Elements of Harmony 4 – The Land of Dragons

A/N: This chapter includes somewhat of a tweaked novelization of the episode "Castle-Mane-ia" from MLPFIM Season 4, beginning when our main characters enter the castle in the Everfree Forest and ending when they exit it. Thought you should know for reference.

99. The Stars Shall Aid

PONYVILLE, FOURTH EQUESTRIA

As dawn broke, Spike walked out onto the main street of town to carry out necessary errands. He was running low on seed for Owlowiscious, and the windows of the library could use washing, so he was intent on picking up some soap so he could begin that. While he was out, he decided, he might as well get himself a cupcake.

As he proceeded from shop to shop, Spike thought over the last time he'd been sent a copy of an official letter from Twilight and her friends. It had been a while in Ponyville time. He wondered when next he would hear from her. Running the library made him feel quite important to be sure, but many nights, the place was quite empty without her presence. Spike understood full well the gravity of her mission, and that of the others, but he missed them all.

Passing the Carousel Boutique added more nostalgia onto the pile. Rarity was a regular visitor to his dreams, a shining vision of beauty and kindness, but the real one was just as far away as Twilight. Spike couldn't even fathom how far away they all were. Further than the distance from Ponyville to the moon, which was the furthest distance he'd ever considered before.

Perhaps, he thought, he should schedule some time to have lunch with Sweetie Belle, or help out the Apple family on the farm, or see what Scootaloo was up to. On the days when he remembered how much he missed Twilight and Rarity, the best cure was to seek out his other friends and do productive things. Maybe, he thought, he should try once more to bake a jewel cake. Perhaps just this once, he wouldn't eat all the jewels before the batter hit the oven, and he would have something to bring along to share with the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

Thinking this a great idea, he walked into a store to purchase more flour and sugar. In doing so, he completely passed the street coming from the train station, where six passengers had newly arrived in Ponyville from Horseshoe Bay.

Spike left the store trying to balance the heavy bags of cooking ingredients. It seemed if he paid too much attention to the sugar, the flour would begin to slip and threaten to spill. However, once he balanced the flour, the sugar attempted to slide out of his grip and onto the ground. Once both were balanced, Spike could clearly put his eyes on the road.

That was when he saw them, making their grand return. All six of them, as well as a sheep, but out front was the one he'd missed most of all, the one who was like family to him, and she was saying, fittingly enough, "Well, girls, it's good to be home."

The bags slipped from Spike's grip. Flour and sugar poured all over him, temporarily coloring him paper-white. He didn't care. He rushed toward the leader of the group, crying out at the top of his lungs, joyously, "TWIIIILIIIIIIIIGHT!"

Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack turned to see him. "SPIKE!" they all cried happily.

"TWILIGHT!" Spike collided with Twilight, throwing his arms around her neck. "I missed you sooooooo much!"

Twilight wrapped a hoof around Spike. "I missed you too." She nestled her head on his shoulder lovingly.

As soon as the hug ended, Spike launched into the questions. "Where have you BEEN? What's it like out there? Did you really have to turn into other creatures? Where'd that sheep come from?"

"We actually just got back from an adventure that involved nine different worlds," Twilight replied. "It's a pretty long story. We still have to figure out how to write it all down for Celestia."

"I can help with that!" Spike cried excitedly.

Twilight shook her head. "I don't know. There's a LOT to write down. I wouldn't want to make you write that much."

"Twilight, I haven't written a letter for you in AGES!" Spike protested.

"Tell you what," Twilight told him. "You can help us put it all together."

"Which is going to be later tonight," Rarity added. "We all talked it over, and we agreed that it would be best if we went our separate ways for the first part of the day and then reconvened at the Golden Oak library later to put our letter together. Oh, Spike…dear, you've got flour all over you!"

"Eh…it happens." Spike shrugged.

"Well, you can't go around looking like that!" Rarity very quickly ducked into a shop, placing a coin on a counter and coming out with a towel. She magically levitated the towel around Spike, dusting off all the flour and sugar.

"It's…it's really good to have you back too, Rarity," Spike breathed, his heartbeat suddenly nearly out of control, literally audible to all present.

"Why, thank you, dear," Rarity replied. "I am quite glad to see you too. As well as to be back on four legs for a permanent basis. Not that there's anything wrong with walking on two, of course, but the transition can be quite jarring, to say the least."

"Wow…" Spike remarked. "You have to tell me everything!"

"And you have to catch me up on everything that happened since we left here," Twilight replied. She turned to the group at large. "Everypony okay with it if Spike and I head out for the library?"

"I was wantin' to get back to the farm pretty soon," Applejack admitted.

"And I wanted to see if I could surprise the Cakes with the fact that I'm back!" Pinkie Pie added.

"I do wonder how my studio has been since I left it," Rarity remarked.

"Baromett should probably get settled in," Fluttershy said meekly.

"Everypony…BREAK!" Rainbow Dash commanded, and the six ponies turned to go their separate ways, with Spike following Twilight and Baromett trotting along with Fluttershy.

"I'll see you all tonight!" Spike called out to the others before turning his attention to Twilight. "So, uh…how long were you gonna stay?"

"A whole week," Twilight replied, sighing in relief. "And we need it."

"Just a week?" Spike was slightly crestfallen.

Twilight looked to him sympathetically. "I'm sorry. I wish I could promise you longer. But…"

"But everypony out there needs you," Spike finished for her. "I know. I'll be fine. Things have been under control here. Everypony you help on those other worlds…they're lucky to have a real hero like you."

"Aww…thank you!" Twilight beamed. "So how has everything been here?"

"Things got weird a while back," Spike related. "Ever since Zecora showed everypony that Dark Matter stuff she had, other ponies have been trying to go the same places you have."

"We ran into Lightning Dust already," Twilight recalled. "Who else went?"

"Well, Zecora, for one. I think Lyra and Bon Bon put a ship together too."

Twilight was slightly disappointed to hear Zecora had left; she had been hoping to discuss some of her adventures with her over tea. Zecora could be trusted with knowledge of the mystical, and would probably have wisdom to contribute to every situation.

"Other than that, though, it's been pretty routine," Spike admitted. "Just business as usual at the library."

"Spike?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever found any books about the Elements of Harmony there? There's still a lot I'm wondering about all of it, and I'm curious if the library has any books that can shed light on the situation." Twilight's thoughts ran to the tale of Sombra, Sirius, and Polaris. She was sure that was the part of the explanation of the Elements that Celestia had been reluctant to tell. If they had held the Elements at the same time as Celestia and Luna, that implied two more wielders…although Celestia had also told Twilight of how she and Luna had wielded the Elements all by themselves, and Twilight was sure that was not a lie. Whatever the real story was, it was more complicated.

Spike shrugged. "I haven't. Then again, I haven't looked at every single book in the library."

"I think I might want to look around and see what I can find," Twilight suggested. "Would you want to help me?"

"WOULD I?" Spike was ecstatic. "Of course! It's just gonna be you and me, working in the library, just like old times! And maybe you could tell me all about your last adventure!"

"I'd be glad to!"

"There's a TON I wanna know," Spike admitted. "What it's like to turn into a human or a centaur, what the new magic you learned is like…"

Twilight was concerned to hear that. "Hasn't Celestia been sending you copies of our letters…?"

"She has."

Twilight chuckled in relief. "Then you already know all that stuff!"

"Reading about it isn't the same," Spike admitted. "Things always make more sense when you tell me about them face to face."

"All right," Twilight promised as the pair reached the door of the Golden Oak library. "Ask me whatever you wanna know, and I'll tell you all about it."

...

Rarity was pleased to see that the Carousel Boutique was still standing and in good condition. She'd half expected to come back to it and find it half torn down and on fire. Gently, she pushed open the door and trotted inside.

Sweetie Belle was hard at work in the center of the studio, maneuvering different garments Rarity had sent back from the Starlight on and off mannequins with her magic, checking things off a clipboard as she did so. Her back was to Rarity; her mind and eyes were completely focused on the work in front of her.

"Ahem," Rarity greeted.

"Do you have an appointment?" Sweetie Belle asked without turning her head, putting on her most professional tone.

"I don't believe I need one," Rarity answered teasingly. "After all, I do own this boutique."

Sweetie Belle recognized her sister's voice. She immediately dropped both clipboard and pen to the floor before turning to charge at the elder unicorn. "RARITY!"

Rarity's little sister practically pounced upon her to embrace her with her front hooves; Rarity returned the hug enthusiastically. "My, my!" Rarity remarked. "It seems you've been keeping the studio in order in my absence!"

"I've been real busy!" Sweetie Belle confirmed, backing away. "Everything you've sent back has been really great. As soon as you sent me the stuff from that one place you went to…you know, the first one. The…sandy seven?"

"The Seven Deserts," Rarity corrected.

"Yeah, that one! As soon as I put those out on the display, they started flying off the shelves! Look look look!" Sweetie Belle ran to a nearby dresser, the sort where socks might be kept in the bottom drawer. Said drawer's contents, however, were revealed by Sweetie Belle to be a gleaming hoard of bits. "This is just SOME of the profits. I ran out of room in this drawer, so I stuffed them around the boutique. I can show you where it all is later. But more importantly, everypony's been talking about how the Carousel Boutique has the most original clothes you can find in the whole WORLD! Everypony in town, that is."

"Why, Sweetie Belle, that's simply WONDERFUL!" Rarity gushed. "I've no doubt that soon, the whole world WILL know my name! You've done such a good job. Though…you haven't been spending ALL your time here, have you?"

Sweetie Belle shook her head. "It's kinda hard work. Was I supposed to be here every day? I kinda can only make about four days a week, and usually Mom helps – "

"Oh, nononono!" Rarity interrupted. "I wanted to be sure you weren't working too MUCH. Four is quite enough, and actually, you could be getting away with far less than that. You must have time to spend with your friends, after all! Two afternoons a week should suffice, given the flow of business." She felt a little bad even asking for that much, but Sweetie Belle seemed quite proud of the work she'd done. "What I really must figure out is a way to keep business running myself while I'm traveling…though I'm glad to have you to lend a hoof."

"Okay!" Sweetie Belle nodded. "I have still had a lot of time to spend with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. Scootaloo's a little busier helping out with the weather, but Apple Bloom actually has had a lot more time on her hooves since the Apple farm came up with the press."

"The…press?" Rarity was confused.

"They've got some kinda machine now that presses apples into jam and cider," Sweetie Belle explained. "Sorta like the one the Flim Flam brothers had, except they're more careful with it. It's complicated. Apple Bloom can explain it better than I can."

"Hm…interesting," Rarity remarked. "Anyway, I'm officially giving you the week off of work, starting now."

"A week?" Sweetie Belle repeated. "Is that how long you're staying?"

"Indeed," Rarity confirmed.

"That's…not a lot of time," Sweetie Belle pointed out mournfully.

"I know," Rarity replied sympathetically, "but you must understand…I've got a job now that asks more of me than the boutique."

"Yeah," Sweetie Belle agreed, "and this place wouldn't be as popular if you didn't go to those other places for inspiration."

"But I fully intend to make the most of my time while I'm here!" Rarity declared. "Starting with tonight. I promised Twilight a rendez-vous to compose a documentation of our most recent adventures for Princesses Celestia and Luna, but that appointment begins after sundown. Would it be too much of an imposition to drop in on Mother and Father for dinner?"

"Imposition?" Sweetie Belle cried. "They'd LOVE to have you back! We should go right now! Wait…" Sweetie Belle levitated the clipboard. "Okay. There aren't any more appointments today."

"I'll be in tomorrow to take care of business personally," Rarity promised. "It will be good to get back to the familiarity of the studio. For the rest of today, however, the Carousel Boutique is officially closed."

...

"Honey, have you got the rest of the Berry Punch order?" Mr. Cake asked, finishing pinning baby Pumpkin Cake's diaper in place.

"Sure do!" Mrs. Cake maneuvered a box onto the counter. "Specially packed to keep it hot! You know, I think this is the first time somepony has asked for pancakes to cater a party!"

A burst of confetti and glitter suddenly erupted from the floor in front of the counter. Pinkie Pie leapt up along with it, seeming to materialize from nowhere. "SURPRIIIIIIIIIISE!" she cried.

"PINKIE PIE!" Mrs. Cake cried joyfully.

"Pinkie Pie?" Mr. Cake turned to see her, surprised. "Hey! It's really you!"

"Guess what?" Pinkie gushed. "You have me for a WHOOOOOOOLE WEEK!"

"We're glad to see you again!" Mrs. Cake told her affectionately. "Oh, if you've only just gotten home, did you need something to eat?" She placed a platter of cookies on the counter. "I baked these fresh earlier this af – "

Before she could finish the sentence, Pinkie had cleared half the plate. "So what do we have to do today? Big parties to cater? Is it about time for the dinner rush?"

"Well…we just finished up an order for Berry Punch," Mrs. Cake admitted, "but we didn't really have anything else on the docket."

"But that's all changed now!" Mr. Cake decided. "Since you're back…we need to have a Welcome Home Pinkie Pie party!"

"That sounds AMAZING!" Pinkie cried. "When do we start?"

"As soon as I drop off this order to Berry," Mrs. Cake explained. "Then we can bake whatever you wa – "

"I GOT IT!" Pinkie Pie hoisted the box of pancakes on top of her head, then charged out the door at full speed, the box remaining perfectly balanced no matter how fast she went.

Mrs. Cake laughed. "I did miss her."

...

Cheerliee spread out her supplies for the usual routine. A stack of mathematics homework sheets from that day's class towered atop the table, and next to it lay the red ink pot and pen that would be employed in grading them. Taking the first sheet down off the tall and slightly crooked stack, Cheerilee dipped pen into pot and set to work.

A thump-thump upon the wooden floor nearby caught her attention. Angel held up his food bowl impatiently, thumping his foot for emphasis.

Cheerilee shook her head. "Sorry, Angel. Dinner isn't for another thirty minutes."

Angel thumped his foot harder.

"I can't feed you before all the other animals," Cheerilee told him firmly. "That just wouldn't be fair. Everypony gets to eat at the same time."

Thump.

"I'm sorry, Angel, but fair is fair," Cheerilee declared.

Angel stormed away in a huff. Cheerilee returned to work, but warily so.

There was a knock upon the front door. Cheerilee eyed it suspiciously. She wasn't going to leave it unanswered. After all, it could have been somepony who needed to speak with her. But there was another possibility…

As soon as she got up from her seat, Angel rushed back into the house. He'd been the one who knocked. If Cheerilee wouldn't give him the attention he wanted, he would get revenge. He would show her who was top dog, or in this case rabbit, in this household.

Though he had been trying to show her that for several consecutive nights.

As Cheerilee eased the door open and called out "Hello?", Angel slipped in through the window and made a beeline for the precariously stacked papers.

The moment Cheerilee glimpsed the empty pathway outside, she spun on a dime and barreled to the table. Just as Angel shoved the stack of papers, about to scatter them across the floor, Cheerilee shoved back, righting them. Angel sped across the table as Cheerilee rounded it. Angel delivered a sharp kick to the ink pot just as Cheerilee's hoof hit the other side of it, stabilizing it. "HA!" she cried triumphantly.

A week ago, she'd had to deal with a fallen stack of homework, papers flying under all the furniture and out the window, and a crimson stain of ink upon the table and floor. After much trial and error, she'd finally gotten fast enough to thwart Angel's sabotage.

Angel stormed off in an even huffier huff than before once his scheme failed. Cheerilee was concerned to see him disappear again, suspecting that he would try yet another gambit. She kept one eye on her work and another on the house.

There was another knock on the door.

"Ohhhh, you won't fool me with that one again!" Cheerilee cackled. "Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, SHAME ON ME!"

The knock came again, a little softer.

"I'M ONTO YOUR GAME, ANGEL BUNNY!" Cheerilee crowed. "AND YOU'RE GOING TO WAIT FOR DINNER JUST LIKE EVERYPONY ELSE!"

"Um…" A soft voice sounded from the other side of the door. "Miss Cheerilee? Is everything okay in there?"

Cheerilee gasped. "FLUTTERSHY!" She ran to the door, flinging it open to see the house's owner returned, with a tiny sheep at her side. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I thought you were…"

"I understand." Fluttershy smiled demurely. "Angel can be a little impatient."

"See, he had picked up a habit of – OH NO!" Cheerilee turned around to see Angel drawing his foot back to kick the papers. She charged back to the table. She got there in time to plant a hoof firmly on the ink pot, but it was too late to save the papers; they fell like autumn leaves, sliding into every crack in the house.

"Angel!" Fluttershy scolded. "You know better than to treat your host like that!"

Angel folded his arms to show he didn't care.

"I'm sorry if he's been giving you trouble," Fluttershy apologized.

Cheerilee shook her head, smiling. "It's only a little mischief, really. He actually reminds me of some of my rowdier students! Now, who is this?" She fixed her eyes upon Baromett.

"This is Baromett," Fluttershy introduced. "We met him in a faraway land, and now he needs a home."

"Well, aren't you adorable!" Cheerilee gushed.

Baromett bleated happily.

Angel watched from afar, growing more steamed by the moment. They were paying far too much attention to this new sheep and not enough to him. In fact, they vilified him. He already didn't like this sheep, he decided.

"Let's go introduce him to the others," Cheerilee suggested. "They've all missed you a lot. And it is almost dinner time for everypony, so he's turned up just in time!"

"Come on, Baromett!" Fluttershy encouraged as the two ponies led the sheep out toward the yard. "You'll get to meet all of your roommates…and maybe you'll make some really good new friends!"

"Baaaaaaa!" Baromett sounded happily as he followed.

The sheep had already made one enemy, Angel decided.

...

There was only one minor rain shower scheduled for that day. The pegasi of Ponyville manipulated the clouds over the east sector of town, building fluffy rain clouds and blotting out that section of sky.

"Careful!" Scootaloo called out from where she was situated upon Bulk Biceps' back, still unable to fly. "Don't make it too big! We don't want any thunder on our hooves!"

"Right on, Scootaloo!" Blossomforth replied. At first, the pegasi squad was unsure about letting somepony so young take charge, but they trusted Rainbow Dash's judgment, and besides, the few times Scootaloo had made misjudgments, the other pegasi were able to band together and form a gentle, corrective voice of reason.

Well, mostly.

A CRACK was heard, and a single lightning bolt flashed from beneath the cloud. "Oops!" a high-pitched voice cried. A certain gray pegasus with a Cutie Mark shaped like a spray of bubbles and a wispy blonde mane peered out from behind the segment of cloud that was too large. "I…might've made it too big on this end," she confessed.

"DITZY!" Cloudchaser groaned.

"Seriously, Derpy?" Flitter sighed, employing the gray pegasus' common nickname.

"No, no, no, it's okay!" Scootaloo said quickly as Bulk Biceps flew in next to Ditzy. "We can fix it, easy!"

Before anypony could make a move to thin the clouds out, a streak of blue with a rainbow trail zoomed through the air, punching into the heavy end of the cloud and knocking off a few wisps. "Heh!" Rainbow Dash still remarked, circling around and coming to a halt. "Still got it."

"RAINBOW DASH!" the pegasi cried as one.

"What's goin' on?" Rainbow Dash asked excitedly. "Are we making a storm?"

"Just a little rain shower," Scootaloo informed her.

"YEAAAAHHHH!" Bulk Biceps confirmed.

"Lookin' good, everypony!" Rainbow Dash complimented. "Mind if I join in?"

"You can go ahead and take over if you want!" Scootaloo urged. "You're still the best in the business!"

"Yes, Rainbow Dash!" Helia begged. "Help us get this rain perfect!"

"You got it!" Rainbow Dash saluted. "Everypony, let's get into rain formation 31!"

...

Applejack turned off the road that led into Sweet Apple Acres, trotting eagerly up the road to the farm. There was the big red, rustic barn with its violet gables that always filled her with such nostalgia despite its penchant for being knocked down in odd ways. There was the chicken coop, and beside it, the four little red sheds lined up in a row. There were the rows upon rows of juicy apple trees.

And there was a new building.

Situated just behind the barn, it was smaller than the barn itself but bigger than two of the sheds put together; its wood was stained a deep brown, and pipes protruded from it, expelling steam and hinting at some sort of great machine hard at work inside.

"What in tarnation - !" Applejack wondered out loud. The addition of anything new at all to her beloved farm didn't sit well with her at all. However, she knew that asking about the new building and whatever that was making all that steam inside was not the priority. No matter what, greeting her family came first.

She sped up to get to the door, then knocked. Apple Bloom's tiny voice sounded on the other side: "I'll get it!" The little filly opened the door wide. "Hello – " She gasped. "APPLEJACK!"

"Hey there, li'l sis," Applejack greeted.

"EVERYPONY!" Apple Bloom turned and ran into the house. "IT'S APPLEJACK! APPLEJACK'S HOME!"

"APPLEJACK?" a male voice called back. A yellow stallion with a brunette mane, clad in a brown vest and matching cowboy hat, charged through the foyer to meet Applejack at the door and sweep her into a tight hug.

"Braeburn!" Applejack laughed. "Almost forgot you'd be here!"

"You kiddin'?" Braeburn let go of his cousin. "Ponyville's just like home now! Business has been boomin' like you wouldn't believe! Though, uh…that ain't to say that it's better 'cause you're gone. What I meant is…"

"Aw, I knew whatcha meant." Applejack flashed Braeburn a reassuring smile. "So. Mind if I come in?"

"It's your house!" Braeburn laughed as he stepped aside to let Applejack enter.

"C'mon in, dear!" This urge came from Granny Smith, who was just entering the hall then; a bounding Apple Bloom and trotting Big Macintosh followed her. "Feels like we haven't seen ya in ages!"

"Eeyup!" Big Macintosh confirmed.

"Well, I'm back for the week," Applejack informed them all. "It's real good to see all of ya." It felt like a puzzle piece sliding into place and clicking in position, forming a complete picture.

"You have to tell us EVERYTHING about all those places you've been!" Apple Bloom insisted, still hopping up and down with excitement.

"Now, Apple Bloom!" Granny Smith scolded. "Your sister's probably tired from all that travelin'! Ya can't just go askin' her all sorts of questions left an' right!"

"It's all right," Applejack replied. "It's all long stories, but I got time to tell a few. Though the rest of the girls an' I are meetin' up later at Twilight's to write it all down for the princesses. By the way, how've things been 'round here?" Her mind flitted back to the new building with the steam chimneys.

"You won't believe it!" Apple Bloom chirped. "We've got a new machine that helps us make cider an' jelly even faster than before!"

Applejack scowled slightly. "You mean like the Flim Flam brothers' – "

"It ain't like that at all!" Apple Bloom argued. "It all tastes the same! We can just get a lot more done in a day, an' that lets us earn enough money for repairs to the barn! An' we still do all the apple buckin' ourselves! Braeburn was the one who put the whole thing together."

Applejack turned an accusatory eye to Braeburn. "Put what together now?"

"Ya gotta see it!" Braeburn insisted. "The way we were doin' things was too old-fashioned. I brought Sweet Apple Acres into the modern age!"

"Well, I still don't like it one bit!" Granny Smith huffed. "I didn't like it when you brought that crystal home, and I don't like it now! It ain't the way we do things!"

"It ain't the way you did things," Braeburn corrected. "But we gotta keep up with the times, Granny! You agree with me, right, Big Mac?"

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh confirmed.

"What crystal?" Applejack looked between the members of her family, befuddled. "What's goin' on?"

"Just come see for yourself!" Braeburn eagerly trotted out the door. "I got a lot to show ya!"

"Well…all right…" Applejack cautiously followed him.

The pair moved across the grounds to the new building, where Braeburn opened the door to reveal the interior. A great machine, pipes and gears and conveyor belts, took up most of the inside. It chugged away, emptying liquids into jars at one end and filling canisters of jam at the other. At its center, a circular glass door revealed a gleaming white crystal set in the heart of the machinery.

"It was almost like a miracle," Braeburn explained. "I found that crystal by accident when I was out gettin' apples. Actually, it was stickin' half out of the ground, an' I tripped over it. It was so shiny, I just knew it had to be somethin' important! Well, that night, when I went to sleep, I had a dream, an' when I woke up, I remembered every bit of it. My dream was about this machine an' how to put it together. The crystal makes it work like some kinda battery! We put apples in the chute at that end, and the machine sorts 'em an' makes jam, juice, cider…I'm still tryin' to think of how to add an oven to it so we can automate the baked goods, too. It's made work 'round here even more productive and easier. Actually, what we might really need is some kinda cart system so we don't have to go all the way out into the orchard to buck 'em all down…"

"I've got a hard time believin' this stuff tastes as good as homemade," Applejack criticized. She disliked this obvious deviation from tradition, but even more than that, she felt that there was something sinister about it all. Perhaps it was that the crystal powering it reminded her far too much of the crystals that had formed the portal from 616th Earth to Asgard, or the tales of the Psyphers from Niflheim.

"But it is homemade," Braeburn insisted, offering her a jar of jam from the machine. "Just…with this machine instead of our hooves. Try some!"

Applejack dipped the edge of a hoof in the jam and licked it off. "…It's good," she admitted. "Just as good as it usually is."

"See?" Braeburn urged. "I figured out all on my own how to make more delicious apple treats for all of Ponyville AND help the family!"

Help the family.

Applejack remembered.

"BRAEBURN!" she cried in horror. "Have you been gettin' my letters from when I'm travelin'?"

"Yeah…" Braeburn replied in confusion. "Every single one."

"Which letter came right after you found that crystal?"

"Well, the letter where you told us all about enrollin' in magic school, an' endin' up makin' that deal with that alien thing – "

"Helpin' the family was the deal I made with Kyubey, remember?" Applejack scolded. "He put that crystal out in the field, an' he gave you that dream about how to put this all together! Braeburn, d'you know how bad this is?"

"But…nothin' bad's happened," Braeburn told her. "I don't see how it could."

"Nothin' good comes from anythin' Kyubey gives ya!" Applejack insisted. "What if this all explodes? What if it stops workin' one day? What if – "

"If it stops workin', we just go back to the old way!" Braeburn countered.

"An' if it explodes?"

"It ain't gonna explode!" Braeburn said in exasperation. "There're plenty of steam valves to make sure that won't happen, an' the power crystal's all locked up in a reinforced chamber."

"Somethin's gonna go wrong," Applejack insisted.

"You don't know that this is what Kyubey gave ya!" Braeburn argued. "Wouldn't it have already gone wrong by now? Twilight figured out what was wrong with her wish pretty quick, Pinkie Pie got sick off that cake right away, an' Rainbow Dash ended up in a bad spot right after winnin' her first fight!"

"But Fluttershy's wish is comin' true all the time," Applejack reminded him, "and hers ain't gone wrong yet. But it will."

"But you ain't even here most of the time!" Braeburn countered. "All the bad stuff happened to y'all directly! That's how y'all get filled up with despair!"

"No matter where I am," Applejack reminded him, "my family gettin' hurt is what's gonna give me the most despair!"

"So what do we do?" Braeburn asked angrily. "Just stop doin' everything? That wish is gonna come true no matter what! An' we can't stop Sweet Apple Acres from runnin' because of somethin' that'll happen whether we do this or somethin' else! If we take down the machine, then maybe bats'll get at the apples, or the trees'll fall down! We don't know when that wish is gonna go sour, an' we can't just go around livin' in fear of it!"

Applejack didn't have an argument for that. One way or another, her family was going to end up in trouble, and it was her fault. "Guess you're right," she said softly. "It's just…you're awful defensive of this machine. Is it just how easy it makes things?"

"Well…that's a big part of it," Braeburn explained. "You really were a big part of what kept Sweet Apple Acres goin'. And with you gone, we needed to pick up a little slack. But I also…this is the first time I've really thought of somethin' that helped out in a big way. An' I'm proud of this, Applejack. Whenever we're able to fix up one of the sheds or pay for somethin' at one of Granny Smith's doctors, I'm always just…real proud of the fact that I was able to make it happen. I don't wanna use it to become the richest ponies in town or get a lotta fame. I just wanna…be a big help for once."

Applejack nodded. "I get that. I guess…I guess we might as well leave it up an' runnin'. So long as you're sure it's safe."

"I'm sure it's safe, Applejack! I've thought of everything!"

Applejack hung her head. "I'm sorry," she sighed. "It's really me I should be angry with. I'm the one who made the wish, and now, somethin' bad's gonna happen no matter what – "

"We'll make it through," Braeburn reassured her. "We've made it through worse, remember?" He put a hoof under her chin, lifting her face up so that her eyes met his.

Applejack remembered the last time he'd done that. Years and years ago. It had been at the burial; no matter how much Granny Smith and Big Macintosh tried to console her, she had been overcome by tears. Apple Bloom was so young then, too young to understand where her mommy and daddy had gone and what everypony was burying those two big boxes for. Braeburn was the next to approach Applejack, leaving the area where his immediate family was gathered in order to try and tell her that things would be all right. He'd met her gaze, and she'd only cried harder, wrapping her hooves around him and soaking his shoulder with tears.

When her mind arrived in the present time, Applejack muttered, "I just don't wanna lose anypony else."

"Y'all haven't so far. Y'all came out of those other wishes all right. You're good at handlin' this kind of situation out there, and I think I'm pretty good at handlin' things here. There's nothin' that you an' me can't handle, Applejack!"

"An' if it's you I lose?"

Braeburn mulled that one over. "Well, I…I dunno how that'd even happen. But if I do, then I know you'd be strong enough to find a way. I wouldn't want ya to be sad over me, Applejack. Tell you what. Would it make ya feel better if just for this week, I turned the machine off, an' ya didn't have to deal with it?"

"But you'd just turn it back on when I left," Applejack argued.

"Maybe we'll get used to workin' without it," Braeburn suggested. "I'll bring up everythin' you said to the others. We'll talk it over." He moved toward the machine, pulling one great lever. Everything came neatly to a halt.

Applejack doubted that Braeburn, Apple Bloom, and Big Macintosh would really want to keep the machine shut down for good. All the same, once it had stopped, she already felt safer. "Thanks, Braeburn."

"No problem, Applejack. So whaddaya say we go back to the house and get you a proper welcome?"

"I'd like that."

...

The sun set over Ponyville, tinting the sky lavender with a strip of hot pink on the horizon. Noting the time, Pinkie Pie bounded out of Sugar Cube Corner and made her way toward the library.

At a turn in the street, she almost bounced right into Rarity. "RARITY!" Pinkie cried excitedly. "IT'S TIME!"

"Indeed so." Rarity nodded. "Shall we?"

After a few paces, Fluttershy joined them. "Baromett's all settled in," she informed the pair.

They didn't miss the somber look on Applejack's face when she turned up. "Applejack, dear, what's wrong?" Rarity asked in concern.

"It's kind of a long story," Applejack grunted. "We should get that letter put together first."

"Okay," Fluttershy relented. "But if you need to talk to us about something – "

"Later," Applejack insisted.

As the four neared the dusk-bathed library, a multicolored streak jetted through the air; Rainbow Dash touched down right in front of Twilight's door. "Everypony ready?" she asked.

"Ready!" Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack said in unison.

Rainbow Dash knocked on the door; Spike opened it eagerly. "Come on in!" he greeted. "We've got everything set up!"

"It's gonna be a good old-fashioned letter writing party!" Pinkie Pie cried happily, leading the way in.

The main room of the library had been decked out with soft pillows for sitting and laying on. Stacks of paper and pots of ink were relegated to a corner. Upon a small table, a three-layer cake with fluffy white icing towered, sparkling with tiny gemstones embedded in the dough. Twilight waited on one of the pillows. "Great!" she said when she saw the others. "You all made it! Spike made this jewel cake just for the occasion."

"It looks lovely, dear!" Rarity complimented. The cake part did, anyway. She was prepared to discreetly spit out the gems when Spike wasn't looking.

"This'll go perfect with these cupcakes!" Pinkie Pie opened a white box and set seven cupcakes around the cake on the table. Nopony had seen her carrying the box to begin with, but nopony questioned it. "I made one for each of us, and I customized them all! Twilight, yours is purple with a book pattern on it, and I made a little decoration of your Cutie Mark for the top! Spike, yours is green, and I tried to make the frosting look like your fire. I put a jewel on top of it just for you…"

"I think we can tell whose is whose," Twilight interrupted. "So…how was everypony's day?"

"Fantastic!" Rarity gushed.

"Very good," Fluttershy added.

"Awesome!" Rainbow Dash said with enthusiasm.

"Terrific!" Pinkie Pie contributed.

"All right," Applejack said, putting on a smile.

"Um…" Fluttershy said softly. "I, uh…I think something's going on with Applejack, and…"

"And it can wait," Applejack insisted. "I'm fine. We need to get this all written down."

"Are you sure?" Twilight pressed.

Applejack nodded. "I'm sure."

"Well…okay," Twilight relented. "But you know we're here to listen."

"I know."

"Everypony, make yourselves comfortable," Twilight invited.

"And have some cake if you want!" Spike added.

"And a cupcake!" Pinkie Pie concluded.

Once everypony was settled on a set of pillows with a plate bearing a slice of jewel cake and a personalized cupcake, Spike picked up a quill and a sheet of parchment. "Ready for the first shift when you are!"

"All right," Twilight began. "Dear Princess Celestia…"

...

CANTERLOT, FOURTH EQUESTRIA

As the day drew to a close and the night took over, Luna entered the throne room. She found Celestia reading over a single sheet of parchment. "Sister?" she greeted, curious.

"Good evening, Luna," Celestia replied, looking up from the parchment.

"What hast thou been reading?"

"You might be interested to see this." Celestia levitated the parchment over to Luna. Luna looked it over, reading its brief message:

"C:

I have to give up the Bugbear mission. Something came up that's more important. I've found Dark Matter. L and I are using it to explore the boundaries outside Equestria. Something tells me I'll be needed more out there. Send letter to recall us at any time.

-S.D."

Luna looked up at her sister. "Art thou truly going to let her abandon the Bugbear for this?"

"I am," Celestia confirmed. "The rest of the forces can handle it. If the gateways have opened up to her, I think she needs to see what is out there. Though I do worry for Lyra. Eventually…Lyra will have to know."

"If thou hast faith in them," Luna stated, "then I have it, too."

The changing of the throne did not happen until it was much later in the night, and Celestia and Luna remained in the throne room together, just as how Luna would remain for several hours after sunup. Just before Celestia was to retire to bed, a whoosh of green fire flashed before the eyes of the two sisters, and a great stack of paper – a long, long letter – materialized on the carpet before the thrones.

"Is it…?" Luna wondered out loud.

Celestia approached the papers, lifting the first one by magic. "It is," she confirmed. "A letter from Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie."

"Yet it arrived in the traditional way," Luna pointed out. "Art they…?"

"Yes." Celestia nodded, satisfied. "They are back here, on this world." She turned to smile at Luna. "It seems I will be having a very late night tonight."

...

When both sisters finished reading the letter, Luna suggested, "Now that they art returned…perhaps it is best we suggest they go to the old castle."

"I was thinking the same." Celestia gave a somber nod. "It would be the easiest way for them to gain the rest of the answers to their questions about the Elements."

"Shall we begin writing?" Luna suggested. She was met with silence. "Sister?"

"Oh…" Celestia shook her head to clear it. She'd been caught up in memories: memories of spacious halls, hidden panels in the walls and slides in the floors, lively discussions, racing hearts, fears and the bliss of overcoming them through ignorance, the sound of an organ, tears of grief, worry, suspicion, a quill scratching across a page. "Yes. Immediately."

...

PONYVILLE, FOURTH EQUESTRIA

"TWILIIIIIIGHT!"

Twilight had forgotten just how comfortable her own bed in the library was. She imagined that after she and her friends had parted ways the night before, the other five all thought the same about their own beds. They had split up right after finishing and having Spike send their collaborative letter; all were indeed tired out, not just from the day of homecoming, but from all their adventures. Twilight was slightly concerned that they never had addressed whatever had been eating at Applejack, but there was still time enough to discuss that.

When the sun rose, Twilight heard Spike excitedly yelling her name from the floor below. She blinked awake. Part of her wanted to stay in bed just a little longer, but she knew Spike wouldn't be calling for her so loudly unless it was important.

Spike rushed up the stairs as Twilight stretched her way out of bed. "We got a letter back from Celestia and Luna already!" He held a scroll out proudly.

"Oh?" Twilight levitated it out of his hands with interest. She unrolled it and began to read:

"Dearest students:

"We are glad to hear of your adventures, and especially that all is well within the Nine Realms. It is a pity to know that Loki had fallen so far, but it seems you have found fast friends among the others. (A note in particular from Luna: I was most pleased to hear that Velvet and Cornelius hath arrived at happiness upon the throne of Titania.) We assume that we shall not need to send copies of this letter to your families, as you are back in Ponyville and have most likely told them yourselves already.

"On that subject, as you know, the ancient castle that we once shared lies mostly in ruins deep in the Everfree Forest. But if you look carefully within it, you may find something that could prove helpful to answering the questions you still have about the Elements of Harmony hidden somewhere in what's left of the castle. We wish you luck, should you choose to seek it out.

"Most of all, we wish you a warm welcome back home, and hope you enjoy the time you have here to the fullest.

As always,

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna"

"Huh," Twilight remarked. "I'd almost forgotten about that old castle. We did find the Elements there in the first place. There's probably a lot of important stuff there we never thought about. Spike?"

"Yeah?"

"What do you say about spending today on an expedition to that castle?"

"Uh…" Spike was unsure. "I…guess? But isn't it all falling apart and filled with spiders – "

"You'll be fine," Twilight told him. "Though I guess you don't have to go. I'll just go call up the other girls and we'll go together."

The pieces clicked in Spike's head. Twilight was gathering the others in order to explore the old castle. The others included Rarity.

"On second thought…I think I do wanna go after all!" Spike decided.

"Great!" Twilight chirped. "Let's go!"

...

Fluttershy distributed food for the mass breakfast among the animals of her yard. Baromett had received his own pen with a charming wooden fence, a soft cushion bed, and practically overflowing food and water troughs: all the amenities needed to make a sheep happy.

Angel may have had the run of Fluttershy's actual house, but it still irked him to no end that this new sheep had a special pen built just for him with love and care. When was the last time Angel had received such a luxury?

"Fluttershy!" Twilight called from across the yard. Fluttershy looked up to see the unicorn waving to her, Spike at her side.

"What is it?" Fluttershy asked, eagerly approaching.

"We got a letter from Celestia and Luna in the night." Twilight levitated the page over to Fluttershy. "I think we should check this castle out."

"That does sound like a good idea," Fluttershy admitted. "But…isn't that old castle falling apart? And…dark…and empty…"

"That's why we'll all go together," Twilight insisted. "What could go wrong if we're all there looking out for each other?"

"Did you have to ask what could go wrong?" Spike broke in.

"I guess you're right," Fluttershy relented. "I'm done with work here. Who are we picking up next?"
"Sugar Cube Corner is closest," Twilight explained as she, Fluttershy, and Spike left the yard.

Angel couldn't believe what was happening. Cheerilee had gone to the schoolhouse early when Fluttershy had volunteered to take over breakfast duty, and now Fluttershy was leaving. Angel was completely unsupervised, and there was nopony to stop him from fixing his little pest problem.

Baromett, none the wiser, crunched at the food in his trough with gusto. Rubbing his front paws together and cackling insofar as a rabbit could cackle, Angel unlatched the gate to his pen, opening it wide to the Everfree Forest.

"Baa?" Curious, Baromett trotted out.

Angel slammed the pen gate shut behind him. The sheep didn't seem to care. Intrigued by the new area, he made his way toward the tree line, eventually engulfed by the forest's darkness.

All Angel had to do was open the gate, and Baromett had finished the job himself. There was no way, Angel surmised, that he would come back from the dark and tangled wood. And when Fluttershy would become devastated at the loss, who would be there but her faithful bunny companion?

Satisfied, Angel swaggered back to the house to grab himself an extra carrot.

...

Rainbow Dash was the last to join the group before she, Twilight, Spike, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Applejack set out down the path through the forest.

"So, uh…Applejack," Twilight brought up. "You never did tell us last time what was wrong."

"Oh," Applejack sighed. "That."

"Did you want to talk about it now?" Twilight offered. "We've got some time before we get to the castle."

Applejack sighed. "All right. When I got back home…"

It all came spilling out: Braeburn, the crystal, the great machine, Applejack's reasoning that it was connected to Kyubey.

"The family agreed to shut it off for the week an' consider takin' the whole thing down," Applejack concluded, "but I get the feelin' that soon as I'm gone, Braeburn, Apple Bloom, an' Big Macintosh are just gonna wanna get it up and runnin' again. I know somethin' bad's gonna happen no matter what, but this just don't feel like good news to me."

"You have to get rid of it," Twilight insisted. "It's too much of a coincidence not to be Kyubey."

"Is it really, though?" Rarity countered. "Besides, I believe there is a point to the fact that the wish shall go sour no matter what. If the machine is taken down, why, there's no telling what else could happen. It hardly makes a difference…so why not use it to make business easier for the moment?"

"And here's the thing about the wishes," Rainbow Dash brought up. "So far, they only backfired on us. Mozenrath really did get a hundred more years to burn up, and technically, I beat Voldemort and Discord, which was good for everypony else. So this backfires on Applejack. We just get in there with some Elements action, change her from a giant witch monster into a regular witch pony whatever-we-are, and everything's good!"

"And maybe Braeburn will decide to take it down after all," Fluttershy suggested.

Applejack shook her head. "If this is what Kyubey wants, he'll have messed with Braeburn's head so he won't WANT to take it down."

"Then you have to take it down while you're here," Twilight insisted.

"I…can't," Applejack sighed.

"Why NOT?" Twilight snapped.

"I can't wreck somethin' my family thinks is such a good idea right in front of their eyes," Applejack lamented.

"But you'd be PROTECTING them!" Twilight insisted. "You have to!"

Applejack shook her head. "I can't just do that to 'em. Especially 'cause of everythin' everypony else brought up. If the disaster's inevitable…"

"If you don't take that machine down," Twilight announced coldly, "then I will. All on my own."

"DON'T." Applejack spun on Twilight angrily. "I mean it, Twilight. As a friend, I'm askin' you…let me handle this. If I need your help with this, I'll ask for it. But don't mess with this right now."

"Then…then I won't," Twilight relented. "I don't like the sound of it, and I don't really get why you don't just want it out of your own yard, but if you don't want me to mess with it…then I won't."

"It's complicated." Applejack felt that Twilight didn't understand at all due to her relative solitude when it came to family. Twilight didn't live with her parents or have any siblings. She had Spike, but the relationship seemed different. She didn't know what it was like to be on the losing end of a family argument, or to contemplate disappointing everypony who shared her home. "I'll deal with it."

"CASTLE AHOY!" Pinkie Pie suddenly yelled.

At the end of the path, a clearing in the forest opened up, and the dilapidated yet elegant ruin of Celestia and Luna's castle rose before the group.

"We've got a lot of ground to cover," Twilight pointed out. "I think we should probably split up. There are seven of us…I think somepony should check out the library, somepony should head toward the throne room, somepony should look around the side hallways, and somepony should go check the cellar."

"Dibs on the cellar!" Pinkie Pie yelled excitedly. "That's ALWAYS where the best secrets are in any old and ruined castle!"

"I'd like to scope out the throne room, myself," Rarity suggested. "After all, this castle has many beautiful old tapestries. I might just find one to take home and restore in order to inspire my new line! …which would only be a bonus along the way to finding answers, of course."

"I want to go with Rarity," Fluttershy decided. "The rest of the castle sounds…pretty scary."

"Then I guess it's up to the bravest pony to take the other hallways!" Rainbow Dash announced.

"Who said YOU were the bravest pony?" Applejack replied teasingly, her spirits lifting. "Maybe I should take charge of them halls myself!"

"So…Pinkie Pie to the cellar, Applejack and Rainbow Dash to the corridors, Fluttershy and Rarity to the throne room, and that leaves the library for me and Spike!" Twilight decided.

"Hey, libraries are kind of our thing!" Spike nodded in satisfaction.

"If everypony's ready…" Twilight began.

"BREAK!" Pinkie Pie yelled before charging toward the castle. The others followed in time.

And behind them, a shadow loomed over the doorway.

...

When Twilight and Spike made it to the library, Twilight gasped deeply. Row upon row of dusty books that looked untouched by equine hooves for decades stretched out before them. Twilight was practically giddy as she rushed among the shelves. "Wow! Look at all these ancient books!" She began levitating some of the thicker tomes down to look at. "It's a veritable gold mine of information! I can't believe it!" Dropping the books, she ran even further down the hallway. "WOOHOOOOO!"

Spike was too nervous to pay attention to Twilight's enthusiasm. He kept expecting some sort of creepy-crawly to come worming out of a corner at any given time. His constant looking to the sides led to his failure to see the giant spiderweb he'd just walked into; he got wrapped up, stumbled, and fell over, breaking the web into ropey bits. The fall landed him beneath a tall stone alicorn statue that glowered down at him menacingly; with a cry, Spike jerked to a sitting position, noticing then the colony of spiders with blue five-pointed stars upon their abdomens that clambered over the statue's wings. "Eh…heheh…so, Twilight! Ready to head home?" he proposed nervously.

Twilight looked eagerly back at him from atop a stack of books. "Are you kidding? This place is PERFECT!" She beamed before diving into the stack like it was water.

Spike kept a wary eye on the spiders.

...

"Goodness…it's practically an artistic treasure trove of good taste!" Rarity gushed as she and Fluttershy stood in the great hall, looking up at where the stairway branched off in two directions beneath a pair of long tapestries. The left-hoof tapestry was golden, styled after Celestia and the sun, while its right-hoof companion was of a dark blue scheme, obviously inspired by Luna and the moon.

"Um…shouldn't we be looking for something related to the Elements of Harmony?" Fluttershy reminded Rarity.

"That's what we are doing, dear," Rarity told her. "It's just that as long as I've found these, I can't very well pass them up, can I?"

"Um…"

"Though they are a bit rattier than I'd hoped," Rarity sighed. "You know what? I shall come back to these. There must be better in another room." She trotted down a side hallway.

Fluttershy really thought Rarity had lost sight of the priority, but she followed anyway.

...

"Well, here we are!" Applejack announced, standing at the mouth of one of the corridors.

"Uh…what's supposed to be so scary about this place, anyway?" Rainbow Dash asked in dismay. She'd remembered it being far darker and more imposing during their battle against Nightmare Moon.

Applejack's voice lowered to a dramatic whisper. "When I was just a filly," she explained, "Granny Smith told me of an ancient legend." She moved to the top of a nearby stairway to make for a better stage. "When Nightmare Moon was banished, not every last bit of her dark magic went with her. Granny used to say when night falls on the castle, that magic takes the form of…" She lifted her hooves, waving them for effect. "THE PONY OF SHADOWS!"

Rainbow Dash was momentarily perturbed, but snapped back to cynical. "You mean like a ghost?"

"Nooooopony knooooooows!" Applejack replied in her eeriest voice, running back down the stairs to wave her hooves before Rainbow Dash. This had the effect of making the legend less scary, rather than more.

"Ugh," Rainbow Dash sighed. "Let's just get going." She turned and walked down the hall.

Applejack, completely caught up in the moment, followed her with an excited "Woooooo, the Poooony of Shaaaadoooows!"

...

Rarity had been right; the spacious chamber at the end of the hallway held a tapestry in much better condition. She eyed the cobalt cloth with Luna's visage up and down. "This one is PERFECT!" she gushed.

"Well…" Fluttershy's eyes zeroed in on the dust that had gathered amongst its threads and the tatters at its edges. "It certainly could use some restoration…"

Rarity turned to Fluttershy, blinking her eyes innocently. "Be a dear," she requested. "Fly up there and lift it off that hook?"

Unsure, Fluttershy winged her way up to where the tapestry was anchored to the wall via a golden bar. She gripped the very edge of the bar with her teeth, wiggling it; it barely budged.

"Maybe from below?" Rarity suggested.

Fluttershy made sure to give Rarity a glare of discontentment before doing as she said and flying behind the billowing tapestry to attempt to unhook it from beneath the bar. During her attempt to dislodge the tapestry, Fluttershy knocked against a stone brick that depressed, activating a mechanism.

The entire wall spun around before Rarity's eyes, slamming a blank wall into place in front of her. Rarity flinched in shock, hoping that Fluttershy and the tapestry were all right.

...

"I don't see what's so scary about an old legend," Rainbow Dash asserted to Applejack as they walked down the hall. "Plus, I don't believe in ghosts."

Applejack was about to tell her off for calling the Pony of Shadows a "ghost" – after all, she'd just said no one knew if it was, and it was most likely more of a shadow being like those in Farabu's kingdom – but a stirring distracted her. Seconds before the two had entered that hall, Fluttershy had activated the trap stone and spun the tapestry wall around, and the side bearing the tapestry clicked into place where Rainbow Dash and Applejack were about to arrive. Fluttershy, however, had not noticed the movement, and continued to try and dislodge the tapestry, rustling the fabric quite a lot as Applejack and Rainbow Dash passed by.

Applejack trembled as she pointed to the tapestry, which seemed to be moving on its own. "You might wanna…rethink your position on that…"

Still oblivious, Fluttershy gave a groan of frustration at the tapestry's unwillingness to move. It sounded too much like a ghostly wail for comfort.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash took off down the hallway screaming.

As they did, Fluttershy knocked into the trap stone again, rotating the wall back to its original position. She plopped out onto the floor in front of Rarity in defeat. "Ow…I think I hurt my wing…"

"Oh, my dear, I am so sorry!" Rarity gushed as she moved toward Fluttershy. "That tapestry is far too heavy. We'll just have to find a smaller one!"

"But we didn't come for a tapestry…" Fluttershy reminded her.

"That's right," Rarity realized. "We didn't." Her face lit up. "However, what we DID come for was clues about the Elements' past. Which is obviously connected to the images that were sewn into these very tapestries! After all, they are of Celestia and Luna, who bore the Elements before us! Who knows? If we find the right one to take home, it might give us exactly the answers we're looking for!"

Fluttershy thought that sounded more like an excuse to keep trying to take down tapestries, but she let it slide. After all, there was some validity to the argument. "Oh…of course."

"Where, pray tell, did you disappear to?" Rarity asked as the two set out to leave the chamber.

"What do you mean?" Fluttershy was confused.

"While you were struggling under that fabric, the entire wall spun around." Rarity couldn't believe Fluttershy hadn't noticed. "You must've activated a secret door."

"Oh…I'm sorry," Fluttershy said; it was almost a reflex.

"I suppose these ruins are chock full of them," Rarity mused as she kept walking.

"Really?" Fluttershy didn't like the prospect of that.

"Absolutely. We must use the utmost care as we – "

Click.

With one misstep, the two mares had opened up a trap door in the floor, and both fell to the level below.

...

"Okay," Rainbow Dash panted, keeping pace with Applejack as they bolted down the corridor. "So MAYBE the legend is true."

"Guess it's a good thing I'm here, then," Applejack replied calmly, far more calmly than her pace suggested her mood was. "Keep you from gettin' scared and all."

That caused Rainbow Dash to throw on the brakes. "Scared? I'm not scared!"

Applejack trotted back toward her. "Well…me neither!"

"I was just running because I thought we could get to the end of the hall quicker!"

"And so was I!"

"It's gonna take a lot more than some shadowy ghost pony to make ME afraid!" Rainbow Dash boasted as she casually took flight and winged her way down the hall.

"Me! Too!" Applejack insisted, indignantly following.

Neither of them noticed the portraits on the wall next to where they had stood. One in particular, that of a white stallion wearing a uniform bedecked with medallions, bore a bright blue eye that moved to follow them as they left.

...

When Pinkie Pie had found the hole in the wall, at just the right height and size for a pony's eye, she remarked, "I betcha this is one of those holes in the wall that is cut out of a portrait on the other side so you can spy on whoever's in the next room without being noticed!" Eagerly, she'd put her face up to the spot, filling in for the stallion's missing eye. She watched Rainbow Dash and Applejack skid to a halt right in front of her, both try to claim they weren't scared of the castle, and then continue down the hallway, deciding a "shadowy ghost pony" wasn't going to scare them.

After they left, Pinkie Pie backed off from the peephole. "Yup! Definitely a portrait with the eye cut out! That was SO COOL! I wonder what else is down here…?"

Seeing a stairway that went decidedly farther down, she eagerly took the path.

…

Twilight and Spike had seated themselves at opposite ends of a long table in the library, a candelabra positioned between them so as to provide optimum reading light.

"Find anything, Spike?" Twilight called from across the table, looking up from the volume in front of her.

Spike put down his own book with an audible thump. "Uh…nope. Nothin' yet."

Suddenly, a shadow flickered across the table, the light of the candelabra enlarging it. It looked for all the world like the silhouette of some great beast passing by; it was gone as soon as it appeared.

Frightened, Spike nearly fell off his chair. The chair, however, just teetered, and as it leaned, one of the legs pulled upon a lever mechanism hidden beneath.

"What was THAT?" Twilight looked around, slightly perturbed. The source of the shadow had disappeared.

Before she or Spike had time to contemplate events further, the lever Spike had activated worked its magic. Two of the bookshelves that made up the wall parallel to the table slid apart, revealing a wide passageway; the flames of the candelabra were doused in a blast of cold air.

Twilight approached the arched doorway that had been uncovered, gasping. "Whoa…" The hidden room was darkly colored, in shades of deep blue and purple, and well furnished with cushioned day beds and convenient coffee tables. A small bookshelf leaned against one of the curved walls; inset in the far wall were two Gothic stained glass windows. As per the castle's recurring theme, one was a palette of gold, representing the sun, and the other's shades of midnight blue portrayed the moon. A wooden pedestal graced the room's center, and upon it was a leather-bound book with a golden design worked upon the cover.

As Spike tentatively approached the doorway, Twilight zipped inside the room, peering eagerly at the book. From that distance, she could see more clearly that the designs that graced the cover were tiny portraits of Celestia and Luna, though Luna looked much younger, as Twilight had first seen her after her first battle with Nightmare Moon. Below that was text that Twilight read aloud: "The Journal of the Two Sisters."

Turning to Spike, Twilight levitated the book. "Maybe this has the answers Celestia and Luna were talking about!" she cried happily. She contemplated retiring to a corner to read it, but then thought better of it. "I have to bring this to the others," she decided out loud. "We all have to look through it together."

"Great!" Spike cried. "So we're done, and we can get outta here!"

"Well, the others might've found important things too," Twilight reminded him. "We'll just have to find out once we find them." She trotted back into the library with the book in tow.

"And, uh…how are we gonna find them when they're all split up?" Spike asked.

"I…have no idea," Twilight admitted. "But I'm sure they won't be that hard to find. How much trouble could they get into?"

...

Rainbow Dash and Applejack descended a spiraling stairway that led down, deep into the castle's bowels. Applejack walked down the traditional way while Rainbow Dash hovered in the center, winging her way down casually. Seeing the lack of light below, Rainbow Dash taunted, "I sure hope you're not afraid of the dark, Applejack!"

"I can't say that I am!" Applejack replied indignantly. "But even if I was, I'd be at least fifty percent less scared of it than you, Rainbow Dash!" She gave her friend an indignant glare.

"I dunno how all that math works because I'm not scared at all!" Rainbow Dash retorted.

"Me neither!" Applejack snapped, picking up the pace. As she barreled to the end of the stairs, Rainbow Dash sped up to follow.

At the base of the stairway, both halted, unsure what to make of the path ahead. "W…what's the matter?" Rainbow Dash asked shakily. "It's just a dark hallway…full of…disembodied pony legs…"

The narrow corridor ahead was adorned with metal torches in the shape of hooves cradling poles that were meant to hold fire and illuminate the way. Perhaps the original intent had been to go for an artistic Gothicism, but it came off as morbid and unsettling.

"Yeah," Applejack replied, pulling at her hat nervously. "Nothin'…creepy about that…"

As she and Rainbow Dash proceeded forward, Rainbow Dash instinctively put her wings out in front of her face, peering through her feathers.

...

"I'm starting to wonder if maybe this castle doesn't want my expertise!" Rarity huffed. She and Fluttershy had landed in the pitch dark, unable to see a thing, unsure where the trap door had brought them other than the direction of "down." A quick light from Rarity's horn solved that problem, revealing the room to be a dark, small, cube-shaped stone chamber. There seemed to be no obvious method of egress, though a circular hole a few inches in diameter was set into one wall.

"It's okay…it's okay…" Fluttershy murmured to herself, growing anxious. "This place used to belong to Celestia and Luna…they have to have made a way out!"

"Hmmm." Rarity scoped out the hole in the wall.

...

Having walked halfway down the hall of metal torches, Rainbow Dash felt something touch her back. She was momentarily startled before she realized the rational explanation for it. "Applejack, if you're scared, you can just admit it. You don't need to put your hoof around me."

"Uh…I'm over here," Applejack announced from several paces back.

Rainbow Dash turned to see what had caused the disturbance, and saw a bone-white hoof extending from the wall, wrapping around her shoulder. Believing it to be the hoof of a ghost, she shrieked, eliciting a scream of similar pitch from Applejack. Both ponies took off down the hall at maximum speed, leaving the torches behind, not even stopping to contemplate that the hoof was the same color as Rarity's, and, in fact, was Rarity's.

The caster of the shadow loomed in the hallway behind the pair, watching them run.

...

After her hoof bumped into Rainbow Dash and she heard the screams from the other side of the wall, Rarity withdrew her hoof from the hole with a gasp.

"Rarity…what is it?" Fluttershy moaned while Rarity shook with fright.

"I felt something…ALIVE!" Rarity announced.

"Maybe it was one of the others!" Fluttershy realized. She rushed to the hole in the wall, putting her own hoof through and feeling around. When she nudged the metal torch set in the wall directly above, it triggered yet another lever, spinning the wall around and depositing Rarity and Fluttershy in the corridor.

"Well, tapestries or no," Rarity grumbled, "I have had just about enough of secret passages, mysterious presences, and UNAPPRECIATIVE CASTLES!" The last words echoed through the hall. With a huff, Rarity began to march down the hall, ready to leave.

"But we can't leave now!" Fluttershy stepped in front of her. "Not with everypony else counting on us and expecting us to be here! What would happen if we didn't let them know we were leaving, and they kept searching for us forever?"

"Oh…dear, I suppose you're right," Rarity realized. "Well, then. I suppose our first order of business is to find our way back up to the main level. If we can rendez-vous with Twilight, then we can let her know that we've taken the castle's hint and have decided to leave. Just like it apparently wants us to!"

As Fluttershy followed Rarity down the hall, she remarked, "Um, I don't mean to hurt the castle's feelings…but I'm not sure it DOES have feelings. Or wants us to leave…"

...

In the deepest, darkest depths of the castle, there was a room where almost no light entered. A black velvet carpet edged with a border of musical notes led the way to a small stairway, flanked by a pair of granite alicorn statues, that connected to the seat of a towering pipe organ with dual sets of keys and lanky bronze pipes. The room had not been set foot in by any living soul larger than a star-spider for years. The candelabras arranged upon the organ had not been lit for a millennium.

Pinkie Pie took one look at the setup and began shaking with excitement. "AN ACTUAL PIPE ORGAN!" she cried, darting up the stairs and seating herself. "I can't BELIEVE it! Who would've thought there would be one of these babies all the way down here? This is sooooooo awesome! In fact, it's perfect for an 'everypony runs around the castle scaring each other while I play the organ' party! I wonder if the others are up for that? Ohhh, who CARES? I GET TO PLAY THE ORGAN FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!" She looked over the keys, rummaging through her memory. "I think I read a song for it once. Now, how did that one song go again?"

She picked out several keys, slamming her hooves down upon them. A minor chord echoed throughout the empty basement halls and sounded in the air of the entire castle.

"Yup, that was it!" Pinkie recalled, continuing to play the macabre tune.

Applejack skidded right past the door to the organ room, not even taking notice that it was there, let alone who was making the noise. She ground to a halt, and Rainbow Dash bowled her right over. As both ponies righted themselves, Applejack asked anxiously, "Ya hear that?"

The music ceased. Rainbow Dash looked nervously to Applejack. "You mean…the creepy sound of a haunted pipe organ?"

"Uh…maybe?" Applejack admitted.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Rainbow Dash squeaked.

Pinkie Pie remembered how even more of the song went and played fervently, the haunting chords taking over the atmosphere.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack quickly threw their hooves around each other in a panic before realizing it would be more productive to run as far away as possible from the noise, and then doing so.

...

"Uhhh…Twilight? Did you hear somethin'?" Spike asked.

Twilight waved a hoof dismissively. "Oh, Spike. Quit being such a scaredy-dragon. This castle is thousands of years old, and half of it was destroyed by Nightmare Moon! Of COURSE it makes strange sounds. It's practically falling apart!"

To illustrate Twilight's point, a few stones came loose from the ceiling and dropped at Spike's feet. This didn't make him feel much better about the strange noise.

...

"Twiiiiliiiiight!" Fluttershy called softly through the halls. "Twiiiiliiiiight!"

As she and Rarity passed an arched doorway, Rarity peered through into the room beyond out of curiosity. What she saw made her heart leap.

When Fluttershy heard Rarity's wail of giddiness, she at first mistook it for distress, rushing back to her friend's side. "Rarity? Are you okay?"

Rarity had entered the chamber, at last finding the throne room. It was in the most disrepair of all, but the two thrones where Celestia and Luna once sat were still in place, and above each was a long and glimmering (if a little tattered) tapestry: golden sunlight for Celestia and a deep blue night motif for Luna. "They…are…PERFECT!" Rarity gushed at the sight of the fabrics. "No castle in its right mind could possibly object to my restoring such EXQUISITE works of art!" She made a beeline for the thrones.

"Oh…they're lovely, Rarity…" Fluttershy replied. "But…this still isn't really what we came here for…and I thought you wanted to leave – "

"Well, plans have changed!" Rarity asserted, clambering up onto the seat of Luna's old throne of deep blue marble and attempting to reach the night-themed tapestry from there. "All that was before I found these MARVELOUS masterpieces! Why, I can feel the inspiration flowing already just from looking at them!" Her magic surrounded the blue tapestry, tugging at it, trying to dislocate it from the wall.

...

Applejack and Rainbow Dash cautiously peeked around the corner into another hallway. This one was ornamented with dual rows of suits of pony armor: the sort used in the most epic of wars waged, bearing spiked joints, chamfrons, and crossed pollaxes.

"D'you think there's a single room in this castle that isn't filled with terrifyin' things?" Applejack sighed.

Rainbow Dash poked one of the suits. It wobbled, and she flinched. After quickly covering her surprise with a nervous smile, she observed, "It's just old pony armor. What's the big deal?"

"Yeah…it's not like it's gonna come to life or anything!" Applejack added. "…Right?"

...

"And that, ladies and gentlecolts, was Morbid Scary Song in D Minor!" Pinkie Pie announced to nopony. "Now, I hope you're all ready for…CREEPY SUSPICIOUS TUNE IN C MINOR!" She struck the organ's keys once more.

What Pinkie Pie was unaware of was the fact that the organ was more than a simple musical instrument. It had been constructed by Celestia and Luna as a way to remotely control several functions of the castle, including its trap doors. When Pinkie Pie depressed the right key…

...

…A segment of wall bearing one of the suits of armor flipped over into the adjacent room, taking Applejack with it.

Rainbow Dash screamed in terror.

...

Another keystroke sent Luna's throne flipping, throwing Rarity into a chute behind it.

Fluttershy's scream was added to the already cacophonous night.

...

Applejack's destination was the outside parapet, next to a carved stone dragon. The leaves of the Everfree Forest were clearly visible; storm clouds had rolled in while the six had been in the castle, turning the sky dark violet. A bolt of lightning flashed.

Applejack, too, screamed.

...

An oaken panel spat Rarity out into an outdoor courtyard with an "Oh - !" Rolling across the granite paving, Rarity gathered several twigs that entwined into her mane. As she came to a halt, she noticed that in her hooves, she clutched a torn corner of Luna's throne room tapestry, leaving said tapestry defiled from its vintage condition.

Rarity's scream may have been the loudest of all.

Shaking vigorously to try and dislodge some of the debris she'd picked up, Rarity glared at the towering, crumbling walls. "Now you look here, castle!" she growled. "You are very old and very scary. But your wall art is in an atrocious state! And there is nothing you can do to keep me from my sacred task of restoration!"

She charged the wall at full speed, leaping through a low window.

...

Alone in the hall of armor, Rainbow Dash cringed. "Uh…Applejack? If you got scared and left, that means I'm the bravest, right?"

She accidentally backed into one of the suits of armor, causing it to topple over onto her. Rainbow Dash was unhurt, but the incident did horrors for her emotional state. After another shriek, she sped out of the hallway, turning a sharp corner.

...

"Raaaarity…" Fluttershy called out in vain, searching the throne room. "I know hiding isn't really your sense of humor…but please let this be a jooooooke!"

She nervously scurried up to the blue throne where she last had seen the white mare with the purple mane. She put out a hoof, cautiously, slowly, ever so gently tapping the seat.

The organ's chords rang out.

Startled, Fluttershy took to the air, evacuating the throne room.

...

That chord triggered the wall in the armor hall a second time, placing Applejack back indoors. Finding herself where she had been with Rainbow Dash moments before, Applejack immediately observed the lack of Rainbow Dash, as well as the fallen armor.

"Rainbow?" she called out nervously. "Helloooooo? I guess if I don't find you, that means you got scared and ran away!"

Applejack's hope that such a claim would bring Rainbow Dash flying angrily back was immediately, so to speak, dashed. When her friend did not appear, she took it upon herself to search for the wayward pegasus, making her way into a side hallway with no light whatsoever.

...

The leap through the window had not proven a fortunate move for Rarity. She'd fallen down a flight of stairs, then somehow up a shorter one, then rolled through a hallway rather like a pinball until she finally wound up flat on her face in the entry hall. She righted herself, grunting and growling as she pried more debris from her mane. "Of all the castles in Equestria, this is by FAR the most ungrateful!" she declared, stomping a hoof for emphasis.

The castle responded by dropping a small pebble onto her head, proving her point.

Rarity was ready to storm out then and there, but a quick look at the conditions outside revealed that the storm had only gotten worse. The wind howled, the purple clouds were turning deeper shades, and the forked lightning bolts were accompanied by the unsettlingly deep crash of thunder. Rarity slowly backed away from the entry.

Fluttershy backed nervously into the atrium as well, hissing, "Rarity! Where are you?"

Another wall panel adorned with armor opened up, and Applejack leapt into the hall, turning to look back at the wall she'd come from to make sure nothing else was following her.

High above, Rainbow Dash flitted through the sky, grinding her teeth. "Haunted statues…creepy armor…" She turned to face the castle's towers, putting up her dukes. "COME ON, CASTLE! IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?"

Thunder boomed as if responding that the castle in fact had a little more in store. Startled, Rainbow Dash winged her way downward, through a sizeable gap in the roof that led directly into the entry hall.

And as they moved backward, already jumpy, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash collided at the same time.

They shrieked in four-part harmony. Rainbow Dash took off into the air, pinballing off the walls. Her flight path collided with the pole keeping one of Luna's tapestries in place, and for once, the tapestry was easily dislodged, collapsing right down on top of the unfortunate Rarity. "I WAS ONLY TRYING TO RESTORE ANCIENT A-A-AAART!" she wailed through the fabric, still running about in what was literally a blind panic as the cloth covered her face.

Applejack knocked into one of the stone columns in the hall, which collapsed, nearly crushing Fluttershy and causing her to cry out.

From an adjacent hall, Twilight heard all the commotion. "What in the world is THAT?" she yelled indignantly, shaking her head.

"Oh…y'know…" Spike had taken to hiding behind another column. "Probably just more strange sounds of this old castle fallin' apart!" He shook so hard, it was audible.

"No one likes sarcasm, Spike," Twilight replied casually.

Spike mustered up the courage to drag himself out of hiding and follow Twilight out to the atrium's upper balcony. Seeing Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack darting here and there in a tizzy, all Spike could say was "What got into THEM?"

Fluttershy had taken to curling up in the fetal position behind the fallen pillar, which Applejack leapt atop, bellowing, "SHADOWS EVERYWHERE!" The "shadows" this time were caused by Rainbow Dash's rampant flying this way and that, while Rarity had just decided to cut her losses, sit down with the tapestry still covering her body, and cry until the fabric was soaked.

Twilight leapt into the center of the hall. "All right, everypony…STOP!" As she barked the last word, a magenta shockwave radiated from her horn, freezing the others in place.

"…Twilight?" Applejack looked up at the lavender unicorn.

"It's terrible!" Fluttershy wailed. "The castle…ATE RARITY!"

"I'm over here!" Rarity called out from beneath the tapestry.

"…Oh." Fluttershy calmed down immediately.

Once it was clear that everypony was far less nervous, Twilight let the spell go, allowing them all to move again. Twilight even did Rarity the favor of removing the tapestry, flinging it into the corner.

"Thank you," Rarity sighed in relief.

"Have you all spent the whole night running around scaring each other?" Twilight asked incredulously.

"Well…" Applejack shifted sheepishly. "That depends."

"On what?" Twilight was skeptical.

"On whether or not somepony here is ACTUALLY the Pony of Shadows," Rainbow Dash accused.

"What's the Pony of Shadows?" Spike asked through chattering teeth.

"Oh, that's just an old pony's tale," Twilight told him.

"Yeah, but that's what we always used to think about there being other worlds and more things out there like Discord…and I thought that stuff about Zeus and Odin," Spike reminded her.

"Just because a few of them are true doesn't mean they all are." Twilight shook her head. "If there had been a Pony of Shadows living in this castle, we all would have known about it a long time ago instead of just spreading rumors about it. Celestia and Luna wouldn't have even suggested that we come here!"

"That's a good point you bring up," Applejack admitted.

A sudden chord from the organ below caused all six to huddle together, startled. "If there's no Pony of Shadows," Spike asked, "then who's playing…THAT?"

As realization hit Twilight, her fear washed away. "I think I have an idea." She made her way to the cellar, and the others did not so much follow as simulated being glued to her side as she walked.

...

The song continued as Twilight, Spike, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash made their way through the winding hallways and down into the lower levels. That made it a simple task for Twilight to follow the noise and locate the room where Pinkie Pie was happily playing away.

"Hey, you guys!" Pinkie greeted joyfully. "Did you know that I could play the organ? Because I didn't!"

"We should've known!" Rainbow Dash realized.

"Check it out!" Pinkie Pie switched to a much happier tune.

"YOU'RE the Pony of Shadows?" Rainbow Dash sighed.

"The Pony of what?" Pinkie asked, not looking up from the keys.

"See?" Twilight insisted. "What'd I tell ya?"

"I HOPED there would be an 'everypony hide from each other in the scary old castle while I play the organ' party!" Pinkie crowed. She hit another key, launching the floor panel Spike was on via a hidden spring.

"Well, at least we figured out there was no Pony of Shadows," Twilight sighed. "Now, I wanted to show you all something I – "

She turned. A shadow loomed at the entrance to the organ room.

"Th-th-th-that's the thing that cast the shadow in the library earlier!" Spike cried.

"Who ARE you?" Twilight yelled at the invading presence.

It walked closer, and in the distorted darkness, it was only as it neared that it became obvious that it was actually much smaller than the shadows it had been casting.

"HEY!" Twilight repeated. "Who are you?"

The answer she got was "Baaaaa!"

"BAROMETT!" Fluttershy ran forth to see that it was indeed her wayward sheep. She scooped him up into a hug. "What are YOU doing so far away from home?"

What she didn't know was that after she had left to explore the castle, Angel had carried out his plan to sabotage the sheep; by chance, Baromett had happened upon the trail to the old castle and followed the group in, though in the labyrinthine halls, he hadn't managed to catch up to any of them, instead trotting through the building at random and incidentally happening to cast shadows in the dim lights of the castle.

"Is it REALLY over this time?" Twilight raised a suspicious eyebrow.

"I think it's over," Applejack confirmed.

Twilight nodded. "Then you all have to see what I found." She brought out the journal she'd discovered. "I think this is Celestia and Luna's old diary from when they lived in this castle. This has to have all sorts of interesting history in it. When they moved in, what half of these trap doors are here for, why they left, what happened when they wielded the Elements of Harmony…maybe even something about Discord and how they defeated him. I think we should look it over later. Maybe we could meet back at the library again tonight?"

"That sounds like a great idea!" Applejack replied, and the others all nodded.

"So what did everypony else find?" Twilight asked.

"Just a lotta creepy old armor and wall ornaments," Applejack reported.

"Same here," Rainbow Dash confirmed. "Nothing actually scary, though!" she added defensively.

"Well, I found several tapestries in dire need of restoration," Rarity confessed, "but…well, I believe you saw. At least that one came off the wall…"

"I think we found one too many trap doors," Fluttershy sighed.

"I FOUND A PIPE ORGAN!" Pinkie Pie reiterated, playing another chord.

"The diary is probably our best bet," Rarity theorized. "I definitely think we should meet up at the library to go over it. Shall we say sundown again?"

"Works for me!" Rainbow Dash said with a nod.

"Wow," Spike realized. "I'm actually helping out with the investigation on one of your adventures! This is AWESOME!"

Hearing that, Twilight began to realize that he had a slightly unfair end of the entire deal. She didn't regret leaving him in charge of the library; somepony had to be. But he always had assisted through thick and thin before the group had left Equestria, even saving the Crystal Empire from Sombra. Twilight mulled over potential compromises that could be made to include him more, even if only for a little while. It was a subject she would have to think on for a bit.

"In the meantime, I shall begin work on the ONE tapestry I managed to pick up," Rarity decided. "I promise, it shall go right back where it came from once I've restored it to its former glory. Though, of course, using it as an inspirational springboard for a vintage line based on the two sisters still sounds like a capital idea…"

"Everypony loves to hear about their history," Twilight reminded her, "whether it's to praise them for all the good they did…or even tell scary stories about Nightmare Moon. I'd think there would be ponies lining up at your door to be able to DRESS like ponies did in those days!"

"Then we must return to the entry hall to pick it up immediately!" Rarity insisted.

She and Twilight continued to discuss the historical appeal of such fashions as the seven left the basement room.

...

When the sun sank below the horizon, the seven gathered as promised in Twilight's library: Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Spike, and Twilight herself, bearing the Journal of the Two Sisters. Once again an assortment of snacks had been laid out; Pinkie Pie insisted upon calling the entire affair a "diary-reading party."

"I was thinking we could take turns reading entries," Twilight suggested. "But I was also thinking that we should try and just look for the important ones if we can. The wording should give them away. There's a lot to go through here, and I don't know that it's all relevant." To demonstrate, she used her magic to fan the pages, showing just how many there were.

"I think that's a good plan," Fluttershy commented, and the others all nodded.

"And of course you should begin," Rarity told Twilight.

"Okay," Twilight agreed. "Let's go." She opened the book up to the very first page.

...

Dear Diary:

Mother hath decided I am old enough that I could taketh charge of the sun from my own castle. I asked if Luna could ruleth beside me, as her raising and lowering of the moon is just as important as my control of the sun, and while Mother was hesitant at first, as Luna is so young, she eventually approved my suggestion.

'Twas an odd conversation. I hath never seen Mother in such a mood as she was in when she spoke to me. She always hath been kind, almost overly so, and optimistic to a fault. For most of my foalhood and Luna's, she and my father have spoken nothing but kind words about each other and the two of us…and strangely have discussed little else. When Mother bade me take up the throne, she seemed far more serious. As though she were waking from some strange dream, only to fall back to sleep once the matter was discussed.

With that, Mother and Father have officially abdicated from the throne, leaving it to Luna and myself. We have moved into the castle in the midst of the Everfree Forest. Luna hath expressed disappointment that we could not rule from Canterlot, where once our ancestors ruled, but she knoweth as well as I do that that kingdom is Discord's realm now. Perhaps one day, Luna said, we can defeat him and end his reign.

Perhaps one day we can.

For now, we shall do our best to rule over the lands that still hold order over chaos from our castle. It is a very gloomy castle, and doth not yet feel like a home. I intend to change this. I shall have Luna's and my thrones bedecked in blue and gold to reflect the night and day. We shall have tapestries hung throughout the castle in the patterns of the celestial bodies we control. I asked Luna what she wanteth in this place, and she had some rather…fantastical ideas. Trap doors, suits of spiked armor, scary torches on the walls…I think Luna has been reading one too many old pony tales about haunted castles. However, she is young, and this place belongeth to her as much as it belongeth to me. If she wanteth trap doors, then trap doors are what we shall have!

I have also taken it upon myself to begin this very diary. Now that we are rulers, Luna and I should keep an account of our annals. I think having something to write in will also maketh us feel more at home. This journal shall belong to Luna as much as it belongeth to me.

We have much work to do in order to fix this castle and begin a just rule over those not terrorized by Discord. More writing shall come later.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

I am so excited! I get to help rule Equestria now! At least, the parts that are not controlled by Discord.

I want thee to know that I am not CHILDISH for wanting trap doors and halls of armor in this castle! Even if thou art just a book. We have installed many of those things already, and it feeleth just like a castle from a storybook!

Besides, in times like this, we need to be able to laugh and have fun.

As soon as things are finished, we can invite Polaris, Sirius, Alpha, and Dawn over! That will be fun! Celestia has already talked about inviting Polaris over, and I think she might wanteth him to be her special somepony! (I know thy secret, Celestia!)

-Luna

...

Dear Diary:

Construction hath finished on our castle in the Everfree Forest. I love to duck behind the paintings, and though the Hall of Hooves still gives her a bit of a fright, the trap door slide is Luna's favorite! Soon, the Organ to the Outside will be finished. I can hardly wait!

I already have sent invitations to our friends across Equestria. To Alpha Centauri, who liveth in Cloudsdale; to Dawn, who liveth in solitude in the depths of the Everfree Forest; and to Crystal Princess Sirius and her brother Polaris, who ruleth the Crystal Empire together. I am excited for when the six of us can enjoy this castle together.

Luna's is not a false claim. I will admit…I have been developing feelings for Polaris for a while. I know not when it is best to tell him how I feel. Perhaps at the upcoming gathering Luna and I are planning? No…it is still too soon. For now, I wish to simply enjoy our friendship and think about what relationship we may have beyond it at a later time.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

Polaris, Sirius, Alpha, and Dawn came over for our party this day, and we had so much fun! We played all sorts of games and made all sorts of treats. Dawn and I rode the trap door slide many times, and she enjoyed it as much as I do! Though I am beginning to regret suggesting the Hall of Hooves. It is not that it frightens me! I just do not know if it fits the style of the rest of the castle! Dawn doth not like it either! She did sayeth she was frightened of it, though, which is not the case with me. I am not afraid of anything! I work in the night, after all, and the night is full of scary things that do not bother me!

I had so much fun today. I hope we can have many more parties like this. As usual, Polaris was clumsy, Sirius was a little mean at first before she apologized, Alpha wanted to win at all the games but was okay with it when she lost, and Dawn brought a new book for me to read. It is a very good book so far.

-Luna

...

Dear Diary:

It hath finally happened. One of Discord's agents of chaos hath wreaked havoc upon the home of one of our own. The Changeling Queen Chrysalis hath invaded Cloudsdale with her army under the guise of the Cloudsdale mayor. Alpha Centauri arrived at our castle, out of breath and terrified. She tried to save as many ponies as she could, and was able to lead a group of refugee pegasi down from the invaded city. However, so many more were caught in the attack. It weigheth heavy upon her. She spoke of the Changelings wrapping the Cloudsdale pegasi in their green cocoons and feeding off of them, draining the love and energy from them all.

Luna and I have allowed her to stay here in the castle. She is incredibly distraught, as is Luna. I hath written to Polaris, Sirius, and Dawn. Alpha Centauri needeth them now…as doth Luna.

I admit I have somewhat of an ulterior motive for gathering us all. I no longer feel as though I can stand back and watch as the agents of Discord transform our once beautiful Equestria into a war-torn nation of nonsense where hate reigns over love and disorder over order. Perhaps Discord findeth it amusing to loose such destructive beings as Chrysalis upon us, but I find it cowardly. He would not stoop to feeding upon the pegasi himself! We must stand up and fight; we must take Equestria back!

I believe I know how we can begin. I have read many legends of the magic known as the Elements of Harmony. Honesty, Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Kindness…and a mysterious sixth Element. They are more than just concepts; hidden somewhere in Equestria, they have physical form. And I believe I know exactly where. Dawn hath spoken of a six-branched tree in the Everfree Forest that emits a strange magical energy shared with no other tree. She said it feels warm and kind. The Elements can be wielded by as few as two, but the more ponies wield them, the stronger they are. If a single pony tried to wield them all, she could not holdeth them for more than an hour before they became unstable, and even for two, they must be two very strong and powerful ponies…but we are six. Perhaps if I can convince all of my friends that it is indeed the time to use the Elements, we can retrieve them from this tree and begin to use them to save Equestria, starting with Cloudsdale and the Changelings.

Of course, this is a large proposition. I must first speak to Luna of it (it would doth more harm than good if she learned my feelings by simply reading this journal and not hearing me speak of them), then tend to Alpha Centauri however she needs until she is up to hearing more. Alpha Centauri is strong, and she will in no time hath a smiling face on, but it mayeth be only a pretense. She never did liketh to admit when she believed herself to be weak.

Polaris, Sirius, Dawn…please hear my call and come at once.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

You will not believe it! We have saved Cloudsdale!

After Alpha came to our castle, Celestia told me she was thinking about using the Elements of Harmony. We wrote to Polaris, Sirius, and Dawn and asked them to come over so we could all talk about it. Celestia was able to convince them all to use the Elements in no time!

Dawn showed us where the tree was in the Everfree Forest. I think she knows where everything is in there, since she liveth there and exploreth the forest often. She is so very smart. The tree was beautiful. We found it in a canyon below the rest of the forest. It glowed white and had six branches.

When we got close to the tree, jewels came out of the branches! Each of us got a different one. I got purple, for magic! Celestia got blue for laughter, Alpha got green for kindness, Polaris got red for loyalty, Sirius got orange for honesty, and Dawn got pink for generosity. I guess that makes sense because Celestia is always trying to smile and make us smile, Alpha always trieth to help out when something is wrong (even when she seemeth tough on the outside), Polaris never giveth up on us, Sirius can sometimes be mean with how much of the truth she tells but always figures out how to treat us right in the end, and Dawn loveth to lend her books to me and the others.

Once we had the Elements, we were ready to fight! We stormed into Cloudsdale through the front gate. Chrysalis tried to attack us, but we were ready! We battled through hordes of her Changeling minions until we faced off against Chrysalis herself, and then we used the Elements of Harmony to chase her out! It was one of the most beautiful things I hath ever seen. When we all used the Elements together, it made a rainbow that washed over Chrysalis and sent her flying out of Cloudsdale and all of the Changelings with her.

Now Cloudsdale is safe and Alpha can moveth back home. Now that we have the Elements, though, I wonder what else we can do.

-Luna

...

Dear Diary:

It has been a while since last I wrote in these pages. Truth be told, it has been a while since Luna and I have been to this castle at all. Ever since she, Polaris, Sirius, Alpha Centauri, Dawn, and I came into possession of the Elements of Harmony, we have been journeying across Equestria, vanquishing many foes and returning order to parts of this land. It has not been easy. As soon as one enemy is defeated with the Elements, that enemy will find another part of Equestria to conquer.

What's more…there is a strange mist beginning to cover the land. It hath gathered at the harbor of Horseshoe Bay most prominently. Is it a trick of Discord? Or is it something more?

Luna wisheth to ask Dawn about it. I trust that Dawn will have some sort of knowledge as to this strange mist. Dawn hath gathered much archaic knowledge through her readings. Perhaps the answer shall become clear after some research.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

Dawn foundeth something out! There is an ancient prophecy about six who are destined to saveth the world with the Elements of Harmony. It is related to the mist on Horseshoe Bay. However, when Dawn told us of this, she actually said that the six were meant to protect more than one world. That doth not seem to make sense. Doth she mean Equestria and also the world I visit in other ponies' dreams? Does she somehow meaneth Tartarus?

Celestia and I are going to build a boat and we will all sail into the ocean of Horseshoe Bay, right into the mist. We are going to find out what is there!

-Luna

...

Dear Diary:

Though Polaris, Sirius, Alpha Centauri, and Dawn all expressed excitement at first, when our construction of our vessel was complete, they were filled with a sudden fear. They did not wish to sail into the mists. I will admit the prospect intimidateth me for reasons I cannot yet define, but as princess of the sun in Equestria, it is my duty to explore such things. And Luna knoweth that it is her duty as well, as princess of the moon. I do wish that Polaris at least would come along…but as much as I do not like that he is staying behind, I would wish even less to force him into what he feareth.

Luna and I have decided to venture out into the sea on our own. The two of us are powerful, especially when we put our magic together. This should be but a short voyage to discover from where the mist cometh.

We have christened our ship the "Starlight." It was Luna's idea, and I must say, I am quite fond of the name!

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

THOU WOULD NOT BELIEVEST WHAT WE HAVE DISCOVERED WHILE ABOARD THE STARLIGHT! Dawn was right! THERE ARE MORE WORLDS THAN WE KNEW OF! Already, Celestia and I have had so many adventures! There are too many to tell here. What we should have done is made a new journal for our voyages. Perhaps for next time.

We told our stories to Polaris, Sirius, Alpha, and Dawn. They loved the stories, but they are all still afraid. Even more afraid, in fact, now that they know how big things are outside Equestria.

I know I am not supposed to invade my friends' dreams without asking, but I went inside Dawn's head the night after we returned, as she slept. Her head was filled with terrible nightmares about the scary things that could be on other worlds. I think one world is enough for her and more than that is too much.

I think the Starlight will just be something special for Celestia and me, when we do not need to be here to vanquish evil and rule the land.

-Luna

...

Dear Diary:

Polaris and Sirius are dead.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

Wow. We have not written in thee in a while, have we? I guess we have been too sad.

Polaris and Sirius were murdered a month ago. A new pony came along…I think he is one of Discord's. They call him Sombra. I guess he is King Sombra now, since he took over the throne of the Crystal Empire. Nopony will go near the Empire now because they are afraid he will kill them too. They say he hath turned the empire into his slaves who work in mines and refineries for him, bringing him crystals. They also say he is mad, and that is why he does it. He does not want anything in particular. Just crystals and to make other ponies suffer.

Celestia cried for many days over Polaris. I think she loved him a lot. I cried for him too, and we both cried for Sirius. They were two of our very best friends.

I eventually got curious about what happened to the Elements of Harmony they had, and so Dawn and I went back to the Tree of Harmony. Loyalty and Honesty were back inside it. We thought about taking them back out and splitting them between us, but we ended up not doing that. It didn't seem right.

There is another curious thing. Dawn and I both noticed new stars in the sky. I know they are new because I have memorized them all when I raised the moon. The stars showed up the night after Polaris and Sirius died. We told Celestia, and she told me she wished to name them Polaris and Sirius, after our friends. I said yes, but I didn't just do it for their memory. I did it because I think there is a connection.

Dawn is even more afraid now, even of having the Elements. She thinketh that they had something to do with why Polaris and Sirius died. I went into her dreams again and saw her having nightmares about being killed and watching me die because of it. Actually, it was just me and her in her dreams. That's a little strange, is it not? But I don't mind. I like that she thinks about me. I think about her a lot, too.

I also looked at some of Alpha's dreams. She is scared, too, even though she keepeth pretending she is not.

-Luna

...

Dear Diary:

Now Alpha Centauri is dead. I suppose I should not simply announce her passing and then leave no remark, should I? If things proceed at this rate, I shall become a broken princess. I must speak of my grief, or it may just overcome me.

Alpha Centauri was murdered in the night, in her own home. There is no sign of the murderer, not as there was with Sombra. It must have been somepony either with wings or strong magic, to be able to walk the streets of Cloudsdale without falling through. Nopony knows why she was killed. All we know is that she was so brave, and so strong, and so kind…she should not have died this way.

As with the passing of Sirius and Polaris, another star has appeared in the sky. Luna is thoroughly confused. I now believe her when she says there is a connection between the new stars and our lost friends. We both thought "Alpha Centauri" would be a good name for the new star. The Element of Kindness has also returned to the Tree of Harmony.

May Alpha Centauri live on in our memory. She should have lived quite long. I miss her so. And I will not lie; I am now quite fearful that Dawn or Luna will be next. But I must be brave for all of their sakes. I will protect them and see that they come to no harm, no matter what.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

Dawn is really scared. She's sure that the reason our friends died is because they had the Elements of Harmony. So she gave up Generosity today.

She just walked up to the tree and gave her gem back. The tree ate it up. Dawn will still be ageless because she was an Element bearer. But she won't be able to stop any of the bad guys anymore. I hope that means the bad guys won't go after her.

Maybe now things can go back to normal. I really don't want Dawn to die. I would miss her so much.

-Luna

...

Dear Diary:

Normalcy can no longer be what we strive for. We have let the Elements lie in the Tree of Harmony out of respect for our fallen friends, but in doing so, we have been unable to fight evil with their powers. And if there is one thing I have learned from Luna's and my travels aboard the Starlight, it is that the Elements of Harmony can even stand up against the Old Ones if they are held by powerful enough ponies.

That is why I have decided to use them against Discord.

Perhaps we can stop his reign once and for all. There will be no more Changeling attacks, no more usurpers! Now is the perfect time. Discord has made an outpost near this very castle. It worries me a little that he is so close to the Tree of Harmony…which is all the more reason for us to take the Elements now before he somehow sabotages the Tree so that we cannot.

I have spoken to Luna and Dawn of this. Dawn was wary, so I reassured her that she did not have to be part of it. Luna and I are both quite powerful. We can wield all six Elements on our own. We just have to divide them up, three each.

For Alpha Centauri. For Sirius. For my beloved Polaris. The reign of Discord shall end with us.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

We have done it! We have defeated Discord!

First, Celestia and I went back to the Tree of Harmony and took out the gems that used to belong to Polaris, Sirius, and Alpha. I know Celestia was still sad about it…actually, I was still sad about it. But we knew we had to do this.

We adventured all the way through Discord's crazy chaos outpost until we found him on his newest throne, snacking on seeds like he was just watching some sort of show. Discord seemeth very strange to me. Because of him, so many terrible things have happened. Chrysalis, and I know Sombra was somehow related to him…there has been much death and destruction because of him. But Discord himself…I do not know if he seems capable of that. To him, it was like he was playing a board game or at the theatre. He was very happy. Almost friendly in the way he teased us. Like what we had been through was nothing! I do not know if that makes him the worst of all or less bad than I thought. I think he did think what we had been through was nothing. I do not think he understandeth. He is even more like a foal than I am.

Celestia and I were able to use the Elements to make a rainbow all on our own, and it turned Discord into stone. He did not seem to think we would be able to do it. The pose we froze him in is actually very funny! When we take Canterlot back, I want to put him in the garden as a statue. Celestia agreed, but she said it was because she wanted him to stay there as a reminder of our history. I just thought he would look funny in the castle gardens. We need to be able to laugh now after all that has happened. Strange…I thought Celestia was supposed to bear the Element of Laughter. Not I.

But we can take Canterlot back now. We can move into the old homeland of Mother and Father. It is a beautiful city with a grand castle. I am already thinking of what we can fix and build there. I know I want a library…a big one, with an entire section just for books about magic. We could name it after Starswirl the Bearded! And then Dawn could cometh over and readeth everything she wanted.

I think this is our happy ending! Almost. There is still one more thing we haven't done anything about. We have not wanted to. But we have to.

Somepony has to get rid of Sombra. And if the Elements of Harmony can seal away something as powerful as Discord, they have to work on him, too. I guess it is up to us.

-Luna

...

Dear Diary:

I do not find satisfaction in revenge. That is not why Luna and I went to the Crystal Empire to defeat Sombra. I miss Polaris dearly, with all of my heart…and I miss his sister as my friend. But ousting Sombra from this land did not bring me a sense of justice. Nothing that can be done to Sombra ever will bring them back to me. This I know. The reason Luna and I journeyed with the Elements of Harmony to the Crystal Empire was to free the ponies Sombra harmed after his takeover.

Defeating him was easy. The Elements worked on him just as well as they did on Discord. However, what we did not expect was for him to have put some sort of spell in place. When the Elements hit him, he simply disappeared into nothing…and right before our eyes, so did the whole Crystal Empire.

I cannot believe it still. The Crystal Empire is the Heart of Equestria. Its magic produced happiness that washed over the entire land. How can Equestria continue to exist without its Heart? What will happen to its life force?

Thankfully, I can still sense a life force there, beneath the surface. The Heart must still be there…it is just the Empire itself that is missing. Where has it gone? What has happened to the ponies that lived in it? Did they know their split second of freedom just as Sombra vanished, right before they were transported elsewhere? I know they are not dead. Luna knows more about magic than I, but even I could see that what had happened was a vanishing…which means some sort of transport through space or even time. It was not a massacre. Spells that are meant to kill leave marks of the damage. They do not simply take entire ponies away in the blink of an eye.

Once military is established at Canterlot, Luna and I can assign guards to help us search for the Crystal Empire. If it has been transported elsewhere in Equestria, perhaps we can find it. If it has been transported somewhere else in the multiverse, the Mists of Avalon just might be able to lead us to it. If, however, it has been transported through time itself…then we will only ever be able to find it in one of two ways. If it has been transported back to the past, then it will turn up in an ancient history book where it should not have existed at all. If it has been transported into the future, then we must wait for it. Provided that Luna, Dawn, and I do not die by mortal means, we shall see its return. Who knows what may change during that time?

I cannot predict what Sombra wanted to do. I do not even think he could have. His mind was gone, eaten away. Luna suspects an amulet he wore…the amulet that was all we could find of the entire Empire. It was the only object left for miles and miles of snow. Luna wishes to take the amulet into our custody until we know what it does. I think that is a wise decision.

The reign of Discord and his chaos has officially ended. The price to pay has been high…everything from friends to entire empires. However, the enemies that once overran Equestria have been either vanquished or banished. The dawn I raised was one of peace that day: peace that shall continue for an era. Luna and I must do our best to rule by it.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

There has been so much to do! Celestia and I completely fixed up Canterlot. We even built that library like I wanted. Now everything in Equestria is running smoothly. More or less.

Celestia and I have actually decided we want to go out adventuring on the Starlight again and use our Elements to fix things on other worlds. Maybe we will even find the Crystal Empire somewhere out there. I asked Dawn if she wanted to come, and she said no. She is still afraid. I did not even have to look at her dreams to know that. I do not look at her dreams anymore. They are just too private and I feel wrong doing it. I know it is my job as the princess of the night to look after the dreams of others, but Dawn is a friend and I want her to have some privacy.

I wrote just now that Dawn is a friend…Celestia asked me the other day if I wanted Dawn to be my special somepony. I do not think she was joking. I said no right away because I have never thought about it. But now that I think about it…do I? I have always liked Dawn best out of all of our friends. Being around her maketh me very happy. It disappointed me a lot when she said she would not cometh on the Starlight with us, but in the end, I just want her to be happy. I think I read somewhere that is what it means to love somepony. I even get so excited to be with her sometimes that my heart beats faster. Maybe I do like her more than just in the way friends like friends and I did not know it. It is something I will have to think about. I will have plenty of time while Celestia and I are sailing.

-Luna

...

Dear Diary:

I do not know exactly how to put this into words. Luna has been acting strange as of late. Her temper is short, and she becometh jealous very easily. She complained for the first time that everypony loves my day more than her night. That is not true. I know many ponies who think the night sky is more beautiful. How doth she not see that? Even I sometimes think the stars are more pleasant to look at than a blue sky. I tried to tell Luna this, but she snapped at me and accused me of lying to make her feel better. She has never spoken to me this way before. What is wrong with her?

Perhaps I shall ask Dawn. She and Luna are close. Dawn is also very wise. I hope she has an answer for me.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

Things with Luna keep getting stranger and stranger. I spoke to Dawn, but she told me that Luna has been angry with her too for seemingly no reason. That is not like Luna at all! I expect sisters such as ourselves to fight, but Luna and Dawn? Luna and Dawn…I do believe they were developing feelings for one another. They were both the youngest of our group, so I do not know if they had realized. Even if I am wrong about that, the fact remains that the two of them were very close friends. Now Luna hardly speaketh to Dawn at all about anything that is not superficial, and she is rude to her more often than not. What is going on?

The only theory Dawn had was that Luna is getting this from somepony else. She said Luna has told her that she had to leave to meet up with "friends." I know this does not mean me…and I do not know what other close friends we have left in Equestria. Could it be somepony we met on our journeys to other worlds? But there are so many of them…who would she possibly be meeting with?

I must figure this out. I fear for what could happen if Luna does not get some sense talked into her.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

It has occurred to me that Luna has not been writing in this journal at all. Something is very wrong.

She hardly even speaketh to me anymore. She greets me as we change guard from night to day and day to night. That is nearly all. I am starting to feel as though I live with a stranger. I miss Luna, and she has not even left.

I thought once I was about to come upon her and whoever it was she was speaking to instead of Dawn and myself. I heard her voice and a few others coming from the Starswirl the Bearded wing in the library…and I even thought for a moment that I recognized one of the voices. However, when I entered the wing, Luna was alone. I asked her who she had been talking to, and she said that she not only had not been talking to anypony, but she had not been talking at all. She had been reading silently the whole time, she claimed, and I was obviously hearing things. Then Luna suggested I was losing my sanity! I was at a loss for words, and she left the library. I could not find any book taken off the shelf that she would have been reading.

This is wrong. It must end. I must save my sister before she causeth harm to herself or somepony else. I know…Luna hath never been the type to do harm in the past. Yet I have a very bad and persistent feeling that things are about to go wrong.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

How darest thee.

How darest thee?

I realized how long I had been away from this journal, dear sister, and as thou writest in it so very often, I began to wonder if thou were speaking of me. But for so long, I trusted that thou wouldst not speak ill of thine own sister. How wrong I was! Thou sayest I am rude now! And a stranger to thee! After all we have been through, how canst thou sayest such things?

The worst is that thou accusest me of doing harm to another. I would never! Dost thou not knowest me anymore? What dost thou have to sayest for thyself, Celestia?

Thou art little more than an arrogant and pompous arbiter who believeth she knoweth what is best for everypony else, but refuseth to see the flaws deep within her own heart. What thou sayest is a falsehood. The others do not love the night. They revile it. This is something I know. It is your day and you that they love…and it has made you so proud and boastful. Thou knowest me not anymore; thou art blinded by the sunlight.

If thou thought thou were living with a stranger before, prepare thyself, dear sister. What I have read here gives me cause never to speak to thee again. I hope thou art happy with thyself. But of course thou art. Thou hast the sun, the day, and the love of everypony in Equestria save for thine own sister. I do not think thou wouldst even notice if I were gone. Farewell, Celestia. We may continue to live in the same castle and rule the same land, but thou mayst no longer call me "friend." I only call those who understand me "friend." And thou art not one of them.

-Luna

...

Dear Diary:

At first, when I read Luna's entry in this journal, I was filled with regret. How could I have said the things I did? But I do not know how else I was to respond to her irrationality. Re-reading this journal, everything I said does seem rational and warranted.

Something else bothers me about that entry. She implied there are in fact others she talks to now. Who are they? Have they somehow corrupted her? I have tried so hard to find out, but I have failed…I feel as though I need some sort of miracle in order to solve this mystery. I know my dear sister is still somewhere inside this…thing that Luna is becoming. This very angry thing that orders around the guards as though they are tools, not ponies. This angry thing that now throws dishes and yells when things do not go her way. She threw silverware at me…there were knives. I was easily able to protect myself with my magic, and she knew I would, but all the same, my suspicion that she could grow to harm others is starting to come true.

And when she has no reason to be angry, she truly does not speak to me. She made good on what she said in her last entry.

I do not know what to do. I feel lost. I miss Luna so badly. I know Dawn must feel the same…Luna has cut off from her completely without even giving her a farewell speech. Would that a miracle would arriveth and help me see the truth of what is going on. But I am indeed blinded. Blinded by the sunlight.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

Things have become worse…so much worse. Luna hath disappeared. I know not where she has gone. She could be anywhere in the multiverse.

In a vain hope, I asked Dawn if she knew anything…but she did not. She did not even know Luna was missing until I informed her.

I must find her. I worry so for her…even if Luna hateth me ever more, I must see to it that she is safe.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

Luna returned.

I received a message from her asking me to meet her in the old castle in the Everfree Forest. I did not tell Dawn of this. I did not want her involved. Something told me this was a situation that could put her in danger.

I was right.

On the way to the castle, I discovered something shocking. I took the route past the Tree of Harmony, perhaps out of instinct. There may even have been a few wisps of mist in the air. The Elements Luna had possessed…they were there. Even that of Magic, the Element that suited Luna best. I had no time to wonder why she had given them back, or if that is what had happened. I instead made an impulsive decision. I took them all for my own. I was afraid that when I found Luna, she would be accompanied by something dangerous…whomever it was that pushed her into anger, hate, and silence.

When I arrived at the castle, however, Luna was alone. She spoke to me in the throne room. She said the most to me that she hath said to me for months. And I can remember her words exactly. She had forgone the Canterlot royal speech, speaking absolutely plainly. This…is what she said to me:

"Not another step. Did you really expect me to sit idly by while they all basked in your precious light? There can only be one princess in Equestria! And that princess will be me!"

These words…they play again and again in my mind. Where did she get this idea? What could possibly have made her think there was only room for one to rule? After this, she explained to me her intent: she wanted to keepeth the moon in the sky eternally, keeping nighttime over Equestria forever and becoming sovereign ruler. It sounded like a terrible fate, one I could not let come to pass. What would become of Equestria with no sunlight? The trees and flowers would die…Luna would turneth Equestria into a barren waste!

What came next, I still cannot believe. Luna broke away a segment of the wall so that I could see outside as the moon eclipseth the sun in broad daylight, plunging Equestria into night. Darkness flowed from this eclipse into her…Dark magic. Suddenly, I could sense the presence of perhaps a hundred Echthroi…the Nightmares. But I could not tell where they were coming from!

Bathed in Darkness, before my very eyes, Luna changed. Her coat became black, her eyes narrow, her teeth pointed like fangs…it was as if a different alicorn stood before me altogether. Had I not seen her change, I would not have known it was Luna! It was then that I realized where the Nightmares were. They were inside of her…inside of Luna. How much of what she was saying was coming from them? When did they get inside her, and how? Did she…let them in? Was it to become more powerful?

Luna…or the thing that was Luna…began to destroy the castle in an attempt to bury me alive. She struck out at me, but I told her I would not fight her. I urged her to lower the moon, as was her duty. I thought perhaps if it was power she craved, I could appeal to her by reminding her of how keeping the moon in its cycle gave her power. I called her by her name…and yet again, the words she said to me remain in my head, replaying and replaying:

"Luna? I am Nightmare Moon!"

She had given up her own self…her own name…what had she become? Or was it the Nightmares inside of her? Were they what had been controlling her all along? But I had not sensed them until just then.

"I have but one royal duty now," she told me. "To destroy you!" She lashed out at me…and I knew my sister, my dearest sister, was gone.

I fled, and Luna…Nightmare Moon…pursued me. I evaded many of her attacks, but eventually, I was hit, falling to the floor of the hall where Nightmare Moon had transformed. For a moment, I feared this was how I would die…but I did not die. There was still strength in me. In those moments when I lay in weakness, I realized what I had to do. It was the last thing I had ever thought I would do in my entire life. To even think of it caused me grief. But it was the only way. This monster, Nightmare Moon…if she thought nothing of trying to kill me, what would she do to the rest of Equestria?

I called upon the Elements of Harmony, bringing forth the gemstones. I took to the air once more with them, entering the battle yet again. Nightmare Moon was angered, and moved to strike again, but I was ready.

I know I shed tears.

I used the Elements of Harmony against my own sister. They overpowered her own magic, carrying her into the sky. I saw the rainbow fly her toward the moon, and she collided with it with a multicolored aura. When an image of her face appeared as a shadow on the moon, I realized what I had done. Nightmare Moon was trapped inside of the moon.

I realize it was the only way. She had left me no choice. But I still wish to believe that it only was a nightmare, a bad dream I can wake up from…

Luna.

I love you, Luna.

And I will find a way to free you from this prison and bring you back, not as Nightmare Moon, but as yourself.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

I could not hold the Elements of Harmony any longer. Not by myself. I laid them to rest in the cellar of the castle in the Everfree Forest. I do not know that I have the strength to pick them up ever again, but time will telleth.

I finally told Dawn of what happened in the battle against Nightmare Moon. At first, she reviled me. She asked how I could do such a thing to our Luna…but after she was given time to think about it, she knew what I know: that our Luna had gone missing long ago. That what I attacked was not our Luna.

Dawn then joined me in a quest to research the effect of the Elements on Nightmare Moon and what had happened. She knew a rather complex divination spell, to be used to see into the future. It reminded me of many of the oracles and seers I had met in other worlds. After the ritual was done, Dawn was able to tell me that the curse I had cast – I can now only think of it as a curse – was not permanent. In one thousand years, the stars shall aid in Nightmare Moon's escape, and she shall returneth to Equestria.

At first, I was unsure of how the stars would have anything to do with it…but then something occurred to me. Polaris. Sirius. Alpha Centauri. The stars that appeared when they died.

Was it all written into fate from the start? Did none of this happen by chance? Have our friends waited in the sky for the chance to free Luna? In one thousand years, is this what will happen? Is that where they have gone…into the sky, rather than into the Underworld?

Dawn and I shall wait. We shall wait one thousand years. When Luna returns, she may yet be Nightmare Moon; we shall figure out what to do if that is the case. But just maybe there is a chance that our beloved Luna will return to us…and we shall be the first to greet her.

In the meantime, I must inform all of Equestria where the princess of the night has gone. I must also take on the duty of raising and lowering the moon. I realize that telling the truth will only make everypony hate Luna and think of her as a monster…but I cannot lie to them.

-Celestia

…

Dear Diary:

I did not expect that the last entry I wrote would be the last entry for many years! I left this book in the castle in the Everfree Forest…I feel it belongs here. I came here on altogether different business, but when I recalled the castle, I realized I wanted to visit it again and read our old journal. After I finished reading, I was compelled to add another entry, as so much has changed. As you can see, I no longer use the Canterlot royal speech! That should give you an idea of how many years have passed.

When last I wrote in this book, I was grief-stricken because of Luna. It has not been one thousand years yet, and she remains in the moon. I think of her every time I see it, but it no longer moves me to tears. I have found happiness in new adventures and new duties.

No, I have not boarded the Starlight, nor have I taken up the Elements of Harmony again. Instead, I have concerned myself with royal business. Recently, a group of traveling ponies asked for an audience with me so that they could build a new town in the midst of the Everfree Forest. There is much room for it. We compromised, ensuring they would not cut the entire forest down; many creatures still call it home. However, we found just the right place to settle this new town, which they have already been referring to as "Ponyville." It is a very simple name, but I like it.

Ponyville is going to be built near Dawn's home. She welcomes the town, and in fact, she confessed to me that she has become lonely as of late. When the town is built, she will move in. I think it will do her a lot of good to become part of a community and make new friends. I suggested that she could even found a library in it using all the books she has collected, and she loved the idea! She wants to transplant a tree from the heart of the forest, a golden oak, into Ponyville in order to make this library. It is a little bit of a tall order, especially since there is not even a town there yet, but I do not doubt that she will achieve her dream.

I suppose that is all there is to say for now. Soon, this castle shall be neighbor to a flourishing town of ponies of all kinds. I shall leave the journal here once more…I do not see the use in keeping it in Canterlot. My life is altogether so different. Perhaps it shall see another entry one day.

-Celestia

...

Dear Diary:

This shall be the last entry I make in this book.

One thousand years have passed. Soon, Luna…or Nightmare Moon…shall be free. I expect that she will want to come back here, which may affect Ponyville. That is why I have put a plan in place.

I feel the need to explain. Dawn is gone. Only yesterday, she was found dead in the Golden Oak Library that she had made her home. Medical professionals were not sure exactly what killed her…but I think it was the Killing Curse. Whoever our enemies were, they have finally removed every one of the first set of Element bearers but me…and soon, Luna will rejoin me, but that may go awry. For you see…Nightmare Moon still controls her. She found a way to visit me in my dreams, even from inside the moon. She was as evil as when I sealed her away. My hopes that the imprisonment would remove the Nightmares from her were crushed. However, I still have hope for Luna herself.

I wondered if the Elements of Harmony could be of use. Perhaps, in the right hooves, they could remove the Nightmare influence from Luna. I know if I use them again, it will only end up sealing her within the moon for another thousand years. I will also have to return the Elements to where they came from yet again. Most of all…I simply feel as though my time wielding them has passed. It is no longer my place. The Elements need to move to a new generation, one with a new perspective. That is where my plan comes in.

I have for some time now been teaching magic to students that show great promise. There is one in particular whose magical skills remind me of Luna's expertise. Admittedly, she is a favorite student of mine. Her name is Twilight Sparkle. I already know that she is destined to have incredible power. During the entry examination to my courses, she demonstrated powers that strangely reminded me of things I have seen only in other worlds. She was but a filly, and she was able to tap into the energy of the Spirit Realm; I could tell from the light pouring from her eyes. I do not know if even she realizes what she did. She also touched a dragon egg, and it hatched! She is no ordinary unicorn.

Unfortunately, she is a solitary creature and a bit of a shut-in. She does not seem to care for friendship outside of Spike, the dragon she hatched, and I have even observed her being rude to other ponies. She much prefers the company of books. I know that if anypony is fit to bear the Element of Magic, it is going to be Twilight Sparkle. Her destiny already seems tied to other realms from what I have seen in her. However, she cannot wield the Elements alone any more than I can, no matter how powerful she is. She is going to need friends, and time is running out. I had hoped perhaps that Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, Minuette, Lyra Heartstrings, and Moondancer would be her cohorts, as they are the closest she has to friends, but they lack the proper resonance with each other. And the more I think about it…the more I realize that I do not know if those four are fit to wield the Elements. I cannot think of which they would.

That is why I ordered Twilight Sparkle to find new friends. I have decided to hold the Summer Sun Celebration in Ponyville in hopes of intercepting Nightmare Moon. That is why I am here, in this castle, once more. I asked Twilight to come here, specifying that she was to take time off and find friends among the residents of this town. She may have better luck finding the other Element bearers here. I actually have a feeling…when Twilight passed her entry exam, it was on the same day that a strange rainbow light filled the sky. It was not at all the same rainbow that the Elements of Harmony make…it was more like a Sonic Rainboom, but a very powerful one that filled half the skies of Equestria. I cannot imagine what sort of pegasus could have made that light, but I think there is a connection between it and Twilight. If fate is kind, she may find whoever made that Rainboom so long ago here in Ponyville, and perhaps some others. They can take up the Elements for themselves. They may be able to reach Luna in a way I cannot. And they may have the legacy that once belonged to Luna, Dawn, Polaris, Sirius, Alpha Centauri, and myself. Perhaps one day, they will even inherit the Starlight!

It does feel deceptive, perhaps outright wrong, that I am setting Twilight up for my plan in this way. But how could I tell her about all of this in a simple letter? She would hardly believe it. And if she makes new friends, it must be in as natural of a way as possible. If I told her she was looking for somepony to help her bear the Elements, then she would start seeking out powerful candidates through logic…ponies she would not get along with at all.

There is, of course, a large part of me that simply wants her to find friends and be happy. The plan occurred to me because of Luna, but I hope with all of my heart that it brings joy to my favorite student. Even if she and whatever friends she may find fail against Nightmare Moon, she will still have ponies to laugh with, to cry with, to share her hopes and dreams with. To share her adventures with. To live out the legacy that my friends and I began.

By the way, I was correct about the stars. Polaris, Sirius, and Alpha Centauri have been drawing nearer to the moon. After Dawn passed on, a fourth star appeared near them, just outside the border of the moon. I have been referring to it as the Dawn Star. They are gathering to aid in her escape…Polaris, Sirius, Alpha Centauri, and Dawn. They want her to be free. They want to save her.

Whether I succeed or fail, I shall not write more in this journal. I have much more life to live, but this chapter of it has closed. A new one will begin after things are settled once and for all with Nightmare Moon. The Elements will belong to somepony else now…the new destined six. Perhaps the true destined six. For as I think of it, only two of us ever ventured out upon the Starlight…we did not wield the Elements as a team on our travels. Perhaps the next wielders shall, and put them to the use they were meant to have.

So ends our legacy wielding the Elements of Harmony, and so dawns a new day over Equestria. Nightmare Moon would have it that I would write "So falls a new night," but there is a ray of hope within my heart. Neither Light nor Darkness will prevail, but both in harmony.

A final goodbye:

-Celestia

...

When Twilight looked up after reading the final entry out loud, her eyes were wet. "I had no idea," she uttered softly. "When I took over the library…it was empty…I never thought about who had it before me, or why they weren't there…why she wasn't there…I should've asked, I should've…"

"It's all right," Rarity reassured her. "Celestia wouldn't have wanted you to ask, in my opinion. She's spent so much time dancing around the subject of these other Element bearers…"

"'Cause they were her best friends," Applejack elaborated. "Bringin' up those memories was just too darn painful. I dunno how I'd go about it if I lost all y'all." Her voice hushed automatically: "I…still dunno how to talk about my own parents, most days."

"I was actually afraid you'd be angry, Twilight," Fluttershy confessed. "Knowing that Celestia wanted you to take the Elements without telling you everything – "

"I figured out that Celestia was trying to get me to the Elements on day one," Twilight replied. "Are…you mad?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "I ended up getting the Element of Kindness through…well, through fate. Celestia didn't know it would be me. I was always supposed to pick it up."

"And that's how I feel about Magic," Twilight informed her. "Besides…now I'm interested in what exactly Celestia saw in me that reminded her of things from other worlds. I remember passing my entry exam…I sort of exploded in magic after seeing Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom, and one thing led to another and I got Spike to hatch. I didn't realize I was tapping into any…Spirit Realm. I don't even know what that is! But do you want to know what I did know?"

"What?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"The stars," Twilight admitted. "I had been tracking them. I noticed that Sirius, Polaris, and Alpha Centauri were all getting closer to the moon, and I saw the fourth one turn up the very night before. I thought all those years that I'd just missed it somehow…until I went back and saw that it was just new. Astronomers only found and named it after Luna came back. They said it must have been a new born star, or hidden in some kind of black hole. They said it was called the Dawn Star, which was a bit of a weird name to me, but I went with it. I never would have imagined that those stars were four other ponies. All that time…they were waiting to help save Luna." She smiled. "They're still there, by the way. All four of those stars. After Luna came back, they went back to their original positions. Well, the first three did. The Dawn Star went to a new position. It didn't have an original in the first place. I think…it's all four of them."

"Being a star sounds like fun!" Pinkie Pie squealed.

"Can you…DO anything as a star?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Or are you stuck up there doing nothing forever?"

"They broke Luna out," Twilight pointed out. "That's not doing nothing. I just have a feeling that they're happier there than they could be anywhere else. Being a star seems like something amazingly magical." She closed her eyes. "We know so much now. What do we even do with all of this information?"

"Remember Polaris, Sirius, Alpha, an' Dawn," Applejack suggested. "We wouldn't be where we are if it weren't for what they did back in the day."

"And be happy because we did it!" Pinkie Pie cried. "WE wrote the happy ending to this story and brought Luna back!"

"I guess you're right!" Twilight agreed.

Spike yawned. "Man, it's late. What time is it?"

"I'm guessing Luna's been out for a while," Rainbow Dash told him. "We should probably get some sleep."

They said their goodbyes and dispersed, everypony heading back to their own beds.

"Gosh…" Spike said after watching Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity leave. "Aren't you worried about them, Twilight? What if something comes and gets them in the night like it got Alpha and Dawn?"

"You can always worry about that, whether you've got the Elements or not," Twilight told him. "I guess I do get a little worried sometimes. I want my friends to be safe. But we've already faced a lot together, and I know we can overcome even more. I know this sounds insensitive, but I think the biggest problem the last generation had is that they didn't all stick together. Four of them just stayed back and kept their Elements here while Celestia and Luna went on adventures in the beginning. That just doesn't seem very effective at all. I think we're a lot better about putting our talents together."

"I can't believe a lot of the stuff you did that you write about in your letters," Spike admitted.

"The letters…" Twilight looked to the journal. "You know what wouldn't be a bad idea? If we started keeping our own journal where we wrote down all our adventures we had out there. Do you still have the copies of our old letters from when we left?"

"I have them all right here!" Spike ducked into a side closet to bring out a large stack of papers.

"GREAT!" Twilight cried. "Tomorrow morning, I think I'm going to bind them all into a book, and that will be the start of our own diary. But for now, it really is time to sleep."

As Twilight and Spike ascended to the upper level of the library, Twilight turned to the young dragon: "Spike?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for helping us out with everything."

"Oh! Uh…no problem!" Spike was filled with warmth. In his own way, he was helping, even if he wasn't in the thick of the adventure.

Still, he wondered what it was like. As he clambered under his blanket, his mind was filled with images of stars and ships.

...

SOMEWHERE IN CHINA, THE LAND OF DRAGONS

The blue sky was cloudless, the sun beaming down brilliantly upon the golden coast. The waves of the sea lapped calmly upon the sands. There could not have been a more perfect image in nature, and yet the figure who stood upon the beach seemed to suck all of the beauty and light out of the scene simply by being there.

Maleficent stood alone. She had chosen isolation on purpose; she did not want to be witnessed by any passerby. If someone did come along, they would be immediately silenced. Maleficent did not intend to be alone for long, however. From the spot where the base of her staff touched the beach, green flame radiated, forming a circle on the ground before the Dark faery, opening another portal through which the dead could rise. This one came not as Gothel had, laying down. He rose from the circle of green fire standing, in fact looming. Though he was not as tall as Maleficent, he was far broader, much of his body hard muscle. His skin tone was dark, seemingly grayish, and while the top of his head was bare, starting about halfway down it, a sleek raven mane flowed. His eyebrows were long and thick, and a close-trimmed mustache framed his mouth. His eyes glowed a fiery yellow, as though a window to the rage within. He was clad in a beige robe, sporting a sash and a neck piece of dark gray, and one sleeve completely black; dark gray trousers and jet black boots completed the ensemble. His left hand was covered in a black glove intended for falconry, though there was no falcon in sight.

When the flames receded, this man glanced briefly, almost casually, at his surroundings. His look to Maleficent was questioning.

"Shan-Yu," she greeted. "Leader of the Hun army. Or at least you were, when there was a Hun army. Alas…it seems you are all that remains."

Drawing conclusions, connecting the dots - as far fetched as they seemed, Shan-Yu replied, "It seems that was your decision entirely."

"I could have given you back your old military force," Maleficent informed him. "But they do not interest me. You do. That is why I have granted you passage back to the realm of the living yet again."

"Again?" Shan-Yu smiled coyly. "You say that as though I have risen from the dead before. An act I would be proud to take credit for, but not a truth."

"Your memory is clouded," Maleficent told him. "I ensured it would be. Think over your past. How many times have you waged war against China?"

"Once," Shan-Yu replied without thinking. Then…"No..." It was a curious phenomenon, one he couldn't quite describe.

"In fact," Maleficent informed him, "you have waged the same war twice. I intended for the incident to go unremembered by many. It was my doing that allowed you to relive events."

"So you were responsible for letting the soldier from the mountains defeat me twice."

Maleficent's smile was equally coy. "It is not victory or defeat that interests me now, Shan-Yu. It is your power. There is no doubt that you are an accomplished military leader; that you can lead an army of warriors directly into the Imperial City unnoticed, burning down entire villages in your wake. There are some who go so far as to call you heartless. But even more than that, there is great potential for Darkness within you. Do you remember wielding it? Most mortals of this land do not come by it so easily."

Shan-Yu put out his bare hand experimentally. Was she referring to the sudden surge of power he had felt in his last moments? And though he would have paid it no mind before, as soon as she pointed it out, he realized that he very nearly had two sets of memories of the same events, but with slight changes. And in one, there had been creatures…creatures he had discovered while trekking the wilderness. They had flocked to him, ready to attack, but he had somehow tamed them, integrating them into his ranks. It had been that same power that had kept them at bay.

That power, black and smoky, materialized in the air around his outstretched palm. He could not suppress a grin as he saw its appearance; it was undoubtedly a weapon. A weapon he would be using.

"Perhaps you were born to wield such power from the very start," Maleficent mused. "Or perhaps it came to you naturally after you let your cruelty grow, leaving destruction in your wake. After all…much has happened to harden your heart. The lands that would become the empire assimilated your first homeland. And ever since, the people of that region have rejected you, reviled you and your people alike…"

As she reminded him of the ghosts of his past, the wars of his ancestors that he'd been told of and seen the aftermath of in his present, the Darkness thickened around his hand. Exactly what she'd wanted to see.

"What does it matter to you?" Shan-Yu asked, his smile quickly erased. "You are not from these parts, are you?"

"I am from farther away than you can imagine," Maleficent informed him. "You should be honored. After all, it is from so far away that you caught my attention s a worthwhile candidate, and out of so very many."

"What sort of candidate?"

"You once led an army in search of conquest of this very empire," Maleficent reminded him. "I lead an army in search of conquest of this entire world…and more."

"There is no more," Shan-Yu told her sharply. It was not that he was not open to the possibility. He was not a skeptic. However, when someone approached him with far-fetched words, it was always safest to assume they were lies. He wanted to demonstrate to her that she could not lie to him and get away with it.

"I think you know that is not the case, Shan-Yu." She was calling him out. "If there is no more…then from where does the Darkness come?"

"Perhaps from the realm where the dragons live," Shan-Yu stated calmly.

"It is a dragon that stands before you now."

"Are you claiming to hold your own with the spirits that watch over this world?"

"This world and many more, Shan-Yu."

"What is it you want from me?" He wanted to cut to the chase.

"To see if you are fit to join my ranks," Maleficent answered. "Think of it as a test. Should you pass, you will be part of the army I lead."

"And what makes you think I would join an army I could not lead myself?" Shan-Yu posed.

"When you see the prize that shall be awarded to all," Maleficent told him, "you will find that it is worth your time."

"Tell me now. What is it?"

"This very empire, Shan-Yu. I will make you the Emperor."

Shan-Yu scoffed. "You wish to make me exactly what I want to destroy."

"And you wish to convince me that you've no interest in that power. I know of your life, Shan-Yu."

"You've made that clear," Shan-Yu reminded her.

"And I know that you hold a deep hatred for those who rule this land," Maleficent went on. "The thought of becoming part of its ruling system…why, it must seem to be a horrific prospect. And yet…what better revenge than to hold it in the palm of your hand? You could still destroy this land from the imperial throne…from the inside out. All of China would bow to your will. You need not know how to rule. You need only know what you want. And after all…does the blood of kings not flow through your veins?"

Shan-Yu was silent for a moment. "Men who once were kings," he answered at last. Then: "They believe their Emperor to be a god made flesh. A claim I never believed for a second, but still, it leaves a large throne to fill."

"Those I deem fit to work with me shall be as gods," Maleficent told him. "In the literal sense, some are. How do you think I retrieved you from the land of the dead? I can give you powers truly worthy of a god on earth."

"What do you get from this?" Shan-Yu knew better than to think he was being offered a free ride.

"What is yours shall also be mine," Maleficent told him. "The empire would be but a province, and I the ruler of the nation that encompasses it. All shall make more sense if you pass the test and see how things truly are. If you still have doubts, I would ask you to remember where you are. In the midst of enemy territory, wearing the torn rags from your last battle…without even your falcon to keep you company."

"Then I take it you have no interest in fighting alongside me during this…test," Shan-Yu deduced.

"I must see if you truly are as strong as I perceived on your own," Maleficent explained. "I shall watch you from afar. But be warned. I do not take kindly to betrayal. I retrieved you from Tartarus; I can not only send you back, but increase your punishment there tenfold."

"A fact I will keep in mind." The grin returned to Shan-Yu's face. "I suppose I will have to make sure not to disappoint." He stretched out the hand with which he'd held the Darkness experimentally, wondering about the creatures he'd been able to call and control in battle.

"They will not come to you yet." Maleficent knew without asking what he was trying to do. "They are, as of now, dormant. But rest assured, they will not remain that way for long. For now, you must rely on your own power."

"That won't be too difficult." Shan-Yu clenched his fist, dismissing the Dark magic, returning his arm to his side.

"From here, I leave you," Maleficent told him. "I do hope you impress me." Without waiting for Shan-Yu's reply, she vanished, tendrils of Darkness heralding her disappearance.

She had left him alone on the seaside of an enormous nation that hated him, with no soldiers, no weaponry, and none of the Dark creatures. Yet he felt no intimidation. It was a challenge; the greatest one that had been offered him yet. Impressing the mysterious woman was not his priority. It was for his own sake that he wanted to see just how far he could make it; how far up he could climb.

He would impress, all right.

...

MOLING, CHINA, THE LAND OF DRAGONS

Moling burned.

The band of pirates whooped as they ran through the streets, throwing lit torches at every shop, every cart, every surface that would light. The flames rose ever higher, charring the port area of the city black. Those of its civilians that survived the attack – and it was most of them who did – fled the port and headed to safer ground, leaving the goods on display for sale free to be raided by the pirates. Swords, jewels, fabrics: all were looted, taken back aboard the ship that now dominated the harbor. The other watercrafts had been burned as well.

When the last of the men boarded the ship, known as the Riptide, the vessel took off, leaving Moling on the horizon as the majority of the port's sellable goods were stashed aboard the ship. They only had truly done damage to the district around the harbor; those fires would eventually be put out, and the city rebuilt. In the meantime, the men decided it was time to count their valuables and rest on their laurels.

As soon as he felt the ship moving, the stowaway also found it an optimal time: time to reveal himself. He stood from his hiding position amongst the barrels of wine held in the ship's innards, making his way deliberately toward the surface without even a pretense of stealth. He'd gotten exactly where he wanted to be.

When he arrived on deck, all eyes turned to him. He cut a strange sight among them all. "Hey!" one of the men yelled. "Who're you?"

"He's a stowaway!" another cried.

"THROW HIM OVERBOARD!" yelled a third.

Said stowaway drew his blade: one he'd pilfered from one of the shops in Moling when the pirates were conducting their raid. It was a straight, broad blade, unlike the jagged edge he was familiar with, but despite its ordinary build, it was better than nothing. He thrust it outward, menacing the crew with it: between that and his size, none of the men felt like approaching him.

"I would like a word with your captain," Shan-Yu announced.

The tallest man aboard, crested with raven hair and clothed in garments of blue, steeled himself before approaching Shan-Yu stoically, staring him right in the eye. Though he appeared slender, the muscles beneath his skin were solid. "Captain Hideki of the vessel Riptide," he introduced. "We'll allow you a word before we kill you and throw your body into the sea."

"Hideki," Shan-Yu repeated. "You certainly have a lot of men and a fast ship. But are you using it to its best potential?"

"We are the most feared pirate crew in the southern seas," Hideki boasted. "We have just made off with as many riches as the Emperor himself claims to own!"

"That is quite a claim." Shan-Yu was amused. "But whether or not it is true, haven't you ever stopped to think that with the power and wealth you have, you could be doing more than filling your own purses?"

"We want nothing more," Hideki answered.

"And that is why you need me," Shan-Yu told him.

Hideki laughed. "We, need YOU? What do you plan on doing?"

"Look," Shan-Yu implored, gesturing back toward Moling. "Do you see it?"

Hideki didn't know if Shan-Yu was taking him for a fool. He certainly wasn't going to turn his back on the man. "It is a port city," Hideki told him. "One we have just brought to its knees – "

"Temporarily. It will rebuild. Like a scab on a wound. What you should be doing is trying to stab the Empire in the heart. Do you realize that the ports you raid are where its lifeblood flows? If you held the ports…then you would be holding a valuable piece of China."

"You are deluded," Hideki retaliated. "There is no way to hold and keep the Chinese ports. Not with a crew of this size."

"I had a feeling you would think that way." Shan-Yu's grin was unnerving; Hideki forced himself not to show fear, not to take the step backward and away from him that he desperately wanted to take. "You have no ambition. Perhaps this crew would serve better under a captain that could lead them to better things."

"Is that a threat?" Hideki quickly drew his sword: a long, thin blade that cut quickly through the air.

"I think you know the answer to that." Shan-Yu's smile did not waver.

Hideki braced his blade, ready to charge. He sized up his opponent, seeking out potential weaknesses. Shan-Yu was much larger, but that just might be his downfall; Hideki was known for speed in his swordsmanship. His strategy was to be defensive and evasive after the first strike.

The crew gave the pair enough space to fight, looking forward to seeing their captain give the stowaway a thrashing. Shan-Yu might have looked imposing, but from what they knew of Hideki's prowess, it would be a fight to remember for the ages.

It was over in thirty seconds.

Hideki's final thoughts were of utter shock as Shan-Yu's sword pierced through his body and scarlet blood spewed out. When the last vestiges of life had expired from the captain's body, Shan-Yu withdrew his sword and made his way to the edge of the boat, dragging the shell that once was Hideki after him. The other pirates nervously gave him a wide berth, allowing him to get close enough to the edge to lob Hideki's corpse overboard.

When that was done, Shan-Yu turned back to the crew. "I understand there may be loyalists to Hideki aboard this ship," he remarked. "Is there anyone who is loyal enough to him to join him?"

No one made a sound.

"Good," Shan-Yu said proudly. He was confident that even if the entire crew rushed him at once, he could slaughter them all, and he knew they knew it too. "You will now refer to me as captain. Who is second in command aboard this ship?"

A rather scrawny man dressed in brown and white stepped forth. "My name is Itsuki, Captain…"

"Itsuki," Shan-Yu commanded. "You're going to help me chart a course for the next port city."

"If…if you don't want us to raid it, Captain," Itsuki asked nervously, "what are we going to do there?"

"The harbors are a place for trade, are they not?" Shan-Yu looked to his hand, calling the Darkness to it again to flicker and play upon his palm. "I have an import I want them to assess."

...

Chapter 99:

· Before we begin the author's notes, a MAJOR thank-you goes to reader Historybuff for helping me with some fact-checking on the historical elements I'm incorporating here. (Though I did go a lot of it on my own, too. I did my best, but I apologize for any glaring mistakes that were made in advance, and those would all be my fault, not Hbuff's.)

· I also feel the need to credit an unknown TVTroper. I remember coming across the theory that the "stars" were other ponies on the Wild Mass Guessing page a LONG time ago – back when I was just starting out with MLPFIM – and I thought it was really cool, but the entire picture didn't come together until a while later, when I thought up designs for who they might be and the role they'd play in Celestia and Luna's life. As you can probably tell, having those four wasn't in the plan from the beginning, which is why they were treated like a "secret" that Celestia found too painful to bring up – I was retconning like crazy because the original plan, as I spelled out in the early chapters, was JUST for the two sisters to wield the Elements, but when I got this idea, I couldn't let it go. (This chapter is also another case of how basically, if you're my OC in this fic, you're gonna die.)

· I actually felt a little bad when I revisited the first chapter and remembered what I left Sweetie Belle doing. I really do need to work out a better system for her.

· Again…I'm not sure just how far I'm going to press the controversy, but in this realm, the gray pegasus' birth name is "Ditzy Doo" and her nickname is "Derpy Hooves." And said nickname is usually used on her as an insult by others. She hasn't told me yet just how much she wants to own it.

· I think everyone can tell that the mysterious crystal and machine Braeburn are working with are foreshadowing for Applejack's wish going sour. However, I'm actually not going to deliver on that one for a while either.

· A lot of this chapter was actually thrown in on the fly as events of S5 happened. "S.D." who writes to Celestia is indeed Special Agent Sweetie Drops. And I'm glad that "Slice of Life" DID give her that plot development, because I now have a better idea of what to do with her in later storylets. (BTW, I'm also just going to go ahead and translate the "Slice of Life" subtext into the fact that Lyra/Bon Bon is canon and fuel their married life here from that.)

· A large segment of this chapter is a novelization of the S4 episode "Castle-Mane-ia," tweaked to better fit what's going on in the fic in general. I wanted to acknowledge that S4 events still can happen (and no, I haven't forgotten about the events in the premiere…that'll be relevant eventually!), and using Celestia and Luna's diary was a good way for me to get the exposition I needed out there. For those wondering, basically, from the time they enter the castle to the time they leave is that episode.

· I put together a lot of Equestria mythos in order to create the Celestia and Luna history, and I hope I haven't forgotten anything or not done it justice. Trying to work around everything sort of did give me a weird "take the Elements, put the Elements back, take them out, put them back" sequence, but that's what happens when you get ideas on the fly.

· I also want to apologize – these journal entries are the first time I actually did look up conjugation for that time period's verbs. (And I know I still got some wrong.)

· In order to tie everything together, I made the assumption that Discord's first Chaos Capital was Canterlot, and that he ruled there for a while. I'm not sure if I'll spell it out, but I actually did want that first entry to allude to the fan theory of "Hearts and Hooves Day" including the backstory of Discord. Commander Hurricane and Princess Platinum used the love potion on each other, but then became so infatuated with each other and nothing else that they didn't notice the arrival of Discord (and how he got to Equestria is going to be another very long story, as Discord himself has a complex history) and didn't stop him at a crucial moment. Platinum letting Celestia and Luna take the throne was her having one moment of lucidity through the potion's haze.

· You've seen the tale of how Polaris and Sirius died; Loki brainwashed Sombra to take them out. You've seen how Dawn died; Voldemort got her. You haven't seen how Alpha Centauri died, and you're not supposed to know what got into Luna. Let's just say that there were even more villains interested in getting rid of the Elements than I've said so far.

· One of the entries Celestia made is taken word-for-word from the one Twilight read out loud in "Castle-Mane-ia." (The paragraph about the Hall of Hooves and the Organ to the Outside.)

· The Elements of Harmony are different colors in Twilight's book than they are when Celestia uses them in the S4 premiere flashbacks or when the Mane Six use them. I don't yet have an explanation for this…but I want to figure one out.

· I actually did want to find a way to incorporate popular fan character Snowdrop into this, but she never became relevant – all she would have been was a Luna fangirl.

· It's canon that Ponyville was established around the time Granny Smith Apple was a younger mare, which is definitely not a thousand years ago. Therefore, when Discord was defeated by Celestia and Luna, he had to, in my mind, have been working out of a place that was just forest. (Also, Luna said he was eating seeds…that should ring some bells!)

· The fan film "Fall of the Crystal Empire" is great, but unfortunately, I couldn't work it into my mythos. (Sorry, SillyFilly…I realize that's twice I considered referencing your stuff and didn't…y'all are great, believe me!) I couldn't have Luna working with nightmares yet, nor could I use a Sombra who was an intellectually challenging opponent.

· The episode "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" didn't come out until after I was done with the journal section of this chapter…but I felt it was fitting punctuation.

· Also, the journal segment is brought to you by both versions of the score "On the Fallen Arm" from Xenoblade.

· No, I don't know how the sun and moon rise and fall when the princesses are aboard the Starlight. Whoops.

· I actually really lucked out that "Amending Fences" pretty much handed me the ponies Celestia would have looked at for "draft 1" of the Element bearers alongside Twilight. Consider Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, Minuette, Lyra, and Moondancer the "Neville Longbottoms" of EoH.

· I dropped a couple casual allusions to fandoms with worlds we'll be visiting later on when having Celestia talk about Twilight's entry exam.

· I always have wondered what happened to the previous Ponyville librarian…especially after "Too Many Pinkie Pies." That librarian took care to hide some very special books about the secrets of Equestria in the shelves of Golden Oak.

· I realize it might be kind of a jerkass move for Celestia to have earmarked Twilight and five unknown friends for the Elements, given the burdens that come with them. I didn't want there to be too much angst over it now, so for the time being, everypony's okay with it. The issue may be revisited later in a storylet where Celestia and Luna play more prominent roles.

· "The Land of Dragons" is the Kingdom Hearts name for the world in which Disney's Mulan is set. And you now know what our next storylet will be based on!

· The "dual memories" phenomenon Shan-Yu is experiencing is my attempt to further flesh out and also reboot the concept of the Cosmic Reset. I felt, looking back, that I attempted to explain it a little cheaply back in the Seven Deserts. It didn't need addressing in Greece, since KH clearly takes place in a sequel era (EoH came after KHII in that world). However, the further I go, the more I realize the KH events are going to be VERY important to this story, so I need to have a solid way to get those timelines to have happened as well as the original Disney animated material. (I realize Tangled has been confirmed for KHIII; I'll work on retconning magic when that game is actually released.) I'll get a little more into how this affects people's memories a little later.

· And specifically, KH is important for the Overtakers in this storylet because it established that Shan-Yu actually can use Dark magic. Which puts him at a very solid spot for a contender for the faction.

· I do want to credit reader GAvillain as well as friends Manwhoooo and 73Windman for the idea of Shan-Yu having a traumatic past related to the cultural struggles between China and the Huns (Xiongnu).

· The Heartless are locked away because I can't have them running around just yet. I need them to up the ante later.

· Ophira actually gave me the idea of pirates a while back when he was studying Asian history, saying they were a recurring problem in most of the eras Mulan draws from.