The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

First published 26th of April, 2020

And everything changed.

It was a pleasant summer day, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. The air was clear, and the Sun shone bright. Everyone in Equestria who'd been there at the time remembered that day, and they all remembered it like that. And not a single one could ever forget the day when the Behemoth came to Canterlot, and everything changed.

Ring a Prayer for the Falling

The sky was clear and the air was still, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot, and the sound of its steps over the mountain echoed in every street and through every window and door.

No pony dared speak, as the Behemoth walked through Canterlot, and the shadow it cast made the citizens shiver and the fountains freeze and flowers and plants close up as if it was nighttime.

And the souls of the living shrieked as they were ripped from their earthly shells and carried along with the storm, and the souls of the dead were raised alongside them and all they headed to shatter against the Behemoth.

Ripples on a Crying Mirror

'Where were you, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot?' became customary to ask. 'Where were you on that bright summer day when the Behemoth came to Canterlot?' or, perhaps, 'What were you doing that sunny afternoon, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot?'

It was a conversation starter. A way to get to know each other. Something every pony, every creature shared. Something everyone could relate to. Friends would ask it one another, colleagues would bring it up during breaks, family members would worriedly write about it.

Some, of course, didn't have an answer for that. Some hadn't been born yet back then. Some were too young to remember. But of those who had been old enough, everyone remembered exactly what they were doing as the Behemoth walked over Canterlot. Everyone remembered that day.

In the Dead of Dawn

The Everfree had grown restless in the months after the Behemoth's arrival. One could not walk inside it without hearing a commotion all around themself. There was a nervousness to the creatures and to the forest itself, something that could be felt thrumming up your legs from the ground beneath. Like a subtle vibration, a restless unease.

The forest was used to change. It itself was the product of change, a continuously shifting maze that evolved with time, carefully balanced just enough for its inhabitants to make sense of the pattern behind the evolving landscape, though still rather stable in its outer reaches.

But things wouldn't be the same. Change from inside was what the Everfree Forest thrived on, change from outside threatened to forever shatter the delicate balance of chaos that regulated it. Every creature knew that the forest would never be the same.

It wasn't an easy decision for Zecora, but seventeen weeks after the Behemoth came to Canterlot, she abandoned her house and moved to Ponyville, carrying as much as she could with her. No one was ever able to find her old house again.

Corpse-Watching

The city was in ruins, as were many others. And as with many others, rebuilding was in progress. Attempts at it at least, the early stages, digging through the rubble to find anything of value, moving things out of the way so it was possible to pass through. It was a slow process, and one not many enjoyed.

But it was a necessity, and there were always those willing to help. Not always out of the goodness of their heart though. It wasn't unheard of for some to keep what they found for themselves, and perhaps it wasn't unusual either. But at least the rubble was moved, and work moved on.

It was in one of those circumstances that the first scale was found. The first recorded finding, at least. Of course, no one knew what it was at the time, all they knew was that they'd never seen anything like it. And so, of course, everyone could guess it was there because of the Behemoth.

This caused quite a bit of controversy, at the time. Some wanted to get rid of it. Some wanted to study it. Some didn't want to even acknowledge it was there, and a few were rather interested in getting a good look at it. But, of course, the final decision came to the pony who'd found it. Though, arguably, only because the mare whose house he'd found it in was all in favour of getting rid of it.

Stone Brick, on the other hoof, happened to be among those interested in keeping the thing for himself. If nothing else, he thought it looked pretty, with its oddly glittering colour. He recalled quite well how he'd first found it, and how he'd not been the only one there.

There had been another stallion. Both of them were there to steal. Both of them knew they were there to steal. And so, of course, both of them had to pretend they were there to help. It had been only by luck that Stone had happened to spot the scale before the other. It had felt like the thing was calling for him, and luckily, it had fit beneath his hat. A quick sleigh of hoof had been all it took to hide it while the other was turned.

And so the first scale was found, back when they weren't yet even known as scales. A few more popped up around Equestria before the term came in use, after one was sold to Princess Twilight. Selling did seem to be the only use they had, but Stone didn't sell his. He felt there was something more there. Something to uncover.

And so much did that thought gnaw at him, that Stone Brick left the city a few months later, headed to the castle where Princess Twilight was said to be studying the scales.

Startracking - Part 1

Applejack was out in the fields when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. Working on the orchard, taking care of the apple trees. Canterlot was in sight, but it still took her a while to realise something was off. At first, all she noticed was a little shade covering the fields, but she assumed it was merely a passing cloud. Distant as she was, the Behemoth's shadow wasn't as cold over her as it was over Canterlot.

But then came the steps. She thought it was an earthquake at first, as unusual as it would have been, what else could have caused something like that? But there was something off about it. It had a rhythm, a cadence, it stopped and started back up again, like a series of blows against the earth itself. She'd never felt anything like that, not even a dragon's steps could compare to it.

Another shock came, stronger than the last, and all fruits still hanging from the trees were knocked off their branches. Her first instinct was to look towards the farm, suddenly worried the buildings could collapse if things kept up. Then, as her eyes darted around to find some sort of explanation, she looked up to Canterlot, and a shiver ran down her spine.

The silhouette stood out against the sky, framed by the light, half-translucent and seemingly fading in and out, subtly shifting in shape. It was massive. Larger than anything Applejack had ever seen, and she'd walked around the Dragonlands before. That she could still spot it all the way from Ponyville was a testament to just how unreasonably big it was. It put even the Tantabus to shame, never mind dragons or other creatures.

Applejack suddenly felt cold as she gazed at the creature. An odd sensation, not something she'd ever felt, a coldness spreading from inside rather than outside. A flower of ice blossoming in her heart and extending its roots and thorns all the way to her limbs. Time seemed to slow down for her, the sounds of the shaking earth distant and muffled.

There was something about the light that passed through the half-there, half-fading figure. It was like watching an eclipse through a thick glass bottle to shield your eyes, a distorted, surreal tinge to the images on the other side. But they couldn't possibly be that near, right?

Another quake shook her out of her stupor. She was suddenly aware of just how cold it had become in the orchard. Without the Sun's light, while the breeze kept blowing, things did tend to get chilly, but the shadow cast by the creature felt like it was sapping away the heat from all it covered. But she had things to take care of. Running through the trees and fallen fruits, Applejack headed back towards her house, calling out for her family to make sure they were safe.

The buildings remained intact, though in need of repair, and none of their inhabitants were injured. Applejack was glad that was the case, she knew very well the rest of Ponyville hadn't fared as well. The ruined harvest would be a problem, but in the coming months it became clear just how little of one compared to everything else. Still, Applejack never forgot that first day. When the Behemoth came to Canterlot, and she gazed into its shadow.

No-one's Land

It was mostly grey, about the size of a small village, and the fillies and colts liked to watch it sometimes. Some of the slightly older ones, those in the age where one tends to think of oneself as older than they are, occasionally dared each other to slip a hoof inside, or quickly jump in and out of the outer rim. No one ever did though. And they all knew better than playing near it, lest they lose some toys inside it.

It was cold, just to stand at the edge of it. Unnaturally cold. Even in the most scorching of summer days, it still sent chills down creatures' spines that no one wanted to experience. It wasn't safe to drink near it, or touch anything made of metal, and birds and other animals had long since learned to avoid it while travelling. Very rarely, someone came from around Equestria to see it. Even more rarely did they not regret the decision.

There was a section of it, just a bit, that was still inside Canterlot. But no one went there. No one lived in the portion of the city around it, and no one had any interest in getting close to it. A few said the cold grew even stronger there, and though no one bothered to check, no one doubted it was true. The rest of the city was still in use, if not as lively as it had been before, but that area was completely deserted.

Not that there would have been anything to see. All the trees had died, just like all the grass and flowers. The buildings had crumbled and turned to dust. The ground inside it was naked, grey, lifeless and cold. Flat, featureless earth, like the fresh layer of skin beneath a wound. No one had bothered to check how deep it went, but after all the time it had been there for, everyone guessed it would be pretty deep. Trees around it didn't grow on the side facing towards it, especially the older ones, and digging they'd found their roots had died and withered on those sides.

Every once in a while, one of the few, more determined researchers attempted to study it more in depth. Oftentimes someone from Princess Twilight's institution, the only place with any considerable resources for research. And they always failed. And so, for a couple days, citizens were treated to the sight of abandoned equipment right past the edge. Then, that disappeared too. No one knew when, or where it went, no one had any interest in finding out.

One time, Twilight herself had come to see it. She'd brought no equipment, no materials, and no one else with her. And she'd sat there, for a couple of hours, looking at the strange, abandoned, deserted land where the Behemoth cast its shadow. Then she'd left, without saying anything. She hadn't gone to the opposite end of it either. There in Canterlot, where the shadow began, where the Behemoth still stood undisturbed over the city, like the day it had first come there.

Like Tears in the Wind

Rose was out near the edge of the Everfree when she found her scale. Many would have found it inadvisable to hang around such a place, in truth. It had never been considered the safest thing to do even before the Behemoth came to Canterlot, but in the months following and with the evident commotion the forest displayed it was less a matter of superstition and more one of common sense. But she knew the chances of something actually attacking her there were slim, and if her cutie mark called then the risk was worth it.

Living in what had used to be a relatively minor town before Princess Twilight's arrival, running a flower shop had been pretty much the only reasonable path in life for her. She didn't mind, in fact she very much liked it, but it wasn't the only thing she was good for. Her affinity for flowers moved past simply growing and selling the few breeds that ponies liked, past the simple confines of her work. She kept up with the newest studies, discoveries and publications concerning botany, and she even had her own private garden where she kept more exotic, less common breeds.

Most of all, she understood flowers. The same way Fluttershy understood animals, or Pinkie understood parties, or Twilight understood magic. It was her special talent, her life's calling. Selling came afterwards, and really, she would have done what she did for free. But the bits were needed, and not unwelcome. But it was precisely because of her talent that she was there. Because most ponies would not have noticed it, but she couldn't ignore it. There was something different about the flowers, there near the edge of town, and it was spreading.

Standing there and looking closely at them, she had no doubts about it. Most, if not all of the usual species found there were undergoing severe changes. Whether mutations or very rapid evolution she couldn't tell, but it was impressive either way. And it wasn't all. She didn't feel she had the knowledge and experience to make a definitive call on it, but a fair portion of the flora she was seeing didn't look like anything she knew of. The geometry, the colours, the size and disposition of leaves and petals, the more she looked at them the more she was convinced she was staring at entirely new sets of species.

Tall stems with blue petals, stubby orange flowers that came up directly from the ground like bushes, grey-green leaves in patterns of seven or nine, thin vines slithering in swirling patterns across the ground ending with tiny pale pink blossoms, and a number of other plants that were like nothing she'd ever heard about. She would have liked to study them more closely, but she knew better than to go smell or taste a plant she wasn't familiar with. Especially one rooted so close to the Everfree. So she was left with sight, and so it happened that she spotted something else there. Certainly colourful, but distinctly not a flower.

So it happened that Rose found her scale. And so it happened that Princess Twilight, just a few days before the news of the other findings reached her, was made aware of the scales' existence and had a chance to study one for herself. Rose had brought it along, later that day, as she'd gone to tell Twilight of her discoveries at the edge of town. It had felt odd, when she'd found it, like the thing was calling for her. And odd leaving it to Twilight, even if it was the right thing to do, almost like she should have kept it as hers. And odd still, when Twilight had given it back to her, like a weight had been lifted off her chest.

She would spend the following months helping the princess study the changes in the flora around the town, and learning quite a bit about the matter simply by virtue of being there. So, almost by accident, Rose became one of the founding members of Princess Twilight's research institution, and perhaps the single most knowledgeable expert in the field of post-arrival botany. While she did not forget about it, that she'd also come in possession of a scale, on that day, became a rather secondary fact in the course of events. That is, of course, until Twilight made her first major breakthrough when researching the scales.

I am the Fury in your eyes

Ruins always looked different from up there. Sat on a cloud, drifting by as the wind carried him along, watching the world stretch out below him. It was all he could do, most of the time. Just watch.

There had been a time when things were different. Very different. Before the Behemoth came to Canterlot, others were watching him. It was kind of funny, in a way. Kind of ironic. But after the Arrival, there hadn't been much if any space for big shows and sporting events. And so he was left on the sidelines, watching.

He'd helped, of course. When he could, how he could, he'd always tried to help. But the thing was, really, there was only so much he could do. He knew his limits. He wasn't the strongest, he wasn't an expert on anything beyond his own field of work, he could only help so far. And that annoyed him, very much.

Not the lack of attention. Not being put on the side. He wasn't that kind of pony, he knew the world had far more important things to focus on. But that feeling of powerlessness, that knowledge that all he could do was watch. He was one of the best in his field, but in the world as it was, that was useless. He lived in a world that didn't need him anymore.

That had led him to quite a few moments of reflection. Were all cutie marks equal? Were there ponies out there whose entire purpose wasn't needed by the world around them, leaving them stranded and alone? The best answer he'd managed to give himself was that he'd not been useless when he'd found his talent. Not in that version of the world. And in the new one, the one he lived in now, ponies wouldn't get a useless talent. The world wouldn't produce them.

But he was not an expert, and perhaps he was too old to study such things. Sometimes, he did wonder about going to Ponyville, to Princess Twilight, to maybe study something there, anything useful. But he knew he didn't have the motivation for it. He'd never been good with books. He was good at flying fast, and that was about it.

And so he watched. Absent-mindedly, trying not to think about it, trying to ignore the burning frustration at being forced to just watch the half-destroyed remains of towns across the country while he couldn't do anything about it. Maybe he would go to Princess Twilight. Maybe... Maybe just to see the castle there, maybe just to talk to Rainbow.

Lazily, with no real motivation, he pushed his cloud in the vague direction of where Ponyville was supposed to be. Staying low, close to the ground, just in case he met someone worth talking to. And as chance would have it, he did meet someone. A unicorn, watching the road from the edge of town, and staring at a map.

A unicorn who was planning to go to Ponyville, too. To deliver a message to Princess Twilight, about something they had found while clearing out the rubble. A message that would have been sent by magic, but as it seemed, the spell just refused to work, not unlike others. Soarin''s wings itched as he listened to the unicorn. Yeah. That was something he could help with.

A Brief History of Terms: Behemoth

As with many things, it was Princess Twilight who first utilised the term Behemoth to describe the creature. As with many things, the term came from a book. It had been used, in ancient times, to describe a large terrestrial creature, by a tribe or a species living somewhere roughly near the location of Chrysalis's old hive. Probably. Centuries by the dozens had muddled the waters and there simply wasn't an original source of information to study, rather a multitude of reports all far more recent than the time they talked about.

It was, for example, impossible to tell who exactly had used the term first. Was it a tribe of ponies? Or a different species? No way of knowing. All the texts said was that ponies had learned of the creature from a population of sorts. It wasn't possible to say whether or not the creature had been real or simply a myth, either. The population apparently told stories of it, and goodness knew what that actually meant. Reports agreed that no one had ever seen it, but then again, there were no mentions of ponies travelling in that territory, just of the exchanges that happened at the border.

The description itself of the creature was weird. Rather lacking in many aspects, oddly specific in others, at times contradictory across different sources even from the same time period. The only thing everyone agreed on was that it was big. How big, though? Some said like an elephant, some said like a mountain. Some said the earth shook beneath its steps, other talked about being able to mount it just by jumping off a tree. Some theorised it was in fact just a giant tortoise, while others spoke of horns or tusks or claws.

The name too was of debatable origin. Between the culture the name came from likely having spoken a different language, the shakiness of the translation process, and several instances of transcripts where the pony working on them clearly thought they knew better than the one who'd written the original and had tried to correct perceived mistakes, never mind the language differences across hundreds of years, it was anyone's guess how much the name was actually the right one anymore. It might have had a meaning, at some point, but all that was left was a set of sounds rearranged through time.

Still, it had been a fitting name. Perhaps even more fitting given its mysterious origin. Whether or not the thing in Canterlot was the Behemoth of legend, Twilight had no idea, but it certainly fit the description. Some versions of it, at least. And so, she'd called it that. A large creature, its steps enough to shake the earth, that had come out of nowhere and settled itself in Canterlot, forever changing all of Equestria with its mere presence. Some had argued that perhaps it was a construct, not a creature. No one had dared go near enough to check, so the name stuck. It had a nice ring to it, most ponies found.

Startracking - Part 2

Rarity was there, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. Not exactly where the Behemoth stepped, of course, but she was close. Very close. She was in her boutique, talking with Sassy, making sure every order would be on time for the next event and already planning the one after that, when suddenly the ground had trembled. Just briefly, just a little, but it was a worrying thing. Canterlot was not known as a town prone to suffering from earthquakes, it would not have been wise to build a city on the side of a mountain if that had been the case in the area.

Then the second step. The second quake, a little stronger, lasting a little longer, and then another pause. Rarity had looked at Sassy, then the two had dashed towards the exit, right as the third step had come. The walls creaked, cracks appearing in them, a little rubble falling from the ceiling. Enough to make the unicorns stop for a moment, to make sure everything was alright. The fourth step came, and made it clear the building wouldn't last forever. The fifth shattered the glass windows, just as the two had reached the door, and the sixth came as they walked outside, while inside the stairs collapsed.

And that's when they saw it. Having been inside a building, they'd had, like many others, no way of knowing what was going on. But they, unlike many others, came very, very close to the creature. It was right there, as much as it could be said to be there, its odd and flickering translucent form fading in and out just mere metres ahead. Rarity's breath was taken away as she looked up, then higher still, and still she could not spot the end of it. It had been walking down the street, with one of its legs at least, and had it been just a few metres to the right it could have stepped on the building itself.

Rarity would have remained stuck there, petrified by shock, had Sassy not dragged her away in the direction opposite to the one the Behemoth was walking towards. And so brief was her time spent near the creature, and so filled with adrenaline, she did not even notice the cold chill it sent across her skin to be so close to it. The two unicorns then rushed and dashed across the ruined city, following the trail of wreckage left in the Behemoth's wake, running with no direction as the ground shook harder and harder with each step of the creature. Only when they reached the park did they stop, far enough from buildings to be safe from any of them collapsing.

It would be unfair to say there were no pauses in their running though. Rarity did stop, briefly, on more than one occasion, to ensure ponies safely left buildings, and to otherwise help others make sense of the chaos around them. And when they all reached the park, and none showed signs of injuries, and all turned towards the impossibly tall shape of the Behemoth, only then did Rarity finally let herself go and dramatically pull out a couch to collapse on. And there she wondered to herself, about the mysterious creature, about what would happen next, and about what the uncertain future might hold for all of them.

Cracks in the Light

She sat at the edge of the cave, studying the pattern of cracks on the ground just outside. It looked stable enough, and with a rather clear path through it. Safe. But was it worth the risk? There was nothing in sight. She could try to scout the surroundings, but for how long? If she found nothing, and came back, it would be a waste of energies. And worse, what if she strayed too far in search of something, and the pattern changed, leaving her trapped?

She weighed her options, throwing a backwards glance at her supplies. She still had food for a couple of days, definitely enough to make it until the next major shift. If she played her cards right and was careful, maybe enough to carry her until the one after that, too, in case the next one brought nothing good. But if that left her stranded too, then she would be out of luck. No more food, no more ways to get more.

What were the odds of the next shift screwing her over? Heh. Knowing that would have made things a lot easier, but there was no way to tell. Not as far as she knew, at least. So it really was just about making a guess. Stay inside, wait, hedge her bets by making sure she'd have a second shot if things went poorly next round. Or go now, while she could, and hope to find something, and if that failed hope luck would be on her side when the next shift came.

It was a solved problem, in a sense. There was a correct course of action. It wouldn't necessarily ensure her survival, but it would give her the best chance. The results of the next shift remained unknown, and would still dictate how she would fare later on, but the world outside the cave was set. It was there. Just knowing whether or not she could find something would have made all the difference, and solved her decision.

But instead, she couldn't know. And that drove her nuts. The kind of aimless rage that couldn't be unleashed on any target, and ended up feasting on the one feeling it in the first place. All because of those light cracks. There could have been a fruit tree, right there, not eight metres away from her cave, or a patch of grass, or a banquet table filled with cakes, and she wouldn't see it! She couldn't see it. Because there was a crack there, meaning a blade of light shot up from the ground and covered whatever was behind it like a curtain.

She could, at least, take minor solace in the fact that there probably wasn't food there. It was most likely just another barren chunk of grey ashes. There could be food, yes, but the chances were slim. Very slim. If she extended her gaze, though... The cracks and lights hid everything past a certain distance, but what were the odds of there being something behind them? And how long would it take her to get to them?

About ten minutes or so, to get there. In half an hour, she could be way past that point. The cracks wouldn't shift for at least two hours, she would have time. But it would wear her out, as walking near the cracks always did. And... And the thing was, yes, there could be something out there, but what were the odds of her finding it? That was the real problem.

She couldn't see anything from the cave. So if something was there, either it was far, or it was small. And if it was small, there was a very, very large chance she'd miss it. Her visibility would be constantly hindered by the cracks, and while she could walk a fair distance she could only cover a rather small amount of the fields before her in terms of area. One wrong turn would mean entirely missing any potential resources she might find, and a wrong turn was far more likely than a right one.

So, well... It seemed, unfortunately, the wise thing to do was also the frustrating one. Wait there, do nothing, don't waste her energies. Hope things would be better the next time around. Or the one after that. It was... It was hard to describe, actually. Would she have rather gone out to find nothing? Of course not. But staying inside wasn't pleasant. Feeling powerless, at the mercy of chance and luck, was not pleasant. But it was her situation, no matter what. Better make peace with it and pick her best option. And so she waited.

HhHhH

Zecora set the tiny blue bottle back on her desk, and caught herself staring at the upside-down view of the world on the other side. It always gave her a sense of childish amusement, for whatever reason. A little thrill of wonder. It was nice.

But she didn't have much time to spend on staring at the world through a bottle. She had experiments to run, and there was research to be done, and while she wasn't in any particular rush it would still be for the best if she got through it all efficiently. She quickly scribbled down the results of her last test. It was an entertaining activity, at the least.

And it was no wonder she'd been picked up for it. Chemistry was a lot like alchemy, and ever since the Behemoth's arrival the line between the two had been muddied. And when ponies said that, what they really meant was that the already slim confine separating the disciplines had been shattered like a window being hit by a train, and what was left was more of a box containing the mangled remains of the two in a state so messy it was no longer possible to tell what pieces belonged to which subject.

And so, testing. The main point of separation, ideally, was to classify reactions as belonging to one category or the other based on whether or not they released magic as a side product. That was why the occasionally buzzing mana detector was there on the table. Of course, testing everything would be an absurdly long and complicated process, so for the moment the tests were more focused on the individual results than on any bigger picture.

Zecora was rather glad she could be helpful. She would have liked to help more, of course, but unfortunately her potions could only help so far now that at least half of them didn't work right. Some had at least the decency to do nothing, but the charred hole left in the floor of the last laboratory she'd been using had taught her it was safer not to try them all out. Just in case. It was safer to do more basic testing first.

Twilight had done a very impressive job, setting up her institution. She'd given ponies something they could trust, something stable they could hold on to. A beacon to remind them that not everything was lost despite the turmoil around them.

And she'd also done a great deal in terms of research, and the quality of it. The sheer amount and rate of new discoveries being made between the walls of her castle was astounding, the institution as a whole was buzzing with creativity. It was partly because of how much yet uncharted territory there was to explore for science after the Arrival, no doubt, but even still it was impressive.

Zecora herself found the environment to be rather pleasant, as well. The other creatures there were all extremely nice, perhaps as a result of the shared hardship of the reality around them. In particular, the zebra was fond of that red-maned mare going by the name of Rose. They were considering the possibility of carrying out a set of shared experiments, to verify the potential alchemical applications of the newly discovered species of flowers and plants Rose was cataloguing.

Zecora was also rather interested in that oddly reflective trinket the mare kept tucked in her mane. She hadn't gotten a chance to ask about it yet, though. Maybe during the next lunch break. But for the moment, more testing. She picked up a red bottle and flipped the page on her notes, then began to experiment anew.

Ad Astra

Stone Brick laid down his pillow at the edge of the cliff and then sat on it, looking down at the wasteland hundreds of metres below as he sipped from the bowl of soup in his hooves. It was mostly dark grey, down there, with some red in places. The path a river had used to run through was still visible, but the water was all gone, and all that was left of the trees in the area were a few charred stumps and consumed branches.

He was no expert in geology, but as far as he understood it, the place must have always had all that lava beneath it. The Behemoth's arrival had just moved things enough for it to come out. Either the chunk of land he was on had risen or the one in front of him had sunk, and then all that molten rock and liquid fire had bubbled up from the ground and burnt almost everything that was left down there.

There were still a few lava pools, scattered around. They looked rather pretty from up above, he had to admit. And they weren't the only thing there, apparently, which was why he was staring at the scenery. Well, that, and the fact he had nothing better to stare at. The trees behind him were rather monotonous, and his tent wasn't exactly a sight to behold. Plus, he'd get to see the sunset too.

Just as he was taking another sip of his soup, it happened. With a sound halfway between a hiss and a splash, a tall jet of water shot up from the ground far below, and then crashed back down. So it was true. He'd heard about such a thing in some parks across Equestria, back when he was a colt, but he'd never actually seen one. So they really were a thing there too, now.

That was good to know. At least he hadn't taken that deviation for nothing. Not that it would have particularly mattered, actually, the path that passed from there was just as long as the other and seeing the lava pools alone would still have been interesting, but he was still glad he got that on top. Finishing his soup, he kept staring, and soon enough a second jet shot up some distance from the first.

He sat there, watching the Sun go down past the horizon as a few other geysers occasionally went off, then got back to his hooves and took the pillow back to his tent. The night would get cold there, and it was probably for the best if he got inside quick. Not too cold, maybe, but still unpleasant, and besides he had to get up early in the morning. Closing the entrance, he sat inside.

The road to Ponyville wouldn't cover itself, he reminded himself as he stared at his map. It would still take him a couple of days at least to get there, provided everything went well. But he did have supplies for about twice as much, just in case. Lying his head on the pillow, he took a long look at the scale he'd left tucked in a corner of the tent, then closed his eyes. He'd get there soon enough. He just needed to keep going.

Burn Out the Stars

It was a wonderful piece of silverware, Celestia considered, as the shiny grey metal tool glittered in the golden glow of her magic hold. Truly a beautifully crafted instrument. The fine engravings alongside its surface had been carefully carved in with marvellous precision, the geometric patterns pleasant to the eye but not too prominent or wide or deep, as to not be a distraction to the touch should a pony without magic have to hold it. The metal itself was some of the finest, a flexible but sturdy league of steel with inserts of gold in a weaving pattern reminiscent of wheat.

It also cut wonderfully well into her cake.

The alicorn brought the tiny bite at the end of her fork to her lips, quickly wrapping them around it as the morsel of sugary deliciousness melted inside her mouth. Cream, mostly, but with just a hint of cherry laced into it. Just the right consistency for it to disappear inside her mouth without the need for chewing, while still not leaving her unsatisfied, still having a certain weight she enjoyed feeling over her tongue before it disappeared.

It was a very nice cake. She would have to make sure the restaurant was paid for it, as they'd insisted she eat there for free. She expected it would be a fair amount of bits to cover for the whole thing, she was eating in the town's priciest restaurant after all.

It wasn't hard to see why their prices were so high though. The food was fantastic, the service impeccable, and the view...

Celestia looked to the side, past the confines of the relatively tiny disk of floating rock her table was seated on, away from the set of crystal staircases connecting it to other such disks below it and further inland and eventually leading back to solid ground. She looked instead towards the larger floating crystals not too far from her, and at the rivers of water that streamed around them in all directions, and at the way the light was caught and warped by them as the Sun set behind them.

Yes. The view was certainly worth it.

Bit of a shame about the ponies whose houses had used to sit on the portion of land that had suddenly decided to ignore the known laws of physics and scatter into tiny floating fragments hanging in the air between land and sea, but at least it made for a very pretty piece of scenery.

Celestia took another bite of her cake.

She'd need to invite Twilight there at some point. The younger alicorn would surely enjoy it.

Startracking - Part 3

Pinkie Pie was in Ponyville, inside Sugarcube Corner, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. Baking a cake. The least active part of the baking process, that being the waiting done while the cake sat in the oven. So to compensate, she was also mixing a bowl of butter and sugar to use for her next cake, balancing it atop her head as she stared at the cake through the stove's tinted glass.

The following trembles and quakes came as a surprise to her.

Now, if talking about any other pony and almost every other creature, that would have been nothing unusual. Of course the surprising and unforeseen event would come as an unforseen surprise to them. But Pinkie was most definitely not any other pony.

Despite her appreciation for surprises, she rarely found herself on the receiving end of one, at least when considering physical events. Creatures could still surprise her, yes, despite her meticulously detailed folders of data on them, but the purely material consequences of their actions were generally something she could see coming in advance. The sudden and repeated shaking of the earth definitely fell closer to falling objects than surprise birthday parties, and therefore in the realm of things her personal brand of clairvoyance was prone to picking up on. Especially so when it was something so massive.

But instead she'd felt nothing. Not a twitch or a shiver or an itch or a quiver or a tingle running up or down her spine or ears of legs or tail or nose or eyelids or any other part of her pink equine body. Not a single thing that could hint at what was coming.

This of course caused quite some trouble for her. First and foremost, it made it rather tougher to balance the bowl on her head. Of course she could have set it down or grabbed it with both hooves, but that would have required also setting down the other bowl that was held in one of her hooves as she mixed the eggs and flour inside it with the spoon in her mouth. And while that could have been set on the floor, by the time she caught up with what was happening the second step had come down and now the other bowls and cakes that completely filled the table threatened to fall off and the bags and boxes of ingredients on the shelves were slipping out and drawers were sliding open and cupboard doors were swinging this and that way and the thrid step came and then the fourth and Pinkie was rushing towards a corner of the room a second and then running to the opposite one the next as the shelves tilted and the walls creaked and the tables bounced and the earth shook and shook and shook.

About thirty seconds later, the room looked like a very large version of a tiny dollhouse room that someone had thrown a set of poorly mixed cake ingredients into, wrecking havoc upon the miniature mobilia. It was, instead, in fact, a regular-sized room, which had been filled with a much too large quantity of poorly mixed cake ingredients.

From somewhere beneath the pile of half-broken wooden panels, wet flour, and cracked eggs, Pinkie Pie emerged, coughing, spoons and other tools in her mane and more frosting than usual splattered across her coat. Eyeing the widening crack in the ceiling and the dust that fell from it as the ground shook yet again, she decided it was best to leave the room and perhaps the whole building.

Outside, once she'd made it past the empty but possibly even more damaged main hall and through the now shattered entrance door, the rest of the citizens in the area and particularly the Cake family were rather relieved to see she was as alright as could be hoped.

And Pinkie turned towards Canterlot, following the direction many a other pony around her were looking in, and her gaze set on the waning, uncertain shape of the Behemoth. And Pinkie thought to herself that it was definitely weird.

Yes, she thought. It was very odd and strange indeed.

Chess; but not really

It was a nice chessboard. A very large chessboard. Oddly misshapen, asymmetric, missing a few squares, and with clearly more colours than necessary, but it was still a nice chessboard. It was indeed a chessboard. That was his story, and he was sticking with it.

It even clearly had the pieces on it. Over there, that tower was - well, that was clearly a tower. And that statue on the other side of the garden, that one was clearly a knight. And that large writhing mass of tentacles and eyes, well... Huh... Maybe a queen? Yeah. Probably a queen.

It was very clearly a puzzle, there for him to solve. Yes, that large building on the other side of town was the enemy king, and indeed the one he stood on top of represented his own. Now he just needed to figure out a way to move that pile of rubble, down there to the left, diagonally to the right and up and then - Oh, oh great, wonderful, the ball of tentacles was moving on its own and had just eaten one of those little duck-shaped decorations that served as pawns. Fantastic. It was one on its team, no less! How was he supposed to plan if the pieces didn't play fair!?

Mad? He wasn't mad. He was absolutely not mad. Just because Scarlet Ribbon said he was mad, that didn't make him mad! She wasn't even a real doctor. Yet. And just because everyone else in town agreed with her, that didn't make her right. Lots of popular books were objectively terrible, after all. The voice of the masses had no bearing on the truth. He was not insane, no matter what everypony said.

Having eaten that shiny thing he'd found inside the river did not mean he was mad. He needed a place to keep it, after all. He didn't have any pockets, and he couldn't risk losing it, and there were animals around that could steal it. And what if he hid it, but then someone or something came along and took it? No, he had to keep it safe. That was why he'd eaten it. Now it was safely with him.

He'd also realised how he needed clothes. He needed pockets. Why did ponies almost exclusively wear either no clothes, or useless and purely cosmetic ones? Pockets were such a wonderful thing. He'd stolen a pair of pants and a jacket from the half-destroyed clothes shop just an hour after finding the shiny thing. The pants were a bit too large and the jacket a bit too tight, and maybe both were a mare's model, but now he had pockets.

There wasn't much in his pockets. A few bits in his pants, a couple chess pieces in his jacket, some of which were broken. But he had pockets.

Meanwhile, the queen ate the windmill. He hadn't actually figured out what piece exactly the windmill was, but not that it mattered much now that the tentacles had eaten it. Oh well. With the queen there he really couldn't win anymore. In fact, it looked like she would be coming for him next.

At least he'd tried.

He jumped off the building's roof, away from the chessboard and the steadily approaching mass of not particularly friendly-looking appendages. He'd be more lucky with the next puzzle he found.

Stairway to more stairs

Soarin' set down the package, and pulled out a map of the region, alongside a compass. He had about three more hours of flying in the same direction, and then he'd be at the Wall. If everything went according to plan, at least.

Not many reasons to expect it wouldn't, but the possibility was always there. He could always get caught in a manastorm, after all. Or, more likely, have to stop and wait for it to pass before he could proceed. Rainbow was just about the only pony crazy enough to attempt flying through one, and probably the only one skilled enough to actually pull it off.

He did like the sound of a challenge, when it didn't involve risking his life, but he wasn't about to do anything dangerous when he was carrying something. Especially not something as valuable as what he had.

He took a moment to stare at the package again. Wrapped in plain light brown paper and slightly consumed string, it could have passed off as ordinary were it not for the emblem of Princess Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark stamped on top of it in pink-purple ink. Of course, one would have noticed that there was more than met the eye either way, upon picking it up.

The metal casing hiding just beneath the paper was rather heavy, its segmented texture very peculiar to the touch. Going by what he'd been told back in Ponyville, it was basically the strongest box in all of Equestria. Multiple plates of magically reinforced steel disposed in a carefully constructed pattern designed to absorb or deflect any impact and blow. It would ensure the contents would remain safe, should the package be lost.

The only way to make it stronger would have been making the box a sphere, but you couldn't exactly shove a book inside a small one and a larger one around the existing box would have been impractical to carry alone.

Not that he was completely alone, he reminded himself. Throwing a glance behind him, he confirmed how Lightning Dust was still there, hovering in sprinting distance, flying low enough not to be seen by those who didn't know what to look for. A security measure he hoped would not be necessary, but the possibility of someone wanting access to Princess Twilight's research results was not one they could ignore.

In case it happened, their instructions were to leave the package behind and rush back to Ponyville. It was near impossible that whoever chose to ambush them would actually be able to open the box, and Princess Twilight had installed a long-distance magic switch she'd use to burn the contents once informed that the package was lost. But Soarin' was rather doubtful that his companion would run away rather than fight.

They would be safe once behind the Wall. Princess Cadence had been warned ahead of time about their imminent arrival, and she'd be waiting for them there. In truth, he looked forward to spending a day of rest in the Empire, and he knew Lightning did as well despite her refusal to admit as much.

So, barring manastorms, barring assaults by wild creatures, and barring any attempts made to steal the package, they still had three hours to go. Soaring picked up the map, the compass, and the package, and slipped them all back inside his saddlebags. Just three more hours.

With a kick from his hind legs, he took off, and began flying northwards again.

Weavewalker

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There and Again - Part 1

Shining sighed, setting his sword down against the cold crystal wall. He took off his saddlebags, took one last look at both ends of the tunnel, then finally convinced himself he was safe and sat down. Rolling his shoulders back and forth and stretching his hind legs, he lay back against the wall behind him and sighed again. His hooves needed the rest, even if he didn't want to admit it. They were getting a bit sore.

His horn lit up. The button holding his bags closed came undone with a satisfying pop, and held by the glow of his magic the little sealed tray of food he'd brought along levitated towards his lap. He clicked his tongue in anticipation, while his hooves worked to undo the silver-grey wrapping.

The shreds of it had yet to hit the ground when the smell of food hit Shining's nostrils, and a moment later the stallion practically threw himself onto the small tray. Goodness, he'd been hungry. Way more than he'd realised. Years of guard training meant he could ignore the need for food for a while and not be distracted by it, but it also meant he wasn't exactly conscious of the fact he was doing it.

Cadence's food was good as always. He didn't mind cooking for himself, but she'd insisted on doing it and he certainly wasn't going to refuse the offer.

He slipped the last bit of food past his lips, staring at the now empty plate on his lap. That had been nice, yes. He lit his horn again, and pulled out a clock from his saddlebags, bringing it up to his face. He could still afford a few minutes, yeah. Setting the clock back inside his bags, he stretched his legs, then placed his hooves behind his neck as he leaned back and began to whistle to himself.

Things had gone well, if boringly so. Nothing seemed to have snuck in the tunnels as far as he'd explored them so far. There would probably be something up ahead, he'd have found it worryingly suspicious if nothing at all turned out to be there, but it probably wouldn't be anything too bad.

He really wasn't sure why Cadence worried so much about him going there. Sure, they didn't exactly know what more they could find, but so far there was no reason to think it would be anything more dangerous than what they'd already found. He'd never come out of it with more than a few scratches, and even in the remote chance things went bad, he could always teleport out of there.

Shining got up. The tray and the shreds of wrapping were levitated back into a separate pocket in his bags, then the bags themselves were closed and slid onto his back once more. He took hold of his sword, and then began to trek down the tunnel again.

That's when a bit of movement caught his eye. Up ahead, on the floor, a darker shade of blue slithering away from him. Another crystal lizard, it seemed. Craning his neck back and forth, he stepped forward, and started to follow the creature. There was no need to rush it. Not as long as it was just one, at least.

Clocks

Twilight sat on the wooden bench in the shop, looking at the clocks hanging from the walls around her. There were a lot of clocks there. None were particularly loud, but all together they made quite the amount of noise. It was at least a regular noise, and after a while it was easy to ignore it, as her brain treated it as just a background to her thoughts.

She unfortunately didn't have much else to do. Just wait, and stare at the clocks. It was actually quite convenient that there were clocks there. That way she could easily tell how much time had passed. It shouldn't take too long. Maybe just a few more minutes before she finally got something else to do beside waiting and looking at the clocks.

They were nice clocks. Some were metal, and others wooden, and they all must have taken quite a while to make. There was something funny in there. About clocks, and the time spent making them. Definitely something to work with. Maybe she could do that. Write something about the clocks. Not then though. Nothing to write on, not enough time to do it. One day, maybe. When it was all over. She didn't exactly have much free time. She didn't allow herself to.

There were a whole lot of clocks there. Maybe she could count them? Maybe not. It would be boring. Waiting wasn't the most entertaining thing, true. But counting the clocks might have been even less entertaining. And she wouldn't have time to count them all. She wouldn't have to wait much longer. She could tell, there were quite enough clocks around her to tell that she clearly wouldn't have much longer to wait.

Why there? Why by the clocks? Not that it was a bad choice. Most other choices, while deemed safe, could perhaps hide some unforeseen danger. Perhaps just to reduce the risks to a minimum? It could certainly make sense. And yet it didn't, not fully. It felt like a justification. It was too peculiar a place for it to be just a matter of safety. No other place was quite like that shop, and clearly it had been picked for a reason.

So, clocks. Maybe she would ask why. It wouldn't take much longer before she got a chance to, she confirmed with a glance at the clocks. What colour was the wall? White? Yeah. It was white. It was hard to spot behind all the clocks. Was it white behind the clocks too? It was probably yellow, or grey, or maybe black, after all the time it had been covered by the clocks. Was the wall really white when most of it wasn't?

Maybe Twilight would buy a clock, one day. A pretty one, not too big, not too fancy. One made of wood, with floral patterns carved on the surface. With large painted numbers that made it less precise when read, so for twenty minutes straight you could still say it was twelve o'clock. And she'd hang it in the kitchen, where she could see it from the table.

A set of clicks, and the door slid open.

Startracking - Part 4

Rainbow Dash was in Ponyville, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. On a cloud, half napping, her mind occupied with nothing in particular. Resting in the shade of another cloud higher up in the air, letting the faint breeze run over her feathers and through her mane. Just relaxing, not doing much of anything.

She didn't notice things immediately. Being on a cloud, far from the ground, being out of the Behemoth's shadow, being far from Canterlot, there wasn't much for her to notice. No cold chill over her skin or vibration running up her hooves, no ground shaking where she stood or buildings dancing around her. So it took a moment, before she noticed something was amiss.

It was the commotion in town that woke her up. The nervous yelling, the occasional scream, the thumping of hooves as ponies ran this way and that and rushed out of buildings and called to each other. Her first reaction was to stand there for a second, confused, looking about as she tried to understand what was going on.

Her second reaction, just a moment after the first one, was to swoop down from her cloud and begin helping others. Understanding what was happening could wait. The earth was shaking and half of the buildings in town were threatening to come down, and she had citizens to save. Dashing back and forth across the streets, she pulled many a creature out of buildings, more than once through the windows, and helped more than a few find each other in the confusion.

Only when every direction she looked in from her hovering spot above the town yielded either dangerous situations devoid of creatures or groups of creatures devoid of dangerous surroundings did she allow herself to unfocus from helping others, and once more let herself question what was happening and why.

That is when, while turning around to look for clues, Rainbow Dash first saw the Behemoth. And her first thought upon seeing it was that it was big. Really big. Which in fairness was the same first thought a lot of other creatures had upon first seeing the Behemoth, and it would have been so for an even greater number of them were it not for those running for their lives either because of collapsing buildings or because of the Behemoth itself.

Rainbow just hovered there, about as still as one could be while bobbing up and down under the beating of their own wings. So. Unreasonably big, mysterious, and seemingly supernatural thing in Canterlot, wreaking havoc all the way to Ponyville and likely across the whole country with its mere presence and steps. The rainbow laser might not work, depending on whether it was intentionally destroying things or it had merely found itself there it might not even be needed.

The sensible thing was consulting Twilight. Who'd probably already know what the thing actually was, being Twilight and all. A lucky coincidence that going to her meant getting closer to the thing in question too. Rainbow cast a last glance around, making sure everycreature was safe, then shot off towards Canterlot in a blur of colours.

There and Again - Part 2

Shining took a peek behind the corner, into the corridor where the crystal lizard had slithered. Did lizards slither? Kind of, right? Either way, it was there now, quietly looking around.

Crystal lizards were not the brightest creatures, but not the dumbest either. It knew Shining was following close behind. But it did not have any real concept of how close he actually was. Once past the corner, he was no longer in sight, and so to the lizard it was the same as if he wasn't there. That the pony in question was near, ready to jump out if he so wanted, did not and could not cross the creature's brain.

They were simple creatures like that. Pretty sturdy though. Could take quite a few hits, in terms of blunt damage. But then again, that was why he was carrying a sword, not a mace or a hammer. Not that all hammers were blunt weapons, war hammers in particular were a far cry from construction hammers and their hits were arguably closer to arrows than punches given the spiky bits and pointy ends, and really- And really, he was starting to rant about weapons. Again. Thank goodness Cadence was at least willing to listen to his rambles when he went on one, bless that mare.

So, anyway. He had a sword. Crystal lizards were actually pretty resistant to cuts as well, but that wasn't what the sword was for. Well, it was, generally, but not in that particular context. The sword was there to dislodge the bits making up the lizard's core, which it turned out was the most efficient way to get one to disassemble. Literally. Yes, a pole arm would have been more efficient, but the cracks were thin and the core fairly far in and the corridors not that tall, so a sword was just more convenient. Yes, he could have had some more specific tool built, but the sword was better in case something else showed up. You never knew.

Crystal lizards were more of a nuisance than a real danger. They were sort of like rats, if rats were the size of a large dog and had razor sharp teeth and claws and crystal plating that reflected magic blasts like a mirror. So they weren't really like rats, except for how they ate supplies. They could probably eat a pony too, though. They never had, but on the other hoof, they'd always found supplies. No one was really willing to test out if they were omnivores or not.

The lizard turned its head towards the opposite end of the tunnel. In a blink, Shining stepped behind it, and jammed his sword right past its armour and into the core. Just a sideways push on the blade, and the creature exploded into splinters of rock and crystal. Shining smiled, and began to walk away. That particular one wouldn't give them trouble for a couple of weeks. It would take a while for it to reform, and a while longer before it felt daring enough to come in that direction again.

They were like timberwolves. Crystal instead of wood, a manifestation of the Wall's magic rather than the Everfree's, but essentially the same type of creature. Which was about as fascinating as it was annoying. The Wall did not have the centuries of history the Everfree did, and the confines of where the ponies' territory began and the wild things' ended were not yet defined. Still, so long as it was only lizards coming that close, Shining supposed it wasn't too bad. Not too bad at all.

At the End of the

It wasn't really a restaurant. It had no set menu, the dining area amounted to a few tables hastily thrown together from planks of wood, the stallion running the place was the only one working there, and half the time you might not even get a plate to eat on. It was more like a place that happened to serve whatever food happened to be prepared that day, at whatever time it happened to be prepared at, all run by the same pony who happened to cook that food. But inspectors had come, they'd checked and verified that the kitchen was clean and the food was properly stored, and so the place stayed open and kept serving whoever happened to pass by.

And that was a good thing. Because that one pony made some darn good food.

They'd never learnt his name, and he'd never learnt theirs. Neither had ever asked. They'd shown up there, one day, soaking wet while a thunderstorm raged outside. Asked for food, no matter what it was. And, darn it, it'd been the best food they'd ever had.

They kept showing up, whenever they could. Whenever they could afford to pass from there, and the place happened to be open. Didn't even need to ask for anything anymore at that point. They just sat down, and a bowl of whatever was being served that day got to their table. Eat, leave the bits behind, wave goodbye as they walked out the door.

Sometimes, there was stuff to drink, too. There was a water pump outside the building, clean stuff, connected right to an underground spring there in the mountains, but sometimes there was something else too. Usually served in the same old glass stein, the bottom so worn out from use and polishing sessions it would have been a hole if it hadn't been so thick. Always nice stuff. Cider, or grape juice, or pomegranate juice, or a bunch of other things. They had no idea how he got his hooves on any of it, and they didn't care.

Not like the food was any more consistent or less headscratch inducing. They were pretty sure half the plants served there didn't even grow in that side of Equestria, much less high in the mountains like that. Maybe the place just had the world's weirdest storage hidden underneath, and he just fetched stuff at random.

The building was old, mossy, the many stones that made up the walls misaligned and sticking out, the roof's cover planks looked like they were just waiting for the first hailstorm to break apart. Inside, though, it all disappeared. The fireplace cast its warmth and glow over huge, rough but solid chunks of stone that made up the walls and floor, and the ceiling's wooden support beams looked like they'd been bought just the other day.

They always enjoyed eating there. Especially after a rough day, especially when it was raining outside. And then, just like every time, they left their bits on the table, the bowl or plate or whatever cleaned from every last speck of food, and they walked out by themself, once more alone for a while in the outside world.

Cry for me, Acanthite

The door was locked. That was not usual. Especially not for her house. She usually didn't lock the door. Especially not in the middle of the day, especially not when she was still inside. But the door was locked.

Well, he would just have to find a way to open it, of course. It would have been easier if she'd opened it herself, but it looked like she wasn't going to. Which was annoying, admittedly, but not the worst. He just needed to figure out how to get the door to open. He quite liked the challenge, actually. He always liked challenges. Riddles and puzzles and such, and that's what that was, no? A puzzle. He always liked puzzles. He was good with puzzles.

So. Details, details, details. Context. Clues. It was about that, no? Clues. Contextual clues. Deciphering the context of the puzzle to identify its elements. It was all about that. Careful observation and deductive reasoning, logical, critical thinking. And he was good at that, right? Yeah, he was good at that. He had experience and such.

Scarlet Ribbon's house had been built thirty years before, roughly. The small town was expanding at the time, after an influx of ponies moving there from the bigger cities. It had been built with wood from the local trees, during spring, finished by the time summer had rolled around. Some twenty years later it had gone near abandoned after the owners had moved again, maybe bored of the quiet life of the town as they were getting older, and five years or so later Scarlet had bought the place, after working enough to get a place of her own. Her parents were proud of her.

There was chip in the white paint on the front wall, two thirds of the way up to the second floor window. Roughly shaped like a square. Clearly relevant, part of the puzzle. There was a smaller chip on the door, to the left, three quarters of the way up. That one looked more like a small triangle. Probably important as well. The doorbell was there, but it made no sound, it had been turned off from the inside. The button still slid in and out though. He liked the button. He liked buttons. They were nice to press.

What more? Well, further back, if he turned around, there was another paint chip in the fence. And on the lawn, a small depression in the ground, likely caused by a mole digging a tunnel underneath. And then the tree, of course, the tree. The branches bare, it was autumn after all, a few of the red and yellow leaves still by the trunk, more wet than dry at that point.

And yeah, he could see it. He almost had it, yes, he was almost there. He could clearly see the connections, those bright thick wires from one thing to another, the yellow one running over the front wall that connected the paint chip with the tree, and the green one that passed beneath the ground and below that depression and had its ends at the two remaining paint chips, and then there was a red one that went up from the button and up to the roof and then-

A drop of water hit him right between the eyes. Oh, it was starting to rain. Well he couldn't be out in the rain, he'd get his clothes all wet. Oh well. Not the worst, not the worst. He'd have to visit Scarlet another time.

He turned around and quickly headed towards the centre of town, while a drop after the other began to pour down from the sky. Such a shame though. He'd almost solved that puzzle.

Map to the Scars

Luna's axe came down, and the silver snake splintered in a shower of bright orange sparks and white-hot dust. It was the third one that night, the eighth one that week, the twenty-seventh that month. She was getting a bit tired of them, to be perfectly honest. There was nothing particularly engaging about hunting them. They were more of a nuisance than anything.

A sound to her right drew her attention. Somewhere behind the cover of leaves and twisted branches, something was moving. She turned, and readied her weapon, narrowing her eyes. Not another silver snake, it seemed. Too small to be one of those. Maybe even smaller than her, judging by how subtle the movements appeared to be.

The alicorn waited, patiently still, ready to strike at the first sign of aggression. But nothing came. The movement seemed to halt completely, not even the faintest trace of it left. Everything was quiet again, as if nothing had happened. Curious, cautious, she took a step forward. It could very well be a trap. But it was just as likely that whatever had been there simply wasn't anymore.

She got right in front of the bush, and still no signs of anything. Very slowly, very carefully, she brought the tip of her axe towards the leaves and branches. And then, just as slowly, she pushed them aside, to reveal the space behind. Nothing there. With a barely audible sigh, she pulled back her weapon, as the tension in her muscles eased just a bit.

She turned away, and gave a look around. There didn't seem to be anything nor any other creature there for the moment. Just trees, and thankfully only the neutral kind. Not that she would have had anything against the friendlier ones, but the hostile ones were far more common around the area, so getting trees that didn't attack was already a plus.

Shrugging, she took off. The beats of her wide wings pushed her upwards as she began to soar above the forest, looking below her to spot any other signs of movement or commotion. There didn't seem to be any, not as far as she could see, certainly nothing major. She'd already dealt with a few, true enough. But she doubted it would be all for the night.

Her gaze turned upwards, above her, where the rest of the forest lay. Her wings pushed harder, and in a few moments there she was, soaring over the trees with her back towards the ground and her belly towards the sky. Thankfully, she'd been there enough times to learn how to gracefully roll around in mid air without interrupting her flight.

Her gaze was once more cast downwards at the ground. Once more searching for signs of strife. It didn't take long, this time, before her eyes spotted something. Trees bending as the creature erratically crashed into them, the heavy thuds of its steps echoing in the air. Axe at her side, Luna swooped down, ready to take out the beast.

Startracking - Part 5

Fluttershy was in the Everfree Forest, near the border, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. She was going back to her house, after spending some time tending to the manticore she'd befriended there.

Before the ground shook, before any other sign, she felt something was amiss. She felt it around her, a quiet unease, a thrill of nervousness that ran through the creatures of the forest. A jerkiness to their movements, a sudden awareness that something wasn't quite right. Fear, in a sense.

She had just a second to notice it and wonder, then one to prepare. Then the ground shook. Feebly, at first, distant and barely noticeable. But still there. The unrest in the creatures around her came to a halt, but it wasn't calm. Just stalling, the tension building up one moment after the other. A second quake, stronger, as every creature held its breath. Then the third one came, and the stillness broke.

Creatures went running, flying, barking and howling and crying, no direction to their movements, no destination on their minds, only an unbearable need to move, to do something, to get away from something that was everywhere around them. The increasing intensity of the subsequent quakes did not help.

And Fluttershy stood there, in the middle of it all. She couldn't see it all, most was hidden by the trees or simply too fast to follow, but she could hear it. She could hear them, all around her, and through the forest as their cries echoed to her. She had never seen the creatures of the Everfree like that.

Whatever it was, whatever was happening, it wasn't normal. It wasn't natural, not even by the forest's standards. And that had her worried. A different pony, in her situation, might have been concerned about their safety and about the animals running around them. Flutterhsy, however, knew that whatever they were running from would be far more worrying.

But whatever that was, she would have time to evaluate the situation later. In that moment, instead, her thoughts went to the animals in her sanctuary, and she immediately began to run back towards it, out of the forest. If the animals in the forest were afraid, the ones there would probably be terrified, and far more confused about what they were feeling.

Because they would be feeling something. Because even she had felt something, if just for a moment. A normal pony wouldn't, but spending enough time with animals had led her to share some of their instincts, or at least have a better understanding of them. Something she couldn't quite explain, some unconscious reaction about subtle details she couldn't quite point out.

She got to the sanctuary as quickly as she could, and there managed to calm down the commotion. Only a while later, once everything had been taken care of and things had calmed down, did she actually go into town and inquire about what had happened. And as the ponies pointed towards the mountain, and she turned her gaze to follow, she felt it again. That shiver down her spine, as she first saw the Behemoth, and wondered just how much things would change from that moment on.

15 Acres of Broken Glass

Things were going well, ever since she'd found the city. Definitely a whole lot better than they had before. Food was always there, and she didn't mind helping search for more when the need for it arose. And she had a real bed to sleep on, which as far as she was concerned was worth all the inconveniences that came with living there.

Besides, honestly speaking, what was the alternative? Was she really willing to go back to the uncertainty and struggles of the world outside? No. Life in the city had its flaws, its uncertainties too, but it was far, far better than the only alternative they knew. She was safer than anywhere else, she was protected, she wasn't alone. Abandoning it all would have been foolish.

She knew it, just like everyone else in the city knew it. Unrest occasionally stirred the population, but it was always held back by that knowledge. That fact that no matter what, even if things were harsh sometimes, even if the Mirror threatened to give out on occasion, being alone out there would always be worse.

She was afraid that the whole thing could fall apart, sometimes. That someone could use that fact to impose their own decisions over the city by force, and no one would be able to go against them if the alternative was being kicked out. She'd fight back if that happened, of course she would, but how many other ponies there could manage to do the same? How many of those scarce few wouldn't already have been bribed by those in charge at that point?

That wasn't her only fear about living in the city. And it wasn't the biggest one, either. There was something else, always on everypony's mind, even though they tried not to think about it. What if the Mirror broke? If the cracks got past the wall, they'd all be done for. The city would be no more. Would so many ponies even be able to stick together out there? It would be utter chaos. Again.

The Ziz be damned, she didn't have the faintest idea of how the Mirror even worked. Maybe she should study that. She was never the best at studying, yeah, but that didn't mean she couldn't try. Especially with something so important. As far as she understood it, if the Mirror broke there was no chance they'd be able to make another, but maybe there was something there? Maybe...

Maybe no. Maybe she was just annoyed, again, by how useless she felt when it came to that. The brightest unicorns available to them worked day and night on running the thing and making it work, did she really think she'd be able to figure out something they'd missed just by picking up a book? No. Of course not. But at least she'd be doing something. Just to make herself feel better.

Could she really be blamed for feeling like that? No. But it didn't mean she could go out and act on it, just because. She had more important things to do there in the city, there was work to do and food to find. But maybe she would pick up a book on the matter, later on. She did have some spare time to fill, after all.

RRR

She studied the graphs splayed out on the table in front of her, adjusting her glasses. There had to be a pattern to them, right? She hoped so, at least, because it sure didn't look like there was one. Now that, that would have been annoying. And maybe even a problem. She'd need to keep charting them to be sure, of course. Unless she figured out a pattern.

She pulled her eyes away from the table and forced them onto the ceiling. It was so frustrating. Insightful, but frustrating nonetheless. Perhaps she should try to focus on the interesting results, not on those she wasn't having. For example, she'd never expected there to be so many of them. And she'd never thought one would be so near, she was honestly pretty surprised they'd never found that before then.

Although maybe someone had found it. In which case, she hoped they were alright. They probably were, maybe they just went around telling stories about it and no one believed them. But there was no guarantee of safety, it was why they were having to set up warning signs and fences around every one they found. Which admittedly drew some suspicions, but it was still a necessary precaution.

How many more were out there? How long would it take to find them? She had no idea, and it bothered her to no end. If she'd known what she was signing up for years before, she might've decided to go a completely different way in her life. Although... Her eyes wandered to the photographs she kept on her desk. True, the younger version of her probably wouldn't have thought that would be worth it. She had a different opinion on the matter.

Her gaze returned to the pile of papers on the table, pictures and maps and graphs and countless aimless attempts at equations and formulae that had come up short of any solution every single time. Frustration hit her like an improperly thrown brick, only with less nose bleeding and broken glasses. A cup of something that was halfway between coffee and chocolate levitated towards her in the glow of her telekinesis, and she downed it all as quickly as she could.

What time was it? She gave a look at the clock on the far wall. Just a few minutes away from one o'clock. In the morning. Maybe it was time to go to sleep. Leave her notes, take the whole issue out of her mind, hope stress would make her pass out before the caffeine kicked in. It was not the best of plans, but it was better than the one she was following in her attempts at studying the matter. So whatever, right?

Stepping away from the table, even as her mind refused to follow along, she headed towards the stairs. Yeah. Sleep did sound nice, and was probably needed. And maybe even a pause the day after. She had to go out and buy food anyway, maybe she could spend some time outside, maybe not alone. It never hurt to catch some sunlight, after all.

Why Don't You Cry?

Cadence always liked to watch things from up there. As much as there were things to watch from there. Which, in truth, was very little, and that was why she enjoyed it. It was peaceful. No distractions, no worries, she could pretend for a moment that nothing had ever changed. Almost. The unnervingly huge chunk of crystal she sat upon was still an inescapable reminder of the world she lived in. But, at least, not much else had changed up there, between the puffy white clouds and the clear blue sky.

Many of her guards would have had quite a few things to say against her being there. That was why she didn't tell them about it when she went. Most of the time, she even got away with it.

She took in a long, deep breath. Clear, fresh air. That seemed somehow harder and harder to come by back in the city. It wasn't, of course, but it still felt like it. The tension running through every creature down there was impossible to ignore, and that only made everyone more nervous. She did hope things would calm down eventually, once the citizens had grown used to how things had changed.

Shining at least seemed to be taking it quite well. He'd been active helping around town, he'd personally taken part in the process of reestablishing some forms of communication between the Empire and the rest of Equestria, and he'd even started exploring the tunnels, all while keeping up with his royal duties. Maybe he was just excited by the adventurous feeling of change, he definitely was that kind of pony. It did make her worry, on occasion, that he was just growing bored with how their life was before.

Well, no more of that for a while. She would have no doubt preferred it, but it looked like the universe or fate or whomever had different plans for all of them. Far more disruptive plans, and she was genuinely afraid at times that they hadn't seen the end of it yet. Far from it.

That was why she spent time there. On her own, away from the stress and commotion of her life, away from the earth far down below her and everything and everyone on it. She didn't hate them, or even dislike them. But sometimes, it was nice to just let go for a while. Leave her troubles to another time, another space.

Of course, it couldn't last forever. Ponies would notice her absence eventually, and it wouldn't do if she stayed there and ignored duties she had to attend. It really wouldn't do. She could maybe wait a couple of minutes longer though. Just a couple.

She still had a lot of day to get through. And then another whole day the day after, and then another one, and then another one, and on and on and on like that. It was annoying, yes. But it was what she had to do. She could just hope that things would change for the better, when they did.

Deadline

Spending most of your evening out at a party that was only supposed to last about half an hour and then coming home with barely any time left to do what you're supposed to get done by midnight was not high on Starlight's list of things she wanted to try. That did nothing to stop it from happening. She really should have seen it coming, knowing Pinkie Pie.

She also should have probably started to work on her report. Instead of playing cards with Trixie and Sunburst, like she had been for the past hour.

Would it really be so bad if Twilight didn't find anything the morning after? Probably not. She was only being chased down by the stress of her impeding coronation. So really, it shouldn't bother her that much. What's the weight of a single school on the shoulders of a pony who's supposed to rule the entire nation?

Oh. A three. Interesting play on Trixie's part. Risky. Starlight looked at her cards. It might be bait, an attempt to shield an ace. But the points were still worth it. It was Cups on the lead that game, and Starlight set down the Knight.

Sunburst upped it with the King. Now that was annoying. Sometimes, some ponies just got all the luck.

Starlight threw one distracted look at the empty paperwork she was supposed to be filling. Oh well. She wasn't about to stop playing until one of them got a three-point lead over the others, and that could still take hours. It would be fun.

Absent-mindedly, she looked at the card she'd just drawn. The Ace of Swords. She looked at what the others were throwing down. Nothing worthwhile. Yeah, maybe it was worth just getting the points.

Lay all your LLLL on T

It was almost visible there, a faint purple glow in the air around her. And she definitely felt it, it made hairs on her coat stand and her bones itch. It was the most intense she'd ever seen it be, and definitely much, much, much more intense than what was considered safe. If it had been up to Twilight, or really to anyone else, they'd have told her to stop hundreds of metres before. That was why she didn't tell them.

It was a very stupid thing to do, and she fully realised and acknowledged it. But someone had to go there. Oh, they would spend hours and hours discussing what to do, no one willing to put someone else in danger, no one willing to let another go in their stead. And however it ended up going, one of them at least would have to go, and they'd get hurt. So it was for the better if she went instead. She was tougher than all of them, anyway.

Sending a princess wouldn't have made any difference. They could take more, but they were hit harder. Twilight herself couldn't even stand near the border of the safe zone without getting nauseous, and sure as Tartarus that mare would try to go in there herself. She was stubborn like that. That just wouldn't do.

The sound of falling rubble up ahead snapped her attention away from her thoughts. As she carefully kept treading towards her destination, she was reminded of why exactly she liked to get lost in her own thoughts when walking around there. The base of her horn hurt. A lot. Like a piece of red-hot iron jammed in her skull, sending bolts of lightning into her head. Somewhere halfway between a broken bone healing and a tooth growing, only worse than both.

It wasn't even the only part of her body in pain. Just about every bone she knew of started to protest if she moved wrong, and she'd even discovered a couple new ones that way. Her muscles, particularly those on her torso, seemed equally unhappy about her situation, and sometimes made her feel like she'd just completed a full set of exercises.

And then was the matter of her hind legs. That, admittedly, she was legitimately scared about. The hooves could still feel, and the legs a little too going up from there. But everything between her tail and the end of her thighs was dull numbness, and she could just hope it wouldn't give out.

Still, it hadn't so far. Spending more time soaking in radiation wouldn't help matters at all, but she was there at that point, no use going back until she'd found everything she was there for. Thank goodness, the explosion had at least pushed everything away from the centre, so there was no need for her to walk right up to the fissure itself.

Stumbling just a bit down a slope of rubble, she reached another set of broken white walls and tiles and torn chunks of table, housing yet more of Twilight's and her team's research notes and results. She carefully took hold of them in her hooves and slipped them into her saddlebags. Maybe it wasn't so much of a problem that she couldn't use telekinesis. Between the radiation and how much what was there of her horn hurt, magic might have been out of the question either way in there.

Startracking - Part 6

Twilight was in Canterlot, when the Behemoth came there. She was in the castle, in her throne room, pacing up and down the length of the wall as she munched on her bottom lip and reran the same set of thoughts through her head for the twelfth time at least that afternoon alone.

It was the speech she had to give later that evening. Her first big speech as Princess, barring her coronation. Her first post-coronation speech. And despite every sign and previous example pointing towards her being perfectly able to deliver a good speech, and her being perfectly aware of that fact, she still most definitely did not feel like she was going to.

She really had to ask Celestia how she managed to deal with that. Assuming the alicorn did, and wasn't just as much of a nervous wreck, simply good at hiding it. But she wasn't a good actress. Either way, she definitely knew how to deliver a speech.

It was at that moment that something drew Twilight's attention away.

A voice. Barely a whisper, so quiet she wasn't sure if it was even there or she'd simply imagined it. Far too quiet to understand what it had said.

The floor shook, just barely. Twilight felt an itch at the base of her horn, a prickle of electricity in the joints of her wings. The ground shook again, with a touch more intensity, and something akin to a sudden static discharge travelled down her hind legs, starting at her cutie marks.

The Sun's light from outside the stained glass windows of the room got just a smidge less intense, slightly distorted. There was something like a shadow on the other side, like leaves against the sky when you look up from beneath a tree, like clear water you can barely tell is there. Something moving. Something looking at her.

The ground shook, hard enough for the floor to crack and rise in uneven, broken chunks. The windows shattered, fragments of broken glass flying into the room on a cold gust of wind from outside. The entire castle creaked, as cracks appeared all over walls and pillars and crawled upwards like reverse lighting. Screams of ponies echoed through the halls, and all through the streets of the city below.

And Twilight, standing still, gazed at the impossibly large and only half-there creature, as it lifted its head away from the now broken windows and stepped forward again, shaking the ground like an earthquake and tearing down what was left of the room's outer wall.

And Princess Twilight Sparkle watched, frozen there in her throne room, as the Behemoth came to Canterlot, and walked over its streets. As the buildings fell and the towers collapsed. As the creatures screamed and ran and cried. As the ground split open and the fountains froze and flowers and plants closed up as if it was nighttime.

And the souls of the living shrieked as they were ripped from their earthly shells and carried along with the storm, and the souls of the dead were raised alongside them and all they shattered against the Behemoth.

And Twilight watched, frozen there, as the Behemoth stood over Canterlot, and cast its shadow over Equestria. Unmoved, unmoving, silently watching the mayhem it had caused.

And Twilight watched, from the torn and broken edge of the room, through the hole that had once been a wall and now spanned the whole length from one side to the other. Like an actress on a stage, looking at the audience. The whole world outside her castle, and her inside.

And the knowledge that things would never be the same once she stepped out into that world.

The End of This | For Thine is

They met her one winter evening, while standing under a tree. It was snowing, that evening, not too hard but still enough to make flying uncomfortable. They were waiting for it to end, under the tree. The tree was a pine, an old pine, pretty tall. They liked leaning against the trunk, watching the snow fall down around them.

She appeared almost at their side, only a few metres away. To their left, to be precise. Just outside the edge of what the pine's branches covered. Standing over the snow, more snow softly falling over her as a few flakes were caught in her blonde mane. She looked around, almost seeming a little dazed. Then, a snowflake landed on her nose, right between her eyes. She gave a shrug, almost a shiver, beat some snow off her body with her wings, and walked towards the trunk of the tree, beneath the branches.

They just stared at her, silent. Undeniably, a part of it was confusion. But once she walked up to the tree, she too saying nothing, acting like nothing of notice had happened and it was perfectly normal for a pony to be there when she hadn't a moment before, they decided they would stay silent too. They liked the silence, and the quiet sounds of the forest, after all.

And so the two of them sat there, side by side, watching in silence the snow fall against the darkening skies, leaning against the pine's rough bark as they waited for the weather to change.

She met them on a winter evening, while looking for a place to spend some time in. She did that often, when she had the time. Just exploration, aimless wandering around the country. It was fun. It was kind of like travelling, but without the annoyances of the trip, without the costs, without the problems of distance. Distance wasn't a problem for her, it had stopped being one a while before in truth.

They were standing beneath a tree, alone, watching the snow. She hadn't known it was snowing there, or that there were trees. She'd learned to avoid trees, at least. But it took her a while to notice it was snowing. And a snowflake landing on her nose.

They noticed her when she showed up. And they were confused. That was normal. Most creatures were, when she showed up like that. It was why she generally avoided doing it inside buildings. That, and walls. She still wasn't as good with walls as she was with trees.

But even if they noticed her, they said nothing. Perhaps they were really that confused. Perhaps they simply had nothing to say. Perhaps they were mute.

The snow was cold around her hooves as she walked towards the tree. They'd had they right idea, sitting there, sheltered from the snow. The tree was tall, its branches spread fairly wide, the tiny, pointy leaves on them still there. Maybe it was a pine.

She got to the trunk. They still said nothing, and now they looked more amused than confused. She said nothing either.

She had nothing to do, and she was there to kill some time. So she sat there near them, and watched the snow fall against the darkening skies, peacefully relaxing as she listened to the silence around them.

Like Silence Breaking Sound

"I am sure you must be rather confused right now. About how you got here or even where 'here' is, about who I am, about everything that's happened up to this point, both to you and to the world. I assure you, it will all make sense, eventually.

"I have to admit, and I'm being honest, I didn't think anyone would find me so soon. And I certainly didn't think it would be you. But I see it was with her help, so I can understand how things went down. She was one of the most likely candidates for who would find me first, after all. Either her, Princess Twilight, or perhaps Rainbow Dash, those were my guesses. Instead, it looks like it was you.

"No matter. Not a problem at all, really. In fact, I am actually rather entertained by it. It's something I hadn't considered planning for. That makes it exciting. And, as I said, this is far sooner than I expected. I was prepared to wait decades, in the worst of outcomes. I am quite sure this will speed things up nicely.

"I'm sure you're starting to realise where we are, right? You're a smart pony. You've been looking around while I was talking. Look down again for a moment if you wish, I won't mind you taking your eyes off me. And I promise I won't jump at you while you are distracted. I would never do that. As you might guess, I am not one to keep my actions hidden. Although, yes, perhaps there is some irony in that, given I was hidden by them.

"I should clarify, at this point, that this isn't my decision. This whole thing, you see? It's more complicated than that. Far, far more complicated than that. I am a part of it all, but I am not the driving force behind it. Truth be told, I am not sure if there is a single will driving the events here. It seems rather like the consequence of many different, individual parts, and outside the single control of any one of them. Almost a coincidence, perhaps. Though I'm sure some would call it fate.

"Who am I to judge? I see how little you know, maybe I'm just as ignorant. Maybe there is someone else behind it all, pulling the strings. But as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't matter. I'm just here to play my part, and I don't care much who that benefits. I never had much of a choice anyway, you see?

"And I am sure, very sure, that you must be wondering what exactly my part is. Surely, though, you don't think I will simply tell you. I do have the unfortunate habit to talk a lot, true, but can you blame me? It gets rather lonely up here. But you're a smart pony, you know I won't just tell you what you want me to by myself. And you're thinking to yourself how you can force me to, are you not?

"Believe me, that is not something I recommend you do. I won't stop you from trying. But I will make sure you regret it, should it happen. Instead, and I should make it clear I am talking to you, not anyone else who might be listening, why don't you just ask? I'm sure there must be a lot of questions on your mind. I don't promise I will answer everything, but it never hurt to try, right?"

End of Prologue

The Moon shone bright in the sky, lighting his path towards the castle. He'd been travelling for almost a week at that point, only ever stopping to sleep, and given his schedule he should have actually stopped again a few hours before. But seeing how close he was for the capital, he'd decided to simply ignore rest and get there. He was carrying vital information, and a swift delivery was imperative.

Even if it meant harm to him. Something which would no doubt happen. Hours of ceaseless marching with the added weight of his armour on were bound to have consequences, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He was at least very glad he hadn't had to deal with any attacks. Not from ill-intentioned ponies or other creatures, not from monsters or wild animals. He'd gone seemingly unnoticed, staying away from cities and villages, and as far as he knew no one had spotted him.

No until he'd gotten close to the capital, at least. There, of course, he'd been spotted. The guards were keeping an eye on him from the walls, he knew that even if he couldn't see them. Soon enough somepony would reach him and inquire as to who he was. No one was allowed to get near the castle without reason, it was not something the Crown could afford.

Sure enough, a guard descended from the sky to block his path. She wasn't displaying any obvious hostility, but he recognised the standard approach to unidentified ponies. Standing at an angle to block as much of the road as she could, wing ready to grab the sword at her side, legs prepared to spring into action. "Hey, you there!" she barked at him in a raspy tone. "Identify yourself."

He had to hold back a smile. It was always nice to see properly applied protocol. He didn't answer. Instead, he pulled out a sealed letter from his saddlebags, and threw it towards the mare. "That should clear it up." He then watched as she carefully picked up the envelope and opened it, and the way her expression changed as she read its contents.

After that, it didn't take too long for him to reach his destination. The mare escorted him inside the city and past the guards, all of which simply gave a salute as she passed by them. He was getting tired of the walking, and almost ready to pass out, but there was one last thing for him to do. The reason he was there in the first place. The door to the throne room stood in front of him, and the mare nodded for him to walk in.

And so he did. The doors closed behind him with a heavy, metallic thud, and his eyes drifted towards the far end of the room, where Her Majesty sat upon her throne. "My Queen," he said in a low, respectful tone, kneeling and bowing his head. "I bring you the results of the tests conducted in the Empire, as you ordered. Your faithful subordinate wishes me to inform you that there has been a breakthrough in understanding the phenomenon."

Up on her throne, on the opposite side of the room, Nightmare Moon's expression shifted, moving to something almost similar to a smile. "Very well."

Implausible Deniability

"Discord!"

Twilight's voice echoed around the path to Fluttershy's house, and louder still echoed her steps as she made her way through it. "Discord!" she called again, as the rest of her friends walked behind her.

"Ugh. Come on!" Rainbow Dash shouted, rising slightly in the air and looking around. "Where is he hiding?"

"Indeed, where is he?" Discord asked, toying with his beard, a serious expression on his face. The rest of his body slithered out from its hiding spot behind Twilight's neck, and he too began to look around. "Who are we looking for, anyway?"

"Discord!" This time, it was Rarity who spoke out.

"Oh, me?" The draconequus put his paw to his chest, drawing back in surprise. "Well in that case, there I am." He pointed towards a nearby set of two palm trees, and at the hammock hanging between them. On it, Discord peacefully lay, sunglasses over his eyes and a tanning reflector held in his arms.

The group of six ponies looked between the trees and where Discord had been floating up until a moment prior, only to find he was no longer there. Rolling their eyes, they all headed towards his new location, Twilight choosing to directly teleport there in front of him.

"Nothing."

She stopped for a moment, her mouth half open. She ate the question she'd been meaning to ask back up, and instead went with a more simple, more immediate one. "What?"

Discord folded his reflector, the hammock, and the trees, and tucked them behind the frame of his glasses. He then removed his glasses and folded them away from reality. "I had nothing to do with any of this." He gestured vaguely towards Canterlot. "And much to my displeasure, I know just as little about it as you all do."

"Sure, and Fa-"

Pinkie was cut off suddenly, but it took Twilight a moment to realise why. She first had to turn towards the mare, and see her five friends frozen in place, even those above ground. "Discord," she flatly uttered, turning back towards him.

"It's hard to juggle a conversation with six different ponies," he replied while casually juggling six balls, each with the colour and cutie mark of one of them. "Besides, this gives me a chance to talk to you in stopped time in circumstances slightly less dire than the other time. And space. And us." He let the balls fall towards the sky. "But I'm being honest, Twilight," he continued, watching them go. "I know nothing about what that thing is, why it's here, how it got here, I know nothing."

That got him a flat, skeptical look.

Playing with a dial that had appeared in the air and watching Pinkie move slightly forwards and backwards in time, it took Discord a moment to notice Twilight's expression. "Oh come on. You bring the entire country to the brink of ruin three to five times, depending on how you count, and suddenly everyone thinks you're behind the giant mysterious monster that came out of nowhere and is bringing chaos everywhere."

"Yes."

Discord looked to the side. "Okay, fine, it's a fair conclusion to draw. But really, Twilight, think of it. It has not been two months since I last almost doomed us all. Don't you think I have learned my lesson for at least a year or so?" As he said that, he coiled around Twilight, beaming a smile at her.

"Alright, fine." Twilight brought a hoof to her face. "I trust you, and we need you. Will you at least help us figure ou- What are you doing?"

Discord pushed his suitcase closed. "As I said, I know nothing about this. So, since I've decided to make myself forgivable after the recent Grogar kerfuffle, I'm going to do some research for once." He snapped a door into existence, and began looking for a key out of a set he was suddenly holding.

"Research? Wait, where are you going?" Twilight stepped to his side.

"The library, of course. That's where all the knowledge is."

The key turned in its hole, the lock clicked, and the door opened. Behind it, rows of bookshelves stretching out as far as the eye could see, impossibly tall, thin bridges suspended between them to walk from one to the other. Twilight stared, her eyes wide, her mouth wider. Only because Discord pushed it closed with a talon did drool not leak from its corners.

She turned to look at the draconequus. "So you're saying there's a dimension out there of just books? Of all the books?" She threw another quick glance past the door. "And you never told me?"

Discord looked back at her. "If I had let you in, there would not have been an Equestria left for you to go back to once you were done with it. Maybe not even a planet." He looked forward once again. "And there are things in there better left unread." His tone grew far more serious for a moment as he said that. "Anyway. I might take a few eternities in there. I'll try to get back around two years from now or sooner. But in case I'm not back in the next two centuries, leave me a note saying I took too long."

And with that he stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

"-rything is- Hey, where did he go?"

A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 1

The sunlight took on a green tinge as it passed through the leaves of the trees above him, with occasional patches of yellow cast on the path in front of him where it passed unobstructed between them. He hadn't started moving until about halfway through the morning, having slept in late, but it likely wouldn't be a problem. He was pretty sure he was close to his destination.

The portion of the path he was on went up a small hill, the space behind it hidden from sight. Sure enough, once he actually made his way to the top, the city of Ponyville appeared to him further down the road, still maybe an hour's walk away. He would be there before noon. Then he'd decide whether to go to Princess Twilight's castle immediately, or find a place to eat and possibly stay first, depending on what the locals said.

Speaking of the castle, it really was rather jarring to see it stand out like that against the plain scenery around it. Ponyville was no different from what one would expect when picturing a small town in the countryside, with perhaps a few more modern additions, and the building instead looked more like something out of a toy set. Although, to be perfectly fair, the crystal-tree-castle hybrid would have looked out of place just about anywhere in Equestria.

Perhaps it was more in line with the architecture of the Crystal Empire? He'd only ever seen a few pictures of it though. Never been one to travel much at all, something he was actually starting to regret a bit. There was a lot out there, such a shame he had to wait until it was all in ruins before going to see it. Then again, he would not have travelled in the first place had it not been for the Behemoth. Maybe he would visit the Empire too, one day, even if what he'd heard was not encouraging.

"Hey you, down there!"

Stone Brick suddenly stopped and looked up at the sky, where the voice had come from. Sure enough, a pegasus was there, hovering in the air, staring down at him with his green eyes. "You going to Princess Twilight's castle?"

"How did you guess?"

"Well, it's either that or the School that creatures go through the trouble of coming here for nowadays," the other replied. "You look too old to be a student, and not responsible enough to be either a teacher or a parent, so I figured it had to be the castle."

"Maybe I'm here to be janitor, what do you know?" Stone said back to him, barely holding back a smirk.

That got a chuckle out of the pegasus. "You know what? You got me there. Name's Soarin'. I was going back to the castle myself, I can lead you there if you want."

"Stone Brick. And sure, go ahead. I don't mind the company." The earth pony went back to walking down the hill, while Soarin' floated by just above him.

"So what brings you here to Ponyville, anyway?"

Stone paused for a moment, thinking back to the thing hidden at the bottom of his saddlebags. "Oh. It's a long story."

An Empty Room

"You too?"

It was a simple question, one posed almost innocently. It still left Celestia at pause. "I..."

The pegasus turned towards her, curious, and amused. "Well? It's either yes or no, right?"

Celestia looked down. Down below past the puffy white clouds, towards the remains of what had used to be a city. "I can't honestly answer no. But I really do not wish to say yes, either." Something that looked like a smile but didn't feel like one curled her lips. "So I suppose I just choose not to answer."

"Why?"

Celestia was silent again, for a moment. She kept staring at the city in ruins, munching on nothing, deep in thought. Then her eyes turned upwards, towards the sky, and still for a second longer she was silent. And then she said, "Fear, I suppose. Not fear as one usually intends it, but a shade of fear nonetheless."

"Oh?" The pegasus' head tilted to a side. "And why is that? What is it?"

"I don't know." Celestia's answer was immediate this time, instinctual. Something she'd prepared for, ran in her head many times. "And I don't want to know. I've never tried, and I don't plan to." She looked at the pegasus. "You can see why, I'm sure. You can understand why I would be afraid."

"I can. But I have my doubts it will work forever, Celestia. It's not something you can ignore. The fact alone that you know it's there should tell you as much. You can feel it, and sooner or later it will come to the surface."

"Not if I have a say in it." There was a more prideful, authoritarian note in Celestia's tone, something she rarely used in her ruling days and even less so after passing on the crown. She sat a little straighter as she said that, her wings rigid and spread just a bit wider.

"I'm afraid you don't." The pegasus just rolled around, uncaring of the alicorn's display. "None of us did. It always just happened. How do you think you can stop it when you don't know what it is?"

"I can try."

"Try what? Try to do absolutely nothing? You can't. It will happen, Celestia, whether you like it or not. You're just delaying the inevitable."

Celestia looked away from the other, back towards the ground, and for a few moments she was silent again. Her long mane drifted along the light breeze around them, as the Sun she'd once used to move slowly made its way towards the horizon. Finally, after feeling the pegasus come to sit at her side, she broke the silence once more. "It's something strong. I can feel it. Whatever it is, it's powerful."

The only answer the other pony gave was a tap on Celestia's back with a wing, encouraging her to continue.

"I don't know. It could have been any other alicorn. It should have been any other alicorn."

"Feel like you're getting too old for this?"

Celestia didn't answer, that time. Something that felt closer to a smile curled her lips, and the two of them watched the Sun disappear behind the mountains in the distance.

Welcome Home ([R])

"We can't keep doing this. It's the third one already."

"Conspirators. They had it coming."

"You know it won't be like that forever. We'll run out of those eventually, do you think she'll have us stop? We'll move on to other criminals and prisoners, and when the cells are all empty we'll move on to civilians."

"You keep talking like that, and you'll be the next one lying on that table."

"Like you're not thinking the same."

"I am. But whining won't solve the issue. We can only figure out what it is we're doing wrong, and try to fix that."

"What we're doing wrong? Oh, please. Everything about this is wrong. How do we know there is a way to make it work? What if there isn't? She won't listen to reason, and you know it."

"We'll figure something out. We have to. Unless you want to try running away from here, but you saw what happened to the last pony who did."

"Oh, I didn't see it just once. I pass there on my way here, they still haven't cleaned away the stain. How long has it been? Two moons at least, hasn't it?"

"Maybe. I've lost track of time, my sleep schedule has been a mess as of late. Any plans for the next test?"

"No, and I don't want to think about it. We should just ask for more time and tell her to wait on that, she can't expect better results if the tests are all so close to each other."

"It's conspirators, remember? She doesn't care if they make it through. I'm pretty sure she expects them not to. As far as she's concerned, we're doubling as executioners."

"Don't remind me. This isn't what I signed up for."

"I know, right? She isn't even paying us for that."

"Shut it. She could just convert them. Why doesn't she just convert them?"

"Do you think this is something she came up with on a whim? Because it's not. She planned this, for years. Maybe decades. Why doesn't she convert them? Because then she'd have nopony to send here. Because she'd have to force civilians to come. Because ponies are scared and mistrustful if they know they could be taken away at any moment, but nopony cares if a sentenced criminal dies in a lab or in a prison."

"She could have the whole nation pinned down under her hoof. Every single pony. Why doesn't she do that instead?"

"She tried. She failed. She couldn't run the whole thing on her own, had to ease her grip on the population, give ponies some freedoms. What do you think this is all about? The Guard? Nah. This is about her. She's working her way back up there, and we're here to build her a ladder."

"She has wings."

"You know what I mean."

"Alright. How do you know all this, anyway?"

"Went snooping through the archives."

"And you say I'm the one who risks ending up on that table!"

"The thing is, Starburst, you actually care about not being melted into a puddle as a result of a failed experiment. I, personally, would see it as an improvement."

"I told you not to call me that."

"Alright, Starburst. Wanna go back in there?"

"Do you think the smell has gone away now?"

"I don't think the smell ever will go away. But enough of it should have stuck to our coats for us to have gotten used to it by now."

"Well. Alright then. But you're cleaning up this time, I did the last two."

Painting the Orchids Green

The ice inside the glass rattled as the drink was set down, and Rarity took a moment to look at it. It was always interesting to see the way light reflected and refracted, between the glass, the drink and the ice. Eye-catching. Perhaps she could make some designs inspired by that. At a later time though.

"Twilight said she found another one," Rainbow Dash said from the other side of the table. "A couple hours' trip from here. For someone who's not me, of course. Maybe even three or four, there's mountains on the way and I don't know if it would be faster to go through or around."

"I suppose you're going to check on it." Rarity took hold of the glass and began to drink. It was cold going down her throat, but she didn't mind. She aimlessly turned her gaze towards the window, looking at the snow-covered park just outside. "I'm surprised you even bothered to come here instead of flat-out rushing there."

"There's no reason to rush. I like relaxing too sometimes, you know?" Rainbow replied with a cheeky smile. Her own drink arrived, and she quickly took a sip of the steaming hot chocolate, only to bring the mug away from her mouth just as quickly and fan her tongue.

Rarity couldn't help but chuckle at the sight.

The other threw her a faux-annoyed glare, then blew a little air on her cocoa before trying to drink it again. "Laugh all you want, at least I'm not the one asking for an iced drink in the middle of winter." She gave a nod towards Rarity's own, now half-finished glass.

"Can't handle a little cold?" Rarity took another sip. "Anyway. You didn't call me here just to tell me about Twilight's discovery, did you? I'll have you know, I have a very busy schedule. Right now I could be having a long private meeting with one of the bottles I keep locked in the basement, for example."

"Why do you even keep those locked away if you go grab them so often?"

"I can't have Sweetie Belle going in there. I am not letting my collection go to waste on a teen's drinking spree. That's Applejack's job." Another chuckle, another sip. "I'll take away the lock once they're old enough to appreciate the finer kinds of drinks. Though I might still have to leave it when you come around, I don't think you'll ever learn."

Rainbow Dash just rolled her eyes, as amused as she was annoyed. "Alcohol is alcohol, Rarity. You're not better than me because you get wasted on wine and not beer."

"It's called being high class drunk, Darling."

"Which is kind of like how a gold knife is high class. Less efficient than the alternative, but it costs more. Well, at least you're not like Pinkie."

Rarity shuddered, and gave a nod of agreement.

"Well, anyway." Rainbow took another sip of chocolate. "Like you said, I wasn't just gonna tell you Twilight found another one. I was meaning to ask, wanna come help me out there? I could get there way faster by myself, but I could use somebody else. Especially if it's anything like last time."

Rarity took a moment to think. Her glass lay drained on the table, the ice slowly melting. "Sure," she finally answered. "I'm always ready to lend a helping hand."

Startracking light

Starlight was in Ponyville when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. Working at her desk in the School of Friendship. Supposedly so, at least. In practice, a lot of her head lying on the table was involved, alongside quite a fair bit of her eyelids sinking threateningly low over her eyes. The natural consequences of staying up until late the night before, and she should have known better, but she would still blame it all on Trixie if asked.

The good news was at least there wasn't much work to do, it being summer and all. The less good news was her staying up the previous night had also come at the cost of work she was supposed to do then, meaning her workload that morning was doubled and she was late on the delivery.

Despite all of this, she still spent a considerably large portion of her time lying motionless as she fought back her sleep, and an equally significant portion of the time spent differently either watering or petting Phyllis. In fairness, it was one of the few things she could manage without risks of messing up, given her conditions. And even then, she'd almost given her coffee to the plant.

It is important to keep her condition in mind when considering the events that followed. For example, the way she took far longer than any other creature to notice anything was wrong. Her first instinct, upon feeling the vibrations in the ground, was to assume students were running through the hallways and mutter something against them, too tired to put any effort into her words or to get up and go take a look.

It took a few more quakes, enough for them to get stronger than what yaks jumping out of her door could justify, before Starlight actually realised there were no students possibly there to cause all that. What followed was a very confused attempt on her part to get up from her desk, grab Phyllis, and run out of the room. She mostly succeeded at the last two, but the first resulted in far more tripping and hitting her head than she would ever be willing to confess.

She was about halfway through her second corridor when she remembered that the throbbing cone of pain and headaches attached to her forehead had uses besides moving plants, and teleported outside the shaking building in a flash.

"Is everyone okay?" she asked immediately upon reappearing outside the school and seeing the group of creatures already gathered there. Setting Phyllis down, she started looking around to see who else had made it out.

Sunburst gave a nod, as he too checked to make sure no one was missing. "That should be everyone."

Starlight gave a sigh of relief, and exchanged a brief hug with Trixie as the two of them found each other. "What's happening?" she asked, as another, yet stronger quake shook the earth.

Trixie pointed a hoof towards the mountains in the distance. "That."

Starlight followed the direction with her gaze. "Oh."

Out of The Flood

"Did you see that?!" Scarlet Ribbon asked in alarmed tones, vaguely pointing a hoof towards the corner of the street. "There was a pony there! And then she just wasn't!"

"No, Scarlet. I did not see a pony there." Silver Lace kept trotting at her friend's side, an unamused expression on her face as she stared in the direction the other mare was pointing towards. "Are you sure you aren't seeing things?"

"I'm not!" Scarlet answered back, turning towards Silver. "I swear, she was right there. A grey pegasus with a blonde mane. And then she just went poof -" She stopped, and made a vague gesture with her front hooves "- and suddenly she wasn't there anymore."

Silver stopped and turned to her friend. "Are you sure you haven't just caught the crazy too?"

"Don't call it just 'the crazy', Silver, that's so unscientific," Scarlet half-whined. "It's a real condition and we just don't have a name for it yet. Probably. I need to study it more." She bit her lip and looked to the side.

Silver knowingly raised an eyebrow at her. "Gonna be hard to do that if you keep avoiding him, right?"

"Yeah." Scarlet gave a nod. Then, after a moment, her expression cleared and she went back to looking at the other mare. "But anyway, there's probably no way I caught it, he seems to have gotten it from eating that thing he found and either way a condition like that is probably not contagious and, well, actually, I don't really have any idea if it's contagious or not and it could be and he did come to my house last week and oh no Silver what if it's contagious and he's going to spread it all through the town and what if I already have it what do I do!" She ended the sentence just barely not screaming, and almost shaking the other mare as she held her shoulders.

Silver pushed her away with a hoof and walked back. "Well first off don't come this close to me if it is contagious, what if I catch it too? And don't ask me what you're supposed to do! You're the doctor here."

"I'm not a real doctor yet!" Scarlet clutched her head in her hooves. "What do I do what do I do what do I do what do I-"

A grey pegasus with a blonde mane ran between them, and disappeared in the middle of the road.

The two mares looked at each other in silence.

"You infected me!" Silver screeched, drawing back.

"See? I wasn't crazy!" Scarlet said, at exactly the same time.

They looked at each other a moment longer, as each heard and processed what the other had said. Then they laughed.

"Alright then. Disappearing pegasus mare. Why not?" Silver said as the two of them got back to walking down the road.

"Did you hear about the tentacle monster?"

"I did hear about the tentacle monster," replied Silver in her most melodramatic tone.

"Thankfully the guards took care of that."

"Yeah. Wanna come to my place for tea, later?"

"Sure."

Still Alive

"How long have I been out for?"

The question was calm, almost unemotional. Nevertheless, it still tore the silence of the room like a knife through a canvas.

Tempest didn't lift her head to ask. She didn't move from her position on the bed, she didn't look around, she didn't make any noise. She just opened her mouth, a little bit, and asked.

Twilight's head jerked to the side, towards the bed. There was worry on her face, and relief, and feeble traces of an anger never meant to last, and the signs of more than a few hours of lost sleep. But just a moment later, it was all gone, tucked away beneath the surface. She wore the same kind of calm expression Tempest had while she answered the question. "About a week."

"What time is it now?"

Again, the unicorn's voice was calm, and again, Twilight answered it in the same matter-of-fact tone.

"Pretty late. Just a couple hours to midnight, I'd say." She looked out of the window, towards the stars in the sky. "I haven't checked after coming in here though. I'm not sure."

Tempest took a breath that was just a little deeper than the previous ones. "How long will it be before I can get out of here?"

"I don't know. The doctors will have to run exams on you, only then we'll be able to tell. Speaking of which." Twilight got up from her chair, and walked to a small table resting near Tempest's bed. There, she tapped a small crystal with her hoof, and the gem began to glow purple in response. "They will be here soon. A couple of minutes at most, probably."

"Twilight?" There was a slight, subtle crack in Tempest's voice, and silence followed her question for a while.

Twilight finally looked towards the other mare, whose head was only barely raised to allow her to see the alicorn behind her.

"I can't feel my hind legs."

If any shadow crossed Twilight's face, she hid it too quickly for anyone to notice. "It's the drugs." Then, in a softer tone, she added, "We had to numb the whole area. You wouldn't stop screaming otherwise." She bit her lower lip, and her mask of detachment cracked. "I can tell you, if you don't want to see it yourself."

Tempest didn't answer. She lifted a hoof past her white blanket, took hold of it in her grasp, and pulled up just enough for her to curve her neck and look down.

Then she set her neck straight again, put the blanket back in place and straightened it, and tucked her leg back under it. And then she gave a brief chuckle.

"You think it's funny?"

"In a way," Tempest answered. "Entertaining, I suppose. Seeing it there, and knowing it's your body, and feeling nothing at all. Will it hurt, when the meds run out?"

"Like Tartarus." Twilight began to walk towards the exit, as the hoofsteps of approaching doctors and nurses were heard echoing closer down the hallway.

"Twilight?"

The alicorn looked back, her hoof on the doorknob.

"I'm sorry."

"And I'm glad you're okay."

Heart | Spades

"You lost her, didn't you?"

"Sir, I-"

"Again."

The first of the two guards looked down to the ground. "Yes, Sir."

Shining shook his head, possibly more amused than annoyed. "I don't know why I still trust you with this," he said, but his tone was friendly.

"To be fair, Sir," the second guard replied, "we did not expect her to teleport through the wall."

Shining just looked up at the ceiling, almost as if expecting someone else to look down from the sky and come save him, then he turned around and began to walk through the corridor. "Let's find her before Cadence comes back, she'll get worried otherwise."

The two guards looked at each other, then began to follow him. "Sir," the first began, "Princess Cadence is currently-"

"Taking a nap in her rooms?" Shining looked back for a moment while still walking forward. "Nah. That mare sneaked away through the window, she's on top of the Wall right now."

"And how do you know, Sir, if I can ask?" asked the second one.

"I just do, Quartz. I just do." Shining reached a new hallway, and had a look around.

"Which way, Captain?" the two guards asked together.

Looking to his left, Shining pointed a hoof behind himself, to the right. "I'd say we follow the trail of knocked-down flowerpots and disassembled armours."

The trip with Rainbow had gone well. Perfectly, even, for what it was supposed to be. The area had been secured, and nothing dangerous had happened. And yet...

"Rarity?" Sweetie Belle's face peeked out from behind the half-closed door, accompanied by her light knocking on it. "Is everything okay?"

Rarity lifted her head up from the table, and had to bite down on her lip as a few pops went off in her neck and back. That at least gave her some distraction from the seconds of nausea and disorientation that followed her abrupt motion. When the room finally decided to stop spinning and the misshapen splotches of colour danced their way out of her eyes for good, she answered, "Yes, Sweetie. No need to worry."

Her sister seemed hesitant to leave. "Okay. I'm here in the other room if you need me. Do you want me to make dinner?"

"I..." Rarity looked at Sweetie Belle, then at the clock on the wall, then at the open bottle lying on the table, already too empty to spill anything even while on its side. She really wished to begin another make-out session between her forehead and the table for a moment. Instead, she just looked back to her sister. "I'm sorry. I'll make something, just... Give me fifteen minutes or so, okay?"

"Okay." Sweetie Belle gave a small nod, then slid back out of the room.

Rarity went back to looking at the table. There was a sheet of paper on it, set askew, one of the ones she used to sketch on, and without thinking she turned it around. A rough design for a hat was drawn on the other side.

She grabbed the bottle and downed the rest of it.

Diamonds

"So what exactly did you have in mind? A dress? A hat? Something less traditional?" Rarity lowered her head and her tone, suspiciously eyeing the corners of the room before focusing back on Sugar. Despite the fact that there was very clearly no one else there. "Is it a saddle?"

Sugar Belle gave a brief chuckle at the last question, and then a dismissive wave of her hoof. "Oh, no, it's not anything like that."

Rarity gave a sigh of relief deep enough to make any observer question the capacity of her lungs, and dramatically threw herself back on to the chair. "Oh thank goodness it's not a saddle. Those things have been out-fashioned for years at this point." She resumed her more professional attitude and position, and continued, "What is it then?"

"It's actually not a dress." Sugar shifted slightly in her seat. "I was thinking about a dice set."

Rarity looked puzzled for a moment. "Darling, you are aware that it says this is a clothes shop outside, right? It does say clothes shop, right? Did someone change it to say games shop? Is Discord back? I swear if he's back and he decided to mess with my shop before telling us what he found I-"

"Rarity?"

"Oh? Oh, yes, sorry. Do go on?"

"Well, I'm sure you're aware that he likes to play Ogres and Oubliettes with Spike and the others," Sugar began.

"Ah, yes, that. Wonderful game, I'm sure. I played it once. I think. It's been a while. Anyway, where do I come in in all this?" Rarity asked, forcing her smile a bit.

The other unicorn cleared her throat. "So occasionally, when we go shopping together, I noticed he'll stop to stare at dice sets through the shop window of this one place that sells tabletops and the like. There's a metal one he seems particularly fond of, but I know he wouldn't spend money on a thing like that. And I was thinking, would it be possible to get a set of dice made of crystal or gemstones?"

Rarity opened her mouth to answer, then closed it, frowning in thought. "Well, I'm not a gem cutter, but I do suppose I could help you find the right pieces for it. Yes. Yes, I don't see why I shouldn't help you out with this." She smiled a little wider as a thought crossed her mind. "We'll just have to hope Spike doesn't eat them."

"Oh, thank you!" Sugar Belle got up from her seat, chuckling at what the other unicorn had said, and extended a hoof towards Rarity. "When do you have the time for it?"

Rarity shook her hoof back. "Would tomorrow afternoon work? I should be free then."

"Yes, it would. Thanks again." Sugar began to head towards the exit. "See you tomorrow then, Rarity."

"See you tomorrow, Darling." Rarity watched the unicorn leave with a smile, then jotted down a reminder about the appointment next day on her notebook. She was about to go to back to her studio, when the door opened again and Twilight walked in. "Is something wrong?" Rarity asked, seeing the other's expression.

"We need to have a talk," Twilight answered, a mixture of worry and nervousness on her face.

Rarity moved closer to her, beginning to worry as well. "What is it?"

"It's about you."

A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 2

"Well, we have the time for it."

Stone Brick paused again, then resumed his walk, hoping the other hadn't noticed. And as he did, he said, "Oh, it's also a very boring one. You wouldn't want to have to sit through it. And I'm bad at telling it, anyway. Never was good at telling stories." He eyed the pegasus above him. "In fact, you should do the talking. I'm sure it'll be a lot more entertaining that way."

Soarin' threw a glance at the pony below him. "If you insist. Have I ever told you about the time I had to dive under a manateeagle to recover a package?"

For the third time, just briefly, Stone stopped. "No, you have not." He looked up at Soarin' again. "It might have to do with how we've never met before."

The pegasus sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.

"And that's how Lightning got the scar behind her ear. Wanna hear about that time I-"

Stone Brick gave a brief cough. "Well, looks like we're here."

Soarin' stopped to look ahead. "Oh, hey! We are. Time flies when you're enjoying yourself, doesn't it?"

"Sure does," Stone answered, finally stepping into town. Even from there, the shape of Princess Twilight's castle was still clearly visible. "Do you think I should wait and find a place to eat at, or go to the Princess right now?"

The pegasus landed beside him, rubbing his own chin in thought. "She's probably busy right now. I say we find a place to eat something at and then go to her later. Unless you got some really urgent reasons to see her, of course." He looked towards the earth pony.

Stone Brick just shrugged. "Works for me. Know any places we can eat at around here?"

"Does Sugarcube Corner sound good?"

"First off, why are you asking me if you know I know nothing about this town?" Stone looked back at Soarin'. "And second, that sounds like a bakery. Or a pastry shop. Not like a restaurant."

But Soarin' was already a good few metres in front of him. "It's this way," he yelled, turning back to make sure he was being followed.

Stone sighed, shook his head, then began to walk behind the pegasus. He could probably at least convince him to pay for both of them.

After a couple more minutes of making their way through the busy streets of the colourful city, the duo finally reached a rather plain-looking building on the side of the road, the only indication that it was their destination being the name painted in bright pink letters above the entrance, over the already very bright and very pink paint job that covered the whole front side. Soarin' walked in, and Stone followed behind him.

"Hello and welcome to Sugarcube Edge," a voice immediately greeted them as they stepped through the door, its owner a moving set of plate towers underneath which was presumably a mare. "Take this, please." From beneath the spires of ceramic a hoof passed Stone a note on a piece of paper, then the strange creature walked away from them and towards the other side of the surprisingly full interior.

Soarin' called to grab Stone's attention after the peculiar encounter. "Hey! Come here and have a seat."

With no real other option, the earth pony followed him towards one of the very few still unoccupied tables.

Intensen-i-on

The flower was certainly beautiful. Its wide purple petals looked soft as silk, shiny and reflective like they were coated in chrome. The tall stems that surged from the centre ended in bright red puffs of pollen that resembled smaller versions of a cheerleader's pompons, and the green roots and leaves at the base were like snakes, their movements harmonious and elegant.

It was also dangerously close to breaking through the reinforced glass container housing it. That was probably worth focusing on sooner than everything else.

"Rose? We kind of need your help here!" Starlight nervously said as she stepped around the creaking glass cylinder, eyeing the plant with ever-increasing worry.

"I know!" the earth pony replied. "I'm trying to think of what to do!"

"Maybe cutting off its light sources?" Thunderlane asked, moving to push against the surface of the tube while Starlight did the same with her magic.

"Not a good idea," Rose answered, biting her lower lip and stepping in place as she tried to think of a way out of their situation. "If we do that, it'll just get angry and push harder to come out. Same if we cut the air out."

An uncomfortably loud sound came from the glass, as yet another crack appeared on its surface. "You know I'll have to blast this thing if we can't stop it, right?" Starlight asked.

Thunderlane leaned to the side to look at her. "Can't you just hold it?"

The glass creaked again. "Not forever."

"Rose?" The pegasus turned back towards her.

"I'm trying to think!" the earth pony replied. Rubbing a hoof to her temple, she began to turn around in circles. "Think, think, think, th- A-ha! Thunderlane?"

"Yes Ma'am?"

Rose pointed towards a cabinet on the other side of the room. "Fetch me the blue vial on the third shelf, and the green satchel of orange powder that's at the bottom. And an empty beaker, too. Starlight?" She turned towards the unicorn. "You think you can hold it in there for a minute longer?"

The unicorn looked back and gave a nod. "I can try."

"Okay." Rose sat down, and took hold of the items Thunderlane had meanwhile brought to her. "Now, I don't want to alarm you," she began, while emptying half the vial into the beaker, "but there's a very slight chance that this thing might blow up in my face if I'm not careful." She began to open the satchel.

"How bad, exactly?" Thunderlane asked.

"You know room thirty-seven?"

The pegasus stopped to think for a moment, while Rose carefully added some powder to the mixture. "Does the place even have a room thirty-seven?"

"Not anymore," Starlight chirped in through grit teeth.

Thunderlane swallowed and looked back at Rose, but she was already back on her hooves, the beaker in her mouth now full of purple liquid. "Starlight?" she called, the sound a bit distorted.

"Yes?" There was sweat evident on the unicorn's forehead.

"Let go."

Starlight did, and immediately converted her spell into a shield. A wise choice, given the shower of glass shards that immediately exploded into every direction near the container.

The flower's tendrils only had a short time to slither outside of their prison though, as just a second later the beaker Rose had held landed over its petals and broke, drenching them in purple liquid. After a second longer, the plant took on a grey tinge, and the flower closed up as if it was nighttime, its vines retreating and going limp.

"Well," Rose said between pants, "that could have gone worse."

Catch some Sunlight

Sunset gave her ice-cream cone a lick, leaning back into the bench and looking at Twilight. "How's the research going?"

"Not well." Twilight adjusted her glasses, slightly pushing them back, then moved a strand of stray hair out of the way, and finally moved to lick her own ice-cream. "I can't find a pattern of any kind."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually." Sunset moved her free hand to pat Twilight's head. Then she looked back at the cone she held in the other. "Well, at least it won't melt too quickly."

Twilight, a little embarrassed, looked at the park around them, the grass covered in red and yellow leaves and the branches on the trees growing emptier by the day. "Heh. Can you blame me? I spent most of the summer trying to study this thing."

"It's not like we forced you to." Sunset licked some more ice-cream. "You're the one who decided she had to go looking for portals from a lab instead of spending time outside having fun."

Twilight adjusted her glasses again, this time from the side. "Well, I think it was necessary. Think about what would have happened if someone accidentally fell into one of them! We can't have people go missing, much less have them turn up in Equestria with no idea of what's happened to them."

"Do you think that ever just happened? I feel like we would have heard about it. It's weird to think no one apparently ever found one with how many there are." Another lick to her ice-cream.

"That's kind of the problem." Twilight let herself fall back on the bench, looking up at the sky with a defeated expression. "No way of telling if the portals were always there, or if it was the Behemoth's arrival that caused so many to appear, or which ones were already there and which weren't." Her expression fell even further. "For all we know, half of those could be my fault."

"Hey now." Sunset lightly punched Twilight's shoulder to get her attention. "For all we know, the other half could be my fault instead."

"It doesn't matter how many times you try it, Sunset," Twilight said, still looking up at nothing, "the 'your girlfriend turned into a magic demon monster thing too' strategy doesn't work nearly as well as you think it does."

"Oh, fair," Sunset said with a pout and a tone that matched it. She licked her ice-cream again. "At least my girlfriend looked hot when she did."

That finally got Twilight's eyes to point towards Sunset. "Every time we talk about the time I almost destroyed this world and yours, the only thing you can add to the conversation is that I looked sexy while doing it. I swear, you're impossible." She finally sat straight again, and bit into her ice-cream.

Sunset shrugged. "I always had a thing for bad girls. That's what you have that the other Twilight doesn't. That, and the glasses. And you know how to use hands."

After a moment of chewing on her ice-cream, Twilight replied, "Okay, fine. You looked pretty sexy too when you did the whole light angel thing." She was about to take another bite, but she stopped and began to turn towards Sunset, asking, "Wait, when you say I know how to-" Her words died in a choked sputter.

Sunset kept her eyes locked on Twilight's, her expression a mask of faux innocence, as she finished giving a long, deep lick at the flat top of her ice-cream cone, partly digging her way into it. "Yes, Twilight?" she asked, before licking her own lips clean as slowly as possible.

Twilight just blinked. Then she gave a look around the park. Then her geode lit up.

Black

Black, as far as they could see. The sky covered in smoky clouds, around them an ocean of tar stretching boundless in every direction. Nothing else in the darkness between the two, not a sound or a trace of movement.

Twilight stood on the edge of the rock, the whole structure no larger than a house, the only stable ground in sight. For all they knew, it had been the top of a mountain at some point, and everything else had been covered by a flood. "What do you think happened here?" she asked.

"I can't tell you anything you can't already see for yourself," answered Celestia. "But whatever it was, I doubt it left much of a trace of what used to be here. If there was something, of course."

Twilight swallowed as she was reminded of what could have once been there, before whatever catastrophe had struck. "This could have been us," she whispered, mostly thinking aloud.

"But it wasn't." Celestia stepped to her side. "There's nothing we can do about it, Twilight. It's no use worrying over it."

"I know," Twilight replied. "That doesn't make it better." She turned, and began to walk around the rock's perimeter, studying the horizon. "Do you think we should explore the surroundings?"

Celestia softly bit her lip as she looked at Twilight. Not the worried, uncertain symptom of hesitation of someone who sees the benefits and risks of both paths. More like the petty pause of someone who does not want to be bothered, but knows it'll make them look bad. Still, the white alicorn was at least old and wise enough to provide a valid reason with which to mask her laziness. "I wouldn't risk it. There's nothing in sight, and that means both we're unlikely to find anything close, and we might not be able to get back here should we travel far enough to lose sight of this place."

Twilight had, unfortunately for Celestia, spent enough time with her to tell where her real motives lay. "Too bad Luna didn't come instead of you, right?" she playfully remarked, moving back towards the alicorn.

Celestia looked to the side, feigning the required amount of indignation over the perfectly legitimate yet still perceived as offence piece of critique. "Right," she quietly admitted. "But my sister is busy hunting."

"She is." Twilight stood at Celestia's side. "Well, we can always come back here at a later time. Prepared, now that we know what's in here." She looked at the other alicorn. "You can go back to your cakes now if you want."

Celestia's cheeks turned far more red than she would have ever allowed them to back in her ruling days. Which was still less than any normal pony's reaction, but nonetheless impressive on her. She just glared at Twilight, perfectly aware that she had nothing with which to fire back.

Twilight turned to leave. Then she turned again, as a deep, immensely loud wailing sound echoed towards them from the far horizon, like a violin note distorted and amplified to an impossibly degree.

And they both looked towards the distance, at the wall of blackness moving closer and closer, the wave rising from the dark ocean tall enough to reach the sky and swallowing everything in its path.

MD-N-HVN

It was raining. Hard. The grass in the fields bent under the weight of the pouring water, and the frantic drumming sound as each drop hit the ground was impossible to ignore.

Weather, after the Behemoth's arrival and especially near the Everfree Forest, had grown to be a bit unstable. Pegasi could still control it, of course, but something had changed. Things didn't exactly respond they way they had used to, and particularly in the first months it had taken a while before they'd finally gotten the hang of things again.

Not that anyone was particularly to blame for that specific storm. It looked like it was natural, or at least as natural as anything coming from the Everfree could be, and had simply wandered out there on its own. That might have been a problem had it gone towards Ponyville, but it had instead headed towards a mostly empty strip of land.

Lyra didn't particularly mind the rain. Not when it wasn't hitting her, at least, and thankfully enough she'd found shelter. A small, somewhat worn-out wooden shed in the middle of the fields, the door unlocked and the inside well isolated. No water falling in, nor creeping up from the ground or sides, not too cold and not at all dirty. It was clearly still used and cleaned from time to time, but she had doubts the owner would object to her staying in it for a while. There was nothing there one could steal, anyway.

It was almost empty. A single room with windows on two sides, a pavement built out of bricks and a bench built into the wall opposite of the entrance. Nails on the walls and hooks on the ceiling were clearly there to hang tools or other things, but it appeared nothing was actually being kept there for the time being, likely explaining why it was left unlocked.

Almost empty. The first other thing in the room was a large bag of seeds in a corner. Different kinds mixed together, some of the larger ones broken, all of them dry. Going by the faded decal on the side of the bag, it was probably bird food. After giving it a look, Lyra had assumed the owner of the shed used it for birdwatching during autumn. It was a good explanation for why the place seemed to be regularly used even when no one would be working there.

The second other thing in the room wasn't really a thing. It was more like a creature. In fact it probably was a creature. Lying on the bench at the end of the room, its back turned towards the door. A long, black body with hints of green around the torso, translucent wings resting over it partly hidden by a tattered dark blue mane that was matched by a tail on the other end, and visible holes near the hooves.

It was also sleeping. Or pretending to sleep, but Lyra had no intention of finding out which one of the two it was. She just stood near the door, watching the rain pour down outside and waiting for it to end so she could leave.

Peace Shells

"It's like a cancer. A disease. A virus, but one that only exists within the creatures it infects. It's an idea, or a set of ideas, a concept. It warps the way you see the world. It spreads through writing, dialogue, images, it gets into your head and suddenly it just makes sense to you. It's how you see things now, and you no longer understand what it was like before, what it was like to be normal. You're tainted, and you end up spreading the virus yourself without even realising it.

"But it's not right. It's a lie, a fabrication, a construct, and just because it's infected your mind the way it has now that doesn't make it good. You're still in the wrong. There's a demarcation line, a wall of knowledge separating normal creatures from seeing things the way you do, one you no longer understand is there. It's all the same to you, and so you spread the word, and force it down other's throats, and warp their minds until they come to your side.

"But the truth is that there is no understanding. There is no knowledge to be sought, no key to unlocking the meaning. The words remain empty, devoid of significance. But you've been enslaved, conditioned, and now you believe in them and repeat them. And you give them the meaning the hivemind enslaved by the virus gives them, but there is no truth. No gradual shift from one side to the other. You wear creatures down with your empty rhetoric until they snap and accept it and worship it and repeat the chant.

"It's a disease, it spreads like a virus and warps the minds of those who fall into its trap, and it needs to be stopped."

"Ma'am, this is a cutlery shop." The cashier looked above his glasses at the mare, a tired and unamused expression on his face.

She placed a fork over the counter. "I will have this." She then paid for the fork, placed it in her mane, and silently walked out of the shop, while the stallion stared in a mix of annoyance and stupor.

Once outside the shop, the mare moved towards the first lone pony she spotted, fork still in her mane, and tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me. I'm a blue pegasus mare with an orange mane whose cutie mark is a seashell."

The pony looked at her, confused. Hesitantly, he replied, "No? Ma'am, are you alright? You're, um, a red unicorn with a light pink mane." He leaned lightly to the side to get a better look. "And your cutie mark is an open book."

"Oh." The mare looked at herself. "Thank you." A line of coloured flame ran over her body, and she turned into a blue pegasus with an orange mane, and a seashell as her cutie mark. She blinked towards the speechless stallion, her large bug-like eyes staring right at his face, then began to walk away, with the fork still in her mane.

Hig Lif

The colours and sounds of the club blended together around her, but she didn't pay attention to any of it. She didn't care about the faces of the other creatures, or the words of the music, or what anyone was saying. That was kind of the point of it all. She was there to relax, and nothing helped her relax like a wall of light and noise loud and bright enough to just let herself go in it.

Except for whatever it was they slipped into her drink when she asked for it. She didn't care what it was either, just that it didn't hurt the morning after. She was pretty sure that unicorn DJ was taking some of it too anyway. Besides, anyone who'd been there more than once would know about it, if the place hadn't been closed down yet it wasn't anything serious.

Lightning leaned back into her seat, taking another sip of her drink. She wasn't exactly sure what kind of drink it was either. Something with alcohol in it, but not too strong. Maybe some fruit too? Her mouth was a little too dry to taste properly. Of course she would have actually known what she was drinking if she'd paid any attention when she was being served, but she was too tired for that.

Missions did always leave her like that. At the end of one she was basically moving on inertia alone, schedules too ingrained in her somehow preventing her body from just dropping into sleep when by all other means it should have. Soarin' didn't get hit like that. He wasn't as tired, on average. Sure, he had it pretty rough sometimes, when he really had to push himself, but it was different for her. She was always pushing herself when she went on a mission.

Maybe she would need to talk about it with Twilight. She knew she wouldn't, but in that moment she was a sufficient mix of tired, drunk, and otherwise intoxicated to actually entertain a thought such as that. Speaking of the Princess, she was technically the one paying for that and all her other visits to the club. Lightning did wonder if she'd ever get asked about it one day. Maybe Twilight would want to see the place for herself. That was a fun mental image.

The pegasus leaned even further back into her seat and slid down, almost to the point of practically lying with her back where her hindquarters should have been instead. She was never quite sure whether it was the feeling of the drug going into her veins or the regular feeling of alcohol doing the same perceived through the drug's distortion, but she always got a kick out of it when it happened.

She'd probably spend the rest of the night there on her seat, lying on her side, maybe accidentally drooling a little on the floor as she got the closest thing to sleep her body allowed her to have outside of her usual schedules. Then at some point she would pass out, the place would close down, and the royal guard waiting for her outside would carry her back to the place she was staying at.

Business as usual. She should probably ask for that guard's name at some point.

Hardline

"That doesn't sound like a good idea."

"Oh come on!" Rainbow threw her hands up in the air. "One of us is literally a unicorn! We should totally write power metal."

Fluttershy just stared down at her notes, thoughtfully tapping her chin. "I don't know. I feel like we're not really suited to play something like that."

"It's not that hard!" Rainbow got up from her seat and started pacing around the room. "We could just, I don't know... Take out the tambourine for a second guitar?"

This time, Fluttershy stared at her, her expression flat.

"Okay." Rainbow sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. "Maybe that's not a good idea. We could try a more proggy approach to it? I mean if you can have a bagpipes solo in a power metal song I imagine we could figure something out with the tamb-"

"A bagpipes solo?!" Pinkie burst out from seemingly nowhere, almost knocking Rainbow off her feet. "Oh, oh, oh, can I get to play one of those on our next song?" she asked, excitedly bouncing up and down.

"Do you even know how to play bagpipes?" asked Rainbow, standing back straight and choosing to ignore how the door was still locked.

"I can try!"

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash exchanged an uneasy look. "Solo or not, we need to write a song," the latter said. "Fluttershy?"

"I'm trying." The girl drew a few lines over a set of notes she had written down. "I'm really not sure about going through with this. What should it be about anyway?"

"Eh, I'm sure we'll figure out the lyrics. I have enough inspiration to work with." Rainbow leaned against a wall, eyes closed and a smug grin on her face.

As Pinkie curiously moved around her to get a better look at her notes, Fluttershy sighed. "I would be hesitant about having you write the lyrics anyway, but I'm not letting you do this if you're going off of what you showed me."

"Hey!" Rainbow turned towards her. "Those lyrics are totally awesome, okay?"

"Half of those lyrics don't even make sense. And we are not writing a song about bloody dimensions or scarecrows." She jotted down and immediately erased a few more notes. "The one about cancer was good, but not exactly something that would fit us."

"Oh, fine. We'll let Sunset decide when she gets here, I'll just work on some riffs." Rainbow picked up her guitar and moved to sit down again.

"Where is Sunset, anyway?" Pinkie asked, casually assembling a set of bagpipes.

"Having sex wtih Twilight." Rainbow struck a few familiar chords, trying to get her inspiration going.

"Rainbow!" Fluttershy looked up at her.

"What?" Rainbow looked back. "Check Twilight's status."

Fluttershy took out her phone and unlocked it. "It says 'Doing stuff with Sunset Shimmer'."

"And Sunset's?"

Fluttershy scrolled down on her screen. "'Doing stuff and Twilight Sparkle'." She paused for a moment. "Oh."

"Permission to tease them when they finally get here?"

"Granted." Fluttershy was about to put her phone away, when a notification lit up the screen. Curious, she opened it. She swallowed, and her face went a little paler. "You girls might want to see this."

Astronomy Lessons

Twilight poured some more pomegranate juice into her glass, and drank a bit of it. "How did the last hunting session go, Luna?"

"It went well, Princess." Luna ate a bite out of her slice of strawberry cake. "The forest seems relatively calm as of late."

"I'm glad to hear that." Twilight turned to the third alicorn in the room. "What about your cake tasting tour, Celestia?"

"As a matter of fact, Twilight-"

A raised eyebrow from the pony in in question was all it took for Celestia to pause. She swallowed, then spoke again. "As a matter of fact, Princess, that is going rather well. But I would hope you don't think it's the only thing occupying my time."

Twilight tilted her head to the side, curious. "It's not?" She sat straight again. "Well, I suppose sleeping would take away some time too."

Celestia slowly turned away from her, and poured herself some water. "What about you, Princess?"

"Research is going well, we're making some steady progress in regards to both scales and coils. And just yesterday we finally managed to get some readings on the piece of the Wall we received. It will be a slow process, but we should finally start to see some results there." Twilight cut herself a slice from the large chocolate cake on her side of the table, and quietly began to eat it.

Celestia eyed her plain salad with disinterest, stabbing at the air just above it with the fork she held in her magic. To her left, on the end of the table opposite of Twilight's, Luna drank some of her apple juice and took another bite from her slice of cake.

"So I was thinking," Twilight began after a minute of silence, cutting out another piece from the chocolate cake in front of her, "if we built collars with pieces of Chrysalis's throne in them, they could work as a more discreet alternative to horn rings. They could be harder to remove, too."

"That sounds like a lovely idea, Princess," Luna commented.

Celestia finally forced herself to chomp down on and swallow part of her meal. Quietly, she asked, "How has research on pink poison joke advanced since we last spoke of it?"

"Not terribly far, I'm afraid," said Twilight. "I'm having Rose study it on occasion, and I'm doing some of the work myself, but we both have more important things to work on. You know how it is. It's not exactly something I could justify focusing on."

"I understand." Celestia ate a bit more salad. Then, hesitantly, she spoke again. "I could work on it myself if you wished, Princess."

"Oh?" Twilight looked at her, a curious expression on her face. "Could you say that again, Celestia? I'm not sure I quite understood what you meant. I'm sure Luna would like you to repeat it as well."

Luna simply nodded.

Celestia cleared her throat, and raised her tone slightly. "I could work on studying pink poison joke if you wished me to, Princess."

Twilight smiled. "That does sound like a reasonable request from you."

Cold

The breeze blew through the apple orchard, leaves swaying on the branches as it did. It was that period near the end of summer, when the Sun shines just a bit less hot and the wind becomes too cold to simply be refreshing. Not the best weather to work up a sweat in, but work needed to be done.

Applejack hauled her tools atop her cart. After spending the first half of the morning working on the fields, it was time for her to go lend a hoof in the city. Buildings needed to be repaired or entirely reconstructed, and some needed to be torn down. It was the safer alternative after all the damage they'd taken.

"Hey!"

Applejack looked up, tilting her hat forward to shield her eyes from the Sun. She recognised the voice, of course.

"Are you coming to help?" Rainbow Dash landed in front of her.

Applejack just looked at the cart full of tools she was about to start pulling, her expression making words superfluous.

"Want me to help you pull that thing?"

"Sure." Applejack scooted a little to her right, allowing space for the pegasus beside her. She thought about asking Rainbow why she wasn't helping around in Ponyville herself instead, but then decided against it. Beginning to pull the cart, she asked, "Know what we're working on today?"

"Sugarcube Corner, from what I heard," Rainbow said. "The whole place needs to be taken down before it does that on its own."

Applejack chewed on the inside of her cheek for a bit. It wasn't nice to know the building had to go, but it was the safer thing to do. "Is Starlight coming to help?"

"She had to leave this morning. There's a dam about to burst somewhere up north, Twilight called for her to help dealing with it. Or that's what Trixie told me, at least."

"And what did Sunburst have to say?"

"He's not here. Left for Canterlot yesterday evening, he's doing some research there." Rainbow kicked a pebble out of the way. "I wonder what Trixie will get up to while they're both gone."

Applejack shivered. It might have been a particularly strong gust of wind while they walked in the shadows, but she decided it was the thought of an unsupervised Trixie. Then something caught her eye, and she slowed down her pace. "You see that?" she asked, pointing a hoof at a spot between the trees.

Rainbow slowed down as well, and turned her head to follow Applejack's gesture. "The grass?" she asked.

"No. That thing! There between the two trees."

Rainbow leaned a little further to get a better look. "I don't see anything there. Are you sure it's not just a shadow?"

Applejack kept her eyes on the spot. She wasn't exactly sure what it was. It looked a bit like smoke, or like the air over a campfire, flickering and quivering. Almost like something was hiding there. But then she blinked, and when she opened her eyes again it had all disappeared. "Probably was," she said, shaking her head as she kept on pulling the cart.

1N51D3

Applejack sat, on her spot on the train, looking out the window as the city slowly gave way to open fields. Her arms dug deep into the pockets of her coat, one hand balled up while the other's fingers clutched her phone almost too hard. Every once in a while, she could feel it buzz and shake, but she refused to take it out and look at it.

The snow on her coat was slowly starting to melt. By the time she got to her destination, it might have dried entirely. It looked like it was snowing less outside too, or maybe it was just because they were moving. The fields were covered in white, and they'd probably have quite a bit of snow on them the morning after.

The Sun was almost down at that point. From where she was, she could almost make out the orange lights of the sunset on the opposite side, reflecting on the glass alongside her own face. She tried to get her eyes to focus on what was outside again, though it was getting harder the darker things became there. Her phone buzzed again.

This time, it didn't stop. She tried to ignore it for a few moments, then bit the inside of her lower lip. She gave a look around. Only a few other people there, and none seemed interested in her. Slowly, she took out the phone and stared at the screen. Her thumb moved over it, but then she hesitated. And after a moment, she slid the phone back into her pocket, where it buzzed a while longer before finally stopping.

She could always call or write to them later. When she was finally done getting things sorted out. But she may be too tired at that point, so perhaps the day after. And not the morning, she would be busy getting everything set up. She'd see about the afternoon, about whether she had time for it, or if she'd have to move it to the evening. If she wasn't too tired then, of course.

Her head softly hit the glass. It was easier to look outside that way, and impossible to see her whole face reflected in it. Not that there was much to see outside. It was too dark, and the sky was covered in clouds. At most, she could spot a few white flakes streaking by just outside the window, and maybe one or two clinging to the glass and starting to melt there.

And the snowflakes would melt and turn to drops of water, and the water would slide down the window and disappear from sight. And the way she was sitting, with her head against the glass, with her coat still on and the snow on it melting too, no one would notice if some of those drops were on the inside instead, no one would question them even if they did notice.

At that point though, she wouldn't have cared about it either way.

The Sound of Rain

A flock of manateeagles passed high above, their shadows cast wide down to the earth, the beating of their finwings almost audible in the calm stillness of the air. They seemed uninterested in the creatures far below them, at least for the time being. Trixie was rather glad that was the case.

She looked at the vast, dry, sun-beaten plains stretching before her. Would she find a tree or perhaps a cave to spend the night in? And was it even worth risking it? She didn't have all that much water with her, and though she didn't like the idea of stopping there for the rest of the day she knew travelling at night would be the wiser choice.

Finding a place to rest was perhaps the best use of her time, then. She turned and studied the rocky side of the mountain behind her, looking for some jutting slab of rock that could perhaps offer some shade underneath it, or maybe the start of a cave of some kind. She didn't mind resting on the dirt, but she would still have preferred otherwise.

It didn't take too long for her to find someplace suitable. What looked like the entrance to a cave the inside of which had crumbled down, though it could just as easily be a large hole the wind had carved out, some shrubs growing above the entrance providing a bit more cover. It was decently fresh, a bit humid as well, perhaps there was some water nearby.

She settled down, and took off her saddlebags. Then she pulled out a map and a compass, and opened the former on the ground. Judging by how much it had taken her to get there, it would be about two more days of walking before she finally arrived at her destination. She had food and water enough, assuming she travelled at night and wasn't thrown off-course by some wild animal or worse.

She folded the map back up and slid it back into her bags, alongside the compass. Then she took out her rations, along with the package resting at the bottom. Just to check it was still there, as she did probably more often than necessary. But she couldn't be too cautious with it, the risks if it was somehow stolen were too great.

No sings of tampering on the outside of the metal box. Still properly locked, and every spell looked like it was holding up. And peering through the small glass window at the contents of the container, the red and black and grey of the object inside were still visible. Trixie stared a moment longer, then shoved the box back at the bottom of her saddlebags, underneath everything else.

Time would come, but not yet. And hopefully, things would work out, and no creature would get hurt. Beginning to eat her food, she stared at the horizon, while the manateeagles in the sky moved further and further away. She just wished she could trust her own plan as much as she'd made Twilight trust in it.

26

"I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate everything about it."

"Ma'am?"

The pegasus looked up at the unicorn. Then she turned into a crow and flew out of the window.

On the other end of the room, Celestia stared, mildly confused, holding some cake in the golden glow of her magic.

The unicorn sighed and shrugged, then moved away from the table. As he passed near her, Celestia couldn't help herself, and asked him, "Does that happen often?"

"It does not," he replied. "We had never met this mare before today, and we apologise for the inconvenience." He then left the room.

A single leaf flew in from the window, seemingly carried by the wind, and it landed right on Celestia's shoulder. And there it spoke. "It hurts my soul to read that, okay? How? How does it happen? No school teacher would approve of a child writing something like that, they would fail their test, it's so poorly written, yet-"

The leaf was forcefully cut off as Celestia teleported it back outside. Annoyed, it turned into a fly and flew back towards the alicorn. "So you know that pony who carried the experiment results? Basically she's gonna have him come down below the castle and convince him to-"

Again, the fly was teleported out of the room. This time, Celestia closed the window as well. No one had anything to say against it, because there was no one else there.

A unicorn seemed to appear behind the window from out of nowhere, and she beat her hoof against the glass with annoying insistence. "It was Firecracker, okay? The one who got there was Firecracker after hitching a ride with... What are we calling her here anyway? I'm not actually sure. Anyway she-"

A soundproofing spell coated the window and the walls of the room, shutting out whatever else the mare had to say. Celestia then decided to focus on her cake again, before the heat had it melt away.

Her peace was short lived. Less than minutes later, an exact copy if Princess Twilight Sparkle, crown included, walked into the room from the entrance. "So you know that shadow thingy? That's actually-"

Celestia forced the other's mouth shut with her magic.

A second mouth appeared on the would be Twilight's neck. "The Moon Beast is what they will have there, you got that? And it's actually-"

That mouth, too, was sealed shut.

A third one appeared on the creature's forehead. "It's not about Rarity, it's about R-"

Celestia, an eyebrow raised in annoyance, teleported the both of them and her cake atop the nearest chasm. Chains of golden energy erupted from her horn and wrapped around the creature held in her telekinesis, then she unceremoniously let go of what still somewhat looked like Twilight and watched it fall down.

"And by the way your coil is-"

Celestia reappeared in the restaurant. She opened the window again, and quietly finished her cake. It was very good.

Just a rock

Pinkie stared at the rock. The rock did not stare back at Pinkie, for it was a rock, and it is a fact that rocks do not possess eyes with which to stare back at ponies or creatures of any kind. And if ever coming across a rock with eyes, one should be careful about approaching it, as it is very likely not a rock.

But the rock Pinkie was staring at was indeed a rock. And as such, it had no eyes. It had instead a flat surface at which Pinkie was staring. This flat surface stretched out for the entire length of the rock, which was taller than Pinkie herself by a fair margin. The rock was also slightly larger than Pinkie. It had a shape somewhere between an egg and an almond, closer to the latter.

The rock was stuck in the ground. Or perhaps it was jutting out from the ground. Pinkie didn't know yet whether the portion of the rock that was embedded in the ground was larger or smaller than the one out of it. The rock knew that it was the latter case, however it had no way in which to realise that it did indeed possess such knowledge. This is because it was a rock, and not of the living kind.

The rock, not being the living kind of rock, could not comprehend that it was the non living kind of rock, and could not wish to be the living kind of rock. It could in fact not feel anything at all. It was not saddened by any of these facts, as it was a rock, incapable of feeling. It couldn't be happy either, but it did not care. It could not care, after all.

The rock was not aware of the pink pony staring at it. This in turn meant the pink pony could easily surprise the rock with her actions. Unfortunately, no reaction would come from the rock even if she did surprise it, as the rock would not become aware of the pony no matter what the pony did. Unless the pony infused the rock with life, of course. But the pony seemed to have no intention of performing such a feat.

She instead appeared to only care about studying the rock. She stared at the rock, and she touched the rock, and she also ran her tongue against the surface of the rock, and carefully she placed her ear to the surface of the rock and listened for any sounds coming from inside the rock. But there were no sounds. Because it was just a rock.

Once she had probed at the rock enough to conclude that it was indeed only a rock and no more than a rock, Pinkie left the rock and walked away. Then, after disappearing behind a turn, she suddenly burst out from behind the rock. The rock showed no reaction. Finally convinced, the pink pony left the rock behind, and quietly walked away.

Triangular Matrix

Shining stopped in front of the door, as the guards on both sides of it stood stiff at attention.

"Here?" Twilight asked, nervousness creeping into her voice.

"Here." Shining turned and took hold of the doorknob with a hoof. "I'm going to warn you. The smell is the worst part. We've sealed it so it doesn't get past the door, but that just makes it worse on the inside." He looked at his sister. "Ready?"

Twilight swallowed, then gave a nod. "Ready."

She was not ready. The moment Shining opened the door her first instinct was to run away, and forcing herself to step forward and into the room was only barely easier than forcing herself to walk through a wall of solid rock would have been. Her body did not want to be in that room, and she could tell from their expressions that the guards near the door were barely holding themselves together.

Once she finally stepped through and Shining closed the door behind her, Twilight had to force herself not to just teleport out. She felt trapped there, and despite knowing that was not case part of her mind refused to listen to reason, forcing her to constantly keep it in check. She just stared at the floor for a while, not daring to look at the scene until she was sure she could control herself, even if every second spent breathing in there felt worse than the last. "How do you do it?" she quietly asked, trying to put her attention elsewhere.

"Had to go look around in the woods first year in the Guard, I don't remember what it was for. We found an animal stuck in a fissure. It had been there just long enough that you couldn't tell what it was. I was the one who had to wait there while my partner looked for someone, I got used to the smell." He stepped at Twilight's side and placed a hoof on her back. "And I have a cold right now."

Twilight gave a feeble smile. Then she finally looked up, and it was immediately swept off her face. "Is it-" She had to force her mouth closed to stop her sudden instinct to vomit. "A pony?" she asked.

"It was at least two, and a few extra limbs," Shining replied, flat and emotionless.

Twilight stared at the tangle of bones and flesh a moment longer, then turned her eyes away from it again. "I know," she breathed out a second later. "The analysis, yes. Just- give me a minute okay?" Her breaths were heavy, her tone rising and falling with no rhythm.

Shining silently nodded. Then, staring at the dried blood staining the floor, he said, "It's not-"

"Anyone here?" Twilight swallowed again, her voice steadying, and she finally moved closer to the corpses. "No. Of course not." She stood at Shining's side, as her horn began to glow. "Nothing here could have done something like this, and I should have known there would be consequences for what happened. I should have known this would happen sooner or later. This is a message. A warning. Someone knows we were there."

"Are they asking not to go back?"

Twilight took a slow, deep breath. "They're saying they can come to us too."

Want Me Gone

It was strange, at first. Like waking up after a long, long sleep, yet like falling asleep at the same time. Her sense of awareness came back, yet those parts of her that had always been there paying attention to the outside world began to dull, to grow tired.

It took a while for the changes to become in any way apparent. Weeks, perhaps even months. But from her perspective, it was all a short blur.

If someone had been there, yes, they might have noticed something. Cracks appearing on the surface of the stone, thin at first, spreading and growing longer with time. Patches of colour reappearing. Movement, even. But the castle was abandoned, the gardens unused, and not even animals dared go near those areas of the city closest to the Behemoth.

And when the last chunks of stone covering her body broke off and shed like an old shell, and Chrysalis shook her head and opened her eyes again, she was alone. Not quite completely alone, perhaps, the two creatures she had shared her prison with still remained there. But they did not appear to share her tendency to no longer be a statue.

All the better, as far as she was concerned, but she did wonder how exactly she'd managed to escape or be freed herself in the first place. But looking around, it became apparent no one would be there to answer that question. No one would be there at all in fact, a quick look towards the castle revealed broken walls, shattered windows, towers missing their upper floors and vines in the process of covering its entire surface.

She did wonder, for a moment, if that didn't mean the whole of Equestria had been destroyed. Had they perhaps spent so long encased in stone? But that seemed unlikely. Perhaps only Canterlot had been abandoned, just as the old capital a long time before. But it looked like a recent thing. The ruins looked unstable, ready to crumble further, the vines barely reached past a couple floors in height.

She shook her head. Whatever had happened, she wouldn't get her answers by questioning stones and plants. Picking a direction, Chrysalis began to walk, keeping her eyes and ears alert for any signs of other creatures. She didn't bother with transformations, she was by herself more intimidating than just about anything she could turn into and she didn't want to risk wasting energies when she wasn't yet sure of what her own conditions were, much less if food would be available.

Despite her attention though, she failed to spot even a single other creature in her walk through the gardens. When she finally stepped outside of them and into the streets, she took notice of how they didn't appear to be in much better condition. In particular, some buildings seemed to have been crushed altogether or cleaved through.

It was while following the trail of destruction that she finally saw it. Half visible as it flickered against the light, her eyes turned higher and higher still as she took in what she could of its full size. Turning, almost stumbling on her hooves, Chrysalis rushed towards the opposite direction as quickly as her legs allowed her to, and only stopped as she heard the sound of ponies approaching behind a corner.

Blood Bones and Rust

The forest was angry. Unquiet. Disturbed by something or someone.

Luna's axe swung down hard and bones splintered beneath the force of the impact, as the large twisted mass of guts and limbs wailed in pain. The head was that of a pony, but everything else was unrecognisable. A second strike, aimed at the neck, and the creature's cries stopped.

The alicorn looked up. The creatures weren't the only thing growing more twisted. Pillars stretched from one side of the forest to the other, tunnels weaved in and out of it, and the horizon now curved upwards to merge with the other side rather than simply being mirrored. And even as she watched, the terrain seemed to shift and mutate, the overall shape of the forest growing more convoluted.

The air had grown darker, and not merely the darkness that night brings. Even with her eyes, she still had trouble piercing through the muddy blackness that seemed to permeate the forest, like smoke or water in a bottle.

The forest was scared. Nervous, on the edge. Its creatures afraid of something even they couldn't see clearly. But they could feel it coming. Rage, fear, instincts, it all bled together and warped the world around them.

And whatever was coming would be even worse.

But Luna could only wait and carry on her hunting duties. So long as the creatures of the forest didn't have a clear idea of what they were scared by, all they could provide her would be vague ghosts and fantasies, more akin to their own fears wrapped onto the skeleton of the looming presence than to the presence itself and its true form.

More screams echoed around her. Choked, sputtering croaks, guttural howls, and deep roars of pain and anger. Luna pulled her weapon back, and cleaned the blade from clumps of blood with her hoof. The night was still young, the hunt just at its beginning.

More would come. That night, and in the nights to follow, and things would get worse with time for a while, she knew that. But she could take care of it. She could keep going, and as long as things didn't grow out of proportion she could still keep them in check by herself. And she could hope that, once they finally knew what was causing all of it, they could go directly at the root of the problem and put an end to it.

The cracking of trunks and branches snapping under the weight and force of a charge came from her right, but she was ready. As soon as the creature broke through the last line of trees and into the small clearing, her legs sprung and pushed her upwards and out of its reach. She landed on its back, the mangled assembly of organs and jutting bones screeching as it tried to claw at her with its malformed appendages.

Her axe came down again, splitting its skull in half, and the body went limp under her. Retrieving her weapon, she took off, and began to scout the forest from above the trees.

Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 1

Fluttershy tapped on her phone with her hoof, reloading the web page. "Still nothing," she said, opening a separate tab to browse some of her social media feed.

"I guess it's gonna be a late one today." Twilight shrugged, sipping on her milkshake.

Behind the counter, Pinkie fidgeted with a few bowls, a blender, some sprinkles, and what looked awfully close to a flamethrower.

Already long since convinced that the furniture and walls of the building were immune to flames, and having been aware that the same was true of the pink pony for even longer, Rarity chose to ignore the umpteenth fire hazard she'd seen inside the walls of Sugarcube Corner and grabbed a cupcake from the nearest plate. "What do you think it will be about this time?"

"Hmm." Twilight drank a bit more. "Well, there's always that puzzles guy it could go back to."

"Yeah, whatever happened to him?" Dash said from her place, sitting near a window.

"No idea."

A sound very close to that of a chainsaw was heard beneath the counter, where Pinkie had disappeared to.

"But there's other things that haven't been addressed in a bit too. The ongoing storyline that was split into parts hasn't been touched for a while," Twilight continued.

"Neither have the blank chapters," Fluttershy added.

"Or the night world stuff," Rainbow chimed in.

"Or the hospital." Pinkie jumped on top of the blender to force in a series of items no sane pony would have placed in a blender, not last of which appeared to be a piece of the floor itself.

"Yeah, I'm starting to think maybe this guy isn't really sure what he's doing," said Rainbow.

"Now, now," Rarity said. "I'm sure he knows where he wants to go with the story. Creativity can be a complicated thing to work with, and you shouldn't assume the worst until you've seen the results. Sometimes you just get a bit sidetracked when inspiration strikes in the middle of a larger project."

"Are we actually sure they're an he?" Fluttershy asked, still scrolling through her phone.

Rarity raised a hoof and opened her mouth, then her expression changed and she brought the hoof under her chin. "Huh. You know, I was pretty sure I'd read he's male somewhere, but I can remember where it was."

"Want me to dig through their stuff?" asked Rainbow.

"We could just ask them," said Twilight.

"Well, it's no big deal. I'll look into it myself if I can't remember why I was under that impression," Rarity said, grabbing a milkshake and beginning to drink.

"I might look into it too, I also got that impression but I can't remember why." Twilight finished her drink.

Fluttershy tapped on her screen again. "Still nothing."

"We're sure it's gonna come out today, right?" Rainbow got up from her seat and flew towards the counter, as bits and pieces of Pinkie and other unidentified materials were sent flying in various directions.

"It will." Applejack grabbed a potion from the cabinet on the wall. "I'm sure it will."

But there's no sense crying

"How have you been?"

Tempest slid the spoon out of her mouth and dipped it back into her yogurt. "Things here aren't too bad, actually. The food is quite good, and the bed is comfortable. Pity about the lack of conversations, but the nurses are too busy to waste time on that."

Twilight gave a look around the room. A pot with some flowers near the window added a splash of colour to the otherwise sterile monotony typical of hospitals, and overall the place looked clean and pleasant enough. "I'm glad to hear that, but it doesn't answer my question. How have you been?"

Tempest finished another spoonful of yogurt. "I've picked up reading to pass the time, you know? I can't exactly go out in these conditions so I had to distract myself some way. There's a little newspapers shop on the first floor that sells comic books too, so I picked up an issue of Power Ponies." Another spoon of white yogurt in and out of her mouth. "It's fun."

Twilight quirked an eyebrow, her expression one of annoyance but in even greater part understanding. "Tempest."

"Well, I know it's not high literature, or maybe not even really literature depending on your definition, but I'm still technically reading okay? You can't ask me to jump right into-"

"Fizzlepop Berrytwist," Twilight said, voice rising a little, "I asked you a question and I expect you to answer it. I did not ask about the place, I did not ask about the food, I did not ask what you've been up to. How have you been?"

Tempest looked down and to the side, almost smirking. She sighed. "Not well. I know it's for my own good, and I accept that, and I know perfectly well that things have to be like this. But I can't like this no matter what." Her eyes turned towards the window. "The pain is the least bad part. I'm used to it, I've lived through worse than most of it. But being stuck in here... Being useless, when so much help could be needed out there."

She looked down again. "And, well, when I could be doing stuff. Stuff that isn't spending my days confined to one building, barely able to walk at times, walking the same spotless white hallways and eating the same white yogurt every day because it's better than the chocolate pudding which is the only other dessert they give out and honestly I actually really like the yogurt but it's me, Twilight! I'm not a yogurt kind of mare!"

Twilight chuckled as she heard that. "Sorry, sorry. I understand." She smiled cheekily at the unicorn. "I could bring you some oranges if you want. Just don't tell Applejack about it."

Tempest smiled back. "I wouldn't mind."

Then Twilight's expression faltered a little. "And what about..."

A different tinge fell over Tempest's face. Not angry, not bitter, more resigned than anything. "Well..." She looked down at herself. "It's... It's manageable, I'd say. It hurts less nowadays, and it's..." She sighed. "I think I can live with it."

All that I see

"Very well, indeed," Nightmare Moon said, running her gaze over the documents she had just received. Then her eyes turned to the stallion who had carried them to her. "You served me well, little pony."

He bowed in response. "I was merely carrying out my duties, my Queen. As every citizen should, and as every other of your subjects would have in my place."

The alicorn set the documents down beside her throne. "You overestimate the ponies I rule over greatly. Not many share your understanding of what their role should be."

"A great tragedy, my Queen." The pony bowed even lower. "What shall I do next? I eagerly await your orders."

He had planned to rest after delivering what he'd been carrying, and still intended to in the event Nightmare Moon dismissed him, but being in the same room as her he could not dare do anything other than ask to receive her will. If only the commoners could too witness her magnificence up close, he thought, they would no longer waver in their loyalty to her.

Nightmare Moon smiled her odd and twisted grin at the display of devotion before her, clearly pleased by it. "You have done well. You have carried out your orders more diligently and more efficiently than many others would have, and I see that you have placed priority on your mission above yourself, but not so far as to compromise the result by damaging your own capabilities. This is admirable, and I believe you should be rewarded for it."

The stallion's breath almost caught in his throat. "My Queen, I-" He stopped, his heart beating faster, as he heard the sound of approaching hoofsteps, and barely able to muster the strength to he looked up to see his Queen, shrouded in a mantle of darkness and power, moving towards him.

"Rise, and follow me," Nightmare Moon said as she walked past the pony, without even looking at him.

That was all the stallion needed. Like in a dream, the ache in his limbs suddenly disappearing, he almost floated behind the divine mare guiding his path. Through tall corridors flanked by banners and statues, through halls decorated by depictions of his Queen's glory, down winding staircases and deep below into the lowest reaches of the castle, hidden behind locked doors and secret passages. He could not have been able to remember the path there, too entranced by the presence of the Goddess of the Night closer to him than any mortal pony had the right to experience.

Finally, Nightmare Moon stopped, and turned back to the stallion. "You want to serve your Queen, right, little pony?" she asked.

"Yes, my Queen. Above everything, my Queen."

"Very well." The alicorn opened one last door. "I have been looking for ponies like you. Strong, loyal, smart, and willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. I have decided to create a new order of guards, directly under my command, and I believe you fit to be the first of its members." She nodded towards the room in front of them.

"It is an honour, my Queen." Without hesitation, the stallion stepped inside the room.

Nightmare Moon smiled her cruel smile again. "Very well. Your new training will begin shortly, little pony. I expect great things to become of you." She began to close the door, adding, "And remember. You are doing this for your Queen."

The door clicked shut, and locked itself closed. Nightmare Moon began to walk away, as a unicorn watched the scene, their head low. "My Queen," they hesitantly began to speak, "I-"

"I trust that this will not result in a failure. Do not disappoint me." And with that, the alicorn walked away.

Wish Upon a Burning House

They sat in the middle of the field, watching the house in front of them burn. "I used to live there when I was younger," they said. "It wasn't a fancy house or anything, but I liked it. Of course I did. It was home, after all."

A chunk of the roof caved in, falling into the rest of the flaming building.

"And what do you think this represents?" Luna asked.

"Well I'm not an expert, but this does seem like a fairly straightforward metaphor. The whole crumbling of the world I was familiar with and lack of stability and all that. Just a product of the stress of my daily situation, I feel," they answered.

Luna nodded. "It would seem so, yes."

They looked towards her. "Want me to give you a tour?"

Luna looked between them and the burning house. "I think I will pass."

A wall collapsed as hundreds of orange sparks were sent flying towards the sky.

"It's always such a shame to see the places you used to love go up in flames." They sighed. "And over such stupid things too. Sometimes it'll be a coal from the fireplace. Sometimes the oven left on and open for too long. Sometimes it just happens. One time I even found matches, but that doesn't make much sense. Matches don't light themselves."

Luna studied their expression. "If you don't like it, why don't you change it?"

"It's a silly thing, really. I hate to watch my home burn, yes." They shook their head. "But I like to watch the fire. I know the house isn't real here, I know it's still there near the fields and my parents still live there. And I know it never caught fire." They stepped closer to the burning building. "And that's the thing. I never saw this place burning. These flames are all my imagination."

Luna looked back towards the house, now halfway destroyed.

"And that fascinates me, you see?" they continued. "These flames are just the product of my mind. And I can see every flame and fire I ever saw, broken apart and put back together, shrunk or inflated, all of them reflecting in this fire. From the light of candles and lamps to the dancing of bonfires and fireplaces to the forest fire tearing through the trees that summer when I was young. This is the sum of every fire in my life, of every memory of fire in my head. It's fascinating how one single image can hold so much, make you think of so much."

Luna walked up to their side. "I understand." She, too, looked at the fire. "To me though, that's just fire."

"But does it look real?"

Luna paused for a moment. She studied the remains of the building more attentively. "I could not tell it from a real fire, though I must make it clear I have never stared at one for long. Not with the intent of studying it, at least."

And the two of them sat there, watching the fire consume the building and then slowly give out.

Revivall

"I had a dream last night," Rainbow Dash said, pondering the muffin held between her hooves.

"That does tend to happen when one sleeps." Rarity lit her horn and brought her cup to her lips, savouring the smell of apple juice before taking her first sip.

Rainbow took a bite out of her muffin. "It involved Pinkie."

"Oh." Rarity set down her cup and focused on a set of sketches and papers she kept on the table, looking through them. "I'm sure it was quite an experience then."

Rainbow nodded. "I dreamed we were dating."

The yellow sunlight streamed in from the open window, colouring the room with the hues of the early morning. A soft, pleasant breeze drifted in from outside, refreshing without being too cold. It had rained, the night before, and some drops of water still clung to the leaves of the trees where shadows hid them from the Sun.

Rarity's reaction was an odd cross between a thoughtful frown and a puzzled pout, accompanied by that untranscribeable kind of sound that always did accompany her more expressive expressions. "It must have been quite the experience indeed."

"It was nice." Rainbow looked towards the window. "In the dream, I mean. We were mostly hanging around. Doing stuff together. We kissed." She took another bite out of her muffin. "It felt real, while I was dreaming it. It made sense. I didn't question it. But it doesn't feel real now, you know?"

Rarity took another sip of her drink. "I believe I understand. I've certainly had weird dreams myself that still seemed perfectly reasonable while I was inside them."

Rainbow Dash sighed. "Sometimes you'll have a dream that you really don't like, and you'll wake up and be glad it's over. And sometimes you'll have a dream that you really like, and when you wake up you'll be really sad that it wasn't real." She finished her muffin. "This one wasn't either. It wad just a thing I dreamed. No feelings either way when I thought about it this morning."

"I see." Her sketches set down to a side as she focused on the conversation, Rarity refilled her cup from the porcelain jug sitting in the middle of the table.

"It feels weird." Rainbow turned around in her chair. "You never really stop to think about whether you'd want to be dating a friend or not. Unless you got a crush on them. But otherwise they're just a friend, you don't think about it. So I'm not sure what to feel now." She turned around again. "I guess I just know I'm not interested in a relationship with Pinkie. But I didn't ask to know. Thanks, brain."

Rarity masked her silence with a sip of her drink, her own brain already working through all the possibilities Rainbow had inadvertently alerted her to even as she tried to stop it from doing so.

"Do you think Pinkie would be happy if she was dating me?"

The unicorn took the cup away from her lips. "Pinkie could be happy dating anything that breathes, and quite a lot of things that don't," she answered. "But I feel like she'd be happy in making others happy first, not in her own enjoyment of the relationship. She'd be happy whichever your choice was, because you'd be happy with it. If that makes sense."

Rainbow shrugged. "I guess it does."

Bynary

Sunburst avidly read through the book in his hooves, as the train chugged along from Canterlot back towards Ponyville. He was so focused on his reading, he didn't even register the unicorn beside him moving closer until she was to the point where her breath tickled his cheek. At which point he did notice her, and promptly proceeded to jerk back in surprise, almost dropping his book.

Her coat was a light, soft purple, and her tidy blue mane framed her face with two identical braids on each side, while a third braid ran down her neck. Coloured streaks shot through it, both deep purple and silver, adding vibrancy to the patterns her braids created. Her tail, similarly coloured, was left free of restrictions, but still clearly brushed regularly. Her cutie mark was a spiraling pattern of white stars, with five distinct arms all converging towards the centre. "Hello. I'm Starshine Flicker," she introduced herself.

Sunburst settled into a more composed but still partially reclined sitting position. "Hello. Can I help you with something?"

"Oh, I was just getting a look at your book. I've been trying to get my hooves on something rare as that for ages but every copy is always booked by someone important and I never get a chance." Her face suddenly lit up. "Oh my! You must be Sunburst! Oh, I've heard so much about you!" She moved towards him in a motion that was technically only barely not a pounce, effectively landing with her front hooves on each side of his body.

Sunburst looked up at her through his glasses, clearly confused. "Uh. I am. You have?"

"Of course I have!" Starshine leaned down, her face mere centimetres from him. "The great Sunburst the Bearded, friend of Princess Twilight Sparkle, Royal Crystaller of Princess Flurry Heart, Vice-Headmare of the School of Friendship, you are one of the most important contemporary unicorns in all of Equestria and beyond!" Her body sunk even lower and she effectively laid herself on top of the stallion, staring right into his eyes and beaming an impossibly wide smile at him.

Sunburst swallowed, uneasy, and took a look around the carriage. No one else was there. Just him, Starshine, and the book. "Thank you," he said, unsure of what more to do.

"So..." the mare began, drawing circles in the seat with her hoof next to his head. "Can I read with you? Oh, actually, you could read aloud and teach me! I would love to listen to you read." She shifted back and forth, still lying atop Sunburst's body.

"Well... I suppose. I don't see a reason why not."

"Hold on, let me get you in a more comfortable position." Starshine grabbed hold of Sunburst back and then she pulled, flipping their respective positions and ending with her belly up, lying on the seats, and Sunburst belly down on top of her. "There."

Still a little hesitant, Sunburst opened his book again. But just as he was about to start reading, Starshine Flicker disappeared.

Binary

There was a shifting beneath the covers, and then a hand rose out from below them, aimlessly probing and thudding against the headboard in search of something. Finally, the slim fingers clasped around a dangling switch and pressed it, flooding the room with light from the main lamp overhead. "There we go," Twilight said, sliding halfway out of the covers and grabbing hold of her glasses again from atop the nightstand.

Sunset slid out after her, much more lazily, and rather than sit on the pillow next to Twilight with her back against the headboard like the other girl she just laid her head on Twilight's legs, looking up at her. She stayed there, smiling in silence.

Twilight smiled back as she began to stroke Sunset's hair. "How was it, then? Am I still as good with fingers as you remembered?"

"I'm not sure, actually." Sunset's smile shifted to a slightly more devious grin. "I might still need another test run to see if that's true or not."

Twilight rolled her eyes, still smiling. "I don't know why I have you talking when we've established there are things your tongue is much better at."

"Will you force me to shut up that way, Twilight? Because I wouldn't mind."

This time a snort of amusement accompanied Twilight's eye roll. "Do I have to take out my geode?"

"Oh, please do." Sunset placed one of her hands over Twilight's, locking fingers with her.

Twilight finally failed to contain a giggle. Tapping Sunset's nose with a finger, she said, "You know we can't really do that too much. Remember the last time we tried?"

"I don't think I could ever forget you almost ripping the house away from the ground. But that's just because you need to learn to control yourself," Sunset answered.

"It's not that easy to slow down when you're being encouraged to keep going, Sunset. I wasn't the only one at fault there," Twilight replied.

"I was literally hearing your thoughts when it happened, and you would have had no intention of stopping with or without my encouragement."

"True, but you still wanted me to continue." Twilight gave a light punch to Sunset's shoulder, still stroking her hair. "And you still want me to do it again! How am I the one who doesn't know when to stop?"

"Are you saying you don't want to do it again?" Sunset's arm curled around Twilight's back.

"I didn't say that." Twilight looked to the side. "I would just prefer if kinky sex with my girlfriend didn't devolve into almost destroying the fabric of reality a second time. And if it didn't involve sending our friends the equivalent of a notification saying I'm using telekinesis to fuck you, not to mention the inconveniences with their own powers going haywire."

"I have to admit, the prospect of you almost destroying the world again isn't so bad for me if it involves you transforming as well," Sunset said, far more innocently than what should have been possible given the subject matter.

Twilight groaned, rubbing her knuckles against her forehead. "Can we have one conversation where the topic of Midnight Sparkle comes up and you don't mention how you'd want her to fuck you?"

"How could I possibly not want to fuck a version of you with more magic power and less moral restricti- Ouch!" Sunset jerked in place, but was kept still by Twilight's hand suddenly grabbing firmly onto her hair and pulling, prompting a second yelp.

Twilight moved her other hand away from Sunset's chest, fingers still in a pinching position. "That's it," she said, pushing the other girl off her body and sliding out of the covers to lie on her knees on the bed, one leg on each side of Sunset's head. "You're putting that tongue to better use."

Binari

Non era raro vedere puledri e puledre giocare vicino ai binari. Non lo era stato prima dell'arrivo del Behemoth, lo era diventato ancor meno dopo di esso, visto il calo nella frequenza dei viaggi. C'era da aspettarselo, più di una città aveva subito gravi danni e ci sarebbe voluto un po' prima che la rete ferroviaria ricominciasse a funzionare pienamente. Tutto sommato però, le cose non erano poi tanto diverse da come lo erano state prima in quella città. Le corse che passavano di lì erano sempre state poche e distanti tra loro.

Il prossimo treno non sarebbe passato per un altro paio d'ore, e a quel punto tutti i giovani pony sarebbero già stati richiamati alle loro case per cena. Non c'era quindi ragione di interrompere i loro giochi. Alcuni si rincorrevano, altri tracciavano segni nel terreno, altri ancora si divertivano a nascondersi e cercarsi negli sprazzi di boscaglia poco più avanti seguendo le rotaie. Non c'erano animali là, se non qualche gatto che ogni tanto cercava un po' d'ombra per un pisolino. E qualche insetto, ma quelli erano dappertutto, soprattutto in estate.

Un bosco vero c'era, vicino al villaggio. Era in effetti più un villaggio che non una città. Il bosco era verso est, dopo i campi, dopo le ultime case ancora abitate. C'era stato un incendio, una volta, una ventina d'anni prima o giù di lì. Buona parte del bosco aveva preso fuoco. Ma per fortuna le fiamme erano state sedate prima che arrivassero ai campi o peggio alla città. O villaggio, che era probabilmente il termine più calzante. Nessuno s'era fatto male, e il bosco negli anni era guarito.

A guardare i giovani giocare, venivano in mente tante cose al vecchio unicorno. Uno dei pochi unicorni nel villaggio, a dirla tutta. Ma lui era nato lì, e c'era affezionato, e poco gli importava di quelli che pensavano se ne sarebbe dovuto andare a Canterlot a studiare invece di star lì. Di libri buoni ne aveva anche a casa, e il marmo non gli era mai piaciuto. Molto meglio i mattoni, a sentir lui. Ma sì, gli tornavano alla mente un bel po' di ricordi, a guardare i giovani giocare.

Un po' erano i suoi. Quando ancora era un puledrino anche lui, il che era comunque stato parecchi secoli dopo che Luna era stata esiliata, checché ne dicessero i giovinastri. Era loro la colpa se non s'erano mai informati sulla questione, il fatto che lui avesse letto di quanto era successo mille anni prima non significava che lui fosse stato là a vederlo succedere. Aveva giocato anche lui da quelle parti, quand'era giovane. Ma i binari non erano ancora stati costruiti a quel tempo.

Di figli non ne aveva avuti, nipoti neppure. A guardare i puledri e le puledre giocare però, gli tornavano in mente i giorni in cui pony ora ormai adulti erano stati giovani anche loro, giorni in cui lui vecchio lo era già ma un po' meno. C'era in effetti un pony in particolare a cui pensava spesso. Firecracker, si chiamava, i genitori una coppia di abitanti del villaggio che avevano la loro casa in campagna tra i campi e ancora vivevano lì. Firecracker invece non abitava più in città da qualche anno ormai, ma mandava ancora lettere ai suoi. Ogni tanto, l'unicorno si chiedeva come se la passasse.

Panic

It was still early in the summer. The Sun shone bright in the sky, and most ponies spent their time quietly resting in their homes, away from the heat. And a hive of flying scorpions slowly grew in the corner of one of the classrooms in the School of Friendship.

Starlight gave Trixie a look so flat it made paper sheets look like high-reliefs by comparison.

"I may have misjudged the coordinates on the long distance matter transfer spell," the blue mare admitted.

"At least no students were here this time around."

Sunburst happened to peek into the room as he walked down the corridor. "Is something wrong?" His eyes focused on the black mass in the corner, and the arthropods occasionally making their way in and out of it. "Are those flying scorpions?"

Starlight nodded, her eyes still on Trixie.

Trixie gave a weak smile towards Sunburst. "At least they're harmless, right?"

"I believe you're thinking of scorpionflies," said Sunburst, walking into the room. "Flying scorpions are definitely not harmless."

Trixie turned back towards the hive. "So we should just teleport it away, right?"

"If a member of the hive is separated from the rest for long enough, or is far enough away from the hive, or is otherwise no longer receiving the queen's pheromones, it will mutate into a new queen and build a new hive," Sunburst explained, staring at the structure with rapt fascination.

"So either we make sure every one of them is in there, or we'll have to spend the next few years hunting down all the new hives that will pop up as a result," Starlight added.

Trixie swallowed. Then she closed the door with her magic. "None of them left the room, right?"

"Why don't you ask the one who teleported the hive here and didn't tell anyone until she realised it was growing?"

"Trixie believes she saw none leave the room while she was busy not warning you two," Trixie said.

"Tell her that I don't know if I trust her," Sunburst said, pacing back and forth, eyes still glued on the hive, keeping his distance to avoid angering the creatures.

"Trixie understands." Her horn lit up, the glow of her magic enveloped the hive, and Trixie teleported the flying scorpions away in a flash of light.

"Let's hope that got all of them then," said Starlight, opening the door again and stepping out of the room. Sunburst walked out behind her, and so did Trixie.

"Would you like to go for some ice-cream later today?" the stallion asked.

"Sure," Starlight answered, and with that the two began to each head towards one end of the hallway.

Trixie was left alone there in the middle. "I'd like to be there as well," she said, then she turned and walked back into the room, wondering why she'd walked out in the first place. She still had work to sort out in there. Closing the door behind herself, she sighed and moved back to her desk.

SgBH

"I was a horse today, I thought you might want to hear about it."

Twilight pulled back from her phone and just stared at it for a moment. "You mean you went through a portal?" she tentatively asked to the girl on the other end of the conversation.

"Yes. I should have said that. It would be a lot stranger if someone who isn't one of your friends started turning into a pony in this world." The tone was dry, and there could be a note of annoyance or envy to it, but it was hard to decipher given how Sugarcoat's tone was always dry and flat. "It was near the school, by the way. My school. It's not your school anymore."

"Noted," Twilight said, as she took an actual physical note down on her notebook. "I'll come check on it later today, give me a couple of hours or so." She jotted down a couple more notes. "Oh, make sure no one else accidentally ends up on the other side."

"Of course. I would say something about how it takes a tear in the fabric of reality for you to pay a visit to your old school, but that would imply you have anything here you would ever want to see again and we both know that was never the case. Crystal Prep to you was at best the grey hollowness of existing through your days without anything worth noting happening and at worst downright emotional trauma. I'm not sure I would even come myself in your position." Again, it was impossible to tell if there was any annoyance or regret or emotion in the girl's voice, or if she was just simply stating facts.

Twilight stayed silent for a moment. "What's on the other side of the portal? Are you alright? You weren't hurt in there, right?"

"There's a city on the other side. I am not alright. I wasn't hurt there."

It took Twilight a moment to process what she'd heard. Once she did, she asked, worried, "What's wrong? What happened?"

"I stumbled into the portal, I spent some time on the other side once I realised what had happened. I spent a while wondering what would happen to my clothes and the things in my pockets once I came back here. I briefly wondered if you have run experiments on the matter. When I felt I'd been away enough that someone might start worrying about me, I decided to come back so people wouldn't freak out over nothing." Sugarcoat remained silent for a moment. "I'm not answering the other question."

Twilight flinched. "Would you like to talk about it once I get there?"

Another pause. "I don't know."

"I'm coming there right now," said Twilight, as her free hand stuffed her belongings into her backpack and she got up from her chair.

Sugarcoat didn't say anything for a while, listening to the sounds coming from the other side of the phone. Then, she closed the call.

Live Feed

The door slid closed with a thud, and the key turned in the lock with a click. Glancing around to ensure the windows were shut, the changeling stepped forward and undid her disguise. On the other side of the room, trapped inside a shiny green pod, the orange mare whose likeness she'd been wearing stared back at her with empty, adoring eyes.

Chrysalis made her way closer towards her. As much as she would have loved to drain the pony for every last bit of love inside her, she couldn't afford to given her situation. In fact, she couldn't afford to keep the pony there much longer, nor to keep impersonating her. She would need to move in a couple of days at most, find another prey to replace.

She needed to lay low, as much as she hated the fact. And she needed to stay inside towns. The wilderness wasn't safe for her yet, not until she'd recovered enough energy. Not with all the things running around that shouldn't have been there. Staying with ponies meant she risked being found, but at least she was safe. She estimated it would take just a couple more victims before she was fed enough.

It wasn't the first time she'd done something like that. Find a target living alone, possibly with low levels of social interaction. Use her powers to control them, then keep them as a source of food for a couple of days. Pretend to be them when inside or near their house, claiming poor health conditions as an excuse for not being seen outside. Spend most of the day disguised as a different pony, gathering information. And when it all was over, clean up, make the target forget everything, and leave them with just a migraine.

It had worked well so far. She'd been careful enough in picking ponies to avoid anyone noticing a pattern. But she was still on edge. Her powers had turned out to be far more weakened than she would have thought after she'd awakened, and being forced into hiding from the ponies she'd been so close to ruling over made her seethe with anger like nothing else.

If anything, she could at least make some of them remember their place. Walking up to the pod, she opened her mouth, siphoning a bit more love out of the half-conscious unicorn. She'd been rather easy to take control of, thinking about it. Perhaps it had to be expected from a relatively old pony like her, especially one who lived on her own. She did appear to have a daughter, at least going by the old pictures of a blue filly, but there was no trace of a father or husband in the house.

Chrysalis's musings were interrupted by a sudden knock on the door. She turned towards it, and mimicking the captive mare's voice she asked, "Yes? Who is it?"

No answer came, but something thin and white was slipped beneath the door. Curious, Chrysalis picked it up in her magic. It turned out to be a folded sheet of paper, with text on the inside. Just a couple of sentences, elegantly written, with no signatures.

I know the look of a creature who's trying to stay hidden. How have you been, Chrysalis?

Machinations

It was clearly a puzzle of some sort. He could see the door, hidden behind the crumbled rock. He just needed to figure out how to get it to open. An ordinary pony might have assumed the entrance had crumbled, but not him. He could see clearly that it was not the case there. It was a puzzle.

He sat down, contemplating the vaguely skull-shaped rock formation and the swamp around it. It looked a bit like a swamp at least. He wasn't sure, he hadn't been paying attention when he'd gotten there. He wasn't even exactly sure where he was or how he'd gotten there. But he wasn't crazy. He'd just been a bit distracted. And there was a puzzle there for him to solve.

It wasn't too complicated, he was sure. Not if he looked at it from the right angle. Now, the other entrance on the other side, that one was legitimately unusable. But the one in front of him could be opened. He was sure of it. Very sure of it, he could feel it. He was good at puzzles.

And there was that small chunk of rock, there to the right, a little above his height but not too far. He could reach it. It could be pressed, or pulled or maybe twisted. It was clear, the way the base stood out against the wall made it clear, it was almost outlined. But it couldn't be so easy, could it? He looked better.

There was a switch of some kind. Yes, he could see the connections from that button. It could go to the door, there was a path there, but currently it was pointing upwards. A separate wire, leading somewhere above. A trap, most likely. But a switch was there, to redirect the path, and he just needed to look around for it.

There. There on the ground, to the left. A pressure pad, half hidden behind a chunk of broken rock. And he could see the connection, the wires leading from it to the switch near the other button, embedded inside the rock wall, faintly shimmering as ghostly apparitions to his eyes. Extending one hoof, he pushed down on the pressure pad. The switch rotated, redirecting the first wire's signal, and he reached out with his front hoof to push down the button.

There was a click. The ground shook, just a bit, and as he drew back he saw the previously crumbled entrance open up. A few chunks of broken stone fell down, while other sections of the wall slid out of the way, and a moment later the passage was free of hindrances and everything went still again. He felt rather proud of finally having solved a puzzle. He'd told them he wasn't crazy.

A broad smile on his face, he stepped into the cave. It was mostly orange, filled with sharp rocks, and after a moment he realised he wasn't exactly sure why he was there. He did however notice a purple alicorn was also present, and was staring at him with a confused expression.

Recursion;

"Do you remember that day, Twilight? When the Behemoth came to Canterlot?"

"Of course I do. Why is that relevant?"

"Do you remember the screams, Twilight? Do you remember the yelling, and the commotion, the creatures calling out? Do you remember all the confusion, Twilight?"

"Like it was yesterday. Why?"

"What did you hear when the Behemoth came to Canterlot, Twilight?"

"Silence, and its steps echoing through it."

"Did anyone speak, while the Behemoth walked through Canterlot?"

"No."

"And yet you remember the screams."

Imagine you have a deck of playing cards. All the cards are face down, you can't tell what type of cards they are, you can't move the deck, and you can't determine how many cards there are. The only thing you can do is draw. Now imagine that whenever you pull out a card from the top of the deck, the card turns into a different deck of cards. A normal one, and it can be for any possible type of game so long as cards are the primary focus. No two cards from the main deck ever produce the same deck, and the main deck seems to never run out of cards. Eventually, on a given draw, provided you keep drawing, the main deck will produce a new deck with exactly the same traits as the main one.

"That doesn't make sense."

And yet here we are. This is what this is. We know that's what happens, because we've seen it happen. There's a more interesting question though. One that is an actual question. Can cards from the new deck produce decks that are the same as the ones produced by cards in the previous deck? You see, that's the real crux of the matter. If the answer is no, then both decks are merely windows, and so will be every new copy of the deck made by a copy of the deck. But if the answer is no? What if an infinite number of perfectly identical repetitions is possible?

"Frankly, that seems like a pointless question. If they are identical in every aspect they may as well be one. What interests me is the variability of iterations. There are infinite numbers between one and two, but none of them are three. Is every kind of deck possible?"

That's not a question you can answer. Not in time, anyway.

"There are things in here that are best ignored. Books that are best unread, knowledge that is best unknown, memories that are best forgotten. And that is why I won't allow you to enter. But I can search for you, if you wish, if your wish is something I deem I can safely grant. Do not take it as an insult to your intelligence, Twilight Sparkle, the fact alone that you're here is enough to prove that you surpass many other creatures in that regard. And not to your wisdom either, you would not be allowed to remain if it were otherwise. But the fact remains that the words hiding in these halls could break and reforge any mind who happened to gaze on them. I trust you are wise and smart enough to know where your own limits lie."

Chapter 76

Chrysalis carefully opened the door, her disguise restored but her horn ready to strike. No one was there. Nervous, she locked the door again, and turned back towards the trapped mare. She needed to get away from there, and make sure whoever had found her lost track of her. She would have wanted to silence them directly, but with no lead on their identity it wasn't safe for her to expose herself.

Sunburst looked in every direction around him. But no matter what, the mare wasn't there. He even tried to open the doors on each side and peek into the other wagons, but she wasn't there either. If she'd used magic, he hadn't noticed at all. No sound or light or movement from her horn, she was just there a second and gone the next. He'd even smacked his legs against the seats given how she'd disappeared from below him. Confused, he returned to his old sitting position and opened the book again.

Firecracker stepped through the door and into the building. There was another pony with them, the owner noted. A pegasus mare, with a blonde mane and a grey coat. Neither one of the two said anything, and though the mare did look around the place with a curious glint in her eyes she followed the other to a table, where the two sat down to wait. Smiling to himself, the owner headed towards the kitchen.

Scarlet Ribbon stared out of her window, worried. He was nowhere to be seen. Last time she'd seen him, he was heading towards the woods. That had been over a day before at that point. It wasn't the first time he left to go somewhere else, and it wasn't her responsibility to keep track of him, but still she feared he would be in danger. He'd always been if not a friend at least a close acquaintance, and seeing him lose himself like that had hurt. She wished she could help him in some way.

Rarity slowly came back to awareness, the rays of the Sun streaming through the blinders like blades striking her eyes. It wouldn't be completely correct to say she woke up, as she'd been closer to passed out than asleep. A hand reached out for her phone on the nightstand, only to strike against naked wood. Then she remembered that it was still in her pocket, in the jacket she was still wearing. With no real energy to her motions, she fetched it out, opening it to reveal dozens of unread messages she didn't want to go through, missed calls, and an hour that wasn't morning by any possible definition.

Twilight held Celestia against the wall by the neck, staring into her eyes. Their breath was the only sound in the dark and empty hallway. For a few long moments, nothing more happened, as the two only studied each other. Then, Twilight let go, turned around and silently walked away, leaving Celestia to fall back to her hooves and catch her breath.

Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 2

"So does anyone actually have a clear idea of what's going on?"

Rainbow's question was met with resounding head shakes.

"I figured." The mare returned to playing with her phone.

Twilight aimlessly tapped on the table with her hoof. "I can probably try to make some theory over it, but I don't really feel like there's a point if everything will just get thrown out the window when a new update comes."

"But isn't that the fun part of theorising?" Rarity pulled her chair closer to Twilight's. "And besides, we are starting to see something more concrete. The pieces start to fit together if you go back and know what you're looking for."

"But do you really want to go back?" Rainbow asked without lifting her eyes from the screen.

"Well, I am sure that won't be needed forever. Eventually everything will make sense," said Rarity, her smiling, positive expression refusing to leave her face.

Twilight sighed. "Well, I do have to acknowledge it, some loose ends are being tied up, some threads are being furthered and weaved with others. But on the other hoof you've got new things opening up, and even older ones getting no attention! I'm just not sure if I can trust him is all."

On the other end of the room, Pinkie momentarily paused her aggressive baking session. "So we've established they're an he?"

"Yeah, I dug a bit around for his social media links." Rainbow dismissively waved a hoof.

Rarity moved yet closer to Twilight. "But are you not intrigued by it all? The mystery, all the different stories and the way they influence each other, don't you look forward to seeing it all unfold?"

Twilight gave a meek shrug. "It's hard to get excited about it. I mean, I would be the first gushing over it if things started to make sense. But right now all we have are a few points and lines, and I have no certainty they'll all lead up to some grand design. I don't feel like wrecking my head over trying to connect the dots when I'm not sure if there is a drawing in there or if I'm just imaging constellations."

Rarity thoughtfully chewed on a cupcake. "Sometimes you need a little trust, you know?"

"Trust is earned," said Twilight. Then she took a sip from her milkshake.

"I feel like someone who you've never interacted with should get the benefit of the doubt the first time around. You shouldn't assume the worst."

"And I feel like the rope is being pulled a little too much here for my tastes, and I'd rather wait to see if the water is clear than jump in and get burnt."

"I think you got a little tangled up with your metaphors there," Applejack said, suddenly looking towards the two horned ponies. Then she looked back to Fluttershy and to the game they were playing.

Fluttershy drew a card. "Either way, all both of you can do is keep reading. You shouldn't be arguing over how the other does it."

Flatline

Starlight stared at her unfinished solitaire, then at the deck of cards yet unturned lying beside it. She didn't feel like doing even that. And she was bored.

Oh, maybe it would have been different if she'd had something she actually needed to do or work on. But no. Nothing at all. She was just supposed to relax, apparently, despite how clearly impossible that was after the day she'd had.

A thought wormed its way into her mind. She could sneak into the right room, and then pay the other world a visit through the portal. And a moment later, that fantasy was shattered, as she remembered that there was no portal there in the castle anymore. There hadn't been one for months at that point. Not since that summer day when the Behemoth had come to Canterlot. The mirror had been shattered that day, and no one had worked on repairing it.

Not that repairing it was necessarily needed. There were other portals to the human world, if one really wanted or had to go there. Quite a few actually, some less accessible than others. She supposed, if she really wanted to, she could always sneak to the archive instead to take a peek at the list of known ones, and then go to one of those. But that would probably take a while, and at that point she could just take a regular walk outside.

Although there was something still alluring about having that walk be on the other side instead. In a place where nobody would know who she was. Where she didn't have to worry about who she was. Where she could pretend to be someone else, if she wanted to, and pretend that the things that had happened that day weren't real.

Just to take her mind off of them for a bit. Just to allow herself to. Even if she knew it would all be back to her at the end of it, she wished she could ignore it, just for a while, just finally manage not to think about it.

But she couldn't. And it was always there, pressing at the back of her mind, trying to force its way back to the centre of her attention. It would be like that for days, she knew, probably weeks, perhaps months. It would never truly leave her.

It had come and gone, like a flash of lightning. She'd had no control over it, no say in how it had happened, no time to react. And just like a tree struck by lightning, she would bear that scar in her memory.

It wasn't, all things considered, a bad thing. She hadn't been hurt, none of her friends had either, no other innocent creature had been involved. But it wasn't only about that. It was about being forced to watch it happen. Being powerless to stop it.

She should have been used to it. It had been the same with the Behemoth. But they'd found things to work with. A way to fight back, adapt to the changes of the world. They had grown hope that they could one day take back what they'd lost.

And yet, again, fate had chosen to remind her that there were things out there outside of her control, too great for her to have any say in their course.

A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 3

Stone sat down in front of Soarin'. Still a touch confused, he took a better look at the note he'd received from the unseen pony. "Valid for one party or musical number at a valid time of your choice. Parties and musical numbers can only take place outside of Sugarcube Edge's working hours. Cannot be traded, sold, or used for a musical number or party dedicated to someone other than yourself. Redeem this ticket by contacting Pinkie Pie. In case the ticket is lost, you can receive a replacement ticket by contacting Pinkie Pie," he read from the piece of paper. Then he looked up at Soarin', still just as confused as he'd been.

"I would have loved to throw you a party or a song when you arrived, but that has been harder to do since I started working here more often," a voice said to his right. "Speaking of which, may I take your orders?"

Startled, Stone Brick turned, seeing a pink mare standing there near their table, a notepad in her hooves and a pencil behind her ear. By the sound of her voice, she was the same pony who'd been hiding underneath a pile of plates just moments before.

Soarin' cut in through Stone's momentary silence, quickly enough for it to not become awkward. "Just bring us whatever the day's special is, Pinkie."

"On it!" Pinkie gave a salute and marched back towards what was presumably the kitchen.

Turning back to his companion, the earth pony asked, "So what's the deal with this place? And with her?"

"Pinkie is like that. Just accept it." Soarin' laid back in his seat. Talking against the background noise of the other clients' chit-chat, he continued, "As for Sugarcube, it used to be just a bakery and confectionery. And it used to have its own building, too. A really pretty thing, looked sorta like a giant cupcake. Unfortunately it had to be taken down after the Behemoth, it wasn't holding together."

Looking around the place, Stone nodded along, signalling the other to keep going.

"All kinds of business had trouble after the Behemoth, some more than others. Sugarcube's owners needed a new place to make and sell their stuff, and the owners of the restaurant that used to be here needed help repairing the building and staying financially afloat. So they made a deal, combined their businesses, and picked Sugarcube Corner as the name for brand recognition." Soarin' sat straight again.

"And why does that Pinkie girl keep calling it Sugarcube Edge?"

A bowl landed in front of Stone Brick. "It's because we're not on a corner anymore," Pinkie said, setting down an identical bowl in front of Soarin'. "Sugarcube Corner used to be at a street corner, but now we're not. So now it's Sugarcube Edge."

Stone looked at the contents of the bowl for a moment. They were indecipherable, but anything with a smell that good he would have eaten blindfolded. "Shouldn't it be Sugarcube Side then, since you're on the side of the road now?"

Pinkie gave a shrug. "I prefer the sharper name."

Savatage

Chrysalis stared at the other creatures in the hall, while sitting on a couch in the corner, disguised as a green pegasus with a blue mane and a key as his cutie mark. Not anypony who actually existed, as far as she knew, she'd just made the disguise up on the fly. And if anyone asked, she would just pretend to be a friend who'd come to visit Suri.

Things had worked out impressively well. She'd found the perfect target to replace. A mare like Suri Polomare wouldn't be receiving any visits, especially not while she was on vacation. No one would find out she'd replaced her, and all Chrysalis had needed to do to prevent anyone from peeking into their room was say that she was working on a new line of clothing and didn't want her designs to leak.

She didn't even need to worry about finding a second disguise. She could easily walk around the hotel as Suri, no one would be able to tell anything was off about her. And she'd done that, actually, for a couple of days after arriving there and capturing the mare. Everything had been going well, perfectly even. Everything up until the second morning.

I told you I'm good at recognising you, Chrysalis. You shouldn't run like this. Why don't we have a talk instead?

Chrysalis growled, glancing down at the piece of paper clutched in her hooves. She'd been found, again, and by the same creature it seemed. The writing looked the same at least. Despite her best efforts to hide her tracks, despite travelling through the edge of the woods as an animal for part of the way there, despite moving in darkness, she'd still been tracked down.

At that point, she wasn't going to run away again. It would be a waste of time and energies, and it would most likely achieve nothing again. And the odds of her finding such a good target were low. But there was more to it than just that. If that annoying purple nuisance and her friends hadn't come after her yet then whoever was aware of her position was probably not planning to call them in.

Going by the last message, they just wanted to talk. Directly. And Chrysalis had decided she would give them just that. She was done running. A Queen shouldn't run, anyway. If this creature wanted to play with fire, she'd make sure they got what they deserved. And there was always a chance they wanted to help her. All things considered, meeting them was the best option.

And so, there she sat, studying all the other creatures in the hall. But none seemed to have any interest in her, all too preoccupied with talking with each other or merely passing by. Of course, Chrysalis had no lead as to where the other was actually planning to meet her, but if they were tracking her steps then she assumed they would make themselves known.

But for a while, nothing happened. Then, just as Chrysalis was about to start losing her patience, the receptionist suddenly stood up from her desk and walked towards her. "Excuse me," the mare said, "one of our guests made a call asking about you. She says she's waiting for you in room eight-thirteen."

Vydeokldt Rediostahr

"Hello, Twilight."

Twilight, whose head was currently held low just past the rail while a hoof on her mouth tried to help in preventing her from vomiting, slowly pulled herself back and turned towards the other. "Do we know each other?" she asked, studying the pony.

"No. I do know a Twilight Sparkle though. But she doesn't have wings or a horn, most of the time." The mare was busy trying to give her surprisingly long mane a shape with some hair ties.

Twilight just raised an eyebrow, pursing her lips to suppress another gagging fit.

The other's mane finally settled on what was probably the desired shape. "I'm Sugarcoat."

It took a moment for Twilight to actually process that. "Oh. Oh, right, Sunset wrote to me about you. I didn't realise you were coming today." She looked back inside the building, a little embarrassed. "It might not be the best time."

"Did someone die?" Sugarcoat asked the question almost emotionlessly, like she was asking about the weather or about the most boring and trivial of matters. She looked towards Twilight, a flat and calm expression on her face.

"Not exactly." Twilight stood a little straighter. She didn't want to traumatise someone on their first meeting, but the other seemed weirdly unfazed by the possibility. "Why do you ask?"

"I can smell it on you."

"Oh." Twilight's cheeks went a shade darker again. "I'm sorry about that. Yeah, it was something along those lines."

"What exactly is it about?" Sugarcoat adjusted her glasses with a hoof. "Or is it classified information?"

Twilight looked up for moment, frowning in thought. She decided there was no harm in telling the other about it. A piece of the whole story, at least. "I'm sure you will believe me if I tell you parallel universes exist, right?"

Sugacoat's silence and unchanging expression were an effective answer, though one that made Twilight regret the attempt at humour.

"It turns out some are less friendly places than others. And someone decided to..." Twilight actually had to pause for a moment, her brief academic excitement strangled by remembering what she was actually talking about. "Well, let's just say you don't want to go into that room with the guards in front of it. It wasn't anypony from this world, but still someone."

"Knowing there are worse universes than my own is oddly reassuring in a way I feel it shouldn't be." Sugarcoat turned and began to walk away from the balcony, following the direction Twilight herself had seemed intent on going towards.

Twilight walked beside her. "Have you been enjoying your time here?" she asked, trying to bring the conversation back onto happier themes.

"Yes," said Sugarcoat, in a tone that did not line up with the word. "Cadence gave me a brief tour of the place. Your Cadence. Our Cadence doesn't have wings. I suppose it's still better than demonic bat-like wings though." She was silent for a moment. "I'm bad at telling jokes, so I mostly don't, and as a result I never get better at it."

Twilight looked puzzled. "No, I guess that one was okay. It's the timing you should be working on." She pursed her lips. "Are you alright?"

Sugarcoat didn't turn as she answered. "I'm being crushed by guilt thinking about how a version of Twilight that had a proper group of friends to support her through her life became the leader of a nation while all I did for mine was pressure her and be mean to her until she snapped and almost destroyed the world. But aside from that, being a horse is very nice."

tr

"It's all chromatic aberrations running on hard cardboard in the metanarrative layer," the odd bug-like creature said. She looked like a very large stick insect, her legs just a bit wider in proportion, though her neck more closely resembled a pony's and her head was almost fully that of one. She wore shades over her eyes.

Shining stood silent in front of her for a few seconds, as a light breeze coming in form a window somewhere down the corridor pushed the door behind him to open a little wider. Finally, he settled onto one of the many questions whirling about in his mind. "How did you get in?"

"The door was open," casually said the other. She titled her head slightly to the side, studying the stallion.

"No it wasn't. I locked it. I had to unlock it just a moment ago to get into this room again, and there's no other copy of the key in here except for the one I have with me." Shining's expression was perfectly flat, likely a result of many different emotions all trying to warp it in different ways and all evening each other out.

"Oh." The creature cocked her head to the other side. "The window was open?" she tried.

"It wasn't. But even if it was, why is it closed now?"

"Oh," said the creature again. Then she slowly began to move back on her six legs. Up until she reached the wall. And then up the wall. And then on the ceiling, moving backwards towards the door.

But before she managed to reach the exit, Shining closed it shut. "Who are you?"

The creature put on a disappointed pout. Then, looking away from the closed door and towards Shining, she asked, "Would you believe me if I told you I am the Raven?"

"I have no idea what that means." Shining turned towards her. "Who are you?"

"You know Rarity?"

Shining blinked. "Yes?"

"Imagine a set of two mirrors endlessly reflecting off of each other, and there's a wig that looks just like her mane taped around one of them." As she said that, her two frontmost legs rose up to accompany her words with gestures.

"That makes no sense and still doesn't answer my question." Shining kept staring at her, a more aggressive edge entering his glare.

The creature awkwardly gave a fake cough into her tarsus, eyes darting nervously from side to side. "Do you ever fall through a portal while hiking and end up on the other side as something other than a horse, and also as a different biological sex?"

Shining took a step closer, though his expression softened a little. In a calmer tone, he asked, "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

"Uh..." The creature looked back towards the exit. "Time travel?" She suddenly transformed into a tiny bug and slid underneath the door. Then, on the other side of it, the heavy resounding of her steps signalled she had taken on her larger six-legged form again. "And tell Celestia it will be very not nice of her to drop me like that!" she yelled, her voice growing more distant as she frantically rushed away from the room.

Plot Progression

Sugarcoat and Twilight stood, speechless, as the large, bug-like, six-legged creature rushed by in front of them, followed shortly after by Shining Armor, clearly intent on chasing her.

A moment after the commotion had moved past them, the first turned to the second with a questioning look.

Twilight looked back. "I have no idea."

"That's reassuring, actually." Sugarcoat returned to walking down the corridor, and Twilight followed at her side.

"So," the alicorn began to ask, "what are your plans for the rest of the day?"

"Just visit the town," said Sugarcoat. "Go look at the shops. Have a walk in the centre. Maybe read something if there's a library. I will probably look for a bakery or something close and see if they have snickerdoodles." She kept walking, looking straight ahead. "It sounds boring. But I just want to be normal."

Twilight bit her lower lip, unsure of what to say. "Do you want me to help you with anything or-"

"No," Sugarcoat interrupted her. "Walking around with a princess is the last thing I want in terms of keeping my visit normal, and while your words about the situation between me and my Twilight were welcome and will be helpful you're still a reminder of my mistakes, so I would rather not be with you while I sort things out." A moment of silence went by, then she added, "It sounds like I'm antagonising you for offering help. I'm not, and I do appreciate the offer. I'm horrible at any kind of social interaction, especially with someone I'm not familiar with."

"I don't think you are," Twilight immediately replied. "You're being too harsh on yourself. I meant what I said about you and the other Twilight, you should be working on improving things now and not regretting mistakes you can't unmake. And besides, you have friends, don't you? You can't be as bad as you say you are."

"I only ever really became friends with them after we almost died together. Before that the closest thing I had was occasionally doing what I can't describe as anything other than bullying together with Sour or Indigo. Every other pretense of me having any sort of social relationship was just the byproduct of being one of the top students, and between the shift in the school's climate after Cinch was kicked out and the way I wasted the rest of that year moping in a corner and completely annihilated my grades that all crumbled away. I'm completely socially inept and just because I was able to bond with other sapient creature through a shared near death experience against a magical entity bent on world domination things aren't going to change."

Twilight would have chuckled at that last statement, given her own experiences, but the rest of what Sugarcoat had said kept her from it, especially coupled with the mare's worryingly flat tone. "I didn't know about your grades."

"I didn't tell Twilight. I was held back a year. Right now I'm keeping them just on the edge so I can easily tank them again if I want."

"But why?"

Sugarcoat actually stopped walking there. "Because I've got nowhere else to go outside of that school. My whole personality was built around a system that doesn't even exist anymore. I don't know of any other place where a complete disregard for emotions and an obsessive focus on facts would be welcome. And more importantly, if one exists then I want to stay as far away from it as possible. The old Crystal Prep pressured me into following its concept of being the best so much that I don't think I could ever manage to fit anywhere else right now."

Twilight turned towards her, tentatively extending a hoof. "Isn't there anything you wanted to do in your life?"

"No." The word was dry, flat, emotionless. "The only thing I ever had time to focus on was being the best student. All I managed to do was hurt others."

Plot Aggression

"Isn't there something you enjoy doing? You must have some sort of hobby or something like that."

"You mean aside from bullying?" Sugarcoat kept trotting along the hallway, Twilight at her side. "I know how to drive a motorcycle, but I had to learn that for the Friendship Games. I wouldn't say I'm particularly good at it, or that I enjoy it. There's singing, but that's not much of an accomplishment in a school that forces you to be good at that too." She paused for a moment. "There's dancing. That I have fun with. But I'm not particularly good at it either."

Twilight pursed her lips, frowning in thought. "I'll see if I can think of a way to help. I'm sure there's something out there you would enjoy, we just need to figure out what."

"You're thinking of asking my acquaintances in the other world for help, hoping they know something about me that I'm currently unable to see because of my shaken emotional state, aren't you?" Sugarcoat stopped as she finally reached the door leading outside.

Twilight gave a slightly too large smile as she heard that. "Maybe?"

Sugarcoat answered back with a rather small one, but distinctly a smile nonetheless. "I know I can get better, I just don't think it's worth forcing others to put up with me in the process. But I can't stop you from doing it. Thank you." She looked outside and sighed. "I might go look for a clothing shop. It should help reducing the stares." She looked at her thighs for a moment. "And I'm more used to pockets, I'd rather not have to keep money in my hair."

"Oh." Twilight nodded, her eyes darting to follow Sugarcoat's gaze for just a moment before she stopped herself. "Yeah. You should probably try to exercise with that, too," she added, looking at the opposite end of the mare instead. "I can help with it if you want."

Sugarcoat's eyes slightly crossed as she focused on the horn protruding from her forehead. "I suppose you're right." She adjusted her glasses after that. "Well, it's been nice meeting you. See you around."

Twilight was about to wave the unicorn goodbye and turn back, but suddenly she noticed something. Or rather, she noticed someone. "Hah!" she half-yelled, pointing a hoof in their direction as a smirk suddenly appeared on her face.

Sugarcoat's eyes followed the direction Twilight was pointing towards, and settled onto a rather tall winged unicorn who she assumed was Equestria's own version of Canterlot High's principal. The horse was still, her eyes open wide, her pupils shrunk to pinpoints and focused on Twilight, her mouth half open, one of her hooves holding a slice of lemon cake halfway between the ground and her face.

During the brief moment in which the two winged unicorns stared silently at each other, something fell between them from a balcony on the higher floors of the building. The large creature then quickly scrambled back to her six legs and began to run away, and a moment later Shining Armor landed in the same spot, encased in a bubble of pink magic which he then dispelled. A second after he was gone, again running after the creature.

Twilight and the other tall horse, after both of them had stared at the display in confused and unmoving silence, once more locked eyes with each other, and then both disappeared in flashes of light.

Sugarcoat adjusted her glasses again, and finally walked out of the building.

Soft Regression

Twilight found Sugarcoat on a bench, sipping on a chocolate mint milkshake, staring aimlessly at the empty parking lot. She would have preferred to meet her sooner, but the other had insisted that she should focus on the portal first, and so Twilight had. Now that had been temporarily secured, with more proper measures on their way, and so it was finally time to have a chat.

"Hello," Sugarcoat said, as Twilight sat down beside her.

"Hello," came Twilight's attempt at a reply. She stared for a moment at the shop behind the bench, where Sugarcoat had gotten her milkshake from. "Do you want to talk about it now?"

Sugarcoat kept drinking for a moment, possibly mulling over her answer. "I still don't know."

Twilight almost cringed at that. "Well... Do you want to tell me more about what things are like on the other side of the portal?" she tried, in an attempt to get the conversation going in some direction.

"There's a town, like I said. Pretty big. Lots of weird crystal buildings."

"Oh! That must be the Crystal Empire," Twilight said. "Sunset has told me about it. It's interesting that a portal could lead there too." She gave a small giggle. "Thought I suppose it would make sense, Crystal Prep after all."

Sugarcoat didn't even look at Twilight, instead drinking some more of her milkshake, and the other girl's smile slowly turned awkward.

"So, um..." Twilight trailed off, drawing circles in the ground with a foot, trying to think about what more she could ask. "Why were you near Crystal Prep?"

There was a faint, barely audible clink, as Sugarcoat's teeth closed in on the edge of the glass, and for the first time Twilight saw something she didn't recognise on the girl's face. "Why do you think I was there?" Sugarcoat half-yelled, half-asked a moment later, her tone rushed and annoyed.

Twilight drew back slightly, frowning. "Sorry. Yeah, I suppose you would have reasons to visit, unlike me."

Sugarcoat looked away, and said nothing for a bit. Then, wanting to take the conversation elsewhere, she spoke again. "I'm a unicorn on the other side."

"Really? Well, I guess I don't have much to go by on what type of pony one should be," Twilight said. "So you can use magic there?"

"I suppose so." Sugarcoat went back to staring in front of them, and took another sip. "I didn't try though. I wouldn't know where to start."

Twilight adjusted her glasses. "Believe me, I know what that's like."

"I got a lot of stares," Sugarcoat continued. "Mostly towards the thighs. I think it had to do with how I seemed to be the only horse without any symbols there."

Twilight frowned as she heard that. "Sunset told me something about those. They're called cutie marks, I think. And I don't think it's normal for someone to not have one." She took out her phone and began to type a message to her girlfriend, asking for details.

Sugarcoat finished the last of her milkshake. "I enjoyed being there." She turned towards Twilight. "Do you think I could go back?"

Post Possession

"It's about you."

Rarity frowned, confused. "Me? Did I do something wrong?" Then her expression turned to worry. "Is something plotting against me?"

Twilight gave a nervous look behind herself, at the ponies trotting outside the shop window. "It's more complicated than that."

Catching her intention, Rarity flipped the sign hanging from the door, and lowered the blinds. "Tell me."

Twilight cleared her throat, moving to sit on the nearest chair. "It's about the other you," she explained. "The one in the human world."

"Oh, goodness." Rarity moved to sit in front of Twilight. "Did something happen to her? Is she alright?"

Twilight looked hesitant, and took a moment to swallow before continuing. "She's safe, right now, if that's what you mean. No accidents or serious physical harm. Not yet at least." She paused for a second, breathing in. "But she's not alright. And I need your help. She needs your help."

Rarity leaned a little closer to Twilight. "I will do what I can, Twilight, that's not even a question. But will you please tell me what is the matter with her?"

Twilight looked to the side. "You know that cupboard you keep under lock and key, the one where you store wine bottles and occasionally take one out for special occasions?"

Rarity nodded. "I take it my human self shares my fine tastes in drinks."

"She unfortunately doesn't share your moderation," Twilight replied. "Not as of late, at least."

Rarity pursed her lips. "I know I went too far myself a few times when I was younger. A rather disgraceful display. And with such unrefined liquor, too." She shook herself out of her reminiscing. "But that is not the topic here. I believe what you're saying is that something has pushed her to drink? And how bad are things, currently?"

Twilight chose to answer the second question first. "I only know what Sunset has told me, and she only knows what her and the others have been able to piece together. But as far as certainties go, from what their Sweetie Belle has said, she spent a whole late afternoon and evening drinking, to the point where she passed out still dressed on top of her bed at the end of it, without having dinner. As far as what else she might have done..." Twilight looked to the side again.

"Yes?"

"Well, you don't know what a car is, but... Imagine a cart, but faster, and made of metal. And imagine a bunch of those being driven around, and it's all like the traffic in Manehattan," Twilight explained. "Now imagine doing that while drunk." Before Rarity had a chance to freak out, she continued, "They're not actually sure she did it. Just that the keys were moved at some point. But in her current state, she might have."

Rarity put a hoof to her forehead, frowning in worry as she looked down. "You want me to talk to her, right?"

"The others don't know where to start. You know yourself better than anyone else." Twilight offered her a tentative smile.

"And why is she like this?" Rarity asked, again.

Twilight wanted to look away again, but forced herself not to. "There are things about the other Rarity you don't know. And there's a reason I haven't told you or others about them." She sighed. "This isn't only about you."

How Applejack got her #################################################################################################################################################################################################################################### Back

Applejack sat on the stone railing, looking at the lake in front of her and at the Moon and stars reflecting in it. She'd be moving again come Monday, but still had all of the weekend to prepare for that, and this time it would only be a short drive. She swallowed the last bits of her ice cream cone, balled up the paper napkin and placed it in her pocket after cleaning her mouth, then took out her phone.

She was in a good mood, there and then. Good enough that she was willing to risk ruining it. Staring at the screen, she began to scroll through her unread messages.

Nothing from Rarity. That was, in a small part, a relief. But it still did bother her, in some way. She knew the other girl wasn't doing well. Aside from that, a few messages in the group chat, a few pictures from Fluttershy, a few other direct messages from Rainbow and Twilight. Strangely enough for her, her mood was still up by the time she got done reading through all of them and responding. A thought wormed its way into her brain.

Before she had time to think twice on it and change her mind, she tapped onto her screen and started a call, placing the phone next to her ear and waiting. Thankfully, the other picked up before any second thoughts could come make her close it.

"Applejack?" came Twilight's voice from the other end of the conversation. "Hello?"

"Hello, Twilight," Applejack replied. Her shoulders relaxed, letting go of a tension she hadn't realised was there. "How are things going there? I had a bit of time so I thought I would shoot you a call."

"It's been a while since I heard you," Twilight said. "It's nice of you to call. Things here are going well enough, we're still looking for a new bass player." There was a subtle sound Applejack couldn't quite make out, accompanied by a pause in Twilight's speech. "Things are going well except for Rarity."

If Twilight's first remark about her lack of calls had made her flinch, the latter mention of Rarity flat out pushed Applejack to bite her tongue. Of course the conversation would end up there. Still, she could delay it for a little while. "I'm sorry about leaving the band like this. I suppose I could record my portions here and send it to you girls."

"No, it's okay. You're busy, and we need someone for live shows anyway." Twilight stayed quiet for a few moments. Both of them knew why. "And, besides, it's not a big deal that you left the band. We understand. And something like it might have been inevitable even without you having to leave, after you, well... You know."

Applejack swallowed. She knew she'd have to have that talk at some point, no reason to run from it again. "How bad is she?"

Twilight's breath on the other end of the line was heavy enough to hear. And Applejack forced herself to stay there and listen to her answer, as snow began to fall on the lake.

A Brief History of Terms: Coil

Even back when it first surfaced to the broader public, it was a hard, near impossible task to trace the proper origin of the term coil. The meaning was officialised when it had already spread and been used, in what really only served as recognition for the effective existence of it. Much like the public statement in which it was utilised served as little more than a formal acknowledgement of a phenomenon most of Equestria was becoming aware of by itself.

The date of Princess Twilight's speech to the nation on the matter of coils was recorded, of course. So was the hour, and if one really wanted to they could determine the exact minute when the word was first spoken in an official context. But that would be a rather pointless endeavour, if perhaps an amusing one.

Truth is, the matter of coils had by that point already been amply discussed elsewhere, the term widely accepted, and not one creature even paid mind to Twilight's use of it in her speech. The origin of words is indeed a very complicated matter in most cases, and much more fluid of a process than what many might assume. Especially when a term originates, as one could say, from below, from groups of creatures and their need to identify something, and not from above, imposed by an authority.

To determine the origin of the word coil, in its post Arrival meaning, the best course of action is perhaps that of determining the time and place of appearance of the first coil itself. This, if anything, provides a window of time during which the term must have come into being. Unfortunately, not only is the topic of the first coil just barely less complex than that of the origin of the term, it is also less helpful than what one might hope. While it is agreed on by a rather sizable portion of those studying the phenomenon that Firecracker was the first to display the signs of one, they only later learned of the term, through contact with others who themselves had learned it from other sources, after other coils had been found and studied.

Some claim it was Pinkie Pie who coined the term. Reports agree that, upon stumbling into Princess Twilight's castle while the latter was in the process of examining one, she claimed that was their name, and having nothing else to call them by everyone temporarily adopted that. Where disagreements arise is on whether she made the term up on the spot and it simply stuck, or if she herself had heard it elsewhere and it was this reaffirmation of its use that prompted Twilight and her assistants to keep it. It does not help matters that Pinkie might have used the term elsewhere before then, giving then the impression that it was indeed already in use.

This does, however, at the least provide a date before which the term must have originated. Coupled with a rough estimate of when Firecracker's coil first manifested, the result is a three week period during which the word first gained its new meaning, alongside a rough geographical estimate of either Ponyville or the neighbouring areas, at most about a fifth of the country accounting for the potential spread of information.

As for why the term was chosen though, no one has been able to provide a suitable explanation, leading much credence to the possibility that Pinkie Pie may have indeed come up with it herself.

Nightmare in Silver

Applejack walked through the frozen wasteland. Jagged spires of blue ice rose around her like trees in an orchard, catching what little light was there and twisting it. The ground was covered in snow, almost sand-like in the way it moved beneath her hooves. A soft, gentle breeze blew over her coat and through her mane. The sky was cloudy, a uniform curtain of grey blue nothingness.

It should have felt cold. And by all means, it was cold. And she could tell it was cold. But it wasn't uncomfortable, for some reason. It felt cold, yes, but not colder than her own skin or body. And the snow wasn't wet, not as it usually would be. It didn't melt against her skin. Instead it stayed the same, and even as she tried to pick some up and breathe on it nothing changed. Even her breath, despite how cold the air was, was invisible, and breathing in didn't hurt as it should have.

She tried looking around, searching for any sign of anything that wasn't ice or snow. But there was nothing else. Nothing more than the cold and frozen world surrounding her in all directions, as far as her eyes could see flat plains covered in snow where ice rose from the ground. Uncertain, Applejack kept walking around, wondering what else she could do.

Suddenly, she felt something. Like a pull on one of her hooves, stopping her from lifting her leg. She immediately turned her head towards it, but couldn't see what was blocking her there, the base of her hoof buried in snow. Quickly she brought another hoof there to move away the snow and see what else was beneath it. But all she found was ice. Ice on the ground, ice beneath her hoof, and ice crawling up her hoof and enveloping it. She tried to pull again and saw how the ice kept its hold on her, and terrified she realised she could no longer feel anything in her hoof.

As she desperately kept pulling, trying to think of a way out, her two other hooves were locked in place just as the first one had been, leaving only the still raised one she'd used to move the snow free of ice. And then, adding to her dread, the ice began to crawl up legs.

She'd thought, at first, that she could no longer feel her hooves. But as ice spread higher along her limbs, she realised that was not the case. She could still feel her hooves and legs. Merely, they were different now. They weren't simply encased in ice. They were being turned to ice themselves.

Suddenly she felt what she thought was a touch on her back. But turning towards it, she saw one of the pointed branches of the twisted trees of ice around her had extended, and was now piercing through her flesh, as ice spread through her body from there as well.

Turning her head from side to side, all she could do was pant as more and more of her body turned to ice, both crawling up from the ground and from new spikes piercing through her. Until the ice reached her lungs, at least. Then her breathing became calm. Her throat was turned too, and she could no longer scream. And finally, her head was transformed, leaving her in darkness.

Applejack slowly opened her eyes, seeing the Moon shining through her room's window. She remembered the nightmare, yet she felt nothing over it.

A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 4

The food was better than good. Of course, the days of eating rations on the road made it better, but even so Stone Brick was pretty confident that whatever he'd been served was the best thing he'd ever eaten. He still had no idea of what it actually was, but that didn't particularly interest him.

He stepped out of the restaurant, once the two of them had paid, and turned towards Princess Twilight's castle. "Are we going there now?" he asked Soarin'.

"I don't see why not." With a flap of his wings, the pegasus moved ahead of Stone, and once more began to lead the way through the town.

The Sun was past its peak at that point, but not by much, and the streets were largely empty. A few ponies were still there, some waving at Soarin' as they saw him. But for the most part, creatures were inside their homes, either eating lunch or relaxing in the early afternoon.

"I think I asked before too, but why exactly are you going to visit Princess Twilight?" Soarin' looked back over his shoulder at the other pony.

Stone Brick bit the corner of his lips. "I have something I would like to show her. And questions I would like to ask." He hoped that would be enough to convince the pegasus, at least for the moment. Some part of him didn't want to make even a mention of his scale to anyone who wasn't Twilight, though he couldn't quite place where that intent was coming from.

"Well, I hope it's something important. The Princess doesn't have much time to waste." Soarin' was about to say something else, but his eyes were caught by a familiar face turning the corner. "Hey! How's it going, Silver Spear?"

The pony in question looked up at the two of them. "Soarin'! Things are alright, same as always. What about you?" he asked, walking towards them. He was a lightly built unicorn, his short mane a dark grey while his coat was a more light shade, like silver. He wore parts of a suit of light blue armor, clearly the same model as the Royal Guard.

"Going well," Soarin' replied. "Was just taking this stallion here to see Princess Twilight. We had lunch at Sugarcube, you should try the day's special if you haven't eaten already." He shook the other stallion's hoof in a friendly gesture. "How's Lightning doing?"

Silver huffed, rolling his eyes. "Same as always. Had to drag her to her house yesterday night too. But she's fine otherwise, she didn't seem too bad this morning."

"So when are you gonna start hitting on her?" Soarin' asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I can't hit on an intoxicated mare, Soar'. And besides, it's against protocol. I'm there to guard her, not to have sex with her."

"Just ask her out when she's sober. It's out of your work hours anyway."

Silver rolled his eyes again. Looking at Stone, he said, "Don't trust any type of relationship advice he gives you. Especially not when it involves mares."

Soarin' gave an amused snort. "Well, I think she's missing out if she doesn't hit on you first. I know I would."

"Then why don't you?"

Soarin''s eyes suddenly nervously darted from side to side. "Right, the castle. Stone, we should get going. See you around, Silver." With that, he flew a fair bit forward, far faster than Stone could reasonably keep up with, then stopped just past a corner to wait for him.

"Oh, I'll be seeing him alright," Silver said, passing by Stone's side. "Stone, was it? Enjoy your stay in Ponyville. Have a nice day." With a wave, he left, walking down the road.

If you don't mind, I'll sing a song

"It used to be a lullaby," the pony said, moments after he'd finished singing. "I always thought it was fitting here, but I hadn't had a chance to show it to anyone else yet."

Twilight nodded. Her eyes wandered over the scenery, the red and empty hills of dust underneath the burning crimson sky and the scorched, blackened and consumed ruins of what had once been a city far off in the distance. "Was this your home world?"

The stallion looked back at her. "It might have been. It might have not. I wouldn't tell you." He took a couple steps in her direction. "There are more practical reasons why I've brought you here. It's easier for me to send you back, and harder for you to track me." He reached Twilight, and stood in front of her. "Not that you would manage to find me anyway, but this should make it hard enough for you to decide against trying."

Twilight held his gaze. The smugness wasn't lost on her, but she knew it was deserved, if slightly annoying. "How do you navigate them so easily?" she asked, not for the first time.

Not for the first time, he answered, "Experience, and memory. And lots of time to get familiar with the system." He smirked. "Now, will you follow me back to Equestria?"

Twilight stared towards the horizon, contemplating. "Is there anyone here?"

He followed her eyes and turned towards what little was left of the city. "Not that I know of, but I haven't checked. Still, I doubt it."

Twilight nodded once, then shook her head. Of course, there wasn't much of a point in trying to look for survivors there and then, and he'd known that too when he'd chosen where to take her. She turned back to him. Still...

The look in Twilight's eyes gave away her intentions before her mouth had a chance to speak them, and he cut her off right as she was about to talk again. "No."

Twilight pursed her lips. "But it would be the right thing to do."

That just got him to shake his head and chuckle. "Honestly, I don't think there's anything right in this whole ordeal. But the point is, Twilight, that you have your own world to take care of. It's not your responsibility to help those living in other universes, and it shouldn't be."

"I choose who I want and don't want to help," Twilight replied. "I've been to different worlds and helped people there before. I won't stop just because you told me to."

"You need to draw a line, Twilight, or time will draw it for you." He stared at her again. "Where will you stop? Because I've seen a lot out here, and you're a smart mare, and we both know you can't get to the end, should there even be one. You can't save everyone. You can't even save most. There will always be more things to do than you have time for. So I suggest you spend that time on the world you're closest to, and accept that you can't save the rest. Otherwise, you risk losing everything instead."

In Tenebris

The unicorn marched up and down the length of the laboratory, the click of his steps against the stone pavement echoing around the room in a nervous, frenzied rhythm.

"Are you sure about this?" his companion asked, as she herself sat at a table and clutched an empty beaker in her hoof just to have something to hold on to.
Her body slightly twitched every few seconds, the tension inside her trying to push its way out.

He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to her, his eyes wide and his pupils shrunk to the size of needle holes. "I have never been less sure about anything in my life," he stated, in what sounded closer to a dam breaking than to a pony speaking. "The only thing I know for sure is that if this doesn't go well then we're both going to die a slow painful horrible death, probably at each other's hooves. Is there anything you'd like to say to me before we go out there and sign our death sentences?"

The beaker in her hoof seemed threateningly close to cracking, but still managed to remain intact. "I think we signed our death sentences when we came to work here, Star'."

"We didn't have a choice there. The alternative, I'll remind you, was death. You don't disobey an order from Her Majesty." He sat down, pushing his back against the wall. "I guess you could argue she signed our sentences for us. We never really had a say in all this. We're only allowed to do what she's okay with us doing."

"When you think about it, everyone signs their death sentence they day they are born. That's how life works. Or something." She tried for a smile, and ended up with something decently close to it. "Except for her I guess. Fuck."

The other gave a resigned, almost accepting sigh. "Well. Time to go. Been nice knowing you, Sunlight." He got up, and began to march towards the door.

The other unicorn set the beaker down, and stood up as well. "I told you, don't call me Sunlight." She stepped to his side, in front of the door. "Also, same."

"Sure thing, Sunlight." With a flick of his horn, he opened the door and walked into the next room. There, behind a curtain of glass, a stallion lay strapped to a table, a worried but determined smile on his face.

The two unicorns looked at each other, then the mare lit her horn and spoke to the pony on the table. "We will begin now. I will warn you, this is going to hurt."

He said something in response, probably about doing it for the glory of Her Majesty or some other honorable idiocy the soldiers were brainwashed with. It was a bit of a shame they couldn't hear him, but they both knew they'd be grateful for that once the screams began.

The male unicorn swallowed, readying his spell. "All clear?" he asked to his partner.

"All clear." She nodded.

Closing his eyes, the unicorn flared his magic, and the machine on the other side of the glass hummed to life.

5%

A dark, deep black crystal descended from the ceiling, at the tip of a metallic arm that positioned itself through the clicking gears at the junctions of its different sections. Behind the glass the unicorns watched, slight tremors wracking their bodies and expressions.

The stallion on the table still looked determined, yet his expression couldn't help but falter whenever he looked at the unicorns'. But he knew it would be safe. It had to be. He had been chosen for that role by Nightmare Moon herself, and there was no reason to hesitate. No reason to ever go against her will.

The crystal came down onto his chest, like an hammer and a nail onto a plank of wood, and no amount of loyalty or training or brainwashing could stop the scream. Beyond the glass, the male unicorn lowered his gaze, refusing to watch the stallion's face. But the other kept her eyes on him. Somebody had to, after all.

Thick black protrusions began to appear on the pony's chest, expanding outward from where the crystal lay halfway into his body. They were much like veins, only far larger, and not belonging to his old body. Like roots of something else slowly forcing itself on him, snakes crawling beneath his skin and through his flesh.

His face was distorted by agony, his eyes shot with blood and his pupils shrunk to the tiniest size. He shook, violently, but the straps around his limbs and torso held him down. Whether he was still screaming or he'd run out of air for it was a question that crossed the unicorns' mind, if not one they wanted an answer to. If anything though, he was at least still alive. Clearly, as a trained soldier, he was robust enough to take it up to that point.

The surface of his body began to shift. His hair grew darker, until it was a deep blue that could barely be told apart from black. It started in different patches at first, but soon his whole body had changed colour. His eyes were blood red at that point, dozens of vessels popping in them, and his teeth grew sharper and misshapen as they pushed against each other in a mouth too small for all of them.

The female unicorn clenched her jaw. She knew what would come next, and knew no subject had ever made it past that point. On the other side of the glass bubbles began to form on the stallion's skin, some small as an ant while others bigger than an eye. It was as if his own skin and flesh and hair had turned to tar, slowly melting as it enveloped him.

The shaking continued. The male unicorn finally looked up again, knowing the time had come, knowing from that moment onwards he would be a dead pony walking. And he watched, slack-jawed and breathless, as the bubbling on the stallion's skin stopped and the almost fluid mass around him seemed to revert in its melting process, growing stable.

The pony's limbs and body began to expand and shift. His torso shot up, burying the crystal all the way in, while his restraints snapped. Bones split and shifted in his legs as muscles wove themselves around them in new patterns, thick and outlined by the almost lucid layer of his hairless skin. His hooves broke into chunks and grew sharper, claws at the end of four-digit paws that looked more like swords than anything an animal should have.

His jaw and mouth grew wider and longer, a myriad of sharp fangs now finally free to position themselves in it. His pupils turned to slits inside red irises, below the prominent brow of his elongated face. Pushing the machine atop him aside, bending it and snapping a few cogs in the process, he stood and turned towards the glass window.

On his forehead was a small perpendicular ridge of bone, just as blue-black as the rest of his body, and two similar but longer ones flanked his spine. On his chest what looked like a tangle of vines just below his skin, its many ends stretching towards the rest of his body and growing thinner and deeper as they did. A wild tuft of blue fur, more akin to smoke in its apparent consistency, had replaced what used to be his mane, and a similar one began at the middle point of his otherwise barren tail.

The creature stood on all fours, his arms now longer and thicker than his hind legs and his back slightly curved as a result. There was no trace left of the crystal used, not on him or on the machine. He stared at the unicorns with his red eyes, his expression impossible to read for them. His breath was regular, if a little heavy, his nostrils slits at the front of his face that flared open and closed in sync with his chest's motions.

The male unicorn pressed his face against the glass as he stared at the result of their experiment, the full weight of the events finally crashing down on him, while to his side his female companion sat frozen on the ground and felt the same. And they both looked at the creature's eyes, as the creature looked back.

"What have we done?"

Love as a Construct

The door to room eight-thirteen stood in front of Chrysalis, no different from the many other doors flanking the empty corridor. She grit her teeth in anticipation, prepared to shed her disguise and unleash a torrent of magic at the first sign of danger. She shouldn't have been afraid, and she hated the fact that she was. But she couldn't help it.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to convince herself there was nothing to be nervous about. Whoever was inside that room had made a huge mistake if they thought they could take her own. She placed a hoof on the knob and opened the door, stepping through.

The door closed behind her with a click. The room was dark, but in the darkness she could make out a shape, the silhouette of something that was unmistakably a pony staring at her from the furthest corner. And it was a familiar shape indeed. "You," Chrysalis growled out, halfway surprised and halfway afraid. Then her eyes adjusted to the low light of the room a bit better, and the pony stepped forward, and both her shock and her concern grew. "No," she whispered. "You?"

The mare stopped in the middle of the room. "Hello, Chrysalis. How have you been?" she asked, her tone cold. The darkness around her made it almost impossible to notice the few things that set her apart from the pony she so closely resembled, but Chrysalis couldn't mistake the expression on her face. "Or perhaps I should call you mother?" She smirked. "As for me? Well, I've been really busy being dead. You know, after Harmony murdered me. You'd know about it, you were watching after all. Though that's not a concern anymore, as you can see."

Chrysalis's disguise dropped and magic flared bright around her horn as she hissed at Twilight's clone, rage blazing in her eyes. But she didn't fire any spells, and her hissing died down to a low grumbling after a few moments of complete lack of reactions from the other. She stared at her through her slit pupils, wings tense on her back. "What do you want?" she barked at the alicorn.

The mare smiled at that. "Your help," she simply answered.

"As if I would ever help you after you betrayed me once!"

Twilight's clone rolled her eyes at that. "Chrissy, please. Have you considered that, if all your children end up betraying you, that might mean you're a terrible parent?" She chuckled at that, then continued, "But honestly, do you think I would trust you? I never said you have to do this willingly. I was thinking more about having you obey my orders.

"And don't look at me like that. I know what you're thinking right now." She smirked again. "Think about your options, Chrysalis. I beat you once already, and you were stronger then than you are now. No one is going to help you if you try to run away. You don't have a choice here, unless you want to find out what happens when your enemies aren't as merciful as Equestria's leaders."

Chrysalis swallowed. There wasn't a single word of what the alicorn had said that she didn't hate from the core of her being, and the remarks about the other changelings' betrayal made her want nothing more than to lunge at the mare and shut her mouth forever. But she was smart enough to recognise that the overgrown log had a point, even if doing that alone was almost enough to make her throw up. The magic in her horn died down. "What do you want?"

Hall of the Mountain Queen

The stallion blinked. "Hello," he said.

The alicorn, confused, looked between him and the section of previously crumbled wall that had inexplicably opened up and allowed him access to the cave. "How did you get in?"

The stallion appeared puzzled by her question. "Well, I stepped in through that hole over there." He turned to point towards the direction he'd come from.

That did nothing to alter the alicorn's confused expression. "How did you get the rocks to move like that? I didn't see any magic."

"Oh. Well, I just pressed the button that was there on the wall." He kept looking at her, still smiling.

The mare refrained from asking what he actually meant by that, convinced whatever answer he could give would not help her understand. Swearing to check on the wall later, she asked instead, "What do you want?"

"Hmm." The stallion put a hoof to his chin, thoughtfully chewing on nothing. "I could go for some soup right now."

The alicorn's mouth sat half-opened for a moment, while she kept staring at him just as bewildered as she'd been when he'd first stepped in there. "What do you want here?" she tried again, making the meaning of her question clearer.

"Oh. Oh, well, nothing. Really, I just wanted to get in." He looked back to the entrance once more. "I like puzzles. That was a fun puzzle. Do you like puzzles?"

The other brushed aside the question. She had more of her own to ask first. "How did you even find this place?"

The stallion was silent for a moment, still smiling. "I have no idea." A few more seconds of silence. "Do you know the way back to the nearest city?"

"Yeah." The mare wondered why she'd actually answered that. Shaking her head, she moved on to the next pressing issue. "Do you not recognise me?"

The stallion blinked, then tilted his head. "You're a pony?"

"...Yes. Anything else about me that sticks out as recognisable?"

"You're an alicorn."

Silence stretched on, and the mare continued to be more confused than she'd ever been. "...And?"

The stallion clicked his tongue. "You're purple?"

The faintest twitch moved the mare's right eyelid. "Do I not look like Princess Twilight Sparkle?"

"Oh." The stallion stared at her a little bit longer. "You do."

The alicorn's mouth clicked wordlessly, teeth hitting each other just a little faster than normal. "So you can see that I am Princess Twilight."

"I don't know. I've never met her." He leaned forward, curving his brow as he got a better look at her. "Isn't she a little less grey than you ar-"

Twilight's clone closed his mouth with her magic and held it shut. "You know, never mind. Let me just take you outside and point you towards the nearest town." She enveloped him in her magic and began to walk towards the new entrance he'd created.

"Thank you," the stallion tried to say, though it came out muffled and barely intelligible. He let himself get carried outside without resistance, going almost limp in the alicorn's magic's hold.

Constructivismysm

"Oh! Can we stop here? I saw a thing over there, can we go check that out?" The stallion pointed a hoof towards a very small clearing in the trees, bouncing up and down on his other legs as he looked towards the alicorn, excitement evident on his face.

Twilight's less colourful imitation rolled her eyes. She didn't want to entertain the stallion's doubtlessly nonsensical request, but she knew well she wouldn't hear the end of it for the whole rest of the trip if she didn't. Begrudgingly, she began to walk towards the designated spot. "Okay. What is it?"

Truth be told, she was tempted to shoot the pony in the back and leave him there. But she wanted to avoid the risk of someone coming to look for him and stumbling into her hideout. She'd need to move out of it at some point, she'd always known that, and it looked like the time had come.

She would have been working on preparing her things right that moment if she hadn't been forced to walk with the stallion all the way back to the town. She'd tried to give him directions, of course, and he'd even tried to follow them, but in no more than ten minutes he'd always turned up back where he'd started, lost again and once more asking for guidance.

"It's a puzzle!" the stallion replied, moving some leaves out of the way and staring intently at the wooden stump sitting in the middle of the small patch of grass. "I like puzzles. You still haven't told me if you like puzzles. Scarlet likes puzzles, but she says I've gone crazy. I haven't gone crazy. You don't think I'm crazy, right?"

Eyeing the off-size mare-model clothes the stallion wore, which she'd gotten a better look at after taking him out of the cave, the mare chose not to answer that question. "How exactly is this a puzzle?" she asked, seeing him fidget with a few pebbles on the ground and a tuft of grass slightly taller than the rest.

"Well, this is a lever, as you can see." He tugged onto the grass. "Then there are these buttons here." He tapped the pebbles. "All I need to do is figure out the right combination I need to press, and then it should open. You can clearly see the cables leading to that cut off tree there in the middle."

Twilight's clone reconsidered the idea of actually ending the pony's life, or at least knocking him unconscious and dragging him back to the town. Her patience past its limit, she was about to point out how nothing of what he was saying made any sense, but a sudden cheer from him blocked her. Then came a click, and the tree stump in the middle of the clearing opened up as a small platform rose from it, a bowl on top of it.

"Oh, nice. Soup." The stallion walked towards the bowl and gave a few experimental licks to the contents. "It's still warm, and really good. Do you want some soup?"

Equine Existence

I know you're there. I know you're hearing this, or seeing it, or reading it, or experiencing it in some way. I know you are aware of it.

That is about the extent of what I know. I don't know who you are, or what your world is like. I can't even begin to imagine how the laws of physics might function there, if they even exist in some form. I don't know what your goals or interests are, if you're experiencing this for a reason or merely by chance, if you do it for a purpose or merely for entertainment, I don't know if you even have concepts of purpose or entertainment.

I have my guesses as to what or who you might be, and I suspect something akin to myself might exist there where you live, or more properly exist, perhaps. But the truth is I can't be certain. Not of how many are actually there to receive this message, not of when this message will arrive, not even whether or not some might understand it. But I know someone is there, and it's my duty to try to communicate.

There are a few things I need to tell you. First, do not interfere. I don't know if it would be in your powers to do so, but I have seen the consequences of an outside intervention on our timeline. It is not something we can afford to risk. Twice over we've had to branch from the original path to fix mistakes, and both those were from creatures inside our universe, if ones related to the outside. That's without taking into account the damage the fabric of our reality might sustain if you tried to reach it, which could be quite catastrophic after all the tears already torn in it.

Second, and I hope you won't need this advice, be prepared for a potential essence crash on one of your own. If there is anyone, anything that you recognise as a mirror of our world in yours, please have a plan ready. As a last resort, we might need to initiate an emergency transfer on some pieces of our reality, and yours will be the target. I apologise for this, and for any damage this might cause should things come to it, but the damage we'd avoid in our world would be far greater than the one brought onto yours as a result. I deemed it a fair trade, if only in desperate circumstances.

Third, learn. This concerns the safety of your world more than my own. There are realities I can no longer save, but yours is not one of them. So I want you to study what you're receiving. Take every bit of information you can. I know the communication is jumbled, but try to piece it back together. Because what happened to my world might happen to yours too, and you will want to be prepared. And maybe, I can hope at least, if the transmission is the right way out of order, if we ever do figure it out, you might be able to avoid disaster completely.

Lastly, remember that it's all chromatic aberrations running on hard cardboard in the metanarrative layer. This is important. You'll understand if the time comes. That's all I have time for.

Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 3

"What exactly was up with that last chapter?" Rainbow Dash asked, adjusting her sunglasses and shifting in her sunlounger to lie more comfortably on it.

"Honestly? Probably just the writer trying to get artsy." Twilight took a sip from her drink, lying prone on her towel.

The Sun slowly moved closer to the horizon, not yet reaching sunset but already colouring the sky and ocean with tinges of orange and red.

"What was half of that even supposed to mean? It all sounded like jargon." Rainbow pushed a particularly daring crab off of herself with a wing.

"It probably was," Twilight answered.

"Oh well. I've messed with time before, and there haven't been any noticeable consequences." Rainbow placed her hooves behind her neck, trying to relax.

Removing a small emerald from her mouth, Rarity trotted back to her own towel. "Discussing the newest chapter? I haven't actually read it yet." She gave a brief look around. "It seems I have left my tablet inside."

"Just use mine." Fluttershy held out her tablet for the unicorn to grab, then went back to focusing on her seashells collection.

Pinkie looked in her direction. "Did you find anything I could use here?" She tapped the vaguely elephant-like sand sculpture in front of her, then immediately moved to hold it as it shook a little.

Fluttershy paused for a moment. "Sorry, I don't think I have. I can try looking for some long ones for the tusks if you want."

Pinkie shrugged. "Don't stress about it." She picked up a cupcake from the tray she kept nearby and popped it into her mouth.

Twilight picked up a gumball from the tall pile at her side and began to chew on it.

"Huh." Rarity set Fluttershy's tablet back down. "That was indeed odd. Do you think it's meant to be meta or is it an in-universe sort of thing?"

"If it wasn't meant to be meta then he did a really poor job at it," Twilight said between chews. "Because it reads meta. And it's not like we've seen examples of someone who could be reading that in the story."

"Oh, well. At least elsewhere the plot seems to be moving." Rarity lay down on her back.

"And completely still in other places," Twilight replied. "Still waiting on the next update for that cracks world."

Rarity bit the corner of her lips. "It is admittedly a lot he's trying to juggle. And some of it does feel, well..."

"Useless fluff?" Twilight looked at Rarity.

The unicorn gave a guilty half-nod.

"Can you excuse me for a moment?" Applejack asked, standing up. "I have a thing I need to check on."

"Oh, sure." Twilight just smiled at her, and then went back to chatting with the others.

Applejack walked away from the group, up until she reached a tall enough rock to hide her entirely. Stepping behind it, she had a look around, to make sure no one else was close. A bit hesitant, she cleared her throat. "Fuck?" she said. Then she looked around again, suspicious and confused, her eyes searching for something she couldn't find.

Anticipation

"Are the chains too tight?"

"They are not, Princess," Celestia answered. And immediately she regretted having said so, as Twilight pulled them tighter.

"Very well." The purple alicorn sat down at Celestia's side, as both stared into the opaque mirror placed against the wall, waiting. "You know," she said, "there's a universe out there where we're ants. There probably is, at least."

"Fascinating." Celestia squirmed just a tiny bit, as much as her bonds allowed her to. "And what type of ants do you believe we would be, Princess?"

Twilight adjusted her crown. "Well, given my position I would presumably be the queen."

Celestia looked a little taken aback by that. "Given I was princess long before you, shouldn't I be the queen?"

Twilight threw a glance at Celestia's cutie mark. "They do have rather large behinds, so perhaps you're right." She went back to staring ahead. "Then again, they also possess shorter life spans. Perhaps we would exist as multiple different ants, and in time the ones who correspond to me would become queens."

"Or perhaps time in that universe would stretch out to mirror that of our own."

Twilight tilted her head. "Perhaps. That doesn't seem to be the case with the human world though. There is a version of you there as well, and I wonder why she exists now."

Celestia silently chewed on that question for a bit. "Aren't all ants in a colony technically sisters or at least half sisters, and all daughters of the queen?"

Twilight looked at her, raising an eyebrow. "Technically, I suppose."

"The only kind of sex they could have between each other is incest then." Celestia nodded. "That's kinky."

"That is kinky," Twilight agreed. "However, regular ants don't have sex with each other."

"But we wouldn't be regular ants if we were ants. We'd probably be sapient," Celestia replied.

"Maybe in some universes. In others we'd just be regular ants."

"How could it even be us then, without a mind of our own to distinguish us from other individuals?" asked Celestia.

Twilight sighed. "Merely connected by a thread across worlds, perhaps. Merely reflections of the same higher entity onto different planes."

"And we've established I would be a queen and you a regular ant in some of those iterations." Celestia looked at her.

"We have."

"Then you would be my daughter, and sex between us would be incest."

Twilight blinked. "Did you know there is a specific type of ant, within a colony, in some species at least, that will swallow large quantities of nutrients and bloat her insides with them, then lay waiting in a designated area and serve as a food reserve for other ants by regurgitating food into their mouths when they come to her?"

"I believe I have read about this, yes. This, as well, is very kinky, but it does not interest me as greatly as the previous topic."

"I share in that feeling of recognising the kinkiness of this fact but not being as interested by it as I am by the thought of incestuous mother and daughter copulation between me and you as ants."

Southern Cross

"It's been a while."

Standing in the remains of what had once been her throne room, Twilight looked out from the torn wall. Har eyes ran over the scar the Behemoth had left in the city, still not healed, then settled onto the translucent form of the creature itself.

She wore a coat of brown fur, thick over her back and shoulders, and still she was shivering underneath it. She knew the cold was inside her, but the coat did help somewhat. She stared a moment longer at the creature, her expression unreadable, then turned to her side. "Any doubts left?"

"None," came the answer. "I believe you'll want to read what I found then."

"Certainly so." Twilight's eyes went back to the Behemoth, then she looked higher and higher, as high as she could. Still, she couldn't spot him, either he was too far or the creature's body hid him. "I need answers, and I'm not even sure what the right questions are."

Then she sighed. "Be careful, here. Don't fly into its shadow." Stepping forward, she opened her wings and took flight, soaring over the gardens now overrun with weeds and back to the still inhabited portions of the city.

Sunburst greeted them with a wave as they landed. "I had some food prepared. I don't trust things wouldn't freak out if I did it the other way while he's nearby." He threw a glance at Twilight's companion. Then he took off her coat, shaking away the layer of frost that had built up on it, and opened the door to the nearest building, welcoming the two of them inside.

As the stallion went to hang the coat near the fireplace to dry it off, Twilight stepped through the door. Lightning Dust gave a nod in her direction from the table, and so did Starswirl from the corner. "Where's Rose?" the alicorn asked, taking a seat in front of the pegasus.

"She's out, taking some samples of local flora," Sunburst replied. "She should be back in a few minutes." As the rest of those present moved to sit at the table, he placed six wooden bowls and spoons on it, then unhooked the metal pot hanging over the fire and began to pour soup in each bowl.

Twilight slid a little to the side on the bench, to let Starswirl have more space to sit on. Lightning was directly in front of her, Sunburst to the pegasus' right, and Rose would take the last remaining space in the corner, at Twilight's right and on the side opposite to her.

Sunburst took a first sip of soup with his spoon, blowing gently on it to cool it down. "Should we wait for Rose to be back before we start with the explanation?" He looked at the corner opposite from his, to the occupied space right next to Twilight.

Twilight pondered that, eating a spoonful of soup herself. "I don't believe that will be necessary." She turned to her right. "Please, begin."

You just keep on trying

Tempest sat in the garden, in the shade of a tree, a book open in her hooves. Flipping a page, without looking up, she said, "Hello, Twilight."

"Hi." Twilight set a water bottle besides Tempest's chair, then sat down in front of her. "How are you feeling today?"

"Well enough." Tempest didn't stop looking at the book, but she did pick up the bottle and drink some. "They say I might be dismissed soon. Relatively soon, which still means a couple of weeks."

Twilight nodded. "That is nice. What are you reading?"

"Anatomy." Tempest tilted the book to show Twilight the cover. She turned another page. "It's quite fascinating. Could be quite useful for fighting, too."

Twilight chuckled, then sighed. "I don't think you should be doing any fighting in your conditions. Not while your hind legs still aren't working right."

"I assure you, Twilight, my hind legs work perfectly well at this point." Tempest took another sip of water. "They just don't do so consistently." For the first time she took her eyes off the book and looked towards the trunk of the tree. "I do have that with me, in case they give out all of a sudden." She nodded towards a small metal harness with wheels and a net to support her lower half. "But it's been happening less and less lately. It should stop being a problem in time."

"I see." Twilight had a look at the tree, as if suddenly distracted by it, then returned her attention on Tempest. "That's not why you're reading that book though, is it?"

Tempest bit the corner of her lower lip, silent. She turned another page.

"How is it?" Twilight asked.

"It's..." Tempest sighed, then bit down on her teeth as she swallowed. "It's not bad, right now. It doesn't hurt anymore. It just feels odd. Alien. I'm not used to it." She finally looked at Twilight. "But I think I can live with it. It's not... It's not as big of a deal for me as it could be for someone else. I can't imagine how much Rarity would be freaking out over this. But I never particularly cared for that kind of stuff, and I think things will still be like that." She looked back at the book. "Hormones might be a problem to deal with, though. I've talked about it with the doctors. I'll have to decide if I want to deal with the consequences of this or with having to stop them."

"I understand." Twilight stepped closer to Tempest, and placed a hoof on the unicorn's shoulder. "Whatever you choose, I'm your friend, and I will be here for you."

Tempest smiled. "Thank you." She turned a page.

"Oh. I brought you something." Twilight's horn lit, and a large orange levitated out of the saddlebags she'd left on the ground.

Moving her gaze away from the page, Tempest looked at the orange like one looks at water after walking through a desert. "Thank you," she whispered, grabbing it from the alicorn's magic with her hooves.

And then Twilight had to remove Tempest's book from her legs, before the unicorn drenched it in orange juice as she dove into the fruit.

K~tt~nm~~s

Magic flames swept over Chrysalis's body as she donned her previous disguise once more, then she stepped out of room eight-thirteen and gave a look around. "Are you coming?" she asked, turning her head back to the pony still inside.

Twilight's clone walked into the corridor and shut the door behind herself. She gave a look around as well, then motioned for Chrysalis to follow her, beginning to head towards the stairs.

Somewhat surprised, Chrysalis started to walk behind her. "No disguise spells?" she asked in her altered voice. "Twilight Sparkle is not exactly the kind of pony that can pass unnoticed."

The alicorn smirked at those words. "Don't worry about it, Chrissy. I've picked up a few tricks of my own." As she said that, they turned a corner, and a couple of other ponies passed beside them and continued along their way.

Chrysalis followed them with her gaze for a moment, then focused on the alicorn once again. "Don't call me Chrissy," she hissed under her breath, despite knowing she couldn't stop the other from doing it. Wanting to divert the conversation before she was reminded of that fact, she asked, "What should I call you, anyway?"

"Hmm." Twilight's clone stopped in front of a door, and her horn lit up as she began to fidget with the lock with her magic. "I could always call you mommy if Chrissy doesn't suit your tastes. As for what you should call me, I was thinking about Mistress. It might get you a few looks in public, but I doubt anyone will ask questions." The door opened in front of her.

Chrysalis growled between grit teeth, as she watched the alicorn walk into the room. "You wouldn't dare." Taking a look around to make sure no one else was near, she walked behind Twilight's clone, and closed the door behind the two of them.

"Oh, believe me, I would. But I don't think I will, not yet at least." The alicorn drew the curtains open, letting light flood into the room. "I think my title should be Princess, for the time being. I'm the copy of one and the daughter of a queen, after all. I'll switch to Empress when the time comes."

Chrysalis was barely listening to her, too busy having a look at the room around them. It was clearly set up as a laboratory of some kind, though she couldn't tell what over half of the equipment in it was there for. But it all looked surprisingly advanced, especially for something built in secret in a hotel room. The alicorn must have had some way to store and move the whole thing, the changeling thought.

"I don't want to go by Twilight," Twilight's clone continued, ignoring Chrysalis's reaction to the room. "I don't see why I would want to call myself after something inferior. No, I deserve a name fit for a real ruler. And I think Empress Stellaria has a nice ring to it, wouldn't you agree?"

Clockworkkkkk

"How did you do that?"

The stallion took another sip of soup. "Are you sure you don't want any?"

Twilight's clone stared at him. "How did you do that?" she asked again, louder.

"Well, I just solved the puzzle." Another sip. "Are you really sure you don't want some? There's not much left."

The alicorn levitated a small sphere of fluid from the bowl to her mouth and swallowed it. It tasted remarkably good. "What do you mean?"

"Well, when you empty the bowl-"

"The other thing." She just barely didn't yell that. "What puzzle? How did it work?"

"I already told you." The stallion began to lick away the last traces of soup from the bowl. "There was that lever, and the buttons, and-" His mouth was shut closed by Twilight's clone's magic.

The alicorn turned to the space between the stump of wood and the pebbles. A wave of energy pulsed out from her horn and washed over the clearing. Her eyebrows twitched. Her telekinesis tore holes and trenches in the ground. She ripped the grass away, she levitated the pebbles, she moved away sod after sod with increasingly frantic and violent jerks of her magic. Gritting her teeth she turned back towards the stallion, lifted him and the bowl away from the ground, then eradicated the tree stump and stared first at its roots, then at the hole it had left. Then she growled and shoved everything back where she'd lifted it from, and moved to plant her head against the trunk of the nearest tree.

The stallion finished his soup, and then approached the sulking alicorn. "Are you okay?" he asked her, walking to her side and looking with worry at the way her horn dug into the bark of the tree.

"No," answered the other in a low, raspy tone. "No, I am not okay right now."

The stallion gave her an affectionate pat on the shoulder. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Stab your neck on a branch so I can take apart your body to study you and put you back together without anyone noticing I did it."

The stallion looked perplexed for a moment. Then he smiled and chuckled. "Oh, it was a joke. I like jokes. I get jokes, yes. I don't make jokes often but I get humour. I understand it. It was an entertaining joke."

Twilight's clone had to resist the desire to rip the tree she was leaning against from its roots and impale the stallion herself. "How?" she asked, more of a hiss than anything else. "None of it makes any sense. How did you do that? How did you get it to work?" She turned towards the stallion, barking in his face. "How did you get the stump to open up like that? Where did the bowl and the soup even come from? How?"

The stallion blinked once, his expression serene. "I solved the puzzle."

Twilight's clone screamed her rage towards the sky, startling quite a few birds in the area.

Burst

Sunburst walked through the store, a basket held in his magic, passing through the shelves and pondering what else he might buy. He looked a few oranges over in his magic, then chose one and placed it in the basket. Setting the rest down, he turned a corner.

"Hello," said an oddly familiar voice.

The unicorn was confused for a moment, seeing no one around. Then his eyes moved up, and he noticed a mare lying prone on top of a shelf, looking down at him. Her coat was a deep, near-blue purple, and her horn jutted out on her forehead framed by her wild, short and messy dark orange mane. "Hello?" Sunburst tentatively replied, still confused if for different reasons.

The female unicorn jumped down to land in front of him. "I'm Starshine Flicker," she said, posing to show off her cutie mark. It was a spiraling pattern of white stars, with five distinct arms all converging towards the centre.

It took Sunburst a moment to realise why the name sounded familiar. Then he remembered the mare on the train, days before. The pony in front of him did have her exact same cutie mark, and the same voice as well as far as his memory told him. Still, she was unmistakably different. "Starshine?" he asked, perplexed.

"It's me! Don't you remember, the train and the book?" She walked up to him with cheery steps and had a look inside the basket at his side.

"I do," Sunburst replied. Suddenly growing suspicious, he added, "I remember you appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared into thin air. And your coat and mane didn't look like that."

"Oh, right, I'm sorry about the whole disappearing thing." She turned back towards him. "Want me to help you carry this?" she asked, tapping the basket.

Sunburst tilted his head to the side. "Um... Sure? Sure." He studied the unicorn as she took hold of the basket in her own magic and had a look around the place. "What exactly do you want?" he asked her.

"Oh, I just want to help you. You know, spend some time together, have fun, enjoy ourselves. I think you deserve some relaxation." She turned around, basket held in her magic, tail hiked up and to a side, and looked left and right again. "Where are we going next? Is there anything else you need to buy?"

Sunburst was silent for a moment, then shook his head. "No, nothing more. I was just having one last look around, but I've got everything I need and some more. I was about to go to the cashier."

"Very well then." Starshine began to walk, rocking her hips as she did, while Sunburst walked behind her. But she stopped as she passed beside a shelf, glancing at the contents of the basket. "Do you want some chocolate?" she asked, turning her neck to look at Sunburst. "I'll pay for it. Consider it a present, and an apology for last time."

Sunburst looked at her for a moment, his mouth half open, unsure of what to say. "Okay," he finally answered. "Thank you."

Smiling, Starshine added a chocolate bar from the shelf to the basket, then went back to walking towards check-out, tail still hiked and moved to the side, hips still rocking and swishing with each step.

Yes

Starshine sat at the table, sipping on a chocolate milkshake, lightly swaying from side to side as she stared at Sunburst. "So, any plans for the day?" she asked.

"Not really. I have a meeting tomorrow, but I'm mostly free today. I was thinking about maybe doing some research, I have a few books I'd like to get through." Sunburst dug into his ice-cream with his spoon and brought the contents to his lips. "Thank you for paying for this, by the way."

"Think nothing of it." In her swaying, Starshine's hind legs began to brush back and forth against Sunburst's. "I wouldn't mind spending some time with you while you read. You could even teach me about what you're studying. You know, to make up for the train ride." She smirked at him. "I can put on my schoolfilly outfit if you want."

Sunburst's teeth clacked against the teaspoon as he closed his lips around it, then he swallowed and pulled it out of his mouth. "You have a schoolfilly outfit ready to go here?" he asked, adjusting his glasses.

Starshine nodded. "I keep it prepared, it might always be useful. I have a few more outfits ready too. Want to hear about them?" Her legs brushed just a tiny bit higher on the inside of Sunburst's with each sway.

"No, I don't think I'm interested right now." Sunburst ate another spoonful of ice-cream, and eyed the way a line of milkshake escaped the corner of Starshine's mouth and rolled down her cheek, then down her chest, disappearing beneath the table. "Why exactly do you have them, anyway? Is it part of your job or something?"

"You could say that, I suppose." Starshine smiled. "They're there for you to enjoy. Just like I am." Her legs moved higher still on Sunburst's inner thighs. "I'd love to make you enjoy our time together." She took another long sip of her milkshake, then licked her lips clean. And then she looked straight at him with an almost flat smile, and casually said, "Or we could just have sex I guess."

Sunburst stopped halfway through sliding the spoon out of his mouth, then he resumed doing so after a moment, his expression unchanged. "No, I don't think we will." He sunk his spoon in the ice-cream and brought it back to his lips again.

Starshine appeared mildly displeased by that. She took another sip of her milkshake, now almost finished, and kept rubbing her hind hooves against Sunburt's inner thighs. "But why not?"

"You're an almost complete stranger who I've only met two times, during both of which you acted in extremely suspicious ways, your appearance is completely different from the last time I saw you, I have no idea who you really are, and everything nice you've done for me was very clearly an attempt to get me to have sex with you. I have no reason to trust you." He ate another spoonful of ice-cream. "Also, I'm sort of in a relationship already."

"Yeah, but you would like to have sex with me."

Sunburst opened his mouth to reply, then closed it for a moment. "Well, yeah, I can't deny that. But that doesn't mean I will."

MtS

Sunburst set his book and his glasses down on the nightstand, pulled the covers up a little and then turned off the light. He'd spent the afternoon and evening reading, as he'd said he would, after Starshine had disappeared. Literally disappeared. The moment they'd left the ice-cream shop she'd just stopped being there, and he hadn't seen her again for the whole rest of the day. Rolling around a bit, he laid his head down on the pillow and closed his eyes.

Suddenly he felt a shifting near him on the bed, the mattress curving under the weight of something, the covers being pulled a little. "Hello," said a distressingly familiar voice right in front of him, "I'm Starshine Flicker."

Sunburst almost jumped out of the bed as he heard her, and shortly after decided it was still a good idea to leave it. He turned on the light again and stood up, staring at the mare as he put his glasses back on. "How did you get in?" he asked, exasperated and now more than a little worried.

Starshine pulled herself out of the covers, and immediately her appearance made Sunburst even more bewildered. Her mane was now a shiny shade of purple, long and well maintained, combed in many fancy twirls and rolls. Her cutie mark stayed the same, but it now stood against an orange coat just a bit darker than Sunburst's own. Her horn still stood proud on her forehead. And she had wings. "Are you still sure you don't want to have sex?" she asked.

"More than ever." Sunburst squared her up and down. "What are you doing in my room? Get out! This is not normal!" He pointed a shaky hoof at the door.

"You say that, but you don't really want me to leave, do you?" Stepping closer to the stallion, Starshine fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Besides, I have no other place to stay. Do you really want to throw a mare out into the streets at night?"

"Said mare just appeared in my bed out of nowhere without my consent so yes, I am perfectly fine with that."

Starshine moved closer to him still. "But would you really, when I could spend the night with you instead?" She ran a feather over Sunburst's chest and under his neck.

"I am not having sex with you." Sunburst drew back a step.

"If you just masturbate on your own and I happen to be there it's not technically cheating on your partner. No more than reading a porn novel would be."

Sunburst opened and closed his mouth once. "Technically maybe correct, even if highly debatable, but I'm not doing it. The problem is less the cheating and more the fact that you're weird and I don't trust you."

Starshine shrugged. "Your loss. I know you would have enjoyed it." She stared silently at him for a few seconds. "Wanna play card games together?" she asked, pulling out a deck of cards with a distinct backside from behind her mane, then a bag larger than her whole body filled with other cards. "I've got enough copies for you to build your own deck however you like. All expansion."

Sunburst stared silently at the scene for a moment. "Sure."

L*ven't

Starlight flipped through the pages of her book, without paying much attention at all to the contents. Her mind was elsewhere, and it was hard for her to focus on her work. Rather, her thoughts went to Trixie and Sunburst, neither of which was there at the time. The latter was merely away for a few days, but his absence only accentuated her worry for the former's.

It had been about a week since Trixie had left. By that point, she'd no doubt reached her destination. And no desperate letters asking for help had come from the locals, so she most likely hadn't accidentally razed the whole area to the ground. That or there had been no survivors, or everyone had been enslaved and a seal had been placed around the area to prevent communication with the outside.

Starlight shook her head. No. She trusted Trixie. Well... If she was really being truly honest, she wouldn't have trusted her own self in Trixie's place, and maybe not even Twilight. But she had to trust Trixie. The unicorn was her friend, and much more than that, and not trusting her wouldn't have felt right. And unlike anyone else, Trixie knew what she was doing. She knew what it would be like. If she'd decided to take that risk, then they had to believe she could succeed.

And if she didn't...

If she didn't, they would stop her. They'd stopped her before, Twilight had at least, they could do it again. It wouldn't be pretty, and they wouldn't enjoy it, but it would be done. And they would move on from there. Most of all, if things came down to it, she was worried about Trixie's reaction. Stopping her would not be a problem, and if everything went well there would hopefully not be serious consequences for others involved. But it would quite hurt the mare. The plan had been her idea, after all.

Starlight sighed. She closed her book and set it down, then stood up from her desk. She walked up to the window and looked out, chewing on her lower lip. Maybe she could write Trixie a letter. Or maybe write to Sunburst instead, she didn't want Trixie to feel like she wasn't trusted. Or maybe write to Twilight. Or to anyone else. She grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill from her desk, then set them back down.

She began to pace up and down the room, her hooves clacking against the wooden floor. A few minutes passed with her moving back and forth, then finally she stopped in front of the door, and took a deep long breath. Then another. Closing her eyes, she kept on breathing, slowly in and out to calm herself down. She opened her eyes again, opened the door and walked out of the room.

She needed something else to focus on. Something to take her mind off of Trixie. Walking down the corridor, she considered her options. Perhaps some ice-cream would do it.

×formance

"Very well. Very well indeed."

The two unicorns sat on one side of room, their heads held low, eyes focused on Nightmare Moon but occasionally darting towards the crumbled pile of crystal to their far right. "It's an honour to serve," the male one said, his tone shaky.

The alicorn ignored him. She instead remained focused on the creature in the middle of the room, studying it attentively as she smirked. "A pity about his mental capacities, but I trust you will solve this issue in future subjects." As she said so, she finally looked at the two unicorns, sending shivers down their spines.

"Of course, Your Highness," answered the mare, tilting her head downwards just the tiny amount left between her already curved position and actively looking at her own hooves.

Smiling, Nightmare Moon began to walk away. She said nothing as she left, and her steps echoed in the room as her hooves clacked against the stone pavement. The two unicorns remained in their positions, as was expected of them. The thing that had once been a stallion instead walked behind her, his own steps heavy against the ground. The pace of his walk and the waving of his tail made him look somewhat like a dog loyally following its owner. But as he passed beside the unicorns, his eyes turned to them for just a moment, and the two swore they saw something else frothing beyond his pupils. And they were afraid.

Finally, the doors shut with a click as both Nightmare Moon and her new guard left the room, leaving the mare and the stallion to sit alone in silence.

A few seconds went by, as both stared at the ground.

"What do we do now?" the stallion asked.

"Survive," replied the mare. "Keep on testing, keep on hoping, keep on living. Same as always." She looked up, and sighed. "Does your neck hurt? Mine does."

The other immediately tried to look up as well, and immediately regretted it. "It hurts now," he said, clenching his teeth and bringing a hoof to rub behind his head.

"Well, that means you're still alive. You should be happy."

That got something that sounded vaguely like a chuckle as an answer, followed by more pained moans. "I'm not sure about that. That thing is still alive too, and I'm starting to think maybe there are fates worse than death."

"Having to clean the lab when a test subject melts on the table is already a fate worse than death. Cheer up and be glad this one made it through." The mare gave an affectionate jab to her companion's shoulder. "And look at the even brighter side. At least she didn't use us to test what he can do."

The stallion looked towards the shattered crystal fragments on the opposite end of the large room, the broken remains of what had served as a test for their creation's destructive capabilities. "You have a fascinating concept of what qualifies as the bright side."

"We live in eternal night, Starburst. You need to appreciate what little light life throws your way."

Loww

"So, what's the plan, Stellaria?" Chrysalis asked, her voice and body camouflaged as Suri Polomare's.

"Just Stella is fine while we're in public." The alicorn, who somehow received no attention from the ponies around them even while wearing no sort of disguise, levitated her beige-coloured briefcase to her side and began to walk down the street. She'd stuffed the entirety of her laboratory in the briefcase. And the real Suri. "We're going to Ponyville first, Chrissy. Not directly, and we'll probably stop somewhere around it for a bit, but that's the general direction."

"Ponyville?" Chrysalis stammered, forced to speed up her steps to catch up with Stellaria. "That's where the real Twilight is."

"That is where the inferior Twilight lives, yes," Stella replied, her eyeroll permeating her tone. "I don't need to be reminded of such details." As she continued, her voice and her legs both began to pick up speed. "Not that her being the inferior Twilight means I'm the superior Twilight, I am of course superior to her but I'm not-" She cut herself off and stopped walking for a moment. Then she resumed, at her previous, measured pace. "I know that. It's precisely why we're going there."

Chrysalis had caught up with the pony in the meantime. "It is?" she asked, turning towards her. "Are you sure you want to risk being so close to her?"

"Would you rather spend your life hiding?" There was a mocking edge in Stellaria's tone as she asked that, but she kept her head pointed forward. "Opportunities should be seized when they present themselves, and you should always be ready for them. Lying in the shadows won't help you. You'll never be strong enough to defeat Twilight on your own, Chrissy. We need to act, and work with what we have."

Chrysalis had to bite down on her tongue and swallow back her own bile. "I've captured that insolent worm and her friends once before and I can do it again. I'll build a new army and-"

"And what? Get betrayed again?" Stellaria laughed. "You're a terrible leader. Every success you ever had was the result of someone else's work, and every failure you collected the result of your own mistakes undermining their efforts. I am your new army, if you've already forgotten about that. I'm what you came up with to try and succeed again, and you should consider yourself lucky that I haven't brought you to the same end you left me to suffer. Listen to someone who's better than you, for once in your life, and maybe you'll finally get a chance to see what winning is actually like."

Chrysalis was biting down on her teeth so hard they would have cracked had she really been a pony. Green flames danced furiously inside her eyes, and her steps came down heavy on the road. But she knew better than to risk trying to rip the alicorn's spine out in broad daylight. "Why Ponyville?" she asked, trying to move the conversation.

Stellaria smirked, clearly aware of the effect her words were having on Chrysalis. Still, she'd played around enough, and an explanation of her plans was needed. "How much do you know about scales?"

A Brief History of Terms: Scale

The term scale was first used by Princess Twilight. It was chosen for the shape of the objects, noticeably resembling that of a fish's scales, only larger. About the size of a hoof, largely flat, curved at the edges and with a slight but noticeable orientation very vaguely reminiscent of an arrowhead. Their surface smooth and reflective, oddly hard to get a proper grip on, giving almost the impression of being covered in oil despite being perfectly dry. Seemingly a muddy white in colour, if observed at the proper angle a scale would instead appear to present a rainbow-coloured exterior, either in the form of irregular rings spreading from the centre or as a scale-like pattern similar to that of snake skin.

Scales were proven to be hydrophobic, and showed similar properties with all sorts of fluids tested on them. They were impervious to all known sorts of corrosive substances, and did not cause any sort of chemical, physical or magical reaction when exposed to other elements. Any attempt to damage or break off fragments of one failed, from stress tests and drills to dragon fire and explosives. Magic in particular proved downright counterproductive, as the scales appeared to reflect the arcane energy directed towards them as a mirror reflects light.

The origin of the scales remains a purely theoretical matter. It is undoubted that their existence was a consequence of the Behemoth's arrival, but the exact mechanisms by which the two events are related have never been uncovered. They seemed to simply appear in Equestria, no trace of where they'd come from. For a while they remained as merely a small novelty, not particularly interesting compared to other more immediately pressing changes the Behemoth had brought. The effect they had on the creatures who found them was the only noteworthy thing about them, but even still it was a minor detail.

Of course, while seemingly the least important of the Behemoth's consequences, they were still one of its consequences nonetheless, and therefore something more than deserving to be studied and analysed. It was during this period of studying, after receiving one from a city with the explicit request to, that Princess Twilight came up with the term. That particular delivery was also the event that sparked the creation of the RHiSPaTS, though this is a matter best explored elsewhere. The origin of the term, beyond the simple matter of shape, lies in the possibility of the scales being or having been part of the Behemoth itself.

This is of course impossible to prove. The reason the assumption surfaced lies in the results of Princess Twilight's studies. She observed, comparing the tests run on the scales to the data recorded near the centre of Canterlot, that the results of said tests gave readings that matched those obtained from the Behemoth itself, only scaled down in intensity and range. Every pattern appeared to be exactly the same, and models showed that a sufficiently large amount of scales together could indeed lead to a replica of the Behemoth's signature graphs. Of course, this sparked great interest in further studying the scales themselves, as they could provide vital information on the Behemoth. It is through these further tests that the scales' more peculiar properties and uses came to be known.

A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 5

"And here we are." Soarin' tapped the wall of the crystal tree castle hybrid with a wing. "Ignore the missing chunks of walls, they'll grow back eventually." Moving up to the door, he looked back towards Stone Brick. "Are you coming?"

Stone had been looking upwards along the castle's wall, which did indeed show a few missing bits here and there. Once he heard himself called, he looked back to Soarin' and nodded, then walked towards the golden doors the pegasus was opening for them.

The trip from the entrance to the laboratory was uneventful, merely a few ponies waving at Soarin' and Stone as they walked by, at most exchanging a few words. Finally the two stallions reached the doors to Princess Twilight's lab, and Soarin' knocked once on them.

"Come in," Twilight's voice came from inside, just a moment later.

Stone and Soarin' exchanged a look, then the pegasus opened the doors.

The laboratory was a single octagonal room, large and tall, white tables covered in various types of equipment lining every wall except for the one where the entrance was. Light came from a single large crystal hanging from the ceiling at the centre of the room. A second set of equally busy tables was near the centre, half of a smaller octagon on the side of the room where the doors were. Beyond it was a square metal platform, just a step higher than the floor around it, large enough for four ponies to comfortably stand on it. And above the platform, at about eye level, was a slowly swirling mass of white light, occasionally giving off rainbow reflections.

A couple of other ponies were walking around the room, holding clipboards and taking notes, but Stone's eyes immediately focused on the alicorn standing just a short distance from the platform. She was intent on looking into the light, a cheerful smile on her face. Then her eyes turned and she noticed the new arrivals.

"Soarin'! And I see you brought company." She waved at Stone. "A scale, right?"

Stone Brick drew back a little, confused. His hooves twitched, itching to reach for his saddlebags and make sure his scale was still there. He was silent for a moment, unsure of what to say.

"Oh, sorry. I saw it on the monitors." Twilight nodded upwards, and Stone followed the direction of her gesture to see a couple of square panels hanging on the wall above the doors, shifting graphs displayed on them. "I've learned to recognise a scale's pattern against background noise, it's something we see fairly often in here after all." A sound from behind her drew her attention, similar to that of a small bell. "Speaking of which."

Curious, Stone took a few steps forward to get a better look at the floating mass of light. It pulsed for a moment, growing and shrinking around its centre, and then suddenly a unicorn jumped out from it. Then the light wavered again, shaking, and finally dissipated, revealing a scale not unlike Stone's own suspended in mid air, still shimmering slightly.

Polychrome

Rainbow Dash leaned back in her seat, clutching her milkshake in her hand as she sipped from it. "Got any plans for the day?" she asked to the girl sitting in front of her.

Pinkie Pie shook her head. "Not really. Why? Do you have something in mind?"

"Not really." Rainbow drank some more of her milkshake. "How's your ice-cream?"

"Sweet," answered Pinkie. "But not as sweet as you are." With the tips of her index and middle finger she picked up some of the whipped cream that covered her chocolate ice-cream, and then gently placed it on Rainbow's nose.

The girl was still and silent for a moment. "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to process this," she finally said, staring at the whipped cream. She tried to reach it with her tongue, without success.

"Sometimes you just feel compelled into a given course of action by forces outside of your own universe dictating the flow of your existence. And maybe sometimes the feeling is right." Pinkie licked her fingers clean, then picked up her spoon. "This is probably a dream anyway."

Rainbow finally surrendered, and used her hand to clean her nose. Then her mouth to clean her hand. "And whose dream is it?"

"I have no idea." Pinkie ate a spoonful of ice-cream. "Sometimes life keeps you busy for your whole day and leaves you drained and tired with only a short time to do something you need done before the day ends. Sometimes you're possessed by a creature from another reality that speaks through you. Sometimes your cat starts shaking." She ate another. "The door is behind me and I'm not looking at it. I can't see outside, and as far as I know there is no outside. Just here, just now, just you and me and nothing else."

Rainbow Dash finished her milkshake, and set the glass down on the table. "I'm not looking at the door right now. I could, but that would mean no longer looking at you. I don't know if there is an outside either, and I don't know if I would be allowed to look and find out. I don't care. I don't want to look away. And if this is a dream, I don't want to wake up."

"And what do you want to do, if this is a dream?"

"I want to be with you, and love you, and feel your skin against mine and your breath on my face and your hair as it tangles with mine and your taste under my lips as I make love to you."

"And what if this isn't a dream?"

"Then I will be happy."

Standing up, leaning over the table, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie embraced each other and kissed and hugged, pulling their bodies closer with their arms, melting into each other over the table as outside the door stars flowed upwards through the hourglass of dimensions and Harmony sang with its choir in the upper layers of reality.

First Jump

"Here we go then."

"Are you absolutely sure about this?"

"I am, Starlight. I double-checked the calculations, I had you check them, I had Sunburst check them, I had Starswirl check them, I had Celestia check them, and I even asked Sunset for help with checking them. I'm as sure as I can possibly be that this thing is going to work."

"You said that last time too, and the wall still hasn't finished growing back."

"This time is different."

"How, exactly?"

"If I messed up this time you won't have to worry about the walls, because there won't be a castle left. Why do you think I had everyone else leave the building?"

"You didn't have me leave."

"You can go if you want."

"And miss my chance to see this work? Forget about it, Twilight." Starlight swallowed, uneasy. "Are you really sure about this?"

Twilight swallowed too. "No. But I'm as sure as I can be." Slowly, her horn lit up. "Here we go then."

A small, pulsating orb of light left the tip of Twilight's horn, and very slowly floated towards the round white hoof-sized object suspended in a slim metal harness just a short distance from her. The speck of arcane energy came in contact with the surface of the scale, and seeped into it.

There was a subtle fluttering along the edges of the scale, like water rippling under a breeze. The white colour turned to light, weak at first then brighter and brighter. And the light spread out, like a bubble growing, twirling as it expanded in a sphere of blinding energy, tendrils along its surface flowing out and back in. Like a miniature star, the edge a boiling wall of energy storming and cracking as the sphere grew wider and wider.

Twilight watched it happen, refusing to close her eyes, and as the light was about to reach her she hoped she had at least been only so wrong in her calculations as to not have caused the rest of Ponyville to be wiped out along with her castle.

Then the growing stopped. Moment by moment, the rotation slowed down. The sphere stabilised, about the size of a pony, the surface no longer bubbling and instead occasionally showing some flashes of rainbow colours. Twilight finally breathed again. So did Starlight, far more audibly.

The unicorn walked closer. "Okay. Now what?"

Twilight kept her eyes on the light. "Now we see what's on the other side."

"Oh, right." Starlight put on a smile, and the inner screaming it was masking was palpable. "Are we sure it's safe to go through that thing? To put anything near that thing?"

"Not at all. And there's a chance we'll lose this half of Equestria the moment I touch it." Twilight lifted a hoof and placed it onto one of the outer strands of light slowly spinning around the sphere. The light seemed to break out and reform around her, like a stream of water.

Starlight looked at her, meanwhile dropping her own jaw so far down Twilight almost expected to hear it hit the ground.

The alicorn shrugged. "It was the adrenaline still circling." She looked Starlight in the eyes, and extended her other hoof towards her. "Are you coming with me?"

The Leviathan swam to Akalop - Part 0

Starlight stared at Twilight's outstretched hoof. Later on, when telling the story to others, she would add that her own decision too had been the result of the adrenaline still in her system. Whichever the case, she took Twilight's hoof in hers, and nodded towards the light.

Twilight stepped forward, and pulled.

It was a bit like waking up from a dream, like that period of distorted awareness between being asleep and fully awake. Starlight wasn't sure how long it lasted for. She wasn't even sure it could be measured, or if time existed at all there. In the space between spaces, the bridge between worlds. Then just as it all had begun, it all came to an end.

And Starlight realised that she was wet, and unable to breathe. Her limbs and body were floating, her eyes stung a little, and water had begun to fill her lungs. Her first instinct was to scream. That made things worse. Her second instinct was to cast a spell to give herself gills, which made things a lot better. At that point she got a look around, and noticed Twilight had chosen the much simpler option of using magic to create an air bubble around her head.

The two shared a look and a nod, then swam back towards the floating mass of light behind them and just slightly below them. All around them was water as far as their eyes could see, and a barely illuminated darkness. And a large looming shadow that neither of them seemed to notice.

Twilight and Starlight slipped out of the portal, inside Twilight's castle, covered in water. The second gasped for air for a few seconds before undoing her gills. Behind them, the light retreated, leaving the scale shimmering suspended in its harness.

"We could have died there!" Starlight almost yelled.

"Yeah."

"We could have popped out in the sky! Or inside solid rock, or inside a pit of acid, or lava! We could have ended up somewhere too hot or cold for life to exist, with no atmosphere or a poisonous one! We could have walked right into a star for all we knew!"

"Yeah."

"What the fuck were we thinking going in there without any precautions?" Starlight screamed.

The two sat in silence for a while, looking at each other, as a puddle of water slowly formed on the ground.

"We have four more scales currently stored in the laboratory. Do you want to check those out now?" asked Twilight.

Starlight looked at her, wide-eyed. "I..." But she failed to come up with an argument, unable to deny her own curiosity. "We're making a list. And we're not going through another portal until we've cast protective spells for everything that might be on the other side. I hope you have something to shield us against the inside of a star."

"It won't put us inside a star. I'm mostly sure it'll be a planet. And it's supposed to put us on land, too."

"Yeah, sure. That inspires trust in your theories. We didn't just experience the exact opposite or anything."

Twilight stood up. "If we ended up inside water there probably wasn't any land. The whole surface might have been flooded, and at that point putting us on solid footing would have meant too much pressure for our bodies." She looked back at the scale. "We're not going back in there for a while, right?"

Starlight nodded. "Absolutely not."

"Alright." Twilight helped Starlight back to her hooves. "Wanna help me prepare for the next one? That protection spells idea is probably a good one. Definitely a good one."

Starlight looked at Twilight. "You're absolutely crazy, and so is this. Go fetch the other scales, I'll start writing down a list of potential hazards."

Belhive

Chrysalis stared through the green surface of the pod at the mare unconscious inside it. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Someone will notice she disappeared, sooner or later. Someone will come looking for her."

"We only need one of us to go out as her every once in a while. No one will come. Suri warned all her business contacts she was going on vacation, and as far as everyone will be concerned she's just prolonging that." Stellaria fiddled with the binoculars set in front of the window. "And if anyone does come, we can always play her part for a bit."

"Someone will notice there's only two of us if they never see the three ponies that should be living here at the same time." Chrysalis turned towards the window and walked up to it.

"They'll see each one with both others. That'll be enough." Satisfied, Stellaria took a step back. "No creature is bored or paranoid enough to become suspicious of a random group of ponies. And our characters aren't likable enough to inspire visits. No one will find us, you're being too cautious."

"I was being more cautious than this, and you still found me," Chrysalis replied.

"But I was looking for you." Stellaria turned towards Chrysalis. "No one knows you escaped except for me. No one knows I even exist. No one will be looking for us, no one will find us."

Chrysalis munched down on nothing. "How did you know I was out there, anyway? And how are you sure no one else knows?"

"I knew whatever had brought me back had to have done the same with you. And we might not be the only ones. But I have to thank you for keeping my corpse with you after you watched me die, waking up where I did was rather useful." As she spoke the last sentence, her horn shone, and Chrysalis defiantly bit down on her lips as breathing became impossible for her.

Stellaria continued, "I used that place as my hideout for a while, until some certain events. But I can't blame that poor stallion, he made me discover some things I might have taken months to uncover otherwise. As for why I doubt anyone else is looking for you, I've done my research after my return, and no one goes close enough to the Behemoth to have noticed your absence. I will concede that you were good enough at covering your tracks. No one could connect the dots without knowing you were out there."

As air returned around her muzzle, Chrysalis swallowed her insults and hatred, and focused on the conversation. "We won't just be sitting in here. If we make even just one mistake when we're approaching Twilight and her laboratory, someone will notice. Someone will come, if we're not careful, and it'll be easy for them to find us here."

"Let them come, then." Stellaria looked out from the window, a smile on her lips and a glint in her eyes. "Or are you afraid? There's not a pony out there I won't gladly crush if they happen to come in here looking for me."

Wish You Were Here

Applejack stared at the lights of the town outside through the glass wall of her hotel room. She would pull the curtains once she chose to go to sleep, but that wouldn't happen for a few minutes at least. Or maybe she wouldn't, and she'd keep watching the city as she fell asleep. Whenever she actually decided to go to bed.

She should have gone to sleep minutes before. She had planned to. She was ready to. In her pajamas, all ready and set to slip under the covers, done with everything for the day. She didn't need to wake up all too early, true, but she still would have preferred not to get up late.

It was her only night in the hotel, she would finally move to the new place the morning after. Maybe she could blame it on that. On the new room, or on the nervousness from moving, or on the lights coming in from outside. Or she could blame it on the thin walls and the people in the rooms next to hers, even though the night was completely silent.

She looked at her phone for a moment. Resting on her nightstand, sleeping. She didn't want to open it. Nothing new of what she could find there would make her feel better. Nothing old of what could make her feel better was something she wanted to see at that moment. There were things there she wouldn't delete, but she knew it wouldn't be right to go back to them. Not right then.

Not right then. Not with the direction her thoughts were sailing towards, not with the memories they were worming their way to. She couldn't stop those from being unearthed, but she could at least limit herself to her own memories, instead of the digital ones her phone held of those same events. She would regret it in the morning otherwise, far more than she knew she would either way. It would feel dirty.

And yet she couldn't help but wonder if Rarity felt the same. If Rarity did what she was doing, and what she was stopping herself from doing. If Rarity had even held onto those recordings and pictures, or deleted them in a fit of emotion. And Applejack hated that she thought of all that, but she didn't stop herself. Deep down, she wasn't sure if she wanted to stop herself.

Her thoughts went to Rarity, still, and she couldn't find the strength to divert their course. And to a memory, or maybe a dream. Rarity, there on her bed, hair messy after a stressful day. Her makeup just slightly smudged, her clothes a little ruffled. Lying on her back, breathing slowly, almost panting. And her blue eyes half closed, her wrist on her forehead. The painted nails on her other hand like birds gliding over the sea of her dress.

Applejack turned off the light, but she left the curtains as they were. She pulled away the covers and laid down, but didn't pull them back over herself. Not yet. She'd blame her loss of sleep on the lights from the city outside, or maybe on the walls being too thin. But her eyes and ears were focused on the fantasy of Rarity in her mind, and her hands soon began to follow the other girl's in their movements.

Nolimatra

He was too tall to enter the castle, and Twilight once more considered building a separate structure for those sorts of meetings. She would need one eventually either way, once Ember became big enough. Still, for the time being her standing on the balcony of her castle while he stood outside would have to do, and thankfully it worked quite well. She was at about eye level with him, smiling as she stared at him.

The Nolimatran ambassador smiled back at her. Or at least Twilight guessed it was a smile. Growing up with a dragon meant she was better than the average pony at reading a reptile's facial expression, but the snake-like conformation of the creature was still fairly alien even to her. It did not help that his face was about half her body size, that made it quite difficult to focus on the expression as a whole at close distances.

Fascinating creatures, nonetheless. She would have loved to study one, but she knew not one of them would be willing to stay in Equestria for any longer than strictly necessary. Or anywhere else outside of their home country, for that matter. None had travelled further than Ponyville, using Twilight herself as the middle mare for their negotiations with other territories such as Griffonstone.

And Twilight knew getting into Nolimatra was near impossible. The creatures weren't willing to let anyone in, and trying to force her way there might have permanently damaged the relationships between the two countries. It was a great shame though. Twilight couldn't help but dreamily run her gaze over the snake-headed scorpion whale's body, wondering just how exactly it functioned.

She was just as eager to learn about their culture. Their habits, their language, their history and society. Unfortunately, all that knowledge was sealed for her. Nolimatrans never spoke a word about their homeland, and never in a language other than the one of the creatures they were speaking to. The only known word of their native language was Nolimatra, the name of their country, though its meaning remained a mystery.

Nolimatra itself was located in the southwestern sea, fairly far from the coastline. It might have never come in contact with Equestria had it not been for a fishermare's boat getting dragged all the way there during a manastorm. The inhabitants had rescued her, escorted her back to Equestria, and sent along a few delegates to establish relationships with the country. Their condition were fairly simple, they just wanted to be left alone. But they were willing to offer help in times of need, provided the other countries agreed to do the same.

No one had actually been to Nolimatra, or seen it from anywhere other than the sky above. There were a few islands there, perhaps also inhabited, but the bulk of their civilisation was assumed to be underwater. The creatures seemed perfectly capable of living both in and out of the water, after all, another one of the many interesting facts concerning them that Twilight wouldn't get a chance to study.

“I didn’t say stop.”

"What about this one?" the mare asked, holding up another dress.

"I'd rather go naked for the rest of my life than wear another dark cerise outfit. No thanks." Sugarcoat shook her head.

The crystal unicorn set the dress down and reached for another with her magic. "You make it sound like some terrible thing. Going without a dress is what most ponies do," she commented.

"Not where I'm from," Sugarcoat replied. She stopped herself from clarifying that she was actually talking about humans and that ponies did actually go naked there, but didn't speak or use magic or have a developed society.

"Well, maybe you should be the one to try to bring some change." The mare presented her with another dress.

Sugarcoat shook her head again. "I'd rather not get expelled. And probably charged with something on top. Principal Cadence hasn't loosened the restrictions on the uniform policy that far. Not yet at least."

Grabbing yet another dress, the unicorn asked, "Did you mention Princess Cadence?"

"Same name, different pony. Person. Sort of different." Sugarcoat adjusted her glasses as she stared unimpressed at the newly presented dress, then a thought occurred to her. "Have you ever seen a mare that looks just like me but with a cutie mark and more will to live, by chance?" she asked, briefly hopeful for an easy solution to her problems.

"Sorry, I have not." The mare pulled up a set of a few different dresses, displaying them all to Sugarcoat to speed up the process.

Sugarcoat looked at each dress, and shook her head every time. "Don't worry about it." Her equine counterpart may very well not have existed, after all, and even if she did she could be as different from her as the two Twilights were from each other. For example, maybe Equestria's version of Sugarcoat was a good person. Pony.

"You are not used to shopping for clothes, are you?" asked the crystal mare, tapping Sugarcoat on the nose with the latest and still unacknowledged dress.

Sugarcoat shook herself, realising she'd zoned out. She looked at the dress, then motioned once more to move on to the next. "I'm not. I never really had to do it."

The mare frowned as she set down that dress too. "Didn't you say you always wore clothes, where you're from?"

"I did. But I never had to choose them myself."

"Never?" The mare was evidently surprised. "How did you go dressing every day without ever having to choose what clothes to buy?"

"I had a few identical sets of clothes I was forced to wear. Acquaintances' gifts were enough to cover for the few times I ever needed something else." Sugarcoat looked to the side. Then her brow curved. "Well, there was one time I had a chance to choose something myself. I just took the first thing they showed me."

The other mare suppressed a chuckle at that, as she moved to the next batch of clothes.

"It's true. It's why I'm trying to go for something different this time. Something I wear because I want to wear it."

"And what are you looking for, exactly?"

"I have absolutely no idea. But none of these dresses make me feel anything when I see them. They're all the same to me." Sugarcoat looked at the tall pile of discarded options at her side. "Except for the cerise one, that one I actively dislike. Still, I'm sure they would all do what I need them for. I could have just picked one of them. But I'm tired of not caring about things. I want a dress that gives me a reason to choose it over the others."

The other mare pursed her lips. "Wait here just a second," she said, walking away and disappearing behind a corner. Then a moment later she reappeared, holding something in her magic. "What about this one?"

Chapter 119

"I was out on a scouting mission. There was a storm approaching. A big one. I couldn't risk staying outside and getting caught in it. I found a farm, with a large shed nearby. I managed to force the shed's door open and hid inside."

The doctor nodded. "What happened then?"

"I spent the night there. The storm would wake me up on occasion. I could hear the wind howling around the shed and the rain pouring down. It was louder than an army marching." Tempest swallowed. "I was scared. But the walls and roof held, and water didn't get in."

"And then?"

"I walked out the morning after. The Sun was shining. There were a few broken branches around, some pretty large. Lots of leaves." Tempest's jaw clenched. "The farm had chickens. They were outside that morning. The storm had killed a sparrow, and they were eating the corpse."

"I dreamt of her tonight." Lemon Zest sat in her chair with her arms crossed over the table, her head on top of them.

"Her?" Indigo Zap sat down to her right, after setting down her cup of coffee.

"Sugarcoat."

"How was I supposed to know you were talking about her?" Indigo began to drink her coffee.

Lemon Zest answered with an indistinct sound of knowingly unjustified frustration.

Sunny Flare arrived at the small round metal table, carrying her own breakfast on a tray. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"Lemon here was telling me about her dreams of Sugar." Indigo pointed to the girl with her coffee cup.

"She was singing on a stage," Lemon went on, as if she hadn't heard the other two.

Twilight stood on top of the hill. Far in the distance, the purple light of the fissure shone bright over the wreckage and rubble.

The entire second laboratory was gone. Its rests scattered around the contaminated area.

Twilight felt nausea assaulting her, and she wasn't sure if it was the radiation or the sight.

Everyone had made it out in time. Everyone had made it out alive and well. But all the research and equipment was still there, somewhere. Someone would need to look for it. The scans had still been running when they'd lost control of the reaction, and if the shields had held they'd kept running while the fissure opened. They needed that data.

They knew things might have gone wrong. That was the reason they'd built the lab there. But they hadn't been expecting them to.

And Twilight thought back to that night with Starlight. To what could've happened to Ponyville back then.

Non era affatto difficile tenere a bada l'edera che cercava d'arrampicarsi sul muro. Bastava farci attenzione abbastanza spesso e rimuovere quelle sezioni della pianta che s'avviavano alla scalata quando ancora erano piccole. Però era noioso. Terribilmente noioso. E il vecchio unicorno finiva per ignorare il problema per mesi, anni alle volte. Finché l'edera non aveva tronchi più grossi delle sue gambe, ed altra edera più piccola che le cresceva sopra. Al che la cosa diventava non solo noiosa, ma anche difficile. Ci volevano un paio di giorni per sistemare il tutto, di solito.

Ed aveva quasi finito, quella volta. Stava quasi per ripromettersi che ci sarebbe stato attendendo in futuro, sapendo benissimo che non sarebbe stato così. Ma una lettera arrivò proprio poco prima che finisse. Una lettera urgente, pareva. Da un tale Sunburst. Era sicuro d'averlo già sentito da qualche parte quel nome.

Multiple Inheritance

The customary boom woke up those last citizens who still hadn't left their beds. There was always a boom midway through the morning, and occasionally a few smaller ones in the late afternoon. At most they'd counted seven, and there were always at least three when it did happen.

"Is she still out there?" somewhat loudly asked a stallion, walking up the stairs to a balcony.

"Sure is," answered another who was already there, leaning against the railing.

The first joined him at his side, and they both stared towards the horizon. Occasionally one could see some red bolts of lightning spreading from there, but it wasn't a consistent thing.

The mare had arrived in the town preceeded by letters as formal as they were vague, but all bearing Princess Twilight's seal. That had been enough to convince the citizens to let whatever needed to happen happen. If it was for the good of Equestria, it was worth it, and it was hard to imagine the worst outcome could be any worse than what the Behemoth itself had already done.

The mare hadn't spent much time in the town. Only a few had seen her, even fewer had heard her speak those few words she'd said. She'd headed towards the horizon after picking up a set of rations, and midway through the morning after the first boom had been heard. Most had been scared by it, until the mayor had come to announce that there was nothing to worry about. That it was just the mare, acting within Princess Twilight's permissions. A few had taken on a dislike for the mare, mostly those whose sleep tended to stretch out through the morning.

The mare came back once every week. A few more had seen her the first time she'd done so, a couple more had heard her speak. But it was never a good look or a good listen that the citizens got. She always spoke quietly, and always hid her head low under her hat. A peculiarly large hat, and one that would have looked flashy had it not been covered in dirt and dust. The same went for her cape. It was the kind of dirty clothes got when passing through the dry lands near the town, the kind citizens were used to see on travellers.

The weeks passed, the mare kept up her routine of visits, and soon the town built its own habits around hers. There was always a small crowd when the mare came to get new rations. One could not blame the citizens, there were few other events worth nothing in their routines. And the crowd had murmurs running through it. About who the light blue mare could be. About whether she was an earth pony or a pegasus or a unicorn, an ongoing question that had a number of bets tied to it. And, mostly, about what exactly she was doing.

But no one ever got a chance to go check on that. Even if Princess Twilight hadn't forbidden approaching the mare when she was out of the town, which she had, the booms and the occasional flashes of light would have been enough to keep the citizens away. They weren't that bored of their lives, after all.

Qontainer

"You known, there's an old saying used to wish someone luck, in the language of my parents' home country. It roughly translates to 'in the mouth of the wolf' as it's said, though accounting for the implicit meaning it would be more appropriate to say it translates to 'may you end up in the mouth of the wolf'.

"Of course, 'a wolf' would fit better in this language, the original saying happens to be referring to some specific but unspecified wolf but that can't be expected to carry over well. Of course, one should more properly try to adapt the saying to the language rather than simply translating it, working out those oddities characteristic to the original language. However, that is complicated in this case.

"You see, there is actually some controversy as to what the saying is trying to imply. This is reflected in how the one hearing it responds. Some will simply thank you for saying it, others will reply in a single word by saying what would be translated as 'die', although accounting for what that language can imply with a single word that this one we're using cannot the more correct translation would be 'may it die'. Although 'may it croak' could also be an apt translation, as the specific word typically used is indeed a synonym for dying but has other meanings by itself. To crack, specifically, but that's beside the point.

"Let me get back to the heart of the matter. There are indeed two different interpretations of what the saying means. One views the wolf as an evil entity, with the one saying the saying playing the part of one who poses a challenge that the other then mocks as hopefully easily dealt with thanks to their luck. In this version, it could maybe be adapted as 'may the wolf eat you', answered by 'may it die trying'. Almost a curse posed in jest to exorcise the fear of an oncoming task.

"In the other interpretation, however, the wolf is seen as a benevolent entity. The statement becomes a blessing, as the wolf carries the one receiving it within their mouth and protects them along the way. So 'may the wolf carry you in its mouth' would work as a translation here, although a better sounding version of it that still preserves the overall meaning could be 'may the wolf watch over you on your path'.

"But I wouldn't trust myself on any of this. I'm not a scholar or anywhere close to an expert in either of the languages I'm dealing with, I'm not particularly knowledgeable in the culture that spawned the saying, and in all honesty I'm not particularly good with either language even on a base level. The one thing I have studied is magic, but looking at how poorly I do with even that I would sincerely advise against taking a single word of what I say as being worth something."

"Is this really the time to be talking about this?" Twilight asked, drawing back as the giant timberwolf below them once more pounced and tried to bite the torn open half of a train carriage she was holding in her magic, housing both herself and the other.

The old unicorn peacefully sighed.

Controller

Blades of light pierced through the darkness of the room, and came to stab Lightning Dust right in her eyes. The pegasus threw the covers over her face, muttering and cursing her past self for not closing the blinds all the way. But she knew she'd get up just moments later. She was like that, once she woke up she wasn't comfortable lying in bed. And it would have bothered her greatly to waste the whole day sleeping. That was the reason she never closed the blinds all the way.

With a flap of her wings her covers were sent into the air, and by the time they fell down on the mattress with a thud she'd already left the bed. She moved pretty fast for the first five seconds, then the migraine hit and she had to slow down. She stared at the floor below her, waiting for it to stop dancing and spinning, chewing on the thick and viscous nothingness that filled her mouth. She pondered her options for a moment, then sighed.

"I know you're there!" she yelled, her voice raspy and a bit painful against her dry throat. "And I know you've got a copy of the keys. Come in." Then, she waited, comfortable with the knowledge that if the unicorn wasn't actually there then there would be no reason to get embarrassed. Sure, maybe the neighbours heard, but they heard her screaming nonsense halfway between midnight and dawn when she was carried back home drunk and on drugs. She had no more dignity to lose with them.

It turned out the guard was there. Just a moment later Lightning heard the click of the key turning, and a moment later the clack of the door opening. She looked up to see the stallion walk inside and look back at her. He wasn't wearing any armour, a rare sight for her. Not that she was ever in a condition to get a proper look at him when he was wearing one. "Why the fuck are you here?" she asked, coughing. "This is outside of your work hours. They don't pay you for watching over my ass when I'm sober. Don't waste your time."

"If I don't watch over your allegedly sober ass, I fear there won't be an ass left for me to watch over when it's drunk. As far as I'm concerned this is still part of my job. And I quite like my job. I spend hours doing nothing, and that's a lot better than what some others get." He closed the door behind himself. "So, why exactly did you call me in?"

"I know how to take care of myself, colt. Don't think there's anything out there I need your help with protecting me from." She pointed at the cupboard below the sink. "I keep a bottle in there for hangovers. I don't feel like walking to it right now."

"You're a strong mare, Lightning, and everyone knows that. And it's exactly why your own self is the biggest danger you're facing. Or something like that, they don't pay me to come up with good quotes." The unicorn walked up to the cupboard and opened it with his magic, then he leaned down to have a look inside. "These are all cleaning products."

Lightning shrugged. "I'm sure any one of them will do fine."

Nothing

"Doesn't it look like that painting is set askew?"

The guard leaned forward a bit, to get a better look at what the other was staring at. "Maybe? Maybe it's just perspective."

The other guard kept staring at the painting. "I think it is. Should we do something about it?"

"Like what?" asked his companion.

"I don't know. Fix it, I guess?"

The guard shook his head. "It's not our job. We shouldn't be worrying about it."

"But it looks wrong."

"I'm telling you, it's not our job. We shouldn't worry about it. Leave it to whoever is in charge of taking care of the paintings."

"Who is in charge of taking care of the paintings, anyway?" asked the guard.

"I don't know. Maybe the maids. Either way, someone is, and you should leave this to them," said the other.

"Look, I'm just trying to do a nice thing here."

"I get that. But you don't know what you're doing. Maybe it's not actually askew, it just looks like that to you. Maybe it's intentionally like that. It's someone else's work, you shouldn't go messing with it if you're not sure of what you're doing."

"No offense, but I think I know how a painting is supposed to go up on a wall. Whoever put it like that did a poor job, and I intend to fix that."

"How do you even know it's actually askew? It just looks like that to you. Maybe you're seeing it wrong. Maybe the floor here isn't level. You don't have the tools to check if it's actually right or not."

"Well, first off, this is Canterlot Castle we're talking about. You can't seriously be suggesting the floors aren't level here. I'm pretty sure someone would have noticed that in the single most important building in the entire country. And second, I am perfectly capable of seeing if a painting is askew or not. I'll remind you that I have much better aim than you do, so if anything you're probably the one seeing it wrong."

"Hey now, I agree with you that it looks like it's leaning to the left, but I'm just saying-"

"Wait, to the left? It looks like it's leaning to the right, not the left!"

"Our right or its right?"

"Our right! Why would you use stage directions for a painting on a wall? Of course I'm talking about our right."

"I'm just used to it."

"And that's why you're not in charge of directing military operations."

"Neither are you. And neither are there military operations to be in charge of, at most we'd be directing parades. Anyway. I'm not saying it doesn't look askew. I'm just saying you shouldn't touch it. You wouldn't want someone else doing your job without properly understanding it."

"My job right now is standing in front of this door, even a foal could understand it."

"Then maybe you should do your job and continue standing in front of this door instead of going there to move the painting."

Finally, one of the tremors was strong enough for the two to notice it past their bickering, as the walls and floor of the castle shook.

"Well, it's definitely askew now," one of the guards said, as the castle shook again and the painting fell.

"And maybe we should leave now," added the other, hearing cracks begin to form on the windows and outer wall.

Planning?

"Hello. I'm Starshine Flicker."

Starlight stared at the pegasus in front of her, while Sunburst's face began a throughout meeting with the surface of his desk. "How did you get in?" she asked.

Starshine just stretched a wing towards her, clearly wanting to shake her hoof. Her coat was a very light blue and her mane short and pink with flashes of yellow shot through, but her cutie mark was the same as when Sunburst had last seen her.

Starlight very reluctantly brought a hoof up to shake Starshine's wing. "Do we know each other? At all?"

Starshine gave Starlight's hoof a brief but violent shake, then she began to prance towards the stallion still sitting at his desk. "Did Sunburst not tell you about me?" she asked. "Sunburst, did you not tell her about me?"

"I spared her the insanity," Sunburst replied. It came out a bit muffled, since his face was still on the desk's surface.

Starshine pushed his head up with a wing. "It's alright, dear, don't worry about it. I can introduce myself." She turned towards Starlight. "I'm Starshine Flicker." Then she returned to looking at Sunburst, and propped herself up on the desk, lying on her side. "So, how are things going here, sweetie?" she asked, twirling the end of a feather around Sunburst's nose.

"Sunburst?" Starlight asked from behind the pegasus, in that tone of restrained anger that demanded an immediate and satisfying explanation.

"She's been following me around," the stallion replied. "And trying to get me in bed with her. I have no idea who she is. She just appears and disappears."

"How can you say that after the night of passion we had, my dear?" Starshine asked, sliding her face closer to Sunburst's.

Sunburst pushed her face away with a hoof. "The only thing that happened between us that night was card games. And only because you wouldn't leave."

"But I did end up in bed with you."

"Only because you teleported there after I'd already pulled up the covers. And I did not stay there after you did."

Starshine pouted. "But you did say you would want to have sex with me."

Sunburst bit his lower lip. "I did. If it wasn't for the fact that it would mess with my current relationship. And for the fact that you're creepy and weird and I have no reason to trust you." Sunburst leaned to the side to get a proper look at Starlight, just to know if running away was advisable there.

The other unicorn's expression only showed confusion. "And why are you here now, exactly?" she asked.

Starshine curved her neck and back to look at Starlight, her face upside-down. "Still trying to have sex with Sunburst."

The stallion in question pointed at her as he looked at Starlight, his expression saying more than his words ever could.

"...Seriously?" was all Starlight managed to ask at first. "Right here? Right now? While I'm here?"

"Hey. If I wasn't open to a threesome I would have waited until you left." Starshine winked and spread her hind legs.

Starlight and Sunburst looked at each other.

Must Be Silenced

Twilight Sparkle walked over the land of glass. She walked farther into it than she ever had anywhere else, in any other world, in any other wasteland of the many she'd seen. And she found nothing.

No life, no ruins, no signs of anything that had ever been there. Nothing but endless fields of glass that the Sun never left. And the wind blowing over the glass, shaping the hills and valleys, smoothing the surface of the world like the waves of the ocean smooth over pebbles. It looked almost like a desert, with unmoving, frozen dunes that shone under the light.

There was peace there, in a sense. No danger, no reason for her to leave. Silence, coloured only by the monotonous whispering of the wind, broken only by the clicks of her steps against the glass. But Twilight didn't like it there.

She'd tried running, at one point. That had only made things worse.

It wasn't normal. It wasn't natural. Lifeless, artificial, and she hated being there. A desert was one thing, even a barren one. It was still a product of nature. And those places where civilisation overtook nature were filled with the life of those creatures who'd built them, and when in ruin at least by the signs that those lives had been there. But there was nothing there on the land of glass. Empty destruction that left no place from where to rebuild.

And so Twilight kept on walking. She kept on looking, searching for something, anything. Anything beyond the endless, lifeless sculpture beneath her, the sheet of glass that seemed to have swallowed the whole world itself.

She could have broken it. The thought occurred to her as she walked farther still. Just a few blast of magic, she could have left a mark of her presence, a scar in the land that would have lasted until the wind washed it away. And she could have dug, as deep as she needed to, until she found something beneath the glass.

She didn't want to. She didn't want to know what had been there, what was left underneath. She had no interest in what had been lost, in what would never return to the surface. If there was life still there, it wouldn't last, nor would allowing it access to the world outside help prolong it.

Or perhaps it would. Maybe hope was still there, and not everything was lost, and life would return to the world if she helped it. But that wasn't the point. That wasn't the reason she was there. She shouldn't have been there at all, she was an intruder after all.

Her train of thought stopped as she stepped on top of a hill. There, past the next valley, something. Something other than glass, naked rock piercing through the endless carpet that covered the surface. Not much taller than or larger than her, black and barren, the tip of a mountain now submerged.

Twilight stood in front of the rock and looked at it. Then she turned, and looked at the world around her.

She could break it, if she wanted to.

All That Glitters

A faint breeze blew some dust along the road, past the van parked just on the edge of it. Not one other vehicle could be seen from there, and everything was covered in silence. Or, at least, everything would have been covered in silence, had it not been for three voices coming from behind the van.

"Is that really what I think it is?" one asked, incredulous.

"Oh, yes. Absolutely," answered the second, her tone deep and excited.

"Ooh. Wait, what is it?" asked the third one.

The first two girls looked to their right, flat expressions on their faces. Aria crossed her arms, while Adagio just placed her fingers on her forehead and shook her head.

Sonata pursed her lips, lifting her shoulders.

"This," Adagio resumed, taking a step as she pointed forward, "is what's finally going to allow us to get our revenge."

As she stared at Sonata's eyes flipping between Adagio and the thing in front of them while a question began to shape on her face, Aria just rolled hers. "It's a portal to Equestria!" she said, louder than necessary. "Can't you feel it?"

"Ooh!" Sonata turned back to Adagio. "Can we go in?"

Adagio began to nod, then stopped halfway through. "Is the van locked?" she asked, turning to Aria.

Aria pulled out the keys to their van and clicked on the little button with the lock icon on it. A few clicks came from the vehicle's various doors, followed by a couple beeps of light. "It is now."

"Good. I do not want to be left stranded in the middle of nowhere when we come back here because someone stole it." Stepping forward again, she held her hand a few centimetres away from the surface of the portal. Then, she smiled, and walked in.

Adagio disappeared into the portal. Aria waited a few seconds, just to make sure the other wouldn't quickly re-emerge from it yelling about the unsafe conditions on the other side, then she let go of Sonata's ponytail and watched the girl cross the portal by almost falling face first into it. Then she waited a moment longer, and took a look at the keys she still held in her hand. Finally, she sighed, shoved them back in her pocket, and stepped through the portal herself.

The scenery on the other side was somehow more barren than the one they'd come from. A wide stretch of plains covered in a thin layer of yellow-grey dust, with the occasional rock formation standing tall over the nothing around it. By all means, the place kinda sucked. But not one of the three sirens cared, as the feeling of finally being back in their original bodies more than made up for it.

"Screw the van," Adagio said, as Sonata flew loops around her. "We are not going back. I refuse to have to walk for another second of my life."

Aria was about to voice her opinion on the matter, but she was interrupted before she could talk. Not that it would have mattered, because the boom that echoed around them would have covered the sound of her words either way.

The three looked at each other, then at the bright red light spreading over the sky. "Okay," Aria said. "Maybe we are going back."

No Pulse Left

Sunset reached for the top of her nightstand, nails tapping against the wooden surface as she blindly searched while hair covered her face. Her other arm was trapped, Twilight doing her best impression of a koala on it.

"Come on," Sunset said as she finally found and grabbed her phone, even though her heart wasn't into it. "We're already late. The girls will be furious if we don't make it there at all." Pushing aside the hair over her eyes, she took a look at the screen. Her tone dropped as she saw the amount of notifications. "Maybe they already are," she said, sitting straighter.

Twilight, who'd partly let go of Sunset's arm to get a better look at the screen, fully let go once she saw what the other girl had. She slid towards the other side of the bed and went to grab her own phone, while Sunset unlocked hers.

Forcing her eyes away from the direct messages she'd received from the other girls, Sunset opened the Rainbooms's group chat and immediately scrolled up to the start of the commotion. And then she stared at the screen for a moment, rereading the same message over and over.

Then she glanced to her right, and noticed Twilight was about to do the same. The word left her mouth before she could even realise she was about to speak. "Don't!" she said, closer to a yell, as she reached out with her arm towards Twilight. Almost as if she could physically stop her, somehow.

Twilight did stop, her finger hovering over the screen just a moment away from entering the group's chat, and she turned towards Sunset. "Why? What happened?"

Sunset opened her mouth to speak, and found she couldn't. She looked back at the message, then back at Twilight, then sighed as she placed a hand over her forehead. "I... Come here." She moved a little to the side, and motioned for Twilight to sit next to her. "We'll read this together."

Closing her phone, Twilight moved on all fours towards her girlfriend. In different circumstances, Sunset might have found the scene sexy, Twilight still being naked and all, but her mind was elsewhere at that moment. Tilting her screen so Twilight couldn't see it just yet, she wrapped an arm around the girl and squeezed her tight.

There was a moment of silence as the two just sat there, then Sunset took a deep breath. "I'm not sure if there is a good way to learn this, and I don't think this message is it. But it does a better job than what I would do telling it." She turned the screen towards Twilight. "So here you go."

Twilight's eyes fixed on the message in the centre of the screen. She understood it just fine the first time around. It took reading it seven more times before she actually acknowledged its meaning, and five more before she finally accepted it. Then she looked at Sunset, and Sunset looked back.

And then they both looked back at the screen and began to scroll down, to see how the others had reacted to the news of Applejack and Rarity breaking up with each other.

QQ

"I what?" Rarity asked, disbelieving, in a tone so loud Twilight worried it would alert the ponies walking outside.

"You were together with Applejack, and then you broke up with her. The human you and the human Applejack, that is," Twilight repeated. It was easier saying it the second time around, now that she was no longer revealing a secret.

"I... Darling, this is too much drama for me to properly overreact to it!" Rarity gave a brief look around herself, then moved to the centre of the room. And there she pushed herself up on the couch which had not been present a moment before, and sat on the edge of it with her head in her hooves. "You're forcing me to be serious here."

Twilight moved closer to her, stretching out a hoof to offer her friend some support. "I know it's a lot to take in all at once. I hope it's not too much."

"Oh, don't worry, it's only the second time I've been forced to reevaluate the potential relationship status between me and my friends against my will. This week." Rarity tried to pout, but her lips refused to cooperate. She kept staring at the ground for a while, hooves perilously close to entering her mane and only held at bay by years of self-discipline. "How different am I from the other me?"

"Well, she's younger than you, by a bit," Twilight began. She sat beside Rarity and continued, "She's not quite as popular or established as a designer. Still working under someone else, nowhere near having multiple boutiques of her own across the country. She plays the keytar. It's like a small piano you can hold like a guitar. But she's a lot like you in personality. The same sense for fashion and style, the same dreams of success. The same generosity."

Rarity quietly nodded along. "And how is the human Applejack?"

"She's a lot like our Applejack, really." Twilight rubbed the back of her neck. "Dedicated to her farm, close to her family, honest. Strong. A little old fashioned. Maybe not quite as obsessed with apples as our own." Twilight looked to the ground. "Younger, of course. Maybe a little less wise than the Applejack you know, and I think that goes for their Rarity as well."

"How long had they been together for?"

Twilight swallowed to help clear away the dryness in her mouth. "I'm not sure, I don't think anyone really knows. It took a while before it became something noticeable, a while longer before they made it official with the others. Months at the least though. But it must have happened after I went there the first time, they weren't even friends back then. So no longer than that."

"And why did they break up?"

"I only know what Sunset told me, and she only knows what they said. And they said it just happened. Their relationship wasn't working right, and they decided to end it." Twilight sighed. "It's still Applejack we're talking about. I don't know if she would lie about this."

Rarity finally turned to look at Twilight. "And I?"

Twilight sighed again, deeper this time. "Rarity still loves her. She says she agreed to the breakup, but it would be clear as day that she's still in love even without her admitting it when she's drunk. And there's a bit more." She swallowed. "Applejack left for a different city, not too long after they broke up. A job opportunity. She warned the others, but it still felt sudden. They all think it had something to do with the breakup, maybe she was trying to get away from the whole thing. Rarity has been getting worse ever since, not that she hadn't started spiralling down already." Twilight took one last, deep breath. "She needs help, Rarity. And you're the only mare who'd know her well enough."

Rarity placed a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "And I will help her."

Axcept

"Everything has a price."

Chrysalis watched from her position, sitting at a table outside a restaurant and sipping on a drink, disguised as a pegasus. She looked with fascination, and a little nervousness, as Stellaria stood in the middle of the road and stared straight at the castle in front of her.

She was waiting. Standing still and waiting, a confident smile on her face, while ponies walked around her without paying any attention to her. She'd been there for a couple of minutes already, and she knew she wouldn't have to wait much longer.

Suddenly, the castle's doors opened. Chrysalis tensed in her seat, holding her glass a little tighter. Her eyes followed Twilight Sparkle as she walked out of her castle and down the road towards Stellaria, then beside her and past her, without ever glancing towards the other alicorn.

Stellaria just stood there, smiling, while Twilight walked away. Then she turned towards Chrysalis and began to head towards her, still keeping the same smile on her face. She sat at the same table, and fetched herself a slice of bread from the basket in the middle of it. And she just sat there, eating her bread and staring at Chrysalis, still smiling.

The disguised changeling curved her lips in what couldn't properly be described as a smile or a frown. It was an awkward arching, the front part of her mouth slightly open as if she was about to speak but holding herself back. She was, in essence, refusing to accommodate the other's smugness, but she had no arguments to fall back on.

Stellaria swallowed her bread. "Well, Chrissy? Are you convinced now?"

Chrysalis grit her teeth. "Yes," she hissed out quickly, then she moved her glass to her lips to drink some more. The pear juice was nice, at least.

"That's a good girl," Stellaria said, patting the changeling-turned-pegasus' head. "Looks like this time I won't have to choke you until you pass out for refusing to listen to your owner." She took another slice of bread in her magic.

Chrysalis tensed up for a moment at those words, then she set her glass down on the table. "You should be careful with how you treat those around you. They always might turn on you."

Stellaria laughed at that. A dry, ugly sound with no joy in it. "The altar you're preaching from does you no favours, Chrissy. You speak to me of trust and betrayal, after all that's happened to you?"

"You've said it yourself that my failures were the result of my mistakes. Perhaps you should learn from them."

"I could," Stellaria answered. "And I have. The thing is that I don't care. Not when it's with the one who left me to die. Not when you don't have any chance to defeat me." She leaned back in her chair. "The only creatures who might be a threat to me would turn you back to stone on sight, and never believe you. You're only alive right now because I allow it. Part of why is that you could still be useful. Most of it is the amusement I get out of torturing you. You should be thankful that you're so entertaining when you suffer."

"I should have burned you when you were still a log."

"Careful, Chrissy. You're giving me ideas."

Restart

"It's pretty late. You shouldn't be out here by yourself."

Cadence was startled by the voice. She turned, a quiet smile on her face. "And what about you?"

"I can't sleep well in an empty bed. Not used to it." Shining took the last few steps separating him from Cadence, then sat at her side. He looked up at the night sky, like she'd been doing a moment before.

Cadence looked at him instead. "Who's watching over Flurry?"

"She's asleep. Don't worry about it. I asked a couple guards to guard her door just in case."

"But what if she wakes up?"

"Don't worry. They're good guards, they'll survive long enough for us to get back."

Cadence's smile widened, and she looked up at the stars again. "Did you seriously walk all the way up here?"

"Ha!" Shining smiled. "Of course not. I used teleport jumps most of the way. I walked that last portion just to look cool."

Without taking her eyes away from the sky, Cadence punched her husband in the shoulder. "How did you know I was here?"

"It's your favourite place to come to, lately," Shining replied. "And I checked the kitchens, you weren't stealing cake."

"It's not technically stealing if I do it. Princess of the Empire and all." Cadence leaned to her side, and wrapped a wing around Shining.

"Not that either of those titles makes any sense. This is more like a city-state and being a princess in Equestria is dependent on your appendages. Or marrying one, somehow." He stopped there, feeling Cadence's teeth around his ear.

"We've had this conversation already, sweetie. At least once a month." Cadence kissed Shining's ear as she let go of it.

Shining smiled, and extended a leg to wrap it around his wife. "Why did you come here in the middle of the night?"

"I'm nervous." Cadence leaned against Shining. "I'm worried about everything."

Shining leaned against her. "Me too. But I'm sure we'll figure things out. We'll make it through this, together."

"Together."

A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 6

"Starlight Glimmer," Twilight introduced the unicorn to the newly arrived stallion, pointing a hoof towards her. "My main assistant in the study of scales. And just about everything else I study. How was the trip there?" she asked, turning back towards Starlight.

"Dry," answered the mare. "Nothing but sand and wind, like the last time. But at least the portal wasn't under a dune this time around. I think we should prioritise exploring other scales." She stepped forward as she spoke, and perked up as she noticed Stone Brick and Soarin'. "Oh, I see we've got someone new."

Twilight nodded. "Starlight, this is..." She pursed her lips, bringing a hoof to her chin. "Huh. What is your name, actually? I forgot to ask."

"Stone Brick," Stone Brick replied.

"Starlight, this is Stone Brick," Twilight said, pointing at him. "He's got a new scale with him, I assume that's why he's here. That is why you're here, right?"

A little uncertain at first, Stone nodded.

"Well, I'm going," Soarin' said, turning to leave and waving with a wing. "Call me if you need help with anything."

"Meeting up with Silver?" Starlight asked, smirking.

Soarin' didn't answer, but the way his hind legs tensed up for a moment was all the confirmation Starlight needed. He left the room and closed the door, while she turned around and picked up the scale still floating above the platform.

Twilight focused her attention on Stone. "So. Want to know where your scale leads?"

The pony swallowed, and set down his saddlebags, slowly digging through them to reach the bottom. "I was hoping for answers, when I came here," he said, as he grabbed the scale.

"Start asking questions then." Twilight noticed the stallion's tension, and she moved a little closer, her tone a little quieter. She gave a brief look around, making sure everyone else in the laboratory was preoccupied with something else.

"What is this?" Stone pulled out the scale and showed it to Twilight.

The alicorn smiled. "That is something I really wish I knew. But there are a few things about it I can tell you. I'm sure you know it's called a scale. We have no confirmation on it, but we suspect it might be a part of the Behemoth itself. We know about the way they bond with creatures." She looked back. "And you saw what they can be used for."

"So it's a portal?"

Twilight grimaced, biting the corner of her lower lip. "It's closer to a key. A way to open a gate between worlds, if you know how to turn it right. But that's reductive. There's more to scales than this. Unfortunately, they are a tricky thing to work with, and this is the one use we've found so far that we can safely study." As she spoke, she slowly turned back towards Stone Brick. "Every scale opens a way to a different world. Do you want to know where yours leads?"

Stone looked at the scale in his hoof, then back at Twilight. He took a slow breath in, then he nodded.

Magic changes everything, from the fabric of the cosmos to the tiniest living organism. The latter can be just as problematic as the former.

"I've never seen anything like this. I've never read of anything like this. Considering what I've heard from everyone, there's a decent chance this did not exist at all a couple of months ago." The nurse's eyes moved from Twilight to the pony lying on the bed in front of them, then back to the alicorn.

Twilight swallowed. "Will she be alright?" she asked.

"I don't know. If things stay like this? Yes, absolutely. It's not worse than a seasonal fever right now. But will they stay like this? I have no idea, and it would be inadvisable to make a guess in either direction. I would suggest moving her somewhere else, where she can properly be monitored. Even if it turns out to be something innocuous, studying it would be helpful for the future."

Twilight nodded. "I understand. Very well. I will have a room set up in the castle, and have her moved there. I will call doctors from Canterlot, they'll certainly want to study this." She turned towards the nurse. "I'd like you to meet them once they arrive. I understand I can't ask you to leave your job here unattended, but I would still like to have you come visit her whenever possible."

"Of course, Princess." The mare nodded.

Twilight once more looked at the pony on the bed. She was asleep, seemingly peacefully so. An outside observer might have thought nothing was wrong with her. Of course, they wouldn't have noticed that her coat and mane were the wrong colours, respectively blue and red rather than yellow and pink.

"Is there anything else, Princess?" asked the nurse.

Twilight shook her head. "No. Feel free to go, I'll just sit here a little longer."

The nurse gave a small bow, then walked out of the room.

Nightcrawl (A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 7)

"Very well then." Slowly, making sure the stallion was still convinced, Twilight took hold of the scale and began to walk towards the platform. "I will be going alone at first, for safety reasons. Starlight can give you a few ideas of what might be on the other side." She turned towards Stone. "I hope that is not a problem for you."

Still breathing slowly, Stone nodded again. Starlight began to approach him, meanwhile looking at Twilight. "Are you sure you're going alone?" she asked.

"You just came back from the desert, it's better if you stay here," Twilight said, setting the scale in place. "I wouldn't want you to get tired." Concentrating, she began to cast the long series of protective spells needed as precaution before traversing a portal. They'd managed to combine most of them, and make it so the different portions only triggered and actually drained most power when the conditions requiring them were met, but it was still a rather complex and relatively taxing piece of magic.

Behind the alicorn, Starlight began to tell Stone Brick of the first time they'd traversed a portal. She conveniently left out the possibility of it blowing up the castle and maybe more had things gone wrong, Twilight noted. Ponyville had probably never been in danger, there were measures in place to contain an explosion to the castle itself, but if a reaction strong enough to overcome even that occurred then it definitely would have taken the town with it at the least.

Shaking those thoughts out of her head, Twilight focused once more on the scale in front of her. She readied her horn, then cast the spell, and a moment later light spread out from the scale in the portals' familiar pattern. "See you in a bit," she said, stepping forward.

The trip through the portal was no different from the usual one. The world on the other side was dark. That was her first impression. Night covered the sky, the light of the Moon shining down over everything. A street paved with stone on the ground, well maintained, buildings in the same condition. Soft whispers and breaths, the subtle clacking of a few hooves.

Twilight looked around her. Ponies, standing still and looking at her. Surprised, like their daily lives had been interrupted, curiously studying the new arrival. Silent. A few dark banners hung from buildings and posts, and Twilight swore she'd seen a pattern like the one on them before.

There was something about the way everyone was looking at her. About the lack of words or sounds. About the colour of their eyes. A castle stood not too far from her position, behind a number of streets and buildings, the top still visible as it towered over everything else. Ancient stone towers and walls, and dark flags waving from posts above them.

One pony stepped towards Twilight. The alicorn stepped back into the portal.

Twilight stepped out of the portal, in the middle of her laboratory. Starlight and Stone Brick looked at her, and worry coloured their expressions as they noticed hers. "Is everything alright?" the unicorn asked, while the portal closed.

Twilight looked at both of them. "We need to talk."

Fullmoon

Rainbow's body drifted up the river, surrounded by scraps of metal and paper. The green water was cold, but not unpleasantly so. Three moons shone up in the sky above her, and a myriad of stars around the them. And it all seemed natural to her, normal, needing not to be questioned.

Slowly, however, she realised something was amiss. Something she couldn't quite put her hoof on, just like how she couldn't quite remember why she was there, or where there even was. At the same time, she noticed she wasn't alone. There was another pony to her left, floating up the river atop a silver flower petal.

"Princess Luna," Rainbow said, recognising the alicorn. She then looked back at the alien sky above them. "This is a dream then."

"It would be quite the worrisome situation otherwise," Luna replied, following Rainbow's gaze up to the three moons in the sky. "And quite the added workload for me, considering those all move in different patterns. It is not a common sight to see them all together like that. I believe the added visibility they provide is part of why the attack failed." She looked down at the broken metal around them in the river. "Although that is perhaps a topic for another night. My workload, however, is not."

Rainbow Dash sat upright in the middle of the river, her hindquarters firmly placed on the water's surface, without concerning herself at the physical impossibility of the event. "Is something wrong?"

"The attack failed and you almost died, for one." Luna shook her head. "Sorry, a topic for another night, as we've said. As for the troubles of our world, yes, something is wrong. Many things, actually." She gave a little smile. "But that has always been the case, if admittedly more so since the Behemoth's arrival. Perhaps it would be better to ask what is wrong instead. What is wrong now that wasn't before, and why am I here now."

Rainbow Dash stared at her for a moment, as silence stretched on. "Uh. Yeah, pretend I did that," she said, motioning with a hoof.

Luna couldn't help but chuckle at that. "I shall put it clearly then. I am here because I require assistance. My work as guardian of ponies' dreams has grown more taxing, as of late. In no small part, this is due to the hunting sessions I have to undertake. Without the Elements and with the Behemoth's presence, the Everfree has been growing restless and more twisted, its presence in the dream world more intense, and the borders between dream and reality far thinner within it."

Luna noticed the poorly contained excitement on Rainbow's face, and her lips curved upwards just a tiny bit. "It is nothing I can't take care of, and nothing too dangerous so far. But I do fear I may not be able to properly dedicate myself to either task as things get worse. And knowing about a certain pony who expressed interest in travelling through the dreams of others, and who also happens to quite enjoy the thrill of action and danger even in her sleep, I was wondering if-"

"Yes," said Rainbow, failing to contain her excitement any longer. She'd been mouthing the word for a bit as she'd listened to Luna speak, and actually hearing herself say it out loud surprised even her. She'd not meant to, and she was aware she'd spoken just a bit too soon.

But Luna just smiled. "Very well then. Shall we begin?"

And Rainbow noticed she was suddenly wearing a silver suit of armour over her light blue coat.

Nightcall (A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 8)

The door closed behind Starlight. Inside the small room, Twilight Sparkle, Stone Brick, and the scale he had brought. And a small crystal table. Starlight was almost certain the room hadn't been there the day before, but she'd learned to stop concerning herself with the oddities of the crystal castle.

"There's something I haven't told you," Twilight began, setting the scale down onto the table. "I don't think Starlight told you either. It's not something we share around too much, even with the rest of the staff, but it is something you need to hear to understand why this is important." She stared right at Stone Brick. "Do I have your attention, and your secrecy?"

A little taken aback at first, Stone nodded, and Starlight was reminded that she was, in fact, at the presence of Equestria's only current ruler. It was easy to forget the weight of Twilight's role and titles at times.

The alicorn waited a moment, looking around the room. "I've told you every scale leads to a different world, and I'm sure you've realised how different they can be from each other. But they all have one thing in common." She paused to take a breath. "Every world we visited so far had no sapient creatures in it. We found ruins, we found traces of what clearly used to be civilisation, but we never found any signs of one still existing.

"And it doesn't look like any of them met a peaceful end," she continued. "We found worlds submerged, desertified, swept by impossibly strong winds, covered in ice. We found a planet broken in half. We found a room floating in a void that seems to be all that's left of a world, and everything inside was still in perfect condition. Every single world we've been to was destroyed in some way, some worse than others, by some sort of catastrophe." Twilight paused a moment longer. "Until now."

Starlight almost jumped up as she heard the last words. "You found an habitable world on the other side of that?" she asked, almost a scream of surprise.

Twilight gave a crooked smile, one Starlight had never seen on her face. "I found more than that. I found an inhabited world." Taking advantage of Starlight's momentary gasp, she kept going before the unicorn could interrupt her. "And it's like ours. There were ponies there."

Starlight's mouth opened and closed a couple of times, with no sound coming out of it.

Twilight's expression darkened. "And we are not going back now. Not the way you're thinking of. We'll have to be very careful in there, Starlight. And make sure we're not seen, when we go investigate."

Starlight's mouth closed with a snap, several layers of confusion and surprise warping her face. "But why?"

"I saw something there. Something I recognised. You know all about Sunset, so I don't think you'll have trouble believing me. It was night there, and the ponies were out, and I recognised the pattern on the banners around town. It's not the exact same I saw the last time, but I have no doubt it means the same thing."

Stone Brick was looking between the two mares, confused.

Starlight took a step forward. "Twilight, what did you see? What does this have to do with Sunset? And why did you tell me it was..." She looked down for a moment. "No."

Twilight nodded. "Yes. What we've gotta hope for now is that she doesn't have a way to follow us here."

"But... It doesn't make sense, the timelines I created shouldn't-"

"It's not the same. The Moon was clear, and the banners were different." Twilight took another breath. "But it's unmistakable that Nightmare Moon is the one in power there, or someone very much like her. I don't like the idea, and neither do you I'm sure, but this is the only real chance we have to learn more about how scales work. We'll have to go back there, sooner or later." She turned to Stone Brick. "I must ask to keep your scale here a while longer, I'm afraid. And I'm sure you have questions. Now is the time to ask them."

GLR

"So, funny story, I found out this online game I used to play back in middle school got its servers shut down a few years ago, but then a couple years later a group of fans got together and reverse-engineered the whole thing, and now it's playable again. Still a bit buggy in places, but they're patching it up. I've gotten back into it."

"And how is it?"

"Oh, it's every bit as awful as I remembered it, a black hole that sucks away your life with ever-increasing waiting times to upgrade your buildings so you can produce more resources to upgrade your base even further and produce even stronger units and defensive turrets in a never ending spiral of growing numbers that feasts on your basic human instincts. But at least now there's no company behind it, so it's impossible to speed things up by paying real money for premium currency, so everyone is stuck with the waiting. So when you find a stronger player you know they wasted hours to get there instead of dollars. I'm only playing it because of nostalgia, and I think it's the same for everyone else, really."

Indigo Zap momentarily raised an eyebrow, then her expression returned to normal. "Alright then. Are you playing it right now?"

Lemon Zest shook her head. "No, I have buildings under construction at the moment, no point keeping it open. I would keep it in the background, but the current build doesn't handle idle players well. It crashes and needs to be restarted, so I might as well not keep it open. Not while attacking is still bugged and I don't need to worry about optimising my online time so people can't steal my resources." She kept on typing at her keyboard.

"Why do I get the feeling that means you once spent a whole day straight never leaving the game just for that?"

"Because I did." Lemon looked at Indigo. "Hey now. If you don't get all the stupid things done and out of your system when you're young you're gonna have problems when you feel the need to do them as an adult."

"I don't think that's how that works. Anyway, what are you up to now, then?"

"Right now I'm creating a bunch of fake accounts to skew the results of a pool on this website." Lemon turned back towards the computer screen. "It would be a lot easier if people didn't keep voting for the other option."

Indigo Zap just rolled her eyes at that. "What's the pool about, anyway?"

"Porn."

A moment of silence stretched on. "Do you have no shame?"

"Specifically, what this girl should do next."

Indigo resisted the impulse to smack herself in the face, though it was a close thing. Then another impulse came to her. As stealthily as one could, which is to say not particularly, she slid her chair next to Lemon's. "What are the options?"

Lemon just turned the screen a little, as she once again picked the one she was trying to push the pool towards.

Orchard

"Doesn't that girl look familiar?"

Lemon Zest followed the direction of Indigo's eyes with her own. "The green one?"

"No, not her. The one next to her, with the hat."

"Oh. I don't know, maybe? We should ask her."

"Lemon, you can't just-"

"Hey, you! With the hat!" Lemon Zest shouted towards the opposite side of the road. "Do we know each other?"

Applejack turned to stare at the opposite sidewalk, and there saw a girl excitedly waving at her while next to her another covered her face with her hands, distinctly showing the signs of wishing the ground would swallow her. A few more people turned as well, and the blue-haired girl took a step back.

After taking a moment to assess the weirdness of the situation, Applejack realised she did actually recognise the pair. "Crystal Prep? Friendship Games? Twilight almost destroying the world?" she shouted back, regretting it a moment later as most eyes turned to her.

Lemon Zest snapped her fingers. "Applejack! Of course!" She turned to Indigo. "See? We did know her. We just had to ask!"

Indigo moved her fingers just enough to uncover her eyes, and threw the most piercing glare she could muster at her friend.

Lemon ignored it as she turned back towards Applejack. "What brings you here?" she yelled yet again.

Nervous, Applejack pointed to the nearest crossing with her eyes, hoping the duo would catch the hint.

Lemon Zest did not. Fortunately, Indigo did, and she dragged the other girl by the back of her shirt up to the crossing and to the other side of the road, as Applejack walked there too. They all moved to stand aside, as to not stop in the middle of the sidewalk while talking.

Applejack pointed a finger at the girls. "Lemon Zest, right?" she asked, receiving a nod in response. "And you are..." She turned to Indigo. "Uh... Blue Fast? Something like that."

"Indigo Zap." The girl put forward a hand to shake Applejack's, who did the same.

"So, what brings you here?" Lemon asked, swaying back and forth with her arms behind her back.

"Well, I sort of live here now," Applejack said, looking towards the ground.

"Cool. Same," Indigo replied.

"Won't that hurt the band?" Lemon asked.

Applejack flinched at that. "Yep. Yes it will. They're looking for a new bassist now." Then she frowned slightly. "Wait, you know about the Rainbooms?"

"Of course I do!" Lemon replied. "How could I not know about the band Twilight sings in?"

"Twilight is in a band?" Indigo looked at the other two, surprised.

Lemon rolled her eyes. "How do you not know that, Indy? I've told you about it at least five times."

"Lemon, living with you is already hard enough. If I actually had to pay attention to all your unending music rants I think my brain would melt and leak out of my ears." Indigo turned towards Applejack. "She thinks three in the morning is an appropriate time to blast music. She almost got us kicked out of the place. Twice."

Applejack felt a small chuckle rise to her lips. "So, why are you two living here on your own? University?"

"University is for nerds," Lemon replied.

"Which admittedly includes all of our friends, and it's the reason almost all of them are around here too," Indigo added. "But no. We're just taking a year off, deciding what to do. Having fun, you know?"

"Almost?" Applejack raised an eyebrow.

Both Lemon and Indigo looked to the side. "Sugarcoat is still stuck at Crystal Prep," the latter explained. "Things have been rough for her after the Games."

"What about you? What are you here for, studying?" Lemon stepped in.

"Work, actually," Applejack answered. Then she glanced at her phone. "Speaking of which, I better get going if I want to be there in time."

"We were going that way too, we can come with you if you want," Indigo offered.

Applejack pondered her options. "Sure. Why not?"

And with that, the trio began to walk down the sidewalk again.

Connect the Dots

The alicorn was more than ready to finally get rid of the stallion. She'd have forcefully flung him into town with her magic if it hadn't been for her desire to remain unnoticed, and she was planning to do it anyway if he annoyed her particularly. But she needed to focus. The first houses were in sight, and she couldn't afford all her work to come undone because of one mistake. She couldn't afford to be seen there, there would be too many questions, and sooner or later the original Twilight would find out. No one had to see her.

"Oh, I see you've changed," the stallion suddenly said, turning back towards her. "I can still recognise you though. Same wires as before inside you."

She paid no attention to him or his nonsense. There were more important things to focus her attention on, for example the pony at the edge of town. The one who was coming right towards them. In a blink, Twilight's clone jumped behind a bush. If everything went right, the pony would just notice the stallion and take him back to the city.

"Scarlet!" the stallion shouted, noticing the approaching pony. He began to trot towards the mare, leaving Twilight's clone behind.

The other pony ran towards him. "You're here! I was worried about you! Where have you been?"

"I got lost," the stallion replied. "Did you know there's a swamp someplace around here? I did find some puzzles along the way. I had fun. I had some soup earlier. You like soup, don't you? We should have soup together sometime."

Scarlet drew back a little, a conflicted expression on her face as she eyed over the stallion and his clothes. "You shouldn't run off on your own like that. You could have hurt yourself, or worse! You should stay in town from now on, please."

"But I wasn't on my own." The stallion pulled on a blade of glass in front of him. Twilight's clone felt her heart drop as the bush in front of her lowered itself into the ground and the stallion pointed a hoof towards her. "She helped me get back here after I got lost near the swamp," he continued.

The alicorn's very first impulse was to blow both ponies' brains put. Thankfully that only lasted a moment. She knew it would only make things much worse. Cursing herself and the other Twilight for not having learnt appropriate memory manipulation spells yet, she decided her best option was to play along and hope. Carefully she stepped forward and began to approach the other two.

"Oh, thank you!" The mare rushed towards her. "I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't found him." In a lower tone, once she was near, she leaned forward and added, "He's not all right in the head. I'm sorry you had to deal with him. We're trying to figure out what to do with him." Straightening and speaking normally again, Scarlet continued, "What was a unicorn like you doing out there near the swamp, anyway?"

Twilight's clone was about to respond, but something of what the other had said made her pause. That, and something she saw. Standing in front of the mare, she was just close enough to see her reflection inside Scarlet's eyes.

And that reflection did not show Twilight's body.

Fire

It would rain soon, the pegasus could feel it. The tiny prickles of electricity running along their wings spoke of an oncoming storm. At the least, they were done with work for the day. All they needed to do was find a place to stay for the night. Maybe they would even catch some of the rain, they never did mind getting wet too much.

Autumn wouldn't last much longer. The days were getting shorter, the nights colder, and soon winter would be there again. Hopefully it wouldn't be too different from the previous ones, but there was no telling with the Behemoth still in Canterlot. If they squinted really hard, on a day when the skies were clear enough, they could see it even from there.

It wasn't something they liked to do, though. Not that anyone else in Equestria liked looking at the Behemoth, not as far as the pegasus knew at least. And they would have been greatly surprised to find out someone actually did, and perhaps concerned about the mental well being of said creature. Fascination with danger was one thing, but there was something distinctly unnatural and otherworldly about the Behemoth, something sickening, even if no one could pinpoint down exactly what.

A stray droplet of water landed on the pegasus' muzzle, taking them out of their train of thought. It was starting earlier than expected. Firecracker stretched their wings, then took off and began to glide down the mountain. A few more drops of water hit them on their way down, but it hadn't properly started to rain yet. For a few minutes the pegasus just kept gliding, as the weather remained unchanging.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, as the sky grew a bit darker. A few flashes of lightning illuminated the clouds from within, but still only sparse drops dripped down to earth. That had Firecracker mildly worried, heavy rain was not the most pleasant of things to take head on. At least it was long past summer, completely out of season for a hailstorm. Though with the Behemoth there, one couldn't be completely sure.

They supposed maybe they should have been glad it was still raining water, going by what the creature had brought to Equestria as far as plants and animals went. But then, they should have been angry at the Behemoth being there in the first place. Perhaps it was all a bunch of pointless wonderings, and they shouldn't have concerned themself with speculation about what could and couldn't have been with things so completely outside of their control. After all, it would have been like complaining they'd been born in that world and not another.

And yet ponies still did complain about the rain. Admittedly, most of them were used to weather being a scheduled thing, and they even knew who to direct their complaints to. Firecracker did not envy those ponies tasked with bringing rain, not one bit. But the rain above them at that moment was different, they knew it. And in a couple more minutes it would be pouring down on them, so perhaps it was best if they focused on finding shelter first, and then continued on with their musings there.

Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 4

"See, girls? The plot is moving forward now," Rarity said, but her tone was shaking, and her smile unconvincing.

"Still waiting on an update on the cracks world," Twilight said, "and on one for the hospital storyline. And probably on something else that I've forgotten because it's been too long."

Rarity tried to widen her smile. It didn't go too well. "Come on now, darling. I'm sure he has it all figured out."

Twilight shook her head while keeping her eyes on the unicorn, unamused. "I don't think he does. And honestly, even if he does, I don't think he's delivering on it. Do we really need to spend a chapter on a painting? Can't we move on to the important stuff instead?"

Rarity crossed her front legs and looked to the side, furrowing her brow and pursing her lips. "Oh, please." She have a short, hissing huff. "You need to learn to appreciate the flavour of things, Twilight. Why eat sweets when other food can feed you just the same? Why wear good clothes when simple panels of cloth can offer the same protection?" She flayed her front legs around dramatically for emphasis. "Why even read a book instead of its synopsis if you're not interested in how the events are presented? Why paint walls? It's what decorates things that makes us enjoy them, not only the barren and naked structure underneath!" She posed for added effect.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "And I am worried that there is no underlying structure under all this fluff and pointless meandering. You can't build a solid wall with just paint, no matter how many layers of it you apply. If you want to decorate something, you need something to decorate, otherwise all you have is a pile of decorations that is less than the sum of its parts. If all you have are bits meant to enhance an experience, but no experience to enhance, then what you've made isn't good. And if something is there, but it's too far buried underneath everything else, then it's not much different. Adding salt to food makes it taste better, but a pile of salt with some food beneath isn't good." She crossed her front legs, closed her eyes and nodded.

"How long will the potion last?" Fluttershy asked from her bed. "I don't mind being blue, but I would like to know when it will be over."

"Should be over soon," Rainbow Dash replied from atop her own bed. She moved one of the hats beside her to the side. "Rarity? When are you moving these?"

Rarity looked up. "Ah. Yes, darling, give me just a minute, okay?" She frantically began to look around the room for another suitable place for her pile of fashion.

"Girls?" asked Applejack, rubbing the back of her head. "Does anyone else feel like things are different right now? Different from the way they usually are?"

Everypony else in the room looked at each other. "Not really?" Twilight said.

Applejack bit her lower lip, then went back to looking at her tablet.

Carried Along

Adagio was the first back out of the portal. And she almost made it there still on her feet, but Sonata crashing into her as she stepped out behind her brought both of them on the ground. Aria was not as hasty as either of them as she stepped back into the human world, but the pile of bodies right in front of her feet as she walked out of the portal still meant she lost her balance, fell down and became part of it.

At the bottom of the pile, Adagio propped her head up with an arm, and resting her chin on her hand began to drum with her fingers on her cheek, waiting for the other two to take themselves off of her, an unamused expression decorating her face. Aria, being the one on top, was the first to get off, and after dusting off her clothes she helped Sonata up with a hand. Feeling the weight over her lift, Adagio too stood up, cleaning her clothes as best she could and then posing as if nothing had happened.

"So much for finally getting our revenge," Aria said, her arms crossed as she looked at the portal with spite.

"We'll go back," Adagio replied. "We just need to wait for the other side to be clear." There was a distinct growling sound underneath her words, like that produced by a cat who's ready to lash out against someone.

"If the other side ever is clear," Aria said.

Sonata just stood in a corner, looking sad and miserable. "I miss flying."

Adagio ignored her. "We'll wait here. We're going back in later, tonight if we have to. We are not leaving this place until we have magic again, and we're writing down the coordinates."

"Do we have food with us?" asked Aria.

"I don't care if we have food with us! We'll have all the food we want once the people of this world are crawling beneath us," Adagio snapped.

Aria and Sonata looked at her for a moment, silent, eyes wide. "I do want food," said the latter.

Adagio growled at her.

"I'll go check if we have food," Aria said, walking towards the van.

Adagio turned her head towards the portal and began to glare at it, a mix of frustration and desire on her face. Then sometimes else caught her attention, and she placed a hand on her chest, her expression at once confused and concerned.

"We do have food!" Aria announced from inside the van. She then stepped out, just in time to see Adagio sliding a hand beneath her clothes. "Did that thing finally stab itself in your ribs? I get keeping it, but don't you think it's kind of obsessive to wear it all the time?"

"Shut up, will you?" With a tug, Adagio pulled out the necklace she wore, and stared at the red gem attached to it. And a grin slowly spread over her lips.

Seeing her, the other two did the same, fetching their respective gems from within their pockets. And both of them were slowly overtaken by excitement, as they watched the red sparks of energy dance and crackle within the crystals.

"Maybe we can leave for now, after all," Adagio purred, donning her necklace once again.

Fructose

Applejack adjusted her clothes as she walked down the sidewalk, briefly checking her phone for messages before looking straight ahead again. She wasn't in a rush to get where she needed to go, but it was still preferable to arrive there soon and not have others wait for long. At least that was what she told herself, to justify her walking pace. What she didn't tell herself was that she was nervous, though beneath the surface of her thoughts she knew she was.

Finally, after turning a corner, her destination appeared to her. Calling it a restaurant would have been a generous thing, perhaps so generous as to make it a lie. It was more properly defined as a place that served food for cheap. The type of business that thrived on people in their late teens and early twenties looking for a place to meet each other and feed themselves at, but not interested in the formalities and prices of a proper restaurant. Visited by anyone who needed cheap food to eat on the go. So, essentially, a gathering place for students, young workers, and other sorts of people still young enough to not care about the quality of the things they ingested. She fit the second category, and the ones she was going there to meet fit the other two.

There they were already, all four of them sitting at a table just outside the entrance. Talking to each other, until one of them noticed her and pointed and waved and the others turned and now they were all staring at her and only then did Applejack realise she'd been standing still and frozen staring at them. Waving and resuming her walk before Lemon decided she needed directions and started to yell, Applejack tried to swallow her nervousness. It didn't work.

"There you are," Indigo Zap greeted her. Then she turned to the others, while Applejack took a seat on the empty metal chair beside Lemon Zest's. "This is Applejack. Applejack, these are Sunny Flare and Sour Sweet."

The latter of the two girl excitedly smiled and waved, while the first one gave a more polite and contained smile. "A pleasure to meet you," she said.

"Uh, likewise," Applejack said, sitting down straight and looking at the four girls at the table. She awkwardly fidgeted with her empty hands, unsure of what to do or say. "So, uh, I know about Lemon and Indigo, what about you two? You're here in town to study, right?"

Sunny nodded. Sour said, "Yes we are! Isn't it wonderful?" Then she looked to the side and her tone dropped. "Ruining our sleep schedules and diets to waste our time and money on learning things we could have learned by ourselves for free if we weren't too lazy for that only because we need someone to acknowledge that we have in fact learned them. And the bathrooms suck."

"Hey now," Lemon interjected. "I'm not going to school, and I still get to ruin my sleep schedule and diet." She pulled out a bag of gummy worms and began to eat them. Applejack had no idea where the bag had actually come from. It was not a small bag, either.

"That's just because you never mentally moved on from being a teenager, Lem." Indigo sighed. She looked at Applejack. "What will you be having? We were discussing what to eat before, I can go order for all of us if you tell us."

"Does this place have a menu?" Applejack asked.

Sour Sweet handed her a folded sheet of thin and glossy cardboard. "Knock yourself out."

Additive | 65

Sugarcoat stared at the dress for a few seconds, as the mare walked closer to her. "No. That's hideous. You should bring it back to the dark backroom you dug it out of."

The mare stopped and stared at the dress. "Yeah, I know. But for a moment I hoped we'd finally get rid of it. Can you blame me?" She set the thing down on the nearest shelf.

As the other mare searched for something, Sugarcoat took a brief walk around the shop. Her gaze fell on a clothing rack, and something caught her eye. "What about this one?" she asked, pointing at a dress with a hoof and lifting her head, looking around for the other unicorn.

The mare in question slid her head out of a drawer and turned towards Sugarcoat. "Yes?" She walked up to the girl, and pulled out the dress that was being pointed at. "This one, dear?"

Sugarcoat gave it a better look. There wasn't some sort of grand shining revelation inside her, but a reaction was there. A sensation, kind of weak but there nonetheless, a gentle warmth like that of the embers after a small fire has died. It was nice. Not spectacular, not earth-shattering, but she liked the dress. It was more than she could have said about any other one she'd seen. "Yes," she said, turning to the other unicorn. "I'll take this one. No, I don't need to try it on first."

The unicorn had a look at the dress, then at Sugarcoat. "I think it will look nice on you." She nodded, and carried the dress towards the counter.

Sugarcoat watched her walk for a moment. And she smiled.

Fluttershy opened her eyes, and she gasped for breath like someone coming up for air after a long swim underwater. Around her darkness punctuated by beeping red and green lights. There was something on her body, attached to it in different places, but she couldn't understand what it was.

She would have looked, but she was too weak to. Or maybe it wasn't that. She couldn't focus on anything, the images before her eyes seemed to dance and melt together. She wasn't sure where up and down were, she couldn't move, she felt hot and cold at the same time.

Her eyes started to close again. Her eyelids were getting heavy, it was a struggle to keep them open. The edges of her vision darkened, a blurry blanket of blackness spreading towards the centre. She was lying down, she realised, her head over something soft. She was comfortable. Maybe it was better to sleep.

She heard sounds coming from somewhere. But they were muffled to her, she couldn't make out anything. Her vision grew darker and darker, her eyelids heavier and heavier. There was no point in keeping her eyes open when she couldn't see anyway, and so she decided to close them. It wasn't so bad after all. Sleep would make her feel better.

There were a few more sounds, closer this time. Someone touching her. But by that point, she was already unconscious again.

That Which Was Skipped

"Sure, and Far Shore didn't steal my seashell whisk last month. I know she did. It was a nice whisk, too. I'm not really bothered by not having it, I have a lot of whisks, but she should have just asked if she wanted it, and like I said it was a nice whisk. I got it about a year ago at a shop near a volcano in the Dragonlands. I don't actually know why they were selling a seashell whisk there. I don't know why they were selling a whisk at all, considering it was a postcards shop. Well, technically it was supposed to be a newsstand, but almost nothing ever got there so they basically exclusively sold postcards. Maybe that's why they were selling a whisk.

"I remember Ember was really surprised that I was there. Maybe I should have told her I would be throwing a party. Mail doesn't get there though, so I would have needed to find another way to get to her. But then it wouldn't have been a surprise party! But maybe she doesn't like surprise parties, and I shouldn't be throwing surprise parties for her. Oh, now I hope she wasn't just pretending to enjoy herself to make me happy. That's just the worst, I always need to fix my files after I find out about that and what's worse it means I threw a party where someone wasn't enjoying themself!

"I remember this one time, for example, where I was throwing a party for a filly. I'd gotten her a huge chocolate cake, with turquoise-coloured frosting. At least it was supposed to be turquoise. Turquoise is kind of on that line where creatures debate whether a colour is green or blue, although turquoise itself is definitely more on the blue side. I think, at least, from what I've seen. Maybe I've always seen turquoise wrong and every creature was using the name incorrectly and turquoise is actually different from that.

"Aren't you ever afraid of something like that? Of suddenly finding out everyone is wrong about something and they have all been misusing a term and suddenly you need to tell others so they too can stop making this mistake but you feel kind of bad about it because the realisation that you've been doing something wrong your whole life kind of hurts and you don't want to hurt others but you know it's the right thing to do to tell them but it's still hard, but it'll hurt more if you don't and you know that's the case.

"And even if you didn't say it, they're still doing it wrong. And they might find out one day in the future! And then, they will wonder why you didn't tell them if you already knew, and they will still be hurt by it. So really, it's better to tell them as soon as you can. After all, it's all chromatic aberrations running on hard cardboard in the metanarrative layer, and everything is- Hey, where did he go?" Pinkie looked around, but Discord was no longer anywhere to be found. In his stead a closed door stood in front of Twilight, who turned to look at her and sighed.

Paid In Full

Starlight sat on her chair, looking at the ground. To her left, Sunburst similarly sat on a chair, in just the same position. Between them, on a third chair, Starshine Flicker sat upright, smiling, one wing embracing each unicorn.

"I could go for some ice-cream right now," Starlight said after a few more minutes of silence. Then she looked up, and noticed there on the desk an ice-cream cone waiting for her. She blinked. "Sunburst?"

"Yes?" the unicorn replied, not taking his eyes off the floor.

"Did you teleport ice-cream inside?"

"I did not."

Starlight stayed silent a few breaths longer. "Then why is there ice-cream on the desk?"

Sunburst lifted his eyes and noticed the ice-cream cone on the desk, and the little metal stand with a hoop keeping it up. "I have absolutely no idea."

"You better get to it, Starlight. It will melt otherwise," Starshine said.

Starlight took the cone in her telekinesis, brought it to her lips, and gave a careful, experimental lick to the ice-cream. It was mint-flavoured, and it tasted good. She then turned to the pegasus. "Starshine, did you make the ice-cream appear?"

"No." Starshine shook her head.

Starlight went back to looking ahead and down, studying the floor, only now she was licking her ice-cream. A few minutes went by, and she finally finished the cone. She was smiling by the end of it. "You want this?" she asked to Sunburst, turning towards him and holding out the bottom part of the cone.

Sunburst looked at it, then back to the ground. "No, but thank you." As Starlight finished the bottom of the cone, he stuck out his hoof in some vague direction to his left, grasping at air. There he latched on to a mug, and pulled it back. It was black, and filled with chocolate. "Starshine? Did you make this mug appear?" he asked, turning towards the pegasus.

"I didn't," Starshine replied.

Sunburst looked back at the mug of chocolate, shrugged, then began to drink it. It was good. By the end of it, he was smiling too. He licked the top of his lips clean after he was done, and set the mug down beside his chair. "What the actual fuck is going on right now?"

"I have no idea," Starlight answered, just as cheerfully as the question had been asked.

"Do you two want to have sex again?" Starshine asked.

"Nah." Starlight got up. "Not now, at least. But I do want to figure out what's going on here."

"Oh, maybe I can help with that!" Starshine got up as well.

Sunburst followed just a moment later. "So where do we start?" he asked, lifting a few of the papers that had fallen onto the floor in his magic and placing them back on the clean corners of the desk. "We should probably..." He trailed off as he suddenly felt a pressure against his leg, and looked down to see a mop there, and a bucket of water. Picking the first up, he began to clean the desk where it was still wet. "We definitely do need to figure out what's causing this. But at least it's convenient."

Tunnel Vision

The unicorn sighed, shook his head, and closed the cupboard. "I can't poison my source of income, Lightning. It would be quite counterproductive."

"I'm not your source of income. The Princess is your source of income. You can keep making money even after I'm dead," Lightning Dust replied. She chewed on nothing, trying to get rid of the viscous sensation filling her mouth.

"Not if she finds out," the stallion replied. He opened another cupboard, this time above the sink, pulled out a glass and filled it with water. "And I'm pretty sure she will find out as soon as she asks you to make a new delivery. Kind of hard to pretend at that point, when you're no longer moving and all."

"Just act like I'm blackout drunk. Then run. You should make it across the border fast enough." The unicorn held out the glass for her, and she stared at it. "Please tell me that's vodka."

He looked at the glass, then at her. "Yeah, it's vodka."

Lightning snatched the glass with a wing and downed it in one sip. "You lied to me."

"You asked me to."

Lightning would have thrown the glass at him, but her wing was a little too sore for that. And her legs were out of the question, as long as she wanted to still be standing afterwards at least.

"I can't serve you alcohol this early, Lightning." The stallion took the glass from her and placed it on the table. "Like I said, I'd rather keep you safe."

The fact that her mouth was less dry and overall more normal after the drink made Lightning hold back most of her complaints. Not all of them, though. "It's not early. It's the middle of the afternoon, ponies are already starting to get drunk about now."

"It's early for you, you just woke up after all." The unicorn had meanwhile begun to search around the kitchen for something to eat. "What's up with that, anyway? Usually you manage to get out of bed before noon. Rough day yesterday?"

"Have you ever tried to outfly a storm?"

"Can't say I have."

"Good for you." Lightning chose to end that particular conversation there. She spent what felt like a moment looking at the ground, then a smell hit her nose and she looked up to see the unicorn cooking a couple of eggs in a pan. "What if I don't want them?"

"Then I'll eat them myself. Try to stop me."

Lightning sighed, then slowly made her way to the table in the middle of the kitchen. The world was finally stable enough for her to walk mostly straight, which she was quietly thankful for.

The unicorn looked back at her. "Don't you have any coffee around here?"

"My dad used to pour himself a shot of liquor inside his coffee, and another one in the cup afterwards to clean it. I live alone. I don't need to pretend I'm drinking coffee when I want to start my day on a double shot." Lightning sat down.

"You shouldn't drink so much with how important your job is."

"I'm not working today." The stallion served her the eggs, and she eyed them suspiciously. "And you aren't either right now, so you shouldn't be here."

"And pass up a chance to watch over your ass?" The stallion sat down in front of Lightning. "There are stallions and mares who'd pay for that, you know?"

That actually got a snicker out of Lightning. She began to eat her eggs. "Maybe I should charge you for it, then."

The stallion smiled. "Nah. At that point I'd probably go back to Soarin' instead, that's an ass I like looking over."

Lightning looked halfway up at him, lifting an eyebrow.

The unicorn looked back at her with a smirk. "Did you know he's a screamer?"

Lightning's laughing fit almost made her choke on the eggs she was eating. As the stallion promptly refilled her glass with water and passed it to her, she cleaned her mouth with a wing. "What's your name, anyway?" she asked, grabbing the glass as he passed it to her.

"Silver Spear," the stallion said. "Took you long enough to ask."

Lightningbringer - Part 1

It was raining, hard. The sky was near black, streaked with white and blue when lightning flashed through the clouds. Firecracker's coat, wings, mane and tail were soaked, heavy with water. Still, they kept flying, looking for a safe place to land. The shelter of the trees underneath was not enough with rain so heavy, and the side of the mountain was not a place they trusted with that weather. Lightning was one risk, but more than that they feared a mudslide or worse. If the storm kept going long enough, it was bound to happen.

And so the best thing to do was get away from there. Flying in the rain wasn't fun, but it beat walking through it on muddy ground, and was faster too. They had to keep low though, close to the treetops. The winds were too strong and unpredictable higher up, and losing control in mid air was the last thing they needed at that moment.

It came and it went before the pony had a chance to realise what had happened. One moment they were flying, the next everything had gone white and loud. A moment later, they were flying again. Breathing heavily from more than just the strain of moving their damp wings, they stopped and turned back, staring at the smoking tree still glowing orange where the lightning had struck it. The rain had already put out the fire itself, but the trunk was charred, like a giant ember embedded into the ground.

The lightning had barely missed the pegasus. They could have hovered there wondering how it was possible for them to be unscathed, but they decided it was a much better course of action to not stay still in the middle of the storm and leave the reflections for a later point in time. They turned again, still panting, and returned to flying away as fast as they could comfortably manage. The odds of being that close or closer to a lightning strike were probably low, but that was not a valid reason to tempt fate.

Firecracker didn't have much time to reflect on that either, though. Not a minute after, everything went white again. This time, they weren't flying when things cleared. The pegasus managed to catch themself just before hitting the top of the trees, and go back to a stable flying position after falling through the air. There was a ringing in their ears, and their breath was heavy, but nothing else felt any more wrong than what the rain already made it feel like. They actually took a moment to check their heartbeat, and make sure it was indeed still there.

Had they been hit? That couldn't be right. Maybe it had gone off right in front of them, and merely disoriented them. Being a pegasus meant being more resistant to electricity, but the little sparks of small pony-made clouds were not the same as what full storms put out, especially not natural, uncontrolled ones. As they mentally wandered on the issue and searched for the point where the lightning had landed, they happened to look up. This time, they actually saw the bolt come down. But by the time they realised where it was heading, it had already hit them in full.

Phase Shift

The grey pegasus walked down the road beside the field. There was a lone tree there, far to her left, surrounded by grass and fallen leaves. Its branches were almost barren at that point, still holding on to only a few red and yellow leaves that soon would fall too. She'd never quite understood why the tree had been left there, in the middle of the field. She supposed it was none of her business though, and after all she didn't mind. It provided shade in the summer, and it was nice to rest underneath it. And foals had fun running around it. And sometimes they climbed it as well, those branches were thankfully strong enough to hold a pony. A fully grown one as well, she was pretty sure she'd once seen Rainbow Dash napping on one of them.

She shook her head and turned back to staring at the road ahead. Better not to get distracted, especially not when she was walking. There was always the risk of tripping, and, while she wasn't carrying anything, a meeting between her body and the ground was something she would have preferred to avoid. She lowered her gaze to look at the road itself, watching her own steps. Her father had always told her to watch her step if she wanted to make sure not to trip and fall. It had shown to work, when she remembered to do it.

Yet somehow, that time, she tripped and fell either way. But she didn't fall towards the ground. Instead, she fell someplace else.

.ni nellaf d'ehs erehw fo tuo kcab flesreh gnillup ,taht tsuj did ehs os dnA .ni tuo emoc ot reh rof tuo ecaps fo tol a saw ereht ,dleif nepo na ni elihw nellaf d'ehs gniht ykcul a hcuS .ereht tuo flesreh llup dluoc ehs os ,lla retfa ,ni tuo og ot tuo na dedeen ehS .ecaps dedeen ehs ,tsrif ,hguohT .esnes tsom eht ekam did tahT

.tuo eht sdrawot tub ,pu evom ot evah t'ndid ehs oS .tuo tub ,og ot dah ehs taht pu t'nsaw tI .noitautis reh tuoba thguoht ehs ,nwod kcab gnioG .raelc dna thgirb ,hguoht ybraen rats a ees did ehS .rellams sgniht ekam saw did ti lla ,deirt ehs ecnO .gnikrow eb ot mees t'ndid pu gniog tuB .ti fo tuo dna pu og yeht ,loop a edisni ebyam ,erehwemos sllaf eno nehw dnA .pu kcab sevlesmeht llup neht yeht ,sllaf eno nehW ?yltcaxe tuo teg ot woh tuB .melborp a ylsuoivbo saw hcihw ,ereht doof on eb ot demees ereht dnA .reverof tiaw t'ndluoc yeht dna ,od ot sgniht dna ,eb ot secalp dah ehS .ereht fo tuo yaw a dnif ot dedeen ehs ,thguoht ehs ,llitS

.esoprup fo esnes a htiW .evisehoC .noitauqe na ro ,gnos a ekil tib a saw tI .ecalp ecin a saw tI .nellaf dah ehs taht saw yllautca ti reverehw ,ereht gnieb tuoba derehtob t'nsaw ehs tuB .hguoht saw taht trap hcihw erus yllaer t'nsaw ehS .reh fo trap rehto emos sa hcum os seye reh gnisu yllaer t'nsaw ehs ,noisserpmi gnorw eht evag dekool ti gniyaS .tlef ti ,kool yllaer t'ndid ti ebyam rO .tnereffid dekool tI .wonk ot mialc dluoc ehs ecalp a t'nsaw ti llits tub ,ni eb ot ecin etiuq tlef yllautca ti tcaf ni ,railimafnu leef t'ndid tI .htiw railimaf saw ehs ecalp a t'nsaw tI

The grey pegasus stepped out into the field, and promptly hit her head on the trunk of the tree. She sat down, groaning, and massaged her forehead. She'd barely missed it, she realised. She needed to be more careful, the next time she fell in there. She couldn't risk coming back out inside something. But she wasn't against the idea of falling there again, it looked rather nice after all.

Unia

Rainbow stared at the floating sphere in front of her, and at the red vine-like structure wrapped around it. "That can't be good," she said. "Should we do something about it?"

Luna, sitting beside her, studied the scene. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. I have seen similar things in the past, though nothing ever exactly like this. But then again, every pony's dreams are different, if similar to others'."

"What is it, exactly?" Rainbow asked, looking between the alicorn and the sphere.

There was a brief pause, during which Luna looked at Rainbow for a moment. "This pony is sick, right now. They're in a hospital bed, unconscious. Their life is not at risk for the time being, but it might be if things become worse." She stared at the red, vein-like vines wrapped around the sphere of the dreamscape she knew was Fluttershy's. "This is related to their illness, which itself is related to the Behemoth and the changes it has brought. But it's unclear how. If this is a symptom of it, or the cause of their physical symptoms, or if both are consequences of something else."

"So... Should we do something about it?" Rainbow asked again.

Luna smiled. "Perhaps, perhaps not. If this was indeed the cause of their problems, then yes, we should remove it. The doctors can't help them here, after all. But if this is merely a symptom, then removing it might be futile at best, and downright make things worse at worst. It might be a defense mechanism of their own psyche, and we may hurt them by intervening."

Rainbow looked between the sphere and Luna again. "So we just do nothing? I'm pretty sure that pony is having nightmares in there."

"Most definitely," Luna agreed. "But sometimes nightmares are needed. Like how a broken bone hurts when it's healing. Sometimes, going through some pain is necessary. It's like a fever. It's your body trying to solve the problem, and you should step in to stop it only to prevent it from going too far."

"But you still help in other ways," Rainbow objected.

"And this pony is being helped. They have doctors looking after them, and they are safe as of right now. I will notify their caretakers of what we found on this side, and discuss with them the best course of action going forward. We shouldn't act too hastily, not while the pony is not at risk and we might worsen things with our actions."

Rainbow bit her lower lip. "Dealing with dreams isn't usually this complicated, right?"

Luna chuckled. "Having second thoughts? No, it usually isn't. There are cases where a nightmare is better left undisturbed, but they aren't many. I'll make sure to take those on myself."

"But why? The nightmares, I mean. Why leave ponies to have them?"

Luna smiled fondly at Rainbow Dash. "Dreams are the place where we get to speak with ourselves without realising it. Some things need to be said, even when they're not pleasant to hear, or we wouldn't understand them when we're lucid."

Rainbow looked back at Luna. At first she slowly, softly nodded, then she subtly shook her head. "I don't think I get it."

Luna chuckled. "You will, one day."

Dymonds - Part 1

Rarity was sitting at the table in the kitchen when the front door opened. She just kept staring at the empty bottom of her glass as she heard the sound of footsteps walking from there to the room she was in, and only once they stopped did she look up towards the doorframe. "So it finally happened," she said. "I have finally gone insane. Took myself long enough." She went back to looking at her glass.

The other Rarity hesitated for a moment. She shared a brief look with Sweetie Belle, steadied herself, and stepped into the kitchen. Closing the door, she began to walk towards the table. She grabbed a chair for herself to sit on, but her eyes mostly stayed on her human self. Once she was sitting, she cleared her throat, to draw the other's attention.

Rarity looked up. "Oh, you're still here." She swallowed. "So this is less of a hallucination and more likely a dream. Or a vision, perhaps." She lowered a hand to her side, and pulled up a half-empty bottle of transparent liquor from the floor. "Do you want some, my less dishevelled and more sober self?"

The other Rarity eyed the bottle for a moment, then shook her head. "You're not even drinking wine anymore."

"It was a waste to drink that when I'm too drunk to taste it. And this gets me drunk faster." She placed the bottle back down, without pouring any of it for herself. "But I'm not yet drunk enough to imagine a conversation with myself today, and I haven't woken up yet so this is not a dream. Pony Rarity?"

The pony turned human Rarity nodded.

The human from birth Rarity smiled. "I understand you are quite the talented seamstress, but I fear there's no mending the tears of my heart. And please, tell Sunset that while I certainly do know how to appreciate myself, I am not in the mood for self love right now." She looked somewhere to the other Rarity's side. "I may be in the future though. And we..." She didn't finish the sentence. Her expression seemed to crumble and shatter like glass carelessly dropped, and she just stared at nothing, eyes suddenly lucid.

She waited a moment, uncertain, afraid of touching an open wound, but reminding herself that it was the reason she was there, the other Rarity asked, "Thinking about her?"

"Would I need to drink myself into forgetfulness if I could simply choose not to think about her?" The human Rarity looked at her counterpart across the table. "Always. I'm always thinking about her. I simply have long stretches where I fool myself into failing to notice that is the case. Then I realise she's still there in my head, and I can't do anything to get her out." She gave what sounded vaguely like a very dry, whispered laugh. "Don't think I'm holding back tears right now. I merely already ran out of those this morning."

There was a stretch of silence where the human Rarity looked at the other, while the pony turned human one awkwardly looked at the table, unsure of what to say right then. It was the one native to that dimension who broke the quiet, speaking again. "What's your Applejack like? What are things like between you and her?"

Transit

Sunburst set down the mop and the bucket. "Well, at least the desk is cleaned now." As Starlight began to reorder the papers that had been moved around in the commotion, he started to look around the room for clues of some kind. "Do you know any spells that might be useful here?"

"I think I remember one," Starlight replied. There was a thud, and Sunburst turned to see the other unicorn had bumped into a large book on the floor. She picked it up and opened it to the conveniently marked page. "Yep. It's this one." Starlight levitated the book over to Sunburst, who picked it into his own telekinesis and began to study the spell described in the page.

"Can I help with something?" Starshine asked, walking around the room and looking at the two unicorns. "Anything? I can do anything you two would like me to."

Starlight sighed. "No, and definitely not in the way you're suggesting." She looked up at Starshine, then almost jumped from the surprise. "Hey! When did you grow a horn?"

Hearing her, Sunburst turned towards Starshine as well, to notice she had indeed turned into an alicorn while neither one of them was looking. At the least, her mane and tail and coat were still the same style and colour as before. "Yeah. She does that." He returned to studying the book.

Starlight looked suspiciously at the alicorn, who just stared back at her with a smile and a hint of playful smugness. A wave of magical energy swept over the room, coming from Sunburst, and the two mares both turned towards him, waiting for answers.

"Nothing." The stallion shook his head, and set the book down. "At least now we know it's not traditional magic."

Starlight tapped her chin. "Maybe it's stage magic? Maybe someone else is here and they're secretly tricking us through a combination of misdirection, subtle hypnosis, and a complex system of mirrors and levers."

"And reading our minds?" Sunburst lifted an eyebrow for emphasis.

Starlight couldn't shake the feeling that his half-pouting expression reminded her of Rarity. "Well, maybe they've actually hypnotised us so completely that we're fully unable to notice their presence, and they can manipulate our perception of time as well."

"This isn't one of those books you read when Twilight isn't around, Starlight." Sunburst looked up at the ceiling, sighing. "I'd just like to get some answers on who's behind all of this." He turned, and found himself face to face with a tall mirror which had not been in the room ever before. It was too big to even fit through the door, he was pretty sure. His own reflection stared back at him, first surprised then unamused. "Very funny," he said, as dryly as possible.

Starlight looked at the mirror. "We'll have to find a place to put that."

Meanwhile, Starshine had placed herself at Sunburst's side, and was looking over her own reflection. "I look nice," she said, turning around to check out her other side.

"You don't know what you look like?" Sunburst asked, looking at her.

Starshine shook her head. "Only the broad strokes. It's hard when you keep changing." She ketp checking out her reflection.

Sunburst and Starlight shared a look.

Chameleon

Staring back at her from within the mare's eyes was a blue unicorn. Twilight's clone froze for a moment, and instinctively looked down at herself. The same purple coat she'd always had still covered her legs, and she still distinctly felt her wings on her back if she focused on them. It took a second for her to realise the other was still looking at her, expecting an answer. "Oh, I was just passing there, I'm doing some research around there," the alicorn blurted out.

"Oh? What kind of research?" the other mare asked, genuinely interested. "There's nothing there as far as I know, did you find something? I always heard it was just a swamp, and not exactly someplace you wanted to go near."

Twilight's clone took a step back. "Yeah, we found a cave there. Well, I mean, the cave was always there, you might have seen it on the maps, but now we found something in the cave." She'd been planning to move out of there anyway after her encounter with the stallion, at that point she was just trying to figure out how to deal with the situation she'd been thrown in as best she could. "We think someone might have been using the place not too long ago. There are traces of magic there, and some more evident signs of physical presence. Broken stalagmites and such." She lowered her tone, letting herself more comfortably slip into the lie she was telling. "There's some speculation it might be where Queen Chrysalis and the others were hiding before they attacked." The disgust on her face as she said that name she didn't need to fake.

The other mare looked impressed. "Well, thank you again for taking time to take care of him. I'm Scarlet Ribbon, by the way." She turned back towards the stallion, who was sitting and looking at the two of them.

"Blue Spark," Twilight's clone replied. It didn't matter if Scarlet ever found out she'd lied about everything, she would be looking for a pony that probably didn't exist. And if they did, all the better, they weren't her. At most, if the whole thing came up, it would be assumed to be the work of changelings. But there was still one pony who could trace back to her. She began to walk behind Scarlet, keeping her eyes on the stallion. "Mind if I have a look around town?" she asked. "Now that I'm here, I might as well."

"I don't see why not," Scarlet replied. They reached the stallion, and she gave him an uncertain look. "We need to talk, later." She walked past him, though she seemed hesitant for some reason.

Twilight's clone reached him as well, just as he was getting up to follow the other mare. She held him for just a moment, to make sure there was some distance between them and Scarlet, then she whispered in his ear as they both walked towards the town, "What is going on?"

"We're walking towards the town," he serenely replied.

The alicorn held back a growl. "Not that!" she hissed. "Me, you, the fact that Scarlet there sees me as a unicorn, your puzzles. What's all of this about? Things stopped making sense the moment you stepped into my life, and I want answers."

"Oh, that." The stallion looked at her. "Just wait a few minutes, okay? I'll tell you about it when we're alone."

The Solitaire

It all started with a letter. Twilight found it on her desk one afternoon, after coming back to her study. At first she didn't notice it, but once che actually sat down her eyes fell on the grey envelope there in the corner. She picked it up, assuming it had been left for her while she was away, and opened it.

The sheet of parchment she pulled out was blank. She frowned, turning it around in her magic to make sure it actually was, and she hadn't just been staring at the wrong side. She was about to switch to revealing spells to check for hidden messages, when the itching in her horn told her that something was happening with the scroll. She set it down just in time to see words appear on the surface.

Princess Twilight Sparkle, I presume?

A spell similar to the one she used to communicate with Sunset, mostly likely combined with a trigger when the envelope was opened to warn the one on the other side. That was ingenious, and a good way to communicate without risking someone intercepting the letter itself, assuming some sort of password was established between the ones meaning to use it. She needed to study the scroll, the spell could turn out useful in the future.

Putting those thoughts aside, she picked up a quil and wrote her answer. She did wonder who it was on the other side though. A few moments later, more words began to appear on the parchment.

Check behind the desk, on the wall, near the ground.

Twilight paused for a moment, staring at the letter. She got up, pushed her desk away from the wall just enough to slide behind it, and looked down. There, cut into the wall, was a rectangular hole not much deeper than a hoof. And inside it something, wrapped around in a grey cloth. She carefully took it out, but didn't check the contents immediately, instead going back to the letter.

Who are you?

The answer didn't take long to arrive.

Not anyone you would know.

Twilight's breathing was just a bit faster, less steady. They'd reinforced security after the incident, specifically to avoid someone sneaking in again. She unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a glass box, and inside the box what looked like the feather of a very large animal. But its off-white, reflective colour was all too familiar to Twilight, and the way it seemed to shine a light of its own sent a shiver down her spine. She set the box down on her desk and covered it with the cloth.

What is this?

She waited for the answer, breath shaking. Again, it didn't take long.

Your world is in danger, more than you realise. I want to talk. I'll contact you three days from now, in the laboratory.

Twilight stared at the letter. After a moment, more words appeared.

Treat the feather like you would a scale. The spell should be stable enough for it too. See where it takes you.

Following your breadcrumb trail to my madness

It was a short bridge, over a river not too wide, near the middle of town. It wasn't an old or historically significant bridge, though it wasn't particularly new either. It wasn't really a bridge anyone had much reason to care about, beyond caring for the fact that it was there and they could walk over it. So when the bridge stopped being there, it wasn't met with any kind of particular despair, but it still provoked all those feelings of annoyance and worry that a bridge collapsing would reasonably cause.

It happened in the middle of the night, while no one was there. No one got hurt from it. But a bridge falling was something that needed an explanation, especially if it had done so on its own, and so research was done to figure out what had happened. It took a bit, not too long but at least a couple days, to make sure all the pieces were recovered. Some had fallen in the river and needed to be pulled out. At least they'd been too heavy to get carried away by the lazy current.

At the end of it, the ponies in charge of checking concluded that there had been something wrong with the support beams underneath the bridge. The something wrong being that they lacked a structurally integral section. Not in the sense that they had been built without one, but in the sense that that portion had no longer been there when the bridge had collapsed. More than one beam had been reduced to a set of two opposing ends, without a middle to connect them. Not broken, not torn off, it looked like an impossibly clean cut and the middles just weren't there. Nor anywhere else, for that matter, no matter how hard they were searched for.

For a while, ponies just accepted it. After all some reason had to exist for what had happened, even if they couldn't figure out what it was. Spontaneously disappearing chunks of matter was not exactly a structural flaw or natural event that could be planned against, so the bridge was rebuilt and that was that. The most accepted theory was that it had probably been a unicorn who'd for some reason stolen the beams. No one had any idea why they might have done that, but it was the most reasonable explanation.

And the citizens would have probably forgotten all about it, given enough time, had it not been for what happened to the town hall a week and a half later. Again, it happened during the night, and only at dawn did the ponies notice the results. There were holes in the building's front wall, rectangular, the edges clean. Sections missing from the sides of the decorative columns flanking the entrance. One hole in the roof, too. It was a work too complex and precise to have been done with anything other than magic, in a single night and silently.

Unlike with the bridge, though, the damage done to the town hall came with a signed note.

Take a Good Luck in the Mirror

Twilight's clone stared at the window, watching Scarlet walk away from her house. She was going to warn a friend that they'd found the stallion again, and the alicorn had offered to keep an eye on him while she went do that. Once the mare was far enough, Twilight's clone had another look around the room, then her eyes set on the only other pony in it, sitting at the same table as she was. "We're alone now."

"We are," he replied.

The alicorn held back a growl. "The explanation, remember? Puzzles, me and you, your friend seeing me as a unicorn? What's going on?" She put emphasis on the last part, letting go of her hold on her temper for a moment.

"Oh, right, that, sorry." The stallion swallowed. "Would you like something to drink?"

"I could kill you now and no one would ever know it was me."

"But you won't." He got up from his chair and began to walk towards another room. "I'll be right back," he said, and sure enough he came back just a few seconds later, holding a bottle of water. He took a sip as he sat down again. "Because I have answers you want."

Twilight's clone tilted her head to a side. "Spit it out, then."

"No rush." The stallion tapped on the table like one would on a typewriter. "Like we've established, the things you could learn from me are the what's keeping me alive right now, aside from your obvious desire not to leave traces behind. We've also established that I'm the only one who can tell you're actually you. Once you have nothing left to learn, you may very well decide getting rid of the only pony who can recognise you is worth a murder that no one can trace back to you. I just want some insurance." He threw a glance towards the window.

Twilight's clone breathed once, slowly. "You're a smart one, aren't you?"

"Nah. But I'm not an idiot either. And I'm not crazy. They call me crazy, you see. I'm not crazy. I know the things I see are actually there." The stallion sighed, then shook his head and tapped the table again. "Well, anyway," he cheerfully picked up again, "I must say I am extremely excited to finally meet another one! Oh, goodness, I thought I was the only one for a while. This is refreshing."

Taken aback by the sudden mood shift, Twilight's clone tilted her head the other way. "Another one? Another one of what?"

"Of us!" The stallion pointed at her chest. "You see that, well, no, no you can't see that, of course not, I think I'm the only one who sees those, but still, it's there. I should probably explain it to you, you have no idea what I'm talking about. I forget about that, I still have trouble remembering others don't see what I see. It's there, a coil wrapped around your heart, like it is around mine."

The alicorn looked at herself, without seeing anything but her usual purple coat. "A coil?"

The stallion nodded. "Oh, now I wonder how many others are out there. There ought to be a few, right?"

Before You

"But anyway." The stallion shook his head again. "You can't see it. Right. That's right, you can't see it. Maybe I should find a way to show you. I can probably find a way to show you. I should be able to find a way to show you. Give me a moment." He bent to the side, as the alicorn looked on in confusion, and there he fidgeted with the top of one of the table's legs. A moment later the leg opened, a sheet of something slid out, and the leg closed again. "That was lucky," he said, picking the thing up and passing it to Twilight's clone. "I wasn't actually sure it would work. Still learning to control it and all."

Twilight's clone took hold of the sheet in her magic. It was far heavier than paper or parchment, but still just as flexible. Almost like some combination of metal and paper. One side was dark grey, slightly reflective. The other held a picture of her silhouette in shades of grey, indistinguishable from Princess Twilight's, with some parts inside her highlighted. Some of the lines she was pretty sure didn't match up with any organ or system. In particular though, her heart has clearly visible, and there was something wrapped around it, pictured in a lighter shade of grey. It looked a bit like a small snake, or perhaps an abnormally large worm. But she could make out no details.

"That's what I see," the stallion said, drawing her attention away from the image. "You can keep it. Sell it as an art piece once you've left this town, pretend it's a portrait of the real Twilight. Someone will probably buy it, and you need the bits." He nodded towards her. "Of course, that's not all of what I see. I see that in colour, by the way, the lines are mostly yellow, but this table only does greyscale. But anyway I see it on top of the rest or maybe inside it if that makes sense, the rest which I assume is what you also see. Aside from you changing, because I don't think you see that, but I do also see it. You are a very nice shade of blue. I wouldn't notice the wings if it wasn't for the wires."

Twilight's clone instinctively ruffled her wings as he mentioned them. She lifted a hoof. "Focus on this. Focus on what's going on. That part about me changing. Explain that. That's what I care about right now." She figured making it really clear could help stir the stallion's speech towards the desired direction.

"Well, what I think happened," the stallion said with a hoof under his chin, "is that you accidentally set it to work on everyone except yourself. Accidentally being a relative term, I'm pretty sure you didn't know what you were doing. Neither did I the first times, I'm still figuring it out right now. But I did see that you're like me, see, I see that stuff inside of me too, well, that and the thing I swallowed which I think is called a scale or at least that's what I've heard them referred to as. Mine is currently embedded in my stomach. Not my smartest decision but I had no pockets at the time. It hurts a lot before hailstorms but thankfully we never have those around here."

"Can we get back to the topic of my appearance and its changes?" the exasperated alicorn asked, almost hissed.

"Yeah, sorry, I remember, yes. We'll need a mirror for this next part."

Speak

"So, you see yourself as yourself right now, right?" asked the stallion. "Don't worry about Scarlet, she won't be back soon. If I know her, she's having tea with Silver right now. She always has tea with Silver when she goes there to visit, mostly because Silver keeps a jar of cookies there on the table and Scarlet can pretend that breaking her diet by eating from there is a form of courtesy towards Silver. Silver Lace, I don't think Scarlet actually mentioned her name to you, she's a friend. We used to always call her Silver Lace back when we were young, but Silver Spear doesn't live around here any longer so we don't need to specify. I do wonder what he's up to these days."

Twilight's clone cleared her throat, to draw back his attention. "Yes, I do see myself as myself right now." They had moved to the kitchen, and the stallion had brought down a mirror for her to stand in front of.

"Sorry, got distracted again." The stallion shook his head. "Well, first thing first, you should try to turn it off."

"Turn what off?" Twilight's clone glared at him, lifting an eyebrow.

"...It," said the stallion. "I'm not actually sure what it is. I'm not even sure you feel it the same way I do, in fact I suspect that's not the case at all. But there should be something you can feel somewhere inside you, maybe like a switch. You need to learn to recognise that."

"Not feeling anything different right now," Twilight's clone replied. The stallion clearly wasn't as crazy as she might have originally assumed, but he wasn't all there mentally either, and she was hesitant to trust everything he said. She had to hope she could get something out of him that she could work with.

The stallion sat down, a hoof under his chin. "Hmm. I'm guessing it is sort of like a switch for you. Once it's set you can't really pin it down. If you could force it to change you'd probably notice where it is, now that you're paying attention. Maybe if we figure out how you did it the first time?" He looked up at her. "Do you remember when you changed, back in the woods, just before we got to the edge of town? When I pointed out you'd changed? Did you do something before that point? It can't have happened much sooner than that."

Twilight's clone thought about it for a moment. "There was... I thought about needing to not be seen, by anyone else. That can't be it, right? You're telling me I can just think up something like this?"

"You did watch me pull a bowl of soup out of a tree trunk. I thought your disbelief was sufficiently suspended at this point, with the picture coming out of the table leg and all."

Twilight's clone looked at the stallion, her expression bothered mostly by the fact that she didn't have an argument against what he'd said. "So should I just think about looking like something else, or not doing it, or anything of that?"

The stallion shrugged. "Won't hurt to try, no?"

Burn

Vignette eyed over the email. It looked professional enough, as far as an email could look professional. She'd double checked, and she was certain it was all legit too. The place was booked, the tickets were sold out. But something about the whole thing still rubbed her the wrong way.

There was no footage of the band online. Oh, she'd heard about her fair share of bands dedicated to making sure that none of their material was available anywhere, but even that had a limit. Something always slipped through the cracks and ended up online, in some dark shady corner of a less known website. She knew where to look for that. And yet, she'd found nothing still.

A part of her suspected it was all a farce. Hype built around the mystery of what the performance would be like, with an underwhelming payoff once she actually got there. On the other hand, it wasn't the first concert the band had put up. If it really was all marketing and no substance, people would have been talking about it.

So maybe there was something there. And even if there wasn't, she would just be wasting an evening, so it wasn't a big deal. Maybe she could get something out of it either way. If it truly was nothing worth seeing, she could just expose the whole thing on social media. No way they would manage to shut her up, and besides they were the ones inviting her there in the first place. They clearly wanted her to talk about it afterwards, and they'd get it!

She tried a smile. The argument made sense to her. But she still wasn't convinced. She lay back in her couch, thinking about it. There was something off about the whole thing, something she wasn't comfortable with, but she still wasn't sure what it was. She thought the whole thing over once again. Maybe she should ask for something more. If they really wanted her they would send something, and if they didn't get back to her she just wouldn't go.

Much to her surprise, the answer to her request came only minutes after. Even more surprising, it contained what looked like a performance from the group. Curious, she fetched her earphones and slid them in, then clicked play on the video.

Four minutes later, Vignette had decided she would go to the concert, and she wondered why she'd ever thought she might not go.

Again

Thinking certainly wasn't going to hurt, the stallion had a point there. Twilight's clone tried, if a bit lazily, to envision herself as something else as she watched her image in the mirror. Nothing seemed to happen, but then again she'd been seeing herself as herself all along. She turned to the other, questioningly lifting an eyebrow.

The stallion looked back at her. After a few seconds of silence, he blinked. "Sorry, was something supposed to happen? Did I miss something?"

Twilight's clone grit her teeth and channelled her frustration into a sharp inhale. "I don't know, did something happen? I haven't noticed any changes, but I didn't notice it the first time either."

The stallion cocked his head to the side. "No. Doesn't look any different to me. Though it might look different to someone else, I can't tell you that. I can't see the world the way another pony sees it, much less the way another creature might. Not that anyone can, actually, barring some very advanced types of magic of course. Things would go a lot more smoothly in the world if everyone could just see things as others see them at will."

"Can we get back on topic before Scarlet gets back here?" Twilight's clone asked. She was starting to get mildly nervous about running out of time, considering she was in the kitchen with a mirror that didn't belong there and a pony she needed to eventually shut up one way or another.

"Oh? Oh, right." The stallion perked up. "What exactly did you try to do?"

"Visualise myself as something different, I guess. I was going for a pegasus this time," Twilight's clone replied.

"And it didn't work. There must be something different from how you did it the first time. It must have been instinctual there, maybe the thought was just the catalyst. Maybe it's a matter of need." The stallion frowned, deep in thought, and his tone lowered. "It must be. For me, it's about enjoyment. But for you, it must be a matter of survival."

Twilight's clone cleared her throat. "Hello? Still trying to help me?"

"Your voice sounds different too. It might be useful for you to know that." The stallion looked back up at her. "I can already recognise you. I know you're you, and I'll always know you're you. You don't need to be hiding from me."

Twilight's clone paused to think about that. He had a point. Even if she wasn't consciously aware of and controlling her camouflage, the fact remained that it was useless with the stallion. Unnecessary, unneeded. There was a faint click, somewhere within her, and she noticed the stallion was suddenly smiling. "Did something happen?" she asked, a tingle of excitement rushing down her back for the first time in quite a while.

"You're purple and winged again, to me at least," the stallion replied. "So I'd say it did. This reminds me, by the way, do you have a real name? Not the lie you told Scarlet. I can't keep calling you Princess Twilight's copy in my head."

Twilight's clone was silent for a moment. "What is your name, anyway?"

To Me

"So I'm back to looking like my normal self, to you at least." Twilight's clone studied her reflection in the mirror. "I did feel something there."

"Do you think you could replicate it?" the stallion asked, hopeful.

Twilight's clone pursed her lips. "No. I couldn't quite pin it down. But I know it's there now, at least. I'd need to do it again to figure out where it is exactly. Any idea on how we might trigger that?" She turned towards the stallion.

"I do have one, actually," he said. "It seems we need you to subconsciously recognise a need for the camouflage in order to control it, so far at least. I think we can work with that, by making you convince yourself that you need something, before you manage to figure out where the switch is and how to control it."

"And your idea is?"

"Well, you need to understand how your power works. It would be highly beneficial to you. And you would also highly benefit from seeing how exactly you look like to others right now, since you didn't have a clear idea of what you were going for when you camouflaged." The stallion pointed at the mirror. "So, we could say that you need the camouflage to affect yourself as well."

Twilight's clone was following along with the thread of his speech, but then a thought occurred to her. "Wait. When I looked inside Scarlet's eyes, I saw myself as the unicorn she sees me as. Why is the mirror different?"

"Probably a matter of your powers working in a directional fashion by specifically targeting the light that moves towards the receptive apparatuses of the creatures you're camouflaging yourself to. So that image was different because it was from light being sent in Scarlet's direction, but what you see now is sent in yours."

Twilight's clone blinked. "Does that mean mirrors can mess with the camouflage?" she asked, suddenly worried.

The stallion shook his head. "It didn't do it for me. It actually worked better, considering wires don't reflect, but that's not something that would probably be relevant to anypony or creature other than me. Well, no, maybe there are some creatures out there who can see what I see, but you get my point. For all we know your power takes effect right on creatures' eyes and not on light as it leaves you, either way it seems to know what to affect and what not to."

Twilight's clone chewed on nothing for a moment. She would need to conduct research on the matter, once she had more time. And once she actually knew how to properly use her powers. Which brought her back to what she was trying to do in the first place, and what the stallion had been saying before she'd derailed the conversation. Turning her head, she focused on her image in the mirror. She needed to understand her power, and she needed to know what others were seeing her as.

There was another click, inside her, and the image she saw in the mirror shifted, matching the one she'd first seen in Scarlet's eyes.

A Bout

"Did it work?" the stallion asked, noticing the shift in the alicorn's expression.

Twilight's clone took a few moments to answer, looking herself over in the mirror first. "Yes, it did," she finally said.

The stallion excitedly tapped his hooves against the floor. "Do you think you can manage to replicate it now?"

Standing still once again, Twilight's clone fixed her eyes on her reflection in the mirror, and focused on what she'd felt a moment before. It wasn't an immediate process, but between the better understanding of what was going on inside her and the way she'd learned to push her powers she shortly after managed to flick back to her regular self, then to switch back and forth between the two until she'd quickly mastered the process. She tried for a different shape and found she could pull it off with little difficulty. Smiling, she cast a glance towards the stallion and changed the way he saw her. "Does that answer your question?"

"Hurray!" The stallion gave a brief prance around the room. "Oh, you should tell me all about what else you find later. Can I get rid of the mirror now?"

Twilight's clone thought about it for just a moment. "Yeah, sure." It was only useful for checking changes to how she viewed herself, but she'd already managed to get those under control, and if she really needed she could always just look down.

The stallion began to carry away the mirror, back up the stairs. As he did, Twilight's clone began to mentally fiddle with the controls of her power. That was how she envisioned it, in her head. It was kind of like using magic, in a sense, precisely controlling something that wasn't physically there. She would probe around, bump into something, and slowly build up a mental image of what she could and couldn't do with her newfound ability. Some of it would need to be verified with another creature, but she was pretty sure she had a good idea of what it all did, testing could wait for later.

The sound of hoofsteps down the stairs reminded her that she did have a test subject there, but not one who would be particularly useful. And given how much she'd already learnt from him about herself, she wondered if the possible uses she could have out of him still outweighed the risks of keeping him around. She turned towards the stallion with a grin, just as he stepped back into the room.

He spoke first. "If you're thinking about ending me, I suggest you do a magic scan on me first." He casually walked up to her.

Frowning slightly, partly out of surprise, Twilight's clone did as he asked. Then, she froze.

"I told you it was there." The stallion smiled at her. "I don't know how much you've heard about scales, but I'm sure you can figure out by yourself what would happen if you weren't careful around this thing. And it just so happens I managed to hook this one up to my vital signs. Assuming you don't care about the house being destroyed, do you think you can teleport away quickly enough not to get caught?"

Twilight's clone stared at him. "I could teleport you inside a mountain and let you blow up there."

"And do you trust I don't have other precautions set up for that? That I don't have a way to tell the world about you, after what you've seen? Isn't it safer to buy my silence at this point?"

The alicorn swallowed. "What do you want?"

You Better Believe

Sunset walked into the waiting room, pen and clipboard in hand and eyes fixed on the latter. Then she looked up. "Oh, hey Trixie. I didn't know you'd be auditioning as well."

The girl sat with her arms and legs crossed on one of the plastic and metal chairs lining the walls. She looked back at Sunset, then lifted her chin and huffed with her characteristic, overplayed air of superiority. "The Great and Powerful Trixie's talents would be wasted on a band like the Rainbooms. Don't get any strange ideas, I have no interest in joining you."

Sunset softly tapped the back of the pen against her lips, looking at Trixie with an amused expression. "Why are you here, then?"

Trixie didn't drop her snobby pose, arguably she pushed it further by looking away from Sunset. But the tone of her voice betrayed her, even as she tried to mask it. "I may be in need of a car ride later. And I may have no money for the bus on me right now. So I thought I could give one of you peasants the privilege of driving the Great and Powerful Trixie to her desired location." Her trademark smugness returned to her as she got to the last part, and then she turned to Sunset, continuing, "And I thought I could amuse myself by seeing some less talented musicians struggle for a position that I would be overqualified for."

Sunset smiled, shook her head, and gave something halfway between a chuckle and a sigh in response. "I'm free later, I'll drive you where you need to go." Pretending not to see the evident signs of relief on Trixie's face, she asked, "So you think you'd be too good for this? I didn't even know you played the bass."

Trixie gave another huff. "It's just a guitar with less strings. I don't see what could be so difficult about it. I'll have you know the Great and Powerful Trixie easily performs with a nine string guitar."

"I mean, if you really need the extra strings to cover for what you can't do with your hands..." Sunset let the thread drop once she almost physically felt the daggers of venom Trixie was glaring at her. "Still. If you're that good, would you mind giving us a show? It will still take a bit before anyone else gets here, we have the time for it."

Trixie suddenly seemed to choke. "I wouldn't want to warp your expectations," she said. "No other performance could compare after witnessing my talents, and it wouldn't be fair to those poor souls who are trying to join your little band."

"The same little band that beat yours last time?" suddenly came Rainbow's voice from the same door Sunset had walked in from, the blue girl leaning against its frame with a grin on her face.

Trixie stood up at that. "I was supposed to be the winner, and you know it! The judging was rigged!" She pointed a finger at Rainbow as menacingly as she could.

"And what about the time I beat you at the guitar shop?" Rainbow kept on teasing, as Sunset watched on, unsure of whether she should have been amused or worried.

"Well, I technically won that one!" Trixie retorted. "You ran away once you realised your tricks were no match for my talent." She looked to the side, swishing her hair, eyes closed and hands on her hips.

Rainbow pushed herself off the doorframe with a flex of her shoulders, and stared straight at Trixie. "Rematch?"

"Oh, it is on!"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Twilight, lying on her back, stared up at Rainbow Dash. "This is a dream, isn't it?"

"Yep." The pegasus gave a nod. "In case the multiple instances of Celestia's detached head didn't give that away." She gave a look around the red lake, and at the heads floating in it.

Twilight just shrugged, still floating on the surface of the lake.

"No, seriously, is it something you ate? I don't think dreaming of this kind of thing is normal." Rainbow looked back to Twilight.

Twilight shrugged again. "It must have been something I read."

Rainbow was silent for a moment. "Okay then. I guess this doesn't really count as a nightmare, so I should probably leave. Leave you to your weird existential dread and symbology."

Looking at the purple sky above them, Twilight asked, "Will I remember this?"

"Figuring out it was a dream?" Rainbow began to walk away. "Nah. You'll remember me being here with my armour, but it'll register as part of the dream. You'll forget the contents of the conversation."

Twilight took a breath. "You didn't tell me you'd picked up dreamwalking."

"And I don't plan to until I have to," came Rainbow's distant reply.

Then the pegasus was gone, and the green star shining in the sky disappeared behind the mountains of bones on the horizon. Red holes dotted the orange canvas of the alien night sky, and screams echoed from beyond them. And Twilight's body floated on, occasionally bumping against one of Celestia's heads, as the current lazily brought her towards the gate.

4113

Fluttershy opened her eyes, and was greeted with the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling. Her body felt oddly sore, like after intense physical strain, and her throat was dry. She was on her back, and her wings were slightly uncomfortable in that position, but not too much so. She could have sat up, but she was fairly certain it would have hurt more than it was worth. She did hope she could have some water soon, though.

She was a bit cold, despite the cover on top of her, yet she felt like she'd been sweating. Her head didn't properly hurt, but it still didn't feel right. Like she was still half asleep, or maybe in pain, distracted by something. She was smart enough to recognise what it was like to have a fever, though that didn't mean she could do much about it, nor make herself more lucid. She did recognise she was in a hospital bed while looking around, though she wasn't capable of giving the knowledge of the fact the worry it deserved.

She laid her head on the pillow, sighing. There wasn't really much she could do, besides lying there and waiting. She didn't feel like getting up with how her limbs and body felt, and she knew it wasn't a good idea to do so in her conditions anyway. The best thing to do was to wait for someone else to arrive and tell her what exactly was going on with her. She vaguely remembered something that had happened before she'd ended up there, but it was all a blur and she couldn't quite place down when she'd passed out, or what had happened around that point.

She tried to swallow, achieving only a moderate success. Her eyes felt heavy. She wondered if she would fall asleep by closing them again.

EFTC

Sunburst sighed as he stepped past the mirror. "Starlight, call me if you figure something out here. I'll go have a look around the school. Maybe there's something to find there." He was mostly trying to get away from the room. Starlight knew that, but she couldn't blame him for it. And he wasn't wrong, really, it was better to look for clues elsewhere than to waste time there when they didn't have any idea what to do.

The mare nodded as she looked around the room again. "And you call me if you find anything out there." She watched him walk out the door, then sighed. "Starshine, you're staying here, right?" she asked. But the alicorn had already disappeared, and Starlight was left looking left and right in confusion.

In the corridor, Sunburst suddenly heard a second set of hoofsteps join his own at his side, just slightly behind him. He stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. "Starshine Flicker?" It wasn't really a question, but he could still pretend he wasn't sure it was her.

"Sunburst?" Starshine's familiar voice asked back. It was always the same voice no matter what the pony looked like, one of the few consistent things alongside her name and cutie mark. Sunburst wasn't sure if he should have been happy or unnerved by that fact.

The hoofsteps had stopped, and so the unicorn opened his eyes and turned to his left. The alicorn's face looked back at him, a serene smile plastered onto it. "You te-" Sunburst began, but immediately cut himself off. He then resumed, correcting himself. "You materialised in the hallway. No teleportation there."

"You don't know that," Starshine said, quickly, before the unicorn had a chance to go on.

"I didn't hear the pop."

"I could have cast a silence spell in advance."

Sunburst lifted an eyebrow, but chose not to pursue that particular train of arguments. Instead, he went back to his original thread. "First off, please don't do that again, it's creepy. Even by your standards. Second, why? Why are you following me?"

"Would you rather have me disappear?" asked Starshine.

"I'd rather have you stay with Starlight," Sunburst replied.

There was a pause, and a conflicted expression on Starshine's face that Sunburst had never seen her with. "I can't do that," the alicorn said. "Either with you or nowhere."

At first Sunburst wanted to ask why she couldn't stay with Starlight. What Starshine said made him change his mind and ask something else instead. "What do you mean when you say nowhere?"

"Nowhere," Starshine simply replied. There wasn't any worry in her voice. She seemed as calm as ever, and her expression had gone back to her usual serene one. "But you'd rather keep an eye on me, so I'm here."

"But what do you mean when you say nowhere?" Sunburst pressed on.

Starshine rolled her eyes. "Literally nowhere. No place. You silly creatures of physical matter and your inability to properly process and visualise the concept of non-existence." She sighed, like a mother dealing with her child would. "Just accept it, trust me. Your head will thank me."

My Dream's but a Drop of Fuel for a Nightmare

The sounds around her were deafening. Screams and howls and moans, and deep and distorted strings and artificial, digital beeps moving in pitch and brought to the highest intensity. A cacophony that rumbled through and along the walls, down from the too high to see peaks of the stadium she stood at the centre of yet all around her in the barren and claustrophobically narrow corridor she was simultaneously kneeling in. And it was enough to drown her, and Adagio was drunk on it.

And the seats of the stadium were all full, but the place was empty, and the people spoke but their mouths didn't open, and they cheered but their faces were still and grey. And Adagio sank down through the sound, naked, music filling her lungs as she struggled to breathe. And her body touched the bottom and still she couldn't draw breath, and her head began to pulse but there was nothing she could do about it.

The weight of the screams and music above crushed her down, and she was forced to crawl over the naked bodies that made up the bottom of the abyss. They looked almost like statues, their skin preserved pale and hairless but intact, their faces always hidden from her. And as she dragged herself forward her skin too began to lose its colour, her hair losing its shape and shade and draping down over her back. Her nails lost their polish, and her vision went blurry.

But still she pushed forward, as her muscles grew weaker and her body lost weight. And the pressure grew, and it pierced through her skin, and the sound entered her blood and she was being torn apart at the seams and her body splintered. And Adagio took the music in her lungs and screamed, and her voice joined the sound and her body became one with the cacophony. And she was sound and music and she spun and swam faster through the ocean and she gathered more sound with her.

And Adagio was a storm rising over the seas, and she ripped the corpses from the bottom and crushed them and pushed them together and a star ignited inside her from the mass of death she gathered, and in a burst of light and melody in the eye of the storm the black and grey star of death collapsed and her new body was born. And her body was power and beauty and form and sound and music and matter and it gleamed a light of its own.

And her steps on the shore were like glass bells singing in harmony, and she walked towards the throne of rock and bone and flesh that was one with the island and with the whole of the world. And Adagio sat on the throne and the throne pierced into her body and spread through her, and Adagio was one with her throne and one with pleasure, and her face distorted into a smile as she and the throne fully consumed each other.

Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 5

"Well, that was a thing," Rainbow said, reclining in her seat by the window.

"Yep." Pinkie nodded from behind the counter. "And he had a thread going there for a bit. That was unexpected."

"And..." Sitting in front of Pinkie, Twilight sighed. "I don't wanna say bad, because it wasn't really bad, but it's weird that he'd focus on that. With everything else that's going on and everything he could focus on, it's weird that he'd spend so long on that. It doesn't seem as important as some of the other stuff."

"But would it have felt rushed if he had given it less time?" Rarity interjected from her chair on Twilight's right. "That's what we should be asking here. That part didn't feel like it dragged on, at least not to me. Those two characters were interacting, and their interactions were given their needed time."

Twilight wrinkled her lips for a moment. "Just because you can't imagine something better, that doesn't mean something better isn't possible. Who's to say a better writer couldn't have gotten the same information across just as clearly in half the words?"

"Twilight?" Rainbow waited a moment before continuing, to make sure the alicorn was looking at her. "If you don't like it, why do you keep reading it?"

Twilight had a false start before she actually said, "I don't dislike it either. And I want to like it. And I've read it all the way here and-"

"Sunk cost fallacy?" asked Fluttershy, who was sitting to Twilight's left. "If that's what's keeping you, you should realise that this thing is probably not even a tenth of the way through yet. If you want to jump ship, now's your time."

"It's not just that," Twilight replied. "There's some stuff I like in there. And there's stuff I'm interested in, and I want to see where it goes. That's why it annoys me when not only do we get nothing new on the things we've already established are there, we instead have to take time establishing even more stuff. And the bigger the pile of threads grows, the more do my doubts that it'll all be satisfyingly weaved together."

Pinkie nodded. "She's got a point there."

"Well, at the least we do seem to be getting mostly updates on things we know recently," Rarity said, picking up her drink. "Or ones that don't add new stuff."

"I guess you're right." Twilight took a sip from hers. "There was that one chapter about the bridge though. That one's new."

"That is new," Rarity agreed. "And weirdly floating there on its own. But I guess we'll see where things go with that."

"Still waiting for the next update on the hospital." Twilight took another sip. Then she looked around the interior of Sugarcube Corner. "Has anyone seen Applejack?"

The four other mares all shook their heads. Fluttershy pursed her lips. Rainbow gave a dismissive wave, and said, "She's probably just taking care of her orchard."

Twilight thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "Yeah, you're probably right."

Still Life

Fluttershy watched the tips of her feathers. "Is this going to be permanent?" she asked.

Twilight paused for a moment, and followed the direction of Fluttershy's gaze. "Oh, that. We don't know, actually. Same with the mane. It's not bothering you though, right?"

Fluttershy was taken aback for a moment. She pushed her mane in front of her eyes, and for the first time noticed the red streak still shot through it. "Oh, I didn't even see that." She shook her head, letting her mane fall back to her shoulders. "No, it's not a bother." She looked back to her wings, the tips of their feathers still blue.

"Good." Twilight nodded. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm alright." Fluttershy leaned back against her pillow. "Really. I feel fine."

"That is good to hear," Twilight said. "Are you sure? No light headaches or fatigue or anything else like that? Even if it's something minor, you should tell us about it."

Fluttershy nodded reassuringly. "I'm sure, Twilight. I'm just fine."

Twilight seemed to clench her jaw for a moment. "I believe that. Sorry, I'm still a little frazzled after the whole thing. It's not every day one of your friends falls ill to an unknown magical disease with no clue as to how bad it will affect her."

Fluttershy giggled in response. "I understand that. But there are a lot of things like that recently. Things you would have called rare if not unique once. When something starts coming up every other day, maybe it's time we re-evaluate what is and isn't unusual."

Twilight gave a sour smile. "I suppose you're right. This is the world we live in now." She sighed. "I'm glad you're alright. You'll still need to go through a few tests to make sure you actually are all right before you can get out, but I'm still glad everything seems to be resolved."

Fluttershy nodded again. "I'm sure it will all be fine. Don't worry about it." She looked towards the closed window on the opposite side of the room. "What time is it now? My internal clock is all over the place after all the unintentional sleeping."

It was Twilight's turn to chuckle. "Unintentional sleeping is a light way of putting it. It's late in the afternoon, why do you ask?"

"Will the tests have to be done immediately? I'd like to take a short nap first, if possible."

Twilight cocked an eyebrow. "After all the sleeping you've already done?"

"That wasn't proper sleeping," Fluttershy replied. "And this bed is very comfy," she added, moving side to side and digging herself deeper into the pillow to emphasise her point.

"Are you absolutely sure you're feeling well? No bouts of sleepiness or sudden fatigue or-"

"Twilight." Fluttershy looked at her friend. "I know myself. And right now I just want to take a nap."

Twilight sighed. "Sorry. You're right. I better leave you to it then, you probably need it." She stood up, and headed for the door, turning off the lights. "See you soon."

"See you." Fluttershy waited for the door to be closed, then did the same with her eyes. She just hoped she would have enough time.

Dance the Death of Fading Peace of Mind

The two guards sat down on the grass, although collapsed might have been a better term. Still panting, both of them silently looked towards the castle and the thing near it. "Well that was... something," the first one said after a while.

"Yep," replied the other. "Definitely something." He kept looking at the creature as its shape seemed to flare in and out of sight. "What the fuck."

The first guard looked at him, but seemed to pause for a moment. "Yeah, okay. Appropriate here." Then he looked around, noticing the crowd that was gathered in the park. "I hope no foals heard you say that."

"I ought to not be the only one," the second guard said. Then he too had a look around. "Isn't that one of Princess Twilight Sparkle's friends?" he asked, pointing at a white unicorn with a purple mane.

"Huh." His friend looked in the same direction. "Yeah, I think so. Ra-something, wasn't it?"

The stallion put a hoof under his chin. "Rainbow Dash?"

That got him a weirded out look from his companion. "No. Rainbow Dash is the one with the rainbow mane. And she's a pegasus. And a member of the Wonderbolts."

"You know I never cared for sports."

"That is massively beside the point." The stallion looked back towards the distant unicorn, and was silent for a few moments longer. "Rarity!" he finally exclaimed, standing up.

The other looked to her as well. "I guess she does look like a Rarity."

"What does that even mean?"

"I mean..." The stallion waved a hoof towards Rarity. "Look at her."

"That's what I'm doing. Your point?" The other stallion looked back at him.

The guard just sighed. "Forget it." He looked back to the castle instead. "So... What now?"

"That is a great question," said the other. "And I don't have an answer for it."

"Well, at least we're alright." The stallion shrugged.

"That we are." The other guard nodded. "That we are." His gaze swept over the park. "And hopefully, so is everyone else in town."

"Hopefully." The stallion stood up. "We should help out." He looked towards the Behemoth once more, and at the trail of destruction it had left behind. "And we'd rebuilt town less than a year ago, too."

Wall of Sound

"Okay. So you go to the bartender, and you order a cup of hot cocoa and a glass of pear juice. The bar has a fridge, so the juice is still fresh, cold even. Let's ignore the problem of space, let's say there's enough space in both the cup and the glass. Just ignore it, there's not less chocolate or pear juice in them to make room. They're a magical cup and glass or something. Now, which drink do you pour in which? Do you put the chocolate in the pear juice or the pear juice in the chocolate?"

Indigo Zap silently stared through the shadows of the night at the ceiling above her. After a few seconds, she finally spoke. "Lemon, it's two in the morning, what the fuck are you on about?"

"I think you pour the pear juice in the chocolate. If you do the opposite then you run the risk of the chocolate all clogging together as it goes back to being solid, so you end up with one big lump of chocolate floating in the pear juice. And even if it doesn't, it'll still all fall to the bottom. And then it will get awkward when you try to drink it, and who likes cold hot cocoa anyway? It's in the name! But if you pour the pear juice in the chocolate instead, you'll get this pocket of juice in the middle of the chocolate while the one around stays hot, and then you get to drink them together. It's a lot better that way."

"Lemon I will actually physically choke you with a pillow until you pass out if you don't let me sleep." Despite saying that, Indigo didn't move, keeping the same position atop her bed.

"Oh, choking. Kinky," Lemon replied. "Do you want me to call you Mommy while you do it? Hey, do you think there's a guy out there who has both a Mommy kink and one for being called Daddy, and he has both things going on while he's with a girl? At that point it just sounds like you're roleplaying a couple with a child but with extra steps to get there. There ought to be someone into that though. I mean there are a lot of guys into the whole Daddy thing, do you know anyone who might be into the Mommy thing?"

"Sunburst, probably."

Lemon clicked her tongue. "Huh. Why?"

"Have you seen his mother?" Indigo asked.

"She hot? Actually scratch that, don't answer, your answer is always yes. You'd fuck anything with tits between the ages of sixteen and sixty."

"Like you wouldn't."

Lemon sighed. "I suppose you're right." A moment of silence stretched on. "How have we not fucked each other yet?"

"We've both been drunk enough to not remember anything the morning after at least once. We might have."

"We might have," Lemon agreed. "Still. We don't remember it. We ought to fix that at some point."

"Maybe." Indigo yawned. "Just let me sleep for now. We can talk about this tomorrow."

Replica

"What building do you think it's going to go for first? The one on the left or the one on the right?"

"Our left and right or its left and right?"

"Our."

Pinkie put a hoof under her chin, squinting towards the tall mass of writhing tentacles in the distance. "I'm gonna say right."

Pinkie nodded. "Same."

The two sat in silence for a bit, watching the creature slither and squirm forward, ever closer to the edge of the ruins.

Suddenly, one of them spoke up. "Say, do you happen to have a brother or two that you've never mentioned to anyone else?"

The other Pinkie Pie looked at her. "Why? Do you have a brother or two you've never mentioned to anyone else?"

"Maybe." Pinkie side-eyed Pinkie. "And you?"

Pinkie turned her face back towards the tentacles, but her eyes stayed on Pinkie. "Maybe."

A few more seconds passed in silence.

"Looks like it picked the one on the left instead."

"Yep."

The two Pinkie Pies watched the building-sized entangle of squirmy smooth appendages trample over the remains of what had used to be a house and consume it with as much delight as the featureless ensemble of tentacles could display.

"Do you think that'll be enough for it, or will it go for the other building as well?" one of the two ponies asked.

The other Pinkie replied, "I think that will be enough."

"I suppose we will see."

"That we certainly will, Pinkie."

And see they did, as after a couple more minutes of silently watching the creature they could observe it leaving towards the forest at its characteristic slow pace, satisfied with its meal.

"My Rainbow picked up dreamwalking," one Pinkie said after a while. "She hasn't told us yet. She doesn't plan to, I believe."

"Sounds like Rainbow alright. Our Twilight is still with Sunset, and they haven't accidentally torn another hole in the fabric of reality while having sex yet," said the other Pinkie.

"Sounds nothing like our Twilight. I have contingency plans ready for when she finally decides to get kinkier with Celestia, in case she goes too far." Pinkie whistled. "Yes, they're as desperate as you can imagine them being, but hopefully Equestria will survive with only a couple cities needing to be rebuilt and a few creatures needing to be untransformed."

"At least you have serious contingency plans. Mine is a bucket of cold water," Pinkie said.

"Never underestimate a bucket of water. I once stopped Twilight from taking over Equestria and made her not evil again with a bucket of water." Pinkie chewed on nothing for a moment. "Or, well, a Pinkie did that with a Twilight once. It's fuzzy whether or not it was my Twilight, and it's not really stable whether it was or wasn't me."

"I understand." Pinkie nodded. "Still. I ought to think of something better." She pursed her lips, thinking. "I could install remote-controlled water sprinklers in their rooms and turn them on if I ever see the geodes start to act up."

"That could work," Pinkie said. "That could definitely work."

Mirrors and Smoke

Sunburst stared at the alicorn, dumbfounded. "So you're saying you don't exist when you're not with me?"

Starshine titled her head to a side, then to the other. "Sort of. It's a bit more complicated than that. Like I said, just roll with it."

"How am I supposed to just roll with it?" Sunburst asked, incredulous. "Why should I believe you, anyway? You've done nothing but bring chaos into my life."

"That's not true and you know it," Starshine replied, smirking.

"Oh shut up."

Starshine rolled her eyes. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to strike the right balance when you're trying to bed a stallion who wants you to call him Daddy but still wants to call you Mommy? I'd like some recognition for pulling that off."

Sunburst stared at her, flatly. "That was needlessly specific."

"Do you want me to be more vague next time, Daddy?" Starshine gave a fake, exaggerated pout.

Sunburst looked at the ground. "Shut up."

"Make me. You don't really want me to-"

"Shut up!" Sunburst looked back at Starshine as he yelled. "I don't know if you've noticed it in the last months, but things are kind of ever so slightly stressful right now. The world's going crazy, and I'm one of the unfortunate ponies who actually gets to learn about most of it, and the last thing I need is someone like you coming to annoy me with your nonsense. Stop wasting my time and stop making my days even more stressful than they already are."

"It looks to me like you could use a relief for all that pent up stress, actually. But anyway, I thought you wanted to know what was happening. It's not like you to not ask questions and ask the mystery to walk away instead," Starshine said.

"You're very clearly not answering my questions in any helpful manner," Sunburst replied. "So either you tell me what's going on, or you leave me alone. At this point, I don't care which it is."

"And yet I'm still here." Starshine tilted her head. "And if I'm still here, that means you want me here."

Sunburst almost growled. "Are you the one responsible for all the stuff back there in the room?"

"No." The alicorn shook her head. "But the thing responsible for all that is responsible for me as well." Then she gave a nod towards Sunburst.

It took him a moment to get what she was trying to say with that. "Oh, so this is all my fault, huh? Convenient that a mysterious mare who appears and disappears at random would coincidentally happen to also show up while this is going on, isn't it?" Sunburst shook his head. "I'm not buying this, Starshine. I have no reason to."

"And I can't convince you otherwise," Starshine replied. She looked down at herself. "You're confused right now. You want me gone, but you want me here. You want this whole thing to be over with, but you want answers." She looked back up at him. "I suggest you choose the former option for a bit. It will help you clear your mind."

Sunburst looked back at her as he thought about it. And a moment later, she was gone.

Juliet

Cautiously, Sunburst stepped back into the room. Somewhat to his surprise, the mirror was still there. So were the book, the mop, the bucket, and everything else that shouldn't have been in that room in the first place. Starlight was there too, but that at least was expected.

She looked up at him as he walked past the door. "Where's Starshine?" she asked. "I thought she was with you."

"She was," Sunburst replied, "until she wasn't. We had a bit of a discussion in the corridor."

"Where is she now, then?"

"Nowhere, according to her." Sunburst sat down on the first chair he found. "Or wherever it is she goes when she's not pestering me. I don't know. She's not my daughter, I'm not supposed to keep track of her."

"I don't think she'd be young enough to be your daughter." Starlight shook her head. "What do you mean with nowhere?"

Sunburst leaned back in his seat, sighed, and gave Starlight a look she'd learned to recognise over the years, and particularly over the months spent in charge of the school, as that of a pony who's absolutely done with something and wishes to talk about it as least they can. "Trust me, the less you hear about her, the happier you will be."

Starlight nodded in understanding. "So, found anything out there?" she asked, walking up to Sunburst. She sat down at his side, looking at him.

"Nothing," the stallion said. "I had a look around the building, but there wasn't anything, and every spell turned up empty. Same as here. You?"

"Nothing." Starlight leaned into her chair. "I had a look around some books, but I couldn't find anything like what we're dealing with. Nothing that doesn't involve regular unicorn magic, at least, and we'd have picked up on that already. Any other strange occurrences out there? Nothing showed up here after you left."

"Nothing," said Sunburst. He was silent for a moment, then sighed again. "Starshine, she... She said this was all me."

Starlight looked back at him, frowning. "This what? Stuff showing up out of nowhere?"

"That. And not just that." Sunburst clicked his tongue a few times, buying time. "Her as well. She said she's here because I want her to be. It's... confusing. And complicated. And I'm not sure what to think."

Starlight moved a hoof towards one of Sunburst's, hesitated, then pulled back. She sat in silence for a moment. "So, uh..." She gave an awkward, forced cough. "If you had sex with her, would that make it count as masturbation?"

Sunburst just turned towards her.

Starlight placed a hoof to her forehead and sighed. "Sorry. I should leave this kind of things to Trixie, I'm not good at breaking tension properly." She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment. "So do you think she's got a point, or is it all a lie? You should know better than me, it's you we're talking about after all."

"I think it would be closer to incest than masturbation, or maybe a mix of the two." Sunburst clicked his tongue. "And I need time to think about it."

Mo

"You know, I've been thinking."

"How unusual of you."

"Oh shut up. Anyway. What if there is no point? What if we're all going to be forgotten eventually? What's the reason to go on if it all ends in the end?"

Silence followed.

"Oh, I get it. Yeah, you can talk now."

"It wasn't that." Indigo swallowed. "I just didn't expect you of all people to raise some existential questions. And I don't think I'm the right person to answer them, I'm sure brighter minds have tried already."

Lemon rolled onto her belly and turned towards her. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to find your own answer. Not like you to live your life the way someone else tells you to."

"Maybe you have a point. But right now I have more immediate questions to focus on." Indigo studied one of her wings as she brought it between her eyes and the stars in the sky above her. "For example, should we tell someone about the magical horse portal that opened up in the middle of our room?"

"Would they let us keep it? Because the answer is the same, and I'm pretty sure it's no." Lemon looked at one of her hooves.

"You've got a point." Indigo let her wing fall back. She was, in truth, a little worried about the prospect of something coming out of the portal and into the room. But she'd worry about it after she'd had a chance to test out her wings.