Photo Finish lived in a three-story jigsaw puzzle of harsh angles on the banks of the river, the Whitewater Stampede. It was her favorite and most lived-in house of the four she owned, built with exacting precision to fulfill her singular and oft-criticized wish that the structure itself be as unwelcoming as possible. Off-white slabs of wall stood, undecorated, in the way of the river, with triangular windows fricasseeing its northern face like shattered ice on pavement. The rooftop was domed on one side and ended in a harsh upturn, as though the surface’s integrity had been compromised long enough for the material to form a wave and try to overtake itself. From a distance, the house resembled a dollop of ice cream balanced atop a car’s engine.

Her bedchamber was tucked away in a small, central room, spherical, between the second and third floor, with doors and stairs leading out and to the rest of the house, which she often left open to create airflow. The effect the open doors produced when the entire house lit up was like spotlights piercing her most private quarters, and she started awake with a curse before flopping out of bed and rushing up the nearest stairs to a window, not quite at eye level.

Ten ponies rimmed her white fence, their expressions hollow in the dim light from her house. She stared a moment, coming to her senses. Her first thought was a gut-wrenching question: where had she left her pulse crystal? She couldn’t remember where she had set it down, or even when she had last used it; home defense was not something that she often thought about.

Then, a white pony in distinctive purple goggles stood up against her fence, and Photo Finish recognized her. She produced a light of her own, revealing the Elements of Harmony, and three strangers.

Photo Finish drew back the single curtain to expose herself, still thinking. Her mind was still on her bed, and a dream that was slipping away. One of her visitors was shouting, but nothing came through the soundproof glass of her window. Vinyl’s light strobed a couple times, bright pink, and Photo frowned before sliding the curtain back in place and making for the wide, uneven stairway to the bottom floor.

Her lawn was a simple square of grass with no decorations, and she felt distinctly uncomfortable as she crossed it. She had requested the design to unnerve her visitors, to make them feel both small and watched, and it was with an ironic smile that she noted the first time that the effect was reversed onto her.

At the fence, she approached Vinyl, who broke off from the group.

“Know I wouldn’t come if it wasn’t an emergency,” Vinyl said. In the still, night air, even her abnormally soft voice carried well, and Photo nodded.

“Proceed.”

“My friends need a place to stay the night.”

Photo did not laugh, but looked at the nine other ponies, who stared back at her expectantly. Some appeared to be drunk, or nearly drunk, while others appeared half asleep. She recognized Pinkie Pie, who was curled in a sleeping ball on a large, red stallion’s back.

“Long story.”

“Explain now.” She knew she was being short, but it was four-thirty in the morning.

“They need someone with a light, not tied to the dam. Twilight can explain it better.” Vinyl’s light turned a steady purple, and she looked pointedly at Twilight, head drooping.

Photo watched them watch her for a long time, seriously considering telling them to sleep on the lawn.

Seeming to sense her uncharitable mood, Vinyl continued. “Something has gone wrong, and they need a way to put it right.”

Nearby, Photo heard Fluttershy mumble something to Rainbow Dash, supporting her head on Photo’s fence bars.

“They can leave tomorrow. Just somewhere to sleep tonight, please.”

Photo imagined for a moment their reactions if she told them to go elsewhere, and then went to the gate. Swinging it open, she expected a rush, but no one moved.

“Enter,” she said.

The ponies, including Vinyl, ebbed in, and she indicated the front door.

“Sleep on the living room floor. Touch nothing.”

At eight o’ clock, Photo woke up, saw that the power was off, and activated her personal generator before rousing the ponies on her floor. Fluttershy and Rainbow were gone, a note in their place. Photo grabbed it and brought everyone out to her kitchen, a stark white box, where the only curved lines belonged to the long torus of her counter.

When everyone appeared sufficiently awake, Photo stared at them all with an intense, hard look, one bereft of mercy. She was much more inclined to help them after a good night’s sleep, but she didn’t want them to know it.

“Explain.”

“First, I just want to thank you for taking us in,” Twilight said. “We really were out of options last night.”

The brown stallion shifted his weight and raised a hoof. “Perhaps I can shed some light on this predicament, Miss Finish. Yes, light—ironic as it will soon prove to you as well, I fear.” He sighed dramatically. “We are beset with a curse!”

“A curse?” Photo echoed.

“Let me do it,” Twilight said, putting her head in her hooves. “Sorry, I’m still really tired.” She took a deep breath. “Do you have any coffee or something?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

Twilight nodded. “Sorry. So… geez, okay.” It took her half an hour to fully explain what was happening, beginning with their encounter with Discord earlier the previous day, and ending with how they had come to the conclusion to seek her out. Photo Finish was a mild friend of Vinyl’s, and the only address she could lead them to, and it was Whooves’ idea to find someone wealthy enough to have a private electrical generator, something of a luxury shortly after the disaster; they had spent several minutes outside her house, ascertaining whether she had one, and it was only due to Applejack’s magic that they were able to turn on the lights and wake her up—which Twilight did not mention.

“Am I in danger?” Photo asked.

“From us?” Pinkie asked.

“If you have Discord’s attention, enough of it to merit a curse like this, then what does that mean for the mare whose house you share? I, Photo Finish, cannot have the god of chaos barging in because you happen to be with me.”

“I don’t think he’ll do that,” Twilight said. “He put this curse on us to keep us out of the city, and we are.”

“No, you are not.”

“Oh, right, well… geez, it feels like it, way out here. You know, on the riverbank.”

“Am I in danger?” Photo asked again, emphasizing each word with a tap of her hoof.

“We have no reason to believe that you are,” Octavia said. “He prefers to keep us at a distance.”

While Photo contemplated her words, Twilight read the note that Fluttershy and Rainbow had left, and sighed. “Apparently they’ve decided to go investigating on their own, without telling anyone. Great.”

“From what I have seen, Fluttershy is very cautious. I am inclined to trust that she knows what she is doing.”

“And what of you all?” Photo asked.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.

“Perhaps there is no danger, but what will you do? You still cannot go into town.”

“Maybe Ah’m jumpin’ to conclusions here,” Applejack said, “but Ah think we just gotta wait on Rainbow and Fluttershy. See what they discover, an’ go from there.”

Rarity looked at Photo. “If that’s okay with you, of course, ma’am.”

Photo groaned. “In the service of Equestria, I don’t see that I have much choice in the matter.” She glared at Vinyl, who smiled weakly. “You brought this to me, Miss Scratch.”

“With best intentions,” Vinyl breathed.

“What about our bags?” Octavia asked.

“Aw, crud,” Applejack said.

“Do you suppose the darkness will follow us?” Whooves asked. “You know, us non-Elements?”

“I think that it will,” Octavia said. “Or at least some of us.”

Vinyl’s horn flashed soft green, and they looked at her. “I can bring them.”

“Bags,” Photo said with clear distaste.

“You don’t have a room key,” Big Mac said.

“Oh! Oh! I know! Me!” Whooves cried. “I’d be mightily surprised if that old blackout follows the likes of me, given how little time I’ve been in your esteemed company so far. Mayhap I go with this fine lady here and offer my own two hooves as well?”

“You had me at ‘go’,” Applejack said, and Whooves laughed.

Rainbow and Fluttershy had left Photo Finish’s house at seven in the morning and walked together to the nearest dock, where they boarded a dark brown paddlewheel boat and embarked on a river tour. There were tours every day of the week, some from the city limits all the way up to the dam and some only in small circles a mile or two off the shore. Though the river had suffered from the same splits that had affected the city, there were plenty of wide troughs of water to connect the river segments.

Their boat was resting on one such bridge while a convoy of speedboats moved out of the way on the other side. The bridge’s metal sides lifted up strangely from the surface, resembling the remnants of a sunken ship. For Fluttershy particularly, it was a disquieting thought.

They were in search of a boat captain and tour guide by the name of Pretzel: an old, half-forgotten family friend of Fluttershy’s. Their last correspondence had been before Twilight’s arrival in Ponyville, a holiday greeting card and a hollow promise to visit in the future.

Fluttershy and Rainbow sat in the back of the boat and looked around with no interest. Rainbow, unnerved from the night before and antsy from lack of flight, had conjured an invisible bubble of colder, drier air around them, turning the day’s humidity into an uncomfortable blanket of moisture only a couple degrees above the dew-point. Fluttershy didn’t object; she knew Rainbow was putting herself through a lot, and for a task she did not envy. While Fluttershy knew what had to be done, and had a vague sense of how to do it, Rainbow was there for moral support only. They both knew it, and so Fluttershy did her best to make Rainbow’s position as tolerable as possible. Ignoring her pensive cold was the least she could do.

When the great, red paddlewheel started up, scattered cheers rose into the air. They shared the boat with nearly twenty tourists, none of whom had recognized the Elements of Loyalty and Kindness. They crossed the rest of the bridge and swerved into a straight view of the hydroelectric dam. More boats crossed several miles ahead of them, and, after listening to the tour guide describe the dam’s history, they moved again, heading for the opposite shore. It would be another half hour until they arrived there, and Rainbow and Fluttershy would have to jump ship prematurely, or else get close enough to cause another blackout.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were on their summer vacations for flight school when their parents, who had grown to be friends just as the two fillies, decided to have a joint family vacation, spanning the whole season. After some deliberation, they chose Applewood, where Rainbow’s mother had grown up and met her husband. In the waxing summer, the four of them boarded a middle-class airship and flew south, to the biggest city in Equestria.

Rainbow’s parents had arranged for a pair of rooms at a cheap, but nice, hotel just a couple miles off The Bright Road. Too young to join their parents for many of the activities there, Rainbow and Fluttershy were left to their own devices much of the time. The hotel had a water park for that very purpose, and, for the first couple days, all was well.

Then, Pretzel appeared. Taking a tour of the river, Mr. and Mrs. Shy had caught the interest of their tour guide, a brown pegasus with an eyepatch—purely for show—and the three of them clicked. To Fluttershy and Rainbow, the similarities in mannerism and affectation were uncanny, and the first meeting would forever remain her memory. If she were to select a single image that most epitomized the happiness and optimism she felt at that time, at that age, it would be the three soft-spoken pegasi, talking and laughing on the deck long after the other passengers had gotten off.

Fluttershy was not at all certain that Pretzel was still giving tours. They had asked their own boat captain, and he had confirmed that she was, but Fluttershy did not share Rainbow’s confidence in the stranger’s information. She didn’t say so.

They stopped again at a line of buoys near the pier, and Rainbow and Fluttershy, who had chosen a seat at the boat’s side, looked out nervously. Flying pegasi could cause serious visibility problems for boat captains, especially when they were docking. They knew there would be legal trouble for them when they decided to leave early, and a hefty fine at the least.

“They’re not gonna arrest us, are they?” Rainbow whispered. It was still abnormally cold where they sat.

“I don’t think they will,” Fluttershy said. She didn’t know. She held a hoof to her eyes and traced the skimming boat that they were told Pretzel captained, the Water Glass. Also a paddlewheel boat, it was one of the more popular vessels on the Whitewater Stampede for its transparent wheel; not glass, but plastic.

“Well, so let’s do this! The tension’s killing me, Shy.”

“Not yet.” She looked back at the boat’s front. “We’ll wait for it to stop.”

“What if it doesn’t? You don’t know it’s gonna stop.”

Fluttershy sighed. “Then let’s let her get closer.”

“It’s plenty close.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I can see the individual ponies from here, and it’s broad daylight. It’s plenty close, Shy.”

Fluttershy bit her lip as Rainbow pushed at her wings. Part of her wanted to tell Rainbow to go first, if she was so confident, but she knew Rainbow would, and she did not want to force herself to take that plunge.

“C’mon, Fluttershy, this was your idea. Like a bandage, okay? Let’s do it!”

The boat rose on a small swell, and spray peppered her muzzle. The wheel behind them churned lazily, and the tour guide was telling them that they should come back for the nighttime tour. It would end in a fireworks show.

“Fluttershy?”

She closed her eyes, put her head on the rail, and, rising from her seat and not looking at the others, flexed her wings, simultaneously lurching forward. Her body resisted, in part the willful flouting of a rule, in part the flight she was less accustomed to, but her momentum carried her forward, putting her chest to the rail.

“Too late to stop,” she thought quickly, and let her wings catch the air that would propel her forward and over. She tumbled end over end, and a couple ponies behind her cried out. She could hear the flurry of Rainbow’s wings just behind, and then Rainbow shouting at her. She hit the water with a cold, shocking slap that pushed the breath out of her and flung her eyes open. White foam creased the view above her, and her wings waved underwater.

She flipped and accidentally dunked herself, catching, for one horrible moment, a view of the paddlewheel a scant six feet away, seeming much larger than before as it tore the water upwards in front of her head. Something grabbed under her forelegs and pulled, and she was suddenly in the air again, but still near the surface.

“You okay?” Rainbow asked quickly, flapping at double-time to keep them both aloft.

“Fine,” Fluttershy said, pushing off and stabilizing herself. She glanced upwards to see a line of ponies gawking at them from above, and heard the captain calling for order a moment later. Turning and using the ship to push off, she followed Rainbow across the water.

She looked back only when she was positive that she was well away from the paddlewheel that had nearly crushed her, but wished she didn’t. From their seats, the Water Glass had seemed only a short flight away, maybe two minutes in the air, but, over the open river and with every tourists’ eyes on them, her confidence evaporated, and a fanciful two minutes suddenly looked more like a damning five or ten.

Behind, an air horn sounded, and Rainbow spurted ahead. Fluttershy, already weighed down from the water in her fur, could only fall behind. She was in no danger of crashing, but knew that everyone could see her, and the knowledge almost paralyzed her a second time. Through her mind, a thousand consequences flashed. They would reach the Water Glass and be taken to shore and arrested; they would not be allowed on, and forced to fly to shore themselves, to be arrested; they would get there, find Pretzel, and be arrested in the middle of the night, after they thought they had escaped scrutiny.

“Crap!” Rainbow called out. Fluttershy looked up, and it didn’t take her long to see what Rainbow saw. The Water Glass was turning away from them. They had jumped too late, and would have to catch up to the boat before boarding. More time for ponies to see them.

“You’re not allowed to be out there!” a tiny voice called from ahead, and the air horn blared again, more distant.

“This sucks,” Fluttershy said, imitating the simple complaint she had heard Rainbow utter countless times. She wondered how many times Rainbow had said it on their short voyage.

“Get off the river!” someone else said.

Fluttershy looked around quickly for any signs of law enforcement, but her worries did not lessen when she saw nothing. She imagined them waiting at the shore, or somehow waiting for them on the boat.

“We’re coming up!” Rainbow shouted, beginning her ascent, Fluttershy a minute behind. Flapping harder, she yelped when her wingtip touched the water. Ponies on the Water Glass had lined up to watch them, but a part in the crowd formed slowly as Rainbow approached, clearing the paddlewheel by several feet. Fluttershy closed her eyes and pumped her wings, giving her the height to do the same. She heard voices, some angry and some merely astounded, as Rainbow made it over the rail, and a sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as she readied to do the same thing. Everyone was looking at her, and some ponies were even leaning out to see better and offer gestures of indignation or encouragement. Some were laughing, some cheering. Someone yelled her name, someone else her Element.

The paddlewheel gnashed beneath her, close enough for her to smell the river water and feel it on her fur, and, though she knew she had given it enough room, her heart skipped a beat as she passed the wheel’s apex and nearly overbalanced off the rail and into a wall.

Far behind, the horn pounded out its warning a third time.

Pretzel and her husband joined them for dinner after her last tour that day, and she alone for lunch the following day, which she had off. It was to everyone’s pleasure that she was able to befriend Rainbow’s parents just as easily. She did not have much to say to the two fillies, but they didn’t mind; they had little to say to her as well.

She was witty, sarcastic, and had plenty of stories about her travels, both inside the city and out. Though quiet in voice, she seemed to always be talking, and, when she was, it was common that at least one of the others was laughing. Fluttershy found her pleasant, if not somewhat intimidating, but Rainbow didn’t trust her. Her husband, Midnight Oil, worked at the dam as a payroll clerk, and soon turned into just as stable a fixture in the two families’ social lives as Pretzel. He was much more easy to talk to for the fillies, and Fluttershy in particular enjoyed his company. She could sit for hours while he talked, and frequently did, from benign comings and goings of his job to stories from his life, almost as exciting as Pretzel’s to her young ears.

They both had the weekends off, and so Saturdays and Sundays nearly always saw all eight of them on an outing of some sort. The riverfront one weekend, a show the next, the amusement park directly south of the city the next. The thing Fluttershy would remember with greatest clarity was their single visit to the dam. There, they met one of Midnight Oil’s work friends, Pure Waterfall. At that time, he had been the CEO for three years.

Fluttershy and Rainbow sat in the back, heads down, while the tour continued. They would reach shore in half an hour, whereupon they would meet the consequences of their actions. Fluttershy tried to recognize the tour guide’s voice, but could not. Her nerves, and the years she had spent without speaking to Pretzel, made her memory cloudy.

Rainbow radiated warm air for them both.

Many passengers had asked them what was the matter, and what had caused two Elements of Harmony to board their ship in such a dramatic way. Rainbow assured everyone that there was no trouble, and mumbled an excuse about the other boat being boring, and it was enough for everyone to leave them alone.

They had not considered that they would only be able to speak with Pretzel—if it turned out to be her—after the tour was over, when they were ashore, and there would be no avoiding the blackout for the nearest buildings. Fluttershy kept her eyes closed for the remainder of her journey, hating herself for not realizing it sooner. She imagined she could feel everyone looking at her, judging her.

When the boat came to a rest, she didn’t open her eyes until she was sure everyone else had left. The sound of hooves going past them, of Rainbow deflecting questions and comments, made her try to shrink into herself; she knew she was making her fear visible for everyone, but she was too near the familiar, overwhelming feeling of panic to care. While the tourists passed out of earshot, she waited for the sound of approaching hooves from behind: police. None came.

“C’mon, Shy, let’s do this,” Rainbow said. “You’ll recognize her if you see her, right?”

Fluttershy got up without answering and went to the cockpit door, where she could see a shadow under the crack. She knocked softly, holding her breath. She looked to the side and saw a police car parked on the dock.

“Good afternoon,” the captain said, opening the door. She wore no playful eyepatch, but Fluttershy recognized her immediately.

“Pretzel?”

“Do I know you?”

Her past staring her in the face, Fluttershy backed up a step. “Um… well, we met a long time ago. I, um, I’m Fluttershy.”

Pure Waterfall reminded Fluttershy of Midnight Oil with a ten-year advantage. He smiled warmly, spoke with an even cadence, and made all of them feel welcome in his spacious office. Fluttershy and Rainbow admired the toys on his desk while the adults spoke of adult things, and the only detail she remembered about the encounter was the candy cigars he offered both of them. “I have no taste for the real thing, but you must keep up appearances in this job,” he had said. Everyone laughed.

He accompanied them for a tour of the dam, which Rainbow found boring and Fluttershy scary, and even walked them to the entrance on their way out. Neither Fluttershy nor Rainbow noticed the quiet that had overtaken their parents and friends when they left.

Pretzel threw her head back in laughter in the manner they both remembered. She had remembered them instantly and accepted Fluttershy’s description of their curse more easily than she had expected. She told herself she should not be so shocked; her knowledge of Pretzel’s personality was confined to indistinct snippets of memory. They had gotten take-out at a restaurant on the pier and ate on the boat, where the curse could not reach anyone.

“Everypony’s fine, though,” Fluttershy continued. “We, um, were able to call them when we were in Manehattan.”

“Yeah, they’re actually more worried about us,” Rainbow said. “Especially dad. You know how he is.”

Pretzel nodded rapidly, still smiling. She had kept in touch with both families after their departure at the end of that summer.

“Now that I think about it, did Twilight and them ever ask about our parents?”

“I think Twilight knows,” Fluttershy said. “She just wants to be tactful, maybe?”

Pretzel cleared her throat.

“Um, sorry. We, um… well, there is a reason we’re here, other than reconnecting.”

She nodded, urging Fluttershy to go on.

“Do you… um, I’m really sorry to bring this up, especially now, but, well… um, do you happen to still have a way of contacting Pure Waterfall?”

Pretzel lost her smile, and her entire bearing seeming to constrict. “Him?” was all she said.

“I’m really sorry,” Fluttershy repeated.

“Why would I have his contact information?”

“I don’t know.” She smiled apologetically in response to Rainbow rolling her eyes.

“He’s still CEO. Why not chase him down yourself?”

“Uh, curse,” Rainbow said.

Pretzel sighed. “Well, what do you want me to do?”

“Please,” Fluttershy said.

“I don’t have anything to do with that… stallion.”

Fluttershy hung her head and sniffled.

“Okay, look,” Rainbow said, standing and putting her hooves on the desk. “We need to get a hold of this Pure Waterfall guy because there’s something seriously messed up with his dam, and with this city. This stupid curse that’s on us? It’s… uh…”

“It’s not magical,” Fluttershy completed. “We think that Discord has some way to monitor our positions, and he’s using the dam to turn off all the electricity around us.”

“Yeah, exactly. So we gotta talk to this guy.” She sat down. “Whether you like it or not.”

Pretzel leaned back, her eyes still on her food. “That is serious,” she said at last.

They looked at her.

“Let me see if I can find something.” She grabbed a purse in her teeth and dragged it over, and took a few minutes going through its contents. “Here.” She produced a small, bound notebook and tore out a page. “This was his phone number. I don’t know if he’s moved since then. If he has, I truthfully can’t help you.”

Fluttershy tried to draw a picture of Pure Waterfall, which she showed to Rainbow, and they both decided after a lengthy conversation that it was no good, and she tore it to pieces.

The following weekend, they met Pretzel and Midnight Oil for a museum exhibition, and there bumped into Pure Waterfall again. Both fillies were happy to see him, and he them, but the adults regarded his random appearance with a cooler sort of pleasure. He joined them for the exhibition, and lunch afterwards.

Rainbow was not as adept at recognizing the different shades of anxiety in Mr. and Mrs. Shy, but Fluttershy could tell that something was bothering her parents later that night. When she asked what was wrong, they told her that it was nothing.

When police cars appeared on the shore, Rainbow went first, acknowledging with candor that made Fluttershy want to vanish from the city the crime they had both committed. They spoke with the police long enough for a small group of ponies to appear in their peripheries, confused about the sudden loss of electricity.

They were given a fine for fifteen hundred bits, a stern lecture, and then a ride back to their hotel. Fluttershy had insisted they return to the Apogee, stating later that, despite the trouble their presence would cause in town, she thought it preferable to raising the officers’ suspicions further by trying to be dropped off at Photo Finish’s house.

They stepped out onto the sidewalk, thinking the worst of their day had passed them by. It was only one o’ clock, and the darkness they caused was minimal, at least in appearance, but it was not long before they discovered that, unlike Manehattan, there were nearly no taxis to be found in Applewood. They were forced to walk, and made it back to Photo Finish’s residence two hours later, exhausted and dehydrated, where they gave as little information as they could to their worried friends.

Pure Waterfall continued to pop up at get-togethers, and Rainbow and Fluttershy continued to enjoy his company. Fluttershy’s parents gradually warmed to him, or—Fluttershy would later come to believe—she just got used to their change in behavior. Despite his important position in the dam and the Applewood infrastructure, no one acted nervous or tense around him, except for Pretzel. She could never seem to act naturally around their new acquaintance.

They called Pure Waterfall’s house at six, and got no answer. They called again at seven, and he picked up. Fluttershy was so nervous, she almost let him hang up on her without saying anything, but managed, with Rainbow’s encouragement, to introduce herself and pretend to be catching up for old times’ sake. It had been a long time since she had seen Pretzel, and even longer since she had seen Pure Waterfall, who had never been particularly close to her to begin with.

She kept her nerves in check long enough to schedule a lunch date for the following day, out on the river—for the view, she said—and then hang up cordially. As soon as the phone was in its place, she let out a sigh that quickly became a deflated cry, and Rainbow rubbed her back comfortingly. Her heart felt fit to beat out of its cage, and she thought, if someone were to walk in on her just then, she might faint.

While Foxglove and several other Daturas were locked in the sauna, converted to a meeting room, and Allie was outside to direct arriving Daturas to various teleportation sigils to take them the rest of the way to the spa—magically expanded to four times its size—Flitter and Cloudchaser helped to stack large, wooden wheels into neat pillars in the corner of the former massage area. The walls were pinned with designs that detailed a kind of caravan, a rolling parade of strangely shaped vehicles, some with engines and some to be pulled manually.

They did not know the full plan, but they knew it had to do with the coming battle for Canterlot. Daturas from all across Equestria were combining their skills and resources into a mobile attack unit, an aggregate of magic and engineering that would, Foxglove said, unbalance Discord and ruin his chances at a clean retreat.

“Take a break, dearies,” a dowdy mare in a sunflower dress and rose-colored glasses said, bringing a wheel of her own and depositing it on top of a stack. “You’ve done plenty for now.”

They nodded, too tired to say anything, and slunk away. With nothing else requiring their attention, Foxglove had allowed her Daturas to manage their own schedules, as long as they were helping to her satisfaction. Flitter and Cloudchaser, lacking magic, could only help move parts.

“You’re both such darlings,” the mare said as they walked away. Her harmless, almost ridiculous appearance had set her apart immediately, though they would quickly find that she was not unique; she was only the first they had met.

They walked through a tiled tunnel that had not existed a week earlier and waited behind a short unicorn in a lab coat to step into the glowing teleportation sigil. Allie had created every sigil, with Foxglove’s directions for placement, to avoid raising suspicions at the hundreds of ponies coming and going from the spa, which was officially out of business.

“Cloudchaser and Flitters, right?” the lab coat pony asked. His head was a full two inches below Cloudchaser’s chin, and he looked up with wide, innocent eyes. “We appreciate the lodging for our little project, my compatriots and I.”

“I’m sorry,” Flitter said. “I don’t think we’ve met?”

“No, we haven’t.” He stepped onto the sigil without another word and vanished in a magical flash of turquoise light. There was an hourglass set up beside the sigil, rigged to flip every time the magic discharged, giving the pony on the other side ninety seconds to move away. Cloudchaser had asked Allie whether it was necessary, and received, in return, a lecture on the dangers of teleportation-based injuries. Unlike in popular Equestrian media, teleportation accidents did not combine bodies with each other. All the material, much of it incompressible, had only one way to go when suddenly intruded upon by another pony, and that direction was out.

Flitter went first, flashing into existence outside Zecora’s hut, from where she could select one of five paths that would take her, eventually, back to Ponyville, each one marked with a magical bauble that glowed a different color according to how recently it had been used. The other Daturas, she knew, had a way to traverse the paths in a matter of seconds, but she and Cloudchaser had to walk.

The pegasi entered Ponyville ten minutes later, coming in from behind the schoolhouse.

“So, what do you think they’re making?” Flitter asked.

“A convoy of something, but I can’t tell what,” Cloudchaser said. She rose up on her wings briefly and waved. Limestone Pie trotted over to them with no smile, but a spring in her step that they had come to recognize.

“It is good to see you,” Limestone said. Her voice had been steadily improving, and she no longer waited to be addressed before talking. The rumor of her feeble-mindedness still circulated, but weakly. “You have been working hard.”

“Yeah, heavy lifting,” Flitter said.

Limestone nodded and said no more, whether recognizing their desire for secrecy or just being polite, they couldn’t tell.

“We’re just taking a break,” Cloudchaser said. They kept walking, heading for the park, and Limestone followed at their side.

“I found a job.”

“You did? Where?” Flitter asked.

“I pull the apple carts at the farm.”

Flitter smiled. “Just like that? That was quick. Just a couple days ago, you said you didn’t have any prospects.”

“Grandmother Smith said she liked my work ethic.”

Cloudchaser laughed, and patted Limestone on the back.

“Are you already done for today?”

“The farmers are,” Limestone said.

They entered the park, where Flitter and Cloudchaser recognized one of the Daturas behind a trombone and a crowd of listeners. Taking a seat beside a disc of cultivated tulips, both pegasi let out a sigh. Limestone made no comment, but it was clear in her expression that she was puzzled.

“Long days, Limestone,” Cloudchaser said.

“Stressful,” Flitter added.

“What do you do?” Limestone asked. “I do not believe I have ever seen you working.”

“We’re kind of between jobs right now. Since the spa closed, you know.”

“You were doing heavy lifting earlier. That is a job.”

“Home improvement,” Cloudchaser said. “We’re trying to re-do a… it’s complicated.”

“I can help.”

“No, you don’t need to do that,” Flitter said. The sun was setting, and she didn’t look away from the view. “It’s nearly done anyway.”

They sat together for several minutes, listening to the musical Datura. Flitter watched a team of pegasi in the far distance wrestling a cloud into place, her mind wandering. She hadn’t had the chance since the other Daturas had arrived; every night, she was too tired to reflect in bed.

“What do you suppose is happening to her right now?” she asked.

“Who?” Cloudchaser said.

“Miss Crazy.”

“Who cares?”

Flitter grunted, and the crowd clapped politely as the trombone quieted.

“Do you care?” Cloudchaser asked.

“A little, yeah. At least, I think I do.”

“Why?”

“We knew her, Cloud.”

“So? That’s no reason to care about her. I guarantee you she doesn’t care about us.”

“That’s not the point.”

“It is. Why should we worry about her, when all she did was manipulate and betray us?”

“I didn’t say anything about worrying.”

“You sounded like it.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to.”

The trombone started up again.

“I think she’s up to the same stuff she was up to here, except in Canterlot,” Cloudchaser said. “Where you can’t get away with that kind of thing as easy.”

“She did make it look easy, too,” Flitter said.

“You sound jealous.”

Flitter turned from the sunset. “Maybe a little. It was horrible, but you have to admit, there was a lot of skill at work there.”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘skill.’ More like ‘villainy’.”

Flitter smiled. “You’re not that black-and-white, Cloud.”

Cloudchaser glanced at Limestone, watching. “Eh, you got me.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I agree. She’s pure evil, but it’s fascinating to watch. You never get to see that kind of thing, you know?”

“That’s true. It’s always portrayed in the media, but that’s something else. You kind of don’t know what to do with it when you see it in the flesh.”

“I’d read about ponies like her long before I knew her, and I wasn’t prepared.” She looked at Limestone, who looked back at her. Flitter recognized the look on her face. “What is it, Lime?”

“What was she like, aside from evil?” Limestone asked. “I do not understand how someone who you would come to despise so much could, at one time, be a friend.”

“That’s what freaks me out,” Cloudchaser said. “She passed as an average pony, apparently for years.”

“Yeah, she was here long before we were,” Flitter said. “No one knew.”

“Unflappable. That’s the word.”

“Yeah, that’s perfect. She was unflappable, Lime. Right up ‘til the end.”

Cloudchaser flapped her wings once and adjusted her weight. “We talked and laughed together. I would visit her at the hospital—that’s where she worked—and she’d get massages from us at the spa. Totally normal, average, regular pony.”

“They always say that the worst ponies are the ones who hide in plain sight,” Flitter said.

“The more I remember it, the more it sickens me.”

“You should not dwell on it,” Limestone said.

“I’m not, I’m just saying.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“A week,” Flitter said.

“A little longer,” Cloudchaser said.

“You have your own lives,” Limestone said. “Do not waste your time thinking about someone who did you wrong, who is now gone.”

“Easier said than done,” Flitter said. “You don’t encounter ponies like her every day.”

“Yeah, it’s not like we can just forget what she did,” Cloudchaser said.

“Those are excuses not to act,” Limestone said.

“I’m not trying to get away from that, but—”

“This pony is gone, is she not?”

“Yeah.”

“She has no contact with you.”

“Right.”

Limestone nodded patiently. “Do not let her memory control you. Or you, Flitter.”

Flitter looked back at the sunset, and, though she acknowledged in her head that Limestone was right, she wondered still what Colgate was doing in Canterlot. The thought that the same sun set on them both filled her with anticipation, as though the distance between them and Canterlot were only the distance between them and the hospital. “She’s right. Colgate’s gone, probably for good. Like you said, there’s no way she can get away with her tricks up in Canterlot. There’s no point getting worked up about a bad memory.”

Colgate, Rouge, and several others swayed back and forth in the booth at The Twisted Plum, the bar they had visited her first night in Canterlot. She had gotten over her withdrawal, for the most part, and she felt great. There was no other word she could think of, and Rouge had asked her several times. The first day had terrified and exhilarated her, and she had never imagined that the feeling could repeat.

In a way, it didn’t. Rouge wasted no time in introducing her to alcohol, and its effects, and Colgate was happy to indulge. After the pills, the numbness of drunkenness was novel, and, much more importantly, lesser.

Even after her third drink that night, a night that had only begun an hour ago, she felt more in control of herself than she could ever remember being on medication. Medication stunted her thoughts, truncated ideas, made every decision an effort. Only work had been easy; she had kept her work and personal lives separate enough for that. With alcohol, though, every thought, impulse, half-formed idea, or flight of fancy, though incoherent, came through as bright and clear as a peal of lightning.

The strangers, whose names Colgate had forgotten, were Rouge’s other friends, and all Daturas. She knew they had exchanged rejection stories earlier in the night, but she had forgotten which story applied to which pony. She knew that her own rejection story was different from what she told Rouge when they were introduced, but Rouge didn’t appear to notice.

A cheer rose up from their booth, which Colgate joined without thinking, as the piano player ended his song. Drinks were raised, and Colgate, still wearing the small collar on her horn, pushed her glass the earth pony way, nearly spilling it. Someone laughed, and she laughed as well, looking for the face that had found her near mistake so amusing.

“Cole, pick a song!” Rouge said, shaking her. “Pick a sing-song for that pianey!”

Colgate only looked at her blankly.

“Aw, hell, she’s out.”

Someone else supplied a song request, and the bar was filled with music again. After only a brief reprieve, she was caught up in the booth’s swaying, and finished her drink, something powerful but sweet. She had trusted Rouge to order her drinks for her, since she knew so little, and had done so assuming that Rouge would do everything she could to get her drunk quickly. Rouge had no way to know the improvement that even complete inebriation would be over her medication, and so Colgate felt no anxiety at letting her night’s trajectory be controlled by someone else.

By the song’s end, a round of shots had materialized on their table, and one of Rouge’s friends was gesturing grandly. Colgate looked at the small glass, knowing that she did not have the dexterity to drink it without her magic.

“I gotcha, Cole,” a cranberry-red unicorn said, levitating her glass before her. “You know what they say…” Everyone at the table joined in. “Over the lips and past the gums, I forget the rest so here we go!” Laughter crackled all around her as she took her first shot ever, a strong, cinnamon liquid that warmed her throat as she coughed and gagged.

Rouge gave her an encouraging smile, and Colgate returned it, not knowing why Rouge was so happy.

They left the bar an hour later, laughing and stumbling, and took to the streets. None of them were tired, Colgate least among them, so they decided to walk around. “A tour for our newest recruit!” one of them shouted, throwing a clumsy foreleg over Coglate’s neck.

The streets were nearly empty, the buildings around them dark. They covered the sidewalk, sometimes dashing out into the middle of the road or tumbling into lawns. Colgate could not walk straight, nor hear well, except the roaring laughter that never seemed to end. She could not tell who was laughing or when; no faces seemed right to her when she studied them. Everywhere she looked, she saw malign patience, disguised as happiness.

They cut through an empty parking lot, went down an alley, and emerged from behind a grocery store, frightening a lone mare returning her shopping cart as they did so. One of their number hollered an apology to her, and she gave them a dark glare as they passed.

Across the next street, they took a side path to a small, swooping concrete wing that bridged a stream and led to a circle around a duck pond. Colgate followed the crowd, not speaking, waiting for a reduction in the laughter that pressed in on her ears. It was timed too perfectly. She could hear the jokes popping one by one, the prompts, but the laughter followed too quickly. Not spontaneous, but scripted.

A pair of ponies broke off to wrestle in the grass nearby, and Rouge sat on a bench, head down. She was saying something about not feeling well, but Colgate wasn’t listening, nor was anyone else, it appeared. A light blue earth pony stallion, similar to her own color, was talking to her, and she looked at his face as he did so. She lowered her ears, trying to drown out the surrounding laughter, and was only partially successful.

He strutted nearer to the pond, affecting a snobbish accent as he parodied Celestia, and Colgate watched him intently. He turned and flicked his tail coquettishly, then laughed. Someone laughed with him, and Colgate’s mind flashed a warning. Only one word was clear to her: signal.

She sprang forward, seeing surprise in his eyes first, then indignation as she slammed into him, knocking him bodily into the pond. His body disappeared in a violent splash, and then came back, thrashing and cursing and surrounded by fans of white water. Ducks fled in a ruckus.

“Colgate, what the hell?” someone shouted. The red unicorn stumbled forward to help the blue stallion out of the water.

“What was that for?” someone else asked. She looked around, taking note for the first time that none of their faces showed the expression she associated with laughter. She smiled. Their system of communicating without words had been shattered.

“I was just messing around!” the blue stallion cried, shivering.

They dispersed at a street corner, and Rouge led them back to her house. Inside, she sat down at the dining room table.

“What’d you push Lilac for, huh?”

Colgate looked at her and sat down as well. She tried to think, but nothing came to her. She knew she had had a reason to push him at the time, but, in the walk home, it had disappeared. All she knew was that she was drunk. “I don’t know.”

“What d’you mean, you don’t know?”

“I just did it.”

“You just did it.” Rouge went to the sink and drank from the tap for several seconds. “Celestia, I had too much tonight.” She giggled. “Imagine that, me saying I had too much! But seriously, Cole, not cool. That water was freezing. I bet he’s gonna have a cold now. Sniffles, at least.” She laughed and waggled a hoof at Colgate. “Don’t you go around giving all my friends the sniffs, ‘kay?”

Colgate could not conceive a response, so just nodded. Rouge smiled, appeased.

“One last word of advice, oh glorious partner in boozerific… eh, whatever. Uh, if you get too drunk, just sleep it off. Don’t fall asleep on your back.”

“I’ve heard that advice before,” Colgate said.

“Good. I’m gonna take my own advice right now. You coming?”

Colgate wordlessly got up and followed her to bed, head spinning.

After returning the Elements’ luggage, for which Vinyl and Whooves enlisted the help of a couple strangers, they decided to stay for an early dinner. Photo Finish did not cook, but one of her models did; she was paid an extra fifty percent of her modeling stipend to come over every evening to prepare dinner. It was only dinner; Photo ate lunch at work, and skipped breakfast.

All twelve of them crammed themselves into Photo’s dining room, some at the table, some on the floor, some at the counter in the abutting kitchen. Vinyl sat between Twilight and Applejack, goggles on. She moved her head slightly every time she looked somewhere, indicating her focus.

“So are you gonna tell us any more ‘bout where you were today?” Applejack asked, looking at Rainbow and Fluttershy. “Y’all sure seemed beat when you got back.”

“There’s nothing to say,” Fluttershy said. “Um, rather, nothing important. Nothing… well, life changing.”

Rainbow cleared her throat, and they all looked at her, but she said nothing.

“Rainbow Dash and I have everything under control. We’re going to be out again tomorrow, gathering information.”

“Why can you not tell us what is going on?” Octavia asked. “Is it private?”

“In a way, yes.” She glanced at Vinyl, then Photo Finish, then her private cook. “Um, that is, yes, very private.”

“Let me ask you this,” Twilight said. “I don’t want to pry. Celestia knows I know not to try to put my nose where it doesn’t belong.” She flicked her eyes to Octavia, who nodded, knowing Twilight was not the only one who was thinking of her. “How much does this concern our… lighting situation?”

“Completely,” Fluttershy said. She thought for a moment, chewing her salad. “This is wonderful, by the way.”

The cook nodded her thanks passively. She was the farthest from the group, her discomfort with the crowd clear on her face and in her every movement.

“Can you at least say who you’re meeting, if not why?” Rarity asked.

“Someone from the dam.”

“So it’s got to do with the dam,” Applejack said.

“Of course!” Whooves cried. “Yes, I see it clearly! Our curse—”

“Curse?” the cook repeated.

“Dang it, doc,” Big Mac said. “He means it euphemistically, ma’am.”

“Terribly sorry—a slip of the old tongue. I’m so used to speaking unhindered, I—”

“Come on, doc,” Applejack said.

“Yes, yes, but of course. Last night, it was said that our curse is not magical in nature. And this proves it, don’t you see? Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash head to the dam tomorrow, the wellspring of the city’s electricity! We are not beset with magic, but by a temperamental power grid!”

“Which is probably controlled by magic,” Octavia said.

“Perhaps, yes. Or just two deft hooves and a pair of watchful eyes? Who can say?”

“Forgive me if I’m missing something obvious, but I don’t see why this needs to be private,” Rarity said.

Fluttershy sighed. “It’s personal, that’s all. There’s… a lot of context.”

“Can we just let it go and trust that Fluttershy knows what to do?” Rainbow asked.

“Ah’d feel a lot more comfortable if Ah knew just what we were trustin’, exactly. Ah trust Fluttershy, but it’s this plan that Ah’m not so sure ‘bout,” Applejack said.

“‘Cause we don’t even know what it is,” Big Mac said.

“Their plan is to break the curse,” Whooves said.

“Ah mean specifically, doc,” Applejack said.

“How much longer do you intend to stay in my house?” Photo Finish asked. “I do not enjoy breaking up this conversation, but I, Photo Finish, am a busy mare, and I need my space. With all due respect, I am no innkeeper, even for the Elements of Harmony and their friends.”

“We’re terribly sorry, and grateful for what you have done,” Rarity said. “I’m sure it will only be a day or two more.”

“Fluttershy?” Twilight asked. “What do you think?”

“You ask a just question, my good friend,” Whooves said, looking at Photo Finish with a grin.

Fluttershy shrunk under everyone’s curious looks. “I… well, I’m not sure. It depends on what we find out tomorrow.”

“Am I to believe that I have your word, and your word alone, that this will reach some resolution?” Photo Finish asked.

“Well, my word too,” Rainbow said.

“We have faith in Fluttershy,” Rarity said.

“Yes indeed,” Whooves said. “She has only ever moved with the best of intentions, and has exercised supreme forbearance in her actions. I would place my troubles at her hooves with confidence.”

“Please, don’t,” Fluttershy said.

“I too trust her,” Octavia said. “I have seen her take action before.”

“Okay, everyone shut up,” Rainbow said. “Yeah, Photo Finish, it’s just us. Her word, and ours that she’s good for it.” She narrowed her eyes. “Is that cool with you?”

“Tomorrow,” Photo said decisively. “I need a plan of action tomorrow. No information, no house.”

“Hey, come on. You gotta give us more than that!”

“That’s fine,” Fluttershy said, putting a hoof to Rainbow’s back. Looking at the others, she said, “she’s within her right to ask for this, you know that. Um, I’ll have information for you tomorrow, Photo Finish.”

“Then there is no quarrel,” Photo snapped.

After dinner, most everyone settled in for a long evening of trying to entertain themselves in Photo’s large, but crowded, living room, and Photo surprised them by offering to play card games with them. Her temper being something none of them could track or predict, they welcomed her with unvoiced hesitance.

Meanwhile, the only two who did not suffer under the curse, Whooves and Vinyl, decided to go into the city. She promised to bring him back safely and then left without further ceremony, Whooves trotting behind and rambling about his experiences with the Elements.

They waited at the nearest intersection for one of the rarer taxis to take them to The Bright Road, instructing their driver to drop them off “wherever.” Part of the Applewood experience, Vinyl explained, was walking aimlessly in search of fun.

They got out outside a tacky fiberglass book on a pedestal, its cover advertising Bookworm, a small hotel in Twilight’s colors.

“What do you want to do?” Vinyl asked. She had to put her mouth to Whooves’ ear to be heard in the mid-evening din.

“Bar, bar, bar!” Whooves cried. He laughed. “Sorry, I’m a little exuberant.”

Her horn pulsed magenta briefly. “I’m a DJ, doc. Used to excitement.” She smiled then, and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Let’s get some drinks.”

As they walked, he stayed beside her the entire time. “I like your goggles, by the way.”

She smiled and nodded.

“Purple’s a good color for you. I bet you hear that all the time, huh? Geez, look at me, all alone with a mare for five minutes and I’m already dropping compliments like bad habits. Or would they be good habits?” He laughed, and she only smiled obligingly. “Shall I get all my gushing done now, or do it in bits and pieces throughout the night?”

They stopped at an intersection, and Vinyl brushed the mane out of her goggles. “I’m the one who should be gushing.” Her voice, while breath quiet, was not empty of excitement. “Finally met the Elements of Harmony. I helped them in a jam. Next to them, I’m nothing.”

“You’re not nothing, Miss Vinyl. You do prefer that, right? Or shall I call you Miss Pon-three?”

“First one’s fine. But look around. You see their faces and colors everywhere. Where am I?”

“Ah, a good point, and well-made!”

“And it’s fine.” She left it at that as they crossed, and she took him down a different street. He could see, in the distance, a building shaped like a draconic skull, fire truck red with neon eyes. “Yes, that’s where we’re going,” she said, not looking at him. She smiled wryly. “Did I get you?”

“On the nose, Miss Vinyl! You predicted my reaction flawlessly! I dare say—”

“You do talk a lot, huh?”

He laughed, edging closer to her. “Perhaps a bit, yes.”

“You’re fine.”

The bar, named Dragon’s Jaw, wore buttresses of hard plastic flame on its corners like cake icing, and they entered through a door set in the back of the dragon’s mouth. Whooves had no expectations; his mind was not even on the bar, but on the mare leading him, but he still could not contain his reaction to the interior, and stood gawking in the entryway while a waitress patiently waited for him to wise up and follow her and Vinyl.

They went to a booth near the corner, where waited a smooth, teardrop table under a glowing stem of tea candles, hanging in a vertical line to cast a ripple effect of shadow and light across the polished surface. A black drink menu stood at attention for them, the bar’s name in faint silver lettering on its face.

“This is nothing like the exterior proposes,” Whooves said, scanning the crowd. The bar was full, but not of raucous tourists, as in The Moon Shot. The waiters and waitresses of Dragon’s Jaw glided in simple, monochrome uniforms among tables of relaxed, luxuriating ponies, many of them businessponies by their dress. Cigar smoke filled the bar, where it naturally flowed, as Vinyl wordlessly indicated with a thread of magical light, out a pair of vents positioned where the dragon’s nostrils were.

“One of my favorite places to go to escape fans,” Vinyl said. “I hope you like it too.”

“I can tell you, my dear, I’m already in love.” He looked up and down the drink list, and jumped up with a yawp. “I just realized something terrible!”

“What?”

“I forgot Celestia’s bank note, and I have no money of my own.”

Vinyl raised her goggles, then, appearing to think for a moment, removed them and set them on the table. “Bank note?”

“A little slip of paper she gave the Elements nice and early on,” he said. “A blank check, if you’ll forgive the sloppy aphorism, for taking care of any logistical needs.”

Vinyl’s horn glowed a brief, dark yellow, mixing with the candlelight like a skin of gold in sunlit water.

“Is yellow good?”

“Color’s irrelevant,” she breathed. “Indicates strong emotion.”

He smiled, not knowing what else to say, and looked at her eyes for the first time. They appeared brown in the dim light, but he recognized that they would be a much more vivid crimson in better conditions. Against her perfect whites, it looked like someone had punched holes in her eyes, through which he could see only the indistinct back of her skull.

“You like?”

He started, grabbing at the menu as if to ward off her question. “Terribly sorry, madam. Just a little harmless curiosity, you understand. I meant no offense!”

“Nor I,” she said. “I was asking. Ponies don’t see them often.”

“Oh.” He forced a chuckle and followed a waiter with his eyes, hoping for a break from the conversation. Seeing none, he flagged the passing waiter down, and they ordered their drinks.

“Don’t feel awkward around me,” she said, even quieter than usual.

“No, no, I’m not, I assure you. Just a little, uh, well, beside myself.” He glanced at the goggles, their purple surfaces throwing off an unctuous sheen. “You don’t take them off more often? They look tight. Might you not get the occasional head-squeeze?”

“They’re for my eyes. They’re sensitive, and too much light can put me out for hours.” She tapped at the base of her horn. “Migraines.”

“I see,” he said slowly. “And… I’m sorry, I really am, I’m sure you get this all the time.”

“My voice?”

He sighed. “Your voice.”

“I can’t help it,” she said. She cleared her throat and spoke at what was almost a conversational level. “This is as loud as I can go, but too much and it hurts.”

“Well, don’t hurt yourself on my account!”

She shook her head, and resumed her normal quiescence. “A demonstration, that’s all.”

“So… uh, gee, Miss Vinyl, maybe I’m being too forward, but how did such a thing come to pass?”

“Born that way.”

He tapped the table with a hoof, looking past her at the pony with their drinks. “And there’s nothing to do about it?”

Vinyl nodded her thanks and plucked a twist of orange peel out of her martini. “I live with it.”

“Well…” He sipped his drink and leaned back, face lit up in a joyful grin, only partially exaggerated. “Scrumptious!”

Vinyl smiled back at him and looked at her drink. Her ears cocked suddenly, but Whooves didn’t pay attention. He had turned himself around in his seat to look out at the street behind, where lines of ponies tromped past. He didn’t notice when Vinyl spoke at first, and only looked at the glare of a light blue flash from behind.

She grinned, her muzzle rising slightly into the crinkles under her bore-hole eyes. “How I get ponies’ attention a lot of the time.”

“It’s a truly delightful system. Very clever indeed, Miss Vinyl.”

“Dispense with the title, doc. Just Vinyl.”

“Apologies, oh musical one.” He bowed and tapped his head on the tabletop, and Vinyl giggled, a short, soft fluttering that could have been easily mistaken for the flapping of bird wings, he thought.

“We can go elsewhere after this drink, if you want,” she said.

“Perhaps we can,” he said. “Tell me: what is a big name like you doing attaching yourself to our little crew?”

She raised her eyebrows and took a small drink of her martini. “Wouldn’t say it’s small, first of all. But, to answer your question…” Her horn glowed a soft orange. “I’d rather not say, not right now, not here.”

“No?”

“Soon, I promise. I’m not ready.”

“Hmmmm, but what’s this? You’re acting like you’ve got some kind of scheme, Miss—I mean, Vinyl.” He giggled. “It sounds so silly, calling you that sans honorific. Actually, not an honorific, just a mere title. A regular-ific, if I dare say so myself.” He paused. “That’s right around where Applejack would jab me in the ribs and tell me to be quiet.”

“I can do that, if you miss it,” Vinyl said.

“Ah! No no, I think these old bones should be left untouched tonight. Ah, freedom! Allowed to ramble at my own leisure. Having one’s voice to one’s self is a pleasure I never thought I’d appreciate with such fullness.” He looked at Vinyl, who looked back at him with a flat stare. “Oh! Oh, dear, I’m such a fool. Here I am, expostulating on the virtues of vocal emancipation, when my esteemed—”

“Any time now.” Vinyl’s horn glowed hot pink.

“Er, yes, quite. My apologies, sincerely. I wasn’t thinking.”

She waved him off, and he stared into his drink.

“So… I do believe I’m rather acquainted with your work.”

“That so?”

“Oh, yes indeed! Why, I’m no aficionado, by any stretch of the term, but I’ve heard your more important pieces. I much prefer your soothing, gentle melodies to that banging around with pots and pans that some artists call ‘music’.”

She smiled. “Funny you mention it, because a lot of my friends happen to produce music more in that style.”

Mimicking her terseness, he took a drink, and asked, “that so?”

“Maybe not a lot, but a couple.”

“I’d love to meet them, if you’d have me.”

“Later, maybe. Can’t make introductions tonight.”

“No? Why not? If you don’t mind my asking, that is.”

She drained her martini. “I do. It has to do with my reason for hanging around your crowd.”

“Ah! Say no more, my lady. I’ll keep the inquiries locked down tight.”

She ordered no more, but Whooves had a second drink, so as to not appear too eager to leave, and Vinyl paid. It was nearly nine when they left Dragon’s Jaw and embarked down the street, Whooves running a few paces ahead and peppering Vinyl with questions. She didn’t answer, except with a smile or a pulse of light; they both knew he wouldn’t hear her.

They made their way to the more familiar neighborhood around Apogee, and Vinyl pointed them in the direction of a large, more active bar, called, simply, Gem. Its pristine, white walls and quadruple-diamond windows left no doubt as to whom the bar was modeled on.

Whooves got a seat at the bar between two stallions, each one with no one else to talk to, while Vinyl hovered behind. She set up a tab for him, he repeating what she said to the bartender, and, with a congenial pat on the back and a promise to not leave without him, went to the other side of the bar. Her horn glowed softly as she walked away, and Whooves watched it with mild interest before turning his attention to the stallion on his left. “Quite the city, is it not?”

Photo Finish did her best not to let it show, but having the Elements of Harmony lodging in her house was proving to be more pleasurable than she would have expected. Though the noise sometimes tried her patience, the ponies generally kept out of her way, and some of them even offered to help with household chores. The company was charming, the games fun, and she found herself entranced by the stories they told of their previous experiences. Keeping her serious front up was proving to be harder and harder as she learned about them; every time she looked at Rainbow, she pictured the incensed Reverend Green accusing her of being a demon, and had to hold in a smile or laugh.

She and Rarity were folding laundry, and she could hear the group talking through an open doorway down a hall. One of the house’s quirks, a product of its sharp angles and perfectly straight corridors, allowed for voices to carry to her from distant places.

Noticing the same effect, Rarity looked at her, and Photo offered only a mischievous smile.

“I thought it wasn’t something that can be fixed with magic,” Applejack said.

“It can’t hurt to try,” Twilight said. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to cast a spell on, us or the area around us.”

“Does it make so large a difference?” Octavia asked.

“Completely.”

“While you work on that, d’ya think it’d be possible fer me to go in search of the mayor?” Big Mac asked. “We have all these gaps to take into consideration still.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about them,” Twilight said after a moment’s pause.

“You look uncertain, Twilight!” Pinkie said.

“Well, it’s a weird situation.” She was silent again, longer. “Hear me out on this. Do we really need to worry about putting this particular city back together? Hoofington and Manehattan were a mess—so was Fillydelphia, but it doesn’t matter as much.”

“Geez, Twilight,” Rainbow said.

“I’m just saying. But those bridges I saw last night were huge, and really good. They have buildings on them now. We’d be displacing a lot if we tried to put things back the way they were.”

“It’s gotta happen sometime.”

“Well, yes, of course, but does it have to be now? I think Applewood is doing pretty all right for itself, all things considered. Maybe we should just break this curse and get out.”

“She’s got a point,” Big Mac said. “We’ve got the whole south of Equestria to explore still, an’ three Elements.”

“Ah wouldn’t be a least bit surprised if one of ‘em turns out to be in that Snowdrift place,” Applejack said.

“Can we leave without breaking the curse?” Octavia asked.

“Come on, Octavia, use your head,” Rainbow said.

“It could be specific to Applewood.”

“Is there a way to check for that?” Pinkie asked.

“Not with the information or equipment I have right now,” Twilight said.

“Maybe Photo Finish has some books on magic?”

“I doubt that,” Octavia said. “She does not seem the type.”

Photo Finish frowned at Rarity, who returned a shrug.

“How did you two get around today?” Big Mac asked.

“We went up the river,” Rainbow said. “No electricity to drain out there, except the boats, and they’ve all got private generators.”

“Something else we need to consider is how to get our airship back,” Octavia said.

“If that Vinyl pony comes back, we might be able to get her to help,” Applejack said. “She got our bags okay.”

“Quick side question,” Rainbow said.

“What do we do about Vinyl?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, exactly. What the heck do we do?”

“She’s just trying to help. Ah say let her,” Applejack said. “Just as long as she don’t get too involved with us, she’ll be okay.”

“I would be more comfortable with that advice if we did not have Doctor Whooves with us,” Octavia said. “All he ever did was provide us transportation from the coast to that city, and yet he has elected to stay with us.”

“You think she’ll be the same way?” Big Mac asked.

“I do not want to take that risk.”

“If she does want to come with us, so what?” Twilight asked. “If we tell her what she’s getting into, and she wants to anyway, then what’s the harm?”

For several seconds, no one spoke. “I do not believe that she will be an easy fit for us. I can only imagine that someone like her has some kind of problem, or will create some kind of problem. She will get in our way.”

“What are you basin’ that on?” Big Mac asked.

“My knowledge of fame, and what it can do to a pony.”

“So you don’t know her at all,” Rainbow said. “You’re just assuming she’s gonna be trouble because she’s famous?”

“It is an educated guess.”

“Yer famous,” Applejack said.

“And look how much trouble I have caused you.”

“And how much you’ve helped us out,” Twilight said. “I think you’re being silly, Octavia.”

“At the very least, let us not invite her along.”

“No, that’s not what I’m suggesting at all. If she wants to stay here, that’s great.”

“Ah just had a scary thought,” Applejack said. “What if doc is out there invitin’ her to come along with us?”

“It is not his place,” Octavia said. “And if he is doing that anyway, then—”

“We’ll dump him and take Vinyl instead,” Rainbow said.

“Ah like that,” Big Mac said. “Fer now, we should have both of ‘em workin’ together to get that airship, as Miss Octavia said.”

“That sounds fine,” Twilight said. “Do either of them know how to pilot it, though?”

“I do not believe he does,” Octavia said. “I would be surprised if she knows how either.”

“So there goes that,” Rainbow said.

“We will ask. If they cannot, then I propose that we go into town and take it, blackout or no. We cannot allow ourselves to get stuck because of some purile curse.”

“Does she always take charge in this way?” Photo asked Rarity, who nodded. “Respectable.”

“They won’t let us just mosey in and drive away,” Applejack said. “They’ll lock down the airship lot, fer safety. That’s why we didn’t last night.”

“That is why I said ‘take,’ not ‘request’.”

“Let us work on the curse first,” Rainbow said. “We have a plan, remember?”

“Plus, we might not be the only ones it’s affectin’,” Big Mac said. “Our problem could be a sign of somethin’ bigger.”

“I haven’t seen anything to support that,” Twilight said. “Although, I guess I’ve only been here a day and a half now.”

“So no taking the airship yet,” Pinkie said. “We wait for Fluttershy and Dashie.”

Octavia said nothing in response, but Rarity could imagine her face, her grim impatience.