First off, Twilight decided they should visit Fluttershy.

All three of them stood outside the little wooden gate -an obstacle laughingly easy to step over for Raegdan- watching the myriad of animals weaving their way around Fluttershy’s property. There were birds of course, from humble sparrows to even an eagle. Mice and lizards ran among the grass, chickens clucked, and cats lazed in the sun. Beavers, weasels, dogs, and other, even larger animals could be heard from behind the house.

It was an open zoo where somehow no animal ever hurt another, and none of them would ever even think of crossing the borders of Fluttershy’s property and disturb anypony. Nopony knew how Fluttershy did it or even if she did do anything. As soon as an animal was let in it was as if it knew the rules and obeyed them.

“What do you think?” Twilight asked, watching a stork pop its head up from the roof before vanishing again after a second. She went back to searching the grass again. There were snakes slithering in there, she just knew it, but she never seemed to find any, even though she swore she heard their hissing.

Luna’s eyes were measuring distances. “I am worried for her sake. A little too close for comfort to the Everfree Forest, isn’t she?”

“A little, yes,” Twilight admitted, having had the same concerns once. “I think it’s part of why she bought the land so cheaply. She’s never been bothered by anything though. At the very least she has enough animals around here to make anything trying to creep out of the forest too wary of approaching her cottage. She houses snakes among others, and she has some big animals as well. Even a bear.”

Luna’s ears perked at that bit of information. “I have to reconsider how I thought of her then. It is quite unexpected that she is still alive if she slumbers with such threats within and without.”

“She is perfectly safe,” Twilight argued, having seen Fluttershy’s skills with animals too many times. “What do you think, Raegdan?”

Raegdan was turning his gaze from left to right, taking in everything with levity and some enjoyment, but his one-eyed sight would always be pulled by the chickens. The feathery animals had started making their distance from them, probably feeling his attention.

“I think I’d like to do some shopping.” He wiped his mouth and pointed at the chickens. “She sells them, right? Could I buy a couple of—”

“No!” Twilight cut him off.

“But if I pay whatever she asks—”

“If Fluttershy sells you or gifts you an animal it is because you are supposed to take it in as a pet. Not to eat it! And no lying to her either. She’d be devastated if you did this.”

“Heavens, fine! I’ll eat the damned chimera then!” He half-yelled in exasperation. “It didn’t even have the decency of being cow instead of goat…” he mumbled.

Twilight’s hoof froze an inch away from the wooden gate. “Cow? You’d eat a cow?”

“You have cows? No one told me you have cows! That’s amazing! I’ve got to get my hands on—” He paused mid-sentence, and covered his face with his palms. “Oh heavens. Don’t tell me. Cows talk, don’t they?” His voice was muffled, but Twilight heard him clearly.

“Of course they talk! Luna, stop sniggering, this is bad! Raegdan, have you… have you hurt a cow?” Twilight asked. Too, the little, dirty voice added.

Raegdan shook his head, still covered by his hands. “No. Heavens damn it, the universe hates me! One world that has plenty of cows and they fucking talk.”

Twilight understood now. “You had them back home too? And they didn’t talk?” she asked to make sure.

“Well, they said ‘eat me’, but they did that by being really juicy and tasty, not words.” He uncovered his face with a sigh. “Let’s go in. I’m feeling extremely sad now, and I need something to make my mood better.”

“Didn’t the chimera talk as well?” Luna questioned.

“It did what?”

“I don’t care if it sang, and no looking at me like that, Twilight. It would eat Applejack if it could. I am not doing anything it wouldn’t do. I’m playing by its own rules.”

Twilight knocked on Fluttershy’s door, and they waited for the pegasus to answer. “So you want to eat chimera for morality reasons.” She rolled her eyes.

Raegdan tried to peer through the window next to the door. He was defeated by drawn drapes. “Sure. That’s a good one. Morality reasons.”

Luna spoke up after a few awkward seconds of waiting at the door while the conversation wilted. “I admit it. I do want to know what a cow tastes like now.”

“Oh, you have no idea!” Raegdan gushed, his hand movements praising an unknown divinity. “It’s nothing like predator meat. It’s full of fat, tasty, and it’s all great! Ribs, neck, back… The only thing that comes close to cow meat is por—”

“Could you both stop talking about eating people I might know?”

This could have been timed better. Or worse. It was very depended on whether you were a unicorn that wanted the earth to open up and swallow her, or an alien and a princess that had to resort to coughing lest they choke on their laugh once witnessing Fluttershy’s expression.

Fluttershy had—of course, how could it be otherwise—opened the door at the worst possible moment. She was now staring at Twilight with an expression that was frozen in time like a statue, yet managed to convey a full array of emotions, expressions, and ideas through it. Most could be found on the negative side of the social bell curve. Not good.

‘What the buck did I just walk into’, a living performance. Only on Saturdays.

“Fluttershy!” Twilight called out with semi-fake enthusiasm, knowing full well she chose the absolute worst way to deal with a just-distraught friend and not caring. She had no idea what to do and no time to figure it out. “You look great! Did you do something new with your mane?”

Fluttershy’s hoof absently passed over her head in a vain attempt to fix the worst case of mane horns anypony had ever laid on in the last two centuries. If you ignored the lesser known event of 812 C.Y.P., and Twilight did ever since she read about it, jotted down in history as Princess Celestia’s earliest rising, and definitive proof that Alicorn mane fell under similar rules of normal manes.

“Umm… I was in bed actually…” Fluttershy mumbled. “But thank you.”

Oh Celestia, these were small branches in there, weren’t they? Some birds were making a nest, weren’t they? Do I say something?

“That is gre-he-he-ate!” Twilight maniacally continued, forcing her way in and bringing her leg around her friend’s shoulders. She guided Fluttershy back into her cottage and to her couch, shooing away two squirrels who were getting too friendly in the morning. Raegdan and Luna made their way in as well. Luna kept turning this way and that, trying to keep every flicker of movement in sight and having an expression of childish wonder on her face. Raegdan was staring mostly on the floor to avoid stepping on anything. He had to keep his posture low or he would hit his head on one of the myriad of cages and feeders that hung from the ceiling.

“I assume then that you didn’t notice anything missing from your home yet,” Twilight continued, her major objective to forget the previous subject as soon as possible.

“No. Should I have?” Fluttershy innocently asked.

Luna stood on her hind legs, peering through the spaces between books on a shelf to get another glimpse of the white mice she was following around. Raegdan gently struck his knuckles on one end, trying to scare them so they’d run towards Luna’s line of sight. “I’ve never seen white mice before,” she said in a whisper after hopping back down on all fours.

The Alicorn looked around, in search of other wonders of the animal kingdom. “Do chickens taste like cow?”

Twilight almost gave herself a shiner with her left hoof.

“No, but they are great as well. Leaner meat. Did you know, they make great soup? Especially for if you are sick—”

The right hoof joined in.

Fluttershy’s head eased its way back to Twilight’s direction. Her left eye was… pulsing for lack of a better word. Twitching wouldn’t do as a verb. Fluttershy had gone beyond that. Twilight noticed all that while she lowered her hooves, but she also noticed something else.

For a split second, Raegdan and Luna glanced secretly behind them, gauging Fluttershy’s reaction. Their lips tightened as to keep themselves from smiling or laughing, and they quickly turned back the other way again, talking among themselves.

And Twilight realized why Princess Celestia never particularly worried about Raegdan and Luna or what they said and did. Why she encouraged and partook in the madness. Princess Celestia hadn’t been diving in so she could redirect the stream. She was simply joining in. Why? Because...

They were doing it on purpose.

They were having fun.

Messing with them all!

“Muh chickens?” Fluttershy half mumbled, half whispered, and the way she slurred that first word was almost like a bad impression of Applejack, a parody almost. She trembled as well, as if her muscles quivered under their desire to rush out and check against her will to stay in place. And her mane, still going everywhere but where it was meant to…

Twilight started chuckling.

The second she did, she heard Raegdan and Luna copy her from across the living room.

Fluttershy’s ears twitched, and a small twig fell down. The sight upgraded Twilight’s—and Raegdan and Luna’s—chuckling into full-blown laughter. Loud, uproarious and throaty from Raegdan, loud and cackling from Luna. She was barely aware of Fluttershy starting to shyly giggle along, unsure of the joke but finding the image of Twilight banging her hooves on the floor and the couch funny by itself.

No other sounds were heard for the following few minutes.

“That’s not mine,” Fluttershy repeated. The pegasus took the heavy, golden book, but she didn’t open it, satisfied with just looking at it from up close. Twilight, sat next to her on the couch, did the same.

Raegdan’s head fell back, his face turned to the ceiling, and sighed. “So Leaf Stream cheated. Real nice,” he grumbled. Luna didn’t feel justified to warrant this any attention, at least not enough. Her attention was wholly taken by the sight of three sparrows chirping and plucking at Fluttershy’s mane with their small beaks, slowly straightening the pink mane hair by hair with an immeasurable attention to detail.

“Oh, no,” Fluttershy quickly said, sounding worried. “Please, don’t be mad at her. I mean, she got it from here, it just…this tome isn’t mine. If that makes sense.” She frowned in confusion and looked around her, unsure. “I’m… not quite sure where I got it from. But I’ve never read it. You can keep it for your… your library if you want.”

Twilight checked the book again. The golden plating was quite thick and obviously expensive, but other than that it was without decoration. Almost. The edges had a border of thin triangles, all pointing inwards, but apart from that there was nothing that informed of its contents.

“Are you sure?” Twilight asked.

Fluttershy nodded. “Oh yes. It… feels right. That you should have it. Because… ummm…”

“Books?” Twilight teased with a sarcastic smile directed at herself.

Fluttershy was acting far more serious than Twilight was though. She bit on her lips, concentrating her eyes on the book. “Maybe? I’m not sure.”

Raegdan crashed down in the small space between Fluttershy and Twilight from behind the couch, making them both scream with fright. He had moved all the way around and behind them without either of them noticing. Twilight looked up her heart hammering, while Fluttershy was holding her chest. The pegasus’ mane was now in dire need of a good shower as the birds on it were scared—not senseless but pretty close phonetically—and flew off, Luna letting out a disappointed ‘aww’ as she watched them leave through the window.

“Raegdan, what was that for?” Twilight demanded after swallowing her heart back down.

The masked face panned its vision across the room almost mechanically before settling towards Fluttershy. “Where’s my guy? I’ve got a present for him.”

Fluttershy brought her hooves to her muzzle, suddenly excited. “Oh my gosh, Angel Bunny will be so happy to see you! He doesn’t know you are here.” She jumped off the couch, flying in the air excitedly, something that Twilight rarely saw Fluttershy do in her home. “I’ll go call him right now!” She flew out, calling out for her pet bunny in her usual way, which meant she would have to do a few rounds until she happened to be close enough to where he was that he would hear her.

Twilight flatly addressed Raegdan who was taking a small red box from Luna. “You got a gift for Angel Bunny?”

“Sure,” Raegdan said, shrugging and shaking the box in his hands. “Little guy deserves it. He’s funny. He makes me laugh.”

“You didn’t get one for Spike,” Twilight pointed out.

“What? I’m building him a whole new room! I thought that was enough.” He turned to Luna, who reflected some of his burgeoning anxiety. “Crap. Wasn’t that supposed to be enough?”

“I… uh… I don’t… Maybe?” Luna stuttered. “I- I thought that—Should I have-have gotten him something myself as well? Is this how it goes then? One gift each?”

Twilight was starting to see why he liked this kind of humor. Turnabout is fair play after all. She made her eyes dip in fake disappointment and her voice to tremble just a bit at the end. “You didn’t- didn’t get me anything either…”

Raegdan’s arms stretched towards Twilight, his hands making placating motions while he half-danced in place. “Ah, wait, I’m sorry, I’ll- I’ll make up for it right now if you want.” Luna had covered her mouth in shock with one hoof. She frantically started scanning everything in sight as if trying to find something that Twilight might like and magic it into a gift box instantly.

Twilight pressed on, fighting the smile that would turn into laughter if she allowed it to surface. “You didn’t get anything for my friends either…” she mumbled, and then performed the finishing blow:

She sniffed.

Raegdan fell on his knees in front of her. His hands hovered over her randomly, unsure if he was allowed to touch her or not. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’ll go get something right now! I’ll get you books. More than you already have, I’ll drag all of Celestia’s library here if you want. Fuck her, she’s read it all anyway. I’ll get Spike a thousand comics and gems, and I’ll get gifts for all of your friends, just don’t… I’m sorry! I didn’t think!”

Luna was right there, next to him and biting her lips hard enough to leave imprints. “The stores are still open. We can… we can send our guards to buy every single book in town for you! Is that enough? Thestrals! Raegdan, I’ll send them to Canterlot, they can be back with as much as they can carry in a few hours and I have a few personal books of spells, Twilight can have—”

They both stopped when Twilight’s shoulders shook visibly, unable to contain herself. It started off as a muted titter before she started laughing outright in their indignant faces. They looked more disappointed in themselves than hurt in any way, and it only made Twilight laugh harder.

“You sneaky, little—” they tried to chorus.

It’s very well known that large objects can be tipped if struck with sufficient force in an appropriate distance from their center of gravity. In this case, a self-launched bunny aiming itself at Raegdan’s face was enough to bring him down. Especially since he had been sitting on his toes and was unprepared.

“Gah! Hey, little rat. I missed you too!” Raegdan laughed.

Fluttershy ran into the living room, following behind Angel Bunny. “Oh, Angel Bunny! What are you doing?” she asked, aghast. Twilight’s and Fluttershy’s eyes bounced up and down in their sockets, following the bouncing movements of the fluffy white tail.

Luna laughed, half covering her eyes from the ongoing scene. “Apparently, he missed Raegdan a tad too much. Raegdan. Raegdan, he’s not hugging you,” she superfluously explained, Fluttershy turning into a thinner, pegasus version of Pinkie Pie as soon as she could no longer pretend to live in her own projected reality where her pet bunny wasn’t doing that.

“Huh?”

“He’s humping your face.”

Angel Bunny knew his fun was over as soon as Raegdan heard he wasn’t the victim of an animated hug as he thought. The bunny nimbly jumped off, avoiding Raegdan’s palms that tried to squeeze him in-between like a mosquito. The cunning lagomorph avoided Raegdan’s next few half-hearted attempts to grab him as well, blowing a raspberry at the biped.

The white pet landed on the box, and his right foot thumped on it repeatedly, calling for somepony to open it and give him his gift already.

“Umm, may I?” Fluttershy asked for permission.

Raegdan got up, fervently wiping at his mouth. “Sure. Ptuh. Go ahead.”

Twilight was too curious. She hovered over the box as well, along with Fluttershy who slowly unwrapped it with hooves and wings, and Angel Bunny who was trembling with excitement. Fluttershy removed the cover, revealing the homemade gift.

Fluttershy’s ears flattened in fear.

Angel Bunny squeaked in excitement.

Twilight reached for words that faded away like dreams of spring in an ice age.

And Raegdan smiled proudly because he absolutely believed his great taste in gifts had been proven right once more.

They had all gathered in front of the window like petitioners offering fealty, watching Angel Bunny take his gift for… a spin. There was spinning involved. And then thunderous landing.

“At least… At least he enjoys it,” Fluttershy mumbled, trying to find the silver lining before gulping in fear for her quality of life following the next few weeks.

Angel Bunny raised his tiny warhammer over his head. The equivalent of a bloodthirsty cry, modified per ancient lagomorph law, muffled out of his spiked helmet that had been crafted to accommodate his long ears and different head shape. The tiny, moon decorated, spaulders didn’t seem to limit his movements at all, and even though his legs were left relatively unarmored, the cloth replacements that wrapped his fur looked the part well enough.

All in all, he looked disturbingly similar to his patron.

Luna, expressionless and sober, turned to the rest of them. “My apologies, but I witnessed this right, yes? We’ve all seen the same thing? I’m not hallucinating?”

Harry the bear was unconscious and defeated. Angel Bunny kept howling his victory from the top of his foe’s bludgeoned head, while the rest of Fluttershy’s animal cowered in their nests, houses, and cages, realizing the dawn of a new age of tyranny.

“Oh my,” Fluttershy whimpered.

Ponyville Hospital was in sight in front of them.

Both of Twilight’s escorts were quiet, each for their own reasons. Luna walked with a wistful expression, face directed to the sky and enjoying the sun. Raegdan was the exact opposite. He kept his hands inside his pockets, his shoulders were hunched, and he glared sullenly at the ground. Every now and then he would kick it, spitefully.

Twilight had made the decision to order a light jacket for Spike from Rarity. If only because she was curious to see if the little dragon would copy shoving his claws inside its pockets if he had any when feeling upset. Apart from that small, Raegdan and Spike they were both perfect copies in this certain mood.

“I’d heard tales of Cloudsdale, or what later became Cloudsdale, for a long time,” Luna said gazing upwards, as if she was still admiring Rainbow Dash’s home. “I always wanted to visit. I was able to see it from afar plenty of times. Hovering up in the sky, like a mirage, always touched by the light. It was called the safest place in Equestria. The untouchable city.”

“Why didn’t you?” Twilight asked.

Luna tilted her head sideways for a moment before looking back at the colorful speck that was Rainbow’s cloud house. She had really been taken in by the rainbow waterfall. “Untouchable. I never had reason to go. I was never needed there. But I was elsewhere. So I never went. Still, it was very kind of Rainbow to give me a small tour. It was quite an experience.” She turned to Raegdan. “Too bad you couldn’t come inside or walk on it.”

“I’m sure I’ll have plenty of further chances to try walking on a magic cloud and plummeting to my death,” Raegdan responded without missing a beat.

Twilight walked around so she could be at Raegdan’s left while Luna was at his right, effectively pinning him in. “Raegdan, could you tell me what is wrong? You’ve been… off ever since we had lunch with Applejack’s family. Now that I think about it, you barely talked to them. I think Big Macintosh of all ponies talked more than you did. Did the food upset you? I noticed you were sweating. Are you feeling sick?”

Raegdan waved her off. “I’m fine, nothing like that.” Twilight quickly glanced at Luna. The Alicorn’s somber expression was all the confirmation she needed. Again, there was an undercurrent here that she didn’t know about.

“I thought we had stopped lying to each other,” she prodded, lightly pushing him in a firm tone that let him know she wouldn’t stop if she didn’t have some kind of answer better than that.

He huffed. “I don’t like farms. That’s why I didn’t want to go in. It was… awkward. I told you I didn’t want to go into their house.” He took a couple fast steps forward and reached the hospital’s glass doors first, and kept them open for Twilight and Luna to go through. “Why is little pink even here anyway? Is she getting her stomach pumped?”

“No,” Twilight answered. The nurse in the front only had one pony talking to her so Twilight quickly took her place in line. She kept her voice low. “Ever since… Lilly, Pinkie spends a few hours per week here. Especially with ponies that are, umm… not on the mend.”

“That sounds worrying,” Luna said. “Is Pinkie Pie still affected that much?”

Twilight shook her head. “Not really. I mean, yes, it does, but she actually likes it. She says that since they are going to... go either way, the least she can do is make sure they have some company before that. She’s not the only one doing it. There is a small organization with member around Equestria, and Pinkie signed up.” Twilight’s turn in line came up. “Hello. I’m looking for the Cakes? They had an appointment here today.”

Twilight gave Gummy back to his rightful owner. Pinkie rubbed the insensate alligator against her cheek and then placed him on top of her head. Gummy slowly sunk into Pinkie Pie’s mane with a glooping sound, blinking one eye after the other. Twilight kept watching for a few seconds after the pet vanished, expecting to hear the pink, curly mane burp.

“So, pregnant, huh?” Raegdan asked. He walked to the doctor’s door and placed his ear close to it, trying to eavesdrop and ignoring every other patient’s outraged, quiet gasp. “Oh, spell on the door? Cute,” he said, and pressed his index finger on the door. A few seconds later he grimaced and pulled away. “That was not cute. I don’t know and I don’t wanna know what made that noise.”

“Any news, Pinkie?” Twilight sat next to her friend.

“I don’t know, the doctor wouldn’t let me in again, he is still angry about all his lollipops somehow vanishing when I do, but mrs Cake told me the doctor suspected twins, and if they make sure today we’re going to get another crib, but we don’t know yet, this is all too slow, and there are not enough news yet, and—”

“Take a breather, Pinkie. Will they know today?” Twilight asked.

Pinkie shrugged, suddenly becoming quiet and reserved, breaking eye contact to anxiously glance at the door. “Twins will be fun. And mrs Cake is super healthy, so it will all be fine. Right?”

“I’m sure it will, Pinkie.”

“Why are you even worried?” Raegdan asked as he walked back. He didn’t sit down, preferring to balance on his heels as he crouched instead of trying his luck on the low, flimsy chairs. “Get a unicorn doctor to take a look if this one can’t tell for sure. Or Twilight.”

“You can’t do that!” Pinkie Pie said in shock. “That’s super-duper-baddy territory and shame on you for wanting to make Twilight a super-duper-baddy!”

Luna coughed gently. “He doesn’t know.”

“Raegdan,” Twilight started. “The fetus is still developing.”

The biped scratched at his head. “Yes, that’s what being pregnant means. I gave you that talk. So why not take a look and make sure it is developing right?”

Twilight sighed. “When a fetus develops it is very sensitive to environmental changes, especially magical background. It is why pregnant mares are also advised not to travel, as passing through an area with higher than normal levels of magic might negatively affect the baby’s gestation. Same issue pertains as to why spellcasting is ill-advised, unless there is complete certainty that there is danger for either the baby or the mother.”

“Negatively how?” Raegdan asked. He held still, so much that Twilight couldn’t even notice any movement from his breathing.

“Remember Blank Slate?” Luna reminded him. She got into more detail for Twilight’s and Pinkie’s sake. “Blank Slate suffered from the same cause, but was only cosmetically affected. One of his wings is a pegasus one. The other is a thestral one. Luckily for him, flight is still possible. All that happened was his Thestral ancestry to become a bit more… lopsidedly obvious. I suppose Limit Breaker was so affected as well, to a lesser degree though. His body shape is more akin to a pegasus, and you can spot a few small feathers at this withers.”

Pinkie Pie jumped up. “Oooh, I met them both! I liked all of them and they all liked my welcome cake. And Raven purred so much I almost felt asleep!”

“That was him growling, Pinkie Pie,” Luna explained. “I do not believe he enjoys public hugging.”

“So too much magic and you get birth defects?” Raegdan blinked, as if finding the explanation absurd or abnormal. “Then what if the baby is upside down or there’s something wrong with it? Can’t you look? Make the skin invisible or something?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, that would require a spell, and as I said, magic can be potentially lethal at that stage. For both baby and mother. Spells carry their own field, and thus danger when in such close distance. It’s a last resort, and even then it’s usually preferred to deal with any problems after the birth. A spell or a high ambient magical background can… mutate the baby or cripple it. Sometimes they can be actually helpful and positive, but that’s extremely rare.”

Raegdan sat silent after the lesson in magic, staring a hole towards the doctor’s office, almost like every other future parent in the waiting room. Every now and then his eyes would flick to the side, either towards Pinkie Pie or Twilight, and his right hand would grip his left one with enough strength to audibly hear the bones grind against each other.

“I have another question,” he said after a few minutes of silence. “Are either of you planning to ever have one?”

“One what?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Lollipop? Nah. The doctor is out. Again.”

“Kid, of your own,” Raegdan grumbly specified.

Twilight and Pinkie Pie exchanged a glance. “Well, maybe?” Twilight answered. “I mean, I don’t believe either of us has plans or anything, but it would be nice in the future to—”

Raegdan got up in a flash, interrupting her. “I’m gonna go,” he said.

“Go where?” Luna asked, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

“Need a walk. Think. I’ll meet you back at home later.”

Rarity heard a metal tinkle from her back and stopped, her patience reaching its breaking point. She removed the saddlebags from her bag and fiddled with the little clasp on the left one again, doing her best to force it to lock in place once more. She should have known. Little, artisanry decorations like this are just this. Decoration. She bought the adorable clasps because they reminded her of her very own cutie mark, but while nice to look at, they completely failed in doing what they were meant to.

Cursing the day she massacred her expensive saddlebags by stitching this garbage on, she pushed slightly harder, her magic carefully forcing the little pin. A little more. Just a bit more. And… got it!

A moment later it popped off with a snap and clattered on the stone road.

Curse you, you blasted, over glorified tack! Rarity raged, kicking the attachment well into the stream nearby.

She would have done the same to her saddlebags had they both not been packed to the brim with beautiful curtains, tablecloths, lovely knitted couch covers, everything she had available and in mint condition that she wanted to give to Ditzy. It felt unfair to let Luna hoof the bill and Cast Iron to do all the work while she just sat on the sidelines. She wanted to do something herself, and thought bringing a splash of color and a refreshing change would be just the thing.

But thanks to this Tartarus-forged-why-can’t-you-make-a-competent-clasp abomination, she would bring Ditzy nothing but a washing chore. The bags had been filled several pounds past their limit, and if she tried to carry them on her back without something to hold the flap closed, everything would spill out and be ruined.

She sighed. She supposed she could carry them all in her magic, but after this morning’s absurdities she really didn’t know if she should. Even after a short sleep she still felt sore inside, somewhere deeper than muscles and tissue. But important needs must come first. She would have to push herself a little hard today. Some magic endurance practice wouldn’t kill her.

Rarity followed the little stream that crossed through Ponyville, heading for the small wooden, colorful bridge that would bring her around to where Ditzy lived. She lifted her head, having spent the last hundred meters keeping it pointed to the ground as she focused on the effort of holding up her bags with her magic. The sight when she looked ahead again made her forget her weariness for a minute.

Raegdan was pacing back and forth in front of the small bridge. He would walk a few meters and then stop and look south, lifting his arm straight and pointing that way. Then he would, for lack of a better description, sight down his arm and across his pointing finger. He’d stay there for a few seconds, then use the tip of his foot to make a small line pointing straight ahead.

When this was done he’d move to a different position and repeat, glancing to where he had stood before, measuring all the other lines near him with gritting teeth and a low growl of rising anger. A couple of times he would back off and accusingly stare at the drawn lines and mount Canterlot, as if trying to align them with the horizon he had been pointing at.

She wasn’t the only one who noticed his weird behavior. Three mares, Daisy, Lily, and Rose, had come to the other side of the bridge, carrying saddlebags of their own. They obviously wanted to cross, but stayed in place, weary of the unknown biped on the other side.

Well, not quite unknown. Raegdan had already made quite an impression. He’d been in town for less than a week, and there were already printed guidelines in how and when to interact with him. i) Safe if he’s accompanied by Princess Luna, Spike, Twilight or any of her close friends. ii) Extremely Dangerous if he’s accompanied and you want to get smart with any of his escorts. iii) Relatively Safe to approach if on his own, but with great chance of being insulted, mocked, parodied, disparaged, and generally verbally assaulted. If being friendly. iv) Don’t stick around longer than you need, and don’t attempt to give him treats.

It was quite dispiritedly similar to approaching an half-tamed dog.

“Ex- Excuse m-me!” Daisy shouted out, only finding the courage to do so after repeated shushing and pushing from the other two. “W-Would you mind g-getting out of the w-way?”

Raegdan turned to them, paying attention to them for the first time. A glimmer of amusement shined in his eye. He stopped at the center of the bridge, his footsteps extremely louder than he usually allowed them to be. He leaned on his arm, supported by the wooden railing. “I say… not until you pay the toll.

Daisy exchanged a panicked glance with her sisters. “T-Toll? What-t t-toll?”

Raegdan’s finger pointed beneath him. “Well… The toll you pay for crossing me bridge.”

“We’re not paying any toll!” Rose cried out in sudden outrage. “This bridge belongs to Ponyville! Now let us pass.”

Raegdan raised palm stopped them in place. “Uhh… no. Sorry. But a toll is a toll. And a roll is a roll. And if I don’t get no tolls then I don’t eat no rolls.” He smiled, chuckling at their disbelieving faces. “I didn’t make this myself, but…”

“What’s t-the toll then?” Rose asked, taking the lead and glaring viciously.

“Hmm… Tradition says a goat?” Raegdan shockingly offered.

The three sister’s eyes bugged out, and they all took a step back as one. “Wh-What, like a hostage?” Rose asked.

The alien stilled for a moment, as if slapped by an epiphany. Then all of a sudden he started gesturing wildly with his arms, roaring, “Fuck this! Cows talk, goats talk, fucking chimeras talk, I’m just gonna have to take a bite out of you fuckers!”

It sounded like a whistle was in the three mares’ throats with how sharp their screams were. They bucked off their saddles and made for cover, probably the one on their beds.

When Rarity approached, making quite sure she exhibited her disapproval on her facial features, Raegdan was scavenging through the discarded satchels and bags with no care or uneasiness. “That was mean and crass.”

“I’m feeling mean,” Raegdan griped without turning. He found a loaf of bread after digging through stacks of celery and tore through a piece with his teeth, talking while chewing. “I didn’t crush anything though. So stop making false accusations. This is slander and I won’t stand for it.”

“You will, of course, apologize and pay up for the damages you caused to the poor girls,” Rarity said, her hoof pointing at the mess around him. “They didn’t deserve that, and that was their shopping you are looting.”

Raegdan mumbled. Unless Rarity was extremely wrong, it was a repetition of what she just said, only in a less than flattering tone. “If you don’t,” she continued, “Twilight will have to deal with the complaints. Again. Because of your irresponsibility.” That gave him pause.

“Fine, alright. I’ll… arrange something. I’ll get Leaf Stream to talk to them. She’s always up for bitching about me to new people. She’ll settle them down. Are we done?”

“Not yet.” Having made as much progress as possible about his behavior, Rarity now moved her worry to more personal matters. “I would like to know the reason behind your foul mood.”

“Oh, for f—”

“Tut-tut! I insist that we progress through this with as little profanity as possible. A tall order to be sure, but one you know you need to work on. Now.” She fluttered her eyelids. “Won’t you tell your caring friend what is wrong instead of holding it in and causing distress to Twilight?”

He paused, staring down at the half-eaten loaf he held. He sat on the railing at the end of the bridge, tearing small pieces and chewing them slowly. A few slow breaths later he was ready to talk. “You know a saying we had back in my home?” he asked in miserable tones.

“Obviously, I do not,” Rarity said with a smile and a jovial tone, trying to retain a less moody atmosphere. “But I will gladly listen to it.”

He pinched a piece of the core out and rubbed it among his fingers until he turned it into small breadcrumbs and threw them into the shallow stream. Small ripples appeared, flowing downwards, as small fish bit on the offerings. “I don’t remember exactly how it went, but the basic idea was, ‘everything you do should be so your children can have an easier tomorrow.’”

Rarity felt a warm smile pinching her cheeks even higher. “That is a beautiful sentiment,” she said approvingly. “But where does it fit into your current behavior?”

Raegdan grimaced. He turned sideways and spat into the water. “Nowhere,” he admitted, a smile fighting to stay on his lips. “I just thought you’d enjoy the trivia.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand.”

Raegdan sighed and pushed himself off where he sat. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just feeling out of it every now and then. It’s like a sneeze, only I like to annoy others instead of emptying my lungs.” He pointed at the treasonous saddlebags she had rested next to her. “Do you need any help with these?”

“That would be most helpful, thank you.”

It was quite the relief to not have to lug all that weight around, and Raegdan’s mood lifted a little by being of some use, even this little. Rarity didn’t leave the opportunity of their small walk go to waste either. She kept talking to him, mostly planting small seeds and turning his attention elsewhere. To important matters.

Rarity made a point of attracting his attention to a passing couple, and inflating the truth a little by making him think that Luna actually made a comment when it was actually what Rarity imagined she had alluded to. She told him how much she enjoyed the private time she spent with Luna at the spa, and abstractly wondered what plans they themselves had for spending time apart from other distractions.

She enjoyed the hunching of his shoulders with the satisfaction of a professional. Later this evening or the next she would fan the embers she lit into a small flame. It was a matter of time now.

But all little joys must come to an end. “We’re here!” she sang out. True to form, Cast Iron was already there, working. He had carried a table out on the street and was busy hammering some nails at the legs. “Cast Iron, I brought some beautiful embroideries for dear Ditzy. Do you think you can help me put up the curtains? My magic is just not feeling up to par today.”

Cast Iron looked up with a blinding smile. “Sure thing, miss Rarity. Can you wait until I’m done here? Oh, uhh… Hello, sir?” he said, his right hand rising, unsure if he should drop the hammer and salute or not. He had told her before that Raegdan having a simple guard rank and yet being able to not exactly order but always having to be listened to most of the time, but only under certain conditions, made this kind of interaction really awkward.

“Yeah, hey,” Raegdan disinterestedly greeted back. He stood over Cast Iron, watching him work and making the poor minotaur nervous. Cast Iron did his best to ignore him, and after a while Raegdan seemed to lose interest and started picking up whatever was around and fiddling with it. It was obvious he had no goal in mind and was searching for a hint of what to do next.

Cast Iron was trying to find and fit a couple of short enough wooden triangles that he could use to stabilize the last two legs of the table, when Raegdan came back. He kneeled across from Cast Iron and he pointed at him with the wooden dowel he was holding. “How long do you need to finish hammering a few nails? Are your fingers crooked or something?”

“I’m being careful,” Cast Iron testily said, refusing to look up. “It’s called caring for quality. The problem is that it’s easy to judge when you are standing all the way there and sounding off.” He spoke with the tired exasperation of repeating an old argument.

Raegdan hit the dowel against his palm. “You are as slow as a sensual and very considerate fuck. Almost as… quiet as well...hmm...”

Unaware or uncaring of Rarity’s small shriek of distraught at the vulgarity, or Cast Iron’s angry glare, Raegdan stared down at the small piece of wood he was holding. “Huh… I think… I think I’ve got a good idea for what to—”

“Fuck!”

A gang of voices chorused in a variety of volumes, tones, and enthusiasm behind him. Rarity and Raegdan turned as one. A large group of children stood there, repeating Raegdan’s favorite word like parrots. Colts and fillies that had amassed together to play and run on a schoolless day, most of them surrounding Dinky and Stormdrain.To her horror, Rarity spotted even Sweetie Belle, inhaling deeply in order to intone the f-word loudly in soprano.

Spike stood in front of the large group, his face, that he kept hunched between his shoulders, red as sin. He tentatively raised one claw up in suggestion. “Uh… Dad? Language?”

“Oh, heavens no. Your sister is going to kill me.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuUUUUuuu—”

Twilight made her way down the stairs and into the basement that had been claimed away from her possession. Raegdan and Luna stood next to each other in the middle of the large space, using an old table to support various bits and pieces of wood, metal, and wire, along with a plethora of tools. At the moment they were busy leafing through various books, bookmarking certain pages and leaving them on the table, most of them kept open where they marked them, and arguing with each other.

“One tonal range will not be enough,” Luna was insisting as her magic was drawing lines of varying lengths on the blackboard, each of them underscoring a different mathematical formula. “We need an alternating pitch intersecting with the receiving mode in order to get enough reference points. That way we can build the map in layers like you described it.”

Raegdan walked in front of the blackboard, a pencil dancing between his knuckles. He used it to point at one of the equations. “I recognize this one. That’s the number two, isn’t it?”

“You are genius,” Luna deadpanned.

The biped kept staring at the numbers, both hands digging into the top of his head. “I can’t tell what half of the symbols mean!”

“Let’s take it one by one. This is called the plus symbol...”

Raegdan held his sides. “Oh haha, you are so funny. I feel like an idiot though. I went to school. You didn’t. How the hell do you know all that?”

“Because I actually studied every time I found myself in a library instead of wasting my time like you did?” Luna proposed as she made an addition. “Move aside please, I need to correct this section.”

“So I wasn’t a nerd like you,” he said, pouting.

“Ah da da!” Luna raised the tip of her wing to his lips. “An intellectual. The nerd is you, sir ‘what-is-best-in-life?’.” She underscored what she was writing. “And a rather prettier one than you,” she said, smiling and changing a number. “The screen will be quite complex. I don’t think I can cheat through it with my magic as it is now,” she mumbled, the chalk leaving white dots on her chin as she tapped it, lost in thought.

“Alright. I’ll give you that one,” Raegdan consented, turning back to the table to pick up a sheet of grinding paper.

“Thank you.” A thoughtful moment later Luna snapped back to Raegdan. “Wait, which part? Drop the over-pleased pheasant act. Which part? Raegdan? Was it both? It’s both, right?”

Raegdan lazily placed a short ruler as a bookmark and lifted his hands, palms pointing up and weighing the two between them like a scale. “Could be one, could be other, who can truly tell?”

“Do you know what I can tell? I can tell that you are—”

Twilight knocked on the wall next to her to get their attention. Luna’s playful retort was cut short as she greeted Twilight with an excited nod. “Twilight! Come in!”

“Oh, hey lit— Twilight. I’ll go up and continue working on the room in a little bit, just want to finish something here with Luna first,” he said, turning to look at her with a suspiciously guilty stance.

“Raegdan,” Twilight started. “Would you mind please explaining to me why I just had a signed petition for you to be lynched delivered to me?”

Raegdan and Luna did a double take. The chalk piece that Luna’s evaporated magic held had gone unheard, covered by the sound of the falling screwdriver Raegdan was holding.

“Who in their right mind thought that was a good—”

“Rarity. Said you were about due.” The accompanying envelope floated up, trapped in Twilight’s magic, the form itself barely read. “But of course, more ponies have signed up. Oh, will this be a fascinating read. Would you like to make a statement before I make you rue the day?”

Raegdan half crouched and squinted at her, uncertain. “... Celestia?”

Luna collected the fallen screwdriver and returned it to the table, looking perplexed. “We had agreed to keep quiet and not disturb the ponies here. Why didn’t you listen to me?”

Raegdan shrugged. “Perseverance and sheer dedication to my craft. Besides, I barely did anything.”

Twilight cleared her throat at that and removed the letter from its envelope. She pompously fluffed the paper straight. “Apart from the property damage at the fast food restaurant the other day, as well as the assault on Merry Laughter, mister Dedication is also charged with; One(1) count of toll collection without jurisdiction. One(1) count of robbery. Five(5) charges of assault on the rear end of ponies by use of his foot. One(1) count of foal corruption. Four(4) counts of assault by kicking dust into ponies’ eyes. Seven(7) counts of verbal assault, to the point of driving the victim to tears. Three(3) counts of assault by tripping ponies up.Twenty-three(23) counts of public swearing. And finally, two(2) counts of public urination.”

The accused leaned down to whisper to the equally impressed Luna. “Did she actually do the parentheses or was that me?”

“She did.”

Twilight took her time folding the letter and returning it back to its envelope. “And how do you plead?”

“... I had too much water. That’s why I needed to go twice.” Luna furiously worked her jaw, visibly getting frustrated.

“And will you look at all these signatures?” Twilight continued, taking the second envelope out. “I’m… I’m honestly impressed! You managed to get all of my friends—”

“Excuse us? Why?” Luna demanded, incredulity fighting outrage.

Twilight started counting down, drawing a line on the blackboard for each one. “Pinkie thought it would be a bonding experience. Rainbow Dash wanted in ‘cause it sounded fun. Applejack ‘cause you stole and wrinkled her hat. Rarity said this is nothing compared to what will happen if Sweetie Belle recites what you taught her in front of her parents. And Fluttershy because of Angel Bunny’s so thoughtful gift.” She considered for a second and drew another half line. “She also signed in for Angel Bunny because she’d rather he wears down your gift on you than the rest of her animals.”

Luna’s mouth imitated a fish for a few seconds. “Okay. Six… ponies, I guess. That’s not so bad—”

“We also got signatures from the flower sisters. They actually left a little note in here. ‘We got your toll right here’. Hmm, let’s see. Leaf Stream, the Riches, Leaf Stream, Cloud Chaser, Leaf Stream, Flitter, a whole other list of names, Leaf Stream, the rest of the Lunar Guard, Leaf Stream...”

Luna raised her hoof immediately. “Pause. What do you mean ‘the rest of the Lunar Guard’?”

Twilight made room for Luna to read as well. “Here, see? They all signed up.”

“What does this say?” Luna asked, pointing with her hoof at a small notation.

Twilight shrugged. “It’s just a question Leaf Stream wanted answered, but Rarity already told her there would be no ‘dibs’. First come, first served.” Raegdan’s left hand moved to defend his gonads. “But let’s ignore the mob for now. They’re still busy making torches. What’s going on with you?” she asked, a manic smile playing escort to her sarcasm.

Luna flicked her mane, stars falling off like burning meteorites. “Well, currently I am stoking a furnace of rage for a few captains of mine, but mostly a certain flankhole close by—”

Raegdan intervened, his fingers pinching and massaging Luna’s neck. “We are making a thingy that will let you check on the baby without hurting it,” he said all casually and matter of factly.

Twilight’s mind quickly switched gears, from annoyed to morbidly curious. “A thingy?”

Raegdan’s free hand whirled in the air. “I suppose we could name it Thingy Magicus Sonicus unless I manage to come up with something more stupid…”

“A task of mythical proportions to be sure, but there’s no one more fit for the task,” Luna half-hummed, more interested in enjoying the impromptu massage up until her eyes widened and she angrily brushed his hand off.

“... but we got some basic stuff down,” Raegdan continued after taking a short breath. “It’s based on something from my home. It’s supposed to work almost the same so magic will never touch the baby. What we’re going to do—”

Twilight shushed him, her undivided attention on the blackboard. Her gaze flickered from equation to equation, finding common values and interpreting math into meaning so clear it could have come out of a textbook. Luna’s technique was a bit sloppy and archaic—obviously—and she was taking turnarounds where she could easily break through by using more refined methods.

Twilight picked up a chalk stick with magic and started rerouting the numbers. Not stopping there, she drew out a graph with all the required frequencies scaled to time. Input and output were on an equal halve and she made a small change by enlarging the input scale to allow some room for error. All in all though, it was brilliant.

How do you examine somepony sensitive to magic?

You don’t use magic.

“Short distance detailed topography through echolocation,” Twilight almost unconsciously gasped. Her magic clutched the wooden cylinder off the table and brought it before her, examining it in detail. Lines were drawn with pencil over it, with a number of crude, placeholder runes scribbled at one end. An unfinished proof of concept, but one with huge potential.

She could see it so clearly. The wand would work as both input and output, receiving the sound signals it itself send out in order to be reconfigured into an image. Done fast enough it would almost work as well as a real-time view into the womb itself.

Twilight sighed and rubbed at her eyes. “The assignment of the receiving values and turning them into an image… This will take a long, long time.” She smiled forlornly. “Pinkie Pie had her hopes turned up when you left the hospital. She was positive you’d come up with something. Too bad it won’t be ready in time to assure her Mrs Cake will be fine. Still, this will be of great help to so many!”

Luna had been examining her graph, but stopped in order to place her hoof comfortingly over Twilight’s shoulder.

“Well… There’s probably a way to have it ready in just a few days…” Raegdan meekly brought up.

Twilight whipped around to face him. He sat down, his right arm scratching his left forearm and staring at the floor, an almost guilty look in his eye. He glanced behind Twilight, at either the blackboard or Luna.

“I don’t see how,” Twilight confessed after a few moments of twisting the problem in her head. It was a matter of raw workload and experimentation as they would wrestle to convert the signals they would get to something understandable. There were no shortcuts.

Raegdan tapped at the table in front of him, nervously. “There might be… a shortcut.”

She stood corrected.

“Do you remember when you told me the two foundations of using magic?” he asked, his fingers tracing the rough lines of the wooden table’s surface. “One is intent: The sheer fact and shaping of what you want done. The second one is understanding: How and why it’s done this way. It’s why theory makes spells easier as well as practice, why you break down spells to examine them and how it takes so less magic to work alongside the laws of physics instead of against—”

Twilight interrupted him, stopping his droning recital. “Yes, that is all kindergarten level. I know that the basics are important, but I don’t think something that much basic will be of use. What is the shortcut?”

“Do you remember that color spell you learned once? The one that you could change the colors of an object?” he asked, trying to scratch out a splinter from the table with not much success due to the leather gloves he wore.

She did remember that spell. It never was that useful as there were others that built on that and had much greater flexibility. What she remembered most was how he told her about light and how his people used it. A flash of cognisance told her that that was probably the event that led him into mentioning microscopes to Princess Celestia.

“Here’s the thing about that spell,” he continued on, raising his index finger. “It knew what to do when even you didn’t.”

“Yes, but you had helped me figure out how to turn the apple to the color I wanted,” Twilight reminded him.

“That doesn’t matter!” Raegdan barked, his palm hitting the table. “You didn’t know how the physics worked apart from a vague idea. I don’t know how it exactly works! Yet the spell got it. It made it work.”

“But this is what magic does.”

Raegdan pointed at her in triumph. “Exactly! There’s more to it that what you intent and understanding how it works. The magic takes that intent, takes that understanding, and it translates it! It finds the best way to use itself to make what you want. That’s why if you know more and visualize what you want, and more closely to how it works, it makes a spell easier. It takes less magic to translate your intent and your understanding into the effect you want.”

He lifted three fingers up. “So make that three foundations of magic. Intent, Knowledge, and Translation. Magic is spent as it reads your mind or will and it translates it to something workable, even if you don’t know how or even have the wrong idea. That’s why it’s harder to do something when you are going wrong about it. Magic is wasted as it looks for the proper way around to translate your intent when your understanding is wrong.”

Twilight shook her head. That shouldn’t be making that much sense. And there were holes in this theory already. Foals were sometimes able to cast magic beyond the capabilities of grown up unicorns, sometimes with unbelievable ease. She had done it herself once, a feat that she could only replicate with extreme difficulty, if even so. What about them, then?

Admittedly, a child could intent something like that. She herself had wanted at that moment a dragon to pop out of that egg, and her parents to stop watching her like that, expecting so much when she couldn’t deliver. She had been thinking…

She had been thinking of dragons. Of huge, scaly beasts, but also she wanted a baby to come out of the egg. She wanted her parents to stop looking at her, but she still wanted them close. She didn’t want them gone in any way. And if Raegdan was right… then the magic translated to that as close as it could. Spike became a huge dragon, but still baby like. Her parents changed to plants, living yet unable to see and speak. It… in a way it was exactly what she had wanted, wasn’t it? If seen by the combination of the eyes of a child and magic doing its best to bring it to life.

No, no, that made no sense yet. Suppose it translated intent, fine, but what about understanding? She had no idea of how to perform spells such as these. She had no idea where to even begin. Her mind was a total void, she didn’t even have any—

—any preconceptions…

That’s why it had been so easy!

“I don’t need to know how to turn the readings into an image,” Twilight half-whispered to nopony else but herself, but Raegdan was already nodding along as she thought loudly. “Given enough magic to power it up, I can create a spell based on intent alone. I can then separate the spell to its base components and recreate them. I can test how close to the mark my hypotheses of the inner workings are by changing the conception of the spell and measuring its difficulty and magic consumption. Most importantly, if I have enough magic… I can have a fully working prototype ready in days instead of months!”

Raegdan smiled on her. She hadn’t seen that specific smile in years. The one he gave her when she caught on to a concept or idea that he tried to explain to her, prodding her to understand in her own way. One of pride. She smiled back.

Twilight skipped along the basement walls, her magic picking up the books and marking their helpful bookmarks. It was almost everything she would need to start! Even the beginning runes to design the matrix for the acoustic wand. They even had the tools out. She could begin work right now!

She felt like flying, and she surely would if she sported a pair of wings like a pegasus. As it was all she could do was run excitedly around and gush profusely while hundreds of ideas scrolled down her mind’s eye, hoping she would remember at least half of them later on.

“This is amazing! Do you realize how many doors this opens? This will rewrite spell creation as we know it! Not to mention the effect on other fields. Oh, if this is somehow possible with more than one unicorns casting together, we could achieve so much with a concentrated pool of magic! Worst case scenario, I can ask Princess Celestia to give it a shot. Nopony has as much magic available as she does!”

“Let’s not get crazy now.” Raegdan quickly pushed himself up.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Again? I thought we were over this. Princess Celestia just wants to help.”

“Hey, I don’t have a problem with that. But you saw what happened today, and you know how busy she already is. Let’s not make the Solar Guard think we are brainwashing their little princess anymore than we already do, heavens only knows what the Royal Guard thinks about us as well since they take their cues from them. We don’t need to go to her every time we need to pee.”

“Well, she is a very busy pony…” Twilight admitted, worrying her lip. “But this can be so useful and important…”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Raegdan offered. “I’ll tell you as much as I can about how we did it back home. After all, we didn’t have the ability to break physics, so it will be easier if you try to get it as close as to how my kind does it, right?”

“Any question I want answered?” Twilight asked in excitement she rarely felt at this unprecedented offer.

Raegdan shook his palm sideways. “For… a given amount of any, sure. But you don’t bother Celestia, okay?”

She jumped up to hug him, unable to help herself.

She never noticed Luna glaring at Raegdan, nor Raegdan return an apologetic stare.

I grab the side of the board I finished hammering and shake it harshly. It barely moves. One more down. Only three more to go and this wall is done. All that’s left than is the east wall where the window will go, and the outside part will be done.

I’m still worried about the damned insulation. There is something similar to insulation foam here, but the fucking canisters… According to the instructions there is enough in one to do more than half the room, all of it condensed into a single can with magic. I’ll have to get someone else to do it for me when I’m done with the outer wall. Who knows what will happen if I pick that thing up?

I can guess, and I ain’t taking.

There’s a light knocking on the doorframe behind me. Twilight, of course. She had been sitting there watching for a couple of minutes while I pretended not to notice. She never exactly had the lightest of footsteps.

“Raegdan, it’s late. Can you stop with the hammering? I am going to have a hard time making all the trouble go away tomorrow at the mayor’s office, I don’t need to have extras tucked in,” she said, trying to make a joke out of it, but she is obviously worried.

“I want to finish up before I stop,” I explain. A thought hits me, and I pick up a large red rag from the floor. I tear off a piece, fold it on itself until I make a good, thick pillow, and then place it over a nail. I give it a hard tap, and there’s barely a sound apart from a muted thump, more of a sensation that noise. “How’s this? I’ll be done in a little while anyway.”

“I suppose that is okay,” she says after a moment of thought. “I would have preferred a silence spell myself, but from you that is impossible. Just don’t be too long, alright? Spike is holding off from eating his dinner because he waits for you.”

“Just a few minutes, I promise. Half an hour at most.”

She nods and leaves. Well, I promised. Better get to it. I get the next board and start nailing it into place. It’s awkward to do so while holding the cloth and almost hanging myself all the way out over the ground, but what can you do?

Four nails after and it’s held in place by its middle. I shake it a little. Nowhere near sturdy enough. I need nails at the top and bottom. I take one more out of my pocket, and hold it in place, along with the cloth. It’s easier without having to worry about the board, but still slow. Slow but a necessity.

Every couple of hammer strikes I pause, listening intently for a second. Nothing. Just quiet. Two more strikes. Still quiet. No shuffling, no dragging. Two more strikes, and the nail is in. Next one. Two strikes. Pause. No moans, no groans. Two more. I check my left and right. The city is dark like every night. I can’t see but won’t be seen either. The shadows are clear. No clawing arms reaching out. Safe so far.

The perimeter is almost secure. Just one more board after this one. Next nail. My eyes catch a glimpse of red on the floor, but I quickly remind myself not to worry. They don’t have a sense of smell so I don’t need to clean up the blood. But they never stop, and if there are enough of them, they can remember recent changes. I have to finish quickly, but without noise. Two more strikes. Nail’s in. Next one—

“We agreed not to tell Twilight,” Luna hisses. I didn’t hear her coming up. Sneaky little princess had timed her steps to the hammer hitting the nail. “We agreed not to tell anyone!”

I shake my head and pick up the red as blood rag from the floor. It’s dirty, but better some dust that being drenched in sweat. “It’s going to be fine,” I assure her, trying to dry out my clothes and mask by patting them down.

Luna doesn’t believe me. “Not if she makes the connection.”

“She won’t. Trust me, she won’t.” I go near her, getting down on one knee. “Look, she won’t even think about the Elements. She won’t bother, not when she can’t experiment with them while she has so many other things and ideas to keep her busy. She is not going to figure out what they did to you.”

“Let’s hope so.” She massages her head as if suffering from a headache. “If she considers it even for a second she is going to rush to Celestia to ask if it’s possible. Then it’s back to—”

“Stop!” I pull her hoof and hold it tight. “She won’t, and even if she does, even if the worst comes to pass, you are not going back up there! How many times do I have to say it? If you are so worried about it, maybe you could… stop her from thinking about it?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Luna’s eyes harden. She’s angry. Genuinely angry. “Not again!” she hisses, trying to keep her voice low. “I am not meddling into their minds, any of them, again! I only just finished removing the constrictions! It’s enough that I have to keep the spell up to stop Twilight from remembering about Honest Serenade or what I did to her in my anger after the first time I used such spells on them, but trust me, first chance I have I’m getting even them off, so you better deal with Honest Serenade sometime soon and end her threat or—”

“Why don’t you fucking let Twilight know how you fucked her up instead, first?” I counteroffer. “Almost literally, I may add?”

Luna pulls her hoof out of my grip and I regret what I said already. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have. Luna would never have done that if she hadn’t been angry because of what Twilight said. And Twilight spoke like that only because I completely fucked up.

Heavens help me but all too often I feel like the source of all stupid lately.

“I’m sorry,” I immediately say. Damage control. Do something to fix this, you idiot! You fucked up exactly like that once already, that is why you’re sneaking off to Rarity every night isn’t— Right. Rarity.

“Look, I’m… I’m kind of feeling strained. You too, I guess, and we haven’t been exactly spending time together. We’ve had zero private time to talk or have some fun to relax together like we used to,” I explain as an excuse.

She is fighting a blush for some reason. What did I say?

“What do you mean?” she asks, taking a step back and averting her face a little.

“Well…” What was I thinking? I had an idea, what the fuck was my idea? “We could… you know, go and take a walk or something just the two of us? Around Ponyville? You know, I made a day for Spike, one for Twilight… Maybe I should make one for you? Us?”

“A… walk?”she repeats, almost shyly, almost… offended? What’s gotten into her? “Just a walk?”

Is she disappointed? Crap, she sounds disappointed! Fix, fix! Abort the walk, figure out something else!

“I, uh… not a walk…” Crap, crap, crap. Not a walk, then what? “Something else perhaps?” Her eyes light up. I’m getting warm. “You know, give me a day or two to find something fun to do together. Something new. Know what, I’ll go ask—”

“Rarity,” Luna and I chorus together.

I blink. Then I get my face closer to her. Uncomfortably close. She’s feeling guilty for some rason. I can tell. She sweats like a pig and her eyes twitch more that a junkie on withdrawal, so I do have a clue or two to help me be more certain in my suspicion.

“What exactly am I missing here?”

“About two more boards, seeyouwhenyougetdownfordinnerdon’tbelate,” she spurts and she’s gone. The door slams behind her.

Something’s up. I don’t like it. It’s always my ass that gets burned when something’s up.

Nothing to do now but finish up for now. I pick up the second to last board and drag it over. Ponyville is glowing with so much light from every lit window that I barely need the gaslamp. I turn it off. The extra light makes it easier, but it always feels bad to waste resources when I don’t have to, even when there’s so much around.

I should hurry this up, but I turn to take one last look south. The view is clear from up here. I can see the silhouette of Applejack’s barn up on a hill in the distance, the edges lit by moonlight. The farm. Their farm. I shouldn’t have gone in their house. It felt like spitting on a grave.

I wonder what happened to them. I wonder, but not for long. I got a sneaking suspicion that I’m far better off not knowing. That no one knows. The fact that I want to scream when I try to find out is enough of a hint. But still…

Exactly what happened?

The Apple farm isn’t what really made me turn south though. Not this time. It’s something far more away that concerns me. I can’t see it of course. It’s too damn far away.

The rift to the northeast is way too close. The pain from it is like a tidal wave. I can barely feel the ache from the other ones. But the one from the south… I’m still not sure.

Did it move? It couldn’t have. Not unless something went through. In or out. Who knows which.

It’s too far. Best thing to do is wait. If something left, then nothing we can do. If something came and it’s bad, we will hear about it sooner or later. If it’s something too big there’s fuck all we can do anyway until it gets here. Same deal as with Charybdis. Besides, I doubt the rift was used either way. I would have noticed.

… Unless I was asleep at the time.

No. No, it’s still there. Nothing happened. I could tell for certain the other time. I just notice that one more because I’m closer to it that I usually am. I’ve been staying too close to the other one for too long. Canterlot fucking ruined me. The rifts are quiet. Well, for the everyone else other than me at least.

I refold the torn cloth, and start hammering. Better finish quick. I’m wasting time. Never waste resources. It’s not a good idea.

Two strikes. Pause. Listen. Two strikes. Pause. Search the surroundings. Two strikes. Pause. Listen...