Rainbow patrolled the sigil’s edge, and Octavia paced across from her. The painted lines were the same feverish green as the smaller sigil that brought them there, and its outer rim was as firm as the wooden cabin walls within their view.

Twilight sat close to the edge, but not so close that the mares had to step around her to continue their circuit, and Pinkie remained on the cushion. From an empty part of the line work, Big Mac watched them all. Fluttershy wept where she stood.

Of Thunderhead, there was no sign, and there were no windows to indicate the passage of time or the landscape. It felt to Applejack like an hour before the talking began in earnest, and not in a way that she wanted.

“I think I’m stuck.” Pinkie wiggled on her cushion to emphasize.

“You’re just lazy,” Rainbow said without looking.

“No, really! I can’t get up!” She strained where she lay, but her joints did not unbend, and she could only stretch her neck pathetically.

Fluttershy went to her to help her up, but only dragged her, and the cushion, across the floor.

“Great. Captured, and Pinkie fell for some cruel trick,” Rarity said. “Maybe we should have stayed behind and fought more.”

“Don’t say that,” Applejack said, looking at Octavia as she did so. Octavia turned away moodily. “Look, we’re in a tough spot right now, but we’ll figure somethin’ out. Twilight, yer bein’ awful quiet over there. Got anything to say ‘bout this?”

Twilight blinked.

“Twi? C’mon, speak to me, sugarcube.”

Twilight allowed herself to fall over, her head ringing heavily on the floor. She said nothing.

“She probably had another freaking flashback,” Rainbow said. “Good timing, Twilight. It’s not like we need you or anything.”

“Rainbow, hush,” Applejack said, approaching Twilight.

“Octavia, blow a hole in the ceiling or something.”

“If there are upper and lower limits to this sigil, then an explosion will probably kill us all,” Octavia said. “And I do not want to do that to you.”

“It might be for the best, though,” Rarity mumbled.

“Leave me be.”

“Rarity, yer good with shields,” Applejack said. “Can you figure this one out?”

“I can make them, dear, not dispel them. Twilight probably can, but…”

“She’s feeling sorry for herself,” Rainbow completed.

“Rainbow, be quiet,” Big Mac said sharply. “Let her have her space.”

Rainbow only glared and turned away.

“Fluttershy?” Applejack asked plaintively.

“I’m really sorry,” Fluttershy whispered, shaking her head.

“Well.” She looked back at Octavia, who met her eyes accusingly. “Well.”

The ghost ship contained no mechanical components, leaving Applejack’s nascent magic useless. Twilight did not get up, and allowed Rarity to turn her over without comment after another hour.

A single bowl of water appeared without warning in the center of the sigil, and, with it, a pair of carrots, which wound up being split between Pinkie and Rainbow. By the next hour, only Octavia remained awake, angry and bored in her cage.

“Fillydelphia Mayor Steps Down, Assistant Takes Over.” Below, on the same page, “Manehattan Pharmacy Supplier Goes Under.” Colgate and Spike shared a blanket on her floor with the daily newspaper. He had brought it over, and asked for her insights into the complex issues. He had done it with Flitter that afternoon, but wanted his surgeon friend’s thoughts as well.

It was evening, and Thunderhead was coasting over the southeast deserts of Equestria, the shape of her vessel terrifying a tiny settlement in the far corner, near the convergence of a river and a meteorite crater. She had captured the Elements that day, and the Ponyville Datura’s first decision was to keep the upsetting news from Spike and Colgate.

“It probably means Fillydelphia’s going to get itself together,” Colgate said eventually, finishing the story. “Sounds like Mayor Splotch got too paranoid to handle her own city properly. This Lowercase sounds like the perfect choice to replace her.”

“So it’s a good thing,” Spike said.

“Yes, it’s good.”

She had apologized before the entire town, thorn embedded deep in her hoof, and cried halfway through the announcement that she would be entering therapy as soon as possible. She had revealed every malicious thought and plan in her scheme to discredit Noteworthy and Allie, and made no excuses, except that she had gotten sucked into something she had no way to control. With false tears streaming down her face, she exited to the sound of every citizen in Ponyville applauding her and her bravery, and took a train to Canterlot the following day to find a therapist, to whom she showed the wounds on her hooves and claimed depression and self-mutilation.

She still took her medication, and had checked out numerous self-help books from the library. Everyone supported her attempt to get well, and she kept the books in her room for research, to better emulate the symptoms of depression for her very concerned, and very caring, therapist.

Spike, as was his developing habit, reached over to half hug her, and she allowed it. He pitied her, she knew, but he also believed her, where Allie did not.

“What about Manehattan? I don’t get it,” Spike said. “It looks like they’re leaving stuff out.”

“That’s because they are,” Colgate said. “I don’t envy the Daturas there. Their hooves are completely tied until one of these criminals starts messing with something extranormal. For now, they’re just a trio of high-level scumbags, and the police have it all to themselves.”

“Who are they?”

“Well, Strawberry. He’s the only one they quoted in this. My understanding is that he’s trying to create some kind of empire behind the scenes of all this mess Lacey and Captain Shout are whipping up. Those other two aren’t anything special, I don’t think. Shout’s Lacey’s puppet.”

“What about Lacey herself?”

“She’s the smart, resourceful underdog to Strawberry’s merciless advancement. That’s how the Daturas I know like to talk about her, anyway.”

Spike thought, and, for a second, Colgate thought he was going to hug her a second time. Instead, he said, “where do you get your information?”

“Foxglove is very well in the know about things. I usually stay behind for a few minutes to get the news as she sees it.”

“Everypony’s so much smarter than me,” he said in a smaller voice.

Colgate made no comment.

“How’s therapy?”

She had only had one appointment, on account of the distance to Canterlot, but had contemplated her response to the question she knew would be on every friend’s mind. “It’s way, way harder than I expected. Being honest about myself is… not always pleasant, I’ve found.”

“What’s wrong? Like, the diagnosis?”

“They don’t diagnose you after one session, Spike. It’s probably a lot of things.”

“I just worry is all.”

“I know, and I appreciate your concern.”

He hugged her again. “Have you thought about apologizing to Noteworthy and Allie specifically? It might make them feel better about you.”

“I don’t know if I can face Allie right now. As for Noteworthy, there’s a very simple reason I’m not going to apologize to him.”

“The blackmail?”

“No. Well, yes, that’s part of it. He’s getting sent away tomorrow.”

“What? I didn’t hear that.”

“Like I said, I stay behind and chat with Foxglove. He’s leaving on an airship early tomorrow morning, for Trottingham.”

“Why? Not that I’m upset or anything, but why?”

“Foxglove said he was a disgrace to the Datura. The way he handled me, she said he should never have let me ruin his operation so easily. So, he’s being exiled.” She smiled. “Her words.”

He chuckled. “Guess you won.”

“I don’t think anypony won in this, Spike.”

The sun was just coming up when a small, unmarked airship, carrying Noteworthy, lifted off a field just outside Ponyville. Spike and Colgate, and a smattering of others, stood in the chilly morning air to watch the blimp take off. Spike waved goodbye, but Colgate remained still, face as passive as ever, eyes locked on something only she could see. When the ship was a simple, dark dot in the sky, he got on her back, and they went to their meadow to train.

Foxglove was a few minutes behind them, and greeted them without a smile. “I just got the word from Zecora: there’s an artificial opening to Tartarus several miles south of Ponyville.”

“There are artificial openings?” Spike asked.

“Sure. They didn’t used to be very common, but now that Discord’s at large, they’ve been appearing. Not a lot. Yet.”

“But Zecora’s gonna take care of it, right?”

“Afraid not, Spike. Her team is busy chasing monsters around the forest. It falls to us to actually close the gateway.”

“How?” Colgate asked. “I’ve never even seen a gateway, much less dealt with one. Neither has Spike.”

“That’s why we need more Daturas,” Foxglove said.

Spike looked at Colgate. “How… exactly do we get more?”

“After some consideration, I would like to reclaim Flitter and Cloudchaser, as well as Allie Way. I believe they’ll need a little coaxing.”

Spike crossed his arms, but remained silent.

“I’m afraid it will have to be you, though, at least for Allie. She’s not going to let her guard down around you,” she said, nodding at Colgate.

“What exactly are you proposing we do?” Colgate asked.

“I’ll talk to you about it tonight, if you can come by my house.”

She looked at Spike, who looked back at her, and understanding dawned on her face.

That night, while Colgate was receiving the same memetic potion Spike had used on her, to slip to Flitter and Cloudchaser, all eight ponies sat on opposite sides from each other in the ghost ship sigil. Fluttershy, who hadn’t spoken all day, tried to look into Twilight’s dead eyes. Big Mac sat across from Octavia, finding himself looking more at Rainbow than her, and Rainbow was across from Rarity, head down and eyes closed. Pinkie, still fixed to her cushion, faced Applejack, who had tried unsuccessfully to raise the mood earlier.

Some hadn’t eaten since the night before, and only another pair of carrots and a bowl of water appeared for them. Twilight and Octavia refused them for the second day in a row.

It was, ultimately, the persistent sound of Rarity’s weeping that revived them. Fluttershy was the first to move, breaking their invisible octagon to envelop her in her wings. Applejack got up next, and Pinkie slowly scooted over as well. Only Octavia and Twilight stayed where they were, while the crying spread from pony to pony.

Spike found Allie in the bowling alley at noon, after sleeping in for the first time in a long time. He entered with a confident stride, head full of heroic, magical thoughts. “Spike, Datura recruiter extraordinaire!” “Look out, Tartarus gateway, here we come.” He stopped to let a group of young ponies pass in front of him. “If only they knew the things I had to do to keep them alive…” He shook his head slowly, a smile creeping across his lips. Flitter would be ecstatic in a few days, when she realized she could finally join him in his vocation.

The job was so easy, he found himself looking over his shoulder on the way out, in search of an unforeseen trap. Allie had been at the counter, with an open water bottle, and left it alone after a quick hello to him. He let only a couple drops into her bottle, and was on his way in under a minute, swelling with pride.

Colgate felt no fear as she approached the spa in the early evening, fresh from her second therapy appointment, potion rolling in her saddlebag and deception on her mind. Flitter and Cloudchaser, for all their earlier confidence in the totality of her evil, had apologized endlessly after her speech. The thought of using a potion on them to force their minds to rewrite themselves did not bother her, nor did it occur to her that she would be thrusting on them exactly what had happened to her.

Their greetings were sedate when she jingled the entry bell. She had pondered how to deliver her potion the night before, and it was without hesitation that she ordered a half hour in the steam room. Cloudchaser led her to the wood paneled room and prepared the bucket of water.

“Can you go get Flitter? I want to talk to you both.”

Cloudchaser paused for a second, but trotted out with a professional smile, allowing Colgate time to uncork her potion and spike the water. Foxglove had assured her that the potion could be imbibed in any way, including inhalation in the form of vapor.

“What’s up, Colgate?” Flitter asked. “I can only stay in here for a few minutes. I need to start closing us down for the night.”

“That’s fine,” Colgate said, levitating the ladle and producing a cloud of steam. “I just wanted to apologize personally for all the trouble that happened.”

“You don’t have to do that, Colgate,” Flitter said, taking the ladle out of her magic. “We both understand.”

“Especially once Spike started getting involved, it must have been difficult for you.”

They shared a brief interval of quiet while Flitter formed her response. “I’m just glad he’s okay. He’s not exactly… good with complex things like this.”

“I knew, once he got hurt, that it had gone too far. That was what I think shocked me out of it.”

“Mm, yeah.”

“He cares for you a lot,” Cloudchaser said.

“I know,” Colgate said. She watched the two pegasi fluff their wings and look around awkwardly through the steam, until Flitter finally broke the silence.

“Well, I need to get back out front. Thanks for the apology, Colgate. Good luck with your therapy.”

“Thanks.” She leaned back with a false sigh, and Cloudchaser did the same, relaxing. Colgate’s eyes were wide open.

“There’s still something I don’t understand about all this,” Cloudchaser said.

“What’s that?”

“Allie said you were taking—still take, I think—medication. She said it’s supposed to…” She squirmed on her bench, and Colgate watched from the bottoms of her leaning eyes. “Uh, even you out, I guess?”

“It’s for controlling impulses.”

“How did you manage to do some of the things you did, if you were medicated?” She adjusted herself again. “Hurting yourself, I mean.”

As an answer tried to develop in her head, Cloudchaser continued.

“Because if the meds stop impulses, but you were still able to hurt yourself, wouldn’t that mean there was some premeditation?” She shifted nervously. “I’m sorry if I’m offending you or something. I’m just curious.”

“What are you trying to do?” Colgate asked.

“What? No, nothing; I just want to understand, that’s all.”

Colgate waited for her to continue, and, when it was clear she had nothing more to say, waited longer.

“It takes a lot of commitment to hurt yourself like that.”

“My therapist said the same thing,” she said slowly. She could not predict what Cloudchaser was trying to say, and the thought bothered her.

“How does it work?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, you have to have some idea,” Cloudchaser said. “I mean, you chose to do it each time, right? You didn’t have, like, a bunch of schizophrenic episodes or anything.”

“It didn’t feel like I had control then. The idea was there, and it seemed like the only recourse.”

“Huh.” She was mercifully quiet for several minutes longer, before clearing her throat and drawing Colgate’s wandering eyes again. “Are you gonna apologize to Allie?”

“Why would I do that?”

“What? Seriously?”

Colgate angled her head to look in the direction of Cloudchaser’s voice.

“Colgate, ever since Allie thought she caught you, she’s been devastated.” Her voice lowered. “The thought that one of her friends could be capable of what you… did, it really messed her up. Then your apology left her even more confused. You need to talk to her.”

“I doubt she’d want to.”

“But she needs to. She doesn’t know what to think right now.”

Colgate parted her lips to reject the idea, but paused at the opportunity she suddenly saw. Spike was a useful resource, but weak-willed and unreliable; Allie could be better. She closed her eyes, and the opportunity flew by in her mind. “I suppose I will, then.” No sooner had she spoken the words than the idea was forgotten.

I thought our time in Manehattan meant something, but I’m guessing you were just too afraid to admit you had no idea what you were doing. Good luck saving the world. Trixie.

Rainbow had read the terse letter more times than she could count since its arrival. Her circadian rhythm told her it had been in the early morning, but she couldn’t be sure.

She reclined against Pinkie’s cushion, with Pinkie still on it, and listened to Rarity’s attempt at a private conversation with Twilight on the far side of the sigil.

“Don’t you dare say that,” Rarity said. “There is still hope, Twilight, no matter what. If we’re alive, there’s hope.”

“But I’m useless,” Twilight said.

“You are not useless,” Rarity hissed, grabbing her face in her hooves to force their eyes together. “You are in pain, but you are not useless.”

Twilight looked over at Rainbow, and Rarity followed her gaze.

“She’s in pain too.” Her voice lowered even more, but not so much that Rainbow couldn’t hear. “Trixie broke up with her.”

Rainbow flattened her ears and turned away.

“I couldn’t even hold a shield,” Twilight murmured.

“Neither of us could, dear. If she had hit us one or two more times, I’d have lost it too.”

Rainbow buried her face in Pinkie’s tail, only partially muffling the mares’ conversation. At the mention of Trixie’s name, her mind went wild, imagining her furious on her airship one minute, weeping in uncontrollable melodrama the next. She wasn’t sure which was worse. The anger wounded her pride, accused her of betrayal she could not defend, but the sadness was a relentless, grinding pressure that she could not snuff away.

“It’s her own fault. She assumed too much about our relationship.” An imaginary Trixie joined her again, adding her shrewd voice to the monologue. “We talked before you left, Dash. You said you felt the same way.” “But I was hung over and confused.” “Didn’t say that.” She grunted unhappily and turned over, catching her own name in something Twilight was saying.

“What’s so great about Big Mac anyway? He hasn’t even talked to you since the massage.” She pushed herself up to look over at him, sitting beside, but not speaking to, Octavia, her tail lying across his. The shock of it resonated in an invisible pulse through her whole body, ending in a dumbfounded shake of her head.

“He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about me at all.” It was almost unbelievable to her. Their moment of intimacy, sexual for him and erotic for her, despite its awkward and confusing end, was not something she could simply brush away and ignore, nor something she could imagine relegating to simple memory, a lesson learned. “So what’s going on with him?” Trixie-thought asked. Rainbow only stared at the merged tails, and Trixie whispered inside her head. “Nothing at all, Dash. It was meaningless.”

She shook her head. “That can’t be.” “Look at him. Does he seem bothered?” “He never seems bothered.” “Has he talked to you?”

“That’s the spirit!” Rarity said happily. “But what are you going to do about it?”

“Big Mac doesn’t care.”

“I don’t know, though. That’s the problem.”

“Trixie cares.”

“Well, let’s start from the beginning. Where are we?”

“No she doesn’t.” She looked to the folded letter. “She hates me now, ‘cause I betrayed her. At least, that’s how she sees it.”

“Trapped.”

“I don’t hate you,” Trixie-thought said. “I’m hurt, but I don’t hate.” Rainbow closed her eyes. They felt hot, suddenly, and her breathing was stifled. “It’s not true. You do hate me.” In her mind, she stood before the actual Trixie on board her ship, alone.

“Inside a sigil, darling. Something magical. You know the most about magic of all of us.”

“I don’t.” Her thoughts went quiet, and a tear leaked out. She frowned, trying to squeeze it away, but only smeared it into her fur. “Did it mean anything to me, or was I proving a point?”

“—to do with this. If I do dispel it, we’ll be caught.”

Trixie-thought died away, and Rainbow opened her stinging eyes.

Spike was in charge of seeing Allie easily into her new position as Datura, while Colgate was given to Flitter and Cloudchaser. For their duties, they were given time off in the mornings, and the excuse that their schedule was shifting toward nighttime for practicing in the dark. “Noteworthy was an imbecile,” Foxglove said to Spike, “assuming an inexperienced Datura like you could just improvise your own solutions to suspicion.”

He met Allie in the bowling alley, where, sitting over a basket of hay fries, he delivered Foxglove’s excuse for his suddenly open mornings. He asked how she was, and she shrugged and said she couldn’t complain.

“How are you and Flitter?” she asked after an interval of silence. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“We’re good,” he said, nodding.

“That’s good.”

He looked at his fries, then at her, then past. “She’s been kind of needy, actually. Since the hospital, I feel like she’s always looking for my approval about stuff.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just the way she talks. She looks at me like she wants me to decide for her a lot. Like at dinner a couple days ago, she didn’t decide what she wanted until I commented on it. I dunno.”

“Mares can be like that, Spike, especially when they’re young.”

“I don’t know if I like it. I kind of do, but it’s creepy too.”

“Whatever you do, be careful not to use it against her.”

“What? No, of course not. Why would I even think of that?”

“You can do it without meaning to.”

He scoffed. “No way.”

“Look at Colgate. She says she didn’t mean any of what she did, that it just got away from her.”

“She’s different.”

Allie swallowed her retort, and instead said, “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“I’m not gonna manipulate Flitter.”

“I know you wouldn’t ever do that, Spike, but I’m just saying that you can fall into something bad easier than you might think.”

“Not me.”

“Well, I hope so.”

He watched a lone pony bowl a calm strike beside Allie’s head. “Flitter said she talked with Colgate yesterday.”

“How nice.”

Spike furrowed his brow. “Why don’t you like her?”

“She tricked me into fighting her battle for her, then accused me of being a psychopath.”

“She didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, she did. A pony doesn’t do something that big and elaborate by accident.”

“It got out of control for her. She didn’t know what to do.”

“Even if that’s true, she had no reason to drag me into it.”

“She probably thought you’d be the best one to help her.”

“Without knowing it?”

“Yeah.”

Allie shook her head. “I think I see why she likes you so much.”

He shrugged. “I’m a likeable guy.”

She leaned forward intimately. “Have you questioned a single thing she’s told you?”

“No. She’s my friend, and I trust her.”

“Even after everything she admitted to, tricking the whole town, injuring herself, and all that, you still believe what she tells you?”

“Not at first, but she apologized. She’s going to therapy for this. She knows she did wrong, and wants to make up for it. I trust her, Allie.”

“You realize, Spike, that if she was able to get all of Ponyville to believe that Noteworthy or I were beating her, tricking us into thinking she’s looking for help will be even easier.”

“She cried at her apology. Cried, Allie. You can’t fake that.”

Allie sighed. “Right. I know.”

“You just don’t want to give her a chance, I think.”

“Believe me, I wish I could, but she ruined my perception of her.”

“Flitter forgave her willingly enough.”

Allie hmphed. “Flitter. She’ll take any reason to not have to feel bad.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s great. She’s just a little soft.”

“Soft?” He raised an eyebrow, imagining himself coiled in readiness to refute Allie’s suggestion.

“She doesn’t take uncomfortable situations very well. I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

He shifted in his seat. “Maybe. But what does that have to do with Colgate?”

“Flitter doesn’t want to acknowledge that something’s still very, very wrong with her. She just took that apology at face value, because doing otherwise would be uncomfortable.”

Spike frowned. “Colgate’s telling the truth,” he said at last.

Allie shook her head. “I seriously can’t understand why you’re so firm on that position. Will you at least concede that it’s possible that I’m right?”

“I mean, everything’s possible. That doesn’t make it likely.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah, great, fine.” She got up. “I have to get back to work. See you later, Spike. Try to think about what I told you, okay?”

“Sure.”

The following day, Spike met Colgate for breakfast. She had already gone to the spa to make sure Flitter and Cloudchaser were handling their changing minds well, and he told her he had done the same for Allie.

For most of their meal, they spoke of casual things: recent events at the hospital, Spike’s relationship with Flitter, veiled Datura gossip. After a period of quiet on his part, he looked up at her.

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

“I? Why would I?” she asked. She didn’t look up from her food.

“Allie thinks you’re taking advantage of my trust.”

“Hm. Figures.” She looked him in the eyes. It was strange for him to see her face clear of injury, but her eyes were the same lifeless things as always. “What do you think?”

“Uh…”

“If you think she has a point, let me know. I’m not going to tell you what I think of her yet, because I don’t want you in a tug-of-war between us. You’re not my messenger, and she shouldn’t be using you as hers either.”

He looked down and pushed a rag of egg white across his plate. “I never really thought of it that way. She’s never said anything like that.”

“If I were you, I’d take that into consideration.”

“Yeah.” He thought, though it was mostly for show. His opinions felt clear and sturdy inside his head. “I don’t think you’d lie to me. I think you’re being honest.”

“Good.”

He waited for her to continue, but she did not, and they talked of other things until it was time to head to the field for training.

While everyone else on the ghost ship slept, Octavia surveyed them. She had not yet eaten, and slept in fitful bursts of half hours, and her eyes drooped and burned as she watched her companions. Twilight had been vocal that day, but only enough to explain why taking their things out—she still had them stored in her pocket dimension—would be a bad idea. The sigil periodically eliminated their water bowls and shamefully ignored waste, and any items lying around at the wrong time might be lost forever.

She looked at Applejack, face turned to her in a serious, meditative slumber, and looked away, disgusted. Inside her, not dull from time, but made acute by days of quiet reflection, conflict anguished. She was relieved to be alive, and the thought of it made her almost too ashamed to meet the others’ eyes.

In her mind, two phrases circled each other. “I should have died for them.” “I am glad that I did not.” The thought of self-sacrifice, its morose allure, the serious, self-pitying ideas that it conjured, had held her attention for hours on end, a private, perverse fantasy for her to worry while the others slept. On the other side, the relief shone and lightened her mood, and she hated it.

“I claimed preparedness to die for them, and here I am, secretly rejoicing a reprieve I did not choose. I did not think I was capable of such hypocrisy.” Applejack turned over with a snort, and Octavia glowered at her, imagining the sound to be an accusation. “Coward,” she thought. The single word sat heavy in her heart and mind, and with each repetition and taciturn acceptance, turned darker and darker, from coward, to liar, to traitor.

“Pathetic, that is what I am. And yet, I cannot deny this pleasure.” She closed her eyes, and kept them closed, and woke with a start twenty minutes later, confused. She rubbed her head.

The only other time she had been so close to death, so ready, was in Fillydelphia, when she commanded Twilight to toss her out of Rarity’s shield and into the cyclone’s crown. Afterwards, Fluttershy had spoken to her. No one had extended that courtesy on the ghost ship.

She glared again at Applejack. “You care for my life enough to force me to accompany you on this deathtrap, but not enough to talk to me.” A sudden urge gripped her and swiftly moved away, to wake Applejack and make her sit through the same conflict and unhappiness that had been stirring inside her. “She does not deserve this. She is not the one responsible for my suicidal thoughts.”

She smirked, a front even before no one. “It would not be bad in this case. Giving my life for them would be a fitting end.” She frowned and faced the room’s walls, so searched and stared at that her eyes passed every detail equally. “And yet, here I am, selfishly relieved. Truly pathetic, Octavia.”

Pinkie stirred in her sleep, and Octavia looked at her. “Perhaps I should have chosen her path after all,” she thought tenderly. In her memories, she stood outside her apartment in Canterlot, with Applejack waiting, trying to decide. Forfeiting her life, as desperate and difficult as it was, had not been an easy decision, and Pinkie’s comfort on her affixed cushion seemed at last a reminder, not of what she hated about herself, but what she missed.

She thought of Vanilla Cream, of his strong, patient voice, and his tolerance for her moods. If she were to talk to anyone, he would be her first choice, she thought. He allowed her expression without Fluttershy’s immediate concern, Rainbow’s condescension, and Twilight’s tendency to drift away.

Thinking of him, she did not immediately notice when Rainbow jumped awake. Only when her magenta eyes approached, reflected in the soft magic green, did she service to move her head, and show she was awake.

Rainbow stopped and sat down in front of her. “Can we talk?”

Octavia’s voice was dry. She had only had a few swallows of water earlier. “What do you need?”

“AJ told me you tried to stay behind to buy us time. Are you okay?”

Octavia frowned. The question seemed an affront, a deliberate poke at her condition. She closed her eyes. “Do not be stupid. She is just concerned.”

“I will be fine.”

“Octavia.”

She thought for a second more. “If I am truly ready to die, then what is stopping me from sharing this with her?”

“C’mon. We’re friends.” She said it without much conviction.

“I am merely going through a difficult period of my life. We all are.”

“Yeah, you can say that again.” Her wings drooped. “You may have heard about it. Apparently Rarity knows, and who knows who she told. Trixie and I are finished.”

“Trixie.” “Because of Big Mac, Octavia. Focus. She needs you.” “I am sorry to hear that.”

“You know her pretty well. How easily does Trixie forgive?”

She took her time in answering. She had not had much occasion to ask forgiveness from Trixie. Once, when they were very young, when she accidentally damaged a prop mid-show, and then many years later when she had dismissed her concerns about her suffering countenance.

“It’s important.”

“I believe that she is good at discerning true contrition from fear of punishment. If you are legitimately sorry, then I think she will forgive you.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. I have not broken her heart.” Immediately, she regretted her wording.

“Oh.” They stared at each other for a long time. “Do you think I should try it anyway?”

“It depends on whether you are truly sorry, and what you intend to do about it.”

“I’m gonna tell her that I know I screwed up. I screwed up really bad.”

“Where does Big Mac fit into this?”

“Mistake. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think I was right the first time. I think I’m… gay for Trixie.”

“You know that there is nothing wrong with that, do you not?”

“I’ve always thought it was kinda weird. My whole family was straight, so I thought I was too.”

Octavia shrugged. “It is not my place to discuss family with you.”

“Oh. Okay. No, that’s fine. I get it.”

“Tell her that you realize what you did, and tell her how much the knowledge of this has hurt you in the interim.”

“Do you think she’ll forgive me?”

“I have no way to know that. Like I said—”

“You never broke her heart, yeah, I know.”

“I was not going to say it that way, but yes.”

“Hm. That’s if we survive this at all.”

“Yes.” She thought dimly, her eyes falling closed again. She forced them open with a rough shake of her head.

“You okay?”

“Tired.”

“Well, sleep, then.”

Octavia stood up. “I have too much to think about. I cannot sleep tonight.”

Rainbow sighed. “You really are crazy, you know that?”

“Are you crazy? After everything you’ve said, and now you’re going back on it?”

Colgate listened from the steam room as Flitter and Cloudchaser conversed. Flitter had revealed, first to her and then to her sister, that she was strongly considering rejoining the Datura. She had quit so quickly and impulsively, she said, she didn’t feel it was given a fair chance. All Colgate thought was that she wished she could know the science and magic behind the potion she had given them.

“I’ll be helping ponies, Cloud.”

“You’re helping ponies now,” Cloudchaser said.

“By running a spa? Think about what’s more important, keeping ponies comfortable, or keeping them safe.”

“But you tried the Datura already, and you hated it. I just don’t get why you’d want to try again.”

“I just feel like I shouldn’t have abandoned it so soon.”

“Have you forgotten how you felt after we got pushed into that pond?”

“It was scary, sure, but was it honestly that bad?”

“It wasn’t the pond, Flitter, it was that we were tricked. Why would you ally yourself with an organization that supports that?”

They were quiet, and Colgate thought, for a second, that they had moved to a different part of the spa. “I can’t explain it, Cloud,” Flitter finally said.

“I don’t like this.”

“I’m sorry, sis.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me.” Hooves shuffled outside.

“Don’t give me that look. I know you don’t like it, but this is my life.”

“Your life, but our business. Where am I gonna find another pony to manage this thing with me?”

There was no pause, and Colgate started at Flitter’s suddenly raised voice, shrill with weak-sounding anger. “I don’t know, sis, how about anywhere? We’ve got a whole bunch of disenfranchised pegasi trying to scrape by on the farm, and about a thousand more waiting their turn up in Cloudsdale. One of them has to know about business management, probably a lot more than me.”

“Oh, yeah, let me just fly all the way to Cloudsdale to find a replacement. Am I supposed to knock on everypony’s doors, or put up a job posting and hope?”

“I don’t need this,” Flitter sighed. “I’m sorry, Cloud.”

“You don’t need it? What about me? I do need this, Flitter. I can’t just run off with you, you know.”

Colgate adjusted herself on the floor.

“And you can’t just walk out on me. You know that.” Her voice dropped to a gentler register. “We’re supposed to be in this together, Flitter.”

Wings opened and closed in the sound Colgate recognized as pegasi hugging, something her association with Spike had exposed her to. “I’m not saying I’m gonna leave today. I’ll help you transition.”

Cloudchaser didn’t respond.

“Okay?”

Their hoofsteps retreated, and Colgate got up and returned to her bench. She knew it would be a matter of days until Cloudchaser was right next to her sister in their field, as eager to learn and practice as she had been before.

Rainbow even dreamt of the ghost ship’s interior, its hold neon green with an enhanced sigil, and empty of her friends. She cantered around the rim, finding, as she did so, an absence of the strong repellant magic that had contained them earlier. She broke the outermost line with a tiny yelp of pleasure, which became a startled grunt when Trixie’s head materialized out of the walls.

With her, dread. Rainbow watched her emerge from the dark grain of tempered wood, flawless blue on sable shadow, and beautiful even in the sickly green tinge. Her tail was an argent ghost, dragged weightlessly out of the dark, a soft contrail as she crossed before Rainbow to an unseen door, and her certitude sank with each step. She wanted to call out and warn her, or otherwise let her know she was not alone, but could not force her body into a response. Just as a white ring appeared to engulf her, Trixie turned of her own accord.

Her eyes, eyes Rainbow had not seen in nearly a month, pinned her in the half second they connected with her own. They alighted and then slid away, as though Rainbow were a mere fixture to the room. Trixie’s mind was elsewhere, occupied with more important affairs; Rainbow’s disquieted witness to her calm visage was not her concern.

The simplicity of the look filled her with concern. So incomplete, so small, was she that she could not even deviate Trixie’s gaze for a moment, and she felt dark and petty as Trixie vanished, leaving the exit’s halo behind.

When it closed, her dream froze, and Rainbow could only sit on suddenly shaking back legs. Trixie had walked out of the ship’s hold and directly into the carrying arms of death. The transition was so swift that it left only space for quiet shock, and the stunted breathing of Rainbow’s disbelief. The surprise, dulled, contrasted and amplified her hurt, itself sharp and freezing with the sudden recognition of familiar, overlooked foreknowledge. She had been expecting it, but not really. She had expected Trixie to go away at some indeterminate point, but never at an actual, calculable moment. She had expected a day when she would think of Trixie with the mild, acidic burn of regret, but not the day that that regret would burn a hole through her, and for all the colorful optimism to drain away.

When she woke up, heart stretched with a diminished ache, she turned over and took a minute to remember that Trixie was still alive. It had felt real, and so expected that her accustomed worry was gone, in its place acceptance.

Flitter signed back on to the Datura that same afternoon, the afternoon of her talk with Cloudchaser, and Colgate and Spike were both there to watch. Foxglove gave her the standard runaround of questions, asking her about her past, her experience with the extranormal, but they both knew it was for appearances. The Ponyville Datura was dangerously understaffed, and with a Tartarus opening nearby that needed closing, Foxglove wasn’t in a position to be selective.

Spike and Colgate trained together while Flitter went over the Datura history and tenets for her second time.

“It’s south, that way,” Colgate said, flashing her horn and nodding her head toward Cloudsdale.

“What is?” Spike asked, arms raised to stretch his shoulders. He had been in near constant motion for an hour, Colgate just beside him, and his movements, while easy, were slowing.

“The gateway.” She rotated before taking a short hop toward him and lashing out with a back leg, a clumsy maneuver they both knew Foxglove would reprimand, were she with them. “See that line of trees back there? It’s really hazy right now.”

“Yeah, I see ‘em.”

“Those fence in Cloudsdale Farms, and past them is a narrow valley that leads to the rock farm. The gateway is a couple miles beyond that.”

“Pinkie’s rock farm?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“She grew up on a rock farm.”

“Oh. Spike, remember, I’m not friends with the Elements of Harmony. I don’t know their lives.”

“I thought you were friends with Twilight.”

“She was friendly with me at one point, but I didn’t reciprocate it, at least nothing beyond politesse.”

He dodged a much better kick from her, and returned with his own flurry of little punches, which bunted uselessly on the air right before her sides while she held him back magically.

“Not fair,” he grumbled.

“I know there are strategies we employ to deal with unicorns like me,” Colgate said, “but I don’t know them.”

“What do you think of the Elements of Harmony, anyway?”

“I don’t think about them very much.”

“Well, when you do, what do you think?”

“Take a break, you two,” Foxglove called from where she paced before Flitter. “Seven minutes.”

They sat where they stood, Spike exhausted, Colgate panting quietly. “I think Rarity’s my favorite. She seems to have the best head on her shoulders. Twilight’s smart, but, from what I’ve seen, she flies into a panic too easily.”

“Rarity can be pretty dramatic too, though. Over-dramatic, I think.”

“You just say that because she’s a prissy girly-girl.”

“Well, I don’t know.”

Colgate’s lips drew up in her intimation of a smile. “I still like her.”

“Me too.” He paused, and sighed. “I used to have a thing for her, you know.”

“Okay.”

He frowned. “Have you ever had a crush on somepony?”

“I don’t know. I’ve dated, though. I went out with Dr. Whooves for a few months, most recently. That was more than a year ago.”

“But that’s dating, that’s different. I’m talking about love, Colgate. When you have a crush on somepony, they’re all you can think about.”

“I’ve never had a hard time getting ponies out of my mind.”

His nostrils flared as he plucked at a blade of grass. “Have you ever seen someone, and your heart just goes crazy? Or skips a beat, or something? Like they do something to you, and you don’t know what it is, just that you want to be around them more?”

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about. Ponies don’t do that to me.”

“All ponies?” He smirked. “What about dragons?”

“I doubt it.”

“I’m joking anyway.” He lay on his back in the grass. “It’s a really good feeling, Colgate.”

“I don’t remember feeling anything like that,” she said.

“Well how did you feel when you were with Dr. Whooves?”

“He was very affectionate, and he challenged my intellect, which I appreciated. So, appreciative, I guess.”

“That’s it?”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“He didn’t make you have butterflies in your stomach, or make you want to sing and dance and shout your love from the rooftops?”

“You’re talking about cheesy romance book things, Spike. I don’t feel that.”

“You just felt appreciative that he was smart.”

“More or less.”

He laughed. “You really are something special, Colgate. I’ve never met anyone as in-control of her emotions as you.” He hopped up and hugged her. “You’re like totally inequine, but in a really cool, relaxed way.”

“You like that?”

“I think it’s neat.”

“On your hooves over there. Break’s over,” Foxglove said. “You should be able to keep track of that on your own.”

He woke up to a gentle, insistent knocking, and looked out the window to see Zecora’s distinctive coloration outside his door. At the threshold, after a second for him to get his bearings, she took him onto her back, and they galloped away from town. They passed the fringe of the training field and traveled along the forest curve until Ponyville was not visible. Before them, a great, flat field unrolled into a broken ruffle of trees, and Spike could see a windmill’s lazy silhouette against the rough shadows.

After fifteen minutes of quiet movement, Zecora set him down on a large, flat rock beside a stream, and turned him to look into the trees. “I bring you here to show you that not all the Datura sees is flesh and blood, and also to take you away from something.”

He only looked at her, and voiced the question that had appeared as they crossed the Ponyville river. “What’s going on? I thought you were chasing monsters.”

“My team is. I returned for other reasons. Someone in Canterlot wants to speak with me, in person. I journey there tomorrow.”

“Huh.” He was still tired, and her words skated over him. “What do you want to show me?”

“Look.” She gestured silkily into the trees, and he followed the imaginary line from her hooftip. Behind the trees, almost hidden, a crisp, blue light incandesced, rising and falling like a coiled lasso of starlight, disappearing behind leaves and dispelling shadows. He imagined he could hear the shimmer of unicorn magic with it, overtaking the crickets and the breeze that filled the night.

“What is it?”

“That is a glamour,” Zecora said. “This one is harmless. They are simply spells or enchantments that have come untethered, and are free to wander about.”

“How does magic come ‘untethered’?”

“Various mistakes in the casting. I already know who accidentally released this glamour. A friend of mine, within the forest.”

They were quiet, and he watched the glamour move in its place. It never drifted, only endlessly turned over itself. Dappled shadows scattered at its movements, bringing the forest to life before him, a labyrinth of decaying darkness.

“You said you wanted to bring me away from something,” he said.

“You keep company with a peculiar mare, and I would be lying if I said she didn’t worry me sometimes.”

“You too, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t like Colgate either.”

“I did not say that. I do like her, I just worry.”

“Why? Colgate’s harmless.”

“She got her name on the Datura’s watch list because of what she did to Noteworthy.”

“Really?”

“She’s what we call a ‘potential malefactor,’ yes. Spike, I want you to think of all the times you’ve been with her. Think about how she treats you, and how she sees you.”

He put a claw to his chin. Colgate had been a stable friend for what felt to him like years. She was always there when he needed an opinion or a good thought, and she never made him feel small, as Noteworthy had.

“What does she see when she looks at you?”

“I dunno. Hopefully, a good friend.”

“Ask her sometime. See what she says, and how long it takes her to say it. She’s smart, but think of how seldom she shows emotion.”

“She’s stoic, Zecora. You’re like that too.”

“Ask Colgate if she thinks she’s a good friend to you. See if you need to explain what you mean to her.”

“Why would I need to?”

“You would need to explain because, if she’s how I think, she won’t understand the question.”

“She will. I know it.”

“I hope so.” She sighed and watched the glamour move in its place, and he looked at her. He reeled in the wake of her advice, trying to imagine Colgate as the pony Zecora thought her to be. In the cool summer night, and an hour outside Ponyville on his short legs, she didn’t feel as real to him. In town, when she was a quick jaunt away, it was easy for him to let her overtake his thoughts with her own strong, quiet personality. Such intensity of knowledge and intent, and her nearly unshakable composure, was the antithesis to his own relatively weak mental foundation, and he knew it.

“What did you mean, you want to take me away from something? Is it her?” He looked back at Zecora, but she was lost in the glamour’s twinkling show. He breathed out and looked to the stars. Years of stargazing with Twilight had taught him just how much of the night sky ambient light could cover. Even Ponyville’s weak lights, on a dark night, created a thin skirt of illumination to muffle the weaker stars. Outside the town, he could see it in the distance, a wide, ethereal cone of pallid light with no clear edges, rising.

He thought of the hospital, responsible for a large part of the Ponyville light pollution. It had become nearly a second home since joining the Datura, his time there with Colgate fond in his memory, despite what everyone told him.

“So what if she’s a little crazy? We’re all a little weird. That’s doesn’t make it right for ponies to try to separate us.” He imagined Colgate felt the same way. “She wouldn’t take advantage of me. I’d know it if she tried, though that’s not why she wouldn’t do it. She doesn’t do it ‘cause she’s nice.” He frowned, remembering the confrontation he witnessed. The twisted indignation as she leapt to the conclusion that they were all betraying her. “She’s usually nice, anyway.”

“Still awake?” Zecora asked.

“Yeah.” He put a claw on the grass and took a moment to take in its softness. “It’s beautiful. The glamour, I mean. I didn’t know you girls dealt with things like this.”

“There is a lot of beauty in this world, even now. We must hope that your friends can restore it in time.”

“I’m sure they can,” he said reflexively.

“They’re very busy.”

“I can imagine. I just hope they’re okay.”

Zecora hesitated. “I cannot reveal any sources of information, but if they were to perish, Foxglove would know. And she would tell me.”

“And would you tell me?”

“Yes,” she said after a time. He sighed, and she finally looked at him. “You seem unhappy.”

“Have you ever used one of Foxglove’s memetic potions?”

“You mean my memetic potions.”

He looked at her. “Yours?”

“I am a potions specialist, remember?”

“Right, I forgot.” He turned to look at her askance, his tone not quite as polite when he spoke again. “So you made these, huh?”

“I didn’t invent them, if that’s what you mean, but I produce them. Getting to your original question, though, yes. I have used them, many times.”

“I see.”

“A lot of Datura members were given the potion. Noteworthy was.”

“Noteworthy? You’re kidding me.”

“Not at all. Before he was a Datura, he was a singer in a barbershop quartet. Ponies loved him.”

He picked at a tuft of grass. “Noteworthy, given the potion. That’s crazy.”

“Believe it. You’re not alone, Spike.”

“I hate it.”

“Why?”

He looked at her. “Do you seriously need me to tell you?”

“There are many potential reasons for a Datura to hate herself. I want to know yours.”

“I betrayed Colgate and Allie to bring them here. They trusted me, and I slipped them potions.” He looked behind him quickly, suddenly conscious of what he was saying, and what he had done. He had never given it voice.

“Betrayal, yes. We’re all familiar with it.”

“How do you deal with it, then?”

“It is customary, after slipping someone a potion, to watch over them and try to protect them from harm, at least initially.”

“That won’t change what I did.”

“Nothing will. You need to learn to live with that.”

He considered her words, though they seemed too simple. “So that’s how you do it? By watching over the ponies you betrayed?”

“Yes.”

He reclined onto his stone, eyes still on the glamour. For the following hour, no one spoke, and he intermittently watched the lights and dozed, jerking awake at times with tingling arms and confused head.

“It’s two in the morning,” Zecora said. “Do you want to go back? I can see you struggling to stay awake.”

“I don’t wanna disappoint you.”

“Falling asleep out here won’t do that.”

He groaned and turned over, and she poked him in the side. “Come, follow me back.”

“No ride?”

“I am not in the business of enabling Daturas, Spike.”

“I have no idea how I would go about that, Octavia,” Twilight said. Everyone was awake, and, for the first time, sitting together. Rarity had dragged Pinkie over to join them, though she had not said much.

“I know that, but it is the only idea that I have had. That any of us have had, I believe.”

“How can we even be sure he’ll help us?” Rainbow said. “I mean, with his binding thing and all…”

“Let’s not be pessimistic now,” Applejack said. “We can’t afford to kill the first sign of hope since arrivin’ here.”

“Psh. Realistic, more like.”

“Okay, settle down,” Twilight said. “Maybe we can figure this out.”

“Ah don’t know what you think you’re gonna accomplish talkin’ about this with us,” Big Mac said, “since we don’t know anythin’ ‘bout magic.”

“We can always be her sounding board,” Fluttershy said.

“How did you even come by this idea, Octavia?” Rarity asked. “Forgive me for saying so, I mean no offense, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing to come from you.”

“I was merely thinking about him, and I remembered that he had appeared in my dream to tell me to research Thunderhead. When we did, it seemed strange that he should point us in the direction of someone so unlike the creature we face now. I think that he must have suspected that something like this would happen, and wanted to show me that he knew about her.”

“He wanted to make us realize that we could reach out to him,” Twilight said. “Maybe.”

“If that’s so, I feel we should all reevaluate how we feel about him,” Rarity said, looking between Rainbow and Applejack.

“But the question remains, how do I summon him?”

It was Flitter's second day back with the Datura, and Spike, impelled by the light nag of guilt, went to visit Allie. Colgate was at the spa with Cloudchaser, comforting her in what was becoming a frightening loss of her previous mental solidity, and wouldn’t be available for another hour. He flagged down Allie as she emerged from behind the pin collecting machines, and she approached him with a sour expression.

“I was wondering if you’d show up. Come on, let’s talk.”

“Uh… okay.” He glanced briefly at her spot at the counter, but she was not stopped as she left the building with him alongside her.

“They know to expect erratic behavior from me right now. I said I’ve been having migraines.”

“Why?”

“Why indeed?” She sat down in a patch of grass off the hoofpath, and he stood on its edge, wary. “So, as you know, I’ve been one of your ponies before. I happen to be familiar with the potion that I assume you slipped me.”

“Wait, what?”

“The potion to force me to be open to joining up with you. The potion that you must have given me, and for which you’ve recently been shirking responsibility.”

“Whoa, whoa, let’s back up. Allie, where is this coming from?”

“Spike, did you give me a potion?”

“Uh, I mean, Foxglove told me to, but—uh, that is, I didn’t really want to.”

She rolled her eyes. “You have to be the most pathetic, untrustworthy little smear I’ve ever met in my life. At least Colgate knows where to exercise discretion.”

His jaw fell open slightly.

“You gave me the potion, and you don’t even have the decency to check up on me every day. Were you not told that that’s what you do? You watch the other pony, to make sure she doesn’t freak out when she starts thinking she’s losing her mind.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I was a—er, one of you—for years before moving to Ponyville. Did you forget that?”

He stared at her.

“I get the strong impression that you did.”

“I’m sorry, Allie.”

“When I realized what had happened, I was pretty mad. Scratch that; I was furious. I had a whole speech prepared on why you don’t betray your friends, or trick them, or any of that, but then I realized something else. You wouldn’t get it.”

“What do you mean, I wouldn’t get it?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” She looked at him, empty of emotion. “Spike, you and I have been friends for a couple months now. You know how I feel about your organization, that I quit it years ago because I was uncomfortable, and what do you do? As soon as someone tells you to administer a potion that will force me to accept something I really, really didn’t want, you do it without question. If you’re that inconsiderate, I don’t think there’s anything I can really say to make you get it.”

He furrowed his brow and scratched his chin. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Do you know the definition of the word ‘integrity’?”

“Hey, I have integrity, okay, but the Datura’s a little more important than one dragon.”

She closed her eyes, straining for patience. “Did you notice how I haven’t used that name out here? How we’re in public, and talking about something that’s a secret? Did you notice that? Did you think about it?”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. You don’t have to rake me over the coals about every little thing.”

“Right, you’re right. I’m sorry, I’m just kind of upset. Ponies get that way when you take advantage of their trust, Spike.”

“I didn’t mean to! I was just following orders.”

She looked at him, mouth open, and sighed. Her breath came out long and shallow, and she shook her head. “Do you know?”

“Know what?”

“Do you know how dumb you are?”

“Hey!”

“Are you aware that you’re not smart? That you’re usually the last one to figure something out?” She got up to pace a small circle. “Have you noticed how you’re never acting on your own, how everything you do, you do because someone else told you to? Noteworthy, Foxglove, Colgate. Spike, anyone can take advantage of you, because you take everything at face value. You don’t think.”

“I think plenty, Allie.”

“Spike, Colgate accidentally told me today that she was planning on leaving you stranded in the Everfree Forest.”

“Wait, what?”

“She’s starting to suspect you’re figuring out her game, and needs a way to dispose of you.”

He crossed his arms, but looked past Allie. “I… but…”

“Spike, I’m lying,” she sighed. “We don’t even talk anymore. You…” She shook her head again. “You complete idiot. I’m sorry, I’m really trying to show you what you did, but… I mean, I feel like I’m talking to a flower right now. You’re giving me this blank look like you have no clue why I’m mad, like you’re going to ask Colgate about what I said later today ‘cause you’re still hung up on my stupid test.”

“So she’s not gonna abandon me.”

“And that is how the story of you and me ends.” She sighed again. “If you ever think critically, about anything, think about your relationship with Colgate. I promise you—Spike, I promise you—she is going to use you up and leave you.”

“Uh-huh. I bet you’d like that.”

She turned to move back to the bowling alley. “You’re a resource for her, not a friend. That psycho is going to ruin your life.” She paused. “Just like you both have done to me.”

Spike was unable to talk to Colgate. They trained all day, and, by the time night had fallen, he was too exhausted to follow her back to her house. He stumbled into his own living room with Flitter right behind, where Cloudchaser waited for them, a look of contrition on her face and the smell of food coming from his kitchen.

Over cornbread and blackberry tea, they talked about life in the Datura, and Cloudchaser apologized to Flitter for her strong words. Spike watched, struggling to keep himself awake as the two sisters discussed an argument he hadn’t seen, and a decision he had known to expect. It ended, to his lack of surprise, in a tearful hug.

“Is this what it’s like to be her?” he thought, chewing his bread and watching the emotional display dispassionately.

The next day, he woke up inside a pair of wings, and the two of them made breakfast together, she singing softly as she worked, he checking out the window absentmindedly. The two left for the spa at eight o’ clock, and there he met Colgate, speaking with Cloudchaser, who nodded along glumly. The final words of encouragement.

When she left half an hour later with Colgate beside her, Spike waited at the edge of a hot tub, intermittently speaking to Flitter as she cleaned. He knew he could not tell her of his encounter with Allie, but it was the only thing on his mind, and his words circled the topic loosely and distantly, threatening to pull him into his own disastrous mire of questions and explanations. Only Colgate, he knew, could soothe him.

“Spike, what’s wrong? You’re not yourself today.”

“I’ve never really understood that question.” He remembered Colgate, on the banks of the river, confused that she should be any different from what she was in that single instance. He remembered wondering whether Noteworthy might be right, that an unspecified, toxic illness waited beneath her quiet veneer.

“Spike?”

“Just thinking,” he said at last, trying to think of what to tell her preoccupied him. “That Tartarus gateway has me a little worried.”

“That what?”

He looked at her. “There’s an opening to Tartarus just outside Ponyville. Did Foxglove not tell you about that?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Oh.” He kicked his feet in the warm water.

“Geez, some timing I have,” she said. “What a time to join up with you.”

“Flitter, don’t fool yourself. You’ve been tricked. There’s this potion that makes you susceptible to Datura influences somehow, and Colgate gave it to you and Cloudchaser. I did it to Allie too, and now she hates me.” He bit his tongue. “Yeah, guess so. Huh, crazy.”

Colgate sat in her office with Spike on the other side of her desk, her papers cleared away, her patients safe with some other doctor, her credentials forgotten mirrors of glass on the wall. Lunch was spread out between them.

“I talked with Allie yesterday,” he said.

“How’s she coming along?”

“She knows.”

“Knows?”

“She knows I gave her a potion. She knows I went behind her back.”

Colgate picked a seed out of her teeth. “Interesting.” She studied Spike, thinking. “I was not aware that ponies could figure that out,” she said slowly.

“She did, somehow. And she was mad.”

“Explain.”

“I dunno, she kept calling me stupid, and naïve. She said I didn’t get it, and I tried to explain to her that I do get it, but she wasn’t listening.”

“What do you get?”

“She’s just mad that she has to go back into the Datura. She left it once, and thought it was done, and now she knows she’s going to sign up again.”

“She’s mad that you were the instrument of her downfall.” She nodded, once. “Makes sense.”

“She mentioned you.”

“No surprises there.” “That psycho.” “What did she say?”

“She told me that I need to examine my relationship with you, that you were gonna ruin my life.”

Colgate raised an eyebrow.

“Colgate, am I a resource for you?”

“Why in the world would you ever think that?” “You didn’t think to ask me that on your own.”

“Allie told me. She said I’m not your friend, I’m your resource, and you’re going to abandon me as soon as I stop being useful.”

Colgate closed her eyes. “Please tell me you don’t believe that nutcase. Spike, look at what she’s done to us. She tries to drive us apart at every turn.”

“I know, I know. I wanted to say that to her, but… well, she was pretty mad.”

“Spike.” She looked into his young eyes. “I am now, as I have been since the very beginning, your friend, and only that. I know I’ve made some mistakes in the past, but I know what I did, and I refuse to let it happen again. Allie…” She shook her head. “Her head’s so screwed up, I almost feel sorry for her.”

“I know, me too.”

“I promise you, I only want you to be happy.” She sighed. “Please tell me you’re not seeing her anymore.”

“After all that? Heck no. We’re through. She just kissed my friendship goodbye.”

“Good. It’s sad, but sometimes that has to be done.”

He rose, and she knew what he was planning to do. She scooted back to allow it. Hugging her, his mouth right next to her ear, he said, “You’re the best friend anypony could ask for.”

“I’m glad I can be that for you.”

They finished lunch, and he left with a spring in his step. She magically swept the empty food containers into her trash before locking the door, deep in thought.

“There’s no way Allie knows this on her own. The first indicator of a psychopath is that they have no self-awareness, or almost none. She shouldn’t be able to recognize a change in her mentality like that.” She looked out the window. “Which means someone told her, and the only ponies who know are Foxglove and Spike. She has no reason to spill the beans.” She watched a bird perch on a bridge strut to fan its wings.

“Spike. He told her. Why?” The bird flew away. “He knows she hates me. Any reason for her to try to hurt me, she’ll take.” A pair of dragonflies skirted the river, flecks of color and movement. It clicked. “He tells her, knowing she’ll connect it to me. She does, and tries to push us apart, but he wasn’t expecting an attack that indirect. Probably thought she’d try to defame me again.” She went back to her desk. “But why would he try to set her on me?”

She picked up a paper, a month old referral that she had never gotten around to sending to medical records. “And then he asks me if he’s a resource for me. Of course. He probably suspects something. Allie, you nag. But you’re not to blame here; you didn’t choose to see this.”

Someone walked past her office, whistling, and she kept thinking. Conclusions and ideas unfolded, slowly and haltingly, many of them half-formed and stunted by medication.

“A warning. I’ll give him a warning. I’ll show him that I’m not to be trifled with.”