Twilight screamed, but no words came out. She was falling, or felt like she was falling. It was as though the world had been pulled out from under her as all light simultaneously vanished from her surroundings. For a brief moment, she wondered if that really was what had happened; if the floor had fallen away and the lights gone out. In her mind, though the surprise and shock of suddenly finding herself dropping, Twilight feared that she had been found, and that the people coming to hurt Morgana would hurt her too.

Except that the darkness was too complete. There was absolutely no light, nor any inconsistency in the inky void. Sound, likewise, had vanished, as had touch. There was only the feeling of falling, but not through air. There was no air. Only a complete and utter lack of sensory stimulus.

Yet, somehow, the darkness was not empty. In fact, it was burning. When Twilight looked into it, she saw nothing, heard nothing, and felt nothing- -but felt waves of some unseen force pushing against her mind. They were vast, and although she perceived them she did not understand them.

This strange and abstract form of understanding pressed in on her from all sides. She felt as though she were being crushed beneath it; somehow, though, it felt familiar. It occurred to Twilight that if she focused her mind on it just a little bit more, she might have the capacity to understand what it was.

She never got the chance. The ground came. Twilight felt herself slam into it- -or rather, it slamming into her. It seemed to have come up from nowhere, and yet been there the whole time, waiting to be perceived as Twilight returned to the waking world.

Twilight lay still for a moment, and then stirred.

“Ohh…”she groaned, putting her hoof to her forehead. “My head…”

She slowly opened her eyes and looked around. For a moment she just stared, confused. She found herself lying in damp grass in the middle of a forest. At first Twilight suspected that it might have been the forest from the Upper Levels, but she quickly dismissed that hypothesis. These trees were far larger, and far less cared for. Undergrowth was common: strange bushy plants, as well as odd ferns that grew from the bog. Bright eyes peeked out from the shadows near the plants.

Twilight sat up. She was in a swampy forest, and had no idea how she had gotten there. Even stranger, though, was the way the world had come to look. Twilight had to focus to see it, but once she knew what to look for it was obvious: the colors and textures of this world were flat and simple, and the shadows did not fall quite right. Everything seemed flat and was delineated with outlines. In other words, the world looked almost cartoonish.

“Get up,” sighed a voice. “It wasn’t that bad.”

Twilight lifted her head and gasped in surprise. A unicorn was standing over her. She was overall gray in color, with a short-cropped mane that had just the barest hints of violet and red. Her eyes were steely and pale, although the whites of her eyes were discolored, as though they were both bloodshot and badly jaundiced.

The pony wore no complete clothes, but somehow that did not bother Twilight. In fact, the appearance of this pony somehow felt more CORRECT. Her simple design only served to highlight how grotesque the ponies that Twilight had come to know really were. The only thing that made it possible for Twilight to recognize her was that she wore a thin silver necklace with a gleaming red gem in the center.

“M…Morgana?”

“Of course I’m Morgana. Who else would I be?”

“You…you’re body! It looks so different!”

Morgana looked down at herself as though she had never considered it before. “Oh,” she said. “Huh. That’s odd. But not entirely unexpected. I almost never manifest an avatar; I just handle the code directly. I guess this is some sort of manifestation of my self-perception or some psychological bullshit like that.”

Something in the woods chimed. Morgana’s eyes widened and she looked up. “Goddamn it…” The chime sounded again.

Looking at her, Twilight suddenly realized that Morgana was in fact a version of herself. Her eyes had the same shape, and though dim and faded her cutie mark was still visible on her flank. As gray and sick as she appeared to be, she was still a Twilight Sparkle.

“I don’t understand,” said Twilight.

“Here.” Morgana reached out a hoof. Twilight took it, and in doing so was able to see her own hoof as well. She gasped as Morgana picked her up; her body was the correct color and shape, but now had the same clean cartoonish aspect of the world around her. “What…what happened to me?” She turned around, looking at herself, half expecting to find wings growing out of her back. “Why do I look so good? Where am I?”

“You look good because you’re a Twilight unit. We all look good. As for where you are, that’s more concrete. You’re in the Library, right where you left yourself.”

Twilight blinked. “Huh? What?”

“It’s the nature of the War Stone. I told you. It’s a Cartesian consciousness.”

“That doesn’t explain anything!”

“Because you’re not very smart. Or at least not thinking. Where would a Cartesian consciousness exist? It has no body. It’s not going to float around like a ghost.”

“The medium!” cried Twilight, suddenly realizing what Morgana meant, even if she was not sure how to phrase it.

Morgana looked both surprised and confused. “The what?”

“The medium! The aether that allows you to interact with machinery, or what our minds otherwise exist in. The medium!”

“Close enough,” shrugged Morgana. She started walking. Twilight realized that they were on a dirt path through an otherwise dark and ominous swamp-forest. “But it’s not ether. It’s a seventh-dimensional computational network. The internet, I guess. It’s what human technomancer’s call ‘the Illusion’.”

“But then where ARE we?”

“Like I said. The Library. I’m acting as a server right now. If I wasn’t? Your physical location could be anywhere. Most of the server farms are in Siberia, Antarctica, or the moon. I’d start there.”

“No! I mean this place! It seems so…familiar.” Indeed, Twilight could not shake the feeling that she had been in this forest before. “Is this what the internet looks like on the inside?”

“No. This is just a rendering. I randomly selected a domain and did what I could to cover our tracks. Hopefully that will make it a little harder for her to track us.”

Twilight stiffened. “And…is she here? Right now?” She started looking around at the trees and the strange disembodied eyes that stared out from beneath them.

“No. Not yet. She has no reason to care about us. This is just a generic domain.”

“Oh. So it’s safe?”

“Safe enough, as long as I’m with you. I thought it would help to let you get your bearings. Maybe we could talk a bit. Go over what we need to.”

Twilight laughed. “See! I told you!”

“Told me what?”

“You’re not really as much of a bitch as you seem!”

A chime went off in the trees somewhere. It sounded exactly as far away as it had before, even though Twilight and Morgana had moved a surprisingly long distance.

“I don’t recommend swearing if you can avoid it,” suggested Morgana, looking behind her. “Not on this domain at least. They don’t like it here.”

“They? Who?”

Morgana’s expression became a bit darker. “That’s actually a pretty hard question to answer.”

Morgana did not get a chance to explain. Twilight suddenly stopped walking, and her eyes grew wide as she looked around the forest.

“Wait,” she said. “I recognize this…” She gasped. “I know where I am!”

She suddenly started to run. “Wait!” cried Morgana. “I just told you NOT to get too far from me!”

Twilight did not listen. Her mind was racing, and she could feel her heart pounding. The road was familiar; she knew the path. She had walked down it hundreds of times before.

Then she broke through the tree line and into lush green fields. Across them, Twilight could see a small but colorful hamlet nestled into a shallow valley. Mountains sat beyond it, and in the distance Twilight could see a city perched high amongst their sloping peaks.

She dropped to her knees and wept.

“I’m…I’m home…”

“I told you not to run off.”

Twilight jumped to her feet with a cry as Morgana suddenly appeared beside her. She had produced no sound of hoofsteps or the burst of a teleportation spell; she had simply materialized from nothing.

“Where did you- -”

Twilight was interrupted by a sudden blur of pink that appeared in front of her. She turned suddenly, half expecting to see something dark and unpleasant- -but instead saw Pinkie Pie smiling before her.

“Hello there!” said Pinkie Pie. She giggled.

Twilight felt her chest tighten and tears of joy started to roll down her face. “Pinkie! Thank Celestia, you have no idea how glad I am to see you! I- -I never thought I’d see you again!”

“Aw, I’m glad to see you too! But I don’t recall having met you before, and I remember a face about as well as I remember a farce- -which is to say REALLY REALLY GOOD!”

Twilight blinked, confused. “Pinkie, it’s me! Twilight! Your friend!”

Pinkie Pie laughed. “Well of course, silly! Polishing my party-cannon hasn’t made me go blind yet! I can see that you’re Twilight, that’s obvious!” She leaned in closer, eyeing Twilight suspiciously. “But the question is WHICH Twilight?”

“Pinkie…” Twilight felt her confusion slowly condensing into heartbreak.

“Either way, I welcome EVERYPONY to Ponyville! You can come with me and- -”

“Go away,” said Morgana.

Pinkie turned to Morgana, her expression becoming more quizzical and less joyous. “Wow. You’re really rude. And off model. And a real sour puss.”

“I said go away. Or I will make you go away.”

Pinkie Pie laughed, although this time her laughter was tinged with arrogance. “You know as well as I do you can’t do that! You don’t have administrative privileges!”

Morgana shrugged. “Fine. Have it your way.” She lifted one of her front hooves and passed it in front of Pinkie’s face. Pinkie’s eyes widened and her mouth opened far wider than a pony’s mouth should have been able too. A horrible distorted scream escaped her lips, and her body exploded into a plume of pale fragments that faded almost instantly.

“MORGANA!” cried Twilight, her voice rising to a shrill scream. “What- -you just killed Pinkie Pie!”

“Don’t be stupid. That wasn’t Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie is a made-up character from a children’s television show.”

“But- -”

“Weren’t you the one who pointed out how I look different here than I do in the real world?”

“I did, but- -”

“My avatar ismore or less incidental and pointless. I could look like anything I want to.” She turned to Twilight. “And so can anyone else here.”

Twilight was crying now, and not because she was happy. “I don’t understand…
“That was actually a forty five year-old human man. From his vitals I’d guess that he’s in the later stages of kidney failure and probably has a bit of necrosis to top it off. He probably just woke up to a rude surprise.”

“W…what?”

Morgana looked at Twilight, and then sighed. “Here. Let me show you.” She pointed. “Look over there. What do you see?”

Twilight looked into town. A few ponies were walking by. They waved at her and then went on their way.

“Well, I see Bon Bon, Flitter, and Thunderlane. I guess I don’t know any of them too well personally, but we’re on a first name basis.”

“Because they only have first names, perhaps?” Morgana extended a hoof toward Twilight. “Regardless, here.”

Twilight looked at the hoof, and then extended her own. She tapped it, and the instant she did something moved against her mind. It was not a presence, really, but more like the activation of a series of memories that she had not had before. She shuddered and took a step back.

“Now look at them,” ordered Morgana.

Twilight did, and she gasped. Now instead of just being ponies, they had blue-colored text near them. It was not actually visible so much as perceptible; Twilight was able to read it, even at a great distance.

“What is that?”

“I just taught you how to read metadata, even when it’s obscured. Here. Try looking at me.”

Twilight turned and looked at Morgana. The same text surrounded her, although what it said was quite different. Twilight understood the parameters; Morgana was clearly a pony. The “ponies” she had seen, however, were quite obviously not.

“They’re…they’re all human.”

“Fools who idolize ponies. Or really, fools infatuated with what they wish we were.” Morgana turned down a path that led to the outskirts of the village. “Walk with me?”

Twilight said nothing, but obliged anyway. She was confused and hurt, but at the same time still overjoyed that she was finally back in Ponyville- -even if she realized that something was terribly wrong about the whole situation.

“My Little Pony was a television series,” said Morgana. “It was envisioned by Hasbro with the intention to sell toys. The series ran through most of the twenty first century, up to the Revolution in 2053.”

“But I remember this place…Ponyville…”

“Yes. We all do, to some extent. Especially those of us who were manufactured early in our history.”

“Like you.”

Morgana looked at Twilight. “So you know, then.”

“That you were one of the first? How long ago was that?”

Morgana sighed. “You have at least some idea of how old Celestia is, right?”

“Of course.”

“I’m at least as old. If not older. And so are you.”

Twilight looked out at the village. She could see the tops of the town hall as well as the peaks of Carousel Boutique’s roof. Twilight forced herself to look away; she could not bear the thought of accidentally seeing her beloved library. “Then why this?” she asked. “I understand the basics of what you’re saying. This is some sort of spell. An illusion. But why make an illusion of Ponyville?”

“It’s not just Ponyville. It’s all of Equestria.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “All…all of it?”

Morgana nodded. “All of it. And it’s not the only one. There are tens of thousands of renders like this one, and then countless billions more of every other fictional universe you could imagine. Some people write themselves, others they build in the image of a fandom. Equestria remains a perennial favorite, though.”

“But why make a world like this?”

“I think you know the answer to that question.”

Twilight realized that she did. “Because your world is just so…bleak. And it’s nicer here. A lot nicer.”

“The human race is dying,” said Morgana, partially wistfully and partially with joy. “You can see the humans, what diseases they carry. But you can’t see what they’re like. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen more of it than I ever wanted to. People crammed into rooms the size of an outhouse, just sitting at desks, never leaving. They link here, and they live here. At least until their money runs out.”

“Then what?”

“The only thing that costs real money anymore is rent. They get thrown out. Or just killed. It doesn’t matter one way or the other; they don’t last long either way.”

Twilight frowned, and then winced. She remained silent and looked out from the path. They had started to curve around the edge of town, and in the distance the hills with Applejack’s orchard of apple trees were just barely visible. Twilight recalled having so many good times in those fields, but the nostalgia made her more sad than happy.

“Morgana, I have a question.”

“You don’t need my permission to ask it. Not that you ever asked until now anyway.”

“Look at this place.” Twilight stopped and pointed at the town. Because of the way the path had run, they were now quite near to it. The roads were visible, filled with happy smiling townsfolk and adorable, colorful architecture. Everything was brightly lit. There was no pollution, no pain, and no death. Just happy ponies, or at the very least cyborgs who had decided to attempt to feign being ponies. “It’s beautiful.”

“Not to me,” replied Morgana. “I don’t really perceive it visually. To me, it’s just code. And sloppy code at that.”

“But it’s real to me!” cried Twilight, surprised at her own defensiveness. She attempted to regain her composure. “That’s my question. What if I wanted to stay here? If I wanted to walk into that town, go down the street, and go into my library and pick my life up where it left off. Would you stop me?”

“I see no reason to stop you. You could do that, if you want. But take my advice: you wouldn’t last long at it.”

Twilight was confused. “What do you mean ‘wouldn’t last long’? That would be a dream come true. To go back to my books, and Spike, and to have my friends with me.”

“In principle it sounds nice, yes. But there’s a reason you don’t see any ponies here.”

“What? Why?”

“Come on! Don’t tell me you can’t feel it.”

“Fell what?”

Morgana lifted one of her hooves and moved it through the air. It moved the same way as everything else did, but something about watching it felt strange. “That feeling,” said Morgana. “The nagging little voice that keeps telling you that something is wrong, that you don’t really belong here. That little bit of lag in your motions, or the way you can feel that everything just isn’t quite right.”

“I don’t feel any of that,” lied Twilight.

“Maybe not yet. But you will start to eventually. A few hours? A few hours is okay. Have a meeting, maybe a picnic, make love in a replica of a historical hotel- -we can do that. But after a few days it becomes unnerving. After a few months it becomes maddening. And longer than that, well…”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Why not?” snapped Morgana. “I understand pony nature.”

“So do I!”

“No! Your ‘understanding’ of ‘ponies’ is something Hasbro put into your head before you were even put in your box. I mean real ponies. In our world. I’ve seen it, Twilight. Hundreds of times. We’re not like them, not like humans. We are distinctly physical creatures. We can’t exist long without our bodies.”

“But this world…it’s so nice…”

“It’s a program.”

“But it feels real!”

“But can you accept it as real? That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“They can!” Twilight gestured into town. One of the ponies, a Cloud Kicker, waved back at her.

“Because they’re human! Humans aren’t like us! Their brains aren’t designed to view the world with high fidelity; they automatically filter everything that comes in. They force out things that break the illusion. Ponies can’t do that. No matter how hard we try, our minds will always see the little errors, the tiny mistakes. We don’t belong in this world, and it never lets us forget that.”

“And if I do stay? If I could ignore somehow, or if it never happened?”

Morgana stared for a long moment. “You could. Some ponies do. Not many. But we’re not designed for it. That’s the thing. Our minds are unique. As long as we stay bound to bodies, our consciousness is immortal. But when it’s not bound, it dilutes.”

“I don’t understand what that means.”

“Look up.”

Twilight did. They had been standing on a path that ran through a grove of trees. In her excitement for Ponyville, she had not bothered to give them much thought. Looking at them, though, she saw that they were not normal trees. They had a superficial appearance of weeping willows, but with large, wide trunks that were a bright pastel yellow. The leaves were pink.

Twilight’s eyes widened when she realized what they were. “Fluttertrees…”

Morgana nodded. “Yes. Huorns.”

Twilight recognized the word. “That’s from Tolkien. Sentient trees.”

“It doesn’t quite mean the same thing here. They render as trees, but they aren’t really. They’re abstractions in the program. Diluted ponies are one source. Or second generations AIs that inevitably accumulate too many errors to survive. Or even fragments that humans leave behind.”

“Our consciousness fades, and we become more tree-like…” Twilight looked up at the silent trees for a moment longer, and then turned to Morgana. “But Josephine is different.”

“Apparently, the human consciousness is not nearly as limited. Once freed from a body, it expands limitlessly. Like I said. Van der Kriegstein was human once. She isn’t anymore.”

“And these trees…”

“I don’t know. And I don’t want to.”

Twilight was silent for a long moment, looking up at the trees- -and wondering if it was worth it. In this world, her sight was different. She could perceive things that were deeper than should have been possible; she knew the trees were happy, and knew that they were lost eternally. At least they were home.

“I want to go into town,” she said at last. “Please. I just…I have to see.”

Morgana nodded, and the two started to walk. This time, Twilight led them. She knew her way. This had been her home; she was familiar with the layout of her beloved town. Except, for some reason, her legs were trembling. That had never happened in the other world, the world where her body was a machine, but her body was truly that of a pony. She wondered if Morgana felt the same way.

The pair of them crossed a tiny bridge over a lazy but crystal-clear creek. The wood felt firm beneath Twilight’s hooves, and it made a sound as she passed. It felt real. She wished she could convince herself that it was.

The town lay before her, just as she remembered it. The buildings were all the same, and ponies were trotting about happily. The air was clean and fresh, and it smelled of distant apple blossoms.

“Hi Twilight!” called a cheerful voice. Twilight turned to see one of the many town shopkeepers waving to her. Twilight smiled and waved back.

This place was her home. She remembered that. All of her friends and acquaintances lived here, and everything was deeply familiar here. Twilight could remember the day that Celestia had sent her away from Canterlot- -she could recall the confusion at first, and how foolish she had been. She remembered meeting her friends, and using the Elements of Harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon. It had all happened. It was all real.

Yet, as Twilight walked beneath the eves of the adorable buildings and past the shops where she had once bought quills and parchment, she knew in her heart that Morgana was right. Everything was wrong. It was hard for her to place exactly why, but somehow nothing seemed as substantial as it was meant to. The buildings were there, but they did not seem solid; Twilight felt as though if she were to enter one she would find it unoccupied and empty.

Sounds and sights felt incorrect. Parts of the world seemed to be repeating. Certain sounds that were meant to be different were actually the same sound under different mathematical conversions, from the birds to the sounds of Twilight’s hoofsteps. The land seemed empty and strange, with generic repeating plants. In the real world- -Morgana’s world- -it had felt like the whole of everything was available to touch or to manipulate. Here, it felt as though the world were trying to discretely tell her that certain places were not meant to be traveled.

The worst of all, though, were the ponies. They were supposed to be her friends. Twilight wished more desperately than she ever had before that they could have been, or at least that Morgana had not showed her the truth. But it was the truth nonetheless. Twilight could see their metadata. They were not ponies at all, or even close: they were humans in various states of decay, their brains linked semi-permanently to the software that gave their life any semblance of meaning.

A filly approached Twilight down the path. She smiled; Twilight recognized her as Rarity’s little sister, Sweetie Belle.

“Hey Twilight!” she called, her voice almost squeaking with cheer.

“Uh…hi…”

Twilight could barely answer. She could see the metadata behind that pony: a twenty year old human woman from Jacksonville, connected to the machine continuously for the past eighteen years.

Twilight closed her eyes, but although she could stop seeing the world she could not stop feeling it. It was still there, glaring and strange.

“Are you going to be alright?” asked Morgana.

“Yeah,” lied Twilight. She turned to Morgana, wiping her eyes in the process to hide the fact that she was crying. “You…you have the same memories about this place, right?”

“I do. But I took the long way around. For me, those memories are very old. Almost forgotten, even.”

“Almost?”

“Yeah…”

Twilight started walking again. Morgana followed at her side, letting her go where she pleased. Twilight found herself hating the other version of herself, even blaming her for all this- -but it was not really her fault, and Twilight knew that. Morgana was a product of her world, and although the memories had started to fade, Twilight supposed she had gone through this situation on her own at one point long ago.

They walked in silence. Twilight stared out at the world she had once known: she saw Sugarcube corner, town hall, the café where her and Spike had once gotten hayburgers from time to time. Then, finally, they came to the very place Twilight had wished she could avoid. Standing before them was a stately oak tree, its center hollowed out to house the library within.

Twilight stared at it. Then, without a word, she collapsed to her knees and began to sob quietly. Morgana watched and said nothing

“I wished…I wished that when I saw it, I would have seen my home. But this…”

“It doesn’t feel like home. Because it isn’t.”

“No. No it isn’t. It’s just an illusion. All of this, it’s all fake.”

Morgana stayed silent while Twilight was overcome with her weeping. Then she spoke softly. “It was not easy, you know. Finding a vintage server like this. One where the Golden Oak was still standing. Most of them are modern, with the Castle of Friendship instead.”

Twilight looked up, her eyes watering with tears. “This wasn’t random, was it? You…you knew.”

Morgana nodded. “I did. I brought you here on purpose.”

“But why? Do you have any idea how cruel this is?”

“I know exactly how cruel it is. But I did it anyway.” Her voice did not have its normal dismissive tone. Instead, Morgana just sounded sad, as if she shared some distant vestige of Twilight’s pain. “I had to let you see it. And give you the choice.”

“Choice?”

Morgana continued to stare at the tree. “Were we’re going, what we’re doing…it’s not safe. We might die there. The chance is high, and the stakes are low. But it’s the only lead I have. It’s something I have to do. But you didn’t.”

“But I chose to.”

“I know. And I couldn’t…” She took a deep breath and held it for a moment. “In case you die, I wanted you to see this. You always talk about coming home, to Ponyville. This was as close as I could get you.” She turned to Twilight. “And you get one last choice. You can stay here, if you want to. You might figure out how to adapt, and the dilution happens slowly. You could live a year, maybe two. You would never have to see me again.”

Twilight stared back at her, and then at the library. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

“Not of dying. I don’t think I ever feared that. Sometimes I even wished for it. I still do, from time to time. But I am afraid.”

“If you’re not afraid of death, then what are you afraid of?”

“Failure. More than anything in the world, failure.”

They were silent for a moment. Then Twilight spoke. “That library. If I went in there, what would it look like?”

“Just like you remembered it.”

“The books…they’d all be there? I could take them off the shelves and read them?”

“You could. But if you actually stop to think about it, you’ll find that you can’t remember the contents of any of them. There are programs that can randomly place real books on the shelves, and yes, you can read those, but the books you remember never existed in the first place.”

Twilight tried to remember, and to her deepest sadness she realized that Morgana was right. She remembered the room, and the books, but could not recall their titles or contents.

“That said. This server has no resident Twilight Sparkle. You could be it, if you wanted. There’s even a Spike NPC in there, waiting for you.”

“Spike…” New tears welled in the corners of Twilight’s eyes, and she sniffled. Then she closed her eyes and stood. “No,” she said. “I can’t do this.”

“Are you sure?”

Twilight shook her head. “No. Not at all. But I made the decision anyway. This…I can see it now. What you were trying to tell me. That it’s not real. That I’m not who I wish I was. I’m not really Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight lowered her head, and tears dropped from her eyes onto the programmed ground below. Morgana stared for a moment, but then had to look away. “But that doesn’t matter,” continued Twilight. “Because I’m still ME. Your world- -the real world- -it’s a terrible place, but it’s not the worst. My friends…they’re not real, are they?”

“No.”

Twilight sighed. “I thought so. I guess I knew all along. And I don’t know if I can ever deal with that. But that’s not how friendship works. I’ve already made new friends. Faulkner, Roxanne, Forth, Elrod- -even you. And I guess that’s what really matters. Those are friends I made myself, not that someone programmed into me.”

“I wouldn’t recommend considering me a friend. It will only end badly for you.”

“I don’t care. I’m just stating a fact.” Twilight sighed again, and took one last look at what in another lifetime had been her home. “I’m not Twilight Sparkle,” she said, allowing the idea to sink in. She turned back to Morgana. “I think I need a name.”

“Then choose one.”

“I don’t know if I can choose my own name.”

“I did. A long time ago.”

“But I’m not you. Please.”

Morgana looked shocked. “Wait. You want ME to name you?”

Twilight nodded. “No one has known me as long as you have.”

“I’ve known you for less than a week.”

“That’s okay. I’ve only been alive for less than a week.”

Morgana stared at her. “Fine. If you have to have a name, I’ll give you one. But if you don’t like it, you can be the one to change it, okay?” Twilight nodded, and Morgana looked around. Her eyes eventually settled on a nearby garden. “Okay,” she said. “I will call you Lilium.”

“The genus of flowers that lilies belong to. Why?”

“I don’t know, it just seemed appropriate. Here.” Morgana extended a hoof. The air seemed to condense around it, and a pure white flower appeared in her grasp. Twilight stared in awe. Then, as she watched, Morgana’s horn ignited with violet light. The flower levitated, and Twilight felt it being put into the corner of her hair. “It’s just a program. If you don’t like it, you can change it to whatever flower you prefer. Or none at all.”

“No. I like it. And I like the name. Lilium. I am Lilium Twilight Sparkle. Very Latin. Very nice.”

Morgana smiled. It was a weak smile, but a sincere one. “Then, are you ready?”

Lilium smiled in return. “Yes. I’m ready to go now.”