Personification Life: EPIC (IC Thread XI) [CLOSED]

[Northwest Slobovia]

The Burrows, Pub

Amanda looked up from the conversation as she heard the approach of a helicopter. She had put away her phone long ago, before the batteries gave out completely, but pulled it out momentarily to check the time. Who on earth would be flying in at this time of night? She answered her own question aloud to Sakarais. "Oh! Maybe that's Mr. Nikanor! He's a businessman, but somehow he ended up with a very large military helicopter. He may have gone to Ascalon to get supplies. I'm going to go see."

Waving over a waitress, Amanda settled the bill. She slid her laptop back into her briefcase, rose from the table, smoothed her skirt, and took a few steps towards the door. She turned back to Sakarias. "Would you like to come too?"

Burrows Approach, this is Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, inbound for transition

Sandy unbuckled from his seat when it became apparent that the rest of the flight was going to be uneventful. The chopper seemed pretty fast -- faster than Pegasus could fly, it looked like -- but it would be a long ride home. Sandy spent much of the flight looking out the windows, trying to match the terrain he saw with the features on the databall's map display.

As the sun set, Sandy recast the Eyes of the Wolf, so he spotted both Ascalon and The Burrows when both were distant. As they landed, the scene seemed much the same as when they left: nothing left of the Building except for the screen of paper birds, and a few Residents standing watch along the walls, where Romulus had left them. Oh, but the tents were set up now!

"Professor, I'm afraid you'll have to look to your wife to set up your household. I have a tent but I haven't seen her yet."

Look to my wife? Sandy decided to ignore the odd phrasing and its implications. "Amanda is--" He dug his phone out of his pocket and checked his messages. "She's here... in The Burrows. Has been all day, it looks like. I'll go find her."

He then turned to Harker, Aphrodisiac, and Maghrl. "But first, I'm going to check the clinic. I... don't expect to be gone long." Sandy then set off with long strides: if there was a head injury patient, he should find out what her condition was.

He noticed the jeep tucked into a side street just after entering the village, and after a minute's thought, concluded there were only a few places Amanda might be: the pub, the church of Demens, the clinic, or possibly with Mayor Mercer, if there was something inobvious going on.

The clinic was fortunately easy to rule out. The only patient was Kale, apparently still sleeping, and most of the healers were gone as well. It didn't look like there'd been any major problems in his absence.

The Burrows, Pub

It was easy to see Amanda silhouetted in the pub's front windows, so he went in and and went over to her. "Hello, dear."

Amanda's reply was a big hug and surprisingly passionate kiss. She let go of Sandy and looked him over: no signs of wear and tear, no bloodstains, nothing to indicate he'd been gone. "Did the mission succeed?" she asked cautiously.

Sandy snorted and smiled, shaking his head. "Blackwater decided she wanted the chopper as well as its pilot. We've been flying home all day." He caught sight of Sakarias behind Amanda. "Hello, um... Sakarias, wasn't it?"

[Chedastan]

OPERATION: HARKER COMPLETE

---

The Burrows

Feeling relieved now that the helicopter finally arrived to their destination in one piece, the only thing that appealed to Romulus right now was a nice place to rest after a long and eventful day, and for that he was happy to hear from Volker that they had tents set up for them to do just that. He had nodded at Minerva's reminder for Mez, whom he had delegated perimeter defense to, and who has from the looks of it had done a well enough job while they were gone, all things considered. It was probably apparent by now that the Building must've been lost while they were away, and while it was clearly very bad now, he only hoped it didn't somehow get any worse and the Building would eventually return to them fully before something came up, for their sake and everyone else's.

He'll definitely check up with Mez on how defenses were currently doing before he even considers retiring for the night. "A meeting in the morning sounds like a swell plan, Minerva." He agreed with her, then looked at everyone else that remained after Sandy then left them. "I'll go now too and find Mez on the status of our defenses, if nothing else pops after that though, I think I'll take my deserved rest then for the night." He said to them before he left off to go find the Klingon, no doubt somewhere around the perimeter.

[Torsiedelle]

Otonako's Tent

Oto suddenly realised she'd dozed off when she woke up abruptly,

"Oh! Hey Torii," Oto found herself yawning, "You can share with me if you want?"

Otonako wished she could see Torii's expression to check that she was ok but she couldn't. She was a little afraid to ask what had happened in case it upset her. Besides they'd only just met that day.

"I'll let her tell me in her own time."

"Go fuck yourself."

Torii suppressed that thought. Her eye twitched.

"Why did I just think like that? She's being nice to me. She's willing to share her tent? I'd like to share a tent with someone. I like her."

Torii closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. "Sure. I'd like that.", She said with a slow exhale. "Say, you like the outdoors? Just asking, because, you know, you being outside and all."

She didn't actually even notice until then that Otonako had been looking up. It actually dawned on Torii - she had NEVER looked up into the night sky before, What was it like? Moons, stars, other bodies, all different from her own...

Maybe Torii would stay with Otonako? Maybe. She liked Stargazing. It was a simple escape from everything else around her.

[Holy Lykos]

The Burrows Pub

The Synth glanced away during the shows of affection, believing that it was a private thing and not his place to watch them perform such a thing. When he heard Sandy's voice again he looked back.

Sakarias nodded to Sandy, confirming his identity. "Yup, Sakarias here. Welcome back." He replied, standing up from his spot and stretching. He glanced out the windows, noting how late it'd become while waiting for Sandy. So they'd recovered a helicopter, and a big one from the sound of it. What a strange thing to recover though. Unless one of the group had been a helicopter enthusiast I can't imagine they'd have done that normally. Oh well, what's done is done, and at least he got some good conversation out of this while he was keeping Amanda company.

"Mission went well then?"

[Swith Witherward]

Somewhere

"Oh my god," the blue-clad godling remarked, wincing and grimacing at the horrible, random, confusing sight before her. She made a move to unstrap the young one from her booster and probably hop away to a safe distance, but was stopped by Giovenith grabbing her arm and commanding something tersely, giving her a shake for good measure. The blue twin readjusted her glasses and considered whatever the pink twin said in silence before getting up, walking across the kitchen, and opening up a small bottom cabinet. A panel slid out with a ginormous wheel attached to it, which the blue twin took hold of and began to turn with her hands.

Outside, the scenery began to turn, literally. A new outlook teetered out from the corner of the window like a View-Master scene and slowly fell all the way into place as the wheel turned more and more, eventually locking down with a light boom. No longer in the white void, the outside world from the window view was now that of an untamed and dark forest, the fluorescent humming now replaced with the babbling and squeaks of nature.

Done with that, the blue twin packed up the wheel and made her way out of the kitchen to the penthouse front door, opened it up, and called something out before standing by and waiting patiently.

Seconds later, there was a large WHOOSH! that scattered loose hair and paper and briefly made the lights in the home flicker. A pressurized but unseen force seemed to fill up the home and Klaus was slowly lifted through the air from the table to the L-shaped couch in the living room. Giovenith and the blue twin quickly surrounded said couch followed closely by the orange-clad toddler who had freed herself to keep up with the scene. She kept the straw from her meat carton between her lips and watched the Nazi with detached interest.

The pressure in the air loosened and an auburn woman rose up out of nowhere from the floor.

"Well," she tilted her head sideways toward Giovenith. "How wonderful to see that you can still visit, even if it is only when you need something."

"Mommy, I was at my other home and then this huge explosion came and this is Klaus and-" she was silenced by a hand wave.

"I know, I know," Christina Jerid carefully lifted up one of Klaus' hands and covered it in white light, and much of the pain in his body was pushed out like a drop of dish soap in food colored milk and gave him some lucidity. "Hello Mister Klaus, and you too Mister Krieger. You are a long way from your home and your beautiful family, but you are more than welcome here. I can assist your healing, with your permission of course."

Somewhere

Klaus' eyelids fluttered open just enough to reveal a thin glimpse of his blue irises. It was unseemly to remain on a couch when in the presence of so respected (and potent!) a Being such as Christina Jerid. However, unlike Elohim, she wasn't prone to tantrums and dick moves when disrespect reared its head. At least, not to Klaus' knowledge. The avatar coughed and mutely nodded.

The eyes opened a little more as he realized the pain had left him. He focused on Christina - my goodness, so this is Pearlelei! - and took in the comforting features of her face. Chaos hadn't any issues with Creators. In fact, Charumati's primary godhood devoted some time towards knitting together the Fabric torn by Destroyers. Granted, it wasn't Klaus doing the work but the avatar hoped it would at least buy him some cred.

"Thank you," a dry tongue rasped against the desert surfaces of his palate and gums. "Thank you. I'm sorry to intrude."



Upon a hill

The night intensified, giving Tora and Oto a star-dotted canvas to gaze upon. The planet's primary mood was shortly joined by its smaller companion, and together they bathed the ground with comforting light. An occasional shooting star streaked across the sky but these passed soundlessly. The only noise (other than Residents) was the incessant music made by the large crickets that lived in the green places beyond the tent field. Moths as large as a man's hand soon arrived to batter themselves against any light source. They weren't too troublesome though their wings' odd hum was usually accompanied by a small scattering of dust.

If a confetti popper had been pulled in slow motions, it could not have been quite as dazzling as what was occurring on the hilltop high above the village. It was shortly before dawn when a soft gust of wind tore a paper from the shield. It was followed by another, and then another after that. These sheets fluttered in the wind until the fields between hill and tent seemed blanketed by strange snow.

High up the hill, where the driveway would normally be, squatted a Davenport. Upon the Davenport lay a small Indian woman. Her head was in the lap of another woman, and the latter held a toaster under her arm. A gibbon had curled in the Indian woman's hair. This group seemed enchanted or, at the very least, frozen in slumber. They might have remained so were it not for the sudden change in atmosphere.

This started off gently and wasn't any cause for alarm. By time it reached density, the air surrounding the group was awash with the scents of lilac, chamomile and raw liver. They might have enjoyed it were they not comically pressed into the Davenport's cushions (the couch itself could barely keeps its legs from snapping). The gibbon did its best to squeal (an impossible thing when one's lungs have been pressed nearly flat). And then, without warning, the group were lifted off the ground and lobbed forward.

A loud BANG! silenced the crickets and drove the moths to ground. It rattled windows and shook doors, and set off the blacksmith's car alarm. The sound wave rolled onward, vibrating chests and setting teeth to chattering, before vanishing far beyond the woods.

From the direction of the hilltop, several shapes could be discerned. At first they were exactly as described three paragraphs above, but improbability kicked in as they went, and so they went through several forms before once again regaining their old shapes. Marcus was just about to remark on his relief when the side of the clinic stole his words (and breath) away. Sentia struck him in the back, and then the massive cyborg completed the sandwich. Opa was simply the olive on top, though he wasn't the final piece. That honor belonged to the Perfection's avatar. It was a miracle (more likely Demens' hand) that spared them all from exploding.

This predicament was the least of their worries. A second bang sent yet another ripple through the land. Minerva looked up from the village wall just in time to see a massive structure drop from the sky. It landed heavily, sending a shock wave through the ground, and came to a rest exactly where the old Building had been.

Dawn crested the tree tops and shed pale golden light across the grasses. The beams touched upon the Building's smooth walls and reflected off its windows. Volker crawled from his tent and trotted off, a flock of parakeets in tow, even as the front steps began to form. They were solid by time he reached them. All that was left was to make certain new Residents signed their leases, and to see to it that everyone found their new apartments. Of course, being Demens, all of their things had been spared.

[CAT XIII]

Upon A Hill

Oto was woken up abruptly by the loud noise, she had dozed off again. She was quite relaxed by the night spent stargazing, however being startled enough to wake herself up wasn't a nice way to start the day. She clutched her guitar and looked over at Torii.

"What do I do? Do I run off to see what it was or do I... No, I stay here on red alert. Wait, is that three figures off in the distance? Get ready Oto."

She set herself on target mode, her hair flaming red and her guitar becoming a weapon of mass destruction. She gritted her teeth and reminded herself of Forako's death, bringing rage into her eyes.

"Now I stay like this until the danger passes or until Torii tells me that we're safe."

[Torsiedelle]

Torii was already near Otonako. She saw the couch, and see saw some familiar faces on board, much to her surprise and delight.

Marcus!

The first bang made her jump, and, for just a moment, her entire expression shot into one of alertness and the intention to kill. After the second, she jumped again, and then paused and let out a breath. Why had she been alarmed by the bangs? She knew everything was safe. Well, besides a building falling from the sky.

She HAD to find Marcus. "Friendlies.", She said quickly to Otonako. I'm going to see. Follow?"

With that, she launched off immediately, into a sprint to the clinic, or, rather, as fast as she could run, as she found herself still surprisingly wobbly and sick. She hadn't realized how much her elation had boosted her.

......

Audette? Yeah, she went somewhere. Fuck it. Torsii is gonna sham this one.

.......

Between a building exploding, picking on sheep, seeing a primitive aircraft land, and watching a new building seemingly fall out of the sky, Sozewe had determined that, wherever he was, it was certainly a very special and strange place, and not one where he would care to spend much time outside for worry of a building landing on him.

Perhaps he would mingle today? He continued to consider the idea. He felt much energy among the people in the village, and found the idea tempting.

[Northwest Slobovia]

"Mission went well then?"

"Well..." Sandy's brow went all crooked. "I'm not sure what Myra was thinking in paging the four of us who went. The rescue part could have been done by... by any two of us, or... probably just Blackwater herself."

"Blackwater decided she wanted the chopper, too. I can... " Sandy stopped to think for a second. "I can see why she might want it: it can carry a lot of cargo, maybe more than Usseio Senior's rig can. But I don't understand how she intends to fuel it. It must-- It must just devour fuel." There was a pause, while Sandy looked off into the distance. "There was a risk the chopper might have ended up stuck in the jungles, but... but I still not sure even that would have required four people, especially not the four Myra sent. It's very mysterious." Sandy shook his head: he had no idea how to explain it.

"But I think it's time to say goodnight. Building or no Building, the healers may have patients to treat tomorrow. Goodnight, Sakarais." The Belas waited for a reply, then started to walk back to the tents. Amanda wanted Sandy to elaborate on his 'Building or no Building' comment, and he gave her his best guess, for what little comfort that could bring.

Amanda, far too caffeinated to sleep, was distracted by one of the odd moths, and the motes that trailed from it caught Sandy's trained eye. "Pixie dust?" This close to the Freywold, he wouldn't rule anything out. They tried luring one closer for a better look -- and Listen -- first with the light from Sandy's phone, then with a tiny fireworks display. Maybe moths would like a continuous salute of gold and silver skyrockets.

Morning

Dawn broke with an usually loud bang, and the Belas groggily peered out of their tent. Demens' driving hadn't improved, that was certain. "Home. Shower. Clean clothes." was the best Amanda could manage, as she held out her travel mug towards Sandy. He conjured it full of coffee, then nodded while she gulped it down. "Take the jeep if you want. I'm going to stretch out and then check the clinic."

And Sandy did just that, walking over to a clear spot away from the tents, stretching his back a few times, then expanding his stick to staff size to run through some stick-fighting kata.

[Stormwrath]

Campgrounds, Next Day

Even if the loud and thundering bangs and the violent tremors came through the village, Macy's body just remained still on her cot in the same lying position she had when she 'slept'. Everyone else may possibly be woken up in the least convenient manner, but not Macy. She continued to just lie there soundly like a life-sized mannequin Barbie doll lying face-up, the only thing active about her being the flashing light on her belly button.

About a few minutes after the perturbations stopped, her systems left sleep and became active one by one. Little by little her joints began to feel some energy flowing, and her eyes gradually opened to reveal that she was on a bed with a large white cloth hanging gracefully a few feet over her head. She sat up and brushed her messy golden hair back, and could barely read the time of day, weather, and battery charge remaining that appeared in her vision. The other cot was empty when she turned around. Huh, Rmwtyliin must have woken up already.

There seemed to be a strange hubbub outside of her tent. What was going on out there? She could barely hear someone mention of a quake or an explosion or something else that rocked the village while they were sleeping—something she may have missed while she was inactive. Hastily getting off the cot, she went outside of the tent and began to look around the campgrounds. It wasn't until she turned her head to the right that she finally saw it—a large high-rise had appeared on the hill where the Building once stood, with the sun's rays cast on its exterior. It even resembled the Building, even to the minutest detail. Or maybe it was the Building.

"Oh my gods," she touched her mouth and gasped. Didn't her apartment collapse to the ground with the others? And yet the Building was standing over there as if nothing happened. How on earth? She began to look for Rmwtyliin—she should know this. "Rem?" she cupped her hands.

[CAT XIII]

Running Back to the Clinic

Oto followed Torii back however she had a bit more energy and was feeling a lot better so she had to slow down to keep pace with her. Still, they were going very fast and, when the girl looked down, the ground she was running over was just a blur.

Oto turned her guitar back to a musical instrument but her hair stayed red as she was still on alert.

"The hell happened back there?"

"We're going back to the clinic?" She asked between breaths.

[Fvaarniimar]

Campground
The wide-eyed girl staring back at Macy had abandoned all pretense of unflappability, voice shaking as she kept glancing at the palatial residence. "I - I knew it was powerful, they said it could survive horrible weapons, could survive if the world was destroyed, was safe, it mends damage, but - how?  How is this possible?  I cannot believe it. It - It - I-"

Freaked out and scared, Rmwtyliin needed human contact...
Even if that human contact wasn't actually human. Having been moving towards Macy, she ran forward, closing the distance with a desperate hug. Regaining her composure somewhat, she apologized. "Sorry, that was presumptuous?"

Continuing, Rmwtyliin frantically clawed her hair - can at least control appearance must represent well - into submission. "It - you saw, correct?  I thought it was gone."  She glanced around nervously.   "I would happily believe that the Spirit of the Concept of Shelter was responsible, but...I expect it is...the owner of our dwelling."

Presumably, Macy, like quite nearly every other Resident, had been yanked into the dining room by Demens. She'd likely know precisely what name Rmwtyliin was doing her very best not to mention, lest it draw a TERRIFYINGLY powerful entity's attention to her.

[Stormwrath]

Campgrounds => Building

"Rem!"

Macy had finally caught eye of her. From the look on her face, she was a lot more surprised than the robot was. Macy was just as surprised when Rmwtyliin ran and hugged her out of nowhere. Was it because she was afraid? Was it because she had a lot to take in? Whatever the case, Macy just let her hug her—maybe for now her presence was what she needed right now.

"No no," she smiled and hugged back. "It's fine."

Macy replied, "I thought it was, too—both the Building being gone and the owner of it." Brushing her hair back she asked, "Shall we be heading home?"

It can be presumed that the two joined the other Residents in returning to the Building. Macy was informed that her apartment room was moved to the third floor, and so she went there. When she opened the door, she saw that everything was in its place, just as before. There was her little sofa chair, the table to the side, and her sword from the village held proudly on the wall. She opened the door to her room, and it was just the same. Picking up her charger from the bedside, she plugged it into her navel and lay on the bed, deactivating herself for the time being.

[Swith Witherward]

Marcus dusted himself off and was about to slip out of Thaddeus' line of sight when a familiar voice halted him in his tracks. He cast his gaze about. A smile crept onto his face as Tora dashed up the street towards him. The smile was short-lived. In fact, her skin color and reddened eyes indicated that something was terribly wrong.

"Tora, here!" a hand shot towards the sky to indicate he'd seen her. His head cocked as he took notice of the strange girl accompanying her. New Resident, perhaps. But the closer the pair got, the more the feelings of dread seemed to clutch at him. Something was very, very wrong. He was sure of it.

His mind cast about for some indication of the cause. What could possibly upset her so ba-

Oh gods, no!

He took several steps forward, long legs carrying him towards the running girl as his face paled. "Torii, where's Giovenith? Is she with you?" The words came out in a mad tumble, his tongue somewhat slurring the consonants. Hot, stinging tears collected at the corner of his organic eye. "Where's Giovenith? Where is she?"

They met in the street and Marcus found her warm hands clasped in his. Odd how clammy their skin felt when pressed together. He opened his mouth to ask again, but his throat was too tight and no words would come out.

A shadow fell across the pair. Before either had a moment to catch their breath, Thaddeus emerged from the alley. His hand scruffed the young man. "We don't have time for this," his cold expression did not shift. "Mortals need not worry about gods. Not when there's a greater need to see to. Go!"

And with that, he roughly shoved Marcus towards the village gate. The young man looked at his hands, still moist from Tora's own skin, and then back to Thaddeus.

"Go!" the old cyborg pointed towards the Building. "The priests will be hard pressed to get things running, if indeed the Building has returned. Every hand is needed."

This was true enough. Marcus' com system was abuzz. The faster-moving priests were already bolting towards the Building; the slower ones would make their way as best they could. The boiler needed tending, and pipes and circuits would need to be replaced. The whole mess would be broiling hot if they didn't get the air circulating. And there was the matter of the Chaos Quarters... someone needed to lock that shit down. Marcus, having experience at it, was already being paged.

"But, Giov-"

His protests were cut short by Thaddeus' deepening scowl. "You're no help to her. Go!"

The old cyborg followed in the young man's steps, though Marcus was far more spry and fast than him. The lad paused just shy of the gate, turning to call out to Tora. "Meet me later? Clubhouse! I'll get away as soon as I can!" A rough prod from Thaddeus, who had just caught up with him, sent Marcus onward once more.

"Why Torii, I do believe you finally have titties!" the soft, Hindu-accented drawl came from none other than Charumati. The avatar seemed to materialize beside the girl (in fact, she simply walked forward while Tora was distracted), smiling as though nothing had changed. A petite index finger thrust outward and then pressed into one of Tora's firm mounds. "Very nice. Now you're all grown up."

Barked laughter mocked the morning sunshine - Charu seemed to have lost her manners! - and then the avatar turned and padded down the village path. In truth, she was searching for NVE. He was the last person she remembered before all hell broke loose and her matrix destroyed.

Er, divided? Well, something something and then something happened, but it was back in the Classic days when shit just didn't make sense.

She continued past the clinic and towards the tents (because it made sense to find the raptor there!), pausing just long enough to regard the man stretching. Her head cocked, and she veered to approach him.

The music in Sandy's head was the oddest assortment of noise! It contained all the usual nonsense typical of the Chaos pantheon, yet there was no mistaking the strange melody emerging... in fact, it was distinctly the chorus to "Little Bunny Froo Froo". The avatar, clad in a Chaos Restaurant teeshirt, fading jeans, and an impossibly white lab coat, paused in front of him.

A hand snaked out, and two fingers pinched closed to trap a moth by its wings. She gave it a quick shake. Dislodged dust alighted on the wizard's shoulder.

"Oooohhhhh," the avatar sucked in her breath. The head tilted in the opposite direction as though she somehow guessed his thoughts from earlier. "Nope. You're not floating. Guess the dust is just dust." (In fact, she would have said such even if he hadn't thought about it at all. Charu was eternally weird that way."

"NOM!" her mouth opened just long enough to expose sharp teeth where molars should have been, and then the moth vanished into it. "Ahahahahah!" again with the barked laughter, only it was adorned by moth dust and bits of wing that remained on her tongue. The mouth snapped shut once more. She offered Sandy a curt nod before loping through the tents in search of NVE.

[CAT XIII]

Lurking Behind the Strangers

Oto was confused. There was the guy that Torii was seemingly trying to find, he looked alright. But then he and Torii were pulled apart and there was a strange blue girl feeling Torii up.

"He's a God? What's going on? Who's Giovenith? What am I supposed to do? Someone said something about the Building showing up..."

Oto remembered her situation for a moment and checked the possibility of the people around her not being on her side like the trained fighter she was,

"They don't seem that dangerous. Just... odd. Although I have colour changing hair so I can't say much."

"Erm..." she spoke quite quietly, "What should I do? Do you want me to go back to the Building or...?"

[Torsiedelle]

Their meeting, then her hands and his, her panting for air, his worry...

Torii couldn't speak fast enough, and then his dad - was that his dad? - prodded him away, much to Torii's great distress. She had to speak! She needed to try and get her story out, but with him being whisked away so suddenly, she just couldn't, and then...

Swith! Er, Charumauti? Whatever she called her, the Goddess shocked Torii even more. Her senses and thoughts went haywire while she wrestled with surprise and fear and anxiety, and the entire ordeal that was playing out. She bit her lip, trying to say anything, when Charumauti spoke.

"Why Torii, I do believe you finally have titties!" the soft, Hindu-accented drawl came from none other than Charumati.

Her jaw dropped. Did she...did she just say that? Torii was mortified. She crossed her arms over herself defensively after being prodded, and stared at the woman while she laughed and walked off. She didn't like that; she was self-conscious about her chest.

It took a good minute for her to sort out her thoughts, steady her breathing, and make sense of everything around her, before she found herself with a decision: follow Charumauti, or Marcus?

Obviously, she had to talk to her friend. Torii grit her teeth and inhaled, then relaxed. She looked at Otonako. "I don't know about you, but I'm going to ask to help those men. I need to speak with Marcus. It's important.", She said. She took a few steps, before breaking into a jog again. "Are you with me?"

[Tiltjuice]

Katya sucked in a breath. The shock and hurt was visible on her face. She struggled to speak, and had to steady herself and take a moment to exhale.

"But the building is strange, no? I doubt they could be gone. I...", She bit her lip. "Klaus can't be gone. Gio and Marcus, too? They're too tricky for death, and...Klaus, I know he has a way out of everything. They can't be gone. We just have to hope. That shield can't just be there for no reason."

It was the exact opposite of what she wanted to say, but false hope was better than no hope, and Katya wouldn't accept her favorite Cultist/Tea Partner and Tora's best friends being dead.

She just had to be strong. No tears, no worry.

"I have faith in one of my little sisters," Dora said, bracing Katya with a hand at the small of her back, even as the redhead swept a glance over Luce. She forwent mentioning that if something had happened to Klaus, Chrys would probably move heaven, earth, and everything in between to try to get him back.

Family was what it was made, even if it was a warped, jerry-rigged kludge to outsiders' eyes.

"And I have trust in Fate's mercy. Come. Let's sleep on it, and tomorrow we'll see where things are with them and with Luce."

[Northwest Slobovia]

Sandy was slow to respond to the Chaos' avatar's strange choice of breakfast. He started to think, It's too early in the morning for this, but he remembered where he was and why he was there. It's never too early for weirdness in Galli.

He called to her retreating back. "Who are you?" What she was he was pretty sure of, and even how she got here. He glanced in the direction of the Building. Her accent suggested that Ogoti would know her name; he'd have to remember to ask.

Sandy decided he was warmed up enough, and set off to see who was in the clinic.

[Chedastan]

The earlier loud bangs that herald the return of the Building had obviously awakened Romulus from his slumber, who has all too fondly reminisced it initially as the early morning bombardment he experienced while in the San Zuag Campaign as a Major years before. Though realizing then after that it had to be something important, he got up and quickly equipped himself for whatever it was.

Getting out of his tent and searching for the source of this early commotion, he quickly saw in the distance that it was due to the awaited return of the Building, which stood prominently in its original spot. Figuring now that he should probably head towards it to perhaps organize with other residents that were already there or would be there, he started his way towards it through the tents.

While on his way getting out of the tent city, he took a turn and came across an women that he didn't recognized searching through tents. At least he was pretty certain he had never seen the likes of her in particularly before though, which made him all the more reasonably suspicious of her. Unsure of who she was, he approached her to hopefully better gauge her.

"Excuse me, miss, are you looking for something?" He said to the avatar curiously when he got close enough.

[CAT XIII]

Insert Title Here

Otonako couldn't decide what to do.

"Do I help Torii or do I go off and do something else? Well, these do seem to be her friends, of a sort, so she doesn't need my protection. Maybe I should go? She did ask. No," she physically shook her head and then went back to her thoughts, "As nice as she is, I don't think she wants me around that badly."

"If you'd rather go yourself then go ahead. I'll get in some guitar practice and head back to the Building," she called loudly because the girl was already a bit of a distance away.

"Wait, should I find Rmw? Nah, I'm too tired to go about chasing after people. If she wants to find me she will. I'll fo what I told Torii I'd do and I'll sit with my guitar for a bit, then head off. Can I destroy stuff? No, no Oto, that's not what you do anymore. Stop."

Oto sat down on the grass and started to play a tune she remembered from childhood, she wasn't in the mood to play her band's songs yet.

Then she packed up the guitar, checked about the place for the Building's wherabouts and headed back home.

[Torsiedelle]

Katya stiffened up at Dora's touch, then slowly loosened back up. She was flustered.

She could see Chrys doing as she said, maybe. She didn't know too much about the woman. She hoped that Klaus and Giovenith would be alright, however. There was little she could do herself, and Dora was probably right; they would need sleep.

it was a nice night anyways. It couldn't be too bad...

Sleep was nice.

.............

Dreams drifted in and out, and she couldn't remember much besides faint whispers and mentions of friends, or random, strange thoughts concerning her home. It didn't matter. Katya did recall a certain feeling of warmth and comfort...

A deafening bang sent the woman into the air with a terrified squeal. She leaped up from beside Dora and stared wide-eyed at the tent's entrance until she realized that nothing else was happening. She calmed down again, though still jittery from the sudden wake up.

She was also annoyed. She was still in her clothes. They were wrinkled, and definitely not as fine-looking as she would have liked.

Her breathing steadied, and she slumped back into her cot. What a night. What a morning...

[Altito Asmoro]

Julia Harker
"The" Building

The building, wow, it is so big. She can sees that this place will be her new place to living for, not that she will complains about it. As she walked over to the entrance, she saw Volker once again, who now motioned for her to came to him, and she did.

Volker explained about the lease, room, basically settling in on her new room in the building, who is actually an apartment. Well, sort of, because there are a lot of non-apartment like things inside the building as well. She signed on the lease, handed it to Volker, before continuing to her room.

It's 6E.

The room is quite big for an apartment room, there's bed, kitchen, and so on. She settled in after that.

[Fvaarniimar]

A certain feline had gone back to sleep post-BOOM.  Tired enough, he could sleep through quite a bit, but that had been entirely too much noise, too much shaking -

What finally awoke him was a shaft of sunlight, and the fact that he'd been well-rested.  He yawned.  He stretched.  He headed to check if any breakfast morsels had skittered into the clinic, and was eyeing a beetle when it hit.

Nick wanted to bawl his eyes out, despite only understanding that sensation through contact with human minds.  He wanted to yowl his little head off mournfully - and did.  If any patients were snoozing, they were in for a headache-inducing reawakening.

Scared, he shivered. Torii.  He needed a hug from Torii.  Or maybe Giovenith, but in the aftermath of everything he figured she would be busy.

He ran out, sniffing around until, finally, he found the all-too-ordinary girl running back.

"Meow!  Mee -"  She looked dejected. Collar. "What's going on? Please hug me. I'm upset, really sad, and I don't even know why -

It's past time for me to find out, isn't it.

"Yet."

---

Rmwtyliin joined Otonako at the start of the Residents' long, gravel driveway, having taken a few minutes to process the insanity of, well, everything. They easily could walk silently. That would be up to Otonako, barring events jarring the younger girl from her thoughts.

[Torsiedelle]

Torii halted, almost tripping over herself, really. She caught herself just in time, and looked down at her little friend, who seemed just as distressed as she was. She was wide-eyed with panic. "Nick!"

She quickly scooped the kitty up and nestled him in her arms, though she immediately began her jog back to the building. "I have to talk to Marcus, but he got dragged away, and I don't know how else to get to him, and Gio's...", Her throat caught. "I just need to do something! I need to say something, it's killing me!", She whined. "I'm freaking out right now, and I just need this! I need to find someone."

[Giovenith]

Someplace

"Oh, it's no intrusion at all," Ms. Jerid insisted, pressing her hands together with a smile. "I like it when people come to visit me, they hardly do anymore. I was just helping feed dearest Jubilee's babies while she rests for the day."

At this, the soft features of the goddess' face suddenly contorted inhumanly as a hissing hack arose from her, followed shortly by a large hunk of half-digested meat pealing out from her mouth and landing in her hands. Barely a second passed after the shocking display that an impossible amount of what appeared to be flying, squeaking lizards swarmed out of her hair and covered the meat, nipping away at it for but a moment before swarming out the still open front door, leaving the goddess' hands empty.

Ms. Jerid smoothed her hair. "But it has been such a long time since we brought any other gods home for supper!"

Giovenith stared up at her mother, unsure of how to initiate the point of the emergency that she and Klaus were in. The young artist looked between the Greater Being and her blue-garbed quasi-twin, whose critical gaze was burrowing into her with cold intensity. She apparently wasn't as casual about a Nazi war god being plopped into their home by her never-home sister.

The toddler, on the other hand, took a similar attitude as Ms. Jerid. She tried pushing her meat carton into Klaus' hands while making strange coos that seemed like a cross between child's speak and lizard gurgling. Either way, it seemed friendly.

Groundtown

The Chancellor was not a very intimidating pony. She was just a bit shorter than most, had a pinch of plump, and the puffy brown and pink clouds that made up her mane and tail practically swallowed her form up if kept unchecked. Her clothing was bright and silly for an official's get-up. But in spite of all that, her expression was cold. Her eyes neither twitched nor glazed as she kept them locked on Rache, as if totally ignorant of the plainly evident fact that he could rip her to pieces in seconds. In spring or winter, a stone was still a stone.

She listened to all four speak their pieces despite never moving her gaze. Once they were all done, she allowed what felt like an eternal second to make sure that was all they had to offer, before speaking up.

"Do you really think we'd sit miles away from them for hundreds of years and never think of anything for if they ever went rogue?" the Chancellor asked plainly in a measured tone.

It was in response to Rache's assessment of the pegasi's military against the residents of her tribe. 'Not from the city' - no, he was still just like the rest. The only difference is this one veiled his condescension through concern rather than hostility. Chancellor Puddinghead did not desire the pegasi's respect though, thus she allowed the implication to hang without going into detail, no ridiculous chest beating, that was all for her to know and for them to hopefully never find out.

She didn't wait for a response and finally turned to place her gauntlet on her desk. "Moolisa is an idiot. Normally I'd let her little schemes fail of their own accord and have her own stupidity be her punishment, but I am not in the mood to have her test my limits. I will send somepony for her when things are sorted here."

SkyWishes narrowed her brow in concern and exchanged a look with her friends. This was a darker Chancellor than the insistent, bouncy eccentric they'd been dealing with so far, somepony she wasn't used to. We all worse a mask sometimes though, she supposed.

"Now what are you going on," Puddinghead marched up to Aegis, looking up at him in the eye and bopping his nose with the tip of her pink hoof. "About your spooky-spooky undead? Witches' black sorcery ya sayin'?"

"No, no," Sky was quick to jump in. "Not unicorns, like Grimmig Rache said!"

"Bah." The leader was growing sick of all her underlings futilely making excuses for the non-Earths. Pacifistic nonsense. She turned from Aegis with a woosh of her wide hat and kicked away the sitting pillows from the middle of the floor, fetching an oil lamp while she was at it. "Come with me, all of you." She bent low and opened up the hatch in the floor from whence she had first crawled when meeting the Residents.

Hazelle shrieked and ruffled her feathers with agitation as the floor door swung open and filled the room a distant but terrible screaming and roaring. SkyWishes was jarred considerably and staggered back.

"What is that?!" the girl squeaked.

"Golden Cornucopia," the Chancellor answered, turning on the oil lamp.

"Who?"

Puddinghead lead the way downstairs without answer, leaving the others little choice but to follow. For such a simple looking cabin on the outside, the chambers underneath were a vast and winding thing made of packed and fossilized dirt that made the rest of the home above seem puny. There were dark halls around several corners, and the only illumination the Chancellor's lamp. Sky looked around and folded her ears.

"I... did not know all this was down here," she said, flinching again as the screaming continued.

Onward the short elected leader went through the halls until they came across the source of the screaming: The original cannibal pony from before, all locked up in some contraption that restrained his legs, torso and head. SkyWishes almost screamed herself, thinking this was some kind torture device, before being hushed by the Chancellor.

"He is not being hurt," she insisted. "We put him here so he cannot hurt others or himself and we can investigate. We identified him, a colt named Golden Cornucopia who went missing a few weeks ago when looking for firewood. The physicians say that he is not dead, not like your undead creatures, but merely... mad? Mad. We know not why."

Sky shook her head and sniffled, feeling a lump in her chest. All of this was getting to her.

"This might all be connected," the Chancellor said, turning back to the others. "But speculation means nothing without action. If you have truly seen something, we will need to put Groundtown on a lock down and hunt down whatever is causing this vile witchery. What about you?" She pointed to Rache. "Has your city seen similar incidents?"

The trash heap

Pansy felt a mixture of sickness and intrigue at what the unicorns considered "trash." She'd been raised to value efficiency and a lack of waste, and that wasn't exactly exemplified when pulling out a three-foot long pearl, silver, and sapphire necklace from the snow that she couldn't even find anything wrong with (there wasn't - it merely had gone out of style!). Even for a relative moderate, the whole scene was fairly infuriating, but at the same time, it was hard to say that digging through the stuff wasn't interesting. Along with jewelry, clothes, and baubles, there were many old books as well, most of which had been thrown out due to some new edition coming out or too much wear and tear. Flipping through a few, much of what laid within was beyond Pansy's understanding.

" 'Synanthropy of calliphoridae and sarcophagidae in the city of El Dorado,' " she read off the cover of one heavy tome, or at least tried to, butchering most of the bigger words. She slowly lowered it to begin searching for clues again.

"Look what I found!" Cloud Duster appeared out of nowhere and shoved a hideous doll in her face.

"WAAH-!" Pansy stumbled backward from the unwelcome surprise, falling torso-first to the ground then, out of instinct, snapped out her hind legs through the air just missing Duster's face and sending the doll flying. They watched as it sailed through the air before crashing to the ground.

"Mamaaaaaa..." some broken sound box growled in a deep voice, one of its eyes popping out of its head.

Cloud Duster snapped attention back at Pansy. He pointed at her. "Baby killer!"

"What?!" Pansy wasn't amused.

"That's enough, both of you!" Willow snapped at both of them, emerging from behind a pile of silk dresses. "We can't waste time getting distracted by this stuff, we have to find Smart Cookie and protect her!"

"Why?" Pansy asked, still not entirely sure what the whole purpose of their mission here was.

"Because..." Willow trailed off, trying to think fast. "Because if Groundtown goes crazy, we'll never find the rest of the members of the traveler clan." For good measure: "Not to mention that if they do go crazy, it could mean trouble for the food supplies. And it's the right thing to do."

Pansy sighed and nodded, turning to make amends with Cloud Duster... only to find him gone again. The two whipped their heads around in search of their blue companion and found him digging at the snow near the mountain's edge with his front hooves like an excited dog. Willow sighed with frustration and pulled Pansy along to see what he was up to this time.

"What are you doing?" the artist asked, annoyance clear in his voice. "Did you just hear what I sai-"

The grey young stallion was interrupted by the distinctive scratchy clunking and rumbling of large rocks hitting other large rocks, the three flying upward to avoid stumbling into the large hole that fell away beneath their feet in the spot Duster had been digging. They listened as the rocks fell down into a deep darkness within the hole, indicating that opening was some kind of tunnel. Willow looked between it and Duster.

"How did you find this?" he asked.

The Private merely pointed to what neither of them had noticed before: Red blood and green hair in the snow, smeared toward the hole. Not too far off against the trees was a splash of dark green ghouling blood, and the slightly covered tracks in the snow around them showed some kind of struggle to the trained eye.

"Even before he dug it up," Pansy said, suddenly realizing. "Somepony could have easily stumbled down there!"

Willow's stomach lurched in panic at this prospect. A dark rocky slide? Horrible images of broken skulls and a future ended before it could begin flashed through his mind, fearing that Smart Cookie was already dead and their mission failed, but was calmed slightly by the simple fact that he still existed. Either his ancestry was some total miracle or there was still time.

"Well then, we'll just have to make sure that nopony did," he declared, ruffling his feathers slightly.

Pansy widened her eyes and shook her head. "No, don't you know what this is?" She pointed upward toward the fading peaks of the mountain. "This is unicorn territory. We don't have a token to come here like we did with Groundtown! The most the Earth ponies could do is lynch us, but there's no telling what the magicians and sorcerers would do to us if they caught us sneaking around!" Pansy's own imagination flashed scenarios of them being turned into rats, or incinerated, or bled out to make potions.

"All the more reason to go down and check," Willow said sympathetically. "What if Smart Cookie was caught?"

Pansy caught herself from outright thinking, Who the fuck cares? and felt deep shame at her fear. She had already promised Yuna that she would be of service and bring the secretary home. How fast she was to forget duty in light of threat to herself! If there were a superior here, they would surely strike her, and rightly so! Sighing, she straightened her posture and nodded.

"I agree," Duster said simply.

"But how are we going to see?" Pansy asked, squinting her eyes down at the tunnel. "The dark, it's as thick as pea soup!"

Willow looked back around at the trash piles around them to see if anything would help. He zipped off to a scattered box of jewelry and began to dig through it, hoping that perhaps he would find... aha! He picked up a light blue sapphire with etchings in it and began to slap it with his other hoof a few times before it slowly lit up like a glow stick. Luminescent gems! One of his old unicorn friends back in modern Equestria had shown them to him before. The painter returned to the others and nodded. "Let's go!"

Slowly, one by one, they eased their way down the hole and began the precarious slide into the labyrinth below.

Caer Gloriana

Riiiiiiiiiiip!

It was unmistakable and yet totally alien, the tearing apart of an unseen force as Mirare was taken up by it's new wielder; as the blade ran through the air via Chrys swining it around from back to front, the edge of the blade literally cut the air and left a gap glittering edges in its wake. Within that gap was reality - the dark, cold, caverns, and outside the gap, the garden fantasy. The illusion was exposed.

"The Bitch Witch-Queen's weapon," the false Hans hissed in a completely different voice, the edges of his form beginning to fuzz out like a static TV broadcast. "That conniving apprentice! We will wrangle her in front of Argenta's spawn!"

The same curdling voice from the nightmare the two travelers had shared the other night split force from the rapidly deforming Hans figure. The Nazi illusion melted like a candle, his whole back bending backward and his limbs liquefying until he resembled roadkill on the fading garden stones. Smooshed-Hans further disintegrated even then, this time, what was left gathering into a black cloud that rose upward as the last of the fantasy shattered, leaving the Conservator once again in her unicorn form.

Meanwhile, in the tunnel, the voices accosting Brit silenced for a moment.

"The sword," one of them suddenly hissed, this time in a much more warped and darker tone.

"Her..."

"No! We killed her!"

"It is not her."

"It is someone with kindred soul."

They all began to talk, then squabble, then scream incoherently over one another in a massive choir of horror. Suddenly, the darkness behind Brit exploded and propelled her forward the rest of the tunnel's way and into the opening where Chrys stood. Her body skidded and slid across the ground smoother than expected, revealing that beneath the garden illusion, the floor of the chamber was completely covered in ice. From behind the tunnel where Brit emerged, the darkness flooded outward and joined the smokey remains of false-Hans in gathering among the pointed chamber ceiling. The same creatures spotted before now loomed over them in full nightmarish glory, screaming and roaring at the puny residents.

Outside, Platinum was giving Clover CPR. Or, at least, what she thought CPR was, which mostly consisted of desperately but pathetically giving little taps to her friend's abdomen. The princess was yelling for her magician's sake and nearly on the verge of crying when Clover suddenly gasped, opened her eyes, and rose to her legs.

"Clover?!" Platinum gasped, scrambling up and attempting to reach out a hoof to the younger pony, but pulled back in fear at her condition. Clover's eyes had been taken over completely by the sinister green glow, and a new purple haze played at their edges. Magical static popped and zapped violently in black and purple bursts around her eyes and horn. "Clover..."

A stream of the dark magic shot out from the little unicorn causing the princess to scream and stumble backward. It was not aimed at her however, but the invisible wall between them and the travelers. The magic hit and the whole entry way suddenly glowed with the same eerie blacklight as before, before round patches blotched up upon it one by one and slowly disintegrated away the force field, leaving them free to pass. It was only then that the magic shorted out and fizzled from Clover, leaving her horn and returning her eyes to their normal state, causing the mage to swoon slightly. Platinum helped her stay standing, but was quick to turn her attention to the chaos that Brit and Chrys had found themselves in.

Something in the royal girl shifted now that the barrier was gone. Her eyes narrowed and her teeth gritted. Not anymore!

Leaving Clover the Clever to the safety of the tunnel, Princess Platinum ran into the chamber while simultaneously pulling something from her bags with her telekinesis. She began to slide across the room as her hooves hit the ice, and while doing so, pulled an archer's arrow from her bag, aimed it mid-slide, and shot a glowing arrow up at the gathering shadows before slowly to a stop next to Brit. The arrow flew up and caused the shadow creatures to reflexively twist away from its magic light, but quickly ran back over it once the glow ran out. Platinum was not deterred.

"Mirare, Chrysanthemum!" she ordered. "Everything you have, Brit! Let us exile these ruffians to whence they came!"



Smart Cookie's head throbbed as cold stone materialized beneath her cheek. She squeezed her eyes tight to take a moment to assess her pain before slowly fluttering them open. Her dazed mind wondered briefly at why a flower was growing out of her hoof. It was quickly that things cleared and she reasoned that there was no plant on her, as she twisted and moved her hoof and saw the image remain still, she realized it was colored light shining down on her.

The secretary rolled off of her tummy to her hooves and shook herself into full awareness. She looked around her and found her hat a few inches off to her side on the floor, picked it up, set it upon her head, and gave the wide rim a nice, long stroke before taking note of her surroundings.

"Figs' sake," Cookie breathed quietly in shock, backing up a bit in astonishment as her eyes were drawn upward.

The source of the flower-shaped light on her hoof was yet another stained glass window. This one, however, put the ones up above where the Princess and her mage lived to shame (not that the Earth pony was able to compare). It was at least four times bigger, roughly as tall as a three-story building and as wide as two and half cars, making Smart Cookie feel like an insignificant speck and sending her brain into a frenzy over where on Earth anypony would even be able to find that much glass. These feelings only intensified as she slowly turned around in a circle and saw that the window was just one in an equally colossal full set.

One, two... five... she counted and found six windows total, each covering the wall in the rounded - or rather, hexagonal - chamber in which she had landed. They were considerably more abstract than the windows upward in the modern palace, though not imprecise as to what was being depicted on each one. It was not so incomparable to the evolution of human art: the further forward in time one went the closer to reality artists attempted to keep to, the further backward, the more liberties taken and a larger focus on the evocation of emotion and deeper understanding than perfect rendition. Exempli gratia, the difference between that of the Medieval renderings of Jesus performing miracles on church ceilings versus the twisting runes and picture stones of the ancient Europeans, with this piece of pony history leaning towards the latter. Each window seemed to be depicting the same twisty unicorn mare figure in various positions and situations, and each had their own label written in curly letting interlaced with the complex glassy patterns.

"La Audition": The lovely unicorn figure, dressed in sparkling blue dress, stood mid-prance as many instruments floated around her and crystals jangled from her mane.

"La Toucher": The figure, this time in equally beautiful green dress, nuzzled and wrapped her forelegs around the long strands of her mane and of the long silks that trailed from her dress.

"Les Odorat": The figure now in yellow garb sat serenely, showing no alarm at her body being entangled in vines of exquisite flowers.

"Le Goût": The figure gathered up her tasteful dark red skirts in order to keep them from falling into the sparkling stream she knelt to drink from.

"La Vue": The figure's dress was as pleasantly orange as the sunset (or sunrise?) she gazed upon with wide, wondering eyes.

The last one was notably different from the other five: "À Mon Seul Désir." Keeping with the apparent rainbow theme, this one had the figure and primary color scheme as purple, and merely showed the unicorn figure draped in an abstract shimmer and the glow from her horn dominating as she looked upward with certain smile and peacefully closed eyes.

Each of the windows seemed to have light shining through them, and it didn't take the clever Cookie to realize how this should have been impossible, given she seemed to be underground. Perhaps there was a way out yet? The wonders didn't stop at the windows though. Looking beneath her hooves, Smart Cookie saw that the rounded, elevated platform that made up the large floor was inscribed with some very ancient language. The wording all ran in one line that spiraled down into the middle of the floor. Miraculously, this was actually something Cookie had researched once in her own raids of the unicorn trash, and she was able to make out the meaning behind the first few words at the beginning of the spiral.

" 'When the last eagle flies over the last crumbling mountain,' " she read aloud, doubting it sounded quite as regal from her mouth. " 'And the last lion roars at the last dusty fountain, In the shadow of the forest though she...' " The Earth pony trailed off, looking down at the long way she'd have to go to read the whole thing and decided it wasn't worth it. There were more important things at hoof - like getting out of here before whatever unicorns tended this place found her. Surely it must have been very holy. Though, from the sheer amount of dust and quiet, it wouldn't be hard to assume that nopony had been here for a very long time... no need to take chances though.

Cookie ran across the platform to see if there were steps downward and cringed - there may have once been steps, but they had broken away and there was now a steep drop into unknown places. She wasn't risking it.

"Shoot," the mare huffed to herself, pinning her ears low in worry and looking around her. Come to think of it, how had she even fallen in here? She didn't see any entry ways that she could have stumbled into. Heck, when she woke up, she had woken up right in the perfect center of the platform. Had somepony taken her here and left her? Why?

Smart Cookie closed her eyes and sighed once again in frustration. She wasn't paid anywhere near enough for this shit.

Mount Anemoi, 4,282'

Frozen flesh, biting winds, and piling snow were all legitimate burdens, but they were the minimum of what the fury of winter had to offer. All of that happened at least within the company of community where suffering could be shared and acknowledged. Such things should never be underestimated. It was out here, away from that small but potent light, where one came face to face with the true giants of sorrow.

It was easy to imagine their journey as an escape from madness itself, always just a mile or two behind them, a hunter that could never be outmatched, only outrun. He had the advantage, for these were truly his grounds; the never ending vastness of undisturbed snow and white sky looked for the life of them as if the world they knew had been little more than a drawing, concocted by some unfathomable greater mind for leisure, and they had wandered off the edge onto the blank side of the paper. Stranded were they from even the illusion of certainty or consideration from that nameless artisan now. It was just them, the hunter, and their own hunted, a three-way race to see who could swallow whom first, with that drawing - reality - home - a far, out-of-reach endgame that all had known better than to feel privileged to once they first stepped outside the outlines.

He had to be careful about alternating between flight, walking, and breaks. Flying would bring them faster towards their destination, but they were far more prone to frost, and it was easier to lose track of one another whenever the blizzard stirred the skies. They'd lost two ponies so far that way (he hadn't abandoned them - when Silver Glow and Windy Wisp went down, they'd dropped everything to retrieve them, but there was only so long they could fruitlessly search the endless frozen expanses before he was putting the rest of them at risk and they had to move on), and so it was that even at the slightest hint of storm he immediately ordered them all to the ground to trudge on foot. Trudging faced its own issues with pushing through the thick snowy build-up, but it offered a slightly elevated peace of mind for him, as it came with everypony buckling themselves to a long rope so that nopony else was blown off from the group. The trick to survival in the cold was to keep moving, but that didn't negate the need for rest, especially when the winds became too harsh even for them and they needed to barricade in order to avoid frostbite.

There was, of course, also the monsters to worry about. Their main deterrent, unpleasant as it was, seemed to have been serving them well so far: ghoulings provided no shortage of their noxious green blood when they fell, and it was in continuously coating themselves in in a packed supply the stuff so that its rotten stench would disguise their own that they were able to avoid detection for the most part. It was a known fact that the creatures relied mostly on scent and had poor eyesight, so on the rare (but always heart stopping) occasion that they came near one by chance, it was largely as simple as burrowing into the snow or clouds until it passed them by. Still, none dared to let his or her guard down, and none forgot the stories and memories of the screams ponies made when they were being filleted alive by filthy nails.

All of this was the minimum of what he had to worry about though, the basics of the march forward, simple survival even reduced to everyday habit. Fly, speed, walk, keep head count, rest, eat, drink, hide, don't look over your back, keep your wits in check, keep everypony else's wits in check. This constant checklist of struggle was daunting on mind, body, and spirit, and yet as they drew closer and closer to their ultimate destination he found himself savoring it, for even it became a security blanket in light of what he would have to face at its end. Not that he let that slow him. Not that it had to have slowed him for everypony else to still know exactly what was on his mind. Not that they'd dare acknowledge it out loud.

Except for one.

It was an exchange about fourteen years in the making. Even those who did not believe in destiny acknowledged some degree of foreseen inevitability in this life, often with no small degree of dread on their part, and the trick seemed to either be to stall it as long as possible or accept it as soon as possible so that the rest of the waiting period felt like a stall. He wasn't sure which he'd been trying, but it didn't matter now that it was here, slipping into his cloud tent and staring at his back as he pretended to sleep, grip around the cold treasure beneath his blankets tightening.

"I am so sure Star Catcher sent you off with her blessings," the visitor said coldly.

"No," he responded, still laying down. "She knows her place and keeps it well."

'Blessing' implied permission given, a chance to abstain, insubordination. Star Catcher was no insubordinate. That was the correct answer anyway; he was the Commander and she was a Lieutenant. Of course, correct wasn't always necessarily true, and truth was that he was nothing without her. He knew that, his visitor knew it more.

"The ponies have passed around that you will dent their faces if they bring up my being here from an angle of poetic irony," the visitor said, taking a seat.

"They're smart, that's why I brought them along."

"If they're smart for that, then you've come a long way."

He wasn't sure whether to take that as a compliment or a subtle challenge. Once upon a time, Lieutenant Star Catcher had protected him, and once upon a time, it had been the visitor here who had been one of the primary forces he had needed protection from. Not anymore. He didn't answer, making it clear he did not need nor want the visitor's approval.

"We all learn to wear masks over time," the visitor said. "But you can't just bring me on board for this and then expect to spend the whole time wearing yours. You know it is transparent to me."

"I brought you because you deserved it. Not so we could have a heart to heart."

The visitor raised his eye. "I don't want a heart to heart with you. I want to avoid absurdity by acknowledging the obvious." A moment of silence without answer. "I've heard you've done well, but right now, you are confusing being strong with being childish. Fir-"

"Don't you say it." It was a warning. Not against being called childish, he could take that. Fir... - not even that far.

The visitor refrained from rolling his eyes but the same sentiment was still clearly written on his face. "Of course. I shouldn't have bothered. You have fun with whatever all this is, I'm going back to rest." The visitor stood up, briefly scratched behind his ear with a back leg, and turned to take his leave and be a visitor no more.

The tent's owner finally stirred and sat up. "Heat Lightning."

The former Lieutenant paused and looked over his back at the now-standing leader. Little had objectively changed about him over the years. He was still an astoundingly pale thing, easily overlooked in a crowd, if not for the striking hallmark that was his mane: the candlelight yellow gently interlaced with whispers of color, shifting and flashing in the light like iridescence. They'd learned once during a diplomacy trip that the unicorns had a name for it, opal hair, and that it was among the rarest of the countless colored trends that ponies were capable of inheriting, just slightly less common than the also stunning and elusive rainbow hair (they were "connected to and influenced by the same genes," whatever the Tartarus that meant, sounded like some smartass wizardry bullshit). He had the same turquoise eyes. It was beneath the superficial traits that things had truly shifted.

Those eyes, once filled with bashful cluelessness and naivety, were now hardened and sharp, and stayed narrow as their owner spoke again. "I never wanted to make it seem like you no longer had a place in our system."

The visitor turned back around. There was a moment of silence. "I know. I never held any ill will towards you. I didn't like what they were using you for, but you were always an innocent to me. I wanted to save you just as much as Star Catcher. Just differently."

"And you were wrong," the younger stallion stated bluntly, despite the relatively kind words. "You left anyway when you lost because you didn't believe I could do it. And you were wrong."

Heat Lightning shook his head slowly. "It wasn't about believing that you couldn't do it."

"Then what?"

"I have always known when I did and did not have a place in things. I do not stay because something is ambitiously sound; I stay because I can contribute. I go when I cannot. When you rose, my era ended. And so I went." He sidelonged his gaze slightly. "It is not a matter of condemnation of you or anypony else. Things simply end sometimes, with nopony to accuse or blame. We must learn to recognize and accept this when it comes."

The younger leader's eyes and ears shifted to trace the deep whistling of the wind outside. He wasn't sure he believed that. Ponies did not look to a leader to tell them to submit to fate, but to make demands of fate on their behalf. Even if those demands were hopeless, foolish, you stood for them regardless, and pretended that it did not agonize when fate lashed back. His eyes flicked back to the elder.

"Then why did you agree to come along now?" he asked.

"Same reason you asked. Closure. Obligation."

It was a dreadfully simplistic summary of the swirling maelstrom of memory, emotion, guilt, and pride that stormed beneath both the stallions' skins - beneath the skins of every pony here and back in their city awaiting their news of either victory or demise. And that was best, in their eyes. It didn't need to be in some long, vein-popping, tear-jerking speech for them to understand and be united by it. Sometimes that which was most powerful was that which words were a disgrace to; that which only action could properly honor.

And that was good enough for both of them. The two nodded simultaneously, momentarily at a kind of peace before being interrupted by the arrival of another Lieutenant, out of breath and eyes wide.

They were soon off. Tents disintegrated, armor dawned, they took to the skies and flew in silence and cold preparation for what was to come. They all knew what they were to do, not a day in the journey had gone by where he hadn't made sure they knew it better than their own language or names. But even as he felt himself shifting into that cold place of mind, he couldn't help but spare a thought to the piece in his bag...

" 'I am not a pony,' * " the young stallion struggled to keep his voice steady with the melody. " 'Thunder in my veins, And cold rain in my brain, It's killing the flowers in my soul...' " He shook the older mare on his back in what was meant to be encouragement. It was hard to be encouraging to somepony who'd had half their face marred and a leg ripped off. "C-Come on, you taught me this one..."

She taught him so much over the few days.

" 'Grey cloud eyes, And Hurricane in my heart...' "

It was only a mile or two, then the medics, they could save her. He'd seen plenty of honored veterans before with false limbs. She was strong, she could live like that. She just had to stay awake till then.

"Come on, sing it!" he begged. " 'I am unpredictable and dangerous...' " He felt like anything but. " 'Lightning strikes my words, Searing where they land...' "

He didn't initially hear it over the screams of war and death in the distance. That song had reached its crescendo, so loud, so merciless, it blew them to pieces. And he didn't hear it. Didn't hear the sound of friend becoming object.

" 'Constant rumbling, And high speed winds, I always leave a mess... behind-' "

What about her baby?

"AH-!" He stumbled and brought her down with him, his own strength depleted. He was rapidly losing his sight and hearing. No! Don't be weak! Just a little further! She needs it!

She didn't need anything anymore.

"Major... P..." he coughed, tears choking his facing voice. Everything was a blur, and at the time, he became convinced he was hallucinating when he felt a hoof brushing his veins and a large hourglass pressed into his hoof.

We've come full circle, like precipitation.

" 'I am not a pony, " Commander Hurricane stated. " 'I am a storm with skin.' "

Mane strands stood on end as electricity filled the air before being smoothed down by helmets.

[Fvaarniimar]

Torii halted, almost tripping over herself, really. She caught herself just in time, and looked down at her little friend, who seemed just as distressed as she was. She was wide-eyed with panic. "Nick!"

She quickly scooped the kitty up and nestled him in her arms, though she immediately began her jog back to the building. "I have to talk to Marcus, but he got dragged away, and I don't know how else to get to him, and Gio's...", Her throat caught. "I just need to do something! I need to say something, it's killing me!", She whined. "I'm freaking out right now, and I just need this! I need to find someone."

Driveway
Under other circumstances Nick would try to comfortingly point out that he was in fact someone, but Torii's distress and his own emotions had led him to a premature conclusion. "Giovenith - dead/?!"

Giovenith had been there from the start.  She'd constantly added color, made everything seem brighter, warmer. The day was gray, or felt it at least. Huddling closer, he pressed himself against his friend. The raw emotion might well stop her in her tracks; Nick felt sad and empty and angry. <Things were always okay when she was around  (A cuddle, the smell of milk, a silhouetted wing) Fear left.>

A trip into the past, in a whirlwind of bluegreengray and sounds. There was so much more to it than Giovenith's gift for soothing away hurts even of the sort her magic smoke didn't seem to touch. She'd cared (two hands petting really and honestly. Three memories stood out.  The young woman through Myra's eyes, seen finally in alien colors, so vibrant and alive, with home scent and curiosity and a flash of yellow.  Togetherness and mutual trust, exploring a dark, shadowed mirror of home; creaking, balancing, scratches in mold.

And - of course - finally his arrival.  Nick had been so utterly lonely, so scared, having taken the craziest of crazy chances only to wake somewhere he'd never heard of. Thundering storm, waves. Warmth of a leg, then warmth of a friendship.  She'd accepted him with no hesitation or fear, even sticking up for him immediately; what that meant to Nick was difficult to express, yet Torii would understand. And now his first friend EVER was GONE?

(The confidee herself wasn't left out, though their absent friend was the topic of choice. Nick conveyed his appreciation for the support wordlessly - mostly through nuzzling with some numbed hints of gratitude mixed in.)

"I thought she wasn't mortal... How?! How?! She can't be gone.  She can't!  She would have survived, right?  Even if she got stuck in her apartment.  She didn't, she was... Did anyone see her later? Demens can't have...He just can't..."

Nick broke again into mournful yowling. Some paces ahead, Rmwtyliin grimaced at the racket.