PROLOGUE

BEGINNINGS

~)N(~

Trust + Sunrise + Promise + Ambition + Duet + The End

~)N(~

The wind howled as it moved through the distant northern peaks, far from the cities and townships of ponykind, as one of the treacherous, furious blizzards of early winter painted the black stones white with snow.

Two ponies trudged, step by agonizing step, through the knee-deep accumulations on the treacherous path up the side of the Grandsire, the great peak at the heart of the mountains. The wind tugged at their heavy wool travelling cloaks and pressed down on them as if to push them back down the mountainside. The snow, beautiful though it was, bit at what flesh was revealed, cutting straight to bone. The pair moved with the awkward, stiff gait of ponies whose bodies are no longer fully cooperating with their demands.

And yet, they pressed on, ever upward into the chill and gloom.

An outside observer with an inquiring mind could glean quite a bit, just from watching them.

That they were ponies of unusual determination was obvious from the fact that they were there at all; the Grandsire was a mighty thing, a great pillar of stone where the earth reached upwards and scraped the heavens. It was never to be mounted lightly, but to do so as the sky raged around them was foolhardy in the extreme—and even that much supposed that the climbers in question were healthy and well-prepared.

This was obviously far from the case; both of the ponies here were very obviously the worse for wear. Though one tramped forward determinedly, head held high and proud as the other trailed behind, shying from the buffeting winds, their gear was ragged and worn, and they both visibly struggled with an intense fatigue, trembling as their limbs threatened to collapse under them. These were ponies nearing the end of a very long, hard journey.

The skies above them darkened from steel-grey to black as they pressed forward, intensifying to the dreadful gloom. The banshee wail of the wind grew ever louder, turning the snow into icy claws, cutting and biting.

Still they moved—upwards, ever upwards, to the distant crevice in the rock near the summit.

By the time they reached it, chilled to the bone and tired beyond words, it was clear that night must have fallen. Though they had not seen the sun all day, there was no other explanation for the intensity of the darkness around them—a thick, inky blackness that seemed almost alive, clutching at them, reaching out from shadows and cracks in the stone to claim them. Or so it had seemed to their stressed and weary minds as they pressed onwards towards the towering heights of the mountain, just as the howling wind had seemed to carry a poisonous whisper to their frostbitten ears, tempting them to indulge their desire to just lay down and sleep, to let their hearts know peace from their vain struggle against the fury of the mountain sky.

Now, though...

Now cold and fatigue was burned away, as excitement and relief surged.

They'd done it. They were finally here...

And there was their prize, half-frozen in a great bed of pure, blue ice, as if a crystalline altar had grown from the cavern floor to cradle it. The ice glowed faintly, filling the little cave with a pale blue light.

The two ponies carefully stepped forward, lowering the hoods of their cloaks to reveal themselves as a pair of middle-aged unicorn mares. The pony who had led the way, refusing to bow to nature's revealed power, was a small, white mare with a green mane, one eye covered by bandages. Her expression was intense, almost greedy in its joy at their discovery, the single visible eye burning with delight in the dim light of the cavern.

Her companion was taller, her coat a purple so pale that it could be mistaken for grey, crowned with the white mane of unicorn nobility. Where her companion prowled forward, she stood just inside the cave entrance such that while she was protected from the storm, hesitant to approach the glowing ice too closely.

At this point a brief discussion took place, but it was the kind of conversation where the words are ultimately less revealing than the body language.

The white unicorn stepped forward, eyes firmly fixed on the glowing ice and the wonderful treasure it held. She spoke quietly, with a very forced calm that betrayed her eagerness—at least, at first. After a brief speech she suddenly turned on her companion with a broad, excited grin, eye open wide in enthusiasm.

The taller unicorn's face betrayed, for the briefest moment, a lack of certainty that the white mare found...unpleasant.

Voices didn't raise, but eyes narrowed and lips curled as they discussed their prize, and what it would allow them to do, in strained tones. Accusation and suspicion from the white mare was met with defensiveness from the purple-grey, whose face was a misery of discomfort. She was trapped between her misgivings and loyalty to her companion, but for the white mare, just then was no time for questions.

This discussion went on for some time. The taller, regal mare stood still at the mouth of the cavern as as the white pony paced and prowled around her, anxiety and excitement boiling over into anger.

And then...they stopped, suddenly. Something one of them had said brought back a memory of a similar little spat in the past; that much was clear from the sudden, faraway smiles and the way the two immediately relaxed. They looked to one another and, as one pony, sighed, blushing faintly.

It was not the first time these two had disagreements, or even the hundredth. Or the thousandth.

They were friends, after all.

Even the closest friends fight; but good friends learn to stifle their arguments before they get out of hoof, and these two were very close friends indeed. It was ultimately an argument about trust; and they did, in the end, trust one another despite the risks and uncertainty of the tasks that lie before them now.

They had come a long way, braved many dangers, and lost a great deal to get here. They would not have made it at all unless they'd been able to rely on each other absolutely.

Thus the white pony apologized for her attitude, not just with words but with her face and posture, demonstrating her honest contrition, and her companion stepped forward, still looking slightly nervous, but nodded with a fond, if reluctant, smile. Having shared a brief moment of mutual affection, they set about their task.

Witnessed only by the raging sky, it began.

~)N(~

A voice, in the darkness:

“It was too much. It's too much for anypony...you cannot let this go on. There is only one solution.”

In reply, with perfect calm:

“I understand.”

A busy pause, then:

“Forgive me...please.”

“Be at peace, my friend; I do not blame you for anything. It was not your fault. Now...close your eyes...”

As the sun rose for the last time, it began.

~)N(~

Thunder cracked and roared, making the windows rattle.

Twilight Sparkle, age thirteen, looked up with a yelp, all but leaping out of the chaise lounge she was occupying. The sudden motion disturbed the little nest she'd built around herself with the plush blanket and several pillows, which scattered onto the floor of Princess Celestia's study.

Across from her, Princess Celestia looked up from her novel and smiled gently, turning the page without looking.

The little unicorn grinned—a little anxiously, truth be told.

She'd been a student at the Academy for about a year and a half now, and had only just begun seeing the Princess in the evenings for meetings—generally over a light dinner before Celestia asked Twilight to perform some feat of magic she'd learned recently or chat about lessons. In fact, if anything, Twilight had been a bit disappointed—she knew better, of course, but her filly's heart had expected “my personal protege” to mean they'd already have been on two or three big adventures by this time. That she had not personally saved the world at least once was somewhat galling.

Instead they talked about...just stuff. Philosophy, for example, of magic and the world in general. Or Twilight's studies, and the other students at the Academy for Gifted Unicorns. Nothing particularly exciting—which, for all that it was just a little disappointing for Twilight (who nevertheless was breathlessly thrilled to have the princess herself interested in her day-to-day affairs), seemed to be an immense let-down for everypony who asked her about it.

Tonight was a little different, though.

A storm had rolled in suddenly, a freak accident caused by somepony at the weather service making a bit of a mistake with scheduling some cumulus movement. It had gotten completely out of control by the early evening, filling the western sky with ominous black clouds that turned bruise-red in the light of sunset, looming inexorably eastward towards the spires of Canterlot.

Princess Celestia had kept a wary eye on it all evening as she and Twilight shared a small meal, idly chatting about a project Twilight had been assigned by Professor Passing Thought, until finally the princess had paused the conversation and had a brief word with somepony just inside the castle doors.

She returned to explain that the storm would be breaking over Canterlot very shortly, and that it promised to be a horrendous thing. She couldn't bear the thought of Twilight wandering home alone in the strong winds and harsh rain—even for just the twenty minutes it took to reach her parents' apartment in the rather nice part of Canterlot Town just off the plaza that lead to the castle.

And then Celestia had smiled her calm, serene smile, and said: “Perhaps you'd like to spend the night here, with me?”

It was for this reason that Twilight was in the Princess' study, wrapped in a warm, silky blanket, curled around her brand-new copy of Daring Do and the Curse of the Wooden Mask.

Well, not so curled, anymore—and ew, she'd drooled on the page...

The little unicorn looked up at Celestia, who had returned to reading her book, her features still lit with a calm smile. Somehow, the filly had expected a little lecture on not being afraid—'it was just thunder,' that sort of thing. Shining Armor had taken to giving that sort of speech recently, trying to show off that he was a big, tough guard trainee now, always ready to protect his little Twilee.

Twilight scowled. It was actually a little annoying, really...so Celestia not saying anything was at once pleasant as well as curious.

She rolled out of the position her body had naturally found in sleep, and made to get off the chaise lounge to collect the pillows from the floor—

“Ah ah ah,” Celestia chided, not looking up.

Twilight's gaze snapped to her mentor, who for the first time ever had expressed something like displeasure. “What?”

The princess' little smile grew a little wider, and she very conspicuously let her horn glow as she turned a page.

“Oh, er, right,” Twilight said, rolling back onto the little bed and breathing a sigh which was in equal part relief and performance anxiety, resulting in a very strange sound indeed. She sat up, the blanket half-tossed over her like a cape, and took a deep breath as she focused her mind on the task at hand.

Her horn lit, and one of the pillows rose from the ground, moving towards her—

Twilight heard Celestia stir. “Twilight...”

Again, the young unicorn looked up anxiously at her princess. Celestia was watching her, now, the novel set aside so that the princess' attention could focus on the filly she had taken much deeper into her confidence than most grown ponies ever would be. She was smiling, faintly, but that seemed to be her default expression—she was waiting, with immortal patience, for Twilight to do...something.

Twilight let the pillow drop and gave Celestia a nervous look. “Is...is this some kind of a test?”

Celestia's smile barely moved. “Is it?”

Twilight frowned as she shut her eyes and refocused.

It may as well be!

It occurred to her that if she were living in a storybook, she would have an “almost physical sensation” of being watched, like Daring Do did as she entered the lost temple of the hippogryphs, not knowing that Black Wind the pegasus was plotting her messy demise. But of course, this was real life—there was merely the strain of trying to concentrate on five things at once, only knowing that Celestia was watching her—or the pillows—or both—

Twilight wished she could feel the princess' gaze, so that there was at least some kind of indication where she should be the least embarrassing at any given moment...

“I've only...ever...done three objects at once before...” Twilight said, more to satisfy herself of having said it than anything as the five pillows failed to immediately leap to her command the way, say, one would.

“Is that so? Can you do five?”

“Yes!” Twilight all but shouted, gritting her teeth. She thrust her head forward—a bad habit, since it didn't actually do anything, but like many young unicorns she somehow sensed it might help—and really pushed her magic as hard as she could. One was easy—even foals could move one object. Two was second nature to her now, and three was a strain, but she could do it regularly, even if they wobbled a bit...

Move, darn it, move move move please don't embarrass me like this in front of HER...

“Is that...is that how you feel, Twilight?”

Twilight's eyes slammed open. “Huh?” The pillows fell from her control where they'd been trembling on the ground, and Twilight momentarily gave them a stressed little frown before looking up at the princess again.

Princess Celestia looked very troubled indeed, more anxious than Twilight had ever seen her. “I'm so sorry, that's not what I...I didn't mean to make this harder on you.”

“Y-you didn't, I—”

“Twilight, please. You were muttering to yourself,” the princess said, with a pained smile. “This isn't a test. Well, except in the sense that everything is a test...”

Twilight frowned. “What?”

The princess took a long, deep breath, eyes closed. “Every time you do something...every time you are called upon to do something...it is a test. Maybe you're not getting marks or grades, but it's always a matter of can, or cannot.” She looked to Twilight, very seriously. “If you can, you can, so you do. If you cannot...well, if you gave it your all, and yet cannot do something...then you cannot.”

The filly said nothing; she had a sense that Celestia wasn't talking about her magical studies—or at least, not just talking about them. She had turned to look out the window, looking out at something Twilight couldn't see, or wasn't there at all, save in memory or fantasy.

After a moment, Celestia looked back to Twilight with a much more familiar gentle smile on her face. “As long as you are doing your very best, Twilight Sparkle, I will always be proud of you.”

Twilight frowned. “I...I can do six different spells,” she murmured, defensively.

The princess laughed, brightly. “Yes, I know! You were just telling me...and I am proud of you for that. But I'm proud of what you just did, as well.”

“But I didn't do anything!” Twilight burst out. “I...I...I couldn't even lift them up, much less—”

“You did your best,” Celestia interrupted, in a calm voice. “Right?”

Twilight nodded, a little sulkily.

The princess' smile grew a little wider at the filly's pouting. “Why don't you try again. Expecting to succeed the very first time you do something is...well, too high of an expectation, I think, even for somepony as talented as you.”

Twilight brightened a little at the praise, but said nothing.

Celestia nodded. “I'll help you—just a little!” she added, as Twilight's face grew stormy. “Needing a little help from time to time is nothing to be ashamed of, Twilight, especially when things are new and unfamiliar. Accepting that is a sort of strength in and of itself.”

The unicorn sighed heavily and closed her eyes, reaching out for the pillows in a huffy sort of way. As her magic surrounded them, she felt Celestia reaching out as well—an odd sensation, like little sparkles rubbing on her brain, making her shiver. She could sort of feel Celestia radiating a sense of...support, and reinforcement.

“Thank you,” Twilight whispered, more or less automatically. She felt like she could do anything in that moment—with Celestia’s gentle reinforcement, she could touch the very stars, speak to the world itself, hear the very pulse of magic, the heartbeat of creation...

But there was the task at hand to be taken care of, first.

Celestia just hummed gently as Twilight lifted—well, it was hard to say how much was her doing the lifting, in this situation, but at least some of it was her—and guided the pillows back onto the chaise lounge, even fluffing one gently before setting it behind her rump.

She opened her eyes, and tried not to smile at the princess' expression of approval. She hadn't really done anything, after all.

“All I did was support you, Twilight,” Celestia said, as if reading her mind. “You did it. You can do it, you're more than powerful enough...but sometimes it really does help to have somepony there supporting you, doesn't it?”

Twilight sighed. “It...yeah.” She was unsure exactly what she wanted to say about all this, so she just cuddled back into the pillows and blankets again, pushing her book onto the floor so it wasn't digging into her chest.

Celestia was graceful enough to leave it at that. She looked outside again, frowning. “It's getting late. I should sleep myself...”

She was interrupted by a crack of thunder that made Twilight wince and hide behind the blanket, and Celestia paused, one eye turning to look at Twilight for a moment.

Twilight opened her eyes, expecting to catch even a fleeting look of disapproval or amusement in Celestia's expression—but of course there wasn't one. From the Princess of the Sun there was only a sympathetic little smile.

Celestia waved her head and the candles and lamps around the room extinguished themselves. “I...well, I'm very tired. Maybe I'll just stay here with you...if you don't mind.”

“Um...it's your room. Chambers. Palace, even—” Twilight babbled.

The princess sighed, somewhat resignedly. “It is. Wretched place, I can never get it clean for more than a minute at a time...”

Twilight found herself chuckling at this patently weak joke, but it helped distract her from the peal of thunder that rolled across the sky. She cuddled down into her nest and watched Celestia arrange her own, somewhat larger couch to her satisfaction.

“It's okay that I'm here, right?” Twilight blurted. Celestia paused, looking up from her arrangements with a more or less shocked expression.

Twilight blinked. The question had just...come out.

Finally, to be perfectly honest. The question had been weighing on the filly's mind ever since she'd been invited to recline and read with a cup of apple juice earlier that evening while the princess took care of preparations for the storm. Sitting alone in the huge room, listening to the mystic, ever-burning fire crackling in the fireplace, Twilight had felt very out of place indeed.

Thank goodness she'd remembered to bring Daring Do with her, to send her mind elsewhere...

“Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said, composing herself. “I wouldn't have asked you to stay with me if I didn't want you to be here.”

“I...just don't want to be a burden on you, you know...”

There was a pause, occupied with a busy peal of thunder. It rolled across the sky lazily, in no hurry for everypony to forget it was there. Twilight shut her eyes and tried to hide—

A hoof pulled the blanket back from her face, and she stared up into the perfect, welcoming face of the princess.

“You are no burden to me, my friend,” she said, addressing Twilight this way for the very first time. “Twilight Sparkle will always be welcome in Canterlot. So long as I am the princess of the sun, it shall be a place of safety and help for her. I promise.”

Twilight—torn between anxiety and fierce pride—could only find it in herself to stare up at Celestia, whose smile only grew warmer.

As the first lesson about the magic of friendship was learned, it began.

~)N(~

Far from the city—but not too far, just far enough that it was inconvenient to get there—there was a farm. A farm which had seen far, far better days, truth be told; “far” seemed to neatly describe everything about the place, really.

Its woes were not inflicted on it by lack of effort, mind—though it was still the dead of night, it wouldn't be all that much longer before those who even now slept fitfully inside would be up and about, getting on with the many grueling tasks that would fill the hours before breakfast. It was just that what with one thing and another, the fields hadn't been quite as fertile as they'd been in the past, and the markets were getting pretty tough, what with wholesalers and so on elbowing out the little ponies, and—

And a thousand other excuses.

The fields had never been fertile, the crops had always been wilty and pale, and above all, far from promoting a healthy, upright outlook on life, living so far from the city meant that nopony knew who the ponies living here were, and their strange country accents and behavior did nothing to engender anything like a positive relationship. Furthermore, it meant the wilty crops were even wiltier by the time they got to market.

It made good compost, was perhaps the best that could be said for it—but then again, so did table scraps, which nopony had to pay for...

So the roof leaked when it rained. When it was hot the house was an oven; when it was cold, an icebox. There were sixteen ponies across four generations crammed into a house built for seven at most, and none of them were going anywhere in life because even if they wanted to, “there weren't no bits to spare for to go anywheres a'tall.”

Everypony was very sorry about that, but things "was as they is. Mighty sorry, ye ken."

That memory, that stupid “earthy” phrase, was all it took to help steel the young mare's heart.

Magic glowed around the window latch for as little time as she could manage—because while she was the first unicorn born to this particular earth pony clan in generations, they knew what that light and sound were even if they couldn't pronounce 'telekawhatsis' to save their miserable lives.

The window swung open with a tiny squeak of rusty metal scraping together, which made the young mare wince and turn to the room, where her five siblings and two of her cousins were still sleeping peacefully. She froze, watching each of their stupid, ugly faces carefully—

Cousin Redberry rolled over and passed wind, loudly.

Her face screwed up in disgust and, pausing only to lower her head and pick up the little bag of bits she'd managed to ferret away when she could, the young mare hopped out the window into the pile of frankly rotten hay she'd “forgotten about” moving to the south field earlier. She landed with an unceremonious poof of half-moldering hay and another sound that included a great deal more squelch than she was comfortable with.

Shuddering, she emerged from the pile and shook herself off, a lip curling upwards in disgust as something stuck to her forehoof refused to loose itself.

And then she looked up at the sky.

It was a chilly night in early autumn and the stars gleamed like frozen firelights in the sky, surrounding the great orb of the Equestrian moon. The great unblinking eye of night, which shone a harsh light down on her, like a spotlight....

Unblinking, that is, except for the dark scar that laid across it, which vaguely made the shape of a slim equine profile crowned by a great horn—a princess of darkness, staring down at her.

The Mare in the Moon.

Watching her.

Judging her.

“Don't you dare look down on me,” the little unicorn said through her teeth, and spat. The bag of bits fell from her mouth, and plopped down in a murky puddle of something unmentionable.

Retching a little, she bent down and—oh, heavens, the smell—grasped it again, not daring to use magic lest the light give her away. Talented she may have been, but this was far from the first time she wished it wasn't in all things magically loud and bright.

Trying not to gag, she trotted away down the path and ducked into the nearby woods where she'd be able to slip the bag into the beaten-up canvas saddlebag she'd nicked from the shed earlier that day. It was a familiar route, now; this was not the first time she'd run away, and to be perfectly truthful, it would not be the last. In three day's time she'd be found in an alley, starving and alone, her meager hooffull of bits having flowed away like water through a sieve moments after she'd made it to Fillydelphia.

Tonight was special, though, because tonight was the night she finally decided something about her name.

She hated her name; it was given to her because according to her parents' logic, a unicorn should have a magicky-sounding name.

Tonight she decided that no matter how stupid it was, someday everypony would think of it as the name of somepony great, and powerful.

Under the gaze of the Mare in the Moon...it began.

~)N(~

They say opposites attract.

Although they never seemed to be the pony in front of you; it was wisdom that seemed to always be second-hoof, passed down again and again since whatever benighted mind had thought it up first passed it on.

Octavia had been giving this conveyed wisdom a great deal of thought in the recent past, and she'd come to a conclusion which helped satisfy her irritation. If she ever did find they, whoever that pony turned out to be, she'd break a double bass over their head for creating that insufferable phrase. It was so poisonously simple that once somepony had observed it to her, she hadn't been able to get it out of her mind.

And it had made everything different.

Two little words made her long-standing, very public rivalry with the face of the cultureless underground music scene, Vinyl Scratch, into something other than it was. She'd been so embarrassed and frightened for so long, because she couldn't stop thinking of things wrong, all because somepony said those two deadly words.

Octavia opened her eyes, and watched the slight rise and fall of Vinyl's chest as she slept peacefully next to the cellist.

It had been a busy three months. Very busy.

Because the next piece of wisdom is that attraction comes and goes. That's not part of the neat little phrase, but it's true. Attraction is a flame, and without fuel to burn, it sputters and puffs out—a passing fancy, a brief dalliance...a tragic mistake.

Rivalry, though, is a form of friendship, in the end. If it wasn't, it would just be enmity.

The truth was that for about a year, Vinyl and Octavia had been very publicly tearing each other apart, trying to out-sell one another, and being very open and public on how the other was uncultured/uptight, low-class/snooty, or vulgar/elitist not because they actually disliked or disrespected the other—because if you dislike and disrespect something, you ignore it—but because they knew that they were challengers on the same stage. Musicians to the core, each warring and striving to prove that their style and performance was the best.

They loved to hate each other. They strove and fought with everything they were to show that they were the best. Octavia became the first earth pony to sit first chair cello in the Canterlot Philharmonic; Vinyl the first DJ to play a show in a city where there was an outstanding warrant for her arrest. Octavia wrote a prominent article in the Equestria Daily about the importance of promoting youth access to classical music; Vinyl painted “Octavia Is A Dork” on the side of the palace. On and on and on...

It was only a matter of time before one of them actually attended one of the other's performances, really.

Vinyl in a dress was something to see, Octavia had been forced to admit—although the effect was ruined somewhat by the unicorn refusing to remove her ubiquitous glasses, even as she asked Octavia to take her to a piano somewhere after the symphony had ended.

Octavia had consented, wondering what the wretched mare was going to do; smash it, perhaps, or retune it to play the discordant noise she called "wubstop", or whatever it was. Thankfully she'd been spared the repair costs, though. Vinyl had looked over the piano, sniffed condescendingly at its cheap make, and then sat on the bench, as natural as the moon moving across the sky, looking over the top of her glasses at Octavia.

And then she had grinned and winked.

Octavia had...well, she'd...tried to say something snappy. But the words just hadn't been there.

And without further ado, Vinyl Scratch, the uncouth, scruffy, pedestrian, infuriating, uncivilized, cacophonous, barbarous, disc jockey began playing Perfect Pitch's Nocturne for Piano and Cello in C Major, op. 55.

Flawlessly.

“Tavi, it's a duet,” she'd said, smiling. “It's not complete without both of us.”

Vinyl smiled in her sleep, as if she could tell Octavia was remembering that first night, as if it had just happened rather than being a whole season past, now.

Professionally, they were as bitter rivals as ever—which, to be perfectly frank, was not an act in the least. But rivalry was, as has been mentioned, a form of friendship; and friendship is the fuel on which attraction burns into something that might be called love.

Octavia leaned forward and kissed the muzzle in front of her, making Vinyl's unconscious grin grow wider.

But there was a reason she'd awoken, besides having happy recollections. She rolled out of bed as quietly as she could manage and trotted down the hall of Vinyl's penthouse. That had itself been a surprise—Octavia was one of the most well-known musicians in recent memory and even she lived in a one-bedroom apartment over a bakery, far from the pavilions and tall towers of central Canterlot.

It was much nicer than Octavia had expected—not only was it rather upscale, but Vinyl kept it immaculately clean, for all that the walls were absolutely covered in...well, almost anything imaginable, really. Posters for some Vinyl's more memorable shows, old instruments, signed sheets of music and programs...all sorts of things. It had a sense of controlled, directed chaos that prevented it from being as annoying as this decorating style tended to be.

The earth pony moved through the penthouse with the strangely reserved gait of a serial visitor; quickly and purposefully, knowing exactly where she was going, but with a slight tension that betrayed that they were conscious of being somewhere that didn't belong to them despite their familiarity. Down the hall, around the bend, and—

Oh dear. Wrong turn.

There was another annoying little phrase that was passed down, mouth to mouth...the best way to make someone curious about something is to tell them not to worry about it.

Octavia stared, in the low light, at the door across the hall from the restroom.

There was absolutely nothing special or unusual about it, and in this house, that made it unique. Even the bathroom door had decorations on it, in the form of one of Vinyl's four golden album awards. The DJ had privately explained to Octavia that its position on the bathroom door demonstrated Vinyl's opinion of that album rather neatly.

But this door...completely blank.

Just...you know, storage, Tavi. Don't worry about it.

If it was just storage, Octavia mused, Vinyl wouldn't have paused and specifically pointed it out.

She bit her lip. She shouldn't—not that Vinyl had made her promise not to look, or anything, but that was just the point. The lack of a request somehow made it seem even worse.

On the other hoof...it would probably just be boxes.

Just, you know...

Storage.

Octavia snorted irritably and shook her head. She had to look, didn't she...?

She had that same sensation now as she did with the stupid 'opposites attract' business—the curiosity would nag at her mind and distract her until she satisfied herself. That situation had resolved itself, though, in the form of Vinyl in a dress; this wouldn't.

Although if Vinyl wanted to show up in a dress, that was perfectly fine with Octavia, really.

She cast a look back down the corridor, one eyebrow raised. Vinyl had apparently rolled on her back and started snoring, as she was prone to doing without the warm presence of Octavia next to her—which was why they tended to...be together...at Vinyl's, since the bed was big enough for both of them.

Satsified, Octavia pressed the latch down slowly, and pushed the door open carefully, hoping against hope the hinges were as new as the rest of the penthouse—

A light flicked on, automatically, and Octavia blinked and shook her head at the sudden brightness, looking up through a squint...

And gasped, staring at the contents of the room.

Despite herself, she took a few steps forward, completely unconscious of the movement, her attention fully occupied with what she was seeing. The rows and racks of—

“What did you expect to find, Tavi?”

Octavia spun on her hooves. “Vinyl! I—”

Vinyl Scratch, looking completely awake, gave Octavia a resigned little grin, chuckling a bit. For once, her glasses had been left behind, revealing her strange red eyes in the light of...

...whatever this place was.

The unicorn sighed. “I never really thought I could keep it from you, one way or the other. But please, let me explain. I owe you that.”

The earth pony looked around herself. “I should say so. If ponies knew you had—”

“If they knew I had this stuff, they'd ask a lot of dumb questions, like how I got it, and what it's doing here, and whatever. That takes a lot of explaining,” Vinyl interrupted.

The earth pony said nothing, looking up at Vinyl as she looked around the room herself, taking it all in with careful attention, as if for the first time...or the thousandth, over far too long a time.

“Octavia...” Vinyl murmured.

Octavia's ears pricked up—Vinyl never addressed her by her full name if she could help it. The cellist had realized this eventually, with some prodding—Vinyl only gave you a nickname if she liked you, and she'd been calling the earth pony Tavi even when they'd known each other mostly by reputation. That she was using it now spoke to a level of seriousness Octavia had rarely known Vinyl to allow herself.

The DJ clearly noticed this, because she suddenly looked a little awkward and chuckled. “Sorry, sorry. Tavi, I think..." She swallowed. "I think there's some stuff I need to tell you about.”

Octavia gave her a weak grin. “To say the very least.”

Vinyl sighed, and closed her eyes.

“It has to do with the night my parents died...”

As one mare learned another's secrets, it began.

~)N(~

And so, through a hoof-full of beginings across the face of space and time...it began.

And it has to be said that in a thousand universes, that is all that happens.

Things began, in those places, and were never resolved—like rivers that flow, never meeting another, eventually petering out in some lonely dale somewhere as a pond or swamp.

Here, though...in this universe, they do.

They meet. They become entangled and wind together, tributaries flowing together into a great, surging river of events, moving onwards towards their collective ending.

Whatever that may be.

That ending begins—as it should—one dark and stormy night...