The Elements and their friends put Canterlot behind them just as the sun was going down, but there was no celebration. Only Pinkie was not subdued, though her usual gusto and vim only appeared when she was spoken to, like sparks from stricken flint. She recounted their long, boring flight north, their stop at the dam and the lake it had pulled with it, the many tiny towns they had flown over. She told them how nice it was to stand on a wooden deck again, how the metal of the angel had given them all sore hooves.

No one prompted her to speak of the battle itself, and she volunteered nothing, except to confirm what the princess had told them, that Doctor Whooves was fine, just gone. He slid upriver at some point in the chaos, and that was the end of it.

“We weren’t surprised to hear he was with you,” Rarity said. “There was simply no way he would survive back in Roan, and, at least on my part, I figured it wouldn’t be long before he figured that out for himself.”

“Yup, didn’t take long for him to latch back on,” Pinkie said, and giggled. “He begged us to take him.”

“Ah hope he keeps out of trouble,” Applejack said.

“He’ll be fine.”

“And what about her?” Twilight asked. She didn’t need to specify; there was only one pony not present for the reunion.

“Not my place,” Pinkie said simply.

“So something did happen,” Rainbow said.

“It’s Octavia,” Applejack said. “Of course something happened, even if it didn’t, if you catch my drift.”

“That wasn’t no tea party they went to,” Vinyl said.

“She’ll open up in her time, I’m sure,” Rarity said without conviction.

“But you’re okay, right?” Twilight asked.

“Me? Sure,” Pinkie said, waving a hoof. “I didn’t… I mean, I wasn’t up in front of everything.”

“No surprises there,” Fluttershy said.

“We’re happy to have you back,” Rarity said. “You missed plenty on our end.”

“Two Elements,” Applejack said. “An’ a whole mess of trouble in Trottingham. The Mountain Zone, rather.”

Pinkie tilted her head.

“Let’s start at the start,” Twilight said. “The fairgrounds. Vinyl, you and Big Mac went down there for the Element of Magic.” She tapped the diadem on her head appreciatively.

Pinkie leaned forward, chin on hooves, eyes wide.

Colgate woke up for her first morning back in rehab, and no sooner had she began stirring than the hefty, crimson unicorn stallion entered, his cream-and-white mane turning in the alien lights and his smiling, cobalt eyes looking right at her.

“Good morning, good morning! Colgate, right?” He stopped a respectful distance from her bed, and she looked through him. She remembered Drift Dive, his kindly nature so at odds with what she knew was his true intention.

“It’s good to see you again, doc,” she said, hiding the unfurling sense that something was wrong. In her head, instead of the usual warnings and suspicions, there was acceptance. Though that, too, did not cause the concern it ought, so much weaker than the usual emotions that she hardly noticed it.

He chuckled. “I’m flattered, Colgate, and happy that you’re back. Nothing like starting the day with a friendly face, hm?”

She only looked at him, willing him to pose the impolite question: where had she been? Perhaps she only needed his curiosity to spark her into proper thought.

Instead, he crossed the room, parted the curtains a little, and sighed. “You look better.”

“I’ve been here for less than a day, and you’re inviting yourself into my room.”

“Still just as feisty, I see,” he said with a grin, one half illuminated by the morning sun. “I’m afraid it’s not so unjust as you make it sound.” He highlighted his badge briefly with a russet glow of magic. “Counselors’ privileges.”

“Any room at any time?”

Drift Dive only nodded, concealing a smile.

“Huh.”

“Coming to breakfast? We have some eggs left. Cyclone brought them in fresh, from her gramdma's.”

“I’ll take a rain check,” Colgate said, flicking the TV on, staring into it. She immediately felt a spark of fear that she had moved too soon and given away her lack of confidence. Hastening to distract him, she spoke more quickly. “Still not feeling great. Did they tell you I plowed through half a bottle of mouthwash before turning up here?” She changed the channels rapidly, not caring what it landed on, only wanting to add noise to the room, to pad against her ears and blot out the litany of mistakes pouring out of her mouth. She was powerless to stop them.

“They told us you threw up at the police station.”

“Just blood, mostly.”

Without his smile, but with a hint of the lightness still in his youthful voice, he continued. “You sure you’re not hungry?”

“I am positive.”

“Some water, then. I’ll get you a glass. Hydration is important, you know.”

“Of course I know,” she snapped. She closed her eyes, suddenly angry at herself. “I need to use the bathroom. Privacy, please.”

He only smiled and went back outside, calling a soft “see you later.” Colgate shut herself into the tiny shower in the cramped bathroom and sat against the wall under the calcified tap.

“Celestia, I already screwed up. Cole, baby, this is no place to let a little comment like that get the better of you.” The voice in her head was not her own; it was the bastardized version of Rouge’s, the half-sage, half-drunken whinge that Colgate had learned to identify as the closest analogue of her own true self. Not thinking, she turned the shower on and endured a freezing blast, hunched over to let her mane touch the tile.

When she did come to breakfast, the counter had been cleared, the tables vacated. Through the bat wing doors to the kitchen, she saw the overweight earth pony counselor, speaking with a thin dishwasher. Colgate tried to get back to her room before anyone could see her. To do so, she needed to cross through one of two common areas, and kept her eyes fixed directly ahead to deter any unbidden greetings.

“Well hi there!” a short, corn-yellow unicorn called, sauntering over from a stack of magazines on a small corner table. He pumped her hoof and kept shaking it until she retreated, only then collecting herself enough to not simply run. “It’s me, Gold Splatter! My, you look like a new face to me. Have we met? It’s me, I just got here, just a couple, uh, a couple…” He turned a short circle, murmuring, his husky and eager voice reminding Colgate of the farm animals she would sometimes see back in Ponyville. “C’mon, c’mon, over here.” He went back to his magazines, and Colgate, ensnared, followed. When she thought no one was looking, she brought a hoof up to touch her own horn, which, like her new friend’s, was locked in a magical suppression collar.

“Name’s Gold Splatter, that’s me,” he continued, turning a page in the magazine. From the glossy paper, a family smiled and splashed in an inflatable pool.

“Colgate,” Colgate said. She saw no purpose to using a fake name.

“That’s you, huh? Hey, great to meet’cha, Colgate, really great. Listen, listen, I don’t think I saw you at breakfast, huh? I don’t miss a face, and sure not a pretty one like yours! You got a real intense face, that’s it, innnn-tense!” He guffawed loudly, turning a few heads their way. “Aw, heck, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so loud, I really don’t, it’s not me, it’s not the real me, not the real Gold Splatter, that’s me, no ma’am, not me, no ma’am.” He paused, shrugged, turned a page.

“That looks like an interesting article,” Colgate said.

“It’s about the cloud convoy. Isn’t that fascinating? Hey, did you know that Princess Celestia made it all on her own? I read that somewhere, somewhere you know where they do insider info on the royal palace and all the stuff that happens inside it, you know like secret stuff, like what…” He shrugged again. As he shrugged, she noticed, he would twitch his neck in one direction, a gesture to apparently reset his ramble.

“I’m in for drinking mouthwash and torching my friend’s house,” Colgate said. “Before that, I almost killed myself with painkillers and dessert wine.” She didn’t like the unicorn, but was curious what he would do with the new information.

Gold Splatter didn’t look up. “This one’s for lawn tools, like sheers and wheelbarrows and stuff. Look, they’re all green. You know?” He looked at her expectantly, as if he had said something important. “Like, green?” he repeated.

“I don’t get it,” she said, taking a guess that he was going for a joke.

“Well, if you let your grass get too high, then you won’t be able to find the lawn tools in it!” He laughed again, and she leaned away, eyes narrowed at the tongue stud gleaming obnoxiously in his flapping mouth. “Sure wouldn’t want that, then you’d have to buy a whole ‘nother set, and that’ll run you. Yes ma’am, that’ll run you up real good, do you know how much that stuff costs? Look at this, it says right here, forty-nine bits for a wheelbarrow, just a little one too, and that’s just one of them, not a whole set or anything, just one of them.”

She nodded, and he leaned over his magazine.

“Now this here is a better—”

“I have to go. It was great to meet you,” she said.

“Huh? Oh, bye Colgate! Remember me, it’s me, Gold Splatter! Hey, we should eat together.”

“I don’t eat.” She turned away, and he turned back to his magazine, mumbling. She heard him call a greeting to someone else as she repaired to her room, feeling dirty and unsure of herself.

“What in Tartarus am I doing here?” she thought as she lay on the bed. It had felt natural to come the day before, to finagle her way back, but, as before, finding herself actually in the room, actually on the bed, and actually free from the responsibilities that harrowed her on the outside, she didn’t know what to do. She turned on the TV, knowing that it would not be a refuge for her forever.

Sooner or later, she would have to prove herself to the counselors. She would have to demonstrate a need to be where she was, an inability to take care of herself, a dependence on some manner of drug. As she thought about it, she realized that could not. In Fleur’s care, she had been tempted to try to get back on her pills or to find a way to drink, but neither temptation had lasted. In the waves of peril that came with Datura life, those drives had diminished into faceless impulses that crowded in the back of her mind with all the others, all the impulses that came and went too quickly to push her to action, buried underneath the much stronger, more urgent need to stay afloat in a sea of strange magic, deceptive managers, and responsibilities that came out of nowhere. And yet, at the end of all, she was back in rehab. There must be a reason, and she would need to show it.

She thought of the mouthwash she had foolishly thrown over the freeway wall, unfinished. She remembered telling herself, as she left Fleur’s house, that she would drink it all, as a sign of respect for Rouge, and even in that had she failed.
And then, even supposing she could show that she had a place in the rehab facility, what then? She would be forced to face the fact, already creeping up into her conscious mind, that she had gone there with no real need and no real cause. She had obeyed her first impulse, simple as that; and, as usual, the impulse had been wrong.

“Celestia, what next? Where does it end? Where does it end?” She felt weak, and pushed herself into the sheets, willing her body to melt, her face to hide from the overhead light. Too weak to drink all she wanted, and too late to save herself—for it was not her own intervention that saved, but luck. She went to the window and, watching a family of ducks on the pond’s edge, wept bitter tears of rage.

Skipped lunch.
Skipped dinner.

At eight o’ clock, someone knocked on her door, and she grunted. Drift Dive pushed his head in first, smiled at her, then entered, pulling a chair to the bedside.

“Not hungry?”

“Not hungry.” She did not steel herself for the reprimand.

“It’s not healthy to skip meals, you know that.”

“I didn’t skip any meals. Lunch was delicious.”

“Colgate.”

“I’m here.”

“Why are you staying in your room?”

“I’m not, I just said—”

“You need to be honest here, Colgate.” For the first time, she detected more than young earnestness in his voice; there was a firm, professional resolve. “This is a safe place. We don’t judge honesty here. None of us do.”

She looked at him, and he held her eyes in his own.

“What’s going on? You came back for a reason. No one told you to do this, no one dropped you off. You must want something. What is it?”

Her blood ran cold. She had expected him to discipline her, or to gloat at how quickly she was faltering in her new place. She had not expected the incisive, but compassionate question. She had not expected anything but to be ground down and belittled.

“You look surprised.”

“Stop looking at me,” she said. She wanted to say more, but the blunt sentence came out first, and she knew she had, once again, overstepped.

“Is looking over your head okay?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said, looking down as he looked up.

“Why don’t you want me to look at you?”

“I don’t know.”

He only nodded, and she looked up at him. There was no sign of malice on his face, or eagerness, or triumph. He patiently studied the painting above her bed, as if waiting for something.

He sighed and smiled. “I think the evenings here are so beautiful.”

“The crickets are noisy,” Colgate said.

Drift Dive chuckled. “You must be from the city, to mistake those for crickets. They’re frogs.”

“Frogs?” She felt stupid, momentarily ashamed of the mistake.

“They like to hop around in the grass by the pond. Sometimes they’ll come up closer to the facility, like after it’s rained. Little green frogs, or sometimes grayish green.”

“I’m from Manehattan.”

“Ah, the big city doesn’t get much bigger than that. I’m from Trottingham myself, but I’ve been to Manehattan. I thought it was an enchanting place.”

“I enjoyed my time there.”

“What happened?”

She frowned. “I moved out to Ponyville once I got my doctorate, and that’s where I stayed.”

“You’re a doctor?” He grinned. “Imagine that. I never would have guessed.”

“I’m a surgeon, actually. Orthopedics.” “Watch it, Cole. Too much talking.”

Drift Dive whistled. “That’s really something. Did you have your own practice?”

“I worked for the local hospital.” She looked at him, and he was still loyally looking away from her. The warning thoughts were lost in a swirl of piqued surprise at Drift Dive’s obedience. “I never thought about getting my own practice. Seemed like a lot of work.”

“So how’d you come to Canterlot? Uh, if you don’t mind me asking, Colgate.”

“That’s just how it happened.”

“A lot of ponies end up moving here after tiring of village life.” He chuckled again. “And some of ‘em wind up moving right back.”

Colgate didn’t answer.

“How’s your friend?”

Colgate sneered, thinking his question a taunt. “What friend?”

“The lady who brought you in last time, I forgot her name. How is she?”

“Oh, her.” Fleur. “She’s great.”

“That’s good. That’s good.”

Colgate looked at the clock on the bedside table. “Don’t you need to go home soon?”

“I have half an hour still,” Drift Dive said, nodding and smiling, still staring up at the painting. He sighed. “We’re going to get a fresh shipment of cherry tomatoes tomorrow, from just outside town.”

“So there’s that,” Colgate thought hotly, but she kept her face neutral. “For eating?”

He smiled. “They’re delicious.”

“I’ve had cherry tomatoes before.”

“You’ve probably had some of the best fresh fruits and veggies around, spending so much time in Ponyville. I’ve always wanted to visit Sweet Apple Acres.”

“I knew the ponies who ran that place,” Colgate said. It was a partial lie; she had seen them all at one point or another, and exchanged greetings with some of them.

“You’re lucky, then,” Drift Dive said. “Anyone who lives in that town is, I suppose. Being on speaking terms with the Elements of Harmony, now that’s something for the bucket list.”

“They’re good ponies.” Without thinking, she added, “they know what they’re doing.”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed. Another slip, another piece of information she had not meant to reveal, but to double back would show her true intent, which was, simply, to keep her head above water in the conversation; even that intention was weak. As she spoke, she could feel her wiggle room dwindling even more with a nauseating, numb finality. “Out there in the world, I mean. They’re doing everything they can to set things right.”

He nodded. “I’m sure of it. That’s what the princesses say as well.”

“The princesses are right.” She stopped, an idea flashing through her head. She didn’t catch all of it. “Maybe that’s why I’m here.”

Drift Dive lowered his voice. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s been a long time since anything good happened. Maybe that’s why I’m doing… whatever I’m doing. Hopelessness, you know?”

“Yes, yes,” he said, nodding. “You’re not alone on that front. Plenty of ponies have been letting themselves succumb to hopelessness. But we won another battle; that must count for something? That’s a good thing.”

Colgate remained silent.

“I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I was on the field, operating on ponies as they came in.”

Then, Drift Dive fell silent. The two of them sat quietly together, and for one black moment, Colgate felt that that was it, that she had seen the end of her time there. That she had glimpsed the inevitable result of her self-imposed confinement, that she had seen the indelible absence of hope and of movement: two ponies, neither caring to speak, stuck in a room, bound by obligation.

“I’d seen plenty of gore before, and it didn’t bother me,” she said, allowing her words to carry themselves away. She didn’t try to censor herself. “Not then, and not years ago when I was working on my residency. It wasn’t the sun, or the heat, or any of that, though I remember the air being quite thick out there that day. It was like gravy, and sometimes I thought I might pass out simply from being smothered underneath that air.” “Celestia, Cole, you need to cool it,” a thought broke in. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, it wasn’t those things. I had a group of nurses with me, and I was basically their leader, but they weren’t very good. They were okay, I guess. I don’t know why, but a lot of them seemed frazzled that day, and it was affecting their work.”

“Battles will do that.”

“But we were apart from the battle. I had to answer questions that they really should have known, and supervise some basic procedures. In particular, I had to help a lot with the burns. Pulse crystals, you know?”

“I know what they can do.”

“There’s not much time for asking questions in that type of situation, but they needed me anyway. I don’t blame them, exactly; it’s not their fault if they didn’t know how to handle something. But whoever picked them out for me wasn’t very conscientious.” She paused, recalling that it was Fleur who had picked them out. Most likely.

“At least you made it back home in one piece,” Drift Dive offered.

“I can still hear the questions, if I really think about it. I dream of it too, of all those under-qualified nurses asking me things.”

He studied her for a moment, still facing away, but the corners of his eyes on her.

“So I got home and started drinking, and now here I am. The funny thing is I can still hear their questions, so I didn’t actually accomplish anything. That’s a punchline for the ages, in my opinion.”

“You must have nerves of steel to lead an entire team of nurses in a situation like that,” Drift Dive said, his voice hesitantly respectful.

“They can’t be that good, if I’m here.”

“Mm, well, I’m afraid I have to disagree.”

Someone knocked on the door, and Drift Dive stood to see who it was. Colgate could see a small unicorn with a golden shock of mane, parted across her forehead to shadow the ridges of a long, vertical scar. They exchanged hushed words, she glancing at Colgate and raising her voice a fraction.

“Tell him I’m with a patient, and I’ll be here a while still,” Drift Dive said.

She eyed Colgate again, and Colgate heard the words “preferential treatment” in her muffled rejoinder.

Drift Dive just shook his head. “I’ll talk with him tomorrow, if he wants. But I have to do this right now.”

“Fine,” the other unicorn said. She didn’t spare Colgate a look or a word when she left, her hoofsteps heavy.

“Sorry about that,” Drift Dive said. “That was just Nugget, she’s another counselor. Just work stuff. Where were we?”

“My nerves,” Colgate said, her voice soft. At the edges of her mind, as it had when she was realizing the tapestry of deceit Fleur and Fancy Pants had woven around her, an idea welled up, but she let it pass through unheeded.

“Ah, yes, yes. You said that you mustn’t have strong nerves, to wind up with us so soon after the battle, and I said I respectfully disagree. Colgate, just because you can flourish in one situation does not mean you’ll do equally well in another. There are different types of courage. For instance, you seem to do quite well in high-pressure situations. Giving orders and keeping track of wounded soldiers during the battle? I could never do that, not in a million years, and my hat goes off to you for it. But having to go back to your regular life after something like that, that’s different. There’s no high-stakes, high-intensity challenge there, nothing that demands all of your attention at one single time. That, Colgate, is the quieter, more unsung courage of a pony rising to the day, every day, and doing her best with the time she’s been given. And that can be hard with something like what you’ve been through weighing down your mind.”

“I never thought about that,” Colgate said, and it was true. “I always thought of courage as an ideal or an anomaly, like something that only comes out once in a while.”

“No, not at all. It takes immense courage simply to wake up and do what you have to do, day after day. Working a job you might not like to take care of your family? That’s courage right there. Honest, everyday courage.” He sighed. “And coming to this place, on your own and of your own free will, that, too, is courageous. Believe me, not everypony can do that, Colgate.”

“It just seemed like the thing to do,” she said, not sure what else to say.

“That’s twice you’ve said that now. That something just seemed like the right thing to do.”

“It’s true.”

“No, I’m not saying it isn’t. That’s just curious. Do you intuit things?”

“I don’t have any special mental faculties, no. I wish I did.”

He chuckled. “You mean you don’t have any magical mental faculties, I assume? Because I’d hazard a guess that you have some very special regular ones.”

“I’m flattered.”

“I mean it. Even in this first conversation, I can tell you’re no regular mare. You know, we don’t get a lot of doctors here. Nurses, yes, but not many doctors.”

“My job shouldn’t be the thing you use to tell who I am.”

“No no, that’s not what I mean. That’s just the first thing, that kind of started to explain what I’d already noticed. You’re very observant, very quick. I can see that.”

“There are many others just like me.”

Drift Dive frowned. “Why do you say that? Everypony’s unique. We each have something special to bring to the table.”

Colgate sat up, her attention finally narrowed. The stream of thoughts and ideas quieted, and she was able to fix Drift Dive directly in her eyes and mind, at least for a time. “But not all of us do bring those things to this table of yours. If we did, there’d be no need for places like this. If this was a world of special, unique ponies who all did their jobs and got along with themselves so great, then you wouldn’t be here, and neither would I. Why are you telling me what I already know, that I’m smart, and trying to use that as a justification for where I am? I read in a textbook a long time ago that smart ponies have problems like this way more than stupid ones, because it’s uncomfortable processing information at such a high level, so they seek to dull that stress somehow. That, counselor, is old news for me. Seems to me the only thing that makes me unique right now is that I’m the thing keeping you from going home on time.” She shook her head, as much to clear it as to give herself something to do other than look at the patient, crimson unicorn. “She’s right too, you know that? This is preferential treatment, or at least it’ll be seen that way.” She turned the TV up. “You should go.”

“Now Colgate, what purpose is there in—”

“Go home, Drift Dive. I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow.”

The next day, and the day after that, Colgate didn’t skip any meals, and the counselors took notice. In their board room, the door locked from the outside, they reviewed patient progress.

“Good news on my end,” Drift Dive said, nodding a greeting to Nugget, who was the last to arrive. “Colgate’s eating finally.”

“That is good news,” Soft Spirit said. The dark pegasus with a flame cutie mark, she was the newest counselor in the facility, but not the least experienced. “Is she talking?”

“Some, but…” Drift Dive sighed.

“You’re not sure how much you can believe,” Almond Butter said. She blew on a steaming cup of coffee.

“Yeah, exactly. She seems open, but I just don’t know.”

“Openness is openness, though,” Cyclone said. “If nothing else, it means she’s willing to communicate. Separating the truth from everything else might be a challenge, but it’s a start.”

“I remember you saying you didn’t trust her last time too,” Nugget said. “It’s interesting that that hasn’t changed.”

“Don’t put words in his mouth,” Almond Butter said.

“I didn’t say I don’t trust her, I’m just not sure what I should believe and what I should take seriously,” Drift Dive said.

“Ummmm,” Nugget said. “Am I missing some distinction between those two?”

“I think she’s confused. She’s clearly scared of something, or someone, but I can’t get her to talk about it. I can’t ask too many questions about the same thing, or she gets defensive and nervous.”

“Paranoia,” Cyclone said.

“Let’s not forget what we were told on her first little trip here,” Nugget said. “You know, that she’s a bona fide psycho.”

“Please, that diagnosis is twenty years old,” Almond Butter said.

“She’s not psychopathic,” Drift Dive said. “I can tell.”

“Oh?” She gulped her coffee loudly.

“She’s too honest, too consistent. From what I can see, there’s no web of lies, or blame shifting, or any of the other usual hallmarks.”

“Didn’t you just say you weren’t sure what you could trust and what you couldn’t?” Cyclone asked.

“Well, yes, there are certain things, but the bulk of it seems real to me.” He looked at his co-counselors, reading varying degrees of skepticism: outright disapproval from Nugget, cautious hope from Soft Spirit. “She’s nothing like she was the first time.”

“I’ll point out, Drift, that last time she was here a grand total of two days,” Nugget sad.

“But it’s night and day, the difference. She hasn’t said a single mean thing, hasn’t insulted any of our other patients. Four days in, and nothing.” He sighed. “I just wish I could get her to socialize a little more.”

“Don’t push her,” Soft Spirit said. “All things in their time. She has to want it before you can do anything.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Cyclone mumbled.

“And do you trust that?” Nugget asked.

“What?” Drift Dive asked.

“This lapse in meanness from Colgate. Do you trust it?”

Drift Dive thought. For her jaded nature, Nugget was right: it was an abrupt change for Colgate from her last visit. He had expected a hurricane of ill-will when he had heard she was back. “With this new, nicer self, she’s also more open to dialogue and more at ease in the facility. I said I want her to socialize more, but she’s already out and about more than last time. As I said, she eats on her own now, which I count as a massive improvement in her temperament. So, in light of those things, yes, I’d say I trust her.”

Soft Spirit sucked her teeth. “Be careful, Drift.”

“It’s dangerous to be so quick to trust an upturn,” Almond Butter said. “Of course we all want to believe it when we see it, but that’s rarely how it works out.”

“There’s any number of bad reasons she might be behaving how she is,” Nugget said.

“Have you talked to her?” Drift Dive asked.

“We spoke a day ago, yes. She was… civil.”

“See?”

“You can’t use that as an example, I just said good morning to her for Luna’s sake.”

“To be fair, that’s more than some of us have gotten away with,” Cyclone said with a quiet laugh.

“I said it before, and I’ll say it again. I think we should send her off to psych. Let the shrinks poke her for a while, just to make sure we’re not getting stuck with something we can’t deal with.”

“You make it sound like she’s a bomb,” Almond Butter said.

“I mean…” Soft Spirit started.

“First time, she’s aggressive and nasty; second time, she’s pliable and withdrawn,” Nugget said. “We’ve seen this before, girls.”

“She has a point,” Cyclone said. “I’d feel more comfortable if we could at least find out what happened between then and now.”

“I think she just had a bad case of emotional shock from the battle,” Drift Dive said. “She was in it,” he added, quieter.

“Wait, like in it in it?”

“On the sidelines, as a battlefield doctor. Surgeon, sorry.”

“Psych, psych, psych,” Nugget said. “The smart ones are always the most dangerous.”

“And she saw a lot of horrible things, I bet,” Almond Butter. “I can’t imagine. Why, that’s probably what it was that’s got her softened up. She’s shaken from the battle.”

“Unstable,” Cyclone said. “Sounds like, anyway.” She shrugged, and the plastic jewels on her flanged jacket jangled.

“We’re jumping to conclusions,” Drift Dive said. “I, personally, have seen no indications of mental instability.” He looked to Soft Spirit, and she smiled encouragingly. He exhaled. “No indications at all.”

“It’s not our job to determine that conclusively,” Almond Butter said. “That’s for the psychiatrists.”

“Which is what I’m saying,” Nugget said.

“Drift, you seem pretty adamant that she’s no threat,” Cyclone said.

“The first time she was here, yes, I’ll admit, she may have been a loose cannon,” Drift Dive said. “But now, no. Something’s been taken out of her. She would need real provocation before she did something bad, I think.”

“She might be lying in wait,” Almond Butter said.

“For what?” Soft Spirit asked.

“We can’t go just suspecting everyone,” Cyclone said, flicking her eyes to Nugget as well. “Trust has to be a two-way street.”

“I trust her,” Drift Dive said.

“You’re alone on that, buddy,” Nugget said.

“But if trust is a two-way street, then if she doesn’t trust us, we shouldn’t trust her,” Almond Butter said. “That’s what I meant, lying in wait.”

“She trusts me, at least,” Drift Dive said. “Maybe not you all, but you never talk to her.”

“Hey,” Nugget started.

“No, that’s a fair point,” Cyclone said.

“He’s her advocate,” Soft Spirit said, a hint of warmth in her voice. “Drift, you sure you trust this mare?”

“I do,” Drift Dive said.

“I still say we send her to the shrinks,” Nugget said. “My sister just opened an office not far from here, in Dr. Riverbanks’ plaza.”

“Oh, good for her,” Almond Butter said.

“I don’t like it,” Drift Dive said. “Think about it this way. If she doesn’t trust me yet, she’s beginning to. What’ll she think if we send her out?”

“She’ll think ‘yay, now I’m away from these ponies who want to make my life a living Tartarus’,” Cyclone said.

“She’ll feel betrayed,” Drift Dive said. “She’ll think she’s done something wrong, or she’s made some kind of mistake. Trust me, this is a mare who cannot handle change.”

“It’ll be for her own good, and ours too,” Nugget said.

“And what if we get her back and there’s nothing wrong, just the run-of-the-mill mix of small insanities that make up your average druggy?” Cyclone asked. “I dunno, I think Drift makes a good point.”

“Then we explain ourselves, and move forward in the healing process,” Nugget said.

“She wouldn’t take that explanation well, I already know,” Drift Dive said.

“You talk about her like she’s determined to react poorly to anything we do,” Almond Butter said.

“Ehh, she’s touchy.”

“Then send her to the funny farm,” Nugget said.

“That’s disgusting,” Soft Spirit said. “This is a pony we’re talking about, not a… a puzzle or something. We’re supposed to be helping her, and all you can talk about is whether to get rid of her.”

“I want to help her,” Drift Dive said.

“How? ‘Cause I don’t hear you talking about helping her, I just hear you saying why you want to keep her around.” She scrutinized Drift Dive with her large eyes, and he felt a familiar pang of self-conscious excitement, the sensation she always brought forth in him.

“Well, I still need to work on that,” he said sheepishly. “I haven’t spent enough time with her.”

“She’s been here four days, and you don’t have a plan of care?” Cyclone asked.

“She’s complicated.” He could feel himself blushing, and was momentarily happy for his natural red coat.

“Send her to psych,” Nugget said, shaking her head. “How many times do I gotta say it?” She looked at the clock. “Almond, where are you going for lunch today?”

“Shoot, I haven’t even thought about it,” Almond Butter said, looking at her watch. “Lemongrass’? They have a pretty good strawberry pecan salad.”

“Eh, I’m more in the mood for something with a lot of cheese.”

“We can order Tasty Taters,” Soft Spirit said.

“Oooh, oooh, yes! Cyclone, will you order for us?”

Cyclone looked up from a notepad she had brought with her. “Huh?”

“Lunch, Cyclone. Will you order Tasty Taters for us?”

“One second.” She flipped her pad to a new page and poised the pen in her teeth.

“I brought my lunch,” Drift Dive said.

“Get the potato skins,” Almond Butter said. “I could live on their potato skins.”

“I don’t like them,” Soft Spirit said.

“Oh, right, you don’t like chives,” Nugget said. “Cyclone, make it two. And a large orange sparkler.”

“So are we done?” Drift Dive asked.

“Wait, before you run off,” Almond Butter said, holding up an aged hoof. “You’re positive that you want to keep this Colgate around?”

“I’m positive.”

“Drift, if you want, I can help you come up with a plan of care after lunch,” Soft Spirit said.

“That… sounds wonderful, actually,” he said, and rushed out of the meeting room, irrationally afraid that they would see his blush anyway.

The airship cut a sharp line past the end of the wide, easterly running arm of the Everfree Forest, where, after a small debate on deck, it stopped to refill its water tanks from a small string of isolated streams that had once formed a delta north of a fetid, stagnant lake just on the edge of the swamps. They did not plan to be over the swamps for more than a day or two, but would not be able to safely land in that time, and wanted to be sure they had water, just in case. Discord, after all, had not been quiet since his defeat. Correspondence from the princess warned them to be wary in Moondrop, where he had erected a shrine or monument of magic, likely with Vanilla Cream’s help, Luna opined. Details were scarce, and would be until she had gone there herself to investigate.

They needed not worry. The swamps moved past them with no hitch and no threat, and they soon found themselves back out over the lonely wastes of uncivilized Equestria, Discord’s castle in very distant sight, little more than an oddly shaped stone on the tan, rumpled desert. Amazing, it seemed to them, that they were only four days out from Canterlot.

“We’ll just scoot right past it,” Applejack said to Rarity, who stood by with a concerned look on her face. She had not voiced her worry, but she didn’t need to. Like the building humidity as they passed through a patch of wild storm clouds, the same anxiety filled the air on their deck: what to do about the castle? They would need to pass quite close to reach Moondrop quickly.

“He’ll be watching for us,” Rarity said.

“Didn’t Luna say he was out an’ about? Ah think there’s a good chance he ain’t even home.”

“That’s even worse. We might run into him at any time.”

“It’ll have to happen some time,” Vinyl said from the other side. Her voice was carried away in the light breeze their flight created, and it did not reach the others’ ears.

“We’ll just hope we bump into him after Moondrop, then,” Pinkie said, trotting over. “Hi Applejack. Hi Rarity.”

“Pinkie,” Applejack said, nodding.

“Big Mac says a storm’s building over our heads.”

“We’ll be fine,” Applejack said. “We ain’t afraid to get wet.”

“Are we forgetting that he can summon storms whenever he wants to?” Rarity asked. “Remember Fillydelphia?”

“You mean the twister!” Pinkie said. “Sure do!”

“Ah remember that part of our adventure, yes,” Applejack said.

Vinyl came over. “Twister? Like a tornado?”

“Not one of our finer moments,” Rarity said.

“Ah beg to differ,” Applejack said. “We broke it apart well enough, Ah’d say.”

“We lost half the town.”

“That was gonna happen anyway, though,” Pinkie said.

“What?” Vinyl asked.

“Er, I mean, there was no way we weren’t going to lose something. It was building right over us.” She looked up pointedly, and Rarity grimaced.

“This is putting me in a bad state of mind,” Rarity said. “Let’s get out from under this garbage before we get hit by lightning.”

“Put up your shield if you’re so worried,” Rainbow said, perched on the gunwale.

“Where’d you come from?” Applejack asked.

“My mamma.” She stuck out her tongue. “I was flying alongside, but I heard you girls talking. Sounded kinda serious, so I figured I’d check in.”

“Rainbow, if lightning were to strike my shield, it would be the last thing that struck it,” Rarity said.

“Really?”

“You held back the river in Applewood,” Vinyl said.

“It’s a surface area thing,” Pinkie said. “Right?”

“Exactly,” Rarity said. “All that energy at once, and in one point, would be bad. I read it in one of Twilight’s books, there’s a couple ponies who’ve had shields hit with lightning in the past.” She looked up again, just as the first few rain drops popped on their balloon. “It’ll split a horn.”

“Sheesh.”

“Hey, you have magic now,” Applejack said, looking at Rainbow. “Ah don’t s’pose you can do anything about it, since we’re all so worried ‘bout this little rain storm.”

“My magic is bogus,” Rainbow said. “I haven’t even used it in forever.”

“Why not?” Pinkie asked.

“‘Cause it’s bogus, she just said,” Vinyl said.

“What am I gonna do, conjure up a little dome of dry air?” Rainbow asked. “It ain’t a shield, it won’t keep the rain out. Most it’ll do is warm up the puddle that forms at our hooves. It’s stupid, useless, sucky magic that doesn’t help anypony.”

“Okay, okay, we get it,” Applejack said. “No need to get mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

“It’s okay Dashie, I didn’t even get any magic!” Pinkie said.

“Not yet, you mean,” Rarity said. “He’s come to all of us so far.”

“No, he came to me,” Pinkie said. “No magic, though.”

“Wait, when was that?” Applejack asked.

Pinkie blushed. “Um… ah, eh, in a dream sometime, I think. You know, I really don’t remember.”

Rainbow and Applejack shared a look.

“Ah don’t wanna pry,” Applejack started. “How important is this? Is there some vital thing yer clearly coverin’ up, Pinkie, or is it personal?”

“Does it affect more than you?” Rarity asked.

“Quite personal,” Pinkie said meekly.

“Okay then,” Applejack said. She put a hoof to her head quickly as a gust blew up, almost taking her hat. “RD, you got any advice on this storm? Ah hadn’t thought about lightnin’, but if Rarity’s right, maybe we should touch down for it to pass.”

“Why would I know anything about it?” Rainbow asked.

“Uhhhh, ‘cause yer the resident weatherpony.”

“This isn’t anypony’s storm, this is a wild one. Huge difference, AJ.”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t tell from here if it has any lightning in it, and I’m sure not gonna fly up there and check.”

“You can’t feel the static in the air or anything?” Vinyl asked.

“What am I, a barometer?” Rainbow asked.

“I thought pegasi could feel those kinds of things.”

“Hmm, Vinyl, I don’t know who told you that, but they were full of it.”

Vinyl shrugged.

“Don’t we have a lightning rod?” Pinkie asked. “I thought we did.”

“What’s a lightning rod gonna do on an airship, Pinkie?” Rainbow asked. “The whole point of them is to be grounded.”

“There’s one that we can set up, fer when we’ve landed,” Applejack said. “If we land up on a mountain or somethin’, we can put up a lightnin’ rod an’ stick it in the ground.”

“That must be what I saw,” Pinkie said.

“I think we should land,” Rainbow said. “Storms like this can be unpredictable. It might be a light drizzle one minute and a full-on monsoon next.”

Applejack cranked the wheel and, in a moment of blank-eyed concentration, slowed their propellers and vented the balloon. “All right, we’re on our way down.”

“I thought weatherponies had to be storm experts,” Vinyl said.

“We are,” Rainbow said. “We’re experts at setting them up and tearing them down safely, but that’s different.”

“Think of it like this,” Applejack said. “Just ‘cause a zookeeper might know a lot about the animals she works with, don’t mean you’d send her to hang out with the wild critters. Two different things.”

“I got it,” Vinyl said. “Sorry, Dash.”

Rainbow waved her off and looked up at the clouds. “I see a thunderhead in there, and I at least know what those do.”

“Where are we landing?” Rarity asked.

“Dunno,” Applejack said. “By that little lake, Ah guess.”

“I’ll let the others know,” Vinyl said.

“Tell Twilight to bring her map up,” Rarity said, turning only briefly away from the edge, where she looked off at the approaching ground.

“Ain’t you afraid of heights?” Applejack asked.

“Not so much any more.”

“Rarity’s not afraid of anything!” Pinkie said, patting Rarity on the back.

“Nonsense,” Rainbow said. “We’re all afraid of stuff.”

“Like lightnin’,” Applejack said drily. “An’ Discord.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” Rarity said.

“Then you’re a fool,” Rainbow said.

“Are you afraid of Discord, Dashie?” Pinkie asked.

“Of course I am. Why shouldn’t I be? He’s a freaking god.”

“Demigod,” Applejack corrected. “Luna was very insistent on that point, when we were together. He’s a force to be reckoned with, but he ain’t no god. Not like the princesses.”

“Then why all the bull?” Rainbow asked, voice suddenly hot. “Why don’t they just step on him and be done with it?”

“Ask Twilight,” Rarity said.

“Ask me what?” Twilight asked. Her map was folded up in a perfect square, floating by her head like a freakish shadow.

“Why the heck the princesses don’t just team up and smash Discord, instead of having us traipse across the country,” Rainbow said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m in this for the long haul, even if it’s a freaking year still before we get home, but you gotta admit this is ridiculous.”

Twilight smiled humorlessly. “You think I haven’t asked myself that question a thousand times since leaving home.” She looked at Big Mac, who sat and stared moodily into the gray distance, Vinyl at his side. “The unflattering truth, I think, is that Discord outsmarted them, plain and simple. If he had just shown up one day and tried to pull any of the crap he’s pulled lately, you’re right, they’d grab him, call us up, and hold him down while we blasted him with the Elements. But he got the jump on everyone, and he did so only after he had his claw on the trigger for something much larger. That lackey of his, Vanilla Cream, he’s playing a bigger part than we think. He’s from Tartarus; he’s instrumental to some of Discord’s plans, I know it.”

“Like the dam in Applewood,” Fluttershy said.

“Like the dam, like these Tartarus gateways that are supposedly cropping up in places they weren’t before, like this new Moondrop thing, whatever it is. The princesses can’t get at him without us, and if they try to, he’ll just pull the rug out from under everyone’s hooves and sail into the sunset, laughing.”

“But what’ll he do? What’ll he actually do?” Rainbow asked.

“I wish I knew.”

“Take a stab at it,” Applejack said. “Almost there.”

“Hold on,” Twilight said, going to the edge and consulting her map for a minute. “Oh, this is Furnace Creek, I think.”

“Now there’s a name for ya,” Pinkie said.

“This should actually be a nice place to set down. That little wood over there, I think that’s Small Moon. We can find a lot of good food in there, and it’s too small for any monsters to live in it.”

“Small Moon?” Vinyl asked.

“Because it’s so close to the swamps, but still separate from it. There’s a larger one south of here. Guess what it’s called.”

Thunder rumbled overhead, and Rarity finally got away from the edge. “There, it’s a good thing we landed. Twilight, I was telling them about what would happen if I took a lightning bolt on one of my shields.”

“You’re powerful enough that you’d probably survive,” Twilight said, nodding to Rarity and folding up her map. “I should have asked for an atlas with laminated pages, or something.”

“Why’s it called Furnace Creek?” Fluttershy asked.

They came to a bumpy halt in the middle of a large, sweeping field of grass and weeds, and the balloon sighed as Applejack closed the vents again.

“Are we going to stay on the ship tonight?” Octavia asked.

“Ah’ll get the lightnin’ rod up,” Applejack said.

“We probably should,” Twilight said. “I’d like to stretch my legs a little, but we don’t know what’s out there. Besides, lightning. This is an awful place for us during a lightning storm.”

“I’ll get the cards,” Rarity said, heading below.

“Right behind you!” Pinkie said, following.

“Fluttershy, it’s called Furnace Creek because of all the sediment piled up on the riverbanks. Look out there,” Twilight said. “You can see it curving around us, kind of. This is an oxbow lake. It used to be part of that river behind us, but one of the meanders got split off over time. I’m trying…” She craned her neck and looked out into the steady curtain of rain that was covering them. Not far in the misty distance, she could make out a muddy band of whitish gray land between one prong of the lake and the river beyond. There were no animals or birds to be seen. “Yeah, you can see it still. That gray spot out there, that’s all the sediment that came up between these two bodies of water. This river has a particularly high alkalinity factor, so there’s a lot of minerals that got built up over time. It looks kind of like ash, or cinders, so the ponies who found it called it Furnace Creek.”

“Rod’s up, let’s get below,” Applejack said.

“You can set that up from here?” Rarity asked.

“It’s part of the ship, ain’t it?”

“I thought… well, I thought the lightning rod was too simple for you to do anything to.”

“Ah just had to manipulate the hinges and latches that hold it in place a little. Weren’t nothin’.”

“Come on, this doesn’t look like it’s gonna let up soon,” Rainbow said, walking to the hatch.

Below, they sat on or beside the bed, their cards set on Twilight’s largest book, their largest flat surface that wasn’t the floor. Fluttershy shuffled with her magic while Twilight snuggled under the sheets, Rarity beside her. On their right side, Big Mac and Vinyl sat with tails crossed and shoulders touching.

“The game is Anaconda,” Fluttershy said, dealing. “Threes are wild, but the lowest heart splits. Aces high only. Ante up.”

They threw their chips onto the book, and the wind blew outside. The ship rocked gently.

“So this is the last Element,” Pinkie said. “And it’s mine, too. Funny how that works out.”

“We’ll hook right back up and get Discord where he lives,” Twilight said. “Shouldn’t take us more than a week or two to cover the distance left.”

“And if he’s not home?” Rainbow asked.

“We’ll wait there and prepare a surprise for him, if we can. I know it’s not strictly our duty, but I’d like to dismantle whatever he’s done to that castle. It’s probably a nightmare of magic inside.”

“Hold on, though,” Applejack said.

“You in, Octavia?” Pinkie asked.

Octavia looked at them morosely and passed her discarded cards to the left.

“What’s up, AJ?” Rainbow asked.

“Two,” Fluttershy said quietly, putting her chips into the pile.

“Ah recall… it was over the swamps Ah think, actually, the second time, when we got Rarity’s Element. Twilight comes up from below with this big book an’ news concernin’ the Elements of Harmony, an’ we proceed to have a nice, long conversation’ ‘bout ‘em, an’ the possibility of there bein’ more.”

“Not this again,” Rainbow said.

“We said we’d table that discussion fer the time, on account of us havin’ only the three then. Well girls, now it seems we’ve got five, and the sixth well on the way.”

“It does bear a second round of discussion, I agree,” Twilight said. She neatly selected two more discards and passed them to Fluttershy with a smirk.

“What’s to discuss?” Rainbow asked. “We decided we weren’t gonna go for it, right?”

“We didn’t make a decision,” Fluttershy said. She glanced at Vinyl, who watched intently. Her goggles were still on, but the contracture of her brows and the mild glow on her horn gave away the fascination she did not voice.

“There’s somethin’ important you should know,” Big Mac said suddenly. Vinyl rubbed his back.

“Your glamour forces you to try to be an additional Element,” Rarity said. “We know, dear.”

“That ain’t it. That, Ah was hopin’, was a given.” Quieter, he added, “an’ Ah can see it is.”

“Sorry, Big Mac. I should have let you continue.”

“I think minimizing cross-talk for this one might be a good idea,” Fluttershy said. “Just to put in my two bits. This… um…”

“This decision affects the whole country,” Applejack said.

A moment of reverent, worried silence followed.

“As Ah was sayin,” Big Mac said, “it does have to do with the glamour, but it also has to do with Miss Octavia here.”

“Are you with us?” Vinyl asked, turning to face Octavia.

Octavia blinked and looked up from her cards. “This is about the Elements? This is important?”

“Yes to both,” Twilight said.

“Then I am with you. Please, continue.”

“You remember, back in Applewood, how we needed to get our ship out of the impound lot?” Big Mac asked. “Octavia volunteered to go get it, an’ Ah went with her. Upon reflection, Ah saw that that was a product of the glamour. Not my own decision, though it sure felt like it at the time.”

“That was a wild time,” Vinyl said. “Sorry. I’ll just listen.”

“This affects us all, even you,” Twilight said. “Don’t stay quiet just because you’re new to our group.”

Vinyl’s horn glowed brighter for a second, and she smiled at Twilight. “Thanks.”

Twilight nodded at Big Mac.

“My glamour, my purpose on this ship—‘cause we know Ah wouldn’t ever ask to come along for somethin’ like this normally—is to get close enough to all of y’all so Ah might take up the place of another Element.”

“But that wouldn’t work,” Twilight said. “There’s no way we could—”

“Ah know that. Miss Octavia figured it out, back in Applewood. With just me added in to the mix, she thought Discord’s idea was fer us all to wrack our brains tryin’ to modify the Elements to allow a seventh. Buy him some time. A lot of time, most likely. Ah am, ultimately, supposed to be a distraction an’ an obstacle, disguised as a helpful friend.”

“Isn’t that a little harsh?” Vinyl asked him.

“It’s harsh, that’s fer sure,” Applejack said. “But it’s genius. It’s perfect.”

“What he didn’t expect,” Big Mac said, “was fer us to pick up more friends on the way. He figured Ah’d be the only one. Now, gettin’ back to Miss Octavia an’ the ship. You’ll recall, at the time, that Miss Dash an’ Fluttershy were off doin’ their own research on the dam. Ah had the opportunity to go with them, an’ didn’t take it. Ah did, however, go with Octavia to get the ship. Again, that was a glamour decision.”

“I think I see where this is going,” Rarity said.

“Why would my glamour make me want to go with Octavia, but not the others? Was it just to get the ship?” He shook his head. “Nope. If it was just about the ship, Ah would’ve told one of y’all to do it. Twilight, most likely, since she’s the most magical. We could’ve done it way easier with a second unicorn.”

“I am no unicorn,” Octavia said.

“Er, you know what Ah mean. Magic user, then.”

“Don’t worry, I think of her as a unicorn now too,” Fluttershy said. Their cards were forgotten, face down on the sheets.

“Ah had to go with her because Ah needed to get closer to her, an’ closer Ah did indeed get.”

“Why would you need to get closer to her, if it’s us you’re supposed to be doing that to?” Fluttershy said.

“Exactly. So…” He gestured at Octavia, who looked back, unimpressed and unshaken. “Ah reckon she’s the linchpin in this whole extra Element business, not me.”

“It’s probably both of you,” Twilight said, and sighed. “Possibly you too, Vinyl, what with you getting closer to Big Mac.”

“I remember, earlier, us saying that an extra Element for one of us would be useless,” Rarity said. “It would just be an empty filter, doing nothing to amplify the magic within. But with three?”

“Three, or even two if Vinyl isn’t close enough, would change things,” Twilight said. “With three—let’s just say three for now—we could conceivably create more, and as long as we kept them as a separate set, not associated with our own, they would actually make a difference in stopping Discord. We’d be drawing from nine sources of magic, rather than just six. And that’s significant.”

“But six is enough already,” Rainbow said. “Right? It has been in the past.”

“Of course, and we’ll keep it at six. I was just talking hypothetically.”

“So what’s the point of this conversation then? Not to sound insensitive, but who cares if Big Mac and Octavia and Vinyl are all friends? That doesn’t affect our Elements. It’s not like it forces us to make more to accommodate them.”

“Ah think Discord was hopin’ we’d not know that,” Applejack said.

“What an idiot.”

“I mean, it does make sense,” Fluttershy said. “In a way. The number of bearers has fluctuated in the past, so there’s precedent.”

“But six was always the limit,” Rarity said. “Now we’re at that limit.”

“I’m not sure what he was thinking,” Twilight said. “But I’m inclined to agree with Rainbow, that it was just a dumb move.”

“He has been known to underestimate before,” Applejack said. “Heck, we don’t need to look far to see that. The battle, fer instance?”

“We whipped him!” Pinkie said. “We tanned his hide!”

“And now he’s taking it out on poor Moondrop,” Vinyl said.

“We should talk about that too,” Rarity said.

“One thing at a time,” Twilight said. “I don’t feel this Element problem is concluded.”

“It is, though,” Rainbow said. “No more Elements, simple as that. These three can be friends, and that’s great, but it shouldn’t interfere with us.”

“Will we need to not participate in the final battle, for your Elements to work?” Octavia asked.

“You can be there, but just not when we’re casting our final spell,” Twilight said. “And that’s mostly for your own safety.”

“It gets hot in there,” Pinkie said.

“And noisy,” Fluttershy said.

“Even though I agree that it was just Discord being stupid, I don’t like that conclusion,” Twilight said. “I want to examine more possibilities before we write him off. This is, after all, a huge mistake to make, and we’d be in hot water indeed if we missed some small implication.”

“Then let’s start here,” Fluttershy said. “Is it possible for the Elements to misfire, if Octavia and Big Mac and Vinyl are with us?”

“If we’re all still ourselves, it should be fine,” Twilight said.

“It should be fine?” Vinyl asked.

“Fair point. It… I’ll double check this, but I’m ninety-nine point nine percent sure that close friendships to non-Elements does not affect the status of the Elements that do exist. If it did, we’d have more than six by now, with how many generations of bearers there were before us.”

“Unless any extra Elements simply dissolve once their bearers die,” Rarity said. “The six core ones remain, but any satellites vanish. Is that possible?”

“No. The magic that ties a bearer to her Element wouldn’t simply disappear like that. If it did, then they wouldn’t be extra Elements of Harmony, they’d be something else. Possibly something similar, but still different, and inessential to our goal here.”

“Does that mean there might be groups of friends out there that could count as Elements of Harmony, but only don’t because they don’t have the jewels to back it up?” Rainbow asked.

“Sure, probably,” Twilight said, shrugging. “That would make sense. Remember, though they are enchanted with a powerful, complicated spell, they’re just objects. They were made. If we had the princesses’ designs, we could make more, maybe. With the right designs and the right processes in place, you could crank out an Element for any old character trait you wanted.”

“But they still wouldn’t be tied to the original six,” Fluttershy said.

“Correct.”

“Why?”

“Because the amount of Elements in a complete set is decided beforehoof. That number is part of the magic that binds them together.”

“So is there any other way they might misfire?” Big Mac asked.

“Can they be damaged?” Vinyl asked.

“Not easily, but yes, they can,” Twilight said. “Don’t worry, we’d know it if they were, even a little bit. The magic would stop working, and at such a high magnitude, the effects would be immediate and obvious.”

“What would they be?” Pinkie asked.

“No idea. It’s never happened. Probably never will.”

“Celestia and Luna did put protective magic on them,” Rarity said. “So they’re not likely to be damaged.”

“Not likely at all,” Twilight echoed.

“What else?” Big Mac asked.

“If one of us were to… well, pass on. That would obviously throw a wrench in things.”

“That pony’s Element might simply pass on to one of these three, though,” Rainbow said.

“Did someone get my Element when Ah was dead?” Applejack asked.

“I hate it when you say that,” Rarity said.

“Facts are facts, sugarcube.”

“No, they only move on when the spirit has completely faded,” Twilight said.

“Wait, so how did they move from the princesses to us, then?” Fluttershy asked.

“That’s the only other way they might not work if we use them. If we change as ponies, if we stop embodying our Element for whatever reason.”

“That means the princesses don’t embody the Elements any more?” Vinyl asked.

“Not in a long time, no,” Twilight said. “They’re great ponies, but no, they’re not who they used to be; I think they’ve lived too long for that. Age and experience change someone. I’m sure I don’t need to explain further.”

“Yeah, we got it,” Rainbow said.

“So if any of us have changed in some serious way, that could cause problems.” An unsettling silence filled the room, punctuated only by the wind and rain lashing the deck above them. “So we might want to talk about that too.”

“Must we?” Rarity asked.

“I know it’s uncomfortable, but I think we really should scrutinize each other. With all the stuff that’s been piled on us by now, there’s not going to be nothing wrong. Whether it’s enough to make the Elements not work, I don’t know, but that’s not a risk we should take.”

“What sort of changes are we looking for?” Rainbow asked.

“Should we be present for this?” Vinyl asked, moving her hoof between herself and Big Mac.

“Absolutely,” Fluttershy said. “All three of you. Outside perspectives are going to be important, I think.”

“I agree,” Pinkie said, nodding.

“We’ll go one by one, and say whether we think that pony’s okay,” Applejack said. “Ah’ll go first.”

“AJ, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Rainbow said. “You’re probably the least changed out of all of us.”

Applejack laughed. “Now that is what Ah would call irony.”

“I’m serious.”

“Ah know that.” She sobered. “Dyin’ really wasn’t that bad, lookin’ back. Luna was excellent, takin’ care of me. She answered all my questions.”

“You definitely seem to have changed, for the better, I mean,” Rarity said. “You’re a lot happier, a lot more optimistic.”

“That’s the mark of someone with a lot integrity,” Twilight said. “You’re not afraid to be yourself, to still enjoy life, even after seeing what lies beyond.”

“Ah like to think so too,” Applejack said. “But that’s not what this is all ‘bout. What do y’all think? Do Ah still deserve the Element of Honesty?”

“Definitely,” Vinyl said.

“No question,” Rainbow said. “You’ve shot straight for this whole adventure.”

“And you’re honest with yourself too,” Twilight said. “You don’t pretend to be more than you are, which is important.”

“Coming back from death didn’t make you think you were greater than you are,” Vinyl said. “It definitely would for me. Most ponies I know.”

“Ah agree,” Big Mac said. “You got nothin’ to worry about.”

“All righty then,” Applejack said, looking at them all.

“I’ll go next,” Twilight said. “Element of Magic. Not exactly a friendship trait. Mine is pretty easy, I think.”

“You are just as magical now as you were before,” Octavia said.

“And you’re still our leader, more or less,” Pinkie said.

“What’s ‘more or less’?” Rainbow asked.

“Fluttershy and Rarity have been taking over a lot lately,” Twilight said. “I’ve noticed. But I don’t think leadership is inherent to my Element. I just need to be good at magic, which I am.”

“Easy enough,” Vinyl said. “Next?”

“Rainbow’s still loyal,” Pinkie said.

“She hasn’t done anything traitorous,” Rarity said.

“Rainbow’s would be hard to break,” Twilight said. “It requires the most active intent, I think.”

“I feel just as loyal as ever,” Rainbow said. “Like I said, I’m in this for the long haul. I just hope it’s not that long a haul.”

“Two weeks,” Rarity said. “Hopefully.”

“What about you, Rarity?” Applejack asked. “Ah’m not sure yers is gonna be so cut-and-dry.”

“Generosity,” Vinyl said.

“She helped Twilight embalm me, an’ that counts fer a lot, at least in my book. But…”

“What have I done?” Rarity asked quietly.

“Rare, you know Ah hate to say this ‘bout anyone, but you haven’t been quite right in a long time.”

Rarity’s eyes widened, but she didn’t speak.

“You’re more assertive, which is good,” Twilight said, “but I’ve noticed a streak of… well, meanness, I guess, in you that wasn’t there before.” She fixed a wrinkle in the sheet. “And I’m well aware that there’s a similar streak in me, I won’t say there isn’t.”

“No one’s accusing you of anything,” Vinyl said.

“Rarity is becoming the type of pony I had hoped we all would be in time,” Octavia said. “I have noticed it as well, primarily in Roan. Now that it is here, I wish that it were not.”

“So true,” Rainbow said.

“Wait, wait, what meanness?” Rarity asked. “I’m not mean.”

“You frequently suggest the quickest solution to a problem, without regard to the ponies it might hurt,” Flutteshy asked. “You have an easier time refusing requests, or dismissing ponies who might need help.”

“Yer carryin’ that grudge against Lacey still,” Big Mac said. “Not sayin’ Ah blame ya. Just sayin’ it’s true.”

“I’ll admit to a grudge, but I think you’re taking the rest of these things out of context,” Rarity said.

“You want us to reach our goal as quick as possible,” Vinyl said. “Which is laudable, but the cost is sometimes high.”

“An’ we’ve heard you talk ‘bout how you’d like to do such-an’-such to whoever, some pony who slighted you, or someone you think is tryin’ to get at us,” Applejack said.

“On the other side of this point, though,” Octavia said, “Rarity came close to giving her life to keep the river from escaping, in Applewood. She also risked much to help Twilight embalm Applejack.”

“That’s true,” Rainbow said. “You know, I actually change my mind. She’s still generous. Just not as nice as she was once.”

“I doubt any of us are,” Twilight said. She looked at Fluttershy. “And… yeah, Fluttershy, that includes you.”

Fluttershy looked down. “I know.”

“You do?” Big Mac asked.

“I think a lot, when I’m alone. I think about us, and the way our lives are going, and how we’ve changed. It’s happening in a lot of us, actually. Twilight first, and I know exactly why. You turned harder and stronger early—well, earliest of us all, I guess—and Rarity shortly after you. And I know I’m beginning to as well. I’ve noticed it in myself, how I’m less hesitant to speak my mind, or to give orders around the ship.”

“How is this a bad thing, though?” Rainbow asked.

“Right now, it isn’t.”

“But we know where it leads,” Twilight said. “Do you think you’re risking losing touch with your Element?”

“I personally think you’re not,” Rarity said.

“I don’t think so either,” Fluttershy said. “But I also know, if I am, I might not recognize it. One of the things meanness does is it learns to justify itself. I try to avoid that, but I don’t know how successful I’ve been.”

“We’ve all become more callous,” Rainbow said. “But you’re still kind.”

“Must disagree,” Vinyl said. “Sorry, I know this isn’t my place, not knowing you as long as the others, but I don’t think I’ve seen you do anything that really sets you apart from the others, in terms of kindness.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Valid point.”

“She pulls just as hard as any of us,” Rainbow said.

“But that don’t make her special,” Applejack said. “The point of the Elements is to be special, to be those paragons of whatever thing they represent. We’ve all been kind in our places, but the Element of Kindness ought to be that way in the places where the rest of us aren’t.”

“Those places are few and far between, though,” Rarity said.

“That’s not true,” Vinyl said. “We’ve passed by loads of places and ponies that needed help.”

“In pursuit of this main goal,” Twilight said. “Yes, you’re right, but realistically, we can’t be expected to stop for every little thing that needs attention.”

“The difference between doing the nice thing and doing the right thing,” Fluttershy said.

“Exactly.”

“So which is the right thing in this case?” Vinyl asked. “Should she be going along with us, helping us to defeat Discord, or should she be advocating to stay and help the victims along the way? Can’t be both, not unless she stays behind.”

“I’ve thought about that very thing,” Fluttershy said. “You can see my choice.”

“That’s a very good question,” Rarity said. “What is the proper thing for her to do here?” She looked at Big Mac. “You have the glamour. What’s your take on this?”

Big Mac sighed. “My take is that Fluttershy could be nicer, as we all can, but she hasn’t done anythin’ to go against her Element.” Vinyl looked at him for a minute, a question clearly on her face, but he said no more, and she kept quiet.

“Is it possible for an Element to work, but just not as well?” Rarity asked. “If someone fits it, but not as well as she might have once?”

“Thankfully not,” Twilight said. “The princesses guarded against that in their design. The Elements are an all-or-nothing deal.”

“I think you’re safe,” Pinkie said, reaching up to pat Fluttershy on the back.

“Try to be nicer anyway, though, just in case,” Rainbow said. “Just in case.”

“Yer the last one, Pinkie,” Big Mac said. “What about you?”

“Laughter is another tricky one,” Twilight said.

“To be brutally honest, Pinkie, Ah don’t see it any more,” Applejack said. “You ain’t the same pony you once were, an’ fer yer specific Element, Ah think that’s a problem.”

“Now wait a second,” Rainbow said. “That’s not fair, saying she’s in trouble just ‘cause she’s changed with the rest of us.”

“The Elements weren’t designed with fairness in mind.”

“They were, actually,” Twilight said. “They’re not made to be so sensitive, or so specific, that the pony who owns them has to embody that thing literally all the time. I’m not casting magic all the time, and Rarity’s not donating her energy all the time.”

“Ah’m honest all the time, or Ah try to be.”

“About important things, sure, but you’ll keep quiet in situations that require tact, or sugarcoat sensitive information. Sometimes. No one of us is purely the thing the Element requires, because that’s simply not possible. The point is to be, at the core of our personalities, what the Element needs. For Pinkie, for Laughter, I think that requires an optimistic approach to life, an eagerness to do right, and a lightness of heart that forgives and understands easily.”

“Extroversion too,” Vinyl said.

“Yes, that too. And Pinkie has those things still. She’s cooled off some, we all have, as Rainbow said. That’s natural, and I think the princesses understood that that would happen when they had these Elements first made. Another reason why they deserve the status they have. They thought it out millennia in advance.” She chuckled. “I haven’t even thought out what we’re gonna do at Moondrop yet.”

“Soooo, what do we think?” Pinkie asked.

“What do you think?” Fluttershy asked. “Outside points are fine, but what’s yours?”

“I think I’m… okay. I haven’t been the same laughy, jokey self, but I think I am okay. I feel good, still. I don’t feel blue about our lives.”

“I know a good way to test it,” Rainbow said.

“What’s that?” Big Mac asked.

“This!” She bolted over the bed and tackled Pinkie, who, on the other side, broke out in a gale of laughter as Rainbow tickled her. The sheets stirred into a bundle as Rarity jumped up to watch, and no sooner had she than Applejack, laughing, jumped in to help hold Pinkie down. She bucked and guffawed, kicking and thrashing as the two took turns trying to hold her twisting limbs and tickling her. Tears matted her face, and then Rainbow’s and Applejack’s when Rarity, too, added a soft wand of magic to the mix. Cards scattered and clicked to the ground when Pinkie, one corner of the sheet in her mouth, tried to pull herself away from the trap.

“Okay, okay, I give!” Pinkie squealed, and the trio fell apart, chests heaving. Rarity, laughing alone, picked up the cards and set the sheet back on the bed. Applejack and Rainbow extricated themselves, the latter after a second of panting with her face close to Pinkie’s.

“Well, there you go,” Vinyl said. “Seems conclusive to me.”

“Ah love my life,” Applejack said, settling back in her spot.

“My sides hurt,” Pinkie moaned, wiping away a tear.

“Where were we in the game?” Rainbow asked. “Hey, these aren’t my cards.”

“Reshuffle,” Rarity said, doing just that. “Everypony take their chips back.”

“I don’t remember what dang chips I had.”

“Same as everyone else, Dash,” Applejack said, poking her in the back.

“What’s the game, Rarity?” Twilight asked. She wanted to discuss more, but also did not want to break the rare bubble of levity that had so suddenly surfaced.

“Seven card stud, and we’ll keep the threes wild for now.”

“No splitting the pot this time?”

Rarity batted her lashes. “Did I stutter, darling?”

Twilight stuck out her tongue and accepted her cards. “Well, this is… never mind.”

They played through, Vinyl taking the pot, and Twilight dealt another round.

“So what about Moondrop, though?” Pinkie asked. “What’s the deal?”

“I’m not sure. Uhh, let’s do anaconda again, since we didn’t finish the first one. Fours this time, and the high ace splits.”

“We don’t have much to go on, unfortunately,” Applejack said. “The princess’ll probably beat us there, you think? She said she was gonna investigate.”

“I hope so, but I don’t think we should let that slow us down,” Rarity said.

“I agree,” Twilight said, dealing. “It would be too easy to find a cozy spot and wait for Princess Luna to go there, let us know what to expect, and maybe even bring us the last Element. We’d be sitting targets for Discord.”

“True enough, but I’d point out that he hasn’t had any issue finding us wherever we were in the past.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Here, Fluttershy, enjoy.”

Fluttershy took Twilight’s discards and scowled down at them. “Why would you do that to a pony?”

Rainbow laughed.

“So, what, we meet Luna there?” Applejack asked. “Then what?”

“She might accompany us to Draught Castle,” Pinkie said.

“That would be perfect, but I doubt it,” Twilight said. “She’ll probably want to stay in Moondrop. Besides, if she’s with us, Discord might flip out and do… whatever it is he’s got planned. That last ditch effort, you know?”

“How do we know he actually has something?” Vinyl asked, studying her cards. “I fold.”

“That was fast,” Rarity said.

“We don’t, but we also don’t have the luxury of testing him,” Twilight said. “Because if he does, then it’ll be something we can’t bounce back from, at least not easily. So we have to treat this whole operation like it’s on the edge of a knife.”

“As it very well might be,” Fluttershy said.

“So, basically, we don’t know what we’ll do at Moondrop,” Rainbow said. “We’re just gonna fly in, see what’s up, and try to book it with the Element. Right? ‘Cause every other single time we’ve done that, there’s been a whole mess of trouble for us.”

“We got the Element of Magic pretty cleanly, Ah recall,” Big Mac said.

“Yes, and with just two of us,” Rarity said. “An interesting point.”

“No no no, that doesn’t count,” Twilight said. “Just two of us went underwater for Honesty, and that was a disaster.”

“Let’s send Big Mac in,” Pinkie said.

“What?”

“No, really! Hear me out. Him and Vinyl did Magic, in the fairgrounds, and it was fine. Almost fine. Right? You said it was fine.”

“Relatively painless, yes,” Rarity said.

“Yeah, and he was the one who went in for the Element of Generosity, in the swamps. Both times, relatively painless, as you said.”

“Ah am the most unassumin’ of us all,” he said.

“You’re the only non-celebrity in the room,” Vinyl said. “Whoa, I just blew my own mind. I’d never thought about that before, but it’s true.”

“If there is something happening in Moondrop that requires the attention of one of the princesses, then I do not think sending Big Macintosh in on his own would be wise,” Octavia said.

“Ah like yer thinkin’,” Big Mac said.

“What does the glamour say?” Rainbow asked.

“Says nothin’.”

“Okay, so that means we don’t strictly need him to go alone,” Twilight said. “But it also doesn’t mean that we need to go in all together.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Rarity said. “I know it’ll take us an extra day or two, but I think our best option would be to circle the area first.”

“We will be out in the open for all that time,” Octavia said.

“That’s still better than going in blind,” Rainbow said. “What if it’s some kind of crazy trap? What if there’s a monster there?”

“I remember him gloating that he owned the south,” Fluttershy said, throwing her chips into the pot. “A monster is not out of the question, I think.”

“Probably,” Twilight said with a sigh. “There’s too many unknowns. I think I agree with Rarity, we’ll need to scout it out.”

“I can fly ahead the night before or something,” Rainbow said.

“Way too dangerous,” Rarity said.

“Is there no way to cloak the ship?” Applejack asked.

“Feel like we’d know if there was,” Vinyl said.

“I could do it,” Twilight said, “but it wouldn’t help as much as you think. For one thing, I wouldn’t be able to do it for more than an hour, maybe two hours if I push myself to my last extremity. That’s the ship and us—remember, it’s much harder to do it to living matter.”

“You did it in Manehattan, didn’t you?” Pinkie asked.

“Yeah, that was to myself alone. Huge difference, Pinkie.”

“Can’t you just put down a sigil?” Rarity asked.

“I was getting there. The second thing is, we’d need to be more than invisible. In an airship like this, we’d need to be invisible, and have our sound masked, and find a way to hide any smoke from the propellers and fire from the torch, and hide any of the wind that our movement might produce. Yeah, sure, I could eventually design those sigils, but then it’s an issue of spacing. I’m not going to get all of them on the deck easily, and still leave us room to move around. The one to obfuscate both ship and passengers alone would take up more than half the deck.”

“You couldn’t… I don’t know, condense it?” Rainbow asked.

“You’re forgetting that I don’t have hardly any experience with sigils,” Twilight said, shaking her head disgustedly as Fluttershy scooped her winnings to her chest. “I know that one huge one that the princess taught me, for enhancing Pinkie, but that was forced onto me. I don’t understand how it works, I can’t reverse-engineer it.”

“You summoned Vanilla, that time we were in Thunderhead’s ship,” Applejack said.

Twilight sighed. “I didn’t want to tell you at the time, but that was nothing more than an educated shot in the dark. Besides, remember what he said, it didn’t do what I wanted it to, it just got his attention. He came out of curiosity, not from anything I did to him.”

“Okay, so scrap the sigils,” Rarity said. “What about a remote viewing spell?”

“It needs an object. If I could enchant one of you and send you in ahead of us, that would work, but, again, that’s too dangerous.”

“Is there not magic that can be used with the map to gain insight about a location?” Octavia asked. “I thought I read something like that in one of your books.”

“You’re talking about a realized cartographic spell, and I’ve never done one before. That falls in Princess Luna’s purview, not mine.”

“What about you, Octavia?” Applejack asked. “Have you not been to this Moondrop before?”

“The closest I have been is Roan.”

“Dang.”

“What about divination?” Rarity asked. “That’s a whole class of magic right there that could help us.”

“Divination sucks,” Vinyl said.

Twilight looked at her, eyebrow raised.

“Had to take some magic courses in college.”

“Vinyl’s right, though. Divination does kind of suck. I would need a lot of tools that I don’t have.”

“Like a crystal ball?” Rainbow asked.

“That, a dowsing rod, a plumb bob, a magical battery, those are some of the basics. Girls, I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to do any magic that’ll let us see ahead. That’s never been my specialty. I was taught by Princess Celestia. Ask me again when you need to put out a forest fire or something.”

“Then we’ll have to just be extra prepared when we go in,” Pinkie said. “Rarity, you can shield us?”

“Against anythin’ but lightnin’,” Applejack said, grinning at Rarity.

“I can’t let us see super far ahead, but I can probably enhance Rainbow’s eyesight,” Twilight said. “So that’ll give us an edge too.”

“Can you shuffle for me?” Big Mac asked Vinyl, who smiled and took the cards.

“We’ll come in high and circle lower,” Applejack said. “An’ if anythin’ looks weird, we’ll bolt. Find a different angle of attack.”

“Sounds good to me,” Pinkie said. “Now c’mon, what’s the game, Big Mac-daddy?”

Big Mac looked at Pinkie, thinking.

Close to two in the morning, a pair of ponies crept out of the hold, onto the deck, and out into the sopping, still drizzling grassland in the crook of the oxbow lake, not noticing that another pair was missing as well.

Big Mac and Vinyl walked, side by side, to the edge of the waters on the ashen, bubbly bed of sediment that gave Furnace Creek its name. A hem of twisted, stunted trees separated them from the hissing, black waters, and a large turtle splashed into the shallows, scared off by its sudden visitors. It watched with beady coals of eyes as Big Mac sat down heavily on a small rise in the ground, Vinyl by his side, their tails crossing.

“What’s eating you?” she asked, her voice soft as bird song in the velvet, humid darkness.

“How do you see me?”

She considered the question for a second before raising her goggles to reveal her oft-hidden, crimson eyes. Big Mac stared into them, the calmly emotional eyes in which his own reflection and her natural color were one.

“I see you as someone who didn’t know what he was getting into when he got into it, kinda like me.”

He grunted.

“Sorry. This is about you, not me.”

“Yer fine.”

“I see you as a regular pony, like anyone else, and a friend on top of that.”

He nodded slowly.

“Is this about the glamour?”

After a minute, he proceeded. “Ah’m comin’ to loathe every time someone brings it up, or asks me what it ‘says’.”

“You wish ponies would see beyond it.”

He looked at her. “Can Ah talk?”

She looked down, her tail switching back from his, and mumbled an apology.

“Ah know this is what Ah was put here fer, fer tryin’ to mess up all these folks’ plans, an’ Ah think it’s a good thing we figured that out an’ started usin’ it fer ourselves instead.” Not used to speaking at length, he paused to think of how he wanted to continue. “But it’s got to the point now where Ah think that’s all Ah am to them, just a… mechanism to find the way. Ah think they forget that Ah don’t really want to be here.”

“I thought you did. I thought—forgive me—but I thought you had no choice but to want it.”

“At first, Ah didn’t, yer right, but Ah think knowin’ ‘bout the glamour weakens it. ‘Cause now Ah can tell the difference between my own thoughts an’ the thoughts that appear magically. Ah’d rather be back on the farm, every day. Like you said, Ah ain’t a part of y’all. Ain’t a celebrity, or any of that.”

“That’s not how I meant it.”

“Ah know.” He put a hoof on hers. “Don’t stop it from bein’ true. Ah don’t belong.”

“I think you do.”

He shook his head. “Nope. Does the captain count her compass as part of the crew?”

“She does if it’s alive,” Vinyl said. “No one sees you just as what magic you have, just like no one sees Twilight as a book, or Rarity a shield, or me and Octavia as concerts.”

“Hmmm.” Thunder pealed far off. “Ah don’t see it.”

“No?”

“Ah’m only consulted on matters of the glamour. Maybe they see me as the pony Ah am, maybe not, but Ah’m only consulted… like Ah said. Glamour matters only.”

“Isn’t that kind of an honor, in a way? You’re the only one who can give decisive judgment on important things.”

“An honor Ah never wanted, you mean.”

“Well… it’s all in how you look at it.”

“Eeyup, an’ this is how Ah choose to look at it, Miss Vinyl. All of this adventure, these perils an’ these important, deep questions, Ah wanted nothin’ of it. Never in my life did Ah aspire to be more than the best Ah could be fer my family, an’ that’s what Ah thought Ah was doin’ when Ah left fer Appleloosa.”

She tilted her head.

“Where they picked me up. Thought Ah was findin’ some kind of true callin’, or a destiny or somethin’.” He sighed and bowed his head. “Trickery.”

“Have you told the others this?”

“Nope. Ah know it ain’t bright. Ah know, not the glamour. Ah know my place, after all, an’ this is it, like it or not. Just so happens that Ah’m on the ‘not’ side.”

“Just sharing your feelings wouldn’t hurt, though.”

“But it would complicate things.”

“So?” She leaned in close and lowered her already low voice. “You shouldn’t hold things inside just to keep things simple and safe. I’ve done that before in relationships, and it never works for the best. They’ll keep doing it, Big Mac, and you’ll keep hating it until something snaps. Best to let it out now.”

“Ah’d rather not.”

“Why?”

He blushed, the color in his cheeks hidden in darkness. “It’s hard enough to share it with you.”

She nodded. “No one’ll tell you it’s easy, but it’s for the best. Trust me, letting things fester is never the right option.” Her horn glowed bright pink, and he squinted for a second until it dimmed. “Look at Octavia. She’s been sitting on something so long she hardly lives in the same world as us a lot of the time.”

“Ah ain’t like that.”

“Not now, but do you want to start?”

“Ah’d need to hold onto these feelin’s fer a couple years before anythin’ like that happened to me. Besides, Ah’m sure we’ll be done soon, an’ Ah can go back home. Won’t have to deal with it in another week or two.”

Sternly, Vinyl said, “that’s optimistic guessing on Twilight’s part. From what I’m told, this journey has been fraught with unexpected delays since day one. Why should it end now?”

He bowed his head again, and she crouched to look up into his face. His expression still mild, his eyes neither shimmering nor unsteady, he nonetheless had lost some of the rustic strength that held his muscles and jawline sturdy. Almost sagging, she could feel the defeat coming off him. Offering no further words, she put a hoof on his back and tried not to shiver in the thin rainfall.

From the other side of the oxbow lake, Octavia and Pinkie watched Vinyl and a shape that could only be Big Mac exit the ship.

“It’s a special night for talking,” Pinkie whispered in Octavia’s ear. She was the only one to think to put on a sweater for the night.

“I do not want them to see us,” Octavia said, leading them away from the banks. They walked out into the wet field, tails sticking on long tufts of grass.

“This okay?” Pinkie asked when they reached a shallow pool. Octavia waded through the frigid water to a partially submerged stump, rousing a cloud of fireflies as she pushed apart a drape of grass.

Sitting heavily on the stump, her thinning, black tail drooping lifelessly in the water, she spoke. “I apologize for the battle.”

“Huh?”

Octavia gave a half smile. “You are kind to pretend not to know. I refer to my premature fall. It was stupid of me, a mistake I have made before.”

“Whoa, whoa, sis, hold on,” Pinkie said, wading out to stand beside Octavia, perhaps to offer a consoling touch if needed. “I’ve heard you start in like this before.”

“That is because I have made this exact mistake before.” She shook her head. “When will I learn?”

“Hey, you can’t help it if you passed out out there, you know? That is what you mean, right? That you gave it your all and passed out?”

She bowed her head.

“Octavia, no one ever blames you for that kind of stuff, you know that? Look, look at what you did do. You knocked out those airships and protected doc and me.”

“Two airships in a sky filled with them.”

“Oh, come on,” Pinkie said, rolling her eyes dramatically. “You didn’t seriously expect to cruise in there and sweep the whole army away, did you? Nopony, and I mean nopony would have asked you to try to do that.” Perking up for a second, she continued. “It’s a team effort! Princesses and army and us and all those weird secret agents in there too, all of it together! You should be proud to be part of something like that.” She quieted. “I know I am.”

“I failed.”

Pinkie sighed. She knew what Octavia was thinking, that she had been the most important part of the plan, and not seeing it through to its conclusion was, in some way, a failure; completely forgetting that her friends, Pinkie and Whooves, had hidden in the river, a point of shame that Pinkie dared not bring up, knowing her sister would dismiss or justify it and hoard the pity for herself.

“Why can’t you be happy?” Pinkie had wanted to ask—shout—the question to Octavia for months. The question would do no good, for its answer would simply be a restatement of the original premise, that Octavia had failed them. She had spent enough time, had listened in on enough conversations, to know that it would be the only answer she could wrench from her stoic sibling.

“It is more than that,” Octavia said. “I know that I did my best, and might in time forgive myself for my limitations. I do not know whether you saw from where you were, but when I was still standing, after we had crashed, I took life. I blew them apart with a spell.”

Pinkie only nodded. She had seen it and thought little of it at the time. It was, after all, warfare.

“I suppose I should have expected it, but I honestly did not. On that angel, I felt… remote, I suppose. I felt like nothing truly awful would take place, that… I do not know how to put it into words.”

“Try your best,” Pinkie said, more interested.

“It is foolish.” She sighed, and Pinkie thought she saw a tear drop, but Octavia’s voice did not waver. “I think I thought that I would simply wake up one day and it would be over. We do not comprehend these things for what they are, at least I do not. How enormous, and how foreign, such an experience is. How far from my expectations, how unimaginable.”

“Hey, hey.” She raised her hoof.

“I left my home, my entire life behind so I could chase something on this quest. I still do not know what I was searching for, but it was most certainly not this.”

“You can’t beat yourself up about it, though. You know—”

“Knowing that it had to be done does not help,” Octavia mumbled. “Yes, I acted in self-defense, but that knowledge will not change the fact that I now have blood on my hooves. Just saying it…”

“Well…”

Octavia kicked at the water. “And then, after that, to leave you both to your fates by passing out.”

“That isn’t your fault,” Pinkie said, firmer than she had meant.

Octavia met her eyes for a second, also surprised by the tone. “If not mine, whose?”

“Why does it have to be anyone’s?”

“My actions, my consequences!” Octavia spat, standing up and stumbling in the cold water. “If I cannot hold myself accountable, then there is no purpose to anything I do or have done.” Pinkie stepped back, noticing for the first time a different gleam in her sister’s eyes, something akin to anger, but not quite. “Since I was old enough to comprehend it, I have thought of taking a life as one of only a few truly unforgivable things. You understand that. But now, having done it, I am finding that very little has changed. We are still flying south, still searching for that last Element. We still have fun, sometimes.” Thinking for a moment, she ended with a self-conscious whisper. “Am I the only one who hates what I have done?”

“I mean, it was justified. They were gonna—”

“I cannot accept that. Perhaps you all can. Perhaps, even, you should.” She thought. “I was happy that night because I felt as though a tremendous weight had been lifted from my back.”

Pinkie dreaded the answer. “And now?”

“A different weight has taken its place.” She looked up at Pinkie, and her eyes were finally shining with tears. “For how long have I lived like this, and for what? No matter…” She choked and wiped her eyes furiously. “No matter what I choose to do, something is wrong. Something is always wrong. I am never not making a mistake.”

“Sis, please, you can’t think like that. You’re the strongest pony I know, honestly.”

“Not so strong as to avoid a scene like this.”

Pinkie frowned. “Octavia, listen to me.” She sat down in the cold water, wishing she hadn’t, but feeling from it a sense of solidarity to the gray mare. “Don’t talk, just listen for a second. I don’t know why you feel this way all the time, but it’s totally inaccurate. No one expects anything from you like what you think, no one holds you to this high standard you seem to be always carrying around. I know because we’ve talked about it, the other Elements and me. We don’t look at you as a catch-all solution or a, or a weapon or something. You’re just Octavia, regular old Octavia. You know, good at music, sophisticated, mysterious? All that normal stuff, not some jumped-up superhero or some kind of idol, or whatever it is you think we think you are.” She licked her lips, debating whether to continue, knowing her words would soon lose their kind edge. “Martyring yourself like this isn’t helping anypony, okay? You’re just tormenting yourself, and none of us… honestly, none of us know what to do with it.”

Octavia nodded. “You are right,” she croaked. “I did not think about it, but you are correct.”

“Um… okay? Good?”

“I should have died in battle.”

Shocked, as if the water’s coldness had simply taken a few minutes to reach her, Pinkie hopped up with a loud splash. “Whoa, whoa, what? No, no you shouldn’t have!”

“These last few days, I have been a burden. I have helped no one, only been a source of depression on the ship. I have clearly outlived my usefulness.”

Pinkie closed her eyes. All she could think was “damn it, damn it, damn it.” “That’s not what I mean, Octavia. No one wants that either.”

“I want that.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“No, come on. I know you better than anypony else, probably, and I know you don’t mean what you just said.”

“How can you know that? You have not done something so horrible as I.”

“Oh yes I have!” Almost. Instead, she just stared at her sister’s silhouette. “The Octavia I know would never wish death on anyone, herself or anyone else. She’s stronger than that.”

Octavia rubbed her face, groaning. “Do not worry. I am not going to kill myself now; I am at least clear enough to avoid that.”

“Well, that’s a relief!” Pinkie said sarcastically. “Gee, that makes me feel soooo much better! How very kind of you to say so!”

Octavia looked at her dolefully.

“Oh, come on,” Pinkie said, the anger evaporating as quickly as it had boiled over. “Look, I know it sucks and all, but war sucks, you know? This situation, right here, all of it, sucks. You think any of us would be here right now if we had a choice? Right here, in the middle of nowhere in freezing water, within shouting distance of some deathtrap castle? Instead of home, in a warm bed, with our other friends and our family. Yeah, you got me, this is the life right here. Hey, maybe tomorrow we’ll get lucky and find another pond to land at, and maybe it won’t be crusted over with scum and mosquito larvae! Maybe the water heater will work long enough for two warm showers, instead of the one that Rarity always hogs.”

Octavia sat back down on her stump.

“Octavia, I get it,” she said, serious again. “Yes, it’s a bad thing to do, and yes, you can’t wash that blood off your hooves, but you can’t let it consume you either. Do you think any of us were talking about giving up when bad stuff happened? When Applejack died, did we throw our hooves in the air, lie down, and let Discord claim us? What about on Thunderhead’s ship, huh? Remember that, trapped in that dumb sigil below the deck? You were the one who saved us from that, if you’d care to recall.”

“I recall.”

“The twister in Fillydelphia? Trottingham, when you grabbed the Astras’ crow? What about all the craziness in Manehattan? Heck, even in Applewood, you gave it your all then too.”

“Please do not bring that up,” Octavia said. “My all was not enough then.”

“Well…” She watched a firefly light on a reed and extinguish itself. “I can tell her, right now, and be done with it.”

“None of that is the same, even Applewood.”

“What happened in Applewood isn’t your fault. There were other things going on.”

“What things?”

“With the dam, when it was sort of looming over us.” A pressure was building inside her chest, and she was shivering, despite the sweater. “I…”

She could unburden herself, admit that she had not moved, not tried, not used a mote of the deep well of magic she knew she had to help, and Octavia, too depressed and wrapped in her own cloak of self-loathing, would accept it with little to no complaint. She could apologize, and admit, both to her sister and herself, that she had let fear take her, that she had no grand idea and no good, if not misguided, reasons for not acting. Fear, bald-faced fear, had been the deciding factor, the blank and powerful shot of emotion that had left the city in flooded ruins.

The pressure constricted, and she imagined the other alternative, of Octavia redirecting that quiet, righteous disdain back to her. Of Octavia getting up and silently walking back to the ship, of there being no more words between them, and then of the other Elements finding out. Frozen out of their lives and probably left to sit on the ship while they dealt with Discord, then dropped off in Ponyville and left to creep back to her old life with no support and no kind words. Exiled, and completely deserving of it.

“You tried your best,” Octavia said. “I know I sound hypocritical when I say so, but it is true. You tried your best. I did not.”

Pinkie breathed out slowly, hating the relief that slowly filled her like expanding, effervescing electricity. Her shivers died away, and she only nodded.

“I wish I had more to offer,” she said.

“As do I,” Octavia said. “You are right, I am being dramatic. I should not be placing these worries on you.”

“No, don’t think like that,” Pinkie said. This time, she was happy to return to Octavia’s old, stale self-pity. “I always have my ears open for this kind of thing, any of us do. Honestly, we wish you talked more.”

“I know.”

“So, are we off that idea of wishing we were dead?”

“Yes. It was momentary melodrama, nothing more. Though I believe I am correct, I will not belabor the point. Life must go on.” Octavia raised her eyes to the distance, where only bare starlight washed across the desert plains. Somewhere beyond, the castle waited, and then Moondrop.

Pinkie followed her gaze, and another firefly drew a tight circle in front of her face.