The infirmary door glowed and creaked open, and Princess Cadence hesitantly stepped in and squinted at the early afternoon sunlight streamed in through the high windows. Her eyes darted back and forth between the infirmary's two rows of beds, many of which now lay unoccupied, scanning them for her husband. With his distinctive blue mane, it didn't take long.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she had to bite back a gasp. Somehow, it was so much worse now that she could see it. In the bed, where the blankets should have been raised by his hindlegs, they were flat.

"Oh, Shining..."

She trotted over to him, eyes wide and tearful, nearly slipping on the polished marble as she did so. Leaning over at the side of his bed, she closed her eyes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. As she did so, she felt his hoof rest firmly and comfortingly on the back of her head.

"It's going to be all right, Cadence." His voice was strong, reassuring, confident. It put her at ease.

She lifted her head out of his grasp, her horn glowed, and she produced a pink, lacy handkerchief. She gave herself a moment to dab lightly at her eyes, then opened them and put the now-damp cloth away. She looked down at Shining Armor, and found him looking back with concern - concern for her.

"We'll get through this. The Princesses came to see me about half an hour ago, as soon as I recovered. Didn't you hear? I...I'm gonna be a national hero, full honors. Cadence, don't worry. We're set for life. That's good at least, right? Isn't it? And...and there might still be a way. Like, maybe they can magically replace 'em. I'm sure Celestia can think of something."

"But I wish I could have done something. I don't have any real authority, I didn't even want to get involved in the politics of the war in the first place. But maybe I could have convinced Celestia to let you stay..."

"Cadence, don't worry. It's what being in the Guard's about. Besides..." He smiled. "...I saved a village back there. Stopped a whole group of human machines dead in its tracks. That's why the rest of the Guard there had time to get everyone to safety. How many ponies can say they've done that?"

"You...you're sure? You really don't regret it?" Cadence asked, leaning forward a bit. Shining Armor nodded in return, perhaps a bit more vigorously than was believable.

The door burst open again; this time, it was Twilight. Tears flowed freely from her eyes, leaving a trail on the floor as she went. Cadence had to step aside to avoid a collision as Twilight immediately threw her head into her brother's chest. When she spoke, her choked-out words were broken up by sobs.

"So sorry...my fault...I caused it...hate me..."

For a moment, Shining Armor could only blink and stare in shock. Yes, he knew his sister would be grief-stricken when she found out what had happened to him. What was she saying, though?

"What? Your fault? Twily, what are you talking about?"

She lifted her head off of his chest very slightly. "The interview. They hated us because of what I said at the interview. If I'd just been more careful...if I'd planned better, taken the time to learn more about them...we never would've gone to war! and you..." She sobbed.

"Twily..." His voice was gentle, but firm. "It wasn't. You didn't cause the war, it was gonna happen sooner or later no matter what." For a moment the three were silent, save for the occasional sniff from Twilight.

For her own part, Twilight racked her brain trying to think of any sort of magic that would let her brother walk again. Certainly, nothing in the standard library of medical spell and magical materials would help - otherwise the royal doctors would have used them a long time ago.

Perhaps he could get artificial enchanted legs? They were very expensive and difficult things to construct, although she knew that neither of those would be a problem for Celestia. No, the problem was that the ones that existed were ungainly, awkward things. His new legs would allow him to walk, but not much more than that. He certainly wouldn't be fit to return to duty, or do any of the physical activities he used to enjoy.

Then she thought of the Potion, recalling how it turned humans into perfect ponies no matter their condition when they took it, but that wouldn't work, either. It turned humans into ponies; it wouldn't have any effect on anything else. It wouldn't even be feasible to use it as a starting point to develop a potion that could heal him. It didn't repair the humans' bodies, after all, it created entirely new, random pony bodies. She shuddered at the thought of her brother becoming a completely different type of pony - what would he do if he had to give up the body he'd known his whole life, and become a pegasus or an earth pony?

The implication of the thought struck her like a sledgehammer. Now, at last, she realized why the humans had fought so hard against Celestia's plan. If she'd been troubled by the thought of her brother having a different body, how must they have felt when Celestia told them they would all require new bodies in the new world she had made for them?

Yes, they would have all been better off in the long run. That was why Celestia had set her plan in motion in the first place, and required them all to give up their bodies - yes, many of them would be upset for awhile, yes, many would resist, but she'd expected that once they saw how much better things were for those who'd converted, they would go pony for themselves. The barrier was just a push, something to make sure none of them got left behind, to purify their world and ensure that they would all be part of a better future. It was such an obvious choice, especially given the superior physical abilities of ponies, that for the longest time she'd wondered why there'd been any resistance at all.

For the most part that was still true, of course. The realization began making her think differently about humans, though. Perhaps there was a better explanation for their hostility than an inherent evil and xenophobia? Perhaps their fear and uncertainty had just driven them to act irrationally and reject ponification? She cringed slightly as she thought of the interview again. Even if the war wasn't her fault, she hadn't done a very good job of treating them like actual people, had she?

Things were, for the most part, simpler for her friends back in Ponyville. They hadn't had anything happen like this to anyone they were close to. Fluttershy and Applejack had had their doubts, of course, but it wasn't anything for them to worry about anymore. They'd been able to go back to their old lives so quickly it was almost as if the war had never happened for them.

"Twily? Hey, you okay?"

Her brother's sudden question took her out of her thoughts, and she looked up at him slowly. "Oh, uh, I'm fine. Fine. Thanks for asking. Umm..." Her horn glowed, her saddlebag popped open, and a book levitated out of it and stopped in front of Shining Armor's face.

"I was just thinking, if you wanted something to read while you were here, you can borrow this if you want. It's all about the history of the Royal Guard."

Shining Armor laughed. "Thanks, but they make you memorize that when you join."

Twilight nodded and let the book slide back into her saddlebag. The mood having lightened slightly, they passed the next few hours with idle conversation, as if determined to pretend that everything was normal. They were the first ones there, but not the only ones; their conversations were interrupted periodically by the arrivals of others. Some were nurses or doctors, others were groups visiting their own sons, brothers, or husbands. Finally, when the sun set many hours later, Twilight and Cadence reluctantly rose to leave.

Only once his wife and his sister had left the room did Shining Armor let his own tears fall.

"Here's your bits, see you Monday." said the tan-coated earth pony simply, peering down her glasses as she let the small sum of coins clatter onto the table.

Lyra hastily thanked her, then used her magic to open her saddlebag and slide them in. After that she swiftly left trotted out of the small, flowery cafe, and into the cool, evening air, eager to get back to her apartment and remove her waitress's uniform.

A week into it, she didn't particularly enjoy the job, but she was thankful to have gotten it so soon after arriving in Fillydelphia. Being a unicorn had helped with that - it was much easier handling trays, plates, and glasses with a horn than with a mouth, so unicorns tended to snap up the positions when they opened.

Lyra worked her way through the throngs of ponies as she moved down the sidewalk; all of them were strangers, an endless, nameless parade moving from everywhere to everywhere. It was so different from Ponyville, where she could put a name to almost every face. She was already beginning to make friends here in addition to her EFH contacts two weeks after her arrival, but she still had the odd feeling of knowing she would always be surrounded by strangers. She doubted even Pinkie Pie could have learned the names of all of the tens of thousands of ponies that lived here.

On the other hoof, there was an advantage to it. After all, nobody in this city knew them, either. Not many ponies outside of Ponyville knew them. It would be hard to find them there, too. She doubted news of their status as the founders of the EFH would even make it very far outside Ponyville. They didn't have to worry about being discovered and being ostracized, especially now that the EFH had been disbanded since there was no more human contact.

A few minutes later, she arrived at their three-story brick building that housed their apartment. The door swung open, and Lyra found Cheerilee sitting on a cushion in the sparsely-decorated, nearly bare-walled common room of their all-too-small apartment cushions, reading a detective novel.

"Any luck?" she asked, but the look on Cheerilee's face already told her otherwise.

"I checked every school in the area, and all the positions are filled. I...I'm not qualified to do anything else."

Lyra took a forlorn glance at her saddlebag, the bits inside clinking as she shifted.

"But...I just got paid today. Our money's running out. I'm barely making enough for the rent, let alone anything else. Did Mayor Mare come back yet?"

"I'm afraid not. She was running out of places to look, anyway. I think her only idea left was to start trying libraries."

Lyra unbuttoned her white vest and kicked it off, then used her telekinesis to unceremoniously throw them into a wicker laundry basket in the corner of the room. That done, she sat on a cushion across from Cheerilee, staring down at her hooves.

"I'm sorry I dragged you all into this. I never should've started it up. I cost you your friends and your homes, and soon we might not have any place to go at all. It was all for nothing, too. There's no more Equestrians for Humans, because the humans are gone. We'll probably never see them again. In the end, we couldn't do anything."

Cheerilee pushed her book aside and looked at Lyra sympathetically.

"Lyra, it's not your fault. We knew what might happen if we joined you, and we joined you anyway because we didn't believe in what Celestia was doing. Think about what you did. You stood up for those humans, even though everyone else was afraid of them and Celestia herself said such terrible things about them. You risked so much because you didn't think it was right to act so cruelly towards them. Whatever happens, you don't have a thing to apologize for."

Lyra quietly said her thanks, then levitated her wooden lyre in front of her from a nearby end table and telekinetically plucked a few notes. It wasn't anything fancy, she just needed something to distract herself. Besides, Cheerilee enjoyed the background music.

About half an hour later, the door creaked open, and both of them turned to it to see Mayor Mare.

"Good news, everypony! I start at the Smart Cookie public library Monday!"

"...leaves three thousand, nine hundred and twenty-one ponies stranded on Earth, eight hundred and thirteen of them newfoals. One thousand and nineteen newfoals are here in Equestria."

One of Celestia's royal advisors, a butter-yellow unicorn dressed in a sharp gold and blue uniform, looked at Princess Celestia expectantly. He'd just given her the latest demographic report, the result of exhaustive effort that had spanned the three months since Equestria had separated from Earth.

Celestia and the advisor, Guiding Light, were the only ones in the throne room. The pair of unicorn guards that were usually there were now absent - officially to cover the duties of guards who had been injured or killed in the war with the humans, but the real reason was that recent events had put great pressure on Celestia and she didn't want to risk being seen in moments of weakness.

At first glance, the room was as grand as ever. Ornate, stained-glass windows depicting momentous occasions in Equestria's history dominated the walls, stretching up to the ceiling, which was so high that anypony on the ground would have to crane their necks up to see it. Celestia peered down at the advisor from atop her golden throne, the base of its seat taller than Guiding Light's head, from which a velvety, ruby-red carpet rolled down to the floor and across the room, all the way to the grand, meticulously crafted oak doors at the entrance.

At the same time, though, its majesty seemed to have somehow diminished in a way difficult to describe. Ever since the end of the war, it no longer felt like the inspiring center of order and light in the world it had once been. It seemed, in fact, frighteningly ordinary.

Celestia nodded. "Thank you, Guiding Light. Tell me, based on what you've seen, how have the newfoals been adjusting to their life here?"

"Overall they're doing quite well, Your Majesty. However, some of them miss their families they unexpectedly had to leave behind on Earth. They seem to understand the necessity, though.

"There was, however, something unusual that I got reports of from multiple officers. They overheard natural-born ponies expressing concerns about what they described as 'oddness' in the newfoals' behavior."

Celestia raised an eyebrow. "Oddness?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. For the most part, it seems, they never assert themselves, and they never get angry. Sad, or frightened, but never angry. They never complain about their workloads, or other ponies, or anything. The only time anypony has seen a newfoal argue with anyone is when somepony around them questions something you've done, or some aspect of Equestria. They don't even get angry then, but they always jump to your defense even if they don't know anything about the situation. And when they're questioned about it, they...they seem confused and slightly agitated."

Celestia gave the briefest involuntary glance to a folded-up letter next to her before speaking.

"What have the natural-born ponies been taking issue with?"

Guiding Light's eyes flickered to the floor. "It's...well, it's mostly about the Earth situation, Your Majesty. They're wondering why we couldn't defeat the humans even with the Elements of Harmony. Some ponies seem to think that since the humans had no magic on their side to counter them, it should have been impossible for us to lose if we were really acting harmoniously. They think we should have been able to defeat them, rather than just be forced to retreat. They miss the friends and family they left behind on Earth. Some of them...some of them seem to have lost some faith in you and Princess Luna. Between that and the strange behavior of the newfoals, they're starting to wonder if there's more to the war than they heard."

Celestia barely suppressed a cringe. She had, in fact, been personally hoping that the Elements of Harmony would be able to ensure that she could ponify all the humans when activated, but magical tests she had personally undertaken confirmed that they would only be able to separate Equestria from the human world.

It didn't make a bit of sense. What could be more harmonious than uplifting an intrinsically evil race - to give them a chance to be good that they otherwise wouldn't have had? She had worked so hard to develop the Potion, to shift Equestria into Earth's dimension, and to establish friendly relations and set up the bureaus. And even after all that, she had failed just because the humans were too stubborn and fearful to accept her gift.

Now that Equestria had retreated back to its own dimension, her ponies were turning against her, and the worst part was that she knew she deserved it. She had not proven strong enough, or wise enough, to convert the humans. She had also, apparently, failed when organizing the team that created the Potion. It was supposed to turn a human into a typical pony - kind, loving, gentle, and selfless. Yet when the newfoals acted like just that, ponies found it odd and off-putting. Even more worryingly, they seemed to shut down far too quickly when asked basic questions. Perhaps their minds were still corrupt? She gave an involuntary shudder at the implication that a dangerous human mind lurked just beneath the surface of what by all appearances was an ordinary pony, just waiting to burst out. She'd hated hearing Guiding Light's report, learning that even after everything that happened, she had scarcely managed to save a thousand of them. Had she failed even at that?

Acting quickly, before Guiding Light could realize that something was wrong, Celestia nodded. "Very well, Guiding Light. Thank you. You are dismissed," she said curtly. Guiding Light bowed, turned on the spot, and walked out of the throne room at a disciplined and precisely maintained gait.

Only once he was out of sight did she levitate the letter over to herself, unfold it, and read it.

To Her Majesty, Princess Celestia:

I have discovered the true nature of your plans for the humans, and I write this letter to tell you that your actions were unacceptable.

You claimed that the Kingdom of Equestria should be responsible for all initial contact with their world, in order to ensure that they would not come to harm ours. We and the zebra tribes agreed, well aware of your nation's status as one of the finest negotiators in the world. We did so with the belief that you would befriend the humans if possible, and eventually we would be able to meet them for ourselves.

What we were not prepared for was your real plan - not to befriend them as they were, but to transform them into ponies, destroying everything they knew and loved in the process. You intended to make them assimilate totally, conform utterly, change them completely without their consent into more ponies and utterly annihilate every trace of their identity - conveniently also vastly expanding your own power base.

We had been observing their world, too, and our scouts confirmed what their sympathizers in your kingdom told us many months ago. In the humans, we found a race very much like us gryphons. They began as warriors, forced by their harsh and inhospitable lands to fight for survival. And in the midst of it all, like us, they managed to build thriving civilizations.

Now tell me, Princess Celestia, how exactly do you see us, then? Once you had several billion new followers, did you plan to target us next? Did you plan to eradicate our culture and force us to change our bodies because of our history?

The world is learning what you have done. Your veneer of invincibility and perfection has been shattered. Sooner or later, you will know accountability for the first time.

Sincerely,
Molyneux, Queen of Gryphus