Duskfall was in a very foul mood. She hadn’t been able to get back to sleep once the dream or vision or whatever it was had woken her. So she had stewed in her room all night long. It was just about time for breakfast, fortunately, so Duskfall was ready to give up on sleep and return to the library to find out what madness was going on in this dimension. Before Duskfall could leave her room, however, there was a knock on her door.

“Come in!” Duskfall called out, supposing it was the Nightmare.

“GOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING DUSKY-WUSKY!” Loud enough to be a physical force, Pinkie Pie burst into the room and Duskfall fell out of bed.

“Pinkie, I’d ask what you’re doing here, but I’m almost afraid of the answer,” Duskfall said honestly.

“Silly Duskfall, did you really think even in an alternate universe I’d be killed off by off screen shenanigans?” Pinkie smiled brightly.

“That’s not what I was concerned about Pinkie. Although now I’m very concerned as to why your mind jumped to death,” Pinkie arched an eyebrow.

“Duskfall, sweetie, do you really want an answer to that?” Now Duskfall was legitimately terrified. The only time Pinkie called someone ‘sweetie’ was when they were in deep shit. Like the time Duskfall had tried to smuggle Dash into a kitchen to see her cook. Either this Pinkie was jabbing at her suicide streak or she was implying the reason Twilight’s Cutie Mark was different. Neither outcome boded well for Duskfall’s stay in this Dimension.

“Pinkie, I-”

“Queen Black Snooty wants you to join her and Twilight for breakfast,” Pinkie left as suddenly as she had appeared, leaving Duskfall feeling very shell-shocked. Well, no point in dallying in her room. Duskfall wasn’t sure how the Nightmare might respond to her being late.

“Good morning,” Duskfall greeted as she entered the dining hall.

“Did you sleep well, Duskfall?” The Nightmare asked kindly as Duskfall took a seat opposite of Twilight.

“I slept horribly, but for good reason. Something gave me a clue as to how to get back home. So I’ve been up all night just thinking about it,” Duskfall answered truthfully.

“Oh?” Both the Nightmare and Twilight perked up in attention.

“I need to find some sort of truth. Fuck if I know what that means. Truth about myself? About this world? About how I want to bend Twilight over a table?” Duskfall shrugged as Twilight blushed. Duskfall wasn’t even necessarily playing stupid. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be searching for.

“Trust prophecy to be vague to the point of uselessness,” The Nightmare sighed.

“The prophecy about you was fairly accurate,” Twilight noted. The Nightmare turned to Twilight.

“That was no true prophecy. Merely a notice created by my sister,” She pointed out.

“Oh, right,” Twilight splayed her ears back.

“In any event, the library is free for your use. Twilight, pet, if you think you can survive being with Duskfall unsupervised, I’d suggest you help her in her search,” Nightmare Moon suggested/ordered. Twilight looked warily at Duskfall.

“Of course, my Queen,” The rest of the meal passed in silence and the pair of purple ponies made their way to the library. Once there Duskfall cast a few discreet privacy wards to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard.

“What happened when you went to confront the Nightmare five years ago?” Duskfall asked. Twilight must have been expecting this question, because she answered readily.

“I told Celestia that Nightmare Moon was on the verge of returning, but she sent me to Ponyville to make friends and oversee the Summer Sun Celebration preparations. There I met Pinkie, Applejack, Rainbow, and Rarity. The Nightmare returned and upon reading of the Elements of Harmony, I decided to try and find them. The others came with me. At first it seemed fine, but when a Manticore attacked us everything fell apart. We fought it off, but Applejack died in the struggle. She saved us. We pressed on, but then we found out that the six Elements each required their own bearer and there were only four of us. That was the end of our little rebellion,” Twilight recounted sadly.

Fluttershy was missing. The how and why might be important, but this change along with Rainbow being a Thestral, pointed to a much deeper difference to Duskfall’s home. Duskfall couldn’t think like this was a fanfic and someone had made Rainbow a Thestral just because they thought it was cool. There had to be a reason.

“Twilight, do you have birth records and newspapers from about 26 to 28 years ago?” Duskfall asked.

“Why do you ask?” Twilight responded.

“In my world, there was another who joined you on your quest to stop Nightmare Moon. A Pegasus by the name of Fluttershy. Rainbow is also a Pegasus on my world. If Flutters is missing and Rainbow is a different species entirely, then that might have to do with the truth I’m supposed to find. I need to know if Fluttershy was born at all,” Duskfall responded.

“Rainbow Dash was a PEGASUS?!” Twilight squawked in surprise.

“And you’re an Alicorn,” That seemed to really fry Twilight’s brain. Duskfall decided to indulge her Insanity a bit and peck Twilight on the forehead. It had the desired effect of snapping her out of it.

“Stop that! You’re supposedly my daughter from another world! Why do you keep making sexual advances?! Is the other me some kind of sexual deviant?!” Twilight demanded.

“The other you is dead,” Duskfall responded flatly, “And life is both too short and too long to not indulge in a few taboos. I’ll never be a cradle robber, but you, my dear mare, are fair game.”

“What do you mean dead? How do you kill an Alicorn?” Twilight seemed both frightened and intrigued by the idea.

“A powerful Surge merged her Soul and the Soul of another to create me. This was her body, but it’s mine now. All that’s left of her is her memories in my head. Mom and Dad and Shiny didn’t even get a body to bury. Also, I meant what I said about you not being able to lie to me about being curious. I wonder if it’s an intelligence thing? Wondering what it’d be like to have someone able to keep up with you in every. Possible. Way,” Duskfall smirked and licked her lips as Twilight tried to splutter something. It was adorable.

“Anyway, those papers I was asking about?” Twilight gathered herself enough to levitate a bunch of documents and newspapers over to the desk they had claimed as their own. A simple Ctrl + F spell Twilight had developed when Tom had mentioned the function to her and two slips of paper floated out of the pile. From their size alone, it wasn’t hard to guess what they were. Duskfall forced herself to look anyway.

Name: Fluttershy

DOB: 4/23/979

Sex: Female

Place of Birth: Cloudsdale, Equestria

The other slip of paper read as follows.

Name: Fluttershy

DOD: 4/25/979

Sex: Female

Place of Death: Cloudsdale, Equestria

Cause of Death: Malformed heart.

Fluttershy had died a scant two days after being born. Without Fluttershy to tame the Manticore, Applejack had died defending the others. A piece of the puzzle fell into place in Duskfall’s mind. Unfortunately, this was a 10,000 piece puzzle and she only had one.

“Do you know what a Sonic Rainboom is?” Duskfall asked.

“Yes, the last reported Rainboom happened a little over fifteen years ago preformed by a filly named Lightning Dust,” Twilight replied promptly.

“Lightning Dust did the Rainboom?! I mean, I would’ve been surprised if Rainbow had done it, given she’s a Thestral in this world, but Lightning Dust of all people? That’s messed up,” Another piece, but this one Duskfall had no idea where to put it.

“Why do you say that?” Twilight questioned.

“Rainbow preformed the Rainboom as an early expression of her connection to Harmony via the Element of Loyalty. The Lightning Dust of my home world is loyal to no one except herself. Not the most harmonious of ponies. Do you know anything about the Lighting Dust of this world?” Duskfall wondered.

“She’s a living legend. As soon as she preformed the Rainboom, she was inducted into a special Wonderbolts training program. When Nightmare Moon took over, she was made Captain of the Shadowbolts. Ever since she’s been ruthless about weeding out dissenters and nobody wants to be on the wrong side of her ‘interrogations’,” Twilight shivered.

“What about Cadence?” Duskfall questioned.

“Who?” Twilight asked blankly.

“Mi Amore Cadenza?” Duskfall tried again.

“That name sounds familiar… died about 900 years ago during the war with the Crystal Empire before it disappeared. She was the Princess of the Crystal Empire and martyred herself to protest King Sombra’s reign,” Duskfall was very much shocked at this news. Cadence wasn’t almost a thousand years old! She was…she was…Duskfall nor Twilight had ever heard anyone discussing Cadence’s age. Alicorns were immortal and Cadence was an Alicorn of Love, but her Cutie Mark being the Crystal Heart denoted that the majority of her power was channeled through the artifact. Why was her Cutie Mark the Crystal Heart if she had never seen it? A pony’s Cutie Mark universally held iconography that in some way, shape, or form held meaning to them.

Twilight’s own Starburst was simply a manifestation of the Sparkle Family Crest and the amount of prestige her ancestors had obtained through their magical accomplishments. Twilight’s ancestry was important to her. If Cadence had no idea what the Crystal Heart was, it wouldn’t be a part of her Cutie Mark. Most likely, her Cutie Mark would have been the more traditional type of heart. Of course, it was possible that Cadence had dreamed of the Crystal Heart at some point before receiving her Cutie Mark, but that seemed unlikely to Duskfall.

Duskfall shook her head to clear it. She was supposed to be finding a truth about this dimension, not going down a rabbit hole concerning her own. Still, if Cadence had never babysat Twilight and had never been part of Canterlot nobility that suggested a change even further down the timeline.

“Twilight, I need a history book. Preferably one that goes back about 1000 years,” Twilight complied readily and Duskfall sat down to read. Even passing the books through a filter for propaganda and comparing it to the history of her world, the history books didn’t paint a pretty picture.

The Elements weren’t gifts to Harmonia from Concepts. They were forged by Starswirl and what were referred to as the ‘Pillars of Harmony’. The Tree of Harmony simply didn’t exist. There wasn’t even an account of which sister wielded which Element against Discord, if that even mattered at all. What really grabbed Duskfall’s attention was what happened during and after the events of Nightmare Moon’s duel with Celestia.

Apparently the conflict on this world had extended beyond a single night. It lasted for a full month and during that month the Nightmare used blood alchemy to give birth to the Thestral race. They hadn’t existed before that point in this world’s history. Luna had been missing the tiny sliver of support she had received from the nocturnal race in Duskfall’s own world.

Something inside Celestia must have broken during the conflict, no matter how brief it was. The Thestrals were hunted to near extinction once the Nightmare was sealed. Those that survived fled to the darkest corners of Equestria, where they found mates and raised their children in secrecy for the duration of the Nightmare’s banishment.

Celestia vanished from politics for five years, grieving her sister. When she returned, Celestia started passing new laws. They were seemingly little things at first. No one was allowed to talk about Luna or the Nightmare. Understandable, given they were Celestia’s sister and the wounds were still fresh in the public mind. All blood alchemy was banned. It had created the abominations known as the Thestrals, after all. Things like that.

Once the generation began to change, Celestia started to enact more invasive laws. No one was allowed outside after sundown or before sunrise. Astronomy was banned. School attendance was compulsory from ages 5 to 16 no exceptions except in case of sickness.

Things just got worse from there, culminating in literal book burnings and “reeducation camps” for ponies who received “troubling” Cutie Marks. Duskfall looked up at Twilight, who was engrossed in her own reading. Had the Nightmare even had to tempt her with more than the promise of being able to read whatever she wanted?

Whatever the case, Duskfall still needed more information. However, she had the beginnings of a plan. Duskfall needed the Elements of Harmony. They had all worked for only Celestia before. Hopefully they’d work for a single Alicorn again.

Author's Notes:

So, Fluttershy died of birth complications. Applejack died because Fluttershy wasn't there to tame the Manticore. Celestia went mad with grief and became a dictator. Duskfall is putting together a plan.

Next chapter should be the end of the Intertwined Arc.

Also, I finally got my laptop back today!