Time and Time Again

by fic Write Off

First published 24th of June, 2013

Writefriends from all over /fic/ gathered in a war of words on the weekend of May 31. These are the resulting stories.

Writefriends from all over /fic/ gathered in a war of words on the weekend of May 31 2013. These are the resulting stories.

See http://writeoff.rogerdodger.me/event/16 for more info.

Perchance to Dream

There was a certain feeling to passing through the Grand Terminal that couldn’t really be felt anywhere else. It was a sense of motion and purpose, a press of ponies, mules, griffons, and more that pulsed together to a beat measured in whistles and the hands of great clocks that hung over them like moons from some crazed painting.

Shady Blossom squinted, letting her lashes shade her eyes just enough so that the moving shapes below dimmed in her view, forming blurring lines that snaked their way across the flow, merging and splitting. With a little imagination one could paint the great train station as if it were outdoors, with little rivers washing around hard, blocky terminals and kiosks. The light streaming in through the great arched windows could have been sunlight dappling off a pond. Perhaps I should try my hoof at painting again. A little impressionism never hurt anypony.

“Mom! Do ya see them?” Babs Seed shouted up at Shady as she stood on a bench. Ponies parted around her, giving the rose-maned filly annoyed looks. The girl had a pair of lungs on her that she was not reluctant to use.

Ducking under one of the big clocks hanging from the ceiling and steadying herself with a hoof on the metal latticework, Shady shook her head. “Sorry, dear. I got distracted,” she called back, and scanned the platforms and terminals. Spying a cowboy hat among the mass of equinity, she pointed a hoof, “I can see them over by the tofu stand now.” Unsure if her daughter heard or not, she kept pointing until Babs started moving through the crowd, then dove down to meet her.

Three small heads were peeking over the lid of a food cart, watching long slices of tofu sizzle and pop in a tub of oil in fascination. A burst of hot juice sprayed against the glass shield protecting them, though they darted back in surprise anyway. Regrouping, they clustered around a blonde Earth pony mare in a worn cowboy hat, dumping a few shiny silver bits on the counter.

Finding a reasonably clear space, Shady Blossom gave a quick bark of, “Look out, below!” and flapped her wings, putting herself down by the cart. A surprised colt bounced out of the way, and she offered him a small smile in apology. His stare continued, and she turned away to find the three fillies she had been watching gawking at her. They had little cartons of fried tofu on buns, and the little orange pegasus was happily scarfing hers down, even though her eyes were still locked on to Shady.

“Shucks, girls, clear a path for ponies. Don’cha go blockin’ the way,” the golden-haired mare chided, and chivvied the girls out of Shady’s path. When she saw that the other mare wasn’t moving, however, she squinted up at her and started slightly. Then she grinned, holding a hoof out. “Well, I’ll be! Sorry, Shady Blossom, I plumb didn’t notice you there.”

“How can’t you have?” the pegasus filly protested. “She’s just about the most impossible to miss thing I’ve—”

Thud! The mare’s hoof lodged firmly into her mouth, cutting the rest off. The carton spilled to the ground, with the half-eaten bun splitting.

“Kids these days! Scoot, I am going to tan yer sorry hide, don’t think I won’t, your parents made it crystal clear I was t’make sure you behaved.”

“No, Applejack, it’s all right,” Shady Blossom said, putting a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder. Moving over to the filly, she knelt on her front legs in front of her. Applejack removed her hoof with a little pop. “Scootaloo, right? I’ll bet you haven’t seen somepony like me before.”

“Ah...” the filly murmured, now scrunching down shyly. Her friends were no help, trying to look as innocent as two fillies who had clearly been thinking the exact same thing could be. With her pink tail wrapped around herself, Scootaloo glanced down at the floor. “Once, actually. Back when Princess Luna visited Ponyville for Nightmare Night, last year.”

“Well! That’s more than most ponies, certainly,” Shady said. She laughed softly and tilted her head forward. Tossing her inky mane out of her face, she tilted Scootaloo’s face up with the tip of her hoof to look into her eyes. “I can’t say how grateful I am to you and your friends for helping my Babs out. As far as I’m concerned, you can stare as long as you like.”

The remaining girls were scuffing their hooves and trying not to look directly at Shady. Extending her wings, she touched the tips to their noses, drawing their attention back. “That goes for you girls, too, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle,” she said, her tone warm and inclusive. “I only wish I’d known about the bullying earlier, so you wouldn’t have had so many troubles when she visited, but Babs couldn’t stop talking about how you girls rose to the challenge and made her a part of your lives. You, all three, are little heroes.”

There was a moment of silence, and the girls spoke up. The yellow one with the red mane was first, “Ah’m sorry. I didn’ mean to stare, honest; it ain’ right to judge a pony by how she looks—”

Sweetie Belle was almost on top of her, hopping forward with a contrite look. “I’m really, really, really—”

Laughing again, louder and happier still, Shady Blossom stood, spreading a foreleg and her leathery wings, gesturing them down. “Girls, girls! It’s okay, really. No harm done.”

Applejack chuckled. “They’re good kids. Some of the time, at least.”

“Jeepers, what’s with all the racket?” Babs Seed’s voice broke into the little gathering as the red-maned filly pushed her way among them. “I could hear you lot halfway across the room! Apple Bloom, you ain’ blubberin’ like a lil crybaby again, are ya?” she demanded of her cousin, but her grin belied the words.

Apple Bloom tackled her to the ground at once, and the two fell to play-wrestling on the ground, squealing with joy.

“Hey Babs,” Sweetie Belle said, waving a pale hoof.

“Sup?” Scootaloo asked, picking her spilled tofu off the ground and considering it. Applejack quickly snatched it away and chucked it into a trash bin, returning to the vendor.

“N’much,” Babs slurred, her face smooshed to the ground by Apple Bloom’s hoof. She had her lower legs free, though, and managed to tilt herself and her cousin sideways, then squirmed free. By the time the pair stood up, they were giggling quite enthusiastically.

“We were talking to yer mom. How come y’never mentioned she was a... ahm...” Apple Bloom trailed off, searching for the word.

“Thestral,” Scootaloo supplied.

“What, somethin’ wrong with that?” Babs asked, taking an immediate defensive tone. A leathery wing tucked around her midsection calmed her, and she gazed bashfully up at her mother.

“Nothin’!” Apple Bloom declared, and sounded proud to say it. “I ain’ got nothin’ against no pony. It jus’ surprised me is all! Why, of all of us, Applejack was the one who got all jelly-legged when a zebra came to town, an’—”

“I think that’s enough history lesson for one day, Apple Bloom,” Applejack declared, talking over her sister as she returned. Offering a fresh carton to Scootaloo, she had to snatch her teeth back before the little filly’s enthusiastic chomp nearly took a bite out of her nose. Eager to finish her meal, Scootaloo downed the bun in two bites.

Sweetie Belle, who had been delicately nibbling at hers, turned a delicate shade of green at the sight. “Maybe I’ll finish mine later,” she muttered.

“Aw, shucks. Ain’ you always tellin’ me to do my history homework?” Apple Bloom complained.

“What year was the Ponyville dam laid down?” Applejack asked.

Apple Bloom stared at her sister in mute horror for a moment. Cogitating, she tapped out numbers on the floor with a hoof. “Uh...” she said at last. “A long time ago?”

“See? Then you need to do your history homework.”

“You don’t know what it is, either, I’ll bet!”

“Yup,” Applejack said, grinning. “‘Course, I ain’ in school no more, so I don’t need to remember.”

“They laid the first scaffold in 933. Mayor Sparks commemorated the opening early in 935,” the vendor supplied, leaning out from the side of his cart. “Oh, and you’re blockin’ custom. Scoot.”

“Huh?” Scootaloo asked, looking up.

“Come along,” Shady Blossom said. gesturing with a wing. “Barry should be here by now, girls.” Turning, she trotted through the crowd at a brisk pace, with the no-nonsense look every Manehattanite adopted to get through a crowd without being bumped aside. Her daughter fell back with her friends to chat, while Applejack moved forward to join her.

Though she lacked the look, no pony was inclined to stop a heavily-muscled Earth pony who seemed as though she could plow through a brick wall without noticing it was there, and so the two had no trouble at all clearing a path for the fillies to follow in. “Bit of an awkward first meetin’,” Applejack said.

“Oh, no, it was all right. Actually, I’m glad I got to see it—that was a very sweet little scene. Those little fillies certainly have what it takes to lift anypony’s spirit.”

“Yeah, well, they could stand to be better mannered, still,” Applejack grumbled.

“Not going to argue there, but fillies grow up in their own time,” Shady said, glancing back over her shoulder to watch the girls cantering behind them.

“True enough. Ah suppose I had a lot of growin’ to do, done a lot of it since I left this place last,” Applejack mused as they passed through the concourse and to the wide, broad steps that led out from the shelter of the foyer to the street below.

Under a bright summer sun, the small group spilled onto a wide open area lined with rearing pony statues, on the level just above the street. An elderly griffon was tossing bread crumbs to pigeons, while a couple none-too-subtly snogged from the bench next to his. In front of a tall, free-standing arch, a group of fillies and colts were playing an impromptu game of hoofball. All around them, the streets were filled with teeming masses, ponies walking purposely or running franctically to and fro everywhere, as if every one of them had somewhere to be that was of earth-shattering importance. Carriages pushed and shoved their way through, the drivers harnessed to them shouting at pedestrians, other drivers, and sometimes each other. Embracing them all was the Manehattan skyline, its towering edifices of concrete speaking of wealth and power the ordinary rural pony could never dream of achieving.

Applejack took it all in with one, long look, then grunted sourly. “Ain’t changed much.”

“Perhaps it might surprise you. A lot of things change in ten years,” Shady Blossom suggested.

“Can change the spots on a leopard, don’t make it any less what it is.”

“Mmm, well, I’ve only lived here a few years,” Shady agreed, her tone noncommittal. Spying a red mane among the carriage, she grinned. “My husband would probably know more. Barry loves this city like no other place, almost as much as he loves his family. I’ll bet he could find something even somepony like you could like.”

Meeting Shady’s amusedly challenging gaze with a skeptical one, Applejack snorted and waved her hat in front of her face, as if trying to rid herself of a bad smell. “Place stinks to high heaven and that’s that.”

“We’ll see,” Shady said, lightly. Trotting over to the girls, she arrived just in time to accidentally intercept a spiraling hoofball tossed in her daughter’s direction. Startled, she flared her wings and caught it in one with a neat little gesture, only to find a tide of foals poised to bowl her over. Without time to yelp, she found herself plowed under by tiny bodies.

“Oof,” she complained, after the sea of children had washed off her. Shady could swear that she could hear tiny hoofprints pounding still. A big, shorn hoof with dark green fetlocks presented itself in front of her, and she took it to be hauled up by a powerfully built stallion with a mane of light red hair. “My hero,” she gushed in faux girliness, and tilted her chin up to kiss her husband with decidedly unfeigned affection.

Oblivious to Scootaloo’s gagging, Shady Blossom held her husband so for a time before they parted and nuzzled one another, him at her mane and she at his chin, breathing in one another’s scent before turning to the others. Barry Seed put one huge hoof out and crushed Applejack to him. “There’s my favorite niece! What’re ya doin’, lettin’ my wife get herself trampled like that?” he said, his own thick accent mirroring his daughter’s.

“Gak!” Applejack wheezed at the grip, her ribs creaking.

“Thought as much. Hey, you,” he told his daughter, grinning, “introduce me to your friends, why don’cha?”

“Sure thing, pop,” Babs Seed answered. “This is my cousin Apple Bloom and our friends Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle!” Each of the three fillies, when introduced, hopped on to the back of the pony before her, until Sweetie Belle could extend a hoof at the proper height for shaking the hoof of such a tall pony.

Barry Seed did so, laughing. “So these are the little fillies who started it all. Y’know, I got parents bangin’ on my door about this Crusade of yours, demandin’ t’know what it is and why my lil girl is recruitin’ foals for it.”

“You big oaf,” Shady interrupted, poking her husband in the ribs, “you’re not letting Applejack breathe.”

“Oh! Whoops,” he slackened his grip, letting Applejack free.

Wheezing, she gathered her breath and collected her hat from where it had fallen. Then she cracked Barry in the ribs herself. “Nice to be seein’ you, too, uncle.”

Eyes watering with the effort of not holding his side and keeping down a gasp of pain, he wheezed back, “Apple family legs still work.”

“Your family seems to smack each other around a lot, Babs,” Sweetie Belle observed, confused.

Babs shrugged. “It’s just how we say ‘hello’ around here.”

“Oh, gosh, I should have had Rarity pack me some hoofball pads.”

“Babs is just teasing,” Shady Blossom assured the relatively delicate unicorn. “The Seeds are just a demonstrative folk.” Looking up at the latest member approaching, she amended her statement. “Mostly.”

Deviating strongly from the stocky appearance of her sister and father, Babs’s older sister approached the group on tall legs. A high-stepper, she was thin and graceful, with a long red mane in the same lighter tone of her father sweeping along her knees and a long, straight red tail that was dyed with a blue stripe.

“Hey, all. Sorry to leave the cart, but Dandy’s getting a little antsy, Shady,” she said, with most of the Lower Manehattan accent scrubbed out of her voice. “Hey, Applejack. Girls.”

“Hey, Lin Seed, how ya doin’?” Applejack returned.

“Oh,” Shady Blossom said, fluttering her wings. “Thank you, Lin, I’d better see if she needs feeding again. I swear, she’s insatiable.”

“Healthy appetite!” Barry declared, winking at his wife. Shady batted him with a wing, and leapt off with the sort of speed only a pegasus could manage, clearing the ponies in the way with a single bound and flap of her wings.

“Wait, uhm, why did Lin call you—?” Sweetie Belle asked, but Shady was already carrying herself out of earshot, landing beside the family carriage. Inside were two young foals, just as she had left them. One, curled up on the back seat, looked bored, though his fluffy ears perked up with interest at his mother’s approach, cat-like eyes coming alert. The other, wrapped warmly in a basket, squealed at the sight of her mother and held up a pair of tiny hooves.

Climbing inside, she settled herself and slipped the baby foal out of her basket. “It’s all right, momma’s here, Dandelion,” she cooed, holding her up against her.

“Can we meet the new ponies, momma?” the tiny colt asked, buzzing his little bat wings excitedly. He was far too old now for spontaneous flight—for which Shady Blossom was profoundly grateful, given the trouble a baby pegasus of any sort could get into—and so he stayed where he was.

“Of course, they’ll be here in just a moment,” she reassured, reaching out to ruffle his reddish-blue mane. “You’ll have plenty of time to get to know them, Hop. They’ll be here for a few weeks, after all.”

Hopping over her to the other side of the carriage, he pressed his hooves against the side and peered out. “They’re the Cru... cru,” he struggled.

“Crus...” she prompted, smiling at her son.

“Crusaders?” he asked, eyes wide as he looked at her.

“That’s right!” she congratulated him, and Dandelion made a squealing cheer as well, clapping her tiny hooves. Shady nuzzled his mane, and he tucked himself up against her.

With her daughter calmed and son energized, she got up in time to open the door for a pile of fillies and a teenaged daughter, who squeezed into the front seat in lieu of the driver’s harnesses. Applejack took her place alongside her uncle, and, together, they took off into the street. Barry insulted his fellow drivers good-naturedly, while chatting with Applejack.

In the back, the girls were swaying back and forth with the carriage’s motion as if they were loose marbles on a tilting ship. The Ponyvillians stared up at the enormous Manehattan architecture on one side only to tumble back and gawp at the enormous statuary of the plaza in front of City Hall. Babs Seed delivered commentary, leaning back over the front seat she shared with her older sister. Lin Seed, smiling at the fillies’ antics, added a few points here and there as well, pointing out landmarks Babs was ignoring. Hop, for his part, had lost his nerve and was tucking himself into his mother’s wing to hide.

“Why does everypony wear a hat?”

“It’s just a thing stallions do.”

All of them except for Sweetie Belle. The unicorn’s head was low as she contemplated the floor of the carriage, sitting next to Shady Blossom.

Remembering the filly had wanted to ask her something, Shady deliberated. Well, not many things that question could have been. The question is, do I tell her, or... ah, yes. She offered her unoccupied right wing to the filly. Sweetie Belle glanced up, and allowed herself to scoot closer, and have the wing folded over her shoulders like it was a leg.

“Something the matter?” Shady asked, her tone gentle.

“It’s just, you know...” said Sweetie, glancing away again, albeit clearly for a much different reason than she had at the station. “I was just thinking. Looking at you, and Babs.”

“Tell you what,” Shady murmured, giving her a little squeeze with her wing, “why don’t you ask Babs about it later? I’m sure she’d like the chance to explain to such a good friend. Speaking of, your friends will probably want to share this trip with you. Don’t spend that time worrying about a grown mare, all right?”

“Well,” Sweetie glanced down, where Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were toppling over one another to try and get a look at one of the tallest buildings in Manehattan, glimpsed over a pair of shorter buildings.

“Sweetie, come look at this! Wow, that place must be awesome to fly from!” Scootaloo gushed.

“It is,” Shady Blossom assured her. “Maybe I’ll take you up sometime, if Applejack says it’s okay.”

“Really? Great!” Scootaloo leapt up, buzzing her wings. Sweetie Belle had to catch her tail in her teeth to keep her from flying out the window, and then both of them fell down to where Apple Bloom was, landing in a pile.

I do so love kids. Shady Blossom giggled, and tucked her daughter against herself, watching the girls’ antics cheerfully.

Hop Seed rode into the front room of the family brownstone on his father’s head, the stallion pretending to buck and stumble while the colt squealed with delight, flapping his tiny wings for balance. Outside, carrying her foal, Shady Blossom was shepharding the girls out of the carriage and up the steps.

Applejack waited with Lin Seed on the sidewalk, her eyes wandering up and down the neighborhood, lingering on the healthy trees growing in little patches of earth interspaced here and there. “Seems I remember this place being a bit more rundown, last I saw.”

“Gentrification,” Lin Seed said, sounding distinctly pleased. “We’re probably one of the few families to move up with it, actually. There’s some nice little shops around here now.”

“Well, can’t say I can complain about family gettin’ a good break,” Applejack admitted.

“There’s some nice parks here, too, and a nice school opened up a couple blocks down,” Shady Blossom added.

“Where Babs got teased so mercilessly,” Lin Seed muttered, kicking a loose bit of pavement. “I still cannot believe I didn’t notice.”

“None of us did,” Shady told her, and glanced to Applejack. “Babs would come home most days pretending nothing was wrong. Even when we did notice she was feeling down, she made up stories—minor things, so we wouldn’t worry.”

“‘Till you did notice and sent her my way?” Applejack asked, starting up the stairs.

“Walked in on her getting teased by some of the girls who had their cutie marks,” Shady confirmed. “Thanks again, by the way.”

“You already thanked her twice, Shady,” Lin Seed pointed out, as she joined her cousin.

“Can’t do it enough,” Shady Blossom asserted.

“It did get her to open up a lot more, though,” Lin admitted.

Applejack waved it off, and held the door open for them. “Shucks, y’all are gonna make me blush. Just call it family lookin’ out for family.”

Within the cozy embrace of the living room, the girls had already donned their capes. Apple Bloom flared hers dramatically a few times, seeming to be practicing the move. “I can’ wait to see the other foals you got to join, Babs. I wanna be there to officially open up the Manehattan Chapter of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

“I thought she already did that?” Sweetie Belle asked. The little unicorn still looked a little concerned, but it was clear that spending time with her friends was recharging her.

Scootaloo scoffed. “Yeah, yeah, but it’s not official until we’re there to present them with their capes.”

Shady Blossom beamed to see Babs looking so excited with her friends. There was a sight that had become hard to come by. Depositing her infant in a cradle by the door to the kitchen, she said, “You can meet Babs’s new friends tomorrow, girls. It’s such a nice day, your father and I thought we should take you girls out to see Coneigh Island.”

Three sets of eyes glanced at one another in confusion, but Blossom’s daughter practically sprang into the air with glee, bouncing around the others. “Coneigh Island! Yes! Ye’re the best, mom!”

“What’s ‘Coneigh Island?’” Sweetie Belle squeaked, curiously.

“Only the best place! You guys gotta see it. It’s like a beach, see, except there’s awesome rides and great snacks and tons and tons of games and other cool stuff.”

“Ah don’ think I’ve ever even seen the ocean,” Apple Bloom said, a tinge of awe entering her voice. Her cousin’s enthusiasm was infectious, and before long all four fillies were bouncing around the living room, singing in dubiously keyed voices about what they imagined they might find. Even Hop Seed, who had been watching in fascination from the couch, joined in, the toddler bouncing along behind the girls.

Lin Seed and the adult ponies all moved into the kitchen. Busying herself, Shady Blossom went over to a rack by the hall and started taking down coats to pack into her saddlebags.

“I don’t think we’ll be needing those, Blossom,” Lin Seed objected. “There’s no scheduled rains for a few days.”

“Never hurts to be prepared. The weather team sometimes surprises ponies, especially if some big wig wants to shuffle around rain and sun days for some unexpected event. Remember the time your dance class was caught out in the park during a rescheduled thunderstorm?”

Lin Seed made a face, while Applejack snorted. “Don’t remind me. One of ma best friends is the weather captain back in Ponyville, and ah swear she doesn’t know what she’s going to do from one day to the next. She changes her mind more times than Rarity changes her outfits.”

“I was hoping she’d come, too,” Lin Seed said. “I’ve always wanted to meet her. Ever since her designs hit the market in Canterlot, she’s been a household name among the girls in school.”

“Well, you know how it is for some careers—big event came up and she couldn’t miss it. If there’s a bad week at the farm, I may not even be able to stay as long as ah’d planned,” Applejack said, sounding rather hopeful.

“Ah, come on now, AJ,” Barry Seed said, prodding her. “Ya won’t be disappointed, I swear. There’s more ways to live in Manehattan than my cousins would have you believe.”

“Eh,” Applejack grunted. “Besides, Rarity said she’d try to make it in a week or two. Mayhaps she’ll be more excited about the city.”

“Speaking of,” Lin Seed said, “when were we planning to hook up with the Oranges? Weren’t they going down to Cape Sod?”

“March’s Vineyard,” Barry corrected, rolling his eyes. “Hob-knobbin’ with the summer crowd from Canterlot.”

Applejack made a face. “Perfect waste of good cropland. I swear, you could feed Manehattan from that island alone.”

“But we don’t have a food shortage here,” Lin Seed said.

“Ain’ the point!”

Still busying herself, Blossom poured each of them a glass of apple juice, and slid them onto a tray on her back. Her husband gave her a bemused look, though he took one of the drinks. “Don’t tire yourself out already, hon. Day’s barely started.”

“Sorry, can’t help it. Mommy thing,” she said, giggling, and took one for herself once the mares had their own.

“Actually, speaking of crops, is that loam I smell?” Applejack said, sniffing the air. She pushed open a door near the back of the kitchen. Shady Blossom winced, and moved to join her. Taking the place of the tiny, insignificant backyard most houses of this sort had was a little greenhouse, the top and back covered in glass, slightly dirtied from the frequent rain.

“Oh, for the love of Celestia... Barry, have you been mutilating plants again?” Applejack scoffed, taking the opportunity to rib her uncle. “I’d call it a metaphor for something, but really, I think you just stink at raisin’ anything that grows out of the ground.”

“Yeah. Seems I’m better at raising kids than crops,” Shady Blossom said, stepping in after her.

Applejack stiffened. “Uh.” Her eyes tracked back, coming to rest on Shady’s flank. A trio of blooming white flowers rested there, their stems tied together.

“It’s my garden, yes,” Shady confirmed, stepping in. She let a wingtip brush one of the wilting flowers, and gave her a wan smile. “I used to have a really beautiful garden in Canterlot. This one is being a lot more stubborn. Once the girls are back in school I hope to give it proper care and attention.”

“It’s okay,” Barry said, tucking his wife against him. “She’s a fantastic cook. Also, drop-dead gorgeous, did I mention that?”

“Once a day. I wouldn’t mind hearing it more often, either,” Blossom purred.

“Get a room, you two,” Lin Seed groaned, rolling her eyes.

“There’s an idea,” Barry agreed, grinning wider.

“Nuh uh,” Shady protested. “No way. I have four little fillies to take to Coneigh Island, buster. Besides, somepony needs to get something from the corner drugstore so that some poor, beleaguered mother doesn’t end up pregnant unexpectedly. Again.”

“I dunno, doesn’t sound like such a bad idea to me!”

“You try flying with an infant on your back and another in your belly. See how you like it.”

Blushing brightly, Applejack fled the garden with Lin Seed.

Shady Blossom giggled, glancing up at her husband. “That’s adequate payback for the crack about my garden, I think.”

“I’d like to continue that conversation about you bearin’ my foals again.”

Batting her husband with a wing, she started out, only to get a swat on her own rear. “Oh, you are so in trouble,” she promised.

“Lookin’ forward to it!”

With Hop Seed and Dandelion Seed dropped off at a playdate, the Seed family and their guests piled back into the carriage and took off towards the ocean. The girls were almost disappointed not to see any large buildings on their way, with Lin explaining that all of that sort of construction is limited to Uptown and a few other commercial centers near the wharfs.

They perked up when they crossed one of the smaller suspension bridges. Indeed, the traffic was so thick—with everypony else taking advantage of the nice day to visit—that Shady Blossom opened the doors and walked out with them. “We’ll meet you down by the ferris wheel,” she told her husband.

“Go on with them,” Barry insisted to Applejack, “I can move this thing on my own, especially if everypony is so callously abandoning me.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine. Guess it won’t hurt to see what all the fuss is about,” she agreed, and gazed ahead at the great wheel rising over the low shops and amusements, along with a great wooden rollercoaster lined against the late morning blue sky. “Looks kinda like a county fair, actually.”

“Not far off,” Shady agreed. “Didn’t the Oranges ever take you down here? I know it was around back then.”

“They made it sound like I’d be robbed and foalnapped within minutes if I so much as looked at it. In hindsight, ah probably shouldn’a been that gullible.”

“Good foals listen, don’t they?” Shady Blossom asked the girls. All four fillies grinned up at her with the most innocent little smiles—halos could have popped over their heads if they had been a smidgen more sweet looking. Naturally, she didn’t believe them for a minute.

Indeed, as they started across the bridge’s walkway, Applejack had to haul Scootaloo back from the rail of the bridge by her teeth on one occasion. The filly had become fascinated by a pair of colorful yachts passing underneath, and appeared to have an alarming lack of concern for heights for one who hadn’t yet developed the wing power to fly.

Evading the carriages trying to park, the group approached the entrance. It was a great arch, glittering with lights and evoking all of the glamour of a movie. Four great spoked wheels were bolted to the gate, festively colored and glowing with neon light. Ticketmaster booths lined the center column, and large queues were stretching across the field. Many ponies were simply bypassing it—the tickets were all for specific rides or attractions, to help cut down the lines deeper inside, not to enter the park.

Slowing to a halt, Lin tugged on Blossom’s bags for a moment. “I see some friends of mine in line. How about I get some tickets, we can meet up later?”

“Sure. Let’s say...” Shady tapped a hoof against the ground in thought. “The ferris wheel, the Wonderbolt ride, and how about the Luna ship?”

Applejack dodged a pair of colts rushing by with massive cotton candy balls. “Luna ship?” she asked, as Lin Seed nodded and stepped off to join a group of young mares already in line.

“Oh yeah,” Babs said, hopping up, “It’s great! There’s this big ship, see, and it’s got wings like the princess, and it takes you up to see that moon!”

Blanching, Applejack looked ahead. “That sounds all sorts of wrong.”

“Oh, it’s all right. After Nightmare Night last year, Luna said she wanted ponies to remember her fondly. Some entrepreneur took that very seriously, and made a whole park devoted to her. I think it’s lovely, if a little commercial,” Shady Blossom announced.

“Yeah, I bet. I mean, all that tradition with the thestrals, it’s gotta feel pretty close to home, right?” Scootaloo asked, and then thought better of it, lowering her ears. “Uhm, not that I mean to imply anything... I just think thestrals are cool...”

“I told you, I don’t mind,” Shady said, tapping her chin again to lift her head. “Besides, it is rather nice seeing ponies appreciate the moon rather than being afraid or uncertain, and the foals love it. Though, again, it is very commercial.”

“You mean awesome! C’mon, let’s go!” Babs demanded, tugging her mother’s tail. Shady laughed, gesturing her on with a wing. “All right, though we need to wait for Lin to get tickets, first. Why don’t we go down to the boardwalk, play some of the games?”

The fillies looked between one another, and then, as if it had been coordinated beforehand, they clapped their hooves together and shouted, “Cutie Mark Crusader Game Masters, go!”

“What—?”

Applejack hauled Shady Blossom out of the way, before the four girls could accidentally plow her under. They were off like a shot, barreling through the crowd towards the beach. “Best just to let them get it outta their system.”

Following their wake of displaced ponies, Blossom shook her head in wonderment. “How in the world do you deal with this every day?”

“Mostly? By giving them a tree house so they don’t wreck the farm, and warning ponies when they get particularly crazy. You can rein them in once they’ve tired themselves out. After a while, they figure out they haven’t gotten their cutie marks and get disappointed.”

“How long does that take?”

“Oh, dependin’ on what they’re doing... four to six hours.”

“...oh dear.”

Damage control for four overly energetic fillies ended up taking up most of Applejack and Shady Blossom’s time, which left them little opportunity to talk. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were up and down the boardwalk, bouncing up and down with abandon as they participated in as many games as their meager allotment of bits allowed them, stuffed themselves on candy apples, popcorn, cotton candy, and gallons of soda. Indeed, it was during their little food coma that the two mares finally had a chance to settle down.

Glancing over at the older of her two nieces, Blossom wondered how she was going to get Applejack to open up. For all that she clearly had her life together, what with running her own farm, raising her sister, and even saving Equestria on at least two occasions that Shady knew of, it was clear that Manehattan was a difficult place for her to be.

Not that I don’t know what it’s like to feel trepidation in a place that holds ugly memories, she reflected, sighing. Babs, who was laying on the bench against her, stretched and yawned, rolling off. Apple Bloom joined her, the two looking at a curtained off area which displayed a number of fish with three marks down their sides, all of them marching around to a small flap. Every so often, a griffon or even a diamond dog would push the flap open and enter or leave. A young dragon popped out with a huge sack thrown over one shoulder.

“What’s that place about?” Apple Bloom asked, pointing a hoof. “I don’t see any ponies going in there.”

“Oh, uh...” Babs said, and hesitated, looking uncomfortable. “You don’t wanna go in there. Ain’ really a place for ponies, y’know.”

“Why’s that?” Apple Bloom asked, the light of curiosity burning in her eyes.

“They sell fish in there.”

“Oh? That sounds cool, why wouldn’t I want to see that?”

When Babs looked too uncomfortable to continue, Shady Blossom rose, but Applejack beat her to the punch. “Because the fish they sell are dead, Apple Bloom. It’s a food court.”

The fillies immediately went shades of white and then green as they contemplated that, their eyes focusing on the cheerful fish curtains in horror.

“Remember that talk about not judging ponies—or anyone else, for that matter—about their oddities?” Shade reminded them, gently.

“Yeah, but...” Scootaloo protested, at a loss.

“Winona eats fish, too,” Applejack said. “You know that, Apple Bloom. We get it processed in cans, but you don’t think we’d let poor little dogs and cats across Equestria starve, would ya? Besides, fish don’t talk the same way even woodland critters do. You can ask Fluttershy, she’ll tell ya.”

“I guess,” Apple Bloom admitted, glumly, and kicked a discarded can with a hoof. As she contemplated, a new light went up in her eyes, and she lifted her head to speak.

“No,” Applejack commanded, stuffing a hoof into her mouth. “No Cutie Mark Crusader Fish Liberators. I ain’ lettin’ you get thrown in jail.”

“I guess that would be kinda wrong, too. I mean, if we took their fish away, some of them would have to go eat other animals, wouldn’t they?” Scootaloo pointed out. “Best they stick to the ones that don’t have the same sort of, uh... specialness that other critters do. And if we stopped them from eating all critters, they’d starve.”

“See? Not so hard,” Shady encouraged, ruffling Scootaloo’s pink mane. The young pegasus beamed up at her. “Now go scamper off, and remember, we’re meeting in front of the ferris wheel with Dad and Lin, so don’t go too far.”

Needing no further encouragement, the Crusaders zipped off, leaving little trails behind them as they went in search of fun.

“Ye’re a good mom, Shady,” Applejack offered, in the silence that fell between them.

“I try. You’re not so bad yourself, Applejack,” Blossom replied, beaming back at her.

“Shucks,” Applejack muttered, kicking the same can her little sister had a moment ago, then picking it up and turfing it into a trash bin. “I just try to do right by Apple Bloom and those girls. Ain’ always easy, lemme tell you. Sometimes, they just go haring off, doing things I can’t understand.”

“I know how you feel. Lin Seed, well... she needs a mom, I can tell, but I don’t know if I can ever be that for her.”

“When my folks, well...” Applejack took her hat off, glancing up at the cloudless sky for a moment. “It ain’ easy, not on young fillies nor old ones. Ain’ easy on big, strong stallions, either.”

“You all have each other, though, and you have your friends. I don’t know much about the things that you do, Applejack, but from what I’ve heard, those mares will support you through anything.”

“Heh, you ain’ wrong,” Applejack said, smiling.

“Though, I bet you wish you were back there with them,” Blossom murmured, testing the waters.

Applejack didn’t immediately brush her off, though she did go a little stiff. “A little, yeah, Farm’s waiting for me, and I know Big Mac can handle most of it, but it ain’ really his temperament, you know? He don’t like managin’ things—prefers to let the world flow around him, y’know.”

“Well, not really, we haven’t met yet, but from what I’ve heard he sounds like he’s very thoughtful. Still, this place must be tough to come back to.”

“See you won’t be deterred,” Applejack muttered.

Shady Blossom tucked her wings at her sides, scraping the ground. “It’s okay, we don’t have to—”

“Nah,” she brushed it off, with a slightly forced dismissal. “It was just filly stuff is all.”

“Sometimes, the things in our foalhood are very important to us when we’re mares,” Shady Blossom murmured. She was keenly aware of the fact that she had only, perhaps, the greater portion of a decade on the other mare, but she wasn’t going to let the chance to talk to her slip by.

“S’pose so. I just thought I could fit in, like I could... belong here,” Applejack said. They both turned to look at the Manehattan skyline. The Orange family penthouse faced west, which meant they were looking at it from the wrong angle, but the meaning was hardly lost on either of them.

“Who’s to say you coudn’t have?” Blossom asked, drawing a look from her niece. She smiled. “I think you have it in you to be anypony you like, Applejack, and probably did back then as well. I don’t know what drew you back, but they’re family the same as Barry and the same as Big Mac and your grandmother. Think about it—maybe you would have had a positive influence on them?”

Applejack snorted. “Not likely. They were drivin’ me crazy, with all their fancy, stuck up rules. ‘Twas Rainbow Dash that brought me back. She lit up the sky with a sonic rainboom, and it was like a call home for me. I knew I belonged there, then.”

“What drew you to Manehattan in the first place, then? Surely it must have been something.”

Looking embarrassed, Applejack glanced away. “Movies, really. Stories. Glamour. I wanted to be a big pony in a big world.”

“A starry-eyed filly dreaming of making it big?” Shady asked, giggling.

“Laugh it up, cat-eyes,” Applejack muttered, hiding her eyes under her hat. It couldn’t hide her rosy blush, though, nor the way she scrunched her face up.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that! Heck, that’s why I came here from Canterlot. Of course, I didn’t have connections like you did—I thought I could break in somehow.”

“Guess that didn’t work out too well?”

Blossom cocked her head. “Well, yes and no. On the one hand, I was one of the only thestrals auditioning, so I got parts all right. Plays, a couple short movies. Problem was that they were all, you know, typecast sorts of roles. Casting directors didn’t really see me as leading lady potential, if you get my drift.”

“Anypony who doesn’t see you and my uncle together would, maybe,” Applejack said, snorting. Still, she looked intrigued. “Is that how you met him?”

“Pretty much. I was upset because I was cast as yet another two-bit villain. My friend took me down here, actually, to cheer me up. She was trying to point out that if the director and the audience liked me, that if I made a good impression, I might be able to break into better roles. More villain roles, of course, but once you have a little leverage in the business you can push people around a bit, yourself.”

“So, what, you met in a bar down here?”

“Again, getting ahead of yourself,” Blossom chided, waggling a hoof at her with a grin. “Actually, he was working janitor. You know, to help pay for the schooling, one of about a dozen jobs, after his wife died.”

“And he swept you off your feet?” Applejack asked, grinning.

Blossom socked her one for that pun. “Totally didn’t notice him, actually! It sounds like a play, when I talk about it now, come to think of it: out-of-his-league actress, the earnest part-timer. I swear I had a bit role in a movie like that, once. Anyway, he basically made a nuisance of himself. Telling me I was the prettiest actress he’d ever seen and that, not only should I be the leading lady in a play, but he’d come see every one of my showings.”

“Ah, I get it. Naturally, y’told him he was a punk and to get lost.”

“Of course! He’s five years older than me, had a corny accent, and looked like he’d just blown in off the street,” Shady said, and then grinned wider. “But here we are talking about me when I asked you all about your past. You can hear me gushing about how Barry and I bagged each other later.”

“Now that’s just no fair,” Applejack protested, stamping a hoof. “I was gettin’ into the story!”

“Tough beans, sister. Call it incentive for you to make up for your end of it!”

“Fine, fine,” Applejack grumbled, putting her hat back on. For all that she made it sound like it was a great imposition, though, Shady Blossom could see that sharing her story had allowed her niece room to breathe. Doubtless, it had also helped her feel closer to Blossom, which was important, given how little they knew about one another.

If there was one thing that Applejack couldn’t resist, it was family, after all.

“Yeah, I guess I could have made it work. Maybe if I had gotten to know Barry Seed and my other family here a bit better, and had a chance to even out all the froo-froo stuff with more normal things...”

Taking a leap of faith, Shady Blossom leapt into the silence Applejack had trailed off into. “You feel like it’s all been a big missed opportunity. That if you had just stuck it out, you could have made a life for yourself here, and you’re wondering what it would have been like if you had. Maybe, you’re even wondering if it would have been better for you.”

Applejack’s head jerked up, stricken. For a moment, Blossom worried she had gone too far. The look in her eyes was so conflicted, it made her wonder if she had crossed a line, or perhaps insulted her niece.

“Haunted by the past... heh,” she muttered, glancing at the wood panels under their hooves. “Well... it’s complicated. No, stop lookin’ at me like that, I ain’ mad. Ye didn’ strike me as the kind to come out and jus’ say somethin’ like that.”

“We can talk about something else,” Shady offered again, quickly.

“No, it wouldn’t be, y’know, terribly honest of me if’n I just hushed it up. How do you say it?” she asked. “It’s a bit of everything. Jus’ a big jumble I haven’t looked at in so long.”

“And here you are, being confronted with it every day,” Shady murmured, offering a sympathetic hoof, which Applejack accepted.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am glad I didn’t become a namby elitist,” Applejack said, giving a disgusted look. “I’ve seen that sort, before and since, here and in Canterlot, and it ain’ for me. That’s not the sort of life I could live. I’m especially glad I got to meet up with all my friends in Ponyville. Maybe the world could have found another Element, but that would have made me the one left short for not knowin’ them.”

Searching the skyline, though, she did exhale heavily. “Still, sometimes ah wonder if perhaps there was a way to do it all. Hold on to being ma’self and also bein’ somethin’ a little more, y’know... heh, there’s this unicorn back in Canterlot, by the name of Fancypants. For all his name is ridiculous, and he does things I think are plain boring, he has the air of a pony who is totally in control. He sets his own rules in the upper class world, and he makes it bend to him, rather than the other way ‘round.”

“Perhaps it’s not too late,” Shady Blossom encouraged. “You’re the scion of a big farming empire, you’re close to the Princess. I can’t imagine it would be too hard to break into any scene you chose on those credentials.”

“Eh,” Applejack waved it off. “That’s all in the past now. Ah’m a diff’rent pony now. I’ve seen big parties like the Gala and the junk Rarity gets up to. Ain’ my scene.”

“Not even if you can make your own rules?”

“I won’ drag my connection with the Princess into it, neither,” Applejack said, quickly. “That’s personal, between her and my friends and me.”

“No, but you were seen at the Gala, and with this Fancypants character. You do also have other connections, like the Oranges still, and the extended Apple family.”

“It ain’—” Applejack paused, as they heard something from further down the boardwalk. This in itself was normally a difficult task, for Coneigh Island was noisy at the best of times, let alone on a crowded sunny day, but this was a noise that had special importance to both of them: fillies scuffling.

“Stop, stop!” Sweetie Belle was shouting, crying helplessly as she watched her friends. They were in the middle of a ferocious tussle with what looked like a griffon and a slightly older pegasus filly. As it was three-on-two, the fight wasn’t going well for the pair, but Shady Blossom and Applejack weren’t exactly inclined to see how it would play out. They immediately dove into the wrestling ponies, prying them apart with hooves and teeth.

Shady Blossom was worried she might have to sit on her daughter to keep her from getting back into the fight, but she collapsed against her mother’s legs instead, sniffling. Tears were steaming down her face, and she pushed her head into Blossom’s chest. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, for their part, were trying to fling themselves back at the two girls while Applejack sat on both of their tails. The griffon was nursing a shiner, while the pegasus favored one of her hind legs, glaring daggers at the other girls.

“Fine! Hide behind your monster, she’s not your real mommy anyway!” the pegasus shouted, flaring her little wings to take off. The griffon blanched a little, but quickly clawed into the air after her friend, leaving the confused adults behind.

“What happened?” Applejack demanded of her fuming sister.

“Excuse me,” a somewhat older stallion said, stepping forward and rubbing his mustache nervously. “I don’t mean to intrude, but I saw how it started. I was stepping in, but you two were on top of ‘em right quick, had ‘em apart in a flash of light.”

“Ain’t right,” a mare could be heard murmuring, but in response to what was unclear, as she and most of the crowd moved along.

Shady Blossom slid a foreleg around her daughter. “Thank you, sir, I think I’d like to hear it from their mouths, first,” she said, and looked down at Babs. She nuzzled her mane for a moment, soothing her. “You heard the nice man, Babs. I can hear it from him or I can hear it from you.”

“That witch called you a monster, twice!” Scootaloo growled, beating her wings furiously, as if she hoped to overcome gravity and chase them down in spite of Applejack’s grip on her.

“You are my mom,” Babs insisted, pulling her face away. “I-I don’ care what anypony says! I d-don’t c-care if you aren’t my birth mom! I’ll do it again, I-I’ll—” she broke off, sniffling and pressing her face against Shady Blossom again.

“And you’re my daughter,” Shady Blossom said, her own voice a little thick. “My little girl. My Babs.”

“Well, ah’m sure y’all had a good reason, but that ain’ excusin’ the fact that y’all started a fight,” Applejack said, grimly. “We’re goin’ back to the house, right now.”

“No!” Sweetie Belle cried, leaping forward and skidding in front of Applejack. “I started it, I did! Send me home, don’t send them home!” It couldn’t have been more painfully obvious that she was trying to make up for not leaping to her friends’ defense. Applejack didn’t look like she was having any of it, either.

“No, it was me!” Babs Seed said, pulling away from her mother, looking up at the mares desperately.

Glancing between each other, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo raised their hooves.

“Ah did it.”

“No, me, I started it! Stupid ugly face, couldn’t help myself.”

Shady Blossom couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh. The fillies all looked mortified, but they kept it up anyway, each one trying to take the blame onto herself so her friends wouldn’t be stuck going home. “What do you say, Mister?” she directed at the bystander. “Who started this little fight?”

He looked between the four crying girls, and adjusted his hat. “Ma’am. Those two girls who were so gosh darned unkind started it. Said you were a monster, that they were all blank flanks, and then threw the first punch. Celestia’s truth.”

Liar. Sweet, blessed liar.

Applejack rolled her eyes. Shady Blossom met her gaze, quirking a smile. Her niece heaved a sigh. “Fine. But if it happens again, ah’m chuckin’ ya all into a barrel and nailing the lid shut, no matter who started it, y’hear me?”

The four fillies swarmed Applejack, hugging her. They then tackled the tourist and Shady Blossom in turn. “My little heroes,” she said, giggling, and kissing their little heads. “Defending my honor like that. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if that earned you your cutie marks.”

Gasping, all four girls turned to examine their sides. When confronted with equally blank expanses of hair, though, they drooped. Taking the advantage, Blossom rose and nudged them with her wings, drawing them close. “Don’t worry. Just keep it up. You girls are on the right track. One day, you’ll all find where you belong... and you’ll do it together, because you’re all such great friends.”

Applejack rolled her eyes again, but grinned this time. “Is being a good mom all cheap tricks?”

“Some of them are very expensive, but a good heart carries you through life better than material goods, anyway,” Shady Blossom answered, sweetly.

“Okay, now I know ye’re tryin’ to make me gag.”

“Guilty!” Shady admitted. “All right, girls, let’s go see Barry and Lin. They’re probably waiting for us.”

“Yay!”

“So, why did we go through all the trouble of meeting at the ferris wheel if we’re actually going to ride it last?” Lin asked, as they filed into line at Luna Park. Ahead, the park itself was sheltered in a vast tent, with an enormous expanse of canvas covering the area within.

“You really can’t beat sunset on a ferris wheel, at least if you don’t have an airship handy,” Barry insisted. He winked at his wife. “Of course, you won’t really fully appreciate it until you have a very special somepony to share it with.”

Lin Seed tossed her long mane, harumphing. “I’d have a very special somepony if it weren’t for an overprotective father who growls when boys come anywhere near me.”

“The last guy had a black denim jacket. Didn’t trust him.”

“And Pierre? He came from a great family!”

“Too fancy. Didn’t trust him.”

“So my boyfriends can be neither too low, nor too high, can they?”

“Well, sure, but they also can’t be too average. My princess deserves the best.”

Seeing the Crusaders start to perk up, Applejack glowered at them. “No, not after the Cheerilee and Big Mac incident, and ah’m still watchin’ you lot. Meddlin’ with special someponies oughta be the last thing on yer lil minds.”

“Aww,” they complained, pouting.

Giving each other confused looks, the elder Seeds decided not to inquire further. Shady Blossom, at the least, was looking forward to Luna Park, as she always did. Spying her enthusiasm, Applejack poked her. “I thought you said this was kitschy.”

“Mmm, well, yes,” she agreed, but couldn’t keep herself from grinning. “Yet it’s my kind of kitschy. You have to understand, this is the sort of stuff I grew up listening to—every young thestral hears the tales growing up. The Tale of the Lost Comet? I still read that to my babies when they’re sleepy. The Tears of the Night Mother can still make me cry, and you wouldn’t believe how you can move a bar full of us with a rousing telling of the War in the Stars.”

“She’s not lying. I saw an old man with one eye get up and dance near the climax. It was terrifying,” Barry concurred.

“It’s like a trip back into my foalhood—all the best and brightest parts of it. And you know the best part? It’s all in the dark, with the only light no stronger than moonlight. You can’t really tell the stories in broad daylight,” Blossom sighed happily. “The sun is nice, but it chases away all of the mystery. The most beautiful flowers are the ones that bloom at night, not in the light of day.”

“You can’t stop her when she gets like this,” her husband said in a stage whisper to the others. “She can wax poetic for hours.”

“You’re still not off the hook for earlier, mister.”

Lin Seed rolled her eyes, presenting her ticket to the stand and collecting a token, one that resembled a full moon. “It’s all right. I still prefer Dreamland.”

“Oh, sure, if you like raging fires and hammy actors,” Shady scoffed.

“Considering her recent boyfriends? I think she does,” Barry agreed.

“Ugh!” Lin protested, tossing her mane again as she strode inside.

Within, it was light being in a little village. Storefronts and little houses marched along their streets. The tent canvas blocked out the sun as promised, and hung from it were dozens of lights, forming constellations, while in the very center hung a radiant clock, its faces as bright as the moon and bathing visitors in its gentle radiance. Night flowers, with their sweet fragrance, bloomed everywhere, and some ponies clearly found it so relaxing they lay together on the grass and simply talked, cuddling together in the semi-darkness.

As always, there were more than a few thestrals, some strolling, others gliding along, taking in a bit of the pleasing atmosphere before they had to thrust themselves back under the harsh glare of night. For once, Shady Blossom didn’t feel like she was being judged for walking with her own family, pressing close to her husband and drinking in the sensation.

“You’ll always be my night blossom,” he murmured into her ear. It made her feel as if she was floating, lifted up on a cloud of warmth and love.

“Mom, jeeze,” Babs Seed said, reaching up to grab her mother’s black tail and haul her back down by her teeth.

“Oh!” Shady gasped, putting her hooves back on the ground and blushing. “Sorry, just got a little carried away.”

They all laughed, and, together, went into the park.

It seemed as if the day couldn’t be more full. Walking along behind tireless fillies, Shady Blossom felt light-headed, her feet and wings sore. It was a good soreness, though, a pleasant sensation of family that left her feeling whole and complete. With her husband at her side, her niece to talk to, and even her stepdaughter being pleasantly good-natured, it was hard to think of any way it could have been improved. After swimming in the beach for a while to cool off, they were all about ready to go home.

The ferris wheel was one good option. With the sun lowering towards the horizon, it was getting to be the perfect time to ride it, which meant that they’d have to get into line very early indeed to catch the perfect window of opportunity.

Another good option, though, would have been sleep. Looking at the line and the amount of time she’d need to spend on her feet, Shady contemplated the benefits and flaws of waiting. On the one hoof, it would be a nice bit of time spent with Barry Seed, and she could tip the operator to pause them at the top so they could cuddle. On the other hoof, with her yawning loudly, that would probably not be terribly romantic.

“Shady? Shady Blossom, is that you?” a mare’s voice called, sparing her from further contemplation.

In fact, it perked her up immediately, seeming to drain some of the fatigue from her bones. “My ears must be failing,” Blossom declared, rubbing at one of them. “I swear I just heard an old ghost.”

“Who is it, ma?” Babs asked, surprised. A unicorn mare, her curly mane hanging off one shoulder, approached the group and met Shady Blossom in a hug.

“Look at you!” the unicorn declared, looking her up and down. “You know, it’s funny, I swear your last letter had claimed you were pregnant, but by the stars I call you a liar. You’re as trim and fit as a girl.”

“Twice, in fact,” Shady declared, and smiled at the others. “This is an old friend of mine from the theater, Velvet Curtain.”

“We’ve met,” Barry said. “As I recall, you referred to me as a leering layabout.”

“I was absolutely correct, too,” Velvet Curtain agreed, waving at the others. “I can’t believe my luck, running into you like this. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends and family?”

“Of course! This is Babs Seed, my daughter,” Blossom said, tucking a hoof about the filly’s side. “This is her cousin, Apple Bloom, and her friends Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. Applejack here is Apple Bloom’s big sister, she’s a farmer from out in Ponyville.”

“Hey,” Applejack said, keeping her distance for now, watching the others.

“And my other daughter, Lin Seed,” she said. Lin let it pass, smiling at Velvet. “My other foals are back with some neighbors, a little young for Coneigh Island.”

“They must be darling,” Velvet beamed. “You know, for a long time, I thought you were crazy for leaving the theater, but seeing these faces I don’t have to wonder any more. You look so happy you could burst, dear, and I’m glad for you.”

Shady Blossom blushed, rubbing the back of her head. “Yeah, well, the first pregnancy was just such a surprise, and then there were all these family emergencies. It would have been impossible to hold down a rehearsal schedule, really. Always did want to go back, but the time never seemed right.” She glanced back at her family, and beamed. “I’m pretty much over it now, though.”

“No, don’t make excuses. You’re doing a beautiful job and I can see that,” Velvet said, waving her down. “It’s hard enough to keep going, sometimes. I’m glad you found something worthwhile.”

“You know, it’s funny,” Applejack spoke up. “My aunt here was just tellin’ me about how y’shouldn’t let opportunities fly by, even if you feel like ye’re too old and busy to do it.”

“Oh, did she?” Velvet asked, grinning. “So, not pining for the stage at all, are we?”

Shady Blossom stared back at Applejack. Her niece put on an innocent look, crossing both sets of legs in a cocky posture. You traitor!

“Sweet, mom, ye’re goin’ back into theater?” Babs asked.

“You’re an actress?” Sweetie Belle squeaked, her eyes going wide.

“Well, I was—”

“She was in a coupla movies and everythin’!” Babs told her friends. “Ah’ve got ‘em all back at home.”

“Wow, really? Ah can hardly believe it, that’s so cool,” Apple Bloom gushed.

“Yeah, she was a villain and everything!”

“Awesome!” Scootaloo said, grinning.

Hooking a leg through one of Shady Blossom’s own, Velvet Curtain looked at her old friend thoughtfully. “You definitely still have the look. Tell you what, why don’t you come talk to some friends of mine? We’re just getting some drinks down at the waterfront. A few actors, some set designers, and a director from Applewood.”

Against her will, Shady’s ears perked. “Applewood?” she asked, a little breathless in spite of herself.

“Applewood,” Velvet repeated, the words possessing a magic all of their own.

“You don’t mean—” Scootaloo gasped.

“—the place—” Apple Bloom said, staring.

“—where stars are made?” Sweetie Belle squeaked, her eyes filling with stars of their own.

“Oh, get going already,” Barry said, nudging his wife in the ribs. “We’re going to be all evening at this. Go on, I want to hear all about it.”

“I, uhm,” Shady said, finding it hard to breathe. “Wow. Okay.”

“I’ll bring your mother back intact, don’t worry, dears,” Velvet promised Babs and Lin, the latter looking wan. Even she couldn’t hide a little look of excitement, though.

“Good luck,” Lin said.

“Y’all have fun now, y’hear?” Applejack said, waving an orange hoof, with the smugest expression Blossom had ever seen on a pony.

It was as if all of the soreness had drained out of her. Shady Blossom found herself walking by her old friend almost in a daze. I’ll probably just have to tell them no. I have a pair of tiny foals and Babs, and I want to get back to my gardening and my painting... just a quick drink and a little reminiscing. Yeah, that’s the ticket. This’ll be quick.

“...and can you believe they have a renowned foal care system?” Shady Blossom gushed, as she had been gushing for what seemed like the entire trip home. “Some of the best tutors, and they travel around with the shoot, so you’re never far from your kids.”

“That would take Babs away from school, though, wouldn’t it?” Lin Seed pointed out.

“Psht, like I care,” Babs said, climbing up on the back of the seat. “I’ll get to see movies being made!”

“I still can’t believe that went as well as it did. You are right, though, Lin,” Shady Blossom said, rubbing her forehead. “I really should look into all possibilities. My family comes first. Just, you know... eeehehehe!” Her hooves pattered on the seat as she squealed, her wings flaring.

“I guess I haven’t really seen you this excited in a long time,” Lin Seed murmured. “I... if you can do this, you should do it. I think it could be... good.”

That was it. The way Lin Seed was smiling at her. That capped her day.

Perhaps we can’t be mother and daughter, but we can be family of some sort.

Then, quite suddenly, the carriage jerked to a stop. Catching herself, she checked to make sure the fillies were all right before hopping over the front seat. “Honey, AJ? What’s wrong, did you hit something?” she asked, concerned. Flapping her wings, she hovered over them, glancing at the road to find it largely empty, aside from a few parked carriages. The street lights were on, lending the early evening a quiet, contemplative feel. It was always a nice time for flying, in her mind.

Then she started to put certain facts together. For one, there were indeed a few carriages parked, but almost all of them were clustered in front of her house.

For two, her husband and Applejack hadn’t hit anything, for there was nothing to hit. Indeed, their faces were locked forward, staring at the brownstone. Slowly, Shady Blossom craned her head up.

Shattered windows. Broken glass. A pair of pegasi in city police uniform, scanning the horizon from high above. Police carriages, their occupants going over every inch of ground. Her neighbors, talking to the police, their eyes wide and frightened.

Feeling numb, Shady Blossom floated towards her house, unable to believe what she was seeing. Slit eyes drank in the light, seeing the door blown inward, chairs tossed out onto the sidewalk.

“Sarge!” one of the police unicorns shouted, and flared her horn defensively. The scene was interrupted, however, when Barry Seed, freed from his harness, came up and roared, “What in the name of Tartarus is going on here?” His booming voice startled the unicorn so much that she dropped her spell, and Blossom drifted down to join her husband, who put a hoof about her.

“This is my house, officer. What happened here?” he demanded of the gathered police again, who had all gone rather understandably defensive at the huge, hostile looking Earth pony approaching.

They all looked to him, then to Shady. “Sir, please calm down,” said one of the older officers, a greying mare with marks of rank on her shoulder, stepping forward. They all had to step back, as he and his wife walked up to the top of the steps, looking in.

The living room was trashed completely. Somepony had managed to not only up end the big couch, but fling it so hard that it embedded itself into the plaster of the wall and exposed the stone beneath. The light had been torn town. The glassware broken.

Smeared on the wall, in what seemed at first blood but what must have been Shady Blossom’s own paints, were words, scrawled in angry lettering:

Shady Blossom couldn’t quite remember what had happened after that. In vague terms, she understood that she had been screaming. She had flown from room to room, searching, screaming the names of her babies. It wasn’t until Applejack had managed to pounce her out of the air and pin her to the ground that they were able to remind her that both Dandelion and Hop had been left with neighbors, and were safe. It wasn’t until her toddler and infant were delivered into her embrace that she could feel anywhere close to all right again.

By the time her sobbing had abated enough for her to be coherent, for the haze of fear and despair to clear out of her mind, the police had already conducted most of their investigation. They were still questioning the neighbors, a process that would go on for hours still, but even as she got up and walked back to her front room, some of the stallions and the unicorn mare from before were helping a trembling Lin Seed and a grim-faced Barry take some things out from the house and into the family carriage.

With Dandelion and Hop in her bags, both blessedly sleeping, she found her way to Applejack, who was sitting with the fillies. All four had signs of recent tears, though Scootaloo and Babs in particular were trying to look brave. When they saw Shady Blossom approaching, all four rushed up and thudded into her, hugging her tightly. Possessively, Blossom swept her wings around them, sheltering them in their embrace.

Applejack stood up, affixing her hat to her head and going to join the girls, giving Shady a brief hug and looking her in the eye. “Are y’feelin’ all right?”

“No,” Shady murmured, and tightened her grip about the girls. Her face felt numb and her throat sore, but she put on as good a face as she could muster. “No, I’m not. But... I have you all, that’s what’s important.”

“Lawponies will be wantin’ to ask you some questions,” she said, evenly.

“I wagered they would,” Shady murmured, and sighed. “I don’t want the kids to hear any of this, especially not the little ones, could you...?”

“‘Course. Don’t even need to ask.”

It was difficult to let any of them go. Shady Blossom felt that letting her foals or even Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle go would have meant the possibility of losing them. Another look into Applejack’s agate eyes allowed her to slacken her grip, though—not all the howling hordes of Chaos would get past her. It wasn’t hard at all to believe that her niece was a hero worthy of saving Equestria, just then.

Going out into the street, she could overhear one of the locals being questioned. Mister Black Vein, the old retired prospector, was standing before a uniformed officer and a detective in a heavy coat and fedora.

“...like black lightning! Woosh, in from the sky, crashing through the windows!” the ancient pony was telling them, gesticulating wildly with his cane. “All clad in black armor, cat eyes glowing like Nightmare Moon h’self! Oh, I got up from my seat, started out towards the door with my old sword, but the legs are so creaky, by the time I got m’self down to the street, woosh! Gone! Like black lightning!”

“How long did that take you, about?” the detective asked, her tones clipped and precise.

“Mayhaps ten, twenty... or thirty minutes.”

“When would you say this was?”

“No more’n an hour ago. Matty, when was it?” he asked his granddaughter. “Smart girl, always gets these things right.”

Matlock, his granddaughter, shook her head, vibrant green mane swinging. “It was just a few minutes before the hour, I know because it’s when Grandpa gets his pills evening.”

“So a few minutes before eight?”

“That’s right,” she confirmed. Her eyes shifted, and she caught sight of Shady Blossom. For a moment, she looked afraid, and shrank back. Seeming to realize what she was doing, she straightened, her eyes apologetic.

“Mistress Shady Blossom,” the detective acknowledged, her blue eyes and smooth face giving nothing away. “Go ahead, officer,” she said, and moved to join Blossom.

“Detective...?” Shady asked.

“Noir, ma’am. Detective Petite Noir.” Her eyes glanced upwards. A pegasus officer was shadowing the two of them. “I’m sorry if this question comes across as rude, ma’am, but I’m obliged to ask. Where were you at eight o’clock this evening?” Her face softened for a moment, and it did seem as though she was sincere in her apology.

Taking it for what it was worth, Shade nodded. “With my family, in Coneigh Island,” she Blossom answered, her tone dull. She still felt so drained. All of the day’s soreness was back, with interest. “I had just gotten some drinks with some ponies. I can name them.”

“I would appreciate that, ma’am.”

“Velvet Curtain, an actress. Film Reel, a director out of Applewood. Quick Lime, a stage designer. A few other actors: Sans Nom, Class Act, Vaudeville, and James Li.”

“James Li?” she asked. Her hat flipped up enough to reveal a unicorn’s horn nestled in her black mane, and she was scribbling notes on a pad in a blue aura.

“It’s a stage name.”

“All right, do you know where any of them can be reached?”

“Velvet Curtain has an apartment uptown. I’m not sure about the others.”

“All right, thank you. Would you mind answering a few questions?” Noir asked.

“Not at all,” Shady answered, reaching up to rub her hoof against her head. A fantastic headache had been another reward for her screaming and carrying on earlier, and now her forelegs were throbbing as well, the scars pulsing. The sight of her husband approaching helped set her at ease, and she flashed Barry a small smile to let him know she was all right, waving one of her wings.

“Do you know anything about what happened here?”

“I know somepony attacked my house,” Shady answered, plainly. “They smeared scary messages on the walls and smashed everything up.”

“Can you speculate as to why? It’s all right if you give me the best information you have, ma’am, or even just some idea. Why they wrote ‘traitor’ on the wall, for instance.”

Shady Blossom sighed. “Subtle, Detective, but, no, only a little, and I don’t like thinking about it. If it will help, though...”

“Please,” Noir encouraged. “I want to help you and your family get over this incident. If there’s anything, even a tiny bit of information, it might make a difference.”

“When I was younger, there were some... ponies. Thestral ponies,” Shady said, slowly. Letting her mind sink back, down into the depths of her childhood. Not all of that foalhood had been as bright as it could have been.

Barry was almost there, but his wife’s gaze stopped him before he could reach out to her. She turned it back on Noir, answering quietly. “You have to understand, there’s a lot of stories we’ve kept alive, our kind. We don’t really share them with other ponies, since they wouldn’t appreciate or even understand a lot of them. While everypony else was celebrating Nightmare Night to propitiate a legend they barely remembered, we... well. A lot of thestrals liked to remember Luna differently.”

Looking up at the moon, bare of the terrible face of the Mare of Darkness that the Princess of the Night have become, Shady Blossom gathered what strength she could from it. “We remembered Celestia as the tyrant and Luna as the brave upstart, the rebel. We so loved the night, how could we turn our backs on it? It was wrong, and foolish, and most of us understood that. Princess Celestia had been so good to us over the centuries, trying to help us even when other ponies didn’t trust us any more...”

Noir spoke, as Shady Blossom had trailed off. “There is more to it, though.”

“You know about that already,” Blossom murmured.

“Please, ma’am,” she said, gentle. “What you know of it may be more important. If you know the story differently than we do or parts of it that we don’t know, now is the time to find out.”

“All right,” Shady agreed, and gathered another shuddering breath. “Yes. There are some thestral ponies who... didn’t buy it. It’s a stupid kid thing, for the most part. A young buck or mare wants to be bold and edgy, so they denounce Princess Celestia and bring back the old stories. They get paranoid, seeing her as a controlling, stingy dictator instead of what she is.”

“And for the ones that don’t grow out of that phase?”

Shady shut her eyes. A midnight banner, with a crescent moon swallowing the sun. A burning cloud house. Screaming.

“Ma’am?”

“It’s gone, now,” Shady Blossom said, her voice quiet and strained. “When Luna came back, that was supposed to be it. She didn’t hate Celestia, she didn’t want to overthrow anything.”

“But before that?”

“Yes. There was the Order of Eternal Night, who wanted to bring about Everlasting Night as Nightmare Moon had foretold,” Shady said, hot. She stamped a hoof, flaring her wings. “They hurt everypony around them. It wasn’t enough just to avoid them. You were with them, or you were... you were...”

Noir didn’t supply the word. It was still smeared on the Seed living room wall, after all. Taking pity, she exhaled, scribbling notes. “Yes, we’ve heard of them. We had... well, every guardpony and policepony in Equestria thought they were gone, too. Disbanded when Princess Luna returned,” she said. “Do you know anypony who might have been in the Order who held a grudge against you or members of your family? Your family by marriage or birth.”

“Just a couple who would still be alive. There was a big push against them, a few years before Princess Luna returned. A fair number died, the worst of them, the ones who hurt... other ponies,” Shady murmured, lowering her head. “I honestly thought the rest had gone back to their lives after the end.”

“If they’re still carrying on their activities in secret, they may have pretended to do so,” Noir said. “We’ll check up on them. Don’t worry, we won’t run anypony in on hunches or old names.”

Brushing her long mane back from her face, where it had fallen, Shady lifted her head and nodded. “There were a couple who harassed my family, back in the day, then. Star Gazer, a mare. I think she became a teacher. There’s also Bell Tone, another mare, not sure what happened to her. Black Cloud, though he was just a kid. Arc Light, he was pretty nasty, though I think he took up sailing. I know Light, Gazer, and Cloud all made amends, though, or tried to.”

“Sometimes, ponies can surprise us, ma’am,” Noir said, and glanced over at Barry. He stepped forward to nuzzle against his wife. “We’ll leave a few officers with you to make sure you’re safe. I’ll try to keep you apprised on the investigation’s progress.”

“Thank you,” Shady Blossom murmured. “Please, just help keep my family safe. They’re all I have.”

“My duty, ma’am,” she replied, tipping her hat to the pair, before taking off.

Gradually, the sounds of hooves on pavement, talking police, and carriages faded away. Silently, Shady Blossom began to cry again, and her husband held her helplessly. The ruins of what had been a perfect day crumbled around them, becoming so much dust on the wind.

It had been a very long time since Shady Blossom had been in a bed with so many other ponies. With a half-dozen foals snuggled about her, she felt very warm indeed and, even if she could have moved, she had absolutely no desire to. If only she could sleep in it—yet she feared what dreams may come as much as she feared somepony swooping in through the window and taking what was hers to protect while she slept.

The Oranges had, of course, immediately had their apartment opened up for the displaced family, answering an express message with one of condolences and sympathy. For all that they could be stuck up and elitists, the Oranges understood the importance of family.

A great dark mound on the floor shifted, and Barry turned over, his hooves in the air. He wasn’t sleeping, either, and probably wouldn’t for some time to come. Without a doubt, Applejack and Lin Seed, who were sharing the guest room, weren’t getting much shut eye, either.

Even as she reflected on this, however, she jerked, realizing her eyes had begun to droop against her will. Evidently, the day’s stresses were catching up to her. Fighting it for a few minutes, Blossom eventually surrendered. She laid her head down near her daughters and closed her eyes.

Darkness followed her.

The moon rose over a foggy moor. Black shapes, eyes aglow, drifted like shadows. They were coming, to take everything she had.

Coming to take her.

All she ever had.

Everything...

“Mom! Mom!” Hooves shook her. Voice and touch alike cut into her dream. Jerking, she barely caught herself short of clocking the watching heads about her. Babs was there, shaking her. Hop was beside his half-sister, still shaking her with his tiny hooves. Dandelion was crying, and so many other faces were watching her.

Sunlight streamed through the penthouse windows, revealing her family gathered about her. Applejack and Lin’s hair was disheveled, indicating that at least two other ponies had been able to sleep. Rising, Shady Blossom herself felt like a mess. Her long black mane was tangled. Her tail was askew. Her coat was matted in places.

“Honey? Where’s Dandy?” she called, slurring. “Need to feed her.”

“Got her, right here,” Lin Seed answered, the flailing baby sobbing in her foreleg. Lin was trying to comfort her sister with poor success, pressing her against her body.

“Sweetheart, you should—whoa!” Barry said, catching Blossom when she tried to get off the bed, stumbling.

“Baby, hungry, scared. Worry about me later.”

“Worrying about you now,” he insisted, using his greater strength to pin her back on the bed. “Lin, we brought the formula and put it in the fridge, go take care of it.”

“Is she okay?” Scootaloo asked, worried. Her cape was gone, hung up in the hallway with the others. “Is she sick?”

“No, no, I’m doing better,” Shady Blossom said, trying to get up. Her husband wasn’t having any of it, however, and kept her down.

“C’mon, girls. Aunt Blossom needs a little bit,” Applejack said, shuffling them out. She picked Dandelion up in her teeth, hauling him out by the scruff.

At first, she was prepared to give her husband a good tongue lashing, when she realized that all four of her legs were shaking terribly. For a good few minutes, she hadn’t even realized how dehydrated and drained she felt. Her heart raced, faster and faster, and she felt as though she was crashing, as if she were choking in mid air.

It took a few minutes for the attack to pass. Stomach-crunching, chest-squeezing anxiety made it difficult for her to breathe, let alone stand. Eventually, though, Barry helped his quivering wife up. He even helped run a brush through her mane and tail, the rhythmic motions helping her feel once again like she was in control.

If there was any word that encapsulated how she felt right then, it was control, or the lack thereof. So few ponies experienced a breach of peace so severe as they had, in the secure society of Equestria. Fewer still could claim that they were haunted by the spectres of the past. It was stupid, and it was silly and maybe even a little foalish, but getting her appearance back in order was a symbolic step towards gaining just a little control back over her life. It was small and symbolic, but it was enough to start on.

The next phase of normality involved going out and facing her family. There was nothing that needed to be said, of course. No pony begrudged her little panic attack. When she took on the Oranges’ kitchenette—finding it stocked well for haute cuisine if a bit bare of raw ingredients—that was another step to normalcy. Some eggs, cream, peppers, chopped onions, tomato, and liberal dashes of the Oranges’ spices made for generous helpings of omelettes, which she and Applejack slid onto the dining room table.

“Never thought I’d see this kinda fare on this table,” Applejack said, her hair resting on the back of her chair. She poked at the omelette in front of her. “I’m half expectin’ Aunt Orange to break through the door and pronounce it an abomination.”

“Then we can feed her one of them and watch her entire life crumble,” Lin Seed said, immediately stuffing her face. “Soh goofd.”

“I’d have a go at you for insultin’ our absent hosts, but I’m gonna have to agree with that,” Barry Seed said, chuckling as he ate.

The four fillies had snarfed down their breakfast almost as fast as it had been put down, and the Crusaders were now at the Penthouse window, pressing their faces to the glass and staring down at the city far below.

Glancing back from them, Shady Blossom smiled wanly at Applejack. “I guess you’ll be wanting to get them back, soon, hmm?”

“Well, actually,” Applejack said, nibbling at her own omelette. “When ah messaged Rarity, she told me she was coming for Sweetie Belle herself. Normally, I’d tell her to give me a break, but she pointed out that if somepony really wanted to get at us, they’d hit us somewhere really vulnerable, like a train in transit, where there weren’t nothin’ we could do about it.”

“Do you think she’s bringing in your friends?” Lin Seed asked, eyes wide.

“Dunno. Wouldn’ put it past her,” Applejack muttered, and turned to Blossom. “Maybe she wants to bring more than that. So I don’ suppose we could get an explanation? Y’were out talkin’ to that detective pony for a good long time.”

Shady Blossom turned her head to stare meaningfully at the children.

Applejack waved a hoof. “They’re gonna hear it anyway. Better they hear it now, from you, rather than some garbled eavesdropping attempt or a secondhoof account.”

There was a suction noise as the girls peeled their faces off the glass, turning and gazing up at Shady Blossom.

Reluctantly, Shady nodded. “I’m not sure I really approve, but... all right.” Taking a breath, she launched into her account. It came a little easier than it had the night before. Talking about it the first time had evidently helped get the weight of it off her back. She omitted very little, careful to leave out the names and some of the unnecessary details that might potentially scare children. Of course, she needn’t have bothered—if anything, the uglier details seemed to excite the girls more, if the way their eyes gleamed was any gauge.

Barry. who had heard none of this before last night, leaned heavily on his chair. Lin Seed simply blanched.

Applejack in particular looked incensed. “Are you tellin’ me ah busted myself freein’ Princess Luna from her thousand year curse, and there’s these ponies running around who think the whole Nightmare Moon bit was s’posed to be a good thing? Don’t they know everlastin’ night would—”

“—kill every pony in the world and more?” Shady Blossom said, with a nod from Applejack. “Yeah, that part never made sense to me. Not that any of it ever made sense to me. I don’t understand how a pony can go so wrong.”

“There’s always been criminals and such. Ah guess an impressionable pony hearing the wrong sort of thing at the wrong time can have an effect.”

“But why would they wanna hurt you?” Apple Bloom asked, coming up to Shady’s chair and planting her forelegs on her side.

Picking her up in her forehooves and smoothing her mane, Shady sighed. “Before I moved out here to Manehattan, before I met your uncle, I lived in Canterlot. Well, above it. My family had a little cloud house; mother did work on the weather team, father was a Night Guard for Celestia, one of the few in those days. I had a bunch of little siblings who adored me and we all lived together pretty well.”

After the events of last night, it all felt so strangely distant to her. The sense of shock at the violation of their safety had affected all of them pretty badly, and for Blossom, it was tenfold for how it dug at her memory...

I couldn’t stop the fire. Nothing worked. Water only made it hotter. Wind only fanned it further. Red and unnatural under the evening stars, it consumed the cloud substance of my home as I screamed helplessly. Above, the Mare in the Moon watched the scene above the clouds pitilessly.

Desperate, I dove into the smoke, crashing through a window. I choked and coughed, searching. I had to find them, I had to!

There. In the hall. They were lined up, beneath the banner. The flames licked at the walls, making them sag and drip. The banner of the crescent moon swallowing the sun. My own voice teared at my skull, unwilling, uncomprehending. My hooves were singed, burning...

“...Blossom?” Apple Bloom asked, her voice small and worried.

For the second time that morning, Shady Blossom jerked, freeing herself of a terrible dream. She looked down at the filly, then up at the others, then down again, looking at the faint scar lines on her hooves and ankles, just visible as white marks. Had I really never noticed them before?

“Y’don’t need to say a thing,” Applejack said, firmly.

Barry closed his mouth, apparently about to say the same thing, and nodded firmly. He got up, going over to his wife’s side, and nuzzled at her mane. “You won’t lose us. I swear it.”

“I’m sorry. Thank you,” Shady murmured, and nuzzled Apple Bloom briefly before putting her down. “I’m sorry, for ruining your vacation, girls. I’m sorry, everyone.”

“It ain’ your fault. When ponies do bad things, it’s on them, not on their victims.”

“I should have been better prepared.”

“For what? Y’said it yourself. Luna put a stop to all that foolishness, or you and she and everypony who knew about it thought so.”

“AJ’s right, Shady,” Lin murmured, reaching over to cover her stepmother’s hooves with her own. “There was nothing you could do to anticipate this.”

Perhaps they were right. Letting her shoulders slump, allowing her family to give her some comfort, it did seem silly and foalish to blame herself. Shaking the feeling that there’s more she should have done was difficult, however. At the very least, she could try to prepare for the future.

Shaking the cloud of ill thoughts from her mind, she forced a smile for the benefit of the others. “Well, I suppose you and the girls are still my guests, Applejack. As long as you’re here, I don’t think... I don’t think we should let somepony terrorize us.”

“That’s my girl,” Barry murmured, tightening a foreleg about her.

“I can get behind that,” Applejack agreed, brightly. “What didja have in mind?”

“Well,” Shady said, looking down at the girls, “I seem to recall someponies talking about opening up a chapter of their club here in Manehattan. It would be a shame if they missed out on that. And, you know, while we have a police escort anyway, it might be nice to lend a little air of officiality.”

Four sets of eyes widened, and Applejack laughed.

“Oh dear,” Lin Seed murmured. “Are you sure it’s all right to encour—”

“Cutie Mark Crusaders club house opening, YAY!” The windows rattled in their casing, and Shady Blossom’s liberated laughter echoed out into the daylight.

In the quiet days since the attack, the Seed family and their guests had managed to recover much of their lost cheer. It was amazing how ponies could bounce back from disaster, given the right encouragement. Where before they huddled in fear, they could find themselves striding about as if nothing had happened at all. It was the resilient will that had served them well for so many years.

Even the continuing presence of a police escort couldn’t dampen Shady Blossom’s mood at that point. The two pegasi were out of uniform and kept themselves at a respectful distance, enough that an unobservant eye might have mistaken their presence as unrelated to the family. They had certainly been helpful at times. Seeing a police escort at the Cutie Mark Crusader club house grand opening in downtown—with a small annex over a shop generously provided by the Oranges at Barry’s request—had filled their new friends from Babs’s school with a sort of ecstatic awe.

Not to mention, having a pair of burly pegasi around to help clean up the damage done to the house or carry groceries back from the market could be nice.

The markets near Uptown had just about anything a pony could dream of. Spices and exotic wares shipped in from across the seas. Products from every corner of Equestria in such abundance that even Applejack had to admit that the Ponyville market seemed bare by comparison.

“Where else could a pony find a set of top-quality farm tools forged by Griffon claws, just a few hoofsteps away from your favorite apple cinnamon tarts?” Blossom asked, prodding her niece in the ribs.

“In a few business days? My barn,” Applejack said, before taking up a pen and writing her address down on a card attached to the boxed up tools.

“True enough,” Shady agreed, smiling over at the girls, who were sitting in on a street performance, where a pair of minotaurs were putting on a puppet show featuring a green dragon and an army of pegasi. “It’s a shame we can’t afford to let them out of our sight, now,” she murmured. “Manehattan isn’t an unsafe place for foals.”

“‘Tis when there’s a crazed evil cultist on the loose.”

Shady Blossom’s ears twitched, and she glanced around, almost as if expecting to see a dark streak in the sky. A thestral in broad daylight would have been easy to spot, however, especially against the brightly colored pegasi and griffons who winged their way overhead between the tall buildings around them. Still, her eyes lingered on the gargoyles and statues and flagpoles looming from above, where somepony might hide from the ground if they were careful enough.

“Ain’ gonna jump us now. Probably,” Applejack reassured her, placing a hoof on her back.

“Yeah, well... can’t hurt to be too careful. Actually,” she said, taking a look at one of the shops nearby, “let’s go take care of something while we’re here.”

“What’s that?” Applejack asked, trotting by her side. The two pegasus ponies settled down, one by the fillies and another at the entrance of the shop. It was a quaint little ground-level store, the lighting intentionally dim to put the incense-scented, dark wooden-furnished inside to best effect. Applejack scrunched up her face at the pungent odors. “Is this an herb shop?”

“Indeed,” she said, nodding towards the rows of bottles containing powders, liquids, pickled ingredients, and more lining the shop’s exterior and interior partitions. An elderly Earth pony was mixing ingredients in a mortar for a waiting stallion, his grey beard stained and shriveled from ages of being held too close to heat sources. “More of an alchemy shop, really.”

“What’re you lookin’ for?” she asked. Applejack went over to a bowl of speckled eggs, frowning down at them.

“Just some things. When they came against my family last time, well... they used some fairly nasty potions.”

“How do you know what you might need to counter, though?” Applejack pointed out. She was about to reach for a jar of what looked to be fermented lizard skins before the owner’s glared warned her off. “Ah mean,” she continued, “there could be a dozen, a hundred possible things.”

“Yeah, but some things never change. Poison, fire, explosives,” Blossom said in a grim tone, selecting a few bottles from the shelves.

Applejack blanched. Following her around the shop, she asked. “All right, I s’pose if’n you know what ye’re doin’. Where’d ya learn alchemy, though?”

“Cooking, sort of,” Shady answered, piling the bottles on the counter to wait for the owner to finish with the other customer. “My mom taught me.”

“Warn’t she a weatherpony?”

“Yes,” Shady nodded, “but she had other skills. Thestrals don’t really go visit villages very often, so we kind of had to be self-sufficient. If somepony breaks a tooth the day after the weekly food run, it becomes a big hassle to go back down to the earth to pick up a potion.”

“Still seems a mite paraniod, but it is yer family after all. Our family.”

“What happened before won’t happen again. I won’t let it.”

The alchemist exchanged bits with the stallion and came over to join them, adjusting his spectacles. “Ah, what have we here,” he said, in a manner that indicated he said that as a conversation started, “a pair of pretty mares, and—a... what have we here?” The second time, the question sounded a lot more sincere, as he examined the powders and flowers and more that Blossom had collected.

“I’m making a few potions,” she said, tapping the counter with a bag of bits.

“You’re making a few gallons of potions, from the looks of it. Young mare, you know that many of these are exceedingly toxic, yes?”

“I’m familiar with all of the contents, yes,” Shady Blossom said, feeling a little agitated at the questioning. It seemed to her that his eyes roamed just a little too much. “I’m making some antipoisons, among other things.”

“Well, if you’re going that route, why don’t you try a little jack’o’wisps, it’ll counteract a huge variety of—” he said, reaching to a shelf and putting a jar by the others, only to leap back when Shady Blossom slammed both of her hooves into the counter, shaking the bottles.

“It also causes blindness, loss of coordination, and acute respiratory problems in subjects with weak constitutions! On a foal, it could seal their lungs shut in sufficient concentration! Are you trying to kill my children?” Shady demanded, shouting at him.

Stunned, Applejack and the apothecary were both silent, watching Blossom snort through her nostrils. “I di-didn’t,” the stallion stammered, “I mean—tiny, insignificant doses...”

“For Luna’s sake, I’m trying to protect my family! Just who—”

“Enough!” Applejack shouted, and when she slammed a hoof in anger, the entire store shook. “Take wha’cha need, pay the stallion, and leave, Shady. What in tarnation has gotten into you?”

For a moment, Blossom herself wasn’t sure. Staring at the stallion, and then at Applejack, it seemed to her that she should have been angry for some reason. Instead, she just felt drained.

Sliding off the counter, she looked, and saw that she had collected an enormous stack of ingredients. Two rows deep, three rows high. Most of them weren’t safe to store without great care, let alone use. Gently, she divided the stack, taking only a few bottles which would serve for fire suppression and for a variety of antipoisons—including the jack’o’wisps. With the stallion still quivering in terror, she weighed them herself on the scale, put a stack of gold bits on the counter, added a few in silent apology, and left.

The police pegasus had stepped in, her eyes wary. She looked to Applejack and Shady Blossom questioningly, and Applejack shook her head. “Waren’t nothin’, just a temper flare.”

Though skeptical, the policemare didn’t see any damage. The apothecary had fled behind the counter, so he wasn’t in sight. Shrugging, she stepped outside, scanning the sky as she had been.

“Feelin’ a little frayed?” Applejack asked, once they were outside.

“More than a little,” Shady murmured, trying to remember just what it was that she had been feeling. It wasn’t really anger, precisely. “More like... like everything is about to fall apart, and I need to fix it.”

“Sweet jack rabbits, auntie, y’can’t go around shoutin’ at folks like that because you’re scared.” Applejack sighed, patting her back with a hoof. “Not that I need to tell ya.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I should have told him I was sorry.”

“Well, he sure won’ give a mare’s thighs the eye ever again, that’s for sure.”

Shady Blossom giggled, unwillingly. Her eyes, too, had turned to watching the sky, however. The sunlit world was always dubiously welcome, but now its light seemed harsh, the shadows cast by the skyscrapers looming ominously.

The day Rarity came to town was exciting. As they had when Applejack and the Crusaders had arrived, the Seed family packed into the carriage and went down as a unit to Grand Central. Dandelion Seed had spent the previous evening dancing on the ceiling, and so she now wore a belt around her midsection with a leash attached to her big sister Lin. Like all pegasus and thestral babies, the earliest stages of flight were extremely important to later development, so they had to put up with the leather-winged little ball of fluff bouncing around the carriage’s innards on the way there.

“No, honey, you’ve already fed,” Shady Blossom protested, nudging her youngest daughter away from her with a hoof when the filly tried to paw at her belly. “I swear, you’re worse than your daddy.”

“Mom!” Lin Seed said, scandalized. Her eyes widened as she realized what she had said. Flushing and sputtering, she stammered, “I-I mean, Shady. That was, uhm. Crude.”

“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” Sweetie Belle said, popping her head up between the seats. “Why don’t you call Shady Blossom your mom?”

“Sweetie!” Applejack called back, from where she was pulling the carriage alongside her uncle. They were just pulling back to a stop and freeing themselves from the harnesses. “Don’t you ask uncomfortable questions!”

“No, it’s all right,” Lin called forward. She smiled awkwardly at Sweetie Belle. “Though that may not have been the most polite question.”

Sweetie smiled bashfully, her ears drooping a bit below her mulberry mane.

“When I married Lin’s father,” Shady said, popping the door open and letting the girls spill out, “she was already a teenager. It was only a couple years ago, after all.”

“Just a few months after Nightmare Moon came back,” Apple Bloom supplied.

“That’s right,” Lin Seed said, nodding. “And, well... I’m sorry if it does come across as rude or callous to you, but... it’s hard to look at Shady Blossom and see her as my mother.”

“But why?” Sweetie asked, her eyes wide as she backed up to keep in front of the older ponies. “She’s so nice! I’d be happy to have her as my mom if I didn’t have mine.”

“It’s not that simple, Sweetie,” Shady said, turning her around before she could plow into the elderly griffon on his way to feed the pigeons. “Lin’s nearly a grown mare. I wouldn’t mind being her mom, it’s true, but she needs to find her own way. I’m content to help her along as much as I can.”

“I, well...” Lin smiled at Shady. “In different circumstances, maybe. I do kind of give you a bit of grief.”

“You’re a teenager, it’s natural,” Barry Seed said, coming to join his family. Unlike before, they had a policestallion to guard the carriage, and none of them felt like letting the kids go. Dandelion flew down to Lin Seed’s head and started to gnaw on one of her ears enthusiastically. Hop, of course, went to sit on his customary place atop his father’s head.

“You were there for Babs Seed when she really needed it, though. When mom, well...” she looked to the girls.

Babs, who had been keeping silent, spoke up. “Ain’ no pony is a better mom than my mom,” she declared, challenging anypony to contradict her with a blush and a glare.

“And you are the mother of my other siblings, so that’s close enough. Ow, Dandy, stop it,” she whined, pulling the filly off her head. Dandelion went back to buzzing over their heads, staring wide-eyed at everything around her.

Scootaloo fluttered her wings, hard, managing to clear a few feet, enough to bump noses with the baby thestral. She fell to land on Applejack’s back, her face split in a wide grin. “Yeah, yeah, enough mushy stuff, let’s go!”

Taking the stairs up into Grand Central Terminal, their party drew a lot of stares. Shady Blossom herself felt them, knowing that ponies were putting two-and-two together at seeing the thestral children and her standing with Barry. It was always strange and a little sad to her how ponies could be so accustomed to multiracial marriages, but even a thousand years after the end of the tribal era they still looked with shock on a more unusual pairing.

Somehow, though, the station seemed more stifling to Shady than it had the last time she had visited. In objective terms, the press of ponies was no greater, but it seemed to her that, if anything, it held more dangers. Past the Earth pony vendor selling clockwork toys, there was plenty of space for an assassin to hide. Up above, a whole wing of thestrals could be hiding behind the clocks hanging from the ceiling.

Shaking the thoughts from her mind, she focused on locating the platform where Rarity’s train should be coming in within the next few minutes.

“So I was thinkin’ about settin’ up an office here in Manehattan,” Applejack said, pointedly glancing at anything but Shady Blossom. “Alongside the Oranges.”

“Oh, yeah?” Barry asked. “Don’t suppose you’d need the help of a good lawyer—I know a couple.”

“Nah,” Applejack shook her head. “Already talked it over with the Oranges. Said they’d be happy to, y’know... come on by to discuss it.”

By all rights, Shady Blossom should have been happy for her niece taking a step towards overcoming her own difficult past. She was still trying to put aside the strange feeling that they were being watched, however, and an obscure noise wasn’t helping her concentration. Shaking her head, she tried to clear her ears. “Wish they’d stop that buzzing,” she muttered, “must drive everypony crazy.”

“What buzzin’?” Apple Bloom asked, cocking her head.

Shady blinked, and glanced around. The sound was gone, as was the feeling.

“Glad to hear it,” Barry said, sounding enthused. None of the others seem to have heard Shady Blossom. “Will let us see each other a lot more often.”

Stopping by the tofu frier, Shady Blossom shook her head again. The vendor had to ask her order twice before she heard him.

“Twenty-one,” she said, glancing at the squishy white blocks swimming in the bubbling oil.

“Uh... you sure?”

“Yes!” she snapped. “Of course I’m sure, I—”

Pausing, she contemplated that. What in the world did she need so many tofu burgers for? She glanced around at her small party of seven who could actually process such a thing.

Three times as many, in case we needed to make a run for it and couldn’t rely on getting food, she realized. “No, just seven, please. Sorry.” Her head was starting to throb now, pulsing behind her left temple. The buzzing returned, and it seemed to her that if she just cocked an ear and listened, she could hear somepony speaking.

“Yeah, whateva,” he said, shrugging, dishing food.

As they approached the platform, Shady Blossom tried not to listen to the buzzing. For some reason, it didn’t feel like a good idea. Her certainty that she was being watched increased tenfold, however, and she started to scan the station continuously.

It was when they were about to settle down to wait that she shouted, “There!” and sprang into the air with powerful thrusts of her wings. Dive-bombing, she tackled a dark shape lurking behind one of the pillars, behind a stack of luggage, and there was a surprised wuff of another pony losing all of the air in his lungs.

He struggled, hooves flailng, but she was fast, faster than she could have believed. Wrapping her lower legs around the dark pony’s midsection, she spun them around and slammed him into the ground again, now sitting on his back. Pinning his rear hooves to his sides, she reached down and yanked his forehooves around, pinning them behind his back, eliciting a girlish squeal.

It was at that point that her head cleared. Quite abruptly, Shady Blossom realized she was straddling and rather effectively disabling another pony. It was, moreover, not another thestral, but merely a grey-coated pegasus stallion with a midnight mane. His camera had clattered to the floor beside him, popping open and spilling a roll of film out.

Stunned passerby cleared quickly when station security and both pegasus police officers dove in to the scene.

“What happened?” the policemare demanded, moving to push Shady Blossom up and take up pinning the strange stallion.

Before Shady could answer, another mare in the crowd shouted, “That stallion was taking photos of ponies from behind the luggage!”

Even as the other pegasus picked up the camera to peer at the film, Shady Blossom’s memory went into a film rewind of its own. Reflecting, she realized she had caught the gleam of a camera lens from behind the concealment of the stacked bags and boxes.

How in the blazes had I been able to do that? she thought, stunned.

“Celestia’s flanks. Can you believe it?” one of the station guards said, disgusted.

“Next time, ma’am, please report this to someone in authority,” the policestallion informed her, closing up the camera. “That was dangerously close to excessive force.”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I thought... I thought he was the thestral.”

The two police officers looked down at the stallion, sharing a quick nod. “If a pony saw this guy in the dark, she could think he was a thestral, especially if he was covered up,” the mare suggested.

“Yeah, though it’s pure speculation,” the stallion agreed, with reservation. “Still, it’s worth asking him some questions. Can run him in for stalking, at the very least.”

“Well, ma’am,” the pegasus mare said, chipper. “If this is our culprit, we may owe you an apology for not catching him sooner.”

“Heh,” Shady Blossom said, looking wonderingly at the stallion she had knocked down. The buzzing, hte soreness in her legs, and the headache were all gone, as was the sensation of being watched. She didn’t recognize him in the slightest, but if he had been taking photos of her and her family, that indicated a rather unwholesome interest of some sort.

“Whoa, that was so cool!” Scootaloo said, hopping up, clearing the way faster than the others with her rapidly beating wings. “Where did you learn those awesome moves? Woosh, bam!”

“I...” Shady said, searching. “My dad. He taught me. Night Guard.”

“You gotta teach me. Rainbow Dash has been showing me some kung fu, but that was neat, too!”

“Sure, kiddo,” she said, her voice strangely dull. The others raced up, the younger of them looking in awe at the catch. Barry Seed and Applejack, however, were both giving her uncertain looks.

“Wow, mom, didja catch the bad guy?”

“Huzzah... somepony get the number on that thestral...” the grey pegasus slurred, as he was hauled up by the policestallion. The policemare stood by, not trying to fade back into the crowd after this incident.

It seemed ridiculous to think that this was the end of it. A staged attack, pulled by a stranger, and then foiled in broad daylight by pure coincidence. Were it not for the fact that the sense of danger had passed and the buzzing had gone, Shady Blossom might have been waiting for the other hoof to drop.

Instead, she smiled radiantly, and embraced her husband. “I don’t know, honey,” she told Babs, “but I’m feeling a little better about things, at least.”

“Sweetie Belle! Darling!” a high, cultured voice called.

“Rarity!” Sweetie squealed, and leapt to tackle a white unicorn wearing a sunhat who had gravitated to the scene. The sisters collided and bounced off an enormous train of luggage behind the older mare. “It was so cool! Shady Blossom just took down the bad guy, right in front of us!”

“Oh! That’s just wonderful, dear. Excellent for you,” Rarity said, beaming as she greeted the others, extending a polished hoof. “I was worried I’d have to take Sweetie home with me, and that would have been a terrible disappointment to her, I’m sure.”

“Darned right,” Sweetie Belle agreed, her curly tail practically wagging.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Shady Blossom said, taking the hoof. “Lin Seed and Sweetie have told me a lot about you. I actually wore a variant of one of your Gala dresses to an event with my husband. The Starry Night?”

“Twilight’s dress!” Rarity gushed. “Yes, of course, that would look marvelous on you. Though, I might say, I’d have altered it considerably to take in the effect of your wings. A silver chain, just so, would set them off beautifully.”

“I’ll have to remember that. Come on, let me introduce you to the rest of the family. Lin is dying to meet you,” Shady said, gesturing with a wing.

With her husband helping with the luggage, they started on their way back to the Oranges a few minutes later. Shady Blossom practically pranced, light with joy. It seemed as if the nightmare was finally over.

With the help of Rarity and the policemare, fixing up the house was an easy task, especially now that everypony’s spirits had been raised. The fillies ran around with dust bins in their teeth, while Lin Seed fixed up the kitchen. With the damaged windows and walls patched up by a contractor, the replacement furniture was easy to move in with some muscle and magic.

Up in the master bedroom, Shady Blossom and Applejack were righting a few things. They’d replaced the sheets on the town bed and taken down the damaged outfits in the closet.

“Can’t believe that’s it. I s’pose they’ll be figurin’ the story out by the station,” Applejack said, wonderingly. She swept her hat off, wiping sweat from her brow as they finished righting a dresser. “What do y’think might have driven him to it?”

“Who can say?” Shady Blossom murmured, shaking her head. “It’s not impossible that he was hurt by the Order, too, some time in the past. He could have wanted to get back at any thestral he found. Maybe he didn’t like Barry and me being together? Maybe it had to do with Barry, one of his business rivals getting back at him? For all I know, this was just a sick act and he needs help?”

“Darned right he needs help. Ain’ no pony with sense does somethin’ like that,” Applejack growled.

“Oh, gosh,” Shady Blossom announced, looking in the closet. “I can’t believe it!”

“What is it?” Applejack asked, coming to look.

“My hope chest,” she growled, pulling it out from the closet. A white wood box bound with black bands, it slid across the floor to rest in front of the bed at her prodding. She pointed a hoof at the lock, which was dangling, torn off by what seemed like great strength.

“Now that’s all sorts of sick. Think he was lookin’ for blackmail, maybe?”

“Can’t imagine what he’d find. Maybe he is just a sick pervert,” Shady said, but hesitated, one hoof on the lid. For some reason, the chest felt intensely private, for more reasons than just its relation to her wedding. Something’s wrong... something... oh, don’t tell me the buzzing is back again!

The room suddenly seemed a lot smaller than it was, the sense of eyes on her again. Going to the window, Shady Blossom stared out, trying to see if there was anypony watching.

“Well?” Applejack asked, still fixated on the chest. “Let’s have a look and see.”

“Wait, don’t!” Shady Blossom shouted, feeling as if a vice were on her. She leapt for the chest, but it was too late. Applejack’s hoof had kicked it open.

Blossom’s head was screaming now.

The buzzing had become a roar, voices howling at her.

They wouldn’t leave, they wouldn’t stop.

Applejack stared at the contents of the chest. Stacks of jars were packed carefully, sealed with lead but for a thin filament leading from each one. Papers were stacked, lists of names, locations, and times. A diagram of the above-ground rail lines around town, another of the lines leading to and from Manehattan with locations circled and noted. A map of City Hall was marked in similar fashion. Hoof knives, wing blades, vials of clear liquid, needles, darts, and more lined the sides of the trunk.

The night will last forever, voices around her were chanting, heartfelt and eager. Down with the sun! Down with the Tyrant! Down with Celestia!

Above them all, pinned proudly on the underside of the lid, a midnight banner hung. Its upturned crescent moon was swallowing the sun, and rays of deep blue and purple radiated off it.

Light was dawning in Applejack’s eyes. Her face turned white, and she looked at Shady Blossom uncomprehendingly.

Raise the black banner! The night shall last forever!

“I’m sorry, AJ,” Shady Blossom said, her voice dull. Faster than either mare could believe, she snapped a hoof into Applejack’s throat and crushed her windpipe. It wasn’t enough to seriously hurt her, but it made her stumble back and kept her from crying out. Applejack stumbled back. She tried to stand, barely managing by pushing on her Earth pony durability and built-up strength to get back up. Snapping a pair of knives out from the chest, Shady Blossom advanced to finish the job.

“Why?” Applejack wheezed, weakly, her legs trembling too much to allow her up. “How?”

Shady stopped, her mind racing. Images flooded across her mind. Potions of fire held in her mouth, pouring on to a cloud house. Babs Seed, crying in her forelegs. Fighting with another thestral, his hoofblades cutting into her. Pushing, struggling to birth Dandelion. Wiring together alchemical explosives, freshly wrapped burns on her hooves. Barry Seed, kissing her, filling her world with love and light.

“I...” Shady Blossom said, sweat breaking out. “Applejack...”

She had to be silenced. Then she could smash the place up, break the window from outside, and claim she’d seen the whole thing. They’d never suspect her.

Warm mouths nuzzling at her, seeking out her life-giving milk. The happy faces of the Crusaders as the made them breakfast each morning, begging for seconds. The weight of a lover.

Shady Blossom was paralyzed. Her legs wouldn’t move, her wings were stiff and still. “Applejack... I can’t... I’m sorry, I’m not...” Her mouth was so dry it was hard to speak, let alone with how stiff her muscles were. “Please. Help.” she begged, forcing the words out, her eyes wide and terrified.

Applejack heaved. She didn’t understand what was going on, and leaping foolishly at an armed opponent was a good way to get yourself killed. Applejack, however, was the last pony to turn down a heartfelt request for aid. Shady Blossom instinctively ducked aside. Still, she managed to slow herself enough for the other pony to clip her, her great strength sending Blossom to the wall. The shock of it stunned her, but. more importantly, cleared her head a bit as well.

Somewhere downstairs, voices were rising. It sounded like Noir, the detective, and Barry Seed. “...thing is, Velvet Curtain said she’d run out after only a half hour.”

“That stallion didn’t have anything to do with it?” Barry was asking, startled.

“He’s being stubborn, but we found press credentials on him. Seems somepony in the department leaked the story, or maybe one of your neighbors did.”

“Wait, did you hear something? Shady?” Barry called.

“Mom?” Babs called. “You okay up there?”

Turning towards the window, Shady Blossom threw it open. Not knowing what else to do, not knowing who she could turn to, she did the only thing she thought might help.

Screaming at the moon, she lifted her hooves imploringly and shouted, “Luna, help me!”

It was as if the world stood still. With the wind whipping her mane, Shady Blossom stood there, lost and alone in her own body. Somewhere outside the room, her family was coming to aid her, not knowing what they would find. Near her feet, Applejack was gasping for air still, her throat struggling to let her breathe.

For her children, for her husband, for her family, Shady Blossom begged the one pony in all of Equestria who could have saved her.

To her utter amazement, a shadow crossed the moon. It flashed down, quick as lightning, and a wave of stars encased in inky blackness washed past her. It slammed against the door as it started to open, knocking it closed and making Barry thud against the far wall.

Out of the cloud pressed a mare of darkness, her black armor and crown sparkling with a hidden light. In her mane was contained all the starry universe, and she looked at the scene with pity as she held the door shut with one black-shod hoof.

Awed, unable to speak, Shady sunk to all four of her knees. Memory was rising up in her, bubbling out of the sick morass in her skull. In the presence of the princess, it was all becoming clear. She could remember the last time she had met the Princess of the Night...

Shady Blossom tapped her armored hooves against the stones of the old castle, beneath the bare moon, her eyes scanning the horizon. Her helmet was off, letting the wind catch her short mane.

“Do you see Her?” Black Cloud asked, the teenager practically bouncing in his ill-fitting armor. “Is She here?”

“Shut up,” Bell Tone said, swatting him with the butt of her spear. “The Queen comes on Her own time.”

“I still can’t believe what happened,” Star Gazer said, morose. She perched on top of a crumbling parapet, looking down into the remnants of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. “I thought this would be over already.”

“If it were,” Shady said, with quiet conviction, “She wouldn’t need us. Our Queen has called, and we will respond at last.”

“But... but She was beaten,” Star Gazer said, squirming uncomfortably. No pony raised a hoof to her. They all felt what she was voicing, after all. “Weren’t the Elements of Harmony supposed to aid us? They just... took Her power away like it was nothing, and then the Tyrant came back and they embraced each other, like nothing at all had happened!”

Arc Light lifted his face to speak, but then lowered it, rubbing at his missing eye. For a moment, Shady Blossom worried that he might strike at her. It was definitely within him. Of all of them, though, he had seemed the most broken up by the events of the previous day.

It was a day that hadn’t been supposed to come, either. Nightmare Moon had declared to the world that night was everlasting, and then dawn had risen in stark defiance.

“It’s a trick. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. She’s been wounded, but not beaten,” Shady Blossom said, rubbing the scars on her forelegs. They were throbbing particularly badly tonight. “It has to be, or...”

“...or it’s all been for nothing,” Arc Light whispered. “Everything we did. All the preparations we made. Everypony we hurt.’

Silence reigned.

Just as it seemed they might all give into despair again, a shout went out from one of the towers. “The Queen! It’s her!”

As if the words were a spark to oil, thestrals all around the castle leapt into action, soaring up to get a look, and then down, in through the holes of the ruins, to gather in orderly ranks in the main hall, leading up to where the Elements of Harmony had once awaited their representatives. Midnight armored grey ponies, all of them armed and ready, waited patiently. Shady Blossom stood in the front row, as near to the spot as she could, her heart pounding.

Part of her knew that this was it. This was the moment that all of her long years of devotion would pay fruit. She would look into her lady’s eyes and see the gratitude in them.

Past the great windows, a black chariot passed by, sharp and foreboding as it swept through the air. The thestrals raised themselves slightly, then quickly bowed, waiting.

After a few minutes, somepony coughed. The kneeling Order of Eternal Night began to shift uncomfortably.

Eventually, somepony went over to the doors, peeking through. “Ah. Dread Majesty?” he called, his voice echoing in the empty hall. “We’re meeting in here.”

“Ah, of course, our apologies...?”

“B-B-Black Cloud, Dread Majesty,” the stallion stammered.

“Thank you, Black Cloud, thou art a fine young buck,” Her voice said. He fell to his belly at once, overwhelmed by the honor of being addressed so.

Striding into the room, flanked by a set of Night Guard, was the Princess of the Night. A slim mare with a short, powder blue mane, She projected power and confidence. Rather than be disappointed by the sight of the Princess, who was barely taller than Shady Blossom herself, she felt awe. Her Mistress came among them in a beautiful, pleasing guise, a sign of Her favor if anything.

Coming to a stop near Shady Blossom, she turned and looked over the gathered crowd. Some fifty ponies, all of them waiting on Her word. It must have been Shady’s imagination, but she thought saw sadness in those eyes.

“My little ponies,” Princess Luna called, Her voice booming over the gathering. “I extend mine gratitude to thee for coming on such short notice.”

“For you, my Lady, we waited a thousand years,” Star Gazer gushed. She squeaked, realizing she had spoken out of turn in her excitement, and lowered her face.

“Yes, thou hath,” Luna murmured, and looked to her. “What is thy name?”

“St-St-St...” she squeaked at the ground, squirming.

“It is all right, my little pony. Thou mayest look upon me, I hold thee no malice. Clear thy throat, take thy time.”

“St-St...” she trailed off again, and swallowed, daring to look up after a moment. “Star Gazer, your Majesty.”

“That is a lovely name, child. Tell me, what wouldst thou be doing, were thee not bound to my service?”

“I, uhm...” Star Gazer blushed brightly, looking around. Shady Blossom prodded her. The Queen had asked her a question, which could not be denied. “I-I was going to st-study to be a teacher, Dread Majesty.” Her blush deepened, particularly as the gathered warriors snickered. Shady herself looked at her in some surprise.

“And thou?” Luna asked. Shady started, realizing that she was being addressed.

“With you, ma’am!” she answered at once, snapping to attention.

“Forgive me, what is thy name?”

“Shady Blossom, my lady.”

“I see upon thy flank flowers of oleander. What is thy special talent?”

“Alchemy and poisons, my lady. Oleander is a poisonous plant,” she said, proudly, lifting one of her scarred hooves. “I got it mixing in your service. I’ve been with you since foalhood.”

Now Shady knew she was imagining things. The Princess’s eyes, looking into hers, seemed utterly heartbroken. For a moment, she wondered if she had done something to displease Her, and felt her ears drooping.

“Majesty... is something wrong? I...I can change if you like.”

“Oh, Shady Blossom, thou canst scarcely conceive how much we wish that were true.”

“...Majesty?” Shady asked, confused. Against her own better judgement, she stepped forward. Her hooves were throbbing painfully, and she withered inside to see her Princess behaving so.

“If I asked thee to abandon my service, to cast aside thy weapons and armor, wouldst thou?”

It sounded like banishment. Shady Blossom felt herself quaking, her eyes wide. “Majesty?” she asked again. It felt as if her entire world might crumble. “N-no, I mean, I-I would do anything you say. Please, please don’t send me away.”

Throwing herself at the feet of the alicorn, Shady Blossom looked up at her imploringly, abandoning all decorum. “You’re everthing to me. I’ve done... I’ve done so much in your name, I can never go back. Please, I’ve never had a life of my own.”

Above her, the Princess’s face was lined with pain. Her eyes shut, and tears started to stream from them. “Then I shall give it to thee. I shall give thee a life of thine own, free from me.”

Midnight light flared along Her whorled horn, and filled Shady Blossom’s vision.

Taller, stronger, and possessed of her ancient strength, Luna flared her horn once more, and her deep cyan magic swallowed the room. Applejack, the chest, Shady Blossom, and Luna herself were sucked away, only to reappear in a dizzying flash on the roof of a nearby building, looking over the ocean and a bank of clouds that was being herded in for tomorrow’s rain. Above, the moon hung full in the sky, while below the city pulsed with light.

Stepping over to the downed Earth pony, Luna lowered her head and touched magic light to Applejack’s throat. She coughed at once, her breathing passageway clear, though the bruise didn’t go away. Luna kept her from getting up too quickly, steadying her with her forehooves. “There, there. Take it easy.”

“What...” Applejack groaned. Her voice still wheezed. “Princess? What in the... hay is going on?”

“It was me, Applejack,” Shady Blossom whispered. “It was me the whole time.”

“Why? How?” Applejack demanded, echoing her earlier questions. “Your own family, your husband and kids!”

“I... wasn’t always a terrible gardener, or a mediocre painter, or an aspiring actress,” she said, staring at her own hooves. They were the scarred hooves that symbolized her broken foalhood. “Once upon a time, I was a member of the Order of Eternal Night. I’ve always been one, for as far back as I can remember.”

“But how? You... it don’t make sense.”

“I didn’t remember. It would happen when I was asleep, tired, drunk, or scared. My old self would just... pop out. I can remember doing all those things. I remember flying all over the countryside when I was supposed to be in bed at home, scouting out positions. I remember spending long nights mixing potions. There were times when I’d go out and set fire to things just so I could scream in frustration at the world, because I always felt trapped.”

Princess Luna sat down to listen, her starry mane blowing in its own ethereal wind. She did not interrupt, watching the two with deep sorrow in her eyes.

“I was trapped by a new life. I had found a pony who loved me and I cared for his children and bore his foals. I had fun acting. There were friends and parties and wonderful things under the sun. Oh, Luna... it was so beautiful,” Shady moaned. Tears came hotly, and she sobbed piteously. “The life you gave me was so wonderful, I felt loved like I never had been. No mother or father, just me and my master. He was so cold, all I had to cling to was your memory. I sang to you, every night, hoping you would answer and come down to me. You did, eventually, you gave me that life of my own.”

Luna didn’t answer. Applejack did, after a stunned silence. “The Princess... you wiped her memory, but it didn’ take, did it?”

“Indeed, Applejack. I fear the blame for this lies rather squarely on my own shoulders.”

“It’s my fault,” Shady Blossom sobbed. “I... I did all of those horrible things, I trashed my own house and threatened my own children. I am a monster, I am.”

“No!” both Applejack and Luna shouted together, and started, the two glancing at one another sheepishly.

“Shady...” Applejack said, coming over to put her hoof around the thestral’s shoulder. Shady jerked, casting it off, but she forced it, holding her tightly. “You listen to me. I ain’ seen love like that in a pony in... in a long time. Ye’re as good a mother as m-my own.”

“Then why did I do it? I couldn’t have loved them if I hurt them so badly!”

“You didn’t hurt them,” Luna said, her voice quiet, yet firm. “Never once did you lay a hoof on them, neither hide nor hair. No matter how your angry, hateful other self raged, it could never strike at your family directly. You protected them, and did so from my failure.”

“I attacked Applejack!” Shady countered. “I smashed her throat in and was going to kill her when she found out!”

“You didn’t. You didn’ kill me, ah mean,” Applejack said. “Ye looked into my eyes and begged me to save ya from yerself. Ah could see that.”

“Listen to her, Shady Blossom. She is not the Element of Honesty for no reason,” Luna murmured.

Breaking down again, Shady fell against Applejack, her wails echoing out over the night. She clung desperately to her beloved niece, still able to remember the feeling of her throat under her hoof as if it were her own. She could have cut her heart out with those knives.

Rising, Luna strode over to them and pulled the pair against her, tucking her head around them. “Forgive me. I should have been checking up on you. I should have known that the spell would falter. On ponies with such strong needs and conviction, it should have been no wonder that it would have such difficulty.”

“What am I going to do?” Shady Blossom moaned. “My children... how can I face them again? No. I should go. I should leave and take it with me... just... go.”

“Luna, please,” Applejack said, softly. “Help her. Her family needs her.”

“I’m violent, Applejack. I’ve done... I’ve done some things, very bad things.”

“I know what I see, Shady Blossom,” she said, firmly. “You ain’ that pony any more.”

Princess Luna stepped back, looking down at them. “Shady Blossom... in spite of my error, will you trust me?”

Staring up at her Princess of the Night, Shady silenced herself. Slowly, she nodded, her childhood hero filling her eyes.

“Do you want to remain with your family, to give them the care and comfort that you have so ably provided in the past?”

“I... I... I don’t want Babs to grow up without a mother again,” Shady murmured. “I don’t want to abandon Lin Seed. I want Dandelion and Hop to know who their mother is.”

“And what of you?”

Closing her eyes, Shady Blossom drew in a deep, painful breath. “I love them so much... I want to be with them again, even if... even if I am a monster.”

“No pony, no one, is a monster if they really and truly love another being. Take it from one who remembers being a monster, who remembers hurting ponies and laughing about it, who sought to drown the world in darkness and consume it. There is a better way.”

“I’ll be there for you,” Applejack said, firmly. “I swear it.”

“Peace, Applejack,” Luna said, with a smile. “I wouldn’t dream of doing this without your help. All right, then... Shady Blossom.”

“Yes, Princess?” she asked, lifting her face again.

“Let me start by removing this,” she said, and her horn lit up. The contents of the chest drifted out in her aura, and she looked at them distastefully for a moment, before lifting her head and flinging them all far into the sky. Somewhere, far above, there was a burst of light, as the explosive potions detonated.

That felt strangely good. The brief little spark of light was like a falling star, leaving Shady Blossom’s life forever. She felt herself smiling at the sight.

“Then, let me place another spell on you. Another spell of forgetfulness.”

“But, Princess—” Applejack began.

Lifting a hoof, Luna forestalled her with a gentle touch. “I know. It won’t be the same spell. It will be gentler. It will help you forget this night and what you have learned, but only for a time. In your dreams, you will not lash out, but you will come to remember and, I hope, understand who you once were. I have learned, in my time with Twilight Sparkle and her friends, that the only true path to redemption is in forgiveness.”

Lowering herself on her knees to look more closely at Shady Blossom, she touched her nose to her mane, briefly. “The most important step in that is forgiving yourself. You must make amends, and do so at your own initiative. It’s a long, difficult journey, but I believe you are up to it, especially with such fine ponies around you.”

Lowering her face, Shady sniffed. “I... I don’t know if I can forgive myself, my lady, but... but... thank you. I will try. You... you’ll always be the lady of my heart. My Qu-I mean, my Princess.”

“Thank you, Shady Blossom. We will meet again, and soon, once you’ve had a chance to work yourself out some. Perhaps I might ask you to send me regular letters to keep me apprised of your progress,” she said, sharing a smile with Applejack at that last.

“Now,” Luna went on, and lowered her horn, touching it to Shady Blossom’s head.

Her voice started to waver, as Shady felt tiredness sweeping over her. She laid her head down on her forelegs, feeling like her head was being stuffed with cotton.

“Sleep. Perchance to dream. For what dreams may come, I will be there, watching over you.”

Standing on the platform in Grand Central Station, Shady Blossom marveled at how much had been crammed into just a few short weeks. Standing there, hugging Applejack, Rarity, and the girls, she felt exhausted. From the first day and its harrowing night, to the rambunctious adventures of four young girls and their growing cadre of Crusader friends, to the night where the crime committed against her family was resolved and sealed by the hoof of Princess Luna herself, it seemed as though there was nothing left in the world for her to do.

Of course, she knew that to be a lie immediately. Her family still needed raising, her husband needed supporting, and she had an appointment with a casting director that her stepdaughters were practically shoving her into. There was so much left for her to do that it seemed a wonder that she could get any of it done at all.

Lingering around her neck, Applejack whispered into her ear. “You hold on tight, I’ll be back as soon as ah can.”

“You’d better,” Shady Blossom said, laughing. “You have a business here, too. You must be insane, shuttling back and forth.”

“Yeah, well... some things really just are that important,” she said, tilting her hat to hide her face and blush.

“Come on, dear,” Rarity said. “We’ll miss the train. Oh, and, Shady Blossom?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t let bad dreams get you down. In the morning, there will always be smiling faces waiting for you.”

“I won’t, thank you,” Shady Blossom said, and reached up to rub at her eyes. To her surprise, she found them wet, her cheeks stained. “Good bye, everyone.”

“It’s not truly goodbye if we’ll see one another again. Farewell,” Rarity said. She had to resort to levitating Sweetie Belle out, since her sister appeared to be trying to seep into Babs’s side.

“So long! I’ll be back in Ponyville soon!” Babs called, waving a small hoof.

“Bye! See you soon! You’d better show me those awesome moves again!” Scootaloo called.

“See ya next time, cous!” Apple Bloom said, standing on her hind legs to wave both of her front hooves.

With so much waving going on, by the time the train did pull out of the station, they felt as those their forelegs might fall off. Lifting up to drift a bit over the crowd, Shady Blossom felt the wind rush through her mane, and did a lazy roll to look at the train as it started out west.

It was a good life, and she wouldn’t leave it for anything in the world.

THE END

A Hiccup in Time

Twilight Sparkle practically threw a glob of celery casserole onto her plate. She would have skipped dinner, but... well, after-dinner research hour wouldn’t be after dinner if dinner never happened, right? She didn’t even bother to use the serving spoon, not when magic would do the trick. “Spike,” she said through her first mouthful, “I got to thinking about that time-travel spell.”

“Not that thing again!” Spike said as he grimaced and held his stomach. “Now that I am future Spike, I don’t want another tummyache like that ever again!”

“No, Spike. We know how it works now, so I wouldn’t make that mistake. No mysterious warnings this time.” She gulped down another bite and took a long drink of water. The sooner she got enough food down to qualify as a meal, the sooner she could get to the important stuff. “I was researching it a bit more. It takes a constant amount of power to produce the effect—it’s how you divide it up that matters. There’s a balance between how far you go back and how long you stay there. Last time, I jumped back far enough that I could only stay a few minutes, but it looks like if I chose a more recent time, I could stay longer.”

Spike nodded, but one eyebrow stayed aloft. “Makes sense. How long do you want it to last?”

“Well, I’ve figured out that the tipping point is about half an hour. If I go back less than that, the duration drops off again. You can asymptotically approach the time when you left.” Another hasty swallow, another slug of water. Spike would come around. This was science, after all.

“Sounds... like trouble,” he said. Maybe he wouldn’t come around...

“I agree it could be.” The slow approach might be successful. But not too slow—she wanted to get to the magic! “But we already know that going back further works, as long as you don’t misinterpret things.” Twilight blushed, and Spike groaned while holding his tummy again.

“Think of how useful it could be!” she continued, ticking items off an imaginary list in the air. “Remind yourself of something you forgot to pick up at the market, tell yourself to hurry up or you’ll miss an appointment, jog your memory about a special occasion... There’s lots of good it could do.”

Spike merely scowled.

“C’mon,” Twilight mumbled through another mouthful. “I’m going to try it after dinner. And I’ll only go back ten minutes to test it out at first, to be on the safe side.”

“If you say so.” Spike tapped a claw on the tabletop.

Always the doubter, just because things went wrong in the past. Oh, well. Twilight shoveled in one more forkful of casserole. That should be enough. There was a spell to cast, after all. “Mmph wit owf.” Gulp. “I mean, I can’t wait to try it out!”

“See, Spike? It’s—hic!—working just like before.” Magic flowing, time period firmly in mind... Yes, everything operating within normal parameters. And Spike at his post, holding down the few papers left out on the desk. “Hic!” she added.

“Twilight, you really need to chew your food. You wouldn’t have those hiccups if you hadn’t wolfed it down.” Spike could be adorable when he activated parent mode. Still...

“Spike, I’m trying to concentrate.” He rolled his eyes and leaned an elbow on the desktop.

The glow from Twilight’s horn expanded to cover her. That same warmth again as in her previous temporal escapade—she knew that she was about to wink out, and Spike had closed his eyes against the expected flash.

“Hic!”

Twilight gobbled down a big bite of casserole, and wasn’t particularly quiet about it, as she needed to get to her experiment. Normally, this would have been an unremarkable occurrence, but this time, Twilight watched her do it.

“It worked!” the new arrival shouted.

Twilight—well, old Twilight—no, technically, she was younger. Original Twilight. Yes. Original Twilight jerked her head up and gaped. “You mean...?”

“Yes!” Twilight clapped her hooves together. “I’m from ten minutes in your future!”

Original Twilight leapt from her chair, squealed, and locked Twilight in a tight hug. “That’s wonderful! Hic! All of our preparations paid off?”

Twilight nodded and directed a huge self-satisfied smile at the ceiling. “Yes. We secured all the loose material in the library, and nothing got blown around. We made sure there was no ice cream in the freezer—” she gave Spike a pointed glance “—and we planned the time interval. I should flash forward again right before you start casting the spell.” A quick look at the clock and... “So I have about five minutes left.”

“Great! Hic! Did it feel any different than... y’know, that debacle last time?”

Twilight winced. “No, just the same.”

“Interesting. Hic!” Original Twilight scratched her chin for a moment. “Say, does the spell cure hiccups, too? You don’t seem to have any.”

“Oh. Hm.” True. Strange the things that go unnoticed until they’re mentioned. But yes, she hadn’t hiccupped since she got here—got now... Maybe she’d address the lack of proper terminology at a later date. “No, it wasn’t listed as a side effect. But if it does, that’d be a wonderful advancement for medicine! Ooh, I love progress!” Twilight gushed as they both did a little happy dance. “I’ll be sure to document that when I get back to my own time. This calls for a formal report.”

And then with another peek at the clock, Twilight said, “Okay, it’s getting close. You ought to be able to see me flash forward in two more minutes. Then I can get to work writing this up and publish—Hic!”

Twilight gobbled down a big bite of casserole and watched herself do it. “It worked!” the watcher exclaimed.

“Then what about her?” Spike asked, pointing at the third Twilight, who had the worst sense of deja vu right now. Oh, Celestia...

“Wait, how did you get here?” Original Twilight asked.

“I was her a few minutes ago,” Twilight said, angling her muzzle toward her previous iteration. “I came here instead of going back to my time. I don’t know how—I didn’t recast the spell. Did anything unusual happen when you cast it the first time?” she asked Middle Twilight.

“No. You?” Middle Twilight replied.

Twilight shrugged, but her eyes began darting around the room. Things didn’t make sense. She didn’t like it when things didn’t make sense. “I was expecting to be here a couple minutes longer, but the magic activated a little early, right about the time I—”

“Well, the spell was going normally and activated right on time, but at that second, it just happened that I—”

“—hiccupped.”

“—hiccupped.”

“Hic!” Original Twilight contributed. A lengthy silence followed, then she raised her eyebrows and pricked her ears forward. “So you—” she pointed at Middle Twilight “—hiccupped when you cast the original spell, and you—” then at Twilight “—hiccupped later and somehow activated the spell again?”

Twilight’s face went ashen. No. No way that could have—“Hic!”

The novelty had long since worn off by now.

Twilight shouldered her way past the other seven Twilights standing around to get to the one still eating dinner. “Yes, yes,” she said above the mounting buzz of conversation. “Please just hold your questions for a moment. I think you’ll all appreciate the need to be organized, and I’m the one who’s been through this from the beginning. So. We don’t have long, and I’ll be brief.”

She took a moment to clear her throat and step up on a chair. “We all have the hiccups, and that’s triggering the time spell. Every time one of us hiccups, she goes back to the beginning of the ten minutes and adds another Twilight Sparkle to the mix. We keep track of each other by how many times we’ve been through the loop. I’m number seven, and Miss Stuffs-Her-Face-With-Casserole over there is number zero.” Original Twilight—Zero, that is—puffed out her lower lip and gently set her fork down. “Now, suggestions on how to break the loop?”

“Have Zero never cast the spell?” Four said.

“I’d like to keep that as our failsafe,” Twilight answered. “It could be unpredictable. Then none of this will happen, we won’t remember the danger we’ve uncovered, and we won’t learn anything. I’d like to fix this if we can.” She scanned her audience, and aside from a few nods, nopony spoke up. Wait, if one of them did, shouldn’t she remember asking that question? Well, no, because this was the first time she’d asked it. So these ponies weren’t really Twilight, but would become Twilight. So it was natural that she wouldn’t remember something from the future that had already happened. Or—

She felt a headache coming on.

Five raised a timid hoof. “Tell Zero to wait until after she’s hiccupped to finish the spell?”

“How do we know we haven’t tried that already, and she just hiccupped again?” One asked, scratching her head.

“Ooh!” Six said, a broad grin washing across her face. “Or what if it’s one of those inevitable cosmic events such that the hiccup always comes as she casts the spell, no matter what?”

“Girls.” Twilight squeezed her eyes shut and massaged her temples. “Let’s stay focused. If that were true, two consecutive ones of you would have a different memory of casting the spell.”

“Unless it didn’t work, and we changed it back.” Two instantly retreated from the glare she got in return.

“Still, the one who last tried it should remember.”

“No, because it all feeds forward from Zero there. Would you remember something that never existed?”

Twilight stamped a hoof, which, in retrospect, wasn’t the brightest thing to do while perched on a chair. “Please! This is taking too long! I think we need to try curing Zero’s hiccups.”

“What should we try first?” Six asked while casting a wary eye at Five, who was sneaking up on Zero to give her a scare with a rubber snake.

“She already has a glass of water,” Three remarked. “Might as well try that.”

Twilight flicked a hoof at the table and nodded hastily. “Okay, but make it quick. You never know when—Hic!”

Twilight shouldered her way past the other eight Twilights standing around to get to the one still eating dinner. “Okay. We wasted the last go-around jabbering. You—” she poked a hoof toward Zero “—refill that glass and guzzle it down without stopping to breathe. The rest of us need to come up with other ideas in case that doesn’t cure her hiccups.”

An eyebrow shooting up, One said, “Wait, what do hiccups have to do with this?”

Twilight sighed and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t have time to explain it again right now.”

“One of us should write this stuff down,” Six said, then froze under the sudden scrutiny. She continued, apparently using her best Fluttershy impression. “You know, so there’s a standard pitch.”

Twilight stared and blinked at Six for a moment. That... was actually a wonderful idea. Why hadn’t Twilight thought of it? Well, she had, but not this her... She didn’t remember writing anything down previously. “Yes,” Twilight finally said. “Excellent suggestion. I’ll start on that immediately.” And now she did remember it.

Here came that headache again.

She grabbed a sheet of paper and a quill off the writing desk, then scribbled furiously to get as much down as possible before—”Hic!”

[br]

Nine expectant faces stared at Twilight—well, a couple of the early ones were shifting their eyes around and seemingly wondering what they were missing. “Not now,” she said, holding up a hoof to silence their murmurs. “I have to get through this as fast as I can. And one of you who knows what I’m talking about, please make Zero hold her breath.”

Twilight bent back down to her paper. Gotta keep it short enough to read in a couple of minutes but cover the material pretty thoroughly. And would she have to edit each time to add what new thing she’d tried? Maybe not every time. With any luck, this list wouldn’t get too long...

“Hic!”

“Not done yet!” Twilight shouted over everypony’s questions. “Just give me some peace and quiet and get Zero to stand on her head.”

After a chorus of huhs, a few hushed explanations, and some much-welcome silence, Twilight stabbed the final period into her page. That should about do it.

She cleared her throat, and everypony took that as their cue to strike up conversations again, but her stony, no-nonsense gaze soon had the hubbub dying down. “Now, for everypony’s information, getting Zero to delay her casting didn’t work, and neither did drinking water or holding her breath. Those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about, you will in a few minutes. Then we can get back to figuring this out, assuming that the stand-on-your-head thing doesn’t actually fix everything.”

“Hic!” Zero added. Somewhat unhelpfully, though perhaps the demonstration was illustrative.

“Wait, eventually your hiccups will stop,” came a voice from the assemblage. “Then everypony will go through the loop as many times as you did, jump back to her own time, and voila!”

“I’ve already thought this through,” Twilight replied. “Yes, that would work. But then the time spell would still be linked to hiccups, and the next time I got them...”

“Oh. Yeah...” Four said, her ears angling back, but her face soon brightened again. “But that’s only part of the problem. Once your hiccups end, there will be no more loops, and we’ve run out of chances.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. That was... right. And so obvious that somehow she hadn’t seen it. Everypony stared at her like they expected some assurance, some reasoned argument, some nugget of philosophical insight.

“Crud.”

“Language, Twilight!” Spike hissed from the back of the crowd.

“I-I need to keep them going...” Twilight rushed over to the table and crammed a hoofful of casserole into her mouth, then another. She couldn’t keep that up for long, or she’d get sick. Could she fake the hiccups? Would that activate the spell? Oh crud oh crud oh crud oh cr—”Hic!”

Twilight coaxed her voice into as much of a shout as she could. She’d gone hoarse some while ago, and her throat—even thinking about swallowing gave her a sinking feeling. “Okay,” she rasped. “Twenty-Three is passing out orientation pamphlets. Get one if you are Sixteen or lower. If you don’t know your number, you are One or Zero and need to get one, too.”

She coughed into her hoof and blinked hard. “Give your pamphlets to Twenty-Two when you’re finished reading. Scare Team is meeting over by the fireplace, New Ideas Team with me, Refreshments Team in the kitchen, and Temporal Theory Team by the reference books.”

Alright. Next order of business. Twilight strode to the dinner table and choked down some more casserole. Gotta keep hiccupping. But to be honest, she was running out of time. She was this close to puking, and hiccupping while feeling like that was about as pleasant as it sounded.

The squeak of a hinge carried above all the voices, and thirty-eight Twilights turned to see Rainbow Dash standing in the doorway.

“Hi, um... I... wondered what all the commotion—” Dash’s wide eyes scanned all of the silent faces. “I’ll come back later.” And then she retreated slowly out the door, which swung shut with another loud creak.

Yeah... Keeping this unnoticed may get to be a problem. Maybe they should form a Public Relations Team, too.

But back on topic... Altogether, Twilight had been hiccupping for nearly two hours. She was lucky it had lasted this long. She had to face it: The time had come to trigger the failsafe. Would Twilight be around to warn herself then? And all that knowledge lost! It still required an uncomfortable amount of risk.

She let out a heavy sigh. “New Ideas Team, it’s time to implement The Final Option. We’ll tell Zero not to cast the spell in the first place.” An “aww” and several pairs of drooping ears surrounded her, but... a grim, thoughtful smile spread over her muzzle. “After one last try.”

“Hic!”

Without a word, Twilight weaved her way through the multitude of herself—herselves? Maybe there should be a word for that now. She recognized Eighteen with that fresh bruise she always got on her cheek from tripping when she first showed up. And another Twilight nearby hung her head low enough to place her in the thirties. The three already helping themselves to some casserole would be Eleven, Twelve, and of course Zero. Ugh. She was so full...

But no more. No more eating, no more pounding her head for obscure ways of treating hiccups. No more overseeing everything. One way or another, she’d reached the end.

“Take a breather, everypony,” she said. “I already know what I’m trying this time, and if it doesn’t work, we’re shutting it down. So thank you all for your hard work, you don’t need to keep eating, and just relax. You’ve earned it.”

Twilight took the seat at the table next to Zero and patted her hoof. “Try to remember everything. I don’t know if it will help, but really think about all this and try to keep it in there,” she said, tapping Zero on the head. “Just a minute...”

Twilight headed to the kitchen and returned with a bottle from the refrigerator, then downed Zero’s glass of water and refilled it from the bottle. “I think you know what I’m going for here—” Zero nodded gravely “—but we haven’t stopped your hiccups in thirty-some tries, and we can’t have the spell linked to something you have that little control over.”

Zero raised the glass to her lips, but Twilight held up a hoof. “Not yet. Wait until a minute before you cast the time-travel spell. Then drink it all. And keep this with you at all times,” she added, sliding a pamphlet across the tabletop.

Twilight sighed and slumped forward on the table. This might not be a better solution than avoiding the spell in the first place. But for better or worse, she’d put things into motion, and only time would tell—had told—

Her head hurt. Celestia help her...

“Hic!”

“See, Spike? It’s—hic!—working just like before.” Magic flowing, time period firmly in mind... Yes, everything operating within normal parameters. And Spike at his post, holding down the few papers left out on the desk. “Hic!” she added.

“Twilight, you really need to chew your food. You wouldn’t have those hiccups if you hadn’t wolfed it down.” Spike could be adorable when he activated parent mode. Still...

“Spike, I’m trying to concentrate.” He rolled his eyes and leaned an elbow on the desktop.

The glow from Twilight’s horn expanded to cover her. That same warmth again as in her previous temporal escapade—she knew that she was about to wink out, and Spike had closed his eyes against the expected flash.

“BUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP!”

Twilight gobbled down a big bite of casserole, and wasn’t particularly quiet about it, as she needed to get to her experiment. Normally, this would have been an unremarkable occurrence, but this time, Twilight watched her do it.

“It worked!” the new arrival shouted, then immediately covered her mouth with her hooves and opened her eyes wide. “Oh, Celestia...”

Original Twilight jerked her head up and gaped. “You mean...?”

“Yes...” Twilight murmured. “I-I...” She couldn’t force herself to say any more. Only a squeaky wheeze escaped her lips. She stumbled, stiff-legged, to the kitchen and came back with the bottle of soda water. “Later,” she grunted. “When I disappear. All of it.”

She flopped into an empty chair and buried her head in her hooves. Hidden though they were, Original Twilight could probably see her cheeks glowing red—they burned like hot coals.

“Aren’t you going to tell me about it?”

Twilight merely shook her head. Once through the cycle, and she’d know it all, anyway. “Sorry,” was all she could muster.

How much time had gone by? She only wanted to get back—

Spike.

“Oh, Celestia...”

“UUUUUURRRRRRRRP!” still echoed throughout the room when Twilight had returned.

His little reptilian eyes sparkling, Spike stared at her for a long moment before he found his voice. “That. Was. Awesome!”

She shot him an icy glare and clenched her jaw. “Don’t you ever tell anypony about this.”

He clamped his claws over his mouth, but a snort erupted from between his fingers.

“I’m serious.” Strange... Twilight had a sudden mental image of a whole crowd of her milling about in the library. But what did it mean? She hadn’t been asleep...

Her attention finally fell to the folded sheet of paper clutched in her hoof. Across the top, her own characteristic writing beckoned to her. “So You’re Caught in a Time Anomaly: Your Questions Answered.”

What...?

She unfolded it and flicked her eyes down the careful printing. Hiccups... linked to the time spell... and a scrawled note at the end about soda water. Yes, she’d never belch like that again—there was no danger of reactivating the spell.

Too much. All at once. Twilight’s head was going to overflow.

And then Rarity poked her head in the door. “Are you alright, dear? I heard something raucous all the way down at Carousel Boutique.”

Twilight groaned, and if Spike bit his lip any harder, he’d be liable to draw blood.

“Oh, did you hear it, too?” called Pinkie from the street. “I was cleaning up at Sugarcube Corner, and suddenly there was all this racket.”

“Oh, Celestia...”

“Language, Twilight!” a snickering Spike said.

Thankfully, she heard him telling them that nothing was wrong and they could go home, but... brain full now. Up stairs, through door, soft pillow against face.

Deal with in morning. Oh, Celestia...

Desert Rose

The gong struck once. Twice. Three times, its deep tones ringing through the walls of the city.

A fourth time, and Altair’s eyes snapped open.

He squinted, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. Fine curtains hung from each side of his bed, their near-transparency hinting at shadows in the room beyond. His hooves rested on his sheets, the thin, silk-woven quilt warm over his body.

There came a quiet sliding sound, and sunlight flooded into his bed.

“Gods be good,” Altair put a hoof in front of his eyes and narrowed his eyes. “You could give at least some warning.”

The curtains were swept aside, revealing a tall, well-built stallion standing at the side of the bed. “Good morning, my prince,” he said with a bow. “I trust you slept well?”

Altair grunted. “Well enough.”

He sat up in bed, shifting his weight and folding his hind legs to the side so as to sit more comfortably. As he rested his head against the back of the headboard, he heard the distinct sounds of clinking glass. The curtain on the other side of his bed drew open, and he held out his hooves expectantly.

“So, Habiib,” he said, accepting a saucer and cup of tea from the servantmare. “What is expected of me today?”

The butler inclined his head. “You have a light schedule today, my prince. You should count yourself lucky; the Celebration of Flowers is approaching, and your sire expects you to make at least one appearance during the festivities.”

“Of course he does,” Altair took a sip of the tea, savoring the taste of mint as he swilled it around in his mouth. “Well? Go on, then.”

Habiib retrieved a scroll from a bag at his side. “I have here your list of activities for the day. In the afternoon, you will be meeting with the Council of Spice Merchants to discuss a recent tariff on cumin, and in the evening you will dine with the Zahar family.”

He held the parchment up to the light, the creases at the corners of his eyes deepening. “This morning, however, you have your pick of activities. Your sire left his suggestion that you survey the marketplace to ensure that proper preparations for the Celebration are underway; otherwise, you may visit with the Lord of Silks, or else provide your patronage to the Western Temple and the priestesses there.”

Altair didn’t answer, at first. Instead, he took a final sip of his tea and set the saucer down on a bedside table, the cup still half-full. Habiib stepped aside as the prince turned to place his hooves on the floor, letting himself down to the ground with a small grunt.

An eager maid immediately stepped toward him, a hairbrush in her mouth, and he made no move to stop her as she began to brush his mane. Instead, he trotted toward a window, its sliding shade moved back into place and golden sunbeams streaming through. The glass-paned doors beside it swung open at his approach, and Altair trotted through.

The wind swept through his mane, the air warm and dry against his lips. It tasted like salt today, he decided, taking in a deep breath and exhaling slowly. The sun was warm on his coat, and a faint smile appeared on his face as he looked out over the city.

“You know,” he said. “I had a dream last night.”

“Oh? Do tell, my prince.”

The light glinted off of the tops of the great palaces dotted across the city, their spiraling towers stretching up toward the sky. They shone with silver and gold, and their walls were the color of bright ivory.

“It was of the desert.” Altair paused, trying to remember more. “But there was a spring there: an oasis.”

“Like in the city?”

Altair shook his head, his dark black mane swaying beside his neck. “No. It was alone in the desert, with no civilization for miles in any direction.”

He frowned, the image flickering in his mind. “But there was something in the middle of the oasis, where the sand and stone met water. There were no other trees or plants there, but I saw...”

Habiib’s voice was patient: interested, but quiet. “Yes?”

“A flower.” Altair licked his lips; they felt dry for some reason. “A rose. The first live one I’d ever seen.”

An interesting dream, my prince. I hope the rest of your sleep was restful as well?”

His lip curled, and he looked back over the city. “Indeed it was.”

The streets, said by foreign travelers to be paved with marble, glided through the city. The sandstone houses on each side stood tall and strong, curving with the shift of the roads. Altair took another deep breath as a servantmare placed a small circlet on his head. His eyes drifted across the city. From the oasis springs of the Inner Palace; to the gleaming lakes of the southern city; to the silent temples in each corner of the capital; and to the great, towering walls that surrounded the city, all of it was his. Bridylon, the capital of Saddle Arabia: the jewel of the desert. The city of his sire, and his sire’s sire, and his sire’s sire’s sire before him.

His city.

His eyes finally came to rest on the scarlet tents of the bazaar, horses and foreigners alike roaming between its colored stalls. The phantom scent of cinnamon wafted through his nostrils, soon joined by those of pepper and cumin. He turned to face Habiib.

“Prepare a litter,” Altair barked. He lowered his head, allowing a servant to lace a jeweled bridle over his neck. “And get me properly dressed. I feel like going to the market today.”

Habiib nodded once more. “At once, my prince.”

“Hey! Move out of the way!”

Altair watched from behind the silk veils of his litter, his legs and long mane curled up beneath him. Four stallions of the Crescent Guard carried him, their strong backs laden with the bars that held the litter aloft. Before them, a royal crier cleared the streets, commanding merchants and citizens to step aside for the royal train.

“Are you comfortable, my prince?” Habiib murmured from his place beside the litter. As always, he had turned down the offer of his own seat, preferring instead to walk under his own power. “Do you require water? Tea?”

Altair snorted, blowing a strand of his mane out of his face. “I am fine. How long until we arrive?”

A gentle thump answered him; the guards carrying the litter had stopped in place, and the royal servants had lowered it to the ground. Through the shadows of the veil, Altair could make out a small smile on his butler’s face. “We are here, my prince.”

With a roll of his eyes, Altair got to his hooves. “Excellent.” He waited for a pair of servants to push aside the litter’s curtains before stepping off of the comfortable silken padding and onto the hot, sandy road. “The Master of Coin is in his quarters?”

“I would suppose.”

“Very good. Take me there.” Altair looked to each of his guards in turn. “Wait for me here until my return. Habiib and two of your number shall accompany me inside. The rest are forbidden from straying into the marketplace.”

“Yes, Prince Altair,” they said in unison, snapping off a series of smart salutes before returning to their positions around the litter. A half-dozen servants, mare and stallion both, accompanied the prince as he made his way up the winding path that led to the palace of the Master of Coin.

“Do you think Master Qahwa will have anything of interest for us?” Altair asked. The group trotted up forward, approaching a pair of towering, emerald-green doors.

“I do hope so, my prince.” Habiib looked up to the doors as they opened, the jewel-encrusted stone moving with a loud creak. “And here are his servants to welcome us. Wonderful.”

“Quite.”

“It’s an honor to have you here, my prince.” Qahwa bowed deeply, his nose nearly touching the carpet-smothered floor of his welcoming chambers. “May I offer you anything? Pastries, perhaps? Refreshments?”

Master Qahwa was a recent addition to the ruling class of Bridylon. His genius for finance and accounting during difficult times had proved worthy, in the High King’s eyes, of the gift of lordship and his own palace, as well as the title of Master of Coin. The stallion himself was squat for a horse, almost approaching the size of a pony. His mane hung below his knees, and he was plump from countless “taxes” paid to appease the customs officers.

“Whatever you can provide would be most appreciated,” Habiib said, Altair standing silently at his side. “Thank you, Master Qahwa.”

“Of course, of course.” The lord bowed at least seven more times as he left the room, backing away with his behind held ludicrously high in the air. “Anything for my lord prince.”

“I’m not hungry, you know,” Altair said out of the side of his mouth as the lord disappeared.

“I know.”

Habiib hummed quietly to himself, a melody that Altair recognized as a baudy merchant’s tune. “Stop that,” he said. “It’s unbecoming.”

“Of course, my prince.”

Master Qahwa returned within a few minutes. True to his word, he brought with him a veritable horde of servants and cooks, each bearing a mountain of breads, fruits, or fresh vegetables. Altair frowned as Habiib, with a light touch of his hoof, plucked a grape from a platter and chewed it thoughtfully.

“Come now, my prince,” Habiib said. “Enjoy yourself.”

Grudgingly, and without a word, Altair accepted a slice of melon from the platter of a particularly curvy young mare. His eyes traced down her sides, her tail curled around one back leg. He took a bite out of the melon.

“The latest batch, from beyond the rainforests,” Qahwa boasted. “The crop is near completion, so this is among the most ripe of all the season. Do you find it to your liking, my prince?”

Altair chewed slowly, his eyes moving down the side of the mare and onto the mane of another beside her. “It’s very good.” He swallowed. “Shall we move onto business, then?”

“Of course, my prince. Shall we move outside to the balcony? The view is lovely.”

Altair lifted a hoof to adjust his bridle. “That sounds like an excellent plan, Master Qahwa. Will you lead the way?”

“...And so I’ve arranged to have the Crystal Pavilion redone with the proper amenities, in order to open an additional selection of stalls in that sector of the market. It should allow us to add another group of merchants: an order of griffon traders who’ve been quite worried about securing a place in the Celebration.”

“Very good.” Altair adjusted his legs, his body resting on one of the crimson silk pads that Qahwa had had waiting for them on the balcony. Their seats were cool, shaded by the canopy of several potted trees. “Tell me, what are these called again?”

“Those?” Qahwa looked up along the branches. “They are banana trees, my prince. Very expensive, but they provide excellent shade.”

“I don’t see any bananas,” Altair murmured. He glanced down at his hoof, inspecting it for any dirt or sand.

“Oh, but you wouldn’t. It isn’t the proper season, you see. Come the wet season, however, and...”

He let Qahwa’s voice fade from his ears as the Master of Coin droned on, caught up in yet another of his infamous tangents. Instead, his eyes drifted down, squinting against the sunlight that filtered through the palm leaves, and finally came to rest on the bazaar and streets below.

At first, he tried to see how many foreigners he could pick out. For each natural-born horse, there was at least one griffon; drakes, the dim scales shifting in the light like their much larger cousins, traded jewels and shouted prices at the top of their lungs. Carts swept through the streets, their owners sometimes wearing wings, sometimes wearing claws, and sometimes only hooves. His eyes swept from side to side as Qahwa’s voice buzzed on in the back of his ears.

And then he saw her.

The first thing he noticed was the crimson: streaks of bloodied red that swept through her mane. They wove with strands of pale gold, each curl resting perfectly upon her shoulders.

Her coat was dusted with the colors of the sand outside the city walls, but still pale enough that it looked like thick cream. Her shoulders, perfectly formed, moved with grace as she strode through the marketplace, her mane swaying from side to side. Squinting, he could just barely make out a smudged image on her flank: a black spiral overlapping a golden circle.

“Who is that?” Altair murmured, leaning to the side of his pad.

Habiib lifted an ear, raising an eyebrow as Qahwa continued his monologue on specialty silks in the background. “Who, my prince?”

“That mare.” Altair lifted a hoof and pointed. “Do you see her? With the golden mane and the light brown coat?”

“And the mark on her side?” Habiib nodded. “She looks to be a member of the northern traders that we allowed in yesterday morning, judging by her build and sales.” He gestured to a shelf of glass and pottery beside her. “See? Equestrian goods.”

“Equestrian...” Altair mouthed the word. “She’s a pony.”

“You can tell it by the mark,” Habiib added. “All ponies of Equestria have them. They call them—”

“—Cutie marks. Yes, I know.” Altair rested his chin on his hoof, watching as she opened a crate to remove a long-necked ceramic vase. He stayed like that for a minute, sitting still as his eyes traced her hoofsteps.

“Are you well, my prince?”

He coughed. “What manner of idiot’s question is that, Habiib? Of course I am well.” His scowl faded as he turned to his side, the palm leaves rustling above them. “Do you—do you imagine that she will be here tomorrow?”

“She? The Equestrian mare?”

Altair nodded.

Habiib shrugged. “She is a trader, no? I would imagine so.” At Altair’s skeptical look, he tapped his hoof on the ground. “The masses come and go, but the caravans always come back. Time and again, the merchants build their stalls, sell their wares, and leave the city. But they always come back.”

“Always?”

The butler’s mouth quirked into a small smile.

“She will return.”

“More rice?”

Altair inclined his head and leaned over to allow the servantmare to spoon an additional serving of food onto his place. Another lifted a pitcher of wine and delicately refilled his bowl. The prince nodded again, and the two servants stepped back into their places beside the wall.

“So I have heard good things about your appearances in court.”

He looked up, turning to face the opposite head of the table. There sat Namus Zahan, head of his family and patron of the arts within the walls of Bridylon. He was a tall, distinguished stallion, his mane dark against his deep brown coat. He had been an ally of the High King since the latter’s ascension from heir to lord, and for that, at least, he held Altair’s respect.

“Oh?” he asked, taking a sip of wine. “What manner of good things?”

A smile crossed Zahan’s face. “Several, actually, most to do with your ability hear all sides of an argument before reaching a verdict. Such patience and clarity of thought is admirable in a future king.”

“I’m glad to hear so,” Altair said absently. His sire had disagreed, calling it “willful ignorance” and “useless silence.” He privately agreed; the inner workings of the royal court, as well as most day-to-day affairs, held little interest for him. Most things did.

Except...

The phantom image of a golden mane rippled across his vision, but his thoughts were rudely interrupted by another voice. “I’m sure you’re going to be a wonderful king, Prince Altair.”

He turned to face the side of the table and offered a small grin. Lilac Zahan was a beautiful mare, with a coat whose light purple color matched her name well. She was the jewel of her sire’s eye. As Altair watched, she gave him an even broader smile.

“I am sure that the prince is quite grateful to hear your thoughts,” Habiib said. He sat at Altair’s side, barely having touched his own food. “Yours especially, Lady Lilac.”

His leg kicked Altair’s under the table.

Altair jerked. “Ah—of course, my lady. Your words are nearly as beautiful as you are.”

Lilac put a hoof to her mouth, giggling quietly. “Thank you, my prince.”

Zahan’s deep voice was next to ring across the table. “You honor us, Prince Altair. I am happy to see that our houses continue to enjoy a privileged friendship.”

“Of course.”

The lord held a hoof over his mouth. “El'hem seramel,” he murmured: the words of his House, said in the spirit of promise and honor. The sands whisper.

“Ya lili, ah ya leel,” Altair replied, giving his own House’s words and echoing the motion. Oh night, oh night.

Zahan’s smile widened. “I would be happy to perhaps join our houses further in the future—to encourage this bountiful friendship.” At his side, Lilac offered a small wave.

Altair stared. He could see the Lady Lilac sitting there, but her form seemed to ripple; in her place he saw flashes of crimson and golden honey, as well as a coat the color of cream. Soon, it was not Lilac sitting there, but her, a thin veil covering eyes that held beauty and secrets. His mouth moved, but no words came out.

Perhaps sensing his master’s loss for words, Habiib jumped in. “A wonderful plan, my lord. I am sure that the High King and the prince will be most amenable to any sort of agreement to foster that bond.”

Zahan nodded. “I am most happy to hear it.” He clapped his hooves, and several servants stepped forward to remove their plates. “Now, it appears that we have finished the main course. Would anyone like some dessert?”

The next morning found Altair back in the bazaar, in a courtyard near to Qahwa’s household. His sire had asked him to check up on a delivery of marble slabs meant to be used in Palace construction; he’d given the excuse that “a prince must be educated in worldly matters.” Altair had happily accepted, not caring that the momentary enthusiasm of a usually unenthusiastic prince might raise his sire’s suspicion. So long as he got to see her again, he’d accept his task without complaint.

After spending an hour staring at nothing but stacks of rock, however, he was beginning to doubt even catching a fleeting glimpse.

“Look.”

Altair turned, Habiib’s hoof on his shoulder. “What?” he asked.

“Over there.” The butler smiled. “Isn’t that what you really came for?”

Altair’s head whirled around. Sure enough, there she stood, her small, sculpted frame moving across the street. His eyes widened. From here—this closer, stolen glimpse—she was even more beautiful than he had imagined, her tanned coat shimmering in the light. Her mane even moved like honey, melting around her face in a braid of deep gold.

“She is an earth pony,” Habiib murmured.

“What?”

“An Equestrian with neither wings nor horn. Barred from the skies and forbidden the use of magic.”

Altair felt a strange pang in his heart. “Is that so?”

“Indeed.” The butler nodded. “Not so different from our own people, you might say.”

Altair scowled. “Except our people have no need for flight or spellcraft. We built the glory of our civilization through our own hooves: not through the stolen gifts of alicorns.”

“My apologies, my prince.” Habiib bowed, his mane covering his face. “I overstep my bounds.”

His mouth drawn into a thin line, Altair found his eyes wandering along the strange mare’s path once again. “She is beautiful, though.” He coughed. “For an Equestrian.”

Habiib nodded.

“She moves like a flame,” the prince went on. “Each movement, flickering and curling like an ember.”

“Or perhaps like the sand caught in a storm,” Habiib suggested.

Altair nodded slowly, watching each touch of her hooves to the ground; each flicker of her eyes; each smooth curve of her hips and neck. Her every movement was like a dance, drawing him in and refusing to ever let him go.

“She’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen,” he murmured. “I’ve not seen her like in any wing of my sire’s palace.”

“She is indeed a most pleasing mare.” Habiib put a hoof on the prince’s shoulder. “Perhaps you should approach her? Introduce yourself?”

Altair started, his eyes flying wide open. His heart beating fast in his chest, he took a deep breath and gave Habiib a disbelieving look. “You speak folly! I am a prince, and she a traveling merchant—a vagabond! It would be unbecoming.” He shook his head, feeling his breath catch in his throat. “And I-I...”

Habiib waited patiently.

“...I will hear no more of it,” Altair finished. “We will return to the palace at once. I have other duties to attend to.”

He could almost feel Habiib’s aura beside him. Disappointment? Irritation? Impossible. The butler was never a stallion to allow such rebellious emotions into his heart. Apathy? Perhaps.

As they left the bazaar, the Crescent Guards holding the litter firmly in place on their backs, Altair dared one final glance, hoping to catch a glimpse of her before he left.

But she was gone.

When Habiib entered the prince’s chambers, the bed was empty, the curtains already swept aside. Instead, Altair stood in the corner of the room, before a tall, crystal-glass mirror. As the butler watched, he raised his head and inhaled, his chest inflating impressively beneath the shine of his decorated bridle. Seemingly ignorant of Habiib’s presence, he bent his head down and adjusted the silver horseshoe he’d slipped over his hoof. He followed this with a flick of his tail and began to rotate in a circle before the surface of the mirror.

Halfway through, however, he noticed the butler standing in silence by the door. “Habiib! You—you’re here earlier than I expected.” His cheeks flushed, and he quickly stood straight up, edging away from the mirror.

“My apologies if I am interrupting, my prince.” The butler gave a slight bow. “Would you prefer if I left?”

The prince’s cheeks colored an even redder shade. “I—no. Stay.” He paused. “Please.”

Habiib bowed again, his neck inclining at a precise angle to the floor. “Of course.”

He blinked. The prince’s chest rose and fell unsteadily, and deep bags rested beneath his eyes. The evening meal that had sat beside his bed lay untouched, the food left cold. “My prince?” he asked. “Are you well?”

“I...” Altair hesitated. “I could not sleep.”

“Or eat?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Evidently not.” He gritted his teeth and opened his eyes, glaring at his reflection. “Is it your job to inquire into these matters like a nurse or housemare?”

“Forgive me.” Habiib bowed low to the ground. “I only wished the best for you and your health. I meant no disrespect.”

Altair was quiet for a moment. “I...I could not sleep. I cannot sleep. I closed my eyes, and there she was: cream and honey, swirling in my mind, more beautiful than the moon.” He shook his head and scowled. “The food felt like ashes in my mouth—I cannot bear this. I-I must—”

Habiib was silent.

“Tell me,” Altair said. He turned back to the mirror and held a foreleg against his chest. He held the pose for a few moments more, his eyes tracing down his haunches and sides in the glass. “Am I...becoming?”

Habiib blinked.

“Masculine? Attractive?” Altair turned his head to get a better look. “Handsome, even?”

There was a slight choking sound.

He spun around, eyes wide. “Oh, gods above, Habiib. I did not mean it like that.” The butler coughed, his eyes squeezed shut. “Stop that—I command you. You know that I would never speak of something so foolish.” For the first time in the prince’s life, he thought he say a rosy blush on his companion’s face.

“My—my apologies, my prince.” Habiib gave a final, muffled cough. “That was...most improper of me. Shall I withdraw?”

“For the second time, no,” Altair grunted. “You are not permitted to leave.”

There was a beat of silence as he watched himself in the mirror, his eyes glued to each shadow and curve of his lithe form. His mane, black like the darkest nights, lay against the deep blue of his coat. Each hair on his body had been buffed to a perfect shine, and the decorations he’d—clumsily—put on, inexperienced as he was with dressing himself, complimented his colors, from the silver bridle he wore to the diamonds set into the circlet upon his head.

“...You are indeed a handsome specimen,” Habiib finally said. “My prince, I have no doubt that any mare of the Empire would be overjoyed to have you, even without your status.”

“Of course they would.” Altair snorted. “Any mare of the Empire.”

They were both quiet for a moment.

“I had another dream last night.”

“Oh?”

Altair nodded. “Different from the other one.” He paused, putting a hoof on his chin. “This time, it was not of the desert, but the mountains.”

Habiib tilted his head. “Go on.”

“They were tall mountains,” Altair began, turning to look out the window, “not snow-capped like the ones we hear of in stories, but with sand at their peaks. It poured down their sides, each mount like an enormous pyramid.

“Beneath their roots, each held great stores of minerals and jewels. Yes I was drawn to the shortest peak, for I knew that within was the greatest treasure of all.” He closed his eyes. “I drew nearer, unsure of whether to go in: I knew not what this treasure was, but my soul urged me to go on.” He shook his head. “Still, I waited outside, watching as the sand poured down from the mountains until nothing was left.

“And then clouds rolled over the desert, and it was hidden from my sight.”

There was silence once again before Altair continued.

“You are a wise stallion, Habiib,” he said, giving his butler a sly look. “Tell me: what is it that my dream means?”

Habiib’s head was bowed to the floor. “My prince,” he said. “I am unsure if I am qualified to answer, but if it pleases you, I shall interpret your dream as best I can.

“In your future lies a great treasure,” he went on. “One that will please your soul and give you new life beyond the one you hold now. One that will bring you glory and power, as well as joy beyond your wildest dreams. But this treasure is impermanent. It lies beyond a choice you must make, and if you wait too long or deny its power, it will vanish into the sands forever and be lost to you.”

Altair looked him straight in the eye. “You are sure? That is what my dream meant?”

Habiib shrugged. “It is the best I can do. Forgive me, my prince. I am not of the Wise Stallions, nor do I share the hidden knowledge of the temple priestesses.”

“It is enough.” Altair stood up straighter and tapped a hoof on the floor. “Your words have pleased me.”

The butler bowed. “I am relieved to hear so, my prince.”

“Gather the Crescent Guard,” Altair began. “Actually, no—don’t. Gather only yourself and a mareservant. No one else.”

Habiib’s eyebrows rose up into his forehead. “And might I ask why?”

“We’re going to the marketplace.” Altair nodded firmly. He turned back to the mirror and looked his reflection in the eye. “We’re going to find a very special mare, and bring her back with us.”

“Yes, my prince.”

There she stood, her tail flicking against the flies that flew in the stale market air. True to his word, Habiib had brought only himself and one of his personal servants, doing his best not to attract attention to their group. As they watched, the mare flipped her mane out of her eyes, the hair soaring slowly through the air to curl around her neck.

Altair watched her from behind a shelf of pottery, his eyes wide and unmoving. “I must,” he murmured to himself, as if unaware that the others could hear. “I must have her.”

And then, with a single, long stride, he stepped from behind the shelf.

The first thing that he noticed was her height; she was tall—taller than he had expected. She barely compared to him, of course—as one of the tallest and strongest members of the royal court, his chest came to just above the top of her ears—but she was larger; stronger; better-built than others of her race. Up close, her every movement was even more tempting, the subtle sway of her legs and flank drawing his eyes ever closer.

Yet she paid no attention to him, instead adjusting the position of a ceramic vase on a shelf. He coughed loudly.

She seemed not to hear, her hooves moving toward a taller glass bowl.

He coughed again, two times more. Yet she made no move toward him.

His ears flickered back in annoyance, and he narrowed his eyes. With a final, hacking cough, he glared at the curve of her back, daring her to ignore him this time.

That got her attention. The mare spun, the mark on her side whirling as she turned to face him. “Yes?” she asked him, her accent holding deep, musical undertones. “Are you well?”

Altair stared.

She watched him expectantly, waiting for him to answer, but he could not. She wore a simple veil across the lower part of her face, its wisps curling in the warm breeze, but it was her other features that caught his eye. It was those eyes that now held him prisoner, their dark, amber depths drawing him in and refusing to let go. Specks of violet dotted her irises, and as she opened her mouth to speak again, her eyelashes fluttered in a delicate motion.

“—help you?”

He shook his head. “What?”

She raised an eyebrow, looking slightly annoyed. “I asked: may I help you?” She took a step forward. “Are you lost?”

He blinked several times before shaking his head even more violently. “I—no. No! I am not lost. What manner of question is that?”

“Oh?” Her eyes traced down his chest, ending at his hooves on the ground. She shrugged, her mouth a thin line. “Very well. A good day to you.” With that, she turned back to her pottery, her mane swinging over her shoulders.

“Wait!”

She stopped, her lip curling. “Yes?”

Altair coughed once more. “I—” He caught himself, berating his weak mind for stumbling. Fool. He was a prince; who was he to stumble over words before this common merchant, no matter how pretty? “I am Prince Altair, son of the High King Rigel. Your beauty has caught my eye, and I have determined that you will accompany back to the royal palace.”

He waited for her to bow: to prostrate herself, bestowing gratitude and compliments for his kind words and princely stature.

But instead, she only threw back her head and laughed.

“What?” Altair narrowed his eyes, his cheeks reddening. It felt as though steam was building in his ears, his thoughts jumbling in the back of his head. “What are you doing? How dare you mock me!”

But she only laughed harder.

“Stop!” he shouted helplessly. “I command you!” For all his commanding words, she only laughed even harder, her chuckles shaking her ribs and tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. “Cease your mockery in the name of the High King!”

Her guffaws gradually subsided until naught but the occasional chuckle escaped her. One hoof wiped across her eyes. “Forgive me,” she murmured, a small smirk on her face. “But I believe I heard you saying that you were the prince.”

“I am.”

“And that you were ‘commanding’ me to return to the castle with you.”

“I am,” he repeated.

This only brought on another round of uproarious laughter. Altair glanced around; passerby were beginning to stare, and Habiib was giving him a questioning look from his own hiding position.

“Stop!” he shouted.

She ceased, her laughter dying down again.

“Listen, filly,” he growled, leaning down to glare directly into her eyes. He loomed over her, and the light glinted off of the many tassels that decorated his bridle and saddle. “I will not receive such insolence from one such as you. You should be honored!”

“Oh, yes,” she drawled. “I am indeed honored that a strange stallion such as yourself would think to walk up to me, compliment my ‘beauty,’ and then order me to do his bidding.” She pushed his head away.

Altair made no move to stop her, too shocked by the idea that anyone would even dare to touch his person. “I—how—”

“Listen to me, ‘prince’,” she murmured, holding her hoof beneath his chin. “I do not know who you are, nor do I much care. I have no wish to follow you to whatever hole in the sand you have awaiting me, and I will thank you to leave me be.” Even as anger and rage ran through his veins, the touch of her body against his made his coat prickle, adrenaline rushing through his body.

“Now begone.”

He jerked away. “You do not know what you have done,” he snarled.

She shot him a half-lidded stare. “Oh, I think that I know it very well.”

“You will not—”

“Go.” She raised a hoof and gestured for him to leave. “I have my bowls to attend, so unless you wish to purchase some, be gone.”

He stared at her, his hooves rooted in place.

“Shoo!”

He left.

“She dares?”

The room was empty, save for the echoes of his hoofsteps.

“She dares refuse me?”

His breathing grew more erratic, laborious in the warm, stale air.

“The prince? The son of the High King?”

He growled deep in his throat.

“How dare she?”

The growl reverberated through the chamber, and his hoofsteps became faster.

“How dare she?”

There came a grunt, a clink, and then a low roar. Glass shattered.

“She will be mine!”

Altair stared at his reflection in the mirror, his dark form gazing back at him. His mane fell flat over his face, damp from where the water from the teapot had hit it. The glass was cracked, and the broken pieces of the teapot lay silently on the floor.

His chest rose and fell, and he closed his eyes. They were sore, the bags beneath them even blacker in the darkness of night.

“I must have her,” he whispered, bowing his head. “I must.”

The marketplace was bright in the early morning, the first golden rays of the sun filtering down between the tents. The cries of merchants rang through the great pavilion, only to be interrupted by the shouts and bellows that came from the gates of the Inner City.

“Make way! Clear the roads! Make way for your prince!”

In a quiet stall filled with glassware and pottery, a lone mare swept the ground, her honey-colored mane kept carefully out of her eyes. She gave no mind to the cries in the distance, focusing only on the dust and sand that dirtied the floor below her wares.

And then her tent was torn away, her stall ripped open, and two tall stallions—horses, the both of them—came in and took her.

She at first made no motion to escape. As they reached the tent flap, though, she moved into action, biting and kicking at her captors. Her mane flew about their eyes, and she squirmed faster than a rattlesnake in her efforts to free herself of their grip. Yet they held her firmly, their muscular bodies keeping her in place, and marched her out of the tent.

She hit the ground with a grunt and a snarl, the breath driven out of her chest. Shaking her head to get the sand out of her eyes, she pushed herself to her hooves and slowly looked up.

And froze.

“I told you I was the prince,” Altair said haughtily from his place upon the royal litter. He was flanked on either side by a half-dozen Crescent Guards, spears held between their forelegs. “Now, I ask again, my lady: will you accompany me back to the palace?”

Her eyes flashed, but she bowed her head, her mane falling over her eyes. When she looked back up, a thin, strained smile was barely visible beneath the veil upon her face. “If it pleases the prince.”

Altair clapped his hooves together. “Excellent! Guards, fetch her a litter. I expect you to take us to the Diamond Gardens. We will dine there.”

With a cry and a series of grunts, the litters were hefted back up, and the royal train began its march back through the market.

When it was gone, it left nothing behind save for a ripped tent, a shattered pot, and swirls of sand upon the ground.

“Is it not beautiful?” Altair asked, gesturing toward the gates of the Palace. “Wondrous beyond anything you’ve seen before?”

The mare was silent in her place upon the other litter. She had refused to answer him since they had left the market, her gaze planted stubbornly on the pad beneath her. A shadow crossed the prince’s face, and he cleared his throat.

“I said,” he said firmly. “Is it not beautiful? Does your heart not soar with visions of such incredible architecture and artistry?”

She raised her head and looked about. For all his life, Altair had heard the stories that visiting nobles and merchants told: that the Palace of the High King was the jewel of the capital city, a brilliant star among the desert sands. Its high towers spiraled up into the cloudless skies, their roofs paved with gold and silver ores. Each gate was shaped from ivory and ebony wood, their sides carved with depictions of countless gods and kings, battles and myths alike swirling around their enormous pillars.

“It is...nice.” She sounded hesitant, quiet.

“More than that.” Altair snorted and tossed his head back. “These walls have stood for countless generations. What you see before you is the product of hundreds of years of power and wealth, the largest monument of Saddle Arabian civilization. The oldest work in all nations, and the biggest.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw her eyes flash beneath her veil, now drawn up to cover her entire face. “The desert is older,” she said quietly, her eyes downcast. “Vaster as well.” Her voice was deep, its musical undertones creating an accent as exotic as her eyes and form.

“As if the desert had anything to compare against the works of our people’s hooves,” he boasted.

The mare was quiet.

“Here—we have arrived.” He looked up at the gate as they passed beneath it. Onlookers—nobles, scribes, and other visitors to the palace—watched the litters eagerly as they turned off of the main path. “Look! The Diamond Gardens.”

He grinned, waiting for her jaw to drop in amazement at the sight. She had not reacted to the outside of the Palace? Very well. Let her try to ignore the inside, then.

Clusters of gemstones grew up from the floor, towering to heights of two, four, or even seven feet high. They glimmered with a strange, inner shine, the sunlight refracting through their depths. Each was a perfectly-shaped diamond, cut by expert hooves, and each beam of light that struck their surface shattered into a blinding array of color.

The litters touched the ground, and he watched the mare take an unsteady step back onto the dirt. She trotted toward one of the clusters and, delicately, reached out to lay her hoof on its surface.

Altair stood up from his litter. “Well?”

She turned to him, her eyes narrowed. “They are dead.”

“What?”

“Dead,” she repeated. “There are no living gemstones here.”

He sputtered, blinking rapidly. “Of—of course not! What are you, mad? Diamonds do not live; they do not grow.” He shook his head, a smile returning to his face. “Our finest artisans have carved them from the geodes brought from the mountainous lands. My lady, they are as genuine and as beautiful as any diamond can be, if not more so.”

“He speaks the truth, my lady.” Habiib stepped up beside him. “They are some of the finest work our artists have produced.”

She raised an eyebrow and stepped back, letting her hoof fall to the ground. “Oh, so it is ‘my lady’ now, is it?”

“Enough of this chat.” Altair raised his head and turned to face the guards standing by the gate. “I grow weary, and it is hot. I am sure you are hungry,” he said as an aside to the mare. “Fetch us something to eat.”

As a cluster of servants appeared from the kitchens bearing platters of food and fruit, others still brought out a blanket, woven with brown and black patterns. Altair settled onto its surface and beckoned for her to join him.

“Come—eat.” He reached up and plucked a cored apple from a tray. He held it up toward her, a smile on his face. “See? This is a foreign fruit, brought from distant lands by my people. Would you taste it for me?”

She frowned at him. “It is an apple,” she said, and shook her head. “You are a foolish prince.”

A shadow passed his face. “Foolish? I—” He cut himself off, not wanting to alienate or upset her. “What do you mean by that?” he asked instead.

“Cored apples. Statues of dead gemstones.” She closed her eyes. “You horses of royalty know naught of true value.”

“Then what is of true value?” Altair leaned forward. “See what I have to offer you?” He spread his hooves out over the line of waiting servants, the food perched upon their backs smelling like a perfect feast. “Can you not smell them? These delicacies? Representative of all four corners of the earth, and all seven seas?

“Here,” he said, beckoning one servant over. He plucked a small shellfish from the platter and held it out to her. She accepted it and held it to the light, eyeing it with a skeptical look. “This is called a shrimp. The seaponies of the Reinatic Sea send them to us in exchange for the many jewels that only we can find. Each one is worth its weight in bronze, but for you, no delicacy is too expensive.”

He nodded to her, his eyes glittering. “Try it. It is delicious.”

She watched the shrimp for a moment more, as though making sure that it would not come to life in her hoof, and then took a small bite. He watched eagerly as she chewed and swallowed.

“I am sure that you are unused to such foods, being from the northern hills and desert as your people are,” he went on. “But tell me—do you like it?”

She licked her lips and paused.

He leaned in closer. “Well?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “It tastes of mud,” she said.

His jaw dropped. “What?”

“Mud,” she repeated, and tossed the remaining shell aside. She glared at him, her veil flickering in the breeze. “If you insist on feeding me, I will have bread. Millet, if you have it.”

“Of course, my lady.” Altair turned toward a pair of servants. “You two! Fetch my lady a loaf of millet bread from the kitchens at once.”

“Yes, my prince!”

They returned within moments carrying twin platters of steaming, fresh bread in their mouths. The mare reached up and gingerly accepted one. She sniffed it and took a bite, chewing on it with—Altair noticed eagerly—a bit more gusto than she had for the shrimp.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

In response, she merely shredded off another piece and tossed it into her mouth.

“I am most pleased that you have enjoyed my gift,” he continued, going on as if she’d answered aloud. “All this and more can be yours in the Palace. Tell me—is there anything more that you desire?”

There was no response. Instead, only further chewing answered him.

He coughed into a foreleg. “My lady, I only desire your comfort and pleasure. If there is anything my servants can do, please—”

She looked up, glaring at him with such intensity that he felt frozen in place. Those amber eyes flickered, his soul captive in their depths.

“Will I be given accommodations here?” she finally said.

He blinked, freed from her spell. “Hm?”

“Here. In this...palace.” She waved a hoof around her head and looked up to the towers that stood above them. “Or am I permitted to leave?”

Habiib stepped forward once again, his rumbling voice deep and mellow. “We will be happy to provide my lady with every creature comfort during her stay. Your quarters are being prepared as we speak.”

“Wonderful!” Altair clapped his hooves. “Thank you, Habiib.”

The mare’s eyes narrowed.

Altair got to his hooves, a pair of servants rushing up to dust him off. “Show my lady to her quarters, Habiib,” he said. “I will be pleased to dine with her tonight. For now, I must report to my father.”

“As you say, my prince. It will be done.”

“And what of the griffons?”

“They would follow our command. They would have no choice.”

The High King Rigel raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And what makes you say that?”

Altair hesitated. “They would have no choice,” he repeated. “Our military is superior to theirs—better trained, more numerous—and they are dependent upon our nation’s trade to survive.”

“A potential answer.” The High King looked into his son’s face, something dark in his black eyes. “But one stupider than I could have ever conceived.”

“My lord, I—”

“You do not think.” Rigel snarled, slamming his hoof on the table. A cup trembled on its surface, sending ripples through the cold tea within. “I test you, time and time again, but you do not learn. War with the griffons!” He snorted. “Could any common peasant be as arrogant as you, to imagine that the griffon nations would so easily give into a demand for tribute?”

“But our military—”

“The griffons are feared for a reason.” The High King’s face twisted. “Think, you stupid colt! Use your brain for once in your life!” He slammed one hoof into the other. “The griffons hold dominion over the skies, and can strike harder and faster than any other force known to our kind. What defense would you have against a maddened griffon Emperor—an invasion of his homeland? A strike into the depths of the Icy Mountains, where horses go to die and rot in the frozen wastes?”

Altair coughed. “I—I did not mean—”

“You did not mean anything.”

He fell silent.

With a scrape of his chair, the High King pushed himself away from the table and dropped to his hooves. Most of the time, Altair’s lessons—as any dutiful prince would have—were taught by scribes, special tutors, or even nobles, but Rigel himself would occasionally take over when he felt a personal session was needed. He took a step away from the table, moving toward the great window that looked out over the city.

“Prince Altair.” His voice was low and harsh, dry like the desert sands. “Come here.”

Reluctantly, Altair moved from his own seat behind the table, his hooves clopping on the stone floor. He trotted up behind his sire, the High King’s taller form towering over even him. Toned muscles rippled beneath Rigel’s, his coat a dark, chocolate brown.

“Look out the window.” It was a command, not a request. “Tell me what you see.”

Altair took a step forward and squinted. The glass was cloudy, fogged and etched by a hundred years of sand and wind. He could just barely make out the city beyond, its towers and buildings stretching all the way to the great walls. “I see the capital,” he said in a small voice. “Our city.”

“Go on.”

“Bridylon.” The name sounded so small, so inconsequential on his tongue, and he hated himself for it. “I see the top of the Northern Temple, where the Star Goddess keeps her bed. I see the hot springs. I see,” he faltered, a vision of honey and cream passing through his thoughts, “the marketplace, ready for the Celebration of Flowers.”

“What else do you see?”

Altair’s eyes narrowed, and he bit his lip. It was so hard to make out anything more than what he had already said; the glass was so blurry that he’d had difficulty knowing what he was looking at. “The Hall of Spices,” he said doubtfully, hoping that he’d correctly labelled the marble hall that he’d seen in the distance. “The commercial district. The city wall.”

Rigel’s voice was hard, with steel beneath his tone. “Nothing else?”

His eyes strained, but Altair could see nothing more. “That is all,” he finally admitted.

“Then you have seen nothing.”

His eyes widened. “What?”

The High King turned, his tail flicking dismissively through the air behind him. “You see nothing,” he repeated, his face set into a scowl. “You are blind. I have not raised you to be such a fool—how can you not have learned this lesson?”

“What lesson?” Altair pleaded, looking up desperately into his sire’s eyes. He dropped to his knees. “Please, my lord, how might I please you?”

“What lesson, he asks.” Rigel tossed his head back and snorted. “You truly see nothing else? Nothing at all?”

With wide, frantic eyes, Altair turned back to the window and pressed his nose against it. “The station of the Guard,” he suggested, names flying through his head. “The Silk Corridor.”

“No, and no.”

“The Shrine of the Virtuous Mare!”

“No!” the High King roared.

The two fell silent. Rigel’s sides heaved as he glared at his son.

Finally, he turned to go.

“This session is over,” he said in a low voice. “There is no more I will attempt to teach you today.”

“And the lesson?” Altair’s voice trembled, but Rigel only shook his head.

“The lesson is not over until you learn it,” he said. He trotted toward the door, his legs taking long strides along the sandstone floor. “You are dismissed.”

“My lady?”

The mare turned, looking halfway over her shoulder. The room was cool in the evening air, the windows shaded from the harsh glare of the sun. “Yes?”

Habiib bowed from his place in the doorway. “My prince awaits you in the dining room. Will you follow me?”

Her mouth twisted to the side. “If it pleases the prince,” she said, and stepped forward.

“My lady!” Altair clapped his hooves together as the mare entered. “Welcome to my personal dining room. I hope that your stay thus far has been enjoyable?”

She gave no answer.

He cleared his throat, the lack of conversation irritatingly reminiscent of earlier. “Please: take a seat.”

A servant pulled a chair out for her. Habiib leaned toward Altair as she sat down.

“Lord Zahan would like to know if you will be attending dinner with his family again, and if not, what may be the reason for delay.”

“Tell him that I regretfully have been given several important matters of state to attend to,” Altair said out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes never left the mare’s form as she took her seat, her mane falling across her shoulders and her legs fidgeting in the overly-large chair. “Give him my utmost apologies; he will understand.”

“At once.” Habiib hesitated. “And his daughter?”

“Tell her the same.”

He bowed. “As you wish.” With his head low to the floor, the butler withdrew from the dining room.

Altair looked up and smiled, a coltish grin upon his face. “Welcome again, my lady.” The candlelight cast flickering shadows upon her lithe frame, and he found himself entranced by the swirls of cream within her coat. “You are most beautiful tonight.”

“Thank you.”

He put a hoof to his chest. “It was most improper of me to make our first time together into such an...informal affair. Please, allow this meal to make up for any offense given.”

“None taken.” She looked almost...amused?

“I have for you gifts,” Altair went on. He held up a hoof. “Bring out the gifts for my lady!”

A train of servants emerged from a side corridor, each holding a box or velvet pad in their mouth.

“Here is a bridle woven by the finest artisans of the seapony nation,” he said as one servant held out a long, deep-green rope that shimmered with the reflected light of the gemstones set into its side. “Made of a certain type of seaweed that hardens after being cut, the sides are set with giant pearls found only in those parts of the ocean.”

She accepted the bridle with a small nod, barely giving it more than a glance before setting it on the table. Altair cleared his throat.

“Next: a crystal vase, born of the centuries-old work of the Crystal Ponies of the Arctic North.” Another servant approached the table, carrying on her back a vase whose depths seemed to ripple like water. “I have heard that their craftsmanship holds the same shine as winter snow—a thing that I, unfortunately, have not been able to see in my short lifetime.”

“Perhaps you will, one day,” the mare said. She sounded doubtful. With a nod to the servant, she accepted the vase and placed it onto the table, barely sparing it a second look.

“And finally: one of the finest wines of the southern hemisphere.” Altair raised his hooves and clapped twice. A trio of servants approached this time, bearing on their backs a great cask that stood taller than a small pony. “This blend of citrus and chocolates has sat in my house’s storerooms for over two hundred years, and I only though it fitting to bring to our meal tonight—all for you, of course, should you wish to partake in it.”

She shrugged, which the servants evidently chose to take as a yes. The first three slowly poured a small portion of the wine into a bowl fetched from a nearby shelf. The aromatic scent wafted across the room, and Altair took a deep sniff. There was something...more to it, though. Something more than just chocolate and orange.

It was the smell of light perfume, blending the scent of lilies and rose blossoms with what he could only describe as the smell of dew on a desert morning. His lips parted, and he stared into the mare’s eyes as she looked over the bowl of wine. Without any doubt, he knew that it was her scent, and it drove him mad with desire.

Incredible.

“Now!” he said, his smile stretching from ear to ear. “This is a feast, is it not? So let us feast!”

Servants poured from every corner of the room, bearing platters heaped high with food, and the meal began in earnest.

“So tell me, my lady.” Altair chewed happily on a slice of bread piled high with hummus and curry. “Where are you from? The northern hill region, I take it? Judging by your race and appearance.”

She nibbled on her food, her fork prodding at a pile of rice. “I am...from no particular place,” she said at last.

“So you travel? Well, I should have known, of course.” Altair raised a hoof and a servant jumped forward, dabbing at his face with a napkin. “You were part of a merchant train, after all.”

He leaned in closer, steepling his forehooves. “But from where, originally? Come, now. There must be some place you can give me.”

She shook her head. “I haven’t settled down in a long time.” She paused. “I do not know if I remember where I was born. I have been traveling since long before you have been alive.”

He threw back his head and laughed, his hooves pounding on the table. “Oh, my lady can make a fine joke if she pleases. But very well: let us move onto another topic, if you wish to be vague.” He grinned again. “What is your name?”

She made no answer, her spoon swirling in a blend of mashed potato and alfalfa. A servant quickly stepped forward to refill her water glass.

“No—wait. Let me guess.” Altair held up his hooves and set his face into a picture of mock concentration. “I know you Equestrians enjoy naming yourselves silly, whimsical things. You are from somewhere in Equestria, I am sure,” he added, noticing her raised eyebrow. “Blossom, perhaps?”

She shook her head.

“Sunny? Amber?”

Her head shook back and forth, and Altair put a hoof to his chin, frowning.

“Hm...” He closed his eyes and then opened them with a wide grin. “Aha! Custard!”

She burst out laughing. He watched with a playful scowl as she wiped her eyes and pushed her plate away. “No, I take it?”

She shook her head, still smiling.

“Hmph.” Altair’s shoulder’s slumped, and he sat back in his chair. He shrugged. “Then I am out of ideas. Perhaps you could tell me, then?”

She shook her head again, refusing to say a word.

“No?”

No answer.

He sighed loudly. “Very well. Then I shall have to come up with a name for you myself.” His eyes traced over her face, taking note of the golden curls that threaded through her mane; of the cream that colored her coat, speckled with tans and browns reminiscent of the desert sands; of the amber of her eyes, tinted with violet like a sunset upon the dunes; of, finally, his eyes moving down her body, the dark swirl upon her flank, its curve looking almost like that of a...

...A flower.

A rose upon a desert oasis...

His eyes snapped open. “Desert Rose,” he said, and then repeated it, his voice sounding stronger and surer. “I’ll call you Desert Rose. I found you in the sands of the desert, and you will be my flower.”

Her eyes sparkled, and she raised a hoof to her mouth. He thought that he heard a stifled giggle.

“Well?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowing. “Do you like it?”

She leaned forward, her lips parting into a small, mysterious grin.

Desert Rose smiled.

“Yes,” she said slowly, as if savoring the word. “Desert Rose. I like it.”

Altair flushed. “G-good! I am pleased.”

For the rest of the meal, with each stolen glance, he thought he saw her smirking at him, as if laughing at a secret joke.

Finally, the meal was over, and the two departed to their separate quarters.

Altair stood in the midst of the desert.

The winds whirled around him, carrying sand to heights that not even the mightiest storm could reach. Thunder crackled amongst the clouds, and lightning rippled across the skies.

He shouted, but no words came from his throat. Instead, the sand flew at his eyes, scarring him, blinding him. He choked on the dust and dirt, his vision going dark. The winds tore at his coat and hide, his legs raw and burning.

And then he opened his eyes.

The winds had frozen in place, the sand hanging in midair. The eye of the storm was still. Hesitantly, Altair took a step forward, his hoof sinking into the sand.

His eyes widened as it sunk deeper and deeper. He squirmed in vain as his leg was taken, his chest following soon after; finally, the mouth of the desert swallowed him up, and he disappeared from the desert.

He landed with a loud thump. He groaned, but, strangely enough, his legs weren’t sore, nor was his body bruised from the impact. His eyes fluttered open, and he gasped.

He lay in a cave, dark shadows stretching for miles in all directions. The air was cool and moist like the sand of the desert after a rare rainfall. A lone beam of light fell from the top of the cavern and alighted on the floor.

His mouth went dry, and he licked his lips. Where the beam of light struck rested a lone rose, red like the dying sun. Its petals whispered in an imaginary breeze, and he stood up before taking a step closer.

You cannot cage the sands.

He looked around wildly, searching for the source of the voice. “Who said that?”

The desert is free, the voice whispered into his ear. The dunes rise and fall without care for the walls of horse or pony.

You cannot cage the sands, they repeated.

“Come out!” he ordered, his voice cracking. “I command you! I am your prince!”

There came the tinkling of soft, feminine laughter, and as he looked up, sand began to fall from the ceiling. It glimmered in the dim light, each mote like glitter as it fell through the air.

As it fell upon his body, his eyes flickered and began to close. “I...I am your prince,” he mumbled. “You cannot...”

His eyes drifted shut, and his world went black.

Altair’s eyes opened.

He lay in bed, the covers resting lightly over his hind legs. The wind whispered through the curtains over his bed, rustling them gently. He shifted onto his back, his chest rising and falling.

“Habiib,” he croaked.

The door opened, and light flooded in. In an instant, his butler was there, standing by the edge of his bed. “My prince.”

Altair looked him over. Habiib looked tired, bags under his eyes much as they sat beneath the prince’s own. “I...I had another dream,” he murmured, feeling foalish as the words came out of his mouth.

“Oh?” Habiib’s eyebrows climbed up higher into his forehead, and he gestured toward the bedspread. “May I?”

Altair nodded slowly.

Habiib took a seat and leaned in closer. “What troubles you, my prince? The night is cool, and the air is fresh. What ails your sleep?”

Altair closed his eyes and sat up in bed, leaning comfortably against his headboard. “It’s her,” he whispered. “Desert Rose. I see her in my mind; in my dreams; in my every waking moment. I have her in my possession, but every time I see her, it is as though the sands of the desert are running between my hooves.

He turned to Habiib, his eyes wide and confused. “How can I show her? How can I make her mine? Time and again, I look at her, and she is still free from me! I am the prince of all Saddle Arabia, yet I cannot hold her in my hooves. Why?” He shook his head. “Why?”

“My prince.” Habiib bowed his head. “I cannot answer these questions for you.”

“But you must!”

“I cannot.” His voice was crisp, his words curt. “These are questions that you must answer yourself; no other can show you the way.”

Altair’s mouth worked helplessly, his hooves clutching to the sheets of his bed.

“I will give you a single direction, though, my prince.” Habiib reached out and touched Altair’s chest with a hoof, right over his heart. “The answers do not lie in your vaults, or in your hooves, or in your throne.”

His voice was quiet, reverent. “They lie in here.”

“And if you look to the top of the tower, you can see the rune of the cloud.” Altair leaned in closer, pointing his hoof toward the Northern Temple. “It’s hard to see, but it’s there.”

The streets buzzed around them, the opening ceremonies of the Celebration of Flowers in full swing. The sun was setting on the first day of the festival, but the populace was no more quiet for it, with songs and dances still erupting all across the city. Altair idly twirled the necklace of flower petals that hung around his neck; he’d gotten two of them that morning, one for himself, and one for Desert Rose.

She stood at his side, gazing in the direction of his hoof. He’d wanted to show her the sights of the city—give her a tour to lift her spirits. Yet at each place they stopped, she gave only a short nod and moved on. It seemed as though any enthusiasm that had been present at the giving of her “name’ had vanished, to be replaced what only could be called impatience.

Sensing Desert Rose’s apparent irritation, Altair beckoned one of the guards of their escort and murmured something in his ear. As the guard left, the prince turned and smiled at the mare beside him.

“I have decided that we will go someplace quieter to finish the night,” he said. “The Pavilion of Lanterns is beautiful in the twilight, and I would be honored if you would accompany me there.” He held out a hoof.

Wordlessly, she took his hoof and followed him. The guards led them out of the marketplace and busy streets, leaving behind the celebrations and music of the day. There would be time enough for more of those tomorrow.

The Pavilion was one of the few truly green spots within the city, each blade of grass upon its lawns perfectly trimmed and shaped by a team of master gardeners. Small, amber candles flickered behind paper masks, the lanterns that held them glowing like fireflies as the sun set in the distance.

It was by a pool of clear, still water that the pair finally settled. There was a bench there; the Pavilion was stacked in layers and stairs, like a building itself, and so the pair had a clear view of the city below. Behind them, the Palace towered into the darkening sky, its hulking, shadowed form like an enormous cloud over the desert.

Altair cleared his throat. “My mother used to love coming here,” he said quietly.

“Did she?” Desert Rose looked around, her narrowed eyes scanning the perfectly hooficured lawns.

“She did,” Altair echoed. “She always said that she loved the way that she could see the city from here, even as she kept as close to nature as she could.” His hoof brushed across a blade of grass and came to rest on a tiger lily that grew by the side of the pool. With a single motion, he plucked it from its stem; Desert Rose offered no protest as he tucked it behind her ear.

“She never left the city, though,” he added. “She always wondered what it would be like to see a true, wild oasis, but she could never leave the walls. It was too dangerous for a highborn mare like her.”

They were quiet for a moment, the sun continuing to sink past the horizon.

“Tell me,” Desert Rose said. She waved her hoof in the direction of the city below. “When you look at that, what do you see?”

“I see the marketplace.” Altair’s eyes scanned across the streets below, his eyebrows furrowed. “I see each building, decorated for the Celebration of Flowers. I see the gate that leads to the Inner City and the guardhouse beside it.”

She grunted. “Is that all? Can you see nothing else?”

“The Northern Temple?”

Her silence betrayed her displeasure. Altair closed his eyes and shook his head, his mane falling across his shoulders. “That’s all, my lady.”

Her lip curled.

“My sire asked me the same thing, you know,” he said, staring into the pool. The first, twilight stars shimmered in the water, the moonlight beginning to ripple across its surface. “He didn’t like my answer either.”

He fell silent as dusk drifted over the city.

“Tell me.” Altair looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “When you look out at the city, what do you see?”

She smiled.

“There,” she said. She lifted his hoof and pointed it, holding the much larger foreleg delicately between her own. “What is that you see there?”

He frowned. “A house.”

“Oh?” She tossed her mane out of her face, the golden, crimson-stained strands waving behind her back. “I see something more.” Her voice lowered to a dull whisper. “Do you know what I see?”

He dumbly shook his head.

“I see a mare,” she said. “An elderly matron of sixty seasons, her children long since grown and gone. I see her sire, his ashes sitting upon the mantle as she watches the flames in the fireplace, awaiting the return of her husband.”

She fell silent again.

“And there?”

She pointed his hoof toward a taller building, its sides decorated with vines and blossoming lilies. “I see a young family, the sire and dam putting their foals to sleep. I see the colt, shifting in his swaddling clothes as he dreams of the desert.” Her voice lowered to a whisper, and her lips brushed against his ear. Altair shivered. “He will be a mighty warrior one day.”

“And there?”

Her eyes flickered across the roof of the Northern Temple, the runes that decorated its great spires nearly invisible against the darkening sky. “I see a lonely priestess,” she said quietly. “I see a stallion, praying at the feet of gods that he believes do not listen. I see walls that whisper the stories of the damned and of salvation: of the sand and dust that has been carried upon the hooves of generation of horses and ponies alike.”

Absently, Altair noticed that she was sitting directly beside him, her side brushing against his.

“Do you remember those gemstones you showed me?” she said.

He blinked. “You mean in the Garden of Diamonds?”

“Yes.” She held a hoof in the air, turning it over as the dimming light danced across its tip. “Do you know why I thought so little of those dead stones?”

“No.”

She gave him a small, tight smile. “Because deep in the desert, far beneath the dunes, there are caves and tunnels formed of sand and lime. They are darkened like the blackest night, but within their depths grow crystals and gemstones that live like any of your subjects.” She put a hoof beneath his chin and looked into his eyes. “They are free, you see, each with a mind and life of its own. They are not dead, like yours. Each gem’s uncut depths—sapphire, emerald, amethyst, or one of the hundreds of stones that have no name—hold a personality and soul that are not so unlike those of a pony, horse, griffon, or drake.”

Her voice was quiet. “All this, I see.”

“How do you see all this?”

“Your subjects, or the stones?”

“The first.”

A small smile curled on her face. “Because they are.” She paused. “Because they are life; because they take each breath with the struggle of each living creature, struggling against the sand that waits in their longs.”

She bowed her head. “Because, with each grain of dust throughout all the many kingdoms, the desert sees all, Prince Altair.”

It was the first time that she’d said his name—and title—since he had met her.

He felt breathless, elated, paralyzed. “You are more than I ever imagined when I first saw you in the bazaar,” he said under his breath.

She chuckled. “Oh?”

“Everything and more.” He shook his head. “What secrets do you hold, Desert Rose? What more can I learn from you that I have missed for all my time on this earth?”

With a start, he noticed that her head had come to rest on his shoulder, her mane dropping over his back. Her cream-colored coat swirled against his own dark blue, and he could feel her heartbeat with each rise and fall of her chest.

“Everything,” she said at last. “And nothing.”

“But I—”

She held a hoof up to his mouth. “Hush, Prince Altair.” A small, knowing smile crossed her face, and she slowly drew away from him. She got to her hooves and dusted herself off. “I will return to my lodgings now, if it pleases you.”

He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

With a shrug of her shoulder, the flickering of the lanterns dancing along the curve of her body, she turned to go. “A good night to you.”

Altair smiled and closed his eyes.

When he opened them, she was gone.

The next morning, Desert Rose was awakened by a knock at her door. With her mane tied up behind her head, she trotted toward the door and opened it. The sunlight streamed into her room, splaying across the floor and furniture.

Altair was there, an uncertain smile on his face. “I was wondering if you might want to come with me to visit the city walls today,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “I mean, I understand if you don’t want to come, but I—”

“I would be delighted.”

He froze, his tongue tying itself into a knot. “I—uh—what?”

She smiled at him, a soft, mysterious smirk. “I would be happy to accompany you,” she repeated, her deep, musical tones echoing in the hall. “

He blinked. “You will?” He bowed his head and grinned. “Then allow me to lead the way, my lady.”

“These walls are hundreds of years old,” Altair said as the two walked along the top of the city walls. The contingent of Crescent Guards that had accompanied them waited at a respectful distance, giving the couple some privacy. “My family was the first to rule this city, many centuries ago, and from it they grew an empire that stretched from the northern hills to the southern rainforests.”

She held up a hoof, stopping in place. He stopped with her and gave her an uncertain look. “What? Is something wrong?”

“Not hundreds of years.” She closed her eyes, taking a small breath. “Thousands.”

He blinked. “I—”

She turned toward the edge of the wall and stared out over the cityscape. Her golden mane blew in the wind, the air rustling against her coat. “The first to come here preceded even your people,” she said quietly as he trotted up beside her. “They built these walls—much smaller than they are now—and founded their own society.”

She turned to look him in the eye. “They were the first to tame these dunes into slabs of lime and marble, creating something where once there was naught but sand. Yet now their bones and riches lie beneath the stones of your city, forgotten by all who walk above.” She tilted her head, her lips slightly parted. “What will become of your people, of your city, in three thousand years?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she turned from the wall and began the walk to the other side of the thirty-foot-wide structure. Dumbstruck, Altair followed her.

“The storms have risen over these dunes for millions of years,” she murmured, looking out into the desert. “Yet only in the last few seconds, to them, has an army of gnats built their tiny walls to keep the sand out.”

“Tiny?” Altair exclaimed. “These walls are two hundred feet high!”

She turned to look him in the eye, her own amber eyes sparkling beneath the desert sun. “The sands are deep,” she said simply. “All works of stone and wood are but specks to them.”

She turned back to look out at the desert and fell silent.

Altair hesitated, unsure of what to say. After a moment, though, he leaned forward against the wall.

“I’ve always wanted to go beyond the wall, you know.” He sounded quiet; introspective. Almost mournful. “To see the oases and salt fields that my mother told me stories about. To see the caravans as they travel beneath the stars.”

He reared up on his hind legs and planted his forehooves on the stone ridge above the wall’s surface. “To visit new lands. To see the riches that they hold. To experience the culture that they have there.” He leaned forward even further, balancing his weight on the side of the wall, and gave her a sheepish grin. “To meet the other people there—horses, ponies, whomever—and to learn what they know.”

She returned the smile, and he chuckled.

He leaned forward even more, grains of sand rustling as they fell from the top of the wall. “I know it might sound silly, coming from one of my station, but I—”

“Prince Altair!”

His eyes widened. His hoof slipped, first by one inch, and then by three. Before either of them could react, he was slipping over the edge of the wall, his weight shifting past where it had precariously balanced, and falling over the edge. Desert Rose watched with horror as he fell, his eyes terrified and his legs flailing as the desert sands seemed to come up to swallow him whole.

“Oof!”

He landed back-first on the edge of a stone outcropping that stuck out from the wall. He groaned, spots flashing across his eyes. “What happened?”

“My prince!”

Stars swam across his vision, and before he could even register the sound, a loud cracking noise resounded through his ears.

The stone was breaking.

Frantically, he tried to escape—to move, to flee—but he had no time. The sandstone cracked beneath his weight, rock that had been weathered by the rage of a thousand sandstorms finally breaking into two. He flailed wildly as he slipped off the edge, trying to hold himself in place, trying to find a hoofhold—and finally found it.

Time froze.

Altair hung in the air, his hooves scratching against the jagged surface of the rock. Moisture glistened at the corner of his eyes as his legs scraped across the top, the friction too small to keep him on the ground. He dared not to look down, though he knew what lay below: a several-hundred foot drop to the sands below.

And then, in the blink of an eye, she was there.

He blinked, wondering if it was a mirage. But no—Desert Rose stood on the edge of the stone outcropping, her form larger than life. “Take my hoof!” she shouted, holding out one foreleg. “Now!”

He took it.

Groaning, and with what felt like an eternity of pain and terror, the pair managed to haul Altair’s dangling body off of the precipice and back onto what was left of the stone outcropping. As she pulled him over the side, he collapsed onto the ground, his sides heaving and his tongue hanging out of his mouth. His sides were dirty, matted with sand, dirt, and sweat.

“Somepony—someone—throw down a rope!” Desert Rose hollered back up the side of the wall. “A harness, a pulley—whatever you have! The prince is only safe once he’s at the top of the wall once again!”

There came a chorus of shouts from above, and the faces of the guards disappeared from the side of the wall.

“You...you saved me,” Altair panted.

She shot him a smug look. “It would seem that I did.”

“But...” He shook his head, not even caring about the sweat that clung to his formerly pristine mane. “Why?”

She snorted. “Because I chose to.” She put a hoof onto his forehead, and as he looked up into her eyes, she smiled. “Because the sands will not take you this day, Prince Altair. Not today.”

He stared into her face for a few moments more, seemingly unable to think of any words to say. Then, without any warning, a deep rumble welled up in his stomach. A few chuckles escaped his mouth, his sides shaking with mirth until he threw his head back and just laughed, joyous to be alive.

She laughed too, her mane flowing in the desert wind that blew against the walls. They laughed together until tears came from their eyes. They laughed when the harness came down to fetch them, and they were still laughing as they were brought to the top.

They laughed, and they laughed together.

When he awoke the next morning, Altair swung out of bed with the first rays of sunlight, not even waiting for Habiib to wake him up. The butler peeked into the room, his eyebrows climbing up into his forehead at the sight of the smile on the prince’s face. “My prince?”

“I’m feeling good today, Habiib,” Altair proclaimed. He looked his reflection up and down in the mirror, the smile only growing further until it stretched from ear to ear. “I’m thinking of bringing her to the Western Temple today and showing her the shrine there. Do you think she’ll like it?”

“My prince—”

“I can take her out to eat on the terrace!” He brightened. “She’s never tried melon before, has she? Oh, she’ll love it.” He shook his head. “She’s amazing, isn’t she? I talked to one of the guards that was up on the he said he’d never seen anyone move as fast as she did.”

“My prince—”

“And then tonight!” He sprung up on his back hooves, managing to get in only two steps before collapsing back on his bed. “I’ll show her the ending feast of the Celebration, and she’ll be given a parade through the streets as—

“My lord!”

Altair paused, momentarily frozen in shock at the intensity in his butler’s voice. “Habiib?” he asked, turning his head to face him. “What is it?”

Habiib’s eyes were dark and somber, his head bowed to the floor. “My prince, I am sorry,” he said hoarsely. His mane drooped to the ground, his bridle dirtied and disheveled. “But she—”

Altair’s breath caught in his throat. “Yes?”

“She—” Habiib licked his lips and shook his head. “She’s—”

He didn’t finish his sentence.

Altair’s pupils dilated, and he felt his heart stop in his chest. “No,” he whispered.

Habiib closed his eyes. “I am sorry,” he repeated.

“No.” Altair shook his head violently, throwing himself off of his bed. “No. No!”

His hoofsteps gradually faded as he galloped through the halls, leaving Habiib alone in the dark room.

The room was empty, the bedspread torn and thrown violently off to the side. His eyes darted from side to side, searching, but found nothing.

She wasn’t there.

Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes as he stepped into the room. The shadows fell against his dark blue coat, and he bowed his head as the sound of hoofsteps approached from the distance.

“Where is she, Habiib?” he murmured, his back to the door. Idly, he noticed something brightly colored sitting on the dresser and took a step toward it.

“I am sorry, my prince.” The butler sounded out of breath. “I tried to tell you—I tried to stop them—but it was no use.”

“Where. Is. She.” Each word was punctuated cleanly and exactly, like the slice of an axe through bone. As he drew closer, Altair realized that the brightly-colored object was a flower: a tiger lily, to be precise.

He swallowed. It was the same blossom that he had given her that night on the Pavilion. The same blossom that he had plucked from beside the pool as the moon watched overhead and the stars glimmered in the water.

“They took her in the night.” Habiib sounded frantic, his voice more tortured than the prince had ever heard before. “They believe that she threw you from the wall. And when your sire discovered her true identity and race, putting together your full intentions for her, he—”

“He what?”

“He threw her in the dungeons.”

There was a loud crunching noise. As Altair drew his hoof back, he could see that a part of the dresser had been crushed beneath the force of his leg, the flower crumpled like a torn rag.

“The High King?”

His voice was dark and dangerous.

“Yes, my prince.”

Altair bowed his head, staring into the crumbled petals of the tiger lily. “Then I will meet with him,” he murmured. “I will not allow this.”

“My prince, I—”

Altair cut him off. “I will not,” he said. He turned and looked Habiib in the eye.

“She will be freed.”

Altair’s hoofsteps echoed in the great corridors of the palace, Habiib following behind him. The prince paid no mind to the butler, though, his gaze planted firmly ahead.

Staring at the throne doors.

“Father!” he roared, and the doors crashed open.

Beyond, a group of noblehorses and visiting dignitaries were gathered below the throne. Seated upon it, the High King looked over the others, his hooves steepled and his forelegs resting upon the arms of his golden chair.

That is, until he noticed the prince.

“What is the meaning of this?” he barked, glaring at his son. “Why have you come here and interrupted my affairs?”

Altair growled. His body shook with rage, his ears hot against his head. “You know the reason,” he said. He turned to look around at the others that stood in the room; they watched him with shock, surprise, and even disgust. “Send them away.”

“I—”

“Send them away.”

The High King gritted his teeth. “You disrespect me, colt.”

“Now.”

His eyes snapped up to the rest of the court, the noblehorses watching him closely. “Begone!” the High King ordered, his deep voice ringing through the throne room. “Leave at once!”

As the doors shut behind the last of the nobles, the High King lowered himself from his throne and took a step toward Altair, who stood waiting on the floor below. He took another step. Another.

“You dare to show yourself in my presence?” Rigel snarled, his teeth bared. “After what you have done? You dare come into my affairs and command me? The High King, and your sire?”

“I do.” Altair glared defiantly up into his sire’s eyes. Though the High King stood on a taller step than he, the prince did his best to muster up his height, his shadow stretching across the marble floor. “I heard what you did to Desert Rose.”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“No,” Rigel said between clenched teeth. “I cannot say that I do. And you will mind your tongue and think of what it is that you do before I bestow upon you some very regretful consequences.”

“She is the mare that you currently hold in the dungeons.” A shade of red bled through Altair’s eyes, and his knees shook beneath him. “The one that you seized—without right or justification—in the night, and—”

“Without right? Without justification?” The High King drew himself up, glaring down at his son. “I am the High King of Saddle Arabia! I need no right.” He lowered his head and stared into Altair’s eyes. “And she threw you off of a wall. I’d say that’s justification enough.”

“She did no such thing,” Altair snarled back. “I fell. She saved me.”

“Did she, now?”

“She did.” Altair pawed the ground, his muscles tensed and his hackles raised.

“And I love her.”

The High King threw back his head and laughed.

“You? Love her?”

“I do!” Altair exclaimed, his scowl deepening as laughter shook his sire’s body. “And you will release her to me at once!”

The laughter ceased, and Rigel turned back to look at his son with scorn and disgust in his face.

“I will do no such thing.” He shook his head, a shadow crossing his face. “Even if she is innocent of any direct wrongdoing, I will not have my son—the prince!—involved with one such as her.”

“You dare—”

“I dare.” Rigel’s eyes flashed dangerously, and he stomped a hoof on the floor. “She is a pony—an Equestrian, even! Look at her flank! Her side bears the symbol of their heresies. The symbol of the sun! The golden circle!”

“I don’t care!”

“You should!” Rigel’s face contorted into an ugly snarl. “I will not have my son marry a common, cutthroat, blasphemous pony!”

“I—”

“You will do nothing!” He shook his head. “It has become clear to me that your heads is filled with cotton, your thoughts clouded and stale. Perhaps I have given you too much freedom; too much space. That will no longer be permitted. ”

“What would my dam say? My mother?” Altair’s sides heaved, and he glared up at the all the force that he could muster.

“She would be disappointed!” Rigel roared. “Disappointed in you for forgetting your heritage, your family, your honor!”

“No! She would be disappointed in you for your backwards, idiotic ways, and your inability to see what’s right in front of your damned eyes!”

They stood like that for a minute, sides heaving as they glared into the other’s eyes. Sweat poured down Altair’s face, and he wiped it away with a swipe of his hoof.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the High King spoke.

“What are our words?”

Altair inhaled slowly. “What?”

“What. Are. Our. Words?” Rigel’s voice was quiet and dangerous, like the calm before a storm.

“Ya lili ah ya leel,” Altair spat.

“Oh, the night; oh, the night,” Rigel echoed. His eyes narrowed. “They have been the words of our house for over a thousand years, before even this city was built! Before I was born, or my sire’s sire, or my sire’s sire’s sire, or fifty generations stretching back to the first dawn over this desert!” Spittle flew from his mouth.

“These ponies—this mare,” he spat, “They worship the sun! They have cursed the moon and banished it to the realm of horror and hate! They have no honor, nor do they hold respect!”

“She’s different!” Altair shouted, his voice echoing hoarsely off of the walls. “She’s not like the rest!”

“It matters not!”

“I love her!”

“You will not!”

Silence fell over the hall again.

Once more, the High King was the first to speak. His voice was quiet—almost tired—but it held steel in each word.

“I will not have her in my palace,” he growled. “Nor will I permit you to leave or to attempt some foalish attempt at self-sacrifice to keep her here.”

Altair opened his mouth, but Rigel held up his hoof.

“I will release her from the dungeons,” he said. “Being loved by a fool is no crime, though I have no doubts that the desert filly has picked enough saddlebags in her time.”

“I—”

“Will do nothing.” Rigel’s words echoed in the room, and his eyes were hard. “This is my verdict. She will leave the city at once, you will abandon any notions you had of romance,” his lip curled, “and that will be final.

“Now get out of my sight.”

Without a word, his glare never faltering, Altair turned away and fled the room.

The doors closed behind him with a final thud.

The two guards held up their spears as he approached, but Altair raised a hoof into the air and spoke.

“She is cleared of any wrongdoing. By my sire’s words, she is to be released.”

The pair nodded and lowered their weapons.

Two minutes later, the prince stood outside of Desert Rose’s former cell. The dungeons were quiet and dark, the only light a flickering candle perched upon the wall. Neither spoke for a long time.

“I’m sorry,” Altair finally said. He bowed his head. “My sire has given his verdict: you will be freed, but must leave the city at once as punishment for my actions.” His closed his eyes. “I am sorry for the trouble I have caused you.”

He felt a hoof under his cheek and, slowly, lifted his head until he was peering into her eyes.

“What is the problem?” Desert Rose asked.

He blinked. “I—I just said! You have to leave the city, or my sire will keep you here, or worse—have you killed!”

He blinked again as she made a strange noise. His eyes narrowed as he realized that she was laughing. “What are you doing? Stop that!”

She shook her head, raising a hoof to wipe her eyes. “I am sorry, Prince Altair. But this is no terrible fate.”

His eyes widened, and he took an unsteady step forward. “How can you say that?”

She smiled sweetly up at him, her hoof stroking beneath his chin. “I could never have stayed, my prince,” she murmured, caressing his mane. “I am a traveler of the desert sands.”

“You’re a merchant.” Altair frowned. “But I could have kept you here.”

“Not for long,” she said simply.

At his silence, she reached out and drew her hoof across his shoulders, massaging them gently. “Fear not, my prince,” she whispered into his ear. “You will find happiness; of that I have no doubt.

“But for now, I must go.”

Altair knelt before her, his knees collapsing to the ground. “I’ll return you to your caravan at once,” he blurted. “You’ll return to your friends with all of the gifts and riches that I can bestow upon you.”

He felt a hoof against his lips. “Hush, you silly colt.” He looked up, his eyes flickering up into her amber eyes. “You’ll do no such thing. I have no need for such treasures upon my journeys.” Her lips curled into a small smile. “But the thought alone is kind enough.”

She pursed her lips. “Now stand up, you silly prince. You look ridiculous. On your knees, you’re shorter than even me!” She shook her head. “That will not do.”

He allowed her to help him to his hooves, and as he licked his lips, staring off to the side, he asked, “Will I see you again?”

She smiled: a soft, secretive smile. “Perhaps. Who can tell what futures the desert holds?”

Altair let his shoulders fall and exhaled deeply. “I cannot. That I know for sure.” He looked up and grinned weakly. “But I can say that I am better off for having met you.”

That smile held more secrets than a desert veil, but it warmed her eyes and dimpled her cheeks all the same. “I should hope so,” she murmured. “Now, I must go.”

Her hoof swept across his mane a final time, and she turned to leave.

“Goodbye, my prince,” she said quietly, and vanished through the door.

The sound of the crowd was deafening as Prince Altair took the final steps up to the stage, flanked on either side by members of the Crescent Guard. When he arrived at the podium, he stopped in place and lifted one hoof to the skies. The masses did the same, the applause of hooves redoubling as their cries and cheers roared in his ears.

“Loyal subjects!” he bellowed. The crowds shouted his name in return, and he kept his hoof in the air until they quieted to a more manageable level. He cleared his throat before speaking again.

“I come before you today as your prince, and, ultimately, your future High King!” The crowd roared.

“I stand on this stage on the final morning of the Celebration of Flowers, one of the most important festivals of our year!” He lifted his head high and looked out over the square. “This week, we celebrate the fertility and growth of our people and our nation, as well as the incredible things that we have accomplished!

“But there is more to this week than the past!” He took a deep breath. “Today, we look to the future! Today, we look to our foals, born and unborn, and prepare them for the day when they, too, shall blossom as we have!

“Today,” he went on, his voice growing stronger and surer with each word he spoke. “Today, we recognize the importance of each and every citizen and subject of this great nation, and lift our spirits up to the gods above!”

He paused, licking his lips and allowing the crowd a moment to cheer before speaking again. “I was given a lesson by my sire recently, though I did not understand it at the time.” He shook his head, the crowd hanging on his every word. “I was younger, and more foalish than I am now, but a common mare taught it to me in full!”

His voice rang out over the square, each word falling like thunder among the crowds. “This city—no, this world—is like a desert! Each one of us no more than a grain of sand in a much wider dune!” His voice was ragged, but he spoke on.

“If we draw away too far, we see the desert only for the desolate, dead sand that it holds, but if we draw closer, we see that each grain is more than that! Each grain is a tiny, brilliant jewel: a beautiful flower, just like the ones that we celebrate during this week!

“Each of you is one of those grains of sand!” he roared. “Each of you a flower! There is more to this kingdom than the palaces of nobles; of the wants of princes, or the commands of kings. And I promise that when my reign comes, I will make a Celebration of Flowers that lasts a century—a hundred years of beauty and prosperity for each citizen of my kingdom! A golden age for my subjects, and for the whole world! And you will help me make that happen!”

The crowd went wild.

He flung his head back, gazing up at the blue, cloudless sky as their cheers and thunderous applause pounded against his eardrums.

An eddy of sand drifted across the sky, momentarily forming into the image of a dark spiral over the sun. His eyes widened, and the light flashed across his face once more.

When he finally lowered his head, the crowd was still cheering. He raised his hoof, and they screamed even louder.

“Thank you!” he cried, the soldiers coming up to escort him off stage. “May the gods bless you, each horse, pony, and creature of my kingdom!

“And enjoy the rest of the festival!”

Fifteen years later, Rigel, of House Akhir, died.

The High King passed quietly in his bed, surrounded by his loved ones. As he spoke his final words and gave his blessings, Altair watched him with wide, tear-filled eyes, his hooves shaking on the bedside.

It was the final day of the Celebration of Flowers.

He had searched for her every year since she had left. Year after year, festival after festival, he had searched the crowds, his eyes straining to catch a glimpse of a honey-gold mane, streaked with crimson; or perhaps the flash of a cream-white coat.

But he had never found her.

Now, he sat beside his sire’s bedside and struggled to hold in his tears as the High King Rigel laid down his head, took his final, rattling breath, and died.

On the day of the wedding, the new queen beamed out over the crowds, her belly heavy with child. The full Crescent Guard watched over them as a priestess of the High Gods chanted over their rings, laying blessings upon them before clamping them around the forehooves of the new couple.

As the crowds cheered in celebration, the High King’s eyes looked out over the masses below, searching and searching but never finding.

There was no honey-colored mane in the audience. No rose that lay beneath the desert sun.

It was in the thirtieth year of his reign, the longest of any sitting ruler, that the High King Altair finally died.

He lay alone in his bed, the other side empty and cold, as it had been since his wife had passed. He had commanded the others—the priests, his son, the guards—to leave, and the chamber was empty save for the light that drifted in through an uncovered window.

He had ruled for three decades, doing his best to keep the promise that he had made on that stage all those years ago. The Saddle Arabian empire had blossomed into a golden age of peace and prosperity; diplomatic ties to the neighboring Equestrian and Griffon nations couldn’t be tighter. His citizens were healthy, wealthy, and above all, happy.

He shifted on his side and sighed, turning over in an attempt to get into a more comfortable position. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of what stood on his desk: a desert rose, held in a glass case. It stood proud in its position, as pristine and as beautiful as the day he had found it in the market.

When they found him in his bed the next morning, dead beneath his sheets, the smile was still on his face.

The guard yawned, resting his spear against the wall as he raised a hoof to his mouth. “It’s late,” he mumbled. “Too late.”

“Shut up,” his companion grunted. The pair stood in an alcove just beside the great gate that opened up into the city of Bridylon. “We’re supposed to be keeping watch.”

“Mm.” The first guard nodded vacantly, his eyes drooping.

“Look!”

He blinked, shaking his head. “What?”

“There!” The second guard picked up his spear and jabbed it toward the road ahead. “See?”

A dark shape moved down the road, approaching the gatehouse. The second guard gritted his teeth and hefted his spear. “Who comes into the city in the dead of night like this?”

“He would, it seems,” his companion remarked.

“Halt!”

The figure stopped in its tracks as the two guards raised their spears threateningly, stepping outside of the door to the guardhouse. “Who goes there?”

“A traveler.”

One of the guards squinted, but could make out nothing; the figure wore a dark, heavy cloak. It was short, though: much smaller and squatter than either of the two horses. “What business have you here?”

“To enter the city.”

“At this time of night?”

The figure was silent for a moment. “Yes,” it finally said.

“Well, you can’t come in.”

“By whose order?”

One guard gave a bark of laughter. “By whose order? By that of the High King Janah, son of Altair, son of Rigel.” He snorted. “And who are you?”

The other guard frowned. “We can let you in,” he said gruffly. “Wouldn’t want to leave anyone out to die in the desert. But at least show us your face and give us a name.”

The figure stood in place, its head tilted to the side. Then, with a single, fluid motion, it drew one limb up and brought the hood of its cloak down.

“I am but a humble traveler,” the pony repeated.She stood tall upon the desert road, the moonlight filtering through her honey-colored mane and glinting off of the red streaks within. The starlight glistened on her coat, a creamy white that seemed to swirl with fragile browns.

Her eyes flickered, revealing deep, amber irises whose violet tint shone in the darkness. A smile curled on her face. “My name?” Her voice was low, accented with deep, musical tones.

“You may call me Desert Rose.”

Lyra the Stalker

The bell rang with a clang, and a mint green unicorn made her way through the hallway. Having gathered all of her books from her locker, she ducked and weaved past the web of students. It was the beginning of the semester, and she had received an immense amount of homework. Judging by that, she assumed that it was going to be a very long year of school.

Lyra wobbled to and fro, doing her best to keep the stack of textbooks on her back balanced. “Almost there... just a few more steps...” Lyra’s tongue hung out in concentration. She was trying to reach the exit without any incidents, and she needed to make sure she didn’t drop anything on the way or it was going to be real hard to pick it back up.

“Aha!” Lyra cried out, setting a hoof over the threshold of the doorway. “Made i—” Before she had even finished speaking, a purple unicorn with her face in a book appeared. Lyra tried to stop, but her momentum caused her body to keep going, so she collided headfirst into the unicorn. “Noooooooo!” she cried.

The books fell down in a glorious hail, each pelting Lyra over the head. A sharp pain thrust through her tongue, reigniting every time she bit down on it. As her head repeatedly bounced against the floor, her only thought was: Why did I take so many subjects? When the last book had fallen, Lyra fell backwards. Stars surrounded her head and her vision turned blurry.

She tried to stumble to her hooves several times, but each time she fell back to the ground. Finally, she just gave up and lay on the floor. Staring at the ceiling, her vision slowly returned to normal as the same purple unicorn came into view.

“Sorry about that. Are you okay?” she asked, holding out a hoof. Lyra noticed that her mane was tied in a ponytail and held together by a string.

“Yempt.” Lyra tried to speak, but all that came out was gibberish. She stuck out her tongue, it had turned red. She pointed at it and made gurgling sounds, but all that did was make the purple unicorn tilt her head. Lyra tried to nod, but all she did was make herself nauseous.

“Err... okay then.” A glow appeared on the unicorn’s horn and all of the fallen books magically came together in a neat little stack. She levitated them above Lyra, then set them gently onto her back. Lyra tried to get up, but fell over again, causing the books to fall back down.

The purple unicorn put a hoof to her chin and thought for a bit. “Ah!” Using her magic again, she restacked the pile of books, but this time, she used the string that had been in her mane to wrap the books and keep them in place. “There you go! Good as new.” She smiled.

Lyra stopped and got a good look at the unicorn for the first time.

The purple unicorn flipped her mane with a hoof, causing sparkles and glitter to fly everywhere. The smooth strands of hair spiralled in a lush forest of locks. It was majestic as a merpony, leaping from the sea for a chance to reach the moon, futile as it was. Her eyelashes fluttered up and down, and Lyra swore that the unicorn puckered her lips at her.

The unicorn held her hoof out again. “I’m Twilight. What’s your name?”

Lyra shook her head, trying to shake away the fantasy. “My name’s Lyra.” She reached out and was pulled to her hooves. Her legs wobbled, but she managed to stand. “Thanks.”

Lyra fumbled for something else to say, but words wouldn’t come to her. So she resolved to stare at Twilight, her eyes unblinking.

Twilight was the first to break the staring contest; she looked at the floor instead. “Okay then. Well, uh... see you later?” Levitating the book in front of her face again, she continued walking down the hall.

“Sure!” A grin appeared on Lyra’s face, spreading so wide, it covered most of her face. Twilight strode away, her butt wiggling all the way. She turned around at the last second, but shuddered when she saw Lyra gazing relentlessly back at her.

“Mmmm.” Lyra licked her lips.

“I’ll telling you, Sparkler, she was the most beautiful mare I’ve ever seen.” Lyra explained to her friend as they walked through the grass outside of the school.

“You’re into that sort of thing, huh? The bookish type?”

“Err. I’m not sure. All I know is that the way her flank was swinging, mmhmmm, I could definitely see myself getting a piece of that.” Lyra held her hooves in front of her face and shook it vigorously.

Sparkler stared wide-eyed at her. “You... might want to hold yourself back a bit. You might scare her off.”

“Scare her off? How? Who’d be scared of little ol’ me?” Lyra pursed her lips and threw her head back.

“I...” Sparkler decided to change the subject. “Have you asked her out yet?”

Lyra blushed. “Wha? Of course not.”

“Well, you better hurry. The spring formal’s coming soon. If you keep waiting, you’re going to lose your chance.” Sparkler’s eyes darted to the side. “Oh, there’s Twilight now. Here’s your chance!”

Lyra looked across the field and saw Twilight scurrying along the border. Her nose was pushed into a book, just like last time. Lyra held up her hooves to her mouth and tried to use them as cups to amplify her voice. “Hey, Twilight!”

Twilight carried on. She probably didn’t hear her. Dozens of ponies’ heads that were in the field turned to see who was shouting, but not Twilight’s.

Lyra bounced up and down frantically, waving her hooves like she was trying to brush away an invisible spiderweb. “Twilight! Hey Twilight! Over here! Helloooooo! Twilight! Look over here!”

Twilight increased her pace, her canter becoming a gallop. Meanwhile, her eyes bored holes into the book she was reading, and a sweatdrop streamed down her face. She turned the corner and disappeared into a crowd of ponies.

“Huh. She must have really been into that book. She didn’t hear me at all. ” Lyra shrugged.

“Yea...” Sparkler raised an eyebrow.

“No biggie. I’ll get my chance eventually.” Lyra clapped her hooves together. She’d talk to Twilight again, no matter what. She just had to be patient.

“I’m gonna ask her out if it’s the last thing I do,” Lyra told herself. After her first attempt, Lyra tried several times, rather unsuccessfully, to track down Twilight. Their schedules never synced up though, so the only reliable way of catching her was after school. Lyra tried to get her attention, but she was always reading. She tried using giant banners, foam fingers, and even a trampoline, but it was like Twilight was trapped in an entirely different world. It felt like Twilight was more interested in books than friends, so if Lyra wanted to get her attention, she’d have to do something drastic.

And that’s why she was sneaking around Twilight’s locker while hiding in a trashcan. She had already dumped out the previous trash and taken cover inside. Lifting the lid high enough to see, Lyra peeked out.

“Anytime now...”

Lyra waited. And waited. And waited. She held her head up with a hoof, but she was drooping. Her eyes fluttered open and shut. Just as she was about to fall asleep, a purple blur flicked across her vision.

“Aha!” Lyra popped out of the trashcan, screaming.

“Ahhhh!” screamed a purple unicorn. She fell to the floor, clutching her chest. “What’s wrong with you?!”

Lyra looked closer. “Whoops, sorry! Thought you were somepony else.” The purple unicorn glared at her and stuck up her hoof. Blushing in embarrassment, Lyra sunk back into the trashcan and placed the lid above her head.

Time passed like a slug travelling in a sea of molasses. Where is she, anyway? Lyra looked at her watch. “Ugggh. What’s taking so long? Where are you, Twilight Sparkle!?”

Some of the ponies that were walking by jumped back, and stared at the supposedly talking trash can. Lyra realized that with all of them staring at her like that, her cover would be blown. “Don’t mind me, I’m just a regular old trash can. Yup, yup, yup.”

The ponies didn’t move. They just kept staring.

She tried to shoo them away with a hoof. “Go away already!” When they didn’t, Lyra shouted, “Oooga Booga, I shall eat your unborn!” Lyra used her magic to levitate the trashcan and threw herself across the room.

The ponies scrambled, scattered and screamed while Lyra became a pinball. The trashcan dented as it bounced along the hallway, hitting all the walls, floor, and ceiling.

“Crud, ahhhhh!” She was sent flying in one last arc before skidding to a stop on the floor. “Ow.” With a clang, she tossed the lid to the side and looked up. A teacher glared at her with her forelegs crossed.

“Hehe, err... hello!” Lyra smiled as wide as she could muster. The teacher grabbed her by the ear and dragged her to the Principal’s office. “Ow! Ow-ow-ow-ow!”

After a harsh reprimand from the principal, Lyra decided to stay more low-key. Instead of staking out Twilight’s locker, Lyra decided to visit her at home instead. After bribing a few ponies with bits, she found the location and quickly headed over. She carried an invitation to the spring formal with her, just in case.

“Whoa...” Lyra said as she walked towards the building. It was at least five stories tall, and had a steel gate enclosed around it. After hopping over the gate, Lyra went up to the front door and pressed the doorbell. A baby purple dragon, with green scales, opened the door.

“Oh! Aren’t you the most adorable thing?” Lyra bent down and stroked the dragon behind the ears. He giggled, and his leg thumped against the ground. Lyra cooed as she rubbed the dragon’s belly.

There was a coughing sound from behind him, and he pushed Lyra’s hooves away. He stood to attention. “Yes? What can I do for you?”

“Err... hello there! Is Twilight home?”

The dragon looked Lyra up and down. “Yea, one moment.” He disappeared into the house, leaving the door wide open.

Lyra peeked her head through, she was sure Twilight wouldn’t mind. After all, if it really mattered, then the dragon should have closed the door properly.

Lyra craned her neck around and scanned the premises. It was a normal house; It had the standard furniture and all of that, but the first thing that came to Lyra’s mind was that everything was filled to the brim with books. Towers of books stood on the table next to the door, sticking out of the drawers, and even sitting behind the glass cabinets. “Sheesh.” Lyra’s eyes bulged. “So many books here, she might as well live in a tree.”

A bunch of hushed whispers attracted her attention. Her ears perked up and pointed towards the sound, but she couldn’t make it out. The best she could do was locate the source of the voice; it was in a room right near the door. A purple hindleg and a purple tail stuck out from the doorway. The whispers stopped and the purple dragon appeared again. As he walked back to the door, Lyra pulled her head back outside.

The dragon shrugged at her. “Sorry, Twilight says she’s not here.” A frustrated grunt came from behind him, and he turned around. Half of a mane and an eyeball stuck out from behind the doorway inside the house. It peeked out, but upon catching Lyra’s gaze, it slowly retracted back.

“Are you sure?” Lyra raised an eyebrow.

He smiled. “Positive.”

Lyra’s eyebrows furrowed. “I’ll... just come back later then.” Lyra turned to go, but stopped. “By the way, I’m Lyra.” She put out her hoof.

He shook her hoof with his claw in return. “Spike.”

“Oh, give her this for me, would you?” She handed Spike the invitation she had brought earlier.

“Sure thing.” Spike saluted her.

“Thanks, Spike.” She gave him a little wave as she trotted away.

As Lyra made her way through the front yard, she thought it was rather odd that Twilight didn’t want to speak with her. Who was she fooling? She was obviously right there. “Aha!” Lyra smacked her hooves together. “She’s just shy! Yea, that’s it.” Lyra smiled, having solved the mystery of the day.

“So?” Lyra said, cornering Twilight at her locker. “What do you think?”

“Uh... I’m not really interested in going.” Twilight shoved the books into her saddlebags as fast as possible.

“Oh come on! It’ll be fun!” Lyra playfully poked Twilight in the side.

Twilight grimaced. “I don’t really want to, sorry.”

“Aww, don’t be a Sour Spring Shine.” Lyra pleaded with her hooves. “Pleaaaase?”

“I....” Twilight’s eyes darted back and forth between Lyra and the nearest door. She tried to move, but Lyra blocked the way.

“Please?” Lyra’s eyes sparkled like starlights.

Twilight tried to move past Lyra, but she kept getting intercepted. She sighed. “Fine.”

“Yay!” Lyra bounced into the air repeatedly. “I’ll pick you up at seven!” She waved as she hopped outside.

Twilight shook her head and put a hoof against her temple.

Thirty minutes before seven, Lyra adjusted her tux and made her way towards Twilight’s house. Taking a deep breath, she rapped on the door three times. A stallion dressed in guard armor opened the door.

“Hey... have you seen Twilight around by any chance? I’m here to pick her up for the spring formal.” Lyra grinned.

“Sorry kid. She went to Ponyville.”

“Err... what?” Lyra’s ears drooped. “You mean she’s not here?”

“Nope. Sorry.”

“But... but... why did she go to Ponyville? We were supposed to go to the formal, together.”

“Orders of the Princess.”

“Oh.” Lyra breathed a sigh of relief. “For a second there, I thought she ditched me.” She poked him in the ribs. “You nearly got me, you.”

The stallion didn’t react.

“Hmm... okay then. Sorry to bother you.” Lyra gave a polite bow and trotted away. “Have a nice day!”

“Ponyville, huh?” Lyra put a hoof to her chin and paused. “Alright! To Ponyville, I go!”

“You’re going where?” Lyra’s mother, a mint green unicorn not unlike her daughter, stared incredulously at Lyra.

“To Ponyville.” She grabbed a suitcase and placed it on the bed.

“But honey, isn’t this a little... sudden?” She watched her daughter fly around the room, grabbing various bits and bobbles and throwing it into her suitcase.

“Nah.” Lyra used her magic to close the suitcase. “Besides, I’m gonna go stay with a friend. Everything will be alright.” It was a lie, of course, but what else was she supposed to say?

“But what about bits? Food?”

She sat on top of her suitcase until it finally clicked shut. “No worries. I’ve got enough bits to last me for a while. If I need more, I can just perform with my lyre.” Lyra grabbed her belongings with her magic. “I’ll just buy something on the way there.”

“If you say so...”

Lyra ran over and kissed her mother on the cheek. “Gotta go now. Love you! Bye!”

Her mother watched her canter out the door, her suitcase levitating behind her. “Oh Lyra...”

Lyra tapped her hooves together as she waited on the train. The terrain zipped by as the Ponyville Express travelled back to its central location. Lyra stared out the window and smiled. “It’s not Twilight’s fault,” she muttered to herself. “It was the Princess’! But that’s okay. We’ll find something else to do together.”

After about an hour of travelling, the train pulled into the station. After grabbing her suitcases, Lyra hopped off.

“Now how can I find her...?” Lyra tapped her hoof on the ground.

“Heeey!” called a voice.

“Huh?” Lyra turned to the source, a pink pony jumping up and down towards her.

“I’ve never seen you here before!” The pink pony grabbed Lyra’s hoof and shook it vigorously. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie. What brings you to Ponyville?”

“Name’s Lyra. I’m visiting a friend.” She pulled her hoof away.

“What a coincidence! Another unicorn just arrived here earlier too!” Pinkie Pie continued to hop.

“You don’t say...” A sinister grin appeared on Lyra’s face.

Pinkie Pie pulled a piece of paper out of thin air. “We’re having a party later at the Ponyville Library. Why don’t you stop by and chat?” After she hoofed over the invitation, Pinkie waved. “Well, gotta deliver more invitations now! Bye!

Lyra held the card in her hoof. It read: “You are cordially invited to the ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party at the Ponyville Party. Be sure to stop by early and bring as many friends as you want! The more, the merrier!”

“Hmm,” Lyra said, noting the location. “Time to pay Twilight a little visit.”

“What are you doing here?” Twilight gasped, almost dropping her glass. She stared slack-jawed at Lyra, who had just walked through the door.

“Surprise!” Lyra trotted over and hugged Twilight. “I came all the way here from Canterlot just for you!”

“Bu... but... how did you even find me?” Twilight’s jaw dropped open.

“I was given an invitation by Pinkie Pie.” Lyra patted Twilight on the head. “Silly goose.”

Twilight pushed the hoof away. “No, I meant, what are you doing in Ponyville?”

Lyra put her hooves on her hips. “I could ask you the same thing! We were supposed to go to the Spring Formal, remember?”

“I told you I didn’t want to go. You wouldn’t listen!” Twilight waved her limbs in the air.

“What? But why?”

“Can’t you tell?” Twilight asked.

“No?”

Twilight strode up to Lyra and pressed her snout against hers. “You. Are. Creepy.”

Lyra took a few steps back. “Wha? No, I’m not.”

Twilight towered over her. She jabbed a hoof into Lyra’s chest. “Yes, you are! You think I haven’t noticed you following me around all my classes?”

“But...”

“Or the time you hid in that trashcan for hours!” Another jab.

Lyra shrank into a ball. “Buh?”

“Or when you visited my house! That’s a massive invasion of personal space!” Yet another jab.

“Wha?”

“And you touched my dragon! Nopony touches my dragon except me!” Flames appeared from Twilight’s mane.

Lyra’s limbs quivered. “What?”

“You try to force me to go to the Spring Formal, which I don’t even care about! I kept telling you I wasn’t interested, but you wouldn’t back off!” The panic in Twilight’s voice was rising, practically becoming a shout.

“And then, on top of that, you follow me to Ponyville? What are you, some kind of stalker?” The flames around Twilight’s face exploded into a fiery ball before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

“No, I—”

“I was trying to get away from you. That’s why I came here. Yet you followed anyway. What does that make you?”

“I just wanted to—”

“Save it. I was trying to be nice by not saying it to your face, but you’re weird. Obsessed!” Twilight pushed Lyra with both hooves. “No wonder you don’t have many friends.”

Tears welled up in Lyra’s eyes. So this was the truth, was it? Lyra sniffled and rubbed her snout. “If that’s the way you feel, then I’ll leave you alone.” She turned around. Her body felt numb. Why did she care so much, anyway? Twilight was only a unicorn. Lyra quickly left through the front door, ignoring all the ponies that watched her run by. Staring. Judging. That’s all they ever did.

Lyra galloped as fast as she could. From the library and through Ponyville, all she saw was a blur of ponies rushing by. Whether it was from the tears clogging her eyesight or how fast she was going, she didn’t know. What she did know was that she wanted to get out of there. Leave. Never come back.

Why did she care in the first place? She didn’t even know Twilight that well in the first place, so why did she expect anything different? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Watch out!” Lyra looked up and saw a blurred figure frantically waving its appendages. But it was too late. Lyra couldn’t stop. She locked up her hooves, but her momentum pushed her forward. She felt something hit her in the gut and she was sent rolling. Around and around, until she felt a bit queasy. Finally, she sprawled out on the ground.

“Whoooa.” Lyra wobbled onto her hooves, and looked at what she had hit. Another pony lay facedown and spread-out in the dirt. Cream-colored, with a two-colored mane. She was wearing clothes, but they had been ripped. Lyra wiped her face with a hoof before offering it to the pony that had fallen. “Sorry about that.”

She raised her head, allowing Lyra to see her face. The moonlight reflected off her face, encasing it in a shine. Her curls bounced gently across her face. She had a dimple on her chin and her cheeks blushed red. Sparkling white teeth dazzled out at her.

The cream-colored pony grabbed the hoof and was pulled up. “Why you! Watch where you’re going next time!” She popped her on the snout.

“Hehe. Sorry.” Lyra said, rubbing her sore spot.

The cream-colored pony pointed at her clothes. “You better be able to pay for this.”

“Yea, sure I...” Lyra stopped. She just realized she left all of her stuff over at Twilight’s. “Err, I don’t have any bits at the moment.”

“Don’t give that bull.” She glared daggers.

“I’m sorry. I really don’t.” Lyra stared at the ground.

“What’s your name?”

“Lyra.”

“Well, Lyra. If you ain’t got no money, then you’re gonna work it off.” She reached over and grabbed Lyra by an ear.

“Ow! Don’t pull so hard!” Lyra didn’t even know who this strange pony was, but with all that she went through that night, she didn’t really care. If anything, it felt... nice. Her touch, like velvet fabric, felt nice against her ear. Although the pain had been temporary, it was soon replaced by pleasure. Lyra shudded. “Where are we going anyway?”

“I work at a candy shop. Congrats! You’re my newest employee.” She let go of Lyra’s ear. “Now let’s go.”

“Okay.” Lyra followed behind the mare like an obedient puppy. Lyra couldn’t complain. After all, she had the the best view. Lyra licked her lips and smiled devilishly. So things didn’t work out with Twilight. So what? Maybe this time it would be different.

My Little Pumpkin

A unicorn foal cried. Her orange mane was messy, and her little hooves pounded angrily while she watched her brother flutter through the air, flying in circles around their shared nursery. Eyes brimming with tears, the little foal wailed once more, kicking up as much of a racket as her little body could produce. She was mad, and she wanted him to know it. She was sad, and she demanded that he stop mocking her. If she couldn't fly, he should be stuck on the ground right beside her.

All of a sudden, a blur of pink shot through the door, and soon the little foal was wrapped up into a loving embrace by strong hooves. The soft muzzle of the pink mare was soon buried in the little foal's mane, gently nuzzling her and whispering soothing words.

"Shh...what's wrong my little Pumpkin?" the sweet voice chimed, as filled with laughter as it ever was, even as a whisper.

"Pound Cake is fwying. He says I can't fwy too. I want to fwy!" the little foal whined, rapping her hooves against the pink mare's chest in frustration. Even as she railed against the pink mare holding her, the little foal began to feel a warm sense of protection blossom in her chest. The pink pony loved her very much.

"Aww, is that all? Well, that's easy!" the voice said, and soon the same hoof that had been comforting her shot to the little foal's belly. With ease, the pink hoof lifted the little foal into the air. The little foal was shocked, and looked down. Far below, the floor of the nursery swung lazily, and the wide smile from the pink mare beamed up at her. Beside the little foal, her brother buzzed past.

Then she was flying. Bouncing on the pink hoof that held her aloft, the little foal found herself swooping and arcing through the air beside her brother. Before long, her tears had dried, and her cries had turned to giddy laughter. Beneath her, the pink mare supporting her laughed along. Her demands to go faster or soar higher were dutifully met by the pink pony, and after many long minutes of play the little foal was once again wrapped into a loving embrace. While the pink mare cradled her, she continued to smile at the little foal.

"Don't you worry about a thing; just leave it to your Auntie Pinkie!"

A unicorn filly cried. Her orange mane had been done in braids by her mother, tied with ivory ribbons for her first day of school. Her hooves shuffled nervously at the dirt path leading up to the bright red schoolhouse. Dozens of other little fillies and colts ran about, laughing and making new friends. Her brother ran fastest of them all. Her parents had promised that school would be fun, but her brother had run off without her, and now she was all alone. She had never felt alone like this before, made all the worse because she was surrounded by ponies enjoying each other's company.

All of a sudden, a familiar hoof wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her into a hug. She'd known this embrace all her life, and looked up at the ever-cheerful pink mare, who shot her a smile. A pink hoof gently brushed the tears from the little filly's face, and a gentle voice spoke words of encouragement.

"Shh...what's wrong, my little Pumpkin?" the sweet voice chimed, as filled with laughter as it ever was, even as it ached to see the filly grow up.

"Pound Cake is so good at making friends. I'm not going to be able to make any friends. I'll be all alone!" the little filly whined, burying her snout in the curly pink mane and pressing close to the familiar mare out of fear. A gentle hoof was patting the little filly's back, calming her racing heart with its gentle rubs and pats.

"Aww, is that all? Well, that's easy!" the pink mare said, pulling back to look the little filly in the eye. Together the two ponies walked the path up to the schoolhouse door, where the other little fillies laughed and played. The pink mare greeted the schoolteacher, the two old friends always happy to chat. After a quick explanation of the little filly's trepidation, the two mares retrieved a long jump rope, and the bubbly pink mare invited all the fillies and colts in the yard to join in the game. Soon, with the pink mare's help, the little filly was jumping rope with her new classmates.

Her new friends. She was no longer alone. She had friends. The little filly skipped eagerly, her every motion a testament to her joy. The bouncing pink mare turned one end of the jump-rope, grinning at the little filly until the schoolteacher called the young ponies inside. It was time for class. The little filly stole one last hug from the pink mare, thanking her for her help.

"Don't you worry about a thing; just leave it to your Auntie Pinkie!"

A unicorn foal cried. A unicorn mare felt like pulling her orange mane out in frustration. The little mare's daughter hadn't slept in nearly two days, and her constant cries were steadily driving her mother mad. The little mare had no stallion to help her, and the cramped and uncomfortable apartments on the edge of Ponyville offered her no respite from her stress. Her eyes filled with tears as her daughter ignored her pleas for quiet yet again. Tired and alone, the little mare was on the verge of breaking down, of closing the door and ignoring her daughter's cries, of drowning them out with cries of her own.

All of a sudden, a knock on the front door caught her attention. Her daughter safe in her crib, the little mare opened the door, and was immediately wrapped up in a fierce hug. The aging pink mare stood before her, her once vibrant pink mane streaked with swirls of gray, but her smile was the same as always.

"Shh...what's wrong my little Pumpkin?" the sweet voice chimed, as filled with laughter as it ever was, even as the weight of the years fought to dampen it. Not even the web of wrinkles around the pink mare's eyes could undermine her exuberance.

"Funnel Cake is has been crying for days. I...I just want some peace and quiet so I can sleep. I think I'm going mad!" the little mare said, her words strained, trying in vain to smooth her disheveled mane while she ushered the graying mare inside.

"Aww, is that all? Well, that's easy!" the graying mare said, walking confidently to the edge of the crib. With practiced hooves, she lifted the crying foal, and began to rock her. The graying mare's voice sang clear and soft, a forgotten lullaby that the little mare had once known. A reminder of simpler times. Times when her brother was her constant companion, before he left to find his way in Cloudsdale. Times when she wasn't alone.

The crying foal slowly quieted, and soon was snoring softly in the hooves of the graying mare. The little mare let out a sigh of relief, even as she was herded into her own claustrophobic bedroom. As the little mare crawled under her covers, the graying mare went to sit in the other room, still cradling the sleeping foal. Just before the door closed and sleep took over, the little mare heard someone speak.

"Don't you worry about a thing; just leave it to your Auntie Pinkie!"

A unicorn mare cried. Her orange mane was starting to gray. Around her, the bitter smell of the hospital assailed her nose. She sniffled and tried to keep the tears from flowing, rubbing at her snout with a hoof. Her daughter was in the hallway, waiting for the little mare to finish. It was too much for her daughter to take.

All of a sudden, a flurry of coughs rose from the old gray mare lying in the hospital bed. Her hair, once so lively, hung limp and brittle from her head. Her eyes, once bright and eager, were now sunken and rimmed with dark pouches, A wrinkled and colourless hoof reached up from the thin hospital sheets, and wrapped the little mare into a worryingly weak hug. Finally, the little mare couldn't hold back the tears anymore.

"Shh...what's wrong my little Pumpkin?" the sweet voice chimed, as filled with laughter as it ever was, even as the illness fought to choke the life out of it.

"I'm so scared. You've always been here for me, and I don't want to lose you. Don't leave me alone..." the little mare said, her tears staining the sheets as she looked down at the withering pony below her. The old gray mare was little more than a pale shadow of the mare she had once been.

"Aww, is that all? Well, that's easy!" the old gray mare wheezed, trying her best to puff herself up. The tubes and wires affixed to the old gray mare shifted as she fought to sit up. The little mare wasn't sure if she was seeing things, but it almost seemed like the old mare's colour came back, if only for a moment. She could almost imagine the old gray mare with the bouncy pink mane of her youth.

The old gray mare made promises. She swore that she would get better, that she would beat the wasting illness that had laid her low. Above all, she promised that she would be there to host the wedding reception for Funnel Cake the following summer. Her promises drove needles of heartache into the little mare, for she knew that every single one was a lie.

"Don't you worry about a thing; just leave it to your Auntie Pinkie..."

A unicorn mare cried. Her mane had long since gone gray, and the bitter winter wind made it dance. All around the little mare, the world seemed to be gray as well. Rows upon rows of rounded stones sat in the frosty ground, waiting to impart the memory of those who lay below unto the curious. Some stones were new, some weathered nearly into rubble. The one before the little mare had seen a handful of years, but the writing was a clear as the day it was carved. A trio of balloons had once marked the grave, but they had since deflated and sank to the ground. As her tears threatened to freeze on her face, the little mare could almost hear the long lost voice on the wind.

"Shh...what's wrong my little Pumpkin?" the wind whispered, a mocking voice devoid of the laughter that had always accompanied those words.

"I miss you so much. You were always there for us. I...I wish you could meet my new grandfoal..." the little mare said, her wracking sobs drifting over the empty graveyard. Foolishly hoping, the little mare perked her ears, straining to hear the reply that had always followed. Every time she had stumbled, there was a pink pony there to make her smile, and make everything better. There to speak those same words, time and time again, that every problem had a simple solution that only she could ever find.

But there were no words, only the cold wind biting at her wet cheeks. There was no simple solution. There were no strong pink hooves to wrap her into a hug. She was standing there, well and truly alone.

"You would have really liked her. My new grandfoal." the little mare continued. "She's the happiest foal I've ever seen. Her name is Tickled Pink." Even as the tears flowed and fell onto the grass below, the little mare smiled. A sad smile, a smile that looked back through the gulf of time, to a nursery where an earth pony and a unicorn flew with a pegasus.

"I think I'll call her Pinkie."

With that, Pumpkin Cake ran her hoof over the epitaph for the pink mare, etched in the stone for the ages.

Circles in Circles

“Listen, Rarity, I’m trying to tell you—”

“No, I’m trying to tell you!” Rarity huffed. “Get. Out.”

“But—”

“OUT.”

Rainbow Dash stepped back. “Sheesh, alright. Next time I wreck your stuff, I won’t offer to help out.”

Rarity’s lips sat in a grim line and her glare made Dash sweat.

She gulped, turned, and trotted out through the space where Carousel Boutique’s southern wall used to be. “Today’s off to a great start,” she muttered. Behind her, another chunk of plaster came loose and crashed into the pile of rubble. She winced at the sound, her head throbbing lightly, but she didn’t turn to look back. With a quick rumble, her stomach turned her head toward Sugarcube Corner. One good whiff of the smells wafting from there was all it took to change her course.

Pinkie leaned over, letting the tray of cupcakes slide off her back and onto the table. “So didja make that super neat skylight-on-the-wall at Rarity’s place? ‘Cuz I kinda love the idea and want something like that in my room.”

Dash raised an eyebrow. “Like a window?”

“Yeah! Just like a window!”

“Don’t you already have one?”

“Well of course I have a window, silly, but I want a skylight-on-the-wall!”

Dash let out a small chuckle and picked up a blue cupcake topped with lighter blue frosting. It smelled somehow like the opposite of blueberries, whatever that might be. She paused and raised her eyebrow again. “How did you hear about what happened at Rarity’s? That was like, ten minutes ago, tops.”

“Oh Dashie, Dashie, Dashie,” Pinkie said, trailing off into a giggle. “How couldn’t I have heard it? The noise was as loud as a Sonic Rainboom!”

“That’s... eh, not what I meant.”

Pinkie blinked.

“You know what? Nevermind. Right now I just need to get some food in me and figure out what I’m gonna do today,” Dash replied, biting into the moist, flaky blue treat. She smiled as she chewed, and Pinkie beamed right back.

She swallowed the tasty blue hunk of indeterminate flavor and rubbed at the back of her head. “I feel like I’m forgetting something important. Something I’m supposed to be doing, maybe?”

Pinkie tapped a hoof against her chin and grinned. “Maybe you were gonna go to a rave! Or the Museum of Chocolate! Or a chocolate rave!”

“Nah, raves are too cramped and museums are really more Twilight’s thing.” She brought the cupcake to her lips again and stopped just before taking another bite, pulling it a few inches back. “Actually, it might have something to do with Twilight. I think when I’m done here I’ll head over to her place. Thanks.”

“For maybe reminding you of what you might be forgetting?”

“Um... I’m gonna go with yes.”

“So if for some reason equines are in fact intrinsically connected to this other dimensional axis, and all their momentum is divided between the traditional three and this mysterious fourth one, then they technically are travelling at speeds near c and we’ll see different times between the two watches!”

Dash blinked. “You lost me. A while ago.”

Twilight laughed and looped the second watch around Dash’s neck. The first one dangled from the end of a chain coming out of a small brass ball fastened to her side. A red, round button shone on the top of the ball.

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to understand one word of the theory to help me out - and thank you again for taking the time - all you have to do is push the button and keep accelerating.”

Dash tossed Twilight a salute and vaulted into the air. “So just, like, a few laps around Ponyville should be good?”

“Yes.” Twilight nodded. “Both watches are accurate to within three-eighths of a second. We’ll almost certainly get a result at this level of precision and your level of speed. You’re sure you can Rainboom on command, and keep up that speed for a little while?”

“No problem at all; I’ve been training non-stop for months, now,” Dash said with a wink. “Back in a jiffy.” She rocketed out the window with a snap of her wings and immediately curved toward the outer edge of the town. As she whipped past the last house before Fluttershy’s cottage, she brought a hoof up to the ball at her side and clicked the button. A mechanical series of ticks echoed out from the ball and the chain started slowly lengthening, one link at a time.

She licked her lips and put the figurative pedal to the figurative metal, blasting into a Sonic Rainboom not twenty seconds later. The watch around her neck fluttered madly in the wild wind while the other drifted further away with each link, but plenty of chain remained coiled in the ball for her to spin around the outskirts three times without running out. With a satisfied smirk and a brief bout of panting for breath, Dash slowed to a stop and fluttered back toward the library.

Dash pirouetted through the same window she’d left from and spun gracefully to a halt on Twilight’s floor. She gave a mock bow and then pulled the chain unceremoniously through the window behind her, tugging the watch into view. She picked it up and peered at the face of it.

“Should I have like, pushed the button again to pull the watch back or something? I think it might be broken.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Are you going to listen if I explain the experiment again?”

“Probably not.”

“Then the short answer is no. You did perfect.” Twilight smiled softly and shifted her wings. “Thanks again for your help. I might have been able to get the results on my own, but it would’ve been a whole lot more challenging and I’d be completely wiped out from all the magic I would have to use to get going fast enough. Princess or not, I’m not even in your league when it comes to flight.”

Dash puffed her chest out a fraction and glanced at the watch again, deflating a bit. “I’m almost positive I was gone longer than two minutes.”

“It’s expected for the time on that watch to seem ‘wrong’ to you. I assure you it’s completely accurate,” Twilight said, snatching the watch from around Dash’s neck and flashing its face at her. “Does that seem more reasonable to you?”

Dash’s face scrunched up. “Yeah, but now I’m more confused.”

Twilight laughed again. “Alright, alright. The very very short version, then.” She cleared her throat and Dash planted her flank on the floor. “If you accelerate to a speed very close to the speed of light, then you’ll notice an effect where events take longer and longer to occur from your perspective than they do from the outside. Time sort of ‘stretches out’ for who, or what, ever is going that fast.”

“Well that’s cool, but I’m not that good. I haven’t gotten anywhere near the speed of light.”

“That’s not what the experiment was about. That’s well-established scientific fact. Today we were trying to investigate why time dilation seems to happen at speeds significantly lower than lightspeed, but only for ponies. If we just shoot an empty chariot across the sky we never notice the difference, but sufficiently speedy pegasi carrying watches sometimes notice slight discrepancies after longer flights and I want to explain why that is.”

Dash sat still for a moment, then shook her head and blinked. “Alright, so, uh, fast pegasi like me can gyrate time.”

“Dilate. And only locally, or so I hypothesize. I’m trying to confirm whether or not the time dilation is localized to a field of some relatively small size local to the pegasus. Just glancing at the times on these two watches tells me yes, but I need to do a whole lot of math to be sure.”

Her eyes swept around the room. “Anything else I can do to help?”

“Not that I’m complaining, but why are you so eager to see science prevail?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Besides, Applejack’s out of town, so what else am I gonna do?”

A muffled gasp emanated up from the basement door. Twilight coughed loudly. “Ahem. I thought you were going to go with her. Did she go without you?”

Dash rubbed at the back of her head. “I think so. I was probably okay with it. I say and do a lot of things I don’t remember, either because I’m half asleep or because I go head-first into too many walls. Either way, I’m here and I don’t think she’s looking for me, so I’m going to assume we’re good unless she comes after me.”

“That doesn’t sound like a very good approach, but, well, I didn’t exactly get it when you two were at each other’s throats for that Iron Pony competition either. I guess whatever works for the two of you,” Twilight said with a roll of her shoulders. “If you’re up for it, you could gather more data while I work on this?”

“Sure. What do I gotta do?”

Twilight tried to hide a tremble. “Take another few laps around the town, but go even faster? Maybe an extra fifth or so?”

Dash shrugged again. “Alright. If nothing else, it’s some decent exercise,” she said before blasting out the window once more. Easily shattering her old records and throwing out yet another Rainboom, Dash pressed herself harder and screamed around Ponyville’s perimeter at a speed that would’ve been ludicrous even to her a year or two ago. She faltered near the window and tumbled into the library, sprawling against a wall.

Twilight blinked down at her in surprise. “Huh? Why are you back already? And what did you do with the equipment I gave you?”

She took a few shaky breaths and righted herself. “You mean... the watches? I already... gave ‘em back to you,” she wheezed. “You said... you needed to do some calculations, and told me to go faster.”

“No I didn’t. I mean, if it looked like I was right I might so I could test if...” her eyes widened. “Get in the basement and shut the door! I’ll be down to explain to you in a few minutes.”

“What’s going on?”

“Just do it! If you’re here when you get back, it could cause problems.”

Dash blinked. “What?”

“Go!” Twilight shouted, practically shoving her friend toward the stairs.

The door swung shut behind Rainbow Dash and she slumped against it rather than going into the lab and touching something Twilight wouldn’t want her to touch. She’d learned her lesson. After a few minutes, she thought she heard some conversation muffled by the door, so she pressed herself up to it, letting her ear brush against the solid surface. The thick wood did not conduct sound well at all, and so she could barely make out anything other than the fact that two or more ponies were talking; one said much more than the other(s).

Finally, she was certain the more talkative one was Twilight - though that should have been obvious - and that there were only two ponies. As she concentrated on the other voice and pressed harder against the door, she heard a very familiar, scratchy voice say that Applejack was out of town.

She gasped.

A minute or two later, the door flew open to reveal a hyperventilating Twilight. “We can’t do that again! I didn’t think that sufficient speed would actually reverse time for you! We can’t... we can’t do any more experiments with this. You can’t go that fast anymore.” She shivered. “I’ve messed with time travel before, and I don’t want any part of that ever again.”

Dash’s eyes had ballooned to a cartoonish size, dwarfing Twilight’s wide-eyed realization earlier, and she stared unblinking at Twilight for a moment.

“Are you listening to me? You can’t do that anymore. It’s way too dangerous!”

“I’m... I’m so fast,” Dash whispered, “I’m so fast I can go BACK IN TIME?”

Twilight held a hoof to her muzzle. “Shhh! No, you can’t! I mean, you can, but you can’t! Trust me, you don’t want to mess with the timestream. History can’t be changed, and you’ll only wind up hurting yourself trying!”

“Hang on, if history can’t be changed, then why can’t I try to mess with it? I can’t actually do any damage, right?”

“That’s not the point! Time is—”

Dash stamped a hoof. “Time is boring! I’m gonna try to spice it up a little, and I’m gonna fall back on you saying I couldn’t change anything as a justification to go nuts.”

“Rainbow—”

“Too late, already on my way to Awesometown!” she said as she flapped her wings and rose out of the window again. “Choo-choo!” she taunted as she turned to the horizon.

Twilight’s horn glimmered and the glow enveloped her wings as she began flying after her friend. She wasted no time and spared no energy pumping her wings as hard and as fast as she could, pouring as much magic as she could muster into herself.

For a moment, it worked and she followed closely behind Dash. Then, without warning, Rainbow Dash put the metaphorical pedal to and through the metaphorical metal, giving her all as she hadn’t needed to do in ages. One more of the day’s numerous Rainbooms echoed across the sky and sent Twilight tumbling backward in its wake.

A blinding flash of light caused Dash to slow down, spreading her wings wide in an effort to brake. Instead, her immense momentum and lack of focus threw her end-over-end in a twisting, spiraling mess. She did slow a considerable amount, but she didn’t stop as she sailed gracelessly through the air and into the side of Carousel Boutique - head first - plowing through the wall and taking most of it with her. She and the debris rolled across whatever Rarity had had near the wall and slid to a stop in the middle of the now-filthy room.

Dash started to rise, wobbled, fell, then tried again before she made it to her hooves. “What... what just happened?”

“My wall!” Rarity shrieked. “My projects!”

“Oh, hi Rarity,” Dash offered. “My head is killing me. I wipe out during some new trick? Whatever it was, it must’ve been wild!”

“You... you... you buffoon! You can’t even take a moment to consider where you’re practicing, can you? Did you think for one moment about what might happen? Did you think for even a single second about what you were doing?”

“I dunno. Look, I get that I broke your dresses or whatever, but I honestly can’t answer your questions right now because the room is still spinning.”

“Why you...” Rarity seethed, rubbing at her temples. “Please leave before I do something we both regret. I can’t deal with somepony as reckless and inconsiderate as you so clearly are at the moment!”

“I’ll help you clean up and pay you or whatever, I’m just saying to, nghh” Dash winced and rubbed at her head, “to not freak out so much right now. I literally can’t answer your questions, so this isn’t gonna help anypony.”

“Listen, Rarity, I’m trying to tell you—”

“No, I’m trying to tell you!” Rarity screamed. “Get. Out.”

“But—”

“OUT.”

Sedisti Saxo

The rock rolled back down the hill, nearly crushing her, as it did every time she reached this point.

"It has to be me," Derpy said for at least the twentieth time since she'd left Ponyville. "Remember what Rainbow Dash said."

As she pushed her wings harder and faster than she ever had in her life, the dark, twisted treetops of the Everfree Forest became a black-green blur to her left. The wind whistled past her ears, drawing her words away into the creamy orange of dawn. She scanned the horizon with her good eye, looking for the telltale river mouth and standing cairns that marked the entrance to Equestria's Underworld.

"It has to be me," she said again, worrying her lower lip and swallowing back a balloon-like lump that had bubbled up into her throat. "It just has to be."

She was momentarily confused, but she didn't let that stop her. Throwing her shoulder against the rock, she began to move it back toward the slope. This time, she'd been lucky: it hadn't bounced too far on the downward descent. With less distance to retake, she could no doubt make it to the pinnacle this time around.

It was just... She could have sworn this place was different when she started. There had been pillars, white stone ones, like something out of a history book, but now the vista around her was pastoral, with a windmill and barn. The ground had been different too: hard and craggy rather than muddy and yielding. There wasn't any real clear moment in her memory when things had changed; she just couldn't shake the feeling that they had.

She calculated that she had eight pony lengths to go. The slope was only about four ponies high, but it was angled in a way that a more knowledgeable pony would have termed exponential, and the path to travel was far longer than the rise. Much like with the change in scenery, she wasn't sure when she'd gotten so good at figuring angles. It seemed to happen around the time her mane went all limp over her eye, no doubt from one too many slips into the mud. She might have sworn that was the moment when everything changed, too, had she thought about it.

It was silly, of course. Plots of land didn't change shape in the blink of an eye. Temples built on volcanoes didn't suddenly start looking like your childhood home. No matter. Once she got this rock to the top of the hill, everything would be fine and she could go home again. All it required was some dogged persistence, and maybe a little of the old earth pony strength. Sure, moving rocks wasn't the sort of thing she spent a lot of time doing, not now anyway, but she had it, sure as sugar, and besides, she'd eaten an extra cupcake before leaving this morning.

"That was this morning, right?"

As she paused to ask herself the question, the rock slipped, threatening to flatten her. She clammed up and heaved, steadying it though her back hooves sunk into the mud. Just one more step, and then one more after that, she told herself. Think of the rock farm. This is just like when you were a filly.

"I'm here!" Derpy let out a whoop, then sank as quickly as she could to the ground. Not being a distance flyer, she had been unprepared for the trip, and for the next few minutes she lay in the cool grass as the morning sun washed over her, just taking deep breaths and doing everything she could not to move.

"This... Is the place... All right!"

The book had warned about the river, but it was still a tremendous effort not to dunk her head into it immediately. She had spotted at least one white thing that she couldn't convince herself had not been a pony skeleton. They were all the more reminder she needed as to the river's effects on unwary travelers who sought to drink from it.

The trees overhead were the last between her and her goal. The countryside as far as she could see spread out in dusty desert foothills backed by the mountains southeast of Ponyville. It was, she reflected, a county both desolate and lonesome, but she wasn't about to let that deter her. From her back, the two cairns beyond the river looked like a W.

"W is for... Water! But don't drink it. And wendigoes! But they're bad! And, uh... Watermelon!" She frowned. "Now I'm hungry."

She rolled to her hooves and shook the grass off herself. "Silly pony, stop getting distracted! It's not just the river that's gonna make you forget why you came out here!"

Yet she wouldn't even have known about the river had she not been such a silly pony in the first place. Twilight Sparkle and her friends had shrugged off her requests for help finding the tome of Tartarus lore. Fluttershy in particular had given her a pitying look. And when Derpy had located the book and dragged it off to a corner to read, at least one of them had uttered the phrase "She's just being Derpy."

Yet even Rainbow Dash had looked scared after they returned without Pinkie. Seeing such a brave mare look so helpless had been the galvanizing moment for Derpy. If the Elements of whatever they were couldn't come up with a plan to save their friend, then it would be up to Ditzelina "Derpy Hooves" Doo to come through, with her bag of muffins and her crazy bravado and her head full of just a few useful facts about Tartarus that began and ended with the river because she had gotten distracted from the book.

Ahead, beyond the river and the cairn and the golden gates that lay between them, she could just make out the dark cave entrance beyond. Even from this distance, it looked hungry, laying in wait beneath the mountain. That balloony feeling returned.

"It has to be me," she whispered. "It's gotta be me."

Dig in right fore and left hind.

When she had begun, the boulder had rolled. Now it was so caked in mud, as she was, that it more slid through the grime as she pushed. Pony, stone and ground were becoming one. With a slight chuckle, she wondered if maybe she couldn't just wear away the hill and pack it all onto the boulder. Would that let her accomplish her task?

Push with right shoulder.

That was the first chuckle she'd had since she started this. When had she started? And when was he going to get back? He said he'd be right back.

Roll head across stone's surface. Brace with left shoulder.

Work this monotonous really did remind her of being back home on the rock farm, especially since she wasn't laughing or smiling or even talking much. Funny, that; when had she started thinking of the farm as 'home' again?

Dig in left fore and right hind.

It wasn't as though she'd left in shame or anything. Everypony had to get out on their own after a while. She just hadn't ever looked back. She barely thought about her parents or her sisters unless somepony asked for her cutie mark story, and it wasn't like they'd tried to keep in touch with her either. Was she missing something? Should she maybe have gone back once or twice over the past few years to visit that dusty, dingy, dull grey old place?

Push with left shoulder. Only three pony lengths to go.

That the pony in the ferry boat was nothing but bones in a black robe should not, in hindsight, have come as a surprise to Derpy. But, being as she was a mare who was not used to going on grand adventures or encountering anything more dangerous than particularly large spiders, the sight of the moving, talking skeleton severely unnerved her, to say the least.

"Be strong, Derpy," she murmured. "Just remember, you're doing this for Pinkie."

During the attack on Ponyville that had set this whole crazy escapade in motion, Derpy had done what she could to help. She thought it was her bravest moment ever. Under the direction of the ever-fearless, so she thought, Rainbow Dash, she had helped the Weather Patrol construct a cloud wall to herd the hydra into Sweet Apple Acres, away from the main population center of the downtown area. Her task complete, she then flew home in a panic to hug her daughter, hide in a closet, and tell both of them that everything was going to be okay.

It was fine, though; she'd done her part and then she could leave the rest to ponies braver than she. Until this moment, that was as brave as Derpy thought she'd ever need to be.

"Gotta be brave." She gritted her teeth. "Be brave for Pinkie."

She took a step toward the boat as it came alongside the riverbank. Though the waters obviously flowed, the river was glassy, fathomless and quiet as a tomb.

"Wouldst thou cross the river?"

The voice was like a nail scraping against the dry rot of floorboards that had not been trod upon in centuries. She couldn't be certain it had actually come from the ferry pony; she simply heard it. Swallowing, she nodded.

"And how wilt thou pay the toll, living pony?"

Derpy reached a trembling hoof into her saddlebag and pulled out a paper-wrapped package.

"I-I-I brought you a muffin, mister!" She held it forth, and the paper rattled as her hoof shook.

The muffin and its wrapping lifted from her hoof, without the telltale glow of magical manipulation. It sailed silent over to the ferry pony, who observed it with an unwavering gaze.

"I do not eat." The voice was somehow sardonic, and Derpy got the feeling that if the being before her possessed skin, it would have raised an incredulous eyebrow at her. The muffin continued on its path, sailing over the ferry pony's shoulder. Derpy's eyes grew wide.

"Wait, muffin, no!"

Heedless of her prior temerity, Derpy surged forward over the river. The ferry pony's head following her sluggishly, as though the creature's long existence had made it unused to surprise and it now had to remember how, precisely, to react. Despite her earlier exertions, Derpy's adrenaline fueled her dive into and then past the muffin, which she caught neatly before landing on the opposite riverbank.

She let out a small cheer, prancing in place, before remembering herself and turning to give the ferry pony a bashful look.

"Umm, sorry, mister. I guess I didn't need your help after all." Biting her lower lip, she held up the muffin. "Are you sure ya don't want this?"

In response, the skeletal pony and boat sank slowly beneath the surface of the river, making not a sound and leaving no ripples. Derpy watched, rapt, and then blinked a few times after the apparition had vanished. She put the muffin back into her bag and turned toward the gates with a shrug.

"He was funny!"

At one and a half pony lengths, the slope took a sudden upturn. This was the tricky part. But she'd gotten within a pony length of the summit before, and she could do it again.

Sweat plastered her mane against her eyes and she paused a moment to brush it away. Yet even in that moment, she was not motionless. Her rear legs were columns of tension, straining against the inexorable gravity that wanted to send the stone plummeting back down the hill.

She lowered her head and pushed. No rock would defeat her.

That kind of determination might have served her well on the rock farm, had she possessed it then. She'd never cared much for rocks. Moving them from one field to another, the only thing to listen to was her father's incessant chatter about which rocks were doing what, what geodes were ripening, and where a given stone could be placed to get the best sun and wind that day. Though she saw the amazing lodes and crystals that grew inside her family's multitudes of boring, grey rocks, it just seemed like a lot of work for nothing, and she had often wondered what might happen if they simply left the rocks alone.

Such thoughts were best kept to oneself, though. Her father had always taken a hard eye to criticism of the "family way." She hadn't been the only one to resent him for it, even if that resentment had evaporated in her quest to earn her cutie mark. The joy she had felt during that first party had not been something to withhold from anypony.

And yet when she left, she had taken all that joy with her. What did they do without her? Was it the same old joyless drudgery? Had she consigned her sisters to a grey, humorless existence?

She shoved hard and the boulder slid forward, then stopped with force that shook her to the bone. The rise became treacherous in these last few hoof lengths. She gritted her teeth and pushed, putting the entirety of her being into moving the blockage before her.

Her tongue extended from the corner of her mouth. Her shoulders ached. Her mother called her in for dinner, told her to stop lollygagging with the party decorations. Her rear left slipped, but she held fast, drawing strength from the earth and regaining her footing in a heartbeat. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain. This time, she would make it.

The ground shifted beneath her. Her eyes snapped open and she saw the mud and dirt move. The shape of the hill changed, rising, pressing the boulder back against her. Try as she might, she could not move it that last final inch. With a cry of ultimate frustration that threatened to tear her throat, she willed the boulder to move.

It rocked backward and crushed her.

Before the eerie unworldliness of the skeletal ferry pony, Derpy had felt ill at ease, as though looking at something that should not exist. It was unnerving, but she did not feel unduly anxious, nor in danger. Here, at the golden gates to the underworld, with their molded spines and lightning bolts that hinted at what lay beyond, under the gaze of the gates' guardian, she found herself feeling very small, very helpless, and very edible.

The three heads of Cerberus snarled down at her with a mix of hunger, anger and cruel, mad rage. The black beast's fangs dripped with saliva, its sinews tensed to strike at a moment's notice. Having walked to within range of an easy leap before spotting the creature, Derpy could not be certain that was not now in mortal danger. Luckily, she had a plan.

Think about Pinkie. Pinkie Pie, who was trapped in the underworld for reasons her friends hadn't really been sure of. Something about helping another pony who was trapped there, and the rest of them being forced out by the Lord of Tartarus.

You can do it, Derpy.

Never taking her good eye from Cerberus, she slowly reached to the clasp of her saddlebag and unlatched it. The click drew the attention of two of the heads, and the monster dog growled a warning. It took all of Derpy's willpower not to flee while squealing in fright, which no doubt would have made her a more appealing prey.

"Now now, Mister Nice Giant Nasty Triple Dog, sir," she said, trying to coo as best she could through the fear. "You don't want to eat me, nuh-uh! I'm all strings and feathers, that's what my mama told me. What you want is a nice, juicy muffin!"

She tossed the package upward. The response was immediate. Cerberus's left head shot forward, snatching it out of the air. Crumbs and shreds of paper floated serenely to the ground. The other two heads watched her in anticipation

"And by a muffin," Derpy said quickly, fishing in her bag, "I of course mean three muffins!"

Again, the terrible creature's heads demolished the wrapped muffins thrown at them. And then, perversely, the monster seemed to calm down. The snarling lips softened into what might be generously described as smiles. The right head's tongue lolled out of its mouth.

Derpy was then overcome with terror as all three heads descended on her, snuffling and licking with tongues so rough she was afraid they would strip the feathers from her wings. It quickly became apparent to her that they were not trying to eat her, only her bags.

It was a brief struggle. With a cry of "No, my precious muffins!" Derpy toppled over. Her bags were quickly relieved of their cargo, not to mention copious amounts of canvas. The muffin-shaped metal clips, custom crafted for her, disappeared in the scuffle with a clink. Within moments, she had been divested of her entire stockpile of muffins, her only means of defense against the horrendous creatures that surely lay ahead.

Cerberus, making noises of contentment, licked Derpy's entire body with all three tongues. This not only righted her but made her mane stand on end, and also cleaned off the large amount of mucus that had been deposited on her by three large, wet canine noses. She stood, twitching slightly, feeling rather frizzed, as the terrifying Guardian of the Gates of Tartarus lumbered over to said gates, turned around three times, and lay down.

Derpy shook herself, the drool spiraling off in long, thick strands, and surveyed the ruin of her saddlebags.

"Aww, all my muffins!" She sniffed, then scowled at Cerberus, shaking a hoof at him. "You big greedy-heads!"

All she got in response was a pair of smiles, the third head having settled down to nap already. The others followed suit.

With a deep breath, Derpy stomped past Cerberus to the gates. Up close, she could see that the surface was not actually made of gold, but of numerous tiny filaments that reflected light in just the right ways to appear gold. Those filaments looked like they could cut flesh easily. Thankfully, she did not have to touch them, as the gates swung open at her approach. Her only other welcome was a pile of ashes, grey and dry, that bore a disconcerting resemblance to the outline of a pony on its side. It took every effort for her not to focus on the pale hard bits that stuck up from it as she passed through the gates and into the cave that had looked so much like a hungry mouth before.

The pain was unbelievable.

In the course of rolling that impossible boulder up that impossible hill, she had collected a myriad of scrapes and nicks across her fetlocks, her shoulders, and even her chin. Only now did she realize that those pains had been slight and fleeting, for the wounds had closed almost immediately after she got them, lasting just long enough to be felt.

This pain, in contrast, was a waterfall to the single raindrops of those scratches. The stone broke her skin and crushed her bones as it rolled over her. She felt herself die, only for that release to be wrested from her as the pain began anew. As the boulder settled at the bottom of the hill, her broken body knitted and reenacted in slow detail every ache that it had weathered over the past few seconds, in painstaking reverse detail.

The worst pain she had ever felt in her life had been a break of the left front cannon bone. It had taken weeks of bed rest to heal, weeks that she could have spent growing closer to her mother, her primary caretaker during that stretch. Even though nothing untoward had been said to her, she never could shake the feeling that her recuperation was seen as her shirking her duties on the farm once again.

Sitting beneath the rockslide, her foreleg screaming in pain and tears streaming down her cheeks, she had wanted nothing more than her mother to come and comfort her. After she had healed, she wanted nothing more than to turn her backside on the farm and never return. And right now, she wished more than anything that she could call out to her mother again, and that there would be some hope of being heard by her.

The tears began.

The worst part, past the pain, past the loneliness, past the feeling of utter, crushing helplessness, was that, after her body had pulled itself back together and the pain receded to an aching memory, all she could do was stand and drag herself behind the stone once again.

"I don't want to," she said softly, the tears choking her voice to a whisper. "Please, I'm done, I can't do this. Just let me stop."

There was nopony to hear her. She dug her hind legs into the mud, pressed her shoulder against the stone, and pushed.

"This dark cave is really dark!"

Derpy's voice echoed once off the black, craggy stone walls before being swallowed by silence. She gulped and pushed onward, over a floor that slanted downward just enough that she felt she was being led to certain doom.

"That's not a nice thought," she said with a half-hearted laugh. Her words and her laughter vanished into the cavern walls around her and she hunkered down, wishing fervently for some sort of company. "I wish I'd brought a light."

Stalagmites and stalactites jutted like teeth from the stone and loomed in the darkness, which grew and grew until they too vanished. Just when where she feared she would never see light again, Derpy spied a faint reddish glow ahead. Her step quickened to a trot, and the glow intensified as she approached.

The smile forming on her lips was short-lived, however. As the glow increased into light enough to see by, it became not warm and inviting, but fiendish and intimidating. Again her resolve faltered. The tunnel narrowed like a gullet, the red light at its end flaring.

And all at once, it widened into the lair of a terrible monster.

Squeaking in terror, Derpy spread her wings, instinctively launching into the air at the sight of numerous glistening fangs. She plastered herself against the ceiling, bumping her head. Heart pounding, she watched as the monster before her writhed and gnashed its teeth. And then, slowly, she realized that it wasn't coming for her, but thrashing in place.

The hydra, the very same monster that had terrorized her home not so long ago, was held inside a hollow in the wall behind stony teeth, snared by strange vines that seemed to grow from the rock itself. Try as it might, none of its many necks could break free from its prison.

Strangest of all was the metal sign next to it: a yellow square, set on point, that depicted in minor detail a multi-headed creature with numerous lines passing through it. Derpy realized, horrified, that not only was the hydra trapped by the vines and tooth-like stalactites, but by pointed rocks that speared up through its middle. She averted her eyes.

"It doesn't really serve you right, Mister Hydra," she said, her voice low, "but I can't help you either. Sorry I don't have any muffins to give you."

She slid to the floor, keeping to the wall, and continued around the corner until she stopped at the edge of a cliff. The cavern expanded out in every direction, and her eyes went wide as she took in a scene defined by creatures whose horror was outmatched only by the hideous tortures they underwent.

A pool of lava fed by a falls from beneath her hooves fed three molten rivers. In each one, small creatures screamed and writhed as dark forms poked them with spears, keeping them in the magma. The more she focused on those beings, the less distinct they appeared to be. Larger creatures had been chained, stabbed, torn apart by smaller monsters and suspended from the ceiling, dripping gore onto those unlucky captives below them. By each of these was a small metal sign, depicting precisely what punishment was being meted out. As much as Derpy wanted to tear her eyes away from the tableau spread beneath her, she could not stop staring at the horrible, gibbering beasts of Tartarus.

From behind her there came a sound, the echoing of a hammer striking an anvil. It struck that ruinous anvil directly, as though hungry for a sheet of metal, or anything at all, to pound flat. As the strikes continued, she recognized the meaning in their pattern: hoofbeats. She stood rooted to the spot as she realized that whatever it was came from the same direction she had, despite her having passed nopony else there.

"Why have you come here, living pony?"

The voice was thick and sludgy; it was like sandpaper scratched across the skin of a corpse. That particular form of address, "living pony," sent a shiver of absolute dread through her, a sensation that she was the one who should not be, here in this place. The hoofsteps drew closer, and she dared not look to their source. Then, all too suddenly, the hammer beats stopped, directly beside her, and a clawed red hand reached down and rested on her shoulder. It was surprisingly gentle.

"This is not a realm for the living," the voice said, cold despite the heat rising up from the pits of the damned below. "You must have come for some reason. Speak your peace and be gone."

Derpy's mouth had gone completely dry. She was shaking so hard that the tips of the claws on her shoulder were digging slightly into her flesh. She stammered, the word "I" dropping from her lips like so many marbles down the stairs.

The voice growled, irritable. "Speak!"

"I came for Pinkie Pie!"

The words seemed to be taken from her mouth rather than produced by any force of her will. The being beside her made a soft noise. Still she refused to look at it.

"Look, little pony, at my domain, and tell me what you see."

Derpy gazed petulantly over the depths of Tartarus. "I see monsters," she mumbled, "being tortured. It's horrible." She closed her eyes.

The voice chuckled briefly. "Tartarus is home to some of the worst creatures ever set loose upon Equestria. To keep them here requires great effort. Some can be caged; some must be held with pain, for if their minds were not so occupied they would surely bring ruin to all around them."

"What does that have to do with Pinkie?" Derpy immediately regretted interrupting, for the creature beside her snorted. She shrank back.

"Ponies like you are so kind and naïve," it said levelly. "Yet, once in a great while, one will be born with the potential for great evil. Should that potential be fulfilled, that pony merits being brought here, at the end of their life, to be punished eternally for their transgressions."

The voice became dark. "It was one such pony who dared bargain with me, and then bind me within my own domain. He was recovered and given his own eternal punishment for his transgressions."

The creature let out a long breath. Derpy glanced sideways at it and saw a tower of red, muscled flesh emerging from a black stallion's body where its neck should be. She averted her eyes.

"Pinkie Pie has taken on that punishment as her own," it continued. "She belongs to this realm now and forever." The fingers gripping her shoulder flexed. "You cannot save her, little pony. Best to turn and run before the horrors of this world destroy your mind, or you become lost as she has."

Derpy lowered her head. She'd come all this way, but for what? She couldn't save Pinkie; nopony could.

Then she blinked. She'd come all this way! She'd gotten past the ferry pony and Cerberus! Who said she couldn't save Pinkie, some creepy monster with no sense of personal space?

"No!" She lifted her head and flared her wings, brushing the hand from her side. She turned and caught a fleeting glimpse of a wide, red face, rimmed with black horns, and upturned fangs set in a permanent frown. The sight startled her enough that she was flying off the cliff before she even knew she had meant to.

The Lord of Tartarus watched her go, and chuckled.

Five pony lengths. The last words she'd said to her older sister had been thoughtless and hurtful. She hadn't meant them to be, of course. But she should have known better, known they would be taken as a slight, instead of encouragement as she'd intended.

She slipped on a loose rock and tumbled back to the bottom.

Six pony lengths. She had seen a hat like the one her father had always worn in a Canterlot storefront. She'd convinced herself that she didn't have the bits to buy it. She never went to Rarity's to have one custom made, like she told herself she would.

Her right knee gave out and she tumbled back to the bottom.

Two pony lengths. There had been a promise made to her little sister, to teach her how to play their grandmother's old piano. It remained unfulfilled because she left so suddenly.

Something that sounded like somepony beating a sheet of metal came from behind her and broke her concentration. The boulder simply pushed her through the mud, sliding her back to the bottom of the hill.

She turned her head, staring up at the oddly-placed metal sign depicting a pony pushing a boulder. That hadn't been there before. Its post had been dented by the impact of the posterior of a grey pegasus mare, who she recognized immediately, even if she couldn't believe the her presence here.

"Derpy, is that you?" Pinkie blinked hard, trying to wipe away the mirage. "What are you doing on my parents' rock farm?"

Derpy's eyes rolled around in her head until she shook it. She grinned down from her twisted perch. "Hi, Pinkie! I came to rescue you!"

Pinkie's brows furrowed. "Rescue me...?"

"Uh-huh!" Derpy attempted to free herself from the sign, but it had bent around her posterior snugly, impeding her extrication. She began to push with her front hooves against the sign, grunting. "Twilight Sparkle said that they needed a plan to get you out of here, and then Rainbow Dash said that I was the only mare crazy enough to fly into and out of Tartarus alone, and I knew a plan would take too long to make, so I did that and now here we both are!"

Pinkie stared at her for a long moment. Then, shaking her head, she put her shoulder to the stone and pushed.

"H-hey, wait!" Derpy called. "Don't just keep going! You can stop now, I'm here to take you home!"

"I am home!" Pinkie grunted. "And I can't stop until I've finished this, anyway. It wouldn't be fair to-- To whoever it is I'm helping if I just stopped before I was done pushing this rock!"

"But it's not your rock!" Derpy tried again, without success, to free herself from the signpost. "The pony you're helping is gone, the big creepy guy even told me so! So you've got nothing left to do anymore!"

"Gone?" Pinkie paused, and in doing so, slid back to the bottom of the hill. Then she shook her head, huffing. "Derpy, it doesn't matter. I've got to finish this. I can't leave yet, because I..."

Pinkie's lips moved soundlessly and her eyes scanned the ground. "Because... I don't deserve to. I'm a bad pony, Derpy, and I deserve to be here."

"What?" The force of Derpy's incredulity knocked her to the side, and she popped neatly out of the sign. Surprised, she turned back to it and giggled. "Oh, look at that! I just needed to think sideways!"

As Pinkie returned to the stone, Derpy flew over and floated beside her, all levity removed from her tone.

"Pinkie, what are you saying? You're not a bad pony at all! You're one of those, uh, Element thingies! I don't think you get to be one of those if you're a bad pony."

Pinkie struggled a moment with the desire to keep rolling and the desire to shove Derpy away. As she was still essentially at the bottom of the slope, she just let herself relax and turned to the interloper.

"Derpy, you don't know anything."

The grey mare shrank back from the force of Pinkie's voice. She ignored it and continued.

"I abandoned my family when I was a filly, because I didn't fit in." Pinkie's shoulder slumped. "I couldn't work things out with them, so I just left. And I haven't looked back since. I don't write them, I barely think about them." She closed her eyes, hugging herself. "I'm just so caught up in having fun and being with my friends and throwing parties that I don't have time for my family anymore."

She sniffed and turned to look at the rock farm around her. The windmill creaked dully, rocking back and forth as though there had been a breeze to move it once. If a breeze ever did come to move it again, it might just knock the barn off its termite-infested foundation. In the distance, beyond a soft rise, sat the farmhouse. There was a hole in the roof.

She waved her hoof at the scene, saying, "That's why I'm here," and then turned her shoulder back to the stone. "So I can make amends."

There was a long period of silence as Pinkie got the rock rolling once more. She had traveled an entire pony length when Derpy huffed. "That's dumb and doesn't make any sense!"

"What?"

Pinkie turned her head and the boulder slipped, rolling over her right fore with a sickening crack. She screamed and Derpy cried out in alarm, but the bones began knitting immediately, as they always did. She steeled herself, keeping the leg off the ground until it was healed, and then moved back to the start to begin anew.

"Pinkie, your leg!" Derpy floated into her field of vision, blocking her from the stone.

"It's fine, Derpy." Pinkie couldn't keep the irritation from her voice. "Look, why don't you just fly on out of here and leave me alone? I got hurt because you distracted me."

She moved toward the boulder once more, but Derpy stayed in her way.

"No, Pinkie." She crossed her forelegs over her chest and frowned. "I don't know a whole lot of stuff, but I do know this isn't how you make amends for anything."

"But I..."

"Can you tell me what it is you're trying to do?" Derpy raised an eyebrow. Over her lazy eye, the effect was comical.

Pinkie looked at her askance. "I'm... trying to get this rock to the top of the hill."

"Uh-huh." Derpy looked at her hoof. "And how many times have you done that?"

"Well, none, but I--"

"Mm-hmm." Derpy snorted. "I see that every time you lose your grip, you have to come back down here. So how close have you gotten to the top?"

"What?"

Derpy threw her hooves up, shaking her head like she was dealing with a particularly recalcitrant filly. "You've been doing for a while now, haven't you? You haven't gotten to the top, but you should be getting better with each try! But since I got here, I've seen you do nothing but slip again and again." She leaned forward, pressed her nose against Pinkie's. "So tell me: how close have you gotten?"

"I..." Pinkie's eyes scanned the ground. "I almost made it, once."

"Once?" Derpy clucked her tongue and shook her head. "Just once?"

Pinkie took a step back. "I did, really! But then the ground moved and..." Her mouth went dry. "And the boulder rolled over me..."

"The ground moved? Really?" Derpy snorted again. "You're not just making excuses, are you?"

"No!" Pinkie scowled at her. "I saw it move with my own eyes! It kept the boulder from reaching the top! Otherwise, I would have done it..." She trailed off, her mind racing.

Derpy landed and placed a hoof gently on her shoulder. "Pinkie, it sounds to me like somepony doesn't want you to get that rock up that hill."

Pinkie gritted her teeth, shutting her eyes.

"You're not making amends or being punished, Pinkie. You're being tortured. That's what this place is for. I saw all kind of creatures being tortured when I came here. It's time to stop, Pinkie, you don't deserve this."

Pinkie scrubbed at her eyes. "But how can I ever make it up to my family? Nopony should be forgotten like that."

Derpy rolled her good eye, the other doing... something. "Uh, you go write them a letter and say you're sorry, duh! But you can't write letters here, so we have to get you out first, okay?"

Pinkie smiled for the first time in what felt like ages. "Okay, Derpy."

With a large grin, Derpy took to the air again and led Pinkie away from the farm. But as she got about two pony lengths from the boulder, something stopped her.

"Um, Derpy?"

"Huh? What is it?"

Pinkie pushed forward, but something was holding her back. Panic rose in her throat. "Derpy, I can't leave! It's like there's a wall here!"

"Oh no!" Derpy threw her hooves around her ears, worrying her lower lip. "What do we do?"

Pinkie swallowed. "I think that... maybe I have to get the boulder up the hill first before I can leave."

"But that's impossible! The ground's cheating!"

Pinkie stood and held out her hooves; she was actually able to lean forward and rest against the air. She looked up to Derpy and shook her head, then turned and walked slowly back to the stone.

"I'm not gonna let you do this alone," Derpy said, zipping up beside her and landing. "If you have to get that rock up that hill, then you can count on me to help you!"

"You would do that?" Pinkie felt that smile threatening to return.

"Of course!" Derpy grinned wide. "What are friends for? I'm not exactly gonna leave ya hangin' here."

Pinkie held out her hoof and Derpy bumped it.

"Thanks, Derpy." She set herself, glaring at the boulder. "Now let's get that rock up this hill!"

Overhead, the sky darkened. The windmill began to creak loudly. They each threw a shoulder against the stone and started pushing.

Rain began to fall, lightly at first, but between their hooves and the rolling boulder, the ground was soon a thick morass that impeded their progress more than anything Pinkie had encountered previously. The wind howled in their ears. Pinkie slipped, but Derpy was able to keep the stone in place until she had regained her footing. Derpy's smile filled her with determination and a sense that maybe, just maybe, they could do this.

Ten pony lengths to go. Lightning crackled across the sky and thunder boomed. She would start by telling her mother she was sorry they never talked.

Eight pony lengths. They heard the barn collapse, but neither of them looked at it. She'd find a gift to bring her younger sister, maybe a nice hoof-made dress or a hat.

Six pony lengths. The ground was now a rushing stream of water beneath them and they slipped with each step. If not for the driving rain washing their coats clean, they would both be covered head to hooves in mud.

Four pony lengths. She would tell her older sister she was sorry.

Three. She would tell her father she was sorry.

Two. She would tell them all how much she loved them.

"We're almost there!" Derpy shouted over the rain.

The windmill collapsed in a howl of screeching metal. Pieces of what appeared to be roofing tiles assailed them. Derpy did her best to knock them away with her wings, and saved them from the worst.

Then, with a tremendous, deep roar, the ground began to shift.

"It's cheating!" Derpy cried, though she was barely audible through the maelstrom. She flapped her wings and, though it was obvious that the force of the wind made flight a struggle, she began to push against the upper portion of the boulder.

"C'mon, Pinkie, we have to lift it! Hurry and we can beat this!"

Pinkie looked to the bottom of the rock and hesitated. She'd been flattened beneath it too many times. The torture of being crushed and uncrushed was too much; the pain was too acute and too recent. She closed her eyes.

"Come on, Pinkie Pie, we're almost there! I can't do this alone!"

Pinkie's eyes snapped open. With a roar that shook the earth, she surged forward and jammed her head into the mud beneath the stone's base. The muscles in her back and neck ripped and tore. She screamed, pain and fury mixing as she lifted the entire stone with the might of one born of the earth. All Derpy had to do was guide it to the crest of the hilltop, where it landed with a resounding boom.

The wind and rain ceased immediately, though the clouds lingered. Pinkie collapsed onto the stone, crying with a mix of hurt and triumph that she hadn't thought possible.

"Whoo!" Derpy flew out in front of them, pumping her hooves victoriously. And then she began to sing.

"Pinkie Pie is the best! She passed the rock-rollin' test! Now she can get the hay outta here! And, uh, she'll never have nothin' to fear!"

It was not, in the opinion of a pony who composed songs as a hobby, the best song she had ever heard. Regardless, her crying turned to laughter. She could feel her mane attempting to expand back into its usual shape, though it was so wet and caked with mud that the effort was wasted. With a cry of joy, she slid off the rock and down the muddy incline.

"Uhh, Pinkie?"

Pinkie took a deep breath and opened her eyes, her wounds finally having healed. Lightning streaked across the hilltop and she saw in the flash a great silhouette standing with one foreleg on the boulder.

Derpy flew to her side, huddling against her. "Who is that?"

"The Lord of Tartarus," Pinkie said, her voice quiet with awe.

She could hear him breathing, could feel his eyes staring into her. His hooves shone black in the dim light; his horns gleamed wickedly. He raised a single muscled arm and brought it down on the boulder, which shattered into dust.

"What's he going to do to us?" Derpy whispered in her ear, voice trembling. Pinkie couldn't bring herself to speak; she only wrapped her hooves around Derpy and held her close, protecting her from whatever came next.

In response, the Lord of Tartarus made a single gesture: he pointed to his left. Pinkie's eyes followed him. Where he pointed was a small tunnel, with a pinprick of light at its end.

"You're letting us go?" Pinkie righted herself, staring up at him in disbelief.

The only answer was a snort and a low growl.

"Come on Derpy," she said hurriedly, pulling her friend to her hooves, "let's get outta here!"

They ran without looking back, the gaze of the Lord of Tartarus on their backs the whole way.

The tunnel seemed infinite, and for a long while, Pinkie wondered if perhaps they hadn't been trapped in yet another underworld torture. But ever so gradually, that pinprick of light widened. Soon, she could see easily the craggy rocks around them, and then she had to squint to see anything at all, so bright was the glare.

And then they were through. The trees rustled in a soft breeze. She felt grass at her hooves. Birds sang around them. Derpy let out a whoop of joy and began rolling on the ground. Pinkie couldn't help but join her.

"Derpy, you did it! You flew into Tartarus and saved me! You're totally my hero!"

"I am?" Derpy bit her lip, holding a giggle back. "C'mon, I'm never a hero!"

"But you so are this time!" Pinkie smiled and touched her forehead gently. "And not only that, you talked me out of being all weepy-sad about my family. I didn't even know I was holding on to all those feelings until right then, but boy does it feel so good to get 'em out! I promise you when we get back to Ponyville, writing a letter to them is gonna be the first thing I do! I might even deliver it myself!"

Pinkie sat up, rocking on her backside and laughing giddily.

"Hey Pinkie, why'd you even get stuck down there anyway?" Derpy asked, not getting up from the grass.

Pinkie took a deep breath, savoring the smell of the air. "When the girls and I took the hydra back there, we got a little distracted trying to find the Lord of Tartarus so we could hand it back over. There were so many awful things down there..." She closed her eyes and shivered for a second. "Well, you saw them. Anyway, most of them were monsters, so it wasn't that bad, but then I saw this poor pony pushing a rock up a hill all by himself, and he looked so helpless and lonely, I just had to go say something to him."

She gave a wistful little smile. "He told me his name was Sissy Hooves and he'd been stuck there a long, long, long, long, longlonglong time, because he'd done something bad and tricked the Lord of Tartarus once. So I said okay, I'd give him a hoof with the rock, because I know rocks and stuff because I grew up on a rock farm." She blew a raspberry and spread her hooves. "The next thing I knew, Sissy Hooves told me he'd be right back and he left me there!" She frowned. "I think he lied about needing to go to the bathroom. Does Tartarus even have a bathroom?"

"I think I saw him on the way in," Derpy said quietly. "Or what's left of him, anyway."

"Ewww." Pinkie gagged and stuck her tongue out. "Anyway, he was a meany-pants, leaving me there like that. I thought I was the one who was supposed to be punished! Can you believe it?"

"Maybe if I hadn't seen it myself." Derpy laughed and rolled onto her front. "Hey, Pinkie, speaking of seeing things, what's that?"

They were just outside the gates of Tartarus, Cerberus a safe distance away. Derpy pointed across the river, to where the ferry pony was speaking with a rather familiar group of five ponies.

"Oh my gosh, it's the girls!" Pinkie hopped up and down in one place, her mane finally dry enough to puff up. "Hey girls, I'm okay! I'm over here!"

Fluttershy seemed to be the only one who noticed Pinkie's exclamation, and she began trying unsuccessfully to get the others' attention while they argued with the skeleton.

"Looks like they'll be there a while," she said, looking at the pegasus out of the corner of her eye. "Hey Derpy..."

"Yeah?"

"Since you're my hero and everythin', how 'bout you carry me across the river and stuff?" Pinkie batted her eyelashes.

Derpy let out a large, lengthy yawn. "No offense, Pinkie, but I need new saddlebags and a nap now." With that, she flopped onto the grass and immediately began snoring.

Pinkie laughed. Gently, she scooped Derpy up onto her back and trotted for the river.

"C'mon, hero. Let's get you home."

(Image this story was inspired by.)

Timeless Advice From a Momentary Test

Twilight sighed as she slowly walked through the gardens. The sun had yet to appear over the castle walls as she moped and fretted her way down the path. She hadn't been able to sleep at all since she became an alicorn. Her mind simply wouldn't stop spinning and all of the recent days filled with preparations for her coronation certainly didn't help. How was she supposed to behave? How was she supposed to act and react? What was she even supposed to do? What if she got it all wrong?

The Soon-To-Be-Princess Twilight Sparkle shook her head violently in a vain effort to clear her mind. Even her title made her stomach upset, and despite how all that had happened to her felt as though it were straight from the dreams of little fillies everywhere, Twilight just wanted to go home to Ponyville. It was a strange thought that passed through her mind, once she would have said Canterlot was home, her tower was right across from the gardens just as it was when she had been sent to Ponyville not too long ago. Back then, she would have given anything to come back to Canterlot, but now that she was here, she felt herself all too eager to give up everything to go back.

“Why the long face Twilight Sparkle?”

Twilight heaved another sigh as she turned to face the one, humored voice in particular that she didn't want to hear.

“Discord... I really would like to be alone for a moment.”

“Come now, that's no way for an eager new princess to be!”

Twilight turned and started to walk away, but Discord's head appeared out of nowhere as he hovered upside down above her.

“Really Twilight Sparkle, I'm your friend now, don't you remember? Why don't you tell me what's troubling you?”

Twilight snorted and remained silent for a while, but after thinking it over, she gave up. She wasn't sure if telling Discord anything would help or make matters worse, but it was better than having him make a game out of pulling it out of her.

“It's just...”

“Yes?”

“I feel so...”

“So?”

Twilight sighed and glared at Discord, who smiled and shrugged his shoulders as a loose apology, allowing her to continue.

“I feel so lost. I've never done this before, what if I mess it up?”

Discord sighed as he examined his paw for dirt.

“Oh... that again?”

“Discord! This is serious! I don't know what I'm supposed to do and as far as I can tell, nopony has ever been here so nopony can tell me what to do or how to do it!”

To Twilight's surprise, Discord seemed almost startled by her outburst as she stamped the ground, but it wasn't long before he slid in beside her with a mischievous grin on his face.

“Come now Twilight Sparkle, do you really think nopony has ever been where you are now? Your problem is one that I've seen time and time again.”

“How many unicorns get turned into princesses?”

“Alright, so maybe nopony has been exactly where you are now, but I've known loads of ponies who were close enough.”

Twilight's eyes widened.

“Wait, who? How?”

“You meet a lot of ponies traveling the world, making memories, bringing chaos wherever you go, but that's beside the point. The important thing to remember is that you're not alone and you're not the only pony to have gone through such things.”

With that Discord turned and waved over his shoulder as he started back for the castle.

“But if you prefer to mull this over all on your own, well then you are a princess after all.”

“Wait! Who do you know who could help me? What did they do? Where is this pony?”

“Well it's a bit of a long trip, but I suspect we could get you there and back before breakfast.”

“Discord! Who?!”

Seemingly snapped out of his thoughts, Discord turned back to Twilight.

“Oh, just a young mare facing the largest challenge she's ever seen. Really you would probably be quite an inspiration, though she freaks out at the smallest things, you might not want to mention who you are.”

Twilight nodded, which was all of the consent for the trip that Discord felt he needed. With a snap of his fingers Twilight felt herself falling into darkness. Bracing herself in her mind, Twilight looked around. This was no ordinary teleport spell, but before she could analyze it, it was over.

Looking around revealed no sign of Discord, but her mind was quickly preoccupied by other things, namely the color of her hooves. Twilight nearly jumped in surprise. She was now pink instead of purple, her mane a pale white instead of a deep violet, and of course her wings were missing. Normally she would have panicked at the situation, but as she looked herself over, she remembered Discord's words.

“Right, she's a pony facing the largest challenge she's ever seen, who easily panics, I shouldn't tell her who I am... wait... oh... Discord...”

Twilight chuckled to herself as she looked up at the sky. Discord had described the pony so well that even Twilight could tell that he was talking about her. She wasn't certain what looking at herself in third person would teach her, after all, she already knew what she was going through pretty well, but now that she was in the game she might as well play.

Though it was now morning, the sun was still low enough that she still see the stars above her.

“Libra... Circinus and... there's Lupus. Yep, I'm still in Equestria, and not too far from Canterlot judging by these mountains. Really Discord, if you wanted me to meet myself you could have at least dropped me off closer to the castle.”

Twilight sighed and strolled off towards the lights in the distance, but as she grew closer to the city she could see that it wasn't Canterlot, but some other town she didn't recognize on a similar plateau.

“Wait... I don't know this place... How am I supposed to meet myself here?”

Before she could continue, Twilight was interrupted by a frustrated sigh coming from the other side of a nearby tree. Beneath the leaves and branches, staring intently at a textbook illuminated by the light of her horn, sat a pale white pony, who looked to be about the same age and height as Twilight. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, and her mane was frazzled as she continuously ran her hooves through it.

“I don't get it! If the gravitational constant is that high the two bodies would collide with each other on the first pass!”

Twilight froze for a brief moment. Was this the mare she was supposed to meet? She looked nothing like herself and she remembered studying gravitational physics in Canterlot. This had to be somepony else. Was Discord telling the truth about there being another pony?

Carefully approaching the mare, Twilight nervously knocked on the tree behind her.

“Gravitational Physics?”

The mare didn't even look up as she nodded.

“Yes and it's very hard. I'm sorry, I would love to chat, but I've got a major test tomorrow! So I really really need to study now so if you'll excuse me.”

Twilight smiled. This was definitely the mare she was supposed to meet.

“I think I can help you. You see my name is Tw...”

Twilight quickly coughed into her hoof as she remembered that she wasn't supposed to say who she was. Looking to her cutie mark, Twilight quickly pulled up a pseudonym.

“I'm sorry, ahem, My name is Bright Star. I studied gravitational physics not too long ago, I can give you some pointers if you'd like.”

The pony looked up in surprise.

“You... you've studied this?”

Twilight nodded as she put her hoof to her chest.

“Not to brag, but I aced it. It's actually not too hard once you get some of the basic operations down.”

The mare stared at Twilight in amazement as she continued.

“You see, I remember this exact same problem when I studied it, but it turns out that the common mistake is in your transform matrix...”

Twilight looked down at the scratch parchment and swapped two of the matrix's rows in the margin of the page.

“I used to get those backwards all the time. My teacher always taught me that, “Just like 'i' before 'e', never put row two before three.” It's a silly rhyme and it doesn't really make any sense, but I guess that's why I've never forgotten it.”

The pony looked at Twilight and then slowly at the paper. Running the math again with amazing speed in the margins, the she stopped at the right answer.

“Wow... that's amazing Ms. Star. Thank you so much.”

“You're welcome Ms...”

The mare looked at her, perplexed for a moment before suddenly realizing what Twilight was hinting at.

“Oh! I'm so sorry I never introduced myself I just got stuck in the math and I have this big test tomorrow and and and...”

She stopped for a moment, placed a hoof on her chest, and following a rather familiar breathing exercise, slowed down.

“I'm sorry. My name is Celestia.”

Twilight froze as the gears in her mind began racing at a furious pace.

“Ah! So you were named after the Princess.”

“Who?”

“The Princess... Princess Celestia...”

Celestia looked confused as she thought for a moment.

“I'm sorry, I don't really travel outside of Equestria much, where is Princess Celestia from?”

Again Twilight froze and looked straight at the confused Celestia. She had a horn. She had wings. This was Princess Celestia. This was impossible. What had Discord done? What was she supposed to learn from this? What was the point of this game?

Celestia seemed to blush a little bit as she tried to back up and hide her wings behind the tree.

“Please don't look at me like that...”

“Wh-What?”

“I know... Nopony has ever... has ever seen a pony with both wings and a horn, but it's not my fault.”

Twilight quickly shook her head.

“Oh! No I'm sorry, it's just that you look so much like a pony I know from home I was confused... I didn't mean to stare. In fact I have...”

Twilight stopped as she looked for her wings and ground her teeth as she remembered Discord hid them.

“I happen to think they're beautiful.”

Celestia looked at her for a moment. She seemed to be weighing out Twilight's words to see if she was actually telling the truth or just trying to keep her from hiding. They stood in silence for a moment, until Celestia finally decided to come out from behind the tree.

“So... who do I remind you of? Is it that Princess Celestia?”

“Actually, I know it sounds made up, but yes. You look a lot like her, but your mane is a different color and she's a bit taller, but you're just as beautiful.”

Celestia blushed again as she came further out into the open.

“Where is she from?”

Internally, Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. Celestia was her only link home at this point and the last thing she wanted to do was alienate her. But although one crisis was handled, she still didn't know where she was. Something was clearly wrong, but if she made the wrong move in asking questions she would look insane. She would have to be very careful if she wanted to get any more information about her situation.

“Oh she's... she's from a pretty far off place. I'm actually passing through on my way there, but I'm kind of lost. What town is this?”

“This is the town of Canterlot. It's not much, but it's home and it's small enough that most ponies here are used to my wings.”

The gears in Twilight's head whirled so fast that even Celestia might have been able to hear them. Pretending to admire the small town that Celestia seemed proud of, Twilight looked around. All of the mountain landmarks were in the right place and the view back to Ponyville was correct, except that there was no Ponyville.

At long last the gears came to a stop. Twilight had narrowed the situation down to two possible conclusions, either Discord had teleported her to another dimension or he had teleported her back in time. Looking back to Celestia, Twilight asked her a carefully prepared question.

“They uh... They use a different calender system in land where I'm from. Anyways, having come from there to here, I'm not certain what year it is on your calender. If you don't mind, what year is it?”

“Wait... I thought you just said you were going back there from here?”

Celestia could almost hear Twilight's teeth grind for a moment. Apparently she should have thought harder about the phrasing of her question.

“Well... I came from there, traveled around this area a bit, as a traveling scholar of course, but now I'm heading home and well... I get confused on year systems pretty easily, but that's unimportant, what year is it?”

Celestia gave Twilight a funny look, but ultimately shrugged her shoulders.

“It's the seventh year to the new Equestrian Era.”

Immediately Twilight thought back to her studies, the Equestrian Era began when the three pony tribes unified into the Kingdom of Equestria, right after the first Hearth's Warming Eve. But the era only lasted seven years because even after the lessons from the windigos had been learned, the leaders of the three tribes still bickered and fought for total control of the triumvirate. Their arguing got so bad that they were eventually replaced by Princess Celestia and her sister, starting the Era of the Pony Princesses.

Though she had expected the idea to hit her harder, Twilight soon came to the only possible conclusion. Discord, in order to show her that at least one other pony had been where she was, had sent her back in time to see Princess Celestia before her coronation. A fitting lesson, if not overly complicated, but how was she supposed to get back home?

Getting home now seemed like a bigger problem to Twilight, but before she could contemplate it too much further, Celestia pulled her back into reality.

“Uh... I don't want to trouble you, but you mentioned that you know this subject pretty well. Could you help me study for today? I have a really big test tomorrow and there are a lot of ponies counting on me.”

Twilight looked at her future mentor with a bit of uncertainty. It felt rather odd for her to be teaching her teacher, but if there was anypony who would be able to send her back to her own time, it would be Celestia.

“Sure I can-”

Both ponies were stopped by a sudden and loud grumbling. Blushing now herself, Twilight rubbed her stomach. She hadn't eaten since yesterday and the sun was already rising. As the the two ponies stared at the source of the noise, Celestia giggled.

“Thank you Ms. Star. If you follow me we can get you something to eat first. I haven't had breakfast either.”

Twilight nodded as Celestia led the way.

“Thank you, and please, Call me Twi-”

Twilight coughed into her hoof, causing Celestia to stop.

“Are you alright? You sound like you might be coming down with something.”

“Oh no, I'm fine, I've just got a bit of a cough this morning. Anyway, please call me Bright Star.”

Celestia's house wasn't too far from the tree where she had been studying and inside, a waking Luna was already scrounging the kitchen.

“Welcome back Tia-”

Luna stopped in her tracks when she noticed Twilight. Like her sister earlier, she seemed to be looking for some way to hide her wings before Celestia nodded and motioned to her younger sister.

“Bright Star, this is my sister, Luna. Luna, this is Bright Star. She agreed to help me study for the test tomorrow. Don't worry, she's not here to look at our wings.”

Twilight nodded, almost bowing, to Luna.

“It's a pleasure to meet you Prince-”

Again Twilight found herself coughing into her hoof.

“Sorry, Ms. Luna.”

Luna nodded nervously as she presented a glass of water to Twilight.

“Just Luna is fine.”

Twilight nodded and graciously took the water in the hopes that she wouldn't need to fake anymore coughs after she finished it. While she was drinking, Celestia explained the situation in a bit more detail.

“It's a big and complicated test. I have to prove to my mentor that I am just as capable at growing things as a pony from the Earth tribe, I can control weather just as well as a pony from the Pegasus tribe, and that my magic is just as powerful as a pony from the Unicorn tribe. It's a huge test and there are a lot of ponies counting on me to pass... It's... It's quite a burden and responsibility, I don't know if I can-”

A plate with a sandwich on it clanged on the wooden table as Luna pushed it in front of her sister.

“Of course you can do it Tia! You're the most powerful pony I know!”

Celestia smiled as her sister embraced her before running back to make their guest something for breakfast.

“But it's still a big task, which is why I have to study as much as I can before tomorrow. And I need your help Bright Star. I have to be ready for this.”

Twilight nodded.

“I understand Prin-”

Stopping for another drink of water, Twilight continued.

“I understand Celestia. I'll make sure you're more than ready for that test tomorrow!”

“I'll be right behind you too Sis!”

Celestia smiled as she looked to Luna and Twilight. Slowly confidence seemed to fill her heart, at least until Twilight's stomach growled again. As Luna placed a plate before her,Twilight sheepishly looked from her stomach to her food.

“Well, after breakfast I guess...”

As all three ponies laughed, Twilight noticed a certain pure and simple joy in the room. Here there were no princesses, no teachers, no students. Here there were only friends, laughter, kindness, generosity, and loyalty all directed to each other. Yet Twilight felt a certain pain in her heart as she identified the elements in the room. She was being distinctly dishonest and she even began to wish she had used her real name, at least that would have been closer to the truth. But what choice did she have? She couldn't very well say that she was Celestia's future student who had been sent into the past in order to learn a lesson.

The study session would have driven most ponies mad, but Celestia and Twilight were both experienced in cram sessions. Covering topics from gravitational physics to botany, and from pressure zones to light refraction, the duo covered an absurd amount of material in the course of a single day. Luna gleaned what she could, but as she often stated throughout the day, they had to already be crazy to not loose their minds after the twenty-seventh book. But that was not to say that all three of them didn't have fun in between intense problem solving and tea breaks.

But the day and following night passed all too quickly and soon it was time to meet with the ponies who would be giving Celestia her test. On the way outside of town, Twilight tried to recall if this test was mentioned in any of her history books, but she couldn't seem to remember it. As they neared the grounds where the future castle would be constructed, Twilight could see that stands had been erected and filled with ponies from all three tribes. In the center of the stands sat the three heads of the Triumvirate, Princess Platinum, Commander Hurricane, and Chancellor Puddinghead. Not far to their right was a special box for Star Swirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever and to the left was a small shoddy looking box for Celestia, Luna, and, by association, Twilight.

Once everypony arrived, the triumvirate was eager to get the test started. But despite their hurry, each of the three was even more eager to outdo the others in giving a long and overly pompous speech about why they where here and what Celestia was out to prove. As their speeches rambled on and failed to discreetly insult each other, Twilight could see why the Equestrian Era ended so quickly. She would have found their continuous efforts to outshine each other hilarious had it not been for the fact that all three did their best to imply that what Celestia was attempting was both futile and arrogant.

Celestia looked to the ground and scratched the floor of their box every so often as the speeches went on, but each time she heaved a nervous sigh and looked up, her sister and her friend were there with confident smiles on their faces. At last the time came and Celestia rose from her seat and prepared to head back down to the field below.

“Wish me luck.”

Luna bounced out of her seat and gave her sister a hug.

“You don't need luck Tia, you've got this.”

Twilight nodded behind her.

“She's right Prin-”

As Twilight coughed into her hoof again, Celestia smiled.

“Thank you Luna, Bright Star. I'll see you after I've passed.”

Once on the field, Celestia was given a bag of seeds and Chancellor Puddinghead stepped up out of her seat and to the front of the box.

“The test will begin now! The young pony must grow from these old and bad seeds a plant that is both healthy and strong!”

The ponies of the Earth tribe stomped their hooves in approval until Commander Hurricane forcefully pushed the Chancellor out of the way.

“She must also deal with severe weather that has been brought in from the north and held in place by a simulated pressure system!”

As Commander Hurricane spoke her words, a team of pegasus ponies pushed in a thick cluster of dark clouds that immediately began pouring rain and hail. They crammed as many clouds as they could over the field and as the “simulated pressure system” they held the clouds in place over Celestia. As the ice pelted her sister and lightning struck nearby, Luna rose out of her seat and growled at the smug triumvirate ponies in their box.

“That's not fair! Both of those tasks are hard even for experienced ponies! How can you expect her to deal with all of that at once!?”

Commander Hurricane smiled as she shrugged.

“The Triumvirate deals with matters far greater than these all at once each day! If she wants to prove that she can master all the elements of all the tribes, she needs to be prepared to face what they face. The trials of leading a nation wait for nopony.”

Luna ground her teeth at the Commander's matter-of-fact answer to the completely unfair test, but before she could say anything, Princess Platinum smirked and gently, but forcefully, pressed her way to the front of the box.

“Of course the unicorns on the side of the field will also be disrupting the magic balances of the area. You'll have to correct that as well darling. Well now, off you go!”

Both Twilight and Luna leaned forward nervously as Celestia tried to keep from panicking in the face of her daunting task. At first she tried to use her magic to sow the seeds across the field, but the magic imbalance made lifting even a hoof-full of seeds a challenge and just as she got the first scoop out of the bag, a piece of hail slammed into the back of her head, causing Celestia to drop everything as she fell face first into the mud.

Quickly rising, she tried to disperse the clouds with a powerful wind burst from her wings, but all of the clouds that were knocked away were immediately replaced by the “simulated pressure system”. Before she could try again, lightning struck nearby, causing her to jump and a wind burst from the storm threw her back to the ground. Tears began to fill Celestia's eyes as the ponies from each tribe began to laugh at each of her failed attempts to fix the situation.

Twilight and Luna looked to each other and then back to the field.

“This is bad.”

“Tia! You can do it!”

“Please Celestia! Get up!”

“Come on Sis!”

But despite their cheers, they felt like they were being drowned out by all of the laughs and jeers from the other ponies. Celestia's tears mixed with the rain as she looked up at the box with her shoulders shaking. Slowly she mouthed the words, “I'm sorry” to her sister and her friend, but neither Luna nor Twilight were ready to say it was over.

“You can do it Tia! We believe in you!”

“You can do it! We know you can-”

Twilight was interrupted by a strange glint in her eye. Looking up, she could see the sun shining through a small hole in the clouds and suddenly the answer dawned on her. Celestia's cutie mark, her greatest talent, featured the sun.

“Celestia! We know you can do this! Remember! Like 'i' before 'e', never put row two before three!”

Celestia looked up at her friends in confusion. As she mouthed Twilight's words again to herself it suddenly dawned on her what she had to do, but it would take all the magic she could muster to break through the distorted aura around the field.

Gritting her teeth, Celestia stood firm in the face of the pelting ice and concentrated all of her power into her horn. Everypony fell silent as they witnessed this sudden burst of confidence and power from the pony they had thought was about to break and run from the challenge.

As her horn glowed a bright gold, Celestia fired a beam straight up into the sky. The beam was tiny and frail looking until it managed to force its way past the unicorns' magic aura where it burst into a colossal ray that reached up to the sun above. Now that she had a direct link to it, Celestia pulled on the sun to bring it closer and called upon its rays to shine brightly on the field. Everypony's mouth fell agape as the brilliant sunbeams burned away the storm clouds and revealed a field that had been both soaked and aerated by the hail. Using her hooves, Celestia gathered the seeds and sowed them across the field and with her magic link, set the sun back to its place in the sky. With the soil so prepared, it was simple for Celestia to concentrate her Earth pony abilities into the soil and before long, bright green stems could be seen rising out of the ground.

The stands were totally silent as everypony watched how Celestia, in a matter of moments, reversed the situation and stood muddy, exhausted, and bruised, but victorious in the middle of all of them. Each of the Triumvirate desperately searched for words, but before they could think of anything, Star Swirl the Bearded rose from his seat.

“I do believe that the student has passed her test. Congratulations Celestia. I would say that you should receive full marks, is that not right your Excellencies?”

The Triumvirate could only mouth words, trying to find someway out of their predicament, but Celestia didn't even notice. Before anypony could say anything else, Luna ran into her sister at full speed, with Twilight right behind her.

“You did it Tia! You did it! I knew you could do it Sis!”

Celestia was speechless as the two embraced with tears in their eyes, but she wasted no time looking up for Twilight. Twilight was going to stay back and give the sisters their well deserved victory together but they both motioned her over for a group hug. Before long they were all in tears as Clover the Clever trotted up to the three of them.

“Well done Celestia, very well done. You'll have to forgive Star Swirl for being a bit late, he is having to console the Triumvirate at the moment, it seems that they are a bit disappointed at having to give up their power.”

As Celestia nodded, Luna and Twilight gave Clover a confused look.

“What do you mean?”

Celestia lowered her head as Twilight and Luna looked back and forth between her and Clover.

“I'm sorry I didn't mention this sooner. The reason why this test was so important, why so many ponies were counting on me, was because this test was to prove that I had the powers of all three pony tribes... and to prove that I would be able to represent all three tribes, as their ruler. Star Swirl made a bet with the Triumvirate that if I could prove myself in this test, they would pass the government to me and in their arrogance, they accepted.”

Luna's and even Twilight's mouth fell open at Celestia's words. She had studied Princess Celestia's coronation before, but the book hadn't mentioned anything about this test. Grimacing under their silence, Celestia continued.

“I didn't mean to deceive anypony, I just... I was so scared by everything, I didn't want to spread that fear to both of you. I'm so sorry, can you please forgive me?”

Luna immediately hugged her again.

“Of course we do Tia! How could you think we wouldn't? But you should have told us! If we had known what all was at stake we would have tried harder to find ways to support you even more!”

Twilight nodded in agreement.

“She right, The worse your problems are the more you need your friends behind you Pr-”

Twilight stopped, not because she had almost called Celestia a princess again, but because she had just spoken, with her own mouth, the very words of advice she had needed to hear for her own problems. As Celestia and Luna pulled her in for another group hug, Twilight's eyes began to water.

“It... It really is timeless advice.”

As the three held each other tightly, Clover the Clever coughed into her hoof in an attempt to bring the attention back to the present matters of state.

“Dear Celestia, I understand that you may want some time to think this over, but won't you please answer the cry of the ponies for a unified and effective government? Will you rise as ruler of all of Equestria?”

Celestia shook her head as she released Twilight and Luna.

“I don't need any time to think about this. I will accept the role as head of state on one condition.”

Clover smiled broadly.

“And that is?”

“I could never have made it this far with out the support of my sister Luna and my good friend Bright Star, so it is only fair that they be crowned as joint rulers with me.”

Everypony's mouth dropped as Clover scrambled for words.

“You... You want to replace the Triumvirate with another one?”

“I understand your concerns, but I would have failed this test without them, so I won't leave them behind.”

Clover searched for words as she looked back and forth the between Celestia and Star Swirl, who was still consoling a weeping Princess Platinum in the Triumvirate Box. Realizing that the decision to accept Celestia's condition was on her, she finally relented and nodded.

“Very well then, Princess Celestia, I hereby accept your terms.”

With her face abeam with pride, Clover turned to go spread the news and as she trotted off to inform Star Swirl first, Twilight walked back up to Celestia.

“I'm sorry Princ-”

Twilight coughed into her hoof again, only to realize that now it was appropriate to refer to Celestia as “Princess”.

“I'm sorry Princess-”

“Bright Star, to you I will always just be Celestia.”

Twilight blushed as she looked away for a moment. She had never hated a name now as much as she hated her pseudonym. Celestia had been able to come clean in front of them, but Twilight still struggled with how to say who she really was, without looking like she was either insane or the world's worst liar.

Noticing the tear in Twilight's eye, Celestia and Luna moved in closer.

“Bright Star? Is something wrong?”

“Is you cough getting worse? Are you ill?”

Twilight shook her head and quickly wiped the tear from her eye.

“I'll tell you later.”

Twilight did her best to console herself. It wasn't a lie. She would tell Princess Celestia who she was and what she had done, either in this time or her own.

“But now, I have to tell you, I can't accept a crown.”

“Why not? You deserve it as much as either of us.”

Twilight shook her head.

“I have to go back home eventually. As much as I want to stay, I have responsibilities to ponies waiting for me.”

Celestia frowned at first, but then smiled with a sigh.

“With an attitude like that, you would probably be the best princess out of all of us. But I understand. Can you at least stay for the coronation?”

Twilight smiled and hugged her future mentor again.

“Of course.”

Time flew by quickly as ponies flocked to Canterlot to see their new princesses and prepare them for their new roles as leaders. And while Celestia and Luna joked about how Canterlot was starting to look like the new capital, Twilight seemed to get the most enjoyment out of the notion. It was ironically humorous to Twilight to see how nervous the princesses were about getting everything right as she helped Celestia and Luna prepare for their coronations. But they were together, laughing and supporting each other and as soon as it had begun, it was over and the two pony princesses were being paraded throughout the growing city. Twilight of course waved and smiled as they left the central square on the start of their parade, but a sudden voice behind her caused her to jump.

“You see Twilight Sparkle? Other ponies have been where you are and made it out just fine.”

“Discord!”

Twilight looked around for the source of the voice but couldn't see him anywhere.

“Discord, where are you?”

“Oh you know, just bridging a gap between time and space so you can come home. I doubt Celestia would appreciate it if I just left the sparkling new princess in the past. So if you've learned your lesson, I believe it's time to go home.”

“Wait! I can't go yet, I have to say goodbye.”

“Oh don't worry Twilight Sparkle, or should I say Bright Star? They'll be alright, besides it's much easier to disappear than to say where you're going.”

“But Discord!”

Twilight's protests were cut off as she felt herself falling into darkness again. She closed her eyes and tried to resist the spell with all of her might, but the spell was too foreign, too powerful, and too quick for her and when she opened her eyes, her colors were back to normal and she was in back in the gardens that she knew well.

“Discord!”

Discord clapped as he chuckled and landed in front of her.

“Well done Twilight Sparkle! Not only have you relearned the value of friendship, but you also played an invaluable role in one of the most pivotal moments in Equestrian history!”

“Discord! How could you send me into the past like that?! What if I had messed everything up?!”

“Now now Twilight Sparkle, I knew you would be fine because it had all already happened.”

Twilight's protests were again cut off as Discord's words sank in, however he gave her no time to reflect on things as he quickly appeared behind her and began pushing her towards her tower.

“Though I may have been wrong about getting you back in time for breakfast, you can still make it in time for your own coronation... if you hurry that is.”

Twilight's eyes went wide as she looked from the tower, to Discord, and then to the sun above them.

“What?! What time is it?”

“Well you don't have too much time left, but hey, after all you did to help Princess Celestia get coronated, so this should be easy!”

Discord gave his usual laugh, but Twilight didn't even notice as she ran for the tower at full speed.

Everything carried a strange feeling of déjà vu for Twilight as she stood at the center stage of the events. Even her friends standing off to the right on the stage, reminded her of when she stood to the right of Celestia and Luna. And while she was overjoyed at the ceremony and everything being done in her honor, it also felt agonizing to be so close to Princess Celestia, but unable to talk about what she had just experienced. But she had a promise to keep, she would tell Celestia at the first chance she got.

After being crowned, the princesses made their way to the balcony so that all of Equestria could see their new princess. Seeing her opportunity, Twilight lightly tapped her now present mentor on the shoulder.

“Princess Celestia? Can I talk to you for a moment?”

“I'm afraid we don't have much time Twilight, can it wait?”

“It's... it's waited a really long time as it is...”

Princess Celestia gave a comforting smile as she looked at her faithful student's forlorn expression.

“I wish we had the time to discuss it now, but Princess Luna and I will be glad to hear you out after the last ceremony. Until then, perhaps this can help you.”

Princess Celestia handed Twilight a small box, whose contents at first confused her. Did Princess Celestia already know what she was going to say? Could that even be possible?

Regardless of the answer, Princess Twilight Sparkle wiped away a small tear as she took one of the cough drops out of the box and placed it in her mouth.

Corn

I remember the smell. It was the smell of hot corn, fresh from the pot, and the smell of butter and salt.

My older sister loved corn. Crazy about it, I should say. Every Saturday, when she came back from the market, she’d bring back with her a giant bag of produce--cabbages, apples, carrots, and more than anything else, corn. Corn of all sorts, too. She got white corn, yellow corn, brown and black corn, corns I’d never seen before. After sorting everything into the pantry, she’d go straight to the kitchen and boil or pop the corn. We never ran out of corn through any season.

I remember how she cooked it, too. She had a bit of a routine, a ritual. First, she’d sing or hum a tune our mother taught to her when she was young. I don’t remember the words to that song, but given how she’d alternate between humming the melody and singing the lyrics, I don’t think she did, either. As she half-sang and half-hummed, she’d fill a large pot with water and set it on the stove to boil. Afterwards, she’d peel the husks off the ears one by one, shucking the waste into a small bin on the counter. She did a bit of a pirouette as she turned from the stove to the sink, and the hem of her skirt twirled as elegantly as a skirt that was more patches than cloth could twirl.

Then--and around here, she usually got the song’s chorus, if I could call it that--she’d begin washing off dirt and the thread-like plant material that still stuck to the kernels. She scrubbed the ears rather hard, but not hard enough to damage the kernels. I once asked her why she didn’t just be more careful when she pulled off the husk. She told me that this was faster, and she went to scrubbing with her efforts redoubled. She’d always hold the ear in her left front hoof and scrub with her right, even though she was left-hoofed, and she’d always scrub up and down the length of the corn. Finally, every five ears she cleaned, and she always cooked ears in sets of five, she’d put them pointy-side first into the now-boiling water.

I myself didn’t share her passion for corn, but it made her happy. I suppose that that in turn, seeing her happy made me happy as well. I remember way she’d smile at me as she put the fresh and steaming corn on our dining table.

It’s one of the few things I still remember about her.

It’s spring, now, and the remains of winter are leaving the town. Tufts of snow still line tree branches and roadsides, but the breaking clouds and the sun shining through it are sure to clear that out soon. Birds are slowly returning north--I can hear them outside for the first time in months. Still, it’s cold, and I pull my hat further over my head and scarf tighter around my neck. My earmuffs pull on my mane as I walk out of the inn, but I make no effort to adjust them. They would pull on me regardless of their positioning.

I meet my friend at an intersection. He’s a unicorn, with glasses and a matted mane. I call out to him when I see him standing idly, leaning against a lamppost. To this, he looks up and gives me a wave.

“This is it, then?” he says, nudging my shoulder. I look at his sweater. Hoof-stitched, but not professionally made. Maybe from a parent, or his lover. He continues, “One more day and you’re just gone like that?”

I nod. “The innkeeper’s given me my pay, and I haven’t seen or heard anything of her in the two weeks I’ve been here. I think it’s time to move on.”

He looks up at the sky, and I follow his gaze. The clouds have shifted, uncovering the sun’s direct light. I move a hoof to shield my eyes, but he just looks on. I can see wisps of his breath coming from his mouth in the still-frigid air.

“Have you heard anything of her?” he asks. “Any idea where you’re going next?”

“West,” I say. The only street that passes all the way through this town goes east to west. “If she came through here, she must have gone west. After that, I don’t know.”

He says nothing at first, but the look on his face is one of understanding. Then, he opens his mouth to speak, though hesitantly, and says, “You’re sure you can keep this up? How much money do you have?”

Now I say nothing. Both of us know that what I have isn’t much.

“Well, then,” he says, reaching into his jacket pockets, and he gives me a small bag of coins.

We say our goodbyes, and he tells me to come visit again should I ever get the chance. As I watch him disappear down the road, I draw out the black and white photograph that led me to the town--a crumped newspaper ad, stained by the rims of a coffee mug. A mare, turned away from the camera, walking out of Cloverleaf’s Green Groceries, holding a large paper bag. It was faint, but I could see the nib of an ear of corn sticking out from its top. A pleated skirt covered most of her cutie mark, but it looked like flowers. Of course, I had no way of truly telling if it was her or not, but I was certain.

From the intersection, down the road was Cloverleaf’s Green Groceries. Whenever I wasn’t working at the inn for the last two weeks, I’d be sitting in the cafe across the road, seeing if my sister ever showed up again. Maybe she saw the ad and left. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky. Twice I went into the shop and asked the ponies that worked there if they saw a mare who bought lots of corn and had two roses for a cutie mark, but none of them seemed to remember.

“Are you sure?” I had asked the first time. I took out the ad. “It was on the day that this photo was taken.”

The filly--a part-timer, from the way she acted--didn’t look up. “Look,” she said. “Do you know just how many ponies we get in a day?”

The grocery store wasn’t very large. I estimated that they had maybe ten or twenty customers on any given day, but I didn’t tell her that.

“I’m really sorry to hear about it,” she said, “but I can’t help you. I didn’t see anypony matching your description.”

The second time I went in, I spoke to the owner. She remembered seeing the mare in the picture.

“Yes!” she said. She was sweeping up the store right before closing. “She came in sometime last month. She bought almost an entire bag’s worth of corn. I didn’t think she could carry it out, but she did it, Celestia bless her.”

“Did she say anything?” I asked. “Do you know where she was going? Please, anything would be of immense help.”

“Sorry, can’t help you there. I can tell you what kind of corn she bought, though.”

That was on the fourth day after I arrived in this town.

Now I walk by the store for the last time. Through its windows, I saw the filly at the checkout again, and the owner talking to an older stallion. They don’t seem to notice me. So I keep walking.

I was born seven years after my sister. We lived in a sizeable town, a sunny place where the weather never got too hot in the summers or too cold in the winters. They used to joke that our town only had two seasons, spring and fall. It was--and still is--a quaint place, about two hours by carriage south of Hoofington.

My sister and I used to live by the main road that went through the town. Not on it, just close to it. The main road was often traveled upon by carriages passing through to and from Hoofington, and we didn’t like the noise. The bulk of the town’s businesses were on that street, however, so we didn’t have much of a choice in that regard.

These things about our town I know not because I remember them well from my childhood, but because I am reminded of them by the paths my sister seems to take when she moves. She always goes to a small town reminiscent of where we used to live, always moving away from the large cities. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t like the noise, or maybe it’s because she doesn’t trust ponies. There aren’t many things I remember about my town.

Like my mother. But then, she wasn’t around for most of my childhood. My sister would probably know more about her.

My father, on the other hoof, I remember well. His eyes were always sunken, bloodshot. He never smiled. His mane was ratty and unkempt, and he perpetually reeked of alcohol. He was fat, and his chins accumulated under his hairy neck. He always occupied the same place on the living room couch when he wasn’t sleeping in the bedroom. I remember his voice. And moreover, I remember its intensity. I’m sure my sister remembers him well, too. And I’m sure that like me, she wishes she didn’t.

I don’t remember the night our mother left us, but I remember what my sister told me of it. She said our mother was going out to buy milk and cereal for me, when I was in the early years of grade school. Our mother told her that she’d be back soon. A quick trip. My sister said that at the time, I was sitting in the hallway, staring blankly at the wallpaper. She said that she kept looking at the clock, wondering when our mother would come back. She’d be back soon, she said. Then she told me that our father came home before our mother, and she didn’t say anything after that.

I suppose that this is why whenever I asked if my sister would be back soon, she’d never say “Yes” or “I’ll be back soon,” but rather, she’d reply with some other turn of phrase. Though, I don’t actually remember her voice, only what she said. Or what she didn’t say.

She didn’t talk much about herself, or about us. This is, in part, why I don’t remember much about her--because there isn’t much to remember.

We left our father when he was in one of his drunken stupors a few months after our mother left. He was in his bedroom, and his snoring echoed throughout the house. My sister told me to take only what I needed. She took the bag of savings she had hidden away since our mother’s departure, and I took a tattered blanket. We stole away into the night, galloping under the stars on the old main road, far away from town. Where we went after that, I don’t remember, but we went far.

This would be another reason I don’t remember much about her. It was nearly ten years ago when we left our father, and nearly seven years ago when she left me.

The innkeeper from the last town gave me a pittance for what I’d done for her, but a pittance was what I had agreed to work for. The next town I stop at has an inn as well, and the townsponies around here seem hospitable enough. This town is notably larger than that one, but none of the last few small towns I’ve been to have mentioned a newcomer, only passersby.

I walk into a general store off its main road and begin asking the usual questions. “Excuse me, have you seen an orange earth pony mare with...” And I list some of her physical features to whoever’s listening. The clerks, the customers, the delivery ponies in the back loading boxes into the storage room. I read them off a small slip of paper that I have.

“Don’t sound like you got much t’ go off of, kid,” says one delivery pony as he levitates a box off of the back of their carriage. The evening’s waning sunlight glints off the frame of his glasses. “D’ you remember what this sister of yours even looks like without needin’ a cheat sheet?”

To this, I remain silent and bite my lower lip. His irritated expression seems to mean that he’s noticed.

I remember her actions, the way she talks, the words she’s said, and her smile. The way she used to cook corn, the patches on her skirt, the way she ate. I don’t remember what she looks like, what her voice sounds like. How tall she is, if she’s fat or skinny, anything like that. Given how long it’s been since the last time I saw her--four years ago, just a glimpse of her as she left the crowd we were in--what she might look like now might be completely different from what she looked like then.

The delivery pony sighs. “There’re a lot of orange earth ponies in town, kid, and cutie marks ain’t exactly unique.” He points to his own, then to another delivery pony’s. They’re both pairs of cardboard boxes, one open and one closed. “I guess I can keep a look out for anypony who might match the description, but that’s a bit of a long shot, y’know?”

I bow in thanks, and he tells me where I can find him should I need to contact him. The rest of the ponies around offer vague suggestions of where I might find her or mentions of “I think I saw her in the shopping district,” but none of them seem too solid. Nopony seemed to respond to my mention of corn.

After that, I go to the market. Rows of produce stretch across the grounds of a field, about half the size of a football field. The air is filled with the aroma of fresh-cut flowers by florists in the corner and the freshly picked fruit in the stands. They are, at least, all advertised as fresh. Fruit and vegetable sellers barter with the townsfolk, trying to convince them of the quality of their products over those down the row.

There appears to be only one corn seller in the market. He is tall, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and he sports a large moustache. When I walk up to him, he’s reading a magazine, not paying attention to the many flies that buzz about his corn.

“Sir,” I say.

He looks up for a second, then back down to the magazine.

“You wouldn’t have seen an orange earth...”

“Nope,” he replies, not looking up from his magazine. “Haven’t seen anyone before. This is my first day here.”

I scan the market for anypony who might look like my sister. The flies buzz around his corn as well as the lettuce stall to my left and the cherry stall to my right.

“You’re not looking for anypony to help with selling corn, are you?”

He turns the page. “You looking for a job?”

“Yes.”

“How much are you willing to work for?”

I tell him the amount that the innkeeper paid me. He puts down the magazine.

“Okay, kid,” he says, looking at me for the first time. “See this?” He points at the scale. “It’s two bits per pound. Here’s the bags you put the corn in. They’re one bit each, if they don’t have their own bags.”

He gets up. “I’m goin’ back to my cart to take a nap. If you sell ten pounds by the time I get back, you can stay.” He waves a hoof at the cherry seller. “Hey, Aces, keep an eye on this kid for me, will ya?” With that, he leaves.

The first hour passes mostly uneventfully. Ponies come by, and I put the corn on the scale. They give me their bits, sometimes for both the corn and bag, and they leave. The second hour had a pony try to haggle with me, but I didn’t know what the corn seller found acceptable, so she left without a purchase.

In the third hour, I catch a glimpse of a mare, two rows down. Her mane is long and her tail is short, but her coat is orange and her cutie mark are two flowers, side by side. She has in her mouth a bag of other vegetables in her mouth.

She comes up to me, and she smiles.

It’s a warm smile. But a foreign smile.

“Three ears, please?” she says.

It wasn’t my sister. I asked her if that was her in the last town a month ago, and she said it was. She was passing through from her hometown while visiting her parents, and now she’s returned home to her husband and children.

And so it wasn’t my sister.

So here I sit, selling corn for a stranger, in a town far from where my sister and I once lived, far from where I last saw her. She could be near me, or further away, now more than ever. Maybe she’s settled down long ago, or maybe she’s still on the move. I don’t know. I wouldn’t know.

But wherever she is, I’m sure that she still loves her corn, and when she cooks them, she still hums our mother’s song, twirling as she moves between stove and sink, cooking the ears five at a time, smiling all the while.

Everything Has Its Season

I hummed.

It wasn’t much of a melody, nor was it particularly loud, but it was enough to solicit a few curious glances from ponies minding their own business.

The streets of Ponyville were a little crowded, though not without warrant. The summer solstice was tomorrow, and the townsfolk were busy with preparing for their various traditions. Most of them would brave the shortened night, waiting for that moment when their princess would raise the sun from her Canterlot fête.

Adjusting the Zebric meditation staff balanced on my hindquarters, I spotted my destination. Ponyville’s library was of an intriguing design, surely magicked into form when the town was founded.

I squinted at the building and, much to my surprise, saw that it hadn’t been helped at all. Crazy earth ponies.

I put the thought aside. With a chipper grin, I knocked on the door. The door was unlocked, but the Laws were very peculiar regarding entry into someone’s domain—whether kingdom or home—if he didn’t know you.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait for long. A purple, scaly dragon opened the door. He looked at me through one eye.

“Might I come in?”

He rolled his eyes. “Sure. Door was open: you didn’t have to knock.” He walked further inside, leaving the door open behind him.

I chuckled. Closing the door behind me, I walked in. It was refreshingly chilly. I took my meditation staff and leaned it against a bookshelf.

“Where’s Sparkle, Spike?”

“She’s in Canterlot with Celes—“ He frowned. “How do you know my name, anyway?”

I rubbed my chin. “Well, isn’t the name of the faithful assistant to Equestria’s newest princess common knowledge?”

He blinked. “Eh, I guess so. Don’t see how I’m that important, though.” He examined the room’s red and yellow rug.

Truth be told, he wasn’t that important, at least not at the moment, but I’m the kind of person to consider more than just someone’s present in appraising their relative worth.

“So, what did you come here for, anyway? Like I said, if you need Twilight for something, she’s in Canterlot.”

“Oh! No. Er, not exactly. I’m looking for a book!”

“What kind of book? I can’t check anything out to you, but you can read it here if you’d like.”

“Something historical and adventurous.” I looked around. “Ya, that sounds about right. But fables are fine, too. Just make sure it has adventure.”

Spike looked up at me, contemplating.

“Sure, I think there’s something in here like that.” He pulled up a ladder and climbed it to a group of multicolored spines. He pulled one out.

“No, that’s a novel! I want something a bit less modern.”

He replaced the book, frowning. He descended the ladder and trod off to the other side of the room.

“Will this do?” he asked, pulling out a small, brown-bound book.

After scrutinizing it from a distance, I nodded. “That’ll do.”

He walked over and plopped the book at my feet.

“So, Spike, my man, have you ever done any adventuring?” I pulled the book to myself.

“Adventuring? Uh, no. Not really.” He sat down where he stood. “Doesn’t seem like the thing to do, really. Twilight’s usually the one that gets to have adventures. Why do you ask?”

“No reason in particular. Have you ever wanted to?”

“Sometimes.” He turned away. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not having one.” He looked back at me. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Nopony, really.” I flipped open the book. “And I’m less than nopony here of all places.” I pointed to a page. “This one looks quite dandy! Have you ever read ‘Squire Rabbit’?”

“Nope. And what do you mean you’re no one?”

“Well, I can't be just anybody. Where's the originality in that?”

Spike gawked at me.

“But semantics are boring. Let’s do something fun.”

The book in front of me exploded.

Spike was still gawking when a throne room and crowd of multicolored horses materialized around us. He was not alone in his gawking.

“Woops. My bad, Sir,” I said, dismounting the waiter squashed underneath me. “Won’t happen again.”

He grunted and stumbled away, leaving the silver platter he’d been carrying.

“Oh, cucumber! I don’t mind if I do, thank you.” I took a bite of one of the sandwiches. “Don’t mind me. As you all were,” I said through a mouthful of bread, mayonnaise, and assorted vegetables.

A few pegasus guards were floating overhead. Scary brutes, those were.

“Oh, there you are, Celly! Keeping the kingdom in line, I hope?” I grimaced. “Nasty word, quadrarchy. By now you could just about say oligarchy and be done with it.”

Celestia had the most peculiar expression on her face, somewhere betwixt tranquil rage and disappointment lacquered by regality.

“And the dashing Luna. Always a pleasure.”

“The feeling is not mutual,” she replied.

I pouted. “Death couldn’t make it. Not to mention he’s absolutely terrified of you. Dementia would have been even worse.” I noted the ponies around me; most were still gawking. Spike was still sitting on the floor, looking unsure of what to do with himself. “Anyway, about that adventure.”

A few of the guards had set down in the hollow between myself and the other ponies. They blocked my way.

“Um, excusez-moi.”

They didn’t move.

“You sirs are blocking my travel, and I do not appreciate it!”

Still they refused to budge.

“Fine. I’ll just go around you.”

The world froze. Getting through the gaps between stock-still partygoers was an arduous experience. A few non-moments later, I was clear of the crowd and had a direct route to the two thrones ahead. The world returned to its natural rhythm.

“Still just two thrones? I suppose you’ve found a backwater nation for poor Cadie to rule? Oh, I forgot, your society doesn’t operate like that. Or does it? I couldn’t figure out Equestrian politics for the life of me—“

“Silence.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you really think you can boss me around? I don’t care if you can strong-arm your way to a citizenship which never dies until their time. Time itself is still out of your reach.”

Celestia closed her eyes, took a breath, and opened them again. “You, of anyone, should know there is a time and a place for everything.”

“Absolutely. Which also means there’s a time and a place for fun. I’m not hurting anypony, am I? Not to mention I have a rather grave discussion to have with your Twilie.”

“If you are seeking Twilight Sparkle, you will have to wait until tomorrow, after the Celebration, in order to do it. And even then you may only request an audience, like everyone else. The wait should be no problem for someone such as yourself.”

“Fine.” I turned away and trotted toward the crowd of ponies, most of whom still hadn’t moved much at all. “I’ll be back in eighty-seven years. I’ll be taking the dragon with me.”

“Wha—?!” Spike stood up, looking ready to flee.

I chuckled. “I’m terribly sorry for throwing out that one pony’s back, though!” I tapped my chin. “Suppose it’d have to happen sooner or later.”

Celestia looked ready to burst into flames.

“Alright. Ready, Dragon?” I didn’t wait for a response. “And a one, and a two, and a three, four, five.”

“Wait!” He grabbed my leg. “What if I don’t want to go with you?”

“Get off it, child. I was joking about those eighty-seven years. You get used to having a loose lip with a reset button at your disposal.”

Just like that, we weren’t where we were.

Gratefully, I took my Zebric meditation staff from where I’d stashed it and balanced it once again on my hindquarters. “Boy howdy, that was a hoot.”

Spike was curled up in a corner, twitching, nearly crying. “What have you done, what have you done. Gods above! She saw me. Did you see how angry she looked? Celestia’s going to hunt me down and impale my body on a pike! May Zmey Gorynych consume my soul.”

“Ah you know Zmey? Should have sent him out here, instead of me. Maybe he could get a rise out of these poor pony peasants.”

Spike’s eyes blinked sporadically out-of-sync.

“Boy, you’re just a fish out of water, aren’t you? Come here, no need to worry. I was fooling about the dragon god. Get on up and dust yourself off. That was a mite too much in one go, wasn’t it?” I helped him from the floor and steadied him.

Spike just whimpered.

“Okay, see, this is why we don’t spend more time with you folks. The fragility of those minds is staggering.” I looked him in the eye. “Now, listen, what went on just now? It didn’t happen. Celestia is not mad at you, we haven’t done any party-crashing, and we most certainly have not thrown anypony’s back out of alignment.”

The fellow snapped. “What do you think this is, anyway? I won’t take any of this from anyone, especially not from you! Go screw with someone else.”

“Wuotan m'aider.” I shook my head in amusement. “Spike, things might not make sense right now, but believe me, one day you’ll understand.”

“What’s there to understand? You’re mad, plain and simple!”

“Come, we are not done yet,” I sighed.

There was an inscrutable expression on his features.

The corridor was dark, lit only by flickering candles. Everyone would either be sojourning in the garden or trying to chat up the princesses in their throne room. Everyone except Twilight Sparkle. She was waiting in her guest bedroom, all dressed and ready for the night to be burned away by the first trappings of dawn. She heard our mumbling through the door.

“There are many outcomes to any situation. I like finding the best one. One can’t do that if he doesn’t try them all out, now can he?” I knocked on the door.

Twilight took a minute before opening it. There were no guards anywhere in sight.

“I know just what you’re thinking.” I pointed behind her. “That bedspread absolutely does not go with those curtains.”

Well, no, that hadn’t been what she was thinking at all.

“Might I come in, Madame?”

She noticed who was standing beside me. Her eyes shifted from him to me then back to him again.

“What’s going on here?”

“I mean no offense.” I bowed. “I have a message for you. It’s about important princess-y stuff.”

She stared at me and, not finding what she was searching for, looked to Spike. “What are you doing here?”

“That was my fault, really. I’ll be sure to tell you all about it after my task has been completed.”

“Give me the message.” She stepped aside and motioned the two of us through. “But be quick. I must be at the gardens in half an hour.”

“If you’re fine with receiving it in the presence of such horrid decor!” I sauntered in, preparing my ‘this is a serious matter’ face. “Princess Celestia granted you a great responsibility, Twilight Sparkle. You must understand that you and you alone are accountable for the actions you take from here on out.” I narrowed my eyes. “Do not pick fights which you cannot win.” I glanced at the ceiling. “As Luna once did, and Celestia before her. But that is ancient history.”

“Who are you, and who sent this message?”

“The gods did.”

Twilight Sparkle had the queerest expression on her face.

“Equestrians haven’t had gods in over three thousand years.”

“You are quite well-read and absolutely right. We’re a bad influence to the foals, see? About the only honorable one of the lot is Father Wuotan. Except you have just one little tryst with a mortal and she bares the near-destruction of the Equestrian races… Thankfully that part never got into the canonical mythology!”

Twilight Sparkle chuckled. “I see. You’re just jesting. Did Rainbow Dash put you up to it? I’d have to congratulate her on referencing such an obscure subject matter.”

That was a new result.

“No ma’am, I am not jesting.” At least she had a sense of humor, however misdirected. “Fortune, at your service.” I bowed again. “I have been completely truthful with you. I have a message from the gods, my father sired the Windigos that nearly annihilated your people, and whoever furnished this room had terrible fashion sense.”

She sat there awhile.

“The last two parts were not part of the message, mind.”

“What do you mean, I have responsibility for my actions? Isn’t that already the case? And what do you mean, don’t pick fights I can’t win?”

Smart one, that.

“See, you could do a few things which weren’t quite right before, and we’d go to Celestia if it was a big enough problem. Need I mention that incident with your ‘want it, need it’ spell? You sent Love into a terrible bender for the week after. Guess who we blamed?”

Twilight made as if to respond.

“Absolutely! We blamed Celestia.” I settled some. “From now on, what you do is on your own head.” A patient smile spread across my lips. “About fights you can’t win, however, that’s another matter entirely.

“When we demand something of you, you must know when to concede and when to contest. Celestia fought for your peace, your freedom, your long, joyful lives. Luna fought Celestia for control of the heavens. One lost, the other won.” I closed my eyes. “Though it is not fair to say Celestia has always won. Just because Death has lost its grip does not mean ponies are left untouched by my follies.”

“What does all this have to do with Spike?” Her worried eyes gazed at the silent dragon.

“I did promise to explain that to you, didn’t I?”

She nodded.

“I am very old, Twilight Sparkle. Older than the seas and the mountains.” My eyes watered. “I have seen. I have loved. I have waited longer than you could imagine.”

Her expressions shifted as her mind tried to parse what I was saying.

“Everything has its season: There is a time for silence and a time for music, a time for mourning and a time for laughter—”

“A time for life and a time for death,” finished Twilight.

Very smart one, that.

“As it should be.” I hadn’t weeped like this since they took down my shrine at Hollow Shades. “The Law requires I hand down my Authority to a lesser being if I am to embrace oblivion, so I am making this lad—” I motioned toward Spike. “—my de facto apprentice until that time comes.”

She didn’t really know what to say.

I don’t blame her.

“And what about Spike? Is he okay with all of this?”

I glanced at him. “Go ahead, speak your mind.”

“I—” Spike examined his toes. “I don’t really know.”

I'd talked with him a long time—hours, even—beforehand. We'd gone through telling Twilight about it thrice before he stopped blurting something stupid out like "Help, Twilight! This crazy pony's trying to kidnap me!" Lies. Slander!

I smiled. “He is the only mortal I have seen who not only can benefit from my Authority, he can do oh so much more with it. More than even you could imagine might come from such a humble secretary.” The smile became a frown. “Celestia has gotten Death to be far more lenient on her people, but Zmey has him a thousand times more petrified. As a result, dragons have very, very long lives.” I looked her straight in the eye. “This you understand, correct?”

Recognition dawned on her.

“It is a gift for you, as well. Death will not come for a long time. I offer you and him the chance to see your friends every day.”

Twilight’s features twisted into a mask of pain and sadness.

“Think on it, ma’am. I’ll be hanging around.” I pondered for a moment. “And putting up a temple or something would be really appreciated. I haven’t heard a prayer in so long. Oh how I miss those so.”

Humming, I left them.

Rocks, Boomboxes, and Kidney Stones

The door slammed shut with all the force of a backhanded pimp-slap, reverberating its sonorous warbles in Trixie’s downturned ears.

Rejected again.

The daisies she held in her hoof wilted almost immediately, dying from rejection by proxy. With a defeated sigh, Trixie tossed the daisies aside.

“Hey! Watch it!”

She kicked at the dirt, sending up little puffs of dust as she contemplated just what went wrong this time. Getting to the library was no problem, she had made it past the preliminary defenses, and she had successfully navigated the laser grid, but she was thwarted, once again, by the very mare she was trying to reach. Her speech was perfect, and she had even brought daisies, just like she liked, but for some crazy reason, Twilight refused to let her in. Clearly this meant a change in tactics was in order.

The next day, Trixie stood just outside the perimeter of the Silver Oaks Library, home of Twilight Sparkle. She stuck a hoof in her mouth and held it up to the wind, testing its velocity and direction. North by Northwest, and about... one—no, one and a half miles an hour. She couldn’t have asked for better conditions.

She made sure her rump was secure before bending over to pick up the daisies, gingerly biting down on them to keep them secure. If her calculations were correct, her acceleration would rip them from her mouth if she didn’t bite down hard enough. Fortunately, she had jaws of steel. In fact, she could rip a stallion’s jugular from his neck if she were so inclined. The Great and Powerful Trixie was a mare of many talents, some of them not quite as benign as others. But none of that mattered right now. Right now she only had one goal in mind: getting into that library.

The thick branches creaked as she settled in a little further into her seat. She tested the tension on the elastic by tapping it with her hoof, eliciting a single twangy note. The thought crossed her mind to serenade Twilight with these dulcet twangs, but she quickly dismissed it because that would be ridiculous. Twilight would never be wooed by some silly elastic. No, she had made up her mind. This was possibly the only way inside that library, and it had the added benefit of skipping over all the defenses, so that was a bonus.

“Prepare your self, Twilight Sparkle. Trixie is coming!”

Loosing a warrior’s cry, she reached down to pull the stick that was holding her in place away and let herself go, but stopped when she saw a green and purple... something tapping his foot and staring at her with a raised eyebrow. Her warcry quickly faded away. She sighed.

“Yes? What is it? Can’t you see Trixie is in the middle of something very important here, and that she does not wish to be disturbed?”

Spike pointed at the giant slingshot Trixie was currently sitting in. “Important? You mean like catapulting yourself at the library?”

“You say that like it makes no sense.”

“And you’re saying it does?”

“Well obviously.”

Spike shook his head. “Just what the heck are you doing, Trixie? You come around here everyday, always knocking on the door, or trying some crazy stunt to get inside. Last week it was stilts, the week before it was teleportation, which actually would’ve worked if you had known how to do it, and now it’s a slingshot? I don’t get you. What do you want so bad?”

“Not what,” Trixie corrected with a wag of her hoof, “who. I’m not doing this for some object. I’m doing this for her, besides, how do you even know me?”

“Know you? Trixie, I live there. That’s my house.” Spike pointed at the window directly above the door. “You see that? That’s my room.”

Trixie’s ears perked up, and a sly grin split her face. “I see, so you can let me inside then?”

“Well, not exactly—”

Trixie reached for the stick lodged between her and the ground and started to tug at it.

Spike grabbed her hoof and pulled it away. “Now hang on, just wait a second.” Trixie eyed him cautiously. “Just... stop, for one second. I can’t just let you in, but I may be able to help you convince Twilight to let you in.”

“Trixie is listening.”

“Just get out of that slingshot, and we can talk, I don’t want you to accidentally catapult off in the middle of our conversation.” Spike reached forward to pull Trixie out. She accepted, grabbing his claw and letting him pull her up, whilst simultaneously placing a heavy rock in the seat she had previously occupied.

“To keep it from launching,” she said.

Spike didn’t even bother questioning the logic behind that and instead just launched into his speech. “Okay, so look, Trixie. You can’t just catapult your way into a mare’s house. That’s not how it works. You gotta find out what they like and talk to ‘em and be nice and stuff. You can’t just barge in and demand to be heard.”

“It’s worked for Trixie in the past.”

“And that’s another thing,” said Spike, pointing at Trixie. “This whole talking in third-person thing has to stop. It’s just obnoxious and no one wants to be around someone that acts so high and mighty all the time. You can’t just act like you’re superior to everyone else. That’s not how you get ponies to like you.”

“But Trixie is superior, would you have me not act like myself?” Trixie asked haughtily.

“You just spoke in first-person right there.”

“Trixie doesn’t see your point.”

Spike slapped his forehead with a resounding clap. “Okay, fine, whatever. Let’s just stick to the easy stuff, okay?”

“That being?”

“That being the stuff Twilight likes.”

Trixie presented the daisies to Spike. “I already have that covered. Daisies are her favorite, are they not?”

Spike shook his head. “What? No, lavender is her favorite. She’s allergic to daisies.”

Trixie stroked her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, that would explain why there were in her medical records then.”

“You stole Twilight’s medical records?”

Trixie waved a hoof flippantly. “Stole is such an ugly word. I prefer ‘pilfered’. Beside, it’s not like she was using them.”

“Her doctors were!”

“Details details.”

Spike sighed. “Okay, so moving past the possible felonies, what else do you know about Twilight?”

Trixie’s hoof absentmindedly batted at the bit of mane dangling in front of her. “Well, I know she likes piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain. Also, she’s not into yoga.”

Spike bit his lip, opening and closing his mouth repeatedly. “I think... you may be confusing her with someone else,” he finally managed.

Trixie frowned. “But I got this information from a very reliable source.”

Spike cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“In addition to her medical records, I also pilfered her journal.”

Spike’s mouth opened slowly. “She... she keeps a journal?”

Trixie nodded happily. “Sure, I have it with me right now.”

“Can I see it?”

“It’s rude to look in other ponies’ personal journals,” Trixie said. Spike’s mouth opened. “But, I suppose I could let you see it.”

Trixie fished around in a bag lying next to the slingshot, extracting a small square object. As she handed it to Spike, his open mouth turned into a frown, a frown that only deepened as he saw what Trixie was handing him.

“This is a CD,” he said.

“Trixie doesn’t see what you mean by that.”

Spike took the CD and flipped it over. “It’s a CD, not a journal.” He read the back. “You were just quoting song lyrics. This isn’t even about Twilight, is it?”

“It was in her room.”

Spike threw up his hands. “Whoa, wait. You were in her room?”

Trixie nodded. “Only once though, and it was while she was asleep. But I was really quiet so I wouldn’t wake her up.”

Spike found himself staring intently at the suavely dressed stallion on the cover of the CD, wondering what he had gotten himself into. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Okay, so glossing over even more criminal activity, I just have to tell you that Twilight does not, in fact, like piña coladas, or getting caught in the rain.” He thought for a moment. “Though she does hate yoga,” he added quietly.

“Trixie isn’t sure how to take this news,” Trixie said, her lips curling into a frown. “That was everything I had.”

Spike patted her on the back comfortingly. “It’s okay. I still know what we can do, and against my better judgement, I’m going to help you.”

Trixie’s frown slowly started to turn in on itself until it became a small smile. “Really?” Spike nodded. “Well I guess I won’t be needing this anymore, then.” Her horn exploded with energy is as she ripped a small necklace off and tossed it aside.

Spike furrowed his brow. “I’m almost afraid to ask. What was that?”

“A stone,” Trixie said nonchalantly.

The furrow deepened. “A stone?”

Trixie nodded. “A kidney stone.”

“...”

Ignoring Spike’s look of utter disgust, Trixie continued, “Her medical records were very insightful.”

“Gross...” He stuck his tongue out, dry-heaving slightly. Shaking off the thought of that thing, Spike said, “Anyway, we better hurry up and get started. If we go now, we can be there and back before it’s dark.”

“There?” Trixie asked, cocking her head to the side.

Spike grinned slyly. “You’ll see.”

Three hours, six stores, twenty bits, and one milkshake later, Trixie and Spike stood on edge of the Silver Oaks Library property line.

“Ahhhhhh.” Spike gave a contented sigh as he finished off the last of the milkshake and tossed it into a nearby bin. “Okay, are you ready, Trixie?” he asked.

Decked out in a faux-leather jacket, amber sunglasses, and a boombox hefted on one shoulder, Trixie smirked confidently. “I was born ready.” Her smirk faltered for second as she realized, “Wait, what about the laser grid?”

Spike turned his head to look up at her incredulously. “Laser grid?”

Trixie waved her hoof dismissively. “It’s nothing, nevermind.”

“Riiiiiiight... anyway.” He pulled a cassette tape out of the small plastic bag he was holding and offered it to Trixie. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

Her heart was racing like double-bass pedal drum as she loaded the cassette into the boombox. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and then stepped towards the library. She turned back to look at Spike; he gave her a thumbs-up. She nodded, steeling herself.

One small burst of magic, and the play button was depressed. It was now or never.

“...and I’ll never let you goooooooo. You’re always on my miiiiiiiind!”

Trixie clenched her teeth and cranked the volume up.

“YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE FOR MEEEEEE!”

Suddenly, the door to the library burst open. Trixie’s heart stopped. She froze in place.

Standing there, in the doorway, a massive smile on her face, Twilight looked absolutely stunning. Her mane reflected the the sunlight as it dipped beneath the hills, half-covered now, and her eyes sparkled with an intense light. A single tear worked its way down her cheek, only stopping as Twilight went to brush it away.

“How did you know?” she yelled over the music.

Trixie smirked. “Because I know you, babe. I know what you like, and I know you need me, just like I need you.” She shot a quick glance back at Spike, and he gave another thumbs-up. “I came here tonight hoping you would open your house to me. Trixie—I mean, I need you. You’re the only one for me.”

Twilight shook her head softly. “I don’t understand, all the other times you were so blunt and ham-fisted, but now you’re so sweet and sincere.” She blushed. “Of course you can come in. No one has ever done anything so nice for me before.”

Trixie grinned, and then, as if she suddenly remembered something, she turned back to Spike and waved him forward. He waddled up, carrying a bouquet of lavender with him. Trixie took it from him with a wave of blue magic, and offered it to Twilight. “These are for you, too. I know lavender’s your favorite.”

Twilight’s blush deepened. “That’s so sweet of you. I can’t believe this. You changed so much from earlier today. What happened?”

Trixie set the boombox down, and turned it off, suddenly looking serious. “You did, baby. I realized what I needed to do to win you over, so I did it. I had a little help from Spike, too.”

Twilight leaned to the side, looking past Trixie at Spike. “Is this true?” she asked. “Did you help Trixie?”

Spike nodded modestly. “A little, heh.”

She looked back at Trixie. “This is so amazing. I never believed something like this could happen to a mare like me.”

“What can I say?” Trixie said, spreading her hooves out. “I need you, babe.”

Twilight chuckled, covering her mouth with a hoof. She waved Trixie forward. “Come on inside, I’ll make you something to eat.”

Trixie smiled. “I’d like that,” she said. “And maybe afterwards you can tell me how you beat that Ursa Minor.”

Twilight stopped in her tracks. “Wait... what?”

“Well, I was hoping you could tell me how you beat it so I could use it as my big finale during the next show,” Trixie replied.

Twilight’s cheeks changed from blushing-red to anger-red. “Let me get this straight, you wooed me just so I I would teach you some magic?”

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “Wooed you? Trixie doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

Twilight tossed her splayed her hooves out. “This! Everything! All of it!”

Trixie suppressed a laugh. “Wait a second,” she said, barely holding back a snort. “You actually thought Trixie was in love with you?” Twilight’s cheeks flared. “Bahahahaha!” Trixie burst out laughing, unable to contain it any longer. In between laughs, she said, “As if a mare like me could ever love a mare like you!”

Purple magic engulfed Trixie, stopping her raucous laughter immediately. “You... you... you jerk!” Twilight yelled. “I can’t believe I fell for the stupid boombox and flowers.” She lifted Trixie higher, picking up the boombox as well. “How dare you play with my emotions like that!” She began shaking Trixie violently, tossing the boombox aside as she did.

As Trixie felt her brains being scrambled like eggs at a 24-hour diner, she was dimly aware of the boombox as it flew past her and towards the slingshot that no one had bothered to take down. A second or two later, and there was a crashing sound as it smashed against the stick holding the slingshot in place, crushing it and releasing the heavy rock from its seat.

It all happened in slow-motion. Trixie was still being shaken around as the rock flew across the evening sky as gracefully as a fat butterfly. It sailed through the air, slicing a path directly through Spike’s window and across the hall into Twilight’s bedroom where it exited slightly less gracefully out the other end.

Trixie felt herself drop to the ground as Twilight released her. Shaking her head to clear the dizziness, she looked up to see an infuriated Twilight.

The purple mare looked like she was about to explode. Her eyes were bugging out and her mane and tail had burst into flame. Just as she was about to use her magic to tear Trixie a new rear, she stopped herself. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she simply said, “You’re paying for that.” Trixie groaned. “And I don’t wanna hear any ‘but’s either.”

Trixie raised her hoof. “Well, you see, the thing is, Trixie doesn’t have any money, per se.” Before she could say another word, Trixie felt something being pinned to her jacket. She looked down. “Library Assistant?”

“Welcome to the Silver Oaks team,” Twilight said cheerily, though with more than a hint of anger. “Any questions may be directed to Spike as I don’t want to ever speak to you again.” Trixie opened her mouth to say something, but Twilight had already turned away and walked back into the library, slamming the door behind her.

“Does this mean you’ll teach me how to vanquish and Ursa Minor!” Trixie called after her.

“Screw you!”

Rejected again.

Spike let out a long, slow whistle. He walked over to Trixie and helped her up. Placing his hand on her shoulder, he said, “Smooth. Real smooth.”

Trixie frowned. “Shoot, and I was so close this time too.”

“Dangerously close I’d say.”

Trixie shrugged. “Oh well, at least I made it into the library.”

“Baby steps,” Spike said, patting her shoulder softly. “Baby steps...”

What is Possible

I spent countless years studying under Princess Celestia, learning countless things, but I’ll always remember this one lesson.

It was late night in the castle, and there was a silence so deafening I couldn’t fall asleep. It was silence that you seldom hear anywhere but at the castle. The lack of hearing the wind pass through the trees. The absence of an old wooden roof, creaking under its own weight. Down in the city you could hear ponies at any time of night, if you listened closely enough. But high upon the side of the mountain in the castle’s marble peaks, there was only the muttering of curtains blowing by an open window.

I climbed out of bed and abandoned trying to sleep. My room was as lavishly decorated as any you’d expect to find in a castle. A silver goblet sat on a tray on my nightstand, still half-filled with cherry juice I hadn’t managed to finish the night before. I took a small sip from it, grimacing at the bitter and stale taste, then I left to wander the castle.

I still remember every little detail of my walk to the Princess’ chamber that night. The halls had been empty, the guards doubtlessly standing watch outside below. I snuck into the mess hall and nabbed a sweet loaf leftover from that night’s dinner, taking it with me as I wandered back up to the halls above. When I first moved into the castle I’d been scared to be alone at night, but overtime I grew fond of walking around the great big empty rooms.

I was most fond of the balcony on the top floor, where the Princess’ room was. She sometimes taught lessons out on it, right in view of the city and the hills. I took the spiral staircase leading to the topmost floor of the castle, casually chewing on the sweet loaf as I went. At the top of the stairs, I went right and walked out onto the balcony, only to find the Princess there, waiting for me. She sat on a large, flat pillow, smiling at me with amusement.

I blushed and hid my stolen treat behind my back, even though my chipmunk cheeks and the crumbs around my muzzle were a sure sign of my crime. I wondered if she was waiting up here to scold me.

“Twilight,” she said, her voice gentle. She gestured to the pillow next to hers. “Come, sit and finish your meal.”

I levitated the sweet loaf out from behind my back, sensing that Celestia wasn’t angry with me. Nevertheless, I tried to shift the topic. “Princess!” I greeted. “What are you doing up here at this hour?”

Celestia glanced off the balcony, at the purple rooftops below. “Just thinking, I suppose...” She looked back at me with a small smirk. “And having some of the chef’s wonderful sweet bread,” she said, levitating an absconded loaf of her own.

I stared at her blankly, but then I couldn’t help but giggle at the thought of the Princess having a sweet tooth. I walked over and sat by her side.

“And what are you doing up at this hour, my faithful student?” Celestia asked. My hairs bristled. She had asked me to call her Celestia instead of Princess. I never felt comfortable acting so casually towards her, so I didn’t. In an act of what some might call petty spite—if they didn’t know the Princess or know how kind she was—she began calling me her faithful student whenever I refused to call her Celestia.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I answered.

Celestia smiled. “Me neither,” she said, sitting perfectly still and staring off into the distance. “I wonder why that is.”

I shrugged, looking off the balcony. “Maybe it’s just a restless night. The winds certainly are picking up.”

“Maybe,” Celestia agreed.

I looked at her face, while she gazed out. Staring into her eyes always made me feel small. They held an immeasurable depth to them, an infinite amount of time. I wondered more than once what it must be like to live for over a thousand years. I sometimes think it must be amazing to have lived through history, been a part of the ages. Sometimes, I tried to think about how much those silver-pink eyes have seen, and I'd shudder. But all the same I felt jealous.

“Princess?” I asked, making sure I wasn’t interrupting her silence.

She turned to me with a smile. “Yes, my faithful student?”

“Do you have a birthday?”

She fought a laugh at the question. Were it anyone but her, I might have felt hot behind my ears. I still did, a little. “Where in Equestria did that question come from?”

“I was just thinking about how there isn’t any holiday for it,” I answered, taking a bite out of my sweet loaf.

“The Summer Sun Celebration is more than enough. I fear for the treasury everytime it comes around.” She shifted in her seat and cleared her throat. “But more to the point, even if I had a birthday, I’ve long since forgotten when it was.”

She paused, her ears swiveling to follow the changing direction of the wind. I subconsciously felt myself do the same. “Tell me, what do birthdays celebrate?” she asked.

I pondered for a brief moment. “They’re to celebrate someone’s existence, and them growing a year older.” I hesitated, unable to tell from Celestia’s stare whether she was pleased with my answer. “I think?” I added, weakly.

“Wouldn’t it seem a bit silly, then, to celebrate it for someone who doesn’t grow old?” she asked, her lips settled in a slight smirk.

“Not at all!” I shouted, a little too loudly and a little too quickly. “I think there’s plenty of reason to celebrate you being alive. You’ve improved countless ponies’ lives. You should have a birthday—even if it’s a made up one.”

She raised a chin to her hoof, striking a very contemplative pose. “In that case, I’d like for it to be in June,” she said. “I think it would be fitting to have it on the day of the summer solstice.”

I groaned. “But that’s the Summer Sun Celebration.”

“Well then, I suppose it’s already settled,” she said, the humour in her voice so subtle I nearly didn’t catch it. I often didn’t. When I look back I realize she actually liked to joke quite often. I guess with her peculiar humor and my image of her as a Princess I just didn’t notice it as much.

“What of you, child? What things have you learned recently?” Celestia asked.

“In class today we read about Slate, who used his magic to dig a tunnel through the side of a mountain to help a flooded town evacuate to safety. It took him two weeks to burrow all the way through. It was a magical feat that was completely unheard of at the time, and he was only sixteen at the time when he did it.”

I glanced at Celestia and noticed the look in her eye as she listened. It seemed like it was a story she was well familiar with. “Did you ever meet him?” I asked, hazarding a guess.

She raised her eyebrows. “As a matter of fact, I did,” she answered.

I grew excited that I guessed right. “What was he like?”

“Proud, yet humble. A contradiction I see in many great stallions.”

“Do you think I’ll be as great a unicorn as him by the time I’m his age?” I asked, leaning forward out of my seat.

Celestia put her hoof on my snout and gently pushed me back with a chuckle. “Do you know how Slate managed to dig that tunnel though the mountain and become a hero?” she asked. I shook my head. Celestia tapped me on the nose. “He had patience.”

I wrinkled my snout, resisting an urge to sneeze brought on by the hairs on my nose being tickled. “I don’t understand it though.”

“Hmm?” Celestia raised an eyebrow at me.

“I mean, he was just a farm pony. He had no formal magic training at all. How could somepony like that dig through a mountain all by himself in only a fortnight?”

“How do you think he managed to do it?” Celestia asked, turning the question back to me.

“Um...” I had long since learned that ‘I don’t know’ was never the answer Celestia was looking for. “He had a strong innate talent for magic?”

Celestia shook her head. “He lived in a village of earth ponies. The storm that struck the village was the strongest in a hundred years. Nopony would make the climb over the mountains, let alone the children. He drew on strength to protect those that couldn’t protect themselves, and put his heart and soul into leading them to safety.”

I remained silent. The school had taught us that magic was a very scientific thing, despite what most other ponies thought. Hearing Celestia contradict those teachings came as a surprise.

“How much of the story did they teach you?” Celestia asked.

“Only that he was young, and that he saved the townsponies. Most of the lesson was about how magic blasts can be used to destroy rock, and how to blast the rock so as not to cause a cave in.”

“Then they didn’t tell you that Slate cracked his horn on the tenth day of digging, or that water was stretched thin and they very nearly ran out.”

I flinched. We’d been taught excessively the dangers of overusing magic, and the consequences of a cracked horn. Cracked horns take years to heal. Some never do. It must have been mind-numbingly painful to keep digging.

“How did he manage to keep digging for four whole days?” I asked.

“For the reason I just stated. Water was running out. He had to dig.”

“But they could have gone back to collect rainwater from the storm.”

“The tunnel had collapsed behind them halfway through the mountain,” Celestia said, shooting down my idea. “Stories so rarely tell the truth, that heroes are born from necessity more often than not.”

I nodded dumbly, afraid to speak and appear foolish again.

“They also rarely state the cost. Slate’s heroics took years off his life, and he was never able to use magic again.”

A grimace spread across my lips, though I had figured as much. Casting any magic with a cracked horn has repercussions.

Seeing my expression, Celestia gave me a reassuring smile. “Do not worry, though. The story had a happy ending. While they were in the tunnels his wife fell in love with him, and they were married shortly after. I could tell from seeing them together that he treasured her more than he ever treasured his ability to use magic.”

“Well, that’s still a bit disappointing,” I said, frowning. “Imagine how skilled he could have become if he was given formal teaching.”

Celestia shook her head at me. I felt as though my reply disappointed her somehow. She turned back to the view off the balcony. “Have you managed to make any friends in your class?” she asked.

“No, not really,” I replied, indifferently. I stared down at my pillow and traced small circles on it with my hoof. “Usually they just want to copy my notes, or find out what rumors are true about you or the castle. Or both. Other times they try to pull me away to go do this or that with them, when all I want is to be left alone.”

I thought I saw Celestia frowning out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked she was gently smiling as she had been before. “I guess my tutoring has put you ahead of your peers.”

“Sometimes I just get frustrated by how little they get,” I said, using a frustrated tone that I normally never used in front of the Princess. I needed to vent to her about what it was like. “They don’t pay attention to their work, they talk loudly with their friends in the middle of class, and they wait until the last day before an assignment is due to copy off of somepony else’s notes, and then they act like I’m the bad guy when I don’t let them.”

I noticed Celestia had stopped looking off the balcony and was now staring at me. I took a deep breath and reined myself in. “Sorry,” I said, flattening my ears and looking away sheepishly. “I get a little frustrated by it sometimes.”

“No, no, I completely understand,” Celestia said. My ears perked up with a bit of surprise at her response. “In my audiences I’ve had to deal with every kind of pony you can imagine in. And it’s been that way for the past thousand years.”

I bit my lip, hesitant to ask my next question, but deciding to ask it anyway. “How did you not go crazy?”

Celestia let out a loud and boisterous laugh the likes of which I’d never heard from her. A smile stretched her lips as her laughter died down, reduced to slight chuckling. “I’ve asked myself that several times. Some days I think about other ponies the same way you do.”

“You do?” I asked, surprised. “But you always seemed so patient whenever I attended court.”

Celestia nodded. “They stare at me with blank looks, not really listening to what I say when I tell them ‘no’. They bow, not really caring what it means as much as how they look doing it. And sometimes their complete and utter disregard for what I do each day to keep the kingdom running infuriates me.”

She took a bite of her sweet loaf and went back to staring off the balcony. “It’s completely natural to think like that, but I try not to.”

I studied Celestia in silence. I wanted to speak, to ask why she wastes her time with the petty problems that are all too often brought to her court, but I had no idea how to ask it.

“It’s easy to assume things about ponies based on how they appear to you. It’s the automatic way so many ponies think, to think that you’re the center of the world and your wants and needs should be the rest of the world’s priorities.”

She turned to me, and though at the time I didn’t know enough to understand what she was saying, I knew enough to listen to what she was saying.

“It’s easy to think that way, but you get to decide how you really want to think,” she said, her words carrying a wisdom of age that no other pony knew. “Above all else, that is the one thing I hope to teach you. To teach you that there is an awareness above thought. That you can remain open to multiple interpretations of things. That maybe your classmates selfishly asking you to do their work didn’t come from an educated family, and as such have no one else to turn to. That maybe they spent the extra day given for the assignment taking their dog out to the park, because he’s growing old and won’t be around much longer.”

My eyes darted back and forth between the floor and Celestia’s gaze. “But how can I know whether or not any of that’s true?” I asked.

Celestia slowly shook her head. “You can’t. All I’m saying is that it’s a possibility. It takes effort to think this way. Somedays you might be too tired to think this way. You’ll assume. You’ll take the easy way out.

“But if you are aware of the ponies around you, you’ll start to see their lives, and you’ll start to forgive them. You’ll see the ponies behind the false impressions you’ve created. And once you see them, you’ll want to protect them, too, just as Slate did.”

I chewed my lip, my eyebrows furrowed in thought. “I’m not sure I understand. It doesn’t make sense.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow. “In what way doesn’t it make sense?”

“Well, it just doesn’t seem realistic,” I replied, blushing as the words came out of my mouth, considering who I was talking to. I stumbled over my words to clarify myself. “I-I mean, it seems like wishful thinking to think about these possibilities that probably aren’t true. I think there’s a great likelihood that ponies could be who your first impression of them is.”

Celestia nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true,” she said, much to my surprise. “It’s very likely that they are who they appear to be.”

I pursed my lips and stared at Celestia. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking. After a few moments spent staring and not gleaning a thing, I moved on.

I took a bite of my sweet loaf, then, “What if the pony turns out not to just be exactly who you think they are, but someone worse? Ponies can lie. Assuming the best in them and they could lead you right to a pitfall.”

“The idea isn’t to assume these things are true. That would just be replacing one assumption with another.” Celestia smiled, showing she wasn’t disappointed with my response. “I’m glad to see you challenging what I say. It shows you’re thinking critically.”

The loyal student in me rushed to apologize. “I’m sorry, Princess. I don’t mean to sound rude or abrasive. I just don’t really see it working.”

Celestia chuckled, raising a hoof to cover it up. “I didn’t expect you to,” she replied.

She ate the rest of her sweet loaf in silence, then patted my head and stood. “It’s rather late for me,” she said, covering a small yawn. She turned to me and bowed. “Thank you for the wonderful company this evening.”

Dropping my sweet loaf on the pillow, I jumped to my hooves and gave a rigid bow. “I enjoyed our conversation, Princess,” I blurted, hoping she wasn’t leaving because of something I said.

“As did I, my faithful student,” Celestia said, relieving some of the tension in my shoulders.

Then she left. It was just me, the wind, and the night once more.

I lay on my back and stared up into the sky, gazing at the stars. Things were quiet as I ate my sweet bread and thought about what Celestia said. In the meantime, I listed off the constellations I could see in my head, until when I ran out and had to start listing off the stars I recognized and knew by name.

It was the first time I’d spoken so intimately with the Princess. What I didn’t think about at the time, was how Celestia must have felt being more or less alone for those one thousand years Luna spent banished on the moon. In a way, I feel as though it might have been as much of an exile for her as it was for Luna.

I replayed the conversation in my head countless times that night, wondering if I’d been wrong. Every time I looked back on it I found myself agreeing with what I’d said, and wishing to change nothing but the stiff and clumsy way I had spoken.

Once I finished counting stars, I rolled over to my stomach and let out a long and inescapable yawn. Sleepiness, like a rising ocean tide, had flooded in and swept over me. I forced my tired, lazy body to stand so that I could make my way to my chambers. Using my horn to light my path and make sure I didn’t trip, I carefully shambled through the corridors and down the steep spiral stairs leading to my room.

Being relatively young at the time, sleep was important. Though knowing that, I still wish I had forced myself to stay up, forced myself to think a little bit longer about what Celestia had said. If I had, it may not have taken four more years and a trip across Equestria to a backwater town like Ponyville to realize her lesson.

Yet, for obvious reasons, I’m glad I didn’t, and I instead got to meet all my wonderful friends. But the thing about missed opportunities is that you can never really know just what you missed. The curious part of me sometimes wonders how different things may have been if I knew then what I know now.

What I learned once I left the castle was that time has a tendency to repeat itself in the most discreet ways. You wake up, shower, brush your hair, and then eat breakfast. You prepare for the day and go out to your job, at which you have to work hard throughout the day. Once it’s all over, you go home to make yourself dinner, where if you’re lucky you manage to sit down and read a book for maybe an hour or so. Then you go to bed so you can wake up early in order to do it all again. Day after day. Week after week. Year after year.

To me, being an adult is when you realize and accept this reality, the fact that you’re going to repeat these things ad nauseum. And if you assume the things that I did in everypony you meet, then you’re going to be miserable and bored and insufferable your whole life. And that’s your choice. But if you look past those false impressions, you’ll find yourself surrounded by ponies who love, laugh, and care just as you do. The world will be lit up by the common bond you all share and the world will feel a less lonely place for it.

That’s why, in all these years, I remember that night as the most important lesson Celestia taught me. Because that night, she taught me how to think.

What I didn’t understand when I was younger, was that it wasn’t about how accurate or immediate your assumptions about other ponies are. What it was about, was a very small percent. When somepony turns out to be so much more than their first impression tells you, and you would have never known had you dismissed them so casually.

My first day in Ponyville, I met five such ponies. They followed me, bothered me, and at the time, I thought they were just getting in the way of my efforts to stop Nightmare Moon. I dismissed them.

The reason we became best friends, was because they never dismissed me.

That was when I realized what Celestia had been trying to teach me that night. I started to change the way I think about the world. I gained awareness. From then on, I tried to keep an open mind about every pony I met.

At first it was easy. I kept an open mind to anypony I met. As time wore on, however, I found it became easier and easier to slip back into the easy way of looking at things. I came to understand what Celestia meant when she said that it was an effort to think this way. It’s so easy to fall into a routine. I have to keep reminding myself: this is what a friend would do.

This is what I would do.

Unappreciated

“Good, good. Hold it right there!” Rainbow Dash zipped around, checking all of the corners of the newly constructed building. “Almost perfect. Now we just need this one last piece.” She pointed to a large pillar being carried by eight different pegasus. “Slowly... slowly...”

“Careful now.” She flew backwards a few meters to admire the new creation. She raised two hooves into the air and aligned them with the structure below. Her tongue flopped out. “Almost...”

The pillar shifted neatly into place. “Perfect, don’t forge—”

No sooner had she uttered a word, the pillar slid backwards. Three of the pegasus lost their grip, and the pillar dropped like a lead weight.

“Nononono.” Rainbow Dash flew underneath the pillar and tried to hold onto it. Her muscles bulged as gravity continued its work. Despite her flailing wings and tensed-up body, she couldn’t even slow it down, let alone stop it.

“Rainbow Dash! Get outta there!” shouted Raindrops, one of the pillar-carriers.

“But...” Rainbow’s face contorted as the wind blew past her face. She looked downwards at the incoming ground. If she didn’t move, she was going to make one heck of a pancake.

“Do it!”

Seconds before the pillar slammed into the ground, Rainbow Dash flew out from underneath it. She hovered nearby, shaking her head and pinching her snout with a hoof. A loud boom struck the air, and a large crack appeared on the pillar.

“No! Horseapples!” Rainbow Dash sprinted forward, but it was too late. The crack spread from the top to the bottom in a zigzag pattern. She could only watch in horror as it split in two.

“Quick. Four of you hold up that side.” She pointed at the smaller piece of the pillar. “The rest, help me hold this end.”

Before they could move, the largest piece of the pillar came tumbling down, right onto the brand new factory. Smashing through the middle, it kicked up a cloud of dust and concrete. It shattered into dozens of pieces, leaving nothing but scrap metal, broken shards and piles of junk. Nopony was in there, but still...

Rainbow Dash paced back and forth in the air. “Oh man, oh man, oh man. This is gonna set us back by weeks!”

She rounded on the group of ponies. “What happened!?”

Seven of the eight ponies stepped back and all pointed at a single grey pegasus. She tilted her head and smiled. One of her eyes stared at Rainbow Dash while the other looked at the wreckage. “Err... oops?”

Rainbow Dash threw her hooves into the air. “Derpy?! Again? Ugh!” Rainbow Dash sighed and shook her head.

“Sorry.” Derpy patted a hoof at the ground.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, we can still fix this.” Rainbow looked at the destruction. “I think.” She clapped her hooves. “Alright then, we’re a bit behind schedule but we can still do this. Medley, Blossomforth, Raindrops, you clear the rubble around the building while the rest of us move the bigger pieces out of the way.”

Derpy trotted forward, a silly grin plastered on her face, when Rainbow Dash placed a hoof in front of her.

“Hmm? What is it, Rainbow Dash?” Derpy looked up into her eyes.

It was hard to follow both eyes at once, so Rainbow glared at the center of Derpy’s forehead. “Not you. Just... err... we can handle it.”

“But...” Derpy’s smile turned downwards.

“Just... go home. Take the rest of the day off. We can handle it here.” Rainbow Dash pointed off towards the direction of her home.

“Okay...” Derpy trotted in the other direction, her wings dragging along the ground.

As Derpy went away, Rainbow Dash massaged her temples. She didn’t want to seem mean, but sometimes Derpy was a hoofful.

A cry rang out from behind her, followed by a quick “sorry.” Derpy had bumped into somepony, causing them to drop the piece they were holding onto their hooves. They glared at her as they massaged their broken appendage.

Rainbow Dash took deep breaths.

As Derpy made her way home, she couldn’t help but notice that everywhere she went, ponies would always stare at her. Some of them were glares, from ponies that she had accidentally wronged, while others were curious stares. Harmless really, but it kept her on edge regardless. Derpy forced herself to smile, like so many other days.

“Mommy, why are her eyes like that?” asked a small foal.

“Don’t do that. It’s rude to point.” The mother picked up her foal by the neck, but the look she gave Derpy just shouted “freak” at her. No matter how many ponies saw her eyes, it’s like they never got used to them.

She tried to mentally force her eyes to go straight, but it only lasted a few seconds before they drifted back into seperate directions. She sighed. Like always, she wished she wasn’t so different from everypony else.

Of course, that wasn’t the only problem she had. Because of her eyes, she had trouble with depth perception and was really clumsy due to it. She tried her best, she really did.

She even volunteered to help out with the rebuilding of the new factory, but things didn’t go according to plan. Once again, another perfectly good thing gone wrong. She teared up. It’s not like she wanted to disappoint Rainbow Dash. It was an accident, really.

With nothing left to do, she decided to head to her night job early. She had scarcely set hoof through the front door when a loud shout assaulted her ears.

“Derpy! You mixed up the packages! Again!” The gruff voice came from a green stallion. The veins in his neck bulged when he spoke, and his muscles quivered with every movement. He towered over Derpy.

Derpy’s ears bent backwards and she clasped her hooves together. “Ah! I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Do you have any idea how much these ‘mix-ups’ are costing this company? Do you?” He bent down, yet still hovered over Derpy’s small-in-size body in comparison. He snorted, letting out a burst of air from his nostrils.

“I... I’m sorry.” Derpy curled into a ball and quivered on the floor.

“I’m sorry too. If this keeps up, who knows what will happen?” He paused. Derpy tried to fight back tears. His face softened.

He waved his hooves around as an attempt to explain. “I don’t want to go out of business, you know. The other ponies, they’re starting to talk. Stuff about this business being ‘unreliable’ and ‘tardy’. I’ve got a reputation to uphold, you know?”

Derpy sniffled.

“If nothing changes... I’m gonna have to let you go.”

“But—” Derpy stood up.

The gruff stallion held up a hoof. “With business the way it is, I can’t afford to keep covering for you. This will be the last time I’ll be able to. This is your last chance.”

Derpy stared at the floor in silence.

“Tell you what. Take tonight off. I’ll cover for ya. How does that sound?”

“Okay,” Derpy replied reluctantly.

She turned to leave, and right as she crossed over the threshold, she heard another coworker whisper in the back. “With all the mistakes she’s made, why hasn’t she been fired before this?”

“I feel bad for her. It’s tough raising a foal on your own, especially with... well, you know.”

“Still. Sometimes I wish she’d just go someplace else.”

Tears rushed down Derpy’s cheeks as she stumbled towards home. Some days, it felt like no matter what she did, all she did was make other ponies angry. They were always staring at her. Judging her. Sometimes Derpy wished they were the ones that went away.

She took a seat on the nearest bench, placed in front of Sugarcube Corner. She stared at the ground. She couldn’t put her hoof on it, but nowadays she felt... drained. She did her best, but despite that, things... just kept happening. Sometimes, It felt like it was too much to deal with.

“Heeey, Derpy!” a voice called out. A pink pony, bouncing in place with a tray of cupcakes on her head, waved towards her.

Derpy looked away, she didn’t want Pinkie Pie to see her like this. Taking a deep breath, she wiped her face. She had to stay strong. To put on a mask. After all, it’s not like anypony cared. To them, she was just... clumsy.

“Hi, Pinkie Pie.” Derpy waved back dejectedly.

Pinkie Pie stopped bouncing and tilted her head, somehow keeping the tray carefully balanced on it. “What’s wrong?”

Derpy shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

Pinkie paused, then put a hoof to her chin. “Oooh! How about a cupcake?” She leaned forward, lowering her body so that the tray sat in front of Derpy.

Derpy gently pushed the tray away. “That’s okay.”

“Are you suuuuuuure?” Pinkie Pie leaned closer, a few inches from Derpy’s face.

Her stomach growled. Derpy tried to silence it with a few pats, but it only grew louder like a lion’s roar. She didn’t realize it, but the last time she had eaten was when she left her house in the morning. “Yes.”

“Yes, you’re sure that you don’t want a cupcake or yes, you changed your mind and you do want a cupcake?” Pinkie’s tongue moved so fast, it became a blur.

“Uh... I’m good, thanks. I don’t want it.”

“Aww, come on. It’s free!” Pinkie Pie stared at her with one eye open, expanding as big as a dinner plate. She looked Derpy up and down before she said, “Take it! It’s on the house.”

Derpy placed her head between her forelegs.

Pinkie frowned. “Heeey, what’s wrong?”

Derpy looked at her pleadingly. She tried to fight back the waterworks, but it came anyway. She threw herself forward, hugging Pinkie’s neck. “I’m sorry. I... today hasn’t been such a good day.”

Pinkie comforted her with a pat on the back. “It’s okaaaay. We all have days like that. When you do, just remember all the ponies that love you.”

Derpy rubbed her muzzle. Her stomach acted up again, unleashing a sound like a dying cat. Pinkie beamed and shot Derpy a knowing look. She offered the tray again and nodded towards it.

Derpy sighed.

“Eh? Eeeeh?” Pinkie Pie pointed towards the tray with a huge foam finger that appeared from nowhere.

“Fine.” Derpy didn’t really like cupcakes that much, but her stomach didn’t really care at the moment. “Thanks, Pinkie.”

“Noooooooo problem!” The smile on her face was so big, it covered three-fourths of her face.

As she took a bite out of the cupcake, Derpy thought back to what Pinkie had said. Somepony that loves you, huh?

“How does this look?” Dinky held up her creation, a crudely drawn picture of Carrot Top, herself, and her mom.

“Perfect!” Carrot Top smiled warmly. “Your mom will love it.”

“Are you sure?” Dinky pored over her drawing once again. “It’s not... ugly?”

“No! Of course not.” Carrot Top patted Dinky on the head. After glancing at the clock, she said, “I’m sure she’ll be home soon enough. Then you can show her yourself.”

“Yay!” Dinky squealed, her tiny limbs quivering.

“Let’s go see how your muffin is doing.” Carrot Top walked towards the kitchen, and lowered the oven door. She handed the oven mitts to Dinky. “Now be careful.”

“I will!” Dinky slipped on the oven mitts and bent over the racks. Slowly, gently, Dinky reached forward and picked up the muffin. Lips pursed, she brought it out of the oven. Setting aside a chair to stand on, she jumped onto it and set her muffin onto a plate on the table. The muffin was slightly burnt on the side, but it should still be good. Hopefully.

The sound of the front door opening attracted Dinky’s attention, causing her ears to perk upwards. “Yay! Mom’s home!” She leaped off the chair and sprinted towards the living room.

After closing the door behind her, Derpy only had enough time to grunt as Dinky flew into her hooves and grabbed her by the neck.

“Mommy!” They both hugged for a moment. “How was your day?”

Derpy paused for a moment, her face momentarily turning into a frown. However, it disappeared just as quickly into a smile. “Same as always. How about you? Did you have fun with Carrot Top?”

“Yes! We baked muffins and played some games and I even made you a present!” Dinky crawled onto Derpy’s mane and sat on top like a hat.

“Oh?” Derpy raised an eyebrow. “What was it?”

“Let me get it.” Dinky pointed towards the floor, so Derpy picked her up and set her down. Dinky ran into the other room, soon returning with her picture levitating in the air. Dinky bounced up and down, her eyes widening as Derpy grabbed the picture.

After a few seconds, Derpy looked away from Dinky. She held a hoof over her eyes and tried not to let herself tear up again.

“Mom?” Dinky craned her neck.

Derpy rubbed her nose. “It’s nothing. I just... Thank you.”

“So you like it?” Dinky clasped her hooves together.

Derpy embraced Dinky in another wide hug. “Of course I do.”

“Oooooh! I have something else for you too!” Dinky grabbed Derpy’s hoof and pulled her into the kitchen. She pointed towards the smouldering muffin on the platter. At the sight, Derpy’s eyes immediately lit up. Carrot Top was in the kitchen cleaning some dishes.

“That’s for me?”

Dinky nodded.

Derpy reached towards the muffin just as Carrot Top turned around.

“Wait, it’s still—” Carrot Top said.

Derpy picked up the muffin and tossed it into the air. It flipped several times, then landed neatly into Derpy’s mouth. Just like that, she swallowed it whole.

“—hot. Nevermind...”

“Did you like it?” Dinky looked at her mom pleadingly.

“Perfect.” Derpy gave her a wide-toothed smile. The picture was still in her hooves, so Derpy grabbed a magnet and stuck it to the refrigerator. “Are there any plans for tonight?”

“Lyra and Bon Bon are coming over to watch a movie. Any preferences?”

Derpy thought for a moment. “Doesn’t matter to me. As long as we’re spending time together, that’s all that matters.”

War Horse

I stood within my tent with only my truest friend there across from me.

He knew me as well as any, my truest friend, and perhaps even better than most. As he gleamed within the candle-light, I looked upon his form, finding my own face glistening upon his hardened skin. A gift from my father was what he was, and a deeper sign of love I could never have asked for. Betrayal was not a feature to be found in my truest friend, like in those of lesser beings, nor were false-tongued words of poisonous honey. Instead, all I could find were the steady lines of stalwart courage, the firm edges of unabashed stubbornness, and the smooth, unmarred face of determination looking back at me like gazing once again upon the stern semblance of his maker.

It was so much unlike my own, that face. What with my inevitable ineptitudes and the unfounded beliefs in that which should not have been trusted, my own features were a mess of marks and blemishes from mistakes and trials gone by. It was a weak and pitiful thing to look at; the face of a foolish colt, now trying to wear the skin of a stallion and finding nothing to change his inescapable truth despite the scars and blackened coal with which he’d painted himself from horn to hoof.

All because of her and what she’d done.

“Sir?” came a voice of rusted nails.

When I took my gaze from my truest friend, there was some unicorn child—scarcely from her infancy by the looks of things—standing there behind me. A pair of my soldiers stood alongside her, glowering upon this mere girl like she might possess some hint of malicious danger, though none could I yet see; she simply did not have the needed ice in her heart, looking far too young and innocent to have seen what the world was truly capable of. Instead there was only fear and confusion and more fear. A gaze I would have recognized in myself all those years ago, had not the War shown me the depths of what real fear meant.

“Yes?” I asked, and the child fell to her face, splaying herself in an attempt to forestall some anger I did not yet have for her.

“Please. No more. You’ve won. W-we...” She looked up at me, eyes scarcely containing her tears in some sad gesture of impressing me on her courage. “We surrender... my lord.”

The impression failed as she again put her nose back to the ground of my temporary home, and I watched as the ground beneath her face grew wet in her tears. One soldier snarled, stalking forward in an attempt to remove her from my presence, but a simple wave from me halted him and, without question, they both left us. I waited for her to stop crying, though it seemed it should take many years before she should. Her sorrow fell thick and harsh, the cries of pain and loss admittedly finding some space in what little I allowed myself to call a heart. The rest had been torn away long before this girl sought to outmatch me.

The weeping grew less loud as the seconds became minutes, and the minutes became more. Yet still she could not stop herself and, when there were no more tears to shed, soon settled simply for a voice grown harsh and thin with her cries. Like a swan who has lost its love, she wept, keening for what could no longer be hers. Though I understood her pain, I equally knew I could do nothing for it, and so, when she finally paused her cries so that she might draw breath, I spoke for the first time in many hours.

“Why have you come?” I asked.

“T-to beg... ” she whimpered, and again looked upon me as a small hint of fire grew behind her emerald eyes. “Isn’t that what you want?” Her head fell back to the dirt as she moaned, “Can’t you leave us alone now?”

“No,” said I, and for a moment, she stared at me, fear now replacing her resignation. “I did not ask for your purpose in coming, though pleased I am to hear it, I was asking for your personal reason. Why have you come?”

“I’m in charge of the village.”

“And what of your father? Or perhaps your mother?”

I again caught the spark of something in her gaze, which I now knew all too well. Hatred, pure and all-consuming, though tempered at this time only by a love that was even greater than her hate. All that kept her from leaping for my throat was but a single prize, something she felt for far more deeply than her pain and her anger, powerful as they both were.

“I’m in charge of the village,” she spat between clenched teeth.

I turned to my truest friend, away from her hate, though I found no solace in his cold glower or his silence. “I am sorry,” said I.

“No, you’re not,” she snarled beneath her breath.

When she caught my gaze, she immediately moved a hoof to her mouth, as though to capture the words before they could reach my ears. However, the look of renewed fear in her face betrayed that she knew just as well as I that it was far too late. And now that fear was growing tall, devouring her earlier anger until it was all that stood between us. I again directed my gaze back to my truest friend, and heard her fight for breath before speaking once more.

“I’m sorry... m-my lord.” she muttered, falling back to her face in a gesture I already found quite tiresome. “Please. I-If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I promise it won’t happen again.”

For a while, I allowed the silence to grow. Her fear pawed at the doors now, searching to utterly consume her, and though I did not yet look, I heard her breath growing quicker as she fought to keep it out. There was a light scrape as she moved one of her legs as subtly as possible so that blood could flow into her cramped limbs again and a choked sneeze as the motion carried with it a bit of dust from my floor to her still downturned face. All I allowed myself to focus on was the gaze of my truest friend, consumed by the gleam of his milky features.

A small spark of anger was drawn from me at the sight it awoke in my mind, though none could I feel for him, my truest friend, for he was different. Though alabaster he wore, he was not like those who merely appeared so, as he was truly noble, honest, and pure of the filth which clouded the hearts of the living. Unlike his brother, who was bespeckled in the pollution of a life in service to a lie, he wore no such troubles upon his face. All he wished was to serve, and to protect, like I myself had vowed to do. It was all he knew, and it was all he would ever know. And, even should he be worn and injured and beaten, his cares and scrapes and hurts could be wiped away without a trace in but an instant. He would carry no memories to serve as the reminders to long forgotten scars, and I envied him for it very deeply.

“Why have you come?” I asked again.

“I–”

“Do not dare lie to me, girl, or you will find the extents of my patience. I know you are not sacrificing yourself for the fools out there who decided to try me, despite my most civil offers and dire warnings offered to the contrary, and would now cower behind the legs of a mere child. So why have you come?”

For a moment, I wondered if she would still try to decieve me, to insist that it was some duty to a fallen town of loathsome cowards which drove her here to beg my pardon of their insolence, no matter how it pained her to do so. No matter how much her very soul bled to speak with me, to sell her very world in so many cheapened words like a shameless street vendor, I wondered if she should still cling to what little pride she might still possess. But only for a moment did I suspect it, for when she looked into my face again, I saw her hope of escape fade from eyes gone glassy.

A despicable victory, perhaps, but one I knew would not be the last.

Her gaze fell back to the earth, and she choked over each word as though I drew them from her very marrow. “A little brother, and a very little sister,” she whispered, and new tears moistened the earth. “Please. Whatever else you want, just leave them be. I don’t care what happens to me, but they don’t deserve what you chose for us.”

I extended my magic to the vase I kept beside my bed, taking from it but a single magnolia blossom of white and setting it beside her. Her brow crinkled, and she looked at me as I turned back to my truest friend.

“Take this,” I told her. “And know that, so long as you and yours continue to display but a portion of this courage and wisdom, I shall find far more pleasant reasons to return in the future. I require only your loyalty, not your lives, and would but ask if some of yours might wish to join me instead of demand it. I do not require numbers. I only wish for strong hearts.”

She did not yet take the blossom, though it sat within easy reach.

“For what?” she asked bitterly. “Other villages broken, houses burned and homes shattered?” She drew tight about herself, curling into a ball to shield herself somewhat from the pain. “Was mine not enough? Where will it end?”

“It will end as soon as I can make it so, girl. You are not the only one with a duty that must come before yourself.” I took yet another bloom from my vase, watching it spin in the air and feeling some measure of joy find its way to my remaining heart. “Though mine must extend beyond family these days.”

“What do I do with it?”

“Plant it, burn it, eat it. Whatever you chose to do, know that this is a token of your acceptance into my fold. Before I return to Equestria, I shall conquer the Homeland and acquire an army that might face what I shall find awaiting me there. One by one shall the towns and villages fall before me, and then the cities, before the three nations become a single whole again. When I have finished with that, I shall return home and fulfill my duty.”

The child drew in a ragged breath, and I heard her attempt to swallow several times before she could speak again. “A-and what is your duty to?”

I brushed a leg against my throat, feeling there the cold moonstone necklace my mother had created for me on the day I had accepted this responsibility, at the behest of a teacher and a friend who could be no more.

“I have fought creatures you could never imagine, child, in pursuit of duty to a land that became my home during the War: beings of many faces, and with hearts as black as the darkened moon as powers of unquenchable hatred raged throughout hearths and homes. However, the monsters I faced then were nothing like those I must face now. Those in the shadows will destroy you, should you lack strength and courage.” Alabaster skin flashed through my eyes, and so I took another bloom to distract my anger, lest I unduly frighten the child still behind me. “But those in the light will take you into their embrace, caring for you and those you in turn care for like they are their own, and only when you have grown accustomed to the blinding glare of their love do you find the fangs they hide in their smiles.”

When I heard no voice from the child, I turned instead to my truest friend and regretfully placed my magnolias back into their temporary haven. He seemed to approve of my thoughts, though no expression did he make nor voice did he lift in either praise or complaint. But, unlike those who walk and breath, he would never lie to me, nor would he lead me astray. He would only be there to protect me, should I but desire it, and shield my body as well as the remnants of what little heart I had kept for myself over the years. Only he, my father’s creation of my father’s labor, proved that trust was possible, if given only to those who knew what true love and loyalty meant.

And, though my duty fell short of that standard, it was nonetheless my duty to fulfill. I had fought alongside her in the War, as well as by the side of my mentor and now truest enemy, and, though we had won that battle for the good of those beneath their love, I should have known that it could not last. Peace cannot be kept eternally bright, as can neither justice nor truth. They must be fought for, and continuously brought up from the depths of darkness. And though each time wears us down and strips away another layer of that naive veneer we attempt to coat our hearts within, we shall continue to fight for the true light as long as we live and breath.

So, though family was life, my duty was to my assigned ward, given quite ironically by my enemy, and so I could not let her suffer while I still drew breath. As first Captain of the Shadow Guard, I would not rest until my lady again walked this plane and breathed its air. I could not and would not, though to face those who I should call friends, and the one I would have once called both friend and teacher, pained the little heart I had anymore.

From his perch did I lift my truest friend and took his frigid weight upon my shoulders so that he might keep me grounded in the world against the base desires to reach for the unattainable. His iron legs became one with my skin as I stepped into his shoes so that I might bear the load of both my charge and my duty upon our shoulders and carry them to the end, whatever it might be.

And finally, his steeled face covered mine, that we could truly be born anew. No lips did he need, for words do not keep promises. No ears did he require, for my own had heard their share of lies and sorrow and no more of either should I wish to find souring them. No scars did he bear, for only the living make mistakes and pay the consequences. And no heart did he have, for to feel was to be broken, to be broken was to hurt, and to hurt was to fail when one needed to fight hardest.

Armor perfectly forged were we, he for myself, and I for my duty, and we looked upon our new subject through eyes of ruby, for none could escape our wrathful sight any longer, and she trembled before us as we loosed our voice from a hollow chest.

“Go home,” said we. “Return to those you love and fear no more. For now you are one of ours, and we shall watch over you like the moon, and forge into you new strength that shall never be broken. In the darkness, we are all one, and shall find our sight unimpeded by the light of a false love’s lie.”

With trembling legs did she again stand, backing away from us until she felt the tentflap brushing her hindquarters. Her eyes had grown wide, for now the beast of fear had battered down the doors and sunk its claws deep into her heart so that every step was a struggle.

We simply turned to my vase of sweet-scented magnolias as she finally turned and ran from our presence, back for the treasure best kept safe. The rumble of steel shod hooves and roar of fearless voices as our soldiers prepared for the long march to our next stop brought an unexpected weight upon our shoulders, but my truest friend kept my legs from bending and allowed us to move before a nearby mirror, that we might see what we were and prepare ourselves for the endless days ahead. Our gaze was hard and absolute, and so did we speak once more to the only one who truly needed to hear what we needed to say.

“You need not fear a Nightmare,” we growled at me, the eyes of crimson flashing hot. “But all will scream when they are found by Knight Terror.”

Perseverence: Don't Give Up, Scootaloo

Far above Ponyville, an orange pegasus flew through the sky in loopty-loops. Wind flowed from beneath her spread-out wings, pushing her body upwards even higher. Spinning in a circle, she rolled herself sideways and stopped. Flapping her wings to stay afloat, she looked down. The houses below looked like miniature figurines built for ants. Giggling, she zipped around, wind rushing through her mane.

“I’m doing it! I’m actually doing it!” Scootaloo cheered, throwing her front hooves into the air. A giant smile appeared on her face, spreading from ear to ear. “Just like you, Rainbow Dash.”

After surveying the landscape, she looked for the path of least resistance. There was a pocket of air that had no clouds and a perfect view of the ground. Taking a deep breath, she tucked in her wings and dived.

As she propelled downwards, she increased in speed. The faster she went, the more the wind pushed against her body. Her mouth flapped open, writhing in the wind. She closed it. While holding her breath, she pointed her snout to the center of Ponyville and zoomed towards it like a bullet. After a brief moment, she pulled up and opened her wings. Swooping upwards in a giant U-pattern, she shot back up like a rubber band and streaked through the sky, adrenaline pumping through her system.

I’m doing it! I did it! I—

The wind that had been flowing over her wings stopped, as if a light switch had been flipped. It felt like a stone had been dropped into the pit of her stomach. The wind had shifted; Instead of

flowing above her wings, now it was wrapping around her body.

What’s happening?

Scootaloo tried to flap her wings, but it was no use. She spread out her wings to slow her descent, but they snapped backwards. Frantically, she waved her hooves, but she continued fall, faster and faster. A tingling sensation spread through her wings. Before her very eyes, they shrank.

At first, they were normal adult-sized pegasus wings, but as she watched, they gradually turned into the wings of a pegasus infant. Her body was far too big for tiny wings, and all she could do was buzz them as fast as she could. With a pop, her wings disappeared completely. She tried to scream, but nothing came out.

She looked over her shoulder, back towards the ground. The houses became bigger, quickly becoming the size of apples, then watermelons, and then finally haystacks. Holding her breath, she closed her eyes and waited for the impact.

She landed with a thud, but instead of the hard ground she expected, there was only softness.

“Mfgfhhgfh?”

She tried to roll over, but she felt as if she was encased in a giant marshmellow. It felt like she was wrapped in something, but she couldn’t identify it. Her eyes opened, but she only saw darkness. She struggled to breath, heaving as her lungs slowly ran out of air. She wiggled her body through the unknown substance.

“Mfffggh! Muufhgg!” After a few moments, she burst through. Taking a huge gulp of air, she gasped.

As she took deep breaths, she looked around. No longer outside, she found herself back in her bedroom. Her body was drenched in a cold sweat, and she was tightly wrapped in her blanket. She placed a hoof on her chest to try and calm herself down.

Just a dream. It’s not real. Her breaths slowed down.

Wings! She twisted her body to look at her wings. Still there. She wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead. A quick glance told her that they hadn’t disappeared at all. She flapped them a few times, and sighed. Instead of the adult-sized wings from her dream, she had her normal wings. Her small, practically useless wings.

With a grunt, she squirmed out of her blankets and crawled back into the bed. Throwing the covers over herself and snuggling underneath, a single thought perpetuated through her mind: her wings.

"Are you ready?" shouted a voice from below.

"Ready as I'll ever be!" Scootaloo shouted back.

On the edge of the balcony of the Ponyville Library, Scootaloo stood. She took deep breaths, and stretched her limbs. A giant foam mattress had been laid several meters underneath her, just in case. Two fillies, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, waited next to the mattress. Applebloom pumped her hoof into the air in a cheer while Sweetie Belle bit the end of her hooves.

"You think she'll make it?" Sweetie Belle eyed the distance between the balcony and the ground.

"Of course!" Applebloom grinned.

Wings extended, Scootaloo mentally prepared herself. Come on, Scootaloo. You can do this. Just believe in yourself. Come on, body. Fly!

She looked below. There was a clear pathway, all of the obstacles previously removed by the Cutie Mark Crusaders beforehoof. Now all she had to do was fly.

"Alright! Let's do it!" Taking another deep breath, Scootaloo braced herself and jumped. Her wings sprang into action, buzzing around like a mockingbird. She levitated a foot into the air, slowly rising with each pump of her wings. "Almost... almost..."

She felt herself falling. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't rise any higher. With a thump, she dropped like a rock. Gingerly, Scootaloo sped towards the ground, and harmlessly bounced off the mattress that had been laid beneath her. The cushion covered her, slowly deflating. She sighed.

"That's okay, you'll make it next time!" Sweetie Belle said, hopping onto the mattress.

"Don't give up yet!" Apple Bloom said, jumping next to them.

Scootaloo buried her head. “I don’t get it. Maybe I’m just... broken.”

“No, you’re not!” Sweetie Belle hugged Scootaloo. “Don’t say that.”

“But... I should have gotten this by now. I’m... useless.”

Apple Bloom joined the two in their hug. “You’re not useless! You’ll get it, just hang in there!”

Scootaloo didn’t say anything. She knew better. If she tried to bring it up, her friends would just keep trying to cheer her up. “I, uh... have to go do something. I’ll see you girls later.” She hopped off the cushion and grabbed her scooter. After weakly waving goodbye to her friends, she scooted away. As she left, she couldn’t help but keep about her inability to fly.

Something's wrong. I should have been able to fly by now.

Scootaloo sighed as she drifted idly by on her scooter. She ducked underneath two ponies carrying a mirror.

Seriously, what's wrong with me? Am I... broken?

She gripped the handle with her forelegs, turning and stopping seconds before she ran into another pony. She quickly zipped around him, and continued.

I know Twilight says dwelling on it won't help but I can't take my mind off it. Stop it, brain. Stop thinking about it. Ahhh!

She closed her eyes, trying to scream the thoughts away. Before she knew it, she hit an inclined slope and she flew through the air. The momentum pulsed through her body, and her eyes popped open.

"Oh noooo!" Out of control, Scootaloo and her scooter were sent flying into the nearest bush like a sack of potatoes.

"Phootooty." Scootaloo spat out the leaves that had gotten inside her mouth. "Ugh."

Spotting a nearby bench, she crawled towards it and threw herself onto it.

[i/]Everyone keeps telling me to wait, but how long is it supposed to take? If I can't fly, then I'm not a real pegasus. I don't deserve to be friends with Rainbow Da—what the?[i/]

A cloud floated a few feet above her, but something peculiar about this cloud caught her eye. Scootaloo tilted her head. A rainbow-colored tail was sticking out of the cloud. Nopony was on top of the cloud, there was only the tail poking out from the side. A mild snoring drifted from within.

"Rainbow Dash?"

"Don't worry Daring Do, I'll save you!" said a drowsy voice from inside the cloud.

Scootaloo cupped her hooves together. "Rainbow Dash!"

"Huh, what?" A head with a rainbow mane popped out of the cloud. "Ahh! I'm up, I'm up."

Rainbow Dash yawned, her hooves popping out of the sides of the cloud, leaving her body still encased within. Wiping her eyes, she turned towards Scootaloo.

"Oh hey, Scoots. What's up?"

Scootaloo tried to stifle a laugh with her hoof. “I... hahaha!” She rolled on the floor, unable to contain her laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Rainbow Dash looked down at her body and saw what the problem was. “Oh.” Giving her body a few quick shakes, the cloud dissipated. “There. All better.”

“So... what’s up?” Rainbow asked.

“I...” A thought hit Scootaloo like a lightning bolt. Wait! Rainbow Dash! That’s it! Scootaloo dove for the ground underneath Rainbow Dash and pleaded with her eyes. “Rainbow Dash, can you teach me how to fly?”

“Uh, you don’t already know?” Rainbow placed a hoof behind her head and rubbed it.

“No...” Scootaloo stared at the ground.

They both sat in silence for a few moments, with Rainbow looking at her. Scootaloo looked like she was about to burst into tears. Rainbow bit her lip.

“Okay kiddo. I’ll help you.” Placing a hoof under Scootaloo’s chin, Rainbow raised her head up. “Anything for my number one fan.”

“Really?” Scootaloo’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates.

Rainbow Dash nodded. “Really.”

“Hurray!” Scootaloo ran around in a circle, jumping and cheering. A smile appeared on her face, stretching from ear to ear. She stopped and grinned at Rainbow Dash. “When can we start?”

“Hmm...” Rainbow Dash levitated into the air and held her chin with a hoof. “Whatcha doing right now?”

“Nothing!”

Rainbow Dash pumped her hooves in the air. “Alright, then! Prepare for the lesson of a lifetime!” She leaned down. “Jump on my back and hold on tight.”

After Scootaloo complied, Rainbow Dash soared into the horizon. She nodded towards a mountain in the distance. “I know just the place where we can practice.”

"Ready..." Rainbow Dash stood at the ready with a whistle around her neck.

Scootaloo primed her hindlegs and bent down in a crouch. Licking her lips, she focused her eyes on the horizon in front of her. It'll be different this time.

"Set..."

Her tail swished in the air. You can do this.

"Go!" After shouting, Rainbow Dash blew her whistle.

With her body tensed up like a coiling spring, Scootaloo let loose with the power of a rocket. Legs flashing beneath her, Scootaloo broke into a gallop as she ran towards the cliff-edge. Concentrate. Just do what Rainbow Dash taught you and you should be fine.

Scootaloo started flapping her wings. They gradually increased in speed, becoming faster and faster until they became as fluid as an ocean wave. The edge came closer with every step, and her tongue hung out of her mouth in determination.

Now!

As she reached the cliff-edge, Scootaloo held her breath and closed her eyes. She jumped.

For a brief moment, time felt as if it had frozen. A buzzing, the sound of Scootaloo's wings, accompanied her ears. Her eyes popped open and her body was held aloft, and she managed to stay afloat for several seconds. Yes! Scootaloo breathed out a sigh of relief.

Tilting her wings, she leaned forward... and immediately dropped like a rock. The familiar feeling of falling penetrated arose. Her heart leaped into her throat, and she felt like she couldn't breathe.

No! Not again! She strained, every fiber of her wings bursting forth with the effort, but it was no use. She continued to fall; Gravity has made Scootaloo its servant. All she could manage was a wild exhibition of flailing limbs as she plunged downwards.

The wind resistance built against her body, pressing against her throat. She tried to breathe, but it felt like a pincer was cutting off her air. Tears welled up in her eyes. Why? Her ears lay flat, and her body tensed up. Why does this keep happening?

Mane flapping around in the wind, Scootaloo looked upwards. Maybe I should just give up. The sun was setting, creating a medley of fractured lights and colors. She could feel the warmth on her cheek. It felt... friendly somehow. Like an old friend. She relaxed, her body loosened up and the tightness in her chest disappeared. Calm. Peaceful. The colors surrounded her, wrapping around her body in a sweet embrace. Despite what was happening, she couldn't stop a smile from creeping onto her face.

Out of the corner of her eye, a streak of blue appeared. Accompanied by it were small elements of orange, yellow, and red.

A shout drifted through the wind. "Hang on!" The blue blur zipped through the sky like lightning, but it wasn't a natural phenomenon. It was...

Rainbow Dash!

Rainbow Dash flew underneath, and scooped up Scootaloo in her forelegs. “There, there. I gotcha.” Scootaloo held onto Rainbow Dash’s neck as they slowly fluttered back to the ground. Rainbow Dash plopped Scootaloo back onto the ground flank first.

Scootaloo stared at the floor. “I... Sorry, Rainbow Dash.”

“For what?”

Scootaloo pawed at the ground. “For always needing you to save me.” Scootaloo wiped her snout. “And for not being able to fly yet.”

“Hey, hey...” Rainbow Dash reached in and patted Scootaloo on the head. “It’s okay. You’ll get it eventually.” Scootaloo leaned against Rainbow’s leg, and stared off into the distance.

"Look Scoots, I..." Rainbow Dash placed a wing on her shoulder. "I know it sucks that you want something and can't get it right away, but cheer up, okay?"

Scootaloo sighed and stared at the floor.

Rainbow Dash continued, "It's not the end of the world, all right? Sure, you might be a bit older than most, but that doesn't mean it can't still happen. You'll learn to fly someday. You just gotta, you know, keep going."

Scootaloo didn't answer. Instead, she just frowned.

"Please look at me, Scoots."

She reluctantly turned to face Rainbow Dash.

"Don't give up. Who knows, maybe one day when you learn to fly, you might even become one of the best. Not better than me of course, but good enough."

They sat in silence for a few moments, Dash not sure what else to say while Scootaloo continued to stare into the sunset.

“Uhh...” Rainbow Dash stared into the sky while rubbing her neck with a hoof. “Tell you what, let’s go get some ice cream.”

“Okay...” Scootaloo forced herself to smile, but something still tugged at the back of her subconscious.

Rainbow Dash floated about a meter off the ground and created a tiny cloud. Picking up Scootaloo like a limp fish, she gently set her onto the cloud. “Hold on tight!” Rainbow Dash said. Moving to the back, Rainbow Dash started pushing. Within moments, the pair of them travelled back towards Ponyville.

“She’s still in a rut, huh?” Sweetie Belle asked, putting down her vanilla shake.

“Yeah.” Applebloom looked over at Scootaloo, who was poking her glass of chocolate ice cream in the corner. Her head was laying on the table, and a dull haze hung over her.

“Any ideas on how to cheer her up?”

Applebloom shrugged.

Rainbow Dash leaned next to them and whispered, “I’ve got an idea.” She slammed her hoof on the table, and both fillies looked at her. Rainbow Dash pushed herself away from the table and stood up. She marched over to Scootaloo, which looked up at her.

“Enough is enough. I know you’re sad, but you need to get over it!” Dash slid over next to her. “Listen, Scoots. You’re better than this. I mean, come on! You’re my number one fan, right?”

Scootaloo nodded.

“You’re almost as cool as me. And that counts for something.” Dash lifted Scootaloo’s head up. “So what if you can’t fly yet? You know somepony else that couldn’t fly for the longest time?” She paused for effect. “Spitfire! And look where she’s at now! Leader of the Wonderbolts!”

Scootaloo’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Yea. She said so in her autobiography.” Rainbow spooned a bit of Scootaloo’s ice cream and stuck it in her mouth.

“Auto-whatnow?”

Rainbow snuck another bite. “It’s a book about her life. Anyhoo, that’s not important. What is important is what she did. She was the worst flyer in her class and it took her years before she learned to fly. She wanted to give up too, but she decided not to. Instead, she bucked up, stopped her whining and kept training. Look where she is now!”

Scootaloo stayed quiet during the whole exchange, nodding at the appropriate times.

“So stop your moping, train hard and you can be just as awesome as Spitfire.” Dash leaned forward and whispered, “Look. It might take a while for you to fly, but I’ll be there to help you. I believe in you. As long as you’re willing to try, then so am I. Deal?” Rainbow Dash flashed her teeth.

Scootaloo gazed into Rainbow Dash’s eyes and smiled in return. “Deal.”

After dropping the spoon, Rainbow Dash pointed outside. “Alright then. Let’s get back out there and train!”

“Okay!” Scootaloo trotted outside.

“See? Knew it would work. Cause I’m just that awesome.” Rainbow Dash grinned at the two remaining fillies.

“Was that story about Spitfire true?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Dash leaned forward. “Nah. Best in the class. By far.” Dash shrugged. “But I figured a little motivational boost wouldn’t hurt.”

Applebloom and Sweetie Belle looked at each other.

“Well, gotta go. Catch you later.” After clicking her hooves together, Rainbow Dash flew outside.

Sweetie Belle looked between where Dash was sitting and where the leftover spoon was. Sweetie Belle’s eyes bulged. “Did Dash just eat all of Scootaloo’s ice cream?”

Applebloom flicked her straw. “Eeyup.”

Erase and Rewind

Rewind lay on her side, staring at the plaster wall beside her bunk bed. She didn't have a window like any of the other fillies, and the paint was cracked and faded in spots. The voices in the room--laughing, shouting--all blurred together into a dull roar. Tiny hooves clicked against the hardwood floor. Rusty wheels squeaked back and forth, followed by the intermittent rustling of bedsheets and laundry. She was the only filly still lying down.

"Rewind?" an older voice called out. "Rewind, are you ready?"

She said nothing. She stared at the wall beside her bunk bed, at the row of shallow lines gouged into the plaster. Seven in total.

"Has anypony seen Rewind? Check the bathrooms."

Somepony tugged on Rewind's tail. "Hey. Are you in trouble or something?"

Rewind turned over to look at the other filly--her best friend, Copper Bright, the pegasus--but ended up staring at the rest of the bunk-room behind her. The matron, the only grown up in sight, was rushing between the rows of bunk beds and glancing side to side.

Rewind let out a sigh and hopped off the bunk bed. "I'm over here, Mrs. Flaxfold."

The mare's eyes instantly locked onto hers and she rushed to her side in an instant, lifting her chin and adjusting her mane. "This isn't a joke, Rewind. We don't have much--"

"I know, Mrs. Flaxfold." She took her saddlebags off a hook on the bedpost and set them on the floor. "I packed up, like, an hour ago."

"Good, good." Mrs. Flaxfold fussed over her mane a moment longer, then went about securing the tiny, pink saddlebags to the filly's back. "They're waiting in the front hall right now. I want you to be on your very best behavior, do you hear me? Your very best."

Rewind rolled her eyes. "It's not like we've never met before... I've been visiting them every weeked for almost a month now."

Flaxfold leaned close and whispered "It's for the other children, you silly filly. Everypony else in the breakfast hall is going to see you walk out that door, and they need all the hope they can get. Please, Rewind. Think of them."

Rewind nodded.

"Very good. There's a proper lady."

Flaxfold led her out of the bunk-room and into the main dinner hall. The faded walls and long plastic tables were barely recognizable under the colorful murals and thick patches of crayon drawings. As soon as she stepped into the room, the colts and fillies all cheered and waved at her. A small pack of them leapt out of their chairs and rushed over to her: friends she'd known for years, eager to say goodbye. She went through the routine that was expected of her, smiling and laughing and hugging. It took her a quarter of an hour to make her way through the crowd and into the front foyer. A pair of ponies were already there, waiting patiently. The stallion was an earth pony with a dark chestnut coat and mane, and the mare was a powder blue pegasus with brilliant sapphire curls. They watched her approach with a mix of eager patience.

Rewind looked back at Mrs Flaxfold one last time, then stepped forward and performed a curtsey. "Good morning, mister Cinnamon Sticks. Good morning, Missus Singsong."

Singsong leaned down and nuzzled her forehead. "Are you sure you're ready to go just yet? You can stay and talk with your friends a little longer, if you like."

"That's okay."

The stallion nodded to her. "You can visit them whenever you like, of course. All you have to do is ask."

"Yeah, visit!" one of the colts called out from behind her. The children all crowded around the door and cheered her on, eager.

Rewind glanced back and managed a halfhearted wave. "Can we, uh... can we go now?"

The Cinnamon Sticks smiled down at her. "Sure thing, squirt. There's a carriage waiting outside right now."

"And we left your room just the way it was," said Singsong. "I'm sure you must be simply exhausted."

The two grownups walked to the front door and Rewind followed between them. The cheering voices continued, louder than ever, and she turned to wave back at them one last time. As soon as she stepped outside, she took a deep breath and gazed up at the blue sky above. The weather over Canterlot was always perfect. The sound of silver bells caught her attention, and she gasped in awe: the carriage waiting by the road was rather fancy even by Canterlot standards: the whole thing was made of finely finished hardwood and decorated with gleaming silver.

Cinnamon Sticks opened a side compartment and nodded inside. "You can put your bags in here for now, if you like. We'll be up front."

Rewind watched him go, then stowed her bags. She heard hoofsteps behind her and turned to see Copper Bright. She pawed the sidewalk slightly.

"So... are you really gonna visit?"

Rewind watched her for a moment. She looked back at the orphanage: it'd been her home for years.

She gave Copper Bright a gentle pat on the shoulder. "I won't be long."

"Don't say that." Copper Bright stepped close and hugged her tight. "That's a horrible thing to say."

Cinnamon Sticks waved at her from the window of the carriage. "Are you ready to go?"

She climbed into the carriage. Her mouth formed a silent 'oh' as she stepped inside and gazed at the lush interior: the chairs were covered with soft, velvet cushions and there was plenty of space to move around. Cinnamon Sticks said something to the drivers up front, and the carriage went into motion.

Rewind stroked a hoof against the seat. "I didn't know you guys were rich."

"We figured this was a special occasion," said Singsong. "We can afford to splurge a little now and again, can't we?"

"Speaking of which," Cinnamon Sticks said, "I say we celebrate! What do you think, squirt? Ice cream, or pizza?"

Rewind let out a gasp. "No!" she yelped.

They both looked at her, worried.

Rewind clenched her jaw slightly. "Sorry. Ice cream's... probably not a good idea."

"Pizza it is, then."

Singsong cleared her throat. "Actually, I was thinking we could go to a department store. Maybe get some new furniture for your bedroom, do some interior decorating..."

Cinnamon Sticks rolled his eyes. "You're kidding, right? Our first official day as a family and you want to go browsing through a department store?"

"It's a shopping spree," she said. "It's completely different when you get to decide what's bought." She turned to Rewind. "I know you've stayed with us plenty of times already, but we want you to really feel like it's your room. And that means you can decorate it however you want. Would you like that?"

Cinnamon Sticks wiggled his eyebrows. "They have maple icecream. With sprinkles."

"That'd... be nice, actually. But can we do it later? I just wanna be home for awhile."

"You're the boss, squirt. But, first..." Cinnamon Sticks reached into a nearby ice-box and held up a child-sized icecream cone. "I figured you might not want to wait. It'd be a shame to let it melt, wouldn't it?"

Rewind took the frozen treat in both forelegs, momentarily dazzled. She took a small lick, and then a small bite. They both smiled at her warmly. She stared out the window and watched the city pass her by. She felt a smile tug at her own face, though it wasn't quite ready to show itself. Not just yet.

The carriage bumped slightly, then slowed to a halt. Rewind pursed her lips and looked out the window: the building nearby was covered with scaffolding and tarpaulin.

"Construction?" Cinnamon said, "at this hour? Great. We'll be here all day."

"It'll be fine, dear. There's no need to--"

Something slapped Rewind's face, hard and loud. Her inner ear spun around wildly, and a wave of vertigo pulsed through her mind. She heard crashing, splintering wood all around her, then felt cold wind rake across her coat. By the time she opened her eyes, it was all over: she was flying through the air, tumbling, and the carriage behind and below her was a heap of wreckage half-obscured by a plume of grey dust. She was dimly aware of the nearby scaffolding collapsing to the ground. Her view of the world tilted and spun and, for a brief shining moment, she was flying.

She landed on the ground, sitting on a broken panel of the carriage door, and skidded down main street with a trail of sparks. She sat on the panel perfectly upright, eyes wide, and hurtled unharmed between the rows of heavy traffic. She slowly spun in place and finally ground to a halt: the lurching stop was the most alarming part. She stared ahead, eyes wide, jaw limp.

The upper half of her maple-and-sprinkles cone slipped off and landed on the ground with a splat. She looked down at it, blinking. She stayed like that, perfectly still, until the ambulance arrived and took her to the hospital. No major injuries. A few scrapes. Her carefully styled mane was tousled and covered with powdered concrete.

The doctors spoke to her about the accident. The therapists spoke to her about her (late) foster parents. The case-worker spoke to her about her home. A month later it was the Matron, Mrs. Flaxfold, who came to the hospital to sign for her release. They rode back to the orphanage together, and they spoke--thankfully--of nothing at all. There was no crowd of smiling children waiting to greet her. No cheers of congratulation or well-wishing. Most of the others were out for the day, visiting one of the largest gardens in the city.

Rewind went to the laundry room, picked out another set of tiny saddlebags, and walked back to her usual bunk bed. Copper Bright was already there waiting for her.

"Told you I wouldn't be long," Rewind said, her voice flat.

"How'd it go?"

"Didn't make it home," she said. She climbed up the ladder and hung her saddlebags on the hook. "Didn't even make it to the ice-cream shop."

Copper Bright climbed halfway up the ladder and watched her. "D'you wanna talk about it?"

"Nah. Maybe later."

"Are you... okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I'm cool."

Copper Bright nodded, and dropped down from the ladder.

Rewind snuggled against her pillow and closed her eyes. She listened to the sound of her own breath for awhile, and to the creaking of the walls. Old walls. She opened one eye and looked at the crumbling plaster and flecking paint beside her bed.

She pulled the metal horseshoe off of her hoof and scraped its corner against the plaster, gouging a shallow line alongside all the rest. Eight in total. She rolled onto her back and let out a sigh.

Didn't even make it to the ice cream place.

Erase lay on his side, eyes scrunched shut. A soft, scratchy voice gnawed at him from the bedside table. He turned over onto his back, took a single, deep breath and opened his eyes wide. His eyes fixed on the calender tacked to the ceiling above him.

Right. Tuesday.

He climbed out of bed, walked briskly to the bathroom and ran a brief, cold shower. The radio continued to blare at him from the bedroom as he stepped out and went to the mirror over the sink. He stared at himself in the mirror: light grey coat. Charcoal black mane, short and professionally styled. A middle aged face. Kind of bored.

He took a shaving kit out of the cabinet and laid it out on the counter. He paused to look at the array of brushes and razors, all in a row. He stroked his chin and the sides of his cheeks.

Shower first...? He glanced at the shower, staring at the beads of water still clinging to the clear plastic curtain. Right. Shower First.

He took to razor, clipped a size three brush along its leading edge and began trimming the hair along his jaw to a uniform length. He rinsed the blade under the faucet, shook it clean, and drew the blade again. Shave. Rinse. Shake. Shave. Rinse. Shake.

Smooth enough? He stroked his chin and the sides of his cheeks. Shower First.

He glanced at the shower curtain. He listened to the radio, still faintly audible from the bedroom. Something about the weather.

Goddamned weather... come on. Give me something I can use.

He heard the announcer mention the time. Eight o'clock. He set the shaving kit away and walked to the kitchen. Breakfast was easy. Oatmeal, daisy salad, glass of milk. Food was always easy. He took the dishes to the counter and ran them under the faucet one at a time. He paused to stare at the dishes already sitting in the drying rack.

Dinner. Those are all big plates. The big plates are for dinner.

He dried the dishes and put them away, taking a moment to stare at the neat little stacks sitting in the cupboard. He nudged the desert bowls to the left, then walked to the bathroom and ran a cold shower. Fifteen minutes later, he stepped out and dried himself off. He took a briefcase off the kitchen table and went to the front door.

He put his hoof on the lever and stared straight ahead. I'm missing something. What am I missing?

He turned around and scanned the rest of his apartment. Clean, trendy furniture. Shelving full of hoof-labeled videocassette tapes. A gleaming black guitar resting upright in its frame. Nothing on the coffee table. Nothing sitting on the couch. Nothing hanging off the backs of any chairs.

Come on. What comes next?

He walked back to his bedroom, laid on the mattress, and stared at the calender on the ceiling.

Still Tuesday? Or Tuesday again?

He closed his eyes and listened to the radio. No more goddamned weather, at least... something about a construction accident. Two dead. Something else about a new shopping mall being opened on main street. The announcer mentioned the time. Nine o'clock.

Right... Tuesday. I work. He shot out of bed and ran to the closet, shuffling through a long row of silver three-piece suits. Late for work. Late. Am I still late? Or am I late again?

He scrambled to dress himself, struggling with the buttons and cufflinks and starched white collar and formal tie... earth pony problems. His superiors had quietly offered to pay for a personal assistant to follow him around. It wasn't unusual: Ponies who wore three piece suits often hired personal assistants to take care of the insignificant little details. The assistants were often unicorns. He'd politely declined. They'd insisted, because of his... because. He'd politely declined.

He ran back to the living room, snatched the briefcase with his mouth, and shoved the door open. He ran down the hall and waited for the elevator, bouncing slightly on the tips of his hooves. He lifted his front leg and glanced at his ankle. He didn't wear watches--they only made things worse--but it was a useful mannerism to cultivate.

The elevator lowered into position and the wooden accordion-fence gate slid open. He rushed inside, jabbed the ground floor button, and nodded to the mare already standing there. "Pardon."

"No worries," she said. "I'm running a little late myself."

They stood together, side by side, as the gate closed. The elevator slid down.

"So," the mare said, "how about that weather?"

The weather. Goddammit. Okay. I heard the radio when I woke up today. I hear it every morning. What was the weather mare saying? Rain? Snow? Hail? Fucking locusts, what? Why couldn't I have looked out the window before I left the apartment dammit why do I even have a window if I never use it okay look at the mare. Is this just pointless infantile chit-chat, or was she serious? He glanced at the mare. She was watching him with a pleasant smile. Oh god I think she's serious. Say something quick. Anything. Doesn't matter.

He nodded to her. "I don't even remember the last time it rained in Canterlot."

He watched her eyebrows quirk. His throat tightened. Shit. It's not raining, is it? It's not.

"It used to rain all the time where I grew up," he said, "but it hardly ever rains in Canterlot. Kind of makes me homesick when it does, but in a good way."

She chuckled. "Do you remember last week?" she said. "Talk about a downpour!"

He nodded.

"Say, I think I've seen you around," she said. "Do you live here?"

"Yes. It's close to where I work, and I like to walk everywhere, so."

"Where do you work? Anywhere interesting?"

"The palace," he said. "And before you say anything, no, I'm not famous or important. It's just a regular job."

"My stars! Even so, it must be amazing. What is it that you do, exactly If you don't mind me asking?"

He clenched his jaw. "I probably shouldn't say."

She arched an eyebrow. "Secret?"

"Boring. Excessively so."

She chuckled again. "Well I guess somepony has to do it."

He nodded again. Ground floor ground floor ground floor come on come on ground floor

"So, how long have you lived in Canterlot?"

Shit.

"Long enough, I suppose." He tapped the ground floor button. It was already lit. Was it her? Had she pressed it before he'd entered?

The elevator settled into place. The accordion-fence gate flexed apart and Erase slipped between them before they fully opened. "Good day, miss."

He bolted across the lobby and past the apartment building's tiny security office. The security chief nodded to him as he passed. "Morning mister Erase."

"Morning, Navy Blue." He lifted one ankle and nodded to it. "Is it, ah..."

"Tuesday, Mister Erase. Quarter after nine."

"Thanks. Is it still raining?"

Navy Blue nodded, unperturbed. "Never was, sir. Not today."

"Right. I'll... right."

He rushed out the door and ran along the sidewalk, through the bustling crowd of primped-up nobles and wealthy benefactors that always populated the palace district. It was clear blue skies as far as the eye could see--no weather at all was still a kind of weather, just as zero was still a number. His journey passed in a blur, all at once: the only way to judge his progress was to examine the degree of rumples in his suit or the amount of sweat collecting underneath.

He ran across a tiny bridge made of white marble and decorated with gold-framed panels of aquamarine, then rushed to a small and unassuming side entrance. He nodded to the two royal guards standing at attention.

"Morning," he said as he showed them his pass. "Is it, ah...?

The guard nodded. "Quarter to ten, Mister Erase. Running a little late, aren't we?"

He shrugged. "I wouldn't know, would I?"

"Of course not, Mister Erase. No offense meant." He nodded backwards. "Go on in. And good luck with the manager."

Erase froze in place, eyes wide. "Was I, uh...?"

"It's the first time this week you've been late, mister Erase, but the second time this month."

"Second time this month. Right." He rushed between them. "Good day, sirs."

He rushed through the bleak white hallways of the palace's main office district, frantically nodding to co-workers and flashing his badge to guards. He came to the central office--a massive array of cubicles, comprised entirely of desks, shelves, and fabric-covered walls. His eyes fixed on one of the high-security doors on the far side of the room: armored, sealed, and guarded.

Almost. Almost.

"Erase."

He skidded to a halt. A moment later, he looked back at the office manager standing behind him. "Yessir? Can I help you?"

His immediate superior nodded without looking up form his clipboard. "There's a minor issue with the January accounting index. Talk to Espresso and help him go through the files by hoof."

"Yessir," he said. "Anything else, sir?"

"And do try to be a little more prompt from now on."

"Yes, sir. I'm terribly sorry, sir."

"I understand the unique circumstances of your... ah... circumstances." He adjusted his glasses. "Have you considered hiring on a personal assistant to take care of all the little things? I'm sure we could put it on the payroll for you, if your doctor were to--"

"Thank you sir. I'll look into it."

"You will?" The manager reached up and lowered his glasses. "We've discussed this before, haven't we?"

"I wouldn't know, sir, would I?" Erase said with a helpless little smile. Go to hell, you old goat.

"Very well. Go on, then."

Erase turned and walked into the grid of cubicles, navigating the narrow paths and alleys. Espresso was at his desk as always, already waving at him over the shoulder-height fabric-covered walls.

He nodded at the chair across his desk, normally reserved for client interviews. "Did you have breakfast? I have an extra--"

"I had breakfast. Food's easy."

"The manager didn't tear a strip out of you, did he?"

"Nah. He went easy on me." Erase spun around in the chair and stared at the ceiling. "Probably not worth the paperwork it'd take to write me up."

"You wanna blow off the rest of today? Go to a bar or something? There's a band I like playing live all week. You won't believe the guitarist."

"I don't believe anything. You know I can't afford to." he sat upright with a concerned frown. "What about the January account? Did we... already do that?"

"I wish." Espresso rolled his eyes. "It's a total disaster. It's going to take the whole department a month to sort out the details. Nopony'll even notice if we duck out."

"What about the manager?"

"What about him? He's too busy trying to blame us for this mess. Come on, pal! When was the last time you actually had fun?"

Erase stared at the ceiling. "I wouldn't know, would I?" he whispered.

"You really don't..." Espresso glanced around, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. "You really don't remember? I mean... you can't?"

"I remember everything," he said. "All of it. All the time."

They sat and watched each other in silence.

"So... how long were we talking, just now?"

"We talked until we stopped talking," Erase said. "My life is a tautology."

"You know what you need?" Espresso said. "You need to get laid. That's what you need."

Erase snorted.

"No, seriously. You need it more than anypony I've ever met. I've met a lot of ponies."

He shook his head. "No. Not a good idea. At all. You know what I'm like. You're the only person in this office who'll even talk to me, and you're..."

"Yeah? What?"

Erase watched him for a moment. "You're kind of an asshole."

"That doesn't make me wrong. Seriously, you need to spend time with a mare. Even just a friend, just to talk with. Anything at all would be better than this."

Erase looked away. "Me? Married? Now who's the crazy one?"

"Not a wife, you idiot. Just a filly-friend. I know a few. Let me set you up."

Erase leaned on the desk and pressed a hoof against his forehead. "Sorry, Espresso. I know you're trying to help... but please stop helping. I've tried it before, and it never works. It just never works."

"Then you haven't tried everything," Espresso said. "You just have to keep looking. Try something new. Some kind of interaction you haven't had before. I know hell is other ponies, but seriously... the alternative is even worse."

Erase stared off into space for awhile. He reached up and loosened his tie slightly. Something new.

"Mister Erase?"

Erase looked up as the matron of Canterlot's "Little Treasures" orphanage waved at her from across the cramped waiting room. He set a magazine down and adjusted his tie against the collar of his suit. "That's me, ma'am."

She walked over and smiled warmly, taking his hoof. "We're so very happy to see you, mister Erase. It's always such a happy moment! I do hope the paperwork wasn't too troublesome."

"Not at all, ma'am." He nodded to the briefcase strapped to his left saddlebag. "I brought a copies with me in case anything was lost in the mail. It happens, sometimes."

"Well, aren't you prepared? It's quite all right. We've already received all the necessary documents, well in advance. I know the system is a terrible fright these days... it can be so difficult to get anything done at all."

"It's quite all right, ma'am. I have some experience with due process."

"Generous of you to say so. Of course, we still have one more thing to do... the most important thing of all. Come with me."

Erase froze halfway out of his chair. His throat tightened. "The most...? Is something wrong? I didn't forget to fill anything out, did I? I was very thorough."

"The most important thing of all," she said, "is for the two of you to meet each other for the first time and find out of you're a good match! I'm sure you just can't wait to meet her."

"Right, yes. Of course." He stood up and followed her out of the waiting room and down a nearby hallway. "So there weren't any problems with the paperwork, then?"

"Not that I'm aware of." She smiled back at him. "Oh, I'm ever so sure you'll like her! She's just the sweetest thing, and very well behaved. Quiet, keeps to herself, but still has such a bright sense of humor. She's always helping the other children, too... bless her little heart! How much do you know about her?"

"Not much, actually. The criteria I requested weren't exactly, ah..."

"Oh, I know. Most ponies who visit us have all sorts of conditions and requests... this color hair, or that sort of face... not too tall, not too short... the more demanding you are, the longer it takes to find a match. Some hopeful parents wait years. But all you asked for was a daughter."

"Yes, ma'am. That's correct."

"Any reason, might I ask?"

"Race and appearance don't concern me," he said. "A child is a child. As for a daughter, well... I had a lot of younger brothers. I've had enough of that to last me a lifetime."

"Oh, I believe it. Colts can be so rambunctious!" She came to a door and set her hoof on the latch. "Before we go on... how much do you know about her?"

"Not much," he said. "Female. Earth pony. No cutie mark. I know she has special needs, but not the exact details."

"What? Special...? Oh, my no. Who gave you that idea?"

"It was on the form you sent me." He opened his briefcase, rummaged through the papers, and took out a carbon-copy scroll. "Here, see? This part here was checked."

"Well... hm. I suppose it must have been a mistake. She's not a 'special needs' child at all, mentally or physically. Emotionally, though, she's had a... somewhat troubled past."

"Troubled?"

"Well, she's... you see... this isn't the first time she's been adopted. It wasn't her fault in the slightest, mind you. Not in the slightest. She had nothing to do with it. She's just had a difficult time of things. Emotionally."

"Ah." He flipped the form over. "You probably filled in the wrong area, then... the basic emotional assessment goes in section three, sub-section seven."
She glanced at the form, then back at him. "It's not a problem, is it?"

"Of course not." He put the form back into his briefcase. "I can talk to the registry about having it corrected, but it's a very trivial problem. Hardly worth worrying about."

"Er... quite." The matron opened the door and stepped inside. "Rewind, Dear? There's somepony here to see you."

Erase peered over her shoulder and saw a young child, sitting on the floor with a small pile of blocks. Female. Earth pony. No cutie mark. She looked up at him and immediately locked eyes.

The matron nodded to her. "Rewind, I'd like you to meet Mister Erase."

"Am I being audited?"

The matron glared at her. "Rewind."

Erase nodded. "Actually, I am. An 'auditing' is an evaluation of a person, process, or enterprise for the purpose of verification. It's commonly used in the context of financial or administrative records, but the adoption process is certainly an official government-regulated procedure with a thorough system of checks and balances to prevent fraud and abuse."

Rewind pursed her lips.

The matron cleared her throat. "Well! I'll leave you to get to know each other a little better. I'll be right down the hall, so give a shout if you need anything at all."

Rewind frowned. "That's it?"

"Do please be polite," the Matron said. She left the room, leaving the door open.

"I can't believe she left me alone in a room with you so soon," Rewind said. "It usually takes a month just to get the paperwork done."

"I've already seen to everything," Erase said. "I submitted the forms and documentation in well in advance. It's possible to save a lot of trouble if you send things directly to the registry office instead of going through all the usual channels." He unhooked the briefcase from his harness and set it on the floor between them. "I also brought a full set of copies with me just in case."

"Just in case," she said.

"Yes. Just in case."

"Just in case what?"

"If I knew in advance, it wouldn't be 'just in case'." He opened the briefcase and began arranging papers on the floor. "Medical report. Six reference letters--one from a family member, two from friends, and three from work. Police clearance and criminal background check."

Rewind stared at the last sheet. "Criminal background check?"

"Yes. Criminal background check."

"You work for the government, don't you?"

"The palace, actually. I do a lot of paperwork." He tilted his head. "How did you know?"

"You have three references from work, but only two from friends." She squinted at the criminal background check. "Anything juicy in here?"

"Nothing significant."

"Nothing?" She arched an eyebrow. "Isn't nothing at all even more suspicious than something little?"

He nodded. "In fact, requesting a background check on yourself is itself seen as a slightly suspicious act, and they make a note of it on your record. When you specify that the check is required for adoption purposes, it isn't noted as a negative. The only way to examine your own record without also making it worse is to attempt to adopt a child."

"So how do I know you're not a serial killer or something?"

He shrugged. "You can't. I guess."

She looked up at him.

"It's impossible to prove a negative," Erase said. "More accurately, an inability to disprove does not constitute proof."

"What about the home test?" she said. "Did the matron tell you about that?"

"Yes. The matron has already evaluated my parenting skills and general competency. She wouldn't have introduced us otherwise."

"So you passed?"

"I passed."

"You passed."

"I passed."

"You passed?"

"I passed."

"You passed?"

"I passed."

Rewind pursed her lips. "Quit it."

"Quit what?"

"You have absolutely no sense of humor, do you?"

"I keep it in a jar at work, generally. It's a huge hassle having to check it at the front door every time, so."

She watched his face. Watched his eyes.

"Did they tell you everything about me?"

"They didn't even tell me your name," he said. "That's why I'm here. To talk with you. I wanted to hear it from you."

She glanced at the door, then back at him. "If you adopt me, you'll die."

"Why? Are you a serial killer or something?"

"No. Probably. But I've been in and out of this place eight times so far." She leaned closer and whispered. "They always die, and it's never my fault.

He frowned at her. "Who's fault is it, then?"

She shrugged. "Nopony's fault. It just happens."

"May I assume that's your 'emotional damage' then?"

She rolled her eyes. "Is that what they call it?"

He furrowed his brow. "So you're not emotionally damaged?"

She looked down at the pile of colorful wooden blocks. "You get used to it after awhile. My real mom and dad died when I was just a little baby, so I don't remember them. The first time it happened, I cried a lot. The second time, not so much. It was all downhill from there, I guess. I hardly cry at all anymore."

"If you abandon a foal in the wilderness at night," Erase said, "they cry a lot. But then, if you leave them alone long enough, they get very quiet. It's like they just give up after awhile... stop wasting energy, and stop drawing attention to themselves. It's a defense mechanism."

"How'd--"

"I read it," he said. "It's one of the few things I know that I haven't proven to myself empirically. I think it's normal to stop crying after awhile. I think you're normal."

"Thanks for the sentiment, at least." She turned the medical report around and squinted at it. "High cholesterol, allergy to crimped corn, vitamin C deficiency... and severe neurological disorder resulting in dementia, hyperthymesia, schiz... schizo...

"Schizophrenia," Erase said.

She looked up at him, clearly unamused. "Do you take pills for it?"

"Yes," he said. "Vitamin C supplements. Every week."

She set the medical report down. "Severe neurological disorder."

"Yes."

"You're, like, a lunatic. A real lunatic."

"Is that a problem?"

"You just weren't what I was expecting a crazy person to look like."

"What were you expecting?"

"Not this. You look normal. Like... too normal. Abnormally normal." She tilted her head. "How did you make it through the home test? No. How did you make it through the front door?"

"I'm a higher functioning lunatic," he said. "It has a severe impact on my personal life, but it doesn't prevent me from being a productive and self-sufficient citizen. I have a job. I pay bills. I cook food. Productive. Self-sufficient."

She looked at the open door again. Longer, this time.

She shuffled closer to him. "So, you're like... a crazy person? What sort of crazy?"

"It's hard to describe."

"But it won't stop you from being a good dad?"

"The opposite, actually. It makes me an ideal parental guardian. It's also what makes me an ideal employee for the government."

"And you're not afraid to die?"

"Moreso than I was before I came here? Not really."

"Hmm." She rubbed a hoof against her nose. "One last question: why do you want to adopt?"

He stared off into space for a moment. He then shrugged.

"Well at least I won't get too attached to you." She stood up and tugged on his hoof. "Let's go talk to the matron. You can tell me about your crazy brain stuff on the way."

"Thank you, miss. I'll try not to disappoint." He shuffled the papers and reports back into his briefcase and attached it to the side of his saddlebag.

Erase walked down main street, carrying Rewind on his back as they passed through the heart of Canterlot's upper commercial districts. The little filly twisted her head all around to look at the gleaming storefronts and glittering billboards.

"What's with all the rubbernecking?" Erase said. "Don't you live here?"

"I don't get out much. And whenever I'm adopted, they always stick me in a carriage. No time for sightseeing. So, do you flip out or something? Like, yell and scream for no reason?"

"Not because of my disorder," Erase said. "My job, though... sometimes I'm tempted."

"But I thought you said you were good at your job."

"I can deal with my job just fine. Ponies, not so much. Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?"

"I'm fine. Thanks, though." She watched a passing carriage, studded with rubies and gold filigree. "Do you see things that aren't there? Hear voices?"

"No, I don't hallucinate. Not so far, at least."

"Does it hurt?"

"Not physically, no."

"Do you forget stuff? Like, amnesia? Or alzheimers?"

"It's the opposite. I can't forget. Ever."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Like photographic memory?"

"It's called hyperthymesia. It's sometimes called 'piking.' I can remember everything that's ever happened to me, perfectly."

"But that's a good thing, isn't it?"

"It's too much of a good thing," he said. "Can we talk about something else, please?"

"I guess. Where do you work?"

"Why?"

"Because you said you were good at your job. I kind of want to know what sort of job would be perfect for a functioning lunatic."

"I work at the palace."

There was a moment of silence. He looked back, and realized Rewind was staring at him wide-eyed.

"Not everypony who works at the palace is a functioning lunatic," he said.

She arched an eyebrow. "Does it help?"

"It helps me." He glanced across the street at a fancy sandwich shop. "Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?"

Rewind frowned at him. "Are you sure you remember everything? Because that's the twelfth time you've asked me if I'm hungry. You get the same answer every time."

"Sorry."

"And when I say no, you apologize. Why do you keep asking me?"

"Food is usually easy for me. It's a physical sensation instead of just raw, abstract inormation. It helps me cope, so I'm comfortable with it... I try to plan a lot of my daily routine around regular meals."

Rewind tilted her head. "But you can't tell if I'm feeling hungry."

"Yeah. It's a little frustrating."

She patted his shoulder. "If I do get hungry, I promise to tell you."

They continued in silence, walking through the bustling crowd.

"Hey," Erase said, "Would you like a snack? Luxury food?"

"I could snack. What did you have in mind?"

He turned around and pointed across the street at an ice-cream shop with a cheerful, carnival-themed facade. Children were crowding around excitedly, tugging their parents along.

"Ice...?" Rewind shook her head. "Oh, no... no-no-no-no no. Frozen dairy is a terrible idea."

"If you're lactose intolerant, they have non-dairy sorbet. It's like frozen fruit-juice."

She smacked her hoof against the back o his head. "What do you have, a deathwish or something? Out of the eight pairs of foster parents I've lost, three of them were ice-cream related. We were either eating ice cream, we were at an ice-cream place, or we were on our way to an ice-cream place. That's how it always starts, you know: Ooh, ice cream! Yay! Then, the screaming."

Erase looked back at her. "If you don't want any, you can just say so."

"Three! Three out of eight! That's almost, like, a one in three chance of dying."

"It's a thirty-seven point five percent chance. Which is, admittedly, horrific. Except for the fact that the statistical probabilities you're citing are completely unrelated to our current situation."

She smacked the back of his head again. "No arguing. Let's get out of here while we still can."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure what's more disturbing: your tenuous grasp of statistical probability or your misunderstanding of cause and effect. Unless there's a clear and present reason for it, what happened to your previous foster parents has no bearing--none whatsoever--on what will happen to me."

"Three out of eight! Come on!"

"How many of your foster parents were male?"

"Well... half."

"Then I already have a fifty percent chance of dying because I am male." He shook his head. "Actually, it's worse than that: one hundred percent of your previous foster parents have died, so I'm already guaranteed to die as well. The pursuit or achievement of an ice-cream related goal can't possibly make things worse."

She crossed her hooves and pouted. "It might kill you sooner," she said. "Would you rather die in a day, or die in a year?"

He glowered at her.

"Time." Her expression softened. "It has something to do with time, doesn't it? Your crazy brain problem, I mean."

"Come on." He glanced left and right, waited for several carriages to pass, and stepped onto the thoroughfare. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Nothing more statistically probably than being struck by a bolt of lightning."

"Ponies get hit by lightning, you know. It's a thing that happens."

"And it is no more likely to happen to us while eating ice-cream than at any other time."

Rewind looked around the street, eyes darting about. She finally pulled her mane over her eyes and hunkered down.

"There. We've arrived."

She looked up at the ice-cream place directly next to them. She stared at the counter, at the rows of chilled tubs arranged behind the glass. "Huh. So we are."

"So? What would you like? Pick anything."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

She arched an eyebrow. "Anything?"

"Anything."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

"Quit it."

"Quit what?"

She stared into his eyes, lost in thought. "You really can't remember, can you? You can't remember the same thing more than once."

"I can't forget," he said. "What kind of ice-cream would you like? Pick anything."

She peered at the tubs full of colorful, whorled frost. Her gaze lingered up to the display above the counter, and she scanned the massive list of extravagantly named flavors.

"I waaaant... a quadruple birthday surprise banana split, with rocky-road, pink bubblegum, cherries-jubilee, fudge brownie, peppermint, raspberry cheese Louise, covered with chocolate sauce on one side, strawberry syrup in the middle, and butterscotch on the other side."

"A quadruple birthday surprise banana split?" Erase peered up at the listings. "It serves twelve."

"I'm aware."

"It has fireworks on it. It comes with a complementary clown."

Rewind--still lying crosswise on his back--lifted her nose and crossed her front legs like a distinguished lady. "You said anything."

"No. No, you can't have an entire birthday surprise."

She stuck her bottom lip out. "Why not?"

"You don't need it."

"It's ice-cream," she said. "Nopony 'needs' it at all. It's a treat."

"It's bigger than you are. It'd melt before you could finish eating."

"I'm gonna share it."

"It's not healthy for you."

"It's ice cream. If it's not healthy, why were you offering it to me in the first place?"

"It's not your birthday."

"There are like, twenty kids here. What are the statistics that just one of them is having a birthday today? And remember to take into account this is a shop that sells birthday themed treats."

Erase worked his jaw back and forth. "The statistics probability is... non-trivial."

Rewind continued to watch, patiently.

"It sets a bad precedent," he said. "If I give in to every demand you make, you'll become more and more demanding. It will stunt your psychological maturity as you grow up, and you'll become a bitter, selfish, irresponsible mare who throws a tantrum whenever she doesn't get what she wants. It will completely destroy your ability to lead a normal adult life."

Rewind cleared her tiny throat. "Unless you make it clear that this is a super special occasion that doesn't happen every day. After all, you adopted me: I get to live in a real home and have a real dad. That's even more special than a birthday, and they only happen once a year."

Erase stroked his chin. "...And the quadruple birthday surprise is explicitly designed for birthdays, which gives us a solid benchmark to compare against other significant socio-cultural events."

The mare behind the counter top offered him a little wave. "Excuse me, sir? May I help you?"

He stepped up to the counter. "Yes, miss. I would like a quadruple birthday surprise banana split, with rocky-road, pink bubblegum, cherries-jubilee, fudge brownie, peppermint, raspberry cheese Louise, covered with chocolate sauce on one side, strawberry suryp in the middle and butterscotch on the other side."

Rewind arched both eyebrows. "You weren't kidding about the hyperthymesia, were you?"

"Yes, sir!" said the clerk. "Where would you like it delivered?"

Erase nodded to the nearby patio tables set up on the sidewalk. "Here is fine."

"And who is it for, exactly?"

"Everypony."

Rewind looked up at him. "Everypony?"

"You said you were going to share it. Besides, it would be unethical to expect children to accept treats or favors offered to them by complete strangers. If the treats or favors are offered by an faceless commercial organization instead of an individual, the burden of social accountability is preserved."

"So it's okay for kids to accept candy from faceless commercial organizations?"

"Not intrinsically. But they are subjected to more rigorous laws and regulations than nameless faceless individuals."

"Fair enough," she said.

The clerk passed Erase a form which he filled out promptly and efficiently. They sat at a patio table and waited until a mare--dressed in a polka-dotted costume and with her mane tied into long, rainbow colored braids--came out from behind the counter pushing a trolley. There on the trolley, surrounded by stacks of paper plates and aluminum noisemakers, was the grand centerpiece itself: the quadruple birthday surprise banana split. The massive frozen treat resembled a tiny mountain range in all but size: A row of sparklers spritzed and sparked across the uppermost peaks, and it's frontal surface was emblazoned with the words 'Happy Birthday, Everypony!' printed in hard candy icing.

It took some time for the implications of the word 'everypony' to fully settle in. Rewind winced as the children stampeded around the treat, screaming and laughing. The clown cheerfully distributed smaller bowl-fulls amongst the gathering, including some of the grownups. The desert was barely half-eaten by the time the feeding frenzy settled down, and the clown continued to juggle, sing, and dance to the delight of the crowd.

"I can't believe you didn't just say no, 'because I say so'. That's parents are supposed to say."

He looked at her, alarmed. "Parenting by fallacious argument? Sounds a little fascist, doesn't it?"

"Nevermind." She nodded towards the crowd of smiling colts and fillies, crowding around the trolley while their parents mingled nearby "This is just disgustingly cute, you know. Were you doing this on purpose? Is this a plot to make yourself seem quirky and adorable?"

Erase looked at Rewind. "Aren't you going to have any?"

"Nah. I'm not hungry. What about you?"

"I don't really like ice cream."

A faint smile tugged at her lips. "Yeah."

Rewind rode on Erase's back as he walked through Canterlot's residential district. She held a sparkler in her hoof and watched the tiny white arcs drift through the air randomly.

"It's aways a pair," she said, "and always heterosexual. They're always rich and important, too, but that only makes perfect sense... this is Canterlot, after all."

"What about their reasons for adopting?" Erase said. "Any pattern there?"

"Five were for medical reasons. Three were because of barren mares, and two more had a high risk of birth defects or complications."

"What about infertile stallions?"

"Nah. It's usually easier just to go visita sperm bank or something." She looekd up and watched a small squadron of royal pegasus guards fly overhead. "I guess a mare giving birth is more life-changing than whatever it is the stallion does."

"How'd they go?"

"Varies, but it's always accidental. Collapsing bridges, falling cranes, out-of-control carriages... this one time there was a gas leak or something. I just woke up in the hospital the next day."

"So there's no pattern? At all?"

She frowned. "This is so wierd... I feel like a rich old lady blabbing on about all her ex-husbands."

"You don't talk about it much?"

"I used to talk to my thearapist about it all the time, but we eventually decided there wasn't much more to be done about it. I already know how to cope with loss and depression. Everypony else either doesn't wanna hear it, or they just want to stare at me like a freakshow." She shuffled her hind legs and turned to look at him. "You're different, though."

Erase nodded back at her. "I live by deduction. If we can figure out a pattern or trend, then we can do something about it. If there is no pattern, then it's all a big coincidence and you can stop worrying about it completely. Either way, it's better than not knowing."

"Patterns and trends, huh?" she said. "Well a lot of them seem to involve ice cream. Carriages, too, but that's kind of a given. Everypony in Canterlot owns a carriage."

"I don't own a carriage. I walk everywhere."

"Really? Is it because of your crazy brain problem?"

"I just like walking. No matter how long it takes, it doesn't bother me. I just start walking and then all of a sudden I'm there."

"What about waiting in long lines?" Rewind said. "Does that bother you?"

"What do you mean by 'long'?"

Rewind shrugged. "I mean long. What else do I mean?"

"Long can mean two things. It can mean a long time or a long distance. If I wait in a line that takes a very long time, or that moves very slowly, I don't even notice it. But if I get into a line that has a large number of ponies, snaking back and forth, I get a little agitated... it seems long to me, even if it isn't."

Rewind turned to look at him, ignoring her sparkler. "You can't tell time, can you?"

"That's correct."

"Do you know what time is?"

He glanced back at her. "Do you?"

"I'm serious."

"So am I. I dare you to try and explain the idea of time without actually using the word time. Or words that denote a unit or passage of time, like 'minute' or 'earlier'."

"Time is... the amount of..." Rewind clenched her teeth and rolled her eyes. "The amount of... stuff... that happens. Between... other stuff."

"So 'time' is the same as 'distance'?"

"No." Her eyes widened. "Wait... maybe it is."

He smiled at her.

"Well, what if somepony tells you the time? What then?"

"What if I told you it was your birthday yesterday, and you got a lot of presents, and you were very happy? Would that be just as good as actually having a birthday?"

She scowled at him. "No. But maybe if you had somepony follow you around and tell you the time, it might make things easier for you."

"It might help a little. But all I know about nine o'clock is that it comes after eight and before ten." He stopped by a street corner, glanced left and right, and crossed the road. "To me, it's just a list of numbers with nothing in between. I'm good with lists."

"What about nine-thirty?"

"Makes no difference. It goes on the list, right between nine and ten."

"but it's half as long as nine. It takes half as long to get there."

He looked back at her. "What kind of 'long' do you mean?"

Rewind stared back at him. She looked back at her sparkler, just as the last few spritzs of light flickered out. "That's messed up."

"Time isn't real anyways," he said. "It's just a sequence of events... a list of things. There's nothing in between those things. Ponies just use time as a way of measuring all the nothing between something."

"But if it weren't for time, everything would happen all at once. How could somepony live like that?"

Erase continued walking, quietly. Rewind bit her lip and watched the back of his head.

"Is that what it eels like? Everything that's ever happened to you... it happens all at once, all jumbled up and out of order?"

"Happened," he said. "It all happened all at once. The older you get, the more stuff you know. The more stuff you know, the smarter you get. But if there's too much stuff, it becomes harder to sort through it all. It makes it harder to use the stuff you really need. Most ponies forget all the stuff they don't need. But I can't forget."

"What about right now? You're doing stuff right now, aren't you?"

He shrugged. "There is no now. By the time we know something, it's already happened. All we have are memories."

"I could help you," she said. "I could follow you around, and tell you what's really happening."

"I wouldn't work."

"Why not? Why?"

He stopped walking and carefully set Rewind on the sidewalk. "We're here."

Rewind looked up at the huge, rectangular apartment building. The whole front wall was made up of balconies and windows arranged in a curious geometric pattern. The sign across the front of the building, build directly over the three sets of double-sided doors, read simply "Lieu Vague" in large, block letters.

"This is your home?"

"My apartment, yes. The government provides it free of charge, as part of my employment contract. They pay for all my living expenses too. It's a lot of paperwork, but I don't mind."

Rewind stared at the row of front doors. Glass and steel. Concrete and stone. She looked at the other nearby buildings, then down each end of the main road. She glanced up at the sun, already two-thirds through it's usual path.

She looked up at Erase. "Aren't you going to tell me to hurry up?"

"What's 'hurry'?"

"It's doing stuff faster. Which is doing the same thing, but in less time. And time isn't real. Right. Sorry." She looked down at her hooves. "This is gonna take some getting used to."

"It takes as long as it takes."

"That's dumb," she said. "It's just a way of saying the same thing over again." She lowered her voice, affecting a mature tone. "You gotta grow up before you get older. We'll get there when we get there. Because that's how it is."

"It's called a tautology: a unique individual, an unexpected surprise, a novel invention, past experience, positive improvement--"

She pointed up at him. "How much does a pound of feathers weigh?"

He nodded. "How far is a hundred miles?"

"I don't want to go inside," she said.

"Why not? I have a room set aside for you. Don't you want to see it?"

"I've been adopted eight times before. Three of them died at the ice cream place, or on the way to the ice cream place. All the others died before we even got home."

"So?"

"So... this is your home." She pointed at the apartment building. "If we cross that street, that's where you're probably gonna die."

They stared at the smoothly paved street in front of them, at a point roughly halfway across.

Rewind looked up at him. "Are you sure you wanna do this?"

"I cross this street every day. Several times, in fact. Nothing bad has ever happened to me on this street."

"Yeah, but this is different. It's me."

"So?"

Rewind ran in a little circle around him, her tiny hooves clicking against the sidewalk. "But it's your whole entire life we're talking about! Aren't you worried about what would happen if you died in the middle of a street, right there, for no reason at all?"

"That's... not impossible, but it is very unlikely."

She pointed a hoof at him "To you, maybe, but to me it happens every single time. It's a sure thing."

"Crossing the street will only... well, strictly speaking, I'm not sure how long it takes to cross the street. But I do know it's a very trivial activity, and that it's extremely unlikely for anything significant to happen in between."

She stamped a hoof. "But it's not about time! What if crossing the street is the thing that makes it happen? It won't matter how long it takes."

Erase glanced back over his shoulder. "Do you think we should annul the adoption? Take you back to the orphanage?"

"No. I don't want that."

"Then should we go inside and show you to your room?"

"I don't want that either." She pawed at the sidewalk. "Do you think... maybe... we could just stay here?"

Erase's brow furrowed. "Here?"

"Yeah. We could just live right here on the sidewalk from now on. You wouldn't have to die, and I wouldn't have to go back to the orphanage. We could just stand here. Forever."

"It wouldn't work," he said. "I can't comprehend the passage of time, so the idea of 'forever' is meaningless to me."

"That means it wouldn't bother you. You could just stand here forever, and you'd never get bored.."

"I might get hungry or tired," he said. "But even if we could stay here or the rest of our lives, I wouldn't remember it as anything more than a single thing we did together. It would be meaningless."

Rewind's ears drooped. "Oh."

He pointed across the street. "Conversely, if I die while crossing the street with you, it doesn't matter how brief the moment is. I'll remember it just as perfectly as everything else that's ever happened to me."

She looked up at him. Her ears perked up slightly. "Really?"

He stepped sideways, right next to her. "Don't think of it as time. Try think of it as distance."

"Whaddya mean?"

"That's how I cope: I try to think of 'time' as 'distance'. When I walk to work, I try to remember the landmarks." He pointed at the road. "If we cross that road together, and I die halfway across, then it means that I spent the rest of my entire life with you. Which is what I promised to do anyways when I adopted you."

Rewind stared at the edge of the road, just under the lip of the sidewalk.

"So if this is the last thing you ever do... then it'll be your last memory."

"I suppose so."

"And if this is your last memory, it'll seem real to you. We'll be crossing this street, together, forever."

He opened his mouth to speak, but paused to stroke his chin first. "I suppose so. I'm not sure what that would feel like."

Rewind nudged her nose against the side of his knee, then stepped out into the street. "Come on. Maybe things'll go differently if I'm the one bringing you home."

Erase glanced left and right, then followed after her. They reached the middle of the road in--what seemed to him, at least--no time at all.

I'll Always Take Care of You

It was a plain, ordinary, average day. At least, to everypony else. But for me, this day was special. It was the only day per year that I could visit my mom.

I strode up to the florist’s counter and waved at the attendant. “One bouquet please,” I said.

“Three bits.” The salespony smiled at me, brushing her mane out of her eyes. Snatching three bits from my saddlebag, I hand them over. After she gives them to me, she asks, “Is that for your very special somepony?”

I paused. “In a way.”

“Well, I hope you make whoever it is happy.” Her smile gleamed even bigger, her pearly white teeth reflecting in the sunlight.

“Me too,” I said, grabbing the bouquet with my magic. “Me too...”

One of my earliest memories of my mother was something I could hardly remember. Like a dream. You wake up in the morning and want to hold onto it as long as possible, so you don’t open your eyes. But eventually, life goes on so you need to get out of bed. Once you do, the memory fades. You can never remember your dream one-hundred percent, no matter how much you want to. Still, at least I can remember something. Just a remnant, but it’s something.

A baby crib, slowly rocking back and forth, with bars that extended to into the sky. No matter how much I try to climb them, I could never reach the top. But each time, I climb higher than I did before, so I keep trying.

One time, I was almost near the top, but my hoof slipped. Before I knew it, I was sent tumbling downwards. I landed on my head. I didn’t bleed, but it still hurt. My head felt like it was splitting open. I tried to fight back the tears, but they came anyway.

“Waaaaaaaaah!” I can hear a shuffling sound from above me. A giant hoof reached out and gently picked me up.

“There, there. Everything’s going to be alright,” said a voice from above.

I looked up into the eyes of a grey mare. One of the eyes is looking straight at me, but the other one is looking at the ceiling. Rubbing the back of my head, I stopped crying.

“Oh, do you have a boo boo? Let mommy fix that.” She bent down and kissed me on the back of my head. For some reason, it felt like the pain disappeared. Curling into a ball, I pulled up my hindleg and started sucking on it.

“There. All better?” After I grinned in response, she rubbed my stomach, causing me to giggle. All of the pain floated away, replaced by a sense of peacefulness. Cradling me in her forelegs, she rocked me back and forth while humming a lullaby.

I curled into a ball and a warmth spread throughout my body. Using my tail as a toy, I start nibbling on it.

My mother held me close to her chest and said, “No matter what happens, I’ll always be here for you.” She rubbed her snout against my belly. “Dinky... my little muffin...”

“Hey, watch it!” shouted a voice.

My mind zapped back to reality. “Ahh!” I shouted, nimbly jumping out of the way of an incoming pony. “Sorry!” I said, blushing in embarrassment. I had been walking down the street and accidentally drifted to the other side.

Clutching my bouquet of flowers, I wandered past Sugarcube corner. Checking my watch, I realized that I was almost to my destination; it was only a few blocks away. My thoughts drifted back to my mom.

Now that I think about it, my mom has always been there for me, especially when I get into trouble. Thinking back, I’m not sure how, but I was real accident prone. On this particular day, it seemed like any other, a bright summer’s day. There were no scheduled rainfalls or storms, so it was going to be nice all day long. It was a perfect day, and nothing could go wrong. Or so I thought.

I rode inside a saddlebag handing off my mother’s back. My legs are safely enclosed inside while my upper half hung out the side. I shuffled around, my eyes darting around back and forth. My mouth gaped open. My mom chuckled; she nuzzled me in the neck.

“Oooo, what’s that? Or that? And that? Aaah!” I pointed at everything I could as we walked through Ponyville. Normally I was always cooped up in the house, playing with the same old toys, but after a while I grew too restless. School had just let out, so I bounced around the house in boredom. My mom must have sensed that, so she took me with her to work.

“Aww. Who’s this little cutie?” A cream-colored mare cooed to me, tickling me under the chin. I giggled in return.

“This is Dinky.” A beam of sunshine reflected off my mother’s smile, she beamed that much.

“How old is she?” The mare flipped her two-shades-of-orange mane out of her eyes.

“Only six.”

“They sure grow up fast, don’t they?”

After some more small talk, my mom waved at her and we went along our business. Finally, we reached our destination. A giant sign along the top of the building told me that it was called “Sugarcube Corner.”

As she fumbled with the package in her other saddlebag, I quietly slipped out. I looked at my mom, but her back was turned, so I wandered a few hooves away.

Something caught the corner of my eye, the majestic movement of a bug that had fluttered into view. It perched on my snout. The body itself was tiny, but it had a wide wingspan of pink. A butterfly. It stared at me, and I could almost swear it winked at me. After a few twitches of its wings, it took off, flying amidst the cool breeze.

I tried to reach it with a hoof, but it slipped out of my grasp. It didn’t move particularly fast, instead flying around in loopty loops in front of my face. A slight chittering drifted into my ears, as if it was beckoning me. It looped around one final time before it blew away.

“Wait for me!” I’m not sure what it was, but something compelled me to follow it. Forgetting my mother’s words, I took off after it. Looking back now, I wonder why it was so fascinating to me. After all, it was just a butterfly. But a youthful mind sees things differently. Curiously. And so, I followed it.

I walked after it, but it flew fast enough to evade me, so I quickened my pace. From a trot into a canter and finally a gallop, I chased after that butterfly, yet it stayed out-of-reach. Before I knew it, I followed it right past Ponyville and directly into a path filled with bushes and trees. The light behind me shrinking as I galloped deeper into the forest. It quickly became a speck, then disappeared entirely.

I paused and looked around. Trees towered over me, all of their shadows stretching across the landscape. It had grown dark, as if the sunlight couldn’t penetrate the trees, but I hadn’t noticed because all I could stare at was the flapping wings of the sparkly butterfly. If anything, it’s brightness lingered around itself like a protective sphere, which only stood out even more amidst the dark. I reached towards it.

With a puff of dust, the butterfly exploded. A shower of sparkles washed over me, some of it entering my snout and causing me to sneeze. Just like that, the only light I could see vanished in the blink of an eye. I shivered. Whether it was because it had gotten cold or because I realized I was alone, I wasn’t sure. I turned around and tried to look for the path I had followed on the way there, but it was gone. Disappeared, as if it had never existed in the first place.

Goosebumps crawled on my fur as I backed up. A couple of indistinct sounds echoed in the trees above. My eyes darted back and forth, looking for the way out. “Mommy?” I whispered.

I could hear growls in the distance. Outlines of eyes in the darkness. My body froze up. There was a rustling of leaves and a crackling of twigs that grew closer with every passing moment. Like something was there. Watching. Waiting.

With erratic breaths, I held my hoof against my chest. I could hear my heart pounding. Licking my lips, I realized my tongue was deprived of moisture.

Finally, I could stand it no longer. I chose a random direction, and just bolted. I don’t even know why, but there was an uneasiness that lay at the pit of my stomach like a stone. I just ran. I wasn’t even sure which direction I was going in. I just kept running.

Beneath the thick canopy of trees, the bushes rustled, and the branches twisted in the wind. Then I realized: There was no wind in the Everfree Forest. I looked back, and immediately wished I hadn’t. My eyes widened to the size of coconuts.

From within the “trees” emerged a creature made out of wood. Its eyes glowed bright green, contrasting with the darkness that surrounded it. With elongated fangs and sharpened claws, it sprang towards me. It felt like my heart stopped as its jaws leapt out, nearly catching my flank. I could feel its teeth graze me. Any closer and I would have been done for.

Snarls came from behind the creature as two more appeared, following on their tails like a cat chasing a mouse. They both nipped at my heels, but I managed to avoid them.

Taking a deep breath, I looked straight ahead and focused on escaping. Adrenaline flooded my veins, fueling my body with a power I didn’t even know I had. I wanted to scream out, to cry. I promised to Celestia that I’d never leave my mother’s side again if only she would help me. My head pounded. It felt like a nightmare I couldn’t escape from.

A shrill scream pierced the air as a grey blur moved past me. Craning my neck around, I saw as it pulled out a giant square-shaped package from out of its saddlebag and brought it down on the head on the first creature. It wobbled around before tripping on its own appendages.

“Mommy!” I cried out, slowing down my gait. A beaming smile appeared on my face.

“Keep running!” Derpy shouted. She bent down and full-on bucked one of the timberwolves in the face, causing it to explode in a cloud of twigs and fury. The last creature tried to jump around her, but Derpy picked up a rock and kicked it. It flew towards the back of the wolf’s head, sending it to the ground. The wolf tried to lift its head up, but Derpy pounced on it, crushing it to pieces. The last remaining timberwolf threw off the box that was covering his head.

I ran as fast as I could, but I couldn’t keep up the pace forever. With the adrenaline gone, my chest heaved and I gasped for breath. Blood slowly leaked down my flank from the earlier wound. I felt lightheaded. I slowed to a walking pace before I collapsed onto the ground. I just wanted to rest. Just for a little bit...

“Dinky!” She took a step towards me, but the remaining timberwolf leaped forward.

I weakly lifted a hoof up. “Watch out!” I tried to gasp.

I was too late. The momentary distraction was all the opportunity that the timberwolf needed. It latched its jaws onto my mother’s wing. It bent at an odd angle, a loud crack filled the air. She struggled to get free, but she was held back by the wolf. Blood spurted out from her wound as the feathers were violently ripped away and she cried out. “Ahhhhh!” She bucked him in the face, shattering it to pieces. It fell over in a heap, lacking a head.

“Dinky? Are you okay?” she said, limping towards me. She lay beside me and cradled me in her forehooves.

“I’m fine. Just a little scratch...” I said, barely managing to keep my eyes open. For some reason, I felt really... tired. I looked over at my flank and saw a sizable chunk missing from it. “How the...”

I whispered. When did that happen? I had no idea.

“Dinky? Dinky!”

A warmth spread through my body. Now that my mom was here, everything was going to be okay. I knew that, deep down inside. My eyes closed and I drifted off to sleep. The last thing I felt was being picked up and carried somewhere.

When I had awoke, I found myself in a room of white. Surrounded by white walls, a white ceiling, and a white floor. It had a bit of a sterile smell to it, which burned my nostrils. I looked at my flank, it had been covered with a bandage. My forehead felt like it was burning and a tiny hose was attached to one of my forelegs.

My mother was sitting in a chair in the corner, slumped over in a heap. Her head was propped up with her hoof. Her eyes were closing, and I heard a gently snoring coming from her lips. Her right wing had been bandaged up, and she was wearing a hospital gown. A tickle built up in the bottom of my throat, so I tried to cough to get it out.

“Huh? What?” My mom shook her head, trying to wake herself up. Then she noticed me. “Dinky!” She rushed over and threw her arms around me. She looked at me as if I was to going to disappear at any second.

“Hi, mom.” I looked at her wing again. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s just a flesh wound,” she said, following my gaze. “How about you? How are you feeling?” She placed a hoof on my forehead.

“Good.” I pushed her hoof away.

“Do you need some water or anything?” She turned around and tried to look for any remaining refreshments that the nurse might have brought, but there was nothing there.

“I’m fine, mom. Really.”

“If you say so.” She leaned her head next to mine. Her body wouldn’t fit onto the bed, so half of it hung lopsidedly. She grimaced a bit. It must have been uncomfortable.

“I’m sor—” She placed a hoof on my lips, stopping me mid-sentence.

“Hush now. It’s in the past.” She craned her neck and forced both eyes to look at me. “Just promise me one thing.”

I stared back. “Anything.”

She hesitated for a moment. “Don’t wander off without saying anything, okay?”

“Yes, mom.”

She kissed me on the cheek. “Good. Now get some rest.” After one last nuzzle, she shuffled off towards her own hospital bed.

I ran home, tears streaming down my face. I can’t help it. The other kids were so mean: always picking on me, calling me names, throwing stones at me. I hated it. Why didn’t they just leave me alone? I didn’t know.

I opened the door as quietly as I could. I sneaked through the living room and into my bedroom. Flopping onto my bed, I shoved my face into a pillow and cried. I tried to fit in, I really did, but once they learned who my mom was, they shunned me. They said I was weird. A freak. I tried to shake away the images, but they kept pelting at my brain, just like the rocks they threw at me.

“Dinky?” I heard a voice coming from outside my door. I didn’t want to answer, but...

“Yes, mom?” I tried to keep my voice level, but it kept cracking.

“Is something wrong?”

“No. Everything’s fine.” My irregular breathing and gasping for breath did nothing to relieve her. The sound of my whining was similar to a drowning cat.

“Can I come in?”

“No. I’m fine. Really.” I stifled the noise with my pillow.

“Please?”

“Fine.” I looked away from my mom as she entered the room. She sat down next to me. Suddenly, I felt her forelegs wrap around me.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes.” I stared at the floor. I didn’t want to bother her with my petty concerns. She had enough problems already.

She sat there in silence and gently turned me to face her. I wiped my face with a hoof, but I had red eyes, so it didn’t do much. She kissed me on the forehead.

“You know you can talk to me about anything, right?” She tilted her head at me, one head looking right at me, with the other looking elsewhere.

I tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come out. The feeling welled inside of me, building up pressure until it burst like a dam. I told her about everything. All of the silly little problems I had. All the bullies. But she just sat there and listened patiently. When I finally reached the end, she hugged me again.

“You know I love you, right?”

I nodded.

“No matter what happens, I’ll always take care of you. Please don’t forget that.”

I held onto her for what felt like an eternity. I didn’t want to let go. When I was around her, everything felt much more peaceful. She was so... understanding. Unconditionally loving. Even though she probably just went through a tough day of work, she was still willing to listen to me.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you too, mom.” I smiled. As long as she held me in her forelegs, I felt like I was untouchable. All my problems melted away. I just wanted that feeling to last as long as possible.

Finally, she pulled away and asked, “Are you hungry? I baked some muffins...”

I nuzzled against her neck again. “I’d love some.”

As I passed through Ponyville, I waved at all the passing ponies. The flower bouquet hovered behind me, encased by my magic. Today wasn’t really a special day, per se, but I’d like to pretend that it was.

Finally, I reached the gated community. I stopped and read the sign. I was here.

I levitated the flowers into my mouth. If anything, I wanted to do it properly. My mom deserved it and I only visited her once a year anyway.

I remembered the words that she used to tell me. "I'll always take care of you."

Well, mom. Now it's my turn.

I took a deep breath... and walked into the cemetery.

Quotidian

Our story, like all stories, must have a beginning somewhere. This one in particular is just a bit odd because, rather than beginning, we shall intend to start in the middle. Not in the middle of the story, rather, but right in the middle of things. The thick of it, as it were, surrounded on all sides by beginnings and endings. And the middle of our story, in an abstract sense, but also the beginning.

Here, we have the idyllic town of Ponyville. Quaint and pastoral in a charming sort of way—you’re probably familiar with it. Filled with houses, and businesses, and ponies, and foals, and all manner of commerce, and socializing, and goings on, and the six most important ponies in the history of Equestria including the newly christened Princess Twilight Sparkle, and a nice stand that sells bananas—oh, yes, that other part. You knew that too, didn’t you? Of course you did. You’re a smart cookie, I can tell.

Our story middles today (and begins, furthermore), in the basement of a delightful little abode occupied by the previously mentioned one Twilight Sparkle. In the downstairs of the lovely tree she calls a house, and alongside one other pony you might also be familiar with, who for the purposes of this story will be referred to as ‘Pink’. Twilight we shall call ‘Purple Ponk’, because doesn’t it just sound adorable?

No? Oh fine then.

In any case, here we have Twilight Sparkle, bearing her brand new wings besides, and her friend, that incorrigible young Pinkie Pie. The two of them are sharing a moment together, as it were.

But... what’s this?

They don’t appear to be moving. How odd.

In fact, if we look closer... hm. It’s almost like they’re... frozen.

Not frozen like you might be frozen in a big block of ice, mind. Nor are they frozen in the fashion we’ve come to read about, when lava shall fall from the sky and freeze everyone in a perpetual statue of whatever they were doing last, leading to some embarrassing engravings of mares and stallions sharing too-intimate moments with the rest of the world. Neither here nor there, mind.

No, these two are frozen simply in place. Not unlike the hands on a watch when they stop. And, if I’m not mistaken, we happen to have one of those here too. If you’ll look around for just a moment, this way, please, you’ll see the whole of the basement—the set of stairs leading up; the towers of beakers filled with curious looking liquids; the variety of machines all hooked to each other, whirring mysteriously. And, yes, here is Twilight Sparkle, frozen in mid-air in fact. That’s quite an expression on her face isn’t? Absolute panic, you might call it. And, look—she’s hanging there, unmoving, lunging forward to catch that big watch.

Well, yes, I suppose you could call it a clock if you were so inclined. There’s no need to be pedantic about it.

Pinkie Pie is there next to her. Cheerful, sickeningly adorable Pinkie Pie. She doesn’t look upset at all, does she? There’s that smile she always has on.

So how is it they wound up like this? Well, I’m cheating a bit, you see. They’re not really frozen. No more than the rest of the town is frozen, which they are... but not like this, per se.

Here, let me show you.

Twilight Sparkle stood in front of the table covered in peculiar apparati. Various dials and bobs spun around her, all accompanied by the ticking of the too-large clock she held in her hooves. The clock was hooked up to a variety of wires and lines, and it hummed as it ticked, throbbing in her hooves with a faint, emerald glow.

She stared into its face for a moment, as though expecting to see her reflection.

“Hiya Twilight!”

The sudden noise had a natural effect, which was to startle Twilight—normally a non-issue, though it wasn’t often the case that she was holding a large, fragile clock. As a result of her surprise, her hooves gave out, and sent her falling, and the clock with her.

She scrambled in the air, reaching towards it. Somehow, despite all knowledge of physics telling her that equal motion should present an equal trajectory, the clock seemed just out of reach. Still, she held out her hooves to touch it; to catch it before it hit the floor. Closer, closer to the floor, feeling just the edge of it on her hooves, the slick finish on the outside, until she felt the cold floor on her stomach and then—

Twilight Sparkle stood in front of the table covered in peculiar apparati. Various dials and bobs spun around her, all accompanied by the ticking of the too-large clock she held in her hooves. The clock was hooked up to a variety of wires and lines, and it hummed as it ticked, throbbing in her hooves with a faint, emerald glow.

She stared into its face for a moment, as though expecting to see her reflection.

“Hiya Twilight!”

The sudden noise had a natural effect, which was to startle Twilight—normally a non-issue, though it wasn’t often the case that she was holding a large, fragile clock. As a result of her surprise, her hooves gave out, and sent her falling, and the clock with her.

She scrambled in the air, reaching towards it. Somehow, despite all knowledge of physics telling her that equal motion should present an equal trajectory, the clock seemed just out of reach. Still, she held out her hooves to touch it; to catch it before it hit the floor. Closer, closer to the floor, feeling just the edge of it on her hooves, the slick finish on the outside, until she felt the cold floor on her stomach and then—

Twilight Sparkle stood in front of the table covered in peculiar apparati. Various dials and bobs spun around her, all accompanied by the ticking of the too-large clock she held in her hooves. The clock was hooked up to a variety of wires and lines, and it hummed as it ticked, throbbing in her hooves with a faint, emerald glow.

She stared into its face for a moment, as though expecting to see her reflection.

“Hiya Twilight!”

The sudden noise had a natural effect, which was to startle Twilight—normally a non-issue, though it wasn’t often the case that she was holding a large, fragile clock. As a result of her surprise, her hooves gave out, and sent her falling, and the clock with her.

She scrambled in the air, reaching towards it. Somehow, despite all knowledge of physics telling her that equal motion should present an equal trajectory, the clock seemed just out of reach. Still, she held out her hooves to touch it; to catch it before it hit the floor. Closer, closer to the floor, feeling just the edge of it on her hooves, the slick finish on the outside, until she felt the cold floor on her stomach and then—

Are you starting to get the idea of it?

I just thought it might be a bit disarming to walk right into things. They’re moving almost like they’re on pegs, aren’t they? Like those little puppet shows made of invisible gears and bad punchlines, bopping each other on the head. There goes Pinkie Pie, popping up in the middle of the tables. There goes Twilight, falling forward, dropping her clock, tumbling with that look of desperation in her eyes, until finally—

Smash. We don’t quite get to hear all the breaking glass, of course, but I’m sure you can imagine the rest. ‘Smash’ is such a delightful word, don’t you think? So loud.

Anyway. I’m showing you all this because this is the state Ponyville is in at the moment. It’s sort of tragic in a way—I mean, of course it is, being stuck anywhere. We feel bad for little bunnies when they wedge their heads into fences, and this is more or less the same thing. A pony, a clock, getting her head and everyone else’s stuck in time.

Well, more or less stuck. There are some edge cases that we’ll see in a minute etunim a ni ees ll’ew taht sesac egde emos era ereht.

Oh, goodness. Watch out for those. They seem to be going around at the moment. Ha. In any case.

So, let’s take a bit of a trip, shall we? There are a few places I’d like to show you, though I don’t believe any one of them is more important than the other. We’ll get to that later. Us and us alone. Anyway. Come along.

Our first stop is one that I don’t think you’ll find particularly upsetting. Of course, this whole thing is kind of worrying, in a morose sort of way. All these ponies, trapped forever in the perpetual cycle of their last ten seconds, forced to relive the same instant over and over... well, if you’re going to be Mr. Party Pooper, I suppose there’s no point in me showing you any of this. Go on then. Go listen to some depressing music. Pull your hoodie up as you go.

No?

Good.

Right off the bat, let me tell you that because this is magic, things are not always as they seem. In fact, it would be a bit unreasonable to expect an experiment gone wrong to behave exactly according to plan. So, with that in mind, even the first thing I’m going to show you isn’t quite playing by the rules. That’s what makes it so funny. Or sad. Stop that.

Here we have Miss Derpy Hooves, delivering the local mail with a frustrated sort of look on her face. Watch her for a moment and you’ll see she’s putting the same bundle of letters into the slot, over and over again.

Those crossed eyes are just a scream, aren’t they?

Well, look closer before we go though. Does something seem odd to you about what you’re seeing? Aside the obvious, I mean?

Are you noticing it yet?

Here, allow me.

Derpy scratched her head. She’d already delivered the mail. She remembered delivering it because she took it out of her bag, held it in her hoof, and put it in the mailbox. That was how she delivered mail. She did it all the time.

She looked down at the several letters in her hand. She looked at the address. She looked up at the address on the mailbox, which was the same. She scratched her head and put the letters in the box.

But she didn’t see them go in.

Derpy squinted into the mailbox. There weren’t any letters in there. But that’s where she put them. She scratched her head.

Where were they?

Derpy reached into her mailbag again. Maybe there were more letters she forgot about.

Oh, there they were. These were the right letters. She knew because she’d delivered them here before. Except she hadn’t, because they weren’t there. But she was supposed to.

Derpy looked at the letters. She looked at the mailbox. The addresses matched.

Derpy scratched her head and put the letters in the mailbox. The mailbox stayed empty, like the letters went away before they got inside.

Derpy reached into her mailbag and pulled out some letters. Had she delivered these already?

Derpy put the letters in the mailbox—

Hilarious, isn’t it? One of the only ponies in town to be lucky enough not to be set going through the motions, and here she’s doing it anyway! I love you ponies. Nowhere in the world could provide these kind of laughs.

You did think it was funny, didn’t you?

Well, we’ll leave Derpy Hooves and her mail alone for a while. If it’s any consolation, the mail probably doesn’t know enough to be upset about repeating itself. It just wants to be delivered. And Derpy wants to deliver it. They’re a perfect match, don’t you think?

The next stop is one that’s a little less cheerful, though certainly not as gloomy as you’re being. Yes, I saw that look. Cheer up, will you? It’s not every day we get the town in a state like this.

So, this is a scene that should be familiar. Hard-working, dependable Applejack—you know her, don’t you? And, where else is Applejack at home but in a field full of apples?

She’s in prime applebucking position, yes. Reared up, hind legs ready to go.

So why isn’t she going?

Well, look a little closer.

Did you see? Look again.

Just the tiniest bit of movement. Slowly. More minute than a molecule. Yes, she is moving.

Poor Applejack has become stuck in a slow moving part of time, you see. It’s not that she’s moving slowly, although I suppose you could argue that; I’m sure in there, her head’s going just as fast as it needs to. It’s just that, to us, watching her like this, she may as well be a pony made out of molasses.

I say, have they thought of that already? Remind me to write that down later.

So, the interesting thing here is, if we’re seeing Applejack in slow motion, what is she seeing of the outside world? Nevermind that—is it her that’s in slow motion, or everything around here, while we’re just caught up? What could she be thinking, in that ten thousand year applekick?

Well, see for yourself.

One more tree and that’ll be one hundred and fifty three more to go on this side. That’ll be the west side all done, and I’ll start on the east side in a few days. Big Macintosh was gonna do the east side, but he’s tuckered out from grinding half the batch of jelly for that big order last week. Maybe three hundred bits and some changes off it. Half that’s gotta go to buy seeds. Start seedin’ the carrots on Tuesday. Beans on Thursday. Not sure if we should have squash this year. No one ever eats it. Back in my day you ate what you got and were thankful for it. I wonder if I’ll ever get tired of apples. Haven’t so far, and I’ve been eatin’ ‘em for a while. I wonder if Applebloom gets tired of ‘em. It’ll be Rarity’s fault if it’s anyones. Last sleepover, she said Sweetie Belle was tellin’ her that Rarity eats snails sometimes. What kind of a thing is that? I’ve heard they do it in Prance, but I ain’t never thought about doin’ it. Ain’t snails alive, after all? There’s places in the world where they eat other things that are alive. Monsters eat ponies anyway. Wonder if they’d settle for an apple. There’s a lot you can do with an apple. Apple pie apple tart apple crisp apple strudel apple sour apple honey apple pancake apple cake apple jelly caramel apple sweet-orange apple I don’t see how anyone could get tired of apples. I’m gettin’ kinda tired of kickin’ ‘em down, mind. If I do this tree in five minutes, and the next one takes me five minutes, I could be done with ‘em in two days, workin’ six hours a day. Eight hours a day and I’ll have time left to spare. Seems like days are gettin’ shorter. Is that just a thing they say, or is it somethin’ real? I’ll have to ask the Princess next time I see her. Ain’t run into her in a while. Guess the world doesn’t need savin’ that often. How odd is it that we’ve saved the world, what, four times now? Maybe more’n that. I don’t feel like I’ve saved the world. Right now I just wanna get these apples done. I wonder what’s takin’ so long. If I push real hard maybe they’ll all come down in one go and I can—

Well, I think that’s enough of that. Surely you get the idea, yes?

Good old Applejack. She’s got a lot on her mind, hasn’t she? Dependable, hard-working, loyal Applejack, thinking about her family and friends, and always about working to make ends meet. More interest for other ponies than herself. Loyal as can be. No wonder she’s the Element of—

Oh. Almost had a slip of the tongue there.

In the end, I think Applejack might be the best off, you know. That tree might be long gone by the time she finally reaches it, but the end result will be the same. Just as much to her benefit if she spends a thousand years on one tree, rather than one year on a thousand trees. She knows it, and so do you: they’ll just regrow next year, and she’ll be kicking them down until she can’t kick anymore. But it makes her happy. I wonder, is that worth saying something about?

Not at all, in my opinion. Let’s move on to our next stop, shall we?

This one is a bit of a guilty pleasure, I must admit. Somewhat of a detour, really, all the way to Canterlot—

Hmm? Oh, yes, I did say this was all happening in Ponyville, didn’t I? Well, you know. Canterlot, Ponyville... all these horse puns start to blur together after a while. It’s very possible I meant one, rather than another. Of course, we’ve already been to Ponyville, haven’t we? So that explains it.

Oh, shush. Just look.

Though it’s mid-way through the afternoon, Princess Celestia is asleep. She’s nestled in her ornate, imported bed, wrapped in the sheets like they’re a down of feathers, covering her with her eyes closed. She turns in them, rocking from side to side. Sweat from her coat dampens them, and her mane, which leaves a mark on her pillow. Prismatic, iridescent, and wet with her sleeping anxiety.

She goes from turning to thrashing, spastic back and forth under the covers, kicking her legs about, flapping her wings, until finally her body tells her it’s too much and she opens her mouth and sits straight up. Gasp.

She breathes very heavily for a moment, looking around the room.

After a few seconds she gets up from the bed, untangling the sheets from her body and letting them fall tp the floor. She shakes her head a few times too, in an attempt to wring off the residual haze of mid-day nap-time sweat and delirium. She’s a victim to the same incomprehension we all are, with the difference being that she has a whole sky overhead at her behest and no one else’s. If she kept sleeping, would the sun decide to fall?

Celestia makes her way to the window, her face turning gradually from anxiety to the stern expression she always wears. Her hooves clop on the floor of the spacious room. The tile she’s walking on is painted over with magenta and gold swirls, and it matches the tapestries hanging from the walls, as well as the curtains on the canopy bed. Really, it’s a room fit for a princess.

She walks until she reaches the window—the large, pristine glass window, looking out over Canterlot, and Ponyville, and all of Equestria under the sun. She leans towards it, but doesn’t open it. She puts her hoof on the windowsill and looks up through the glass, skyward.

Past the sun, to where a spot of silver lays hidden in the clouds.

A flicker of something shadow flashes across her eyes. She turns her head down. Her face has gone from staunch to sour.

With a tremble in her lip, she looks back to her bed. She unfurls her wings and wipes a hoof across her eye.

When the drop falls from her hoof the ground, she’s back in bed, seconds away from waking up.

Now, I admit, there’s nothing not perverse about my pleasure here. Nevertheless, I fully intend to enjoy it as much as possible. You could tell what she was thinking about, couldn’t you? Here, look up and tell me what you see.

No, not the sun, you... past that. You probably can’t make it out because it’s so bright. Past the clouds, just there. Here, wear these. Lovely shade of blue, aren’t they?

That’s the moon. And further past it, of course, the void of space and stars and endless possibility, and who knows what’s going on out there away from our little corner of the universe, and goodness, isn’t all of life just miniscule and amazing? Blech. Aside from that though, there’s the moon.

Have you ever had to live with something you did for a thousand years?

Celestia could blink her eyes and wake up from her perpetual napping fits, I think. I’m convinced she doesn’t want to. Because, as much as everypony else out here is repeating themselves, she already knows what’s that like. I just don’t think she cares anymore.

Moving right along. This next one is a bit peculiar, which is why I find it so fascinating.

There’s a trail in the air there, do you see that? We picked a heck of a moment to get stuck. This one is just as traditional as the last one, though I think it’s also one of the most peculiar. Watch and listen, and tell me what you see.

The way the air tensed right before. She could feel it, her wings moving so fast on her body she couldn’t feel them anymore. Her legs tickled from the jetstream. Her hair was pushed back like a tornado, which was good, because it meant she was almost there.

And, like every time, there was just one last pull needed. Like she had to reach out and grab it.

She did.

The feeling that came with it was indescribable. The whole world froze, she was sure of it, and she was the only one moving in that second. She felt that way a lot of the time normally, until consequence and other ponies caught up to her. But like this, no one could catch her.

It took a second after her hoof went through for the sound to come.

And it came. The rush. Woosh. No other way to describe it. Like a pop bang zoom everything at once detonating and coming back together.

And she was gone, flying so fast the world disappeared beneath her. The sky was the limit now. Maybe someday she’d soar so fast she’d reach her own trail.

But there was a sparkle of rainbow in the breeze. What was—

So. There’s a bit going on here, which I’ll try to explain, so do your best to keep up.

Here we have the Element of—well, we have Rainbow Dash. Pegasus, fancy mane, very fast, she’s just a dear. In any case, our little snapshot of time seems to have grabbed her at a very particular moment, and I’ll here try to break down why this moment is significant. You’ve heard of her patented ‘Sonic Rainboom’, of course? Don’t let my tone sour you... everyone knows it’s amazing, just the most wonderful thing. Well, if you’re a fan, you’re in luck, because we’re catching the star mid-performance.

So, you’ll see here, right at the point where the sound barrier breaks, and it does do exactly that, which is impressive regardless of what we might say about the spunky little pegasus responsible—here, you can see the light actually bending, and here’s where the rainbow comes out, like a haze, showering everything. And, yes, here is Miss Rainbow Dash, though you’ll only see her for half a second before she’s gone—yes, there she goes. Wave goodbye, would you?

Only... there’s something odd about the way she’s going through. See how this bit moves just a little bit each time?

This is because, while Miss Rainbow Dash is stuck in a cycle, repeating herself, her method of propulsion isn’t—that is to say, her wings are, but her ‘Sonic Rainboom’ isn’t. It’s the thing that’s had her dubbed the fastest flyer in Equestria, yes?

Well, I can tell you that’s not a lie. Rainbow Dash is breaking the sound barrier after all, but she’s breaking a great many other things in the process. Likelihood, for one. And, in doing so, she’s actually going just fast enough that time is failing to keep up with her. Every time through the ring, by a little bit, she’s moving farther across. We could probably follow her for a while, and I think we’d eventually do a full circle around the globe. Not that I have any interest in such a thing. The prices of hotels alone.

I’m not sure if there’s more to say here. It is simply what you see. Rainbow Dash, the pegasus going so fast, she’s outpacing herself. Did you ever think you’d see a thing like that?

Hmm?

Well, fine. If you want to be utterly dreary about it. If we have to play ‘dissect the time vortex’ each time, I suppose we could pretend at some sort of deeper meaning here. How about, ‘Rainbow Dash likes to go fast, so now she’s going really fast’?

Oh fine.

It’s a well-known fact about Rainbow Dash that she always has to be the best. There was, I believe, a bit of a snafu when that Mare-Do-Well business arose. But, what that says furthermore about Miss Rainbow Dash is that she’s always struggling not only to outdo everypony around her, but also herself. In all the world, she’s the only pony she ever needs to keep up with.

And here’s she’s doing exactly that. Do you think that means she’d be happy?

Well, why don’t you stop her and ask her?

Just kidding. I don’t recommend you touch. Of course, we’re playing a bit of a cheat here, walking around in all of this, but I highly suspect some red tape somewhere will catch up with us if we stop to play with the exhibits. Come along, and mind your step with this one, because it’s a bit of a mess ssem a fo tib a s’ti.

Ah, you see what I mean?

And no talking. Let this one speak for itself, if you can bear it.

In the room above Sugarcube Corner, the Cakes have a home. It’s a small living space, possessed of only two bedrooms: one for them, and one for their children. A set of stairs lead up from the main shop, creating a strange juncture between business and personal life. Upstairs, the door to the bedroom is open.

There are three ponies in the bedroom. One of them is Mrs. Cake, first name Cup. Another of them is Mr. Cake, first name Carrot. The third one is not a Cake. He’s a large stallion with a black mane and a blue coat. Right now, he looks distressed.

Mr. Cake has his hoof on the strange stallion. He’s over top of him on the floor, in fact, on the far side of the bed, kneeling down. The look on his face says he’s not very happy. But... strange. He’s helping the stallion up. He’s taking his hooves off him and moving backwards over the bed, and the stallion is moving with him, until he’s all the way there. And Mrs. Cake is in the bed too. She never left, it seems, but her expression has changed a bit, from horrified to something uncertain.

Mr. Cake returns to a spot at this side of the bed, and Mrs. Cake looks confused. The stallion is holding his hooves up, but he lowers them back down to the bed. Slowly, as Mr. Cake walks back out of the room, Mrs. Cake’s face changes from startled to a look that says she’s having a very good day. The stallion’s says the same.

Mr. Cake’s face takes on a smile as he walks backwards out of the room and closes the door behind him. Slowly, whistling the inverse of a tune, sucking the notes out of the air and back between his lips, Mr. Cake exits the bedroom. He walks down the hallway, facing forward as he moves backwards until he reaches the stairs. He goes down them and his smile stays bright, his hooves removing their sound on the steps, and being unmuffled by the disappearing noise of the box-spring upstairs.

As he leaves through the entrance to Sugarcube corner, his mind clears. Thoughts of Mrs. Cake and the stallion leave, and are replaced just by thoughts of his wife. By her smile, her eyes, the sweetness of her laugh. He feels bad about being away from home so often these days, until he thinks about coming home early from his trip to surprise his wife. His contentment with his plan ebbs away until he’s heading out the front door on his way back to the train station, convincing himself it will be a good idea to come home. He’s almost made it a few feet from the store’s entrance until he’s gone again, back upstairs. He’s kneeling over the stallion, and Mrs. Cake is in bed behind him, holding up her hooves, the letters disappearing from the air and being swallowed with help from her tongue.

t ‘n o d ,e s a e l P .y r r o s m ‘I . . .

Well, I didn’t say it would be all fun and games. Time doesn’t play that way, you know. If you could live the same moment of your life over and over again, maybe the one you had yesterday, when that awful thing happened—

You’re not familiar with cold reading, are you?

—Anyway. There’s someone famous who asked that once. Less famous than me, I’d wager, though I’m sure he’d debate that if he wasn't busy explaining to some omnipotent cloud-monster why he was so crass about the obituary he posted. In any case, moving along. There’s... Well, there’s one more at least that I need to show you, and if it’s all the same I’d rather just get it over with. Then we can take a stop in town square and enjoy ourselves for a bit before I send you on your way. Step lightly, please.

You recognize this part of the woods at least, don’t you? I’m not sure if it’s common knowledge, though that’s as much as saying that any store on a given day in Ponyville might change colour or function or even the ponies in it. Heck, the ponies do it themselves! Sometimes even I can’t make heads or tails of this place.

Anyway. Have a look over there. You recognize that house, don’t you? Rousing lullabies and chicken coops? Everyone knows the story. Well, get on with looking, because I’d like to be out of here sooner rather than later. Go on, hurry up.

Fluttershy is moving like she’s unrestrained by the repetition of motion. In the course of more than ten seconds she’s in several different places, bounding from one patch of grass to the next. It’s evidence enough that she’s not stuck, but her movement seems erratic.

She dashes away from a few different sections of the yard. On closer inspection, there’s nothing notably different about them, save for a few that have patches of very fine, grey dust atop the blades of grass.

As she turns her head with her eyes wide, a chicken clucks at her from a few feet away, and steps closer.

“No,” she says. “Don’t.” She raises her hooves and waves them like a crossing officer shooing away traffic, but the chicken continues on unheeded. Fluttershy’s proclivity for movement suddenly fails her. She stumbles over her hooves as she backs away, and the chicken follows.

As it comes within a few inches, she can’t help but reach out to touch it. It’s a very young chicken, practically newborn.

“Oh,” she says. “You’re so pretty...”

The chicken is egg-laying age now. It clucks at Fluttershy, rubbing its beak against her hoof. She can’t help but rub back, stroking the chicken’s face. It looks up at her, it’s jowl hanging low. The age for eggs has gone by. It’s legs can barely hold it up.

“No,” she says. She pets the chicken on its head a few more times, until the head crumbles and falls off the chicken’s body. The rest of it follows suit, feathers and skin melting away from bone until the bare carcass tumbles to the ground.

Fluttershy’s hoof lingers on the skeleton as it decomposes, turning quickly from something solid to a fine ash, like sand

She stands up and begins to back away again. Turning, a speed of movement starts in her again.

But there’s a squirrel on her other side. It holds an acorn aloft, bouncing on its hindlegs in her direction. Again, she holds her hoof up. Her wings flare on her back for a moment, but quickly settle as the squirrel comes within foreleg’s reach. It holds it acorn out again.

Fluttershy takes the acorn and gently sets it into the ground.

The squirrel hobbles the last few steps to Fluttershy’s feet. At the same time, the acorn to Fluttershy’s right spins and cracks. Tiny tendrils of roots shoot out of it, aching for the ground, but finding only empty air. As the acorn’s body rots into mush, the squirrel rests his head on the ground and falls into pieces, his tiny, articulate digits crumbling as the rest of him does.

Fluttershy holds her hooves to her mouth and begins to cry.

...Well. What do you want me to say? The point of showing you all this... I can’t just step in and change things! That would be simply ridiculous. What kind of a guide would I be then, hmm?

...Yes, it is awful. Fluttershy. She... well, she’s always loved caring for her animals, seeing them grow up. You can feel that in her, I think. A kindness that’s everywhere, everything to her.

Now she gets to see each of them into old age, in a way.

…

You can be a little miserable, if you want. It’s hardly inappropriate.

I don’t know about you, but I’m in desperate need of something to pick me up after that. We’ll just... I mean, we’ll leave her. It’s fine. A tad cruel, perhaps, but that too is the nature of life.

Oh, stop looking at me like that. Come on, we’re almost done.

I saved the simplest for last. There’s either a great deal to see here, or nothing at all. Let’s take it apart in pieces shall we?

Oh yes, town square, in case you’d forgotten. I’d offer to share my ice cream, but I’ve heard you all have cooties, and I haven’t gotten my shots yet. Watch and listen, as usual. One at a time now.

Over here, at an outdoor dining table for this cafe, a stallion and a mare are seated. The mare is smiling at the stallion, though he looks like he might be young enough to fit ‘colt’ in the poor eyesight of an elderly grandmother. The mare’s coat coat is blue, and her mane is purple, with highlights. The stallions’ coat is light orange, and his mane is brown. He looks very nervous.

He reaches behind his back and pulls out a bouquet of flowers. He holds it out to the mare. She looks surprised.

“Diamond Mint,” he says. The shake in his voice is obvious, as well as his foreleg, which rattles from side to side, shaking petals from his flowers, freshly picked from the look of them, onto the table. “I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a long time, but I... I really like you. Like, a lot.” He swallows, the lump in his throat refusing to remove itself. The mare keeps her look of surprise. The stallion blinks, as though steeling himself, and swallows again.

“And I... I was wondering if you wanted to... to be my... my marefriend.”

His stuttering stops, but the shaking doesn’t. Still, the flowers wobble.

The mare holds a hoof to her chest for a second, then removes it and sets it on the table.

“Oh,” she says. “Caramel, I—”

Awful, isn’t it? I could tell you were on the edge of your seat. Of course it’s not quite as riveting as our last few visits, but there’s something fascinating in the mundane, isn’t there? I imagine that poor boy is waiting to find out the answer to his question as much as were. Maybe it’s better that he doesn’t know? Who’s to say.

Turn this way, please.

With the air the same as the around the table, tempered by movement, a pair walks through the crowd of ponies in the center of the town. A pony and a dragon by her side. Rarity and Spike.

Spike’s arms are full with packages which he’s carrying with some difficulty. A few beads of sweat are collected on his forehead, and he takes a great big breath every few steps, as though moving with the packages is a struggle.

Rarity doesn’t say anything to him, though she hears him going on. She stops for a moment, and he does the same, panting to catch his breath. Overtop of the packages, Rarity looks at him.

He looks back at her.

Overhead, the sun is high and bright. Rarity’s tail flits naturally behind her back, bobbing from side to side.

She looks at him.

He looks back at her.

She looks at him.

He looks back at her.

She—

Ahaha, another one! It’s just absolutely horrible, isn’t it? Still, I think there’s a great deal less to say here than there was in our last visit. At least poor Caramel had the sense to come out and say something, didn’t he? Still, I take it from the local gossip rags that there’s a scarce few pony in town who doesn’t know about this little purple and green casanova-in-training. Who could say no to a squishy little face like that?

Interspecies romantic politics notwithstanding, of course.

Well, are you starting to get a sense for things? I suppose you think there’s a great deal to talk about here as well, don’t you? I’ve been of the opinion since the start that all we need is to see the goings on and let them speak for themselves. What do you think these ponies would say if they knew you were peering at them, hmm? Analyzing their every goings on, imagining what it might be in their heads, compelling them forward. What their relative misfortune says about them as beings?

I imagine they’d have more of a problem with the ‘floating’ and ‘unstuck in time’ bit, but that’s neither here nor there.

One more, and then we’ll call it a day, hmm? This one I feel you’ll have a great deal to say about.

A pony is walking forward with parcels held close to his chest, much like Spike the dragon on the other side of town-square. Unlike Spike, who it’s sensible to believe is carrying parcels of things for the pony he’s following—clothes, trinkets, make-up, sewing supplies and etcetera—this pony is mostly carrying groceries. He’s walking with more bags and weight in them than can be healthy, gritting his teeth the same way we all have when we tell ourselves ‘I can make it, I’m not making more than one trip.’

As he walks by the produce stall, en route to his destination, he fails to see a piece of errant fruit on the ground underneath him.

His hoof touches the yellow peel unsurely, and begins to slip.

And then it does slip, entirely, his leg giving out its strength of position, and the rest of him following suit, until the whole of him is up in the air. His groceries tumble out of his forelegs like too many juggling balls at once, and his whole body floats for a moment, held aloft by the whimsy of gravity amongst gaggles of melons and lettuces and the paper bags that, a moment ago, held them in place.

The banana goes whizzing off faster than he manages to reassert himself. As the banana peel hits the ground, he approaches the halfway point. Melons hover over him as the ground prepares to say ‘welcome’.

The first one thumps into his nose as he lands.

...What?

Oh, alright, lighten up. I thought we’d finish things off on a more cheerful note. There’s nothing like physical comedy, I find. If we’d added a whole fruit truck, maybe some cleverly placed bongos, that whole thing could have been just lovely. As is, I could still watch it another few thousand times... but we’re talking degrees of multitude here.

Hmm?

You seem sour now. Surely it wasn’t something I said?

Oh don’t be like that. What more is it you’d like me to show you? Shall we go barging into pony’s houses, knocking on their doors, or simply floating through their walls and seeing what it is that they’re doing with themselves in the precious few seconds they have?

I hope that’s not where you’re bringing this.There will be no unpleasantly philosophical metaphors today. Everything I’ve shown you was just that, what it was; nothing more, and nothing less.

I think we should go back to where we started before you get any crazy ideas in your head. Follow along, and if you touch anything so help me I will leave you stuck there in place of that banana peel.

It’s almost sort of soothing watching her, in a way. Seeing the way her hooves move just so, watching her tumble, knowing that no matter how many times she tries, she’ll never quite reach far enough...

Well, I find it soothing. It’s like the hands of a clock. Going around and around. This time she’s on a ten-second timer, of course, but we can make exceptions for a good analogy.

None of them from you though. You keep your mouth shut.

So that was it, I suppose. I hope you enjoyed yourself. I know I did... certain instances aside. Of course, as I said before, this is life. Not everything can be sunshine and daisies and watermelon ice cream.

Really? You’ve never had it. Well, I confess, it might have been a sorbet, but that’s not the point. Look around some time, you’ll really be doing yourself a favour.

I guess I’m to leave you here now. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure how you wound up here in the first place. Perhaps that means you’re free to wander? For all I know, you’re the reason any of this is here in the first place. This has been your tour, and Twilight’s basement your inscribed gate? Go forth, and witness all that is within! For this has been willed where what is willed must be!

Sorry, bit of a tangent there.

Look around for all I care. Personally, I think you’d be best off watching Twilight Sparkle for a while. Because, as far as I’m convinced, you can’t change anything. You’re very alike in some ways. Twilight knows it, even if she doesn’t know she knows it.

No matter how many times she dives forward, she’ll never catch her falling clock. She’ll keep trying and trying, yes, with as much gusto and fervor as she can muster, and every time have just the edge of it within her grasp, so close she can almost taste salvation. But every time, it will be snatched away, because she’s never done anything to change what will happen. You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results. That’s just madness.

What would you tell her, if you could? Pretend, for a minute, that in her ten seconds, there was enough time for you to say something. She’s already dropped it, you know. Ten seconds is a long time for a clock to fall... but as we’ve learned, time is hardly consistent. Do you think Mr. Cake took backwards marathon in his senior year of high school? Three minutes, at least.

So, what would you tell her? Clock already in the air. Oh, please, Twilight, if you could just move a little to your—and smash. Too late. That lovely word again.

Please. Don’t convince yourself there’s anything to be done. I’ll allow one metaphor here, and one metaphor only, if it will get you to simmer down. These little moments, if you will, are at least like life in the sense that you can’t live anyone’s for them. You can try, and goodness knows we’ve all seen it happen. Advice to friends, telling others the benefit of your experience, thinking you’re to have some hand in guiding them to where they need to go. And really, if that was the case—what would they do when they got there? They’d be just as confused as they were in the first place. No, things happen for a reason. I’m sure of it, and I’m the type who doesn’t even believe in reason on the best of days. It’s there, hiding, most of the time, which has always been a bit of a gripe of mine. But, there you go.

You thought if you let me I’d just keep talking, hm?

Oh, enough. Listen. Things do happen for a reason, this I’m sure of. You can ask as much as you want, what could be the reason? I don’t claim to know! You’re the one in favour of metaphors. This is, and simply is. A bit depressing, yes, but a great many other things are. The sign over the door of life, abandon all hope ye who enter here. There’s another one that got away, which I’m sure you’re pining over tying to something more real now. Honestly, the nerve of some guests.

Yes, it’s all an unintended consequence. You can’t say that we don’t make mistakes. Sometimes the consequences are more abrasive than we’d like them to be. Tell Twilight Sparkle in few seconds that she shouldn’t have put all this together. You will, will you? And what will she say when she hears you?

Well, I don’t think she’d have enjoyed seeing any of this. What was she doing down here in the first place anyway? That’s not the kind of question I want to answer.

Well... hm.

I suppose it’s possible. I’ve been playing around in here, but that’s none of my doing. Still... I’m not sure it would be right. For goodness’ sake, I could have done something earlier, when...

Alright. I’ll play along for a moment. Let’s have another look around, at least, and go from there.

As Twilight’s body hangs in the air, the clock frozen in perpetual descent, the rest of the room comes into focus around her.

There are tables filled with different parts and pieces of the experiment. Beakers and flasks and things mentioned previously, none of which have moved. Aside those, though, there are the notes. There are books filled with scribblings, and blackboards behind those, all of them covered in diagrams and musings and wonderings and calculations and indecipherable manuscript for figuring out what any of all this means. As it’s written, it’s fairly difficult to understand.

But there’s one notebook that has a more readable section. It has a picture taped to the front, like an archetypal blueprint. An unnamed, unshaded pony, an alicorn, standing with their wings and hooves outstretched, centered in a circle around their body.

There are words scrawled around the picture. Numbers, more calculations... but there are names written there. Names of the Princesses. Dates. More calculations.

A large question mark, followed by a series of dark, black dots.

And then a word. A single word, circled over and over.

TIME?

There’s a picture tucked underneath the notebook. A picture of Twilight and her five friends, hugging and smiling into the camera.

There’s a candle burning above the notebook, held in a metal apparatus, it’s flame forever frozen in an unwavering flicker.

Twilight is falling.

...Well.

Alright. That could mean anything, really. You, in charge of reading so much into things. I’ve said before; I see only what’s there, or in some cases, what isn’t at all. You’re just taking things and spinning them around, and that’s entirely unbecoming.

…

Though...

She’s beginning to get a bit tiresome in her falling, don’t you think?

I’m not suggesting anything, of course. I could watch this for hours still, years. Millenia.

But... her arrangement isn’t really proper. Don’t you think she’d look better, positioned just a bit? Pinkie Pie can stay of course, she’s barely contributing anything to the scene, her feng shui is all wrong... but Twilight could optimize the whole layout. Maybe if we just... moved her forward a little.

There. Don’t you think that’s better?

Twilight Sparkle stood in front of the table covered in peculiar apparati. Various dials and bobs spun around her, all accompanied by the ticking of the too-large clock she held in her hooves. The clock was hooked up to a variety of wires and lines, and it hummed as it ticked, throbbing in her hooves with a faint, emerald glow.

She stared into its face for a moment, as though expecting to see her reflection.

“Hiya Twilight!”

The sudden noise had a natural effect, which was to startle Twilight—normally a non-issue, though it wasn’t often the case that she was holding a large, fragile clock. As a result of her surprise, her hooves gave out, and sent her falling, and the clock with her.

She scrambled in the air, reaching towards it. Somehow, despite all knowledge of physics telling her that equal motion should present an equal trajectory, the clock seemed just out of reach. Still, she held out her hooves to touch it; to catch it before it hit the floor. Closer, closer to the floor, feeling just the edge of it on her hooves, the slick finish on the outside, until she felt the cold floor on her stomach and then—

The clock in her hooves. Teetering on them, wobbling and threatening to topple.

With a gasp, Twilight threw herself further forward, lurching on the floor. Her stomach chafed, but the clock settled into her hooves, its wobbling ceased.

Twilight let out a loud sigh. She turned her head after a few seconds.

“Pinkie! What on earth are you doing? You startled the heck out of me.”

Pinkie Pie smiled, in the way she always smiled.

“Sorry, Twilight. I just wanted to pop in and say hi.”

Even laid out on the basement floor, Twilight couldn’t keep her eyes from rolling.

She stood up, cradling the clock carefully in her forelegs, and set it down on a nearby table, the top of which was cluttered with various objects so far unused.

“You could at least give me some warning next time, Pinkie.”

Pinkie’s smile sank into a frown.

“I’m sorry, Twilight.”

Twilight looked sideways to the clock again. It was resting on top of one of her notebooks, covered in fountain pen scribbles—and underneath it, the corner of a photograph. She could just make out the six colours in the shadow of the clock’s frame. As it ticked on, steady, sitting on her notebook.

Twilight smiled.

“It’s okay, Pinkie. I’m still happy to see you.”

“Yay! I’m super glad.” Pinkie jumped out from her hiding place between the tables and hugged Twilight with a fierceness. Twilight gasped as the wind was knocked out of her for the second time in as many minutes, but she quickly collected herself and hugged back, smiling.

“So you just came over to say hi, huh?” Twilight asked, pulling herself away from the hug.

Pinkie nodded. “Yep!” But her expression caught suddenly, her eyebrows lowering. “Or, oh, wait! No, there was something I came over to ask.”

Twilight leaned backwards against one of the many tables. Beside her, held by a metal apparatus, a lit candle flickered.

Pinkie waved her hoof as in the air as she spoke. “I needed something, and when I found out I needed it, my nose twitched and I thought about purple, which meant you were the pony to ask.”

Twilight stood up from the table and looked towards Pinkie, who stared forward with earnest shimmer in her eyes.

“What is it, Pinkie? I’m happy to help out with whatever you need.”

Pinkie’s smile grew even wider, and she bounced a little on her hind legs, bobbling from side to side and shaking her head.

“I knew you would be!” Pinkie bounced once more, then turned suddenly, and from somewhere Twilight couldn’t see, pulled a large book which she threw open to a page in the middle. The paper inside was worn, and covered with various splotches and stains that looked worrisome and unfamiliar to Twilight.

“Twilight,” Pinkie said, pointing to a word on a page of the book. “I was trying to make something new from my cookbook, and my Pinkie Sense told me I should ask you for help... do you have some thyme I could borrow?”

Twilight sighed and pressed a hoof to her forehead.

Haha, good show! Alright, it’s possible I enjoyed that a little too much. Still... maybe you were right. There’s not too much harm in setting things on their course. After all, we can at least say that things won’t get boring again any time soon. As soothing as watching Twilight Sparkle fall on her face all day might be, I think I’d get tired of it after another hundred years or so. Though, it might be a fun game to see how many hats we could fit on her each time, before she started over...

Ahem. Anyway. I suppose I haven’t much more to say to you. You can wipe that smirk off your face, by the way. I’ve made a lifelong commitment against learning valuable lessons, friendship related or otherwise, and I intend to adhere to it. Nothing you or anypony else can do is going to change that.

Now. There is the matter of what to do with you. It’s all well and good for me to float around like this, but ponies start to turn their heads if anyone else does it. Plus, this whole ‘unstuck in time’ business is frankly a pain in the neck. It takes more effort to remember to wake up today than it does tomorrow.

I’ll just send you back, if that’s all well and good? Well, back as in... if you’re from around here, you won’t notice the difference. Somehow, you seem like a bit of a tourist to me, but we’ll let eventuality be the judge of that.

Come on now. It’s nothing to be scared of. Surely my monkeying with things has convinced you I know what I’m doing. Honestly, don’t worry. It will be over before you know it. Stay calm, take a deep breath. Think of something soothing. Twinkling lights and the smell of a pretty forest. Now, just like that, very good. We’ll be cheerful about it, if you like. Just as they say.

Give me your hand, if we be friends, and—

Ah, well. That would be spoiling it, wouldn’t it?

Refrain

The first thing I can remember, in all my life, is my mother’s voice. No words, but her voice, singing to me. I never considered my mother’s voice to be particularly harmonious—it was, when she spoke, stately and elegant, but in a not altogether entirely perfect fashion. It reminded me of the fine dining room tablecloth we would use on special occasions: gilded at the edges, proper enough for the fine china, but blemished with cigarette burns here and there, from the burning stubs my mother would let fall from her mouth before night’s end each time we took the cloth out. It also sometimes made me think of a crystal wine-glass that had been sanded around the edges: Clear, but sharp.

The tune she sang to me was one I heard often. It’s quite a simple song, nothing particularly challenging in terms of range or register. Of course, when I was young, I had no idea the words she was singing could be translated to or from notes on a page of music. To me, at that moment, and until I first learned to read music, they were something magical and inscrutable.

Another one of my earliest memories is being curled up on the floor against my mother’s hooves, and asking her to sing for me. I remember her smiling, all the while she put out her cigarette and sang as sweetly as she could manage. I didn’t know what the words meant, and even still later, as my mother refused to translate them for me, but I sung along, doing the best I could to follow the rise and fall of my mother’s voice. I’m not sure if I ever saw her smile more than she did that day.

I didn’t know, when I was young, that there was any meaning in that song—in a roundabout way, I’m still not sure there is. Music is black dots and lines on a page. Ponies speak of the significance of music—the capacity for depth and emotion, the moving nature of a melody or composition—but in the end, it’s all just notes. Something to be remembered and recited, over and over and over. I wonder sometimes if that’s the only reason I still remember that moment with my mother, surely long before I was old enough even to recall one day or the next. Perhaps I can remember because, in some way, I already knew that at a later date, it would be second nature to play from memory.

Life, unfortunately, is not a series of notes we can read out. it’s much more complicated than that, which might be why I have such a difficulty remembering more of it than I do. Maybe the pieces I can remember might mean something, if I put them together.

When I was still very young, probably just a toddler, I remember taking notice of the families around that were different than ours. On one of many trips across town, my mother dragging me by the hoof, I remember looking at another group of ponies, one of them my age, and two older.

Four both our lives together, we lived in Ponyville. My mother never said one way or another whether this was out of choice or obligation, though it’s not difficult to guess. The way she spoke about things—music, culture, literature—gave the impression always that she wished she had been born into higher estate. Maybe she was, at one time or another.

In any case, what I remember most of in my very young years are the streets of Ponyville. There was a great deal more mystery in the streets when I was young; alleys that I’m not sure ever really existed, dark and dingy that my mother would drag me through, sometimes pausing in search for something that might have been discarded there. I remember a lot of hooves, mostly because I was at their eye level when my mother led me around. Over time her excursions settled, but when I was still an infant there was no shortage of time that I should be brought with her, headed to wherever it was she decided she needed to be on any given day. Nowhere I can recall, unfortunately.

When I noticed the family in front of us, looking up for my first time from my mother’s hooves and tugging at her coat, she paused and looked back down at me. She would always smoke when we were out, as much as she smoked when we did anything else, and even though the cause for my sudden pause might have been a simple urgency, like needing to use the washroom, she stopped with an irritated look on her face, glaring at me through her glasses. Her glasses looked like her—elegant, ornately framed, and with a grey finish all around the sides, the perfect match to her mane I always remember being a lighter shade of greys—and, just like her, they weren’t quite in the state they had been made. One of the sides extending around her ear was frequently subject to breaking, which, in times between repair, forced her to hold them up with her hoof, like opera spectacles. I think sometimes she waited to have them fixed for that very reason.

“Yes, what is it?” Her voice was always urgent at that age. Over time I think it mellowed in away, when the bustle of the city streets faded into a proper house and things less in demand of the fury of her full attention.

“Mommy,” I said. Over time that word would leave my vocabulary, but at that age, it was still allowed. “Who are those ponies?’

It’s possibly remarkable in some fashion that I was as articulate at that age as I was—most likely a byproduct of my mother’s mumbling into my ear beneath the crowd. Telling me things about them, and putting the seed of vocabulary into my mind, to later sprout into proper words and perception.

My mother looked up at the family in question; a stallion, mare, and child that I can’t recall the colour of. As much as I might be able to recall this particular memory, it wasn’t anything about the group that stood out, other than that there were three of them.

“I’ve no idea. Is there something about them you’ve found necessary to hold us up for?”

I think it’s a wonder that my mother didn’t simplify her speech when talking to me—but that most likely plays into the vocabulary I mentioned above.

“Why’s there three of them?”

I can’t tell if my mother’s face soured then, or if it was simply as bitter as she always kept it. In my mind, I think the corner of her mouth turned more into a sneer than usual.

She stewed over the question for a while, which was an oddity. Usually any answer was on the tip of her tongue before I finished the question. The two of us stood for a while wherever it was we were, letting all the ponies around pass like a busy stream around two grey rocks.

“Well,” she said finally, “why shouldn’t there be?”

“But there’s only two of us,” I said. “They have one more. Who’s that?”

My mother looked up from me to the family again. I did the same, watching them. Again, while I can’t remember the colours, I have some of the particulars. The stallion had a mustache I remember, bushy, and a black hat with a buckle. The mother’s hair was up in a bun, maybe violet. And the child had a small stuffed animal with her, which she was moving through the air like it was flying. Her parents stood next to each other, just behind her, and smiled.

“That’s the girl’s father,” my mother said, as though the word might suddenly make sense. For everything she’d ingrained in me with her unfiltered vocabulary, that was a word I didn’t know.

“Father?” I asked, rolling the unfamiliar word around in my mouth. While at that age I was still allowed to use the word ‘Mommy’, in later years it would be replaced by its proper formal equivalent. I looked up then, at that word, imminently perplexed by it. Even being young, I could intuit the meaning of the syllables—two ponies and someone my age, one a word I knew, the other this new word. I had a mother. This girl had someone else. A father.

“Why don’t we have a father?” I asked.

Then, for certain, my mother’s face turned like spoiled wine. She dropped her cigarette to the ground, I remember, and stamped on it with her hoof.

“There’s no need for questions like that,” she said. An oddly sparing chastisement in the face of her sudden unpleasant reaction.

“But why?” I asked.

“It’s simply unnecessary,” she said. “We’ve no need of a stallion. The two of us are simply enough. Understand?” She kneeled down low to me then, staring me straight in the eye, adding weight to her words with the force of her piercing blue, like sky-coloured tea-cups.

I wanted to ask more, but I think at that moment I knew better. So, I simply nodded, and she nodded back, and stood. And we walked forward, with only a glance back from me at the family, still standing in perfect reflection, solid as we were in that river of ponies walking by, with nothing else in the world but their bodies, and the look in their eyes as their daughter played and laughed like she hadn’t a care in the world.

That’s all I remember of that day.

While I can’t recall how we came into our first house, I remember the house quite distinctly. It was, in a way that many things were, so much like my mother, though I guess that this is simply a judgement passed in a reflection of a lifetime spent sharing it with her. Ponies often say that about me, or did, when they were the sort that knew her; ‘You’re so much like your mother,’ they would say, when I was growing up, meeting them on the way home from school or on days off. And I would smile and nod and say thank you, and my mother, if she was present, would nod her head approvingly and drawl on about how of course, I was just like her at her age, destined for great things. She had been in the opera, of course, but given it all up when she immigrated. She had been in a conservatory far off overseas. Where? Oh, heavens, no need for details. That was then, and this was now, she’d say.

But that’s jumping ahead. The house of my youth, and even further on my adolescence. It wasn’t as much like my mother as other things; contrary to the fine china we somehow kept unused amongst the scavenged dishes taken out for everyday meals, or the army of decorations that littered every shelf inside, the house itself was quite drab. From the outside, it was purely unremarkable—dilapidated, even. The finish was a too thick layer of brown paint, which only served to make the entire wood structure look like it was set to fall apart at any moment, as it probably was. Somehow, despite a lack of any awareness on my part of what it was my mother did at that age, or how she managed to scrape together the bits to afford it, we were able to move into this house, complete with two stories, and a special room where I would spend most of my childhood—most likely more of it than in my bedroom. It was empty when we first moved in.

“This is a real solid structure.” I remember the pony we spoke to the day we moved in. He was a far-off sorts, not in the way we were far off, or mother was, but in a ‘too local to be local’ sort of way. He practically dripped grease when he spoke, and though I couldn’t place it then, I believe now he spoke with an Manehatten accent. Something from the downtrodden streets of ponies who could sell you the city bridge without batting an eyelash. He had a hat, slightly too small for his head, and he shared a smoke with mother after we were done with the tour, leaning against the wall of the brown peeling paint and talking about this that and the other thing. While he talked a lot when called upon, he seemed to know when it was best to listen.

As he commented on the building, myself and my mother inside the bottom floor of the house, he leaned sideways against one of the walls. I remember seeing his hoof shuffle quickly to cover a dent in the wall as he noticed it. I wanted to tug at my mother’s leg to point it out, but she moved away from me quickly as her eyes went over the rest of the house’s interior. She had only been inside for a moment before she walked into that room, like she was drawn to it. She put out her cigarette on her hoof, something I didn’t often see her do, and stood in the center of it. It was the one room with a glass door, I remember, while the rest were tarnished wood, or simply not there at all.

“Ah,” said the pony with the slick accent, “this is a nice little bonus as well. This room’d be perfect for all kinds a’ stuff. You could turn it into an office, a study, a guest bedroom—”

“—a music room,” my mother interjected. She stepped closer to the far end of the room as she spoke, and held her hoof up to it, running it over the marred splotches of white paint. Her voice sounded almost musical then, reaching a softer tenor than her pointed edge of articulation often neared.

“Well, for sure.” The realtor pony adjusted his hat and took a cigarette out of his coat. He put it to his lips, but didn’t light it, perhaps assuming that he might do well to follow my mother’s lead. He stepped into the room behind her and watched her for a second as she appraised the room.

“You a musician?” he asked. My mother turned to him after a few seconds with a sort of haze still in her eyes, and me standing outside the room, watching both of them.

“Years ago I was in the opera. Nowhere near here, of course.” She walked around the room slowly, tracing her hoof along the wall. In her head, I imagine she was picturing the shelves of sheet-music that might go there, with room in the middle for the all-important centerpiece. She stopped suddenly and turned with a half-smile on her face. “My husband was a concert pianist. Very talented.”

“Issat so?” the realtor asked, rolling the cigarette in his mouth. “Anypony I woulda heard of?”

“I don’t believe so,” my mother said. “He passed some years ago, before he had a chance to become well known over here.”

“My condolences.” Somehow, when he said it, the words sounded about as sincere as a street vendor’s hocking. But my mother seemed to appreciate it. She smiled, but didn’t say anything.

After a quick tour of the rest of the rooms, the paperwork was signed, and we had, for the first time, a house to call our own. There was scarce little furniture to go around—we hadn’t secured any bedding that I can recall, and so slept together on a pile of blankets in one of the empty bedrooms. But for most of that first day, as I ran about the house, laughing and playing games by myself, my mother stood in the music room, staring off into the distance, and humming occasionally to herself. That tune she always hummed. Smiling.

I never really knew what it was my mother did for finances. That’s an odd thing to say, looking back. Certainly, there was money around, in that we ate, though not entirely well. Meals most nights were some variety of flavorless mush, or vegetables that were always more brown than green, wilting before the steam hit them and tasting like day’s-old dirt in my mouth. Somehow, though, we always had enough to get by. I suppose owning the house rather than renting made a difference, though it also meant that the upkeep was ours alone to manage. All the holes in the walls, the plumbing that malfunctioned from time to time, spurting water out of a leaky drain, or more often than not simply refusing to let out a drop of hot water no matter how hard the handle was turned. When school started, and I arrived at class with my thin brown coat and a lunchbox with a single, unsavory looking apple, I felt odd, because the ponies there all seemed different. They were all shiny and new, while I, only in my first year, felt as old as the coat I was wearing.

Mother claimed from time to time that she had a great inheritance which she was given, and was simply metering it out so that I wouldn’t become spoiled and decadent. When I would ask her, before I learned better of it, to treat me to this or that, an ice cream or a toy I spotted on one our less-frequent excursions, she would cluck her tongue at me and narrow her eyes behind her glasses.

“There’s no need for things like that, Octavia,” she would say, pulling me promptly from the window of whatever treasure I had affixed myself upon. “Come now, we’re in a hurry.” And off we would go. I could never manage more of a protest than to ask, once.

Certainly my mother had some form of employment—she would meet ponies from time to time, mostly older, educated, prim-and-proper higher-class sorts whom she would say were business partners. In the depths of my reckoning, I can’t recall anything untoward in the exchanges I had with them: nothing that suggested anything more than was there. I would guess that my mother found some form of salary in private teaching, though she was careful never to let on to me who or what she might be teaching, if that was indeed what she was doing. The thing I remember particularly was that, no matter how it was the case, we managed to stay afloat somehow, and that though she may have worked in some way or another, she was always there when I left for school, and there still when I came home in the evening.

“Isn’t it marvelous, Octavia?”

The reverence in my mother’s voice was the same form in sound that I’d seen in her smile the first day we moved. Only a few months after, before I was set to begin attending school that year, my mother spent the most money on something that I’d ever seen her—or, till this day, have still ever seen. After picking up some used mattresses and basic kitchen utensils, we went without any further additions to the house until that day.

I was woken up by my mother, which was an oddity. I understand it’s usually the convention of children to be bright-eyed and ready to go most of the time before their parents—but that day, my mother shook me awake like it was Hearth’s Warming morning, and dragged me downstairs with a glimmer in her eyes on the way to the room that had been empty when I went to bed. I don’t know how I slept through the moving, unless the ponies in question happened to be very skilled, and very quiet. Given what I appraised to be the cost of the thing they had moved, I suppose that’s not out of the question.

In the center of the room my mother had dubbed the ‘music room’, where only blank space and far-eyed glances had been before, a huge piano greeted me that morning. Even in my complete ignorance, I could tell it was expensive. Unlike everything else in our house, which was drab and dingy and reeked perpetually of an unknown odor no matter how many times it was washed or cleaned, the piano shone. It glimmered, even with just a hint of light creeping in from outside, like it was a polished stone hewn into a single entity. Even though I didn’t know what it was, or what to make of it, I ‘oooh’d appropriately as my mother opened the door.

“It’s a hoof-crafted original from Prance,” my mother said, standing at the doorway as she held the door open and let me inside. I immediately began circling the thing, like it was even more of a strange, foreign object than it actually was. I was in awe of it, which I think my mother appreciated.

“The kind your father used to play,” she said, running her hoof along the finished body. That was, I think, the first time I heard her mention him. I was almost too occupied to take notice, but I wasn’t about to let the word I had wondered at for some time just slide by.

“Where is father?” I asked. The word sounded more proper than my youthful intonation could make it. Unlike last time I’d broached the subject, my mother’s expression stayed sedate.

“He left before you were born,” she said, her hoof still on the piano.

“You told the house-selling pony that he passed.” I chewed the memory over for a few seconds before digging out the meaning I’d put together from the context. “Does that mean he died?”

My mother was silent for a few seconds before she turned to me. Her expression was still soft, like the smile on her face was frozen in a kind of consolatory haze.

“Oh, dear, that’s not something we discuss openly with just anypony. Passing is just a... simpler explanation.”

“So he’s not dead?” I stepped towards the piano, getting so close I could feel the glow of its shining surface in my eyes.

“Who knows? Some things, you’ll find, Octavia, are better left uncertain.”

I don’t think at the time I was content with my mother’s explanation, but I was understanding enough at that point to know that further questioning wasn’t likely to lead anywhere. So, with my line of inquiry stymied, I stopped looking at the piano, let my hoof rest on it the way my mother’s did, and looked at it.

Despite the fact that the giant instrument may as well have been an indecipherable machine, there was something that made my touch linger over it. Somehow, there was an energy about it—whether I could feel my mother’s breathless wonder permeating the wood, or if it was simply a foreboding awareness of what it might come to mean.

My mother smiled as she watched me run my hooves over the fine finish until I reached the cover at the front. My mother’s hoof met my own, and I looked up at her. Still smiling.

“Would you like to see?” she asked.

I nodded.

The way she lifted the cover off was almost worshipful—so slow, so carefully, until at last the cover was up, revealing a full span of white and black keys from one end to the other.

I remember letting out an ‘aaah’, to my mother’s approval. The two of us stood in front of the piano for a while, neither of us speaking, barely breathing, white and black keys shining, inches away from our hooves—until finally, my mother spoke.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Her words came out in a single breath. I nodded again.

“It’s alright,” she said. “You can touch it.”

I was apprehensive. Even being around something so new and pure seemed wrong.

“Go on,” she said. “That highest one there, the white one. Press down on it.”

While I was reticent to paw at something so beautiful with my clumsy, dirty hooves, I did as my mother requested. Softly, nervously, with no certainty, I put my hoof on the highest key and pushed it down.

A single, quiet note rang out. As it hung in the air, so softly, my mother closed her eyes and sighed. She waited until the last trace of the note had vanished before opening her eyes again.

“Your father could play so beautifully,” she said, running her hoof over the keys without depressing them. She stopped halfway and lifted her hoof.

“And someday, you will too.”

I nodded, silent, knowing still there was no sense in asking questions. Not knowing that, as the years went by, the piano I was so in awe of at that moment would become the thing I hated more than anything else in the world.

Initially, my mother intended to teach me herself. In the first few weeks, when the piano was still new, she would sit down with me in the newly christened ‘music room’, plunk me down on the stool and tell me which keys I should press. Even with a complete ignorance of what I was doing, I knew the notes sounded pretty—but some were prettier than others, and I wasn’t sure what to do to make them all sound that way.

“This,” my mother said, pointing to the white key before the two black ones, “is a C. Press down on that one.”

I pressed. A middle C played.

“Good. Now, that one, down two—press that.”

I pressed. A lower note rang out. My mother smiled.

“That’s an A. Those two notes are very special. Play the first one again.”

I pressed. C.

“Now the other.”

A.

“Now keep playing them like that, back and forth.”

My timing must have been terrible, but I tried my best to do as directed, sticking my tongue out between my teeth and focusing as hard as I could on going back and forth between those notes. C. A. C. A.

After a minute or so, my mother began to sing.

It was the same tune she always sang—the one form when I was too young to know anything but her voice, that she hummed to me when she put me to sleep; that she’d hum when tidying the house, and later dusting the figures she collected on every available inch of shelving; or whistled, when making dinner. It’s a tune that, to this day, I cannot forget.

But, with the clumsy back and forth of my playing, it somehow sounded different. More, in a way.

My mother sang for a while as I played, until she stopped with a soft smile and held her hoof up to signal to me to do the same.

“Your father used to play that song for me,” she said.

That was the first time she taught me, but not the last. Subsequent sessions, however, were not as productive. For one thing, though I appreciated the beauty of the sounds I was making in an abstract sense, I didn’t find anything particularly engaging about the piano. I sat down at it once or twice of my own accord to plunk out a few notes, ignorant of theory and still wondering why certain notes sounded better than others. I remember making up a simple song or two, but didn’t have much more interest than that. After a few weeks, even the shiny new piano was boring, and I went back to playing games with myself, and wondering aloud to my mother what our neighbours might be like, and if they would play with me if I said hello. My mother put up with half a month of my relative disinterest until she sat me down one morning and informed me she was going to teach me.

It was, in a word, miserable.

For one, despite the basic knowledge she had displayed, as well as her claim of a background in opera, my mother seemed to have no real understanding of theory. She would tell me certain places to press, but seemed to be as unsure feeling her way along the keys as I was. She only knew a few songs that she could attempt to translate to the piano, and while she would put up with my amateurish attempts to play at her insistence for a while, she would quickly become frustrated, stressing me to ‘play better’. I had no idea what that meant—the only notes I knew were the ones she told me—and after my desperate attempts at embellishments, which sounded awful, she would scream at me, saying things like “Your father played much better!” Sometimes I would cry, but mostly just apologized.

Two months after we got our piano, my birthday came.

The day was, for all intents and purposes, unremarkable. I didn’t have the benefit of exposure to friends or other ponies to know what I was missing, other than what I had absorbed through convention and assimilation in text or observation. I wasn’t completely shut off from the world—my mother would let me out to fraternize with the ponies playing outside, but was always lingering nearby to swoop in if somepony she deemed unsavoury caught my attention. More often than not she would prefer to have me practicing, even though I still had no understanding of exactly what it was I was practicing. We had a meal in the evening that was very much the same as every other meal we’d had that week.

“I’ve gotten you a gift,” she said. It was sudden, an interruption as I was midway through a mouthful of food. I remember being taken aback. While the day that far had been like any other, a gift meant acknowledgement. It meant my mother knew it was my birthday as much as I did, and all the hopes and dreams I had built up might at least be salvaged in something I could use to pretend that for at least one day a year, I was significant.

“Here,” she said, hoisting something over the table. She set it down and shoved it towards me. It was fully wrapped, and the flowery pattern of the paper made a shuffling sound as it moved across the table. I pushed my plate aside and took the box in my hooves. It was much smaller than I expected, but it was still a gift, and so, I opened it with fervor, tearing the wrapping paper off with no reverence for its intricate designed.

The wrapper paper fell away to reveal a simple, wooden box. I pushed it open and peered inside. A strange object greeted me, with a long arm and several notches along the front.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s a metronome,” my mother said simply, as though I would know what the word meant.

“A what?” I picked the object up curiously, and with some apprehension. Even from just looking at it, the same way with our piano, I could tell it was expensive, fragile.

“A metronome,” my mother repeated. “It’s used to keep time when practicing music.”

She said it with a certain smugness. Maybe that much is misremembered in the haze of the emotion that overtook me at that point. Somehow, in all the weeks of forced failure at the piano, and of a whole birthday made to culminate in a gift I had no understanding or use for, my emotions came together. I remember the tears starting, for once without the crying that usually went with them. A hot stream trickling down my cheeks as I held in my hooves the gift that my mother had given me, and at that moment that I loathed as much as her.

“It uses quartz to keep accurate,” she explained, not noticing the clenching of my jaw or the pouring of tears from my eyes. “It’s very high quality.”

“Why did you get this for me?” She looked up at me then as if seeing me for the first time, and at that point must have noticed my crying. The soaking of my coat the way that it did when sorrow flowed over. The way my hooves shook as I held the metronome.

“Oh, come now, Octavia, show some tact. It was very expensive, and goodness knows you’ll be making use of it.”

“For what?” I practically shouted the question. I had enough sense to set the metronome back into its box, knowing full well that if I kept hold of it I was likely to hurl it into the wall.

“What do you mean ‘for what’?” she asked. “Why, for your piano, of course.”

“I hate the piano!” I stood up from the table then, barely high enough to see over it from my chair, which I quickly dismounted. I wanted to turn and run at that moment, but the air was too thick for me to cut myself free just yet. I could feel my mother’s contempt for my display of emotion twisting into her own bitterness, evident as it shone through in the down-curl of her mouth.

“There’s no need for that sort of sentiment, dear. You may say that now, but I can feel it in you; you’ve got an aptitude, the same as your father, and I’ll let myself go to the grave before I allow you to waste it.”

I didn’t speak then. As much as words might have bubbled behind my lips, wanting so badly to let me spit them at her like acid, I held my tongue. She waited a few seconds, then adjusted her plate as though it was entirely proper to return to her meal. That was enough to give me the strength to speak up, though my temper had begun to abate.

“I don’t want to play the piano,” I said. “I hate it.”

“There you go again. Really, don’t be foolish, Octavia. You were born to play the piano as sure as you were born at all.”

“But what if I want to play something else?” I tried to reason, looking around the room. Various statuettes and figurines had begun to coalesce in all rooms of the house by that point, though they were then a far-stretch from the colossal collection they would one day become. On the mantlepiece nearby the living-room window, a miniature orchestra sat, frozen in the perpetual motion of their soundless performance.

“Like the violin?” I asked. “Or the cello?”

My mother cleared her throat quite distinctly, as though she’d practiced it in another life.

“Well, that would be simply a shame, because it’s the piano you’re going to play.”

I remember visibly shaking as I stared at my mother from the other side of the table, willing her to suddenly burst into flame—to wither into nothing for the stupid ‘high-quality’ quartz she had given me on the one day I was meant to feel special.

“I’ve signed you up for lessons as well. Not that I imagine you might be convinced of how generous a gift of that sort is... but you’ll thank me when all is said and done.”

That was the last I could take. I ran up to my room, plate of half-eaten food still on the table, metronome in its wooden box. My mother, chewing daintily, not batting an eyelash at her daughter as she ran away, crying.

Piano lessons started next week.

Despite the eloquent piano in the downstairs of our house, I went to the local music store for lessons—Hoof and Sound. The practice room in the back was a good deal more clinical than our house: the walls were padded with a green material I was told was soundproof, and the shelves were lined with textbooks, musical implements and instruments, folios and sheet music and carrying cases. There was a whole shelf of metronomes, which, when shown, prompted me to present my birthday gift and quietly say that I had brought my own. The pony who showed me around just chuckled at that.

He was the same pony who led me into the back room for lessons. While faces are something I find I have no gift for remembering, I do remember the way he looked. He was an older stallion, with a great big bushy beard and mustache that circled the entire lower half of his face in pure white. His mane was the same colour, a brilliant contrast against his coat, which was a matte brown. A swirl of music notes circled on his flank, surely at least assurance for my mother that he was good at what he did. At least he had the benefit of direction in his cutie mark: my mother, for example, was possessed of an empty crystal wineglass on her side. While there are inferences to be drawn from such a mark, there’s likely a great deal more about it best left unsaid.

As he led me into the practice room, I remember feeling the worst I’d ever felt up till then. At least in the comfort of my home, no matter how awful my mother decided to be, or how miserable I was for disappointing her, at least then I was safe. Out in the wide world, away from my mother’s watching eye, I was setting hoof entirely into the unknown. The music instructor seemed nice, but that wasn’t enough to stay the rapid imaginings in my head of horrible scenarios and unspeakable horrors that might be waiting for me, hidden under his veneer of a smile. More than that, it wasn’t that I was afraid of being killed or kidnapped or tortured; I was afraid of being judged. My mother had given me a good preclusion for that.

“So,” he said as he sat down with me at the piano. His hooves came noticeably close to mine, and I shuffled sideways as imperceptibly as I could manage.. I could feel a sweat on my coat. “You want to learn the piano, eh?” He had a voice like a real old stallion, or like the imaginary, ideal version of one; loose dentures and cursing adolescent colts and fillies to get off his lawn, dagnabbit. Now I can recall it as being a delightfully pastoral sort of reassurance, but at the time, it was terrifying.

‘So you want to learn the piano,’ he’d asked. No. Of all the things in the world I did not want to do, this was at the top of the list.

“Yes,” I said, a squeak so quiet I could feel him lean towards me to hear better.

“Well,” he said, “you’ve chosen quite the instrument. There’s no instrument so rich in history or complexity as the piano. It’s capable of some of the world’s most moving music, and the choice of some of the most talented performers in Equestria, or even in the world.”

I didn’t say anything. I just shuffled further down the bench in an attempt to move further away from his low-hanging beard. I could feel the edge of the bench underneath my legs.

“Your mother tells me you already know how to play a little. Would you like to show me?”

No. Please, just let me go home, let me do anything but the piano, let me go home and kick the one downstairs until it’s in pieces on the floor and I never have to look at it again.

“I guess.”

He smiled at me like I was the cutest thing in the world, which I may have been to him. While he was smiling, I wanted to throw up.

But, he stood up from the bench and let me slide to the center, which I did with hesitance. I took up the keys with the same attitude, letting my hooves hover over them as though I might play them only by letting my body fall apart and collapse forward.

With my breath laboured and my heart beating louder in my chest than anything else I could hear, I played for him the simple song that I knew, and that I had always known, in some way or another. I made a great many mistakes, even noticeable in a way that I could tell. There was no end to the song, as my mother was usually the one to get me to stop, by humming out the last bar of the melody which I would attempt to follow with my right hoof, or by screaming at me when I got something particularly wrong.

My hooves shook as I settled them into my lap. I didn’t turn to look at him.

He made a sound that, in my terrified brain, didn’t register as a chuckle until I turned around and saw him smiling.

“That’s quite impressive for a filly your age. Do you know the name of that song you were playing?”

I shook my head.

“It’s a very famous song,” he said, standing to reach a hoof up to one of the many shelves of sheet music. He shuffled through the folders before pulling one out and opening it. He gestured for me to slide down the bench, which I did, giving him more than enough room to sit, whereupon he lifted the sheet he had selected to the holder and laid it out atop the keys.

I looked up at it as though it was a bomb waiting to go off. The notes on the page leered back at me, a slew of menacing curly-queues, dots and dashes and lines and symbols and notation written in a language I couldn’t interpret, even when it was using letters I recognized. Concerto. Allegrezza.

“It’s an old, old folk tune from overseas... nowhere in particular, and in fact the original composer isn’t even known. Over the years it’s been adapted to a variety of formats... operas, symphonies, concertos... that’s the one I’ve put up there. Have a look, would you?”

I peered at the sheet music again. Somehow, I was meant to believe that the incomprehensible mess of squiggles I was looking at was the same thing as the song I had just played.

“Do you know what any of that means?” The instructor leaned in close enough that I could feel the phantom tickle of his beard on my shoulder.

I shook my head.

“That one there,” he said, gesturing to the first in a cluster of black blobs, “is a note called C... along with some other notes above it that make it sound nicer.”

“I know C,” I said, letting the admission slip out before I could stop it.

The old pony raised an eyebrow at me.

“So you can read after all?”

I shook my head again.

The instructor cocked his head at me. He held a stare for a few seconds before shifting his hoof slightly to the right.

“Do you know what note that is?”

My tongue felt thick in my mouth, but something inside compelled me to answer.

“A,” I said.

“Yes, that is an A. You’re sure you don’t know how to read this?”

Again, head shake.

“What about this one?” he asked, moving his hoof over.

“C,” I said. “Then A again. F. G. C, G—”

He held up a hoof to stop my flood of notes. I would have kept going through the whole song otherwise, I’m sure.

I could feel myself breathing, staring intently at my hooves at rest in my lap.

“You’ve got quite an aptitude for music, miss... I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Octavia,” I blurted out, hooves still tucked between my legs.

“Grace Note,” he said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance."

I stared down and said nothing.

“Is this a song you’d like to learn to play, Octavia?”

My first instinct was to shake my head; to be rid of that song and the piano and to go home and never listen to another not of music for the rest of my life.

But a face jumped out at me behind my eyes. Her face, soft, smiling as she swayed and sang to me as I sat at the piano. The metronome I’d pulled from it’s wooden box ticking on top of our piano, instead of nestled safely in the bag I’d brought with me to my lesson. C. A. C. A.

“Yes,” I said.

Grace Note nodded with a wide grin on his face.

“Wonderful. This particular version is quite complex, but I’m sure I can find some simpler versions for you to start with.” He gathered the sheet music and stood up to put it back on the shelf.

“Tell me... are you doing any technique exercises?” he asked while straightening the music folders on their shelf.

I shook my head for a second before realizing he couldn’t see me.

“No.”

“I noticed your timing was a little off—nothing to be worried about, certainly not at your age! But, you would certainly benefit from some simple practice drills—tempo, note articulation, etcetera. You’ll want to get a decent metronome, though I’m sure I have one you can borrow if need be.”

“I have my own,” I said. Grace Note turned to me with a slanted grin.

“Ah, that’s right, you do! Forgive my memory, it’s not what it used to be. Did you bring it with you?”

Nod.

“May I see it?”

I dived into my bag like I wanted to burrow into it, scurrying through until I found the birthday gift I’d brought with me. I held it out to Grace Note. His eyes lit up when he saw it.

“My word! That’s quite the timekeeper you have. I can see you’re serious about this music business.”

I didn’t say anything—just jumped up onto the bench and sat with my metronome in my hooves.

“A good metronome is invaluable,” Grace Note said, taking a seat next to me. “Anyone can read music after enough practice, but timing is something very difficult to learn without proper assistance—like that metronome there. If you study, however, you can develop a sense of rhythm that will benefit you your whole life! Rhythm, believe it or not, is everywhere. In movement, in speech... and of course, in music.

Quiet. Didn’t want to say anything.

Grace note seemed to think that was funny. He laughed and patted me on the shoulder, which made me cringe slightly.

“Well, I can tell you’re tired of listening to an old stallion’s ramblings. Shall we get on with the lesson?”

I nodded.

Over the rest of the hour, Grace Note taught me more about music than anything I’d learned from my mother. I learned that the few letters I knew were just some of a slew of notes, including the ugly sounding black keys that were called sharps. I learned that a cluster of notes together was called a chord, though I was told I should work on my articulation before trying those. And, I was shown how to practice to the steady tick tick of the metronome, keeping time as I ran through a simple, shortened scale, over and over again.

Before I knew it, the lesson was over.

“Well, that’s probably enough for today. How are you feeling? Does it seem like too much to take in all at once?”

I nodded, mostly because I was sure it was what he was expecting.

“Well, that’s understandable. Don't worry about getting it all at once. After all, you’re getting quite a head start. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you to practice.”

Yes. My whole life.

“Now, just get your metronome there, if you could. Your mother should be here to pick you up soon.”

I’d grabbed my bag, along with my metronome and new folders of exercises, and was just about to walk out of the practice room when I saw it. Leaning against the wall, a life sized version of the one being played in stasis on our mantelpiece: A cello.

Grace Note must have caught me looking, because he slowed behind me as we approached the door. For the first time of my own volition that day, I spoke.

“Is that... a cello?”

“Ah, you’ve got a good eye, it certainly is. Crafted right here in Ponyville, I believe. This one’s used mostly by students, for practice, so it’s not in the best shape. Still has a good sound to it though.”

“Can I... can I see it?”

Grace Note’s eyes lit up. He laughed in that way I was beginning to notice he always laughed, and nodded his head after a minute.

“Of course you can, my dear.” He picked up the cello and held it towards me. “Go on.”

It felt different.

The wood wasn’t anything like the lacquered wood of our piano. It was worn—used—real. It felt a bit heavy as I held it, but it leaned on the ground easily, into a natural feeling fit against my body. I ran my hoof over the strings, touching an instrument’s strings for the first time, as the piano’s were always locked away it its giant, hollow body. I touched them lightly, barely strong enough to move them at all.

Grace Note cleared his throat. I looked up at him, and he held something out.

A bow. Just like the figure had.

“You’ll want this as well,” he said.

The bow felt unfamiliar, like a new limb meant to be added to my body. I turned it over a few times until I found the side I knew from the figure must go against the string. I could feel my hoof shaking as I set it against the cello.

“Go on,” Grace Note said. His voice sounded bright.

So I went. I held the bow against the string and pulled.

No piano could ever make a sound like that. A single, low, sorrowful note, held like a mourning wail, trembling at the edges as the bow moved across.

The room shook with it, or perhaps just my body, lingering in suspension until the final traces of the note ebbed. At some point, I opened my eyes and remembered to breathe.

Grace Note was there, smiling at me.

“It’s quite a remarkable sound, isn’t it?”

I don’t think I even managed to nod.

I felt something. I’m not sure what it was, or even looking back, how I might describe it. It was something like a bubble welling up inside me, but bursting, all with a pleasant warmness that seeped from my chest to every inch of my body. It broke, and flooded, and in that room the air might have shone.

Amongst all that, I felt a particular tingle on my side. It took me long enough to look towards it that I wasn’t the first to react.

“My word!” Grace Note practically shouted. It was that which turned my head, just in time to see the final sparkles of the thing that had appeared on my side. A symbol which I had no understanding of at the time, other than the very limited flirtation with it I’d had over the last hour under Grace Note’s instruction. A symbol that I know now is called a clef, emblazoned on my flank.

“In all my years of teaching, I’ve never had that happen before.” Grace Note was so taken he had to sit down on the piano bench again, leaving me there with the cello and bow in my hooves, eyes glazed over like I was on another planet. For the first time, the sound I had made wasn’t something I hated. It wasn’t something my mother had told me to play. And now a mark of it was left on my side.

“Remarkable, my dear girl, simply remarkable. Are you certain you shouldn’t be studying the cello instead?”

I think I set the cello down then, and took another minute to examine my mark. I can’t decide if some cruel irony placed it there, or if the heavenly agent that bestows cutie marks simply didn’t know that a cello is usually played with a bass clef—at least in that way it was convenient to explain, which is exactly what I did when my mother showed up to retrieve me. With as limited elaboration as I could manage, I just told her I had gotten the mark during my music lesson. Me, still-not-old-enough-to-be-in-school Octavia, had gotten her cutie mark during a music lesson.

“Well, that’s it then, dear. You really are destined for the piano, you see?”

I never did tell her the rest of what had happened.

After several months of piano lessons I was finally enrolled in school proper, complete with a body of musical knowledge more vast than was useful. There was a great deal to unlearn about my mother’s teachings first before I could begin to properly play the piano—though, Grace Note was right, I did seem to have an aptitude for it. It was no surprise, then, that the first day of school, one the only occasions I had been without my mother aside from piano lessons, I spent the whole day occupying myself away from my anxiety by reciting piano exercises in my head. Moving my hooves underneath or on top of my desk in an attempt to whittle away the hours until I could go home. It wasn’t something I did for pleasure—it was just better than the alternative.

At one point on that first day, everyone around the class was forced to introduce themselves. One by one, each pony stood up and said something about themselves with varying degrees of nervousness: what their name was, how old they were, what they liked to do. Some kids were into collecting rocks, some into sports, most into just doing whatever. When I stood up, I collected a chorus of ‘oooh’s and ‘aaah’s for being the only pony in the room, aside from the teacher, with a cutie mark.

“My name is Octavia,” I said, quiet enough that I could see the teacher urging me with her eyes to speak up. “I like—I play the piano.” I stopped myself before the first sentence could get out. Thought finished, I sat back down, and tried to pretend I was somewhere that neither music nor school existed.

Getting home that day (mother asserted that I was old enough to walk home from school by myself), I was gushed over. How was school? Did I make any friends? What did everypony think of my cutie mark?

I told her the day was fine, and then went to practice. This process repeated for some time.

The metronome I took with me to my first day of lessons became more of a companion than anything else in my youth. A diligent practice schedule and an overbearing mother left no time for socializing. On the off chance that I did manage to draw the attention of a neighbourhood pony or someone from school, my mother’s disdainful glare and mumbled bitterances were usually enough to scare the prospective friend away. So, I learned to take comfort in the things I had, which were very few. One of them included the metronome.

It took me some time to understand what about it might be so important. Couldn’t anypony keep time with a clock, or a watch? Couldn’t you just figure the tempo out by yourself? Who cared about tempo anyway? It was Grace Note that told me, in his very oldpony fashion, that timekeeping was a lost discipline of modern music, and that nowadays ponies just smashed their hooves wherever and hoped for the best. Yes yes, it was all well and good to play with passion, and emotion, but what about precision? Articulation? He stressed to me over and over that it was a rigid adherence to proper rhythm that would help me develop to the best of my abilities. And so the metronome went with me everywhere, even when I wasn’t practicing. I would set it to let it tick, dancing back and forth to a tempo until I was sure I could turn it off and keep time for an absence of its ticking.

The sound became almost second nature at a point. A sort of hypnotic, therapeutic back and forth that I would catch myself thinking about when it was gone. During recess at school, I’d pull the metronome of my bag, being very careful to be gentle with it, lest I break the quartz crystal inside, and set it to a slow, steady beat. I would close my eyes and envision a giant pendulum swaying, rocking from one side to the other, and sometimes me with it, until anything I had on my mind that day would disappear, replaced only by the ticking of the metronome.

I kept it on every time I practiced as well. Even for simple songs I could master after a short time, I would start with a slow tempo, then gradually build up until I reached the peak of reasonable articulation—then go back down until a cheerful scherzando piece was transformed into a dirge. My mother would occasionally hum along and nod her approval from the door. Thankfully, she never interrupted my practices. Even when practicing that song. Because, as I had told Grace Note that first day, there was one song I knew I should learn. The first time I tried to pick out strains of it, I could hear my mother’s sudden intake of breath from through the glass door. But even then, she didn’t barge in. She left me to hammer out the notes as I read them uncertainly from the page, the simple bass notes she had taught me becoming chords, the melody becoming harmonious, the feel and flow growing each night I practiced it. And I did practice it, at least once every night.

For every day that I can remember, I practiced that song. Time and time again, I would come back to it, telling myself I had learned everything about it, played it as best I could, there was nothing more to be done with it other than to play it so fast that it would lose all resemblance to its original composition. But still, I practiced it, because for some reason I knew I had to. I would play it even outside of practice time, sitting down at the piano when I had nothing else to do with myself and toying with the progression—improvising silly flourishes and fills over it for a moment before returning to my senses and playing it normally a few times, then stopping. More often than not, it would make my mother smile. I don’t think I ever smiled while playing it.

After a while at school, the inevitable happened. A pony approached me at recess, bringing a bright red ball along with him. His coat was a banana-yellow, and he had a spiky blue mane that looked to have been trimmed too short. As I saw him approach, I hurriedly put my metronome away and pretended very hard that I didn’t exist. To my disappointment, he saw right through my attempt.

“Hey,” he said.

I didn’t say anything back. Even when the teacher called on me, I was reticent to talk, and it was not a habit I was about to break for a colt whom I did not know.

“Hey,” he said again.

“Hello,” I said. Politeness took over more often than not. Be polite, be proper, my mother would always stress.. I remembered, most of the time. Be polite, be proper. Manners.

“What’s your name?” the pony asked. I suppose it was too much to expect him to remember me from my introduction, but it wasn’t as though I remembered him either.

“Octavia,” I said.

“Cool,” he said back. “My name’s Sweet Breeze.”

Gosh, someone really did dislike him. A boy saddled with such an awful name.

I didn’t say that to him, of course. I just nodded my head and wrapped my forelegs around my knees.

“Do you like to play ball?” he asked, putting his bright red ball on the ground and rolling it slightly towards me with his hoof on top.

I shook my head.

“No.”

“Do you like to play made-up?” he asked, referring to the make-believe games the other kids would imagine on the playground at breaks.

Again, I shook my head.

“No.”

“Well,” he asked, “what do you like to do?”

I opened my mouth with the words already in mind, and once more had to stop them before they came out as they first appeared.

“I play piano,” I said. That was true, at least.

He looked at me with a quizzical sort of grimace, as though I’d admitted to enjoying visits to the dentist.

“Do you wanna play?”

“No.” Pause. “No thank you, I mean.”

“What about after school? Do you wanna play then?”

“I have to practice piano after school.” That too was a default reaction. It was true, then, and always. It earned me another grimace, but Sweet Breeze hung on, perhaps because he was a masochist.

“Don’t you even play after school? Do you do anything for fun?” I could feel the disbelief and subtle contempt creeping into his voice.

“I always have to practice piano after school,” I said.

Silence hung in the air for a minute, save the constant background noise of playing children.

Sweet Breeze stood for another moment before picking up his ball and making a sour expression at me. He turned swiftly without waiting, but paused long enough to hurl two words over his shoulder.

“You’re weird.”

And that was the last time anypony tried to play with me in elementary school.

While my younger school years were mostly an indistinct blur, there are a few more moments from them that I remember. Chief among these are my birthdays, not all of which bear mentioning—save, perhaps, the one I remember from my first year at school.

I got home from school several weeks before the date I had long ago given up on as a disappointment to find my mother waiting for me at the kitchen table. She had a great big smile on her face, which in my experience was usually a cause for concern. I scanned around the room, but didn’t manage to see her standard fare of a half-empty wineglass anywhere.

“Hello, Octavia dear. How was school today?”

“Fine, Mother.” I sloughed off my backpack and opened it up, pulling out my metronome and the sheet music folios for practice that day. Mother’s smile turned into a small frown as she watched me walk towards the music room.

“You really should be careful with your metronome, dear. It’s quite fragile, you know. If you dropped it at school there’s a very good chance it might break.”

“I know, Mother. I’m sure to be careful.” I set the metronome and music on the kitchen table as I went to grab a glass of water.

“Good, that’s good. I know you are. Good for you.”

The water at our house decided to be inappropriately hot as much as it decided to be inappropriately cold. That day, it was like drinking out of a lukewarm rain barrel. I finished half the glass and poured the rest out into the sink.

“You know, your birthday is coming up,” my mother said as I collected my sheet music and made for the music room. I left the door open as I set up my things, fully aware that she had followed me.

“I know, Mother,” I said. That was as much needed to be said, really. Birthday’s were nothing special by that point. I looked up from the piano to find her leaning in the doorway.

I sighed. There was no point in doing anything until she said whatever it was she wanted to say, at which point I could get on with my exercises until the night came. I walked up to her, but said nothing, knowing full well that she must be concealing something she was waiting to let out.

I couldn’t see a wineglass when I came in, but as I stepped closer, I could certainly smell it on her breath. It was a familiar scent, like cigarette smoke. Sour grapes.

I know, even in whatever state she was in, she could see the irritation in my eyes. Seemingly enough to spur her on to get her announcement over with.

“Oh, fine. I was going to wait until a bit later into the week to tell you, but I’ll go ahead and spoil the surprise: I’ve been organizing a birthday party for you! I sent invitations to all your friends and classmates at school. Isn’t that exciting?”

“No,” I said simply. Somewhere, in an alternate dimension where reason and fairness are tangible concepts, my mother let the subject drop at ‘no’. Sadly, this was not such a universe.

“Won’t it be wonderful? You can have cake to share with everyone, and some fun party games, and everypony will bring presents of course. Won’t it be lovely?”

“No,” I said again. I could feel the tears starting in my eyes then, pushing her and her talk of birthday’s away with the only force I could muster. I don’t think she noticed then, whether it was the alcohol or simply willful ignorance on her part.

“It’ll be just grand. Your first birthday party!” She stepped from the doorway then, into the music room, and next to the piano, letting her hoof run over it in much the same way she had done the first day of it’s arrival.

“Oh, and of course, perhaps you could play something on your piano, to show to all your friends.”

That was where I knew she would go, and why the first ‘no’ had left my lips.

“I don’t want to play the piano for them,” I said. I made a point avoiding the word ‘friends’, which I knew would be a lie.

“Nonsense, Octavia. You play brilliantly. I can hear you, you know. It would be a crime to keep your beautiful playing to yourself. You must play at your party.”

“I don’t want to have a party,” I said. The tears started to come down in earnest then, along with the shake in my voice that always accompanied them. And of course, my mother, in her infinite composure, turned to me and sneered at my contemptible display of emotion.

“Oh, really, Octavia. Don’t be such a brat. Can’t you at least pretend to be happy? You’re getting a birthday party, after all.”

“I don’t want a party,” I said again, sniffling as I tried to hold back the sobs. “And I don’t want to play piano. I just want to go to school and come home and have a normal day. That’s it.”

“You are such a little brat.” My mother walked closer to me then, sneering, practically spitting disdain from the curl of her lips. “I suppose this is all about you then, hmm? The thanks I get, for trying to organize a celebration.”

I didn’t say anything back, couldn’t. The crying was on in full force, me sucking in air through my tears, through my sobbing, as my mother berated me for my selfishness.

“Is it really so much to ask that you play something for my benefit, for the benefit of company, when I’ve already spent so much on you? On the piano, on lessons...” My mother held up a hoof despairingly, while still I cried, wishing I could let out the tears until they washed me away, and my mother too, neither of us to see each other again.

“Really, I can’t believe you. Nothing at all like your father. He always used to play for me.”

“That must be why he left!” I said, shouted, screamed. “He left because his piano playing was too good for you and he couldn’t stand to be around your horrible singing any more!”

The sound of my mother’s hooves on the carpet preceded the impact, and the sound. A loud smack. It took a moment for me to realize the sound had come from me, from her. Even longer to realize my head needed to be righted, and that the stinging sensation on the right side of my face was something tangible. I raised my hoof to it, and somehow didn’t flinch as I pressed down into the raw, bruised skin.

“Oh... my goodness, Octavia, I’m... I’m sorry...”

Oddly—and I remember thinking it then—I stopped crying. I just stood, frozen, hoof raised to my face where my mother had struck me. Tears drying. The loudest noise the house had heard aside from the piano. A crack that echoed louder than any crying I'd managed to fill it with before.

My mother grabbed me then, held me to her chest with her hooves around my back, pulling me forward and whispering into my ear.

“Oh, my baby, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...”

I didn’t say anything. I let her rub my back, kissing the top of my head and mumbling ‘I’m sorry’s into my ear over and over again. The stinging on my cheek eventually settled, as did her mumbling. The subject of the conversation was dropped.

That night, she bought me a whole tub of ice cream to make up for it. I ate one bowl, then practiced for an hour and went to bed. The party was never discussed again. I can only assume the invitations were rescinded.

For my birthday, I had another bowl of ice cream. The expiration date on the lid only appeared obvious when I put the tub back, and I spent the rest of the night being sick into the toilet. My mother checked in on me occasionally, most of the time with a glass of water, which I thanked her for, graciously.

In a lesson, some time before the transition to high school, but not long before, a thought struck me during one of my piano lessons.

“Mr—I mean, Grace Note,” I said, stopping myself from using his title, a habit I was only just beginning to get the hang of after repeated insistence from him that I just call him ‘Grace Note’, despite my mother’s instruction otherwise. “I just realized... I’ve never seen you play the piano before.”

“Haven’t you?” He sat back in his chair, long since migrated from his place on the bench beside me, now that the upper and lower registers of the piano were available for use. He stayed there for a moment with his eyes half closed, then leaned forward suddenly and opened them wide.

“Well, I suppose that might be so. I often find it’s better to let students learn by instruction, rather than by example.”

“Do you think you could play something for me?” I asked. For some reason, my usual soft-spokenness disappeared during lessons. It was the only time of the week I managed to smile, though it was fleeting amidst interludes between practice. Sometimes Grace Note would make funny faces at me or play awful notes on the upper end of the keyboard while I was doing scales in an attempt to make me laugh, which he often succeeded at.

My request seemed to take him off guard. He stroked his beard a few times, playing it on his face like an absurd single-stringed harp. He stood up and considered the piano, which I was still seated at.

“Well, I suppose I could. Do you have anything in particular you’d like to hear?”

I slid off the bench to make room for him. He took the seat like the instrument was unfamiliar. Even the way his hooves touched it seemed strange, though he took no issue tapping out notes or corrections for me during my playing.

“Can you play something you like?”

He sized up the question for a bit. I could almost hear the chewing of the thought as he mulled it over.

“Well,” he said again, “I was known in my day for a particularly stirring rendition of The Geldingberg Variations,” he said, letting his right hoof languish on the top of the keyboard. “Particularly number twenty-five. Played almost like a nocturne,” he said.

“‘The Geldingberg Variations’?” I asked, leaning backwards and forwards on all fours as I watched him at the bench. “What are those?”

Somehow, when I was around him, in that soundproof room, it’s like all the material in the walls might have sucked away my fear of being judged. Like, for one day a week, I could be me, instead of the pony everyone else assumed I was.

“Very well-known classical folio,” he said. “Quite complicated in its own right as well. Composed of a series of variations on an initial aria... there are thirty in total, and a final piece, which is of course a reprise of the aria.”

“Would you play it for me?”

"The Aria?" He turned to me and looked me up and down, as if trying to suss out some ulterior motive in my request. I can only guess he found none, because he turned back to the piano after a moment.

"Alright then. Apologies if I’m a bit rusty.”

I’ve not heard a version of the aria like that since then. It being my first time hearing it, there was a great deal to be surprised by. I’d only heard my own playing up until that point, unless you counted the disjointed hammering on the keys in my mother’s desperate attempts to teach me as ‘playing’. Watching someone experienced at the keys left me awestruck. I sat in complete silence as Grace Note played, a soft, dulcet melody, a relaxed tempo with bass notes that led me along through every measure until the finish. Contrary to his preface, he seemed to play every note perfectly; if he got any wrong, I certainly didn’t notice them.

When he was done, after what seemed like an eternity, but what must only have been minutes, he raised his hooves from the piano keys. Even though I’d never heard the song before, I could tell it was over. I took a few seconds to recover, then clapped my hooves together as fiercely as I could.

Grace Note looked back at me. I think, for an instant, I caught a hint of blush under his beard.

“Maybe I’ve still got it after all,” he said. He plunked down on one of the lower notes, the same key he’d finished in, and the sharp bass rang throughout the practice room. I giggled, which wasn’t something I did often.

“The aria is, of course, perhaps the simplest part of the folio. Variation number five was always particularly challenging, if I recall...”

Without even raising his hooves in preparation, Grace Note turned back to the piano and began to play again. That is to say, he played, and it was at that moment that my jaw most assuredly hit the floor.

Where the aria had been relaxed, contemplative, and soulful, the piece Grace Note played without so much as a warning was nothing short of astounding. His hooves moved faster than I knew any hooves were capable of moving, dancing over the keys, blending melodies together perfectly on each side, plucking out notes and bounding over each other in sections that I couldn’t even begin to understand for their technique, let alone the melody itself. As stricken as I was by the performance, there was almost no time to enjoy it—just as soon as he’d started playing, Grace Note stopped. It couldn’t have been for more than a minute. When he lifted his hooves, the piano sang, like it was letting out the traces of the fury he’d just graced it with.

He turned to me with a smile on his face.

“Haha. That one’s a bit of a show-off piece. Do you think I pulled it off well enough?”

I took a few moments to collect my words from my throat.

“Wow,” was all I could manage.

Grace Note’s grin was the widest I’d ever seen it.

“That was amazing,” I said after a few more seconds. “How did you... how does anypony play like that? It was incredible!”

“Oh, hush. Don’t flatter an old stallion,” he said. He shifted a bit on the bench and stretched his forehooves behind his head. “All things come with time, my dear. I’ve just been around long enough that they’ve had no choice but to give up and go willingly in my direction.”

“Can you play some more?” I sat on the floor of the practice room, my eyes no doubt beaming from the astonishment I couldn’t keep from my face. I wanted to see everything now, this whole world of music I had no idea existed. When all I had played were simple melodies at that point, working my way up to real songs, this was a true master at work—though, I imagine he might prickle to hear me say so.

“Would you like me to run through the whole set?” he asked, with a bit of a chuckle at the end of his question.

But I nodded, and the idea became real.

“Well,” he said. “I suppose just this once.”

The rest of the practice I did that day was at home. But I couldn’t help thinking, as I plunked out strains of Clopein’s Nocturnes, how far I had to go before I was capable of playing anything like that; even with an hour a day’s practice, Variation Five and Twenty-five seemed a long way away.

When I graduated to high school, I took to leaving my metronome at home. There wasn’t enough time to spend with it during the few breaks between classes, and at that point most of my time was occupied with studying on theory, or for the subjects that seemed only to make themselves an obligation in the front of more practice, which is what I knew my mother wanted. When I did manage to find time to relax, in a sudden abatement of internal obligation or anxiousness, my mind went back to the same song it always did. I would mime the hoof movements on tables, or in an open textbook if I hit a passage that utterly failed to engage my interest. Not that the song was more interesting—by that point, it was simply rote memorization. I’d played my mother’s song so often I could do it in my sleep, which I think sometimes I did, waking up with my hooves raised above me in a mimicry of the chords I was so used to.

I was at lunch one day, pressing on invisible piano keys as I followed that familiar melody, when a scenario from my past saw fit to revisit itself. My lunch was gone from the table, with the leftovers nestled safely in my lunchbox which itself was tucked in my bag. Unlike the other ponies, whose parents could afford to buy them hot lunches, consisting of pizza and pasta and fancy desserts and other fabulous things I had never had, whatever money my mother was making seemed to go either to my music lessons, or to the unappealing sandwiches she insisted on packing for me every day, no matter how many times I told her I could make my own lunch. I think it might have been her way to try showing that she cared.

As I sat at my table in the corner by myself, as I often did, a familiar sense of dread washed over me with the approach of an unfamiliar pony. Just like the one in elementary school, her hair was some shade of blue—but so was the rest of her, with white highlights in her mane, and a cutie mark on her side in the shape of an hourglass. She gave me a huge smile as she walked closer, staring right at me. Her teeth glimmered underneath the cafeteria lighting.

“Hi-ya,” she said. She stopped a foot away, on my side of the table, still smiling. The ponies in the background eating their lunch and doing whatever else it was ponies do at that age, likely gossipping and discussing the finer points of the opposite sex.

“Hello,” I said. While growing up had pushed me face-first into a world where complete silence was simply not kocher, it didn’t make me any more comfortable about speaking to complete strangers, which, for all intents and purposes, everypony in my school was to me. I don’t even think the teachers remembered my name.

“Whatcha’ doin’ over here all by yourself? You look kinda bummed out.” Her voice had more enthusiasm than I think I’d ever be capable of exuding. I could feel the glimmer on her teeth as she spoke, and more than a bit of me wanted to jump up and run away just to escape her sudden onset cheerfulness.

“Just... eating lunch.”

“Well, it looks like you finished. Would you like some company?”

She sat down at the table without waiting for me to answer—not even the opposite end, as though that would have been a courtesy. She smiled at me from further down the bench on the side I was. I looked at her for a few seconds, then turned my eyes back to the table.

A few awful, awkward seconds went by.

“So,” she said. “You over here by yourself most of the time?”

Where did she get off asking those kind of questions in the first place? It was one thing, when youthful innocence meant somepony’s attempt to be friendly was simply them playing nicely with others. The de facto rule of high school, insofar as I could interpret it, was to be content to let other ponies wallow in their own lives. Even the few around the school who gave me odd looks and laughs when I walked by, always with my music books in hoof, didn’t ever approach me directly. There were horror stories about bullying... but that was all for other ponies. This was me. My world. My table, by myself.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t really feel like talking at the moment.

“Sorry,” I added again after a few seconds.

That didn’t seem to shake her at all. Her smile didn’t even waver.

“It’s okay,” she said. “My name’s Minuette. What’s yours?”

It was just like that day in elementary school. Being a teenager, the look I gave her was more ire than anxiousness, though that was mostly just to hide what I was really feeling at the time.

“Octavia,” I said. I let it hang in the air like a dead weight, hoping that if I gave in to her badgering she might relent and leave me to be contemplative and miserable in peace.

“Octavia, huh? Guess we both got stuck with the music names. That’s a treble clef cutie mark you have, right?”

I looked down to my side just as she did. I’ve always thought there was something untoward about openly staring at other pony’s cutie marks, so close to areas that should be devoid of attention. But, as I’d already noticed hers when she walked in, I suppose I wasn’t one to talk.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Cool. So that means you play an instrument, right?”

Like a rehearsal.

“I play the piano,” I said.

“Awesome! I’ve taken a few lessons too. Of course, when I got my cutie mark, my parents weren’t sure if I’d picked the right hobby or not—now even I’m not sure!”

Why was she talking to me? I’d said as plainly as I could that I didn’t feel like talking to her. Maybe subtlety wasn’t her strong suit.

“Please,” I said, adding the first weight of emotion to my voice. “I'm really not interested in conversation. I appreciate the thought if you’re trying to... do something nice by coming over here and talking to me, but really, I’d like it if you just left me alone.”

Minuette jumped up from the bench in an instant, her huge smile never leaving her face.

“No problem! You just looked like you could use someone to talk to.” She stepped away from the lunch table.

“Lemme know if you change your mind, okay?” And with that, she trotted away, sporting that stupid grin on her face, far more cheerful than she had any right to be.

I almost got up and asked for her to come back, but thought better of it in the end.

My birthday that year was another occasion for remembrance. Instead of fading away in the night, as all the ones I could most bear did, my mother took it upon herself to get me a present that year. It was waiting for me on the kitchen table when I got home, the living room table having long since been taken over by the various ornaments my mother had adorned the place in.

I looked around for her before opening the present, but oddly enough found myself alone in the house. It was such an unusual occurrence, I felt almost anxious as I tore the flowery wrapping paper off.

It was a songbook. A collection of famous operas and their accompanying refrains. Some of the titles I knew. Most I didn’t.

The front door opened behind me as I was leafing through the book, mumbling the notes under my breath, piecing out what some of the arias and other songs might sound like.

“Oh, you’re home early,” my mother said. She had a bag of something under her foreleg, groceries, and took a moment at the door to set it down and remove her coat. Her fine, fur-lined coat that she wore even when the weather must surely turn it into a sauna.

“I’m home at the same time I am every day, Mother.” It’s hard to put much feeling into a word like ‘Mother’, which means that as a result, I didn’t often manage to do so.

“I see you opened your present without waiting for me,” she said, a familiar drip of ichor in her voice. I breathed out softly in response, too quiet to be a real sigh.

“I’m sorry, Mother.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I just would have enjoyed seeing your reaction myself. But, since you went ahead and got right into it, tell me what you think.”

“It’s a very nice songbook,” I said. I’m not sure if by that point in my life I had trained all the emotion out of my voice, or if it simply left because I was a teenager, and therefore possessed of the nature of all teenagers to be disdainful for life in general.

“Isn’t it though? I found it when I was thrift-shopping last week. I used to perform some of those, you know, back in my day.”

I didn’t say anything. Just nodded and went to help her with the groceries.

I was surprised to find pasta, sauce, and a bottle of wine amongst the other usuals.

“Mother, why did you buy—”

“Surprised? I thought we could have a special dinner, it being your birthday. A real artisan, foreign cuisine. And then perhaps you could play me a piece from your new book.”

I nodded. Pasta and piano. I suppose it was as much as I could have hoped for.

“Let me just have a glass of wine or two and I’ll get to making dinner,” my mother said, uncorking the bottle with a practiced expertise. Even though it was common knowledge than any store in town that sold alcohol would surely sell wine in a less expensive, less cumbersome boxed form, my mother always bought bottles. The wine cabinet was well stocked, in that there was always one bottle, but never more. She would always drink it within days, then immediately go out to fetch a replacement.

“Bring me my cigarettes, would you dear?” she asked as she poured the bubbly red liquid into one of her tarnished wine glasses. I did as directed, tossing the packet of her smokes over. They landed on the table with a soft noise, and she smiled at me.

“I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”

I nodded, and went into my bedroom to look over my birthday gift. I was in no hurry to practice it’s contents.

Eventually, my mother called me down for dinner by belting my name up the stairs. When I was very young, she would yell it sometimes in moments of jest like it was a flourish in an operetta, embellishing it between notes and registers. It made me laugh, but she stopped doing it long before I reached high school. Now it was simply a shout: “Octavia!”, and downstairs I went.

The table was set haphazardly. As she sometimes did when she felt the occasion called for it, my mother had taken out the ‘good’ table cloth, which meant too that the ‘fine china’ was out, only sporting nicks on every other dish, sparsely pockmarked amongst the white-blue swans and flowers painted over it. In the center of the table, a long magenta candle stood burning, flickering as it’s wick dwindled and it dropped great gobs of wax onto the plate my mother had set it on.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

“Thank you.” I took my seat and eyed the meal my mother had prepared. It looked more edible than usual. I picked up the glass of wine next to my plate and took a drink. Manners, after all. Polite, proper. One does not refuse a drink. Swish in your mouth before swallowing.

“This really is lovely, isn’t it?” she asked, picking up a tiny noodle from her plate. She was always quicker to describe things in such vibrant terms. For me, it was certainly nicer than normal. But, alongside the questionably imported wine and mediocre pasta dish in front of me, I could hear the slur emerging in my mother’s voice. I wished I could see the bottle, but it was invisible, wherever it was, in the dim candlelight.

The meal passed in relative silence aside my mother’s occasional sigh.

“So,” she finally said, tucking her napkin under her plate and pushing it forward. “How are things? In general I mean. Or in school.” Ssschool. I could smell grapes over the table.

“Fine,” I said.

“Are you doing well in... in your studies?”

“Yes.”

“Have you made any friends.”

“No,” I said, and then added “not yet.”

My mother leaned back in her chair and lit a cigarette.

“Ah, well. That will come with time. I never had any trouble making friends, of course. Things were different, then, but still. I was the mare-to-be at my school. Girls fighting each other to be my friends, stallions throttling each other just to ask for one date.”

“Mhm.” I sawed at one of the remaining noodles on my plate, breaking it into pieces as my mother went on.

“You’ll get there eventually, Octavia, dear. Everypony comes into their own eventually.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

The two of us sat there for a while, my mother’s head encircled by the wreath of smoke spreading from the end of her cigarette. Eventually, I pushed my chair back, though I didn’t stand.

“May I be excused?”

My mother took a final puff of her cigarette and put it out on the tablecloth, completely irreverent of the gilded edges already marred by several of her burns. Perhaps, in her inebriated haze, she thought the table was bare.

“Of course, of course. Does that mean you’ll play a song or two for me, from your new book?”

The night must come then. Practice, sight-reading.

“Yes.”

“Well, lovely then.” My mother stood from her seat and grabbed her glass from the table. She pulled the wine bottle, or perhaps a second one, from a spot I hadn’t noticed behind her chair, and poured herself a fresh glass, spilling a little over the edges in the process before setting the bottle back down.

I picked up the songbook and made my way to the music room. Mother followed on uneven footing.

“To the conservatory!” she said in a half-empty sort of way, and laughed to herself, coughing at the end.

I took up my seat at the bench and placed the book on top of the piano.

“Is there any one in particular you’d like me to play?” I asked, knowing that I may as well make the selection as painless as possible.

“There isss, actually,” my mother said, leaning over as she spoke and sloshing a bit of wine onto the carpet. She pawed at the book, flipping through the pages until she seemed to find the one she was looking for.

“Ah, this one. I performed when I wass young, you know. Lovely piece. Can you play that one?”

I looked over the sheet music. Relatively simple.

“Yes.”

My mother nodded. And so I began to play.

The piece opened with a somewhat uninteresting melody, single bass notes meant to lead in the main singer. As the proper vocalization approached, my right hoof moved upwards—and, at the same time, my mother opened her mouth and began to sing.

The words may have been right, according to what I could read on the page, though they were in a foreign language I didn’t recognize. What was nowhere near correct, however, was her delivery; while my hoof plucked out the notes at a relatively steady tempo, sure and secure in their tuning, my mother’s voice warbled in every direction, sloshing back and forth like the wine in her glass as her body moved. I tried to push her out of my mind, simply following along with what was on the page, knowing there was no reason in saying anything about her singing, nor would there ever be.

But it was her who stopped me. She held a hoof up to the book in front of the sheet I was reading, at which point I held my hooves still.

“No no no,” she burbled, tipping forward noticeably, her glass now almost completely empty. “You’re not playing that right. It doesn’t go like that in this part. It’s, it’s ma il mio...”

“I’m playing it as it’s written on the page, Mother.” Normally I would have found it easier simply to let her go on, but there would be no end to the torture if I let her find something to belittle me over. Lucklessly, wine is the sole champion over reason, and her hoof pressing on the page became more insistent, tapping at it over and over to seal her point.

“No,” she said again. “I knowthissong very well, young lady, and you were not playing that right. It’s... ma il mio, mist—”

I snapped the book away from her and held it towards her, pointing the notes right under her nose.

“Here,” I said. “Read that. Does that look like what you’re singing?”

Her eyes scanned the page for a few seconds. Even beneath the sheen of alcohol, I could see the sudden panic of ignorance in her face. After half a minute, her expression dulled again, and she pushed the book away.

“Looks fine to me,” she said, her ‘s’s blurring into incomprehensible garble. “Now, play it again, and play it right this time.”

I sighed and set the book on the piano again. Once more, I began the aria. Once more, as the vocal melody came in, my mother began to sing. This time her expression soured even earlier. Instead of tapping the book, she shoved me.

“Damn it,” she said, cursing in a voice that only brewed up when pickled in sour grapes. “Can’t jus’ play one thing for me? You’d thinkall those lessons I paid for would mean you can read a song book at leas’...”

I stood up and walked past her in the span of a few seconds. I knew she was in no state to follow me, which led me to my room and a forceful slam of the door.

I didn’t hear any sound from downstairs for a while, though burying my face in my pillow may have had something to do with that. After perhaps ten minutes, a knock came at the door.

“Octavia?” My mother’s voice outside my bedroom. Thank Celestia for the lock.

“Go away.” If I’d kept silent, it would have been a coin toss between victory and a four hours screaming defeat, and I was hoping to come out better in the middle ground.

“Octavia,” she said again. “I’m sorry. Won’t you come back downstairsss and... you don’t have to play anything. I just want to talk to you.”

“Go away.” I said the words and turned back to my pillow, muffling my urge to scream.

“Please,” she said. “I’m sorry. Come out and lets enjoy the rest of your birthday.”

It was then that I held my tongue. After a few minutes, I heard the hoofsteps on the upstairs hallway, then the stairs as my mother left. A few minutes after that, faintly, I could hear the meandering touch of drunken hooves on keys, pressing the ones she’d taught me, warbling out a verse of the song she always sang. I shut my eyes and tried to think the song away.

It stopped, after a few minutes. After a few more, I got up from my bed and opened my door. I walked down the stairs making as little noise as possible, and found her there, passed out on the floor, a glass of wine spilled on the carpet. A cigarette smoldering on her other side.

Quietly, I picked up the cigarette and put it out, then went back upstairs to my room.

“Hi-ya!”

Minuette’s presence at lunch had become a daily ritual. After my first refusal of her attempt at friendliness, she had returned seemingly unrebuked, and greeted me with the same cheerful enthusiasm every lunch. After the third or fourth day, I stopped bothering to shoo her away. She bounced on the bench as she sat down next to me.

“Hello,” I said.

“How’s ol’ ‘Tavi doin’ today?” she asked, teeth bright.

“Fine,” I said. I took the day’s sandwich out of my lunchbox and looked at it as though it might turn into something more appetizing if I stared hard enough.

“So what’s new? Anything exciting going on? Learn any cool new songs?”

“Not really.” I took a bite of my sandwich and chewed, clenching my teeth as I attempted to stomach the disgusting combination of bland taste and slimy texture.

For some reason, the words struck me then, and the only way to get them out seemed to be to speak them.

“It was my birthday yesterday,” I said. I don’t know why I said it.

Minuette’s face lit up like I’d just surprised her with a winning lottery ticket. For the first time, her smile lapsed in favour of astonishment.

“Wow, really? That’s awesome! Did you get anything cool?”

I thought back to the song book, now stained with wine and crumpled in the middle.

“No,” I said, taking another bite of my sandwich.

“Aw, that’s a bummer.” She sat for a moment, until her face shifted abruptly, like a light-bulb had gone off. “Hey, wait a minute. Hold on, okay? Just stay right here.”

And with no further warning, she ran out of the room, leaving me at the table by myself, with my sandwich.

I had a feeling she’d come back though.

After a few minutes, I was proven right. She came bounding back over to my table, beaming as wide as she ever had, holding something in her mouth. Something silver, which she dropped on the table as she returned.

“Here,” she said, grinning. “Happy birthday!”

I took a closer look at the thing she had dropped.

It was a piece of jewellery. A necklace, with some kind of pendant hanging on the end. A symbol. A—

“I made it for metal-working class. I dunno why I thought a treble clef would be fun. I guess you kinda inspired me!”

I picked up the necklace and held it in my hooves under the fluorescent overhead lighting.

Minuette smiled at me.

“I... I can’t take this,” I said, shoving the necklace back to her. Let alone the fact that I’d never received a birthday gift from anyone other than my mother, this was something she’d clearly put a lot of work into. I already felt bad enough for forcing her to talk to me in the first place.

“Go on,” she said, shoving my hooves back. “I insist! It’s not exactly a ‘cool thing’, but now at least you can say you got something kinda neat for your birthday.”

The necklace felt heavy in my hooves as I pulled it closer.

The clasp on the back came undone without much effort. Slowly, as though someone other than me was moving my hooves, I raised the clasp behind my head and snapped it into place. I let go of the necklace and it fell across my neck, a mark to match the one on my side, but this time in silver.

“It looks really good on you! Ooh, hold on...” Minuette rifled in her bag and pulled out a mirror.

Looking into it, I’m not sure I recognized the pony on the other side. Was that really what I looked like? My face was so sullen, and my eyes were dark. The only thing that looked alive about me was the silver symbol around my neck.

It took me a few seconds to realize I was crying. Minuette seemed to notice around the same time, at which point she pulled the mirror away and shed her smile for concern.

“Ohmigosh, are you okay? I’m sorry! If you don’t like it I can take it back.”

“No, no no no... It’s... it’s fine, really.” I waved my hoof in the air at her, my best attempt to convince her I was okay. She kept her lips pursed as I wiped the tears off my cheek, sniffling as I pulled my hoof away. “It’s actually... it’s beautiful, I think. Thank you, so much.”

“Don’t mention it.” She put her hoof on my shoulder and rubbed it in a reassuring kind of way.

The rest of the day, I think I might have gotten away with a smile or two.

I was almost skipping when I came home that day. Silly that something so simple can make you feel so different—but somehow, it did. I walked in the front door smiling, which my mother most certainly took note of.

“Hello dear. How was school—my goodness! That’s quite the ornament you have there,” she said, pointing to my necklace. I held it up with a hoof and smiled at her.

“Thanks,” I said. “A friend made it for me. For my birthday.”

“A friend? My goodness dear, I’m so glad to hear that! And here I was thinking you were going to get out of school without making any really great connections.”

I set my books and backpack down in the kitchen and went over the sink to get a glass of water. I think I was humming as I did it.

“So what’s this friend’s name, hmm? What are they like? Do they have any hobbies or interests?”

“Her name’s Minuette,” I said, taking a long drink of water and finishing it with an ‘ah’. “And she says she made this in metal work, so I guess that’s something she’s good at. She says she used to play the piano too.”

“Used to?” My mother stood up from her chair at that point, following me with her eyes as I walked to the other side of the room. “With a name like that, you’d certainly assume she’s set on a path to the conservatory. And what was this you said... metalworking? Is she from a family of labourers?”

I rolled my eyes and pulled my practice books out of my bag.

“I don’t know, Mother. She’s just a friend. I don’t know her life’s story.” I zipped up my backpack and headed to the music room, folio in hoof as I went towards the piano.

Mother leaned on the door as I took up my seat at the bench. It was a position I remembered.

“One should always take care to know something about one’s friends. If nothing else, to make sure you’re associating with the right type of pony. Are you sure she’s not headed for a career in the arts? You can never be too careful around other musicians at this age. All those scholarships up for grabs, she may well try to sabotage you.”

The tone that had warranted an eyeroll was quickly precipitating into something more sinister. I stood up from the piano and made to usher my mother out of the room.

“I don’t believe she’s doing any such thing, Mother. She’s lovely and cheerful, and she seems to actually want to talk to me.”

“Well that’s how they start,” my mother said, forcing her hoof out and keeping herself in the doorway. “They butter you up, pretend that everything is nice and cordial, and then stab you in the back when you least expect it.”

“Mother, you’re being paranoid. Minuette is a fine pony. I have no doubt her intentions are earnest.”

“You say that now,” Mother said. “But what happens when you’re all set for college and she’s there to badmouth you to the board of directors? When she’s pulling you out of the house at all hours to prevent you from practicing? Dear, I don’t like this affair one bit. I think you should cut off ties with this... Minuette.”

I think my mouth literally fell open in shock at that point. There was no way, after an entire life of almost monastic solitude, that Mother could find anything reasonable to say against me having a friend. Which meant she wasn’t being reasonable. Which meant she was being crazy. Which likely meant that, for the first time in my life, I had found another pony who she was sure would steal me away from her, and from my music, her music, and everything she wanted me to be.

“That’s insane, Mother,” I said, not as firmly as I wanted. “I’m not going to cut off ties with Minuette. We’ve only known each other for a few weeks, and already you want me to stop speaking to her?”

“Aha!” My mother held up a hoof in example. “That’s exactly it, you see. You’ve known her for less than a month; how do you have any idea what her intentions might be? Now honestly, Octavia, you know I’m only looking out for you, and I really think it would be in your best interest to just tell her politely to—”

“When have you ever had what’s in my best interest in mind?” The sentence flew out of my mouth like a dagger, and I could see my mother’s eyes widen as it impacted. I went on before she had a chance to collect her riposte. “All my life, I’ve been doing things because you wanted me to. School, music; the whole reason I’m playing this Goddess forsaken instrument every day is to make you happy.”

My mother shook her head, disbelief resonating from her.

“That’s nonsense, Octavia,” she said. “You love playing the piano.”

“No! I don’t! I hate it!” Something twanged inside me, loud and hollow sounding, and I went back to the piano, brandishing a hoof at it with a fire in my eyes. “This whole stupid instrument—I hate it more than anything! I hate you for making me play it every day! When all the other children had friends, and families, and interests and social lives and lives period, Mother, I was stuck inside playing this awful, miserable thing. All for you.”

As much as I wanted that to be it; for the fervor of my sudden confession to finally knock an ounce of sense into my mother, I think she was too gone for that. The look in her eyes was more pity than contempt.

“Dear, this ‘Minuette’ has obviously been telling you awful things, convincing you of such horrible lies. Imagine, you not enjoying playing the piano! I’m making a decision for your own good then. There will be no more seeing her, end of story.”

The words left me at that point. I screamed, louder than I’ve ever screamed, because there was nothing else I could do to let out the feeling inside me that wanted to explode. I threw my hoof out, and I know it struck the piano because all the strings rang out at once, followed by a dissonant look on my mother’s face to match.

“No! You cannot! I refuse to stop being her friend!”

“Well, I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter, dear. Either you cut this venomous viper of a false friend out of your life and save yourself from her ruining your lifelong ambition, or I’ll do the sensible thing and withdraw you from school. I’m sure you’ll see which is the more reasonable choice.”

Never, in all my years with her—in all the miserable birthdays, in all the nights I came home to her drunk, passed out, covered in cigarette smoke, cooking a meal that was more rubbish than nutrition, loathing every second of her for making me sit down at that piano and play—did I hate my mother more than in that instant. I hated her because I realized, at that moment, that she had every card. There was no life for me to live but the one she wanted me to. A hundred possibilities spun through my head—of running away, dropping out of school, living on the street, begging Minuette to take me in, going on a search for my father, or someone to give me a home and let me return to school, wherever they might be; even hurting her, maybe not enough to kill her, but so that I could live out the rest of my life without her there.

But the thoughts died as quickly as they came. There was no point to the imagining. In my head, I was certain that there was no point.

I started crying. My mouth felt dry. My mother stepped towards me and wrapped a hoof around my back, and I was too dead inside to stop her.

“There there,” she said, rubbing her hoof gently along my neck and back. “I know it seems unfair now... but trust me. Once you’re back to your senses, everything will be right as rain, and you can focus on your scholarships and how happy you’ll be performing with a symphony orchestra when you graduate.”

I leaned my face into my mother’s shoulder and sobbed. And all the while she held me. There there. There there.

I gave Minuette her necklace back the next day. I knew that if I spoke to her for more than a minute, it would be too hard, so I simply held it to her in my hooves and said “I’m sorry. We can’t be friends. Please don’t talk to me anymore.”

And that was that. I walked away from her in the hall, heading to the bathroom to find a stall to wring out my tears. And she never spoke to me again, though I still caught her glancing over to me when we passed in the halls.

It stopped hurting after a few months, which was near to graduation anyway.

As the end of high school grew closer, my lessons became less frequent, from once a week to once a month, and then less than that. It’s possible that Mother was running out of money, wherever it came from, or that she earnestly believed there was no point in squandering any amount of finance on weekly lessons when I could learn so much by myself now. In some of the last sessions I had, Grace Note remarked repeatedly how impressed he was with my ability, and how surely I must be one of the most talented students he’d ever taught. It made me smile sometimes, but only because it was coming from him.

I was practicing one night, the song I made my rounds through every day. The metronome clicking steadily as I rounded the notes so familiar they could have been burned into my skin. C, A. C, A. F, G, C, G—

A knock at the door drew my attention from my practice. Visitors were so seldom may as well have been ghosts, which meant someone knocking at the door was either lost, or there for something fairly important. My mother answered the knock as I stood up from the piano. I watched through the glass door as she greeted the pony there. She nodded a few times, took a letter from him and shook his hoof before sending him on his way. After waiting a minute or two, I opened the door and stepped into the living room.

“Who was that?”

My mother looked up from her book as though she’d only just remembered I lived in the house.

“Hmm? Oh, it was a courier, dear. Just somepony delivering a letter.”

“Instead of with the normal post? Was it for one of us?”

“Yes, dear, don’t worry.” My mother set down her book and lifted her wineglass, taking a large drink and draining it half to empty. “It was just from the local music establishment.”

“You mean Hoof and Sound?” My mother nodded. “What did it say?”

“It’s just to inform us that your lessons have been cancelled, that’s all.”

I felt something stick in my chest. Though I’d long since given up raising my voice against my mother, I couldn’t help at least a mild desperation from creeping in.

“Why? Did you stop paying for them?”

My mother turned to me like I’d cursed at her. She set her wine-glass down and scoffed at me in an exaggerated sort of way.

“Heaven’s sake, dear, of course not. It’s just your teacher... Mr. Note, something? He’s passed away.”

In the background, in the silence, the metronome ticked. A steady tempo. Tick tick. Tick tick.

My mother lowered her glass and picked up her book again, wetting her hoof before turning the page.

“It’s just as well, in any case. You were getting too good for your lessons anyway. Much more sensible to have you continue to study on your own.”

Tick tick. Tick tick.

I left the metronome on as I went upstairs to my room. When I got there I looked under my bed, as low to the ground as it was, and after a quick search, found the copy of The Geldingberg Variations Grace Note had given me a few months earlier.

I think you're ready, he'd said.

I stared at the folder for a few minutes, then put it back without opening it. I went to bed early.

As the end of high school approached, so too did the ‘prom’. In my mind, an excuse for horny teenage colts and fillies to do what it is horny teenage colts and fillies do best, which is make regretable decisions with each other in a haze of alcohol and desperation for accomplishment in their last year of public education. Not something I had an interest in, in any case.

Nevertheless, somehow some colt at school got it in his head to ask me to go with him. HIs name was Charlie Coal, and he was an earth pony with an unassuming sort of disposition. He seemed nice enough when he asked—stammering, assuring me he was earnestly interested in me, and didn’t I love music? and oh wouldn’t it be wonderful if I’d play him something sometime, but no really, would I mind, being his date?

I feigned that I was flattered and rejected him promptly. But, as my own tongue seemed eager to betray me at every opportunity, I happened to let slip the fact that I had been asked out when I got home that day. Which meant my mother heard it.

“Well why didn’t you say yes? You only get one prom, dear.”

“But Mother,” I said. “I don’t know this colt from John Stallion. He’s never even spoken to me before. Why would he want to take me out?”

“Well, back in my day there was quite a convention for secret admirers. Maybe he’s been lusting after you from afar, stealing up all his courage to finally ask you out.

My face soured at the word ‘lusting’.

“Well, if that’s the case, I’m not sure I want to go out with someone so wishy-washy in any case. Besides, that’s a whole night of preparing for finals I’ll miss.”

My mother stood in front of me as I went to walk to my room. She blocked the stairs, standing with both her forehooves outstretched.

“Octavia,” she said, her voice grave. “Come now. Surely you can’t mean to miss out on your final year’s dance? You’ll be so busy with perfomance once you graduate, you might not get the chance to meet another stallion for years! And what if this one turns out to be the one? This... Charlie Colt?”

“Coal,” I corrected her.

“Yes. Dear, I really think you should go. You’ll be missing out, otherwise.”

I spoke to Charlie the next day and told him I’d changed my mind, and could he pick me up at seven?

The dance was unremarkable. I don’t recall much about it other than it being utterly boring, along with a selection of terrible music. I was in no mood to dance. Charlie was nice, and somewhat accommodating, though I could tell my attitude put him off. All in all, the whole thing seemed like a waste of time; me, standing still at the side of the room, him paying me the minimum of interest while he went around and talked to his friends, and to a girl or two. I didn’t mind. It’s not as though I expected my mother to be right about that.

She did surprise me in one regard though; when I told her I’d confirmed the date, she rummaged through her closet and unearthed a dress she’d said she’d worn in her youth. And now, of course, she wanted me to wear it. It was in remarkably good condition, unlike everything else we owned: a shimmering purple gown that, much to my chagrin, I had to admit didn’t look terrible on me. Charlie certainly complimented it enough.

By the time the dance was over, I was more than ready to go home and dream away the rest of the night, counting steady the days until graduation. Charlie, of course, had other plans.

“There’s a party that everypony’s going to now that the dance is over. It’s on the south end. Cosmic’s parents are out of town and he said everypony can come by. Did you wanna come with me?”

The ‘no’ was on my lips before my mother’s voice droned into my head. You’ll only have this chance once. What was wrong with him? You’re not going to be young forever.

I sighed.

“Sure. I’ll go with you.”

If he was despondent till then, my agreement lit him up with joy. The two of us departed a good deal behind the rest of the crowd, most of whom were travelling in groups anyway.

The way to the party took us right through the middle of town, which I at least recognized enough to know the general direction of. The buildings started to get more familiar as we passed the majority of the commercial district. But, as we neared what I imagine must have been the three-quarters mark, something caught my ear, loud enough to make me stop. Charlie stopped too, after a minute of realizing I wasn’t walking with him.

“Hey, Octavia? The party’s this way, come on.”

“Shhh. Listen. Do you hear that?”

As directed, he held silent for a moment, and the two of us craned our necks, picking out the song caught in the evening breeze.

“It’s The Geldingberg Variations... number twenty-five.” I looked around, trying to find the source of the sound. It seemed too crisp to be live. After a few seconds of scanning, I found it.

“Hoof and Sound,” I read aloud from the sign on the front. “The music store...”

“Yeah, so?” Charlie seemed more impatient than he had when first asking me to go with him. He moved his hoof to pull me along, but I stepped forward, out of his reach.

“It’s coming from the loudspeakers. They must be playing it because...”

I only got a few more seconds of listening before I felt Charlie’s hoof on my shoulder.

“Alright, we listened for a bit. Can we go now? I don’t wanna get there after all the booze is gone.”

I pulled away from him again and turned in his direction.

“Doesn’t it sound beautiful to you?”

“It’s just a song. I can listen to a song any time. Right now, it’s prom, and you said you were gonna come to this party with me.” Charlie made another grab for me with his hoof, which I dodged.

“It’s not just any song. This is the variation that... listen, I don’t care. Go to the party without me. I want to stay and listen for a while.”

“I can’t believe this.” Charlier shook his head, wandering in a semicircle around to my left side. “I spent all this money on a suit, bought you that dumb corsage, and you’re not even gonna come to the after-party with me? I bet you weren’t even gonna put out, were you?”

“Is that the only reason you asked me out? Because you thought you were going to get laid?”

“Why else would I ask you out?” Charlie stepped closer to me. I moved to back away, but found myself up against the door of the music store, which rattled behind me as I rested my weight on it. “I mean, come on; a weirdo like you? You’re lucky anyone paid attention to you in the first place. The least you could do is gimme a hoofie.”

“Get away from me.” I made to shove him out of the way, but he grabbed my hoof between his forelegs and pressed himself closer. I tried to pull my hoof away, but he had a good deal more leverage. Within seconds, he’d dragged my hoof down, between his legs, where I could feel something very distinctly underneath his suit.

“Let go of me or I’ll scream,” I said, still struggling to pull my hoof away. I pushed on his shoulder with my free foreleg, but found no give as he rubbed my other hoof all over what I knew was his hard-on.

“Scream to who? The guy playing the piano over those speakers? Ain’t gonna do you much good. Look, just gimme some sugar and I’ll leave you alone—”

“No—”

I moved to pull away from him again, suddenly, but he caught me, and slammed me against the door. The change of his hooves meant mine was free, but it also meant he was on top of me, both of us on our hindlegs, and his foreleg pressed into my throat. I could feel him rubbing up against me, now on my stomach through my dress, instead of my hoof.

“Come on—”

I twisted, trying to move to my left. His foreleg pressed down, hard, which made me suddenly realize it was quite difficult to breathe. I tried to struggle in the other direction, but he held me down firmer. I could feel my eyes flutter at the lack of oxygen.

He started rubbing himself on me again. Rubbing against my dress. Holding me in place. Every time I tried to move, he’d move with me, locking me against the wall.

But I had my hoof free, and enough oxygen to move it. The second I hit him in the head, he let go of my throat, which meant breathing again, which meant I could move to the side. Before he had a chance to collect himself, I reared up on my forelegs and kicked as hard as I could manage. I don’t think that was very hard, because I certainly didn’t hear a crack, but I did feel contact with something, followed by the ‘oof’ of him falling to the ground, stumbling on the street.

I turned around to him, breathing heavily. My dress, I could tell, was torn. He looked up at me from the ground. I could see him hanging out of his suit, and a bit of blood coming from his lip.

He didn’t say anything else. He just got up and walked away.

Variation twenty-six had started playing. I stayed and listened until the reprieve. When I got home, my mother was asleep. I put her bottle of wine away, tucked the dress back into her closet, and went to sleep.

“I’ve been accepted as a pianist in the Canterlot Symphony Orchestra.”

Two weeks after graduation and I’d already gotten a letter. No shortage of scholarships either, though the screening board stressed they would have been happy to accept me on the strength of my performance alone. I hadn’t even needed to apply for the position—a scout present at my scholarship application had been delighted at my display. Signed me up on the spot. Me, who’d never played a concert in my life. Now a scholarship and a position with the symphony. It was almost too good to be true.

My mother beamed, as much as she ever could, when I told her the news.

“That’s wonderful, dear,” she said, in that way she so often said it. “I knew you could do it. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you.” Dinner was the same as always. More sludge. For years, every day. Tick tick.

“Do you know what you’re doing for housing? Canterlot can be quite expensive. Good deal of nobility in the city, of course. I’m sure you’ll fit right in though.”

I took a drink of my water and let it settle before speaking.

“The orchestra supplies accommodations for all its performers. I’ll have a small apartment to myself, in addition to a salary.”

“That’s lovely, dear. My goodness, you really have grown up, haven’t you? Moving off to Canterlot, joining the symphony, getting a place of your own... promise you won’t forget about your mother when you’re off in Canterlot, being famous.”

Forget?

“I won’t. I promise.”

Another drink of water.

“And do be sure to send tickets if they give you any to spare. I’d simply die if I didn’t see you in concert. At your first one, at least.”

“Of course, Mother. I’m not sure yet, but I’ll see how things go.”

“Wonderful, wonderful.”

The first day in Canterlot was everything and nothing like what I’d expected.

For one, while my mother had stressed to me over and over that proper manners must be abided by, nopony else in the city seemed quite as adherent to that principle as I was. They were friendly enough, certainly, but seemed mostly just to chuckle when I curtsied and spoke in fancy diction, and called everyone ‘sir’ or ‘madame’. I was sensible enough to give it up after the third stop in a row with strange looks. It’s not as though I’m not capable of speaking normally—it’s just that, from everything my mother had told me, Canterlot ponies were a different breed, with different expectations. I learned that wasn’t true after only a day, which left that much more to wonder about thereafter.

Being used to a two story house, the apartment the Orchestra supplied was small in comparison—though, in further comparison, when the only rooms I ever occupied where my bedroom, and the music room, it was a bit jarring to have an entire living space to myself. Furnished as well, with couches, tables, chairs, appliances, a nice view out from the deck... oh, and of course, a separate room for the piano. Soundproof, I was assured. Anyone with noise complaints should direct them to The Canterlot Symphony Orchestra. I told them I’d keep that in mind.

The first thing I unpacked, I set on top of the piano, and thereafter into motion. Tick tick. Tick tick.

An hour of practice, every day. For once, she wasn’t there to hear it. But the notes came the same anyway, as they always did.

The symphony hall was unlike anything I’d ever seen. As opposed to the ponies I was introduced to, who I could tell had performed and toured since their youth, the only recitals I had ever given were for Grace Note and my mother, and the latter with usually disastrous results. Seeing an entire venue sprawled out with seats, ready to be packed to the brim with throngs of ponies waiting to judge my every motion, criticize my every error... well, that was something.

“You’ll do fine,” the director assured me. “Everyone is a little nervous their first time, but you’re here because you’re good at what you do. Plus, we have a whole month of rehearsals before your first show. You’ll be ready in no time, I bet.”

The whole orchestra seemed to eye me as I walked by. It wasn’t hard looking like I fit in—leaving my mane long, styling it just so. I could even adopt that snooty look mother always wore, if need be. But I didn’t feel like I fit in. And more to that, I don’t think it was fitting in that they were worried about. They were already judging me—me, the concert pianist, scooped up from a small town nearby to play in one of the most prestigious orchestras in Equestria. And going to school at the same time? What kind of flub was the orchestra director, appointing me as the pianist? Surely I must have bribed him, slept with him, coerced him in some way to letting me get the position.

On the first day, a sheet of music was laid out in front of me.

“Hoofward Grieg,” the director said, leaving me the sheets. “Piano Concerto in A Minor. You’re familiar with it?”

I nodded.

“Not particularly, though I’ve played it a few times.”

“That’s fine. Better than nothing at least, you’ve got a head start on a few of the gang. Study tonight and we’ll do our first practice tomorrow. If that’s not too swift a turnaround for you?”

I thought about what was waiting for me back at the apartment. Furniture. A view out the deck. A piano.

“No, that will be fine.”

“Good. We’ll see you then.”

I had just finished my first practice when the message came. Backstage with the director and some of the other performers, including the reserve pianist.

“Now, Concerto, you have to give the girl a bit of a chance to adjust. This is her first time working in this sort of setting, you understand.”

“Then why is she being chosen in the first place? I’ve played in concert halls my whole life, and some hillbilly from backwater Ponyville is chosen to fill the most important spot in the orchestra? And not even that, but to do it so poorly?”

“I’m sorry.” I let my head sink, though not so low that I’d appear to be sulking. I hoped.

“You should be. That was the most emotionless performance of that piece I’ve ever heard. Why don’t we just hire a set of birds to peck the keys on time? As long as they hit all the right notes, yes?”

The director stood up at that point, and went off with the backup pianist, Concerto. A brown coat and mane to match. No horn or wings. And of course, he deserved the position much more than I did.

“Sorry,” I said again. The rest of the orchestra was listening, surely, though none of them said what was on their minds quite as voraciously as Concerto did. I had to admit at that point that my acceptance might have indeed been a mistake. While the context of playing with other musicians didn’t throw me off, Concerto was right; the notes were just notes. I played them exactly as they were written. The screening committed hadn’t had any problems with my audition or performance. Maybe I’d played differently there.

“Sorry,” I said for a third time, quietly, mostly to myself.

It was then that the pony with the envelope came. He spoke to someone at the door who nodded him past, pointing to me. I stood up from the piano to greet him, with a vague remembrance of the last time I’d received a letter coming to the front of my mind.

“Miss Octavia?” He asked my name despite the fact that he’d been very pointedly aimed in my direction. Nevertheless, I nodded.

“Letter for you,” he said. “Urgent.”

“What is it?” I said. If it was something so important, surely there was a chance he knew the contents without me having to open them.

“It’s your mother, miss. She’s, uh... in the hospital.”

I’d never been to a hospital before. For all the mystery illness I might have contracted in my youth, maybe my mother’s horribly prepared vegetables warded them off, because I’d never had to fight anything more than a few days stomach cold. With that in mind, hospitals weren’t something I was entirely familiar with... conceptually, at least. Stepping into one was a very different thing.

The doctors were very nice when leading me to my mother’s room. All warm smiles and sympathy. One of them met me at her door, a yellow-coated unicorn with a brown mane. He smiled at me. I smiled back. Polite, proper. Manners always.

“Miss Octavia?” He extended his hoof, which I shook. “I’m Doctor Stable. I”d like to go over your mother’s chart, if you have a moment?”

I nodded. I wasn’t about to barge in to see her, in any case.

“Your mother has... well, it’s almost certainly verifiable that she has some form of cancer. We haven’t gotten full oncology reports back at this time, but we’re most likely looking at lung, liver, or both.”

I know I heard those words, and I knew what they meant. Cancer. Liver, lungs. Obvious, from the years of cigarettes and wine. But that was something that happened to other ponies, wasn’t it? Surely, the things I’d just heard couldn’t apply to my mother.

I repeated the word, to make sure it fit.

“Cancer,” I said. The doctor nodded.

“It seems to be at quite a severe stage already. It’s very likely it was simply undiagnosed for some time and has only now just reached what we might call a ‘critical point’.”

“I see.”

The doctor’s smile had vanished. I think he expected me to say more than that, because it took him a few seconds to pick up.

“There are a few things we can do at this point. Traditional radiation is right out, unfortunately, and operating at this point would be pointless, as we’re not even sure there are any tumors causing the symptoms.”

I nodded. Still more words he was saying, that I knew, but didn’t know here, now.

“There’s an experimental treatment being deployed in some hospitals right now,” he went on, “involving unicorn magic. There aren’t any proven side-effects. Conversely, the success rate isn’t as high as we’d like it... if anything, it might just waylay the time until her... passing.”

“Her death, you mean.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows at my use of such blunt terminology, but cleared his throat and recovered admirably.

“Er... yes. Her death.”

“So she is dying,” I said. I wanted it to sound sad, miserable, listless. I know for certain that I didn’t cry. I hope I didn't smile.

“Well... yes. With cancer in this stage, any remission would be a miracle... after which we’d theoretically proceed with further treatment and heavy monitoring thereafter.”

“I see.”

Another pause that went on for too long. He seemed to be expecting me to say something else.

“I’ll uh... would you like me to leave you for a bit? I know news like this can be quite upsetting—”

“No, it’s fine.” I turned around from the short distance we had walked, back to the door I had met him in front of. “This is her room, yes?”

“Uh, yes, it is. She was still awake, last I checked, though I’m not sure you’ll—”

“Thank you.” I pushed open the door without waiting for him to finish. I’m not sure if that qualified under ‘poor manners’, but I imagine giving the circumstance he could forgive a sudden absence of formality.

Seeing her there was... odd. My mother, whom I’d stumbled upon countless times, passed out on the floor, on the couch, on the living room table, amidst her towers of figurines, often flickering between lucidity and unconscious drunkenness—never in all that time had she looked as helpless as she did now.

She was lying on what I imagine is the prototypical hospital bed—white sheets, bars at the sides, tilted up towards the top, that sort of thing—and there was a machine hooked up to her. One or several, in any case, most of them beeping, one holding sacks filled with fluid, the other making horrible gasping noises like a frog breathing its last breath as it expired. And her, laying there, eyes half-open, the last curl of polish taken from her mane, the last stare of dignity robbed from her eyes. On that bed, the mother who had hummed me a tune I would carry with me through every instant of my life, looked more helpless than an abandoned child.

She tried to sit up as I walked closer, but gave up halfway through and collapsed back onto the bed.

“Dear,” she said. Her voice sounded raspy, thin, like the crystal in her glass had finally crumbled after too much misuse. “I'm so glad... you could make it. The doctors at this place are... louts. Don’t know... the first thing... about medicine.”

I didn’t say anything. I just stood there, at her bedside, watching her breathe. Watching the rise and fall of her chest, and the struggling of her hooves at her sides to hold her upright, failing every few seconds and giving up, letting her slump back down into her hospital mattress.

“Octavia, dear. Are you... alright?”

And she was asking me.

“I’m fine, Mother,” I said. I walked closer to her, holding out my hoof. After a few false starts, she managed to raise hers as well, and met mine. I could feel a shake in her foreleg as we touched, before the effort became too much, and she let her hoof fall back to the bed.

“How is... your position with... the symphony going?” The pauses were where she sucked in air, rattling it in her lungs, quivering like the last drop of liquid squeezed from a half-filled sack. Like wet burlap shuffling over shifting bricks.

“It’s... well. It’s going well.”

She smiled, which, in her state, full of plugs and tubes, made her look like a corpse being pulled by puppet strings.

The mare in front of me was my mother, who a week ago had seemed as healthy as she had ever been. Which, is to say, not that much. And now, suddenly, lying here like this.

“I hope I’ll... get to see you... play soon.”

I reached out my hoof again. She tried to lift hers, but I pressed down, holding her foreleg to the bed, gently. Running my hoof over her coat.

The words wouldn’t come.

“It’s... sweet of you... to come back so suddenly... but don’t worry. I’ll be... fine in no time. Bunch of... unicorns, you know... with their magic, and such. Doctor said... it should fix me... right up.”

I pressed down on her hoof harder. The machines beeped in the background. The breathing, sucking sound. Tubes.

“Dear... do say something...”

My eyes snapped open, like the start when waking.

“I’m sorry, Mother. Yes, I spoke to the doctor as well. He said that it’s an experimental—”

“That’s what... they always say... when it’s too good for... the public. But ponies like... you and I... get special treatment.” The last word came with a cough, which sent my mother into a hacking fit. I tensed for a moment as the machines beeped louder, but the fit stopped as quickly as it had started. Her hoof had shaken against mine when she moved.

“Don’t stay too long... on my account,” she said, rolling her eyes in an effusive sort of fashion, like cored apples rolling around in a skull. “I’m sure you’ve got... lots of practice... to do.”

“I do,” I said.

“You should... convince them to... do a performance of... that song you love. The one I taught you. It’s such a... wonderful one.”

I nodded.

“It is.”

And then there was silence, but for the breathing, the hissing, the beeping of the things in the background. The steady rhythm of the in and out. Tick tick. Tick tick. Over and over.

Her eyes closed then. I held her hoof tighter and looked up to one of the many machines outputting a string of incomprehensible information.

It kept beeping. No team of doctors rushed into the room. The line in the center bounced upward in a rhythm. Steady rhythm. Beep. Beep. Tick. Tick.

Rhythm is everywhere, they say. Very important.

I pulled the blankets up over her before I left. The next train wasn’t until the following afternoon.

Another rehearsal ended in the same stead. Concerto kept himself quiet this time, but I could hear what he was thinking. What everypony was thinking. Let her go to school and leave symphony work for the professionals. What is she thinking, playing in the big leagues. Such a shame about her mother though. Haven’t heard back from the doctor yet.

After the second night’s rehearsal, the rest of the orchestra was quick to take off. I stayed for a while, letting the other performers leave, lock up their things, dim the lights. Of course their pianist has a key to the symphony hall, not that I needed it. The place locks itself up. But I waited until it was just me, sitting on stage, alone at the piano.

I put the piece of paper I’d brought with me up on the piano. Not a piece of sheet music. A letter. One I’d received that morning.

I didn’t open it.

The lights were gone. It was almost impossible to see the keys in front of my face. But I didn’t need them. I had the tick in my head. My hooves knew where to go, the same way they always knew. The same notes I could play as easy as breathing. One, and then the other. C. A. C. A.

For the first time, on that piano I didn’t know, they sounded real. The concerto was already forgotten. Nothing ever before like that C. That A. Moving in the same direction I always had. The minor refrain before ascending, up, ever up, and before the chorus. Pause.

My hooves felt heavy. If they were wet, I’m not sure. There was no sheet music to dampen. Just the envelope.

The symphony hall was empty. Down. The chorus.

I sang it. I’d never sung it before. That was always for her. No matter how she was, there was always a way to hear it. She could pick out the notes from a mile away. I could hear her every night, even if she didn’t sing. Always going along. The same sound. Then, the first thing, and now here. For a whole empty audience. No light, and no need for it. The refrain she wouldn’t let me play too loud, because I knew it would make her cry. Crying. And still singing, the way she would, no matter what was wrong.

I know she sang it in those sheets. Among the keeping time of those steady beeps. Beep. Beep. Rhythm. Hers and mine. The words I didn’t know the meaning of for so long.

They don’t have to mean anything. They just are. Just notes that we repeat, over and over again.

Tick. Tick.

C. A. C. A.

And soft, soft silence in the darkness.

“I want to give up the piano position.”

The director raised an eyebrow at me over his paper, tempered only by the fact that I think he might have thought I was joking. It was enough to make him lower his paper, which he did, and to put out his cigarette also, which he did further.

“Thats's quite a statement, coming from the youngest applicant ever to be given the position—let alone with no performance experience, based solely on the expertise of her audition.”

“I know.” In a contrast to my tone, I kept my head high. Chin raised. Nose pointed straight ahead. “I just don’t think I’m cut out for it.”

“Listen.” The director sat up properly and pushed his chair back a little bit as he adjusted—and then, finally seeming unhappy with his position, stood up, and put one hoof on my shoulder. I looked down at it, then back up at him.

“I know you’re having a hard time,” he said. “And take it from me, I know, Concerto’s an asshole—I’ve worked with the guy before. Don’t let him giving you a hard time scare you away. This is a big opportunity!”

With my left hoof, I touched his and slowly lifted it off my shoulder.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He sighed.

“You do realize this is going to be quite complicated? Even if we sub Concerto in, he still has to practice—trust me, I’ve seen his Grieg, and it is not up to snuff. You know this means losing your apartment as well, yes?”

“I know. Although...”

“Yes?”

I stepped back from the director, standing off to the side of the stage where the rest of the performers were getting their instruments ready. A host of strings, woodwinds and even some brass, and the percussion section, who sat in an array of confusing looking arrangements of things to beat in perfect tempo.

Somewhere in there.

“I’d like to request a transfer, actually.”

“To a different instrument?” The director scratched his head with a perturbed look on his face. “You know you auditioned for the piano position, right? Even if we had a chair open, which I’m not saying we do, you’d need to apply again, and get approved a second time.”

“I know.”

The silence hung between us for a few seconds before he sighed.

“Alright,” he said. “What instrument did you want to audition for? I’m not making any promises, mind, though you might convince me to cut you some slack on account of...” He left his sentence unfinished. Tick tick.

“I want to play the cello,” I said. The first time I’d ever said it. The words sounded right in my mouth.

“The cello?” The director looked downstage to the rest of the orchestra setting up, in particular at the string section, where two cellists were preparing their bows.

“Do you know how to play the cello?”

I looked down the stage then. At the bass bodies leaned against them in the pit—the strings that crooned like phantoms when depressed, the bows, like swords, cutting a swath of melancholy through the air, haunting, but beautiful.

I held my hoof out for a moment, and felt something in the air that might not be there now, but would be there, soon.

“I’m led to believe I may have a certain aptitude for it,” I said.

“Well, let’s see what you’ve got then.”

The lights were bright. I remember that distinctly, how bright they were, shining from overhead like someone had let the sun inside. The music on the stand in front of me was so light I was surprised it didn’t catch flame, though it wouldn’t have mattered if it had. There was enough memory in my hooves to move without it. Something like what I’d practiced. Practice and you can learn anything that way. Over and over again. As long as you have the rhythm for it.

The lights dimmed. All at once, the sound in the background, like ponies bustling at lunch, on the playground, in the market or at a dance, suddenly hushed. The quiet, only of shuffling papers. One clearing throat. The sudden precipitation of hooves tensed to create sound.

And then sound. Sound, rolling, rumbling, into the flourish of a piano. Not mine.

Then me. That note. The same as every note. C. A. The rhythm. Tick tick. Tick tick. All the same. Over and over, all the same.

The lights were very bright. I remember that distinctly.

And the notes were the same, though in different order. Every time, they’re always just notes.

So why, for the first time playing them, did I feel happy?

Everything Loops

A/N: Apologies for what might be kind of crappy formatting. I literally finished this beast three minutes before the deadline. Fix'd. —Roger

“... so that’s what I’m saying, I don’t even know if she’s really that into me or if it’s just some weird emotional thing. I mean, I like her, an’ I guess she likes me back because she told me all that stuff about her issues with her dad and running away from home and all that, but like, there’s being a good friend and then there’s being better good friends and I don’t know where...”

Doctor Sparks yanked a piece of tape off the roll of his hooves and slapped it over the box he’d just finished packing, and briefly entertained the notion of using it next on the straw-haired colt jabbering away by the window. He wasn’t sure what it was about new medical residents that made them so prone to romantic disarray. His best guess was a potent cocktail of rampaging hormones and an alarming amount of caffeine, but he had also hypothesized that there was something about him that just made him seem approachable. Perhaps there was a thing as having too good of a bedside manner.

“Sheets,” he said, cutting off the other stallion’s monologue with a voice carrying a bit less nervous, early-morning energy, “do you remember what I told you the most important part of being a doctor was?”

“Uh... sign everything in triplicate and wear masks around the waiting room magazines?”

Sparks lit his horn and moved the sealed box on his desk down to the pile of them on the floor, leaving him ample space to level a cock-eyed stare at the resident. “Be observant,” he said. “And for the record, that one was a joke.”

Sheets swallowed audibly and nodded with his clamped between his teeth. A moment later, he blew it back out. “So...”

“So given your expertise in the area of observation, what would you say my perspective on your love life right now is?”

Back went the lip between his teeth. If they’d lived in a cartoon, Sparks could’ve imagined buckets worth of sweat spurting out from the young colt’s brow. “Sympathy?” he said after a few seconds of thought.

“Mmm,” the doctor said, rooting around in his desk drawer for any loose items he’d left behind. “Keep going.”

“Anger?” came the resident’s slightly shakier next guess.

“Warmer, but a little extreme.”

“Disinterest?”

“Ooh, so close...”

A single ballpoint pen rolled into view as Sparks jiggled his desk a bit, and he grabbed it just before he kicked the drawer shut and straightened up just in time to see bashful comprehension light up the resident’s face.

“Complete, crippling apathy?” Sheets said quietly. Sparks winked, and tapped the pen against the resident’s nose before tossing it into the last open box at the end of the row.

“Bingo.”

Sheets grinned and ducked his head a bit as a blush washed over his cheeks. “Sorry, Doc,” he said, shuffling out of the way as his boss navigated to the front of the room and started loading up a cart waiting in the hallway outside. “Guess I just... gotta get all this stuff out now, y’know? Seeing as you’re leavin’ and all.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, don’t be so sentimental about it,” Sparks said, grunting with exertion as he shoved a box into place on the cart. “Honestly, Sheets, it’s not like I’m falling off the face of the earth. I’m just moving to Canterlot. Not even a day’s walk from here.”

“Yeah, I... I guess you’re right,” Sheets said, picking up a box with the aura from his own horn and helping the doctor finish his work. Once the cart was full and Doctor Sparks's former office was more or less bare, Sparks himself let out a satisfied sigh and pointed a sideways glance at Sheets.

“And yet, you’re still worried about something.”

Sheets blushed again and scuffed his hoof against the floor. Sheesh, no wonder he couldn’t tell whether that mare was into him for his sex appeal.

“Nah, it’s... stupid,” he said, choosing to walk around to the back of the cart and start pushing instead of looking Sparks in the eye. “I don’t even wanna talk about it.”

Sparks stuck his forehoof out, and the cart slammed to a stop before it went more than a foot. “Well, Sheets, I’d say that’s highly unfortunate, because now you’ve gone and made me curious,” he said, “so as punishment for ruining all that good apathy I’d worked up, now you pretty much have to tell me.”

For a moment, Sheets was all smiles and sunshine again, but soon enough his face darkened. “It’s just...” he said, constructing each word slowly as if each were made of china and he was terrified of breaking them. “I mean, you’ve heard the stories, right?”

“About you and Buttercup? In incredible detail, yes.”

“No, about... about Canterlot General,” Sheets went on, pushing the cart back into motion with a bit more force this time. Sparks followed closely, even more intrigued now that he could hear a bit of an edge to the resident’s voice. “They... they say it’s haunted.”

Despite his best efforts—okay, maybe his half-flanked efforts—Sparks couldn’t suppress a snort. “Sheets, every hospital is supposed to be haunted,” he said, a friendly nudge in the shoulder serving as his way of adding “You big-hearted dolt” to the end of that sentence. “Matter of fact, there’s a ghost here too, down in Pediatrics. Big white mane, wrinkled face, paradoxical hatred of children and pathological fear of cats. We call her Hildy. She just adores residents.”

Once again, Sheets’ good cheer was fleeting. “I’m not just talking about creepy stories, though,” he explained. “I went to the library and read about the place a bit, and it’s, like... hardcore haunted. Apparently, there was this huge magical accident there a few centuries ago, and ever since it’s almost just normal for crazy stuff to happen. There was even a whole list of doctors that just straight disappeared there. Right in the middle of a shift.”

The two ponies reached the end of the hallway, and Sparks didn’t break stride as he pushed the exit door open and made his way out into the sun-washed courtyard. As Sheets squinted and blinked away the newfound spots in his eyes, Sparks turned around to face him and cocked his brow again. “A list?”

“Well... okay, it was like three doctors,” Sheets said once he’d regained enough of his senses to see the look his boss was giving him. “But that’s still a lot!”

At the end of the yard, a yellow-painted taxi wagon was waiting by the curb, its driver relishing in being a perfect Manehattan stereotype by leaning against the hitch with a grungy cigarette in one hoof and a cup of cheap coffee in the other. Sparks whistled and waved until he got the stallion’s attention, then turned his own back to Sheets. “Sheets, ghost stories are like alicorns,” he said. “Everypony knows one, and everypony wants you to think theirs is the only one that’s actually real.”

“So you don’t believe in ghosts, doc?”

Sparks shrugged, and motioned Sheets out of the way as the cabbie took hold of the cart and began loading its contents into the storage space beneath the cab. “I believe in imagination,” he said. “I believe that some ponies really think they heard something moving through their house after dark, and that their minds convince them it was something beyond the realm of normal magic. But as far as the real thing goes? They’re just old legends, Sparks. Nightmares, campfire stories... you know, I’d even say that in rare cases, intense fear or guilt alone can sometimes manifest as hallucinations.”

With a throaty cough, the cabbie packed the last box into the wagon and yanked up the tailgate up to lock them into place, then clunked his hoof against the bumper and gave the pair on the curb a reproachful stare. Sparks raised his foreleg to ask for a couple minutes more, and the cabbie responded with a dismissive shrug and a big swig from his coffee cup.

“There are all sorts of explanations for that kind of stuff, Sheets,” he said. Rare was the occasion that he’d drop his voice into an undiluted friendly tone for a resident, but Sheets, for lack of a better word, was special, if only because he was a potent reminder of how dopey Sparks had once been when he’d started at Manehattan General a decade and a half ago. “And most of them don’t take more than half a second’s worth of thought. Believe me, I’m gonna be fine. And hey, if I’m not, I’ll make sure to stop by here and haunt you a bit just so you can say ‘I told you so’.”

Finally, he got a genuine laugh out of Sheets, and for Sparks that was as good an achievement to skip town on as he could ask for. He clapped the resident on the shoulder and winked again, then hopped up into the back of the wagon and called out for the driver to shove off. As the cabbie begrudgingly stomped out his cig and made his way back around to his hitch, Sparks clambered over to the railing and looked down at a still chuckling Sheets.

“Oh, and since you’re so desperate for my advice,” he said, “just grow a pair and ask her out already. Worst thing you can do is fail, and that’s not about to change your life forever.”

It took Sheets a moment to notice that his jaw was bouncing off his chest, and another couple after that to push it back up and give him a jerky nod. “Yeah, I... I’ll do that,” he said. “Thanks, Doc.”

Sparks raised his eyebrows, and put on his best austere glare. “That’s Doctor Sparks to you, newbie,” he said. “Now get back inside and make your fellow residents proud, or I might just hop off this junker and steal that pretty little mare myself.”

Sheets laughed again, and lifted his hoof into a lazy salute. Sparks was halfway through returning the gesture when the wagon lurched into motion, and he managed to finish the gesture once he regained his balance.

“You just gotta have a little optimism, Sheets,” he called back as the wagon pulled out into the street and joined the flow of midday city traffic streaming by. “Trust me, it’s gonna be fine.”

Sheets waved and turned back into the courtyard, and Sparks settled down into his seat with nothing but content in his heart. He’d miss Manehattan once he was gone: all the noise, all the drama, and especially all the characters that inhabited it. But at the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to be all that sad about it. He wasn’t just moving on; he was moving up, to the biggest and best hospital in Equestria to take on the position of assistant chief of surgery. It was a dream job. This was a dream opportunity. And even though Sheets could no longer hear him, he went ahead and repeated his last words to him under his breath.

“It’s gonna be fine,” he told himself. “Everything is going to be fine.”

Sparks leaned back and relaxed, and the sun beamed down at him overhead. It was going to be a beautiful day.

A hypnic jerk, sometimes colloquially referred to as a night start, is an involuntary twitch that occurs just before going to sleep, often accompanied by a falling sensation and an elevated heart rate as if you’d just been shocked by something you hadn’t expected to see. Doctor Sparks had heard countless patients ask him about that ailment, and every time he gave them the same answer: it’s normal, it happens to everyone, just try to keep a regular sleep schedule and do relaxing things before bed. He told himself the same things whenever he felt one, and usually they worked. But every time he had experienced that phenomenon, it had been during hypnagogia, during the last stage of consciousness before his brain shut off.

You weren’t supposed to feel it once you were already asleep.

Sparks awoke with a shout, his teeth gritted and his hooves clenched against the edges of the cot inside his office. For a minute or two, he just lay there without unwinding his coiled limbs, focused only on taking deep breaths and slowing down his pulse to the point where it didn’t feel like his heart was about to break through his ribs. Once he felt relatively calm again, he let his head fall back onto his pillow and pried his forelegs loose from the metal supports underneath his makeshift bed. As he stared up at the ceiling, his mind raced with questions. What was that all about? What kind of dream had he been having? Why was it still so hard to calm himself down?

Why was the hallway outside so dark?

Sparks rolled out of bed and gingerly stood up, his legs sore from his earlier shift and still a bit stiff from what must’ve been a doozy of a night terror. Stars, if only he could remember what it was! He’d been here at the hospital, he thought... something to do with a patient. A surgery, perhaps? Yeah, a surgery, and a tough one too: flying accident, severe spinal injuries, massive internal bleeding... familiar. Almost like déjà vu. Had he had that dream before? And then at the end, a throbbing hum, and a giant flash of light...

Sparks shook his head and forced himself to take another breath. There’d be time for interpreting his dreams later. Right now, he had more pressing matters to attend to. Like why, for example, why the emergency backup generators were still apparently about as useful as two three-hundred-pound paperweights. Of course, he was sure the higher-ups had a lot of other things on their plates besides replacing the generators. After all, he’d only been hounding them about the issue ever since he transferred here two years ago.

Sparks swung his office door open and stepped into the hallway, mostly just to confirm what he’d been able to tell by looking under the door from his cot: against all manner of government regulations and public health codes, the power was out seemingly building-wide. He scowled and swung his door closed, resolving to be much less civil in his next angry letter to the Board about proper maintenance and procedure. On the one hoof, it wasn’t terribly critical that they maintain power here every hour of the day; unlike some newer hospitals, Canterlot General’s technomagical assets mainly consisted of overhead lighting and standard medical equipment.

But on the other hoof, what in Equestria was he supposed to do if something did happen at a time like this? Forget his nightmare a moment ago; they’d be living in a real one soon enough if a patient so much as caught cold with the whole building out of commission. Months of paperwork, a media scandal, probably a full-scale investigation and the vetting of at least half a dozen key personnel... and the stars only knew what the Princesses would think. Thank the both of them that they at least didn’t have any patients in critical condition at the moment. With a bit of luck, he’d be able to corral some nurses and have this mess sorted out by morning.

Sparks took a moment to situate himself in the darkened corridor, then faced him to the right and started walking. Every building looked different under the hood of near-complete darkness, and Canterlot General was the poster child for that effect: long hallways, cramped ORs, outdated furnishings and a musty smell that somehow pervaded even the new psych wing on the building’s east end. To be perfectly honest, it was nothing short of a certified dump. But it was a big dump, and an important one, Sparks often reminded himself. And sooner or later, he’d be in a position to whip this place into proper shape.

Sparks rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, and a shudder crawled down his spine. Stars above, it was cold in here. Had the central heating gone down too? Sparks adjusted his course a bit and brushed his shoulder against the wall, and goosebumps rose on his skin as the peeling wallpaper came into contact with it. Ice-cold. This night just kept getting better and better.

He quickened his pace and kept going, the fur on his neck beginning to prickle. There was another more personal reason he’d been so eager to solve the generator problem when he’d been let in on it during his first month here, and in fact it was a rather simple one: hospitals at night were just damn creepy. His hooves clacked against the tile with every step and the noise receded far into the distance, only to echo back a second or two later than he figured they should’ve, like the delayed response of some copycat at the far side of the wing. The silence, contradictory as the phrase was, felt deafening; there was no sound but that of his own breathing, of his heart pounding deep inside his ears like the thump of a hoof against a heavy wooden door. Hidden away in this wing were fifty-six patients and the rest of the night staff, but for all the world Sparks could’ve sworn that not a soul remained in the building besides him.

Sparks took another breath, and rolled his shoulders. He’d come to a stop in front of one of the doors on the hall; a faintly visible plaque on its front displayed its room number overtop a patient identification sheet too blurry to make out, and twenty feet down the hallway he could see the protruding corner of the nurse’s station. A part of him wanted to veer off course for a moment and push the door open, to peek inside and ensure that there was a patient asleep in bed, that there were other ponies in here still perfectly content and blissfully unaware of the situation outside their doors.

His hoof was half-raised to touch the knob, actually, when his neck prickled again and he tore his eyes away. As much as he was sure everything inside was completely normal, the hypnotizing, infuriating possibility that it wasn’t made the choice unbearable. The broken lights were messing with his head. He needed to get himself under control and keep moving. He needed to fix this.

He jogged the rest of the way up to the nurse’s station and opened his mouth to start berating them for not coming to get him sooner, but the words died in his throat as soon as they’d formed. The nurse’s station was empty, not just of anypony who most certainly should’ve still been there, but of anything at all. The desks were cleaned out, their drawers left yanked open and their tops coated with dust, and the big board showing the schedule for ward rounds and operations for the day was blank, its surface scratched and faded as if somebody had scraped it clean with the edge of their hoof. A single lit candle stood at the front counter, but other than that there was no movement. He shivered again. If anything, it was even colder now.

He made his way towards the candle, his eyes never straying from it despite the flickering shadows tugging at his attention. With no breeze to disturb it, the flame on the wick was still, and only a few thin strips of wax had dripped down into the pan beneath it. It hadn’t been lit that long ago. Somepony still had to be around. So where were they? And why weren’t they still here trying to figure out what was going on?

Another shout built up in his lungs, and as he took in a breath to fuel it, something caught in the corner of his eye. Movement in the window. Something darting out of view just before he could turn to see it. He looked over anyway, and it reappeared: a tiny white speck, fluttering around on the wind. It was followed by another speck, then another, and soon the window was full of them. They bounced noiselessly off the glass. Piled up on the sill.

Snow.

It was snowing outside the window.

It was August.

Sparks let out the air trapped in his chest, and it came away from his mouth in a shapeless white cloud. Something was wrong here, not just with the lights but with the whole building. There should’ve been somebody else here, should’ve been a functional generator, should’ve been some sign that he wasn’t the only pony left alive in the world, snowed into a silent hospital in the middle of summer. He stared back at the candle, watching the flame imperceptibly eat away at the wax and trying to absorb as much of its feeble light as he could, and reasoned out his next move.

Even if this wing was empty, there should still be somepony down in the lobby, or at least some other indication of what was going on. If not there, he could go outside, wade through the newborn drifts and check a few houses along the road. There was an explanation for all this, and all he needed to do was keep his head on his shoulders and go hunt it down. He turned in place, and the report of his hooves echoed back at him a second too late. The stairs. He needed to find the stairs. He needed to start moving and keep moving and keep calm and not panic and—

Beep.

Sparks twitched and whipped around, and the candle flame dipped and shuddered from the sudden motion. That sound. He knew that sound. Quick, sudden, like the sound of a glass cracking. Like the pulse in his ears.

Beep.

An EKG machine. There was an EKG machine somewhere in the ward, and if the machine was beeping, that meant it was on, and if the machine was on that there must be power. And yet, the lights stayed dark, and the hallway cold.

Beep.

Down the rightside hallway, maybe a hundred yards away. Once he walked over that way and peered around the corner, he could see the door open about a hundred yards away, light flooding out from inside the operating room. Why just that room? What happened to all the other lights?

Beep.

Just one room. He had to check just that one room, then he could go downstairs. Sparks stared down the hallway at the flickering light. He didn’t move.

Beep...

He had no choice. He had to go.

Beep... beep...

He had to go now.

Before he could think better of it, Sparks ducked out from behind the nurse’s station, starting out with a composed trot that soon evolved into a jog. His hoofsteps reverberated all around him, ever so slightly off pace with the motions of his legs.

Beep, beep, beep, beep...

Speeding up. The monitor was getting louder, and behind it he could now hear something else: a constant rattling noise like somepony shaking a chainlink fence. He picked up his pace, and the echoes got louder. Closer.

Beep beep beep beep beep beep...

He reached the door already breathless, his legs weak and his ears numb from the cold. The machine was reaching a crescendo, and the rattling doubly so. It was coming from inside the room.

He took a step forward and looked inside, and the air froze around him. Rusted tools and instruments lay scattered and broken on the floor and embedded in the walls, and lit by a single flaring surgical lamp, a green-coated earth stallion lay convulsing on a spindly operating table, his chest peeled open and pinned back with black clamps coated with congealed blood. The straps crossed over him cut into his legs and neck as he thrashed around underneath them, and when a particularly violent spasm arched his back off the table and made his bindings screech in complaint, Sparks caught a glimpse of frothing, bone-white lips and half-lidded eyes rolled all the way back in his head.

There wasn’t time to think. There was barely even time to react. Sparks let out a panicked cry and bolted inside the operating room, and the echo following his hoofsteps was almost immediate.

Be-be-be-be-be-be-be-be...

“Nurse!” he screamed, his throat seared raw from the shout he couldn’t even be sure there was anyone around to hear. “Somebody, get in here!”

Diving into a procedure without prepping in the washroom or getting into scrubs was a one-way ticket to a new career as a fry cook, but at the moment Sparks couldn’t have begun to care less. The building was deserted, the power was on the fritz, and some despicable lunatic had left a patient alone on the operating table in the middle of a moondamned open-heart surgery. At this point, anypony still worried about regulations could go marry the freaking things for all he cared.

As best he could, Sparks got himself into position overtop the patient and tried to get a gauge on the situation, but the stallion was moving with a strength that he couldn’t begin to contain. He could guess well enough that the patient was in the middle of a full-blown cardiac arrest, but without full knowledge of his medical history he’d be shooting blind on a gut instinct. Not to mention the fact that there was a gaping hole in his chest filled with distended intestines and broken ribs, the visibly battered heart beneath all of them frantically pulsing to keep pumping blood out of it and into his exposed abdomen.

His lungs heaving, his hooves still hanging helplessly in midair, Sparks stood paralyzed over the shuddering body. He thought of yelling for help again, but no one had come the first time. Why would this time be any different? He was alone. He was alone in an abandoned hospital, with nothing to work with and a dying stallion whose remaining life was surely being measured in seconds. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t help this patient.

He couldn’t save him.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—

The stallion’s head lolled back, and the twitching organ inside his chest went horrifically still. Every hair on Sparks's body was on end, and every inch of skin beneath them was numb. Flatline. Full arrest. No hope of defibrillation. Nopony even left to share in the terror, to grasp onto and huddle together with to block out the keen of the EKG and the terrible silence behind it.

He stepped back from the table, stumbling off the raised dias hard enough to smack into the wall behind him. Alone. The word sizzled in his mind like it had been branded there. Alone. One patient had died, more would surely follow, and here he was unable to move, struck dumb by the thought of being in a powerless hospital surrounded by countless clueless ponies whose countdowns to expiration had all started ticking down. Of being stranded. Of being alone.

He barely registered the noise the first time it reached his ears; it was so faint and so obscured behind the wail of the machine beside him that he’d half-believed he imagined it. When it came again, though, he could no longer ignore it. Metal clattering against metal, somewhere in the hallway that looked black as pitch from where he stood mutely staring out at it. Surprise gave way to fear, and from there developed into anger. Somepony else was in the hospital. He wasn’t alone in here. And Celestia help her, somepony was going to answer for this.

He pushed away from the wall too hard and careened back onto the dias, bouncing off the edge of the table and jostling the slack, deadened leg of the stallion still fastened onto it. He stared down at the corpse as the edges of his vision went red, and then threw open a nearby cabinet and dug around inside it until he found a threadbare sheet to cover the body with. Once that was done, he shoved into the open door hard enough to send it careening back into the wall with a resounding crack. He stood waiting outside for one second, two seconds, five... and he heard it again. Creaking metal. Squeaking hinges.

A wheelchair, ditched in the hallway who knew long ago, rolling slowly into view from around another bend a few yards away. He could see a figure shambling away into the shadows behind it. They hadn’t noticed him yet. He was about to change that.

“Hey!”

The pony was close enough to be in earshot, but didn’t even miss a step as they continued their plodding journey down the hall. There was something odd about the way they were walking, like the hallway was tilted slightly and they were trying to compensate for it. It occurred to Sparks as he jumped into a jog again that this might not even be another staff member, that it might very well be a patient wandering around trying to find someone to help them. As he got closer, he saw the tattered gown hanging off their flanks, the loosened bandages trailing from their legs. He lowered his tone a bit, and called to them again.

“Excuse me, I... I’m Doctor Sparks, I’m assistant chief of surgery. We’ve had a power outage and I need you to... hello? Hello, can you hear me?”

Still, the patient didn’t respond. It seemed to be a mare, as best he could tell, and with that clarity came a similar recognition of why her pace through the hallway was so odd. One of her hind legs was bowed out at a sickening angle, the bone clearly broken at the joint and not set with even a basic splint. The hoof dragged uselessly behind her, scuffing and bobbing against the floor as she clumped forward, and Sparks could hear her muttering to herself beneath the skittering noise.

A chill rose up on the back of his neck again. A normal pony would be lucky—or perhaps unlucky—to be conscious with an injury like that, let alone mobile. “Ma’am?” he said, no longer strong enough to let out much more than a whisper. “Ma’am, are you all ri—”

The mare’s breath hitched, and Sparks stopped dead in his tracks. She had frozen no more than ten yards ahead of him with her head bowed and her legs still as stone. It seemed for a moment she had even stopped breathing. Then without warning, she twitched again, and her broken leg scuffed at the floor. There was something wrong with her neck. Her head shouldn’t have bobbed that much. He should’ve been able to see it above her torso.

She turned around.

Sparks's mouth went dry, and his throat sealed over and stopped up with a silent scream. The mare’s head stayed suspended over her chest for a moment, then tipped over and sagged sideways in front of her shoulder, swinging back and forth at an almost perfect right angle at the end of a neck that had been snapped cleanly in two. Her mouth hung open under widened, veinless eyes, and from deep within her throat, her hoarse, wheezing voice resurfaced.

“Daaaaaah...”

Sparks tried to breathe, but his muscles wouldn’t obey. He stood staring at her, gasping for air that wouldn’t come, fighting against legs that would not, could not move.

“Daaaaahccck...”

Her moan was pitiful... plaintive. She was pleading with him. Begging him for help. Begging him to help her.

“Daaaahccktooooor...”

Sparks's jaw snapped shut, and his mind flashed blank. The mare lurched forward at twice the speed she’d traveled before, and he tore his eyes away and threw himself into a dead sprint back down the hallway.

His breaths came in searing bursts, each one bigger than the last and yet seeming to pull less and less oxygen into his lungs. Roaring, blinding panic overwhelmed him, stopped up his ears and narrowed his vision to a pulsing black tunnel that ended at the little speck of light still visible from the operating room. The clicking, ear-splitting sound of hoofbeats came at him from all directions, punctuated by his own desperate sobs and an implacable ragged growl that seemed to be getting louder with every step. He had no way of knowing how close the mare who should have been dead—who must have been dead—who couldn’t possibly not be dead—was behind him, and he didn’t bother looking back. He didn’t care to know. He couldn’t bear to know.

Instead, he just ran, slipping and sliding over the freezing tiles until he reached the operating room again, until he crashed against the frame and slammed the door shut behind him with enough force to shake the whole room. Bits of metal and glass went flying beneath his hooves as they kept moving without any force to guide them, carrying him past the sheet-covered table and leaving him in a sprawling, shuddering heap in the far corner of the room. He scrambled a bit farther under the table, sending more debris skittering away from his uncoordinated hooves, and kept unblinking watch on the door, counting off each second that went by without a sign that the mare had seen him come in here.

One.

Who was that?

Two.

What had happened to them?

Three.

What had happened to him?

Four.

What the hell was going on in here?

Five.

Sparks leaned his head against one of the support struts bolting the table to the floor, and the cold, pockmarked steel gave him something physical to hold onto, something to anchor him down long enough to give himself some clarity. He let his eyes fall shut long enough to fill his lungs and empty them, and the piercing knot in his chest loosened ever so slightly

Ten.

Something had gone horribly wrong. Not just in the hospital, but maybe in the whole city. Maybe all over Equestria. The hospital staff was gone, vanished or imprisoned or something unimaginably worse, and in their stead they’d left... well, they’d left him. For whatever reason, he was still here, trapped in a ransacked OR beneath a stiffening, mutilated corpse and running from some unholy creature that he had no way of escaping from.

Fifteen.

Until he’d actually been quick enough. Unless she really hadn’t seen him come in here. Unless, provided he stayed in here long enough and waited for her to wander off, he could sneak out of the wing and make it out to the city proper to find out what was really going on. He took another breath, and his pulse impossibly to slow. He was safe in here. He could wait her out in here. He could just—

Twenty.

The impact against the door was titanic, the frame groaning and the hinges shrieking in pain as they desperately tried to keep from breaking apart. Sparks's head banged against the table, and he cried out in equal parts pain and sheer terror as stars floated in his eyes and sawdust sprinkled down from the door in front of him. Was it her? Had she heard him yell? Did it even matter at this point?

The door shook again, and the deafening crack of splintering wood was even louder this time. With limbs that seemed to be carved of stone, Sparks pulled himself up onto his hooves and faced the door, backing away without any thought or intention until his rump was pressed into the cabinet in the back. There were no windows in the room, nowhere else big enough for him to hide. He could attack her... and do what? Break her neck again? Tear off the head of a monster that clearly didn’t need it to pursue him?

A third collision rattled through the room and vibrated in his bones, and a jagged fissure split open down the center of the door. On the next hit, she’d break through. He’d have to run again. Sparks gritted his teeth and steeled his legs. He braced a hoof against the cabinet to give him leverage, and lowered himself into a runner’s crouch. And he waited.

But the final blow never came.

He waited ten seconds, twenty, a full minute, and the door held firm. With every moment that passed, his head grew lighter, and a buzzing keen grew louder in his ears. He swiveled his head around and let his eyes dart across the room as much as he dared, and eventually he realized the noise’s source: the EKG machine was still on, still screeching in alarm at the flat green line blazing a constant, redundant trail across its tiny monitor.

He reached out with his hoof and slapped it against the control panel on the wall, and finally found the switch to cut the machine off. The silence nearly knocked him off his hooves. He’d be so concerned with the mare in the hallway that he hadn’t even registered the sound in the background, and now that it was gone it felt like a hole had been cut in his head and been left to eat outwards through the rest of his body. Once again, only his own breathing cut through the suffocating hush, along with a low, barely audible throbbing noise that seemed to be coming from deep beneath his hooves.

He’d thought before of leaving the operating room, of slinking away once it was safe outside and searching for somepony sane enough to explain to him what he was dealing with. He harbored no such heroic ideas now. Right now, all he could think of doing was standing here with his eyes closed, leaning against the wall and just breathing in and breathing out. Listening to the gentle pulse of the noise down below him. Feeling it reverberate up through his hooves and tingle in his stomach.

Was it getting louder?

Sparks opened his eyes and took a breath... and this time, it echoed. Just like in the hallway, the noises from his body repeated a moment later. A second too late. The pulsing was in the walls now, an immense heartbeat amplified by the very building that seemed to contain it. It was getting faster too.

His lips parted, and he took another breath. The echo came two seconds late. With every pulse, the overhead light flashed a little brighter, painting the walls a cleaner shade for a split second at a time. Sparks turned his head and scanned the room, but there was nopony else inside with him but the stallion on the table, still covered with the sheet in the same place Sparks had left him.

One more breath. The echo came almost right on top of it.

It wasn’t the overhead light that was making the walls brighter. The walls themselves were pulsing, glowing with some unknown energy that grew in strength every time it surged through the building and painted the walls a brilliant white. In between flashes, Sparks watched the sheet on the table. The changing, quickening light made it look like it was moving, like the stallion beneath it was still thrashing around without the influence of a functioning heart.

The noise pressed down on him from all sides. The pulses were almost blinding now, and in the last second before he was forced to squeeze his eyes shut, Sparks turned his gaze towards the stallion’s covered head.

He held his breath. The echo came anyway.

And in the split-second before the pulsing stopped and the light exploded with an earth-shattering boom, in perfect sync with the reflected sound, he saw the portion of the sheet covering the corpse’s mouth flutter.

When Sparks opened his eyes again, he had to stop and stare for a moment before he could be sure he was still standing in the same room. The operating table, the dead stallion, the scattered tools and broken cabinets... everything was gone, whisked away without a trace as if it had never been there at all. The furnishings that had now replaced it seemed almost quaint by comparison: a wooden-framed bed made up with spotless grey sheets, a rickety side table, a window with a dim ray of light sneaking in through the gap in the curtains. What had just moments ago been a nightmarish OR was now just an ordinary room. Almost a familiar room, somehow...

Sparks straightened up from the crouch the blast had pushed him into, and with his heart pounding in his throat, he faced the door. The wood was flawless, the hinges dull but clean and unbroken. He grasped the knob with his magic, and it swung open easily with only the tiniest of squeaks. Good sense told him to wait until he could piece together what could’ve caused all this, but overwhelming curiosity pushed him forward and forced him back outside. Without the immediate danger of the walking, breathing dead, he found himself much more willing to duck out from his hiding place and look around for clues about the bizarre twist his night had taken.

The hallway was still dark, but not so much that he couldn’t easily find his way around. He craned his neck up to look for the broken overhead lights, but all he found was a smooth plaster ceiling. Instead of technomagical lights, the hallway was lined with old-fashioned oil lamps, all of them filled up with fuel and not a single one of them lit. He definitely wasn’t in the hospital anymore, and that meant he was definitely safe from that awful mare that had chased him back into the OR. The warmth of that thought did wonders for his nerves, but with it came a new and perhaps even more pressing question: if he wasn’t in Canterlot General, then where in Equestria was he? And what kind of building in the nation’s capital city would still run on gas lamps and not have so much as a whiff of magical security?

“Hey, Sparky!”

Instinct told him to jump at the sudden call, but a strange union of rationality and forgotten memory settled him down a moment after. That shout wasn’t made out of anger or bloodlust; it sounded innocent, even playful. Sparks looked down the hall and zeroed in on a tiny figure waving at him from the far end, but he couldn’t make out any details from this far away. He squinted his eyes and took a few steps forward, and suddenly a blue-coated unicorn colt who couldn’t have been a day over eight crystallized into view, his eyebrows bumping against his fringe and his face split in half behind a gap-toothed grin.

“Yeah, you!” the colt shouted. “What, didya think I was talkin’ to the wall? C’mon, egghead!”

The colt waved again and pointed towards a split in the hallway next to him, and Sparks racked his brain for some sort of concrete memory to connect with him. He knew he recognized the kid from somewhere: that brash look, that excited tone, that cheeky grin he never went without. Who was he? And why was he so sure he’d chased after him like this before?

“C’mon!”

Without waiting for a reply, the colt planted his hooves on the ground and darted out of sight into the other hallway. Sparks stared at the spot he’d left for a moment, then picked up his hooves and started running, his mind spinning and some unidentifiable corner of his heart twinging with phantom pain. He skidded around the first corner just in time to see the colt’s bushy tail disappear around another one, so he kept running, always a step close enough to tell where he’d gone and a step too far back to catch another solid glimpse.

“This way!”

Sparks ramped up his pace and pushed himself nearly into a full sprint again, but no matter how fast he ran, the gap between the colt and him never got any smaller. Sweat began to bead at his temple and dripped into his eyes, and the hairs in his mane prickled with heat. It had been freezing inside the hospital a few minutes before, but in this place it was scorching, the heat getting more intense every time it washed over him as he entered a new hallway. It had been snowing outside the last time he’d checked, but now all he could see under each door he passed was an otherworldly red light that spilled across the creaking floorboards and dyed the overcast sky an angry shade of maroon.

He rounded what must’ve been the dozenth corner the colt had led him past, and without warning a wall of scalding air stopped him dead in his tracks. This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t right. As the colt bounded away again, Sparks slowed to a walk, about all he could manage through the oppressive heat he could see distorting the very air in front of him. Ahead of him, the entire hallway was flooded with orange light, all of it seeming to shine in from a floor-to-ceiling window set right in its center. He pushed his way over to it and looked outside, and for just a fraction of a second, he felt cold again. It took precisely that length of time for him to realize what he was seeing, and that same period doubled for him to realize it was real.

Outside the window, the city of Canterlot was on fire.

He couldn’t identify the source of the blaze, but at its current stage knowing the cause would hardly help anyone. There wasn’t a house or building in sight that wasn’t swathed in rippling red flames, that wasn’t collapsing into cinders or crumbling away into ash before his very eyes. From this vantage point, he could even see portions of the building he was in, and he watched in mute horror as a bell tower across the street splintered at its base four stories below and toppled over the abandoned road towards the burning wing over to his left.

The tower touched down with a blast of superhearted air and a stomach-churning crunch, its colossal impact enough to cleave through two floors and nearly knock Sparks to the ground. By the time he straightened back up again, his heart had sank. That wing was where the little colt had just run off to. He would’ve been there himself if he hadn’t stopped to look out this window.

With watery eyes and aching, smoke-filled lungs, Sparks staggered around the corner and yelled out for the colt whose name he’d never even asked for. In the distance, he could see the raging inferno that had started up where the tower had crashed through the ceiling, and in front of it, a small figure stood staring into it, untouched by the flames but only a few short yards from where they were crawling across the floorboards towards him.

“Kid!” Sparks said, coughing from the exertion and from the smoke clogging up his throat. “Kid, c’mon, we gotta get out of here!”

At the sound of Sparks's voice, the colt slowly turned around, but he made no motion to come back towards him. His eyes were rimmed red from the blaze, but no tears were dripping down his cheeks.

“You’re such a baby, Sparky,” he said dismissively. “What’re ya afraid of?”

Sparks opened his mouth to speak, but his throat seized up and he dissolved into a coughing fit again. The colt shook his head, and a smirk played across his lips.

“You know what Miss Heart always says. You can’t fail unless you don’t try.”

The colt’s smile vanished, and suddenly his eyes were black as coal. “Have you tried yet, Sparky? Have you really tried?”

“What... what are you...” Sparks tried to say. The colt shook his head, and his smile returned.

“Honest, Sparky, just do it,” he murmured. “I trust you, Sparky. Didn’t you trust me?”

The flames were inches between the colt, practically licking at his heels. There was still time for Sparks to sprint forward and grab him, but he couldn’t have moved now even though his life probably depended on it. He’d finally remember where he knew the colt from, and the thing standing ten yards in front of him couldn’t possibly be him.

“C’mon, Sparky...” the colt said. The flames were upon him, surrounding him, batting at his tail and dancing around his hooves...

“Come on and play.”

The wind roared in triumph, and the flames finally caught. The colt went up like a lit match, the fire enveloping him and swallowing him up in the time it took to blink, and Sparks collapsed as a thousand screaming voices tore into his ears. They were coming from everywhere, from every room he’d passed and every hallway he’d left unexplored: the sounds of colts, fillies, adult mares and stallions burning and suffering in incomprehensible agony. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could barely breathe as the noise pounded him into the ground and ballooned inside his throbbing skull.

And behind it all, behind the sounds that came from everywhere and from nowhere and from deep inside the recesses of his mind, he heard something else. He recognized it from sometime long ago; his heart trembled at it in this hellish building. He looked up at the colt down the hallway, saw his mane and tail dissolving into ash, felt his stomach turn over as the scent of burning flesh pushed its way into his nose. He watched. And he listened. And he finally figured out where the noise was coming from.

As the flesh melted off him and his figure was whittled down to blackened, brittle bone, the little colt stared at Sparks with sightless, empty eyes, and laughed.

He didn’t have enough strength left to run, so Sparks crawled down the hallway and away from the fire, scrambling on his hooves and knees without a clue where he was going and half-delirious from the smoke. The pulsing in his head was getting worse. Getting louder. The walls were on fire, and the walls were glowing, and his hoofsteps were echoing and he couldn’t move fast enough to get away from them.

He grabbed onto a stray doorknob and pulled himself to his hooves, and the echoes seemed suddenly to be right behind him. He ran blindly, deafly, dumbly in any direction he could, and the pulsing around him shook the whole building and seared into his brain. In the distance behind him, an explosion rocked the building and sent him stumbling, and a fresh wave of heat told him that he had maybe a few seconds before he and that colt shared the same fate. He stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned to face his fate, and framed by a wall of unbroken flame racing down the hallway towards him, he saw a soot-caked stallion sprinting towards him.

He had only moments to pick out details: white eyes. Brown coat. Grey shirt splattered red and black. The walls flashed. The stallion tackled him hard enough to knock his breath away.

And in the split second before they hit the ground, the glowing light obliterated the flames around them and sent them flying forward. Sparks's head smacked the floor a moment later, and the world around him was dark.

Sparks tried to scream for help, but a strong hoof clamped over his mouth and hooked around his neck before he could utter a sound. Feebly, he battered at the leg of whoever the hoof was attached to, grunting and moaning as best he could, but another hoof clocked him on the head, and what little vision he’d regained after the second huge flash faded away again and filled with glowing lights.

“Shut up!” a voice hissed in his ear, ragged and unsteady as if its owner couldn’t decide whether to keep pulling him down the hallway or break his neck right then and there. At this point, Sparks couldn’t have cared less what the thing wanted to do to him as long as he got away before he could, so he kept struggling until he saw a gap in the darkness overhead and saw the walls of an unoccupied storage room pass by on either side of him. The thing that had dragged him there from the hallway threw them inside with a vicious growl and swung the door closed behind them, leaving nothing but the soft glow of what looked like moonlight sneaking in through the window.

“Shut up shut up shut up!” the voice repeated, pushing his hoof into Sparks's mouth again and leaning in so that their faces were inches apart. Sparks's vision was filled with a pair of twitching, faded blue eyes for a few seconds, then his captor pulled away and scuttled over to the door, peering out into the hallway and muttering something unintelligible.

“W... w-wh...” Sparks stuttered. He cleared his throat and found his voice, and his tone solidified into something angry enough to draw the other stallion’s attention. “Who are you?”

The stallion made a noise and jerked his hoof back at Sparks to motion for him to keep quiet, but Sparks was having none of it. “No, I’m not gonna shut up until you tell me what you are and what the... what is this pla—”

“No, nononono, you’re ruining it, you’re ruining it!”

Sparks backpedaled as the stallion came at him, once again stopping an inch from his nose. He could see a bit more of him in the moonlight now: his mane was gritty and clung to his scalp like wet paper, and he was dressed in what looked like hospital scrubs stained with long-dried blood. He kept walking until Sparks was pressed against the wall and then stared him down for a few more seconds, but then he cocked his head to the side and wiggled his brow, and the teeth in his mad grin flashed white.

“Don’t you know, Doctor Sparks?” he whispered. “When the stars come out, there’s ghosts about.”

He bobbed his head up and down and bounded back over to the door again, and Sparks swallowed back the lump in his throat. “I don’t believe in ghosts,” he said.

“Oh, but you do, Doctor Sparks,” the stallion immediately replied. “You most certainly, indubitably do.”

Sparks sucked in a breath through his nose and squared his jaw. After everything he’d just been through, the last thing he needed was some lunatic in a surgical gown making things worse. “What in the hell are you talking abo—”

“Ah-ah! Ssssssh, ssh-ssh-ssh-ssh! You hear that?”

Sparks returned the stallion’s giddy look with what he hoped was one of fiery disapproval. “Hear what?”

Shaking his head vigorously and groaning, the stallion leapt forward, hooked his foreleg around Sparks's neck, and yanked him forward, pressing his eye against the tiny gap between the door and its frame. “He’s coming, he’s coming,” he whispered. “Listen listen listen.”

“I don’t hear anything, get off m...”

Sparks trailed off, and for a moment he could’ve sworn the other stallion had poured a bucket of ice water over his back. He could hear something in the distance... grinding. Jagged metal, scraping against the floor. Shuffling. Muffled breathing. Moaning.

“Stars out, Doctor Sparks,” the stallion whispered, bouncing up and down in place and hardly able to contain himself. “Look.”

Sparks licked his lips and raised his eyes towards the corridor junction a few yards away, and his flesh crawled like it was ready to jump right off him. A lone earth stallion trudged into view from the rightside hallway, so malnourished that he was barely more than skin stretched tight over wobbling, creaking bones. His gown was tattered and torn, and filthy bandages wrapped around his entire head, covering every inch of skin and fur with two extra-think strips looped over his eyes. Limp wires and tubes trailed behind him, one end embedded in his leathery skin and the other end connecting him to a battered, rust-coated gurney that was missing three wheels and was dripping with some dark, unidentifiable substance. The three bare spokes cut deep furrows into the floor, and the tubes pulled on the stallion’s skin as he obliviously dragged it behind him.

“What is that?” Sparks whispered, his breath leaving his lungs without him noticing and happening to form into the words he was screaming inside his head. “What is that?”

The stallion made a noise again, and Sparks could’ve sworn he was rolling his eyes. “Oh, don’t give me that,” he grumbled as he pressed Sparks's head harder against the door, and Sparks was left with no choice but to keep watching as the stallion finished crossing over the hallway and shuffled out of sight again. The stallion released him, and Sparks went limp, his nose pressed into the ground and his eyes staring blankly at wherever they happened to fall on the floor outside. Had he not felt the breeze as the air next to his head was displaced, he probably wouldn’t even have noticed that the stallion had yanked the door open and trotted over to the junction. Sparks lifted his head and watched as the stallion peered around the corner and jerked his head back and forth far too quickly to be able to see anything clearly. When the stallion apparently decided he’d seen enough anywhere, he turned back towards Sparks, and his Cheshire Cat grin returned.

“Spooky scary skeletons...”

He waved Sparks towards him just before ducking around the corner and disappearing, his singsong voice carrying all the way back to the storage room as he continued his song.

“Send shivers down your spine...”

Gradually, Sparks got to his hooves and followed the stallion’s humming, eventually catching up to him again outside a square archway patterned with tiny blue tiles. From somewhere within, he could hear the sound of running water splashing against porcelain, as well as something else he couldn’t bring himself to guess at.

“Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm skeletons, are silly all the same,” the stallion went on under his breath. “They’ll smile and scrabble slowly by, and...”

His gaze drifted up towards the ceiling, and he kicked his hoof against the ground and grunted. “Always forget that part,” he muttered. Without another word, he straightened up and trotted under the archway, his posture clearly indicating that he expected Sparks to follow. Without much better of an idea about what to do, Sparks went ahead and complied.

The archway led into a locker room, pitch-dark but for a candle the stallion had seemingly produced out of thin air. The sound of the shower was louder in here, and Sparks spent a few moments trying to place it before realizing the stallion was heading right for it. Just before they entered the showers, he stopped suddenly, holding his candle aloft with his horn as he stuck his neck out and peered inside. When he turned his head to the left, his motion hitched, and his gasp bore the tone of somepony just remembering that their birthday was tomorrow.

“Be very, very quiet,” he said back to Sparks, his eyes wide and his hoof raised in warning over his lips. “This one doesn’t like crowds.”

Before Sparks could even form a question in his mind, the stallion hopped over the threshold into the shower room and trotted onward, his candle bobbing over his head and throwing twisted shadows over the tiled walls and, every so often, flashing on the glistening, soaked back of somepony sitting under the shower over to the left.

Driven forward by nothing more than a tenuous, naïve hope that the stallion was leading him to safety, Sparks stepped gingerly inside the shower room and, inch by heart-stopping inch, crept over to where the stallion had stopped in the middle of the room. The pony, as far as he could tell from the fleeting glances he occasionally threw in her direction, was a mare this time, and a pegasus. Her long, dark mane was plastered down her back, covering up the small square of muscle where her limp, outstretched wings connected to her spine. She never turned away from the wall even when Sparks slipped and squealed against the floor as he found his footing again, but she was moving slightly: her right hoof was pressed flat against the wall, and was slowly sliding down to the floor again, producing a constant, squeaking drone as her wet sole rubbed against the dripping tile. By the time Sparks reached the stallion, the mare’s hoof had clacked against the ground, and without a sound she slowly raised it again and placed it as high as she could reach onto the wall, beginning the process all over again.

“Shame. Shame,” the stallion said with a shake of his head, not tempering his voice at all despite the eerie presence of the third pony. She didn’t seem to react to him, though, so perhaps he knew better than Sparks did.

“Tragic case, really,” he went on. “Manic-depressive, rotten home life, no job, no hope. Tried everything. Didn’t work.”

The stallion turned to Sparks and nudged him in the shoulder. “And now she’s here,” he said, his voice suddenly taking on an inexplicable upbeat tone. “With us. With you.”

Sparks half-listened to the stallion’s raving, but most of his attention was focused on the mare in front of him. Just like the colt before, she seemed so eerily familiar... in fact, every creature or ghost, or whatever they were had felt like this somehow. Had he had this nightmare before? Was this all just one big recurring fantasy he couldn’t remember in the midst of the dream?

“It’s not a dream, by the way.”

Gooseflesh rose up on Sparks's neck, and the nonchalant shrug the stallion gave him once he turned to look at him only made things worse.

“You were wondering if this was all a big, crazy dream,” he said plainly. “It’s not. It’s real. You’re here.” The stallion paused, and seemed to consider something. “Well, I guess you’re... here, and then you’re there, and then... you’re kind of everywhere, actually.”

An attempt at a reply withered and died in Sparks's throat, and a deep, rumbling pulse cut off any chance at making another go at it. “And pretty soon, you’ll be everywhere again,” the stallion said. Sparks stared at him mutely, and the tempo of the pulses increased.

“Who is she?” Sparks shouted as the walls began to glow. “She...”

“Suicide’s never the answer, Doctor Sparks,” the stallion said with a grin. “Until one day, technically, it is. And speaking of which... I think she’s noticed us.”

Sparks's eyes went wide, and he turned away from the stallion back towards the mare. Her hoof had reached the floor again, and her face was pointed straight at him. As their eyes met and the walls shuddered and flashed around him, her eyes lit up, and her lips split apart into a smile. In the same motion, a yawning, bloody gash under her jaw opened as well.

The room went white, and Sparks’s vision was blasted away. When he came to a moment later, the mare’s twin smiles still hung in the air in front of him, flash-burned onto his retinas like a brand into a hunk of wood.

When the light dissipated and the room was dark again, the mare under the shower was gone, and the tiles where she had sat were dry as bone. Sparks expected the stallion who had led him in here to have vanished as well, but somehow he was still there, patiently waiting for Sparks to notice him before he took hold of his candle again and jogged out of the shower room through the archway opposite the one they’d come in through. Once he’d followed him through a bathroom and past a heavy, wooden door, Sparks found himself back out in the hallway again, trailing a few feet behind the stallion as he whistled his way down a few dozen yards before hanging a sharp left through an open room into a patient’s room that seemed to be, like every other one on the hall, deserted.

“Well, that was weird,” the stallion said once Sparks had followed him in, kicking the door shut with a foreleg and leaving it hanging out in midair as he turned his expressionless gaze towards the wide-eyed pony next to him.

“What... what is going on here?” Sparks managed to spit out after a few initial attempts at speaking Equestrian failed him. “Th-those flashes, those... those things I keep running into, what...”

“You ever gone jogging, Doctor Sparks?”

Sparks kept talking over the first few words of the stallion’s sentence, and fell silent just in time for the stallion to scoff and take over again. “No, you’ve gone jogging, Doctor Sparks, of course you’ve gone jogging, how would I not remember that you’ve gone jogging once in your life? It’s weird, though, isn’t it? All those ponies exercising, sweating, running-running-running-running and for what? No matter how fast they run, it’s still the same damn track!”

“I...” Sparks began to say, but the stallion just cut him off again.

“It’s a loop, Doctor Sparks, it’s all a loop just a loop everyone loops everything’s loops,” he said. “Loops-loops-loops. Then, now, always, forever.”

Sparks raised his hoof to interject, but it took a moment of it hanging there before he could put his answer together into words. “You’re... you’re saying this... this is a loop, this hospital is a loop?”

The stallion shook his head, his mane flying around as he whipped his head frantically back and forth. “No no no, not this hospital, not this place, this... thing, this everything.”

Now he was shaking Sparks himself, grabbing his shoulders and twitching in front of them. “It’s a loop,” he whispered once he’d suddenly gone deathly still. “You are, I are, life death space time, time-time-time-time it’s all a loop.”

Finally, a single detail in the stallion’s raving clicked in Sparks’s mind. A loop in time... he’d heard of those before. Patchy details sprung to his mind: horrible magical accident, disappearances, mayhem, a pony flashing uncontrollably through time and space to wherever the volatile spell took him.

And ghosts?

Sheets had warned him about this building. He probably should’ve listened.

“We’re in a time loop?” he asked the stallion, who had since let go of him and wandered over to the window again. Caught up in his own mutterings again, he didn’t seem to notice Sparks had spoken.

“We stop and we go and we’re here and we’re there, but we’re still going around, aren’t we?” he murmured. “You’re still in the loop, we, we still are the loop. And all those things out there, all those ghosts you don’t believe in...”

The stallion chuckled, and flashed Sparks a cheeky grin. “They’re comin’ along with us.”

Now it was Sparks stubbornly shaking his head. Even now, he still couldn’t buy into everything the stallion claimed. “No, you keep calling them ghosts, they’re not ghosts,” he said. “They’re... I can see them, I’ve felt them, they... they have physical substance. They’re not ghosts. So what are they?”

Once again, the stallion ignored him, this time choosing to rock back and forth on his hooves and stare up at the ceiling. “November fourth, nine-seven-eight AL,” he said. “You were eight years old. You remember.”

“I don’t know what you’re talk—”

The stallion screwed up his eyes, and the side table next to the bed exploded as his magical aura smashed it against the wall. “You remember!” he screamed, sawdust showering down on him as his chest heaved and his hooves twitched beneath him. He stood there seething for a few terrifying moments, during which Sparks was sure he’d be the next thing that got broken in half, but after a few moments he’d calmed himself down and dropped his tone back into a murmur.

“You never forgot,” he said softly. “And that’s why you’re here. That’s why we’re here.”

“Why am I here?” Sparks shouted, adrenaline knocking his voice up a couple octaves. “Why me, why am I the one stuck in this moondamned loop?”

The stallion looked at Sparks and tilted his head, and in that moment Sparks was overcome with a depth of terror that even the other things that had chased him before hadn’t reached. The stallion was shocked, gobsmacked, completely and utterly blown away by Sparks’ response... and so gut-wrenchingly familiar all the same. November 4th of the year 978. He knew that date. What had happened then? Why couldn’t he remember now?

“Why you?” the stallion asked, in a voice so frail and pitiful Sparks wondered whether he was about to cry. “Why not you? Why couldn’t it be you, why wasn’t it you, why shouldn’t it have been you, why isn’t it you?”

Sparks took a step backwards. He couldn’t remember what had happened on that date. He couldn’t remember if the stallion had locked the door.

“Why a shy young mare with a sickness that wouldn’t heal?” the stallion said, his voice rising and growing more agitated with each word. “Why a starving factory worker with his face burned off by acid, why a headstrong pegasus who never saw that tree coming, why a father of four with a heart defect? Why an entire orphanage the month before Christmas, dead because the alarm never went off, alive because they went to the bathroom and smelled the smoke?”

The stallion was rounding on him now, slowly stomping forward as Sparks helplessly tugged at the knob on the deadbolted door. The walls were pulsing again. “Why you, why them, why us, why we? Why didn’t you do something, why couldn’t you do something, why can’t do you anything, why didn’t you help them why didn’t you fix them why don’t you remember them...”

The stallion was nose-to-nose with him. He raised his hoof. Sparks shut his eyes, and the walls flashed.

“WHY COULDN’T YOU SAVE THEM DOCTOR!”

Sparks didn’t move for several seconds, expecting at any moment the blow to the head that would end his life for good. When he finally opened his eyes, he had to cover them up with his hoof almost immediately. Bright sunlight was streaming in through the window, and outside the window he could hear birds chirping and the bustle of the city as the ponies of Canterlot went about their days. He lowered his hoof to see the sight for himself, and once he couldn’t help but laugh. The nightmare was over. He was back in the real world.

Still chuckling to himself, he pushed open the door behind him—unlocked now—and strolled out into the hallway, relishing in the warm glow of the technomagical lights overhead. Stars above, what a psychotic dream! And to think it had made him wander all the way over here into... where in Equestria was he? The walls were painted with smiling flowers and brightly colored flowers, but the pediatrics ward was in the rear of the hospital, not the front side closest to the street. And what’s more, where was everybody? No matter what ward this was, there should’ve been at least a few ponies milling around in the hallways or visiting with one of the patients.

Sparks stopped walking for a moment just so he could take the time needed to grit his teeth and order himself to get it together. It was natural to be a little edgy after waking up from a strange dream, but this was real life now, and he needed to get back to Surgery before he had to explain to somepony how he’d managed to sleepwalk all the way over to Pediatrics in the middle of the morning. Now wasn’t the time to think about the dream. Now wasn’t the time to let his mind drift back to that stallion, to his screaming, to the last words he’d said before the walls had flashed and he’d woken up here...

…

… why couldn’t he save them? What was THAT supposed to mean? He’d conducted successful operations with almost every one of his patients. Of course, every surgeon occasionally had a case that just couldn’t be helped, but his were certainly few and far between. In fact, over all of his seventeen years as a surgeon and all the procedures included therein, in his own memory of failed operations he could only remember...

Sparks stopped again, and his pulse quickened a bit. He could only remember... why couldn’t he remember them? He knew they’d happened, he was absolutely sure of it, but the details were... stars above, he was messed up right now. Maybe he needed to take the rest of the day off. What time was it right now, anyway?

He trotted ahead a few yards and approached a bulletin board coated with faded flyers to check the time on the clock hanging above it. When he looked up and examined it, though, his stomach started to drop again. The clock was ticking, but the hands stayed perfectly still, stuck at precisely 11:35. He shut his eyes, shook his head, did everything short of blast the clock off the wall with his horn and demand that it work right, but nothing changed. 11:35. A perfectly functional clock, stuck at one single time, hanging over a bulletin board full of get-well cards and crayon drawings and little notices about proper hallway maintenance...

… and a day-by-day calendar, its top half adorned with a picture of a kitten, displaying today’s date in huge black type.

November 4th, 978 AL.

Sparks stumbled back towards the wall, but his legs gave out before he reached it. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. He was hallucinating, or he was still dreaming, or... it couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be real.

Hoofbeats. Someone was coming. He could hear them walking up to him, reaching him, passing him by, but he never saw them. He got back to his hooves and looked around, but the hall was empty. And the hoofbeats had stopped. Whoever it was had stopped. He took a step forward, froze in place, waited for a response. Received none.

He was about to turn around again when a droplet of liquid hit him on the nose. He jumped out of the way and rubbed at the spot, and his hoof came away red. Another droplet flashed by his ear and splashed onto the floor. Red. Stained on his hoof. Wouldn’t come off no matter how hard he rubbed.

He looked up.

Wet, glistening hoofprints stretched across the ceiling, curving around from a nearby hallway and traveling right over his head to stop a few feet ahead of him. Red. They were all red. Every print on the ceiling was red.

Red like blood.

He heard a noise like a grunt, and the ceiling dimpled overtop the last set of prints. There was a second of silence, and then a loud, thumping impact against the floor twenty feet in front of him, where four new hoofprints splattered into existence without anypony visible to make them. A fifth circle of blood blossomed in front of the four already there, then a sixth, then a seventh and eighth. The hoofbeats he’d heard before broke into a gallop, and the calendar fell to the floor as Sparks tore away from it and sprinted for the end of the hallway.

There was a doorway there, a closed door at the end of the hallway. He could make it there in time. He could hide there. He could stay in there until the loop reset, until he found the other stallion, until he woke up from this dream and was back in his office and he could just think for a second about what the stallion had said. He covered the distance to the door in a few seconds, and slammed into it without bothering to reach for the knob. The door gave, splintered, blew open in front of him as he bashed straight through it.

And the next thing he knew, he was tumbling head over hooves into the wall, tangled up in the legs of a squealing pink earth mare and surrounded by screeching orderlies and gasping doctors still making their rounds.

“... ctor Sparks? Doctor Sparks, can you hear m... Cheerio, get me a suture kit and call security!”

Sparks opened his eyes, and nearly lashed out at the pony hovering a few inches above his face. Although that pony pressing down on his shoulders and holding him to the ground didn’t help pull him back from fight-or-flight mode any, he did eventually pick up on the fact that the pony’s eyes were green and not blue, and that it was actually a yellow-furred pegasus mare and not a dark-haired unicorn with much stronger hooves than her.

“Doctor? Doctor, if you can hear me, just stay calm, we’ve got everything under control. I just need you to stay here long enough that we can make sure you’re okay...”

“Di... didn’t...” he struggled to say. His throat was bone-day, and his wind hadn’t returned from his impact into the other pony he’d run over getting out here. There were other ponies here. Why were there other ponies? Nothing had changed. There had never... he hadn’t...

“Doctor, it’s okay, we’re here, we’ve got you. Whatever happened to you, we can make sure it doesn’t happen aga—”

“Didn’t loop,” he finally managed to say. Before the orderly on top of him could protest, he pushed her away and turned around. The door he’d busted through hung on one contorted hinge nearby, and behind it lay an ordinary broom closet, its inner contents undisturbed despite the chaos just a few feet outside. “Didn’t loop, he’s still here, he’s still...”

“Doctor, just...”

“He’s still coming!”

The orderly swore under her breath and whispered something to a unicorn stallion near him, who nodded and motioned for the ponies gathered in the hallway to clear a path. “Come on, Doctor Sparks,” she told him, taking him by the foreleg and guiding him through the part in the crowd. “Let’s get you squared away, we’ll go someplace safe, I promise they can’t get you in there.”

Sparks shook his head, unable to resist following her yet incapable of explaining himself. His mind was moving too fast for his mouth to keep up, jumping back and forth between thoughts and memories and the all-consuming terror eating away at each one of them with every step he took away from that door and deeper into whatever fresh hell this was. He’d changed places again, jumped to a different spot in the loop, but the walls hadn’t flashed and the floor hadn’t throbbed. So he hadn’t really looped, just... moved. To where? To when? Was it over now? Would it ever be?

Lost in thought, Sparks let the orderly take him into a nearby room and set him on top of the bed. “I’m gonna lock you in here,” she said, “and we’re gonna bring in some ponies to check you out and figure out what happened. Nothing’s gonna get in here.”

She turned to leave, and Sparks leapt from the bed, grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. “When is this?” he asked. “What is today, what day is it today?”

The orderly tried to look him in the eyes, and could only manage it for a second. “Doctor, you’ve been missing for four months,” she said. “We don’t know what’s going on, but we’re gonna find out, I promise.”

She promised.

She didn’t know.

She was turning to leave again.

Through the tiles in the floor, he felt the building begin to pulse.

“Don’t leave,” he begged her. “Don’t leave, it’s happening again.”

The orderly’s eyes widened. She tried to tug her way out of his grip. “Doctor, please, I need to go—”

“No no no, please, stars above, I’m begging you. It’s happening again, it’s going to happen now.”

“Doctor—”

She pulled out of his grip, and in desperation he grabbed at her with his magic. His aura caught onto her tail and held fast. The walls were glowing. How could she not see the walls were glowing?

“I don’t know what I did,” he cried. “I don’t know what’s happening to me or why it’s happening or what’s going to happen before I get out, but I can’t do it anymore! I can’t go back in, I have to get out! I have to get out of the loop!”

“Doctor, let go of me!” the orderly screamed, but it was too late. The walls flared, the floor and ceiling shook, and when the light exploded all around him, it took the orderly with it. He was still holding onto her tail when it happened, so he could see her face as it withered in the span of an instant, how her flesh rotted away and her eyes imploded and her bones disintegrated into dust, destroyed and disappeared forever by an instantaneous glitch in time that took a second for him and an eternity for anything he dragged along with it.

He let go of her tail, and the single tuft of cherry-red hair he’d held onto vanished into thin air the moment he blinked his eyes. When the light faded, the hallway outside was quiet, and the air of the room he occupied hung heavy with dust. He had looped. He was alone.

And a brown-furred, blue-eyed stallion was standing in the doorway.

“Hmm. I remember when I tried that,” the stallion said, watching with noted interest as Sparks reached out for the empty space in front of him with tears beading in his eyes. “Never did learn her name. Guess that’s one more to add to the party here.”

“It’s you...” Sparks whispered. He looked up at the stallion and channeled every ounce of fury and pain and shame and fear inside him into the glare he leveled on him. “It’s you! This is your fault. You’re the one who dragged me into this, and I want out! You hear me?”

The stallion snickered, and the edges of Sparks’s vision went red. “But of course it’s me. It’s me, Doctor Sparks,” he said. “It’s you... they’re all yours.”

Sparks jumped to his feet, and before he could close the distance between he and the stallion, the stallion leapt forward and did it for him. “What do you think this is?” he hissed, so close Sparks could feel flecks of spittle splattering against his cheek. “Dream? Nightmare? Bad luck? Destiny? Ghosts, spirits, real, not real, tell me Doctor Sparks do you think it even really matters?”

Sparks stared him down, willing himself not to lash out, ordering himself to keep listening on the off-chance that the stallion might finally tell him what was going on. “Emotions are a powerful thing, Doctor Sparks,” the stallion said. “They define you. They show who you really are. Anger drives you, sadness frightens you, happiness inspires you, and guilt...”

The stallion’s nose touched against Sparks, and the contact burned like fire. Sparks jerked back, and the stallion grinned. “Guilt haunts you,” he said. “And now, finally, it’s broken you. Broken us. Broken we.”

With a mad yell, Sparks shoved the stallion outside and followed him as he went flying back into the hallway. He groped around with his magic on an abandoned cart nearby and came up with an empty syringe, which he held in front of the stallion’s neck and pressed up into his jugular.

“Let me out,” he said, his voice low and furious and barely even his anymore. “Let me out, or I swear on the stars I will kill you.”

“But Doctor Sparks, don’t you see?” the stallion said. “There’s only one way out of the loop. There always has been.”

The stallion glanced down at the syringe, then locked eyes with Sparks and leaned forward. The needle of the syringe pricked into his neck, and as blood started to fill up the chamber inside, he smiled one last time.

“And there always will.”

Sparks screamed, lunged forward, and shoved the needle straight through to the stallion’s spine. The stallion’s head lolled forward and the needed snapped off inside his artery, so Sparks resorted to his hooves, punching and bucking at whatever was in reach until the stallion’s crazed giggle died away and his smile was as hollow as the look in his eyes. When it was done, Sparks stood over him, face contorted with rage, scrubs dripping with blood, squeezing his eyes shut and spitting and cursing and doing everything he could to forget the fact that the hallway was still empty and the lights were still off and he was still all alone here and he hadn’t escaped. The floor was shuddering even now. The walls were beginning to glow. The loop was about to start again.

And he could remember now.

He could remember every detail, every step of the procedures, every name and face and file and exact time of death noted by another doctor on duty who wouldn’t look up and couldn’t speak to him because he couldn’t speak to them because they had trusted him and he had made them promises and his heart sank lower every time because he remembered paperwork conferences proper procedures family members anger hate betrayal misery tears dripping onto his scrubs because they he was their only other option because their blood was still on his sleeves and body bags wouldn’t let the liquid soak through because that was procedure that was surgery that was life and death and space and time and he couldn’t see it anymore and he couldn’t hear it anymore and he couldn’t bear the awful truth of it one more second because he remembers he could remember he was remembering right now:

Oak Knoll. 37. CPA, casual golfer, family man. Coronary bypass surgery. His wife left a bouquet of flowers to wilt in the waiting room.

Cloudburst. 23. Manehattan weather team. Took a joyride after work, flew too low, she was fast, trees weren’t. 7% chance of survival. Called off by coltfriend. Found a feather in his scrubs before bed.

Steel Screw. 31. Celestial Chemicals. Equipment malfunction in a factory downtown. Third-degree burns on his face and neck. Closed casket funeral. He’d been saving up for his mom’s birthday present.

Magnolia. 25. Black mane, violet eyes. Wished him good morning when he’d stopped by for rounds. She kept the knife from breakfast. She never told anyone she was pregnant.

Morning Light. 19. Top student at Canterlot Academy. Tried to combine invisibility and antigravity spells. Both went wrong. Run over in the street. Couldn’t operate on him until the spells wore off. Had to watch as the red circle on the sheets got bigger.

And Blueberry.

Today, so long ago, forever inside his mind. Orphans, all of them. Two young colts, the best of friends. On a chilly November night, a candle had tipped over, and he had been the only one awake. He had run to get the grown-ups and woken up everybody in his room. They told him later Berry had gone quick. He hadn’t. None of them had.

Every doctor has a reason for why they became one. For most, it was because of the ponies whose lives they could save. For Sparks, it was for the ones he couldn’t. Hadn’t. Didn’t.

And now he remembered them. He saw all of their lives flash before his lives, saw them loop from life to death and back again. He was like them now. Caught up in the loop, trapped inside one of his own creation, because no matter how fast you ran it was always the same damn track. No matter how many other procedures he did right, he could never escape the ones he hadn’t.

Sparks looked down at the corpse beneath him, and one last emotion floated through his mind: recognition. Now he knew where he’d seen the stallion before. Saw him now. Would see him again. And if he would never escape it... then neither would this stallion. When he came in again, he would be ready. When the loop reset, he would make sure it kept going.

After all, everything was a loop. Always had been. And always would.

It’d taken years to get it right. Months, maybe. Had it been days? Who had time for time when it no longer carried any weight?

But no matter. He’d found him. He’d gone through the loop countless times, followed it through and explored every corner and figured out where it began and ended and began again. And now he’d found him. The stallion was back, spawned into the loop for the first time. He’d caught him just at the end of the orphanage fire, just in time to save him from being burnt to a crisp. He could’ve let him die there, of course, but that would’ve be no good. He was more special than that. More important than that.

The stallion—ungrateful little whelp—kicked and screamed all the way into the storage closet where they’d be safe for the time being in this loop. Even when he was inside, he still wouldn’t stop babbling, but that wouldn’t make much difference here. Steel Screw’s ears weren’t the best anymore.

It was, however, incredibly annoying.

“W... w-wh...” the stallion stammered. “Who are you?”

“No, nononono, you’re ruining it, you’re ruining it!”

The stallion backpedaled as Sparks came at him, stopping just an inch or two in front of his nose. He could see him well in the moonlight now: brown coat, greasy hair, grungy hospital scrubs. Just like he remembered. Just like he knew it would be.

“Don’t you know, Doctor Sparks?” he said, a giddy grin splitting across his face. “When the stars come out, there’s ghosts about.”

He bounded over to the door again, and bit his tongue in anticipation. Wait for it. Wait for it...

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” the stallion said.

Bingo.

“Oh, but you do, Doctor Sparks,” he immediately replied. “You most certainly, indubitably do.”

Time and Time Again

You ask, how did I pass the time?

Sometimes, it seems as though I’ve hardly just arrived. I am forgetful of the million million years I spent before my little ones arrived. Who can blame me? What is probably the briefest span of years in my life has been, easily, the most important.

On the first day, I remember, I remember, before the sun and the moon, before there was light to cast shadow, there was only the great sea. The first thing, the first action, was movement in the deep. The second thing, was light. The third thing, was darkness.

And that was the first day. How else to describe being born? Spun from stardust, from water and iron and gold and silver and light, every wisp of nebula another layer of my existence. Why did I kindle? What birthed my flaming heart? Who can say? I tell you, when I took my first step and cast light upon the darkness, there was no mortal there to witness it. I did not see the hand that set my ablaze. Thus the origin of my first name, El-Alam-Olan, the Eternal Sun. But that ancient name is newborn compared to me, for at that time, there was no language, nor words.

For my first million years, I watched what might have been brothers and sisters condense before me, but they did not burn as I did. They lacked some spark that I possessed, and they became planets, of all shapes and forms, but for two. One became a mirror of my light, and the other a mirror of my life. So I descended to the surface of the largest one, to see what my light had wrought.

I do not remember anything of my walk but this: when the volcanoes had calmed themselves, and the primordial forces of the planet ceased their struggle and became the gentle rhythms of the earth, I walked along the shore of the sea. I marveled at the ocean, its depth and grandeur, at the small deep that mirrored the great deep below everything. And there, in the reflection of light and water, I found another like me, and we became sisters, and for a million years we were never apart from each other.

Some say that my sister is less than I, being born from a reflection of light on water, but they are fools. I was born from the spinning dust of the cosmos. She was born from deepest wonder and awe. The ocean may be shallower than the great deep, but wonder is deeper than the farthest fathoms.

The next eon was very boring. Mountains were formed, worn down, and formed again. Continents drifted across the sea.

Nothing happened.

What of my relationship between my sister and I, you ask? Surely there was some distraction? What should I tell you, little one? How can I explain how the Sun speaks to the Moon, without language, without music, without bodies. We spoke only with the secret language that lives in the spirit, the language of love, and the soul. But, truth be told, we were barely alive.

It was this world that really brought us to life.

I do not remember when the first of my little ones walked the world. You may find that strange, but you must remember that I measured time in thousands on thousands of years. I blinked, and there you were, walking the world.

So much changed. I changed.

Let me tell you the most important part of the story.

It was after you ponies, on your own, defeated the Wendigos, the spectres of frost that were as much your own creation as a creation of this strange world, that my sister and I could stand it no longer, and we shed our forms as the Sun and Moon and were reborn amongst you.

What? You find that strange? Think of how I once exiled my sister. I am not the Sun any longer, nor is my sister. To her and I, they are but bodies to be taken, a shell to house a spirit. This flesh is not Celestia.

So we were born among you, and kept our secret origin a secret. It was not as hard as you think. We knew not language nor convention. In many ways, when we first came here we were children. I, El-Alam-Olan, the Ancient One, was a child. It was strange.

We could not have known of the chaos in the deep.

My little one sometimes forget that this body is merely a vessel for the blinding incandesence that was formed at the beginning of time. I ascended to the heavens, my sister and I, and I fought him three times.

The first time with power. The pure and infinite power of the sun. I stamped him out, but he rose from the ashes every time. Chaos cannot be beaten by destruction, for it is entropy and chaos that births him. He laughed, and mocked, but he lacked words.

So then I fought him with words, and I uttered the phrases that the unicorns had taught me, and said ‘The weapon against chaos is secret knowledge’. I bound him with language into the form of a dragon with many parts, and though he screeched, he could not break those chains. But then he laughed, and now having langugage, said:

“I AM OLDER THAN MUSIC
I BRING
A STAR
I BRING
LIGHT
I BRING
THE FATHOMLESS DEEP

And he was not defeated, and his presence threatened to sink the whole world.

Finally, I and my sister fought him with perfect harmony, which all living things embodied, but only ponies had chosen. Such an action is anathema to the great chaos in the deep. Though the fathoms are great, deeper still is wonder, and deeper still is love, and deeper still the great harmony. We made this world anathema to him, and bound him chains, he could not live here, and became a rock.

Thus chaos in his many forms was vanquished. You little ones marveled at our power and wisdom. Then I was named Solaira Invicta, the Unconquered Sun, Keeper of the Light, El-Alam-Olan, The Queen of Heaven, Anu-Padhome-Ahnurr, and all the thousands of names that you have given me since then, as well as the only one I have ever answered to - Celestia.

Yes, I will answer another question. Ah, but haven’t I answered that already?

The Queen of Deception fed upon something deeper than the great chaos swirling beneath everything. Love is one of those strangenesses that is right in spite of the facts, in spite of time or place. I opposed it as Discord did, with strength, and was rebuffed, as I knew I had to be. But I bought time, did I not?

Yes, I know none of this makes sense. I’m sorry, my student, but you asked a mystic question whether or not you knew it, so you get a mystic answer.

I will not speak to you of how I banished my sister, because it is something that I'd rather Equestria forget - but perhaps I am wrong. It did happen. I merely sent her back to the shell she once inhabited. But she didnt'...quite fit back in there, as she was. She was no longer the Moon, but Luna. Well. Nightmare Moon. It was the only thing I could do. The world cannot grow in eternal darkness. There is a time for rest, and a time for waking. You cannot dream forever. To do so is to cease dreaming and become dead.

Oh, but it would have been a sweet dream, Twilight. I saw her, in her heart of hearts. Towers of moonlight and glass, with purple ivy and blades of grass, and stone towers where death and time would sit, patiently, gazing down upon the great night-time. The moon would then beam and give sweet-smelling dreams of the beauteous seaward lee. And the stars would then shine, and would be as bright eyes, to gaze down on the velvet-black sea.

My darling, my darling Luna. It was my fault, Twilight. She was better than me, but I nevet let her shine as bright as I. I knew it too. I knew she was jealous, that the little ones loved me more, because I was bright and kind and because I could be better than her. Because I was the Sun, and I brought them everything, and Luna only brought them dreams. They forgot how important she was. I forgot how important she was. The seasons, the sky, the sea, they all almost stopped working when she left, when she became her own Nightmare and forced us all to recant, to apologize. It was a perfect disharmony, to bring me to my senses. And later, to bring Discord from his prison. But you know how that story goes.

Cadance is a newcomer, of course. As are you, my student, but in a different way. You are a mortal who became an immortal, not a god who became an immortal. I think it could keep going too. Perhaps I could be a pony? You become magic?

How strange would that be.

Finally, we get to the raising of the Sun. The unicorns of old, first, recreated the universe so that the sun orbited around the earth.

What? Impossible? Not as hard as you might think.

Astronomy teaches us that Equestria and the planets orbit the sun, but it has been demonstrated that the Sun will not rise unless I raise it. These are mutually exclusive events, but I assure you they are equally true.

The answer is that the universe is both simpler and more complex than you realize. Two opposite things can indeed be true at the same time. You might say that they must be true. The ancient unicorns took the gap between the mystic and the real and they forced it closed, with ancient rites that I will not tell you or any living creature again. The result is that this is a world governed by natural and mystic forces, a world where a symbol is as important as what it represents. Think on the consequences of this.

The opposite is also true, however. One can do magic with the mundane. Indeed, this is the basis of all alchemy. But I digress.

Time and time again, I have explained this one truth that few have cleaved to - know the difference between truth and reality. Know what is right and what is real. Tell lies to tell the truth. Be wary of being deceived by what is true.

Nothing is real. But that doesn’t make it any less important. It makes it more important. Memento Mori is not a command to despair, but a call to arms, a reminder that everything you do, little one, is so very, very important.

Immortality is merely delaying the inevitable. An immortal can’t waste a single moment. Believe me, we will account for all of them in the end.

But of course, you are right, this tells you nothing of how to raise the sun. Are you prepared?

Strength. What! Are you surprised? Did I not already tell you that you can do magic with the mundane, as every alchemist knows? The secret, time and time again, is more obvious than you ponies think. Have enough strength to reach out the ninety-two million miles to the sun, and then to lift ten times the whole world's weight above your head. Perhaps you should raise the moon instead?

I tease. I know you've had your heart set on it. But don't doubt your own strength. You're an immortal of magic. A feat of strength is, well, nothing to one such as you. Remember that it is simply a shell, and that you are spirit, and with effortless effort, it will move.

Can you feel it? Gold and silver and iron and water and light? Here, let me show you...

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