Murr, unprepared for the crash-landing in Twilight’s yard, tumbled to the ground ungracefully, Ren and the as-yet-unnamed mare in tow. Murr had healed Ren, but he still hadn’t woken up. He probably just needed sleep. Murr had the foresight to shift into his pony form, and strangely, when he touched Ren with a forehoof, he shifted as well. Murr wrote it off as probably being a reflex. He grabbed Ren in his magic, told the confused mare to put a hoof on his back, and off they had went.

Twilight was nowhere to be seen, but at least they were back within range of civilization. Murr carefully opened the door to the library, setting Ren down in a comfortable chair for the time being.

They really needed to look into getting beds.

The earth pony mare was still following him. “What are you hanging around me for?” he asked her.

“I don’t live in Ponyville! I live in Canterlot. Weren’t you going to take me home?”

Murr facehoofed, letting out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah. Come on, let’s go find Twilight.”

“Wait, Twilight Sparkle? The Twilight Sparkle?”

“Yeah, this is her library.”

“Omigosh omigosh omigosh! I can’t believe it! She’s the one that stopped Nightmare Moon, and Discord, you know!”

Murr smirked. “So I’ve heard, although she attributes her success to her steadfast friends.” You couldn’t find a closer bunch of ponies.

As if the world was reading his mind, Twilight chose that moment to burst through the door to her library. “Somepony came and got me and told me that some ponies landed in my front yard, and that I should probably go and check it out. How is he?” she said.

“Just tired, I imagine. He used a lot of mana today.”

She leveled her gaze at Ren's unconscious form. “He has mana sickness. I can tell you that much right now, just by looking at him.”

“What?”

“Mana sickness: when you use enough mana that your body quits on you. You don’t die except for in very extreme cases, but the fact remains that his mana was at a negative value the last time I checked on him.”

“Physically, he’s just fine. I would know, I had to cast the healing spells myself,” Murr said, wincing.

“That’s good. That means we don’t have to worry about his physical condition. He’s just going to be out for a while, and possibly will be out of it for a while after he wakes up.” She paused, deep in thought. “Can't you restore some of his mana? I seem to recall him casting a spell that exchanged his stamina for more mana when he was fighting you.”

“They make your body lazier, and reduce the rate at which your mana naturally regenerates. I steer clear of using those kinds of spells when I can.”

“And this isn’t life threatening. At most, he’ll lose a few days,” Twilight explained further. “Anyway, who’s this?” she asked, looking at the unfamiliar earth pony mare.

The mare in question averted her gaze, mumbling something under her breath.

“Come again? I don't speak muffled grunts,” Twilight joked, her eyes twinkling with mirth.

“My name's Candy Cane,” the flustered mare finally blurted out. Sure enough, her color scheme reflected her name – red and white striped mane and tail, with fur of the purest ivory color. “I live in Canterlot, and I was exploring outside the city when this – I think he called it a 'shadow' – grabbed me. They...” She suddenly stopped to burst into tears. “They stabbed me on a pole! They were gonna eat me!”

“Except they couldn't possibly eat you, shadows have no corporeal bodies that require nourishment to speak of. They were just trying to get a reaction out of whomever might come across them by spit-roasting you,” Murr interrupted, correcting Candy Cane gently.

Candy glared at him through teary eyes. “That's even worse! Either way, the guy in the chair got their attention while this one –“ she pointed to Murr, “freed me and healed me.”

Murr winced. “That was quite painful.”

“Oh please, you have no idea what being impaled feels like until you've been impaled – what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I have been impaled. Several times, in fact. Each of them more painful than the last.”

Candy's gaze softened. “Sorry, I'll take my hoof out of my mouth now...”

He waved a hoof dismissively. “No, you couldn't possibly have known without my having told you.”

Twilight spoke up. “So you said you live in Canterlot? If I teleport you to the middle of town, will you be able to find your way home?”

Candy nodded enthusiastically. “If I hurry, I might be able to sleep in my own bed tonight!”

Ren's eyelids slowly fluttered open, feeling heavy and irritated. He smacked his dry lips together, stretching them painfully in a yawn. He moved forward slightly.

He promptly fell out of the chair.

Squirming around and muttering every single curse word he could think of, some even in ancient Empyrean, he scrambled to his hooves.

Hooves? Does that mean I made it back okay? Why don't I remember coming back then? He thought to himself.

“Is waking up going to become a thing with you?” Spike asked, jolting Ren out of his musings.

“Ye gods, I hope not,” Ren answered, rubbing his head and swaying slightly.

“Twilight's gone out – she said something about getting beds for you two. She seemed kind of embarrassed that she hadn't thought of it earlier. I would be too, come to think of it – what sort of host lets her guests sleep in chairs?”

“Well, it's not like we were expected or anything...” Ren rose to her defense.

“It's been two weeks, man. I was about to talk to her about it myself.” He changed the subject. “Is your mane getting longer? It looks good. I think you should grow it out.”

Ren took the bait. “I suppose it couldn't hurt. I can't exactly wear robes without looking excessively weird now, and I'm not supposed to be in human form around ponies --” His eyes went wide. “I need to talk to Twilight.” He started to walk towards the door, falling over himself. Spike was alarmed at this, and it suddenly clicked inside his head.

The tired and somewhat loopy responses, after having almost an entire day's rest.

The unsteadiness on his hooves.

The slightly green tinge to his face.

Spike rushed to aid the floundering stallion, speaking in a more comforting tone now. “Dude, I think you need more rest. There's something wrong with you, but it's nothing some more sleep won't set right.”

“I'm fine, I tell you --” Ren started to say, before he fell over himself again. Sighing in defeat, he said, “Alright, I see your point. I think I might need to lay down for a while longer yet. What's wrong with me, anyway?”

Spike mentally debated telling him, eventually deciding that it probably wouldn't hurt. “You've got mana sickness, man. Or, as Pinkie would say, you're 'too pooped to pop'. Magically speaking at least. You have no idea how many times I had to care for Twilight after she had overexerted herself. Sleep will do you some good, and I imagine sleeping in a bed would do even more, so I'll wake you up when they get back.”

Ren thanked the young drake, resuming his slumber nearly instantly.

Murr and Twilight were both currently in a mattress shop, poring over their stock of beds and bedding. Twilight's eyes widened when she saw their asking prices, and only got wider as she scanned the list.

And she would have to buy two of them.

Murr raised an eyebrow at her body language. “We have a fair bit of coin, if that's the problem. I don't know how it exchanges into bits, but pyreals are mostly gold, so I imagine that if we could give enough to somepony who can melt them down and separate the gold from the pure pyreal, we could cover them. We got pretty well off financially, selling off equipment that we found and didn't need and such. Most of it's in trade notes, so they probably don't exchange, but the physical coins we still have should.”

Twilight gave Murr a questioning look. “Pyreal isn't an element I've ever heard of.”

Murr took on a thoughtful look, mulling over exactly what he wanted to say. “It's rather rare where we come from too – only trace amounts are actually smelted with the gold to make the coins, where gold is comparatively easy to come by. The largest chunk of pure pyreal I've ever seen is on Ren's shadowfire wand, he had to use it to fuse with the shadowfire, from what I heard. There are golems that we identify as being made from pyreal, but they're mostly iron and gold, with a little bit of platinum and pyreal. They're green – that's the pyreal showing up – and in the wild they're positively deadly. They're fiercely intelligent, at least as much as if not more so than their creators, and they can move surprisingly quickly for being magically animated hunks of metal. They chain-cast war spells, so if absolutely nothing else you won't be able to get a hit in edgewise, and once you tire out – mark my words, you will – they will kill you.”

Twilight visibly paled. “You – you don't think that Bael'Zharon will be sending any of those, will he?”

Murr gave an indecisive grunt. “Hard to say. I wouldn't, if I were him – everything he's sent this way so far hasn't come back, so he might think that he's sending everything to a place where they perish immediately, and pyreal is, as I said, very rare and by extension valuable. But, he may just want Ren dead that badly.” He smirked. “Not even a pyreal golem could put Ren down, though – not unless he was facing odds similar to what he was facing yesterday against him. He can resist their spells, he is one of the few people who can. He specialized in magic defense along with war magic when we were in the academy, and on top of that he's got this experimental shield – absorbs magic, a really brilliant design. It's one of the old crystal aegises they gave out to the Advocates, infused with refined chorizite.”

Twilight's expression was carefully blank. “And that is...?”

“It absorbs magic, and can't be enchanted. At all. When it was discovered, it was immediately considered magic's trump card for those who were sent to assassinate mages. Weapons infused with it or made from it can completely ignore beneficial enchantments on their target. Armor infused with it can absorb magic, as I said. I think Ren's got a couple daggers he infused with it too, albeit with less refined ore.”

“Speaking of magic, Ren's told me that Asheron is capable of more mundane utility magics – why are you two only trained in warfare and enchantment?”

Murr gave a noncommittal shrug. “I'm not the one who designed the curriculum, but they do teach the more mundane stuff to people who ask about it. I just thought I could do the world more good as an enchanter. Ren... well, he's got some issues he needs to sort out, I think. I personally don't think that he could have possibly caused the house fire that killed his family – magic, specifically Empyrean magic, is intent- as well as incantation-based. He might have made fire, but it wouldn't have caught anything else on fire unless he wanted it to. Which he wouldn't have. I think he knows that someone else had to have done it, and he subconsciously wants to meet the people responsible in a dark alley somewhere for a no-holds-barred gorefest.” Twilight shot him a glare. “Hey, I took psychomancy. I know what I'm talking about, especially when it comes to that guy. The nightmares he has – gods, I'm not sure how he got by without me for the past few years.”

Then it clicked with Twilight. “I know somepony who can help with those, I think,” she said in a small voice.

“Anything would be good. I – I just want him to stop blaming himself, at least. It's not healthy and for as long as I've been with him I've been trying to get him off that train – it doesn't lead anywhere good.”

“I'll – I'll tell you when we get back to the library. We should get some of those pyreals for the blacksmith to have a look at. We can't mint them into bits, but I'm sure the proprietor of this establishment will take bars of gold as payment for goods rendered.”

Getting the pyreals melted and separated took longer than anticipated, and by the time they made it back to the furniture store, it had closed. So they turned around and went back.

“You know, I only just thought of this – where would we put our beds, had we gotten them? Your house, while it is rather spacious, has much of its space reserved,” Murr asked.

“I was either going to move mine over some and set yours on the other side of the room, or I had a couple of spacious closets – 'spacious' is the operative word, I think a more accurate term would be 'storage room' – in the event of the actual bedroom not being an option.”

Murr grunted an acknowledgement. “You know,” he said, “I don't think I've said this enough, but on the behalf of my incapacitated friend and I, thank you for everything you've done for us.”

“Oh, you're welcome. Now, one thing I don't understand,” Twilight said, changing the subject, “Is just how someone who's as pacifistic as Ren is can bring himself to participate in a war. He's said countless times now that he doesn't like hurting things – and I believe him, make no mistake – but he must go through some serious trauma when he comes back to his senses and sees the blood on his hands.”

“The same way many people do – they take too much guff, and they snap. In Ren's case, he's especially triggered by something intentionally hurting innocents. That sets him off faster than anything I've ever seen – he completely obliterated a full battallion of corrupted shadows, over one hundred strong, because they spit-roasted Candy Cane. Or did you forget?”

Twilight felt a strange sense of pride at hearing of his accomplishment, and that didn't sit well with her. She didn't let it show, though. “... I wish I could, to be honest,” she finally said, shuddering. “I don't like to think about how he might have handled Nightmare Moon.”

“Well, what did she do? Did she ever actually hurt anyone?”

“Not that... not that I know of,” Twilight admitted.

“Well, there you go. He's perfectly reasonable as long as you aren't hurting anyone.”

“But still,” she said, “What about Discord? Sure, most of what he had done was nothing more than an annoyance, but ponies could have been seriously hurt! In the older days, before the rise of the princesses, he did such without a second thought!”

“See, now that's hard to call. If he didn't know about the past, he'd be okay for sure, and even if he did know I think he'd be okay, but there's no telling for sure... it's all very confusing. “

Twilight scratched at her chin with a hoof. “Indeed,” she said finally. They walked through the door leading into the library as the sun gave way to the moon.

This relative peace couldn't last forever.