Romance and the Fate of Equestria

Season 7 has begun (in fact, with how Canadian TV aired two episodes a week for a while, we're almost halfway through it), and its episodes so far have served as a reminder for something very important… I freaking love this show.

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Six

"This has been a long time coming."

Twilight trotted purposefully up a mountainside, with Spike trailing behind her, helping Snarl along. Peewee soared overhead, occasionally circling around.

"I've delayed for far too long," Twilight continued. "I'm glad you're here, Snarl. More help is… definitely appreciated."

They rounded a corner. Here in this foreign mountain range, covered in exotic vegetation, they now overlooked a lava flow, traveling down a trench from one cave to another.

"Holy guac," Spike breathed.

"Yep," Twilight said with satisfaction. "Not a lot of volcanoes in Equestria. Had to find a distant southern island. Lava can destroy almost anything, and instantly, so I thought this would be a good place to dispose of the ears of the Beast."

She whipped them out of her saddlebags, the large, triangular, still-living gray-furred ears.

Snarl flinched away. "Why do you need us?"

"The operative word there was 'almost'," said Twilight. "Stick most living or nonliving material in or even near a lava glow like this one—instant disintegration. Throw a dragon in there? They'll just look and feel like they went through a washer and dryer—toasty warm and squeaky clean. What I need you guys to do is dunk these ears into the lava. Not drop them—hang onto them tight… and dip. If you release your grip on them I want it to be because they don't exist to hold onto anymore. Because if it turns out the lava can't destroy them, just as it can't destroy you, and you drop them… then they'll be lost in the lava flow, irretrievable even by you, and capable of… who knows what."

Spike took the ears. "You got it, Twilight." He stared down at the lava flow, far beneath them. "I was wondering why nopony lived around here…"

"Yeah, constant volcanic activity like this kinda hurts property values," Twilight said wryly.

"But if ponies lived here, wouldn't they adapt to the environment?" said Spike. "They'd become more resilient against the lava, like a dragon."

"Yeah, evolution doesn't work that way, Spike."

"It's more of a 'survival of the fittest thing'," Snarl supplied. "Right?"

"Closer, but… no, not exactly."

"Oh. Okay."

Peewee swooped down and set on the ground beside them, hopping, robin-like, down the banks of the lava flow, escorting Spike as he made his way gingerly down the slope.

Spike dipped the tips of the ears into the lava, held them there for a few seconds, then pulled them out, completely unharmed.

"Nothing," he called up to Twilight.

"Give them a bit more time," Twilight yelled back. "Submerge them completely."

"All right." He gripped them tightly, and did so, the ears disappearing completely and his hands submerged to the wrists.

He held them there for a count of sixty seconds, then lifted them out again.

"Wow," he said in terrified disbelief. "Really nothing. Not even a scratch. …I'm gonna keep trying."

"Might as well," Twilight said with unease.

Spike dipped them again. By this point he was sweating, exhaustion overtaking him, and he leaned too far forward and took a tumble into the flow. "Whoa!"

"Spike!" Twilight shouted, as the little dragon started floating down the mountain, disappearing into the lower cave.

"I'll get him," Snarl said fiercely.

He barreled headfirst down the slope, diving into the lava and swimming downstream, Peewee flying after him. Both of them disappeared into the cave. Twilight backed away grimly, as the heat rising off the flow had grown unbearable.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"Spike!" Snarl called.

With the grace of experience, Snarl streamlined his body, descending through the lava tunnel quickly to catch up with Spike.

"Snarl!" Spike shouted back. The two were bathed in the red light coming off the lava, which only barely allowed them to see each other or the details of the cave around them.

"Snarl, I dropped the ears!" said Spike. "Don't let them sink!"

Snarl spotted them, drifting down the river ahead, and leapt for them, which led him to tumble down the tunnel at even higher speeds, vanishing from view as Peewee swooped down and grabbed Spike under the arms.

Snarl tumbled out of the small tunnel into a massive cavern, splashing into a lake of lava. He seemed to be within a hollow mountain, with tunnels and rivers pouring into it from every direction.

He treaded lava at the surface of the lake, the ears held in his claws, staring up at the pointed ceiling of the cavern. "Whoa," he exclaimed. "Nice place… if you happen to be a dragon. And if you're not a dragon, screw you, am I right?"

That proclamation echoed off the mountain stone, and he shuddered. "Not so much," he said fearfully. "I don't think… I don't believe that… hmm? What's this? No… no… Oh really?"

He stared at the ears, entranced. "Really? Really? You can do that? Well, I'd be happy to comply, Mr. The Beast, but dragons don't really have ears. So I got nothing to cut off… someone has your eye? Where is he? Uh-huh… okay… yeah, I could go there. Claw my own eye out? Sure, that'd be a great place to start."

"Snarl?"

Snarl looked up, his dazzling blue eyes contrasting harshly with the lava lake's red glow. When he turned to face Spike, entering the cave towed by Peewee, his eyes were green once more, seeming black against the red light.

"I heard you talking," said Spike. "What's up?"

"Uh… ears," Snarl said nervously. "Evil ears." He dipped them under the lava hastily.

"Hang onto them," Spike advised. "Swim around a while longer. Don't let them go."

"I'm not… I'm not… not in a million years."

"All right."

They were silent as Snarl swam back and forth a bit, always keeping the ears below the surface, unseen.

"What…" he finally asked. "What could he do if I dropped them? The Beast, I mean?"

"I don't know," Spike admitted. "But they'd still be alive, the ears, if the lava can't hurt them. Maybe they could call out to some other dragon and tell it how to find them, while we'd never find them under the lava's surface. They wouldn't want us to retrieve them."

"No, they wouldn't," Snarl whispered. "And what would they do if a dragon found them?"

"Nasty stuff," Spike said grimly.

"Uh-huh… so they told me," Snarl said uneasily.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Night had fallen. Twilight paced back and forth anxiously at the base of the mountain, having scuffed and scarred the vegetation around her in the intervening hours.

"Twilight!"

She raised her head. The two small dragons and the phoenix were approaching her from above.

"Oh! You guys!" she cried out, her face tear-soaked in relief. She rushed uphill to meet them, but skidded to a stop about five feet away and backed away from them. "Whoa, you're still really hot, don't come any closer," she said hastily. "Maybe don't touch me for a couple hours. So, how did…?"

Before she finished, she saw them, the ears still in the grasp of Snarl, who looked rather awkward waddling down the slope on his hind legs.

"Not even a tiny little mark," said Twilight in disbelief. "Ooh, that's not good. I guess what this means is that I have to be the one to hide them away, somehow." She sighed. "Thanks, boys. We've done the best we could."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Endnotes

Well, it's June 2, 2017, the fifth anniversary of RFE. Things are… kind of hectic for me, I sure hope I can make good on my promise to pick up the pace next month…

Regardless… here's something interesting. As of a month ago… I know how RFE ends. I've repeatedly said that I've never really given the ending any thought, and I never really did… then all of a sudden it came to me over lunch. And now I know. So, what does this mean? Well, for starters, I once said there was a 50/50 chance of a Part Six, but now that's much less likely. I don't know exactly how the path to the end goes, or how long it'll take, but it's now far more likely that the ending will come in Part Five. And I will get there, no matter how long it takes.