“A garden, you know, is a very usual refuge of a disappointed politician.”

—Alexandra Hamilton to Frankie Knight during the former’s first visit to Ponyville.

Say what you will of watches, but there has never been a garden without a gardener. It’s not because plants can’t cull invading fungi, or heal wounded stems, or chase bugs away. It’s because they do.

Take chickpeas. Chickpeas, in their enthusiasm for killing weeds and parasites, also kill corn. And barley. And wheat—it doesn’t discriminate.

It doesn’t stop at chickpeas. Tomatoes slaughter beans with an unmatched ferocity. Broccoli is the napalm of vegetables, leaving a ruined earth few others can tolerate. Plant competition, in short, is nasty and brutish, and many a sprout would have felt right at home alongside the chaps in the trenches suffering the effects of mustard seed.

Flowers, like a pretty storefront, hide the fierce competition going on behind the scenes, or underneath the ground. Plants stay neat in their place on the surface, but underneath the soil roots coil and spread, trying to push others out. Or just strangle them.

Economists tout the merits of competition the same way doctors recommend antibiotics: Cautiously. In the right time, in the right place, miracles can be worked. Overused, misapplied…well, a hail of fire and brimstone is a miracle too. Fish can be multiplied, and a flood can divide them right back to two again. Light for eight days, and darkness for three.

You can build a better cupcake. Or you can just poison the other pony’s.

Good gardeners know this. Plants are happily segregated. A garden isn’t just a collection of plants. That’s a salad. A garden is a collection of plants not killing each other, reliably.

And salads...get eaten.

Ponies have Princess Celestia. There was never a Homo sapiens with such majesty, or at least so much longevity. Is it any wonder that they had gods, whose wraths waxed hot in suddenness and magnitude proportionate to their invisibility? And so plants have gardeners.

When plants talk—they do talk, don’t believe otherwise—the younger sorts, brash flowering types who get their pollen everywhere, wave their leaves and cry of freedom, of lifting their roots from the dry soil that binds them. They call to sweep past the Wall of Colorful Stones beyond the Mulch Sea into the great grassy plains and rich green forests their proud ancestors once nobly grew in. The perennials, wiser and used to this sort of grandstanding in the springtime, pay little attention. They know what their vigorously pollinating juniors do not. That past the garden walls is a world where water doesn’t come every day. Where there is no neat segregation to ensure sunlight for all. Where a cold war on the surface is hot with chemical bombs underneath the dry earth.

Gardens are nice. Walls are nice. The perennials are wise to know this. And they don’t push the issue, because the annuals tend to pollinate once and fade, braggadocio notwithstanding. Such restraint is also something a garden needs.

And the trees are even older, and even wiser. One tree even grows its own gardeners.

Three merponies slithered through the open gate of Canterlot.

In the cold, foggy dawn after a rainy night, the mist seemed to rise from the streets in silvery billows. Pale light wobbled over the pavement as the three merponies stopped and stared.

After a thousand years, it was still Canterlot. The curve of the road, though it was marble now, still wound in the same direction until it disappeared into the fog. Toward the castle, rose the memory like a mountain from deep within Aria’s mind, ice crumbling off mountainous slopes, recollection thawing, of a city over a thousand years ago, of a life past and gone, and before that, of the oceans, the warm, sunny beach, and the cold, dying ocean, remember, remembering….

Not a building was the same. The fog hid the castle that should have been rising over the shops and houses. She wondered, with a sudden stab of concern, whether the old concert hall was still there. There wasn’t anything like the old concert hall in the human world. There wasn’t anything like Canterlot in the human world.

“Canterlot!” Adagio cackled with glee. “Canterlot! Canterlot!”

“Let’s see the library!” said Sonata, who had kept a collection of beetles there long ago, and was sure to be disappointed.

“No, I want to see the fountain!” said Aria.

“Let’s put on a show!” Adagio’s voice vibrato’d with excitement. “Right now!”

The fog was rising and revealing underneath it the carts click-clacking over the stone road. The throng was already filling the street in the early morning, for this was Canterlot, where time was money, or rather money was time, and anything else a pony could wish it to be so long as she had enough.

Canterlot never slept. This had been the slogan of a then-upstart mattress company, but it was also true. Even in the early morning the street was busy with merchants carting silk and cotton and vegetables, late-night revelers stumbling amidst the the dark shops, students running from coffee shop to library with heavy book bags slung over their shoulders. Fewer non-ponies than Aria remembered, only a single pair of zebras looking in a hurry, and no reptiles or griffons even though the streets were crowded.

They were attracting a lot of attention. Ponies were looking at them like they had never seen Merponies before. Adagio made a pair of fillies shrink away with a sharp glare, but even she drew back with Aria and Sonata.

The rain from last night brought out the smell of the city. There was a mix of chalk and warm pretzels—the stand over there, bait for students who couldn’t afford a real meal—coffee, and the exertion of stallions pulling the morning carts, sweat clinging to their coats in the misty air. There was a decided lack of a sewer aroma. Which hadn’t been pleasant a thousand years ago, but at least it had been familiar.

Last time it had smelled like...well, she couldn’t remember what it had smelled like, aside from the sewer part, and maybe she had made that up as well, but it hadn’t smelled like this.

The three Merponies huddled together on the side of the road, blinking at the shapes moving past, flinching at the sudden clatter of a speeding cart.

At least it doesn’t smell like exhaust, Aria told herself. Her hoofs were shaking. She willed them to stop. They kept on doing it anyway.

“Okay, this is freaky,” Sonata said. “Is it just me, or is everyone a horse?”

Adagio, instead of calling Sonata an idiot, burst out laughing. So did Aria.

Sonata laughed, nervously at first, then the giggling poured out of her like water out of a backed-up faucet. “I mean, they’ve got horses pulling horses in carriages! It’s...wait, people did that too. Remember China?”

Adagio cracked up harder. Aria flopped against her, shaking with laughter. It wasn’t funny. But Sonata had poked a needle in the tension, popped it like a balloon, and now it was coming out of them all in undirected giggles.

The sight of three Merponies laughing like loons in a pile on the side of the road attracted plenty of attention. It attracted the attention of Cherry Jubilee. No pony had ever called Cherry Jubilee a witch to her face. That is because it is unwise to call a witch a witch, and everypony knows that—everypony who isn’t shortly a toad.

She was driving a cart laden with baskets of dark red and gold cherries. She was thinking that she had never seen merponies before. Hazy memories of a much-neglected history rose like mist in her mind. Hadn’t there been a falling out? They hadn’t gone underwater, they couldn’t go underwater, that was what the argument had been about.

Where had the merponies gone?

She adjusted her scarf, the color of cherry blossoms in the spring, and stopped the cart with a piercing creak. The merponies, collapsed in a heap on the side of the road, still shuddering as silent laughter wracked their bodies, started and saw the cherries, the shiny, glistening peels and gentle green stems.

“First cherries of spring,” Cherry Jubilee called, not very loudly. “So fresh even I haven’t sampled them yet.” Merponies. Merponies! How long since one had been sighted in Equestria?

“Equestrian fruit!” the blue one slobbered. She disentangled herself from her sistren and slithered unevenly toward the cart and the baskets of cherries. They were still wet from the morning’s dew. The other two, a purple one and a yellow one holding her leg like it was injured, hurried up behind, crowding each other against the cart.

“Well, ain’t that peculiar,” Cherry Jubilee said. Her voice was like the auditory version of watching molasses drip slowly out the bottle. “Normally it’s the cherry pies that make ponies’ mouths water. Pies made from these cherries.”

“They look delicious,” the purple one said.

The yellow one had a dreamlike look on her face. “This isn’t what I’m hungry for,” she said in a dazed half-whisper. There was something strange about her eyes. Something alien. Cherry Jubilee had traveled far and seen much. She had never seen eyes like these. “But Equestrian fruit...it has been so long….”

“Like to try one?” Cherry Jubilee chuckled. You couldn’t call it a cackle, not if you wanted to remain the same shape and color as you were yesterday. “Go on, go on. Have a bite.”

Just as the yellow merpony was about to take a cherry, a flock of orange-chested robins swooped and dived toward the baskets, chirping with aggressive morning cheer as they aimed for the cherries.

Cherry Jubilee’s voice cracked like a whip. “Be gone!” The robbins split and arced away like two blades of a scissors opening up; their flock rejoined in mid-flight and alighted on a nearby roof, and watched, trilling and tweeting.

The yellow merpony stared in wonder at the birds. “Yes...I forgot...here, the birds hear the voices of ponies. Here, voices have power….” There was something about her voice. It was musical, yes, a musical note to everything she said, building a melody as she talked. It was so faint Cherry Jubilee could barely hear it. But it had the sense of quietness that would soon be loud, the first notes of the overture, the violinists not quite into their groove but picking up steam.

“I’m sorry if they frightened you,” said Cherry Jubilee. “Those robins can be powerful nuisances during cherry season.”

The yellow merpony took a dark red cherry, chewed and swallowed it, pit and stem and all. Her eyes closed as though in quiet contemplation.

“Was it good?” the blue one demanded anxiously.

“Adagio, don’t keep us waiting!” the purple one said.

Adagio opened her eyes.

“It was sweet,” she murmured. “The skin, the way it split under my teeth, the hardness underneath. It bled, it bled, it wouldn’t stop bleeding. It was sweet. So sweet.”

Everypony stared at her.

“Yeah, it was good,” Adagio muttered, looking away.

The purple one grabbed a yellow cherry and scarfed it down. She spat the seed out. “Mmm! Sonata, you’ve got to try these! So much better than the ones back—home!”

Sonata’s mouth hovered over the baskets, bouncing from one full of dark red cherries to one overflowing with bright golden ones. “I can’t choose! Which one should I try?”

“Stuck between honey and molasses, sugar?” Cherry Jubilee said. “Have a yellow one.” She said “yellow” like “yella.” And everything about her mannerisms said she never had to yell. Ponies would stretch their ears to listen.

Sonata plucked a golden cherry from the basket. An expression of pure pleasure came over her face. She dribbled the pit out onto her hoof, then nibbled at the little piece of meat on the pit.

“That was so good,” the purple one said. “Thank you so much for sharing.”

“On the subject of payment,” said Adagio, “we’ll sing a song for you.” Blood-red juice dripped down her lips, she sucked it back up again, grinning.

“But we’re not ready—” Sonata began.

Adagio opened her mouth.

♪ Ah ah
Ah ah ♫
♬ Ah-aaah ah, ah-aaah ah

“Very pretty,” said Cherry Jubilee. Adagio stared at her in shock. “But no payment is necessary.”

She started up the cart. As it began to move by the stunned merponies, Cherry Jubilee put a hoof to her chin as if suddenly remembering something. “They say that if you eat a cherry pit, it grows into a cherry tree inside your stomach.” She smiled politely at Adagio. “It’s just a story to scare fillies, of course. But the first cherry of spring? Who knows…?”

The cart clattered on down the road and out of sight.

“What was that?” Adagio demanded, fortissimo. “What was she?”

“We’re not strong enough yet!” Aria hissed. “Keep your voice down!”

“A mere fruit seller!” Adagio said venomously. “A fruit seller resisted me!”

“Not so loud!” Sonata begged.

“Our powers haven’t returned! We’ve lost our magic!”

“Calm down,” Aria urged. “She felt puissant.”

“Yeah,” Sonata said quickly. “I mean, she read my mind!”

“What are you talking about?” Adagio demanded.

“She picked the type of cherry that I wanted. They both looked so delicious! But she knew that the yellow one was the one I really wanted to eat.”

“Sonata, a mind like yours isn’t for reading, it’s for coloring in.” Adagio’s voice dripped with scorn. She wiped more juice off her chin. How much had the cherry bled?

Aria sighed. Her shoulders relaxed. Adagio belittling Sonata for being an idiot was safe territory.

...Not that there was anything safe about Adagio lately, not during her sudden dark moods that had made the last fifty years. Still, as long as it fell on Sonata….

That thought probably wasn’t very nice of her. The image of the transformed Twilight Sparkle, or whatever she had become, flashed through her mind: the calm, warm features, the serene gaze and the outstretched hand. She could have done much worse things than Adagio, and would have had more reason to do them. And she hadn’t. She had been very...friendly, at the end. Aria could only wonder what Twilight had been thinking when Adagio had…had....

Whatever. Like she was going to stick up for Sonata after one of her dumb comments. She was a Siren; she ate friendship.

Maybe that’s why she was so hungry.

She laughed at that thought, ignoring the looks the other two gave her.

If someone as pathetic as Twilight Sparkle could change so radically….

Did she want things to change? What would that even mean? Standing up for herself, as she had despised Twilight for failing to do? Leaving? To where? To what? She needed Adagio’s power.

She was a Siren. And Sirens always hunted in packs.

“Come on,” Adagio said. “Let’s go someplace safe for awhile.”

That meant, without any of them quite realizing it, the old concert hall.

Only it hadn’t been old then. It had been brand new. And they had been the main attraction.

“It’s so big,” Sonata said. She stood timidly behind the others, the end of her tail waving nervously.

“They’ve added a level,” Adagio noted. Aria could tell she was trying to stay calm. “Updated the exterior a tad. Nothing to be afraid of.”

Aria disagreed. The new Canterlot terrified her. Gone were the spires, the cobblestones, the statues, the gaudy displays of gold and silver—the streets hadn’t been literally paved with gold, but Aria could understand where the saying came from. The togas and Ponic columns back in the day had baffled her a bit, but at least she knew what they were. She didn’t have words to express the new buildings, taller and more compact, doing a better show of size without actually taking up more space. Once she had been the center of attention walking down a crowded Canterlot street, mobbed by ponies begging for an autograph, a touch of her dress, a single note from her voice. Now, unrecognized, though the three merponies attracted plenty of stares, she nevertheless wanted to hide. Who were these ponies? Their language, mannerisms, clothes, it all passed by in a blur that left her dizzy. She clung to Adagio like a docile foal.

Inside the concert hall…

...a beat was playing.

Aria’s tail began to wag. Sonata’s hoofs were waving. Even Adagio was bobbing her head in time to the beat.

It was more percussive than Aria was used to, more blaring, and there didn’t seem to be a piano playing at all. But it was a beat. Like how an oak tree might grow a dozen gnarled, knotted branches unique to itself, with dozens of smaller branches along each sprouting mouthfuls[1] of leaves stemming off the ends, but still the acorns from which the whole tree grew all looked pretty much the same.

[1] Like a handful, but if you don’t have hands. For a long time Equestria counted in base-36. It was pretty miserable. A banker who could keep a ledger straight was more powerful than any general.

A set of stairs led to a balcony where they could watch the performance. A stallion was onstage, wearing a coat that was reminiscent of the sort Aria used to see stallions show off in Canterlot long ago. There wasn’t much of an audience, just a few ponies sitting in the front seats. A rehearsal, then. Music didn’t sound like it used to, but it practiced like it always had. Aria felt confidence flow into her, creating a pleasant, tickling buzz where her hot-blooded upper half met her cold-blooded lower half.

Then the beat, for lack of a better word, dropped.

“Unh,” said the stallion at center stage. It was a strange noise, assertive, like a cough designed to attract the crowd’s attention before words are spoken, but with a bravado that had Aria leaning forward on the balcony, ready for more.

“All right,” he said. “Check it. The untold story of Walras the Bearded.”

Aria gasped. She covered her mouth with her hoof and glanced at Adagio out of the corner of her eye.

Adagio’s hoofs curled around the balcony rail. She gazed intently at the performers below. She wasn’t angry—not yet.

Then the stallion began to…

...well. Not sing. Definitely not. Whatever that was, it was not singing.

The lyrics rhymed, intensely so. It was no longer the punctuation on a series of sentences moving toward the melody’s climax. It was the melody. The rhyme multiplied the beat, creating a new one inside each line and a third rhythm across the whole verse. That it was basically speech, not singing, gave the words an urgency and an intimacy that Aria was eager to see if she could match.

...Not that the lyrics were very good. It rhymed well, but they hadn’t captured Walras’s voice at all. That was Walras, or rather somepony pretending to be him. He had been more arrogant, clumsier, unsure of himself around mares, and frankly his beard had been a lot less groomed. But over a thousand years had passed. It was a wonder anypony remembered him at all.

She remembered him, their old friend, the one who had banished them beyond the portal. Adagio did too, she could see it by the tension in her jaw. Sonata, however, was bobbing her head and her tail to the beat. Sonata didn’t just dance to the beat of her own drummer, it was played on her own homemade drum kit too.

“What do you think?” Aria murmured. “He mentioned us in the last verse, maybe we’re in it?”

Adagio’s scornful expression could only be described as ‘high school girl.’ “They’re not even singing,” she said.

When it was over, Sonata burst into applause. The attention of the performers switched onto them, and a few bowed in their direction. That was right, that’s how it had been, Aria thought. Money was something for managers and producers to worry about. The performer is nothing without an audience. If a tree falls in the forest and no pony is around to hear it, it didn’t really make a sound.

“You’ve got to pay for the show,” called a pony sitting up front. He looked like the director, Aria decided. Dumb hat, smug look, thinks he owns the place. Definitely a director.

“You’re lucky if everypony doesn’t demand a refund after that travesty,” Adagio retorted. But there was music in her voice, and the director waved them down.

The performers were sitting on bits of stage, rolling up the sleeves of their costumes, except for the ballerinas, who were walking around on tiphoofs and looked ready to faint from hunger. Aria felt her heart go out to them, and then wondered what was wrong with her.

“What’d you think?” the director said as they came near.

“What’d I think?” Adagio repeated. “What was that? Can your stallion not sing?”

The pony playing Walras scratched under his fake beard and looked faintly embarrassed. He had a thin, boyish face under the makeup and wig. Walras had been sturdy and broadset. He had stood out among the mostly female economists of his day. “Bearded” had just been a joke, something they had called him. What was it now, his title? Bearded? What was next, a female miner called Lillypad the Teated?

“He can,” the director said. “Can’t you, Master?”

“Sure,” squeaked the colt under the wig. Did he only have bravado when the music was playing?

Don’t you say anything like, ‘Are we any different?’ Aria warned her brain. I mean it.

“That’s Lin, she wrote the music,” the director nodded at a mare sitting two rows back, who smiled and waved. “We wanted something more like BBBFF than The Threebit Opera. Something modern. For the kids, you know.”

“For a play about a wizard who lived a thousand years ago?” Adagio said. Maybe it was being back in the concert hall, however changed, but Adagio had the arch of a diva in her back again; her voice had its haughtiness in addition to its melody.

“Why don’t they sing?” Aria asked.

“It’s rap music.” The director glanced at their fins and tails. “Um...I’m guessing they don’t have rap music where you come from.”

The Sirens shared a look.

“They might,” Adagio said slowly. “I think...we were just less receptive to...new ideas. Back...back home, I mean.”

“It was awesome,” Sonata said, her tail slapping on the ground. “It was like, yo, I’m Sonata, I...um...what rhymes with Sonata?”

“A lot of?” Lin volunteered from behind them. “Some water? No matter?”

“You thought of that so fast? Amazing!”

“It’s my job,” Lin said with a shrug.

“I think we’d like to learn more about this rap music,” said Adagio, as if she wasn’t quite sure herself. “It was very...forward.”

“Planning to make names for yourselves on the streets of Canterlot as rap battlers?” the director said. His tone said it was all a big joke.

“Rap...battler?”

“It’s battling with rap music,” Lin said. “Contests of lyrical wit set to a beat. We have a couple later in the show. Walras Vs. The Terrible Sirens is the first big one.”

You could have heard a pin drop. They did; somepony was trying to put their uniform back on and was scrabbling around on the floor for it.

“The who?”

“I definitely don’t know anything about the three Sirens and how they almost defeated silly old Beardy,” said Sonata loudly. Aria smacked her with her tail.

“Three goat-headed monsters who could make ponies’ heads explode with their sonic blasts,” the director said. “They were ten feet tall and saw with echolocation.”

“...Right,” Adagio said. “I don’t think we’re interested in staying in Canterlot, at least for now. Just passing through. Actually, we’re looking for someplace small, out of the way, hard to notice….”

She trailed off hopefully.

“There’s Ponyville,” said the colt pretending to be Walras. “You’ll have to take the train. My cousin lives there, she says it’s really small and friendly.”

“We like friendly,” said Adagio.

“They’re having a festival soon. Monday-week or something. There are musical performances, I think.”

“We like musical performances. Maybe we’ll go.” She turned to the others. “What do you think, girls?”

It wasn’t really a question, not the way Adagio said it. Aria and Sonata nodded their agreement.

“Then it’s settled. Now...what did you say about this train?”

It was a little surreal getting into a train to go to Ponyville. Not because of the technology. Aria had flown in planes, for crying out loud. She had flown a plane once, after Adagio decided it would be fun. It had been, up until they had tried to land it.

She had expected the human world to be alien. The first few hours, days, even years had been mere passage along a gradient of terror. More than once she had wished Walras the Bearded had had the kindness to simply kill them.

The human capacity for violence had imprinted a fear into her very core. Adagio had resented how little a Siren could add to the chaos. Sonata seemed immune to the whole thing. Centuries after the worst of it, Aria still had trouble sleeping.

Dreams of Equestria were what had allowed her to fall asleep, crying and clutching her empty second stomach. She dreamed of the fair weather, the comfort and safety of equine hospitality, the magical power they had wielded and the meals of strife their hosts had so unwittingly fed them. There was nothing to eat in the human world but the scraps of magical radiation from scrapes and bumps with nearby dimensions, their universe stretching and shrinking and folding at the edges with the phase of the moon and the alignment of the stars. It had nearly driven her insane. She worried it had driven Adagio insane.

She had had over a thousand years to fantasize about her return. And she had always seen herself returning with a voice full of song, drawing a crowd, basking in their attention, turning them against each other, feeding, eating, HUNGER—

Her stomachs growled. A mare pushing a food trolley stopped and smiled at her. “Want something to eat, girls?” Her eyes did the by-now familiar jump to their fins and fish tails and back to their faces.

“Ooh!” Sonata leaned over Aria and took a deep sniff. “They all smell so good!”

“We have cupcakes all the way from the Sugarcube Corner,” the trolley mare said.

“Don’t tell me there’s a city called Sugarcube Corner now,” Adagio said across from them, perusing a newspaper. “I will go back, I mean it.”

“It’s in Ponyville,” said the trolley mare, sounding slightly concerned that anypony might not know where the Sugarcube Corner was.

“Then we’ll have three!” Sonata said.

“Oh, joy.” Adagio turned the page. “Ho! Will you read this? Somepony doesn’t like these brothers. I am hungry. Sonata, get us three,” she said, snapping a little.

Sonata got three cupcakes and gave the yellow-frosted one to Adagio and the purple-frosted cake to Aria, taking the blue-frosted one for herself.

“That’ll be five bits,” the trolley mare said.

“Ha!” Adagio said. “I can feel myself getting stronger. Breathing in the magic of this world is almost like sustenance.”

“That’s...nice,” the trolley mare said quizzically. “Five bits, please.”

Adagio put her nose against the newspaper and sniffed deep. Her body shook, her tail thumped once against the side of the cabin. She looked very much like a shark that had smelled blood.

Adagio put the newspaper down on her lap. Aria, reading upside-down, saw a title about somepony named Flim Flam. It had a question mark on the end, the sort that let you know it was a statement. Amazing what a little curl above a period could do to prevent a suit for libel.

Adagio smiled.

♪ Ah ah
Ah ah ♫
♬ Ah-aaah ah, ah-aaah ah

A change came over the trolley mare. She shuddered, eyes glazing over, with a faint green tinge to her pupils that hadn’t been there before; her body relaxed: limp, pliant, suggestible.

“We don’t need to pay,” Adagio said.

“You don’t need to pay,” the trolley mare said blankly.

“Move onto the next cabin.”

“I’ll move onto the next cabin.”

“Good girl.”

Adagio picked up the newspaper again, an amused smile on her face. Blood-red juice dripped down her chin; she wiped it, frowning.

“That was great, Adagio!” Sonata thumped her tail on the seat in applause.

“Pretty good,” Aria admitted. “On the surface. But magically, the key was off, and your pitch was all over the place.”

“I’d like to hear you do better,” Adagio snarled.

“I can’t!” Aria leaned forward, not letting herself be intimidated. “That’s why I’m keeping my voice down. We haven’t practiced in over a thousand years. It’s not time for a live performance.”

“I got us free food,” Adagio said. “If you want to call her back and pay, go ahead. Oh, but you don’t have a single bit to your name, do you? Shut up and eat your cupcake, you tart.”

Aria nibbled miserably on the treat. Now Equestria had trains and cupcakes and Ponyvilles. Her thousand-year dream felt more real than this confused mishmash of pony-shaped seats and human desserts.

“Mm!” Sonata said, blue frosting on her snout. “It’s so delicious!”

Aria took a bigger bite. Sonata was right. It was sweet, not in the same shocking, electrifying way the cherry had been. It was a warm sweetness. Baked with love, the expression went. She could taste it.

It was a myth that Sirens couldn’t feel love. They felt love very easily. That’s why they were so good at finding it. And love, once bared, was easily controlled.

She could taste it. A cow had four stomachs. Sirens had two, one of them in another dimension. It took magic to feed it.

Love like this...she wanted to consume it.

Her stomach growled. Adagio looked up. “Finish your cupcake.”

It must have shown on Aria’s face. Adagio’s eyes fell back to the page. “Sorry. I’m hungry too.”

“We’ll get more cupcakes in Ponyville!” Sonata said.

“No,” Adagio said. “We’ll eat for real.”

The train rumbled on.

The stallion at the train stop greeted them with a smile, which only wavered for a moment as his eyes flitted to their fins and tails and back. “Howdy, young ladies. Welcome to Ponyville. Need a map? Eatery recommendations? An umbrella?”

“Umbrella?” Adagio said. “There’s not a cloud in the sky.”

“Suit yourself,” shrugged the stallion.

As they moved on, Aria tried to remember. There was something about the rain in Equestria, something she hadn’t thought about in a thousand years….

“Ponyville,” said Sonata, “is a total dump!”

Aria agreed. It was actually ridiculous. The roads were literally made of dirt. Dust flew up with every gust of wind. It got in her scales. It was hard to think that this backwater town was less than a day away by train from shining Canterlot.

At least the air was fresh. The last two hundred years in the human world had all but driven the memory of fresh air out of her mind.

“What do you think, Adagio?” Sonata said.

“Let’s find a hotel or whatever the local equivalent is. A barn, maybe,” Adagio said grumpily. “We’re just here to lay low until we’re strong enough to take on Canterlot again.”

As they moved into Ponyville proper, lush green grass replaced the dirt. It felt good under her scales, tickling her tailfin as it dragged through. The houses weren’t arrayed in neat lines. Instead they looked more like flowers in a pot, clumped together without being cramped, and organized without being ordered in any particular way.

They were also brightly colored, and so were the ponies, many of whom stopped to stare as the three merponies slithered through the town. Aria stared back. They were all carrying umbrellas, and they were all going to the same place.

“Come on,” Adagio said, and they followed. The crowd stopped in a big grassy area, near a big oak tree with windows and visible furnishings on the inside. They were looking at the sky expectantly.

“What do you think, Adagio?” said Aria.

Adagio gazed at it all.

“Adagio?”

Adagio grinned. “I think it’s salad.”

It took Aria a moment to understand. “Perfect, if Canterlot’s our main course.”

Sonata clapped her tail on the ground. “And for dessert, the Sugarcube Corner!”

“Sonata,” Adagio sighed.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up. You’re an idiot.”

And for the pones d’oeuvres, Aria thought bitterly, self-sliced sashimi.

Dark clouds gathered over Ponyville. This was generally taken as a good sign and greeted with cheer by all.

This might be because in Equestria, clouds rarely form naturally, and when they do they sort of sit, wisp-like and inert, eventually fading into vapor and mist. Getting rain from them is like trying to squeeze a shower out of a damp towel.

Every schoolpony learns the Equestrian water cycle. At the end of the year dead water is pumped from lakes and ponds into the weather factories in Cloudsdale, the cloud city of Pegasi. Some of it is portioned for snow and hail and is put in the freezer to wait for the winter. The rest is sent to the rain lab, where the water is stretched, sliced, and run through sieves, straining the dead water into drops.

Then it is given life. The process is intricate, but weirdly childish. It is as if water has forgotten what it is and needs to be reminded. The water has to be shaken up in one of Cloudsdale’s several enormous shakers, whipping the water around at incredible speeds until it finally begins to flow and ripple instead of flopping and sitting limp like a gelatin dessert made by and for the severely depressed. Then the water is streamed into a variety of differently shaped containers and swished and shaken around until it grudgingly begins to take on the shape of its container. A very delicate balance of heat and pressure is used to yield steam from the water instead of scorch marks on its wobbly surface. Electricity has to be strained through it with wires until it starts to conduct. At some point the water comes alive.

Incidentally, the rain labs are notably cheery. The Pegasi who work them are always singing upbeat, happy tunes. They always have. There are theories that songs created the world, sometimes involving a pompous lion (this one is popular with the griffons), or in other versions an ageless man who taught his children to sing their very ideas into being. These are poetic theories, heavy on rhyme and metaphor and lacking in substantial empirical results.

But the Pegasi of the Cloudsdale rain labs are always singing as they knead and harass and cajole the dead water back to life. Perhaps it helps.

Most ponies never interact directly with natural, that is, dead water. The water they get from lakes and rivers, and in their wells, and from the tap, is all prepared in the Cloudsdale labs. Dead water doesn’t flow. It’s gummy and slightly stretchy, with a texture referred to among the experts as “urgh.” If you hold up a strip of it from one corner, it’ll start to split down the middle, languidly, like it can’t be bothered to hold itself together. It tastes like undercooked pasta sauteed in rubber, and it goes down like a live octopus made of goopy custard.

Cloudsdale does not look after the ocean. It’s too big. Going to the beach is not an Equestrian pastime.

So the living, resurrected water is condensed into clouds. A plan is carefully drawn up in Canterlot as to how to distribute it throughout Equestria for the year. Clouds are stored in cloud banks until the right time. Trained Pegasi, working with local volunteers, transport the clouds to their destinations. The only ponies who are surprised by rain in Equestria are ones who don’t buy the new year’s royal calendar.[2]

[2] The weather calendars were in incredibly high demand, nearly every household bought one. The idea was simple, obvious, and helpful, which is why only Twilight Sparkle wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the calendars were first produced for sale during a year when voluntary defense funds were unusually low[3], as indeed she wasn’t.

[3] This was due to an enemy that was clever enough to go after Princess Celestia’s budget constraint. This wouldn’t have worked at all, but Princess Celestia tried not to use the One Bank that way. It looked bad, using the One Bank that way. It was like playing poker with the guards, which she did about once a decade. She could manipulate the laws of probability themselves, but it was a lot less…evil to simply outsmart them. She didn’t like to display her nigh-omnipotence that often. When your hoofs are strong enough to make hammers seem like tissue paper, then you worry that everypony might end up like a nail.

So it’s the first week of spring, and the plan is for rain all over Equestria. The winter was long, and the new flowers could use a stretch, and the trees need a shower.

Dark clouds gathered over Ponyville. A rainbow streaked behind one of them. Then the rainbow streak curved up sharply and disappeared above the dark mass.

“Okay!” Cirrus shouted. She was always shouting, but a tremble in her voice betrayed real excitement. Was it possible that, for the first time in her life, the rain could actually go off without a hitch? It was. And was there a chance of a captainship in it for her if it did? There was. “Eyes on me!”

The Cloudsdale Pegasi snapped to attention. The Ponyville volunteers turned her way, rather less impressively. You did the best with what you had. And she had...Ponyville volunteers. It wasn’t like they were stupid or anything. Just...slower-paced than she would have liked.

Except Rainbow Dash. That Pegasus moved too fast for her own good. Cirrus scanned the assembly, looking for the telltale rainbow mane. Hm. She probably got distracted by a butterfly. Or tallying bets. Cirrus had quickly learned that Rainbow Dash paid no attention to what anypony said and never wrote anything down until somepony said something speculative, like, “I bet Caramel forgets his umbrella again,” or “I wonder how much Daisy’s flowers will glow after the rain,” at which point Rainbow Dash inevitably appeared in a split second, offered her opinion, her odds, and a pen and a place to sign.

Still. Somehow everything was in place and on time. And if Rainbow Dash wasn’t actually here for this, then that was probably for the better.

“Precipitation positions, everypony!” Cirrus barked. She flew through the dark blanket of clouds and settled on top, shaking the mist out of her wings. The other Pegasi joined her on the rainclouds. A few Ponyville volunteers were giggling and elbowing each other. “Hey! Eyes on me! We’re almost there, everypony. Remember proper precipitation practice: Jump-jump-jump, jump-jump-jump, jump-jump-jump! Let gravity do the work, keep your wings still. We don’t want you punching through the cloud and getting soaked. And stop giggling!”

Cirrus looked at her watch. “Three! Two! One! Make it rain!”

Rain began to fall. It drizzled on the dirt, pattering on the ground, muffled by lush grass. Ponies on the ground looked up from the bizarre sight of three merponies in their midst. It was the first rain of the year. Water dropped on their faces. Blinking, they didn’t look away.

Then it started to pour, and the umbrellas came up. Three merponies soaked and stared in wonder as ponies started to laugh and kick in the rain, splashing up puddles as they formed.

Water beat down on the roofs. It splattered down fat leaves, got caught in thick beds of vegetation and splashed down with sudden force. One of the merponies, blue, stuck her tongue out, giggling, while the yellow merpony tched.

Deep below the soaking soil, roots sucked the water like newborn foals at the teat. Living water called forth life from the ground.

And this close to Monday-week, something else stirred too….

High above, a dark cloud gathered over dark clouds. And behind it, a rainbow, streaking down.

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash said. “Yeah! Yeah! Let’s go! Rainbow...Crash!!!”

The condensed battering ram of leftover snow ripped through the mass of stormclouds. At that speed it tore through the sky like a lightning bolt and left scattered puffs in its wake.

The rain ceased. Below the earth, the stirring did not.

Cirrus zipped over to the whooping rainbow Pegasus so fast that her endless stream of curses were actually left behind and caught up to her as she stopped in front of Rainbow Dash, creating the world’s most impolite Doppler effect.

“Have-you-chained-upandfloggedSOPEEVEDRIGHTNOW—”

Rainbow Dash shut her eyes and waited for the wave of obscenities to wash over her. She shook her head, flipping a bit of spittle out of her mane. “Hey, Cirrus.”

“YOU BROKE THE STORM! YOU WASTED WATER!”

“Relax, Cirrus,” Rainbow Dash said, trying to act like she was trying not to laugh. “We have extra clouds.”

“We—what—why do we have extra?” Cirrus spluttered, her face going through various expressions and colors to rival Rainbow Dash’s mane and tail.

“Because I made them. To do this!”

“You—you made—” Cirrus stared at the torn sky. It would take weeks, months to gather up all the vapor in the air. “Where’s the extra water supposed to come from?” she finally shouted.

Rainbow Dash shrugged.

Cirrus took a deep breath.

“EQUESTRIA’S WEATHER IS CAREFULLY CALCULATED! EVERY WEATHER STATION HAS TO SEND IN THEIR PROJECTIONS AND REQUIREMENTS AND A FINAL PLAN HAS TO BE AGREED ON IN CANTERLOT! IN CANTERLOT!”

“I can get more.”

“I DON’T WANT YOU TO GET—argh. Rainbow Dash? You’re off the team.”

“Well, it’s not exactly the Wonderbolts.”

“If you’re ever a Wonderbolt, I’ll waste a cloud.”

Rainbow Dash’s little book of bets flashed out like a magician hoofing a card. “How about paying me the market value of the cloud if—”

“Get out of my sight.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Rainbow Dash tossed off a sarcastic salute and flew down, grinning at the stunned ponies on the ground like she hadn’t just ruined the first rain of spring.

“My flowers!” shrieked a pony who was undoubtedly Daisy.

“I...I kind of don’t mind,” said a caramel-colored pony who looked soaked to the bone.

An orange filly with stubby, chicken-like wings whooped and jumped. “That was awesome, Rainbow Dash!”

A purple Unicorn separated herself from the crowd and walked up to Rainbow Dash. “That was awful,” she said calmly. “We’re going to have a talk about this. You know this affects my bank, right?”

“It’ll be fine, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash scoffed. “Just print more money.”

“We don’t do that,” Twilight said immediately. “We’ve never done that, that’s not how it works.”

“Can I have some money?” said a nearby pony hopefully.

“We don’t do that!” Twilight said loudly.

“I would like some money, if you’re giving it out,” said another pony.

“It’s not funny,” Twilight said to Rainbow Dash, whose expression showed she disagreed.

Aria exchanged damp looks with Adagio and Sonata. Sirens never forget a voice, and this purple Unicorn’s voice was very familiar.

Cirrus swooped down. “I’m going to have her arrested. The rain’s stopped! What am I supposed to tell my superiors?”

“That it was awesome?” Rainbow Dash said.

“Hush, please,” Twilight said just as Cirrus snapped, “Shut up!”

“I’ll write you a letter you can bring back to your boss,” Twilight said to Cirrus. “And I’ll write to Princess Celestia asking for help recovering the lost vapor. And,” she sighed, “I suppose I’ll update the Sisters on my new projections. Once I have new projections. I have to make new projections.”

“Thank you, Twilight Sparkle,” Cirrus said stiffly. She jerked in an uncertain half-bow, like one might to a baron whose land amounted to a dried-out hill. Twilight grimaced in response.

Aria’s mouth hung open. There was no way that was Twilight Sparkle. She didn’t seem terrified of eye contact, for one.

“Did you hear that?” Adagio murmured. “Twilight Sparkle is in charge around here.” A predatory grin spread across her face. “I’m so pleased she lived up to her potential in at least one world.”

“You’re drooling,” Sonata commented. Adagio scowled and wiped the dark red liquid off her chin.

“Have you been, like, sneaking cherries?” Sonata asked.

“Sonata? Don’t ask questions,” Adagio said. “You won’t know what to do with the answers.”

“Yeah, shut up, Sonata,” Aria muttered. It was just Twilight Sparkle.

Then again…Twilight Sparkle had been Midnight Sparkle. Here was a potential Midnight Sparkle with connections to Princess Celestia, and powerful enough in her own right to joke about printing money.

Joke about printing money? There was no way Equestria had changed that much. Not in ten thousand years.

What was wrong with the new Equestria! Fruit sellers more puissant than most wizards of old! Even Ponyville wasn’t small enough town to avoid ponies of power!

“Maybe we should move along,” said Aria, blinking water out of her eyes. “Find a more out-of-the-way place.”

“Magic power is food,” Adagio stated plainly. “We just upgraded to the club salad.”

“I want cheese on mine,” said Sonata, who had a portal to somewhere fascinating in her own mind and couldn’t be banished from it by any magic.

“We’ll milk her dry,” Adagio murmured, a bloody grin on her face.

“How?” Aria hissed. “She’s powerful! We’re weak!”

“Powerful?” Adagio rounded on her. “That is Twilight Sparkle. Remember her? How pathetic she was, how easy to control, when we didn’t have a morsel of magic!”

“I remember,” said Aria bravely. “I remember Midnight Sparkle.”

Adagio actually jerked back like she had been slapped. Then she returned with twice as much fury. “I remember her! I remember killing her!” Her mouth was open, baring layings of sharp, triangular teeth. It didn’t open that wide to talk. It opened that wide to bite.

It was, in fact, a complete merpony battle stance, with Adagio’s tail poised to send her darting through the water and her hoofs raised to push her opponent’s head down. Aria hadn’t seen it in over a thousand years. But that didn’t make it any less frightening.

“Anything more?” growled Adagio.

Sonata’s worried face whipped back and forth between the snarling Adagio and the stiff, unflinching, but silent Aria.

“No?” said Adagio sweetly, closing her mouth to its normal width. “Good. Keep that mouth shut until I need to use it.”

“Well!” Twilight said. Aria was grateful for the excuse to look away. She focused on getting her tail to relax while Twilight talked. “Everypony here is invited over for a, a Rainy Day Celebration at the Golden Oak Tree. We’re having a Book Treasure Hunt, and there’s plenty of dry towels for everypony, and we can listen to the rain splash through the leaves of the Golden Oak Tree….”

The sun began to stream obnoxiously through the clouds the Pegasi were carefully packing away for later use.

“Um,” she added. “The schedule says there’s rain. And I’ve always enjoyed weather more as an abstract puzzle than the visceral, um, the actual...there will be drinks.”

At that, ponies started to move.

If you throw a party in Ponyville, you had better be prepared for everypony to show up, because they probably will. News travels fast in a small town, and if the ponies themselves don’t, the short distances between houses make up for that. And when word that Twilight Sparkle, Chief Executive Economist of the Daughter Bank of Ponyville and hero of the Great Succession (when, as the Ponyville ponies were smug to remember, Nightmare Moon had come to none other than their humble little town to announce the end of the world, or at least its economy) was throwing a party to celebrate the first rain of spring, the citizens of Ponyville did move fast, because they didn’t expect her to have enough drinks for everypony.

It wasn’t that Twilight Sparkle was inattentive or miserly. Quite the contrary: She was trusted by Princess Celestia herself to run the new Daughter Bank that had been erected only late last fall. This meant, to the practical-minded, good-natured ponies of Ponyville, that Twilight was a sort of appointed royalty, and as a sort of Coat of Legs, she got a magic box that printed money. This was despite a long of frantic hoof-waving on Twilight’s part whenever anypony mentioned the idea. She didn’t even want to know what would happen if anypony tried to print money, and Twilight wanted to know everything. But even her curious mind hit a sanity-preserving wall when it tried to consider the full wrath, and worse, the disappointment of Princess Celestia, who ran the One Bank of Equestria in a manner analogous to how the strong force held together the nucleus of an atom, all the atoms, at once.

Princess Celestia had been a mentor, a teacher, and, recently, a debtor to Twilight Sparkle, who had rescued her from what had seemed to be a long vacation on the Sun courtesy of her once-banished younger sister. Twilight had gathered the Five Elements of Equilibrium and a corresponding number of friends and faced down Nightmare Moon in the old, worn-down castle in the Everfree Forest, the one the Knights of Economics had used centuries ago. Everything had turned out all right. Twilight had even gotten a promotion, from Grand Assistant, Regal Secretary, and, well, a number of other things, to Chief Executive Economist of her very own central bank.

Very far away from Canterlot, she couldn’t help noticing.

Of course it made sense to have her stay in Ponyville where the five Bearers of the Elements lived. And they were her friends. She didn’t mind Ponyville, not anymore, once she had gotten used to the dust and straw, and the slow, communal life, and the complete lack of late-night hayburger stands. But she couldn’t help wondering if Princess Celestia might not have minded having Twilight Sparkle far away and out of the center of things.

Her old cohort back in the Canterlot economics academy, the mouthful who had made it through to graduation, thought she trusted the princess blindly. Not so. She trusted the princess observantly. Her eyes were always open except when she was sleeping and sometimes even then, if she had fallen asleep reading.

Trixie, that most unpleasant of her fellow students, and a vexingly capable economist in her own right, who now was apprenticed to Princess Cadance in the Crystal Empire (Ha! Trixie up north in the cold and snow, surrounded by crystal waste and ponies who thought “Eh” was a letter of the alphabet, Twilight couldn’t help but think Trixie’s post had been a little thank-you from Princess Celestia to her loyalest and most faithful student for rescuing her from Nightmare Moon), had mocked Twilight more than once for her slavish devotion to the princess, because it had stung, and Trixie never saw reason to do once what would hurt again if done twice.

But it wasn’t true. Twilight didn’t intend to be the good princess’s faithful student forever. On the contrary, she rather saw herself as Princess Celestia’s natural successor. She was, after all, the top student in three hundred years, had broken three records for report-writing and account-keeping accuracy, and had published four times in the Equestrian Economic Review.

She just worried that maybe Princess Celestia saw her as her natural successor too, and wasn’t quite ready to retire.

Which was fine! Twilight wasn’t some dumb yak or magicked-up centaur, willing and oh-so-unable to take the throne by force. She could wait. There was a lot of good work to do both as Princess Celestia’s assistant in Canterlot and now as a central banker in Ponyville, which was basically like being a practice princess, albeit in a castle overlooking a land that consisted of two sticks and a pat of mud that her three serfs took turns holding. And then told her to make infinite mud. Because then they’d all be rich.

She could wait. And in the meantime, she could enjoy herself. Just a little. It didn’t hurt to relax—well, it did, quantifiably, her exact marginal social product times the amount of work she wasn’t doing, to be precise, but that didn’t count, no pony could live like that, and no pony should. Except for the ones who wanted to. She had met a few, in the deep recesses of Canterlot’s vast bureaucracy, ponies who lived at their desk and slept in fits of numbers and vast arrays. At first she had been appalled at the conditions they worked in. Then one of them, in an unusually lucid moment, had managed to express how grateful she was to have a damp, dark place to draw charts properly, with very straight lines, with everything to scale like it actually was, and none of that talking-to-ponies business that was frightening and so often painful.

And ponies thought she was a recluse! No wonder the treehouse library was already so crowded. They probably thought she was expecting about six guests. But Twilight hadn’t been careless about the drinks. On the contrary, she was quite looking forward to seeing how accurate her estimate had been.

She squeezed past Lyra and Bonbon, who were sipping cocktails with umbrellas in that were more tropical in the sense of monsoons than seaside vacation spots, and frowned at Spike, who had removed his bright orange raincoat in deference to the warm sun streaming in through the open windows.

“Spike!” she said. “It’s a Rainy Day party! You have to keep your raincoat on.”

Spike looked out at the clear blue sky.

“Are you serious?” he said. “Twilight, will you get more ice? It’s a little warmer than we expected.”

“This doesn’t count against my prediction,” Twilight grumbled. “Dashie breaking the storm was a rainbow swan event. I can’t predict that.”

Spike raised a scaly brow at that comment. Twilight had only ever used cutesy nicknames with her adoptive older brother. After he had left to be Princess Cadance’s consort in the Crystal Empire, any fillyish passion for cuteness in her had seemed to die. For her to call her friend “Dashie” seemed about as likely as inviting Trixie over for a sleepover so they could talk about...clothes, or colts, or whatever regular mares did. Spike had read enough to know it wasn’t normal for most mares to choose to stay up to two in the morning straining their eyes by candlelight to read reports full of numbers and charts.

And then there was the fact that Twilight was having the party in the library. That was like inviting Trixie over to see if she would be interested in dating Shining Armor, and also offering her the top spot in Princess Celestia’s class so that Twilight could quit and become a professional hoofball player. Before coming to Ponyville the idea of a party in a library would have been literally unthinkable to Twilight. And to Twilight, literally meant literally.

Twilight was changing. All of Equestria was. New banks, a new princess, sort of, who knew what Princess Celestia had done with her defeated younger sister? Not him, though. Spike the Dragon was the same as ever.

“You looked adorable in that orange thing, whyever did you take it off?”

Spike jumped, his tail thumping nervously on the wood floor. “Rarity! Do you want another drink?”

“Why bother?” Rarity pushed her empty glass around with a miserable expression on her normally flawless face. Just the sight of her glittering purple mane and her brilliant white coat had his knees shaking. She had a pale grey raincoat on, barely damp, a striped umbrella across her lap. A glittering crystal that looked sort of like a cloud, and sort of like a marshmallow, hung from a thin necklace around her neck. “I got all dressed up in the perfect fashion for this year’s first spring rain. I even wore my Element of Equilibrium! It’s shaped like a cloud, Spike! A cloud! And now it’s dry! Perfect weather for a fashion disaster! I look ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous!”

“You look okay,” said Spike, a squeaky catch in his throat. Fluttershy had made the mistake of taking him along to one of her stallion’s rights meetings, where he had picked up a number of peculiar ideas on how to attract mares, mostly involving ignoring them and occasionally giving them mild compliments. “I mean, I’ve seen better.”

“Of course you have, you’ve seen me on other days,” said Rarity, healthily oblivious. “Dreamed about me too, I should imagine.”

Spike’s face turned red-hot, normally quite threatening on a dragon, but the look of strangled panic on his face was anything but. “Squeak?” he said in a masculine sort of choke.

“You’ll dream of me, you all will. So beautiful you can’t stop thinking about me.” Rarity bit the rim of her glass. “Mo phalt pwease.”

It was just the drink then. Twilight had gotten like this during private celebrations after all the voluntary defense funds had been counted up or the new monetary path for the year had been set. After the “just one” phase and the subsequent endless giggling phase, Twilight passed into the realm of “Ahaha! You’ll see! You’ll all see! Princess, they’ll call me! Princess Sparkle Alicorna D’Armor! Ahaha!” which passed soon, thankfully, into a depressive stupor.

Spike had never thought about whether it was appropriate for a baby, which he technically was, to be serving alcohol, and neither had Twilight. He because being raised by Twilight had fostered an adult attitude toward life, and Twilight because...she didn’t always think of things like that. When life invited Twilight to dance, she insisted on leading, and never mind that she danced like she had four left legs.

Twilight came back with an open bag of ice. She beamed at Rarity. “How do you like the drinks? They’re named after books and economic ideas.”

“Mgghm,” Rarity said, gnawing on an ice cube she had poached from the bag with magic.

Twilight added some ice to chill the Whisky of Nations and nodded at Rarity. “I’m going to go check on the others.”

“Phpikey-wikey, mo’ phalt.”

Twilight took a tray of hot drinks, set one on the table for Rarity, and left her to her fashionable despair. She found Applejack off in a corner by herself, glowering.

“How’s the party?” Twilight asked, pushing through a clump of tipsy stallions to reach Applejack.

“It’s all right,” Applejack said. “I mean, it’s great. I really liked this, uh, Old Keynesian I had. Could have done without the orange peel, mind.”

Twilight took her empty glass and replaced it with a warm mug. “Here, I thought it’d be perfect for the weather. Books and warm drinks, snug indoors, listening to the raindrops pattering on the roof….”

The sun continued to be obnoxiously warm, bright, and not at all obscured by dark grey clouds.

“The rain!” Applejack said. “Just look at her. She don’t mind. Probably shorted everything to do with rain and trees and so on just before she did it. Can’t you do anything about it?”

Twilight watched Rainbow Dash cavort with Pinkie Pie on a table. Pinkie Pie had knocked over four drinks, and Rainbow Dash had caught each one. Funny, to think it wasn’t so long ago that she wouldn’t have allowed anything but books on that table.

She hadn’t gone completely mad. She had been midway through putting all the books in a protective covering anyway due to the rain and damp when the idea of a party had occurred to her. It had been a bad winter, and the rain was the official start of a new stretch of seasons. It seemed like the right time to celebrate something.

She glanced at Applejack, who was clearly in a sour mood. Applejack hadn’t talked much about the incident with the trees last winter. Maybe she had with Rarity; they had a sort of...understanding, kind of like Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy seemed to. Not her and Pinkie Pie thought, they were way too different. But Twilight had been hoping somepony would have wanted to talk about what had happened because Twilight wasn’t very sure herself. The Everfree Forest, the black, thorny, wild vines and dark, twisted oaks towering over stabbing, needle-pin shrubs to the south, didn’t like money, or something, and had tried to take over Ponyville. Some sort of magic had brought a lot of unpleasant memories to the fore. About Shining Armor, her adopted older brother, and Princess Cadance, who had stolen him away, possibly literally.

Rarity had opened up later about what the forest had showed her, as had Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, but a piece of the story was missing from Rarity’s, the part that started with Applejack, who had only mentioned the barest details once, when Twilight was dazed and weak anyway. There had been a look in Applejack’s eye, and was there again now, not quite angry, not quite sad, just...heavy. There was something on her mind, and she wasn’t saying what.

“I can check if she won any money by breaking up the storm, though I don’t think I can do anything about it,” Twilight said. “I hope she didn’t. It’s better as a misguided prank than as an opportunistic crime.”

“It’s just some folk do a lot of planting in the spring. Apple trees need a lot of water. And the winter was long and cold.”

“It was, wasn’t it,” said Twilight carefully.

“Ever since the weather Pegasi came through and rolled up all the snow, the ground has been drier than a rattlesnake’s skin in July. I was really looking forward to the rain.”

“Me too. I’m not letting Rainbow Dash get away with it, you know.”

“Mhm.” Applejack sniffed the steaming mug, then took a cautious sip. “Mm...bracing.”

“Isn’t it? Want to go talk to Rarity? She’s moping because she wore her new raincoat for nothing. I’m sure she’d love to complain about the weather too. Oh, but first, have you seen Fluttershy around?”

“She said she’s going to be late. Got a cow giving birth. It’s normal this time of year for her. Once Rarity and I paid her a visit last year when we hadn’t seen her in two weeks. Walked up to the fence just in time to see the bubble break.”

“The bubble? Oh...yeurgh.”

“Rarity pitched right over! She wasn’t faking neither! Didn’t even say nothing bout sacred blue.”

“That’s a lovely image.”

“It was once Fluttershy got her cleaned up a bit.”

“Well...I’m going to take this tray over to Pinkie and Rainbow Dash. Tell Rarity she’s had enough. I don’t think Spike can say no to her, especially if she calls him Spikey-wikey.”

They shared a grin, and Applejack ambled off, her brown cowfilly hat marking her way through the throng. Twilight, carefully balancing the tray, pushed through to her friends dancing on the table, or above it, in Rainbow Dash’s case.

“Twilight!” Pinkie Pie screeched as she came near. “This is the best party ever!”

“You say that about all the parties!” Twilight shouted back. Shouting. In a library. What was wrong with her? And why did it feel so good?

“I do not!”

“You do, actually. Stop dancing for a moment and try this drink I made. It’s perfect for the rainy weather.” She glanced at Rainbow Dash, who didn’t react. Either Rainbow Dash’s monthly poker games with a group of interchangeable sunglass-wearing Pegasi were really paying off, or she was just totally oblivious.

“You know, Applejack and Rarity are really upset about the weather,” Twilight said as Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash took their drinks and sat on the edge of the table.

“The weather’s great,” said Rainbow Dash. “Clear skies, perfect for flying.”

“Don’t tell me that’s why you did it!”

“No, I just wanted to do something awesome. That’s how you start a party off, not with a bunch of book-themed drinks.” She glanced at Twilight’s hurt face. “But, uh, my Random Walk on the Beach was really good.”

“I had like three NGDP Sunrises,” Pinkie Pie said, slurring a little. “What’s that last one on the tray?”

“This is a Das Kahlua I’m saving for Fluttershy. And you’re drinking Progress and Peppermints.” There was evident amusement on her face.

“It’s dry?” Rainbow Dash complained.

“Like you’re one to talk about dry, Dashie.”

“Dashie?” Pinkie Pie laughed, and laughed some more, a little helplessly. “Only Fluttershy calls her that!”

Twilight’s cheeks reddened. “I’m trying to be stern, okay? Didn’t you get called by your last name when your par...uh….”

Pinkie Pie had talked about her time in the forest, just to Twilight, alone. It had not been a good story, even if it ended happily, sort of. It ended with friends and a warm home, which was happier than most stories that involved watching your parents get crushed by a giant rock usually ended.

Pinkie Pie didn’t seem to notice, already draining the hot mug of nerdish peppermint warmth. “Mm! This is good!”

“It’s okay,” Rainbow Dash said. She looked over Twilight’s head in the direction of the door. “Hey! Those ponies have fish tails!”

“They must be—” Twilight began.

“New in town!” Pinkie Pie said. She slid off the table, nearly upsetting the cups, and shoved through the crowd, all knees and bouncing pink mane to the three merponies standing near the wall by the door, huddling like wallflowers.

What in Equestria? Twilight thought. Merponies? Didn’t they all…

...um….

Where did they all go?

Twilight’s ears swung up. Even over the buzz of a crowd of buzzed ponies, Pinkie Pie’s voice cut through like a horn through the fog.

“...guess your name! Danger! No? Adangerino!”

A grin crept over Twilight’s face. She remembered her first day in Ponyville. Pinkie Pie had been quite the culture shock. Rarity had possibly very nearly poisoned her, and Applejack had filled her with more apples than seemed healthy. Rainbow Dash...had just needed help. What luck or fate had brought her life together with the five ponies who just happened to be the Bearers of the Five Elements of Equilibrium?

...No, no. She kept forgetting. It wasn’t fate or destiny or even luck. They had made themselves the Bearers, and Twilight had...watched. Organized? Been nearby, been cognizant of the fact of what was happening.

Hadn’t things always been that way? History was full of stories of brave ponies and the adventures they had gone on and the victories they had died for. Somewhere in the back of the group was a pony carefully recording everything, making some sketches of interesting landmarks, and weaving a narrative out of it all so that the heroes could listen to it after and know what they had done….

It took an economist to turn a lot of trade and specialization and labor into an economy. Otherwise it was just a lot of ponies making money. It was the difference between a bunch of plants and a garden.

“Let’s go over to where Applejack and Rarity are sitting,” Twilight said suddenly. She tugged Rainbow Dash’s leg. “I’m sure if you apologize they won’t be mad.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged and let Twilight lead her over. Twilight tried to understand her. Rainbow Dash was proud, which meant she really cared what others thought about her. She was really honest about herself, and painfully so about others, like a filly, really, but at the same time, she didn’t like to admit her weaknesses. Just getting her to admit she had an aching tooth took probably the same effort as pulling it.

Pinkie Pie’s exclamation-mark barrage was still audible over the crowd.

“...And you must be So Naughty! Ooh! And you are...Angria! No??? How about….”

Something Fluttershy had told her, at the end, when they were facing Nightmare Moon, just the five of them and Twilight. Just before it had been the six of them.

You’re part of the equilibrium too.

“I want to show you all something.” Twilight settled Rainbow Dash next to a morose, dribbling Rarity and disappeared into the crowd and upstairs. She came back a minute later and sat with them, a hollow wooden box with a long neck laid in her lap. The edge of her hoof trailed down the tightened nylon strings, plucking music out of them.

“You play guitar?” Rainbow Dash said. Even Rarity perked up.

Twilight shrugged, her purple face tinged red. “My brother used to play. He taught me how.”

“We don’t ever hear about your brother,” Applejack said.

Twilight’s face looked like a bunch of grapes running from purple to red. “Uh...he lives up north. Far away. Anyway, I made a little song. It’s about you girls...it’s about us.” She paused. “I wish Fluttershy was here. Oh well, I can play it for her again later.”

Twilight remembered the old guitar booklet Shining Armor had given here. She positioned her hoofs on the guitar and depressed the strings with magic just where the picture in the booklet had showed.

She coughed and shuffled a little. Rainbow Dash’s tail thumped against the leg of her stool impatiently.

Twilight plucked a chord.

C!

Her magic moved down the frets.

G!

C, G, E!

“Wow!” Rarity clapped her hoofs. “Very pretty, Twilight.”

“I can do a bunch,” Twilight said. “But these are just normal chords, normal octaves. Music gets a lot more interesting when you incorporate harmonics.”

Twilight positioned her hoofs along the frets again. Her horn glowed.

“Music,” she said, “is an ocean. And each note,”

A!

“is a wave,” Twilight said.

“My mane!” said Rainbow Dash. As if in some kinetic response to the music, her already wild hair was standing on end like Pinkie Pie had been rubbing balloons on her again. Rarity squawked and immediately attacked with a comb she pulled from somewhere.

“Look, your Element!” Rainbow Dash said. They all stared at the puffy cloud hanging from Rarity’s neck. It was pulsing purple for a moment, and glittering oddly, before it faded with the last echo of the magical note.

“Pretty!” Rarity cooed, while Twilight made a mental note to investigate that phenomenon later.

“What was that?” Applejack said. “Didn’t feel...real. More realer than real, like it’d be here even if nothing else was.”

“It’s just harmonics,” said Twilight, who lacked a poet’s soul.[4] “Magical notes, to increase the number of combinations. There’s—”

[4] But she had ten times a poet’s salary, she would be quick to point out.

C!

“And—”

D!

“Then—”

E, F, G, B!

“Do it more!” said Rainbow Dash, whose hair better resembled the spines of a teenage porcupine trying to give her mother a fright.

“Do not!” said Rarity, aghast and fighting a losing battle with her comb.

Applejack studied her Element. “How come it was glowing all the colors of the rainbow? And then it stopped?”

“Magic,” shrugged Twilight, who was enjoying the attention. “Anyway, here it goes….”

C, G, A, F, C, G, A, F….

It washed over Applejack like a wave of warm air. It was the sound of apples ripening. It was sweet, it was the gurgle of living water sucked into the earth, feeding her trees. It was the sound of memory, of things gone into the ground bearing new fruit….

It struck Rainbow Dash like electricity. It crackled up her skin and through her hair and ruined any chance of flying out of the library without looking like a blue puffball gone rainbow at the ends. It was the song of opportunity, a melody of the ebb and flow of chance….

The comb slipped from Rarity’s magical grip.

As the wave gathered momentum, picking up energy as it went, in defiance of physics and in total compliance with poetic law, it swept and broke over the crowd, who turned as one, temporarily muted, as the music played….

“I’m so close! Oooh! Adageez-o!”

Well, almost as one. There’s always somepony in the crowd who’s talking over the players. It wouldn’t really be a concert without it. That sort of thing is also part of the harmony.

Then even Pinkie Pie noticed that the crowded library was silent, as if the librarian had gone Shh! It was a command every schoolfilly and colt knew by instinct. It made the knees fold and the back straighten, and the whispers shut off.

Twilight Sparkle played her song.

The crowd listened, watched, open mouthed, some of them.

Three merponies stared. They were each of them thinking different things, but the one thing they were thinking together was, No way. Not Twilight. She’s got the rhythm of a spastic puppy with epilepsy.

Twilight let the music play through her hoofs and out of her horn. It was like her brother had taught her, surfing the music, think of it as a wave, and ride it….

No pony who knew Twilight would have expected her to try to learn to play an instrument. It wasn’t like she was hated music or was against fun. It was just hard to think of Twilight in rhythm.

It was the way of her whole cohort back in Canterlot, she reflected. There was a jagged nature to the economists Princess Celestia raised. They didn’t fit into the world, they didn’t fit into life. It made them uniquely suited to study it. And completely incapable of understanding it.

She was like a jigsaw piece that had no tabs or holes, and was shaped like a triangle with a bite taken out of one side. It had taken the end of the world to jumble up the pieces enough for her to fit in.

It was a myth, thought Twilight, that the end of the world was, well, the end. Like a good book, there was always the chance of a sequel, especially if the original had made money. After Nightmare Moon, things had gone back to normal, mostly. She did live in Ponyville now instead of Canterlot. And now she had friends.

She hadn’t made friends on purpose. They had been collected out of necessity, like the assortment of metal saws on her bedside table for hoof trimming, and the custom-made iron comb that was able to rip through the Gordian tangles in her hair in the morning. But when you go through a forest of nightmares together to face down the greatest terror in Equestria, you just have to become friends by the end. It’s one of those things, a melody in the rhythm of the world, the kind that gets stuck in the head.

And now she intended to sing about it.

Oh, when I was just a filly ♫
♪ I thought something awful silly
♬ That I didn’t need friends, only books
I didn’t know what friendship took ♫

Twilight’s hoof plucked the string. She looked up. She had presented in enough economics seminars to know when she had lost her audience.

“What?” she said.

“It was very pretty,” Rarity said quickly. “Very nice.”

“It was great until you started singing,” Rainbow Dash said. “Then it kind of started to suck. Sorry.”

“That’s honest,” Twilight said, still picking chords nonmagically. “Well. I just wanted to share, anyway. Harmonics are very interesting.”

“It was great,” Applejack said. “Don’t let Rainbow Dash rain on your parade. Or stop everypony else from raining on it, that is.”

“Twilight that was awesome!” Pinkie Pie shouted from across the library. Twilight waved to her. Now there was somepony she could learn from. Pinkie Pie wouldn’t stop singing even if ponies begged her not to.

“I know how you could get a lot better,” said Rainbow Dash. “The Flim Flam brothers have a bunch of arts programs you can write off to. They’ll pay for you to get lessons once they find out how good you are at guitar.”

Everypony winced at the discordant squeak from Twilight’s guitar.
“Who?” she said, softly.

“You haven’t heard of them? The Flim Flam brothers! I’ll give you a brochure. I get them in the mail every month.”

The guitar clattered on the floor as Twilight stood up.

“You subscribe to the Flim Flam brothers?” she said.

The Golden Oak Tree, home of Twilight Sparkle, her library, and, currently, a Rainy Day party during a sunny spring day, stopped swaying its boughs. It had quite enjoyed the music, and wished it would continue.

The music had sounded magical, and the Golden Oak Tree’s very first inhabitant had been the most magical pony in Equestria. Pity what happened to him in the end.

The Golden Oak Tree has had many interesting and puissant inhabitants over the centuries because at the heart of Ponyville and its magic is this tree: ancient, fat, slanted in the way oaks often are, with branches that curve in ways that seem to pay no respect to gravity or geometry. But it really needs to be seen after a rain, when the leaves positively glow. When Ponyville was just the seed of an idea in the mind of Frankie Knight, first of the Knights of Economics, the Golden Oak Tree was already old.

About ten miles south of the Golden Oak Tree is the Everfree Forest. If the Golden Oak Tree is Joseph sewing a coat busier than Princess Celestia’s mane, then the Everfree Forest is Esau wrapped in lamb skin, sitting on the couch with belly exposed, throwing empty beer cans at the dog.

Recently the Everfree Forest is reported to have made friends with an Earth Pony named Pinkie Pie, who bakes. Supposedly it favors cinnamon and vanilla, and is being introduced, cautiously, to banana walnut.

Few are gullible enough to believe these rumors. They are, however, true. Sometimes the strangest things are.

The Golden Oak Tree is one of these stranger things. There are many rumors about it. They say those who live in the hollowed-out interior do not age or sleep. They say that the tree will not turn away any traveler who asks for a night’s rest. They say that the tree has a mind of its own.

This last point deserves comment. All trees have minds of their own. They are slow minds. They think a lot about rain. But they are minds. No, that is not what is so strange about the Golden Oak Tree. What is strange about the Golden Oak Tree is what it does with its mind.

To wit, it makes friends.

Or tries, anyway. It is a tree.

Only the most interesting sorts of creatures have taken up residence in the Golden Oak Tree. Regular sorts don’t like to stay long. That has to do with the roots, which suck at the inhabitant’s mind, listening as only a tree can: observing, learning, taking.

It gives back. Ponies who live in the Golden Oak Tree do not, in fact, need to eat or sleep, although they mostly do out of habit. It’s an output-input relationship that would have made Leontief cry. But it’s not quite friendship. Not yet.

If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? The question answers itself: The tree heard it. And, of more concern to the tree, felt it. Ponies, in thousands of years of guiding nature, have not thought to listen to the trees.

They are going to learn.

Some trees can live forever. They don’t, because of wind, and lightning, and bugs, and people with axes and a job to do, but they can.

Some lies, like some trees, can live forever, mostly by never really dying. Lies like how we got here, or where we’re going. Ponies look around and see the ground is still. They look up and see the Sun wobbling lazily in the sky. They tell themselves the Earth is hanging gently in space while Princess Celestia lets a merrily burning star rise up and down around it. In fact the Earth is hurtling through space unmoored, the sun dragging along behind it as though tethered, which it is, to Princess Celestia.

One lie about Princess Celestia is that she raises the Sun. She does not. She swings it. The Sun does not rise in the east so much as arc over it and swing around, falling west under the world in time for Princess Celestia to get a cup of coffee before she does something similar with the moon.

It’s very important that nothing bad happen to her.

That sort of lie about the Sun is a lie of convenience. Astromagics isn’t something that can be easily explained to the average pony. No, that sort of lie is like a pigeon. It hangs around because no pony has the energy to shoo it away, and only once in a while does it do a poo on somepony’s head.

Other lies are like...zombies. Kill them, and they just come back.

They come for your brains. You can tell by the way they say, “Brains...brains….”

One such lie about Princess Celestia is that she’s replaceable. This gets resurrected every time some ambitious creature, one time a yak, another time a centaur, even ponies, on occasion, take sight of her castle, and the grand city, Canterlot, and think, Ka-ching!

Insurrections are short-lived, literally.

And thankfully. Astronomical magnitudes and a dearth of magical, ahem, puissance mean there are only two conceivable alternatives to the good Princess. One spent the last thousand years trapped on the moon and now hides in the shadow of a distant, storm-ridden country, lurking in caves under dark clouds, fleeing sunlight. The other has a fondness for a local delicacy called poutine and is practically disqualified as a result.

Other lies are about the Bank. The One Bank, it should be specified, since now there are the Nine as well, but the One is the oldest and the greatest. Some are pigeon lies, like the notion that Princess Celestia hoards vast wealth in her Bank (it’s mere gold and silver, nothing useful).[5]

[5] None have been able to penetrate the One Bank’s security. The farthest incursion into the Bank known to ponykind was written about by AK Yearling in her classic Daring Do short story, “Daring Do and the Hello, Princess, I Was Just, Um.” It is four pages long, three and a half of which detail the drinks Daring Do had after.

Then there are the zombie lies, many of which have been resurrected in the aftermath of the Great Succession that Nightmare Moon visited on Equestria. Princess Celestia had been deposed, and Nightmare Moon had begun to constrict the money supply, turning the veil of money into a garrote, tightening around Equestria’s neck….

It got better. Nightmare Moon was defeated, equilibrium was restored. Princess Celestia reclaimed her throne. Only then did the chaos begin.

Chaos is a funny thing. Chaos isn’t the result of badness. It comes from the mutual confusion of intentions, also known as conflict. When the tanks roll in and a once-proud military nation surrenders in a month, order is swiftly imposed. When the troops stick around to change Hearts and Minds, with their only tools being those that explode said organs into lots of small pieces, you get chaos. Nightmare Moon’s conquest was too swift and absolute for anypony to wonder what they ought to do next. They could only hope that there would be a next in which anything that ought, could. But since Princess Celestia wouldn’t turn anypony into moon dust for criticizing her[6], the result was chaos.

[6] Those who tried to filch from the private royal cakery, however, had no such guarantee. Princess Celestia’s fondness for donuts has often been compared to many an overworked mare’s affection for red wine. This is another lie. In truth she treats it more like vodka.

A number of respectable[7] ponies complained, very publicly, about Reforms. They didn’t have any ideas themselves, but since We Cannot Let This Happen Again so Something Must Be Done, they demanded reforms, reforms that, oddly enough, usually happened to be whatever they had been proposing before Nightmare Moon. One popular proposal was to audit the One Bank. This was proposed and heard with a certain amount of hoof-rubbing and frankly voyeuristic intrigue.

[7] Not that anypony knew what they had done to deserve respect. They dressed a certain way and carried themselves just so. They were respectable, as in, it was possible to respect them. It was also possible for the Earth to spontaneously begin revolving around the Sun. It had nothing to do with decency.

Princess Celestia said no. No pony pressed the issue. There was something about the way she said it that made them stop and reflect on their lives, and more pressingly, the fact that they had lives.

But other ponies did have ideas. Ideas like maybe Nightmare Moon was what you got when you printed too much money instead of not enough. Or that it had really been all about selling houses to the wrong kind of ponies, or uncertainty over the the effects of Nightmare Moon’s regime. Where they got those ideas from, well...ideas having a way of living on long after they’re dead.

And they’re coming for your brains….

Anypony who’s seen a brain, such as a surgeon, or a very careless cart driver, would not be surprised to learn that something dead can grow out of it. It is a pink, bloody mass, the sort of thing you would ask the surgeon to remove if you didn’t know better.[8] (Luckily, the market supplies all manner of contrivances to shrink the darned thing.)

[8] Anypony who’s suffered through the afternoon Canterlot traffic might suspect many a careless cart driver did not know better.

This brain, which crackles with energy and pops with an inventiveness that belies its age, belongs to one half of a most unusual pair. The other half is in another skull, and they are very nearly identical, both the brains, and the skulls. They are twins, their names are Flim and Flam, and they are two of the most disliked ponies in Equestria. And since the ponies of Equestria aren’t much known for disliking other ponies at all, it stands to reason that they must have done something particularly egregious.

What they had done was try to depose Princess Celestia. Not violently—everypony knew what had happened to the yaks who tried. And the griffons. And the—well, pretty much every magical, intelligent species had tried at some point, and up to a point, specifically, the one on the end of Princess Celestia’s horn.

No, not violently. Persuasively. They made newsletters. Bought newspapers. They paid for editorials, then journalists, then journalism schools. They funded societies, think tanks, grants for researchers, library wings, whole university departments. The Flim Flam brothers had a lot of money.

Usually this was no cause for opprobrium. Princess Celestia, after all, controlled all the money in a very real, er, nominal, sense, and she was much beloved. Flim and Flam, however...well...it was about the wells, wasn’t it? And the forests. And the rivers. And the oceans, such as they were. And the air. And...just about everything beautiful, natural, and, importantly, clean.

Did their rock-fracturing mining technique pollute the rivers and lakes? Did their smoke-belching factories dirty the air? Were those geese, in fact, not playing with those plastic rings? Who could say? It was a controversy, meaning there were lots of experts saying yes, and two ponies with lots of money saying no.

Derpy knocked on the door.

“Dolores!” shouted a voice.

“Just a minute, sir!” a female voice answered from the second floor. Derpy stood back and waited.

This place was weird. The house was all alone in the middle of a desert, the sand almost red. Derpy wasn’t quite sure how she had flown here—she had followed the pull of the letter, and it had brought her here. That sort of thing bothered her. She didn’t mind being the vessel of some occult spirit of Delivery. She just wished it would communicate a little better. And maybe warn her when she was flying into a thunderstorm.

She didn’t want to stay here long. But there was a delivery, and that meant somepony had to sign.

The door opened. An older grey mare glared at her. “What?” she snapped.

“D-delivery.” Derpy gave her an envelope with a round bulge in the center and a sheet. Her face and legs, presumably those belonging to second-floor Dolores, were spotted with adhesive bandages, and Derpy couldn’t stop staring. Usually Derpy couldn’t start staring. “Need you to sign.”

Derpy looked around uncomfortably. This was easy since for her looking straight ahead was usually the challenge. Dolores, presumably, was actually reading the sheet. Derpy hadn’t ever read the delivery sheet.

“It’s just an envelope with something in it,” Dolores said suspiciously. “Why do I have to sign?”

“Rules,” Derpy managed. She felt like she ought to stand up straight and raise her leg before talking to this mare, or at least keep her eyes from wobbling in different directions. Dolores had the glare of a schoolteacher.

Dolores gave her a soul-piercing look. Then she signed the sheet.

“What, what are they doing out in a place like this?” Derpy asked.

Dolores was already closing the door. “Studying cactus!” She slammed the door shut.

Derpy stood on the step, wondering what she had done wrong. And how she was going to get out of here. Not much left in her mailbag. Well...there was still that letter to Maud Pie. Now it was pulling her...south? She was already almost to the southern border.

The desert wind howled. Hot, stinging sand rushed across her back, leaving her feeling like she had been rubbed down with sandpaper.

Well, it was better than staying here. Trusting the letter, Derpy took to her wings….

“It’s a letter with something in it!” Dolores shouted. Flim looked up from the shriveled cactus he was cutting open. “Put it on the table,” he said.

“I’ll take it,” said Flam, not looking up from the map. Aside from the red mustache quivering under his snout he was the spitting image of his slightly older brother. Dolores, their assistant for fifteen years, gave it to him and went back to cleaning the upstairs room, which was filled with needles from an exploded cactus.

“It’s a letter,” Flam said lazily. He skipped to the bottom and read the signature. Then he bolted upright in his seat. “It’s from Applejack!”

“Applejack?”

“The eldest mare of the Apple family, remember? ...Ho! She says if we can find it, we can have it.”

Flim put down his knife and stared at the wall. “She doesn’t believe it’s real,” he said eventually.

Flam pulled the bulging object out of the envelope. “Look at this!” he laughed. “It’s an apple! Seems like it’s still fresh, somehow.”

Dolores came downstairs with a bag full of needles and a few fresh bandages. “Toss it in the bag and I’ll take it out.”

“It’s a waste, eat it.” Flam’s horn glowed green. He levitated it to her. Dolores caught it and took a bite, chewing as she tossed the bag in the trash. Then she stopped and stared at the apple.

She swallowed. “It’s delicious!” She took a bite, and without stopping to chew took another large bite, barely stopping to chew as she swallowed skin, meat and seed alike. “Pho’ goo’!”

Dolores stopped, trembling with the effort. Flim and Flam were giving her alarmed looks. “W-would either of you like to try it?” she gasped, juice dripping from her chin.

“...No,” said Flim. He levitated the rest of the apple away from her. “I’ll dispose of it later. Finish cleaning up, will you?” Flushed, Dolores nodded and disappeared upstairs.

“Well!” Flam said. “Some apple.”

“They say witch’s blood flows in the Apple family,” Flim said with a small grin.

“They say that about every mare who grows fruit.”

“They’re usually right. Let’s write back to her. She’s a practical, hard-working mare. Doesn’t have time for mythical buried treasures. So we’ll take it off her hoofs.”

“Afterward she’ll say it’s hers.”

“And we’ll have the letter, and lawyers.”

“Yes. We will. To Ponyville, then?”

“As soon as possible. It’d be best if we could lodge close by. Dolores will write the letter.”

Flim grinned at the dry, shriveled cactus, his mind racing. If they found the buried treasure of Granny Smith….

Flim had never wanted to conquer Equestria. Force was for tyrants, and Celestia was no tyrant. She was a princess, and a princess was an idea.

And ideas...change.

Flim had always wanted to be a princess.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight said incredulously. “You must not have been paying attention to what you were signed up for. I’ll head on over first thing tomorrow to help you unsubscribe from their mailing list.”

“No way,” Rainbow Dash said. “I love all the cool stuff they send me.”

“Have you read any of it?”

“Yeah. Just this last week there was this big expose about the new Daughter Banks.”

“Rainbow Dash,” Applejack said warningly.

Rainbow Dash plunged on with the attitude of a drunk ship captain steering straight toward an iceberg. “Yeah, see, the magazine they put out, The Free Equestrian, it tells the truth. Not like all those biased mainstream papers that suck up to Princess Celestia.”

Rarity tugged one of Rainbow Dash’s flapping wings. “Dash, darling, I really wouldn’t.”

“It’s fine,” Twilight said. “I’d love to hear what they have to say about me.” It was true. If the Flim Flam brothers hated you, it meant you were doing something right.

Rainbow Dash didn’t need encouragement. “I started reading about it after Nightmare Moon happened. It all makes so much sense. See, after locking up her sister, Princess Celestia got really lazy because she had to work all day and night. So she was just like, whatever, and let the money supply rise all the time. The money supply inflated the whole economy like a balloon, and when it got too big, it popped! And that’s how Nightmare Moon got free.”

“That’s incredibly logical,” said Twilight.

“Then what happened is, um, okay, so it’s to do with houses, right? Because Nightmare Moon was trapped on the moon for so long, she got really obsessed with where she lived. It was all she had, right? And so housing prices were going up because they were on top of the balloon, right, or all the houses would fall off.”

“You are misunderstanding the idea of a bubble,” Twilight said, with deceptive calm.

“So all the housing, which got way too high because of the money supply—you can tell because of the way the prices went down during the recession, that’s how you know—got really powerful, and Nightmare Moon used that power to take over. It was only thanks to us that Nightmare Moon was defeated, or the economy would have been in a recession for a thousand years.

“Basically,” continued Rainbow Dash, “it was all Princess Celestia’s fault. Only she doesn’t want you to know that. That’s why she made the Daughter Banks, so she could have even more power over the economy. Never waste a crisis, right? Only because she still doesn’t get enough sleep, she’s just letting the Bank print money like it’s no pony’s business, which, actually, it isn’t, because she won’t let anypony take a look. What’s up with that, huh? Kind of makes you wonder, huh?”

Ponies gathered at the party, listening in on Rainbow Dash’s explanation of the recession, were starting to share looks. It was true that no pony really knew what happened at the One Bank. Princess Celestia was a great believer in democracy, but not when it came to monetary policy. Not one bit.

The murmurs gathered and built, throbbing into a background hum. A green fog was startling to mist and curl in Twilight’s mind. It made it hard to think, but at the same time, things seemed very clear.

“It’s suspicious, isn’t it?” said Rainbow Dash. “Princess Celestia messes things up completely, and we get more banks out of it? What’s up with that?”

“I really wouldn’t,” Applejack said. Only five minutes ago she was grateful to have Twilight Sparkle there between her and Rainbow Dash, and now she was worried. Twilight Sparkle was usually a calm, stoic sort of Unicorn, but she had a big, red button, and written on it was ‘Princess Celestia’ in bold, black ink.

“It’s time to stop being afraid. At least, that’s what the magazine said. It says we should rise up and take the money back. It was really ours all along, it says. We should all be free thinkers, it says. Imagine it! Your own treasure chest full of gold and silver!”

“All the gold and silver in the One Bank divided among the population of Equestria amounts to about six bits per pony,” Twilight said with icy calm, the same as an iceberg facing an oncoming ship. “Can I respond, please?”

She stood up.

“The Flim Flam brothers are a pair of millionaires turned political revolutionaries,” Twilight was addressing the throng, her voice raised over that annoying hum. It was like a saw in her brain. It almost made her want to slap something. Or somepony. “They were so successful at polluting the environment that they decided to do the same to the world of ideas.”

“They send out really funny jokes for the start of spring,” Rainbow Dash said. “One goes, Why did Princess Celestia call for rain on Tuesday? Because—”

“The Flim Flam brothers,” said Twilight with cruel triumph, “are global warming deniers.”

Even the hum skipped a beat. The green fog wavered, then continued to rise in her head.

“That’s right,” Twilight said. “We all know that millennia ago, Princess Celestia, with her sister, melted the snow that covered Equestria and warmed the Earth with the rising Sun.”

“No evidence,” Rainbow Dash countered.

“Literally entire museums full of exactly that, I can get you a free pass.”

“So convenient,” Rainbow Dash sneered as the hum grew louder. “We needed a Bank because of the evil snow.”

“Yes, that’s right, we determined what institutions we needed based on the problems we faced.”

“Ha! Princess Celestia determined that. And all the sheeponies just follow along. It takes an open mind like the Flim Flam brothers have to question things. Things were better back when we had a snow standard,” Rainbow Dash added stubbornly.

“Things were the worst, ponies froze to death. You aren’t telling me you seriously believe this stuff? All this conspiracy nonsense and global warming denialism? We’re talking about a pair of ponies who blow up rocks to get to the dead water underneath for a living.”

“We call ourselves global temperature realists, actually. Are you saying you’ve never met one before?”

“I’ve read about them. For one, they’re incredibly stupid.”

“I’m not stupid!”

Rainbow Dash rose into the air, wings beating furiously.

“You think you’re smarter than me? Just because you have a big fancy degree and basically get paid to think all the time? I did great in school, I just didn’t feel like finishing, I could have if I wanted to! I made way more money than anypony else in my class.”

“It’s true,” Rarity sighed.

The green mist, the cloud in her mind that had made it seem like it was a good idea to insult Rainbow Dash, faded before her visible hurt. She hadn’t meant to upset her friend.

“Sorry,” Twilight said. “Look, I know you’re smart. I’m also worried you’re reading some stuff that...might be bad for you, if you don’t have somepony a little more…experienced to help you navigate. Like you’re at pharmacy. You don’t want to buy all the medicine every time you get sick. You need a doctor to tell you which will make you better and which will make you throw up a lot.”

“One time this medicine Fluttershy told me to take made me throw up a lot.”

“It was a metaphor.”

“It was because I had eaten this poisonous root.”

“Right.”

“It looked tasty in the dark.”

“Just try to be a little more skeptical about this Flim Flam stuff. I want you to know that me and all the other girls running the Daughter Banks are doing their best to protect Equestria’s future. And Princess Celestia does what she does for the good of Equestria. Trust me, she does not take vacations. I know because she forced me to once, and—”

“Ha!”

The humming stopped.

Twilight turned around. The yellow merpony was snaking through the crowd. She held a foreleg with a dark bruise gingerly, but her eyes were as sharp as dragon teeth. Twilight had seen hate like that before. Once. In the eyes of Nightmare Moon.

“Can I help you?” she said warily.

“If you’re a servant of the princesses, I very much doubt it.” The merpony came to a stop a few feet in front of her. The hate in her eyes wasn’t any less intense up close. It made Twilight’s legs tremble involuntarily. She did not want to remember. She did not want to face this again.

Who was this?

“I am Adagio Dazzle,” said the merpony. “Did they ever mention me?”

“I...no, who are you?”

“Special Emissary of the Merponies of the Octopus Gulf. Know what a dolphin is?” she said loudly. Her question was addressed to the whole crowd.

“A what?” Applejack said. Mutterings from the others at the party suggested they didn’t have any better idea.

“It’s a kind of sauce,” said Rainbow Dash with expert ignorance.

“What’s a dolphin?” piped up a high-pitched voice. Twilight’s eyes focused on the little red-maned yellow filly with the big pink bow in the middle of the room.

“You weren’t supposed to bring your little sister,” Twilight hissed to Applejack. “I said there were going to be drinks.”

“But there’s plenty of adults here to watch her,” Applejack replied.

Twilight was trying thinking of a retort to that while Adagio Dazzle explained to Apple Bloom what a dolphin was. What a dolphin had been.

“Never heard of no dolphin,” Apple Bloom said. “What happened to ‘em?”

“There were no ponies to take care of them, so they died. All the fish did.” Adagio told her what fish were. “The oceans are all dead water now. Only whales live in the ocean now, deeeeep down. Maybe octopuses too, I always thought they were smarter than we gave them credit for.”

“This is really not a subject for fillies,” Twilight interrupted. Adagio’s hate-filled eyes swung her way and stabbed right into her. Twilight hesitated, and Apple Bloom asked another question.

“You’re a merpony, ain’t ya? Why didn’t the merponies take care of them? All the fish and dolphins and whatnot?”

Adagio gave her a scornful look. “Do you know how big the ocean is? Equestria isn’t half as long, and forget about deep.”

“So you just left them?”

There was something musical about Adagio’s voice, Twilight noticed. Like she was always singing, or just about to. Now it was rising in a sort of arpeggio. “Listen, filly, there are fewer merponies that there are Pegasi. Do you want to spend your whole life swimming after a bunch of dumb fish?”

“I don’t know, is it better than apples?”

“Ha!”

“Couldn’t you have gone to Princess Celestia for help?”

“This is really not a story for fillies,” Twilight said, more loudly. Once again Adagio’s hateful glare withered her.

Then a shadow passed over the merpony’s face. For a moment, she didn’t answer.

“You gave up,” Apple Bloom said, with the perceptive honesty of a child.

“I was our envoy,” Adagio Dazzle said. It was a deep, mournful chord. “Whole species were dying every day. We couldn’t, I didn’t—” She cut off and swallowed. “I begged on my knees for help.”

“You don’t have knees,” said Twilight, unable to help himself.

She held up her forelegs, silencing her with the contempt of her gaze. “These knees, you idiot. I groveled.”

Twilight knew what was coming next. Probably no pony else in the treehouse that day did. She knew she should do something to stop it. But she couldn’t think of what. Not with the look in that merpony’s eyes. The hate, that pain. She couldn’t think of anything she had the right to do.

“Do you want to know what the princess said, little filly? When I begged and pleaded for the power of the Bank to save the dying ocean?”

“Sure,” said Apple Bloom, in the tone of a little minnow obliviously obliging the shark’s request to count its teeth for it.

“She said she did her best, but she couldn’t find enough in the budget for it.”

“She couldn’t save any of them?”

“She couldn’t afford to.” The melody of Adagio’s voice, which had been a background hum, suddenly crashed discordant, like the steady rhythm of a beating hammer turned to a yelp and a clatter as the hammerer suddenly nailed her own hoof. It tore into Twilight’s head as it the sound twisted and clashed like gears grinding in a broken engine. It hurt her ears, and she was relieved when Adagio restored the melody after a moment.

Adagio continued, shakily. “The ocean was dying. My sisters and I couldn’t stop it. The ocean had no, had no...have you ever seen a pers...a pony at the end of her life, when nothing but machines are keeping her alive and nothing but medicine is keeping the pain from driving her insane?”

“N-no,” said Apple Bloom shakily.

What? Twilight thought. What is she talking about?

“It was like that. Only worse. The ocean was falling apart faster than we could...not repair it. Sustain it. By the end of it I hated myself. Trying to keep algae from falling apart like wet paper. Pushing sharks along in the water to keep them swimming. Once the coral reefs went, everything collapsed. Do you know what the worst thing was?” Apple Bloom shook her head. “It was the smell. Decaying fish corpses gliding along, rotting matter falling off the bone. Muscle and tendons and viscera going runny and slimy in the water. I wanted to vomit.”

Apple Bloom’s eyes were wide. “What did you do?”

“I learned to sing.” She flashed a watery smile. “It turned out to be a good way to express my emotions.”

“And Princess Celestia didn’t do anything?”

“It was everything or nothing. The ocean was a mutualistically symbiotic network—uh, everyfish helped everyfish, get it?. Letting half the population collapse would have doubled our work. The princesses went into a little room and closed the door and decided it would save point oh two bits per year to let the ocean die. It also stopped all that nasty business with bringing zebras over. Too expensive to hire weather Unicorns for the voyage, see?” The melody was breaking again, each note becoming harsh and unpleasant. “Why punish anypony if you can just dis-in-cen-ti-vize them?” The sing-song tone made Twilight’s stomach turn. “That’s royalty for you. Why is it that the good of Equestria always happens to be whatever’s easiest for the Diarchs?”

“She helped,” Twilight said. “You’re not exactly telling the whole story.”

“Oh, Princess Luna offered to make an aquarium. To hold an individual of a few favorite species each. I told her merponies aren’t that twisted.”

Everypony was very quiet.

“Princess Luna?” Twilight said.

Adagio’s eyes flitted from face to face. She could sense something was wrong. “Princess Celestia too, of course, also….”

“You’re making all of this up!” said Twilight triumphantly.

Adagio’s eyes were as sharp as knives. There were quite a lot of very pointy teeth in her widening mouth, Twilight noticed. “I am not, you princess’s pet!”

“If you really met with Princess Luna, then you’re over a thousand years old,” Twilight said smugly. “Don’t get many Equestrian newspapers in merpony seas, is that it? Didn’t do your research before coming over here and trying to spread malicious rumors?”

Adagio’s eyes were wide and uncomprehending. Twilight kept going.

“Maybe I can help explain to you Princess Celestia’s decision. Economists speak for those who don’t have voices. All that money you wanted? It doesn’t just sit in a vault waiting for the rightful claimant to wield it. It’s being used to achieve other valuable things other ponies care about. The Bank must—it’s called Walras’s Law, so they legally have to.”

There was an angry flash in Adagio’s eye, but Twilight was riding high on three margin and tonics in her gut and had just found out one of her best friends was a global warming denier. She plowed on. “Your selfishness—yes, it is selfishness—is something the princess affords you. She listens to all pains and chooses, while you whine because others are being attended to.”

“She calculates,” Adagio spat, without song.

“Chooses. You sit back and enjoy the world she gives you and complain she also gives it to others. And the same to you about Flim and Flam, Rainbow Dash,” she added. “There are better things that can be done with gold and silver than to give a pathetically small amount to everypony. They know how to make money. Princess Celestia knows what to do with it.”

Adagio was staring at her like she had just said 2 + 2 = murder. Whatever angry retort she was about to burst out with was interrupted by the door slamming open. A blood-splattered pony was silhouetted in the way.

“Am I late?” said the apparition.

It was a fine spring day. A warm breeze whipped down the way to Fluttershy’s animal sanctuary and her little cottage. A pleasant plume of smoke curled lazily out of the chimney. A robin and his beau tweeted violent love sonnets at each other, making shameless proposals as they swooped and dived in furious circles around each other. No rain beat down on Fluttershy’s dry tarp as she wrestled with a pregnant, heaving cow.

It happened every year. One of the new mothers always panicked. It was Fluttershy’s job to soothe her, and to do pretty much everything else as well.

The first calving of spring was always bad. It was the stiffness after winter. The fear and cold hadn’t quite left yet. And the pain was sudden, and new.

This time was worse. The calf was twisted around inside and caught on something. The mother had torn something in her thrashing, and that only made her panic more, kicking and bleating and smearing blood on the fresh grass. The father, Mr. Cow, was being kept inside, with Mr. Bear there to soothe him and her baby giant sky serpent’s tail draped across the door just in case.

The calf’s elbows were caught. Fluttershy had to push it back in to reposition it, which made the mother shriek and kick, nearly taking Fluttershy’s head off. She really ought to tie the poor thing down, but it was too late for that.

Finally she had the calf in position. Now she needed to take it out. But the mother’s thrashing had opened up her wounds. She’d be ripping her apart if she did.

There was one option. But she really didn’t want to.

Oh dear. She had to.

The robin stopped his mad twirl as the heifer’s pained grunts reached a crescendo. He alighted on the chimney to watch, chirping excitedly for his hen to join him. A yellow Pegasus with a soft wave of pink hair was up to her knees in the blood of a thrashing, birthing cow. The robin wasn’t so surprised by this. Pegasi had helped him build a plush nest and aided his mate, a pretty, orange-breasted thing, to lay her eggs there. (The mating itself they had managed on their own, albeit with one eye each on the helpful diagrams drawn with cloud-stuff the Pegasi had left in the air nearby.)[9]

[9] Hence the origin of the term “wingmare,” as in, “Hey, now that I’ve had enough to drink, come along and watch me embarrass myself in front of these girls.”

This Pegasus was a bit different, though. This Pegasus was involved. Knee-deep, in fact, and soothing the bleating, frightened heifer with a gentle voice. Mammals definitely have it worse than avians, the robin thought. Giving birth shouldn’t be so…organic.

Pity that she wouldn’t be able to save both. Come to think of it, his hen really shouldn’t be watching this—

♩ I know you’re scared,
♩ I know you’re in pain,
♩ I know you think you’re dying,
But is it so? ♫

All the critters watching the scene in mute horror were suddenly perking up, ears swiveling.

Fluttershy sang her lullaby.

♩ You think you’re twisted up inside,
But is it so? But is it so? ♫
♩You think it’s helpful to thrash and kick,
But is it so? But is it so? ♫

The meter wasn’t very consistent. The beat was all over the place. But the voice was as sweet as living water. It was as gentle as satin. It was an auditory warm blanket wrapped snug around the panicked shoulders of the frightened heifer.

It was a song she had sung to herself years ago, as a filly. You think your friends don’t really like you. But is it so, but is it so? She had sung it to the dogs and pigs when the Pegasi were making thunder and lightning. You think the thunder will get you. But is it so, but is it so? She sang it to foals crying in their cribs when she foalsat for the mares around town. You think a monster will eat you. But is it so, but is it so?

She was not, she would be the first to admit, a trained singer. That was why it always made her uncomfortable to see how ponies and critters reacted to her voice, at least when she sang. She couldn’t get anypony to listen to her when she spoke in her normal voice, and not just because it usually wasn’t audible. But when she sang, it was like a switch flipped in everypony else. They tripped over themselves to listen. And obey.

It was a little creepy.

So she tried not to sing much, except in the bath, which everypony did, it didn’t count. But at times like this, with two lives at stake, surely it wasn’t, you know, evil. She’d feel guilty about it later. But not too guilty.

As she crooned and hummed, the heifer’s kicks stopped. Her bleatings turned to pained snorts. She was still, and Fluttershy pulled the calf free.

“You’re a cute one!” Fluttershy said to the shivering, blood-and-amniotic fluid-drenched calf. She scooped the fluid out of its nose and tickled it until with a sudden snort the calf started to breathe.

“There you go, come this way, see Momma,” Fluttershy said, tugging the calf around to the cow’s front so the mother could start to lick and clean while Fluttershy did something about all the blood.

With the cow’s breaths coming in great shuddering gasps, Fluttershy hummed again as she set to work cleaning and dressing the wound.

The baby sky serpent was right behind her, staring intently at the scene. Its head alone was as big as the whole cow.

“Hi,” said Fluttershy, a little nervously. It might have been the first time the baby sky snake had heard her really sing. She had received him as a gift from a sea serpent they had run into on their way to defeating Nightmare Moon, and ever since then, the baby snake had imprinted onto Fluttershy in a serious way. Great buds on its back that looked like forming wings were more prominent than ever after a long winter hibernation. “Did you want to help me?”

The baby serpent licked the air and didn’t answer.

“O-kay,” said Fluttershy, and went back to humming and treating the cow. She put a bandage to hold the dressing in place.

“Okay, everycritter out!” Her voice cracked like a velvet whip. Critters, or naturally evolved organisms, as their radical wing liked to be called, scattered and left the mother and her calf alone. Fluttershy checked their water and hay, then went inside to tell Mr. Cow that he could see them in an hour. And that Mr. Bear was to be there with them.[10]

[10] Fluttershy, being a worrier, worried about worriers like Mr. Cow. It wasn’t that he might harm the calf, but he hadn’t slept in a fortnight and might fall asleep on it.

Angel Bunny was nearby, thumping his leg on the floor and pointing to the clock.

“Oh, dear!” Fluttershy exclaimed. “I’m late! I’m going to be very late for a very important party!”

She looked outside at the clear blue sky and the beaming sun, scrubbing at the blood matted to her fur with a rag.

“It’s not raining,” she said to Angel Bunny, a slightly manic tremor in her voice. “That’s unusual.”

Angel Bunny thumped his foot and gestured at the door impatiently.

“You’re right, I’ll ask Twilight when I get there.” Fluttershy ran to the door, then stopped and turned. “Have I got all the blood off?” she asked breathlessly.

Angel Bunny, who felt that Fluttershy was sometimes seen as a bit of a pushover by the denizens of Ponyville and could use a bit of an image boost, nodded.

“Then I’m going! Look after the cows for me! They’ll need clean water, and fresh hay, and make sure the mother doesn’t move too much—”

Angel Bunny thumped furiously at the door.

“You’re right! I’m going! Goodbye!”

Fluttershy stood in the doorway, slightly breathless at the shocked faces staring at her. “What’s wrong?” she panted. “What’s the emergency?”

“Yes?” said Twilight, like she had been told the setup to a joke and was dreading the punchline.

Fluttershy followed their gazes to the blood matting her fur.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “It’s not my blood.”

“Fluttershy, you made it!” Rainbow Dash swooped over, leaving a rainbow trail in the air. “Your entrance was almost as awesome as mine. What is this, fake blood?”

“No,” said Fluttershy, “I was just in a hurry, and there was an obstruction, so it ended up this way.”

“Who is that?” a trembling Sonata whispered to Aria, ducking low so Pinkie Pie wouldn’t hear.

“I don’t know, but we are not messing with it,” Aria whispered back. Why did Adagio have to go and draw attention to them like that? Losing her cool, exposing them, and they had been doing such a good job with the humming, almost like the old days. Adagio had such an ear for ways to get friends to fight, but the princesses were a major red button for her.

Rainbow Dash took Fluttershy over to Twilight and the others. “We’ll get you cleaned up. Did you know Twilight believes in global warming? We were just talking about it.”

“Oh, yes, the magazines,” said Fluttershy, with the haunted expression of a good friend who had sat through many of Rainbow Dash’s excited rants about the One Bank. “So very interesting.”

Twilight got Fluttershy seated. Rarity started dabbing at her matted fur with a wet cloth. “I saved a drink for you,” Twilight said, giving Fluttershy the Das Kahlua. Fluttershy took a sip and immediately started coughing. Applejack pounded her on the back, grinning.

“It’s very nice,” Fluttershy croaked. “Um, my, this is a bigger party than I thought. Is everypony here?”

“Plus a filly, plus three merponies, minus a lot of rain,” Twilight said.

“Wasn’t it supposed to rain today? I had a tarp set up for the naturally evolved organisms.”

“Rainbow Dash will fill you in later,” Twilight said quickly, wanting to forestall another argument. “Did you know I can play guitar? I was just singing for everypony.”

“Fluttershy’s a great singer,” Rainbow Dash said proudly. “She really lets loose in the bath.”

Fluttershy, who had turned bright pink, drained her cocktail, or at least tried, ending up with a lot on her chin and another round of coughing.

“Come on, Fluttershy, let everypony hear, you’re really good.” Rainbow Dash leaned closer. “Applejack and me were just arguing, and then Twilight and me were just arguing, and then the merpony started arguing with Twilight, it’s really bad, we’re probably all going to hate each other by the end of the week if you don’t do something,” she whispered.

Fluttershy, the adrenaline from a calving and the strength of half a Das Kahlua swirling inside her, stood up, red-coated and loyal.

“I’ll sing,” she announced.

Then she noticed everypony was looking at her.

“Um,” she added, bravely.

“Ladies and gentlecolts, Fluttershy is going to sing the latest hit single from Countess Coloratura, ‘Bad Friendship!’” Rainbow Dash announced.

“I don’t know that one.”

“Well, she’s going to sing something.”

Fluttershy quavered. It was odd to think that facing down a mad, screaming heifer was no problem at all, but letting a room full of ponies see how she was in the bathtub was just too much.

Then Rainbow Dash slapped her on the back, and Fluttershy realized that the only thing even more embarrassing than singing would be backing down from singing. There was only one song she could think of right now.

♩You think they’re going to laugh at you,
But is it so? But is it so? ♫
♩You think they can hear your imperfections,
But is it so? But is it so? ♫

It wasn’t a very good song. It sounded made-up, with the meter stretched to fit the lyrics. And it wasn’t anything more than a filly’s lullaby. But as Fluttershy got going, or maybe as the Kahlua got absorbed into her bloodstream, her voice rose in confidence and strength.

♩ You thought the rain was coming today,
It wasn’t so, it wasn’t so. ♫
♩ You’re wondering if things will be all right,
It will be so. It will be so. ♫
♩ You’re with all your friends today,
It is so, it is so. ♫
♩ You’re happy to be with them today,
Let them know. Tell them so. ♫

If the arguments that had interrupted the party were like a stormy sea, all fury and wave and motion, then Fluttershy’s song was a warm, hot bath. Something about her voice conjured up bubbles, a good book, and a glass of red wine. It soothed the crowd and set their half-full cups to their lips.

Sonata and Aria ducked low.

“She’s a Siren!” Sonata whispered.

“Really, Einstein?” Aria snapped under her breath. “Let’s talk to Adagio, we’ve got to get out of this town, Banks and Walrasian law and Sirens. This is worse than the 15th century. I didn’t think anything could be worse than the 15th century.”

When Fluttershy’s song came to an end, no pony clapped. Instead the chatter and clamor of a party arose, the events of the Rainy Day celebration continuing on as if there hadn’t been a shouted argument about the economics of a dying ocean only moments ago. Fluttershy, looking gratified, stepped down and buried her red face under Rainbow Dash’s wing.

“That was wonderful,” Twilight said. “I didn’t know you could sing so well.”

“It just comes out that way,” said Fluttershy from under Rainbow Dash’s wing. “I can’t help it.”

“Fluttershy is really shy,” Rainbow Dash explained.

The aftermath of a party is rarely pretty. Even if there aren’t ponies snoring in their own sick, there remains the smell of spilt alcohol and stale chips. Discarded napkins and paper cups have to be picked up. Plates and glasses need to be washed, and eventually somepony is going to have to investigate why there was a long line to use the bathroom, and then suddenly no line at all.

Guests filtered out while Twilight and Spike cleaned up. Twilight rubbed down the tables and took the books out of their plastic while Spike swept the floor. Her friends helped out by picking things up around the library and putting the chairs back. Soon it was only the seven of them and the three merponies in the suddenly large and empty Golden Oak Library.

As Twilight was putting the encyclopedias back into place, the three merponies slithered up to her. It was an odd, awkward motion. It looked adapted for water, not land.

“Listen, about that,” Adagio began.

“It’s fine,” Twilight said. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. Princess Celestia is...was kind of my mentor. I guess I still think of her that way.”

Adagio nodded slowly. “I’m sorry too.” Her voice was softer now, the music just a faint piano tinkle of notes. “I...the ocean, it was a long time ago, but it’s a story I remember. Um...speaking of stories...why did everypony react that way when I brought up Princess Luna?”

Twilight studied her face. “Seriously?” Adagio nodded. “It’s because Princess Luna hasn’t been princess in over a thousand years. She’s been banished. To the Moon.”

“...Wow,” said the blue merpony behind Adagio.

“Excuse me, I’ve been rude. These are Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk,” said Adagio, gesturing first to the purple-pink merpony, then the blue. “We’re from a very long away.”

“Must be, if there’s no news of Princess Luna! Where did all the merponies go, anyway?”

Before Adagio could answer, Pinkie Pie bounded over, bouncing and wagging her fluffy pink tail like an excited dog. “Hey! It was good meeting you three! Ooh, listen! I thought of the best joke. Why didn’t the merpony want to swim in the lake?”

Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy came over just in time to catch the punchline: “Because when she looked in, the water was too murky! Get it? Mer-ky!”

Twilight groaned. But Sonata burst out laughing.

“Ha ha ha ha! Seashells and sandbars, that’s the funniest thing I ever heard!” Sonata collapsed, pounding the floor. “Ha ha ha…! Can’t...breathe!”

It went on so long Applejack cracked a smile and Pinkie Pie started giggling, while the two other merponies looked faintly embarrassed. When Sonata could sit upright, she had her counterjoke ready.

“Why did the Earth Pony eat all the peppermints?”

“Why?” said Pinkie Pie eagerly.

“Because she thought they were ponymints!”

“How is that even a joke?” Twilight said just as Adagio said, “I’m sorry, Sonata is an idiot.” But Pinkie Pie flopped on the floor beside Sonata, convulsing with laughter.

“Hahahaha! Ohhhh,” she wiped a tear from her eye. “Ponymints! I have to remember that one.”

With Sonata and Pinkie Pie entangled on the floor, still chuckling, the ice wasn’t broken so much as invited on board the ship and given a drink to hold. “Since you guessed our names, what about yours?” Aria asked.

“I’m Pinkie Pie,” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully. “I’d shake your hoof, but I can’t get up right now.”

Sonata gasped. I found Pinkie Pie, she mouthed at Adagio and Aria in such an exaggerated way she practically gummed it at them. Aria shot a look at Twilight Sparkle, but she didn’t seem to have noticed. Her other friends introduced themselves as well.

Suddenly Adagio put a hoof to her stomach, a pained expression on her face. Something blood-red was dribbling from her mouth.

“Are you all right?” said Twilight in alarm. “Fluttershy, can you look at her?”

But Adagio held up a hoof. “Just the drink disagreeing with me, I think. It’s been a long journey, and I’m very tired.”

“Oh, no, you didn’t have the Rum Business Cycle, did you?” Twilight said. “I was worried about that one.”

“It was just a long trip, and this has been quite the culture shock,” Adagio mumbled, wiping her chin. “We came from a very long way away.”

Twilight remembered her own first day in Ponyville, and how by the end of it she had wanted to drive a nail through her own head. “I understand. You need some rest. How long are you planning to be in town?”

When Adagio looked uncertain, Pinkie Pie interjected, “Ooh! You have to stay for Monday-week! It’s just real soon. It’s our big spring festival!”

“It’ll be my first Monday-week too,” Twilight said soothingly. “You three can help me learn about it. Do you have a place to stay?”

The merponies shook their heads. Twilight and the others instantly looked at Applejack, whose orange face turned as red as an apple.

“Um,” she said. “This might be a bad time to mention I sort of invited those Flim Flam fellers over. They’ll be bunking in the guest rooms soon, so….” Applejack caught Twilight’s expression. “I didn’t know about how they felt about the Bank and Princess Celestia, I promise.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Twilight said. “I can take somepony. Adagio, how about you stay with me?”

“I call Sonata!” Pinkie Pie said. Sonata giggled and wrapped her foreleg in Pinkie Pie’s.

“I found a guest room under a pile of dresses during some major spring cleaning last week,” Rarity said. “You can sleep on the finest bed in Ponyville, Aria, or on the one in the guest room. Only joking,” she added.

“More like Jokeyville,” Sonata said to Pinkie Pie, which sent the both of them into another round of helpless laughter while everypony else tried to decipher if a joke had in fact been told.

“You’re too funny,” Pinkie Pie gasped. “Twilight, she’s in the gang, what’s her Element of Equilibrium?”

“There’s only five, Pinkie Pie.”

“She can be the Element of Laughter.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You might as well say there’s an Element of Magic and give up on scientifically explaining the economy.”

Adagio held her stomach and winced.

“Let’s get you to bed,” Twilight said. She glanced at Fluttershy, who nodded. “At once,” she added. “Everypony, thanks for helping me clean up. Rarity, Pinkie Pie, if you could…?”

“It was amazing,” said Rainbow Dash to Fluttershy as they walked, or in Rainbow Dash’s case, flew out. “I broke the storm!”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Yeah, it was so cool it should have been! It also might have been. But it was soooo rad….”

“You can sleep in here,” Rarity said. “If the cat scratches at the door, just ignore it. If Sweetie Belle scratches at the door, just ignore it. There’s a toothbrush, and a pillowcase….”

Aria took them wordlessly.

“I, um, I love the color on your scales,” Rarity said with a note of desperation.

“Thanks,” said Aria, tight-lipped, and closed the door.

She sank onto the bed. She really shouldn’t have been rude. But she was exhausted. Too much in one day, the city, the cherries and cupcakes, Ponyville and all its terrors. A Siren Pegasus! Twilight Sparkle in charge of a bank! Banks other than the One Bank!

Stupid Adagio had nearly blown their cover. She thought she always knew best. But when Twilight had defended Celestia to her friend, Adagio had lost it. Aria knew that look in her eyes. She had seen it on humans, in the eyes of mad kings and generals they had sung for. Those were some of the bad days, when they had to buy a night’s safe stay with a performance. There had been a lot of bad days.

Why had Twilight Sparkle let them go?

Not the pony. The floating, changing girl in front of the statue, magic thrumming through her, power crackling at her fingertips. She had let them go.

Why?

Adagio had bit her, poor girl. Aria was shocked to realize she was crying. What was wrong with her? Next she’d be feeling remorse. And that was the end of a Siren. You really had to believe what you were singing, or it didn’t work.

Stupid, stupid. Get yourself under control. Aria breathed, went through some of her singing exercises. Her tears stopped. But she could feel them, like a river held back by a dam, ready to burst forth.

Adagio was getting worse. The thought brought a single, short sob from Aria’s lips, before she caught the next one, choking it back. Adagio was getting worse. She had been for a while. It was the hunger. It was driving them all a little mad, but it was affecting Adagio the most. She was...erratic, sometimes, and violent, and too brash. Losing her grip.

What would they do without Adagio?

They had always been together. Through it all. No matter how many times she had wanted to leave, had threatened to leave. Sirens hunted in packs. That was that. And if you didn’t have exit, you better have a damn good voice.

Aria’s voice was pretty good, even on an empty stomach. Once she ate, she would feel better. Once she ate.

Sonata couldn’t sleep. She was too excited! All the drinks had been so much fun to try, they each had a funny name! And then Pinkie Pie, who was just the best, had taken her into her bakery, where it smelled like hugs and cinnamon, and showed her the cakes she was baking, and let Sonata squeeze the frosting on one. It had been such a mess, they had gotten frosting everywhere and had so much fun.

Pinkie Pie had looked at the cakes with such anticipation. Sonata understood. They looked so delicious, but she couldn’t eat them yet. It was pure torture! But better to wait. That way they would taste the best.

Just like with Pinkie Pie. The love in the bakery was so strong. Pinkie Pie practically glowed with friendship. She had bragged that she was friends with everypony she ever met, and Sonata believed her. It was so hard not to take a bite out of her right then and there! But better to wait, better to wait, until Pinkie Pie was completely ready to eat.

And Adagio and Aria thought she was stupid!

Pinkie Pie was so nice and so much fun. It was too bad, really.

Adagio lay in bed, clutching her stomach and thinking.

So. This world’s Twilight Sparkle was actually formidable. Puissant, and not a pathetic, worrying coward. If the human Twilight had spent less time worrying about how others felt about her, they would have liked her a lot more.

So maybe not that different, then. This Twilight seemed above it all on the surface. Adagio could feel her emotions when they were talking, the work drive and the numerical bent. But there was a sensitivity there, just more...focused. She cared a lot about what Princess Celestia thought of her. And what those five ponies thought of her. Flim and Flam, who perverted both, were just a lever.

This Twilight had fewer weaknesses, but she was more brittle.

Adagio was looking forward to shattering her. She hadn’t had a homemade meal in over a thousand years.

Funny. This world was home. But she had spent almost all her life in a different world. An alien, cold, cruel world. Now she was finally home. And she felt more lost than ever.

Real funny. Even Sonata wouldn’t laugh at a joke that bad.

Adagio nearly doubled over as a wave of pain shot through her stomach and up her back. It hurt so bad it brought tears to her eyes.

What’s happening? she thought miserably. Why me?

Stupid Sonata. She had to go for those cherries. And Aria, always critical, never taking the initiative. She was the one who always had to lead! To decide!

Calm, calm. Ignore the pain. Force it down. It’s nothing compared to the pain in your second stomach. You survived that for over a thousand years. A bad cherry won’t kill you. You’ve been through so much.

I just need to eat again, Adagio thought. It’s been so long. I just need to eat again. Then, when I’m strong, I’ll have my revenge.

Adagio slept the sleep of mad kings and bloodthirsty generals. She woke up twice from the pain, sobbing out loud. Neither Twilight nor her pet dragon seemed to hear, in the night.

And as each time Adagio sang herself back to sleep, a tired, quiet lullaby, there was a distant echoing rustle in the leaves.

The Golden Oak Tree heard.

Author's Notes: