In a week’s time, everything changed.

It started a few days after Stygian found the lump on Owlowiscious’s ribs. He got a letter in the mail from Twilight informing him the vet couldn’t figure out what it was either and needed to run some additional tests. She also invited him back to stay in Ponyville for a few days while this whole thing got sorted out. Since he was the one that found it, perhaps he would have some insight from his own time he could share with the veterinary team.

His response was this:

In my day, veterinary doctors leeched lumps. In the interest of the bird, I will defer to the professionals’ opinions.

The following day, six letters arrived all at once.

The mailpony had gotten them all jumbled up in her bag, so the first two Stygian opened were actually the last two sent. They both said the same thing: Urgent reply needed. Postage forwarded for dragon express.

Enclosed with each letter was two bits. They fell from the envelope and hit the floor with a clatter. Stygian jumped.

The next four letters were in the right order. They relayed in progressively deteriorating hornwriting that the vet team had found something seriously wrong with Owlowiscious. Nothing was confirmed. Then they had a hunch. Then they needed to run some more tests. Then the hornwriting got really sloppy, and Stygian couldn’t decipher what Twilight was trying to say.

The final letter ended abruptly and unintelligibly with what he could only assume was Twilight’s signature.

So he was left where he started, at the urgent reply needed letters, with nothing but a few bits to show for it.

Instead of writing, Stygian went straight to the Vanhoofer train station and bought a ticket for Ponyville. While he waited, he found a food vendor on the platform and tries to grab a bite to hold him over, but when it came time to order he realized he only had the four bits Twilight had sent him in the mail. The only thing he could afford was a lilly sandwich.

Stygian took this as a bad omen. Lillies were traditionally flowers of sympathy. He still bought the sandwich, though.

---

The first time Stygian ever saw the Ponyville castle, it was a literal warzone. He was the pony of shadows back then, an unthinking monster of chaos and darkness. He would have ground every bit of that castle to dust along with everypony in it if he got half the chance. He very nearly did.

This time around there were no demons, no villains, no battles to fight. But the castle had turned back into a warzone.

A few hollow-eyed staffers carried stacks of papers this way and that. Stygian tried stopping a few of them to ask for directions, but they either didn’t hear him or didn’t have time to stop.

In the main foyer, he found a small cluster of Twilight’s friends chatting over a tea cart. A few of them he recognized from the time he tried to kill them. Most of them were strangers. All were kind enough to greet him as he approached.

“Pardon me,” Stygian said, “do you know where I can find Twilight? It’s about--”

“We know what it’s about,” one of her friends, a sky-blue pegasus, replied. “Don’t say the O-word too loud.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. O-W-E-L.”

Stygian’s brow furrowed. “I...”

“There’s no ‘I’ in the word,” she replied matter-of-factly. “But I don’t wanna hold you up just cuz you can’t spell.” She pointed to one of the adjacent hallways. “Down there, follow it all the way to the end, then take a left.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, wait.” Stygian paused as the pegasus scrutinized him. “You’re Stygian, right?”

He winced. “Yes.”

“Pony of shadows? Tried to kill us that one time?”

“Yes. And I am cursed to remember those mistakes as long as I walk this mortal--”:

“Mortal schmortal, whatever. I’m not trying to vibe you.” The pegasus nodded at the unicorn next to her. “Starlight here almost killed us a couple times, and she’s one of my best friends now.”

“Thanks,” the unicorn muttered, glowering into her tea.

“Point is,” the pegasus continued, “right now Twilight needs friends. She told us earlier about how you and her kinda bonded over the O-W-E-L.”

“I suppose we did,” Stygian said.

“She needs all the friendship we can give her right now. We know you’re here to help, and we’re glad for it.”

The earnestness in her voice shocked Stygian. He looked around the group to find all eyes were on him. Pure aching sincerity filled his heart. What a pure pony Twilight must be to accumulate such a group of friends.

“I’ll do what I can,” Stygian said.

The pegasus offered him two styrofoam cups of tea as he left. “She’ll have her own tea in there,” the pegasus explained, “but she likes the thoughtfulness of it.”

When the other ponies were out of sight, Stygian tasted his tea and frowned. Still too sweet.

---

The door to the study was unlocked. Stygian let himself in and found the place even worse off than the rest of the castle. Twilight hunkered down inside a small bunker of books, tearing medical journals off the shelves with her magic, lobbing peer-reviewed statistical metaanalysis across the room like grenades.

A book on traumatic brain injuries whizzed by his head. He ducked, spilling some of his tea.

“Sorry,” came a soft voice from behind the pile of books. “I didn’t see you there.” A roll of paper towels materialized in front of him and went to work on the floor. “I’m a little busy at the moment.”

Stygian walked around to the back of the pile to find a desk and a chair and a lamp and four empty tea cups and one full tea cup and Twilight Sparkle, dead-eyed and hunched over a selection of archaic medical literature.

She hauled herself upright and graciously took the tea Stygian offered. “Did the girls make this?” she asked.

“Yes. They’re all in the main foyer.”

She took a careful sip. “They’re good friends. I have very good friends.” Twilight smiled crookedly. She put the tea down carefully beside the other cups, buried her head in her hooves, and sobbed.

Stygian jumped in surprise. He hovered at her side as she cried, unsure whether to leave or hug her or try and fetch more tea. Ponies hugged other ponies, right? He swore he had seen that before. Did they hug when they were sad or just when they were happy?

Before he could deduce an answer, Twilight pulled herself together. “I’m so sorry,” she said, sniffling, “I’m hopeless.”

“Is it?”

Twilight looked up at Stygian. She cleared her throat. Misery lingered under her eyes. The usual glow had gone. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Here I am languishing and you’re just as lost as me.”

“I’m afraid I’m even more lost than you. I couldn’t read your last letter.”

A sandpapery cackle escaped Twilight’s lips. “Classic me.” She lit up her horn, and a manila folder with some paperwork and an x-ray materialized in front of them. “The vets who saw Owlowiscious--” she choked on the name. “They said the bump is a tumor.”

“What’s a tumor?” he asked innocently.

Twilight stared at him for a long moment. Just when Stygian thought she was going to burst into tears again, she started laughing. “You really are a thousand years old,” she said as she caught her breath.

“Guilty as charged.”

“Let me put it this way. Owlowiscious is very sick. He’s not in any pain, and he seems to be just as active and happy as ever.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

“He may not last the month.”

Stifling silence blanketed the two ponies as Twilight’s words sunk in. In that moment, a piece of a dream flashed before Stygian’s mind. It was the pony being picked apart by an owl. The coat had been light grey, the color of a mouse.

“What do we do?” Stygian finally asked.

“I don’t know.” Twilight gestured to the fortification of books. “I’ve been trying to find a cure, but all the brightest medical minds haven’t found a cure in the hundreds of years we’ve known about this illness.” She turned to him suddenly. “What do you think we should do?”

Stygian balked. “My knowledge of medical canon is moot. How should I know?”

“Don’t think medically, then. If you knew your owl was dying and it was a thousand years ago, what would you do?”

Stygian considered the question. “I suppose I would take him to the nearest woods and set him free. Let him live out his days as nature intended.”

“Oh.”

“Like I said, how should I know? Don’t take my word on this one. I’m not even sure Owlowiscious could survive in nature. If he’s fully domesticated, captivity might be the best place for--”

“No.” Twilight held up her hoof. “I appreciate your candor. He would do just fine on his own.” She looked with vacant eyes at the closest open textbook. “I’ll think that through. Can you stay in one of the guest rooms tonight and see me tomorrow? I know it’s quite an imposition into your personal life, but time’s not on our side anymore.”

“Anything for Owlowiscious.”

A small smile formed across Twilight’s face. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Did the magic of friendship exist a thousand years ago?”

“It must have existed in some form. But it was much weaker than it is today.”

She nodded and reached for the tea Stygian had brought her, ignoring her full cup from before. “Perhaps you’re more a pony of this era than you think.”

---

At the crack of dawn, Stygian found his way to the Ponyville market. He spent the walk in silence, trying to dredge up any memories of the previous night’s dream. Nothing he remembered made any sense. Had he dreamed anything at all?

Scents of charred vegetables and dark bread floated from the collection of pastel-painted stalls. Though the sun had technically risen, it hadn’t been up long enough to burn off the sluggishness of sleep. The shopkeepers and their meager patronage moved at a glacial pace.

Stygian was grateful for that. He didn’t want to deal with a crowd right now. Especially given what he was here to buy.

The market was a maze of dead-ends and money traps, but eventually he found what he was looking for: a partially-rotted wooden cart with the rough silhouette of a griffon carved into the side. Plywood boarded over the only window. Cracked bricks beneath the wheels kept the whole operation from rolling away.

It felt oddly homey to Stygian.

When he knocked on the plywood, a husky voice from inside replied, “How much?”

“Tenderloin,” Stygian replied. “Four ounces.”

“Four? That’s it?”

“Yes.”

The plywood jerked aside. The whole cart shook. An old griffon babushka peered at him with milky eyes. “Hmm. You’re twiggy. You need at least sixteen ounces.”

“I only need four.”

“I only sell whole tenderloins.”

“I don’t need a whole tenderloin.”

“You freeze it. It lasts six months.”

“It’s not for me. It’s a gift.”

The griffon considered his offer. “I will ruin my only tenderloin for your meager appetite. For the right price.”

Stygian pulled out his coin purse. “Money’s not an issue.”

---

The castle staff barely spared a glance at Stygian as he made his way to Twilight’s study. Trailing him at a leisurely floating pace was an unmarked brown bag.

The princess looked up from her books, her nose wrinkling. “What on earth is that smell?”

“You can smell that?”

“Alicorn nose. Very strong. What’s in that bag?”

“A gift for Owlowiscious.”

Twilight gagged. She pointed to the door frantically. “Leave it in the hall!”

Stygian complied, laughing all the while.

He waited patiently by the now-closed door while Twilight composed herself. A few cans of air freshener whizzed through the air and went to work showering them in aerosol dust.

“I can’t believe you brought that in here,” she muttered. “That used to be somebody.”

“True. Soon it’ll be somebody else.”

Twilight’s frown deepened. “I suppose so.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No. Owlowiscious will like it. Thank you.” Twilight floated a shopping bag floated over from the corner. “But I will say that I got him something as well. And I didn’t have to kill anything for these.”

“Fair enough.”

“So what do you say? Want to help me throw a surprise party for an owl?”

“How does one throw a surprise party for an owl?”

“The real question is, whooo do you invite?” Twilight let out a mad cackle. Then another. Then she was doubled over on the floor, howling with laughter, tears streaming from her eyes.

Stygian waited outside politely for her to finish.

---

As it turned out, a surprise party for an owl was quite the affair. All the girls he met the previous night showed up, along with their own pets. Cats and dogs and turtles and birds frollicked around a grassy park on the edge of town. As they played, the ponies of the group huddled together and exchanged muted conversation.

Stygian mostly stayed out of the way. He wasn’t a part of that clique, anyway. He was content to lounge on a park bench and watch the pets play.

For his part, Owlowiscious seemed very happy for all the attention.

As the party wound down and the other ponies and pets dispersed, Twilight trotted over to Stygian and took a seat beside him on the bench.

“My friends should be diplomats, the way they dance around difficult topics,” she said with a sigh. “Thanks for keeping track of the pets.”

Stygian nodded. His eyes were still on Owlowiscious, who was flying circles around some local birds who wanted in on the party.

“Do you think he knows?” he asked.

“No,” Twilight replied. “The vets said it would be totally painless. One day he’ll be fine, flapping around. Then he’ll drop.” Her eyes trembled. “Boop. Just like that.”

They watched Owlowiscious as he paused to preen himself. As his beak passed over a hairless patch on his ribs where the vets had x-ray’d, Stygian held his breath.

“You were right about what you said yesterday,” Twilight said in a low voice. “If this is the end, we shouldn’t pen him up.”

“Are you sure that’s what he would want?”

“As sure as I can be about any of this.”

Stygian turned towards Twilight. “What about you? What do you want?”

“Not important,” she replied automatically.

“You’re his owner.”

“I never liked that word.”

“Okay, you’re his caretaker.”

“As his caretaker, I think we should release him.” Before Stygian could reply, Twilight lit up her horn. An ornate polished brass cage appeared beside them in the grass. “You’re welcome to come along. But you don’t have to.”

Stygian surveyed the park. The sun had barely dipped into the afternoon sky. A slight breeze floated from the west. Birds sang from all directions. It was too nice a day for this.

“I’ll go,” he said.

Twilight nodded. “I know a good spot up the road.”

Owlowiscious, who had noticed the sound of magic a moment before, left his bird friends behind and flew their way. He coasted all the way into the cage. The little brass door swung shut behind him with a click.

“You’re not making this very easy,” Twilight said to Owlowiscious.

---

The spot Twilight found was a clearing just beyond the treeline. Tall weeds partially reclaimed a pair of ancient picnic tables in one end of the clearing. Other than that, the spot was bare.

“Time to go,” Twilight said, placing Owlowiscious’s cage in the center of the clearing. She opened the cage and motioned for the owl to get out. “Away.”

Owlowiscious tilted his head, then resumed scanning the trees for mice to play with.

Twilight cast a nervous look over her shoulder. “Seems like he’s not getting the hint,” she said with a dead chuckle. “Out. C’mon. Please?”

Eventually, Owlowiscious hopped out and took an experimental lap around the clearing. He returned to his perch atop the cage. He seemed a little confused.

“Go,” Twilight said.

Owlowiscious did not go.

“Get out of here,” Twilight said.

Owlowiscious did not get out of here.

“I said go,” she said, this time with force.

Owlowiscious cocked his head.

Stygian watched silently from a few lengths away as Twilight tried to dislodge the owl. His mind wandered to what Twilight must be feeling in that moment. Grief, no doubt.

Was grief a good thing? Twilight was grieving, and clearly suffering. Owlowiscious’s heart was light as a feather in comparison, and he seemed none worse for wear. If someone told the owl he was going to die--well, the first problem would be he wouldn’t understand the word “you,” or “are,” or “going,” or “to,” or “die.”

So if someone could tell an owl he was going to die and make him understand, would it even matter? Something told Stygian that even with that knowledge, Owlowiscious would probably go right on ahead tearing through mice in spectacular fashion and flying around until he dropped. What else would he do?

A low wail echoing through the trees broke Stygian’s train of thought. He looked over to find Twilight had collapsed beside Owlowiscious’s cage. The owl had perched on one shoulder and was preening Twilight’s mane, trying to calm her down.

Owlowiscious turned towards Stygian for just a moment, and in that look he could have sworn the owl spoke to him. No words. Just sympathy.

Stygian took Twilight’s hoof in his. He hauled her up, leg by leg, until Twilight was standing again.

“Why don’t we go home?” Stygian asked.

“But... we have to... Owlowiscious...” Twilight babbled.

“Let’s just go home.”

A soft click drew their attention. The two ponies looked at the cage in unison to find Owlowiscious had already packed himself in and shut the cage door behind him.

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