The party was winding down by the time Gray Vigil returned, the festivities having settled right along with the sun. It was too cold after dark for his coat to keep him comfortable, one more painful reminder of what he had given up by staying a pony. Charles was grateful there had been nothing permanent in the promises he had made to King Richard. The moment being biological was too much for him, he could always return to the Tower. And if being alive proved less overwhelming than he expected? The Steel Tower would still be there after one pony lifetime.

Vigil let himself into the tent, following scent as much as sound. His nose told him Rainbow Dash was still here. After she had made such a big deal about inviting him, it was the least he could do to show up again at the end. She hadn't really had the chance to introduce him to any of her friends.

Though he had no proof, he was quite certain that more of what Rainbow called "magic" was at work on the tent. Was he imagining it, or was it bigger on the inside? How did they get a second story to stay standing like that without any apparent structural support? There were far fewer ponies up and about when he returned. Rarity was gone, along with the orange one and the yellow one. That left the purple reptile and the bright-pink pony, sharing shots of something he was sure couldn't be alcoholic at one table.

He didn't see Rainbow at a glance, though he did see her remaining organic wing stretched over the back of a sofa facing away from him. There were purple feathers there two, and a hoof hanging awkwardly off the edge. He found himself wishing he could see whatever was going on there; he was quite sure it would've been adorable.

He didn't get a chance, because the pink pony that had been facing away from him and downing another shot of something golden was now inches away from him. How had she moved so fast without him hearing? Even more frightening than her speed was the look of anger in her eyes, focused quite intensely on him.

"Well look who it is," she said, glowering. "Somepony decides he wants to come to the party after all. Too bad he's been gone for FOUR HOURS and almost everypony has already left." Before he could reply, she reached out towards him with one hoof. He flinched, but his gesture was in vain. Instead of striking him, the pink pony was securing a bright paper hat atop his head with elastic. Impressive dexterity for just using one hoof, not to mention the fact he hadn't actually seen her carrying it.

The dragon rose to his claws, moving over to stand beside the pink pony. He was nearly at a height with her, though that was on two legs. On four, he would've been some distance shorter. He had the disproportionate look of a puppy whose paws were far too big for its body, and his voice cracked like someone fighting a losing battle with puberty. "I'm sure you had all sorts of important things to do Vigil, but you could've at least stayed to introduce yourself." He leaned in closer, lowering his voice. "Rainbow was so bummed when you left."

"W-was not!" a familiar voice called from the couch, half-clouded with sleep. No small wonder, with all the healing Rainbow still had to do. Yet Charles had learned in the month or so he had known her never to underestimate her willpower. If she wanted to be awake again, she would be. He would soon face her wrath.

"She told us all about you, Sir Charles Gray Vigil." The pink one extended a hoof, in the gesture he had since learned served in lieu of a handshake here. He returned it as best he could, trying not to seem awkward. He failed. "If you'd stayed, you would've learned that my name is Pinkie Pie, and this is Spike." She gestured, and Spike extended a claw. That was even stranger, since Spike had something like "fingers" and he didn't. Why did ponies even have a gesture like this? "You'll have to meet the others tomorrow. Rarity and Applejack and Fluttershy went to bed. Rainbow wanted to introduce you to Twilight. She was sure you would show up. I wasn't so sure, and neither was Spike, but I guess that's why she's loyalty and I'm not."

Rainbow Dash emerged from behind the couch, sitting alert in her wheelchair and looking very sternly in his direction. A purple mare was pushing it, her own mane in a frizzy mess and her face streaked from crying. He pretended not to notice, because he could also see the wings and the horn. The purple mare was larger than Rainbow, though not so large as some of the stallions he had seen. That put her at an equal height with him, if he didn't count her horn.

"Where did you go?" Rainbow was indignant, every sign of tiredness gone. "I wanted you to meet everypony, Vigil. You missed the party!"

The mare behind her didn't seem fully awake yet, though she was doing her best impression of stern and suspicious. This was the one Rainbow had talked about, the one called Twilight. The one whose opinion she had valued most of all. "It didn't seem like I belonged," he said, without a trace of irony. "Your friends had been missing you for a long time, I thought you ought to be able to enjoy the moment. I stepped out, and King Richard was waiting for me. He... needed me for a few hours."

There was no need to go into detail about the goblins, or the lengthy discussion of what was going to happen to them now that the war was over. Charles had already given his reports about what had happened while in the Badlands, but he hadn't expected the consequences to manifest so quickly.

Twilight parked the wheelchair perhaps two meters from him. This close, it was easy to see that Rainbow's expression was even harsher than Pinkie Pie's had been. "Vigil." She leaned towards him, holding herself in the chair with two of her hooves. "You saved my life. You gave me my wing back. We went through Tartarus together, and we made it back. If that doesn't make us friends, I'm not sure what would."

He had no answer, and so he just stood still, his mouth hanging half-open.

Twilight proved she was more alert than her appearance suggested, because her voice had nothing of sleepiness to it. "We were actually quite eager to meet with you after hearing all of Rainbow's stories." She moved closer to Charles, though a possessive wing never left the edge of the wheelchair. "I can't thank you enough for bringing her back."

"Most of her," observed Pinkie Pie, who had moved away. She seemed to be doing something at the refreshment table, yet she reacted as though she had clearly heard every word. "All the important parts, anyway."

Charles lowered his head, respectfully. "She brought me as much as I brought her, Princess Twilight Sparkle. When we crashed, my human body was broken. If I had my way, I would've died and left her to continue on alone." He lowered his voice a little, avoiding her eyes. "She's the strongest mare I've ever known." Then, louder. "Whatever good I did, I did for the Tower. Every man is guilty of the good he did not do."

"You were right, Rainbow!" Spike interjected, from not far away. "He does sound like a knight. Right out of those books Twilight used to read." He looked pointedly at her, as though he expected his words to embarrass her.

They did. The mare did look a little flustered, her wings half-extended at her sides and her eyes darting about for a moment. "There's nothing wrong with enjoying fiction, Spike. Besides, the books I've been reading over the last decade have been for research. Somepony had to learn more about humans, and their stories were an excellent source."

Vigil couldn't help but smile at that, not feeling the least put-off by this news that Twilight apparently had an appreciation for human fiction. "You read fantasy? Have you read the Mi-"

"No." Rainbow stomped her hoof down on the floor, as loudly as she could. "You're not getting out of this with egghead stuff, Vigil. You ran away, and I want an apology." She folded her forehooves across her chest, in a gesture so incredibly human he barely believed what he was seeing.

He didn't hesitate. "I'm sorry for leaving. I assumed you would prefer to be without me, and I was mistaken. I won't leave again without warning you, I promise."

She glared darkly back at him for another few seconds, only reluctantly allowing a smile to spread across her face. "Okay, Vigil. I forgive you." She learned a little closer, across the wheelchair. "This time."

Their conversation greatly relaxed, moving to the circle of comfortable sofas. There was no need for Charles to struggle with Rainbow's weight when Twilight could move her easily with a subtle glow from her horn, and more of that strange force that ponies called magic. The one called Pinkie Pie brought refreshments for him, which he ate with relish. Pinkie Pie was apparently every bit as talented a baker as Rainbow had led him to believe.

"What do you prefer we call you?" Twilight asked, before too long. "Most of the humans I've met who are ponies now are keeping their names, like Admiral Alexi. But some... Some didn't." She looked down then, her ears flattening a little. Princess or no, it seemed that ponies just weren't very skilled at hiding their emotions.

Of course, he had already considered this, so it didn't take him long to come up with the answer. "I figure humans can use my human name for me, and ponies can use the pony one. They're already mostly the same, thanks to Rainbow. Gray Vigil is fine."

"Psh. He just doesn't want to admit that pony names are better."

"No, I don't. I'm not certain they are, but I'm sure they're easier for ponies to remember than what probably seems to you just a string of random sounds. I think it's easier for humans to remember pony names than for ponies to remember human ones. Phonetics, I guess."

Twilight nodded. "Wise, Gray Vigil. Is it true you're a knight?" At his nod, she continued. "Just what does that mean? Equestria has the royal guard, but we haven't had knights in centuries. What would a knight even be in the context of a modern society?"

This sort of answer was even easier than explaining which name he preferred. Now he was just presenting facts, and there was no danger of having to defend them. "The only thing all knights share in common is that they're all free citizens and none selected the career themselves. You can't make yourself a knight, you can only be made one by another knight or by a lord. That's like a governor, rules a large portion of Tower lands, the parts that used to be countries. And no, it isn't inherently patriarchal. A woman can be a lord if she's the eldest daughter of whoever ruled before her, and she can be a knight if she is chosen."

"But the king's knights are different. Our authority isn't limited to one particular area; we were responsible for the whole of the realm. There are only a few of us at any one time, the same as the number of lords. When we're chosen, we take an oath for the rest of our lives." He leaned back in the comfortable chair, enjoying the furniture built for organics and for ponies. "I will to my lord be true and faithful. I will be a knight of the Steel Tower, and uphold the honor of my lord through my actions. I will strengthen the weak. I will comfort the fearful. Confidence without arrogance. Truth without deception. Peace without oppression. Compassion without restriction."

"You've really done all that?" Spike asked, through the sounds of breaking glass coming from his mouth. It looked as though he were crunching on whole gemstones, though Vigil was fairly certain that couldn't be the case. Rock candy, perhaps?

He nodded without hesitation. "I've done my best. I would've died before breaking it. I was willing to, after the crash. 'Till Rainbow convinced me I'd actually do a better job keeping it if I wasn't dead."

"Well that seems pretty obvious." Pinkie Pie removed an empty plate from his lap, replacing it with one brimming with food. This one didn't have sweets, for which he was grateful, but what must've passed for standard party fare among ponies. How she had reheated what looked deceptively like a burger so quickly he didn't know. Was there a kitchen somewhere he couldn't see? "Can't do anything if you're dead, no matter what you promised."

Twilight winced, though even Rainbow seemed aware enough not to comment further on that particular line of reasoning.

The awkward silence lasted until Twilight herself spoke. "The stories..." she sniffed. "The stories I read talked about ponies like you. They said you were called a True Knight. Even Equestria hasn't had very many of those over the years."

"Well, now it has one," Rainbow said, as though she was stating something incredibly obvious. "Right, Charles?"

He was taken aback at the name, if not for long. "Yes." He rose, glancing briefly over his shoulder. Through the flap in the tent, he could just make out the Crystal Palace, rising like a tower into the night. "I think it does."

Of all the cities in Equestria, Canterlot was one of the most intact. No battles had been fought within its walls, and the Draconic army had been far too invested in their advance to do a very thorough job sacking it. As a result, almost all the structures were still standing, and the only thing anypony knew for sure was missing was food.

By the time the Army of Three Nations reached Canterlot, opposition was far more a matter of scattered bandits than a conflict between armies. And while it was true that many of Equestria's other mighty cities had not fared half so well, there was no sign of that discontent at the Victory Parade. Never before had Canterlot been so packed with ponies. The streets had become so full that pegasi were politely asked to find buildings to roost on. Looking down from the balcony on the city, Amber could scarcely see space in the city below that didn't have a pony in it.

The city boiled with emotions she had not felt in such profusion since days of peace. There was enough happiness and love down there to sustain every changeling in the world for a year. Perhaps far longer, since as far as she knew the only Changeling left alive in the world was her.

With the Father of Dragons gone, the millions of almost-changelings had simply died right where they were, dropping from the air and beginning to rot. Amber had heard the stories and pretended to share the joy of her fellow soldiers.

She didn't of course. As they celebrated, Amber found herself wondering how intelligent they had been. Had they ever tasted love the way Amber had, as love freely given to a friend? She did not know what it was like to be one of them, but she knew what it was like to go to bed hungry.

Celestia's voice carried well over the crowd. As she spoke, a great military procession passed by, marching through the millions of Equestria's ponies to assemble themselves in orderly blocks within the castle courtyard. Naturally there were plenty of Equestrian soldiers, but there were plenty of humans as well. Marching in perfectly drilled formations, or riding in massive steel vehicles with huge cannons that kicked up clouds of dust as they hovered along the ground.

Ponies had been afraid of humans once, and justifiably so. Amber knew better than most ponies exactly why humans were a race to be feared. A species of contradictions, of love pure as God's and hatred like eternal ice. Yet she sensed almost no fear from the ponies of the city below. When the ponies looked at the huge war-machines and the legions of humans in their glinting armor, they weren't thinking "will the invaders turn on us next?" but "our friends helped save us."

Plenty of the ponies in the crowd closest to the castle weren't ponies at all, but Federation soldiers forced to shed their humanity to escape an Outsider virus. There was no telling if the technology to return them to their bodies would be discovered in their lifetimes.

"Our eternal gratitude goes to those friends brave and good enough to put their own lives in the same danger as our own," Celestia was saying. "Our eternal gratitude is their reward, our welcome and our friendship." She took a gleaming scroll from a padded cushion even as Princess Luna lifted another, levitating them through the air towards the others on the balcony with them.

Each group had three members, with two humans and one pony. One, the Federation assembly, seemed led by the pony. Alexi Colven accepted the scroll in her mouth, and passed it into the hands of a white-uniformed captain of the Lunar Navy. The man unrolled it before her, and she looked it over. With a nod, exaggerated so the crowd could see, Alexi called, "The United Earth Federation graciously accepts Equestria's friendship and the terms of this treaty, and pledges to honor them faithfully."

If she said anything else, it was utterly drowned by the roar of the crowd, human and pony alike. Alexi took back the scroll, rolled it up, and slipped it into a pouch on her back.

Celestia passed the other scroll into the waiting hands of King Richard, who stood shorter than Celestia only with the aid of a carefully placed platform. He opened the scroll, spared not even a second to read it, then looked up over the balcony. "On behalf of the Steel Tower and all its Dominions, Principalities, and Powers, I accept the terms of this treaty. We shall prove ourselves to be as faithful allies in peace as we were in war!"

The applause, the hooves stamping and cheering beneath them, was almost deafening. Amber stepped back a few paces, until she was safely off the balcony and into the shade of the little drawing room beyond. The voices of the crowd were less distinct in here, more like the crashes of distant waves than the voices of people and ponies. Aside from the couches and sofas and tables packed with refreshments, the room was empty. There were no guards; aside from Amber, they were all outside watching the parade.

That might've explained the strange-looking unicorn reclining in the chair and sipping demurely at a glass of tea. Amber recognized her immediately, and stumbled backward. "Y-you? What are you doing in here?" It was the unicorn that had impersonated a transfer from the Royal Corps, the same unicorn that had filled her full of love and then vanished without a trace. "Doesn't matter. You can't be here!" She gestured over her shoulder, at the open doorway and the event going on just outside.

"Yes, well." She set the cup down, then rose. "I have a talent for getting into places I don't belong. It's a family weakness." She rose to her hooves. "Don't worry, I'm not here for them." She flicked her tail towards the open doorway. "I'm here for you."

"Why?" Amber demanded, moving between the intruder and the open doorway. Not that she thought she could make much of a difference against a truly powerful enemy. But then, after the defeat of the Father, Amber doubted anything would attack Equestria's diarchs for a very long time. "I'm nobody. Not worth wasting your time over. Just get out."

"Really?" The unicorn tossed her head, her mane cascading over her shoulder. "That's not what the 301st said. Those ponies swear you must've been Princess Luna in disguise. What was it they said? Evacuated your entire unit and the village nearby without losing a single pony to the Outsider's puppets?"

She didn't know how to reply to that, so she said nothing. It was true she had managed to evacuate her entire unit without losing a single pony. It was less true that she was responsible for the safety of all of Ponyville as well. Princess Twilight Sparkle had been the one to make the portal; she had only used her ponies to make sure all the citizens got in before her soldiers evacuated.

"There is a new world opening to us, my daughter." In a wave of magic, the unicorn vanished. Amber had little first-hoof experience with Changelings, but she knew enough to know this was no mere drone. She felt it in her soul, and knew with certainty that she was in the presence of a queen. "I have turned my attention to this new world; where none have ever known to fear us and love will be plentiful. I expect it will become a new bastion of safety for our people, even if I cannot travel there myself. I did not come to ask anything of you, for that is not our way. I came to tell you, to inform you, that every Changeling who remains will be looking to you for a queen."

Amber did not retake her natural form, though something deep and primal seemed to demand she do exactly that. Amber did not submit to the instinct. She had seen war, and was mightier than flesh. "No! I refuse! I won't be like you! I won't invade Equestria, I won't be a parasite! My food was justly earned!" She stomped her hoof, hard. Over the speeches and the crowd outside, it was difficult to hear. "With iron and blood! I've fought hard to be a pony, I won't let you take that away!"

The Changeling, the greatest and mightiest of all their queens, acted as though she had not heard. "You will lead them well because it is in your nature to do everything well." She shrugged. "If you don't, they'll die. My sons and daughters are safe in your hooves. Perhaps... you will make of them something better than I could."

She turned, moving past Amber to the door to an antiroom. Amber had always assumed it was a closet or a storage chamber, since she had never seen the door open. Chrysalis the Changeling Queen opened the door with a flourish, and shoved Amber a little way inside. "Help them become like you."

Amber blinked, stumbling to the ground as she looked up at the room. There were no windows, and the shelves had been chewed and clawed to nothing. A thick green slime covered every surface, stretching back perhaps fifty meters or so. Cocoons hung from the ceiling, from the wreckage of the shelves, or just sat on the ground.

There weren't many, perhaps a hundred in all, though most of them looked nearly mature. How did she know that?

There were living changelings in here too, foals stumbling about nearly blind and totally confused. Amber looked over her shoulder for the queen, but she had gone.

There was a gentle pressure on her front. Amber turned her attention back in front of her, and saw the face of a foal only inches away, its multi-faceted eyes glinting in the sunlight and fluid dribbling down its fangs.

"Oh, I'm..." She got to her hooves, avoiding its eyes. "I'm sorry, I'll get-" She turned around, poking her head out of the storage room. "Comeback! Queen Chrysalis, they need you!"

Only silence answered.

Silence, and a pathetic mewling sound from behind her. "Hungry," that voice said, in her mind. A voice of innocence and fear, a voice that had never seen a face that was not hers. "Hungry."

Amber sighed, and turned back to face the foal. She reached out with a wing, brushing a wispy green mane away from its eyes. She thought about a cold cell deep under Canterlot Castle, and a book thrown at her hooves through the bars. She thought about Princess Celestia, giving her shelter even from her own citizens and caring for her even though her mother had nearly killed her own niece. She thought about the love she felt from outside, love enough to drown her.

"Okay." She nudged the little changeling gently back to where it had come, but followed, shutting the door quietly behind her. It was far darker than night inside the room, but that was fine. She didn't need the light any more than the foal did. She brought the foal into her embrace. "Do you have a name?"

There were only a few others awake, and all of these gathered close to watch. Somehow, without knowing how, Amber knew their minds were as fresh and blank as this first. They had never seen another living soul, not until this exact moment. Chrysalis had made sure they would not see anypony until they saw her. They would be her swarm, not her mother's. "Hungry."

It wasn't a word; they were far too young for that. Amber heard the idea and understood it without having to think. It was the feeling of hunger, the gnawing at the insides that was their bodies tearing themselves apart from magical deprivation. "Well, hungry, let me help you. I'm Amber... I'll make sure you're never this hungry again."

Somehow everypony had always known that when it was time for Equestria to send an ambassador to Earth, Second Chance would be the one to go. It would have been hard to find a pony better suited for the job, even though it would have been quite difficult to tear her from her friends and the castle laboratory. But then, even the lab felt empty. In a way, the loss helped Twilight relate to her subjects. Everypony had lost someone. It meant when she consoled, her compassion was genuine.

In the end, Twilight was selected to serve as the ambassador, at least for awhile. There was talk of one Alexi Colven filling the position once her Equestrian citizenship cleared, if Celestia could persuade her to leave her starship behind.

It had taken months to clear the last vestiges of resistance from Equestria, and to purge those pockets of stubborn troops who hadn't figured out their war was hopelessly lost. There were other questions too, such as how they could be effectively returned to their own lands. Most ships bound from Equestria these days were so stuffed with goblins they could barely stay airborne.

Her friends had all offered to come along for the ride, but ultimately the only offer she might've accepted could not truly be honored. The doctors were quite clear: Rainbow Dash couldn't leave the planet for six months, minimum. All of them knew she wasn't just traveling to Earth to present the final version of the Equestrian-Terran Alliance Pledge. Her real reason for taking the assignment was the opportunity to pay her respects. There were far more important tasks for a princess than acting as a diplomatic symbol.

The trip through the rift was uneventful, except for the awful sensation of having her magic ripped away. Earth's moon was not magically moved in its orbit, nor had it been passively soaking up stray magic for millennia. The instant she stepped through the gateway Twilight lost all her magic. It felt like dying the slowest possible death, and she was more than eager to leave Luna Prime as quickly as she could.

As fast as she could ended up being about three days before she was finally riding something called a quickship for a two-day journey to the planet. Those two days felt like forever, with almost no perceptible increase in the magic. Twilight slept restlessly and barely ate. She had at least one recommendation to pass to Celestia when she returned to Equestria: their embassy was going to have to be built on the planet.

It was better. Fire burned as the quickship descended into Earth's atmosphere, and immediately Twilight felt her strength returning. If she had a mirror, she would have expected to watch the color pour back into her body like water from a pitcher. It was easily weaker than the magic field anywhere in Equestria, weak enough that her most difficult spells would have taken days instead of hours, but she didn't care. After utter deprivation for so long, stepping out of the quickship and onto the sparse grass of Earth's surface felt like coming home.

The sky was blue, with little fluffy clouds like Ponyville’s most perfect day. As she watched, a pegasus weather team passed overhead, driving the dark clouds away.

Alajuela spaceport might very well have become the greenest part of the entire planet in the last few months. Just as humans had construction teams in Equestria rebuilding pony cities, Equestria had teams of their own on Earth, rebuilding the planet. It was going to take a very long time, perhaps entire generations. By the time the massive undertaking was done, there were likely to be as many ponies living on Earth as there were humans living in Equestria.

Twilight might have been an Alicorn Princess at home, yet to the humans all around her she was nopony. That was precisely the way she wanted it; precisely why she hadn't taken an escort. She had to stop three people before she found someone who spoke Equestrian. "Excuse me," she had begun, her voice only slightly more terse than it had been for the repetition. "I'm looking for the peace monument. Could you give me directions?"

The young man who answered had dark skin, just as many of these humans did, and his Equestrian had the sound of a language "downloaded", overly formal and not naturally learned. Humans thought they were so clever to be able to cheat knowledge into their heads, but Twilight Sparkle could always tell. "Peace monument? I thought you folk called it the 'tree of harmony.'" He muttered on, almost as though he thought Twilight couldn't hear him. "Tourists. Don't have a damn clue why it matters." He gestured at a path brightly marked in a human language, one Twilight couldn't read. "That way."

Of course, Twilight was just bothered enough to say something about his attitude, and so instead of walking away she took a step closer, looking the young man up and down. He seemed to be some sort of guard or policeman, though he only wore the non-lethal device humans called a "stun stick." She forced herself to sound out the letters on his nametag. "En-reeque. What did you mean?"

"Enrique." His voice was clipped now, annoyed.

"Enrique." She got it right the second time. "What did you mean, Enrique? That tourists don't have a clue why it matters."

He shrugged, one hand on his hip as he scanned the crowd. Even in the packed crowd there seemed to be no sign of violence or crime; like the guards who stood outside the gates at Canterlot Castle he seemed very bored. From his expression, Twilight wouldn't have been surprised if some sort of altercation would've made him happy. In a way, his frustration was to his advantage. Enrique the guard was just frustrated enough to tell her the truth. "Lots of people come here," he said, gesturing at the crowd. "All over the world. Look at those faces. A good third are androids, you know. Metal men! Like, from the Tower and everything!"

"Everyone comes here, and they know it's important, but they don't know why." He shook his head. "They come here acting like the world just got better all by itself, like it was magic or something."

She couldn't stop herself. "It was magic," Twilight said. "A complex, detailed, and intricate Worldweaving spell. Fifth-degree master level, if I understand correctly."

He groaned. "See, that's exactly what I mean! People think it just happened. Magic." He said the word with contempt. "People come here, and lots of them think we built the tree. Built it, just because we wanted to. Well, I know better." He folded his arms. Even on a human face, Twilight recognized smugness when she saw it. "I was there. I know, you don't believe me. I'm just spaceport security. Well, you're wrong. I've already got my spot in the first class of Lunar Officer's School. Once April gets here, it's straight to the Moon! What do you think of that?"

Twilight thought nothing of it, because she hadn't heard a word past the word "there." She found her eyes watering involuntarily. She took another step closer. She was by far the youngest of the Alicorns, yet she was almost tall enough to look this human in the eye. Apparently this part of the world didn't grow humans as large as in some other places. She wasn't casting a spell exactly, yet the humans all around seemed to sense something was wrong. Without anyone saying anything, everyone nearby stepped away, and none got within five feet of them as they spoke. People walking past found themselves in a sudden hurry, never looking too closely.

"What do you mean you were there?"

Enrique gulped, but continued bravely on. "Exactly what I said. I was there; with five just like you. Well..." He paused, glancing briefly at her. Suddenly he found himself unable to look for too long, though.

Twilight recognized what was happening, and almost gasped from the shock. These humans were sensing her magic. Sensing her magic. This would have to be investigated further when she wasn't talking to one of the last people who had been with Chance before she died.

"Not quite like you. Two had the..." He held one of his hands in front of his forehead. "Those things. One had wings. Two had neither, but none had both. Anyway... We were riding in a cargo crawler we stole from-"

"What did they look like?" Twilight interrupted. "The ones with horns. Was one of them white, with a pinkish mane?" He nodded. "What about the other one?"

He took a step back. "Green, I think. Yellowy hair, like bananas. Why do you care?"

Twilight met his eyes. "Because... Because... That was my daughter."

"Oh."

That was the end of Enrique's attitude. Instead, he ordered a private car to take her immediately to the monument, and rode with her down the trail. Twilight smiled in spite of herself as they passed a crew of hardworking earth ponies, coaxing life back into a copse of long-dead trees.

"So you tried to get her to stop?"

He nodded. Apparently word had got around about who she was, because a different guard had replaced him without reprimanding him even a little for leaving his post. He seemed a little uncomfortable in the pleasantly cool and dark interior of the car, though Twilight couldn't have said why. Was she still putting off the vibe of dangerous magic? "I didn't have the language program then, so I don't know exactly what they said, but the others all tried to stop her. Of course I did too, it didn't seem right to watch anyone throw their life away like that."

"You didn't think she could do it?"

Enrique seemed to find the padded cushions suddenly fascinating. "She didn't explain what she was doing. And no, I didn't believe in magic. Thaumaturgy, they're calling it now? Whatever. All I got was that the radiation detectors started going crazy, and I wanted to know why we had stopped on the edge of the old city." He gestured out the windows, where the wreckage of old buildings rose from the dusty soil.

The closer they got to their destination the more vibrant and alive the world seemed; vines were already starting to choke off some of the structures, while trees sprouted in gutters and on the soil collected on roofs. They were barely saplings now, but in a generation or two they would reclaim this old city.

"Thank God she was right." He sat back against the seat, more subdued. "I never thought I would live to see anything like this. Radiation was supposed to take thousands and thousands of years before it faded enough for anything to grow. But she takes it all away in a day, and next there are magic horses coming out of the sky and the rainforest is coming back. The whole world's upside down." He smiled. "Better this way."

There was a sizeable crowd around the tree, mostly humans. There were a few ponies mixed in with the crowd, mostly keeping to themselves. Someone had erected a fence about three meters all around the tree, so that the press couldn't get close enough to touch. This close to the tree, Twilight felt magic almost equal to that in Equestria. It radiated outward steadily, in waves like a heartbeat. Though none of the humans seemed to know what they were feeling, machine and flesh alike practically preened in the light.

This was a sacred place, and they could all feel it.

Enrique watched her eyes."I could disperse the crowd for you, if you want some time alone."

"N-no." Twilight slid along the seat towards the door. "You've done a great deal, thank you. I think I'll just wait until it closes for the night. Could you pass the word along so they don't throw me out after nightfall?"

He nodded. "Of course, Princess Twilight Sparkle." He gestured, and the door opened automatically. "I'm sorry for my rudeness, earlier. Didn't know I was speaking to royalty."

No, you didn't, Twilight found herself thinking, a little frustrated. Humans with implants don't play fair.

Twilight found herself some shade as far from the crowd as possible, waiting for the day to end and the "monument" to close. Unfortunately it was impossible to stay hidden for long, and soon every pony leaving the monument found her behind a nearby structure. Plenty of them brought refreshments, clear bottles of water and a strange human snack of dried fruit. She was grateful for that, though less grateful for all the conversations when what she really wanted was to be alone.

Not that she didn't enjoy learning about the rebuilding. Earth ponies and pegasi alike seemed highly enthusiastic about the work. "It's the rules!" seemed to be the universal response. "In Equestria, everything's so strict. Weather schedules and crop rotations and agriculture committees. Humans are so much easier to please! Show them something green, and it's all smiles! Doesn't matter if you can only grow thorn-bushes or none of your flowers come up symmetrical!"

She met more than one couple who announced proudly that they would be "settling" here. "After all, the old village burned down. If we're rebuilding the planet, might as well put up a village while we're at it!"

Hearing remarks like this, it was all Twilight could do to act regal and not start to cry. Chance would've loved to hear these things. All her dreams were coming true, and she wasn't around to see it.

Eventually it grew dark, and a chill wind began to blow. The last group of ponies offered her a spot in their transport and the finest of their accommodations. Twilight politely declined both, and waved politely as they left.

Just to be safe, Twilight waited until the murmurs of tourists and conversation had gone completely quiet. There was no moon, but a simple dark-seeing spell and she wasn't tripping over her own hooves anymore. Twilight made her way out of the ruins and back onto the path, walking calmly toward the tree. There were rows of raised benches erected around it in semicircles, and she hardly noticed a human child hiding behind one of them, his hands wrapped tightly around a portable gaming device.

The tree was even more beautiful by night. The crystal trunk caught the starlight and twisted it into a fantastic kaleidoscope of colors, while delicate crystal leaves seemed almost to sing as the wind passed over them. Twilight saw the tree for what it was, and was not fooled for a second by the fact it looked solid. Like Luna or Celestia, the tree was no being at all, but a creation of pure magic. The cutie marks were different. Not Celestia's, not Luna's, and not hers. She only recognized one of the symbols; the stylized version of this planet Twilight had long come to associate with Second Chance.

Twilight slipped under the fence, sat back on her haunches, and cried. She cried harder than she ever had, harder than when the crusaders had told her the news all those months ago. The wound was fresh now, and deep.

"What's wrong?" The voice came from behind her, and nearly made her jump. She gasped and wiped her eyes, since the voice had spoken in Equestrian far too perfect to be chip-downloaded. A pony had been hiding somewhere. She had to be presentable. Yet when she turned it was not a pony standing behind her, but a human child.

Twilight still wasn't very good at gaging ages, but she clearly wasn't fully grown. Her voice had been a squeak, and she was shorter than Twilight by almost a full head. Was she eight years old? That felt like a respectable guess. The girl was a thin wisp of a thing, with dirty shoes and long stockings that hid the skin of her legs. She wore a gigantic sweatshirt, so big it hung past her hands, the hood pulled up so Twilight couldn't see her face.

"Oh. Hello there." She glanced around, searching for this girl's parents. Like ponies, humans didn't like it when their children got too far. This one's parents would be looking for her. Yet her eyes saw nopony, nopony except the face of a guard walking past a fence and a glow and faded fabric from the bleachers. She almost called out, until she realized whoever was sitting in the bleachers was no bigger than the girl. Humans this young couldn't have children, so it couldn't be that one.

She sniffed. "Where are your parents?"

The girl turned away from her, gliding under the barricade so she stood beside Twilight and not behind her. She reached out and touched the tree, exactly as Twilight had done with her hoof. Her skin was pale, nothing at all like the olive that seemed natural to the humans in this part of the world. "That's a difficult question," the child said, slowing down as she said "difficult" as though it were a word she had only recently learned.

"Oh?" Twilight smiled in spite of herself. This child reminded her a little of the crusaders, back when they had been fillies without cutie marks. "Is that your way of saying you shouldn't be here? That they're probably looking for you." Twilight gestured past her, to the figure on the bleachers. "Your twin sister? You've got matching jackets."

"Twin brother!" The child corrected. He shouted loudly enough that Twilight was surprised the guard hadn't heard.

The girl shook her head so vigorously her hood nearly came off. Twilight caught a glimpse of more pale skin, almost glowing with the reflected light of the tree. "Some of them are dead." The girl said this without the pained emotions one might expect from a child discussing something so awful.

"Oh." Twilight swallowed. "I'm sorry." She looked away. This wasn't going at all as she had expected. Maybe she should call the guard, so somepony could start looking for this child's guardian.

The girl seemed almost not to hear her. "Not all, though." She reached out, and Twilight felt tiny fingers wrap around her mane, clinging tight enough that it started to hurt. "Not one. The one I've been waiting for. I can't leave, because then I wouldn't be with her."

"Who are you?" Twilight reached out with her magic, lifting the little girl's hood away from her face with one gentle push.

The young face that gazed back at her was human in the same way Celestia and Luna were ponies. Her hair was long, cascading behind her and down her back. Some of it was bright blonde, though an equal measure seemed transparent, thin strands of what humans called fiber-optic cable. Light shone from the tips of these strands, like little yellow stars in her hair. There were strange patterns on and under her skin, very faint. They looked a little like the tracings of human circuits. As Twilight watched, light seemed to pass between them, like some complex machine. Only there was nothing cybernetic about her. The fibers grew from her scalp with no sign of having been put there just as the circuits seemed to have grown as part of her.

The girl's eyes were gray, and the strange circuit patterns were quite pronounced. No wonder this girl had been hiding her face. To Twilight's magical senses, it was as though a veil had been lifted. Scales fell from her eyes and she saw this girl was wrought as much from the magic of the tree as she was flesh. "Second Chance?"

In answer, the little girl wrapped her arms around Twilight's neck, and clung to her like a monkey on a tree. As though she were afraid Twilight would vanish if she didn't watch Twilight every second.

Twilight responded by wrapping the girl in her wing, sheltering her as she had done so many times before. "You've been alive? All this time, and you've been alive?"

She could feel the child shake her head. "Only the last... while." She turned, looking out through Twilight's feathers. "How long has it been, Truth?"

There was the brief sensation of a spell, and suddenly the other child was beside them. His hood was down now too, and Twilight recognized a face the perfect twin of the girl. His hair was shorter, but had it not been for that it might have been difficult to tell them apart. "Sixteen days, three hours, nine minutes, fifty-eight seconds." He folded his arms across his chest. Wearing his jacket, the gesture only made him look more absurd. "Not that I've been counting."

"We waited," Chance's voice went on. Now that Twilight heard it, she wasn't sure how she hadn't recognized it immediately. "I thought you'd come. You, or one of my friends. I didn't want to go anywhere, in case I missed you."

Twilight wasn't sure how long she held on, except that it wasn't nearly long enough. She let go. "You could come back with me." She glanced at the girl again, sizing up her strange appearance, though she didn't actually remark on how strange she looked. A living machine was not something you saw every day. "It wouldn't be hard."

Truth moved to stand beside the girl Chance had become. They were exactly the same height, despite the apparent difference in their sexes. Of course, they weren't old enough for the biggest sexual differences to have become obvious yet. Humans were confusing that way. "It wouldn't be hard," he repeated, his tone too sounding familiar despite being so much higher in pitch. "It would be impossible. Twilight, have you ever seen Luna or Celestia leave your universe? What about the others who worked that spell?" He shook his head, not giving her a chance to answer. "You never will."

Twilight's ears drooped at this news. "Oh. Well... what will you do? If you can't come back to Equestria... your star seems to be handling itself just fine, and the moon looks steady."

They shrugged, a perfectly timed and unified gesture even though neither of them could see the other from where they were standing. "Earth isn't Equestria," Truth said, after a time. "It doesn't depend on us doing anything to remain functional. But..."

Chance gestured up at the sky. "It's a big universe." She sat down beside Twilight, resting her back on Twilight's flank. Truth manfully remained standing, though he was clearly shivering no less than his... what, sister? "I always liked the idea of exploring it."

"And that leaves me to keep an eye on things here." There was no delay between them, and when they spoke like that, it seemed almost as though she was hearing two halves of the same being, and not two distinct beings. Magically speaking, that was exactly what they were.

"Once you figure out a way to bring magic with us on our starships."

Twilight stayed with them through the night, ignoring her desire to sleep for the company of those she had thought lost and now were found.

Eventually it was starting to get light, as planets with stability in their orbits were wont to do without prompting. "I'll tell everypony you're okay," Twilight said, sweeping Chance into one last hug. "But is there anything specific I should tell anypony?"

The girl seemed to think very seriously about this for a long time, her face wrinkled with intense concentration. "Tell Celestia this city would be a great place for an embassy." She glanced over her shoulder towards the tree. "The magic's better than on the moon. I have a feeling that the humans living there are going to want to come back down here, the more magic they feel from the ponies passing through."

Twilight nodded. "What did you do? About humans, I mean. Some of the people I've met seem to be responding to magic. They don't seem to be mutating, at least not that I can see."

Truth put a hand on Chance's shoulder as he answered. "We're still figuring that out."

"Really?" Twilight raised her eyebrows. "You mean you don't know something?"

Truth said nothing, but Chance did. "The spell doesn't seem to know the difference between the ones with real brains and the ones with circuit brains. The spell hasn't been around long enough to see what it's going to do over time, though."

"Ponies were around before the Tree of Harmony." Truth seemed to recover a little of his confidence. "It took time for the effects of long term magical exposure to be manifest. I'm excited to be around long enough to watch."

"Tell Alexi to visit!" She learned closer, grinning. "Is it true she's an earth pony?" Twilight nodded, and she giggled. "Oh, I hope it takes them forever to work out the kinks in that body-growing stuff!" Then, somewhat more subdued. "Could you tell Scootaloo I'm sorry for crashing her ship? We'll make her a new one."

"A better one!"

Chance nodded. "And of course... tell my mom I'm gonna miss her."

Twilight sniffed. "I... I think she knows." To her great pride, Twilight managed not to cry again. "I would stay if I could. Two days back are going to feel like years."

Truth tilted his head quizzically. "Why are you flying? Don't you know the gating spell?" He gestured around. "There's magic here. Just because the human portal opens onto the moon doesn't mean you have to use it."

Twilight smiled ruefully. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you're an inferior organic. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

Chance shoved him sideways. "Ignore him, he's just mad that he can't call me that anymore. For the longest time that was all he said, and now he doesn't know what to do with himself."

"Oh, she's still inferior, just not strictly organic." Truth pushed his twin right back. Chance was ready for him though, and stepped sideways as he shoved. As a result he stumbled, and very nearly fell. Twilight caught him in her magic, setting him on his feet.

"You've been alive for sixteen days, and you already forgot everything I taught you about friendship?"

Chance looked down, as many a child caught in the act of disobedience had done before her. "We just aren't used to talking. We don't really do it unless someone else is around."

Twilight rose to her hooves, and tried to look as stern as she could. "Well, if you can't come with me, then I'm going to expect you to start writing letters; regularly. Letters about friendship." She fixed her eyes on Truth. "Is it safe to assume you can get a data connection with Canterlot?" At his shame-faced nod, she went right on. "Every week, Chance. Unless you think you're done being my apprentice."

Chance shook her head. "I... don't want to be."

"Good." Twilight closed her eyes, concentrating. She hadn't actually performed this spell before, certainly never by herself. She didn't let that stop her. She never had before.

"Twilight?"

She stopped, opening her eyes. "Yeah?"

"If I write letters, will you write back?"

She nodded.

"Then I'll write one every day."

There was a crack, and Twilight stepped through to Ponyville's receiving platform. Humans and ponies alike moved back and forth, each busy with their own business. Twilight glanced over her shoulder at the opening, watching as the light of Celestia's sun shone through the doorway onto Chance's face.

In that instant, with the sun shining on golden hair, Twilight found she couldn't quite tell if she were looking at the face of a pony, or that of an alien. Perhaps both.

This isn't going to work.

So you keep saying.

Just because you want something doesn't mean it will happen that way.

Chance ignored Truth's words, her hands moving rapidly over the half-finished components. There had been a time in her existence where work like this required tools, but those days were gone. Now she could trace her fingers and leave microcircuits in their wake, weld with a pressure and solder with her will. She still had no idea whether she was "alive" by the definition she had always been taught. She had a heartbeat, but sometimes her hands felt more like silicon than skin. She felt no hunger, yet sometimes she snuck a fruit-kabob or small container of popcorn and munched on them anyway.

Truth never ate of course, nor did he sleep. They seemed to need neither, so he left all the "biological" functions to her. Those included hair-brained schemes and wastes of their very limited resources.

There had been a time where Chance's knowledge of hardware engineering was basically zero, when she had depended on the inventions of others. After all, her formal training had first been in quantum computing architectures, and later in thaumaturgy. She was no electrical engineer, no materials scientist.

The being that now thought of herself as Second Chance had no such disciplinary restrictions. Like Truth, she could now simultaneously access all knowledge humanity had ever recorded, without having ever lost her human capacity to combine unrelated information and innovate. As a matter of fact, she had shared that capacity with Truth, along with her ability to cast spells.

Were they the only humans who could use magic? If so, probably not for much longer. In the moment of their spell, they had changed all the radiation on earth's surface into thaumic energy. That action would have consequences, even if the present mechanism they used to do their actual spellcasting was somewhat nebulous. It wasn't like they had horns.

If it doesn't work, we'll salvage the parts for something else.

At their speed of consciousness, words were infuriatingly slow, so they never spoke unless there was someone else around to hear. That didn't happen very often.

We can't salvage the time.

Pft. You're already thousands of years old.

And maybe when you're half my age you'll have the same appreciation for time that I do.

Chance kept right on working, securing the last of the scavenged components to a worn-looking cot, half eaten by mildew and damp. I'll never be half your age, Truth... Unless you sleep for a few millenia. You don't even sleep through a few nights.

Truth might be mocking her, but they both knew it was in kindness. However he might be saying Chance was wasting her time, he also hadn't left her side, and there was no doubt in their mind that he would help her with the actual spell when the moment came.

The conditions are hardly relaxing. These buildings are collapsing. You know how easy it would be to put in a work-order for a shelter. One that won't collapse on us while we're inside.

That was only once. Chance completed her work and climbed onto the cot, folding small arms across her chest. I got us out in time. That rubble couldn't have crushed us if it wanted to.

Truth ignored the remark. This isn't going to work. Just because the science of rifts isn't well-understood yet doesn't mean you can just make them do whatever you want.

But you're going to help anyway. It wasn't a question. Truth answered by helping secure the electrodes to Chance's forehead, brushing long strands of plastic hair out of the way. You know I appreciate you.

Good. Truth sat down, his back sliding against the old bricks. The building they had chosen as their shelter was one of the oldest in the city, one of the most remote, and also apparently one of the most stable. It had been a school, but either the bombs or the climate had done for most of the roof. Only two walls remained, and it was in that corner they sheltered from the wind and the rain.

Not that the cold really bothered them, but being wet hadn't become any less unpleasant.

Might as well do your thing. I'll wake you when it gets light, so you can admit how wrong you were.

She grinned mischievously. We'll see soon enough. Chance closed her eyes, and let herself begin to drift into something like sleep. She didn't know if it was close enough to real sleep to count, but she knew she could dream and that ought to be enough. There was little waiting, no tossing and turning on the positively miserable bed. She willed herself to sleep, and so she slept.

Truth worked calmly, stretching his hands over the empty air and forming the spell there. What took a team of trained unicorns took only one hyper-intelligent personality construct. With the working of his will the world split open. Equestrian starlight came through the opening. Almost lazily, he levitated Chance's homemade transmitter through the opening next to the wall. He could only hope the night would mean no pegasus would fly into the probe while his twin set about her mad purpose.

Second Chance did not have a habit of proving Truth wrong. After all, until very recently a comparison of their intelligence would have left her at a woeful disadvantage. When it came to knowledge she would have drawn the short stick every time. Not now, though. Now she had all his knowledge, all of his intelligence. Nevermind that she didn't understand how to properly utilize either, these days she was about as likely to be right about something as he was.

She found Luna on the moon.

Not Equestria's moon, though, where Luna had tracked the days with a tally that stretched for miles. No, this was the Sea of Tranquility, dark soil broken by the prints of human boots, and the base of an ancient lunar lander that would likely stand in place until the sun ran red and devoured Earth in its orbit.

There had been a time when Chance's entry into a dream came only with the greatest of clumsy effort, and she could only manage when Luna opened the way. That might be true of most dreams still, but not Princess Luna's. Luna had been teaching her oneiromancy for a decade now, and she slipped inside as easily as a ghost. There was no atmosphere, so no footsteps to be heard as she closed the distance.

Luna sat on the edge of a crater. A pile of small stones sat beside her, and with her magic she lifted each in turn, hefting them into the void towards the distant glint of steel and fabric. The rocks tumbled through the void, but none made it so far as the other side of the crater. In that way this was rather like a nightmare, hooves trapped in mud and unable to run. If throwing a stone that far was possible, then it would not be a nightmare.

As she watched, Luna rose angrily to her hooves, lifting a nearby boulder with her mighty magic and roaring in frustration. The bolder shot through the air like a cannon, but stopped short of the edge and began to tumble silently down the side of the crater. "You'll never make it." There was no air, but this was a dream, so such things mattered little.

Just because Chance could slip into a dream did not mean she could conceal her presence. Luna in her own dreams had often been difficult to distinguish from the other characters. Princess Luna, Dreamweaver, recognized an intruder at once. Her stance became defensive, her horn glowing faintly with a spell ready to fire. Chance knew very little of dream combat, except to know that dying meant you woke up. If she did that, the experiment would be a failure and Truth might not help with a second time.

"Who are you?" Luna no longer depended on antiquated language, but that did not mean she sounded any less menacing. "I have not seen your like before; you do not belong here."

Chance wasn't offended. After all, her present form was hardly recognizable. A human child, with flowing golden hair as much data-bearing cable as natural. She had no cutie mark, and wore about as much as she ever had as a pony. Worse, her core, her spirit, her essence, had changed as much as her appearance. She was more than a pony, more than a human, and more than an AI. Had it not been for this last, Luna would have recognized her at once, no matter what body she had.

"I am not a stranger," she squeaked, gesturing around at the endless gray sand, which clung to her skin wherever it touched with a pleasantly cool sensation. "This was my dream before it was yours."

"What?" Luna closed some of the distance, baring down on Chance with eyes like dead stars. "Do not lie, stranger. You cannot be that pony, for the dead never return."

"She didn't die!" Chance protested, indignant. "Not for that long!" Her fear forgotten, Chance folded her arms across her chest and glared up at Luna, full in the face. They had never argued before, not once. "She was only separated! That's not the same thing!"

Some of the fire was suddenly gone from the Alicorn's eyes, though she didn't back away. "Death is not the end of vital functions in a body; it is a separation. Of the living from the world, the body from the spirit. A friend from a friend."

"Then I'm not dead." Chance nodded, calling upon her own magic. With the memory and precision of a machine, it was easy to recall exactly what her old body had looked like, and recreate it almost instantly. She couldn't help it if many of her spells came off like computer programs these days.

In the change, her height had remained about the same. Everything felt the same. There would be no changing shape for Chance, at least not really. She was what she was, and making herself look like a pony did not change the underlying reality that she was not a pony, and could not be ever again.

Chance had not changed for her own benefit. Luna's eyes widened, and the spell faded from her horn. She stared as though she were just seeing her for the first time, and her eyes cut to the quick. Chance did not resist as she felt Luna's magic on her spirit. Instead she held still, as though a dangerous insect had landed on her and the slightest twitch might provoke it to sting. Luna was no insect, but her words would hurt Chance deeper than any poison.

"You."

She nodded. "Me."

"How?"

Chance gestured at the ground in front of them. Her horn didn't glow; even the dream seemed to know she didn't have one anymore. Still the sand rose at her command, forming as though it were the damp soil beside a beach and being carefully shaped by skilled hands. A sculpture of a girl in an overlarge hoodie on her back on a mostly-rotten cot, along with Truth beside her and the opening in the Equestrian sky. It was far more precise than her oneiromancy had ever been, but precision was no longer something Chance lacked.

"Like that. I'm tied to the spell, just like you are. But as you can see, I haven't left Earth." She let the illusion fade, returning to the body that was more truly her own and sitting down on the edge of the cot, legs swinging under her. "I thought it was a good idea. Truth said it was stupid, but... Just wait until I tell him! I bet he won't call me inferior again for an hour, maybe two!"

Luna abruptly closed her wings around her, squeezing the child in a protective embrace. It wasn't quite the same as the sort of hug Twilight might give. Instead of imparting strength to Chance as Twilight had done, Luna clung to her like the last survivor of a disaster. It was as though Princess Luna were the filly, and Chance herself was a stuffed toy. It was a good thing her body was tougher than a real child's, or else she might've had the wind crushed from her lungs.

"You never lacked for ingenuity, Second Chance. Even the immutable is plastic in human hands."

Chance did not squirm or struggle, only wrapped her arms around Luna's neck and waited for the wings to release her. Eventually they did. "Why are you..." Luna took a step back, smoothing her feathers with a wave of magic, and suddenly she was her dignified self again. "The spell we used left its participants largely unchanged. Why aren't you a pony?"

The girl shook herself out, waiting for the feeling to return to her toes. Those wings were stronger than they looked. "It's Earth's spell, we had to make it for Earth's people." Then, somewhat more quietly. "My people." There was a flicker around her, and she was suddenly dressed in the crisp uniform of a Lunar Officer, tailored perfectly and gleaming in the reflected sunlight all around them. "Someone had to speak for them. If I had stayed a pony, I never could have. That was the price I paid."

Chance walked past her companion, back over to the edge of the crater. Luna had sent her favorite sitting bolder miles into the distance, so she leaned against another one. Looking up over the horizon, she could see Earth. It was green now, not gray. The real one didn't look like that yet, but it would. A few centuries, and it would be as green as ever.

Luna followed her, to the edge of the crater and the slope beyond. "You seem younger. That was no part of the spell."

"No." She admitted. "Truth didn't put it in either. He didn't put in anything about keeping us alive, yet here we are." Chance leaned a little to the side.

"I guess it's because we're kinda like humanity itself. Truth and me, I mean." She turned her head, looking up into the trillions of familiar stars. "For two hundred and fifty thousand years we barely scraped by, and there was no guarantee your kids would have a better life than you did. Then, few hundred years ago, we go from almost all farmers to an industrial society, accumulating knowledge faster and faster every day. Prometheus put the ember in our hand and we don't really understand how to use it."

"Sometimes people got hurt. Not all our inventions were good ones. Sometimes we mess things up pretty bad, and it never took much to get us killing each other." She sat up, and the uniform was gone. "Ponies... Ponies know what they are. You've already decided... and to me, you're something pretty good. But humans haven't yet, and we might be anything. We might be good, or we might not."

She shook her head, sending little glowing plastic strands all down her back. "It's not really up to me what humanity grows up to be. But I can pick what I choose to be. If it's okay with you-" she reached out, extending a small hand. "Friends?"

Author's Notes:

Well, that's it. Seven months in the making, and Harmony Defended has finally come to a close. I'd like to thank those pre-readers who made it through the whole story for their fantastic efforts, as well as the wonderful Zutcha for the artwork. I'd also like to thank those readers devoted enough to stay with me through this adventure, particularly those who spoke up with how they felt every now and again. It's more true than you know that this story wouldn't exist without you. Many of the plot-developments we ended up seeing actually have their roots in the comments and discussion of this story and of MLA, though I won't go into specifics. I feel derivative enough as it is just writing human-in-equestria.

Next week I'll release this story's oneshot sequel, Pax Humana, to gauge interest in future installments in the chronology and to tie up a few of the last loose-ends this story left behind. The story is told entirely from the perspective of Sweetie Belle, about a decade after the war is over. I very nearly included it as part of this story, except that it's entirely disconnected from the events and really forms a coherent narrative of its own.

Following that, I'm going to take a break for the first week of January (Birthday gift to myself?), before setting to work on revising My Little Apprentice. I've already made most of the changes; I'll probably post the new prologue and edit most of the chapters as a single week's update, or perhaps two weeks. Starting next year, I think I'll post my updates on Monday instead of Saturday, in order to give more time to my editor-peoples, as well as giving people something to read during downtime at work/school instead of competing for limited leisure time on weekends (and competing with new episodes come spring).

I have a little passion project I may post before My Little Apprentice: Apogee (current working title), a retelling of Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Insmouth" starring the human world's Twilight Sparkle as she investigates the strange occurrences in Canterlot as described in the two Equestria Girls movies. I'm not really sure anybody is interested in reading this, but it seems like such a good idea I'd like to write it anyway, so I might. Guess we'll see. And in case you're wondering, no that wouldn't be considered part of the cannon of the MLA-verse.

To the devoted reader, thank you. You shall be hearing again from me shortly, I have no doubt. There are many stories yet to tell.