In the dim moonlight filtering through the forest’s canopy, Nix was a formless shadow crouched atop a featureless boulder. The underbrush below him was a tangled mess of brown vines and brambles, interspersed with random patches of a bright blue flower that swayed in the cool night breeze. The plants danced in tune with the eddying currents of a thick mist that bloomed and receded in random spurts across the forest floor, the pulsing heartbeat of the untamed wood that strangled the paltry rays of light the boughs above allowed past. The edges of his trenchcoat hugged the top of the boulder, wavering only slightly in the soft breath of the wind.

Of course she sent him back to the Everfree Forest. He made a mental note to never trust alicorn teleportation again. A formality, mostly. He just appended the internal conclusion to his distrust of deities in general. He closed his eyes and sent an invisible pulse of his lifeforce outward. A translucent wave emanated from him and rippled in every direction, warping the landscape it traversed almost imperceptibly before the illusion settled. Small, flickering lights lit up in his mind, a thousand candles all around him with more sparking to life as the wave travelled further.

There. A few kilometers to the south, the wave washed over a few shimmering orbs that he felt more than saw. Familiar souls. That’d be Ponyville. Nine lifeforces in particular were closely concentrated in one location, probably the same building. He had just arrived in the forest—he absentmindedly cursed Lu’s teleportation skill again, for good measure—so it was unlikely the letter had been sent to Twilight Sparkle’s drake assistant so soon.

Nix sighed and rubbed his forehead. He hoped they hadn’t all been waiting for him for the twenty some-odd hours he had been gone. Kind of. It would be a bit funny if they had. Dancie and Scratchy would probably be tearing their manes out in boredom. Sparky, Ms. Pinkamena, and the other two would...well, he actually didn’t know the others well enough to predict their responses to his absence. So he just pretended that Sparky would have a nervous breakdown, the Pink One would throw confetti everywhere and bake cupcakes, that one pony with the cowboy hat would blather on in some Southern drawl about farms and honest work or some shit, and the drama queen would faint melodramatically at evenly spaced intervals over the harrowing trial of being stuck without a pedicure for so long. Or was it a manicure? Hooficure? Nix winced. Such a stupid naming system in this reality. Whatever.

He hopped off the rock, sending up tendrils of mist as his boots made a muted thud on the ground. A few errant petals of the blue flowers around him fluttered through the air. He stood and began walking towards the small pony town in the distance, grimacing as he waded through several patches of the blue plants to the edge of the clearing.

There was something about this place, this reality, that stood out from every other reality he had been in. Namely, the fact that something from his world made it to this world intact. Even though said snake-bitch was most assuredly fuckin’ dead before she made the trip—he had seen Masamune behead her himself, and with his old rival’s own blade, no less. Or he thought he had. He frowned as the exact memory slipped away from him. He decided to focus on the present instead. If Snake-Bitch could get here, then he could get back...there. With Lucy and...the others? Fuck the others. ‘There’ meant ‘his sisters and...’. His frown deepened as he stalked through the forest. His sisters and who? Was there someone else? He shook his head as though he could slough off his thoughts like water, and cut through a thick draping of barbed vines with a fiery claw, pressing on.

He was almost glad he didn’t remember every detail of his thousand years of searching. Fate forbid he have access to all his experience and become an aloof prick like most of the gods he met. Still, though, thousands of realities, and he happened across the one that seemed to have some link to his past? Lucky. There were an infinite number of lucky realities like this one, probably. The fact that he found one in an infinite sea of realities, though...yeah, he decided “lucky” was a woeful understatement. “Impossible” fit better, unless something was pulling his strings from behind the scenes. If it was, he’d just have to find it and kill it. Fucking gods playing...well, God. Even still, Nix had a good feeling about this place. He wished it had been a reality where he wasn’t being forced to make nice with the natives just to use his own damn powers. Mostly, the human just wished that one of the resident goddesses knew a simple teleportation spell from their midnight blue asses. He hated walking, especially when it got into the way of his naptime. Seriously, Lu was one for three on teleportation that didn’t end up screwing him over. And then there was her transformation abilities. Nix shuddered.

His head jerked to the side, distracted by the flickering of a familiar lifeforce that flared up nearby. How had he missed that one? The souls of the animals, plants, and even bacteria glowed all about his perception, twinkling stars against a backdrop of deadened earth and cold air, but this one in particular at least distracted him from his internal monologue. A small flame that glowed slightly differently than the others in the back of his mind. He glanced through the tangled mess of vines and trees that led towards Ponyville, cursed to himself, and set off perpendicular to his intended destination, towards the pulsating light that indicated a familiar soul.

An hour later, he crashed through a set of thorny bushes, his chest heaving under the effort of keeping up his lifeforce detection. So embarrassing. It was such a low level use of his lifeforce that he normally kept it on all the time in other realities. Regardless of the strain it was causing him, he kept it on. The familiar soul should be nearby. But the only thing he saw was the orange-furred back of a very large cat, a light yellow mane exploding around its neck and concealing its facial features. The insectile stinger where its tail should have been twitched anxiously, and it raised one large paw in the air as massive, curved stilettos shot out of its paw-tips. The soul Nix was searching for was just beyond the creature, probably its prey.

The rippling coils of muscles in the manticore’s shoulders tensed and its claws shot downward. An explosion of soil and heat interrupted the strike and sent the beast flying backwards from the crater at its feet. It slammed into a tree and flopped to the ground, a fall blizzard of brown soil, bark, and orange leaves waltzing through the air around its bulky form, before slowly regaining its feet on shaky paws.

The barrel of Umbra smoked as Nix regarded the manticore coolly, slowly grabbing a smoke out of his front pocket while never breaking his gaze from the creature. Planting the cigarette between his lips and lighting it with a small fireball, he waited until the monster turned towards him and met his eyes.

He sucked deeply on the cigarette, his gun unwavering, before he slowly lowered his weapon and blew out a thick cloud of smoke. “That was a warning shot. No fuckin’ idea which of you fuckers in this Hellhole are intelligent or not.” His eyes glimmered a brighter color of blue briefly. “Next shot will include slightly less warning and slightly more death.”

The manticore’s throat rumbled in an aggravated growl, before it took a step back and its tensed muscles appeared to loosen. The human calmly holstered his black gun and took another drag off his cigarette. The beast’s eyes flicked towards a tree to their side, but Nix kept his eyes on the dangerous creature.

“The...woodkin,” it said in a harsh, gravelly rumble, returning its slitted, luminescent eyes back towards him. “They...hunt. No food for tribe. No food for mate. Is best if woodkin not hunt. Is best if woodkin die.” The manticore turned its hateful gaze back to its prey. A small timberwolf crouched defensively against a gnarled, ancient tree, its tinny voice snarling as threateningly as its juvenile form allowed. One side of its face was a ruined mess, the bark and wood scored by deep ravines of a clawed blow. One of its eye sockets harbored an ocean green light, an angry orb of magic that glared at the manticore—the blackened hollow where the second should have been was instead crushed and lacked all light, three deep lacerations drawing across it and the timberwolf pup’s cheek. A viscous, clear fluid leaked out from the claw marks scarring its face. It trembled as it tried scrunching closer to the ground, attempting to back further against the ancient tree at its rear.

Nix broke his gaze from the pup, examining the glowing tip of the cigarette between his fingers ponderously before looking back at the manticore. “Do you have a name?”

The beast hesitated, its paws flexing and unflexing anxiously in the soil. Nix planted the cigarette in his mouth, waiting patiently. “Flower,” it mumbled under its breath.

The human’s smoke dropped from the corner of his mouth as he gaped at the mass of muscle, poison, and teeth before him. “Wait, seriously?”

“I are called ‘Flower’! Pride-Mother gift me name!” The manticore puffed its chest out defiantly and leveled a wilting glare at the human. It drew itself up to its full height, which was just barely high enough to reach Nix’s eyes. “You make fun?!”

Nix sighed. “Whatever. No, I’m not making fun of you.” His eyes flicked to the edge of the small clearing and his lips formed into a thin smile. “And you can tell your ‘mate’ to stop trying to flank me.” The underbrush to his left rustled slightly before a second figure burst from the foliage, the large orange form stalking towards the human through a cascade of falling leaves. It was at least a few heads taller than he was.

The manticore known as Flower flicked his eyes between the new manticore and the human. “Now, Death-Shard. We no need hurty time without foody time that follows! We no can eat him, we no kill him, please?” The huge manticore ignored Flower as its paws thudded dully into the forest floor, drawing ‘her’ steadily closer to the human. She stopped a few feet from him and roared. Flecks of spittle splashed across Nix’s face, and the spikes of his blonde hair shuddered from the rush of fetid breath. The female manticore’s roar died out as she settled for simple glowering at the human.

Nix regarded the huge manticore boredly and took another drag of his cigarette. “You done yet?” he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke into the beast’s face. “I’ve got places I need to be.”

The she-beast opened her mouth and her chest rose deeply as she readied another roar. Her eyes crossed in confusion and she let out a mewling, confused gargle as Nix shot his hand out and grabbed her tongue. Her mate twitched, but Flower made no movement towards him. He pulled the manticore’s tongue down and forced the creature’s slitted, feline eyes to meet his own. A blue spark erupted in his irises and he gave the manticoress a cruel grin.

“Look, I’m not gonna let you hurt the little guy over there, and if you press me on this, both you and Flower over there are gonna end up several shades of fucking dead, do I make myself clear?”

“Hugggh,” the large manticore replied, her tongue twitching in his grasp. Her heavily muscled forelimbs and her scorpion tail remained motionless, and she simply stared in confusion at the small primate before her.

“What was that?” Nix asked.

“Hugggh!” she replied, shooting a sheepish look to her mate. For his part, Flower had adopted a position halfway between attempting to rescue his female from the grasp of a weird primate, and cowering in abject fear.

“We thinks-” he started in a hoarse voice. Flower coughed and tried to puff his chest out. “We thinks Mate Death-Shard speak bad without tongue.” Nix glared at him, and the runtish manticore cringed, before shaking his head and standing up as tall as he could. “We thinks ape release Death-Shard tongue now!” Nix cocked an eyebrow at him, his free hand lazily reaching for one of the guns in his jacket. “Err, if it okay with ape, that is?”

Nix shared a glance with the female manticore. She rolled her eyes, her breath hot over his hand as she sighed. He released her tongue and took a step back, wiping her saliva off his palm. “Err, sorry.”

“Is okay.” She shot a frustrated look at Flower before her attention returned to the human. “Said ‘huggggh’, but meant ‘her’.” The manticoress nodded to herself in seeming satisfaction, her lips curled upwards in what he hoped was a beaming smile and not an ugly snarl. Well, not an intentionally ugly snarl, anyway. Those sabretooth tusks jutting out of her carnivorous maw wasn’t doing her any favors.

“Uh, what?” Nix asked as Flower loped forward to join his large mate. Nix subconsciously backed towards the timberwolf pup behind him.

“Woodkin pup, ape,” the larger female manticore said exasperatedly. “Is ‘she’.” Nix glanced back at the lupine construct of wood behind him. ‘She’ growled back at him in her tinny voice.

“Uh, okay…” This would be a lot easier if he just pulled his guns and shot the two manticores. But that would make him no better than a god, abusing his power to-

A heavy paw thudded into his chest, notably lacking the piercing machetes these manticores could summon at will from their fingertips. Err, “paw tips”. The larger manticore female frowned down at him. “Why you protect woodkin? Woodkin bite prey, prey-meat spoils. Is no reason for woodkin to live.”

That...was a good question. Why the fuck was he protecting this pup? He had pretty much massacred dozens of the damn things not too long ago. The pup trembled as he glanced over it, its glowing greenish eye meeting his before it looked away. Its small form trembled violently against the tree as its limbs gave way. It collapsed, letting out a small mewl as it surrendered to its fate. It shot Nix one last look of pained confusion before closing its good eye.

‘I’m such a little bitch,’ he thought. ‘Athena would be making fun of my ass so hard right now. And Loki. If they both weren’t dead, anyway.’

“Err, I kinda killed its mom,” Nix mumbled. The wooden pup behind him let out a small whine. “And pretty much all of its...err, all of her brothers.”

“Is blood oath then,” the female manticore said gravely. “But blood oath or no blood oath, is still woodkin. Is still competition…” Her claws slowly slid out of their sheaths in her paws.

“No,” Nix said, his eyes flaring blue. “No competition. I take her from the forest, you leave her alone.”

The manticoress frowned down at him for a time, her insectile tail twitching. With a nod, she merely turned and disappeared into the foliage around them. Nix cocked an eyebrow at Flower.

The small male manticore grinned at him. “She distant at first, but have big heart!”

“Uh, right…”

“You see. You visit, she like you. We talk!” he said, nodding enthusiastically. Nix couldn’t be assed to care. The male manticore shot him one more grin before disappearing into the forest. Nix frowned and turned towards where the timberwolf pup lay against the old tree. The timberwolf pup that was no longer there. Damn thing had suddenly disappeared.

“Oh, great,” Nix said, spreading his arms in exasperation. There was a crash of underbrush, and a second later, a pair of wooden jaws latched onto his right bicep. He frowned down at the timberwolf latched onto his arm. He felt a small trickle of his lifeforce leaving him even as nearby brush and leaves shuddered and attached themselves to the suckling timberwolf.

“You know,” he said, motioning to his apathetic features with his free hand, “if I could make my eyelids any flatter right now, I really would.” The timberwolf shifted its jaws on his arm and latched on tighter, staring at him evenly with its one good eye as it hung in midair off his appendage. “I save your damn life, and this is what I get.” The timberwolf growled in response. Her one good eye closed defensively as Nix brought his free hand up and rested it on her snout. The glow in his eyes flashed for a moment and white fire erupted across the pup’s form as the wood crackled and reformed around her face. The ruined socket of her left eye shifted and popped into place, and the viscous fluid of the timberwolf’s lifeblood lurched backwards into the wounds across her bark as they mended shut. A milky white orb throbbed to life in her left eye socket, its color matching the three pale scars that raced over her eye, from her brow down her cheek.

As the light in his eyes faded, he blandly regarded the timberwolf pup latched onto his arm. A pair of dimly glowing eyes, one teal, the other a smoky, dull white, stared back at him. With an audible pop! and a satisfied yelp, the wooden wolf let go of his arm and plopped to the ground on her back. Her eyes squinted in satisfaction as a sizable collection of underbrush rustled and dragged itself across the ground, integrating into her form as her twig-tail wagged wildly.

“You done yet?” Nix asked. He flicked his cigarette through the air. It evaporated into a puff of ash before hitting the ground. The timberwolf next to him let out a happy bark and hopped to her paws, her shoulders now slightly higher than his waist.

He frowned and set off towards nine familiar lifeforces, the timberwolf hopping behind him as a green leaf lolled happily out of the side of her mouth.

“I dunno, Twi,” the orange mare said, carefully adjusting her hat. Twilight’s head snapped a bit too vigorously towards the earth pony, the manic grin splaying more widely across her violet lips at Applejack’s interjection. Applejack flinched, trying to avoid meeting the pinprick pupils beneath the frayed plum and pink bangs of her best friend. Her crazy friend. But still her best friend. “He asked us all ta’ meet here. I don’t reckon he meant for us to stay here.”

Oh, lordy, what the hay had she gotten herself into this time? Her four other friends were giving her looks of commiseration. Mostly. Dash’s expression seemed tinted by mild amusement. At one point or another, they’d all been at the receiving end of Twilight...well, being Twilight.

“Don’t be silly, Applejack,” Twilight said, trotting up to the mare and plopping down on her rear a tad bit too close to the orange earth pony. She cracked a wide grin, the edge of one side of her mouth twitching slightly. “Princess Celestia said we should do our best to lead Nix to the magic of friendship,” she said, one hoof gesticulating wildly, “and like Fluttershy proved with Discord, the best way to do that is with acceptance!” Her hoof shot towards the yellow pegasus, who bowed her head to the side and took a sudden interest in her pink bangs. “And what’s better than acceptance? Utter obeisance!” The purple unicorn began rubbing her forehooves together and grinding her teeth. “Brilliant, right?! I thought of it myself!”

Applejack shared a concerned look with the other Elements, before shaking her head and resting an orange hoof on the unicorn’s shoulder. Twilight flinched at the contact, but seemed to settle afterward. Her manic grin faltered slightly. “Now, Twi, I know you got a lot ridin’ on this, but don’tcha think ya’ might be takin’ things a bit too far?” She hugged Twilight a bit closer. “You know no matter what you decide, all of us will support ya’. I’m just not sure that means coopin’ us all up for a, uh, marathon slumber party.”

“You...you don’t like my slumber party?” Twilight asked, her grin evaporating and her lips quivering slightly. A book immediately appeared in the air before her as she tore away from Applejack’s hoof, burying her nose in the dry paper folds. “We haven’t done everything yet, though! We could- we could give each other hooficures while we wait!”

A blue blur shot through the air and settled by her side, opposite Applejack. “Woah, woah, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash blurted out, “As big a fan as I am of-” the pegasus gulped, “hooficures, I’m preeetty sure Applejack just means there’s no point running yourself ragged. She learned that the hard way, remember? And besides,” she snatched the book away from Twilight’s face, her upper lip curled in mild disgust as she flipped to another page, “you wouldn’t actually expect me to let you gals curl my mane, right?”

Applejack snickered. “We could always play another round of Truth or Dare, if ya’d like?”

“Why yes, Rainbow,” Rarity interjected, ambling closer to the three mares. “Given your fondness for choosing ‘dare’, I would think it but a matter of time before I’d have to retrieve my curling irons…” Applejack took special note of the cyan pegasus’s pupils narrowing to pinpricks at the suggestion. She was going to have to remember this for the next time they all got together. She was unable to conceal her confident smirk as she shot the pegasus a wink.

“I...I think your mane would look very nice curled, Dashie,” a quiet voice said, almost whispering. Rainbow Dash hovered in the air and put her forehooves on her hips as she shot a disapproving glare at the butter yellow pegasus. Fluttershy immediately began examining the whorls in the wood beneath her hooves. “That is, um...if you want to.”

“Dashie would look great with curly hair!” a passing pink cartwheel squeaked. “I give the curls of my mane curls, and sometimes second curls!” Pinkie Pie paused, resting upside down on one hoof. “Can curls have second curls? Or is only one allowed?” She rested one hoof on her chin, rubbing it thoughtfully. It had been the hoof holding her off the floor. She remained hovering there for an instant. “And why do they sweep the ice, anyway? Is the stone afraid of being dirty?” The other six mares present stared in silent shock at the hovering pink earth pony.

“H-how do you do that?” Ridge Dancer asked, off to the side and separated slightly from the Elements of Harmony.

Pinkie’s blue eyes shot to the green unicorn with a look of confusion before she unceremoniously crashed to the ground. She was on her hooves in an instant, zipping up to the shy guardpony in a blur of speed. Ridge Dancer shrunk away from the sudden invasion of her personal space, her brilliant jade eyes rolling wildly to the side. “Do what? Curling? First, you need a stone and a lot of ice! We grew curling stones back home, they were really fickle.” Pinkie scrunched her face up. “You have to feed them just the right amount of diamond dust to really make them take root.”

“W-what?!” Ridge Dancer took a step back. “You can’t grow rocks!”

Pinkie snorted. “Of course you can, silly-filly! You just need a rock farm.” She rolled her blue eyes and smiled piteously at the green unicorn. Ridge Dancer merely stared blankly at Pinkie for a few seconds before shooting a confused glance at the other Elements.

Applejack trotted up to the lime green mare and rested a hoof on her shoulder. “Ridge Dancer, meet Pinkie Pie,” she said with a small smirk.

Pinkie frowned. “What’re you talking about, Jackie McJackapples? I mean, I’ve met Ridge Dancer here at least seven times in the last two months. It’s not like-” Pinkie’s eyes shimmered sadly. She slowly turned her head to the unicorn Guardpony. “Do...do you have Alzheimare’s?” She rushed over and grabbed the green mare’s hoof. “Pinkie! Pie! My name is Pinkie Pie!” she shouted, inches away from the wide-eyed face of Ridge Dancer. “Can you remember that?! You are in Ponyville! Pony! Ville!”

“I- I-” Ridge Dancer stammered, lurching to get out of the pink mare’s grasp.

“Now, what is my name? What. Is. My. Name?!”

Applejack shook her head ruefully. “Pinkie, I think yer scarin’ her. She don’t have Alzheimare’s…”

“Oh, okay!” Pinkie chirped happily as she released the light green unicorn. Ridge Dancer scooted a few feet away from the poofy-haired earth pony, eyeing her warily. “That’s really good news! Grandpa Pie got Alzheimare’s once, and-” The pink mare regaled the others with her tale in such a hurried rush that it was impossible to understand her. After a few seconds of the verbal cataract that poured from her lips, Pinkie’s friends all shared a knowing look and tuned her out. Ridge Dancer merely stared at her, a look of pained helplessness on her face as she nodded intermittently and tried to follow the party pony’s story. Applejack chuckled a bit. Pinkie was...something else. A good something, but still something else.

The orange earth pony turned her attention back to Twilight. The manic gleam in her eyes was gone, and as the purple unicorn’s gaze flitted between all her friends, a warm smile crept onto her face.

“Feelin’ better, sugarcube?” Applejack asked with a slight smirk.

Twilight turned towards the earth pony. “I...uh, yes,” she replied, a faint blush appearing on her cheeks as she looked to the side. “I’ve been...I’ve been acting foolish, haven’t I?”

Applejack just chuckled and brought her into a side hug. “We’ve all been there, hon’. And ta’ be honest, it’s right understandable for you to be a bit stressed considerin’ who we’re dealin’ with.”

“Right, a ‘little’ stressed,” Rainbow Dash muttered. Applejack shot a disapproving look at the pegasus. “What? She was gonna give me a hooficure, A.J. A hooficure.” The cyan mare punctuated this by emphatically gesticulating with her forehooves as she hovered in the air. Applejack merely rolled her eyes.

“Besides,” Rainbow continued, “it’s not like Nix is that bad.” A pall of silence interrupted the conversation as Applejack noted six pairs of eyes on the pegasus.

“Not that bad?” Twilight asked. A purple glow surrounded a scroll that she pulled out from behind her. She unfurled it and levitated a quill from a nearby table. “He assaulted numerous members of the guard.” The quill made a scratching sound as it made a mark on the papyrus in front of her. “He blew up Luna’s tower.” Another mark. “He threatened the entire town-”

The quill started to move before Applejack interrupted. “Really, Twi? A list?”

“He threatened almost the entire town,” Twilight continued, ignoring the earth pony as her quill dragged slowly across the page with emphatic force. “He nearly broke existence.” She stared at Rainbow Dash, her eyes narrowing slightly, as her red quill made another painfully slow mark on the papyrus. “Broke. Reality. All of it. But, oh, no, he’s not that bad.”

Rainbow Dash pouted and crossed her forehooves, staring at the ground. “Alright, alright, I get it. No need to rub it in,” she grumbled.

“Honestly,” Rarity started, her tone equal parts melodic and exasperated, “I simply don’t know how the princesses expect us to reform him.”

“We...umm, we don’t need to reform him,” Fluttershy’s soft voice corrected. “We just need to help him make friends.”

“Well, dear, that’s simply foolishness,” the white unicorn said with a toss of her purple mane. “We reformed Discord, but how many friends has he actually made since then?”

“Umm, well...one,” the butter yellow pegasus whispered, her eyes entranced by the patterns on the wood beneath her feet. “Just me…” After a second, her head shot up and a bright smile appeared on her face. “But he’s been making great progress with Angel Bunny.” The other five elements gave her flat looks. “No, really!” she forced out breathily. “Discord hasn’t punted him out of the window in at least five days-” Fluttershy wilted under the force of the five mare’s groans.

Applejack noted that Ridge Dancer was remaining oddly quiet. The orange-maned unicorn seemed to be lost in thought, staring at nothing.

“He’s horrible,” Rarity said finally with a sad shake of her head. “A rude, selfish, disrespectful creature. Why, we’d have an easier time getting King Sombra to make friends...”

Silence fell across the gathered mares, five of the gathered Elements all sharing nervous looks with one another. Pinkie Pie sat with a look of intense concentration on her face, her lips quirked to one side.

Applejack sighed. “So, what do we do? Write Princess Celestia, and tell her we just couldn’t do it?” Something sick squirmed in the earth pony’s chest as she uttered the words. She had been given a job, and she was considering conceding failure. She scowled. She was forced to admit that they had been given an impossible task. She didn’t always see eye-to-eye with Rarity, but the unicorn was right. Everything about Nix just screamed in opposition to friendship. She pawed at the floor aimlessly as the lack of response from her friends fed the overbearing silence of the room.

“He’s not horrible,” came a ragged whisper. Applejack looked up to see Ridge Dancer still staring into the distance, her eyes moist. The unicorn slowly drew herself back from her distant thoughts and looked around the room, meeting each of the Elements’ eyes. “He’s not horrible. He’s just afraid.”

The other six mares shared a confused look. The green unicorn blew a puff of air between her pursed lips, blowing away a locke of her fiery mane from her eyes, and continued. “I heard him talking. With Pri- With Luna. On the night of the party. He’s afraid. Afraid that his presence will hurt those around him. He…” Ridge Dancer paused, pawing the ground uncertainly. “He’s lost a lot of friends. And he thinks if he makes new ones they’ll get hurt, too.”

“Well, now, that’s just silly, hon,” Applejack said softly, trotting up to the green unicorn and moving to rest a hoof on her shoulder before Ridge Dancer flinched away from her touch. “Now why would makin’ friends bring harm to ‘em?”

“I- I don’t know,” the guardpony admitted. “But Nix thinks just being here puts everypony in danger. At least, that’s what he told Luna. That’s why he’s been so awful. He said he would make the entire town hate him if it kept them safe, but…” She sighed and her head drooped.

“Well, dear, don’t keep us in suspense,” Rarity said gently. By now, the Elements were focusing intently on the green unicorn mare. “But what?”

Ridge Dancer—what was it the human called her? Dancie? That was it. Applejack nodded slightly to herself with a sense of self-satisfaction. ‘Dancie’ inhaled a breath sharply through her nose, and blew it out slowly in a puff of air. “Nix assaulted a lot of guards. He broke my leg. But despite the fact he was being pursued, he paused to heal my leg. He seemed...sad. Apologetic. He also didn’t mean to blow up Luna’s tower. She had gotten ahold of one of his weapons and mishandled it. He redirected the blast away from Equestria so it wouldn’t be destroyed, putting himself in between the weapon and Luna to prevent her from being hurt. After that, he healed all the ones who were injured by the blast. Secretly, of course, because he’d rather we all shun him so we...remain unhurt. Then, he healed a small filly named Wind Petal.”

“Ooh!” Pinkie exclaimed. “That’s Orchid and Sunflower’s filly! They seemed so sad when they took her to Canterlot for treatment. Is that how she got better?”

Dancie nodded slowly. “I found Nix telling her bedtime stories before the panic in the throne room. He...didn’t seem happy that I caught him doing that. Then, I lost him on the way to Canterlot’s train station. It turns out he had slipped away to give a mare with two colts the entirety of the bits Celestia had given him to get started in Ponyville. When we arrived here, he tried to scare off all the ponies in town, but ended up scaring Wind Petal in the process. It shook him up enough that he didn’t really want to deal with anypony, but he still went along with your tour of Ponyville.

“When he...when he shattered this universe, it was on accident. He was just trying…” Ridge Dancer’s chest heaved and her voice wavered. “He was just trying to save my life. After hearing what he told Luna on the balcony that night, I just didn’t want him to be hurt. I just didn’t and I did something foolish but- but Nix, he...he saved my life.” Her cheeks were wet with her own tears as she stared at the ground, her features twisted by sorrow. The six Elements shared an awkward look. Fluttershy inched closer to the lime green unicorn before Ridge Dancer looked up, her puffy, red-rimmed eyes belying a sudden obstinance. “He saved me. He,” Ridge Dancer’s voice became rigid. Hard. “He was just trying to help. He just didn’t know how.” Her harsh façade collapsed and she dropped her head once more, the curly ringlets of her deep orange mane hanging off her shoulders and hiding her eyes. Her chest heaved a few more times, but in a whisper she managed to force out, “He’s not horrible. Not horrible. He’s my friend.”

“Okay, okay, so maybe he’s not as bad as he seems,” Rainbow Dash said, before leveling an annoyed glare at Twilight, “like I just said not two minutes ago.” The pegasus looked back towards the crying green unicorn. “But how in the hay do you know all this?”

Ridge Dancer looked up and wiped a hoof across her eyes. “When Nix disappeared last week, I thought he...I thought the first friend I had made abandoned me. I put in my resignation and tried to quit the Royal Guard,” the mare said sullenly. “Princess Celestia refused my resignation, and told me everything. It...helped. B-but he had still left me, after everything he had done and after I finally started to like him and- and-” She broke down again, collapsing to the ground and trying to hide her embarrassing tears with both forehooves.

A rush of air battened past Applejack, offsetting her hat, and before the earth mare could process it, a blur of pink and yellow impacted the lime green unicorn. Fluttershy all but tackled Ridge Dancer, her forehooves and wings wrapped around the green mare in a fierce embrace. Dancie struggled halfheartedly against the physical contact for a few seconds before slumping into the yellow pegasus’s hug. Her body trembled as she sobbed, while Fluttershy cooed softly and rubbed her back with her hooves.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” the pegasus whispered softly tightening her grip around Ridge Dancer’s shoulders. “Everything’s gonna be just fine.”

The unicorn mare sniffled into Fluttershy’s chest, and was quiet for a long time. The six other mares simply stared in shock at the revelations. Applejack rubbed a hoof thoughtfully on her chin. Everything the guardpony was saying was honest. Or at least she thought it was honest. Applejack had never really delved into the small things, the tiny boons, that her status as Element of Honesty had granted her. Even assuming everything she had just heard was true, did the human’s motives excuse his actions? She fiddled with the brim of her hat as she thought. Finally, Twilight broke the group’s silence.

“I...I think you’re right, Ridge,” she said, mouth downturned as she sifted through her own memories. “When I was translating his language when he first woke up, he made no attempt to be vicious, mean, or threatening. He just talked to me, probably because he assumed I couldn’t understand him. The second he gained the capability to socially interact, though, that’s when he started...aggravating everyone. Most everyone.” Twilight bit her lower lip. “But not me. Not at first, when he tried introducing himself. He just seemed tired.” Twilight’s reflection was broken by a bouncing pink blob that was hopping around the group in the center of the library.

“I tried to tell everypony that Nixxy was nice,” Pinkie Pie chirruped cheerfully as she pranced around the room, “but did anypony listen to me? Noooo.”

Rarity, meanwhile, hummed to herself thoughtfully. “Nix behaved simply atrocious, but he was only trying to act in our best interests even if it put himself in a difficult position…”

Applejack’s frown eased. Nix had spent his time here lying to all of them. She could forgive that...if the human asked for forgiveness in the first place, and made a visible effort to change his ways. And yet he probably wouldn’t, not because he wished harm upon her and her friends, but because he thought it was the best way to spare them from tragedy. Her orange hoof rubbed her forehead as she tried to massage away the headache. She wished she was off in the west field of Sweet Apple Acres, bucking trees right now. Farm work, she could understand. Friendliness, that she could do. Heck, her family was renowned almost as much as Pinkie Pie for their hospitality. But good intentions that made her friends and the rest of Ponyville feel awful? That seemed an awful lot like deception to her, and she didn’t cotton well to that. Even still, had it been Apple Bloom instead of Wind Petal in that Canterlot Hospital…

Applejack focused on the rest of the mares in the room. Fluttershy was rocking Ridge Dancer back and forth, patting her back reassuredly with one hoof. Rarity was quiet, her mouth forming a crooked frown as she thought. Twilight and Pinkie Pie kept shooting each other hurried glances before dropping their gazes to the wooden floor. Out of all the mares in the room, only her and Rainbow Dash’s eyes were dry. Rainbow remained stoic, hovering in one corner of the room, her magenta eyes glaring daggers into a nearby wall. The earth mare snorted, and moved to speak before the creaking of the library’s front door interrupted her.

Nix hunched over as he entered before standing up straight and planting his hands in his black trenchcoat’s front pockets. He cocked his head to the side with a small smile. “You all weren’t waiting here this entire time, were you?”

Applejack managed to conceal her amused grin after Twilight let out a ragged, frustrated growl.

Nix released his lifesource scanning spell with a relieved breath, and looked around the main room of the library. He would need sleep soon, and didn’t wanna hunt everypo- everyone down for what he had to say. Thankfully, all of ‘em were here, though none of them bothered to answer his initial question. Unless Twilight’s guttural grunt and scowl was an answer. Things felt a bit weird, though. The ponies were all staring at him with their huge eyes. Most of ‘em had tears leaking down their faces for some reason. All except for Scratchy and that pony with the southern accent, actually. Not saying anything. Just staring.

These ponies were fuckin’ weird.

“Uh…” Nix started, causing all of them to flinch slightly, “Did, uh, did somepony die or something?” They all continued to regard him silently. His eyes widened and he snapped a finger energetically before pointing at all of them. A potted rosebush fell from nowhere at the sound of his fingers and he inwardly cursed before it was caught between Pinkie Pie’s hooves. Her eyes widened and her lips trembled as she looked back towards the human.

“This is a funeral! Somepony died, didn’t they?” Nix said cheerfully. “Oh, please tell me somepony died...wait…wait! Was it Tia? Sun Butt died while I was gone, didn’t she?” The atmosphere of solemnity amidst the mares began to evaporate as they all shared confused looks. “Oh, happy day! But wait!” Nix rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We’ll need, like, ten Luna’s just to levitate her massive ivory ass onto the funeral pyre…actually, you can show me to the body, I’ll just set it on fire where she choked on her last piece of cake.” Nix couldn’t help but grin at the mares’ shocked expressions.

Pinkie Pie sniffed and glanced at the red roses between her hooves. “He’s doing it again.”

Rarity nodded solemnly. “Yes, the poor dear.”

Nix’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you-” He was interrupted by seven sets of multicolored hooves flying at him. He hissed, cursing his lack of power in the millisecond before they impacted him. Wincing, he felt seven bodies impact him. Softly. Huh, weird. He cracked open his eyes and saw all of them embracing him. Not hammering him to death with their hooves.

“What the shitting shitstain?!” he bellowed, trying to shake them all off. They merely held on tighter. “Get the fuck off me, you Technicolor freaks!”

Pinkie sniffed. “He tries so hard. I should throw him a trying party!” she said, tightening her one-hoofed hug of his left leg even as she protected the vase with the roses in her other foreleg. “Plus he gave me roses! So sweet!” The rest of the mares let out a communal, “Awww!”

And that communal “Awww!” quickly turned into a communal “AAAAAAAAGH!” when the timberwolf loped into the door behind the human.

Nix looked down at his ruined shirt, a defeated expression on his face as his gaze returned to the sheepish, ashamed expressions of the six mares lined up in front of him. Dancie was still wrapped around his waist from behind, a look of childish glee adorning her smiling face as she looked up at him with shimmering eyes. Whatever, she was fuckin’ weird. And there was still his shirt.

“This…” he started, his voice quiet but expressing barely contained emotion. “This was Rocky the T-Shirt’s grandson!” he shouted. The multicolored mares in front of him all winced. “And in your quest for senseless violence, you have slain him!” He leveled an accusatory finger at all of them.

“Now look, sugarcube, I know yer a bit angry-” Applejack started.

“I am looking, Hillbilly,” Nix interrupted. “And all I see are thousands of polyester threads with their lives cut short by ALL OF YOUR RACISM! How could you do that to gentle Eyetard, here?” He gestured from his ruined shirt to the timberwolf sitting at his heels.

When the one-eyed timberwolf entered the library’s front doors, most of the mares had scattered. All but Dancie, who decided that hugging his waist more tightly and clamping her eyes shut was the best way to face her impending wooden death. He would have rolled his eyes, but a couple of the girls had decided that offense was the best defense and began their attacks.

Pinkie stood atop a bookcase and began assaulting his new pet with books, raining down a constant meteor shower of what his brain told him were really fucking heavy reference manuals. Which his brain knew because his face broke their fall, and that pink pony had a pitching speed that defied reality. That lasted up until Twilight had snapped out of her revery, stopped sending explosive magic projectiles at him from her horn, and chastised the party pony sternly for using reading materials as weaponry. Nix, in spite of his exhaustion, had managed to catch each one of her magic blasts and had compressed them all into a small ball, which he could see greatly frustrated the purple unicorn. When she turned away to lecture Pinkie PIe, he had quickly pocketed her magical force into one of his duster’s pockets. Didn’t know what he could use it for, but it was bound to be good for something.

Then there was the damn cowpony. Err, cowboy pony. The one with the cowboy hat. Hillbilly. Most of his wardrobe’s destruction was due to her. Namely, her bucking a lot of furniture his way. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a problem. But for starters, he was really damn tired. And secondly, the last thing she bucked at him was a table with a chemistry set on it.

The ensuing explosion that blew out the library’s windows was a rich royal blue color that went well with the sparkling shards of glass as they tinkled through the night air. The flames were actually very pretty. The frustrated librarian wore a frumpy scowl after she put the fire out and ensured all the books were unharmed—her assistant was a dragon, of course she had mostly fireproofed things...probably. It was an expression of deep malcontent only matched by the human after he discovered the explosion ruined his shirt. Granted, he still had a bunch of weird blue sap on his clothes from those flowers back in the Everfree, but those could be washed out. You can’t wash out gigantic fucking burns. You just had to summon a new shirt from a pocket dimension and risk angering the world’s Sun Goddess enough that she ruined your only pony friend’s life by depriving her of a job.

“Nix, while I’m sure we’re all really, really sorry about yer shirt,” Applejack offered humbly, “that there’s a timberwolf.” Her hoof shot towards the small construct of wood and leaves behind him. The timberwolf—he had decided on the name ‘Eyetard’ for her after realizing she was still blind in one eye—ignored the earth pony and scratched behind the bark of one ear with the sticks comprising her hind leg. “One bite and it could take years offa pony’s life. Ain’t no reason to keep somethin’ like that around, even if she seems...uh, different from tha’ other ones.”

Nix rounded on the half-pup and pointed at her imperiously. “Do you hear that, wolf-demon-vampire thingy?!” he said with a harsh tone in his voice. Eyetard looked up at him and yapped enthusiastically. “No feeding on ponies! Only me and shitheads who try to hurt ponies, is that understood?” The timberwolf’s good eye narrowed and it shot one paw to its forehead, letting out a bark in a deeper tenor than its normal vocalizations.

“Good girl,” Nix said, patting her on the head as she relaxed, her leaf-tongue again lolling lackadaisically from the side of her mouth. Nix turned back to the mares with a satisfied smirk on his face. “See? Perfectly harmless.” The timberwolf bit down on his hand, breaking the skin and causing him to utter a string of expletives before he replaced his forced smile on his face. “Perfectly...harmless.”

The color began to drain from his face as the exertion of maintaining a widescale lifeforce detection spell and feeding his new pet began to catch up with him. The timberwolf detached from his hand and one of her eyes furrowed in concern. The milky orb on the scarred side of her face remained motionless. He began to lean to one side and almost fell before a lime green unicorn nuzzled herself between his arm and his chest, holding him up. He looked down and saw his helper’s wide, glistening eyes and joyous smile beaming up at him. Nix snorted and shook his head, patting the Ridge Dancer softly on her soft orange mane.

“Bedtime already? I’m game,” he muttered as he stumbled towards and up the steps of the library to the second floor and the guest bedroom.

“Wait!” Twilight called after the pair, doing her best to avoid focusing on the timberwolf trotting up the stairs behind them.

“Yes, Twilight?” Nix said tiredly, meeting her eyes with his exhausted expression.

Twilight took a few meager steps backwards, as though seeing the human’s gaunt, fatigued features threw a weight on her shoulders. She looked away from him with an abashed expression tugging at her features. “It’s just, well…” She pawed at the ground with one hoof before looking up at him. “Why did you call us all here?”

Nix’s eyes widened slightly and his mouth quirked to one side. “Can’t believe I forgot about that.” He pointedly met all the mares’ eyes for a few seconds before focusing on Twilight. She seemed to shudder as his blue irises flickered slightly.

“I’m sorry. To all of you.” He paused, still looking at Twilight as the flames in his eyes died down, leaving a pair of normal, ice-blue irises in their stead. “I really am.”

He turned away and stumbled into the guest bedroom, his guardpony following close behind and his timberwolf curling up just outside the door.

Ridge Dancer ran her eyes over the charcoal duster and ruined black shirt on the floor next to the bed. Even in the pale moonlight that filtered in from the window, bathing them in a shaft of muted blue, it was plain to see that something was off about them. They were coated in some weird, spotted blue substance. She prodded at them with one hoof, jerking it back when the human on the bed next to her took a sharp breath.

Nix had thrown off the two garments and immediately collapsed onto the bed, roughly dragging the covers over himself before immediately falling to sleep. Ridge Dancer had begun to crawl into her own bed before she noticed something off about his clothing. She quickly moved to investigate, but knew nothing about the weird blue substance that coated them. She let out a frustrated huff, and was about to turn back to her own bed before Nix’s bed rattled. He was shuddering mildly, bunching the covers up and clasping them to his chest. The human let out a small groan, his eyes moving rapidly beneath his closed eyelids.

Ridge Dancer rolled her own eyes. Her human friend—her only friend—was really, really high maintenance for someone who had the power to destroy entire worlds in the blink of an eye. Even she could get over her nightmares, given time. He’d had a thousand years, though...another of his groans interrupted her thoughts, however, and with an exasperated sigh, she maneuvered her snout under the covers and crawled up next to the human, resting the side of her head on his chest and throwing one green hoof across his bare stomach.

He seemed to calm almost immediately. It was all too easy for her to fall to sleep, listening to the comforting thrum of his heartbeat.