-Nitroglycerine and Ice Cubes-

Luna’s bedroom and Luna’s sleeping chamber were quite different: The place she slept and the place she walked the dreamscape were very different. Her bedroom was built for comfort, for her place of rest. And as a result the Chamber was a place for meditation and the exclusion of all outside influences. This room was dark, so dark that the walls disappeared into blackness even to Luna’s eyes.It was more than an absence of light, it clung like fog to everything. Dark purple curtains hung around her at seven points, and where they spread across the floor they absorbed nearly every sound. The floor was kept at the temperature of her flesh by a reactive spell that she had crafted into the circle herself. Black candles held a twilight glow about her meditation circle, but served doubly to suck away her night vision until she could truly believe she was floating in the void.

Luna herself looked far from her regal appearance as she crouched upon the floor with her head against the ground. Gone were her raiments, and so she was naked to the cool air. Her mane held none of the luster that it had when she stood before the ponies of Equestria, or anyone for that matter. Instead it was heavy with sweat and fell in clumps around her, the stars within flickered as if through a heavy smoke. Her coat was matted with foam and her breath came shakily.

Fighting the nightmares of the ponies was often trivial, but some nights were worse than others. Some nights left her gasping for breath and shivering at the sight of the dreams: the nightmares of the truly fearful; the night terrors could often be the most difficult to dispel, as the sleeper was frozen in a state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness and her power could slip away depending on their perception; the mad were sometimes the worst, as their dreams often were an amalgam of horrible imagery and the sleeper was unable to help themselves, but they too deserved a peaceful sleep. But one nightmare in particular had captured her efforts this night, as it was one from a pony she had yet to see among the dreamscape: Coalback’s dreams.

Luna’s head shot up from the floor and she gasped for air, her mane hung like a clinging cowl about her head and she struggled to fill her lungs. Tears stung at her eyes and she heard them clack to the floor heavily. A shiver ran down her spine, and she struggled to grab hold of her own sanity.

The things she had seen within his dreams were no nightmares forged from a fearful imagination, but instead the angry ghosts of his memories. Those truly were the worst nightmares, as they were the hardest for the dreamer to accept. And she could not simply will away those, there were few cures for such fears. But what Coalback had done, in his fear and his desperation, could truly haunt a thousand souls.

She had not wished to learn so much about him so graphically, but now she had. Perhaps that was why she had not seen his dreams among the dreamscape for the last days: he was afraid to sleep. Luna could sympathize with such feelings, as a past painted with so much blood could not be one to sit easily in his mind. Coalback’s dreams were vivid, not a true lucid dreamer but perhaps one with a mind that took in detail like a sponge and never let it go.

But now she was certain the pony held a conscious, and a strong moral code: Else he would not be haunted by the dead in his sleep. However, she had sensed another presence in his dreams, one that had the power to expel her so violently from his mind. It had hunted her through the violent landscape of Coalback’s nightmare, even as she fought to bring happy memories to the forefront of his mind. But in the end she had felt huge fangs close over her neck, and huge sickle shaped claws sink into her flank. A horrible howl filled the air and her own dreadful fear had overcome her.

Thus she sat with a cold sweat and gasping breath as she recovered from her dive into his dreams. Coalback was haunted by more than the deeds of his past. Truly a powerful spirit shared his body, one strong enough to expel her so forcefully from him. But a question remained around this Other within him: Had it somehow extracted the memories of the Blaidd that still shot ice into her heart; or was it simply the angry spirit of one of Coalback’s ancestors? Of this she could not know.

An echo of Coalback’s dream leapt to her vision unbidden and she flinched. A bloody hand, reaching out desperately as if for help. But a shattered stump lay behind it with the desperate face of its owner far behind it, her bottom half gone and her organs chewed by gnashing teeth. Rapid pops filled the air, and shooting stars whipped past overhead. Screams filled the air, but those dead eyes filled Luna with horror.

Luna did not know how Coalback had come to this point, or what had led to that damning moment, but it was carved into his brain and lit aflame as brightly as the sun: and she knew it for the innocent death that it had been.

“Coalback,” Luna breathed. “Your will is strong to go on with such evils haunting you,” she said, as if a prayer. “Do not bear it alone or it will crush you. You are dying, no matter how alive you think yourself to be.” She could only hope that his nightmares would calm soon, for she could not find the fortitude to return to the dreamscape.

Rainbow Dash’s room was one of the most important rooms of her house, at least that’s how she saw it. As such it was one of the rooms she’d spent the most time on when she’d built the house during the move to Ponyville. As it was, it was the only room in the house that she felt truly sure of; she often moved, removed and remade other rooms in her house but the bedroom rarely changed. It had far more than enough space for her, and she’d taken the time to make a spacious and high quality bed for it. The tone of the walls changed with the time of day; in the morning it could be a warm orange, and at night it could be a calming purple. The raised platform where she slept might have been somewhat narcissistic, especially since she saw it as her personal pedestal. The bookshelves held what few books she considered awesome enough to read, mostly Daring Do but she had a few others.

Rainbow woke reluctantly from her sleep, her warm bed made it very hard to want to get up. She snuggled deeper into her sheets and buried her face in her pillow, an accidental snort scratched at the roof of her mouth and she tasted her morning breath. She scowled at the taste but it was still not enough to force her away from the warmth draped over her. She couldn’t remember any dreams, but she felt incredibly rested. Although she was only half awake and had yet to even try to open her eyes, she found it strange that there was still snoring.

Rainbow bolted up, suddenly very aware of the other pony in her bed. His wing slipped off her shoulders and a hoof fell heavily against the cloud of her bed, and Coalback continued to snore beside her.

“Oh shit …” Rainbow hissed under breath. Hastily she reached a hoof between her legs and heaved a sigh of relief to find it dry and untouched. Coalback let out another rumbling snore beside her as he slept on, practically purring. Thankfully, his pride was tucked away.

However, Rainbow had never seen the huge Pegasus so relaxed before. One wing, which had been draped over her in place of the covers they’d slept on top of, was laid out across the bed, and the other was loosely tucked across his back. His arms, which normally were so purposefully placed and carefully tensed, were relaxed and loose now. The normal scowl on his face was gone, and in its place was a neutral expression: the most peaceful she’d seen on him.

She groaned and dragged her hooves down her face, now she was almost certain she’d done something lame last night. And right where somepony could see it too.

Rainbow grunted to herself and slipped off of her bed, but carefully so as not to wake Coalback. She rushed to her bathroom and shut the door behind her as quietly as she could before she slipped to the floor and softly began to freak out.

Somepony else was in her bed. A stallion was in her bed: Coalback was in her bed. Nothing had happened, of that she could almost be certain. But what turn of events had led to this was beyond Rainbow’s drowsy comprehension.

She needed a shower.

Rainbow’s bathroom was almost as Spartan as she could have made it, with little more than the necessities. But it was spacious, as she did like to fly even in the cloud home. And a large mirror was necessary, especially for her morning pep talks she gave herself. But the shower was all she could think of. She’d never been a cloud engineer, so it was one of the few things she’d bought for the home. With a yank of a handle warm rainwater fell from the ceiling, another yank and the force with which it fell increased and so did the heat.

She leaned her forelegs up against the wall and let the water cascade down her wings and against the back of her head. She could feel her mane clinging to her withers and her tail plastered to her legs, like a rainbow colored security blanket. She concentrated on the feeling of the water against her skin and the sound of the water as it sucked down into the clouds below her hooves.

Showers had never been a time for Rainbow to think of anything other than training, and as a result she hardly ever thought of anything else when she was in the water. She meditated with the sound of the shower and went about scrubbing the sweat from her fur, and gargling the taste of sleep out of her mouth.

By the time she’d finished, and stepped back out of the bathroom, Coalback was awake and jerkily preening his wings. He had his back to her and she had, an admittedly risque, view of his muscular legs and back. He hummed something softly as he worked, something that rose and fell in his deep timbre. His wing rose as he moved to straighten the feathers closer to his shoulder and Rainbow spotted the blank space on his flanks again.

“What happened to you?” she asked, though she hadn’t intended it to be out loud. Coalback paused, a feather still grasped between his lips, and turned to look over his shoulder at her with an unsaid question in his eyes. “I-I mean, with your Cutie-Mark,” Rainbow sputtered. She felt her face flush as Coalback only rose an eyebrow in continued confusion and finished aligning the feather. “Ponies don’t just lose their marks for no reason, and you don’t strike me as somepony who doesn’t have a clue as to who they are,” Rainbow said as quickly as she managed.

“I am confused,” Coalback muttered. “What is the need of having one of the ‘Cutie-Marks’?”

“What’s the need-?!” Rainbow mumbled in disbelief. “It’s a part of your soul, Coalback! It’s the part of you that makes you feel whole! The thing that defines you as a Pony!” she nearly yelled. How he couldn’t grasp that idea was beyond her. And she was certain she’d tried to explain it to him once before; at least once.

“What does yours mean?” he asked as he tucked his wings back at his side, still looking incredulously over his shoulder at her.

“It means I’m fast,” Rainbow grunted. “I like speed, I like flying, and I like pushing the limit of how fast and how far I can go. I got it on the day I did a Sonic-Rainboom.”

“What is ‘Sonic-Rainboom’?”

Rainbow grinned despite her frustration: for once she might impress the stoic stallion. “A Sonic-Rainboom can only happen when a particularly fast pony, such as myself, gets moving so fast that they go faster than sound moves in the air and condenses all the air and light in front of them into a massive wave. You can thank Twilight for all that sciency mumbo jumbo, it basically means I get moving so fast that there’s an explosion of sound and light right behind me!”

“And this makes you feel … complete?” he asked.

Rainbow balked at the reaction. For some reason the question seemed more concerned than curious. “Well … Yeah,” she said, “I never feel more alive than when I’m moving that fast.” She watched the contemplative look on his face as he processed that.

“That could explain it,” he quipped with a shrug and returned hurriedly to his feathers.

“Explain what?” Rainbow asked incredulously. She winged over him and landed in front of him on the bed: it was becoming very distracting talking to him while he was lying in such a nonchalantly suggestive pose.

“Something happened, I never felt right afterwards, might be why,” Coalback grumbled around his feathers. He moved on to feathers deeper in his wing as an excuse to tuck his face further out of Rainbow’s view.

“Hey. I shared, now it’s your turn,” Rainbow growled. She was unsure if pressing the issue was a good idea, but so far little else had worked with the stallion as far as getting what she wanted from him.

Coalback did pause, however, and slowly he peeked out from under his wing. “Someone I loved very much was killed by someone I thought I trusted, and then in the fighting that broke out after, the rest of my family died, too,” he grumbled. Coalback finally dropped the act of preening and simply curled up into as small a space on the bed as he could, which was a surprising amount considering his bulk. “Maybe that’s why,” he rumbled from behind his feathers. “I never felt the same way again.”

“Oh,” Rainbow grumbled. She groaned internally, and berated herself for her callousness. She should have known better, but for some stupid reason she’d thrown that out the window. Rainbow didn’t exactly know how to go about remedying her slip up, but she started by awkwardly sitting down next to Coalback and laying a wing over his shoulders. “I’m sorry I brought it up,” she said, “I shouldn’t’ve –“

“Don’t,” Coalback grunted. “I don’t want … your sympathy.” Slowly the large stallion uncoiled himself and slipped off of her bed. He shook himself to settle his fur, but unbrushed it remained a mess of blacks, greys, and browns. “Thank you, though,” he finally mumbled.

“For what?” Rainbow asked with a furrowed brow.

“I haven’t … slept … in a while,” he mumbled. “I needed it.” He flinched and Rainbow nearly jumped as Coalback’s stomach growled hungrily. “I have to go,” he said in a hurry. “I need to eat something and I need to remedy this damned mess that Jabberwock made of the streets,” he grumbled with a final nod to her as he hopped through a window and took off toward the forest.

Rainbow nearly followed to watch him go, but a feeling of dread overcame her. Now, she realized, that she remembered the night before; not as the nightmare she’d habitually written it off as, lingering in the back of her mind as it had been, but instead as the really real terror she’d felt.

Rainbow retreated to the bathroom again and hung her head in the toilet. She didn’t think she would vomit, but she wanted to be safe.

When Coalback showed up in Ponyville it was already midday and the ponies were in a frenzy. He followed the sound of the crowd and, shrouded in his scuffed and dented armor, made his way to city hall. He ignored the demanding questions of the ponies as he pushed past them, his armor and a full stomach gave him enough confidence to do so without flinching even if some of the crowd were less than polite.

“What good is a Guard if a monster like that can just wander into town?!” one demanded.

“I thought you were here to keep those things out!” screamed another.

From the front door of city hall the mayor gesticulated and projected to the crowd. “Please, remain calm!” she begged the rowdy crowd gathered at the steps of the round building. Its tall roof and colorful columns contrasted harshly with the mood of the town, and already the mayor seemed worried that a riot would break out. “I’m sure that all of your concerns can be addressed in an orderly and timely manner! This is no time to descend into such rash behavior!” she projected from where her podium once stood. A heap of wood fallen across the stairs suggested that the crowd had been much less cooperative only a few moments ago.

But as Coalback shuffled his way through the crowd they only seemed to grow more aggravated. He climbed the steps of the town hall with a purposeful calmness, one that betrayed the cold sweat that stung his eyes or the frantic pulsing of his heart as it tried to climb out his throat. He stood beside the mayor and came to attention with a stomp of his hooves that rattled his armor and his scabbard and drew the crowd to a low murmur. The mayor stood stock still beside him, a fearful smile plastered to her face. The mayor’s sweating only increased as he began to speak.

“You all must be concerned about the attack last night, especially those of you whose property was damaged,” he yelled out to the crowd. Near the back his eyes locked on a rainbow splotch of mane and he quickly picked out his two squires and the rest of his charges nearby. “I assure you that the crown is prepared to compensate you for your grievances,” he announced, careful to pick as many professional sounding words as he could remember from the dictionary he’d flipped through. The crowd, however, was not pleaded by this announcement and began to grow restless. “I assure you that the creature is dead, as well as the rest of the ponies that, against their free will, attacked you only a few short days ago. As of now I will be removing the curfew,” the crowd boiled angrily, “But I am insisting that nopony enter the forest. It has become extremely dangerous for anyone to enter the trees, and I would not advise flying anywhere near them either.”

“It’s more than dangerous!” someone in the crowd screamed. “There’s a bleedin’ Human runnin’ rampant in there!” The crowd agreed with more angry shouting and Coalback’s unseen grimace deepened.

“I assure you that the human is harmless so long as his territory is not threatened,” Coalback projected with a tightly chained façade of calm overlaid. “It was the Jabberwock, that dead thing in the road over there, that drew it out. Not it’s malice towards the town.” He lifted a placating hoof as the crowd slowly began to settle. “So long as we respect the ancient laws” –he groaned inwardly as he spun his half truths- “then the human will respect our borders, as well as any other unkind creatures that call the forest home.”

“What about the dead pony in the forest?” someone shouted accusingly. “It must have been that Human! Only a Human could think up such a horrible thing to do to a pony’s body!” The crowd erupted in anger, fueled by the reminder of their desecrated fellow.

“The effigies were constructed from what remained of the attackers,” Coalback growled. The crowd grew even louder and angrier, the angrier the town had ever been; and it was very suddenly aimed toward the darkly armoured Pegasus standing on their City Hall’s steps. “I regret to tell you that their souls were taken from them!” Coalback shouted over the crowd. “Their marks were missing and their master crushed their hearts before I could take them away from his evil grip! And by the ancient laws a body is needed for powerful enough wards to keep out the horrors of the woods!” Again, a half truth: while, yes, their souls had been taken and most had died before he had gotten to them; and indeed, the dead bodies and stained blood scared away large predators; there was no magic behind any of it. However, ponies seemed to take great stock in magic.

The crowd simmered down from a boil. Though, still agitated, no longer was the shouting so loud. “What are these ‘Ancient Laws’?” someone shouted over the grumbling of the crowd. “How do you know them?”

“The Ancient Laws,” Coalback barked over the crowd, “are not written! They are only known! Known by those who have seen the harsh winter. These are the Laws of the earth, laid down by nature Herself! They are the oldest and most powerful of magics!” he proclaimed.

It surprised Coalback how well that did to placate them. Though they did not lose their uneasiness, gone was their anger. Coalback could tell that they were in shock, though whether it was the revelation that he had been the one to desiccate the bodies in the forest, or that the ponies that had attacked them had been without souls of their own anymore.

Confused mumbles rippled through the crowd. “What about Zecora?” one of them shouted toward him.

“Yeah! The Zebra living in the woods!” another proclaimed.

“There is no one living in the woods,” Coalback said, much to the surprise of the crowd.

“She lives in a hollowed out tree deep in the forest!” someone shouted.

“We buy our perfumes from her!”

“Are you saying that she’s been gobbled up!?” The screaming started again, this time inlaid heavily with a modicum of fear.

“No one from the town has been killed!” Coalback roared and the crowd drew to an uneasy silence. “There is no zebra, or anypony, living in the woods! My guards and I have combed the forest for miles in all directions and we’ve found no signs of anyone living within. There is no Zecora.”

“That’s impossible! She’s been living here for years!” a pony declared. Again the crowd began to grow rowdy, though thankfully this time with concern for the wellbeing of one of their fellows.

“I know of the hollow tree of which you speak,” Coalback said, met with a surprisingly respectful silence as he spoke. “There is a door and windows cut from it much like your own library. And it is surrounded by blue flowers. But it is empty, and it appears as if no one has lived there for many years.”

Voices began to flittered out from the crowd: “But then what happened to her?!” “We should send out a search party!” “Call in the Search and Rescue ponies!” “You must have seen the wrong tree!” “She has to be out there! Where would she have gone?!”

“Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!” Twilight shouted as she and the rest of the Elements climbed up the steps to stand beside Coalback. “There’s a simple solution to all of this!” she yelled out over the cries of the masses. When she had been awarded silence, she continued: “We’ll just go out to Zecora’s house with Coalback and his Guard and see for ourselves. I’m sure this is just a small misunderstanding. It’s nothing to get upset about.”

Coalback growled quietly and stamped his hooves, but he belligerently agreed with a nod. “Only you six will accompany us,” he said as his only condition.

“But you need a tracker!” somepony in the crowd yelled. “Go get –“

“My Guards and I are the best trackers in Equestria,” Coalback announced. “We’ll need no civilian aid to find this Zecora, if she exists.” The crowd grumbled, many still not satisfied with the Knight’s confident words. “Now please return to your daily business,” Coalback said, attempting an amiable tone. “There’s no more need to worry. We have everything under control.”

With that the crowd slowly dispersed and Coalback turned to his charges with the blank stare of his snarling helmet. His two Guards lowered their gaze and flattened their ears, they could practically feel their failure weighing down on their collars.

“Let’s go now, we can be there in half an hour,” Twilight said with a forced smile. She unwittingly drew Callback’s boiling gaze onto her instead. He huffed through his helmet in acknowledgment and started to walk off the stage.

They followed Coalback to the edge of town, tracked the whole way by the ponies that had attempted to return back to daily duties. Concern flashed through many faces, some were drawn down in worry or even fear. Some faces had the sharp creases of anger in their brows. A few even scowled and turned their backs on the pony. However, many still looked on with a captivated awe: while his speech had, to some, wiped away his appearance of nobility; to many more it only had placed him on a higher pedestal.

Coalback did not realize it, but already ponies in the town had begun to idolize his little Guard. Their battle in front of the library had liberated the town from a dangerous gang: one they now knew were some sort of demon worshipers who’d sold their souls. What could they have done if he had not halted them so resolutely? Some even saw his Ancient Laws as a sign that he was indeed a paladin back from some secret crusade for Luna, and that his use of the dead was simply a more brutal form of justice and magic from that far off place. It was this majority that simply smiled, and their calm held back the anger and unease of the others around them.

Ponies were herd creatures, after all. If a large majority could remain calm, then they stood a chance to calm the rest. Not that panic didn’t flare quickly among them when it came; the crowd only minutes ago was proof enough of that. So what did it matter if Luna’s Knight was more brutal than they were used to? He’d quickly resolved a violent danger to the town, and even offered protection from the darkness of the Everfree. Surely somepony in thrall to one of the Princesses had to mean well.

Now all they had to worry about was Zecora’s apparent disappearance. Ever since she’d shown up in town she’d been a near constant presence: a small safe haven in the forest that robbed it of some of its scariness. To hear that she’d apparently gone missing some time ago, and that nopony had noticed … it certainly was a guilt ridden feeling that pierced their hearts.

When Coalback led them to one of the few paths into the forest he motioned for them to stop. As they waited he shuffled to a tree just beside the trail, tugged his helmet off his head, and promptly emptied his stomach into into a bush. He leaned heavily against the tree and took deep breaths. When he turned back to them his eyes were bloodshot, the veins of his eyes stood out with dark blood.

“Oh my goodness!” Rarity swooned. “Are you sick, dear?” she asked even as she took a disgusted step back.

“I am not sick,” Coalback rumbled as he drew himself back together. He wiped the corners of his mouth on the thick cloth around his fetlocks. “I just … don’t like many bodies in one place.” A full truth for once. His ears flicked with each pulse of his heart, still beating far too fast. It had taken all of his strength to keep his body in check and to appear calm for the entirety of his address to the townsfolk.

“Stage fright, huh?” Rainbow added from the air. “We getcha,” she said confidently.

“Ain’t no shame in that,” Applejack agreed. “Takes a lot of guts to jump in front of a bunch a’ ponies like that.” While her words were encouraging, she kept a blank expression on her face.

Coalback only sighed heavily through his nose and tied his helmet to his belt. “Lead the way to this Zecora. I have other things to do today,” he grunted.

“Come on, girls,” Twilight said as she took the lead. “Let’s put this to rest.”

They trudged along the dim path, the Guards’ heavy chainmail swished and chimed with every step. Dead twigs crunched under their hooves with every step, but despite the bare branches above the forest was still very dark and very foreboding. Coalback kept to the front and his two Guards took up the rear, but he briefed them as they walked. He discussed how he would allow them today to recover from the attack last night, which meant no training today, but that tomorrow he would be forcing them to do double time on everything. He also mentioned some sort of lessons, but their subject was lost on the mares.

By the time they’d reached the field of Poison Joke around Zecora’s hut they could tell something was wrong. The field had never been a clearing, more like a place where the Poison Joke had choked out any other underbrush and only tall trees grew by them. It had the strange effect of making the area of the forest feel like a large, open building; and it was exceptionally brighter here as a result. The flowers were wilted from winter, but more disturbing was that the clearly cut path through it had disappeared. They froze at the edge, searching in hope that the forest had simply let them off the path at the wrong place: it wasn’t uncommon for paths to move in the dark place. But none of them could see it.

“What are you waiting for?” Coalback asked, and when the mares looked he was already in the middle of the field of flowers.

“Coalback! Get out of there! That’s Poison Joke!” Twilight yelled. But when Coalback only looked at her in confusion she was forced to explain. “It’s a magical plant, it’s effects are relatively harmless but they can be very unpleasant!”

Coalback snorted and walked back toward them. Dead, blue petals fluttered up from his hooves and stuck fast to Coalback’s legs. “I’ll be fine,” he said as he pulled his sword from its scabbard with an echoing snicker. He swung it in a low, wide arc and sliced the flowers off. He turned around and continued to do so, slowly clearing a rough path. The mares followed cautiously, Twilight’s magic cleared the loose petals out of their way in case they could still be potent enough to play their cruel pranks.

They wound through the flowers and tall trunks of ancient trees, roughly led by Coalback’s slashing blade and Twilight’s directions. Finally, Zecora’s hut came into view. But it was not the sight that the mares had hoped for.

The hut was dark and overgrown with Poison Joke vines. The windows were missing their frames and the door was gone, not pulled away but gone as if it had never been there. Zecora’s welcoming, if a bit frightening, masks were missing. The various potions that once had hung from the branches above were replaced by hairy vines.

Coalback led them to hole in the hollow tree that had once been a zebra’s home and cleared away the vines for them to see inside. They slowly wandered in, shocked at the sight of a once very warm place being so dark and cold. A layer of dust covered every surface and black weeds had begun to poke through the floor. Cobwebs filled every nook and cranny. The only evidence that anyone had ever lived here at all was a tiny dip in the floor that still had the remains of a fire pit and it’s ashes.

“If your friend was here, she left some time ago. But there are no signs of struggle, she wasn’t taken,” Coalback rumbled from the door. The mares looked to each other with their downcast expressions, various amounts of worry shared between the friends. “If anything, she set this up so no one could follow her,” he said with a nod to the cobwebs and dust. “It would be difficult, but she seems to have covered her tracks very thoroughly.”

“I suppose she had to go home?” Rarity suggested. “Yes, perhaps that’s it. And she just didn’t want to have to say goodbye.”

“Aw!” Pinkie groaned. “But I never even got to throw her a party! Like a goodbye party! Or a We’ll Miss You Super Duper Much party!” she whined.

“Ah’m sure she had her reasons, sugarcube. Probably a family matter that couldn’t wait,” Applejack said with a nod.

“Well,” Twilight sighed. “As upsetting as it is to realize she left without saying goodbye, at least we have reason to think she’s safe.” She was met with nods from her friends.

“Now, let’s get out of this dreadful forest and to the spa; they should be able to get us into a bath to get any Poison Joke off us. You boys should join us, it wouldn’t do you any good to have some joke played on you,” Rarity suggested.

“We have work to do,” Filibuster said from beside Coalback. “There is not time to-“

“Nonsense,” Rarity barked. “There’s always time to keep yourselves looking presentable. I insist that you all come to the spa with us, my treat.” She pointed her nose in the air and happily led the rest of her friends out of the abandoned hut. “Goodness knows that you could use a bath,” she added under her breath, which brought a snort and a giggle from Pinkie.

Author's Notes:

Just finished this, things are gonna slow way down. If you find any errors please feel free to pm them to me and i'll do my best to correct them; I'm currently editing all of these on my own and writing a majority of chapters on my phone.

As always I look forward to any comments you have, I read all of them.

Life's about to pick back up so I'm not sure how much writing I'm able to do. Next chapter is started however and I have drafts of the next few in the works.