June 14, 9:05 PM

But I need you, Sunburst! 59%

“Maybe the world doesn’t need you,” she said, her voice very small. She glared at him from across the cushions, her face perhaps inches from his, so close she felt the heat of his breath against her skin. “But I need you, Sunburst!”

He recoiled from her as she said it, eyes huge. His hooves gripped the makeshift bed as well as any hooves could. His horn glowed, but no obvious spell flashed through the air.

“Forget about the damn UN or the future of humanity or the magical development of the planet for a few seconds here. All those things you said about how important Alicorns are, about how yours raise the sun and manage the seasons and rule your countries. Sounds pretty important. Sounds like whoever that is could really use somepony on their side.”

She held up a hoof, silencing him as his mouth opened. “No, I don’t mean about fucking picking my spells. Though for a long time I’m sure I will need exactly that. I mean my boyfriend! Coltfriend, whatever. Maybe more one day. A source of stability when everything else is coming apart or depending on me for survival. Wouldn’t it be nice to have somebody, fucking anybody who I don’t have to save? Someone whose advice doesn’t come with so much baggage I couldn’t fit it in a cargo plane.”

She reached towards him, foreleg over his shoulder. Despite the transformation, she wasn’t that much larger than he was. She was probably shorter, actually. This time he didn’t shudder or pull away. Moisture trickled from his eyes, beading on his coat. “It’s probably selfish. Maybe I’m a terrible person for wanting you to stay. But the way I see it: going home is probably a huge deal anyway. I’ve still got a virus spreading out of control, ponies overflowing a country that’s basically hot air in a skinsuit waiting to burst, and the perspective for a new government that could solve all kinds of problems, but hasn’t fixed anything yet. So why not focus on sticking around and helping me for another few decades? See where this goes! And if it ends in tears and we’re not together, I’ll help you with your damn portal back to—”

The tears had blinded her completely by then. She didn’t see him moving in the narrow space. She felt his lips when he kissed her though. Deep, passionate, scrambling her thoughts in a way that her human self had never properly experienced. If he were still around, he would probably joke about being female as the reason.

Some time passed. She was on her side when they finally broke apart. The lights were dim, and her tears were gone. She felt Sunburst against her back, overflowing with the sort of heat she’d expected from her return from the spell. She didn’t want him to stop, and he didn’t seem terribly interested in stopping either.

“Okay,” he said. He inhaled sharply, somewhere right over her head. “Okay, Wayfinder. I can see your point. There’s more to do here, plenty of time to stick around and… do some good work. If you’re determined to have a pony like me as your consort as well as your advisor… ponies will talk. They’ll say I lack all neutrality.”

“You will,” she said. Her wings twitched on her sides, half opening, but with nowhere to go. She didn’t care. When they moved, those feathers brought far more sensitivity than she could’ve expected, sending a shiver from her snout to her toes. “Who cares? Everything doesn’t have to be objective. You’re my boyfriend.”

“I am,” he said. “I never imagined—forget it. Doesn’t matter. If you’ll accept me still, then I suppose I know how Shining Armor feels.”

“I have no idea who that is,” she said. “But if that means you’ll stay, then I’m glad. Now… stop talking.”

He did. Finally.

The morning found them gathered around the lifts, packs on their shoulders and a disappointed-looking Blazing landing before them. “No luck,” he said, wings still flared. “The way down is a mess. Half a dozen different trees wrapped around the lifts. And you said cutting them down would be tricky. Even with a chainsaw it would take a few days, assuming you didn’t get yourself killed doing it.”

“Y-yeah… we don’t wanna… we don’t want to do that. Or even talk about it,” Sunburst said. He stood less than a foot from her on the hill, his side occasionally touching against her. Sometimes that contact came through her wings, which she still didn’t fully control. “The trees are listening. There is a magical way to do it—we have to transplant living trees. We could trim them, so long as they aren’t harmed. But we can’t destroy them when it’s convenient, or the forest will fight back. And probably… remember anyone who ever tried that, so they get a similarly violent reaction if they ever come back.”

Ruby glanced sideways at Sunburst, face suddenly intense. “Wait. You’re saying that… we can’t cut the trees down here ever? How are they supposed to build new roads? Houses, anything? Some of the land you picked overlapped neighborhoods, resorts, stuff like that. You can’t relocate an adult tree. That costs… millions!”

Sunburst shrugged. “I sympathize with anyone who has to rebuild elsewhere. But we did stop the spread of wild magic over your entire planet. That does mean it has to go somewhere.”

“We don’t have to cut anything,” Wayfinder said. She brushed past Sunburst, then hurried forward to Blazing. She touched his shoulder for a second, nodding to him. “That was helpful scouting, thanks. I wish the news was better, but that’s not your fault.”

He saluted with a wing, exaggerated. “At your service, princess! We should really start thinking about your flight practice schedule when we get back. You could pop up and see for yourself, now that you’ve got the wings for it.”

She ignored that, for the moment. Flight would probably be on the horizon for her, once the dust settled from this whole adventure. But Denver needed her more than that just now. Her fragile authority wouldn’t survive a prolonged absence. “We won’t hike down. Follow me, I’ll show you. I had another idea last night.”

“Was that what you call it?” Ruby asked. “Ideas? Sounded like something else in there to me.”

Wayfinder’s tail tucked sharply between her legs, but instead of letting it bother her, she forced a smile instead. “Now you know what it was like living with you two in Granite Bluff.”

That silenced Ruby. Blazing actually laughed, apparently unbothered. Maybe even less than that—on their way back up the hill, she even caught him give Sunburst a high-five out of the corner of her eye. The unicorn didn’t seem to understand what he was doing, but still! The intent was clearly there.

Hazel was more polite, or maybe just didn’t realize what they were talking about. She buzzed ahead a few paces, then landed on the grass and looked back. “Where are we going, Wayfinder? Back to the Summit Lodge while you make another spell? We can probably wait outside; it’s a really nice day out here.”

“Won’t take me that long for the spell,” she said. “But we are going to the ledge. The viewing balcony, to be precise. I remember while I was writing out the runes, there’s a great view up there. I could even see our trucks down at the base of the mountain.”

Sunburst stopped in place for a few steps, then scampered to catch up with her. “Hold on. Wayfinder! You can’t be suggesting teleporting the distance. I’ve seen your gift with it many times, but surely the power required to bring so many ponies—”

“I’m not suggesting, I’m doing,” she said, flicking her tail in his direction. “Also, I won’t bring so many ponies. I’m gonna bring one passenger at a time. If that means taking a few jumps, I can do that.”

“She doesn’t have to bring me,” Blazing said, helpfully. “It’s a ten minute glide down to basecamp. So there’s one fewer trip right there. Maybe Hazel could fly along? Can you do a bird, sweetheart? The bigger wings make gliding easier.”

“I can do a bird,” she said, her voice timid. “But flying as one, I… I’m not so sure about that part. I can only kinda sorta fly with the wings I have. And there’s a lot of cliffs and stuff. Mama—Way, I mean. Can you help maybe a little?”

“I’ll take you,” she said. “Ruby, you can be first. Hazel second. If I run out of magic before I can get Sunburst to the bottom, you might not see us until evening. But that’s still loads faster than hiking the whole way. I’m not even sure the same trails as before are even viable for ponies.”

She reached the railing first, squinting down into the darkness and waiting for someone to object. Ruby, probably.

Ruby shrugged. “I’ve seen you pop in and out of Starhall enough times to trust you won’t stick us in a wall,” she said. “If you can honestly say you’ve got enough juice to do it, I’ll… take it. Better than dragging myself through a magical forest that might want to kill us all.”

“It doesn’t want to kill you,” Sunburst corrected. “That was the entire point of the spell. So long as you’re respectful of what lives here, Wayfinder’s memories offer a constructive outlet for what might otherwise be violent magical energy.”

“I know.” Ruby said, exasperated. “I heard the explanation the first time. Just take me down, Way. I still have a plague to try and cure, and we have a lot less juice to do it with. God only knows how I am going to be able to make the first immune human now that those magical reserves got dumped into some trees instead.”

Wayfinder wouldn’t be able to send them directly to their destination. But a big box store at the bottom was only a mile or so away from the mountain, and its parking lot was a clear shot all the way down. Desolate, without cars or other interruptions. “You think you’re that close?” she asked. “You didn’t tell me you knew how to make someone immune already. I thought that would take a lot more—”

Ruby groaned. “You didn’t know because you didn’t ask. But it’s whatever. You turned out to be a magical girl all along, so you can save us from… whatever Sailor Moon fought. I never actually watched it. But you’ll save us. With your magic.”

She stepped up next to Wayfinder, along her body rather than across from her. She knew enough about the process that she took the right position without being asked. “I’m not sure exactly how much power you’ve got in that extra pointy horn up there. But I’ll stay in touch regardless, since we’re going to need your help to requisition a test subject either way. Finding a human who hasn’t started showing symptoms yet isn’t exactly easy when the whole point of sticking us here was to keep them away.”

Wayfinder didn’t reply. She focused her attention, letting the energy build in her horn until a flash took them.

When the light faded, they were standing together on hard pavement surrounded by a few abandoned automobiles. Wide glass windows hid behind a layer of grime, and more than a few saplings peeked out between gaps in the concrete. Yet none had colonized this particular area yet.

What it didn’t do was wind her and force her to the ground. Wayfinder was breathing heavily for a few seconds, and she spent them holding still, waiting for the rush of fatigue that came when she used a lot of magic. Each jump would leave more of her drained, until she was down to the last scraps of paste in the tube and brushing her teeth with sink water.

It didn’t come. This fatigue was the kind that came from a quick jog up the stairs, and it passed as her breath stopped racing. Instead of draining her magic, something had taken its place. Strange.

“I don’t want to tell your boyfriend or maybe not the others,” Ruby said, brushing away a thin layer of ice from her face. “But we do need that first subject. Not like—testing to see if it works, that’s more of a side effect of what we’re doing. We need a catalyst, like those heaters where you flex the metal disk inside. You might have to do some shady shit to get them. But considering the stakes—so what?”

“I don’t like how quick you went to that,” she said. Wayfinder stretched, dropping low. Her wings opened as she did, the same way as before. But she didn’t care; nothing Ruby hadn’t already seen. “Our NATO reps will probably be able to swing something, if you can make a good case that anything will actually happen. And since we’d need their help to distribute the vaccine either way—”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Ruby said. “But I don’t know if we will, actually. What I’ve come up with—I suppose it is a vaccine by definition. Milder form of the infection that doesn’t kill you. Or in this case, doesn’t make you a horse. But… it will still change people, permanently. That’s the only long-term solution here. No quarantine and no border could keep us locked up forever. Sooner or later someone will get out, and it will start spreading again. Especially since we can fly and teleport through walls, and God knows what else. But if we introduce our own mutation, one that doesn’t play hopscotch with your DNA quite so much, maybe we can protect the people who are still people. We can chat in a few days, when you’re back in Denver and everyone is calling you ‘Captain’ all the time again. Or maybe Princess. That’s what Sunburst said you were.”

“Don’t you go there,” she said, flaring her wings out to either side. “I am not a princess.”

“Too late. It was destiny. Blazing called it when you still called yourself Elliot. And now here you are, pointy horn and big wings and barely even breathing hard after taking me down the mountain.” She hesitated, glancing around herself. “Where… where did you take me, exactly?”

“Close,” she said. “Get over by the building, please. I’m going to be popping back here in a minute or so and I don’t want to end up inside you.”

She squinted back up the way she’d come, focusing on the balcony. Fortunately, Sunburst was up there, and he’d thought of this exact thing without needing to be asked. She could see the railing, barely, and the round window of the summit house. All she had to do was focus, and—

The remaining few trips took her about ten minutes. None of them ever exhausted her the way she expected, but left her with perhaps a minute to catch her breath before she was ready for the next leg. Pity, she had hoped for an excuse for another night up here with Sunburst, this time with a perfectly valid reason not to have anyone else around. But no—by the time they made their last jump, it was barely even ten in the morning.

Wayfinder held still even so, bracing for the fatigue thanks to long habit with such exchanges. When it didn’t come, even Sunburst stared.

Or maybe he was staring at something else. “Your mane, it’s…” he swallowed. “Uh… Wayfinder? Let’s take a more conservative approach with the magic for the next little while, alright? You’re, um… I believe we’re seeing side effects from your elevation. This probably isn’t the best time for an exhaustive study.”

“What do you—” She looked sideways at her hair, eyes widening at the prospect of whatever frightening thing he saw. Maybe she’d be dissolving from the magical strain. Maybe it would be like that old movie where that guy saw his picture and got super old in a few seconds!

It wasn’t. Instead, Wayfinder saw leaves. Not many; just a few thin creepers, like the shoots that a thin grass might stretch out in search of sunlight. A few buds poked out from the blue strands, staining the shade darker than her natural cerulean. “Uh…” she tugged at one with her magic, pulling on the leaf. It yanked free, bringing a brief yank of pain against her scalp. Like she’d just yanked a hair out of her head, rather than a plant. “Yeah. Good idea. I think… I’m not going to think about that for now.”

The others hadn’t gone far, gathered near the road rather than the shuttered store. They wouldn’t have far to go to reach the base camp, and the SUVs waiting there. “I’m going to worry about this later,” Wayfinder announced. “You can have the drive back to Denver to figure out what just happened.”