The air stank of pain heavily veiled by disinfectant, though everything around her looked white and sterile. “Clop clop” went her hooves on the tile while the clock responded “tick tock” without fail. Tedious conversation; she drowned it out a long time ago. Though the room was warm, she felt cold; beyond cold. It was a numbing chill that ran past the bone and down to the heart. It deadened her to the simmering burning in her nostrils from the disinfectant, the maddening monotony of so much white, the aching of her hooves as she paced back and forth. She’d be thankful if it didn’t make the pain of her shattered heart all the more vivid.

“Twilight, you’re gonna wear a hole in the floor at this rate.”

“I know, I know, Spike. You don’t have to-”

Twilight caught herself with a small gasp. She snapped out of her stupor and looked at Applejack, who was looking at her with a worried frown and a pitying look in her eye.

“Sorry,” Twilight mumbled, avoiding eye contact. “Just… Spike used to say that to me all the time. Guess I forgot where I was.”

“It’s okay, sugarcube,” the farm pony assured with a small nuzzle, tearstained cheek to tearstained cheek. “We’re all having trouble copin’. Ah can hardly believe this is happenin’, myself.”

Twilight swept her eyes across the room. Rarity was center stage, still blissfully unconscious in her hospital bed, her alabaster fur still smudged with ash and her underside marred by light burns. Light compared to how badly all the other victims were burned, anyway. Not even a tenth of them were in the ground yet.

Fluttershy was at her side, her head in Rarity’s lap. Catatonic would be the only appropriate word to describe her. She just stared blankly up at Rarity’s sleeping face, unmoving save for her rising and falling chest and her blinking teal eyes. She ran out of tears to cry a while ago.

Angel lay atop Fluttershy’s head, curled up and completely quiet. He was the only animal that the poor pegasus had left. He was one of the few animals that managed to escape the fire and the vacuum field. The rest left for greener pastures, but he stayed. He’d given up trying to snap his caretaker out of her stupor a long time ago.

Pinkie Pie was slumped in a chair to the side, lax and listless, her boundless well of energy finally dry. The curl to her mane was gone, the normally bubbly mass of pink lying as flat and lifeless as she was. Her eyes were only half open, staring at nothing in particular. Her hind legs idly kicked through the air as if she were on a swing set while she said not a word.

Rainbow Dash sat next to the party pony, fidgeting in her seat and glaring into space. She went from draping a hind leg over the arm of her chair, to sitting normally and leaning forward, to tapping her hoof on the floor, and on and on and on. She gave off the feel of an animal trapped in a cage. Bags sagged under her eyes more than any of the other’s from overseeing the rainstorm her team put together last night.

“I don’t think any of us can believe what happened,” Twilight sighed, sitting down on the floor. “I…I still can’t believe Spike would do that.”

A load groan came from Rainbow Dash as she draped herself over both arms of her chair, her hind legs flopping in Pinkie’s lap. Pinkie briefly looked up, but otherwise didn’t respond. “I do. I saw how angry and hurt he was. Just… ugh, I knew I should have said something!” she growled, burying her face in her hooves. “Just, what do you say to that? ‘I’m sorry, but we need to keep the world safe and you just happen to be the one we have to throw under the carriage to do it, no hard feelings’?”

“We did what we had to do,” Twilight mumbled. “We had no idea that things would turn out like this. How could we?”

“Twilight, Ah know yer just tryin’ to do what’s best for the country and Spike, but Ah said it before and Ah’ll say it again: we shoulda tried somethin’ different before bringin’ down the hammer,” Applejack said with a sigh. “At the very least we shoulda told Rarity to talk to him first.”

“We couldn’t afford giving them much time and you know that. It could have taken years to resolve, and Equestria can go at most six months without some ancient evil or foreign dictator sprouting up to try to take it over. Besides, we could all tell that things just weren’t working out between them,” Twilight said, a bit more animated. “I just thought that it’d be best for them to cut things off now. The longer we waited, the more it would hurt, and the longer Equestria would be vulnerable.”

“Well, you thought wrong, and now tons of animals are dead and Spike is missing,” Rainbow Dash spat, flipping to sit upright again. “Aren’t you supposed to be the egghead here, princess? Where’d all your smarts go when you had to come up with this stupid plan? Oh, right, you didn’t, you just stashed them in a corner because they got between your lips and Celestia’s fat plot!”

“What did you say?!” Twilight snapped, flaring her wings.

“Rainbow, way over the line,” Applejack said, getting between the two.

“So? You know it’s true. This was all Celestia’s idea, and if any pony in this whole wide world would know that it would backfire, it would be Twilight. But no, she went ahead and had to agree with her precious mentor like a good little brownnoser!” Rainbow Dash shouted, flaring her wings back and climbing out of her chair. “Now look what happened, Twilight. A huge chunk of the Everfree Forest burned to the ground and hundreds of animals dead. Tell me, was it worth it?”

“Rainbow, Twilight had no idea that-”

“Oh, look who’s talking!” Twilight scoffed, cutting off Applejack. “The good little Wonderbolt cadet who’s willing to do anything to be Spitfire’s successor is calling me a plot kisser? The only reason you haven’t slept your way to the top is because half of the ponies between you and her are stallions!”

“Okay, Twi, that was just uncalled for. Both of you just-”

“You take that back!” Rainbow Dash flapped over past Applejack and into Twilight’s face, pressing both their foreheads together as she snarled.

“Why should I? I meet my friends hoping to get a little sympathy, and all I get is another shouting match!” Twilight pressed her forehead back against Rainbow Dash’s. “I did what I thought was best, end of story! What do you want me to say?”

“A ‘sorry for lending a hoof in killing all of Fluttershy’s friends and landing Rarity in the hospital’ would be nice,” the pegasus growled back.

“Lending a hoof in- are you nuts?” Twilight gawked. “It’s not my fault that Spike lost his temper!”

“What do you call stabbing him in the back and twisting the knife so hard that he ran away from home?” Rainbow Dash asked, voice dripping with venom.

“You’re overreacting!”

“He was pretty much your son, for Celestia’s sake!” Dash shouted, exasperated. “I don’t know much about foal raising, but I’m pretty sure the last thing you do is mess with your kid’s life like he’s some sort of doll!”

“I know a lot more about raising a child than you,” Twilight spat with a flap of her wings. “And I didn’t exactly hear you objecting when I told you all about this the first time!”

“That’s because I-”

“Shut. Up.”

The pair of squabbling mares froze, the fur on the back of their necks standing on end. They looked to the suddenly talkative Pinkie Pie, who was glaring at them as she slid off her seat.

“We’ve already lost enough today,” she said evenly, trotting toward the pair. “Fluttershy lost almost all of her friends, Spike ran away, and several families lost their homes. The last thing we need is for you two to start playing the blame game.” She stopped in front of the two, her eyes boring into them like knives and sending chills up their spines. “I strongly suggest you stop playing, or I won't be held responsible for what happens next. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes ma’am!” they squeaked in unison, both their wings slapping to their sides.

Applejack sighed in relief. “Thanks, Pinkie,” she said with a grateful smile.

Pinkie just gave the cowpony a passing look as she turned around and retook her seat without a word.

Applejack deflated somewhat, but shook her head as if to shake it off. She took in a deep breath and looked at the pair. “Look, girls, Ah know we’re all stressed out. Rainbow, Twilight just lost her kid while tryin’ to do right by him and Equestria. Twilight, you know how protective Rainbow gets when it comes to Fluttershy, and that poor mare’s just lost more in one day than most do in a lifetime. Ah know how temptin’ it is to look for somepony to blame, and Ah can’t really keep y’all from doin’ that. But please, can we not fight about it until Rarity’s all better and Spike is back home safe and sound?”

Twilight looked away from the farm mare’s pleading eyes, bowing her head. “Sorry, Applejack. You’re right; we shouldn’t be fighting right now.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash mumbled, “sorry, AJ. And… sorry, Twi; I went way over the line.”

“You went over the line so far and so fast you did a Sonic Rainboom,” Twilight said flatly, looking up to the pegasus. Rainbow to her credit looked genuinely sorry, her ears folded back and looking up at the alicorn with a bowed head. “But I did too. We can start assigning blame later and hopefully without as many personal attacks and insults.”

“I personally think that the insults spice things up a bit, but that may be just me.”

Twilight snapped her head toward the source of the voice. Discord had appeared in the corner of the room, lounging on a lawn chair with a bucket of popcorn in his lap.

“You’re back!” Twilight rushed up to the draconequus as questions poured out of her mouth. “How’s Spike? Where is he? Is he okay? Is he hurt? When is he coming back? He’s caused a lot of pain today, so he better come back to-” Her deluge was cut short when her lips were magically turned into a zipper and pulled tightly shut.

“Give a god some time to respond, geez,” Discord said with a stretch, his lawn chair turning into an armchair. “Spike is doing fine. Well, he’s alone, away from home and everything and everypony he loves, and wracked with guilt over everything he’s caused, but that’s a given. He’s also volatile, violent, and refuses to accept help even when he needs it. So, basically, he’s still a teenager. He isn’t coming back, though.”

“What?!” Twilight, Rainbow, and Applejack said in unison. Well, Twilight tried, anyway.

“At least not yet,” he added. “He says that he doesn’t belong here or anywhere for that matter, but in my professional psychological opinion-”

“You’re about as qualified as a shrink as a pyromaniac would be as a firepony,” Rainbow Dash mumbled.

“Touché,” Discord conceded. “All the same, I think that’s only part of it. I think the rest is that he just isn’t ready to face all the destruction and pain his fire caused.”

Twilight glared as her horn glowed, turning her lips back to normal. “He’s going to have to come back sometime. He has to answer for all of this.”

“Says the very mother he feels alienated and betrayed by,” Discord said flatly. “Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. Would you rather he come back now and completely break under the weight of all the bodies being buried, or come back later when he’s sounder of mind and could conceivably bear that burden?”

The alicorn frowned and bowed her head, but said nothing.

“I know, I know, you hate it when I’m right. Most do. Just give the kid some time to find what he’s looking for.” He looked over to the unconscious Rarity and her silent companion. “How’s Fluttershy doing?”

“She stopped crying after you left,” Pinkie Pie piped up. “She’s still quiet, though.”

Twilight tracked Discord as he slithered through the air behind the yellow pegasus. He laid his paw lightly on her back. One of her wings twitched, but otherwise she didn’t respond.

“Are you sure you can’t do anything for Rarity?” Applejack asked. “You can bend reality like it’s made of rubber, for Celestia’s sake!”

Discord sighed and looked over his shoulder. “I’m leaving this one to the professionals. I trust myself to perform magical surgery even less than the nursing staff here does.”

“Look, Discord, I know you’ve done some really horrible things, but I’m sure you can pull off one tiny little spell to make her better,” Rainbow Dash pleaded.

“For one, it wouldn’t be one ‘tiny little spell.’ There is no spell for everything suddenly getting better. I’d need to individually address everything wrong with her. Two, the urge to turn her lungs into balloons or otherwise make things worse is still there. You can’t break centuries of habit in a decade. The less I tempt myself to mess with mortals, the better,” he explained. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go bring Celestia and Luna up to speed. Hopefully they won’t make things any worse than they already are.”

“Somepony pinch me, I actually agree with Discord on something,” Rainbow Dash said, warily looking at the draconequus as if she weren’t sure if he was a bad hallucination or not. She let out a yelp when a Discord copy appeared behind her and did just that. “Hey, paws off the cutie mark!”

Discord smirked. “Tata,” he said before vanishing into the aether, leaving the girls to their own devices once more.

Wanting to keep away from the specter of awkward silence, Twilight said, “It’s getting late; visiting hours are almost over. We should all probably go.”

“I’m not leaving until the nurses throw me out,” Rainbow Dash snorted, trotting up to Fluttershy’s side. “Besides, Fluttershy is staying at my place. I can’t leave without her.” She sat down next to her long time friend, though the yellow pegasus didn’t respond.

“Ah’m not leaving either. It’s spring, so not as much to do around the farm these days,” Applejack said. “Ah don’t have anywhere to be, and there’s nowhere Ah’d rather be than here.”

“Pinkie? What about you?” Twilight asked, looking over to the pink mare.

Pinkie just mutely shook her head, her eyes fixed on Rarity, all ice and threat from her gaze gone and hurt in their stead.

Twilight sighed, her ears going flat. “Well, I should get going. I need to help Canterlot allocate funds to the relief effort, and keep officials and nobles from grabbing onto this for whatever twisted aims they might have. This is going to be a nightmare.”

“It already is.”

Everypony in the room’s ears shot up when they heard Fluttershy speak again. It was soft, even for her, but they definitely heard it. She made no indication that she’d repeat that feat anytime soon, though.

Twilight’s ears flattened as she looked to each of her friends in turn. “Stay safe, everypony… talk to you soon.” She charged her horn, and with a flash, the hospital disappeared and she was in the middle of her royal quarters, many miles away in Canterlot palace.

She looked around. She rarely visited her room in Canterlot in favor of remaining Ponyville’s librarian, but it was apparent that the staff kept it clean and tidy so that it looked like she’d never left. It was decorated with her colors of purple and magenta and midnight blue, her cutie mark embroidered on every surface they could get away with. Everything was made of silk from across the sea, or wood from the jungles south of the Badlands, or the finest gold and silver and marble plucked from the depths of the earth.

The sunset outside her balcony rendered all of it so much trinkets and baubles with its beauty, if only for the fleeting thought that Spike may be somewhere watching the same twilight. Next Chapter: Dear Dreamers: Twilight Estimated time remaining: 53 Minutes