"Y'all ready?" I ask.

"You bet!"

"As I'll ever be."

"Certainly."

"Yes."

"Let's go already!"

I smile as my friends line up behind me, ready to follow Discord and I to the place where the keys are.

"You ready?" I ask Discord, who's been floating by Fluttershy's side ever since we left the white place.

"Not at all." he says. "But, then again, what fun is there in being ready?"

As we walk through Ponyville, I slow down a bit so that Twilight is right next to me. The rest of the group goes on ahead of us, heading towards the train station.

"Anythin' yet?" I ask her.

"I've got some ideas." she says. "The use of 'their' instead of 'her' seems to indicate that the writer of the message didn't know ahead of time who the key would end up with. This means the message was most likely written before we found the Elements of Harmony. As for the writing on the letter; it's too neat to be written by hoof. That means that either somepony was using magic to hold the quill, or somepony typed the message out on a typewriter. But it's not typwritten. The Os, Ss and Es are different shapes, which would suggest that the message was written by magic. But I ran a magic detection spell on the thing, and it came up negative for any kind of magic except the typical unexplainable magic that always hangs around Discord."

"So he wrote it himself." I say.

"Not exactly." Twilight says. "It's much too neat to be written with a paw or a claw, even if Discord actually cared about handwriting. I have a theory, albeit a crazy one..."

"Nothin's too crazy right now." I say.

Especially not considerin' what we're about to go through.

I'd told the others about what Discord had said to me, omitting the more vivid details, but I'd passed off Discord's claim of one of us dying as exaggeration. They had to know what they were about to go through, but there was no need for them to worry too much about it. But still, I couldn't shake the feeling that Discord's warnings were more than just bluster.

"The message could have been written by a human."

I stop for a second at that. Twilight had told us all about the strange world behind the mirror, but I'd almost forgotten about her adventure there. It had been a few moons since she'd gone, after all, and the mirror was closed for the next two and a half years. There had been more practical things to think about.

"If the message was written by a human, then how come Discord's got it?" I ask, resuming my steady trot.

"I'm still trying to figure out what he is, let alone how his magic works." Twilight says. "For all I know, he goes there every other Tuesday to play cards."

I chuckle at that, and look at Discord, who'd gone to float next to Fluttershy. Every now and again, she glances towards him with an odd expression on his face.

"She's worried about him." I say.

"He hasn't been himself since we left." Twilight says. "I've never seen him this serious."

And there it is again. That sinking, persistent sense of dread, the feeling that maybe, just maybe, Discord meant what he'd been saying.
The feeling that maybe, just maybe, it'd have been better if I'd lied.

"There's the train!" Rainbow Dash calls, and Twilight and I trot faster to catch up to the rest of the group.

As we get off the train and breathe in the crisp, winter air of the Crystal Empire, my doubts are eased a bit. Surely an adventure that starts off this well couldn't go wrong, could it?

We trace the border of the forcefield that keeps the ice and snow away from the city until we reach a certain point.

"If Discord's leadin' us right, the place is straight ahead."

"I am." Discord calls from next to Fluttershy. "There's a small shrine about five thousand hoofsteps from here. Can't miss it."

Twilight's the first to leave the forcefield, her horn glowing as a small globe of warmth and light starts to extend from her.

"I'll lead the way from here." she says as we all step into the small circle of magic.

We start walking. I mentally count the hoofsteps as we go along.

Fifty-five. Fifty-six. Fifty-seven...

We keep walking.

And walking.
And walking.
And walking.

Twenty-five twenty-two. Twenty-five twenty-three. Twenty-five twenty-four...

And walking.
And walking.

The wind's blowing too hard and too loudly to make conversation. Twilight's beginning to show some strain. It must be tiring keeping the spell up in this big of a blizzard. Despite the wind, she's sweating heavily, and her knees are starting to wobble. I trot faster and pick her up, letting her focus entirely on the spell.

"Thanks!" she yells over the wind. I nod.

Forty-five eighty-seven. Forty-five eighty-eight. Forty-five eighty-nine...

At five thousand, three hundred and sixty one hoofsteps, Rainbow Dash calls out.

"There it is!"

Sure enough, half-buried in the snow is a dilapidated shack with a single door set in the middle of the front wall. We all rush inside, grateful for the escape from the wind. I gently lower Twilight to the ground, where she stands up shakily.

"Thanks, Applejack. I've never held a spell for that long, or under such harsh conditions."

"Girls..."

"You're welcome, Twi." I say. "You sure you'll be all right?"

"Girls, something's wrong..."

"I'll be fine. I just need to rest for a bit, recover some energy. Why don't we stay the night here?"

"Girls!"

We all turn to see Fluttershy, standing near the entrance, a worried look on her face.

"He won't come in, no matter how much I ask him to." she says, gesturing to a figure standing outside.

"I already told you." Discord says. "I can't come in."

"Why not?" Rainbow Dash asks. "When we left, you were all for coming with us. Don't tell me you're getting cold hooves."

"My hoof, singular, is actually quite toasty at the moment." Discord says, rolling his eyes. "I was given instructions to bring you this far and nothing more. Once you six go deeper into the shrine, I'm going to go back to Ponyville, or maybe back home."

We set up camp just inside the entrance. Twilight uses a simple spell so start a small fire, fueled by some firewood I'd brought from home. Pinkie quickly sets up a pot above the fire and starts cooking up some turnip and carrot stew. The savory smell fills the small shrine until all our stomachs are growling. Pinkie Pie sings a happy tune as she stirs the pot.

"Cooking is so fun... Cooking is so fun... Now it's time to take a break and see what we have done!" she sings, a wide grin on her face.

She lifts the lid of the pot and dips a small silver ladle into it, taking a tiny sip of the stew and throwing the rest of the ladleful into the fire.

"It's ready!" she calls in a singsong voice.

As we crowd around her and get our soup, I notice a certain somepony's absence. Sighing, I take an extra bowl of soup and walk to the entrance of the shrine, setting the bowl down next to Fluttershy.

"Thanks." she says.

"Look, Fluttershy, Discord's gonna be fine out there. Heck, for all we know, the snow's like a blanket to him."

"It's not the cold I'm worried about." she says. "It's him. He's been different this entire trip. Sad, almost."

She turns to me and looks me dead in the eye.

"What exactly is down there?"

I sigh and look away.

"All Ah know is what's gonna happen to me. And Ah don't even have the heart to tell you that much."

The next morning, I wake to see Rarity, Twilight, and Pinkie Pie all standing around and stretching, so I go to wake Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash up. Rainbow Dash groans and turns over when I poke her with a hoof, so I go out into the snow, make a snowball, and drop it over her open mouth.

"I'm up! I'm up!" she cries, swatting the ball of snow from the air before it can land in her mouth. "Geez, Applejack. Haven't you heard of sleeping in?"

"Nope." I say cheerily.

I walk over to where Fluttershy's curled up next to the entrance to the shrine.

"I'm awake." she says as I get near her. "Woke up a few hours ago. He left."

"Ah dunno what's up with him." I say. "But what's done is done, and if he wants to leave, there's nothin' we can do to stop him."

"I know. But I can't shake this feeling that I have that maybe he's right to be worried."

As we go deeper into the shrine, we come to a large circular room with a high ceiling. Three paths branch off from the room; one set into the wall, near the ceiling, one set into the floor with a stairway leading down, and one going straight ahead. Next to each passageway is a picture of a pony.

"Judging from the pictures, each passage is for a different type of pony." Twilight says. "Obviously, the highest one is for pegasi, and according to the signs, the one leading down is for earth ponies, and the one leading straight ahead is for unicorns."

"We'll need to split up." Rainbow Dash says.

"Be careful." Twilight says. "This place could be booby trapped."

We all nod, and Pinkie and I start climbing down the stairs.