Absent

by T6J2E5

Chapter 4

Spike sighed as he closed the library’s book record for the day.  The sun was low on the horizon as the last patron left with two loaned books securely in their saddlebags.  Following them to the door, he closed it as they walked away, activating the lock on the handle with a push of his thumb.  He had opened the library to the public three days ago after the RBI agents finally removed the crime scene status from the property.

In the three days since he reopened the library’s doors, he had performed all of both the maintenance and administration associated with running a public service.  Fortunately, for all the citizens of Ponyville, Spike had learned a great deal from Twilight after she moved into town.  He didn’t have any particular trouble checking-in and checking-out books or collecting fines from the delinquent ponies.  Since he’d been re-shelving books for Twilight for years, even while they still lived in Canterlot, that was also a non-issue now.

What really seemed to eat away at the baby dragon’s spirit was the fact that he was performing these duties alone.  He began each day with an upbeat and positive attitude, as he always had.  By the end of the day, however, his actions and face betrayed an intense loneliness.

He made his way to the kitchen.  Once there, he prepared dinner for two, Twilight’s favourite: celery soup and daffodil sandwiches.  The task had quickly become mundane over the days.  He and Twilight nearly always prepared and ate dinner together in their small but homey kitchen.  Now that she wasn’t there preparing it with him, it seemed like more of a chore, his movements almost mechanical.  He ladled the soup into two bowls and placed them on a tray beside a plate of two sandwiches.

Balancing the tray in his claws, he stopped and stared at the food for a long moment.  Twilight hadn’t touched any food in nearly five days, ever since Celestia had given her that horrible news about Nyx.  Three times each day, Spike prepared their meals.  Like now, he brought two servings to her bedside: one for each of them.  He ate with her, sharing the time together as they always had, even if the conversation was one-sided and only his food was eaten.

He carefully set the tray on Twilight’s bedside table and sat in the chair beside it.  Twilight didn’t respond to the sound.  Spike watched his friend’s chest rise and fall gently with her breath.  Her back was turned to him, preventing him from seeing if she was awake or asleep.  It didn’t matter.  She was almost always asleep.  Those few times he saw her awake, she was completely unresponsive.  He pleaded with her to eat something or, at the very least, drink some water.  After a few days, he gave up his pleading and simply left her food and water behind when he had finished with his own.  In the past five days since his friend had become like this, he removed only three empty glasses from the room.  The rest had remained undisturbed along with the food until he replaced it with the next meal.

Seeing his friend completely detached from the outside world like this brought tears to his eyes again.  He was forced to suspend his dinner as the droplets fell into his lap.  Initially, Spike thought Twilight’s catatonia was magically induced.  The night Celestia gave her the news, she had been forced to place a sleeping spell on her student.  Twilight’s grief had become so violent and unstable in the wake of Celestia’s revelation, that the princess believed the mare might accidentally hurt herself in a fit of emotion.

In a letter to Spike, she assured him that the spell she placed on Twilight was extremely gentle, and should have effected a peaceful sleep for only a few hours.  The librarian didn’t wake for over a day.  Even after that, Spike had seen her eyes open only a handful of times, despite checking on her every hour during the day, and sleeping in his basket beside her bed at night.

Princess Celestia had informed him of what happened when Twilight’s cries of despair woke him that night.  She had performed the sleeping spell in his presence and with his begrudging consent.  The death of the filly he considered to be part of his family had affected him, as well.  He and Celestia cried for hours in the library over Twilight’s sleeping form until the princess was obligated to return to Canterlot before daybreak.  Celestia carefully moved Twilight into her bed before she departed, leaving Spike to grieve alone with his only remaining family member unconscious beside him.  He sobbed and shed tears until he thought there were none left to give.  Then he had cried some more.  Through it all, and until he finally fell asleep in his basket late the following morning, Twilight slept.  For two days, he left the unicorn’s side only to eat and bathe.  Twilight slept.  On the third day, Spike reopened the library.

Spike sniffed, slowly finishing his half-eaten sandwich and looking at the food and water which would likely remain untouched until he brought her breakfast in the morning.  His gaze returned to the mare on the bed, her breath shallow under the covers.  She looked small and fragile lying there, emotionally broken.  After returning his empty plate and glass to the tray, he resigned himself to ending another day without the company of his friend.  Curling up in his basket, he allowed another tear to roll down his cheek before succumbing to his own sleep.

Twilight’s sandwich and water remained undisturbed when Spike awoke the next morning, as they had all of the previous several mornings.  An hour later, after Twilight again slept through another offered breakfast, Spike sat in the library with parchment and quill in-hand.  He grazed the tip of the quill’s feather against his chin, thinking about what to write.  Presently, he began scribbling onto the parchment.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I’m writing to you about Twilight.  She isn’t doing so well.  She’s been sleeping almost all the time, and she hasn’t said anything to me since you told her about Nyx that night last week.  I’ve been trying to take care of her, but she just lays in bed.  She won’t even eat or drink any water!  You gotta do something, Princess!  I’m worried that she’ll make herself sick if she stays like this much longer.

Please hurry!

Your faithful subject,

Spike

He rolled the parchment, neglecting to seal or wrap it in any way, and breathed his magical dragon fire onto it.  The letter flashed with bright green flame before disappearing into the wind as a trail of ash.

Twilight realized she was dreaming when she found herself staring into a flawless field of stars from the observatory and library in her old tower in Canterlot Castle.  I think I’m getting better at this lucid dreaming stuff, she thought, making a mental note to inform Luna of her progress in dream magic.

A sudden thought chilled her in the relatively warm, summer air.  She couldn’t remember any of her dreams before this one.  She couldn’t even remember if she had been dreaming at all before this one.  She had just now realized she was in her old observatory, but what about before that?  She’d awakened in her bedroom in Ponyville several times since Celestia sedated her that horrible night.  She knew that several days had passed, since each time she opened her eyes, the sun (or lack thereof) indicated many hours had passed.

For some reason, she didn’t feel sad or depressed anymore, either.  She still felt the aching loss of her daughter, a gaping wound that would never completely heal without the certain knowledge of precisely what had happened.  But... she wasn’t upset about it anymore, just curious.  How... curious.  It took her a few seconds to do a mental inventory of her thoughts and feelings.  She didn’t only fail to experience the familiar sadness.  She didn’t feel anything.  It was odd, not feeling any emotion whatsoever.

As far as she could ascertain, she still had complete control of her faculties.  She performed a few simple logical tests in her head, convinced that her left-brain was fully functional.  It was unnerving how emotionally numb she felt, though.  She almost always let her scientific, thinking, rational side take control to solve problems ever since she was a foal.  But through it all there was always the underlying emotion.  She had long since accepted its presence as a type of mental ground, reminding her during the most trying of times that she was still a pony, flesh-and-blood, and that ponies were allowed to make mistakes and learn from them.

“Do not fret, dear Twilight.  We have... barred that portion of thy mind for the time being,” the voice said from behind her.

Twilight jumped and kicked off the floor with her hind legs, spinning on her forehooves to face the opposite direction.  Princess Luna, as magnificently radiant as ever in her dream realm, stepped out from the shadows beside a nearby bookshelf.  “Princess Luna!” she said, willing her heart to slow to a normal pace.  “You scared me!”  She made another mental note.  Ponies were accomplishing that far too often lately.  “What do you mean you ‘barred that portion of my mind?’  You can do that?” she questioned.

“Thou art in a great deal of emotional pain, Twilight,” the Princess Of The Night answered matter-of-fact.  “It would have been... unproductive for thou to feel such distractions while we discuss things.”  She sat a few metres in front of the purple unicorn, watching her interestedly.

Twilight sat facing her, following suit.  “So...” she started, her mind fumbling her possible words, “did you create this dream for me?  I can’t remember dreaming at all over the past few days.”  She looked around at the room and the narrow slit in the ceiling for her telescope.  The stars above them burned brilliantly in the midnight sky, the Milky Way clearly visible, a subtle stripe of pinks and blues painted across the heavens.  This may have been a dream, but the scene caused Twilight’s breath to catch nonetheless.

Luna looked at her confusedly.  “Nay, Twilight.  Thou hast created this dreamscape thyself.  Did thou not know this?”

Twilight returned her gaze to the princess.  She shook her head.

Her companion raised an eyebrow, then turned her head slowly to take admire the environment in which she was the visitor.  “Indeed,” she said absently, “thou has gotten quite good at dream magic.”

“Well, I have an excellent teacher,” Twilight stammered, smiling gratefully at the blue alicorn.

Luna blushed briefly.  “We believe this is where thou hast been since you entered into sleep.”

Now Twilight was confused.  “Huh?  I just got here a few minutes ago.  Just before you got here.  I just... don’t remember anything before this.”

“The dream realm is elusive and fleeting, Twilight.  Thou knowest this,” Luna said like a teacher repeating an obvious fact to a student.  “However,” she continued, “we believe this dreamscape is quite old.  Perhaps as old as the week thou hast slept.”  Luna looked at her sternly.

“But I’ve been awake several times in the past week,” Twilight protested.  “Just... not for very long.”

Luna waved a hoof dismissively.  “Thou hast simply returned to the same dreamscape each time.  This is not unusual after short periods of waking.”  She rose and walked closer to Twilight, laying down beside her on the marble floor.  “Twilight,” she started, sighing, “what has happened?”

“What do you mean?” Twilight responded, laying down where she sat.

“Our sister, Celestia, received a frantic message from thy assistant, Spike.  She informed us that thou were in dire need of support, both physical and emotional.”  Luna stared at Twilight, her voice careful and soft.

“What do you know about that night the princess visited me?” Twilight asked.  This is really weird, she thought, I still don’t feel anything.

“We know only that Celestia visited thee late one night, and that she placed a mild sleeping spell on thee.  She has since locked herself in her chambers and refuses to emerge.  I have been holding day court and managing the kingdom alone in her stead.”  Luna’s expression shifted to one of deep concern.  “She is greatly upset, Twilight.  We worry about her, and now thee, as well.”

Twilight wanted to cry.  It seemed like the right thing to do.  She needed to tell Luna about Nyx’s death.  Even thinking about Nyx normally resulted in a violently weeping Twilight, and she suspected Luna’s response wouldn’t be much less negative.  She lost a sister in Nyx, too, right?  She sat there for a few moments before the silent princess.  She couldn’t cry.  She simply didn’t feel the emotions necessary to produce tears.  Is this what Luna wanted? she thought.  Does she suspect that I need to tell her something awful, and that I couldn’t unless I was completely stoic?  She took a deep breath.  Maybe Celestia’s direct method would be for the best here, too.  “Luna, Nyx is dead.”

The princess gasped.  “What?!  Twilight, we beg thee, tell us that thou jest!”  The alicorn’s eyes were wide with shock.

“I’m afraid not,” was Twilight’s simple reply.

“Pray tell, how did this happen?!”  Tears began to well in Luna’s azure eyes.

Twilight spent the next half-hour retelling the events of that night.  Her voice betrayed neither sadness, loss, nor pain.  She spoke the facts and only the facts.  She had to pause her story at several points to wait for a weeping Luna to regain control of herself.  She felt awful telling one of her good friends about this.  But then, who would want to inform a friend that their sister was never coming home?  By the time Twilight had finished, Luna had apparently cried herself dry and was merely listening keenly.

Luna sniffed pitifully.  “Twilight, this saddens us, this terrible news.  We...” she paused, “we understand now how deeply this must have affected thee.  Though we have never born foals of our own, we can but imagine how thy loss must pain thee.”

Twilight nodded.  It stuck her as obscenely strange how she felt nothing while the normally cynical princess wept openly in her presence.

“However,” Luna said after a moment of thought, “this strange message from thy zebra friend will require our consideration.”  She had regained her composure, for the most part, and she sat, prompting her purple companion to do the same.  “Zebra prescience is not to be ignored.”

The two mares sat in the moonlit observatory for several minutes, silently contemplating.  Luna finally rose, stretching her wings.  “One last thing, Twilight,” she said.  “Thy friends, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy visited thee earlier this evening while thou slept.  They asked that we express their condolences to thee.  We now know to what they referred.”  She looked down at her hooves.  “Twilight,” she said, her tone more serious, “we will allow this spell which numbs emotion to continue within thee.  At least until thou can manage them on thy own.”

Twilight thought she felt a sense of relief for the briefest of instants.  “Thank you, Luna... for everything.”

Luna turned to face her, bringing her muzzle close and glaring directly into the unicorn’s violet eyes.  An air of command accompanied her next words.  “In the meantime, Twilight Sparkle, thou must return to caring for thyself.  We will not hear of another lost friend.”  She paused to let the order penetrate Twilight’s skull.  “Dost thou understand?”

Twilight gulped and nodded curtly.

Luna reversed her direction and slowly walked toward the far wall, adding softly, “We will speak again soon.”  She took two more steps and then disappeared.  There was no flash of light, no tingle or crackle of magic.  She was just not there anymore.

Spike sat up, alert, as the mare twitched and groaned in her bed.  He hurried to her side, looking into her face.  Twilight’s eyes slowly opened, focused on the dragon.  “Twilight?” Spike ventured, excited at seeing his friend move and make sound again.

Twilight stirred again, her voice husky from days of disuse.  “Hey, Spike,” she said, a grim smile forming on her lips.

Tears spilled over her assistant’s cheeks, his happiness to see her evident.  For the first time in nearly a week, Twilight cried in the real world.

* * * * *

The following morning was marked by one of utmost elation on the part of Spike.  Twilight, finding that she no longer felt the level of depression necessary to keep her bedridden thanks to Luna’s dream-magic spell, stretched her muscles for many long minutes while they complained painfully after their long neglect.  Eventually, she slowly made her way to the kitchen downstairs.  Spike was busy preparing a breakfast that Twilight thought might not be the best way to reintroduce her stomach to food.  She was indeed hungry, very much so.  But, just the thought of actually swallowing something sent a wave of nausea through her belly.  She carefully sat at the kitchen table, her eyes reacclimating to the bright morning light which streamed in through the window.  The day was proving to be as sunny and cheerful as possible for Ponyville’s residents.

Spike slid a plate of haycakes and oats in front of her, forcing her attention’s return from the weather on the other side of the window.  “Here you go, Twilight!” he said cheerfully as he sat across from her, taking a particularly large bite out of a sapphire.  “It’s great to have you back.  It just wasn’t the same here without you, you know.”

Twilight smiled weakly at him.  “Thanks, Spike.”  She looked longingly at the food and her stomach lurched.  She ignored the plate, continued, “I’m sorry about the past week.  It really wasn’t fair of me to put that much responsibility on you.”

Spike waved her comment off dismissively.  “Oh, don’t worry about it, Twilight.  You would have done the same for me.  Besides, after what happened...”  His voice trailed off, failing to finish the thought.

“It’s alright, Spike,” Twilight assured him.  “I’m okay now.”  She knew the dragon was attempting to protect his friend from further emotional harm, and that he hadn’t thought about his words before they escaped him.  Twilight explained, noticing her assistant’s confused expression, “Luna used her dream magic to put some sort of spell on me that numbs emotion.”

Spike raised an eyebrow at her as he tossed another gemstone into his mouth, crunching it loudly.

“It means that my emotions won’t get in the way of my responsibilities anymore... at least for a while.”  Twilight wondered, what were her responsibilities now?  Am I just supposed to go back to being Ponyville’s librarian and studying the magic of friendship under Princess Celestia’s guidance?  That’d almost be like nothing ever happened.  I can’t do that...

Spike swallowed his shattered gem, eyeing her carefully.  “Twilight, that’s... that can’t be healthy.  I mean, you need to feel something, don’t you?”

Twilight shrugged.  “I think I should feel something.  But you saw what happened when I did.  I think Luna’s spell is probably for the best for now.  From what I understand, my emotions are still there, buried in my mind somewhere.  I just can’t feel them right now.”

“I still don’t think that’s normal...” Spike said slowly.  He looked at her plate of food.  “You haven’t touched your breakfast.  Aren’t you hungry?”

“No, no, it looks delicious.  I... just don’t know if I should eat something this... fancy right away,” Twilight said, trying to reassure the dragon.  His cooking really was top-notch, and she normally looked forward eagerly to his meals.  But at the moment, a small cup of grass broth or maybe dandelion pudding seemed more appropriate.  “My stomach is just a bit upset, that’s all.”

Spike looked hurt, but nodded.  He retrieved a box of powder from the cupboard and busied himself boiling some water.  A small bowl of broth was presented to the mare within a couple minutes.  She gladly accepted it and slowly drank it, her stomach begrudgingly accepting the much more mild sustenance.  Spike, meanwhile, made short work of Twilight’s haycakes.  It never ceased to amaze her how much food that little dragon could put away.

Twilight found herself wandering through the streets of Ponyville an hour later, reacquainting herself with the sights and sounds of the small town.  Her ultimate destination was the residence of a certain lilac earth pony who had an affinity for young ponies.  She didn’t know how many ponies Spike had informed about Nyx in the past week, but she thought that she owed Nyx’s school teacher a personal visit, if for nothing more than to commiserate the loss of a student.

She was stopped several times in town by various ponies she recognized.  They wished her well, and expressed their delight that Twilight was mobile again and had regained her health.  She gathered that Spike had told everypony Twilight was simply ill.  She inwardly thanked him for that.  The last thing she needed was for everypony in town to know that she was depressed to the point of self negligence.  Not one of them mentioned the late alicorn filly.

It felt odd to Twilight that she could think about her daughter without being overwhelmed by a flood of negative emotions.  She wasn’t sure if her visit with Cheerilee would be more painful for her or for the teacher.  She guessed the latter.  Over the course of the morning, she discovered that Luna’s anti-emotion spell effectively suppressed not only the sadness and loss, but every other emotional feeling, as well.  She smiled and thanked the ponies who had greeted her, but she didn’t feel any happiness or gratefulness.

She stopped on the straw welcome mat beneath Cheerilee’s front door and knocked twice.  The teacher was officially on holiday now that the school year was ended for the summer.  Twilight waited, looking around at the carefully pruned shrubs and trees scattering the mare’s front yard.  The house had also received a fresh coat of lavender paint.  She must be awfully bored, Twilight thought, going from the hectic life of a primary school teacher to... well... nothing to do.

The door opened, revealing a smiling Cheerilee wearing a dust apron and a heart-embroidered bandanna over her mane.  Her teeth firmly held the handle of a feather duster bearing the evidence of recent use.  She immediately recognized Twilight, her smile growing more pronounced.  She set the feather duster on a nearby side table.  “Twilight!  It’s so good to see you.”  She stepped aside, allowing the purple mare entrance.  “Please, come in!  Come in.”  Abandoning the duster on the table, she accompanied Twilight into the small, but very smartly arranged living room.  “Can I get you anything?  Tea, maybe?”

Twilight suddenly realized that she was really thirsty.  “Tea would be great, thanks,” she replied, then quickly added, “Something mild, please.”  She sat on one end of an obscenely comfortable-looking sofa near the small fireplace.

Cheerilee seemed to realize immediately what Twilight meant.  “Of course, poor dear.  Your stomach must still be bothering you after such a long illness.”  She raised a hoof to her chin, thinking.  “I have just the thing.  I’ll be right back.  Please, make yourself comfortable.”  She backed up, opening a swinging door to the kitchen, then disappearing as it closed behind her.  Presently, the sound of simmering water and crumpling tea leaves floated through the room.

Twilight looked beside her at the fireplace, dark and cold but immaculately clean.  Even the andiron had been scrubbed clean, gleaming silver in the morning light.  Celestia’s horn...  Cheerilee really was bored!

Her host reappeared moments later carrying a simple tea service on her back.  She moved it to the coffee table, then sat herself on the other end of the sofa before pouring a cup of the steaming liquid for both Twilight and herself.  “So,” she said cheerfully, sipping on the tea between her hooves, “how are you?  Feeling better, I assume?”

Twilight resisted the temptation to tell her that she didn’t feel much of anything, due to the spell over her.  A couple sips of tea later, “Much better, thanks,” was all she finally said.  She stared down into her teacup, gently rolling the tea around the inner edge with her magic.  Cheerilee really did have “just the thing.”  It was delicious.  She couldn’t quite identify the unique flavour, and decided it was definitely not her normal herbal fare, but it was surprisingly mild.  Her stomach was already thanking her as it received the concoction.  “What is this?  It’s perfect.”

Cheerilee stifled a giggle as she answered.  “It’s a blend of prairie grasses from east of Appleloosa.  I’ve found it really helps when I have an upset stomach.”  She took another sip of the steaming tea.  “Very good for sleepless nights, too.”

Twilight snorted.  “Well, I haven’t had many of those in a while,” she mused.  She wasn’t about to tell her friend that she had spent the better part of the last week unconscious.

“You really had me worried, Twilight,” Cheerilee said after a pregnant pause in the conversation, her smile softening.  “I went to library a couple days ago to invite you to lunch in town.  That’s when Spike told me you were really sick.  He said you’d been laid-up for days!”

Twilight didn’t respond, idly sipped her beverage.

Cheerilee continued when Twilight didn’t say anything.  “I offered to help him take you to a doctor at the hospital, but he said he thought you’d be fine after some rest.”  She shook her head.  “I guess he was right.  But I still wish you had seen a doctor.”

The unicorn couldn’t delay anymore.  She had to tell Cheerilee the news, and it would feel better to get it over with right away.  “Cheerilee...”  Great, now that I’ve started, I don’t know what to say.  “Cheerilee...” she repeated.

The school teacher looked at her oddly.  “Yes, Twilight?  What is it?”  She set her empty teacup on the table.  Twilight did the same, a few swallows of the tea remaining in the bottom.

“It’s... it’s about Nyx,” she blurted finally.  She still felt weirdly numb, emotionally.  But it was becoming very difficult to tell her friend about her daughter.  Was Luna’s spell weakening?  Or was this loss of articulation just some side-effect?

Cheerilee’s eyes betrayed a sadness, despite the smile she obviously struggled to maintain.  “The poor thing.  Nopony has found her yet?”  She placed a comforting hoof on Twilight’s leg.

“Well, no...”  Twilight said, stalling against her own will.  “They’ve found Nyx.”  She looked up at Cheerilee.  “What’s left of her.”

Cheerilee gasped, both her front hooves covering her mouth in horror.  “You... you don’t mean...”  Her eyes threatened tears.

Twilight nodded.  She felt nothing, and feeling nothing right now felt wrong.  She did all she could do: observe her friend’s reaction.

Tears streaked the teacher’s cheeks, dripping onto the fabric of the sofa beneath her.  She removed her hooves from her muzzle long enough to choke out a laboured, “Oh, Twilight!  I’m so sorry!”  She lunged at the purple mare, embracing her in a hug as she wept into her friend’s mane.

Twilight was confused, both by the situation and by Cheerilee’s reaction.  She expected the school teacher to be saddened by the loss of one of her students, but not quite this saddened.  She held the crying earth pony at leg’s length.  “I didn’t know you and Nyx were that close.”

“Twilight!” Cheerilee said, clearly surprised by Twilight’s comment.  “Nyx was my student, and one of my most promising ones, at that.”  Twilight felt suddenly ashamed.  Cheerilee continued, “She was always so interested in learning about everything around her.  She was like a sponge for knowledge.  And she was always so well-behaved in class.  She was the ideal pupil, really.”

Twilight smiled glumly, remembered how Nyx had an insatiable appetite for books in their library home.

Cheerilee looked at her lack of reaction oddly.  Then she looked down, blushing.  “Forgive me, Twilight,” she said, prompting Twilight’s brain to issue a curt uh-oh.  “I was finally getting used to the idea that Nyx was a normal filly just like her classmates.  I was afraid of her for the longest time after... well... you know.”

Twilight just nodded, feeling neither sympathy nor enmity for the lilac mare.

“But over the past couple years as Nyx gradually found herself and made friends, I got to know her as the filly she is--” she corrected herself quickly, “er... was...”  Her gaze turned downward into space.  “The more I got to know her, the more I realized that she had the same needs, desires, and fears as everypony else.  These last few months, I actually enjoyed having her in class each day.  I looked forward to her questions.”  She fell silent, staring at the carpet.

Twilight used her magic to lift her cup from the table and finish the trickle of tepid tea in the bottom.  The tea leaves settled, forming a shape vaguely like Nyx’s shield cutie mark.  She sighed.  Even this didn’t provoke her.  Turning to Cheerilee, she noticed her friend had stopped crying and was dabbing her eyes with a newly acquired tissue.  “Are you going to be okay?” she asked.

Cheerilee sniffed, wiping the excess moisture from her muzzle.  She blinked rapidly as one does when avoiding additional tears.  “Yes, Twilight.  I’ll be fine,” she finally said.  “It’s just... It’s always hard to lose a student like this, especially one so young and curious.”

Twilight nodded solemnly and stood, replacing her cup on the table.  “I need to get going, Cheerilee,” she said.  “Some other ponies stopped by the library while I was... sick, and I’d like to go thank them.”

Cheerilee nodded and showed her friend to the door.  “Twilight,” she called as the unicorn passed over the threshold, “are you going to be all right?”

Twilight again had to resist the urge to tell Cheerilee about Luna’s magic spell.  Instead, she stopped and shrugged.  “Honestly, Cheerilee, I don’t know.”  She turned and left, the earth pony standing in the doorway bewildered, watching after her as she crested a nearby hill and disappeared toward town.

* * * * *

The memorial service was held precisely three weeks after Nyx disappeared, two weeks after Celestia had revealed to Twilight and Spike her accidental demise.  Spike, assisted by Rarity, planned and publicized the event, a small to-do held in the Ponyville Cemetery just outside of town opposite Sweet Apple Acres.  Rainbow Dash had arranged for cloudy skies that morning, the least, she said, that she could do for Twilight.  Like Twilight’s other friends, though, she seemed hesitant to do more than that least amount.

A small group gathered around a tiny grave site, about a dozen ponies (and dragon) in all.  Twilight stood near the gravestone, a modest, grey slab of granite which bore Nyx’s name at the top and the dates of her birth and death in smaller type near the bottom.  Between the information, in the centre of the stone shined a small sapphire in the shape of a shield.  Rarity had insisted on using the gem from Nyx’s backpack to adorn the stone.  Given the other nearby grave markers, it was almost a guarantee that any visitors would be drawn to it, and therefore, to the memory of the little, black alicorn filly.

Twilight surveyed the small group through teary eyes.  All of her best friends were there, except, she noted, Pinkie Pie.  Applejack stood with the four remaining members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, all of whom looked more devastated than anypony else present.  Scootaloo hugged Sweetie Belle tightly, comforting her friend, and urging her to quiet her sobs.  Apple Bloom and Twist simple cried to themselves, each looking down at the grassy sod.  Rainbow Dash had finally landed, folding her wing around a sniffling Fluttershy, attempting to console her fellow pegasus.  At the foot of the grave were Cheerilee, weeping quietly, and to Twilight’s surprise, Diamond Tiara and her parents.  Twilight herself was flanked by Rarity and Spike just to the side of the gravestone.  Rarity was having difficulty containing her tears, no doubt to save her appearance from ruined makeup.

Spike cleared his throat and started to say something to the ponies gathered around the freshly-plotted site.  Twilight wasn’t really paying attention to what he said.  She could tell he was having trouble, and his wavering voice forced him to pause several times so he could regain his composure.  Rarity eventually lost the battle against her emotions, her mascara running down her cheeks in stark contrast to her white coat.  She ducked her head, attempting to hide herself beneath her wide-brimmed, black hat.

Twilight herself was having an internal battle against her feelings.  In the week since Luna cast the emotional suppression spell on her in her dream, it had gradually weakened.  Now, the spell was only a shadow of its initial power, enabling Twilight to barely contain the emotions that were still painfully raw and wretched.  She spent the few previous days trying to convince herself that it was healthy for her to feel these emotions, that she should have been feeling them all along.  That she had simply been overwhelmed by her feelings before Luna’s spell assisted her.  Now that the spell was all but gone, she wished Luna was here cast it again.

She thought of her life in Ponyville.  She had lived in Canterlot since she was born, and in the short time between her move to Ponyville and her discovery of Nyx, she had somehow managed to secure the friendship of the best ponies one could imagine.  They had accomplished so much together.  Enormous, incredible feats of bravery, loyalty, kindness, laughter, generosity, honesty.  Combined, they had been unstoppable.  Nyx had somehow changed that, driven a wedge between Twilight and the rest of them.  They were still friends, undoubtedly.  But Twilight’s adoption of the filly who had usurped and imprisoned the Royal Sisters, and who had plunged Equestria into eternal night for months still stuck a sour chord with ponies, and her friends were no exception.

Except Rarity.  The white unicorn had taken an affinity to Nyx before anypony else even knew about her.  Rarity accepted her for who she was instead of who she was meant to be.  She treated Nyx as Twilight wanted her to be treated, as her daughter.  Any pony from Twilight’s family, she had once said, was automatically and unarguably a friend of hers.  This was quite likely the reason Rarity had insisted on helping Spike with the memorial preparations immediately upon learning about them.  Besides Twilight, Rarity and Spike were taking Nyx’s death the worst, perhaps even more than the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Nyx’s best friends during her short, far too short, life.

Spike had finished speaking, and silence reigned over the group for several long minutes.  Rarity had completely given up any pretense of containing herself, and she wept openly, comforted by the embrace of an equally broken baby dragon.  Diamond Tiara dipped her head slightly, surprising Twilight with a look of genuine sadness, or... could it be?  Regret.  She turned and left slowly with her parents back in the direction of town.

One by one, the other ponies in the group made their way past the gravestone, either saying their goodbyes or simply stopping to shed a few tears in remembrance of Nyx’s time with them.  They expressed their deepest condolences to Twilight, many of them offering to share the unicorn’s sorrow in a brief hug.  Eventually, only the two unicorns and Spike remained.  Thunder rolled gently overhead, threatening rain.

Twilight sighed.  She still hadn’t said goodbye, and she didn’t know if she yet could.  Leaving Spike and Rarity to comfort each other nearby, Twilight approached the grave stone, stopping to look down at the small mound of grass which covered her daughter’s empty casket.  She couldn’t think of anything to say.  She rested her forehead on the top of the stone and allowed her tears to flow.  The unstoppable waves of sadness and emptiness rolled over her repeatedly, a storm surge in the hurricane of her emotions.  Her breath came in short gulps as she slumped into the grass beside the head of the grave.  “Nyx!” she wailed, attracting the attention of her two grieving friends.  “Oh, Nyx...  I miss you so much.”

Spike looked at her sadly.  Rarity made her way to Twilight, sitting down behind her and placing a hoof on her back.  She didn’t disturb the filly’s mother, nor did she attempt to stop her from grieving.

Twilight’s racked sobs shook her.  The tears wouldn’t stop, now that she was able to feel enough to shed them and the floodgates had opened.  “Why, Nyx?” she managed through her cries.  “Why?!”  Her sudden screech startled her friends, prompting soft cooing from the unicorn behind her.

“Twilight...” Rarity said, stroking her friend’s back.  Sparse raindrops began to spatter the stone and the cemetery around them.  Rarity gently urged her friend back to her hooves.  “Come on, Twilight.  It’s time to go.”  She turned and waited for the broken pony to follow.

“Wait,” Twilight said softly, turning back to the grave.  She opened a nearby package with her magic and levitated the small object it contained within sight.  Rarity gasped when she saw the shiny object, recognizing it.  Spike simply looked at it, then back to Twilight, a few fresh tears making their way down his cheeks.  Twilight closed her eyes, placing the object at the base of the grave stone.  Her weeping allowed only four whispered words that seemed appropriate.  “I’ll never forget you.”

As the three friends walked away from the site, leaving the cemetery for the shelter of Ponyville, Nyx’s purple glasses, perfectly repaired and whole, glowed dimly with magic as they sank slowly into the ground.  In their place at the base of the grey slab, a single flower of nightshade bloomed, trembling gently under the press of raindrops.

* * * * *

Twilight followed the letter of Luna’s command, if not its true intent.  She ate, she bathed, she slept almost-normal hours each night.  Since Nyx’s memorial ceremony, though, she spent all of her free time sitting on the end of Nyx’s bed in the library.  She would spend hours reading one of the filly’s several favourite books, looking through her class notes, or just surrounding herself with the small number of possessions her daughter had enjoyed.  She was coherent, speaking with Spike when he attempted conversation, but she was clearly depressed.

Spike still operated the library downstairs almost entirely on his own, allowing the actual librarian the time she needed to grieve properly.  He would occasionally insist on sending her into town to run errands for the household.  She didn’t resist or complain, carrying out the assigned tasks with her normal perfectionism.  Once completed, Twilight would return to Nyx’s bedroom until necessity (or Spike) drew her out again.

A quiet knock on the bedroom door diverted Twilight’s attention away from the book she was reading, another of those awful teen romance novels by the popular Dream Quill.  She looked up to find a familiar, yellow pegasus standing sheepishly in the doorway.  “Hello, Fluttershy,” she said monotonously.

“Hello, Twilight,” Fluttershy answered.  “Um...  I hope I’m not, you know, interrupting you.”  She carefully entered the room, looking down at the floor.

“No, of course not,” Twilight said, attempting to give her voice a more positive tone.  “I’m just...” she paused, her eyes glazing over with distraction, “I’m just remembering.”

Fluttershy blushed, backing slowly out of the room.  “Oh!  Well, um, I can always come back later.  When, you know, you aren’t so busy...”

Twilight forced her attention back to the present.  “No!” she responded, a little too loudly.  The pegasus cringed in the door way.  “Please,” she begged, “I could use the company, actually.”

Fluttershy’s face brightened, and she trotted over to the bed, sitting beside it and looking at the book Twilight held in her hooves.  She immediately beamed.  “Oh!  That’s one of Dream Quill’s books, isn’t it?  I so love his writing.  It’s just... just...” she paused her rave, attempting to find the right word, “great!”

Twilight stared at the mare, her mouth agape in disbelief.  “Y-you like this stuff?” she asked incredulously.  She looked at the book and made a sickened face, sticking out her tongue dramatically.

Fluttershy answered quietly.  “Oh yes.  His stories are always so nice.  And that’s the same reaction Rainbow had when she found out a few years ago.”  She giggled.  “But I have a message for you from Princess Luna.”

“Huh?” Twilight said, her face twisted in confusion.  “Why would Luna send me a message through you?”

“Well,” Fluttershy had lost her boldness found over the book and returned to her normal meek nature.  “I hope you don’t mind, but... um... the princess has a mission for us.  I mean, for you.  Well, maybe it’s more of just a suggestion, but--”

Twilight interrupted her.  “Fluttershy, what is the message?”

The pegasus ducked as if about to be struck.  “Um, she wants me to take you to see Zecora.  In her hut in the Everfree Forest.”

“Huh?  Why?”

“I’m not sure.  She said that she thinks Zecora has more to tell you.”  Fluttershy looked at Twilight apologetically.  When she received a blank stare from her friend, she continued even more softly.  “Did... did Zecora tell you something about Princess Celestia?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow, that terrible night dredged from her memory.  The zebra didn’t explicitly mention Celestia, but she wanted to see where this went.  “How do you know about that?”  Then she realized.  Luna.  Luna knows everything I do, and she must have told her some new theory.

“Oh, I only know that Princess Luna thinks you talked to Zecora about Princess Celestia,” Fluttershy responded, then quickly added with concern on her face,  “I hope it’s nothing bad.  I heard Princess Celestia has locked herself in Canterlot Castle and won’t come out.  Nopony has seen her in days!  Maybe the princess is sick, and Zecora can help.”  She shook her head, causing her long, pink mane to wave gracefully about her face.  “But Princess Luna says you need to talk to her right away.”

Twilight was confused again.  Celestia was still holed-up in her chambers?  But she had grown so cold toward her daughter over the last year.  Could the princess really be that upset about Nyx’s death?  The librarian also never thought to apply Zecora’s cryptic message to her.  Now that she mentally made the connection, though, it made her feel sick to her stomach.  “Yeah...  Let’s go talk to Zecora.”  She thought for a moment.  “But why did Luna ask you to go with me into the forest.”

“Oh, she said that, um...” Fluttershy paused, looking anxious.

“What?  What did she say?”

The pegasus flinched as she finished her sentence.  “She said that I need to be there in case you get turned to stone again.”

Twilight groaned, planting a hoof on her forehead.  “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

Whether Luna’s stated need for Fluttershy was a joke turned out to be irrelevant, since the pair hadn’t seen a single cockatrice in the forest, and they were nearly to their zebra friend’s hut.  Twilight appreciated her friend’s escort, however, as they also hadn’t encountered any particularly dangerous animals or plants.  A few smaller creatures approached, happily greeted by an exuberant Fluttershy and chittering away at her as if attempting to carry on a conversation with the pegasus.  It appeared as if the major threats of the forest had somehow heard of Fluttershy’s uncanny stare ability, and they were allowing the duo a wide berth.  Twilight couldn’t remember any creature attempting to harm Fluttershy in the forest (in fact, she had personally pacified and befriended several in the past).  She interpreted this to mean that Fluttershy’s unique connection to nature and animals made her an ideal travelling companion in this otherwise perilous place.

“Fluttershy, I’ve been meaning to thank you,” Twilight started, walking slowly beside her friend and staring forward at the path.  “For attending Nyx’s memorial the other day.  It... it meant a lot to me to see you there.”

“Oh, Twilight,” Fluttershy responded sympathetically, “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”  She looked at the purple mare, watched her friend walk with her as she spoke.  “I know how much it must have hurt you when Nyx... well, um...”  She stopped, apparently unwilling to finish the thought.  “But I’m your friend, and you really needed your friends after that.”  They walked together in silence for several minutes.  Then Fluttershy sniffed, tears gently rolling off the bottom of her muzzle onto the ground.  She stopped.  “Nyx was just a filly.  I miss her, too.”

Halting beside her friend, Twilight didn’t know what to say.  She didn’t know Fluttershy had been close to her daughter.  That made two ponies in the past week who she discovered had lost a friend in the little alicorn.  Maybe there wasn’t so much animosity for her out there after all.  Somehow, this made her feel both better and worse about her loss.  She said nothing, allowing Fluttershy to take her time.

“After Princess Luna turned her back into a filly from Nightmare Moon, she wasn’t so big and scary anymore.”  The yellow mare stopped crying, wiped the tears from her face with a hoof.  “She came to visit me after school sometimes.  She loved to learn about all the animals around Ponyville.  She even helped me nurse Angel bunny back to health after he ate a poisonous flower once.”

“I...” Twilight stammered, “I didn’t know that.  She never told me.”  The pair resumed their slow stride deeper into the forest.  “It’s just that...”  Twilight was about to bare her heart to her friend, and she didn’t know if she really wanted to.  It was rare for the unicorn to let others know her true feelings about anything, the curse of being an intellectual introvert for most of her life.  She let a few minutes pass before she tried again.  “It’s just that Nyx was the most important thing to me.  Every day since I found her, I woke up for her.  I saw her to school, I helped her with magic and homework, I helped her through her memories of being Nightmare Moon.  When Celestia told me she was d...”  She still couldn’t say the word, so she substituted a less painful one.  “... told me she was gone, I had nothing to live for.”

Fluttershy whimpered as she walked beside her friend.  Any other pony would likely have jumped in to tell her to stop or blurted out the continuation of Twilight’s confession.  The pegasus, however much she didn’t want to hear the rest of what her friend had to say, lacked the fortitude to interrupt.

“My reason to get up each morning d-died with her,” Twilight continued, ignoring the tiny sound to her right.  “I didn’t want to face the other ponies in Ponyville anymore.  I didn’t care about the library anymore.  I guess Spike was running it anyway.  After Celestia cast a sleeping spell on me, I hoped that I would never have to wake up again.  What was the point?”

Fluttershy gasped.  “But, Spike told everypony that you were terribly sick.  I tried to visit you with some medicine, but he wouldn’t let me into your bedroom.”  She paused in thought, perhaps not grasping the meaning behind Twilight’s words.  “I guess it was because he didn’t want anypony else to get sick.”

“Well,” Twilight grimaced as she corrected her friend, “I guess I was ‘sick.’  In a manner of speaking.”  Fluttershy looked confused, so Twilight explained, “Princess Luna visited me in a dream and told me I was so depressed that my body was shutting down.  She eventually used a spell to... hide... my feelings long enough for me to start taking care of myself again.”

“Oh... my...” Fluttershy said.  “That’s just awful!  Are you feeling better now?”

Twilight smiled at her friend as much as her grief would allow.  “Better than I did then.”  She faced forward again and sighed.  “I don’t think I’ll ever be the same pony I was before I found her, though.  She’s left too big of a hole.  I feel empty.”

Fluttershy nodded.  The friends walked for several more minutes, the sunlight hidden by the thick forest canopy.  They stopped when Zecora’s hut came into view only a dozen paces away.  If they hadn’t known exactly where it was, they would have missed it for the thick foliage.  Fluttershy looked at the mare beside her, said, “Twilight, you have so much more to live for.  Nyx told me once that you were the best mother a filly could ever have.  She may be gone now, but no pony can ever take away your memories of her.  Maybe you’ll be a mother again to another lucky foal.”  She embraced Twilight in a tight hug.  “If you ever need cheering up, or need to talk about her to somepony, you can come to me.  That is, if you want to...”

Twilight released a choked sob into Fluttershy’s mane, but quickly recovered.  “Thank you,” she said pathetically.

Fluttershy let go of her friend and looked to the hut before her.  The windows were lit, a pony-shaped silhouette confirming that Zecora was inside.  “You go talk to Zecora.  I want to see those flowers in her garden.”  She motioned with her head to a small bloom of purple, glowing softly in the eerie twilight of the inner Everfree.

Twilight still couldn’t figure out why Luna wanted her to talk to the zebra.  She was so... drunk the night she visited her in the library that she might not even remember her words.  And what made Luna think she was talking about Celestia?  Had she spoken with Zecora in the last week?  Well, Twilight decided as she watched her friend wading into the nearby flower bed, there’s only one way to find out.

* * * * *

It was several long minutes before Zecora finally answered the door.  Twilight had knocked several times, persisting since she knew the zebra was inside.  Fluttershy’s message from the princess was enough to steel her determination to talk with her friend before she returned home.  There was really nothing there she wanted to see again soon, anyway.  Spike managed the library as well as any librarian she’d ever seen (almost as much as herself, she mused).  The living quarters reminded her only of the empty bedroom occupying a corner of the second floor, decorated with all the expected paraphernalia associated with a normal filly.

Zecora opened the door and stared at the unicorn.  “Twilight!” she said in surprise.  “What are you doing here?”  She shifted her eyes to either direction, checking for something.  “Is anypony else near?”  See seemed nervous as soon as she saw Twilight.

“Uh... No?” Twilight lied.  Fluttershy was several metres away in Zecora’s garden, but she was well out-of-sight and no longer within earshot amidst the dense foliage.  “Wu-AHH!”  She felt a strong, sudden tug as Zecora grabbed one of her hooves and pulled her inside, leaving a few disturbed leaves to flutter to the ground on the door mat as the zebra slammed the door closed behind her.  Twilight shook her head to stop the world from spinning.  She found herself sitting on her haunches before Zecora’s large cauldron.  “What was that for?” she asked, shaking the pain from the hoof newly torqued.

The zebra spoke softly, but sternly.  “Twilight, you are not right if you come about that fateful night.”

“Huh?” Twilight said, skewing her face in confusion.  “Zecora, do you... even remember what happened?  You didn’t look...” she searched for the right description, “very sober.”

Zecora raised an eyebrow at the unicorn.  “But certainly you took to heart the message that I did impart.”

“Yeah, about that,” Twilight said sheepishly, blushing.  “What were you talking about, anyway?  Ponies not telling me the truth?  The history books being right... or was it wrong...  It didn’t make any sense!”

Zecora closed her eyes tightly and rubbed the bridge of her nose.  She looked flustered, an appearance Twilight was not accustomed to seeing on the enigmatic, striped equine.  “Twilight,” she finally said, “recall with care the words I spoke, and see which truths they might evoke.  I can’t remember well that eve, but what I said you should believe.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed.  “Wait.  Are you saying somepony lied to me... or would lie to me?”

Zecora stood motionless in front of her, said nothing.  She was apparently waiting for Twilight to arrive at a conclusion on her own.

“But...” Twilight said, her conversation with Fluttershy closing a few key circuits in her mind, “the only pony I talked to that night after you was Princess Celestia.  I admit, our relationship has been through some tough times lately, but she’s still one of my best friends and my teacher.  She practically raised me as a filly!  I’m one of the ponies she trusts the most.  She’d never lie to me!”

Zecora sighed, looking into Twilight’s eyes pleadingly.  “I do not know these things you heard,” she said carefully.  “Beware, however, the absurd.  Your friends and princess may believe these things they say to make you grieve.  Facts ponies know within their heads are sometimes grave mistakes instead.   I truly wish that I could give more info through which you could sieve.”  She turned, a slight blush appearing on her cheeks.  She looked positively embarrassed.  “The herb I swallowed late that day clears the mind and shows the way.  But now that its effects have passed, my memories from them can’t last.  What I told you, it was true.  What you think now is up to you.”

Twilight mulled over her friend’s words for several minutes after she finished.  She wasn’t sure she completely understood what the zebra was getting at.  It seemed pretty obvious at this point that if Zecora told her the truth, then what Celestia had told her was not.  How much could the hallucinogenic (perhaps clairvoyant) results of some weird zebra herb be trusted, though?  But then, didn’t Pinkie Pie say the same thing, really?  After Nyx’s memorial, Twilight had pressed Rarity into admitting to her the reason for the earth pony’s absence.  Pinkie didn’t believe Nyx was dead, so she felt it was wrong to attend her funeral.  Her emotions quickly became a swirling vortex of anger, sadness, and pain.  Voice dropping to a near mumble, she bowed her head and tried desperately not to break down right there.  “Nyx is dead, Zecora.  That’s what Celestia told me.  I even have some charred remains of the accident.”

“Enough!” yelled Zecora.

Twilight jumped back in surprise.  She’d never heard the zebra raise her voice like that before.  She’d also never heard her say anything that didn’t result in an annoyingly metred rhyme.

Zecora lowered her voice again, continuing.  “If Nyx is gone, I grieve for you, for I once lost a daughter, too.”  Well, Twilight thought, that was unexpected.  “If that is what Celestia said, then do not let it pain your head.  I don’t believe she’d lie to you, but that makes not her message true.  Is Nyx alive, as I suspect?  To find the truth, in here reflect.”  As she finished, she softly jabbed Twilight’s breast with a hoof, right at her heart.

Twilight nearly fainted.  Her wobbling legs forced her to lie down on Zecora’s floor, physically just paces away from the simmering broth in the cauldron, but mentally many leagues away from her body.  “Nyx...”  She couldn’t breathe.  Nyx was alive?!  How did Zecora know this?  Wait...  Was this even true?  She even admits to taking some drug that gave her... prescience!  Did that herb let her see the future?  If she saw Nyx alive in the future, then that must mean her filly’s still...  Her vision was dimming along the edges.  She willed herself to calm down with several deep breaths.  Okay, she thought, nopony can see into the future, zebra or otherwise.

Zecora was preparing something as Twilight thought.  She set a bowl of clear liquid at Twilight’s hooves and lowered herself, lying next to her purple friend, facing her.  “Twilight,” she said softly, “if clearer sight is what you wish, then drink the potion from this dish.”  She raised a hoof to Twilight’s chin gently, forcing the unicorn to meet her gaze.  “But this I warn, and do not jest, what things you see might haunt your rest.  Poor Nyx’s cry I think you hear.  This zebra brew will make things clear.”

Twilight stared at the foul-smelling concoction before her in the wooden bowl.  So this is what had inebriated Zecora that night?  It looked like a simple tea, steeped with an herb she’d never seen before.  It was clear, cool, and smelled awful.  She looked up and noticed that Zecora was staring at her with a horribly pitying look on her face.  She decided.  If there was any chance that Nyx was alive, then she needed to know.  Zecora had never steered her wrong before, and if she said this... stuff would make everything clear to her, then nothing could make her refuse the offer.  She carefully lifted the bowl to her lips with magic and poured the contents down her throat.

The room became wavy like the cobblestones of Ponyville Square on a hot summer day.  She was dizzy.  Really dizzy.  She felt immensely relieved that she had already been lying down when she drank the oddly flavourless brew.  From the right, she thought she heard her friend saying something to her.  A slight sensation of pressure on her neck and head felt like somepony was gently lowering them to the floor.  Had she passed out under the influence of whatever this was?  She huffed, but it didn’t feel like her lips actually moved to produce the sound.  So much for clear vision, she thought.  I can barely see the floor, I’m so dizzy.  Then she realized there was no floor.

There was no anything.  She floated in a silent abyss of the purest white, light coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once.  She cast no shadow, not because there was no surface to leave a shadow on, but because the light just... was.  Her dizziness slowly ebbed, and the light surrounding her faded into a dull, hazy grey.  She climbed to her hooves, briefly wondering how she could climb or stand on nothing.  The immediate area looked like she was inside one of Rainbow Dash’s rain clouds or stuck in a wall in Cloudsdale.

A quick mental inventory indicated that she was in complete control of her faculties.  In fact, she found all of her cognitive abilities to be greatly enhanced well beyond what she had ever before experienced.  She didn’t only see the grey around her.  She could feel the grey emptiness.  She was the grey emptiness.  Concentrating, she expanded her thoughts outward, beyond her limited visual range.  As her domain of thought grew, so did her understanding of everything that domain encompassed.  Space and time flowed around and through her, completely readable and no longer immutable.  A simple thought twisted the very fabric of the universe, and she marveled at the myriad effects of her interference rippling outward to reach every speck of dust in the cosmos.  It took a long time, millenia, aeons, to watch the wave finally crash against the universe’s distant shores.  That didn’t matter, though.  Time was just another variable, and she could manipulate variables.

She turned her attention to one particularly interesting speck very near to herself.  At least, very near to where (and when) she thought she had started.  It shone brightly, despite its absolute blackness.  It called to her, demanding her attention.  She torqued spacetime again, more deliberately this time.  The result was a severe shift of the ages.  Time whirled about her, millions of years entwining with one another to form strands she could manipulate.  She reached out with her mind and grabbed one of the threads.  Spacetime abruptly dropped its time component, swallowing itself into a blaze of plethora singularities.  Stretching the string of time, she slowed its flow, weaving it back into the tapestry which was the universe.  She could see, feel, hear every rotating quark of every nucleon of every atom.  It was very relaxing, despite the deluge of overabundant information.  She concentrated, collapsing wave functions and becoming the electrons, watching herself move with gleeful randomness.  The bright, dark speck called to her again.  It moved in gloriously methodical ways, deliberate, as if it was itself alive.  This speck proved more interesting than she initially suspected.  She focused more intently on it, becoming one with the speck but allowing it to act of its own accord.

Suddenly, she was no longer the universe.  The light around her had vanished, leaving her in a shining blackness, brilliantly dark.  She could feel her body again.  She stood on nothingness, just as before, but something was different.  She could still sense the flow of space and time around her, but she felt much more... mortal now.  The speck that was her shifted its weight and launched itself into the nothingness that surrounded her.  A wave of sheer terror washed over her from within the portion of the speck that still maintained its own will.  She-as-the-speck spread her wings and slowed her trajectory, coming to a stop.  She couldn’t tell if she had moved at all, given the complete void of light and sound around her, and...  Wait...  Wings?!  She flexed the unaccustomed appendages at her sides, and they felt as natural to her as flexing a leg or stretching her neck.  These were her wings.  Her horn was as it should be on her forehead, as well.  Her breath caught as she realized the implications of her new form.  She was experiencing what it was like to be an alicorn.

Another wave of intense fear mixed with cold anxiety rolled through her, frosting her bones.  She knew of only three alicorns in the universe.  There was no way she could possibly be experiencing this perversion of a lucid dream through the eyes of Celestia or Luna.  They would never allow such an invasion of their being, even if that invasion was unintentional.  That meant...

“Nyx!!”  Twilight’s eyes shot open to see a zebra and a yellow pegasus standing on a wooden wall in front of her, their eyes wide with worry.  It took a moment to realize that she was seeing the inside of Zecora’s hut sideways from her vantage point on the floor.

“Twilight,” Fluttershy asked timidly, “are you okay?”  She jumped backward and out of the way as Twilight rolled onto her belly and turned her head, loudly emptying the contents of her stomach onto the planks.

Twilight’s head pounded behind her temples.  It reminded her of the hangover she’d experienced after Applejack let her taste some of the Apple family’s special reserve cider last year, only tenfold worse.  She winced and groaned, her stomach threatening to add its small stockpile of bile to the mess.  Her transcendental vision was gone, and she was already beginning to lose the memory to a foggy haze.

Zecora looked at the unicorn knowingly.  “You gave your friend and me a fright.  I think you two should stay here tonight.”  She enlisted the aid of the pegasus to carry Twilight to her bed.  After the pair carefully laid Twilight’s limp but conscious form on the mattress, Zecora fetched a small bucket and placed it on the floor near Twilight’s head, just in case...

Twilight watched Fluttershy curl up on a rug near the bed while Zecora lowered herself onto a sofa after cleaning up Twilight’s mess.  She managed to fall asleep quickly before her stomach had another chance to rebel.

* * * * *

Dear Princess Celestia,

The past couple weeks since you visited Ponyville and gave me the worst news of my life have been difficult, to say the least.  At first, I was really angry at you.  Princess Luna and I were both terribly worried about Nyx after she disappeared, and you didn’t seem to want to help us at all.  I still don’t understand why you said to me what you did in your chambers that one night, but I hope it was because you already knew Nyx was dead and didn’t know how to tell me.  Honestly, your letter to us the following morning was equally awful.  For the sake of our friendship, whatever its condition at this point, I will assume this was the case.

I didn’t see you at Nyx’s memorial service last week, either.  I know Spike sent you a letter informing you of the time and place of the ceremony, so it didn’t help me emotionally to see you absent.  Really, princess, I don’t understand why you’ve been acting so strangely since Nyx disappeared.  I know you never really felt the same way about Nyx that I did, but what surprises me most was that you only tolerated her as my daughter.  But I’m willing to put that behind us, mostly because of what I learned yesterday.

I think Nyx might be alive!  Actually, I’m pretty sure she is.  I visited Zecora at her hut in the Everfree Forest, and she gave me some strange zebra concoction that... well... opened my mind, I guess.  When I was seeing things after drinking it, I thought I saw Nyx!  She was alive and healthy... and very frightened.

Please, princess, I know you have told me that I need to “forget Nyx,” and I’m going to assume you said that out of concern for my emotional well-being.  But if there is even a chance that Nyx is alive, then I beg you to start a search.  I don’t know where she is or whom she’s with, but I’m positive she’s okay, just... lost and scared.  As a mother, as your student, and as your friend I ask you, please help me find my daughter.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

My dearest Twilight,

I am truly sorry that I couldn’t attend Nyx’s memorial service.  I wanted to be there, but government business kept me in Canterlot.  Please know that I was there in spirit, if not in body.  My sorrow regarding Nyx stems from my pain at the loss you have suffered.  I have never been a mother myself, so I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to lose a foal.  As long as you need to grieve for her, I will be available to you.  I’m only an assistant librarian’s draconic breath away.

This news about Nyx’s survival worries me, however, Twilight.  You know as well as I do that life and death are far beyond the most powerful magic known to ponykind.  My RBI agents presented me with all the evidence needed to convince me that Nyx was the victim of her own magic in a terrible accident.  As much as I wish I could, nothing I can possibly do will bring Nyx back from the next life, if there is one.

I’m sorry, Twilight.  There will be no search for Nyx.  I cannot spend valuable resources looking for a pony that we both know is gone.  I do not know about this “strange zebra concoction,” but I am at least partially familiar with the mystical ways and beliefs of the zebra nations.  Their drugs and methods of magic are dangerous, at best.  Do not place much faith in their efficacy.  As a student of true pony magic, you should know better than most that zebra magic is uncertain and unpredictable.

This isn’t healthy for you, Twilight.  You must learn to accept that Nyx is gone, however painful it might be.  All ponies must eventually die, and unfortunately, some sooner than others.  This is one of the horrible realities of life that cannot be changed or prevented.  Please, Twilight, go on with your life.  Nyx is gone, but you have so much more life to live.  You have your library, you have Spike, you have your studies, and your other friends in Ponyville.  As fellow Elements of Harmony, they are some of the best friends a pony could have.  You need to learn to let go and cherish what you have, my beloved student.  I hate to say it again, but you need to move on past Nyx.  You will always have the memories of your time with your daughter, however brief it was, however tragically it ended.

For now, for the sake of your own recovery, I must insist that you remain in Ponyville for a while.  Try to get back into the routine of life as Ponyville’s librarian.  I’m releasing your from your studies on magic and friendship for the time being.  Although, I’m certain you may learn a few things about the latter given these recent events.  If you need anything, even if just a shoulder to cry on, you know how to reach me.

Your friend always,

Celestia

Twilight growled under her breath.  She crumpled the parchment into a ball with her magic and tossed it into the corner of her study.  She looked down at the table she had dragged into the room weeks earlier.  The surface was still littered with old parchments and books, lingering evidence of the since-abandoned research into her daughter’s disappearance.

Spike wandered into the room.  “Twilight?” he asked.  “Is everything all right?”

The mare huffed.  “See for yourself.”  She pointed with a hoof to the wad of parchment in the corner.

Spike shifted his gaze in the direction indicated.  “Oh, you read it, then.”  He sauntered casually to the ball and slowly unravelled it, returning to the table and pressing it back into a flat sheet.

“Yeah,” Twilight said, an irritated snap in her voice.  She looked at the baby dragon.  “Why?  Did you already read it, too?”

Spike blushed and looked down at his feet, his hands clasped behind his back as he scuffed one of his feet along the floor.  “Um... yeah.”  He looked up at Twilight, explaining, “But you know how it is!  I burp it up, and you weren’t there, so I just... you know...”

Twilight rolled her eyes, frowning.  She really couldn’t blame her assistant.  His curiosity was something she loved about him, even if it did occasionally get him into a bit of trouble.  “I suppose.”  She looked back to the table, her mind fuzzy and her emotions raw.  How could Celestia so easily dismiss what she experienced?  Did she truly believe that Nyx was still dead, even though Zecora’s drug let her see... no... be her filly?

“I agree with her, you know,” Spike said flatly.  He had turned to face her.  “She’s right.”

Twilight looked at the dragon, astounded.  Of all the ponies... er... dragons in Equestria, she thought Spike would be the one squarely on her side of the issue.  He was Nyx’s brother!  He often liked to consider himself her uncle!  How could he dismiss the possibility of her survival so flippantly?

Spike sighed, continued.  “Twilight,” he said, a note of sadness creeping into his tone, “I miss Nyx, too... a lot.”  Their eyes met.  He didn’t shy away this time.  “But she’s gone.  You saw it yourself, her backpack, her glasses... what was left of them...”

“I know.  I know!” Twilight snapped, then regretted it.  Spike didn’t deserve her ire, really.  He was doing exactly what he’d witnessed her doing herself ever since he was hatched.  He was using the data available to him to come to a logical conclusion.  Rationally, he was right.  Celestia was right.  “I just... I...” she stammered, tears welling in her eyes, a very familiar feeling over the past several weeks.  “I just don’t want to believe she’s dead, Spike.  She was everything to me.  Everything,” she placed an extra emphasis on that last word, causing the baby dragon to flinch.

“Everything, Twilight?” Spike said, his voice betraying his hurt feelings.  “What about your library?  What about your friends?”  He took a tentative step toward her, placing a clawed hand on her shoulder.  “What about me, Twilight?  Don’t I matter?”  After receiving no answer from the purple mare for several seconds, he sighed and turned to leave the room.

“Wait,” Twilight called just as Spike reached the door.  “Of course you matter, Spike.  I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean that.”  Spike seemed to brighten a little at this confession.  She continued, “But, what about Zecora’s warnings?  And my... my vision?  And what Pinkie Pie said?”

Spike raised an eyebrow, facing her again.  “Really?  You’re going to listen to Pinkie Sense?”

Twilight shrugged.  “Well, as much as I hate to admit it, it’s never been wrong before.  But it agrees with everything else I’ve learned in the past two weeks!”

“Well, I kinda agree with Celestia about the zebra magic potion stuff.  You saw what it did to Zecora that night, and she’s probably used to using that stuff.  And from what you told me about when you took it, it sounds like it just makes you see things.  I mean, things that aren’t real.”

“But... but...”  Twilight desperately searched for a supporting argument, anything that could be used to convince her assistant, and herself, that what she felt to be true actually was.  “But I saw her!  I felt her!  She was there.  I just don’t know where ‘there’ is.”  She thought for a moment.

Spike’s expression changed as if he could see the gears turning in Twilight’s mind.  The wrong gears.  “No, Twilight,” he said sternly.  “Just no.  Celestia told you to stay here in Ponyville and get back into the swing of things.”

The unicorn shook her head.  “No, Spike.  I’m going to find her, with or without Celestia’s help.”

“Twilight, please don’t make me--”

“Spike, take a letter.”  Twilight’s tone brooked no possibility of dissuasion.

“Oh no...”  Spike smacked his forehead on the door frame.  A quill and parchment floated to him from the table.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I’m sorry, Princess.  I really am.  But I can’t just “forget Nyx” and move on when there is a chance that she is still alive.  She needs her mother as much as her mother needs her.  She’s my daughter, but she’s also your subject.  A scared, lost, filly subject.  I honestly don’t know how you can ignore that.

I truly hoped I would never have to disobey one of your instructions, but under the circumstances, I feel I have no other choice.  Princess, as of today, I’m hereby discontinuing our student and teacher relationship.  Please forgive me, but I need to do what is best for my daughter, even if you don’t have faith in my motives.  My role as your student would only get in the way of this.

I hope that we can remain friends, even if I’m not your personal protégé.  If not, I understand.  I don’t know when or if I’ll be able to write to you again, but when I return, I want to make things between us better again.  Farewell, Princess.

Sincerely yours,

Twilight Sparkle

Spike sighed as he scribbled the last of Twilight’s words onto the parchment.  “‘Sincerely yours?’  Really?”

Twilight simply nodded at him.  “Send it, Spike.”

“Twilight, are you sure about this?  I mean, this is going to hurt Celestia, you know.  Don’t you care about how this will make her feel?”

The unicorn steeled her gaze.  “Send it, Spike,” she reiterated slowly, the unmistakable undertone of determined command in her voice.

“But...”  Spike was panicking.  “Twilight, please!  Think about what you’re doing!”

“Spike!” Twilight yelled, her directive communicated in no uncertain terms.

Spike maintained his pleading stare at his friend for several seconds before looking down at the scroll in his hand.  He sighed.  “Okay, Twilight.  You’re the boss,” he said sadly.  “But I feel awful for doing this.  It’s almost like I’m losing two family members.”  He briefly glanced at her before breathing on the scroll.  Its ashes gracefully danced in the air currents out the window, delivering itself directly to the princess.

* * * * *

“Hi, Mrs Pots!” Twilight said a little too gleefully to Ponyville’s smallest grocer.  Twilight preferred Pots & Lots General Store to the other food distributors in Ponyville.  It had more of a personal, homey feel to it, she thought.  That, and her vegetables were the freshest she had ever found.  It was a farther walk from the library that most of the other stores in town, but for the quality of food and service she was accustomed to receiving there, the extra ten minutes per round-trip was hardly too much to sacrifice.

Mrs Pots smiled at her customer.  “Well, Twilight!  I haven’t seen you in weeks, dear.  Are you feeling better?  Spike mentioned you were awfully sick.”  She backed away from the counter she stood behind to prepare a bag full of Twilight’s usual purchases.

“Yes, thanks,” Twilight answered, proceeding to a nearby display filled with water bottles.  She raised one of the bottles with her magic and looked at it carefully, nearly dropping it in surprise when she discovered the bottle to be pliable in her grasp.  “What is this?”  She grimaced at the bottle and held it at a distance like she was studying a particularly disgusting insect.

Mrs Pots snorted.  “Why, ipf wa’er, ‘ear, o’ courff.”  She paused briefly to place the bunch of carrots in her mouth into the bag.  “Sorry,” she blushed, “It’s water.  But I think you’re probably talking about the bottle?”

Twilight replaced the bottle on the display carefully, turning toward the cyan earth pony.  “Yeah.  It’s... soft.  That’s a new kind of glass I haven’t seen before.”

The grocer laughed.  “Oh, that’s not glass, dear!  It’s this new stuff from Fillydelphia.  They call it ‘plaster.’  Er... no, wait, that’s not it.”  She thought for a moment while Twilight lifted another of the bottles.  “Plas-tick!  Yes, that’s it.  It’s lighter than glass and it doesn’t break.”

“Ooh,” Twilight purred as she looked more closely at the object, “sounds pretty high-tech.  Leave it to the industry in Fillydelphia to come up with something like this.  Very clever!”  She thought for a moment, levitating several bottles from the display to Mrs Pots.  “Is it safe to travel with?”

“Oh, yes.  That’s what I like most about it!” the mare answered excitedly.  “It can take quite a punishment in a saddlebag before you even have to worry about it leaking.  Watch this!”

Before Twilight could stop her, Mrs Pots jabbed a hoof at one of the bottles on the counter in front of her, knocking it to the floor.  Twilight gasped and cringed, waiting for the inevitable moment when it would shatter, leaving water and shards all around to create hazards.  When the moment never arrived, she opened her eyes tentatively, looking at the spot where the bottle landed.

“See?  Isn’t that just amazing?” the grocer asked, obviously proud of her new wares.  The bottle had bounced a couple times, coming to rest a little less than a metre from where it should have shattered.

“Ah don’ know about all that fancy, new stuff,” a familiar voice said from the entrance behind Twilight.  “Ah think Ah’ll stick with mah oak barrels fer mah cider, thanks.”  Applejack raised an eyebrow suspiciously at the container on the floor.

“Well, hello, dear!” Mrs Pots called in welcome to her new customer.  “I was just telling Twilight here about this new ‘plas-tick’ from Fillydelphia.”  She scratched the back of her head with a hoof.  “I don’t think they have them big enough for your cider, though, dear.  I’ve only seen them for water bottles like these.”  She indicated toward the display with a nod.

“I think they’re quite smart,” Twilight interjected.  “I’ll take these four bottles.”  She looked at the growing sack at the grocer’s hooves.  “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs Pots.  I’m not getting my usual order today.  I suppose I should have told you that.”

Mrs Pots stopped and looked at Twilight, a small bag of radishes hanging from her teeth.  She placed them on the counter beside the water.  “Oh?  But you haven’t changed your order in months.”  Her smile faded to an expression of worry.  “Are you sure you’re feeling all right, dear?  You were sick for very long time, you know.”

Twilight returned her worry with a smile.  “No, no, that’s not it.  I’m going to have to pack light for a trip.  I want everything to fit into a couple large saddlebags.”

“Ah,” Mrs Pots responded, clearly confused by the unicorn’s request.  Twilight was a creature of habit, and most ponies around town had learned to recognize this.

“Woah, hold on there, partner!” Applejack said, turning her attention to her friend.  “What’re ya talkin’ about, goin’ on ‘ah trip?’”

Twilight helped Mrs Pots sort out the things she needed and didn’t need, repacking the bag appropriately.  “I’m going to find Nyx, Applejack.”

Applejack stepped back, stunned.  “Tw-Twilight...” her face betrayed sadness and worry.  “Hon, ya know ya ain’t gonna find ‘er.”  She paused, waiting for a reaction from the unicorn.  Upon receiving none, she continued.  “Twilight, sugarcube, Nyx is...”  She moved beside her friend, putting a comforting hoof around her shoulders.  “Nyx is gone.  There ain’t nothin’ anypony can do about it.”

Twilight stopped and looked at the orange earth pony.  She said nothing, her face a blank, emotionless slate.

“Ya need ta move on, Twi,” Applejack said softly, her voice dripping concern.  Mrs Pots had also stopped, watching the pair curiously.  “Ah don’t wanna see ya throw away all th’ good things ya have here in Ponyville just because ya can’t let go.  Ya got Spike and yer library.  They both need ya.  Ah need ya, too, sugarcube!  D’ya remember how disorganized ah was at the farm b’fore ya got here?  All of us need ya here, Twilight.”

Twilight responded without emotion, but her tone was clear to both mares listening.  “I’m going to find my daughter.”  She turned and placed a small purse of bits on the counter, far more than enough to cover the items in her bag.

Mrs Pots looked confused.  “What’s all this for, dear?  You don’t owe me nearly this much.”

“This should be enough to cover a few months of necessities for Spike and the library,” she explained.  “I should be back by then to cover what extra I owe.”

Applejack nodded to the grocer, silently communicating to just take the bits for the time being.  “A few months?  Twilight, this has gone far enough.  Ya need ta talk ta somepony about this.”  She gently nudged her friend out the door, mouthing a silent apology to the proprietor as Twilight magicked the supplies onto her back.

The farmer had spent over an hour trying to dissuade her from going on what she called a “wild pegasus chase.”  Finally giving up, Applejack had returned to her farm in defeat, but only after seeing Twilight back to the library, where Spike was apparently waiting for her.

The remainder of the day had been equally disquieting to Twilight.  An early afternoon stroll to the lake just outside of town for a lunchtime read was interrupted by a blue pegasus with rainbow mane.  It took a lot of cajoling and effort to finally coerce Rainbow Dash into staying quiet as the librarian attempted to read, but her boisterous friend never left her sight the whole while.

Another stroll later in the afternoon through the outskirts of town was accompanied by a series of uninvited ponies: Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie.  The only one of her friends who didn’t seem to be keeping a particularly close eye on her was Pinkie, who was with her only long enough to be distracted by yet another “cutest foal in Ponyville.”  After her conversation with Applejack that morning, she didn’t think it necessary or wise to mention her trip to anypony else.  Despite her best efforts to find some time to herself, at least one of her friends was always within sight or within earshot.  Finally, she returned to the library, hoping to get at least a few minutes alone upstairs.

“Heya, Twilight!” Spike greeted her enthusiastically as she crossed the threshold.  “What’cha been up to all afternoon?”  He backed up to allow the mare an unobstructed path to the stairs as she grumbled something under her breath.  Her expression was a ball of razor blades, and Spike took this as a cue to let her be for a while.

Spike knocked on her door a few hours later, the sun just beginning to set out Twilight’s bedroom window.  “Twilight?” he said, opening the door and walking to the bedside where Twilight napped.  She stirred, looking at him blankly.  “Twilight, it’s almost dinner time.  You hungry?”

Twilight sat up, blinking the sleep from her eyes and looking out the window at the sun slowly disappearing into the horizon.  She sighed.  She hadn’t meant to sleep that long.  How long had she been out, three hours?  Four?  Spike had probably already closed the library for the day.  She answered her assistant groggily.  “Yeah, a little.”

“Great!” Spike said, smiling.  “Want to come down and help make it?”

“Sure.”  Twilight climbed off her bed and stretched, several vertebrae cracking loudly.  “Spike,” she asked, attempting to sound as nonchalant as possible, “why has everypony been following me around today?”

Spike stopped cold, a bead of sweat appearing on his forehead.  “Uh...  Following?”  He swallowed, keeping his head turned toward the door and away from Twilight’s line of sight.  “Has somepony been following you?”

“Spike, spill it,” said Twilight.  She knew he was hiding something.  In the years they’d spent together, they each had learned the idiosyncrasies of the other beyond normal friendship standards.

The dragon sighed and turned to face the unicorn.  “We were told to,” he finally admitted.

“What?”  Irritation began to burn in the back of Twilight’s head.

“After you had me send that letter to Celestia yesterday, she sent a reply... to me.”

“Wha - to you?”

Spike looked at the floor, ashamed at having circumvented his friend’s standard protocol.  “Yeah.  She told me that she wanted all of us to keep an eye on you, to keep you from leaving Ponyville.  I told them this morning after you left for the store.”  He looked back up at her pleadingly.  “I think she’s really worried about you, Twilight!  We all are.”

Twilight huffed.  I should have expected this, she thought.  Why is she so intent on stopping me, though?  Why should she care if Ponyville misses their librarian for a while?  Spike can easily manage things around here with a little help from Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie.  And since I introduced Rainbow to that Daring Do series, she’s been in here half the time anyway.

She shook the thoughts from her head, deciding to play along with the dragon for now.  “Maybe you’re right, Spike,” she said.  “I guess I just don’t want to admit that she’s gone.”  She donned her best imitation of sadness, hoping her assistant didn’t immediately see through the ruse.

Spike walked to her and wrapped his arms around her neck.  He sighed a breath of relief.  “It’s okay, Twi.  Do you want to talk about it?  I’m sure the princess didn’t really take your last letter to her too seriously.  You could write another letter and be her student again in two seconds flat!”

Twilight smiled inwardly while maintaining her miserable façade and returning the dragon’s hug.  “Let’s eat.  We can talk about it tomorrow.”

* * * * *

The breaded strips sizzled loudly as Twilight used her magic to drop them into the pot of steaming oil.  Spike stood on a nearby stool, allowing him to reach the kitchen counter and chop some fresh vegetables purchased that morning from Mrs Pots.  He hummed happily to himself, a tune with which Twilight wasn’t familiar.

The dragon finished his work on the carrots and added them to a nearby pot of boiling water.  “You know, Twilight,” he said casually, turning to concentrate on a few stalks of celery, “it’s nice to do this again.  We haven’t made dinner together since...”  He cringed, presumably smacking himself mentally for not thinking ahead to the conclusion of that thought.  He finished, though, a guilty look on his face.  “... since Nyx died.”

Twilight closed her eyes and sighed.  Did Spike really believe Nyx was dead?  From his admission earlier that evening, it sounded like all of her friends, including Celestia did.  Luna’s been pretty quiet about it, too, she thought.  She wasn’t at the memorial service, either.  She dismissed this with the same explanation that Pinkie had used to excuse herself from attending.  Luna must believe Nyx is still alive, too.

Her thoughts returned to the evidence that Celestia had presented to her those weeks ago.  The princess had seemed legitimately upset about Nyx’s purported demise when she gave Twilight the backpack and glasses.  The only remaining part of her filly’s body was the single, black feather.  Celestia claimed that the magic had vapourized the rest.  She shook her head, trying to clear her mind before it could become a jumbled cacophony of contradictory arguments.  What she knew from Zecora, Luna, Celestia, and Pinkie, it just didn’t make sense when all taken as valid.  The only logical conclusion she could make was that some or all of the facts she knew were wrong, and the permutations involving these facts created a multitude of possibilities.  The past few days had seen Twilight’s mindset turn toward the least painful of those possibilities: Nyx was alive and missing.  A living, missing filly had to be somewhere.  Somewhere was a place that could be found.  She was determined to find it.

“Soup’s almost ready,” Spike said, forcing Twilight’s attention back to reality.  “How’re the hay fries coming along?”

Twilight leaned over the roiling pot of oil.  The fries smelled sinfully delicious for some reason.  “They’re done.  Let me just get us the drinks,” she replied.  She wandered over to a nearby cupboard, pulling two glasses down with her telekinesis.  She checked behind her, shifting her position slightly to ensure her assistant couldn’t see the containers.  Spike wasn’t paying any attention to her, instead balancing two bowls of vegetable soup in his paws and a plate of hay fries on his head as he walked carefully to their small kitchen table.

She looked into the cupboard again, carefully moving a third glass aside to reveal a small vial of clear, sandy-coloured liquid.  She levitated the vial to her, checking behind her again to ensure Spike’s attention was elsewhere.  A pang of guilt flashed through her.  What am I doing? she thought.  But... do I really have a choice?  She took a moment to cement her resolve before uncorking the vial and putting two drops of the liquid into one of the glasses.  Pinkie Pie was practically a pharmacy of joke and prank aides, and she wouldn’t have provided her friend with something dangerous, right?  When Twilight had mentioned to her that she intended to sneak out of town, Pinkie had tossed her the vial, winking and grinning deviously.

The sound of a chair scraping across the wooden floor told Twilight that the food was on the table waiting for them.  She filled both glasses with some of Applejack’s latest batch of “soft” cider and turned in time to see the Spike hopping onto his chair, ready to eat.

Spike’s eyes widened when he saw the drinks.  “Cider!  What’s the occasion?”  He licked his lips in anticipation.

“Just my way of saying thanks,” Twilight lied.  “You’ve taken on a lot of responsibility around here for the past several weeks.”  Another pang of guilt.  Truthfully, she admitted to herself, it’s because you would have noticed the flavour of Pinkie’s potion in your water.  “Like I told you,” she said, rubbing the top of the dragon’s head with her hoof, “you’re the best assistant a pony could have.”

“Awwa,” Spike protested, “don’t start getting all mushy on me.”

Twilight couldn’t stifle a giggle.  Even alone with her, his experience with his dragon kin a few years earlier during the Great Dragon Migration had made him feel soft, or so he claimed.  Deep down, Twilight knew, he was still the same Spike she’d grown to know and love.  She lowered the glasses onto the table with her magic and took her place across from Spike.  She reached out to take a few of the hay fries when she noticed her assistant reaching first for his sweet drink.  “Spike!” she yipped nervously, “Wait!  Don’t drink that yet.”  The hay fry she had levitated halfway to her mouth dropped onto the table in front of her plate, the magical haze evaporating with her concentration.

Spike stopped, two claws already on the side of the glass.  He raised an eyebrow, looking at her curiously.  “Huh?”

Twilight’s thoughts raced.  I don’t know if he should drink that on an empty stomach!  Pinkie never mentioned anything about that.  What to tell him, what to tell him?  Think, Twilight!  Think think think think think!

The dragon looked utterly confused as Twilight’s face slowly betrayed her mild episode of insanity.  “Uh, Twilight?” he said, reaching out cautiously for her nearest forehoof on the table.  “Are you all right?  You look like... you’re having a seizure or something.”

Twilight calmed herself and shook her head furiously for a second.  She managed to regain her composure before she answered him.  “Yes.  Yes, Spike, I’m fine.  Thanks.”  She quickly retrieved her fallen hay fry and jammed it into her mouth to prevent herself from speaking.

Spike looked at her incredulously.  “Uh huh...”  He sat back in his chair again.  “You just let me know the next time you do that.  Warn me or something.”  A spoonful of soup rendered him similarly speechless temporarily.

Twilight swallowed the fry pulp in her mouth.  She’d chewed it a bit too much in her need to quiet herself.  “No, it’s just that... um...”  She still didn’t have a good excuse for him.  “It’s part of Applejack’s special blend of cider apples!”  Ooh, I’m good.  That’ll work... I hope.  “She said it tastes simply amazing with... uh...”  She looked at the items on the table, trying to choose one at random.  “... with hay fries!  So eat some of those first.”  Sweat began to bead on her forehead while she smiled at the dragon nervously.

Spike froze, another spoonful of soup suspended in his claw halfway to his mouth.  He glanced down at the fries, looked back to the strangely acting mare.  “Are you sure you’re all right?”  He looked out the window toward the lights of Ponyville.  “Maybe I should get a doctor.”  His spoon replaced into the bowl before him, Spike hopped off his chair and walked slowly around the table to Twilight’s side, approaching her as if she would leap at him.  “Has...” he paused, seemingly unsure of what to say.  “Has Luna been messing with your dreams again?”

Oh, Celestia’s morning sun!  I’m going to blow it before dinner’s even over.  Twilight sighed, calming her nerves once again.  “I’m fine, Spike.  Let’s just enjoy eating together again.”  She added, an attempt to appease the worried dragon, “Maybe we can go see someone after we’re done.”

Spike looked at her strangely, but returned to his seat.  He watched her intently as he finished his bowl of soup and started on a pile of hay fries.

Twilight slowly ate her share of the meal, acutely aware of the concerned expressions on Spike’s face as he watched her.  Before long, she was watching him reach again for the cider.  She nodded to him, blushing, when he looked to her for unneeded permission.

He emptied the glass in three large gulps.  “Wow!” he said after belching loudly.  “That really was delicious!”

Twilight blanched.  She hadn’t expected him to drink it all so quickly.  Gasping, she leaped from her chair to Spike’s side as he abruptly fell face first into his empty soup bowl.  Using a hoof, she gently sat him upright again, checking him over quickly to ensure he didn’t cut or bruise himself on the dish.

Spike’s eyes opened to narrow slivers, his pupils unfocused and drifting in dizzy directions.  “Twi?  Wha... what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry Spike,” Twilight apologised to her friend.  “This was the only way.  I’m going to find Nyx, and I can’t have anypony stopping me from leaving town.”  She hugged him, a tear threatening to escape from her eye.  “I’m sorry, Spike,” she repeated.

He had lost the ability to protest physically, and he was quickly losing his capacity for coherence.  “Nyx...  Twilight... gone,” Spike muttered, drifting in and out of consciousness.  “No...  Can’t go...”  He trailed off, his little body going limp, and the dragon snored quietly.

Twilight sighed, realizing this was these were the last words she’d hear her friend speak until she was able to return... whenever that would be.  She lifted him from the chair in a haze of telekinesis, levitating his sleeping form behind her as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom.  Once there, she settled Spike into his basket at the end of her bed, pulling his blankets over him.

Spike smiled in his sleep as he felt the warmth of the blankets, murmuring something inaudible about “mommy.”  He turned over onto his side, pulling the blanket up close to his head and drifting back into a deep slumber.

Twilight turned toward her bed.  She hadn’t spent the entire afternoon napping, as she had led her assistant to believe.  Carefully, she pulled out two saddlebags from underneath, each heavily loaded with the necessities for a long journey.  On top of one of the bags was a checklist, penned her own hoofwriting.  She looked at the checklist containing the things she thought she’d need.  It sent a wave of sadness through her as she checked off each item on the list, checking to ensure they were secure in the saddlebags.  Usually, it was Spike who wrote out each checklist and Twilight would work with him to make certain each item was properly met.  She sighed as she placed the final check in a box next to the bottom item on the parchment.  There were a lot of changes she’d have to get used to over the next several weeks.

Checking on her friend one last time, she leaned over and gently kissed his forehead, her maternal instincts kicking in, neglected since her daughter disappeared.  A tear fell from her eye, leaving a spot of moisture on the dragon’s blanket.  “Please forgive me, Spike.  I’ll... I’ll be back as soon as I can.”  She watched him sleep peacefully for a few seconds before adding, “with Nyx.  Our family will be whole again, you’ll see.”  Twilight turned away from him.  She couldn’t look at the result of her betrayal any longer, the voice in her had warning that any longer delay would jeopardize her resolve to leave.

“Goodbye, Spike.”  She closed the bedroom door behind her and cried quietly as she descended the stairs to the library’s main room.  She stopped in the centre of the library, turning in a slow circle to gaze upon each familiar nook and cranny of her home for the last in possibly a long time.  She stopped, looking into the kitchen.  She and Spike had made so many good memories in that room.  Laughter, tears, joy, sadness, they’d all been expressed in there during their times together.  In the past two years, Nyx had been an integral part of those expressions.  It seemed empty without her there.  If any room in the entire tree house had been a family room, the kitchen had proved to be it.  Again, she was forced to turn away before emotion forced a deviation in her plan.

The front door opened silently, any sound from the hinges muffled by a lavender bubble of magic from Twilight’s horn.  She stepped out into the night air, noticing how the heat of the day had not dissipated much in the hours since sunset.  Spike wasn’t the only one with an eye on her, obligated by royal decree to keep her in Ponyville.  From the doormat, she looked around her, searching for any ponies that might be watching.  Am I just being paranoid? she thought.  I know that my friends were told by Celestia to keep me nearby, but I doubt anypony else would know about that.

Twilight quickly, and with as much stealth as she could manage, vacated the premises.  She stopped short just outside the gate to the library’s front yard when the sound of hoofsteps and quiet voices intercepted her ears.  Frozen in-place, hoping it would be harder to see a static object in the dark, Twilight turned her head toward the centre of Ponyville.  There, in the town square walked two of Luna’s Night Guard, apparently on patrol.  What they were doing on patrol in Ponyville was beyond her.  Luna had never needed to send her guard there before, except for that plain-clothes one, and he disappeared the same afternoon Nyx did.

The unicorn crouched down as low to the grass as she could, creeping across the road to a stand of trees on the other side.  She reached it without being detected and dove headfirst into a thicket of bushes nearby.  The dive was not as quiet as she expected.  She flinched after yelping in pain.  The two guards looked in her direction, their conversation interrupted.  Slowly, they made their way out of the square along the road and toward the library.

Twilight felt something wet on her leg.  She brushed it off, assuming it to be moisture from the leaves around her.  When the liquid matted the hair on her leg, quickly drying and making it sticky, she looked down.  Celestia’s horn! she cursed under her breath.  On her flank beneath her cutie mark was a short gash, cut by one of the brambles in the bush during her acrobatics.  It was shallow, but was bleeding profusely.  Great.  I’m not more than twenty metres from home, and I’ve already hurt myself.

The two guards stopped in front of the bushes.  Twilight froze, holding her breath.  If she stayed there long, maybe they’d go away.  But she had to do something about this cut.  An infection was not the way she wanted to start this trek.  The guards maintained their position in front of Twilight, facing away from her.  The hidden pony covered her horn with her hooves in an attempt to prevent any magical light from escaping and revealing her position.  She was only partially successful in blocking the glow as she concentrated on a simple spell which would clean and close the cut.  Within a minute, her wound was sealed, although it stung more than she was willing to admit.  Her lungs rebelled, and she suddenly released the breath she had been holding for at least the past minute.

The guards looked at each other.  “Miss Sparkle,” one of them said, his voice low, preventing it from carrying more than a few metres, “we know you’re in there.”

Twilight poked her head out of the bushes and grinned at them sheepishly.  “Ha ha!” she giggled nervously.  “You caught me.  I guess I’ll just go back to the library now...”  She started to extricate herself from the foliage.

“There’s no need, Miss Sparkle,” the other guard stated flatly.  Both of them still looked away from Twilight and scanned the surroundings constantly, on guard for something... or somepony.  “We’re here to ensure you don’t get caught.”

Luna didn’t send these ponies here to stop me, Twilight realized.  She sent them here to help me.  The leaves and branches around her rustled loudly as she untangled herself from them.  Her efforts were met by a hoof of the first guard, roughly pushing her back into the bush.

“Stay there and stay quiet,” he whispered to her roughly.  The other guard shifted his position to stand alongside his comrade, effectively blocking the bush from the view of any passers-by on the road.  Two sets of hoofsteps approached from the direction opposite downtown Ponyville.

Through the branches and leaves surrounding her, Twilight recognized the golden armour of Celestia’s Royal Guard even from this distance.  The two new guards, presumably unfriendly, were cantering toward the three ponies.  She held as still as she could, making no sounds whatsoever.  The royal guards and night guards eventually stood only a few metres apart in front of Twilight’s hiding place.

“Captain,” one of the royal guard said, addressing the first night guard.  “We were unaware that Princess Luna had deployed the Night Guard to Ponyville.”  His demeanour seemed friendly enough, thought Twilight, but she really didn’t want to see where that friendship went if she exposed herself.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” the night guard responded.  “With the theft of the Elements, the princess thought it wise to increase surveillance in the area.”

The royal guard nodded his agreement.  “We have been tasked with keeping a Twilight Sparkle from leaving town,” the royal guard said.  “The regional commodore said that we are to confine her to the library if she attempts to leave.”

The night guards looked at each other.  That seems a little extreme, Twilight thought.  The second night guard looked back to the lieutenant.  “We were given the same orders,” he lied, convincingly.  “It would be to our mutual advantage if we share information.  We’ll let you know if we see anything.”  To Twilight’s immense relief, the royal guards nodded their approval and moved onward toward the town square.

The second night guard spoke, watching the royal guards disappear around a corner in the distance.  “Miss Sparkle,” he said, “those are the only two royal guards in Ponyville until the next shift arrives in an hour.  I suggest you hurry, if you are planning to leave tonight.  Head out of town to your left on this road.  We’ll... occupy those two.”  Both guards trotted off in the direction of the royal guards, leaving Twilight alone in her bush.

She climbed out, stopping briefly to shake loose the burrs from her coat and the leaves and twigs from her mane and tail.  She watched as the guards rounded the same corner as their counterparts, then turned and cantered toward the town line to her left.  Her flank ached, but at least the stinging was gone.  The spell she had learned after Nyx scraped her muzzle a year ago in a flying accident assisted in healing, but it did nothing to anaesthetize the wound.  It would heal quickly, the pain being a minor inconvenience for only a day or two.

An hour later, as the first of the late night shift of the Royal Guard rolled into Ponyville, Twilight was well outside the town limits, hidden behind the hills of the surrounding area.  She felt a strange mixture of feelings that she hadn’t experienced since she moved to Ponyville those years ago.  Anxiety, uncertainty, determination, excitement.  They were all present in the forefront of her mind as she cantered along the roughening path toward the Everfree Forest.  Finally, in the wake of everything that had happened to her in the past four weeks, despite the despair, the depression, the shock, the loss, the sadness, the search for the truth about her daughter had begun.  She wasn’t about to let anything stop her now.