A caller at eleven o’ clock roused Whippoorwill from half-sleep. He slid out of his sleeping bag in the closet and glanced at the bed, bundled with pillows under the sheets to simulate a sleeping pony for any intruders. Since calling White Wine, he had decided to err on the side of caution, abandoning his bed and refusing to look out any windows between the hours of six o’ clock in the morning and eleven at night. He could not believe that she had any part in his contacts’ disappearance and confirmed deaths—confirmed in the obituaries the day after he’d heard of it from his warehouse worker—but that only meant that the culprit was someone he did not know. No comfort there.

Grabbing a small, white pulse crystal and balancing it against the door jamb, tip to floor, he looked through his peep hole. On the opposite side, there waited a patient, uniformed face, cap pulled up to show devilish, green eyes that smiled to themselves as Whippoorwill pulled back the stack of door chains.

“Evenin’,” he said, throwing the door wide enough to show his visitor that he was alone.

“Likewise,” the officer said, gesturing lazily at the badge on his chest. “Officer Just Clarity. I apologize if I woke you.”

“No trouble at all, sir.”

“This won’t take long, not at all, Mr…. sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Whippoorwill. Just Whippoorwill.” He nodded at the officer genially, but his smile did not linger. The policepony’s eyes followed his own as they scanned for weapons.

“Do you mind?”

Whippoorwill cocked his head.

“If I come on in, sorry. I’ve been on my hooves all day, and this is kind of private.”

“My neighbors are all asleep by now,” Whippoorwill said. “Let’s sit out on the stoop.”

The officer smiled again, showing his teeth.

“It’s a beautiful night,” Whippoorwill continued, closing the door behind him and slowly trotting to the stairs. He sat on the top stair and waved a loose foreleg at the street. “Ah assume it’s safe? There’s only one of ya, an’ this place has been quiet all night long. All week long.”

The officer sat down heavily, a distance away. “You could say it’s more of a social call, Whippoorwill.” He nodded and sucked in air through his teeth. “There’s talk of the Astras lining up against the Pegasus Advocacy chapter here.”

“So Ah’ve heard.” Putting a note of worry into his voice, hoping it would mask his confusion, he asked, “Should Ah be concerned?” No one else, that he knew of, wanted the Pegasus Advocates and the Astras to be at odds; yet he had been inactive for a week. Who else was involved?

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” the officer said. He looked at Whippoorwill intently for a moment. “Actually, Whippoorwill, that’s why I’m here. The PAs, they’re not too keen on jumping in with the Astras, that’s what I hear. Not the type of fight they’re interested in.”

“Hmm. Understandable.” He resisted the urge to look back at the front door, the pulse crystal just inside.

“They already have a setup down here, not in this neighborhood but the nearby couple. You may not believe it, but some ponies are more than happy to put up with them for something in return.”

Whippoorwill looked up into the sky, focusing on the sound of the officer’s voice and the darkness of night.

A hoof clapped lightly on the stair step. “So this is a professional courtesy, Whippoorwill.”

Whippoorwill turned his attention to the uniformed pony, still relaxed on the concrete. “Please.”

“The PAs, their leader, their friends, all of it… you have no part in that anymore.”

Donning a svelte smile, slightly exaggerated to make bright and clear the confidence he forwarded, he asked, “And yer sure that it is I to whom you wish to extend this courtesy?”

“If I have the wrong pony, you’re welcome to say that.”

“Then you’ve got the wrong pony.”

The officer let out a single, breathless laugh. “Okay.” His hoof moved to his side, and Whippoorwill’s horn extinguished. “You don’t go near them, cowpony.”

Whippoorwill stood and watched the officer’s body language as he rose as well. No longer reclining on the steps, Whippoorwill could see in the officer much of the same qualities he possessed: unamused confidence; calm, deliberate patience that would only stand briefly before giving way to direct threat or threatening instruction. It gave way as they stood.

“You don’t go near them, you don’t talk to them, you don’t talk to White Wine or anyone associated with her. You don’t write her a letter, you don’t leave a message on her answering machine, you don’t show up at the places where she shows up.”

Whippoorwill stared at him impassively. “Who sent you?”

“An interested party, that’s all you need to know. It wasn’t her.”

Whippoorwill slowly moved his eyes around the officer, taking in the neighboring complex, its darkened windows.

“Eyes, cowpony. I’m the only one talking.”

Whippoorwill looked back at him.

“You hear me?”

“Sure,” he said. “I won’t go near her.”

“Because if you do,” the officer tugged at his cap, “I know some pegasi who’d be very happy to meet you.”

“Of course,” Whippoorwill said, shrugging, giving up his tough pony attempt. He knew he had lost his chance. “I hear ya loud an’ clear, boss.”

The officer narrowed his eyes. “That right?”

Without a weapon, in public, he knew he had no other option; pretending ignorance or attempting a counter-threat would only hinder a dignified retreat back into the apartment. “Scout’s honor, boss.” He flashed a lopsided grin and held up a hoof. “I’m a ghost, she won’t even remember me in a month’s time.”

“Good.” He nodded and raised his voice. “No problems in the neighborhood, I take it? Anything to report?”

“No sir,” Whippoorwill said. “All quiet on this front.”

“Always happy to hear it.” He smiled again. “Could I get a glass of water before I head out?”

Whippoorwill eyed him.

“Long ride over here, and I forgot my bottle.” He shrugged apologetically.

“I’ll get you some.”

The police officer waited outside, confidently looking between apartment buildings, a tiny smile teasing his lips as Whippoorwill filled a glass with tap water. He stopped at the door, contemplating the pulse crystal, within easy reach and quiet enough to use in the crowded space between buildings. “But then what?” he asked himself, sliding open the door. A body to dispose of and a city-wide search for the missing officer, and he already on thin ice with his sole ally.

He floated the water to the officer, who drank it slowly, eyes fixed on Whippoorwill’s the whole time.

“Ahhh, that hit the spot.” He carefully set the glass down on the step. “Thank you kindly, unicorn.”

“Pleasure.” He watched the officer disappear into the night. As soon as he was out of view, Whippoorwill went to the tiny back yard between building and parking lot, and, occupying his horn by levitating the watering can over his begonias, listened for the sound of tires or wheels on the sibilant street outside. When he heard it, he went inside and changed out of his robe.

Whippoorwill spent fifteen minutes choosing between two dark business suits, eventually selecting a mahogany button-up underneath a plain, black vest, its padded shoulders making him bulkier and also hiding his smallest pulse crystal, little more than a shard of amethyst that clung to the bottom of his outstretched hoof like a warped ice skate, its pristine glow in the dim bedroom mirror like a shadow of its deceptively lethal discharge. On his backside, he wore a loose pair of slacks, no belt, underneath a burgundy, pastern-length cloak, trimmed with magenta velvet. Inspecting himself, the cloak did not fit to his satisfaction—they never did, not with his body shape—but it hid the second pulse crystal, the larger white one he had wanted to use earlier. A pair of reading glasses, which he rarely wore out, and a brown derby hat completed his look, and he took a moment to admire himself. A good look led to good thoughts, and good thoughts to good actions.

Slight embarrassment teased the back of his mind that the officer should have seen him in such drab sleepwear.

He riffled through a stack of papers to find White Wine’s address, written in his own cramped hornwriting and told him by one of his associates, long before they had turned up dead. White Wine had no reason to know that he had checked up on her, and he had had no reason to do it—at the time. The reverse was also true.

“Good thoughts,” he whispered to himself, dropping his apartment keys, a loose coil of rope, a roll of tape, and a small pouch of bits into the single saddlebag, pre-stuffed with packing material to drown the sound of anything rattling inside. He slipped it onto his back and called a cab, which picked him up from a spot two blocks north and dropped him off at the library three blocks east of White Wine’s trailer.

Dust kicked up at his hooves as he plodded across an empty quadrangle between roads. An anemic line of lights winked across the road toward which he moved, Canterlot’s dregs caught in a space seemingly of unique origin, nowhere near the city limits where empty space overtook all; a pocket of undeveloped land and perpetually failing businesses that hemmed in nothing save the unpainted roads, the unswept parking lots, the dry and littered field of dirt, as if the neighborhood and its ponies stood only to defy the inward pressure of city life, protecting the barrenness that was its sole identity and aspiring for nothing more.

No one watched as he crossed the road that curved to enclose his field, or as he paced the sagging outer rim of barbed wire that protected the trailer park. He soon found the entrance at the end of a dirt road apposed to a garbage-choked arroyo, and let himself in, gently unwinding the links in the fence until there was space enough to squeeze through without damaging his clothes. He pushed the gate open from the other side and spent several minutes staring into the darkness that surrounded, the faceless streets seeming to stare back at him. He waited for headlights to appear in the distance, and they did not.

It was half past midnight when he stopped outside White Wine’s trailer, an undecorated beast leaning in its own dust, windows dark and tires flat. He took a moment to double check his bag, getting the rope on top, and then tapped politely on the door. Someone had scribbled the rough shape of a tree on its face.

When the lights turned on, he wished he had thought to bring a pair of sunglasses. He called out her name softly and tapped again, trying to brush dust off his sleeves without getting more on them.

The door opened a crack, and her eye swiveled onto his. He could see her neon mane and her pastel orange coat, but the elaborate getup she wore in public was gone in place of a loose pair of pajamas. They had slices of birthday cake on them.

“How do you—”

“Looked you up in the phone book.” He looked behind him, trying to appear nervous. He wanted her confidence up, thinking he needed her. “We need to talk.”

“No we don’t.”

She shut the door, and for a moment, he stood there, contemplating his move. He knew what he had to do, had known it as soon as the policepony had quit his doorstep, but hesitance seized him. She was still his friend, after all. So he tried not to tell himself.

“Wine, I just want to talk,” he said, louder. “I swear, that’s it.”

“You need to go, Whippoorwill.”

“You did send him? To scare me off?”

She did not reply, and it was all he needed to light up his horn and send the door flying back against its hinges with a painful squeal of metal and wood, bringing one hoof back at the same time to grab the larger of his two crystals. The straps accepted his hoof, warm and pliable from his body heat, but firm from the meticulous care he gave them almost every day.

His shield was already up and it blocked her own pair of shots, and, with a reversal of intention that he had practiced to the point of unconscious ease, he slammed it out from himself, catching White Wine against her inflatable couch, the two of them pinned to the wall with the rest of the loose furnishings. A few glasses broke behind him, a few pieces of crockery clattered. He held the pulse crystal to her chest, and he saw in her eyes the same look he had seen so many times before. She knew that she was beaten, and beaten quickly.

He pushed the door closed as far as it would go and gently removed her pulse crystal, then relaxed his magic, letting her slump to the ground. He lifted the couch and stood it up against the wall.

“You sent him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said evenly. The look of defeat had passed, in its place open anger and faint disdain for his hold on her. Her wings were fanned out, her mane draped over her face wetly, her tail lashing back and forth.

“You do, or Ah’ll start sketchin’ my name in yer fur.”

She studied him for a second, and in her eyes, he saw a third emotion, one he recognized in himself: reluctance. She, too, he thought, was recalling their younger days. She had clearly not expected him to come; perhaps she was telling the truth.

“Who did?” He gestured with the pulse crystal, and she flinched. The motion he used was similar to the contraction of muscles which would burn a hole in her outstretched wing.

“It was—someone I know.”

“Wine, Ah can in fact shoot you with this.”

“He’s got nothing to do with you!” she cried. “Nothing at all, he just wants space to operate. He and I—we’re business partners. That’s all. If you just leave—”

“Ah can’t do that, honey.”

She steadied her voice. “If you just leave, you’ll be fine. No one wants to chase you, no one knows you’re here except me and him.”

“And his cop friend.”

“Who has no interest in hurting you either. Whippoorwill, please, listen to me.”

“And then what?” he asked. “Where am Ah to go once Ah ‘just leave’? Ah don’t believe you gave me a name for this sucker, either.”

“That’s not—”

He twitched again, and she recoiled against the wall. “Ah’m afraid it actually is at this juncture, Wine.” He slid his bag off his back and pulled out the rope.

Securely tied and frightened with a few burn holes in the floor around her back hooves, where she could not adequately see where he had fired, White Wine glowered up at him as he snipped a rectangle of tape. When the pulse crystal rested against the side of her jaw, a state of relaxation came over her, and she gave him Strawberry’s phone number.

“So here’s how it’s gonna play out,” he said. “You tell him you need to see him at yer place. Give him the address if he needs it, the correct one. Ah do have it memorized, so no sendin’ him to one of yer neighbors or any funny business like that, okay? An’ you tell him, you tell him you’ve got some sort of emergency, like a rowdy PA makin’ yer operation look foolish, threatenin’ to blow the whole thing. You need to discuss yer options, tonight, an’ together. Not over the phone, are we clear? Nod if we’re clear.”

She nodded.

“An’ if you do anythin’ else, if you try to tell him what’s goin’ on, or slip him some sort of code, or whatever, yer pretty face is gonna get rearranged with this here implement of mine. Is that clear?”

She nodded. He grabbed the phone and dialed for her, then held it to her face, the pulse crystal leveled at her. He watched her as she spoke, flattening his expression, hiding the turmoil he felt. It pained him distantly to coerce her so, they once being so close, but under the weight of experience that had turned him into what he was, the pain amounted to little more than regret: a situation that could have been handled more gracefully. An unpleasant piece of business that could have been averted, but could not be ignored once begun.

In her features, he still saw defiance. She would go along with what he wanted up until he had his back to her, and then all his threats would mean nothing. He knew it, for he had been in her position as well. To survive in the past, he had done what she would have to: turn on him as soon as she was able. In that respect, he knew he had lost, regardless of the night’s outcome, and he respected her for it.

“You don’t understand,” she said levelly. “I can’t just off her. We don’t do that to each other, not for things like this. That’s why I need you to come out here. Yes, I know it’s late, I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important.” She sighed, never taking her eyes off Whippoorwill. He could hear a masculine voice on the other end.

Whippoorwill hung up for her when he finally heard the receiver click.

“He expects me to be out there to greet him. He suspects a trap.”

“Sure as sugar,” Whippoorwill said, affixing the tape to her muzzle and lifting the shade off a window. From her trailer, he could see the road that would lead Strawberry to them.

When the white car pulled up, it paused at the gate Whippoorwill had left open, then slowly crept into the trailer park. He went out to receive, pulse crystal tucked back into his clothes.

“Evenin’, mister. You here for White Wine?”

“Who are you?” The voice was ragged, tired, touched with fear. A pulse crystal flashed into sight on Strawberry’s hoof, and Whippoorwill stopped.

“Whoa, pard, hol’ up a sec! Ah’m a friend of hers, she told me to bring you on back.”

He paused. “I need to see her. She said she would meet me here herself.”

“Er, yeah, Ah mighta had somethin’ to do with that.” He rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled. “We were gettin’ friendly when you showed up. She’s tryin’ to wash up.”

Strawberry raised the pulse crystal, and Whippoorwill threw up his shield. For a second, the two just looked at each other.

“Bring her out. Show her to me.”

Whippoorwill licked his lips, readying himself to call out for White Wine, but his intake of breath was arrested as a pulse crystal shot momentarily blinded him as it hit his shield. He had paused half a second too long, and the pegasus had noticed.

“Buddy!” he shouted, pulling out the smaller pulse crystal and training it on Strawberry as he sidestepped, his loose slacks and cloak giving him the mobility he needed to move all three hooves quickly and without error. “Ah got a shield an’ you most certainly do not!” He stopped ninety degrees from where Strawberry had shot him, and the crystal before him lowered a hair. “Game’s up, huh? Let’s go in an’ talk about it all, then.”

“Where is she?” Strawberry asked.

“Hale an’ hearty, just inside.” He walked a slow, wide circle around the pegasus, not once taking his crystal off his target. “You first, Strawberry.” Strawberry looked back at him, but he simply gestured with the crystal, and they walked to the trailer, captive leading his captor.

“Stop at the door,” Whippoorwill said, closing the distance, his shield never flickering. “Turn around. Let’s see that face.”

Strawberry turned. “Watch me. Watch the crystal. Good, that’s the way. Ease on outta there.” He took Strawberry’s place at the door and nudged it open. Inside, he gestured again. “Back to me. Good. Now walk backwards, Ah’ll tell ya when yer at a step.”

Inside the trailer, Whippoorwill drew the shade over the window and removed White Wine’s tape. “An’ here we are at last,” he said. “Happy family.”

“I’m sorry,” Wine said to Strawberry, who glowered at Whippoorwill with a less intense look than his partner’s. Whippoorwill took his time binding the newcomer’s hooves and wings, appraising his appearance as he did so.

“Is that tailored?” he asked. “It’s a good look fer someone of yer complexion.”

“What do you want?” Strawberry asked.

Whippoorwill doffed his hat. “Ground rules, buddy. Ah speak, you answer my questions. That suit you?” He put his crystal to Wine for just a second before pointing back at Strawberry. “Ah’ve been doin’ this sorta thing long before Ah darkened this particular doorstep, so don’t take me fer spineless, now. Nod if you understand.”

Strawberry nodded.

“Now nod if you understand that all three of us can walk outta here tonight.”

Strawberry nodded, more slowly.

“Well, ain’t we off to a fine start?” He looked at the two of them, tied and leaning together, their manes overlapping, her bright and strange mess covering his more sensible, shorter magenta. “Mr. Berry, Ah’d like ya to tell me, in detail, what exactly you’ve got cookin’ with my partner here.”

White Wine struggled uselessly against her bindings.

“Keepin’ at the forefront of yer mind that any knowledge you got concernin’ the intricacies of this here operation does not give you any power over me,” Whippoorwill continued.

Strawberry took a deep breath, and for a second, Whippoorwill thought he would not talk.

“Mr. Whippoorwill. I’ve—” He hesitated.

“Just Whippoorwill is fine,” Whippoorwill said. “It’s a species of bird. Fitting, yes?”

Strawberry cleared his throat. “This has been a long time in the making. I have friends—yes, I suppose you would call them friends—friends here, in Canterlot, Lower Canterlot mostly. Police officers. I… that is, two months ago, I contacted Wine here—White Wine—and we agreed on this operation. Fairly simple.”

“And the nature of this operation? My ears are simply burning.”

Even at the point of the crystal, Strawberry’s face twitched with the beginnings of a self-satisfied smile. “Her PAs occupy certain neighborhoods, my police collect protection money, we split the difference.”

“Well Ah sure do hope these police of yers are pegasi too, Mr. Berry. You may not know it, but Wine here is what you would call an active Pegasus Advocate.”

“There’s all sorts,” White Wine said. “I said so. None of my ponies would expect us to be working together with the twinklers and the stompers.”

“Strong language, missy,” Whippoorwill said, tapping his horn with the crystal. “So that’s what’s got yer eyes wanderin’? This stud? Seems a funny arrangement to me, keepin’ yer PAs unaware of this little friendship. Why’s that?”

“You assured me this wouldn’t happen,” Strawberry said, glowering at her.

“Now, Ah sure do hope you haven’t forgotten the cardinal rule of this little gatherin’, Mr. Berry,” Whippoorwill said, pointing his crystal back at the dark pegasus. “No speakin’ when yer good buddy Whippoorwill is not addressin’ you. Why—”

“Or what?” He bounced in his bindings. “You can’t hurt me! You need her, and she needs—” He swallowed. “Um.”

“Continue.”

Strawberry looked up at him, and then his head jerked back in a cloud of smoke and bright sparkles, a firecracker shot whose sound did not escape the trailer and whose colorful cinders whizzed joyfully through the air like a dandelion’s head kicked away. White Wine yelped and tipped onto her side, her long mane catching underneath her body like a second blood stain running out.

“That ain’t the outcome Ah wanted,” Whippoorwill said. Looking at White Wine, he said, “You ain’t used to this sorta scene? Missy, you surprise me.”

Her sides pulsed as she caught her breath on the floor. “I’m not usually so close to it.”

“Shame. Well, Ah s’pose our little conversation just got simpler.”

She looked at him, hatred showing in her eyes. He had seen it in the eyes of the workers he had terrorized in Trottingham under Gold Ribbon, and he saw it in her. Cornered, animalistic hatred, the sort that would not be forgotten. Pretending not to see it, or not to comprehend its meaning, he went on, his plan B, thought up on the cab ride over.

“So let’s do this instead. Since my first little idea ain’t amountin’ to much, how’s about we just take over his?”

She didn’t respond.

“Yer nervous, yer afraid Ah’m gonna put one in you next, Ah understand that. Think of this, old friend. Mr. Berry-Brains was right, I do need you, so put that worried look away.” He smiled gravely. “It don’t look good on you.”

“What do you want me to do?” she asked quietly.

“You know his operation, Ah take it? Ah think we should be partners. You see to all the operations, let me worry ‘bout population control an’ enforcement. Fifty-fifty, a good team.”

She released the breath she was holding. “Do I have any choice at all?”

He pointed at Strawberry’s body, its head caved in, face blackened and mane expanded on the peeled umbrella of skull. His outfit was ruined.

“That there was yer other choice,” Whippoorwill said.

White Wine looked back at him, struggled feebly, and sighed. “Then I propose we go with your plan.”

Broad Daylight was a large pegasus with a tawny coat, longer than most of her type, and a heavy step, with a wingspan a full two inches wider than average. What she lacked in speed, she made up for in power and the willingness to use it.

She started awake and hastily brushed her green and white mane out of her eyes, its long ropes tickling her and making her sneeze as she reached for the receiver with her mouth. She grunted a greeting, but immediately roused to attention when she recognized the voice.

“I’m sorry to wake you at this hour,” White Wine said, her voice composed, despite being mere minutes free from Whippoorwill’s pulse crystal. “We don’t have time. I need you to get Long Luxury. I have a job for you.”

Broad Daylight knew better than to ask why her leader had chosen the obscure hour to call, but could not erase all the hesitance from her voice, even in a curt “sure thing, boss.”

“I want this twinkler taken care of tonight. Go to his apartment and wait for him.” She gave Broad Daylight the address and the unicorn’s information. “He’s paranoid and skilled with magic, and he’s got at least two crystals on him.”

“Maybe I should get a third too, then,” Broad Daylight said.

“Only if you can do it fast.”

“How fast?”

“He’s on his way home right now.” Broad Daylight frowned, her unremarkable mind wondering why White Wine would know such a thing. Dismissing the concern and rubbing sleep out of her eyes, she simply said, “you got it, ma’am. He alone?”

“He should be. Do watch for neighbors, Broad.”

“Course, ma’am.”

White Wine paused. “Broad?”

“Uh?”

“Take him somewhere secluded. I want his last hours to be very unpleasant.”

“You got it, boss.”

The two Pegasus Advocates, in Long Luxury’s car, barely fit inside their seats. Where Broad Daylight was simply a boulder of a mare, huge and fleshy, her cascading mane like a miniature garden of wilted flowers spilled across her large head, tightly intertwined with the red ribbon she had earned years ago, Long Luxury was a broad-shouldered, thin-winged pegasus whose stretched body appeared the stem to her rigid, tri-colored mane, a wide lily pad over her head that brushed the windows and scratched faintly when it did. Her ribbon was draped in small loops off the back of her hat-like mane, almost disappearing amid the yellow, blue, and red that she had chosen for herself.

Both pegasi wore dark goggles and silver studded chokers, combat boots on all four hooves, and latex half-suits that ended just above the knees and midway up the chest, trimmed with scarlet and flourished with chrome spicules. By Pegasus Advocate standards, the two were only barely under-dressed.

In the back seat was everything they needed for their task: pliers, rope, tape, a burlap sack, several lighters, an angle grinder, all compliments to the two pulse crystals riding up front.

They parked outside the specified apartment complex and turned off their lights, Long Luxury raising her goggles and studying the street.

“Boss say who this twinkler was?” she asked.

“Just someone who pissed her good and off, I guess,” Broad Daylight said.

Coated with a fine skin of dried sweat, Whippoorwill ignored the look of distaste his taxi driver gave him as he tried to calm his nerves and think straight in the back seat. With time to go over what he had done, it seemed fatally apparent to him how he should have known better, how forcing the issue with White Wine could never have led to anything better than the situation he’d given himself. He knew she would turn on him as soon as she could, he had seen it in her eyes. What he did not know was what he could do when she did.

They pulled onto a broadly curving street that took them around a small, artificial lake, its fence posts dividing the lights in the distance as they glided past. In one night, he had turned his only ally against him, and he was not yet sure for exactly what. Jealousy had not blown Strawberry’s face out, but neither had Whippoorwill’s clinical business sense.

Perhaps White Wine constituted a heretofore untested blind spot in his judgment, one thought suggested. Perhaps he cared more for her than he thought, and in his fear of losing everything, he had let impulse become action.

Perhaps it had simply been bad luck or a misreading of character.

“This it on the left?” the driver asked. It was dim inside the cab, for which Whippoorwill was grateful, for he was certain that some blood had made it onto his clothes.

“Yeah, here’s fine,” he said, the words dying in his mouth. On the curb, just outside, was parked a darkened car with two shapes inside. Nothing moved, no lights glinted from within or without, but Whippoorwill knew in that moment that he would not be returning home.

“Actually, keep goin,” he said, trying to sound casual.

“This isn’t it?” A pause. “Yeah it is, there, Regal Apartments.”

“Keep going,” Whippoorwill said again. “Don’t slow down. Just drive right past.”

The taxi driver eyed him. “If you wanna extend this into a road trip, you’d better have some money.”

Whippoorwill dug around in his bag for his coin sack, but found it wanting.

“What’s it gonna be, mister?”

“Take me… end of the block.”

“That’s it?”

He got out, paid, and was on his own. Only a block west was the parked car, and Whippoorwill wasted no time exiting the neighborhood, a nervous eye over his back at every corner and intersection, waiting for that dark car to smoothly pull out and come his way.

When he felt he could safely stop, he did, and put his head against the brickwork of a fast food restaurant. Already, she had turned; she must have called someone as soon as he was out of her trailer. She had probably been talking to them as he walked back through the gate.

He sighed, and the sigh became a moan of frustration, then the beginning of a growl, which he curtailed. Just that easily, his only idea had slipped away. He was again cast adrift in the city, without shelter, money, or friends. Even worse, he was tired; it had been a long day.

“All right, let’s think this out,” he whispered, walking again. “Gotta get somewhere safe first. Where’s that?” He went over the few places he knew in Lower Canterlot where he could conceivably hide, at least for a night. His best idea was a local shelter for abused ponies, but it was only four blocks away from his apartment, and in the opposite direction. Circling around would take a long, dangerous time, and there was no guarantee that he would not be found there the following day anyway. The two PAs at his house might not be the only ones Wine had put on him.

He looked back again, starting as he saw a car pull out, but it turned and drove the other way.

“Gotta get outta town, Whippoorwill. That’s all there is to it.” He looked to the glowing horn of Canterlot Mountain. “Sure ain’t hoofin’ it myself,” he said.

With another furtive look about, he made for the intersection and stopped under a street light, where he waited only ten minutes for a lone car to pull up. He approached, drew his weapon, cordially asked the driver to exit the vehicle, and drove off without fuss.

By four in the morning, he was cruising the streets of Greater Canterlot, bleary eyed and miserable. He had run out of water long ago, and the dual discomforts of thirst and an aching bladder shortened his attention span and his temper. He shared the road with no one, but felt crowded in, bordered by buildings and the encroaching dawn, threatening to break apart his final cover, the dark of night. Everything irritated: a red light—he durst not break any traffic laws, not with his crystals in the back and the blood on his clothes—a pothole, a glare on the windshield; at each, his anger grew, bit by bit, until, when he finally stopped, he was a compact ball of tensed rage.

He got out, checked his parking, and wandered into the church. He drank from a pool of sacred water and curled up under a pew in the back, and slept.

The Elements and their friends, meanwhile, slept fitfully in a small, stone room, decorated with busts of griffons and crowded with piles of hay, all pushed together to form an uncomfortable continuum of bodies and straw, as if each of them were toys dropped and torn open to spill their stuffing where they lay.

For several hours, they all slept, and then Octavia got up, her stirrings waking Colgate as well. Together, but separate, they made their way up the sets of stairs to the top of the huge pillar where they had been found. Octavia sat on the dry stone and looked into the vaguely lit distance, and Colgate watched her for a time before joining.

“It is a good view,” Octavia said. “I have not seen this. I did not think that it would be much different from earlier, but it is.”

“I see it,” Colgate said, not seeing it at all.

“You have joined us at a very curious time.”

“That’s what they tell me. So is this a regular thing for you?”

“Introspection.”

“Insomnia. Or is it the stress?”

“I have been this way since I can remember.”

Colgate nodded. “Do you understand the health risks involved in that?”

“Fluttershy has reiterated them to me plenty of times.”

“Okay.”

Octavia was quiet, expecting Colgate to give her all the usual warnings and advice anyway, but when she did not, Octavia looked at her. “Tell me about yourself. I know very little; I feel like we have not talked yet. Not really.”

“What do you want to know?”

“How did you become a doctor?”

“Surgeon.”

“I apologize. How did you become a surgeon?”

Colgate took her time to answer. “I dunno, same way anypony gets to be… whatever. Same way you got to be a musician, same way Pinkie got to be a baker, same way Big Mac got to be a farmer.”

“You believe it was fated?”

“No, do you?”

“I do not know if I believe in fate.”

Colgate looked at her. “I did it because it seemed like the thing to do. I did what I was good at, and that was that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Octavia shook her head. “I understand, to a point. I became a musician because music came naturally to me. That makes perfect sense.”

“Mm-hm.”

“But I see your cutie mark. It is a plain hourglass, an ordinary mark that is shared by many, and which means different things for everyone. How can that lead you into such a difficult specialty?”

Colgate shrugged.

“I am told you were good.”

“I got by in a small town.” She paused and inhaled. “I was never important.”

Octavia was quiet.

“Not then,” Colgate amended. “I know I’m here for a reason, though.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Big Mac believes so.”

“He’s the one in the know.”

“I suppose he is.”

“You sound like you don’t believe me.”

Octavia sighed.

“I’m meant to be here, Octavia.”

“I… do not know if I agree with that, Colgate.”

“Uh-huh. Why’s that?”

Neither of them looked at each other. They stared into the blackness ahead, the incredible space under the mountains.

“From what I see, there is no reason for you to be with us,” Octavia said softly.

“Yeah?”

“I mean no disrespect, please believe that. I think you are a good pony, and I like you as one. But you are quiet, and you have not done anything—that I have seen or heard about, anyway—that would suggest you have any interest in being a part of our adventure. I do not think that you want to be here, and I think the others think that as well.”

“You don’t want to be here.”

“That is not true.”

“Vinyl doesn’t, and neither does Big Mac. I’ve heard them say things to that effect a couple times.”

Octavia thought. “That does not surprise me.”

“And what about you?”

“As for me, I have little choice in the matter. I am here, and I cannot be elsewhere. That is enough for me.”

“Maybe you believe in fate after all,” Colgate said.

Octavia chuckled. “Perhaps.”

“You can go any time you want to.”

“I know that,” she said softly.

Colgate turned to watch her, curious at the change of tone.

“I would be lying if I said that I do not think about it sometimes. Rarely.”

“Leaving.”

“Leaving.”

Colgate reclined on the rock. “This is the place for it.”

“Do you think about going?”

“I said I can’t.” In the darkness, her voice was flat and hard.

“I apologize, I meant no offense. It is not my place to suggest whether you wish to be with us or not. If you do, that is your business.”

“It’s all our business.”

“Do you think that you are meant to be one of the new Elements?”

“Sure,” Colgate said, her momentary anger gone.

“That… seems hasty to me.”

Colgate was quiet.

“To my knowledge, you are not very close with any of us. Closeness is required for an Element to work with its mates.”

“Then I’ll get close with someone, I guess.”

“That is not how it works.”

Colgate was silent, and it took Octavia a minute to realize that she was gone. She had gotten up and walked away.

Twilight had long ago read about, and forgotten, the mines’ construction. Built in the early ages of the princesses’ Equestria, the mines were originally in griffon territory, a vast operation of resource gathering and industry, eventually taken by the ponies in a protracted dispute that left an entire griffon city without support from the homeland. To save themselves, they agreed to a life of indentured servitude in the mines, helping their conquerors transform the area into an underground fortress, which proved too expensive and inefficient to maintain, and which reverted back to its former state a decade later. After generations of peaceful rule and uneasy respect between the two nations, the inter-species conflict underground had cooled off, and ponies and griffons grew to live together in a community of magical agronomy.

There were no hotels, no systems of mass transit, no restaurants or bars or shops. Ponies and griffons most often traded with one another in food, labor, and space; money, as the rest of the country thought about it, was uncommon. For the Elements of Harmony, the pleasure and status of their company was enough inducement for their hosts to make space for them in a room near the top of the pillar.

No sunshine greeted them when they rose into the dry, stale air. Glowing crystals flickered on and off across their constrained horizon, threads of moving light so thin and precise that they all could only stand, lost in the view, while Anomie ushered them out. Voices filled the vault like TV static in a faraway room while hundreds of wings beat nearby and far off, griffons going about their business, carrying messages or goods between the buried domiciles. Out over their pillar’s edge, swarms of griffons mingled into an imperfect whole.

“There are many of us who deal in the workings of magical crystals,” Anomie said, shielding her eyes as a larger lantern came on nearby. “The best of us is in the lesser pillar, across the gap.”

“Figures,” Rainbow said.

“Surely there’s a way for those who can’t fly to get across,” Rarity said.

“There is, there is,” Anomie said. “I’m trying to remember the way. I haven’t used it, you see.”

They walked for half an hour down winding paths that seemed to take them all around their section of mine. Across narrow beams of stone, down smaller bore holes and out into gutters of smooth rock, and around a small but dense forest of stalagmites, they walked quietly behind the griffon. Eventually, she led them to a wide pavilion, draped with bold swathes of fabric that glistened in the crystals’ brilliant light from high above. Fingers of stone rose to head height in a ring around the swept stone, and one unicorn broke from a group to greet them.

“These are teleportation pavilions,” Anomie said. “Every pillar has them, and you can reach any of the others from, er, any of the others. Hello Jewel Box.”

The unicorn embraced Anomie briefly. “Rain wasn’t lying. Here they are.” She shook her head and then their hooves. “Such a pleasure, ladies.”

“Likewise,” Twilight said. “Um, I’m sorry. Is this safe?”

“We’re all certified teleporters, ma’am,” the unicorn, Jewel Box, said, showing an ID. “We take memorization tests every month, you gotta draw the entire target point, every detail.” She smiled proudly. “Where to?”

They looked at Anomie.

“Lesser pillar, metal district,” Anomie said.

“You got it.” She gestured at one of the other unicorns. “Weeping Rocks, you’ve got some ponies.”

They queued up at a stone pillar on the floor’s far side, on its face a lined chalk drawing, a crude depiction of a hammer striking an anvil.

“How we doin’ today, ladies?” the unicorn asked.

“Great, and about to get better!” Pinkie cried. “We’re gonna—oop!” She giggled. “Secret.”

“No problem, no problem.”

“So we just stand still, and you do the rest?” Rarity asked.

“That’s about it. We all teleported before?”

“Oh yeah,” Rainbow said. One by one, they were shot across the mines’ awesome span, landing at a similarly decorated grouping of pillars and crowding in the center, earning confused looks from a couple strangers who had to wait for them to come through. When they were all on the same side, Anomie with them, they waited for her to collect herself.

“Sorry, I haven’t done this in a while,” the griffon said, leaning against a free-standing stone. “Usually fly.”

“Take all the time you need,” Twilight said.

When they were afoot again, Anomie walked with them down an alley incandescent with ponies and griffons bartering and socializing, a vein of spirited life pinched between mounds of smooth, fenestrated stone. From windows hung drying clothes, patches of ivy under personal light crystals. From open doors came the sounds of conversation or work, hammers striking and tools grinding, squeaking, sizzling. Above, a reflection of griffons threw their ghastly shadows onto the muddled cave ceiling, like alien shapes moving ceaselessly at the surface of some great, dark ocean. In the air, the smell of smoke and bodies and food sagged with the wet scent of mildew and wet stone, the galvanic twinge of electricity.

Through a deep slant they entered the pillar, passing a roundabout where ceiling and floor came close, the ceiling growing downwards with a delicate city of soda straws. The cobbled street wound ever downwards, loud with hoof and talon traffic, the occasional cart. They all felt as though they were creeping up to the entrance of something far greater, a city wider and deeper than the one from which they came; in that regard, they were disappointed as the broad streets gradually diminished into more personal tunnels and the sounds of work and play became muted through cave walls.

Ever downwards through the pillar, once or twice stopping for Anomie to greet a friend, they made their way toward the pony who they were told could give them what they needed.

“So now that it’s a little quieter,” Twilight said, “there’s something we need to figure out.”

“I bet I can gueeees!” Pinkie sang.

“You’d probably be right. When we talk to this pony, she’s going to want to know what Elements of Harmony we all are.” She looked back at Octavia, then Big Mac, then Vinyl. “What do you think? Who are you all?”

Pinkie laughed. “I knew it!”

“I vote Big Mac as the Element of Levelheadedness,” Rainbow said.

“Eugh, that’s a mouthful,” Rarity said.

Anomie made no comment from where she walked at the front.

“How ‘bout Simplicity?” Applejack asked. “Can that work?”

“Actually, how does this work?” Fluttershy asked. “I know an Element’s name has some effect on its function, but I don’t know the details.”

“It’s pretty simple,” Twilight said. “And before anypony asks, I’ve been reading up on this the last couple days, so I do know what I’m talking about.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Rainbow said.

“I didn’t say you were going to.”

“You said—”

“All right, that’s good, ladies,” Applejack said, voice raised.

“Whatever.”

“To continue,” Twilight said. “An Element of Harmony, apparently, is a little like a pulse crystal. Which, actually, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get some of those too while we’re at it. Anyway, when it’s first being created, it imposes a little of itself onto the pony who’s there for the creation. This ensures that it does, in fact, go to the pony who’s making it, which makes sense, because back when Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were first making theirs, they couldn’t have the Elements be made only to have them work for some random pony they’d never heard of, who just happened to better exemplify that Element’s trait.”

“So all that about an Element only working for the absolute closest embodiment of its quality, that’s not right?” Vinyl asked.

“It’s mostly right. The Elements get pretty close, but no, it’s not perfect.”

“So we just gotta be standin’ there when this pony makes ‘em?” Big Mac asked.

“When the crystal is enchanted the first time,” Twilight said. “It needs to be whoever it’s for, and only that pony, holding it. That’s holding it in their hooves, not with any magic. Flesh to crystal contact is important.”

“Should be easy enough,” Applejack said. “So, names?”

“I like the Element of Simplicity for Big Mac,” Rarity said. “So the name doesn’t matter so much, just as long as the pony is right there, right?”

“It can be the Element of Apples if we want it to,” Twilight said. “A name’s a name. The only problem would be once it passes on to the next bearer. We want something general enough that the Element has a good pool to select future bearers, and something positive, so future bearers will be generally good ponies. If we have the six of us and, say, the Element of Sorrow, it’s going to be tough for the next batch to get along because one of them would necessarily be a real sad, negative pony.”

“That’s it?” Rarity asked.

“That’s about it,” Twilight said.

“The princesses were pretty secure in the fact that their Elements were gonna become this important, huh?” Pinkie asked.

“Princess Celestia admits to a lot of youthful conceit in those days,” Twilight said. “I forget how it went exactly, she gives a pretty long quote in The Elements and their Creators. ‘We were faced with the decision of more than just our lifetime,’ something something, ‘if we were to create them again, we would use a gentler touch, something that did not resonate throughout all history.’ I mean, that quote is kind of arrogant too, but you get the picture.”

“We got it,” Vinyl said.

“So probably not Simplicity,” Colgate said. “Because you don’t want anyone in the future to be simple.”

“I’d say so,” Twilight said. She did not let her voice show it, but she had forgotten Colgate was with them. “Same reason why none of us should be the Element of Innocence, or the Element of Youth.”

“How about Patience?” Vinyl asked. “I know… I know he’s been quite patient with me.”

Big Mac blushed, and no one saw it.

“Ah like that,” Applejack said. “Seems very appropriate.”

“Ah like it too,” Big Mac said. “Is it a little too close to Kindness, though?”

“I don’t think so,” Fluttershy said. “I haven’t always been patient, I know.”

“Oh, pish posh,” Rainbow said. “You’ve been—well, anyway, Fluttershy, you’re good. But I agree, I think Patience sounds good.”

“It definitely fits,” Twilight said. “Let’s come back to it. What about you, Octavia?”

“Determination,” Rarity said. “No question.”

“I like it,” Fluttershy said.

“I don’t,” Colgate said. “I don’t see determination in her.”

“You haven’t seen her in action,” Rainbow said.

“I’ve heard her talk, I know how she feels about certain things.”

“What do you think, Octavia?” Vinyl asked.

“Yeah, what’s your input?” Colgate’s voice was even, curious.

“I believe…” Octavia sighed. “I do not know. I agree with Colgate, I do not think Determination is correct. To be honest, I am still not completely certain that I should be an Element at all.”

“Octavia, if any of us deserve it, it’s you,” Pinkie said.

“Need we remind you of all you’ve done?” Rarity asked. “You’ve helped us the very most of all the newcomers. Some of that’s just timing, I know, but not all of it.”

“I have also failed you more times than anyone else,” Octavia said.

“You think the princesses haven’t?” Rainbow asked. “Twi, back me up on this.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, some of them large,” Twilight said. “It’s not about that, it’s about persistence. Octavia, you know that, you’ve talked about persistence plenty in the past.”

“Element of Persistence?” Big Mac suggested.

“Patience and Persistence?” Rarity asked. “Too similar. And I don’t like how sing-songy it is.”

“Same goes for Determination,” Colgate said.

“What do you think she should be, Cole?” Rainbow asked.

“Listen to her, she doesn’t even want to be one.”

“I did not say that,” Octavia said.

“You said you weren’t sure if you should be one.”

“That does not mean that I do not want it. I do, I want to be part of this. But I do not deserve it.”

“For Celestia’s sake,” Twilight thought.

“In the interest of honesty,” Applejack said, “Ah’m gettin’ real tired of this ‘woe is me, Ah’m so pathetic’ thing.”

Pinkie cleared her throat, but did not speak.

“I apologize. It is not something I can control,” Octavia said.

“That’s not completely true,” Colgate said. “There are ways to overcome a mindset like that.”

“I would appreciate it if you did not pretend to know me so well.”

“I don’t know you, but I’ve seen patients like you. Just like you.” She paused. “We’ll call her Whipped Cream. That’s just a name I invented for privacy. She was a patient of mine, older pony, she’d been in and out of doctor’s offices all over Canterlot for hip pain. They did all the usual things first, they gave her x-rays, MRIs—magical resonance imaging—they loaded her up on pain meds, but she still had pain. She moved to Ponyville for something, and so I got her. So I did all the usual things too, and none of it worked, again. This took about a year, year and a half, and this mare’s stuck.”

“Where’s this goin’?” Applejack asked.

“That’s every day for a year or whatever, she’s in pain. The meds help, but the pain’s always getting worse too. Turns out, I have to do a hip replacement, right side. Her joint was a little wider than normal, so the bone didn’t always sit right, and as the cartilage wore down, as it does when you get older, she had a hard time keeping her leg in its place. I remember her coming in for the first time with a mean limp, no cane—she was too proud to be seen with one, that’s what the nurse said.”

“What’s this got to do—” Rainbow asked.

“Let the pony speak,” Vinyl said wearily.

“But all this time, the pain’s eating at her,” Colgate said. “So we get her into surgery, procedure goes fine, I put a new joint in for her, everypony’s happy. Physical therapy for a couple months. About a month after she’s discharged, she’s right back in there, complaining of pain again. So we look at her, do an x-ray, MRI, and so on. Turns out, mare hasn’t been doing her exercises at home like she’s supposed to. All the strain she’d been putting on her bum hip, she’s putting it on the new one too, so it’s not healing like it should. I talk to her about it, tell her why it’s important to follow her physical therapist’s advice, and we agree to get her back with the therapist. A month or two later, same exact thing. So what am I supposed to do?”

“What did you do?” Twilight asked.

“Not much,” Colgate said. “She’d lost her motivation, that’s what it came down to. She had all the tools to succeed, but I guess that year or however long of constant pain just wore her down, and when she finally was getting the treatment she needed, she didn’t have the guts to help herself. She went back to the same old habits as soon as no one was paying attention to her, and she never got better. This happens all the time in the big city, where care isn’t as personal. Patients start thinking they can’t do anything to help themselves, and they stop trying.”

“So you are saying that I am like these patients of yours,” Octavia said. “That I have lost my will to try, and for that, I am degrading. Is that what you are saying?”

“Looks that way.”

No one said anything, and after a second, Anomie started walking again. They had paused beside another large griffon sculpture, looming over them on an ivy-wrapped column in the middle of the path.

“The point, I think,” Rarity said, “is even if you get one, you need to think you deserve it, or else you won’t be able to connect with anyone.”

“Fine. Then yes, I agree, I deserve it,” Octavia said.

“This is such bull,” Rainbow said. “We’re right here, Octavia. Don’t start pulling out the self-pity now.”

“Or the creepy, determined martyrdom thing,” Rarity said. “Either you want it or you don’t.”

“If you don’t, you’d better tell us in the next twenty minutes or so,” Twilight said. “Another thing about the Elements, and I’ll say it even though you all know it: once we’ve made one, we can’t come back from it. Once it’s made, that’s it. There’s no backing out without breaking the whole connection, and we can’t un-make an Element. I can’t, anyway.”

“The purpose of these Elements is to resonate with the friendship I feel with each of you, yes?” Octavia asked.

“Yes.”

Octavia took a deep breath. “Then I will accept one. Colgate is correct, I do not feel good about it, but I do feel closer to each of you than I have with anyone else. It is the friendship that counts, not the pony’s personal feelings about the matter. Let me worry about how I feel.”

“We can’t just let you—”

“You can pick apart my brain after the final battle, if you wish. I will allow that. But for now, please, let us just continue.” She thought for a minute. “This I can promise, that I care very much for you all. The kinship I feel, it is not false. I know that I do not express it as often or as well as some of you would like, and for that, I am sorry.”

“We know,” Pinkie said softly. “We care too, sis. That’s why we poke you about it so much.”

“I realize that—now. I do appreciate it, to a point.”

They walked in silence across a short bridge over a dark chasm, the tips of stalagmites peering up at them like ancient, blind faces.

“Forgive me if this is impertinent,” Anomie said, “but would perhaps Courage be suitable for Octavia?”

“Courage,” Twilight said.

“Yes!” Pinkie said. “Aw, that’s perfect! Perfect!”

“I think I agree,” Rarity said. “And it’s nice and general, like Twilight said. A very positive trait.”

“And one Octavia exemplifies well,” Fluttershy said.

“I like how it sounds,” Vinyl said. “Octavia? It’s your Element. What do you think?”

“Courage is fine,” Octavia said.

“Deep in thought?”

“Yes.” She paused. “Yes, I like the Element of Courage. That seems most appropriate. I am ready.”

“I like it a lot,” Twilight said. “Now, Vinyl.”

“I’m not… uh, you’re sure I get one?” Vinyl asked. “I mean, I’m willing to do it. But…”

“Fer a late-comer, Ah think she’s done great,” Applejack said. “Ah know Ah’m biased, but still, that’s my thoughts on the matter. Ah say she gets one.”

“I agree,” Rainbow said. “Element of Music? Tons of ponies do music, so it’s not that specific.”

“I haven’t done music in a while,” Vinyl said.

“It’s better if it’s a character trait,” Twilight said. “It doesn’t strictly have to be, but it makes it a lot easier.”

“Charity?” Fluttershy asked. “Oh, well, that’s pretty much Generosity by a different name.”

“Okay, hear me out on this,” Rarity said. “What about Almsgiving? That has more of a, ah, spiritual connotation to it. Meaning she is more filled with the drive to help others, where I’m simply willing to share.”

“That’s splittin’ hairs,” Big Mac said. “Ah think we can do better’n that.”

“Readiness?” Vinyl offered. “I’m up for anything, I guess.”

“You guess,” Rainbow said.

“Steadiness?” Applejack asked. “She’s seen us through some of the worst. Aw, heck, that’s basically Patience, ain’t it?”

“What about something like Creativity?” Vinyl asked. “Going off Rainbow’s music suggestion.”

“That’s not bad,” Twilight said. “It might be getting a little too general, though. Most ponies are creative.”

“Actually,” Vinyl continued, “Thinking again, I’m no more creative than any other artistic type. I’m not… you know, the one you’re all going to for solutions for your weird problems.”

“What do ponies go to you for?” Colgate asked.

“Fair question.”

“Moral support,” Fluttershy said. “At least, I do.”

“A good listener,” Rarity said.

“Maybe Listening?” Rainbow asked.

“The Element of Listening? That could be anything.”

“Element of Council,” Colgate said. “That sounds strange.”

“I guess the Element of Availability wouldn’t work either,” Twilight said. “Well…”

“That’s kinda going back to Readiness,” Rainbow said.

“Yeah.”

“Does it say anything that we’re having a hard time deciding on mine?” Vinyl asked. “Like, are we sure we want to do this?”

“Are you?” Rarity asked.

“I mean, yes. I do, I do want to be an Element of Harmony. I’m just not sure if it can work out.”

“How ‘bout the Element of Self-Awareness?” Applejack asked.

“Element of Introspection,” Twilight echoed. “Nah, those don’t work either. They don’t sound right. But Vinyl, if you have any doubts at all about this, well…”

“Don’t,” Rainbow said.

“Hold on, Rainbow.”

“I’ve come this far,” Vinyl said.

“That’s the spirit,” Big Mac said.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine. I feel fine.”

“Now hold on,” Twilight said. “Don’t just agree because you think we want you to.”

“I’m not. I… am ready.”

“You’re sure? You’re positive? Remember, we can’t come back. If yours doesn’t work out, that’s just too bad, and for more than just you.”

For a time, they plodded along in silence. At last, Vinyl spoke. “I’ll be fine. I can handle it.”

“See? No problem,” Rainbow said. “I knew you were good for it, Vinyl.”

“Empathy,” Octavia said. “The Element of Empathy. She is good at listening, she understands others’ moods without much preamble. She feels for the suffering that we encounter.”

“Gosh,” Vinyl said.

“That’s true,” Rarity said. “I think Octavia nailed it.”

“I dunno.”

“I think it fits,” Twilight said slowly.

“Isn’t it a little too close to Kindness?” Pinkie asked.

“I think Empathy is more like feeling for others. Mine is just being nice,” Fluttershy said. “Um, not to diminish myself.”

“Ah got it,” Applejack said. “Empathy, then. Has a nice ring to it too.”

They ascended a minor rise in the ground, the Elements pausing to look into a shallow, wan pool. Tiny pearls of stone littered its floor.

“What about me?” Colgate asked.

“Ah—yes. Well,” Rarity said.

“Ah’m not sure,” Applejack said.

“I see no reason for it,” Octavia said.

“I think Big Mac saw a reason,” Colgate said.

“Don’t put words in his mouth,” Vinyl said. “He didn’t—”

“You don’t know what Ah know,” Big Mac said. “As it stands, Ah know a lot less than any of y’all seem to think.”

“Well, you only get the impulses, right?” Rarity asked.

“An’ the conclusions they eventuate,” Applejack said. She grinned at Rainbow, who glanced at her with raised eyebrows.

“Sure do. Okay, maybe Ah know just what ya think Ah know.”

“This is all semantics,” Twilight said. “Why do we bring Colgate on? She’s been with us, what? A little more than a week? No friendship develops that fast.”

“Not a true one, anyway,” Pinkie said.

“Exactly, not a true one. So it seems like a no-brainer to me.”

“If this isn’t the reason for my being here, what is?” Colgate asked.

“Ah happen to agree,” Big Mac said. “Ah know y’all don’t like it, an’ Ah’m not too fond of it myself, in all honesty, but this definitely seems like the thing to do.”

“Should we really be basing a decision like this on a feeling like that?” Vinyl asked. “‘The thing to do’ doesn’t mean anything.” She paused. “Makes a good song title, though.”

“‘The thing to do’ is just an unspecific way to express intuition,” Colgate said. “You said that Big Mac has powerful intuition. Sooo, the inference seems clear to me.”

“That’s just semantics again, though,” Twilight said.

“Twi, it’s all semantics,” Rainbow said. “That’s the whole point of this, looking at the issue from every side.”

“That’s not what that word means.”

“When did we stop trustin’ my glamour?” Big Mac asked.

“Around the same time it led us to imprisoning—” Twilight stopped herself. “Around the same time it led us to Moondrop. I distinctly recall outlining my objections to you and Vinyl in Ponyville, concerning the lack of regard for collateral damage.”

“I know it,” Vinyl said. “That’s why I actually agree with you.”

“It went too far,” Rarity said.

“Now, to be fair,” Fluttershy said, “just because it went too far once doesn’t necessarily mean it will again.”

“Doesn’t it?” Applejack asked.

“It doesn’t, but there’s a good chance,” Twilight said. “And if we consider the importance of what we’re doing, the wrong move is probably going to be our last.”

“So doesn’t that mean that if I am supposed to get an Element, not getting me one is going to result bad for us all too?” Colgate asked.

“Also, let’s recall that if makin’ Colgate here an Element is the right move,” Big Mac said, “then Moondrop was the right move too, ‘cause they—what was that word, sis?”

“What word?” Applejack asked. “Oh, eventuate? Nifty, ain’t it?”

“You’ve been reading Twilight’s dictionary!” Pinkie cried, flattening the ears of those around her.

“Yeah. All’s well that ends well,” Big Mac said.

“Not true,” Rarity said. “Why couldn’t we just go to Canterlot and pick her up instead?”

“The glamour would have known Colgate would be willing,” Vinyl said. “Because she is. So if we just approached her and explained, then we could have done this a lot cleaner. Is that right?”

“So we definitely did go with the wrong option,” Rainbow said. “Let’s not do it again. I agree with Twilight and Vinyl, and Applejack, and… pretty much everypony.”

“Ah ain’t put my hoof down yet,” Applejack said.

“Well, we don’t have long,” Twilight said.

“Could be that Colgate wouldn’t have been willing if we approached her out of the blue,” Rarity said. “Though this was incredibly out of the blue.”

“But she didn’t have any other options. It was come with us or be stuck in Moondrop,” Vinyl said.

“Yeah, not exactly a fair and unbiased choice,” Twilight said. “Colgate, what do you think?”

“You can defend yourself. You think you deserve one, let us know why,” Fluttershy said.

Colgate thought for a while, looking down at her hooves. “I know I’m here for a reason. I can’t explain it better than that.”

“Do you have intuition?” Twilight asked.

“No, nothing like that.”

“Well…”

“Not much to go on,” Rainbow said. “Sorry, Cole. I like you, but I just don’t see it.”

“For what it’s worth, we might consult the glamour,” Rarity said. “If it has anything to say?”

“It hasn’t said anythin’ in a while,” Big Mac said.

“Should we be worried about that?” Pinkie asked.

“What d’ya mean?”

“I mean, if the glamour isn’t working anymore, or isn’t working like it used to, or whatever, then… I don’t wanna say.”

“Ah’d like to hear it, Pinkie.”

“No, no, I think I see the question,” Vinyl said. “It depends on a lot of things.”

“Then does my friendship with y’all remain the same?” Big Mac asked. “That about it?”

“Maybe,” Pinkie said in a small voice.

“Yeah, Ah wonder ‘bout that a lot.”

“I don’t think any of us can blame you,” Vinyl said.

“Thanks.”

“I mean—”

“Ah know. Ah said thanks.”

For a moment, they were quiet, and the jeweler’s house appeared, its lights widening around a corner as they neared.

“If there’s an issue, then we need to figure it out,” Twilight said. “Now or never, as I said.”

“I consider you a friend,” Rainbow said to Big Mac. “I think you’re really cool.”

“I as well,” Rarity said.

“That’s great,” Big Mac said.

“Do you…”

“Hm?”

“Let’s just move past it,” Vinyl said. “We won’t bring up the glamour anymore, Mac. We’ll just move on.”

“That is a stupid idea,” Octavia said. “In fact, I think all of this is stupid.” Everyone turned to her, some shocked, some annoyed. “Every friendship ends up looking bad if you spend enough time picking it apart. I do not think this is what it is about. If we are friends, then we will know it in our hearts, not if we meet whatever standards appear in Twilight’s book. The fact of the matter is, if Big Mac is upset about something, then it should be addressed.”

“You know, that’s actually a really good point,” Twilight said after a moment. “Maybe we are getting too focused on the details.”

Big Mac shuffled and sat down.

“We need to be careful, though,” Rarity said.

“Yes, to a point.”

“It’s possible to go too far and get stuck on inconsequential stuff, though,” Pinkie said. “You know? You can’t throw a great party if you spend all your time on one silly little detail!”

“This ain’t a party,” Applejack said.

“No reason not to think of it like one!”

“Pinkie.”

“No, seriously! Think about it. A party’s just a bunch of guests trying to accomplish a task, right? Well, here we all are, trying to accomplish something. We’re a bunch of party guests, and this is one great big ‘save Equestria’ party!”

“That’s rather overgeneralizing it,” Rarity said.

“Well excuse me for trying!”

“All right, enough,” Applejack said, stepping in to put a calming hoof on Pinkie’s back. “We’re not doin’ this again. Luna’s wings, no wonder we couldn’t pull it together back there.”

“So what’s your solution?” Vinyl asked.

“Octavia hit it dead on, if y’ask me. We’re obsessin’ ‘bout the mechanics of friendship an’ forgettin’ the real important bits, the heart an’ soul an’ all those other undefinable things. Here, Ah got an idea. Everyone close yer eyes.”

They hesitated, but after a second, nine pairs of eyes closed, and Applejack watched them for a moment.

“Raise yer hoof if ya want out, right now. Raise it high, no one’s gonna see it but me.”

“What if we ain’t sure?” Big Mac asked.

“Then don’t raise it.”

“No, do!” Twilight cried, opening her eyes. “Girls, have you not heard anything I’ve said! We can’t just do these and hope for the best! We have to be sure!”

“It occurs to me that, while we are here right now, there will be time before we actually use these against Discord,” Octavia said, eyes still closed. “Time enough for apologies to be made and friendships to be strengthened.”

“That’s another good point,” Rainbow said.

“I don’t like it,” Twilight said.

“All right, girls, all right, eyes closed again,” Applejack said. “Twilight, that means you. We’ll try a different question. Raise her hooves if yer willin’ to forgive these ponies—myself included—fer anythin’ they done to ya.”

At that, a semicircle of hooves rose unsteadily into the air, some immediately, some after seconds of thought. Big Mac’s came up late, Fluttershy’s last. Applejack put her own hoof into the air and wobbled on three legs.

“Open ‘em up then. Take a look at all the friendship goin’ ‘round.”

Everyone opened their eyes and looked, the pegasi with their wings out to brace themselves and the others nearly overbalancing.

“Well how do you like that?” Rarity asked.

“Here’s our answer,” Applejack said. “All right, let’s put ‘em down before we fall over. Girls, we’ve got a whole airship trip to air out whatever it is that’s gotta be aired out. Ah say, let’s just get in there, get us some Elements, an’ get out.”

“Discord’s waitin’,” Big Mac said.

Twilight chewed her lip, but said nothing.

“What would we do without you, AJ?” Pinkie asked, dashing in for a hug.

“Crumble, just like if we were missing anyone else,” Twilight said, shrugging, not meeting eyes. “Sorry, girls. I know I’ve been kind of a pill lately.”

“We all have our downfalls,” Octavia said. “I forgive you.”

“Me too,” Fluttershy said, a chorus of nods around her.

“What about Colgate?” Vinyl asked.

Colgate simply scowled into the cold stone beneath.

“Sorry, Colgate. Really,” Rarity said.

Colgate looked at Big Mac, who looked down, and then at Octavia, who met her eyes and shook her head.

“Do what you have to do,” Colgate said.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight said. “This is the last time I’ll ask, I swear. You three are sure?”

“Patience, Empathy, Courage,” Big Mac said. “Ah’m ready.”

“I’m ready,” Vinyl said quietly—even for her.

“Let us,” Octavia said.

With Anomie outside, they entered the structure, half house and half smithy, a rude wooden counter propped up on two polished stones, an array of tools unsorted atop it. Behind, a door was ajar to show the outline of a rough anvil and the moving light of a forge, out of view.

“Hello?” Rainbow called.

After a couple repetitions, a smoky gray earth pony strolled out of the back room and rested her front hooves on the counter to look down on them all. She blinked sleepily.

“You’re Silver Sun?” Twilight asked. “Anomie the griffon sent us.”

“If that means anything to you,” Fluttershy said.

“Silver Sun, yeah, I reckon that’s me,” the mare said. “Need somethin’?”

Twilight dug through her personal, magical space until she found what she needed: the sack of bits and the designs for the Elements of Harmony, a tightly folded pamphlet alive with tiny columns of numbers, intricate diagrams, and blocks of notes scattered through the margins. She unfurled it and lay it across the counter and its tools.

“This is going to sound crazy, but we need these.”

“Elements of Harmony,” Silver Sun said, reading the paper’s header. “This a joke?”

“Look at us,” Rainbow said, brandishing her own Element.

Silver Sun leaned out slightly to get a better look at their jewels, nodding to herself. “Mmmm, so it is, so it is. Hmmm.” She studied the paper for some time.

“You can do it, right?” Pinkie asked.

“Well, I reckon I can. Might take me a couple tries.”

“But you can do it?”

“Ultimately, she means,” Rarity added.

“I reckon,” Silver Sun said again. She looked at the bit sack. “That money in there?”

“Yes,” Twilight said.

Silver Sun nodded. “It ain’t a easy thing you’re askin’.”

“We’re told you’re the best jeweler in the mines,” Rarity said.

“Dunno about that.” She studied the instructions for a time, not looking up at the others. “I can do it, but it’ll cost you.” She hefted the bag and poured the bits out onto the counter, letting them roll and pile onto themselves. “More than this.”

“What?” Rainbow asked.

“How many you looking for?”

“Three,” Big Mac said.

“More than this.”

Twilight sighed and pulled out the worn treasury slip. “How much more?”

“Couldn’t say exactly. Maybe one and a half more of those.”

Twilight unfolded the piece of paper and floated it over, and Silver Sun took it and slid it back.

“I don’t take IOUs.”

“It’s a bank note.” A lead weight settled in her stomach. “Do you have banks down here?”

Silver Sun shook her head. “Not familiar with the term, miss.”

“A place where ponies store their money,” Rarity said.

Silver Sun gave Rarity a suspicious glance, but said nothing. “Perhaps we can work out a deal,” Octavia said. “Is there anything we can do to lower the cost?”

“Would tellin’ you that the fate of the whole dang country relies on this sway yer opinion?” Applejack asked.

Silver Sun looked at them for a second. “The original six ain’t enough anymore?”

“Uh.”

“Why is the cost so high?” Twilight asked. “If it’s a time thing, we can—I guess—stay here as long as we need.”

“Not time, materials. I don’t have the crystals you need lyin’ around in my house. If I did, I’d surely charge you less.”

“Okay, so where are the crystals ya need?” Pinkie asked. “Maybe we can help you get ‘em!”

Silver Sun pointed loosely out her door.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rainbow asked.

“Yonder. Back of the cave.”

“You mean back where we came in?” Vinyl asked.

“That’s the front.”

“You mean in all that darkness,” Twilight said.

“That’s the back.”

“Well, go get ‘em, then,” Rainbow said. “What’s the problem?”

“I imagine the darkness is uninhabited for a reason,” Fluttershy said.

“What’s back there?” Colgate asked, taking a step to the front, where she stood between Twilight and Applejack.

“I’m not sure I can put a name to it,” Silver Sun said slowly. “Haven’t seen it myself.”

“Is it a monster? Or is there something strange about the area itself?”

“Depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you.”

Silver Sun picked up a chisel in her teeth and set it down on the other side of the counter. “The place, I reckon. You’re not allowed to go out there with torches or any sorta heat-making things. If you’re a unicorn, you get your horn bound.”

“For whatever reason?” Rarity asked.

“You just do. I’ve been there twice, I don’t like it. What you need’s out there, though.”

“How far?” Pinkie asked.

“Four or five miles.”

“What’s so special about our crystals?” Vinyl asked.

“Special properties.”

“So the cost is due to personal danger?” Twilight asked. “Am I getting that right?”

“Mostly.”

“What’s that mean?”

“If you’ll come with me, I’ll take that sack of bits there as payment.”

“What’s the rest of the cost?”

“Operational issues.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, and Pinkie nudged her aside. “How soon can you make them once you have your crystals?”

“Couple days, I reckon.”

“Twilight, we should do it,” Octavia said.

“Yes, we should,” Twilight said with a sigh. “Okay, we’ll go with you. But if we’re going to have our horns bound, how will we protect you? If you need it at all?”

“Extra eyes, extra ears, extra noses,” Silver Sun said. “I’m not takin’ on anything back there, and neither are you if you got a drop of sense in your heads.”

“If there is anything back there,” Rarity said.

“I reckon.”