“She's impossible!” Scootaloo spat.

Hours after arriving in Ponyville from a day-long trek, the last pony paced mad circles in the center of Spike's celestial gardens. She tossed a random hoof into the air as she stomped and twirled and rambled in bitter frustration.

“You can't have a single reasonable conversation with her! And when you come close to doing so, she somehow bleeds the subject into an excuse to whisk you away to one absurdity after another! And her voice—I swear to Epona—I can't figure out half the time if she's singing, chirping, talking, or impersonating a flight of bumblebees! I think all that was once a solid, noodly mass of logic bled out from her skull and coalesced into that infernal plume of pink craziness she calls a mane!”

Spike listened calmly from where he stood on iron purple haunches, watering a bush full of roses. He raised an eyecrest the mare's way as the pony's rumbling voice scared the surviving insects and amphibians away into hiding.

“One moment I was pedaling a bicycle for her paper route, and then I was reading amateur poetry to a room full of parasprites reincarnated in the form of art critics, and then I was disarming a sea mine with a wrench...”

“Did she ever take you hot air ballooning? Now there's a riveting experience.”

“I almost wish!” Scootaloo snarled. She stomped over a patch of grass, bending in the light from Princess Celestia's looking glass. “Spike, I think I finally know why all of the ogres, monkeys, and goblins of the Wasteland call me 'glue stick.' At some point or another, their parents ran into Pinkie Pie, and the only way to rid themselves of the memories of her was to sniff adhesive chemicals! Ugh! She made me drink a bottle of rainbow matter that she was deluded enough to pass off as a beverage! I'm lucky I didn't die from interior corrosion of the spleen!”

A dull roar filled the lengths of the flora-filled hovel. For a moment there, it sounded as if a fresh new stormfront had unnaturally arrived on the thunderous heels of the previous one. Scootaloo soon realized that it was just the result of a grand purple dragon laughing a few meters away from her.

Scootaloo frowned, sat on her haunches, and folded her front hooves. “It's not funny!”

“Oh dear child.” Spike shook his snout, chuckled a few more rumbling times, and put away his watering pitcher. “Do forgive me. There are so many memories, so many wonderful, sugar-coated, whimsical moments that this whole discussion is returning to this old dragon’s mind.” A cough, he sputtered forth a few clouds of smoke and waved them away before smiling softly her way. “Pinkamena Diane Pie was many things. She was a volunteer, a taste-tester, an entrepreneur, a community leader, a craftspony, a baker, a foalsitter, a singer, and a comedian all rolled into one. But if there is one single word that could ever describe her—then and now—it is 'random.' She was the most random soul to have ever blessed Ponyville with her felicitous presence, and—dare I say—she was the most random choice you could have made for an anchor in your newfound crusade to map the night's sky of the past.”

“But I don't remember her being so... so... kaizo!”

“Hmmm?”

“Crazy! Spastic! Unpredictable! Unearthly!”

“Ahh... 'kaizo.'” Spike nodded, but still blinked confusedly.

“Did you know that the first thing she made me do was douse the mayor of Ponyville?!” Scootaloo exclaimed incredulously.

Spike leaned his snout to the side. “Douse her with what, pray tell?”

“A bucket full of eggs. And then she had the audacity to make me ask the old lady—”

“'What goes up white but comes down gray and yellow and white?'”

The last pony squinted suspiciously. “Uhhh... Yeah?”

The ground momentarily shook as rumbling laughter once more filled the lengths of the building, followed by a ritualistic pounding of a dragon's clawed hand against the earthen floor. “Ohhh... how exceedingly rich! That is most definitely the oldest trick in the book! She assailed me with that prank once, as a matter of fact.”

“Spike!” Scootaloo exhaled with a blanching expression. “How could you possibly find that funny?”

“Hmmm—Heheh...” Spike rubbed the edges of his green eyeslits dry with a scaled finger. “And how could you not, child?”

“It was downright disrespectful and rude!”

“It was a brazen act that nopony else would do. The sheer fact that Pinkie Pie alone was absurdly drawn towards such pranks is what made the whole debacle humorous beyond belief. Oh Scootaloo, surely a part of you was laughing inside.”

“No.” The last pony folded her forelimbs. “Most definitely not! She made a fool of me!” She sneered. “And why is everything in the universe suddenly wanting to see me laugh?! You're almost worse than Pinkie Pie!”

“Old friend...” Spike calmed down long enough to give her a placid smile. “I know for a fact that you are not adverse to a giggle or two. There is a part of you that enjoys... enjoyment. If Pinkie Pie can't bring it out of you, then something tells me that you're trying too hard.”

“Trying too hard to do what?” Scootaloo frowned. “Believe it or not, Spike, I'm on a mission! It's a very serious mission, remember? Uhmm... Dead ponies, endless twilight, a barren landscape full of monsters who can't appreciate the magic of friendship... ?”

“Did she really drop an entire bucket of eggs? Because the last time I remember seeing her prank the mayor, she used a coffee pitcher.”

“Ugh! Don't you get what I'm trying to say?!” Scootaloo tossed her front hooves and cackled. “Pinkie Pie is nothing but an incorrigible ball of unpredictable craziness! I don't know what makes me feel more stupid: the fact that I didn't remember her being that way or that I actually thought she could be made to stay in one place! When I was a little filly, Spike, Pinkie Pie could always be found in Sugarcube Corner at any time of the day to entertain the likes of me, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle! She never took us on crazy escapades where all sorts of random and potentially life-threatening things would happen!”

“That's because you were a foal, Scootaloo.” Spike smiled sweetly as he leaned down besides a cluster of fruit trees and gazed more evenly at her. “And as random and quirky as Miss Pie may have been in her antics, she knew when to draw the line.”

“Oh really...?”

“She never did anything to hurt Fluttershy's feelings, she never leeched off of her close friends' resources, and she most definitely did not wish ill-will upon her fellow ponies. You simply were not around her long enough and consistently enough in your childhood to get a proper assessment of Miss Pie, Scootaloo.” A humored smirk. “Something tells me that, so far, 'Harmony' has been even less lucky in grasping the big picture when it comes to Pinkie.”

“I didn't go into the past to get the 'big picture' about Pinkie, Spike,” Scootaloo groaned. “For once, this was supposed to be all about the experiment. This was supposed to be about mapping the night's sky of the past so that I could pursue this 'Onyx Eclipse' crap. I had thought that Pinkie Pie would have been the best choice, since she hung around Ponyville all the time and... and... well, quite frankly, with all the sugar that she guzzled down constantly, I figured there would come a point during the night when such a potential anchor would crash.”

“That is a most esteemed and logical assumption, my friend, worthy of all your years of learned experience and veteran tenacity.” Spike nodded. “You were wrong.”

“Nnnngh...” Scootaloo slumped back against the bark of a fruit tree and ran a hoof over her face under the shimmering mirror-light. “Six hundred strips of silver, a busted lightning gun, a shattered moonrock, and a throbbing migraine... all for what?”

“Do not give up hope, child.” Spike coughed, his violet neck pendant shaking with the motions of his fuming neck. “Our experiment is far from over. There is always plenty of reverse-time to ride into the past. Within the span of a day, I will have more green flame for you.”

“Uh huh...”

“Perhaps it would be prudent that you next anchor yourself to a far less rambunctious pony. Perhaps we can send you to Applejack again. Or maybe even... hmmm... Lady Rarity...”

“'Everypony knows she's a lady,'” Scootaloo quoted a peppermint voice.

“What was that?”

Scootaloo glanced up, trembling slightly. “Spike, is it true that Rarity ran fundraisers for local orphans in Ponyville?”

“She ran fundraisers for just about everything, old friend,” the elder dragon said with a proud smile. “She was more than just a fashionista, she was an outstanding member of the Ponyvillean community: a philanthropist, an organizer, everything that embodied the element of generosity. If the end of the world hadn't come, I have no doubt that she would have ascended the ranks of Ponyville's council. Now there was a fantastic lady, tried and true.”

Scootaloo gently smiled. “Is this Spike the scholar speaking, or Spike the whelpish casanova?”

“A little of both, I do suppose.” Spike took a deep breath. “Though my memories of her up until the Cataclysm are sketchy. She was not around Ponyville much those last months. It was quite disconcerting.”

The last pony squinted at Spike sideways. “You don't say...?”

Spike took a weathered breath, the age returning grayly to his dim purple features before he fought it all off with a gentle smile. “What is it you plan to do next, dear friend?”

Scootaloo sighed. “I have no earthly clue, Spike. I still can't get the spicy taste of rainbow out of my mouth.”

“One would imagine that a blessing in this day and age, child.”

“Yeah, well, one may be an idiot.”

“Heheheheh—Then might I suggest you retire to your wondrous airship and rest your senses until your emotions are slightly less... kaizo?”

Scootaloo gave him a double-take, then rolled her scarlet eyes. “Yeah, whatever.” She stood up and marched sluggishly out of the converted skating rink. “By the way, your teleportation aim stinks.”

“Why? Did I land you inside or outside of Princess Celestia's fireplace?”

“Kiss my blank flank.”

“Heheheh.”

With a loud clattering noise, Scootaloo swung open the large and dilapidated doors to a wooden warehouse in central Ponyville. The parked body of the Harmony was exposed to the snowy air. The craft's rust-red hull filled the entirety of the wooden building within which it had been claustrophobically docked. Wasting no time, the last pony trudged up to the copper aperture, opened it with a lunar word, entered the airship with a shake of ash off her brown wings, and marched up the spiraling staircase until she was once more inside the warm and familiar womb of her cabin.

Tossing her saddlebag in a slump against her workbench, she flung herself into the hammock. With an enormous sigh, she dangled there, staring at the whalebone bulkheads of the cabin ceiling above her. The phantom images of pressure washers, scorpions, jet skis, and sprinkled doughnuts clashed through the time traveler's cluttered mind before being gently exorcised away by the settling silence of the walls around her.

A deep exhale flew through nostrils. As calm as she was, a great emptiness permeated the restful moment. Having docked the aircraft there days ago before the stormfront hit, the last pony had extinguished the boiler towards the rear of the cabin. The giant metal stove was inert, dead, devoid of all the bright flames that normally licked its vibrant insides. Every steam pipe was empty and every twitching gear was still. For the first time in as many years as the last pony could remember, the Harmony was silent as stone, and it haunted her. It almost felt like her entire life had come to a stand-still.

And for what? She thought. For Rainbow Dash? For Twilight Sparkle? For Princess Celestia or Princess Luna?

“Pinkie Pie,” she murmured to the dreadfully still and dim air of the mute cabin. “What makes you tick?”

It wasn't the question that frightened Scootaloo; it was the fact that she was actually in the presence of the pony whom she was interrogating, or at least her remains. In a collapsing air of stupidity, she realized exactly what... or who she had dragged into the airship with her.

Turning over in the hammock like an insomniac lover, the last pony gazed with thin scarlets towards the saddlebag, towards where she had slumped it so thoughtlessly against the wooden edge of her workbench, towards where the airtight pouches in the sides of the thing bulged with their somber and brittle contents. She couldn't see an inch of bone from where Pinkie Pie's skeletal remains resided, but that didn't change the fact that they were there, that they hadn't been pulverized, that they had survived the Cataclysm, a meteor of moonrock, and a charging phalanx of lunar golems... all to be found, to be found by her.

“What makes me tick?”

That question received just as many answers as the one before it. In a sighing slump, Scootaloo hung her head off the hammock and shut her eyes to the deafeningly quiet air.

There's a reason why I do not laugh much. There's a reason for why I would much rather be pulled apart at the seams by trolls than to laugh like there's no tomorrow. Perhaps it's because I know that there is no tomorrow—for me. And if there's no tomorrow for me, there's no tomorrow for ponies... period.

I went to the Harmony to rest, but I couldn't. Spike was onto me. I realized Pinkie Pie was onto me too. If I hadn't known better, I'd have said that the whole dang world had been onto me since the beginning... before and after the Cataclysm. Why they all had to insist that I took things lightly, I couldn't tell. Maybe you knew, maybe you still know, but I could hardly care about your opinion.

Yes, I do laugh, sometimes. But if I could have my way, I'd take every laugh I've ever let loose from my lips and transmogrify them into explosive runes that could fit inside my rifle on a regular scavenging trip. Laughter is a lot like sobbing; it's mostly a useless thing. Unlike sobbing, though, uselessness is essential to laughter. Uselessness is what gives comedy its absurd fuel and momentum. Sobbing is merely the natural exhaust that a soul gives off on the cruising path towards annihilation, but there's a noble edge to it, as Fluttershy had reminded me. Laughter, however, can just shoot itself in the head, for all I care—such a worthless sensation.

There. I wrote it down. Laughter is utterly useless. You happy now?

It really is, though. Laughter would have never built the Harmony. Laughter has never gotten me the silver strips I needed for rebuilding my rainbow signal. When I nearly died at the talons of harpy pirates or from the polearms of Dirigible Dogs, it certainly wasn't laughter that saved my flank. Crying, at least, had been therapeutic, a way to ease my senses into embracing the next day's pain and ugliness with greater strength and vigor. But laughter? There has never been a benefit to indulging it. I think I know why that is. Laughter works when there are other ponies around. That, of course, has never been a luxury that I could enjoy.

And as for the trips that I'd been making into the past, it was about time that I realized I was just as alone then as I was in the Wasteland. Laughter couldn't and still can't help me in the midst of figuring out—first hoof—what brought about the Cataclysm.

Does it really satisfy you to know that my loneliness is complete, whether I'm Scootaloo or “Harmony?” I'm beginning to think that I'm more “alone” in the past than I am in the present. After all, every other word that comes out of my Entropan lips is a lie. Everything I do—or pretend to do—is accomplished not for the immediate anchor's needs, but towards the goal of figuring out just what the heck made Celestia and Luna bite the proverbial poison apple.

At least, that should be the goal. The better part of me believes it now, and I certainly believed it then. Spike was right when he said that I'd been skirting the big issue every time I decided to work on the immediate problem of the past rather than bring my anchor to Princess Celestia's palace doorstep. Every time that I went into the past, I suddenly had to treat any issue I ran into like I always dealt with crap—as the last pony, the only pony, a soul that has had to take things into her own hooves in an attempt to piece them back together like a tiny metal scooter.

I tossed and turned over this in the hammock of the Harmony for hours. I was too aware of the pitiable pieces of myself that refused to let me sleep, as if I was being poked and prodded by a billion new phantom limbs that I had grown during each trip back and forth across reverse-time. It didn't matter how many tunnels of green flame I'd been blown down. All I was doing was running away from the same dang thing. I wished that I knew what that thing was. If you had known what it was, I would have wanted you to tell me, though I know you wouldn't have.

It was a crucial time in my time travels, and this airship pony suddenly couldn't plot her course straight. Before the dragon tooth pulled me to Pinkie Pie, I was just starting to shift gears, I was telling myself that I had to chase after the “Onyx Eclipse” more than anything else in my chronological ventures. And yet I floundered. I tripped over my own hooves because I realized that I was still being a coward, that I was just running more and more from something that was so much bigger than myself that even an Entropan body couldn't brace me against it.

It was so much easier to work on the small things, on the tiny problems that lay before me, on the simple problems that I knew I was capable of fixing, of putting back together, of hammering out the flaws and quirks of. I knew I was good at such things, but I realized I could be good at so much more... I should have been good at so much more. I needed to become something greater than myself, something even greater than the legacy of all things Equestrian that had witlessly plopped me down onto the bosom of this dead world.

I needed to be able to figure out what caused the Cataclysm. And for the sake of that infinitely weighted goal, Pinkie Pie could have waited. Rainbow Dash could have waited, for that matter. Twilight Sparkle and Rarity and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Bell and Tom and Dick and Harry could all have taken a back seat to figuring out what the Onyx Eclipse was, to figuring out what the stars had to say about the only home I ever had, about how it was stripped from me by claws of everlasting flame, about why I was spared while everything else had its breath and magic and life stripped from it.

Pinkie Pie could have waited. Dang it all, Pinkie Pie should have waited. I needed to go back in time to stargaze, not to play guardian angels to ponies, and sure as heck not to do both at the same time. I knew that. I could feel that in my blood. My brain throbbed and glistened with the mesmerizing and undeniable truth of that.

And yet, I couldn't stop thinking about the hollow bowels beneath the once-solid chunk of Ponymonium. I couldn't stop thinking about the dark-lit patch of richly preserved Equestrian countryside, and of the wagon full of foalish skeletons, and of three more bodies, one of which was Pinkie Pie, a body that had followed me all the way to the Harmony because I had dragged it there and hardly even noticed that I did.

And I started to realize that I was more than just an unfortunate soul blessed—or cursed—with the task of solving the one Cataclysmic Mystery of the Ages. I was there, while all of my dead friends were not. All of my life I had been an appendix to not just Equestria, but to an entire thread of beautiful and magical lives that were all cut short by a holocaustal happenstance that abruptly and unfairly ended them... while sparing me. No other pony in the grand history of existence could do what I was then doing, what I'm still doing. Because of me, the Apple Family had survived an army of trolls. Because of me, Derpy Hooves' child lived to see as many days as a healthy young Capricorn could.

And because of me, Pinkie Pie's remains had survived the crushing collapse of a gigantic dome of moonrock filled to the brim with the fossils of the Lunar Republic. A piece of her was still intact, and it was all because of me. Could it have been possible—with the unwavering immutability of time—that she and the foals were exactly where they were because of me as well? Applejack kept her farm, Fluttershy released her tears, and Derpy Hooves regained her child all because of what I had done. What did I do for Pinkie Pie? What was I about to do for her?

Could you tell me? Could you stop me? Could you have told me what was I about to do?

“Have you decided what you wish to do, old friend?” Spike asked gently from across the lengths of the cavernous laboratory.

Scootaloo somberly nodded. “I have.”

“Very well.” He replied and marched on iron haunches towards the marble cabinets flanking the far side of the place. “Then I'll be procuring Applejack's ashes again...”

“No, Spike.” The last pony slumped her saddlebag up onto the nearest lab table and untied it. She produced a long pale legbone and placed it against the cold surface. “All the ingredients we need are right here.”

The purple dragon froze. His green eyeslits narrowed as he slowly and thoughtfully turned to face her in a shuffling of aged limbs. “Scootaloo, surely you must be—”

“What? Joking?” She leaned her head to the side with a slightly bitter smirk. “Both you and I know that's beyond me, Spike.”

“I too am serious this time, old friend.” He wandered over and gently placed a solemn finger against the piece of Pinkie Pie's remains. “I know how terribly much this latest campaign into the past means to you. If your most recent debacle has proven anything to the both of us, being sent once more back to her will be the least likely way to help you accomplish your goal of mapping the night's sky.”

“The only concern I want to hear from you, Spike, is the risk of losing cohesion to my anchor,” Scootaloo said with a hoof pointed decidedly at the pale bone. “And, barring any run-ins with magically resonating unicorn horns, I know you have enough juice in your breath to anchor me one more time without having to switch to another pony. So, make with the burning, and send me back to Pinkie Pie like you did with Applejack. You had faith in me then, Spike. I'd hate to see you losing it now.”

“It's not a matter of faith, Scootaloo. I'd argue that it's a matter of understanding,” he said softly. He craned his snout down towards her, squinting. “Just what is it that you're attempting to accomplish, child?”

“I don't know, Spike,” she said in a bursting exhale. After a frustrated shrug of her shoulders, she spoke forth, “Real science is performed under a null hypothesis, right? Who knows what I'm going to find? Who knows if I will find anything? You've once described me as tenacious and resourceful. I've put that to the test before; it's time that I did that again.”

“Is this an endeavor you wish to fulfill for yourself or for the sake of the experiment?”

“Have you ever paused to wonder that maybe it's for the sake of Pinkie Pie?” Scootaloo leaned forward with an earnest twinkle in her sad scarlets. “What would have happened to Fluttershy or Applejack if I hadn't gone back to them as well?”

“Scootaloo, the immutable nature of time had sealed their fates long before you or I ever contemplated sending you back physically to provide the stitches.”

“Spike...”

“Hear me out,” he said. “Miss Pie was the epitome of joy. There was nothing she encountered in life that she didn't treat with utmost felicitation and good humor and love. Twilight Sparkle told me of how she would laugh in the face of utter horror itself and come out unscathed. The Cataclysm, however terrible, would have rendered her no less a bravely ecstatic individual in death as she was in life. Of this, I am most assuredly convinced.”

“No offense, Spike, but you don't know that!” Scootaloo practically hissed. “What's more, you're never going to be able to know that! You can't possibly know that! But I can!” She planted her hooves against Spike's scaled wrist as the two of them briefly shared contact with the white bone. “For the first time since we started this whole pageantry of time travel, I'm starting to see it as a gift. It may not be a gift that I'll enjoy unwrapping, but somepony's got to be reaping the benefit, even if not in the years that I have to return to, or to live beyond for that matter. Spike, when I shuffled through the dragon teeth, Pinkie Pie's spirit spoke to me. You know as well as I do that I cannot explain how it all happens; the enchantment works with me and not with you. But she spoke to me, Spike, and I simply cannot abandon the mare... not after all the lengths I've taken to submerge myself in her. Imagine if I had turned my back on Applejack in the middle of defending her home against the trolls! Or what if I had abandoned Fluttershy and Derpy when Dinky was about to die?!”

“Those are very noble observations, Scootaloo. But do not pretend to tell me that you have observed Pinkie Pie experiencing a crisis of her own. The only certifiable doom that has claimed her health is the same agony that has befalled all of our friends. You have the power within you to bring retribution to all ponies by pursuing a solution to the inescapable Cataclysm, and Pinkie Pie will surely be among those whom you've brought closure to.”

“I have it within my power to be an observer, nothing else, Spike.” Scootaloo slowly shook her head. “That goes for our friends as much as for all of ponydom. Just because I haven't seen anything wrong in Pinkie Pie's last days doesn't mean there was nothing. Her body ended up under the giant chunk of moonrock in the middle of the countryside besides a wagon full of brittle-boned foals. Something was going on; I just haven't discovered it yet. I knew nothing of the 'Onyx Eclipse' before my initial trips to the past, but like a good observer, I stuck to my guns, and lo and behold, something came to me.”

“You must know by now how I truly feel about this 'Onyx Eclipse' theory of yours...”

“About the same way you feel about what I'm about to do now,” Scootaloo said with a genuine but brief smile. “Spike, I know you question why I can't laugh at any of the crazy things Pinkie Pie did the last time I visited her. That's because, in all of my years, I've dealt with the random horrors of the world at face value. There is nothing to laugh at in the Wasteland; there is only death. For once in my life, I have a thing to do—I have two things to do—and it's all a matter of faith. It was an act of faith that inspired you to pursue friggin' time travel when all of your experiments with Twilight failed beforehand, wasn't it? Don't tell me that all of your lonely years of banging your head against rocks in the hollow mountains of Canterlot blossomed on science alone, you big purple lug.”

Spike sighed and rubbed his scaled brow with a pair of claws. “I foresee that there is no conceivable way to talk you out of making this stubbornly headstrong sojourn.”

“Don't worry, Spike,” Scootaloo said with a wink. “I'll visit your precious 'Lady Rarity' eventually.”

“That's not the heart of the issue, Scootaloo.” He glanced down at her tiredly. “You do realize that if you come back just as soon as you did last time, it will be a solid week before I can conjure adequate enough flame for another jump.”

“And I promise—one way or another—the pink chapter of our lives will then be officially concluded.”

“I'm quite sure, three hundred years ago, I could very easily have crafted a lewd joke as a retort to that.”

“Hey, it's me, remember?”

“Oh, most assuredly,” Spike said with a mock grin as he grasped the legbone and began scraping the calcium bits into a glass jar. “Then let us proceed with bulleting you back to pony comedy central, shall we?”

“I would have thought that three centuries spent alone would have improved one's sarcasm. Thanks for proving me wrong, Spike.”

“At least I can prove you wrong about one thing, child. With all due respect, I truly wish you the best with this next trip. You have my eternal support, even if you do not have my complete and clear understanding.”

“I bet you talk to your flower bushes while I'm gone.”

“You might be right, old friend.”

“Then I've got just the thing to help you pass the time—or reverse time, so to speak.” Scootaloo rummaged through her saddlebag and produced a stack of ten random books as old as history and twice as dusty. “There ya go. Great dragon reading material. Just do me a favor and don't sneeze on them. I'd hate for them to end up possibly inside/outside Princess Celestia's fireplace. It's a heck of a long flight to Canterlot's ruins through the gray clouds of the Wasteland.”

Spike finished filling the glass jar before grasping one of the books and raising it up to his squinting eyeslits. His iron lips parted slightly. “Hmmm... The Lunar Chronicles of Her Majesty's Glorious Kingdom.” He blinked and picked up another. “The Natural Principles of Eponal Effluence.” Then another. “A Study of the Holy Remains of Consus.” His jaw fell agape as he suddenly understood the gravity of the tomes resting before him. “Good heavens! These... These are lost relics! These are the time-forgotten masterpieces of the Lunar Empire! No living soul has laid eyes on these for more centuries than even I can count!” He lowered his snout towards her in shock. “Wherever did you get these, old friend?”

Scootaloo stared back firmly. “I am a scavenger, Spike. I go deep into places—full of doubt—and I find things. Now I'm about to go into the past, into Pinkie Pie's life, and I am going to find something. I don't know what yet, but I can only hope. All I ask is for your help, as you are willing to give it.”

Spike stared at her. After a breathless silence, he inhaled slowly and bore a soft smile. “Always willing, old friend.” A brief, hacking cough, and he then carried his heavy self towards a clear patch of stone in front of his bed of rubies. “And always able.”

“Thank you, Spike.”

“Don't thank me until you're back,” he uttered while stifling a distant snicker. He drew alchemic circles into the stone floor with a single finger of loose bone dust. “Not to mention until after your headache clears.” He smirked and tipped the jar over Scootaloo's short pink mane—

“No.” She said suddenly, her hoof raised. “Let me, please.”

The dragon nodded solemnly and handed the jar to the last pony.

Scootaloo grasped onto it and paused briefly, seeing her brown face reflected against the curved glass containing the ashes, containing the pieces of everything she had ever come close to loving in a world that had burned to embers beneath her, that had orphaned her, that had brought her here to this moment, a cold moment, but a real moment. She could make a million warm dives into the bubbling memories of the past, but she would always have this moment, this anchor, herself.

She wasn't afraid to take the plunge anymore.

With priest-like grace, she anointed herself with Pinkie's ashes, placed the jar down onto a table, and marched into the center of the alchemic circles.

“No laughing matter, eh Spike?”

“Eh.” Spike blew green flame onto her.

Scootaloo took a deep breath, and when Harmony exhaled it came out in a vaporous cloud of high altitude mist. Her amber eyes flickered open to a gray sky hovering over a gray world with gray trees. All was pale desolation as far as the bitter horizon could project. “Uhm... Is this the past?”

“There you are!” A bright voice chirped beside her with the scent of peppermint. “Where have you been?”

“H-huh?” The last pony blinked. A bright white paper airplane flew across her vision and sailed off into the obscurity of Harmony's peripheral. She glanced to her left.

“Here, hold this!” Pinkie Pie shoved a basket into the time traveler's grasp.

“Nngh!” The last pony's breath left her lungs sharply. She winced. “Is this another prank—?” Her voice was cut off as she glanced down and saw a rattling assortment of wrapped presents, blanketed goods, and foodstuffs filling the package in her hooves. “Huh.”

“Just in time, Har-Har!” Pinkie Pie beamed and marched past her so that she stood in front of the door to a farmhouse that the time traveller suddenly realized was standing in front of them. “You won't believe how much I sweated carrying all of those little goodies on my flank the whole way here without you!”

“Uhhh...” Harmony glanced every which way, squinting. A barren farmland stretched around her, though to label it as “farmland” was just about as absurd as the bubbly little soul beside the copper pegasus. There were no crops; there were no plants. There were only rocks. A crumbling fence lethargically surrounded the stone-hard plot of land, and a rickety wooden windmill spun lazily beyond the frame of the two-story house and the dilapidated silo standing next to it. “Where... uhm... Where are we?” A blink. “And what did you just call me?”

“Heeheehee. 'Har-Har!'”

“I thought I was 'Mon-Mon.'”

“That was also cute. Then you told me how your real name was 'Harmony,' and I thought to myself that such a name is way too long to try saying in between tasty mouthfuls of butter popcorn, so I decided to call you 'Har-Har!' Heehee! Get it? Because you laugh so much!”

“But... I-I hardly ever laugh—”

“That's what makes it so funnnnnnny! Hehehe—Ahem. I want you to meet someponies.”

“Meet someponies? Miss Pie, I can't even tell where we are! Besides, you and I hardly even know each other—”

“Birds of a feather!” Pinkie Pie knocked on the door loudly with the base of her skull. “And by 'birds,' I mean 'ponies.' And by 'feather,' I mean 'hoof.' And by 'of a,' I really mean 'cheese crackers' because CELESTIA I am hungry enough to eat a house of parrots homeless!”

Just then, the door to the farmhouse opened creakily. From a deep dark interior, a ghostly gray maere with an even ghostlier gray mane emerged. She bore silk-straight hair and a cutie mark in the image of a granite medical cross encrusted with vines. After a ritualistic blink of deep violet eyes, she broke the ice of the deeply morose landscape with a strange thing... a smile.

“Lemme guess...” The voice had a droning tone, coldly pitched but warmly reinforced. It sounded like somepony was rubbing a tight balloon against an infant foal's fuzzy mane. If the mare's lips weren't curved, Harmony would have guessed the pony was attempting to sound sarcastic. “You're selling basketcases? I'm sorry, but the last one we bought moved to Ponyville years ago. We're not interested.”

“Wakka-Wakka-Wakka! How-do-you-do, Inkie-Poo?!” The pink pony leaned in, grinning a crescent moon. “I love what you've done with your mane!”

“But I haven't done anything with my mane.”

“That's why I love it! Hee hee hee!”

The mare chuckled breathily. She opened the front door to the farmhouse all the way and trotted out with two forelimbs ensnaring Pinkie's upper body with a dear hug. “It's great to see you, Sis.”

“If you hug me any closer, you'll find it's great to smell me too!”

“Mmmmm...Vanilla and sherbert; you're still using Mrs. Cake's shampoo?”

“Actually I just roll around in cupcake mix every morning before I get up for work.”

“Ahhhh sis.” The mare trotted back and stood in the doorway, smiling calmly. “How I've missed having you around. I can never tell when you're joking or just being you.”

“There's a difference?” Pinkie blinked confusedly.

“Ahem.” Harmony cleared her throat. “I... erhm... I hate to interrupt, but—”

“Oh, hello there.” The mare's violet eyes swiveled to meet the time traveler. “You're Pinkie's latest victim from Ponyville, I'm guessing.”

“Yeah. Can anypony help me?”

“Absolutely!” A candy-colored face re-filled the last pony's sight. Pinkie swung a hoof around the gray mare's neck and nuzzled her, cheek-to-cheek, while excitedly chirping, “This is Inkie, my one and only sis! Well, she's not my one and only sis, but she's my one and only sis named 'Inkie.'”

The aptly named earth pony reached out a hoof with a smirk. “'Inkessa Ruth Pie' if you want to get in touch with the formalities of these parts.”

“'Miss Jockeyson' if you're nasty!” Pinkie added with a gunshot of high-pitched giggles.

The last pony shook Inkie's hoof. “Yeah, uh, about 'these parts,'” Harmony inquired with a not-so-subtle wag of her eyebrows. But before she could so much as speak further—

“Sis, this is 'Har-Har'!”

“'Har-Har'?”

“Not to be confused with the Mare Wars stereotype.” Pinkie Pie winked. “Hey, what's that delightful smell coming from the kitchen?”

“You can smell it from this distance? I could have sworn years spent in Ponyville would have spoiled your nose.”

“Don't be silly! I'm always happy to come back to the stale, soot-infested, overcast wasteland of rock that is our delightful place of birth! Where else would the aroma of freshly baked banana bread stand out so well?”

“Right you are.” Inkie motioned with her straight gray mane into the dark cave that was the family house. “It's a fresh delivery from Marble Cake's bakery. Daddy brought it home just now, before you showed up.”

“Squeeee!” Pinkie Pie's dimples showed as she shivered from mane to tail with joy. “What splenderifically awesomesaucical timing! Har-Har, we gotta get inside and chow down before our stomachs rebel and stick our heads on pikes!”

“Now wait just a minute—!” Harmony began to snarl.

“Hey!” Pinkie Pie barked and swiveled on her front hooves. “Banana bread! Get inside!” She quite viciously bucked the pegasus straight into the farmhouse like a copper beach ball.

“Dah!” Harmony shouted, more in surprise at the sheer force of Pinkie's sudden punt rather than the horror of it. Her shrieking voice was curtailed by a thunderous crash of her Entropan limbs with a wooden dining table lying inside the dark-lit building. She stood up in a pile of tumbled gift baskets, wincing, and when she opened her eyes...

A pair of platinum optics were staring at her, past her, like icy gems fused inside the skull of a bored-looking mare, younger than the other two trotting in after the pinballed pegasus. Harmony stood up, observing a petite pony with a pale coat that was even grayer than Inkie's. Her mane hair was a glacier of smooth alabaster threads. She sat on a bench before the table with a pair of candles lighting a half-finished drawing of dully colored trees and mountains.

The two candles atop the table were mimicked by a grand plethora of dozens upon dozens of identically burning wicks situated all throughout the farmhouse. Harmony glanced around the place to witness a total count of fifty-two dimly-lit candles casting a deep amber haze of dull, sickly pale light across the interior of the two-story building. She briefly pondered over the reason for this flickering array, until she realized that every panel and every shutter and every pane to the windows of that place was shut, opaquely clouding out any and all slivers of sunlight that ever dared to enter the household from the gray expanse that surrounded the already grimly-shadowed farm.

“Creepy senses tingling...” The scavenger from the future briefly murmured to herself with a gulp.

“Winky, Winky: I see Blinkie!” Pinkie Pie scuffled up to the stone-still mare seated at the table. “Ooooh! What are you drawing this time?” She glanced over the gray pony's shoulder and looked at the obvious landscape art. “A pride of lions! Cool!” A glinting grin, and she added, “Your sis got you a gift from Bon-Bon's novelty shop in Ponyville!” She shuffled past Harmony, stuck her face nose-deep into a basket of miscellaneous things, and came out with her teeth clenched over a paper box which she spat with such expert force onto the top of the table that it opened to reveal four dozen multicolored wax pens. “Ptoooie! There ya go, Blinx! New crayons! Forty-eight completely different colors, arranged in order of lesser to greater number of letters in their names, just the way you like it!”

The gray-gray mare stared, deadpan, at the box of crayons. With the speed of a drugged turtle, she reached an icy hoof and gently slid the box of crayons closer to her face in the candlelight. Her expression was stone-frozen, but Harmony could have sworn she spotted her platinum irises dilating in an obscure telegraph of excitement.

“And for you, sis!” Pinkie Pie spun towards Inkie, slapped her hoof down over the edge of a basket, and launched a wrapped package the older mare's way. “Something else to fill that noggin' of yours besides that gravel-smelling hair conditioner you're so in love with.”

Inkie effortlessly snatched the present in mid-air and squinted slyly across the candlelight. “If this is another rubber chicken, I swear, you're sleeping in the silo all week.”

“But I thought you liked the rubber chicken!”

Inkie spoke over the tearing noises as she opened her present. “Pinkamena, it exploded in my face.”

“So I forgot what the high altitude of this place can do to inflatable things! Be glad I didn't get you a rubber hippopotamus.”

“Yeah, right.” Inkie finished tearing the last of the gift wrapping off. She blinked, then smiled at what turned out to be a hard-back book in her grasp. “Awwwww. A History of Canterlotlian Nurses. I've checked this out from the library Elektra-knows how many times. Sis, how did you know I was totally into this?”

Pinkie Pie's blue eyes spun innocently in their sockets. “I know you're gonna work your way out of Stonehaven at some point or another! What better place to look up to than Canterlot General Hospital? You're on your way to better things, filly!”

“Hmmm... This must be a new edition of the print.” Inkie hoofed to the first dozen pages and scanned a page. She squinted suspiciously Pinkie's way. “'Forward by Canner West'?”

Pinkie smiled sheepishly. “So maybe it was in the bargain section. I had to save up a bunch of bits to get past customs on the way here!” She glanced at Harmony. “You ever been subjected to a full-bridle search?”

Harmony opened her copper lips to speak—

“And don't think I forgot about you!” She stuck her nose into the baskets once more.

“What?” The time traveler made a face. “I get a gift too?”

“You can try to take Gummy home, but I seriously doubt he's easy to unwrap, unless you make a wallet out of him.”

“Gummy?” Harmony blinked. “What's a 'Gummy?'”

Pinkie Pie pulled her snout out of the baskets and flung a green shadow at the pegasus.

The last pony suddenly felt something dull and wet clamping over the length of her black tail. “Huh?” She glanced back and gasped to see a stunted abomination of a wall-eyed reptile hanging off her with its jaws firmly fitted over her flicking hairs. “Accck! What-What-What-What-What-What?!” She spun stupid, panicked circles like an infant puppy chasing its tail before ultimately slamming into a wooden support beam. Harmony and Gummy fell flat on the floorboards, littered with an avalanche of random family portraits and framed landscape art.

Inkie winced, sighed, and flung bored eyes Pinkie's way. “Pinkamena...”

“What? It's not my fault ponies these days can't catch an alligator to save their lives!” Pinkie chortled, then bouncily cantered towards the kitchen. “Why don't you get to know each other? Talk to her! I'm gonna go talk to banana bread! La la la la laaaa!” She sing-songed her way from the dark dining room into the equally dark chamber beyond it.

Harmony winced, tossing framed pictures off her as she stumbled to her hooves and flicked, flicked, flicked her tail in a vain attempt to fling the drooling reptile off her. “Nnngh! Make like a baboon bartender and get bent, you pimple-eyed stump of a suitcase!”

“Here, allow me.” Inkie calmly trotted over. She held Harmony still with an outstretched hoof, leaned over, and nuzzled a soft spot underneath the tiny reptile's left forelimb.

Gummy blinked, blinked again, then let loose a snort through its green nostrils that could best be described as a ticklish “chuckle.” The thing's gaping maw opened with a quack-like chirp. Inkie was quick to catch its fall in the small of her snout. In absurdly practiced skill, Pinkie's sister tossed the weight of the alligator across the room so that it landed smack-dab in the cushioned center of a patchwork pet bed monogrammed with the letter “G.” The blinking alligator spun three circles like a lapdog and settled down for a much-belated snooze.

“Every time I tell myself that I've seen everything,” Harmony breathily exclaimed, dusting herself off, “The threads of fate fly up my nose like celestial gauze and I'm choking on my own words once again.”

“Hmmm... poetic.” Inkie placed her book on the edge of the table besides the younger, quieter member of the Pie family. She cast a deadpan look the pegasus' way. “So, what's your real name?”

“Huh?”

Again, the slightest hint of curved lips. “Both you and I know that 'Har-Har' is far from the title you were born with, even though I'm inclined to doubt that you're still the same pony you were before the day you fatefully ran into my sister.” Inkessa raised an eyebrow for emphasis.

That broke the ice well enough. In a relaxed exhale, Harmony spoke firmly for the first time since landing there on green fumes. “Harmony. My name is Harmony. All things considered—and maybe even ignored—it's a pleasure to meet you, Inkessa.”

“Please, just call me 'Inkie,'” the aptly named mare said, gesturing with a gray hoof. “'Inkessa' is reserved for when I'm being talked to by my parents or—ugghh—Bishop Breathstar.”

“Bishop Who?”

“And that highly talkative soul at the table over there is my and Pinkie's younger sister,” Inkie said while pointing at the grayer pony seated mutely at the table. “Blinkie—Or Blinkaphine Esther Pie, if you're a tax collector.”

“I'm not a tax collector.”

“But you do work for Her Majesty's Court, yes?” Inkie rubbed her chin while trotting around Harmony's flank, observing her emblazoned cutie mark. “Sis has always told me about her crazy adventures with the Elements of Harmony and foiling Nightmare Moon's evil return. For the longest time, everypony in the family thought she was just pulling our legs, and then one day a year ago we got a Canterlotlian Certificate of Heroism in the mail. Heh... who'd ’a thunk it? I still have a hard time believing that Pinkie could save a bakery full of muffins, much less the fate of Equestria.”

“Well, if you ask me, there's room for believing in something when it comes to Miss Pie,” Harmony spoke, nervously eyeing the candlelit lengths of the creepily dark farmhouse. “Considering someone as sane as you shares her bloodline.”

“I wouldn't be too harsh on my sis. She's not crazy. She's just...” Inkie paused to tongue the inner walls of her mouth before finishing with, “...a phantom belly button.”

The last pony went cross-eyed. She shook her head and blinked. “She's what?”

“She's an outtie while everypony else in Equestria is an innie. Does that make sense?”

“I... guess. Does that make you proud of her?”

“It makes me envy her for the lack of lint.”

“Yeah... Uhm...” Harmony cleared her throat. She eyed the sea of lit candles, glanced at the catatonic Blinkie, looked at the sleeping and purring alligator, and glanced back towards the kitchen. “...so what was this about banana bread?”

“Banana nut bread!” Pinkie Pie galloped back into the room, balancing a tray of various sugary goodies atop her fluffy mane. “Inkie, how come you never send any of these fabulous munchables my way anymore?”

“Customs, remember?”

“Hey, if I could get Gummy past them guys, you should be able to send anything!” Pinkie planted the tray on the tabletop opposite to Blinkie and swallowed an entire slice of delicious banana bread in one bite. “Mmmmmm! Hey, Har-Har, want a bite? Come to think of it, you never did tell me if you're allergic to nuts or not.”

“I don't recall telling you anything at all, Miss Pie.” Harmony briefly frowned. “As a matter of fact—”

It was suddenly the blood sibling's turn to interrupt her sister's “companion.” “Pinkie, since when were you affiliated with Canterlot? First you get that book for me, and then I find out you have a Clerk in Her Majesty's service tailing you?”

“You work for Princess Celestia?!” Pinkie gulped another bite of banana bread while gasping at the last pony.

“I—Nnngh!” Harmony hissed. “Miss Pie, haven't we been through this?” She spun her flank about and pointed a copper hoof viciously at the infinity symbol encircled with celestial bands. “Haven't you ever wondered what this means?”

Pinkie Pie blinked. “'Don't touch hourglasses hot out of the oven'?”

“It means—Wait, what?”

“Lemme guess.” Inkie smiled and tossed her straight gray mane before remarking, “You're here on behalf of Pinkie's friend—the literary unicorn who's always writing to the princess—to observe my sis as she spends a week's vacation at her hometown, so you can find out how she's come to be the lead caterer and party arranger of Ponyville.”

The time traveler raised a hoof and was about to speak. She paused, though, and blinked as she processed the last slew of words to come from the gray mare. With a shrug, she muttered, “You know what, that works for me. I'll go with that.”

“Mmmf—Bud I thoud...” Pinkie managed through scarfing bread-bites. “I thoud youff said thadd youff were here to dooff Stargazingfff!”

“I said it works for me.” Harmony slumped to her copper haunches with a sigh. “Really, though, what I wouldn't give for somepony—anypony—to just tell me where I am.”

“Open your eyes, silly filly!” Pinkie Pie winked. “You're on the Pie Family Rock Farm!”

Harmony blinked at the candle-lit lengths of the rustic farmhouse, at a loss to find any single open window that might grant her a snapshot to confirm Pinkie's absurd declaration. “A rock farm?”

“Yupperooni! Though, it's not to be confused with a Stone Farm. You only find those in Mexicolt.”

“And just what—pray tell—do you make with the rock harvest?”

Pinkie Pie paused in mid bite, yellow crumbs dotting her pink chin. “Uhhh...” She smiled brightly. “Bigger rocks?”

“We happen to be a major contributor to the local market in town,” Inkie said as she paced across the room, cleaning up after Pinkie Pie's things and stacking the baskets up onto an endtable in the far corner of the dim place. “The Pie family has been managing these stone fields for some time. A lot more profit comes out of it than you'd think.”

“Yeah! And besides, it all becomes useful around here all the same!” Pinkie grinned, pranced out from behind the table and carried a tray of sweets over to Harmony. “Maybe you have to look closely to notice it, but we put rocks into everything! Doorstops, picture frames, ceiling beams, coffee coasters, pet dishes, fountain bases, statuary, umbrella stands, candleholders—you name it! There's absolutely nothing on this farm that isn't—in some way or another—put together with harvested rocks!” A winking grin, and she raised a frosted dessert item in the candlelight. “Cupcake?”

Harmony blinked at the treat, then at her. She glared with icily bored eyes. “No, Miss Pie. I most assuredly do not want any of your cupcakes.”

“Your loss!” Pinkie tossed the treat up towards the ceiling and gobbled it down in one bite. “Mmmm!” She hummed as the luscious dessert crunched in her mouth. “Mmmmfff—hehehe! The gravely bits are good for brightening a filly's teeth!”

“Uh huh...” Harmony nervously eyed Pinkie as she marched back into the dark hovel of the kitchen. The last pony cast a glance over her copper shoulder at Inkie. “Would you happen to know exactly why your sister is back home for a week?”

“You mean you don't know?”

“I... uh...” The time traveler once again found herself having to roll her synapses through the heart-stopping moment like a series of tight copper clockgears. “The Court is requesting me to... uhhh... to perform my observational duties organically. Her Majesty ordered me to ask around once I was in the midst of Miss Pie's like kin.” She winced briefly as a loud crunching sound came from the kitchen.

“Oh hey, good news! I found the new garbage disposal you wrote about, sis! You're right, it does look like a dish washer! Heeheehee—Oh wait... Ooops.”

Harmony smiled painfully. “Perhaps... uhm... you can see why Princess Celestia didn't give me a thorough briefing on her unicorn apprentice's friend...”

“Hmmm. Perhaps.” Inkie then called over Harmony's shoulder. “It's alright, Pinkie! I'll take care of the mess!”

“What mess? Nothing that a little rubber cement can't fix!”

“Do they even allow her around rubber cement?” Harmony asked.

“Why do you think she got sent to Ponyville?”

Harmony blinked. “Never mind. I don't think Her Majesty needs me to observe that nugget of joy.”

“Speaking of nuggets...” Pinkie Pie frolicked back in and stood beside her sketching little sister. “We've got a lot of stuff to do around the quarry this week! Is Marble Cake ready with all of the handouts?”

“Waiting on you, Sis. As a matter of fact, so was I. I figured I'd trot into town with you.”

“Great! Hey Har-Har, you game?”

“I... I'm sorry, my brain broke on 'stuff to do around the quarry.' What's everypony talking about?”

“Oooh! I'm such a dense dolt-a-mare!” Pinkie suddenly seethed and smacked a pair of pink hooves into her candy-colored skull. “I almost forgot!” She glanced guiltily Inkie's way. “Where's Mommy? I'd better say 'hey' before anything else.”

“She's upstairs, Sis,” Inkie said, smiling softly. “She's usually awake this early in the morning. Why don't you go see her?”

“Yes, why don't I?” Pinkie Pie smiled. She reached into one of the gift baskets stacked atop the endtable in the corner and produced a sheet of paper. “I've got a bunch of stuff to give her, but I'm sure that can all wait until later.” She started folding the paper in multiple places. “From what you wrote last time, Inkie, it sounds like she can only receive excitement in teensy-weensy doses.”

“Hey, there's the sister I'm proud of.” Inkie said in a firm smirk. “You really have matured since the time you met that apprentice to Princess Celestia.”

“Heeheehee! You think?!” Pinkie Pie finished constructing a paper airplane and flung it across the lengths of the room. “Weeee! Zooooom! Zooooom!”

Inkie sighed exasperatingly and briefly ducked the soaring aircraft as she shuffled across the house towards a double bedroom down the hall. “While you go visit Momma, I'm going to dress up for Stonehaven.”

“You do that!” Pinkie Pie galloped up a flight of wooden steps. The nearby candles bounced from the vibrations of her felicitous ascent. “Har-Har, be a good filly and make sure the rock spiders don't suck the blood out of Blinkie's veins!”

“Rock spiders?!” The scavenger from the future gasped and reached back for a phantom runescape rifle. “Where?!”

“Hahahaha—'Rock spiders!' What are you, a toddler? La la la la laaa...”

Harmony sighed, her body slumping as she gazed at the descending arc of the paper airplane that was still miraculously airborne. “If only all things had the liberty of flying away from this anchor. Seriously, where in Epona's name am I?” Her gaze followed the white glider as it soared out through the bright gray rectangle that was the front door to the farmhouse. There was a grim shadow suddenly standing in the immediate view of the frame, with glaring yellow eyes that burned the pegasus to her Entropan core.

“Whoahhhhhh—Nnghhhh-Hiiii there...” Harmony not-so-tactfully recovered from a recoiling expression. Gulping a nervous lump down her throat, she politely stood straight and tall in front of an aged stallion that was now positioned before her. “I... Er... Y-you might be Mister Pie, I presume?”

The elder pony squinted down at her lethargically, like she was one of the many banana bread crumbs littered pointlessly on the gnarled wooden floorboards of the dimly lit hovel. He had a sandy-yellow coat to match the emotionlessness of his eyes. The stallion wore a dark gray fedora over a wispy pair of white sideburns. This article was complimented by the civility of a white collar and gray necktie that hung off him like a noose. Add to that a pick-axe for a cutie mark, and every angle of this tall and granite pony was sharp and rigid like the many rocks farmed off of the seemly infertile landscape that Harmony had ever so briefly spotted before being shoved inside this house of candles and shadows.

“Mmmm...” he muttered, limply chewing on a stalk of hay that was suddenly hanging from his ivory molars. “You presume right, child. 'Quarrington Edward Pie',,to be exact.” His voice had a scratchy edge to it, like a hollow rainstick being fed through a wood chipper. “And the fact that I have a pegasus with a royal cutie mark standing unannounced in my very home can only mean one thing.” He said the next part with a pitiful sigh, as if he had just discovered a fresh chip in his hoof. “My second daughter's arrived for her visit.”

“Err... Yeah. About that—”

“One second if you will, ma'am.” Quarrington frowned suddenly. “Inkessa!” His voice rumbled loudly through the wooden frame of the house like a cannon shell. “How many times have I told you, we are never to leave any windows or doors open in this house, ever?!” He slammed the offending doorframe shut, encasing the house in even greater darkness than Harmony anticipated. “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”

A muffled voice rang from the door to the lower bedroom. “Pinkamena has just arrived, father! And she brought a guest! I didn't want to startle anypony!”

“So long as you're in this house, Inkessa, you think of your parents' wishes first and all others' second! You hear me? Or do I have to explain to your mother why you're too lazy to close the door when you should?”

“No need, father! I do apologize. I'm in a hurry to get to my shift at Stonehaven, you see.”

“Excuses, excuses.” Quarrington sighed. Trotting over, he paused to glare down through the dimness at the time traveler. “So, what did she do this time?”

“I beg your pardon, Mister Pie?” Harmony blinked.

“Is this about all the ruckus she caused at that confounded Canterlotlian Gala?” he droned lethargically. “Or perhaps it has something to do with that Winter Wrap-Up she nearly botched up with her incompetent ice melting team. Or maybe you're here because of all of the countless juvenile pranks my darling daughter has assailed that unsuspecting town she cavorts in.”

“I'm not sure what you think I am, Mister Pie...”

“That makes the two of us, child. But, quite frankly, it's of no concern to me. Take a lesson from Pinkamena; don't do what she does. So long as you're not in the way of business here on the farm—or in town—then you're welcome to do... whatever it is that you do.”

“Uhhh... Thanks.” Harmony cracked an awkward smile. “Your hospitality is... much appreciated.”

Quarrington stared at her through bitterly squinting eyelids. For a second there, Harmony couldn't guess what the Cataclysm would explode first—him or the moon. Soon, he coughed his way through an apathetic shrug and sauntered past Blinkie. “Hmmm... I see you got new coloring pens, Blinkaphine.” He took one glance at her landscape-in-progress. “A bowl of fruit: how nice.” He made his way towards a study located in the corner of the house.

Harmony blinked. She stared at the lonely shadows left after Quarrington's hooves, then at the empty hallway leading to Inkie's bedroom, then at the dim flicker of candlelight bathing Blinkie at the table, then at the slumbering baby alligator in the corner. The whole dark household was more silent than the bowels of the Everbriar, and she suddenly couldn't think which of the two locations was more disquieting.

With a shuffling of limbs that broke the stillness like an avalanche, she trotted over towards the table where Blinkie sat, mutely coloring her masterpiece-in-progress. “So, you're an artist, huh?”

The grayer-than-gray mare said nothing. Her deadpan face was engrossed in the sketch before her.

Harmony blinked. She craned her neck to the side for a good look at the sister's flank. The cutie mark on the petite pony displayed a red hot cylinder riding a plume of flames. It took the future scavenger inside Harmony to realize that it was supposed to be a “rocket ship.”

She raised her eyebrow curiously at that. Nevertheless, she put forth a courageous smile. “With all of these windows shut for some confounded reason, who can blame you for wanting to illustrate the outside world, huh?”

Once more, there was no reply. Blinkie continued illustrating the brown, earthy hue of a rock pile in her landscape. She filled in the sketched lines with insane accuracy and attention to spectral detail.

Harmony exhaled. She could have easily walked away right then and there, but something urged her to make one last attempt to bridge communication. Grinning, she grasped a crayon from Pinkie's paper box labeled “emerald.” “Y'know, if you add a dash of green to a few spots on the far side, you could liven up the scenery a bit. A little bit of life never hurt a landscape, huh?”

Suddenly, Blinkie began shaking. Her lips quivered as a pale sheen of sweat cascaded down her trembling gray body. Her platinum irises shrunk to horrified pinpricks as she eyed the empty space in the stack of crayons like it was a bomb about to go off.

The last pony panicked. She quivered to match Blinkie's shaking and swiftly shoved the crayon back into the box. It accomplished nothing; Blinkie was still convulsing. Rethinking her actions, Harmony swiftly pulled the green crayon back out, counted the number of letters in “emerald,” and swiftly stuck it right in between two pens labeled “orange” and “lavender.”

That did it. Blinkie exhaled long and hard. Her shaking stopped and a warmth of life returned to her calm eyes.

“All better?” Harmony nervously smirked. “I'm sorry. I guess I should have known better than to—”

Blinkie apathetically returned to her sketching, coloring in the lines as if nothing had just transpired whatsoever.

Harmony stared numbly. She hissed through wincing teeth and slowly backed away from the mute pony at the table. “Okaaaaaay.” A shudder, and she glared stonily into the far corners of the shadowy place. “You laughing yet, Spike?” she whispered.

The candles danced before her breath. The pegasus' amber eyes were drawn towards the wooden stairs leading up to the second floor. She furrowed her brow in sudden curiosity. She had flown back on twenty-five years of flaming reverse-time, and yet she felt as abandoned and alone as when she was the last pony clambering through the ruins of Equestrian towns long crumbled. The scavenger in her knew never to leave a moment of gifted inactivity untapped, and since she was more confused than ever an army of trolls or a dying Capricorn could render her, she decided it was time to take some hoofsteps that were hers—and not Pinkie's.

With a slow gait, she shuffled up the stairs, leaving the morose candlelight of the strange house's first floor behind her.

As soon as she made it to the top of the staircase, she became aware of a muffled conversation from behind her shoulder. Pausing at the second floor and glancing over her mane, she spotted a thin hallway flanked with several mahogany doors. All of the windows were just as barred there as on the ground floor. Not a single blink of daylight made its way through the wooden sarcophagus that the farmhouse had unnaturally been reduced to. The “Canterlotlian Clerk” observed quite well that the building couldn't possibly have been built to shut out the world like it was currently accomplishing.

She suspected that the truth would make itself evident to her with more exposure. Everything would make itself known with exposure; it was what Harmony believed. It was what she had to have faith in. If not, then she could very well have been hunting for more moonrocks twenty-five years from that dimly-lit second, spending time doing something far more useful while she summoned the strength to anchor herself to somepony else. The “where” and “what” of her surroundings suddenly didn't matter nearly as much as the “why.” Harmony realized—for better or for worse—that such was the way her time jumps had always been.

The conversation was still proceeding. Stealthily, assisted by a single lantern lit behind her, Harmony shuffled her way down half of the hallway's length until she noticed one of the doors cracked open. In a house that was already “dark” by an apocalyptic survivor's standard, this one room was quite feasibly the blackest thing she had ever witnessed. From the whisper-light sounds of life stirring within, there was no doubt that something important was transpiring. For the life of her, though, Harmony couldn't fathom anypony wanting to—or having to dwell within. A piece of the candle-lit picture was ever so slowly starting to make sense to the last pony, but—much like Blinkie was doing downstairs—she had to take her sweet time coloring between the lines.

The colors came in the form of voices—two voices—a mother and daughter in sweet reunion, their breaths coming gleefully from within. One voice was sugary and sweet, the other was affectionate... but hollow, as if the lungs it belonged to had been viciously excavated with the sharp point of a rusted spade. Harmony winced slightly as she craned her copper ears to hear:

“And then she actually came into the doughnut shop and sat down and talked to all of us right there in the middle of Canterlot! It was so totally cool! Could you imagine having coffee and pastries with an actual Goddess? Who'd have thought that Princess Celestia liked sprinkles! Well, of course she likes sprinkles. With a mane like that, would she be a fan of pretzels? Uh uh! I don't think so!”

“Hmmm... That sounds so blessedly delightful, Pinkamena.” A hacking cough, a shuddering breath, then a murmuring voice continued, “I recall you writing your father and sisters and I about that, but hearing you talk about it face to face really captures how much that night must have meant to you.”

“And it didn't end there! It turns out that the building that the Royal Court used to lease out to Twilight Sparkle hadn't been renovated yet! So, since the Gala ended in such a crazy super-lame mess, we all went to Twi's old place for a slumber party and spent the next two nights in Canterlot shopping and checking out the local eateries! It was the bestests most splendid time I had in my life!—Er, away from home, that is! I'm always so happy and bubbly inside to be talking to you and Inkie and Blinkie and Nod!”

“What about...” A cough, a stifled wheeze. “What about your father?”

“I did say 'Nod,' didn't I? Heeheehee...”

“Ohhhh Pinkamena. Your youthful exuberance is something sorely missed in this household these days.”

“Really? Blinkie looked in good spirits for once.”

“She's got her hobbies lately, but it's not enough to make her happy—as in truly happy. Your sisters positively light up when you show your face around here. I wish you visited more.”

“Speaking of light-up, what's the dealio with the veilio? Are we farming mushrooms now too? Oooh! Or better yet, is daddy taking up photography like he's always wanted to? I'm guessing that's why we've got all the dark rooms.”

“Your father is up to what he's always been up to. This farm is his life, and so is the Council, Pinkamena. You know that.”

“Mmmmmm—But what about you? Closing all the windows doesn't do much for the rock harvest or the town. Even he can't pretend to tell me that's true.”

“These windows...” A hacking cough, a sputtering, and the voice resumed. “...are closed for a reason. They have been the last two times you visited, and they need to remain so even on your next visits.”

“For how long, Mommy?”

“As long as it takes, Pinkamena. As long as I... I...” A heavy fit of coughs. Something choked and squeaked, like a whimper.

“The refrigerator still works downstairs, right? I brought the makings for orange sherbert. I know how much you love that, Mommy. Especially lately. I promise I'll go light on the sugar! Just the way you like it!”

“Oh, Pinkamena. A little sugar never hurt nopony.”

“Wow! I've been gone a long time! Listen to you! Soon you'll be talking just like Ms. Cake!”

“Like your father's sister? Gultophine help me, then I'd surely be losing it!”

“Heeheeheee... I love you, Mommy. Even when your jokes fall flat.”

“You're the best judge of that. I learned a long time ago not to question it.”

“Works for me. Hey, when is Inkie ever gonna get a better place to practice her career? I swear, it's like she's been at Stonehaven for a billion boring dusty years.”

“I think it's a matter of Inkessa's personal choice.” More coughing. More. Then: “Even if she wanted to relocate, it wouldn't be easy. Haymane isn't exactly giving the sanitarium enough funds to afford replacements, much less renovations.” A long, wheezing breath. “I've gotten on your father's flank time and time again about talking to the council about it, but... I can only do so much these days.”

“Awwwwww... Nopony's asking you to jump through flaming hoops, Mommy. I've seen Rainbow Dash do that. There's a reason her mane looks like it's just come out of a blow drier everyday.”

“Heh... Mmmmm—I just wish I could do more, Pinkamena. It's been... It's been so long since I could so much as even walk to town, much less help the way things are going... and they are most certainly going somewhere dark, far darker than this room.”

“Well, when I get back tonight from helping out Marble Cake and others around town, why don't you tell me all about it? You know I'm all ears, Mommy, even when they're flopping. Who doesn't love a good mud-bath?”

“Mmmm... If I'm awake, dear, perhaps. Perhaps...”

Harmony figured she could listen more. She suddenly wasn't sure if she should. With a shuffle of four hooves, she turned to walk back down the length of the second story hallway, when the tiniest shred of color found itself into her peripheral and stabbed her from beyond the blackness of the abysmal house. Squinting curiously, she turned to see another cracked door. She nudged it open on creaking hinges and boldly peered in.

It was Pinkie Pie's room; it had to have been. Even in the darkest shadows of that interior, the scavenger from the future could tell that the curtains, bedsheets, wallpaper, and carpeting was an undeniable pink. What was more, the bedside table featured a rotating lampshade fixed around an electrified nightlight. Its base was sculpted to look like a clown pony holding a pie pan. A dim kaleidoscope of colored prancing circus equine floated around the walls of the room from the one flickering bulb.

The sight was so startling—like a paint factory had exploded in the middle of a deep and dark chasm. Suddenly, every annoying and migraine-inducing thing that Pinkie Pie had ever done in the time traveler's presence melted into a syrupy draught of bubbly goodness. For a brief moment, there was a sense... a pinkie sense to the madness that energized the earth pony, and it only held sway here—in the absence of life—where the only other things that pretended to live under that roof were gray and glacier-coated shadows.

Before Harmony's epiphany could complete itself, of course, who would interrupt but—

“Har-Har! What are you doing in my room?!”

“Gah!” The pegasus jumped, her copper feathers ruffled. “I didn't mean to be snooping, I swear—”

“What are you doing in here without me?” Pinkie clarified with a giddy grin. She slapped the door shut behind her with a rear hoof and bounced-bounced-bounced her way towards a wardrobe. “You can't be expected to get dressed all on your own!”

“Get... dressed...?” Harmony blinked numbly.

“Pfft—Duh! We are going into town, aren't we?”

“We are?” Harmony droned. Her brow furrowed. “And just what town is this?”

Pinkie Pie flung the wardrobe open with a flurry of dust and neglect. She sneezed, sniffled, and smiled over her shoulder like her teeth would protrude out of her bright lips any second. “Why, we're off to see the sea ponies!”

The time traveler went bug-eyed. “You're kidding.”

“Pfff! Well, duh, of course I am!”

Harmony snarled. “Dang it, Pinkie—!”

“Just trying to get you to laugh and live up to your name, 'Har Har!'”

“For the last time, my name is not—”

“Here.” Pinkie flung an article of clothing Harmony's way. “Wear that! I know it's not much, but it's about the only thing I have here that will fit you. Er... Eh heh heh.” She blushed slightly and waved a flippant hoof. “Don't take that the wrong way. I actually mean it as a compliment. I was packing some love handles last spring.” She patted her ample tummy with unabashed emphasis and a winking smile. “I don't exactly get paid by commission at Sugarcube Corner.”

“Uhhh...” Harmony squinted through the dim light of the clown lamp to see a turquoise vest in her grasp. A blue crest with a yellow sun lingered in the corner of the sewn material. “Why am I putting on a Winter Wrap-Up Ice Melting Team's vest?”

“Becausssssse,” Pinkie sing-songed as she hopped her lower hooves through a pair of pants and fished through the wardrobe for a shirt. “You don't wanna be caught naked the first moment we gallop down main street.”

Harmony blinked. “Naked.”

“Mmmmhmmm.”

“Naked.”

“Yuh huh.”

“Uhm, Miss Pie?” Harmony squinted across the dim room of pink shadows. “Correct me if I'm in the wrong century, but wouldn't that have made us indecent all the times that we've talked to each other thus far? Even the highest elite ponies in Canterlot Court wouldn't bother to put on so much as a scarf during any given time of the day, much less pants or... or...” She made a face. “Are you wearing a straw hat?”

“Well I sure hope I'm not wearing an elephant!” Pinkie grinned from beneath a brim of shredded white spokes. “Mayor Haymane will have our necks on a silver platter if we don't dress appropriately! I mean, where have you been girl?”

“Oh, so it's that kind of a town. Boy oh boy.” Harmony murmured her way through the vest, ultimately struggling with it as if she had stumbled into a complex, harpy death trap. “Uhm... and just who is Haymane?”

“Here's hoping you never find out. Here, allow me.” Pinkie reached over with double hooves.

“No thanks, Miss Pie. I got it—Igotit! Igotit!” She hissed and went cross-eyed as Pinkie Pie practically yanked the turquoise article over Harmony's upper limbs and torso, squeezing the pegasus' wings to her constricted chest like a vice. “Hckkkkk... Snkkkt...”

“And you'd better not be making those kinds of noises around town either, or else Bishop Breathstar's gonna think you do questionable things in your basement.” Pinkie stuck her tongue out and winked. “Though what Canterlotlians do in their free time is none of my business. If nothing else, it'll make me giggle next time I see Twilight. Heeheehee!”

The time traveler hissed, tearing up slightly as she got used to the way in which her wings were being squished against her hide. At least the armor she built for herself in the future allowed room to breathe. “Are you just gonna come out and tell me what town this is or are we gonna keep it a guessing game?”

“Do you like berets?”

Harmony gnawed on her lip. “Should I...?”

With priceless timing, the earth pony slapped a small green cap over the time traveler's amber-streaked mane. “It used to belong to Daddy when he served in the Zebraharan Conflict for the Celestial Defense Corps. Trust me: just like him, you'll learn to like it.” She then blinked her blue eyes towards the ceiling. “Or wait, maybe that was vodka.”

Harmony shook her head so that her eyes could see beneath the brim of the beret. A sly hiss through clenched teeth: “Oh, I do like a challenge...”

As you can tell, I didn't know where I was, and it bothered me to no end. I faintly remembered—from my foalhood—a fateful ride through Ponyville on my scooter with Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Pinkie Pie trailing behind in the wagon. Miss Pie had spent the better part of the flighty afternoon regaling us with how “Equestria was made.” Don't ask.

In short, she had mentioned something about a rock farm and two sisters and a mother and a father and a sonic rainboom. She made no mention of the town she lived in, or the providence of Equestria, or the friggin' continent for that matter. From the first moment I heard her father's voice, I knew that her family had to have been northerners to some degree, but even that was very little to go on.

It goes without saying that utter confusion is anything but an alien feeling when one jumps backwards in time. A pony can never really tell when or where she might end up. It's not like how it's written in literature; a time traveler can't just reach out and grab a random issue of Equestria Daily from a streetside waste basket and suddenly know the exact time she's at, the exact place she's at, the kind of weather to expect, whether or not the Canterlotlian Sunspots are winning the pennant, who's being elected as new mayor of Ponyville, what eligible bachelor Sapphire Shores is flashing goo-goo eyes at, or any of that crud.

It's fitting that I've constantly been able to use and re-use my guise as a “Canterlotlian Clerk”—because my pretend job is almost as concrete as my real job. I'm an observer and I go into the past to observe things. When I visited Sweet Apple Acres, I observed what was going on before I knew that there were trolls to deal with. When I dropped in on Fluttershy, I observed her mother mentioning the fallen Capricorn from the stars before I figured out what I had to do next.

I was no less an observer in Pinkie Pie's situation. My biggest mistake was forgetting that. I certainly couldn't have been blamed; being dragged around by Pinkie Pie can easily make anypony forget the task at hoof, whether or not it's the last pony. Being zapped back to the present via green flames was definitely an eye-opener, so I made it my goal on the second trip—before I could possibly lose my anchor's cohesion—that I was going to take things slowly, even if Pinkie Pie wasn't one to do “slowly.”

Oddly enough, it was something of a blessing that my second time jump brought me to where Pinkie Pie was: in the presence of her family. As dark and as dismal and as disconcerting as it was—I could handle it. I'm used to dark and dismal and disconcerting. The very landscape that I saw around her farmhouse felt like a home-away-from home to me. Wonderfully enough, that sensation wasn't depressing. Quite the opposite: it brought me back in touch with my calmer side, my rational side, my cooler side.

I had gone about it all wrong when I let Pinkie Pie's rambunctiousness get the best (or worst) of my temper. If I was to observe anything, to ascertain an iota of sense from her landscape, to so much as find a niche for my anchor as well as find a launch pad for my Onyx Eclipse stargazing, I had to practice something that I had almost forgotten I was good at, something that had helped me immensely when I also had to make a second trip to Applejack's life. I had to re-acquaint myself with persistence. It was undoubtedly going to be a monumental challenge, but I've encountered crazy things before and came out alive. Have I ever written you about the Ursa Major?

Another mistake I realized I had made was a selfish one. The first time I jumped into Pinkie Pie's presence, I was far too concerned with myself. I acted as if every giddy and joyful thing she did was an affront to my plans and my aspirations in time travel or stargazing to begin with. I needed to remind myself that this whole experiment with Spike was not—and still isn't—about me. After all, what was the worst that could possibly have happened to me? A collapsing farm silo and a resonating unicorn horn had taught me a thing or two about worst case scenarios.

Alas, my venture into the past was an existential one. If I did anything to let myself get tossed back through the laughing tunnels of flaming green magic, my mission was a failure. Any time I spent cohesively in the past—just for the sake of being able to spend it—would have been a victory. Even if I never got to chart the stars the way I wanted to, there could only be success for me there alongside Pinkie. Why? Because no other pony in the history of existence has ever had or ever will have the opportunity I do to make this trip in the first place, to be someplace where no one—not even Spike—is allowed to go.

But you were there, of course. You were always there, just like you're here now. You are forever and yet you are never. It should be you writing this journal, and not me. But, if that was the case, where would the challenge be? I'm happy—scratch that, I am proud to be able to write this, to experience it as a challenge, whereas for you it is a meaningless and frivolous thing that you couldn't possibly understand. I know that this gives me an actual edge over you. If I have Pinkie Pie to thank for this, then it's a dang good thing that I didn't quit on her after all. But it would be a long time—a friggin' long and arduous time—before I would have the audacity to give in completely, before I would have the grace to laugh.

Harmony shuffled nervously, her every step an awkward thing as she found herself sporting a turquoise vest, a pair of black athletic trunks, and a green beret in broad daylight. Under an overcast sky, a humming Pinkie Pie bouncily trotted alongside her, wearing white shorts, a white straw hat, and a garishly colored shirt replete with illustrations of palm trees, tropical flowers, and pineapples. Offsetting the absurd end of this picture was Inkie, who simply wore a very modest nurse's coat with a matching white cap.

Tossing a saddlebag full of medical supplies over her garbed shoulder, Inkie managed a wry smirk in the pegasus' direction. “I see Pinkamena found you something that could fit. I suppose it would have been better if somepony had warned you about the local town's code for public attire.”

“Oh no... no...” Harmony returned with a plastic smile as she hobbled, hobbled, and finally trotted in an even pace. The three fillies marched away from the lone farm residing on the bosom of a grand and desolate stony plateau. “I love feeling like a walking sardine can who's just come back from the service.”

Inkie flashed Pinkie a scathing look. “Sis, could you at least have cut some holes in the sides of that vest for Harmony? Besides, haven't you had that old thing hanging around since the Winter Wrap-Up before last?”

“Don't be silly! Ponies breathe through their nostrils, not their ribcages! You should know that! You're a registered nurse!”

“Of course.” Inkie nodded and managed a breathy giggle. “It's so good to have you back, Pinkamena. Just try not to run Harmony here ragged. Not everypony grew up with your knack for giggles.”

“A little late on the draw there, Inkessa—er—Inkie,” Harmony said.

“Oh?”

Harmony tiredly squinted the gray mare's way. “Ever had to inexpicably dismantle a sea mine before?”

“Can't say that I have. Pinkie, did you force this representative from Canterlot here to take apart explosive ordinance?”

“Huh... I can't remember!” Blue eyes blinked in the pegasus' direction. “Tell me, Har-Har, was that before or after I showed you the ogre football?”

“Ughhh... Never mind.” Harmony sighed and glanced up at the constant soup of overcast skies. “Epona help me, how can I see stars through that?” she muttered to the air.

“You fancy yourself a stargazer, huh?” Inkie remarked.

The time traveler's Entropan Heart ever so briefly leaped. “How'd you guess?”

“Well, you are from Canterlot, right? Why else would you be sporting such an elaborate cutie mark?” She readjusted her nurse's cap and continued trotting with the other two down a long, long beaten path descending towards what looked like a canyon beyond. “I always figured that ponies from Canterlot were all about 'stars' and 'celestial this' and 'celestial that.' There're shrines in the royal study halls built in honor of magicians and astronomers from all corners of history... from Starswirl the Bearded to Cantercomet the Many Colored...”

“Is this all because of the reading you've done about Canterlot General Hospital?” Harmony questioned with genuine interest.

“Mmmhmmm. Assuming I ever get out of this place,” Inkie said. “But still, there's a lot of work to be done here. Even if opportunity knocks on my door, I can't leave until I'm ready.”

“What's stopping you?”

Inkie took a deep breath, her expression matching the solemn gray hues she was born with. “Lives. Many, precious lives.”

Harmony raised an eyebrow to the brim of her beret..

Several distant farms dotted the horizon. As the gravel path that the three traversed dipped lower and lower towards a looming ravine beyond, Harmony became aware of a thickening stream of traffic joining them. Trotting in from all walks of life, from various farmsteads and rock quarries, dozens upon dozens of gray-weathered ponies joined what turned out to be a steady and ritualistic surge of life. The citizens were serious-faced, deadpan equines solemnly dressed in muted colors with monochromatic headgear. The mares wore plain and unassuming dresses, and the stallions were adorned in dull brown work duds. This burgeoning line of traffic poured as one towards a lone town densely packed into what turned out to be a labyrinthine series of thin stone trenches carved into the surface of the granite world yawning beyond.

“Uhm...” Harmony spoke up in a voice that sounded more like an introspective airship pilot than a frustrated “Canterlotlian Clerk” anchored to Pinkie Pie. “I couldn't help but notice that Mrs. Pie isn't exactly in the best of health.” A gentle blue pond lingered under a fresh afternoon thundershower in her foalish mind. “If it's not too forward of me to ask, what is her affliction?”

“It's not too much to ask,” Inkie said, seizing the call to address a serious question with a serious answer. “The whole town knows about it, because there are many other ponies suffering from the same thing.” She shuffled aside with Harmony and Pinkie in tow, making room for a series of drawn wagons carrying various barrels of rocks into the heart of the burrowed town. “Our mother's got an acute case of Upper Respiratory Metallurgic Decay, otherwise known as 'Immolatia.'”

“Immolatia...” Harmony took a deep breath. A pair of white stones flickered across her amber eyes. “Why, isn't the lead cause of that—?”

“—exposure to infernite.” The nurse nodded. Inkie glanced aside as several families of farmponies joined their march down into the abysmal streets. “This is a mining town, after all.”

“It... is?” Harmony glanced up suddenly at a rusted sign riveted to a stretch of granite wall that rose above their descent.

The sign read: “City of Dredgemane: Gultophine's Refuge.”

“Ah... So it is.” The last pony gulped, sucking in a breath. “Hoboy.”