Applejack threw herself to the ground as a bolt of sizzling purple energy passed close enough to leave an uncomfortable warmth before showering her with the charred debris of what used to be the tree beside her. With reflexes honed by a lifetime of close proximity to the Everfree and regular trips through the fire swamp (not to mention the semi-annual tangles with world threatening demigods), she pulled in her legs and leaned into the ground, rolling to her hooves with knees bent and ready to launch her in any direction. She chose right, having only half-consciously noted the partial cover of some stumps and a raised mound of earth in that direction while she was rolling, just in time to dodge a large gout of flame that blackened the grass at her previous position.

"YOU!"

The word sent an involuntary shudder down Applejack's spine. She knew it was Twilight who had spoke, but the pulsing magical aura around her had amplified and distorted her voice, causing her to sound like the physical incarnation of wrath and fury. The air throbbed with arcanic pressure, to the point that even an earth pony as unattuned as Applejack could still feel it buzzing in her teeth.

"Yeah, me! Damnit Twilight! What's going on?! Where's Rainbow Dash!" She readied a length of rope.

"GONE! SHE'S GONE! IT'S ALL OVER! SHE'S GONE AND NOW I HAVE NOTHING!"

"What do you mean gone? What did you-?"

Applejack was interrupted by the abrupt disappearance of her cover as it transformed into a liquid and collapsed into a puddle. She lashed out with her lasso, kicking off the ground as the end snagged on a high branch. She wrapped a forehoof and pulled the rope taut, shifting and twisting her weight to send herself swinging in a wide arc. Hoping to keep moving as erratically as possible, she kicked off a nearby tree to change directions, but quickly found herself falling to the ground as a purple bolt smashed through the branch anchoring her rope.

Fortunately, she wasn't more than a few meters above the ground to begin with, leaving her with only a few minor scrapes as she hit the brush and tucked into another roll. As soon as she was on her hooves, she swept her tail across the ground, flinging several small rocks into the air behind her. A quick series of kicks sent the stones rocketing backward in a barrage meant to momentarily distract more than anything else. She could hear the projectiles shatter against a barrier as she dove for the cover of a three pony wide oak tree, yanking the rest of her rope after her, the end still tight around the remains of the unfortunate branch.

"ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?! NOW THAT EVERYTHING HAS FALLEN TO PIECES?! ARE YOU HERE TO GLOAT?!"

"Twilight, you're not making a lick of sense and I don't have a damn clue what you're talking about! I'm looking for Dash, and you and your problems are a distant second!"

"SO YOU'RE HERE TO SWEEP HER BACK UP NOW THAT I'VE LOST HER! OF COURSE! I KNEW YOU COULDN'T STAND TO SEE HOW HAPPY WE WERE TOGETHER AFTER YOU TOOK HER FOR GRANTED AND THREW HER AWAY! THIS WAS YOUR PLAN ALL ALONG!"

"Twilight! I don't know what you're talking ab-!"

"LIAR!"

The accusation was quickly drowned out by the sound of the large oak being ripped from the ground, crushed, and exploded in rapid succession. Diving clear of the rain of smoking tree fragments, Applejack lashed out with her rope, using the branch tipped end as an improvised flail. She saw her target disappear in a flash of purple, and immediately responded by giving a sharp buck backwards with both hind legs. She felt her hooves connect with something solid, but lacking in texture, accompanied by a large cracking noise and the sound of staggered hoofsteps. She quickly threw herself forward, pivoted on her front hooves, and threw the looped back end of her rope through the temporarily shattered defensive barrier and around Twilight's neck, following up with a sharp tug.

To her surprise, Twilight didn't fall to the ground. Instead, she quickly adjusted her stance to retain her balance, gripped the rope in her magic, and pulled hard. Applejack tried to dig her hooves into the ground, but Twilight pulled at an upward angle. She quickly let go of the rope, but it was already too late. Her hooves were off the ground and she had no way of taking any evasive action.

The next two seconds were something of a blur. A shock hit her in the side, causing the muscles in her legs to spasm, and preventing her from drawing them in to protect her core as she felt herself raise slightly and then slam into the ground, knocking the breath from her. She was also pretty sure she had received a kick to the head somewhere along the way, but she couldn't be sure when it had happened. Through the ringing in her head, she could just barely hear what sounded like a panicked voice tearfully pleading for them to stop fighting.

Still struggling to get her breath back and stop the twitching in her limbs, Applejack felt herself slowly rise off the ground, surrounded by a magenta glow. She floated upright in the air, back hooves swinging ineffectively several inches above the grass. As the spots in her vision passed, two blurry purple shapes came together and resolved themselves into Twilight, eyes blazing white, and mouth twisted into something that fluctuated between a snarl of rage and a grin of sadistic anticipation. With each step she took closer, Applejack could feel the magic tightening around her neck.

Twilight steadily approached her now helpless target, the inferno within her blazing hotter with every step closer.

"You!"

Her voice no longer carried the booming echo it had before, but what it lacked in volume it made up for with menace, as if each syllable, rather than traveling through air, propagated instead through a liquid mixture of malice and ill intent.

"I should have known. I should have seen it from the start. This is all because of you!"

Applejack attempted to reply, but all that got past the telekinetic grip around her throat was a strained gurgle. Twilight tightened her grip slightly, causing Applejack's back legs to kick a little quicker while her forelegs continued to fruitlessly swipe at her neck, as if there were anything physical to pull at.

"You already stole her from me once! You stole her and I didn't do anything about it. I sat and I waited while you enjoyed everything I ever wanted and took it for granted. I waited and I waited, and I finally got my long overdue chance when you idiotically let her slip through your hooves. But no, you couldn't just let us be happy together. Couldn't let me succeed where you had failed. You had to go and steal her again!"

Through the choking struggle for breath, a look of confusion still made its way to Applejack's eyes.

"Don't deny it! I know it was you! You left those goggles on my doorstep!"

"I don't know if you were just trying to taunt me or trip me up, but then you went and got the princesses involved! All so you could get her back! Admit it!"

The look of incomprehension on Applejack's face only deepened, but Twilight was too engrossed in her newly constructed narrative to notice.

"Then you come galloping in as the big hero, capture the villain, get the mare, and live happily ever after for a second time while I rot in the dungeons. Well it may be over for me, but I'll be damned if you get to enjoy that happy ending. I won't silently whither away in the dark, clinging to dreams and fantasies while you get everything. Not again! Never again!"

Years old dark fantasies from the weeks after Rainbow Dash and Applejack had first started dating came bubbling up from the archives of Twilight's memories.

Twilight jumped backward, horn at the ready, as the faint voice she had so easily been ignoring grew several times in volume and proved to be significantly more external than she had initially assumed. She readied an attack for the interloper, but what she saw when she looked up stopped her cold.

She stared, transfixed, into two wide blue eyes. A flood of tears welled up from deep within the cyan pools, creating a glossy sheen before spilling over the sides. Twilight could almost feel herself falling into them, sinking into the pelagic depths and drowning in the salt water tides. It was a sight she had repeatedly seen in her nightmares.

Her prior thoughts came to a crashing halt. In their place, fragments of painful memories rose up to prick at her mind. The smell of sweet perfumed candles. The texture of rose petals on sheets. The dampness of tears pressed into her coat and the vibration of shuddering sobs. And of course, those tear filled eyes.

With all she had done, there were few things she actually regretted. Few things she couldn't consider ultimately justified by the goal of winning Dash's love. For all the actions that would earn her a permanent stay in Canterlot's dungeon, it was the memory of extinguishing the light in those eyes that truly tore at her conscience and choked her with guilt.

Twilight's rage evaporated, the magic in her horn and eyes disappearing with a flicker. There was a loud thump and a gasp of breath as Applejack fell to the ground. A second thump followed as Twilight's legs gave out underneath her and she collapsed onto her side. There was no point in fighting anymore. What good would it do? It wouldn't bring Dash back. What reason was there to move from this spot? To avoid capture? She could lie unmoving on the floor of a dungeon cell as well as she could lie here in the dirt. It wouldn't be any more devoid of Rainbow Dash than anywhere else.

After a few seconds of not quite silence, filled mostly by Applejack gasping for breath and muttering a few choice words while she climbed back to her hooves, Fluttershy cautiously approached the pony who had rather suddenly keeled over in front of her.

"Twilight...? Are you okay...?"

She had to strain her ears to hear the murmured response.

"No."

Rainbow Dash streaked through the air at her usual dizzying speed, but her thoughts still raced faster.

Her mind was inexorably drawn back to that kiss with Twilight. Twilight. Her beloved marefriend. The pony she loved more than anything else in the world. The pony she had been desperate to get back to and wrap in her hooves. The pony who had acted as the singular driving motivation behind her escape from captivity. The bruises and aches that covered her body and were just starting to make themselves known as the adrenaline started to fade were a testament to how powerful that motivation had been.

So why, when she had finally found herself reunited with the pony she cared about most, when she had found herself kissing those lips she had been fondly remembering for weeks, had she felt nothing? It didn't make any sense!

Rainbow Dash shook her head violently as a creeping anxiety spread through her stomach. No! That couldn't be it! If there was one unshakable truth of the universe, it was that she loved Twilight. She could still remember the agony she had been in before flying to Twilight's house to confess her feelings. She could recall the fear and exhilaration when she had stopped trying to choke out the words and simply lunged forward for a kiss like the impulsive idiot she was, and the absolute euphoria that consumed her when Twilight kissed her back with twice as much intensity. She remembered all the times she had woken up in the middle of the night, looked over to see Twilight curled up beside her, and silently wondered what she ever could have done to possibly deserve this much happiness.

But she couldn't feel it anymore. The memories stirred no echo of the emotions they centered around. They were detached, as if she were simply watching events that had happened to somepony else, except even in a movie the audience was still supposed to feel something vicariously and empathize with the characters on the screen. It was like flying without the sensation of wind, g-forces, or any sense of movement at all, just a bland repetition of wing motions and the aggravating knowledge that this was somehow supposed to be the greatest thing in the world.

That was it. Those incompetent eggheads must have broken something in her. She'd just have to fly back there and whip their sorry flanks until they fixed whatever crucial piece of her they had broken. No, that was a stupid plan. She should go see Twilight instead. If anypony in Equestria could figure out was wrong with her and find a solution, it was her. The reassurance of the thought was undercut by the lack of the familiar warm pride that normally accompanied thoughts of her marefriend's talent. Twilight's skills were simply a factual, emotionally neutral statement of reality, like the sky being blue, or mountains being tall.

Rainbow Dash turned in a wide arc and began retracing her path. As she flew, another disconcerting thought began to intrude.

Dash shook her head. It was a temporary circumstance, that was all. One that would be righted soon enough.

She pressed her forehooves against her head in a futile attempt to halt the upsetting line of speculation.

I mean, as outlandish as it sounds, one has to wonder what could cause so many doctors to be so convinced (or at least pretend to be) that I was under some kind of enchantment. What bizarre conspiracy or mass delusion stretches up to the Princesses themselves? What was that Hockam's Razor thing Twilight was always going on about? The persimmons answer? The parsing answer? The simplest answer with the least assumptions is usually the right one. It almost seems like in this case, that would be-

No! That was absurd. Worse still, it was disloyal, and disloyalty to Twilight could not be tolerated, though the injunction felt significantly diminished now that thoughts of the mare in question no longer stirred any emotions. It still wasn't something she should be thinking. Proof of how broken, how wrong, she was now.

Who's our enemy? Why are they so interested in breaking the two of us up? How did the princesses get involved? There's definitely a lot to go over with Twilight, even on top of all those questions I still wanted to ask her about why she put me to sleep in the middle of a fight and I woke up in the forest, and why it seems like she was trying really hard to hide something from-

"No, no, no, no, no." Rainbow Dash muttered to herself as she flew. "No way. Twilight could never-!"

Well, I mean, she almost certainly COULD. From a magic standpoint, obviously. If anypony could pull off a spell like that, it would be her. She certainly has the means.

"Shutupshutupshutupshutup!"

But the key part is she WOULDN'T, right? Sure, it turns out she's been madly in love with me for years, and some might say there was plenty of motive after I turned her down that one time—and I still don't know why I did that! Why wasn't I interested back then? She's the same pony now as she was then. She didn't drastically change. It's more like I...changed...really suddenly...and started loving Twilight.

Though the act of flight was too automatic and embedded in muscle memory for Rainbow Dash to falter and plummet out of the sky at the thought, that didn't stop her stomach from falling away without her. She continued flying in a straight line, but from the way her vision was spinning, she might as well have been running through one of her more aggressive stunt routines. She still needed to find Twilight and get some answers to her questions, but there was now a growing suspicion that she wouldn't like the answers that were waiting for her.

"Twilight?"

"Blrgh..."

"Twilight, please get up," Fluttershy gently pleaded. "We've come a long way to talk with you."

The only response she received from the purple pony with her face in the dirt was a series of groans and a dismissive hoof wave.

"Landsakes Twi! Get up! You can't just lay there forever!"

"Lie there."

"What?"

"I can't just lie here forever. Also, yes I can. Watch me."

"Consarnit, Twi! You nearly burn me to a crisp and take my head off, then you start lecturing about grammar?!"

"It would seem so."

"You think this is funny?!"

"Not particularly, no."

The hairs on Applejack's back began to bristle as she prepared to shout something in response, but Fluttershy set a gentle hoof on her shoulder and gave a quiet shake of her head before approaching the uncooperative pony and lowering her head to speak softly into her ear.

"Twilight, I can tell you're very upset."

"However did you guess?"

Fluttershy ignored the jab and continued. "And I know lashing out with bitterness and sarcasm is just what you do when you're hurt. I'm your friend and I want to help you, but I need you to talk to me. Applejack is your friend too. She's a little angry right now, and I think you'll agree she has some good reasons to be, but the important part is both you AND Rainbow Dash are our friends and we want to help you both. We just don't know how, because we don't have all the information."

Twilight grumbled something incoherent and curled into a ball.

"Now we know you're not feeling very well, but do you think you can fill us in? Sharing your problems with a friend might help a bit."

"Doubtful," Twilight muttered, burying her head underneath her forelegs.

"Do you think it would make you feel any worse?"

"...I don't think that's possible..." Twilight gave a long shuddering sigh as she moved her legs back underneath her and slowly pushed herself to a sitting position. "Alright."

"Thank you Twilight." Fluttershy gave a pleased nod. "Now, can you tell us where Rainbow Dash is?"

"I-I don't know! She flew off! Th-That way! Sh-She!" Twilight had to pause to clear a lump in her throat.

"I see. Did the two of you have a fight?"

"N-No. We kissed and then she just...I mean she—it was right after we got out of the bunker, and then—"

"Wait, bunker? What bunker?" Applejack interrupted.

Twilight waved a hoof behind her to a patch of rising smoke in the distance. "That one. We had just gotten out, and—"

Fluttershy interrupted this time. "Twilight, I think you need to start a bit earlier. Please tell us about this bunker and why you and Rainbow Dash were there."

Twilight took a deep breath, held it for three seconds, then exhaled. "Rainbow Dash and I got separated. She was captured by diamond dogs and turned over to the royal guard for the bounty Celestia put out. I spent the last few weeks trying to find her, and it turns out she was being kept locked up in this secret bunker. There was a part where I blew up a changeling hive and snuck into Luna's bedroom, but that's not really relevant at the moment. I found the bunker and broke in to rescue her, but I guess she was already in the process of escaping on her own and I almost missed her and barely caught up with her in time, but now she HATES ME AND I'LL NEVER SEE HER AGAIN!"

"Now just hold on a minute there," Applejack cut in before Twilight could fall back to the ground and return to wallowing in misery. "How long was Dash being held in this bunker?"

"A couple of weeks."

"And Celestia knew she was there the entire time?"

"Definitely. The reports I intercepted say she made several visits and personally selected the entire staff."

"So she's KNOWN where Dash is for weeks now and never bothered to tell any of us back in Ponyville! Why would she keep that secret from us?!"

Twilight shrugged. "She probably wanted to keep the whole thing away from the public eye until the doctors had finished their work, and I'm guessing she wanted to avoid having to explain why all the restraints and sedatives were necessary." Seeing the pair of questioning glances, she continued. "From what I briefly saw of the room she was being kept in, including the pummeled doctors, she was a very uncooperative patient."

There was a brief pause as both ponies processed the comment and worked through the mental imagery. The silence grew longer as the weight of the unasked question swelled.

"So...um...Twilight...?" Fluttershy cringed as she tried to force out the words until Applejack mercifully cut in.

"Would you tell us why exactly Dash was needing the attention of doctors in the first place? Along with the how and why of you ending up on the number one spot of the law's most wanted list and running around the forest playing fugitive for weeks?" Twilight grimaced as her ears fell flat against her head. "Celestia told us a story, and you definitely ain't looking to good in it, but whatever it is you've done, given what we've all been through together the last few years, we figure we should at least hear out your side of the story first. Just on the off chance that it's a giant misunderstanding. I know you're a reasonable mare, Twilight, and you don't do anything without a good reason, so I'm hoping against hope there's a damn good explanation as to why this whole thing isn't how it looks, cause it looks bad."

"Umm...yes. What she said," Fluttershy added.

"I'd like in on that explanation too if you don't mind," a third voice called out from above.

Three pairs of eyes shot skyward to find Rainbow Dash hovering above them.

"D-DASH!" Twilight sputtered out as her heart did its best to leap out her mouth and take off running across the horizon. She gawked at the pegasus like she had grown several extra heads that had announced an immediate test on a subject she hadn't studied for. "Y-You're back! You left and I-I...!"

The world had stopped making sense. She had already resigned herself to never seeing Rainbow Dash again. She had her plan for the future, namely, wallow in despair, waste away, and die. Now Rainbow Dash was back. Back, but not particularly happy looking, and Twilight hadn't the slightest clue where to go from here.

"Yeah, I'm back. Sorry to just bolt like that, but I needed to stretch my wings and think some things over." She turned to face the two other ponies present. "Hey guys."

"RD!" Applejack gave a relieved shout.

"Rainbow Dash! Oh, we're so glad you're okay! I mean, you seem okay. Are you okay?" Fluttershy questioned as she flew up and started examining miscellaneous minor injuries."

"Just some scrapes and bruises, that's all. Nothing broken or sprained. I got some nasty leg cramps, but I'll live." Fluttershy paused to examine a small patch of Dash's coat that had been stained by blood from the lab coat she had borrowed earlier before ditching it as soon as she had cleared the bunker. "Oh, uh, that's not mine."

"Are you sure you don't need any medical attention? My first aid kit is back with the cart, but I'm pretty sure I could at least put together a poultice with-"

"I'm fine, Fluttershy. Believe me, I've had my fill of 'medical attention' recently. Speaking of which, I believe Twilight was just about to give us some long awaited answers, so nopony change the subject."

Twilight steeled herself as three pairs of eyes and three pairs of ears turned to focus on her. It wasn't that she had never considered this scenario. To the contrary, she had imagined many situations that were quite similar while neurotically anticipating everything that could possibly go wrong with this entire endeavor. It was simply that any attempt to plan a course of action for such a contingency invariably ended with 'just don't let that happen'.

"So, Twilight. Would you care to explain why every guard in Equestria seems so intensely interested in sticking you in a cell, and me in a hospital room with a dozen different doctors poking at my head?"

Twilight took a deep and shuddering breath. "It's kind of a long story."

"We've got nowhere to be," Dash replied. Applejack nodded while Fluttershy chewed anxiously on her mane.

"Well...what have you all heard so far?"

Applejack brushed some dust off her hat as she stepped forward. "All Celestia told the rest of us was that you put some kinda love spell on Rainbow Dash."

"That's pretty much the same story I got from the doctors and both princesses. They had a lot more medical terms involved, but that was the gist of it."

Twilight dug absently at the ground with a hoof. There was no point in denying it. Even if she could begin to imagine a credible lie to explain the situation, even if Applejack weren't there with her borderline supernatural skill at detecting the truth, she would still find herself incapable of directly lying to Dash. It just wouldn't be something she could bring herself to do.

"Well, that's...a pretty accurate summary actually."

There was a small gasp from Fluttershy, but it felt like more of a formality than anything else. While everypony may have hoped for a different answer, nopony could say they were genuinely surprised. Applejack was building back up to seething, Fluttershy looked, if at all possible, even more anxious than before, but Rainbow Dash simply drifted to the ground, face placid and unreadable. When she spoke, there were no shouts of anger, nor any icy chill of hatred added to her voice, just a flat, emotionless probing for facts, like a jaded journalist who simply couldn't be bothered to care anymore.

"When?"

"Three days before we first got together. I..." Twilight dipped her head slightly, suddenly finding her hoof very interesting. "...snuck into your house and cast it on you while you were asleep."

Rainbow Dash's expression remained a blank slate. "How?"

Twilight took another breath and tried to steady the shaking that had been building in her legs. She considered it a small victory that she hadn't yet thrown up or passed out. As far as living through worst fears went, this was going fairly well.

"Well, I made the spell myself. The actual effect is pretty simple. Most of the complicated parts are just for precision targeting the correct area of the brain. I had to use Heart's Desire as a material component to act as a focus and abstractor for some of the fine detail work. I also used some dragon scales and hydra blood, but those were just for damping heat output and quick dissolution of the other ingredients. I gathered everything I needed from the Everfree forest, then I-"

"We don't need an entire course on spell creation!" Applejack cut in. "What did it actually DO to Rainbow Dash?"

"Wait, hold on a second." Rainbowdash waved a silencing hoof through the air. "So this was sometime before that big fire, right?"

Twilight wilted a slight bit more. "Oh, uh...about that. While gathering ingredients, I had a run in with some timberwolves and a manticore that got a bit out of hoof, and I may have sort of maybe...started that fire."

Some part of Twilight found it comical that she should be so embarrassed by something as minor as accidental arson, given what she was in the middle of confessing to.

"So that angry dragon nearby was just an unrelated coincidence?"

"Well, he was likely angry because I ran into his cave, bound him to the floor, and took a few of his scales, so, not entirely unrelated?" Twilight forced an awkward smile while Dash's hoof moved to her face, muffling incoherent obscenity laced mutterings about paperwork. "Anyway, during all that, I think when I was getting knocked in the head by a manticore, I lost a pair of anti-cockatrice goggles I had been wearing. I know somepony found them, and I'm pretty sure they're the reason this whole thing fell apart this way, as they left them sitting on my doorstep to taunt me, but I still don't have a clue who they are or how they could have found out about the spell."

"Ummm..." a meek voice called out. Three heads turned to focus on Fluttershy. "Th-That was me actually."

"What?!" Twilight's jaw hung open, incapable of delivering any further words, even if her mind wasn't too busy reeling to properly compose any.

"I found them when we were doing the investigation on the fire. I found a few strands of your mane in the strap, so I knew they were yours. I went to return them, but...umm...you and Rainbow Dash were....busy at the time." Fluttershy's cheeks reddened slightly. "I dropped the box and left, and just kinda forgot about it until now."

Twilight blinked a few times and rubbed at her temple with a hoof. "So...the spell? You didn't..?"

"No, I didn't know anything about that."

"Huh. So I went into a paranoid panic and started setting up safe houses and secret supply caches over nothing. Though I guess not for nothing. Wait! If that's true, then how did the princesses even find out about all this in first place?!"

Her voice still stuck in its flat matter of fact tone, Rainbow Dash chimed in. "When I first woke up in that bunker, Celestia said Cadence 'sensed something' during her visit to Ponyville. Apparently that was enough to bring you in for further questioning, and the whole jumping out the window and running bit that followed didn't exactly scream 'innocent'."

Cadence?

Twilight pressed a hoof into her face and sighed. She had thought the spell was faint enough, that the periodic pings of magic were quiet enough to be essentially impossible to detect unless one was thoroughly searching for them. But of course Cadence would be uniquely qualified to pick up on a spell like that, particularly given the origin of the spell that had formed the basic framework. She would also be particularly vigilant. Even the faintest hint that she was experimenting with that again would have set off some major alarms. She could have found some way to mask the signal coming from Dash's head, drown it out with something else, kept Dash and Cadence from prolonged interaction for a few weeks until the decay function on the pulses had progressed farther, a dozen different solutions, but she had been too focused on chasing phantoms and dead ends with the goggles. When she had finally let that go, she had relaxed too much, taking a break from paranoia to enjoy a visit from her beloved sister in law.

Applejack cleared her throat and gave a small stomp of irritation. "As great as it is learnin' all about Twi's adventure in arson and Fluttershy hiding evidence, I think we strayed a bit off topic here." She turned her gaze back to Twilight. "What did your little mind control spell actually do?"

Twilight felt the hairs on her back start to bristle. "First of all, it's NOT mind control. That implies the target is little more than a puppet with no individual will of their own, and it wasn't like that at all!" She turned to face Dash. "You KNOW it wasn't like that! Right?"

"Well, several hours ago, I KNEW I wasn't under the influence of any kind of spell and that every accusation against you was a blatant lie, so maybe I'm not the best pony to ask."

"Ah, fair point." Twilight winced slightly and fidgeted with her front hooves, wishing she could curl up and become invisible. Fluttershy gave a cringe of sympathy. "W-Well it wasn't anything as overt as that. What it actually did was create a neural bridge from the amygdala, where strong emotional responses are processed, to the parts of the brain that hold memories and abstract concepts related to a specific target. In this case, me. Thinking of me would cause the connection to also trigger a strong burst of positive emotion. I also set it to pulse periodically by itself to keep the connection strong and healthy early on. The brain does the rest on its own and interprets that as affection and romantic interest. That's how a lot of stuff in the brain works actually. We feel or do something by reflex, and then our brains come up with a story to justify why after the fact. Once Dash's brain thinks she's in love with me, it's self-reinforcing and that becomes the truth. There's no altering of memories, no forced control. Everything that follows is real affection."

"Hooey!" Applejack spat. "Becomes the truth? What kinda nonsense is that?! Those feelings are only there because you put them there! That makes the whole thing fake!"

"No it doesn't! There's no such thing as a fake feeling. You can't say that somepony only thinks they are sad or happy or in pain, because it's always a matter of what's in their head. I may have grown a new connection, but I guarantee you that if you were to cut open the brains of the Cakes, you'd find something similar that grew over decades of a happy relationship. It doesn't matter whether it was put there artificially over the span of a few minutes, once it's there, the resulting feelings are real. Even the automatic pulses were set to rapidly wind down on their own. Within four to five months, there wouldn't be a shred of magic left. If we had a huge fight or something, there's nothing that would keep her from being mad at me, nothing that would force her to stay with me no matter what. The only thing keeping us together would be the pleasant memories we made together. REAL memories!"

Twilight's pulse pounded rapidly in her ears. She took a few quick ragged breaths, feeling slightly lightheaded from breathing too little while words continued to pour out somewhat quicker than she had intended. She focused her gaze back on Rainbow Dash. She had to make sure she understood.

"I just set the ball rolling. Everything that happened after was real!"

"You said once that 'the spark just wasn't there', so I found a way to put it there. That's all!"

The corners of her vision began to blur with tears as her words became less persuasive arguments and more desperate babbling.

"I-I just wanted to find some way to make you feel what I felt! I wanted to share that with you!"

The blurriness spread across the rest of her vision, creating a kaleidoscope of a dozen different Dashes starting back at her with that same placid, emotionless face. She closed her eyes, forcing the tears to run down her cheeks.

"I-I-I know it was wrong not to ask first! I told myself it was okay because it would make you happier, but I don't know what I'd do if I asked and you said no! Then I'd be stuck with an even worse choice! Either I'd then have to go ahead and cast the spell directly against your will, and I'm not sure if I could have brought myself to do that, or I'd have to give up and leave things as they were, and I DEFINITELY couldn't do THAT! I was falling apart! I could barely eat or sleep, and it just hurt all the time!

Twilight struggled to keep talking through her tightening throat and running nose. Her tear ducts showed no sign of slowing.

"An–An–And sometimes. When it was particularly bad. I–I–I'd look at a pair of scissors and I'd think–or I'd t–take a walk up to the bluffs and I'd just sit there at the edge and I–and I always went back but every time I'd stare a little longer and think that maybe next time...and I knew if you ever found out, that would basically be emotional blackmail, so I never told anypony, but that didn't make it hurt any less and I'd still stare longer each time!"

"I just wanted you to love me back! I know it was terribly selfish! I understand exactly why it was wrong! Why anypony who does something like that SHOULD be locked up! But I...I'm..."

"What?" Dash replied. "You're sorry?"

Something sparked in Twilight's mind. Something that returned a sense of clarity and focus and stilled her choking sobs. A glow of magic wiped way the tears and mucus as she opened her eyes, straightened her back, and opened her mouth to respond.

"NO! I'm NOT sorry!" Twilight shouted with every scrap of conviction she could muster. The other ponies took a step back as if they had been struck. "I mean, yes, I'm obviously sorry I got caught. That this all blew up into such a huge mess. That we even need to have this conversation at all. But if you're asking if I regret my choice to cast the spell in the first place? Absolutely not! If I could go back, knowing everything about how it would all end, I'd STILL make the same choice!"

"Why?!" Applejack and Rainbow Dash both shouted back. Fluttershy shifted uncomfortably and gave a small nod.

"Because," Twilight locked eyes with Dash. "It was worth it. YOU were worth it! Even if it was only for a short time. Being with you was better than I ever imagined, and I don't know if you or anypony can properly appreciate what that means, because I imagined a LOT! I wouldn't trade the time we had together, however brief, for anything. I KNOW it was wrong, but I'd do it all over again, even if I could only have you for a week! I'd do it for a single DAY! I'd do it because I LOVE YOU!"

Twilight stood panting, wanting nothing more than to collapse into a heap of catharsis and emotional exhaustion. Dash stood blinking in surprise for a few moments. She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply through her nose, and returned to the same emotionless expression as before.

"One last question, then."

Twilight gave a weak nod, too drained to muster up any kind of vocal response.

"Is it possible..." Cracks of awkward discomfort began to form in her emotionless mask. "The doctors managed to undo the effects of that spell. I think by destroying that bridge you were talking about. Can you...I mean, would you be able to...?"

"What?"

"...Put it back?"

"WHAT?!" Though Twilight was too dumbstruck to voice the thought herself, Applejack was more than up to the task. "What in tarnation are you talking about Dash?! Are you–?"

"Brain damaged? Yeah, just a bit." Rainbow Dash gave an aloof shrug.

"But WHY?! Why would you ever ask her to do that again? How can you not be furious?!"

"Oh, I'm definitely mad, but it's...complicated, AJ."

"It don't seem like it should be." Applejack replied with a snort.

"Yeah, well it is. It's like..." she turned to face Twilight. "I look at you and feel...nothing. It's not just the lack of love that was there before. I mean, I'm pretty pissed off about everything, but there's no personal sense of betrayal because it doesn't actually feel like we were ever friends. It's like you're some stranger I never met and have no particularly strong opinions about."

Twilight quivered on her hooves and struggled to fight back a new wave of tears. "Dash, I–"

"No! That's not what I mean! Not that you're 'dead to me' or anything. I'm saying there's all these regular feelings that SHOULD be there but just aren't. Even all the anger I should feel towards you can't focus right. It's like...when your train is late and that makes you late for something really important. You're mad, but not at a specific pony in particular, just events in general. Even if the delay was actually caused by a single individual's screw up somewhere, they're a distant faceless cog. It's not really personal. I can see you in front of me, but it's like I'm mad at some distant nameless pony I never met. Does that make any sense?"

Twilight gave a hesitant nod. "I think so?"

"But what's worse is, I REMEMBER all sorts of things, like how we met, parties we went to, adventures we had, battles we fought, all of it. But when I think about those memories, I don't feel anything. I remember what I'm supposed feel when I think about them, but I can't actually feel it anymore. Like they happened to somepony else and I'm just reading about them in some kind of really dull encyclopedia."

"That sounds...upsetting?"

"It is. And the absolute worst are the memories of us together. I remember. I can't feel it anymore, but I remember exactly what it felt like. I remember being happy. Happier than I've ever been before. I remember chocolate chip waffles for breakfast and messing around with lasers in the lab. I remember taking you flying and reading the newest Daring Do book together all night until the sun started to rise. I remember waking up next to you and thinking I was the luckiest mare in the world to have found you. That there was no way I could possibly deserve such a life, but I would fight with every fiber of my being down to my last breath to hold onto it."

Tears once again began to fill Twilight's eyes, but now they were accompanied by the flicker of a struggling smile.

"Dash..."

"And now it's gone!" A slight shake entered her voice as her cool composure started to crack. "It's gone and I...fuck me, I know it's messed up, but I MISS it! Every sensible bit of me says that's crazy. That I should leave, just cut you out of my life and move on, but I've always been a senseless idiot, and I just want that feeling back!"

After wiping some dampness from the corners of her eyes, Rainbow Dash took a few steadying breaths until she had regained most of her calm.

"So that's most of the reason why I'm asking if you can recast that spell. There's one more part, but it's a lot simpler."

"W-What's that?" Twilight managed to choke out through irregular sobs as tears continued to run past the huge smile involuntarily stuck on her face.

"I remember promising that I'd always stay with you and stick by your side, unconditionally, and until the end of time. I remember meaning every word of it, and it'll take a lot more than the revelation of a horrible crime, traumatic brain surgery, and the opposition of the Princesses and the combined military might of Equestria to make Rainbow Dash break a promise to her marefriend."

With that, the dam burst and Twilight threw herself forward, wrapping Rainbow Dash in a tight hug and sobbing into her chest.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! I don't deserve a pony as great as you!"

"Oh, you definitely don't." Rainbow Dash replied with a light chuckle as she wrapped her wings around the mess of a unicorn. "But hey, better to be lucky than good, right? But just so you know, I now automatically win all future arguments. Like, forever."

"Deal." Twilight managed to reply through the uncontrollable mixture of laughter and crying that had overtaken her.

She suddenly felt light in a way she hadn't in...years? Whether it was her true feelings for Dash, or the actions she took in pursuit of her, she couldn't remember the last time she hadn't walked around with the weight of a terrible secret, carefully watching every word and action so as not to betray what could never be revealed, every second of every day for years on end. Now there were no more secrets. The weight was gone, and she felt as light as the feathers on the gentle wings that wrapped around her. She could finally rest.

Long overdue chapter. Sorry I pretty much vanished for a year. I wish I had anything even approximating a decent excuse. It's not like I've even been busier than normal. Just screwing around, not writing and forgetting where I was even going with this in the first place. Back now.

And no, the story is not over. I know that last paragraph sounds an awful lot like I'm tying a bow on the end of the story, but there's still more stuff to resolve. There were actually just a few more bits I was going to include in this chapter, but it would have messed up what turned out to be a solid chapter break point. There was no way those few extra paragraphs would have been able to end it with nearly as much punch. Hopefully I don't take another whole freaking year to sit down and write the next part.