Author's Notes:

It lives! This is not a false alarm, I am actually back to writing this story after a too-long hiatus, along with a few other pieces in the works to hopefully make up for the long absence. For those of you who've been following my stories, thank you so much for your patience. If you're a newcomer, I'll try to make the rest of it worth your time.

It's one thing to face monsters in the field. They get comfortable in their favored hunting grounds, and that makes them predictable. The really dangerous monsters, the ones that terrify me the most, are the ones that will follow you home.
-- Lute Drops, monster hunter

It should be noted that while the city of Canterlot was most directly impacted by the machinations of Eclipse and Lady Moonshadow, the shadow blanketed Equestria and lands beyond, to the farthest edges of Harmonia where the Sea of Chaos lapped at the shores of reality. Even those among the sapient races who had never heard of Eclipse felt an ominous dread as they found their world cloaked in a persisting umbral darkness.

For all that the darkness was a universal experience, though, the terror felt by the ponies of Equestria was all the more visceral for its specificity. A millennium of cultural memory gave a name and a presence to the entity. At the very moment that Eclipse, wearing the flesh of Equestria's ruler, stepped into a sky chariot attached to bat-winged vamponies, its presence was felt throughout the land.

Eclipse lurked in darkened alleys from Manehattan to Baltimare. It stalked the strip of Las Pegasus, hunting for souls to steal. Ponies huddled together and watched suspiciously over friends and family out of the fear that to look away for even a moment would mean allowing them to be lost, hollowed out into a vessel for the demon.

Every corner of Equestria touched by the shadow was the domain of Eclipse. All across the land, Celestia's ponies waited and prayed for their princess to restore the sun and moon to their rightful places in the heavens.

As the minutes turned into hours, and as hours began to lose meaning, they continued to wait.

They continued to pray.

Despite this, the shadow continued to cast a veil over all.

In Ponyville, Mayor Ivory Scroll stepped once more onto the podium to address the ponies gathered in town square and wiped her brow, causing flopsweat and greasepaint from her clown costume to smear onto her fetlock.

"Ahem... Fillies and gentlecolts! If I can please have your attention... If I... If I can please..." She stammered nervously, trailing off as the fearful murmurs of the townsfolk drowned out her voice. Pulling out a megaphone from behind the podium, she exclaimed loudly, "MY LITTLE PONIES!"

When this jolted everypony present into paying attention, the mayor continued speaking through the megaphone, but at a more tolerable volume. "Everypony, I was just speaking with Sgt. Striker. She wants to assure all of you that there is no imminent danger, and that our local Luna's Rangers are dutifully monitoring the situation!"

Despite her best efforts to present a calming voice to the rising tensions, though, a voice from the crowd cried out, "How are they supposed to keep us safe if Eclipse is back?! There's only four of them!"

"And only two of them can fly! They can't keep an eye on the whole town," another added, giving rise to a fresh wave of unease from the crowd.

"Hold on, hold on!" The mayor called for calm, banging her hoof on the podium while the muttering persisted.

On the fringes of the crowd, Carrot Top pulled the cape of her costume around herself for security. She had chosen her outfit a few days ago to feel bold and wicked, if only in a playful manner for one night. Devil horns poked out of her mane, but they and the toy pitchfork she had accessorized herself with for the Waking Night festivities felt increasingly inadequate the longer the eclipse persisted.

"Carrot Top! Carrot Top!"

The mare's ears perked up, hearing her name. She turned her head to see a small, squeaky-voiced robot running toward her. Just behind her were a small herd of other foals being watched over by Granny Smith. Sweetie Belle latched onto Carrot Top's leg and clung to her while the elderly mare tried to keep up.

"Evening, Granny," Carrot Top said in greeting. "How are you holding up?"

"Ah shoulda been in bed five hours ago," the Apple family matriarch complained before glancing up at the sky. "... Ah think. Hard ta tell."

Carrot Top nodded sympathetically and asked, "Couldn't Big Mac watch over them?"

"Woulda, but that big galoot's managin' the stall," Granny replied, pointing off toward one of many booths lined up to sell farm-grown treats and snacks, as well as offering a tub for apple-bobbing. Despite the omnipresent sense of dread filling the town and causing most of those booths to be unattended, a herd of mares surrounded the big red stallion. Just for the night, it seemed that Big Mac had shed his trademark stetson hat and yoke in favor of a wooden greatsword and barbarian attire.

"Even in times likes this, mah grandson's drawin' in customers. Real head fer business, jus' lahk his sister," Granny Smith mused with pride. Carrot Top almost didn't hear her, though, her attention drawn to rippling muscles on display. As if following the call of a siren, she found herself starting to move toward the herd only to snap out of it when she felt a squeezing pressure on her leg.

"Oh, right! Hey, Sweetie, what's the matter?" she asked, pulling the little unicorn in close.

Sweetie Belle looked up with big wide eyes in response. "It's Rarity! She isn't back yet, and I'm scared. What if something happened to her?"

Carrot Top swallowed and glanced toward Canterlot. "I'm... I'm sure she's fine," she lied. "It... probably just took longer than she thought to find Applejack, but they're on their way here!"

"She shouldn'ta bothered," a grumpy little voice muttered. Carrot Top looked down to see Apple Bloom cloaked in a tattered black shroud, her face painted pale with a farming sickle strapped across her back. "She's prob'ly jus' tryin' ta get inta that mare's fancy party. Big sisters let ya down that way."

"Wow... I know you're bummed, Apple Bloom, but just... wow," Scootaloo said, walking up. In stark contrast to her usual look, the little tomcolt pegasus was wearing a frilly pink dress with a conical hat, making her look like a fairy tale noblemare. "Rarity went after your sister for your sake, remember?"

Apple Bloom turned her head down to the ground, casting her face in shadow beneath the hood. "Rarity didn't leave fer any of us. If'n she cared, she'd've stayed..."

An awkward silence fell over the group as Granny Smith looked to Carrot Top, who was uncomfortably trying to soothe Sweetie Belle. "Well... uh... I think..." she started to say, only to feel another pony bump into her.

Vinyl Scratch quickly apologized, "Woah, sorry about that! This place is like a mosh pit without the fun." Going without her signature shades for the night, Vinyl's natural red eyes complimented the black cape and vampony fangs she was wearing for her Waking Night costume. "Can't find anypony around here. Don't suppose any of you have seen Pinkie around?"

When she was met with blank stares of confusion, Vinyl elaborated, "Y'know, Pinkie? Pink slip? The Pinkster? From the coffee shop?"

"Oh! Ah... no, not since yesterday," Carrot Top replied, struggling for a moment to imagine the dour mare going by any of those nicknames before frowning. "I haven't exactly been looking. Not after how rude she was to my friend yesterday."

Vinyl blinked. "Rude? Pinkie? Dude, that doesn't sound like her. Then again, she was acting kinda weird last night..."

"Well, she was." Carrot Top's frown softened as she glanced around at the crowd. "Still... I hope you find her. Everything's so... oh, hold on, I think the mayor's got something," she said, noticing an armored earth pony passing a scroll to the beleaguered mare.

Unfurling the scroll, the mayor quickly looked it over and gulped nervously. Banging her hoof on the podium a few times, she exclaimed, "My little ponies, I've just gotten a report from our rangers. There are no signs of immediate danger to Ponyville. I repeat, there are no signs of immediate danger to Ponyville."

"Why did you specifically say 'immediate?!'" One of the ponies in the crowd cried out.

Another one, a pegasus, hovered above the crowd and exclaimed, "Yeah! Before the sun got blocked, there was this big black cloud that came out of the Everfree Forest! How's that not dangerous?!"

Scootaloo blinked in surprise. "What?"

Another pegasus dressed as a sphinx cried out, "Yeah, I saw that cloud! It was moving really fast toward Canterlot right before all this happened! You know what that means, right?"

Scootaloo furrowed her little brow and muttered to herself, "Rainbow Dash...!"

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry," Fluttershy frantically repeated as she fluttered behind Rarity and Pinkamena. Between the poet and the rock farmer, they carefully carried Lt. Sparkle off the train and onto the station's platform.

Once off the train, Fluttershy continued to frantically apologize until Applejack reared up and gently pulled the costumed pegasus down. "Fluttershy? It's not--" The train's whistle blew, drowning her voice out, so she waited patiently as it began chugging down the tracks. Once it had gotten some distance, she continued, "It's not your fault. She just passed out. She just needs a little time to recover, I'm sure."

"Hey! What's going on down here?"

Everypony looked up to see an armored pegasus hovering above on burnt-orange wings. In contrast to the polished, typically golden armor of the Royal Guard, the steel worn by the mare was dull and tarnished, making it difficult to make out the emblem of moon and stars embossed on her breastplate.

"Sunburn! Thank goodness, we could use a ranger," Rarity exclaimed in recognition. "This pony needs a doctor! Can you help us out here?"

The armored mare flapped down to land on the platform next to the others. "I dunno, Sarge has me flying all over the perimeter ever since... wh-whoah?!" She stopped herself, eyes going wide as her focus went to the unconscious unicorn and the starry cape wrapped around her neck and shoulders. "Is... is that...?"

"Yeah, vampony bites! Well, flower bites, but they were attached to a vampony, so technically..." Fluttershy explained. Sunburn looked up at her and blinked a few times before noticing Applejack.

Taking the ranger's silent stare as a request for explanation, Applejack said, "Well, I wasn't there for the evil flowers, but she has been very anemic since we escaped Canterlot, so can you help us get her to the hospital?"

"Uh... yeah, sure. Yeah! Here, give her over. If she's not badly hurt, I can get her some help that'll be closer than the hospital," Sunburn replied, flapping her wings to hover over Lt. Sparkle and scoop her up. "As for the rest of you, I'm supposed to tell anypony wandering around to head to town square. That's where Sarge and the mayor are, so they should be able to tell you what to do until the sky turns back to normal!" With that, she gripped the unconscious guardsmare tightly and flapped away so quickly that it took a moment for the other ponies to realize that she was no longer visible as anything but an orange streak arcing off out of sight.

"Woah... she's fast," Fluttershy exclaimed.

"Best flyer in Ponyville," Pinkamena replied before saying to the two non-residents, "so I should probably let my employers know I'm alright, but I can help you find your way to town square first."

Applejack gave the poet a warm smile and replied, "It's alright, darling. It's been quite a while, but I think I still know the way. Besides, I imagine I'll be sticking close to miss Rarity for now."

Rarity, who had already begun to shuffle quietly away from the other ponies, stopped at the mention of her name and looked back. "You will...?"

"Of course!" Applejack trotted over and put a foreleg across Rarity's shoulders. "You're going to want to find dear little Sweetie Belle and let her know you've made it back, aren't you? She and Apple Bloom are thick as thieves, so surely wherever we find one, we'll find the other."

"Ah, right! Right, that makes sense," Rarity replied. "I suppose we can look for them together. If they aren't in the square, we can try my parents' house or Sweet Apple Acres."

"Alright," Fluttershy interjected, joining in the semi-hug from the other side. "Let's go hunt down some fillies!"

Rarity and Applejack shared a glance. "Actually..." Rarity said as she gently peeled the pegasus off of her, "I'm sorry... Fluttershy, is it? This is something of a personal family matter. There's really no need for you to involve yourself... You understand, right?"

Fluttershy blinked, then let out a chagrined laugh. "Oh, right, my bad! Heehee, sorry, Will's always the one reminding me I don't have to stick my nose into everypony else's business, so I get carried away sometimes. You two have good luck finding your sisters!" With that, she gave each of them a quick hug and skipped off into town.

As she passed by Pinkamena the poet watched her go, then started jogging after her.

Meanwhile, at the center of a library carved into the trunk of a living tree, a bespectacled unicorn fretted over the pile of books stacked in front of her. Golden eyes skimmed across the pages, hunting for certain words as she rapidly flipped through the pages.

"Come on, come on, I know it was in one of these," she muttered to herself, only to reach the end. With a defeated sigh, she shut the book and levitated it to a stack behind her before looking back to the much larger pile still to be searched. She then lifted one from the top of the stack and opened it up.

Just as she took hold of the first page with her magic, the front door of the library suddenly flew open so hard that it banged against the wall. She flinched, then winced when she heard a tearing sound. The unicorn groaned at the sight of the ripped page hovering over its tome, then looked around the stacks to see who was coming in.

"Hey, DD! We've got a situation here," Sunburn exclaimed from the doorway.

"Oh? I hadn't noticed," the librarian replied testily, gesturing toward the books with her hoof while Sunburn came inside. "I'm just frantically doing research all by myself for fun! So can you please not barge in like there's a giant monster on your tail?"

After getting that out, the unicorn took a deep breath to calm herself. "Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. I'm just... wait, there isn't actually a giant monster, is there?"

"Not yet, but the not-night's still young," Sunburn replied dryly before she turned around and started dragging an unconscious Twilight into the tree, shutting the door behind her.

Applejack looked around as she walked alongside Rarity. Despite her earlier certainty that she could navigate the town, Rarity had needed to guide her back onto the right path several times.

"My word, how long has this been here?" Applejack asked, marveling at the sight of a building that, even without Waking Night decorations, looked like it was made of gingerbread and confections.

"Sugarcube Corner? About seven years now," Rarity replied. "How long has it been since you've been here, again?"

Applejack shook her head slowly as she started walking again. "... Longer. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised things have changed, but... goodness, did the sofa store move to a smaller building?"

"No, I don't think so. Actually, they expanded their showroom and added a section for quill pens."

"Quills... and sofas?" Applejack asked, to which Rarity simply shrugged. "Huh. I guess... I'm simply bigger than I was then," she mused, her voice thick with regret.

Rarity awkwardly cleared her throat and pointed down the street toward the Apple Orchard building. "What about when you opened your branch here? Weren't you supposed to be here for that?"

Applejack and Rarity kept walking so the former could look up at the edifice as they passed. "I was supposed to be, yes. It was going to be my big homecoming visit. I had the train tickets in my hooves, but then there was that banking panic in Manehattan. Apple Orchard was still barely starting out, so I had to spend months putting out fires, assuring our investors and customers that we weren't hemmorhaging bits like some of our peers were."

The businessmare let out a sigh. "After that, it was apparent how precarious our position was. I devoted everything I had to ensuring that Apple Orchard wouldn't be vulnerable like that again. Before I knew it, months had turned into years of telling myself that it would just have to wait a little longer until the company was on solid ground, until it finally seemed like things were stable enough to take a holiday. And now here we are..."

Rarity walked along and listened to Applejack as the businessmare vented her feelings. Under her breath, she muttered, "Come on, Rarity. It's not a good time, but just say something..."

"I'm sorry, darling, I didn't catch that. Were you saying something?"

"Ah! Oh, nothing... I just... think I heard the mayor, so we're almost there! Come on."

"You know, if it wasn't for the vamponies and possibly being the end of Equestria as we know it, this would be pretty neat," Fluttershy observed as she fluttered low to the ground, turning around to slowly fly backwards while facing Pinkamena. "Don't you think so? I mean, there's not a cloud in the sky, but everything's got this mood lighting like Celestia put a lampshade on the sun."

Pinkamena cocked her head slightly as she walked down the street. "That's an odd way to look at it," she replied.

Fluttershy beamed. "Well, as my husband and I like to say, 'When the world gets you down, turn it around!'" With that, she did a little half-flip in the air so that she was hovering upside-down. "If all we can do is wait for somepony to fix everything, then at least we can be positive about it until then!"

Pinkamena let out a small "Hmm" as she considered that. "Sounds kind of like something my granny Pie used to say. Whenever I got scared about something, she'd tell me to 'giggle at the ghosties.'"

"Really?" Fluttershy asked, righting herself as she tapped her chin. "Oooh, that's catchy. Heehee, be careful or somepony might steal that!"

Pinkamena replied, "Go ahead, she won't mind," before adding dourly, "besides, it only works when the thing you're afraid of isn't real."

"Not if you meet a comedian ghost who wants to put on one last show before moving on," Fluttershy countered.

Pinkamena blinked a few times as she stared at the cheerful pegasus. "I never thought of that."

"Heehee! See? If you look at it a different way, even bad things can lead to something good! Just smile and be confident, and you'll find your way!" She fluttered down in front of the poet and gave her a big, toothy grin.

Moments passed with the two ponies staring at each other. Fluttershy started to gesture toward her own face to encourage Pinkamena to mimic it, but all she got from the earth pony were a few facial twitches that otherwise failed to alter her neutral expression. Eventually, the attempt started looking like it was physically hurting Pinkamena's face, and she lowered her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I can't."

A confused Fluttershy asked, "Really?" Pinkamena sullenly nodded and started to turn her head away, only for Fluttershy to suddenly reach down and try to raise the ends of her mouth with the tips of her hooves.

When the resulting look on Pinkamena's face failed to approach anything resembling joy, instead making her look more like some sort of demented mime, Fluttershy let go so that Pinkamena's face could snap back into its natural state of apathetic blankness.

"Huh," Fluttershy said before rallying with the suggestion, "Well if you can't smile, what about a laugh? In case you want to giggle with the ghosties?"

"I'd, ah... I'd better not," Pinkamena replied, lowering her head to hide her eyes behind her bangs.

"Really? Why not?" Fluttershy asked out of concern.

Pinkamena looked away and muttered, "the last time I tried to laugh... several foals ran away sobbing..."

"Awww, I'm sure that wasn't because of you," Fluttershy said reassuringly.

"One of them said it sounded like the very concept of hope dying a slow, agonizing death. She was four years old."

There was a beat of awkward silence before Fluttershy waved it off. "Pfffft! Oh, foals say all sorts of silly things. They used to have a rhyme about me not being able to fly," she said before getting whacked by a sign hanging over the door of one of the local businesses. As she rubbed her head, she giggled awkwardly, "Ow! Hehe, see? Flew right into it!"

"Oh my gosh, are you alright?" Pinkamena asked, her usual monotone voice betraying a note of concern.

"Oh sure, I'm tougher than I look," Fluttershy assured her, taking a moment to look at the sign she'd smacked into. "Ohh, 'Bean there, Done That?' That's clever!"

Pinkamena nodded graciously. "Thanks. I helped the owners come up with it. Do you... do you mind if we stop in here for a moment?"

"Only if you don't mind me getting a latte," the pegasus replied as she fluttered back down to the ground and walked in behind Pinkamena.

"Do you see them yet?"

"Not yet. There are just too many ponies!"

"Well, keep looking... just... just please hurry," Applejack replied, sweat trickling down her brow as she did her best to keep standing straight. At the same time, Rarity was having a difficult time keeping balanced atop Applejack's back as she scanned the crowds packing the square for anypony she recognized. Eventually, she leaned too far and her hoof slipped. With a short yelp, she tumbled over and knocked Applejack down with her.

Rubbing her head, Rarity groaned softly. "Maybe we shouldn't have been so quick to ask that Fluttershy mare for some space."

Applejack stood and helped Rarity up to her hooves, then started brushing off her suit. "It's alright, darling, we just need to keep looking. Perhaps we should simply ask for some assistance." She looked up, scanning the nearby skies for a pegasus she could wave down to help them. As she did so, the orange mare did a double-take.

Rarity was looking elsewhere, musing, "Hmm, if we look for a crowd of mares we'll probably find Big Ma-ack!" Rarity choked and coughed for a second when she suddenly felt Applejack's foreleg grab her around her shoulder and neck, yanking her around to look at where Applejack was pointing a trembling hoof. After quickly shooting Applejack a sharp look, Rarity's eyes caught sight of what the businessmare was trying to point out to her.

The unicorn, incapable of expressing herself in any other way, let out a cry of shock that swiftly spread through the entire square once the rest of the ponies present looked toward Canterlot.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

Pinkamena's ears flattened against her head as Fluttershy's shrieks echoed throughout the coffee shop. The building seemed empty but for the presence of Gummy staring blankly at the door while Fluttershy excitedly hopped up and down. "Oh my gosh, he's so cute! What's his name? What does he eat? Is he a baby or just small? Is he a he or a she? Is it okay for me to pet him? Oh my gosh I'm going to pet him!"

The pegasus leaned in close and slowly extended her hoof toward the little alligator, who merely blinked slowly.

Pinkamena, taken aback by the rapid-fire questions, replied, "Um... Gummy, canned food, small, he's a boy, and it's okay though I should warn you, he bites."

"Huh?" Fluttershy looked back to the poet at that last one, and in the instant that she took her eyes off of Gummy, she suddenly felt his jaws clamp down on her leg.

"I-it's harmless, though," Pinkamena quickly tried to explain, reflexively flinching as she waited for the panicked screaming to start.

Instead, the sound of Fluttershy's musical giggling filled the shop. Pinkamena screwed up the courage to look and found the pegasus rolling with laughter as Gummy snapped and nommed at her with his toothless maw.

"Hahaha, th-that tickles! Heehee, you're a hahaha ferocious l-little monster, aren't haha you! Eek! N-n-not the heehehee w-wings!"

Pinkamena just stared for a moment before closing her mouth again. The pegasus was clearly having fun playing with Gummy, who seemed livelier than ever. The sight made the corner of her mouth twitch, but anything that might have grown into a smile died before it could truly begin. Instead, she headed back behind the coffee house's counter and started brewing a couple of pots.

"Get out of there!"

Pinkamena jumped in surprise and quickly looked over her shoulder. Fluttershy had picked up Gummy and was now engaged in a staring contest with him. There was nopony else in the room, but Pinkamena knew that she had heard a voice. Male, but not Mr. Joe's gruff tone. The voice of a stranger who felt so familiar.

The shadow, Pinkamena thought, her body shuddering. The shadow from my episode...

She turned back to the coffee pots, only for the chill she felt to freeze her solid. Where there should have been two pots of rich black coffee, the pots were filling with blood.

Pinkamena reacted instinctively on her revulsion at the sight, shutting off the machines and tossing the pots into the sink to let their contents drain away. Then a blink of her eyes, and it was dark brown coffee once more, now swirling down the drain. She forced herself to breathe, too upset by what she had seen to lament the wasted beverage.

But as she looked down into the sink, the last remnants of coffee settled into the shape of a dark, indistinct face. One that opened its eyes and looked back up at her.

"Get out of there," it said in a distant whisper from a silent, still world. "You can not be there when they come! You have to find her! Find the hidden princess! She is the only one who can stop this! Go! Go!! THEY'RE COMING!!!"

The face in the sink screamed with such force, the words struck her like a physical blow. Pinkamena reared up on her hind legs and lost her balance, tumbling onto her back. She felt the back of her head bump against the floor when she landed, and everything went fuzzy for a moment.

"-st needs a little rest. As much blood as she lost, it's a small miracle she made it this far."

"She's tough. You feel her body when you were healing her? Nothing but lean muscle. She's no librarian, that's for sure."

Twilight slowly opened her eyes. It felt like there was an entire desert in her throat and a team of diamond dogs digging their way out of her skull, but she was awake while two vague blurs talked out of the edge of her vision. She licked her lips, her tongue rasping across them like sandpaper as she slowly turned her head. Greyish-pink and orange blobs of color slowly came into focus.

She still couldn't see very clearly, but a pair of spectacle lenses flashed on the greyish-pink one's face.

"Woah, woah, I'm just saying she's seriously trained. You're fit... ish," the orange one backpedaled after an awkward silence fell between them. Twilight squinted to make the image more clear, and her vision soon focused on the two speaking mares and their surroundings. A unicorn and a pegasus.

The room Twilight found herself in was spacious. She was laid out across one of several bench seats scattered around a room that was lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves on every available wall. And there just a short distance away, the two unfamiliar mares were conversing over a table stacked high with books.

Confused and disoriented, Twilight furrowed her brow. She tried to speak, but little came out except for a dry wheeze.

"Anyway, until she wakes up, just keep looking. There's got to be something in one of these books that'll tell us what to do," the bespectacled unicorn said.

"Sure DD, but I can't stay much longer. If Sarge finds out I'm not on patrol..." The pegasus trailed off, and Twilight noticed the tarnished steel breastplate guarding her torso.

While they talked, Twilight rolled her body toward the edge of the bench so that she could get a couple of her hooves to reach the floor. The room was still spinning a little, but she felt confident that her legs would support her, so she gradually moved off of the seat. However, when she heard the pegasus say, "Still, can you believe it? This Eclipse thing is real, and as soon it shows up, Twilight freaking Sparkle rolls into town," she jerked her head up quickly enough to throw off her balance, and she found herself tumbling to the floor hard enough to draw the other ponies' attention.

"Oh my gosh, she's awake!" The unicorn hurried over and did her best to help Twilight up. "Careful there, you probably shouldn't be walking around yet."

Twilight rolled her tongue around the dryness of her mouth, scraping up just enough moisture to swallow before she tried to talk again. "Who are you...? Where am I...?" she managed to croak out.

"Oh! Right, you're probably really confused," the other unicorn replied with a nervous laugh. "You're in the Ponyville library. My name's Dewdrop. Dewdrop Decimal. I'm the librarian. I, uh... Sunburn here said you'd lost a lot of blood, so I cast a spell to help you recover. You're probably really thirsty, so I'll go get you some juice."

Dewdrop tried to set Twilight down by the table full of books, but when she attempted to extricate herself from the other mare, Twilight wrapped her forelegs around the librarian and held on with an iron grip taught to her by her years in the Guard. "Why not... a hospital? You said... my name...!" she rasped, shooting a look at Sunburn. "How... did you know... who I am...? Who are you really?!"

Seeing her friend get caught in a hold, Sunburn's wings flared. "Woah, woah, easy! I'm the one who brought you here, okay? I figured you'd be just as fine here as in a hospital, especially since nopony knows how to deal with whatever the horseapples is going on! And... uh... I know your name because..."

"Because I recognized you," Dewdrop exclaimed. "You're the best friend of Celestia's personal student! I'm... kind of a fan of hers," the bespectacled unicorn sheepishly admitted.

Sunburn added, "Oh, she's a total Trixie fangirl. You should see her trunk full of merch. You could probably fit three ponies in there."

Twilight blinked a few times, looking back and forth between the two mares. On the one hoof, she had never thought of her friendship with Trixie as anything that would get her recognized outside of the places they frequented in Canterlot. On the other, she had to acknowledge that it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility. Dewdrop's embarassed blush over being called out as a fangirl certainly looked genuine, too.

Feeling a surge of guilt over assaulting a probably-innocent pony, and a fan of Trixie's at that, Twilight slowly released her and let herself flop over against the table. "Sorry, I... I'm sorry."

Dewdrop replied graciously, "It's okay. You must've been through some really crazy stuff. I'll just get you that juice so you can rehydrate and... I don't know, maybe you can help us figure out what to do."

Twilight wasn't sure how much she would be able to help with that, but she nodded anyway. Dewdrop seemed a little relieved, in any case, and went off to another room. Once she was gone, Twilight glanced over the piles of books spread across the table's surface and asked Sunburn, "Why does she have all the 'E' books off the shelves like this?"

Before the pegasus could give a reply, though, there was a sound of rapidly-approaching hooves racing up to the front door, which was subsequently flung open with such force that it nearly tore off its hinges. The earth pony who came rushing in looked around frantically, calling out, "Dewdrop! Dewdrop, where are you?!" When her gazed panned across Sunburn, though, she suddenly ran over and wrapped her forelegs around the pegasus, squeezing her tight with a crushing strength that put Twilight's earlier grapple to shame. The steel plating of the ranger's armor actually sounded like it was bending from the force until Dewdrop came back with a pitcher of juice levitating in her magical field.

"Spot Light, is everything alright?" Dewdrop asked, letting the pitcher float over toward Twilight, who took it into her own magic and started drinking straight from the vessel. She started slowly so that her dehydrated body would accept it more easily, but soon found herself drinking in big, thirsty gulps when the craving for moisture and nutrients took over.

At the same time, the mare called Spotlight relaxed her grip, but didn't let go of Sunburn. "Yes, and thank Celestia," she replied to Dewdrop. Twilight's body convulsed a bit, and she ended up coughing into the pitcher, but it went unnoticed by the other mares. "The cavalry's here, and she'll have everything sorted out soon."

Dewdrop looked at the newcomer with a confused expression. "'She?' Spot, who are you talking about?"

"I just told you," Spot Light replied, smirking a bit at the librarian. "Thank Celestia. The princess is right here in Ponyville, and everything's going to be alright!"