The children poured out into the theatre lobby. It had been another hot day, and everypony had gotten together and splurged on a movie marathon in the frosty air conditioned local multiplex. They were all swarming around the concession stand, reloading on popcorn and soda before diving back into the theatre for the second film. They were pronking about, still wound up from the overdose of cinematic action... all except Nyx, who seemed to be floating on a cloud of nirvanic bliss. "Guess you really liked 'The Five Armies and the Dragon," Willow said to her. "You haven't stopped smiling since we got out."

"Oh, it was good," Nyx agreed. "Um, the first part with the dragon, anyway. The rest was just okay. But the real important part is: now I can finally, finally, FINALLY read the books. Without spoilering anything!"

Several of the others giggled at her. "Don't ever change, Nyx," Sweetiebelle said, amused. She looked over at Spike, who was feeding Peewee some bits of popcorn and looking disgruntled. "I'm guessing you didn't enjoy it too much, what with the whole, er, dragon slaying thing," she said. "No offense."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Sweetiebelle, Bright Eyes and I go out and punch other dragons in the face," he said. "I'm not really bent about a big evil city-torching dragon getting what was coming to him." He snorted. "What gets me....the whole magic arrow thing was kind of dumb, really. I mean, It was sooooo magical the archer needed to find a teeny tiny weak spot in Smoak's armor for it to work? So what was so magical about it then? And if he was such a great archer that he could hit that teeny tiny spot, why didn't he just take a regular arrow and shoot him in the eye, instead?" He shrugged.

"Yeah," Bright Eyes agreed. "I mean, one regular arrow into the eyeball and his brain woulda been skewered."

"Nah, actually it would've sorta bounced around inside his skull..." Spike pantomimed an object entering his eye and ricocheting around in his head.

"If it was a cannonball, maybe. An arrow might've just given him brain damage. If he'd used an exploding arrow then..."

Some of the others started looking ill.  "I think you spend too much time hanging out with those military ponies, you two," Nyx said.

Willow started feeling a little squeamish himself. It was an something of an open secret that the shy crystal pony and the baby dragon were actually Champions of the Crystal Empire. Spike could transform into an armored draconic titan at will, and Bright Eyes acted as his forward scout, spotter, and mounted weaponeer. They were on call for both Equestria and the Crystal Empire to battle monsters and other threats to the kingdom. They were respected and admired and were still dear friends, but their extracurricular activities did mean the two tended to get a more gruesome education than the others. "So do you think you'll like the other movie better then?" he said, hoping to change the topic to something less graphic. It was a cartoon from Neighpon and the poster looked really exciting.

In response Spike's face crumpled like he'd bitten a lemon and Bright Eyes blushed and faded to semi-invisibility. Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetiebelle started giggling and snickering.  "What?" Willow said, confused.

Nyx had a funny habit; whenever she was trying not to laugh she would hold her breath till her cheeks pooched out. Right now she was crossing her eyes with the effort and sputtering like a burning fuse on a cartoon bomb. Applebloom took mercy on her and decided to explain to the mystified batpony before her alicorn friend burst something. "Nyx promised Spike not to tell," she sighed. "Willow, what's the title of the movie?"

"Um, 'Champions of the Crystal... Kingdom," he said. His eyes went wide behind his sunglasses as he suddenly put two and two together. He pointed a hoof at Spike and Bright Eyes. "You mean it's about YOU GUYS---?"

Everypony shushed him frantically, then went back to smothered giggles. "Yeah, it's about them," Flitter said, smirking over her shoulder at the scowling duo. "Some animation company in Neighpon heard about Spike and Bright Eyes saving the Crystal Empire from those dragons and made a movie about it. They changed some names and, um, some other stuff---" Nyx lost the battle and exploded into sputtering snorts and snickers-- "but yeah, it's about them."

"Wow, that sounds awesome!" Willow said. He looked at Spike, confused. "I don't get it. If somepony made a movie about me I'd be thrilled!"

Spike covered his face with his claws. "Just... just go watch the movie," he said. "You'll understand."

 

---

 

Two hours later Willow trotted out of the theatre, looking vaguely poleaxed. The others... were staggering. Nyx and the Trio(1) were leaning against each other, weak from laughter. As for Spike and Bright Eyes... Spike's face was scrunched into a permanent scowl and Bright Eyes looked like he wanted a vacation somewhere far away. Like, maybe, the far side of the Moon.

Their reactions were unsurprising. The Neighponese animators had begged, long and hard, to do a 'creative retelling' of the Battle of the Dragons and the events surrounding it. Cadence and Shining Armor had agreed to it, so long as the animators promised to keep the actual identities of those involved on the down low. After the Neighponese animators were through, the chances of anyone recognizing Spike and Bright Eyes from their cinematic counterparts was practically nil.  Much like their counterparts in dozens of ur-Japans scattered across the multiverse, Neighpon animators had an almost unearthly gift for taking even the simplest story and turning it into something, as Roller Reel might have put it, "Totally Bat-s#$t insane."

Willow was still trying to recover from the onslaught of sights and sounds and possibly synesthesia-induced tastes and smells.There had been a half-dozen mountain-sized dragons and explosions and charging heroic armies and something about a mystic Heart that unlocked the power of all Earth Ponies and the Elements of Harmony had all undergone a magic girl transformation at one point-- at least he thought that was them, for some reason all the ponies in the movie were drawn tall and impossibly stick thin with huge dewy dark-lashed eyes, even the colts, and Spike kept going back and forth one scene to the next from being a vaguely dragon-looking anime pony knight to being a giant half-dragon, half-mecha with no explanation and Bright Eyes was his pilot who had a huge wavy pompadour mane and sparkled even more than a crystal pony should, and for some reason he and Nyx were adults and Willow wasn't sure but he thought they were either supposed to be brother and sister or star-crossed lovers and everypony ran around yelling the most ridiculous things at the most ridiculous times...

"I... don't get Neighpon cartoons, I think," he said.

"It's called "Ani-Mane," somepony said pedantically. Willow looked behind him; it was Snips. Snails was with him.

"Yah, and the comics are called Mane-ga," Snails added. "Pretty awesome, huh?"

"You like this stuff?" Willow asked, surprised.

Snips scoffed. "Well this was okay, but a true aficionado like myself prefers to watch the subtitled versions," he said. "Dubbed-in voices are for the plebes."

"Heyyy," Snails protested. "I like the dubs! Subtitles are no fun!"

"What are you talking about? The voice actors always sound terrible and they never capture all the little nuances--"

"But the little words at the bottom of the screen go by too fast for me to read!" Snails complained.

"You're hopeless," Snips said, shaking his head. "what do you think, Willow?"

Willow thought. The movie had been weird and confusing and hard to understand in parts, and to judge by the way Nyx and the Trio were laughing themselves sick at Spike and Bright Eyes it had gotten even more details wrong than just the obvious ones... but on the other hand, lots of cool giant monsters and robots and explosions and lots of pretty fillies dressed in very interesting sailor costumes with little frilly skirts...  He gave up and shrugged.

"You all gonna come with us to the clubhouse?" Scootaloo asked. "Dinky has some new ideas to try for her cutie mark and she asked for us to help."

Nyx grimaced. "Sorry," she said. "Spike and I have to go back to the palace and get dressed up. Big fancy party thing." She shrugged. "Some sort of... ambassador... fundraising... banquet.... thingy."  Despite the Princesses managing to shuck most of their royal power, they still had a great deal of symbolic power... which came with a lot of symbolic, diplomatic duties which they hadn't been able to wriggle out of. Luna's Castle of the Moon and Twilight's Friendship Castle ended up hosting a number of social and diplomatic events.(2)

"It's for the International Association of Archeology," Spike said knowledgeably. "They're going to be holding a big meeting about coordinating the work of various explorers and explorer's groups-- like the Gentlepony Adventurer's Club. Raising funds, planning out expeditions, that sort of thing. " The dragonling shrugged. "Thanks to Twilight's discovery of the lost tomb of Chancellor Level Head, her invention of the Synchronizers, finding out the whole world is a big spaceship, and the Tree of Harmony's, um, well--" He pointed to the gigantic tree-palace in the distance. The offspring of the Tree of Harmony had gone to great lengths to blend in with the more rustic community around it, covering itself with living bark and leaves in homage to the lost tree-library that had preceded it. But quantity has a quality all its own, and the vast tree-palace just stood there dominating the Ponyville skyline, like a sheepish colt in gym class lineup after his first growth spurt.

"Well, after all that and seeing how everything is so interconnected, everypony thinks it'd be a good idea to work together. Make sure no explorer accidentally, I dunno, enters some long lost tomb, pushes the wrong button and makes the planet start doing loop-the-loops or something."

"Didn't mom and the others have to deal with that, once?" Nyx said. "That Ahoozootle guy?"

"Ahuizotl. Yeah. He got hold of these magic rings that would've turned one of the biggest rainforests on the planet into a lifeless desert. Twilight said it worked by turning the sky into a giant Frezneigh lens... Celestia was kind of honked. She felt like he was trespassing on her turf or something, what with the whole "fires of the sun" riff." He shrugged. "Anyway....they had to team up with Daring Do to stop him in time. It worked, but.... anyway, since then The I.A.A. and the Gentlepony Adventurer's Club want to start getting serious, sending out bunches of explorers to track down any ancient artifacts and magical wingdings like that, so they don't fall into the wrong hands again."

"So they're all coming to our house to stand around and talk and talk and TALK and talk and talk and TALK about it," Nyx said, rolling her eyes.

The others laughed. "Yeah, time to climb into the old monkey suit again," Spike said. "You get your dress uniform cleaned, Bright Eyes? The Crystal Guardians gotta put in an appearance." Bright Eyes nodded.

"Gentlepony Adventurer's Club?" Willow asked, suddenly curious. "Isn't that the group that Frosty's Mom works for?"

"Yeah, I think it is," Spike said. "Why?"

"What are you worried about him for?" Snips said, a little scornfully. He had been among the first to be rebuffed by the cold-shouldered little colt, and was still a little hurt about it. "He's in with all the cool rich kids now."

"Just... wondering," Willow said. Truth be told, the half-wendigo colt had been on his mind lately. Nopony had seen him outside of class, not even on recess. The Honeybee Club had been dominating all his time, supposedly working on their class project but in reality dragging him hither and thither with them everywhere they went doing... whatever it was eager little social-climbing colts and fillies did. The few times Willow had seen Frosty, Frosty certainly hadn't looked happy. In fact he seemed to go everywhere with a storm cloud hanging over his head. Sometimes literally.  "I guess it just sort of bugs me. When I came here things were so great, and you guys were all so great.."   a chorus of 'aww' and 'shoot, we're blushing' went up. "But for him, I dunno, it's like all the things that made me happier made him miserable."

Nyx looked sympathetic. "Well, I guess we could ask his mom or something tonight," she said. "Maybe she knows why he's so unhappy."

"He's in the clutches of Diamond Tiara," Scootaloo snarked. "He needs a reason to be unhappy?" This.... pretty much got a nodding agreement from everypony.(3)

"Could someone explain to me how she's the 'most popular' filly in school when nopony likes her?" Spike said, making quote marks in the air.

The other children actually traded surprised looks. The question had never really been aired.  "Anyway, I'll... keep an eye out for him," Nyx said. "He might be there tonight. His mom is one of the special guests, after all..." Abruptly she changed the subject. "So how are you guys all coming on your projects for the Education Fair?"

Several noses scrunched at the minor transgression of discussing schoolwork on a Saturday, but enthusiasm for Cheerilee's project prevailed. "Pretty good, actually," Flitter said. "We were sorta stumped for a while. I mean--- changelings are ponies in all the ways that matter but... some things are different." She fidgeted. "I really had no idea how to explain to ponies how some things are different for a changeling than a pony, but Twist had a brilliant idea... aaaand I don't wanna tell any more than that." the changeling filly grinned.

"Aw, come on," Scootaloo said.

"Nope. Not telling," Twist lisped. She and Flitter smirked at the rest of them. "But believe me," Flitter added, "you're gonna love it. What about you guys?"

Willow started a little when he realized that she was looking at him. He looked over guiltily at Snips and Snails. They, Pipsqueak and Button Mash had all but pounced on him for their group; they were going to do a presentation on the 'coolest' race, the thestrals, come Tartarus or Windigoes, and they lassoed him in. Willow, however, had been dragging his hooves about getting together with them. "Um, well--"

"Hey, don't worry, Willow," Snips said confidently. "We know you've been busy so we've been gathering up all sorts of cool stuff for our demonstration. Y'know, to pick through when we get together to work on the report." He and snails held up two posters. "In fact we got some neat stuff here at the movieplex!" The posters unrolled; one was for a rather lurid vampire b-movie; the other was for the up and coming BatStallion movie. Pipsqueak came galloping up in the next moment, a recruiting poster for the Royal Guard in his mouth.

WIllow facehoofed; and there it was. Snips, Snails, Button Mash and Pipsqueak hadn't earned the somewhat cruel nickname 'the Nerd Herd' for nothing. Snips and Snails were comic book geeks, Button Mash was a total gamer dork.... even Pipsqueak spent so much time with his head in the clouds daydreaming that he'd earned a reputation as a space cadet. So naturally they'd latched onto thestrals for their thesis--- Snips and Snails because they associated them alternately with either BatStallion or Count Dracula, Pipsqueak because of their association with the Night Guard and hence Princess Luna, and Button Mash hadn't been clear, only babbling something about playing through CastleMane-ia fifteen times. Poor Willow was having trouble disassociating himself from these ideas in his partners' minds. He sighed wearily. "Guys, for the zillionth time, I'm not a vampire, not every thestral is in the Night Guard..." he pointed an accusing hoof at the caped crusader on the first poster. "And Bruce Mane is just a big DORK!"

"Heyyy," Snails complained.

"He is, he's just a rich doofus..."

"He is not!" Applebloom barked suddenly, hopping forward. "He's a right nice feller!" Willow blinked at the earth pony filly in confusion. She went on. "He's polite and friendly an' my sister Applejack likes him plenty fine. So don't go callin' him names!"

Willow stared at her for a moment. "Wait. What?" He shook his head. She must know another Bruce Mane, he realized. "No, I'm talking about the pony in the poster," he said, pointing again.

"That's what ah--" Applebloom's mouth was suddenly corked with a hoof. Scootaloo whispered something into Applebloom's ear before withdrawing her hoof. Applebloom turned red a bit. "Oh. Right. Uhh, nevermind." She tipped her nose up. "He, uh, just needs to be more careful lettin' ponies know who he's talkin' about," she said, looking away and scrunching her nose. Scootaloo and Sweetiebelle giggled and gave each other knowing looks.

Willow squinted at her suspiciously. Had he just been made the butt of some sort of joke? "Nyx," he pleaded. "Could me and the guys come over and work on our project in the library tonight? We really do need to do some research and stuff..."

Nyx hesitated. "The party they're holding is invite only.... buuut if you stay in the library I think Mom won't mind."

Spike chortled. "Twilight Sparkle? Turn down someone who wants to study? Not a chance."

Willow grinned. "Great! We'll all go ask our parents, then meet at the palace. Er, the Library. Whatever ." He looked around. "Where's Button Mash? We have to let him know."

"I'll go get him," Pipsqueak volunteered, rolling his eyes. "He found a Pac-Pony game over by the ticket booth and he's busy emptying his piggy bank into it."

An adult throat cleared behind them. The crowd of foals jumped and turned around. "Not that this ain't educating and informative and all that," the popcorn stallion said, leaning over the counter, "But if you ain't buying another movie ticket, I'm gonna have to ask you all to clear out of the lobby so the paying customers can get in."

Various foals groaned as they realized they had hit the limit of their spending money. They all dolefully trooped out the double front doors, out of the cool air-conditioned comfort of the movieplex and into the wall of heat waiting for them. "Bwaugh!" somepony said. "What is wrong with the weather ponies? Can't they do their jobs?"

"Hey!" Scootaloo said.

"They do a great job, that's kind of the problem, Mom says," Nyx said. She pulled her gigantic hat and sunglasses out of her pannier and put them on, trying to disappear under their shade as she plodded along. "I dunno, something to do with the climate. I asked her and then she started talking Discord and Chaos and something called fraggles--"

"Fractals." Spike corrected her automatically.

"Anyway, it got confusing." She shrugged, already listless in the heat. "Time to head home I guess. I'll see you all tomorrow..." Slowly the group peeled off, with Willow and the Nerd Herd being the last to head their own way.

Permission was sought and granted, and sometime after supper, with the sun setting and the cool relief of the evening air falling over Ponyville, Willow and his friends found themselves back together at the Palace of Friendship. They were cheerfully-- but discreetly-- hustled into the castle by a side door by Lightning Blitz and Sundiver, who had been told by Nyx to keep an eye out for the study group. Already there were a great number of somewhat stuffy looking ponies gathered at the main entrance, and nopony wanted to disturb the official partygoers from their wining and dining and signing of large donation checks.

Fortunately the layout of the Palace of Friendship was quite clever. The public quarters of the library were mostly in the trunk of the tree, with the palatial amenities in the upper boughs, and the private quarters, staff quarters, workrooms and access hallways of both were laid out so guests and staff could easily avoid one another. The two Guardponies escorted Willow and his friends to the library and, after securing a promise from them they wouldn't go traipsing into the party, left them to their devices.

Willow tossed his panniers on a study table and looked around the fully renovated library. It looked even more enormous than it had on the field trip. The place was all but abandoned, save for a gangly brown teenage earth pony shoving a push broom up and down the aisles, and the whirring and flickering light from the film room that said Roller Reel was working after hours. Daffodil, Twilight's flutterpony library assistant, fluttered (what else?) over in their direction. "I was told you'd be working in here late, no worries," she said. "We're always opening up like this for friends and classmates and such. Maker knows why Twilight doesn't just declare the library open 24-7..." she gave a puff, blowing her drooping pom-pom antennae out of her own face. "Can I help you with anything?"

WIllow shook his head. "No, we know how to use the magic kiosk and everything, so we should be okay..." Before he could say more he was interrupted by a loud thump and a yell of pain-- as if a large book had slammed into a propeller-beanie wearing head. Fast on its heels came a train of yelps, howls, wails and thumps.

"Awgh! What--" BANG.

"OW!! What it do THAT fo--" WHUMP.

"OWW!!" WHamp.

"NO FAIR!" WHAP.

"AAOWW!! WAAH!! Whap bamp Thump thumpity thump thud.

"Awwwaaah... MOOOMMMMM!!!"

They came around the end of the shelves to find Button Mash lying at the foot of one of the kiosks, covered in a pile of books. At least Willow assumed it was Button Mash. The other three were standing around the book pile, and there was a brown hoof and a battered propeller beanie sticking out from under the heap. Pipsqueak shook his head. "I told him it didn't have any games on it. Never let this bloke near something with buttons and a viewscreen or he'll be trying to stick a cartridge in it," he said.

"I wasn't trying to play a game," Button protested, his voice muffled by the books entombing him. "I asked it to give us books on thestrals!"

"Looks like it did," Snips said, picking up a volume.

Willow was impressed. "Gosh," he said with an odd feeling of pride. "I never knew there were so many books about us thestrals."

"Tell me about it," Button groaned. The others began digging him out.

"Thank you, Miss Daffodil," Willow said to the flutterpony. "I think we can take it from here..."

 

The next hour found the five colts covering the tabletop with stacks of books, posters, and craft materials. Of course, they were still stuck at the same impasse as before. "Okay, some of these old books are good," Snips said. "I guess. Kinda."

"Are you kidding?" Willow growled. "They're all-- all full of stories about thestrals sucking blood or being undead or, or living shadows or blood-sucking undead living shadows." He grumped. "Or that we're slaves of Nightmare Moon, or cursed by Nightmare Moon, or that we were made by Discord, or even crazier stuff." He didn't even bother mentioning the archaic old tome that had insisted that thestrals were part dragon.

"Well they are really OLD books," Pipsqueak said. "Most of them, anyway."

"But all the new stuff is hardly any better than the old stuff!"  Willow griped. He kicked a hoof at the offending pile of posters, fliers, comics and bric a brac the Nerd Herd had gathered. All of it was pop-culture fluff about thestrals... the bad sort.

"Look, guys," Willow said to his regrettable report partners. "You want to do a report on what thestrals are. But you keep digging up stuff like this. This-- this is all the stuff us thestrals aren't!"

"Well," Pipsqueak said, a little rebelliously. "You haven't given us anything to work with. We keep asking you what it's like to be a thestral, and you don't tell us anything!"

"Yeah," Snails drawled. "I mean, we know you're not a Vampony, but only cuz you told us. But you never tell us what you are."

"Don't look at me," Button Mash said. "All I know about batponies is that they're worth 540 experience points on level five of Castle Mane-ia."

Willow grimaced. He had been dragging his hooves on doing his share of the work. But it was... confusing. How do you describe what being you is like? It was like trying to describe the taste of the inside of your own mouth!  "I just..." he sighed. "I'm sorry, guys. I don't know how to start..."

Snails looked at the movie posters, his head tilted. He picked up a paintbrush, dipped it in a jar, and painstakingly drew a red circle with a line through it across the movie vampony's face. "Would this work better?" he said, holding the altered poster up.

Snips groaned and started to say something annoyed... then paused. "Yeah... hey, yeah!" He brightened up. "That's how we do it!"

"What?" Willow asked.

"What if we start by showing all the stuff that batponies are not?" At the others' confused expressions he scowled and went on. "It's like my dad says. He does whittling. These cool carvings of ponies' faces out of wood, you know? I  asked him once how he does it, he said 'it's easy, you just cut away all the pieces of wood that don't look like a pony.'" The others groaned at the joke. Dad Humor, lame in any universe.

"Heh. Well, if we start out our presentation..." he picked up a pair of scissors and a piece of paper in his magic and began cutting. "By showing everypony all the things like this that ponies think batponies are, but are wrong..." scraps of paper fluttered down as he snipped away. "Then when we're done, we'll have shown them what batponies really are." He held up a perfect cutout of a string of bat-winged paper pony dolls.

The circle of colts brightened. "Yeah," Pipsqueak said. "Yeah, I think I get the idea. That's ruddy brilliant, Snips!" Snips beamed. The colts set to work again, this time with a will.

An hour in, Willow retreated for a bathroom break. He was feeling very pleased with the way things were going, he decided; it was probably a big step that Snips and Snails, the two ponies who'd thought him a vampony, were finally getting past all the bad movie drek and seeing him for himself.

He washed his hooves at the sink and stepped out of the bathroom... and paused, a bit confused. While the Crystal Seed that had built the Palace of Friendship had put in all the proper amenities, it apparently had a loose grasp of what constituted an efficient layout; the washroom had been up a flight of stairs and around a corner or three, and now he wasn't sure which way he'd come in.

It was then he heard the sounds of ponies talking. He flicked his sensitive ears in the direction of the voices. "If it isn't the fellas, then it's probably somepony who can point me back the right direction," he decided, and followed the sounds.

To his embarrassment he quickly figured out he was going the wrong way. He found himself in a narrow hallway, with ponies in serving uniforms trotting hastily in either direction. Somehow he'd gotten turned around and ended up in a service hallway for the palace upstairs. Princess Twilight may have disliked the trappings of princesshood, but there was no escaping some of the necessities.... like a staff of servants capable of caring for an entire palace.

The staff moving through the halls was like a river. It bore Willow along, heedless of where he wanted to go, until he popped through a set of double doors into an enormous kitchen  bustling with activity, sizzling food, flashing cookwear, and harried looking ponies. Willow bumped into a lanky stallion wearing a chef's hat. "What are you doing in here?--- oh never mind why, go on, back out there, out out out!" Despite Willow's flustered attempts to explain, the chef ushered him along, chasing him almost backwards out of a pair of double doors--

--and into a part of the building Willow absolutely knew he'd never been in before. An enormous room with a vaulted ceiling and glossy floor stretched out before him, filled from wall to wall with grownups dressed in their finest clothing. They were all chatting with one another, moving about the room, nibbling on things on toothpicks and drinking from tall skinny glasses as fancy music played. For some odd reason a number of them were wearing hats like Daring Do.

It took him about two seconds to realize that he had stumbled right into the very fancy party that he had been told, in no uncertain terms, to avoid at all costs. Unfortunately it only took the doors behind him half a second to swing shut with (to him) a deafening thud... and a half second after that for more and more ponies to start looking curiously in his direction.

"Whups," he said.

 

 

---

1)The founding Cutie Mark Crusaders--- Applebloom, Sweetiebelle and Scootaloo.

2)Visiting dignitaries who attended the Friendship Castle soirees often found themselves, to their puzzlement, the proud owner of a shiny new Ponyville Library Card.

3)Even the popcorn vendor in the lobby.