//------------------------------// // Three // Story: Dissonance // by Mindblower //------------------------------// ******* Pinkie blinked open her frost-covered eyes. She could barely move; her muscles were growing number by the moment. She felt the wind’s cool fangs nipping her, and instinctively she rose out of the snow, shaking from the chill. Her surroundings were too white for her to discern any details from her surroundings. The only thing she knew was that she was cold, beyond cold; so cold that her body had given up trying to warn her, and was now comforting her by sending her a soothing signal of warmth. Pinkie knew, however, what was happening. She forced herself to shiver, shaking herself off, though her movements were clumsy and uncoordinated. “Y-Y-Yikes!” she whispered to herself, looking around. Her friends were nowhere to be seen, though she could hardly see anything anyway. How did I get here... from there? Frigid winds roared past, and for a moment Pinkie just wanted to curl into a ball and ride out the storm. But she knew she had to walk—she might only get one shot at consciousness, and she had to make it count. “Hello?” she called. Her voice was obscured by the winds. As expected, she received no answer, but she knew she had to keep moving. Okay, Pinkie, put on your brave face, she thought. She took a deep breath and plunged deeper into the blizzard. The winds whipped at her, beating her viciously and dripping fire over her skin. She stumbled over her own hooves, choking on air and desperately trying to claw her way through the flurry. After less than a minute of her desperate struggle forward, her hoof fell through the snowdrift and she fell face-first into the ground. Her body was not so much shivering as spasming, now. She vowed not to give up, but she was too weak, and her body failed her. Her muscles slowly cooled to nonfunction, her brain sparking as snowflakes flew into her eyes. She tried to cry out, but her abdomen was numb. She lurched forward, her mind panicking but her body submitting, before her consciousness settled into a deep freeze. Fading like... a birthday candle, Pinkie muttered to herself. She sighed as her sensory nerves shut down, no longer torturing her or screaming at her to do something. There was simply nothing to be done. However long later—Pinkie wasn't certain—she woke up under a warm blanket. She shifted and pulled it closer, much to the ire of its owner. "Hey!" she yelled. "Leggo my wing!" Now awake, Pinkie felt her body start up like a rickety engine, and she shuddered as her senses roared to life. Her muscles seemed to ignore the message, instead responding with chills. Pinkie moaned softly, bringing her hooves slowly to her head and shutting her eyes. "I think you have some kind of fever," a familiar voice stated. “Here, let me put it over you again, just don't grab it, okay?" Pinkie felt soft down color her freezing body warm. She tried to speak, but her throat was dry and sore. After a few moments, her exhausted form plunged into unconsciousness again. Another indeterminate amount of time later, Pinkie woke again, now not quite as sick. Her throat was still sore, and she was still shivering and feverish, but she could at least move. She looked up and saw that she was lying by a small twig fire in the center of the alcove, sheltered from the raging storm outside. Next to her, lending Pinkie her wing as shelter, a young pegasus sat. She had a bright white pelt, and flecks of snow dotted her pale pink mane. She stared at the blizzard outside and seemed unbothered by the cold surrounding the two of them, or perhaps just oblivious. Pinkie bit her lip in order to stifle a stutter. “Who’re y-you?” Her throat ached, and she bit into a patch of snow for water. The mare didn’t answer, though her ear twitched, as if she had acknowledged that there was, in fact, a pony speaking next to her. Her mane covered her eyes and a good portion of her snout, and it almost seemed that had styled it for the exact purpose of hiding her face. Pinkie shifted, trying to stand up, but almost toppled into the flames. The mare pressed her wing on Pinkie’s back to steady her. “Stay still, okay? You don’t look so good.” Pinkie paused, allowing the mare to slowly turn around back toward the storm, before asking, “Wh-wh-... what’s your name?” “Diamond Dust,” she said, her voice harsh. She uttered a single chuckle, a seething laugh brimming with pain. “Like I have a name anymore. Just call me Diamond.” “Where are we?” Pinkie choked, looking at her surroundings. The cave was damp and cold, but the blizzard outside wasn’t an appealing alternative. She heard the light crunching of snow under her hooves as she stood up. “Exile,” Diamond said simply. “From where?” Pinkie asked, standing up shakily and testing her limbs. Diamond glanced at her, but didn’t bother trying to sit her back down. “Does it matter, weirdo? There’s nowhere for us to go back to. We’re just... here. You’re here for your reasons, and...” she trailed off, her voice tight. Pinkie recognized her expression. She had worn it many times herself when she was younger, before she had met her best friends. “You’re lucky you’re even here. I found you out cold in the snow. Literally.” “...Well, I’m Pinkie,” Pinkie stated, weakly raising her hoof to Diamond. She tried to make eye contact with her, and succeeded to some extent, though her companion's eyes were covered by strands of her mane. Diamond looked at her outstretched hoof as if she was offering her a gift card to a tack shop on the moon. “Wait. What’s this for?” “All friendships should—” She coughed, hacking up fluids that had been draining down her throat. “...proper introductions,” Pinkie stated, wiping her nose and willing herself to ignore her stone-cold surroundings. Diamond appeared genuinely concerned. “Look, I don’t think—” Pinkie interrupted her. “As an official representative of Finkie bland...” She trailed off, hanging her tongue out of her mouth and biting some life into it, then continued: “...Representative of Pinkie brand Circle of Friends Incorporated... Hi!” Diamond gave Pinkie an odd look, shook her hoof lightly, then pushed it away, muttering under her breath as if Pinkie couldn’t hear, “Weirdo.” Pinkie didn’t hear her remark; the invitation extension proved quite exerting, and as a wave of nausea and headache washed over her, she was forced back to the ground. After collecting herself and eating a mouthful of snow, she asked, “So why are you here?” “To die,” Diamond said bluntly, as if she were waiting for her train to arrive at the station. “Just killin’ time until I pass out. You?” If Pinkie was stunned, she didn’t show it. “I just woke up here, but... did I hear right?” She stuck a hoof through one of her ears, checking for wax, and made sure her hoof had gone straight out the other ear before she determined that what she heard was indeed correct. To be absolutely certain, though, she asked, “You’re just... waiting?” “Aren’t you?” Diamond asked. “No,” Pinkie said, her throat hoarse from talking, but she continued anyway. “I’m making conversation!” Diamond rolled her eyes. “Whatever floats your boat.” “Why are you waiting?” Pinkie asked. “Nothing else to do. I’ve lost everything. I’m just biding my time until I lose that one last thing everypony but me seems to care so much about,” Diamond explained. “What did you lose?” Pinkie asked. “Everything ‘cept my pulse.” Diamond exhaled. “My friends. My home. Just... everything, it’s gone.” Pinkie nodded. “Yep, that sounds like everything. At least, to me.” “You had friends?” Diamond asked. “Have, silly,” Pinkie corrected, giggling. “...Aren’t you worried about them not finding you?” Diamond asked. “Not really. I know they’ll search to the end of Equestria if they have to.” She paused. “Well, I guess I could go after them, but if I go to find them when they’re going to find me, then we’d both find where we both were a little bit before, and then we’d try to find each other again, and then there’s a chance we might meet in the middle but we’d probably just end up in a completely different place...” She trailed off when she realized Diamond wasn’t following. “Oo-kay,” Diamond said, “but what if your friends aren’t looking for you?” Pinkie’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, then it gets really complicated—” “Alright, alright! Forget I asked,” Diamond interrupted, exasperated, though she had the faintest of smiles on her lips. She sighed, almost wistfully. “Those must be some pretty good friends you have there.” Pinkie nodded. “Especially on Saturdays. I’ve only really known them for a few years, now, actually,” she said. “And before that?” Diamond asked. “Well... I had lots of ‘friends,’” Pinkie said, using both her hooves to make air quotes, “but that was only because I threw lots of parties.” She took a breath as a sheet of exhaustion settled over her, and she rested her head on her forelegs. “I’ve had friends like that, too,” Diamond said, looking down. “Not many, though.” Pinkie considered dropping the topic. The conversation was taxing and she felt the urge just to lay down, rest, and wait until her strength returned before talking to Diamond further. Despite this, though, she picked herself up again and asked, “So what are you waiting for?” “I’m pretty sure I said I was waiting to die,” Diamond repeated. “Why don’t you wait until you meet my friends?” Pinkie asked, her eyes lighting up. “Maybe then you can see how many ponies actually do care about you.” Diamond shook her head. “Look, I don’t think you understand. I lost everything. You think that I can just go back?” “Mm-hmm,” Pinkie affirmed, looking at Diamond closely. “You still have that little bit of spark left in you—you can still light a match. I remember doing that once.” “Losing everything?” Diamond asked. “No, lighting a match,” Pinkie clarified. She furrowed her brow for a moment. “Now I can’t seem to find any anywhere anymore.” She shrugged, then turned her gaze back to Diamond. “I think you still have something. And I know what you were waiting for.” She paused. “You were waiting for me. You were waiting... for a friend.” Diamond rolled her eyes, falling backward onto a mound of snow and covering her face with her hooves. “That’s so corny. You remind me so much of one of my other friends,” she exclaimed, and Pinkie could tell she was trying to hide a smile. Something dawned on her, though, and the smile vanished. She sat back up, and didn’t meet Pinkie’s eye. “Look, you should go.” Pinkie tilted her head slightly to the side. “I can’t, remember? I’m waiting for my friends.” “You can’t rely on your friends to do the right thing,” Diamond said bitterly, turning away from Pinkie. “Sure I can. I’m doing that right now,” Pinkie argued. She folded her hooves, hmph’d, and turned opposite of Diamond. “I’m not moving.” Diamond exhaled in frustration. “You really are like him. Look, what do you want?” “I want to wait,” Pinkie stated. “Why?” Diamond asked. “You’ve already been waiting for me. It’s time that I started waiting for you, too,” Pinkie said. “No, seriously. What do you want?” Diamond asked, turning to face Pinkie with a mixture of empty fury and desperate loneliness. “I don’t like leaving anypony behind without trying to make them feel better,” Pinkie stated honestly. She swooned slightly, sickness trying to claim her, but she refused. “In... i-in fact, I don’t like leaving anypony behind, period. No, exclamation point! Like that!” She drew the shape of the punctuation mark in the snow. “Ha!” “But I’m, like, a complete stranger,” Diamond argued. “All my friends were strangers before I got to know them,” Pinkie pointed out. “If I didn’t try to make friends every chance I got, I don’t know where I’d be today! So whaddaya say, Diamond? Why not just give having friends a chance?” She stuck out her hoof again. Diamond paused. She brushed her mane out of her eyes, and Pinkie got to look at them clearly for the first time. She had no pupils; her irises were blood red. This time, though, she didn’t try to hide her smile. “Y’know, Pinks... you’re alright.” She took Pinkie’s hoof and shook it. And with that, not even considering Diamond’s oddity, Pinkie decided it was time to let her body have the victory it fought so long and hard against her for. She carefully set herself down, nestled herself under her new friend’s wing, and passed out cold. ******* Twilight awoke to the glare of sunlight. She shifted. It almost felt like she was back in bed, at her home, beneath the covers, and under the watchful gaze of her protector, Princess Celestia, ruler and protector of Equestria. But some bits of sand flew into her eyes, and as she flinched back, a few stray stones scratched her face. The cuts stung, and it was at that moment when she realized her hips and back ached, her throat was dry, and half of her body was on fire. She snapped to her hooves. She had been lying on her side in what appeared to be a deserted courtyard, and under the skin where she had been exposed to the sun, she was on fire. She was broiling. It was so hot she felt like she was going to die. Some shade offered solace nearby. She scrambled toward it, collapsing in the shelter and writhing to try and disperse the heat. It didn’t take long for her to cool off. There wasn’t much moisture left in her body to retain the energy. Her lips were cracked and bleeding, and bits of her pelt was peeling off. The wind was also far too stifling to be of any help. There was far too much sand flying around for her to make out her surroundings. The stone was too hot for her to lie down, and the gale too fierce for her to look up, so she was forced to stand and stare down as her knees buckled and her joints caved. Am I in Tartarus? A force wrapped around her waist and gripped her, pulling her backward. She did not resist. A little while later, she found herself staring upward into the void. She was underwater, boiling once more, trapped by the heat following her like a vengeful succubus. She thrashed, coughing, crying, and threw the comforters off her body. She was in a bed—safe, at least—but still sweaty. The dorm itself was fairly ornate, if showing signs of wear. Her bed was Princess-sized, and probably could have comfortably fit three or four ponies. The bedposts were scratched, one of them broken off, and the drapes, likely designed with the intent of obscuring their resident, were devoured by moths. There was a window to Twilight's left, and a mirror to her right, but the window was shutterless, and the mirror cracked into six pieces. Hot wind flowed in constantly from the sandstorm just outside, but no sand seemed to enter. Twilight, still too hot to think, rolled off the bed toward the mirror. She hit the rug with a wet slap—her coat was practically dripping. She stared at the legs of the dresser, which seemed almost ready to buckle, for an indeterminate amount of time. Hoofsteps approached. She felt herself levitated back onto the bed, staring up into the eyes of an unfamiliar stallion. The best description of him Twilight could muster was that he seemed, at first glance, in about  as dire straits as she herself was. His black mane, styled as to obscure his eyes, was slick with grease. His coat was matted, shining with the product of temperature regulation. His tail swished back and forth, though it didn't seem intent on swatting flies; instead, it resembled more a mental tic, a product of his curiosity concerning the specimen presented to him. Twilight recoiled despite her weakness, but when she tried to speak, her vocal chords rebelled, and she hacked up a glob of phlegm. The stallion didn't offer his name. He merely watched as Twilight, having nowhere else to deposit her mucous, leaned over and spat on his carpet, and waited patiently as she caught her breath afterward. When he determined she was sufficiently recovered, he hopped onto the bed, showing off his fetlocks before sitting beside her and raising a hoof to her chest. In the moment he touched her, an ocean breeze struck her with the force of a wave, and all was peaceful, cool, and still. She fell onto the bed again and lost herself in the mist. She woke up again a while later, and this time with a tad more mental clarity. She was lying on her side, drooling once more into the covers. However, she was quick to launch herself from the bed that was not her own, land roughly, and turn in a circle as to verify that the dreaming was over, that she wasn't dying, and that she could finally figure out what in Celestia's name was going on. She immediately noticed that her burns had utterly vanished—assuming she was burned at all in the first place. The thin blue lines tracing where her coat had previously been cracked and broken suggested that the stallion healed her, though he no longer seemed to be present. She noticed the flicker of an escaping shadow by her door just before it vanished utterly, akin to a frightened stray cat. Twilight made chase. The bedroom exited onto a balcony. The marble railing was missing, and Twilight skidded to a halt as she approached its edge. The view was sublime, and Twilight would have taken a moment to appreciate it were she frantically trying not to skid off the edge of the balcony. Once she had fully situated herself, she took a more detailed appraisal of her environment. She was standing on the overlook of a massive, pale stone tower. Three matching towers stood, their only particularly distinguishing features being their various states of disrepair. Twilight tried to get a look at the tops of the sandstone towers opposite of her, but the sun was too bright to allow it, instead shunning her and forcing her gaze down to the courtyard, which seemed to be the only construction in the area not composed of yellow or white stone. It was the color of red clay, and did not seem to allow sand to rest on its surface, shooing it instead to the base of each spire. Her line of sight was partially blocked, however, by perhaps the most interesting feature of the area: A multitude of broken platforms and walkways, none more than three meters in length, hovered autonomously in the space between the courtyard and the sun-obscured tops of the towers. They had no apparent method to their madness; they hovered as if suspended in a world that applied precedence to the principle of convection over the law of gravity. Several platforms, seeming to sense Twilight’s gaze, gravitated toward her, gradually forming a rough path from her overlook to the center of their mass. Twilight took a few steps back and turned into the bedroom, hoping for some kind of staircase to present itself and offer a less perilous route down. None did, and so she was forced back out onto the platform. There was a gap of about one meter between her and the roughly-joined stone blocks, but seeing as there was no other way forward, she took a deep breath and made the jump. As she landed, the stone platform she was on responded to her application of force by tipping backward, and for a brief moment Twilight's stomach and heart lurched forward and back, respectively, in a sort of cosmic role reversal. The boulder did not balance itself immediately, and kept turning over until there was no way Twilight could have possibly held on—that is, had the laws of gravity still applied. Interestingly, the librarian found her hooves attracted to the stone by a sort of magnetic force. Even though she was standing completely upside down, she did not fall, nor did the platform drift any further from its one-hundred and eighty degree flip. A shadow flickered in front of her. She didn’t get the best look at it, but it was somewhere inside the mass of platforms. When she tried to walk, she found that her hooves stuck to the platforms as if they were covered in big blobs of chewed gum mixed with glue, but she worked herself forward despite the extra effort required. After a few moments of walking, she began to feel almost lightheaded, which she assumed was an indirect result of the realm’s inconsistent physics. It was hardly a natural situation, after all. Despite this, it took her only a little while to clamber her way to the center ball of stone blocks, which seemed to have quickly rearranged themselves into a rough sphere about six meters in diameter. There were small gaps between each stone block, only about enough for her to fit a single leg if she so chose. Having forgotten which way was up and down, and at this point not caring too much, she dragged her hooves to the top of the sphere. Unfortunately, as soon as she set her hoof on the shape’s apex, the suction she had previously been experiencing faltered, and she fell flat on her back with a short scream. Her mind prompted her to scramble to her hooves, but the drop scattered her willpower, so for a moment she just rested and tried to regain her bearings. Once she recovered, she saw that the stallion was standing in front of her yet again—this time with newly trimmed fetlocks, and a more reasonable manestyle that exposed his brilliant amber eyes. He prodded her a bit in the flank with a quarterstaff, and brushed her hair back with his hoof. The fact that he did both at the same time is what managed to startle Twilight to her hooves. She jumped up and scurried away from him, not able to find her balance as she tumbled over the gaps in the stones. As the result of a snap decision to not put her hoof in a position where she could twist her ankle, she tripped over her hooves and landed hard on her back for the second time in a the span of a minute. “Good gracious,” he muttered, smirking a bit at her performance. “I suppose one would have to be that clumsy in order to stumble across this locale.” “Who are you?” Twilight demanded, steeling herself and getting up despite the aches she had managed to paint across her entire back. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him. He was an earth pony as far as she could tell, and yet a quarterstaff hovered by his side unaided, and there was no mistaking the supernatural nature of his earlier acts. His mane, she noted, was thick and glossy enough to possibly obscure a horn. “Weren’t you the one that healed my burns earlier?” “Oh, it’s been years since then. I had been wondering if you were ever going to show up,” he stated, flicking his tail. “You’re not from here, are you?” “My name is Twilight Sparkle... I’m from Ponyville,” Twilight replied, shifting her weight into her hind legs—she was rather hesitant to give out this information, but if the strange pony did, in fact, heal her burns, then he may have benevolent intentions. “What do you mean you healed me years ago? It can’t have been more than a day.” He raised an eyebrow. “I suppose your clock runs slow, then, and my dear I do mean that both literally and figuratively." He cackled, taking a few paces around the walkable base of the sphere. “My name is Obsidian Doubledge, and I am the sole inmate of this grand construction. As for Ponyville, I have heard of no such place. Tell me, how did you manage to route yourself here from the real world?” Twilight’s ear twitched a bit at Obsidian’s word choice, but decided to save that particular question for later. “I was foalnapped by a monster who calls himself Verba. You probably found me how he left me.” Obsidian blinked. “Verba, you say? How charming for him to bring me a guest. He rarely visits anymore, you know.” Twilight swallowed, her ears folding back against her head. “H-he’s a friend of yours?” He grinned. “One could say we work in tandem. But do not fret, for it is well outside his power to send you here.” “Then who did?” she asked. “I did have the pleasure of meeting your guardian angel. She was the one who sent you to this safe haven of sand and sun, and she also shields you from its destructive glare. As to her motives, well,” he said, turning his head slightly, a slight smile swirling across his lips, “I suppose your guess, Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville, is as good as mine.” Twilight would have asked him more, but he vanished when she blinked. In his place was a note, which she scrambled to grab with her magic before it was blown away by the increasing winds. It read: “I tired of waiting. You may meet me in the tower opposite to the one you arrived in—this world responds to your powers, and I presume you’re able to connect the simplest of dots.” Twilight glanced at the sphere of platforms. They were inching apart, apparently no longer shaped by Obsidian’s magic—though she remembered she wasn’t able to verify whether or not he was actually a magician. In order to get answers, though, she would have to play by his rules. Crumpling up the note and tossing it aside, she focused her telekinetics on the platform directly beneath her, willing it to move. Though it glowed her signature magenta aura, it didn’t budge. She applied more pressure, and still it remained still. Determined to at least procure some sort of visual result, she pushed on the stone with as much force as she could muster—and it moved. But it only moved a centimeter. Twilight exhaled, looking up. She only looked up for a moment, though, for the sun was still too strong. Her gaze finally rested back on the boulder and its companions, and she began the arduous process of moving them into place. It had felt like it had been hours. Twilight was sure she would have determined whether or not she was really in Tartarus by now, as she slaved away in the sunbaked landscape—and yet, the answer still eluded her. There were a few things she did know, however. She knew that she should have been dead by now. Her core temperature could not have been less than forty degrees celsius as she slaved away in the heat of the setting sun, and such heat was unfathomable, unbearable, but she could neither sweat nor cool. She felt heavy, slow, but never tired enough to collapse, nor too uncomfortable to focus, and she could not summon the courage to lay down and rest for fear she would not get back up again. Whether her condition was a blessing or a curse was also something she had yet to determine. She knew that the sun was supposed to have set. She tried counting seconds, but the numbers she spoke seemed to be stolen from her, one by one, lost to the rising winds. She could see them leave her mouth, dry up and shatter in the furnace of eternal sun. In the back of her mind, she noted the relation between high fevers and hallucinations. Finally, she knew that, after all the energy she exerted, after all the spells she spoke, and after all the pleas she pled, that the boulders should be moving. Every bit was an effort, every stone a source of suffering. The pathway to the lowest balcony of the tower in which Obsidian resided was no nearer than fifty meters from her present location. The stones themselves were about three square meters each. Moving fifteen of them to form a path from her initial boulder to the tower, for she had decided to construct the entirety of the bridge first before crossing it, ought to have been easy. They were floating. Floating. And yet, for all her magical potency, her touch was no more effective than that of a feather. And so she sat, with two boulders correctly positioned after an unknown amount of time, in a land closely resembling her own personal Tartarus, chasing after her own personal demon, alone and not knowing whether she was alive or dead. Her blood was boiling, and not just because of the temperature gradient. “My name is Twilight Sparkle,” she said, though only the echoes of the desert returned her claim. She got to her hooves, staring down the third platform, glaring daggers at its immobile mass. “I was born in Canterlot, raised by Velvet and Noteworthy Sparkle. I was taught in Canterlot’s School of Gifted Unicorns and tutored by the Goddess of the Sun, Princess Celestia herself.” Twilight widened her stance. She was drained by the strain of her previous attempts, but still she scraped together what might she could in preparation for her telekinetic coup de grâce. “I have been using this spell since I was a foal. I use it every day,” she hissed, her horn beginning to glow. “I am the single most powerful magician in Equestria. I am the Element of Magic itself. And by my mother, by my father, by my brother, by my friends, and by the Princess herself I swear, you—will—MOVE!” A coil of condensed magic sprouted from her horn and latched onto the boulder. Twilight craned her head to the side, compelling it to the left, willing it with all her heart and soul to move. And it moved. It traveled, just a few centimeters each second, but it moved. It was moving, and it was moving where she wanted it to go. Twilight collapsed; the force of her spell finally backlashed onto her body. Her muscles yelled, her heart slammed, her thoughts ran wild as the magic stampeded over her mind. She drifted to the ground, her tongue lolling out of her mouth, and she tried to catch her breath, watching the glorious scene that was a boulder finally moving. Her gaze was clouded due to the force of the mental cacophony still raging in her head; however, whatever mental capacity she still had at attention briefly wondered something before joining its brethren circling her cranium: Why is the boulder still moving? It was this thought that snapped the rest of the collective to attention, returning to Twilight her mental functions just as her accomplishment fell apart. Twilight propped herself up on her front hooves, though she still felt woozy from the havoc still raging in her inner ear. The boulder was moving too far, too fast, and though it was in the original direction she intended, she quickly realized her planned trajectory was a recipe for catastrophe. The third boulder, the one she had burned all her magic moving, was sailing daintily toward the second boulder, having not been thrown far enough to clear the mighty stone. “No,” Twilight breathed as, centimeter by centimeter, she watched her plans fall apart. “No. No no no no no no no!” Her magic sparked like flint and steel on damp logs. She had nothing. There was nothing she could do. And so it floated. And so it drifted. And the sound of the collision dully resonated in Twilight’s ears, and she watched as the third boulder pushed the second into the first, scattering them slowly, mocking her efforts, prodding her pride. And, as she watched, Twilight Sparkle, student of Princess Celestia and the Element of Magic incarnate, fell down onto her side and began to cry.