Black Heart Machine nods back to Satiba politely, despite her inquiry about Machine being new here.

“I have lived here for many years,” she said simply, taking care to make sure there was no rudeness in her curt but appropriate reply. She was growing a little tired of explaining that she was indeed not new here, but the dark mare supposed it wasn’t anyone’s fault but her own for taking a small hiatus. And she could hardly fault the other mares for being curious. It was their curiosity that drove them here after all, and above all, why Vulcan mares were strong in their hearts—if nowhere else.

“I’ve been called by many names,” Black Heart Machine continues. “You can use whichever one suits you.”

It told Black Heart Machine a lot about an individual based on which one of her three names they chose to call her. Slenderman took to calling her Machine because to him, she was precisely that. Anath had only ever called her Heart—which was also fitting in that it accurately reflected the depth of their friendship. No one had ever called her Black. She mulled this over for a moment, considering why no one had ever made this choice. Perhaps because black, by definition, was the absence of light, and what was light if not the beginning of something new? In this case, a new movement—an idea that a mare was not property, she was an individual deserving of the same rights as stallions. Black Heart Machine could only hope that with the help of every mare within the Peak, that this idea would spread and touch the islands the same way the sunrise touched them with every breaking day.

BLACK HEART MACHINE