“Welcome, to the Velvet Room.”

The voice of Igor rings in your ears before you can even open your eyes. As the Velvet room comes into focus, your eyes trace over the couch and you notice that you are alone with the long nosed human. Both Agatha and Agero are nowhere to be seen. Igor seems to notice your confusion about this and dismissively waves a hand.

“Do not worry about those two. I often send them off on errands whenever their assistance is not required. Now then, shall we pick up from where we left off? I see you have made a bond with someone of the Fortune Arcana. Very interesting.” With a flick of his hand, Igor summons a tarot card between his thumb and middle finger, like the ones he used on your first visit here.

“Through your bonds, you may discover other facets of yourself that you were unaware of, and because of your nature as the wild card these facets may grant you different abilities.” Igor snapped his fingers around the card, causing it to shatter. An image of a woman covered in tattered rags of black and white, with a midriff that seemed to be nothing more than a wheel, appeared on the table in front of him.

“You have the potential to hold within you many different facades, and you must learn to use them through many trials and nurture them through bonding with others.” The image of the woman disappeared in a ball of light, which flew towards you and faded into your chest. “We of the Velvet Room will be here for you as well. Do you still have your Contractor’s Key?” Igor asked.

You feel around your jacket and locate the key in your pocket. Looking to Igor, you nod once.

“From this point onward, I will only call you in your dreams if there is something very important for us to discuss. Otherwise, you must use that key to find your way back to this room. Please return when you have forged and strengthened more bonds, so that we may add their power to your own.”

Igor smiled as, once again, your eyes fell and unconsciousness took you.

“Until we meet again, farewell.”

Wayfarer walked into the front room of the library to find Twilight sitting in the chair he’d left her in last night, sipping on a mug of hot cocoa with the blanket draped over her. She was staring intently into the fire place, where warm flames flickered about, her eyes not even giving Wayfarer a notice until he had joined her on the couch.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice was a little soft today.

“Morning,” Wayfarer responded.

There was an awkward moment of silence between the two. Wayfarer’s thoughts were focused on the night before, and he could tell it was the same for Twilight. Her face contorted in what looked like a mixture of both deep thought and shame. Wayfarer wondered how it must have felt to see all of her worries and fears about life manifest into a mockery of herself, and then vocalize every one of those doubts not just to herself, but to others as well. Wayfarer sighed, he imagined that the experience must have been incredibly demeaning for her, like washing dirty laundry in public, only a thousand times worse.

“Last night,” Twilight said speaking up. “it wasn’t a dream… was it?” Wayfarer shook his head no. Twilight sighed and placed her mug on the side table before pressing her hooves to her face. “I’m sorry you had to see that. The other me.”

“It’s alright,” Wayfarer said, “We’ve all got baggage like that.”

“You don’t…” Twilight said quietly. “Unless that WASN’T your first time summoning your Persona the other day.”

Wayfarer shifted in his seat. It HAD been his first time. But then, why didn’t HE face some shadowy version of himself? Did he really not have any problems with himself? He never thought of himself as “perfect”, or “happy with his life”. That’s part of the reason he came here to Ponyville, because he wasn’t happy.

“I don’t know Twilight,” he said, shaking his head before turning to her with a smile. “But hey! It’s a good thing I could summon it at all! We wouldn’t have survived against your other self if not for Ekchuah!”

“What even was that?” she wondered out loud. “That ‘other me’? She was nothing like those, hideous blobs of darkness. Why did she take my form? Why is she now my… Persona…” Twilight looked down at her hooves, the realization that she now wielded ancient magic lost to even Celestia was causing her to shake slightly. She moaned in frustration and looked up at the ceiling.

“Ughh, my head hurts,” she mumbled as she rubbed her temple. “Oh, where did Princess Celestia go? I have so many questions!”

“Do you want to go find her?” Wayfarer asked.

Twilight hesitated for a moment and shook her head. “No, she probably wants to be alone right now, and I’m still exhausted from last night.” She then turned to look directly at Wayfarer. “Listen, what I said, when I was barely conscious last night, about me fighting along with you? I’ve got to be honest.” Her ears flattened against her head and she shifted a bit. “Part of me, REALLY does not want to go back in there. If I ever see those… THINGS again, it’ll be too soon. And… I REALLY don’t think I’ll be any good in a fight.”

“Then you don’t have to,” Wayfarer said standing up. “Celestia said she and Discord once had Persona’s of their own. Maybe they’ll learn how to summon them again.”

“Maybe…” Twilight blinked a few times before she let out a yawn. She shook her head a few times before getting up herself. “Well, I’m going to go sleep in a real bed. It’s a Saturday so shouldn’t you have the day off?”

Wayfarer shook his head. “Cheerilee mentioned something about a school event and asked me to come in today. I guess I owe that to her after coming in late.”

“Alright, well you’d better get a move on then.”

It was about half way through the morning, but Wayfarer arrived at the school house almost half an hour before the students did this time, much to Cheerilee’s thankfulness. Today was supposed to be something of an open house. The school year had only just started and the students were going to bring their parents in so that Cheerilee could give them a rundown of what the fillies and colts would be learning this year. While Cheerilee explained this to Wayfarer, they took the time to stack the chairs on one side of the room to make room for all the ponies that would be coming, after which the supplies Wayfarer had ordered arrived and Cheerilee put him to work storing those.

Wayfarer finished that and was walking out of the storage cabinet when a familiar drawl called out in greeting.

“Howdy Cheerilee! Howdy Wayfarer!”

Wayfarer turned to see the front door swing shut as Applejack walked in with her sister Apple Bloom.

“Good morning Applejack and Apple Bloom!” Cheerilee greeted

“Hello,” Wayfarer said simply as he placed a few more pencils in one of the drawers at the side of the classroom.

“How are you hold’n up there Wayfarer?” Applejack asked. “Been hearing talk about someth’n that happened two nights ago, up at the castle with Twilight, or was that just Rainbow talk’n up a storm again?”

“I had a bit of an accident on our way out," Wayfarer explained, repeating the same story he and Twilight had been feeding anyone who asked. "It’s hard to see sometimes in there. I’m fine though, nothing’s broken.”

“Well I’m glad to hear that," Applejack said, smiling as she crossed her fore hooves. "Wouldn’t want you get’n hurt before you’ve even been here a week. Wouldn’t make Ponyville look like a very safe place now would it?”

“I’m fine Applejack,” Wayfarer said reassuringly. “Thank you for your concern.”

“Think noth’n of it!” Applejack beamed at him before turning to Cheerilee. “So how long do you think this’ll take Miss Cheerilee? Me and Apple Bloom still got a lot a morn’n chores to go through.”

“Not long at all Applejack," Cheerilee said. "I’d say an hour, hour and a half at most.”

“Plenty of time to get the new irrigation channels flow’n by lunch time!” Applejack said excitedly. At this point, more foals and their parents were starting to come in the front door. Wayfarer turned to Cheerilee to ask if he was still needed.

“Miss Cheerilee,” Wayfarer said, stepping up next to her. “Is that everything for today?”

“Yes,” she replied. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d hang around and let me introduce you.” Wayfarer nodded and obliged to her request, taking a place next to Applejack as the room began to fill.

After the front door had been closed for the last time and the last group of ponies took their place, Cheerilee went into what sounded like a very practiced spiel about what this year would bring for the fillies and colts. A sense of Deja Vu washed over Wayfarer when Cheerilee introduced him as “her assistant” to the assembled ponies. There were a few polite greetings to him, though some didn’t even bother, and he noticed that it was usually the families that included the foals that didn’t applaud for him on the first day. Wayfarer didn’t really mind it, after all his job was basically the school house’s maintenance worker or janitor, or some combination of the two.

Cheerilee continued on for a little while longer before she opened the room to questions, of which there were very few and none that really concerned Wayfarer. The attendees were then thanked for their time and dismissed, Applejack nodded her hat to Wayfarer and shuffled out with Apple Bloom. “C’mon Apple Bloom.” The farm pony said. “Let’s see if Big Mac was able to keep them trouble make’n beavers away from the creek this time.”

A few ponies came forward to talk personally with Cheerilee, so Wayfarer gave them space and walked to the other side of the room, where he was accosted by a familiar looking white unicorn filly.

“Hey there!” She shouted cheerfully.

“Hello,” Wayfarer responded. “You’re… ummm… Sweet Berry?”

The little unicorn giggled at that. “No! I’m Sweetie Belle!”

“Ahh! Yes! Do excuse me Sweetie Belle. Now, can I help you with something? Where are your parents?”

“They're trying to talk with Miss Cheerilee right now,” Sweetie Belle said, pointing over to a pair of jubilant looking Unicorns who were talking very animatedly with Cheerilee. “And you didn’t answer my question!”

“Your question?" Wayfarer asked, confused. "What question?”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes with a look of irritation. “My question from the day you came here. About your cutie mark!”

“Oh!” Wayfarer exclaimed, looking back to the mark on his flank. “Well, it’s a compass.”

“Like one of those things Rarity uses to draw circles?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“No, that’s a drawing compass,” Wayfarer explained. “This is a directional compass.”

“Oh, so that thing that always points North?”

“That’s it. Only this is like the one you’d see on a map. It tells you which way to orient it.” Sweetie Belle just stared at Wayfarer for a moment.

“'Orient' it?” She asked, clearly never hearing such a word before.

Wayfarer sighed and went to grab a sheet of paper and a pencil. Taking one of the desks down as well, he placed the paper on the desk and started to draw a rudimentary map on it, with a compass up in the corner labeled with the four cardinal directions.

“Okay,” Wayfarer said to Sweetie Belle as he finished. “See this little mark down here?” he pointed to the compass and Sweetie Belle nodded. “That’s a compass, like mine. It tells you which way is North on a map, as well as south, west, and east. Now there are also compasses with needles that spin around, they always point North no matter how you turn them. So if you take one of those and place it on a map, you could turn the map so that the compass on the map and the needle are both pointing north. Now the map matches up with the landscape and you can figure out how to get where you’re going. That’s called orientation.”

“Oooh!” Sweetie Belle said as a smile creeped over her face. “So does that mean your special talent is pointing North?”

“No," Wayfarer said with a half hearted smile. "I think it just means I have a good sense of direction.”

Truthfully, he didn't know what exactly his cutie mark was for. He couldn't remember how he got it, so finding out what it was for was a bit difficult. He did have a knack for knowing how to get to places without being there before, but he had always chalked that up to living in a big city, where memorizing street names and landmarks was pretty much a foregone conclusion for anyone who spent more than a month there. You could give him a full address and he'd be able to give you clear and concise directions even if he'd never heard of the establishment in question.

“Could you still tell me which way is North?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Wayfarer thought for a moment then walked to a window and looked at the sky. The sun was getting higher, but it was still early enough for him to tell that it had risen from the direction the school house faced. Smiling, he turned to Sweetie Belle and pointed to the right side of the building.

“That way is North,” he said confidently.

“Wow!” Sweetie Belle said with awe. “How can you tell?”

“The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.” Wayfarer explained. “So if you can see the sun and it isn’t around noon, you can tell which way is which.”

Sweetie Belle looked like she was about to dive face first into another batch of questions before her parents finally collected her. She and Wayfarer waved goodbye to each other as she walked out the door with a hint of disappointment on her face. There were a few more ponies that Cheerilee had to talk to, but eventually she and Wayfarer were the only two left. Wayfarer looked around and was once again about to ask if he was needed before Cheerilee beat him to the punch.

“Mister Wayfarer, are you busy today?”

“Oh, umm, not really. Did you need something?”

“Well I was wondering if you’d join me for lunch. I know it’s a little early, but we haven’t really had a chance to talk about much other than work and I wouldn’t mind a nice chat with you. If that’s alright with you that is.”

Wayfarer couldn’t help but hear the word “Date” reverberate around his head for a moment before squashed that idea right then and there. “Of course," he said. "I haven’t really been to any of the local restaurants other than Sugarcube Corner. Maybe you could introduce me to one?”

Ten minutes later the two were seated at a very nice looking outdoor cafe. Most of their conversation as they waited for food just turned out to be small talk, though Cheerilee did sprinkle in a few questions that Wayfarer felt were more appropriate for a job interview. It dawned on him that that might be the reason for her invitation. He owed it to her anyway, so Wayfarer didn’t call her out on this and just allowed her to ask whatever questions she desired.

“As a teacher I’ve been exposed to all sorts of impressionable minds with so many dozens of questions," Cheerilee recounted. Wayfarer nodded, he’d gotten a glimpse of that first hand. “To most ponies," she continued. "This would be an annoyance, but I find it wonderful how much some of my students yearn for knowledge. Even the ones that don’t like to show their interest can’t help but perk their ears up whenever something new is introduced. It’s a pity that most ponies don’t carry that hunger with them into adulthood no matter how much I try. Why do you suppose that is?”

Wayfarer tilted his head to the side and pursed his lips, thinking to himself carefully about it before giving what he hoped was a satisfactory answer.

“Lack of interest," he said, shrugging. "Or complacency. Most ponies are fine with the way they live until something else calls for their attention. If they don’t need to know about it, they don’t bother to ask. Personally I think ponies devote too little time to extending themselves and their minds into fields they might not take great interest in but may, in the long run, benefit them. Sweetie Belle, for example, doesn’t seem the adventurous type, but she might be very happy one day that I taught her how to use a map and compass.”

“Oh, is that what you were showing her while I was talking to her parents?”

“Yeah. Well, it started as a question about my cutie mark and then by association it turned into a lesson about orienteering.”

“Wonderful!” Cheerilee beamed, laughing pleasently. “My janitor is a learned pony!” The two laughed and continued to talk as their lunch arrived. After a half hour, the two finally stood and prepared to part ways.

“I think I made the right decision hiring you,” Cheerilee said as she extended a hoof for Wayfarer to shake. “You’re fairly smart and intuitive, and you’re very kind to both me and my students.”

“The same could be said for you Cheerilee.” Wayfarer said as he returned the hoof shake.

Cheerilee smiled and added “Between the two of us working together, my students might keep their curiosity a little longer than the rest of us.” she laughed again as the two released each other’s hooves.

Wayfarer felt that that last bit was a little corny, but he couldn’t help but appreciate Cheerilee’s words and praise, and he felt a small bond form between them.

The two said their goodbyes and started on their way, Wayfarer once again at a loss of what to do today other than wonder about town. “I’ve got to get a hobby or something.” He thought out loud.

“What do we do for fun?” Rainbow Dash said, repeating Wayfarer’s question to her.

“That’s what I asked.” Wayfarer said as he watched Rainbow bounce a ball off her head again and again. He’d found her as he was walking through the park during his musings, and he thought she might point him in the right direction of what to do in this town when school got out.

“Well, when I’m not on weather duty I’m usually practicing new tricks or taking naps. That, or hanging out with my friends.” She stopped bouncing the ball and instead started to balance it on the tips of her wings. “What did YOU do for fun in Baltimare? Go to fancy parties or something?”

“No, I’m not that stuffy.” Wayfarer said, chuckling a bit. “I DID like going to the theatre sometimes, but that was once every few months. And unfortunately, I don’t think there’s even a theatre out here.”

“Well,” Dash said with a thoughtful expression. “Sometimes Cheerilee’s kids put on plays, but I don’t think those are the type of performances you’re looking for.”

“Yeah, I’ll probably be seeing all of those anyway. Cheerilee will more than likely want my help with those.”

“Hmmm…” Rainbow Dash tapped a hoof on her chin, looking around at the tree and sky for a moment before looking back to Wayfarer. She looked him up and down, seemingly sizing him up for something, before her eyes went wide and she started to grin. “I HAVE been talking with AJ about starting a sports team in Ponyville, but we haven’t really put much thought into it.”

“Sports team?”

“Yeah you know, like Hoofball or Soccer! Something like that!” She was starting to look a little excited now. “Yeah that’s perfect! I have to go find AJ and see if she’s still interested!” And with that, Rainbow launched her ball into the air before taking off and catching it as she flew away, leaving Wayfarer to stare after her.

A sports team didn’t really sound all that bad, now that Wayfarer thought about it. He’d played a little bit of soccer with his friends, but he didn’t recall ever being all that good at it. Still, it might be fun having a group of friends that he could hang out with on a regular basis, even if none of them ended up being any good at whatever sport they played.

‘It’s something to do I guess’ Wayfarer thought.

He continued to wander around the park a bit, until he walked clear out of town. There weren’t any houses this far out, but there were a lot of trees. Not so densely packed as to be a forest, but definitely a lot greener than the rest of Ponyville. It almost looked like an orchard, but he knew he wasn’t anywhere near Sweet Apple Acres, so he assumed it was some sort of grove. The green of the surrounding flora was suddenly broken by a bolt of red hanging out of one of the trees. As Wayfarer got closer he saw that it was a tail, which was connected to a very bored looking draconequus.

“Discord?” Wayfarer said cautiously as he approached. Discord stopped plucking what looked like caramel apples off the tree he was in and looked down at Wayfarer with blank eyes.

“Hello there Mr. Wayfarer,” The draconequus said as he broke one of the apples in half, letting a little blue bird out. “How are you on this dull and dreary day?”

“I’m uhh, fine. What are you doing all the way out here?”

“I could ask you the same thing, but since you asked first I suppose I should answer first. I’m doing nothing.”

“Nothing?” Wayfarer asked, tilting his head.

“Isn’t that what ponies do when they’re bored? They do nothing. Maybe complain about how bored they are but aside from that, don’t most just sit and twiddle their hooves until something exciting happens?”

“Well, I guess?” Wayfarer walked around the tree and watched as Discord cracked open another apple to reveal a rather large gem stone, which he inspected carefully before tossing it into the air and letting it explode into confetti.

Discord looked down from his perch at Wayfarer, now with curious eyes. “Now before you give your answer, may I ask another question of you?” he said.

“Umm, sure.”

“Why aren’t you running away in fear at the sight of me like all the rest?”

“I… wait, what?”

Discord rolled his eyes and leaned back in the tree. “Ever since I made my first grand appearance in Ponyville last year and made their lives a bit more exciting, most of them have been less than welcoming. Which is a shame because if I’m going to live here the LEAST they can do is not treat me like a horrible monster anymore. I mean if Fluttershy of all ponies can forgive and forget then I don’t get why the rest have to be such sticks in the mud.”

“You’re friends with Fluttershy. Really?” Wayfarer hadn’t really gotten a chance to talk with Fluttershy, but he had gotten the feeling she wasn’t very sociable to begin with. But being friends with a mismatched creature of chaos was not something he would have guessed from the yellow pegasus in a million years.

“Your surprise is unwarranted," Discord said. "She’s not as unapproachable as her wallflower nature might lead you to believe. She is the lone exception to the rule of ‘Everypony Hates Discord.’ That is until you came along. So again I must ask, out of the vaguest of curiosities, why?”

Wayfarer didn’t really know what to say. Sure Discord seemed rude, and the way Celestia and Twilight treated him made it obvious he could be a handful. But Wayfarer hadn’t seen him do anything excessively wrong since he’d met him. Wayfarer considered that might be in part to how little time the two had been exposed to each other, but that still wasn’t a reason to dislike him, OR like him for that matter.

“You haven’t really given me a reason to like or dislike you.” Wayfarer answered. “You just seem really bored all the time.”

“And there’s a reason for that!” Discord shouted as he dropped from the tree. “I used to be the Lord of Chaos and Disharmony! I ruled all of Equestria with near omnipotence! But now if I so much as make it snow during the summer I’ll be turned to stone again!”

“Well…" Wayfarer said, grimacing as his eyes flicked back and forth as if the forthcoming solution was blatantly obvious. "Don’t make it snow during the summer.”

Discord glared at Wayfarer before continuing his tirade. “I suppose that’s easy enough for you, but I am capable of doing just about anything I please with merely a thought! It’s just that now there are consequences for doing so. Consequences that I find most unpleasant. To have that much power and not be able to use it to its fullest potential, do you have any idea how maddening that is?”

Wayfarer contemplated that question for a moment. True he couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have as much power as Discord was suggesting he had, but at the same time it’s not like Wayfarer himself had never been bored. Heck he was sort of in the same boat right now.

“Ever think about getting a hobby?” Wayfarer asked.

Discord raised an eyebrow at that, then started to scratch at his head. “Well I used to torment ponies just to see how far their sanity would go before it cracked like an egg, but that seems to be out of the question at the moment.”

“I was thinking something, you know, constructive. Like… sports!”

Again Discord gave Wayfarer a look of annoyed disbelief. “I was never really good at sports. Sports tend to involve working with a team, and it’s difficult to work in groups when you’re omnipotent.”

Wayfarer couldn’t argue with that, but that wasn't his only suggestion. “Well, what about the arts?”

“The arts? Like painting?” Discord snapped his fingers and suddenly he was dressed up in a very poofy and frilly outfit from the Equestrian Renaissance, complete with beret. He snapped his fingers again and suddenly he was holding a can of paint and staring down an easel with a fresh canvas on it. He held out a hand with his thumb up, eyeing the blank space, before grabbing the bucket with both hands and flinging the contents at the canvas. The paint made contact and started to run down the surface, leaving a very distorted image of Discord’s face. He then walked to the piece and began to examine it.

“Eh, not my best work.” He said as he picked it up and tossed it into a trashcan that had appeared out of nowhere, and then disappeared after the painting landed in it with a thud. “You see? There’s nothing fun or satisfying in doing something so… ordinary. I NEED chaos! I need to mess with ponies’ heads every now and then! That’s what’s really exciting for me!”

Wayfarer didn’t really know what to say to that. Discord obviously needed some sort of outlet, but Wayfarer was at a loss at what sort of productive things the God of Chaos could do to occupy his time.

“Well, I suppose I’ll go see how Fluttershy’s latest critter tea party is going.” Discord said in a rather defeated tone. He rose up from the ground a bit and started to float away, before he stopped and turned his head around to look at Wayfarer again. “So what were you doing out here all by your lonesome?”

Wayfarer sighed and kicked the dirt a bit with his front hooves. “Same as you I guess, a whole lot of nothing.”

Discord stared hard at Wayfarer for a moment before smirking. “One would wonder why anypony would move to such a boring little town.”

“Too much excitement isn’t necessarily a good thing. though this town does seem to lean more towards the side of ‘ordinary’, at least during the day.”

Discord smirked again before turning his head back around and continuing on his way. “Be thankful for that little bit of excitement in your life Wayfarer, because the way Celestia was talking this morning convinced me that she was prepared to drop the sun on the castle and be done with it after last night’s fiasco.”

Wayfarer watched as the draconequus flew off, unable to stop himself from feeling a bit of camaraderie with him. Discord did have a point: on it’s own Ponyville didn’t seem all that exciting. It was certainly a relief from the hustle and bustle that drove Wayfarer away from Baltimare, but at the same time he missed the theaters and art galleries and music halls and all the other things that made big cities so enjoyable.

“I’m sure we’ll both find some way to entertain ourselves.” Wayfarer thought to himself. “I mean there’s a royal living here and they’re building a castle! How long before this town has a Concert Hall or Amphitheater too?”

The moon was rising high into the sky, the sun only an hour into its rest below the horizon. Most of Canterlot’s residents were either returning, or had returned, to their homes to retire for the night. The perfect time for a small chariot to slip away unnoticed.

“Just how long do you plan on staying in Ponyville, Sister?” Princess Luna asked as she watched Celestia load several boxes onto her chariot.

“I have no idea, Luna,” Celestia responded. “It may be a few weeks, a few months, perhaps even a year. It doesn’t matter, because I have to be sure.”

“Sure of what?” Luna asked, raising an eye at her solar counterpart.

“Sure that this isn’t another one of my mistakes coming back to threaten my subjects.”

Celestia strapped down the final box and then turned to her sister. Celestia wasn’t wearing any of her ornate attire. She planned on disguising herself as a common citizen before she reached Ponyville so she could walk around in the open. So the crown, horseshoes, and necklace were all left in her quarters and she had prepared herself a transformation spell beforehand. Even her guards were being left behind this time, the chariot being pulled by her own magic.

“I still don’t understand why that means you don’t want me there as well.” Luna said. “If memory serves, it could very well be my mistake as well. You are not the only one who has debts to pay, Sister.”

“You have paid for your mistakes ten fold Luna, and I won’t let you pay anymore.”

Luna's anger began to flare. "I've done so much damage to the citizens of this nation, and even after a thousand years of exile I still came back with the intent to try and over throw you. Will you not let me help you make up for that? Even if it's what I desire?"

“Especially if it’s what you desire," Celestia retorted. "If you still feel so guilty for your actions after I and our subjects have forgiven you, then continuing to pursue that guilt will only do you harm. I will not let you fall into that hole again Sister."

"And yet, I'm supposed to let you fall in yourself?" Luna grumbled as she stared at Celestia. The two continued to eye each other until Celestia sighed and climbed aboard the chariot. “Can you at least tell me one thing?” Luna asked. “What are you hoping to find in this ‘crevasse’ beneath Princess Twilight’s Castle?”

“I am hoping to find nothing," Celestia admitted. "I’m hoping that this is nothing but a hive of monsters that I can easily banish to Tartarus.”

Luna was silent for a moment before asking a similar question. “What are you expecting to find?”

Celestia was silent for even longer before she replied “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Sister…”

“Canterlot is in your capable hooves Luna. Please don’t hesitate to write if you need any help.”

“Sister,” Luna said as she stepped up next to the carriage. “Will you do the same if YOU need assistance?”

Celestia didn’t answer as she cast the spell to send the chariot forward and then up into the sky, leaving Luna to stare sadly at the silhouette as it disappeared into the clouds.

Author's Notes:

I think from this point on I'm going to keep the chapters short, unless it's something big, like another pony joining the party.

The next chapter should come out quicker than this one, as the EQD Artist Training Ground is over, so I can focus on writing, and I already have a good start on it.

As always though, I'd like to get all of your feedback on this, both the good and the bad. And if anyone is interested, I'd like a prereader. Preferably someone who's used to reading long stories.

Also, I'm thinking about including links to Persona music where they would be relevant. Yay or nay?