The time came for Fancypants to call on me yet again, this time for a proper photo shoot. The clothes had all been finished, the venue set. Gilda and Seth decided to go see a play at the theater while I was off modeling.

"Ah! He is here!" ... I know that voice. That thick accent, that attitude. "Grash an finesse are last season! I finally have a subject with... attitude."

"Hello, Photo Finish."

"Ya ya, les get to the set already. Here, put these on." She threw a pair of denim jeans and a loose Hawaiian shirt at me, then dragged me over to a beach set. The jeans even had a hole meant for my tail to go through, set with a metal ring to keep the fabric from rubbing or chaffing.

"Show me... confidence. Relaxation." They took a shot from a 5 o'clock angle, with me looking over my shoulder to flash the camera a toothy smile.

"Good! NEXT!" In a whirlwind of motion, her assistants were on me. I was wearing full leather, fake of course, an unzipped jacket, tight pants, and put on an open road. "Show me, determination." I gave a focused stare down the 'open road' set they put me on, and they took a shot from 9 o'clock.

"Next!" Aviator scarf, goggles perched on my forehead, coat and breeches in earthen brown next to a cloud backdrop.

"Next!!" Pajama pants and a wool sweater, relaxing on a couch reading a book.

"NEXT!!!!!" Khaki's, no shirt, on a skateboard.

"NEEEEXXXXXXT!!!! Sleek red, collarless trench with black jeans, an attire I'd almost call villainous, (oddly enough, my favorite so far besides the Hawaiian) on a pitch black backdrop, clutching a globe with my most sinister face, the camera shot from 12 O'clock.

"And finished! We go!" That took all of twenty minutes. Well, at least that means I have the rest of the afternoon off. It'd be another hour yet before the theater performance was over, so I decided to hang out on some clouds and just relax for a while, go over my thoughts.

High above Canterlot, I sprawled out on a nimbus. Now that I think about it, I hadn't actually been on a cloud since before Ancientwell happened. Dr. Exotic said that pegasi and griffins couldn't have magic control problems like I did, because then they'd fall right out of clouds. Thing is, I did have those issues, so why wasn't I falling out of this one? What did I feel when I tried to land on a cloud? Well... nothing. There's no emotional state linked to standing on a cloud. There's no 'try' involved. You just stand on it. I realized it was entirely possible that I was overthinking this.

"Okay... I want to stand on the cloud." If overthinking and trying too hard is what's causing me to fail, then something should happen....

"Nope." Well, scratch that. When I think back, if you do something enough it becomes second nature and you don't need to think about it. Daffodil helped me realize that magic was the same.... but how do you release, or prevent the release, of the magic without an activation phrase? That and Dr.Exotic told me that it was my emotions making my magic run wild. So the big issue isn't so much of identifying what I want to happen and making it happen, it's keeping control of my emotions while I do it? Perhaps the reason I was having so much trouble picking up the book without sending it flying is because I got frustrated with it.

Hmm. So my magic is behaving like unicorn magic, with more power and less control.

I rolled over on my back and opened my wings, not fully, just to a relaxed state. I let my entire body sag and release all the tension. I began taking deep, slow breaths.

"Calm in, stress out. Calm in, stress out." I began to feel a strange, tingly sensation throughout my entire body as my constricted blood vessels relaxed and blood rushed to the surface.

"In all religion, mythos and sorcery, blood plays a role. Blood is the medium for magic, which is the essence of the soul, seated in the heart. The heart is the center of the green chakra, representing love, which is harmony. Friendship is harmony is love is magic. But... not only friendship is magic. The will to survive, curiosity, knowledge. My magic is out of balance because my spirit is out of balance, focused on pure survival. Paranoia, ever alert, always keeping watch, constantly ready to shield myself. To survive, you have to be alert, able to judge danger."

I sat for a moment in silence.

"So then... fear? Once I learned that I no longer had divine protection, I went further and further to survive. I've been avoiding even slight risk. Even in a situation I know I have the skills to handle, I lack the confidence to do so. I understand this. It's part of why I challenged Celestia, so I can figure out where I stand in a relatively controlled situation. But, if I'm ever to get control of my magic, which is the essence of my soul, I have to be in control of my soul, which is to say in control of myself. If I can control my emotions, I can control my magic. The reason I could do it before, even with my emotional state as it is, was because the raw force was so minimal, being applied in creative ways. The power is much greater, which means even light focus discharges a great deal. So... rather than focus... awareness? But not awareness out of fear?"

I groaned and clutched my head.

"For all I know I'm just spouting nonsense... to... myself... ugh. I thought I kicked that habit."

I rolled to my feet and sat atop the cloud, still but not tense. Empty of thoughts. Empty. Calm, still.

"Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out."

I began to close my eyes, and the moment they shut was the same moment that, for the first time, I could truly see.

What I saw terrified me. Everything was wrong! Everything was disturbed! Nothing was as it should be! I was no longer seated atop a cloud in Canterlot. I was in Wingsconsen. I watched as a flock of pegasi charged a great, horned beast, covering the escape of the ground bound sheep and cows below. I watched... no... felt, as the monster opened wide it's great maw and... stole their magic. Magic is the essence of the soul. I felt sick to my stomach as those ponies, guarding the escape of the non winged townsfolk, had their essence ripped from them and became empty husks, barely able to move.

My consciousness shifted from there to Appleoosa, where all that remained were the empty husks of earth ponies who's names I didn't know, but I could feel their intense sorrow. This thing that was stealing their magic, no, their very souls, was on a path straight towards Canterlot. I could feel it's hunger and it's greed. I knew that it would never be satiated, not so long as it lived. It seemed to notice me, with those piercing eyes. I gazed into them from afar and in that moment I knew the monster's name.

"Tirek."

Had I been in any other situation, I would have been ecstatic at having achieved a 'fargaze', attuning one's self to the magic world in order to sense disturbances in it, find people you have a connection with, or just connect with the world in general. Such a thing marked a major milestone in a unicorn's development, according to the textbooks Twilight gave me. The reason it was not often used was because even for the advanced, it is difficult to enter that state at will, and it generally happens on accident. That, and if you attempt a fargaze with any specific target in mind it won't work, because the very premise of the thing is to ignore specifics and open yourself to the world at a whole. Concentrating on anything wouldn't show it to you, it'd just end the vision. It's much more common with powerful entities as well, which means that I'm almost certain Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and Discord had all seen this vision. Twilight's mind never stops, so it's possible she had not.

I would have been bothered by the fact that, given the amount of area Tirek had covered, draining the magic from those he came across, and the speed in which he did it, meant that he had been at it for quite some time. Celestia must have known this was happening for a while already. What was she doing about it? Again, this would have bothered me at the time, had not every fiber of my being been screaming at me to find Gilda and Seth, and get as far away from Equestria as possible.

Once I ended the fargaze, I felt exhausted, and it took me some time to gather myself. The moment I had the energy to stand, I made a beeline for the theater house where Gilda and Seth would be coming out any moment. As I flew, I took note of all the cheerful ponies in the city.

"They... they don't know. Celestia knows. There's no way she DOESN'T know. Why hasn't she told anyone? Why aren't they making preparations? Why aren't they evacuating? Why aren't they readying a defense? Why aren't they doing ANYTHING!?!?" The sheer absurdity of it was mind boggling. Tirek was on his way here, RIGHT NOW to steal their SOULS and they were still skipping along in their happy go lucky lives... the exact same thing I was doing up till now. I went to a photo shoot just this morning! I had no idea either! An Celestia.... she KNEW I was here and didn't tell me that this Generation 1 villain of badassery was on his way to destroy everything! I've seen Gen 1! The villains played for keeps!

"Gilda! There you are!" I spotted her out of the crowd.

"Hey, what's up?" She said nonchalantly. She doesn't know either. How could anyone with any degree of magic NOT FEEL the massive disturbance taking place a few kilometers to the west?

"Gilda, listen. We gotta go." From the look in my eye and the tone in my voice, she knew something was wrong. Even Seth knew.

"Daddy, what's going on?"

"Listen Seth, there's no time to explain, but we need to leave NOW. No time to go to the hotel and pack our things. No time to go back home. We've got to leave the country."

"Griffin, what did you do?" Gilda scorned.

"I didn't do anything! This has nothing to do with me! I'm not in trouble. Equestria is."

"Then we have to do something. We have to stay here and help."

"Damnit Gilda LISTEN TO ME. We have to GO."

"You're telling me to drop everything and just leave? We live here. If something like that is coming, we have to do our best to stop it. If we don't then what have we been fighting for, dying for, all this time?"

"Seth, cover your ears."

"Dad?" He questioned, scared.

"Seth, just do it okay."

"Anything you have to say to me, you can say to Seth too." Damnit Gilda! No, wait, she's right. She's forcing me to keep in control of myself and not go off the wall in a swearing fit. Okay. Calm. Calm.

"Okay... listen. We're not running away. We're regrouping. If we charge in right now we can't beat this thing. We have to make preparations. We're not abandoning anything. As much... as much as I'm disillusioned with Equestria right now, this is bigger than Equestria. We have a responsibility to the New Dominion first. As far as I can tell, nobody is going to die, but things are going to get bad."

"How do you know all this?"

"Just trust me okay? I'll explain while we go."

So, we flew. We flew straight east, away from Tirek. We flew over the Ring Sea, resting on clouds and snatching fish when we could until we reached Signal. As far as I can tell, Tirek, no matter how powerful he may be, can't fly or walk on water. On arrival, I ordered the New Dominion to turn away any incoming air or watercraft bearing an Equestrian flag or crest. The first step in protecting the New Dominion would be stopping Tirek from setting foot on it.

Author's Notes:

Again, anyone notice how in the season finale, Celestia and Luna knew what Tirek was doing, and instead of sending out notices 'If you see a red centaur, run the fuck away and report it to authorities.' she kept it on the hush hush, sending Discord to deal with him on the down low, only to have Discord go turncoat?

The mane six in Ponyville, literally a few minutes out of Canterlot, had no idea that their princesses had been chucked into Tartarus and Tirek was doing a makeover on the castle? They had no idea what had been happening across the country?

Celestia informed Twilight specifically to NOT get her friends involved. Don't tell anyone. Shh. The big bad monster is coming to steal your soul. Don't let anyone know. I mean, it KIND OF makes sense in that Twilight had taken on all three of their powers, and it would be important to keep that hidden from Tirek.

But consider the fact that he couldn't steal Alicorn magic until he had taken unicorn magic, which he couldn't take till he got pegasus magic, which he couldn't take till he got earth pony magic....

Wouldn't it have made sense to send a message to pegasi to NOT charge him head first and get your magic stolen? Wouldn't it have been more reasonable to say 'Hey, if you see Tirek, kinda hard to miss now that he's sucked all that earth pony magic up, DO NOT engage? He can't fly, you can, so just fly away, come get us, and we'll nuke the crap out of him since he's not strong enough to steal out magic yet?

I mean, you can sit on clouds MILES UP if you have to, WAY out of his range. The season finale would have consisted of Tirek showing up at where cloudsdale is suppose to be, only to find that they moved the entire city, and in it's place are four pissed off alicorns ready to unleash the power of the sun, moon, magic itself (twilight) and... Cadence...what kind of lame power is heart anyway?

Point is, even the TINIEST bit of strategic NOT stupidity. (That's right, not even intelligence, just a minor lack of idiocy) would have seen it turn out very different.