger Princess steadily continued, "if everypony here would think about that for a moment, and do so as you look at her again. To imagine that there was a moment when you were in Equestria, and that was followed by another when you didn't know where you were at all. That you had no idea where your home was, or what had removed you from it. That you were in a wild zone like none you had ever seen before, disoriented and lost and frightened."

A few of the large watching eyes squinched shut, and did so a second after the wing draped itself across the top of Cerea's skirt. Something the centaur barely felt, although the multiple gasps and little shrieks from the audience reached her without issue.

The dark mare cleared her throat, and the white wing folded again.

"That is the state in which she spent days," Princess Luna took over. "Lost in the wild, barely able to find food -- and when she felt she had located sustenance, it nearly led to her death. The first living thing she met in our nation was a root angler --"

It only took a split-second for Cerea to realize that little detail had not been in the original presentation, and it was the same moment when she heard five new little gasps break through the night.

"-- at a time when she did not know they existed, much less how they kill. And yet she stands before you now, when that encounter did not serve as her sole battle. Why did she so desperately charge towards Palimyno, when at last she sighted buildings? Why did she vault the bushes? Because she felt that she had found a place where she could seek help."

"But she knew nothing of us," Princess Celestia picked up the flow. "Nothing of what had happened, just a few moons ago..."

The white head dipped, and the script broke at the same moment as the mare's heart.

"A moment of silence," the only true horse requested. "For those who fell during his attack. And for the ones who felt there was only one way to never feel that fear again."

Every head bowed. One mare did so half a beat behind the others: something Cerea only saw because she hadn't known the Princess was going to do that, and she'd needed to watch in order to know what she should do...

...there were deaths.
There were suicides.

The weight settled across her entire body, driven deeper by the light of the moon. There was no part of her which did not sink from sorrow, and it was followed by hatred. Loathing of an entity she had never seen. The thing for which everyone believed her to be nothing more than a distorted reflection.

They took their own lives because it meant never having to face a centaur again.
There are ponies out there who lost members of their families and every time they look at me...

She hadn't seen a picture of the one who’d preceded her. But she knew her herd's stallions, ugly and brutish and crude, and the males of her valley merged into a single huge form, something where she barely had to aim the sword's blows because there was just so much to hit, and her inner self swung over and over and --

-- it took a moment before she recognized the sounds of movement.
Another before Cerea realized she was crying.

It could be seen as shameful, to show such emotion before a crowd, even with the moon offering excuse. To be so base as to simply weep. But ponies had died, everything about those deaths was now tied to her, and ponies had died...

...the Princesses were staring at her.
Everyone was staring.
She could feel Nightwatch's silver gaze. So close and not close enough.
(Scattered throughout the crowd, beyond what she could readily see, six twitching tails began to slow.)

She sniffed, because her nose ran when she cried. Brought her head up again and forced herself to face the crowd.

The dark mare took a breath.

"I wish to thank police captain Nightwalker Statute for her final exercise of discretion in the matter," Princess Luna stated. "A commendation is being forwarded. For without that moment of mercy, the only crime committed on that night would have been ours. The execution of an innocent, as a punishment for deeds which had never been hers."

One pair of golden eyes looked away.

"Your mark asks that you find the truth of events," Princess Celestia stated, and something about the words felt oddly forced. "And now that she is standing before you, the Diarchy is making a request."

"You hear things we do not," the dark mare added. "Possess sources which speak only to you, or so multiple articles claim."

"So if you hear anything about what might have brought her here..." the white horse softly finished, "...please tell us. Because in the end, even after you tell everypony that it's safe -- that's the help she needs most. But until that day, we have chosen to give her the chance which she has earned. The opportunity to live among us. To take the first hoofstep towards acceptance."

"To become part of our nation," the dark mare concluded. "We stand before you, unafraid. We welcome her. And in the face of that -- what will your own choice be?"

Royalty looked at her. And with the moonlight enhancing everything, each moment of sorrow brought into sharp relief against the frame of a lost household where the name had almost seemed to meet something, she gathered herself as best she could. Took a shallow breath, because a deep one produced too much movement in what the ponies lacked. Let her arms stay at her sides, as they probably didn't know how to interpret gestures.

Spoke, and magic which had been ready for the bare whisper carried her words to everyone in the courtyard.

"Prithee --"

White and dark blue hind hooves simultaneously kicked her hocks.

The girl swallowed.

"My name is Cerea." Forcing herself to look at those in the crowd now, as much as they had to will themselves to look at her. "I... never meant to scare you. I hate that I scare you. But I can't help who I am. What I am --"

I didn't know.

"-- and I'll do whatever I can to make that easier, while I'm here. But I..."

It was so easy to blame the moonlight for everything. The pain. The invisible wounds inflicted by every stare. The moisture on her eyes.

"...I just want to go home..."

The dark wing softly, subtly nudged her. She barely felt that either, although that one shriek was becoming familiar.

"All right," Princess Celestia gently told them all. "We're going to get her some water. After that, we'll take questions. As this is the first time she's meeting any of you, please follow the protocol you used for your initial appearance at a press conference: before asking a question, give your full name and the publication you're representing. Those here on behalf of their groups should identify them. We'll allow followup questions if they flow from the original inquiry."

"We are hoping for intelligence, politeness, and insight," Princess Luna stated. "Conduct yourselves accordingly."

They didn't.

"Is she pregnant?"

A large white forehoof partially lifted from the dais before coming back down again. (Cerea, who had yet to witness a facehoof, had no idea what the aborted movement meant.)

"Is this question meant for the Doctors Bear," the white mare queried with what felt like an almost heroic excess of patience, "or Cerea? If it's the latter, please address her directly."

The pegasus rather visibly thought about it.

"The doctors," the mauve stallion decided. "Because she might not know."

Both unicorns immediately looked at Cerea, who managed to confine her reactions to the tiniest of head shakes. There was a certain base requirement for becoming pregnant and, outside of potentially founding a new religion, she lacked it. And when it came to the requirements for a partner --

I didn't know...

"She isn't," Vanilla Bear stated on her behalf.

"Oh." The stallion took another look at Cerea's upper torso. "Was she pregnant? If that's the case, how many does she usually deliver in one -- "

"-- I am uncertain as to whether you wish for your readership to fear the arrival of foals," Princess Luna tightly interrupted, "or have them mourn for a parent who was torn away from her children. Regardless, given that you live in Canterlot and, through embassies and citizens alike, been exposed to a somewhat-mixed populace, I would have hoped that at a minimum, you had encountered ageládas/ --" the wire hissed "-- /female minotaurs before this. We show development only when actively nursing or preparing to do so: other species do not."

The hot tide of red which had been moving towards Cerea's neck momentarily paused.

They have minotaurs? It would have been a curious mix of emotions even without the moonlight: frustration, exasperation added to a touch of jealousy, and a sudden surge of pure inferiority. Even here, I'm no better than second to --

-- actually, that might not be it at all. What the ponies named as a griffon had every possible human aspect removed, and the same could easily apply here. And given the presence of a yak and donkey, until Cerea saw some proof in the form of an actual specimen, she was just going to assume they were talking about cows.

"What's happening with her skin? Is she summoning some sort of power?"

It was almost possible to hear royal teeth grinding against each other. "It is somewhat easier to distinguish a blush," the dark mare stated, "on those without fur."

"Could we get a private photo shoot? Informational purposes only. With and without clothing. We've got some room waiting on Page Three --"

The blush completed its interrupted journey.

"-- and the Trottingham Solar should consider its opportunity fully wasted. Next?" The pegasus, driven back down by the force of stare and voice, made a rather poor landing. An off-white unicorn mare with a curly brown mane cleared her throat, doing so at the same time her horn's light flashed once. "Very well. Follow the format."

"It would be my honor," the unicorn proudly declared from the far left edge of the gathering. (Princess Celestia's forehoof shifted again.) "Raque Marshdew, with The Palace Bugle. Hello, Cerea!"

Cerea's memory brought up the picture, matched it to the mare as the memory of Nightwatch's words whispered in her ears.

"She's openly pro-palace. It -- can go too far sometimes. Princess Celestia's said that if she ever accidentally burned down half the capital, Raque's first article would be about the need for land clearance. The followup would probably be the benefits of adding ash to soil. Um. But she's also kind of a... hypocrite."

"How so?"

"She writes about things which really open-minded ponies should do, but it doesn't mean she'll do any of them. Like when we got the butcher shop in the Heart. She encouraged ponies to eat meat for a week as a sign of tolerance, and we really can't. Not without getting sick. But when she went to a dinner with the Princess, and Anise served her what she thought was a steak..."

"Hello," the girl uncertainly said, as moonlit emotions pushed and prodded from all sides.

"So I just want to have this on the record," Raque brightly said. "When you were escaping from Morgan Castle. The injury you sustained in blocking the statue's fall. Was there any potential for it to be fatal? Did you take a mortal blow to save ponies?"

"I'm..." She swallowed. "...I don't think so. It hurt..."

It was about as much as she'd gotten to speak at any single time, and she didn't feel like she was becoming any more articulate.

The surgeon's horn flashed, and the crowd's attention refocused.

"She already had multiple wounds by that stage," Chocolate Bear informed the audience. "We determined minor lacerations, bruising -- surface and bone -- plus a minor muscle tear: those have healed. The statue hadn't exactly been sterilized before contact, so it's possible that it aggravated the infection."

"Which would have killed her," Raque decided, "if ponies hadn't helped."

"From all indications," the brown unicorn said, "yes."

"So she saved ponies," Raque smiled, "and ponies, in turn, saved her. Thank you, Doctor Bear."

An earth pony mare raised a foreleg: Celestia nodded to the mare, and shimmer-grey fur was lowered again.

"Doric Corinthian," the new mare's oddly-accented voice stated: a pony whose picture hadn't been in the briefing sheets. "Polis Gazette."

Nightwatch's hover moved subtly closer.

"Um," the Guard said. "Because she doesn't know about that, maybe you should..."

The grey mare nodded. "International press," she further identified herself. "From Mazein." Which registered in wire-touched ears as May-zeen, and told Cerea absolutely nothing she could use. "We haven't heard a lot about where she's from, or why it can't be reached by normal means. The Gazette recognizes that much of the world remains unexplored, and that first contact with a previously-unknown sapient species was made as recently as twenty-nine years ago. So my readers will certainly understand the idea of an uncharted land. However, given sufficient effort, exploration is both possible and, in many parts of the world, ongoing. Why the insistence on having magic send her back?"

Purple eyes slowly closed, opened again.

"Because there's no other way to get there," Princess Celestia replied. "I have to ask for your trust on that. We won't see anyone else from her home unless something happens, and they are incapable of reaching out to us. Exploration won't help."

"How do you know, Princess?" Doric challenged. "Without having looked --"

"-- it's not a matter of looking," the white mare carefully interrupted. "Magic brought Cerea here. Magic has to send her home. And without that magic, I can't even show you where her home is."

"That," the columnist starkly said as her ears went back, "sounds impossible. Or like an excuse."

"Until the moment she appeared," the taller Princess softly countered, "I would have told you that her arrival was impossible. My excuse is never having seen the magic before. We are trying to reverse-thaumgineer the process. The palace will call in multiple resources to do so, and we hope for the process to accelerate when the Bearers return. But nopony is going to try and send a returning spell from theory to horn in a single leap, Doric, because we know how trying to create new workings on the spot usually works out. Or rather, how it almost always doesn't. We're trying to keep her from being hurt, or finding herself somewhere worse. We need time, we need the workings -- and for now, that's all I can tell you."

The grey mare's fur slowly settled back into its natural grain.

"Can you update us on their mission?"

"You'll know shortly after I do," weary-seeming royalty responded. "And if you find out first, please tell me."

Doric nodded. The donkey got off his bench.

There was initially something about him which made Cerea think of a bulldog. Then she looked at the broken roan pattern of his coat, and the thought went into reverse. Because bulldogs were ugly. They were objectively hideous, with eyes which seemed to be perpetually on the verge of watering, teeth that didn't fit in their mouths, jowls that pretty much went everywhere because the slobber had to be delivered somehow -- and from all of that hideousness came a fundamental joy. For a bulldog, the worst had already happened: they had been born as a bulldog. Everything which came after just had to be fun, and that unending optimism made them utterly endearing.

The donkey's posture suggested the universe had treated his birth as the X on the map for a century-long drilling operation.

"Continuing the international trend," he slowly stated as a naturally-droopy tail did its best to suggest it was only attached by a slowly-departing pin. "Dejected Overcast. Daily Downer, out of Eeyorus."

Cerea silently congratulated the disk for having perfectly captured the mood.

"It seems to me," the sagging voice assembled syllable by syllable, "that tonight may have served as something of a preview. Every time she goes out in public, there's going to be at least one pony who's seeing her for the first time. The palace can't have riot-breaking conditions perpetually set up over the entire city: not only would it destroy the weather schedule, but the team would quickly exhaust themselves. At some point, a simple stroll towards the Heart --" the shaggy head inclined towards Cerea "-- central shopping district, miss: wasn't sure you'd heard that yet -- could set off a reaction like this city hasn't seen since Gristle's opened. As a starting point. So my question is for the Princesses. Does the palace have a plan for having ponies acclimate to her presence and if so, does it realize that it can't convince everypony that she's safe, no matter what it does?"

He sat back down. Waited.

It won't be everyone.
It can't ever be --

Her hooves were trying to canter again, and both hands were trying to wander behind her back. Posture began to collapse on itself, doing so at the same moment where her tail sought refuge between her hind legs.

"For the latter," Princess Luna slowly said, "yes, we are aware that a perfect introduction is impossible. Should the whole of Canterlot somehow agree on a single topic, there are those who will travel into the city and encounter her with no warning. We have asked you to spread the word, and we recognize that such distribution cannot be universal. Even if -- or rather, when -- we send one-sheets into every household, we will inevitably have the one pony who never reads them, for he sees such things as the government trying to tell him what to think."

A unicorn mare openly snorted. Cerea didn't look in that direction. She had looked there once, and then she had very carefully not looked again.

"We will remain alert and ready to defuse any situation as best we can," the dark mare continued. "But it is the same issue which afflicts law enforcement. We do what we can to prevent -- but there will be times when we must respond."

"With the first part of your question," Princess Celestia carefully assumed control, "we were thinking of hosting a series of limited exposures, similar to Open Palace nights. Allowing ponies to come and meet her in groups. There was some discussion of starting with the schools --"

It took a second to isolate the scream of purest outrage, plus one more before any part of it resolved into words.

"THE SCHOOLS?"

"Yes," the white mare stated. "Because children can recover more quickly from trauma than adults, and are also quicker to adapt in new situations --"

"YOU INTEND TO FORCE THE UNNATURAL UPON THE INNOCENT! TO MAKE THEM THINK IT'S NORMAL!" The overweight unicorn mare shook with rage, and a coat like rotted pearls shredded the moonlight. "MY ORGANIZATION WILL NEVER PERMIT --"

Which was when dark energy clamped down on her jaw.

"You are speaking out of turn, Mrs. Panderaghast," Princess Luna softly stated. "I am almost certain that when I release you, your next words will be to declare that I have violated your right to speak at all. I have not. I am simply enforcing the order. I have always allowed you to speak, although I do occasionally find myself questioning the number you claim to speak for. And as you do not attempt to pass for any level of journalist -- and in any case, the head of an organization which claims to promote unicorn rights cannot fly the banner of neutrality -- you are here at our sufferance. I will let you know when the time has come for you to try and make us suffer."

The dark light winked out, and the high-piled mane teetered with fury. "PRINCESS CELESTIA! ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LET HER --"

"-- I think," the controlled voice cut in, "you forgot whose Courtyard this is. Even with the reminder directly over your head. The dominion covering the laws which bring Cerea into our society was claimed by Princess Luna in the first nights of our nation. And in the nights following the Return, they have become hers again. I'm here to advise, fillies, gentlecolts, and sapients. No more. So if she wants to enforce decorum..."

The other royal horn ignited again. Mrs. Panderaghast shut up.

"I think that brings us," another unicorn mare said (and it meant Cerea had to look again at last), "to questions of law."

There was something strange about that one's appearance. Cerea didn't know how to judge beauty in ponies: health was easy to spot and she could tell how much grooming had been put into someone's fur, but it didn't tell her what the little horses found attractive. But with this mare...

In the most basic description, the color of the fur was blue, with tail and mane (both worn long, and falling solely to one side) white, while the eyes were red. Her horn was on the short side, narrowed quickly, and stopped when the tip started to slice air. Her grooming was decent enough, even if the fur seemed to be a little more slicked down against her form than anyone else's. And the nostrils seemed to be a little too large for the snout, as if she had been locked in perpetual inhale. Sniffing around for a story.

But with the colors... each one felt as if it was somehow off, rotated a single subtle degree along the wheel in exactly the wrong direction. She had a way of sitting on the bench which stated that she might not own it, but she was fully prepared to prove that you didn't. Her lips were thin, she smiled too much, and when that mouth was smiling...

It would take Cerea some time to figure out exactly what was wrong with the smile and when she finally saw it, she would wonder why any thought had been required at all. It was so obvious, when you looked at it properly. Everything about the mare was on open display at all times. You just needed the right perspective.

"She hates you."

"I know I surprised her in the hallway, but --"

"-- no. She hates you." Starkly, "It doesn't matter what you did, or what you'll ever do. Anger sells papers. Hatred engraves the plates. She hates you. You could save her life and she'd thank you, because it would give her that much more time for hate. You were her enemy on the day you were born, and she just -- waited to meet you. The same as she's done with all of her other enemies. Including me, because I won't hate you. Anyone who doesn't hate you is wrong..."

She'd stood perfectly still for a while, in the light chill of the cell.

"You've met someone like that," Nightwatch had quietly said.

"Yes."

It was a smile where the lips were pulled back a little too far from the teeth. The smile of a predator.

"Wordia Spinner," the mare declared, and got up just enough to send her forelegs into the most base mockery of a Greeting Stance to ever put Ms. Manners into an apoplectic fit. "Proudly representing the Canterlot Tattler. I have several questions, and they all share a theme: the law. So I do hope the thrones will allow me to continue along the general line for a time."

Neither Princess said anything. Waiting.

The reporter pretended to look at Cerea: the actual sight line went somewhere over her right shoulder. "Of course," she added, "this is our second meeting." With something which could never be merriment, "I do apologize for running out on you the first time, but I had a deadline to make. And of course, it helped to have time to prepare. So..."

Cerea took a slow breath. Focused.

You're still scared.

But it was now a question of how the mare would use it.

"As I understand it from the first part of the briefing," Wordia began, "she is being treated as an immigrant. Would that be correct?"

"Correct," Princess Luna echoed.

The air crackled with frost. Cerea's arm came up again.

"There are certain requirements which an immigrant must meet," the reporter steadily continued. "One of the first which comes to mind is criminal record. She took some pains to escape from her cell, in spite of her obvious innocence. Why does an innocent feel the need to escape? Surely it all would have come out during the trial."

"Why was an innocent attacked?" Princess Celestia softly countered.

One thin eyebrow went up.

"Interesting..." Wordia decided as her horn ignited: the glowing quill rose off the bench, went to the pad, and made a few notes. "I would say the sudden appearance of a centaur qualifies as a natural disturbance. Tirek, after all. I'm sure everypony understands an attack: in fact, some of the things you've said tonight suggest you can see it that way. Rather unusual for the palace, but..." A light shrug. "...I'm always happy when we're in agreement. Still, no attempt to communicate --"

"-- rather difficult when one does not speak the language," Princess Luna shot back, "and loops of field are moving for the throat."

"-- and didn't wait for the trial. She escaped, while causing injuries..." More notes.

"Her own," the white mare stated.

This was ignored. "And before that, she fought. And yet you say she's peaceful. There's an argument to be made that any degree of fighting..." The smile widened. "And of course, as Dejected pointed out, there's always the chance for something else to happen, especially when parents storm in to ask what you've been showing to their foals."

Cerea's hands were clenching. Everyone could see it, she couldn't seem to make it stop...

"I've been thinking about that," Wordia smiled. "But even after she's already made such a poor first -- and second -- impression... not deliberately, of course! -- I do think she deserves the chance to prove she's peaceful. Under the law. It's simply a law which doesn't exist yet. And since I have the Diarchy assembled before me, I'd like to propose it now for the Night Court's vote."

"Which is?" was all Princess Luna said.

"Simply this," the unicorn shrugged. "That to truly prove she is peaceful, she will never attack another. Regardless of circumstances. And doing so will see her immigrant status revoked, followed immediately by deportation. Reasonable, yes?"

It was possible that just about no one heard Nightwatch's gasp, not when having it reach the benches meant traveling through a storm of sudden murmur. Cerea barely heard the reaction from the little knight, the only pony she'd told about the laws, and her fingernails bit into her palms as every muscle in her arms tightened, legs fighting the urge to charge as it began all over again --

-- cool air washed across her fur as wings flared out, and Princess Luna jumped down from the dais.

The dark mare casually approached the reporter. Even, measured steps which ended directly in front of the mare, as a silver-clad left forehoof came up.

"Princess Luna," the armored focus of power politely said. "In the full title, that would be Princess Of The Night, Our Lady Of The Evening, Custodian Of The Stars' Memory, The Mare Of Dream, High General Of The Second Army, She Who Watches Over --" paused. "The full recital occupies a considerable amount of time. Suffice it to say that sufficing should be said and so 'Princess Luna' is generally sufficient." The raised leg politely extended forward. "I would hope for this to be a pleasure, although I confess to certain doubts which should have no reason to exist --"

"-- what," Wordia Spinner interrupted, "are you doing?"

The hoof slammed down. Several columns vibrated. The nearest wall of snow slumped into the Courtyard. And the mare pulled ever so slightly back.

"My apologies," the Princess softly told the unicorn. "I had thought you were somehow under the impression that we were meeting for the first time. I know you, Wordia Spinner. We have spent hours together in this Courtyard, you and I, and that has created a rather strong degree of acquaintance. Something enhanced by my habit of reading your articles on every news day, simply to become that much more familiar. There are ways in which I feel I truly know you -- and so let me make a prediction. On the record, especially as I suspect yours is among the few places where my next words will not see print."

The white horse did nothing more than observe. Nightwatch managed to smooth out the disrupted hover. But there were ponies pulling back on their benches all over the courtyard. Ponies who were...

...scared...

"An ambitious plan," the Princess half-whispered, with magic carrying the words to every listening ear. "It truly allows you to have everything your own way, does it not? I read your most recent article, Ms. Spinner. The one in which you coined the term which you are hoping to use again. 'Centaur panic.' The concept that those facing her would, when they attack, be acting naturally. And if she fights to defend herself, you are proven right while she is exiled. If she flees, there will be other chances, and should she simply endure... what kind of obituary have you written? Does it honor her, for observing the principle you assigned to the last? I have certain... doubts."

The long white tail was starting to lash. The Princess didn't move.

"We might view this as an aspect for the hypocrisy of tolerance," the dark mare stated. "The distorted view which states that to not agree with your hate proves us as the intolerant ones, because true tolerance would surely be to do nothing more than stand and take it. The hypocrisy of pacifism, perhaps? That if one is truly dedicated to peace, one will grant those who wish for their death the gift of a stationary target? Centaur panic, Ms. Spinner. A panic your writings will be designed to encourage, knowing that there is but one centaur and surely somepony on the jury will decide the fear is forever justified. You wish for a law to pass through the Night Court, and perhaps there is enough terror there to create a majority -- but I would have to sign it. How do you see that as happening? That you can create enough public pressure to persuade me?" And with the smallest of hoofsteps forward, "I faced down Discord in his prime, Wordia Spinner. What are you?"

The unicorn's back left hoof went off the bench.

"You wished to place yourself upon the record," Princess Luna continued as the third nova went off near the tip of the tail. "That you, and only you, had tried to present the lone reasonable solution. And from there -- negotiations? So many kicks before she can respond? No, even better --"

The dark mare smiled.

"-- the thing which you saw as simplest to acquire and enforce. That where the majority might truly support you, out of that same fear. A most basic request, something I would surely agree with in the name of concession and having you falsely back down..."

Her horn ignited. Wordia Spinner's back legs crashed into the paving stone as the corona intensified, and dark light projected --

-- backwards, going well over Cerea's head before moving down to the doors, opening both as the light flashed three times.

Multiple hoofsteps began to trot forward, emerging from the hallway. There was also something of a sliding sound, one Cerea had become familiar with in her attempt to prevent it from becoming too loud. The noise produced by hemp skidding across stone.

Four ponies screamed. The griffon's wings flared out. One earth pony stallion tried to hide under his bench and wound up knocking it over: a minor domino effect echoed forward from there. And the Princess simply smiled, as Cerea's ears twisted towards that sound, fighting the urge to fully look back, to run towards what couldn't possibly be happening and claim it before royalty changed its mind...

But she wound up turning. Just enough to see it, and considered that it probably hadn't made too horrible of an impression, at least not when compared to what had already happened. After all, most of them were staring too.

"You wished for her," Princess Luna stated as the four-pony team dragged the net-bound sword all the way into the light, "to go unarmed."

Mouths were now frantically delving into saddlebags. Light pulled out pieces, set them aside, went in again.

"Because a unicorn could potentially counter a unicorn, a pegasus might try to unweave that created by another -- but what can a centaur do when attacked by magic?" The smile thinned. "Anything she wishes to. Cerea, will you pledge before the press to only use it in the defense of yourself or others?"

Hope hurt.
Hope was torture.
Joy could be nothing more than the moonlight amplifying the faintest thread of desire. The magnified delusion of having a chance.
But it was her sword. The only thing which granted her the possibility of standing against magic.
And the Princess was giving it back.

"...yes."

"Then take up your blade," the dark mare said, doing so while the power of that gaze was still fixed on the reporter. "Now."

It took some time to get it untangled from the latest nets, more to free the scabbard. The total proved sufficient for the ponies to finish at their tasks and so in the instant she turned back to face them with hilt in hand, she received a reminder that the species had gotten around to inventing photography.

Dozens of flashbulbs went off.

She could readily picture it (and the moonlight was making it hard to stop). She had been given a chance, and that had in turn created a Photo Opportunity. Her holding the sword was going to be the front page picture on every edition. The monster reclaiming its weapon.

(She was wrong.)

It would induce fear. It might incite more riots. Ponies could easily be hurt, and Cerea's second instinct, even freed from the possibility of once again living under those horrible laws, able to freely defend herself at last, was to wonder if the dark Princess had made a mistake.

But she was wearing her sword. A sword which could actually do something. And Princess Luna had returned to the dais.

"You had initially mentioned," the dark mare said, "that you had several questions." Her head tilted slightly to the left. "The next?"

Wordia was back on her bench. The white tail was still lashing.

"We were dealing with her criminal record," the unicorn finally resumed. "No charges for the riot or escape?"

"None," Princess Celestia replied.

"And in this mysterious place which nopony will identify? The one which may have so many more centaurs about?"

"She is," a new voice stated, "by her own admission, part of an extremely small minority. And detainment only, Wordia."

Red eyes blinked.

"So there you are, Crossing," the reporter decided. "I was wondering what had happened to your voice. But of course, you're taking her word for it."

"We'll run a full background check once we make contact with her last place of residence," replied the head of Immigration. "Of course, should we manage to do so, I think we'd benefit from the assistance of a professional. Like a reporter."

The disc rendered the next noise from Nightwatch into something of a snicker. Portions of the white tail tip were beginning to fray.

"Which would bring us to communication," Wordia announced. "Now of course, some would say it's perfectly natural that a new arrival wouldn't speak Equestrian. Or any other language which anypony knows. I would like to hear her native tongue at some point, simply to help identify a region --" looking past Cerea's right shoulder "-- you can speak, can't you? Without magic to organize whatever limited amount of sapience you might possess?"

Her spine went tense. It did so from neck to the base of her tail, representing something of a major feat.

"Yes," Cerea forced out, as moonlight beat down upon her skin.

"Good... we may come back to that... and it even potentially means you could vaguely recognize that magic is the only means by which you can currently communicate. An immigrant must be capable of natural speech, and while the device you wear belongs to the nation, I'm certain the nation will at some point need it back. Or have certain concerns about seeing one of the rarest creations in Equestria ruined through clumsy contact with a sword tip."

I am not clumsy.

The mare hated her. It was so easy to hate the mare in return, and the moon was so bright...

"So it might help your rather weak case," Wordia smiled, "if you could give us just a touch of actual language. A few syllables will do. Assuming your rather strange mouth can even --"

But that was when Cerea's right hand shot up, almost wrenched at the disc while ponies watched her and the Princesses turned to look at her face (so few could look at her face), all murmurs and words became neighs and whinnies as the wire lost contact, she brought the disc down as she stared directly as Wordia and every word she'd learned rushed through her brain, but none of them sounded right because they were all apologies and requests for assistance and foal words, they were foal words and nothing among them would serve to show this mare that she wasn't just a thinking being, but one who was starting to think she'd had enough.

She didn't have anything strong, not from what Nightwatch had taught her. But there was more than just the little knight --

"Hneiya hfffnastsnnnny, mffpt nas ssscemnay heeeyla!"

The verbal blast hit dead-center, sent off-blue ears straight back as the mare's jaw dropped. It was the reaction Cerea had been hoping for: the inability to deny that she could learn the native tongue --

-- but then everything else happened.

A series of sharp, short neighs rang through the night. Rib cages convulsed all over the courtyard. One stallion tucked his head under a shaking wing. Other ponies curled up on themselves, pushed snouts into their own fur to muffle the noise, Wordia Spinner was completely frozen, the yak had dropped to the stone and was kicking out in all directions, the Princesses were staring at Cerea with expressions which couldn't be mistaken for anything other than shock, Nightwatch was frantically flying across the minimal distance and Cerea suddenly realized that she had no idea what she'd actually said.

Fingers desperately coaxed the wire to move faster and when it finally touched the tip of her ear, the raucous laughter nearly drove her off the dais.

"I told you not to listen to us when it was off!" a close-hovering Nightwatch desperately whispered, words lost to all but Cerea in the midst of the mirth. "I told you! I know that was from Bulkhead, that was his accent, that was Bulkhead and you just --"

"-- what did I say?" Cerea frantically breathed back. "I don't know what it means! It just sounded... authoritative..."

"He says it when he comes on shift! Because he's Bulkhead, he's a senior Guard, everypony knows it's just something he says --"

"-- what?"

Nightwatch inhaled.

"'Okay, asshole: I'll take it from here'!"

Cerea's hind legs came within a heartbeat of bucking her halfway off the dais: the fore went through a massive twitch which, if allowed to express itself fully, would have put her over the crowd and down the snow-carved path at top galloping speed, never to be seen again. As it was, the braid whipped to the right, her tail came very close to knotting itself, frantically heaving breaths finally gave the bra a real test, and she became aware that neither Princess had blinked for twenty seconds.

"I... I'm sorry..."

She was, at least on the level of humiliation. She had reflected poorly on those who were trying to help her, and that required all sorts of apologies. But the words only reached those on the dais, because nopony else could hear them through the laughter.

"Well," Princess Celestia quietly said, "I think that means she'll try to skip the full sapience test. Some do claim that the final proof of true thought is a sense of humor..."

"She'll hate me," Cerea forced out. "Forever."

"I believe that had been previously established," Princess Luna shrugged. "I will not argue the perception of enemy -- but I might ask you to look at the full gathering."

Frantic blue eyes moved across the group. A few weren't laughing. Mrs. Panderaghast was hosting a one-second class in a new pony expression, and white-hot embarrassment burned scandalized into Cerea's memory. But the rest...

"You are not her only enemy," the dark mare stated. "She is rather casual in their creation. And what happens when you establish yourself among that number?"

She couldn't answer. She wouldn't let herself think of it, and so spent the entire time waiting for calm to resume in trying not to canter in place upon the stone.

After a while, when it was down to a few scattered giggles and rib cramps, Princess Celestia stepped forward.

"We do have other reporters who would undoubtedly like to be heard from," the white horse smiled. "And as we just lost some time, with first-edition deadlines undoubtedly approaching if this goes too deep under Moon, I'm going to limit you to one additional followup, Wordia. I'm sure we'll see the rest in your column tomorrow, and I may have a response sent to the Tattler's offices. So make it a good one."

The unicorn mare glared at every occupant of the dais, tail lashing faster than ever. Princess Celestia's only response was to slip into a posture which Cerea's mind insisted on describing as 'aggressively relaxed.'

"I think we've proven language capabilities," Crossing dryly added. "Although I'd hope everypony would be willing to give her some time to, let's say, expand her vocabulary --" they waited the next wave out "-- so what does that leave?"

"One more?" the aggravated reporter checked.

"A mere singleton," Princess Luna responded. "Quickly, if you would?"

The white tail stopped moving.

It did so all at once. There was a moment when it had been beating against the air in the surest sign of a pony who was something less than happy, and then it stopped at the exact moment the mask dropped away.

"Employment," Wordia smiled, and sharp points made from imagination formed at the tips of her teeth.

Cerea heard Crossing swallow, felt Nightwatch's wing brush against her upper back on the downbeat, saw the massive white rib cage swell...

"She's not a student," the unicorn reminded them all as the lurking trap finally closed. "That's another set of forms. She's going for citizenship, if she makes it that far. That's what immigration means, doesn't it, Crossing? She'll be taking those classes, even if she empties out the classroom just by showing up. But it means she's not protected by the laws which would cover students. An immigrant isn't a guest of the palace. An immigrant needs to have a skill. A job, and to find one within two moons of entry. Most have employment waiting for them when they enter, or can prove their ability to gain it. They can certainly be out of work for a time... but it's a little hard to ask ponies to have their taxes cover someone who isn't really part of the system yet, isn't it? That just doesn't look good. Integration requires work: I seem to recall Princess Luna saying that when Gerald Gristle came in. So -- what does she do? Who does she work for?"

The smile widened.

"I hope I can be forgiven," Wordia added, "if I have certain natural doubts regarding her capacity to do anything involving direct contact with the public. While understanding that it's really not her fault, of course..."

"-- we can skip this part for now. It's something we can't deal with yet. We'll answer this one when the time comes."

Cerea now knew exactly what had been within that temporarily-dismissed section of paperwork, and all of her senses felt as if they were crashing in on each other, the entire system collapsing under the weight of unstoppable horror.

No one. No one would hire her. Not when her mere presence could set off a panic at any moment. She didn't have the skills which allowed her to perform a normal job in total isolation, her attempt to fake being a food vendor at Miia's side had led to the most natural outcome: torn blouses (or rather Suu, who had been simulating their clothing, giving up completely), and there had been some talk of having her look for rulebreaking liminals -- but that was really the job of Zombina's squad and while it would have been helpful for a knight, there hadn't been time to see anything come of it.

She knew how to farm, because every centaur had to help maintain the herd's food supply. But Nightwatch had told her about earth ponies.

It didn't feel like there were many smithies in operation. She would need to open one herself, she didn't have money, and who would loan her the start-up cost? How was she supposed to deal with customers? Would anyone ever enter a shop she operated, or would she just trot up one day to find the entire thing had been set ablaze?

...where am I supposed to live? Who would rent to me? Where could I even buy food?

In the herd, all of those questions had been answered. Within the human nations, the same laws which had prevented self-defense insisted that she not be completely closed out (although a lot of people had tried to work within the loopholes, and she had reluctantly admitted that the all-you-can-eat places might have a point). In the land of ponies, there was a real, unstoppable, unsolvable problem.

The Princesses had tried to welcome her into their world.
A world which had no place for a centaur.

Her head was spinning, reason spiraling into fragments under the pressure of realization and moonlight. Both arms began to come up, hands clutching at her hair as her breathing quickened, the panic attack was coming, it was going to happen in front of everyone because it had all failed, it never could have worked and it was disintegrating where everyone could see, she was going to come apart --

-- her arms were tingling.

She looked down, just as the coolness of the dark light gently pushed them back against her sides.

"A fair question," the entity on her right allowed. "Where should she be employed? A sapient capable of learning quickly, adapting to new situations with blazing speed? Who rushes towards danger in the name of protecting others, wielding a weapon which gives her a power nopony possesses?"

The Princess smiled, and did what the best of royalty had arguably been created for. She spoke words which changed the world.

"She is employed by the palace," Princess Luna told them all. "As the newest member of the Royal Guard."

Intolerable

Had there been so much as a second, all of the dreams would have come flowing back.

How long had it been? Cerea couldn't be sure. She felt it was her oldest dream and in that, she was wrong. There was something which predated it, the hope she'd given up on so early, a dream denied because she'd decided it was dead -- and when she finally put true thought towards all which had happened in Japan, she would realize that was the one which had come true. But for this...

Alone in her room sometime after having been pushed into another contest against fillies who were older, stronger, faster, everything more than she was: a situation where coming in second was the best she could hope for, and that only in a two-filly race. Her mother so often saw second place as being nothing more than the first loser and while locked in the battle for the heart of the one she'd felt could be her beloved, Cerea had finally started to agree.

Crying softly so that her parents wouldn't hear (although she had never figured out what her father would make of tears, or if he even understood that kind of pain at all), with only her books for comfort. Was that where it had truly begun, from trying to tell herself that stories could make her feel better? Or had her mother read to her when she was but a foal, tales of glory sinking into a depth of memory which was almost (but not completely) impossible to fully recover?

What had she truly latched onto, trying to use words as the grips which could temporarily pull her out of misery? The fact that knights traveled, when the filly believed she never truly would? Perhaps it was that they were so often alone: the struggle to create order in a world which resented it frequently came across as a solitary task, and a knight was fine with that. But there were other moments when they gathered with their fellows, and those were true companions indeed. They toasted each other's glories, were never jealous, engaged in constant support and at most, told a few jokes where the subject of the jest was the one who laughed loudest.

They won more often than they didn't: the opposite of her own life. And even in those times when they lost... when a knight fell, and a filly's tears had to be hastily wiped off the pages before damage was done... even in death, a knight could manage some level of final accomplishment: taking your foe with you was highly prized. A knight's existence always seemed to find its purpose. So there had to have been some point during her endless prison sentence where the filly had decided that the only way for her own life to --

-- but perhaps the exact timing didn't matter. There had been stories and in the end, a dream was nothing more than a story she told herself.

There had been so many of those stories. She had seen herself in armor, battling across lands she would never know for someone whose face occasionally changed as she tried to figure out what her own tastes might be. (She was arguably still working on that part.) But there were commonalities. She cared about that person, about their cause, they had recognized it, she charged into battle on their behalf and...

A knight lived for something.
A knight fought for something.
A knight died for something.

Given a single second to take it all in under moonlight, implications sinking through suddenly-frozen ears, every dream would have come back at once as an army, and the charge of phantom selves would have fighting a battle against disbelief. Because it couldn't be happening, not to her. The dark Princess hadn't just said those words, because applying them to Cerea was impossible. She'd been in the presence of Nightwatch more than anyone else, just about had the little mare's aura embossed into her memory. The title of Guard didn't matter, because Cerea knew what her teacher was: a knight. And if Nightwatch was a knight, and the dark mare (royalty, a Princess, one of the leaders of a nation) had just made Cerea into a Guard, then that meant she had just become --

One second. That was all she needed. One second for the inner war to begin: every dream versus everything she believed about herself at that deepest core. And in spite of all previous evidence, every tally of the dead mounted on a wall of slain hopes and mutilated self-perceptions... perhaps the right side still could have somehow won.

But she didn't get one second, because the shouting began immediately.

Later, she would tell herself that she wouldn't have been able to understand it if every word had been in French. Just about everyone was yelling, everyone, the reporters were shouting questions and some ponies (Mrs. Panderaghast very much included) had chosen to go with screams of purest outrage, the dark mare was just beginning to react to all of it while the white horse was frozen, the large rib cage had completely stopped moving as that strange mane's flow came to a full halt...

There were too many ponies calling out at once, and the flow overwhelmed the disc. Dozens of terms began to overlap within her ears, she instinctively flattened them against her head in self-defense and the vocabulary still kept on coming, she'd already been operating on the edge of sensory overwhelm and her skull was filled with echoes of "No/no/no/no/no," so she tried to focus on scent instead and all that did was tell her what outrage smelled like --

-- there was a faint whiff of alcohol, overlaid with something she just barely managed to recognize as a unicorn's sweat --

-- a horn ignited, and dark light lanced in a dozen directions.

It wasn't quite instant: the Princess had to turn somewhat in order to get a sighting on all of the possible targets, and there also might have been an upper limit on how many of the projections she could send at once. But that light moved, Cerea felt the memory of phantom leaves spray up around her body, and verbal silence fell upon the moonlit courtyard.

The quiet didn't last. Snow-bearing wind howled beyond the columns, and the carried sounds of protest sent one final deep snake hiss into Cerea's ears.

"Decorum," Princess Luna imperiously stated, "shall be maintained. I recognize that this is an announcement which instantly inspires a rather natural number of questions. However, while the gathering is capable of asking any number at once, there is a certain difficulty in simultaneous answers."

Several earth ponies were scraping forehooves against the dark light around their jaws, to no avail. Multiple horns sparked, and the hold did not weaken. Dejected simply sat quietly, waiting. The griffon's beak was vibrating with seeming frustration. And Nightwatch...

The little mare's hover was bobbing all over the place. Her armor was slightly askew, and the tail kept miscorrecting its position. But she hadn't said a word. The true knight had found no need to comment.

"Are you all quite done?" the dark Princess inquired, and even those actions stopped.

Cerea could smell the fear again, beginning to overwhelm the outrage. She didn't understand why it was resuming at that level of intensity. They had something new to feel about her now: anger. That someone so unsuitable, so imperfect had just been chosen. Not just a stranger, but a horror --

-- she's just saying it to buy time, cover up the stall while they look for something else I can do, if that's anything at all --

There had been no time for dreams, and so doubt had the floor. Judging by part of the reaction from the audience, it also had also claimed a major part of the courtyard.

"Good," Princess Luna decided. "Now, let us consider who was the most likely to have both already formulated and organized their protest into something which might pretend towards coherence -- well, Ms. Spinner, it rather surprisingly seems as if the thrones have an additional need for your voice after all." That patch of light winked out first, and a silver-clad foreleg politely gestured in the appropriate direction. "Do proceed."

The unicorn took a breath. Some part of Cerea's overloaded senses noted the sweat in the off-blue coat, and the fumes of liquor reached her again.

(She'd seen that the ponies had alcohol, smelled the contents of the cellar where she'd been imprisoned. She didn't indulge much herself: human brews were pitifully weak and when applied against her body mass, her bladder succumbed long before her brain. Suu had far more trouble: the slime girl's metabolism processed such drinks very slowly, and she would stumble about with a red inner haze distorting translucent blue for a couple of days. Papi's low weight meant she became drunk quickly, but the high metabolism meant that state lasted for about an hour. Rachnera dismissed such things as poorly-flavored liquids which dried her out more than they satisfied thirst, Mero tended to lose all estimates of others' breathing capacity, Miia had a similar body mass issue, and a drunken Lala had been known to rather literally lose her head. And the centaur girl recognized that she was thinking about all of that because it was something to consider other than the impossibility which had been said, along with almost simultaneously wondering just how many of those in attendance would finish the conference by heading directly towards a bar. Human media suggested such press behaviors were common.)

"Species," the reporter stated. It was a rather obvious statement. It called attention to something which could not be considered as anything other than an absolute fact and as Cerea would learn, when it came to Wordia Spinner, that made it something of a rarity.

The white horse, whose posture somehow suggested an equine who had been thinking rather quickly, finally took a breath.

"There has never been a restriction on who can serve as a Guard," Princess Celestia told the courtyard. "Not when it comes to that. Look back to the very first days of this nation, and you will find Equestrian citizens who were not ponies. But that population has remained small. About two percent, at the last census -- not counting protected/vulnerable/tenants, of course. So for someone to hear the call to serve, out of such a small sample, when all they see within the armor is ponies... that's rare. The last non-pony Guard ended her service one hundred and forty-eight years ago." Purple eyes briefly closed. "Ended it in the same manner as far too many, before and after. Her name was Blitzschritt, and she was the last ibex citizen of Equestria." More softly, "Her death... was the reason they withdrew back to the mountains. You can find her statue in the highest part of the gardens, where the snow never melts, carved from granite I took from the world's tallest peak. Hardly anypony has seen an ibex since. They remember, and they say they have forgiven... but the majority always kept to their own borders, and the few who joined us had no more reason to stay."

And now the courtyard was truly silent, as the dark mare's head bowed.

"I'd hope that some of you remembered her from your history classes," the white horse softly wished. "But too much becomes lost, and if nopony else will remember her -- then the palace still does. No species restrictions on Guards, Wordia. Now or ever."

"But there are other restrictions," broke the crowd's silence. "Citizenship: that has to be one! Even if you somehow managed to look at that pile of paperwork as building something real, she's an immigrant. How can she be a guard if she isn't even a --"

"-- before there was a nation," the dark mare interrupted as her head came up again, "there were Guards. Not necessarily under that name. I believe we can consider the clause to have been sufficiently granddammed and should updating be required, that is a law which both of us would sign. Your first two queries have been born from lack of knowledge and guesswork, Ms. Spinner. Can you do any better?"

The red eyes flashed.

"Age," Wordia declared. "There's a minimum. How old is --"

Princess Celestia nodded. "For ponies. Different species mature at different rates, and the Doctors Bear assured me that Cerea is an adult."

Cerea's mouth automatically began to open, doing so in perfect (unknown) concert with that of Vanilla Bear --

-- there was no flash of hornlight. Something warm and fully invisible briefly (and very gently) pressed against her jaw, and the words went tumbling back down her throat.

"Strength of magic," was the next volley. "I know there's standards which have to be met."

"Unless the palace directly intervenes on a hire," Princess Luna countered, "because there are times when talent is more important than any degree of casting. In this case, an assessment of 'unique capabilities' would more than serve for the override."

Which was when the dark blue stallion found his voice.

"But don't worry, Wordia," Crossing told the pony who also served as his enemy. "I think I can safely promise that as soon as we figure out what the exact scale of centaur magic is, we'll test to see where she falls on it."

"Centaur magic," the reporter starkly repeated.

I don't have any --

The head of Immigration shrugged. "Anti-magic? Don't worry: we'll put something together. Of course, that may require --"

Many kinds of instinct became easier under a full moon, and so Cerea's mind filled in the deep sarcasm of "a larger sample size" just before his mouth mysteriously closed too.

"A what?" Wordia challenged.

The stallion's left forehoof came up, awkwardly rubbed at his jaw until mobility resumed. "Some time," he falsely finished. "Since we only have the one centaur, and we're not likely to see any more. Next?"

The reporter took an exceptionally deep breath.

"Just this," she declared. "Nopony --" the disguise for the malice came from not really having any "-- or in this case, no one -- can just be made into a Guard on the spot. There's a training period. The palace may have the discretion to choose its own candidates -- and do so while fully ignoring what should be a rather interesting public reaction --"

She's going to say they hired a monster.
There's already been at least one riot.
A monster working for their leaders...

Her hands were beginning to twitch again. She wanted to panic, she wanted to tear at her hair and pull at the sweater just before she galloped into the darkness --

-- but the dark mare had chosen her to be a knight. Something she hadn't earned, something she couldn't succeed at, she was going to fail again because she always failed and --

-- she had been chosen.

All four knees vibrated. Her breasts heaved. But her hooves remained still.

"-- but those candidates are evaluated. I think the nation has the right to insist that she go through the full course before assuming her --" and this was spat "-- duties."

Princess Luna nodded.

"That much I will grant you," she steadily acknowledged. "She certainly requires education for the parameters in which Guards operate, and a degree of combat training shall accompany that."

"You're going to teach her to fight." It was exceptionally stark.

"She is already rather capable in that regard," the dark mare responded. "But she does not know about the potential foes which inhabit our part of the world. So that shall be part of the training."

"And what if she has to fight ponies?"

Princess Luna's head tilted slightly to the right.

"Fighting ponies," she semi-repeated, "as part of her Guard duties. A rather interesting proposition, Ms. Spinner. Which ponies would you consider to be our enemy? We are at peace with griffon nation/Protocera, and so their native pony population is unlikely to attack. Prance --" (Cerea shook her head a little, which did nothing to reset what the wire had just rendered.) "-- tends to keep their conflict with us to the verbal. Also the eternal and constant. Did you have another region in mind?" The pause was deliberate. "Something rather more local?"

The reporter was silent.

"Nothing which comes to mind, then," the dark mare decided. "Or at least, nothing voiced." A casual shrug. "So the full training: that is fair enough."

"But training," the white horse cut in, "adapted to a centaur. We don't ask unicorn applicants to pass pegasus magic tests. She'll be judged on her own merits. But in the meantime -- Princess Luna?" The dark mare's glance moved across Cerea's lightly-vibrating form before finding its target. "We usually don't do this before the training is complete, and the established oath can be taken then. But I think everypony needs to see that this is official. So..."

The other Princess nodded.

"Cerea," she instructed, "step down from the dias. Orient your body towards the south."

She did, moving forward over the rim. (Part of the crowd pulled back, and she'd expected that.) But even with the moonlight, she could barely feel her legs. Stepping across stone on mobile numbness, with her tail unable to figure out what it should be doing with itself and a pair of permanently-attached arms suddenly uncertain regarding that status.

It left her facing away from the press. More towards the palace. But she could still scent their presence, fear and outrage added to confusion and what she was guessing might be the olfactory signature of desperate denial...

Twinned gusts of wind rippled her fur. The Princesses landed in front of her, and wings refolded themselves.

"Kneel."

The word had come from Princess Luna. It was the command of royalty. The order of a master (mistress) to an unworthy servant, and so Cerea's forelegs bent.

Purple eyes briefly closed again.

"It's been a long time," the white horse softly said -- something the magnifying magic precisely ignored, words spoken so softly that Cerea felt as if she had been the only other person to hear them, and just barely while under the enhancement of moonlight. "But before there were Guards, there was a protector..."

The dark mare smiled.

"Someone with hands," she quietly told her sibling. "Yes. Shall we use that? His action, when he swore himself to her?"

"Yes," the white mare whispered. "I think we should. He would be honored." And at normal volume, in the most formal tone Cerea had heard from the horse, "You have taken up your weapon --"

Stopped, as the large head moved hard to the right. Stared at the dark mare, and there was a single instant where Cerea felt she had scented the shock --

-- but it was only an instant, and the taller of the royals smoothly slipped back into serenity.

"-- in our presence. Lay it sheathed before our forehooves."

Her fingers fumbled at the straps, and contained plastic clattered against stone.

The sword looked strange, under the moonlight. The scant exposed portions of metallic paint didn't seem to be reflecting enough back to her eyes. It was as if she was regarding it from the depths of dream.

The Princesses looked down at her or, in the case of the dark mare, somewhat down.

In a whisper, "We will shortly be placing our horns against your shoulders. It would help if you leaned forward somewhat."

Her upper torso, mostly acting under its own volition, bent accordingly.

Both horns ignited with light. Warmth radiated against Cerea's face from the left, while coolness failed to relax her on the right.

"As Princess Celestia has stated, your full Guard oath shall wait until your training is complete," Princess Luna declared before the world. "But there is an older one. Something..."

There was something strange about her eyes. They were dark, and yet there was a brilliance about them. The gleam of memory rising beneath moonlight.

"...we have not heard spoken for a very long time. And most of that speech shall be ours, for the original recipient also had yet to master our language."

"But more was understood than spoken," Princess Celestia gently continued. "And in the end... all we could ask for was agreement."

Each looked to the other. Back to Cerea.

"Will you protect us?" Princess Celestia asked.

I can't.
I'm not good enough.
I couldn't protect him. Over and over. I just failed.
I wasn't allowed to protect him.
If I make one mistake...

But the press was watching.

"...yes."

"Will you give your life, if need be?" Princess Luna advanced the oath. "Would you die so that others might live?"

It was what a knight did.
I'm not...

Her shoulders were shaking. She couldn't look up at them. To look would be to break.

"Yes."

And the next words belonged to the white horse. "Will you save us from ourselves?"

Cerea blinked. Stone flickered in her vision, developed a watery overlayer.

"Ah," Princess Luna whispered as the press began to murmur again. "Truly the original." And waited.

"Yes," Cerea answered, for it seemed as if there was nothing else to be said --

-- but she was wrong.

The dark mare leaned in closer. It almost forced Cerea to stare into the huge eyes, eyes which radiated power and control and --

-- pain?

"Will you let us save you?"

The murmurs flowed into a river of sound, rushing waters of disbelief and incomprehension because this was like nothing they'd ever heard and Cerea matched them, this was an oath which had never appeared in any story, it was something which belonged to their lives and it somehow felt as if this was the first moment when any part of their nation had learned of it...

What did saving her mean? Sending her home?

"Yes."

They leaned in. (For the white horse, it was more of an effort, and Cerea watched powerful legs bend.) A horn laid itself against each pink-covered shoulder.

She didn't really sense the finer details of the contact: even the moonlight's overcharge needed to pass those impressions through fabric and bra straps. But it was as close as she had been to the horns, and there was warmth on one side and coolness on the other and...

...they weren't keratin: she could see that now. But they also weren't bone. She didn't know what the horns were made from, what biology had created in the name of channeling magic. It was just slightly heavier than she would have expected.

But it was the weight of the words which pressed her into the stone.

"We're close enough to be struck down," the white horse told the world in a matter-of-fact way, and it made the next shriek resound through the courtyard. "At this distance, with or without the sword, she could potentially kill one of us before the other could react."

"But we could do the same," the dark mare noted from the heart of her own personal echo. "Death is upon her, should we wish it."

It was taking everything she had left not to spring upright, to gallop. She could feel the sweat beginning to flow across her skin, wondered if froth was forming beneath the skirt. They had to scent her own fear: it was rapidly becoming all Cerea could sense...

"And yet she maintains her ground."

"As do we."

"We believe you," declared Princess Celestia.
"We shall trust you," stated Princess Luna.

Their eyes closed. They held the position.

Dozens of flashbulbs went off.

And that was the front page.

Flagrant

There were a number of additional questions, and the circumstances meant Celestia actually regarded that as a rather reasonable thing: those who had just witnessed history were certainly entitled to think about the implications. However, ponies operating in the degree of shock which came from having witnessed a fundamental overturn of the universe generally weren't known for doing a lot of thinking, and so the voiced queries generally fumbled their way across an increasingly-ridiculous series of fractured parameters.

Eventually, they got the reporters out of the Lunar Courtyard, because articles needed to be written, type had to be set and in the case of far too many (and not just those who were against them), you couldn't get a really good distortion without a few hours of dripping acid upon the actual events. The fact that it had become just about impossible to get a full sentence out of Cerea following the oath wound up encouraging them to disperse: the girl had spent the remainder of her time in the public eye within what the elder had been interpreting as a state of deep stun, and the current worst part about being a ruling Princess was that Celestia had to lock every last possible expression for her own part of that perfectly understandable reaction completely out of sight. And then she had to keep it there while the sisters attempted to answer those questions which actually had them, while implications boiled inside her and the perfect illusion of the full Moon shone down upon the Courtyard. It was a constant reminder that she was deep into her sibling's hours, and Celestia did about as well under too much Moon as Luna dealt with an excess of Sun: a full week of schedule flip could turn both into a bomb, and the only consideration remaining might be just where to go off.

The centaur girl was sent off to bed, and Celestia watched her hooves move down the palace hallway in a half-stagger: something which was echoed in too many of the accompanying Guards because they had heard what Luna had said, it would be mere hours before all of Canterlot knew what Luna had said, the news would spread across the continent in about a day and once it crossed the world...

She watched that, and Nightwatch's awkwardly-flapping wings, until the girl was out of sight. And when she finally turned away, she discovered that her sister had used the chance to get out of range.

They both knew the palace better than any other living pony. But Celestia had (regretted, hated, loathed) more experience. And in this case, she suspected Luna wasn't hiding. She'd just chosen to relocate the inevitable to somewhere more private...

It turned out to be a balcony atop one of the old towers, and the dark eyes were staring up at the true Moon. Forelegs had been hooked over a railing. An alicorn who was effectively immune to cold silently ignored the weather: snow was blowing onto the balcony, and Celestia's arrival vaporized all of it.

"I believe we should maintain the conditions for an additional cycle," the younger proposed. "Simply to moderate the reaction when the articles are released, as much as such can be hoped for. Which should also grant us some time to begin the composition and printing of the informational one-sheets. Following that, we can grant Canterlot a compensating period of unseasonal warmth --"

"-- how long have you been planning that?"

The younger carefully reared back, wings flaring slightly to aid in the turn. Landed to face the elder, or least what could be seen of the white form through the cloud of steam.

"It was not a plan," Luna coolly declared. "It was a -- consideration."

"You had her take up her sword before the press! Promise to defend! She was halfway to being sworn in before you --"

She had every intention of continuing, had in fact planned out the rant during the search and at one point, had nearly turned the opening stages into a mantra to help her stay both enraged and awake. But there were certain things which couldn't help but interrupt arguments, and the sound of a heat-abused part of the floor cracking was one of them.

"Concentrate on your breath, sister," the younger advised. "Not many know that stone can burn, and this is not the night to teach them."

Celestia raised her right forehoof, stepped back just enough to see both wound and glow. Glared at Luna.

"You didn't tell me." The words were slightly less heated than the air. "Everything that's happened, and you still didn't --"

The dark head dipped.

"...yes."

"Why?"

Softly, "This."

Celestia stopped.
Breathed.

It took a little time. Precious seconds before she stopped feeling as if every strand of her fur was a wick, with the world around her as waiting candle. And the whole time, Luna wouldn't meet her eyes.

"You were not with us, Tia," her sibling quietly said. "You did not see her fight, when the neurocypher came. I feel I would have survived: it... chose a different first meal, and that would have provided me with time to reach instinct. But some of our own would have died. They did not. I saw her fight, through the haze of the monster's power. It... required some nights to fully assemble the memory. And I realized -- what is her place? Abjura asked me that, at the arrival point. What does the world hold for a centaur, after Tirek? Fear. You saw that tonight. It holds fear. But when I could truly remember watching her battle..."

The silver-clad left forehoof scraped at the cooling floor.

"...you said you found beauty in watching her run? She fights like nothing I have ever seen. So few centaurs in our lives, and their ways were not hers. Certainly not Tirek's, content to drain from those in flight, watching pegasi plummet to their deaths while his only regret was that they did not possess more to steal. She is new, sister. Something strange, something unfamiliar, and... someone whose heart has been wounded. Who bleeds within every night. And who, when confronted with danger, gallops towards it. She brought back a memory..."

"He couldn't gallop." A statement of fact.

You invoked him...

Luna's lips almost quirked.

"Yes. Well. Two legs. She hardly reflects him in form, Tia. But -- a bleeding heart, a wounded soul, and a noble purpose. Look within and..."

A mare immune to cold shivered.

"...find a mirror," the younger concluded. "From the instant we first discussed the immigration option, I recognized the employment issue. Who would hire her? Even the boldest of our nation might hesitate. I can perceive the potential for somepony of great love to take the chance. I can think of such to have crossed our own lives. I remembered the first."

"The only reason I allowed some of them to retain the title of 'noble'," Celestia softly said. "And?"

"And he would not have been enough," Luna said. "Because there would always be others, forever the chance for one to successfully channel fear into aggression. She needed protection. The shield created by the palace, in so far as that might hold. And for employment here... what can she do?"

"Fight," the elder slowly acknowledged. "And that's part of the problem, Luna. You turned her into a combatant --"

"-- she needed her weapon."

"I know. We agreed on that days ago." The huge white forehoof stomped, doing so as the mane accelerated its flow. "Every sapient species has its own magic: a minotaur's strength can potentially break a unicorn's field, donkey endurance pushes forward through altered weather. We can't always counter each other directly, but everyone can at least try to find a way to defend themselves. Everyone but her. A sapient without magic, the only one I've ever seen, helpless every time she goes out in public. She needed the sword, and you were practically waiting on Wordia --"

"Somewhat predictable," the younger judged. "In a few ways."

"-- but this puts that sword in our service," Celestia forced. "You saw the original round of articles, when the rumors were going around. The fears of what we might use it for. That's international, Luna. They already deal with the fact that we're the only things standing between the world and global extinction. Most of them try not to think about it, and all of them do." The words were getting faster. "But they know they have their own magic, they tell themselves that their magic has a chance, and now we have someone who breaks magic. Try to guess what this is going to do at the next Zoology Conference. I'm guessing someone's going to propose rewriting the Treaty Of Menagerie to cover her, or exclude her, or just walk out. And that's before we get to what this is going to do with our own citizens, because some of them may decide that this means she's under our control, but others are going to see a centaur that close to a Princess and wonder when she's going to strike. Once again keeping in mind that if we both go down, Sun and Moon go --"

"-- I. Do. Not. CARE!"

The dark eyes had come up again, and frost began to creep across the stone. Radiating out from silver.

"Let them talk." The words were all too close to a hiss, cold syllables slicing through the air. "Let them scream, let them come. She has earned her chance, and how many of them can say the same? I know what we risked by bringing her into the light, sister: we both do. Two suicide attempts in Canterlot alone after the articles appeared, both stopped. An entire continent of police on high alert. And she is not stupid, Tia: she heard your request for a moment of mourning, she will realize that the fear may rise to the point where it could have started again. She already blames herself for --"

Stopped, as stars dimmed within the flaring mane and the ice chose its border.

"-- no," Luna whispered. "I still have not galloped that down, and I may find myself unable to tell you when I do. For having potentially tantalized... for that, I offer apology. But it comes back to those discarded options, sister. There is potential damage in every second she spends in the world, and we -- brought her into the light. Because the other choices equaled imprisoning her for what might have been a lifetime, and a rather short one. For the crime of existing. And rather than do that -- we took the chance, and hoped to avoid the worst of the toll. For one cycle, we did. And did you not say it should never be worse than the first night?"

Celestia did the only thing she could, in the presence of reflected (and echoed, so many echoes) pain. She waited.

"Her only chance," the younger finished. "Earned. So I do not care. They would talk regardless. Some scream because they wish to. They charge because it lets them pretend they are not afraid, while we remain ourselves and she bears her sword. They will come? Let them come. And I did not tell you, because..."

She sighed, and freshly-crystallized snowflakes fell to the floor.

"...we are equal in the Diarchy. That is the law. But even now, after the Return, and the era of new Bearers... not always in your own eyes, Tia. Too much time alone, and --"

The dark eyes looked away.

Gently, because that was what Luna needed now. "It wasn't your fault."

"Regardless," was a rather flat response. "So I allowed it to happen, before witnesses. And then you would have to support me."

The long white legs risked a step forward -- but just one, at least to start.

Celestia looked at her sister for a while. Considered that there were many ways to describe Luna. 'Diplomacy's other option' was internationally popular, along with being among the few such terms which remained printable. But there was something more accurate. For most of the palace staff, the younger could, with some truth, be regarded as a hyperintelligent force of nature, only one with lingering emotional issues and the public relations skills of an avalanche.

But for the elder, it was a sibling who still wasn't completely sure how to be home.

Ice slowly began to melt.

"I admit to being at something of a loss in one regard," the younger admitted as she once again stared out into the falling snow.

"Oh?" Genuinely curious.

"The training. At least the combat portions of it. We have never seen a centaur fight as she does: nopony has. We require somepony used to dealing with potential Guards, who is capable of not only adapting to new circumstances, but constantly dealing with having to be in the presence of a fighting centaur..."

The warm white wing draped itself across the cool dark back.

"Oh, Luna," Celestia smiled. "Have I got a pony for you..."

Unwelcome

It was the little details which could become lost.

International reactions? There would soon be debates in every hall of power and with Mazein's democracy, that meant just about every last minotaur's home. Ultimately, the oldest allies Equestria had would decide to stand by their friend, but in that special way which suggested said friend might have overlooked something and therefore someone of sense had better be keeping an eye open. Shortly thereafter, Protocera's current President officially advised a wait-and-see approach, which naturally led into the fourth impeachment attempt of her term. Eeyorus reviewed disaster relief policies again. The hundred city-state kraals of Pundamilia Makazi failed to reach any degree of true consensus, which was the most natural outcome for a conference of zebras. Most of those who resided within the Burning Lands paid the same amount of attention to pony events as ever: namely, nothing concerned the dragons unless it seemed to directly threaten them and since the majority had decided nothing could be a threat to a dragon, those very few who'd actually bothered with both acquiring foreign newspapers (often moons behind the publication date) and learning how to read curled up atop their hoards and went back to sleep. And Prance vowed to look down upon everything Equestrian forever, which meant little more than that Prance still existed.

Every nation had their own way of dealing with the news, at least for those who were capable of hearing it: those parts of the world which remained unexplored had a certain difficulty in starting newspaper subscriptions. But Yakyakistan eventually assembled an opinion, Saddle Arabia had a few thoughts on the matter, various Diamond Dog warrens scratched their heads in confusion (or to get rid of ticks) while the ruler of a known changeling hive briefly shuddered (and immediately denied it) at the thought of potentially being revealed with a touch... countries myriad and yet to be named all tried to find some way of dealing with the latest capability of a nation which, in the opinion of the majority, already had too many of them.

But much of that would be recorded within articles (if not always accurately), and it didn't truly reflect everything which was going on. Because the world was more than governments and the beliefs of the powerful, even if those in charge frequently did their best to forget about that. Ultimately, the world was comprised of people.

People are made out of stories.

Every life is its own tale. A freshly-printed cover turns to the first blank page with the breath of a newborn's cry, while a well-worn spine and yellowed pages are filed within the library of the shadowlands at the end of a very long day. Spot a sapient moving down the street, and you've just met a narrator. They all move through the heart of their own story, personally relating events as they interpret the characters around them (not always well), and the most egotistical never manage to realize that anyone else might have a story at all.

Some of those characters interact. Crossovers happen on every corner. Tropes intermesh, plotlines meet, things too strange for fiction remain within the rougher canon of reality, and when something truly unique occurs...

There was a new story being told in Canterlot, a tale no one had ever believed possible. The formal announcement of its existence rippled pages around the world, and some of those stories were changed.

Take down selected volumes from the shelves of the living. Turn the pages...

The first thing the mare does when she reaches her desk, even before loading the ink into the typewriter and making sure the push-pedals which assemble letters from a group of raised shapes are well-greased (something she always does, as it's not as if she can trust anypony else for it), is to read the waiting police blotter. It disappoints her, and she had been counting on that nightly tally of Canterlot activity for support.

She was so careful in the composition of the previous articles. The mare feels she understands the steam engine of fear: no matter what happens, you just keep loading in fuel. There's no reason to keep an eye on the pressure gauge, at least when it comes to the usual purpose. Every choice for her original words was designed to push the boiler to the maximum, because explosions can always be blamed on someone else and she then gets to write columns about fallout and debris.

But the report does not contain what she had been expecting, at least not for the capital. (It'll take time to receive matching public documents from the other settled zones.) Any suicides could so easily be blamed on the centaur, and on this most crucial of nights -- nothing.

Not that it does more than briefly slow her down. There are more nights to come, courtesy of the elder who should have become nothing more than a living gear turning the sky centuries ago -- along with the younger, whom she usually manages to imply is nothing more than Nightmare in a slightly-altered form, while wondering when everypony else will catch on.

The mare often suggests that anypony who can't see things as she presents them is brainwashed, nothing more than a sheep (she frequently insults sheep, usually by comparison) of no education or independent thought, being led towards a slaughter which will surely take place any day now, and the existence of a centaur seems to have made that day somewhat more immediate.

The mare has declared that ponies need to think for themselves, and believes the only way anypony can prove they're thinking for themselves is to mindlessly agree with everything she says.

No suicides. But she has events to relate for her readers, especially since she already knows how they'll want to see them. So she personally greases the pedal gears, checks the levers, loads the ink, and stomps out a few test sentences before formally starting because she's a professional.

She chooses her words carefully and in doing so, cuts through time. Entire minutes are discarded: there's no reason for anypony to know they existed. She will tell them a story: something they'll accept as reality because history is supposedly written by the winners, but the important part is that it's read about by those who weren't there. Every word is fuel for the boiler, designed to increase the pressure of fear because given enough time, there has to be an explosion. Bodies to be laid at the forehooves of the centaur, stacked up until nopony can perceive any kind of future which does not have them among the dead...

...she stops. Her horn ignites, opens a drawer while the other ponies who work in that part of the building carefully ignore her actions: they have their own distortions to create and in any case, it's not a good idea to make her focus on what she's actually in the middle of doing. The mare makes enemies easily, frequently with pleasure and in the case of what she's doing right now, it would be the only part of her life where she didn't discriminate.

The bottle floats out. And the mare feels that its contents increase her creativity: the lubrication which makes the words flow that much more smoothly. Sometimes she drinks when she's done writing, in order to be more creative later. Or before she goes into a press conference where she's supposed to be introduced to a monster, and needs to find ways of making that small part of the world which thinks properly understand why that should not be.

Sometimes she drinks before she goes to sleep. Or drinks until she passes out, which is just as good.
There used to be a tiny part of her which wouldn't allow sleep. That which says she's writing words designed to encourage fear, to make ponies feel as if there's no way out other than attacking that which they're afraid of, or...
...nopony managed to commit suicide in Canterlot yesterday.
In spite of the centaur.
(The monster. It's a monster. Nopony can ever be allowed to see the word as meaning anything else.)
In spite of what she wrote.
Because those first articles were, on some level, meant to...

She used to have thoughts like that. But now she has a bottle.
The bottle is better.

Eight return to Ponyville deep under Moon. Seven of them are coming home.

It's that part of the night which exists within its own permanent awkwardness: so late that it's on the verge of becoming too early. And they are tired and worn down from their adventure, they need rest and they have been fully away from all sapient contact for some time, excluding the ones who were trying to kill them. They know nothing of what has transpired, and this is not quite the time to tell them.

The group separates almost immediately. They had spent days operating as a unit, albeit one which had an assigned temporary recruit and that made things awkward for a while. (The designer and baker... well, they're talking to the performer now, more or less: for the designer, each sentence still gives off the impression of having been assembled from knives, and it took the entire mission to dull that down to something more suitable for smearing butter.) But at the core, the group is composed of very different ponies, along with someone who isn't a pony at all and silently dreads the day when he might once again stop thinking as one. They are individuals, and now that they don't have to be Bearers for a little while, they can hear their lives calling.

So they go to their own homes. (Two limp somewhat along the way, while one trots because her left wing is still sprained.) They move through a town which is largely asleep, and those few residents who see them are merely glad that they've returned home. Nopony among those few greeters wants to disturb them, not yet -- and three of the ponies who see them are under the impression that the palace has provided a full briefing already, so there's nothing to say. Besides, a town some distance to the west of the Lunar Courtyard has yet to learn of what had happened there, those commuters who work for the capital's newspapers won't be returning home for hours, the first editions may beat them back and -- their heroines (plus one hero, and a guest who has yet to be truly forgiven) are tired.

The weather coordinator is the only one to notice anything unusual: she collects her tortoise from the petsitter (and, about ten minutes after the fact, briefly wonders whether she should have apologized for knocking on the bedroom window so loudly. Pushing it open from the outside doesn't strike her as having crossed a line), gets some altitude while he's riding in the insulated saddlebag, and quickly reaches her home. But she wants to put some maintenance in before going to bed, because the long-term existence of any vapor construct requires the presence of pegasi: too long without tapping into the magic of residents and visitors, and...

She didn't expect the mission to go on anywhere near that long, didn't get a housesitter, and so making sure her interior decorating isn't on the verge of becoming rather more exterior is important. So she looks around from the outside, seeing what has to be shored up first, and that lets her spot the snowstorm which engulfs the capital. And she knows that's unusual, but she doesn't treat it as important. There's probably a surprise festival or something. Maybe one of the stores bribed the capital's team and put together some kind of big event, or a noble is hosting something with a winter theme... it doesn't matter because if it was important, the palace would have told them already. (The fact that they've been out of contact doesn't really register, not when compared to the call of her bed -- not to mention the need to prevent that bed from relocating itself.) So she shrugs, adjusts a few clouds into greater density around her fountains, and makes a vow to check the headlines in the morning.

Of course, she has absolutely no intention of keeping that vow. It's too soon after the mission for any of the stories to be about her -- okay, fine: them. Plus her weather team doesn't know she's back yet, and the worst way to tell them would be by appearing before she'd finished sleeping through noon --

-- but as it turns out, the news comes to her.

In another part of town, the librarian and her little brother are heading towards their wounded home. The performer is trailing some distance behind, largely because the caravan had to be parked somewhere, the vast majority of the town can be drastically understated as being something other than fond of her, and there was a faint hope that somewhat less damage might be done if she left her residence sitting on an alicorn's property. There had been -- call it a 'natural reaction' -- when she'd once again crossed the border, and if the others hadn't quickly moved towards the sounds of justified anger...

She's trailing some distance behind -- but not too far back. Just in case.

The theory turns out to be partially correct: the caravan is intact, as none of the vegetables which were kicked into its sides managed to penetrate the wood. (However, there's a fresh lightning scorch near the hitch, and one of the wheel spokes is fractured.) And the librarian heads towards her own door, softly asking her sibling if he can stay awake long enough to send one scroll now that the effect which prevented all communication is starting to wear off, just something which tells the palace that the mission was successful and they're home. And he thinks he's up to it, but she feels he's hardly the best judge and so she's already second-guessing herself on that when she hears the caravan's door begin to open.

It delays everything for a few minutes. The performer cannot sleep in there: the purchased pegasus techniques which insulate the interior were already losing power when she arrived, it's a cold night and the caravan is leaking. She can come inside. There's a guest bed --

-- the performer has overstayed her welcome already, any amount of time when she's in this town is an overstay and she has to leave, there's blankets in the caravan and --

-- there's blankets on the guest bed, along with a warming pan. Also, there's a dragon. Add a dragon's presence to that of a warming pan and waiting times for heat are cut down significantly. Plus the librarian just saw that wheel spoke, the performer should replace that under Sun and certainly shouldn't risk practicing more advanced, hard-won, and deeply-loathed wheelwright skills on the road at night. She has to stay...

The performer was going to sleep! In the caravan! That's all! The road would have waited --

-- no. Because the librarian knows the performer a little better now, understands the pressure which comes from within and without. If the unicorn gets into the caravan, then the caravan will be rolling at the instant its owner decides nopony is left awake to hear it move. It's not just a matter of wanderlust, not after so much of the mission was spent traveling through a strange land, generally with the pursuit about sixty body lengths back. It's... because the performer knows how the town's residents feel about her. But that's not the librarian. And most of what they talked about during the mission was the mission, that one theory from the last letter still needs some face-to-face discussion, it's just one night and...

...stay. Please.

...
...all right. For one night. Plus a breakfast. That's it.

And that was all it was meant to be (although the librarian was going to try for a full extra day in the morning). But morning is when the news arrives. The request. And the performer's wanderlust is frustrated, but she's still on probation for everything which happened with the Amulet (when it easily could have been so much worse), she has to do what the palace asks and magically speaking, the problem is an interesting one. So she stays. Just to work on the problem.

In time, it will take her somewhere she never wanted to be.

Silver eyes watch the centaur sleep.

It's been a remarkably steady sleep. Given what she's seen of the sleeping habits for the cell's occupant, there's an argument to be made that it's unnaturally steady.

Unless, of course, you happen to work on the Lunar shift and have a better understanding than most for what your Princess is capable of.

Night after night, she's watched the centaur sleep, and it's told her what's natural. For starters, the girl sleeps on the floor: after that first waking, the bed was never used. All four legs fold until belly and barrel are completely down, the upper torso seems to lock into position, and both arms fold and tuck under the breasts. (The little pegasus has been to Mazein with her Princess, met ageládas before that. Breasts still weird her out.) The girl closes predatory eyes and shortly after, the nightmares begin.

Normally, the girl's upper torso jerks in her sleep. Arms desperately reach for a weapon. The tail lashes, then tucks against the far side of the body as if it's trying to hide. During the worst of it, legs straighten and she's halfway to standing before she fully wakes. She dreams often, more than the mare has seen ponies dream, and perhaps that's natural for a centaur.

The nightmares could also be argued as natural, at least for someone who's in a cell.

But this is the last night for that. And after the press conference ended, the girl (whom the pegasus knows is not a full adult, she feels she may be aware of more than almost anypony when it comes to the centaur and part of her aches when she passes some of what she's learned on to her own Princess) was incapable of speech. She was... the way she had been in the Courtyard, only more exhausted. The mare, who has the most experience with their visitor, had seen the change take place at the instant the centaur stepped out into the moonlight. She wonders if she was the only one who realized what was happening.

The surge of instincts. The struggle to hang on in the face of the unknown stretching out second by second.

One more way in which the girl is just like them.

The girl couldn't talk. She was too tired from having fought that constant inner war, and so she sank down onto the cold cell floor (although somewhat less so now, as the mare moved an insulating blanket there on the third night) and went to sleep. And she should have been twitching, misplaced ears rotating in all available directions as the dreamer listened to her own inner screams --

-- but the little pegasus knows more than most about what her Princess is capable of. The girl's rest has been steady: unnaturally so. The harsh night ending with a silent gift.

The mare is watching the girl sleep, and doing so from inside the cell. And in the corridor, Guards come and go, because nopony's quite sure what the assignments are now. The centaur never would have tried to escape, there's no more risk of having somepony come down and find her -- but they haven't received new orders, and so Guards come and go.

They also talk, because that's what Guards do.
The mare doesn't need an enchanted device to understand what they're saying.

There seem to be two camps developing. Those who went to the arrival site, and everypony else. (The first group represents a rather small minority.) And the discussions turn to the oath, something none of them had ever heard before, not a Guard's oath --

-- it was the proudest day of the mare's life, reciting that oath --

-- but so close, they talk about the reporters and the questions and the fact that nopony's been able to find Bulkhead for hours -- but mostly, they talk about the girl.

Quite a few Guards have spent time outside the cell. (It's a much lower percentage for the rest of the Lunar staff.) And for the ones who've watched her... they understand she's not a monster in anything more than that unnatural form. The ultimate definition of a monster is something incapable of caring: that doesn't describe the girl. She... arguably cares a little more than might be strictly healthy. But maybe that's just how centaurs are...

They talk about what happened. What has to happen next. And they're Lunars, they care about their Princess, any one of them would give their lives to protect her -- but part of being a Guard is having to be the pony who tells a Princess when she's wrong. And they know the girl isn't a monster, but...

...it can't work.

It can't.

That's the opinion of the majority. Those who were in the forest -- they talk about how the girl can fight, she fights like nothing anypony's ever seen, having that sword wielded for the thrones will give the Princesses protection (it's plural during that part of the recurring argument, as nopony's mentally assigned the girl a shift), Equestria might be that much safer with the girl among their ranks --

-- but there's always a counter. Safer, when every public hoofstep might set off a riot? Less threats, when there's no way to tell how the other nations are going to respond? And even those who were in the forest can't say she'll succeed in getting through the training, or that anything will work out. Just that there should be a chance.

Maybe she won't make it through training.
(Maybe there's Guards hoping for that.)
(The ones who still can't get past their fear.)
So what does she do if she fails?

And nopony has an answer.

The little pegasus stands in the cell, watching the girl sleep because it's easier than having to think.

Her shift ends. She trots down the street under the grey light of a mostly-blocked Sun, because flying through heavy snowfall should only be done in emergencies. Nopony heading out for the Solar shift really notices her. She's not unattractive, although it took most of her life before 'night colors' finally came into fashion -- but there's heavy snowfall, shivering ponies blinking flakes out of their eyelashes aren't exactly in the mood to flirt, and she's off-shift. One of the first things a Guard learns after taking up active duty is that most ponies just see the armor. (The partial exception is a few chosen pegasi on the Lunar staff, who occasionally take up armor that's a little bit different. The little mare is one of them, and so she's also learned that even then, ponies don't recognize what they're seeing.) Take it off, and she's completely anonymous. Just another Lunar mare heading home at the end of a cold night.

She sees two exceptionally foolish unicorns trying to read the morning paper as they trot along. One is weak enough that most of the wind gets through her field, and both have their coronas wink out at the moment they truly spot the headline.

Eventually, she gets home. It's easy to dry her fur, because she's one of the strongest on the palace staff. It's just a question of reaching the bathroom before using the technique: separated water has to land somewhere. And then she...

...she was watching the girl. All night. She was in the Courtyard, she went through everything which happened there, and she should be going to sleep. But little glints of grey light sneak through the gaps in shifted blackout curtains, glance off the mirror to land elsewhere in the small apartment, and...

...she was watching the girl.
Now she's looking in the mirror. Watching herself.
And she doesn't know why.

The merchant pulls his cart through one of the wider gaps between the trees, then pauses to scout out the next part of his route.

He doesn't come this way often, and this is true of everypony who's ever been down the faint forest path: 'often' just doesn't apply. But there are times when the main road has problems, especially with flooding. The rainfall in this part of the continent can be very heavy, and it drains the standing techniques faster than usual. Sometimes the thaums run out before a recharge arrives, and when that happens -- well, you can try to pull your goods through a mire of mud, or you can go off the main road. Dozens of ponies have kept this path open, and their passages are still rare enough that the next traveler needs to pay attention or lose even that degree of trail. (Blazes can be wiped out, he's not the kind of exceptionally rude earth pony who would just casually scar tree bark, and stacked-up rockpiles fall over.) So he's stopping every so often, just to make sure he's still going the right way.

Fortunately, the trail was originally scouted by those who were pulling carts, and so what's there is wide enough for him to bring his own through. It means taking the long way around, but it's still faster than going through the mud (not to mention better for his coat) and if they're all technically stepping through a location where the map says they're not supposed to be -- well, who's to know? Besides, if the palace didn't want ponies off the trail, then the palace should send pegasi around more often for recharges. (So there.) He's making progress, more than he would if he was dealing with the mire, and the cart's hard-purchased enchantments only help the cart. If he'd stayed on the road, he would have probably sunk in up to all four knees by now.

Instead, he's making his way through the trees. Following the path as the hitched cart steadily comes along behind him, wheels automatically adjusting to the shifting terrain. Sometimes this means a degree of compression, actively shrinking by a hoofwidth before they flare back to full size just in time to prevent a small drop from delivering a jolt to his goods.

He'd originally hesitated before paying so much for the workings which allow that to happen, and he hardly enjoys nosing over bits so a unicorn can keep the charge up (there are no unicorns in his family, and that's starting to seem like a horrible loss of potential freebies) -- but his items are fragile. It's easy enough to hit a pothole in the road, sudden changes are guaranteed on a trail, and since the castings were performed, he's no longer losing money on damaged goods. There's just times when you need to spend bits now in order to save them later.

Branches drip moisture onto his back: the largest and coldest drops occasionally require an effort to keep from jumping. He rotates his ears regularly, listening for potential trouble because even though the path is established, he's still off the main road. But he isn't losing that much time, he can make it up with a trot once he clears the problem area, there's profit ahead --

-- the hitch rams into his shoulders with all the force of an earth pony taking a strong step forward. It's more than enough to make him yelp, he spends a few seconds in both trying to drive the bruising pain back down and listening to discover if anything heard him --

-- the wheels have locked.

He pulls again. They won't move.

...all right. Maybe something got jammed in an axle: a pebble was dislodged from the earth and wound up stuck in exactly the wrong place. It's the only reason he can immediately conceive of for the problem, especially as the enchantments are supposed to help the wheels turn. Not much -- making the cart truly self-powered would cost a fortune, produce a giveaway glow, require more recharges than he ever wants to pay for and, too often, would leave him galloping away from his own goods in order to avoid being trampled -- but enough so that when he's tired, the cart can do a little of the work on its own.

So he unhitches himself, wincing at the fresh pain. Turns, takes a step towards the cart --

-- the forest blurs, all four knees go weak as his blood roars in his ears and there's a single moment when he realizes that sound is the only thing he can truly hear, something he's about to test with his own scream --

-- and then it's over.

He blinks a few times. Quickly listens again, and it doesn't take long to determine that nothing's approaching along the ground.

Could that have been what a neurocypher's attack feels like? He can't pick up on anything crashing through the forest and the trees are too closely spaced for one to silently travel -- at least, they're too narrow here. Maybe he's at the extreme edge of a big one's range, and the magic just washed across him for a second. But he thinks a little more, and remembers that it's the wrong part of the continent for neurocyphers: there's never been one sighted in this area. They're gallops upon gallops away.

Of course, it could be a new kind of monster.

...he has to move.

He checks the axles, doing so at the speed of desperation. But he can't find anything wrong. He pushes at the cart from behind to no avail, he gets back into the hitch and pulls with all of his returned strength --

-- the cart moves.

It happens all at once. The wheels shift, but they do so unevenly. The left side of the front axle lands before the right, and he hears the faint tinkle of broken glass.

This causes him to lose some additional time. Expressing his full opinion regarding the situation requires a number of sentences and, for ponies with less travel experience, at least three fully comprehensive translation guides.

It's eight days before his route brings him around to the pony who did the original enchantments, and that gives him the occasion for other Words. Most of them have to do with low-quality work, because the recharge he'd paid for prior to getting on the trail should have lasted for at least another week. For the spells to just spontaneously discharge all stored power -- well, now he knows what it feels like to have that wash over him, doesn't it? And he tried to get a recharge at the next town, that held for a while, but 'a while' is now a continually-decreasing variable and given the amount he paid for --

-- the unicorn eventually manages to get a word in edgewise, which nearly involves using her horn in the same fashion. And after thoroughly inspecting the cart, she... apologizes. She doesn't know what happened to her enchantments. But she can't argue that something did, and she's going to recast them from scratch. For free, because there aren't many ponies in the world who specialize in her work and the fact that most of the recipients travel so much means they have very little trouble in finding the others.

She puts him up in a hotel for the two days it takes her to recast everything, which effectively repairs both the cart and the client/caster relationship. He never has any problems with her workings again, and eventually winds up recommending her to a few other ponies because while work which never needs maintenance or repair is invaluable, somepony willing to both admit when they've made a mistake and make up for it can be truly precious.

But after he leaves, she continues trying to figure out what she did wrong. And she can't find an answer. It haunts her dreams for weeks, it makes her triple-check every spell she casts for two moons, and it never happens again.

It's the little details which become lost.

Cacophonic

There were always those who believed what they wished, sometimes with that special defiance which suggested any countering evidence had been deliberately created as a means of proving those beliefs true: after all, if they didn't have all of the correct information, then the palace wouldn't go to the effort of lying to them. And so there were a number of ponies (and others) who simply knew that the younger could not bear the touch of Sun.

Their beliefs as to what happened at the moment of contact tended to vary. A rough majority felt Luna simply went into a coma at the instant that brighter light reached her, and could not be woken by any known force until Moon held sway again. Others still put their faith in the 'catches fire' issue. In both cases, any daylight encounters with the actual party involved were typically blamed on carefully-created illusions coating the body of a stand-in: it was something which had the exceptionally rude trying to make physical contact with horn or wings, and it usually ended with an internally-grumbling alicorn levitating the offender towards the nearest exit. (The captured pony would frequently spend the remainder of their increasingly limited time in her presence trying to flail their legs towards the wings, as clearly the horn was real enough.) The younger had been the most talented illusion-caster of her generation, had taken up that title again in the modern nights, was fully aware of just how hard it was to keep a fully realistic simulation of a pony body going in realtime -- and so as much as anything else, the insult taken regarded somepony having decided it would be just that easy.

Ultimately, all such beliefs were false: after all, it was impossible to be there for the exact moment of Moon's raising without having awoken some time before. The younger suffered no injury from the touch of Sun -- but as with her sister's reaction to Moon, anything over a few hours served as an ever-escalating irritant. Each was slightly weaker during the time of the other, but that was something which required witnesses who understood their true peaks and could thus tell when they were operating below that capacity. (The harder part was being present when those peaks were actually being exerted.) But neither was driven into magical sleep, and the elder hadn't heard a rumor about the white form simply freezing for centuries.

(There was something in Celestia which actually liked the image for its sheer audacity: her body trapped beneath a Moon-created thick coating of clear ice, which shattered away in all directions at the moment daylight reached her. She suspected the originator had once seen a cockatrice victim successfully breaking out of the shell and simply taken the idea sideways. The concept of a stone coating appearing and vanishing with Sun or Moon also struck her as a good start for some kind of fiction -- but she hadn't been sure about the rest of her idea, the creative arts had always been Luna's dominion, and in any case, it usually wasn't so much a matter of getting a castle above the clouds as just bringing the clouds that much lower. Besides, a third of the nation's castles were made of clouds to begin with.)

Their hours overlapped: that was just the natural cycle. Noon (or, in the elder's case, one in the morning) was difficult to reach, and for the sisters to interact during the heart of each other's hours generally indicated either crisis or insomnia. But at the respective beginnings and ends of those mark-assigned shifts... they usually got to see each other. They made an effort to take first/last meals together. They wanted to be there for each other. And during the earlier parts of the Return, when a major story broke, there had been an occasional desperate rush through the palace as Celestia attempted to complete a personal seek-and-destroy mission for all palace-hosted newsprint, because the publications tended to arrive shortly before dawn and the one thing the younger definitely possessed was a decidedly shorter temper.

Of course, life and sibling interactions had a certain flow. The palace had a subscription to just about every publication (mostly gifted by the publishers, although the Tattler charged full price and occasionally tried to kick in an increase on the delivery fee), and Luna had silently doubled that number while ensuring a few were dropped off in locations which she could usually get to first. It was no longer possible for Celestia to delay the explosion through censorship, and so some of the overlap hours following a major event were now spent in going over the articles together.

As explosion-preventing tactics went, 'talking it out' didn't have what the elder considered to be a spectacular success rate, but it did ensure she would be in protective proximity when it all went off.

"Not quite as early as expected," the younger noted from her throne as Celestia wearily trotted into the room, sunspots and little flares playing over the surface of field-carried publications. "And that is after I advised you to gain as much rest as possible, promising to wait until you arrived, even offering to take Sun for the cycle... while knowing you would ignore all of it. What has kept you?"

"I checked on Cerea," the elder sighed. "I thought it was going to just be a peek into the cell, but -- she woke up." The white mare slowly shook her head. "I'm not sure why. I was doing everything I could to be quiet..."

The younger silently meditated on what usually happened when somepony who was twice the size of the average citizen attempted to practice stealth -- then discarded the fast-approaching smirk. "A guess?" She stood up, started to trot down the ramp. "She scented you. It does not break my code to tell you that her dreams include scent, sister, and do so at a level of refinement I have never seen. And I did what I could to calm her sleep, give her a chance at true rest while staying away from her nightscape -- but the effect has a maximum duration, and scenting your presence in the hall might have been enough to wake her."

Celestia slowly nodded: the newspapers bobbed in time with the movement.

"No magic," the elder stated. "But we can't dismiss biology."

The younger nodded back as she reached the bottom of the ramp, stepping off onto silver-shot marble. "Did you speak with her?"

"Just for a minute."

"And..." The dark mare briefly paused. "...her condition?"

Celestia's eyes closed.

"The first thing she asked me was if there had been any suicides."

Dark fur slowly shifted across the course of a carefully regulated breath.

"While fully prepared to blame herself for every loss," Luna quietly observed. "But I have already seen the overnight tally, Tia, and so I know that you were able to give her the true total."

Purple eyes gradually opened. "When we both know the only number she was going to hear from either of us was 'zero'." A little sigh. "I'm just glad it happened to be true for Canterlot." More slowly, "But we still have to wait on the rest of the continent, and --" a deeper breath "-- we have to watch out for somepony blaming any deaths on her. The next sole survivor of a monster attack who decides to reunite the family in the shadowlands -- you know Wordia. She'll imply that pony would have found a way to go on, if it wasn't for having to live in the same nation as a centaur."

"The focus of all blame for a time." It wasn't quite a sigh. "I seldom have the opportunity to feel grateful for the illiteracy of another. Nightwatch has informed me that condition will not last -- but for now, we can keep her away from these words."

Celestia carefully lowered her body, arranged limbs into false comfort as belly and barrel pressed against the floor. Luna moved to face her, then matched the position as sunlight began to split the papers between them.

"Some of those are mine," the younger noted.

"I thought it would be easier if we each had a copy to read."

Wryly, "An uncensored copy?"

"I haven't done anything to them --"

"-- on this occasion," the younger concluded. "So. You did not indulge in any 'sneak previews'? Because I chose to use some time for reviewing the police blotter, and thus had no chance to review. Additionally, you might recall that I had promised --"

"-- I saw some of the headlines." Celestia shrugged. "That was inevitable just from picking them up. But I haven't gone through the articles."

It got her a somewhat dubious nod. "As you say." A pause. "You said it was the first thing she asked about. Which queries comprised the remainder?"

"Riots. Protests -- we've got some fresh ones arriving for the Solar shift: I had the snowfall stepped up accordingly. And she..." The elder hesitated. "...asked me for something."

The dark eyebrows went up. "Truly?"

"It surprised me too," Celestia admitted. "She's been almost completely quiet there. I've barely heard her ask for water."

"I feel," Luna slowly began, "she sees her mere presence as something more than imposition. Nightwatch has generally needed to inform me of when a true need exists, and that from observation. Such as observing that she has been attempting to clean all of her clothing using the restroom's water flow, because sending out laundry would be increasing our burden." And in the tones of carefully-measured understatement, "So I am rather curious as to what she would actually request."

Celestia told her. The dark eyebrows climbed higher.

"Interesting," the younger observed. "And did you grant it?"

"Within twenty minutes," Celestia replied. "She was already starting with it when I left again." A little shrug, magnified by both the size of the white body and the burdens it was preparing to carry. "Would you like to hear some good news?"

Luna's ears perked. "If only as a reminder that such can still exist? Yes."

The elder took careful stock of her sibling's expression, waited one extra second before proceeding. "They're home."

And then drank in the results, because it was still so rare to see Luna truly smile.

"The briefness of that summation," the younger immediately decided, "implies the safe return of all, along with full mission success. Correct?"

Celestia nodded. "I only got the scroll about seven minutes before I went for the newspapers." A small frown. "And it flickered in. We've spent four years waiting for someone to try using a lockdown effect directly on Spike, and it finally happened. Getting communications from him during missions just became a lot chancier."

"Assuming the party who made the attempt spread the word, and that was not one prone to communication with those who did not share his interests," Luna pointed out. "It is somewhat less likely for another to think of it independently. In this case, they had rather more knowledge of how we had been operating, thanks to that --" the word was nearly spat "-- spy. In the best case, two were aware that dragons have their own means of accessing the aether: it may stop there for a time. But --"

"But we'll start preparing for the worst," Celestia intercepted. "I already sent a scroll back."

"Your request?" Luna checked.

"Basically to keep Trixie there, stand by for further instructions, and don't come to the palace," Celestia filled in. "Twilight's going to see most of the headlines --" this triggered the briefest flash of a wry smile "-- because dealing with a librarian who puts out her own received periodicals in the morning comes with certain problems -- and without my directly telling them to stay put for a while, you know she'd be on the first train out. But they need time to heal, Luna: Fluttershy has a sprained wing, Pinkie cracked her left hind hoof... the current situation doesn't justify bringing them in when they're injured. So all I gave them was a shorthoof briefing and the order: stay in Ponyville until we call for you."

"Your former student," Luna pointed out, words forced into a frozen steadiness, "has been developing something of an independent streak. Can we rely upon her following that order? Because if any would have cause to, shall we say, reexamine our evaluation of Cerea as 'harmless unless attacked'..."

The purple eyes briefly closed again.

"I know what they almost lost to Tirek," Celestia softly countered. "I also know they haven't forgotten. So I'm just going to hope they trust me enough to let themselves heal. And that's not just from the mission injuries." The sigh rustled her wings. "For what it's worth, I'm half-expecting Fluttershy to be the one who decides she has to come, no matter what I tell her. But... we'll see what they do. I already told the Guards to inform us if any of them tried to get in."

"We will begin to deal with that," the younger firmly said, "if it should actually occur. In the meantime, we have more than enough to do."

"And speaking of starting..."

Celestia inclined her heads towards the newspapers. The younger nodded, and folded headlines were unfurled.

"The Tattler?" was a natural inquiry.

"Bottom of the stack." The elder sighed. "I figured we were better off working our way down to it. In several senses."

Luna nodded, and both siblings began to read. It took about eight minutes before Celestia openly snickered.

"Who?" was Luna's immediate inquiry.

"Garoun," Celestia replied. "He described her -- verbal demonstration as 'The natural linguistic consequence of spending so much time around Guards.'"

The snicker retriggered in the opposing form. "Is that how Mr. Charger summarized the event?"

"And that is the only way he described it," Celestia smiled. "Which, so far, makes him the lone pony to figure out what actually happened. A status he'll probably maintain." With full sincerity, "I'm going to miss him when he retires next year."

"There have been times when that insight worked against us."

"Yes," the elder agreed. "But reliably so, and always in neutrality..."

More pages turned.

"If not for his current profession," Luna eventually observed, "I would consider hiring Dejected Overcast as a consultant. This article contains a number of rather fine secondary riot-breaking techniques, most of which would be unknown to anypony who had not read through the full police and Guard hoofbooks. His summary is exactingly comprehensive."

"Except that we'd be hiring someone who's openly assuming they'll all eventually fail," Celestia pointed out, then switched to a fresh paper, followed quickly by an equally fresh groan. "Oh, no..."

"Sister?"

"The Bugle put Raque's opinion column on the front page again -- and here we go. 'I encourage everypony to participate in the palace's Meet A Centaur Days! After all, how can we truly say we accept someone unless we get the chance to say it directly to her face, while remembering at all times that the distortions of those features are hardly something the poor thing can help? And when you let her pick up your foal, watch as she cradles it against her --'"

Celestia paused. Winced.

Luna, who'd quickly switched to the Bugle in something approaching self-defense, had just reached the same portion. "Ah. So we learn that a mare who claims friends from all species can somehow have no idea what a 'bosom' is."

The elder silently nodded.

"Or how to spell it. Admittedly, a rare word to see rendered in Equestrian, but it remains an error which was not caught or corrected by her editor."

Again. The wince had effectively doubled.

Luna took a breath.

"A regrettable coincidence," she decided, "to have the error come so close to our term for 'speartips'."

There was a brief pause while the corrective scroll was composed and sent.

"Still not the best image," Celestia sighed once they were free to read again. "Asking ponies to let her hold their children is taking it too far, too fast, and it'll keep a lot of hooves from approaching those sessions. But that's Raque. Never suggest a single hoofstep when a gallop will fail..."

Eventually, they were down to the last paper: one copy each. Something which had been originally placed into the stack with a fold which left the back page on full display.

"Let us compare summaries before we conclude," Luna offered, mostly as a way of putting it off a little longer. (Celestia nodded.) "Based on what we have read, what do you see as most likely to have granted her any degree of public chance?"

Immediately, softly, with gaze lowered, "Crying for the dead." The huge mare softly sighed. "They weren't expecting that." The right wing partially unfolded, just enough to potentially tuck the white head beneath it. "I wasn't expecting that. It was the first thing which seems to have made some of them briefly see her as a person. But they were the only direct witnesses, and... it won't mean as much for the laypony. Not when they're just reading it."

"Yes," the younger quietly agreed. "But it was mentioned in the majority of the articles, and so perhaps there will be those who think about the words somewhat more deeply." Full constellations dimmed within the mane. "As a monster is that which cannot care..."

Both heads dipped, and the sisters took the moment they needed to put the memories away.

"Tentative allies, here and there," Luna decided. "None but those on Ms. Marshdew's level who fully, almost mindlessly claim to welcome her simply because we had decided to do so, but a number willing to at least watch and wait." Dryly, "I suspect most of those were created by her unexpected linguistic talents."

"But there's a price to pay for that," the elder observed.

"One she had paid on the day of her birth," the younger replied. "Not knowing that the one collecting that toll would ever come into her sight. She would have paid that price had she said nothing at all, even if she had agreed with everything the Tattler's readership might ever desire..."

There was an odd echo within the words, and it brought the elder back to the first time something like them had been said.

"Because for those who hate," Celestia quoted, "there's never such a thing as 'enough surrender'."

Luna silently nodded.

"And there is always one more thing to take," the younger quietly finished. "So. Knowing that the only thing we will regret more than reading what Wordia Spinner has written is already having guessed the majority of what it might say..."

Light and dark coronas reluctantly flared. The paper flipped, and each briefly regarded the ink stain which was soaking into their respective portion of the marble floor because it was easier than looking at the words.

"Another front page opinion column," Celestia made herself say. "But we expected that."

"Facts buried within," Luna added. "Or rather, facts simply buried. There should be no issues in identifying the murderer."

They read. It took a while. The author's sentences were something of an acquired taste and for those who lacked a predilection for such verbal cuisine, the results kept trying to come back up.

"'Demonstrating a vulgarity of mind to equal the monstrosity of her body'," Celestia slowly quoted.

"'possessing every possible kind of physical deformity -- something which must not be allowed to distract from the warping of mental and moral'," Luna picked out.

"'Openly mourning the imprisonment of the one who caused so many deaths...'"

"An opinion column," Luna starkly said.

Darkness coated the white mare's voice. "The word 'propaganda' was taken. Just keep going."

They forced themselves to continue, syllables soaking acid into their eyes.

"I could wish for more research," the elder said. "Three newspapers remembered the historical precedent of dropping charges incurred during first contacts. Something which was done for ponies a few times, because it's hard to meet a new species without stepping on a cultural taboo."

"While she implies that we only did so because we are frightened of 'the centaur'," Luna noted. "Even more so than we were of Tirek. Afraid to imprison her. Afraid to fight. Afraid to truly deal with her at all, and so when the thrones have failed, such should be the province of citizens..."

"With that last not being directly stated," Celestia reluctantly decided. "Expertly implied. In a way which verbally avoids collecting any blame for what her readers might do."

"I have never said that she was not expert in her craft," Luna declared. "It is simply that very few care to watch somepony sculpt in manure."

More sentences went by.

"Remember that first contact where they insisted they were the only true sapients?"

"Yes. Prance still exists."

They mutually moved to the next paragraph.

"Fear."

"More fear."

"Terror."

"Grotesquerie."

"Nightmare -- sorry..."

"Do not be. The actions of nightmare is what she meant to imply. Although having this as its intent would have meant a degree of sharing which it never would have been able to comprehend."

"Have you found any mention of her name?"

"Not a one. Ms. Spinner seems to feel that 'centaur' suffices. After all, to grant the dignity of a name is not an honor one generally assigns to monsters..."

They finished.

"So barring a rather spectacular reaction from one of the other nations," Luna softly concluded as the final stars in her tail nearly winked out in concert with the appearance of the terminal period, "we have met the enemy."

"And they," Celestia wearily observed as a body exhausted in more ways than the physical allowed a heavy head to dip onto cool marble, "are us."

Abhorrent

There had always been books, and there had almost never been a choice.

Cerea's herd had possessed its share of writers. It was possible to arrange for the arrival of ink and paper (because while centaurs knew how to create both, doing so in quantity would deplete the gap's resources), and so new stories sometimes emerged from within. But it hadn't taken long for her to perceive the underlying twinned-yet-opposing themes which permeated nearly every syllable of centaur literature. There were tales of honor and adhering to a personal code no matter what the cost, compliance and looking out for the herd before considering the needs of an individual (if that actually became a concern at all), and every last bit of it would be saturated with what the filly could only perceive as claustrophobia.

That was the better option. The ones who had retreated into claustrophilia, who saw making multiple species spend their generational existence within the gaps as the best of all possible worlds... that made her want to kick both books and authors across the room.

(Some of those had spoken up at the first meetings. A number were still talking, and the only word for so many was 'Stop.')

So for the most part, it was books from the human world, because smuggling those into the gap could actually be marginally easier than getting the publications which had been created by other liminals. And for the most part, those had arrived in bulk shipments: bookstores dumping supply upon going out of business, library remaindered sales, publishers tearing off the covers of last printings and tossing the results into dumpsters. (That last always arrived as a fresh wound to Cerea's soul, because someone who was always so careful with stories hated to see one hurt -- but at least it was a new story.) And the leaders of the herd had some degree of hard-won access to the Internet (cellular data from burner phones where the connections were always dropping out, because having a signal repeater too close was a risk which couldn't be endured and trying to get anything else would chance revealing all), but the creation of an online credit account... you needed someone on the outside who could buy gift cards to create a waiting balance, it was almost impossible to set up anything with a bank, and it all meant that ordering a title directly usually didn't happen.

You took potluck, when the crates came in. It was all too common to get fifty copies of the same novel, which at least meant there was enough for anyone who was interested. Just about as frequently, there would be a multi-part publication and the herd would find itself in custody of Books 1, 2, 4, and 5: the third, sixth, and seventh were scheduled to arrive on the Twelfth Of Never, and so a certain young wizard hadn't so much escaped Cerea's notice as been put on permanent hold. Or it would be cookbooks, useless cookbooks for cuisines which would never reach her, atlases for the lands she could never see...

On a truly good day, you might get a tourism guide. Glossy pages four decades old meant Cerea had been to Sicily a hundred times, had in fact tried for it as her second choice of exchange student destination. (The first had been the United Kingdom, because knights -- and then everything had gone wrong.) In dream, she had taken rowboats through the beauty of the grottos, while being completely unsure as to how a centaur was supposed to sit in a human rowboat. She loved the little island, did so without ever having stepped upon its soil, and usually finished a reread of the book through crying herself to sleep.

But once -- just once...

Six books. All six, which meant the series had arrived complete and whole. An adventure, and a rather strange one for the formatting, because it was the creation of a group. There were four authors. They were working with the blessing of a fifth, who had asked them to create something in the spirit of his writings. And they did not create as a mosaic, with each laying down a few verbal tiles within a carefully-edited whole. Instead, one wrote the first book, then passed it off to the next. Two wrote a book each, another composed an internal pairing, and the one who had the first also created the last.

Cerea had been the only one interested in such an odd concept. But there was a dungeon which was the size of a world (several worlds, with gates leading between them), and the main character felt very much like a knight. He gathered companions who were strange, yet loyal and true. There was an adventure, it was complete and whole and she could be there from first page to last and it was --

-- bad.

Some of the individual books worked. The fourth was especially good. But the authors hadn't created a master plan. Each simply passed their volume off to the next writer, and the typical result was the literary equivalent of giving someone careful directions on how to reach a destination and watching them merrily nod, followed by galloping off in the exact opposite direction. They did what they wished, under no guidance or directive to respect each other, and the one who'd written the first had carefully gathered up everything from the intermediary volumes just before starting into the last, because it was that much more fuel for the bonfire which destroyed everything she'd been trying to care about.

By the time the last page was turned (because there was a certain morbid fascination which wanted to finish through bottoming out), she hated all of it. The ending hadn't ruined everything (although to be fair, it had tried): it was the lack of cooperation which had killed the series. Cerea had flipped the books around on the shelves so that she would look at page edges instead of spine, done her best to never think about them again...

...except for the art.

She had invisibly trotted at the side of the explorer, been with him through it all, and felt those who'd created his journey should have given him more respect.

She had also watched him sketch.

Perhaps that was what had given her the choice for what she ultimately pursued as an artistic skill. For he did not know if he could bring anything back from the dungeon to his home (much less if that home could be reached again) -- but he had possessed two vital resources: something to draw with, something to draw on. And so at the back of each book, Cerea had found the sketches. Capturing the things he saw along the way, and it was sometimes surprising to see how different they appeared when compared to the visions which words had evoked within.

Ultimately, those words, jumbled and tossed between the egos of four -- those failed her. But the sketches had a unity to them, something which made Sir Folliot (she had privately granted him a 'Sir') a little more real...

She didn't know if she would ever go home. (She didn't want to think about it. So much of her current activity had been created in the name of not thinking.) But if she did -- what would she take with her? She doubted she would be allowed to carry much in the way of souvenirs. The disc wasn't hers, and it was possible that any other enchantments she might find would only work here. Without a truly stable passage, she would never ask a pony to risk coming with her, and... any stay beyond just long enough to say Cerea was telling the truth felt like a truly bad idea.

Things from this world might stay with it. But if she could bring back anything...

Cerea, hating that she was imposing, asking for anything when her mere presence was already doing so much (and the white Princess had told her that none had died, she didn't know if she believed it), but also in a position where she couldn't exactly go shopping any time soon and that had the benefit of being completely familiar -- had asked for a sketchbook and art supplies. Because if nothing else, she could draw the things around her, the practice might help what she still felt were meager skills, and... well, she could have asked for a camera, but sketches could be made after the fact. Additionally, a lifetime of listening to worried talk about digital composition told her that such pictures were too easy to fake. (She hadn't mentally adjusted for film.) Besides, the sketchbook was probably cheaper.

She'd been drawing for hours, interrupted only by delivered meals, because it was something to do. Because at the moment she stopped, she would start thinking about suicides and fear and failure, she was going to fail, she'd been offered a chance which she didn't deserve, there were going to be consequences for that failure and --

-- she dipped the quill again, tried to focus on the curving lines --

-- that's better. It looks like her now. That little bit of extra shading around the eyes had done the trick.

Hours spent in sketching, because it felt like something which could keep thought away. There had even been precious minutes where that had held true. But the drawings themselves...

She went back to the first one she'd attempted. It needed more work. She'd been trying to get it right for hours, and --

-- the familiar scent reached her, and she carefully put the quill aside, closing the sketchbook before reaching towards the disc. The wire touched her ear just in time.

"Um. I'm... um. Are you busy? Because there's some things we have to do tonight. Moon was just raised, and Princess Luna just told me to start doing some things with you. Not the usual things. Things about getting ready for training. And -- just getting out of this cell. Um. Can I come in?"

The little knight sounded more awkward than usual and with Nightwatch, any verbal increase represented a pretty significant upgrade. "Yes." It wasn't as if she could really deny entrance to the cell.

The door opened. "Okay. Oh." Black wings twitched, brushing the edge of carefully-worn saddlebags as they did so: Cerea spotted a bulge at the forward corner of the right one. "Good. You're dressed. Because you like being dressed, and..." The tail seemed to be on the verge of wringing itself. "Um... what were you doing?"

"Sketching," Cerea explained. The blush didn't rise. "I just thought... it would be nice to make a record. Some of the things I've seen."

The silver eyes brightened. "Did you draw me?"

"No." And before the dimming could set in, "Not yet. There were some other things I wanted to..."

Her head dipped, and the unfamiliar weight of the long braid shifted along her upper back.

"I'm probably going to be here for..." Cerea forced the breath to slow, desperately hoped that whatever the dark Princess wanted wouldn't involve going outside. "...a while. There's time to draw everyo --"

She stopped.

"-- everypony."

It was just a word. A silly little twist of language. It wasn't supposed to hurt.

"So I just..."

Gently, "Can I see?"

She nodded, because it was easier than talking. The pegasus trotted closer, then jumped up to the mattress.

"It's easier to look from here," Nightwatch explained, reorienting to a position which would let her peer in from the right. "And hovering around books doesn't help the pages. What did you draw?"

Cerea silently turned to the thick book's second page. Nightwatch stared.

"I know it's not very good," the girl quietly admitted. "I need to practice --"

"-- is that your house?"

She felt herself smile.

"Sort of. It belongs to my host family in Japan." A tiny shrug shifted the fabric of the most recent sweater: soft yellow, and still fuzzy. "We all lived there."

"How many people were in the family?" the pegasus asked. "It looks big..."

The centaur blinked.

"I'm not sure."

"Um. What?"

He didn't talk about himself much.
He usually talked about what was going on with us. The things we'd done. We never stopped giving him things to talk about. But when it came to his own life, he just...
...I lived in that house for months.
I went through everything with them. With him.
I barely know...

"It was just one human," she quietly said. "He told me once that it was his parents' house, but they were in another country for their job. It was hard to contact them, but they knew he was hosting us, and... they didn't mind. They just wanted the changes reverted after we moved out."

"Changes," the little knight carefully said.

"Hooves and human floors..." Cerea winced. "It was felt glued to my hooves or carpets. The carpets were easier. And that was the least of it. The renovations had to reroute a lot of underground power lines to make enough space for Mero to swim."

I know he lived there with his parents.
Did I ever see a picture of them? There were some framed photographs of adults, but there was more than just two humans in them.
There were so many bedrooms. Did he have siblings? Younger ones who traveled with them? Older ones that had moved out?

"Indoor swimming," Nightwatch tried -- then smiled. "Is Mero a seapony?"

Another blink. They have... "No. She's --"

"-- it's a joke," the pegasus cut in. "Seaponies don't exist. It's just an old story. Um. Lots of old stories, but they're all just stories." Silver eyes squinted a little. "You can tell a lot about someone, looking at their house. That one looks friendly. Welcoming." She paused. "And like it's owned by someone with hands, because there's a doorknob and that's really awkward to put in your mouth. Levers are easier."

"He was... nice," Cerea confirmed. It was the most she would allow herself to say.

"So what else did you draw?"

She turned the page. Nightwatch's stare immediately intensified, and did so at the same rate as the pony's visibly rising nausea.

"Um... wings don't -- they don't go there..."

Cerea quickly flipped the book closed --

"-- no," the little knight said. "Please. Um. Just... open it again. I just didn't -- I didn't expect..." Feathers awkwardly rustled. "Please?"

She thinks I'm a monster.

It was, in some ways, unfair. When in Cerea's presence, Nightwatch had less fear than just about anypony, and there were ways in which the centaur wanted to think of the pegasus as a --

-- I scare her. Still.

Because among so many other things, Cerea represented a warping of the familiar, and that was true for all of the little horses. But for a pegasus, there was another distortion available.

"Are you sure?"

Shoulders and hips squared.

"Yes. Please?"

Cerea reopened the book. Silver eyes looked.

"What's her name? Um. His name? Because there really aren't any --"

The girl understood: the pegasus only knew one way to identify a liminal female and with this particular species, that qualification was universally minimal. "Her. Papi. She's..."

It was the first time she'd really thought about it. Earth ponies, viewed as an average across the relatively small sample Cerea had seen, were the tallest and most muscular. By contrast, unicorns were frequently the shortest ponies -- but there were exceptions among both limited populations. And when it came to pegasi --

"...sort of like you," Cerea finished. "Sleek. Flying means she doesn't carry any more weight than she has to. But she's stronger than she looks. She can stay in the air while there's an adult human in her talons, at least for a while."'

"Um. Is she nice?"

There was a moment when she wanted to laugh. "She's... not easy to get used to. She's enthusiastic, for starters. She wants to do everything, she wants to do it quickly, she wants to do it now and then if she can't do something else, she wants to do it all over again. And she doesn't understand why everyone else doesn't feel the same way, or can't keep up. And she has to eat more often than the rest of us, so she sees our food as something that we've just been holding until she needs it. When she plays, she has more fun than anyone. If she's tired, she's tired enough for three. Her body is small, but everything else about her is just -- more. She's..."

Her words seemed to be running at the same quality level as her sketches.

"...hard to put up with," Cerea finished. "But she's easy to love."

"Did you love her?"

The strangest thing about the words was that for Nightwatch, there was nothing strange about them at all. The disc had rendered them as a perfectly standard vocalization, with nothing more implied by the intonation than a simple question.

If I said I loved Papi, she would see that as normal.
Pegasi don't just marry pegasi, if there's marriages at all. They marry unicorns and earth ponies. Maybe griffons and donkeys, and even yaks. And mares unite with mares, which means stallions can be with stallions...

Homosexuality was rarely seen in Cerea's herd, and was never welcome. It was understood that there was a time when adolescent fillies might spend happy hours together, because it was so much better than trying to deal with the crudeness of colts. That was tolerated, because every adult mare had been through those years. But when the breeding population was so small, and just trying to arrange for children required --

don't think about it

-- special effort...

If you were an adult mare who was capable of breeding, then you needed to find someone you could breed with. That was practicality. It was what the herd required. Love was for adolescents, and Cerea --

-- I didn't even have --

"Are you okay?"

Blue eyes blinked. "Sorry?"

Worried, with feathers rustling to suit as the scent of concern filled the cell. "You went quiet. Um. For a little while. I didn't know if I said something wrong..."

"Like a sister," Cerea quietly said. "I loved her like she was my little sister. I think we all did." One more breath. "Princess Luna gave you an order. We should start following it."

She closed the book. A book which was supposed to be reserved for all the things she might see.

A book which was currently hosting those she might never see again.

The little knight was leading her through a new section of the palace. They were still moving on the lower levels: Cerea hadn't seen a window yet. But they'd left the cells, and stone walls shifted into marble.

"Um," Nightwatch awkwardly began, trotting about two meters ahead. "This is... um. The palace is old. Really old. Old enough that..." Paused, glanced back and up with that familiar neck angle. "Do you know what sieges are?"

Cerea nodded. "It's old enough," she carefully said, "that it has to be its own city."

Silver eyes widened. "Yes. How did you know?"

Because that was in the best stories. When a war reached the point where it was at the king's gates -- or in this case, the Princesses' -- those inside had to be capable of fighting back, waiting it out, and finding ways to keep going. A truly superior castle design would have huge storehouses of food (although given the state of storage science when they had been built, that mostly meant smoked meats), and a few would even find room for growing crops: if nothing else, mushrooms could usually be kept going underground (and Cerea was now starting to understand what having earth ponies might mean there). You needed stables -- well, you didn't need them here -- and a place to store all the tack -- possibly the same...

A siege was frequently about starving out those within, or making things so untenable as to force evacuation. So there were ways in which a castle needed to be a city, because hidden supply tunnels didn't always stay hidden. The more functions you could cram into the structure, the longer you could survive. Magic could only help -- but then, magic might be attacking...

"It's just how the best ones are built," Cerea carefully replied. "You have everything you need to get through the siege. The enemy has to bring in their supplies --" although if they were at the gates, they could be presumed to have captured some of yours "-- and you can still make a few of your own from within. So this is one of the parts which was made to help with sieges?"

The pegasus nodded, then began to trot again. "The Princess wants you out of the cells. Because you're in training now --"

I won't get through.
I can't.

"-- and you shouldn't be in a cell. Not when you work here -- oh." She stopped again: Cerea pulled up just in time. "I forgot. I was supposed to..."

Her head turned again, looking back along her own body. Teeth carefully nipped at the right saddlebag's lid, and a wing nudged the contents up from below --

-- the fist-sized cloth bag was casually head-tossed, and Cerea's right hand smoothly intercepted the surprising weight as the contents jingled to an internal stop.

That sounded like --

"It's your pay," Nightwatch apologetically said. "Um. I'm sorry I forgot..."

But she was already fumbling with the drawstring. "Pay?" Because exchange students barely had money (with the exceptions of Mero and Rachnera: the former had access to her family's account and it was generally best not to ask where the arachne got anything, just in case she decided to tell you), Cerea hadn't been able to get a job, she had been a constant drain on her host's finances and for someone to just give her actual money...

"Yes," the little knight continued. "It's paid training. It always has been, because it takes a while and you sort of need to live while you're waiting to find out if you get in. Um. The Princess said she backdated it to when we went into the wild zone, because that was your first time fighting for the palace. And language classes count as training. So..."

Golden coins were being poured into her palm, and their weight suggested the actual metal was still involved. Silver...

"Those are new," Nightwatch added. "The silver ones. I mean, it's all new to you, but we just got the silver ones back. Um. I have some of the first ones. The real first ones..." Her tail twitched. "...it's a long story. Anyway, the silver ones are for Princess Luna. You can see her head embossed on the front. But they have the same value as the bits."

"Bits," Cerea carefully repeated, because her head was still spinning. She had money --

"could set off a reaction"

-- which she couldn't spend.

"That's what they're called, when they're all together. But now the gold ones are -- oh, I hope this translates... sols. The silver are lunes. That's how they used to be, and now it's how they are again. And we'll work on numbers, so you don't give anypony too much or too little. But you're a Guard in training, so you get paid like one. It's just that..." The pegasus swallowed. "...you'd usually be spending on things like rent and food. And the Princess said -- that until it's safe to send you out -- you should live..."

There was one definitive way to improve the look of the primary room, and Cerea had thought of it instantly.

"Um," Nightwatch said from her lower right, which pretty much seemed to sum everything up.

It was a very large space. It had clearly been designed to host at least twenty ponies, and so someone had decided that amount of space was equally suitable to storing several dozen pieces of furniture: depending on the size, this had been done either on, around, or under the ancient beds. There were also filing cabinets, all of which had their drawers hanging open and empty. Broken pieces of columns were strewn near the entrance: those seemed to be the most recent additions, and the closest one was partially covered in fossilized icing.

There were a few books. Some of them had been tucked halfway under musty mattresses, and were doing a slightly lesser job of escaping than the ticking.

The back of the room currently served as a practice area for siege survival, and the debris had been stacked into barricades accordingly.

There was lighting in the ceiling. Some of it glowed. Portions flashed. A few buzzed. The one directly over Cerea's head was pursuing a life of ambition and had decided to do it all.

It was possible to mark the population of the area as a rather temporary two. It was also potentially possible to bring that up to around two million, but Cerea had already decided the attempt was pointless: the dust bunnies were going to breed faster than anyone could count.

"Guards go home at the end of the day," the little knight frantically apologized, each word emerging a little faster than the one before. "We haven't had a siege in more than a century. Nopony's needed the barracks..."

There was one definitive way to improve the look of the primary room, and a complete lack of fire.

"I can clean it out," Cerea quietly said. "It'll just take a while." And someone would need to supervise the process, as there might be something within which, in spite of all visual evidence, shouldn't be thrown away -- plus she couldn't take any of the garbage outside.

"She probably hasn't been down here in -- a long time. But she just wanted to give you a place to sleep! Um. And wash up. There's supposed to be a restroom off to the right. With a group bath. Behind that -- that... the thing. The stone thing with the wood in it -- oh."

"Sorry?"

"I just figured out where that one piece of yak art wound up. They don't do very well when they try to get rid of art. Anyway, we can move it. With some help. And then you can take a bath. Um. Maybe not with a group." Silver eyes frantically took a census of the debris, only stopping at the point where some of the long-term residents became capable of applying for retirement benefits. "Oh, where are you going to sleep? Maybe we should just go back to the cells --"

"It's all right," Cerea carefully told the little knight, because it wasn't. "I can clear enough to sleep. It has to be done sometime."

"...you're sure?"

It was horrible in the barracks. It would be hours of back-breaking work, and that meant something extra when a centaur said it. But it wasn't a cell.

"I'm sure," the girl stated.

Weakly, "Oh. Okay. But we'll need unicorns to fix the lighting. And probably somepony to check the plumbing. So there's..." The pegasus swallowed. "So there's a little more to show you..."

Another new path. Cerea wondered how long it would take before it become an old one. Until every hallway was memorized, and she still couldn't get out --

"-- so we're going to one of the Solar kitchens," Nightwatch explained. "Anypony who works in the castle can eat there. It gives the cooks more to do than just serving the Princesses. You can always ask somepony to make something for you, and the raw bar never closes. But you usually can't make something for yourself without asking the chef first, because some of the cooks get really touchy about anyone using their equipment."

"Raw bar?" Nightwatch had said eating meat made ponies sick, and now they were talking about oysters --

"Raw vegetables."

"...oh."

Nightwatch shuddered. "Unless it's Sizzler putting a special one together for a few of the ambassadors." More quickly, "Don't ask."

Who? "I don't --"

"-- don't ask. Anyway, I'll show you the Solar kitchen first. Then a Lunar one. You need to know how to reach both from the barracks, because we don't know what your training hours are going to be. And then we're supposed to meet somepony. Um. I don't know who. The Princess just said it was for the training. And that we might be met first. So we go down that next turn..."

Cerea looked. Hesitated.

"We go towards the glow?" Because what was streaming from the indicated turn had lit the marble with the sort of fierce deep red which normally set off messages of Stay Away in so many liminal minds. It was something very much like the color of luminescent blood.

"Oh. Um. Yes. Actually, you need to know where that is too..."

The glowing red metal door was extremely large. It had to be, just to accommodate the sheer number of locks.

"That's the armory," Nightwatch carefully said. "You'll probably go in there eventually. But... not with the sword. It's too risky. And the spells aren't attuned to you yet anyway. I can take someone in, but... it sets off a signal on the upper levels. Just in case anyone ever made me take them in. And since you don't know how anything works, and we don't know how much of it would work for you..."

She wasn't clumsy. But she also didn't know how crowded the armory was, and being around a concentration of magic you didn't know how to use felt like a pretty strong synonym for 'disaster'.

"I understand." She looked at the runes of the pony alphabet which were worked into the arch of the door frame, and guessed (as it eventually turned out, rather accurately) the translation to be something like Don't Be Stupid. "So what's that door?"

Nightwatch automatically looked to where Cerea's right arm was pointing, because arms were useful for that sort of thing and Ms. Manners could (Cerea's mind managed to censor most of it) hopefully figure that out eventually. "The open one? That's the repair shop. Because when you have this many devices and wonders, you need to be able to maintain them. Fix a few if they get damaged. So the palace has a specialist on the staff." With what Cerea now recognized as a small frown, "But the Princesses have been sending some of the oldest pieces to Ponyville. I don't know why..." Which was followed by a full-body shake, and a tiny shrug. "Anyway, that's safe enough, at least for looking. Although there's some things you can't touch."

They moved carefully, with Cerea maintaining a set distance between them. (It wasn't trying to give Nightwatch some space -- well, it was partially that. But there was a rather extreme difference in their heights, and trying to look at the pegasus on floor level when they were too close together usually left Cerea staring at some degree of pony back and rather a lot of centaur bustline.) "Because it's enchanted?"

"Because it's part of how they're fixed." The little knight reached the doorway first, arced a wing. "Like that one."

Cerea looked.

Her first thought was that in some ways, every repair shop was exactly the same: you had tools hanging on wall hooks, and you didn't know what most of them were for. In this case, some of them ended not in handles, but in what she eventually interpreted as jaw grips. Other, finer pieces lacked those, and she decided they were meant to be moved by a unicorn's horn light: this struck her as being mildly discriminatory.

There were modified horseshoes, at least in the sense that they had been made to slip on over a hoof: some of those had tools jutting out of the forward end. Parts were scattered across shelves: twisted pieces of mostly-precious metals, along with what seemed to be a few partial housings. The few portions of wall not covered by shelves were coated with incomprehensible diagrams: the same applied to the whole of the ceiling. There was very little wood, a rack filled with vials of what her nose told her were some very rare oils, and multiple spools of both copper and silver wire.

On the whole, it looked like a jumble. It also looked like the sort of jumble where the person who'd created it knew where everything was, and the fact that no one else could figure it out just created job security.

"There's also a blacksmith shop on this level," Nightwatch quietly told her. "For repairing armor, and making new pieces."

Cerea immediately looked at her. Then she backed up enough to get a proper sight line.

"There's a smithy?"

"Um. I just said that."

I can --

-- except for the fact that all the tools would be designed for pony use: something which was already begging any number of structural questions. But even so...

"I'd like to see it," Cerea carefully requested. "Sometime." But there was something else Nightwatch had wanted to show her. "I'm sorry. I didn't see what you were trying to --"

The wing arced again, and Cerea looked at the indicated shelf.

Another spool, and a much smaller one. It mostly stood out due to isolation: the rest of the workshop was crowded, with just about every square centimeter in use -- but the spool had been given some space to itself. About two handwidths, and that was something which stretched out in all directions.

"It's treated," Nightwatch quietly said. "So it's okay to be near it. But you shouldn't ever touch it, because it's not part of anything yet, and that means it's still dangerous. If you touched it --"

Cerea was still looking at the wire. On the surface, it resembled the silver -- but it had been drawn even finer, to just about the width of a hair. And it was brighter, had more shine to it, reflected beautifully to the eye...

"It's just platinum," she steadily observed. "Why is that dangerous?" The ponies seemed to treat two of the major precious metals fairly casually, which suggested some things about the local mining. It was possible that platinum was more scarce, but to call it dangerous --

Instantly, wings flaring and flapping in order to say it directly to Cerea's face, "Are you kidding? If you even touch that, it'll --"

And stopped in mid-hover, with the black jaw hanging open.

"...it can't hurt you," fell out on a tide of wonder. "It... it really can't, can it? It can't hurt you..."

She looked at the spool. Went back to the pegasus, and then resorted to the phrase which served as a one-size-fits-all. "I don't understand."

"You can touch it," the amazed voice told her. "Just... carefully. Not because it'll hurt you. It can't. But because you have to put it back exactly where it was."

She moved aside and Cerea, locked in the perpetual pony proximity state of having no idea what was going on (while still trusting the little knight that there was no danger), carefully moved into the room. But she still had the coin bag, and the skirt she was wearing didn't have pockets. There was a chance she might wind up needing both hands...

She doesn't think about it.
She can't.
It's not something she knows to think about.

After a few seconds, she let go of the sweater's neckline, fought back the last of the blush as her next breath produced a slight jingle, then stretched out her right arm and picked up the spool.

Nothing happened. It was platinum wire, drawn so fine that to run her fingers sharply across it might risk a cut. But that was all it was.

Somewhere behind her, Nightwatch breathed. Did so as if breath was all there was.

"What do you feel?" the little knight carefully asked. "Anything?"

There was only one answer for that. "Normal --"

-- wait.

When I took back the sword in the forest...

She didn't set the spool down. Not yet. "What does it do?"

Which got her a completely factual statement, perfectly balanced between awe and fear. "It absorbs magic."

Cerea's head turned just enough to allow the stare.

"It's... how you make self-charging devices. And wonders. And -- everything," the pegasus quietly said. "It pulls magic out of the air, and then that power goes to the enchantments. There's some in your translator, near the core. Because there has to be. Without it... you need recharges. There's unicorns who can provide energy/power/thaums for a device, and I'm good enough to boost a wonder. But the charges always run out, when you don't have platinum. So you have to keep powering things up again, and some ponies make a living that way. Providing fresh charges, when the owner can't."

"So why not use it all the time?" the centaur carefully asked. "It's too rare?"

"It's... sort of rare." The pegasus swallowed. "Nopony's ever found any really big deposits. Just... craters. With platinum around the fringe."

"Craters." She felt like she was on the verge of the answer --

"...it absorbs magic. Constantly, from everything -- unless you know how to tell it not to, and that's really hard to do. And risky. So someone can wear the translator, and the platinum won't absorb from them. Just the air. And any thaums it takes in go to the spells. But when you get a lot of platinum in one place, and it's not treated..." The next gulp mostly brought down air. "...it just keeps pulling in power. Small pieces can leak a little, unless they're stabilized. Big chunks... they're more stable. They hold the magic. And when it can't hold any more, when there's nowhere for the power to go..."

Nightwatch shivered.

"...you get a crater."

Cerea slowly, carefully put the spool back. Exactly where it had been, and did so in a way which never brought it close to the little knight.

"But you're safe," Nightwatch said. "You're... you can touch half-treated platinum, or maybe even the raw stuff. Whenever you want to. That's... that just feels strange to think about. That there's someone in the world who doesn't have to be scared..."

She flew a short distance down the hall, landed again. Cerea cautiously exited the workshop.

Prospector.

When she failed as a Guard, it could give her a backup profession. One where she would have to keep going into new areas, constantly encountering ponies who were terrified of her and risking more mob attacks -- but it had to pay something.

"You really feel normal?" the Guard checked.

I don't know how to get home.
The Princesses think I can guard them. When I couldn't even guard him.
I shouldn't be here...

'Normal' was a rather shaky term.

"Yes," Cerea lied.

"Are you hungry?"

She made sure the smile didn't show her teeth.

"Yes."

Just about all of the chefs had left the kitchen, leaving a single blood-red specimen (a unicorn stallion, with an oddly-liquid quality to his coat) peering out from behind the edge of a counter.

"...sorry," Nightwatch weakly offered.

For the rest of my life.

"At least it wasn't a stampede," the little knight said. (She'd taken very little for herself and in any case, Cerea just needed more time to eat.) "They just thought it would be easier. Outside. And..." She sighed. "...I'm sorry."

"It's all right," Cerea said, because it still wasn't.

"How does that taste?" came across as a valiant attempt to change the subject.

Like all of the other produce. Like something's missing. She took another cherry tomato, carefully chewed and swallowed. "It's good."

With open pride, "It's grown by the most talented earth ponies. All of it."

Maybe magic has an aftertaste.

Or it was filling in for something. Something which was supposed to be there. And what little she'd found in the forest had been normal...

It almost sparked a new concern. But she'd been on palace food for a while. She would know if she had been suffering a nutritional deficit, especially given the sheer quantities she needed to consume. It was just... an absence.

"I think somepony's coming back," Nightwatch said. "I can hear hoofsteps."

Cerea put down the carrot and, with the crunching noises banished, picked up on the little echoes. Someone was definitely on the approach: hooves landing with purpose, every echo produced by intent.

"Maybe that's the pony we're supposed to meet," the Guard added. "About the training." Wings half-unfolded, tucked back in again. "Um. I was thinking about that. A... lot of ponies were. Because you have to be trained, and... I guess there's a chance the Princesses might do some of it? Except that they don't normally. Even if Princess Luna already had you out at the track to check your ground time and --"

The pegasus' hind legs collapsed, leaving the tail splayed all over the floor and Cerea automatically turning towards the sound of the half-crash.

"-- oh, Moon's craters," the mare half-whispered. "How long was she planning --"

Silver eyes just barely came up, looked into shocked blue ones.

"But there's a lot more to being a Guard," Nightwatch barely managed to rally. "And you need somepony who can teach you what we all learned. Um. And... you know... because they don't know you, and... I don't know who could..."

The hoofsteps were getting close now. Their owner was near enough to be scented: an earth pony stallion, somewhere in the senior years because age had a scent all its own -- but so did health, and this one was in very good shape.

"...because most ponies wouldn't be able to -- you know, not immediately, and -- I can't think of anypony." She paused. "Well, nopony active. But that's --"

Which was when the forelegs went out.

"What's wrong?" Because something was: she might not be able to fully recognize the expression at its current intensity, but she could smell the rising combination of shock and purest horror.

"-- no, no, no," the little knight frantically whispered. "He's supposed to be gone! We all turned up at the retirement just to make sure! He can't be, he just can't --"

And from behind them in the doorway, at the exact moment when the approaching scent no longer needed to follow the airflow around the corner, came the bellow: something which made hanging pots dance, sent the red stallion racing towards a storage locker while the bravest mare Cerea had seen pressed her forelegs over her own head and tried not to moan.

It took exactly two of those syllables to make Cerea's ears attempt full retreat under her hair, plus three more to make her vow that in the name of such future protection, she was never using the braid again.

"Greetings, Nightwatch! I am pleased to see that you have retained the absolute minimum degree of instruction required to not be dead! Now I see that I have a potential recruit before me! A recruit who, as the first of her species to reach me, surely has many things to teach an old stallion! In fact, this process has already begun, because until the moment I saw her, I did not know it was possible to stack manure that high! There is a Greeting Stance for your sergeant, trainee, and it is not the one Nightwatch has assumed: that is reserved for graduates! It starts when you turn around and let me see all of what I have to work with, because the view from the back has not been particularly impressive! And it ends when you are found unsuitable, graduate, or quit!"

It was just enough of a pause to let three over-vibrated pots crash to the floor.

"And Princess Luna feels that you will graduate," the old stallion stated. "So I can only hope that I am here to prove her right! My name is Emery Board, and you will call me Sergeant! Now turn!"

Brutal

He should not have reminded Cerea of her mother.

Physically... perhaps there was a pony with the fur hues and bearing to invoke that mare, and he wasn't it. Emery Board was patterned in camouflage colors: Cerea suspected that under normal lighting (as opposed to what currently existed at the Guard training grounds), he would readily vanish into the majority of spring and summer forests, and she occasionally had trouble distinguishing his hooves from the grass. Her mother was fairly tall for a centaur, something where Cerea actually took after her parent: the sergeant didn't come close to matching the height and bulk of most earth ponies. He was the first pony she could internally describe as being wiry, and the movements of those legs came with the suggestion of metal having been pulled into new positions, ready to snap back at the moment effort ended. Some of his body postures indicated a precisely-adjusted statue.

His age was mostly indicated by subtle aspects within his natural scent, all of which Cerea could readily distinguish because

why isn't he

there was nothing else in the way. There was a certain tendency towards crags within his features, but they didn't look like the result of weathering years so much as they came across as a lifelong refusal to accept anything in the way of softness. His eyes had the brightness of a younger pony, along with the narrowed lids of someone who didn't like anything they were seeing and was prepared to spend the next six hours explaining exactly how you'd been doing it wrong. He spoke in quick shouts and direct orders: get up, make sure you meet your escort (which turned out to be a new unicorn, one who had teleported Cerea directly to the training area shortly after sunrise and far too soon following breakfast) precisely at this hour, then approach me and do exactly what I say! And keep doing it, even when you know that nothing you do can ever be good enough and the only thing you can accomplish is the triggering of the next demand!

Her body had responded to his orders on something very close to instinct, with reflexes honed by the endlessly-turning grindstone of inadequacy. He had led her to a new section of the training area, one which had a population waiting to receive her. They were well-padded, motionless, mindless, and bore an aroma which said they'd been through all of this multiple times, generally without cleaning.

He'd also had a sword waiting for her. Not her sword, because that had to be moved separately, and... there was a reason the light was strange at the training grounds, and she sometimes found her hooves lightly cantering against any available stones in an attempt to block out the distant, muffled sounds which the inciting cause was still producing. They weren't as far out as they could have been, there had been places near her arrival point where she would be able to see them if she turned and if she turned...

She didn't know what they would do. But she knew what the sword was for, and so she'd taken it up on his order. An edgeless practice blade made from what he'd told her was called black ironwood: something she'd never previously encountered, and so it might have been from a tree which was only known in this land. It had a pleasant aroma to go with a surprising density: she'd never seen so much plant mass contained in a relatively small area, and it gave the fake sword something which was very close to a proper heft.

He had ordered her to gallop into the field of wooden practice dummies and attack them. To treat everything about that as if it was a real battle. She'd just barely managed to ask if there was some kind of magic involved (because she'd been picturing animation of the unliving, joints manifesting to let them fight back) and he'd looked at her for a single second before the next shout had threatened to wither autumn-weakened grass.

So she'd followed orders. Because in form, there was nothing about him which should have made Cerea think about her mother. But the words...

With the matriarch, the words generally weren't expressed as orders. They didn't have to be. Every sentence was a direct order: including that sort of tone just made things redundant.

You couldn't meet her standards and if you somehow came close, those standards would be moved.
You couldn't satisfy her requirements.
And on your best day, you would still come in second.

She'd just finished. He'd told her to step out of the dummy field -- she'd retreated to the western edge, head already lowering with shame -- and now he was trotting around the mannequins. Examining the chips of freshly-gouged wood which were strewn across the grass.

Finally, he looked up at her, and did so in such a way as to suggest that no matter what their respective heights might be, he was actually looking down.

"There's problems," he stated.

That was the worst part: having it be a statement. That the fact of her failure was so obvious as to remove all need to shout.

Slowly, the sergeant trotted closer. He stopped at a distance which allowed him to maintain precise eye contact, and his silent regard suffused air which was closer to spring than autumn. Unseasonably warm (which had put her in a blouse instead of a sweater), and none of the snowfall from the previous two days had landed here. There was nothing for that heat to melt.

So much like spring, at least for one day -- but there was no breeze, because that was impossible. And none of the warmth reached Cerea's heart, as her fingers began to go limp on the sword's grip and her shoulders sagged forward. Pressed down by the weight of failure.

"Heard about the fight in Palimyno." The disc rendered it into something which came with an audible shrug, but the forelegs and shoulders themselves never moved. Every part of his posture simply maintained, and the tilt of his neck had done nothing to shift the ancient hat. "Starting to see why it ended that way."

"I'm sorry --" was automatic. Unstoppable. Very nearly vocalized in the pony form, even with the disc on, just to prove she could do something right --

"-- shut up."

Just like everything else, it had been an order, and so she stopped talking --

"And open your eyes."

She forced herself to look at him again. Waited, forcing her breathing to be steady, which just let her take in more of the odors and

he isn't

She didn't know why. And it should have been a comfort, to have that true of someone other than the Princesses. To know that there was anyone who...

...but then, she'd just shown him there was no need to be.

His gaze moved a little. Up, then down, and finally went back to looking into her eyes.

"For starters," he stated, "you've got the same problem as the General."

"I haven't met --"

The sergeant snorted. "The Princess. Princess Celestia, this time. You won't hear the other title much. But it's the same problem." He broke eye contact, began to trot back towards the array of splintered wood. "Can't fault you for not knowing how to fight back against magic, because you didn't know that existed until about three seconds after you cleared the bushes. Sounded like you figured out some of the basics in a hurry. But this is about the part you didn't compensate for. Still haven't."

He turned. Looked her up and down again. Mostly up.

"Size," he told her. "Pretty easy for you to get swarmed, isn't it? Takes a lot of ponies to fully surround you. But if they can get the oval and keep you from jumping out of it, you're going down. Because they can keep attacking your legs. More length, more to go directly after. Having your knees that much higher just makes them an easier target for bites and charges. The General's been dealing with that her whole life. But she's got options you don't."

He slowly shook his head.

"Same could be said," he added, "going the other way." Broke eye contact, trotted up to a training dummy, and examined a small gouge. "What happened here?"

It seemed to be taking all of her strength to prevent the shaking, and most of what that proved was that she didn't have all that much true strength to begin with. "I don't know what you --"

Looking at her again, with enough intensity to cut off her words, and there was no discernible expression within the brown eyes.

"Been traveling, since I was discharged." Another snort. "Honorable discharge. Big turnout to see me off. But I couldn't retire. Figured there was still a need for me, and if Equestria thought I was too old to keep going, then there's enough other nations out there to give me a place. Best thing about you being here so far? That's over. The General reactivated me, and it's not like anypony can override her. Traveling wasn't bad, though. Got to learn a few things. Saw some stuff which most ponies don't."

The lack of pause stood out.

"You play sports?" he immediately asked, and waited.

She wasn't sure how to answer. The herd had its games. But when it came to athletic competitions, just about everything was head to head. You competed, and you did so as an individual. That made it so much easier to lose --

-- but it had never been playing. Playing was something you chose to do. Something you enjoyed, and so play had never been any part of it.

He took her silence as denial, and snorted again. "Probably thinking you couldn't explain it to an old pony if you wanted to. Centaur sports. Four legs and two arms: that's got to change a few rules --"

"-- racing," she quietly said. "Obstacle courses. Fights. Jousting."

Patterned ears twisted.

"Last one didn't come all the way through," the sergeant said. "Charging at each other with spears?"

"...lances. Blunted," Cerea finally tried to explain. (Her own ears were twisting, because the silences were letting too many of the distant sounds reach her, and it was the wrong time to canter in place.) "While wearing armor. It's..." She had to force the breath. "...something we're supposed to do with a partner, because the impact is... our shoulders..."

Stopped, as her newest failure reached ears which had just tried to hide beneath unbraided hair.

"...there's supposed to be someone on our backs," she finished. "A rider. But that wasn't possible until about a year ago, and... there aren't many riders." And once the possibility had finally opened up, it turned out that there weren't very many who were willing to be ridden.

It got her a bare nod, one which suggested the neck was being forced to shift against basic design principles, and artificial highlights shifted across his fur. (She was trying not to look up. Looking at everything which that twisted light had created was bad enough.) "So let's see if this comes across. There's this sport called --" and the wire hissed "-- baseball/cricket/boring/rounders --"

Cerea blinked.

Baseball was a primary sport in Japan, and so Cerea had briefly studied the game before traveling. She hadn't been all that impressed: long periods of doing nothing followed by split-seconds of activity, followed by doing nothing all over again. Baseball, when played on defense, seemed to mostly be good for standing within what was admittedly a beautifully-maintained outfield while indulging in long thoughts -- and she'd found that out directly because there had been a day when her beloved

he never could have loved

had taken the household to a public park to let them see how it all worked. Eventually, the amateur team practicing on the diamond had become curious enough to ask the spectators if they would be interested in taking the field -- or at least, that was how they had tried to explain it: Cerea suspected they mostly just wanted to see the girls trying to play the sport, with some hopes of torn blouses. Of course, there weren't enough girls for a full squad, and not all of those present could play. (Meroune, when on land, was confined to a wheelchair, and Papi was quickly proven incapable of gripping the bat.) So some of the amateurs had filled in the vacant slots, and... well...

...there were ways in which liminals almost fit into human society.

"She's just taking a lead off first."
"It's a five-meter lead!"
"So?"
"She's still touching the base!"

Sports weren't among them.

Miia had been the first to be banned. (It wasn't just the havoc wreaked on the basepaths by a body seven meters long. The human torso could be boosted into the air by a snake tail which usually seemed to be about eighty percent muscle, and when it came to leaning over the fence to recover a potential home run...) Cerea had been second --

"-- you got something from that," the sergeant checked. "A sport which involves taking a swing at a moving object."

She nodded. He looked her over again. Up and down, lower sternum to tail.

"Biped sport, mostly," he continued. "Some ponies play their own version of rounders. Never cared for it myself. But traveling meant I got to see my biped squads play. How they swing." And the abrupt, brief chuckle could have been seen as a sign of something within the stallion which made him relatable -- but the perceived darkness of that joy blocked it. "And when you see how they play, it tells you something about how they fight. Strengths and weaknesses."

Still looking at her, as if he was waiting for something.

The sun shifted across the sky, and greenish rays played across his face. Because there was a shield covering the training area, and just barely. The top of the dome was so low as to skim the treetops. It was the only thing keeping the protesters out because the training grounds were apparently public and they had known she would need to use them, so they had arrived before she had, set up signs and marching lines and chants....

It kept the breezes out. It flickered sometimes, especially when Cerea heard distant hooves pounding against light. It looked as if it might vanish at any moment, it brought back a certain amount of spiritual claustrophobia, and it was just another kind of gap set into the world.

"I don't understand..." She knew it wasn't the answer he wanted. Failures tended to be cumulative.

This snort was louder.

"They swing," he told her. "Trying to make contact. And some of them miss. I saw some of the strongest ones swing so hard, they spun their whole body around. One of them did two circles and dropped into the dirt. That's torque. They've got the upper-body strength, because they've got an upper body. But there's only two legs, and when the top half twists like that -- the legs get dragged along. Told me how easy it is to make a biped overcommit. Get him off-balance to the point where maybe I don't have to drop him, because he just did it to himself."

He looked at the ironwood sword.

"Swing it. Hard."

It was an order from the one who was about to reject her, and so she obeyed. She brought the wood back as she raised it, channeled physical effort into what she felt was a fairly hard swing. There was more force put into it than the ones she had directed against the mannequins, air whistled across and around the false blade and she used the followthrough as the start of the flow required to bring it back into a resting position --

-- he nodded, and the next words emerged at something close to normal volume. It made them feel strangely soft, if only for decibels: the tone remained harsh. But there were other aspects rendered by the disc --

"Watching you, when you were in there." His tail indicated the cellulose army. "All of you. Got some interesting things going on with your joints, don't you? More range than most. Upper waist musculature was interesting. You twist further than a biped does. Naturally, without pain. And in the end... two arms. Four legs. Gives you something they don't have. Bracing. You can't twist yourself into the dirt, because you've got more support."

-- curiosity.
Evaluation.
Fascination.

Miia had been the first girl banned from the game. Cerea had been second, because she had come up to the plate, ready to take her swings. And perhaps they had simply been waiting for the sight of a braless centaur galloping around the bases -- but they had been robbed of that, because there had been no need for her to hurry.

No one had ever found the ball.

"For your size, your strength... you can commit more effort into a swing than anyone," the sergeant told her. "I should be seeing sundered limbs. Decapitations on all sides. SO WHY AM I LOOKING AT SOME PITIFUL LITTLE GOUGES? Every one of these woodheads should be in pieces! WHY DIDN'T YOU COMMIT TO THE ATTACK?"

The sheer force of the shout drove her back, and that wasn't the only thing making her legs go into reverse: the sergeant had his own aura, it was the first time she'd sensed it at all and he was marching towards her, hooves harder than stone driving into the earth as everything about him pushed against her --

"-- you said -- you said to treat it as if it was real -- as if they were ponies --"

"-- and if they were ponies? You would be DEAD! Why didn't you --"

"-- I've never killed!"

Her head dropped at the same instant as her tail, and her fingertips closed just in time to keep the practice sword from going into the dirt.

I wasn't allowed to fight.
I tried to defend him against humans and all I could do was -- stand there. Because as soon as I did anything real, I lost him forever.
I tried against liminals, and... I failed. Over and over...

He had stopped moving. Only his words crossed the five meters between them, and did so on a current of personal calm.

"Had a yes to that. Once."

"...what?" Her vision was blurring. Ears twisting in all directions --

"-- a recruit. Who'd killed. Before ever reaching me." A plain statement of purest fact. "And that's why she came here. Because she felt like she had to spend the rest of her life making up for it. And she got through."

Don't shake, please don't shake, on top of everything else --

"Didn't think you'd killed," he told her. "Fought for your life in Palimyno, didn't kill. They're all pretty much recovered now, even if some of them are lying about it. Killing is easy, recruit. Putting somepony down without killing -- that's harder. Takes more skill, discipline, and knowledge you don't have yet. Best-case, you get through your whole life without killing. Guards die for ponies more than they kill."

Nothing about the solid posture changed when he said that: not a single strand of fur twitched. But a new scent rose from him, only to be banished again. Carrying, if only for a moment, what his words could not.

"Can't completely tell yourself it's real, when you're fighting wood. It's not the same. The wood wasn't fighting back. And if this goes far enough, we're going to have you out here against ponies --"

"Ponies," emerged as exceptionally stark.

"That's when you show me how you don't kill. Because you'll be fighting volunteers."

"Volunteers," mostly saved her some effort in trying to find an original word.

"I'm still their sergeant," felt like a very vicious observation, and it almost curled the far left corner of his lips. "I can get volunteers. Fighting ponies, fighting whatever else I can get out here. Whatever and whoever. Standard for Guards. But this is wood, trainee. On wood, you show me force. On sapients, you show me how you hold back. Because the goal is always the same: make the other one stop fighting. Killing stops that, and killing's easy. Killing is the last stop. Wounding... if there's a group, and they care about each other, wounding one can take out more than that. They have to get their friend out of there, so you get a couple more to leave when they evac. But just making them drop, or putting them in so much hurt that they have to stop... that's a skill. And you're here to learn. But today is wood. So swing harder."

His head tilted slightly to the right.

"Don't remember giving you permission to stare."

She often seemed to have very little control of herself, when around the ponies. Emotions. Posture. Words.

"...why aren't you afraid of me?"

Because she could scent his age and for a single second, it had been joined by his sorrow. But there was nothing else. And outside of the Princesses, he had been the only one.

He snorted.

"I don't see anything worth being afraid of -- still staring." The right foreleg gestured, directed her towards the mannequins. "I traveled. Wasn't in Equestria when it all went down. Heard the reports. Came back and --" (she tried not to let her nose wrinkle, to show any sign that she'd picked up on it again) "-- saw mine off. So I didn't meet him. Might have been a shorter fight if I had. Or might have just been one more goodbye. Can't say. Could have thought of a tactic, could have gotten stomped before anypony could use it. Doesn't matter, because I can't make the past come out a different way."

Trotting steadily towards the practice area, and she forced herself to follow.

"Didn't meet him," he repeated. "Just you. And you're not him --"

Eight hooves had stopped, and the forward four only halted when he realized she had.

"You haven't been hearing that a lot," he decided. "Or at all. But that's how it is. You're not him. The fear's there for others, and maybe there's ways we can use that. Right now, it's just not justified fear, BECAUSE YOU ARE NOTHING WORTH BEING AFRAID OF! NOW GET BACK IN THERE! KEEP YOUR LEGS MOVING, BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT KICKING ENOUGH AND UNLESS YOU ARE BRACING TO SWING OR KICK, IF THEY ARE NOT AT FULL CANTER, THEY ARE TOO MUCH OF A TARGET! I WANT TO SEE YOU SWINGING LOWER! KEEP THE SPACE AROUND YOU CLEAR! AND IF THERE AREN'T AT LEAST TWO DECAPITATIONS, WE WILL DO THIS AGAIN! AND AGAIN! AND AGAIN! I HAVE MORE DUMMIES, WHICH CURRENTLY INCLUDES THE GIANT SPECIMEN WHO SHOULD BE MOVING ALREADY! IN THE EVENT THAT YOU FAIL TO LEARN FROM OR RETAIN YOUR TRAINING, I DO NOT KNOW WHERE TO GET ANOTHER CENTAUR! I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO LET A SINGULAR OPPORTUNITY REFLECT POORLY ON MY RENEWED CAREER! NOW MOVE!"

The vocal blast whipped against her flanks, made her jump, sent her into the midst of false melee at full gallop, she was swinging before she had the chance to realize she was swinging at all, and then --

He was looking at the debris, and doing so on the move. Kicking pieces of false limbs as he circled the remaining torso.

"Going to have someone cut you a staff," he decided. "Cap one end in iron. Maybe pad the other. Could give you a little more range and it's better for sweeping the area, but it ties up both hands. I want to see how you move with one." The sergeant briefly deigned to glance at her. "Had the sword made to match the size of the real one. You use that one-handed most of the time. Grip allows for two. Still means we should be doing something with the other hand occasionally. Biggest new problem is that you don't have full tail control. We can try to build up the muscles there."

"I know how to keep my tail away from the enemy." Having it come across as a protest would have required strength she didn't possess. "I just... if it's that horn light, they can pull it away from wherever I tucked it --"

"Corona. Field," the sergeant instructed. "Problem for anyone fighting unicorns, and that's why we're going to talk about backlash tomorrow. But that's not what I meant. You don't have enough tail control to mount a razorwhip. Not sure if you're going to be good for one anyway, because not everypony can master them. They're tricky. There's going to be a book of tail exercises in the barracks tonight. Have Nightwatch read it to you."

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes... sir?"

"YOU DO NOT CALL ME 'SIR'! THERE HAVE BEEN NOBLES WHO TOOK UP THE LIFE OF A GUARD, AND YOU WILL NOT CALL THEM 'SIR' OR 'DUCHESS' OR ANY OTHER TITLE, BECAUSE THEY ARE GUARDS! YOU CALL ME SERGEANT!"

"...yes, Sergeant..."

"I CANNOT HEAR YOU! SOUND OFF LIKE YOU'VE GOT A PAIR!"

Several questions were instantly raised.

"I'm --" She had voluntarily left the herd, found herself in a new nation, lived among humans who barely recognized what centaurs were, and she still hadn't needed to explain this part. "-- I don't have --"

"I AM LOOKING DIRECTLY AT THEM! THEY ARE RATHER HARD TO MISS! I AM ASSUMING THAT HAVING ALL THAT WEIGHT OVER THE RIB CAGE EXERTS SOME PRESSURE ON THE LUNGS, AND SO AIR CAN BE EXPELLED ALL THE FASTER! SOUND OFF! AND GET BACK IN THERE!"

Six limbs.

Four legs. Two arms. No matter how you worked the math, it added up to six. Cerea was fully aware of that and, after a day spent under the shield, had reached the point where she was aware of very little else.

Legs were trembling sticks which, for some strange anatomical reason, had been asked to bear up a mass which they had no business supporting: this was matched by the current amount of interest they had in actually performing the job. Arms were dragging weights attached to a pair of zones which were normally designated as 'shoulders': however, Cerea had been considering that terminology and, after some reflection, was prepared to redefine them as something more appropriate. This might mean needing to intensify her language studies, because her current choice took too long to say in French and there was a chance that in the pony tongue, 'a horrible mistake' was one word.

The rejection of the braid gave her hair more freedom of movement. It also meant that the sweat which had soaked through her garment eventually reached those strands, and they had plastered along her back. In Cerea's opinion, the effect of the moisture along the front would allow her to win any wet T-shirt contest which happened to be taking place in the area: something she saw as automatic even with the bra on because in any case, she would mostly be winning by default.

Her ears were drooping. Her upper torso had been reminded that swinging a sword was considered to be fairly intensive exercise, reaped some of the benefits, noticed the use of 'reaped', seen where it was going before her conscious mind did, and soon began begging for a stop. She had strained muscles she wasn't aware she had, which at least gave her the dubious benefit of knowing where they were now. Cerea had no idea how to stop being aware of them and all things considered, being told that you had a tongue in your mouth was an improvement.

They had only stopped when the sergeant had spotted froth beginning to slide down her legs. She liked the froth. It was cooling, it didn't judge her, and if it had been allowed to continue for a while, it would have potentially killed her. Death would have meant an end to the training and when viewed from that perspective, she was no longer certain why it was bad. But the stallion had simply sent her into a cooldown phase, which proved that he didn't want her to die and from that same perspective, made him into the single worst pony she'd ever met. Nopony had read her the articles, and yet she was fairly sure Wordia Spinner might want her dead. This meant Wordia Spinner was the better pony.

Six limbs. One, two, three -- there was a series of numbers along the way and so recalling all of them wasn't strictly necessary, as long as you knew what the last one was. The important part was that she had six limbs, and every ache told her that was just too many.

Also, her tail hurt. He'd decided to start some of the exercises early.

The pain would continue into the night. It would intensify as she continued her efforts to clear some part of the barracks, and then it directly affected the language classes because upon hearing what had happened at the training grounds, Nightwatch would decide that what Cerea really needed to feel better was some appropriate vocabulary.

Unknown to the centaur, the younger Princess would be within her dreams that night to observe the results in the name of both monitoring her condition and answering a question which the sergeant had been careful to ask. Those results would be reported as a positive. Because with hours in which she could do very little but ache, it was the pain which directed the majority of the centaur's nightscape -- and so Luna would, in what she decided wasn't truly a violation of her code, be able to tell the stallion that his streak was intact. For even with a class of but a single sapient to train, someone had dreamed of killing him.

But that hadn't been the whole of it. And Luna didn't tell him about the remainder, because there was a code, and...

Did she know the girl better than anypony? Did Nightwatch? Luna was at least the regional expert on the girl's past, and still felt that she didn't know anywhere near enough. There was something they had yet to reach, missing information which felt as if it might be the key to so much. But she had seen something of the girl's former life.

You had to be careful about your interpretations, when it was the nightscape. Even memories could be tinged by personal belief, and some were capable of tricking themselves into full visions of a false past. But the younger didn't believe Cerea was among them, and...

She'd seen more, when it came to the centaur. The girl, and those who had been around her. Enough to see some of what had been missing.

Cerea would dream of killing him on that night, because he was her sergeant and in a very real way, creating those dreams was his job. He wore it as a badge of honor, at least for those times when he hadn't taken it as a cherished token of horror. The sergeant had chosen a life where he would forever be the source of fear, where the girl had not. The Princesses (or rather, the Generals) had spoken to him about that, before everything had begun.

But something happened before she left the training grounds. Something which meant the dream of fully-justified vengeance was brief, and which carried the stallion's image into some of the dreams that followed.

"Cooldown's over," he gruffly stated. "Go wait by the cottonwood. Your escort should be here to teleport you back in about ten minutes. You can rest until then."

Something about the words bothered her, and it took several seconds of forced examination through blurring waves of ache before she spotted the implied singular.

"...you're not coming?" Because he had been waiting at the site when she arrived, the shield would have to be dropped eventually, and the protesters were still out there...

He snorted. "Don't like teleports. Tactical use, that's fine. Casual travel, I'll take the trot. Plus I just got reinstated. Anypony wants to tell me they've got a problem, they can talk. Anypony tries to show me, they're assaulting a Guard and I could use the exercise. Under the tree. Leave the ironwood here."

Collapsing into the cool shaded grass should have made her feel better. It didn't. It just created awareness of several new strained muscles along her barrel, along with establishing the horrible knowledge that eventually, she would have to get up again.

Her upper torso leaned against the trunk. Rough rivers and striations of bark registered through the soaked blouse as extra aches against her skin. The day felt too hot and nopony was doing anything about that. And she was showing weakness in front of him, but they had been going for hours, even centaur endurance only went so far, there was just about nothing left in her after a day of going again and again and again, failures stacked on top of each other because manure wasn't the only thing which could go that high, she was tired of failing --

-- he was looking at her. He was always looking at her, and having sunk so low just about put the two of them on eye level. She just wanted him to stop.

...he said something.

"Better."

Blue eyes just barely managed to focus upon brown.

"You got better today," Emery Board informed her. "You'll be even better tomorrow." And with that, the old stallion turned, silently trotting away.

He shouldn't have reminded Cerea of her mother.
He never did again.

Toxic

The citizenship classes would begin soon, and they would teach the girl something about how the nation actually functioned. A portion of what she initially learned would surprise her, because her limited experiences around the Princesses had mostly suggested the rule of royalty and to some degree, even with the mention of a 'Night Court' and the need to sign a law, it was something the centaur saw as an absolute.

The fault for this could be laid at the forehooves of stories. Her imagination galloped through realms in which a monarch's word was law: desires had a tendency to transmute into something closer to policy. In her experience, kings and queens generally did whatever they wished and in many cases, this went against the needs of realm, common sense, and sanity. (Her time spent in the dubious custody of Meroune's mother hadn't exactly helped there.) So there was a natural presumption that even with a visibly increased level of common sense, Princesses had an equal amount of free reign.

It was a natural presumption. It just wasn't how Equestria worked.

When compared to the governments of Earth, the most natural comparison was for those nations which had chosen to work with (and, as soon as the wrong people got into office, around) a trinary division of power -- but it wasn't a fully accurate simile. The sisters had legislative roles: each was free to compose their own bills, and they broke all ties in their respective Court. Some criminal charges forced them to watch from a judge's bench, and the younger had recently taken to hosting civil cases as a well-earned means of venting.

But it wasn't entirely unfair to see them as primarily serving the functions of an executive branch. They had the ability to issue orders (which, because there was still some aspect of royalty present, included occasionally telling citizens what to do). Both were at the top of the military chain. It was their choice as to whether any given bill would be ultimately signed into law, and it was also the final choice because neither had ever cared to implement a veto override system into the nation's founding documents. Both had agreed that 'no' had only one definition, and that was NO.

As with so many immigrants before her, the girl would carefully memorize that information and unlike so many of the natives, she would also fully retain it: both siblings had noticed that those who had to earn their citizenship tended to pay more attention to the functionings of a new government than the ones who had been born into it. But it wouldn't tell her everything, because the books she studied had been written for adults. Some facts were only learned by the very young, forever woven into their most basic understanding of the world around them. They weren't written down in books meant to be read by anyone older, because simply existing meant you knew them already.

But the girl didn't know. She had no awareness of those most basic things, information which nopony thought to tell her because no one ever needed to learn it. Some of the gaps in her education would take a surprisingly long time to fill, and the acceptance which natives gave the most crucial facts of their world...

That was some ways off. She would start with citizenship classes: the rest would only come with time. But it helped to think of the sisters as being the executive branch, because that gave her some basis for comparison. And there were ways in which the reflection was true -- including one of the most fundamental.

"So we just wanted to make sure we were on the record," Puff Weevil declared from his position at the ramp-aligned apex of the pony triangle. (There were fourteen others lined up behind him. The two most loyal had the best view of his tail, the three who had yet to fully master sucking up formed the next line, and so on all the way back to those who'd just gotten there, coming from the wrong shift, and didn't even know what his favorite snacks were.)

He forced his rib cage to swell as far as it could, because there was probably a way to substitute self-importance for height and the earth pony was going to figure it out any day now. Leaned his head back a little more so he could stare up the ramp towards the throne and, just as importantly, didn't lean back enough. It forced the occupant to change her own angle in order to properly look at him: something he regarded as having created control.

The alicorn on the throne tended to see it as punishment. (The usual silent follow-up question was 'Whose?')

"On the record," she carefully repeated, and automatically noted the position of her Guards relative to the gathering. "Fifteen of you, on the record. And that's mostly from the Night Court, Puff. I see three Day representatives in the group, but there's still a clear majority. So before you tell me what's going on the record, I have what feels like a very natural question. Why are you going on the record with me?"

Speckled white shoulders shifted. Combined with the rolling outskirts of a fairly overweight body, it gave him the look of cotton which had yet to have the seeds combed out. Rarely-seen faster movements tended to produce the impression of something which was being consumed by insects.

"Well," he tried, "it took most of the night just to get the basic form down. And then there were a few ponies in the Day Court whom we wished to confer with, in case there was any dominion overlap. So it just brought us into your hours. I'm sure you understand."

You stalled until you were sure you'd avoided Luna.

"Perfectly," Celestia agreed, and allowed the little smile to manifest at the same time her head tilted slightly to the right. Fifteen, and that's potentially just the ones who were willing to enter the palace. Enough numbers to imply they represent a herd. Puff is from a Tattler district, but some of the others... "So now we can talk about what's going on the record, especially since I'm sure the majority of you would like to get some sleep."

Her right forehoof politely gestured to the self-designated leader. He cleared his throat. She watched carefully, mostly to see if any bugs came flying out.

"We're against this," he declared, and stopped there because forcing her to ask the next question was also control.

"You'll have to be a little more specific," Celestia gently encouraged. Because you're from a Tattler district and that generally means whatever it is, you're against it.

There weren't many of those zones around Equestria. They typically formed when ponies decided that the truest sign of prejudice was others preventing them from openly indulging in their hatreds: this was quickly followed by the realization that an argument was something which implied others were allowed to speak against you, but an echo chamber meant every word coming back was one you were going to say anyway. Tight-knit, highly-loving neighborhoods were pulled together by a sort of spiritual gravity, aided by the fact that nopony else was willing to have them next door any more and if the property values were going to drop, they might as well all drop in the same area.

Put enough of those ponies together, and they would have an influence on Day and Night Court elections. So there were a few of what Celestia sometimes thought of as Tattler districts and because there were only a few, those representatives tended to speak all the louder. Volume didn't substitute for numbers any more than self-importance swapped itself in for height, but it did mean the stupidity could be heard at a greater distance.

She was used to dealing with representatives from those areas. (There was a lot of turnover, as their voters would inevitably decide that an insurmountable majority wasn't and therefore their chosen pony just wasn't getting enough done.) To seeing them enter her throne room in groups. Puff was from a Tattler district, and those representatives tended to cluster together in the same manner as those who'd voted for them. Also for the same reasons, and it was generally advised to pass that one office building at full gallop, preferably while holding your breath. He was capable of being truly loud, and so it was natural to see him playing at being in charge. It was just that... this wasn't his usual herd.

"The centaur," he stated. Several Guards shifted within their armor.

"Cerea," she corrected.

He ignored that. "You don't recognize what this is doing to Equestria," Puff declared. "You don't hear the Voices Of The People."

This was, to a small degree, true. The palace walls were mostly made from marble, and that meant sound only conducted so far. Being in the Solar throne room meant having to leave a lot of doors open just for the Voices to reach her as a background murmur. But there were others means of communication, and among the many reasons for wanting the contingent to leave was so she could get back to being wounded by the second kind.

"We do," he continued. "No matter what you may think it is, all anypony sees is that you've taken in a monster. One intelligent enough to wait for its moment to strike. Ponies are still thinking about Tirek, Princess. Some of them are still mourning, and now you've brought in a monster."

"An innocent," Celestia replied, mostly just to watch the words skim away from his ears. "Someone who committed none of his crimes, and is responsible for nothing he did --"

"-- we've written a bill," he bludgeoned. "Prohibiting it from serving. From living here, from being anything. It blocks all centaurs from entry into Equestria and deports any found within the borders. It's the only policy suitable to dealing with monsters."

She wondered how much effort it had taken for him to force the condescending smile.

"It's in the name of protection," Puff finished. "We're just trying to keep you safe."

Celestia took a slow breath, silently measured the temperature in the room.

"And do you have a majority?"

"It's not a question of --"

"-- actually, it is," Celestia cut in. "You would need a majority to get the bill in front of either of us. Princess Luna, for that dominion. And even if you do -- what makes you think she would sign it?"

Several of the ponies in the back row were fidgeting. Those right behind Puff were doing their best to both glare at her and not get caught doing it: in both cases, they had failed. And when it came to their leader...

His body shook for a moment: she wasn't sure if it was from sheer indignance or a failed attempt at weight redistribution.

"This isn't about whether it's signed," he stated. "This is about putting everything on the record. So that when it does attack, when we're finally proven right -- everypony knows who spoke against it. Who the only ones were to see sense. Even when dealing with a Princess who won't even let us protect her."

She thought about a few things, sitting quietly upon her throne. About how the worst politicians could be described as creatures which cared about nothing more than being reelected, along with whether it had ever been a good idea to grant salaries for such duties -- but of course, the other option had been dual Courts filled with nothing more than those who had no need for money, and that would kept so many of the best ones from serving. (Luna had foreseen one problem early, and so they were at least prevented from voting themselves raises.) She reflected on how Mazein's democracy had a dual recurring test for its voters: knowledge of the issues added to proof of basic sanity, and then she thought about how the Day Court had repeatedly voted down implementing any such thing in Equestria because it was probably going to take out their own bases. There was even a moment free for recognizing that this was just the first act of their little play, that which was being performed for the palace's record: the main stage would shortly be set up before the audience and printing press of their choice.

But mostly, she considered that no matter where you were in the world or which nation you might represent, if you were the executive branch, eventually, you were going to want to take the entire legislative body and punt.

"Done," she pleasantly agreed, and smiled all the more.

He blinked at her.

"You'll..." More blinking. Fundamental overturns of reality tended to produce that reaction. "...you'll sign it?"

There was actual hope in his voice, and it made the next part that much better.

"Still Princess Luna," Celestia smiled. "You really should know that, Puff. And I don't think she will, even if the majority comes in for you. I'm just agreeing to put it on the record. I promise, fully and unconditionally, that the names of all who vote to remove centaurs from Equestrian society will be permanently recorded. So that those who look back across history will know exactly who you were, and how you felt. I think that request is completely fair."

Anger quickly thrust through the veil of self-imposed delusion, then risked a hoof stomp as twelve additional ponies decided it was now worth openly glaring at her: the two most intelligent carefully began to back up towards the door. "But you're still not going to get rid of it --"

"-- and in the event that she should ever do something which adds the image of Equestria's newest heroine to the Hall Of Legends," she pleasantly stated, "or gains her own honor statue in the gardens -- that record will maintain. In the form of a plaque right next to it, something with exceptionally large lettering, as indestructible as magic can make it. The full list of everypony who felt she shouldn't have had that chance, and so it would also be the list of those who would have stood in the way of letting the People be saved. In the name of the People."

Thirteen were staring at her. Two tails desperately slipped through the doorway and flicked out of sight.

"That's not fair," Puff half-whispered -- then, at much higher volume, "If it ever -- that's not fair --"

"-- the record," Celestia informed them all, "is the record. And it's nice to see that you acknowledge the possibility of her making a contribution. I'll be watching the progress of your bill with interest, and that's as the pony who, strictly speaking, doesn't have to read the final result. But I will put it on the record. Because the record really doesn't care about what's fair. It just concerns itself with what actually happened."

Her smile met the force of his outrage, and crinkled a little around the corners.

"Go get some sleep, Puff," she told him. "I think you're going to need it."

She waited until he'd failed to kick the right-side door shut before dismissing her Guards for a while and sealing the Sunrise Gate behind all of them. A few seconds before the doors were closed, and then several more until her right forehoof stopped rubbing aching lips.

There were ways in which Luna's role felt like the easier. Somepony had to be the lashing tail behind the sunny smile, and somepony had to be the smile itself.

Strictly speaking, Celestia didn't have any problem with making threats. The hard part was stopping. Because a threat could feel so good, especially when everypony knew you had the ability to back it up. Threats made ponies react. The results could be immediate, and watching others scramble to obey came with a certain basic satisfaction. She could easily go through life threatening everypony and everyone around her to get what she wanted, constantly invoking pressure until it crushed anything which might have come from loyalty and love, simply ruling through forever turning up the heat --

-- and when that heat rose high enough to create a fever in those who could no longer stand her existence, the world would burn.

She sat quietly until the last of the anger had faded, because she knew that the next thing to take place would just make it rise again and there were times when it was better to start from the base state. And then her field fetched the bundle she'd hidden behind the throne just before the contingent had come in, carried it with her in a side bubble as she wearily began to trot down the ramp with every joint declaring that it had just recognized her true age and so the psychosomatic payback was long overdue.

It didn't take long to select one: random draw worked perfectly well when just about every possible result was the same. And then she opened the back exit from the throne room, reading along the way.

She didn't hear the Voice Of The People, at least not without heading towards a balcony first. But just before the legislators had arrived, she'd received the Words.

When you'd been trying to manage a society over the course of nearly thirteen centuries, there was a certain tendency to take personal responsibility for the ways it had come out. In this case, Celestia still wasn't quite ready to accept full blame for the postal system.

The palace received letters every day, and anything pertaining to the lessons which came from friendship was a distinct minority. For the most part, letters arrived with stamps, although some did their best to flow in on a tide of sheer rage. It wasn't quite a truism to say that nopony ever wrote the palace to say the sisters were doing a good job: for starters, there was always somepony who felt that the best service they could ever render to the nation started in that pony's bedroom, and those ponies usually felt the siblings were capable of providing a quality experience.

(Usually. There had also been a few who felt that they still had things to learn about sex and by an amazing coincidence, whoever had written them was the only capable teacher. Celestia had a secret filing cabinet stuffed with such letters, none of which were being saved for the historical record so much as they were being put aside for personal amusement and the day when Equestria found itself with a desperate shortage of the word 'fluids'.)

She often received letters from children: some wanted to thank her for Sun, others were laboring under a class assignment which said they had to write her and so tended to kick in just enough 'very's to fill out the minimum word count -- Twilight had started to receive some from that category and was under strict palace orders not to send them back corrected -- and a few were still operating under the illusion that she might stop by on Hearth's Warming to drop off a few enchanted gifts. All of those could be dealt with, and she sometimes took an afternoon to catch up on the most innocent of correspondence.

There were also those who felt that prayers whispered towards Sun might be lost in the susurrus of endless hope, and so chose to render their desperation in ink. Those were... harder. She did what she could, whenever she could, and knew it could never be enough.

But for the most part, it was complaints.

The palace had a known address and, until something over four years ago, a perfectly stable rulership. Ponies knew who was in charge, and so they also knew who to blame. The zoning laws had to be adjusted to their needs. A neighbor wouldn't listen to them, but might just pay attention to a Princess. There was Sun in their eyes and somepony had better move it.

Just about nopony ever wrote them to say they were doing a good job. But when something happened...

There was no sanity test for voting. You also didn't need to pass one in order to purchase a printing press, and so Mrs. Panderaghast had been busy. It was easy to pick out letters arranged by the head of Canterlot Unicorns Negating Traditional Swears (or, in the modern day, Canterlot Unicorns Need Equal Treatment, but Celestia was going to internally stick with the original name until it stopped being funny) because they were all the same. Mrs. Panderaghast claimed to speak for all right-thinking unicorns, which meant unicorns who agreed with her in every way about everything at all times. She also recognized that the best way to make sure she kept speaking for them was to make sure her donators never got a chance to speak for themselves, and that meant running off endless form letters for ponies to sign at the bottom. It was something which gave Celestia trouble in tracking the organization's membership count, but she had noticed several suspicious recurring styles of fieldwriting. It was always fieldwriting, because a group which claimed to be defending unicorn equality actually existed to make sure nopony else could ever be quite as equal, and so they mainly used their mouths for talking. It was just about impossible to make them stop.

Others had written her as individuals, and a moment of genuine curiosity brought her into the lower levels of the palace, still reading along the way. It only took a few minutes to reach the proper storage area, and then an hour spent in instructive contrast verified her suspicion: nearly everypony who was currently writing to protest Cerea's existence had also written the palace about Yapper. Some further research identified the near-total overlap in the set which had come in over Gerald Gristle's butcher shop. With the latter two cases, the only changes were frequently for the species being identified: however, when dealing with Cerea, a number of ponies (and others) had seen a need for fresh vocabulary, and Celestia lay down among the strewn debris of hate, reading along while she made a weary mental note to look at the nation's educational curriculum and make sure there was a year in which everypony learned how to actually spell 'apocalypse.'

The majority of the most recent letters were from Canterlot: those who mailed their fear generally didn't bother with express stamps. She knew she'd reached Ponyville when she spotted Thistle Burr's name, because he was one of the few who always put down a sending address: a stallion who knew the government was out to get him was also confident in its ability to figure out where he lived, and so felt he had nothing to lose through signing off on the lecture. By contrast, the Flower Trio usually tried to conceal their efforts in reporting fear, generally by using a mailbox on a different street.

The elder found a blank piece of paper, then spent a few minutes in tallying the number of times she was being accused of senility. There was a certain morbid curiosity about how many ponies were risking accusations of Nightmare, but that was Luna's mail and she would have to wait until the icicles started falling from the ceiling. There had been a point early in the Return when she'd tried to intercept anything sent directly to Luna, but the younger had caught her at it and...

...she tried to be there, so they could talk about it. That was the limit of what Luna would allow, at least for practical actions: a mutual visit to those who'd written her sister was generally impossible. Ponies who were accusing the younger of still being Nightmare tended not to provide a return address, just in case they were right.

Something over an hour just to skim through that portion of her mail, followed by just about nothing used for answering it: there was very little point in speaking to those who wouldn't listen to her, especially since any direct reply tended to reinforce their beliefs. (After all, if a Princess was trying to contradict them, then they had to be right.) Instead, she took the trot to the palace's Public Relations office and checked on the composition of the one-sheet, which was currently up to its ninth revision. They were still trying to figure out whether it was safe to include a picture and if so, how Cerea should be posed for it. There was an ongoing argument for nudity, simply because the majority of ponies favored it and so a centaur should reflect that. Celestia provided the counter-argument, which was that taking a girl who had a phobic reaction to undressing for measurements and putting her nude in front of a camera probably wasn't going to end well. And unless somepony with very high field strength was in the area, might not even end within the city limits.

She was still thinking about that image when she left the room, and only did so as a touchstone for all of the other short films playing out in her mind. There would be a terrified centaur galloping down the street, ponies would see her, and...

It took some time to get the screams out of her ears, longer still to banish the phantom scent of the girl's blood. And then she went back to the storage area, because there had been blank paper there and she had necessary correspondence to send.

...I recognize the reservations you probably have regarding this potential meeting. However, your class is an extraordinary one in many ways, and so I feel they may be well-suited as the first to greet her.

I know you're reluctant to step onto palace grounds again after what happened in the gardens. But I've never blamed you. For that matter, I don't blame them: we didn't know the bonds had been weakening. And in the end, that turned out to be a good thing.

Please tell Diamond and Sweetie that I can't give them an update on his condition.

I'm sorry

In this case, there's a single centaur mare, and I can safely say that no matter how nervous you are about protecting your students, she's equally as worried about doing something which might scare them. She needs somepony who can just trot up and face her -- and given all the things they've seen, that pony might be in your charge.

Please don't feel you have to say yes. No part of this has been an order. I'll understand completely if you decline, and I won't lie to you by saying you're the only teacher I'm contacting. But I've left the Gifted School out of it, because the only thing she needs less than fear is listening to first-years trying to verbally dissect her existence. I want everyday children who've had incredible experiences, because this will give them one more.

She's safe. More than anything else, she simply wants to go home, and the palace will do its best to help her. But until then, she needs acceptance. I'm hoping she can find a little of it in those who've already accepted so much into their lives.

Think about it, Ms. Slate. Please.

She watched the protesters change shifts.

It was easy to do, looking down from the tower. One group passed off the signs, the arriving parties fell into single file, and it took a few seconds to get the chants into rhythm again. A thin line of ponies marching in front of the palace gates, mostly getting out of the way when somepony needed to go in or out. Very, very slowly.

She couldn't hear the actual chant, and didn't want to. But the back-mounted signs indicated some degree of professionalism, along with the fact that Mrs. Panderaghast had been very busy.

They can't keep it up forever. Celestia had a great deal of experience with ponies who were trying to keep something going forever, some of whom had eventually resorted to working on a generational basis. The Equestrian record for a protest was --

-- winter's coming. We needed to balance the schedule after the snowfall and that made today perfect for protesting, but we'll be in the real cold soon enough. It's harder to protest in the cold.

They can't keep it going for three years.

Again.

...and it was down to that one old stallion who showed up every day to chant. It was the only thing in his life. Everypony else had accepted The Most Special Spell, or at least realized it was never going away. But he just kept showing up, because it was his Morals and The Last Thing He Could Do.

Nearly thirteen centuries of memories.

I looked down one morning and there was a body in front of the gates.

She'd never found a way to block any of them out.

...you should receive the full package today, but it's going to be sent physically: after several days of analysis and frantic conjecture, there's far too much paper to ask Spike to deal with any portion of it. I'm also going to arrange for Abjura to visit you tomorrow, as I feel you'll be better off if she explains her theories personally. She'll bring a transcript of Cerea's description for the passage.

Now, addressing Ms. Lulamoon specifically, and only in words which I know the other pony reading this should see:

I do in fact expect you to remain in Ponyville until the studies are complete. I am not asking you to live there for the rest of your life. It's possible that no matter what we do, there might be no way of sending Cerea home. In that case, you may return to the road.

However, this may still leave you in Ponyville for several moons, and you will be paid at the rate typical for a palace researcher while you stay. (I'm recommending you keep the caravan parked at the tree. I also feel you should move into the tree itself, for an extra level of security.) I recognize that this presents certain difficulties for you, and will be writing the police chief accordingly. There will be a town meeting soon, and it will concern a public announcement for the following: you are on probation, you are currently working for the palace, and anypony attacking you is going after a palace employee. That, along with the direct protection of Miranda Rights and her officers, should be enough to shield you from the masses. But -- and I'm being realistic about this -- I'm not expecting that you're going to be making a lot of friends. Not without taking the same apologies which you offered the Bearers and giving them to the townsponies. One by one.

I understand what drove you to the Amulet. I know how the device worked, and the fact that you were the one wearing it is the only reason nopony died. It's why I took a chance on giving you probation. But when it comes to Ponyville itself, it's going to take a lot more than a few fireworks.

To Twilight: I'm going to double the healing crew on the tree. Winter is approaching and while the current knitting rate shows the library is on the mend, I want to see more improvement before the cold sets in. Keeping a warm-weather zone intact for several moons is going to be a challenge for Rainbow's team, and it's natural for the tree to hibernate somewhat during the season. In that sense, it'll be better if it drops into its own sleep, rather than remaining at a forced higher activity level for much longer. I just want to make sure it's in a position where it'll be capable of waking up again.

For both of you: I expect you to eat. This may come across as a singularly silly thing to put in a letter, but it is also an order. I've had years to become familiar with what I'm going to charitably describe as Twilight's "study habits" and you, Ms. Lulamoon, have a storage locker full of spell theory in your hometown which is approaching some level of thaumic critical mass. It is a top priority to get Cerea home quickly and safely. Making sure the two of you don't work yourselves into a wandering half-coma of conjecture and dimming horn sparks falls under 'protecting a national resource,' along with keeping two mares alive. There will be no more than twenty hours per week spent in research for this problem, and that is ALSO an order. Spike will be tracking you, and enchantments will be provided to him which will create a means of kicking you both outside.

And part of that limit is because I have to ask you both to think about a side project.

We are going to need a working which suppresses herd instinct.

I don't know if it's possible, and I need you to keep that research secret: announcing that might go over about as well as the first journal papers released on Kalziver's Severance -- which was before we had this active of a press. I'm not going to be surprised if it has similar side effects for the caster, and I'll understand if you're both reluctant to pursue this. Because as with the Severance, I'm asking ponies to go against their most fundamental nature -- but also like the Severance, it's something we need. I can name three times in Equestria's history where a working which shuts down a single pony's talent for up to ninety-eight seconds was the only thing which staved off disaster. In this case, I need multiple targets on an exponential level, and what may need to be a significantly improved duration.

I know that on some level, I'm asking the two of you to think in a way which can nearly wound the soul. But we are currently in a situation where one misstep might set off a riot, and we only have so many ways of breaking them. If you can disable the herd response, then there will be individuals panicking -- and nothing more. We not only need that level of last resort, we may require it as preparation before Cerea can enter an area during an emergency.

It's asking a lot of you both. It always is.

I'm sorry

But I wouldn't ask if I didn't believe you could do it.

We'll all do what we can to keep everypony safe, until the day we can send her home.

Twilight, I'm going to be sending you a follow-up scroll in a few minutes. Please send Trixie out of the room.

The elder caught up on some paperwork. Two bills were signed into law: three were rejected, because 'no' still had a single definition and she was hoping that eventually, some ponies would figure out what it was. She met a class of fourth-year primary students who were taking a tour of the gardens and allowed them to get their pictures. A minor explosion at the Gifted School was registered and investigated, with the cause quickly determined as 'Gifted School.' Mazein's embassy asked for a meeting: she put one on the calendar and started to brace herself, because an ambassador who expressed what he felt didn't pull any verbal punches either.

All things she had to do during a normal day. But as her sister's hours approached, Celestia decided to take out the garbage.

YES. Yes, I am SURE. I recognize why you're worried. I was THERE. She is not Tirek. She is not related to Tirek in any way. The Doctors Bear feel she may not even be the same species as Tirek: still a centaur, but one which appeared independently, in a place we are unable to reach.

I read your letter. All of it. I understand your concerns. But that's why I'm not going to let you meet her just yet. Because until I feel you can be in her presence and see HER, the two of you are going to remain separated. And when it comes to the other, somewhat more directly justified problem --

The girl had just barely made a start on clearing out the barracks: there was a little hollow off the right of the doorway, and a circle of blankets on the swept portion of floor. But making that space had still displaced enough to drastically narrow the approach hallway: normal ponies could get past all the things which had been shunted into the corridor, and Celestia -- well, the palace was supposed to accommodate her passage at all times and therefore, she needed to enforce that. It also helped that she was one of the few who had the field strength to move all of the garbage at once and could recognize when something which needed to be saved had made its way down to the inadvertent dumping grounds by accident.

(She was tempted to just do all the work for Cerea, because there was still so much of it -- but she also knew that physical labor was a good way to settle the mind at the end of a long day, or -- to temporarily prevent certain thoughts from rising. It meant she would monitor the situation and step in if that level of help seemed to be required: for now, the girl would potentially find multiple benefits to the exercise.)

All she meant to do was clear the corridor, and she quickly discovered the need to make several trips: her field strength could manage the weight, but having that much trash floating about turned her into a trotting hazard to navigation. Teleportation didn't help: nopony teleported out to the trash pickup area because it was typically occupied by trash and even for somepony who could safely appear in midair, it was hard to be certain how high some of it had been stacked. (Springpole weaves for Lambvent were just about their own flight hazard, and that was when they were standing normally.) So she would trot, and the estimated total number of passages required would bring her to the start of Luna's waking hours -- along with what suddenly seemed to be an essential need to be there when the younger caught up on the mail.

But she was passing the barracks entrance with her first load of trash bobbing along behind her, and peripheral vision noticed the desk. The object resting on top of it, something she'd personally purchased --

-- she never would have opened it. The girl had so little privacy, and Celestia didn't want to pry. But it was already open, the cover turned aside to reveal the very first page. The initial image captured by the girl, something which suggested it had been the most important thing for her to draw. And there were erasure marks everywhere, faded remnant of lines begun and ended to the point where it seemed as if there had been a dozen attempts made upon the same page...

...but there was an image there.

She looked at it, because that much was automatic. Immediately felt shame, turned away --

-- glanced back.

She thought she could guess at what was being drawn, at least for the general category. There was a chance she even had a mouth grip on the intent. But she'd never seen that image before, she didn't know what it was supposed to look like, and...

It's wrong.
There's something wrong and she can't fix it.
She's been trying to fix that same sketch for...

It was all she knew. That there was something wrong, but not what. It made the image hard to look at, and when she tried to focus on --

-- maybe she hasn't started that part.

Back to trotting.

But she had to make several trips. She couldn't close the book, or the girl would know she'd seen something.

And every time she went by, that wrongness was still there.

I need you to trust me.

I know why you're angry. We all know why you're angry. It's so rare to see you that way. It has more impact coming from you, I think, just because it's so rare.

Reading your words means there's no way I can risk bringing you together. Until you're willing to have some faith trust me, you won't see her. It's not going to happen. So let Spike rest.

You have to understand that she isn't Tirek.

I also read the rest of it. I've been reading every letter you've sent me since it happened.

I still can't give you an update on his condition.

I'm sorry.

Vicious

Place a centaur in Canterlot, within a world which has learned to fear the male of what they had so hoped would have been the singular example of the species, and you've kicked a boulder into waters which seldom have the chance to become completely still. The idea that her presence was ongoing, with the chance to be permanent... it meant the ripples hadn't stopped. Some of them would join with each other, accumulate force and given enough time, there would be the chance of a tidal wave.

The sisters were watching, trying to anticipate the merger of angry waters before there was any true opportunity for a flood. But they knew how hard it would be spot everything and in any case, there was more than that to look for. The girl had been summoned. The words delivered at the press conference had been chosen to ensure that the only ponies outside of carefully-selected palace staff and Bearers to know that would be the casters. Whoever had pulled Cerea into their world had to know where the centaur was now: given the probable size of the group involved, somepony within it almost had to have read a newspaper, or at least have been within hearing range of frightened gossip. There was an ongoing question as to who those ponies were, and now that they had been given information which could be potentially be acted upon, some sort of action almost had to occur.

But all the palace could do was watch and listen. Their own spies couldn't be truly dispatched without some rough idea of where to go, and any attempted infiltration of what might be a cult always had a chance to backfire. There was always something in a pony which favored the voice of the herd, and when you introduced a new recruit to a group which had been taught to truly think as one...

There were many requirements for being among Equestria's spies, and there had been a few times when not even that steel-strong will and sense of personal identity had been enough.

The palace was waiting for somepony to make a move. The girl herself could be watched, because matters almost had to center on her eventually. But take the focus away from her, even for a second, and they didn't know where to look.

At one point, Luna would irritably declare that it was rather like trying to solve serial murders. (There had been a few of those in the world's history: almost none in Equestria, and even one had been far too many.) That in the absence of clues, you reached the point where the near-best hope was for the killer to be somewhat more clumsy during their next strike -- which essentially meant that in the name of trying to prevent the death count from adding twenty more, some part of the investigator was almost ready to wonder about the benefits to be gained from one. And a volunteer could set up what you saw as an ideal target, create a deliberate decoy to lure the murderer in and hope to stop them before the act could be completed, but...

Would the summoners try to recover the girl? Or would they simply decide that the palace created too much of a shield and bring in something else? Another centaur? Had they even been trying for a centaur in the first place and if not, what had they been after? What was their true goal, and how was summoning supposed to accomplish that at all?

There was an answer. But it would not come quickly, and until the day it arrived from a rather unexpected source, all the palace could do was watch and listen.

And all the while, the ripples would continue to spread.

There were certain problems with being nocturnal, and it took very little time on the Lunar shift before those palace hires began to empathize with their own Princess.

In the case of Nightwatch...

The little mare had her residence within an apartment building (the uppermost floor, with extra-large windows), and there were several reasons for that. Cloud homes were hard to come by in Canterlot: there was always somepony who would complain about a blocked view, and not dealing with endless petty complaints from even pettier nobles could make it easier for those who truly desired vapor to simply commute in from Ponyville. Which seldom happened: the palace encouraged their staffs to live in the city itself, because the capital was its own living entity. One soul manifested from thousands of moving parts, and anypony who was going to work in Canterlot had better learn how that soul breathed. Additionally, homes were just more expensive in the capital, so it was easier to rent and that could still be too high...

Nightwatch was carefully saving to purchase a house, although she had very little idea of when the move might take place. She knew what the fiscal goal was, and faithfully put something aside towards that total every moon. In terms of the total amount necessary -- she could track that, although making adjustments occasionally required somepony to tell her about what had been happening in the real estate market.

The time needed to reach the goal was simple math. But she wasn't going to move until she had somepony to move in with. She wasn't trying to buy her own home: she wanted to own theirs, and -- she hadn't found that very special somepony.

She was single. Very, extremely, sometimes painfully single. And part of that came from being nocturnal.

There just weren't as many ponies working the Lunar shift, leaving a smaller population to work with during her normal off hours. Some capital businesses recognized the need for catering to Lunar social lives: bars could apply for special morning licenses, and most cinemas were open around the clock -- but again, there just weren't as many. (Lunars on their off-days had no trouble sharing 'normal' night hours with partying Solars. It was just that eventually, somepony would notice that you weren't getting tired.) She hadn't found anypony within the palace itself. And when it came to those who lived in Solar hours...

Potions existed to flip the sleep schedule, and Lunars who were about to take their vacations were offered free doses. Nightwatch hated them. She was willing to drench herself with the vials, knew she wouldn't get the full benefit of her time off without them, and still wound up spending a day on each end suffering from something it would take long discussions and the efforts of two worlds to conjoin into the proper term: temporal jet lag. (The hardest part for Cerea would be explaining the jet.) But the potions let her relax under Sun, meet ponies she would never otherwise see, there had been some who'd been interested, she'd felt herself to be on the verge of a relationship and then --

-- she always had to tell them eventually. That she was a Guard, and that could be hard enough. Nightwatch was fully aware that for many ponies, dating a Guard was like dating a police officer, except that diplomatic missions meant you could wind up waiting to see if your loved one came home safely from a hundred gallops away. But also that she was a Lunar, one who was fully committed to the welfare of her Princess, and...

...being with her would mean one of two things: that they would choose to spend the majority of their own lives under Moon, or they would only see her for a little time in each cycle. A romance conducted through brief snuggles and the passing of notes.

Nopony had been willing to follow her. Nopony wanted to wait. And so she understood her Princess that much more, especially on those mornings when the little mare forced herself to slip beneath the cold sheets of an empty bed.

She slept through most of the day, and there were certain tricks for that. Blackout curtains were just about a necessity. Custom-fitted earplugs were often more trouble than they were worth: it took some contorting just to bring them into position, and then there was getting your hooves out of the loops without pulling them loose again. She didn't like earplugs anyway, any more than she liked potions which put you to sleep and, far too often, kept you there. There were ways in which Guards never truly went off-duty, and even sleeping ones needed to be on alert for certain sounds. But the pony outside her apartment door was quiet, and never made the mistake of trying to get in.

The little mare awoke before Sun-lowering, nosed the curtains aside because everypony needed a certain amount of daylight in order to stay healthy: a full three minutes were spent soaking in the light of the orb. Toiletries came next, which included a new kind of mane cream because a mare who spent so much time with part of hers compressed beneath a helmet needed something which would help when it came off and one day, Nightwatch might even find out what it was. Breakfast, a quick cleaning of the kitchen so there would be that much less to do for maintenance during her next night off, and then --

She smelled it before she saw it, the bitterness just barely leaking around the door's frame. And because she was a Guard, she used those pegasus-intended windows for the other approach, leaving her apartment by air, then coming up the ramps from the ground floor to reach her own level, carefully trotting down the hallway until she was looking at --

How many pictures had been taken, during the press conference? The largest group had come when the girl had been taking that strange oath, but they hadn't been the only ones. There had been flashbulbs going off before that: just less of them. Scattered shots had been taken after. And during every one of them, Nightwatch had been at her assigned post: close to the centaur.

Easy enough, for somepony to get a picture of that. And once you had the image, plus a few more from other moments for comparison... after a while, you might start to see something within it. That there was a pegasus who was hovering close to the centaur. And, during those moments when the girl was so horribly stressed (something increasingly visible to Nightwatch, although she wasn't sure who else could reliably pick up on it), hovering a little closer.

The cut-out picture had been attached to the paper, and the paper had been taped to the door. There were a few words written underneath the image: heavy, near-blockish lines which went poorly with the normal curves of the Equestrian alphabet. It was the print of a pony trying to disguise their writing by forcing away anything unique about it, and it had to work around carefully-chosen fragments of pasted newsprint. Something which had been added for emphasis.

She read those words. Then she read them again, because something in her wanted to see if she could do so while forcing her feathers to rest evenly against her sides. After that, she went back into the apartment for a mouth guard, because she knew what the paper had been drenched in and was momentarily grateful to the near-intruder for having used too much of it: smaller amounts were harder to scent, and it was possible that the nausea from removal wouldn't have kicked her until she was halfway to the palace.

She flew towards the towers and without the armor, she was just another Lunar mare on the way in for her shift.
Unless somepony cared to look a little deeper.
Until they checked the Guard roster for her name.
And then they could find out where she lived...

"Now when you're fighting unicorns," the old stallion instructed while Cerea briefly rested beneath the shade of the cottonwood tree, because those moments when her body was allowed temporary respite were still times when her mind was expected to be working, "the usual problem is range. The majority of 'corns with attack spells want to use them at a distance, see? Because backlash comes when somepony hits their horn. Sharp, hard contact with something fairly dense, while it's channeling their magic. Disrupts the spell, sends that power back at them. And that contact is usually made with a hoof."

He paused, looked at her low-resting body while his right forehoof scraped a small trench into the dirt. They'd been over a portion of this on the previous day, and the girl knew when she was about to be tested.

"How do you judge the potential effects?" he asked, and waited.

"The layering of light -- corona -- around the horn," Cerea answered, forcing the words to move around the stitch in her upper right side. "Partial is just... mostly annoying to them, and some of them can work through it. But most of what they could do at that level is just moving small objects."

"And sometimes," the sergeant darkly reminded her, "those small objects are sewing needles moving towards your eyes. Give me the rest."

"Full single layer is the majority of normal spells. Hitting the horn breaks that up, and it'll hurt them physically," she recited. "Not the horn, because that's unbreakable --"

"-- there's exceptions," he instructed. "But you can't do it. You never want to meet something which can."

Cerea nodded, continued. "-- but bruising along their bodies, maybe some minor sprains and bleeding. A double corona would be a heavy attack spell or a lot of power being channeled into something more basic. Disrupt that and it's usually the end of the fight, because the backlash can cause bone fractures or knock them out on the spot. Triple is the biggest castings, or just using everything they have. And if you hit the horn then --"

She'd spent most of her dinner wondering how it happened. What it looked like. And then she'd spent the majority of a night dreaming of the worst.

The girl didn't want to picture it any more, didn't even want to say the words. And for that, the sergeant didn't push her, because somepony else could say them.

"-- they die," he steadily finished. "You'll almost never see anything over a single in daily life, recruit, not unless they know they're safe or they're stupid enough to just show off. A lot of unicorns back up a little before their horn ignites. Clearing some space. A lot of them have that reach reflex, even when they shouldn't. It's a tell, and it gives you a little extra warning."

She let that information join the mass which seemed to be churning within her skull.

"But this is about range." The old stallion snorted, and the far edge of his left upper lip briefly threatened to curl. "There are those who say a unicorn's worst nightmare is an angry earth pony less than a body length away. And there's some truth in there. It's a good comparison for you. A centaur's not like anything else, and that gives you an advantage -- but they need a way to think of you in a fight and when it comes to strength, that's earth pony. You get close, and they get scared. They can't get their corona going without risking a hit, not for more than short bursts, and some just can't cast that fast. The Generals -- they could work with enough speed to fling you away at partial, and there's a few others close to that power level. For the majority, though -- you only see the strongest spells when they think they've got some distance on you. You can watch the corona drop as you move in, assuming you get the chance. And for the typical 'corn..."

He looked her over again: tail to lower sternum, forehooves to head, passing over a lot of sweat along the way.

"The average unicorn can't lift a full-grown pony," he told her. "Or move more than six things at once, and they'd better be the same kind of things: bunch of plates on the way to a table. Grabbing something out of the air, that's moving at high speed towards them -- force can add to effective mass. Something small and dense, going fast -- if the unicorn isn't shield-capable, that can punch through a field. Tell me how this applies to you."

It didn't exactly leave her dealing with one of her favorite subjects, and that topic felt like a partial answer.

"I'm..." I don't want to say it, don't make me say it... But this time, delay would only make him repeat the question. Much more loudly and, if she stalled enough, he would also repeat her answer at a decibel level which would reach the protesters, the capital, and had some chance to send the faintest of lingering echoes towards home.

I want to go home.

"I'm... heavy." It felt as if the words had a mass greater than her own, and also like it was a truly painful comparison.

"You're big," he decided to reinterpret it. "There aren't many who can lift you, or even slow you down. The smartest ones will pull on a single hoof, twist your ears -- but that takes brains. Either way, if you see the field coming, even when you're dealing with somepony way up in the Gifted School ranks, the sword gives you a chance to deflect. That's half of it. What's the rest?"

Think, think... There was an answer: the sergeant never asked the sort of questions which didn't have one. (However, the only reward for getting it right was having to face another question.) Fighting a unicorn, closing in on them because they can't risk as much magic at short range...

...range.

Why did she even have to close in?

Softly, "Distance attacks. From my side."

And he nodded.

"Because a unicorn at close range is usually afraid to cast," Emery Board told her. "But they're still a unicorn. Weakest of the races, physically. There's exceptions: Bulkhead's got some power. But an earth pony with his build, same combat training -- that'll trounce him just about every time. Unless he uses his horn. Not his field. Just the horn. You'll see a lot of different horn types: long, short, stubby, wide. But any 'corn can poke. Some can cut. Unicorn, desperate, at close range -- they'll use their head the hard way. So let's avoid that. Stand up."

She carefully raised her body from the grass, stretched until she was fully upright. (It still left her head well short of the lowest branches: the ponies were small, but the trees were normal.) Waited for him to speak, because Cerea was still learning pony expressions -- but becoming an exchange student meant she had also spent a significant part of the last year in language studies. The momentary contortions of his features suggested someone on an internal quest for vocabulary which had never been meant for frequent use.

"Bow," he eventually recovered. "Can you --"

The blush rose almost instantly, and she told herself that shaking her head so quickly was just a means of trying to redistribute the blood flow. Cerea didn't know how that myth had become associated with centaurs in the first place: her best guess was that it came from the most distant part of the roughly-recorded past, long before the retreat into the gaps. As it was, for the modern age, stallions simply didn't have the discipline to learn archery, or anything which wasn't on the level of drunken bar-brawling: the actual drinking was optional. And with mares... they could take up the study in the earliest part of youth, and there was absolutely no point to doing so. A bowstring was drawn close to the torso, and so puberty brought about a progressive loss of leverage. It was somewhat possible to manage a short-range shot with a more horizontal hold (and she'd done it a few times, possibly by accident), but it was just so undignified.

Guns --

No. She hadn't seen any local firearms, and wasn't even sure how they would work: what Cerea thought of as a standard proportion for a trigger wasn't going to function for a hoof. Besides, when it came to introducing that kind of weapon, she knew the rough ingredients for gunpowder, but not the ratio. Additionally, gunsmithing was an art all its own, and even if she managed to get everything right -- something where she would probably get one attempt before the test firing had the whole thing come apart in and through her hands -- it left her with the same issue as any other projectile.

"Then we'll try a sling," the sergeant decided. "It's easy to rig one in a hurry and the ammunition's everywhere."

Which still left her with the same problem. "Sergeant?" He looked up at her, and somehow managed to do while also looking down. "A horn is a very narrow target. Just hitting it from any kind of distance..."

She was expecting a shout. She got a nod.

"Hitting the horn is a bonus," he told her. "Making them think you could is the real prize. Make them afraid to cast, recruit. Keep the stones coming, and they'll be thinking that any of them could trigger a backlash. If they're afraid..."

Of the sisters, Luna was the more likely to be found with her snout stuck in a book. (There were very few benefits to be found in a thousand years of abeyance, but the younger had darkly observed that if nothing else, she had been offered a wealth of unread tomes. Also that the entire palace was effectively on perpetual Spoiler Alert and telling her about that one supposed event from Book 6 before she reached it would be considered as treason.) With Celestia, you took odds on having the elder trot through the hallways with a field-held newspaper keeping pace in front of her eyes and if the odds-maker was sharing the specific hallway while moving in the opposite direction, you got ready to dodge.

In this case, the white mare's attention had been caught by the picture of a unicorn mare stumbling out of a nearby Town Hall. The photographer had managed to partially capture the little alicorn coming up behind her, if only as a slim outstretched foreleg. This was because most of the focus had been centered on the mare's freshly-torn cape.

The picture was in black and white. This gave Celestia some difficulty in identifying the exact origin of the newest fur stains, but she assured herself that tomatoes were the most traditional source.

There were hoofsteps coming up behind her on the left. The most familiar of hoofsteps, and all the more welcome for the near-eternity in which she had only heard them in the best and worst of dreams.

"And what has your attention at this hour?" Luna inquired as she matched pace, with both of them now heading towards a dining hall: the last meal for the elder, the first for the younger.

The field bubble shifted left. Hues transferred custody, and Luna read.

"Ah," the younger observed. "Much more peacefully than expected."

Celestia nodded. "Pinkie tried to talk them into going with a dunking booth, but they'd already brought the produce to the meeting. I'm just hoping it's mostly out of the town's system now."

"They should still make an effort to keep her from going too far from the tree while alone," Luna observed as they began to pass a series of large art-hosting alcoves. "In case it is not. Shopping should be done in the company of Twilight Sparkle, as it places them both outside. Or perhaps the Lady Rarity now and again, if only to see if there is some chance to have them truly talk --"

One set of hoofsteps stopped.

There was a certain bemusement to the younger's tones and by the time Celestia recognized that, it was too late to do anything about the anticipation. "Sister?"

"What?"

Wryly, with just a hint of snide: "I approve of your redecorating."

The elder made a mistake. She turned, and all it did was leave them looking at the same thing.

"Admittedly, I am somewhat surprised to find it still exists," Luna admitted. "At least in a viewable location. I do recall that part of the treaty was that we had to host it in the palace, and to do so for the remainder of our lives. Of course, their Prince of the time failed to specify a location..."

The elder was silent.

"It is not easy, becoming accustomed to yak art," the younger added. "One generally requires an extended period of inspection to perceive the true intent of a piece. At first, one only sees -- now what was the most typical description? Oh, yes." With entirely too much not-really-repressed-at-all glee, "'The thing.' Or in this case, the stone thing. The two stone things. With the wooden bit in it. Placed at the center."

Completely. Silent.

"I looked for this," Luna casually added. "During the second moon of my Return. After finding that it was not anywhere in sight, and knowing that you would still be abiding by the treaty. Where was it?"

White teeth briefly ground against each other.

"I think," a tight voice barely said, "the last place I had it was the barracks."

"Ah," Luna decided. "And Cerea, in cleaning the area, moved this out to that hallway. Where somepony saw it, perhaps did some rather quick and comprehensive research, then carefully returned it to its proper location. In the name of the treaty."

The pastel mane was no longer flowing.

"The Prince was rather taken with you," Luna smirked.

"Yes," Celestia forced out. "I remember every whisper of his own retinue discussing the perversion that required."

"And so he had art commissioned as a gift to you," the younger mercilessly added. "For the treaty."

The nod suggested several tendons had just snapped.

"Сюжет принцеси," Luna expertly pronounced.

Silence.

"Or, in Equestrian... The Plot Of The Princess."

They both looked at the pair of carefully shaped, rounded boulders, each of which was two full body lengths across. And the wooden bit. Once you recognized what it truly was, you never really stopped seeing the wooden bit.

Luna took a deep breath. Assessed exactly how far away her sibling was, along with the exact amount of near-fire radiating from the white fur. And then, because there were things which a younger sister had to do, said it anyway.

"Rendered in the actual proportions."

And then there was only the chase.

He had deigned to eat lunch with her in the center of the track's oval, or rather, to stand about five meters in front of her while she ate. She had yet to catch him indulging in something so natural as food, and was starting to wonder if earth ponies had the magical option to absorb nutrients directly from the soil.

The sergeant understood that she had to stop and eat, and none of his shouts had been about the sheer quantity consumed. His only words regarding her size were about how it could be used in combat, both against Cerea and to her benefit. She could eat when she needed to, because a brain deprived of calories was also a mind which was going to be short on reason. But he refused to let any moment go to waste, not when there was a recruiting class of but one and none to speak with during what would have otherwise been a break.

Training sessions were for combat. Meals brought different lessons.

"You've seen Guards," the old stallion told her. "You saw police, on that first night in Palimyno. Guessing nopony's told you the difference yet. And that Nightwatch hasn't read that far in the book for you."

"No, sergeant." Fur vibrated at the tips of her ears.

He took a slow breath.

"She'll give you the small print," he said. "But there's something I want you to think about, before she gets to it. A few recruits know it going in, and others had to learn the hard way. What Guards are, and what we aren't."

Her ears were trying to strain forward now, and they really hadn't been made for that. She didn't know what the creator of centaur ears had been thinking: she only suspected it had been thought of towards the absolute end of the shift.

"We're not cops," the sergeant stated. "There's a little overlap, here and there. We can usually detain somepony, and there's a few circumstances where we can arrest. That's mostly on palace grounds. But we don't investigate crimes. If something happens in the palace itself -- and there's been a few of those over the years -- the police take the lead in figuring everything out. You can get some jurisdictional friction there, but it's primarily their job to sort and solve." He softly snorted. "There's a few of mine who still can't remember that when they need to."

Cerea nodded. Listened.

"If you see a crime in town," he went on, with hat and tail as still as something resting upon a statue, "you can try to do something about it. Have to be careful about what is a crime, especially in the little neighborhoods. Zebras have shoplifters, but they also have food baskets out for anyone who drops by. But you'll get the basics there. If you're sure that you need to move in, you can."

Zebras... How many animals from her world had equivalents here, and how many of those were sapient? (There had been mentions of bipeds, but she suspected they were a very small minority.) What was the full population like? Did each major species hold a nation?

But that wasn't the current lesson.

"It's just not a Guard's real job," the sergeant told her. "The first duty -- the real duty -- is to your Princess."

She nodded again. It would take a long time before she truly recognized what his choice of pronoun might have meant.

Groupe de sécurité de la présidence de la République. (No part of her acknowledged that in just about any other language, the term would have been considerably shorter.)

The next words, for a stallion who mostly communicated in shouts, felt oddly soft. But they were also harsh. They grated against the mind, rasped through layers of meaning until their core was carved into the inner surface of the skull.

"We protect," the sergeant recited. "We protect her. If it's protection, any time you have to make a choice, she wins. Save one other pony or save the Princess, you save the Princess." With steadily, strangely decreasing volume, "Four foals die if you move left, but the Princess lives: you move left."

Four foals...

She could picture it. She couldn't stop.

And then he made it worse.

"A collapsing building and she can't fly or teleport, you get her out." And before the crashes could stop sounding within her mind, "If the entire city is going to die screaming and there's a single chance to get her to safety... she's the only choice, recruit. Every time. You save the Princess, you save the nation. You might even wind up saving the world."

Her body rested low in the grass of the oval and in her mind, a city burned.

"There is no number," Emery Board simply stated, "which is not outweighed by one. She's it. Every time."

It was becoming impossible to meet his eyes, staring through phantom smoke and false screams.

"That's what really happened with Blitzschritt, at the end," the sergeant told the girl. "Why the ibex left. I saw them, when I was traveling. Not many ponies do. They remember. Still. Always. Because for an ibex, the first duty is supposed to be the mountains. Nothing's as important. There was one moment when Blitzschritt had a choice. She chose to be a Guard."

His eyes closed, opened again. It was all he would allow himself, outside the realm of scent.

"She died for that choice," the old stallion said, and it was the only moment when he was truly old, when she scented the number of dead he carried with him. "But the Princess lived. And the ibex, they understood what the Princess living meant for everyone. They just thought it was a pony choice. To have an ibex making it -- that meant there was something in Blitzschritt which had been changed. Too much change: that was what they didn't understand. So they left. That way, it wouldn't happen to any more of them. We can go through their mountains, because we honored her. But they don't come down any more, not for long. They think it'll mean losing who they are."

Her head bowed.

"Look up."

It was an order. She did.

"You weren't there," he said. "Neither was I. Before my time. Nothing either of us could have done. But you'll meet her. You're going into the gardens tomorrow morning, and you'll see her statue. I want you to learn about her. Because in the end, she could be an ibex, or she could be a Guard. She made her choice. And now she's a statue -- but she's also a corpse. Dead decades before she should have died, recruit. Just like so many others, since the Guard began. You have to live for your Princess. You have to fight for her. You have to be the one who tells her when she's wrong. But you also have to be ready, at any moment, to die for her. And if you can't make that choice -- that if it's any other number or her, that if it's you or her, that it always has to be her --"

He took one step forward, and the tail finally lashed.

"-- then get up. Don't say a word. Get up, go to the edge of the shield. Wait for somepony to take you back. And you'll never set a hoof onto this ground again."

A knight fights for their liege.
A knight fights for their kingdom.
There can be other lieges. There's two of them to start with.
If the kingdom falls...

"Are there any --"

Two more hoofsteps, taken so quickly that she needed a moment to realize there had been a physical crossing of that space. "-- heirs, was that your next word? No, and the only reason you get away with that once is because you don't know any better. No heirs, recruit. And it wouldn't matter. It's her. That's the only choice. ARE YOU LEAVING?"

Her tail trembled, and the warmth of the sun seemed to lose something as the rays came through the shield. Her hind hooves twitched. But she stayed where she was.

He watched her for a moment, coming no closer. Simply watching, in the moment when the lone fear was her own. The eternal fear of failure.

"That's the only answer," he said. "You took a vow, and you just might take another. Don't forget them. It's her. It's always her. It has to be. Finish your lunch and we'll get back to it."

The stallion turned away, began to walk towards the track. But he said one more thing before he reached it, and she knew the words had been meant for her to hear.

"You can be a centaur," he told the world, "or you can be a Guard."

The Tattler went through a lot of interns.

There was usually an ad somewhere in the classified section, actively seeking new applicants and in part, this was because the publication viewed the majority of interns as single-use. They required a fair amount of training before you could put them to work and if you were lucky, you would get one decent charge out of them. The best were occasionally promoted to the central staff (and Wordia herself had started that way), but the rest were released into the world to make their own way.

They were typically viewed as being single-use, and so that was exactly how they got treated. They were used, and the ones who realized that tended to drop off the subscription list.

What were the requirements for a Tattler intern? It helped to have some interest in journalism, if only so they would know what not to do. But it was much more important for an intern to be attractive. Memorization skills were required, because an intern was going to be shown pictures of the most recent palace hires and therefore they had better be capable of remembering what those ponies looked like, along with where they liked to drink. A smile helped -- Wordia had nearly failed there -- especially if it was the kind of smile which told a pony that the intern was paying attention to them alone. Those who were truly gifted might be issued an expense account, which was good for exactly one admission fee for the club of their target's choice. The ones whom management expected to let go afterwards paid their own way and worked out the lie about being reimbursed later at the same moment their hooves hit the street outside the newspaper's offices for the last time.

This intern was young, was skilled at faking charm, and had successfully used her field to swap one set of drinks. It helped to have the target be consuming for two.

"I know, right!" she falsely laughed, pitching her volume to get over the stomping which echoed from the dance floor. "Just to work for them... I bet those first few moons in the palace feel like nothing else in the world. And of course, you get all the best gossip!"

"...there's..." The target, young, of middling appearance, and who'd skipped past the suddenly-relevant portion of the New Hires briefing book, hiccuped. He wasn't used to having a mare being this interested in him, and the combinations of Dream and Alcohol had moved most of scant surviving Thought to somewhere near his poorly-groomed tail. "...there's a rule about... talking... about what we see them do..."

Her smile became that much wider.

"I don't want you to break any rules!" the intern declared. (Not that she'd told him she was an intern, or anything else which was real. He didn't even have her name, and he wouldn't get all that far into the post-encounter palace questioning before desperately wishing he could forget her face.) "It's just that -- you work for them. With everything that's going on right now. With everything that's living there..."

She leaned forward slightly, as if she was moving into position for a nuzzle. Her tongue briefly caressed her lips (and would never come close to his).

His brain stopped working, and the part which took over wasn't really meant for thinking.

"I was just wondering," she prettily smiled. "Speaking as somepony who gets to work in the palace... what's your honest opinion about the centaur?"

Disturbing

Bad things happened when you went out of bounds, and she'd spent much of her life wondering if one of them had been her fault. But those bounds were being redefined, and Cerea wasn't completely sure where the new borders were.

To a small degree, she (theoretically) had the gallop of the palace: a recruit was expected to memorize all of the hallways, and she'd been told that a full map would be delivered to the barracks for her study. But she hadn't done that much exploration on her own. The training sessions generally left her exhausted, whatever amount of strength she somehow retained had to be dedicated to clearing that much more of her sleeping quarters, and... the palace staff understood that to be her most typical location. If she wasn't on the training grounds, then she was likely in the barracks, or within a kitchen which she most likely had to herself. (The most frequent other option was an isolated restroom, because she hadn't quite broken through to the one attached to her quarters. The training grounds had a building off to one side for the cooking of meals when larger numbers of recruits were passing through, along with personal effects storage and toiletries. Lying down in front of multiple showerheads allowed her to wash up -- but once she was back in the castle, she had to go somewhere.) They wouldn't be expecting her in any other location, and...

...Cerea had taken several lessons away from the press conference, and one of the loudest echoes told her it could be a bad idea to put herself anywhere that an unsuspecting pony could just come across her. Or worse, a few dozen unsuspecting ponies, with every last one feeding the others with their fear.

It made her reluctant to explore. But the Sergeant had given her an order, and he'd also told a few ponies on the palace staff what that order had been. Nopony had been willing to even think about overriding him, and so Cerea was outside.

Outside and... alone.

How long had it been, without true privacy while under open sky? Count the time starting from the last seconds before the dark Princess had captured her in the forest, and the fever from the infection meant that most of what she remembered of that final desperate gallop was its conclusion. But she was outside in the palace gardens, because that was what the Sergeant had ordered. And she was alone, because...

"It's something a recruit should do," he'd told her. "They take the trot. Every class. Sometimes that's as a group, when there's nopony in the gardens to distract them. Others do it on their own. All of them get a statue to visit. A Guard to learn about. And that's when some of them decide they're not right for the job, because the trot is what makes them think about it. You're a class of one. So you're going."

In that sense, there had been no special accommodations made for her: if recruits were taking the trot, then the gardens were cleared. Those who maintained them departed for a while, no pegasi flew overhead, and she had been told to go early. Start the journey as the sun was still coming up, watching the sky shift from deep navy into rose and burnt orange before finally phasing into a brighter blue. Because the gardens were open to the public: the palace staff had made a special point of telling her about that. Schoolchildren took tours (and for no reason Cerea had been able to identify, two members of the staff had shuddered). They could keep visitors out for a few hours, until the time came to move her back to the training grounds. But it couldn't go on any longer than that.

She'd pictured it: coming across a touring class of colts and fillies, who hadn't been expecting to encounter

a monster

and it had taken a long time to banish the phantom echoes of their screams.

Her first time outside and alone in weeks, on a chill autumn morning. Her body temperature provided some degree of resistance to the cold, and the angora sweater -- white this time -- did the rest. (She usually felt the chill first and foremost on her human portions anyway, and it wasn't quite cold enough to be wearing gloves.) Trotting by herself, carrying a few books in a clumsily-rigged improvised backpack of looped and tied otherwise-useless blanket fragments (because she hadn't wanted to ask for anything better, and couldn't exactly shop), outside...

Too long in the cell, perhaps, and longer still on that lower palace level. Enough time for the combination of natural breezes, sunlight, and privacy to feel slightly strange.

But the breezes weren't natural.

It was her first time outside the palace while within view of it, and so she often found herself glancing back as viewing angles changed and the sun rose higher in the sky. She... hadn't been expecting it to be so large, not with so many towers rising that far into the air. A palace built during a certain age needed to be its own city, and this one was trying to do the job through occupying the space required for -- all right, not a city, and not even a town. But take the largest of sporting arenas, expand them to cover what would normally be a portion of the parking lot, render the whole thing in marble and then...

...split it.

It took multiple views before she saw what had happened, and most of that was based in the angles of the walls, added to some glimpses of structures rising from the mostly-hidden half. But the palace existed as something which had been cleaved. There appeared to be a central entrance (just barely glimpsed from the top of one minor hill), and that joining point rose what Cerea would have considered to be about eight floors into the sky: this seemed to be about right for the ponies, as the white Princess required a fairly high ceiling. There was a fair amount of structure around that entrance, enough to accommodate multiple offices on the higher levels and what might be a grand gathering space at the center. But beyond that... the palace split. A marble wing stretched out at one slightly-curving angle, and the alignment of visible, slightly more distant towers suggested a mirror structure on the other side.

She didn't understand the design. How it was supposed to work for defense, much less where anyone had found that much marble. There were ways in which it was two palaces joined at the center, and beyond that --

-- there were times when she also had glimpses of the city.

The majority of the buildings had to be smaller than the palace, and so were lost behind its shining bulk. And ponies seemed to build on a smaller scale than humans when it came to reaching for the vertical, perhaps because a third of them could seek the skies at will. Using the palace as a baseline... the tallest buildings were about twenty stories tall, and very few reached that high. Very little of the architectural styles she could try to identify from a distance could truly be compared against human counterparts, mostly for lack of detail. From what she could see, ponies seemed to largely be against sharp angles: there were a few blocked-off constructs, but the majority allowed the soft lathe of the sky to meet their walls on a gentle curve.

Stone and wood made up most of the identifiable materials. She could see very little metal at work, and most of that reinforced the sides of a rather stately clock tower. And yet there were ways in which it could almost be mistaken for a human city, at least from a distance for a few seconds. A city with great birds migrating through the upper layers --

-- birds with hooves.

How long would it take, for someone who was seeing it for the first time? To recognize that they were looking at flying ponies? How much longer to understand they were observing commuters who were taking an aerial path to work? That all of this had been built by ponies, four intelligent subspecies working together. And so many others populated the world, griffons and yaks and donkeys, holding their own nations...

She could get glimpses of the city, when she looked back. She could see a little half-circle of low-lying clouds on its northern edge, completely still on a slightly breezy day. But when she turned her attention to the west... that was when she saw civilization.

It came at the top of one of the little sculpted hills, that first truly clear view. Cerea had known the palace was built on a mountain: Nightwatch had casually mentioned it, and the girl's lungs occasionally provided reminders that full acclimation had yet to take place. The largest of multiple plateaus hosted the capital, while another held the training grounds: winding paths connected the level areas. But it was the artificial hill which gave her some concept of how high up they were, along with giving her an idea of the total scale.

For altitude... she could only guess, looking at the increasingly-sharp rise of stone as it slanted away from the city, narrowing into a peak for which winter might exist in perpetuity. But from base to snow-covered cap -- perhaps three and a half kilometers, and the city was roughly a kilometer up. It was sufficient height to let her look across a tremendous amount of landscape to the west, and nearly all of what she saw was forest. No power lines, no cell towers. Just about no roads. The trees grew wild and free, with very few signs of the desperate attempts at control which humans always seemed to inflict upon the landscape.

Forest: mostly deciduous, because it was autumn and she stared out across a riot of browns and red, with a few stray deep purples and the verdant shades which showed where the evergreens were. But she didn't see suburbs, or satellite cites. No homes were arranged around the base of the mountain, none of the little clusters of residences and businesses which would have been expected near a capital. She certainly didn't spot an airport, although an oddly-stable double-line cloud formation stretching off to the west looked a little like the borders of a runway. The capital almost seemed to be completely isolated, placed on a mountain at the edge of a forest the size of an exceptionally small country: she was sure she was looking at enough trees to create a botanical overrun of Liechtenstein. But when she looked towards the mountain's base...

No trees had been cleared for power lines, cell towers, or because a human just thought there shouldn't be a tree there. But there was a path stretching off to the west, and the reason she'd found it was because her ears had automatically tried to orient on the train's whistle.

They have railways.

Nightwatch had told her about them. But seeing the engine puffing its way along (oddly white puffs, which dispersed quickly), pulling cars behind it... it was the first real sign of technology. Closer examination found four other major trestle trails departing from the base of the mountain, and one awkwardly-angled glimpse suggested that at some point, the trains ascended towards the capital. But the one going almost directly west... that was the precious one, because it was the path she could track. The remaining four curved away after a while, leaving her sight. The western rail went on for kilometers and kilometers, until it reached a town.

She couldn't make out any real details, not from her current distance. Shapes suggested buildings, there appeared to be a dam structure off to one side, and a ring of farmland surrounded the whole thing. But there was a little pocket of life in the center of the forest.

Ponyville. She said that was the closest.... 'settled zone'.

Not that Cerea was necessarily looking at it, because there could be something closer still in another direction. But it was a new place, one which could be reached by train, and...

...Cerea had very little experience with trains, and quite a bit of the early portions had been bad. The vibrations from the wheels, the constant shaking under her hooves... centaurs knew a lot about human civilization and up until the moment of emergence, had directly experienced almost none. Looking at a train chugging along -- it gave her a choice of things to think about. France was

stay low

something she didn't want to recall. But in Japan... with her own size and the amount of space Rachnera took up, trains had been the easiest way for the household girls to move around the country, at least when their host had been with them: the typical other option had been no travel at all. And they'd fought for access to the windows, everyone except Lala because the dullahan would just quietly ask someone to hold her head near the glass. Battled for the best views, and the chance to watch the world go by.

To see

"You forgot how long you were flying again." Because someone had to admonish the harpy and in the total absence of any parental figures within the household, Cerea had more or less elected herself.

Technically, none of them were supposed to leave the residence without their host close by: the main exceptions were Cerea's (legal) morning gallops and the arachnae's frequent sneak-outs. But Papi could fly, and so she'd decided that not leaving the house only applied when she was traveling along the ground.

She usually got away with it. Papi could operate at high altitude: the majority of harpy gaps tended to be located in the most isolated parts of mountain ranges, and the species had adapted accordingly. It let her fly at levels where observers couldn't identify what she was. But that height also put her at a point where she could no longer identify major landmarks -- not that she tended to remember what those were in the first place -- and so the first months of cohabitation often found the others looking for a girl who could take a very long time to find her way home and had no real way to answer her phone while in flight, assuming she managed to locate the source of the sudden noise. And, if she became distracted enough, just might forget that there was a home waiting for her at all.

The household had finally convinced Ms. Smith to pay for a homing beacon while giving Papi an ankle bracelet which softly beeped as she neared the central signal: the key then became getting her to remember any need to put it on.

"Papi was having fun!" the slim girl had happily exclaimed, because a harpy was a creature which generally felt guilt and remorse for wrongdoing just got in the way.

"You are late for dinner," Cerea had patiently tried to explain. Food had a way of momentarily focusing Papi, especially if she was being threatened with its loss.

But the harpy had just tilted her head to the right, doing so at a speed which made it seem as if there had been no movement between the states. An upright skull at one moment, the angle at the next. Birdlike movements added to the very human expression of confusion.

"Flying is better than food." And before Cerea could react to what the harpy would normally treat as near-blasphemy, that statement was followed by another: something which emerged with an odd lack of mirth. "Flying is food for Papi's eyes."

She'd stared at the smaller female for a few seconds, even backing up a little so she could stare down more properly.

"I do not understand." Common enough when dealing with the thoughts produced by Papi's deadly combination of low intellect and horrible memory, but... the harpy looked serious. Utterly so, with even some of the larger flight feathers appearing tensed...

The cowlick curl at the front of the short-cut blue hair bobbed as Papi's head flicked back to a center position.

"At home," the harpy told her, "fly all the time. When Papi wants, without worrying about laws or Boss. But only so far. Fly over the same things every day, every year, for Papi's whole life. Beautiful, in the Carpathians. Want to show Cerea someday, take her to old home to see. But... looking at the same things, only beautiful so long. Only so many times you can see the same hollow, or stop because you saw the same outcrop. It's abhoring --" paused "-- boring. And when Papi realized it was boring, then... Papi wanted to leave. And now, can't fly as often, and Boss gets worried when Papi's gone too long, because Boss cares about Papi. Cerea cares about Papi, because Cerea worries too. But..."

The smaller girl was nearly half a meter under Cerea's height. It made the harpy's frequent spontaneous hugs exceptionally awkward, at least for how various portions of their anatomy aligned. But one loved to be hugged, the other loved to be the one who was hugging, and wings which were good for so little when their owner was back on the ground... they could still wrap a willing form. Sometimes the feathers tickled.

The harpy snuggled as close as she could, because Papi had very little sense of personal space and loved softness. Stretched up on the tips of her talons and angled her wings carefully, because the one thing Papi never forgot was how easy it could be for her to hurt someone.

"...Papi isn't there any more. New home. And when Papi flies, or when there's a train, or we're just all out together... it isn't boring. There's too much new to ever be boring again. Papi needs to fly, because Papi's eyes need food."

She'd pulled back just a little, looked up at Cerea's shocked face with the open love of a little sister.

"Papi flies," the harpy declared, "for the same reason Mero wants to swim in every new river. And why Cerea gallops." Hopefully, "Cerea understands now?"

She hadn't said anything. She'd just hugged the harpy back.

Because there were so many species. And for every last one, there had been a gap.

They had been freed, and so train windows had become worth fighting for.

This was a different world. One with a forest which stretched to the horizon, mountains and monsters and ponies. She could spend the rest of her life exploring --

-- alone.

She existed in the world, and did so without truly being a part of it.

Again.

Cerea silently turned away from the west, because a view was all there could be when you were gazing through the window of a larger prison. And after she squared her shoulders, breathed until she could imagine the familiar sadness had been driven back to its ancient home... she trotted down the little wooded peak, directly into the first dunes of the desert.

She tried to see it as touring the world, and doing so in a rather compressed format. What it mostly taught her was a little more about the range of what pegasus and earth pony magic could achieve, because human botanical gardens -- she'd insisted on touring one in Tokyo, and had almost managed to fully restrain herself from nibbling on a few samples -- needed a lot of help. It took precision to duplicate the soil balance required for growing plants so far away from their homes, enclosed areas were required for those from the most exotic climates, and then you had to worry about local insects and diseases for which the floral immigrants had no natural defense. It wasn't easy for humans to manage and you couldn't get a full range of offerings without shutting most of it within walls, relying on artificial sunlight and the kind of rain which only fell from sprinkler systems. But with magic...

It wasn't dunes being reproduced with mounds of imported sand: it was the desert. Step within and feel the heat rise, the morning sun seemingly concentrated upon cacti (with oddly-flexible, hollow needles) and those fragile blooms which usually had to lurk in wait for that precious burst of moisture. The air dried out as she crossed the border, because that was what the desert plants knew and at any rate, the moisture was being used about fifty meters to her left, in the little patch of rain forest.

She spent some time there, retreating back to the desert when her sweater threatened to become too damp. But it was hard to leave, especially when staying just another minute would have allowed her to hear that much more birdsong. And there had been a moment when bright yellow wings had flown right up to her, shining eyes hovering so close to her own, just looking at her...

A world which barely knew centaurs and had never known humans hadn't evolved a fear of that form. When dealing with monsters, it was a problem: for birds, she was a curiosity and unless she made a move which startled them... they simply looked. And so she stayed as long as she could, listening to the whirring of wings and snippets of songs as something deep within her searched for a glimpse of blue feathers and hoped for a welcoming hug.

But it could never come, not here. To the birds, she was simply something new, and only that which could think had decided to see her as a threat.

Back to the desert, just long enough for the fabric to dry out. And then she proceeded through glen, around a swamp and over a clear stream, paying more attention to plants and climate than the myriad of stone decorations. The pegasi created the proper environments for each section of the gardens, making sure they remained distinct from each other. Earth ponies ensured that every plant received exactly what it needed from the soil in order to thrive, and it made the gardens into the most variegated source of beauty she'd ever seen.

There were blooms which she recognized, things replicated in her own world. Others shimmered, or curved in odd ways while fruits of strange shapes sagged from low branches. She was careful not to touch anything, because she had to be a good guest -- and while neither poison ivy nor oak grew in France, she was familiar with the concept. She'd seen some of what the local forest could produce, and plants which knew magic could have their own ways of discouraging contact. And that was just the plants...

Nightwatch had called Ponyville a 'settled zone'. It was a term which would normally beg a number of questions -- but she'd also experienced a few of the risks to be found in the wild. Ponies trying to carve out places in which they could safely live, in a world where nature had many more means of fighting back.

Many of the plants had little signs nearby: she presumed those were identification labels for species and origin. Others had signs bordered in red: those were perceived as having added warnings. But she couldn't read them, and when it came to making any active attempt to decipher... that was waiting somewhere up ahead.

She trotted. There were places where it was more of a hike. Upslopes tended to have little hollows placed for hooves to find purchase, but hers weren't at the standard separation distance: it took some time before she spotted the side path of supports which had probably been intended for the larger Princess. She looked at the plants (but still not the inanimate which was hosted among them, or the words she couldn't read at their bases), found a few insects known and non sheltering within the miniature biomes, and carefully dipped her body low enough to gather one handful of soil, wanting to see if it felt as rich as it smelled. It did.

There was a section of the gardens which was almost like the south of France and upon realizing that, she quickly went around it.

And then she saw the little peak.

The air changed as she crossed the border, coming in from the little northern prairie. It chilled, and did so at the same moment it thinned.

There was already some degree of change present, this far up the mountain. Her initial step across the line had brought her forehooves up by about fifteen centimeters, resting on the first flat plane of snow-dusted granite: the lowest part of what was meant to serve as a staircase formation. It had also instantly elevated her lungs by about two extra (and virtual) kilometers, and she spent a few seconds in gasping, trying to acclimate to the lower oxygen level.

There was a miniature stone pillar on her left, one where the top had been hollowed out in a half-sphere of vacuum, with multiple clear partial bubbles of glass lying within. It would have come up to a place just below the average pony's snout, and that realization made her understand what the half-bubbles were for -- but she didn't have a snout, and so the one she managed to recover couldn't fully adhere over what didn't exist. She felt the magic trying to take hold, and the air she breathed from it was normal enough -- but the whole assembly kept slipping down her nose, and she eventually wound up using one hand to stabilize it at just about all times.

It was cold as she moved across stone and snow, becoming more so with every hoofstep. But her free arm didn't come up to cover the results, because the sweater was fairly plush and... she was alone. Unblinking eyes placidly watched her from the peak as she ascended, and she was still completely alone.

And then there was a statue.

She hadn't been entirely sure what an ibex was. A truly dedicated study of naturalism was like looking at tourism guides: she would have been learning about things which could never be personally seen and at any rate, animals didn't have the same power to inspire dreams as towns and towers. There were things she knew -- but they weren't enough and in any case, there had to be species which were native to this world alone. Not recognizing 'ibex' as a name had suggested that the latter was potentially in play. But when she saw it...

How to perceive it, when compared to something of her world? Her mind began with the concept of mountain goat, and quickly added full sapience. The stone hooves were cloven, but it was in a way which had left portions projecting forward in wedge formations: something suitable for being jammed against rock, or into the smallest of cracks. It was hard to pick up on the full shape of the barrel: stone suggested a rather dense coat of fur in that area, especially along the underbelly. All four legs were somewhat thin, but the shoulders and hips were powerful, and the tail was so short as to resemble a dusting brush.

The head... she hadn't been expecting the horns or rather, she hadn't been expecting their direction: they both arced back over the skull, the ridged cones curving along the length of their growth to the point where they almost touched the creature's neck. Both deer-like ears were fully upright and alert, carefully-carved stone hairs seemed to twitch within their interiors. Stone eyes possessed horizontal pupils, and that was the hardest part of the fixed gaze to get used to. But the mouth...

There were different hues of stone around the jaw. They suggested a lightening of fur on the muzzle and under that nearly-flat nose. The sunlight soaking into the motionless form added highlights and a degree of softening to that area. It was something which seemed to imply a smile.

The stone ibex stood eternal watch. Partially checking the approach staircase to see if anyone was on the way, with the rest of its regard on the distant castle. And at the base of its forehooves, there was a granite plaque which bore runes from two alphabets, rendered from gold and silver blended in twisting harmony.

She carefully reached into the backpack (and, just for a second, was glad no human had seen her left arm bend in such an unnatural fashion). Extracted a slim notebook, and flipped through the pages until she found the characters which Nightwatch had told her to trace.

(Nightwatch had seemed so distracted during that last lesson. Talking more at Cerea than to her, and the little knight's scent had told the girl that the pegasus was concerned about something -- but the small mare hadn't been willing to talk about it. Any attempts the centaur had made to ask if everything was okay had been deflected in favor of lessons, and the excuse was that there had been a day when the pegasus had taken her own trot through the gardens.)

Cerea looked at the first rendition: Equestrian characters. Below that, a language which no longer had a native speaker in the capital, placed both in memory and the hopes that someone from a lost homeland would visit. But in the decades of the statue's presence, only ponies had come...

...and now there was a centaur. Looking at two rows of runes, each with the same meaning. A name.

Blitzschritt.

She looked into stone eyes again, and did so from slightly below: staying on a lower step, allowing the statue to keep its watch unimpeded. Went back to the book, and eventually wound up bringing out the rest of her language class notes, brushing the snow off a step in order to give her a reading surface.

It was impossible to translate the whole of it. Nightwatch hadn't recited the inscription from memory: instead, she'd softly told Cerea that every recruit had to take their own trip into the centuries. And if the Sergeant had told her that Blitzschritt was the place where a centaur should begin... then all Nightwatch could do was point the way.

So all the girl had was her notes, and it wasn't enough. Entire lines were lost to her: all she could do was take out some carefully-wrapped charcoal and make a rubbing

a tombstone rubbing

of the whole thing, so she would be able to carry the words back. But she could make out some of it, because there had been lessons and... some words had come early. The pony written language had a very simple way of indicating the past tense, and a single character changed 'death' to 'died'. The Sergeant had pointed out 'service' engraved into the arch of the building entrance at the training grounds, 'Princess' had been one of the first words, and teaching Cerea about money had meant going into the realm of numbers...

She flipped between pages of multiple books, made notes in another, until a portion of a sentence yielded.

died in service to the Princess, so that all could live.

There was more than that, above and below: words she could not read. But there were also numbers and after a while, she assembled a few of them: 1127. Numbers which followed two words...

Her badge number? Not that she'd seen Guards wearing badges. Something about which shift she was on, and how long? Days of service, or...

...time. The name of a day. A month, or in this case, a moon. And then a year.

A hundred and forty-eight years ago. Which, if her guess was right and the date marked the ibex's death, made the current year 1275. (Not that she knew how long a year was, or how the ponies had chosen a point to count from.)

'in service to the Princess...'

That seemed odd, to have no mention of which Princess had been involved. But it was possible that the identification was in the portion she couldn't read. Or -- this felt like a possibility -- that the names were inherited with the position. If you held the Solar throne, then you were Celestia: similar to how human royalty liked to attach 'the Second' on up to titles, only without the need to keep count. Maintaining continuity.

Not that she understood how Princesses were chosen yet. Perhaps it was alicorns only ('alicorn' had been another early-arriving word), because they came from a single royal bloodline where the current rulers had yet to produce heirs...

...for all I know, they're elected positions. It would be in the citizenship classes. But for what she had before her, the statue and the plaque... a name, what might be a date, and a dedication of sorts. That was all she could make out.

And once again, she looked into the stone pupils.

Who were you?
How did you die?
Why did you make that choice?
Did you... the cold increased ...think about it? Was there a second where you knew you were going to die if you acted, but... she would live?
Did you doubt yourself?
Or was it instinct? Did you just move, and you didn't realize what had happened to you until...
Maybe you never knew. Maybe it was that fast. You were here, and then you were...

Cerea had been presented with teachings about the afterlife. They were, like so much of centaur culture, heavily modified from an ancient Greek base, and that had initially meant something so dismal as to have generations of religious philosophy working overtime just to soften the final blow. There was supposed to be a place waiting for centaurs who led good lives, or found a way for their deaths to help the herd. Something which served as a reward.

But the girl didn't know what she believed, because the teachings about centaur afterlife talked about centaurs. Occasionally, one of the other liminals would drift through a paragraph, and it was suggested that they had their own regions within the ephemeral realms. But humans weren't really mentioned at all, and...

...it felt like centaurs had decided existence after death was something which came with its own gaps.

It was hard enough to live that way. The thought of dying for the best of reasons and just finding herself... isolated...

There had been some unexpected side effects to the first wave of integration, and one of the least surprising (to Cerea, anyway) was seeing liminals taking up human religion -- in the same manner that someone visiting an all-you-can-eat buffet could be described as taking up food. You might try things from a single section of the long table. Others freely mixed odd ingredients on their plate, then covered it with a binding sauce while all the other diners glared at them. Some switched their taste every other week, trying to find something which would fit. Liminals had found Catholicism, and that had generally been followed by finding a Reform temple right next door which had better songs. (The Orthodox branch had been rejected by most species, in large part because some of the dietary requirements were impossible.) Anything with reincarnation was popular, because the thought of eventually experiencing humanity from the other side had a certain appeal. But when it came to what Cerea believed...

...she wasn't sure she did. Or if she ever had.

She didn't know what ponies believed: a single faith, or an assemblage as chaotic as human and liminal religions combined. There were other species, and that suggested other systems of belief. But it was an awkward topic to ask about, and in any case...

Everything she had been told about was a world away. This was somewhere else, a place with magic and ponies and what might be its own deities. If her promised afterlife had ever been real, it might not be able to find her, or she it. And if there was something true waiting for the dead in this land -- it might not have any place for a centaur.

The girl looked into the stone eyes again, and realized she was shivering.

You could be an ibex, or you could be a Guard.
You died for your Princess.
You thought you would be dying for something...

On the way to the false peak, she had been looking at the plants.

On the way out, she finally examined that which she had been overlooking in favor of the living. She looked at statues. And some of them were of monsters, and others of creatures. Animal species which echoed those she knew, only with an aspect of sapience in motionless eyes.

But there were also statues wearing stone armor.
Nearly all of them were of ponies.
There were so many statues...

Discordant

The siblings silently watched, gazing down at that unique figure as it slowly moved towards the palace again. They had no concerns about being spotted: most of the recruits who exited the gardens after their tour would trot with their heads lowered, everything within them weighed down by long thoughts. In this, as with so many other things, the girl was no different.

And in the event that she had looked up... not only would she have needed to randomly pick the balcony of exactly the right tower to gaze at, but she also would have been up against the most talented illusionist Equestria had ever produced.

Celestia had actually asked the younger about that: whether the girl might have any capacity to pierce illusion. Luna had thought about it for a time, then replied in the positive -- a rather tentative version. A touch from the sword would likely cancel out the magic holding a false vision together. But when it came to perceiving the true without the use of that thing -- illusions created by ponies were manipulations of light and, for those with the talent, sound. They didn't pass along their lies through a direct tap into the target's senses: that was a changeling's dominion, and so pony illusions didn't include scent. Luna could create a perfect mirage, as with the one which currently displayed an empty balcony (as long as those hidden by that veil didn't move too much). But it could only fool sight and hearing. It was possible that Cerea would be able to smell their distant presence, where a pony could not. And an alicorn's natural scent was a little like that of the other three races combined, with unique factors added in -- but it also smelled like nothing else in the world.

They were several stories above the ground, cloaked by illusion. But they still weren't entirely sure what the girl was capable of, and so Celestia had also redirected the wind. Just in case.

Eventually, the centaur was close enough to the walls to be hidden from sight. And about a minute after that, they heard heavy doors close.

"A longer tour than most," the younger quietly noted, her horn beginning to dim. "And that without having covered the entirety of the gardens."

"She had a lot to think about," Celestia softly countered. "I could almost see her counting statues on the way back, at least when it was possible to see her. And... she hasn't been outside in a while. Not by herself."

Luna's sigh wasn't truly chill: the younger's body warmed the air within her lungs, the same as every other pony -- but it was almost always a little cooler around her, and so that warm breath wafted through an aura of concern-created cold, becoming briefly visible as a rising cloud of personal mist. "Something for which there are currently very few solutions."

"Yes." The matching expression from the elder didn't quite manage to emerge as steam: she wasn't upset enough for that. But the siblings had been mutually dealing with various sources of stress, and Celestia was all too aware that she had to get back inside and under a tighter degree of control. By her rather experienced estimate, the two of them were one more piece of bad news away from potentially beginning to produce their own fog bank.

Wryly, "Want to talk about some of the other things we can't solve?"

"Ah," Luna sarcastically considered. "So with my already having been awake beyond my normal hours, you wish for me to both remain alert for a longer period and have reasons for a rather poor sleep, if only so that your personal state might gain company -- and what is that thought?"

"Sorry?" Celestia automatically asked.

Evenly, "Doctor Bear has his own way of indicating when an inner vision has taken him away for a time. As do you."

Which was when she realized that her head had gone up, and it made her look as if she was examining the sky -- but the purple eyes were fixed upon that which no longer existed.

White lids slowly closed.

The voices were soft, decibels worn down from the effort required to cross centuries. "I was thinking about how we used to push our beds together. Or the blanket nests, after we lost them. Under a single blanket on the best nights, when we were traveling. When it was all getting to us, when we had to hang onto ourselves. We had to know something was real, and the best anchor was... each other. Just sleeping with our bodies pressed up against each other. So it would feel safe enough to sleep, and... like we would still be ourselves when we woke up. But with the cycle, it's almost impossible to do that now. Something else which changed..."

The elder was now looking directly at Sun, and did so without pain. She was the only one in the world who could. And still the tears rose in her eyes.

A smaller body pressed against hers, and there was a moment when she could not reconcile the weight of the wings.

"You shared my bed," the younger quietly reminded her. "On the first night after the Return."

Automatically, "You were exhausted. We both were. I couldn't get you out of Ponyville for hours, I knew you'd been under Sun too long --"

"-- even knowing that the Nightmare was dead," readily interrupted the flow, "and I would be the one who woke." Nearly a whisper, "Or did you fear something else?"

The elder closed her eyes again.

"Fear." The word was almost heavy enough to crack the marble. "I was afraid that when I woke up -- it would be just that. Waking up to find that everything which had happened was no more than a dream." Whispering now, as the flow of semi-tangible mane and tail slowed, "Because I had that dream so many times, Luna. I didn't know who the Bearers would be, and when it came down to the last few years, my mind started to put Twilight into the group. But most of the time, you were saved by phantoms. There were nights where it happened in the ruins. One had the final confrontation at Star's old workshop. He was there in some of the dreams, with the others. And sometimes... you would be there. All of us together, facing the Nightmare. Dream logic, what there is of it: we were all together, so you had to be there. But I would always wake up, and it wouldn't be time yet, I didn't know if anything would work, and... I would always wake up. Wake up, and... you would be gone again. I..."

She took a breath. The huge rib cage shifted, and two sets of foreign feathers brushed against her fur.

"...shared a bed because you were back. Because it had been a thousand years, a thousand years, and I can barely think about that number. Not when I had to live through all of it, one second at a time, just for a chance. I stayed because I had to know you were really there. That it had worked, that I had you back after my mistake --"

Two sets of tears were falling.

"-- you did not know, Tia. It was the last thing you had to try --"

"-- I could have thought of something else --" And had spent a millennium of nightmares in wondering what 'something else' could have been.

"-- and I," the younger softly countered, "might have done a better job of seeking out somepony to speak with, in the last nights before it all took place. Before speaking with the last entity anypony should ever trust. I could have turned away. Question your actions as much as you might wish, sister: I had sufficient time during --" dark wings trembled "-- internal burial to do the same. But there is a saying in Protocera, is there not? Something which has never entirely taken root here, and might benefit our own citizenry if it had. We look back, we consider what might have been different --"

The younger's eyes closed, and every star dimmed.

"-- 'And no one would have suffered had they not been born.' The past is fixed, Tia. We cannot change a moment of it. But we are here, and this is now --"

"-- and that's what I was afraid of," the elder's pain broke in. "That I would wake up, and it wouldn't be now. It wouldn't be time yet, because getting you back was just another dream. I wanted to wake up and find you there. I needed that anchor. I..."

They stayed there for a time, pressed against each other. It was necessary and, just as much to the point, it was once again possible.

"More than four years," Celestia eventually whispered. "I should be better at dealing with this --"

"-- four," Luna interrupted, "weighed against a thousand."

Not without humor, "Everypony usually expects me to resolve a year's worth of disasters in about two seconds. I'm still off the pace."

"Yes. Well, we have what might be disaster sufficient for a decade brewing at our own gates," Luna wryly observed. "But as I have some personal experience with such things, I am prepared to allot us well over a minute. Shall we?"

They were using some of the secret passages. It granted them privacy and, in the cases of those travelways where they were the only ponies who ever used them, offered the opportunity to dust.

"I am hoping that the Tattler pursued its typical course of exaggeration," Luna declared as a field-held rag wiped down a trigger plate. "Even after having read both the article and the transcript of the palace's own interview with the one who was so unfortunate as to provide its base."

"A 'faction' within the palace," Celestia semi-quoted as her horntip scraped some built-up gunk out of a narrow crack in the stone. "Of true loyalists to Equestria, and that even fits in with the Tattler's usual definition of loyalty to the nation: going against everything we stand for."

"I regret not having been present when that one reporter expressed the sentiment in a way which Rainbow Dash understood," Luna dryly stated. "Fishing her out of the dam afterwards was somewhat less entertaining. Regardless, when it comes to our own staffs, I accept that there are those who are less than comfortable with Cerea's presence, and wish that she was not here at all. But I hardly believe they are working from within to rid the nation of centaurs. Orders have been followed: our keeping her within the cells would have 'leaked' long before the sighting. Those supposedly wishing to operate directly against us simply would have needed to capture a single image and send it to the press."

"But there were rumors," Celestia countered. "That we had her. Those were going around before Wordia."

"It was public knowledge that we were involved in the hunt," Luna reminded the elder. "To that degree, the presumption was a natural one."

"Rumors," the white mare darkly stated as the temperature flared within the shadowed passage, "still require ponies to spread them --"

Stopped.

"-- and this," Celestia quietly said, "is what they want. That we'll start doubting the ones who've sworn oaths, looking for enemies among those closest to us, and working to undermine them before they can do the same. I believe there's ponies on our staffs who wish she had never come here, Luna. Who hate coming to work in the palace during cycles when they know she's in it. But I'm not about to start questioning everypony as to where they stand, especially not when we know where this article came from. The numbers are being exaggerated."

Softly, the touch of moonlight sliding across stone. "And if they are not?"

"Then we," the elder declared, "are still in charge. Anything done has to get past us. They've been following orders, Luna. I'd prefer them to be happy about it -- but in this case, I'll settle for following."

"You will understand," the younger stated as the passage and cleaning efforts began to slant upwards, "if I continue to keep my ears rotated. In the event that we happen to be wrong."

With a small smile, "I don't expect anything else."

Several ancient layers of grime found new homes on cloth, which was followed by enjoying a fresh existence as ash. It was easier than sending anything through the laundry sixty times.

"How's Nightwatch?" Celestia checked. "I did see your notes."

Luna sighed. "'Stubborn' would be an accurate description. I have attempted to provide her with multiple courses of action. The first was to abandon the apartment for a time, while we set up surveillance to see who had been entering the building." Darkly, "Something which does very little if the one posting threats lives within, but hiding somepony on her floor would require an empty space. Such as her abandoned apartment."

"And she said no?" There was some genuine surprise in that, enough that it echoed longer than the accompanying hoofsteps.

"Even when offered the option to live at the palace," Luna confirmed. "I also stated that we would pay for a hotel room. Her excuse for refusing that was to say it could put the rest of those in the hotel at risk."

"Which doesn't apply to the palace, when they can't get in --" Celestia began to protest.

"-- and her excuse for that was that she did not wish for the threatening party to feel they had made her retreat. You might imagine that she combined the arguments when refusing to request the hospitality of another Guard. And as a final option, even knowing that you have had your eye on her at least once before with the prospect of cross-staff filching -- I proposed that she simply, and temporarily, move to the Solar shift. Twisting the hours in which others would expect her to be at home." Luna sighed. "However, 'stubborn' continued to apply. I did not quite reach the point of a direct order, not at this stage: some degree of her life away from the palace should remain her own. But I am sorely tempted. She believes they will do no more than threaten and leave behind things meant to trigger several kinds of nausea. And I would hope that she is correct, but..."

The younger fell silent, and so new echoes reached them.

"How far away are we from Apex Tower?" Celestia asked, because she knew the answer and several kinds of company were desirable when approaching the heart of expected misery.

"Another two minutes," Luna replied.

"And we're hearing them. Across that distance, through this much stone..."

"Yes. I suspect we will be soundproofing the forward offices tomorrow. This must be rather distracting."

And then they were looking at it. Something which took a lot of head turning and examination on multiple elevations.

The majority of the protestors were unicorns, because it was Canterlot and on her best day, Mrs. Panderaghast considered just about anypony cooperative from the other two races to be extremely temporary allies of convenience. It was in the same way a dirty face tried an allied napkin.

(It was rather hard for an organization which promoted the inherent superiority of unicorns to fundraise from earth ponies and pegasi: simply ordering them to donate didn't work, saying they weren't intelligent enough to decide how their own bits should be managed tended to backfire, and door-to-door visits meant talking to your lessers while being in range of the more physical counterarguments. However, CUNET did have a few non-unicorn members, which they trotted out at every opportunity to prove they weren't speciesist. Those ponies were real, tended to blush when somepony deigned to actually speak with them, and had signed on because anypony possessing that combination of deepest horn envy and near-fatal low self-esteem generally found a way of taking it out on themselves.)

But Canterlot had pegasi and earth ponies among its population. The capital had also been one of Tirek's first targets, and the sisters blamed themselves for that: all of the device and wonder shops in the Heart, the concentration of magic within the armory, and the chance to drain them. They'd done everything they could, and some of it had helped -- but the evacuations hadn't been completed in time. He had arrived much more quickly than they'd expected, even with everything they'd kicked at him in the name of mere delay, and...

It could be said, with complete accuracy, that nopony in Canterlot didn't know a minimum of one pony who'd been drained: the actual low number was closer to fifteen. Extend the connections across the social web, and it was also true that just about everypony had been at least passingly familiar with somepony who'd died.

They had been violated. They had lost friends, family, and lovers. The one who had done it was beyond their reach, and so all they had been able to do was seek help for their pain as best they could, at least for those who had been willing to admit help was needed.

But now there was a centaur in the palace.

CUNET's line was closest to the gates. Behind them, the diversity was considerably more scattershot: earth ponies, a number of unicorns who'd decided they had to be there and weren't going to get caught dead in the other line, those pegasi who'd reached the point where they needed a ground rest... and then you had intermingled zebras, yaks, several buffalo, and the city's one and only kudu family had decided this was a worthwhile use of a morning out. Higher up, pegasi were flying in protest formation, occasionally pausing to make room as the Aviary continued to empty itself out and Canterlot's near-microscopic griffon neighborhood found a new residence in the most mobile of the lines.

The first line started about six body lengths back from the gates. The ground-based crowd only began to thin out after an additional thirty, although part of that was because a buffalo was always going to want as much space as possible and few crowding ponies ever tried to deliberately trigger that droning protest chant twice unless they had found a way to use it as a weapon. And when it came to the air... they were looking down at all of it through a mobile cloud of feathers and fur. Along with a new veil of illusion, because neither sibling was stupid.

Both kept looking for a while. There was a lot to see.

"There are," Luna finally said, "rather more than I had expected."

Celestia nodded.

"Admittedly, there have been other times when the trend was for initial increase," the younger went on, keeping her words low. "Some are simply late to their public rage. Others wait for time off from work." She hesitated. "Regardless..."

"The numbers are going up faster than we thought they would," Celestia finished.

Darkly, "At least we are not at our theoretical maximum yet."

"Wait." And the elder failed to find a single tombstone's worth of graveyard humor in her own voice. "There may be ponies coming in on the next few trains."

They kept watching. Several zebras had brought cauldrons along, which turned out to be mostly full of water: this was the primary refreshment area for the non-CUNET protestors. Celestia wasn't entirely sure what was in the last specimen and 'lunch' was a possibility, but she didn't like the way in which the red smoke spiraled off the surface.

"We may have erred," Luna quietly considered. "I had hoped that our citizens would be able to see through the veil of their fear. But there are more ponies there than would be expected from the most local Tattler districts. More species. We brought her into the light, and they jump away from shadows which exist only in their memories..."

"You know what the other choices were." But the elder couldn't block out all of the doubt.

"Isolation," the younger nodded. "Two varieties from which to choose. But they remember Tirek, and apply all of it to her. Because they have no experience of her. They perceive a centaur, not even the same kind as before, and fail to see the girl..."

The smaller alicorn shivered.

"We must arrange for the first public meetings," Luna stated. "Quickly."

Celestia distractedly nodded, continuing to look down --

"-- oh, great." It was half a moan.

"Sister?

"Approaching on the far left. First touring class of the day." She was already turning. "I may need to send some Guards out there to make sure they get into the palace without a problem." Groaning, "And if there's anyone in that crowd who's angry enough, that makes them a target. With children around..."

"The police?" Luna inquired as she matched direction and pace.

"Already out there, at the edges. Supervising. And ready to make a move, but they're not wearing armor. The other option is that I go down there --"

"-- we --"

"-- my hours. You've arguably been awake too long already: you need rest." The mirth of the dead finally slipped in. "I'm also the bigger target."

"Who is seen as the lesser threat," Luna countered. "However, this is your part of the cycle, so the lead is yours. I simply stand ready to follow."

They hurried.

"I'm going to meet them in the gardens," the elder sighed. "Once they get through. Sun and Moon, anypony blocking them will just say they were trying to protect children from having to deal with a centaur..."

"I will join you."

"You," the elder firmly said as her right forehoof tapped the stone which opened the passage, "need sleep --"

"-- they are children," Luna evenly replied, slipping behind her sibling into the shadows. "The opportunity to meet the young seldom arises." Dark eyes closed. "And perhaps there will be no screams."

"Pegasi are usually the biggest problem," the sergeant snorted, wiry legs accelerating as he led the lone recruit towards the center of the racing track's oval and the new flock of training dummies which had been set up there.

There were also two buckets. It was very easy to spot the buckets, because they were the widest objects on the ground.

"Tell me why that is," Emery Board ordered, and did so without looking back. The words would come or the shout would demand to know why: either way, eye contact wasn't required.

It took a moment for the girl to sort it out.

"Range?"

"Is that a QUESTION? An observation? Or a GUESS?"

"...they can fly," Cerea tried, because experience was a teacher and in this case, the lessons came in the form of some very humiliating memories. "I've -- had to fight flying opponents before, and..."

That made him glance back, doing so just in time to spot the first wave of blush.

"What were their attacks like? When they were in the air?"

"...minimal," the centaur admitted. "One of them was capable --" her skin was beginning to provide an interesting contrast to the sweater "-- of sending insects out to attack for her. Stinging ones. I tried to block as many as I could, but... one got through, and --"

"One out of how many?"

She didn't know, and said so. "It was a swarm." Something which made it impossible to truly count.

"One," he repeated. "Out of a swarm."

The sweater was going to begin smoldering from the heat suffusing her skin at any second. "Yes. It meant I failed --"

"-- how were you fending them off?"

She briefly raised the sword.

"A swarm," the sergeant said. "Directed by an enemy, so it probably started going in from the front, then split off and went for your flanks. Trying to sting you in the areas which couldn't be reached. So you would have been moving all over the place to compensate, which meant continually exposing new vulnerable zones. Fighting them off with a blunt blade."

Cerea was silent. He'd described the situation accurately and as far as she was concerned, that removed all need for her to speak.

"And one got through."

Humiliation weighed down the nod, turning it into more of a head dip.

He was quiet for a moment. She wasn't sure how to deal with that.

"How about the rest of the fliers?"

"They had to descend to attack. Swoops, mostly. They relied on their talons. One of them had claws to go with them, but she also had six limbs. But none of them carried weapons, or tried to drop anything. The talons are weapons." Papi was kind, gentle, extraordinarily good with children -- and could gut most living creatures from shoulders to hips with a single swipe. "So they rely on hit-and-run tactics. It meant they had to close in before they could hit, but they'd also retreat if they thought I had a chance to intercept them."

"And all you had was the sword?"

"Usually, sergeant."

He stopped in front of the left-side bucket, which required some maneuvering to get around all the poles. "Look up."

She did. A dozen training dummies failed to look down.

There had been some extra attention paid to detail on the latest versions. They were meant to be pegasi and so they had been placed high in the air, with a single support pole under each belly -- but there were also wings. Flexible metal frames stretched out from the sides of every false pony, and each was adorned with what almost looked like the proper alignment of feathers.

Alignment -- but not hue. Just about every pegasus she'd seen had wings of a single color: the lone exception had possessed two. The training dummies had been decorated with the donations of dozens, and so the whole array looked as it had recently been assaulted by a suicide mission of psychedelic parrots.

"With one exception, your fliers had to close in," the sergeant summarized. "Tell me about pegasi."

"They... don't," she tried, and before the next shout could get past the inhalation phase, "They can attack from the sky and stay in it, because their attacks move to ground level without them. Wind, rain --" she hesitated, because there was something in her which really didn't want to say the next word any more than it wanted to experience being on the receiving end. "-- lightning..."

"They can," the old stallion allowed. "But it's more limited than they want you to think."

She held silent. Waiting.

"A pegasus works with what's in the environment," Emery Board told her. "They compress, disperse, and relocate. They can't create. A pegasus in the desert, with the sun blazing down and no humidity to work with -- the only cloud they're going to be weaving would be made from their own sweat. And the best can pull that off, but there won't be much in it. It means that most of the time, they'll rely on wind: gusts are something they can send ahead of them. But it takes a lot of wind to disorient someone your size. They'd have to get up to a tornado if they were going to get you off your hooves, and a funnel is something they have to stay with, flying around it to maintain the formation. Won't stop the smart ones from trying to drive dirt into your eyes -- but you're big enough to be wind-resistant, and you're not going to see tornado-level talents that often anyway."

He nodded towards the left-side bucket. She moved closer to it, carefully working her way around the poles so she could approach from a different angle.

"Any pegasus," the old stallion educated, "can learn any technique. All of them, if they care to try. It's not like unicorns, where they all have a personal capacity. But they don't necessarily have the strength to power the magic. Doesn't mean much if you understand how to create a funnel when you can't get the wind speed together. But there's another way they're different: they can operate in groups. Unicorns need to know a working just to put their strength together, that tops out at three, and everypony has to know the merger spell. Pegasi -- they just need to have the technique, and then they can contribute. But it's not unlimited, because magic is personal. Everypony works it in a slightly different way, and when you get enough differences in a small area, clashing against each other -- well, that's their backlash. It's called a tangle, and that's something Nightwatch can tell you more about. For now, I want you to focus on what a truly cumulative effort means when it comes to shutting it down."

He looked at her, eyes so close to stone under the brim of the unmoving hat. It was the sort of look which wanted an answer.

"Disperse the flock," Cerea said, "or lessen the numbers."

The sergeant nodded towards the left-side bucket again. "Take one. Don't squeeze it."

She looked down.

The light beige wood had been almost perfectly carved and fused into sphere form: she could just barely see the join lines on some of the closer balls. Each was about the diameter of her palm, and the first one she cupped shifted slightly against her skin as a tiny bubble of air allowed some of the internal liquid to move.

"A pegasus can send her weapons ahead of her, staying in the sky," he instructed. "But the only one most of them can really aim is wind. Unless you're dealing with one of the best, lightning does what it always does: seeks the tallest object, or goes for the right kind of metal. Guard armor is enchanted: it doesn't serve as a beacon. It means that unless you're the biggest thing in an open area --"

She wished he wouldn't talk about her size so much.

"-- there's no guarantee it'll hit you. Somepony with a mark for lightning -- they're the ones to watch for: they can pick out trees, and the best could choose a big branch. With the rest, most of the contact is going to be pure bad luck. But it can still put you out, if they're strong enough. So you need to shut that down. There's a few ways of doing that. And rain... heavy enough can disorient you, but it also makes it harder for the pegasus to see, even with their vision. Cools you off on the surface, brings you closer to the same temperature as everything else --"

She was staring at him.

"-- right," he brusquely declared. "Nopony got around to that with you yet, and Nightwatch didn't mention it because it's so natural to her, she didn't think about it. Pegasi can see heat. The adults, anyway. It's blurry for the youngsters, but it clears up when they're old enough for their own magic." Almost casually, while her eyes still refused to blink, "Can't shift the temperature around when you can't spot what you're working with. They'll maneuver on it as a last resort when the light goes bad, but the average flier hasn't practiced. And both of the Generals have their own version of a flash-bang trick to take that out."

She'd known Miia's vision went into the infrared: it was what allowed the lamia to home in on any source of heat in a room, such as a sleeping centaur who had retired to her rest with no expectation of being wrapped by scales. Cerea had once asked her what the colors looked like. Miia had thought about it for a few seconds, and then asked Cerea how grass tasted.

Miia could see heat -- and the tongue which occasionally flicked against the air possessed almost no taste buds. Lamias were just about pure carnivores: they could consume a few grains, but vegetables did nothing for them. They had no objection to half-rotten meat, because their bodies could process the stuff while never telling the brain just how foul it truly was. That was one of the factors which made Miia such a horrible cook: the inability to truly taste-test as she went along, and it was something she never seemed to truly learn from --

-- but she didn't know what grass tasted like. Or apples. Miia would never be capable of seeing a carrot as anything more than an annoying root which someone else insisted had to be added for imperceptible flavoring. And every so often, living among the other girls... the lamia would wonder what she'd been missing.

How did you describe a sense to someone who didn't really have it? They'd both tried. But all Miia had been able to manage was describing heat as being like the sort of chili pepper burn you could see, and only because she knew Cerea was so vulnerable to chili peppers. The centaur had tried to tell the lamia that grass was probably like having the world being carpeted in small mice. And that had been it.

Nightwatch could see heat, and hadn't mentioned that because it was natural for her. Cerea didn't talk about arms and hands and breasts because it was too awkward, and... she didn't know any other way to be.

"The worst they can usually do is hail," the sergeant continued. "Hail's the real nightmare, especially if they can get the stones up to hoof size. Hail can send an army running for cover. But unless they're hitting you on just the right day or got the area ready in advance, they can't set up for hail in a hurry. It takes at least a few minutes to tweak things that much: the hotter it is, the longer they need. And again, they need the moisture. So overall -- they can hit you from the sky, but the aim's usually bad. Unless they've got the whole area set up just right, they need to see you, and that means staying low enough that you might be able to spot them. A pegasus can look for heat through vapor -- but that's not always easy. So if they're looking down at you, it's probably through a hole they kicked in the cloud. That means you can see them. And once you see them..."

He nodded at the sphere.

"Checked with a zebra after the General contacted me," he told her. "I wanted a fresh batch for this. What you're holding is one of their weapons, and it's meant for use against pegasi. Closest translation in Equestrian would be whiffwings. Move out of the poles. Take the buckets with you."

She easily carried the twin masses along: the flat center of a raised grip meant for a jaw worked perfectly well for hands, and the weight was minimal. He stayed within the little jungle of poles.

"Stop." She did. "Take out the sling. I want to see how many tries you need to hit a wing."

The answer was three: the first sphere cracked open against a dummy's face, and thin purple liquid began to soak into the fabric. The second took a journey to the land of Utter Miss, and the last burst on impact as readily as the original --

-- the liquid thickened. Drips became stretching tendrils, those tendrils contacted the dummy's flanks, and artificial wings slammed against wooden sides.

Emery Board didn't look up. Didn't move, and certainly didn't smile. He just focused on the shocked expression of his recruit.

"Harmless until it touches feathers," he stated. "Then it turns into glue crossed with springs. A pegasus hit by this can flare their wings out enough for a glide, if they act fast. But it's going to be a constant strain, and as soon as they release the effort, that's it. Can't fly. The less they can move, the less magic they can access. So the natural followup, once you've got them on the ground, is bolas. Still waiting on those." He snorted. "Hard enough to find them around here in the first place. Needed to get those commissioned, and it's going too slow. But you'll try them out, once they show up. Brings us to the second type of sphere. That's the one I want you to squeeze."

She looked down again, face still locked into stun. The other bucket had white wood, even more fragile-looking than the first. She could see places where it appeared pre-cracked, and they almost seemed as if they had been arranged to line up with her --

"-- sized that for your fingers," the old stallion confirmed, and snorted again. "You give it one good grip before you load it into the sling: it'll crack on its own about ten seconds after that. The contents are called drydust. Sucks up moisture, holds it in a gel where the pegasi can't get at it. A cloud that's low enough for them to be confident in hitting you is one that's low enough for you to hit. Get enough drydust into the air and there's no cloud. Stationary targets today. Moving ones later. SO START THE SLING GOING! I WANT TO SEE WHAT YOUR ACCURACY RATE IS! AND THEN I WANT TO SEE HOW IT GETS BETTER WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE AN EXCUSE FOR IT! SCOOP, LOAD, SPIN, AND RELEASE! AGAIN! AGAIN! OH, FOR SUN'S SAKE -- AGAIN!"

She wasn't quite sure what gave out first: the contents of the buckets, the last of what had been in her stomach, or her eardrums. In the end, he allowed her to rest near the cottonwood long enough to take care of the second factor.

How to take on unicorns. How to neutralize pegasi...

"Sergeant?" His ears completely failed to perk. "Nearly everything we've been practicing is for... fighting ponies."

The old stallion nodded.

"We'll get to the other species," he steadily told her. "I've been working on that. You'll meet someone in a day or two. But we're starting with what you'll see the most of."

Someone: a sapient who wasn't a pony. But... "Are there other nations with ponies? Places which don't get along with Equestria?"

That triggered a snort. "Prance is just about all ponies. But having them separate is a case where we're all better off. Prance is... don't know if you've got it where you come from: that part of a country which everyone else wishes was outside the borders?"

She tried to tell herself the name was just a coincidence, and only mostly failed. Osaka. (It was supposedly full of idiots.) The United States was said to have Alabama, which didn't want anything to do with the other forty-nine anyway. And it was best not to bring up Belfast around Lala, because you really didn't want to hear a self-titled psychopomp talk about why an entire city needed to die. "Yes."

Another snort. "We got lucky. They never came in during the Unification, and they've spent centuries telling us it's because they wouldn't lower themselves far enough to be equal. But we've never had a war against them. They kick out insults, they tell us how inferior we are -- and they also know they're outnumbered twenty to one, so they usually say it while they're backing up. Prance's idea of a fight is to say they'll meet you outside and try to lock the door behind you." He slowly shook his head. "Came as a real surprise to the three I nudged out first. For the rest of the nations -- Protocera/Griffon Republic has a pretty significant pony minority, and we've had wars. Not for a couple of centuries, though. And the reason they've got so many ponies is because they don't leave kids behind. Anypony's or anyone's. The generations which grew up there... they just think like griffons. That modifies the tactics, and we'll go over that in a few days. Most of the other countries have at least a few ponies around. There's some exceptions. But you won't find many places that are just one species."

Except for the mountains. But that was presuming --

"You're starting with ponies," the sergeant neutrally stated the most basic of facts, "because the worst problems begin at home. That's how it's always been. Ponies are most of what you'll deal with. And with what you are -- there's going to be ponies trying to fight you. Because that's how they'll lie to themselves about not being afraid, or they'll decide it's the way they can get you out of the Guards." (She once again missed the implication.) "Because you took a swing at a local who'd tried to electrocute you, and they'll always find an excuse for their part: you're the one who's wrong for trying to live."

How do I go into the city?
How can I talk to anypony at all, away from the palace?
How do I make them see anything other than a monster --

"Lost a lot of Guards over the years, for a lot of reasons," and she tried to look as if she hadn't picked up on the scent again. "I'm not losing one to civilian stupidity." The old stallion slowly shook his head. "You know you're going to be fighting ponies soon. Guards. Already got a few lined up. But there's still some problems. Biggest one is armor."

Her ears perked.

"Armor?"

"DID I STUTTER?"

"...no, Sergeant..."

The living statue broke its one-pony formation, and began to pace. Back and forth, five of his own body lengths in each direction.

"Can pad you for the live combat exercise," Emery Board stated. "Just a matter of getting somepony to sew it all up, and you've already got a mare who knows how to fit you. Trick is not having it restrict the joints too much. But that's not what we'd normally use. Ponies don't come in the widest range of sizes: we can usually find armor that fits, or adjust a few pieces until something custom gets kicked out. But you --" his pace was accelerating "-- you're a set of engineering problems that nopony's ever seen before! Extra-flexible jointing on the arms! Sight lines like nothing they've worked with! And the upper waist -- what kind of musculature do you even have going there? How does anypony rig metal to turn that way? There's problems to solve, hundreds of different problems, and just because I can fix my own armor in the field doesn't mean I can stomp out yours! Been to five different smithies so far: three of them tried to close up on the spot, one of them is now booked for the next forty years, and the last stallion decided his mark wanted a change of career! Palace forge is the one which should do it and they can't say no, but there's too many problems for one smith! Nopony even knows where to start --"

He had been turning at the moment he said that word, each movement machine-precise. It meant he was equally smooth about coming to a rather sudden full stop.

"-- that's a smile, isn't it?"

She nodded.

"That's what a smile looks like on you," the sergeant observed. "You haven't smiled once since you got here. Why are you smiling?"

Cerea took a slow breath.

"I need some quills," she requested. "And ink. Plus a lot of paper. At least sixty pages. Please."

"And why," the old stallion asked in what might have been a false calm, "do you need all of that?"

"Because there are a lot of problems," the trained blacksmith told him. "But they've already been solved."

Celestia carefully nosed over to the next sketch. More staring ensued.

She was looking at the centaur's creations in her throne room, as the last minutes of her scheduled time ticked away. The throne's cushions didn't seem to be doing anything for the fast-building headache.

...I think that's for the fingers. Minotaurs didn't armor their hands: the general sentiment was that doing so cost them some degree of refinement for pressure and leverage. So if we split up the smaller pieces between multiple shops and don't tell them what they're working on, it'll go faster. But she wants to make the -- breastplate? -- and main back piece herself, along with the helmet. Which helps, because those are the giveaways on who it's for, and Barding is going to have his hooves overloaded with the lower portions. But... She cautiously flipped back a few pages. ...what does this even mean? Folding the steel and then reheating it, over and over? Adding a coating layer of carbon?

She'd never seen a forging process like this, not with extra ingredients and acids and just turning the metal repeatedly in on itself. But it was something the girl knew how to do...

An exchange student. But one who had been trained in blacksmith arts, who just knew how armor was supposed to be put together. Emery had come as close as he ever had to capering in place when he'd passed over the sketches: the hat had shifted by a whole quarter-hoofwidth. Who knows how to fight, who can make her own weapons and armor...

Was that what the summoners had been looking for? A new source of weaponry? A means of creating more and more things which could stand against magic --

...no. The girl had told the sisters that she couldn't replicate the sword's material. The armor was normal metal, albeit with a treatment which Celestia had never seen. The usual myriad of protective spells would need to be cast by others, and Celestia was dreading the discovery of how they reacted upon contact with the blade. The best hope was temporary neutralization.

We may need to layer this. Put most of the protection on the thinnest inner portion and hope the effect doesn't conduct. Her field took up a quill, added a few notes --

-- and the Sunrise Gate opened.

She recognized the hoofsteps before her head came up. "Hello, Glimmerglow," she smiled. "I know: I need to go greet my sister in a little while, and then there's dinner to consider. I promise I'll eat --"

But the pegasus said two words.

"He's back."

There was always a wind backblast associated with takeoff: the most anypony could hope to do was moderate it and in her rush to get off the throne, Celestia neglected any and all attempts to do so. The hardest-hit papers wound up plastered against tapestries, and most of the ink bottle was left soaking into the cushions.

She just didn't care.

"Where?"

"On his way up to the tower," the pretty mare said. "He thought you'd want to meet him along the way --"

-- and a very large body went directly over her head.

He had groomed himself before entering the palace: not because she expected him to, but because he had likely decided it would reflect poorly on her if he didn't. It meant that his clothing was fresh, the jacket elegant -- but he only had so many monocles, and nopony could wear one which was chipped around the edges without doing damage to fur and skin. Those which had been cracked were simply kicked away, he was waiting for his prescription to be ground, and...

The unicorn stallion squinted somewhat, when he turned to look at her landing upon the ramp, and it was the first thing he apologized for.

"Three weeks," he declared, "and it still wasn't quite ready when I returned. But she's the only one I trust to do it. She's simply been rather busy this season. Even so, Celestia, I should have been the one to take a chance on another, and so --"

She leaned in, nuzzled him before he could say another word. The nuzzle meant for friends, layered with heavy relief.

He nuzzled her back in the same way: one of the few who ever did. One of the only ponies who'd earned the right.

The white mare pulled back, looked down at him.

"You've lost more weight," she observed. "You can groom your fur, but not the body underneath. And there's fresh bandages under that jacket: I see the bulge." More softly, "You can't keep this up, Fancypants. Not indefinitely --"

"-- it won't be indefinite." It wasn't so much an interruption as smoothly tipping an extra ingredient into the conversational mix. "It ends eventually, one way or another." His head dipped. "Hopefully in success."

"You still can't keep this up. You're not meant for this --"

"-- speaking on another's behalf? Asking for help, when I can't explain exactly why I need it?" He slowly raised his gaze, focused directly on her in that special way: the one which made it feel as if they were very nearly the same height -- only with so much more determination in his eyes. "No, I am suited exactly for this. And before you can resume the remainder of the argument about how somepony else should take up this quest --"

He didn't stomp a forehoof: it wasn't in him. He simply leveled his voice, and that was worse.

"-- to the best anypony can determine, I was the last pony he spoke with before making his decision. I am responsible. And so I will not stop." The noble head inclined, and a foreleg briefly touched the bulge of a pocket. "Two."

"Two," Celestia breathed. "All right. Let's go up there."

"I am only here to pass these over and resupply," he told her as they moved up the spiraling ramp. "I believe I have a lead on another one. That requires setting out as soon as possible --"

"-- I need one day," Celestia cut in. "One day over and above what you intended, even if that was only an hour to start with. I don't know how much of the news you've heard --"

He didn't pause in his tread, and had to trot rather quickly to keep up with her longer legs in the first place. He simply suggested it in his tone.

"Yes," Fancypants said. "The girl." And with those two words, he reminded her of just why she cared about him. "I should have thought of that. My apologies. You need me to try and give her a chance among my own, yes?"

"As much as you can," Celestia agreed, picking up her pace. "You may wind up meeting her tonight, if you're ready for it."

The smile was a fairly weak one. "I've seen worse. Especially over the last few moons. A single centaur may turn out to be an improvement. How is she doing?"

"We'll talk about that on the way down." Because the top of the tower was coming into sight and with it, the edge of the carefully-constructed pegasus weave. "I have to let us in."

Her wings spread, began to subtly shift.

Two.

It was something. It just wouldn't be enough.

There was air in the tallest tower of the Solar wing, and it did not move.

The two ponies had half-bubbles clinging to their snouts. Air shifted within them, and small portions escaped to the world when each exhaled. But that air emerged into the tower, and -- froze. They did not move the atmosphere as they came into the room: they slid through it, and so all disturbance was minimized.

One of the most complicated pegasus techniques, to not only still all natural atmospheric movements within an area, but to have the air automatically shift in a way which allowed passage while nearly eliminating disruption. Something hardly ever used, because there was no need for it.

But it had been needed here, for the remnants of the storm were fragile.

It did not drift: it could not. Thin tendrils of vapor were held in place by the air, their colors twisting about each other. (The center had, over the course of several moons, assumed an increasingly-brown hue.) Tiny sparks occasionally showed themselves within the interior. They did so in the place of what had once been another kind of lightning, and always faded quickly.

The position had been oriented to the horizontal: if made to twist, it would be somewhat taller than Celestia. There were little suggestions of denser material within the curling mass, and hints of shape along the borders. It was possible, if squinting somewhat (which one was already doing), to imagine that some part of the western edge resembled a rather warped shoulder. An extension of mist and weakened, flickering energies suggested a tail.

But it was a storm, albeit one with odd colors. One where any air which touched it occasionally found itself trembling, nearly shifting to a liquid state. There had been a moment when Celestia had thought she'd briefly seen oxygen as pebbles, but -- it was too weak for that.

A storm resting upon an old, soft, salt-stained fainting couch.

The stallion's horn ignited, and two emeralds were brought out of the pocket: one roughly spheroid, with the other conical. But by the time they reached her, they were garnets, and they came to rest on the fabric as rubies. Something just as red as the twinned spots which sometimes appeared above the pillows.

The storm did not move. Did not respond in any way. The Doctors Bear had reported that there were times when one portion contracted and expanded, but -- irregularly, of course.

Charged. She'd had to train herself to sense the energies: it was a process which had a lot of vomiting involved. And now...

Her horn ignited. Sunlight licked at the edge of the shifting gems, sunspots flared --

-- something came out of the changing jewels. It was the sight of the invisible, the sound of vacuum, the heat of absolute zero, and it merged with the storm.

They watched as two small areas of vapor thickened, shifted, coalesced. One now looked something like the tip of a talon, and the other could be said to resemble a bit of antler.

But it was all that happened, and so they left the tower.

"We're running out of places to look," Fancypants softly told her once the bubble was off. "Safely, for the definition which can apply when searching for them. It won't be long before I have to sneak into places which are less than friendly towards Equestria, and then we'll be setting off for the unknown. And no matter what, there's only so many to find, Celestia, at least for what we can reach. It..." The breath came across as forced. "...may not be enough."

"Not enough on land," she corrected, her field setting the custom breathing mask down. "We know they're in the ocean. Mazein's supposed to be working on something which can stay underwater. I can talk to the Referee --"

It made him smile. "I suspect Rounding Moonsault will be less than happy if you request something without explaining why. Again."

"Then she won't be happy." Celestia was used to that. Mazein was Equestria's oldest ally -- but that was for the nation as a whole. The current Referee generally cooperated (and had to go along with the public vote), but had a few generally-unanswered questions regarding royal motives. "But I don't think most of the nations would donate willingly if they knew what we needed them for. They weren't happy about the parole to begin with: that's never changed."

I hated you...

She knew the thought had been in the past tense, and that it had also had the option to slip back into present at any time. But just then...

"They weren't there," the oldest mare in the world softly said. "They didn't see. I want the search to continue, Fancypants. I just don't know if you should be the one doing it. Going under the waves..."

"Something which can stay underwater," he repeated.

"Some kind of metal tube," Celestia reported. "With thick windows. Which may not completely work."

He considered that. Smiled.

"It sounds interesting. So. Is there a proper etiquette for greeting a centaur? Preferably one which Ms. Manners has taken no part in determining?"

It was a joke, and she wanted to laugh. But...
They keep asking about his condition.
Everypony who was there.
I hated you.
I hate you.
I don't want to owe you...

Insufferable

In the most technical sense, there had never been a king of Equestria.

The title -- there had been those who'd claimed it during the chaos of the Discordian Era, and those ponies generally hadn't done all that well in enforcing it: it was hard to claim absolute dominion over any amount of land when any given moment could see it turn into water. And during the Unification, when the sisters had been trying to stitch all the little pieces of the continent into the fabric of a single nation... well, that had been the time for every possible variety of egotistical idiot to turn their hooves towards conquest. When it came to recording the names of the thankfully-defeated, 'King' sounded just as stupid as 'Our Most High Exalt Above All (Especially Those Two Freaks)', although it did have the benefit of being considerably shorter.

There had also been a few concessions made to the original self-claimed 'noble houses' (which was usually just those families who had managed to stabilize their lands for the longest period) in exchange for their territory's inclusion within the new nation, and quite a bit of that had been the retention of titles: the nature of fully-independent selections was the lingering reason for the crazy-quilt offerings of the modern day. Some of those had dropped by the wayside along the trail of centuries: in particular, 'Prince' had quickly fallen out of favor. It was currently only being used by the most egotistical, stupid or with one relatively local example, both: everypony else had realized that their personal lack of both horn and wings took something away from the title's hoped-for impact. But when it came to kings... that had never really been in fashion. There were Princesses, and so for the nobles of Equestria, the use of anything which, at least in other nations, would have suggested a station above them... no.

So there had never been a king of Equestria, not when it came to the nation as a single, united entity (minus Prance). It just felt stupid.

Also, stallion blacksmiths existed and so when it came to the existence of petty dictators who treated the most minor offense committed in their terrority as a reason to call for multiple executions, kings were more or less redundant.

How to describe Barding? Most ponies wouldn't, because doing so required getting close enough for a long look at him and if you did that, you were probably in attack range. (Technically, the smith's domain stopped at the door to the smithy itself and like just about every other technicality, that one tended to escape him. The same could be said for most of the fleeing ponies.) The majority of the palace staff regarded him as being something like a moat monster, only with about two percent of the inherent geniality. There were arguments to be made that you didn't really need one, the ideal location for any you'd made the mistake of bringing in was much further away from the outer walls, and you still spent most of your time waiting for it to turn on you.

For the few who had seen him... it was just about impossible to determine whether he was bearing a near full-body coating of minor burns, or if his fur just naturally displayed the multiple hues of char. (There was a way to settle it, but hardly anypony had risked getting close enough for the determining sniff.) His grooming was perfectly even, at least in the sense that if nothing had been done to any portion of his form, then clearly an equal lack of effort applied everywhere. The eyes were the fierce red of a half-banked fire, his temper was always ready to surge towards the melting point, and you couldn't really watch for the lashing of his tail as a warning sign because he never gave anypony that much notice. Also, when it came to a visible tail, he really didn't have one. The smithing life had certain requirements, and chief among those was the protective garment draped over Barding's back. It stretched far enough along his spine to cover the tail -- or rather, the little bare extension of flesh and bone, because there was fire in a smithy and Barding really didn't feel like dragging around a fashionable fall of wicks. The tail had been deliberately shaved, the mane was gone, and nopony had ever felt comfortable enough to ask about the eyebrows.

He was well-muscled, which really said something when the statement was being applied to an earth pony. Even with the reinforcement provided by his mark's magic, his hooves still tended towards chips and minor cracks from all the hammering he had to do: something which didn't exactly put him in a good mood. Nopony had ever seen Barding in a good mood. The modern day had seen more eclipses than facial mood demonstrations from a visibly-happy Barding and given that an eclipse was an annual event which required the full magical attention of both sisters to arrange, nopony had any true concept of what it might take to make Barding happy. The most frequent guess was the death of every single living entity on the planet.

(Technically, this would leave him with nopony to make things for, but it also meant he wouldn't be dealing with the inherent stupidity of anypony's requests. It was generally agreed that having Barding as the sole survivor would leave a smith merrily humming at his forge for about two days, which was roughly the amount of time required for him to die from dehydration. Most ponies would have lasted longer, but it was exceptionally hot in that area and with everypony else dead, there would be none who could remind him to drink.)

Barding perceived the palace as a place which could host a forge: just about every other function was presumed to be incidental. He regarded the majority of ponies as loud things which didn't know how metal worked and so mostly got in the way. He was extremely, almost terminally single, because he had yet to find anything he loved so much as iron. (Equestria had the concept of 'clockwork automaton', mostly from Mazein: the majority of the local fantasy-based refinements had come from considering what Barding might find attractive in a partner.) And when it came to the Princesses...

The smithy was legally part of Equestria and, on that level which could only be recognized by the devotion of a soul which hadn't read the actual manual, still existed as a separate kingdom: one with a heavy emphasis on 'king'. Barding mostly recognized the rule of the Diarchy as something which regularly provided him with work while signing off on his pay vouchers. They regularly updated the smithy with the best of tools, always made sure he had access to the most current advancements and so as vassals went, they weren't all that bad. He was also utterly devoted to getting paid (especially for those few bits of work which could be seen as something other than stupid), because his kingdom didn't do much in the way of taxation.

And with Princess Celestia -- if Barding could have been said to truly love any mare, then when it came to the elder alicorn, you still wouldn't have been able to say it. But he did feel a certain degree of affection towards her, as he would with the most favored of tools. Because just about everypony on the palace staff knew that Celestia could generate heat -- not relocate or focus: create -- and when it came to the operation of a forge, having somepony around who could precisely set the temperature at will was a true blessing. Barding thought so fondly of the Solar Princess that on the best days, he actually let her stand in the doorway.

(Luna, whose flares of temper were known to spread ice, had been banned.)

He didn't let ponies into the smithy, because it was his. Barding understood how the tools worked, when the endless hunger of the forge needed to be fed and how to bank that fire in the name of necessity. Metal spoke to him through the half-hammered ingots of his mark, and that was most of what he needed: metal and a place to work it. Alone, because nopony else could truly understand unless they were a smith and if that was true, then they usually had their own forge. (Barding understood the concept of 'apprentice' and given what the learning process could do to his precious stores of metal, also understood it as something which needed to take place at a great distance.) He worked alone, he didn't entertain visitors so much as he punished intrusion and if you really wanted something done, you got a unicorn to float the written request towards the corkboard near the doorway while praying he didn't notice, because there was a chance that he would treat the corona's light as a distraction. In the Kingdom Of Smithy, distractions were punishable by death or, once Barding got out into the hallway, a very long chase.

Barding didn't allow ponies into his smithy. That wasn't just policy: it was law. The Princesses understood that or rather, unknown to Barding, they mostly put up with it because he was so good at his job as to be allowed some degree of leeway. Besides, all things considered, it was better to have him in the palace -- and there was an extra reason for that, one the blacksmith was no longer capable of understanding. The Solar and Lunar staffs (because the smith worked so many hours as to be considered part of both) understood that the death threats were just part of the routine: placing Barding into the city would eventually leave him explaining his rather interesting concept of territoriality to the police.

Ponies weren't allowed in the smithy. Everypony knew that.

And so after the latest provocation born of purest insanity had been explained to him, a split-second after he'd started to move on the intruder -- Princess Celestia had pointed out what, to any other pony, would have been the fully obvious. The moment after that had seen Barding's body seized within her field, levitated towards the doorway to Equestria as his desperately-clenching jaw had failed to clamp any level of anchor, and now...

He was in the hallway, in her domain. And in one sense, the Princess was being fair: from another, she was abusing linguistics to the point of sentencing terminal syllables to another form of death. For there was nopony in his smithy.

Technically, when it came to the status implied by 'nopony', the centaur didn't count.

It had been hours. He'd spent most of them with yellow blazing around his body while fire surged from his eyes, watching as a monster worked with his tools. Poorly worked and somehow, that had actually turned into the lesser offense. The truest insult came in what it was doing to the metal.

The Princess had attempted excuse: the claim was that the monster had brought knowledge with it from that unnamed distant land, a new way of working steel -- and because it was a non-smith talking about metal, he'd done his best to ignore all of it. But she was forcing him to watch...

Hours: the monster had the day off from its Guard training to do this. The Princess kept adjusting his neck to make sure he was observing the proceedings, and had already needed to pry his eyelids open twice because there was a basic means of defense and she wasn't letting him use it. At one point, while he'd still been able to talk, he'd irritably reminded the alicorn that it had been hours and there was a certain need for a restroom trench: this brilliant strategy had seen him released just long enough to get two hoofsteps into his furious charge and after that, she'd carried him to the facilities and used her body to block the door.

He was being forced to watch, as metal was abused. Tortured.

(Part of him wanted to watch. It was the same part which needed to. He'd never tried to ignore that bit of his soul before, block his inner hearing against something softer than a whisper...)

And the Princess wasn't the only one talking. The monster kept trying to explain.

It was a rather halting form of speech and just like what the monster was doing to the metal, it kept folding back on itself. It occasionally wound up trying to explain the same thing three times, which gave Barding some extra work in trying to ignore it. But he was being made to watch it work, or at least what the monster falsely thought work was. And when he had to watch...

It was supposed to be a trained blacksmith: that was what the Princess had claimed. The best possible way to see that was as insult, because there was trained, and then there was marked. It had no mark for the work: it had no mark at all and when he'd pointed that out, the Princess had gently explained that the thing would never have one. And that might be fine (or rather, exist as a barely-recognized nightmare) for those in the other nations, but this was his forge. There was a markless monster tending his fire. Working with his tools, as best it could -- and that was with no skill at all.

Well... strictly speaking, nopony would have reasonably expected it to work with those tools. When it came to the items which were made to be worn over the hooves, nothing had been custom-fitted for the monster's ridiculous dimensions. For hoof diameter, it was just about as large as the Princess. Other items had been designed for jaw grips, and what kind of jaw did that thing have, anyway? The face was just about purely vertical! You needed the bulge of a snout to have a proper jaw, and the monster's bulges were lower, plural, and stuck out so far as to get in the way of just about everything.

The bulges also took up extra room in his forge, and so they were just as offensive as the rest of the monster.

In an attempt to compensate for the monster's anatomical weaknesses, a number of foreign tools had been brought into the forge: an act which had made Barding wonder if there was something worse than the death penalty. But there weren't that many of those unwelcome items, because the availability hadn't been there. Some hoof work was being done, using whatever degree of shielding which could be achieved -- but most of the blasphemous attempt at 'smithing' required the monster's arms. That meant tools made for bipeds, and there was no smithy like that in the city. The monster was, in terms of what it was able to use in abusing the metal, improvising.

The process itself, however... that was exacting.
It was also insane.

There had been a sturdy box, something which could withstand the heat of the forge. The monster had packed the interior of the box with charcoal, something which clearly made no sense whatsoever because fuel went on the outside. And to further demonstrate its state as something which should not exist, it had followed that up with the open working of necromancy.

It had to be necromancy. There was no other possible reason for the monster to be using bone.

There were bones in his smithy. Or rather, once the monster had finished with it, there was bone dust. The Princess had told him that the remains had come from the butcher shop in the Heart: the griffon had been rather surprised by such a specific request, but the butcher was close friends with Sizzler and was always happy to accommodate the operator of the meat station. (That was another little kingdom within the palace, one where the borders were maintained by the fact that most ponies were too sickened by the concept for casual approach.) So the bones were supposedly those of the monsters which griffons used for meat: samples too large to be used as pet treats. Barding, who tended to view skeletons as armor's most basic support structure and was now completely sure that the monster was controlling Princess Celestia's mind because an alicorn who would let a monster into his smith clearly wasn't thinking straight, was prepared to treat all of it as a lie. There was a chance that the bones weren't from a pony. It was about the same as his chance of pushing through the field and getting away to sound the alarm.

The Princess had let a monster into his smithy. She was just watching it. Forcing him to do the same.

He'd been part of the team which had evacuated the armory while Tirek had been on the approach, voluntarily working with others for the first time in his life because there was enchanted metal in there and while the enchantments could presumably be recast, he hadn't been able to bear the thought of something happening to the metal. They'd just barely gotten all of it into the tunnels, and the success had only been possible because of a distraction. A distraction named Barding, who'd voluntarily gone out to serve as appetizer while the true meal was brought to safety. And now there was a monster working with metal, in his smithy, a process which could only be torture and necromancy and abuse, something it was already inflicting upon the dead because the bones had been shattered. It had broken them with what seemed to be a casual effort from those hideous hands, and then it had taken a mortar and ground them down. The remnants had been packed into the box with the charcoal, the metal had been added while the monster had half-stammered something nonsensical, which the hissing translator had eventually falsely rendered as carbon microtubes...

That had been after the smelting. It had smelted its own ingot, disrupting the process from the moment of the metal's corrupt birth. It had brought in leaves at one point, saying something about carburizing additives. But the ingot had gone into a box filled with the death of the world, the monster had heated the whole thing for a while at a temperature too low to do anything real, and then the metal had come out of the box.

It was easy to see where the metal had been corrupted (and whatever the penalty was beyond a death sentence, he now needed something past that). The steel had darkened, gone blue and black with hints of purple, with all the unwelcome hues in mottled non-patterns which could only exist when the natural order had been perverted. The only reason why a monster existed at all.

The Princess couldn't hold him forever. Eventually, her concentration would slip, and then he could -- all right, it wasn't as if he had any friends in the palace because metal sufficed, but there were other blacksmiths in the city. His lessers would understand, at least after he'd explained it for the fifth time. Enough blacksmiths spreading the word and everypony would understand --

-- but it had already been hours. And for so much of that time following the necromancy, the monster had been doing the same thing.

It heated the metal, to the point where the corrupted ingot glowed with a fire to match the rage in Barding's heart. Once the steel was ready, the monster hammered it: something which might almost look natural, if you didn't know about the evil which had already been inflicted.

But then the monster folded the metal.

It was a careful process: heat, hammer to about half-thickness, then turn the steel back on itself until there was something approximating the size and shape of the original ingot. The corrupted metal was then returned to the forge, reheated, and once it was malleable, the whole thing began again.

It did this over and over and over.

And it sickened Barding to watch. It made his head hurt while it produced a feeling of ever-deepening nausea, something which was accompanied by an inexplicable twinging from his flanks. The combination of sensations was something he had never experienced before, because he was a pony who lived by his mark. He often did so to the point of obsession, had nothing approaching a life outside the forge, and so Barding could be described as one of the fallen: a pony whose personality had collapsed into his talent, addicted to the joy produced through exercising his deepest magic. Not the worst of them, not to the point where he was no longer capable of considering the consequences of following his desires at all times -- but on the level where a smithy had to become its own kingdom, because the world outside simply felt too strange.

It was possible to rescue the fallen, bringing their minds and lives back into some form of balance. But that was something which required connection, and the acknowledgement of existence beyond the mark. (Barding had never recognized how many ponies had been sent to the forge in the name of trying to get him outside it for a simple drink: he only knew that he'd been chasing away more intruders than usual.) Until he could be saved, he had to be kept where he could be watched, and so the sisters had decided the palace was the safest place for him.

He was deeply connected to his mark. Too deeply, and that was something which had a price. But there was also a benefit, one he experienced more than most. It was a sensation which generations of pony scholars had tried to describe, and all had failed because it was both universal and unique. But to use the most base terms...

In the most base terms, it could be said that within the deepest level of his soul, a talent watched closely. It did so when its possessor would not. It did its best to recognize what was happening: even if metal was being corrupted, the process had to be learned just to prevent it from ever happening again. But the more it observed, the more the talent wanted to understand. And as the steel's hues changed, as it was folded over and over, when acids were applied for no reason the pony cared to think about... the talent did its best to convey what it was seeing to its bearer, and found communication which existed at a level both above and below words bouncing back. Something which triggered an ever-increasing internal imbalance.

There was a monster pretending to be at work in his forge. It had its hair tied back and bundled into an oversized bun: similar precautions had been taken with the blonde tail. It was wearing protective garments, clumsily-stitched ones rendered from the leftovers of a hundred smithing pieces: the seams overlapped everywhere, and the monster was having visible trouble getting a full range of motion with its elbows. The flexibility of poorly-made gloves was even worse.

It had its flanks similarly protected, sometimes jumped back as flying embers came down too close to its hooves, and the weight of that impact made the entire smithy shake. It had to wipe the sweat away from its forehead far too often, for it had no fur to absorb the first portion of flow.

The monster was sweating, and so its natural scent increased. An odor which was nothing like that which had arisen from Tirek, a blast of stench which had lingered in Barding's nostrils long after his drained body had collapsed -- but this was a female, and so the scent had a reason to be different. It was still the scent of a monster, something which had to be one of the reasons he felt so ill...

It wasn't.

Barding was a stallion who had spent his life listening to his mark, and so had no familiarity with the disruption which arose when a pony first tried to ignore it.

The monster had finished.

There was a single flattened rectangle of thin-hammered cooled metal strongly braced against the wall. If it had been reflective, the panel would have been just about large enough to serve as a mirror. But there were too many distortions for that, not all of which had been produced by the necromancy's corruptive hues.

The surface of the tainted work was... odd. There was a pattern woven into it, something which felt far too random to have been deliberate. It was like looking at the surface of a contour map which measured elevation changes in tail strands, or watching the flow of a million miniature rivers. Other portions of the mottling had rendered a visual effect which bore more resemblance to teardrops, and Barding understood the metal to be weeping for its fate.

"I'm sorry," the monster lied, sighing a little as it wiped the back of its poorly-gloved hand against its forehead again. "It's... not as good as it should be." The bare skin was now being underlit by rising red. "I haven't done this before by myself, not from first step to last. And I could have folded it a few more times, and the tools..." The blush was flowing faster than the sweat. "...I know that's not anyone's -- anypony's fault, but -- I should have done more with what I had. I couldn't figure out how to adjust for everything, and --"

"-- we'll get better tools," the Princess gently broke in. "Perhaps Barding can make them for you, after you sketch out your requirements."

He had just been asked to make things for a monster. It was something which forced the screams against the back of his teeth, and there they stayed because the Princess had kept his jaw clamped shut for a very long time.

"...maybe," the monster eventually said. "If he wants to. But..." It swallowed. "...I'm going to be working in his forge. So I wanted him to see what I'll be doing. How the process operates. Because I know you don't have it, and it probably looks strange, seeing it for the first time. I thought..."

Blue eyes glanced down at him. The eyes of a predator.

"...if he just understood..."

It looked away, refocused on the well-braced metal panel. The expression on the monster's face was unreadable. The posture of legs, barrel, and tail came across as something very much like embarrassment.

"Barding," the Princess steadily stated, "I'm going to let you go. I am not going to allow you to gallop down the hallway. I'm asking you, as your first action, to step into your smithy and look at what she's created. And then, as a blacksmith -- the blacksmith trusted by the palace to create and maintain Guard armor, along with so much else -- to tell me what you think of it."

Her field winked out.

The stallion blinked a few times. Worked his jaw back and forth. Considered every last punishment he'd come up with during his bondage and how they could be applied to the monster, then decided it was best to wait until he didn't have a witness.

A charred foreleg gestured across the border.

"Get out." It was all editing for Princess presence had left him with. "Get out. There's no room. I want space."

The monster slowly turned, left facilities which had been too cramped for it to begin with. And once it was in the hallway, just about peering around the edge of the doorway, Barding reclaimed his kingdom.

"It's rubbish," the blacksmith declared as his forehooves landed on his territory. (It was something which should have made him feel instantly better, and it just made the nausea that much worse. Monster scent was clearly that harsh.) "It doesn't make any sense! Not unless you're looking at it as magic --"

"-- I can't --" the monster tried, with desperate tones plummeting towards whisper. "-- I don't have any --"

The spike of his own decibels balanced it out. "-- forbidden magic! Something no one should ever work with, something nopony ever will --"

"-- Barding," the Princess cut in, "she can't cast. Whatever the process is, it's a natural one. I didn't understand how it worked, and that was after she tried explaining it to me. Most of what I got was translator overlap: endless amounts of it. She almost ran down the charge just from attempting to teach me, and that was with the platinum in operation. But you're a blacksmith. I thought you would understand more than I do, because your mind would be capable of grasping new concepts within the range of your talent --"

"-- bone!" It was all too close to a scream. "Charcoal and bone! The death of wood, the death of us! Is that how it treats steel, as a graveyard you can wear?"

The alicorn's eyes went hard, and did so at the same moment the monster pulled back. It would have been something Barding had never seen before from the Princess, if he'd cared to look at all.

"She," the Princess said.

"A monster," Barding hissed, because the fallen generally had trouble with social conventions to begin with and a stallion who'd been ignoring his mark for hours, who was dealing with an ensorcelled leader, had already reached the point of having nothing left to lose. "One who twists the world. Tirek would have stripped magic from metal, and you said this one is different? It is, because it corrupts the metal itself! Weakens," and his flanks were burning, "corrupts, twists, fouls! And all it takes to show you is -- !"

There was too much anger, too much sickness, and the weight of it combined to send his head down, bent his forelegs into the posture of a pony who was ready to charge. A stallion who needed something he could hurt.

But the Princess would have defended the monster. The mind-clouding combination of incandescent rage and thwarted talent still hadn't been enough to make him feel as if he could beat an alicorn. And so he took it all out on the other thing which shouldn't exist. The one which could not be allowed to remain in his kingdom.

He charged, spun, and earth pony strength magnified by years of exercise in the forge kicked into the endless river of steel's frozen, agonized tears.

There was a sound. It was considerably like that of a bell, a little like a wall collapsing, and very much like a lot of kinetic energy being rebounded the other way.

This was followed by another sound.

"AAAUUOGH!"

The full-body thump served as something of an anticlimax.

"Don't move!" the Princess ordered, and did so when she had no right because she'd just moved across the line into his realm. "Don't try to get up! I'll have the Doctors Bears here in a minute: if they get to the hoof crack quickly enough, they can seal it! Even when it's that deep --"

"DON'T."

The alicorn stopped moving.

Slowly, all too slowly, Barding forced himself to his hooves. It hurt, and it took too long, but... the metal wasn't going anywhere.

"Not yet," the blacksmith whispered, the voice of his desperate talent dropping back into his soul until it was needed again. "Not yet..."

He limped towards the panel. Facing it throughout the approach, instead of letting his hind legs attempt another final regard.

"There's some light scuffing here," the stallion forced out. "At the left impact point."

"I didn't do it properly," the girl began. "There's a little ritual I usually do with the water, but it's your smithy. I thought you would have your own rituals. And I couldn't adjust for the tools, and I should have folded --"

"-- light scuffing," the blacksmith finished. "There's no enchantments on this yet? No magic at all?"

"No..." the other blacksmith timidly tried.

"You swear."

"Yes."

"So anypony could do this. If they knew how."

"Yes..."

"I kicked this," Barding whispered. "Kicked it with everything I had. And there's some. light. scuffing."

She said something then, and he missed it. The words had been lost within the rising bars of an inner song.

"What was that?"

"Your hoof," the girl repeated. "The doctors need to --"

"-- it'll be even better with the right tools?" he cut her off. "Better than this? Then you need tools. You can sketch. Sketch your tools. I'll start making them tonight." The existence of the injury briefly registered, mostly as a source of potential future tool imperfection. "Tomorrow. And write out the process. All of it."

He looked at her. All of her, every last hideous hoofwidth and hoofheight, from the distorted features to the slow-shifting mounds and finally stopping with legs which were, for his tastes, simply too long. (He hadn't been aware of his own tastes in years.) And yet, in the face of all that ugliness, there was a moment when he thought about dropping to his barrel and proposing marriage on the spot.

(It was nothing romantic, and it never could have been. He just had the vague impression that in the event of someone acquiring a patent, the spouse had the long-term chance to inherit the rights.)

The Princess smiled.

"She needs to make certain portions of the armor herself," the alicorn said. "As none of us have ever tried to accommodate that kind of form, and asking anypony else to do it will reveal who it's for. But in the name of expediency, once the process is recorded and translated, we can consider distributing some of the more ambiguous pieces to the rest of the city. Just to avoid overworking you --"

"NO!"

The first time had been speaking from his mark. The second wasn't quite as pure.

"No..." the blacksmith considered. "No, Princess, this stays with us. It has to, until somepony else reverse-engineers it. If this stuff can be enchanted properly, the usual protections on top of this... then it puts us ahead. You know the rule, don't you, girl?" This without looking at the centaur. "That in the race of weapons versus protection, the weapons are always ahead? Because you can't respond to a weapon until it exists." And in a whisper of near-reverence, as centaur and Princess both stared at him, "Today, armor is ahead. Fit her first. See how the enchantments take. If that works, we can start reequipping the Guard."

The pacing began on instinct. The limp was forced by an ignored injury.

"They'll see we've got something new, anypony who looks closely enough," Barding declared. "Especially the smiths, even in the other nations. They'll know it's something special. But it could take decades before they catch up, and until they do, we're ahead." The existence of blacksmiths made kings somewhat redundant. But when it came to maintaining the actual kingdom... having a unique resource could only help. "And it needs a name. A name for something new, something forged from death itself..."

He was one of the fallen. His life, his mind, his soul was in the forge.
He didn't really think about social mores. There were ways in which he no longer could.
He thought he was paying her the greatest compliment imaginable.

"Centaur steel," he stated with open satisfaction. "So they'll know where it came from, all the monstrosity it took to make. And so they'll never want to recreate it."

He looked at her face again, incapable of recognizing the horror which had suffused those strange features. And after a moment, because he was in a good mood, he remembered how to smile.

Deviant

So much of it seemed to be about weight.

The Sergeant had decided he needed to know exactly how strong she was, and so the training area was now populated with raw mass. Most of that came in the form of stone: ones which were irregular enough for her hands to find a grip, smoother specimens that required her to forcibly press inwards just to get any degree of leverage, and shapes so awkward as to have limbs trying to pull them in while her own breathing attempted to push everything back out. There were also ropes tied around the loops of piton-like spikes which had been driven into larger boulders: the hemp trails eventually ended at a harness which was probably just about ideal for placing around a pony's neck and so could be used to test hauling limits. But when it came to Cerea...

There was but one rather dubious comfort in the attempts to shift her own anatomy past the part of the harness which came down over her shoulders: she was the only one who knew to be embarrassed. It was still enough to trigger the blush, and... the Sergeant hadn't really said anything about that. He'd watched the entire process, but that observation had been strictly clinical: he was trying to find the limits of her physical strength, and so had no interest in a capacity for personal humiliation which seemed to approach the infinite. The most he'd gruffly said was that some of the equipment was still being improvised.

Cerea, after having spent the prior day in the smithy, should have been used to that, if only on principle. And she lifted, hauled, kicked on command, briefly considered whether it was worth trying to summon the Second Breath --

-- but he wanted to know about her normal limits. He was memorizing every physical capacity she possessed, and... there was a strange, unwelcome intimacy to that. The training seemed to be systematically exposing every secret she'd kept from the household: the true range of her flexibility, her typical top speed, the fact that she'd had blacksmith training, and some part of her was waiting for the Sergeant to order her onto a public scale.

She told herself that she wasn't keeping it from him as a tactical move. That she wasn't hiding one final aspect of herself away because there might come a time when the ponies would think they knew everything about her -- followed by using all of that knowledge against her. When it came to standing against a full herd's worth of pony magic, the Second Breath wouldn't mean much more than potentially staying conscious long enough to count the exact number of field hues squeezing her body. She... just wanted to keep some part of herself to herself, for a little while longer. Especially when it seemed as if the only thing she truly had any chance to retain was the relative privacy of her thoughts, and blushing still exposed most of their nature.

So she moved the weights, doing so without the Second Breath. Lifted, pushed, and hauled until the stallion felt he knew where her limits were, or at least the limits which existed after the previous day had seen her pounding metal for hours. She had tried to let sleep restore her, but...

...she hadn't been sleeping well: something which had been true for just about every one of her nights in Equestria. Part of that came from dreams, and there were times when those nocturnal travels brought her home: most of that ache set in when she woke up and wondered if dreams were as close as she would ever come. But there were other kinds of dreams...

(She didn't know that the dark Princess had been observing her dreams.)
(She would learn.)

Centaur steel.

She was allowed to set the weights down. The harness eventually came off, and did so even more awkwardly than it had gone on. But the mass of the most recent nightmare had taken up residence within her skull, and nothing she did seemed to shift it.

The sergeant tilted his head to the left: about ten degrees of incline, just enough to indicate the cottonwood tree.

"In the grass," he ordered, and she slowly trotted in that direction, shaking her legs in turn to help the sweat slide across saturated fur. Some of the drops hit green blades and when she glanced back to see how closely he was following, she saw them glistening oddly in the shield-distorted light.

Cerea carefully lowered her body into the relative coolness of the greenery, picked up a canteen which had been resting against the trunk and forced herself to take slow sips. She needed to stay hydrated, and she also needed to take in water at a rate which ensured it wouldn't all come up again.

Emery Board silently watched her, brown eyes sent into something closer to black by the shade of the hat's brim.

"Thought there was going to be more of an imbalance," he eventually said. "There's some, but that's because you've got more mass in your lower half. It's where the majority of your muscles are, so that's where more of your power is. But it's the same kind of muscle all the way up. Compact. You were flexing there: no way around it, dealing with some of those weights. Saw some extra definition under the sweater, but not as much as a lot of species would show. Work out enough and you could probably add a lot of power without worrying about hurting your flexibility."

She nodded to that. When it came to muscular development, centaur mares would readily gain in strength -- but had a hard time manifesting true bulk. Stallions, at least for their upper torso, went the other way: they could happily bellow about the sheer number of centimeters it took for tape to wrap a single bicep -- and in Cerea's experience, all of that supposed power was mostly good for two things: lifting mugs of alcohol to their mouths and wrestling each other. (The first could potentially lead to the second, but the second generally didn't need that much of an excuse.) There were times when she'd felt as if the mares and stallions of the French herd were two separate species which had the capacity to interbreed. And as it had turned out --

-- don't.

But the thought wasn't so easily dismissed.

"Drink more," the earth pony told her. "Your head just went down. Took too much time in the forge yesterday." He snorted. "Not that you can really rush it. Barding was telling everypony in the Lunar kitchens about all the experiments he had to run." Again. "Real story there is that he got as far as a kitchen. Wasn't sure he knew where those were. And the talking part is new."

She forced herself through a few more sips. "He was talking yesterday." Even after she'd put all of her unanswered prayers into wishing the blacksmith would stop.

"He's better at cursing," the Sergeant stated. "Doesn't see ponies who can't work metal as something worth talking to. But he must have felt like he had to tell somepony and to keep the secret, he found some ponies who wouldn't understand any of it." The near-microscopic ripple of fur along his shoulders suggested a shrug. "Stopped by this morning, before I came out here. Looked at your sample."

She waited.

"Could have used that before now," the old stallion said. "Over and over. Might have led to a few less statues."

Don't let him see, don't let him know I smelled it again...

"You're studying Blitzschritt?" he sharply asked.

"I'm trying," was the best answer she could give. "There's something called -- the Canterlot Archives?" Which she understood to be like the Bibliothèque nationale de France, only occupying considerably more space and with a slightly less stringent loan policy. "I put a request in for the books. But it takes a little while to send them over, and then I still need help to read them..."

"But you took the walk."

Cerea nodded. She'd been expecting this -- or rather, she'd been expecting it on the day they'd talked about fighting pegasi. But you couldn't completely predict the Sergeant, and given extra time to think about all of it...

There had been a lot of dreams.

"Saw her statue?"

"Yes." And while bracing herself herself for any triggered shout, "1127 -- that was the year when she died? And it's 1275 now?"

She had thought he might respond to it with a spike in volume and temper: a demand to know why she was wasting training time on something so basic, because the best way to make him yell was to ask a truly stupid question. But he just... looked at her.

"Hadn't thought about that," the old stallion said as his tail failed to shift. "Someone not even knowing what the year is. There's foal questions, and then there's things which foals never had to ask."

She wondered if he'd ever had children. If the only living legacy he knew were those he'd trained and sent out to die over and over and --

"1275," he told her. "That's the current year. So you're right: Blitzschritt made her choice in 1127. What did you think of the honor statues?"

"There's... a lot of them." She hadn't meant for the words to be that soft.

"It all adds up," the Sergeant said. "Twelve hundred and seventy-five years. Wars. Assassination attempts. Accidents. The kind of stupid coincidences which can kill. Take enough time, enough chances, just exist long enough and there's going to be statues. The Generals could tell you every name. They need to remember. There's those who say that as long as there's somepony who knows what your name was, you're not completely gone..."

It was just enough of a head shake to register as one.

"So I remember mine," Emery Board told her. "You saw her statue. You saw some of the others." And with no change in volume at all, "And you're still showing up. Based on what you saw in the statue, how do you think an ibex fights?"

"Without factoring in their magic?" He nodded, and Cerea hesitated. "What is their magic? Does... everyone have some kind of magic?"

"If you're alive and you can think," the sergeant calmly stated, "you've got magic. Applies to everyone in the world."

Everyone except me.

"But it takes different forms," he added. "For an ibex... it starts with stability. All kinds. It's just about impossible to knock them off their hooves. Their minds can dig in pretty well. It's not always a good thing. There's ponies who say donkeys are the most stubborn species, and they're wrong. Donkeys just endure. They push forward because they think that's the way out of everything. But at least they move. An ibex is going to stand in one place because that's where an ibex has been standing for centuries, and there's no reason for anything to change now. You'll probably never fight an ibex: you might never see a living one. But keep that in mind, before we get to the other species for real. They're about stability. Hard to charge, hard to fool -- unless you can get them to trick themselves." And before she could ask about that, "How do you see them fighting?"

"Mostly with charges." The horns had looked dense enough to do some damage. "Try to get some speed together over level ground --"

The stallion snorted. "Stability," emerged as a correction. "They live in the mountains. They walk all over the slopes, when gravity says they shouldn't. An ibex can charge you going uphill, and anything which isn't a sheer cliff is uphill. They're a terror in their own territory, especially if you don't hear them coming in time."

Oh. It took a moment before she could banish the image of an ibex charging up a seventy-degree slope.

"But that's their basic tactic," he confirmed. "Close in at speed, hit hard and fast. Ideally, once. Tell me how that differs from earth ponies."

And they were finally there. She'd been waiting for this...

"Physically, earth ponies are the strongest. They usually have the most endurance, too. But that's as a species: any earth pony will be stronger than somepony with the same build from one of the other races, but that means there's still some who are weaker than others. They're just always stronger than they look." Which won her another nod, and she used that time for an extra sip. "So for physical combat, an earth pony wants to close in. Pegasi can be impossible to reach. But if they can reach the point where they're right on top of a unicorn, they can kick hard enough to take out their opponent as long as they watch for the horn: backlash any attempt to cast a spell, or dodge if the unicorn tries to gore. But without the horns of an ibex, all they have for natural weapons is their hooves, limbs, and teeth."

"Or the full body, if we get up speed," the Sergeant instructed. "There's a little extra density to our bones, and everything else. We're not just stronger than we look: we're heavier. It's not that much of a difference, but it gives us a few more options in a charge." His right foreleg came up, and the hoof rapped against his rib cage before he lowered the limb again. "Head to head against a pegasus, the pegasus probably drops. Unicorn, we're in trouble if we hit the horn while it isn't lit. But the skull around the base can't take as much of an impact." A minor incline granted her permission to continue.

"But unless they're a lot stronger or hit in just the right place," the recruit went on, "the earth pony probably has to kick their opponent a few times. Because it's hard to knock somepony out with one impact, or put them in so much pain that they can't keep fighting."

He nodded. "There's powerhouses out there. And some of them are a lot stronger than they look -- even for the ones who look like they can haul half of the Lunar Wing. But being strong enough to break bone with one kick doesn't mean they're going to land the kick that does it. And with ponies, taking out a leg only ends the fight with another earth pony: a pegasus can still get airborne, and any unicorn is dangerous as long as they're conscious and unrestrained."

She listened.

"Wanted to find out how strong you were today," the Sergeant told her. "Got the answer I was expecting: you're closer to an earth pony than anything else. The main difference is that when I put you against most of them, you're stronger. There's still some ponies out there who can outhaul you, but they're the outliers. And they aren't working with arms. But you don't have that extra density. You're resilient -- but you can't take a hit on their level. So against earth ponies, you dodge as much as possible. Once the armor's ready, you try to let the metal absorb their worst. And then you come at them from the angle they can't do much about: overhead. Based on the reports I got from the ponies who tried to move it, touching that sword makes an earth pony lose some of their strength. Even with a second of contact, it'll disorient them. And once they're shaken, they can be dropped. You just have to watch for the one pony who can cave in your sternum. Either one, because that strength increase is consistent for their whole body. It's not just kicking: they jump higher. You won't see an earth pony try to go airborne too often, because it always ends the same way. But if a pegasus gets a little too low, thinks a basic hover has them out of range -- they usually wind up getting a little surprise." The fur around his snout seemed to twitch. "And with you, that means they might try going for the head."

The girl had taken it all in. Everything he told her was information which could save a life: there was no excuse for ignoring any of it. But his words led her to what she saw as a perfectly natural question, and she had learned that he only objected to queries under two circumstances: they interrupted him, or they were stupid. She was sure this question didn't qualify for the latter.

So she asked it. A question which, in all the world, only she could have asked.

"What about their magic?"

And he looked at her.

(It would be a long time before she fully understood the nature of that look. Mere hours before she recognized the aspect which had never manifested in his features prior to her words: the sudden tension...)

"What about it?"

Carefully, "Manipulating rock and soil? Controlling plants, especially the dangerous ones, so that they'll attack? Maybe making things grow so fast that they create instant cover? And --" relocating the energy of heat itself was for pegasi, but "-- bringing up lava flows from underground, or rivers, and..." With genuine curiosity, "...can you transmute elements, as long as they're rock or metal on both sides of the change? Is that why there's so much marble?"

His right forehoof shifted. A quarter-circle, twisting into the dirt.

"Why?"

It had been a single syllable. A word which stretched across the world like taut wire, pulled to the point of breaking. And the girl didn't understand.

"Sergeant?"

"Why do you think we can do any of that?"

She blinked. Looked into motionless, shadowed eyes, registered the way his nostrils were flaring...

"It's... the name," Cerea softly replied. "Earth pony. The pegasi are connected to the sky. Nightwatch told me about the crops, and what wasteland does. With that, added to the name, I just thought... you would have the same level of link to the land."

The girl blinked again. The stallion didn't. He just stood there, exactly like a living statue. A statue which was barely breathing, and so she instinctively slipped into the final defense of formality.

"I -- did not meant to offend, sir --"

"-- you don't call me sir," the stallion quietly stated. "You call me Sergeant."

There seemed to be no response for that.

And then the translator's wire hissed.

It wasn't searching for a term she would know. There was no attempt to render an unfamiliar concept into something a centaur might understand. It was simply straining to pick up on words which barely shifted his lips, emerging into the world as something so much less than a whisper.

"Questions foals don't even ask..."

"...Sergeant?"

He inhaled.

"Wasteland isn't much good in combat," the stallion told her. "You're not a plant. It's possible to force growth in a hurry, but it usually takes teams and it still doesn't operate at the kind of speed you're thinking of, plus a clumsy normal push can hurt the plant long-term. The rest of it..."

There was a moment when the old stallion gave her something which, when regarded across the chasm of time, came close to the supreme compliment of her life. He hesitated.

"...no. You let your imagination tell you things, because you didn't know not to. It's strength, endurance, and a few tricks with the local flora. That's it."

She didn't understand why she felt so sad. She had no way of knowing why his scent was so strange --

"But," the Sergeant continued.

The girl pulled herself out of the miasma of his sorrow, forced herself into focus as his head came up a little. Just enough to let sunlight restore brown eyes to their proper shade.

"You've got an interesting imagination there," the earth pony told her. "Been putting you through enough physical exercise. So let's do a thought one, while your body's resting up for the next round. Let's say, just for the sake of imagination... that there's wild talents out there. Pegasi come up with new techniques every so often, something nopony else in the flock had the chance to learn yet. Unicorns finish their manifest with a unique trick. So if there was an earth pony who could do something like what you just proposed, a wild talent out of nowhere, somepony who was desperate enough in a fight to use that kind of magic against you -- how would you counter it? I want to hear how you think on your hooves, when you're facing something nopony was expecting. And start with shifting the soil, because a pony who can change the terrain is going to be a thousand kinds of trouble."

It kept her under the tree for hours. They never got around to any other level of physical exercise on that day, because the girl had come from a world which had created videogames, elaborate systems of probability judged by a combination of dice and prayer, and so knew that the tactics of fantasy was a subject which could go on forever.

She thought he wanted to see how she would improvise in that sort of impossible situation. Just to find out how quickly she could think.
She didn't know.
She had no way to know.
And when she finally looked back...

The mare was in no way approaching the home of a pegasus.

She was almost at an apartment, and was thankful not to have been stopped at any point during her Moon-lit route: she knew it would have been almost impossible to explain some of the items in her saddlebags. But to the mare, there was a simple fact in play: a pegasus did not occupy that residence, and that made her planned activity into something which those of intelligence and insight would recognize as necessary.

The mare never would have moved against a pegasus. It was true that the feather-dusters were inherently inferior, but you could say the same about anything which wasn't a unicorn and besides, the pegasi as a species had one major point in their favor. They possessed the capacity to go away. Let them go back to the vapor, as isolated as they had been in the beginning: trade would substitute for raids, and then they could just -- stay there. Leave Canterlot to the unicorns, the way it should be.

But until that day arrived, the mare regarded pegasi as something of a contradiction: a necessary inconvenience. Weather manipulation... well, once they were gone (and she wasn't sure exactly how that was supposed to happen, but CUNET's leaders insisted it was just a matter of Creating Policy), there would be nothing to keep unicorns from inventing spells which did the same thing, correct? In fact, according to the near-facts which CUNET passed around to the core of its membership, facts which the Diarchy had suppressed and which qualified as 'near' because when you put all the words together in a dictionary, every term had some degree of adjacency -- unicorns had been making breakthroughs for centuries. Those casters were just targeted by the fliers, and their workings had been forced into obscurity. Pegasi could do things like that, and it was amazing how they kept managing to get one over on their superiors. It was one of the many reasons CUNET used to explain how historically, Canterlot's unicorns had found themselves in the eternal position of persecuted majority.

(If you believed the stories, there had even been a breakthrough something over a year ago, in Ponyville of all places. It was just that nopony seemed to be capable of identifying the caster. The flock's control was just that subtle, and of course when you figured in the corruption inherent to an alicorn's mere existence...)

You couldn't be friends with a pegasus: it would be like saying you were friends with a cat, because cats were only in it for themselves and in this case, a flying cat would be all too happy to target its owner with hairballs from above. But you could live with its presence, until the day you figured out how to get rid of it without attracting the attention of an animal rights activist. And you didn't attack pegasi in any ways beyond the social and ideally, those couldn't be proven in court. Because unicorn magic could do a lot and thanks to all of the discoveries which had been quashed, none of those categories seemed to apply with lightning.

She was doing something which Mrs. Panderaghast wouldn't want to be associated with, and so the mare had very carefully not told anypony about what she was planning: true plausible deniability needed that kind of helpful push. And she wouldn't have done it to any pegasus, no matter how inferior they were -- but...

There was a monster in the palace.
She'd seen the pictures. The monster on the dais. The feathered presence hovering close by. In times of stress, closer still.
Too close.

She had struck out under Moon, because that meant less ponies on (and above) the streets. Less of a chance to be seen. It had gotten her into the proper building, up the ramps, all the way to the door, and now she was ready to proceed.

The mare had told herself that she never would have hurt anypony, or even those whose pony status was somewhat lesser. She still felt this was true. But Moon had been raised, and so the Guard had gone to her shift.

(She didn't consider the possibility of days off.)

There was nopony present to be hurt. The message would be received at the moment they learned of the smoke, and that news would need some time to reach the palace.

(She didn't understand how fire moved.)
(She would eventually tell somepony that she had meant to light it. She just hadn't meant for it to spread. And if she hadn't intended that, then having it happen was in no way her fault.)
(It was supposed to be a warning.)
(She was innocent...)

And even if the apartment had been occupied... there was still nopony there.

A pegasus who would move to protect a monster wasn't a pony at all.

Isolated

The bath was huge, and she was less than two hours away from learning that it wasn't big enough.

There were ways in which the clearing of the barracks was very much like working a giant sliding puzzle: at first, you were happy just to have any degree of space with which to work. But then you discovered that shifting something to the left meant fifteen other pieces came crashing down into that area, you might just barely jump back in time (which had put her fast-moving buttocks into something else, and the crashing had pretty much gone on from there), and then there would be a new mess to clear. Getting something to what seemed to be its natural home at the rightmost corner suddenly meant there were seven segments which could no longer move at all. But if you persisted, if you kept pushing and, as with the worst sliding puzzles, eventually gave in to the urge to just pick a few things up and remove them from the problem entirely -- in this case, that meant the hallway -- there would be a moment of clarity. You would fight your way to an edge and having reached it, abruptly see that this went there, that went there, the other thing was hopefully going to be set on fire, and then everything in that section would just -- open up. All at once, at least when checked against the ever-shifting solution which existed within her inner vision: the actual hauling still took a few minutes.

Cerea had moved one thing, then one more, the ridiculous length of ribbon-wrapped metal pole had finally come free --

-- and the bathroom door had swung open.

She'd stared at it for a moment, watched it sway slightly under its own weight. And then she'd gone inside, mostly to see how much work had to be done there. Between training, the recent addition of the smithy, ongoing language classes -- Nightwatch would be due in about two hours -- and the endless clearing of the barracks, she'd left 'overworked' behind in the dust. She was rapidly closing in on the need for a forty-eight hour day, which would naturally need to go along with a centaur who could be awake and fully functional for about forty-three of them. The bathroom was a space which existed and based on what had happened to the barracks, it was therefore a space which could be filled with enough debris to push her temporal needs into the low seventies.

But all she found was a bathroom.

There was a pair of partial long wooden closets against the far wall, ones where the dark paneling had been raised just far enough from the floor to let someone observe hooves on the other side. They were large enough to host ten ponies each, they had multiple swinging panels available for entrance, and Cerea quickly confirmed the presence of continual-flow trenches in all of the compartments: ones which vanished into the floor instead of continuing into the next stall. It would have been just about ideal for her own toiletries, at least once she took out one of the inner dividing walls to create sufficient room.

The sinks were long and low: as with the one in the cell, she would need to drop down somewhat to use it. There were visible pressure plates in the floor near those elevated troughs: some were placed to be triggered by hind hooves, others by fore, a few more were built into the forward edge of the sinks themselves, and the first bit of timid experimentation discovered that a portion of the local plumbing was still functional. It took a little more time before she managed to stop spitting out water, along with a minute for using a hairpin to get the gunk out of the tap and let the liquid emerge in a direction other than up.

Mirrors: again, far too low for her use, although the reflection did allow her to regard the cloth over a seldom-seen upper abdomen. There were a few ancient brushes, and the straps stated that they were meant to be slipped over lower jaws and hooves: she learned just how ancient they were when the first one threatened to tear at her touch. She wound up staring at a rather complicated array near the sinks for about three minutes of total confusion, and would eventually need somepony to tell her how it was used for tooth-cleaning: a desire to avoid nausea meant she never asked about flossing.

But then there was the bath...

The walls nearby were covered in multiple panels of sponge: so old as to potentially be incapable of retaining moisture, but large enough for a pony to stand against without overlap, and -- she could see the little clear empty tanks mounted over each one. Water and soap dispensers: the sponge was moistened, the suds rose to the surface, and a pony just rubbed up against it. One more accommodation for a quartet of species which needed to find ways of operating without hands.

You soaped yourself up by rubbing against the sponge. You rinsed off in the bath.

They rinsed in public.

How large was the bath? The barracks had been designed to host at least twenty ponies: the sunken marble pit of a tub with ramps leading in and out, deep enough at one point to allow a mare of Nightwatch's size to swim -- that was big enough to let all of them wash up at the same time. It was something which could take place without the dividing wall which the girls had found at the hot springs resort: with ponies, the sexes could clean themselves in front of each other without shame, and perhaps they even cleaned each other. Cerea still hadn't spotted any anatomical trick valves --

-- they bathe together.
They clean each other...

In Japan... the bath had been large. Nowhere near this size: that would have required a completely separate house -- but any bath which had to accommodate Cerea and Miia needed dimensions to suit. But the girls had seldom bathed together, and one of them couldn't use the bath at all.

Suu's greatest fear came from huge amounts of water, enough to dilute the slime girl's form to the point where she would lose cohesion and, within minutes, her life. Rachnera tended towards quick dips, because anything which let the underside of her lower torso touch the water meant she had to hold her breath: the arachne had book lungs in her spider portion, and extended submergence gave her a doubled chance to drown. Lala was terrified of dropping her head in a place where her body couldn't recover it in time. Miia needed the water to be heated on a level where just about no one else could risk being in the bathroom for more than a minute: touching the liquid risked first-degree burns, and staying near the tub's rim meant inhaling pure steam. (This was just for quick dips, though: long enough for the heat to reach her core and then out.) Mero preferred cold water -- and all things considered, also preferred an environment where her gills weren't being told to breathe soap. And Papi would splash around endlessly for the sheer joy of it, had discovered one of the few things wings were good for in the water was sluicing long waves of splash damage at the others and generally couldn't be near any fountain without giving spectators a reason to think of birdbaths, along with quickly violating multiple public nudity laws -- but that water also soaked into her feathers. She couldn't fly until she was dry again, and dreaded the downpour which was strong enough to drive her out of the sky.

Put it all together, and there were ways in which Cerea was the most comfortable with the house's modified bath. It was large enough for her, the heat level she preferred was closer to the human normal -- just a little hotter, to match her increased body temperature -- and that meant she was the most likely to share the room with another --

-- there were pools near the sporting field.
We all washed up after the competitions were done. One pool for fillies, another for colts. The colts weren't allowed to get anywhere near ours. But the fillies washed up together.
Some of them washed each other, because it was faster than the brushes. They were laughing while they did it. They splashed and giggled and held hands.
I was always near the edge, away from the others. So I could get out quickly, after I couldn't watch them any more.
I wanted someone to hold my hand like that.
He washed me.
I asked him to.
I wanted him to get used to me. I... didn't think he would see anything appealing, not where there was fur. Not to start. So I covered myself for anything he knew, and let him use the brushes. He didn't know how to start. Then he didn't know where he should have been more careful about touching me, and...
I forgave him for that. I always...
...I wanted him to touch me.
I wanted him to love me.

She remembered his touch, and did so in a world where her existence meant it might have been the last one.

He never could have loved me.

It was the sort of thought she couldn't have for long, not if she wanted to exist at all, and so she wrenched her attention to the taps.

The water was flowing to the sink.

The majority of her waking hours were being spent in labor. She washed by lying down under multiple showerheads at the training area barracks, and that meant she was only clean for a brief part of the morning and afternoon. Cerea had been sleeping while dirty, it made her feel foul, she didn't like the way she smelled when she woke up and didn't think anypony else was all that fond of it either, she still didn't have any real long-handled brushes and anything she asked for was just one more burden she was putting on the palace...

If the sponge panels were replaced (because her pay had to go towards something, even if she couldn't personally spend it)... if the tanks were refilled, she could rub against the soaked resilience. It would take longer than the time required for a pony, along with some awkward angling -- but it could be done. And in the meantime...

There's only one way to find out.

She looked at the multiple water inlets, regularly-spaced holes around the edge of the bath.

There had to be a control somewhere.

And then, just as it had been in Japan, she immediately felt guilty about running up the water bill. Especially with a bath of this size, because filling it to a depth she could try to use meant filling all of it. She couldn't channel water into a single section and keep it there: that probably would have been the magical domain of seaponies, if they had actually existed. All Cerea could do was watch as the bath took on more and more steaming liquid, quickly reaching the point where she was convinced that she'd emptied out an entire water tower. That was the sort of thing which just had to create trouble, and she was now waiting for somepony to come in and complain about having had their shower drained away.

But the tub just kept filling. Not just with hot water, but with clean liquid: she'd dedicated one more round of labor to scrubbing the floor and sides, and so wasn't going to have much in the way of blankets for the night. It had taken time, created extra laundry -- but it meant no dirt was floating up within the tub. She wouldn't be soaking within the remains of ancient filth.

Cerea peered out into the barracks, found the lone working clock and checked the time. Still about an hour before Nightwatch was due. Backed into the bathroom again, looked at the tub and considered all of the water she'd already wasted before closing the taps. No matter what she did now, that water was here. So all things considered...

The centaur reached for the lower edge of her sweater.

She was on her knees in the water: all four of them, within a fairly deep portion of the tub. It was enough to let the warmth lap at the lowest part of her breasts. (She'd already finished that part of the scrubbing. When it came to staying clean, every part of the body was equally crucial -- but for centaur mares, there was a single prime location for fungal infections. Or rather, there were two.)

Cerea never felt the soft sigh emerge from her upper torso, losing the sensation in the warmth of the water she'd just splashed towards her shoulders. Feeling trickles of welcome heat run down her skin, offering a tiny hint of massage to her upper back.

Miia had massaged her shoulders once, but it had been an even exchange: they'd both been coming off a horrible day and the assistance had been needed on both ends. The lamia had been the one to suggest it. There had been nothing sexual about the contact, not with someone who qualified as both rival and sister. There had simply been a release of tension, and then a long talk about just how undignified food selling was, especially when your mutual living blouse gave up halfway through.

Her shoulders were sore, as was her upper back. However, contrary to what some humans had almost constantly voiced, it wasn't from the weight of her breasts: centaurs had evolved towards larger endowments, and so had also evolved the muscles and ligaments to support them. Her shoulders and upper back were sore because just about everything was sore. That was what happened when you spent nearly every waking hour at some form of labor, and even with the extended thought exercise of the afternoon to provide some degree of respite -- she'd just been cleaning the barracks. And the bath.

I wish someone would rub my shoulders.
I wish...

There was a human saying, one Cerea didn't have a point of origin for. You wished into one cupped hand. You spit into the other. And you watched to see which one filled up first.

She wondered if the ponies had an equivalent aphorism, and whether it involved the frogs at the center of their hooves. Properly speaking, a frog wasn't deep enough to hold very much.

The centaur wished she could hunch a little deeper in the water. (Her lower body wasn't really built for hunching.) But the deepest part of the bath had something of a slope to the floor, and standing on a slippery angle...

Cupped hands filled with water. She splashed herself again, wiped off her face, felt more water dripping from the tips of her ears onto her shoulders, and stared at the steam-covered flaking sponge on the walls.

I need to wash my hair.
I need to cut my hair. It's halfway back to my tail already.
I need to do something with my hair before the party.
If there is one.

She'd liked Fancypants. The scent of fear had risen from the stallion just as it had with virtually everypony else, but the scent had been the only thing which betrayed him: his voice had been perfectly normal throughout their brief meeting, and his posture had actually reached a state of visible relaxation. He'd spoken to her as if she was a person, and he'd felt that the best way to have others do the same was to arrange an Event.

(He'd also had a manner of speaking which made it easy to hear capitals.)

The noble wanted to host a party, and have Cerea there as both guest of honor and a rather mobile centerpiece. But it would take some time to arrange, plus he apparently had some true need to travel and the Solar Princess had felt that it might be best to wait until after Cerea had passed her Guard training.

if I

She didn't know when the party would be, or if one would take place at all: she was having a hard time picturing a positive response to the invitations. She was terrified of being at the heart of it, trapped for hours within a cloud of fear and whatever Ms. Garter decided was an appropriate dress. And no matter what happened there, the palace was still trying to arrange the first meet-and-greets with children...

Cerea forced her breathing to slow, found oxygen waiting within the clouds of steam. Closed her eyes, leaned forward enough to rub at that portion of her forelegs which could easily be reached and kept it up until that small portion of the tension falsely went away. Straightened again.

I need a hoof pick. They have to have hoof picks. Maybe not ones designed to be held by fingers, but hoof picks.
Would Nightwatch pick one up for me? If I gave her the money to pay for it?

She did her best to estimate the time remaining. Probably forty minutes before the pegasus was due. Plenty of --

-- there was steam in the air, and that presence did things to the local currents. It made portions of them swirl, used heat to push a portion out as colder air tried to get through the doorway, and it completely blocked out any scent encroachment from the fast-approaching source.

It meant there was a moment in which Cerea was trying (and mostly failing) to relax within the bath. And then there was one in which her dripping ears picked up the sound of wingbeats --

-- the pegasus flew in. Nightwatch did so at a speed greater than Cerea had ever seen the little knight use while indoors, even with the weight of laden saddlebags bulging along both flanks, and arrived in so little time as to give the centaur none in which to truly act. She registered that a pegasus was approaching and the water wasn't deep enough, she couldn't twist her body in a way which brought her upper torso deep enough under a clear surface, there wasn't enough time to try flipping a curtain of hair to the front of her upper torso and she was suddenly in a situation where she didn't seem to have enough hair...

But she tried. Her arms went back, and had to bend in what humans would have recognized as a truly unnatural way to do so. Her hands flexed to the precise wrong angle at the wrists, and the combination of movements thrust her shoulders back, stuck her upper ribs out with both shift and breath, of course she had to breathe and that was when the little knight saw her.

The pegasus didn't stop in midair: strictly speaking, she couldn't. But her path instantly diverted to the tub's rim, slamming her hooves into marble with the force of something more than gravity. And the whole time, the silver eyes stayed focused on Cerea. Refusing to blink.

"I didn't think you were coming this early!" the centaur frantically protested, and did so while arms more or less windmilled because a creature with six limbs suddenly had no idea what to do with two of them. Some of the syllables found her hands in front of her breasts, at least for what felt like the very small percentage they were able to cover. Others had her going for her hair again, and at least one moment of vocalization nearly had her tie her wrists into the center of a spontaneous blonde knot. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry --"

The mare whinnied.

Cerea stared.

And then she remembered that in order to make cleaning her face that much easier, she'd left the translator on the far rim of the tub.

It led to the most awkward trot of her life. She couldn't stand up and keep enough of her body below the clear water. She only had two hands and, as it turned out, nowhere near enough hair. All she could do was slowly, horribly shuffle towards the disc, feeling the weight of those silver eyes as that gaze roamed across every centimeter of a fully nude, completely exposed distortion.

In terms of distance, it was a few meters. Measured in the metrics of humiliation, it took forever.

The centaur reached the disc: a position which had her about four meters away from the staring mare. Put it on, and then repeated nearly everything. With extra apologies.

"-- good," the pegasus said. "You got the bathroom clear. That'll help."

There had been very little tone to the words, and the dark tail swished once as the sleek head turned away from Cerea. Moving towards a saddlebag.

"I'm sorry --"

"-- there's going to be blankets sent down in a little while," the little knight quietly continued, her voice fully neutral. "So once you get out, we need to pick out an extra place in the barracks."

The centaur, who still couldn't work out what was supposed to stay covered, abruptly found her arms falling limply to her sides.

"...why?"

The mare glanced back, just long enough for Cerea to see that her lips had thinned.

"I live here now."

Blue eyes blinked.

A repetition of "...why?" seemed necessary.

"My apartment isn't available," the pegasus softly said. "And won't be for a while. Neither are most of my things. Just about all of them, really. So I live here, because a Guard with nowhere to go can always use the barracks. It just happens that you were using them first. But there's room."

Cerea listened to all of it. Failed to pick up any emotion within the syllables, couldn't scent the mare's mood within swirls and steam, and suddenly wished to understand none of the body language expressed by tight muscles and lashing tail.

"What happened --"

"-- it doesn't matter." The black jaw delved into the saddlebag, extracted a book. "Go back to your bath. We can do the lesson here."

"I'm nude," the centaur protested. "You --" and she knew there was no good way to say it "-- shouldn't have to look at me --"

"You're a different species," the pegasus softly countered. "I don't understand where I shouldn't look. A taboo only exists if you know it does. And... I don't. Go back to where the water's a little deeper. Wash. I'll find where we stopped last time. Get ready to take the translator off."

Cerea listened to all of it, and it took her frozen ears a moment to pick up on the echoes of silence. The absence somehow seemed larger than the words.

She isn't hesitating. There's no pauses.
She's looking at me.

But that was wrong.

She's looking through me.

Had her appearance been that offensive? Was it whatever had happened at the little knight's home? It was possible that it was both, and --

-- if that was somehow tied to Cerea...

Immediately frantic, "Is it something I did? Is there anything I can do --"

"-- you," the mare quietly stated, "can go over there."

The centaur looked at the sapient who was the closest thing she had to --

-- turned away. Trotted. Sank back down into the water near her original starting point, as low as she could go. Adjusted the fall of her hair, and waited while the dark snout carefully flipped pages.

"'Date'," the mare read.

"Um," Cerea substituted.

All it got her was "'Date'. Take the disc off --"

"-- I don't know which kind."

The pegasus looked up.

"What do you mean?" Toneless.

The fast-spreading blush was heating her skin more quickly than the water. "It's a word which can mean several things, in some of the languages I speak. A kind of fruit. A point on a calendar. Going... out with someone you care about..."

"It's that last one," the mare softly said.

"Oh."

Some of the steam cooled, turned into droplets running down the walls.

"Did you date much?" the pegasus asked. "Where you came from?"

Cerea hesitated.

"Um..."

"It's a natural question," the mare quietly continued. "You have a species. Which means you had parents. There was breeding involved. And before that, presumably dates."

I don't want to think about...

Things were bad enough already.

"Not in my herd," Cerea softly said. You didn't have dates with centaur stallions. You had encounters and in order to make sure you came out on the right side of them, you carried something dense and heavy. And during the time given for love... there had been no one at all.

"And when you went to the other place?" was the steady followup. "After you became an exchange student?"

He never could have loved me.

"A few." She could feel herself forcing every breath. "They were... awkward." One of them had been spent waiting for an assassination attempt, and that had been among the less embarrassing examples. "It was... with the human who was hosting us. He wound up going on a lot of dates, because... there were so many of us..."

The mare looked up a little.

"He was dating all of you?" A simple question.

The answer took about fifteen minutes, and the pegasus listened to all of it.

"That happens here sometimes," the mare finally said. "It usually doesn't end well for whoever's at the center, and most of the ones around them wind up getting hurt. But the exceptions usually stay together."

"Whoever wins --" Cerea automatically began.

"-- it only works when they all win."

The girl's soaked tail twitched within the water.

"What?"

"Group marriages are legal," the pegasus evenly stated. "In Equestria. You can even bring in new members after the initial ceremony. But everypony involved has to agree to the inclusion of everypony else. Or it doesn't work. There might be four miniherds in the capital. Less than a hundred for the continent. But they happen."

There was a single instant when she could picture it, and that was followed by another where a mind which had been told to win tried to figure out what her status would have been in a situation where everyone had technically tied for first. Plus it would have meant the inclusion of the arachne, and...

He never could have loved me.

"They're not legal in Japan," was all she could say.

"Oh." The pegasus looked at the page again. "What's the weather schedule like there?"

Almost desperate now, "We don't have --"

"There's thunderstorms tonight," the little knight said, and the dark tail lashed again. "The Bureau schedules a few for autumn. We'll get thundersnow in winter. Just once. As a special treat. But tonight, it's a thunderstorm."

Frantic again, her hooves starting to push against the tub's flooring, "Nightwatch --"

"-- you'd think ponies would understand how lightning works," the pegasus evenly continued as her ears flattened against her skull. "The Bureau makes sure there's classes, even at ground level. But some ponies don't remember, or they never cared to learn. They see the first burst, they hear the thunder, and they -- run towards the nearest tall object. Sometimes that's something metal. They try to take shelter near the thing most likely to attract a hit. It's stupid, really. And if something happens, they never blame themselves. They just blame a pegasus."

"-- please, if something happened, if it's something I did --"

"-- but when you know there's a storm," the mare quietly finished, "and that the storm could go on for a long time, when you know how storms work, how lightning works, how it goes for the tallest thing in the area, and you still think there's shelter, there's a storm and you think the thing most likely to be hit is what needs shelter, so you try to protect it and you're the one who winds up getting hit..."

The silver eyes looked at the page, and nothing else.

"'Date'," she repeated. "The word after that is 'hopeless'."

Heretical

In some ways, all dreams were the same.

It was a true statement and like so many truths, there were exceptions continually lurking in hopes of gaining a chance to test the rule. The most frequent protective qualifier was to say that the statement applied to the dreams of sapient beings. The first moons of finding herself with what had originally been an extremely unwelcome ability had required the dark mare to test herself over and over again, largely as a means of finding some degree of control -- including that which she'd wished for more than anything. The capacity to stop.

It had allowed her to learn what the rules were, along with locating the limits. The dreams of sapient beings matched in many ways and for the dark mare, the most crucial was that those were the nightscapes she could most easily enter. They were also the dreams which were simplest to leave. She could visit the inner sleeping world of those animals whose minds had advanced far enough for dreams to occur, but the raw force of emotions which had yet to learn the lies of greater complexity... that was a tidal wave, and she had found herself tossed about as pounding waters wore away the thin coat of civilization. The others had done everything they could to retrieve her when the unnatural movements began, and she'd found herself whinnying for hours until language finally returned.

Animals had become easier: she knew the risks now, was better at shielding her identity. There were times in the modern nights when she chanced visiting the dreams of an animal, although only when the need was great.

Monsters...

The girl dreamed, spent much more time in the nightscape than the average pony. And there were ways in which the existence of those dreams proved a simple fact, something the dark mare would never be able to explain for those who had a vested interest in not believing it. They proved that the girl wasn't a monster.

Even when that was so much of what she believed about herself.

The previous night, after the time in the smithy... that had been especially bad. The observer had needed some time to figure out where that nightmare was going, and part of that was because she hadn't initially been able to identify a location. The girl had been trotting through...

...at first, all the dark mare had been able to think was Some kind of city, and that left out too many of the distortions. There was no reason for buildings to be that tall, she didn't understand the focus on glass and metal, and too many things moved. Some ponies had been known to pay for the placement of repeating illusions upon small portions of walls, mostly in the theater district: it could be an effective form of advertisement, allowing a few seconds of a play or cinema to show themselves over and over. But in the empty city, where the girl had initially been trotting alone down the center of a black street which seemed to both absorb and radiate heat... it was as if entire structures had been created to serve as nothing more than the screens for outdoor cinema. It was too bright, too frequent, created too much to look at, and generally served as the visual equivalent of having a thousand ponies simultaneously screaming for attention into a single ear.

But then the dark mare had spotted a familiar clock face, followed by a portion of a Palimyno street. It had let her realize that the girl was trying to visualize Canterlot, and had been doing so by mixing what was familiar to her with scant portions of pony architecture. She didn't have enough experience to truly picture a pony city: most of what she'd seen of Palimyno had been witnessed from ground level as she'd been dragged along, and the observer had added map and tourist guide to the things they needed to bring her --

-- and the city was empty.

The lights were too bright, the wind howled down canyons created by buildings which seemed to be stabbing at the sky, the air reeked and there were times when the girl desperately brought a sleeve in front of that minimal nose and tried to breathe through the fabric, for all the lack of good it did her. But she was the only living thing moving down the center of that dark road, with no one on the sidewalks, nopony using the air paths because the girl didn't know how to picture an air path. No one and nopony and nothing. Just a centaur, whose form showed a useless right arm with one step, hooves fracturing with the next, ears twisting towards sounds they could no longer hear. Always and forever something wrong, for the only inhabitant of a conjunctive city which had never existed.

And then a window had opened.

Girl and hidden mare had looked towards it. A pony head had fearfully poked out, frantically looking around as nostrils flared, looked down...

The pony saw the girl.

The window opened a little more.

The body hit the street.

More windows opened. Unicorns and earth ponies jumped to their deaths, because doing so was so much easier than having to exist anywhere near the girl. Pegasi locked their wings against their sides and made sure the impact would be headfirst. For something over a half a minute, the world rained corpses, and bodies rolled up to the girl's hooves so dead eyes could stare at the one who had forced them into a final decision.

It rained corpses.
Then it rained acid.

Flesh melted from pony forms. Fur simply evaporated: liquid muscle ran in red rivers into sewer gratings. Offal was left behind on the street. And the girl, her eyes streaming with endless tears, silently gathered the bones and put them in the saddlebag which rested against her right flank. The left bulged with ingots, the heat radiating from the dark surface was matched by a surge from the air as the city turned into nothing more than the supply house for a giant forge.

The palace smith told the girl that she was creating a graveyard which could be worn, that is what she took into the nightscape, and by the time the dark mare realized where it was all going...

There are dreams which evaporate upon contact with daylight. The visitor knows that wasn't one of them. The girl carried it with her to the training grounds. She may carry it for the rest of her life.

But she isn't having that dream again, not tonight. This is the time for a more subtle horror.

The girl's true body is resting on a single thin blanket, which was placed on the floor in an isolated corner of the barracks. It has become twisted under her barrel as the upper torso twitches and all four legs jerk. But in the nightscape... in dream, there are no buildings, no forest, no home in that hidden valley (and the dark mare is becoming roughly familiar with those streets). There are no roads or paths. There is nothing. The girl trots along vacuum so complete as to pass for the between itself. A place where no living thing should ever exist for long, but she runs across nothing with her sickly arms stretching forward, her drooping ears straining for any bit of sound, and there is something to listen for. When the dark mare follows, making an extra effort to stay hidden in an environment which offers no concealment, she starts to hear it. Wingbeats. Somewhere up ahead, out of sight, and moving with what could be described as deliberate intent.

Sometimes the girl gets close enough to catch the briefest glimpse of a black tail, just long enough to see it lash with rage before vanishing again. But when she gives silent, pleading chase, the wings flap all the faster. Always moving, and always moving away.

There is nothing.
No one.
Nopony.

And the endless weight of loneliness begins to press in, the girl's knees buckle, her lower back caves inward as her neck --

-- the dark mare twists.

(She's twisted more with the girl's dreams than she did in the last decade before her abeyance began. It isn't getting any easier with frequent practice.)

The twist is performed with only the most basic intent at the core: that the girl needs somewhere to be and because the dark mare is still learning about that strange life, she makes a mistake. She sends the girl to be with her own people, and so that body shrinks and stabilizes, but --

-- she's looking around, there is a moment when the dreamer knows something happened, she's trying to find --

-- but that moment ends.

And then there is a filly climbing out of a pool.

The dark mare had given very little direction to the twist, and so the girl had made her own association. In waking, she had been in water, and it had led to pain. And now she leaves the water, towel already wrapped around an upper torso which doesn't bulge anywhere near as much at the front: puberty has begun, and earlier than for a few of her age -- but not all. At best, she was second.

The girl glances back at the pool, and sees fillies at play. They splash each other, kick and flick tails at the eyes of friends because that can whip moisture as well as a sluicing arm, and with more of a choice for direction. They laugh and giggle and play-attack in pairs, because that's what's fun. And as the filly watches, two of them manage a simultaneous temporary blinding, mutually stumble forward while groping for support, and so trot into a wet hug. One where the embrace is welcoming, tender, caring...

But this is a filly who's just left the pool. Perhaps fifteen others are behind her. Seven pairs. She left alone. She entered alone. She stood near a partially-underwater wall because she's tried to play before this, and the others move away from her. The filly wants to be part of the game and the others know that at any given moment, her mother may appear and turn splashing into something closer to a live combat exercise. The filly is being pushed too hard and a body forced to move at all times is usually directed to move into something. They used to shift away from her because they didn't want to get involved, and now they move away because that reaction has reached the level of instinct.

Fifteen fillies still in the huge pool. Seven pairs. But there's one...

She's taller than the girl. Perhaps a year or two older, or just early to the vertical growth spurt. Visibly more powerful, and muscles ripple along her flanks as the black coat pushes through the water, with long dark hair plastered against the fur. But she has another distinction beyond her size. She's alone.

The filly glances back at her. Looks at girls who laugh and play and care about each other, because this is the start of the time for love: something which will be over all too soon. She looks at embraces and awkward rearrangements of hair and -- hands. Two couples simply stand next to each other in the water, holding hands. They're mostly quiet. Their eyes occasionally dart towards each other, they let the water lap at their flanks and they try to make the moment last because the time for love is a brief one and when breeding begins, the memories are the only thing they'll be able to keep.

Seven pairs. One alone. And the filly who looks at that solitary figure for just a little too long before turning away. Silently trotting with her head down towards a fast-approaching maternal shadow, as the nightscape begins to quake.

When the girl comes to memory in dream... it was the same as it is for every other sapient, because there are ways in which all dreams are the same. She replays that which was taken in through her senses and so for whatever she directly experienced, the display is a true one. But that reproduction is limited to what she saw, heard, scented and touched. And so at the instant she turns away from the pool, that part of the fast-ending dream turns into what she believes to have happened. What her deepest self felt had to happen, especially given what would take place in the days to come.

The others stop playing, stop holding hands. Palms cover their mouths. And as the girl is led away by the grip of perpetual disapproval, every shoulder shakes with the force of muffled laughter.

Given neutral conditions, flame would initially propagate up. Smoke, however... most of that spread depended on the air currents and when air began to gain heat in a confined space, those currents could twist. There was also ventilation to consider, because smoke in an area of high heat could move faster than anypony expected. Ponies generally thought of smoke as something which drifted, and that common definition was something which a narrow ventilation shaft and the pushing energy of heat loved to violate first. The second thing violated was usually somepony's lungs.

Fire wanted to go up. Smoke went everywhere. But the true structural damage would be limited to where the heat had been, and so the white mare didn't worry about the impact of her weight on the ramps as she steadily climbed towards the burn. If she reached a point where the floors seemed unstable -- well, she would know about that when the Guards who preceded her started to make the usual assortment of noises about her safety: those behind would then turn it into a chorus.

They cared about her. They were willing to die for her. They were also seldom willing to take 'I'll self-levitate' for an answer, especially when dealing with a hallway which would be too narrow for her full wingspan. Her Guards usually wanted her to have at least six ways out of any given situation, and always had the first entry on the list as Don't Get Into It. On a very real, just about surface level, they didn't want her to be here. And somewhere within the deeper ones, they didn't want her to be anywhere else.

She was alive because of the Guard. The world went on due to the actions of Guards. Every honor statue in the gardens was a life lost, and those lives had been voluntarily given to purchase decades.

The white mare seldom had a chance to return any degree of favor. But when it came to the current situation... in truth, she'd never really cared about the distinction of Solar and Lunar shifts, especially after the vast majority of her life had been spent in charge of both. (It was one of her weaker defenses when accused of cross-staff filching: she still saw all of them as working for her.) So it didn't matter that this was about a Lunar Guard. One of her own had been attacked. And Luna had every intention of acting -- but this was a case where the younger was willing to hold her temper until the proper target presented itself. They had discussed the matter, and it had taken almost no time before they'd agreed to let the elder take the initial lead.

There was a very good reason for that.

A rather irritated "Look," came from up ahead, just past the last bend of the ramp, and it reached her immediately after the lead Guards would have come into sight. "I know this is about your own and if it was one of ours who had something happen in the palace, you'd be shooing me out. But we're still working on this stage of the investigation, and it's crowded up here. We need some time to -- Princess!" A foreleg of flicker-yellow and orange slipped as it slid down the wall, turning the hoof-mounted tool's scrape sample into a freeform piece of art. "Nopony told us you were --"

"-- step away from the wall, please," she calmly said. "And the door." What was left of it. "As you've already noted, there isn't much space to work with, and I'm afraid I take up something more than your share. Who's the lead investigator?" A unicorn shakily ignited her corona. "Good. Would you --"

"We've already cast the primary spell," the mare forced out. "The one which detects the emotional resonance. Verifying intent. Er. I don't know if you're familiar --"

"-- and it came up as deliberate?"

(She knew it had been deliberate. She was also very aware that there were ponies who would take her saying 'I knew' as evidence, and so also remained aware of the need to actually back it up.)

"Yes," the mare verified.

"Thank you." Gently, "But I'm afraid that wasn't the question. I see five of you standing here, plus some equipment, two of my Guards, and there are two more behind me. Would you please tell me how you feel about the structural integrity of the floor? In your professional opinion, will it be able to take my weight?"

You usually had to watch closely to know when a pony had just broken into a sweat, because the first portions of liquid didn't reach the surface. If you weren't close enough to scent it, a slight darkening of the fur would be the first clue, and the portable floodlights set up in the hallway made that easy to spot.

"Er..." the very helpless mare said.

Politely, adding a reassuring tilt of her head as the pastel mane steadily flowed, "I'm about to address you by name." The oldest mare in the world smiled. "Which means I'd like to know what it is."

"...Backfire."

"Thank you. And I'm sorry. I know you're new on the job, and that you transferred in from San Dineighgo -- oh: please give my regards to Furnace if you see him again. But I didn't have time to learn much more." The tilt angle subtly increased. "Backfire, I know ponies are generally reluctant to discuss my size unless they can find a way to make it overwhelmingly complimentary. But I'm aware of how large I am, along with the fact that said size comes with an appropriate amount of mass. The fact that the floor is safe for you doesn't mean the same for me, and my Guards will probably form a living barricade unless you give the word. Can I trot here, would you advise me to take some of the weight off the surface through self-levitation, or should I come back later so my signature won't interfere with your readings?"

"...you can do --" Backfire stopped. "-- of course you can, you're the Princess..."

She waited.

"I... think for safety's sake, you should levitate," the unicorn told her. "We already checked for signatures, so you don't have to worry about us having to factor out yours."

"Thank you." Her horn ignited, and soft yellow surrounded her body: just enough to take some of her weight off the floor while keeping her hooves on it. "I'm going up to the door. Give me some space, please."

The investigators and Guards shifted, with nearly everypony winding up on the ramp. She stepped aside to let them pass, then approached the ignition point.

"A unicorn did this," the old mare softly stated as she looked at the hollow of crumbling char.

"Yes," Backfire called out. "The signature --"

"-- you don't need the signature to see that," the calm voice politely broke in. "An earth pony can't reach that high, even braced on their hind legs. It would have been a jump, and that means the liquid splashes. With a pegasus, no hover is ever completely level: you would see some vertical spread from the bobbing. Careful placement, almost no drip at the point of impact because they were trying to keep the brushtip exposed through the corona and most of the liquid which fell would have become tangled up in the field. But that means..." She stepped back a little, looked down at the irregularly-shaped splash of black. "Yes, here it is. The field winked out here. Fear, I'd imagine. And that meant everything caught up in it dropped. They recovered the brush so as not to leave more evidence, and took the ignition fluid canister for the same reason. But they couldn't exactly gather up the fallen drops. So there was a little more fuel available in this spot..."

It was possible to hear the blinks, especially when they took place as another kind of chorus.

"I -- I would have needed another hour to work that out," the lead investigator half-whispered. "How did you know --"

"I understand fire," Celestia replied: words which were perfectly soft, and so they were also words which had just enough carefully-placed insulation to contain the inner heat.

She looked closer.

"There's a pattern here," the alicorn said. "On the door. It looks like they were trying to use the ignition fluid to draw something. Part of that burned in. But some of it was ruined, because a portion of the illness potion used on the last notice soaked into the wood. That's the reason it caught so quickly, and went out of control. Following that trail. It's going to make it that much harder to make out what's supposed to be in the center. Fortunately for us, the ignition was somewhat below this, so it's not impossible. Glimmerglow?" Her pegasus Guard looked up. "Please come over and hover next to me. I could use an extra set of eyes. I know what the border is, but I think the interior is --" she squinted "-- overlapped."

"Overlapped?" the attractive mare inquired as she began to fly towards her Princess.

"One thing drawn on top of another. 'Superimposed' would have been a better word. My apologies."

"So what's the border symbol?" her Guard asked. "I can't quite spot it."

"Because of the burn," Celestia quietly offered. "Backfire, take a picture of it when we're done, please. Use conventional film, then examine the negative. I think it'll be easier to see that way. But the border is our own primary warning symbol for No. Being used as a circle."

She took a breath. The lingering stink of smoke was drawn down into her lungs, which processed it with something just short of draconic efficiency.

"So let's see what they were saying no to," the Solar Princess decided. "Multiple branching lines coming off the top: four of them. One shorter line off to the side, at an angle. Rather more circular in the center, with something of an implied depression." She slowly shook her head, silently forcing her mane's flow to remain at the same falsely steady rate. "Not much of an artist. But it had to be something which could be drawn in a hurry. Five total lines --"

"-- not lines," Glimmerglow breathed -- which was followed by a cough.

Celestia glanced left.

"Fingers," the Guard declared. "Thumb off to the side, more or less. That's a hand..."

Which suddenly made the poorly-rendered doubled shape of the center resolve itself. Not a distorted palm, but --

"A hand," Celestia said, "superimposed over a hoof. Somepony's idea of a useful visual shorthoof for centaur. Backfire, have you heard any updates from the hospital?"

She could also hear the unicorn swallow. "I thought..." Closer to a whisper, "Don't you know?"

The alicorn had sent for an update. But she would have needed to wait at the palace for it to arrive, and when it came to picking it up in person...

"We asked them for a report," the old mare softly told the unicorn. "We had to leave before it arrived. So I would appreciate anything you can tell me."

"Well..." Another gulp. "The occupant of the apartment was released already. She was in her bathroom, getting ready for a night out: she didn't hear anything over the water. But once she smelled the smoke, she cleared out through a window, tried to get back in from another angle -- oh, you know that, she's a Guard..."

"Nightwatch is fine," Celestia calmly said. In spite of her best efforts. A pegasus who was preternaturally good with wind didn't quite have the same degree of skill for heat-shifting. "Tell me about the rest."

"Well... she managed to wake up the others on this level, Princess. Got them out: the other pegasi helped her carry the earth pony family down. But while she was doing that, the smoke..." The shudder of anger went into the words, made the nearby scorch flake off all the faster. "We're told the children on the level below this should recover: they didn't get that much of it. It's the foal everypony's worried about. He was just born a few days ago, and..."

The lead investigator was young. She hadn't seen enough yet, she'd already seen too much, and that was why she didn't quite choke back the sob.

"...he might be in the ward for a moon. I... took the wrong ramp up. I saw the birth buntings on the door. I..."

Everypony went quiet: Guards, the other investigators, and a very old mare. Giving her time.

One last sniffle, plus thirty more seconds, and then Celestia asked.

"I'm assuming that you can show me severed copper," the alicorn deduced. "Whoever did this would know the building has a fire suppression system. So they found the channeling wire, and cut it. Meaning the wonder couldn't send moisture to the hallway, and their warning would burn long enough to leave an impression. Accurate?"

"They cut it in multiple places," Backfire half-spat. "Including a few on the way up. I don't think they understood how much they had to do there. Or how wonders work at all. It's part of why we evacuated the rest of the building: somepony has to restore that before it'll be truly safe to move anypony back in. But aside from some smoke damage, the other apartments are all right."

"And this one isn't," Celestia stated. "The door is burned -- but it's still mostly intact. Because Nightwatch didn't know the fire suppression was gone. This is an old building and the entire floor is on the same wiring. So she went out the window. And when she opened it, trusting that the wonder would activate -- she created a pressure differential. The underside of the door doesn't form an airtight seal. The fire was pulled. She looked back just in time to see the flames come in, and by then..."

She lost everything in the apartment. She keeps her most valuable possessions in a safe deposit box, but... she won't sell them. Because I gave them to her.

She could have tried to take some things out. But she prioritized for everypony else even after the top floors were evacuated, because she's a Guard and there are times when Guards think of themselves last.

"You recorded the signature?" the old mare asked.

"Yes."

Someone made a symbol.

"Princess..." The unicorn's voice was hesitant. "I... I don't read it, but I saw the afternoon edition of the Tattler. The front page column. It was hard to miss in the newsstall. I don't believe it. I know -- the palace -- the Diarchy would never -- just to raise sympathy, you wouldn't have faked..."

A foal.
In a ward.
The tiny bed. The monitoring spells. Sparks drifting from the surrounding field loops to alert the casters of any changes.
For a moon.

Celestia hated hospitals. Loathed the helplessness which came when ponies recognized she was in the area, friends and family of the ill flooding towards her because there was a Princess in a hospital and wherever Celestia went, miracles had to follow.

She hated hospitals because the wards were the first, best homes of prayer. And all too often, when she forever found herself unable to answer them, the last.

"Thank you, Backfire," the elder gently offered. "Let's see what we can work out about possible height before we go to the various hotels and start asking the residents if they saw anypony unusual on the ramps. There's only so much neck craning most ponies care to do. And after that..."

I hate it.
I owe it to them.
To be there for their pain.

"...I'll go to the pediatrics ward."

To give them somepony they can kick.

The Sergeant was watching the path which led in from the training barracks. It was the only thing he'd been doing for what felt like the last twenty minutes. He hadn't ordered Cerea to do anything except wait: she was doing so on his left. And with motion stilled, with exercises ended until whatever they were waiting for happened, something he wouldn't tell her about beyond a sharp bark of "YOU'LL FIND OUT WHEN IT HAPPENS!" -- when the body had been stopped, the mind was free to start working again.

All she could do while they waited was think, and being run around the track until her hooves were ground to dust was better than living with what was racing through her head. Around and around, over and over, until she wished to drop.