Words were important.

There were the initial choices, finding just the right words. Organization according to the rules of grammar, or even making the decision to break those rules if doing so would serve for a dramatic moment. (It had taken her some time to appreciate that last part.) The preservation of words, that could be crucial, and it was part of why having had the Princess place her in the Archives after graduation (as opposed to a pure research posting, where the only ponies to visit might have been the ones who finally found her body) had eventually lost some small portion of its sting. The tree had been through a library remaindered sale during the spring, and she'd done everything she could in order to prevent the destruction of words, for anything which didn't sell had to be discarded or -- worse.

The writing of words. The reading of words. Being the guardian of the words. Things she understood. Things she cared about.

But now she was carrying words with her, sentences made still more precious by the identity of the author. Before she could do anything else, she had to secure those words, make sure nothing more could happen to them. So Twilight forced herself through the castle, back towards her assigned quarters, the sounds of the party slowly fading within ears which could barely recognize them at all. And as she did so, she finally began to truly think about what happened to words after they had been read. The ways they could resound in the mind, set up echoes -- and the thing about echoes was that they were, in part, distortion. It took a perfect situation to bounce the true sound back. Otherwise, with each successive passage, the original words would become fainter, and as the listener strained to pick up on what was being lost, they would reach the point where the only way to hear anything --

-- was to hear exactly what they wished to.

Ignore this clause. Discard whole sentences. Editing performed by the mind, until the author's original intent had been not so much lost as discarded for something which suited the reader -- and nopony else.

Twilight carried Rainbow's words and for the first time, questioned whether they ever should have been written at all.

What... what do I even tell her? That no matter how much work she puts into it, even if all the commas are finally in place, she can't ever try to publish? That there are ponies who would do exactly the wrong things with her words, because... we made mistakes, we all made so many mistakes and it was all right because everypony came through it in the end, but there were mistakes and when everypony learns about them...

It was, in some ways, self-distraction. There were other things she could have thought about, but there was a memory still in the process of being buried again, and so every kick she directed at her own flanks provided another layer of concealing pain.

She lost some time in the bedroom, trying to find a place where the manuscript could be secured. The mattress was initially raised, with pages layered underneath, right up until she considered whether the castle's staff would try to use what should have been guaranteed time of zero occupancy to do some cleaning. Her traveling saddlebags were quickly rejected. Under the bed didn't seem to offer anything real in the way of security, and the weather meant there was no real way to try and hide things outside.

Or perhaps outside would be best. Open the balcony doors, raise the stack of papers to the storm. Recede her field until the topmost sheets were exposed and -- let the wind have them. One by one. The world would be Rainbow's final audience, lightning her applause with raindrops for critics. The paper would quickly become soaked, wind would act as a final series of shredding edits, and that part of the problem would be... gone. Lie to Rainbow: say Coordinator had kept the manuscript, destroyed it, hidden it behind spells which Twilight couldn't work out. Tell her that, and then tell her she could never write again. Not about their adventures. Never about anything real. Because words were many things, and Twilight had just been reminded that when pressed under the wrong hooves, they became weapons.

But these were Rainbow's words, and so she ultimately placed the stack in a desk drawer, then cast the smallest, strongest shield she could raise. The dome would hold until morning, and she would know if anypony tried to break it.

I charged down a hydra.

The memory didn't make her smile.

That was in there. Coordinator didn't mention it. I'm sure he read it, though. And missing the jump, I jumped and everything worked out okay, we laughed about it after a while because if we were laughing, then it wouldn't be scary any more and I could stop thinking about nearly having died and

the healing of harmony. That's how Pinkie was introduced. It's what she does for us. We laugh and the fear goes away.

But when somepony reads about it... they'll see somebody who was too scared to cast, couldn't focus on a teleport, somepony incompetent. Somepony who only survived because she was lucky, and

luck

runs

out.

It was perhaps strange that Twilight had never thought about recording a true personal account. But she'd had her scrolls. The Princess had been her readership and in so many ways, that had been enough. One pony in the world whom Twilight had cared about impressing, making happy with her progress, right up until the moment she'd looked up and realized the number had become six...

...no, seven. There was Spike. There had always been Spike, and it had taken her so long to realize his opinion was important. That she cared about what he thought, even when instincts she couldn't always discard instructed her to ignore her little brother.

He recorded her words, sent the scrolls to the only party she could truly see as being interested in the true details, and some of those scrolls had been, quite frankly, trivial in their content. Because friendship wasn't just adventures: it was the smaller moments -- in fact, it was mostly the little things. The first time she'd turned to a pony instead of a book. Being in the center of a ponypile. Having makeup put on her and trying not to react as if her face was being painted with acid. Making plans to see her friends during hours which could have been used for research, because there were times when research could wait.

Knowing somepony cared about her. Knowing she cared about them.

The words in the manuscript had just barely been composed. For the earliest sections, there was an argument to be made for excreted. Nearly everything she'd seen within needed editing, and most of the rest needed to be kicked into pieces in the hopes that the fragments would make more sense. By any pure measure of literary value, so much of the writing was horrible. But they were Rainbow's words, and that made them more precious than any Guide.

It also made them capable of doing a similar amount of damage.

What can I tell her...?

Twilight didn't know. And with her emotions still floundering, she forced herself, one hoofstep at a time, to leave the bedroom. To return to the party, find the ponies who would make everything better

can they?

before things had a chance to worsen. To find somepony she could talk to, tell them everything which had just happened. To figure out a strategy, a plan of attack. Fields and mouths scribbling out a checklist until the disruption to their lives had been caged within bars of pure reason, and then everything would be okay again

will it?

because as long as they stood together...

against this?

What can we do?

What can anypony...

The corridors felt cold. Drafts seemed to sink into her fur. Autumn forcing itself into the castle. Autumn was the death of the world, and pounding hooves created seas of drifting corpses.

The storm outside was getting stronger, and was still no match for the tempest in her heart.

Turn this way. Force another step, and then another. Gaze cast down, looking at nothing more than stone, with the occasional glimpse of her own fabric-covered legs. The dress expertly shifted with her. But the light sources in the hallways had left her staring into her own shadow, and so all the stars had gone out.

I have to find them.

The sounds of the party were starting to reach her ears now: music, conversation, laughter. Every vibration seemed to foul her fur.

We have to find a way out of this.

And from one of the deepest parts of her soul, the next truth rose on typhoon-churned seafoam.

I want to go home...

"I was wondering where you went," the warm voice said. "Believe me, I understand completely about taking a moment for yourself. Getting some clean air, and that counts both everything touching my ears and the words it carries. I thought I'd take a break, and --"

He stopped.

So much more carefully, tones filled with open concern, "-- Twilight?"

She forced her head up.

"You've been crying," Quiet softly said. "You've been -- what happened? Is everything all -- no, that's a stupid question: of course it's not all right, not if you've been crying. Twilight, if something happened --"

She looked at him, just a few body lengths away -- or tried to. It felt as if there was a moment when it was hard to find a grey pony within grey corridors, and she'd just realized his suit made it worse: he was wearing still more fine gradients of grey hue, so the pony blended into the suit, which vanished against the corridor, which was... empty.

But then she blinked, and he was just a few body lengths away.

"I --"

It was instinct, wanting to talk. To share her pain, and the math of the divided burden somehow never added back up to the original weight.

But she could hear the party. Hear where her friends were. The ponies who knew her best. The ones who would understand. Who might even be able to help. Those she had to save from what Coordinator still might do.

"-- was just thinking about things," she told him, and so lied by omission.

He was looking at her.

"Things," he carefully repeated.

"It's... been a moon," Twilight tried. (She hadn't thought about tear tracks in her fur. She didn't look in mirrors...) "And there's been a lot that's happened, and... sometimes it just kicks, Quiet. What everypony did when I was introduced, the way they reacted, it felt just like a kick, like I was a tree which Applejack was trying to harvest, like I was being punished for not bearing the right kind of fruit, for being wrong, and..."

Where had the words come from? Why were they emerging now? All she'd wanted was a simple lie, something where she could get away from the topic, she could have just claimed to have been washing her face and let the water run exactly the wrong way...

Her field belatedly began to smooth the tracks. At least she could keep the guests from wondering what had taken place.

Quiet took a step forward: a small one, almost partial. The left foreleg moved first, hesitated, nearly returned to its original position before venturing forward.

"We can stop right now," he told her. "I'll tell everypony that you took ill." A quick smile, one which fled in embarrassment as it realized just how poor its timing might truly be. "Just telling them you tried some of the griffon cuisine will do for a reason. And --" faster now, blush adding a new tint to the grey fur "-- Tartarus chain it, I was part of that introduction, if it was something I said --"

"-- it wasn't you," she half-whispered. "It's never been you. You've been the only one here who's treated me like -- me."

He took a slow breath. She wondered if his ribs hurt.

"I'll go make your excuses," Quiet decided. "You go rest --"

"-- no. I have to go back down there."

More music drifted up. She couldn't identify the composition any more than she could work out the contents for the conversations. It all merged into the same susurrus after a while. A river which seemed to be flowing faster.

"You're sure?"

He would lie for me. He would stop the entire party for me.

He would...

"Yes." It was the only answer she could give, for she needed her friends.

After a moment, he nodded. Trotted up to her, turned, placed himself at her side.

"Stay close," he whispered.

She nodded, drifted closer still. Her wing brushed his flank.

She looked out across the gathering from the top of the ramp. Left to right, and back again. Her gaze crossed Quiet a few times along the way. And with every attempt, she failed to find a friend. For it appeared as if some ponies had in fact decided to be fashionably late, and it also seemed as if that fashion was just coming into season.

How many had arrived, while her heart was being besieged? Too many. Enough to crowd the hall, turn even the air into a seething tide of fur and feathers. Dresses everywhere, suits adding to the display. A color wheel had exploded, with every piece randomly spinning in its own currents. Just trying to focus on any part of it made her feel sick, and at every moment when she thought she saw the right hues emerge in some part of the tossing sea, they quickly submerged again.

Some ponies looked up (or across), saw them together. They generally kept right on looking.

"There's so... so many," Twilight half-whispered.

She could feel the concern within the words. "Yes. There were -- a lot of ponies who wanted to be here. You can tell the newest arrivals by their slightly damp state. I think the charge on the desaturator is running out. Twilight, if you're sure..."

Twilight tried looking down again, felt her stomach churn. She still managed to keep the survey going just long enough to truly spot familiar colors for the first time -- but they weren't the hues she was after: Doctor Gentle had finally arrived. He was close to one of the side hallways, looking oddly weary and, at least from what little she could see, completely dry. He'd probably come in shortly after she'd gone up the ramp.

"I'm sure."

Quiet nodded. "No announcement this time." Another quick smile, one which really wasn't certain that it was appropriate to the occasion. "I'm just about out of words anyway."

"They were good words."

He blinked. "You really think so?"

"Yes," and the truth took a little of the pain away. "You told Softtread to give Spike that title?" He nodded. "What made you think of that?"

"It... fits him," the reply eventually came. "Besides, there are far worse ideas than giving a dragon his due. All right: I could ask if you're sure again, but even I can occasionally recognize when I'm pushing my luck. Down we go..."

She had to force her legs to work.

Twilight thought she had some understanding of parties: time spent with Pinkie could do that. But one of Pinkie's typical events was nothing like the Gala (or the disaster which had taken place during it, Luna's shoes, that would have been in the manuscript too), and this gathering was related to the Gala only by rumor and, perhaps, a few non-Bearer attendees which it just happened to have in common. There were too many bodies, packed far too tightly. Words blended together, then warred with the music until everything turned into a single warbling discordant note.

It wasn't a party. It was a chaos storm. The place where the world broke down and tried to take you with it.

"Is there any goal we have in mind?" Quiet whispered, mere hoofsteps from the bottom.

"A friend." Trying to ignore a stomach which felt as if it was in open revolt. "I need to find a friend..."

Softly, "I'm right here."

She looked at him. Focused on him, the only stable thing in the heaving ocean.

He is. He's right...

"I know," she quietly said. "It helps."

Forward. Some ponies moved for her. Others closed in. Quiet did his best to intervene here and there, but it was a task much more suited for Pinkie: there were ponies who almost trotted through him, and she saw him wince at one impact, found herself once again wishing for the ability to take away pain. But still, he was doing everything he could, even as the colors swirled faster and the noise got louder. The music was still lost to her, but now whole words occasionally escaped to twist within her ears. So many of them were the same word. Princess, over and over, it was always Princess and --

-- that was when the first sentence broke free.

It was a short sentence, and it escaped through blasting its way out of prison.

"SHUT UP!"

The concussive force knocked ponies back, created an open sight line from Twilight to the stallion who had just shouted, a reared-back unicorn in early middle age, one whose swirls of soft yellow were mostly covered by his suit.

His landing was heavier than the words had been, and twin impacts blasted through the hall.

"I don't care what you say!" Weaver Shine shouted at the coffee shop owner, who was already starting to pull back. "I know what she did! Not just for Equestria, and who cares about anything else which might have happened along the way, when we're all still here? You can stand here, in front of me, questioning her, accusing her, and you..." His voice suddenly dropped: one more impact. "...you forget. You forget what she did for all of us, and you forget because you want to. But you did something worse. You forgot what she did for me. For me, and my spouse, and our family. I have a family because the Princess was there, because the Princess saw fit to attend, to watch over him, to grant time under Sun, and you think you can just come up to me and start saying things about her when my Dusk --"

Which was when the gap closed, for there was little ponies loved so much as street theater, even when the weather had moved it indoors. But the movement required to block her view created brief gaps for further visions, and so there was a moment when Twilight felt as if she had spotted ears. Brown-and-white speckled ones, flattened against the skull.

No... no, please, no, not...

...was that a prismatic tail? It wasn't a guarantee of a friend being nearby: that kind of variegated display was hardly unique in Equestria. Rainbow was part of a category because there were enough ponies to create one, and having that glimpse take place on ground level seemed to lessen Twilight's odds of getting the right pony. Still, it was a chance, and she turned in that direction, just barely heard herself ask a self-proclaimed noble for a small postponement of their first meeting, tried to trot forward --

-- Quiet matched her pace.

"I'm sorry." The whispered words were sincere and somehow, they cut through the clamor, seemed to reach her ears alone. "I -- I saw your face when he said that, and..." For the first time, his flank seemed to push into her side. Into the wing. Guiding her a little further to the right than she'd wanted to go. "...once again, even knowing it's not going to do any good, I can get you out of here, right now. Well, perhaps not right now. It'll take some time to reach a ramp. Or you can just teleport out, and I'll make your excuses --"

She tried to adjust course. The effort put them into the closest of contact. She could feel his breathing now, pushing against her feathers. She could see him monitoring every inhale, regulating the reverse. To make sure the next one was coming.

And then she wasn't moving any more. She was just standing next to him. Feeling his presence. Knowing he was there.

"I..."

The chaos storm churned around them. The lone stable element held.

"I... I think..."

"And there you are," came the mare's voice, from just off to her right.

It was an interesting sort of voice. It came with harmonics. There was a little trill of aristocracy, a vibrato of superiority, and when it reached Twilight's ears, it created a perfect chorus of recognition. She had never heard that mare speak before, and yet Twilight knew who it was.

Interesting things happened within Twilight as she turned to face the one who had returned at last. For starters, her stomach seemed to teleport its contents away, while her blood mastered heat-shifting and left her two degrees colder than she should have been. Features which should have responded in an instant appeared to have gone far beyond that smaller temperature drop, or perhaps the internal controls were what had frozen.

And yet she tried to rally. There was even a moment when the chaos terrain began to shift back towards party, when the noises began to make sense and colors separated back into ponies, every tenth-bit of focus dedicated to getting her looking up (for the mare was taller than her) with a welcoming gaze and a smile on that slow-to-answer face, because this was suddenly a mare whom she very much wanted to make a good impression on, somepony she hoped would like her because

"Even in the very rare times when invitations remain open, the spouse must fully accept the new arrival."

The memory momentarily locked up everything which the temperature drop had missed, and so Twilight initially found herself looking at dress instead of features. One of Rarity's. Twilight had been in the Boutique during its initial creation, and for two of the desperate revisions. The final result fit the mare's form quite well, and all of that was ruined when Twilight's eyes finally reached the face.

The picture in the bedroom hadn't quite captured the richness of the leaf-green coat, or the little fringe of muted orange within the eyes. But it had done quite a good job at reproducing the boredom, and so Twilight could easily see that none of it was present now.

"Twilight," Quiet softly said, "I would like to introduce you to my spouse. This is the Duchess Bella Donna, of House -- well, formerly of House Atrotine, and now part of House Deluge."

Forced, torturous hours of Gala-based hoof-pressing took over.

"It's a pleasure to meet you at last," Twilight said, and somehow, even in the wake of what wasn't quite looking back, a smile came forth as her right foreleg started to come up. "I had so many questions! Just to know who the mare was that managed to --"

"-- you're really not much of anything... are you?"

The foreleg froze.

The taller mare continued to haughtily speak, her voice addressed to a place which existed a full hoof-height above Twilight's ears. "Look past the wings, and there's barely anything there. Perhaps it's only the wings which let anypony see you at all. Otherwise, there would just be a perfectly wasted dress collapsing onto the floor..."

There was nothing Twilight could say. The mare's words were weapons, and nothing could be found within the wounded which would serve as a shield. But as weapons went, they were expertly crafted. They cut through the noise. They sheathed themselves in every ear. The edges sliced like a paper cut made a thousand times deeper, and bleeding gaps vowed to never close.

The taller mare looked down at last. Briefly regarded Twilight's face, then shifted to Quiet.

"Which," she concluded, "makes the two of you into something of a... matched... set."

She didn't snort. It would have been better, somehow, if she'd snorted, made an open expression of dismissal. Instead, there was silence, because Twilight clearly wasn't even worth the effort of a snort, or much of anything else. Instead, she simply trotted forward, directly towards them. Aiming for the exact place where they were making contact, and so forced them to separate before her passage rammed a way through.

The elaborate curl of orange-white tail lashed once as it cleared the new gap, and then vanished into the heaving sea. Twilight knew that tail had lashed, because she had turned to follow its passage.

She looked away at the same moment her stomach's contents teleported back, having somehow doubled in mass during their journey, and her eyes found Quiet -- who wasn't looking at her. His own eyes had closed, all the better to look at things which only existed inside.

Twilight didn't teleport the two of them out. Teleportation required a moment of focus. It meant picking a destination. Considering the consequences of recoil while calling on the memory which would keep them safe. It took thought, and thought demanded too much time.

Instead, her wings flared, pushed. What should have been stable atmosphere in the upper levels of the hall felt as if it was becoming extremely complicated from the movements of all the pegasi, but it wasn't anything that couldn't be dealt with, and the fact that she'd never previously carried anypony in the four-leg inwards press used for desperate evacuations didn't seem to matter. Her target was small, she was sure she could take his weight for just long enough and if she couldn't, then she'd just do her best to catch him before he hit the floor or, more likely, somepony who was occupying it.

There were gasps. She largely ignored them, mostly because anypony who was impressed by this would probably faint if they saw anything approaching a real stunt --

-- and then they were in an empty corridor on one of the upper levels. Near the entrance to Quiet's bedroom.

He gasped a little as she released him, a little further above the floor than she'd intended. She swooped in front of him, twisted to face him as she landed --

--what?

What did I just --

-- and felt her wings slam against her sides.

Quiet's ribs were moving in and out, quickly. Too quickly. She'd been pressing her legs against him all the way up, she might have hurt --

Desperation blended into worry and was served as a new kind of Baked Bads, something far worse than griffon cuisine (modified) and threatening to manifest heartsickness as something else, "Are you okay? Did I --"

"-- I'm fine," Quiet gasped. "I'm all right, Twilight. I just wasn't -- expecting that. Sun and Moon, you've got some kind of teacher --"

"-- what happened?"

For the first time, the wryness sounded forced. "I don't spend a lot of time in the vicinity of our fire personnel, but I believe they call that a Holly Mountain carry. I'm not completely sure why --"

"-- your spouse!" It was nearly a yelp. "Did you two have a fight when she got back? Was it -- was it because of me?" Speaking faster now. "Because you were hosting six mares while she was away and ponies have been talking, she finally heard what they were saying and --"

His words weren't whispered. They weren't the least bit soft, and the only weariness carried within had already been there. It meant they emerged as plain speech: a simple, basic statement of truth.

"No. That's just how it is, Twilight. That's how it's always been."

She stared at him.

"But you're married."

"Yes," he said, and took a slower breath.

Desperately, the pain now echoing within her own ribs, "You don't marry somepony if you don't love --"

"-- we married," Quiet steadily said, "because when we were very young -- possibly even before we were born, I never asked -- our respective parents approached each other and, after some discussion and -- well, discussion. Let's... leave it at that. There was a discussion. That if there were children, and there was a chance for a pairing -- not stallion with stallion, although mare with mare would have been fine, with The Most Special Spell available -- then there would be a marriage. And so there was. We... do things a little differently out here, Twilight. My status isn't unusual."

She was still staring at him. Trying to see through the calm to what had to be the wound within.

"But she doesn't... the way she talked about you, the way she didn't even look at --"

"-- she said worse to you," he sighed. "With me, it's reached the point of repetition. I didn't think she'd do it at the party, but... well, it's not as if it matters, really. It's just words, Twilight, and --"

"-- she doesn't love you!"

The stone refused to absorb the shout, and where the words echoed to, or how those echoes would be heard... somehow, Twilight didn't care.

"I..." The grey eyes briefly closed again. "It's not news, Twilight. It's not even gossip now, at least with me. Not that ponies talk about it much. It's not important."

And she didn't understand. She didn't know how anypony could understand, could just live with -- "You're married! You're married, you're going to be with her for the rest of your life unless you --" Wait. "-- you could just get a divorce, I know it doesn't happen very often, but sometimes, when ponies change --"

"-- our parents talked," he gently cut in. "They also wrote some things down. Divorce would be difficult. There's something of a... well, call it a forfeiture fee. It mostly covers money. Plus some furniture." Thoughtfully, "But nopony thought to include books, so on the whole... "

"But...!" There had to be words to make it right, to fix things, to help... "She doesn't love --"

Which was where words ran out.

His lips quirked into something which never quite made it to a smile.

"Twilight, we've never even --"

And he stopped.

"...never even... what?" she slowly asked. "You've never even -- kissed?"

"No," Quiet admitted. "There was a kiss, at the wedding. That was expected."

And nothing since. "Then... never even -- what?"

"Danced," he wryly replied. "Let's pretend I was going to say 'danced,' even though we both know that isn't it. Although that at least has the benefit of being true. We didn't dance at the wedding because she decided to make a comment about not wanting to -- push me too hard. I'm sure it amused the audience, which is to say, it amused her -- Twilight?"

This tone was lightly concussed. "...what?"

Not without weary amusement, "You just worked out what 'danced' substitutes for, didn't you?"

Which was followed by something more suited to Fluttershy. "...yes. Sun and Moon, Quiet, I... how can you even... how does anypony just... live like that?"

"Because," Quiet softly said, "it's not her fault. It's the weakness in my blood. She didn't get the stallion she was expecting, and that's where every problem begins and ends. She could leave, but there's a price for the one who breaks first and... well, she gets access to my coffers, what there is of them. She travels. I suppose she has her fun when she's away from the settled zone, and maybe she even -- dances, here and there. But I have my books, and the playgrounds. I get to coach the children, and... it's enough, Twilight. Until the day a cure is found, it's enough."

She was back to staring.

"It's not enough," she declared, and watched her chosen weapons bounce off the shield of a personal truth. "You don't -- you don't deserve to live like this! Not without love, and --"

He was about to say something. There was every chance that he did get a word out, somewhere along the way. But that was when instinct flared within Twilight and for the second time that night, thought stopped being important.

Quiet winced a little as his hooves hit stone again. It was unlikely that anypony had seen it: she'd set him down on the hidden side of the upper level approach, just before the final bend would have rendered them visible. "Twilight, I think you have to tell me when you're going to do that --"

But she was already moving ahead of him, and her flared wings beat at the air as she strode forward, to the upper edge of the ramp.

Ponies spotted her. Babble slowed, threatened to stop. The swirling colors gradually became limpid pools. Improvement. Not that she was currently looking for anything within those waters. There was something more important to do, because when you came up with a plan, you acted on it. Hesitation ruined plans, as did thinking about them too much, or giving anypony else the chance to consider what you were about to do. The best way through was to act before anypony could stop you, and so she did exactly that.

"Your attention, please," she called out across the crowd.

It wasn't a Canterlot Royal Voice: she wasn't entirely sure how to manage that, and suspected it took more lung capacity than she strictly had. Regardless, ponies shut up, and the crowd stared at her. Waiting.

"As per royal tradition," she openly (and perhaps magnificently) lied, "when the Lord of a settled zone is gracious enough to host a Princess and her companions, he is owed a minor boon. Something freely given in return for the gift of hospitality, which in itself was offered without price. The Princess chooses the gift, and the Lord must accept. It would be... improper to decline."

Quiet had been steadily moving forward: she'd just become aware of that, barely registering him on the outermost periphery of her vision. Good. That made the next part easier.

"And so, Lord Presence," Twilight declared to the crowd, "I believe I owe you a dance. So if everypony would clear a space near the band...?"

He blinked. Other ponies swallowed. Some had gasped, but Twilight decided that wasn't important. Three pegasi collided in the air, but they all wound up falling into cushioning tapestries, so no harm done -- well, none to the ponies. Actually, it would probably be a good idea for somepony to check on that one weave: she hadn't gotten a chance to catalog that --

-- I...

I -- just...

...what did I just do?

What was I thinking?

...was I thinking?

The change. The mission. Everything which had happened with Coordinator. Everything which had happened, period. She didn't seem to be thinking straight. In this case, she wasn't sure she'd been thinking at all. And yet somehow, just about all of the things which might come from having acted on a single unstoppable impulse didn't seem to matter just now. She was completely sure that every last one of them would wind up mattering later, she was dreading the inevitable creation for the checklist of Things I Just Did To Both Of Us, and there was still a single frozen horror which had priority.

Quiet was right next to her again. Ponies who'd been given an order were clearing space. The chaos was shifting to the sides, leaving room for what would have normally been order.

Except that it couldn't be.

The terrified words forced themselves through a narrow gap at the left side of her mouth.

"...Quiet?"

"What?" was subtly whispered back.

"...I don't know how to dance..."

A steady, barely audible, "Really?"

"...it took three years before any of my friends felt like they could tell me I couldn't dance... there was this garden party, and then at the coronation, I sort of... they took a vote, they made Applejack tell me because they knew I'd have to believe it coming from her, I can't dance, I just sort of... flail, and now I've got two more limbs to flail with..."

A thoughtful pause. "Can you copy?"

"...it's not a spell. I looked for a spell --"

"-- no. Just -- follow my lead. Do what I do, a second after I do it. Sapients' Dance. Can you?"

Her eyes widened.

"Yes. If I'm just watching you, focused on you... yes."

A tiny nod, just barely visible, and then he raised his voice. "As the honored Lord," he announced, "I get to choose the dance. And when two come together for the first time, a meeting where both had to travel so very far to even learn that the other existed... well, there is a certain, traditional dance. Our lead ambassadors in the other nations still perform it once a year, when they meet their opposite number: each traveling home to speak of what they have learned, and both will pause to dance. We have met, and we have learned... and so we will dance. Fillies and gentlecolts of the band, I believe you know the beat..."

It was, in many ways, among the oldest of the dances. For those which had survived the centuries, it ranked high in seniority and low in performance. There was generally little need for the original use in the modern day -- but that need had never fully evaporated: so much of the world could still be thought of as a wild zone, and one never knew what was waiting to be discovered. To be met.

The Sapients' Dance was, of necessity, one of the simplest, at least during the first stages. It was a dance which could be adapted on the fly, and this would sometimes become literal. The moves had to account for variable limb counts and differing body configurations. Pegasi had their own beats, which only became involved when their partner had wings. Dancing with a minotaur meant adapting the foreleg movements, and keeping time with a kudu often asked a pony to shake a pair of horns they didn't actually have.

You made a move. You repeated it, creating a pattern. And an animal would watch. It might stare, trying to figure out if there was an attack coming, or if the thing moving around was better suited to prey. But something which could think -- it would see the pattern. Enough repetition and it might recognize an attempt at communication, start to copy the movements in an attempt to reply. You didn't have to know what was being said, just that someone was attempting to speak -- and you could recognize that, show that you were willing to find some way to talk...

Ponies had stared at creatures which moved on the wrong number of legs, had strange appendages where hooves should have been, had the wrong number of horns or fur which didn't show enough variety of shades or whose mouths displayed the pointed teeth of predators. And the bravest of those ponies, looking into the eyes of what felt so much like a fresh kind of horror -- had begun to create a pattern of movement for the new ones to follow.

Animals stared.

Monsters attacked.

Sapients danced.

They stood facing each other, within the cleared space. Looking only at each other. There was a band, and they were starting to play -- but the music wasn't ultimately important, and so Twilight paid very little attention to it. It was quite possible that some of the ponies watching them were important, especially since some of her friends might have made it through (or above) the crowd to get a view from the edge. But she didn't know where they were, for she was focused on the stallion, five body lengths away.

He was a little shorter than she, so unusual for a stallion. It left her looking slightly down at him most of the time, and that was a strange feeling when she spent so much of her life having conversations which left her with a sore neck from excessive craning. But when you were the personal student of the Princess, there was a price to pay...

Differences were important in the dance, but only if they might affect the movements. That one participant was slightly taller wasn't important: that one had limbs which the other did not was. So she simply noted that rare state once again, kept her wings locked against her sides, and waited.

Quiet brought up his left forehoof, carefully stomped it once. Paused. Again. Then the right foreleg, but with two stomps in rapid succession. The pattern repeated three times.

Twilight raised her left foreleg. Stomp. Pause. Stomp. Switch to the right...

He moved to the left. She moved to the left.

Heads dipped, one after the other.

I have come so far to find you.

Tails swayed.

I never knew anything like you existed.

Bodies shifted, almost at the same time. (She was beginning to anticipate him now.)

I didn't even know I was searching.

Circling each other, getting closer with each series of movements. Closing the gap.

We are so different. But no matter what our differences may be, there is so much we share.

A pair of jumps. Four eyes sought out a blocked sky, and found internal illusions filled with stars.

We are in the world. We are of the world. We are part of the world.

Two body lengths apart. They twirled, orbited a common center. She was looking at him, and only him -- but he was a little smaller than she and so during one spin, she caught the briefest flash from furious orange-fringed eyes.

I have come so far to find you...

One body length away from each other.

"...it hasn't all been coronations and dances, has it?"

Turning. Matching. Nearly touching.

There can be one dance.

(There would only be one dance.)

His left foreleg came up, presented the flat of his hoof. Waiting for her touch, her recognition, as the final step.

She nuzzled him.

And there were gasps (she knew there were, even if she only truly heard them so much later). There was rearing back and thumps from the spontaneous collapses of multiple pairs of hind legs, and one tail lost its elaborate curl during a mighty lash. But it was a dance about matching and so as the dance dictated, he nuzzled her back.

It could be said that it was the nuzzle meant for friends. Such things were easy to say. After all, it hardly would have been the first lie of the night. And it would not be the last.

Later, she would wonder where her friends had been. (She would find out.) She would question why they hadn't come up to her as she'd quickly left the area, moving on hoof. (They had tried and for one, it had been in desperation.) But when they left, she was simply thankful that a mostly-stunned crowd had finally just started getting out of her way. And Quiet was following her. Admittedly, he probably wasn't entirely sure why he was following her, for she had hidden her field and surrounded him in an invisible bubble. Doing so with a working could make it operate improperly: for simple movement of what was, for her, a rather low weight, he simply appeared to be adding a certain amount of surprised skid to a rather unbalanced trot -- at least until he realized what was happening, and adjusted his motions to suit.

She got them through the first available door on the ground level, then went through two more before risking a stop, making sure to close everything behind them. And then she turned to face him, for Twilight had made her decision.

"I think," Quiet immediately said, "I may be in trouble." But his expression didn't reflect the words: the little smile held no fear, and not a touch of terror reached the follow-up sentences. "No, strike that: unless I do something, I know I'm in trouble. The fact that you've just dragged me off doubled my trouble. And I can't find it in myself to care just yet, at least not until the trouble starts moving from ear to ear, and maybe not even after that. Twilight, I --" and he paused, which gave her more time to sort out her own words "-- should tell you something." More slowly, the tones of a stallion saying something which might have never been voiced before, "The reason you might not need to worry about anything --"

But she raised her right foreleg, and he stopped. If she had truly been looking, it might have been possible to see the sentences being locked back in their cage.

"Rule Three," the memory of Discord reminded her.

"...Twilight?" Quiet asked. "I know when you're thinking about something by now..."

"It is just the seven of you -- to start. You may recruit any help you like when you get there from anypony you choose. In fact, you may recruit any help you can."

Twilight had made her decision. And so she made her mistake.

"Quiet?" The tone had been soft. "I told you that -- we were all just here to find Doctor Gentle, helping Pinkie and Fluttershy. Or everypony thought that, and I just -- let it happen, because that was the easiest way."

He froze.

(It seemed like such a natural reaction. It was a natural reaction. She would remember that the reaction had been completely natural, and it would be mere hours before she realized what he'd been reacting to.)

"I'm... not going to like this," Quiet slowly said. "Am I?"

She took a deep breath.

"Shortly after we arrived," Twilight told her friend, "we found a pony. Or she found us..."