Nopony spoke as they entered Diamond Tiara’s house. Silver Spoon seemed to be waiting for Diamond Tiara to speak first, but Diamond Tiara had no desire to do so whatsoever. As such, Silver Spoon had given her space, allowing Diamond Tiara to sit in the study alone while she went back to help Pick retrieve the damaged drone. Paradoxically, being alone was the last thing that Diamond Tiara wanted- -and yet she could not stand the thought of being around another pony after what she had just done.

So Diamond Tiara just sat in a reasonably uncomfortable chair in front of a glowing fireplace, watching the fire and trying to keep her mind from racing. She was not sure how long she sat like that before the door behind her creaked open and her heart nearly stopped.

“Diamond Tiara?” said Silver Spoon, stepping in. Diamond Tiara turned, seeing Pick lurking behind her.

“What’s the damage?” asked Diamond Tiara.

“Damage?” asked Pick, confused.

“I just decloaked your drone in the middle of town. No doubt ponies saw it. What’s the situation?”

“Well…they saw it. And now…you know…”

“Know what?”

“Well, everypony thought it was a new Rich Tech prototype. The tech magazines are already all over it. There’s more hype than there are muffin trees in Ditzy Doo’s yard.”

“This is exactly what I wanted to avoid,” said Diamond Tiara. “But I’m sure we can leverage it somehow. Maybe I can get daddy to finally take the company public…but I don’t know how I’m supposed to afford a controlling share when the prices are this high…”

The room fell silent, save for the crackling of the fire and the barely inaudible ticking of the clockwork that covered Tick’s body.

“Diamond,” said Silver Spoon. “We need to talk about this.”

“No, no we don’t,” snapped Diamond Tiara. “Nothing is wrong.”

“Nothing being wrong?” cried Pick, entering the room completely. “Do you know how badly you could have been hurt? I realize that surface-ponies are both stupid and ignorant, but you of all should know better!”

Diamond Tiara looked down at her hoof. It was now bandaged, and it hurt badly. Pick had done his best to repair it, but burns from technetium machinery were not like regular burns. There was a chance it would never heal properly. Even knowing that, Diamond Tiara refused to see a doctor- -and regretted nothing.

“Everypony makes mistakes,” she muttered, turning back to the fire. “Nothing is wrong with me.”

“Nopony said- -”

“NOTHING IS WRONG WITH ME!”

To punctuate her sentence, Diamond Tiara picked up a glass of juice and shattered it on the mantle of the fireplace. It broke into thousands of expensive fragments, and the contents slid down, some of them boiling as they fell onto the hearth below.

“By the solar rump,” swore Silver Spoon under her breath. She crossed the room and literally turned Diamond Tiara’s chair around to face her. Her pale violet eyes looked into Diamond Tiara’s, and more than anything, Diamond Tiara felt ashamed.

“Diamond,” she said, her voice tinged with a sternness that Diamond Tiara had heard hundreds of times. “Look at me. You’re my best friend. We’re your friends, both of us. And I know you. Better than anypony does now, or probably ever will. Something is wrong. But we’re here for you. Both of us.”

“Seconded,” said Pick.

“Whatever the problem is, you can tell us. You’re not alone, Diamond.”

Diamond Tiara felt tears welling in her eyes. “I’m not insane,” she said. She looked to Pick, half-expecting him to make a joke like he always did. He remained silent, though, and that was more terrifying than anything else. At this point, she hated both of them- -but wanted to wrap them into a tight hug and never let go.

“Something…something is wrong,” admitted Diamond Tiara. “I’ve been seeing…things.”

“Things?”

“I…I don’t know,” said Diamond Tiara, realizing that she actually did not. She cradled her head in her front hooves and compulsively straightened her tiara. “Bad things. Really bad things.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t…I don’t know,” she lied. There was just no way she could have described to Silver Spoon how she had looked, how every pony she knew appeared mutilated and broken, or the strange tall and colorless unicorns that just seemed to watch

Pick and Silver Spoon looked at each other.

“You don’t believe me,” said Diamond Tiara. “You think I’m insane. I’m not. I can’t be. They were THERE. I saw them!”

“It’s not that we don’t believe you,” assured Silver Spoon. “But…we didn’t see anything.”

“You…you didn’t?” Diamond Tiara was not sure why it came as such a shock. Neither of them had reacted to the unicorns’ presence, and nopony in town seemed to recognize that they were there. “No. No no no. They were THERE. I saw them. That’s why I had to overload the drone. To make them go away. I couldn’t- -I couldn’t let them touch me. Please, you have to believe me!”

Silver Spoon forced a smile. “It’s okay, Diamond. There aren’t any here now. You’re safe.”

“But…but what if they are?” said Diamond Tiara, her eyes suddenly flitting to the shadows cast by the fire, toward the gaudy suits of fake armor that stood guard along the walls. “How- -how would I know?”

“You said…um… ‘they’ got near the drone?” said Pick.

“Yes.”

“That drone used to be a geologic survey unit,” said Pick. “It was designed to scan rocks for high-resolution impressions of mineral deposits. It’s old, but its optics and scanning plates are still good. Do you think it could have recorded something?”

Diamond Tiara felt her mind brighten slightly. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, it might have.” She felt herself growing increasingly optimistic. Diamond Tiara did not really know how magic worked, but she knew machines. If there had been anything to see, a morlock drone would have certainly been able to pick it up. “Can you fix it?”

“Of course I can fix it. You could probably fix it, even with your structurally unfortunate brain architecture.”

Diamond Tiara smiled, and then hopped down from her chair. She winced as she put pressure on her injured hoof.

“Be careful!” said Silver Spoon.

“Do you need me to carry you?” asked Pick.

“What, you? You’re like half my size and have about as much muscle mass as Rarity. You’re so weak, you probably couldn’t even carry Swamp Fever.” She looked down at her hoof and sighed. “Of all the times for this to happen, it had to happen just before the Prom.”

“You could always wear a bracelet,” suggested Silver Spoon.

“Yeah. I guess I could.” The burn, of course, had not been what Diamond Tiara had been referring to. It was the least of her concern.

Pick led them through the house toward the garage. The former Rich home was larger than most in Ponyville, but not nearly as extensive or as excessive as their new home on the outskirts of town. In her youth, Diamond Tiara had always considered it to be too small for a pony of her caliber. Looking back, though, it had always in fact seemed far too large and lonely.

The building itself was old, constructed from the remnants of the shack built decades ago by Diamond Tiara’s grandfather, Stinkin Rich. The garage had been added relatively recently, though; it had originally served to hold the Rich’s family’s several automobiles and the associated tools and space for their private mechanics to perform the ridiculous amount of maintenance that was required for early magical engines to run. Much of the world had since moved on to Rich Tech’s solid-state engines- -which actually consisted of repurposed morlock technology- -and the cars had since been taken to Filthy Rich’s private collection in at Rich Manor.

The garage was now empty, though, save for the drone which sat collapsed in the center. Diamond Tiara had no idea how Silver Spoon and Pick had gotten it in; Silver Spoon was, of course, svelte and athletic, but Pick was an unmuscular weakling and there was no way that Silver Spoon alone had brought it in. At this point, though, Diamond Tiara did not much care.

“Are you going to need any tools?” asked Silver Spoon.

“I think one is enough,” muttered Diamond Tiara.

Ignoring the joke- -and once again leaving Diamond Tiara slightly agitated by his lack of reciprocation in their usual banter- -Pick approached the machine. It was in a sitting position, as though it were resting. The fact that it simultaneously looked like a pony in body shape but not even remotely in texture or content made Diamond Tiara even more nervous. It reminded her too much of what her friends had looked like- -and, somehow, it reminded her even more of how the tall unicorns appeared.

“Right,” said Pick, opening the front access panel on the drone and exposing the cube in the center of its chest. “The damage is not actually that bad. The core is intact. I just need to focus the output…”

He took off his helmet and set it beside him. Blinking in the harsh light, he leaned in and dexterously adjusted the setting on the cube as Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon watched. The process only took a few seconds, at which point Pick attached a cable from his own dial and stepped back.

“Okay,” he said. “It’s set to topographical mode, so this probably won’t detonate. You may want to stand back.”

“How far?” asked Silver Spoon.

“Um…four or five miles should do it. Assuming you don’t breathe the fallout. Ever.”

“Wait, what?”

Pick twisted the dial in his chest, and its shape changed slightly, revealing a different set of cogs than he usually used for daily activity. The drone responded immediately, convulsing slightly from the sudden surge of power. The cube in its chest shifted, pulling its facets apart and resetting them into a different configuration. It glowed, and then a field of blue energy was projected over the oil-stained concrete.

The light shifted and shimmered before rapidly resolving into a holographic image of Café Hay, complete with tiny tables.

“Oh my gersh!” said Silver Spoon, pointing at the occupied table in the center of the hologram. “That’s us! Diamond, you look adorable!”

“Thank you,” said Diamond Tiara and Diamond Pick at the same time.

The image shifted, displaying the recording as the drone had perceived it. There was no sound, but Diamond Tiara could see the tiny translucent model versions of them talking, laughing, and gesturing. It looked almost idyllic, like they must have looked when they were younger and spending their seemingly endless summer together.

Then the situation changed. Diamond Tiara saw the image of herself suddenly stiffen, staring apparently into space.

“This is where it started,” said Silver Spoon, watching tiny Diamond Tiara overturn her salad bowl. “This is where I started to realize that something was wrong.”

In the hologram, Diamond Tiara appeared to throw something- -at nothing. She was still staring into space toward nothing. She looked paniced, and seeing this, Diamond Tiara felt those emotions coming back to her. Worse, though, was the lack of understanding: she had seen a pony there, a tall unicorn standing just to the side of Silver Spoon. In the image, though, there was nothing there but empty space.

Then, slowly, the image of Diamond Tiara turned around and immediately leapt off her chair, causing it to fall over. She ran off screen. Tiny Pick got out of his chair and gave the drone orders, causing it to begin pursuing Diamond Tiara, bringing her back into the picture.

After a few moments, Derpy landed beside Diamond Tiara. Diamond Tiara had not seen it at the time, but the gray mare looked highly concerned, and Diamond Tiara felt terrible for having been rude to one of the only ponies that could be constantly counted on to be nice to her. Still, the image showed Derpy just as she was and had always been: nothing protruding from her skull, no exposed brain tissue, no scars. Everything seemed normal, save for a very panicked Diamond Tiara.

She continued to run into town, into the square that she KNEW had contained hordes of tall unicorns. In the image, though, there were none. Just regular townfolk going about their days. Nothing was amiss, or wrong.

The only tall pony in the image was Twilight as she moved into the image. As an alicorn, she had grown to be much taller and thinner than normal ponies. When Diamond Tiara first saw her enter the recording, she froze, thinking that she had actually seen one of the mysterious unicorns- -only to see the Princess of Frienship laughing and joking with Starlight Glimmer.

“Oh, hey, there’s Starlight,” said Silver Spoon, pointing. “Sweet Celestia…I would let her take my cutie mark any day, if you know what I mean.”

Diamond Tiara ignored her, focusing on the model, watching her miniature doppleganger run headlong into a Pegasus pony- -one that she was SURE was a unicorn. Except here, somehow, she just looked like a normal and very surprised Pegasus.

“That’s weird,” said Silver Spoon. “That’s Blossomforth. I thought she moved to Cloudsdale ages ago…”

“Wait,” said Pick, fumbling nervously with the cube inside the drone. “I need to rewind…”

The image flickered and reversed almost comically, causing all the ponies to appear to walk backward until the image froze on Twilight and Starlight.

“What- -what is THAT?” demanded Pick. His voice was wavering and nearly cracked as he pointed toward Twilight.

“Pick?” said Diamond Tiara. Her mind momentarily rose from her confusion. Pick did not normally sound like that. For some reason, he was severely agitated.

“Um…that’s Princess Twilight,” said Silver Spoon. “I’m pretty sure we told you about her…”

“You did not tell me that she was THAT!” snapped Pick. “She is…is…” His next word translated poorly. Part of it came out as the clicking continentals staccato of morlock speech, mumbled to the point of nearly being inedible. From what Diamond Tiara heard, it could have been either “sun” or “sphere”. He backed away from the projection.

“Pick, what’s wrong?” said Diamond Tiara.

“Nothing. Nothing you would understand.”

“Diamond Tiara,” said Silver Spoon, looking down at the image and then slowly up at her best friend. “There isn’t anything there.”

Diamond Tiara was silent for a moment as she tried to rectify the recording with what she had seen.

“No,” she said. “No, something’s wrong. The recording must be bad. Pick, what kind of crappy secondhand tech is this?”

“The only kind I can get,” said Pick. “But the drone is fine. Even if it’s old, it can still pick up nanograms of technetium through kilometers of stone. This recording is correct.”

“No, it’s NOT!” shouted Diamond Tiara. The sudden volume caused Pick to recoil in surprise. “I’m not crazy- -they were there! I saw them!”

“But we didn’t,” said Silver Spoon, carefully. “Nopony did. I’m not saying that there’s nothing there- -”

“No, that is exactly what you are saying,” snapped Diamond Tiara. “You’re calling me a liar!”

“No, I’m just saying- -”

“You kind of are, Silver Spoon,” noted Pick.

“You’re not helping!”

“Neither are you!” Pick looked up at Diamond Tiara. “I’m concerned,” he said, simply.

“That I’m cracking up, Pick? That you might be dating a crazy pony, and suddenly I’m not good enough and you don’t want me anymore? HUH?”

“That’s not what I said, idiot,” said Pick. “I said that I am concerned. How could I not be?”

“I am too,” said Silver Spoon.

“Well you can take your concern and plot it. I don’t need it, I know what I saw…” Except that she did not- -but she could not accept the fact that it was simply a hallucination. The implication was unthinkable.

Diamond Tiara felt herself shaking. She was not sure why. Seeing the image had only made things worse, and she regretted having asked for it. More than anything, she wanted to be with her friends, for them to protect and comfort her- -but instead, she stormed off, leaving them behind.

Angrily, Diamond Tiara threw down the journal against her desk. She groaned loudly and leaned back in her chair, looking up at the vaulted ceiling of her study- -or, more appropriately, the study that her father had abandoned when he had become rich enough to afford a new and better one.

Stacked around her were a pile of books pulled from the overstuffed shelves that lined the back edge of Diamond Tiara’s somewhat ad hoc library. Unlike her parents, who kept books in the study to look smart but without ever intending to even open a book let alone read one, Diamond Tiara had actually taken a great deal of care in constructing a practical library. Many of the texts were tomes on economics or anthologies of Rich Tech manuals. Many, though, were esoteric and often arcane volumes that Twilight Sparkle would have given her horn just to have even the most perfunctory access to.

Specifically, the books that Diamond Tiara had been furiously reviewing were the journals and memoirs of her fillyhood her, the famed adventure Pith Helmut. Before she had discovered these journals, Diamond Tiara had never had much interest in reading- -but the stories of the suave and confident adventurer had immediately appealed to her as he and his handsome butler Studly Rumpford forged through jungles and ruins and managed prudent and sometimes ingeniously devious business transactions to sell their recovered finds, all while avoiding the annoying and much younger do-gooder Daring Feats and his cross-eyed assistant Morning Dew. Diamond Tiara had gone to great expense to purchase some of the journals from private collectors, and gone even so far as to have many of them published. These stories had gotten Diamond Tiara through some hard times, and she had read them all again and again- -save for the very last one, which she had only read once.

It had been her hope that these journals might once again be her salvation. Pith Helmut had spent almost four decades as an adventurer, researcher, and art dealer, and he had come across a great many things. Ancient spells, curses, artifacts, and all manner of strange beasts both natural and artificial. Diamond Tiara could have sworn that she had read something somewhere about strange, tall unicorns, but so far her search had been in vain. There was nothing of value to her situation, nothing similar that Pith Helmut had encountered in his entire storied career. That had been Diamond Tiara’s last hope, that there was SOMETHING to justify that what she was seeing was somehow real. So far, it had been to no avail.

She continued to look at the ceiling, and then rubbed her eyes. It was late. Pick and Silver Spoon had gone to bed hours ago, and were no doubt fast asleep. A thought momentarily occurred to Diamond Tiara that they could quite possibly be sleeping together. Diamond Tiara tried to push that thought away. Pick was ostentatiously her coltfriend, and Silver Spoon was her best friend. There was no way they would do that to her. But she just could not get the image of them smiling and holding each other out of her bed- -Silver Spoon looking more perfect than Diamond Tiara ever could, and Pick having completely removed his armor just for her. Perhaps they were even doing more than just sleeping.

The combination of the infuriating image and Diamond Tiara’s frustration got the better of her, and with an inarticulate yell she slammed her forelegs against the table and dragged them across it, sending the books and notes flying everywhere.

Doing so made Diamond Tiara feel better, but only for a moment. She then immediately felt even more impatient and angry with herself; many of those books were fragile, and now she would have to pick them up.

With a sigh, she got down of her chair and began to pile them back onto the desk, trying to do so with some semblance of organization. As she did, one book caught her eye, one that she had not taken down herself.

The book was one of Silver Spoon’s. Silver Spoon was a fan of strange, often esoteric pseudo-historical dramas- -the exact kind of story that Diamond Tiara found immensely tedious and pointless- -and this was no doubt one of them. From its age, Diamond Tiara knew that it was one of the possibly centuries old tomes taken from the underground library of her desert summer home. She was not entirely sure what it was about, being that it was written in Old Equestrian- -one of many languages that Silver Spoon had picked up unusually quickly- -but she guessed that it was an early Gluetenberg copy of “Strange Alchemy”.

What was peculiar was the page it had fallen open to. It was an old black-and-white woodcut showing an annoyed looking elderly unicorn and his squat, much younger unicorn wife confronting an earth pony with a conniving smile and a tattooed foreleg. What caught Diamond Tiara’s attention, though, was the character pictured standing behind the earth pony. She appeared to also be an earth pony, dressed as a nun and wearing a blindfold. It was clear that she was intended to be a minor character in the scene, but somepony had altered the image. A glowing yellow halo of light was painted around her head, and the edges of it had been inscribed with complicated letters written in some kind of dark-brown ink in threatening runes that were definitely not Old Equestrian.

“That’s weird,” said Diamond Tiara. Silver Spoon had defiantly not added the feature- -she knew better than to harm a book, especially anywhere within a hundred miles of Twilight Sparkle- -and the modification looked far too old anyway.

Not being relevant, though, Diamond Tiara closed the book and set it on the table desk. She looked across the room to where her drone was standing, now mostly repaired and projecting the appearance of an excessively stern blue-green stallion, watching her.

“You know, you’re not helping,” she said.

The drone clicked in response with a code snipped that essentially asked for instructions. Diamond Tiara sighed; it was obvious that Pick had programmed the drone, as it took no initiative. That, or Tourmel Niobus had given him a defective model. Considering it, the problem was probably a combination of the two.

“Help me pick up these books,” she said, carefully adding, “and set them onto the table.”

The drone acknowledged her request, and crossed the room to help her with the books.

“You know, I wouldn’t be in this mess if you could just record properly,” muttered Diamond Tiara. It was, of course, not the drone’s fault. It was just a machine. Like ponies, it could not see the tall unicorns. That was not is purpose here anyway, though. Pick had not sent it to watch for the strange pale creatures, but rather to keep an eye on Diamond Tiara. She was aware of this, but she was just glad not to be alone, even if her only company was made of steel and technetium.

Once the books were returned, Diamond Tiara moved to return to her chair, but the drone stopped her. She turned, and was presented with a mug of steaming liquid.

Diamond Tiara looked at the cup, and then at the drone. It responded with something similar to a smile. “Maybe Pick isn’t a complete moron at programming after all,” said Diamond Tiara. “But you are a moron, Pick. I know you’ll be listening to this later. At least ninety percent moron. And this drone had better not be filming my flank.”

She took the cup to the window of the study and sipped from it. It was apple juice, heated and spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. It was good, perfect for a cold fall night, but the combination of warmth and spices made Diamond Tiara crave real cider badly.

Outside, it had started to rain. The falling water was pattering against the glass of the window, and the mist of the rain was visible in the light of the lamps outside. There were no ponies out there in the storm, save for one unicorn standing beneath the glow of the lamp. He had been there for hours, never moving. Somehow, despite standing in the rain, he was not getting wet; and despite standing below the light, he was not lit. As if he just barely existed.

Diamond Tiara was not sure if this was supposed to scare her, but it was actually starting to do the opposite. She wondered if she could just ignore them, whatever they were, at least until the Pony Prom passed. Of course, that hinged on the assumption that their presence was not actually malevolent. And from what Diamond Tiara had seen, they almost certainly were.

After nearly finishing her juice, Diamond Tiara turned back to her work- -when the room was suddenly wracked with an immense explosion. She dropped the mug and was vaguely aware that it shattered on the floor as pain ran through her head and the world shook.

All around her, sound seemed to erupt from everywhere. Detonations were punctuated with intense, deafening electrical buzz and the sound of something tearing, like an enormous sail of fabric being ripped effortlessly in half. The entire world seemed to be collapsing, and Diamond Tiara suddenly felt herself sliding downward.

She screamed, and then, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. She was left clinging to the floor, panting and covered in sweat, her whole body shaking while the drone watched over her, mildly confused at her antics. She did not even need to ask it- - it had not detected anything. To it, the only sound was the rain and the crackling of the fire, while to her, she could still hear the distant sound of metal rending from the unseen blast.

She stumbled, and, disoriented, grabbed the edge of her desk. She tried to stabilize herself, and when she did, her eyes fell onto her notebook. It had up until that instant been blank, as she had found nothing of relevance in any of the journals. Now the front page was completely filled, covered entirly with her own hoofwriting. There was no content aside from a single repeated word: “yellow”.
“No,” whispered Diamond Tiara. “No no no…” she stood up, shaking, and went to the desk. She pulled open a drawer and extracted a bottle of pills. Without even caring about the dose, she took them straight out of the bottle, just trying to make the pain and fear stop. When she thought she had enough, she sat down in her chair- -and realized that the pain was not going to go away.

Diamond Tiara opened her eyes. She had not been asleep, but she had not been entirely conscious either. For a moment, she was confused and disoriented, not fully aware of where she was or how she had gotten there. Then the dull ache in her head slowly returned, and she remembered.

Slowly, she sat up, wincing at the stiffness in her neck. Around her, the room had gone dark. The only light came from the dim embers of the fire, lighting everything with a consistent orange glow that was just barely able to illuminate the shelves of books and the stationary drone standing in the corner.

Outside, a bolt of lightning struck somewhere in the distance and white light filled the room. The drone’s holographic shell was momentarily overwhelmed by the bright light and instead of the lie of a pony form it stood as a robotic skeleton for just a moment, its tiny red glass eyes staring lifelessly from its skull-like faceplate.

A blanket slipped down from Diamond Tiara’s neck. She did not know how it had gotten there; perhaps in the pill-induced stupor, she had gone to the linen closet or got it. Or the drone could have given it to her, or Pick, or Silver Spoon- -or somepony else. She could not remember.

The lightning flashed away as quickly as it had come, but the light somehow remained. The world seemed to have been washed in gray shadow, and Diamond Tiara just sat in her chair, staring across the room at the door of her study, half expecting it to open. Somehow, though, she knew that they did not use doors. Nothing as simple as walls of wood and stone would be able to stop them.

A thought suddenly occurred to Diamond Tiara, and she found herself sliding off her chair. She dropped the blanket next to her, ignoring the coldness of the night that the failing fire had allowed to take hold. She normally hated the cold, but now she hardly felt it. She hardly felt anything; it was as though she were watching herself slowly move toward the door in some kind of a movie.

On either side of the door stood two potted chollas, both in full bloom. They whispered to Diamond Tiara, their voice neither a question nor an answer but rather a commentary on the world. Their white, ghost-like flowers were filling the room with an overpoweringly sweet smell. Diamond Tiara momentarily paused between them, considering that smell and knowing that she was forgetting something.

She turned to the drone. “Stay…stay here,” she said, her voice cracking from her tiredness.

It acknowledged her, but not with a standard affirmative. Instead it clicked out the code equivalent of the number four. Diamond Tiara was not sure why it did that, but she ignored it and crossed into the hall.

The expensive oak planking creaked beneath her hooves as she walked through the darkness. This was a hallway she had walked down hundreds of times as a filly, but now, somehow, it seemed different. The walls seemed larger, and everything seemed to be standing at odd angles. The whole world seemed sharper, as though Diamond Tiara were trying to wear Silver Spoon’s glasses. Everything was familiar, but nothing looked right- -and Diamond Tiara had no idea why.

Groggy and still confused, Diamond Tiara made her way toward the bathroom. It was, like everything in this house, exceptionally fancy by normal pony standards. The bathtub was cut from a single piece of marble, and the toilet was made of genuine imported porcelain crafted by a master toilet artisan- -and, of course, it did not match the bathtub at all. Diamond Tiara ignored both of the appliances and instead picked herself up on her hind legs and clutched the sink. For a moment, she wondered if she would be sick. The juice she had drank an indefinite number of hours ago was not agreeing with the pills or with her level of stress.

The nausea cleared after a moment, and Diamond Tiara stared into the mirror. Her hair was askew and her tiara crooked, and large dark circles had formed under her eyes. Instinctively, Diamond Tiara mentally chastised herself in Spoiled Rich’s voice. Spoiled would have screamed at her to see her like this- -shouting at her how a filly of her station should fix her hair, put on makeup to cover the imperfections of her face, and ignore the pain lest the family find itself the topic of the latest gossip.

Diamond Tiara was not sure that she was that strong. All she wanted to do was to make this stop, to live like a normal pony. This was supposed to be a happy time for her, but something had gone wrong. Something had taken that from her.

She focused on her reflection, and then on the pain in her head. Instead of trying to suppress it, she called on it, amplifying it as best as she could. The voices that she always heard on some level immediately responded with frantic whispers that grew louder as Diamond Tiara strained against her mentally-induced pain.

For just a moment, the image in the mirror shifted, and Diamond Tiara smiled. She had been right. She took several deep breaths, and then gripped the edge of the granite sink and summoned all of her will.

The pain increased, but Diamond Tiara pushed through it. In the mirror, her reflection wavered- -and then she saw it for what it truly was. The room behind her crystalized into its pure, gray form, and her face changed in response to the new environment. She was shown exactly what she had wanted to see- -and what she had desperately hoped to ever avoid knowing.

Like the others, she had been changed too. Her skin was sallow, her mane cut closely away to reveal surgical scars and several glimmering metallic implants amongst the pale and damaged flesh. A number was tattooed on one side of her head in a language that she could not read, and the pupil of her eye on that side swam with narrow metallic tendrils belonging to something that seemed to exist within it.

Diamond Tiara looked at the reflection, and reached up toward one of the implants on her forehead. For a moment she saw her foreleg, dotted with scars and ports, the kind meant for needles for quick injection. As she ran her hoof over her skin, she realized that whatever had been done to her was not just visual. It was real.

Her eyes welled with tears. As her mother continually reminded her, she had never been pretty, but she had still been proud of her appearance. To realize that beneath her smooth pink coat was this mess of scars and burns and metal was almost too much to bear.

Carefully, she reached up toward the largest of the implants on her forehead and found that it had some play in its motion. She twisted it, crying out in pain as she felt something inside her skull move. She gasped, not sure she wanted to continue- -but knowing that there was no other choice.

She pulled the needle slowly, drawing it out of her skull. It did not hurt, but somehow, she could feel it- -and worse, hear it- -as it came out. When about four inches had been withdrawn, the air beside her started to distort. The needle hitched slightly somewhere deep in Diamond Tiara’s brain, but she pulled it sharply and the air beside her resolved into the form of a tall unicorn- -the one who had surely been standing beside her the whole time.

His large, pale eyes looked in the mirror, and then down at Diamond Tiara.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. His accent was such that it was impossible to tell the emotion that his speech was meant to covey, but Diamond Tiara could tell that he was not happy. “Stop! That is a critical component!”

“So you can talk,” said Diamond Tiara. The needle was now withdrawn at least six inches, and the world around her was beginning to resolve even better. She could now see that the unicorn beside her was not actually colorless, but in fact a pale salmon color

“I do not know what you are intending to do,” he said, sharply, “I don’t know how you can see us, but you need to listen.”

“Listen to what?” gasped Diamond Tiara, dropping the needle into the sink and starting on what appeared to be its twin on the other side of her forehead.

“Those implants are the only things keeping you stable,” he said, his voice sounding increasingly urgent. Now that Diamond Tiara knew what to expect, she was pulling the second needle out faster. “I put them in you for a reason. It is as of yet unclear what would happen if you- -”

The second needle clattered to the sink, and the unicorn’s eyes widened. Diamond Tiara almost laughed despite the sudden vertigo that overcame her as the second needle clattered into the sink, knowing that she had finally done something that they did not like.

Then, in an instant, Diamond Tiara was slammed to the cold tile floor below. The wind was knocked out of her, and for a moment she was terrified that the unicorn had pulled her down and thrown her against the floor. As her vision cleared, though, she looked up to realize that he was gone- -or perhaps had never been there at all.

Diamond Tiara stood up, shaking her head and trying to remember what she had been doing. The world had seemed to fade out for a moment, and she was not entirely sure why she had just done what she had just done. Once she was ready, she looked back into the mirror.

Except that there was no mirror. In its place was a pitted, ancient-looking brick wall- -which was odd, considering that Diamond Tiara’s house was not made of brick. Blinking, Diamond Tiara tried to figure out what had gone wrong. She looked down at the sink and saw that it, too, was different. It was still granite, and still almost the way it had been- -but it was wrong. Instead of two spigots, there was now only one, and the polished granite seemed rough-hewn and uneven.

Diamond Tiara backed away, and felt her hooves slipping on the mossy tile below. Eventually she bumped into the bathtub, and cried out when she nearly fell into the black fluid that had inexplicably come to fill it. The placid fluid reacted in turn, and something large rippled just beneath the surface.

“Sil- -Silver Spoon?” called Diamond Tiara, now backing toward the door. No response came. “Pick? Pick, are you listening? I know you are- -if you come down here right now, I’ll…I’ll let you touch my tail! And I won’t even kick you this time!”

Once again, there was no response, and Diamond Tiara found herself in the hall outside the bathroom. It was once again dark, but instead of being lit with the gray light of her unusual perception, a strange and threating glow came through the windows- -windows that had not been there before.

The length of the hall seemed to have increased as well as it stretched outward, curving away when it should have been straight. Diamond Tiara started slowly walking down this corridor, her hooves tapping against the enormous stone blocks that made up the floor, trying not to break into a run.

“D…drone?” she called, almost whispering. “I could really, REALLY use some help right about now…”

The only response was of a distant creaking sound from something moving on one of the upper floors. Diamond Tiara found herself walking faster. Then, from behind her, she heard something moving with a sickly wet sound. It was at that time that she broke into a run.

Within seconds she burst through the front door of her house and fell into the street. Still trying to catch her breath, she slammed the door behind her, desperately wanting to avoid seeing whatever was in there.

Shaking, she looked up to the sky, and immediately gasped. Instead of the cloudy, rainy sky that she had awoken to, it was now perfectly clear- -but it was unlike any sky she had ever seen in her life. Instead of Luna’s subtle painted masterpieces, numerous foreign suns and moons floated through the sky, each burning weakly in bizarre and unearthly colors. Many of them were broken, their spherical shapes disrupted and their internal machinery exposed to the luminescent debris field that consumed the sky. In some places, the machinery of the dead stars was ripping away from them and periodically falling, silently plummeting to the earth below and landing in the vast distance.

“Oh buck,” said Diamond Tiara, clinging to the brick wall that made up the ground level of her home as if the colored and damaged spheres that dominated most of the sky might fall down upon her at any moment. “Oh buck oh buck oh buck what did I do?”
She looked behind her, wondering if she should sprint back into the house and get the needles. She quickly discarded that plan, though. Not only did she not want to attempt to reinsert pieces of foreign material into her brain, but she somehow knew that if she went back in there, something terrible would happen. That, and she recalled that there had been no needles in the rough-granite sink. Just a wide dark stain where they had been.

“Okay,” said Diamond Tiara, taking a deep breath. “Okay…I’m fine. I can do this. I just…” Except there was no “I just”. The situation made no sense, and Diamond Tiara could see no recourse or solution for it.

“Well,” she reasoned, trying to calm herself. “I’m still in Ponyville…I think…”

With that thought to reassure her- -even if it only did so poorly- -she stepped away from her house and into the street. The ground was hard, and a few small rivers of clear water trickled past areas where large but unknown things had been buried and only barely penetrated the compacted surface. On all sides, the town seemed strange. Diamond Tiara certainly recognized it, but some things were not quite right. Buildings were just slightly different shapes, or farther apart than they should have been. Sometimes windows were missing, and sometimes buildings sat at odd angles that made no logical sense.

Taken alone, any of those features would be almost unnoticed by anyone except the most observant ponies. Even the combination of errors were difficult to classify completely, but although Diamond Tiara could not point them out, she had lived in Ponyville long enough to feel the overwhelming sense of wrongness around her.

Compounding it was the strange light. The suns- -or perhaps they were moons, it was impossible to know- -were not a normal color. The largest of them glowed a kind of sickly green, and its brighter but smaller twin cast something more like magenta. Taken together, the light was slightly brighter than twilight, but although adequate it was an unnatural color and seemed to flicker with the dying, decaying stars overhead.

The whole place, likewise, had an unusual smell. Instead of the smell of dirt roads, apples, flowers, and baked goods that Ponyville normally held, it just smelled old and moist, like an unusually deep and unusually wet basement. It was not a bad smell, but it was not a smell that anything outside should ever smell like.

The worst part, though, was the overwhelming silence. Diamond Tiara knew it had been night when she had taken the pins out, so she did not expect to see ponies in the street, but the town was eerily silent. There was no sound of crickets, night-birds, or even wind. In fact, the air was perfectly still.

Despite this, Diamond Tiara had the strangest feeling that she was not alone. There were no ponies around her, but she would occasionally catch glimpses of things moving in the shadows of the buildings. They might just have been tricks of the light- -that was what Diamond Tiara told herself- -but sometimes, she would see the motion stop and a pair of reflective eyes staring back from the darkness at her.

“Hello?” she called into the void. “Is anypony there? I need help…I can pay you for it…”

There was no response, apart from a slow and damp breeze that twined between the buildings and crooked picket fences of an abandoned village.

Diamond Tiara kept walking aimlessly until she found herself at the door of Rich Manor. That in itself was strange- -not only had she not been headed there, but Rich Manor had purposely been built a great distance from the town specifically to keep the riff-raff away. Diamond Tiara did not remember crossing through the winding country roads, or even passing through the iron gate that kept her family sealed and apart. She looked over her shoulder, and saw the town in the distance. Somehow, in a matter of minutes, she had walked a distance that should have taken most of an hour.

Slowly, Diamond Tiara climbed the stairs that led to the door. The columns that stood beside it were different than they should have been, and overgrown with thick vines- -or carved to appear as though they were covered with thick vines. It was difficult to tell, as most of the vegetation that Diamond Tiara had seen was dark and strangely colored, as though it might have been somehow fake.

There was no door in the doorframe. Just a gaping, dark hole. Diamond Tiara paused at the threshold. It was her home- -even if it had never felt like that- -so she did not understand why the hair on neck was bristling, or why she suddenly felt so cold.

Ignoring the instinct, she walked in. Whatever light the dying suns outside produced did not seem to obey the rules of normal sunlight; it poured into the house from no apparent source, seeping through tiny holes in the walls and through the frames of the opaque windows like some kind of liquid. Inside was darker than outside, but Diamond Tiara could still see.

“Daddy?” she called. “Are you here?” She paused. “Spoiled? I’d even be glad to see you at this point…”

This time, a sound did come in response- -or rather, Diamond Tiara’s mind was overcome with a loud electrical buzzing. The world flashed for a moment as Diamond Tiara’s headache momentarily returned, and she thought she saw the ghost of several pale unicorns walking amongst her. Then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

She continued into Rich Manor- -except it was not even remotely recognizable as Rich Manor anymore. It had the same internal shape and probably the same dimensions, but it had been gutted. Where there should have been walls, there was at most a framework of metal supports but usually nothing at all. Instead of the home of the richest family in Ponyville, it looked like some kind of incomplete warehouse, with familiar furniture distributed sparsely through a well as with unusual debris that Diamond Tiara could not recognize.

While walking down the skeletal remains of a now industrial-looking hallway, Diamond Tiara looked into one room and froze. Until that point, every room she had seen had been either empty or filled with bizarre combinations of furniture. This one had a pony.

“Hel…hello?” whispered Diamond Tiara. His back was to her, and his head appeared to be down as though he were grazing. He did not seem to notice Diamond Tiara’s call.

Carefully, Diamond Tiara approached him. On some level, she knew that this was wrong. This was Rich Manor- -or was supposed to be- -and this red-colored pony was no one she recognized. Somehow, though, she needed to make contact, to know that there was someone else here. To get help.

The room seemed to expand around her, although it may just have been a result of the adrenaline. With her head pounding, Diamond Tiara took a breath and called out again.

“Hello? My name is Diamond Tiara. This…this is supposed to be my house. Not that- -not that I’m telling you to leave, but…um…who are you?”

Once again, the red pony did not respond, nor did he lift his head. He just kept standing there.

“Hey, I was talking to you,” snapped Diamond Tiara, her fear rapidly progressing to anger. She reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

What happened next was not entirely clear. The red pony was suddenly facing Diamond Tiara, even though she had not seen him move- -and it became exquisitely clear that he was not a pony at all.

Diamond Tiara had mistakenly believed that his head was down, but now she saw that he had no head at all- -at least, not in a normal sense. This creature resembled a normal pony, but where a pony’s neck should have risen from his body, its torso terminated into a wide, grinning face. A pair of gleaming, black-colored eyes stared up at Diamond Tiara, the tiny white pupils seeming to glare into her soul.

It did not move, but Diamond Tiara backed away- -which was when she noticed that it was not alone. There were more of them, standing throughout the room and on the high scaffold balconies that the pseudo-industrial architecture provided. All of them were silent, and all were staring at her. Every single one of them had an enormous grin. Diamond Tiara looked up at the ones above, and then down at the first and could have sworn that it had gotten closer.

Suddenly, a burst of olive light shot across the room, striking the floor at the foot of one of the creatures. It looked down and stepped back- -its motion was hideous and unpleasant to look at, and it made Diamond Tiara shiver- -and something heavy sidled up beside Diamond Tiara.

She looked to her side and saw a unicorn, her horn still glowing from the magical discharge, filling the room with greenish light. Otherwise, it was impossible to tell much about her: her entire body was covered in tattered armor and clothing that seemed to have been made from scraps. Even her face was covered by a bulky respirator mask, the kind that ponies usually used for lead abatement but with a dirty visor bolted haphazardly to the front.

“Don’t take your eyes off them!” she cried. Diamond Tiara looked back- -and now saw the creature inches away from her face, its nose nearly touching hers. She cried out and stepped back, where the dirty unicorn caught her and projected a surge of bright light from her horn.

“What- -what do we do?” said Diamond Tiara, terrified at how much her voice was wavering. She felt like she was about to faint.

“Keep looking at them, but don’t look in their eyes! Come on, move with me,” she started walking, and Diamond Tiara was forced to walk backward. “Work with me here! You watch my back, I’ll watch yours!”

“They- -they can’t move when you look at them?”

“Oh, they can. They definitely can.”

“Should we- -should we run?”

“NO! Just move with me. That’s it. Slowly.”

Diamond Tiara kept her eyes on them like she was told. “What…what happens if they catch us?”

“Don’t worry about it. If it comes to that, I’ll snap both our spines before they do.”

The unicorn led Diamond Tiara back toward the door, Diamond Tiara watching the creatures the whole time. She had gathered that they were, in fact, moving. Somehow she was not able to see it most of the time, and when she did, she wished she had not. The way they relocated themselves was wrong on a biological level, like watching a badly operated puppet filmed and played back at the highest possible speed.

Eventually- -after what felt like years- -they reached the door. The unicorn immediately broke into a sprint, her bags and clothing jingling as she went.

“I thought you said not to run!” called Diamond Tiara, pausing dumbfounded before chasing after her.

“I said that then, not now! Now is run time!”

Diamond Tiara tried her best to keep up, but despite all the weight she seemed to be carrying the unicorn was surprisingly athletic. That, and somehow the house seemed to have grown to a hundred times its normal size- -as if the hallways were expanding and curving, trying to keep them in.

“This is not good- -it’s reacting!” cried the unicorn. “Not here, not here! I’m not going to die here!”

“Die?!”

“I’m going to cut a hole! Get ready to jump!”

“Jump? What do you mean jump?”

The unicorn charged her horn, and fired a blast of light at one of the walls. A rectangular shape formed, and the internal contents collapsed into dust, producing a gap. Without hesitation, she jumped through the hole. Diamond Tiara followed- -only to immediately realize that, despite not having climbed any stairs, they were four stories above the ground.

Even though she was almost completely winded, Diamond Tiara screamed. The unicorn grabbed her and projected a magical bubble around them. It dampened the blow when they hit the ground, but the impact was still enough to disorient Diamond Tiara.

The unicorn, however, seemed completely unpassed. She stood up and expanded her bubble, detonating it- -and momentarily revealing a number of pony-like dark figures with reflective eyes who had inexplicably congregated around the pair of ponies. The magic repelled them, sending them sliding or scampering away silently into shadows.

Diamond Tiara slowly stood up, rubbing her head and gasping for breath. She looked around, and found herself standing in a dew-covered field of unnaturally blue colored grass surrounded by unnaturally tall and mottled trees. There was no sign of Rich Manor; just a field.

“We- -we made it!”

Her relief was rudely interrupted by the unicorn pushing her to the ground.

“Hey!”

“What in Celestia’s name were you THINKING?!” she screamed. She reached up and pulled off the mask. A large plume of red hair spilled out, framing the yellow face of an aging mare who had probably once been extraordinarily beautiful. Her large blue eyes locked onto Diamond Tiara. “Were you TRYING to die? Was I trying to die? What were you DOING?!”

The mare suddenly paused, and her eyes widened. “Wait a second wait a second wait a second,” she whispered. She got down on her knees and reached out toward Diamond Tiara, grabbing her face in both hooves and squishing it. “You’re not…no, you can’t be…but you are?”

“I am what?” demanded Diamond Tiara, pushing the mare’s hooves away.

“You’re…you’re real!” She powered up her horn and cast a spell around Diamond Tiara. It tingled, but did not otherwise feel threatening. “You…you’re not a hallucination, like the others. And you’re not one of them- -you’re- -you’re actually a pony! A living, breathing pony! Well, for now, anyway.”

“Of course I’m real,” said Diamond Tiara, standing and brushing herself off. “What else would I be?”

“It’s just that, I been alone….no one else for…for…” her eyes went glassy. “Not…not sure…”

Diamond Tiara looked back toward where her home had just been. “What were those things?”

“Jellenheimers,” said the mare, standing. “Not good. In fact very bad. I did not think either of us would survive that.”

“Why were you in there, then?”

The mare looked at Diamond Tiara, staring for an uncomfortably long time. “The storms brought me out. I saw you. Didn’t know you were real, then, or maybe I did. Saw you go in…I couldn’t let them take you.”

“Well…thanks.” Diamond Tiara paused. “I’m Diamond Tiara. Do you have a name?”

The mare opened her mouth to speak, but then looked panicked. “I- -I don’t- -I don’t remember. I know I had a name once…but it’s been so long…or maybe nobody ever named me no that’s not it. No. She needs a name to call us.” She paused, and then smiled at Diamond Tiara. “I like the name Lucy. Call me Lucy.”

Lucy’s smile suddenly faded. She looked out into the forest, apparently seeing something that Diamond Tiara could not. “Not good. Gathering. Another storm might be coming, or have just come. Not safe here.”

“Then we should get back to Ponyville,” said Diamond Tiara, pointing at the town in the distance.

“What? No, no, no no. No. It’s not Ponyville. Well, yes, it is, but no, it also isn’t. It’s both and neither. Working hypothesis is that it is predatory. It’s not good to go there, not now. Going into the buildings is worse. Some aren’t buildings, not anymore. And some never were.”

“Then where are we supposed to go?”

Lucy paused again, her blue eyes flitting about before falling on Diamond Tiara’s flank. “We don’t go anywhere. Nothing ever goes anywhere here. It only comes.”

As if that were an adequate explanation, she started walking off. Diamond Tiara hesitated, but eventually decided that her only chance was to follow Lucy. She was, at least, another pony.

Even a distance outside of the town proper, the landscape of this bizarre realm still resembled Ponyville on some level. Diamond Tiara recognized some of the structures that stood on the outside of town- -houses, sheds, substations and so forth- -but, like in town, they all looked different. They were gray and empty, abandoned an ominous. Even more eerie was that some of them were buildings that Diamond Tiara did not recognize- -or those from other places in town, now separated and standing tilted and askew in the center of slowly undulating twilight fields.

Lucy appeared to be leading Diamond Tiara toward the Everfree Forest- -or at least, where the Everfree Forest would have been if this had actually been Ponyville. The ominously large non-trees that bordered the silent fields seemed to be growing ever closer, and larger.

For the most part, Lucy was almost entirely silent. She would occasionally mutter to herself just quietly enough for Diamond Tiara not to hear what she was saying, but most of the time she made no sound, not even hoofsteps. Her eyes continually darted around, sometimes widening on mundane objects and sometimes staring seemingly at great distances for long durations.

One strange aspect that Diamond Tiara quickly noticed was that Lucy smelled. That was not unexpected- -with as dirty as she was, she looked like she had probably not bathed in years- -but what came as a surprise was the smell itself. It was not the smell of sweat or dirt, but something strongly floral. It took Diamond Tiara some time to figure out what exactly the smell was, but eventually she realized that it was the scent of carnations. Somehow, Lucy must have managed to acquire some abnormally high-grade perfume.

When they finally entered the forest, the silence became unbearable for Diamond Tiara. She was just too nervous and confused- -and although being around Lucy made her feel somewhat better, being surrounded by the moist and excessively still forest of statue-like trees was to unnerving to be left alone with her emotions.

“So,” she said at last. “Where…um…where exactly are we?”

“Here,” said Lucy, as though she had been anticipating the question and as though that were an adequate answer. “We are here. No, no,” she whispered to herself. “No, she needs a REAL answer. She doesn’t know, needs a name…”

“Are you okay?”

“No. I haven’t been okay in…in a long time. But this place…I don’t think it’s really a place. Not entirely, anyway. It doesn’t have a name. It’s just here.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Lucy looked over her shoulder. “Welcome to my world.” She turned back to an area where the land suddenly dropped off into a steep cliff. Diamond Tiara vaguely recognized this as part of the Everfree Forest, from when she had been younger and stupider and taken a dare to try to get to the Castle of the Two Sisters.

From the vantage, Diamond Tiara was able to look out at the horizon. What she saw was not pleasant. In the far distance, the darkness of the sky gave way to sickly, luminescent fog. Through the mist at the very end of the horizon stood tall things that must have been hundreds if not thousands of feet high, each of which, as Diamond Tiara watched, seemed to be marching slowly across the land.

“What the buck are those things?”

“I never really figured that out,” said Lucy, staring out at them. She looked down at the cliff. “Come on, we are almost there.”

Without any sign of hesitation, she leapt from the cliff, enveloping herself in her magic to slow her descent. Diamond Tiara, being an earth pony, was forced to take a narrow path that had been carved down the side of the cliff. As she moved down the ancient stairs, Diamond Tiara found herself wondering who had made these stairs, if Lucy was the only pony here. That thought gave her pause, because it was terrifying in its own right- - the possibility that Lucy might actually be the only pony alive in this place.

Eventually- -and with some difficulty- -Diamond Tiara made her way to the forest floor below. She looked out toward where Lucy was standing. Beyond her was a substantial depression in the ground, a crater hundreds of yards wide. As Daimond Tiara approached it, she saw that it contained no trees but instead an enormous but incomplete structure consisting of a number of enormous arcs of white material linked in a row on their surface. Lucy, seemingly unperturbed by its enormous size, walked toward a cave in the more convoluted front portion.

Diamond Tiara approached the cave and found, to her surprise, that both its opening and its inside were completely round. Despite its peculiar shape, though, it was large enough to hold at least ten ponies, let alone two.

“You live here?” asked Diamond Tiara, somewhat disgusted by the dirt floor and the total lack of any sort of protection from the various things that seemed to have been watching her outside.

Lucy froze, and stared at Diamond Tiara for what felt like several minutes. “That’s a question I ask myself so much…” she said, possibly not to Diamond Tiara but rather to the room itself. “Am I still alive? It’s not so easy to tell, sometimes.”

She shrugged, as if dismissing the entire quandary, and reached into her bag. She gingerly removed an object that Diamond Tiara could not identify. It appeared to be partly made of some kind of glass, but at the same time it looked highly mechanical. Whatever it was, it was clear that it was badly damaged, and probably a piece of something much larger.

Lucy set the object in the center of the room and ignited her horn. She cast a spell around the device, and it reacted, moving slightly and then suddenly bursting forth with an intense crystalline blue flame.

“Crap!” cried Diamond Tiara, covering her eyes from the sudden blast of light. “What the hay is that thing?”

Lucy once again paused. “You ask a lot of questions that I also asked,” said Lucy. “That either means we might become good friends, or you might not actually be so real after all.” She sat down on the far side of the fire, toward the interior of the cave. Diamond Tiara paused, and then sat down on the side so that her back would not face the opening.

Once Diamond Tiara was seated, Lucy pointed upward. “It was a piece of them. The Spheres. They are old, older than anything. They’re here because they’re broken. Sometimes pieces fall. Sometimes the pieces still work.”

“That thing fell out of the sky?” said Diamond Tiara. She pointed at the object in disbelief. She had, of course, seen meteors in museums- -but none of them looked like that, or produced fire when exposed to magic.

“Lots of things fall down from up there. What we are sitting in, it fell from above.”

“A cave fell from the sky? Really?”

Lucy smiled. “You’re not very bright, are you?”

“Hey! All I’m saying is- -”

“This is an eye socket. This is a skull.”

“A…a SKULL?” squeaked Diamond Tiara, suddenly realizing that the half-burried arches outside looked just like ribs and a spine. “This…this? This?”

Lucy nodded. “This one fell years ago. Possibly from old age but…I don’t think so. Things like this live up there, in the sky. In those rocks. But there are bigger things. Or smaller things that are meaner. You have no idea how long I had to wait for the jellenheimers to get out.” Her eyes glazed. “Actually…neither do I.”

“So the light…it scares the monsters away?”

“Oh no,” said Lucy. She pointed to the mouth of the cave. “Look.”

Diamond Tiara looked, and saw that the light did not behave at all like normal light. Instead of going out into the darkness and fading, it reached just beyond the “cave” and suddenly stopped, creating a hard border between the intense light and the suddenly inky blackness beyond.

“They’re out there. Right now. Some are inches from that border, waiting, watching. They never stop watching. Ever. And the light doesn’t stop them, or at least most of them. They could break through at any moment, if they wanted to. The light just makes it so we can’t see them.”

“Comforting,” said Diamond Tiara, suddenly feeling herself sweating, and not from the heat of the fire. “So how do you sleep?”

“I don’t.”

Diamond Tiara looked toward the darkness again, trying to see what was beyond- -or trying not to. Then she turned back to the fire. Lucy had fallen silent again, but she had not stopped looking at Diamond Tiara. She just kept staring, and she seemed to blink a lot less than a normal pony.

Unexpectedly, Diamond Tiara’s stomach suddenly gurgled. She realized that she had not eaten since the day before- -she had become increasingly paranoid that her food was contaminated with the tall unicorn’s steel worms. All she had for a caloric source was apple juice.

“Do you have any food?” she asked, realizing that it was rude but not caring.

“I will soon,” said Lucy. She did not take her unblinking blue eyes off of Diamond Tiara.

“Oh,” said Diamond Tiara, trying not to contemplate what that meant. She looked up at the top of the bony socket that they were sitting in- -and realized that the entire inner surface was inscribed with complex mathematical and magical formulae.

“What the buck…” she whispered to herself, pulling herself away from the wall to see that it was behind her as well, linking continuously over the whole surface. She looked at Lucy. “What is this?”

“Oh,” said Lucy, her eyes drifting over the surface. “That. That was an old project. It didn’t work. None of them ever did. I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“A project? To do what?”

Lucy looked Diamond Tiara in the eyes. “To get back.”

“Back? Back to where?”

“Do you think I was born here?” snapped Lucy with surprising vitriol. “Do you think I WANT to be here? I’m just trying to get home- -it’s all I’ve ever been- -” She suddenly stopped, and her anger evaporated. Instead, she now smiled. “I’ve spent a long time researching. Trying to find a way out. I don’t know how long, because time doesn’t always work right here. It could have been months, or maybe years…or decades…or centuries. Millennia. Minutes. This place made me alone. I want…I want to go back.”

“Oh,” said Diamond Tiara, backing away. “So you’re a researcher?”

“What? No. I’m pretty sure I was a florist.” She paused, and took her eyes off Diamond Tiara. “I was like you once. Young, beautiful. I had a whole life ahead of me.” She looked into the fire. “I used to live in a place…a town. It looked like the dead-town. I don’t remember what it was called.”

“Ponyville?”

Lucy’s eyes widened. “Yes! How did you know?”

“I’m from Ponyville too,” admitted Diamond Tiara.

“Really?” said Lucy, as though she had suddenly become suspicious of Diamond Tiara. She began to address herself in muttering, “two from the same place…symmetry over cross-translational…no, no, she would have to be…” she looked up. “You wouldn’t happen to be pregnant, would you?”

Diamond Tiara’s eyes widened, and she blushed. “N- -no! Of course not! Wait, is that a fat joke?”

“You’re not that fat,” said Lucy. “No. That was a legitimate question.”

“No! Why would you even- -my coltfriend and I, we haven’t even- -you know- -”

“You have a coltfriend?” said Lucy. “Waiting…waiting for you…” She trailed off, and Diamond Tiara thought she saw a tear drip down Lucy’s dirty face.

“You had one,” she said. “Back in Ponyville.”

“I had a husband,” said Lucy. “And I had a daughter. I don’t remember my own name, but I remember hers. It’s the only thing I’ve been able to keep with me this long. Little Fluttershy…I miss her so much.”

Diamond Tiara gaped. “Fluttershy? I know Fluttershy!”

Lucy’s eyes widened. “You- -you do? She’s still alive?”

“Yeah! She lives in Ponyville. She takes care of all the animals in town.”

“Takes care of…how old is she?”

“How old?” Diamond Tiara paused. “I never asked. But she’s only a little older than Rainbow Dash…so…late twenties, maybe? Mid-thirties?”

Lucy’s expression fell. “Thirt…thirties? She was less than a month old when my symptoms started…I’ve been here that long? I…” she turned away. “I missed my little filly growing up. Celestia damn it…”

“If it’s any consolation, she turned out great. She’s beautiful, and compassionate, and…well…she looks a lot like you, except with pink hair. And younger.” Lucy smiled, but the significance of something she had said suddenly reached Diamond Tiara. “Wait, symptoms?”

Lucy nodded. “It started out as headaches. Really bad ones. Manifested further as visual disturbances and hallucinations, and intense paranoia. At first I thought it was the strain of being a single mother- -but then I thought I was dying. And then I ended up here.” She paused. “For a long time, I thought I did die. But you disproved that.”

“Me?”

“You! You’re REAL!” Lucy giggled. “An actual, real, living pony! I’m- -I’m not insane! I’m not dead, and I’m not alone! This all- -this all is REAL!” She giggled again, and it rose into laughter. “I always wondered. Always! I’ve been alone this whole time. In this place. But then you came! A real- -” She started to laugh again, but the laugh instantly froze as her expression fell. Her manic eyes went still and focused on Diamond Tiara. “And I’m…I’m so sorry.”

“For- -for what?” Diamond Tiara was not sure if she wanted to know why, but could not stop herself from asking.

“Because wherever this is, there’s no way out.”

“What do you mean?” cried Diamond Tiara, her voice becoming shrill when Lucy said exactly what she expected. “There has to be! There just has to!”

Lucy shook her head. “This spell, and hundreds like it…I’ve tried everything to get back to my daughter, to my life. I never succeeded. The best I have managed to do is survive, and learn, but…I just can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

“No.”

“I really am- -”

“Not that. I’m denying that there is no way out.”

“Diamond Tiara, I checked- -”

“You didn’t check good enough, then. Do you know who I am? I’m Diamond Dazzle Tiara Rich, heir to the largest technology company in all of Equestria. Do you think my grandpa or my daddy ran that company by giving up? Do you think I’M going to give up that easily?”

Lucy stared at Diamond Tiara for a long time, but her expression did not change. “I like you,” she said eventually. “I hope you don’t die here.”

“You don’t need to hope. I’m going to get out. And I’m going to take you with me. I promise.”

Lucy sighed. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I don’t,” said Diamond Tiara. She leaned back against the etched runes and fiddled with the bandages over her foreleg.

“What is that?” asked Lucy.

“Just a burn,” said Diamond Tiara, wincing as she pulled back part of the gauze to find the wound releasing a kind of yellow fluid. It did not hurt much, oddly- -but it was looking worse.

“Let me see,” said Lucy, scooting over beside Diamond Tiara. The smell of carnations was almost overwhelming, but pleasantly familiar.

“It’s fine,” said Diamond Tiara.

“No, it’s a radiation burn,” said Lucy. “You walked all the way here on this?”

“I’m used to pain,” said Diamond Tiara. “That, and the pills.” She paused. “Wait, what do you mean radiation burn?”

Lucy removed one of her front boots and revealed a bandage made of scrap cloth wrapped around a severely scarred foreleg. “From the storms. I know what radiation is. And that wound won’t heal naturally.”

“Great,” said Diamond Tiara. “I guess I will have to wear a bracelet at the Prom.”

Lucy smiled, and charged her horn. Diamond Tiara felt a sudden intense burning as the magic wrapped around her foreleg. She yelped in pain and pulled it away.

“What the buck!” she cried. “You- -you- -” she looked down and suddenly realized that, despite the pain, Lucy had mostly healed the burn, leaving only a substantial but mostly faded scar. “You healed me…”

“You were nice to me,” she said. “Nopony has been nice to me in a long time. I just want us to be friends. If that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah,” said Diamond Tiara, looking up at her. “Yeah, sure.”

Lucy smiled, and for the first time she looked genuinely happy. She seemed to be about to say something, but then, as quickly as it had come, it evaporated. Her eyes glazed, and for a moment she stared into space. Then she appeared panicked.

“Storm!” she cried. “The storm is here!”

Before Diamond Tiara could even ask what that meant, a jarring and familiar pain rushed through her head- -no doubt the same pain that Lucy was feeling. She cried out, and felt the world shake. Diamond Tiara collapsed to the ground, clinging to it as if the entire world were about to fall away from her.

Through the dizziness and nausea, she saw lights flash in the darkness beyond the cave. At first it looked like lightning, except that it was blue and seemed to twist in long, organic curves. Through the light, she thought that she saw the ghostly after-images of tall, blank-eyed unicorns.

Then the lightning seemed to crystalize into a swirling column just yards away from the opening of the cave. The air rushed around it, humming with a powerful electric roar.

“What’s happening?!” cried Diamond Tiara over the sound.

“I- -I don’t know!” shouted Lucy. “I’ve never seen this happen before!”

Suddenly, something started to pull on Diamond Tiara. She squealed in surprise and pawed at the ground, but she could not get a grip and was sucked toward the swirling vortex of destructive energy.

“NO!” cried Lucy, grabbing Diamond Tiara’s front hooves.

“Help me!”

“What do you think I’m trying to do?!” Lucy dug her hooves into the dirt; whatever was pulling Diamond Tiara seemed to have no effect on the older pony.

For a moment, Lucy seemed to be winning the fight- -but then she slipped, and Diamond Tiara suddenly broke free. For a moment, the world seemed to freeze as she looked up into Lucy’s terrified eyes. Then she accelerated rapidly, drawn into the anomaly.

“Diamond Tiara!” cried Lucy. “DIAMOND TIARA!”

“Diamond Tiara!” cried a different voice. Diamond Tiara blinked and looked over her shoulder. Silver Spoon was standing behind her, her mane soaked by the falling rain.

“Silver…Silver Spoon?”

“Diamond Tiara, what are you doing?! Just step back, SLOWLY.”

“Step back?” Diamond Tiara did not understand. Then she looked ahead of her- -and realized that she was standing inches away from the edge of her three-story roof, the wet and dark ground waiting below.

Diamond Tiara screamed in surprise, and quickly retreated across the slippery clay tiles. The footing was uneven, and her hooves offered very little grip, and after three steps she slipped and fell into Silver Spoon’s grasp.

“I’ve got you!” said Silver Spoon, holding on tightly. “I’ve got you!”

Diamond Tiara suddenly burst into a fit of sobbing. She was cold and soaked, as though she had been standing on that roof for hours. Worse, she could not remember how she had gotten there- -but she could remember where she had thought she had been.

Her tears soaking into Silver Spoon’s already wet gray coat, she looked up at her friend. “Silver Spoon…I need help…please…help me…”