> Knight of Equestria III: Pizzicato and Changelings
>  by scifipony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> A New Gig
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I looked when Vinyl Scratch glanced behind us.  The guards had started examining another pony’s suitcases.  She said softly, "Street word is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the bride, is a stuck-up prig."

That wasn't my first clue that something deadly and right-knackered was a'hoof in Canterlot, but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Minutes before, I'd been on the train fiddling with my iSing Too, a somewhat more bulky enchanted black opal than my original iSing, that could display the names of songs on the luminescent blue and gold specked upper surface.  It held an amazing two hundred songs, which made the costly upgrade essential.  It required a unicorn to cast a recording spell and to splash it with magic almost daily, but these days neither requests were too costly for me to fulfill.  

I'd graduated in spring, #2 in my class, but, thanks to #1's bout of laryngitis compounded by disabling shyness, I'd become valedictorian.  My chosen profession was all about facing and pleasing crowds.  My speech talked about setting goals for success in life and how that mirrored a pony's search for aesthetic perfection.  I'm not sure if anypony got my point that perfection was an unforgiving master that you ought avoid and that doing what was right for you and other ponies was more important.  I'd got to play dueling turntables at prom with Vinyl Scratch, who now called herself DJ Pon3, so, if nopony had got my speech, maybe some day they'd figure it out and remember.  It didn't bother me. 

I'd traveled that summer, mostly shuttling between Manehatten and Baltimare, looking for and finding gigs.  Sure, I was trotting in Vinyl Scratch's dust, but she always put in a good word.  Or rather, she'd mutely present my business card when she headlined a club.  I hadn't found my groove, yet, but I made up for it with stamina.  Club owners hired me for opening sets to play slow dance and ambient as friends met, chatted, noshed, then swayed a bit on the floor.  I'd return for Luna's Watch, the 2AM to dawn set, accepting the baton from the headliner to keep the energy fizzing and popping with unexpected drops and eclectic breaks until I sent spent ponies home with the sun.  Mum and Dad had taught me to nap at weird hours growing up so I could help out on cleaning jobs at night or in the early morning.  Sleeping anywhere instantly helped me bridge the evening gap and breeze through the final grueling set. 

I'd created a rep.

As for bits, I did well enough to help mum and dad so they no longer need to take overnight work.

Which brings me to autumn and back to the train into Canterlot.  Vinyl Scratch had sent me a dragon telegram to be here today without fail.  A scroll sealed with red wax appeared before my nose in a puff of green fire while I was spinning two records to match tempos.  I juggled it in my wings, tossing it in the air, scratching a record.  The audience roared, thinking it was planned.  It read, "Canterlot.  Tomorrow.  Drop everything."

The wheels clattered rhythmically against the rails, which got me humming The City of New Horseleans.  The train thankfully stopped screeching, as it had on the many curves on the mountain.  We'd entered the final straightaway into the station.  I'd starred the wrong songs and looked up from the iSing's tiny lettering, exasperated.  I sat at the rear of the carriage facing forward, which is how I saw when a transparent red membrane swept through the wall at me.

I jumped, a-flutter before my brain really registered what I'd seen, flying backwards into the rear wall of the carriage, bouncing off and colliding with the conductor.  We fell together hooves and feathers tangled against the luggage stall.  

The spell, for what else could it be, passed through me with the disconcerting feeling that somepony had looked into my soul and found the darkness hidden there.  I shuddered, stumbling back into the inter-carriage door, disengaging from the middle-aged brown stallion with a neatly trimmed black ear-to-ear beard.  

He put his glasses back on.  "Sorry ma'am."

"I-I—  What was that?"

"You were so intent on what you were reading, I didn't interrupt you.  That's a shield spell around Canterlot.  I should have warned you."

"No worries.  I don't remember that from last time I visited."

"The royal constabulary discovered credible threats against the crown a few weeks ago.  Just a precaution, they say.  Had a griffon last week whose crest burst into flames."

"Bloody Tartarus!  That'd've been a sight."

"The smoke stunk."  He waved a hoof in front of his nose and we both laughed.  "Had to air out the coach.  Can I help you unload your luggage, ma'am?"

"Crikey, yes mate."

I had my four-wheel van lodged in the freight carriage at the end of the train.  It required unstrapping the rims from the hold-downs.  He helped me hitch up, too, and I flipped him a gold bit from my purse.  I found Vinyl Scratch waiting on the trackside platform as I pulled, despite it being 10 p.m., prime time for a DJ.  The air was cool, though it smelled of oil and steam.  She smiled, her head moving side to side, chin out, to a moderate prance, something I'd bet was either slow house or trap in her 'phones.

She magicked them down her neck and we hugged.  Despite the dark lit only by gas lamps, she wore her trademark red mirror shades.

She nodded appreciatively as she circled my van.  It was really only a fancy steamer trunk on wheels, a pony-length long, two wide, and two high.  I could fit inside, snuggly, but it held my total kit and all my vinyl on custom rubberized shelves with netting.  The outside was painted in white enamel, peppered with my cutie mark puppet hearts and clouds at the roofline.  At the rear was painted an enormous pink hair bow over a caricature of my face; the bow had become a signature look for my shows since I often became too sweaty if I didn't put my mane up.  It also emphasized I was a mare.  Stallion DJs dominated the eastern scene and I was determined to differentiate myself.  

"DJ F.M.?" Vinyl Scratch asked.

"DJ Flopsy Mopsy doesn't really roll off the tongue.  I've new business cards."

"I like it," she said.

"You're downright loquacious tonight."

She snorted and led the way through the Canterlot Terminus Station.  She wasn't mute.  She only spoke to her close friends, and then only as much as necessary lest it ruin the "vibe."  I often thought her first language was music and that the translation to Equestrian proved difficult. 

Royal guard in armor, their manes threaded through their helmets, met us at the exit.  They toted spears.  A white pegasus with a pink mane and magenta eyes—who reminded me too much of Princess Celestia's carriage guards I'd seen killed by Princess Nightmare Moon when she'd ambushed her—asked to examine my van. 

I opened the doors.  As the soldier peered in, I tapped Vinyl Scratch and pointed.  "I borrowed the flood lights, volcano pits, and gem globes from DJ Bellwether.  I'll need speakers for anything other than a small venue."

The guard closed the double doors and lent a hoof to help me hitch back up.

"There'll be plenty of speakers.  Central-planning asked for a party for guests that weren't the peerage or family." 

Peerage?  Odd.  "Everypony else?"

"Everypony else."  I looked when Vinyl Scratch glanced behind us.  The guards had started examining another pony’s suitcases.  She continued softly, "Street word is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the bride, is a stuck-up prig."

"Wait, what?  I'm doing a royal wedding?"

Vinyl Scratch lowered her shades, giving me a magenta look like what rock were you under?  

"Who's headlining?"

Vinyl Scratch just shook her head in obvious disbelief.

"Shag me."

Though she slid her headphones on, she muttered, "Never lose your Trottingham accent or attitude."  

Well then!  Pulling out of my gigs with Flights of Fancy and Tumbledown of Manehatten might well pay off big.  Equestrians weren't as gobsmacked by royals as an average trotter was about the subject, but a royal wedding would bring out the tabloids, music reporters, and celebrity rags.  If I got half the publicity some blokes managed in the Trottingham newspapers Mum and Dad got by pegasus mail, I might even find bookings in Trottingham City clubs.  Except for the clubs and beach parties in the south of Prance, no other venues showed you had arrived.

At the end of Alicorn Way, we turned right toward the Strand.  The imposing Canterlot bailey wall ran behind the university on the right.  To the left were the high rent stores of Canterlot, displaying fancy dresses on ponyquins, bling jewelry behind thick glass, and luxury carriages spinning on magical turntables with candy-apple enamel work.  The Bank of Equestria soared four stories in pure white marble—though, in the gaslight, the worn stairs did show some black hoof stains.  Nopony ought forget the peerage and monied class dominated this part of Canterlot.

Trotting out of a portcullis, with a nod from the two guards stationed with spears at parade rest, came a familiar taupe mare with a full black mane and a signature pink bowtie around her neck. She toted a pink-striped black resin case large enough for another pony to lay inside.  It held her double bass, which she carried bouncing balanced on her back as if it were as light as a basket of feathers.  Earth ponies!  She hung her head low.  I'd have thought she was simply exhausted except for her downturned ears. 

I recognized Vinyl Scratch's flat-mate and called out.  "Octavia!"

Her ears perked and she trotted to catch up to us.  I didn't know what relationship Vinyl Scratch had with the mare since she had moved into her home.  They seemed musically incompatible.  Octavia Melody was five years her senior, with an eastern patrician accent I couldn't place.  Maybe Horseshoe Bayside Village or Sire's Hollow?  They seemed to be pals, though, so I hadn't inquired.  Yet.

Vinyl Scratch smiled but kept bobbing to her tunes so I greeted the classical music mare.  "S'up?  That's what Vinyl Scratch would say."

She momentarily smiled, sighed, then said, "Real horse apples."

I didn't think such words could pass her prim upper-crust lips.  "How so?"

"I was not the only pony to see it.  It will be splashed all over the periodicals tomorrow, so... I guess I can say.  I was packing up after Princess Mi Amore Cadenza's wedding shower with the mares of the peerage.  I walked by the function hall where Princess Celestia was running a last rehearsal for the ceremony tomorrow.  Oh, Sweet Celestia!"

Vinyl Scratch stopped and slid back her phones.  "What happened?"

Octavia's ears flopped down.  "I might have been surprised enough to faint outright, had I not heard the gossip from Fiddlehead.  She had been watering at a cafe where Twilight Sparkle and her friends were having some fancy umbrella drinks.  She overheard Twilight casting aspersions on her brother's bride, like the princess was acting like a spoiled prat and disrespecting ponies behind their back.  Her friends were having none of it, though.  Twilight left in a huff."

To me, Vinyl Scratch said, "Her brother is Shining Armor, the captain of the royal guard."

"Never bad to have a family member marry into a royal family."  Prince Consort Shining Armor, anypony?

Octavia continued, her voice lower.  "As I walked by the rehearsal, Twilight Sparkle had just entered.  She stalked up to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and called her 'Evil!'"  The mare began fanning herself, despite the chill evening air and the precarious perch of her instrument.  "I ran."

Vinyl Scratch said, drolly, "The pink princess is a prig."

"Vinyl Scratch!"

Vinyl said, "I know Twilight Sparkle.  I trust her.  She's saved Equestria twice!"

I knew this for a fact because I'd attended both events, "up close and personal" as native Equestrian speakers liked to say.  

Vinyl continued burning dangerously through her monthly word quota.  "I've heard stuck-up things about Cadenza before, who's never held down a job other than foal-sitter, so I'm sure our favorite librarian isn't thrilled about her brother's choice."

"But... 'evil'?"

Vinyl Scratch shrugged.  She slid her 'phones back on and continued walking before she said, "Not our problem."

"That it is not," Octavia said as she kept up.

Part of me felt thrilled that I'd heard first-hoof royal gossip.  That was the Trottingham foal in me.  I, too, knew Twilight Sparkle, albeit peripherally.  Besides her being the librarian at Golden Oak Library.  I'd been unlucky enough to witness Nightmare Moon attack Princess Celestia, and I'd been in the library packing up my turntables while Twilight Sparkle and her friends discussed rescuing Princess Celestia.  I'd seen what Twilight did to Nightmare Moon because a rejuvenated Princess Luna had hidden out near my turntables at the party to celebrate her return to Equestria.  Twilight had transformed a murderous evil monster wanting to conquer Equestria into a sweet shy ingénue who wouldn't speak and danced demurely in a corner.  Then there was Discord.  I'd dealt with him directly, been turned inside out by him, and had worked hard to keep ponies out of his demented path.  Despite overwhelming magic, Twilight Sparkle had tamed the monster and transformed him back into a marble statue.

I'd put my money on the purple mare's instincts any day.  But, like Vinyl Scratch had said, not my bloody problem.  

Ahead was my bloody problem.

We trotted to the end of Castle Way.  The trees and lawns of Palisades Park lay off to the left.  The Strand that fronted the park was hopping with ponies chatting in sidewalk cafes and walking between late night restaurants.  Strobing lights beamed out of Club Hoofing It two blocks down.  What worried and horrified me lay off to the right, and we walked over a bridge into it.

And kept walking.

And walking...

The heavy block-brick bailey wall curved to the left into the south wing of castle at one of its tallest points.  A balcony jutted out below three blue circular stained glass windows.  Lights within limed impressionist designs of gold stars through clouds, a grey-green crescent moon, and a yellow sun.  This was were Princess Celestia gave public addresses.  Below lay a circular parade ground surrounded by tall pillar-like towers connected by a flyway.  At the very south edge lay a partially-constructed covered stage.  Somepony had already painted the completed walls white with hearts and dancing mares.

We kept walking and walking and walking to reach it.  Entire hoofball stadiums were smaller than this.  It could fit most of the ponies of Canterlot.

I was going to headline a stadium?

"Cor.  Shag me!"  I blinked, brought up short by my own words, and said, "Great, I'm cursing like Dad.  I don't think my lights are going to be enough."

"You think?" Vinyl Scratch said as I walked to the travertine fence at the edge of the cliffs above the Ponyville plain.  The Canterlot Cataracts rushed over the edge to my right and left.  I could see the sparkling lights of Ponyville in the distance.

I took a deep breath as a strong breeze from the west of the castle blew my ropy fringe across my eyes.  I lifted it with a hoof and looked up.  I could see a soft red glow of the spell shield, and, beyond that, a magnificent cloudless night sky.  I panned my gaze back toward the parade grounds.  "There aren't as many stars above as ponies that could dance here.  I've never worked a venue this big. Nopony has."  Facing Discord hadn't made my stomach flutter as it did now.

Vinyl Scratch said, "First time for everything.  First kiss.  First big venue."

I hadn't had that first kiss, but I read Filly and Teen PONY avidly.  I'd be ready.  As for a big venue...

Octavia said, "It's called The Promenade."

Vinyl Scratch continued.  "Twilight Sparkle ran central planning.  And hit trouble with Cadenza.  Pinkie Pie took flack, too.  Pink princess demanded she exclude everypony but the peerage; Pinkie wouldn't have that.  Pinkie tried assigning me the common-pony party, insisting she could DJ the peerage." Vinyl circled her ear with a hoof.  "Buzz!  Not happening.  You've built a high-energy late night rep.  You're perfect."

"I don't do perfect.  And it's not late night.  And it's big."

"Pinkie booked The Night Electrical, a unicorn lighting FX group I recommended.  You'll have an assistant and roadies to handle setup, tear down, and crowd control.  You won't let any pony down.  I trained you.  I trust you."

"Don't know if I trust me."

Vinyl Scratch flicked her tail like a whip against my flank.  Shocked, I fluttered into the air.  As I looked down at her, she added, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  It pays very well."

Octavia said, "It is a royal wedding, after all."  She grinned widely and shook her flank, causing her coin purse to jangle.  Her double bass still didn't move.  Show off. 

Thoughts of a mountain of bits did not soothe the bad feeling in my gut, but it didn't suck.
> Flopsy "Businessmare" Mopsy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I didn't sleep well, despite a nice event-comped room at the Uptown Suites Stable.  The hay mattress was plush and the room recording-studio silent, but the fourth floor room afforded a view of Castle Canterlot and Palisades Park.  Even with the curtains drawn, I could see in my mind the looming venue I was headlining.

Why had Vinyl Scratch had to say "You're perfect"?  I kept telling myself, I could handle this.  That I needed the sleep.  At one point, I found myself editing in my head my valedictorian speech with things I'd learned since I'd given it.

"Ugh!"

I threw the sheets and pillows off the bed, fetched my notebook, and began planning the playlist.  I was it, the DJ.  I first had to program the music for while the wedding took place in the castle for those not invited, which would be most of Canterlot.  It wouldn't be dance music, but if it made ponies sway, I wouldn't lose points.  After the announcement of the marriage at the balcony, there'd be a fanfare and more or less staid "wedding reception" dance music while ponies celebrated and patronized the gourmet and fast-food feedbag stalls that would ring the event.  After "supper," all Tartarus could break loose, and I'd be able to play anything danceable until I dropped.  I planned a rave like no other.  I spent hours, tip of my tongue peeking out, charting out drops and loops I could mix in, and which records I'd line up with each of my five turntables.  I had five columns in black marker connected with lines and arrows, annotated with BPM transitions, track start times, and FX I could use—in gold, lavender, and cerulean gel pen.

I woke, drooling on my notebook, when the housekeeper knocked on the door with a coin.  It was well past 10 a.m. and I found multi-chromatic ink stains on my cheek that resembled the result of a tattoo artist gone mental during a salt-lick bender.  I had to address that first.  Waking now nearly matched my circadian rhythm, except that I hadn't napped from 10PM to 2AM last night.  I dragged a comb through my mop of hair, which barely worked at the best of times, and dragged myself downstairs to find the stablery's breakfast room closed. 

My stomach growled.  

"Ugh!"  

I flopped on a forest green lobby sofa.  "Hungry and too tired to search.  Put me out of my misery!"  I laid my snout on my legs and might have fallen asleep there, but...

Somepony said softly, "I hear your pain."  

I jerked.  "What!?" 

I lifted my head and saw a grey-brown stallion Dad's age cringe.  He had blue eyes.  Touching a hoof to his temple, he said, "Had a bit too much cider last night."

I chuckled.  He wore a dark jacket.  The zipper split "Whinnyapolis 5" down the center.  I said, softly, "You feel it literally."

"You'd think that stablers who cater to the club and theatre district would cater to our weird hours, but you'd be wrong."

My stomach growled embarrassingly. 

He said, "Maybe we could both use some food."  He extended a hoof.  "By the way, I'm Helping Hoof."

"Flopsy Mopsy."  He helped me up.

"Ah, the DJ."  

Not that I had rabid fans, yet, but I gave him an evaluating look.

He said, "I'm their tour manager."  He pointed at his jacket and added, "Finally-the-Last Retirement Tour."

The Whinnyapolis 5 were a mane-band that had been popular long before I was born.  "Thus the excessive cider?"

"Don't you know it?"

"Not into the self-care craze?"  

"Ha!  I know a place."  

I smiled.  "Lead on."

Somepony had converted an alley into a glassed-in lunch counter with stools and a black-painted roof.  Garlic smell laced with fragrant oregano smacked my nose as we walked in—to make my stomach pay attention, which it did with another growl.  A cyan unicorn stallion with a mane the same greyed-brown as Helping Hoof's served up a pair of long aubergine sandwiches ladled with red sauce and dripping with creamy mozzarella cheese, topped with whole leaves of basil and brown, green, and black olives.  More lunch than breakfast, but yummy.   And I got a big yellow-stained Cannoli's mug with five bags of black tea floating in it.  I added a spoon of sugar and a spot of milk.  

The gentlecolt tried to get me to talk about myself, but I understood well that he was in the biz and got him to talk shop about setting up venues, dealing with roadies, and fixing problems.  He'd fixed his share of problems, not the least of which was working for geriatric clients.  He answered a dozen questions.  

I snatched the bill from around his back with a deft wing and said, "Nonsense," when he protested.  "I've learned a ton.  I'm getting the better deal."

Outside the tiny shop, he asked, "Where's your gig?"

I pointed toward the south end of Castle Canterlot, the spires of which loomed visibly over the intervening buildings. "The Canterlot Wedding."

"Oh, dear."

My heart thumped. "Oh, dear?"

"That explains the questions and the way you..."

"Look?  Exhausted?  I fell asleep drooling on my notebook last night.  I'm a bit—"

"Overwhelmed?" 

"Yes, but your advice is going to help."  I covered my mouth with a wing to mute a belch. "Thank you.  Got to get cracking."

He followed me back to the stablery.  "You look like you could use a helping hoof."

"Rimshot, please," I responded. 

"Blame my mother for that."  As I stepped into the garage, he continued, "Every venue is dark tonight.  Nopony's going to object, the least of whom being the retiring 5 who're sleeping it off.  I'd like to see this from the inside."

Standing before my van, I started worming myself into the harness as he said, "Let me pull that."

"Nope," I said, "I mean, yes, if you want to come along, be my guest, but, no, I pull my own load."

Maybe I should have gone earlier.  

I'd prefer to call what I found pure bedlam, not chaos, because of, well, Discord.  He and I had history.  Still, it qualified as such.  I would have expected that since dawn, ponies would have completely built out the stage, completed the break room, the staging area, the watering bar, not to mention the big tent that would protect the immediate area before the stage.  I saw stacked metal rods, canvas, piles of wood, all in vague outlines of what ought to be.  I saw cans of paint here and speakers stacked over there.  Some workers sat aside, eating their lunch.  Okay, it was lunchtime.  In the middle of it all, distinct groups of ponies gathered, probably different companies judging by overalls, caps, and patches.  In the middle stood a puce pegasus pony gesturing with his wings behind him.

I trotted across the expanse of "The Canterlot Promenade."  About ten pony-lengths from the argument, I unhitched.  At the moment, somepony was complaining about needing to place speakers.

I trotted up and asked the pegasus, "Are you the assistant Vinyl Scratch sent?"

He glanced at me and the van I'd unhitched myself from and back to me.  "I could really use some coffee, and lunch.  Could you go get me some?  Thanks!"  

He returned to saying to mount them (the speakers, presumably) now, not to wait for the walls, and no he had already moved stuff for the dance floor ponies.

I looked back over my right shoulder at my van.  From the side, you couldn't see the caricature of me painted on the front end.  I looked left, frowning, at Helping Hoof.  

He rolled his eyes and coughed.  "Should I fetch coffee and a sandwich for him?"

With a wicked smile, I said, "Why not?"

Helping Hoof dashed off as I stayed and tried to ascertain the hold up.  Best I could tell, Daring Darling, as I quickly learned, had got himself in a pickle by rearranging some of the stage elements and trying to optimize the layouts, bollocks-ing up everypony else's plans, supplies, and timing.

When Helping Hoof returned, he carried a cardboard tray loaded with crisp carrot fries smothered in mayo, coffee whitened with what smelled like hazelnuts, and a hoof-sized hayburger redolent of the mustard and grilled onions that dripped out on the yellow paper wrapping it.  He slipped it from his back to mine before I walked it to Daring Darling's side.  I asked, "Are you the construction supervisor?"

"Could you put it on the stage.  I'll be done in just a moment."  He launched back into trying to get the canvas ponies to shift around the tenting.

I shrugged the tray up my neck and over my muzzle to slide on the ground at his hooves with nary a spill.  I said, louder, "Are you the construction supervisor?"

His green eyes narrowed as he looked down at me.  "No—"

I cut him off.  "Good.  I was going to fire you for doing such a bad job of it."

He huffed.  Despite a couple of speaker-crew-ponies making cutting motions at neck level, he said, "Whoever you are, consider yourself fired."

He returned to the argument, but the other ponies were backing away.  He stepped forward, hit the edge of the cardboard tray, and flipped the coffee up at his chest.  He nickered, jumped, and backed fanning himself with his wings to cool the scalding liquid.  I followed him practically nose to nose.

"You, you..."  His face became clouded and red.

"Vinyl Scratch picked you to do what?"

"I don't have to answer—"  He looked at the retreating work ponies then back toward me.  Something didn't fit the narrative in his head; he backed up as I followed.  He said, "Assistant to DJ FM."

"Have you met DJ FM?"

He glanced to my left.  We'd walked back far enough he could see the front end of the van—and my picture emblazoned on it.  He looked at me.  "I think I have."

"Good.  If Vinyl Scratch hired you, there must be a reason.  Go to the stage and think about all the reasons I should let you help me tonight instead of handling my own records, like I did most of the last year."

"Ok."

"Go."

His horseshoes clattered in the silence as he walked off, head down.  But the instant I turned back toward the crew-ponies, they launched all at once into their problems.

I put up a wing to quieten them.  They grumbled as Helping Hoof said, "I've experience dealing with setting up outdoor venues.  I can help."

I nodded, thinking of all the answers I'd got over lunch. 

To the crowd, I said, "This is going to be the biggest party ever thrown in Canterlot.  It's a royal wedding.  Reputations are going to be created or crushed tonight, and not just mine.  It must be spectacular because I always give credit on stage.  I insist you will put up signs taking credit, tastefully placed.  This rave is being paid for from the princesses' purse.  I've just hired Helping Hoof here.  Work this all out between you and get it up and running by 4:00 p.m.—and I'll guarantee a 10% bonus for everypony.  Work out your problems, go back to the original plans, whatevs.  Just do it.  Now."

Everypony stood open mouthed and eyes wide.   Helping Hoof's jaw dropped almost to the travertine brick at our hooves.

"What?  I'm spinning the first record at 4 o'clock, so work it out.  Make me look brilliant.  Go.  Go.  Go!"

The crew shot away, a half dozen lunches abandoned.

Helping Hoof shut his mouth with a clack.  I turned toward the stage and said lowly to him, "Whatever you charge the Whinnyapolis 5, I'm paying you double."

"And I'll make it worth every bit," he said, trotting, chest out, into the fray.

Now for Daring Darling...
> I Fancy Him
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daring Darling had worked concerts, outdoor and indoor, and he had a pretty good grasp of sound mixing, and he knew many of the artists I played.  He had some experience with DJs, but mostly at parties.  He didn't know any DJ with a capital-N Name.  He apologized and insisted he was a quick learner.  He had gone wrong trying to fix problems he perceived with the conventional placement of speakers and walls, after he'd been asked to mediate problems between crews.

His rep was on the line.  

I asked, "Can I call you D-D?"  I wasn't calling him Darling.

He nodded.  I gave him a chance

All went well, and like a kicked over anthill, ponies worked furiously, extending poles, air-lifting canvas roofs, and magicking around stage planks, pulling guy-wires and setting up speakers.  By 3:00 p.m., I felt sure it would all finish on time without further drama.  When the lighting crew trotted up, I was sorting albums with D-D, following the session plan in my notebook.  I held a fluttering drool-wrinkled page open against the breeze...

Vinyl Scratch had said The Night Electrical were unicorns and that they used direct live magic, not machinery.  I had no quibbles about performance art being mixed with my music, and looked forward to discussing how the spells they cast could integrate with my beats, especially where I'd typically use spark volcanoes or gem lights that modulated to the music.

But then I saw him.  

Him.

Ghost Zapper.  

He was a white stallion with an electric-blue mane and dreamy light-blue eyes to match.  I'd taken a fancy to him when he had been a senior on the hoofball team and I a junior.  A bit of a bad-colt, him, proud of his athleticism, with mares giving him goo-goo eyes wherever he went.  He'd never seemed much of a scholar, though, and I very definitely was.  Secondary school wasn't free in Trottingham; here it was, and I had not been willing to miss a second of the prize it represented to a poor immigrant filly who had been born to farm peasantry.  Regardless, I won't tell you how many times I'd imagined our wedding and the beautiful mares and colts we'd have together.  I'd bloody well written poetry to him, not that I had ever shared it with him!

I had fancied him.  And fallen hard.

Hard.

Equestrians called it a crush, and it kind of hurt that way.  Never'd had the guts to talk to him, either, until after...  I'd become a different mare after Princess Nightmare Moon remade me.  She'd revealed a hidden courage that lay in my heart—a fearsome thing and likely evil, considering how I'd had to work to control myself the last time it'd surfaced.  But by then Ghost Zapper had left town.  He'd graduated that spring before the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration.  When I'd found my courage and had hypothetically become ready to say hello, he'd already been gone.

"FM!  You're going to tear the notebook!"

A golden aura had formed around the stallion in my eyes.  Everywhere else had become a fog.  I fanned myself with a wing, despite the cool early spring weather.  My heart raced.  I was breathing hard.

"FM!  Really?"  I felt somepony lifting my right foreleg.  "Are you crazy!?"

I shook my head at what felt like a non-sequitur, even as his previous words replayed in my mind and mostly bounced off.  It was as if a full pony choir had gathered around me and had begun singing a note of epiphany.  Ahhhhhhh!  

My state of fascination snapped.  Calling me "crazy" was the ultimate heavy lift for D-D.  I coughed, looked down, and lifted my hoof.  

"Sorry," I said.  

D-D crouched beside me, dropped his forelegs to the notebook and slid it away.  Three pages were ripped and fluttering in the breeze, attached by the width of a horseshoe to the notebook.  Green eyes regarded me with something that could have been anything between disdain and worry.  

He shut the cover.  "Let me find some tape."

"Good idea."

He trotted off and I felt the warmth return.  Stupid me.  Fancying a colt again, but come the last day of spring, it would be two years since we had attended school together.  But not really together, considering the only pony I'd ever discussed it all with was my best friend, Vinyl Scratch, and true to form, that had involved few words on her part.

Vinyl Scratch had arranged the lighting for the event.

Hmm.  Of course she had.  

Evil evil mare.

We'd share some choice words about that.   

Meanwhile, I looked up and saw that Ghost Zapper stood with four other unicorns—and their leader, a hefty lime-green mare with a black mane—talking with Helping Hoof while the rest listened.  They all wore well-stuffed lime-green saddle bags bearing the arch of a rainbow.  It matched the mare's cutie mark.

I had to talk to them.  Other than the sound technicians, the lighting technicians were the next most important element of the performance.  I took a deep breath, then another.  Screw your courage to the sticking place, filly, I told myself.  I was a successful up and coming DJ and he was a working illusionist.  

Business, Flopsy Businessmare Mopsy!  Deep breath.  Another. 

I trotted up, nonchalantly, hoping not to trip over my own hooves. 

Helping Hoof saw me and said, "Aurora Australias, meet DJ FM."

Unfortunately, my eyes had strayed back to Ghost Zapper.  Not looking at the mare, I raised a hoof and said, "Nice to meet you."

My heart started racing again.

She clacked my hoof.  With an accent to her Equestrian that sounded similar but very different to mine, she said, "Nice to meet you, mate."  I heard a faint chuckle.

Of the unicorns, two were stallions, but some ponies were just better endowed than others.

Aurora Australias said, "It's about time that he step up and coordinate with the star of the show."  I looked at her and saw she had magenta eyes and a smile that would have been a smirk had she been less professional.  She gestured with a hoof back toward the stage and added, "Ghost Zapper, help DJ FM and discuss the lighting FX she wants to implement."

He said in a smooth baritone, "Yes, ma'am."

I found myself backing away as he approached.  I got about ten steps when he came within a pony-length.  "Miss FM?  Should I call you that?"

"Hi."  I let my ropey fringe fall over my eyes, allowing me to hide in plain sight. 

We blinked at each other for a moment.  All the images of him two years younger and snippets of truly embarrassing poetry I had written whirled around in my head.  Bloody Tartarus!  You matched wits with bloody Discord and saved hundreds of ponies from being warped and mangled by the git.  He's just a colt!

But such a lovely colt.

He said, "Hi," too, looking increasingly non-plussed.  

Any second now, he would remember me, the shy immigrant filly who worked with her Mum and Dad cleaning homes and businesses, and it would be very awkward indeed. 

"So," I said, somehow making one syllable quaver.  "I-I've never used illusory lighting in a s-show before.  How is that different from standard, um, embedded, um, magical effects l-like my volcano amulets?"

He pointed to the stage.  He walked beside me and I felt my hide tick at his closeness.  He said, "I think I've met you—"

He remembered me!  Don't look.

He continued, "—I've been to clubs in Manehatten.  Should I call you FM?"

"Flopsy Mopsy.  I mean—"  Coughing, I glanced up into his pale blue eyes and stumbled.  Stop that!  "I mean, everypony calls me Mop."

Yeah, like the business end of a tool pony janitors and maids use to clean other ponies' houses, which you don't want him to remember!

"Mop it is.  I love dance music, so this should be very sweet.  I talked to Vinyl Scratch at that last Pon3 event she held in Canterlot and she remembered me and picked The Night Electrical Productions for tonight's lighting.  So, I guess it's best I'm the one to talk to since I landed the gig."

We reached the stage.  Speakers loomed to the right and the left.  The overhanging tent roof shaded us from the sun, which was beginning to drop in the sky.  D-D eyed me warily from the controls off stage left.  Other ponies put up tinsel decorations.  I said, "The Canterlot Wedding.  Imagine that.  Nothing will be bigger."

"And you're headlining.  You're barely my age.  I expect you're very talented.  I'll do my best to see that you shine."

My throat closed up as my face flushed hotly.  And he didn't miss it.  He smiled and diplomatically looked away at the equipment.  I led toward the steps to the stage, but he leapt up onto it, so I fluttered up behind.  As he examined my sound board and decks, and noted the advanced sound processor Vinyl Scratch had sent to augment my kit, he began explaining the particulars.  

Simply put, illusory lighting was performance art.  It consisted of 20% variations of Illuminate spells, because there was no substitute for real light, especially at night.  The remaining 80% were various types of aural, kinesthetic, and visual illusions—the FXs as they were known.  Most anything from ghostly images (his specialty) and steam to fireworks were possible.  Designs and patterns could be made to pulse through clouds floating over the head of the dancers, and plenty more.  He finished with, "It was all the rage on the island of Sandawhinney last year.  I've had plenty of practice.  Wait..."

I looked up and our eyes locked.  Perhaps I'd acclimated to his presence.  My heart lurched, but I got out a demure, "Yes?"

"We attended school in Ponyville together, didn't we?"

"Different years," I replied, fiddling with sliders on my sound board, hiding behind my bangs again.  

"I kind of miss Miss Cheerilee."

"You do?" I didn't look up.

"Yeah.  She was very hard on me, but she taught me that I had to follow my talent, not what all the rest of the colts thought important.  I wasn't ever going to qualify for pro hoofball.  But I was good at illusions and art, so she got me books on both.  She was the greatest."

"I was a bit of a lit geek.  She helped me with my poetry and rhetoric.  I ended up giving the valedictorian speech."

"Really?"

"Feathersoft went full mental and couldn't do it.  I was number two in the class."  No, no.  No boasting!

"I remember that shrinking violet—a purple pink-maned filly who did the lost little lamb bit, tagging behind me for a few weeks.  And I remember you hanging with Vinyl Scratch."

"Yeah.  Cheerilee encouraged me to expand my record collection to all genres, like classical and reghay, not just dance.  That helped a lot."

"She was the greatest.  And we're going to make this the greatest.  Show... ever... that is."

"That we shall."

He unpacked what looked like a mini red-plastic soundboard from his saddlebags.  It had a dozen sliders and rows of rainbow-colored buttons hoof-labeled with the names of the various FXs.  They didn't control the lighting, but rather made beeps in the eardrops that each illusionist would have in their ear.  Some sort of contagious magic entanglement spell.  I was to use it to cue up what I wanted.

For the next forty-five minutes, he demonstrated what he could do and how I could use the board to cue the five of them to change the standard FX they'd planned for the night.  

The ponies that arrived at 4:00 p.m., as we finished a dry run, saw a preview of the light show rampant with dancing, shimmering auroras chased by pastel pink and blue will o'wisps about two stories in the air.

I smiled.  I looked at the stage, the watering bars, the expanse of the wood dance floor that extended out one-hundred pony-lengths, and the speakers arranged above and beside me and around the promenade.  The main tent over it all rose above the spires that connected the flyway that circled the promenade.  I even caught the smell of garlic and roasting corn as the first feed bag vendors started opening their stalls.  

Everything was ready. 

I clacked hooves with Ghost Zapper, and everypony else on the team, but I still thought him dreamy.  Not as scary as before.  A real thaumaturgical nerd with bonafides comparable to my musical geekery.  And professional.  And nice.  And I said dreamy, right?  

It wasn't as if I hadn't worked with plenty of stallions over the last year—stallions that had the stamina for the late night sweat sessions, seemingly and reputedly more so than us mares did, but this mare had cracked that stereotype with a passion.  I'd earned my admirers.  I'd have had my choice of the herd in Baltimare to Manehatten, but I was more interested in my turntables and landing elusive primo gigs than in a string of stallions.  Companionship had never been my focus.  Not with certain hard to explain rough edges in my past.  I wasn't your average mare.

Looking at Ghost Zapper's cutie mark as he retreated—a smiling ghost that looked like a pony covered by a sheet...  

Okay, fine, at his muscular flank—

Looking at him, I began to understand what else had held me back.  

I'd idealized him.  How like the shy filly I'd been!  I'd thought I'd left the naive me I'd named Shy behind long ago.  Not entirely, I guess.

I sighed and closed my eyes.  With a deep breath that I pushed slowly through my nostrils, I swept everything from my mind and reveled in the smile that grew on my face.

With a tap of a hoof, I adjusted my boom mic and glanced at Helping Hoof who nodded.  I gave a two pinions up with my wings and sung, "Welcome, Canterlot!"

A few hundred early arrivals cheered as I lifted the green headphones and checked the cued track D-D had setup.  I nodded as I added,  "The ceremony starts at 5:00 p.m..  Let's have some feel good music while we gather and chat and give our best thoughts to the royal couple.  There's some 'good cook'in', by the smell of it, at the feedbags.  Give it a look-see."

I dropped the needle and ramped the volume from zero.  A little uptempo ambient at ya.  D-D came through, following the plan I'd charted last night and cannily bringing me strong black tea, sweetened and whitened.  Helping Hoof had likely relayed what he'd learned about me at lunch.  As hundreds and hundreds streamed into the promenade, I reached for my sound FX record, used a recorder to loop a ticking clock on another line and muxed it in faintly.  As the clock approached five, I looped driving timpani solo sampled from Bee Shoring's Pony Behavior, slowed the BPM down significantly, and mixed it in almost subliminally.  I bobbed my head to the beat that I slowly ramped up in volume and BPM.

I heard a clock tower chime five o'clock and moments later, a wedding march flared from the castle, from the open doors of the balcony.  I lowered the music as the crowd of thousands upon thousands cheered.

Somepony closed the balcony doors.

I immediately dropped a record: a waltz that pretended to be a march.  Very cheery.  "Wish the bride and groom your very best!"

The chorus of "awww" changed to a crazy loud cheer.  I smiled.  Everything going according to plan.

I had this.  All the hooves.  Nothing could go wrong now!

...I could not have been more wrong.
> The Credible Threat
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In retrospect, I had seen the green flashes through the stained glass windows of the castle, but I had been trying out the mix of tracks I'd planned for immediately after the grand announcement of the royal marriage.  I'd thought it was the Australis Lighting Group testing an illusion.  As I usually do, my eyes went heavenward as I listened and bobbed to the music in the two headphone earpieces I held to my right ear.  I was looking at the sky.

I'd stopped thinking about its odd red color, but when the continuous red sheet suddenly crazed, crackled with lightning, and shattered, I froze.  I dropped the headphones, one of which hit a turntable, cracking a spinning record and causing the arm to ricochet.  I instinctively hit mute; it hadn't been the main line, but a faint drum mixed in.

Nopony seemed to notice on the floor as I stared with a cold chill running through me.

"A credible threat to the crown," Vinyl Scratch had said.  I whispered, and it went over the PA, "More than credible."

Since voiceovers are a thing in EDM, and I'd done a few in sync with the music already, few ponies looked up at the stage as I saw black dots descending from the clouds.  With barely a thought, I pressed the urgent button on the Australis lighting board.  My elevated stage looked out over a crowd of neigh-maybe ten thousand unsuspecting ponies.  I grabbed from my history stack and popped a disc onto my empty inspiration turntable; an ambient album.  I plunked the needle to a heavy chill track that started it.  It fascinated me that my wing trembled as I crossfaded it into the main.  

The morning of the 1000th Sun Celebration, I'd been sent to take the rubbish bin my parents had filled in Town Hall out back.  Mum and Dad had contracted to do the cleaning before the event.  Exiting as Mayor Mare announced the beginning of the ceremony, I was outside when Princess Nightmare Moon ambushed Princess Celestia as her chariot descended.  I had thought I'd seen her murdered.  When Nightmare Moon stepped up and addressed me, something inside me broke.  I curtseyed and called her "Your Royal Majesty," and kept my eyes locked on her electric green ones. I'd impressed her.  I had acknowledged her royalty.  In return, she'd promised to make me her first knight when she ascended the throne.

It took just moments before I'd released the curtsey, but she'd gone inside.  I'd never felt so powerless or been so fearless at the same time.

I'd circled outside to the front door to stand with my Mum and Dad.  The crowd inside had just defied Princess Nightmare Moon and the armored alicorn had exited swooping over my head.  The auditorium had been packed to the rafters with ponies.  I thus found myself blocking the only visible exit when Mayor Mare unwisely told the tense crowd not to "panic."

They had.

Panicked, that is. 

With no thought, I'd shoved my parents aside, flared my wings, and shouted "Stop!"—and thereby halted the stampede that should have killed me.  I'd saved...

The promenade below held more ponies than I could count.  The only exit was a bridge that—albeit it could hold forty, withers to withers—was sorely inadequate for thousands fleeing at once.  It spanned the east Canterlot Cascade river, which roared over the edge of the mountain to a half mile drop.  And, of course, there was the chest high travertine fence that rounded the perimeter of the promenade that pressing bodies could easily be pushed over.  I had a vision of thousands over the side of the mountain, dead and bloody on the Ponyville plain.  That would be the result of pony instinct and a stampede, discounting the tramplings and those crushed together at the choke point bridge  

Last fall, I had walked home from school into the center of Ponyville to find Discord standing there.  The same suicidal calm I had felt when I saw him mangle ponies into warped creatures, descended now.  My engaging Discord had allowed hundreds to flee, though I too was then transformed—into a grey upside-down flying whirligig pony.  Whatever fell from the sky now could scarcely be more friendly than Discord.  Call me an optimist. 

Ghost Zapper galloped up.  Ten seconds had passed. 

I lifted the boom mic away from my mouth and said, "Can you do a red sky illusion like what's been above Canterlot the last few weeks?"

He looked up and gasped.

"Look at me!" I said, slapping him on the ribs with a wing.

His mouth opened, but the dropping black monsters magnetized his gaze.  His eyes widened.

I tugged his face down sharply with a wing on his muzzle.  I flipped my mane from my forehead, then gestured between my eyes and his with the other wing.  "Look at me.  Zap.  At me."

He gulped, struggling with his head, but we locked gazes.  I held his pale blue eyes and said, "You can do it.  Cast the illusion."

His face went pale—pretty extraordinary when you consider his white fur—but his horn lit with blue magic as I slowly turned with him so I could again see the crowd in my peripheral vision and keep him controlled by eye-contact.  Some few ponies had noticed something funny, but I saw relieved sighs as Ghost Zapper's illusion took affect.  "And add storm clouds scudding in.  Be a stallion.  You're going to concentrate on your illusion, right?  Not going to go mental on me, right?"

"Uh, huh."

I could only hope. 

I leapt into the air.  Gliding over the crowd in circles, I brought the mic down with a hoof and said, "Sorry folks, but it looks like the event has been cancelled."

I got a chorus of "awww" from that, which beat a chorus of screams.  Above, dark clouds that actually blocked out the sun gathered with theatrical malevolence.

"It seems there's been a bad mistake with the weather team.  I am going to have to ask everypony to leave the promenade calmly but quickly.  Can we do that?  Calmly.  Calmly."

With me repeating that, ponies rapidly drifted toward the bridge that connected to Castle Way and the Strand.  The pegasi left reluctantly, but kept under the clouds and didn't add to the foot traffic.  If something ugly popped through the illusion before ponies dispersed into the streets of Canterlot, or some terrified pegasi flew screaming back toward the promenade...

I pushed the thought out of my head.

That and the thought, what if I were wrong?  What if something benign, like the end of the threat against Canterlot had just happened?

During the wedding?

What were those green flashes?

I spotted constables dressed in blue wearing blue Prance caps, and royal guards in shiny brass parade armor, all of whom were acting as crowd control along the periphery of the promenade.  I glided and flared my wings to land beside the largest knot of them.  

If I were wrong, I was going to make an infamous fool of myself.  I might be arrested.  I'd be committed for the crazy pony I feared I was.  

So be it.  I'd pay, gratefully.  But intuition screamed I had the right of it. 

Where I landed, they stopped.  The crowd retreating to the bridge distanced themselves, letting me safely speak aloud.

I lifted my mic and said, "Sirs!  Something has broken through the shield around Canterlot.  We have to keep ponies calm.  The east bridge is a danger with this many ponies..."

I left the word stampede unvoiced.

One constable said, "So that's what that is—"  He bolted, galloping toward the crowd and the exit.  His fellows tackled him, which probably snapped a growing panic in others.

"Calm," I reiterated.  "Get everypony out safely."

They nodded.  I so hoped I was completely wrong.  I so hoped nothing would pop through the illusion.  I so very hoped nopony would get hurt for my stupidity, whatever the black dots turned out to be.

I pulled down the mic.  "Everypony be calm and..."  Yada yada. 

As the promenade substantially emptied, I could not stop thinking about what hurtled down at us.  In all likelihood, they headed to attack the princesses, not the common folk.  But I had to know.  The morning of the 1000th Sun Celebration, I had caught Princess Nightmare Moon spying through the window of the Golden Oak Library.  She had needed to know her enemy and that meant so did I.  I curved north, flapping hard, and soared up over the ramparts of the castle.  Passing through the illusion of red sky and storm clouds hovering barely five stories high was like having been whirled around on a desk chair until made sick.  (Thank you Vinyl Scratch for having demonstrated once.)  It passed in an instant, and I shot into the sunlight.

Sadly, I wasn't wrong.

Jet black ponies with bulbous lime-green eyes and shimmering dragonfly wings swarmed like angry bees through the air, heading for the inner grounds of the palace.  There were hundreds.  All had fangs.

Wolves had fangs.  I could well guess what wolves did to ponies with them.

I wasn't a target.  None saw me flying.  

But I saw something that experience had made me expect.  Racing from the southeast wing of the castle galloped Twilight Sparkle, followed closely by her friends.  Together they were the bearers of the Elements of Harmony; they had defeated Discord.

The insect ponies dive-bombed the group.  They also appeared to be unicorns.  They shot green beams from their jagged horns that exploded against the ground.  Bloody wonderful, that.

When they landed, each suddenly transformed in a sheet of green smoke, becoming duplicate Twilight Sparkles, Pinkie Pies, or another.   The Six turned and charged their pursuit, the two groups smashing together in a cloud of dust.  When I saw unconscious black monsters flying away in the air and bursts of red-purple magic, I knew there was nothing I could do to help. 

I curved away.  I trusted that Twilight Sparkle would know what she was doing.  She always prevailed.  I could help elsewhere.

I dived through the nerve-jangling illusory clouds, rushing up on the stage and landing with a resounding clack of my hooves.  I flipped my headset away across the soundboards and looked at my confused team of roadies, lighting and sound technicians, and two assistants.  "Everypony here!" I shouted, pointing at my hooves.

To a one they came, though Ghost Zapper mumbled something about wondering why he was casting the illusion he was sweating buckets to maintain.  Helping Hoof stood beside him and steadied him as I addressed the team.  "Look at me.  I'm calm.  You can be calm, too."  I pointed with a wing behind me at the crowd that had diminished to less than a third in the last few minutes.  "They're calm, too.  Can we be calm?"

I saw nods.  

"Good lads.  Somepony is attacking Canterlot."  D-D jumped and the blue mare in charge of the speakers began shaking.  I flared my wings.  "Calm.  We can do calm.  I'm totally calm.  See?  Totally.  Completely.  Calm."  And patently crazy, but I wasn't going to say that.  "Breathe.  Okay?  They look like pony-shaped black insects with cheese-holes in their limbs and they are heading into the castle.  We must go the other way.  Find some place to hide while the princesses and the Elements of Harmony sort this out.  Can we do that?  Calmly?"

I led the way, on four hooves though I was a pegasus.  We merged as a group into the crowd, me telling everypony around me to be calm, patting anypony on the back that looked nervous, asking some if they liked the music I played.

Calm.

Totally.

Completely.

It took three minutes until we walked on the first hundred pony-lengths of the Strand and could turn through the thronging crowd toward the castle.  The optical properties of Ghost Zapper's illusion made it look like storm clouds jostling in a barely seen red sky.  He maintained the illusion, but as I turned east, I could see it ended a few blocks into town.  I saw confused ponies milling, but they were not gathering into larger crowds, so I hoped they would continue dispersing without becoming spooked.  I watched as the last thick group of ponies, almost forty abreast, walked over the arched bridge, followed by just stragglers in groups only twenty or so across.

"I cannot keep it going much longer, Mop."  His aura burned a bright pale blue, making his horn look as if illuminated from inside, and hot like a gas flame.

"Aurora?  Anypony?"

Aurora Australis shook her head.  "Never knew he was such a high level unicorn.  That apparition u-up there—that's impossible."

"Fear and necessity find strange depths in a pony."  I knew well.  Regardless, the crowds and the clumps of stragglers were still too thick.  A stampede was a contagion spread by proximity.  To Ghost Zapper, I said, "A bit longer."

His legs started quaking below him. His fur was slickened with perspiration to an extent that he smelled intensely of horse.  Aurora Australis swooped in on his left while Helping Hoof did the same on his right, to keep him from collapsing as they lowered him to the ground.  

He said, My horn is beginning to hurt."

I looked around at the crowds streaming into Canterlot and folded sphinx-like before him.  "I imagine it is.  I faced Discord in Ponyville.  He turned me inside out, but I persisted.  I found a way to help ponies escape.  You're doing that now."

"It really hurts."  His eyes started widening, looking spooked. 

"Look at me."  I held his face with my wings, tilting his head down as his eyes threatened to roll up into his head.  "I'm here.  A little more."

Aurora Australis said, "You're hurting him."

Ponies were still too tightly packed. 

He said, "I-I can't—"

I shot back. "You can."

"Not much longer..."

The fur around his face was drying suddenly.  "Yes, you can."

"No."

"Look at me Zap."

His frown increased, but his eyes wandered in my general direction.  Over his shoulder, I saw the crowds thinning more.  Not enough to keep a panic from spreading.  He said, "Flopsy Mopsy.  What kind of name is that?"

Aurora Australis tried pulling a wing away.  I smacked her sharply as I said, "I'll show you the foal picture Mum and Dad keep on the mantelpiece."

"Nice," he croaked as his eyes started wandering.  I smelled smoke.  

I had the sudden fear I was missing a more immediate attack, but focused on his face.  I asked, "What color are my eyes?  What color?"

The pale blue aura around his horn guttered.

"My eyes!"

He looked at me and we locked gazes.  "I think, indigo?"

"That's your artistic side."  Above the sky flipped from red to deep blue.

"May be."

"You know, you're a hero."

"You think?"

"May be."

"Hah!" he exclaimed.  There was a sudden phizzzzz and a flash.  Stinking smoke filled the air and I coughed, waving the noxious cloud away with a wing as his head became heavy, or rather he went limp.  Late afternoon sunlight beamed down suddenly. 

Multiple ponies caught him to keep his skull from bouncing off the ground.  In the middle of his forehead, his fur looked burnt off, had been burnt off.  Burnt hair stink filled the air.  Char formed a pattern of a five point star centered on his horn.  

He breathed.  I heard him sigh into unconsciousness. 

Aurora Australis screamed, "You, you, you monster!"

"I am a monster," I spat back, launching into the sky.
> Hard Choices
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Zapper's horn burnt out, or worse...

One life risked for the many...  

I wasn't going to explain to anypony that this was the essence of my cutie mark—earned about the time of my encounter with Princess Nightmare Moon—not music.  My special talent had to be about what I was doing and how, or I'd be a pony-sociopath.  I didn't want to be a pony who could act this way.  I didn't, hadn't, wouldn't have chosen my special talent.

Who would have? 

Even if I felt suddenly incredibly alive during these episodes.

Tears made it hard to see what Ghost Zapper and I had wrought as I flew above the strand, but I wiped furiously with a fuzzy fetlock and saw that the crowds had thinned enough.  Still, when I saw a pink earth pony rear, I dived, landed in front of her with a bang that made my knees ache, and embraced her.  

"It's nothing to fear," I lied, pulling her to all fours despite her superior strength.  She must have needed to hear that.  "It's nothing.  Just be calm and go inside."

I turned my head to the gathered crowd.  "All of you.  Calmly.  Go inside.  Stay there."  Nods.  Horseshoes clattering away across the cobblestones.

To the pink blue-maned mare: "You're okay."

Her nodding head rubbed against my neck.  I reluctantly released her.  I felt cheese-holes opening in my overly-stretched and bruised psyche.  I'd needed the hug as badly as she had.  

I jumped into the sky again, seeing from on high that ponies were generally running for shelter but not panicked.   Nopony stampeded down any of the streets I could see down.

I looked up for what had spooked the pink mare.

Black, weirdly-shaped ponies streamed into the sky from the castle.  

"Oh, bloody Tartarus." I hissed.  

Tiring, I landed on a fourth story roof and hid between the chimneys, doing as Princess Nightmare Moon would have done: scoping out the enemy.  I kept my eyes darting around, trying to count how many flew into upper Canterlot, pushing back the thought that the creatures had defeated the princesses and Twilight Sparkle, too.  That wasn't possible.  Twilight Sparkle never failed.

No matter what I did, I wasn't able to save everypony.  I was one pony.  I watched as the monsters flitted around on their transparent wings, hissing at ponies with a forked snake-tongue.  That spooked most ponies, though a few fainted.  That convinced others to run, but the panic didn't spread from ones and twos.  Ponies just ran for shelter.  

When the monsters cornered somepony, they vomited a glob of green goo and used their horn to spin a spiderweb around the victim, sticking him or her in place.

None brought their fangs to bear.  Thank Celestia for that.

Others performed an ugly tactic.  They'd duplicate a fleeing pony, run alongside others, then lead them into an ambush of his or her peers.  I couldn't tell the monsters' stallions from mares; if they were like bees, they might be neither or all mares.  

They rapidly turned Canterlot into a larder.  I shuddered.

I had to do something.  

I stood jittering and fuming.  I didn't want to kill myself needlessly.  When I saw one duplication result in the monster flying off in pegasus form, I jumped into the sky as a plan condensed in my head.

I winged upward toward a flight of shapeshifters, reining in every instinct to veer off or to let my fur raise as I snugged in on their left.  I could decipher no expression on their chitinous muzzles or from the diffraction rainbow glinting off their faceted metallic green eyes.  What made me think they could read mine?  My stupid luck...?

They eyed me in the crosswind that curled my primaries to the right and washed my fringe between them and my eyes, but... they didn't attack.  I mean, what pony would realistically join them?  I grinned as I spotted ponies cowering in the doorway of a store, sped up into the lead, and curved away toward an empty alleyway, pointing furiously.  The flight took my direction and swooped downward. 

The wind changed as I peeled away into their backdraft.  It was like opening the door to a bakery the day before Hearthswarming.  I got hit with a wall of cinnamon, clove, and whatnot.  I actually coughed, banked reflexively back into the stream, and followed in my surprise.  As waves of different scents spread out—one each for the five I momentarily followed—I felt a panoply of emotions.  

All of them good.  I mean, Hearthswarming, right?  Mulled cider and figgy pudding.  A cedar log in the fireplace warming and scenting the cottage.  Aunts.  Goofy cousins.  Gifts.  

I dived away, confused.  Why could a creature so horrible smell like familial love?  Worse, they stank of it as if they were incense candles burning an essential oil at an outrageous rate.  

It did give me an idea how to fit in better.

I'd noticed a bakery on the Strand.  I soared down into the alley behind it.  Beside a stack of old bread left for the homeless ponies, around behind a rubbish bin filled with flour sacks, I found the back entrance.  

A green door.  

Latched.

I bucked it open in three loud kicks, splintering the jamb into flying wood chips, and trotted into the empty yeasty-smelling shop.  I scoured the shelves and cabinets of the kitchen, then found the bulk spices and flavored oils beside the oven.  I saw the baker's saddlebags, black turned grey by ground-in dustings of flour.  I piled in clattering bottles of cinnamon extract, vanilla, licorice water, and clove oil, and shrugged into them.

I stopped in the hall.  I looked down at the splinters of green-painted wood on the stained red tile floor, then at the rear exit and felt my skin cool.  That's breaking and entering, and burglary, young filly!  The dichotomy between the thought and my reasons caused me to giggle.  I grabbed a hoofful of gold bits from my coin pocket and dropped them before dashing into the alley.  There, I bathed my wings in cinnamon and vanilla, fluttering like a sparrow in a bird bath, wanting to smell like the Hearthswarming soft cinnamon buns I so adored (with a huge dollop of butter, naturally).  I fluffed them to work the scents in deep and leapt into the sky.

The ruse worked amazingly well.  A half dozen times I managed to drift away when I saw gathered ponies in a courtyard or milling on the pavement.  Sometimes pony-curiosity defeated common sense.  I slammed doors and screamed at some ponies hanging out of windows trying for a better view.  There were hundreds more, and I shooed them safely inside.  

All wasn't puppy dogs and rainbows, however.  As I circled back up Alicorn Way with the seventh flight I would misdirect, I found no perfect choices.  Just bad and worse choices.  Six mares and a colt ran toward the castle a block away, while somepony I recognized, north at the intersection, ushered a pair of school fillies in blue and white uniforms through the shadows.  I suddenly felt what Aurora Australis had felt.  

Queasy.  

One life risked for the many, but I too was one pony.  I had to choose.  I had been to the left of the flight.  I swooped over to the right and herded the six shapeshifters through their cinnamon-y slipstream toward the castle.  Having captured their attention, I swooped down on the mares and colt.   I pulled up as the flight landed and surrounded them, banking sharply between two chimneys and away.

Eyes briefly blurred with tears, I flapped as fast as I could over sculptured gingerbread tile roofs and into an adjacent shadowed alley where I shot south just above the wet cobbles toward distant Oak Street, slaloming around parked wagons and rancid rubbish bins into the street as Octavia Melody came into view.  I skimmed her back with my hooves.  I somersaulted to avoid the fillies and landed skidding.  Octavia gasped.  The two fillies inhaled to scream, but I reared, waving my hooves and shushing with a wing.  I briefly scanned the sky, found it empty, and looked for cover.  

Octavia hustled the kids after me, whispering, "The monsters followed a pony inside the store we were hiding in..."

I flew to various doorways until I found a basement door cracked open.  I waved the group in.  The fillies dashed through the door, turned, and squeaked, "Thank you!" in unison.  

As Octavia followed, she smiled.  

I forced a smile and said, "This time lock the door and push something against it for good measure."

"I will," came through the silently shut door, followed by a latching sound.

I dashed up the stair and leapt into the sky.  

As I cleared the roof line, a rapidly moving shapeshifter dive-bombed me.  I barely dodged a rear kick and tumbled bruisingly onto a blue-tiled roof.  Hooves up, I slid down the ceramic slope on my flank as my attacker took advantage of my exposed belly.
> Pas de Deux
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The shapeshifter wore the visage of a red roan stallion with black points wearing the unarmored red parade uniform of a royal guard.  He bore down on me with clenched teeth, aiming steel-shod hooves at my exposed stomach.  

I flexed my rear legs.  Hooves met hooves with a resounding bang.  

The clattering concussion rattled my teeth.  With a grunt, I shoved him away, sending my forequarters forward as I slid past the eaves.  I tumbled off the roof, flared my wings, and gave chase.  I had to knock the ginger-maned creature from the sky before he revealed my ruse to his fellows.

I now stank of cloves.  I'd broken the bottle in the saddlebags.

The faux-pegasus streaked back at me, hooves foremost, yelling, "You'll pay for those mares!"

He spoke properly accented Equestrian!  

I didn't change my course.  

If you fly, instinct makes you protect one part of your anatomy over any other: I curved through the air as the buildings whizzed by beside us, causing us to spiral and weave around each other in the air a pony-length above the street... until I maneuvered him between me and an on-rushing building with a long balcony that allowed me to pen him in on four sides, then banked at his wings.

He spooked, dodged, and banged against a brick wall, then the bottom of the balcony.  He lost control, nearly crashing to the ground on a cross-street lined with townhouse mansions.  He got his hooves under him, though, his screeching horseshoes throwing a cascade of sparks.  I dived in hot behind him—

But flared my wings in time to prevent clobbering him in the flank: He smelled of sweaty horse!  Not the spices evocative of Hearthswarming eve.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Creature!" he screamed, aiming a buck at my face.

I dodged into the air and he jumped after me.

I fluttered away from boxing forehooves.  "Hey, I'm a pony!"

"Sure you are!  I saw you lead your fellows to those mares!"

"I did, to save other ponies."

"You even smell like them."  He struck me on the ribs.  Something went crack.

"Ugh!  That's because I bathed in supplies from a bakery!"  

I dodged right, then left, flying backwards, then kicked with my rear hooves.  When he dodged, I reached back into my saddle bags and caught the licorice bottle with my lips and flung it at him.

Oops!  I hit him square in the forehead with a clear thunk.  The bottle shattered.

"Ow!" he yelled, veering wildly, the alcoholic mixture dripping across his face and spiked mane.  

He was a royal guard.  I did hope he didn't have glass in his eyes, but I wasn't going to let him pummel me or give us up.  I took advantage of his disorientation and got two hooves on his chest.  I shoved him hard.

He recovered midair, but I got around him and bucked at his hip.  I was no fighter, so he was lucky I barely connected.  He went spinning away toward the ground.  

"I'm a pony!  I've been sending ponies to hide all over—"

"You are going to pay!"

"You're mental!"

He would beat me to a pulp if I gave him a chance, so I took my opening.  I got over him, banked my wings, and slammed like a wrestler down atop him.  I could have broken both his wings, but I folded my legs around his body, flared to slow us down as his wings beat against mine, and threw him into the ground as I let go.  I glided up and away.  His legs folded as he slid face-forward, neck out, down the pavement, the air knocked out of him with a loud woof.  I flapped in place in front of him.

"Am I going to have to kick your sorry flank?" I asked.

He lay there pretty much flank-kicked already.  He cringed as I looked down into his molten amber eyes.  I think he expected me to vomit green goo over him, but instead I asked, "Really?  Bloody Tartarus!  Where do you think a shapeshifter would have learned to imitate a Trottingham accent?  I mean, come on, mate!"  I landed. 

He looked up.  "You're DJ FM."

"Good lad," I said.

"I caught your late show at the Grand Baltameria when I was on leave last month," he chattered, probably punch drunk from hitting his head.  "My friends really liked you..."  He trailed off and moaned.

I pulled the wobbly stallion up and got him to limp below a stone staircase to a brownstone townhouse.  I scanned the sky and asked, "Who might you be?"

"Lieutenant Riverdale."

I saw a silver bar insignia on his shoulder.  "Are there others fighting the shapeshifters, or is it just us?"

"I hope there's others, but there's too many to fight."

"Not if you smell like them—"

He snorted.  The thick scent of licorice oil nigh beat my nostrils bloody. 

"—and join them as if you belong."

"That's— I couldn't order somepony to do that!"

"Think of Equestria ruled by them, or your foals eaten by them."

He gulped and pursed his lips.  "How can you think such thoughts—?" He reached up suddenly and clamped two hooves over my right upper lip.  He held as I startled back.  "You're bleeding."

Right—the cracked bottle of clove oil when I reached for the bottle of licorice. I shrugged out of the damp stained saddlebags, keeping them upright so not to spill more of the contents. 

I said—muffled, him still holding my lip—"You go find your troops and have them bathe in this, then tell them to screw their courage to the sticking place.  I have to go save more ponies."

"Stay here.  You're a civilian."

"No, I am a citizen.  I chose to be naturalized as an Equestrian.  I swore allegiance to the princesses, my liege—"

"I'm going with you."

I swatted away his hooves.  "With a broken leg?"

"Broken or sprained, I don't need it to fly—"

"Take the saddlebags!" I ordered and moved to peer into the sky.

Nopony.  

I leapt upward, him stupidly behind me.  The stallion had longer, stronger wings.  A cracked rib sure does hurt when you flap hard, which slowed me.  

As he flew beside me, I said, "Keep focused on me if you feel they're spooking you.  If you see ponies, click your horseshoes and I'll herd them in the direction you're flying in.  If they spot ponies, act like you see more ponies even closer.   Act frantic," I finished, spotting a flight closing on Lower Canterlot, north of the train station, and banked to join them.  

A pink-maned yellow-furred pegasus led the marauders, and looked very much like Twilight Sparkle's friend Fluttershy.  We merged with the buzzing horde with little more than a nod between me and the shapeshifter in the lead.  

I ignored Riverdale and floated to the fore, scanning the town below.  The vast majority of Canterlot ponies had done the right thing, hiding indoors, but not everypony.  It begged the question of what the shapeshifters would do once they'd secured the town.

One problem at a time!

I'd figure something out—if I lived that long.

We weren't flying together for half a minute when ponies hiding in the train station rushed the railcars.  I could still hear the locomotive chugging, awaiting a departure forestalled by the crisis.  The flight banked sharply.

I tried zooming ahead and heading for a row of houses, which incidentally had a pink and lime green pony flitting between buildings, but, despite my pointing and acrobatics, the tasty treat that they'd spotted proved too delicious looking.  I found myself completely ignored.

I peeled away from the group, only to be pushed aside by the licorice backwash of a swiftly flying Riverdale, arrowing down behind the group.

I hovered a moment, shocked, then whispered, "Oh, bloody Tartarus."  I dived behind him, wanting to yell at the idiot but hopeful I could still keep our secret.

The shapeshifters encircled the poor pastel ponies in party clothes who were stuck on the siding.  The monsters hissed like snakes as they prevented a dozen prey from running past them.  Riverdale landed beside the leader.  As he turned to buck the yellow mare, she transformed in a sheet of green magic into one of the identical shapeshifter insect ponies.

I tackled Riverdale.  My impetus carried us tumbling across the noisy gravel into a couple of captured purple mares in dresses.  They shied and banged into five stallions in the wispy stretch lounge-suits the cognoscenti wore while dancing.  Two were brown spotted pintos, the rest were shades of blue, and, as a group, they reared.  A half-dozen school foals in upper-crust-school red and black uniforms screamed and ran every which direction.  I landed skidding on my back with Riverdale astride, making my rib ache even more, but my heart raced and I felt exhilarated despite my anger.  I could make this work.  I would.

His amber eyes widened as I smiled.  

He started to say, "Wha—?"  

I slapped him across the muzzle with a wing.  As he struggled to untangle from me, I shoved him away with my hind legs.  We landed with loud crunches before each other.

Around us, I heard the crush of ponies fleeing and dodging, but I caught his eyes with an evil glare.

Again he opened his mouth.

I charged him, hissing as loudly as I could, which was more like a spitting cat than anything like the shapeshifters sounded, but maybe they'd have issues in pony form, too.  He tried to dodge, but his knackered leg caused him to collapse backward on the gravel.  I dived at him, spraying gravel at every shapeshifting pony unfortunate enough to be behind me, but got my forelegs below him to push him up.   When he didn't get the message, I reared and pedaled my legs at his wings, hissing.

He jumped into the air.  I chased him.  At least he fled.

I spared a glance behind to assure myself the foals had escaped, and that the shapeshifters had paid no heed to our continued dispute.  Perhaps they were combative by nature, or the prize too sweet to abandon, or we were just lucky.

"What in bloody Tartarus were you doing?" I screamed when we flew out of earshot, him evading as I tried to slap him as we flew side by side.

"I thought—"

"No, no, no!" I yelled.  "Don't think!  You'll save more ponies if you abandon those you can't save.  Sweet Celestia!"

"But we saved some," he said, keeping his distance.

"You hope we did.  Look, I'm going to do this alone."

"You'll get yourself killed!"

"I don't bloody care!  I find this weirdly fun.  I'm broken.  Go find your troops.  You saw what I did.  It works.  If you've got enough ponies with you, sure, try to fight if you like, but only if you can win.  Don't mess this up for me!"  I banked away, spotting another flight of shapeshifters.

He followed.  "How can you bear to abandon ponies so much in need?"

I huffed.  We had entered a thermal, so I banked along the circular column of rising air and said, "I faced off Discord when he came to wreck Ponyville.  Doing the hard thing allowed hundreds to run from town before he did his worst."

"Okay, you have experience.  I can see how you could join the changelings in the air so easily, but not how you might be so ready to abandon—"

"I met Princess Nightmare Moon when she ambushed Princess Celestia.  The dark princess liked my attitude.  It didn't hurt that I had bowed to her and called her 'Your Royal Majesty.'  And had kept my eyes locked on her electric green ones.  Think about it."

Riverdale paled.  He drifted a pony-length away from me as we flew in tandem on the curving path.  He said, "You've been touched by evil."

"Ya think?  I am evil," I said, thinking how I had let Ghost Zapper burn out his horn.  

"No pony who saves other—"

I shushed him.  Another flight came our way.  I pointed, curved toward... he had called them "changelings."  Because they could change, I supposed.  He followed my lead, but I swore to myself if he interfered with me saving ponies I'd buck him from the sky.  I was evil that way.  With us showing no fear, I joined the group that contained two identical rainbow-maned sky blue pegasi.  I prayed Riverdale would stay in form.

It proved to be another Octavia situation, like in uptown Canterlot.  He clacked his horseshoes together and curved south at the same time I saw a dozen teenage fillies in glittering dance clothing in that general direction.  He had spotted some construction workers, a constable, and an elderly couple limping along.  That we saw ponies before the changelings did, I could only assume that we were used to seeing them and they weren't, but the flight I more or less now led wouldn't miss them in a second or two because of the glitter.

I looped under and through the flight and off toward the group Riverdale had spotted, crossing so close in front of the lieutenant that he dodged up into a barrel roll with a gasp.  I had the changelings' attention, though, as I pointed furiously.  Mind you, I wasn't diving straight toward the group in case they might slip between buildings, but my gut had chosen who to save, those that had no chance of defending themselves.  The changelings started passing me as we slowed and dipped below the roof tops.  Whitewashed stone two-story residences, fronted with windows and balconies, whooshed past.  

The changeling's buzz increased as they sped forward.  They'd spotted Riverdale's group—

With no warning, a sudden gale wind tried to sweep me away.
> Swept Away
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gale force winds thrust the two Rainbow Dashes into a wooden balcony baluster as if a tornado had hit them. I heard a chitinous krump!  One changed back into a black insect pony.  They bounced off a glass paneled door, one-two, the second one shattering a pane as the wind swept them upward.  The others veered and got blown in eddies, unable to steer clear of lamp posts, overhanging eaves, or walls.  I was spared the brunt of the wind, but it made it hard to steer as each correction I made to attitude caused a yaw or slide in the air.  It blew my mane furiously, beating my eyes.  

The insistent airflow seemed almost sentient.  As I tried to land, it forced me into a spin that lifted me upward.  It was almost like when Discord had turned me into a whirligig, only now I felt controlled as if by puppet strings.

I saw the changelings blown totally out of control.

Riverdale slammed into my left side, incidentally striking my rib.  The sharp pain made me gasp.  Using the flow of air upward and away from the building, with a foreleg over my withers, he steered and shoved me to land in a controlled crash on somepony's red-tiled terrace.  I slid on my belly, knocking away a deck chair, spinning through an open door to miss the stairwell and hit a Prance door.  It creaked open.  The insistent air sucked me to the balcony's wall with a bang of my horseshoes against stucco. 

Riverdale held me tightly.

I found myself shivering as I said, "Cheeky colt."  While the freakish wind mussed my fringe and ruffled my fur, his ginger mane lay still against his neck.   It didn't move.  The wind didn't affect him at all! 

Sparkles.  

Sparkles rushed by.  

The type of thing that accompanied a magical manifestation.  I looked at the street.  A faintly spherical green wave, like a unicorn's aura, pulsed repeatedly down the street towards the east, grabbing at my mane each time as it did.  Looking skyward, I saw black pony-shaped dots spinning uncontrollably in the thaumaturgical gale.

Swept away.

I glanced left and saw Riverdale's amber eyes darting.  He was seeing it, too.

I pointed a hoof.  "See.  I'm evil."  I blinked and felt my eyes burn.  It felt good to have confirmed what I knew about myself.

"No.  They're swept away by it.  You're only—"

"Dashed against things like the rubbish—"

"Hey!  I'll believe you're 'broken', but I saw this last time.  Whatever Nightmare Moon—"

"Princess Nightmare Moon—"

"—did to you, you made a decision to save the defenseless set of ponies.  That was absolutely the moral choice—and I know I'm nowhere as strong as you are to have made the decision myself.  I'd have likely fought futilely and gotten everypony caught.  Her 'influence' may have made you strong, but you made yourself a hero."

I struggled to get from under his grasp, away from the nettling incomprehensible word that burned my ears, but he held me tightly, controlling me like a kite fighting against a tempest.  "I am no—"

"Shush."  He held me even more tightly, like a frightened foal.  "Shush."

I felt my eyebrows lift, but I rested my head on his warm furry side anyway.  That way, I didn't have to look into his too virtuous eyes, or let him see mine glisten.   I murmured, "I am a knight of Equestria.  It's first."  Princess Nightmare Moon promised!

Maybe I'd said that last aloud in a whisper.

"That I would believe, like in fairytales and chivalric legends." 

The wind faded to the weakest of non-magical breezes. The changelings were gone.  "Okay, Dame FM, we need to get some injuries tended to."

"My name is Flopsy Mopsy."

"Charmed, Dame Flopsy Mopsy."  He helped me up.  

As I nibbled back in place all the feathers the wind had ruffled, I studied him to see if he was being patronizing.  Maybe not.  The taste of cloves numbed my tongue.  My cut lip stung and began to bleed, which left my right wing stained with dabs of red.  

I thought of Ghost Zapper.  

After relating what I'd done to him, he said, "You are a hard master Dame Flopsy Mopsy, but together you two saved thousands of lives.  I've heard that the Princess' physician is good at healing magical burnouts."

When we landed in Palisades Park, the green belt between the cliffs and the Strand, I saw a clock on an ornate green-painted wrought-iron pole.  It read 5:50.  Less than an hour had passed, but it felt like an eternity.  I had meant to start our search where I'd last seen Ghost Zapper, only to immediately find him beside Aurora Australis on the grass.  

Bits of fluorescent yellowish-green flecked their fur and I deduced that the wind that had threatened to sweep me away, broke apart the changeling's web, too.  The lime-green mare surged upright between the stallion and me.  As her eyes tracked to the blood dripping down my neck from my chin, she said, "Back off!"

Riverdale's wings made a loud swooping backwash as he made a three-point landing.  "My my, Dame Flopsy Mopsy, you do know how to make friends, don't you?" He held his rear leg up as he limped around the unicorn mare to peer at the unconscious illusionist's forehead.  

I said, "We're going to take him to be cared for."

"Care, is it?"  The businessmare spat on the grass.  "You broke him!'

I didn't say that I knew how that felt. 

Riverdale let go of Ghost Zapper's horn, laying his head down.  He said, "He's too heavy to carry for either of us without finding a cart.  Do you mind lending a helping horn?"

Aurora Australis proved barely able to lift his weight, but that sufficed as she grunted while trotting off with the lieutenant flying beside her.  He glanced back and said, "You, too."

I cantered to catch up.  The businessmare pointedly kept to the opposite side of Riverdale, with her charge kept to her left farthest from me.  Considering her accent, and Ghost Zapper's Equestrian one, they weren't mother and son.

We entered Castle Canterlot through the portcullis at the end of Alicorn Way near the Bank of Equestria building.  The guard—both stained with yellowish-green, armor worn out of kilter, and one blue mare with a bad bruise on her cheek—saluted as we passed through the double-walls.  The interior city had its own buildings and towers in the same shade of white, all with a blue-and-gold mare-and-heart accent, but none were commercial properties or homes.  It looked institutional in an aristocratic way.  Riverdale sent a page ahead of us as we cut through the castle gardens full of fern trees, weeping willows, and flowering shrubs.  A profusion of red, pink, and yellow roses bloomed around us.  Regardless, Riverdale's licorice overpowered any floral scent.

Royal guards in similarly battered armor stood before a two-story square building that proved to be our destination.  They held the door open for us and said, "Second floor. "

The walls were plaster with teak wainscoting and the doors mahogany with frosted crystal windows.  The banister on travertine the staircase gleamed with brass polished for the wedding.  Which office on the second floor became obvious.  An officer in full parade dress—a red wool jacket with a blue sash, gold collar, gold spats, all of which looked antique to my eye—guarded the door.  His white fetlocks and dark blue hooves were stained yellow-green.

"Captain Shining Armor," Riverdale said, saluting.  "First Lieutenant Riverdale reporting with casualties."

The beefy, albeit below average-sized, white unicorn looked disheveled.  Not his uniform, but his fur was all over the place, his cyan on blue mane sagged  left, and he had prominent dark circles below his eyes.  I stood on the stairs behind the heavily breathing Aurora Australis and didn't hear exactly what Riverdale said next, but the captain focused on Ghost Zapper's head for a few moments, before his eyes lingered on me.

I reflexively narrowed my gaze and returned his blue-eyed appraisal.

As he waved in Riverdale and Aurora Australis, I recalled who Shining Armor was: Twilight Sparkle's brother, the captain of the royal guard, and the bridegroom.  It explained a lot.

I stepped to the top of the stair.  "Hi, sir," I tried.  A salute wasn't proper, so I sketched a quick curtsey. 

He gave a gentle snort, which I interpreted as amusement, and continued to appraise me.  

For a long time.

I finally said, "I'm Flopsy Mopsy, DJ FM."

"So you joined groups of changelings and misdirected them?"

I wasn't comfortable saying I had, because, really...  not normal.  What normal pony would admit, well, being able to do that?  I couldn't not admit it; Riverdale had blabbed it.  I mumbled a lackluster, "Yeah.  Sorta."

He snorted again, but reached forward and sniffed.  

I understood and said, "The first time I got near them, they smelled like Heartswarming Eve."

His eyes moved as he thought.  "Rrright."

"So I found some flavored oils in a bakery—"

"And bathed in them."  He nodded and smiled, "Love."

Love, not luv.  He hadn't used the Trottingham familiar pronoun.  I said, "Hearthswarming was what the smells evoked for me, anyway."

"No, I meant love, the actual emotion.  Changelings eat love.  Metabolize it."

That explained the smell when they flew.  I shuddered, suddenly wondering if my lack of typical pony emotions had made it easier to pretend to be a changeling.  Was self-love an important thing?  "What about their fangs?"

He shrugged.

He leaned forward and sniffed.  "Had I understood that Cadance's sudden choice of... 'bakery' perfumes meant something significant, I might have realized she'd been ponynapped."

The puzzle pieces came together and I wondered about the nature of the attack at the ceremony an hour ago.  I didn't get a chance to find the courage to ask for the particulars because the office door opened slightly.  Twilight Sparkle looked out.  What struck me, compared to her brother and even my diminutive self, the Element of Magic was really petite.  The purple mare had bandages taped to her cheek and wound around her right foreleg.  Her fur looked scorched on her chest, and I saw crusted blood on her muzzle and bruises purpling her hide darkly along her ribs.  She'd fought in an epic battle, the one I'd seen her charge into, no doubt.  A roiling cloud of her ruddy magic opened the door fully as she stepped aside.

Princess Celestia appeared.

My Trottingham upbringing took control.  I eeped, fluttered out of the way of the stairs into the hall, and curtseyed deeply.  I declared, "Your Royal Highness!"  

I fought to keep my eyes down but failed.  The tall white alicorn wore none of her regalia.  I saw fur worn off her left side, though she displayed no bruises.  Scorches blackened her horn visibly.  She, too, had been in a fight.

She looked to her left at me, her violet eyes alighting on the blood that wept from my lips, then blinking as if I wasn't entirely what she expected to see.  She took a deep breath and said, "An illusion?"

Ghost Zapper's.  "Yes, Mum," I replied.

"Thousands—" she started, only to be cut off by a crashing bang.  

I tensed, my heart beating rapidly as adrenaline surged through my blood.  I got a sharp pain in my rib, and maybe that kept me holding my curtsey and not immediately flying into the air above the hallway, ready to fight.
> Define "Evil"
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sound that had startled me into full fight mode had been the front entrance slammed open.

I heard, "Sister!"

Princess Luna's voice could not be mistaken.  She'd matured rapidly in the years since I'd first met her, rejuvenated by harmony magic into a filly about my age.  The dark blue mare looked sinewy, beautiful, and incredibly regal.  Her voice was now the same as Princess Nightmare Moon's.  I'd forever remember that voice.  It had rewritten my soul.

Princess Celestia fluttered forward, saying also, "Sister!"

Luna asked, "Did I miss anything?"

Giant Celestia, unable to fly in a building like a regular pegasus, teleported downstairs, leaving a wisp of frost curling in the air.  The twin bangs were followed by the crinkle and shush of mashing feathers as the two embraced.  I heard sobs and low words I did not work to eavesdrop on as I stood upright.  

Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's runty paladin, exited the doctor's office and trotted downstairs.  If Riverdale could evoke chivalric legends that allowed I could be a knight, I could certainly think of the pony as a paladin.  Intuition insisted she'd saved Equestria again.  Her brother followed.

Riverdale said, "In here."

I shook myself to get my hackles and fluffed feathers to settle.  A deep breath helped blunt the adrenaline surge that left my stomach queasy and my tail swishing nervously.  He ushered me through a waiting room, past a perspiring white unicorn nurse digging through a medicine cabinet with brown and green potion bottles.  I guessed everypony was a bit queasy after what had just ended.  I walked into an examination room in which the husky white illusionist lay unconscious on a big metal table, breathing as if only asleep.  His tongue lowed out.  A unicorn stallion with grey-speckled brown fur, a tan mane, and bottle-bottom glasses stood behind the door, which he closed behind us.

"Will he be okay?"

The doctor said, "Oh, he most certainly will be.  As good as new.  I've  anesthetized him for his procedure.  It's you I'm wondering about."

I stopped, the opposite rear and forehoof midair, looking sharply into his magnified dark green eyes.

Riverdale said quickly, "Doctor Flowing Waters, meet Dame Flopsy Mopsy."

"Dame, again, is it?"

The doctor held out a hoof.  I tapped it, only realizing afterwords it was a test of my social reflexes.  I said, "Yes, I'm evil."

"Oh, I doubt that," the elderly doctor said, chuckling.  "But you were touched by Nightmare Moon."

"Princess Nightmare Moon," I corrected, willing my hackles not to rise and failing.

"Well, from what the lieutenant here told me, working to save so many ponies, you're the opposite of evil.  Still, he said distressing things about how Cadance's and Shining Armor's love spell affected you, and how distressed you seemed in general about your—"  He glanced at my cutie mark and briefly shook his head.  "—your special talent.  I'd like to check to see if your encounter with 'the princess' physically harmed you."

"Shouldn't you be working on Ghost Zapper?  I..."  I began blinking as tears threatened.

He said, "Helped him maintain a spell beyond his endurance when he really needed to do so?"

I hadn't spotted Aurora Australis, but I flinched when she clacked a hoof hard against the floor in anger.  Magenta eyes speared me when I found her near the window, partially behind a cabinet of bandages and steely medical devices.  

I said, "Sorry.  I had to."

Steam rose from her nostrils as she breathed out explosively.

The air in the room seemed suddenly stuffy, especially with the mixture of Ghost Zapper's dried sweat, Riverdale's licorice, and the smell of cinnamon, cloves, and blood that lingered around me— not to discount the smell of rubbing alcohol.  "Can we open the window?  It's a tad warm in here."

Flowing Waters said, "I'd rather you didn't leave."

"Yeah, I might have left, but I could just walk out."

"The princess has taken an interest in you."

It had felt warm and stuffy before.  Now my entire body cooled.  Still, Princess Celestia was my liege.  Did I have a choice?

No, the strong part inside decided.  No, I had to stand for this, finally.  Find the truth.  Accept judgement.

I asked, "What are you going to do?"

"I backtracked some of the research once done by the would-have-been third protégé of Princess Celestia.  The name she used was Starlight Glimmer, but we think she was born Aurora Midnight in Sire's Hallow.  She discovered how to look into a cutie mark.  Thanks to her, we now know that it's an organ of the body, only magical instead of biological."

"I got mine on the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration, after I met Princess Nightmare Moon."

"I see."

I dissembled.  "I'd spent the night before DJing the official party in Ponyville.  It was my first professional gig.  The experience made me incredibly happy."

He blinked as he evaluated the iconography of the puppet hearts that dangled from a cloud on my cutie mark.

I waited for him to finish and, on impulse, added, "And I blocked the entrance to Town Hall and shouted, 'Stop!', when Mayor Mare stupidly caused everypony inside to panic.  Everypony outside was on edge.  They'd seen Twilight Sparkle and the five that would become the bearers of Elements of Harmony fight Princess Nightmare Moon, and the alicorn had just fled.  It was very tense."

"You stopped a stampede?" Flowing Waters asked.

I could not find my voice.  I choked up.  Instead, I nodded.

"That was you?" a voice behind me asked.

I turned and looked at the lime-green mare.  "You were there?"

"Outside.  I had heard of Zapper's talent and had figured the celebration was the perfect excuse to scout him out."  She gasped.  "So, not your first time saving —" she stated, blinking, tilting her head, reevaluating everything.  "There was this incredibly calm filly flying around—even after a royal guard was shot out of a window.  I remember him smoldering on the lawn, but it was hard not to stare at you, even after that dreadful black alicorn flew over you and over us—" she shuddered "—and you just looked at her like she was nothing.  Sweet Celestia!  What are you?"

Tears streamed down my cheeks to drip from my jaw.  

Riverdale murmured, "In the building and then outside.  A stampede would have—"

"—maimed or killed I don't know how many," I completed, sniffling and wiping my eyes with my wings. "Please.  I'd rather not have ponies know about all this.  This is not who I am."

The doctor shook his head at my stupidity.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked.

'Watch quietly," he said and pulled up a rolling stool to the table.   

He touched his horn to the base of Ghost Zapper's horn, around which the illusionist's magic had burnt a five point star.  He closed his eyes as his forest-green aura bloomed and expanded into his patient's head like the mists of a curling fog bank rolling gently along, pulsing languidly, and disappearing around the edge of a hill.   This went on long enough that I sat, watching the light show.  I began to think that unicorn magic may have inspired the chill sounds of some ambient songs.  Certainly those that included a dulcimer or a harp.  Amid the sparkles, I sensed the barely perceptible tinkle like a percussionist gently sliding a brush back and forth on the little gold keys suspended above most drum sets.  Wind chimes. 

Flowing waters murmured, his voice sounding distant, "The damage is all superficial. Just a few burnt neurons and a scorch in the lower hyperbaric process of the anterior horn chamber.  It's the inflammation that made him pass out."

I'd never heard of a doctor that healed by going inside to fix things, except for maybe knitting together bones.  Of course, that might explain why he was the royal physician.

Ghost Zapper began to complain with slurred sleep-walker words.  He seemed to be fighting the intrusion, but though his drugged state lessened, he couldn't do more than jerk or tremble.  The show lasted another ten minutes, then stopped.

The doctor got off the stool, stretched until multiple bones popped and he smiled.  "He'll be good as new, though I suspect he'll have a whopper of a headache."  Flowing Waters grinned at me, pointed his horn at my midsection, and said, "Your turn."

I froze.  

If I could fight changelings, I could stand for this.  

I didn't flinch as he walked around me, his aura disappearing into my flesh as he went, examining my chest, my neck, and finally my face.  All I felt was a slight effervescent tingle, except now as he examined my head the wind chimes sound grew loud.  His horn touched my lip and the flesh ticked and seemed to boil for about a minute after which the puffy overstretched feeling subsided.  The cut had healed.  As he passed by my left side, he said, "Three ribs are sprained.  I recommend ice."  As he continued rearward, he added, "Please don't interpret this as rude.  I'm going to examine your cutie mark; strange emotions may bubble up.  Please relate what you feel."

I followed his actions, keeping my eyes on him.  The soft touch on my flank wanted to ring alarm bells, but only his aura actually made contact.  The whirring magic threatened to tickle, but I clamped my muscles to stifle that, though my heart beat faster and faster.  I felt a gentle tug and a wave of warmth flooded through me.  I swished my tail involuntarily, barely missing the doctor's face.

His magic tugged again, and this time it felt like my cutie mark actually jerked slightly higher, but that could have been a nervous tick on my flank.  The dizzy feeling of everything warping around me came on like when I had tried on somepony's thick glasses.  On its hooves came a sense of all that was good in life fading away.  With an elastic snap, the cold sensation left, leaving a jumbled sense of normalcy that felt upside down as I tried to figure out—

My heart leapt into my throat and I gasped.  I wobbled, feeling like I might fall over as my sense of a flight horizon tilted.  I stopped seeing properly.  Everything went bright misty blue.  

Music, like reflected light, took definitive shape.  Where the doctor had stood, I saw a glowing harpsichord concerto; black notes spun out and flooded into my flank.  

Looking at Riverdale, I saw red marching beat of drums and crackling synthesizers.   

Beside me, Ghost Zapper manifested an even stronger vibe, a pulse of silvery guitar clouds plucked with the beat of the stomping hooves of a crowd of dancers.  His breathing was a song that I knew, but couldn't find all the words even as they sloshed inside me as a flood of music.  Overwhelmed, I sang:  

"Take my broken lonely heart / find it hope and find it love / take it apart and make it new a-gain..."

I stopped with a loud whinny.  Memories struck me broadside, musically pummeling my consciousness, transforming what I had seen today into a cacophony that blared into my ears.  

I was flying, rising to join the flight of black insect ponies.  Green-faceted eyes turned to regard me.  Suddenly weighty, ominously liturgical music—that rumbled with timpani colored with dark horns and double bass—shattered into folk dance and merry polkas.

I stumbled, blinked, and reached out for the table that I knew had to be on my right, the one upon which Ghost Zapper lay.  I felt the cool metal but saw red waves emanating from a struck bell.  

More noise rumbled up.  The hallucination dug back to my earliest impressions.  To how all my craziness had started...

To the dark midnight blue lake upon which shined Princess Nightmare Moon.

To her standing over me in the predawn, after her ambush of her sister...  

To a wave of emotion washed into a purple and black clashing-of-cymbals that punctuated a rolling ethereal funeral dirge, a sound that mourned what had once been... 

With a furious appetite to ensure it never existed again.   

Never.

Never.

Again.

Deep within the dark princess rose sounds very much like light waltzes and dances muffled by a wall into the next room.  It was a very different music than her ambient orchestra.  Maybe it was not from behind a wall, but from behind a closed door.  Suppressed, the violins and recorders had been right well strangled out of existence.  

I reached for the door I sensed, every black, angry sound from before now faded.  I stopped, hoof on the door lever that rang like a C# on a xylophone, ears swiveling every which way.

In the mix.  In the intermezzo that intervened...

...all burnt and crying...

...hid Princess Luna—

Bang, like that, I was back.  I found myself hyperventilating, a hoof up on the table where Ghost Zapper lay, stabilizing me.  Flowing Waters had got out of my way and now watched me from near the medical cabinet.  

"You tensed up and you sang.  Do you want to relate what you felt?"

I felt my ears pivot toward the closed door, toward the direction of the waiting room.   I asked, "Did you see anything wrong when you, um, looked?"

"Other than your intense reaction, I saw nothing worrisome."

"Everything became music—" I started, but turned to stare at the door when somepony knocked.

The nurse came in carrying a white cylinder with a puffy exterior that made the canister look like it wore a parka.  It floated in yellow magic along with a scroll tied with a red ribbon and a wax seal.  She left it beside the doctor and exited into the hall, leaving the door open.  He broke the wax to read the letter.  He began nodding.

He said to me, "Hopefully, you'll be more verbal about this."  

The top of the cylinder made the same vacuum pop a thermos made as he took it off.  Inside,  I saw a black quartz crystal.  

The rest happened in instants.
> Radioactive
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nestled in the padded cylinder, the object had the shape of an ordinary quartz prism.  It wasn't so much smokey as burnt and black and almost metallic as the light glinted off it.  It radiated a corrosive sense of everything wrong, the same as if you saw a log burning with flames that didn't consume it.  Somehow, it managed to glow deep green, dark purple, and black.  Black.

Threat.

My hooves clattered on the metal table and I stood over Ghost Zapper.  Everypony reacted, even the illusionist, who groggily pushed himself away and slid himself off the table behind me.  Gasps echoed from Aurora Australis and Riverdale. 

I dived at Flowing Waters, swatting the cylinder from his magic.  I swept him and the lime-green pony away into the corner of the examination room furthest from the open door where the cylinder landed and slid into the hall.  The rolling stool banged into a metal cabinet.  I jumped sideways, got in front of Riverdale, lifted my hind legs, and shoved him back to join the others.

Breathing hard, I glared at the... threat.  Further exposed, the black quartz radiated even more not-rightness, infectious not-rightness.  It made me think awful things.  It was as if... if I closed my eyes, in a blink, I might grow venomous fangs, or sprout slashing knife-edged hooves, or gallop like a pestilent pony of death running out of Tartarus to infect the entire world.  I stared, hyperventilating, trying to figure out what to do to fight its influence.   

It—it...

"Wha' what's happening," Ghost Zapper asked.

I reared, pedaling my hooves.  I'd crush it to dust!

Riverdale warned, "Don't do it."

I growled in frustration, jerking spastically as I fought my instincts.  I—  I—  I—  "Bloody Tartarus!" I shrieked.  Tilting my head back, I continued until my throat hurt.

I had no idea what the prism could really do, but my feathers were fluffed and my hackles up and I knew three things: It could hurt ponies, I wouldn't let that happen, and a force I could barely resist had seized control of my hooves.  

I rapidly looked around me for what I could do and saw the cap discarded beside my right foreleg.  I grabbed it with my teeth and with a flutter of my wings, swooped into the hall.   I struck the side of the cylinder with my rear hooves, sending it rolling until it fetched up against a wall.  The nurse had sensed the wrongness of it, too—or maybe she'd heard me shriek.  She had backed all the way into a little office until she stood against a mahogany desk.  She kicked closed the door and it slammed.

The thought of getting near the prism made me want to shy back, but I looked and saw a bit of moulding sticking out from around a door.  I took a deep breath around the cap clamped in my jaws and trotted forward, dipping my head, aiming carefully, hoping the precipitating drool from my wide open mouth wouldn't cause the cap slip, or me to trip.  Shoved against my tongue, the material tasted gallingly bitter, like a lemon spoiled by bleach or maybe lye. 

I shoveled-up the end of the crystal. 

A headache and purple and blue phosphenes bloomed in my head as if I had struck my forehead against an overhang.  A devastating cold like the depths of an iced-over lake enveloped me and I started shivering.  I felt dizzy.  My vision swam.  I was about to swoon, but I couldn't—I couldn't!  

I might lose myself, forever.

I resisted.  And pushed and the thing seemed to cry "No!"  

I ground my teeth on the cap and pushed harder against a counterforce, which might have been myself, sliding the whole cylinder back until the end of it touched the moulding.  My stomach started spasming.  As the prism slid in and became less and less visible, I swung out a wing to steady it.  I didn't so much push as leap forward.

The cap clicked closed.

"Shag me," I breathed and flopped legs and wings splayed bonelessly on the floor, relieved, returning warmth spreading through my body.  I'd done it!  Though the horror it had radiated had vanished, I still shimmied back, trying to find space.  I wanted to spit away the taste, but settled on scraping my tongue with my upper teeth.  The poisonous taint actually lessened the farther I got from the cylinder, which validated my instinct to back away.  I levered myself up as I heard Flowing Waters enter the hall.  

The whole incident, the unmitigated stupidity of him opening the cylinder, made me turn on him and all but shout, "What in bloody Tartarus was that bloody abomination?"  I stood breathing hard, blocking the cylinder from the doctor and everypony else, finally giving in to impulse and wiping my mouth on a foreleg.  "That thing is a nightmare, I mean, of epic proportions."

"There's no worries she's evil," Flowing Waters said out of the side of his mouth to the ponies beside him.

I took it as a joke because he chuckled.  

My traitorous fringe settled over my eyes, forcing me to shove it aside so I could better glare at him.  I was evil.  The magic wind proved that beyond any doubt.  "This.  Isn't.  Funny!"

"That is an artifact Princess Celestia couriered over.  It's a souvenir of a lost empire from before she banished her sister to the moon.  You don't have an affinity for dark magic.  The opposite, I'd say."

"I'm no unicorn.  I've no affinity for any magic."  And you can't read minds.

Riverdale, Aurora Australis, and a groggy Ghost Zapper all looked on, concern in their wide eyes.   

The doctor adjusted his glasses as he said, "You've got PCD."

"Peachy, what?"

He enunciated, "P.  C.  D.   Princess Compulsive Disorder."

I broke out in laughter, laughing from the depths of my belly until I started coughing and my legs became shaky, causing me to totter.  Well, if laughter was the best medicine, then Flowing Waters was dispensing it generously.  Beyond that?  I shook my head. 

Taking a step forward, Riverdale asked, "What are you going to do, now?"

I tensed, realizing I guarded the insulated prism instinctively.  I wanted the thing destroyed.  "Considering all the monsters that infest our world, there's only one safe place for that—an erupting volcano."  

The whole thing was patently stupid.  Princess Celestia had kept the thing for centuries to test ponies?

"I passed the test?"

"We should talk more about this, but. yes, very definitively," insisted the doctor.  He looked at my rigid stance and said, "And the courier is in the waiting room."

I shoved the cylinder back and opened the door.  Three guards in armor with spears waited, all on the green tweed couches, one reading a copy of PONY magazine with a bejeweled pink pony princess on the cover.  They came to attention as I stepped back and pointed at the artifact.  The one unicorn amongst the pegasi lifted it in her blue magic, and I found myself trotting after them.

Riverdale fluttered behind me.  "Where are you going?"

"I—"  It was a good question, but I didn't feel trusting at the moment.  "I'm going to see this safely put away."  I followed all the way to the university archive building, up the granite steps into the grand entrance hall.  I saw a white alicorn there, standing limed in bluish light cascading from a skylight, talking to ministers—her mane flowing flag-like in an unseen breeze.  It reminded me of the magic gale that had used my evil as a sail to toss me about like rubbish on the night seas.  

I stopped.

Good enough.  I didn't want to find out why the princess had ordered the test—or to let her test me further, or to recognize me and to ask questions. 

Riverdale had followed me this far, but he didn't follow as I retreated outside.  

My bristling fur laid itself back down.  I had learned way too much about myself today.  

What in bloody Tartarus was bloody Princess Compulsive Disorder?  

It made a joke of what I felt.  It was a joke. 

I protected ponies.  

When I had to.  

Hopefully a next time would be never  again.  That wasn't the pony I wanted to be.  That pony—the one who enjoyed the rush the melee, that would reflexively handle such chaotic events—she scared me.  

She'd scare anypony!

The sun would set as soon as, I supposed, after the princess put her adorable little memento away.  I took the the air, not seeing an obvious exit to the maze of castle buildings. 

A minute later, I landed on the stage in the promenade.  It wasn't completely abandoned.  While the feedbag vendors were cleaning up their stalls, Helping Hoof had been stacking my records and placing them in my van.  With the frog of a hoof, he picked up a vinyl triangle from a cracked disc and said, "You want to keep this?"

I chuckled and he tossed it behind himself.  He said, "It appears the royals have sorted it out.  Pinkie Pie just bounced away, saying the wedding and the parties will go on tomorrow."
> Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Never discount how well a spa treatment can change your attitude!

Helping Hoof found the Lotus Flower for me, which likely opened despite the cancelled wedding and thwarted invasion thanks to gold bits meant for the wedding afterparty tomorrow.  I wasn't going to complain if everypony thought it reasonable.  After a lavender-oil hot rock massage by the light of twenty-four dancing candle flames—and a divine eucalyptus steam that sweated out the memory of cloves from my body and soul—I fell asleep twice in a bubbling hot-tub, despite the lemon tea I sipped.  They hailed a taxi for me to the stable just blocks away because I needed it.  Since I danced continuously any night that I worked, which had been most nights recently, my exhaustion had to be emotional not physical.

I crashed, red satin bedspread still on, making like that embarrassing foal picture my parents kept  on the mantelpiece—spread eagled, wings out, basically boneless.  No diaper, though.  

I found myself flying.  

I know, big shagging deal, Mop!  I mean, pegasus?  Right?

I flew in the cool late afternoon skies over the onion dome towers of the castle and the beautiful white buildings of uptown Canterlot.  Below, ponies cyan, pink, and mauve ran for cover.  It wasn't my winged-shadow bobbing and playing across the storefronts and the walls of homes that spooked them.  It was the wingless shadows and the buzzing sounds ahead and behind me to my right.

Shapeshifters.  

No, Riverdale called them changelings.  

I flew alongside gleaming black ponies with faceted green eyes that refracted the sunlight into rainbows.  They trailed eddies laced with cardamon, cinnamon, and clove scent—like pony-shaped just-out-of-the-oven, but nevertheless flying, morning cakes or dainties.  All sported cheese holes in their flattened legs.  Though everypony's holes were different, I saw how they ruddered by walking or gesturing in the air with their flattened legs.  

What disconcerted me most was the polka music that issued from the closest's carapace in the area of its heart.  The sound seemed muted, almost hidden.  The next emitted a folk tune heavy on tambourine and mandolin.  I couldn't decide whether it was more like they had swallowed a music-box or that some sort of freakish black body armor had swallowed a pony soul. 

Regardless, I pointed away from each group of pastel ponies I saw (and even the horsey-colored ones, too), more keen-eyed then they.

This was the typical texture of my nightmares with a different cast of characters.  I always succeeded.  I always beat Discord at wordplay or trans-dimensional checkers, despite being turned to a squirrel or a turnip.  I'd waltz with Princess Nightmare Moon until Twilight and her friends rejuvenated the both of us, though that meant I became a foal, which reminded me of the foal picture.  (I knew Mum and Dad loved me, so I'd dutifully even show it to a colt-friend if I did ever succeed in landing me my special somepony. )

Just a typical nocturnal session after any crisis of love and self-loathing.  But I felt I was missing something.  I looked to my left. 

I jerked away and gasped.  I saw a golden-blonde pegasus flying in tandem with me.  She had long wings with feathers that fluttered, turned, and angled to maintain the straight and level with every change in lift and headwind.  She had ropey raven black hair and her mane blew behind her, revealing startling deep blue eyes.  She stared at me. 

Being copied was the one thing I'd missed in fighting the changelings!  Up until now, I'd fooled them so thoroughly that none had thought to duplicate me.  Despite the danger of being found out this represented, it thrilled me to see it up close.  Every detail, down to the sparkle polish on my hooves, and the braid I kept on my rear fetlocks.  I grinned.  

She grinned.  (You could tell by the stains on my teeth that I'd drunk tea since Mom had given me my first sipper cup.)

I snapped my tail like a whip.

She snapped her tail like a whip.

I winked. 

She winked with fluffy black eye-lashes... and in perfect synchrony.  

Now my heart began to race.  I reached out my left hoof. 

She reached out her right. 

We both tapped glass. 

I woke with a loud, "Ugh!" that hurt my ears.  I wasn't on the flat.  I pedaled my legs, but it was no use.  The surface I lay upon bunched under my attack and slid nonetheless.   I landed on my rump with a thump at the base of the bed, only to be buried in the ludicrously slippery, albeit luxurious, satin sheets and bedspread. 

I concentrated desperately to maintain the dream as it flitted away, finding it difficult to keep from laughing at my predicament.  

It struck me.  

"A mirror?"  I tapped my forehead repeatedly.  "Oh, come on!  Not even a real duplicate changeling!?"  

I pulled down my lower lip, then burst into laughter, rolling on my back. 

If nothing else, my subconscious was deliciously evil.  

Eventually, I had to queue up on my iSing a loop of ambient tinkling piano tracks, some augmented with rain sounds, to quieten the chatter and endless analysis battling it out in my mind.  The mirror and the idea of duplicate changelings reminded me I didn't like ponies looking at me, evaluating me.  Like being in school and thinking about being from a foreign kingdom and having a funny accent.  

Totally different from being a DJ on a stage.

I didn't like having my soul on display.  I still had that shy thing going on and it made my heart palpate.  Sure, I could fluff my long fringe over my eyes anytime I wished to hide in plain sight.  But it went further.  Yesterday, I'd put on display for everypony to see the part of me that Princess Nightmare Moon had helped create.  That wasn't me.  Not the pony I wanted to be.

It terrified me.

I meditated desperately for over two hours until I woke to sun streaming down into my west-facing window.   I blinked at the open drape.  The top of the window cast a shadow that left a tiny lozenge of light on the grass-green carpet.  I found myself nose to the glass, trying to ascertain what time it was. Certainly past noon.  

I'd overslept!

Housekeeping hadn't woken me.  I threw on a black blouse and shot for the door, only then seeing a note pushed through the threshold.  Somepony had written Mop on it in very refined cursive. 



Sound check at 3:00.  Relax.  Have a sandwich at Cannoli's.  I'm taking care of everything.  

—Helping Hoof



I melted into a puddle.  Too bad he was older than Dad.  I might be finding me some brown gray-maned stallion love, otherwise.  

I trotted out to Cannoli's.  In the halls, in the pony-attended lift, in the lobby, and at the brass appointed doors, everypony greeted me.  Uptown Suites Stable was a high-line stablery where everypony had to be polite, but still.  I felt evaluated.  I hoofed it. 

The door tinkle-bell rang as I stepped into Cannoli's to be assaulted—in a good way—with humid waves of basil- and garlic-flavored air.  The big cyan unicorn stallion running the joint, Cannoli, faced me and said, "Hey there!  Good afternoon, Miss Mop!  I'll have your sandwich right up!"

With a hoof, he shoed a black stallion in a business suit and purple mare in a plaid scarf down a seat to make room at the end of the white speckled counter.  Simultaneously, he levitated a plate and a coffee mug full of steaming water to create a place setting while plunking in two tea bags and pushing down the handle on a hissing sandwich press.

"Sit, sit, young lady."

I looked at him, and at the two patrons who regarded me briefly.  I adjusted my fringe over my eyes, but stood there.

The sandwich press hissed like an angry cat until he opened it and scooped the flattened and grilled bundle of green bread and dripping cheese from the steel jaws to my earthenware plate.  He said, "Baked ziti with cheese, garden vegetables, and red sauce on zucchini bread.  Helping Hoof suggested it.  The Suites called that you had been seen crossing the lobby."

"Helping Hoof?"  Right.  I hadn't told Cannoli to call me Mop.  Helping Hoof had given him my name.

"He knows his food."

I nodded and sat as Cannoli ladled a reddish-green tapenade of olive oil, minced olives, and diced red peppers over the sandwich and cut it into 12 hoof-sized pieces.  The messy delight tasted savory and cheesy and... amazing, like something Mum would have whipped up to cheer us up on a hard day, except that she would have fried it.  I kept eying the patrons as I ate, but if anybody remembered me, they didn't show it.

I set my iSing to play tracks I'd planned for tonight and dropped the ear drops in my ears.  After drinking my tea and relaxing a bit, I thought more clearly.  

What would make anypony conclude that I'd cleared the promenade of ponies on my own initiative?  Nothing.  Anypony on stage would have cleared the house in an emergency.  It just happened that I'd done it without actually being told of the emergency.  That meant that the only ponies who might have noticed I'd done something extraordinary would have been those who saw me when I flew through the city, telling ponies to hide.  Anypony might have done that—ought to have done that.  Likely nopony, except cheeky Riverdale, would have identified me joining up with the changelings to actively misdirect them.

I was some random DJ, assuming anypony even noticed I played dance music professionally.  

Pumpernickel played in my ears, an ambling rhythm of plucked bass guitar alternating between a dum-dum-dum drum and a prance horn line with a strummed lead acoustic guitar accompanied by a whistling don't-care warm spring day melody.  Maybe there was a dit-dit-ding dulcimer there, too.  It should have made me feel care-free.

As the white castle walls and golden onion domes rose ahead while my hooves clattered on the cobblestones, I noticed the eyes of ponies with shopping bags, others in black suits rushing to meetings, aristocrats in lace promenading down the street.  Rubies, emeralds, amethysts—the color of eyes that glanced my way.  Nopony stared.

I shuddered, trying to get it out of my mind.  At the end of Alicorn way, I walked up to the gate.  Two brass armored royal guard stood at the portcullis, talking to an orange pegasus asking directions.  They didn't notice me.  I turned south toward the promenade.

Really, nopony was interested in me.

I took a deep breath.  Silly me.  Really.  

I trotted with a bit more enthusiasm, but immediately heard hooves closing in from the rear, trotting to catch up.   

"Mop!  Please, may I speak with you?"

I recognized Octavia Melody's patrician accent.  Of course.  She knew my secret.
> Dissemblage
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

My ears folded forward as Octavia trotted up beside me.  I glanced right.  She silently mouthed words.  Easy enough to lip read.  "I just wanted to—"

I hung my head, skimming the cobblestones.  "My ear drops don't prevent me from hearing you the way Vinyl's noise-canceling earphones do."

"Oh.  I am sorry."  Her double-bass case bounced on her back.  Her violet eyes regarded me.  Her pink bowtie stood impeccable against her stiffly starched white collar below her well-coiffed glossy black mane.  Every line of her taupe coat had been curried and combed perfectly, in-line like a corn field and straight, as if nothing remarkable had happened yesterday.

Stiff upper lip, I explained to myself.  She's more of a Trotter than I am!  I took a deep breath and dissembled.  "You looking forward to Vinyl's party tonight?"

"I was not invited.   Not working with either peerage or the family.  I just wanted—" 

—to thank you.  I cut her off by making a 180° turn.  I trotted back toward the main entrance to the castle, and, as she caught up, I pointed a wing at the guards in the portcullis and said, "Innit interesting how nopony seems to remember what happened yesterday?"

A pair of magenta eyes and a pair cerulean eyes studied us momentarily, but the two bored brass-armored mares held their positions with little more than that evaluative glance.

I said, "I remember well.  Look at that mare with her deep blue eyes and her purple mane popping out of her helmet like dyed hay.  No nervous anxiety making her tail swish!  No scanning the skies.   No yesterday when somepony conquered the kingdom.  Today, a changeling invasion might have as well not even happened."  Have they forgotten?

Octavia said, "I would not dare ask, but I am certain they remember."

"Do they?  I can't tell."  You remember, don't you?

"I remember.   But I am able to place it aside."

Oh, Tartarus!  How?  I really didn't understand normal ponies.  I started walking back toward the promenade.  Her hoof falls clicked behind me and she didn't see my eyes threatening to fill with tears.

She said, "I just wanted to—"

"Sorry I nearly collided with you and the foals.  Lucky somepony left their basement unlocked, huh?"  I hadn't just chosen you instead of six other mares running with a colt between them.  Now I was blinking furiously.

She asked, "It frightened you, did it?"

Actually, it frightens me that it didn't frighten me.  What frightens me is the certainty that what I chose to do was the right thing.  And how alive it made me feel beyond the momentary angst. 

When I didn't answer, she said, "I never learned the foals' names.  That magic swept through; when we ventured out, they spotted their parents.  They broke into tears in the middle of the street and I became an anonymous somepony walking away who had done the right thing."

Her eyes glistened when I glanced back.   In this way, we were sisters.  I said, "Sometimes you have to do the right thing."

"It is a reward in itself."

Not when it's a compulsion.  Princess Compulsive Disorder.

I caught her blinking as she noticed my tears.  She added, "We are dancing around it, are we not?"

I took a deep breath and wiped my eyes with a wing since my demonstrable emotions were no longer a secret.  

"The right thing," she said.

I nodded.

Slowly, loudly, possibly because she worried I'd cut her off again, she said, "The right thing for me is to offer to help you tonight."

In my ears, my iSing played a country-pony EDM beat with a driving guitar and a steady drum.  Wake Me Up.  The lyric tried to answer in my stead: The singer sang a story of surviving bad times, love lost (or friends) or foalish pride getting in the way.  It was personal for the singer; it turned personal for me as I realized what I listened to.  The song became about waking up and realizing my distress was all my craziness—and all the meaningless energy I'd put into it that didn't matter, even if my secret mattered greatly to me.

I breathed in as a tear dripped from my chin.  I thought, Yes, thank you, let's just dance around it  

I stopped and said, "I've this idea about live mixing."

Gathering hoof traffic detoured around us as I cradled my iSing in a wing and used my lips to select a song.  I looked into her violet eyes, watched them focus on me.  I popped out an ear drop onto my wing and offered it to her. 

"Give this a listen."  I smiled.  I'm hiding in plain sight.  Let me have this delusion.

She smiled.

I dropped it into her fuzzy grey ear.

There are plenty of symphonic dance records, some with a double-bass.  Others.  Well, "I've got this theory that different classes of  instruments are interchangeable.  The dichotomy could well surprise and energize the audience."  I switched songs.  "Tympani switched with your bass."  Another.  "Guitar switched with dulcimer.   Stuff like that."

She asked, "You want to arrange music on the fly?"

"Innit that what I already do with recorded tracks?"

"This is true."

I asked, "Can you play something you just heard and riff on it?"

She got this sly look.  "I live with Vinyl Scratch, do I not?  It  is one of her many attractions."

"Now, if I could book a piano player, too.  That'd be brilliant."

She smiled widely, like I'd given her a great big present tied with a red bow.  "It just so happens..."
> Poke the Pig
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This time the wedding went off without a hitch.

I played a thunderous fanfare when Rainbow Dash ignited a rainbow halo in the sky to announce the nuptials.  Brilliant!  Who knew that a pegasus could perform such magic?  Though I more often flew through my music, I liked to race and swoop and glide as much as anypony.  I was going to try that trick one day!

To the northeast of the stage, unicorn engineers had built three temporary bridges over the Canterlot Cascade.  Somepony had been paying attention.

Closer at hoof, I heard rolling thunder: Everypony in front of the stage danced.  Two or three thousand sets of hooves, at least, while substantially more mobbed the feedbag vendors and the watering tents.  It was shaping up to be a ripping rave later.  I played classic disco, swing, and even a polka to time-out the older set who'd retire early.  I worked through 15-minute sets in my head I'd use to rev the crowd to scream over the next hours.  I'd start with deep house, transitioning over three or four tracks.  

Helping Hoof had found a patch cord for my iSing and I readied it in case the loving couple put in an appearance at the after party.  I doubted they would.  Octavia had related that the real princess was as tightly wound as she was perfectly pink, and a serious pony, even if nowhere as snooty as her imposter had been.  From what I understood, she really needed her honeymoon, the sooner the better if you know what I mean.  

I got lost in the groove, until a wave of gasps made me look up.  The sun had even set and I'd failed to notice.  The magical FX team lit a squadron of a dozen pegasus stallions in top hats and tailed-coats flying from uptown Canterlot.  (While Aurora Australis had decided not to attend, she'd honored her contract and sent in her team, including one special white unicorn I fancied.)  A golden aura illuminated the ponies and the black grand piano strung between them.  Perched atop a red velvet carpet sat a green-gray earth mare, also wearing a top hat and tails, waving.  The sequins that frosted her waistcoat scintillated like ice on a pine tree blown in the wind.  Her black horseshoes shone like a spotlight.  She had been making a name for herself on the night club and fairground circuit as a ballad singer and piano player with a flare for the theatrical. 

I faded the music into a drum roll track from my FX library as the pegasi settled the piano between pre-set mic stands, then shot off like fireworks trailing their red ribbon ropes.

I grabbed the mic and cried, "Put your hooves together for tonight's second special performer, Coloratura!"  

Coloratura jumped from the piano into an exaggerated bow, doffing her shiny black hat to reveal locks of green and black, frosted with sparkling glitter.  Daring Darling made like a puce shadow as he adjusted the mics around her.  Sitting herself on the bench with a flourish that puffed her coat tails and flounced her long streaked tail behind her, she shot her white sleeves through her jacket cuffs then hit one note loudly on the piano, sustaining it. 

My cue to switch through all her mics in my earphones.   Just like during the sound check at 4:00.  I nodded. 

She adjusted her mic and faced the audience and said, "And now, give it up to the mare of the hour, our very own heroine on the stage, Miss Flopsy Mopsy, also known as D. J. F. M!"

My heart stopped at the word heroine.

Had I saved her life?  Was that why Octavia had a ready choice for my request?  Part of the sly look she gave me?

The crowd roared as I suddenly sweated.  It was all I could do not to knock my mop-like fringe over my eyes.  I could drive ponies aside to confront a crystal of pure evil I didn't understand by reflex, challenge a changeling hoard in an instant, saunter up to a draconequus standing in the middle of Ponyville as he twisted ponies into monsters (something he thought of as fun), stop a stampede without a thought by standing in its path, and stare Princess Nightmare Moon in the eye.  All that?  This I froze on?

Da-da-da-da-daa!

I realized I'd heard those six notes twice at that point with the last set becoming strident.  I glanced right and caught Coloratura's narrowed sea-green eyes spearing me.  She did the hoof-to-ear gesture we'd agreed to and gestured toward Octavia who spun her bow on the tip of a hoof like a drum major's baton, her violet eyes also on me. 

Derp.

I grinned, my face heating up as I dived for the soundboard.  I faded out all backgrounds, lifted needles, ramped up the gain to the performers's mics.  

A cone of golden light sparked over the pianist and the white and black keys. 

Coloratura played a tentative five notes and hit a strident sixth.  She tilted her head querulously.  She tilted her hat the opposite direction and chose a different part of the keyboard.  Again, a horribly sharp sixth note.  She jumped and looked at Octavia who just shrugged in her own cone of rosy light.  Coloratura wriggled her flank on the bench, swishing her tail and shooting her cuffs again.  Rainbow flashes from her sequins flashed across the stage like a disco ball.  She lifted her forehooves and held them dramatically as if ready to mash the ivory.  

She lightly touched a sharp. 

She faced the audience, her eyes held wide, her mouth an O of surprise.  

A wave of laughter washed from the ponies at the base of the stage across the promenade as everypony, even those at the furthest feedbag table, realized her burlesque show callback.  Twice she hit the errant key.  She jumped as if struck by lightning and peered at her piano suspiciously.  Laughter rang out.  Octavia plucked all six notes, all in tune, then six notes more.  Coloratura sighed and squinted, then chuckled.  The mic picked up her voice as she sang three sets of six notes.  She made them sound like tinkling bells. 

She took out a royal red kerchief.  She dusted the keys.  

Everypony knew by then she was about to play a very special rendition of Chopsticks.  The roar of the crowd was deafening. 

Coloratura flounced down again. On one hoof she played: 

F-F-F-F-F-F G-G-G-G-G-G D-D-D-D-E-D.  

With both hooves: 

C-*-C-B/D-AE...  

Then she broke out into arpeggios and flourishes, turning the sound into a symphonic waltz.  Red and gold sprites on breezies' wings began line dancing above the stage.  Octavia broke in with a bowed accompaniment, then using a plucked string pizzicato technique over the medley line.  Together, they transitioned back and forth in a buzzing fugue, then changed to a cartoon cop soundtrack as the sprites chased one another comically through streets composed of fluffy clouds.   I mixed in sound FX horns and bike bells and constable whistles.  I added reverb and separation, making the music sound pompous or instead prance as the mares created their tour d'force, ending with a symphonic finale. 

I transitioned into an old fan favorite, Slow Prance for Strings, tempting Octavia to play and mixing her in.  Coloratura even sang over it in a metal band voice... and so it went.  I had a collection of unmixed tracks, what DJs used to work their mix-magic, and fully produced songs.  I mixed and matched, fading in and out the performers as they signaled their interest.  I had let Octavia go through my record collection and star the music she thought would work, and it did.  In many cases, instruments were interchangeable, and the audience reacted with a pause of recognition, then cheers.  Soon the most of the elder ponies had retreated to the watering holes and feedbags; thousands more of the younger set thundered before my stage.

It was while I was mixing various instrumental tracks from Until the Heavens Tumble Down, with Octavia's thrumb-thrumb-thrumb single-string playing with the melody, that Coloratura gestured me over.  I set a loop.  I did some exaggerated head banging as I trotted over.  She stood and spoke into her mic. 

"This song has lyrics."

She reared and gestured to the audience, who roared, rearing like her and waving.

She added, "And somepony with a lovely voice named Flopsy Mopsy is going to sing it for you!"

I coughed.  This was the reason during sound check that Coloratura had wheedled me into singing along as Octavia nosed through my music collection.

Coloratura trotted to my boards, grabbed the earphones, and quickly switched out of the current loop.  She slightly muted the drum track, and, leaning on the table, beat a hoof over her head, looking at me.  The piano solo she just played looped in and she counted down with her hoof.

I opened my mouth, leaned into the mic, and hit it with my nose.  I barely caught the drunkenly swaying mic stand with my wings as it tilted over. 

She caught my missed cue, prompting me, "I will wait..."

The phrase repeated.  Her hoof whirled, counting down again.

Though my heart beat furiously, I caught my next cue.  



"I will wait for you
until the heavens tumble down..."



I lost my composure.  Tears streamed down my cheeks.  The changelings had attacked and the heavens had tumbled down.  But I didn't choke.  I caught the song properly on the third stanza and Coloratura and I started trading places.  Soon, seated again, she drove the beat with her piano playing and we jammed on that, mixing, trading vocal parts, singing, for the better part of ten minutes.  I looked down on my table and found the ballad singer had stacked a few records into a new playlist.  I knew all the lyrics by heart.

Okay.  My voice didn't suck.  

Quite the opposite, I was loath to admit.  And I had Discord to thank for discovering that, and discovering I liked to sing.  I loathed him anyway.  Performing before an audience left me shaky, but delighted.  I transitioned into Dance 4 Life.  At its base, it had simple lyrics (the same as the title), but it was also spoken words, almost beat poetry, and it was a favorite of mine.  After a warm up, I was high stepping and laying down the words with the proper chill.  Coloratura demonstrated how many thousands of ways a pony could put emotion into the same three words by emphasizing syllables, drawling them, crying them.   I traded off into the spoken word part and we played along, transitioning into another record and another.  Suddenly, I didn't realize when I'd been feature soloing for the better part of an hour on a dozen records.

When I realized it, I went mute and stared at the crowd.  In response, the audience chanted with the music, "Songbird!  Songbird!  Songbird!"

My face burned, beet red, surely bright enough to light the stage.  Brilliant moniker, though.  

I was a singing pegasus, after all.

I didn't realize when Coloratura had sidled up to me.  I didn't startle, though I did jump aside to stare at her.  Her streaked mane bobbed half a beat behind her head.  Her hoof flashed right across her neck.

I turned the mic off.

She whispered into my ear, "See that large pony in the back, in the watering hole, the one named Lower Canterlot with the illuminated crystal bar, next to the rainbow glitter twins with ruby horn lights?  Don't draw attention to her."

I said, "The tall unicorn in the black hooded cloak with the red lining?"

"Not a unicorn."

I swallowed hard.  What was she doing here?  It was almost 11:00 p.m.; surely the other parties still raged on.  "Are you sure?"

"I've had royalty show up at my gigs before."

"Incognito?" I said, burgeoning slyness growing in my voice as I got an idea.  

I motioned D-D over and whispered into his ear.  He returned in a jiffy with a bunch of vinyl.  I dropped the main record on the fifth turntable and gave Coloratura a listen.  Octavia trotted over.  They both looked at one another, gave a  nervous grin, then returned to their instruments.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead, bobbed my head, and set to work.

I cycled through a few songs to change the tempo as I watched the lone mare sipping a glowing iced blue drink held in her magic as she bobbed slightly, dancing with the minimum of hoof movements.  I faded-in a distinctive intro.

Into the mic, I said (as the distinctive intro of the song Caramel Hay by Caramel Hay was not lyrical):



"Cater-lot is the home of style and cool.
Understand this if nothing else
If there is any city
Any city
Of style and cool in Equestria you need to visit
To find your thiiing
Or to make your special talent sing
That city is..."



Bam!  I shouted:



"Canter-lot!"



I dove in loudly, singing:



"Nah-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neigh!
Nah-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neigh!"



Octavia strummed into the chorus and Coloratura played the one note melody that imitated and mirrored the xylophone in a cover I preferred.  The audience picked up the beat and their hooves thundered louder than the drums on the track.

I held out the mic to the audience.

They sang the chorus back at me.  I looped the chorus back, avoiding having to sing the second chorus since it contained the name that normally went with the song.  We did the call and response chorus thrice, building it louder each time as my incognito guest put aside her drink, maybe sensing something amiss.

On the next round, I muted everything to silence.  Of course, everypony played the catchy song in their head, their hooves hammering the wood dance floor perfectly in-rhythm.  And...



"Nah-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neigh!
Nah-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neigh!"




But, instead of "Caramel Hay", I belted out:




"Princess Celestia!"



The audience responded in a scream that must have rattled every window within five blocks:



"Nah-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neigh!
Nah-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neigh!"
Princess Celestia!



I added the second chorus. 



"You rock, Celi, Celi, Celi Celi Celi!  
Do rock, flighty Filly, Filly Filly Filly!"

  

It made for the perfect trot.  The sound of the hooves eliminated the need for the recorded music at all.  Between Coloratura and Octavia's instruments, the dancers, and our voices, our live performance took over.

After five reps, I continued with the first chorus.

We kept at it, on and on for almost ten minutes, mixing tracks and performances, whipping everypony into a genuine lather.  The air temperature, no lie, rose ten degrees.  From the crashing thunder alone, I knew the dance floor was trashed.  I leaned into the mic, grabbing it with a wing, facing right and left to look across the audience as I awaited the cue everypony anticipated. 

I spoke the closing stanza:



"Everypony loves Caramel Hay.
That flavor...?  
That flavor's is shagging spectacular, what..?
Princess Celestia!
Nah-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neigh!
Nah-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neighy-neigh-neigh!"



After two call-response choruses, I brought on the end sequence... and faded out.

I found myself trembling.  From the way the mare in the cloak stood unmoving, frozen statue-like, I knew I'd transgressed.  But I didn't care.  I didn't care!  I was mad.  I was confused.  I'd done so much...  I stood huffing like I'd run a sprint.  And...

And she'd had the unmitigated gall to test me with an instrument of bloody evil!  The Tartarus...!

Over the mic, saccharine sweet, I said, "Canterlot, thank you everypony so very much for that, and all hail my special guest for inspiring it!  And now yours truly needs a break.  Back in fifteen, everypony.  I'm D.  J.  F.  Mmmmm!"

I stalked off the stage into the back area, down a dusky metal stair, into the darkness.  In a black canvas-walled side room wanly lit with a firefly lantern, beside cheese sandwiches and hay fries under a heat lamp, I spotted a punch bowl with ice and red liquid.  

I ignored the dainty crystal glasses and stuck my muzzle in with a splash to drink as much as I could.
> Judgement
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I found my face submerged in heavily iced hard cider.  Into which somepony had had the temerity to add strawberry daiquiri mix.  

"Ugh!"

I coughed out the sickly sweet concoction.  It burned my nose and throat, but especially my eyes.  I wiped at them furiously, feeling for a bar-mop with the other wing.

I found it.  At least the terry cloth was wet with water, not detergent.  I shook out my mane with three loud snaps and heard the droplets strike the table, floor, and temporary walls.

When I pushed through the heavy black canvas with my dripping cold nose and looked about, I saw nopony there.  I dragged myself to the colonnade fence and stood wringing out my hair and wiping my fur, afraid it would dry to a painfully sticky mess otherwise.  The white-water cascade of the east river rumbled deeply off the Canterlot Drop to my right.   I breathed in cool air as the lights of Ponyville twinkled in the distance, below a spattering of bright stars in a dark sky. 

The drip from my nose was tears.

I was crying.  I could barely hear the rave behind me.  The Night Electrical must have cast a muffling spell.  Such things worked both ways, I hoped, and might protect what was left of my dignity.  

Eventually, it dawned on me the nature of my convoluted thoughts, why I cried: I had been there when Princess Nightmare Moon had escaped the moon.  Behind Ponyville Town Hall.  Wrestling a rubbish bin outside.  She had attacked Princess Celestia with a tornado of rainbow magic.  I had witnessed the entire ambush and had been instantly convinced I'd seen Princess Celestia murdered.  

I pressed the cold towel against my forehead with a wing, thinking furiously but—even today I'm still sure.  In that moment—I was convinced.  

I'd witnessed a regicide.

And what had I just done on the stage?  It sure felt like an assassination.

Had I done it because, when Princess Nightmare Moon had addressed me after her foul deed, I had curtseyed before her royalty and, unprompted, called her, "Your Royal Majesty"?

Monarch.  Sole monarch.  Not a princess—  A bloody queen.

Now I did my queen's bidding?

I knew it, deep inside my soul: I was evil. 

"Flopsy Mopsy?"

I shrieked at the sound of Princess Celestia's voice.  Like I'd heard a ghost.  I jumped, flared my wings, and dashed myself into the nearest colonnade on the promenade.  My head bounced off with that coconut sound you don't want to hear from the inside.  I fluttered down, tangling my rear-legs together, tripping, then landing on my back, wings splayed out.  Flopsy Mopsy, indeed.  The bar-mop landed with a special splat before a pair of white hooves.

Princess Celestia pushed back her hood as she looked down over me.  Her blue and green streaked pink mane pulsed as if blown toward the cliff.   She wore none of her regalia; the bling would have given her away.  Her cloak was even oversized, so it gave the impression that the pony inside was smaller than she was.  She didn't even wear eye makeup, and for a mare who always noticeably wore heavy dark mascara, that did help keep her from being recognized.  Plain.  She looked plain.  That and hiding her wings.  I understood completely that she probably moved around Equestria in disguise more often than Coloratura thought.  

"Are you all right?" she asked.  "Let me help you up."

She caught me up in her magic like a leaf in the wind and righted me.  As I nibbled a painfully bent primary into place, she dusted me off and dried me with her magic.  She added, "You seem terribly clumsy for a new hero of Equestria."

I burst into tears and collapsed to the worn travertine tile that paved the promenade.  It felt really cold, despite the mid-summer's eve.  I'd been recognized.  I couldn't hide.  I'd been seen for what I had never wanted to be.

"Are you all right?  Did you hurt your head?"

I found myself sniffling and sobbing, but I levered myself up only to bow.  I had bowed to her sister in her worst mania, but never to Celestia herself.  "Your Royal Highness!"

She scoffed.  "Oh, none of that, Miss Flopsy Mopsy.  If this has anything to do with the song, do not worry.  I rather liked it.  I'm not offended.  I hope somepony recorded it.  Luna would kill for a bootleg of that."  She winked. 

I answered her question about my condition, taking it as a by-your-leave to speak.

"It's not that, Princess."  I met her violet gaze with my own eyes, despite my blinking away tears.  Shy—the simpering Flopsy Mopsy prior to meeting Princess Nightmare Moon—could never have looked a pony in the eye.  The mare after had no fear to look even a princess in the eye.  It was no longer in my nature to look down.  Crazy.  I was crazy. 

Regardless, I blurted out the something I'd known had been driven into my soul like a metaphorical spike just before Nightmare Moon had promised to knight me for recognizing her royalty.  That something had likely stopped my heart, my emotional heart, from beating.  "I was there when Princess Nightmare Moon caught you in her magic.  I saw you murdered!"  

And immediately swore loyalty to your murderer.  

That part I couldn't say.  How could I say that?  No matter how true.  How?

I burst into tears.

I heard heavy fabric thrown aside.  A moment later, enormous wings enfolded me into an embrace.  "My little pony!  I am very much alive."

Why did it feel so warm?  Why did I have to fight every instinct that made me want to struggle free and fly until I left Equestria forever far behind?  Well, I knew.  

I was Nightmare Moon's only living creation.  

I was undeserving of comforting.  Or of being loved.  And, "I'm evil," I moaned.  "Please, you shouldn't touch me.  When Princess Cadance's magic swept the changelings away, it swept me along with it."

"So Riverdale said."

"I'm evil."  Now I did struggle, but she held me even more tightly.

After a long pause during which I could hear the thump-thump-thump of her enormous heart, she said, "And you think I wasn't buffeted?"

I stiffened. 

"The changeling queen imprisoned me in a chrysalis stuck to the ceiling of the hall.  The wind dissolved the chrysalis but sent me flying into a wall.  Fortunately, all eyes were on Shining Armor and Cadance.  And there was that unyielding wall in the way.  Would have been rather embarrassing had there been an open balcony door."

I stilled and she backed off.  

She added, "A hero is by definition imperfect and not normal.  This princess is no less so."

I studied her, no matter how cheeky it was for a former Trottingham peasant, an immigrant, the lowest of the common class.  In the moonlight, the white winged unicorn gleamed.  She looked perfect, but I felt her words seeping in, like rain through a damaged roof.  

She had confessed... to... me!?

I blurted again, "I had to choose between six mares with a colt and a mare I knew with two fillies."

"And I sent my sister to the moon for a thousand years.  And... and so much more that shall never be recorded in any history book."

"Please, Princess.  I am no hero."

"After a thousand years, I still don't want to be a princess regnant, but it is what I must be.  All I had wanted was to help my autistic brother, but I had this particularly annoying special talent and a big mouth.  But especially that sun thing.  Then ponies I'd thought I'd trusted made this happen."  She flared her wings.  "I do understand.  Your talk with Lieutenant Riverdale, what Doctor Flowing Waters reported, and a letter Octavia Melody sent me pretty much concurs with what I can see.  You are what you are—and we cannot be other than what we are—but I do understand that you really don't want other ponies to know."

"That's the truth, Your Royal Highness."

"The truth will out."

"Eventually is not today."

"That too is spoken truth.  Now, however, I must do what a princess must do."  I felt a wing touch the top of my head.  "You are a hero, my little pony.  Your quick action saved the lives of thousands who would have become panicked in the promenade.  Had Twilight Sparkle not brought Shining Armor and Cadance together so their love could spark her magic in conjunction with his, your subsequent actions may have helped ponies escape an evil changeling reign.  I see in you the seeds of the leader who would have led the pony resistance."  She lifted my face by my muzzle with one wing and tapped my forehead with her primaries.  "You are a smart cookie, much like the first infuriatingly honor-bound pony who bore that name.  You are a Hero of Equestria, like it or not, and you have my undying gratitude."

She stepped back and levitated a black velvet box before me.  "Open it."

The jewel box made a clack as I did.  I found a gold coin medallion on a black silk ribbon.  She reached over where I cupped it in my outstretched wings, tapping the surface.  "You are not alone."

The heavy medallion was stamped with her royal seal and engraved with the number 107.

"There are 107?"

"Are.  Were.  You and 106 others.  Half were born during the last century, the other half in the prior 900 years.  Equestria needs every single hero.  More so every day."

I said, "If Equestria never needs me again, I would be very happy."

"If you ever need to talk, you have my ear."  Her white furry one twitched as if in emphasis.  She gave me a simple nod, threw on her concealing cloak with her magic, and disappeared through the black canvas back into festival tents.

I still held the medal cupped in my primaries.  It gleamed with that deep rich color of the purest gold.  It certainly weighed like what it appeared to be.

"I guess that wasn't so bad."

What had I feared?  I heard my Caramel Hay Princess Celestia remix playing in my head and found myself soon bobbing to the remembered beat.  She did what she did.  I did what I did.  I had played the hero.  Now I had a rave to run—that, and none this "Hero of Equestria" rubbish, was my bread and butter.

I felt good.  Relief always felt good.

Or it could have been the hard cider I'd gulped.
> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I stretched the medallion's ribbon over my neck and let the hunk of metal lay over my chest.  My black blouse made the gold appear to magically glow, but unless you looked closely, it was no more than a bangle.

The contrarian in me dared anypony to take a close look.

I stuck my head through the canvas to the stage to see Coloratura had taken over my boards.  Her polished hooves flashed as she mounted two records and mixed in a third with her puce shadow, D-D, assisting her with cuing, an earphone muff to an ear.  

Just how long had that interlude with Princess Celestia lasted?

Illusory rainbow clouds swirled overhead with the music while sparks shot right and left and blazed with the beat.  A ghostly earth pony strutted through the sky, then broke into kaleidoscope images.  The light show added to the performance, but didn't overwhelm it.

One pony had a lot to do with that.  

I took a shuddering involuntary breath and looked at the audience.  I felt completely unfettered.  The weird silence in my mind made me shiver.  Maybe Celestia had yanked out that metaphorical stake in my heart.  I searched for and found the unicorns in green suits wandering purposely through the audience, controlling the light FX.  I craned my head and swiftly spotted one white unicorn with an icy blue mane.

I was feeling good.

No, I hadn't drunk all that much punch.  I'd half-bathed in it, but had not drunk much. 

I danced through the curtain, prancing, bobbing my head, snapping my high held tail.  I kept my eyes on Ghost Zapper as I approached the edge of the stage.  I reared, wings flared, dragon-dancing on two legs.  The crowd cheered and imitated me.  Polished hooves flashed in the light.

D-D came up and I whispered a song to him.

Within a minute, Coloratura faded it in.  D-D brought me a large pink ribbon.  Still rearing, still dancing, I dramatically tied an outrageously large bow into my hair with my wings.  Coloratura had nowhere near my finesse on the 1s and 2s, but she got the three instrumental tracks mixed in and in-sync.  I gave her a two-pinions up sign and she ramped up the gain on Octavia's mics as the bassist chomped her rosin bow in her mouth and began plucking the strings for all she was worth, using a pizzicato technique, bobbing her head like a crazy pony.  

Pizzicato and Changelings for a Pegasus Heart.  If my life this week could be a song, that could have been the title of the fugue. 

Subtitled, A Fugue for a Crazy Pony.  

Me.  Flopsy Mopsy.

Coloratura adjusted her mic so it faced down.  She mixed in the syncopated trotting beat of her hooves against the stage and D-D brought her a replacement voice mic, adjusting the gain.

Rivers Prance by Tomes on a Hack played.

I grabbed the fly mic D-D hoofed over with a smile and shoved it down over my head.  As I adjusted the boom, a bright golden spot popped on over me.  Seeing a flicker in the electric blue nebulosity pulsing around Ghost Zapper's horn, I knew he'd done it.  

I lifted my medallion for a moment and pirouetted to show everypony, but it was simply bling—to all but one who looked on.  I glanced right toward Lower Canterlot where Princess Celestia had left her drink, her black-cloaked figure again limed in a luminescent rose-colored bar wall lined with translucent top shelf spirit bottles, apothecaries of the finest colored salt, and sunflowers in vases.  She reared, pedaling her unshod white hooves, holding a new glass of iced blue liquid high in her golden magic.   

It wasn't lost on me that she'd come here despite her niece's wedding.

I dropped the medallion with a bruising thwack against my chest.  

On my cue, I sung: 



"We will change this
We'll make it through our wilderness 
We will change this
And make it truly fabulous!"



As the audience roared, I spread my wings and sprung into the sky.  I circled, singing parts of phrases.  Over a few stanzas, I spiraled down.  Ghost Zapper kept the light centered on me.  

"Songbird!" cried the audience, sporting more and more horn lights... 

I had a certain prey in mind and I did not want to scare him away.

He worked his illusions in workpony-like fashion, pretty much oblivious to the excited pegasus mare stalking him.

The crowd wasn't as oblivious.  As far as ten pony-lengths away from him, ponies retreated, clearing a runway.  Obvious smiles and sly looks all around showed that they sensed what was about to happen. 

Ghost Zapper's illusory breezy conga line froze like a string of Hearthswarming lights midair when he realized his anonymity had evaporated.  He jerked his head and looked around, then locked his blue eyes on me.

I landed with a clatter of my bronze horseshoes.  Coloratura faded the song into the transitional intermezzo between stanzas.  An instrumental.  I flared my wings and danced before the most handsome stallion I knew.  He was the only stallion I'd fancied in high school.  I didn't have to speak to him now.  I had more than words for him.  Better.  Unlike like the day before, I didn't feel my face heat.  I didn't feel tongue-tied.  I felt...

I felt.  Throughout my body.   I really did.

I felt... hot.

I turned a dance of tapping hooves, a swishing black tail, and wings-touching-the-ground into the trot Coloratura performed and mixed in.  I circled, my heart racing, my eyes on him and him alone.

Was I wrong in my presumptions?  Had my Nightmare Moon side frightened him off forever?   Did he understand what I was doing?  What I wanted? Would he play along?

No...  Yes.  He got the idea.  He began to dance.  

Coincidentally.  On cue.  I sang, 



"Like tributaries through the desert sand
you flow east and I prance west..."



Yes, we were different.  Maybe too different to last, but that didn't mean I didn't deserve to go after what might make me happy.  Sure, he worked for a company, for somepony else, and I freelanced as a DJ.  But when it came down to it, he was my hero.  I had asked him to do the one thing that could make a difference to me, to save ponies—and he'd complied.  He'd completed me.  I'd pranced left.  He'd flowed right.  And, together, we'd saved...

Thousands.  Princess Celestia had said so.

He could have killed himself.  Almost had.  

He'd won my heart.

Hero.



"But before we go our separate ways
we'll learn what we are
and why we are
and how we'll spend those very days..."



As heroes.

He mirrored my dance and went at it with flank-shuddering gusto as the crowd cheered, clattering their hooves and trotting the beat.  Ghost Zapper's cohort tripped every light off and dramatically snapped all spots on us after a second of dark.

He smiled.  

I grinned and stepped beside him.  I pressed in and he pressed back and we trotted in place, rubbing, dancing as one.  His fur was warm and velvety.  I wasn't sure if the static electricity I felt might be metaphorical or real.

The roar around us was deafening.

"Songbird!"

I pranced away.  I circled him, dancing.  His nostrils flared as he breathed as hard as I did.  He kept his eyes focused on me, narrowed with that transparent knowing look he now shared with me, shifting his head to the other side as I crossed behind his flank.  He was a magnet.  I was steel.  He snapped his blue tail playfully at my nose.  His blue eyes we dreamy, electric, and on me.  

He grinned.

When I came directly in front of him, I stopped and stood.

So did he.

I mangled the next line and instead sang, 



"You brought us luck and let us shine."



By you I meant him. 

I was breathing hard.  My words were breathy.   My heart thundered with every pent up emotion a filly could feel for her colt-friend special somepony.

Coloratura got it.  She sang, 



Bring the light of day to the river's flow
Make the world's waters glow
...like ...like ...like ...like gold!



I leaned forward and kissed him.

Without apparent thought, with obvious instinct and pony desire, he returned the snog with a passion.  Like circling magnets stuck together, we began to dance, lips wetly conjoined.  What revelation!  My body felt electrified, burning and buzzing to the music and the rhythm of my heart.

Coloratura sang, for my mouth was occupied, 



"Like gold, be bright, be bold
Like the brightest, be the bold!
Make the world's waters glow
...like ...like ...like ...like gold!



The crowd chanted, "Songbird!  Songbird!  Songbird!"

So these were the tingling sensations the articles in Filly and Teen PONY had said I would feel!  And, yes, I discovered that you can smile and kiss at the same time.  

I wished the night would never end.









Author Note


Knight of Equestria (4 Books)
Next Book: Unmarked Time
Next Chapter: Overture