Mare, I hate Drizzle. She still hasn’t quit the team. Too stupid to know better. Maybe if I scratch up her locker again she’ll get the picture. Got a raise today; government mandated, how cool is that? More money to play around with next time I’m in Las Pegasus. Maybe I’ll go and kick my dad’s face in. He’d deserve it.
Oh speaking of money, I think the squirt is actually gonna do it. So awesome! She thinks I’m hot stuff, so all I had to do was lay it on thick, and she was real easy to warm up to the idea. I should work with foals more often; they’ll believe anything you say. The best part is if she gets caught, it’s all on her! I never told her to do it, oh no no officer, she’s just trying to weasel out of juvie.
The day before Discord came...
Rainbow Dash turned to the previous page of her diary. Dated just a few days prior, it didn’t say much.
I am so sick of work. They’re all a bunch of losers, with their heads up their butts. And boy are those butts clenched tightly. Why can’t I just get money without working? Maybe I’ll show up tomorrow. Heh... maybe.
Rainbow Dash was sitting up in her cloud house, reading her own diary, but it was some other pony’s mouthwriting in it! Some other pony’s writing entirely! She didn’t buy this diary and use it half completed. She wasn’t reading somepony else’s diary, about somepony else’s life on accident. No, the worst thing is Rainbow Dash vaguely remembered these entries, except that she wrote them totally different, and they didn’t happen this way! Did Discord mess up her diary? Or, did...
Rainbow Dash flipped back until she found another significant entry, some time last year when she would have lost the iron pony competition. But... but like... how would evil her react to that?
Dear diary, I hate everypony. The end. I can’t believe that stupid mudsucker farm pony found out I was cheating! She wants money to keep quiet, and I’m like, it’s just a stupid... it’s not even a competition! But of course, sending everypony running into Froggy Bottom Bog would get me in a lot of trouble, even if there wasn’t anything technically illegal about planting fake signs. Actually, since it’s a seasonal function does that make it illegal to disrupt? Well not like I’m gonna tell that no good, scheming dirt butt that, or AJ’ll probably want double. With that much gone, I couldn’t even afford to go to a dress club much less
Rainbow Dash slammed the diary shut. S-she never went to a... a dress club. She knew what ponies did there, so why would she ever... but how did she know that? Obviously, because her father dragged her out to one, and she was too young to even know what was going on. But later she figured it out, when she... um...
Rainbow Dash honestly couldn’t remember when she’d first learned about what happened at dress clubs.
Her first thought was to bring this to Twilight. She’d know what to do. But... but the last time, Twilight had just been so evasive... ridiculously evasive. Twilight wasn’t even... really meeting with them anymore. The poor librarian had some kind of stress collapse thing, and actually spent time in the hospital the other day. And that was the last time Dash really touched bases with her? What the heck, Twilight’s her friend!
Isn’t she?
So in light of Twilight’s... thing, Rainbow Dash instead took her diary to her impromptu “What the Holy Hay is Going on Club,” which Twilight was totally invited to, but she always found some excuse not to attend. But at least the other 5 were aware of the weirdness that was going on. Rainbow... felt really bad about what was written in here, not just bad, but also scared. She didn’t want this diary to fall into the wrong saddlebags, so flying into Rarity’s boutique that afternoon, this is what she said to her friends,
“Okay... I think I know why ponies are acting so weird around us, but I really don’t know if you want to know. I found out, and I... I really don’t want to know. So uh... yeah,” she slapped her diary down on the table they sat at, rattling the teacups.
Smooth as silk.
The other 5 looked at the diary like it was a rattlesnake. “Is that... your private diary?” Rarity asked bemusedly. “I wasn’t even aware you had one.”
“Well, I do,” Rainbow said defensively, “Or, I did. I mean, I do. It’s... confusing. Look, I could just tell you all what I think, but this is the only actual evidence I have. I–I probably shouldn’t show you it. There’s a lot of stuff in here that could make me go to jail, like, for real jail. I uh... but I really need to show it to you, and I think you’re my friends, so I can trust you with it.”
At least they weren’t staring at the book anymore. “Well, ah for one am honored,” Applejack said cautiously, “You might be in a heap of trouble, but that you’d trust me with it is something I can appreciate. I ain’t followin’ you to jail though. Ah got a family to think about.”
I do too, thought Rainbow, thinking about Scootaloo, who’d be getting out of school soon. But what she said was, “Thanks Applejack. I really... could use the support right now.”
“Oh my,” Fluttershy said, looking at the book again with open fear. “Is it that bad? You didn’t murder somepony, did you?”
“What?! No!” Dash yelped, jumping back from the quiet yellow and pink pegasus. “No, nothing like that! Just like... technically illegal maybe stuff. I...I’d still show you if it was ...that, but I’d also be in too much trouble for you to help me with.”
“I can’t take it anymore!” Pinkie shrieked out of absolutely nowhere and leapt upon Dash’s diary, tearing it open and mechanically reciting, “I can’t believe a filly thought she could impress me by stealing something. She didn’t even know it was wrong. I told her to return the bits by leaving it in front of town hall—”
“No, no not that entry!” Dash said frantically, grabbing the book right out of Pinkie’s hooves. “That’s not the point! The point is the mouthwriting! ”
“Scootaloo is the one who stole all those bits?” Rarity asked, astounded. “Scootaloo? But that means Sweetie had to—”
“Just—please, hear me out, okay!” Dash said pleadingly. They looked at her, clutching her book, and she said, “I was just... pretending to write... okay, yes it’s Scootaloo, but she didn’t do anything wrong! She was tricked into doing it!”
“Well then,” Rarity said acidly, “What foul rogue in our village manipulated Scootaloo into using Sweetie Belle to get access to my register?”
“I did! ” Dash shouted in anguished frustration. There were silent stares, all around.
“Look, it says right here,” Rainbow Dash said, jumping up on the table and opening the book to the relevant entry.
...and Scootaloo said that Sweetie Belle distracted Rarity, so that she could get at Rarity’s cash register. It wasn’t her lockbox, but it was pretty cool anyway. Long as the squirt thinks I’m low on cash, I bet that filly could even go rob an entire block for my sake. What an idiot, right?
...Dash couldn’t read the last part out loud.
“Ah don’t get it!” Applejack said, looking fit to burst from barely contained fury. “Why are you tellin’ us? Why are you tellin’ us now? And why are you such a jerk?! ”
“I’m not!” Rainbow pleaded, “I mean, I am. I mean, I was. Look, look see here? See this mouthwriting?”
The tawny orange farm pony leaned closer, and says, “Ah’m more concerned about what you were writing, not how you were writing it.”
“A-are you sure this isn’t just an elaborate fantasy?” Fluttershy barely suggested. “You didn’t really do any of this, and... and just substituted yourself in for the one who did?”
“I saw the bits,” Rainbow Dash said crabbily. She walked around on the table to look at the book again, turning to the very last entry from yesterday, “This one was because Scootaloo tried to give me the bits, a-and I panicked and told her to just dump it and pretend it never happened. But it still kinda did. But I told her to never ever do something like that again. A-and I’ve been picking her up after school, so she doesn’t just have to go off to live at...uh. And... stuff.”
“But why would you tell her,” Applejack huffed in frustration, “Not to do it again, when you basically taught her how to do it?”
“Because I don’t think I was the same pony, back then,” Rainbow said in a haunted tone.
“Sugarcube, we all can change for the better,” Applejack said with a strained expression on her face, “And we’re a new pony every time we do, but that don’t mean—”
“No, no I mean...argh!” Rainbow stomped in frustration, saying, “Here, see this mouthwriting? It’s all squarey and scratchy?” then she flipped to the next page, saying, “And see this mouthwriting? It’s all round and squiggly. That’s how I write. Round and squiggly!”
“Are you suggesting some ruffian stole your private diary, and tried to frame you by writing in it?” Rarity asked, gaping in astonishment.
“No, I’m suggesting that my mouthwriting changed when Discord got loose!” Rainbow retorted.
Rarity stared in continued astonishment for a moment, then her horn lit up. “Let me see that,” she repeated testily, swooping the diary over in her magic, and flipping through its pages.
“I don’t know why,” Rainbow Dash said as she looked, “But I can’t remember writing any of that stuff beforehand. I would never write any of that stuff beforehand, because I would never do any of that stuff!”
Rarity flipped between the old and the new mouthwriting twice before exclaiming, “It’s like two different ponies are writing in this! How do you know it wasn’t somepony else?”
“Because... some of the things in it, I remember!” Rainbow shouted. “You remember last year’s Running of the Leaves?”
“How could I forget,” Rarity said, rolling her eyes. “I ended up hip deep in bog water, and some pegasus who ignored the signs ended up winning the whole thing, with nary a leaf displaced.”
“Uh, no that ain’t last year’s Running,” Applejack said cautiously. “Last year was the one where me and Rainbow tied... for last, on account of we kept fightin’ over who got to be first.”
Rarity looked at Applejack surprised, and said, “Are you sure?”
Rainbow Dash interrupted, saying, “I’m sure. That’s what I remember, is losing with Applejack. But old me wrote about it here, and what she says is that I won it, alone! And then Applejack made me pay up so she wouldn’t spill my secret.”
“Applejack did what?!” Pinkie exclaimed in astonishment, as if all the things Rainbow Dash did/didn’t do weren’t astonishing enough.
“That’s patently ridiculous,” Rarity laughed, waving a hoof at Rainbow Dash, “Applejack would never do something so brutish. Though I do recall that the... pegasus who won was... I mean, it can’t have been you, that would...”
Silence.
“Would...?” Pinkie asked, looking at Rarity, whose pupils were getting really big. What was she—Rarity just kind of... jerked in place, every muscle in her body going rigid and she fell over like a freaking goat, laying there on her side right by the table they were standing at, with her legs kicking in jerky, uncoordinated movements.
“Rarity!” Pinkie shrieked in terror, leaping to her friend trying to wrestle her to stillness.
“She’s havin’ a seizure!” Applejack shouted in alarm. “You gotta—” but she only managed to get a few words out before Fluttershy was just... there, tearing Pinkie Pie bodily away from Rarity and hurling the heavy pink pony against the wall of the boutique with a loud thud. She wha—
Rainbow Dash’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt. She could only stare at the soft spoken pegasus, who braced there like a vengeful angel between the convulsing Rarity and Pinkie Pie, facing Pinkie Pie with an overwhelming intensity in her deep, teal eyes. Fluttershy merely said in a quietly disapproving voice, “You do not hold creatures still when they are having a seizure. I know you’re worried about her, but if you try to hold her still, she could dislocate her joints and tear her ligaments. The best thing we can do is clear a space for her. It shouldn’t last more than a minute.”
Pinkie just nodded, wide eyed, from the crumpled heap of pink she was beside the wall. Fluttershy and Applejack started pushing chairs away, and Rainbow moved to help, but there really wasn’t much to be done. “Now do you believe me?” Rainbow said, regarding the bizarre circumstance that had befallen her unicorn friend. “Something really weird is going on here, and it’s something weird about us! ”
“But ah thought Discord’s magic was supposed to be all gone!” Applejack said, staring at Rarity in open horror. “The Elements cleaned it all up good! Big Mac weren’t barking no more, and Granny wasn’t tap dancin’!”
“M...maybe it only helped other ponies?” Fluttershy offered uncertainly. “The elements protected us... from their own effects?”
“That can’t be right,” Rainbow protested, hovering nervously over her fallen friend. “You remember what his magic did to us! How is any of this... that?”
“What is even wrong with us?” Applejack protested shaky voiced. “Rainbow and ah have memory problems, and her mouthwriting changed the day he came around, and Rarity’s havin’ fits now? She ain’t had a full on seizure since she was a little filly!”
“What do you mean since she was a filly?” Rainbow demanded. “She did this before?!”
“She used to!” Applejack said in protest. “But now she just faints. Or she did. Ah don’t get it, didn’t she have medicine for this sorta thing?”
“Maybe Discord...” Pinkie said thoughtfully, “Maybe he enchanted us twice. He made us forgetty forgettersons, and then he made us mean and nasty, so the Elements could only get the second one?”
“But why?” Applejack exclaimed, shaking her head. “What could he possibly get outta makin’ us forget all the bad things we done before Twilight snapped us out of it?”
“Well, this is pretty chaotic,” Pinkie said, gesturing around the pleasantly pink boutique, and the spilled tea on Rarity’s tablecloth. And Rarity. Rainbow Dash had another idea though.
“Does anypony else besides me keep a diary?” she asked. Applejack shrugged, and Fluttershy shook her head, and Pinkie said, “I only keep a pony planner.”
“Well—” Dash blushed a little, “I bet Rarity does, and when she wakes up... we gotta read it.”
“You... you think her hornwriting changed too?” Fluttershy offered anxiously.
“Look, just... I think she’s not twitching anymore or anything,” Rainbow said, looking down at the still white horse laying on her side. “Does she just... come back like normal?”
“Ah never was with her, only heard about the ones she had as a filly,” Applejack said. “Probably, I guess?”
“She may be sore, but she landed on her side, so she’s probably uninjured,” Fluttershy mused. “I don’t know if it’s different for felines, but she will probably be very thirsty, and maybe sleepy.”
Rarity came to consciousness slowly, much to Dash’s impatience. “Oh, my... I don’t... usually faint so quickly,” Rarity said groggily, after they told her what happened. Rainbow Dash shook her head at that, and said,
“You didn’t faint this time, Rarity. You had another seizure!”
“A... another seizure?” Rarity asked, giving Rainbow a cagey look.
“Somethin’ about this magic that’s gotten into us is bringing back your seizures, Rarity,” Applejack said honestly. “It looks like your seizure medicine ain’t working no more.”
Rarity looked from Applejack to Rainbow Dash, and said in a very puzzled tone of voice, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you two are talking about. I don’t take any seizure medication, that I know of.”
Rarity stood on her own, and swayed on her hooves, saying “Whoo... woozier than usual... and why am I so ...thirsty?”
Fluttershy already had a glass of water ready, that she hooved to Rarity. Rarity took it in her magic, and drank down every drop. “Thank you so much, dear,” Rarity said to Fluttershy, “But how did you know I was going to even ask that?”
“It’s... a common symptom of e-epileptic seizures,” Fluttershy mumbled, blushing self consciously.
“Darling, I know I have my moments of fainting, but I hardly would call that an epileptic seizure. I don’t have ‘seizures’,” Rarity said wryly to Fluttershy. She gave the others a puzzled look and added, “...what?”
“Okay, where’s your medicine cabinet?” Rainbow Dash said flatly. “We’re gonna find your seizure medicine, and I bet it’s gonna be in there.”
Rarity reluctantly showed them her bathroom sink, which held a small set of pill bottles behind it. Headache, decongestant, cold remedy, vitamins, standard stuff, and an orange medical looking bottle with the Ponyville pharmacy sticker on it. As Rainbow Dash presented it to Rarity triumphantly, Rarity took it in her magic and read out, “Carba...mazepine? I honestly have no idea how this got in my medicine cabinet. Detected release? Take one after every ...incident? What is this?”
“Rarity,” Applejack said to her puzzled unicorn friend quite seriously, “We need to take a look at your diary.”
“My private diary?” Rarity exclaimed, dropping the pill bottle in shock. It clattered on the tile floor as she said, “Why in Equestria would you need to do that!”
“Because somethin’s been messing with our memories,” Applejack responded darkly under the brim of her hat, “And ah’ll bet my buckles that if you go the day before Discord, just like Rainbow Dash your mouth—uh...magicywriting...”
“Hornwriting,” Rarity corrected faintly.
“Yeah, that. Your hornwriting’ll change too,” Applejack concluded.
“I’ll just... go fetch it,” Rarity said quietly and without protest. She trotted unsteadily over to her room, and returned with a purple diary that even had a lock on it. Dash just used a plain notebook for hers... maybe that was a bad idea, considering what Rainbow Dash found written in her own diary.
“Now you’ll all have to promise not to speak of anything you read in here,” Rarity said cautiously, a delicate key turning the lock before floating away to wherever Rarity was hiding it. “In fact, don’t read anything at all. We are merely going to see if Applejack’s hypothesis about my hornwriting is correct.”
“Actually it was Rainbow Dash’s idea,” Applejack pointed out, much to Rainbow’s chagrin.
“Then we are going to see if Rainbow Dash’s hypothesis is correct,” Rarity repeated, summarily opening her diary and flipping through it. She seemed troubled by what she saw. Like, breathing faster troubled. “H...how is this possible?” she squeaked, “I didn’t break into my sister’s belongings and steal her... what?!”
Rainbow Dash fluttered over to the book, still floating there in Rarity’s magic and peered over the edge of it to the text below. “There, see?” Rainbow said, flipping from one page to another, “The writing looks totally different! Before you were writing all angular and elegant, and now you’re writing all round and... squiggly...”
“Please, Rainbow Dash!” Rarity said, snatching her diary from under Rainbow’s numb hooves, looking at her with more terror than outrage, “This is private! I don’t want you to... I don’t want you to read any of this!”
“But I... but I didn’t even read it; it was upside down, Rarity,” Rainbow Dash said, with a struggle to get to what she needed to talk about. “But the shape! You saw how the shape changed!”
“I... did,” Rarity said giving Rainbow Dash a cautious look. “What does it mean? Was I writing that other way, while Discord had cursed me?”
Dash fidgeted in the air, saying, “I dunno, maybe? But... okay, here, do you have a quill and paper?”
Rarity provided, and Rainbow inked out a hasty message on the paper. Before showing it to anypony though, she said, “Okay, Rarity I need you to write down ‘This is a sentence’ on that other paper.”
“Write down...” Rarity said unsurely, hovering the quill in her magic.
“Yeah, just write down the sentence ‘This is a sentence,’” Dash confirmed. “I uh... I’m not creative okay, so sue me. Sorry, it’ll mess it up if I tell you why.” She covered up her own paper defensively in her sky blue forehooves.
Rarity did write what she was asked, and then Rainbow Dash showed her what she herself had written, putting the papers side by side. They all looked at it, and Applejack was the first to comment saying,
“Well ah’ll be...”
Rarity was confused though. “These are identical!” she said waving her hoof at the sentences. “What are you saying, that you can copy somepony’s hornwriting?”
“I wasn’t copying anypony’s hornwriting!” Dash said. “I was just writing, that’s the point!”
Applejack bit down on the quill, and went writing the sentence herself. Pinkie joined in on it too, and Fluttershy was... afraid to, but it was pretty obvious by that point.
“Why do we all have the same hornwriting?” Rarity asked in a hauntingly spooked tone. There was nopony who could answer her. Rarity started to get agitated then, levitating her diary and declaring,
“What else does it say? What does it say I’ve done?” She flipped through it frantically, then exclaimed in outrage, “I did not steal those gems from the diamond dogs! I didn’t! Well, technically I did, but that wasn’t the point! They were just using me to get more gems! I didn’t quote, find where they were hiding their cache, unquote, and quote, no dog was the wiser. Unquote.”
“Of course you didn’t!” Fluttershy said emphatically. “You were ponynapped! We all came to rescue you, but you had worked things out with them on your own!”
Everypony else nodded at that, and Rainbow added, “Yeah, I remember that totally wicked dive we took down into the Diamond Dog’s lair.”
“That’s kinda strange when you think about it,” Applejack said thoughtfully, “You fell like the rest of us. Why didn’t you fly?”
“Um, because I was scared—” Fluttershy started, but Applejack shushed her and said,
“No, ah meant Rainbow Dash.”
“Well duh, I couldn’t see a thing in those tunnels,” Dash said, feeling a little nervous about what really should have been more obvious. “Who could even tell which way was up when we landed?”
“The tunnels were pretty well lit, actually,” Applejack said in an unconvinced tone.
“Yeah, they were lit, but when you crash so bad you can’t get your eyes to go straight, it makes it hard to recover!” Dash said in uneasy protest. “That makes sense, right?”
“It’s odd how we all remember that,” Fluttershy remarked, “But only you two and Pinkie remember the real Running of the Leaves last year. I mean, I didn’t attend since I still have trouble shaking down dandelions, but I remember hearing Rarity complaining about the bog, and boy was she um...”
“Upset...” Fluttershy mumbled in a voice heavy with self doubt.
“Well, what’s the difference?” Rainbow Dash asked, “Maybe our memories stop getting messed up outside of Ponyville?”
They compared stories, and everypony remembered that disastrous visit from Rainbow Dash’s former gryphon friend. They all remembered the procession of disaster that was Applebuck season, but their stories were inconsistent, and Dash didn’t want to judge, but it seemed like they were remembering blaming on her instead, a lot of what she remembered Applejack did. Flutters, Dash and Pinkie had no recollection of Applejack and Rarity ever having a sleepover, much less one with Twilight, but Applejack and Rarity remembered it clearly.
They all remembered their encounter with Poison Joke the same, except for the one time that Applejack got separated from them. But the only difference there is Applejack remembered Rainbow Dash giving her a ride and cursed to fly upside down, and Rainbow Dash remembered giving her a ride and being cursed to fly backwards.
And anything recent, but more than a few years ago was just... blurry and messed up. Locked away by this curse, or whatever happened to them.
“The only thing in common with all this is Twilight,” Applejack said. Standing firm on her own four orange hooves, she looked at the others and told them, “Ah know Twilight’s been not too comfortable around any of us lately, but now ah know why. She’s gotta be goin’ through this too, and she’s probably more confused than the rest of us.”
“I know the sign of a pony who is not dealing with this,” Rarity said looking off in the vague direction of the library, “And that is a pony who is not dealing with this.”
“Well, don’t just stand there everypony,” Rainbow Dash said, trotting to the door. “Twilight needs help, and we’re the only ones who can help her! I don’t care if she doesn’t even say hi anymore. It’s because she’s in trouble, and I’m not giving up on her!”
“Twilight’s scary though,” Pinkie Pie whined. “She called me a pink furred menace, and then went back on it at the last minute, and said it’s not true, and then got scared that I thought she said it, and told me not to think that she said it anymore. Then she tells me something really bad is going to happen if I ever tell anypony what she said, and then she tells me not to remember that she said that, either!”
Dash facehooved. “That means she’s in trouble, and needs your help, Pinkie,” she said.
“Oh...!” the pink pony said in dramatic realization, “Okay, let’s go!”
The only one left to protest was Fluttershy, and she... didn’t protest. At all.
“Oh, I just want this to be over,” Fluttershy said in quiet frustration, trotting after Pinkie out of the boutique. “I want my animal friends to learn I’m their friend again, and I want that mean monster I can only barely remember to just go away.”
It didn’t really sound like she was talking about Discord.
The day was in full swing when they left, a few puffy white clouds overhead in the cerulean blue. The five of them travelled as a posse that day, straight to Twilight’s library. Their meeting was running a little bit over time, but they all wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, and get back to their ordinary lives. And who should they meet coming out of that old oak as they approached, but Applejack’s carrot loving neighbor, an earth pony named Golden Harvest.
“Hey there, Goldie!” Applejack said pleasantly on seeing her. Golden Harvest started to smile at Applejack, then noticed the others, and her face just froze.
“Hay there, Applejack...” she said slowly and cautiously, in her smooth alto, backing her carrot colored rump up to the library door again. “Fancy meeting you all here. Together.”
“Matter of fact we’re gonna talk with Twilight right now,” Applejack said. “Important Element business. Some spooky stuff going on. You ain’t got any weird memories lately, that don’t exactly fit, do ya?”
Instead of answering, Golden Harvest just winced and said, not to any of them but to herself, “I knewd this was a bad idea.” She galloped into the library then, and could be heard shouting for Twilight. Beyond that though, it was impossible to make out the words, as the sounds of their conversation drifted out to the 5 confused, and sort of outraged mares standing on the doorstep to the library. It wasn’t long though, before Goldie reemerged from the library, along with the mare in question herself, Twilight Sparkle.
“Oh... hey girls...” Twilight said, walking a very narrow line as she approached them with a dreadful unease.
“Enough with the small talk,” Rainbow Dash said irritably, flying up to Twilight and poking her chest, saying, “We know what’s going on.”
“You do?” Twilight squeaked, backing up all the way until she hit Goldie’s rump.
She and Golden Harvest shared a... glance, and Goldie said, “I’ll go get the others.”
Golden Harvest went galloping off then, and Dash would have gone after her, but Twilight was right here, and the five of them needed to help her, right now. Applejack started talking then, saying to the distressed Twilight Sparkle,
“Sugarcube, we know what you’re goin’ through. Your records don’t match up before and after Discord, do they? He did something to your head that didn’t get undone, and now everypony walks around you in kit socks.”
“We know you’re having trouble, and that’s okay,” Fluttershy said softly. “You’re a good pony, who just had something bad happen to her.”
“We’re all here for you,” Dash put in, “And we know what you’re going through, so you don’t have to avoid us any more.”
“Twilight please,” Rarity said earnestly, “This is beyond anything any of us have ever faced before, and it is distinctly magical in origin! We simply must have your help in order to figure this all out.”
“I’m not really a... menace, am I?” Pinkie said with an uncharacteristically subdued voice.
“It’ll be okay, Twilight,” Fluttershy said with a soft smile.
Twilight mumbled something in reply, staring at the ground as she was. “I’m sorry, what was that?” Fluttershy prompted, turning her ear to face her purple, book loving friend.
“No it won’t,” Twilight repeated more audibly, turning her head up to look at them intensely... angrily?
“It won’t what now?” Pinkie prompted unsurely, contorting her head around.
“It won’t be okay,” Twilight answered loudly, then shouted, “It will never be okay! He meant this to happen!” She was hopping mad and crying with despair at the same time. Pinkie was right. This mare was terrifying! “It’s all going to fall apart now!” Twilight sobbed at them, “You’re going to ruin everything! It’s all my fault! It’s all going to fall apart, and then he is going to be free again!!”
Then Twilight fled her best friends, magically slamming the library door behind her, charging into the comforting confines within.
They all stared in shock, before Applejack managed to find her voice, saying,
“Did Twilight just say we were gonna let Discord loose again?”
Everypony shook their head. It was true but, they just couldn’t believe it, that their friend would accuse them of something like that, after all that creature did to them.
“Oh for pete’s sake!” came Rarity’s frustrated exhalation. She was standing at the library door shouting, “Why does the front door to a public library even have a lock?!”
“I’ll go check the windows,” Rainbow Dash said, lifting up in the air, but Applejack cautioned her, saying,
“Hold on now... do you hear that?”
What she referred to is the thundering hooves of a small group of ponies heading their way at a dead sprint.