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Contraptionology!

by Jeffrey C. Wells

www.scrivnarium.net

(with gratitude to the pre-reading powers of Akela Stronghoof and S.R. Foxley)
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Part Twenty-One: Epilogue(s)

"Zero casualties," I said, staring at her in unvarnished disbelief. "Zero."

"Not a one," said Princess Celestia.

"Beggin' your pardon, Princess," I said, "but that's just ridiculous. There was all this fire, and smoke, and buildings falling all over the place."

The Princess gave me a wan little smile. "This is Discord we're speaking of," she said. "Ridiculousness is his strongest suit, after all." Her eyes went all distant and a touch flinty. "He wants ponies alive, if not well, so he can gain amusement from their misfortune. Even to him, death is not funny. It removes all prospect of future suffering."

"I... I dunno, Princess," I said. "That ro-bot Trixie seemed pretty lethal to me. And what about all them thousand-yard drops I got subjected to?"

"The falls would never have killed you, Applejack," said the Princess. "Discord would have made certain of that. They would have laid you up for months, if he had had his way, and he would have been laughing at your pain every second of that time. But you weren't in any mortal danger. Not from the falls, and not from the contraptions that Discord inspired." She blinked. "Except... I am informed that your friend Berry Punch consumed so much of the contaminated alcohol that she was inspired to destroy the universe, which she successfully did. But then she remade it in its entirety a millisecond later, so I guess that's all right."

"Huh," I said. "But what about Robo-Trixie? You actually think that mare wouldn'ta done me in? Seriously?"

"Robo-Trixie... is another matter entirely," said the Princess. "The Great and Powerful Robo-Trixie might indeed have worked a grievous harm on you. It speaks well of my faithful student's skill that she was able to invent a creature that circumvented the desires of the very devil whose power it was founded by. Unfortunately, when that creature sought only to kill... well, let's just say that I'm glad you're all right, whatever grim means you may have used to achieve that state."

"Sure of that," I said, glancing around the little waiting room. The Ponyville Hospital had survived the worst of the science storm by (a) being located way on the outskirts of Ponyville and (b) being staffed by doctors and nurses who were all on shift at the time of the Tesseract Party, and so had no opportunity to suck down any of the poison punch. Sitting here in this place, looking at the calming wall-art and listening to the plinky piped-in music, it was easy to believe that the events of the past forty-eight hours was nothing more than a strange, unpleasant, giddy ol' fever-dream. Step outside and you'd know the truth of it, though – Ponyville was a smoking wreck, from top to bottom. Other than Sugarcube Corner, and possibly the Library, we'd like as not have to tear down everything left standing and start over from the ground up. It was a pain, to be sure, and I weren't looking forward to it; but on the other hoof, it would be the third time this year alone we'd done it, and we were kind of getting a rhythm for it.

"So, uh, how is Twi, anyway?" I said. The original plan was for all us girls, plus Spike, to wait here at the hospital until our purple unicorn friend came out of her dual-princess magical recranialization surgery; but as the hours wore on, it became more and more apparent that there was probably better ways to spend our time, and so it was agreed that just one of us would stay here waiting on the results while the others got cooking with helping out the reconstruction effort (or, in Pinkie's case, the Post-Reconstruction Effort Party.) We ponies are industrious folk, after all. It's not like us to sit around on our docks when there's work to be done. Anyhow, I challenged every one of them ponies to a hoofwrestle for it to be me what stayed here waiting – I couldn't stand not being the first to know my friend's condition. It was me that had originally done it to her, after all.

"Twilight is fine," said Princess Celestia, comfortingly. "Thankfully, using the scrupulous notes my student took when preparing her partial-pony teleportation spell, I was able to reverse its effect and put her poor brain back in her head, where it quite obviously belongs."

I slumped on my bench, the tension seeping out of me like groundwater. "You don't know how relieved I am to hear that, Princess."

The Princess nodded at me. "I can only imagine that once the guilds get wind that a new and potentially quite gruesome spell has been unleashed upon the world, they will waste no time in banning it forever, but as long as we're still in the grey area, I thought I'd give it a try." She gave me a little wink. "And it worked! With a little rest, my faithful student should be back on her hooves by nightfall. Just in time for, I understand, a rather considerable celebratory square dance up at Sweet Apple Acres?"

"Yes indeed," I said. "You should come, Princess. We'd love to have you."

"Alas, I have the sunset," said the Princess. "Duty ever calls. And then, sleep. It has already been a long day for me, and it is not even noon. But I understand that my sister Princess Luna will be joining you later, and I hear she's very much looking forward to the dance."

"Well, we'll be honored by her presence as well," I said, giving a little bow. "Can I— I mean, can we go see Twilight now?"

"Certainly," said the Princess, gesturing with one wing toward the door that led back to the patient rooms. "Princess Cadence is just finishing up the last touches of healing magic and your friend should be awake now. I'm sure she's eager to talk with you. As am I eager to talk with you both." And with that, she ushered me into the clean blue-and-white halls of the medical center, eventually guiding me to the private Very Important Pony recuperation suites way in back.

Princess Cadence was there, standing protectively over Twilight and washing away the last of my friend's psychic surgical wounds with soothing aquamarine sorcery. Twilight brightened visibly at the sight of me and practically fell out of bed with her eagerness to sit up and talk. "Applejack!" she cried. "It's so good to see you!"

"Hush and be still for a bit," said Cadence, giving Twilight a little kiss on the forehead, right above the horn. "You're still a little weak."

"Okay, Big Sister-in-Law Best Friend Forever," she said contentedly, settling back into her pillows.

Cadence turned to us. "I've done what I can, Aunty," she said, addressing Celestia with a respectful little head-bow. "Time will do the rest. If you're okay keeping watch for a while, I'm going to go find my beautiful lump of a husband and help him co-ordinate the Guard's cleanup efforts."

"Shining Armor will be glad of the assistance, I'm sure," said Princess Celestia.

"Tell Shiny to come see me when he has a chance!" said Twilight.

"When he has a chance," said Cadence, smiling, "I don't think I'll be able to keep him away."

Twilight threw her hooves around the younger princess's elegant pink neck, held her tight for a moment, and then let her go. Cadence nodded to us as she skipped lightly out the door. "We'll talk again soon, Aunty," she said.

"That we will, Mi Amoré," said Princess Celestia, and then Cadence was gone.

Meanwhile, Twilight bounced up and down in her bed, looking at me eagerly. "Get over here get over here get over here!" she said, her eyes twinkling. "Quick, while I'm still in hugging mode!"

"Far be it for me to say no to a request like that," I said, trotting over. Twilight Sparkle practically pounced on me, throwing her hooves around me as she had Cadence, and we shared a tight embrace.

"Mm," she said. "You smell like friend."

"That's on account of I am one," I replied, holding her close.

"I'm glad to see that you two have mended your rift," said Princess Celestia. "It was, truth to tell, an area of concern for me. I had no idea when I found that spray of lilacs embedded in the stone wall of my balcony, however, that these two things would turn out to be related, or that the situation between you two would collapse so completely in the way that it did, but I'm happy that it's apparently all in the past now."

"Yep," I said, with absolute honest certainty. "We're great friends again, Twilight and me. Thanks to a little bit of Honesty, a little bit of Magic, and a whole heaping helping of forgiveness."

"Good," said the Princess, smiling peacefully at us. "I realize it's been a fairly traumatic couple of days for you, and although your brother will probably require you to make an official statement for the Guard, I'm not going to expect a formal Friendship Report from either of you until you feel good and ready with one." She inclined her head mischievously at us. "But... if anything comes immediately to mind, I'd be glad to receive your thoughts right now. Even the worst unpleasantness can have value if it teaches you a good lesson and leaves you a stronger, wiser pony for having come through it."

Twi and me looked at each other.

"Actually, I think we just might have a report for you, Princess," I said.

"Yes," said Twilight. "Never teleport your brain out of your own skull without a backup plan. No good will ever come of it."

Princess Celestia chuckled, high and chiming. "A good lesson, to be sure, my student," she said. "I was hoping for something a bit more widely-applicable, though?"

"Okay, how about this," volunteered Twilight. "If you've got a problem with one of your friends? Like if some little hurt comes up between the two of you? Don't be afraid to tell them about it. A true friend understands that not everything is sunshine and roses one hundred percent of the time, and the quicker you can honestly, respectfully, and empathetically communicate the pain that's on your mind, the quicker you can get back on the road to healing." Twi looked up at me warmly. "And always remember that even the best and most dependable of ponies can occasionally slip up a little. So always let true forgiveness govern your heart, and eventually, friendship will see you through."

"A good lesson," said the Princess, nodding. "And what about you, Applejack? You were at the heart of this issue, even more so than Twilight Sparkle was. You've fought off not one, but two immortal demons of the realm, both of which sought to use you for their own dark aims. You very nearly lost your soul in the process, and yet, here you are on the other side, without so much as a hat out of place. I'm very interested to know what insights you have gained from all of this."

"Well," I said, "As it happens, I do got something, sure as night follows day, beggin' your pardon, Princess."

"That's quite all right," said the Princess. "Go on."

"Only it's just... well, it ain't typical," I continued. "It ain't really about friendship at all. It's about Change. And Constancy."

The Princess shook her regal head. "Is that how the Nightmare introduced itself to you?" she said. "Ever does it hold that delusion close to its heart. The primitive ponies that the Nightmare once guarded may have known it as 'Constancy', certainly. But they also had another name for it; and with every endless lingering winter, every sullen, unmoving heat wave of summer, with every foal and every plant that stubbornly failed to thrive and grow, they cursed that name. 'Stagnation', they called it. And bitterly did they weep at it, just as bitterly as they wept at the unmitigated chaos of Discord's reign."

"'Stagnation'," I said. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Anyhow, I got a point here, but best way I can think of to say it is with a story, so with your leave, I'm gonna give 'er a go."

"Please," said the Princess.

I cleared my throat. "All right," I said, "so this one time we was in the market for a new plow. We had a little bit of a windfall from a nice crop of Zap apples, but the Farmer's Almanac was giving us a real doom-and-gloom report on corn prices for the coming year. So we started to panic a bit, and chew at our hooves, and we decided that the only way we was gonna make it through next year was to till and plant just about every acre of arable soil possible, in hopes of getting as much cheap grain to market as we could. But we only had that one old plow."

I devoted a moment to a good all-over nervous fidget, but the Princess was ever-patient and seemed eager to hear me yap, so I carried on. "A— Anyhow," I stammered. "What's important to know is that Mac loved that plow. When he pulled it behind him, it was... it was like a piece of his own body, hear? He knew that machine like he knew the back of his hoof, all its ins and outs, every weird little thing it did. I can't tell you how many acres a day that stallion could work, just him and that plow. So anyway, uh, the point of it all is, we were panicking, and we thought that, talented as he was with it, there was no way Macintosh could till up enough land with that old thing, so we found some peddlers who were selling this really forsaken contraption of a tilling-machine, a big ol' monster with a dozen or so rotating disks on the back of it, could cut a whole mess of furrows all at once. And we was so eager to get it home and get going on busting them clods that we forgot to try it out before we bought it, and you know what happened?"

"Mac hated it," said Twilight, remembering, because she had been right there for that first test run.

"He hated that thing," I confirmed. "Hated the way it felt on his collar, hated it down to his bones. It was supposedly the bestest thing ever to come about in plow technology, but after a couple passes, he just stowed it in the barn and I don't believe he's touched it since. We was afraid, Princess. We was afraid that if we didn't have the shiniest and most newfangled piece of equipment we could possibly get our hooves on, we'd lose everything. And... it made us obsessed, made us act rash. Ate our windfall clean up, a fact we were mighty sad about when the next hailstorm pulled into town. Getting caught up by that fancy new plow felt an awful lot like convolvement did, the pointless, fearful pursuit of Change. If we had been thinking clear, we would have realized that the old way, the way we knew, the way we loved, was the best way forward. But we didn't. Change can make you forget that."

"But there's another side to the parable," said Twilight, serenely. "You remember what I was like before you sent me to Ponyville, Princess?"

"I do," said the Princess.

"Cloistered, stuck-up, isolated, living in my ivory tower, barely going outside except to class, never socializing with any of my peers, hardly even talking to anypony. The whole time, I convinced myself that I was doing the right thing, the good thing, the studious thing. But do you know what it really was?"

"She was afraid," I said, because Twilight had told me this story, and I knew it well.

"I was afraid," said Twilight, nodding. "I was afraid that if I let my attention to my studies slip, even for a moment, it would risk marring the diamond-like perfection of my academic record. One little tea party with potential friends would become two, would become four, would become eight, and soon I'd be hanging out all night in Canterlot bars, getting hopped up on really exotic salts and throwing back cider until I floated." Her eyes sparkled with a mad, walleyed glimmer. "And at night, the sailors would come!" she said, erratically. "Soon, I would be spending every evening with rough-hooved gentlestallions gambling on billiards and engaging myself in other loose pursuits and I would lose all of my scholarship money on roulette and have to quit school and hire myself out to a tramp steamer just to keep my belly full, but it would never be enough, and there I'd be, hungry and miserable, swinging back and forth on my hammock and gazing at the filthy backside of the pony in the hammock above me, dreading the boatswain's lash that awaited me every morning as I stood in line for my square of hardtack and mug of small beer, and I would scream and cry and gnash my teeth at the heavens, praying for your forgiveness, Princess, a forgiveness that would never ever come!" She drew in a hissing breath, shaking all over. "And then, the ship would become icebound, and to survive, we'd be forced to eat—"

"Bring it around to earth, Twi," I said, tapping lightly at her shoulder.

The little unicorn blinked. "Um," she said. "Yes. The point is, Princess, I was afraid to be friendly with other ponies, afraid to try anything new. I didn't really love where I was at, stuck in that tower all day, but what choice did I have? That cruel whip-wielding boatswain was a pretty terrifying character, and he was the logical conclusion to any tea parties I might have risked attending. And so there I sat, utterly Stagnant. Just like the Nightmare. And I'd be there still if you hadn't opened my eyes by sending me here to Ponyville. I love it here, Princess. Love it. I wouldn't trade it for the world. And if I hadn't had the courage to change a little, the chance to experience all this would have passed me right by."

"Two very good stories," said the Princess. "I trust you can see their common element?"

"Love," I answered. "Ever since Discord put the sun in motion, things have been changing, and they ain't never gonna stop until the last star in the heavens burns itself to ash. And maybe not even then."

"Faced with this inescapable truth," said Twilight, "you have one of two options. You can flow with the tide, or you can try and resist it."

"Ain't one thing that's necessarily better than t'other," I said. "Change isn't good, and change isn't bad. Change is change. Sometimes you gotta hold fast to the goodness of the old ways, and sometimes you gotta leap for the goodness that change will bring you."

"But it isn't always easy to see which is which."

"So in the end, whether you move or stay put, you gotta do it because of love. Not just because you're scared, or obsessed. You don't choose your path on the say-so of some demon whispering poison words in your ear, whichever direction those words are pulling you. You cling tight to, or strive like the dickens for, the thing you actually love. And if you plant good seed, well, it can't help but come up as good crop eventually."

"Excellent," said the Princess, smiling at us. "Wonderful. I'm absolutely thrilled with both your reports, you two."

"Thank you, Princess!" said Twilight, her face positively aglow.

"Yes, uh," I said, scraping at the tiles of the floor with one hoof. "Thanks, Yer Highness."

Princess Celestia nodded at me. "And now, Applejack, I need to have a few private words with my faithful student. Meanwhile, you have friends waiting on the news of Twilight's full and complete recovery. If I'm not mistaken, most of them are gathered at a one-day-belated birthday party for the Great and Powerful Robo-Trixie at Sugarcube Corner. I'm sure they'd be anxious to talk to you."

I heard my cue to leave. "All right, then," I said, bowing low as I departed the presence of royalty. "I'll go spread the good news. See y'all at the square dance tonight, Twi?"

"Wouldn't miss it," said Twi, gamely.

"Right," I said, watching the Princess cross gracefully over to Twilight's bedside, starting in on a second, more intimate and private, part of her lesson. "I'll... I'll just show myself out." Truth to tell, I was just about as curious as a cat to hear what them ponies was saying to one another, but, well, I guess some things are meant for the ears of wizardesses and princesses alone. Satisfied, I trotted out of the hospital and into another bright blue morning.

I had to pass through Ponyville proper – what was left of it, at least – on my way to Sugarcube Corner. Everypony was weary from the strain of being cursed and bending the laws of Equestria and Pony to their wills yesterday, but there was nonetheless a smile on every muzzle I could see. Everypony grinned and greeted each other happily as they went gamely about their rebuilding efforts. And that, that rock-solid sense of goodwill, community, and cheer, that was Ponyville. We were Ponyville. Not the houses and buildings we lived in. And that's why Ponyville always survives, no matter how many times a year we have to rebuild it.

Six or seven times, on occasion. But that's neither here nor there.

So anyhow, I trotted into Sugarcube Corner, right into the full swing of the G. & P. Robo-Trixie's zeroeth birthday party, courtesy Pinkie Pie. The whole place had been done up in ribbons and bows and bright paper streamers, and it filled my little pony heart with joy to see it all. There at the center of things was the shapeless globular mass of the guest of honor, who was getting enough goodwill from the party being thrown in her name that she was able to raise herself up like a ten-gallon pile of half-melted ice cream, and while she didn't much look like a pony yet, I figured she'd get there. She just needed a little more friendship, and that's one resource our kind always has going spare.

And the others were there, too. Spike, looking bright-eyed and bright-scaled, having completely shaken the hunchbacked look, raiding the buffet for tasty treats. The derpy-eyed pony, chipper and completely unfazed by the absurd chain of events she had been party to, just like yesterday had been any normal day. Fluttershy, now lacking her horrible insect plating and excess wings (good) and most of her hair (not so much) following one good wallop from a Princess-level Failsafe Spell, gracing the party on a quick breather from an twelve-hour marathon apology session to all her little critters for even thinking of doing the horrible things she had wanted, but failed, to do to them. Rarity, lounging stylishly by the gift table, the welts on her face almost completely healed up now. Rainbow Dash, darting from place to place in a dramatic reenactment of the heroic story of how she single-hoofedly vanquished both the Nightmare and Discord, simultaneously, a tale that grew more bombastic every time it got told. Professor Danger and Mayor Scroll, nestled on a comfy little couch at the far side of the seating area, sipping grape juice and gazing into each other's eyes, utterly lost to the rest of the world. I looked for, but did not find, Bell Pepper, the one missing member of our makeshift hero-crew. Truth to tell, I didn't really expect him to be there. The Peppers had their own cleanup to do from this mess, redistributing all them animals we had foisted off on them, and they never was a real social folk to begin with; but his absence, however understandable, still gave me a little pang. I found myself hoping he would at least join us for the shindig tonight. I owed that stallion a dance, and as the bearer of the Element of Honesty (which was now safely locked, along with its fellows, back in the vault at Canterlot Tower), I intended to make good on my promises. Last, but certainly not least, there was Pinkie Pie, the hidden genius who had saved us all just by being herself, loving up against a still-hiccoughing Iggy the Salamander, whom she had dressed in a tiny adorable party hat and a tiny adorable medal inscribed with the single word "Hero".

Every eye in the place looked up at me as I arrived at the door. The entire room held its breath.

Iggy hiccoughed.

"Twilight Sparkle," I announced, "is gonna be fine."

The room erupted in cheers, not for me, but for my very good friend, the leader of our little pony band, the unicorn Twilight Sparkle. And I was, finally, okay with that.

So the party resumed, with even more joy than before. It was a wonderful thing to be a piece of. And the morning, like the world, spun on.

Oh, except one more thing. Midway through my second piece of cake, I was accosted by the gray derpy-eyed pegasus with the bubble Mark, who flapped up to me and gave me a stern little look.

"There you are, Applejack," said Derpy-eyes, hovering there crossly, her hooves on her hips.

"Yes...?" I said, my latest forkful of delicious dessert suspended halfway to my mouth.

"I just have one question," she said. "As one of the few relatively sane ponies even left in town yesterday, how could you have let any of this go on? How could you have lied to your friends, over and over again, giving Discord the power to turn all the normal ponies into crazy science ponies? And then, once you had done all that, how could you turn around and pledge allegiance to the Nightmare, throwing in with not one, but two, forces of darkness?"

I looked at her square-on, even though she could never return the gesture, all because of how genuinely special she was.

"Ditzy Doo," I said, finally remembering that mare's name, "I just don't know what went wrong."

Ditzy Doo gazed at me for a while. Then she patted me on the shoulder.

"I completely understand," she said.

* * *

So finally, at the end of it all, after sending the surviving contraptions (minus Iggy and Robo-Trixie) back with the Princess to heavy lockdown in Canterlot, after rounding up all them butter-bee-bats and driving them into the Everfree, there was a dance. A re-set, all-night, all-Ponyville square dance up at our home barn, the very evening of that first recovery day. Truth to tell, Pinkie had outright lost count of the number of things she was celebrating this time, everything from the extinguishing of the forest fire three nights (or an eternity) ago, to the actual arrival of her mentor the Professor in town (rather than just his Discorded self), to our successful struggle against both the Nightmare and Discord in the very same evening, to a wonderful first day of rebuilding in the wake of that struggle. So overloaded was she with all the required celebrations that she had to stop referring to our party in terms of increasingly hypothetical orthogonal dimensions (which I was back to no longer understanding, thank you very much) and it simply became the Tesseract Party, Mark Two. We had to toss all the two-day-old party food to the hogs and the raccoons, but the bright side was, the first Tesseract Party had crumbled so quickly we hadn't even had time to take down the decorations, so those were already in place for the second, and hopefully much cheerier, time around.

We served no punch, figuring, I think correctly, that it would all have gone to waste. Too many bad memories there. Refreshments of all other sorts, though, we had. Plenty of sweets and relishes and cheeses and cakes and cookies and just about anything anypony could ever wish to nosh on. There was even a carton of plain, whole-milk yogurt for Iggy, and he was mighty grateful for it. I think he was grateful. All right, all he actually said was "Squonk", but I'm interpreting by context, here. And as for the one party guest who did not need and could not in fact consume solid food – Robo-Trixie, of course – well, there was more than enough love and friendship going around for her to have her fill.

The Pepper Clan arrived, right on time this time around. I think maybe they were trying to give a show of support for us Apples finally throwing a dry party, something them teetotalers could really get behind for once. I think both sides knew it wasn't gonna last, but it was fun to pretend, I guess. At the head of the crowd, right beside the Don himself, was Bell, shined up like a penny, and my heart plumb skipped a beat at the sight of him. Don't get too eager, A.J., I thought to myself. Keep on filling the cracker tray. Give him a couple minutes to settle in before leaping on him and begging him to tear off your hat and hairbands and have his way with you right there in the middle of the dance floor...

"Is everything ready?" asked Twilight, bumping into me in full scurry and shaking me out of my happy little daydream. "Is everything prepared? We have to have it all set before Spike sends word to Princess Luna! This party has to be perfect! We're entertaining royalty!"

I cleared the fog of hormones from my head with a good quick shakeout. "Almost, Twi," I said. "In, uh, in honor of the spirit of embracing change while still holding tight to our traditions, Pinkie and me had the idea that we should double up the music and have both a good old-fashioned fiddle-and-jug band and our very own D.J. PON-3 here doing her stuff. But Octavia says Vinyl's feeling a little under the weather today. Says she might show up later."

"That's too bad," said Twilight. "I hope she makes it, even if she's isn't scratching records. She's so funny!"

"Funny's one word for her," I said, diplomatically.

"I know, right?" said Twilight, missing my implication, of course. "Okay, well, at least we've got some music – that's the benefit of redundancy, after all! I think we're just about ready to go! Spike?"

"Here!" said Spike the Dragon, chirpily, crunching on a hunk of dill-dipped celery.

"Send word to Princess Luna!" she said. "Tell her that the Tesseract Party, Mark Two is live and on-line, and that she should make sure to bring her dancing shoes!"

"You got it, Master!"

Twilight stopped short, blinking at him.

"Eheh-heh-heh," he said, bashfully. "Just kidding, Twilight."

"You'd better be," said Twilight, chuckling. And as those two left to finish their royal correspondence, I excused myself and worked my way through the mighty respectable crowd toward the Pepper Clan, over to that bright treasure of a colt who had helped save the world with me one night previous. As I did so, the jug band broke into the first strains of an infectious dance tune. It was the first of what I hoped would be many, 'cause I had a powerful hankering for a whole night of kicking up my hocks, and I knew just the stallion I wanted to share it with.

"Howdy, Bell," I said, touching my hat. "Y'all look none the worse for wear. The recovery efforts treating you well?"

"Well as can be expected, Señorita Applejack," said Bell, smiling at me with open, undisguised joy. "I must say that when reports began coming in of what had transpired in the Town Square, about what had happened to you, I was... worried." A cloud passed over his eyes, then, his lips twisting. "No," he said. "Not worried. Despairing. My family says you became a black monster of the night, Applejack, huge and reeking of sulphur. Is what they say true? Were you really taken by the Wolf in this way?"

"Well, the sulphur thing is a little alarmist," I said. "And I weren't black, just a little darker orange than usual. But... yeah, I guess." I shuffled a hoof. This conversation weren't starting out well at all, actually.

"How very strange is our world," said Bell, shaking his head.

"Hey, important thing is, I got better, right?" I said, trying not to lift my lip and expose my little wolf-tooth Nightmare fangs, risk scaring that boy off even more. "I'm still here, potent as a pony."

"Yes," said Bell. "You were taken by demons and poisoned by alcohol, but now, you are with us once more." He blushed a little, then, barely visible under his deep-green coat. "And still very beautiful to me, despite all your struggles. Or perhaps because of them."

"Shucks, Bell," I said, grinning. Yeah, I thought, this is a good place. Time to make your move, 'Jack...

I pulled in close. "I seem to recall," I said, toyingly, "that before everything fell apart last time around, a dance was promised. And I don't recollect anypony ever making good on that promise."

"Well," said Bell Pepper, "perhaps it is high time we settle our debts, then."

"Perhaps it is," I said, my heart fluttering. And with those words, Bell put his great thick neck across mine, and suddenly, all the madness and pain I'd been through in the past three days became worthwhile.

One forever later, my stallion lifted his head back up and began running his eyes back over the mass of assembled ponies. "Nopony is, alas, yet dancing," he said. "Despite the lively music."

"They just need an icebreaker!" I said, pulling him out of the crowd to the center of the floor. "And we're it, Bell!"

Hoofstomps and hollers greeted us as we made a space in the crowd and kicked off the barn dance in earnest. With a grace all out of proportion to his size, Bell spun me across that floor like nopony's business. We moved, in rhythm and in harmony, all to the roar of the crowd, and I felt like a heroine again – the best kind of heroine. The happy kind.

"You," I said, as Bell spun me back into a tight hold, "are wonderful at this. Here I was thinking y'all couldn't dance!"

"I was merely unwilling to," said Bell. "A fault of my timidity. But there is a world of difference between will and can, yes?" Bell spun me out of the hold and back out to foreleg's length. "We Castallions are born to the skill, Señorita. Pepper celebrations go on far into the night, full of hours and hours of dance. And since our wits remain sharp all evening, never dulled by the drink, we have more time and more facility for the true pleasures of life."

"C'mon, Bell," I said, scowling a little. "Why you gotta get up in my knickers about that again? Can't you just let it drop?"

"I am merely saying," said Bell twirling me around once more, "are you not enjoying this liquor-free party? Is it not good to feel keen and polished and alive?"

"I'd enjoy feeling keen and polished and alive more if I had a mug or two of cider in my belly," I admitted. "Bell, making booze is what the Apple Family does. Heckfire, even my name is booze. Some day, I am going to convince you to see eye-to-eye with me and learn the wonders of drinkin'."

"And some day," said Bell, "I am going to convince you to see eye-to-eye with me, and learn the wonders of sobriety." He dropped me into a full dip. My ponytail dangled just above the floorboards.

"I love what I do," I said, looking up at him, "and I ain't budging."

"I love what I do," said Bell Pepper, "and neither am I."

"Kiss me," I said, blood rushing to my face.

"At your command," he murmured.

He did so. Cheers erupted from the assembled crowd. Fireworks burst in my head. Warm sparks lit up every single last darkened corner of my heart.

I hate to say it, but right then, I didn't miss the alcohol, not one bit. And I wished with all my power that that moment I spent clutched in the hooves of Bell Pepper, his strong lips pressed against mine, would last forever. Silly thought. All things change, eventually, right?

Except... some changes are a mite more unwelcome than others, hear?

Right in the middle of our first glorious kiss, a hush fell over the crowd as a cold wind rushed in from the suddenly-open barn doors. As the jug band halted their playing with an abrupt stumble, a low thrumming began seeping through the floorboards of the barn, the hum of an incredibly deep, incredibly powerful, magicotechnologically-enhanced bass note.

Bell set me gently back down on my hooves and raised his head, squinting into the dark beyond. The dance crowd was parting before a cloud of heavy white vapor spilling in from outside the doors. Electric blue lights glimmered in the depths of the cloud.

"What in tarnation?" I muttered.

The electric blue lights became a spray of, I don't know, laser-y beams cutting dramatically through the smoke. The deep hum throbbed once, twice, and then kicked itself into a driving, cudgeling, positively insistent beat that I could sense with my innards just as well as my ears.

"For years, you have disrespected me," began a voice.

"Hayseeds," I sighed, my brief moment of nervous uncertainty there quickly giving way to garden-variety peevedness. I called out to the voice inside the cloud. "Look, could you just cut to the chase? We're trying to have a barn dance here?"

"You have all, at one time or another, laid out some unrighteous words when speaking of my art," continued the voice, heedless. "You have called it 'noisy'. You have called it 'repetitive'. You have called it 'loud'."

"Don't forget 'a crime against taste'!" came a voice from the crowd, who had also collectively begun to relax; they knew the score here as well as I did.

"Yeah!" said the first voice. "That too! None of you truly believe, deep down, that record-scratching and pulse electronica even count as forms of legitimate musical expression!"

"Listen," I said, "I know you prolly ain't in a position to hear reason, but please keep in mind that Pinkie and me invited you up here tonight. But if it'll really make you happy, go ahead and finish your cute little monologue here so's we can get to the business of blasting you."

At my words, the cloud exploded into a pounding hail of noise that knocked over some of the more high-profile cakes on the buffet and flattened the manes of everpony in the room. Out of the depths of the vapor strode an imposing bone-white unicorn, all decked out in a massive, heavy suit of iron-black barding that seemed to incorporate at least two separate turntables in the front and a couple of really impressive subwoofers riding the shoulders. Sizzling blue running lights tore hither and yon across the surface of the mare's monstrous armor. It was, I had to admit, pretty impressive. For all its obsession with Constancy, the Nightmare sure could get daring with designing all these crazy outfits. It made me think maybe there was some hope for it; and thus, maybe some hope for us all.

"Good evening, Ponyville!" bellowed the unicorn over the incessant thump of the beat, dropping a pair of gleaming mirror shades in front of her blood-red eyes. "Are you ready to have a relentless stream of square waves shoved so far up your plots that you taste rectangles?"

"What do rectangles taste like?" came another voice from the crowd.

"You're gonna find out!"

"Heya Vinyl Scratch," I said.

Vinyl whipped around. "I'm not answering to that name any longer, Applejack! For I have been transformed into the wicked M.C. of Darkness... D.J. NIGHTMARE OONTZ! And I hope you fine ponies like having your hoof-socks rocked off, because from this day forward, my wicked bass line... will last... FOREVER! Yeauh! Wub-a-dub-dub, motherbuckers!"

I yawned a little, and glanced across the dance floor in the direction I had left Twilight. I managed to catch her eye, and we shot each other a knowing grin, our mutual smiles expressing the exact same sentiment, namely: sure is good to have things back to normal around these parts, ain't it?

"Spike!" said Twilight Sparkle. "Have you sent that letter to Princess Luna yet?"

"Not yet!"

"Good!" she said. "I'm going to need you to make an addendum! Please tell the Princess that the Tesseract Party, Mark Two is live and on-line, and that she should make sure to bring her dancing shoes and the Elements of Harmony! In the meantime... Girls, form up!"

I looked up at Bell and inclined my head toward Twilight. "Gotta trot," I said.

"Duty calls," he agreed.

I reached up and gave him one more quick peck to tide me over, and then cantered out of the fog toward our fearless, fussy little unicorn leader, taking up a position at her back right. All around me, I could see our four other friends doing the same, Dash and Rar and Flutters and Pinkie alike. Sure, we might look small and cute and – frankly – a little careworn at this point, but together, weren't no force in Equestria could stand before us, because our friendship could move mountains.

"Nightmare Oontz!" shouted Twilight Sparkle, as we gathered up behind her. "Your music is, indeed, rad! But it will never be as rad as... Friendship!"

"Your license to use the word 'rad' is officially revoked," said Rainbow Dash.

"I thought she was, um, fine," said Fluttershy, huddling close to the ground.

"I don't suppose we can fit in a little collateral damage to the barn with this one," said Rarity, prancing into position while shooting me an offhoofedly sharp over-the-shoulder glance. "I'd love to be Home-And-Workplace-Comminuted-To-Matchsticks-Buddies with Applejack, after all."

"Don't you worry none, Rar," I said, good-naturedly. "I personally guarantee you we'll have Carousel Boutique standing by the end of the week."

"And A.J. is all about Honesty, after all!" said Pinkie, gleefully. "Also, Apples!"

"That's right, Pinks," I said, with a matter-of-fact nod. Then I called out to D.J. Nightmare Oontz, standing across the dance floor in her cloud of rapidly-decaying vapor. "Hey, Nightmare!" I said. "If you can hear me in there, last chance to leave poor Vinyl alone and join us for the party! We'd love to have you!"

"Celebrations mark one day as different from the rest!" came the voice of the Nightmare, bubbling out of Vinyl's throat. "They positively drip with Change! It makes them abhorrent!"

"Naw," I said. "It makes them special. Maybe someday, you'll understand that."

The last of us friends slotted ourselves into place behind Twilight. She gave us all a quick once-over. "Okay, excellent, girls," she said. "Check your position, A.J. You're a teeny bit off-mark."

I smirked. "You gonna up and teleport me into the right place again?"

"Nah," said Twilight. "I trust you."

I glanced over at Rarity, who was my opposite this time. Twi was right; I was just a smidgen off. With a few quick coordinating gestures, I squared myself up with Rar. Twilight nodded at me, approvingly, and I nodded back.

Then we all turned, as one, toward the comfortable old threat of the Nightmare. It was just another day of evil-smitin' chores on the evil-smitin' farm.

I loved every minute.

end