Little Strongheart said it would take a week for Niddhog to heal. That was how long it took to create a world, or to keep one from disappearing.

Twilight said she didn’t care and was leaving.

“You can’t go!” Rainbow Dash said. “We still have to see Niddhog off!”

“And we have to make peace between ponies and buffaloes,” Pinkie Pie said.

“I came here to slay a dragon,” Twilight said. “I did that. Now I’m leaving.”

“I have to stay,” Spike said. “I’m in charge of the peace operations, and I have to see this through.”

“Fine, I’m sure you’ll do a great job.”

“I’m so sorry,” Little Strongheart said. The red crystal on her chest was still bloody. “I would take it off, but I can’t! It’s a puzzle, but I can’t solve—“

Rainbow Dash unlocked the crystal. She took it off Little Strongheart and gave it to Twilight, grinning smugly.

“I’ll return this to Princess Celestia,” Twilight said. “I have a big report to write.”

“How are you going to get home?” Rarity said. “The train is demolished!”

“I have a feeling the new train is already on its way.”

Twilight said no more. She gave Spike a hug, dismissed the Breezies, and took Gamma’s letter with her to the train tracks. It was a pleasant walk in the sunshine breathing the clean air. The world was what it wanted to be again.

The ruined train was, as she expected, gone. It its place was a shiny new train. No pony was in it. Twilight got in the first-class cabin, said “Express to Ponyville!” and the train started.

It continued to run. Wub wub wub went the train over the tracks as Twilight looked out the window. Somewhere, out there, birds were singing, bees were hunting flowers, ponies were living their lives. Twilight did not know the details. But she knew the logic that had to be behind it all.

Beauty...you are beautiful....

Twilight started. "What?" There had a been a voice in her head, just for a moment, that didn't sound like hers.

But you could be even more beautiful....

Twilight looked at the red crystal laid on the seat beside her.

Beauty, I am your mirror. Reflect in me; I will reflect for you.

"No," Twilight said.

She began to draft a letter.

Dear Princess Celestia

What a week! We made friends with the buffaloes, survived a clash with Niddhog, traveled up Hark Mountain, and defeated him in an epic final confrontation involving matrix algebra. Everyone worked very hard. Also, I had many interesting thoughts about economics that I am looking forward to sharing with you at the Grand Galloping Gala.

Enclosed is a magical amulet that I think will be of some sentimental value. Please do not lose it.

I miss you dearly.

Twilight considered that line. Finally she crossed it out.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

A number of unusual conversations could be heard during the week the Friendship Crew spent in Appleloosa creating what came to be known as Spike’s Peace.[1]

[1]”What about Austria?” was the indignant complaint of a certain trio of fillies when the news came to Ponyville.

“How’d you do it, Spike?” someone asked as buffaloes and ponies crowded around at the usual time to hear him speak of economics.

“It wasn’t that hard,” Spike said with a nervous giggle. “The problem was that everypo—I mean, everyone was thinking in terms of things when they should have been thinking in terms of value-streams or -facets. Think of Appleloosa and everything in it as a great big diamond—“

“A diamond? Oh, Spikey-wikey, I must have it!”

“It’s, uh, it’s a metaphor, Rarity—“

“But Spikey-wikey, I want it….”

A pony made a deal for a dozen apple trees and plenty of buffalo labor.

"Yeehaw! Thanks, cousin Braeburn."

"Anytime, Applejack. You're always welcome in AH-PAH-MMPH!"

Applejack removed her hoof from his mouth. "Braeburn? I love you. Tone it down."

You might have heard a pony singing a peculiar lullaby at night as she played her tambourine.

Oh, Bloomberg is my favorite plant

And this is his favorite dark chant

Bloomberg doesn’t kill anybody

That would be a sorry story

No, no, no killing anybody

Not even a single body

Killing is like totally bad

It makes Mommy very sad

Because then they can’t buy my cupcakes—

“Pinkie! Some of us are trying to get some sleep! Anyway, that song is terrible.”

There was a pony whose healing touch and demure smile made her very popular with everyone, which made her nervous. She preferred to spend her time doing things that felt safer than meeting new people.

“You really have to brush your teeth more!”

“Sowwy.”

“Oh, it’s okay. I know you’re trying.” Fluttershy poked her head out from underneath one of the Cerberus’s upper lips and called down to Rarity. “Could I have more floss, please?”

“Of course, darling. Coming right up! Echelon Soie!”

“Um…nothing happened.”

Rarity pouted. “I miss having ultimate power. When do you think Twilight will let us go into Echelon Mode again?”

“Probably not unless we have another adventure.”

Rarity worried her hair. “I suppose that wouldn’t be too bad.”

There was a conversation with a buffalo who spent a good deal of the week hiding until she tried to jump off a building and landed on top of Rainbow Dash, who was even faster than she looked.

“Stop it at once!” Fluttershy scolded. “This is not sensible.”

“I killed—“ Little Strongheart broke off, looked away. “I can’t return to the herd, I can’t live here, I have nowhere to go and nothing to live for. Leave me be!”

“No, be our friend,” Rainbow Dash said. “That’s what always happens, so you might as well make it easy on yourself.”

“You are one of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony,” Rarity said. “Your life is not something that can be discarded as easily as one of Sweetie Belle’s designs.”

“That Element was a lie.”

“Not that Element,” Pinkie Pie said. “Obviously we mean your real Element. The Element of Leadership, duh!”

“I have no right to lead,” Little Strongheart said in a small voice.

“What are you talking about?” Pinkie Pie looked at the other ponies, who looked just as confused. “What’s rights got to do with anything? There’s just the, uh, the—“

“Hypothetical given,” Fluttershy supplied.

“Right, the hypothetical given, and you have to solve it.”

“My crimes cannot be washed away.”

“So go to jail, take your flank-spank,” Applejack said. “I’d sooner wrassle a rattlesnake than argue you don’t deserve it. But don’t think it rids you of your responsibilities! Like to my apple orchard. I have a lot of rebuilding to do. You any good with Earth magic?”

“Speaking of crimes,” Rarity said as they walked away, “did anypo—did anyone else notice that only buffaloes died? Even Little Strongheart didn’t kill any ponies.”

“It’s like ponies had some special advantage granted from high above,” Pinkie Pie said.

“We’re still alive because we’re the best,” Rainbow Dash said. “Well, I am.”

Fluttershy shrugged. “If you want to ask Someone about it, don’t look at me.”

And finally the dragon Niddhog awoke.

“I’m sorry,” he said in the quietest voice he could manage, which was just enough to not burst everyone’s ear drums. “I didn’t mean to be any trouble, but I’ve learned to be suspicious of storytelling creatures. I am pleased to announce that I am no longer planning on killing everysaur.”

"You mean 'everyone,'" Fluttershy said.

"Ah, yes, excuse me. I am no longer planning on killing everyone."

“You and me both, buddy,” said Pinkie Pie, who until that moment hadn’t quite made up her mind.

Niddhog gestured to his ruined scales, many of which were pale or malformed. Little Strongheart had lost her crystal too early to fully restore his body in that way. “This is no more than I deserve.”

“We can do something about that,” Rarity beamed. “Ever heard of the four color theorem? We’ll have your scales sparkling in no time!”

“I thought it was the five color theorem,” Applejack said.

“It’s definitely seven,” Rainbow Dash said.

“It’s four,” Rarity said. “Princess Celestia’s mane has four colors. It is the four color theorem!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Spike said. “Although I’m sure you’re right, Rarity. Niddhog, where are you going to go?”

“Someplace I won’t bother anyone. Outer space.”

“Space?”

“Yes, all dragons can fly in outer space, didn’t you know that? I was thinking Pluto.”

“We’ll send a card!” Pinkie Pie said. “Spike can fly it there.”

“No, I can’t!”

“Well, just imagine that we sent you a card. If you imagine really hard, it’ll be almost like the real thing.”

So Niddhog, gleaming brightly in four colors, although there were patches of him that were five or seven colors, took to the sky. Everyone watched until he disappeared, and Spike continued watching after.

“You okay, Spike?” Applejack said.

Spike considered his stubby tail. “I am wondering whether I ought to grow up.”

“Course you should. Being a full-grown dragon, all big and strong. You’d be dead useful on my farm. Say—“

“No, Applejack, I’m not going to work for you,” Spike smiled. “I am the assistant to and student of Twilight Sparkle, and one day I will be a full-grown economist.”

“Had to try,” Applejack grinned, nudging Spike.

Pan away from there, and go up, up….

Amidst the photons and the thinning air molecules, the gamma radiation and the decaying metal of old satellites, a single creature flies. He beats his wings, and now he is past all that. Below him is one rock, and to his right is a smaller one, and there are many other rocks around. The one he wants is very far away, and it is very cold there. But dragons are beasts of fire, and little chills them.

Niddhog, King of Dragons, feels a source of warmth behind him. He turns, sees the sun blazing; he wonders if it should. He wonders what would become of ponies if they had no light to rely on, if they found themselves in the darkness absolute and could only rely on each other’s voices.

He takes a deep breath.

And turns, beating his wings powerfully, and heads off to Pluto.

Some say the dragon is still flying through space to this day. If you want to ask Someone about it, don’t look at me.

Once she had memorized every detail, Sunset Shimmer incinerated the zebra’s corpse.

Twilight Sparkle exited the train at the Ponyville stop and saw that her treehouse was being rebuilt. She hadn’t asked anyone too. Privately she had hoped she might have gone to live again in Canterlot for a time.

Twilight went to the Daughter instead and read her volumes there. She caught up on the latest economic data from Ponyville and what her Sisters were putting out at their own Daughter banks. There was a knock on the door. Twilight opened it. It was a pony holding a cake.

“Welcome back, Twilight! This is a way of saying thanks for slaying the dragon.”

“Okay,” Twilight said. “I can’t eat a whole cake.” That was a lie.

“Well—“

Twilight took the cake, shut the door, and went back to the numbers. She tried unsuccessfully to keep from getting any icing on her papers.

There was a knock at the door. And another. And another.

Cakes. Dried fruit. Hayseeds, which she didn’t know what to do with. Books, lots of books, mostly about the wrong things.

“We’re so glad you came back safely,” said a pony with a reddish-purple coat. Twilight felt like she ought to know her name.

“How did you know I was coming back? How did you know that we won?”

“Oh, we saw all the smoke clear away. But we got to work before then, of course. We knew our very own Chief Executive Economist would be able to do it.” Her name was, um…something about happiness, an adverb. Happily. Yes.

“Well, Happily,” Twilight said carefully, noting the lack of reaction and taking it for confirmation, “that was rather absurdly overconfident. You all would have done better to write to my Sis—who told you all to start rebuilding my treehouse?”

“Oh, no pony told us to. We just did.”

Twilight stared at her. Happily’s smile never wavered. Twilight facehoofed.

“What an idiot!”

“I—I beg your pardon?”

“Not you, me!” Twilight groaned. “I stole the train!”

“…What?”

“I didn’t pay for it, I mean. I just made everyone get off.”

“You mean everypony.”

“No, I don’t, shut up. I mean, don’t shut up. Don’t let me tell you to shut up. Except for right now because seriously shut up. Um. Thanks for the cake, by the way. You can set it down—oh. Bye.”

Twilight slammed the door shut and got to work making something for all the ponies of Ponyville. Something that said “thank you.” After some thinking, she took a pair of scissors and carefully began cutting letters out of her very important documents….

The next day people were screaming about somepony being kidnapped. Twilight facehooved and resolved to just ask Pinkie Pie next time.

And that was that.

“EEEEEEEK!” Rarity screamed. “But it can’t be—I’m not ready—no no no no NO NO NO!”

“Jumping junebugs,” Applejack said. “It’s really happening.”

“It’s pretty boring, honestly,” Twilight said.

“Are the Wonderbolts really going to be there?” Rainbow Dash said.

“Oh, goodness,” Fluttershy said. “I, um, I hope no one minds if I, um, eep.”

“It’s the biggest party ever!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing around the room. “I’m so excited are you excited I’ve never been more excited in my life except for that one time we turned into a matrix and slew a dragon with laser beams but I mean really what could top that—“