Peaceful Meadows was bundled up on the love seat in a friend’s home, the same home to which four semi-distinguished ponies had been invited for a dinner party on the coming Thursday, three days hence. Her friend, the griffon bookmaker for one of the larger gambling rings in town, was at work tidying the house and digging out the good china. Three cookbooks lay open on the coffee table, shaded by a long, midnight blue overcoat hanging in the window to dry.

Peaceful Meadows had come to Snowdrift in furious disgrace, weeks ago, kicked out of Roan when the first of the core Mansel family was taken away. Hotheaded Campari Mansel had buried the family’s stash of illegally-enchanted items, but not well enough; rain and wind had partially exhumed the trove, and after several hours of questioning, one lucky underling had traded her freedom for Campari’s. With Mansel and Company dissolving before their eyes, along with escape options, the heads of business urged Peaceful Meadows to take flight for Snowdrift, which she did, pretending she hadn’t decided to do so long before the Mansels went under.

The Snowdrift branch, she knew, had always been a peripheral attachment, something between a last resort and a scapegoat to the Roan branch’s reckoning. Its business was clean, save a pair of gambling rings, and its manager a limp-willed and well-meaning daughter of the company. Ginseng Mansel was her name, and it was to her that Peaceful Meadows appealed for employment the first day she arrived in the blustery town.

Her references, it turned out, were not of much value to a legitimate business, but she was taken on as a consultant as a show of good faith, which Peaceful Meadows returned by canvassing her coworkers for anyone with whom she might form a new venture. To her mind, she was not to be blamed, for crime was all she knew, and when the Elements came to town and the red light of revenge flashed through her, she applied herself to its action without remorse or long contemplation. She still had some of her equipment from Roan, and two bags packed and waiting, one under her bed and one in a locker at the train station.

“Pumpkin Spice or Winter Starlight?” the griffon asked from the dining room. Clutching a pair of tall candles, wings splayed for balance, he cut a ridiculous figure to Peaceful Meadows, who grunted in response.

The griffon fussed about and came into the living room with a feather duster.

“You can quit glowering at me anytime,” he said to Peaceful Meadows.

“I’m just watching you.”

“Right.” Something in his tone made Peaceful Meadows think he could detect her envy, and he brushed the frame of a hanging picture with a faint smile tugging at the corners of his beak. His tail moved languidly, and Peaceful Meadows turned her frown to it.

“It sounds like Partial Thoughts is slow-walking you, if you want my opinion,” the griffon said.

“I didn’t ask,” Peaceful Meadows said, which was untrue; she had no other object in coming to the griffon’s house. Partial Thoughts was her immediate supervisor, not a Mansel, merely trusted middle management, and it was plain to Peaceful Meadows that she did not approve of her revenge plan.

“I get it,” the griffon continued. “I’ve been there. Authorization this, compliance that, it goes on and on and on. Seriously, Pumpkin Spice or Winter Starlight?”

“Pumpkin Spice.”

“You didn’t even try,” he said with a prissy twitch of his head, and brought the candles out. “Sniff them.”

Peaceful Meadows sighed and looked at the griffon, holding the candles out expectantly, until he retracted his talons and placed them on the end table, grumbling.

“You’re just giving yourself more to clean up after the party,” Peaceful Meadows said.

“I thought you were cleaning?”

“I’m handling the bodies, not your fancy dishes.”

“That’s fine, that’s fine.” He hummed to himself and checked to see whether the overcoat was dry. “Just remember our agreement. You wait for me to leave before things get messy.”

“You don’t have to keep reminding me.”

At the corkscrew hotel, Vinyl drew back the curtains to let the noontime sun wake her roommates. She had plenty on her mind; Fluttershy had told her the evening before to go ahead and start working on learning magic to remove memories. They had stayed up and talked about Fluttershy’s research, and who Vinyl might contact to practice magic of that sort. Snowdrift was the right town for it, but she still imagined she would be out most of the day finding someone who could help her.

Twilight barged into the room, waking the others with a start, already talking rapidly. She threw a sealed letter onto the TV stand and frowned at where it landed for a second, pausing her stream of thoughts.

“You girls need to clean in here,” she said. “Whose soda can is this?” She jiggled it. “It’s still half-full!”

“Good morning to you too,” Octavia said, sitting up and yawning.

“Mine, thanks,” Colgate said, grabbing the can and drinking from it. “Flat.”

“So what’s this, then?” Vinyl asked. “You seem fired up today, Miss Twilight.”

“I’m supposed to meet the loggers fifteen minutes ago, I overslept, but I want to share this first. We all awake? Ready to listen?”

“Should we not get the others?” Octavia asked.

“She already told ‘em,” Colgate said. “I heard her making the rounds before this room.”

“I stayed up half the night reading about the Contractions,” Twilight said. “Everypony uses them to slingshot their airships to places, it’s tied into the teleportation magic that makes the Contraction possible. We’re going to do that too.”

“Is another Contraction coming?” Vinyl asked.

“I’m going to make one happen,” Twilight said. “Which,” she held up a hoof to stay their questions, “I am already aware is illegal. It’s a felony, in fact. Frankly, I’m willing to roll the dice on it.”

“We might not be,” Octavia said.

“You can meet us at the next Element location, then.”

“You okay, Twilight?” Vinyl asked.

“Look,” Twilight said, smoothing her mane with a groan. “We can argue about the morals and all that later. Rainbow had plenty to say, you can talk with her if you like. The point is, I’m doing this, and I need you all to be ready for it. I need to do more research, but I think I can put together something that’ll concentrate the magic that radiates out of the gateway. If I can do that, then it’s a simple matter of putting it through a wire into the town sigil, which is—anyway, later. I really have to go, girls.”

“When do you mean to do this?” Octavia asked.

“Not sure yet,” she said, halfway out the door. “We’ll talk later.” They could hear her galloping down the hall, and the door had been closed not a minute before the others came in.

“She gone?” Rainbow asked. “Did she tell you?”

“Rather briefly,” Vinyl said, picking up the letter Twilight had left. “This is addressed to us.”

“She’s talkin’ ‘bout stealin’ Tartarus magic and using it to make a Contraction happen unnaturally,” Big Mac said. “Ah don’t like it.”

“I see why she would want to do it,” Rarity said.

“I get it too,” Rainbow said, “but that doesn’t make it not the stupidest idea she’s ever had.”

Vinyl tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter, opened her mouth to speak, but passed it to Big Mac. He read it slowly before putting it on the table.

“Well?” Colgate asked.

“We got a problem,” he mumbled.

“Read it out loud, dear,” Rarity said, lifting the letter up. “If you have received an invitation recently, don’t be fooled,” she read. “It’s a trap. You have enemies in Snowdrift.”

“Gimme that,” Vinyl said, taking it back, horn alive with flaxen light. With her goggles, it looked like she was simply frowning at the letter, willing it to do something. “No signature, nothing. Nothing on the back. Gee, nice way to start a morning, right?” She nodded thanks to Applejack, who was setting up a pot of coffee.

“The dinner party,” Octavia said. “I told you I was suspicious.”

“So don’t go,” Rarity said.

“Ah, yes, how simple,” Vinyl said. “Where did she get this?”

A couple eyes turned to Colgate, who noticed. “What? Don’t look at me.”

“We cannot just not go, not with so much time left in town,” Octavia said, sitting heavily on the bed. “The griffon who invited us was able to find us easily enough. Most likely, half the town knows where we are staying.”

“Can we change hotels?” Rainbow asked.

“Couldn’t hurt,” Big Mac said.

“If it was me, I would try to find out who sent this letter,” Fluttershy said, rubbing her eyes.

“I agree,” Colgate said, snatching it and holding it to the light. “No watermark either. Who’s working check-in today? Is it Versus again?”

Fluttershy shrugged.

“This might be nothing. It might be Discord freaking us out, which you’ve told me happens sometimes.”

“He signs his letters,” Rarity said.

“Yeah, Discord ain’t the subtlest when it comes to scare tactics,” Applejack said.

“Twilight’s in a rush, she wouldn’t have gone farther than the lobby, I bet. C’mon ladies,” Colgate said. They all made to exit, but Colgate stopped. “Vinyl, Big Mac, and Octavia only, thanks.” She pointed at her forehead, trying to indicate that they were the only ones who had targets on them, but the gesture was lost on the others.

“We’ll be right back,” Vinyl said, going out the door.

When they were gone, Rarity turned to them all. “If we have someone looking to hurt us in this town—or them, anyway—then that’s even more reason to help Twilight with her Contraction. A quick escape might prove vital.”

“She seems to ferget that this is the precog and secret agent capital of Equestria,” Applejack said. “How’s she expect to get away with somethin’ like that?”

“She said she had a plan in our room,” Pinkie said. “And that she might rely on me to carry it off!”

“You?” Rainbow asked.

“Funny, right?”

“First the mortuary, now this,” Applejack said, shaking her head. “She really is somethin’.”

“You can’t approve of this, can you?” Rainbow asked.

“Not fer a second, but like Rarity, Ah see the reasonin’. We get this Element, slingshot instantly to the last one, then kick down Discord’s door. It’s got an appeal.”

“And it’s not like she can ask the secret agents for permission,” Pinkie said. “That’s how she made it sound, anyway.”

“It’ll save time, sure,” Rainbow said, “but she’s not… I don’t like it.”

“It was Versus,” Colgate said, reentering. “She said she didn’t know what it was, just forked it over when she saw Twilight.”

“Guess where she got it,” Vinyl said. “That pony we met at the Contraction party yesterday, the pale one, Partial Thoughts.”

“The paper pony!” Pinkie exclaimed. “She was nice!”

“Nice enough to give us a warnin’,” Big Mac said, searching for his coat.

“Going out now?” Fluttershy asked. She stood to the side for Colgate to exit.

“We’re gonna find her.”

“We need to know more about this warning,” Vinyl said, putting on a pair of earmuffs. “I’ll actually be gone most of the day, probably. I have somewhere to be after this.” Behind her goggles, she looked at Fluttershy’s eyes, seeing the recognition there.

“Anything we can do?” Rarity asked.

“Here,” Colgate said, coming back in with a mass of bits floating before her face. “If you can find somewhere that sells pulse crystals, I’d be obliged if you’d pick one up for me.”

Rarity made a face. “Charmed to.”

Whooves was playing croquet in the garden with Porchlight, his coltfriend, and a few mutual acquaintances, and he waited for his turn by studying his mallet, stylized to resemble a flamingo on one leg. The Canterlot sun beamed down with too much intensity for late autumn, but he didn’t mind; the palace gave them enough shade for their game.

“Doctor, do tell, how was Aquamarine’s social last night?” a pony asked. Her name was Burgundy Briefcase, and she was dressed in a buttery-yellow sun dress with pastel pink trim; the association with the Element of Kindness was no coincidence. A magazine model, she moved slowly and gently, as though she always had a photographer’s eyes on her, and smiled like she knew she was the most beautiful pony in the room—though many thought she had gotten too thin of late. A coil of silver smoke faded over her head as she puffed on the black stem of a cigarette holder.

“Quite charming, actually,” Whooves said. “Did you know, he has window shades up all across his house, that he might simulate the eventide? We dined by candlelight and exchanged the drollest conversation.”

“Aquamarine is many things, but droll I’d not expect to hear,” a different pony said. Whooves had forgotten his name, but he was the brother of a local artist.

“Oh, why, it was more the other company that left such an impression on me. Purest Lily was there, and—shocked, I, to see her in the same room as he—Choral Dreams. Why! The conversation betwixt those two… If one could harness energy from animosity, I reckon the power company would be out of business by those two alone.”

At this, Porchlight laughed, and Whooves put a hoof on his flank, sharing in the moment.

“And what news of the Astras?” Burgundy Briefcase asked, politely declining a servant who approached with a tray of appetizers.

“Ah!” With feigned offense, Whooves held a hoof to his heart. “Is that what I am? A mere conduit to hear news of the glorious Astra family?”

“Among others,” Porchlight said, and they all laughed.

“Yes, well, be that as it may,” Whooves said, lining up his shot, “The interest of the day is no longer with the fair Astras, but with their nefarious rivals, the Pegasus Advocates. I dare say, but we’ve seen them in the papers enough?” He shot wide of the wicket and tittered to himself.

“Meddlesome as ever,” the artist’s brother said. “Lettuce Patch’s son-in-law recently had a run in with them, it would seem. Shady business, from what I’ve heard.”

“Yes, I heard that,” Porchlight said. “He had a bit of a scrape, did he not?”

“Hospitalized, I heard,” Burgundy Briefcase said.

“Oh, pish posh,” Whooves said. “Sensationalism at its finest. I heard he merely received a strong upbraiding by showing his face in the meaner neighborhood.”

“Now, I’d trust you over Lady Coil on that.” She grinned at him. “Ears to the streets as ever, doctor? You simply must tell me who your friends are.”

“They say a good pony has friends he can only speak well of, but an interesting pony has friends he can’t mention at all,” Porchlight said, and Whooves tugged his tail playfully.

“Not even a hint, darling?”

“I’m afraid not, madame,” Whooves said. “I’m rather sworn to secrecy.” He beckoned them closer, smiling over their heads at the servant who watched. “But this I can say. The pony to whom I have sworn this oath is at the center of all. He is the very axis on which this little feud spins, a… Well, I’ve said too much already.”

“Yes, the good doctor claims to know the most important pony to both parties, but can disclose no more,” the brother said.

“Please, spare me your wit. I hold my tongue for his benefit as much as my own.”

“Do you mean to say that you are in some sort of danger, doctor?” Burgundy Briefcase asked.

“Perish the thought, dear lady,” he said, laughing. “I am nothing to them, nothing at all. A face, that’s it.” He gestured a servant over and accepted a flute of sparkling wine on an outstretched wing. “And might I say, rather a handsome one.”

“Do tell,” Porchlight said.

“His wandering eyes did all the telling, not me.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” the brother said. “If such a pony existed, we would know.”

“Unless he was in hiding,” Burgundy Briefcase said.

“Like a spy movie! Yes, very quaint. I suppose he’s sequestered in his hideout with the shades drawn, brooding over some revenge scheme? You are too much, Burg, simply too much.”

Glancing down at herself with the mallet leaning on her shoulder, Burgundy Briefcase adjusted her dress. “When you put it that way…”

“Okay, you rascals,” Whooves said. His flamingo mallet lay forgotten in the grass. “Pegasus Advocacy and Astra talk, it’s all old hat anyway, is it not? Why, the conflict has become so dull, one can predict the newspaper articles days in advance. So-and-so threatened by violence, this-and-that important pony speaks out against racial supremacy. We’ve no need of it.”

“But I suppose you have something grand in store, hm?” the brother said.

“You might know, you might not. I did travel with the Elements of Harmony for a piece. Ah! By your face, I see you did not know that.” He smiled and shook his mane, too short to achieve much effect. “No surprise. I did tell only a select few. Well, rejoice now, my friend! Yours are the ears, selected discretely and in only the best faith bestowed with my disclosures.”

“Let’s hear it,” Burgundy Briefcase said, idly resting one hoof on a wicket. Porchlight shooed her away in order to send his ball rolling.

“But what to tell? So many choices.”

“He apes indecision because he has to invent something,” the brother mumbled, audibly, to Porchlight, who gave no indication that he had heard.

“Try this, good sir,” Whooves said, at odds to keep his tone polite. “A maelstrom of noise and terror, a night beset with darkness, a dam enchanted to haunt the dreams of all who beheld it. Familiar scene? We’ve read it up and down, I’m certain.”

“Applewood,” Porchlight said eagerly. “You were there?”

“In the thick of it, my love! Yes, now I see that skepticism wiped clean from your face, dear boy. All the better, it mars your visage.” He clapped the brother on the back. “Magic scarring the night sky on one end, and the cool gray, falcate slab of river held aloft on the other. That’s right, aloft. You do know they’re the most powerful ponies in the world, do you not?” He chuckled. “But no goddesses, they, for only failure was on the menu that night, with a harrowing escape for dessert. By one poor mare’s failings, all was lost, and the greatest tragedy since The Crumbling was ushered, bawling with the voice of torrential water, into our world. One could not say that this tragedy was ever a slink in the coffin of Discord’s heart; nay, an event of this magnitude came at us complete and grotesquely fat, gorged on the evil that was its maker’s whim to imbue.” His voice rose, his excitement overtaking his sense of judgement. “A vermiform noose around one Element of Laughter’s neck! The living river, reflected in her eyes in that moment, was as an abyss of despair.”

“Such rot,” the brother said, shaking his head and grabbing his mallet hotly. “Who would believe it?”

“How did the Element of Laughter affect the outcome? Could she have helped in some way?” Burgundy Briefcase asked.

Catching his breath from his speech, Whooves turned away and smiled at himself, even as his excitement slowly cooled off and he could think about what he had said. “But who are they? Three among thousands in the city. Besides, the others knew as well, some of them. Vinyl, Fluttershy, that large specimen.”

“The dam did behave rather, well, incredibly,” she continued. “Discord’s magic is no parlor trick.”

“No indeed, my dear. And if the Elements were there at the time—and we can all agree they were? They—that is, that’s just what I heard.”

“Oh, you only heard it now?” the brother asked.

“You said you were there,” Porchlight said.

“Hmmm, well,” Whooves said, making a show of hunting through the grass for his mallet, though it was plainly visible not five feet away. “We’re all entitled to a spot of yarn-spinning, are we not?”

“It’s a charming story,” Burgundy Briefcase said. “I’d have never thought to portray young Pinkamena in such a light. The lone hero, crushed by overwhelming odds, the unwilling cause of tragedy. Yes, I do think I rather like the thought of that.”

“A story and nothing more,” Whooves said, smiling weakly. “It is hot out here, is it not? Shall we retire indoors for the day?”

Far from the garden parties, the luncheons, and the swarms of wealthy elite in Greater Canterlot, Flitter looked longingly at a passing pizza shop in the passenger seat of Ink Pearl’s car. She had been fasting since noon the day before, that the sedative would kill her quickly and at the correct dosage.

Flitter had spent the night at Chilly Clouds’ place with all of her things at the new apartment. For diversion, she had television and a couple books—Chilly was no reader, but had picked up a pair at an impulse buy section, in case Flitter was. After Chilly had gone to bed, with bath towels hung over her windows to keep out the persistent sun, Flitter had stayed up and stewed, hungry and bored, too nervous to do anything but take in whatever the TV had for her. She fell asleep on the couch thinking alternately of escape and duty, reminding herself that she had signed up for exactly what she was getting.

That morning, Chilly Clouds had gone ahead to the room where it would happen and Ink picked Flitter up five minutes late and impatient to get moving. In the car, she softened but a little; she asked Flitter how her mandatory pre-death counseling session had gone, told her a little of what she already knew concerning the details of her new job and new life, and even tried to make a joke about the fasting process. Flitter gave one-word answers when she could.

“I’m actually a little jealous of you, April,” Ink said at a red light. “I haven’t switched bodies. You should be proud of yourself.”

Flitter grunted in response.

She was told that Wings and Jet were getting on fine without her. They were shocked and a little hurt that she had left them so abruptly, but did not seem seriously affected, and they had work enough to keep distracted anyway—the dome over Canterlot was to switch on the next day, and they could once again enjoy the natural cycle of day and night. Cloudchaser had been told that her sister was simply going to be away for an extended period of time, and that communication would be restricted, and her parents had been informed similarly. To them, Flitter was leaving for Applewood, to assist in the festering husk of the Bright Road. Flitter was not allowed to reach out to them until her task was complete, a point she had protested initially; but, Ink was fast to point out, she had signed the applicable document in the end.

As before, when they reached the record store, they went to the back, waited for the knock on the door, and entered the bunker to which they had covertly teleported. Head in a daze, Flitter scarcely noticed the individual faces that greeted her and told her she would be fine. She declined to see her new self before she was put down, and they sat her at a desk with a stack of papers. She was told to look through for any last-minute wishes, any adjustments to her cover story—not that she was authorized to change much—and the sort. She took a quill in her mouth and scribbled the last signatures of her natural life.

The peaceful room, as the technicians termed it, was composed of four white walls, a work counter, and an exam table. Chilly was there, and she gave Flitter a smile that Flitter could not return. The nurse laid her down, checked her vitals—“Why?” Flitter wanted to scream—and showed Flitter the syringe before administering its contents.

The process was routine and painless, exactly as Flitter had been told, despite her natural fears. Ten minutes passed between the lilac body expiring on the table and the royal blue body struggling to take its first breaths in the room adjacent. Doctors assessed her vitals again and hooked her up to life support, where she would spend her first several hours transitioning, dead tissue animating with a strengthening, involuntary scream as the lungs inflated. The body had already been injected with a mild opiate, so April Showers did not panic when she finally gained consciousness, though she did have several questions.

Ink and Chilly were both there, and her dry eyes looked at them for several minutes before she could get her tongue and throat to produce words. The two of them were speaking to each other, both with an eye on April, and about what she did not know. At last, she asked, “Am I okay?”

“You’re fine, honey,” Ink said, coming to her and looking over her body. It was as though the old body’s death had released in Ink some switch, allowing her to minister to April with all the kindness and patience of a mother. She got her water and a mirror, straightened her pillow, and talked slowly of how the procedure had gone, though there was not much to discuss in that regard. Everything had been set up in advance, and all Flitter had done was let her spirit be magically shunted into the next vessel. Ink made it sound commonplace and easy, but with soft eyes and none of that impatience that had made Flitter dislike her so. Ink Pearl treated her like she was a special case, which April grudgingly appreciated.

April asked what was to become of Flitter, and they replied that she would be cremated in a special Datura facility, and her ashes then stored for thirty days before being scattered. The thirty days, Chilly explained, was to give the appropriate Datura functionaries time to file all the paperwork pertaining to Flitter’s death and get it to the Information Handler.

After a while, Ink had to leave, and she told April she would be in touch before her assignment began. Chilly stayed with her a little longer, telling her about her new body. She had been warned it would feel wrong for a while, that it was a natural reaction, but no one had been able to go into specifics. April, supine in bed, with her wings a little wider and her legs a little longer, with her eyes a little closer together and her teeth a little more crowded, felt like an imposter. Every tiny movement the new body made, voluntary or not, felt big and obvious. The sounds of her bowels coming to grips with sudden life seemed to her an endless, imprudent cacophony, even though Chilly tactfully told her that it was something all new bodies went through. When her wings twitched under her, she felt like someone was wrenching them away, and when her nose began to drain to the back of her throat, it felt like someone had intubated her.

To all functions of the body, her mind objected, as if she had in death’s transit abandoned the power of her will and surfaced again embedded in the flesh of someone else, which she just happened to be able to control. That it was her body, and that it was her, had been impressed by the counselor, but it did not sink in as she lay in the bed. She felt like she had been given a thrall, rather than a new self, and that she might reveal her true self to persistent scrutiny. This, too, they had touched upon, and she had been told that April Showers was now her true self. The body and spirit were one, a fact that was inalienable and undeniable; April was as fundamentally correct and real as if she had been born via the passage of a womb instead of the invisible magic that a Datura mage was already scrubbing from the air. The advice, it seemed to her, had been given to another, and she had simply been listening in at the time.

Not feeling well, and still attached to the IV that kept her calm, April didn’t express any thought so complex. She told Chilly that she felt weird and wrong, and Chilly told her it was natural and gave a wan smile. Her face was not made for smiling, April thought, and she waxed quiet as she studied the pale mare who had helped her. Her drawn, sickly green face reminded April of something that would leer out from behind a tree in the Everfree Forest. With an edge of unconscious aversion, April made her goodbyes and assurances to Chilly when she said she too must leave for other business.

By five in the afternoon, April was out of bed and free to walk around the facility with the doctors, nurses, and technicians. She saw no trace of her old body, and was glad for it. She spent close to an hour in a room made entirely of mirrors, inspecting her new self and trying on the sample outfits they had for her. April settled on a simple, lime green cape and bonnet; she liked how they went with her royal blue coat and deep purple mane, and in a strange moment of intense self awareness, she realized that she thought that April Showers’ body was more attractive than Flitter’s. Where Flitter’s pastel hue and small, soft body were easy to overlook, April’s bold colors and extra one and a half inches made her into an eye-catching, athletic young mare. She pictured herself in the sky with old friends, leading a triangle of pegasi on an adventure, then back at the spa with a fond client. Then, she pictured herself at the seedy bar that Wings and Jet had described, wither to wither with Pegasus Advocates, herself dressed in one of their ridiculous costumes, complaining about the earth ponies or the unicorns, or the pegasi who chose to associate with them.

Not feeling as attractive after that final thought, she followed the signage to a small food court and ate for the first time. Her mouth felt ungainly and mechanical to her, as Chilly and Ink had both warned her it would. Her first meal was mashed potatoes with a generous amount of butter melted over top, easy to eat and difficult to choke on.

She spent the night there and submitted to a physical exam in the morning, to confirm that her vitals were stable and her body was in working order, and then they released her. She went back up to the record store and was momentarily lost, forgetting that the Datura bunker did not simply release her onto the street. The cashier told her that there was a driver already waiting for her outside, and April walked into the natural light feeling like a stranger to the world. Apparently aware of her feelings, or aware of the feelings that new bodies experienced in general, the driver said not a word about the operation. He lowered his sunglasses and grinned at her, complimented her looks, introduced himself, and then took off.

He was not just a driver, as she thought; he was her intermediary between the Pegasus Advocates and Ink Pearl. Ink would still be by to talk to her, he assured, but after that, he was her only thread to the Datura. A lemon-yellow pegasus with a drawling, casual voice and a ladder of piercings in both ears, he explained that his job was to help other Daturas stay hidden until Luna told them it was safe. He had helped Ink get in touch with her skeleton crew right after the battle, and had also whisked away those who had known Fleur dis Lee and Fancy Pants.

His talk did not dwindle, and as they entered the visibly poorer section of Lower Canterlot, he moved his topic closer to business.

“Now, April Showers, I don’t want you mistaking me for a friend.” He lowered his glasses. “Not that I’m not here to help you, but we can’t, well, you know we can’t really be seen together very much.”

“I get that,” April said. Her voice was a little huskier, and the distance between the tip of her tongue and the back of her front teeth was still strange to her; she pronounced “that” as “zat.”

“This neighborhood, well, you see it, it’s not in the best shape. Look, there, that place was a successful flower shop just a few weeks ago. Celestia, this place is going to Tartarus.” He shook his head and smiled. “Which makes it ideal for you. Your apartment is about fifteen minutes away from the big PA club here, Velocity.”

“Velocity,” April repeated.

“There’s a couple cafés nearby, and a library—you’ll see them hang out at the library sometimes too, so don’t be surprised—and a grocery store, the usual stuff. Rough neighborhood, to be sure, but you’ll be okay.”

“Will I?”

He clicked his tongue. “Yeeeeeeeah.” Glancing at her, he said, “there’s a pulse crystal waiting at your apartment too.”

“Yeah, Chilly told me they’d bring me one.” She and Chilly had taken a couple days, earlier, to go to a firing range and practice with their pulse crystals. Flitter, like many younger ponies of her type, abhorred the idea of them. Chilly had told her she would need to get over that feeling quickly once she got her new body.

“Here we go,” the driver said, pulling into a parking lot. “This is where you’ll be meeting me. This whole complex is for victims of domestic abuse. How you choose to present yourself here, that’s up to you. Volunteer or victim, choice is yours really.”

“Will they take a PA?”

“You should probably downplay that part when you come around. Look, there, that’s the dining room, and over there’s one of the teaching centers, I think.”

“I just wander in and wait around until I see you, is that it?”

“You got it.” They pulled out of the parking lot. “I’ll be volunteering there on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I’ll send you a note with my hours once I know them.” He talked on about the shelter, how the ponies there all seemed like genuinely good-hearted folks, how the victims were strong and brave, how April would fit in fine as long as she pretended to be Flitter. The phrase caught in April’s mind, and she was repeating it to herself even after the driver was long gone and she was alone in her cramped apartment. How calculated was the phrase, she wondered, but didn’t have time to frighten herself with it, as she received Ink Pearl fifteen minutes later.

The dark unicorn walked in before April could invite her, and April sat sullenly on the couch while Ink got them both glasses of lemonade from the pre-stocked fridge.

“Sunburst told you about the shelter, the schedule, and all that?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Oh, here.” She got up and went to a compartment behind a small writing desk, and produced April’s pulse crystal. “This is for you. Emergencies only, clear?”

“Yes, clear,” April said, reaching for it. She had grown used to the body enough that she could think to be in character, and chose to begin with Ink. She took the pulse crystal, pretended that the sensation of it affixing to her foreleg still did not make her insides squirm, and pointed it around the apartment room.

“Hey, easy with that thing,” Ink said, ducking a little, then making her movement look intentional by grabbing something out of her saddlebag. “Here’s a map of the area. Velocity’s the big X there, the shelter’s the other X, you get the idea. Your apartment’s the circle. These,” she tapped the map insistently, though April was looking right at it. “These smaller triangles are places where Pegasus Advocates are known to hang out. That there’s the library, that’s the underpass, that’s Bean Pole Park.”

“So I’ll go make some friends, easy,” April said.

“Not easy, not easy,” Ink said, eyes wide and frowning, shaking her head rapidly. “You’ll get beaten senseless if you just show up and try to talk to them. You need to get recruited. Any one of these places you can ask about it, but…” She grabbed a different sheet of paper and spread it over the map. “The carnival’s in town, and the PAs like to recruit there. It’s here.” She lifted a corner of the paper to show the map again, and indicated a small star in the northwestern section of the neighborhood. “I’d go here and wander around some. You’ll see them if they’re there.”

“I bet I will.” She wanted to sound threatening, but Ink did not even lift her eyes.

“They’ve got brochures, and you just go up and ask one. ‘Hey, I was interested in joining your group, are you taking new members?’ For the love of Celestia, do not call it a gang or something like that.”

“Got it.”

“From there, it’s all you.” She stood up, then thought better of it and sat down again. “Tell me your assignment.”

April sighed, affecting impatience. “I’ve gotta get into the PAs—easy, as I said—and find out where they got their magical artifacts.”

“And?”

April glared at her. “As I was saying, after that, I’m gonna find out if they have any more magical things hidden away, if they’ve got a supplier, if they have any plans with them. If I can—”

“Nope, that’s it,” Ink said. “Just find that stuff out and report it to me, and I’ll take care of any follow up. You are not, are not, to try to stop the supply or destroy the artifacts. Clear?”

“I know that. I was going to say, if I can, I’m gonna learn about any other plans they have in the city. You know, just in case the want to do something besides work with magic. Any sort of organized crime, that sort of thing.”

“Nope, that’s not your job. You can inform the police if you want, but we are not to interfere with any aspect of PA life except this weird magic.”

“Seriously?”

“Uhh, yeah. You were taught that.”

April sighed. Flitter had been taught it earlier, in Ponyville. Foxglove had explained to her that, as soon as the topic strayed from magic or anything extranormal, the Datura’s ability to interfere ended. It was to keep Equestria from becoming a nation beholden to secret police.

“It might ruin my cover anyway,” April said.

“Good girl.” Ink rose and clapped her on the back. “Any questions? Ask now or forever hold your peace, this is the last time you’re gonna see me in a long time.”

“What if something goes wrong?”

“You’ll be fine.”

“No, really, what if something goes wrong? Like they don’t take me, or they don’t like me or something?”

Ink huffed and shook her mane off her forehead, donning her saddlebags again. “Just don’t let things go bad, April Showers. I won’t be there.”

“No, I get that.”

“Then don’t let things go bad. I won’t be there, and neither will anyone else. Sunburst can’t help you if you need it, he’s just a relay for you.”

“All right, what about when I get your information? What happens then?”

“Then we’ll talk exit strategies. That’ll be a liiiitle dicey, probably, best not to think about it now.” She went back to the table and tapped the papers. “Carnival, tonight or tomorrow, April.”

“I know, I’ll do it.”

Ink nodded and, after a second of eye contact, went to the door. “Good luck, April. I know you can do it. I really appreciate the risk you’re taking, we all do.”

How strongly April wanted to rejoin with a caustic remark, like “I’m so sure.” Instead, she went to the door, accepted Ink’s hoofshake with thanks, and watched her commander descend the stairs and get in her car. Only after she was gone did April turn back to the apartment and take in her new quarters. “Lousy twinkler,” she muttered.

Every TV channel and radio station was interrupted with the message that the sky dome would be activated in two hours. April was pacing circles in her living room as a way to get accustomed to her longer legs, and she thought of Wings and Jet, how excited they would be at finishing with the project. They would probably get off in time for happy hour somewhere, and for once, April wished she could be with them for it. Not a drinker or enjoyer of noisy bars, going out that night seemed preferable to staying in.

She heated up a TV dinner and drank more lemonade, and then sat by the window for the last half hour. Her apartment was close to the city’s edge, where suburbs were less dense and pieces of countryside occasionally reached them in the forms of dirt roads or expansive, empty lots, and April could see the faint lines of the sky dome. They called it a dome; it was a network of lights and cables, collapsible but sturdy, another intermingling of magic and technology that the Datura had seemed able to simply pull out when it was needed. April fell to wondering when they had first constructed it, and for what, and how many more there might be stored underground.

Many of her neighbors had stepped outside or onto balconies to watch the sky change from glaring afternoon to somber evening. Some cheered quietly to themselves, some just gawked. To them, the work had come from Princess Luna herself, unaided and unseen, a modern miracle. Her knowledge of its true nature did nothing to tarnish April’s amazement as she searched the sky for imperfections. The stars were faint, the constellations appeared accurate to her, and the moon was right where it should have been. She wondered whether they had placed reflectors on the dome’s other side, to keep Discord’s sunshine from heating up their nights. The princess had already released a statement that the unpredictable sun was just a powerful illusion, and as far as April knew, it was true, but the heat was real enough. How Celestia allowed such a flagrant move on his part, April could not fathom.

She went to bed with a headache, which she had been told to expect in the first days, and tossed and turned for hours with the image of the pulse crystal in her head. She had left it on the coffee table, a stumpy shard of blackberry-dark glass, innocent to appearances save for the straps.

Years ago, when they still lived in Cloudsdale, Cloudchaser had purchased a pulse crystal. She had always been casually interested in shooting, and tried to teach Flitter what she had learned, but Flitter did not take to it. Even target shooting seemed in poor taste to her. The pulse crystal hadn’t made it with them to Ponyville, but Cloudchaser would occasionally mention going to an exhibition or watching a competition.

“What if I’m asked to use it? What if I have to defend myself?” Frightening scenarios appeared in her drowsy head, of herself cornered by PAs who inexplicably knew she was a spy, or of herself forced to shoot an innocent unicorn as a way to be initiated into the gang. “Group,” she corrected herself. “They’re a group. They won’t make me kill someone, will they?” Alone in the darkness, it was easy to think they would, and her thoughts grew more and more ridiculous as she faded into sleep. They might ask her to rob someone, or attack a rival gang member, or do all manner of cold-blooded things.

With the morning light, April made a breakfast of toast and instant coffee. Her apartment had been stocked with standard foodstuffs, not many of which were to her taste. She began a grocery list while she woke up, then called the bank and checked her account. With her assignment, a legitimate job would be only a temporary necessity, perhaps not even that. Ideally, Chilly had told her one evening, April would find a place within the PAs’ operations. When asked what sort of “operations” she meant, Chilly had said she didn’t know, but that they would be illegal. Like the notion of using the pulse crystal, that was something April would need to get over quickly.

She had five hundred bits in the bank, enough for about a month of groceries if she was responsible, plus the second month of rent. The first month was already taken care of.

With the TV on but not watched, April set about arranging her apartment, making it more her own. A little stack of books and movies she placed on the carpet beside the TV stand, her cleaning supplies she placed in the closet beside the ironing board. She rearranged her clothes, and found among them a blouse that had belonged to Jet. Thinking how funny it would be to somehow sneak the blouse back to its owner, April tried it on, found it too small, and replaced it. Overhanging all, impossible to ignore, was her task. Like a throbbing tooth that asserts itself no matter whether it was in use, thoughts of the carnival and the Pegasus Advocate recruitment in her future came from everything she saw and did, and she struggled to find more reasons not to go out as the hours dragged on. The apartment was clean, the furniture moved to her liking, the dishes done, the grocery list complete, the bank called a second time to confirm her balance, the scraggly spider fern watered. She was comfortable enough in her body that she could move without feeling dumb, and she could talk easily enough if she did so a little slower than she liked. By two o’ clock, she was out of busywork, and, heart pounding, she sat on the couch and turned the TV up.

She told herself she would relax a little first, that she would be no good if she went out in her state, but she did not relax. She found the most vacuous show she could and turned it up, making herself laugh at every little thing the actors did, but the frightening shape of her job did not quit her mind. She was conscious of each minute wasted, and she knew that waiting would not make it easier, but wait she did. At the end of the first episode, she got up, then sat back down and told herself she would head out after the next one: a nice, round hour. At the end of the next one, she hesitated at an interesting commercial, then told herself she would leave if the next commercial was boring. She watched that one too, then the next episode, and her anxiety did not soften or fade, nor did it harden into determination or self-reproach. She sat, changed positions until no position was comfortable to her, slowly stopped forcing laughter, and marked the lengthening shadows on her carpet. April watched a fourth episode, thinking herself pathetic, imagining what Ink would say if she could see her. Her thoughts turned to quitting the Datura, to writing up a resignation letter and marching down to the shelter and telling Sunburst to shove it under Ink’s door. She even went so far as to search her apartment, in case somewhere she had a booklet with the train schedules. She could get to Ponyville before anyone noticed she was gone, and from there, perhaps she could vanish into the forest, or, she thought wildly, just follow the river south until there were no more cities and no more Datura managers to shove her around.

Standing in the kitchen, junk drawer emptied, April Showers looked at her glassware. Those glasses with water spots she cleaned again, and was able to lose herself in the labor for minutes at a time. For a pegasus, it was precarious to maneuver the glasses under the faucet. When the task was done, and it was four thirty, she made a late lunch, which she ate in silent, tight fear. She put her glasses back, did the dishes from lunch, and watched another episode to let her food settle. It was six ‘o clock when April was at the front door, looking out onto the darkening parking lot and the street beyond.

“I started too late,” she thought. “I’d better just do it tomorrow. I’ll do it for sure tomorrow.” She went back inside and sat down, justifying herself to herself. The day of leisure was necessary to get her mind in order, and to get comfortable in the new body, and learn her surroundings a little as well. That she should be expected to go out on such a day was preposterous, and she thought of Ink and her expectations, and by six thirty, April was staring with glazed eyes at the stack of movies she had placed on the floor. She went to them, thinking she should rearrange them, but when she had the stack spread out on the carpet, she changed her mind and put them back. Looking down on the replaced stack, she then looked at her hooves and wings, quietly disgusted with herself. Head buzzing, she went to the door, grabbed her keys and saddlebags, and walked out. The apartment complex was going quiet for the coming night, though a few voices were still to be heard, or the crunch of wheels and gravel as late workers got home.

Fear caught up to her as she came into view of the gate, and she took a moment to check her empty mailbox. April was aware that it was a fluke that had pushed her out the door, that some odd combination of boredom and self-consciousness had flipped her mind off for a second, the only second her body apparently needed to embark on its ill-starred journey. Once begun, she could not turn back, and she found as she reached the sidewalk that she did not really want to. Like any disagreeable job, putting it off was always worse, and she felt stupid for wasting so much of the day to re-learn that lesson.

April could hear the sounds of the carnival in the distance, see the colored lights awash in the coming evening, and she set off resolutely down the sidewalk, drawing a jacket tighter around herself as a cold breeze rattled overhanging leaves. A few ponies in the area had put up decorations already, a practice April had always thought silly. Hearth’s Warming was still three months away.

By seven-fifteen, she was standing in line for admission to the carnival, craning her neck for any sight of the Pegasus Advocates without really expecting to see them until she got inside. She paid for her ticket and wandered in, feeling lost as soon as she took her first step. A carnival was no place to be on one’s own, she thought, and she looked back at the banners and pennants hanging at the entryway. Soft dirt and peanut shells crunched underhoof, and a sea of voices and machinery cushioned her ears, unconsciously held upright in nervous energy.

A passing earth pony looked at her but did not stop to talk, and she looked back at him, trying with no heart to summon loathing. He might be her neighbor, she thought, and resolved with empty pride to introduce herself around the apartment. One task accomplished, a notch further into her character: April Showers, legitimate apartment tenant.

“Where do I even begin?”

She walked deeper into the swirl of lights and cheer. Canterlot’s sky dome cast them in a perfect simulacrum of yellowed evening, dimming everyone she saw, softening all edges and making more amenable all chatter. The sun’s likeness was yet above Canterlot Mountain’s north side, and April watched an airship land on a floodlit platform, just sticking out from a mass of treetops. She felt guarded in public, torn between the need to watch everyone and appear at ease in the crowd, and she caught herself scowling at a young colt who had paused to look at her.

“It’s like having a secret,” she reminded herself. Her counselor had told her, in times of anxiety, to remember that there were ponies all around her who had secrets just as big, or at least big to them. Watching one passing stranger, she pinned an imaginary secret on her. “That lady’s having an affair with one of her employees, and she’s doing okay here.” She let the mare pass out of mind, comforted somewhat, inaccurate though the thought may be. The point was not in uncovering real secrets, just remembering that everyone else had them.

She stood thus for several minutes, labelling ponies with troubled pasts and illicit hobbies until her mood had darkened, and she was able to walk on without thinking of herself. She watched a stallion with ice cream in his goatee clean his glasses, leaning against the painted side of a game booth. A pair of pegasi flew above him and came dangerously close to the moving arm of a screaming ride, laughing and gesturing with forelegs and wings.

As though behind glass, April walked among them again, untouched and touching no one, her private fear mounting despite momentary distractions. She might engage her senses, but she could not, she felt, keep anything with her. The spark of empathy for a mare who dropped her bag of popcorn was gone in an instant when April walked by her, as distant as the treetops that moved with the autumn breeze.

She knew she was already at fault, for she did not think of herself as a budding Pegasus Advocate, but as a stranger looking for trouble. Wondering where she would go if she were one of them, then correcting herself and wondering where her future sisters would most likely post up, she idly walked between games and food stands, affecting a casual stroll. She stopped for a cup of shaved ice and chatted with a middle-aged mare and her friend, journalists from the mountaintop who had come down to report on the effects of the sky dome on Lower Canterlot. One was an earth pony, the other a pegasus, and April used them to practice her prejudices until they moved on, and she pitched the last half of her ice onto the mound of trash rising out of the waste bin and followed her hooves to a hollering mass by the spinning teacups. Directly in line with the setting sun’s image, the moving crowd looked inequine until she got close, like a clump of legs and stretched necks dissolved in dust and shadow and overlapping laughter. In her fear and frustration, and the pull she ignored to put an analytical eye to her situation, she felt mordantly intrigued at the crowd, thinking it must be a fight or an orgy she was about to breach; she was disappointed that it was just a large group of friends getting rowdy.

A pea-green teacup, the color of moss in the sunset, spun by her, its occupant calling out something to his friend, and she tried to see him going around, thinking impulsively that he had meant to call to her. She backed away and mumbled an apology to the unicorn she cut off, then doubled back, thinking she should call him a name, but he was already gone—and she knew she could never do such a thing anyway.

“Who am I kidding?” she asked herself, wishing someone would answer her, even Ink Pearl. She could imagine her commander sternly telling her to get over her reservations and find the PAs, unnecessarily reminding her of the goals of her mission, and particularly that she was alone. Ink had told her she would be alone so many times, she had stopped hearing it at the end.

“Stupid bitch,” April murmured, picturing Ink’s matter-of-fact disappointment, and then carried the image with her down a particularly wide lane toward the prize booth. At times, Ink would suddenly gain the sheer blouse she had worn the night she had barged in on Wings and Jet, and April would angrily and ineffectually send it away.

At each open space, she would pause and look around, and she almost walked into someone when she finally spotted them, so plainly apart from the crowd that she half expected them to beckon her all the way down to them, as if the grounds were as empty of ponies to their eyes as they seemed to hers.

There were two, a mare and a stallion, standing in the middle of a crossroads under a clattering ride’s whirling shadow. In thick, black combat boots, they stood only a couple inches taller than April, but she could not have guessed it with their manes, his wrapped in a tight beehive of neon green and purple, hers an electric blue half-coin fanned out at the back of her otherwise bare skull. Silver studs formed raised lines on their black latex body suits, stretched tight to reveal surprisingly delicate stitching as she approached them. The stallion closed the distance with a hearty hoofshake and a warm smile, and the mare asked if April would take a brochure. April said she would like to, and she turned through it on the spot, reading what she had already been taught in overview by Chilly Clouds.

“Yeah, most ponies just take ‘em and throw ‘em in the trash as soon as we’re out of sight,” the mare said. “If you have any questions, feel free to ask.”

The stallion approached a different pegasus and was told to fuck off.

“What are you… I mean,” April started, suddenly aware that she had not rehearsed anything she might say. The thought of actually doing it had remained at a distance in her dazed walk. She looked at the frequently asked questions section of the brochure: “Do Pegasus Advocates encourage violence against non-pegasi? No! Pegasus Advocacy is…” She looked up. “Sorry, I’m just interested, is all.”

“We can tell,” the stallion said. “I’m Summer Breeze, and this is Tomato Trellis.”

“April Showers,” April said, shaking hooves again. The feeling of distance was again asserting itself around her, only briefly broken by her interaction.

“What has you interested in Pegasus Advocacy?” the mare asked, and she smiled at a passing pony.

A question she had practiced both with Chilly and on her own, April recalled her answer, complete with awkward pauses to simulate trying to find the right words. “I’m not completely sure, to be honest. I think… I think I just always liked the idea of a big, like, group of similar ponies. It’s kinda like a family, I guess is how I see it.”

“That is such an important word you just said there, April Showers,” Summer Breeze said. “Family. That’s what it comes down to.”

“Absolutely, all the way,” Tomato Trellis said, nodding. Her mane did not wiggle with the motion, and she caught April staring. “Like it?”

“It’s pretty wild,” April said, not having to fake a partial laugh. “Uh, but yeah, I like it. I’ve tried to do that with my mane, but,” she caught a strand in her hoof and let it fall, limp. “I’m doing something wrong. I can never get it to behave.”

“Psh, manes and outfits,” Summer Breeze said. “The only important part is the heart.” He flashed his satchel of brochures. “You can keep that if you like, we’ve got plenty more.”

Conscious that they were done talking to her, April decided to declare what she had hoped would just be offered her. “I’m actually interested in joining you all. Do you have any meet-ups nearby?” With a self-conscious laugh that she hoped didn’t sound forced, she said, “I wasn’t taking the brochure to be polite.”

Summer Breeze and Tomato Trellis exchanged a flicker of eye contact, and she pointed to a spot at the bottom of the brochure. “We meet up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at this spot. If you’re interested, you should drop by sometime. We’d be happy to have you, April.”

“Excuse me, miss, can I have a second of your time?” Summer Breeze asked to a passing pegasus.

“I think I will,” April said, looking into Tomato Trellis’ eyes. Recruiters like them had probably heard April’s line a thousand times before, she thought; there was no way they’d seriously invite her in based on a few minutes’ conversation. Knowing she would gain nothing more by staying with them, she thanked them, tucked the brochure under her wing, and started away.

“Hey!” She turned back, but Tomato Trellis was not yelling at her, but at a pair of ponies that had walked by, a pegasus and a unicorn.

“Just keep walking,” April thought, silently imploring the pair. Without thinking, she had stopped to watch, she and several others who all seemed aware of the sudden tension in the air.

“Hey yourself,” the unicorn said, stopping to face them. The pegasus by his side put a wing around his back, and he took a purposeful step forward, bold against the pegasi’s naked loathing. “You got a problem?”

Tomato Trellis held her head high, her improbable mane throwing a giant shadow onto the stained ground. “Why don’t you stick to your own kind, twinkler?”

“You better watch it,” he said, approaching. April flinched despite herself as Tomato Trellis jumped at him, and the crowd reeled back. Someone was yelling “hey, hey, hey!” at them, but no one intervened as the two went to the ground. The pegasus screamed and ran at the tussling pair, but Summer Breeze rushed in and she wheeled off, spraying invectives. He added his combat boots to the fray, kicking the fetal unicorn, trying to gets his hooves between raised forelegs to the unicorn’s face. It lasted only a few seconds before security ran in, and at their touch, the Pegasus Advocates flung themselves away from the scene.

“He just came at her out of nowhere!” Summer Breeze shouted to the security guard who shouted right back.

“It was self-defense,” Tomato Trellis spat. “I told you it was a bad idea to come here, Summer!”

The objections did not stop, and each time a guard shouted one down, the other would get louder still until it seemed both parties would come to blows. Tomato Trellis tired of shouting after several minutes, but Summer Breeze only worked himself up more, kicking dust, bellowing epithets, shaking lather from his muzzle when they finally zip tied his wings and hooves. Chest to the ground, his latex creaking, Summer Breeze argued his rights as the police arrived, the EMTs right behind for the unicorn they had left in the dust. His face was disfigured, eyes swollen shut and muzzle cracked in a perverse half-smile, and his marefriend howled inconsolably the whole time.

When Summer Breeze had exhausted himself, Tomato Trellis took up where he left off, more calmly trying to explain how the unicorn had jumped on them from behind, how he had savagely ripped at Summer Breeze’s mane, and how they were just passing out information. She gave an officer a brochure, and he spared a second to look at the inside flap before giving it back, in a cloud of unicorn magic.

Some of the crowd had dispersed, but April remained until the PAs were taken away, and she received a single unrecognizing look from Summer Breeze as he ducked into the police car. The blood in the dirt had taken on the anonymous, brown color of spilled soda, and the electricity in the air had dissipated. A new crowd was forming, asking what had happened, why there were police officers cleaning up and interviewing the stall workers nearby. April had the presence of mind to leave before the police could get information from her.

All the way home, April saw even less than when she had set off. The way they had lashed out at the unicorn made her sick, as unpredictable as a lightning bolt and over just as quickly. She had known to expect displays of the sort, but had not supposed she would see one her first meeting.

Sickness, however, was not the only feeling she walked away with. She deviated from the main road to rest by a green fountain, ignoring the curious eyes of a different, lone wanderer as she sat beside the short bridge over a gully. Her heart had slowed but her skin still tingled with anticipation and shock, and sitting, head bowed and mind free to recall all the details she had noticed, she felt a muted version of the emotion that had filled her minutes after the crime. The image of the dust stuck out to her, varied in color and texture, darkened by shadow or lightened by the shrieking carnival ride as it passed its lights through the raised cloud. The bodies moving in the dirt, scratching and cursing at each other, spittle and feathers flying amid the steady tempo of a pounding hoof, the ruffle of stressed clothing and the bright-sounding attempts at unicorn magic, savagely stifled each time; all of it had affected her, and she only realized in the peace of the fountain’s noise that it was not quite sickness, but excited disapprobation that possessed her. Such baseness she had never seen, such immediate surrender to impulse, and she could not help but respect it. With her head bowed and her eyes on a caterpillar that was inching its way toward the grass, she felt that she could no more blame a wild fox for sneaking into a henhouse than she could hold the Pegasus Advocates accountable for their actions. The violence did not come from a place of intelligence, but pure and uncaring emotion, which her disgust or fear could never change. The hatred that she had put into her words and her thoughts, practiced but forever unnatural, had exploded out of them with neither permission nor provocation, vulgar and appealing for that vulgarity. Loathsome, but uninhibited, the action seemed impossible for her to absorb without a sense of grudging awe.

Feeling like she had just cast herself off a cliff, April flew home on faltering wings.

With Applejack in the lobby with Versus and Big Mac out on an errand for Twilight, everyone else gathered in Twilight’s room with the bags of sawdust for which she had not yet found a better storage place. On the work desk, she had an array of crystals, ranging from the size of blueberries to bananas, and several bags of arts and crafts materials. Of the larger crystals, two were single and wrapped in wire, and one was also afloat in a strangely glowing glass of water; the others were twined together in a rough wreath, ends almost touching, forming a circle that could fit around a pony’s neck. With the tiny crystals, Twilight was engaged in the tedious task of unscrewing Hearth’s Warming lights, putting the crystals in, and screwing them back together, one by one by one, hundreds.

When the last of them had gotten comfortable, Twilight began. “I sent Big Mac out because I don’t want him to tell his sister anything, and I don’t want Applejack to know anything because she can ruin the whole plan.”

“This is the Contraction plan,” Octavia said. “You are telling us now?”

“I doubt she’d ruin it,” Vinyl said.

“If anyone thinks to ask her point-blank, she’ll have no choice, and Lotus will think of that. So this plan doesn’t leave this room, clear?” Twilight asked.

“You already told her you were gonna force a Contraction,” Rainbow said. “Days ago, remember?”

“We’ve got five days to get it ready,” Twilight said, ignoring her. “I’ve been mulling it over these last few days, and I know what needs to happen now. Lotus’ timetable has us ready to take on the hazard on Sunday, and I’d like to zip out of here the Monday after.”

“How’s that coming along, by the way?” Colgate asked.

“Hazard preparations? Fine.”

“Just fine?” Vinyl asked.

“It’s not really my biggest concern right now,” Twilight said, frowning at a reluctant light bulb. “The loggers are pulling in all the sawdust I need, Pinkie’s doing fine on the cat litter. You are?”

“Got a hundred boxes so far!” Pinkie said.

“A hundred and change,” Rainbow said.

“Perfect. As for the rest, Aloe’s got a group of ponies to help lure the hazard when it’s time to do a test run, and Lotus called in a favor to bring in some cherry picker cranes. We’re taking the roof off tomorrow with their help, and I need to see if I can repurpose the ventilation system to work as our sawdust delivery piece. Lotus says she thinks I can, but she’s not sure of the details.”

“Say what you will, those two work fast,” Octavia said.

“Some of it was already in the works before we showed up, like the cherry pickers. Anyway, that’s all well and good; this is my problem. I can’t do this with their knowledge, or their consent. I say ‘them,’ what I mean is any secret agent in this city.”

“What about the precogs?” Rarity asked.

“Getting there. It’s a four-piece device that I’m going to use to siphon Tartarus magic off the gateway.”

“The gateway is monitored,” Colgate said.

“Thank you, doctor, I know that.” Taking a second to correct her tone, Twilight continued. “I’m not going down there. One of the loggers is on my behalf, and he’s going to string these up in all the trees near the gateway. These tiny, stupid crystals,” she struggled to get one into its light, “are all going to vibrate with the magic, very slightly and at a very low frequency. That’s why I need so many.”

“I think they pay attention to the amount of magic that comes out, though,” Colgate said. “They’ll notice if some of it’s being sucked away.”

“Yes, that was in one of the books Vinyl got for me. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do if they take down my Hearth’s Warming lights—make new ones, I suppose. But if these get taken, it’s okay, because these,” she gestured at the wreath of larger crystals, “are designed to resonate with the little crystals, and store the magical energy. These little ones are just pulling the magic away, the big ones store it, and I’m going to keep those on me. The rest is just a simple spell to give them a release, so I can dump all the magic at once, and then a third crystal that I’ll plug into the town sigil just before, so the magic feeds down into the city’s foundation.”

“Easy, yes,” Fluttershy said.

Twilight smiled without looking at her. “It is easy, actually. Without going into too much detail, basically, some pony a long time ago scraped a pair of sigils into the bedrock of the city—no, I don’t know why, probably something to do with the griffon battles at the time—and those sigils are why we get the teleportation. They respond to surges of magic that come out of the gateway. Sooo, if I can take all that Tartarus magic and build it up, I can simulate a surge. Simple, right?”

“Simple!” Pinkie said.

“But you said this is illegal,” Octavia said.

“It’s so ponies don’t just go skimming off the top of the magic Tartarus leaks out. The problem is, Tartarus magic isn’t easy to use like the stuff we’re used to; just because you were able to take some, doesn’t mean you can do anything good with it.” She shrugged. “It’s a safety measure more than anything.”

“Not for you, apparently,” Rainbow said.

“Well, I’m not casting magic with it,” Twilight said. “I’m just releasing it as-is. I just hope that it doesn’t change forms too drastically while it’s inside my crystals.”

“That can happen?” Vinyl asked.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“You never answered my question about AJ,” Rainbow said. “You already told her your plan. Why keep her in the dark now? Isn’t it a little late?”

“She only knows that I’m going to do it, she doesn’t know any details. If she asks me for more, I have a different plan to tell, so if she gets asked, she’ll misdirect Lotus.”

Fluttershy just shook her head, but Twilight ignored it.

“And what about the precogs?” Rarity asked. “They’ll see you setting this up, surely they will.”

“I don’t think so,” Twilight said. “More likely, they’re going to see another Contraction.”

“That’s just as bad,” Vinyl said. “Worse.”

“Not necessarily,” Fluttershy said quietly. “They’ll see the Contraction, not the context surrounding it.”

“Exactly,” Twilight said. “Real or fake, it’s still a Contraction. They’ll see another one in the future and start getting ready for the next party. The timing will be funny, but that’s happened before. Actually, Pinkie, that’s where I need you.”

“Me?” Pinkie asked. “Little ol’ Pinkie Pie? Me?”

“Do you think you can set up another party in the park? A lot of the time, precogs see the parties instead of the actual Contractions, so if we can get one of those in place, it’ll really legitimize what I’m doing.”

“Uhhh… Gosh, Twilight.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.” She squinted at her light; a chip in the glass was making it difficult to fit the crystal in.

“Darling, let me take a turn,” Rarity said, shooing Twilight out of her seat. “Just stick them in, like so? No specific position?”

“Just jam them in,” Twilight said. “Thank you.”

“So you thought Pinkie wouldn’t be able to do it,” Fluttershy said, earning a glance from Vinyl.

“We only saw one party, and most of our time in this town has been with the twins, of course Pinkie can’t set up a full Contraction party on her own. Don’t worry, I’ll get Versus to help you.”

“So she’s in on all this too?” Rainbow asked.

“She just thinks Pinkie picked up the next Contraction with her Pinkie Sense,” Colgate said. “Right?”

“That’s what she’s going to think,” Twilight said. “I’ll tell her tonight. I’ll say you had a dream about it, Pinkie.”

“Well…” Pinkie said. “I guess with Versus there, I can help.”

“Wouldn’t there be some precogs there helping to set up tomorrow as well?” Rarity asked. “You know, since they can, well, see into the future, won’t they see this?”

“That would make things go smoother,” Twilight said.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Good. The rest of you, all you need to do is not talk about it. For you all, it’s a treat that there’s another Contraction coming up so soon after the last one, and you hope you’re still in town for the party.” For the first time, she scanned the room. “Okay, my speech is over. I know some of you have strong opinions; let’s get it all out now.”

“So businesslike,” Fluttershy said with a roll of her eyes.

“Yeah, me first,” Rainbow said, raising a hoof. “I just gotta say, I get why you’re doing this, and I’m not gonna try to stop you, but I don’t like it. You’re playing fast and loose with the law, Twilight, and if you keep doing it, we’re all gonna get bit in the butts.”

“Not our butts!” Pinkie cried.

“Not now, Pinks.” She stared at Twilight for a moment, searching her.

“I agree with Rainbow Dash,” Octavia said. “If I had a better idea, I would offer it instead of this. As it is…”

“Full steam ahead?” Colgate completed.

“If we are going to do this, I would like for us to do it properly. What can I do to help?”

“Handle your death threat,” Twilight said. “I don’t want someone popping out of the woodwork on you all.”

“I take it you haven’t found Partial Thoughts yet?” Rarity asked.

Octavia shook her head.

“We think she skipped town,” Vinyl said. “Which is good, and bad.”

“It gives credence to her warning,” Octavia said. “But…”

“Right,” Twilight said, and looked at Colgate, who had pulled out the pulse crystal Rarity had purchased for her. “You’re not going out waving that thing around, are you?”

“She’s not stupid,” Vinyl said, and Colgate just met Twilight’s look.

“No, that’s not what I meant. I just meant… Rainbow, can I count on you to help with my plan?”

“I said I wasn’t gonna stop you,” Rainbow said.

“Yes, but,” Octavia started.

“I don’t want this to come between us,” Twilight said.

“Tell that to Applejack,” Pinkie said.

“I’ll tell her everything after we’re out of this city. I already feel horrible about it.”

“We can tell,” Fluttershy said.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I know what I’m doing, Fluttershy.”

“I didn’t say you don’t.”

For half a minute, the only sound in the room was the gentle scrape as Rarity attended to the Hearth’s Warming lights. Twilight looked across them all, resting on Fluttershy, making her face unimpressed.

“If anypony has something constructive to say, I’m all ears.” She waited a second. “What I’m doing is not good, and I would never have considered it a year ago. We’ve known that since Roan, and I recognized it then too, just as strongly as I do here in the snow and the wind. I… how to put this? Girls, I don’t need to hear about my iniquities right now.”

“You’ve said this before,” Rainbow said.

“And I’m saying it again, Rainbow Dash. I’m saying it because it’s true. I know, and I do care, but at the same time, I don’t. At this point, I only care about finishing what we started. Is that clear to everyone?”

“We get that,” Fluttershy said, softening. “I just want to be sure—”

“That I’m conscious of my choices, yes, well, I am.” She paused, not sure how to continue, disarmed by the look of hurt that passed Fluttershy’s face at being interrupted so curtly. “Every time I lie to Lotus’ face now, it’ll be a reminder of what this is, and when I confess all this to Applejack later. Actually, not even Lotus, her forgiveness doesn’t mean much to me. It’s mostly Applejack.”

“How much weight does that statement really have?” Rainbow said. “You know AJ’ll forgive you.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” She picked up a book and then threw it back down on the bed. “What do I do to make me seem okay in your eyes? I’m talking about apologizing and going back to my old ways, and you act like you don’t believe it. What, am I just a wicked mare now, and that’s it? Have I been consigned to that role in your minds?”

“Your, uh, redemption, so to speak, might seem more real if it wasn’t pre-planned,” Vinyl said. “That’s all.”

“Ah, would we all prefer it if I did not have a plan? Okay, I’ll just pitch all this and we’ll take a week or two to fly to the last Element, and then however long after that to get to Draught Castle.”

“Twilight,” Rarity said.

“It’s fine, because our consciences will be clear. That’s what matters.”

“If I may,” Octavia said, raising a hoof. “I feel I have some experience in this sort of thing.”

“Let’s hear this,” Rainbow said, trying to meet Fluttershy’s eyes as she turned away.

“I have spent my life dwelling on mistakes I have made, and I do not want to see you start down that path, Twilight. I am not saying do not be contrite, but just remember that life goes on.”

“And us with it,” Pinkie added quietly.

“Conditions change. When we are back home, you will not feel the need to do these things, because you will not have the pressure of saving a country on your back. In those times, we will all settle down, but we cannot do that now. I still do not like this particular plan, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but I think it is the best thing to do.”

Twilight nodded at her. “I appreciate your words. Anyone else? Come on, I don’t want to have to go back to this after today.”

“I just think it’s risky,” Colgate said. “You’ll wanna be careful.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“No, she’s got a point,” Rarity said. “You’re being somewhat cavalier about all this.”

“If it was me, I’d do that just to not show that I’m scared,” Vinyl said. “That’s what I do before big shows.”

“Still?” Colgate asked.

“Yep. Not ashamed of it.”

“I’m not pretending to not be scared,” Twilight said, reddening slightly, for Vinyl had stated perfectly what she was doing. Vinyl nodded with a hint of a smile, her eyes crinkling at the goggles’ edges, and Twilight knew that Vinyl saw through her.

“Twilight’s the Element of Magic, not Kindness or Generosity,” Pinkie said. “And especially not Honesty, thank Celestia. It’s not exaaaaactly required for her to be as clean-hearted as the rest of us.”

“That is technically true,” Twilight said. “I’d be lying if I haven’t used that truth from time to time, to justify certain things.”

“That’s disgusting,” Rainbow said.

Twilight just looked at her, and Rainbow looked back, defiant. “You’re right, it is disgusting.”