“Night Rush, get down here!”

A dark blue-coated pegasus colt groaned and buried his face into his pillow, trying to shut out the sound of his mother’s voice. He sat there for a moment, not even breathing, as his mind and body struggled to wake up at the early hour; no matter how many days in a row they held school, his body never seemed to get used to being forced awake.

He slid out of bed, flanks-first, coming to a sitting position next to his bed. Absentmindedly, he rubbed his flank with a forehoof and looked back at it; Still blank, he thought to himself. He didn’t really know why he checked every morning anymore—after a solid ten years after everypony else typically got their cutie marks, he didn’t really expect one to show up overnight. Nonetheless, he checked anyway every morning; if one did happen to appear, he would naturally want to be the first to know about it.

He looked around at his room groggily, though there wasn’t really much to look at. His bed was nestled in the corner of his room, next to his window. At the foot of his bed was his dresser, with a few pieces of jewelry and a mirror sitting on top of it. A small flight of stairs led down to the door to his room. At the top of the stairs sat a short hat and coat rack, which held a brownish-black leather fedora with a red ribbon around it for decoration.

He groaned as he got to his hooves and walked over to his dresser—which was sort of a misnomer. There were no clothes of any kind in it; it was more like a tall nightstand with drawers. He grabbed two golden rings with his front hooves and deftly threaded them through the two holes in his right ear. His mother had had a fit when he came home with his ear pierced—in two places, no less—but had eventually gotten used to the idea, simply rolling her eyes whenever she saw him messing with them. He reached to his back left leg and shifted the golden ring that wrapped around it down a little bit so that it rested just above his hock; it had shifted upwards slightly during the night.

He reached behind his head and preened his feathers until they were straight, and grabbed a comb and ran it through his long (for a colt), brown mane and tail. He glanced into a mirror and, satisfied with his appearance, he walked down the small flight of stairs and out his door, grabbing his hat and putting it on his head with one deft motion, slamming his door behind him. Trotting into the kitchen, he grabbed an apple from the basket on the counter and trotted out the front door, yelling a “Goodbye!” at his mom.

His house was a fairly simple, two-story log cabin next to the library. The roof had shingles, unlike most of the other houses in Ponyville. There wasn’t very much to it, inside or out: his family was comprised mostly of accountants, and since there wasn’t much need of such things where money flowed freely and taxes were at the lowest they had been for a century, they didn’t have very many possessions. It never bothered Night Rush, of course; he was content to take things as they came.

He trotted down the road, yawning drearily, to Sugarcube Corner for his morning snack. His schedule at the school had him studying until nearly four in the afternoon with only a few bathroom breaks in between, so he wanted to have a little more than an apple for breakfast. Sweets weren’t exactly the breakfast of champions, but it was better than nothing.

Night Rush opened the door to the sweet shop; the familiar tinkle of the bell attached to the door was welcoming as the wonderful, cinnamon and flour leaden air that filled Sugarcube Corner. Nopony appeared to be at downstairs at the moment, so he went ahead and started browsing the shop’s wares, ogling at the delicious-looking, freshly baked pastries and confections that lined the shelves in the glass counter.

“Hey, Rushie! D’you want your usual?” A pink party pony’s voice greeted him suddenly.

Night Rush smiled, not turning away from the counter. Pinkie Pie got on every one of his last nerves, but she somehow managed to make him smile while she was doing it. “I think I’ll try something new this morning. How much are those rainbow cupcakes?” He asked, pointing through the glass counter to a few cupcakes with rainbow-colored icing. “I’ve heard that rainbows are really spicy, but—Pinkie Pie?” He looked around the shop floor; Pinkie was nowhere to be seen. He looked up in the rafters and under the tables, but Pinkie was still strangely missing.

“Uhm… Pinkie?” Perplexed, he turned back to the counter, only to be greeted by a certain eccentric pink pony.

“I'm right here, silly!” Pinkie Pie said from behind the counter. “And those cupcakes are for immortal ponies only. Apparently, our digestive systems can’t contain the sheer amount of capsaicin, and it disassemble a vast majority of the enzymes in our small intestines and the proteins in our cells, thus making it really, really hard to live.

Night Rush simply smiled and nodded. “Sure. Well, then, if the rainbow cupcakes will kill me, then I think I’ll have my usual.”

Pinkie Pie grinned and bounded away into the next room, making Night Rush wince as a few pots and pans crashed to the ground from Pinkie’s excitedness. She emerged within a few seconds carrying a small cardboard box with a bow on top of it on her head, balancing it with her ears. “Here ya go! I threw a surprise in there, just for you!” Her grin grew even wider in anticipation.

Night Rush eyed the box on top of Pinkie’s head. “That doesn’t look very much like my usual.”

Pinkie somehow nodded without the box falling off of her head. “Your usual is inside the box, silly. But I threw a surprise in there, too!”

“Why a surprise? Did I forget to mark my calendar for something?”

“Nope! It’s today, so you get a present along with your usual.”

Night Rush smiled warmly; it wasn’t exactly unheard of for Pinkie to randomly give out presents, but he had never been the subject of her spontaneous generosity before.

“So, what’s in here?” Night Rush asked.

“You’ll have to open it and see!” Pinkie said, balancing on one front hoof and extending her neck towards Night Rush.

Night Rush reached up and took the box off of her head, smiling. “So… you want me to open it now?”

Pinkie nodded vigorously and fell back on all four hooves, the wait obviously killing her.

“Right now?”

Pinkie squealed and prostrated herself at Night Rush’s hooves, her own hooves pushed together in a mock prayer. “Yes please!” She squealed.

“Well,” Night Rush said as slowly as possible, “If you’re sure that you’re sure…” He paused, taking a very slow breath. “Then, I guess I’ll open it now.”

Pinkie Pie seemed to teleport from the ground to a sitting position next to Night Rush, buzzing slightly with excitement.

Night Rush let out a snicker and, sitting back on his haunches, pulled at the bow; the knot came loose easily, and he stalled for a little more time by putting it into a neat little pile by his hooves. Pinkie squirmed at this; he wasn’t sure if she was aware that he was torturing her on purpose.

Night Rush opened the flaps on the cardboard box and cocked his head to the side. “What… is this?” He asked, pulling the object out and turning it over in his hoof.

It was a large golden ring—or, at least, it used to be. It was covered in tarnish and what looked to be moss, but it obviously used to be a piece of decorative jewelry.

“It’s your ring, silly! I found it the other day, and I knew that it was yours, so I gave it back! I hope you didn’t miss it too badly.” Pinkie seemed to hesitate slightly at this; she was obviously slightly worried that Night Rush might get mad at her for not giving him his ring as soon as she found it.

“Pinkie, I'm still wearing my ring,” Night Rush protested, looking back at his ring as if to assure himself that it was, indeed, still on his leg.

“But… it’s yours…” She assured him. “I know it is! Look, it even has the little writing on it!”

Night Rush looked closer at the ring; it took him a minute to find it, but sure enough, there was the inscription that all of his personal items always bore: The Sky is Forever; the Future is Eternity. A few of the letters had been scratched off here and there, but it was clearly the exact same style of writing as his ring.

“Well. It’s my ring, or a really good fake. But you’d be giggling like crazy if this was a prank, so…” Night Rush trailed off, lost in his own thoughts. He held the ring in one hoof and fumbled with the brim of his fedora with the other; it had somehow gotten slightly bent out of shape.

Pinkie put a hoof to her chin, appearing deep in thought. “Aliens,” She suggested, motioning with her forehooves.

Night Rush snorted. “I think we can check that off the list of things that isn’t behind this.” He tapped the floor with a back hoof. “Well! I can’t sit around here all day. I’ll eat my breakfast and be out of your hair.”

Pinkie smiled her classic, patented, Pinkie Pie smile. “Okie-dokie-loki! I gotta get back to the kitchens, ‘cause I don’t want one of my new cakes to burn. But I’ll talk to ya later!” With that, she bounced away into the kitchen, leaving Night Rush to ponder his present and munch on his breakfast of a fried apple pie.

Night Rush trotted through Ponyville’s streets on his way to the schoolhouse, humming a mellow tune to himself. He had temporarily forgotten about the curious ring, and was taking a quick shortcut in between ‘Sofas and Quills’ and ‘The Barn’, which was a cross between a restaurant and a nightclub. He turned the corner, heading towards the schoolhouse…

… And then slammed face-first into a wall of dark grey fur.

Night Rush shook the stars out of his eyes and sat on his haunches, rubbing his nose. Looking up, he said, “You, sir, have some kick-flank pecs, and… uh… what.”

The grey stallion had no face. Instead, he had a skull with a few pieces of rotting carrion stuck between his teeth; he exhaled, the rancid, rattling rush of air nearly choking Night Rush.

“Somepony needs a tic-tac,” Night Rush quipped, immediately cursing himself mentally; he had an awful habit of saying inappropriate things when he was too scared to think straight.

The grey pony’s face appeared to scowl. “Silence, mortal. You will come with me. You will ask no questions, and you will speak only when you are spoken to. Nopony else can see me besides you. Do you understand?” The grey pony’s voice was a mix between a whisper and a blood-curdling scream; Night Rush assumed that the pony was male, although he couldn’t tell.

“S-sure.” Night Rush stammered.

The grey pony did a quick about-face and started trotting away. Night Rush hesitated for a moment, still too freaked out to move, and then shakily started to canter behind the grey pony. Night Rush gulped and started looking around; nobody seemed to notice the grey pony without skin on his face, so he assumed that the grey pony was serious about everything he said. He also assumed that very bad things would happen to him if he asked a question or spoke without being spoken to.
The grey pony led Night Rush to the Everfree forest; Night Rush was panting slightly, since the only exercise that he got to do normally was weather control training, which was mind-numbingly easy work. The mile-long trot had winded him, but the grey pony didn’t seem to be breathing hard. Or breathing at all, for that matter.

The Everfree forest was as dank and depressing as ever, with its overhanging vines hanging from limbs and the moss choking out all of the trees and keeping grass from growing on the ground. The spongy carpet was slightly bouncy and squishy beneath Night Rush’s hooves, and he had to resist the urge to squirm; the feeling was alien and weird. Even in the daytime, the canopy of trees blocked out nearly all of Celestia’s sun, allowing the moss to grow freely.

“This is the Everfree forest,” the grey pony said.

“Really, now,” Night rush said, immediately regretting it. Dammit. Again with the inappropriate things.

The grey pony paused. “You… infuriate me.” He said it with the exact same tone that he had used earlier, and the grey pony’s body language hadn’t changed in the slightest, but Night Rush could simply feel the hate and anger coming off of the pony. “As I was saying, this is the Everfree forest. It is named ‘Everfree’ because it is free from the constraints of time. The forest you see before you has been the exact same since the dawn of creation.”

Something short-circuited inside Night Rush’s brain at that exact moment. “But why is that important? And why did you take me here? Why don’t you have a face? How do you talk without lips or a tongue? What’s your name? Were you always like that, or did something happen to you? How do you know all of this? How’d you get so tall?” The words tumbled out of Night Rush’s mouth before he could stop them—or even comprehend them, for that matter.

The grey pony snorted. “You are insolent and you are stupid. However, I was ordered to bring you to help stop the Schism.”

“The Schism?” Night Rush had recovered from his mental holiday, but he was still incredibly dazed.

The grey pony said nothing, and simply extended a hoof towards Night Rush’s face.

“Ohcelestiapleasedontkillme.”

“Silence. Take my hoof.”

“Huh?”

“Take. My. Hoof.”

“Oh, r-right. Sorry.” Night Rush extended a shaky hoof towards the grey pony’s. He hesitated slightly just before touching the grey pony’s hoof, and then made contact.

And then the world exploded right before Night Rush’s eyes.

Night Rush blinked rapidly, his overloaded mind trying desperately to take in what had just happened.

In truth, it had felt like somepony had ripped his skin off, covered it with salt, and then put it back onto his body. Every part of him felt gritty and dirty, and most of all, he was thirsty! He couldn’t remember the last time that he had ever been so thirsty. He tried to say something—he wasn’t sure why—but it ended up as a dry rasp and a cough.

“Time travel has that effect on mortal ponies. Some ponies get sick to their stomachs, some get headaches… You simply appear to be thirsty, so consider yourself lucky,” the grey pony said.

“T-time travel?” Night Rush managed to rasp. He looked around, still blinking like an owl.

In front of him, nothing major seemed to have changed. The trees were quite a bit smaller, but other than that, they still had the same shape and size. A bird chirped here, and a squirrel scrambled through the brush there—which was odd, since Night Rush didn’t notice anything besides plants and bugs living in the Everfree forest before.

And then Night Rush turned around.

The sprawling cottages and quaint houses were gone, replaced by a large field of grass. Wildflowers dotted the field here and there, and Night Rush thought that he saw the grass part a little bit as a rabbit munched got tired of munching on a certain leaf and moved on to another patch of weeds.

“Where the hell is Ponyville!?”

“In about three hundred years, the first establishment—a bar, of all things—will be erected in this clearing. A hotel is erected afterwards, and a small town soon follows.” The grey pony had taken on an almost bemused tone. “Your town is much older than most of you ponies realize.”

“What is going on?!” Night Rush managed to scream, despite the fact that it felt like there were shards of glass in his throat.

“We are in the past,” the grey pony said as if it were the most obvious thing ever.

Night Rush narrowed his eyes at the grey pony and opened his mouth to speak, but immediately shut after a particularly nasty throb of pain shot through his throat. “I need water. We can talk about this afterwards…”

The grey pony nodded and, raising his head, inhaled deeply. He pointed with a hoof towards the far end of the grassy field, saying, “There’s a small stream just through those trees.”

Night Rush nodded and started walking in the general direction of the stream, the grey pony walking a short distance behind him.

“So,” Night Rush started, wiping his muzzle with a forepaw. He had sat his hat down in the grass next to him, and was lying comfortably along the mossy bank of the small stream across from the grey pony, who was still standing stoically. He had stuck most of his muzzle into the six inch-deep stream, taking long draughts of the crystal-clear water, coming up only to take a breath. The gritty feeling had subsided, though his hooves and other extremities still tingled a little bit. “First things first: what’s your name? I can’t just call you the grey pony—you’re scary as hell, but that doesn’t mean I can’t show you a little decency.”

“I told you not to ask any questions,” the grey pony growled.

“I think I deserve at least five minutes’ worth of straight answers.”

“Alright,” the grey pony grudgingly agreed. “You deserve at least a few answers, especially since you have been taken here, despite not knowing anything about me or where I took you. My name is Fate, but most ponies know me as Death. You may call me either; it makes no difference to me.”

Night Rush fought back a shudder as he realized the implications of his name. Does that mean that he guides ponies to the afterlife? Is that where we are? “So, Mr. Fate. Where are we, exactly?”

“We are in Ponyville.”

“No, we’re not. We’re in the woods next a field. Ponyville is nowhere in sight.”

“That is because Ponyville hasn’t been built yet.”

Night Rush narrowed his eyes. “You make it sound like we went back in time.”

Fate nodded slowly. “That is correct.”

“But that’s impossible!” Night Rush flicked his ears in annoyance. “You can teleport through space, but you can’t go through time! It hasn’t even been tested by the unicorns or anything like that!”

“Keep in mind that I am not immortal.”

“What difference does that make?” Night Rush cocked his head.

“It is of no consequence.”

"Then why did you say it in the first place?!" Night Rush sighed, annoyed. “Fine. If we’ve went backwards through time, then how far back are we?”

“It has been approximately eight thousand years since this world was created; or, if you prefer, 610 B.C.”

“610 Before Celestia?! That’s nearly six thousand years ago!” Shrieked Night Rush hysterically.

“Incorrect. 610 Before Celestia is right now, not six thousand years ago.” Night Rush glared daggers at him, but Fate looked as impassive as ever, his stiff-looking posture betraying no emotions. “It is common for mortal ponies to get what you call ‘culture shock’. Although, I do not see how one could get it; there is no culture to speak of.”

Night Rush stared at him. “Did… did you just try to be funny?”

Fate nodded slowly. “I have been told that I am too serious and depressing, and that I should try to be funny every once in a while. Did it work at all?”

Night Rush forced a small smile. “A little bit, yeah.” He massaged his temples with his forehooves. “Six thousand years in the past. Have Celestia and Luna even been born yet? Or created, or however they came into being?”

“Yes,” Fate nodded. “Right now, they are relatively young; approximately your age.”

“Okay.” He scratched the tip of his nose with his hoof. “What’s the Schism?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because you have to find out for yourself.”

“Oh, great.” Night Rush rolled his eyes. “I get to go on this epic journey, meet Celestia and Luna, fight some gigantic, evil something and develop into a better pony along the way, and I’ll realize that the Schism was right under my nose the whole time, and simply by being there I stopped it.”

Fate stared at him for a moment. At least, Night Rush thought that he was staring at him; it was hard to tell, seeing as Fate didn’t have any eyes. “That is one of the most ridiculous things that I have ever heard.”

Night Rush narrowed his eyes at him. “So, are you going to be my guide through the whole thing or something, or are you just my taxi driver?”

“That depends. Have the effects of the time jump worn off?”

Night Rush rolled his tongue through his mouth; the gritty feeling had gone away, as had most of the tingling. “Mostly. My hooves, ears, and nose still feel a little funny, though.”

“Then there is no longer a chance that you will experience any ill affects from the time jump, and I no longer have any reason to stay.” With that, Fate disappeared in a flash of blinding, multicolored light before Night Rush could protest.

“That’s it? That’s it?! You’re just going to leave me out here on my own?!” Shouted Night Rush at the spot that Fate had been standing mere seconds earlier, blearily trying to blink the spots out of his eyes. He waited for a few seconds, as if expecting Fate to hear him and come back, and then sighed. “Wonderful.”

“The world is a history book; we can write whatever we want inside it, and it’s my job to make sure the pages keep turning.”

Night Rush was not one for staying in one spot when he was nervous or anxious. In fact, as soon as Fate had disappeared, Night Rush had picked up his hat, took out the tarnished ring that he had stuck underneath his wing for safekeeping and set it on the ground, and flew up above the treetops, looking for some sign of civilization.

It wasn’t very fruitful.

Nothing but trees and rolling fields of grass covered the ground; there were no houses, huts, or even paved or dirt roads or paths. A glance up to Canterlot Mountain told him that Canterlot didn’t even exist yet. Muttering to himself, he flew higher and squinted at the horizon; none of the telltale bumps and ridges of the buildings of Manehattan and Phillydelphia to the north nor the sprawling brown clusters of log houses of Appleoosa in the sandy plains to the west. It was a very subtle change, but one that unnerved him; he didn’t realize how much he used the cities in the distance as a compass until he couldn’t see them.

Night Rush glided back down to the clearing in a large circle, a hoof to his chin in thought. I'm six thousand years in the past, there’s no civilization anywhere around, and it looks like the Everfree Forest expands to most of this region of Equestria.

Which means that there are monsters ten times my size that want to eat me.

Which means that I need shelter.

And fire.

Or perhaps I could pick a direction and fly until I find something.

Or perhaps I could fly until I realize what an awful idea picking a direction and flying in it was.

He landed heavily on the ground, sighing. Or I could sit here and think in circles. He reached down and grabbed the tarnished golden ring, tucking it back underneath his wing. I need a better way of carrying this… He thought absentmindedly.

“You, pony, seem to be a little lost today. May I offer a hoof to help you find your way?” Came an exotic, rhythmic voice.

Night Rush started and whirled around. Before him stood a rather odd sight, one that was rarely seen in Ponyville: she was only slightly shorter than the average pony, with stripes decorating her entire hide and multiple golden rings molded around her neck and on her upper front left leg. Large golden rings dangled from both of her ears, and her cutie mark consisted of a large tribal sun with a spiral inside.

“Zecora? How’d you get here?”

“For many a year, this forest has been my home. I came here long ago to make a life of my own,” she replied, turning away. “Now, do you accept my offer of hospitality? Or will you stay here and risk your own fatality?”

Night Rush rubbed a forehoof across his chin. “Sure, I’d rather avoid getting eaten today.”

“Then follow me to my home,” she said, turning and walking away. “Please follow me, and do not roam.”

“What other choice do I have?” Night Rush asked, to nopony in particular.

“No wonder I didn’t see this place when I looked around—it’s a tree. Is that thing even alive?” Night Rush wondered, gaping at Zecora’s house.

Zecora’s house was interesting, to say the least. Like the Ponyville library, it was made out of a giant, living tree—something that Night Rush could never quite wrap his head around—but it had more of a mysterious aura. Nothing about it was malevolent, like he had subconsciously expected; after all the hype about Zecora being an evil enchantress and everything, he would have thought that most everything about her would be creepy.

However, even the inside of Zecora’s house, with the tribal masks and large cauldron in the center of the main room, Night Rush felt relaxed and at home. “So, how did you get here? Fate brought me here, but did he bring you here too?” He asked, taking his hat off and putting it on a hook near the door.

Zecora raised an eyebrow. “Fate brings many ponies to many find many faces; some to see sights, some to experience places. Perhaps if you told me your complete story, the rest of the tale will open like a morning glory?”

“Well, I was going about my business—getting ready for school, grabbing a bite to eat, that sort of thing— when out of nowhere, this grey pony without skin on his face appeared. I ran into him, and he told me to follow him into the Everfree Forest. He was really intimidating, so I followed him into… uh… yeah, the forest.” Night Rush paused for a moment, realizing exactly how bad of an idea following an unknown, creepy pony into an equally creepy forest was. “And then he sent me back in time about six thousand years, then I flew up to look around, and then you found me, and now here we are.” He fished the tarnished ring out from underneath his ring and showed it to Zecora. “This is my ring. Except, it’s got at least a few hundred years of tarnish on it, and my ring hasn’t even existed that long. Not to mention, I'm still wearing my ring.” He turned to show Zecora the ring on his back leg.

Zecora inspected the two rings, a hoof to her chin in thought. “That is a most interesting tale, without a doubt.” She frowned. “Did you glean the name of this pony, or was it something that you did not find out?”

“His name was Fate, but he said that most ponies just called him Death.”

Zecora’s eyebrows shot up. “You have met with Death, and yet you live on… In this game, pony, you are surely much more than just a pawn.”

“Great to know,” sighed Night Rush. “Now please, answer me this, and cut that rhyming crap out—it’s getting annoying. You live in this exact tree six thousand years from now. You look almost exactly the same, except you might be a few years younger now. Are you immortal or something?”

Zecora burst into laughter, throwing her head back. “I believe you have me mistaken for somepony else,” she said once she recovered enough to speak. “Surely, there is—“

“No, it’s you,” said Night Rush, cutting her off. “And yes, I'm sure.”

The zebra shrugged. “Fate has many odd ways about him. Although, a few of his plans sink instead of swim…” She trailed off, lost in thought.

“You sound like you know personally.”

“There is nothing alive who does not know the touch of Fate. Without it, nothing would ever change its state,” Zecora said softly, her ears lowering slightly from their usual rapt attention.

Night Rush said nothing for a while, looking around at the various decorations in the mysterious zebra’s house.

“So, pony, what will you do now? Surely you will do something; nothing is a thing which I do not allow,” Zecora said, her ears straightening again to their normal upright positions.

“I…” He thought for a moment. “I have no idea. Do you know where I could find Celestia and Luna? They might be able to help me find my way…”

“Celestia and Luna, our young princesses two? They have not been seen in years quite a few.”

“What?! Does anypony know where they went?” Night Rush asked, aghast. It wasn’t like Celestia to abandon her subjects like that. Nopony really knew Luna well at all, but he assumed that she wouldn’t up and abandon the ponies of Equestria either.

“Nopony knows for sure,” Zecora replied, walking away to fiddle with a few bottles hanging from strings from the ceiling. “They were last seen battling an evil most impure.”

“Where do you think they are?”

“I believe that they are in the plains to the west,” Zecora walked back to Night Rush, carrying two bottles, and handed him one of the bottles of… something. He couldn’t tell what it was, but it wasn’t a liquid. “You might need this, if you are to go on this quest.”

“What quest?” Night Rush cocked his head.

Zecora raised an eyebrow.

“Oh. To find the princesses. Right.” He smiled sheepishly, and then shook the bottle of whatever-it-was. “What’s in here?”

“That, pony, is a special medicine to counteract hunger. Add some water, give it a shake, swallow it quickly, and hunger no longer.”

“Wow, really?” Night Rush grinned and held the bottle up to the light, trying to see inside it. “How does it work?”

“That is of no consequence,” Zecora said, waving him off with a hoof. “However, there is this, which is of much more importance.” She handed him the second bottle.

Night Rush nearly dropped the bottle when the zebra handed it to him; it was impossibly more heavy than it looked. It had to weigh nearly forty pounds! “What’s in here?”

“In that bottle is my most rare brew; it gives one enough strength to turn a stone into a molten stew.”

“So, it lets me breathe fireballs or something?” Night Rush couldn’t help but grin at the possibilities.

“The effects will differ between your opponents,” the zebra said, nervously pawing at the floor. “Though no matter the form, it tears down your foe, component by component.”

“It disintegrates them?” Night Rush’s smile faded.

Zecora nodded. “But be warned, pony; this potion has wicked side effects. You must only use it when there is another pony to protect.”

“What are the side effects?”

“You die,” Zecora said simply and bluntly.

Night Rush’s ears flattened back against his skull. “So I get tons of magical power, and then I die.” A useful last resort, I suppose. But why would she give it to me?

Zecora nodded. “But, enough of this depressing talk. Come, upstairs we must walk.” She turned and walked out of the room.

“Why, what’s upstairs…?” Night Rush trailed off, following the zebra out of the room and up a staircase that was molded into the wood of the tree itself. “Oh. That’s upstairs.”

An entire bedroom was carved into an enormously thick tree branch. While it was fairly spacious for being what it was, Night Rush guessed it to be about five by five paces across, and he had to duck his head just to stand in the room. A small, circular window let the early evening light shine onto the foot of the bed. Zecora lay on the straw bed, smiling at him. “You may rest here for the night. Then, I suggest you depart at first light.” She tossed her head, her Mohawk-styled mane flopping around.

“I see.” Night Rush looked around nervously. “So… that’s all I'm going to be doing here? Sleeping, and then leaving?”

“Well, that is not the only thing that you will be doing.” The smile spread further across her face, making Night Rush’s ear twitch nervously.

“Uh, Z-Zecora, you’re really nice and all, but, uh—“ Night Rush stammered.

“There is a brew downstairs that is stewing, and—“

“I mean, I’ve n-never even b-been with a m-mare before—“

“Of course, pony, you do not need to feel forced into it—“

“Just, y’know, n-nopony’s ever really t-taken a l-liking to me—“

“I will need you to venture into the forest to find an ingredient or two—“

“Of course, my barn door doesn’t swing the other way or anything like that, it’s just—“

They both stopped talking at the same time. “What are you talking about?!” They said in unison.

“I was asking for your help with a special brew of mine. Though, I believe you were thinking along a different line…” Zecora trailed off, raising an eyebrow at Night Rush.

Night Rush gulped. “I, uh… y’see… uh…”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Just because I am on a bed, does not mean you should not think with your head.”

Night Rush flinched. “S-sorry…”
She rolled her eyes and got up off of the bed, swishing her tail as she walked by him. “Colts,” she muttered just loudly enough for him to hear.
… …

Morning came much too early for Night Rush.

Celestia’s sun shone brilliantly through the tiny window (Is it even Celestia’s sun yet? He thought to himself) and, despite Night Rush’s attempt to shut the outside world out with h is pillow over his head, he was already mostly awake. Grumbling, he sat up in his bed, only to smack his forehead on the roof of the room.

Rubbing his forehead absentmindedly, he sighed as he remembered where he was. So. It wasn’t a dream. This is real… I'm six thousand years out of place, in the middle of the Everfree Forest, staying at the former Evil Enchantress’s house, and about to go on some crazy-flank quest to find Celestia and Luna because they’re hiding for some reason. He flicked his throbbing ear. Aaaand, I slept with my earrings in. Celestia damn it.

He picked up the tarnished golden ring from where he had stowed it underneath the bed and tucked it underneath his wing. He wasn’t sure why, but it just felt right to be in contact with the ring as much as possible. The other ring—the one that was still on his leg—tingled occasionally, as if it had a tiny static charge running through it.

Remembering to duck his head, he walked out of the small bedroom and down the stairs. He found Zecora murmuring something over the large cauldron in the middle of the main room, pouring a powder into the bubbling concoction as she did so. “’Mornin’,” he greeted sleepily.

Zecora greeted him with a small smile. “It is a little later than first light, but better late than never to begin your flight.”

Night Rush nodded, yawning. “Is there anything that I can do to repay you? I slept in your bed, ate your food, and you’ve given me two bottles and some saddlebags full of what I'm assuming to be fairly valuable stuff.” He slung his borrowed saddlebags over his shoulders, pleased that they fit; they didn’t hinder his wings, and he could tell that they wouldn’t chafe. Zecora had given them to him the night before, insisting that he had more use for them than she did.

Zecora simply shook her head and held up a hoof. “Your help with my brew last night was more than enough,” she said. “To demand payment would be a guff.”

Night Rush smiled gratefully and, rearing back on his hind legs, embraced the zebra in a full-on hug.

“No payment is required from you, Night Rush,” she said again, using his name for the first time. “Now, please—you are making me blush!”

Night Rush disengaged the hug, plopping back down onto all four of his four hooves. Neither of them said anything for a few moments. “How do you know, Zecora?” Night Rush asked suddenly.

“Know what, my pony friend?” She shook her head. “Your questions sometimes confuse me to no end.”

“You know what’s going to happen. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have given me the hunger stuff and the superpower potion right off the bat like that,” he said accusingly.

Zecora’s ears folded backwards. “Stupid pony, you have met Fate and came away without harm! Most ponies, by now, would be at least missing an arm,” she growled.

“So, because of that, you think I'm special?”

“Not yet, no,” the now-irked zebra admitted. “However, you will go farther and reach more ponies that you may ever know.”

Silence rang through the air for a moment or two. “You sound like you know what Fate can do from experience,” he said, more as a comment than a question.

Zecora was silent for a moment. “Fate is a cold, unforgiving pony. He can control us as easily as unicorns can control the world around them, except he has no physical limitations,” she whispered. Night Rush raised an eyebrow at her; without the rhymes, her speech sounded somewhat odd and out of place. “You are indeed a lucky pony to have been in his presence and come out of it unscathed.” She shivered slightly, staring off into the distance.

Night Rush thought back to when he had first spoken to Zecora: I came here long ago to make a life of my own, she had said. “What happened? Did something happen to your family?”

Zecora looked at him, and for a split second, Night Rush saw a deep chasm of sorrow in the zebra’s eyes. She blinked a few times, then turned and picked up Night Rush’s hat from the hook on the door. “I happened,” she said bluntly, handing him his hat. “Now get out of my home.”

The cool nights, Night Rush had expected.

Fending off various animals at nights or whenever he stopped to rest, Night Rush had expected.

What he didn’t expect was the rain.

He didn’t know if it was a regular thing or if there was simply weather front so massive that it was indistinguishable from the rest of the air currents, but he was certainly impressed by the sheer size of it. He doubted that even Canterlot’s elite weather team that the princesses kept on call in case a hurricane or tornado happened to blow in from the untamed lands beyond Equestria could disperse it.

During the day, the rain didn’t bother him at all. He simply flew above the bloated rain clouds, dodging the towering thunderheads that dotted the blanket of clouds like gargantuan chess pieces.

As soon as he dipped below the clouds to find a place to rest for the night, though, he immediately became drenched to the bone and partly blinded by the stinging rain. However, despite the cold, hard rain, he thanked Celestia that it wasn’t windy or turbulent. Even this, though, was a mixed blessing; it meant that flight was made much easier, but it also meant that the storm front wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Night Rush sighed, staring out at the rain collecting in a pool outside of his cave. His first night, he had quickly found out that fires in caves were a very bad idea; the smoke accumulated inside the cave, and since there is hardly ever a breeze, it hung out in the cave until Night Rush was forced to leave and find another cave.

With most caves, however, the least of his problems was smoke. Bears—from your average, garden variety grizzly bear all the way up to Ursa Majors and Minors (Luckily, Night Rush hadn’t come across one of the great Star Bears while they were awake)—inhabited a vast majority of the caves big and small. He hadn’t seen any dragons yet, but even so, he was wary—he had heard that dragons could sense intruders in their caves even when they are asleep.

Night Rush stretched out his wings, fruitlessly trying to flap the soreness out of them. He was never the strongest flier back in Ponyville—never mind the fact that nopony looked like a very strong flier next to the town’s rainbow-maned celebrity—but he thought that he could hold his own on an extended trip like this one.

He was wrong.

Although he would never admit it, Night Rush had become exhausted on the first few hours of flight and had stayed that way the entire trip. His mind was never visited by dreams—he assumed that his mind was too busy trying to squeeze every last ounce of energy out of the measly meals that he managed to scrounge up. He had been tempted to use Zecora’s food potion more than a few times, but he ultimately decided that he should only use it if he really needed it.

He yawned and shifted slightly, brushing away a rock that had been poking into his back with a wingtip. He rolled over onto his back, hooves in the air, contemplating the roof of the cave.

Six days. It’s been six days since I’ve talked to anypony. Six and a half, if you don’t count Zecora, he thought to himself. Then, a pang of realization hit him: Six days since I’ve heard myself talk. Six days since I’ve smiled. Six days since I’ve been anything besides tired.

Night Rush sighed again. “These stupid plains are a lot further than I thought,” he said to thin air. “I sure hope Zecora’s right about the Princesses being in the plains. Although, I’ve no idea why they’d choose the plains as their hiding spot; there’s nowhere to hide there! Maybe they found a cliff or a mountain or something, and they’re hiding in the side of it. Or maybe a cave. Although I don’t really see why they’d want to live in a cave for a few years—I’ve been doing it for less than a week and I'm already sick of it. Not to mention, I—“

He cut himself off. Talking to myself. Not a good sign.

Night Rush smelled the small prairie town of Haysburg before he saw it. At first, he thought that he was imagining the smell of hay fries; then, the further he traveled, the stronger the smell became. Out of curiosity, he ducked below the cloud layer and, lo and behold, the tiny, sprawling town of Haysburg poked out of the flat, (formerly) dry land.

He had to squint to see individual buildings, but he assured himself that it was definitely there and not an illusion of some sort. He angled himself into a dive straight at the small town, whooping and hollering as he sped his way towards the patch of log buildings, not even caring that the drizzling rain felt like hundreds of tiny needles pricking the skin on his face.
He slowed slightly and started to glide over the rooftops, looking for something that looked like an inn—finally, a real bed! He thought—and finally decided to land in the center of the town to see if he could ask if there was a place that he could stay. He touched down (skidding slightly on the muddy ground) right in front of what he assumed was the town hall. He looked around to see if he could see anypony; finding nopony walking around outside, he decided to walk up to the front door of the town hall and knock. He raised his hoof, and…

… Stars flashed before his eyes and a blinding pain shot through his head, and then everything faded away to darkness.

Princess Celestia was a mare of few hates. She tolerated many obnoxious things, such as open court in the castle, unending ‘help’ from her castle staff, and cloud cake. However, if there was one thing that she hated, it was being asked incessant questions about herself by a throng of between twenty and forty kindergarten fillies and colts. Today, Celestia felt like it was more than fifty. The students were lined up in rows and columns arranged into a rough rectangle—a testament to the teacher’s skill with her students. Celestia absentmindedly guessed the rectangle was about twenty by thirty paces, but she wasn’t very sure—her estimating skills had diminished slightly in the intervening millennia. A small, painful buzzing made itself known in the back of Celestia’s skull; the questions from the fillies and colts were starting to get to her.

“How’d you get your cutie mark?”

“Can you turn my pencil into a snake?”

“Can you turn me into a snake?”

“Does anypony have a crush on you?”

“I'm hungry!”

A vein in Celestia’s forehead pulsed as she stifled a scream. Luckily, it was covered up by her flowing mane, so neither the students nor their poor teacher could see it. She had been answering questions without incident until now, when all of the students suddenly decide to start asking their questions all at the same time. A sideways glance at the teacher told Celestia that the students were going to be in rather deep trouble whenever Celestia left.

Every few months, Celestia would get ‘invited’ to give the students at Canterlot Elementary a ‘pep-talk’. In other words, Celestia would be forced to fend off prying questions by the youngsters until they got bored or got tired of asking questions. Unfortunately for the goddess of the sun, it was nearly always the latter, and the fillies and colts had an incredible tendency to be able to talk for hours on end.

Flower Blossom, the yellow-coated, white-maned teacher of the class that Celestia was currently visiting, finally managed to get her students (temporarily) under control. A purple filly’s hoof shot up, and Celestia nodded for her to speak.

“Why did you become the ruler of the sun?” She asked in a high, squeaky voice.

Celestia feigned thought for a moment—she didn’t have to think up a politically correct answer on the spot, seeing as she had been asked this question more than a few times—and then answered: “Well, my little pony, a long time ago, there was nopony to control the sun; instead, it simply made its way across the sky on its own whim. One day, I noticed that all the little colts and fillies were scared of the dark, and, being as loyal to my subjects as they are to me, I decided to take control over the sun, so nopony would ever have to be afraid of the dark again.” She finished with a warm smile.

“But why don’t you make it sunny all the time?” The same filly asked, cocking her head.

“Because everything needs time to rest, my dear. If it was always bright out, nopony would be able to sleep!” Celestia said, easily faking a look of horror at the thought of a kingdom of sleepless ponies. The purple filly sated of knowledge, Celestia said, “Who’s next?”

A few more hooves went up this time. Celestia winced inwardly; she had been answering questions for nearly a half hour, and she had barely made a dent in the young fillies and colts’ questions. She pointed with a hoof at a colt in the back that had a jet-black coat and a silver mane.

“Okay, so like, have you ever gotten married or anything like that? ‘Cause, y’know, all the other adults I know are all married and stuff, and… yeah,” he said, each word sounding like it was an incredible effort.

Celestia was prepared for this question, too; though, it was normally a filly who asked it. “Well, I’ve never really needed a husband or coltfriend—I’ve got my wonderful subjects, what more would I need?” As expected, a collective “Aww” rushed through the small crowd of fillies and colts. “Next?” Prompted Celestia with fake enthusiasm. A blue pegasus filly’s hoof went up next.

“Can you tell me where my big brother went?” She asked without waiting for permission.

Celestia fought the urge to raise an eyebrow. She wasn’t sure if this filly was being bold or disrespectful… “Well, what happened to him?” She prompted, actually somewhat interested in where this was going for once. It was rare that there was a question that piqued her interest, but when it did, she made sure to give it her full attention.

“Well, I don’t know! He just didn’t come home from school one day, and nopony has seen him since…” The blue filly’s eyes started to well up with tears.

“There, there, my little pony. What is his name?” Celestia asked.

The pegasus filly sniffled. “N-Night Rush.”

Celestia nearly choked on her own spit.

Night Rush’s world was nothing but a haze of pain and dark, blurry shapes. He blinked once, twice, three times, and the shapes cleared into the silhouettes of ponies—rather large ponies, for that matter. They had to be nearly as big as (or possibly even bigger than) Ponyville’s own Big Macintosh.

He parted his dry, cracked lips to speak and, as he inhaled, a sickening throb of pain shot through his head. Grunting with pain, he squeezed his eyes shut again and waited impatiently for the pain to fade.

“I think you hit him a little too hard, Bigot.” A filly’s voice. Young, from the sound of it. He must not have seen her during his quick look around.

“Well, I don’t think you hit him hard enough,” another voice said. This one was male and creaked and shook with age. There was a muffled thump; Night Rush blearily assumed that the older voice had patted somepony on the shoulder—Bigot, I'm assuming. Not exactly a polite name, to be honest…

Steeling his nerves, he opened his eyes again. Not daring to move any part of his body—particularly his head—he looked around using his eyes alone.

At first he thought that he was lying flat on his back, with all four of his legs spread out. Now, he realized that, instead, he was chained to a wall by his legs with his wings pinned behind him. He was still wearing his two earrings and his leg ring, but his fedora and the old, tarnished ring were missing.

He appeared to be in a cell—a dirt floor, with three cinderblock walls and ceiling. The fourth wall was nothing but a grid of thick iron bars. He judged the cell to be about five paces by five paces; hardly big enough to fit two fully-grown stallions nose to tail. Nothing else was in his cell, but through the iron bars of his cell door, he could see a group of ponies, most of them much larger than most, standing outside of his cell. He blinked a few more times, and he could start to see the coloration of some of them: most of them were fairly blandly colored, consisting mostly of muted earth tones instead of the pastels typical of Ponyville.

Inhaling as slowly as possible, he said, “Wh-where am I?”

“You’re in a heap o’trouble,” the older voice said. Night Rush could see now that he was a grey Earth pony with a dark brown mane and tail, thought he couldn’t see what his cutie mark was.

Night Rush narrowed his eyes and raised an eyebrow. “For what?” He rasped; his throat was drier than he originally thought. “I’ve only just came into town. I haven’t even done anything yet!”

A dull blue Pegasus pony with a black mane stepped forward. Night Rush squinted through the gloom at him, and could make out that he had a police badge as his cutie mark. He assumed that he was the sheriff of Haysburg or something.

The blue sheriff-pony cleared his throat. “Tricoseri, the shape-shifting draconequus—“

“What.”

“—you are guilty of theft, destruction of private and public property, assault, and murder—”

“What?”

“—and your sentence is death by hanging at high noon tomorrow morning.”

“WHAT?!”

Luna was alone.

So very, very alone.

Darkness was all that she could see… If one could call it seeing.

She blinked a few times, trying to see if she could see something—some sort of formless shape would have been more welcome than the utter, all-consuming blackness.

She moved her ears back and forth, trying to find some sort of sound; something that she could latch onto, to cling to so that her sanity would have some reason to stay.

She tried to scream, but while she felt the raw, harsh feeling of air rushing past her vocal cords, she heard nothing at all. No echo rebounded off of some unseen wall.

And then she realized that she could hear something.

Her heartbeat.

Her heartbeat felt strong and steady, like it should be. Like an anchor in the world full of nothing at all.

She closed her eyes—though, there wasn’t really any need for her to do so, since she could see nothing at all in the first place—and focused with all her might on hearing the lifeblood being pumped through her veins.

She felt some of the fear fade away, and for a moment, she didn’t feel quite as alone as she did at first. Her own heartbeat tethered her sanity to her body, letting herself know that she was still alive.

And then everything was silent.

Night Rush wished, possibly for the first time in his entire life, that he were a unicorn.

Pegasi were the ballet dancers of Equestria; they could walk on clouds, they could fly, and they could kick any sort of flank that they wanted, simply because they were Pegasi.

Unicorns, on the other hand, could bend matter and energy to their will. Which included teleporting.

Which was exactly what he needed to do.

He sighed and pulled on his chains for what seemed like the billionth time that night; after he had rubbed his fetlocks raw from pulling on the chains in every imaginable direction, he had resigned himself to his fate and started trying to formulate some sort of escape plan.

After about five minutes of this, he realized exactly how hard it was to get inspired for anything in a jail cell, particularly when one is chained to the wall of said jail cell.

“Wake up, you.”

Night Rush groaned, and flinched away from the flickering orange torchlight that had recently started to illuminate his cell.

A hoof suddenly slammed itself into the side of Night Rush’s face, tearing him into consciousness with what he thought at first was a broken cheekbone. “What the hay?!” He shouted with a small spray of blood flying from his lips from the force of his response. He reflexively tugged at his bonds, trying to put some distance in between himself and the ridiculously huge pony standing in front of him. “Shouldn’t this be, y’know… the sheriff’s job?!”

The huge, brownish-red pony ignored him. “I told you to wake up. Now come with me; it’s time.”

Night Rush rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’d love to, cupcake, but as you may’ve noticed, I'm a little tied up at the mo—“

The burly burgundy pony slammed another hoof into Night Rush’s face, this time using it to pin his face against the cold stone wall behind him. Night Rush swore he could hear something crack; whether it was the wall or something in his head, he didn’t know.

“You disgust me,” the burgundy pony growled in Night Rush’s ear, moistening the fur next to his it. He moved back and started fiddling with the locks on the chains.

“And you need a little more frosting to cover your ugly flank, what say you—?” Night Rush managed to duck his head to avoid the blow this time, but the brownish-red pony was none too polite or gentle about unlocking his chains.

“Come with me,” the brownish-red pony grunted, making a slow about-face and walking out of the cell.

“Yes, ma’am,” quipped Night Rush, more to himself and anypony particular.

Night Rush kept absentmindedly licking the inside of his cheek while he walked; one of the blows from the burgundy pony had cut it, and there was a small trickle of blood still flowing out of it. The corridors of the prison were fairly straightforward; there was one large, main hallway from which many smaller, narrower corridors that had prison cells dotted along their length. For a town of its size, Night Rush was mildly surprised at how large the entire building was. He assumed that quite a bit of it was underground, since the main corridor sloped upward slightly. Near the large double doors, which Night Rush could see slivers of daylight in between the cracks of, was a small lobby with a few chairs and what looked to be a receptionist’s desk. Or perhaps it’s where the sheriff does his thing, Night Rush thought. There were a few potted plants here and there, but no windows; the only thing that gave off light was the torches hanging on the walls. He wondered how the plants were even alive, if they couldn’t get any sunlight. He wasn’t exactly an Earth pony, but he still knew how to grow a plant.

Night Rush batted his eyes and waved a hoof at the two guards standing just inside the front doors of the prison. Their body language didn’t seem to change, but he could tell that their faces stiffened with annoyance. I’ll bet I'm the first prisoner they’ve had in a while, he thought bemusedly.

Night Rush blinked blearily at the blinding sunlight as he walked out the front doors, still led by the burgundy pony. Huh. The storm must’ve passed by overnight… Night Rush thought. A small crowd had gathered in front of the jail; harsh-looking ponies, mostly of earthy colors such as brown and orange, stared at him with a mixture of fear and accusation. “I didn’t your name, dearie; I’d like to know it before I get my neck stretched,” Night Rush asked the burgundy pony, trying to ignore the crowd; he had never liked being the center of attention.

The burgundy pony laughed heartily, the muscles of his chest rippling. “You think we’d let you go that easily, don’t you?”

Night Rush batted his eyes innocently. “What, something worse than hanging for little old me? Oh, perish the thought!” He put a hoof to his forehead dramatically. Somepony in the crowd spat disgustingly.

The burgundy pony addressed him: “My name is Bigot. I will be your judge. These kind people will be your jury. And, should you be found guilty, I will be your executioner. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Night Rush said, fighting a grin.

“Now, as the first order or business—“

“My, my—I cut off your supplies for one measly week, and you’re already reverting to cannibalism! Tsk-tsk, I had thought better of you ponies,” a voice echoed around them, causing the crowd to gasp and hunker down, trying to find the source of the voice. It was a deep, gleeful voice, similar to the ones that Saturday morning cartoon villains had.

Bigot shot a menacing glare at Night Rush. “You filthy witch! How’re you doing that?!”

"Cannibalism?" Night Rush raised an unconcerned eyebrow at Bigot. “And I thought witches were female?”

“Now, now—let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here. You’ve yet to explain to me why you’re eating this young colt here. Did he do something… wrong?” The voice asked gleefully, punctuating his sentence with a harsh cackle.

“Yes! He… you… whatever! ... Have been destroying this town for weeks, you’ve corrupted our water supply, and you’ve caused a building to collapse onto a pony, killing her!” Bigot shouted at thin air. “You’ve got to answer for your crimes!”

Night Rush suddenly felt himself be lifted up off the ground by something. He tried to yelp, but the force with which he was lifted knocked the wind out of him and he simply lay on his side, wheezing, for a few moments. When he was able to breathe properly again, he looked down at what he had been placed on: a checkered cloth over what seemed to be a round, wooden table about six feet in diameter. Goblets, silverware, and plates appeared before his eyes with soft pops.

Night Rush scrambled to his hooves, taking a quick moment to survey the chaos that was quickly unfolding right before his eyes. The crowd that had gathered for his ‘trial’ was in complete disarray: ponies were scattering in all directions trying to get under some sort of shelter, trampling over each other in the process, and Night Rush could hear the voice—he assumed that it was Tricoseri—laughing maniacally in the background of the bedlam.

With a burst of speed that would have made Rainbow Dash proud, he jumped into the air and pumped his wings three times in a row, quickly gaining enough altitude to soar over the roofs of the small log houses.

“Running away, are we? My, that doesn’t seem very heroic of you...” Tricoseri’s voice sneered in his ear. Night Rush whirled around, looking for the source of the voice while hovering in place.

“Where are you?” Demanded Night Rush, somewhat annoyed that he had been followed without noticing.

“Right here,” the voice called, this time from a ways behind him. Night Rush whirled around again, only to be greeted with a cloud.

Night Rush raised an eyebrow. “A cloud? Ooh, I'm scared now,” he scoffed.

The cloud twitched slightly, and rotated to reveal a scowling face that had seemed to be drawn on it with a crayon. “You should be,” the face growled in Tricoseri’s voice.

I need to sleep, but I need to keep flying. Gotta find the princesses…

Too dark to find a place to land. Gotta keep flying until the morning.

Ooh, is that a torch? I hope it’s a tor—damn it, it’s a firefly.

Why’s it so dark?

The sun went down a few hours ago. Did Celestia lower it, or is it doing it on its own? Or maybe she just moves it on special occasions, when she needs to show off to her subjects…

That rock! The one that looks like Pinkie Pie’s right flank! I’ve passed it before, I know I have! Am I going in circles?

Or maybe that’s just one of the spells that the princesses put up to keep anypony from finding them! Yeah, that’s it. The fabric of space is bent into a circle, and I'm going around and around in it until I starve to death.

Dumb fabric.

I hate the dark.

Dumb princesses, hiding out like they are.

Damn the darkness.

Galloping Greatness, I'm tired. I need to find a place to land.

No.

Keep flying.

Gotta find the princesses.

Keep flying.

Where are they? Zecora said that they’d be somewhere around here…

Keep flying.

I’ve never flown this much before… my… my wings…

No.

Keep flying.

I can’t fall asleep. I… I have to… keep…

Keep flying…

“Wow, look at him go.” A gentle, feminine snicker.

A sigh. “Just let him pass on by already. That poor pony looks like he’s about to… fall…”

A hearty yet dainty laugh. “He just fell out of the sky!”

A grunt. “Ah! I caught him with my magic. He’s safe. I'm bringing him over here…”

“He’d have been fine, as long as he didn’t hit a cactus.”

“No, he’d have broken nearly every bone in his body.”

“Well, if you’d let me experiment with that potion that I’ve been thinking up…”

“All that stuff does is turn your mane and tail into a rainbow.”

“I'm telling you, one of these days, there will be a pegasus that can crash through walls without hurting a single hair on their head.”

“And she’ll have a stupid-looking rainbow mane while she’s doing it.”

“Sticks and stones, little sister. Sticks and stones.”

Night Rush awoke slowly, as he always did. He was lying on his back, his hooves in the air… a position that he was far from used to. He stirred, mumbling incoherently, and tried to open his eyes. He immediately squeezed them shut; something above him was very bright.

A female voice gasped quietly. “Oh! He’s waking up!” A voice came from somewhere to his right. Night Rush’s eyes snapped open, revealing to him the source of the voice: a dark blue unicorn gazed down at him with worried eyes. “Hi, there. What’s your name?” She said, somewhat timidly.

He sat up and took stock of his surroundings: he was in a cave, that much he could tell—but it wasn’t like any cave that would normally come to mind whenever somepony said ‘cave’. Instead of a dark, damp, moldy hole in the ground, this cave was warm, homey, and most importantly of all, bright. He squinted up at the ceiling right above him, and was met with an odd sight: a miniature, orange sun hung like an undulating chandelier from the roof of the cave by a shimmering blue thread of light.

Night Rush was lying on his back on a small straw bed in the center of the room; it seemed to be the only item of furniture in the room, but along the edges of the room were cupboards, drawers, and various statues carved right out of the solid rock. To his right, the dark blue unicorn sat on a small, white mat that had been spread beside the bed.

“Uh… Hello?” The dark blue unicorn waved a hoof at Night Rush, who was too busy taking in his surroundings to pay attention. “What’s your name?” She asked again.

“I have to keep flying,” Night Rush said. He moved to get up, but the dark blue unicorn snorted and pushed him back down onto the straw bed with a forehoof.

“You’re staying right here,” she said affirmatively.

“I have to keep flying,” he said again, sitting up again. The mare simply didn’t seem to understand—he had to keep flying! She had her back turned to him, so he was able to sit all the way up, folding his hind legs underneath himself and looking around blearily. He was giving his wings a few experimental flaps when the indigo unicorn gave a small shriek and picked him up with her magic, straightening him out like a board, and none too gently.

“I told you, you have to stay still!” She said, louder this time as if it would help him hear it. She took a small, wet rag and dabbed his split lip with it, making Night Rush wince slightly.

“I have to keep flying,” he said again.

“No, you have to stay here. I’ll take good care of you, I promise!” She flashed a warm smile at him, as if it would make the words more convincing.

“I have to keep flying.” Night Rush began to struggle within the dark blue unicorn’s magical aura. “I have to keep flying!”

The indigo unicorn let out a huff and threw the wet rag down onto the floor of the cave. “You’re starting to irritate me, you know th—”

“I have to keep flying,” he said, louder this time.

“Will you stop saying that?”

“I have to keep flying.”

“O-okay... I’ll let you keep flying, if you’ll let me take care of—”

“I have to keep flying.”

“Please—stop saying that!”

“I have to keep flying.”

Celestia rather enjoyed being an alicorn, and the many perks that came with it: flight of a Pegasus pony, magic at least double that of an average unicorn, the strength and stamina of an Earth pony, and quite possibly most importantly, respect and awe by everypony that they came across.

The pure white alicorn, who was perched atop a quarter mile high butte, stuck out her chest and tapped into her vast reserves of magic, her horn glowing brilliantly in the dusky twilight. She could feel the immense celestial body that she was so intimately attached to, its warmth spreading through her frame like a crashing wave, spreading through her wings and arcing across the primaries like electricity. With a gentle, graceful nudge, she coaxed her sun out of its hiding place, bringing orange and pink light to this side of the world.

Her world.

She sighed happily and smiled, relishing both the feeling of warmth the rising sun gave her and the idea that she could do literally anything that she wanted, and there was nothing anypony could do to stop her. It was an empowering feeling, one that made her swell with happiness.

“Sister!” Came a mental shout, breaking Celestia out of her self-absorbed reverie. “Help!” The two celestial sisters had discovered their mental link a few decades before they were accepted as the princesses of the land, and they found that they could not only communicate mentally with words, but pictures, feelings, and emotions, too. To Celestia’s knowledge, the mental link had an infinite range, seeing as it worked perfectly fine while the sisters were on the opposite sides of the planet.

Celestia rolled her eyes. “Coming, Luna,” she replied, allowing her not-so-moderate disdain shine through their mental link. Why she had decided to run away with her sister in tow, she would never know. She leaped down from the butte, falling freely, spreading her wings only at the last second, using a little bit of magic to ease the strain of slowing down on her shoulders.

She touched down lightly, kicking up a small puff of dust around her hooves. She looked down disdainfully; a princess of her power and glory shouldn’t have to deal with dust. She tapped the base of the butte with her horn; the rock shimmered, and then disappeared, revealing a gaping hole in the side of the sandstone. With a slight smile at the flawlessness of her illusion magic even after the few months that they had stayed in that certain cave, she made her way inside, closing the ‘door’ behind her.

The cave itself was essentially a tunnel that opened into a few catacombs that had been expanded and decorated with magic, but the tunnel itself had been kept mostly untouched, and it still had a few twists and turns.

“What is it, Lu?” Celestia asked as she was about to round the final turn that opened into the main chamber, somewhat annoyed.

“Sis! Help!” Shouted her sister from inside the main chamber. Celestia could hear various scuffling sounds emanating from around the corner.

“Lu, what in the world is going—” Celestia cut off her exasperated question as she rounded the corner and looked into the main chamber.

In the middle of the main chamber was something that Celestia would describe as pure chaos. Floating in the air was a muted blue pony with a dark brown mane was flailing violently, thrashing his limbs around as if he was being electrocuted. Luna, the indigo alicorn of the night, stood straining slightly next to the makeshift straw bed.

“I can’t hold him down without hurting him!” Explained Luna hurriedly. “Please, help me!”

“I have to keep flying!” shouted the dull blue Pegasus pony, giving his wings a few hard flaps as if to punctuate his sentence.

Celestia scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I told you we were picking up another loon.”

“You wanted to see me, sister?” Luna, the princess of the night and the lighthearted and fun-loving yin to Celestia’s calm and serene yang, nudged the sun goddess’s bedroom door open with a gentle magical push. The elder sister’s mind was closed-off to Luna, which was an unfamiliar and somewhat scary feeling to the younger sister; the last time that one of them had completely shut out the other was a little over a thousand years prior...

Celestia’s gigantic circular bedroom, despite belonging to the goddess-princess of the sun, was fairly simply decorated: a large circular bed with gossamer curtains with its headboard against the far wall took up most of the space in the room—Luna wasn’t entirely sure how wide it was, but she guessed it to be at least fifteen feet in diameter—and on either side of the bed hung an enchanted curtain that led to a balcony that connected on the outside. Luna knew for a fact that a hurricane could be raging right outside the room and the curtains would do nothing besides flutter as if a gentle summer breeze was wafting into the room: she put the enchantment in herself, and was confident that it had held over the three and a half millennia that had intervened.

A few bookcases, specially designed to fit along the curved walls, held a mixture of old, tattered leather books and a few newer-looking books with colorful cloth or vinyl covers. Luna didn’t know the contents of most of them, but she recognized a few upper-level spell books that she herself had helped to write.

Celestia looked up from the photo album that she was browsing through, snapping the old leather-bound book shut. She didn’t say anything to her little sister; not that she could have in the first place. Her mind was a cacophony of swirling emotions and thoughts and theories, and what little room was left unoccupied by the confusing thought processes was taken up by reminiscing on happy memories.

Luna closed the bedroom door behind herself and walked across the floor to the large circular bed where her big sister was laying. “I haven’t seen you this deep in thought since you played that game of chess against Star Swirl the Bearded,” she said with a small smirk. When Celestia didn’t smile back at her, she cocked her head and asked, “What’s on your mind, sister?”

Celestia was silent for a moment longer. “Night Rush,” she said simply.

Luna’s eyebrows shot up and her ears shot to full attention. “He—what—has it really been six thousand years already...?”

Celestia nodded slowly. “But that’s not what I'm worried about. His sister—I'll be talking with her about this tomorrow morning—says that Night Rush has disappeared, and he hasn’t returned for three days. I suppose it’s four days now—it was yesterday that we talked and made an... Appointment of sorts for tomorrow.”

“So... why is that worrying?” Luna raised an eyebrow and jumped lightly onto Celestia’s round bed, magicking the photo album over to herself and flipping through it, smiling back at the grinning ponies in the pictures.

Celestia sighed and moved off of the bed, where she sat on the floor and preened a few ruffled feathers back into place. “Because we tried to send him forward in time to exactly two days after Fate took him back in time, and that would have been yesterday morning.”

The photo album dropped out of Luna’s telekinetic grasp. “B-but... that means...” Her lip quivered slightly, and her ears drooped sadly.

Celestia nodded, unable to make eye contact with her sister. “Yes. Night Rush died stopping the schism.”

“You’ve killed him!”

“I did not! I simply knocked him unconscious.”

“Oh, what’re we going to do?! We can’t go back now! We’ll be on the run for the rest of eternity!”

“Luna, will you calm down? He’s still alive! Just look at—”

“Forever! We’ll have to change our names, start using illusion spells for disguises, and lie, cheat and steal just to get food!

“Luna, calm down or I’ll put you to sleep too!”

“See what we’re coming to?! First a random stranger, and now your own sister?! We’re going mad! We need to find someth—” There was a muffled thud as something hit the floor of the cave.

“I warned you, didn’t I?”

Night Rush awoke slowly to the sound of a dull roar. Rain? He thought blearily. His eyelids slowly slid apart and absorbed the bright, warm light that lit the interior of the cavern.

And then his head exploded.

Night Rush closed his eyes and put a hoof to either temple, trying to squeeze out the massive pangs of pain that were charging through his skull. A small, pained groan escaped his throat, alerting a white alicorn that had been resting beside the bed that he had been unceremoniously dropped on.

“Hey, you’re awake,” she said, stretching her alabaster wings.

“Duly noted,” groaned Night Rush, who had assumed the fetal position with his hooves pressed against his temples. “Where... where the hay is I?” He slurred, lifting up his head to look at the white alicorn. As his pain-befuddled mind registered that the white blur with a two streaks on either end of it was, indeed, the princess of the sun, he sighed. “The princess. I found you, finally...”

He shot bolt upright in the bed, stubbornly ignoring the screaming protests of his headache. “Princess! I found you! Finally!” Night Rush folded over slightly as his headache gave a particularly nasty throb and seemed to quadruple in weight. He squinted and his vision focused enough so that he could see clearly. He recognized the room that he was in—though how he recognized it, he had no idea; he had never been in it before.

The princess herself was a sight to behold. Her coat, wrapped around her form like a silk cloth, was a pure, untouched white, while her pink, flowing mane offered a startling but serene contrast with the white sheet of her coat. Night Rush had never seen the princess in real life up close before, but now that he had the chance, he wished that he never had to look away. A warm, fuzzy feeling welled up in Night Rush’s stomach, blossoming out and warming him from his wingtips to his hooves.

Celestia raised her eyebrows. “Indeed you have. Now go find somepony else,” she said, motioning with a wing.

The fuzzy feeling left rather quickly after the princess’s response.

“But... You have to help me get home!” He protested.

“Ha,” Celestia snorted. “You’re a big colt; I think you can find your own way home.”

“It’s not that simple,” Night Rush said, with a little more anger than he meant.

“Oh, it’s always that simple with you commoners. You have a problem that can be fixed with a simple conversation, and yet you come to me about it. Communication with you ponies, I swear...” She gave a dismissive toss of her pink mane.

“Well, if you can find me a way to talk my way six thousand years into the future—back where I came from—then please, be my guest. Otherwise, stop patronizing me and speak to me like I'm a pony and not some sort of insect.”

“You insolent colt—do you know who I am?!” Celestia shouted, flaring her wings and standing up.

Night Rush jumped to his hooves on top of the bed, his headache completely forgotten in the surge of adrenaline. “Well, I sure as hay hope you’re not the princess, because if the princess of all Equestria is a complete flankhole, then we’ve got a real problem!”

“You will watch your mouth when you’re addressing your princess, you little whelp!”

Night Rush raised an eyebrow, his voice rising an octave and a half. “Yes, mommy, I’ll be sure to keep it clean. Just don’t wash out my mouth with soap, please!” He swayed back and forth and held a hoof in front of him as if to defend himself for dramatic effect.

Celestia stood in shocked silence for a split second. Recovering quickly, her horn lit and Night Rush felt a cold, hard something strike his cheek, sending him flying at least two pony-lengths off of the bed. He flared his wings and twisted around in the air, turning himself right side up before he hit the stone floor of the cave. He landed hard enough to make his still-weak knees buckle, and he rolled once or twice against the stone floor, coming to rest against a large indigo pillow that was resting in the middle of the room for some reason.

“Wha... Huh?” The indigo pillow grunted, flinching slightly. Night Rush did a double-take, to find that he had rolled onto a dark blue unicorn, who looked fairly familiar for some reason. A pair of blue, feathery wings slapped him in the face as they snapped open.

“What the buck is going on?!” Night Rush screamed at the ceiling after finally getting his balance. “Where am I, how did I get here, and why are you here?” He glared back and forth between the princess and the dark blue pony—, who, he realized, was rather alarmed-looking princess Luna.

“You tell us, you imbecile!” Celestia replied testily, her voice starting to rise. “You’re the one who collapsed on our doorstep!”

“What are you talking about? The last thing I remember, I was in Haysburg, and then I woke up here with a Celestia-awful headache and a really rude princess,” scoffed Night Rush. “I was looking for you two, yes, but it’s not like I wanted to be here.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” chuckled the sun princess. “Besides, you wouldn’t even—”

“That’s enough, Tia!” Luna said suddenly, apparently snapping out of her stunned reverie. “I’ll not allow you to talk to my patients that way, much less knock him around like you did.”

Celestia scoffed haughtily. “You actually care for this commoner? Don’t make me laugh, little sister.”

“This commoner,” Luna spat the word, “nearly died because of your inaction! You might think them unworthy of anything but a few words, but that’s no excuse to neglect them!”

“So he might’ve had a few broken bones,” Celestia said, waving a hoof dismissively. “Big deal! They heal. Life goes on.”

“I—you—” Luna sputtered, and then let out a very unprincesslike scream. “You’re so... ignorant!” With a flash of blue light centered on her horn, Night Rush felt himself be whipped away in a flurry of swirling colors and lights, not much unlike his time travelling experience with Fate. Night Rush let out a strangled scream at the unexpected, if brief, sensation of being crushed and pulled apart at the same time.

“Sorry about that,” Luna apologized. “I might’ve overdone it a little. Preparation is important for spells like that, particularly teleportation spells.”

Night Rush let out the breath that he hadn’t realized that he was holding, and opened his eyes. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized very quickly that he wasn’t in the cavern anymore; instead, he was on top of what looked to be a mountain, looking out over what he guessed were the plains that surrounded Appleoosa; after apparently forgetting nearly a week of heavy flying, he could be nearly anywhere. He turned his gaze upwards and gaped in amazement at the stars, splattered against the veil of night sky like paint against a canvas. The moon was absent; he guessed that it was either a new moon, or it just hadn’t risen yet.

Night Rush let out a small, unstallion-ly squeak from both the sudden change in landscape and the feeling of teleportation, and subconsciously reached up to adjust his fedora. His stomach dropped to his hooves when he found that it wasn’t there. He turned a few frantic circles in a hopeless search for his lost hat. “My hat!” He said in despair. “I must’ve dropped it somewhere. Did we leave it in the cave?”

“You did not have a hat with you when we found you,” she said, though the apology in her eyes was all the answer he needed. “I'm very sorry. Did it mean a lot to you...?”

Night Rush shrugged. “I... well, not really. I mean... it’s just a hat... But, y’know, it’s just the only thing that I’ve got left of...” He paused for a moment. “It’s the only thing I’ve got left of home.”

Luna looked at her hooves awkwardly. A long silence stretched between them, which Night Rush tried to pass away by staring at the stars, trying to find a familiar constellation. Finding none, he squinted and tried to find the North Star, but again to no avail.

“Well,” the moon princess said, breaking the awkward silence, “I need to find out if my sister gave you a concussion...” she trailed off, giving a half-hearted chuckle. “With your permission, of course.”

Night Rush nodded his assent, and the moon princess’s horn lit up with a soft indigo glow. “If you feel pain of any kind, let me know and I’ll pull out immediately.”

Without waiting for the blue pegasus to respond, Luna pushed a thin tendril of magic into Night Rush’s forehead, working its way around inside his head. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but it felt strange and alien nonetheless, as if some other vast consciousness was invading his. He shivered slightly.

“You appear to be fine,” Luna said after about thirty seconds, withdrawing her probe from Night Rush’s head. “Though, your head might hurt for a while longer, I'm afraid.”

“Oh, joy,” muttered Night Rush. He glanced up at her somewhat hurt expression, and added, “But thanks for taking care of me. And for getting me away from your sister; who knows how much further I’d have whipped her into a froth.” He chuckled slightly.

Luna pursed her lips. “Indeed. Though, may I ask, do you derive pleasure from angering others, or being hit by them?”

Night Rush raised an eyebrow. “I'm not a sadist or a masochist, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Then why, pray tell, do you try to infuriate my sister so much?”

He shrugged. “It just comes naturally, I suppose. It’s not like I want to make an ass out of myself, I just... do. It’s a blessing and a curse, sometimes.”

Luna gave a wry smile. “How could that possibly be a blessing? It seems rather painful, if you ask me.”

Night Rush grinned cockily at her, unconsciously sticking out his chest. “’Cause it’s funny,” he quipped.

Luna simply rolled her eyes at him.

“I get the feeling that you’re going to be doing that quite a bit at me,” Night Rush smirked, eliciting a restrained and dignified laugh from the moon princess.

“Yes, I suppose I am,” she admitted after the small wave of mirth had passed. A few more moments passed by and their smiles faded from their faces.

“I’ve never seen the night sky before like this,” Night Rush whispered, as if afraid to break some sort of spell that had been cast over the pair of ponies. “There’s too many lights in Po—my hometown. It blocks out all the stars...” He mentally cursed himself; he was supposed to be gaining the princess’ trust, and yet he was keeping them in the dark.

“Indeed.” The princess of the night nodded, turning her gaze upwards to the cacophony of colors that adorned the sky. “Most ponies take the night sky for granted; without it, sleep would be nigh impossible, and my sister’s sun would, for lack of a better word, roast them all.”

The corners of Night Rush’s mouth twisted upwards. “I don’t mean to sound like a brown nose, princess, but given that your night is my namesake, it’s rather hard for me to take the night for granted.”

“True,” smiled Luna. She sighed, her head hanging slightly. “I simply wish that other ponies would say that.”

“Commoner!” Shouted a voice from the sands down below.

“Crap,” Night Rush whimpered.

“So, my little pony, what’s your name?” Celestia smiled as warmly as possible down at the small blue pegasus filly that looked up at her with large, surprisingly intelligent eyes.

Celestia had invited Night Rush’s sister to breakfast with her after the meeting that she had with the entire school. After a rather large breakfast of exotic foods that made the little blue pegasus filly’s eyes bulge out, they had moved out to a large balcony that overlooked the valley beneath the castle of Canterlot. After making a little bit of small talk with the captain of the Royal Guard as they passed by him in the humongous halls of the castle, Celestia had treated the small filly to the spectacle of watching her raise morning sun.

“I-I’m... I’m Morning Glory, princess,” the little filly stammered. The reds and yellows of the early morning sun shone on her blue coat, making her seem to glow softly. “Where’s my brother?”

Celestia sighed; she had hoped to put off the subject of Night Rush as long as possible. “Well, can you tell me a little bit about him?” She asked, a fake smile spread warmly across her face. Surely, there’s more than one Night Rush. Who is blue. And a pegasus... Oh, Gods, I hope I’m wrong...

“Well...” The filly put a hoof to her chin, scrunching up her face in thought. “He’s a blue pegasus, he wears a gold bracelet-thingy around his hind leg, he doesn’t have a cutie mark, and he’s got two earrings in his right ear.”

Luna’s beard, the sun princess cursed mentally, swallowing back a sigh of frustration. “Well, that’s the Night Rush that I kne--know. You see, little one,” she started, berating herself mentally for what she was about to do. “Your brother was sent on a very, very important mission. He was sent a long way away--further than most ponies dare to go. That’s one of the reasons he was chosen for this mission, you know; he’s not afraid to push the limits, and he doesn’t play by anypony’s rules.” She let out a soft chuckle. “Even mine, sometimes.”

As planned, the moderate praise garnered a small smile from the young filly. “So... when’s he coming back?” She asked, cocking her head.

Celestia fought a wince. “I... I’m not sure, my little pony. After all, he’s a very long way away, and it takes a very long time to get back--”

“So he’s not coming back,” Morning Glory interrupted suddenly. “That’s what the royal guard said whenever they told us about my uncle that was in the part of the Royal Guard that tried to get that dragon to move out of Zebrica. He’s not coming back. Ever.” The little blue filly seemed to collapse in on herself, and she wiped her nose with a small sniffle.

“Oh, Morning Glory, that’s--” the sun goddess stopped herself whenever the small filly glared up at her. “... That’s quite possibly true,” she sighed. “I’m not sure how well you’re going to understand this, but... Four days, ago, your brother, Night Rush, was sent a long way into the past. A very, very long way into the past. When he was there, he met my sister and myself.” She allowed herself a small, sentimental smile. “I was much different then than I am now, and I must say, we didn’t make a very good first impression on each other.”

“But... Where’s he at, then?” Morning Glory’s face scrunched up as her eyes welled up with tears.

He could either be somewhere in this time period and shredded to bits by being exposed to the time vortex, lost in the fabric of reality, or dead and disintegrated six thousand years ago. Since she realized that she couldn’t say any of those things, she went with the simplest and easiest to take in: “He’s stuck back in time, my little pony,” she lied in as soft of a voice as she could muster. “And he’s going to be staying there.”

“So... he’s alive?” The little filly said hopefully, wiping away a large tear that had collected on her cheek.

Even if what I said was true, he’d be long dead right now anyways. “Yes, my dear. He’s living quite happily in the past. My past self made sure of it.”

“Oh, yeah?! How’s about you go BUCK YOURSELF, prin--urk!”
“Take that back, you ruffian! I’ll have you show me respect yet!”
“Sister, put him down! Please!”
“Not until he’s learned his lesson!”
“Uhhngk...”
“Sister, he can’t even speak; you’re holding him too tightly!”
“That’s the whole point!”