Octavia stared down her opulent corridor at the pacing, shrouded figure. Its silhouette bent and splintered in the glass baubles on her walls, but no sound reached her. Recognition lit her mind, and she coiled her muscles to run. No thought of magic came to her.

In an instant, the form was beside her, and they were in her library. The multi-level chamber was her least used room in the house, and it showed. Though her servants had kept dust and cobwebs from intruding for years, no sign of busy unrest marked the second largest single room. No books lay open or sat unsorted, no ashes had collected in any of the fireplaces, no indentations on cushions suggested use of more than casual breaks on her way to other parts of the mansion.

The thin pony advanced and placed a covered hoof on her globe, its silver lines of latitude and longitude shimmering as it turned. Octavia went to it, impelled, and watched as it came to rest, a bead of green light indicating the ocean north of Equestria.

She raised her head to meet the pony’s eyes. Though her face was covered, Octavia could see the smile, neither malicious nor deceptive.

“Yes, there is an Element there,” Octavia said. “I already know that.”

The unicorn tapped the globe with her hoof and spoke in a soft voice. “My sunken ship rests here, Octavia.”

She paused, countless questions rapidly flooding her thoughts. She sat on a plush, violet cushion and studied the globe: the large ovoid of Equestria, curving toward the south pole; the jagged claw of Griffonstone to the west, hemming them from the huge, changeling-dominated ocean. Their own section of ocean was a blue knob on Equestria’s northern edge, tiny in comparison to the waters surrounding it. “Who are you?” she asked at last.

The mare smiled again, her eyes shining a quick icy blue. “My ship sank when I ran into an outcropping of rocks, several hundred years ago.”

“Is that where we will find the Element, in your ship?”

“Yes.”

“But who are you?”

The mare lowered her covering to reveal slits of nostrils on an emaciated, angular muzzle, and then unwrapped them from her concave, wiry neck. Her fur was short and shone in the warm library light like a cloak of scales, or silk. A long ribbon of mane hung to one side, tied tight behind her sharp cornered skull. Where her ears were, the fur receded to show leprous, pale blue skin.

“I know that you control the ghost ship, but I want to know who you actually are.”

“Octavia!”

She started awake, momentarily confused at the tall grass over her head.

“C’mon, we’re going for a walk!” Pinkie cried.

“What?” She sat up and cleared the grass out of her mane. “Why did you wake me?”

“There’s a question I don’t think any of us were expecting,” Rarity said.

Octavia looked around the overcast coast, a realization suddenly forming. “That was not a nightmare.” “I was having an interesting dream, one that I would like to talk about.”

“Wait,” Applejack said. “Who are you, an’ where’s Octavia?”

“Very funny.”

Big Mac helped her up, and they walked as a group along the fence. Clouds from the south had rolled in, and those that originally covered the north shore had turned into a gray wall just outside where the ocean should stop, falling back in a curtain. A breeze titillated them.

“So what was your dream?” Twilight asked.

“It was about that ghost ship pony.”

“Thunderhead,” Pinkie said.

“Yes. What?”

“Since she came out of a thunderhead, you know? I thought it seemed fun!”

“Sure, fine. Thunderhead, then. I believe she visited me.”

“Can she do that?” Fluttershy asked.

“I do not know,” Octavia said.

“Wait, are you sure it wasn’t Vanilla Cream?” Rainbow asked. “He can do that stuff easy.”

Octavia thought back at the dream, its details fading. She was not sure what they had talked about, and remembered only the pony’s appearance. She remembered the blue eyes. “It may have been him, actually. I am not certain.”

“But the point is, Thunderhead appeared to you,” Rarity said.

“I remember her removing her shawl and showing me her face. It was not exactly equine.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.

“It had very defined edges and sharp corners, and her fur was shorter than I have seen on a pony.”

“She could have some disease.”

“Or it could just be a stupid dream,” Rainbow said. Twilight looked at her impatiently. “Just sayin’.”

“I remember her ears were very pointy, and there was no fur on them. None at all.”

“Sounds like a disease to me,” Rarity said. “Which would explain why she kept herself hidden so well.”

“It’s probably nothing,” Twilight said. “She’s just an aspect created by Discord, remember. You say you don’t remember what you talked about?”

“I think she mentioned her ship in some way, but… wait.” She stopped walking and let her eyes come unfocused as she tried to relive the dream, an action she was more used to doing involuntarily. “We will find the Element in her ship. I remember that now.”

“Wait, the ghost ship?” Applejack said. “Ah thought it was—”

“It’s still down there,” Fluttershy said. “I can still feel it.”

“The real ship, not the magical construct,” Big Mac said. “Musta sunk.”

“Hmm. If I can find out what that ship is,” Twilight said, “then we can figure out who this Thunderhead is. All assuming your dream had any meaning at all, Octavia.”

“You said it may have been Vanilla Cream in disguise,” Rarity said. “And it would make sense for him to do that, given how he feels about Discord.”

“Octavia, can you draw?”

“I have never seriously tried,” Octavia said.

“When we get back to the ship, let’s sit down and try to figure this pony out.”

“I can draw,” Rarity said. “Maybe I can help.”

“I would appreciate it,” Octavia said. They passed the dry beginning of a pier, ending only a couple feet off the edge, jagged stubs of supports hanging off its bottom like dark, cracked stalactites. Without a word, Pinkie trotted in its direction, ignoring a weak protest from Twilight. They went with her, over a sharp curb in the stone, and onto the plain of rough, uncomfortable sand. All the softest sand had been blown away, or sucked back with the sudden incredible tide as they had lifted, leaving only gravel and sandstone beneath. Few divides marred the denuded beach that they could see.

“Be careful,” Twilight said. “Remember what I said about sliding. Avoid any patches of sand you see.”

“I know, I know,” Pinkie said, leaping a small hole in the rock. She was the first to charge up the desiccated pier, coming to lean on a pillar at the end. They grouped behind her to look out off the edge of their world.

“Shit,” Twilight thought, and giggled at the irreverence. The view was more massive, more empty, more breathtaking than staring down a chasm or flying among clouds across the eggshell continent. Sheets of gray cloud rolled down in a thick wall, curving always lower like the lip of a great cup, cutting them off from what Twilight could only imagine as thousands of miles of blue perfection, gradated through pores in the barrier. Below, the planet itself rested as unmoving and graceful as ever, though, to her, it was but a brown and black stone under meandering cirrus as she leaned to the side, matching Pinkie’s reckless look out and over the pier’s end.

In the near distance, she could see the fraction of ocean that had come up, its glass-like figure imposing in monumental stillness. Ships flecked its surface like leaves, some so close to the edge that Twilight felt her skin crawl in anticipation. The ships, however, were mere toys next to the dark column that rose closer to the shore. Looming over the ocean, the water siphoning station was a colossal fist of cloud atop a static cyclone of soft, foaming white. Pipes looped and spiraled in knots behind walls of cloud, while huge, hanging clusters of turbines flanked the edges like bunches of fruit between larger, sturdier looking storage tanks. Nascent clouds swirled out of a trident of rising smokestacks over the whole facility, forming a cone of deadly dark that fed the ceiling of cloud even farther above.

“What’s cooler, Big Mac? The edge, or the siphoning facility out there?” Rainbow asked.

“An’ the coast ponies were able to make this thing in just three months?” Applejack asked, disbelief coloring her voice.

“Princess Celestia must have commissioned thousands of mages,” Twilight said. “I wonder what they’re doing with all the salt, though.”

“Salt?” Rarity asked.

Twilight looked at her, but quickly back; she didn’t want to have her back to the continent’s edge.

“Ah think Ah know where our pillar came from,” Big Mac said, and climbed off the pier. They followed him down onto the beach and back up the rocks, needing Rainbow and Fluttershy’s help over the final lip of stone back to the grass. They walked on, deeper into the field. Applejack looked up at the sky just as Twilight felt a raindrop on her back.

“Should we head back?” Fluttershy asked.

“Soon,” Applejack said. “We don’t wanna get too far away.”

Rainbow cantered to the head of the group and added a tiny flourish of flight before turning around. “Come on, AJ, we can stay out here longer.”

“Ah just don’t want us losin’ track of the ship, that’s all.” She stumbled. “Hey! What the—”

“Perhaps we should head back immediately,” Octavia said, levitating the block of salt off the ground. It was identical to the one Rainbow had found in her room, minus the inscriptions.

“So that’s two mysterious salt blocks,” Rarity said. “Twilight? You’re the magic expert.”

“I mean, I can look at it,” Twilight said, pulling it to herself, “but I’d be surprised if this gives me any more information than the last one did.” She held it in her hoof while her horn glowed a soft purple, her magical fog more opaque than usual. The block glowed for a minute, and Twilight shook her head. “Nothing new. It’s been shaped, but that’s the only sign of magic.” She paused as a gentle rain of salt fell to the ground, and turned it over again to see the cause: as she was holding it, a small message was being scrawled in, as if by an invisible chisel. “Behind you,” she whispered.

“Twilight,” Applejack said, her voice low and still. She knew even before she turned around what to expect, but it did not stop her from recoiling as Discord sauntered across the beach toward them, covering more distance than his strides allowed. He appeared lost in thought, and wore a jaunty set of blue and green regalia, decorated with shining medals and complete with a ceremonial saber to his side and a huge, feathered hat over his horns.

Twilight took two steps back, but stopped; something inside her was piqued. She watched him advance, watched the way his legs moved, and his footprints on a patch of sand. The imprints lingered for only a couple seconds before refilling, not swiftly or in a manner imperceptible save for after the feat, but as though filled from within—sand poured out, grain by grain, in the middle of the empty space. Even as he approached, arms wide open in greeting, her mind went to the old lessons in Canterlot.

“So, you’re upset we chased off your ghost ship, and wanted a piece of it yourself, huh?” Rainbow crowed, at the same time shrinking slightly behind Big Mac’s stoic, unmoving bulk.

Twilight stepped forward, taking an additional step before Octavia, who joined her.

“I think ‘chased off’ might be a little inaccurate,” Discord said, sparing only a threadbare smile.

“Say what you need to say,” Twilight said, looking him in the face.

“Your princess is dead, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight kept her face straight and her stance rigid, even as the others shouted out behind her. “Which one?”

“Dear Luna.”

“You lie!” Applejack cried. “Twilight, he’s tryin’ to—”

“Quiet,” Twilight snapped. She faced the draconequus. “You must think I was born yesterday to try that on me, Discord.”

He made an indignant, surprised sound in the back of his throat. “Surely you understand the implications, Twilight. Luna, dead! Gone!”

One of her electives was a class on the differences between the goddess’ magic and that of mortals, and they had spent an entire unit on death, and its inconsequential nature for the night princess. “She dies all the time, you dummy. Everypony knows that.” She shook her head in a dramatic display of cynicism. “Why are you even here? You have an army to lead and my home to conquer. Go do that instead.”

“You think I can’t be in two places at once?”

“He is trying to mess with us, Twilight,” Octavia said, stepping forward.

“Octavia, stand down. I know what I’m doing.” She took another step toward him, noting the foot he rested his weight on. He had not shifted in the time he had stood before them. She still had to consciously assert her will to keep her voice from wavering. “How long did you prepare for this illusion to go on?”

“And what makes you think this is an illusion?” he asked, not with the silkiness or smugness that she had come to expect, but exhaustion.

“The timbre of your voice, for one thing.” He smirked, and so did she. “Just kidding. You’re not, though.”

He doffed his feathered cap and flung it away, where it vanished in the air. “Twilight, I’m getting the feeling you don’t appreciate my visit.”

“I don’t appreciate you insulting my intelligence, and I especially don’t appreciate seeing somepony waste time.” She thought briefly of Spike as she took on a sterner tone. “You have responsibilities, but instead, you’re playing with us, all while my dead princess is on your tail. Why, why, why are you sending illusions of yourself all the way across the country to try to scare us?”

“Twilight,” Pinkie said.

“Quiet. Discord, I’m ashamed of you. This is the first bad move you’ve made.”

“You don’t know anything!” he cried, throwing his hands in the air and stomping a small circle in the grass. “Perhaps it’s all part of my plan to give you a false sense of confidence.”

“Then fight us and let us win, like Thunderhead did.”

“I don’t want it that false,” he said, sliding off his jacket and letting it puff away in colorful steam over his head.

“Then begone,” Twilight said. “You did your job, illusion. We know Princess Luna is dead, and you’ve stricken fear into our hearts, so why don’t you go back to your master now and let his little salt trap do its job?” She smiled and flicked her tail at him. “Or do you have no confidence in that either?”

“Enough!” he shouted, swinging a claw over the grass and shearing it in a magical curve of light. Twilight didn’t flinch. He removed the rest of his uniform and tossed it in a ball over Octavia’s face.

“That was the last of it, illusion.”

“I know that, Twilight, I know that.” He sneered and paced angrily, eyes shut as if with a headache. “I’m several millennia older than you. What can you say about magic that I don’t already know?”

Twilight returned his smile. His movements no longer caused the grass to sway. “I see my dead princess got to you somehow.”

“Oh, shut up.” He shook his head and brought his paw to his forehead dramatically. “So hot! Oh, I’m so hot! What’s a draconequus to do?” With a final cackle, he collapsed back into the grass and vanished, leaving a shower of coals behind to fizzle and quickly catch in the field.

“Give me a break,” Twilight murmured, pacing the small brush fire and using her horn to suck the air from the area, keeping the circle of field a weak half-vacuum until the fire had gone out. When it was done, she let the air back in a rush, standing back in case it should ignite an ember she hadn’t noticed.

“So, you wanna explain now, Twi?” Applejack asked.

“Way to go, by the way,” Rainbow said. “That was freaking amazing.”

“So Princess Luna’s okay?” Rarity asked. “And yes, wonderful job, darling. That was… weird.”

“Okay, okay, everypony,” Twilight said, facing her friends. They had all backed up several steps, except Octavia, who had been right behind her the whole time. “Princess Luna is perfectly okay. Her magic—actually, let’s walk back to the ship.” She looked up at the storm clouds again. “It’s getting dark out here.”

“So how many times has she died?” Pinkie asked.

“I don’t know the exact number, but it’s somewhere in the seven hundred range. She’s spent… what’s the number? I think it’s eight or nine total years dead.”

“That’s incredible,” Rarity said. They were outside the ship in the tide pool with their things, watching the ponies patch its hull. Octavia stood with her cello, but did not play.

“She’s a goddess,” Twilight said. “A lot of ponies don’t think about the princesses in those terms, but it’s true. Behind all the pomp and finery, they’re goddesses. Or at least close enough to it that we can call them that.”

“Nine years,” Rainbow echoed. “I wasn’t in flight school that long.”

“But nine years out of the thirty-three thousand she’s been alive,” Rarity said. “And fifteen.”

“We can all agree that it is amazing,” Octavia said. “But I would like to talk more about Discord.”

“How’d you know he was an illusion?” Big Mac asked.

“Was it really the timbre of his voice?” Pinkie asked. “ ‘Cause I thought it sounded just like normal! Maybe a little rough, but we’re on the coast. The air is pretty dry here, which is silly considering how much water there should be, and sand, and wind to blow the sand around, and—”

“Keep goin’, Twi,” Applejack said, shifting to sit in front of Pinkie and block her volume somewhat.

“His prints in the sand weren’t permanent, and he didn’t shift his weight, ever. That’s how I knew at first, but then when he kept taking off his clothes, that proved it. He had to remove pieces of himself in order to last longer. I think Discord just wanted to scare us and deliver that message.”

“Why not send a letter?” Rainbow asked.

“I guess giving it in person is more dramatic.”

“So you knew he was an illusion from the start,” Rarity said. “I was wondering why you were being so recklessly confident.”

“I can be confident,” Twilight said. “But yes, I knew he was an aspect, and a weak one at that. Discord—the real Discord—must be in a heck of a nasty spot if that was the best he could send us. I didn’t even have to use magic to figure out what it was.”

“It looked pretty good to me,” Rainbow said.

“But you don’t know anything about illusions,” Rarity said.

“Neither do you.”

“I’ve read about them before, a little bit.” She sat back to gesticulate with her hooves. “I’ve had an idea in my head for quite some time now, where I take something like a brooch or a cravat, enchant it with illusion magic, and somehow incorporate the illusion into the garment. Imagine an outfit whose dimensions change every time the pony moves.”

“Point is, it was a garbage illusion,” Applejack said.

“I wish I had more of my equipment with me, actually. I’d love to recreate that charming thing he was wearing today.”

“I wonder what it was supposed to be,” Twilight said. “But yes, the illusion was hilariously bad, for him. I was almost tempted to believe him when he said it was to give us false confidence, but… he’s done that before, much more effectively.”

“Ah’m just glad there wasn’t another fight,” Big Mac said. Thunder moved overhead.

“Finally,” Octavia said. She erected a small, gray shield over her cello.

“Getting better all the time, huh?” Rainbow said.

“I practice when you are asleep, and I am not.”

It was eight o’ clock when the holes were patched, and they were in the air, dry for the time. Rarity and Fluttershy sat in the back, fixing each other’s manes in the pale moonlight while Octavia played her cello. Twilight sat beside her with a stack of books, searching for the inequine dream pony.

“And you’re sure she didn’t give you the name of her ship?” Twilight asked.

“I am sure,” Octavia said. She glanced at Rarity, who smiled at her.

“Would you like to join us?” Fluttershy asked.

“I would not want to impose, and I do not know much about mane care.”

“Nonsense, darling. It’s easy; we’ll show you. Come, sit with us,” Rarity insisted.

Octavia scraped her bow across the strings, but joined them after a moment, her back to Fluttershy, who started pawing through her mane. In the past, she had taken pains to maintain it at a glossy, intimidating black, a curtain of darkness that had given her what one Hoofington magazine had called “daunting mystique.”

“Oh, Octavia, your mane is so soft,” Fluttershy said.

“Thank you.”

“And nothing like how long it’s been down there?” Twilight asked.

“Let me think.” She let Fluttershy run her hooves through her mane, ignoring the tugs as she encountered knots, trying to remember. Thunderhead, or Vanilla Cream, had said something regarding time, she was sure. “I want to say three hundred years. I do not think that is right, but that is the number I keep returning to.”

Twilight flipped several pages in her book, and Rarity switched places with Fluttershy. “So how’ve you been lately?” she asked lightly.

“I am fine, thank you. Yourself?”

“Getting better, actually,” Rarity said. “I think all the time on the ship did me good. I feel…” She took a deep breath behind Octavia. “Ready for the next leg of our adventure. Good or bad, I’m ready to see it through. If only my horn would hurry up and heal. They do heal, right Twilight?”

“You know they do,” Twilight said without looking up.

“Yes, I do, but hearing it from you is much nicer.”

“Yes, Rarity, they do.”

She sighed happily. “Thank you. Oh, Octavia, I’m so sorry!”

Octavia tilted her head sharply. “What?”

“I accidentally pulled out some of your hair.”

“Excuse me?” She turned completely to look at Rarity, who had a couple long, dark gray strands of hair draped over her hooves. “I did not feel it.”

“Really?”

“Really.” She took her hairs back and looked at them. “Interesting.”

“Um, are you sure you’re okay? It’s not healthy for a mare your age to lose her hair that easily,” Fluttershy said.

“I am sure it is nothing.”

“Hair loss is a sign of stress,” Rainbow said from the other side of the deck. She was crouched over another letter, a quill gripped awkwardly in her teeth.

“How do you know something like that?”

“Are you kidding? Back at flight school, half the class was shedding their manes for tryouts. They’re brutal. Only one out of every twenty pegasi gets to go on from there.”

“What were these tryouts for, exactly?” Rarity asked.

“You know, different flying teams. Speed, endurance, agility, and so on. Tryouts were all basically the same, though. Harder than hell.”

“Are you sure you’re not stressed, Octavia?” Fluttershy asked.

“Not any more than usual,” Octavia said.

“What does that mean? What’s usual for you?”

“Octavia, you’re losing a lot of hair,” Rarity said, running her hoof through her mane again. “I picked up at least thirty hairs that time.”

Octavia felt her pulse quicken, and she suddenly yearned to be back up and playing her instrument. She could tell where the conversation was heading.

“Now, darling, that is not normal.”

“Have you been sleeping?” Fluttershy asked.

Octavia stared at the balloon’s dark contour in the starlight, and the sudden blind thought of simply disappearing the next time they touched down dipped its wings into her mind again. “My sleeping habits have not changed.”

“Well, that’s what’s doing it,” Rarity said. “Why do you insist on forcing yourself into this?”

“It is not often a matter of force.” She looked up; Big Mac was standing a distance away, staring at them thoughtfully. “It is natural for me.”

“Clearly not,” Rarity said.

Octavia remained silent.

“Darling, we’ve been over this.”

“Yes, we have. You may save your words. I realize that it is unhealthy, and I realize that it can only end badly for me.”

“Um, have you thought about getting help?” Fluttershy asked. “Um, even some over the counter sleeping medication might work.”

“Oh, do they have pharmacies in Ponyville now?” Octavia asked.

Her voice was a diminished mutter. “Um… n-no, but, I mean, I have heard of them.”

“Or you could see someone,” Rarity said.

“We have been over that as well,” Octavia said. “I will not hold us up for my sake. That would be selfish.”

“Isn’t it selfish to hurt yourself when your friends are worrying about you, though?” Twilight asked.

“I can understand why you would think so.”

“Yep, there it is,” Rainbow said.

“What?”

“The classic Octavia ‘I’m done talking about this, so here’s something that sounds like a response but isn’t’ thing.”

“What am I supposed to say? You all know that I will not budge on this issue.” She turned to a gentle tug on her mane.

“Please get help, darling,” Rarity said.

She expected more, waited for it. She was ready to deflect the litany of reasons why, or the emotional appeals from Fluttershy, and it took her a moment to catch up to the lone statement. She looked down at her hooves and frowned, her face hot. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one,” she said. “For me to keep us from accomplishing our goal would be much worse than continuing on my current path.”

“But self-destruction is never a good path,” Fluttershy said.

“I am not destroying myself.”

“You’re going days without sleeping, losing your hair,” Twilight said, flipping a page.

“Your eyes are bloodshot,” Rarity added.

“Okay, I get it,” Octavia said, struggling to keep her voice from rising. “That does not invalidate my previous statement.”

“What about our friendship?” Fluttershy asked.

“I value my friendship with you all, and will forever, but I have to keep these things in perspective. If it meant the safety of Equestria, I would give up my friends in an instant.”

There was a hurt silence, and Octavia knew she had crossed a line.

“So… let me get this straight,” Rarity said after a moment. “Our friendship is just a… convenience for you? Something that just happened to come up as a result of your efforts to save Equestria?”

“I do not presume that it is my efforts alone that will—”

“We’re just happy little coincidences for you, right? Nothing more than a group of ponies to ease your burden.”

She stood up, ignoring the pull as more hair came out in Rarity’s hooves still in her mane, and went to her cello. Twilight leaned away, eyes still fixed on her book, but not moving.

“Since when did this all get about you, Octavia?” Rainbow asked from afar. “We’re the Elements of Harmony. Not you, us. If anything, you’re the one getting in our way.”

“We shared our friendship with you, and you treat us like accessories that you can just cast off when it suits you,” Rarity said.

“That is not what I meant,” Octavia said firmly. “Please let me explain.”

Applejack turned from the wheel for the first time. “Yer claimin’ it’s all fer the greater good, an’ fer the ‘needs of the many’, but Ah think yer just too selfish an’ afraid to acknowledge that you’ve got the same weaknesses as all of us.”

“You treat this whole thing like it’s your job, like you’re the only one who can do anything,” Rainbow said.

“Like it’s your duty, and we’re just along for the ride,” Rarity said.

“There’s a reason Princess Celestia told us to do this, an’ not you,” Applejack said.

“Be quiet!” Octavia snapped, wrenching her instrument. She looked at it softly for a second before leaning it on the rail and falteringly pacing, still on her back legs. “It is not my intent to devalue our friendship. I was merely trying to show you my priorities. I feel that the safety of the world is more important than our interpersonal relationships.” She looked at the angry faces around her. “I truly value you; please believe me.”

“It’s hard,” Applejack said. “It’s hard to think you have our relationship’s best interests at heart while yer killin’ yourself.”

“Perhaps if you told us what it was that makes you do these things, we could help,” Rarity said.

“Of course!” Octavia barked. “Of course! Why not, Rarity? Why should I not?” She fell to her hooves and stomped across the deck, tail flicking rapidly. “It always seemed to me that the best way to handle a conflict with someone as tight-lipped as myself would be to bring up the one thing that is guaranteed to shorten her fuse even more!”

“What’s a fuse?” Applejack asked.

“Yes, I misspoke. If you had shut up for one minute to let me explain, instead of making the same suggestions you always do, none of this would have happened!”

“None of what?” Rainbow said.

“Shut up! Everypony just shut up, and let me think.”

“Octavia,” Rarity started.

Octavia opened her mouth, but no words escaped. She walked to the edge and looked into the distance, out over the wide plains to the south. Suddenly, the midnight blue flat of grass and shrubs glowed a garish, flickering orange with the crumpled sound of burning oxygen. She put her head on the gunwale as the night settled back down.

“Is everypony okay?” Big Mac called, stumbling out of the hatch.

“It’s Octavia,” Twilight whispered.

“I am going belowdecks. Do not pursue me,” Octavia said, resisting the urge to shove Big Mac as she passed.

It was only after everyone else had gone to bed that she returned to the deck to pass the night staring into the vast emptiness of what was once the northern oceans, instead a sea of stars. She wanted to play more, but had to put the cello away when it started to rain.

She woke, paralyzed, the image of a wild, horrified face pressed against her own, its splintered fur black as pitch. In those brief, terrified moments, before her heart calmed down or she had registered the cold rain pouring onto her, she saw a white form standing sentinel a few feet away.

When it offered a hoof, she accepted it without thought.

“Long time, no see,” Vanilla Cream said. “You look well.”

“Did you come to me in my dream earlier today?”

“In the guise of Thunderhead, you mean? Yes, that was me. She’s quite nice, you know.”

“She did not seem nice.”

He nodded. “The creature your Thunderhead is based on is nice.”

“Creature?”

“Have Twilight search for a ship by the name of the Deep Freeze.” He glided across the deck, his hooves as still as his body, and she frowned.

“Who exactly are you?”

“Just a humble servant to Discord,” Vanilla said, giving her a wink. “You understand the importance of secrecy, of course.”

“Please, do not.”

“Sorry.”

She sighed. “I have been through a lot today, so you will have to forgive me for being a little short.”

“Not nearly as short as Discord, after Twilight sent his illusion packing.”

“Did it upset him very much?”

“He’s been under the weather for a time now.” Vanilla sat down, curling his tail around his platinum hooves. He resembled a being of pure light in the darkness, his body immediately visible no matter how much Octavia averted her tired eyes. “Between you and me, I’m relieved that he did not summon me to try to hinder the princesses. Celestia, I’m sure I could vex to no end, but Luna, I suspect, would make a toy out of me.”

“I always thought that Princess Celestia was the more powerful of the two.”

“It depends on where you stand. For one like me, her powers are easy enough to ignore.”

“Princess Luna would destroy you, though.”

“If not destroy, certainly make my job much harder.”

“Like you are supposed to be doing for us.”

He smiled thinly. “Is that regret in your voice, or a challenge?”

“Neither. An observation, if you want.”

He chuckled, and the sound seemed to fill the deck, despite the thundering rain. “What I want is for your friends to trust me.”

“To be perfectly honest, I think you lost that chance the instant you said you were from Tartarus.”

“I know, but I can dream.”

“Do you dream?”

“What do you mean?” His horn glowed, and the rainfall stopped. She looked up, seeing a circle of night sky in the clouds just above. “That’s better.”

“Thank you. I meant… I do not really know. I was thinking out loud.”

“I sleep, if that’s what you were asking,” he said. “Though not the same way you do.”

“I see.” She watched him for a moment. He seemed perfectly at ease on the deck, sitting with a calm that she envied. Whether aftershock from the dreams, or tension from his presence, she couldn’t tell what had her so uncomfortable. “Why did you select Fillydelphia when you moved us? Or was that Discord’s choice?”

“No, it was mine. He trusts me to do a fine job of throwing you off on my own.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Which is not why I’m here now. I… chose Fillydelphia because I knew that a tornado would be brewing, and wanted to see how you would handle it.”

“Are we entertainment for you?”

“You were at first, yes. There’s something different about you, though.”

“I am not an Element of Harmony.”

“Perhaps that’s it.” He smiled again and met her eyes.

“So why are you here?”

“Is it not enough that I simply want to visit?”

“You have not done that before. Why should I expect something different?”

“My, you are in a rotten mood tonight.”

Octavia sighed. “If you must know, I had a fight with the ponies down below. Again.”

“Ah, maybe that’s the reason,” Vanilla said. “You are nothing like them.”

She sat back and raised her head to the clouds, deep in thought. The clouds had returned to fill in the hole that Vanilla had punched, but no rain peppered the soaking deck. “Of course he is right,” she thought. “I have known that from the start. They are naïve, and have not seen the world. For Celestia’s sake, they had not even seen telephones before.”

“It makes one wonder that you are still with them at all,” Vanilla said softly.

“No,” she said at last. “You are wrong. We are different, but we are also…”

“Friends?”

“…We share common interests.”

“So you will stay with them?”

She snapped her eyes to his own, no longer smiling benignly. “Why would you think otherwise?”

“Because you are a strong-willed mare who takes offense easily. It seems reasonable to me.”

“Release your spell,” she said. She went to the torch and felt its cool, metal exterior before stepping back into the sudden, freezing rain. Her fur bristled as her skin contracted, and she shivered involuntarily. Her clouded mind sharpened, and she studied the white form before her, its back to her.

“Dreadful weather, though,” Vanilla said.

“These ponies like me for who I am, and while we do fight at times, it is only because they are so interested in helping me.”

“And do you need help?”

“It is popular to say so. I will not leave them. I have had the chance in the past, and I nearly took it. I will not do that again.”

“That’s very generous of you, Miss Octavia.”

She stepped before him, and immediately wished she hadn’t. His blue eyes pierced her like search lights. “What is your true reason for coming here? You did not do it for my conversation.”

“Why the cold shoulder? If I offended you, rest assured, I did not mean to.”

“I cannot be certain of that.”

He watched her, dripping in the rain that didn’t touch him. Eventually, he sighed and stood. “Very well. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed our talk before I overstepped my bounds.”

“Do what you came to do.”

“Of course.” His horn pulsed light, framing the raindrops like shards of glass in an ephemeral dome around his body. Something clunked below, and she stepped back as the hatch swung upwards. Rainbow came onto the deck, as alert and deliberate as if waking up for the morning. She trotted to a few paces before Vanilla, still sitting, and stopped to look around.

“Wait, what the hell is going on? What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same,” Vanilla said cheerfully. “Do you remember our accord?”

“Octavia, what’s going on?” Rainbow asked, worry quivering in her voice.

“She and I were chatting. Be still, Rainbow Dash. I have something that you will enjoy.”

“Yeah, uh, I don’t trust you. Like, at all.”

“Then please let me show you your error. Step forward.”

Rainbow sat down instead. “How ‘bout no? If you want it so bad, make me. You obviously made me come out here, you freak.”

“I would rather you take the final steps.”

She smiled. “Not gonna happen.”

“Why are you so stubborn, Dash? What do you think I will do?”

“I don’t want you screwing with me.”

He stood up, and the rain froze in place, tiny spheres of light refracting his white body as it swayed through the air. “I can make you get on your knees and beg me for this, but I would rather the exchange have some dignity. I’m trying to give that to you.”

“Psh. Thanks.”

“Just do it, Rainbow,” Octavia said.

“Oh, you’re one to talk, Octavia.”

“Step forward, Dash,” Vanilla said, his voice full in their ears. Immediately, Rainbow got up and trotted the remaining distance between them, stopping just before him. Then she shook her head again and backed up.

“Quit doing that! I don’t want your stupid magic!”

“Why do you want to remain powerless?”

“Uh…” She looked around. “Turn the rain back on! It’s freaky out here.”

He gave her a shallow bow as the raindrops hit the deck in a clap of resumed gravity. “Do you fear me?”

“You wish.”

“You certainly do not trust me.”

“Uh-huh.” She spread her wings and let the rain soak into her plumage.

“You think my charity is part of an elaborate scheme, or a betrayal in disguise.”

“Well, you are from Tartarus.”

“Meaningless,” Vanilla said. “There are ponies in this world who would martyr you simply to know what it feels like to rapidly dispense with guilt. Evil is not that simple.”

“Sure is easy to disguise, though.”

“I think you mean hard to disguise. If it were easy, you wouldn’t be accusing me, right?”

“I want to go back to my solitude,” Octavia said. “Either take this elsewhere or come to a decision quickly.”

“Shut up, Octavia,” Rainbow said.

She breathed out through her nose and regarded Rainbow, facing Vanilla bitterly.

Vanilla smirked. “Harsh words from someone who can’t look me in the eyes.”

Rainbow sputtered and shook her head. “Well, uh, you—”

“Come to me.”

Rainbow nodded passively and approached him once more, sitting before him. Even her face was calm, her eyes mild, her jaw relaxed. Octavia could see no objections in her stance.

“Ask me nicely to give you this magic.”

Rainbow cleared her throat and dropped her head slightly. Her voice was not the demure, defeated squeak that Octavia expected. “Can I please have that cool magic now?” she asked conversationally.

Vanilla did not smile. “Of course.” His horn glowed dull silver, and Rainbow shivered, her wings contracting into a feathery V. Her head went down, dripping to the deck, and Octavia took a tentative step around to see her face. Before she could get a clear view, Rainbow had relaxed, and was in the process of sitting back up.

“Thanks, Vanilla.”

“Forget that I made you submit to this.”

Octavia looked at him, and, as their eyes met, her own sluggish thoughts fell aside to make room for his voice. “Can’t have her trying to undo the magic after I leave, can we?” She nodded, but realized there was no need.

Rainbow shook the water out of her mane and went to Octavia’s side. “All right, well, thanks, I guess.”

“Go ahead and get back to sleep,” Vanilla said. “Or solitude. I’ll leave you now.”

“Wait, you’re not even gonna tell me about my new magic?” Rainbow said.

“You’ll find a note tomorrow that explains it. Good night, ponies. Octavia, I’m sorry for earlier.”

“Take your leave,” Octavia said.

He bowed, and was gone, swiped away in a wash of rain.

Rainbow yawned. “Hey, sorry about that. I didn’t mean it.”

“How—” Octavia stopped; she was about to ask how much Rainbow remembered. “Do you feel?”

“Tired. I’m out. G’night.”

“Hm.” She shook herself, but the rain was relentless, and she went to her cello case wet and shivering. Against the rail, where she had left it, it balanced neatly on four pillars of salt.

Rainbow’s breakfast salad, an amalgamation of leftover rations and some grass Pinkie had found the previous day, came with a note on top.

“Pinkie, did you put this here?” she asked, grabbing it.

“Not mine, Dashie!”

“Oh, it’s from Vanilla. Er, right.” She put it down briefly. “He visited us last night.”

“Ah didn’t see anythin’,” Applejack said, sitting up straight and pivoting to look around.

“Me and Octavia.”

“Oh, her.” She threw a dark look to the hatch; Octavia was taking her breakfast below.

“Yeah, he gave me some magic. Said I’d find a note.” She chuckled. “He’s not much for subtlety, huh?”

Twilight laughed, and Rainbow frowned at her before letting out a chuckle as well.

“Well, what is it?” Rarity asked, poking her in the side.

“Hey! Okay, it says here, ‘make your own weather. The ten cubic feet of space you occupy is yours to heat up, cool off, dry out, or moisten. The clime is yours to abuse.’ Twilight, what’s a clime?”

“A climate,” Twilight said. “Just another word for climate.”

“That sounds mighty interestin’,” Big Mac said. “Is that all there is?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said, waving the note for them to see. “So… I can make my own weather?”

“Let me read it,” Twilight said, floating it over. She scanned the paper. “So I guess you have a dome or something around you that you can summon weather into.” She scratched her head. “Ten feet’s kind of small, though.”

“It doesn’t matter. He didn’t write down how to cast the spell, so I doubt I’ll actually be doing anything.”

“That’s the spirit,” Applejack said, rolling her eyes.

“Just being realistic.”

“You haven’t even tried,” Rarity said.

The hatch opened, and Octavia came out with muddied eyes and a pair of salt blocks preceding her. She dropped them in front of Twilight. “I found them on the pillow.”

“You weren’t eating on the bed, were you?” Twilight asked.

“No, Twilight. I am not a savage.” She turned with a petulant flick of her tail and went back below.

“What a snot-head,” Rainbow mumbled.

“No, not this again,” Applejack said quickly. “Ah know we’re on the outs with her, but we ain’t gonna sit here an’ bellyache ‘bout her behind her back. Remember what happened in Manehattan?”

“Uh… can you be more specific? A lot happened in Manehattan.”

“We almost lost her,” Rarity said.

“Oh, that. Well… but that doesn’t make her less nasty.”

“Ah ain’t sayin’ what she’s doin’ is right, but we did gang up on her yesterday,” Applejack said.

“But that’s what she needs,” Rarity said.

“Clearly it ain’t,” Big Mac said. “Didn’t you say this happened before, to the same exact result? Sounds to me like tryin’ to drag her out into the light ain’t the best approach here.”

“You don’t even know her,” Rainbow said.

“We talk. Moreover, Miss Dash, Ah listen.”

“Well lah-dee-dah.”

“Um, maybe we shouldn’t be trivializing this,” Fluttershy said, grabbing a salt block in her own pink magic. She held it for a moment before letting it fall. “She’s a friend in distress.”

“She’ll get over it.”

“That don’t give us license to be cruel,” Big Mac said.

Rainbow sighed, staring into her food for a second. “I know. She gets me, you know? That inscrutable arrogance just pisses me off sometimes.”

“She doesn’t mean any harm,” Fluttershy said.

“Yeah, yeah.” She glanced at Big Mac as he got up. “Going somewhere?”

“Figure Ah may as well go talk to her,” he said.

She waited until he was out of sight. “Think he’s got a thing for her?”

“I think he’s trying to be nice,” Rarity said. “Nicer than we’re being, that’s for sure.”

Octavia lay on the bed with her cello bow floating above her, a small, gray shield around it. She had a wadded up napkin to flick off the shield, and was trying not to let her bow wobble. She had been able to keep a shield up in the rain, but, coupled with the effort of keeping her bow aloft, it was flimsier than usual. She felt every bounce of the napkin behind her eyes like a distracting, twitching thump.

She lost the shield when someone knocked on her door, and she considered sending the pony away in a flash of indignity. “Enter,” she said.

Big Mac came in and sat at the foot of the bed, a move she knew meant that he was looking to talk.

“I can hear you from within the corridor, somewhat. I am not sure whether you know that.”

“Nope.”

“Rainbow does not like me.”

“Ah think you scare ‘em.”

“I am not scary. At least, I do not try to be.”

“They’re scared yer gonna leave.”

“Nonsense. I have made clear my intentions to remain with them, multiple times.”

“They’re scared yer gonna die.”

Octavia raised an eyebrow. The bow still floated, and, though she understood the words, she did not process them immediately. “This will, of course, lead back to my insomnia.”

“An’ a few other things.”

“Please, explain. I have heard this all before, but not from you.” He paused, seemingly put off by her invitation. “Please.”

“You ain’t sleepin’, of course. That’s the main one. Y’also don’t talk much, but Ah can understand that, now that Ah’ve seen ‘em backbitin’ you.”

“This whole thing will turn around in time,” she sighed. “The way it worked in Manehattan, and Trottingham after that, was they get angry with me, and after an interval of silence, usually only a few hours, one of them apologizes, triggering the rest of them to do the same. I then apologize for being insensitive, and everyone proceeds like normal.”

“Twilight said that last night. She said it’s like a cycle.”

“It is not like one. It is one.” He raised an incredulous eyebrow. “I am sorry. That was petty of me.”

“What makes you suffer so much, Miss Octavia?”

“Please. You have to know that everyone else has asked me this. Do you really expect an answer?”

“Not a straight one.”

She twirled her bow slowly, then quicker. “I appreciate the pretense, though. I do not enjoy these discussions, but they are tolerable with you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Your questions sound like actual questions, not accusations.”

“You should talk with Fluttershy. She’s the same way.”

“Are you two close?”

“‘Bout as close as you an’ me.”

“I am close to no one.” She closed her eyes, a heavy feeling in her stomach. “That is not true. I do feel close to some of you.”

“Yer feelin’ defensive.”

“And uncomfortable, yes.”

“Anythin’ else?”

“Pressured.” She connected her dark eyes with his patient ones for the single word, and he nodded.

“You mind if Ah do some readin’ in here? They’re talkin’ ‘bout Rainbow’s new magic out there.”

“Go ahead.” She dug a salt block out from under her sheets and tossed it to the bedside, and Big Mac did the same with one he produced from one of their saddlebags.

No waves touched the beach. From where Twilight stood with Applejack at the prow, they could see twin testaments to pony ingenuity: to the north, the elegant pillar of whitewater rising into the siphoning station; and to the south, a fenced off and fortified trio of pits, dug into a hillside and reinforced with tarnished, gray silos. The smell of salt and putrefaction blanketed their crescent of sand like toxic, invisible fog. “So that’s where they’re putting all the salt,” Twilight had said, holding her nose.

Rain had started again as they were nearing the point where ocean met shore, completely devoid of sand. With all the cloud production, Rainbow had explained, there was bound to be more rain; more rain meant more sand swept away.

A quarter mile up the beach, a small group of docks and piers extended into the cold, pristine waters, flocks of ships milling around and beyond them. Some were empty, while those nearer the shore held large, steel containers, the same ones they could see hanging from cables, held by large, industrial yellow cranes. Pegasi filled the sky, darting between chains and towing lines, securing loads, and adding their own voices to the sound of the rainfall and the incredible, soft roar of rising water.

“So, how do we do this?” Applejack asked.

“Twilight, you wanna find a better place to put these?” Rainbow asked, holding a familiar white shape. “Instead of, you know, in the middle of the deck?”

“I’ve been throwing them off the edge,” Twilight said, turning. “What are you—oh.” A pile of salt pillars rested clumsily by the torch, edges perfect and harsh against the dark backdrop.

“Should we be worried?” Applejack asked.

“Maybe. I need to research.”

“Element first,” Rarity said. “We need a plan. I don’t want us to sit here on this desolate corner of Equestria any longer than we have to. It’s freezing, and it smells horrid.”

“Right. Uhhh…”

“I have an idea,” Fluttershy said, creeping over from where she sat under the balloon. “Um, at least, I think I do, but I really don’t like it.”

“Is it a shield bubble?” Rarity asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s what I was thinking too,” Twilight said. “It’s the only thing I can see that’ll get me down there. Ponies just don’t go underwater.”

“I have to go with you,” Fluttershy said.

“What? No you don’t.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, joining them at the ship’s front. “With Rarity’s horn still broken, I’m the only one who can cast the spell to lead us there.”

“Wait, what ‘bout Pinkie?” Applejack asked. “Ah thought she learned it with Rarity in the beginnin’.”

They looked at Pinkie, resting on her back, letting the rain soak into her fur. “Pinkie? Can you cast that element-finding spell?” Rarity asked.

“Huh? Oh, nope! Sorry!” She sprung up. “I never learned that one! I can only do Twilight’s super-sigil ground thingy!”

“And we haven’t done that in forever,” Fluttershy said.

“Well, we haven’t needed to,” Twilight said. “I can’t say I’m disappointed by that.”

“Ah coulda sworn you knew how to do that spell,” Applejack said.

Pinkie laughed. “Nope! Sorry, AJ!”

“Hey, that’s my thing,” Rainbow said. “Get your own.”

“We can share her!”

“Ah dunno ‘bout that. If Trixie hears ‘bout her Dashie sharin’ me, she might get upset,” Applejack said.

Pinkie burst into cackling laughter, and Rainbow punched Applejack lightly on the shoulder before breaking into a torrent of her own poorly restrained giggles. A talon of lightning brushed the towering smokestacks atop the siphoning station.