Sweetie let out a soft moan. The sound of a heavy drumbeat pounded in her skull. She heard hooves scuffing and two hazy voices nearby, which fell silent when she stirred. She slowly pried her eyes open, squinting against the flickering light that greeted her. A hoof touched her shoulder, sending an involuntary twitch through her body. “Welcome back, dear Sweetie Belle. I hope that you are feeling well.”

“Uhn,” was the white unicorn’s response. She tried to sit up, but the throbbing in her head made it difficult to move. “Stop drumming.”

“Drumming?” an unfamiliar voice said. “No one’s drumming.”

“It must be the beat of her heart,” said the first speaker. Sweetie recognized the voice, but her brain was too addled to put a face to it. She heard someone pouring some kind of liquid. “Why don’t you drink this to start?”

Sweetie turned her head to squint at the speaker. She saw a striped foreleg offering her a steaming cup, which she accepted with a shaky hoof. “What is it?”

“A potion to counteract the first,” the first speaker replied. A blue-eyed zebra’s face flashed through Sweetie Belle’s mind. “Let’s hope that you are through the worst.”

Sweetie sniffed the potion and grimaced, but she managed to pour it down her throat without choking or spilling it. A moment later, the pain in her head began to ease, and she felt her tense muscles start to relax. “Where am I?”

“You are in my hut, my dear,” the zebra answered. Zecora. That was her name. “Tell me when your thoughts are clear.”

Sweetie Belle’s joints shook as she pushed herself into a sitting position. The candlelight told her night had come, and she tried to remember what had happened. Her gaze rested on a griffon lying across from her, watching her intently as her tail swished back and forth. “You,” she said, fighting to break through the fog that obscured her memory. “I met you earlier, I think.”

“You could say that,” the griffon replied.

The image of the griffon held captive in her magic flashed through her mind. “Yeah, I guess it wasn’t the best first impression.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve seen worse.”

Sweetie Belle frowned. Her memories were jagged and disjointed, but she had a feeling she’d lost control of her power. Again. “What could be worse than… what I did?”

“Trust me, kid, you’re better off not knowing.”

Zecora handed the unicorn another cup, which Sweetie Belle emptied with considerably less difficulty than the first. “Well, I guess I might as well ask your name,” she said.

“Gilda,” the griffon replied. “Captain of the griffon army and leader of the resistance. And you’re Sweetie Belle, old friend of Scootaloo’s and Zebrica’s resident necromancer.”

Sweetie Belle’s jaw stiffened at the second title. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring that up.”

“What? It’s true.”

“Do not pester her with this,” Zecora said with a stern glare. “More will only go amiss.”

“Or she could just chill out,” the griffon muttered.

“You do not know, as I do, the depths of her despair and gloom,” Zecora said. “Nightmare Moon took all from her, all that will be, all that were.”

“She took everything from a lot of us,” Gilda replied.

Zecora added a couple herbs to her cauldron as she spoke. “Sweetie Belle lost so much more, something we cannot ignore. Though loss of friends will truly smart, Sweetie lost her cutie mark.”

“Lost her cutie mark?” Gilda raised an eyebrow. “Looks like she has one to me.”

“I’m sitting right here, you know,” Sweetie Belle said with a scowl. She couldn’t help but wonder what the two had talked about while she was asleep.

Zecora glanced at the unicorn before turning to look through some jars on a shelf. “More than this, I cannot tell. You must ask dear Sweetie Belle.”

The unicorn and griffon stared at each other for a moment. “Well, guess we should get this over with,” Gilda said with a sigh. “What’s your story?”

“Depends,” Sweetie Belle answered, rubbing her head. “What’s yours?”

The griffon’s eyes narrowed a little, but she answered. “I fought against Nightmare Moon with General Rainbow Dash and lost. I’ve been trying to get revenge ever since.”

Sweetie Belle waited a moment to see if she would say more, but the griffon just watched her in silence. “Fine,” Sweetie said. “I was Nightmare Moon’s student. I escaped. Now I live here.”

“How descriptive,” Gilda said.

“You, too.”

The two regarded each other for a while, with only the cauldron’s constant bubbling to break the silence. “All right,” Gilda groaned at last. “Rainbow Dash and I went way back. When she came asking for help, I made sure she got it. I helped her plan the attack on Canterlot, and Zecora here promised us a potion that would destroy Nightmare Moon. Then we attacked, and… well, everything went wrong.”

“The potion’s theft was not your fault,” Zecora said without turning around, “nor was the failure of that assault.”

“Yeah, guess we have Apple Bloom to thank for that,” Gilda replied. Both Zecora and Sweetie Belle glared at her. “I’m sorry,” Gilda said with a sigh, “it’s just… I’ve spent five years blaming her for Dash’s death. I mean, I didn’t know it was her, exactly, but still… it’s hard to let it go.”

“You should let go of your old grudge,” Zecora said as she filled three bowls with the cauldron’s contents and passed them around. “You, my friend, are quick to judge.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Gilda’s tone was gruff, but Sweetie thought she sensed a hint of resignation. “So, that’s my story. What’s yours?”

Sweetie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Nightmare Moon captured me when she destroyed Ponyville. I was a blank flank at the time, and she thought she could turn me into her successor. She tortured the ponies I cared about and made me watch. I think she thought it would help me discover my magic or something, but it just made me hate her.”

“Can’t blame you for that,” Gilda said. “I’ve hated recruits just for existing.”

Sweetie Belle didn’t know what to make of that, so she kept talking. “I did discover my magic, but it wasn’t what either of us expected. After she killed my sister right in front of me, I somehow used my magic to—”

“No!” she screamed. A shadow-cloaked pony shoved a curved blade into Rarity’s chest. Rarity’s luxurious white coat was stained red, and all she could do was gasp before her eyes closed for the last time. “Rarity! No!”

“Use your magic.” Nightmare Moon’s voice drifted from the darkness.

“You killed her!” she screamed. “You killed her!” She felt a strange energy rushing through her body. A moment later, Rarity’s blank eyes opened, and she shambled slowly to her hooves. “I’ll kill you!”

A flash and a hoof on her shoulder brought Sweetie Belle back to the present. She looked up to see Zecora standing above her. “I don’t remember what happened, exactly,” Sweetie said, her breath coming out in quick gasps. “When I woke up, I was lying in a soft bed, and Nightmare Moon was stroking my mane, calling me her ‘dear pupil.’ That’s when my cutie mark appeared.”

Gilda set her vegetable stew aside, and though Zecora had heard the story before, she sat in silence, watching the unicorn intently. “Even after that, I still struggled with magic,” Sweetie continued. “She kept trying to make me do that same spell, but I never could. One day, she lost patience with me and tried to trample me. I was tired and frustrated and angry, and the next thing I knew, there were three ponies backing her against a wall. Only they weren’t really ponies, they were…”

They stared forward with dead eyes and bared teeth. Rarity’s skin was starting to sag on her bones. Fluttershy still bore the scars of her long torture, and Applejack looked like half her flesh had been burned off. “Stop this at once!” Nightmare Moon ordered.

“You don’t control me,” she said.

Sweetie Belle stopped herself as her body began to shake at the memory. “At first, I thought they’d come to save me, but they disappeared once I stopped casting my magic,” she said. “Nightmare Moon forbade me from using that spell again.”

“No kidding,” Gilda muttered.

Sweetie Belle nodded. “Over time, I realized I could summon… them if I got angry enough, so I bottled up all my resentment and hatred for Nightmare Moon so I could practice when she wasn’t looking. Eventually, I figured out that I could control which ponies I summoned, so long as they were dead. When the time was right, I summoned every pony I could from Ponyville and made them attack Nightmare Moon. They weren’t strong enough to beat her, but I did manage to escape while she was distracted.”

“Wait. You overpowered Nightmare Moon by yourself?” Gilda asked.

“I was having a pretty bad day,” Sweetie Belle answered.

“Bad day? That’s awesome!” Gilda said.

“You think summoning those… things is awesome?” Sweetie yelled, rising to her hooves.

“If it helps beat Nightmare Moon, then yes!” Gilda replied, returning the unicorn’s fierce glare.

“I bet you didn’t think that in the clearing,” Sweetie growled, a dark aura flaring around her horn.

“Calm yourself, dear Sweetie Belle,” Zecora said, stepping between the griffon and the unicorn. “You must not bring those things from Hell.”

Sweetie Belle squeezed her eyes shut and took several deep breaths, and the aura slowly dissipated. “You see?” she said. “I can’t control it. Any time I get mad, those things come out and attack something.”

“Come on, there has to be some way,” Gilda said.

“There’s not!” Sweetie yelled before pausing to take a few more breaths. “I’ve tried everything.”

“But we need your help,” Gilda said. “You can help us take down Nightmare Moon.”

“What good will I do?” Sweetie demanded. “For all you know, those things will turn against you!”

“That’s enough from both of you,” Zecora said. “Settle down and eat your stew.” The griffon and unicorn stared at each other for a moment before turning away and eating their food in silence.