Octavia sighed and took water, and looked at each of them with her familiar, stony expression. They looked back similarly, on each of their faces writ the same mixture of pity and amazement at what they had just heard—rather, the fact of hearing it at all. Pinkie hugged her first, then Vinyl, and Rainbow after a moment’s self-conscious hesitation.

“And for all of this, I am deeply sorry,” Octavia said. “You know that, but I have to say it.”

“I’m just taking it all in,” Rarity said. “You’ve been holding onto this for how long?”

“Most of my life.” She looked at the sky, at the shapes of the mountains coming closer.

“It’s good to get it out,” Fluttershy said.

“Yes.”

Fluttershy fluffed her wings. “It is, right?”

“You’re still shaken,” Vinyl said. “Anyone would be.”

“I feel fine,” Octavia said. “I feel…” She got up, and no one joined her at the gunwale, where she mumbled something into the wind. She came back to them. “I feel no better and no worse, if you want the awful truth. That is my secret, the reason I have become the mare I am, but saying it to you all now, I am realizing that that is not who I am today.”

Vinyl smiled. “Who are you?”

“By my reckoning, I am just some small, sad pony who let things get out of control.” She floated up her brunch, cold on the deck with their cards, and turned toward the back. “If you will excuse me, I would like to be alone for a time. Please let me know if the sky changes.”

They let her go, looking at one another mutely, all eyes finally settling on Pinkie.

“It’s all true,” Pinkie said. “She was exaggerating in some parts, like how miserable certain bits were, but it’s all true. I haven’t thought about Tumble Tower in forever.”

“So that drunk, Joyful Weaver, got him?” Rainbow asked.

“We always assumed he or a friend of his stabbed him or shot him or something, in town, and he tried to make it to the farm. I had no idea Octavia had seen him.” She shook her head. “I always figured it was the money thing that had made her so…” She glanced at the ship’s back. “You know.”

“It explains why she has such a thing about inaction,” Rarity said.

“I feel bad for her,” Vinyl said.

“I’m not sure,” Rainbow said. “Part of me feels bad, but you gotta admit…”

“Well, she just did admit it,” Big Mac said.

“No, what I mean is—I mean, let’s face it, we’re all sorry for her now ‘cause we know her, but that’s a pretty terrible thing to do to somepony.”

“You kinda see where she’s coming from, blaming herself,” Vinyl said. “I do too.”

“It’s despicable,” Fluttershy said. “But also… I’m not sure.”

“Someone should go down and talk to her,” Rainbow said.

“Let her be,” Vinyl said. “She’ll come up when she’s ready.” She looked around at them and noticed that Colgate had already gone below.

Octavia was in the shower, and Colgate stood outside, not sure what to do with herself. The others would notice her absence and assume she had gone to talk, but she could not go into the bathroom and disrupt Octavia’s privacy. She looked at her shadow on the wall, a huge obstacle in the corridor, and feared for a moment that Octavia somehow knew she was waiting there, that she had already disrupted Octavia and ruined her chances to do—what? She wasn’t even sure.

She retreated to one of the cabins and waited, amusing herself by seeing what she could learn about her friends by the way their room was kept. Applejack had been reading on the religious implications of flesh and blood divinity, and related subjects; she could tell because hers was the only bookmark with no magical residue on it, and the fact that Big Mac and Pinkie rarely read. Twilight was going to begin trying her divination again, from the face mask lying on top of a pile of unrelated papers and materials.

She feigned calm when Octavia entered with a towel on her head. The two shared eye contact for a moment before Octavia settled on a cushion and put a hoof to her forehead. “How did I know that you would follow me down here?”

Colgate froze, and Octavia spared her further worry. “Not that I am upset with you. It is just funny.”

“Funny?”

“Never mind.”

“Uh-huh. So this puts your earlier words into perspective for me.”

“I would imagine it does.”

“Am I to assume that when you’re talking about forgiveness, it’s more of the self-forgiveness variety? Like you wanna forgive yourself for that Tumble pony.”

“That is correct.”

“Hm.” After a minute of thought, Colgate continued. “Do you feel better when you hear of other ponies’ trials? Some folks do, it makes them feel less alone out there.”

“I do not, but you are welcome to share one of your trials with me, if you so wish.”

Colgate shrugged. “Nothing new. Well, at least you can move on now. You said you wanted to be happy again, and now this thing’s off your chest, so you can do it. Right? Unless you withheld, which is always a possibility.” She stopped herself, realizing that she had maybe said too much. Octavia was a friend, and to say something to offend her, it prompted in Colgate the usual fear reaction.

“I withheld nothing important,” Octavia said. “Mostly, it is details I have forgotten. In the mansion, for instance, my perception of time was not the best.”

“Here’s to that,” Colgate said, tapping an imaginary glass.

“Oh?”

“Canterlot for me. Remember the painkillers?”

“Ah, yes. You do not act like someone who had a drug problem.”

“And you would know this how?”

“I was famous for a long time. I have known several ponies with addictions of one sort or another. There are some ponies who I have never seen sober, or even close to it.”

“I take it you never messed around with that kinda stuff.”

“I experimented once or twice, but nothing serious took place. I was afraid of becoming like the ponies I saw around me. More to the point, I was afraid of losing the limelight. This was before I saw that I was going to lose it some other way.”

“Power to ya,” Colgate said. “Drugs can be tricky things. Ask Vinyl, she’ll tell you.”

Octavia raised an eyebrow.

“In Snowdrift, when we came out. Took her all of two seconds to find the bottle of wine she’d stashed, and a lot longer to find the teacups and saucers and things. She’d committed that bottle’s location to memory. Plus, it was on her breath when she took us to our airship.”

“Yes, I noticed that,” Octavia said with a frown.

“It’s nothing serious now.”

Octavia moved from the cushion to the bed. “Okay, you have my interest. How can you know this about her? I doubt she has told you anything.”

“No shakes, no signs of a headache or anything like that, mood seems stable. There’s nothing lying around that can be used as a bottle opener, no dirty glasses or conspicuously clean ones among dirty glasses.” Colgate rolled her eyes back, thinking. “She doesn’t look nervous around us. Eyes are steady.”

“You cannot see her eyes.”

“I can see when she sees things. She’s paying attention to the same stuff everyone else is.” She tapped her head. “Vinyl’s focused, she’s with us.”

“How much of that do you do on the spot?” Octavia asked.

“How much of what?”

“Your lists of observations. I know, when I did music, I would sometimes stray from the path if I felt it appropriate. Do you do the same thing?”

“You’re asking if I improvise what I see.”

“If you figure it out as you talk. Did you truly notice Vinyl’s eye movements earlier, or did you just remember it now and put it in with everything else you were saying?”

“I don’t know. I just do it, I don’t analyze.”

Octavia sighed. “For me, that would be maddening.”

“You’re maddened now.”

“…I will give you that. What I mean is that I could not stand not knowing how a talent like that worked, if I had it.”

“You got other talents.”

“That does not keep me from being jealous of yours. A common conceit, I am aware.” She shrugged and said without much feeling, “such is my weakness.”

“You’re fine.” Colgate scanned the room. Talk of her observational powers had quietly excited her, and she tried it on Octavia; she didn’t find anything that interested her. “You can be jealous of my brain if you want, but I’m jealous of yours. You artistic ponies always baffle me.”

“How is that?”

“I think it’s the creativity. The ability to make something out of nothing has always been outside my grasp, it’s felt like.”

“Forgive me,” Octavia said, “but it has always seemed to me that you are quite creative yourself. You find solutions to problems that I could never think of.”

“That’s different, that’s just solving puzzles. Like…” She looked at a wall hanging, realizing what she was doing.

“Okay?”

“I’m talking too much,” Colgate thought, and the fear grabbed at her. So much material to be used against her, she had blithely spoken it aloud, and in Octavia’s time of need, much the worse. She thought of what her friend had said about selfishness, and wondered whether she was being selfish. She looked at Octavia, reclining on the bed, casually manipulating a corner of sheet with her magic. Colgate sighed, and Octavia looked at her.

“What is wrong?”

“You’re suffering,” Colgate said. A clinical statement of fact, comforting even before Octavia agreed. “So I shouldn’t be talking about other stuff, because you’d rather address this problem here. I’m sorry, I got sidetracked. You told me—”

“Colgate, I do not want to talk about the story I just told.”

“Sure?” She looked at Octavia for a time, envisioning her as she might a patient, weary of her malady. Such patients were often slow to accept hope when it was offered, so Colgate knew to push.

“I am not particularly upset about it. I was fully expecting to be. I expected tears and rage; months ago, I would have brought those things. But now, I do not know.”

“Tears and rage,” Colgate said to herself, imagining the feelings associated with them.

“I do not want to speak at length about it because I am afraid further dissection of my secret will prompt those tears and rage from me. At present, I feel calm, perhaps a little silly for holding onto it for as long as I did. I would rather work with that, and move on from there.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Colgate said, not really understanding. “Shall we continue talking about art?”

“Anything,” Octavia said. “Let us speak of anything, as long as it is not important.”

By the ship’s clock, it was approaching ten at night, but the sun was only creeping up to the perch of high noon. Applejack leaned on the gunwale beside the wheel, a cold cup of coffee by her hoof, as she wove them between storm clouds and air streams. The mountains were well in sight, and Twilight had confirmed the general area they needed to aim for. The deck was still cluttered from dinner and another card game, their first that day having been stopped when Octavia decided to spill her story. A small, petty part of Applejack was grumpy that Octavia had spoiled their game, but it didn’t bother her. She knew that everyone felt similar, selfish impulses, things they didn’t really mean, things so insignificant that they didn’t bear mentioning. Unlike Octavia, though, she knew that these thoughts did not make her a bad pony.

One aspect of Octavia’s story had stuck out to Applejack, and at the wheel, with but herself for company, she was free to explore it as best she could. It had hit her as peculiarly deep for someone like Octavia, whom she had never known to philosophize with much nuance. Using her own petty thought as subject, she asked herself how much the thought mattered.

The case of Tumble Tower’s death, she had concluded, clearly did matter. It had affected Octavia in a profound way, and she had gone on to affect others in ways that she would not if her past had been different. Applejack had chewed on her use of the word “ramify” to describe the suffering of others, its tendency to spread through networks of observers to affect them. It was easy to see how suffering mattered in cases like that, but where she found herself unable to continue was when she took away the aspect of ramification. Tumble Tower had also died in a near perfect vacuum, and if Octavia had not been there to witness it, Applejack was not positive that his passing “mattered.” The discovery of his body later mattered, but was different from the action of dying, she eventually concluded. The precise moment when his spirit left his flesh, Applejack was not sure how much weight the instant carried. She had thought in circles about it for hours.

She reached up to adjust her hat, which she had lost in Tartarus, and shook her head with a smile. If she had time—“And we better. It’s just a hat, for Celestia’s sake,” she thought—she meant to find a new one in Snowdrift. She had considered consulting Rarity for a hat that would look best on her, but then decided she would go with her own preference instead.

“You look like you could use some comp’ny, partner,” Pinkie drawled as she sauntered over.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Applejack said. “Pinkie, my friend, Ah’ve been up here navel-gazin’ fer hours. Ah feel like if Ah go fer a minute more, Ah’m gonna lose my head.”

“It’s a lot to take in,” Pinkie said, leaning on the gunwale, stretching her neck over in a way that made Applejack’s stomach turn over.

“Sure is. How do you take it, you bein’ her sister an’ all?”

“Aaaaactually, I’m kinda mad at her.” She lowered her voice and looked around, but Octavia was nowhere in sight, nor Colgate either. “I get that she let Tumble Tower croak, that’s fine. Not fine, not, like, ‘oh, big deal, whatever,’ but I get it, I totally get her freezing like that. It was still a garbage thing to do, but I get it, I don’t even really blame her for that, I don’t think. Nah, I don’t.” She shook her head. “I don’t see why she has to ruin her whole life about it, that’s what I don’t get.”

“She takes those sorts of things seriously, Ah guess,” Applejack said, immediately wishing she had chosen her words differently.

“Yeah, and I don’t!” Pinkie cried. “Good one!”

“That’s not what Ah meant, Pinkie. Ah’m sorry.”

Pinkie stood up and flailed her hooves dramatically, taking a deep breath, but then let it out slowly. “Whatever.”

“Ah mean—”

“I know what you mean!” She glared at a passing cloud. “She takes failure and internalizes it and makes it a part of herself and hates herself for it and doesn’t know how to forgive, yeah, I get that, I’ve known that for forever. She’s my sister, I’ve known that even before she went all weird. She glossed over how she was like that even before we all split from the farm.”

Applejack just nodded.

“Maybe she didn’t see it like I did,” Pinkie said slowly. “She wasn’t ever much fun to be around, she was always such a serious pony. Everything was serious to her, AJ.”

“Ah get that impression.”

“No, I mean like everything. Like how she talked about Limestone being sensitive to stuff, her getting upset at things more easily?” Pinkie threw a hoof in the air, blowing air through her lips. “Same deal with Octy, she just got all mopey and quiet. I’m sorry for this, I’m sorry for that, blah blah blah. You know, if you apologize for everything, it stops meaning anything after a while.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

“If it wasn’t Tumble Tower, it would’ve been something else,” Pinkie finally said. “Maybe the specific effects would’ve been different, but it would’ve been the same thing at the end of the day. You might not have gotten this either from how she talked about it, but life on the farm wasn’t that bad. Compared to Ponyville, it was kinda crummy, but we didn’t know that.”

“Can’t miss what you never had.”

“Exactly. We were fine. Tumble Tower was the first big tragic shock we had.”

“Not Maud leavin’?”

“Everyone expected it. That last trip to Ponyville she told you about, everyone knew it was the last time we’d be seeing her. We had time to emotionally prepare, is what I’m saying. Gird our hearts. That’s another thing! She made Maud leaving sound so insignificant, like it was just something that happened! Like it was the first domino leading up to her… Ugh.”

“Ah’m not followin’.”

“I feel crappy saying it, AJ,” Pinkie said, suddenly sad. “She’s already done the whole ‘I’m so selfish, I’m so terrible’ thing so much, I feel silly saying it about her, ‘cause it’s like duh, of course she is. Ugh, I’ll just say it. She framed her story like it all revolved around her, like Maud leaving… I dunno, I guess like I said, like it was that first domino that led to her big Tumble Tower tragedy. Don’t you think that’s insulting for it to be presented that way? It was more than just a first step, at least it was to us all.”

“Ah hadn’t thought about that,” Applejack said. “It’s a little self-centered, but at the same time, the story was supposed to be about her, right? She might not see Maud that way, but just chose to describe it like that to put some order to events.”

“Mmm, maybe. I like that explanation better, so I’m gonna take it. Still, all that’s beside the point.” She shook her head.

“You can’t believe she let it get to her so bad.”

“That it almost drove her mad in that big, dumb house of hers? That’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.”

“It’s… that’s a dicey topic, Pinkie. Ah don’t think she can be blamed fer takin’ it that way. Lettin’ it get out of control is another thing, but just bein’ depressed an’ freaked out, that makes sense to me. Like you said, if it wasn’t him, it would’ve been somethin’ else, so she was clearly predisposed to that sort of depression.”

“I know what you’re gonna say, that I can’t get mad at someone for their natures, ‘cause they can’t control it. Well, what if I’m mad anyway?”

“Well…”

“It’s not just that she was dealt a bad hand, I’ll agree with that, to a point anyway. I’m just not convinced that she’s trying to help herself, or ever did try to help herself. How can you get so deep into something like that?”

“Again, that’s pretty dicey. You don’t know how hard she tried, ‘cause you weren’t with her all those years in Hoofington.”

“Psh. I can guess.”

“No you can’t. She lost her marbles there, we’ll agree on that, but that don’t necessarily mean she wasn’t tryin’ to save herself. Might be, she tried an’ failed. Could be she didn’t have a good support system, or it could be she never learned how to deal with feelin’s like that. Whatever it was, you can’t be mad at someone fer failin’ somethin’ they legitimately tried.”

“But we don’t know if she tried. You said that.”

“Ah did. So ain’t it better to give her the benefit of the doubt?”

Pinkie leaned on the gunwale again and looked out at the passing sky, then down at the pine forest spotted with farms and villages. When she spoke again, she was calm. “If it was someone she knew who was always putting her down and reminding her of her failures and telling her she wasn’t good enough or didn’t deserve stuff, you know what I’d do? I’d march right up to them and smack ‘em! How dare you do that to my big sister? What kind of pony does that to someone else? But it’s her doing it to herself, so I can’t smack ‘em. I’d like to, but I know she’d just take that wrong too, and it… The whole thing, it just doesn’t work, Applejack, and I guess that’s the worst thing about it.”

“You feel powerless to help her. Ah understand that.”

“Not only powerless. She’s fought me on it before. She doesn’t want my help.”

Applejack thought of Tartarus, what she had overheard Octavia telling Colgate. She had not interfered, but knew that Octavia was as tired of it as Pinkie. She was not sure whether it was wise to tell Pinkie, though, for one thing Applejack saw that Pinkie did not seem to, was that Octavia simply did not like her sister very much. How might her efforts be soured if Pinkie, encouraged, involved herself in Octavia’s personal growth?

She sighed and said, “We all have to find our paths, Pinkie. If it makes you feel any better, Ah’ve got it on pretty good authority that she’s lookin’ at this whole thing pretty seriously.” She flicked her ears pointedly.

“She’s eating again, anyway,” Pinkie said. “So that’s something.”

“Give her space. Her confessin’ today, that says a lot, but Ah think it would be a mistake fer any of us to crowd her about it.”

“Yeah, I know. She always wants space.”

“Some ponies do better that way. You gotta respect it.”

“I never got that.”

“You don’t gotta get it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Pinkie sighed. “Thanks for listening, AJ.”

“Feelin’ better?”

“A little.”

“Then Ah’m happy to help.” She shaded her eyes and aimed them at a shred of low cloud. “Ah’ll be here a while still. Ah wanna get us past all this weather, so if you’ve got more on yer mind, stick around.”

“I don’t wanna make it all about me, AJ. I’m sure you’ve got stuff to say too.”

“Sure Ah do. Tell you what, if you bring more coffee, we’ll sit up an’ have a nice, long talk. Ah wanna get yer thoughts on somethin’.”

“Great! I’ll be back in a jiff!” She turned a circle before finding the coffee mug and dashing back to the captain’s quarters, where Twilight had set up the beginnings of her new divination attempt. No acrid smoke had leaked under the doors yet, but Applejack would occasionally see strange lights through the windows, or hear Twilight talking to herself.

Pinkie returned with two steaming mugs of coffee and sat down. “There’s actually something else I wanted to ask you,” she said.

“Go fer it.”

“She was talking a lot about fear, and how it can stop a pony from doing the right thing, and you almost touched on it earlier, about how you can’t blame somepony for their natures. But if it’s in your nature to be afraid, and if that fear then makes you do bad things, then… Do you see where I’m going? How much can you fault them?”

“Ah’m sure Ah don’t know off the top of my head.” She went to adjust her hat again. “Yeah, that’s a puzzler. Ah’m inclined to say not at all at first, but that don’t make sense if you unpack it. Ah guess it’s in how strong the fear is?”

“It’s pretty strong.”

Applejack looked at her for a moment. “Let’s make this easier fer ourselves. There’s two kinds of fear, the kind that’ll make you not act, an’ the kind that will. We’ll take the kind that makes you not do a thing first, since that was what hit Octavia in her story. Paralyzin’ fear, we’ll call it.”

“That’s the kind I’m talking about.”

“Well, then we’ll go with that.” She thought for some time, and Pinkie watched her. “Ah’m reminded of somethin’ Ah read in one of Twilight’s books, ‘bout the separation of a pony’s nature an’ her actions that come out of it. The book didn’t say much, just that there’s some fine line somewhere where you gotta hold someone accountable fer their actions, an’ it’s the job of such-and-such legal ponies out there to find that line. Courtroom stuff, Ah won’t pretend to understand it. But it got me thinkin’, where is that line? An’ also, can it move? Ah’m sure yer sister would argue that it can’t, but Ah ain’t so sure.”

“Like if a crazy pony does something crazy, is it their fault?”

“Precisely. Now a lot of folks would say it ain’t, ‘cause they can’t help it. That’s a right fine way to look at things, but a bit rosy-eyed, if y’ask me, ‘cause it don’t really help anyone in a practical sense. So you killed this innocent pony, but yer completely crazy, so yer technically not at fault. That’s great, but it don’t do anythin’ fer the grievin’ family, it don’t bring the victim back. It makes me wonder what the point of it all is, that method of thinkin’.”

“Uhh, well…”

“Course, the obvious flaw with my line of questionin’ is that it assumes that someone needs to be found guilty, or someone needs to be held accountable, an’ that ain’t true either.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, it ain’t, least Ah don’t think it is. It works as a basis fer a legal or moral system ‘cause those systems tend to operate best when there’s a black-and-white idea in place. Know what Ah mean? Like practically speakin’, we gotta be able to hold ponies accountable fer things, so havin’ a system where the goal is figurin’ out where to put the blame makes sense.”

“You’re losing me, partner. No, you’ve lost me already, actually.”

Applejack chuckled. “Sorry. Ah’m new to a lot of this too.”

“You don’t sound like it.”

“That’s ‘cause Ah’m just goin’ by the seat of my saddle. Ah ain’t givin’ you a chance to bring any counterpoints up.”

“That’s assuming I’ve got any.”

“Fair enough.” She cleared her throat. “So, uh, how to put it? Ah’ve got this image in my head of how it works. Let’s take a pair of scales, okay? Like what you’d use at a feed an’ seed shop, or somethin’, an’ on each side are the parties in question. There’s the pony who did the thing, or is said to have done the thing, an’ on the other is the pony what they did it to, or who was affected by the thing bein’ done.”

Pinkie rolled her head back and forth.

“The prosecutin’ party an’ the defendant, let’s say. That’s simpler. In any sort of legal or moral exchange, we gotta assume that someone’s at fault, so the purpose of the discussion is to find out which side of the scale to put the blame on. But my thinkin’ is, in the case of craziness, or overwhelmin’ fear, or what have you, then findin’ fault kinda becomes unimportant.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Well, in my scale example, say the defendant is crazy, not in control of her actions. The blame can’t rest on her, right? So in that black an’ white system, if it ain’t on her, it’s gotta be on the victim, but that don’t make sense either. So the conclusion is that no one’s at fault.”

“But doesn’t that just end up with no one changing anything? Doesn’t that just mean that the crazy pony goes on being crazy, and ponies just have to deal with that?”

“That’s what Ah’d think,” Applejack said. “So in answer to that question, Ah don’t know. Ah don’t know where to go from there, once findin’ blame has been thrown out the window. In a case like Octavia’s, Ah’d say findin’ the fault doesn’t help anyone, but not findin’ fault is equally unhelpful. So where does that leave us? Ah don’t rightly know.” She took her coffee and blew on it. “One good thing is, since it’s still light out, these won’t get cool fast.”

“Where did you read all that stuff about blame and scales?”

“What, all that? Ah told you, Ah’m goin’ by the seat of my saddle. Ah made it up. Ah think it makes sense, though.”

“I guess it does.”

“What Ah really wanna do is corner Twilight one of these days an’ get her thoughts on all of this.”

“Fault and fear?”

“Not necessarily that. Ah’m thinkin’ broader, like life, an’ philosophy, an’ spirituality, all that good stuff. It’s a safe bet she’d be havin’ me scratchin’ my head just like Ah’ve got you doin’.”

“You can leave me out of that, if you like.”

Applejack laughed. “Point taken, Pinkie. So to get back to yer original question, an’ tryin’ to avoid all the speculatin’ and stuff, Ah’d say it depends. Depends on the nature of the fear, how debilitatin’ it is to the pony, an’ also how serious the infraction is that results from her succumbin’ to that fear.”

“Okay, so let’s take Octy’s example again, and say someone’s so scared of… whatever, that she doesn’t save someone’s life.”

“Ah guess let’s start by definin’ that ‘whatever’ of yers.”

Pinkie sipped her coffee. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.” She thought, and Applejack attended the wheel, steering them into a smoother air current. “Scared of her nature, maybe,” Pinkie said. “She’s so scared of the weakness that she sees in herself that she doesn’t want anypony to hold her to any expectations. She’s scared of responsibility, so she—”

“So she pretends she doesn’t have any responsibility,” Applejack said. “An’ that results in a friend’s death. All right, let’s explore.”

In a small voice, Pinkie said, “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Ah’d say it’s pretty bad. That sounds like the sort of thing you can overcome.”

“Right.”

“But let’s not write it off that way. What sort of responsibility are we dealin’ with here? Rather, what sort of it is she dealin’ with?”

“She doesn’t know, ‘cause she’s never dealt with something like it before.”

“Fair. So that’d become more like fear of the unknown, wouldn’t it? Now that’s a fair bit more relatable.”

“All she knows for sure is she’s being called to action in a way she hasn’t before, and she knows if she does something, she won’t be able to go back on it. Like everyone else is gonna see her in a new light now.”

“Now it’s soundin’ like fear of personal change. Which, Ah guess, is the same thing as fear of the unknown, just dressed up different.”

“It sounds a lot less solid when you call it that, though. Fear of personal change sounds silly.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Well, it does to me.”

“All right, let’s explore that. ‘Cause Ah know fer sure Ah disagree with you.”

“Oh, umm, well…”

“Fer me, personal change is a positive thing. Like flat out, it’s always good fer ya.”

“Mm, no.” She paused at Applejack’s blank expression. “Like if you change for the worse for something that happened to you. Like if something bad happens and you wind up becoming a bitter pony after that, or really angry all the time. That’s personal change, and that’s bad.”

“That’s a good point, but ain’t it true that if yer the sort to become like that, then it don’t really matter what happens to ya? You said that if it wasn’t Tumble Tower that did Octavia in, it would’ve been something else. So…” She paused and thought ahead to what she was trying to say, checking if she thought it was sound. “If yer the pony to end up becoming angry or bitter, like you said, as a result of something that happened, then you sort of already are that pony, right?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think a pony’s predisposition is her true personality.”

“But it colors that personality a good deal, Ah’d say. Doesn’t change it, ‘cause to change something implies a deeper, more foundational change to the characteristics of the pony in question, but it makes that personality come out stronger. So goin’ off that, then this bitter pony of ours would only be doin’ personal change, real change, to get out of that bitter mindset, an’ that would involve changin’ her foundation. Or addin’ to it in such a way as to get around all that negativity, Ah guess.”

“I dunno,” Pinkie said.

“Although, now you’ve got me thinkin’ it through, that’s kinda a double standard. ‘Cause if that bitter pony then wins the lottery or somethin’, then she’s happy for a while—is that a change, just ‘cause it’s positive?” She shook her head. “Ah dunno, Pinkie. To be honest, Ah’m startin’ to feel kinda lost in this. Let’s get back to your original question.” She smiled. “Again, Ah mean. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds with conversations like this.”

“Imagine how I feel.”

“Ah’d be willin’ to bet the only difference between you an’ me is Ah’ve got a little more practice talkin’ ‘bout these things. My words are comin’ out quicker than yers, so Ah’m comin’ off as the big philosopher. Trust me, Ah don’t feel that way.”

“Who else do you talk to about this?”

“Don’t laugh, but myself.”

“Really?”

“When Ah’m up here at the wheel fer long hours, sure, Ah’ll talk it out. Not at volume or anythin’, just under my breath. Ah like to take a broad topic, somethin’ like this, an’ let my mouth wander. You’d be surprised what you can learn ‘bout yerself if you do that.”

“I’ll have to try that.” She looked back out at the clouds. “Yeah, I’ll try.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just thinking.”

“Mm-hm.”

“I guess this isn’t what I was looking for when I came up to you. I was looking for… something else, not a super deep discussion. Nothing so intellectual, I guess you could say.” She frowned. “Gee, Pinkie Pie not wanting to do something intellectual? What a shock!”

“Where’s that comin’ from?”

“Forget it.”

“Hey.” She touched Pinkie’s shoulder. “Ah don’t want to ferget it. You said that fer a reason.”

Pinkie frowned deeper. “It’s fine.”

“Ah won’t try to pick apart whatever you’ve got to say. Ah’m sorry fer goin’ off on you like that, it’s just that Ah’ve been thinkin’ a lot lately, an’ Ah’m findin’ these things more an’ more interestin’. Ah enjoy talkin’ like that, an’ Ah don’t always realize when it’s too much.”

“No, that’s fine, I get it,” Pinkie said. “I’m just feeling self-conscious right now.”

Applejack nodded and smiled kindly. “Ah can tell.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I get touchy when I’m this way, is all. Honestly, it doesn’t help when conversations like this happen. Makes me feel boxed in, kinda like what I have to say doesn’t matter, and I can never keep up, so I either get bored or I feel like I’m dragging the other pony down.”

“You know that ain’t how we want you to feel.”

“Yeah, duh, that’s why I’m not mad at you, silly.” She forced a giggle. “Just mad in general, I guess. I’m frustrated with her, and a little bit at myself, and I’m a lot scared of the future. I’m unhappy, AJ, simple as that.”

Applejack nodded.

“Is that kind of fear bad?”

“Fear of the future?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah would argue that no fear is inherently bad, same as no emotion. It all depends on what you do with it.”

“So… Let me ask you this. If we take Octy’s example again and say that fear can stop someone from doing something good—no, let’s say ‘necessary,’ actually—then it’s pretty much only bad.”

“Ah’m tempted to discuss that, but Ah’ll agree with you on the face of it, sure. Paralyzin’ fear, probably universally bad.”

“Yet Octy’s a good pony. We can agree on that as well.”

“Mm. So was that initial, paralyzin’ fear actually good in the long run, but just bad in the moment? That’s an interestin’ question.”

“That’s actually not where I was going with it.”

“Ah, sorry then.”

“I was gonna ask whether the good and the bad cancel out, and if they do, what are we left with? She did a bad thing, but then became a good pony. She’d be the first to remind you that no amount of good she does undoes the bad in a real, physical way. So…” She swirled her coffee.

“You get used to talkin’ it out, don’t worry.”

“Thanks. That was very patronizing, Applejack.”

Applejack looked down. “Sorry.”

Pinkie gave a false smile. “Can someone truly redeem herself for something like that?”

Applejack sighed. “Ah haven’t considered anythin’ like that before.” She grinned. “Ah’m ready to go fer a while on it, if you wanna brew more coffee.”

“I… don’t think I can. I’m pooped already.”

“That’s fair,” she said, nodding. “Then how ‘bout this? My first impulse, my very first idea, is that yes, a pony can absolutely redeem herself fer somethin’ bad, even if it’s as bad as what Octavia did. Ah dunno how, an’ Ah can’t say whether she’s done it. Ah know the intention to make up fer a sin is pretty important, that has a place in all this. Ah guess it depends on—” She stopped, seeing Pinkie’s face. “Anyway. Ah won’t force ya to sit through more of my jawin’.”

“I’m sorry, Applejack. I am interested, it’s just… Maybe another time, when I’m prepared to put my thinking cap on. Deal?”

“You got it.” She clapped Pinkie on the wither. “Ah’ll think ‘bout yer question, an’ Ah’m sure Ah’ll have way too much to say ‘bout it next time we chat.”

“Sounds good to me,” Pinkie said. She took a deep breath and looked out at the sky a last time. For a second, she appeared to have something more to say, but she just walked away.

The following morning, they had slowed down to safely approach the Friesian Mountains, and with a view of the amber dawn as it reflected off the tops of scattered clouds, Rarity worked on Colgate’s injured side. Most of the glass had been removed, but Colgate knew there were still grains of it in her tissue, and it was with some reluctance that she ceded a razor and pair of tweezers to Rarity. Her entire side shorn to reveal the pale pink skin beneath, peppered with small and smaller wounds, she lay on a cushion and tried to think of anything but the other unicorn diligently picking at her.

“It’s a shame to have to remove all that fur,” Rarity said. “You have beautiful fur.”

“Mm?”

“I’ve always thought so, and it goes so well with your mane.” She clucked her tongue. “I’ve almost got this one.” She picked for a minute. “Got it. My dear, if you just smiled more, you could be a passable model.”

“That right?”

“Well not now, but back in Ponyville.” Under her breath, she added, “for Ponyville standards, anyway.”

“I’ve never thought about modeling.”

“I’m not trying to suggest that you would give up being a doctor for it, just that if you tried, you might enjoy some success.”

“If I got my smile right.”

“I think so.” She picked some more. “You’d need to fix your front teeth too, I suppose, but perhaps not.”

“What’s wrong with my teeth?”

“Dear.” Rarity clicked the tweezers and adjusted her glasses. “One second. This might hurt a little.”

Colgate closed her eyes as Rarity dug into an already tender spot. She felt certain that she was bleeding, but couldn’t see it. She hadn’t felt Rarity wipe that spot, and worried that she was probing blindly.

“Okay? I’m going to move up now. Stretch your legs a little, please. Now.” She paused for a time. “Your teeth are misaligned rather, er, conspicuously, and there’s a nasty scar on your lip.”

“Must’ve fallen down the stairs at some point.”

“Yes, we can go with that if you like.”

“I don’t like to.”

“What do you like?”

For a second, everything snapped into place for Colgate. She was vulnerable and immobile, with no way to escape Rarity’s questions. The usual fantasy ran off in her head, of getting up and running, never mind the wounds and the tweezers that would stab her on the way to her hooves.

“Relax, dear.”

“I am relaxed.”

Rarity put the tweezers aside. “I can tell you’re not.”

“That’s fine.”

Rarity considered, then picked up the tweezers again. “Very well. I’m going to poke at you a little more.”

Colgate endured the prickling pain, silently relieved. As Octavia and Applejack had in Tartarus, Rarity had been given an opportunity to hurt her, and passed it up. Colgate wondered how far she could trust Rarity, and dared then to wonder how far she could trust all the others.

“Do you know anything about Snowdrift?” Rarity asked.

“You all probably know more than me. I’ve never been there, and I’ve not heard any cool stories. Why should I know anything about it?”

“I was just asking, dear. We don’t know where you’ve been since Ponyville.”

“Mm. For the record, it’s been Ponyville and Canterlot for me. All my world travel happened after your lot picked me up.”

“A shame it had to happen under the circumstances it did,” Rarity said.

Colgate turned her head to view Rarity out of the corner of her eye. “Worked out okay for me.”

“Yes? Ah, yes, well, I seem to recall something about some unpleasantness in the big city.”

“You could say that. There were good times too, but I dunno, things got out of control quick there. One minute you’re kicking back in a hotel room, next you’re face down in the field with a bottle of rubbing alcohol.” She smiled, remembering the scene with her and Powder Rouge outside the watchpoint. “It occurs to me now that I had friends back there too. At least, I think I did.”

“What sorts of friends? I’d love to meet them, I’m sure.”

“Most of them were rejects.”

“Rejects?”

“Uhh, meaning they weren’t fit for their job duties, so they got to live in a kind of social quarantine.”

“You’ve lost me, darling.” She picked at a sore spot for what felt like five minutes, but hissed a quiet “yesss” when she finally removed the tweezers. “You would not believe how small these pieces are.”

“Feels like you’re pulling nails out of me.”

“I’m sure.” She wiped at Colgate’s skin. “Tell me about these rejects; you’ve got me curious. What did you mean by ‘social quarantine’?”

Colgate thought for a minute how much of the truth to tell. “We lived in a neighborhood together in the suburbs, just all each other’s neighbors. I think the point was that we’d all naturally clump together and distract each other, and stay out of trouble that way. I guess it worked.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I’m not sure. If I had to guess, the sort of trouble I’m in anyway, maybe. Maybe just some kind of magical prison out there somewhere, I don’t really know. I don’t know how it works.”

Rarity paused with the tweezers for a second. “Are you one of them?”

“I’m no troublemaker.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” She plucked at something and Colgate winced. “Sorry. Over our travels, we’ve noticed certain ponies who seem to know far more than they should. They know where we are and where we’re going, and usually what we’re up to. Rainbow Dash calls them secret agent ponies. For a long time, I thought she was crazy. So…”

Colgate sighed.

“I gather you’re not supposed to tell me if you are one of them. That’s fine. We can leave it at that, if you’d like. I don’t know anything, and you haven’t confirmed any suspicions I may have. Sound good?”

“That should be fine,” Colgate said slowly, and for several minutes after, she let Rarity work on her in silence. Another increment of trust: Rarity had just found her out, and instead of probing, instead of taunting, had simply let the matter drop. Colgate searched her brain for possible motives to come so close to the truth before backing away, and, finding none, felt herself warming. The urge to test Rarity sprang up, but it seemed tasteless to her, and she let the idea fizzle out. Instead, she turned her mind to Snowdrift, and, invigorated, examined the things she had noticed about the town in her short time there.

“There are some things we can learn about Snowdrift,” she began. “Before we go in. Things to prepare us.”

“We’re not going back there, are we?”

"I’d like to; seemed like an interesting burg.”

“I’d rather stay well away, if I had the choice.”

“To each her own.”

“But for the sake of argument, let’s continue. We know where the airship lot is, and I think I saw a hotel nearby as well, so that’s a good start.”

“We won’t want to use the airship lot. It was freezing when we took off, and you may have noticed that the lot wasn’t covered. Not only was it not covered, but there weren’t even places where one could conceivably set up some cover. If we need to make a hasty exit, that lot’s gonna be a big problem, ‘cause the ship’s gonna be good and frozen. Moreover, it’s uphill from the hotel you saw, so if we need to get there quickly, we’ll be tired from the run. Sweat and cold temperatures don’t mix.”

“I see. Well, we can always just settle in a field outside. That’s worked for us in the past.”

“If we can find a space, I dunno. Lots of trees around. I think our best bet’s gonna be the empty lot on the south side. You can see it pretty clearly from the dealership, at least I did.”

“With that big warehouse? At the end of the road.”

“That’s the one. Abandoned place like that, could be a good spot to do… whatever it is we’re doing, if we do anything.”

“You mean set something up there?”

“I envision Twilight doing her divination there, stinking up the room with her smoke and her coffee. You and Dash working out some kinda weird logistical issue, I dunno. I’m blue-skying, Rarity.”

“The fact that it was abandoned worries me,” Rarity said.

“Yes, that could be an issue.” She looked back on the walk through town, but had not been paying much attention at the early hour. “Uhh, the park was nice. I wouldn’t mind spending some time there.”

“I don’t remember it.”

“Yeah.” She endured more picking with the tweezers and the bite of rubbing alcohol, trying to picture Snowdrift as it had appeared when they were taking off. All she could recall was the vaguely oblong outline and the platinum sutures of its snowy streets, and the hundreds of acres of pine forest that surrounded.

The Sun Seeker came to rest on a flat shoulder off one of the northernmost mountains, and Applejack activated its built-in forcefield to keep the soft fur of snowfall off the deck. Twilight, from the back, alternated between her map and the telescope while Rainbow hovered above, just inside the shield, visibly impatient, and Fluttershy perched on the rail over Twilight’s head. The sun was an anemic beacon in the east, its light almost as pale as the snow that reflected it. In the aspect of morning, their ship was of a garish corsage on ice-brocaded slopes, cliffs and lesser peaks studded with brittle shrubbery and webbed in mist. Below, the mountain chain diminished in a parquet of slopes and shadows, steep and barren but for the firs and pines that clung to their broad backs. Rainbow said she could see where their train had come out on their journey to Snowdrift, but Twilight didn’t believe her.

“It should be the easiest thing in the world,” Twilight complained. Celestia’s Eye was a natural crystal formation inside a cleft in one of the mountain peaks, positioned to capture the first dawn’s light in a way that brought in thousands of tourists every year.

“Have you tried searching for the tourist kiosks and stuff instead?” Rainbow asked.

“No, Dash, that never occurred to me,” Twilight said. “That definitely was not the first thought I had when I came out here, not a chance.”

“Just asking.” She raised her ear. “Fluttershy wants to know if she should have Applejack move the ship again.”

Twilight sighed. “Sure. Take us in a circle around that one, the close one. A slow circle.”

“The stumpy mountain that kinda looks like it’s got a face on it?”

“Yeah.” Twilight took a minute away from the telescope while Applejack got them back in the air. With naked eyes, she studied the mountain shapes and peaks, looking for anything not in shadow, hoping that the sun was actually in a position to light the crystals in the first place. When they moved into a new position, slowly circling the new mountain, Twilight fixed her eyes back to the telescope and searched, and called out for Fluttershy to stop the revolution less than a minute after. The Eye had been just around the corner, plain as day even without the spyglass, a jeweled eyehole as bright as the star that gave it life.

On the bow, she helped Applejack find a suitable place to land while Rainbow and Fluttershy talked and laughed by the torch. It was good to hear her friends in high spirits, and it boosted Twilight’s, but only a little. In the back of her mind, she expected something to come out of nowhere and snatch the Element at the last second, or toss their airship away, or for the pair to return empty-hooved. Vanilla, after all, could be misleading them with his instruction to go to the Eye. Twilight could tell that this thought was in Applejack’s mind too, and so did not voice it.

“We’ll be quick,” Rainbow said, shrugging inside her baggy sweater. “Flutters, you sure you don’t want to trade?”

Fluttershy, smiling coyly, shook her head.

“Psh. All right, Twi, we’ll be back. Get, uh… Well, you know, be ready for anything. We know the drill by now.”

“I’m rested and ready to use my magic,” Twilight said, “and Applejack’s got one hoof on the throttle.”

“How’s that phrase work in my case?” Applejack asked. “One brain cell?”

“C’mon, Fluttershy,” Rainbow said, hopping off and punching through the shield around the ship. While it kept out the snow, it did not hold back the cold air or the wind, so the transition was no great shock to the two pegasi. They rode an icy wind over serried peaks and crags, their shadows too small to see, their bodies free in cold, thin air. The airship had a certain presence to it, a certain immutability that made high-altitude travel feel not like what it was. For long stretches of time, Fluttershy could forget that they were above the country, just as she could forget that their country was similarly suspended—especially in the contiguous south, proof that Celestia had been either wrong or lying when she told them they were the only ones who could repair the damage that had been done. Off the ship’s deck, though, Fluttershy felt all the gravity of her altitude in her flesh and feathers, the world pulling down less than it should, the absolute and dizzying weightlessness of flight that still made her head spin sometimes. She doubted Rainbow felt the same, but to her, there was fear in the jaunt between ship and destination.

Celestia’s Eye did not need the signposts, fixed to slithering and staggering mountain paths, buried sometimes under snow and occasionally under fallen rocks. She descried the flat shard of foundation hanging off a stone projection, its viewing platform or gift shop ripped away in some minor disaster long enough ago that the snow had mostly reclaimed it. Plumbing and exposed ribs of scaffolding had blackened with rust, and the wash of destroyed concrete below had become one with the mountain, distinct in color only.

The Eye itself was a brilliant split in the mountain’s face where, over centuries of wind and ice flow, the rock had been cleft into a vague torus, as the center of a geode, rimmed with blocks of crystal that shrunk as they moved inward to a delicate, dimmer middle. Sea green tinged the outer edge and turned to pearly white in the middle, shot with freckles of red and orange throughout, spiked and blinding. In front of her, Rainbow was exclaiming to herself.

They landed behind the frostbitten guardrail a distance from the Eye, shivering in their sweaters, and shook snow out of their manes. The Eye was tall enough for three or four houses stacked, wide enough for about half of one, and they stood for just a minute with the sound of the wind passing through it.

“After you,” Rainbow said.

“I know. Just taking it in,” Fluttershy said.

“It’s a lot to see, I know.” She shrugged and hopped back into the air, and Fluttershy caught up to her with a sigh of annoyance. They soon found that the paths did not take viewers directly into the Eye for just respect; there was nowhere safe to set hoof. The crystals were either too sharp or too thin, and even the larger ones at the edge seemed stuck there through benefit of the ice at their bases only, ready to tip or shatter at the first alighting weight. The pegasi circled while Fluttershy got her bearings, and Rainbow struck poses against the crevasse’s walls. She eventually led them to a spot near the top, a shallow pocket in the Eye’s upper arch that reminded her, as they ascended, of a strangely shaped cluster of stadium lights.

“I wonder if Discord planned this, for us to go blind finding this thing,” Rainbow said.

“Twilight says she thinks he’s working it out as he goes, just like us,” Fluttershy said.

“Well, she’s the one who knows.”

“I don’t know if I believe it, but it gives me hope.” She paused, hovering.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s around here somewhere.”

“Uh, yeah. And?”

“I don’t see it.”

“You can’t just take us straight to it?”

“I know we’re on top of it, but look where we are. It could be anywhere in all this.” She ascended to a stellate process of icicles and looked at the ceiling. “Vinyl’s cutie mark is black, so that’ll help a little.”

“You’re not saying we gotta just eyeball this whole thing? That’ll take ages!”

“He’s clever, that’s for sure.”

“Aw, crap.” Rainbow flew to a different group of crystals and looked around slowly. For several minutes, the only sound was their wings and the wind inside the Eye, sheer but not dangerous, enough to hurt their ears and numb their noses.

“Shoulda brought my sunglasses,” Rainbow said.

“Did you have any?”

“Correction: shoulda got some sunglasses. Ugh, this is useless, Shy. Can’t we just have Twilight cast some kind of spell or something?”

“Applejack’s not getting the airship in this tight space, and we’re not hoisting Twilight out here.”

“Psh.”

“Psh yourself. At least you enjoy flying.”

Rainbow laughed, and Fluttershy chuckled as well. They separated to inspect opposite sides of a thick stalactite, its glassy surface cut with a wide wedge of sunset orange. Rainbow made a face through the crystal, and Fluttershy made one back. When they met back up, Rainbow kept talking.

“What’s it like being a cliché, Fluttershy?”

“Excuse me?”

“You and your healing magic. You’re the timid, kind one, and you’re our group healer. Fits pretty good, huh?”

“I guess it does,” Fluttershy said. “I don’t mind. Honestly, I never thought much about it. Maybe living it is different from reading it. I’m less inclined to roll my eyes at it when I know all the implications.”

“Well, yeah, no duh, you’ve saved our butts too many times to count. It’s just funny, is all.”

“Beyond that, though. I’m using my magic right now to keep my wings from wearing out.”

“You can do that?”

“I guess so. This is actually the first time I’ve tried it.” She paused for a minute, taking a closer look at a suspect group of crystals. “I guess it makes sense. Fatigue is a sort of extremely mild injury, in a way.”

“So’s hunger. And sleepiness. Fluttershy, you can make it so we don’t have to eat!”

“That I doubt. I don’t think it goes quite that far, at least not for me.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just an educated guess.” She pried at a crystal and blushed with embarrassment when it popped out of its frozen socket. Glancing at Rainbow, looking at her own patch, Fluttershy let it drop.

“I know you used self-healing in one of our Discord fights,” Rainbow said. “You flew at him, that time he got hot.”

“Ah, yes, I remember that. That was… interesting.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Not as much as you might think. It was kind of like a shower of magic. You know how when Twilight picks one of us up and your body feels like it’s covered in a kind of electric slime? It was that, but with this slight undercurrent of pain, like when you take your hoof off a hot sidewalk before it has time to burn.”

“Not something you’d care to repeat, though, I take it?”

“No, I’d rather reserve my magic for you all.”

“What’s that like?”

“What? Using my magic on someone else?”

“Yeah!” She glanced back at the airship, where Twilight had conjured a giant, magenta question mark to hang over their balloon. “How do you guess I’m supposed to answer that?” She cupped her hooves to her muzzle and shouted “nothing yet!”

“It’s nice, but tiring. There’s a lot of magic involved.”

“You always seem drained after you’ve worked us over,” Rainbow said.

“It’s like being hung over. Um, not that I know, but I’ve had it described to me.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Really!” She flipped her mane out of her eyes. “But hung over in a good way, if that exists.”

“Ehh, not really.”

“I don’t know, then. Did one of us check that spot over there?”

“I’ll look at it.”

Fluttershy moved to an emptier patch and placed her hooves against the cold sandstone. Looking down, the ground momentarily spun away from her, and she had to close her eyes.

“Nothing here, not that I can see,” Rainbow said, flying over. “Got anything?”

Fluttershy shook her head and batted her mane out of her eyes again. “I need to get this trimmed soon.”

“Me too. I’m starting to look like you.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” Fluttershy said with a grin. “Maybe I’ll get it all shaved off. Can you imagine?”

“You, bald? Eugh, don’t ever say that again. Now a lot shorter, that I could see. Like Vinyl’s length, maybe, or a little shorter even, that would be cute on you.”

“I’ve never cared for that look on most ponies.” She cleared her throat. “Vinyl included. It makes her look sketchy, I think, although losing the dye does help some.”

“Yeah, I won’t tell her you said that.”

“For the best. I could see going as short as Twilight’s or Rarity’s, or Pinkie’s when it’s down.”

“I like her hair down,” Rainbow said. “I just don’t like her when it’s down, if you catch me.”

“Sure. Hold on.” She cast her Element spell, a habitual, semi-complicated piece of magic, and grunted. “Yeah, we’ve drifted off track. Back this way, Dash.” They flew to a slightly brighter section of arch and resumed their hunt.

“Can you use your healing magic to make ponies’ manes grow quicker?”

“Sure, and I can make them grow taller and stronger too. Give me an hour with Big Mac, and I can make him the size of a tree.” They laughed, and Fluttershy lost a little height. She was gently jealous—always had been—that Rainbow never had that problem.

“Element of Empathy, where are you?” Rainbow said. “You’re sure you don’t have a way to focus that spell of yours?”

“If I do, I don’t know how to go about it.”

After a half hour of fruitless searching, Fluttershy had the idea to remain stationary and emit a steady glow, the theory being that the Element, black, would be easier to spot if the light were intensified. She glowed like an ornament for several minutes, slowly rotating, while Rainbow searched about, and they finally found it hanging from a copse of blue-white spicules, its cross beam buried in the stone. She carefully tugged at it before Fluttershy stopped her and levitated it out, fearing that Rainbow would drop it in cold, clumsy hooves.

Together, they flew back to the ship, and Fluttershy lay on the deck to regain her strength while Rainbow pranced and talked. To their eyes, the Element looked exactly as it ought, as shiny and neatly-defined as any of theirs, a black beamed quaver that sparkled delicately in the wan sunrise, turning almost transparent in the right light. It was missing its golden frame and chain, and they had to suffice by holding it magically against Vinyl’s chest.

“Get us out of here, Applejack,” Rarity said. “Before some foul thing pops out of a den somewhere and wants its treasure back.”

“I dunno, girls, I think we’re okay this time!” Pinkie cried, earning dirty looks from all around.

“Vinyl, dear, I’ll see if I can fashion something to hold that for you.”

“It’s no biggie, really,” Vinyl said.

“I insist.” She patted Vinyl on the back.

“Where to, ladies?” Applejack asked. “Do we have any more notes from our dear friend, Vanilla?”

“Let’s go north, at least,” Fluttershy said. “If nothing else, we can get out of the cold for a while.” She inclined her head at Vinyl, stopping to sit beside her. “Yes?”

“Thank you for finding this, both of you.” Vinyl’s horn glowed pale pink. “Wow, so I’m the first of the new ones. That’s crazy.”

“You’re welcome anytime,” Rainbow said. “And, uh, welcome to the team.”

“Yes, you’re official now,” Fluttershy said.

“Yep,” Vinyl said. “That’s me. Official.”

It was dinner time when their next note materialized atop of a slice of garlic bread as it was halfway to Big Mac’s mouth. It read only “Snowdrift,” without even a signature, but no one needed to ask. Applejack pointed them back toward the small town and said they’d be there by the following day.

“Watch, last one’s gonna be on the friggin’ moon or something,” Rainbow said.

“Can he do that?” Pinkie asked.

“That would be…” Twilight began, thinking of the logistics involved. She was tired from the day, and shrugged. “He could do that, and he could’ve thrown them into Tartarus too, or buried them, or hung them somewhere in the sky, or encased them in lead, or… Anyway, he could have done a lot of things, but so far, he’s just been leaving them strewn about.”

“That’s an interestin’ point,” Applejack said. “Ah wonder why he wouldn’t do a better job of hidin’ ‘em?”

“Who knows?” Twilight picked at her salad. “Here, Big Mac, I’ll stash that note with the others.”

“You’re keeping them?” Rarity asked.

“Records. Once this is all over, everypony’s going to be after us for details. The more records the better.”

“Fair point.” She glanced at Octavia, sitting comfortably beside Colgate, still slowly eating her dinner. “How have you been doing, dear?”

“Me?” Octavia asked.

Rarity batted her eyelashes and smiled.

“Hm. I do not know.”

“Come on, none of that,” Rainbow said.

“Sorry, that just slipped out. I am feeling better.” She returned Rarity’s fixed smile. “And we can leave it at that for now. I am feeling better.”

“Ah’m willin’ to trust that,” Applejack said. “An’ fer the record, Ah’m happy fer ya, Octavia.”

“Thank you.” She helped them clean up, but remained on the deck after everyone went to bed. The sun was back down, and she watched the mountains disappear behind growing storm clouds, wishing that she had her cello with her. Music had been far from her mind for several months, but she found herself then composing a dirge in her head, and her hooves itched to breathe life into it. She smelled the clean, pine-tinged air, and allowed herself a smile, imagining the notes flowing lugubriously out of her as they had in times of old. The content of the music hardly mattered; it was the playing that gave her pleasure, and she hoped that her friends realized that. If she were to ever pick up an instrument again, she reckoned she would return to slow, sad music, not necessarily reflective of her mood but simply her preferred style.

Then, she stopped herself and thought, “But I am sad. That is who I am.” She sighed and looked back at the hoofsteps behind, and Vinyl smiled.

“Didn’t wanna sneak up on ya,” she said, horn glowing dimly.

Octavia nodded.

“Not interrupting?”

“For once, I would appreciate the company,” Octavia said.

“That makes two of us. You, uh, did mention wanting to talk about something earlier.”

“I did, I did. I do not think I recall specifically what about, though.” She gestured at Vinyl. “What brings you up here?”

“I just wanted to run somethin’ by you, as a musician.”

Octavia smirked. “I do not know very much about your style of music.”

“Ah, bull, you know about melody and arrangement, specifics don’t matter. I’ve got an album in mind, most of one anyway. It’ll be—surprise—inspired by all of you.”

“Us?”

“Actually, I’ve got two albums, one for the journey and one for y’all. I’m not sure about the journey one yet, but all of you are really speaking to me. I’m starting with Pinkie. I’ve got pages of notes and ideas jammed in a folder, but what I wouldn’t give to have my equipment with me. You get it.”

“More or less. Tell me about Pinkie’s song.”

“Well, for the whole album, I wanna do a sort of fusion of my two styles, with some longer, more mellow songs and some shorter, punchier songs, like the club stuff that gets radio play. I’m actually making Pinkie into one of the longer songs, and I wanna make it kinda sad and quiet.”

“I see why you wanted to speak to me about that.”

“Yeah, I’m not very good with sad stuff. Course, it would help if I could actually hear the music, but, you know, play the cards you’re dealt.”

“I am curious why my sister inspires you to make sadder music.”

“I think it’s ‘cause she’s still clinging to her old self. There’s this grim tenacity in it, and it’s made even more pitiable ‘cause I think she doesn’t realize she’s doing it. I know there’s this stretch of music in there near the middle, like a minute or two of buildup, with like a de-tuned piano, I keep thinking about it. I like the idea of it slowly losing pace as the song goes on, and then kind of staggering to a halt real close to the end. Maybe I’ll put in some uplifting keyboard to close it out, like a ‘sunrise on dark times’ feeling or something, I’m not sure.”

“I would say that if grim tenacity is the feeling you want to encapsulate, then the piano should not stagger to a halt, but just simply cut off abruptly after growing quieter. It is easier to give your song a sense of anxiety like that. I did something to that effect once in Manehattan, for a show; I used a bicycle chain to punctuate certain sections, to give a sense of impending doom.”

“Hmmm, I’ll think about that. As for the rest of it, I’m torn between just layers of keyboard and maybe some strings.”

“Strings are played out in contemporary music. Every time I hear a strings section in non-classical music, I just think that the musician’s budget got too big.”

“Well, I’d distort them.”

Octavia shrugged.

“What?”

“If you like that idea, then go for it, but I think that it sounds sophomoric.”

Vinyl’s horn glowed. “How would you go about it, if you had to write a song for her?”

Octavia thought. “I would focus on our time on the farm, because those are my best memories of her. I think I like the idea of a duo, a cello and a banjo, or some such rustic-sounding thing.”

“I’ve got a banjo section for Applejack and Big Mac. Those two are cool, I’m gonna make one’s song sort of an echo of the other.”

“Are you going to do that for Pinkie and me?”

“Haven’t decided.” She smiled. “For you, I’m not sure what I wanna write. I keep coming back to shorter, faster music for you, but I haven’t thought much about it.”

“What I would say about Pinkie’s song, since you want to be sad, is not to spend too much time on it. That can be a temptation, because you think that if you linger, then the song becomes sadder and darker, but in reality, it just becomes boring.”

“Yeah, I know that. Contrast bright moments for sad moments, and all that. I know.”

Octavia nodded. “I just find it strange that you see sadness with her. I know my song would be an attempt at joy.”

“Really?”

“Perhaps it is just because I feel that I should learn how to do that sort of music.”

“Hey, if you’re good at one thing, then—”

“No, my professors were right. It is an unnecessary constraint, especially when I have so much technical ability. Had, I should say. I do not know how much I have lost since then.”

“How long’s it been since you played?”

“A few months since I played at all, and more than a year since I played seriously.”

“Yeesh.”

“To be honest, I am not certain whether I want to return to that world.” Vinyl’s horn glowed again, and Octavia continued. “I do not know what I want to do, period. It might be best for me to get a day job if I get back home.”

“I’ve said that a couple times, toward the end of a tour.”

“Yes, I am sure. I do not think I would enjoy being on the stage directly after all this.”

“You could blow ponies minds when you go to wait on ‘em. ‘Hey, I’ve seen you before. Oh my Celestia, it’s Octavia!’ You’d get tips out the butt.”

“Ugh. Recognition. I have had enough of that already.”

Vinyl chuckled.

“Maybe I will find some small town in the middle of nowhere and grow wheat.”

“There’s a thought. Me, I’m gonna call my agent first thing and tell ‘em to book me some time in the studio.”

“Good luck with that.”

“I just hope everyone remembers me. I didn’t say my goodbyes as gracefully as I could have.”

“At least you said goodbye. I just left. I did not even leave a note.”

Vinyl whistled. “That’s rough, Octavia.”

“I do not remember what I was thinking at the time, but I am glad I was thinking it. This journey has enriched me.”

“I can tell.” Her horn glowed. “So that was some story.”

“Yes.”

“Sorry. If you don’t wanna talk, I get it.”

“We can talk. I do not feel awkward about it, not like how I expected to.”

“That’s good. I was nervous, you know, that you’d just kinda put yourself back there.”

“I have been back there for years. If anything, telling you all was like leaving it behind at last. I said that I wanted to confess to my family, or to Trixie when I first saw her, but I never did. Now, I finally have, and to my best friends. I have to admit, that feels good.”

“Good. You can’t dwell on past mistakes, take it from me. There’s no good in it, and surprisingly little to learn.”

Octavia nodded, remembering what Colgate had said about Vinyl and alcohol. It was no great mental leap to assume that she had battled it in the past. “That is something that I need to keep hearing. It is in my nature to dwell on things.”

“It’s hard not to. So many ‘what ifs’ and things, you can get sucked into your own head nice and easy.”

“Absolutely.” She paused, and a breeze ruffled her mane. “I remember what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“I wanted to ask you about forgiveness. Colgate told me that you knew a good deal about that.”

“Dunno why she thinks I’m the pony for that. Uh, I mean, she’s not wrong, but… Well, anyway, yes, I can help you there. Who are you looking to forgive? Or shall I take a wild guess?”

“Only if the first two do not count.”

Vinyl smiled.

“I would be happier if I forgave myself for what I did, but I simply cannot, no matter how many times I tell myself that I should. Every time I think that I can, I think of those I have wronged, and ask myself whether they should forgive me. If they should not, then I should not either.”

“How can you know if they would, though? They’re your family, and from what you described, they were pretty supportive. I think they’d want you to be happy.”

“That leads me to the other thing, the question of whether I deserve forgiveness.”

“Well…”

“What?”

“You’ve already made your penance, made it like a hundred times over. Doesn’t that balance it out?”

“It does not bring back Tumble Tower, and it does not un-abandon my family.”

“Nothing can.”

“Exactly. So should I not live with my mistakes? That is the closest I can come to paying for what I did.”

Vinyl shook her head. “You can’t look at it like that, ‘cause you’re just gonna make yourself miserable. Well, you know that already, I guess. But if you just become depressed your whole life, then it’s kinda like a slap in the face to all those other ponies, or their memories.”

“I do not understand.”

“I think of it this way—‘cause I’ve hurt plenty of ponies in my time too. You know, it’s like, imagine all those ponies have the chance to look at you and see who you are, what you’ve done with yourself, and all that stuff. If you’re just a sad sack all the time, and you’re beating yourself up and lingering on your mistakes, are those ponies gonna be happy for you? No, they’re gonna say ‘wow, this is what I suffered for?’ or ‘wow, this is what I died for?’ That’s a way bigger insult, ‘cause it’s like wasting their… memory, I guess. Or the opportunity you got for doing whatever it is you did, then you went and squandered it on making yourself feel bad, instead of learning and growing from it.”

“I have never thought that I deserved the growth you speak of.”

“There’s that word again, deserve. I don’t think it’s about what you deserve and don’t deserve.”

“I disagree.”

“Well, who can say who deserves what? I mean, in your story, Tumble Tower was getting your sister to blackmail the town drunk. It’s not like he was a flying example of goodness and grace, you know? Maybe he did get what he deserved.”

“No, I cannot think in that way. It releases me of any obligation. If we cannot judge ourselves or others by some metric, then action becomes meaningless. I can hit you in the face and feel no remorse, because maybe you have done something five years ago that makes you deserve it.”

“So what’s your metric?”

“It is the only metric, and it is my actions. In my case, my inactions.”

“But you don’t know all of everyone’s actions, and you don’t know how all your actions have affected others, so how can you judge that fairly?”

“You just take it as it comes.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Vinyl said, horn alight.

“Me neither. It is difficult to explain. It is one of those things that I know when I know, if that makes sense.”

“Sounds like a weak excuse to me, to be perfectly blunt about it. You know what I think? I think you’re so used to hating yourself that you don’t even think about it anymore, and you started at a young enough age that your worldview got warped around it.”

“That is possible.”

Vinyl frowned and took off her goggles. In the dark, she was able to expose her eyes, and used them to stare sternly into Octavia’s own. “You’re not fooling me with that tone. You think agreeing with me will make me back off from calling you out.”

Octavia sighed.

“So you did something bad, and someone died. Fine, that’s tragic, and you should feel like shit about it, for a while. But past is past, and like you said, you can’t undo it, so what’s the point of trying? I think you scared yourself into being this way ‘cause you thought something bad would happen if you moved on, like if his memory wasn’t honored or something like that. What’s gonna happen? Just ask yourself that, right now, think about it. If you moved on with your life, and didn’t think about Tumble Tower—and again, I’d like to point out that he sounds like a pretty crappy pony too—if you did that, what would happen to you? You’re not gonna shrivel up, you’re not gonna burst into flame. You might smile.”

“You did not come up here to belittle me with pedantry.”

“I didn’t come up here to hear a flimsy excuse of a worldview that lets you slowly kill yourself and feel okay about it.” Her horn lit, apparently without her thinking about it, and she closed her eyes with a grunt. “The reality is, we’ve all done stuff we’d take back if we could, and some of us have done a lot worse than you. One of my buddies put some folks in the ground ‘cause she was driving drunk one night, did you know that?”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“Oh, shut it, you always say that.” She replaced her goggles. “Point is, if everyone did it your way, there wouldn’t be a happy pony in this whole damn joint. Look at the princesses, how about? I’ll bet you Luna and Celestia have so much blood on their hooves they could fill a swimming pool, but they’re doin’ okay. Not Celestia so much, but you know what I mean.”

“So it is easier for them to forgive themselves their transgressions. That is good.”

“Oh, puh-lease.”

“That is why I wanted to talk to you, if you would recall,” Octavia said. “I was asking for help.”

“Up to the point where I offered my advice, sure, then you just retreated behind that toxic philosophy of yours.”

“Ponies have to be held responsible for their actions.”

“That’s justice, right?”

“Correct.”

“Maybe you should have turned yourself in. Ever thought of that?”

Octavia was silent for a long time before saying, “I am afraid.”

“Hm. Why am I not surprised?”

“Yes, fine, you win, I am a hypocrite as well as a coward. Are you happy?”

“That’s not what I wanna hear and you know it.” She took off her goggles again and rubbed her eyes. “I know I could never make you feel as bad as you make yourself feel, not that I’d want to. I’m just trying to get you to see it how I see it.”

“Then explain what you see, instead of insulting me.”

Vinyl frowned at her. “Okay. I see a pony who had a legitimately difficult childhood, who never got over it, and who let it poison her as she grew up. I also see a mare who knows better, and who wants to get better, but who stubbornly clings to her old views because she thinks changing her mind is some kinda crime.”

Octavia stood to the rail and hung a hoof over, her mane reaching the deck. “I do not know what to tell you. You are correct, I recognize that, but I am no closer to my solution. I appreciate the honesty, though.”

“You know, you can always just fake it ‘til you make it.”

“I have heard that before.”

“Ever try it?”

“I cannot say that I have. It is dishonest.”

“Yeah, so? I don’t see three apples on your butt.”

“I do not like the idea.”

“What does it cost to try? You don’t like yourself now, so why not? Maybe you’ll find some guilty pleasure in it.”

“There… might be truth in that.”

“If it helps, I faked it ‘til I made it when I was younger. This is before I met all of you. I had some problems of my own.”

“You were a drinker.”

Vinyl paused, and Octavia felt a pang of self-rebuke for springing it on her.

“I apologize. I should not have—”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have.” She turned away and walked a stretch down the deck. “You figured me out in Snowdrift, I assume.”

Quietly, Octavia said, “Yes.”

“You and everyone else. I know the looks I’ve been getting.”

“I am—”

“Sorry, yeah yeah, I know you are.”

“I also know that you are recovered now.”

“Psh. I don’t need you to tell me that.”

Octavia was silent, and Vinyl came back to her. Her voice was measured and her face stony, the mere hint of playfulness from before swept away.

“So now you’re gonna take this the wrong way too, ‘cause that’s what you know. In two hours or so, I’ll have gotten over it, because we all talk without thinking sometimes, but that doesn’t matter ‘cause you’re gonna beat yourself up for touching my sore spot.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry I can’t make you be happier. If I had that power, I’d use it on you.” She clapped Octavia on the back and then went back down to the cabins.

A day cycle later, Snowdrift was in sight, a small bean of frosty lights and snow banks making shadows of gray, brutalist buildings. Descending slowly through inclement weather, they were conscious of the sound their airship made, amplified amid swirling rags of clouds.

Twilight and Big Mac shared the small balcony on the ship’s back while the captain’s quarters cleared of smoke from another divination attempt. Rainbow had quit her post of speeding them along, that they could land safely, and the two were alone with the telescope and the night sky.

“Vinyl told me she heard that it was all a big illusion,” Twilight said, one eye on the viewfinder. “Which wouldn’t surprise me. Imprisoning Princess Celestia is one thing, but wresting control of the sun away from her is another.”

“She can’t still make it rise an’ fall from where she is, can she?” Big Mac asked.

“I don’t think so. I assume Princess Luna is handling both cycles. Or maybe she’s not. With the illusion up, it wouldn’t matter much, would it?”

“Guess not.”

“Ooh, look!” She swiveled the telescope. “You can see the glacier from here.”

Big Mac looked. “That’s all ice?”

“Yep. It’ll be especially magnificent now, since we’re getting into the winter.”

“What’s it doin’ there on the far side?”

“Where?” She looked for a time. “Oh, where it’s hanging off. When we came up, the glacier came up with us, since it goes over the border. The other side is in griffon territory, but I guess the ice didn’t get split like everything else.”

“Hm.”

“It’s a wonder it hasn’t fallen off. I wonder if they’ve got it anchored in place somehow.”

“Good fer the griffons if we do.”

“Absolutely. I read about the glacier a couple months back, I’ve always wanted to see it—not in these circumstances, though.”

“Too cold fer me.”

“Yeah, I’d rather go in the spring.”

“You ever read much ‘bout Snowdrift?”

Twilight chuckled. “I feel like I’ve been asked that a hundred times already. No, I’ve just read the basics, like everyone else. It’s cold, it’s got the Tartarus gateway, it’s old, griffons live there.” She spun the telescope to see the approaching town, but had to wait for some clouds to blow past. “It’s funny, you don’t see it referenced much where we come from. For being such a historically significant place, I had barely heard of it when we first heard the name.”

“Where did you hear of it, anyway?”

“Oh, I don’t remember. We were back in Ponyville, way in the beginning, even before Octavia found us. Someone mentioned it. I think it was… Someone had some kind of weird premonition, I feel like.” She glanced through the telescope, though the clouds had not yet cleared. “Oh! It was Pinkie. I remember now, she had a dream one night, right after we got back from the first Canterlot battle.” She shivered. “What a night.”

“Ah’ve gathered.”

“Pinkie had a dream about it. It was like her Pinkie Sense creeping into the dreamscape, or something like that. Yeah, I remember now.” She frowned. “She woke up screaming, I recall.”

Big Mac nodded.

“If that was her Pinkie Sense, and we’re about to land back in Snowdrift for an Element, then… If I could remember what the heck she dreamt. I’ll have to see if she remembers it.”

“Might be important.”

“It probably is.” She put a hoof to her chin.

“So Ah know the divination ain’t goin’ great,” he said at length. “Did today’s mistake teach ya somethin’ new, at least?”

“It more or less confirmed what I already assumed, that I simply don’t have the right books. I have to figure out fundamentals for myself that other ponies have gotten to long before me. The last couple days, I’ve been grappling with Dense Fog’s Unspecificity Theorem. At first, I was glad to just get to the point where I could be sure that that was my problem, because it meant I was at least making the same mistakes each time, but the charm wore off quick.”

Big Mac shrugged. “Wish Ah could help ya.”

“You were plenty helpful today.”

He shrugged again. For the afternoon, he had stood still while she hung various ornaments off his outstretched hooves and unkempt tail. To him, it was no help he had provided that couldn’t be replaced with a coat rack, but Twilight had insisted it be a living body.

“Besides, I’m sure I can find some resources in town. A magical place like this, their libraries must be incredible.”

“You do that. Sis an’ Ah are gonna sample the local produce, that’s our goal.”

“Do you think it’ll be different from Ponyville produce?”

“Could be. That’s the point of tryin’ it.”

Twilight aimed the telescope for Snowdrift as a window opened in the clouds. “Sometimes I wish I grew up on a farm.”

“You?”

“Life would be so much simpler.”

He took her statement in for a minute before shaking his head. “Ah doubt it’d be simpler. Just less readin’.”

“So much of it’s mindless labor.” She glanced at him. “I know it’s not all menial work, I know a ton of planning and management goes into it, but the actual work itself, the hauling of crops and planting of seeds and tilling of soil, and so on and so on, is quite monotonous. I sometimes find myself wishing I had that kind of job.”

“That’s understandable, considerin’ yer job right now. You’d get tired of it inside a week, though.”

“Mmm, I don’t know. Wow, look at that building. Isn’t that crazy?”

Big Mac took her place at the telescope. “Yer body don’t get to feelin’ refreshed after just one night, if yer workin’ a farm right. First day’s fine, but yer startin’ sore the second day, an’ even more sore the third, an’ the fourth, an’ you get. There’s the weather, an’ bugs, an’ more walkin’ than you might think.”

“That all sounds fine,” Twilight said.

“Says the lady who never tried it.”

“Eh, you got me there. See it?”

“It’s like a corkscrew. That’s some art installation, huh?”

“Well I doubt you’d make it in the library business.”

“Me too.” He grinned. “Too much readin’, not enough movin’.”

“You might be surprised. For an earth pony, re-shelving books can be very time consuming. Up and down that ladder, all day long.”

“You had Spike fer that, though.” His expression faltered. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She took his place at the telescope and turned it back to the sky. “You have to be organized, Big Mac.”

“Ah’m organized, Miss Sparkle.”

“If somepony comes in asking for a certain topic, a good librarian is on top of it, not only with the specific book, but with recommendations for supplemental reading. You need to know dates, authors, publishers… Maybe they’re only looking for peer-reviewed journals? You can’t mistakenly give them something out of the historical nonfiction section.”

“Aw, they’d notice somethin’ like that. But to yer point—”

“Again, you’d be surprised,” Twilight said. “At least in Ponyville, sometimes I felt like a fish out of water with how ignorant everyone was.” She shrugged. “They had other interests, though. I don’t know a whole lot about flowers, or baking, or—” She nodded at him—“farming. Different strokes for different folks; I shouldn’t let it irritate me.”

“Fer me, at least, bein’ with y’all has taught me a lot ‘bout humility.”

“Absolutely. I can’t believe how confident I was back then. I had my books with me, so I thought it would be a piece of cake. It took me to about Manehattan before that all went out the window. What a fool.”

“Well intentioned, at least.”

“Yes, there’s that, I suppose.” She took a minute to study a constellation. “It really is a marvelous illusion, if that’s what it is. The stars are just as bright as they should be. I wish I could talk to him about magic, Big Mac. You know, without having to fear for my life.”

“That would be somethin’.”

Nodding, she thought for a second how to change the subject. “So, are you going to go back to the farm after we’re through?”

“Ah’d like to if Ah can, but it might not be possible.”

“No?”

“Applejack was talkin’ my ears off ‘bout it. Have you heard her talkin’ lately? Somethin’s gotten to her.”

“Oh, her new philosophical bent,” Twilight said. “I guess dying will do that to you. I wouldn’t know.”

“Hm. She told me the farm might not even be there when we get back. Coulda gone bankrupt, or fallen into disrepair if the family had to find other ways to get by. Other possibilities too.”

“It’s also possible that it’s perfectly fine, and you’re both worrying unnecessarily.”

“Ah told her that, an’ she just said that Ah was right. Ah dunno why, but her agreein’ like that took the wind out of my sails, Ah don’t mind sayin’. But if the farm is there, then yes, Ah’d love nothin’ more’n goin’ back. Ah wanna feel the earth beneath my hooves, smell the apple blossoms in the mornin’. Ah wonder if Apple Bloom found her cutie mark yet. Ah’d sure hate to have missed that.”

Twilight did not say the thing that was on her mind, that it was also possible that Granny Smith had passed on or become infirm. It seemed ridiculous and vindictive to point out, and she blamed his mention of Spike.

“Then there’s this whole Element business,” he continued. “Ah guess if Ah’m a new Element, Ah’ll have to be with y’all.”

“Not constantly, if you don’t want to. We’d need you to stay in touch, is all, in case of… emergencies.”

“Right. Well, if Ah have it my way, Ah’ll be right there on the farm ‘til Ah drop, so Ah should be pretty easy to find.”

“Enough adventuring for you, huh?”

“Far too much, Miss Sparkle. This country’s too strange fer the likes of me.”

“I can respect that.”

“How ‘bout you? Back to the library?”

“I’m not sure. I used to think so, but I don’t know. I might move back to Canterlot. The princesses are going to want to spend some time with me, I know. I might be able to get a job at the palace.”

“An’ leave Ponyville behind?”

“It’s just a quick train ride away.”

“Hmmm.”

“Just a thought. I don’t know, the more I think about the library, the more it seems like I should be doing something else. I feel like I’ve already said goodbye, and going back to it would be like reopening an old wound. Know what I mean?”

“Can’t say Ah do.”

“Maybe it’s just me, then.”

“Do you feel that way ‘bout the library, or ‘bout Ponyville as a whole?”

“That’s a good question. I’ll have to get back to you on it.”

They shared the telescope for a while before hearing the call from above that they were getting ready to land. Crowded on the deck, they watched Snowdrift come into view, ice-gilt and rattling in the gust that brought them in. Rarity directed them toward the southern tip, where waited a large, seemingly abandoned warehouse, and, more importantly, its parking lot, where she said they should touch down.

Twilight, forelegs balanced on the gunwale, said to herself, “I think Ponyville as a whole.” Fluttershy glanced at her, but did not care to ask.