Twilight stared at the pile of letters that covered her desk. Parchment on top of parchment, letters scratched with some kind of message she couldn't see until she could get closer. From here it looked like pure chaos stacked into the briefest sense of order. She turned and looked at her miffed assistant who was currently tapping her hoof in sheer annoyance. "When did this start happening?"

Sparkler tapped a hoof to her chin and shrugged. "Few days ago? Probably right around the time you went silent. Guess either something happened in the Dragon Lands or your little dragon got homesick. Personally, I'm going with the second option cause that makes sense to me. But hey, whatever floats your boat. I'm just the pony who has kept Ponyville safe for a week while you blew up a town and all that. Who's counting?" Sparkler awkwardly laughed."

"Right. Well, that's why I offered you the job as my research assistant." Twilight looked back at the pile of letters. "If you don't mind, I'll just close the castle for the night and read this mess. You can stay or go if you want to."

"Okay." Sparkler shrugged and fired up her horn, winking at Twilight. "You know where to find me if you almost destroy the town again."

"I'm just reading letters, Sparkler."

"Could be a trap. Or you run off to save the day again cause of something you are unable to change. Letters can be dangerous, oh so very humble Princess." Sparkler laughed and waved as she left the building.

Twilight shook her head. That pony was both the best non-dragon assistant she had ever had- though that didn't amount to much- and a slight headache all rolled into one tight package. Twilight looked up at the crystalline ceiling of her castle and sighed. Closing her eyes for a moment, she could feel Luna on her periphery, doing whatever the Princess did during her free time. She shook her head and picked up a random letter, skipping the first paragraph or two and all the little pleasantries that Spike's letters usually carried.

Twilight, I hope you are doing well. It's been nearly a month since I last wrote you- sorry for that. To make up for it. I wrote a bundle of letters-"

Twilight stared down at the mess and wiped off most of it from her desk. She would read those later. She didn't know why he just hadn't sent her the letters since she had given him the frequency of her spell, or why he'd send an entire mess of letters all at once. She had measured his magical output a while back and she had found that smaller packages were less tiring for him to send.

She had told him to never send more than he could handle- unless there was an emergency.

She looked for anything out of the ordinary. Papers that were frayed and torn, different materials, anything out of the ordinary and she started organizing by topic and material. Normal daily occurrences to the left, weird stuff to the right.

She glanced up as the moon rose, the light edging into the room. A large amount of time had passed in what felt like an instant due to her focus. She rubbed her eyes and stretched her limbs, carefully lighting a candle and placing it out of reach of her paper stacks.

She carefully stared at the mass of stacks organized by her rudimentary sorting system- foregoing her normal system by taking out all the fluff and complexity of a normal system and just focusing on the facts. And she carefully rose the one thing that stood out in this whole system and stared at it.

A chunk of a tree with just the words "Send help" carved into it. She traced it with her hoof and wondered what had happened.

"Twilight?"

Twilight screamed, not expecting anypony to be near her at this time of night and what with the mystery of Spike's letters cluttering her mind for that same length of time. She felt her chair tip backwards in protest of the quick motion and her wings tensed as she crashed to the floor in a heap of limbs and pain. Twilight groggily stared up at whoever or whatever had broken her concentration and saw a slightly concerned pink pony staring back at her. "Pinkie? It's like-" Twilight paused, unsure of what time it actually was at the moment. "-late. What are you even doing here? I mean aren't you always telling me of how early you have to get up to bake?"

Pinkie awkwardly fidgeted. "Yeah. Sorry about scaring you. I mean I didn't mean to do that of course, and I know you told me not to creep up behind you cause you get all jumpy and all that but like I saw you had a window open and I could feel that you were up and all. And I just couldn't sleep what with the last few days weighting on my mind."

Twilight rubbed her aching head. "I told Sparkler to close up. I doubt she forgot a window."

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "She didn't. The second floor window."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Pinkie, you know that's my bedroom. And that's a balcony window forty feet up with sheer walls, I doubt even you could get up there if you wanted to." Twilight carefully picked herself off the floor and looked at the oddly quiet mare. "And that's for emergencies."

Pinkie sighed. "I have ways of getting up there. And you know I wouldn't come barging in here at this time of night if I didn't think it was important. I mean seriously, I may be known as somepony that might take a joke a little too far every once in a while, but I know when it's too important not to say something." She carefully sat down on her haunches and stared at Twilight.

Twilight looked back at the piles of letters and sighed. Those would come later. "I'll get a pot of coffee on then. You want sugar?" Twilight shook her head. Of course she wanted sugar, this was Pinkie she taking about, the mare lived-

"I'm fine with black coffee."

Twilight cringed. That was definitely not a good sign.

Rainbow Dash stared at the selection of the market and groaned. She knew she could have just splurged and got Hayburger yet again but she felt like something felt off about that. Less meaningful as it was, and they had to get food since Dash had glanced into Shy's fridge and had been greeted by culinary monstrosities that even she would balk at. She shook her head and felt Fluttershy's hooves on her back. "You know we'd probably be home by now if you walked too."

Shy smiled and dug a hoof into spots that she knew far too well. "I know, but why make things go faster than they have to? I mean what else do you even have to get?" She motioned at the bags that Dash had draped over her large yellow wings since Fluttershy took up the next best place to rest that load.

Dash groaned. "The meat. I mean if I'm-" she carefully glanced around to check if there were any ponies nearby listening. "-cooking a seafood dish, I need that. And I'm sorry but I'm not choosing a fish from your collection of happy animal friends cause that just seems wrong."

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. "You know you don't have to use fish. There's perfectly serviceable soups using lentils or barley or whatever you like that has protein in it."

Dash stretched her wings. "I know that, but I already have most of the stuff anyway for the thing I'm making, so let's just compromise and say you can cook whatever you want another day." Dash stopped and looked back at Fluttershy who was quiet. "I mean- uh, shoot. I didn't mean to snap at you but I just wanted to cook something special for us. Just the two of us to like not think about whatever the last week was. That's it."

Fluttershy quietly nodded and laid back on Dash.

Rainbow swore in her mind as she walked up to the final booth. She never liked dealing with the market ponies. Mainly because they tended to be hooffuls of joy, and with Shy now fully in silence, it was just not a fun time. "Lily, where's Caramel?"

Lily Valley shrugged. "Fluttershy, do I look like his mother? How the buck should I know?"

Dash rolled her eyes, inwardly hating that she had to mentally switch into nice mode just because she looked like the buttery yellow pegasus. This was why she both loved and hated that more ponies knew that the pair was switched- cause at least she didn't have to act like a ray of sunshine every moment of the day. Dash smiled, corners of her mouth twitching. "I just need a few pounds of fish for a stew I'm making for Rainbow here. She had a terrible day and she wants some soup. And I have a recipe I found in an old cookbook that I think she might like."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Wonderful. Just like drop the bits down and take his stuff then. He usually doesn't take his stall home until sundown. Probably cause he takes so many breaks. Haven't you heard? Caramel's the gayest little stallion in all of Ponyville. Roseluck told me that Daisy told her that she saw Cara deepthroat the whole thing of Mac's pole and like I was like no way-"

Dash cut her off. "Fascinating. I bet she has some proof of that, cause the last time she said something, it involved how Zecora was working for Tirek, which I asked Twilight about and the princess laughed at me."

Lily shrugged. "If a princess doesn't believe my sources, that's too bad. You can't fix indoctrination. One day, I'm going to tell you guys that I was right about the whole world being built on the ruins of some greater thing and I'll be the one laughing the way to the bank when some horrible thing happens."

Dash smiled. "I'll be waiting." Dash pulled out some bits and plopped them down, carefully picking up the bag of fish and checking the brown package and making sure it felt heavy enough for the soup she was going to try and make. "See you later, I guess."

Lily shrugged. "Whatever." Lily quietly looked around and leaned into Dash, her voice switching slightly from the gruff demeanor she normally had into a soft whisper. "Hey, tell Roseluck to get off her sorry flank and come work the stall again. I keep telling her customers that I haven't seen her for a bit. They aren't super happy about that." Lily looked at the Everfree and looked down at the ground. "I mean if you want to or not, it doesn't really matter to me since I usually just get my stock from the surrounding area. But like Rosie is the adventurous one and she was talking about some deer tracks in the Everfree and I said that'd be absolutely idiotic. But she went in there like a day ago looking for an Iridium Rose and she hasn't come back out and like it sucks. . ." Lily breathed out. She looked around and fell back into rhythm. "But like whatever. Come again or not. Like I care."

Dash looked back at Fluttershy who just shrugged. Turning back to Lily, the pegasus faked a smile and said the first thing that came to her mind. "Roseluck's probably fine. And if not, well, I'll bring it up to Twilight cause Rainbow Dash and I have a few questions to ask her about some personal stuff."

Lily nodded. "Something personal?"

Dash nodded.

Lily grinned. "I knew it. You two would be great parents."

Dash and Fluttershy stared at her, Fluttershy turning around and standing up to see over Dash's head. "What was that?"

Lily stared at the pair. "So you aren't going to go see if you can get one of you turned into a stallion? I mean what with you two moving in together and being nearly inseparable the last few weeks, the whole town's waiting for you to bang."

Fluttershy carefully stepped off her perch and blew the long strands of rainbow hair out of her face, carefully leaning on Lily's stand, the now blue mare tried to act cool. Dash just thought it looked silly. Fluttershy cleared her throat and smiled at the businesspony. "Lily, where did you hear that was happening cause I just moved in cause some stuff was happening in my personal life. . .not relationship drama. That isn't really my thing. I mean do you see me having kids and all that being a Wonderbolt? Like nine months of terrible stuff just for that?"

Lily shrugged. "Wonderbolt's have kids all the time. Plus there's two of you. While the town's placing bets on how Shy here would look as a stallion, you do know you can be one Dash. Totally would fit your personality. Plus you wouldn't come off as the resident pride flag of the gays. No offence, but like you stick out like a sore hoof on that front."

Dash smiled and pulled Fluttershy away since they got what they came for. With a curt nod, she thanked the pink earth pony with a quick "Thanks for the input" and left. She looked up at the sky and saw clouds quickly forming as they walked in relative silence. It fit her mood so well. She looked at Shy who was glaring at the ever shrinking Lily and absentmindedly touching a lock of the prismatic hair that was starting to dampen with the cold drops of rain that started pouring down in ever increasing quantities.

She barely heard Shy's mumbled question as they dashed through the fields and shut down streets of Ponyville, the coming storm of rain making the sleepy town into a dreary place, color draining from the town as clouds darkened the pastel walls into shades of grayish colors, reality creeping in as Dash's thoughts made her realize that maybe things weren't great in this town. Sure, she got a few comments every once in a while, a mare with her coloration, mood, and orientation got a few. It wasn't that.

It was the comment about them being a couple, about Twilight, about wanting a kid. . .

She breathed. She felt flashes of her mind light up with false memories of happy moments turned sour, of a library burning because of what was in it, and flowers twisted into an approximation of a spider. She blinked as the rain made it hard to see, bleary eyes covered in misting rain. It felt like stinging tears, but it wasn't. It was just the rain. Nothing more.

She looked at the bag of fish, the paper bag wet and limp with water from the now pouring rain. She just wanted to cook something and get her mind off of all the terrible things that happened. Maybe for the last time. That ship was out there somewhere. It wasn't going to be used once.

She could barely hear Fluttershy yelling at her as she ran as fast as her legs could take her, almost mechanically through the road that connected Fluttershy's small house to civilization, windows barely lit with the waning light of the day mixed with a few candles safely covered in case of fire. She saw that stupid rabbit in a window, staring down at the two now soaked ponies. She looked out at the Everfree as she turned the final corner and she would swear she was seeing things. The branches of the trees just curved like horns. It was just her state of mind, things coming up from Lily, it wasn't a deer staring at them, the beady eyes glaring at them. It was just the rain, a light and maybe an animal. Not deer.

She opened the door and Fluttershy followed her in, the pair drenched to the bone as the rain pattered down in gouts of water, drip dripping in a rhythmic dance of nature. Water pooled on the hard wooden floor and Fluttershy carefully said nothing. The small blue pegasus said all she had to in the sad magenta orbs of hers, the emotion not something that Dash usually saw on her own face. She was too cool to show emotion. She was just a Wonderbolt, she was special.

Dash trudged to the carpet and sat down on it, slumping her shoulders, letting the package of fish and shrimp she had so purposely bought sit there unopened next to her. She stared up at the ceiling and sat there tracing each line of the wood for a minute or two, barely noticing the small pegasus that crept up next to her and lay her head on her chest, Rainbow feeling each and every curve of her body, the soaked coat of hers leaving not much to her imagination.

"Dash?"

"Yeah?"

"You want to make dinner yet?"

Dash sighed, looking at the soaking wet package of food. "Nah, I just want to lay here a bit. Anyway, Pinkie told me there's like an amount of time that food's okay to keep out. Four hours? Something like that."

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. "It's more like two."

Dash scoffed. "Either way, it's not like I ever tested out that rule since somepony told me to slow down while eating."

Fluttershy prodded Dash's side. "You're still the one who ate six burgers almost two weeks ago."

Dash grinned. "Well somepony doesn't feed her body well so I took it upon myself to fix that."

Fluttershy playfully swatted Dash. "More like you wanted to pig out and relax."

"No comment."

The pair giggled and stared up at the ceiling.

Shy breathed out and carefully looked at Rainbow. She could trace the tension that the pegasus was hiding in the way she held herself. The wings curled up around her like a blanket, the slight rock back and forth as she silently stared up, the fetal like position she had. "Dash, you want to talk about why you ran away just now? Knowing you, you don't just fly off the handle like that. You usually have a reason." Fluttershy pushed the issue gently. "Was it what Lily said?"

Rainbow sighed and stretched out her hooves, carefully looking at the grime and muck that was now staining the yellow coat she was trapped in now. "Yeah."

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. "That's not the Rainbow I know so well. Why would the most awesome pony care about anything she said. I mean you heard her, she's all about saying random stuff that she heard some other pony say. That's like two levels removed from her experience and so I'd take whatever she said as something to look at with some skepticism."

Dash laughed. "Yeah, but we are in a relationship, so like not everything was false. So what does that mean about the rest of the stuff she said? Cause look at me right now, I'm stuck in your body. Right here. And yet she said we'd be okay parents. Like how does that even work?"

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. "If you're telling me that somehow you don't know how sex works, I'll be extremely worried. I mean didn't Blossomforth call you her wingmare? Plus you give Rarity a ton of flak about her attitude towards it."

Dash chuckled. "Somepony has been paying attention to me."

Fluttershy smirked. "I'm your marefriend. Somepony has to or else you'd run off and kill yourself over something extremely heroic and silly."

"Ouch, but point taken. And no, I know what sex is. "

Fluttershy brushed loose strands of pink out of Rainbow's face and stared closely at her marefriend, her hot breath sending tingles of heat into her thighs. "Then what's the issue?"

"I don't know how good I'd be at parenting,. I mean I had that dream and nightmare vision of some fake version of our kid, but like that's fake. Whatever my mind makes up for a future kid would probably be some ideal kid. Twilight would explain it better, but like what if I messed up and did something horrible. I mean my parents sold me off to the circus for money."

Fluttershy rested her head on Dash's chest and whispered. "Yeah. And my mom wasn't much better."

Dash froze. "Shy, I didn't mean it like that. I mean like I'd be worried I wouldn't know how to react to kids."

Fluttershy poked Dash in the chest with a hoof. "Scootaloo would beg to differ. I mean I look at your memories of her and its full of random nice things you do for her. And you were all gung ho about helping her with her problems fitting in once I came up with the idea so either you are really good with foals and don't see it or there's some other deeper thing I don't even know about that you are trying to make up for."

Dash sighed. "I don't know. Foals are weird. Like I get Scoots, she's like ten or whatever. Ponyfeathers, Pinkie would know more about foals that I do. The Cake Twins are the only ones I know at all young enough to be like babies and I'm terrible around those two. I don't know what to do since the Cakes banned me from teaching Pound all my cool tricks. What else do I have besides that? Oh sure, I'm a Wonderbolt. That's great. But like I don't know what to do when it doesn't involve flight or fighting or acrobatic stunts. It's just not there."

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. "Nopony knows what to do with foals. And I don't fare much better with those two."

Dash scoffed. "I doubt that."

The blue pegasus got up and shook herself off briefly, the dampness sticking to her, causing her coat and mane to become a frizzed out mess of hair. She inwardly noted that she would need to brush before bed or else she'd get rather terrible tangles of fur in the morning and continued sorting her thoughts. "It's true. Babies set off my anxiety so terribly. I want to protect them from all the terrible things I know are out there and keep them safe. But then I get in my head. Every scenario plays out so vividly and I can't get away from it. And I just start having panic attacks, constantly. Fight or flight and you know which one I choose to take when that pops up." Fluttershy awkwardly tangled and untangled a lock of her hair as she looked down towards the floor.

Dash stretched and gently pulled some feathers off Fluttershy, letting them drift slowly to the ground. "You aren't that cowardly, Shy, I mean you've faced down dragons and cockatrices and like a whole menagerie of animals. That has to count for something."

Fluttershy nuzzled into Dash's chest. "If you say so. But I'd think we'd be good parents, Rainbow. I mean if you wanted to."

Dash blushed crimson and looked away briefly from the small pegasus who was radiating off levels of cuteness that just was melting her awesome factor. Not that she wanted to mention it. But she felt a twinge of heat travel up her spine as she felt something come over her and as she stared, she carefully leaned down and kissed her on the lips, the touch electrifying her body as she held the kiss, tongue darting into Shy's open and waiting mouth, the faint taste of honey and clover on her lips. She breathed through her nose as she didn't want the kiss to end, She felt Fluttershy run her hoovex over her wings, the mare trapped in a body foreign to her, hooves tingling pleasure spots so normal to the mare that it felt like she was playing an instrument- a touch of a wingtip, dragging the hoof over a ridge of nerve endings so connected to her core that Dash involuntarily moaned into Shy's mouth, the vibration letting her her marefriend redoubled her ministrations. She touched her sides, hooves dancing up and down in a pattern of lust as the pair danced in unpracticed motions, the food on the food forgotten for the moment.

Dash broke the kiss and breathed out, face flushed and cheeks burning hot. Fluttershy's mane was glistening with a sheen of sweat, the sexual pheromones now coating the room with unspoken words.

"Wow."

Fluttershy demurely smiled and awkwardly picked up the wet groceries in her hooves and slowly trotted over to her kitchen, Dash keeping an eye on her backside as she swayed into the cozy kitchen. Dash gulped as thoughts swam in her head. Maybe she took things too fast. She was unsure. Glancing quickly at the clock, the pair had been lip locked for a few minutes at most. That had to be a good sign, but maybe she was too forward. She didn't know. It wasn't like she had so much experience that it was a natural thing. Just running on instinct and she didn't know what else to do.

"Are you coming?" Fluttershy popped her head out.

Rainbow raised a hoof. "Yeah."

"Good, because I'm not too sure how to clean the meat. I mean I can eat it if I have to, but it feels weird to do. So, um, do you want to show me?"

Rainbow nodded. This was going to be awkward.

The Speaker of the Hive felt the Queen speak through it, her words echoing through each and every connected brain of the collective. Her words were honey to them, each mental image a promise to a full course meal. She outlined the Stormed One's plan, ideas forming on the wing as the Celestial Sea's vast expanse shrank with distance, each changeling slightly unused to the lengths of leagues instead of a few miles between hives. Each partial collective was a section of the whole, when smaller bugs grew tired, those in the adult stages of life held them up in spun hammocks of threads.

Chrysalis' voice echoed through the hive. "Phase Two commencing now." Flashes of the plan formed in the hivemind, plans gained from some rather talkative dragons giving them a slight advantage. As the Speaker said those vocalized words, he fired up his magic, shifting the world for a second into a green hue, limbs shifting and reforming in a facsimile of scales and hide. He took a few flaps of his wings and took a deep breath as they curved slightly southward to conform to the normal route of the dragon migration, each changeling a slight imitation of a drake or wyvern. The plan was based on falsity. Ponies were trusting of the truth and bending it slightly was ever so useful.

The dragon migration was not supposed to happen twice a year, but ten thousand dragons were far more palatable to Manehattan's defenses than ten thousand Changelings. Dragon migrations happened regularly- Changeling invasions did not.

The disguised changelings opened their wings, their new forms letting them carry far more cargo than before. Small squads of gryphons landed and perched upon the dragons, each squad led by a small cadre of mages, their bright plumage a mark of distinction- some barely old enough to be called adults. Their plumage was spotted and new in their haste to create a quick and unexpected army of soldiers. Gala of the Eyrie had implanted them with their devotion to her and her family, the one small gander led the Manehattan attack, his blue plumage so vibrant compared to the muted colors of his lesser peers.

Gallus groaned as he glanced at the ground, great gouts of green waves just passing him by. He flexed his wings, letting the mana encompass him for a moment, feeling the air surround him in waves of comfort. He loved his mother, her gruff demeanor slightly off putting to some, but he knew she was okay. Gilda had tried to talk to him before he left about something, but she was cagey about it, she talked about weird riddles and Equestria in passing, barely mentioning the attack.

He felt his anger change the spell, his wings shifting the calming air to heat radiating off of him like a blazing fire. He opened his eyes and saw the gout of flame just inches from his face. He breathed out, the mana calming, shifting the color of the flame to green until it condensed itself into a small focused ball of heat. He carefully cast it down towards the sea, sure not to cross any of the gryphon troops or changelings. Gallus stared at the mote of flame until it hit the water, the heat coming off the fire vaporized a portion of the sea for a moment.

He watched droplets of water condense and fall back towards the roiling sea.

It was slightly beautiful, if chaotic. He silently stared at his troops. He had protested, ever briefly, not to be on the march. His sisters were older and wiser than him. Gallant had sequestered him away for years and so he had no idea what was in store. And he was only about 14 summers old. He had brought up all of these facts to her and she had whisked them away in a moment.

"My father had sent me on my first mission before the age of twelve. If I came out of it fine, you should too."

He was unsure. He stared up at the giant moon that gave the army a path through rather boring expanses of water and air. The blue gryphon lay back on the fake dragon and pulled out one of his feathers, quickly grabbing a piece of parchment and hastily jotting a note and a very quick sketch of the landscape, tracing the rocky outcroppings of uninhabited islands dotting the Celestial Sea, briefly wondering where Chief Galahad had ended up during his very own invasion of Equestria a hundred years ago, imagining a gryphon that looked like Gallus striding through the sea foam and staring up at the white cliffs of the Equestrian East, confident in his decision.

He traced the moon and stars, making sure to outline the constellations that they held within them, the Tambelonian constellations coming to mind- the Bell Constellation right in his sights, the curve of the cracked bell pouring out a fount of stars. He quickly drew his perspective above, the hint of a 'dragon's' wing, his bag, a darkly shaded wing that hinted of its color. He blinked and the photo in his mind was traced onto the page, a hint of a smile brightened his features for a moment, and he scribbled a signature to his favorite sister. Gilda.

He let his magic surround the letter in magical flame and as he watched, the letter smoldered and burned, each word floating off the page, the picture burning slowly as it was transferred to pure mana for the briefest of moments, ready to reform into a message on the other side of the sea in her chambers.

He quickly fluffed his feathers and drew his bag close and closed his eyes to rest. The next few days were going to be painful. Sleep was a necessity.

Twilight breathed out as she stared at Pinkie. "So what has you all in a twist?"

Pinkie gripped her coffee as she felt the hint of rain right near the top of her head. She turned her head and watched the rain patter on the window and sighed. "Pinkie Sense."

Twilight shrugged. "If you want me to run diagnostic tests on whatever you are going to mention, I can, but after my first look at you, honestly I don't know how much help I'd be. Unless I bring Discord into the experiment, I can't disentangle the mana- the sheer observation of the phenomena makes the test change without massive influence from an opposite but relative force. Therefore, I can't just know what's up. It's like reading the past and future concurrently and not knowing which is which. Completely fascinating and interesting idea for a paper, but useless in trying to parse what you mean."

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Twi, you're doing it again. The thing."

The alicorn blushed. "Sorry. Will try to limit my scientific tangents as much as possible. But still, it's like trying to figure out a foreign language. I just don't get the whole thing and here you are perfectly fine bending the rules of most of the magic laws I know just on a whim. Color me surprised you of all ponies have an issue with your Sense." Twilight tapped a hoof in thought and starting pulling out Pinkie's previous test results, glancing at the raw data that she had gathered through years of study. "Your vitals look good, your brain isn't throwing off more mana than normal, your system itself isn't in some kind of organ failure or loss due to your diet- though I'm shocked that you aren't diabetic. . ."

Pinkie frowned, too used to Twilight's aside comments. "What if I told you there's something I can't see with it?""

Twilight straightened. "Entirely possible, though highly improbable. We ran all the tests. I remember testing your limits. Magical and otherwise. If there's some loophole, I should have found it. Thorough study of natural phenomena in every foreseen eventuality was kind of my deal in my magical thesis." Twilight tapped on the table slightly harder, a mental tic slowly unwrapping itself as she tried to play back every single moment of her life and figure out if she had been bested by Pinkie's magic once again. She inwardly counted to ten and looked up at the pink earth pony in barely contained worry.

"We didn't try dark magic."

Twilight stood up abruptly, knocking her coffee cup to the ground, the glass shattering in uncountable pieces. "We didn't try it for a reason. I told you this a thousand times. Dark magic is forbidden for a reason. Only used in extreme cases and highly unstable in living matter. We aren't going to do it. Especially after what we've seen dark magic can do when used in conjunction with a will able to break moral laws for fun."

Pinkie sighed. "Yeah, I would be worried about Moondancer too."

Twilight rubbed her head. "I wasn't talking about Moondancer. I was talking about Starlight. Moondancer's told me she's fine. A bit unstable, but having a gem in your chest can't be good for anypony, and anyway it's not like I can check user manuals on living tissue and gem maintenance. There's one case of it and her name is Moondancer."

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Well I can't sense her with Pinkie Sense. At all."

Twilight stared at Pinkie. "You told me that she was perfectly fine. I remember you saying on the train, that she was fine. Multiple times." Twilight breathed out. "Pardon my language, but what the fuck do you mean she's the one thing you can't sense with your magic?"

Pinkie bristled at the harsh words, unaccustomed to Twilight's outburst. "I don't know, that's why I'm asking you. You did all those tests on me and I guess I should have just said no if you don't have a clue. I have other ways to figure out stuff."

Twilight shrugged. "Like what? I'm sorry but I don't see other ponies with your gift anywhere and you told me your family's like on the other side of Equestria, which I'm sorry to say, but that takes a week to get there on a good trip. So unless you break time and space, I doubt you could even do it."

Pinkie grimaced. "Well I totally could go to them, but I wanted to tell you that I don't trust your 'best and oldest friend'" Pinkie detected a bit of sarcasm in her voice, but she didn't care. Twilight took the conversation to a whole other level. "Sorry, but I'd think your whole deal of forbidden dark magic thing you keep harping on might trump that. Or maybe your whole battle with Sombra and Tirek. They used dark magic and you weren't all buddy buddy with them."

Twilight facehoofed. "It's different."

"No it's not. You can't just decide when it's different. Starlight did a bad thing that hurt your friend. Still your morals should be on top of that. It's the principle of the thing. You said you'd trust me."

"Well I can't now. You lied."

Pinkie slammed her hoof down in mild frustration. "Yeah. I did. But I felt terrible about it for the last two days. I decided to talk to you because I felt conflicted and not doing something about it would just make the future worse."

Twilight scoffed. "Yeah like try to get me to say 'Hey Moondancer, you know that invitation for Nightmare Night. My marefriend says you're a danger to society and need to go to Tartarus.'" Twilight frowned. "Cause that would go so well. I just rekindled a friendship on a tentative basis and ghosting her because of some Pinkie Sense thing- that's fantastic."

Pinkie felt her blood boil. She coldly whispered out her reply to Twilight. "Have I ever been wrong?"

Twilight shook her head in the negative. "Not yet. But you just said you can't read her. So she's an unknown factor."

Pinkie groaned. "She blew up Ironhoof because she loved you. I feel like you're forgetting that. That's a pretty good reason to keep her as far away from anything. In a world of black and white, she's grey."

Twilight sighed. "I'd do something similar if you were in danger."

Pinkie facehoofed in sheer annoyance. "You'd blow up a town. . .for me. Yeah, let's just not go there ever again. Princess Celestia wouldn't like having her prized student and newest alicorn talking about how pony towns could just be wiped off the map if I was in danger. That'd be a fantastic thing for the news to get out. Princess Twilight, the upjumped alicorn that's morally grey and destroyed the concept of gender. Oh and Princess of Friendship. I forgot cause you ran across Equestria for a friend that I didn't know or trust and now you're all gung ho about bringing her here."

Twilight smacked the table, deep fissures erupting in the hard wood from her strength. "Take that back."

Pinkie felt tears in the corners of her eyes. "That won't fix the issue. So I won't. And I got those insults from somewhere. Ask around Ponyville. Being the number one party pony and your marefriend is exhausting."

Twilight breathed out and coldly stared at Pinkie. "Get out."

Pinkie silently nodded and quietly moved past Twilight. She didn't say anything, the words left unsaid enough as the pink pony left the castle, Twilight closing the door behind her and locking it. She also remembered Pinkie's way in, and quickly teleported to her room, locking the balcony window just so she couldn't come back in again.

Twilight looked at her room, memories welling up of Pinkie, places where they had spent the briefest of times together and she quickly teleported out, the feelings making her chest hurt with regret. She sat back down at her desk and stared at the wicked crack in it.

She breathed out and tried to meditate.

Dost thou want to talk about why I can feel your anger permeate my realm?

Twilight broke her concentration. Her body floated down from its perch in the middle of the room with a slight bump. Twilight rubbed her head and mildly amplified her voice. "No, Luna. I'd rather not."

Twilight tapped a hoof quickly on her desk, her mind full of questions. Spike, Pinkie, Ironhoof, Dash and Fluttershy. There was just so much on her plate now and part of it was her fault. Maybe she was too harsh with Pinkie. But she couldn't fix it right now- that was too soon, too raw, too recent. Plus Pinkie might just think she was trying to fix the fight right away. She grumbled as she quickly got up and stretched, the room now too uncomfortable to be in.

She walked into the library and pulled books off the shelves, trying to sort the books by as many ways as she could think up- the Canter Method, Saddle Arabian, Manusian. She even threw in sorting by Abysinnian and Yak methods just for a change of pace, the probability of her reading books sorted by page length, copyright, and color all followed suit.

She heard a quiet sigh as she continued sorting. Looking back, she saw Luna peeking her head in the library. The Princess of the Night had a grasp on an entire pot of coffee and she carefully walked over piles of philosophy books, self help tomes, and romance novels as she entered the room. Carefully placing the coffee on one of the few remaining empty tables, she dragged over a chair and sat down. "I always wondered what foibles you gained from Celestia's tutelage. Perfectionism, order, manic episodes? A mix of all three? Or something entirely of your own making?" Luna crossed her hooves and stared at the little alicorn, who was stone faced. "I have all night. It's not like preparing for Nightmare Night is hard for somepony like me- a little suggestion there, a mention of ingredients here, decoration preparation, weather management. Difficult to most, sure, but when you can enter the dreams of your subjects, you can sort of plan out small events like this in an hour or two." Luna felt the eyeroll come from Twilight. Luna shrugged. "Okay, more like two or three days of planning, but that just means I can take the night off."

"Go away."

Luna groaned. "So very much like my sister. The posture, the roiling emotions beneath." Luna walked forward and placed a firm hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "You are not my sister, more a student of mine in practice, but still she's the original and you are the sequel. Better in some things, worse in others. Equally valid, equally special." Luna carefully brushed Twilight's hair with her magic, quietly straightening her mane into something far more presentable than the current unkempt, busy hair that was on her head. She could see the unicorn covered in a light sheen of sweat. Luna pried into Twilight's mana reserves, checking the mana level, seeing that well was running dry.

Luna breathed out and hugged Twilight, the action slightly awkward to the older alicorn, trying not to put all of her strength into an emotional gesture felt odd to her. "Whatever it is, it's going to be okay."

Twilight let her magic stop, entire shelves of books falling from her aura. She looked up at Luna and blushed at the odd closeness the usually aloof mare was showing her. She could smell the scent of lavender on the alicorn and she sat there in Luna' embrace for a moment. She felt exhausted, her head aching as she had been trying to sort an uncountable number of books just to be rid of feelings now oddly on her mind. Her body ached as she felt the blowback of using too much magic at once hit her, her legs shaking with added effort as she just felt so much heavier. Twilight leaned into Luna's larger body and felt her emotions well up.

Luna awkwardly patted Twilight's head. She didn't know what else to do- the steps she was following was from Celestia's own advice on how to connect with their shared subjects. The pamphlet was sort of helpful in theory on how to make friends. "There, there. Let it all out."

Twilight cried into Luna's coat, wetting the fur and letting the emotions she had kept in the last week or two out. The rain outside felt like her emotions made manifest, the happy town drenched in a monsoon of cold rain. Her happy or barely stable exterior hiding a mess of tangled emotions and fears. She was just a normal pony elevated to the highest position in the land, she was not perfect. She got angry, she got sad, she messed up and said the wrong things. And here she was in her castle, surrounded by books, unable to stop crying because she wanted Pinkie back. Everything had been fine and then it wasn't and she didn't know how to fix it, she was a failure of a princess and didn't deserve to be happy.

Luna sat there, letting the smaller princess let out her feelings, staring out at the rain, at a quickly shrinking pink pony. She had planned to try and mend fences with her sister after Nightmare Night, but this seemed far more worthy of her time. Her sister had all the time in the world, Ponyville itself was the present.

"It's going to be okay."

Pinkie didn't feel the rain on her coat, the cold feeling enveloping her in its embrace. She kept replaying the conversation in her head, the attempts at defusing the conversation into a more manageable talk had all failed. She had guessed that was going to be the case, but she wasn't one that believed that the future was completely set in stone. She had decided to run away from home because of a better chance at seeing the world, the attempt making her feel emotions beyond what her sisters usually had felt in their slice of the world. She could say that Canterlot was as pretty as what her Granny had described. She saw Sonic Rainbooms so often that the trick should have lost its wonder. But it didn't. Everytime she saw it, she was pulled back to her childhood, the feeling of seeing the world outside invade upon her quiet paradise, the chance of more wonder tainting her view of the farm.

She felt tears run down her cheeks as she looked back at the one light in the castle slowly wink out. Pinkie felt soaked to the bone, but she was staying in the moment, smelling the hint of ozone in the air, the smell of Sugarcube Corner, the smell of her own wet coat. She thought of taking Gummy with her, but she decided against it. He'd be sad without all the friends he made here- not to mention the lack of a place to swim in and have the best time ever just lazing about with all his pet friends.

She choked up at the thought of leaving. She had guessed this day was coming- she had felt something off about Equestria for a little while- and she had been stuck here for a bit, unsure of what exactly to do. And she had tried to find a way where she could be useful and yet still here, in Ponyville, totally fine.

She stared at the town, lights blinking on and off as ponies prepared for yet another day. The Cakes would be fine. She brushed a hoof on Sugarcube Corner as she passed by, lingering on it as long as she could. It had been her home for so long that leaving it felt wrong and yet she knew that she had to, each possible good future hinging on certain actions that she knew, others she couldn't read at all. She only guessed that black cloud of nothing was Moondancer, just hovering around each future, making her Pinkie Sense close to useless in practice. The future was obscured and that terrified her.

She walked to one of her ways out of town, a nondescript bush just sitting in the middle of town, close by so much action. She had placed this one so long ago, the magic she used tinged with chaos magic, sealed with her own aura for so long that the circles her own family had tried to teach her were mostly grown over with weeds and brambles. It was the perfect hiding spot for a Seer Seal, the portal home drawing on potential magic from the surrounding area, enhancing the place instead of draining it. Seals like this brightened the place it was placed near- Granny Pie said Seers were sometimes a focus of joy and Pinkie had tried her best here in Ponyville. Planning out so many parties, baby showers, et cetera. And yet, here she was standing in the rain looking at the earth- her best way home to Rockville. Pinkie dug in the earth, carefully picking up a dirty sack of supplies and hoisting it over her back, she stared at Ponyville one last time. She made a Pinkie Promise to herself, the Seer magic binding her promise to an unbreakable vow. She wasn't going to see Ponyville again for a long while, the promise to finish her aborted training was stuck firmly in her mind.

She quietly let the innate chaos magic she had, twist the Seal to Rockville's location, the effort making her break out in a sweat as she hadn't used this part of her magic in months. She hadn't seen the use for it for a while. Things had been good, life had been normal. She began to run through the old dances her Granny had taught her, steps dormant in her memory as she sunk more and more chaos magic into the spell, her eyes shifting to yellowish red as the tinge of chaos called to her, the plants snaking up her legs, calling her home.

She breathed out. In a flash of pink, the earth pony felt the world reshape around her like taffy, elongating and turning on itself in a recursive manner. She blinked and stared at herself, reflections of clones between worlds staring back, some still in Equestria itself- a glimmer of recognition telling her that one still was okay. She blinked again and the world melted away, the moon physically moving in her view as she moved across Equestria.

Pinkie felt her body slow and stop as she popped out of the Seer Seal on the other side, the desolate atmosphere of Rockville staring back at her, a dusty path barely holding onto civilization welcoming her back to her childhood home. She slumped over, the ordeal of sending herself home taking out most of her magic. She wheezed out a laugh as she rolled over to her side, seeing a small house across the way, a grain silo she knew far too well sitting next to it.

She waited. Pinkie knew they'd have felt her come home. She stared as her very own family came out to meet her, most of them at least. Three earth ponies carefully ran across the dirt, their hooves kicking up a fine mist of dust as they came to Pinkie's side.

Pinkie couldn't see what the three were doing, but as she drifted off to unconsciousness, she could hear them,

"Gloat all you want Marble, I wasn't saying you'd be wrong. I said our sister would be stupid coming back here from whatever shithole place she was living at."

"Limestone, we have better things to worry about. Boulder's telling me that Pinkie probably needs help."

"Fine, but I'm not fucking done bitching about our fantastic sister coming back home like come on Maud, Daddy told us not to talk to her. Cause fuck-"

Pinkie didn't hear any more, her body too tired to focus on anything but sleep.

Diamond Tiara hobbled along on three legs as she tried to weigh her options. She quietly stared out her door's minuscule peephole, carefully eyeing where her mother was standing quietly. Just staring at her door.

The filly carefully weighed her options, silently cursing that her room was on the second floor of her house. She had stared at the cold, hard ground that awaited her fall if she tried to escape that way. And yet there wasn't much choice if she wanted to. She stared out again as her mother paced in front of her room, quietly muttering to herself things the filly couldn't exactly hear with the rain muffling the sound outside her door a little bit. The rain storm made her slightly nervous as she tried to think. She tried to lock the door as quietly as possible, teetering on two hooves as she tried to slowly push the lock slowly enough so she wouldn't alert her own mother to what she was doing.

Diamond breathed slowly as the lock bolted itself in place. She waited, breath held in rapt attention as she listened outside her door, her ear pressed up to the peephole, eyes carefully looking at the light streaming in from the hallway- making sure that no shadow came near. She waited for what felt like minutes.

She backed away from the door, carefully weighing her options. She looked at the mess of covers on her bed. Linens from the finest stores in Canterlot were piled on it haphazardly, her life before her mother's slight break from reality so far away. She sighed and laid down on her bed.

Diamond stared at her broken leg. Carefully prodding it caused her to wince in agony as she tried to figure out if it was worse that she realized. She gingerly touched it again with a hoof, feeling the blackened area where it hurt the worst as a cold mass of pain. The only thing she knew was that the coloration of her leg was completely different than the rest of her- it being multiple shades darker throughout, and the point of where she thought the break was being black and green. She didn't know what that meant for her, but she guessed that without attention, it would be bad. She tried to remember what Miss Cheerilee said during first aid and came up with a garbled mess. She cursed her luck. She forgot that she had cheated on that pop quiz with Silver's answers; she had been far more focused at laughing at Twist's questions, the lisp of the foal so hilarious at the time.

She beat her head against her pillows. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She ran her hooves against the fabric, the bunching material too heavy and awkward to tie up in knots. She barely knew how to even tie knots anyway- it had been Silver who was the Filly Guide, not her. She didn't know her specific knots- just the basic one.

"What would Silver do?" Diamond stared up at the ceiling, trying to imagine what her best fried would say. She imagined the earth pony carefully brushing her hair as she regaled her about some fact about weapons or jewelry- the odd idea that a pony like her could even be friends with one of the lower class always had brought her grief from her mother.

Diamond Tiara rolled over to her side and stared at her closet door.

A closet filled with clothes her mother had bought just to parade her around like a doll.

Diamond Tiara's eyes lit up as she got the most devilish idea for an escape plan.

Applejack walked through the puddles pooling in the Ponyville streets, her hooves now caked with mud. She pulled her hat down on her head, the wide brim of her hat protecting her face from the rain only slightly as she could barely make out the lights she was looking for. Carousel Boutique's welcoming bluish light a beacon for her. She hoped that the lights being on at this hour was a hint that the unicorn she wanted to see would be in- not Coco. While she liked that quiet mare and her more accommodating personality, she wasn't coming to see Coco.

She looked up and saw glimpses of a few pegasi from the weather team finishing their jobs stabilizing the cloud cover near the Everfree. She wished she was like them right now- either working in the fields or home caring for her family. Something that felt like a normal routine job- not out in the middle of a storm worrying about what she would say if Rarity wasn't there, what'd she say if she was, what she feared it would devolve into.

Applejack carefully walked towards the side of Carousel Boutique, the friend entrance covered by a nice awning that directed water away from the stoop of the building. She rapped on the door a few times, checking her hooves before knocking and quickly deciding which one to knock with in a split second. Rarity was a bit of a neat freak and even with a tacit understanding that her marefriend in Rarity's own words 'rolled around in dirt and muck all day long', it wasn't enough to keep every odd habit of the unicorn in check.

A clicking sound stopped and hooves quietly stepped across the wood floor. Applejack knocked again and as she was planning to leave, the bolts on the entrance slid back with multiple clicks and the door opened, the difference in light causing Applejack to shield her eyes with a hoof as she tried to look away from the entrance.

"Jackie? Darling, I wasn't expecting you this time of night in this dreadful weather. What in the name of Celestia brings you here?"

Rarity's bright voice was a salve to Applejack's building anxiety. "I just wanna talk. Got stuff on my mind about, y'know, the thing." Applejack glanced around carefully. "Can we talk privately about that?"

Rarity smiled. "Of course, I mean what kind of pony would I be to say no? But first, let's clean you up a little, because you may have been raised on a barn where its perfectly fine to track mud in, but I don't want to have Coco have any more work than necessary. And with how the weather is-" Rarity carefully leaned in, whispering the latter part of her sentence. "I doubt you will be going home." Rarity pulled back, carefully scanning Applejack's red face. "But you might have to share a bed with me, since Sweetie's currently staying over. Weekly obligations being missed and all since our little excursion took longer than expected."

Applejack nodded. It wouldn't be that hard to stay quiet. It was just going to be a talk. Nothing more.

"But first we need to give you a bath."

Applejack froze as Rarity's aura surrounded her and pulled the earth pony into her house.

Dash tried to focus as she cut the vegetables. Her ear twitched as a rush of heat ran up and down her spine- not because she was sick or anything, far from it. It was just that she had Fluttershy draped over her trying to see what she was doing and maybe it was the rain clouding her judgement or the feeling of being in a comfortable place, but she could feel the body she was stuck in react to the touch of the other pegasus.

She hoped it wasn't estrus or something. Dash hated that time of the year. She stammered out her final bits of her recipe as she felt Fluttershy's hooves accidentally brush her wings, rubbing on the most sensitive part for longer than she expected, her legs slightly buckling under the heady pleasure of being touched in a place she normally couldn't reach.

"J-just need to add the shrimp now, and then that's it."

Fluttershy stepped off the spot and flitted over to grab a few bowls. "I would have expected that to take far longer than twenty minutes. I mean when I was little Rarity's family had soup days and those well all day affairs."

Dash sighed, feeling the pulsing feeling of nerves wanting another round of touching. "That's it. I said I liked cooking fast meals, not difficult ones. If you want those, ask Pinkie. She's the culinary crazy mare. I have better things to do than just watch pots boil." She placed the heavy soup pot on the table and ladled a few scoops of the soup into each bowl, the whitish broth a nice welcoming color that reminded her of days spent in her house, carefully keeping warm as winter raged below her.

Fluttershy popped her head out and stared at Dash. "You know that's a myth, right? I mean I get what you mean, but-"

Dash groaned. "As Twilight says, blah, blah, blah. I get impatient, that's all."

The quiet pegasus smiled. "Don't we all. So where did you learn this recipe cause Ponyville isn't the most meat friendly place. I mean it's food is all about grasses and daisies and all the flowers of the fields- friendly to every lower animal." Fluttershy shook her head. "Though I wonder sometimes since that's kind of a mean thing to say. I've had wonderful conversations with all of my animals, even the ones that some ponies say aren't sentient creatures." Fluttershy looked out at the rain. "Though maybe it's just cause I listen."

Dash awkwardly sat down, not expecting the mood to shift so suddenly. "You okay?"

Fluttershy slid back into reality. "Sorry, it's just that I was distracted. I'm listening."

Rainbow tried to think as she tried to remember where she learned it from. "Probably Posey taught it to me, when I was little. Can't honestly remember. Been a while since I had somepony ask about my cooking. If I had to say, it was her."

Fluttershy smiled. "I get it. So what was she like?"

Dash shrugged. "Harsh, fair, kind of a strong pony, weird stare, decent cook."

Shy rolled her eyes. "Be serious, Dash, are you describing her or me?"

Rainbow looked at Fluttershy. "What? I was talking about. . ." Dash thought back to what Posey looked like, a decade or more of old memories forming on top of Fluttershy's features. She stopped and placed her spoon down. "She totally looked like you. And I guess acted like you. You sure your mom-"

"That's not really possible, I mean I knew my mom. She didn't look like me at all and she hated me for some reason. But that's how Juniper Wing was to my dad as well, so I think that was just her mood."

"Okay. Sorry, but weird coincidence then. But, yeah, I learned it from her. From Posey. Not your mom."

Fluttershy carefully took a bit of soup and tasted it. "Well, it tastes amazing. . .so whoever taught you wasn't half bad at it." Shy quietly put her spoon down and placed a hoof in Dash's larger yellow one. "Thanks."

Rainbow glanced down and stared at the development. "No problem."

Rainbow carefully cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, placing each dirty dish in the soapy water and letting the mess soak in it for a few minutes, she gingerly dipped her hooves in and out of the water as quickly as she could since she put it on the highest heat possible to clean it fast- she touched the scalding water and winced. Perfect heat for cleaning.

She quickly finished her cleaning and stretched her wings, her back slightly popping as she turned to get ready for bed.

"Dash?" Fluttershy peeked her head from the stairwell, toothbrush firmly in her mouth.

"Yeah?" Dash looked at the clock and rubbed her eyes.

"I'm glad we're home."

"Mmm-hmm, me too." Rainbow slid up to Fluttershy and kissed her cheek, the feeling of being close to her a nice feeling. She could finally relax.

Fluttershy smiled and flew over to the kitchen sink and spit out her toothpaste. She turned on the water for a few seconds and watched the mess slowly go down the drain. "Ready for bed?"

"Yeah."

The pair walked up the creaky stairs together, Dash draping a wing over her smaller bodied marefriend. Fluttershy leaned in close and nuzzled the underside of her lover's wing as they reached the top of the stairs, her touch lingering as she could smell something that smelled oddly familiar, yet foreign to her senses. She thought about where she had smelled that similar scent before and she blushed as she got the hint from her memory. She glanced down and saw the wet, winking lips from Dash's body. Which was her original body, which was so weird to think about. Fluttershy blushed and rubbed her legs together as she got up and walked into bed, the covers slightly mussed from a week of low use. Fluttershy yawned. "Night, Dash."

Fluttershy crawled into bed and felt the entire bed shift as Dash climbed in beside her. "Night, Dash."

"Night, Shy."

Both sat there in silence, looking up at the ceiling. Dash sighed. "Actually. . ."

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. "Yes, Rainbow?"

"I was thinking. . .since we almost died and all. . .I mean if you want to. . ."

"You want to have sex?"

Dash stammered. "I mean we're here, and like I saw you and we were wet and I thought I felt you react to me as well, and I tried to be all nice and cook you some stuff, but we don't have to. If you don't want. I could just go in the bathroom and deal with some feelings or like go outside. Probably a good cloud or two to deal with this. I mean it just rained and nopony would see me."

Fluttershy rolled over to look at her marefriend. "Didn't Twilight say that was illegal once or twice?"

Dash shrugged. "Maybe. But I can't remember. Plus it's so much easier to just do it on a cloud. I mean sure it's not the more hygienic thing, but it just makes more clouds and rain so like its not a terrible idea. I mean I catch Thunderlane doing it with Flitter and Cloudchaser all the time."

Fluttershy frowned. "Fantastic. What if somepony sees you? Ponies would talk about Fluttershy, the exhibitionist."

Dash slyly smiled. "I don't think most of the town would mind that. I mean you could probably turn most of the town straight or gay if that started happening more often.

Fluttershy frown lessened for a moment and the pegasus gently prodded her in the side. "Yeah, still not a great idea.."

"I was mainly joking, Shy, I wouldn't just flaunt all the nice bits you got. Element of Loyalty, remember? I might joke about doing that, but it's awkward finding a spot out in the outdoors. I mean the CMC are curious all the time, not to mention all the town gossips." Dash leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "I dunno, it's just like, with this-" Dash pointed down at her large yellow body. "-I mean it's weird to get urges about stuff cause like you're stuck in my body and I'm stuck in yours. What's even sex at that point? Like if we do it together, is it masturbation or not? Cause I don't want to really know, and I can't ask Twilight. I mean she'd just pull out some dictionaries or something and lecture me about words and their meanings. I don't want a sex ed class taught by Twilight. It'd be so boring and that's like what sex isn't. Or at least I don't think it should be boring. I mean all I hear my coworkers talk about is like getting laid and it sounds fun and all, but I dunno." She trailed off.

Fluttershy placed a hoof on Dash's chest and rubbed her softly. "It's okay, Dash."

Rainbow felt choked up as she felt Fluttershy try to comfort her. "Is it? I mean it's weird and I have feelings and your cute, but you look like me and I don't know. That's like weird, right? You're in my body and I find you attractive and I haven't been needing to really think about that because of all this shit that's been going on. I mean we almost died. I almost died. It's. . .heavy." Rainbow wiped a tear from her eye. "But yeah, stuff's just on my mind is all."

Fluttershy pulled a few unkempt feathers from Dash's wings and smoothed some of her coat down with her tongue, the mix of sweat and must covering her in its heady smell. She stopped her ministrations and stared down at Rainbow. "We could totally have a kid, you know."

Dash laughed. "Yeah let's totally be parents." Dash rolled back and stared at the other wall.

"I saw Chroma too, Dash. Whatever you saw wasn't fantastic, but I saw her too." Fluttershy didn't hear Dash and she just laid there in silence.

"Okay." Dash rolled back. "Twilight will be super pissed off though."

Fluttershy smiled. "We could always ask Rarity if need be. There's more than one unicorn that can do the spell. Or Luna. We do have multiple options if we actually wanted to do something like this and be serious about it."

Rainbow leaned in to kiss Fluttershy. "Sure." She paused for a moment. "So about the getting laid bit? I mean I love having a talk and everything but like, y'know, pent up and sitting here talking about sex is getting me all hot and bothered is all."

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. "Fine." The small blue pegasus pulled back the covers and turned on the lamp, the light casting the room in a bright glow for a moment until their eyes both adjusted.

"Shy, we could totally do this in the dark. It'd be like easier."

Fluttershy slid down the bed covers. She would have to wash the bed in the morning if they did this, but she didn't want to do all the linens, that would take a few hours out of her day. She awkwardly looked down at what she was working with. Dash wasn't wrong, a part of her mind thought this was odd, masturbatory, and a little confusing. Fluttershy pushed those thoughts away and looked at what was usually her own body- the ability to see her own body like this oddly satisfying in a way. She slowly cupped the pendulous breasts, testing their weight. She sighed as she felt them. They felt much heavier than before. Dash must have been packing away the food, since she also looked at a slight pudge on the pegasus's yellow belly, a sign that somepony had been packing away the calories. It wasn't noticeable to most, but to Fluttershy, she could remember what she looked like before. And gaining what looked like five to ten pounds in a few weeks was noticeable to somepony like her raised in the ways of dieting and living with a unicorn like Rarity for more than a month.

Fluttershy rolled her eyes as she looked at Dash, her hooves in a come hither position, sitting patiently on her back, body arching into her touch. The blue pegasus demurely smiled as she began her work, her tongue starting from above her marefriend's stomach, letting her tongue drag slowly down the expanse of her body, slowly inching her way down to right above her grapefruit sized breasts and nuzzling into the spots that she knew so well.

Rainbow sucked in breath as she felt pleasure arch up her spine. "What are you doing, Shy?"

Fluttershy winked. "You said you wondered if sex between us was masturbation or not? Well. I know almost each and every inch of that body you're currently stuck in." Fluttershy stuck out her tongue in jest. "So I think you'll like this." Fluttershy dove into the pink cavern that welcomed her touch, the walls opening as she poked her muzzle into that very familiar vagina. Fluttershy heard Dash cry out and she could feel her buck her hips into her face as she kept going, Dash's actions pushing her muzzle deeper into her, the walls inside trying to grasp her and massage her in response to the feeling of being entered.

Fluttershy pulled back for air for a moment and breathed, her blue face smeared with the love nectar of her marefriend. "You want to keep going?"

Rainbow vigorously nodded.

Roseluck carefully trotted through the woods, her steps carefully plotting each and every problematic area of the Everfree, the wet ground squelching underhoof, her search for the Iridium Rose she needed for her order always over the next hill in her mind.

The sounds of timberwolves made her pick up her pace. She normally would have come during the day, but with the client that she was trying to cater towards, she had little choice. They gave her a ton of money upfront and wanted a rose to highlight their next performance. She usually found the plant most of her customers wanted, but somehow, even after a day of searching, she couldn't find one of these roses. She was unsure who would use one of those plants for a musical performance, since it was more medicinal curative than just a pretty rainbow. She heard it was some Manehattan singer, though she wasn't hip to the new music that was coming from there. She was just happy to just focus on her flowers and live her life in Ponyville. Things were simpler when you just focused on the ground beneath your feet.

She hummed one of her little tunes, the sound echoing softly in the dark, each note coming back to her.

Roseluck stopped as she heard an echo. A low hum of her tune. She knew it should be an echo, since that's how sound worked. But then she heard her song repeat back to her seconds later, lower, more ominous, and most definitely not an echo.

"Hello?"

Roseluck felt her breath catch in her throat as she thought she saw the trees move.

"Hello? Very funny, Lily, nice joke, now can we just go home cause I'd rather not be out here having a laugh."

A deep voice answered her. "We don't find breaking the treaty very funny, little one."

Roseluck screamed as she saw figures in the trees, horns of uncountable measure in the darkness, hints of eyes staring at her. She ran as hard as she could, eyes straight ahead, scrambling over rocks and barely making it over holes that almost tripped her, her pure adrenaline fueling her dash back to safety. her screams waking up the forest in a flash.

That's what would have happened if she had slowed down. She would never make it back to Ponyville as she took a step too far and tumbled over the side of a ravine, her body tumbling into the dark water below. Her voice screamed for a moment and was stifled as she hit the rocks below, the fall breaking her spine and blood began pooling in her mouth as her ribs shattered into shards. Roseluck's last moments were painful as she tried to move, her back broken, slowly choking on blood, eyes quickly flittering about as she tried to move something, anything at all. She could only silently cry as she could see an Iridium Rose, right near her. Right outside of her grasp on the other side of the river. She breathed out, her sad soul leaving her body in a languid motion, slowly rising up to the rose and touching it gently. Roseluck died, unfulfilled and unable to get the thing she came into the Everfree Forest. Like so many other creatures before her, she was going to join the cacophony of life and death within the borders of the forest.

Nothing moved for a long time. Silence reigned for minutes on end until a party of deer walked out of the deep forest. A huge, white deer led the group and as he looked down into the bubbling waters below, he bowed his head for a moment and sang a song for the forest, his low wail, a plaintive call for the rest of the deer of the Thicket.

"King Aspen, what should we do with the body?" A brownish deer with armor stared down at the body on the rocks below, her body floundering as the tide tried to take her out to sea.

Aspen ruefully sighed. "I can see her lamenting ghost on the other side." Aspen pointed at the ball of light that wavered on the river's edge. "The timberwolves will find her. They will recognize her as one of their own, lost souls burdened by regrets. Take the body when they come. She won't be needing it anymore. And the alicorns in Ponyville shall be grateful to us. We will treat their property and lives better than they treated our homeland."

Blackthorn nodded and bowed down to the King of the Everfree Forest.