The Moon Also Rises

by Nicroburst

Fifty-Six

He has been gone for centuries. We have flourished, grown, learnt. If the Brightstream is at the heart of his presence and disappearance, the answer to where he went . . . is that secret not worth the risk? There is something here. Bigger than I, than Luna, than even our civilisation.

Fifty-Six

CELESTIA WAS, in some far away corner of her mind, aware of her body. Stiff and unyielding, it would not budge for the ponies tugging on it, trying in vain to awaken her to their evacuation. Her legs had long since cramped, her back ached and mane had fallen flat against her neck. It didn’t matter.

She was more removed than frozen, safely ensconced in her golden shield with that creature trapped in her mind. If they could not reach her, then he could not reach them, and that was okay.

And rage as he might, wail and scream and gnash his teeth, she had the power here.

Celestia had long emphasised the unicorn aspects of her magic. She was one of the greatest Sages ever to live, a scholar and practitioner older and wiser in the nuances of magic than even Discord. And she knew herself, to a degree that brooked no uncertainty. In here, in the palace of her mind, she was inviolable.

The shattering of the Veil had challenged that. Freed, she was vulnerable. Discord rampaged, lashed out at her, at the walls and ceilings and accoutrements of her beliefs. Chaotic magic, hot-cold, paradox and prophecy, he took her conceptions to their extremes and threw them back at her.

Her citizens, all the millions and millions of souls she had cared for over the long, long years, became her prisoners. Chained underneath her magic, both literal and metamagical, slaves to her will. They looked up at her upon her golden throne and cursed her name, spat upon the earth, and struggled themselves to death working to break free.

She stared down, stony silent.

Oh, but I have no power here, he mocked her. No illusions or lies. This is you, Celestia. An extrapolation of your innermost core, and nothing more.

Her sister, clasped in the armour that she had forged. Nightmare Moon’s raiment was a symbol for that hardship, for the untold pain and anguish she had demanded of Luna. She watched as she asked her sister to become hated, to become a bedtime nightmare.

Who created the Nightmare? Discord sneered. Have you remembered? Can you remember?

She felt sick to her core.

Twilight received the Element of Magic under her faraway gaze. The light of the sun could not penetrate Luna’s fog, and yet she knew her sister’s role, had helped choreograph the drama playing out before her. She had written the part Twilight might play a thousand years ago, and in doing so consigned her to this fate. The myriad of horrors visited upon her, and upon those friends caught up in her wake—all those were carefully considered by Celestia, and deemed acceptable.

Where is the line, Celestia? I cannot yet see it.

She broke her silence, lashing out. “I reject your web of lies, creature! My motivations are mine alone, and you have neither the faculty nor wit to understand them!”

Oh, but ‘Tia, she could feel his grin, crawling all over her. You invited me here.

She forced the environment around them to change, the images he’d plastered over the walls of her mind splintering to reveal her throne room. She hauled Discord before her, bound him in spell-sealed iron, and slammed shut the doors.

I think I preferred the library, he said. It was . . . more intimate.

She stared at him. Even now, he could not sit still for a moment, his muscles twitching underneath him. He fidgeted, his claws striking the ground in an odd tempo, his tongue flicking out to taste the air, his eyes roving around the room. Even his form seemed to shift, alternating between emphasis of the draconic elements; the fangs and the horns seemingly growing, the long, serpentine body elongating, and hardening with scales, before the equine side reasserted itself, hooves taking shape, eyes growing round, tail gaining fur . . .

A being caught between. It made an odd kind of sense. Part dragon, part pony, Discord was made entirely of Chaos, there was no Harmony in him to temper the wild fluctuations in his behaviour. Every part of him rushed to extremes; he could not think differently, could not perceive the myriad shades of grey, some lighter some darker, as anything but black.

Her many, many small failures, in all the important little details, spanning back over time immemorial, meant to him a history of despite, of abject misery and complete character assassination. Her past, to him, defined her. Ironic that a being built upon total change should be so absolute in his judgement.

Because if there was an equine form in his chaos, then so too did Celestia have Chaos within her. Her long legacy represented not a series of equal failures, but a slow progress, a growth, a story full of lessons and moments of minor inspiration. She looked back on her past mistakes not with spite but with understanding, and with that took away the sting from her grief. On him she levelled pity; he could not change any more than he could stop fidgeting.

It’s coming, he rasped, looking up at her on her throne. It’s coming for you, and He is coming for me.

Celestia let her serene smile wash over him. She could feel, somewhere, the Forest encroaching on her position. Vines gathering around her limbs, branches brushing past her—it was not malicious, but indifferent. Immovable, the Forest washed over them, past them, claiming the centre of Ponyville for itself.

And Celestia waited. She could do no more than restrain him, and trust in the friends she knew were out there, fighting for some chance to hold back the coming tide.

***

Daerev found Cadence in her sitting room, poring over reports from elsewhere in the Empire. He approached quickly, but found himself reluctant to speak, keeping his mouth shut until she turned to him, her magic closing her books with a loud thwack.

“Daerev,” she said. “How’re you doing?”

He waved the question away. “I’m sorry, Princess, but I was just given this.”

Fluttershy’s letter described the situation in Appleloosa, the conflict spurred on by Agyrt—he felt a little sick, even now, at the notion of all the deaths caused by his mentor for seemingly no gain—and what they’d done to resolve it. Some of the questions she posed Twilight he had pondered himself; regarding precognition, fate, and prophecy, in fact, the peculiar nature of her gifts, her Dreams, reminded him of Pinkie’s predicament, and he resolved to introduce the similarity to the two of them.

But more relevant was the shard of crystal in his fist.

Cadence reached the end of the letter and turned her eyes up at him, questioning. He brought the crystal out, palming it over and handing it to her.

Pink telekinesis seized it and lifted it up the face. She turned it over slowly, brow creasing.

“This is . . .”

“From Appleloosa. Far, far south. I know the Empire sells the odd trinket to Equestria . . .?”

“I’d go so far as to call it an actual export, actually,” Cadence said. She moved a hoof over the crystal’s surface. “Barik!”

“Princess?” The guard stationed at her door poked his head through the doorframe.

“Go and fetch me a few crystals. A display, a jewel, and a scribe. Hmm. And a locket.”

“Princess, after this mornin-.”

“I did not ask you a question, soldier,” Cadence said, turning her head slightly towards him.

“Princess.” He closed the door, his hooves making clear clacking noises as he trotted away.

“This morning?” Daerev asked. He knew he hadn’t been paying attention, but that sounded like something he should know about. Cadence wasn’t normally so sharp.

She shot him a glare, and Daerev blinked.

“I cannot be sure without comparison,” she said, placing the crystal on her desk. “But this does not strike me as something we might sell to Equestria. The design is archaic, the surfaces scratched, and the core largely without function. A piece of jewellery, perhaps, but not one of our current lines. How it came to be in the southern deserts, I do not know.”

Daerev nodded, swallowing. “I see. Fluttershy mentioned that this was not the only one of its kind, either. A stolen shipment, o-or cancelled series . . .?”

“Mm. I doubt it.”

They waited in silence for ten minutes, until Barik had resumed his posting outside the door.

The display crystal was designed to capture an image within its crystalline matrix, and show it on every facet. Even blank, they had an ethereal quality to them, the crystal so clear as to be almost invisible. Cadence scratched at one face with the tip of her quill—and when that broke, with the edge of another. But while minor damage disrupted the illusion of transparency, it was clearly not related to the damage done to Fluttershy’s mystery crystal.

The jewel was what Daerev had placed his bets on. These were designed to be flattering in and of themselves, without any additional purpose attached. But Cadence was correct—while they agreed the discovery could safely be assumed to have been jewellery, it did not match the design of the piece they had now, and likewise for previous iterations.

The locket they discarded almost immediately. Configured to hold and display an item contained within, it’s design totally different.

The scribe conveyed words. Each face of the crystal could be written upon, generally using an older script that did not translate altogether well to Equestrian—or even to parchment. Scribes, Cadence explained, were mostly relics, now—after the reappearance of the Empire and its reintegration with Equestria, the denizens of the north had by and large switched to the more modern quill and parchment; and with it, the Equestrian language. It made things easier, things like trade, tourism, and cultural pollination. As a result, though, the older scripts were being forgotten, phased out, and scribes with them, kept largely as mementos and records of a forgotten age.

Its internal design, the crystalline lattices, structures buried deep inside to support and bind the material—they matched far more closely to the design of Fluttershy’s mystery crystal.

“So it’s, what,” Daerev began.

“It’s a relic,” Cadence said. “It’s old. Really old. From the Crystal Empire before Sombra.”

Daerev swallowed. “Uh, alright. So-”

“So how did it find its way into the southern desert?” Cadence said. She tossed it onto her desk, spinning around and putting her head into her hooves. “I thought we were done with all this.”

“Okay-”

“Twilight’s far, far north,” Cadence said. “I’ll send a message up to the border, she’ll get it when she comes back.”

“I-”

“Thank, Daerev. Even if it wasn’t quite as urgent as you implied.”

“Trixie.”

Daerev and Cadence both jumped, Daerev lashing out with his wings instinctively to stop himself from toppling over and striking the walls, Cadence slamming her rump into the edge of the desk, stumbling forward with a pained look.

“Wake up Trixie,” Pinkie said, stalking out from the corner of the room.

“You-” Daerev started.

“Don’t forget, Princess, that I can do that too,” Pinkie said, to Daerev’s confusion. “I’m not much in the mood for games. We need Trixie, right now.”

“And what makes you think I’m just going to take your word for it,” Cadence said, rising to her full height.

“You’re the fortune-teller,” Pinkie said. “Have you even looked? Too afraid, now of all times? Or too preoccupied with your people?” She deflated, just a little, losing the edges to her frame. “I have, Cadence. I’ve been very, very busy. You just found the missing link.”

“The missing link to what?” Daerev burst in.

Pinkie shot him a withering glance. “No clue,” she said. “That’s not how it works. If it wasn’t important I wouldn’t be here.”

“That’s absurd.”

“No,” Cadence said, staring at Pinkie. Her ear was twitching, for some reason. “She’s right. It’s not predictable, because it’s only half the loop. Like looking backwards.”

“Call it Pinkie Sense, if you have to,” Pinkie said. “If it makes it easier to believe. I’ve felt the future. I can’t change it, but I can guide it. Adjust details, here and there.”

“And . . .”

“And Twilight knows what to do with that crystal,” Pinkie said, pointing at Cadence’s desk. “It’s meant for her, somehow.”

Cadence nodded, walking across the room. “I’ll get her up, then,” she said, gathering magic to herself. It quickly spread from her horn to her shoulders, and then out onto her wings, the pink glow illuminating each feather.

In moments, Trixie came to, leaving Cadence asleep in her place. Pinkie explained the situation, shoving the crystal in Trixie’s face repeatedly, until the groggy mare finally shook herself into comprehension.

Daerev half wanted to offer to accompany her. He wanted to get away from here, away from the intensity of Pinkie and the confusion of his own thoughts. He knew there wasn’t enough magic—that he would only slow Trixie down, or cause other problems, but he wanted to go anyway.

Trixie vanished in an azure blaze, and without a word he slipped out the door, quietly returning to his solitude.

***

Appleloosa was gone. Braeburn watched from atop a ridge in the land, the Stormwall passing slowly over the tops of houses, water and ice running down the backsides of their hurried shelters. At first, he’d hoped they could simply reverse the direction of those barricades, weather the Storm like they had the last one. Now, though, he could see the difference in scale, the mind-bending ferocity contained here. This was nothing they could handle, nothing Applejack could ground through them—no force of cooperation or long years of preparation could have matched this.

Just about everypony was here, some dozen miles along the train tracks. The worst of the infirm, pony and buffalo alike, had been sent ahead on the train, but there weren’t enough carriages for everyone, and already the convoy was beginning to stretch out, the slower groups making their way, inevitably, towards the back.

Bill was down there, doing what he could to get carts hitched, find spaces for children or those too sick to maintain the pace to ride, but it was a hopeless task.

“They’re despondent,” Achak said, coming up alongside him.

Braeburn grimaced. “I get that,” he said. “But we need to move faster. You’d think that would inspire more dread,” gesturing south at the Stormwall.

“In normal circumstances,” Achak said. “But we have fought tooth and hoof for our home here. Against all odds, again and again, delivered by some combination of arcane secret and sandy grit.”

Braeburn nodded. “And we won.”

“And we won. A terrible thing, to have hope snatched away.”

“You think they’ve given up.”

“Yes. Have you not?”

“Achak?”

Braeburn turned to look at her, really look. She was . . . the only word that came to his mind was tired. Lines he didn’t remember crossed her face, crinkled the corners of her eyes and her mouth. Her posture sagged, one knee shaking back and forth as she watched the procession.

“Hey. You . . . Are you alright?”

She smiled at him, and turned away to slowly clamber down the hill.

The Stormwall advanced, and Braeburn watched it until the wind began to whip at him, cutting through his fur to chill the flesh beneath. Its shadow reached out after the convoy, far past him, cast in a silvery glow. As the line of water marking the soaked earth advanced towards him, he turned and fled, rushing down and towards the last of the Appleloosans, just a few hundred feet ahead of him.

The Moon by which they could see was proof of Luna’s struggle, giving them time to flee, to make it just one more step towards safety. But safety could there be? Lost and desperately alone, even the high city of Canterlot seemed fragile, almost inconsequential in comparison. Even the Princesses, helpless before the Storm’s sheer might.

Despondent. The word rang in his mind, whispered to him from his hoofprints. He glanced at the ponies and buffalo he passed, saw the edges of madness around the rims of their eyes, the mania of fear fighting through their depression. It broke him.

He put his head down, staring at the wet sand, and galloped north.

***

He was pushing her back.

The initial exaltation of her defiance had guttered out, spent in a blaze of glory that left her enemy helpless, futilely raging against her like an squalling infant. Typhus, God of Storms, God of Chaos, was nothing before her might, the conjoined powers of the Moon and the Nightmare elevating her to peaks she’d hardly dared dream of. She could have moved planets, caused the stars in the sky to wink out, sent her will crashing and thundering against the fabric of reality and seen reality give way.

She could not, however, sustain her passion.

It was a truth beyond even her, that the peaks and valleys of life make a greater sum than their parts. In the fullness of her power, Luna exceeded Typhus, but that peak was short-lived, and His static plain, His enduring, constant, unchanged rage clawed against the sides of that peak, waiting for her to slip.

So she had paced herself, doled her might out as sparingly as she could, that she might hold out for longer, might give her ponies longer to flee. Elsewhere, Typhus reached around her to continue his march; but he was slowed nonetheless, and like this the full brunt of his onslaught could be divided and borne.

Luna was not the brute her sister was. She did not fight with brunt force, applying herself directly, with hard counters and tremendous exertions, designed to end her opponent as quickly as possible. She was a Seer, a Conduit, and an Anchor, she danced through the possible futures in every instant, Saw her enemies attacks and felt how the battle flowed through her. She turned blow against blow and spent only what she must, turning her enemy’s might into fuel for her own onslaught.

Once, she had sustained herself for days like this, sipping from the unending fountain of emotion that charged the battlefields. Not so here, Typhus’ energy was maddening, tainted, and she knew, instinctively, that this was what created Turned—Nightmare Moon whispering in her ear that Chaos would not be taken, but only forced upon.

For hours, she fought. Not only Him, the constant ebb-and-flow of spellwork, each taking form in mere instants to be scattered against His lightning, redirecting wind to shield her from ice, catching the thunderous detonations of sound to channel their energy against the boulders, trees, and hidden grit that tore at her, but also herself, managing the drain upon her mental and physical reserves, resisting the siren song that cried out crush him beneath you and soar over his remains. Always, Coromancy begat Coromancy, always indulgence demanded more indulgence: there was never enough emotion. Addictive was only the smallest sense of it, and here Luna was drunk on power.

Until she began to slow. Typhus didn’t even seem to notice her flagging, responding just a little slower to each hit directed at her. He began to grind forwards again, building momentum despite the extravagances of her effort.

Retreat, she counselled. We may provide no aid dead.

And so Typhus advanced, claiming Appleloosa and the southern desert, blasting the lands apart and leaving scattered ruin in his wake. What small homes had been built—not only the town itself, but the beaten tracks carved into the sand over generations of migrations, the artwork driven into craggy outcroppings and tiny communities that grew from watering holes, tightly-knit and knowing nothing of the outside—all consumed in His unending outpouring of water and jagged death.

In time, Luna began to feel the earth underneath her change. The harmonies flowing through Equestria were weaker in the desert, but now they had disappeared entirely, lost in an alien, chaotic sensation. With a jolt, she recognised its basic patterns; enough, at the least, to extrapolate her position—she was over the Everfree. The realisation cost her, and her wing was clipped, feathers turning to char in an instant and flesh underneath catching fire. She screamed, caught the next, and returned to her dance with grim resolve, the support of her Nightmare thrumming through her body.

Where Equestria sustained her, the Everfree fought. The rhythms she maintained changed instant to instant, the forest spreading its ravenous influence underneath her, undermining her. She felt trapped, suddenly intuiting the corner into which she was boxed; Typhus surrounding her on three sides, with the centre of the Everfree at her back.

Luna fled steadily, faster, pushing herself, but the seed of despair had been planted long ago. One moment was all it took, like tripping over a vine snaking over the ground, and the Storm struck her, shattering the moonlit weave that protected her body. Electricity melted the armour clasping her body, wind hurled droplets of midnight metal into the abyss. Fragments of the Nightmare were stripped away, chunks and pieces scattered into the chaos. He didn’t even spare her time to scream.

Turning properly, deflecting what she could and absorbing what she must, feeling abruptly cold for the first time in a long while, Luna fled.

***

He’s here, Discord said. You lose.

“We’ll see,” Celestia said, from her seat above him.

She might have stood, another time. Prowled around him, let her stance, her presence make her point for her.

Now, she kept to her seat, not trusting her legs to support her.

The paralysis was more than physical, locking the both of them in Ponyville as the Everfree spread over them. It had spread to her mind, as well, her reliance on this palace trapping her just as effectively as it trapped him. It was, she supposed, the perennial fate of the jailor—to be locked away with her prisoner.

Buds of green and verdant yellow had even begun to sprout in the throne room of her mind, the Everfree making itself known even here. Discord had been delighted, of course, playing with them from time to time, always with one eye watching her, drawing her attention to the gradual corruption taking root.

So now, as the winds began to pick up around her, icy malice and bone-biting rain sweeping forward, she could not break from her prison, could not abandon her chosen post. She had put down responsibility for all else—this was one promise she would not break.

Flexibility, he said, sneering at her, is not so easy after all.

“No,” Celestia said. “I suppose not. Maybe I understand you a little better.”

I doubt it.

“It is a horrible thing, to be trapped like this.”

You do it to yourself.

“I did, didn’t I. I thought it better. To be insulated. Kept safe.”

He tossed his head, spat on the ground, and Celestia sighed.

Typhus was here, now, and no doubting it. The forest around her grew steadily, fuelled further by his rain and fury. It leapt from the ground to meet him, surging outwards and upwards, tearing the earth apart.

Celestia could feel the waters slicing into her, ice melting against her coat and grit worming its way to her skin. She could feel the spreading power under her hooves, claiming these lands for its own.

You’ll be freed, too, Discord said. He sounded almost happy, his spine relaxed and fidgeting ceasing. All traces of the desperate anger that had consumed him was gone, washed away, transcended.

For Celestia, that anger was only now beginning to rise. Her hackles stood to attention, her fur rigid and wings splayed tense. She bit her lip fiercely, drawing blood.

You’ll see, he said. What you’ve been missing. What everybody has been missing.

Typhus came fully overhead, and all Celestia could see was rage, incandescent, unthinking, burning like the sun. She blinked, turned herself from where she had held Discord, now just a blackened patch of cobblestone, and underneath the Storm, in the light of the Moon, eyed the mountain to the north.

***

Twilight’s slow hoofsteps ground to a halt. Behind her, she could hear Rarity panting, frigid breath frosting in the thin air. In front, Rainbow gave a single, tug on the rope before realising, and stopping herself.

“T-twi?” Rarity said, nuzzling against her side.

“It’s not here,” Twilight said. ‘It-it’s just . . . I-”

She’d been struggling with the thought for some time. Hours of movement, occupied with nothing but managing her breathing, had let her mind wander freely. The evidence seemed, to her, and in this moment, incontrovertible.

Twilight was more than familiar with cognitive biases. She knew her discomfort, the physical and magical hardship the journey was imposing would provide her mind with weak—and growing steadily stronger—evidence that the Well was, impossibly, elsewhere.

That knowledge sustained her for yet more minutes.

But it wasn’t just that. Part of her conclusions, absorbing Rainbow’s, and Rarity’s, memories of the distant past, were founded on the growing swell of magic she’d been noticing over the past months. Her Element had pulsed, beat in her head like a drum, a faraway march, a heartbeat. It had drawn her, drawn from her, and returned to her.

That pulse was gone, now, completely. She had passed beyond its influence, somehow leaving behind her connection to Equestria, to the world. Was it mere coincidence that her magical ability was so greatly reduced here, so as to prevent her from so much as a dim nightlight?

Yet the Well had to be here.

“Gotta, keep, moving,” Rainbow said. “Just, another, race.”

Twilight shook her head. “I think, we’re wrong.”

Rainbow moved closer, pressing herself into the huddle. The combined warmth of their bodies provided immediate relief, as much as relief was possible.

“There’s, no, choice here,” Rainbow said.

“What if?” Twilight asked, staring at Rainbow. “They’re, dying.”

“What if, we, give up?”

“I, can’t, feel it,” Twilight said. “I should, be able, to feel, it.”

“Celestia, could,” Rarity said. “It grew, stronger, every day.”

“We haven’t, gone one, day,” Rainbow replied.

Twilight started breathing from the top of her mouth, trying to draw more warmth into the small space between them.

“And, it’s getting, fainter,” Twilight said. “Like it’s, farther, away.”

“Just, the magic,” Rarity said. “Fading.”

“But why,” Twilight said.

Why. That was the question, wasn’t it? Twilight had been circling it for hours, returning again and again to that central problem. She couldn’t tell the difference, in the end. Was she moving farther from the source of magic, the source of the Elements and the growing pulse in her head, or was her connection straining simply thanks to the dampening effect the northern ranges were having.

“Need to, test it,” Twilight said, musing. “Go, down. Not south. Just down.”

“It’ll take, forever, to climb back,” Rainbow said. “Harder to stop, then start.”

Twilight nodded. “Little bit. Not all at once.”

“Fine,” Rainbow said.

They trudged north, not trusting themselves to go backwards looking for a ravine, or crevice. Eventually, one did present itself, the mountain plain turning to a ridge that dropped sharply down into a craggy gorge. Twilight began testing the ground, pushing her hooves into the rock and snow, but Rainbow insisted on taking the lead. She disappeared down, moving slowly. At the edges of Twilight’s vision, she stopped, hollering back up at them; “It’s safe!”

They spent half an hour moving down. At first, Twilight thought she was imagining it, but she could feel the air growing thicker, bit by bit, around her. Somehow, they’d found themselves a pocket of atmosphere, in absolute defiance of what she thought of physics. She filed it away, and breathed deeply.

“This is crazy,” Rainbow said, hovering off the ground. “We’re still thousands of feet up in the air, but it feels like Cloudsdale.”

“Oh, stars,” Twilight said. “It sinks.”

“What?”

“Magic. It’s heavier than air. It’s like . . . a pool.”

“A Well?” Rarity said. Her horn sparked, then caught, a translucent glow illuminating the canyon better the further down they—and the light—travelled.

“No, but-” Twilight waved her hooves, “similar. This is why we couldn’t do anything—the air was too thin to hold magic. Like a fire with no oxygen.”

“And-”

“And it’s not here,” Twilight said. The distance, the ability to compare, made all the difference in the world. “I can’t feel it nearly as strongly as I could in Equestria. Part of that is the magic. But part of it is something else.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

The beacon was lit in her mind. Not clearly enough to provide a direction, nor was it something that mapped onto cardinal points. Like a game of warmer-colder, Twilight had only a tenuous connection to Harmony to rely on, and the bone-deep certainty that she was drawing away from it. “But doesn’t that make sense? It gathers lower down, not higher up. Where the magic is concentrated, in Equestria.”

They gathered together, Rainbow taking them as low as the land allowed them to go. Twilight gathered her strength, the resurgent magical potential around her, taking it in and depleting the pool almost entirely. A familiar spell, and a familiar destination. They teleported, lavender light stretching up to peter out just feet below the mountain crest, and arrived in the central street of the frontier town that marked the edges of the Crystal Empire.

And waiting for them was Trixie. Her mane dishevelled, coat worn and ratty. She seemed downcast, sagging, but at the sight of them perked up, trotting forward, magic outstretched. In her grip hung a crystal.

“Twilight,” she called. “Thank Celestia! Fluttershy sent this. She said it’s from Appleloosa, but Cadence says it’s thousands of years old. We don’t-”

Twilight seized it from her, spun it around herself. The pieces fell into place all at once, as if she’d been on the edge of this realisation for days. It made sense, in a way the mountains hadn’t. She turned to Rainbow, eyes sparkling.

“I know where the Well is.”