Luna's back from exile, and she's not Nightmare Moon.
One thousand years after Celestia banished her sister and crowned herself Empress, six mares are caught up in a swirl of intrigue and disaster. Each of them must decide who and what they stand for, because Luna is returning, and she is not Nightmare Moon.
Luna's hoofsteps echoed in the marble corridors of Canterlot Castle. The bustle of government and high society was missing, nopony else trod the hallways, and they felt like the entrance to some great tomb.
"How appropriate for my first visit," Luna murmured softly.
Perhaps it was just because of the circumstances, but she did not like this place at all. The hallways were too big, and too empty. Anypony that wasn't involved in the fighting outside had long since hidden themselves away, or fled the palace altogether. Her walk took her through what felt like miles of empty, impossibly gaudy corridors. Wall hangings stretched from floor to ceiling and a hundred paces long without a seam. Gold filigree edged the doorways, and there were stained glass windows in every exterior wall, each one painstakingly made by some craftspony to depict important events or ponies from Equestrian history.
It was all so different from what the Celestia that she remembered would have surrounded herself with. Luna's sister had always loved beautiful things, and their castle in the Everfree had been a wonderful place, but this went far beyond that. Greed and extravagance were Luna's vices, not her sister's. She wouldn't have imagined in a thousand years that Celestia would succumb to those kinds of temptations. But, she reflected sadly, it seems that a thousand years was enough to change even her.
Luna should have been flying as fast as she could to confront her sister, but she couldn't bring herself to move any more quickly. Every minute she wasted was another minute her ponies outside were fighting the royal guard, just to draw them away from Celestia. At least the sky forces hadn't been authorized to use lightning strikes. Even Celestia wouldn't do that. Right?
Luna had worshipped her when they were children, and admired her to the point of traitorous envy as an adult. She was Celestia. She was perfect. What happened? Where did it go wrong?
Where did I go wrong?
Luna stopped walking. A sudden surge of rage tore through her heart. You went wrong when you betrayed your sister and country! You went wrong when you decided to play Goddess and meddle with forces beyond your ken! You went wrong when you believed she was above doing the same!
There was a voice in Luna's head, a little pony always shouting at her, and the familiar temptation to listen to what it said. She left you! She knew you weren't Nightmare Moon anymore and she left you there! A thousand years, trapped, with nopony but yourself to talk to!
"NO!" She stomped her hoof and spiderweb cracks ran throughout the marble floor. "I shall not walk that path again." She wasn't doing this for spite or revenge, she was doing it because Celestia had betrayed the trust that her subjects put in her. She had turned her back on her responsibility and her country.
And on you, her thoughts whispered.
Luna was afraid. Afraid to go against Celestia; afraid that they might have to fight, and that she would lose; afraid that maybe, just maybe, Celestia wasn't the one who was wrong. Luna was afraid, and she was stalling.
Her stomach knotted in shame. There were ponies dying outside, her ponies, and she should be protecting them. Instead, she'd sent them into a battle they could not win in order to buy time. And yet here she was, wishing she could simply leave.
Who's turned their back on their responsibility now?
Luna gave a little shake of her head, and pulled herself up straight. "Not I." She buried her doubts and started trotting towards the throne room once more.
All of a sudden, an awful explosion rocked the palace. The sound of it rolled over Luna and nearly knocked her off her hooves. She froze. Even the insidious thoughts in the back of her head fell silent.
"No."
"She would never allow lightning strikes to be used with civilians around," Luna whispered frantically. That couldn't have been a lightning strike. There was a pegasus pony in Celestia's guard who had once done a sonic rainboom. That must have been her. Celestia wouldn't authorize lightning strikes on her own ponies.
Luna's ears were ringing and her vision spun, but she staggered forward, at first at a walk, then as she recovered, a trot, and a flat out gallop. All dignity forgotten, she careened through the corridors beating her wings to turn her gallop into long bounds. Big as the hallway was, it was still too small for a pony of her size to fly in properly. In her head, she cursed the ancestry of whichever unicorn had invented the anti-teleportation spell that saturated the palace.
A flash of light burst through the stained-glass windows, and another explosion sounded. The light cast a multi-hued image of Celestia locked in combat with Discord across Luna's coat and the floor around her before disappearing as quickly as it came. The shockwave rolled over her, but this time she was ready with her shield, a spell that nothing as insignificant as lightning would be able to penetrate.
The wave of relief she felt was almost as tangible as the explosion. Even coming through stained glass, she could tell that the light was the wrong color for lightning. They must have been sonic rainbooms after all.
The evening sunlight cast a warm glow through the stained-glass windows, mottling her fur with strange and subtle patches of color as she half-ran, half-glided along, and Luna found herself inexplicably worrying about them. The artistry was masterful. Delicate though they looked, they had somehow survived the explosions intact.
Without breaking her pace, Luna cast a spell. Her horn glowed a brilliant pale blue, and a bubble of force glazed over each one of the windows as she sped past. It wasn't much, but she should at least try to ensure they would be safe if worst came to worst. They were somepony's legacy, possibly all that was left of his influence on the world, and it wouldn't be right if they were destroyed in a conflict she had no part in.
Even with the shield in place, the windows shook when another explosion assaulted the palace and Luna's relief evaporated. One sonic rainboom is unthinkable, two is a miracle, three, impossible, the little voice said. Those are something else. As if to drive home the point, a fourth explosion sounded almost immediately. This one caught Luna off guard, and she wasn't able to put her shield up in time. She stumbled and fell. Her ears rang and her head span. Regardless, she forced herself to her hooves again and staggered on blindly.
Luna put out a hoof to steady herself against the wall, and was surprised when she felt wood. After resting for a moment or two, she was able to see straight once again. She looked up and saw that she was standing in front of a great set of double doors.
The doors were, if anything, even more ostentatious than the rest of the palace. Their entire surface was filled with carvings and decorations. Around the edges, inset a few inches, was an intricate inlay made of gold strips and obsidian interwoven together. Somehow, the obsidian appeared to be all of one piece.
Inside the border, the surface of the doors were divided into panels, each of which housed a carving that depicted more scenes from great moments in Equestrian history. Luna recognized Discord up near the top, and she also spied a swirling carving of some Windigos menacing three ponies while three more stood trapped in ice, but the meaning of the rest of those carvings was lost on her.
She had found the throne room.
Luna forced herself to not hesitate. She had already made her decision. Her course was inevitable, and its end would be determined by Celestia's choice. She took a deep breath and easily flung open the massive doors with her magic.
"Celestia, thine tyranny is come to an end this day. Surrender now so that we may avoid bloodshed!"
The throne room, Seat of The Sun, and center of all Equestria was in shambles. Hats, coats, and other personal effects of the Canterlot elite lay strewn about. A chill wind blew through the room, originating from the shattered window that had once comprised the entire wall behind the large golden throne. It picked up loose sheets of paper and caused them dance around in winding circles around Celestia's hooves.
Celestia stood unmoving in front of the window, her back to Luna. She did not turn around, or even speak. In fact, she did not acknowledge Luna's presence at all. Instead, she simply looked out the at the ponies below, fighting in the evening sunlight.
Celestia had always possessed an almost unnatural charisma. She had a gift for speech, and could sway the most hostile pony to her side with only a few well-chosen words. Luna had prepared herself both mentally and emotionally to resist the inevitable half-truths and lies Celestia would use to try and stop her from doing what she needed to. She had gone over every possible scenario, every possible line of reasoning, every possible tempting turn of phrase Celestia might send her way, and she had prepared accordingly to resist. But somehow Celestia had still outsmarted her. The thought that she might simply ignore her had never crossed Luna's mind. Even after a thousand years, Celestia still knew her well enough to stay two steps ahead.
An old feeling took Luna's heart in its icy grip. It was something she hadn't felt in a very long time, something she had vowed never to let into her soul again. Luna felt hatred. "Do not ignore Us! THOU HAST NOT EARNED THAT RIGHT!" Slowly, ever so slowly, Celestia turned from the window and looked her way.
Despite herself, Luna gasped and took a step backwards. Celestia stood there, highlighted by the yellow rays of the sun, as regal and beautiful as ever. But there was something different about her, a look that Luna couldn't decipher. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes... Her eyes pierced Luna's flesh and scoured her bones. What was Celestia feeling? Anger? Hatred? Despair? Fear? She had no idea, but whatever feelings Celestia harbored, they consumed her.
Celestia sighed deeply and closed her eyes. When she opened them again she was herself, calm and in control, with a gentle expression on her face, a pony who had never raised her voice or spoken harshly in her long life. It was only then, when Luna was freed from that gaze, that she noticed that Celestia's horn was glowing brightly.
Luna almost took another step back, afraid that Celestia was simply going to attack her right then, but the rational part of her mind regained control in time to prevent herself from showing more weakness. She would have already attacked me if that was her intention.
"Sister, thou art unfit to rule these ponies. Thou must step down and surrender Equestria to Us, for the good of all ponies, and for thine own good as well."
Celestia turned silently back to the shattered window and gazed out at the city below, then she lowered her head and sighed. "War."
Luna's ears drooped in disappointment. She is not going to give up. She had prepared herself for this moment, even told herself that she expected it to happen, but that didn't lessen the pain.
"Equestria has not experienced war in a very long time, not since you took the title of Nightmare Moon and fought me. After I banished you, my ponies prospered. We were experiencing a golden age the likes of which ponies before could only imagine. Did you know that the area around Everfree is habitable again? It was only a few generations ago that I sent ponies back there to settle it–I still remember their names–and already there is a peaceful town right at the edge of the forest. Even there, the threat of violence was almost unheard of. And yet here you stand, surrounded by chaos, having brought war into the very heart of my own city." Celestia looked back over her shoulder at Luna. "It is nothing short of a miracle that Discord hasn't broken free already."
Discord! Luna flattened her ears against her skull and bared her teeth. "Discord is here? Thou hast brought Equestria's most grievous foe here? What wast thou thinking?"
Celestia looked back out the window and said nothing for a long moment.
"It was foolish I know, but I took great pride in the fact that I did not need to hide his statue away in the darkest part of Equestria. For years I had him on display in the royal gardens as a reminder to ponies about the consequences of disharmony. But not anymore. Now, I have him locked in the vault behind the strongest shield I can maintain."
Luna's eyes were drawn once more to the glow of Celestia's horn, and then the realization hit her with a mounting wave of nausea. She is holding the entire city hostage! If she attacked Celestia, Discord would be freed. Even if Luna could somehow defeat Celestia with a single blow and raised her own shield the very instant Celestia's went down, with a civil war raging in the streets even that fraction of a second would supply more than enough chaos for him to escape his imprisonment. While she was maintaining that shield, Celestia was untouchable.
"HOW DARE–" Luna's words were cut off by another explosion. Unlike the previous ones, this was not dampened by the stone walls of the castle. It came right through the opening left by the shattered window.
Luna reeled with pain and disorientation. Through the spinning of her head, she was able to see Celestia still standing there at the window, and a rainbow colored shockwave rippling towards the horizon. A sonic rainboom.
Luna struggled back to her feet. "How, how many–"
"Five," Celestia said. "Until only recently, most ponies thought sonic rainbooms were impossible, and she's done five in as many minutes."
Luna finally gathered the courage to cross the throne room. Standing at her sister's side, she looked out over Canterlot. Below, all the fighting had stopped. Ponies from both sides lay writhing on the ground, clutching at their heads. A few even seemed to be bleeding from their ears. Up in the sky a single blue pegasus climbed higher and higher until she was nothing more than a speck before looping around to ready herself for a dive.
"Her name is Rainbow Dash. I believe your ponies call her something else though."
"Celestia's dog," Luna murmured, a little ashamed.
"Yes, that was it."
Rainbow Dash plummeted towards the ground, moving impossibly fast. Faster than gravity, faster than flight. A glowing cone started to form in front of the plummeting pegasus as she came ever closer.
Luna couldn't quite make out her expression, but she couldn't miss the moment it changed. A look, indecipherable, flickered across her face, and then she passed out. Luna reached out and tried to catch the falling pony with her magic, but it was too late. Rainbow Dash tumbled in the air before she hit the flagstones of the courtyard at full speed. She bounced once, slid to a stop next to a fountain with a statue of Celestia, and didn't move.
Luna couldn't tear her eyes from the image of the still pony below. A terrible silence radiated from her sister. The ponies who had been stunned by the shockwaves were picking themselves up off the ground and starting to gather around the body. Finally, with a catch in her voice, Celestia spoke.
"I have never known a better pony than her. For all her talk and bluster, she could never stand the idea of harming another pony, or letting one get hurt while she was around. No matter what, she always saved anypony who needed her. Then this happened. So many ponies fighting, so many hurting and getting hurt. Too big for one pony to stop. Impossible to stop. So she did the impossible. Five times. That's the kind of pony she is."
Luna finally couldn't manage to look Celestia in the face.
"I will acquiesce to your demands."
Luna's eyes widened in shock, and she wondered if she heard that correctly. Celestia might be saddened by the loss of good pony, but as an immortal, she was well acquainted with death. She would not back down because of this. If there was one thing Luna knew about her sister, it was that no matter how hard things might get, or how much heartache she might suffer, she would never break. She would never put one pony above her kingdom as long as she stood.
"I will acquiesce," Celestia continued. "Under one condition."
And the other horseshoe fell.
"What is thine condition?" Luna asked warily.
"You must know by now that the Elements of Harmony have woken. Something is coming, some storm that we will need their aid to fight." Celestia looked back towards the window and the fallen pegasus. "But now that hope is extinguished." She looked back to Luna and stared into her eyes. "Join me. Help me prepare for this danger. End this war and work beside me. If you require my surrender, I will give it. If you require my humiliation before all of Equestria to be satisfied, you may have it. Ask whatever you wish of me, but be there at my side to help protect my ponies." Celestia bowed her head and whispered, "Please, be my sister again."
Luna stared, dumbfounded. She opened her mouth to speak, to say something, anything, but she had nothing to say. Was this surrender? An alliance? A trick? a little pony whispered. How much of that was sincere? Did it matter? It was all true, without a doubt. Applejack was one of the new Bearers. Luna fervently hoped that she hadn't been injured in the fighting.
The silence stretched onwards as Luna struggled with her feelings. There were too many variables. Too many ways this was probably a trick or manipulation. And Celestia wasn't apologizing. Luna tried to recall her scenarios. She must have covered this situation at some point. But, with Celestia watching her, she couldn't remember.
"I..." Luna paused, trying to figure out what do do. "Wh–"
Suddenly, two explosions ripped the sky apart. Alarmed, the sisters looked back outside. Two overlapping rainbows sped away from the palace, and on the ground, surrounded by a group of prone ponies who were struggling to stand up again, a griffin stood on hind legs, wings outstretched and menacing the crowd, while another examined Rainbow Dash's body. Luna and Celestia looked at each other, but before they could do anything, a crash from the throne room doors made them whirl around. There, panting and barely keeping on her hooves, stood Twilight Sparkle.
"Empress...Celestia."
"Twilight?" Celestia asked in shock. "What are you doing here? You are supposed to be in the vault... Oh no. Twilight, you can't be here!"
"I...I tried...to stop..." Twilight mumbled, before she collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
Across the palace, Luna felt a gathering inrush of terribly familiar power an instant before it was released in a blinding, pure white beam of energy that passed through the stone walls as if they were simply so much air. She threw up the strongest shield she could muster, and prayed that it was enough to stave off the attack, but it was unnecessary.
The beam of chaos energy splashed harmlessly against a wall of black magic before it ever reached them.
Celestia Invictus ~ Day 1
Celestia picked her way tiredly through the broken hellscape that used to be Equestria. The land around her seemed a fitting reflection of her heart. What had once been a lush and fertile valley between Canterlot and Ponyville was now shattered and seared. Craters pockmarked the earth. Ridges of jagged stone clawed at the sky, and cliffs crumbled into new ravines that gaped like open sores. There was not one living tree or blade of grass in sight.
Celestia walked on with her head down, mane and tail a dull pink and dragging in the dirt. Pausing for a moment, she looked up a little and watched her little sister trying to make her way without tripping and injuring herself. Luna looked nearly as weary and bedraggled as she felt. Her mane still had stars in it, but it no longer stirred in the unfelt breeze that always seemed to gently swirl around the two of them.
Celestia took another step, and her front hoof caught on a rock. She stumbled and fell to the ground with a whoosh as the air was knocked from her lungs. There was a clatter of stones as Luna rushed back to where she lay and helped her to her feet, lightly brushing her coat with magic to clean away the dirt.
Luna's face, always so open and readable, was filled with worry. "Are you all right?" she asked anxiously. Celestia looked blearily into her sister's eyes, and saw the question she was really asking. It used the same words, but the meaning was quite different. She didn't answer, instead she took another step, and stumbled once more. "We need to keep looking."
Luna looked at her with incredulity. She was probably wondering if Celestia could even take another step, and to tell the truth, Celestia wasn't so sure she could.
"You have done enough, Celestia. Let the pegasi and griffins handle the search for survivors. They are much better equipped and able than either of us at the moment. You need to get some sleep and recover your strength."
For one muddled moment, Celestia wondered when Luna had started talking like a modern pony. How had she found the time to practice? Who had she spoken with? Ah. She remembered now. It was her. Luna had been talking to her.
"Celestia?" Luna asked in a nervous tone.
No. They hadn't had the chance to talk to each other lately. They had been too busy trying to save Equestria.
"Celestia?" Luna's voice rose a bit higher, frightened now.
Celestia shook her head, trying in vain to clear away the fog. "I don't get to sleep," she told Luna flatly.
Luna looked even more worried–if that was possible–but Celestia couldn't muster up the energy to say anything more. Several times, her sister opened her mouth to say something, but stopped herself with a pensive look. She finally just moved up alongside Celestia and leaned against her side to lend support as they walked on. After a few minutes she pointed up into the sky where a flock of griffins were circling in the blood-red evening sky. "It seems they have found something. Do you think you can make it to where they are?"
Celestia didn't say anything, she simply changed her direction towards the griffins. Even though it wasn't far, their progress was painfully slow.
"Celestia?" Luna asked hesitantly. "Who was that other pony?"
Celestia didn't say anything, just took another step.
"Everypony is calling her The Witch," Luna continued as if she hadn't even expected an answer. Her voice fell to a whisper. "She frightens me. She shouldn't be able to do such things. How are we supposed to fight against something like her?" Luna looked off into the distance at Canterlot, which was now isolated from the rest of Equestria by an impenetrable magic shield. When she didn't get an answer, she simply pressed harder against Celestia's side and fell quiet.
They walked on in silence. The footing underneath was getting more difficult by the minute and Celestia had to focus every bit of her effort on not falling. Luna's gaze rested on Canterlot for a while longer, but eventually the terrain forced her to watch where she was going as well.
"Luna?" Celestia quietly asked as she lifted her hoof to step over a large stone. "Did I ever tell you that I love you?"
Her sister stiffened against her side, but didn't say anything, and Celestia didn't dare to look at her face.
"My memory isn't so good now, but I don't think that I ever did," she said. "There are so many things I should have done for you. Maybe if I had, things would have turned out differently. I'm sorry I didn't do better. I'm sorry I couldn't be the sister you deserved." Luna didn't respond, and Celestia still couldn't look at her. Instead, she raised her gaze to the griffins still circling above. She didn't know what was going through Luna's mind, but her sister didn't pull away.
The flock broke up as they approached, heading off to find other ponies for the search parties on the ground to help.
Suddenly, Luna broke the silence. "I swear by my name, my honor, and my crown that we will bring peace and prosperity to Equestria once again. We will rule side by side as princesses if you will have me. I will never abandon you or Equestria so long as I shall live. This is my oath and my covenant with you." Luna stopped, and then pressed her cheek against Celestia's stunned face. "I'm sorry as well," she whispered.
For just a moment, hope rose in her heart. For just a moment she imagined that everything could be made right, but then the events of the past fifty-seven days flooded her mind once again. What she promised was impossible. She felt Luna's gaze on her, but Celestia still couldn't bring herself to look into her eyes. "I appreciate the thought," she said dully as she took another step, "but it is too late."
At those words Luna shuddered against her side, but when Celestia stumbled again she was still there to hold her up. "I swear," she whispered.
Soon, they crested the ridge that the griffins had been circling, and found themselves looking into the bottom of a crater much like all the others that scarred the valley. This one was different from the rest though. At the bottom of this one lay Twilight Sparkle.
Celestia couldn't move, couldn't say or do anything at all. She simply stared. From up there, Twilight looked so small, as if she was still the little filly who had come to Canterlot to take the entrance exam for her school for gifted unicorns. So small and helpless.
Fear coursed through Celestia's veins. Twilight looked like she was asleep, her face the very picture of a filly resting peacefully. She never slept peacefully.
Somewhere, a rock tumbled and fell with a clatter, and that was all it took to break the spell. With a cry, Celestia flung herself down the slope. Her legs, unable to stand up to the sudden demand placed on them, buckled, and she fell and tumbled to the bottom in a heap.
Celestia struggled to her hooves. She was battered and bleeding from a large gash just below her front left knee, but that didn't stop her from limping swiftly over to where Twilight lay.
"Celestia don't! That's not her anymore!" Luna cried out, but she barely heard.
Celestia stretched out a trembling hoof and whispered "Twilight."
She was breathing. Twilight was still breathing, and Celestia's eyes were burning.
There was a sudden whoosh of air as Luna glided down from the crater edge and alighted next to her. "Celestia, don't," she said gently, but firmly. "That is not your student anymore."
"She is." Something was rising from the pit of her stomach, a tight, shaky sensation. "I taught her. She's strong. She wouldn't give up!"
Luna pressed a hoof against her shoulder. "You saw what happened Celestia. She is gone. Look around you, at what that thing has done. You know what we have to do."
"NO!" Celestia knocked Luna's hoof away and rounded on her sister. "It's still her! I taught her to be strong, and she's in there fighting!" She took one trembling step, placing herself between her sister and Twilight. "You can't take her away from me. I can't lose her, not again! I'll–" Her injured leg almost buckled. "I'll fight you Luna. I can't lose her again, and I'll fight you if I have to."
Luna took a step forward with a stricken look on her face. "Tia..."
"Please. Please don't. I'll do anything you ask, just please don't hurt her. You can have everything. I'll take her far away from Equestria and you won't ever have to see either of us again. Just don't hurt her." Celestia tried to keep the tears away from her eyes, to stay strong and face down her sister.
The look on Luna's face was one of pure suffering, but she took another step forward. "Tia. Please don't do this."
As Luna advanced, Celestia took another step backwards, and she felt her hind leg brush up against Twilight's side. Her breath caught in her chest as her student stirred.
Celestia whirled around and was instantly on the ground, holding Twilight in an embrace.
"Mom?" the young mare asked blearily.
"Impossible," Luna murmured in astonishment.
"No Twilight," Celestia whispered those terrible, familiar words. "It's just me."
"Oh." Twilight pressed herself weakly against her chest. "I had a bad dream again."
Celestia meant to say "It's ok. I'm here now," but instead of words, a sob came out, and once the first one was released, the rest poured out in an unstoppable torrent. For what felt like an eternity, she simply sat there and cried. She cried for Twilight. She cried for Luna. She cried for Equestria. And she cried for herself. "I'm sorry," she whispered over and over again. "I'm so sorry."
She felt a pair of hooves wrap around herself in an embrace, and heard a gentle voice whisper in her ear. "Shh. It's going to be all right." After a long while, the hooves let their embrace go, and a moment later started wrapping her injured leg with a soft bandage.
Celestia looked up, and instead of Luna, she saw the kind face of an unfamiliar yellow pegasus. "Who...who are you?" she asked thickly.
"I'm Fluttershy," the mare said with the most gentle, loving smile she had ever seen. "It's going to be all right. I brought help."
"Clover, you're not as clever as you think. Not by half," the ancient mare said softly to herself as she gazed at the Elements of Harmony, her greatest discovery.
This was something she did sometimes, come out to the old castle in the Everfree Forest and remember. Her life had been a good one, one she could be proud of, but there were still many things she wished had turned out differently. And the ruined castle was a good place to come when those regrets started weighing too heavily on her shoulders. Regrets like Nightmare Moon.
In her mind's eye, she could still see the Mare as if it were only yesterday. Her coat was as black as the deepest reaches of space. Her eyes were cold and haughty. But most of all, it was her mane that she remembered. Immaterial and vaporous, it moved and twisted through the air like smoke from a fire. Or a nebula drifting through space.
Clover sighed and reached out to touch the grey stone that had once been her element, Magic. The first thing Nightmare Moon had done when she manifested was to incapacitate the bearers of the Elements. She was one of the lucky ones. She'd woken up.
It was too late though. Her connection to the Elements had been severed, and Celestia was forced to use them on her own to defeat her sister.
She lowered her hoof and turned away. It was time for her to leave. The Everfree Forest was not a safe place anymore, and she knew that her family worried whenever she came out here. Slowly, she started to make her way towards the exit.
Out of the corner of her eye, Clover thought she saw something move, but when she turned to look, there was nothing there.
"Jumping at old shadows now are you? It really is time you started heading home," she said to herself. For just a moment, she'd thought she'd seen something floating through the air, like smoke from a fire. Or a nebula drifting through space.
Twilight Sparkle Comprehension ~ Day 1
"No. No. No...no. Nononono!" Twilight nearly pulled out her mane in frustration. "Isn't there one book in this Sunforsaken library I haven't read yet?" With a groan, she placed Tax Codes Throughout The Ages: Unabridged Edition back on the shelf and walked dejectedly down the staircase to the first floor of the library, to the table where she had unceremoniously dumped the contents of her backpack three days ago. She sat down, put her head in her hooves, and tried to stop thinking.
That was easier said than done though. Three days was more than enough time for her to read every book in the place that she hadn't already finished on earlier occasions, and she was starting to go stir-crazy. You had to be pretty desperate to read the tax laws of countries that didn't even exist anymore. She pursed her lips and blew, sending one of the pencils skittering across the table. It reached the edge and fell, but she didn't feel like picking it up.
Celestia's personal library was normally one of the most beautiful areas in the castle. It was filled with books of course, but also mirrors, statues, magical machines, art, and all sorts of other things the empress took an interest in. It was almost as much a collection of personal taste as a library. Now, it was in shambles.
There was a pile of books next to the table, not stacked, but tossed in a heap with loose tomes sliding off everywhere. Other volumes were scattered about the floor so thickly they made it difficult to walk without stepping on one. The cushions on the reading couch were in need of a good cleaning. She hadn't had the chance to shower since holing herself up in there, and they were all wrinkled and sweaty from being used as a bed.
One of the walls was simply a single large window like the one in Celestia's throne room. It normally gave the library a peaceful, open feeling, but today it only served to remind her that there was an entire world outside full of press ponies, nobleponies, and all sorts of other ponies who were laughing at her right at that very moment.
Twilight sighed and blew at the other pencils, trying to make them all roll off and land in the same spot as the first one. One of them spun in a circle before it started rolling, and ended up going off entirely the wrong side of the table. The next one was facing the wrong way. She tried to get it to turn by blowing on one end, but the whole thing just started rolling. It went off the right side, but nowhere near where the first had landed. She gave up when the third got caught on an eraser and wouldn't go anywhere at all.
With a groan, she hauled herself to her feet and wandered back up the stairs to the second floor where most of the bookshelves stood.
"Come on Twilight, you should just go outside," she said to herself as she stepped off the top stair. "It's a beautiful day out and you can't stay in here forever."
"The hay I can't." She snorted and shook her head.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a flicker of movement.
What?
This was Celestia's personal library. Twilight was the only pony besides the Empress allowed in there. She opened her mouth and turned to give the pony a piece of her mind, and caught sight of herself in a mirror.
She was a mess. Her mane stuck up with all sorts of odd spikes and curls, and her coat was smudged with a disgusting mixture of dust and sweat. Her eyes were bloodshot and had heavy bags underneath them.
Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Wow. Ok Twilight, get it together. Get it together. You really do need to get out of here. Just pick a book at random, go out into the gardens, and enjoy the weather. After that you can come back, clean up in here, and everything will go back to normal. Not that hard."
"But what if there's press ponies out there?" she whimpered.
"THREE DAYS!" she roared. "IT'S BEEN THREE DAYS! GET OUT!"
Twilight stood in the middle of the room with her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath.
After a moment, she gulped and waved her hoof at the window where the morning sun was streaming in, highlighting the mess she'd made of the library in a soft golden glow. "What will Celestia say when she sees all this? She's going to come in here eventually you know. Her personal library is hardly the best place to hide."
A twinge of guilt vibrated through her chest. She looked at the books and papers strewn about the floor and that twinge grew into a stab. What would Celestia say when she saw this? When she saw her?
She would probably be embarrassed. Angry even. Twilight was her personal student. Everything she did reflected directly upon the Empress, and so much had gone wrong so quickly. How could she not be embarrased to have her as a student?
What if it was the last straw? What if she banished her?
Oh Goddess, she was going to be banished!
Twilight suddenly felt lightheaded. She reached out a hoof to steady herself and found that she was leaning against a bookshelf.
"Calm down Twilight, you can fix this," she said to herself. "You just have to go outside. Pick a book, go outside, stop being crazy, come back, clean up before Celestia finds out, and everything will be all right. Do that and she might not banish you. That's nothing compared to memorizing the thaumaturgical breakdown of a teleportation spell."
She closed her eyes and did a few breathing exercises to try and get her pounding heart under control. When she felt a little more calm, she opened them, and was very careful not to think of anything at all.
She reached up and snatched a random book from the top shelf and then trotted over to the staircase.
She made it all the way down to the first floor before a thought snuck its way into her head despite her best efforts. What if there's a photographer hiding in the gardens?
Twilight froze next to the reading couch, one hoof in the air, and she cursed her treacherous brain. Come on Twilight, don't think about it, just go. She cast her eyes around, looking for something, anything at all to distract her from the thought of pouncing paparazzi press ponies, and they found it in the book she was holding.
The cover was illustrated with a cartoonish picture of Empress Celestia raising the sun, and the title read History of Equestria, a Foal's Guide.
"I've never seen this book before," she muttered as she opened to the first page and absently sat down on the couch.
"Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together, and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for the kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies. But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night. One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness – Nightmare Moon.
"She vowed that she would shroud the land in eternal night. Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom: the Elements of Harmony. Using the power of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister, and banished her permanently in the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for both sun and moon...and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since."
Twilight digested what she'd just read in silence. Slowly, she stood up and started pacing the room while she thought. After a few moments, she levitated the book off the couch and read through the passage once more as she continued to walk back and forth.
"I don't get it," she finally said aloud.
She had never heard that story before. None of the legends or history books mentioned anything about Celestia having a sister, let alone her being Nightmare Moon, and the elder sister couldn't be anypony else besides Celestia. And what on earth were 'The Elements of Harmony' supposed to be?
Everypony knew about Nightmare Moon of course, the monster-pony who lived on the moon in a house made of cheese. Once a year she came down to Equestria and gobbled up any pony she came across. If you dressed up as one of her monster minions she wouldn't be able to find you. And if you gave her candy she wouldn't eat you, because candy tastes better than either cheese or ponies.
Nopony old enough to have their cutie-mark actually believed in Nightmare Moon. She was more ridiculous than the Boogeybuck.
Twilight pulled her nose from the book and looked at the few shelves down on the first floor. "It could be one of those books."
'Those books' were the ones that couldn't be found anywhere outside this library. They were the ones that Empress Celestia deemed too dangerous for ponies to read, but were still valuable for the knowledge they contained. 'Those books' were ancient tomes of black magic, subversive ideologies, and secret histories. It was one of Twilight's greatest prides that Celestia trusted her enough to let her read them. Well, most of them. There was a locked cabinet that she wasn't allowed to look in.
She snorted. "Yes Twilight, History of Equestria: A Foal's Guide is actually one of the mysterious spooky secret history books—" She waved her hooves in the air above her head. "—that only Celestia is allowed to read on pain of being banished, and imprisoned in the place you're banished to. It just magically teleported itself out of the super-secret locked cabinet of mysteries onto one of the regular shelves where you just happened to find it. Wooooooooooooooooo!"
She flipped the book shut. "Who wrote this anyways?" Strangely, there was no author's name on the cover, or on the title page, or anywhere else in the book.
"Ok." She started pacing again. "So what we have here is an extremely suspect, but intriguingly mysterious book written by an anonymous author. It claims to be history, but reads like a fairy-tale, and the story it tells cannot be found in any other history book, even the secret ones that I'm allowed access to.
"On the other hoof—" Twilight made an about face when she reached a wall. "—the story can't be found in any book of legends or fairy-tales either, or else I would have come across it while reading those. Its only connection with anything I've ever seen is that the elder sister referenced is obviously Empress Celestia; and the younger uses the same name as, but otherwise has no significant similarity to, a fantasy monster pathetic enough that even most foals aren't scared of her.
"All of which means," Twilight said as she smiled happily. "It's obviously fiction! Mystery solved!"
She tossed the book onto the couch with her magic.
"Except..."
Celestia didn't keep fiction in her library. As far as Twilight knew, she didn't even read it.
Maybe it had made its way in there by accident, gotten mixed in with a shipment or something. But that didn't explain why it seemed to be one of a kind. What were the odds that something like that would make its way there by chance? Did that mean it really was a legitimate book? Then why was it so out-of-the-blue different than everything else? And if it was supposed to be true, why a book for foals?
Twilight pulled her mane in frustration. "This doesn't make any sense!"
Suddenly, an idea struck her. The book looked old. Maybe it used to be a fairly common one that was taken out of circulation a really long time ago for some reason. If it used to be taught in schools a couple hundred years ago but then was found out to be untrue, that could account for why it turned up in here. If that were the case, the main Canterlot library would probably have a copy of it in their rare book section.
"All right!" Twilight exclaimed. "To the library!" She ran upstairs and replaced the book on the shelf she got it from (she couldn't remove any of the books from Celestia's library), then came back down and started hastily stuffing her things back into her backpack. She swept the pencils off the floor with a flick of her horn and crammed them into her bag along with various loose sheets of paper and the books she'd brought in with her.
Twilight was headed straight for the door when she realized what had happened. She was going outside. All it had taken was a mystery to take her mind off everything else and she was able to trick herself into walking right out of the library.
To where the press ponies and nobleponies were waiting.
She was thinking about it again.
Twilight felt a vein throbbing in her forehead. Great job brain, if you're going to trick yourself into doing something it usually works better if you don't tell yourself about it!
"Wait, does that even make sense?"
Twilight was still standing frozen in place and contemplating the logic of self-deception when she heard a click from the door. She jolted out of her stupor in a panic and looked over as a baby dragon peered around the partially opened door and said "Uh Twilight? You have a visitor."
"Spike!" Twilight tried to get her heartbeat back to normal. "What are you thinking? You know nopony else is allowed i– EMPRESS CELESTIA!"
The familiar large white alicorn pressed the door open, stepping confidently around Spike.
"Wow, Empress." Twilight stumbled backwards a few steps, her eyes darting frantically back and forth. "What a surprise to see you here. In your personal library. That is... Heh heh. Umm." She scratched the back of her neck with one hoof as she tried her level best to melt into the floor.
Empress Celestia took a few steps into the library in that graceful, flowing walk of hers before she stopped and looked around. Her eyes took in everything, from the books scattered across the floor to the sorry state of Twilight's mane and coat. She paused and sniffed the air once, and then finished making her way to where Twilight stood.
She was going to be banished for sure.
"So this is where you've been. I should have guessed. Do you have something to say about all this?" Celestia didn't raise her voice, but Twilight cringed.
She pawed at the floor with her front hoof and examined the stones it was made out of in minute detail. "I..." Her throat felt thick and she started tracing the lines in the floor with her hoof. Maybe Celestia hadn't heard yet.
"Is this about the other night?" Celestia prodded gently.
She had heard about it then.
"Yes." The best she could manage was a barely audible whisper.
Celestia's shadow fell over her student as the she stepped closer, and Twilight suddenly realized just how very warm it was in the library. Warm enough that droplets were starting to form on her forehead.
"How you wet yourself like a little filly in front of everyone?"
Twilights eyes started to burn, and she didn't trust the tightness in her throat.
"At your own graduation party?"
The lines in the floor blurred and started to quiver and there were ten agonizing seconds of silence in which Twilight did her very best to hold the tears back. Finally, Celestia sighed and said, "Oh Twilight. You know this isn't the answer."
With a sob she threw herself against her teacher and buried her face in her mane, a privilege that, if she'd been thinking clearly, she would have realized had probably never been extended to any currently living pony. "There were fireworks and now they're all laughing at me!" She hiccupped. "Why did it have to be fireworks? I can't stand fireworks."
Celestia curled her leg around her in an embrace and she said softly, "They didn't know Twilight."
Twilight squeezed her eyes as tight as she could and shivered. For most ponies, the day they got their cutie-mark was one of the happiest of their lives, but hers was different. She had been in the middle of an entrance exam for Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns when there was a large explosion and flash of light like the world's biggest firework. For some reason, she'd blacked out, and when she came to, the first thing she saw was her brand new cutie-mark. The second was the bodies of her parents and the examiners. Nopony ever found out what caused the explosion.
"It was an accident Twilight. Most of them don't know about that, and the ones who do know weren't laughing."
Twilight pushed her face deeper into Celestia's mane. "There were press ponies there and, and they took pictures! Now everypony in Canterlot knows, about h-how I embarrased you."
"Twilight." Celestia's voice took on a stern edge and she pried Twilight away from herself so she could look her directly in the eye. "I decide what embarrasses me, not you, and certainly not the newspapers." After a few moments, her expression softened. "You don't need to worry about the press ponies anyways. I had a talk with them and they won't be printing anything about that."
Twilight sniffed and wiped her nose. "Really?"
"Really." Celestia paused and sniffed the air, then shook her head a little and went on. "Now," Her voice became all business, "You need to pull yourself together. I have a new assignment for you."
Twilight, suddenly conscious of how inappropriately she'd been acting towards the Empress, stepped back and stood up as straight as physically possible. "Yes, Empress Celestia. What do you need?"
"I need you to go clean yourself up and prepare for a trip. We are having difficulty finding qualified staff for some positions on the this year's Summer Sun Celebration committee, so I need you to go out and find ponies who can help." Celestia smiled and winked at her. "Preferably ponies who aren't from Canterlot. After all, a national celebration should involve the entire nation."
"Yes Ma'am!"
"While you are doing all that," Celestia continued, "I have an even more important task for you."
"What is that?" she asked curiously.
"Make some friends," Celestia said evenly.
"...Huh?" Twilight wasn't sure what to say. Was it some sort of joke?
"If anything were to happen to me, you will be the pony who takes over and makes sure that Equestria holds together. Being able to get along with and understand other ponies is an essential skill that you need to develop, and will be one of the main focuses of your graduate studies. Now, I need you to go and start preparing for your departure immediately. You leave this afternoon."
Suddenly, the library didn't feel warm any more. In fact, it felt like the entire palace had frozen over, her mouth included. All she could do was stare at Empress Celestia in shock.
Celestia didn't say anything more, simply returned Twilight's gaze with a look of perfect equanimity. After a few moments of waiting, the Empress lifted her nose and sniffed the air.
"What is that smell?" She turned to look at the reading couch. "Twilight have you been–"
"NOPE!" Twilight suddenly found herself able to move once again. She bowed deeply, and bolted for the door. "Right. I'll just be going then now! Thank you Empress Celestia!"
***
Twilight groaned with pleasure as the hot shower trickled through her coat. For a few seconds, the water turned grey as it washed away the dust that had accumulated during her three-day spell. It boggled her mind how a pony could get so dirty without going outside. Maybe she could convince the Empress to let the occasional servant into the library to do some dusting.
She was doing her very best not to think about what Celestia had said. That was a headache waiting to happen and she knew it.
Twilight used her magic to pick up a bottle of shampoo and squeeze it into her mane. It had an absolutely amazing smell of lavender to it.
The Empress had a habit of dropping multiple conversational bombs at once. Twilight had though she'd gotten used to that over the years, but this one was a doozy!
"Did she name me heir to the throne?"
There were so many different ways that didn't make sense it was practically a physical paradox. Why her? Why not Prince Blueblood, or better yet, Princess Cadance? They actually had a claim to the throne.
On the surface it was obvious why not. Well, it was for Blueblood at least. He was an ass. But Celestia could have taken a bigger role in raising him and teaching him to be a decent pony. Hay, Celestia spent more personal time with Twilight than she did with him. It wasn't like he was a stupid pony either, just insufferable. Who knew what kind of pony he could have been with a little work? Not that Celestia was lazy or anything. She was just always busy.
Princess Cadance on the other hoof... Well, she was a princess through and through. Apart from her strange obsession with tiaras, she seemed the perfect fit for the job.
Twilight shook her head. There was a sudden stinging in her eyes and she realized she'd forgotten to wash the shampoo out of her mane. She closed her eyes and stuck her face into the jet, rubbing at them until the stinging went away. Then she just stood there and let the warm water run over her head and down her neck.
Either one of them was certainly more qualified than Twilight at the very least. She was Celestia's personal student in magic. She was an important pony, but only because other ponies seemed to think that she had the Empress's ear. It was always something like, 'Twilight! I have this wonderful idea for bringing those Hoofington ponies back into line and I was hoping you put in a good word with Empress for me!' The constant sucking up left her with a bad taste in her mouth. Dealing with ponies was definitely not for her.
Cadance certainly didn't have that problem. She loved everypony and everypony loved her. She was even an alicorn like Celestia. Sort of. Princess Cadance had both wings and a horn, but Celestia was more than that. She was a Goddess. Immortal and unchanging.
She raised the sun every morning, lowered it every evening, and brought out the moon every night. The heavens themselves danced to her every whim. Without her there was no sun, no moon, no day or night. Without her, there was no Equestria. Everything and everypony would perish very quickly with no sun to give light and warmth to the world.
There was another thing that didn't make sense. Celestia was immortal. Why would she name an heir at all? Even if she were to somehow–Twilight shuddered at the thought–die, Equestria would die with her.
The whole thing made no sense! No sense at all! How could anypony condense that much not-sense-making into so few words?
An eternity of practice probably helped. And she must have had some reason. Celestia always did, though few ponies ever learned what they were in the end.
Twilight sighed again. "Are you really trying to understand the mind of Celestia? If she wants you to know, she'll tell you eventually. Just stop thinking about it and do what she says."
How many ponies have to be assigned homework to make friends?
"Not. Thinking. About. It." She shut off the water and stepped out.
After toweling herself down, Twilight set about brushing her mane and tail. Normally she hated that part of her daily ritual because it felt like such a waste of time, but today she found herself falling into an almost trance-like state as she used the brush to tease out the tangles that had accumulated over the last three days. Between the repetitive stroking and the gentle tugging on her scalp she actually found herself starting to relax. Before she knew it, she was done and looking like a brand new pony.
She did her best to check her reflection in the fogged mirror and said, "Right. Time to get to work." She took a deep breath and then opened the door calling out "Spike! Are you done packi–AAGH!"
There was a sudden pain in Twilight's right hoof as she stepped on something very hard and pointy.
"Owowowowowowowowowow!"
She looked down at the offending object and saw a small action figure of a dragon covered in spikes. An offendingly familiar action figure that had injured her hoof on more than one occasion.
"Behemoth!" She hissed at her nemesis and kicked the toy against the wall. Then she yelled, "Spike! I thought I told you Starswirl wasn't allowed in the apartment anymore!"
Starswirl–named after the bearded one–was the daughter of the Captain of the Guard, and often came over to play with Spike. She never went anywhere without her action figures, and was always forgetting them in inconvenient places that were dangerous to the hooves of unsuspecting ponies. Twilight had permanently banned Starswirl from her apartments after a similar incident had made her drop a beaker full of hydrochloric acid.
Twilight felt really bad about the whole thing. Starswirl was actually her own age, but was...a little bit slow. Ok, a lot slow. Apparently she was born premature and it had caused problems as she grew up. Either way, she didn't understand why Twilight wouldn't let her in anymore and she had the most guilt-inducing puppy-dog stare imaginable.
There was no answer from Spike.
"Spike?" Twilight trotted out into the living room. There were her bags, half packed and lying on a couch, but no Spike. "Spiiiiike!"
As Celestia's personal student, Twilight had her own set of apartments. With a living room, kitchen, a bath, and three bedrooms (one of which had been converted into a laboratory), it wasn't as luxurious as a lot of the accommodations in the palace, but it was plenty large enough for her and Spike.
A quick search was enough to prove that Spike wasn't anywhere to be found inside.
"Where did he run off to? SPIKE!" Twilight went to the front door, threw it open, and dashed into the hallway outside where she promptly bowled into Spike.
The little dragon went head over heels backward and landed tail-first on a gift-wrapped package he'd been carrying.
"There you are. What's that for?"
Spike groaned and stood up. "Well, it was a gift from Moondancer, but..." But the gift, which had once been some form of yellow pastry, was now smooshed all over the carpet in a mess that would probably take the caretaking staff hours to clean up.
"Moondancer? Isn't it her birthday today?" She vaguely remembered getting an invitation a few days ago. "Why would she send me a present on her birthday?"
"Umm, Moondancer isn't–" Spike lifted one finger and tried to say something, but Twilight cut him off.
"Never mind, we don't have time for that right now. How is the packing coming along? Did you make sure to include Roads and Railways? We might need that one."
"Twilight, about that present..."
"Oh, and Starswirl left one of her toys here again. I thought I told you that the two of you have to play outside from now on."
"Twilight!"
"What Spike?" Twilight asked exasperatedly.
He reached down into the mess and plucked a surprisingly clean envelope from the outside of the package. "You should at least read the card."
"Oh Spike," She rolled her eyes. We've got stuff to do and the last thing I want to do is read a card sent by somepony who's such a suck up that she sent me a present on her own birthday."
"Celestia told you to try and make friends too," he pointed out. "Besides, he went to the trouble. It's only polite to read it."
Twilight paused, confused. "Wait, Moondancer is a buck? Really? That's a girl's name."
It was Spike's turn to roll his eyes. "Sheesh Twilight, you've met him like five times."
Twilight grabbed the envelope with her magic and walked back inside the apartment. "There's hundreds of ponies in the palace Spike, and I've met each of them at least once. That doesn't mean I'm going to try and remember all of their names." She pulled down a copy of Predictions and Prophecies from a shelf and slipped the card inside to protect it, then placed it in her pack along with as many more books as the laws of physics would allow it to hold. "Anyways, I'll read it later. This job takes priority. Could you please find Roads and Railways for me?"
Spike sighed and went to get it, and Twilight made a mental note to give him a lecture about that later. Sometimes it seemed he was sighing about something every other minute, and it was a little bit rude.
"Moondancer huh?" she said quietly. "He must have had a hard childhood with a name like that.
She shook her head to try and clear her mind. This was no time to get distracted.
"You know," she said as she trotted over to the bookshelf and gave it another once-over to see if she'd missed any she might need. "I have a good feeling about this trip."
Pinkie Pie Comprehension ~ Day 1
"Oh I'm going to Canterlot to Sing! Oh I'm going to Canterlot to sing! I'm gonna make the mountains ring because I'm going to Canterlot to sing! Hiya mister unicorn!" Pinkie Pie waved to a red unicorn while she bounced as fast as she could along the road to Canterlot. He said something back to her, probably, but she had already left him in the dust and never heard it.
It was her third day of travel and she was starting to get a little tired, but every time her legs told her to slow down, the letter in her pack thundered through her head like a giant party parade and all of a sudden her legs decided that they didn't want to slow down, they wanted to party! How could anypony be tired at a time like this?
She wasn't tired. In fact, she was so not-tired that she needed to read the letter again. Pinkie Pie reached into her backpack and pulled it out.
That was actually a much more difficult trick than it sounds, because she didn't bother to stop bouncing while she did it. But with the aid of some rather tricky acrobatics that involved a cartwheel, a backwards hoofspring, and a few kangaroo-like jumps on her hind legs, she pulled out the piece of paper and unfolded it.
"Wait." Pinkie didn't wait. Well, she didn't stop hopping, but she didn't read the letter either. Something was missing...somepony.
She already knew what the letter said. She'd read it so many times that it was in danger of coming apart at the creases. If she wanted to she could probably recite it backwards to the tune of the Equestrian National Anthem. What she needed was somepony else, somepony new she could read it to.
"Aha!"
Up ahead, someone was coming into view around a bend in the road pulling a gypsy-wagon-house-wagon thingy the same way she was going.
"Hey!" she called out. "Hey hey heyheyheyheyheyhey!"
The wagon stopped moving and the pony pulling it poked her head around the side. She was very nice looking blue unicorn with a tall, pointy, star-spangled hat and matching cape. She looked a little surprised to see Pinkie, but that wasn't anything to worry about. Most ponies were surprised to see her. Even her family was surprised to see her! Pinkie bounced towards her as fast as she could, waving the letter in one hoof.
"Hi, I'm Puppysmiles!" She stopped in front of the mare and gave her the biggest, sunniest smile she had. "Actually, my name's Pinkie Pie, but I've always wanted to say that. What's your name?"
The unicorn's mouth moved up and down without making any sounds, but after a second or two something seemed to click in her head. She reared up dramatically on her hind legs–a move that Pinkie couldn't help but admire because she was still harnessed to the wagon and that couldn't have made it easier–flourished her cape, and said in a loud voice, "You do not recognize The Great and Powerful Trixie when you see her? Foal! Did you grow up on a rock farm?"
Pinkie Pie thought her heart was going to stop. "Wow, you guessed right on the first try! Nopony ever gets it on the first try! Are you a wizard?"
The Great and Powerful Trixie blinked.
"YES!" The Great and Powerful Trixie made a sweeping gesture with her right leg, and with a puff of smoke and blast of fireworks she appeared right in front of Pinkie, no longer attached to her wagon. "The Great and Powerful Trixie is the most powerful unicorn who has ever lived! She travels across Equestria performing the most spectacular feats of magic anypony has ever seen!" Trixie planted all four hooves on the ground and struck a pose with her cape fluttering in the wind and another burst of fireworks exploding behind her.
Pinkie Pie couldn't stop herself from applauding wildly.
"Now, why have you stopped The Great and Powerful Trixie on her journey?"
"Oh!" Pinkie suddenly remembered the letter in her hoof. "Well, I was bouncing along the road to Canterlot singing 'I'm going to Canterlot to sing, I'mgointoCanterlottosing, I'mgonnamakethemountainsringbecauseI'mgoingtoCanterlottosing,' because it's a beautiful day out and I just felt like singing, and then I started thinking about why I felt like singing, other than it just being a beautiful day out of course, and–" She took a breath. "–and that made me think about the letter in my backpack, so I took it out of my backpack just like this—" She reached into her backpack and pantomimed taking out a letter and unfolding it. "—and I was going to read it but then I realized that I already have it memorized so there was no point in reading it to myself, so then I looked for somepony else to read it to and BAM, you were right there! It's like destiny brought us together!"
The Great and Powerful Trixie simply stared at her while she tried to catch her breath. Then, without a word, she walked back to the wagon, slipped into the harness, and started pulling as hard as she could. Unfortunately for her, it is difficult to outpace anypony while pulling a wagon, and Pinkie Pie wasn't just anypony.
"So you wanna know what it says?" Pinkie bounced in circles around The Great and Powerful Trixie, vaulting the wagon tongue on each revolution.
"No. Go away."
"Oh don't be such a grumpy-pants! We're friends now!" Pinkie waved the letter in her face. "When you hear what it says, you'll be just as super-duper excited as I am."
The Great and Powerful Trixie muttered something under her breath.
"Dear Miss Pinkamina Diane Pie, It is wonderful to make your acquaintance. A few months ago, one of my recruiting stallions was passing through Ponyville, and he tells me that he heard the most divine, angelic voice coming from the local bakery. He tells me that he unfortunately didn't have time to stop and greet the singer because he was on his way to a very important meeting, but he did inquire about her and found out her name. Anyways, to make a long story short, he has urged me to extend you an audition opportunity, which I am doing right now. If you so desire, there is a spot open for you on the fifth. I look forward to receiving your response. Sincerely, Sapphire Shores - Sapphire Productions 139 Sapphire Street, Canterlot."
Pinkie hopped a few more hops before she realized that The G&PTrixie wasn't at her side anymore, even though she was being very careful to not hop faster than she was walking. She turned around and saw The Great and Powerful Trixie–All right, that's it! I'm just calling her Trixie!–standing still as a post, mouth gaping wide enough to swallow small birds.
Pinkie Pie walked up to her and waved her hoof in front of Trixie's face, and was rewarded with a blink and a jerk of the head.
"You mean to tell Trixie that you, you have an audition with Sapphire Productions?"
"Uh huh!" Pinkie nodded.
That seemed to bother Trixie quite a bit. She started pacing back and forth, unmindful of the wagon pivoting behind, her and talking to herself under her breath. After nearly a minute, and with some energetic (and not very nice) gesticulations at the sky, she came to a stop in front of Pinkie with a determined look on her face.
"The Great and Powerful Trixie has decided! She shall accompany you to Canterlot...to, uh, cheer you on."
It was Pinkie's turn to freeze with her mouth gaping open, and she did a very good job at it. But eventually she had to say something. "I always knew I'd make lots of friends out here, but I had no idea that I'd get one like you so soon."
"Err, yeah. Friends." Trixie scratched the back of her head and gave a very stiff smile that showed too many teeth. "It's like destiny brought us together...right?"
Pinkie Pie had an urge, an urge that was getting stronger by the moment, and she couldn't hold it back any longer. She bounded forward and gave Trixie the biggest hug she had in her little pony body.
"Hurghk! Unhoof Trixie!" She flailed her legs in a vain attempt to push the pink party pony away. When Pinkie Pie finally let go, Trixie lifted a hoof to her heaving chest. "That hurt! Don't do that!" She looked at Pinkie angrily, sighed, and just started walking down the road to Canterlot.
"Oh we're going now? That's great!" Pinkie Pie walked along beside her for approximately half a minute before she started getting antsy. "Can't we go any faster? We'll never get to Canterlot if you keep plodding along like that."
Trixie threw a hoof in the air. "The Great and Powerful Trixie does not plod!"
"But we're going so sloooooooooooooooooooooow."
"Trixie is conserving her energy so that she can arrive in Canterlot with enough energy to put on a good show."
"...I could pull the wagon for you."
"Hay no!"
"Oh. Ok."
"..."
"Do you have any candy in there?"
"If you're hungry you can get your own food. The Great and Powerful Trixie isn't made of bits you know, and she doesn't have anything to spare for freeloaders."
"Oh. Ok."
"..."
"Do you want to do the pony pokey while you plod?"
"No, The Great and Powerful Trixie will not perform the pony pokey while she plods! And she is not plodding!"
"Do you want–"
"For Celestia's sake, shut up!"
Fluttershy Comprehension ~ Day 1
Fluttershy flittered up to the work harness hanging above the mantle-piece with a feather-duster in her mouth and attacked the dust that had gathered on it with surprising ferocity. The dust returned the favor with a counter-attack on her nose. Her resulting sneezing fit only bought it a momentary respite though. After spending a whole day cleaning, that harness was the very last and most important thing. She wanted it to be perfect when he got home.
She swept away the last of the dust and turned to look at Angel Bunny on the floor by one of the walls. "There, all done. Do you think he'll like it?"
He dropped the rag he'd been pretending to wipe the baseboards with and just gave her a hard stare.
"Oh." Fluttershy landed and looked around her. Everything, from the floors to the walls to the indoor animal houses was sparkling clean. It wasn't just the inside either. She'd fixed up all the animal pens in the yard, weeded the garden, trimmed the tree, and so much more. She didn't think the cottage had looked this new even when she'd moved in. Her stomach sank as the realization set in. "You're right. I got a little carried away didn't I? He won't even be home for a whole other week and I'll just have to do it all over again."
Angel shrugged at her and then pointed to the kitchen while tapping his foot.
"That's right, I promised you a treat if you helped." Fluttershy tried to cheer herself up with the thought that she wouldn't have to re-do everything. Some of the cleaning she'd done would last a week. Right? "Why don't we just go in there and I'll make you a nice fruit salad." She started walking towards the kitchen, but paused when she heard somepony knock at the door.
"Is Rarity here already? I thought we didn't have our spa visit until this afternoon." Fluttershy motioned for Angel to head into the kitchen. "I'll be there in just a minute." Angel gave her a look that said she'd better be and walked off while Fluttershy turned around and headed to the front door. "I hope I didn't get the wrong time and miss it. That would be terrible."
She reached the door and opened it to see a pegasus dressed in a green army uniform on her front step.
"Excuse me Ma'am." The pegasus took off his hat as he addressed her. "You wouldn't happen to be Mrs. Apple would you?"
"Yes," Fluttershy said as an unsettling feeling stirred in her stomach. "Is this about Macintosh? He hasn't been delayed again has he?"
The stallion wouldn't meet her eyes, and the feeling in her stomach migrated to her chest and started squeezing. "No Ma'am." He replaced his hat and reached into the breastpocket on his uniform to pull out a letter. "I'm terribly sorry."
No.
Fluttershy reached out with a trembling hoof and took the envelope from him.
Dear Celestia, please no!
She looked up at the army stallion for a second before she opened it and started to read.
Dear Mrs Apple,
I regret to have to inform you that a report has been recieved from the Ministry of Military Affairs that 6183498, Private Macintosh Apple of the regiment Arimony Sundancers, has been reported missing in action and presumed dead...
The mid-morning sun beat down on Applejack as she flung another shovelful of dirt out of the knee-high trench she was standing in. The new irrigation system was coming along nicely, but the heat wasn't helping any.
It was a difficult job, but it had to be done. Ponyville was short on their budget this year and they'd made a last-minute decision not to expand the weather staff. They were predicting a rainfall shortage and she wasn't going to lose the apple crop if she had anything to say about it.
Applejack put down her shovel and took off her hat to wipe the sweat from her forehead. A little ways in front of her, Applebloom was trying to break up the ground with a pick that was longer than she was tall. She glared at the dirt like it had been making fun of her and swung the tool with everything she had. Of course, what with Applebloom being a little filly and all, it didn't do hardly anything. There was probably more force in the weight of the falling pick than in her swing.
It didn't matter that she wasn't being much help though. What was important was that she was out there working. With Big Mac away and Granny not able to help with the heavy stuff, Applejack was the only pony left on Sweet Apple Acres who could put in a full day's labor, and it was her job to teach Applebloom the value of good honest work while she was still young. Plus, Applejack wasn't just going to dig the whole thing while her little sister moped around doing nothing at all.
Applebloom had been in a bad mood all week, but whenever she'd asked if something was going on she just dodged the question. It was annoying as all get-out. She loved her sister, but sometimes Applebloom was a real hooffull. Hopefully a little hard labor would help her break out of her funk. It's hard to keep a good sulk going when you've been working all day. Takes too much energy.
"How ya doin' there Applebloom?" She asked while she fanned herself with her hat.
Applebloom just grunted around her tool and gave the dirt a dirty look. She reared back on her hind legs, raised the pick high, and swung it at the ground with all her might. When it bounced off a rock, she dropped it in a right hurry. She started hopping around in a circle with her hoof to her mouth. Applejack winced in sympathy, but then the filly started yelling at the rock.
"Hey now!" Applejack stepped up out of the ditch to give Applebloom a thump upside the head. "That rock wasn't doing nothing but bein' a rock. 'Tain't no point in yelling at it and it just makes you look the fool."
"Ow." Applebloom rubbed the back of her head. "What'd you do that for you jerk?"
A little hoof of guilt poked Applejack in the ribs. She shouldn't have thumped her. It wasn't setting a good example for Applebloom if her first resort was physical. She couldn't back down now though. Then Applebloom would start thinking she could get away with mouthing off every time she had to discipline her.
She leaned in real close and gave her sister a hard glare. "You were behavin' inappropriately missy. What would Big Macintosh say if he saw you acting like this?"
She watched Applebloom for a minute, waiting for a reaction, but her sister just stood there and stared back at her. Honestly, it was getting kinda creepy the way she was acting. Compared to her usual cheerful self, she was a completely different pony. Applejack was starting to wonder if there might really be something wrong with her.
Finally Applejack just picked up her shovel and turned to step back down into the ditch. "Well let's get back to work. This ditch ain't gonna dig itself."
Applebloom said something under her breath, just low enough so she couldn't hear. Whatever it was though, it sure as hay wasn't anything resembling contrition.
"What did you say?" Applejack turned around and asked dangerously.
Applebloom raised her head defiantly and said "Who cares what Big Mac would say? He's never gonna come back anyways! So who cares what he thinks?"
Applejack pulled back like Applebloom had just bucked her in the face. In all honesty, what it really felt like was a buck to the stomach.
"He keeps sayin' he's comin' home, but then he never does, and this time ain't no different! He doesn't care about us anymore!"
Applejack's throat pulled tight and she suddenly knew what it felt like to be lassoed around the neck. That was what was eating Applebloom? How in Equestria was she supposed to respond to that? "I..."
Think of something!
Applejack reached out and pulled her little sister into a hug.
It wasn't fair, not fair at all. Macintosh wasn't even a proper soldier. He was in the reserves and when he'd been called into active duty it was only supposed to be for six months, but then they'd gone and extended his tour twice. He'd been gone a year and a half now, and that was no small time for anypony, let alone a filly.
"I'm sorry Applebloom. I know it's been hard havin' him gone, but you only have to wait one more week." He would be home this time. Both of the other times they'd told him he'd have to stay a month in advance. It was too late for them to change his orders now. Heck, his station was so far out he might already be on his way back! "He's coming back this time, and If I know anything at all, it's that we're family and he loves us more than anything else in the whole world."
And if the Goddess makes a liar outta me I'll march right into Canterlot and buck her in the face!
Applebloom sniffed against her chest. "Really?"
Applejack unwrapped her legs from around her sister and held her at hoof's length to look her in the eyes. "I promise." She studied Applebloom anxiously and heaved a sigh of relief when a tiny, waverying smile appeared. "Now why don't you go on inside? We're almost done and I can finish up the rest by myself. If I reckon right, Granny should be pulling a pie out of the oven right now."
"Pie!"
At the mention of delicious apple-based desserts, Applebloom pulled herself back together faster than a zap-apple could set a pony's mane on end. She disentangled herself from her sister's hooves and bolted for home. Applejack chuckled to herself. Sometimes a good apple pie could do more for a pony than any amount of talking.
Applejack watched the filly run out of sight and then turned her attention back to the ditch she was digging. She hadn't lied, not exactly. They really were almost done, there was only about ten feet to go, but that didn't mean it was going to be easy. Those ten feet crossed the main road coming into Sweet Apple Acres and it was packed as hard as stone. The plan was to dig up the road and lay a culvert underneath to bring water from the river to the apple orchards.
"Well, no sense in wasting time," she said to herself. "I better get this done real quick or there won't be any pie left for me."
She picked up the fallen pick and started where Applebloom had left off, breaking up the ground. The first swing left her teeth feeling like they'd decided to take up new careers as crushed gravel.
"Son of a-" She dropped the pick and stuffed her hoof in her mouth. She couldn't go off right after she'd gotten on Applebloom's case about it! Had the filly even hit a rock at all? The darn road was so hard there couldn't have been much difference!
Applejack picked up the pick again and set about tearing up the road. Carefully. Teeth were a valuable commodity and she wasn't about to go losing any just to get the job done a few minutes quicker.
Rhythmically, she lifted the pick up and swung it down, over and over again. The work was tiresome and monotonous. It didn't take much brain power to dig a ditch, and so she soon found her mind wandering.
Why didn't she catch on to what was eating Applebloom? She should be kicking herself for not figuring it out earlier. What else was it going to be when Applebloom got all quiet right before Macintosh was supposed to come home? And after all this had happened before?
Why on earth would the army extend his tour of duty again? There wasn't even a war going on! Everypony had been surprised when his orders to ship out had come, but Applebloom had taken it especially badly. She didn't think even Fluttershy had been as upset as her, and Fluttershy had been real upset.
She didn't make a scene or anything. That simply wasn't the sort of thing she did, but Applejack knew for a fact that Big Mac had spent the better part of a week convincing her that everything was going to be all right when he headed out. She'd been terrified that something was going to happen to him. And rightly so. Why Big Mac had felt he needed to join up in the first place was beyond Applejack.
Fortunately, nothing had happened. In spite of it all, he was coming home this time. She could tell. He was an Apple and Apples don't leave their family behind.
Applejack put down the pickaxe and grabbed her shovel. Now that the hard part was done, she just had to actually dig the ditch. She looked up to the sun and was startled to see that it had already moved a fair ways across the sky. "Amazing how time flies when a pony's working. Ah sure do hope Applebloom left me some pie."
Applejack bit down tighter on the shovel's handle and was about to step down into the trench when she saw something moving out of the corner of her eye. Surprised, she turned her head and saw Fluttershy coming down the road.
It looked like she was having a hard time seeing where she was going. She was weaving back and forth as she ran down the road and every few steps she would flap her wings frantically like she was trying to fly but couldn't. Applejack dropped her shovel and bolted towards her. As she approached, Fluttershy tripped and fell in the dirt and instead of getting back up, she curled into a ball and just lay there in the middle of the road shaking. Applejack was on her in an instant.
"What's wrong Fluttershy! Are you hurt?"
Fluttershy raised her head and looked at her. Her face was streaked with tears and dirt from the road and she dropped an envelope from her mouth when she tried to speak.
"He's not coming home." Her voice was no louder than a whisper, but there was so much despair in her words it felt like the whole world was crumbling around them.
"Wh-what do ya mean sugarcube?" She reached out and gingerly put her hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder. She was trembling badly. "Macintosh got extended again?"
Fluttershy closed her eyes and shrunk away from her touch, shaking her head. She gulped once and tried to talk, but her voice broke and she started sobbing.
"Fluttershy, I need you to talk to me. What's goin' on?"
Fluttershy pointed to the envelope on the ground and curled up into a ball again.
Applejack picked it up, unfolded it and started reading.
Rainbow Dash Comprehension ~ Day 1
It was almost three o'clock and the mailmare was late.
Rainbow Dash peeked out from behind her curtains. There still wasn't anypony there so she dropped the curtain and flew a few laps around the room to try and distract her stomach from its grumbling.
"This is not cool!"
What did it take to get decent mail service around here? It wasn't like there was a shortage of mail pegasi in Cloudsdale!
"Please Celestia," She looked up to the ceiling. "Let it come today. I need this job! Help a pegasus out would you?"
She really needed this job in Ponyville and she needed it now! She'd been strapped for cash for months now and things were at the breaking point. She had bills piling up and the ponies behind them weren't going to be patient much longer. At least they couldn't turn off her water. One of the perks of living in a house made out of clouds.
Even food was a problem. She'd been living on raw grass for the last month, sneaking down to the ground at night and grabbing a few mouthfuls from parks and ponies' yards. If anypony ever found out, she'd never live it down.
"It's not like I want the job!" She landed by the window again. She just needed something to keep her in food and board while practicing for the Wonderbolts, and working weather would let her get some training done while on the job too.
It wasn't fair. Ponyville was the last town in a hundred miles that hadn't turned her down yet. So her resume wasn't that great, what of it? She was still a better flyer than the average weather pony by miles, and that was the most important thing in a job like that. All she needed was a hoof in the door. Just a letter, something asking her to come in for a demonstration or interview.
She drew back the curtain and peeked outside. Her mailbox was just sitting there, out in the open, smug, like it was proud that it didn't have anything for her. Like it was laughing at her. Like hunger was making her light-headed and she was starting to think her mailbox actually hated her.
Wait, was that a pony?
She froze, one hoof holding the curtain. Outside, a brown pegasus stallion landed on the vast expanse of cloud that made up her front yard. He was wearing a bright red flightsuit and carrying a satchel with the flying pegasus emblem of the Pony Express. He looked around with a confused look on his face as if he wasn't sure this was the right place. Or like he wasn't sure he was even allowed on the property. Her house sort of had that effect on ponies.
Pony Express! Mail!
Rainbow Dash's body quickthawed and she was flying out the door before her brain even registered that she'd left the window. The Express pony didn't even see her coming before she swept him away like a gnat caught in a hurricane.
"Heh heh heh," Dash picked herself up off the stallion. "Uh, excuse me? My bad." She reached out a hoof and helped the Express pony to his hooves.
Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! They used the Pony Express! Nopony uses the Pony Express to send a rejection letter!
The stallion groaned and held one hoof to his neck. "Wow, you've got quite the set of wings on you."
"Yeah I'm fast. It's kind of my thing." She started to fidget because he was taking too long to hand her whatever it was he'd brought. "So...do you have mail for me?" she tried to ask non-nonchalantly.
He gave her a look and pulled a tube out of the satchel he was carrying. "I take it you're Rainbow Dash?"
"The one and only!" she said proudly. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this letter!"
He opened his satchel and pulled out a scroll which he handed over to her.
"Thanks." She took it and looked at the label.
It wasn't from Ponyville.
For one terrifying moment, Rainbow Dash though she was going to cry in front of the mailpony. Just play it cool Dash. He's still here. Why is he still here? She blinked a few times to make sure nothing was coming out, and she made herself look at the scroll again.
It had a Canterlot return address, and it was from..."Gilda? What's she doing in Canterlot?"
"Dunno miss, I'm just an Express pony." He glanced up at her house a little uncertainly and said. "Um, I'm sure you're doing pretty well for yourself, but if you ever need a job you should apply for the Pony Express. We always need fast pegasi and I think you'd fit in real well. The main office is in Canterlot. You should stop by if you go there to visit your friend."
She was about to break the seal on the scroll and open it when what he'd said registered. She slowly looked up and stared at him.
He fidgeted under her gaze and scratched his mane. "Yeah, that was stupid. Dunno why I said that." He spread his wings and took off, calling back over his shoulder. "Have a nice day!"
"Yeah, you too," she said quietly after he'd already flown out of sight. "Thanks."
Dash stared at the scroll in her hoof for a long moment. She hadn't heard from Gilda in a long time, not since Junior Speedster flight camp. What had she been up to since then? Had she gone back home? Gotten a job? Maybe she worked weather.
"Nah. She'd never do anything as lame as weather." Not Gilda. She was just like her. Cool. She was probably...
"Huh." She couldn't think of a single thing. Gilda just wasn't the get-a-job type.
It was only after a stray cloud floating over head cast its shadow over her house that she stirred and looked up. A pegasus darted in and started pulling the cloud back towards a group that several other ponies were driving east, probably exporting them to Hoofington.
It suddenly struck her that she'd been standing out on her front porch for several minutes staring at a scroll and talking to herself like an idiot. Embarrased, she looked around to see if anypony had seen her and ducked inside.
Dash flew upstairs to her bedroom and flung herself across the bed, ignoring another rumbling complaint from her stomach. She broke the seal on the scroll and unrolled it. A loose piece of paper fell out of it's curls and onto her blanket. It was a newspaper clipping. She picked it up and read the headline.
First ever Griffon accepted into Wonderbolt training program.
"No. Freaking. Way." She read the article, then re-read it just to make sure. Then she picked up the scroll and read it. It was short and simple.
You better get your rear in gear or I'm going to beat you.
Gilda
P.S. What's new with you?
"That turkey!"
She got up and started rummaging through her closet for a suitcase. Ponyville could go to the moon. She was going to Canterlot.
Applejack Comprehension ~ Day 1
"I..."
She didn't know what to do.
"He's...not comin' back?"
But she'd promised Applebloom!
Fluttershy shakily pulled herself to her hooves and nodded.
"But..." Something wasn't right. Her legs were shaking, and she couldn't breathe. "But I promised."
What was she supposed to do?
She startled when she felt something touch her. It was Fluttershy.
"Are you all right?"
Applejack looked at Fluttershy. She was a right mess still. Her mane was tangled and there was a smudge of dirt below her left eye. Her wings were still twitching, and there were muddy tear tracks on her cheeks. But her face was filled with concern. For her.
She shook her head, trying to make her thoughts settle back into place.
This ain't right.
Fluttershy and Big Mac hadn't even been married for a month when the government made him leave. She'd had to endure all that time without him being there by her side, and now everything had been taken from her at the cruelest possible moment. And she was worrying about Applejack.
Pull yourself together Applejack. She needs your help. You have work to do.
"Yeah sugarcube, I'm fine." She reached out and tried to clean some of the dirt off of Fluttershy's face with her hoof. "I'm so sorry." Fluttershy burst into tears again and Applejack pulled her in and held her tight.
Minutes passed. When Fluttershy had calmed down a little, Applejack pulled away. "Come on, let's go inside and get you all taken care of." She nudged her towards the farmhouse and they started walking.
There was so many things to take care of, and to be truthful, she was a bit grateful. It was always better to have stuff to do. She needed to be strong right now, for the family. She'd have to tell Granny and Aplebloom, make sure Fluttershy was taken care of, write all their relatives.
And then.
Was she supposed to plan a funeral? Yeah. There needed to be a funeral. And she'd have to get the property sorted out. Macintosh had moved into Fluttershy's house, but the farm still technically belonged to him.
And then... She blinked away a tear.
She needed to find out if he'd ever made a will.
And then... She shook her head. Why was it so hard to think straight? Now wasn't the time to fall apart. She needed to be strong if she was going to get her family through this.
Two Sisters go forth this day in doom and destiny. The one shall be called Endless and the other Eternal.
The one shall be clothed in power and glory. They shall look to her for hope. Her robe shall be sackcloth and they shall see silk. Her feast shall be ashes and they shall taste honey. She shall despair and they shall prosper.
The other shall be clothed in beauty and wisdom. Those who would look upon her shall not see her or know to desire her, for she stands in the darkness, the Unseen Shield, protecting all from harm. In her soul lies virtue, but in her heart lies corruption.
Their strength is the strength of all ponies and their weakness is the weakness of all ponies. The one without the other is lost, and the other without the one is fallen. They shall look and not see. They shall listen and not hear. Darkness shall fall and with it all pony kind. But though darkness comes and the mists enshroud them, they shall not falter. For in their sin is righteousness and in their despair is hope. Though power and wisdom fail, glory and beauty fade, they are Endless and Eternal and they shall not end, but shall rise once more. The darkness shall wane and the dawn shall come, brighter and more glorious than all that were before.
Twilight Comprehension ~ Day 1
"Are you all ready to go Twilight?" Celestia asked as she stepped into the room, interrupting her ponderings about the book she'd found earlier in the library. History of Equestria, a Foal's Guide..
Twilight leaned miserably over the side of the chariot and watched as the ground slid away a thousand feet beneath her.
"Ready and waiting Empress! Spike's just gone to get Shining Armor—he's my brother you know—so he can have somepony get the chariot ready. You don't have to worry about a thing. We'll come back with some qualified ponies if we have to scour Tartarus itself to find the right ones for the job!"
Could Celestia really have a sister?
Empress Celestia smiled pleasantly at her, and any last doubts that Twilight had about leaving faded away. "That's wonderful Twilight. Just be sure you don't overtax yourself. Get plenty of rest and make sure you don't forget your magic exercises in the morning."
"Of course I will Empress," Twilight cheerfully lied through her teeth.
Normally, she wouldn't even be able to consider lying to her mentor, let alone be able to pull it off, but this particular lie was one she'd been repeating her entire life and practice if nothing else made it roll smoothly off her tongue. She wasn't going to break her tradition of putting off going to bed as long as physically possible just because this was the first time in years that she was spending the night away from the palace.
"Twilight," Celestia began, pulling her mind back to the matter at hoof. There was a strange undercurrent in Celestia's voice that she couldn't quite put her hoof on. Something nopony who wasn't familiar with the Empress would have ever noticed. "Are you going..." she trailed off uncharacteristically.
Twilight probably imagined it, but for just a moment, something in Celestia's face changed. She wore the same small smile that she always did, but it seemed a little less certain. Her eyes were filled with the same benevolent kindness they always held, but they seemed a little less deep. Then it was gone and Twilight was looking into the face of the Empress Celestia that everypony knew. Endless and unchanging.
"Are you going to remember to send me reports of your progress each night Twilight?"
Twilight tilted her head quizzically. "Of course Empress."
"Wonderful." She smiled at Twilight and then turned to the door. "I look forward to hearing how this trip advances your new studies." Her horn glowed faintly and the door swung quietly open in the hold of her magic.
"Wait Empress." Twilight raised hoof imploringly, the words out of her mouth before she thought.
The Empress looked back over her shoulder, one eyebrow arched. "Yes?"
"Oh um," she looked down at the floor and kicked the carpet with one of her hooves.
"I was wondering. Just idle curiosity really. Uh. Do you...do you have any family?"
Celestia didn't hesitate. "Of course I do Twilight. I have all of Equestria for my family." And with that she was gone.
Nothing. No answer. Had she asked the question wrong? Did Celestia not get it? Was that just a roundabout way of saying no? Or a way of avoiding an answer altogether? Maybe she was trying to tell Twilight that it was a silly question.
Why couldn't the Empress ever be straightforward?
Something the Empress had said a long time ago popped into her mind, from the time when she'd actually worked up the nerve to ask her just that.
"Because then you only have the answer to the question you asked, when the journey to figure it out on your own could have taught you the answers to so many more. My role is simply to point you in the right direction."
She sighed again and decided to go over her checklist of stops rather than dwell on it. "Spike. Where's my clipboard."
"Right here Twilight." He reached down and pulled it out of the backpack he'd stowed next to him in the chariot. Twilight magicked it out of his claws and started reading the first page.
Their first stop was Hoofington. They'd spend the afternoon searching for ponies and then spend the night there. In the morning they'd travel to Cloudsdale, and then go to Ponyville where they'd spend the night. After that, Appleloosa. Then Las Pegasus the next day. And they'd have just enough time to go to Manehatten for a few hours the day after that before they needed to head back to Canterlot and spend the next two days finishing up everything for the Summer Sun Celebration.
Twilight nodded. That all seemed right. She flipped the page up and started writing a new checklist on the sheet behind it. "Right, let's set down my itinerary for Hoofington."
Rarity Comprehension ~ Day 1
"Ooh, that's good. Yes, very good. A little lower if you could dear."
Rarity felt herself melting under the skilled hooves of the new masseuse the spa had picked up. Where in Equestria had they found this mare? It was like Celestia herself was working the knots out of her back. And Goddess knows it would take a pony like Her to make them go away. Her week had been a little stressful so to speak.
The spa pony—What was her name?—pressed her hooves hard into the small of her back and worked them in circles to knead out a particularly dense knot. Rarity gasped. It hurt a bit at first, but soon enough that one eased away like all the others.
"My, you have a lot of built-up tension Miss Rarity. Is everything alright?"
"I'm just swamped with work Sweet Spot." Yes, that was her name! And what an appropriate one too. "Everypony decided to wait until the last second to order their dresses for the Summer Sun Celebration and I have been working non-stop to get them done. I'm run completely ragged!" She would have swooned dramatically, but a pony can't very well do that when she's already lying face down on a massage table. "Two weeks of eighteen hour days will make even the best of ponies get a little tense," she said, her voice bouncing as the masseuse pounded on her back in a staccatto. "I'm almost done though. If I push hard, I might be able to finish them all by the day after tomorrow."
"Well I wish you the best Miss Rarity. If you do finish early I'd recommend you take the rest of the time until the Celebration off. This much accumulated stress isn't healthy for a pony."
"Yes, you're right. I should do that," she murmured as she pressed her face deeper into the hole in the table while Sweet Spot continued her work.
"I really shouldn't be here at all you know," she couldn't help going on. "I should be back at the boutique working, but it's the weekly spa visit for Fluttershy and myself. Dresses or no dresses I can't just miss that. It's our thing. Skipping it would be unthinkable for a lady such as myself."
She squeaked as Sweet Spot dug into her spine. "You're tensing up again Miss Rarity."
"I'm sorry dear. It's just that I can't imagine why Fluttershy isn't here. She wasn't at home when I went to pick her up, so I thought she must have already come to the spa, but she wasn't here either. It isn't like her to just skip a visit, and with all the work for the Summer Sun Celebration I've been doing, this was the first chance all week I've had to spend any time with her."
"Something probably just came up suddenly that she had to take care of." Sweet Spot said in a soothing voice. "I'm sure she wanted to come as much as you."
Rarity sighed. "I'm sure you're right. I'm just disappointed that I won't be able to see her again until the celebration. Not unless I do manage to get everything done early."
***
All too soon, Rarity's spa visit came to a close and she found herself walking back through the streets of Ponyville, relaxed and trying not to think of the fabric explosion that was sixteen different dresses waiting for her back at the Carousel Boutique.
She stopped and watched as bustling groups of ponies walked through the streets, going about their various businesses. It was no Fillydelphia, but for such a small town Ponyville was surprisingly vibrant. She'd made the right decision coming back here. There were so many good ponies here.
Rarity turned the corner onto main street. As she was passing the town hall, an older, grey earth pony opened the double doors of the grand (for Ponyville) building.
"Rarity!" Mayor Mare cried and hurried excitedly towards her. "Just the mare I wanted to see!"
"Miss Mayor, how nice to see you." She smiled and met the mayor halfway, shaking her hoof warmly. "How can I help you? I hope you aren't looking to place an order for the Summer Sun Celebration," she said a tad worriedly. "Because I'm afraid I've stopped accepting commissions for that."
"Oh no no no, this is much more important than dresses!" Mayor Mare leaned in uncomfortably close to Rarity's face. "I have just received some mail from Canterlot. By dragon-fire no less! The palace is sending a representative to Ponyville to look for qualified ponies to help work on the Summer Sun Celebration in Canterlot, presided over by Celestia herself!" The older mare made a little "squee" noise and pulled away from Rarity's face. She would have been relieved to have her personal space back, but she was too busy taking in what the mayor had just said.
Canterlot! Rarity's heart started beating quite a bit faster—Empress Celstia!—and went into adrenaline-fueled overdrive. "A—." She suddenly found herself feeling very warm and she started fanning herself with her hoof. "Are you saying..."
"Yes!" Mayor Mare shouted triumphantly. "The representative is arriving tomorrow afternoon, I believe the letter said her name was Twilight Sparkle, and I need you to decorate the town hall so that when she arrives Ponyville makes the best possible impression." She stepped forward and asked breathlessly. "You will do this for us right? Think of how much it would help Ponyville if they chose some of our very own citizens to help oversee the Canterlot Summer Sun Celebration! I will of course, recommend you immediately if they need a pony with your particular talents, and I don't see why they wouldn't need a pony with your particular talents."
"Yes!" Rarity blurted out.
Wait! Dresses!
"I would love to help."
Wait, tomorrow? TOMORROW?
Rarity trotted up the town hall steps with Mayor Mare, stopping at the door when the grey-maned pony addressed her again.
"Thank you so much Rarity. You have no idea how much good this is going to do for Ponyville. Why don't you spend the rest of the afternoon brainstorming and when you get here in the morning we can talk details." Mayor Mare beamed hugely at her and stepped inside, leaving Rarity on the front steps as the rest of Ponyville went on about its business.
She just stood there for several minutes, the smile slowly melting off her as the full implications of her promise sunk in. She was going to have to complete all sixteen of those outfits overnight if she was going to do this and go to Canterlot with Twilight Sparkle. The thought that she might not be chosen did occur to her of course, but she immediately squashed it like a bug. She couldn't afford to think like that if she was going to be in her business.
Her heart accelerated from adrenaline overdrive straight into 'imminent coronary.'
"No, none of that Rarity." She turned and trotted back down the steps to the street. "This is a Very Important Pony arriving from Canterlot. Mayor Mare is right. It's is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get my name out there among the Elite."
Twilight Sparkle. That name sounded familiar. Rarity kept track of all the big movers and shakers in Canterlot Society, just a little hobby of hers, but this Twilight wasn't one of them. At least not one of the usual ones. But the name was definitely familiar.
She shook her head. That was tomorrow. This was today and she suddenly had an impossible deadline to meet. She picked up her hooves and started walking a little faster, ignoring the little burning feeling that was starting to eat at her stomach.
"First thing first," she said to herself. "I need an espresso maker and a forty ounce mug."
It was going to be a long night. Good thing the store was on her way home.
Applejack Comprehension ~ Day 1
Applejack opened the front door and led Fluttershy inside. Applejack started nudging her towards the kitchen, and though she looked at the earth pony with a confused look, she went in. Applejack motioned for her to take a seat at the large wooden table, which she did without complaint.
"First thing's first sugarcube," she said as she walked over to the counter where Applebloom had left the remains of Granny's pie. "We need to get some food in you."
"I don't really feel like..." Fluttershy whispered.
Applejack stood up on her hind legs and pulled a plate down from the shelf above the counter, setting it next to the pie tin. "Now I know you probably don't feel like eatin' at a time like this, but trust me, it'll make you feel better when you're done. There's nothing that helps a pony get her legs back under her better than puttin' some grub into her belly."
"Oh...ok."
Applejack opened a drawer and got out a fork, placing it on the plate next to Fluttershy's pie. Then she picked it up in her mouth and took it over to the shrinking mare. "Now eat up," she said gently. "I'll be right back."
She watched Fluttershy take her first bite of pie and then walked into the hallway that came off the kitchen. Neither Applebloom nor Granny had been in the living room or kitchen when they came in, so they were probably in their rooms.
At the end of the hallway, a bare wooden set of stairs went up to the second floor. She looked up them, and suddenly realized that she was really tired from all the digging she'd been doing that morning. Her legs felt like rubber. She paused a moment, then started up in spite of the tired protesting from her legs. At the top, she went to the first door on the right and, forcing herself not to hesitate, she knocked on Applebloom's door. From the other side came a muffled "Yeah?"
"Applebloom, ah need you to go get Granny and wait in the living room. If she's nappin' go ahead and wake her up." Applejack wasn't going to take any shenanigans or dilly dallying from her sister, and her voice reflected it.
There was a moment of silence on the other side of the door and then a soft thump followed by little hoofsteps coming to the door. It creaked a little as Applebloom pushed it open and stuck her head out.
"What's goin' on?" she asked, looking up at Applejack's serious expression.
There was a tradition in the Apple family. If any Apple, no matter how old or young, had something on their mind, they only needed to say one thing and from that point on everything they said would be heard. It was a tradition that went back as far as the Apple family line. It had gotten them through the worst of times and Granny said it was probably the reason there still was an Apple family at all. Her father had said it when Filthy Rich had offered to buy the farm. Granny had said it when she'd gotten the news that their parents had gone missing. And Big Mac had said it when he'd decided to join the reserves. Applejack had only used it once before, when she was a filly and she thought she was being given an unfair share of the chores.
"I'm calling a family meetin'."
And like magic, Applebloom scampered off to find Granny.
Applejack couldn't help but smile sadly. Applebloom might be a hoof-full sometimes. And she might sometimes get caught up in her own head like earlier. But when it really mattered, she could be counted on to serious up and do her part. She was a lot like Macintosh that way.
She walked back into the kitchen just as Fluttershy was taking her dishes to the sink and starting to wash them. Applejack strode across the room and put her hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder, causing her to jump and almost drop the plate.
"You feelin' a little better?"
Fluttershy nodded hesitantly and softly said, "Yes...I think."
"Good," Applejack said. Feeding a pony did the trick every time. "Don't worry about the dishes. I've called a family meeting, but I think you should go wash up real quick first. You're a mess right now and this'll be hard enough on everyone without them thinking something happened to you too. The bathroom's down the hall. You should get yourself cleaned up real quick-like and then meet the rest of us in the living room."
"O-okay." Fluttershy stepped away from the sink and then paused. For a moment, she stood in place with a torn look on her face and one hoof in the air. Just as Applejack was about to ask if something was wrong, she spoke. "Um Applejack?"
"What is it honey?"
"A-are you alright?" she asked with a fearful look.
"I'm fine Fluttershy, now move along." Applejack picked up the plate and began rinsing it off in the sink.
Fluttershy didn't go though. She looked like she was going to shrink and vanish into one of the cracks between the floorboards, but she didn't move. "It's just that...I..."
Applejack turned the faucet off, put the plate down in the sink and turned around. "What is it Fluttershy?"
"You..." There were tears in her eyes again. "D-do you blame me for...this?"
Oh dear Celestia.
"NO." Fluttershy winced, and Applejack mentally kicked herself. "No Fluttershy," she tried again. "Why in tarnation would I blame you for this?"
"W-well it's just that..." She trailed off into something that Applejack couldn't hear.
"Say that again?"
"Well...I brought the letter, and he's your brother and...you know." She shrunk even further behind her mane.
Strangely enough, Applejack did know. She knew exactly what Fluttershy was asking. "Fluttershy," she started speaking, in a tone that brooked no argument. "You're family. It doesn't matter if Macintosh is here or not, you are an Apple now and you'll always be an Apple no matter what happens down the road. You are a special mare and Macintosh was lucky to meet you. You're family. You should know that by now. And I don't want you getting any funny ideas about going back to your own house when we're done here. You're staying the night here. I wouldn't make a stranger spend a night like this alone and you ain't no stranger."
Fluttershy looked like she was going to break down again, but Applejack would have none of that. Not now. She gently, but firmly pushed Fluttershy towards the hallway. "Now get on down to the bathroom and clean yourself up. We've still got to tell Granny and Applebloom and they're going to need you to be strong if we're all going to get through this together." Obediently, Fluttershy nodded and left the room, closing the door behind her.
For a moment, Applejack's tiredness threatened to overwhelm her, and she just wanted to go up to her bed and take a nap. But she still had a lot to do and this wasn't the time for that sort of thing. She sighed heavily and looked back at the sink. The plate and fork were there, a few crumbs and apple smears still stuck to them. She turned the faucet back on, grabbed the dishrag and started scrubbing, perhaps a little harder than was really necessary. In the background, she heard the shower turn on.
How could Fluttershy really not understand that she was a part of the family? After all this time?
When she was done with the plate and fork, she grabbed the pie tin, and then the dirty dishes that Applebloom had left behind. After a minute or two, she heard the shower turn off. Another minute later there was a soft knock on the kitchen door. There was a creak as the door opened and she heard Fluttershy's voice. "Um Applejack? I'm all done."
Applejack didn't stop scrubbing the last plate or turn around. She just said, "Thank you Fluttershy. Applebloom and Granny are waiting in the living room. I'll be right in."
"Okay." And with that Fluttershy was gone.
Applejack put the plate away and just stood there, looking down at the empty sink. In the other room, she could hear Applebloom asking Fluttershy what was going on. Fluttershy's response was too soft to hear well, but it sounded like she was telling Applebloom that they needed to wait for Applejack to come in.
She leaned up against the counter, trying to use it to support her weight as the tiredness in her legs grew until they felt like they'd turned into tubes full of zap-apple jam.
"You can't do this now Applejack," she whispered desperately to herself. "They're waiting for you in there. You've got a job to do."
She sank to the floor as her legs quietly and traitorously gave way beneath her.
"Not now."
Her eyes were starting to go all weird and blurry.
"You have until the count of ten to pull yourself together and go in that room. One. Two. Three. Four... Five... Six... Seven. Eight. N-nine..."
Rarity came out of the store with several bags full of coffee and sewing supplies floating along in the grip of her magic. “There! Now that’s all taken care of, it's time I got back to work,” she remarked cheerfully to herself as she stepped out into the street.
Trotting along at a brisk pace, she ignored the ponies around her as she started to mentally go through the things she'd have to do in order to pull off this monumental task in the art of dressmaking. First, she'd finish off Roseluck's dress. It was almost done, and was looking extraordinarily lovely if she did say so herself. All that she had left to do was the bottom hem and then she could have Sweetie Belle deliver it while she moved onto Mrs. Cake's dress.
That one wasn't going to be so easy. It was the next closest to being done, but it needed some light embroidery, something that normally she would have wanted to spend a lot of time on to get it just right.
As she pondered her catastrophic coture conundrums, Rarity found herself passing the post office. She absentmindedly returned the wave of a stallion who was out front putting up a poster of a dusty yellow earth pony who was wearing a fetching cowpony hat and vest ensemble on the town bulletin board. Normally she would have stopped and introduced herself, but she was a mare on a mission and nothing was going to slow her down!
Speaking of embroidery...
Oh dear.
Rarity fought down a surge of nausea as she remembered that Daisy's and Lily's dresses were supposed to be completely covered in embroidered flowers. There was simply no way she could get that done overnight. It was literally impossible. Was she was going to have to...change the designs?
"No no no! I can't do that!" Rarity started shivering. It would be impossible to bring the two of them in to discuss changes to their dresses. They weren't exactly the most laid back of ponies and it had taken them two weeks to settle on the ones they had now! And if she changed them, she wouldn't be able to get away with something small. She's have to scrap them and completely re-work them from the floor up!
She needed another massage. And a drink.
Maybe if she brought them in and just talked really really fast so they couldn't get a word in edgewise. "I know this is short notice, but I suddenly realized that my previous design was entirely too gauche," she rehearsed, violently gesticulating with one of the shopping bags to emphasize her words. "Embroidery is so last month, and I couldn't let a client of mine—No no no." She shook her head. "That won't work. Not if I don't want to make Rose a new dress from scratch too. Maybe I should—"
Rarity's fashion musings were cut short when she ran headlong into somepony and sent the both of them sprawling, dropping all her bags in the dirt. "Oh." She lifted a hoof to her temple and tried to stop its spinning with a shake of the head.
"Are you all right?" a dignified mare's voice asked from somewhere next to her.
Rarity looked up and saw an older (but not that old) mare being helped to her hooves by an orange filly without a cutie-mark yet.
The mare was a light orange earth pony with three orange slices for a cutie mark, and a small mole on her left cheek. Her mane was a much brighter shade of orange and done up in an elaborate hairstyle that must have cost a small fortune at a very nice salon, and was now utterly ruined.
"I'm terribly sorry," the mare continued, completely unaware of the state of her mane. "I simply was not paying attention to where I was going and now I've gone and made you drop all your bags."
"Nice going mom," the filly sniggered. "Very—" She adopted an extraordinarily snooty voice. "—graceful and ladylike."
The orange mare shot her daughter a quick glare and said, "Mimosa, why don't you be a dear and help gather up the nice mare's things." She pointed at Rarity's dropped bags, which had spilled their contents all over the street, including a gigantic mug which loudly and quite embarrassingly proclaimed her non-existent love for the Fillydelphia Fillies.
"But mo-om!" she protested. "You're the one who—"
"That's quite all right," Rarity interrupted, hoping to stave off the impending storm of whining that was sure to spew from the filly's mouth. She hastily started levitating the items back into her shopping bags and just narrowly avoided beaning a passing unicorn with the espresso maker. "It's actually my fault. I was trying to come up with some new dress designs and wasn't paying attention. And now look at your mane!"
A little chill climbed its way down Rarity's spine from the back of her head to the base of her tail as she realized what was about to happen.
The mare lifted a hoof to feel her mane, and a look of dismay crossed her face when she found several locks that had escaped their bounds before she managed to hide it behind a stiff smile. "Oh don't worry about that. It's not important." The filly tried to cover a smirk with her hoof.
Oh Goddess. Rarity, don't do it!
"Not important!" she cried. "Of course it's important! Here, you come with me to the Carousel Boutique and I'll have it fixed up in no time at all."
What are you saying?
"I..." The orange mare hesitated. "I'm sorry. I can't do that, I have things—
"Nonsense!" Rarity cut her off. "This is a crime against fashion, hairstyling, and everything beautiful in the world, and I will not be satisfied until I have rectified it!"
The mare exchanged a silent look with her daughter, who shot a glare back at her and then turned away with her nose in the air. The filly went over to a suitcase that was laying on the ground and picked it up in her mouth mumbling, "Oh go ahead and do it mom. It's not like they're expecting us or anything," around the handle.
The older mare turned back to Rarity with a more genuine smile on her face, but there were some inexplicable hints of sadness and relief in it as well. "You know what? You're right. I have time and I really should look my best when I show up." She reached out a hoof. "My name is Clementine..." she hesitated for a fraction of a second, "...Apple. It's very nice to meet you."
Rarity took Clementine's hoof and shook it. "I'm Rarity. Pleased to make your acquaintance Mrs. Apple. Are you by any chance related to the Apples over at Sweet Apple Acres?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact that's why we're in town. We were just on our way up there to pay them a visit."
Applejack Comprehension ~ Day 1
Applejack pulled herself to her hooves and walked to the door on the strength of pure force of will and stubbornness. She took a deep breath to steady herself and then walked into the living room.
Like all the other rooms in their home, the living room was sparsely decorated. The Apple family had never been one for fancy decorations or anything like that. Instead, they'd spent a good four generations laboring to make the room a simple, yet comforting and familiar place for its members to recover once the day's work was over.
The fireplace served as the centerpiece of the room, with all the furniture arranged around it. Granny Smith was sitting in her rocking chair to one one side of it, and Applebloom was on the couch in between Fluttershy's embracing legs with a worried look on her face as the pegasus fussed over her. On the other side of the fireplace was an empty, overstuffed armchair with an end table next to it.
Applejack walked over towards the chair, passing in front of the fireplace. As she walked by, she looked up at the family photos hanging on the wall above the mantlepiece. There were some of Macintosh, Applejack, and Applebloom as foals; a family photo of them all with Granny from a few years back; a few of Macintosh and Fluttershy's wedding photos; and standing on the mantle itself, a picture of a large brown stallion and a cream colored mare with a red mane posing for a picture in front of the gate to Sweet Apple Acres. Her mom and dad.
The armchair was an old, heavy thing, covered in thick brown fabric that had been worn smooth by the rumps of the heads of the Apple family for several generations. It used to be her father's chair. Then Macintosh's after he was gone, though he'd decided to leave it behind when he moved in with Fluttershy. And way back when, it had belonged to Grandpa Smith. Now, it usually sat empty, except for the occasions when Applebloom came downstairs late at night and curled up in it when she couldn't sleep "'cause of bad dreams."
That thought brought a momentary smile to Applejack's mouth as she remembered the times she'd done that herself when she'd been a filly.
Before she knew it, Applejack found herself standing next to the armchair. Everypony was watching quietly, but she didn't start talking quite yet. She lifted a hoof and stroked it along the chair's arm, taking in the smooth texture of it. Finally, she turned to face them. "I don't know how to say this right, or lead up to it or anythin' like that, so I'm just gonna say it straight. Macintosh ain't comin' back."
Fluttershy Comprehension ~ Day 1
"You're wrong!"
Applebloom squirmed free from Fluttershy's legs and ran across the room to plant herself in front of Applejack. Fluttershy tried to hold on to her, but the filly was stronger than she looked and the pegasus wasn't expecting her to do that. She'd thought Applebloom would be struck speechless, or cry, or something like that. But she wasn't crying. She was furious.
"What's wrong with you? Y'all are talking like he's dead an' all that stupid letter says is he's missing!" Applebloom stomped her hoof to punctuate her words as the pitch of her voice rose and rose.
Fluttershy had never seen Applebloom as angry as she was right then and it scared her. Kids shouldn't have that kind of anger inside them. Nopony should have that kind of anger inside them.
"How can you just give up on him like that?" She stood staring up at Applejack with all four hooves planted like she never intended to move and just kept on yelling. "After what you said before? How can you change your mind just because of one stupid letter that doesn't say anything?" A stream of hot tears started to spill from her accusing eyes and Applejack stepped backwards, speechless.
"A-Applebloom..." Fluttershy tried to interrupt, to get her to stop yelling at Applejack, or something. Anything.
Applebloom whirled around and bore into her with red-rimmed eyes, and she shrunk back into the couch completely unable to say anything at all.
"And you! You never believed in him! I know what you thought! You always thought he was as weak and slow and stupid as you! You think everypony is, but he isn't!"
Fluttershy looked away and started to cry, unable to say anything back, or even meet Applebloom's eyes. But Applebloom wasn't done shouting. Like a rampaging dragon, she kept going on.
"He's not just goin' to up an' die because you think he's like you! He's out there waiting, an' you just give up on him as soon as it looks like something bad even might have happened?"
"P-please," Fluttershy whimpered as she pressed herself even lower into the couch and pressed her face into one of the pillows.
"I don't know why he even—"
"Apple Bloom!" Applejack finally interrupted, her voice cracking like thunder. "I suggest you shut your mouth right now, before somepony goes an' says something they'll regret!"
Complete and utter silence fell over the living room.
For an eternity nobody spoke. Fluttershy just lay where she was, face buried in the pillow as she tried to muffle her sobs, her body spasming as they tore their way out of her throat.
After a few more moments, there was a soft "clop clop" of little hooves walking out of the living room and up the stairs.
Rarity Comprehension ~ Day 1
Rarity couldn't believe her luck. While she was fixing Clementine's hair (a process that had taken entirely too much time), the subject had naturally turned to fashion. Clementine asked her about the designs she'd mentioned before, and Rarity had expounded at length on the difficulties she was going to have re-designing the flower sisters' dresses. Then out of the blue, Clementine had made an excellent suggestion about how to take lengths of ribbon and bunch them up into nice little artificial flowers so she wouldn't have to do the embroidery. After that, things just sort of snowballed.
It turned out that the older mare had an impeccable fashion sense, and was quite handy with the needle herself. One thing led to another, and after Rarity called in the flower sisters for a ten minute consultation (Somehow Clementine knew just what to do to get them to shut up and agree. She even made like the new ideas were all Rarity's idea!), and shooed Sweetie Belle and Mimosa out the door to go play, the other mare had ended up staying the whole afternoon to help with the dresses.
"And so Fancypants stayed with us the entire week he was in Manehatten! That was just after he'd gotten re-married you know, and there were all those awful rumors going around that Fleur-De-Lis was a gold digger who'd just married him for his money." Clementine dismissively waved a hoof. "Well let me tell you, there wasn't an ounce of truth to them. She was fabulous. Had a bit of a strange sense of humor, but once you knew what to look for you couldn't help but notice all the little jabs she made at how silly high society gets."
"And then what?" Rarity's voice had long since entered a register somewhere around 'squeaky little filly'. It wasn't every day you got to meet someone who was actually involved in society life! "I imagine that was exactly the sort of step up you needed to make it into Canterlot Society."
"Well—" Clementine shot an embarrassed sidelong glance at Rarity. "—I'm afraid not much happened after that. When the week was up, they went back to Canterlot. I exchanged a few letters with Fleur, and she actually invited us to visit them once, but that was about the time my niece came to stay with us for a while. Then I got pregnant and couldn't travel, and after that...well, somehow something always got in the way and we never got to go."
"Oh I'm so sorry!" Rarity exclaimed while trying her best to hide her disappointment at Clementine's less than thrilling answer.
Clementine tied the ribbon into a flower shape with dexterity Rarity hadn't ever expected to see from an earth pony, and stitched it to the dress that was rapidly taking shape on the mannequin. "It wasn't that bad." She turned slightly to straighten one of the flowers, slightly obscuring her face in the process. "I would have loved to go to Canterlot, but things were going so well for us in Manehatten I don't know if my husband would have wanted to take the time off anyways. Business really took off that year, mostly due to the fact that Fancypants gave us a glowing recommendation when he got back to Canterlot. Said anypony visiting the city who didn't try our juices had no idea what they were missing out on. We actually managed to open an entire new factory on the strength of that business alone! Because of those two we soon found ourselves headed straight to the top of Manehatten circles. It's no Canterlot, but Manehatten isn't exactly a backwater like Ponyville either."
Rarity frowned, but let the "backwater" comment slide. Clementine was a wonderful actress, but after spending several hours talking with her, she could tell that the other mare was upset about something. She couldn't help but feel that at least half the reason Clementine had decided to stay and help with the dresses was because she was putting off going to her family's place. Not that Rarity was going to complain about that in the least when she was being such an enormous help. She wondered how long Clementine planned on staying.
"Who knows though?" Clementine continued. "I'm getting older, but I just might have enough left in me to give Canterlot a try yet."
Rarity's stomach performed a sympathetic flip-flop at the mention of the 'O-word.'
"Pff," She dismissed the notion with a wave of her hoof. "Please, nopony could call you old when you have a filly Mimosa's age and still look as good as you do. Mature maybe, but not old. I don't see how that could ever be a hindrance in Canterlot anyways." Hopefully that would be enough to put the subject to rest before that particular conversation could get its hooves off the ground. For good measure, Rarity changed the subject before Clementine could say anything else. "So how did you and your husband meet? He sounds like an important pony."
Clementine smiled another one of those smiles that didn't do anything but emphasize the lines that were starting to form around her eyes, and suddenly the last few pieces of the puzzle fell into place as Rarity realized her mistake.
"It was actually at a town meeting here in Ponyville." Clementine said, that smile still plastered onto her face as if she didn't have a care in the world. "His family was trying to expand their business into the area, and that would have competed directly with Sweet Apple Acres. Mother wasn't having any of that of course, so she went and got the whole town riled up. I was young and a bit rebellious, and when he showed up at the town meeting with his parents I took one look at him and decided I had to introduce myself. At first, I was just trying to anger my parents, but he was really handsome and as we talked I took a liking to him. He had bigger dreams than working a farm in a one-pony town like Ponyville, same as I did.
"But that's more than enough about me," Clementine changed the subject. "What about you? I find it hard to believe that a pony like yourself is actually working in Ponyville when she could easily be making a name for herself in the city."
"Well," Rarity hesitated, glad that that particular awkwardness was over, but not so enthusiastic about the new direction the conversation was taking. "I grew up here. I did spend some time in Fillydelphia, but that didn't work out for me so I came back. I'd always loved coture, and I needed something to do so I wouldn't have to move back in with my parents, so I started the Carousel Boutique to keep myself afloat. It just sort of grew from there. I really hope to move the business to Canterlot someday, but I need to get my name out there before I can do that. Unfortunately, that's difficult to do when you're from a place like Ponyville."
Clementine nodded sympathetically as she made another ribbon flower and pinned it to the dress.
"That's actually why I've got so much on my plate right now. I was working overtime getting ready for the Summer Sun Celebration, and out of the blue, Mayor Mare came up and dropped the perfect opportunity in my lap. I simply had to take it even though it meant moving up the deadline for all my work."
Clementine gave her a questioning look from over the back of the mannequin so Rarity elaborated.
"There's a representative from the palace coming to Ponyville tomorrow looking for ponies to help prepare for the Canterlot Celebration," she explained. "Her name is Twilight Sparkle I believe. Not a pony I'm familiar with so she's probably not that important on her own, but she is representing the Goddess." Rarity looked down to concentrate on stitching one of the sleeves onto Daisy's dress, and when she looked back up, Clementine was staring at her with her mouth hanging open in a very un-ladylike fashion. "Umm, is something wrong?" She asked nervously.
Clementine blinked and slowly closed her mouth. "Twilight Sparkle is coming to Ponyville? Twilight Sparkle?"
"Yes," Rarity said slowly, suddenly getting the feeling that she'd just committed a huge faux pas.
"Twilight Sparkle, the personal student of Celestia herself? Never-leaves-the-palace-and-avoids-socializing-like-the-plague Twilight Sparkle? The most mysteriously important pony in all of Equestria Twilight Sparkle?"
Rarity's eyes slowly grew with each word until they were the size of dinner plates as Clementine pointed out what she should have already known. Of course the name had sounded familiar!
Clementine leaned over the mannequin and lowered her voice until it was hardly more than a whisper. "Do you know what this means? Personally getting to know Twilight Sparkle is the holy grail of Canterlot high society! Even Fancypants and Fleur haven't managed that yet!" She suddenly stepped back, unconsciously lifting a hoof to her mouth and chewing nervously on it. "What on earth could have stirred her to actually leave the palace and do this herself?"
The older (But not that old!) mare's eyes suddenly snapped back into focus and she looked at her hoof in surprise. Putting it down with a slightly embarrassed look, she leaned in close to Rarity again. With a sharp gleam in her eye that hadn't been there the entire afternoon, she said, "You have to bring me along tomorrow. You simply must."
In the face of such undisguised earnestness, Rarity couldn't exactly turn her down. Especially not after all the help Clementine had been giving. Because of her it might actually be possible to finish all the dresses without having to give anypony a refund. "O-of course! I can come and pick you up right before she's due to arrive. You're staying at Sweet Apple Acres overnight right?"
And just like that, all the excitement drained out of Clementine. She pretended to busy herself with one of the ribbons on the mannequin. "Yes. Mimosa and I will probably be in Ponyville for a while so you won't have any trouble finding us."
Before Rarity could try to find a way to break the sudden awkwardness in the room, the front door of the Boutique cracked open and the filly stuck her head in and yelled, "Mo-om! Are you done yet? I'm bored!"
"Hey!" Sweetie Belle's voice rose in indignation from outside.
Both Rarity and Clementine looked at the window and were surprised to see that the sun was starting to get low in the sky.
"Wow, I didn't realize it was getting that late," Clementine said. "I'm so sorry, but Mimosa is right. We need to get going. I hope that isn't too much of a bother for you."
"Not at all!" Rarity gushed. She was sad to see her new friend leave, but also amazed that she'd stayed this long in the first place. "I can't thank you enough for helping me, especially when you weren't planning to do it and you obviously have important things to do."
They exchanged a few more parting thanks and small-talk before Clementine picked up her suitcase and walked to the door. She looked back one last time and said, "Thank you for everything Rarity. I had a lovely afternoon." Then she was gone.
Applejack Comprehension ~ Day 1
Applejack sat alone in one of the kitchen chairs with her head resting on the table next to a tray with two full glasses of water on it. Fluttershy wasn't doing well. Applebloom hadn't come out of her room since the family meeting. And she still needed to have a talk with Granny to see how she was holding up. In a moment, she was going to have to go back out there and take care of all that. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose and then let it out slowly.
In a moment.
Fluttershy Comprehension ~ Day 1
Fluttershy lay completely still on the couch with her head in her hooves and her eyes squeezed shut while Applejack went into the other room to get some water.
Applejack kept telling her that she should just forget everything the filly said because she was upset and "said some things she didn't mean." But no matter how much she tried to shut it out, Applebloom's words wouldn't stop echoing in her head. How could she forget it when it was all true?
From the first moment she met him, Fluttershy had always admired Macintosh for being the kind of pony he was. He was big and strong, and no matter what he did, he never doubted himself. Whenever she was around him she felt safe, protected. He never got upset about anything. No matter what, he was gentle. And he was always there. Whenever he came into a room, everypony knew immediately. Whenever he spoke, even though he didn't say very much, everypony listened. And Fluttershy wasn't like any of that. She was—
"Be a dear an' bring me that photo album." Granny Smith's creaky voice sparked through her muddled thoughts like a zap-apple in the night. Surprised, Fluttershy lifted her head and looked at the old mare, blinking.
"Over there!" Granny pointed irritatedly to a bookshelf across the room that was stuffed to the brim with photo albums. "Hop to it girlie!"
"Um, okay." Shakily she slid off the couch and stood up. With one more glance at Granny, she moved over to the bookshelf and paused, uncertain of which album she was supposed to get. She reached out her hoof to one on the middle shelf.
"Not that'un!" Granny snapped. "Down!"
Flutershy moved her hoof down one shelf.
"To the right."
She slid the tip of her hoof right across the backs of the books.
"Farther. Farther...thataone!"
Her hoof rested on the spine of an old dusty album with a dark green cover that reminded her of the leaves on the trees in the Everfree Forest.
"Well? What're ya waiting for!" Granny snapped. Fluttershy winced and slid the album out a little with her hoof, and then grabbed it in her mouth. Turning around, she looked across the room at Granny, who was rocking slowly back and forth in her old wooden rocking chair and staring at her with an impatient look on her face. The old pony didn't say anything else, so Fluttershy picked her way back to where she sat with the book in mouth.
When Fluttershy got close, Granny snatched the photo album from her and motioned for her to stand next to the rocking chair. Without a sound, she started leafing through the book and stopped at a black and white photo of a huge stallion standing awkwardly next to a young mare in a bonnet and braids who was hugging him around the neck.
"That's mah husband Clyde." Granny's voice became surprisingly tender and she lovingly put a hoof over the photo. "The first time we ever met was at a hoedown in Ponyville. Normally Clyde would've rather been home gettin' ready for the next day's work, but his friends dragged him along."
There was a sparkle in Granny's eye, and as she talked, her voice lost a bit of its creakiness. Fluttershy didn't understand what this was all about, but she also found herself being drawn into Granny Smith's reminiscence.
"That night, he came up an' asked me for a dance. An' let me tell you, I ain't never seen anypony act as stupid as him when he did that. He walked up to me, got down on his knees like he was gonna propose, and asked me if'n he could have some of my time. Only he did it all fancy-like, with thee's and thou's and that sort of nonsense. At first ah thought he was makin' fun of me. Ah turned him down and he started cryin' up a fuss and holler like you wouldn't believe an' before ah knew it, everypony was starin' at us. Ah couldn't get him to go away, so I agreed to jus' one dance just so ah could get him to shut up. After that he was all smiles and 'thank you's' like nothing had happened at all. That's when ah knew he was makin' fun of me.
"He never did anything like that again. After we got married ah asked him what in tarnation he'd been up to that night, and you know what he told me?" Granny looked at Fluttershy with a huge grin on her face, and Fluttershy couldn't help but return it with a little smile of her own. "He said his friends dared him ta ask me for a dance, an' he figured if he was gonna make a fool of himself trying to get the prettiest mare there to notice him, he was gonna make a fool of himself."
In spite of herself, Fluttershy giggled. "Macintosh did the same thing when we met."
"Ah know," Granny said proudly. "Ah put that notion into his head." Fluttershy looked at Granny Smith in astonishment.
"Ain't no better way to get a mare's attention than ta make a fool of yerself, an' Macintosh had been trying for months to get yours. Poor colt was at his wits end, about ta give up entirely. So ah told him what ah just told you and let him work it out from there."
"I..." Ever since that morning, her head had been a swirling torrent of grief and confusion, and now Fluttershy found a whole slew of new feelings being injected into the mix. Love, nostalgia, and a different kind of confusion. All together, it was almost more painful than just feeling miserable, but also more wholesome. "I didn't know that. He knew about me...before?"
"Uh huh." Granny Smith nodded. "But he jus' couldn't work up the nerve ta introduce himself. He always was a bit of a chicken like that. Like his grandpa. His dad was the same way too." Granny laughed out loud. "Hay. I don't think there's ever been an Apple stallion who knew what to do with a mare! Why, on our wedding night Clyde—"
Fluttershy let out a "meep" and covered her mouth, blushing bright red. Granny Smith laughed again and said, "Just messin' with you deary." The old mare looked back down at the photo album and her smile slowly disappeared as her voice took on a more sober tone. "Macintosh changed after you came along Fluttershy. Afore, he didn't have any ambition, lettin' everythin' pass him by while he just kept on workin' and waitin', content with what life was willing ta bring ta him. Ah was all afraid that he'd never do anythin' besides work the farm, but then you came along an' he found somethin' worth gettin' worked up over."
Fluttershy looked down at her hooves. It wasn't that she didn't believe what Granny Smith was saying, but she just couldn't imagine Macintosh being scared of anything, let alone her.
Neither of them said anything for a while. Eventually, Fluttershy looked back up at Granny. The old mare was absorbed in the picture of her husband, and she looked so sad that Fluttershy had to ask. "What happened to him? Clyde?"
The old green mare started and tore her eyes from the album. "He came down with pneumonia after workin' out in the rain."
Compassion welled up in her breast. She put a hoof over Granny's where it still rested on the picture of Clyde. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.
"In a way it ain't so bad," Granny said. "He lived long enough to see all our kids get married, an' he didn't ever have to go through loosin' Britemac."
Fluttershy looked up to the mantle, where there was still a picture of Macintosh's parents. Macintosh had told her about how they'd disappeared one day. Nopony knew why, but they went into the Everfree Forest and just never came back. Everypony figured that one of the monsters in the forest had gotten them, but they couldn't say for sure.
It suddenly struck Fluttershy how many loved ones Granny had lost over the years. Her husband, her son, and now Macintosh. She looked back at the old mare with tears in her eyes. "Are you going to be all right?" she asked.
A single tear fell from the old mare's eye and landed on the photograph. "Ah thought 'twas a cruel fate for anypony to have to outlive their own child. But now..."
Fluttershy embraced the older mare with her forelegs. Suddenly she felt embarrassed and childish for making everypony take care of her when there were others who had suffered so much more in silence.
Out of the corner of her eye Fluttershy saw some movement. Without letting go of Granny, she looked over to the hallway and saw Applejack with a tray and some glasses watching them with sad eyes and a happy smile.
Applejack Comprehension ~ Day 1
Before Applejack could move or say anything, a knock sounded at the front door. Granny shrugged off Fluttershy's hug with a huff. Applejack put the tray down on the end table and went to the door and opened it to shoo away whoever it was. Now wasn't the time for entertainin' visitors.
There on the porch, in the light of the setting sun, stood a pony that she hadn't seen in ages, and who didn't live anywhere near Ponyville. "Aunt Orange?" Applejack asked, exhaustion and surprise driving away any semblance of politeness. "What are you doin' here?"
The mare put her suitcase down and answered softly without quite meeting Applejack's eyes. "You've really grown a lot since I saw you last time Applejack. Is mother in?"
"Yeah, she's right here," Applejack answered with some consternation as she stepped aside. "Come on in."
Aunt Orange didn't say anything as she picked up her suitcase again and walked past Applejack. Behind her, an orange filly about Applebloom's age followed with another suitcase in tow.
"Clementine?" Granny Smith asked as the two of them crossed the living room. "What in tarnation are ya doin' here without writin' to let us know you're comin? Come to think of it, why don'cha ever write? Or visit? Would it kill ya to let yer mother know what's goin' on in yer life every once in a while?" She peered down at the filly who was doing her best to stay behind Aunt Orange. "This my granddaughter that ya never bring to visit?"
"Hey mom," Aunt Orange said softly. "Yeah, this is Mimosa."
"Well? Aren'tcha gonna tell us why you're here? 'Taint a social call, that's obvious."
"I...We need a place to stay for a few days."
This was just plum strange. Aside from the fact that she was there at all, her aunt wasn't acting like herself. At least not how Applejack remembered from when she was younger. But strange or not, and bad timing or not, she was family. "What's wrong Aunt Orange? What's goin' on?"
"...I'm sorry Applejack. Could you please not call me that? I...don't go by that name anymore."
Twilight Sparkle Comprehension ~ Day 1
"Twilight, you need to go to bed. It's getting really late and we've got a big day tomorrow," Spike said irritatedly, and irritatingly.
"Just a minute Spike!" Twilight shook her head and turned her attention back to the book she was reading, studiously avoiding looking at either Spike or her bed.
It really was getting late. Celestia had lowered the sun quite a while ago. Twilight had the wick in her oil lamp lowered as far as she could get it without extinguishing the flame completely so as not to keep Spike up with the light, but it seemed that wasn't working.
"Twilight," This time Spike's voice spoke right next to her ear. She jumped in surprise and nearly knocked her book off the small desk the hotel had provided with the room. "It's late." His voice was gentle, but there was firmness in it as well. "You need to be at your best tomorrow, which means you need to go to sleep."
Normally, it was Twilight's job to take care of Spike and make him do the stuff he needed to do, but somehow, whenever this subject came up it always felt like he was the adult and she the baby.
"Fine!" She snapped. He was right of course, but that didn't mean she had to be nice about it. Spike just looked at her and let out a sigh before going back to his basket to try and get some sleep. They'd played this game so many times, and they both knew that he'd won.
Twilight put a marker into her book, let out a sigh of her own, and extinguished the lamp. Then she stumbled across the room to her bed, crawled in, and cast a silencing spell around it. Spike always hated it when she did that, but he needed his sleep too and it was her responsibility to make sure he got it. And since it worked two ways, it had the added benefit of silencing Spike's snoring.
She pulled the blanket over herself, settled into her pillow, and closed her eyes to try and go to sleep.
Applejack Comprehension ~ Day 1
Everypony else had long since fallen asleep, but even though Applejack had never been so tired before in her whole life, she couldn't do the same. It didn't matter how she tossed and turned, or how long she lay there holding perfectly still, she just couldn't get comfortable. Her muscles ached all over and her head was throbbing as a slew of half-completed thoughts rushed in and out of her head like a swarm of bees after their hive had been knocked out of its tree.
"Consarn it!" Frustrated, Applejack threw back the covers and sat up on the edge of her bed. It just wasn't no use. Quietly, she slid out of bed and walked over to her bedroom door. She opened it as softly as she could so she wouldn't wake anypony and stepped out into the hallway.
The house was quiet except for the occasional creak of settling timbers. A nearly full moon shone in through the window at the end of the hall, illuminating everything in a soft, silvery light criss-crossed by black bars of shadow from the window panes. After everything that had gone on that day, it felt like this was a completely different world. Almost felt she was tresspassing somewhere she shouldn't be.
Softly as she could, Applejack crossed the hallway and went down the stairs to the first floor, being careful to avoid the squeaky stair near the bottom. She turned the corner and paused at the entryway into the living room. There was her father's old chair sitting in its usual spot by the fireplace, covered in darkness because the light from the window didn't quite reach to where it sat.
She turned away and walked to the kitchen.
On the table sat an oil lamp and box of matches, ready for anypony like herself who was up and about in the middle of the night. She removed the glass chimney from the lamp and struck one of the matches, watching as it flared up and cast a yellow light over the room before dying back down to its normal size. She lit the lamp, shook out the match and threw it away, then replaced the chimney and watched the flame inside change from a small, flickering thing to a small, but now steady light source.
Applejack picked up the lamp and took it over to the ice box, setting it on top. Then, with a flick of her hoof, she opened one of the cupboards and pulled out a mug which she set on the counter next to her. When she opened the ice box, a chill of air cascaded out and down over her front legs. Reaching inside, she pulled out a pitcher and poured herself a mug of cider.
She replaced the pitcher and closed the icebox, then picked up her mug and the lamp, and started walking towards the living room. As she stepped into the room, a strange feeling of relaxation swept over her, almost as tangible as the air from the ice box. Suddenly, she was conscious of just how quiet everything was. The silence of the house no longer beat against the noise in her head. Instead, it wrapped her in a comforting blanket of stillness and memory.
One time when they were really little, Macintosh had gotten real angry at her for something she'd done. She couldn't remember what it was anymore, but it was the worst she'd ever seen him. That was when she'd learned that he could be a really scary pony if he didn't have his trademark self-control. She thought that he was going to hit her. Hard. Instead he'd gone and kicked a hole in the living room wall.
When Mom and Dad got home he'd tried to say that he didn't do it. Then they'd asked him if he didn't, who did. He didn't say anything for a long time. He could have said Applejack did it. She was strong enough even then that she could have, but he didn't. Instead, he'd changed his mind and confessed to the whole thing. When she asked him about it later, he said that he couldn't blame somepony else for something he did, no matter how mad he was. It wasn't fair.
Applejack set the lamp and mug of cider down on the end table that stood next to the chair. The little yellow flame cast its glow over that corner of the room, and everything outside of that small circle of light just seemed to disappear from the world as if it had never existed. Everything it touched seemed so small and tenuous, like they would just vanish with the rest of the world if that light ever faltered. She sat down and sank into the warm enfolding cushion of the armchair.
She remembered Macintosh and Fluttershy's wedding and how proud everyone had been. He'd never looked more handsome or happy in his life, and Fluttershy had been radiant. Just before the ceremony, Granny had taken him aside to have a private talk, and when they came back he was blushing like a ripe tomato.
They'd had the ceremony out in the apple orchard in the shade of the oldest and largest tree on the farm. Because it was a really long trip for her family, only Fluttershy's parents had been able to come, but they were wonderful ponies and when the reception came around they immediately started mingling with the hoards of Apples that'd shown up. Her mother had asked Macintosh when they could start expecting grandbabies and that set both him and Fluttershy into a blushing frenzy. Then Applebloom'd started needling them about wanting nieces and nephews.
She remembered wishing that her own parents had gotten to see that. They would have been so happy for Macintosh, and they would have adored Fluttershy.
On the mantlepiece, the light from the lamp glinted off the glass of a picture frame.
She slowly got up and walked over to it. Bracing her front two legs on the fireplace, she reared up to look at it more closely.
A giant brown stallion was standing proudly in front of the gate leading into Sweet Apple Acres. He wore a lopsided grin on his face and a very familiar wide-brimmed hat on his head. It was the same hat that Applejack never went anywhere without now. Next to him, leaning up against his side was a cream colored mare with a red mane and a secretive smile on her face. "Hey dad. Hey mom," she whispered.
A tear started welling up in her eye, but she fought it back.
Applejack picked the picture up in her mouth and dropped back down to all fours. Then she turned around and went back to the giant armchair and climbed up into it, setting the picture down on the end table next to the lamp. She picked up her cider, cradling the mug in both hooves, as she leaned back once more into the comforting softness of the chair.
"I..." She gazed down into her mug for a long moment and then lifted it up to her mouth to take a long drink. "I'm sure you know this already, but Macintosh is gone. Probably." She set the mug back down on the table and looked at the picture with a sidelong gaze. "Applebloom thinks he's still alive, and she's real sore at me for sayin' he's gone. Says I don't have any faith in him. That I've given up without any good reason."
Her father's smiling face just watched her back from his place in the picture frame. Applejack closed her eyes tight.
"The truth is, I don't know. I act like I do because I don't want it to be like last time, when you and mom went, but I just don't know. Why'd he have to go off like that an' leave us? Leave Applebloom? Fluttershy? How could he do that to us and stay away for so long, and then just...not come back?
"If it was just me, maybe I could've let it stay unresolved like that, but it's not just me. Applebloom needs closure. She was young enough that she doesn't remember what it was like when you disappeared and I don't want her to go through that. She'll be sad, but she'll still be able to move on with her life. And if she's mad at me, well, it'll still be worth it. I'll just have to work harder."
Applejack breathed in deeply and then let it out in a long, ragged sigh. A shuddery feeling gripped her chest and her throat was starting to ache. She reached for the mug and started drinking to try and sooth the feeling away, but it didn't go. All too soon, it was empty and she still felt exactly the same. She set the mug down on the end table. For a long time, she just sat there, head back, eyes closed, saying nothing.
"I'll keep them safe." She swallowed, trying to clear out her throat. "I promise." She swallowed again to try and dislodge the lump that was making it hard to talk. "I'll stay strong, just like you and Macintosh. I'll be there for them."
She felt the hot wetness of tears coming down her cheek. Hastily, she brushed them away with a hoof. "I...I almost lost it earlier...but I pulled through and nopony saw. I was able to stay strong for them when they needed me today, and I'll be strong for them tomorrow, and the day after that and for however long they need me to be." She sniffed. "If I just stay strong, we'll all pull through."
Applejack opened her eyes and looked at the picture, but she couldn't see her parents any more, only a watery yellow blur of glass and lamp light.
"You should have seen Fluttershy today. It was amazing. I never would have thought she was that strong inside before I saw her with Granny. And when Aunt Orange came she put it all aside again to help take care of them." She smiled through the haze. "She was strong. And Granny. Well, she was Granny. And Applebloom..." Applejack trailed off and took another shuddering breath before continuing. "Applebloom took it hardest, but I know she's a strong filly. And smart as all get-out. I think she'll grow up to be the best Apple in the bunch ifn' we just give her time and love. She's gonna make you proud."
There was so much more she wanted to say, that she needed to say. About Aunt Orange and Mimosa suddenly showing up. About everything. But she couldn't talk any more. Instead she simply sat there in her father's chair, in that tiny world lit by the small light of the lantern, and cried. Quietly, so she didn't wake anypony up.
The sound of her beating heart echoed in her head, almost drowning out the soft clop of her hoofsteps on the stone floor. All around, the darkness pressed down upon her, held at bay only by the tiny glow of magic from her horn.
"Hello?" She said quietly, her voice barely more than a whisper. "Is anypony here?"
As she spoke, her breath turned into a light mist, and for the first time she realized how cold it was. How cold she was. The frigid air seemed to sink through her coat into her flesh and into her bones.
The light from her horn illuminated a tiny circle in a wash of pale purple, but it stopped short much too soon. As if the darkness itself was fighting the light. Smothering it. Like an abomination that should not exist.
All she could see was a small stretch of black and white marble tile, stained purple by the light from her horn and swallowed up by the darkness and the cold only a few paces ahead.
She walked on and time passed, but whether quickly or slowly she couldn't say. For an eternity and for an instant, she continued into the darkness accompanied only by the light and the sounds of her hooves and her heart. New squares appeared ahead of her, and disappeared behind, only to be replaced by more that might have just been the same ones.
Finally, she couldn't stand the silence anymore. "Celestia?" She screamed into the darkness, heedless of any danger. Desperate for someone, anyone to answer. "Spike?" In the wake of her voice, the emptiness only deepened. Her ears drooping low, she called out one more time in a small, shaky voice. "Mom? Dad? Are you there?"
Nothing.
Her breath caught in her throat, and for an instant, her heart stopped. Then, without thinking, she ran headlong into the freezing darkness, her heart racing so quick and loud it silenced everything else.
THU-THUD.
THU-THUD.
THU-THUD.
Thu-thud.
Thu-thud.
thu-thud
thu-thud
thu...
Rarity
Rarity hummed while putting the last few stitches into a beautiful red and cream-colored dress. With a flourish, she tied off the knot, snipped off the end of the thread, and took a step back to admire her handiwork.
The boutique looked like a tornado had hit it, but Rarity didn't care. She was in the zone. With a nod to herself, she removed the dress from the mannequin and put it carefully away to make room for the next project. Then she trotted over to her drawing board and pulled a sheet of paper from the top of a stack; the plan for Golden Harvest's ensemble. After a quick look, she took a sip from her mug and then set about getting to work on the new dress, singing softly to herself.
"Thread by thread, stitching it together..."
Pinkie Pie
"Hi Trixie! Mind if I come up there?" Pinkie Pie bounced her way to the top of the three-hundred-foot-tall stone Trixie (that for some reason had a tree trunk sticking out of its backside and a wide-eyed, opened-mouth expression on its face) with nary a slip and surveyed the land around her. As far as the eye could see, and double that when she opened her other eye, was a succulent scene of saccharine sights.
All of Equestria had turned into candy. The trees were made out of chocolate and mint. A nearby farm was growing a bumper crop of gumdrop rocks. Chocolate bunnies frolicked in the fields. And it was all hers.
Candy Queen Pinkie Pie snatched a bite from a passing cotton candy cloud, molded the rest of it into a crown taller than she was, and then took a running dive off Trixie's nose into the lake of chocolate milk that had inexplicably formed below the statue's head. As she cleared the snooty pony's snout, a giant drop of chocolate milk as large as a whole cow rolled off its tongue, so she decided to race it all the way down to the lake. She closed her eyes just before it reached up and slapped her in the face; then everything went dark and all watery-whooshy, and chocolate milk went up her nose.
Rainbow Dash
Rainbow Dash crashed into a tree.
Applejack
Applejack stood on the shore of the reservoir watching the setting sun slowly sink into its shining waters. No matter how many times she saw it, she always marveled at the way the golden light illuminated the tops of the little waves that ran to and fro on its surface, but left the troughs in between dark and unlit. Sometimes she thought it made the entire lake look like it had been covered in shifting lines of lit candles. Other times, like the water itself was envious of the sun and trying to steal the light for itself.
The little pebble beach where she stood was a place that her father had shown her a long time ago. Nopony ever came to this side of the lake because it ran right up against the Everfree forest, but if you knew where to look you could find a tiny path that led there from the farthest field of Sweet Apple Acres. He took her out there the same day she'd called that family meeting. The one about how she always had to do all the work.
"Sometimes I jus' get tired of workin' the farm too Applejack." The brown stallion towered over her, silhouetted against the sky like a mountain. "And when that happens, I like to come out here alone and just watch the water. It's like...I don't know. It's different. It's not like anything else I know. And mayhaps that's why it's so...good."
He chuckled. "Ah, what am I sayin that nonsense for?" He reached up to his head and took off the brown cowpony hat he wore, then brought it down in a great sweeping arc and placed it on Applejack's head where it settled low over her eyes. "Don' tell anypony else, okay? It'll our secret. Our special place to get away from everythin'."
Applejack pushed the hat back and looked up into the giant stallion's eyes. They were big and kind and strong. "Okay daddy. Our special place." She gave his leg a great big hug and he responded by knocking the hat off her head and ruffling her mane.
Giggling, Applejack let go and reached down to pick up the hat and put it back on, tilting it back so it didn't fall over her eyes. "Hey! That's mean..."
She looked up and trailed off. Her dad wasn't looking down at her anymore. He was standing there with his head held high and his eyes closed, a small smile on his face, taking in the air from the lake through his nose. "Can you smell it Applejack? The water?"
Applejack did the same, standing right by him and being very careful to stand exactly like him; with her head up and her eyes closed. She sniffed the air.
She could smell it. It was fresh and cool, and laced with the smell of the forest all around them. And there was something else.
Applejack breathed in deeply through her nose, testing every bit of the air that streamed into her lungs. And then she smelled it, so clear she couldn't figure out how she missed it. Over top of the scent of the lake and the forest, there was the distinct, acrid smell of smoke.
She opened her eyes. Her father wasn't there anymore, and she could feel a faint warmth on her flanks. Slowly, she turned around to look at the forest.
Fluttershy
Fluttershy galloped through a field of tall grass that came up to her eyes, desperate to reach the figure walking off into the distance. One moment he was there, and then the next obscured by a blurred wall of green. Every time her hooves touched the ground, an eternity passed. No matter how fast she ran, the short glimpses she caught of him never seemed to come any closer. "Wait!" she tried to scream as she pushed her way through the plants, but the word stuck in her throat, stopped in its tracks by her panicked breathing.
For one uplifting moment, she thought he heard her anyway. He paused and turned to look at her, but then she lost him among the grain again. Time shifted, and when she glimpsed him again, he was still walking away.
She spread her wings to fly in one last desperate attempt to go faster. Flapping as hard as she could, she rose into the air just above the feathery surface of the field. Her lungs burned and her wings ached with the effort of flying even that high, but she was finally going faster. She was going to catch him.
The sky above her was blue and sunny, but in the distance ahead of him, where the field of grass ended, black clouds blocked out the sky and the land beneath them was cast in perpetual shadow. There were trees, but they were all barren and dead; the grass brown, trampled to extinction. And at the very edge of sight, a filthy, turgid river cut across the wasteland beneath the clouds. She knew that as soon as he stepped out of the field and into that dead land he would never come back.
She was close, so close. Close enough to see his mane stir in a light breeze. Close enough to see the individual stalks of grass bend aside as he walked through them. Close enough to make out the strong curve of his back and the muscles in his shoulders stretching and moving beneath his skin as he walked. Close enough to smell the familiar lingering scent of sweat and apples. Close enough that she thought despair would strike her dead when her wings gave out and she tumbled to the earth.
The stalks of grass were all around her and above her. Pressing in, obscuring everything from view. Hiding him. And without even looking, she knew that he was gone. Lost forever as he stepped out of the field and into the wasteland under the clouds. He was gone. He—
Time shifted, and it was yesterday again.
He was right there. Macintosh pushed his way through the grass to where she lay and helped her to her feet. She wrapped her hooves around his neck, trembling. "You were gone," she whispered as she buried her face in his mane. A great warmth and the scent of sweat and apples washed over her as he returned her embrace.
Ah am gone.
"Stay here," she said, ignoring his words. "You don't have to go. Stay here with me."
He pulled away and looked at her with eyes that were filled with sorrow.
Ah love you. He brushed aside a lock of her mane with his hoof. Do you still remember? he whispered.
Time shifted.
For some reason she couldn't begin to fathom, she jerked back as a stab of regret pierced her heart. "Remember what?" She asked frantically. But he was gone. He was gone into the wasteland under the clouds, and he wasn't coming back.
Ah promised. And Apples always keep their promises.
She spun around, searching for him, but all she saw was the grass around her, the sky above, and the clouds ahead. He was gone into the wasteland under the clouds, and he wasn't coming back.
We'll see each other again.
She took a step, and suddenly the grass parted in front of her. She had found the edge of the field. Above her head, ominously low, the clouds formed a straight line that stretched from horizon to horizon. Ahead, was a land filled with death. He was gone into the wasteland under the clouds, and he wasn't coming back.
"How?" She whispered. "You're not coming back. How can that happen?"
Ah promised.
He was gone into the wasteland under the clouds, and he wasn't coming back.
But she was going to see him again.
"How?"
Remember.
And then she did. She stepped forward, out of the field and into the wasteland under the clouds.
Comprehension ~ Day 2
For a long time, Fluttershy just lay still in her bed. She could still feel his forelegs wrapped around her; and she could still smell the familiar scent of sweat and apples; and she knew that as soon as she opened her eyes they would be gone.
But she couldn't stay there. She had something she needed to do and she needed to do it right then. If she didn't, she would never be able to muster up the courage again.
Slowly, she pushed herself up and opened her eyes. It was almost dawn.
It was a slight lessening of the darkness that woke Applejack up. The soft, blue-tinted light peeking through the living-room window was the first hint of dawn, signalling that the new day was about to start. She sat up and realized that she had spent the whole night in the armchair. At some point she'd slumped down and curled up into a horribly unnatural position to use the arm like a pillow, and now her back was complaining heartily about it. And for some reason there was a blanket draped over her, though she didn't remember ever getting up to get one.
Applejack stretched to try and work the kink out of her back and then looked around. The lamp still stood on the end table, but it was all out of oil, and the photograph of her parents still stood next to it. It was a bit stupid, but for some reason she felt heartened by the fact that they were still smiling.
And there was something else. Laying next to the lamp, was a note.
Applejack pushed aside the blanket and reached out to pick it up, trying to ignore the sudden memory of the smell of smoke from her dream. It was a short note, written in a delicate script that she recognized at once.
I'm going to look for him. Please tell Applebloom I'm sorry.
Fluttershy
P.S. Please look after the animals while I'm gone. They need to be fed three times a day. Angel knows which animals need what food and how much, so you can just ask him. Also, make sure their water is refilled twice a day. I'm so sorry about asking you to do this, but I have to go now or I won't ever be able to do it, and I just know you'll take good care of everyone. And if it's all right with you, could you please explain to Angel what's going on? He's probably worried because I never came home yesterday.
Applejack slowly put the letter down on the end table and tried to think of what to do.
Twilight Sparkle Comprehension ~ Day 2
Twilight awoke to the feel of Spike's hand shaking her shoulder gently, his claws digging into her skin just a little bit. Wearily, she sat up and dispelled the silencing spell that she'd used to keep from waking him up during the night. Her dream had left her with a tight ache in her throat and a sick feeling in her stomach that made it difficult to speak, but she managed to croak out "I'm up Spike, just give me a minute," and waved him off without opening her eyes.
There was a long moment of silence, and then Spike said "Alright Twi. Breakfast is in ten." There was concern in his voice, but he'd learned long ago not to ask her how she'd slept. The answer was always "badly." He left her side quietly, the soles of his feet making a soft padding sound on the wooden floor. She heard the creak and click of the door as he left the room and closed it behind him.
Twilight collapsed back down onto the soft hotel bed and curled up into a shivering ball, using her magic to wrap the blanket around her body as tight as she could to try and fight off the cold empty feeling that still lingered in her bones courtesy of her nightly nightmare. At least this one hadn't been as bad as usual.
Sometimes Twilight wondered why she still had these dreams. They'd started after her parents died, and for good reason. She couldn't remember the actual event, but her memories of the aftermath were enough to give any filly nightmares. Shouldn't they have faded by now though? At least a little bit?
Maybe they wouldn't stop because it was her fault, and some part of her deep down still remembered doing it.
Only Celestia really knew what happened for sure since she was the first pony on the scene afterwards, and she wouldn't tell Twilight. It wasn't hard to put the pieces together though. She'd been in the middle of the applied magic portion of her entrance exam, and was failing. She was supposed to hatch a dragon egg, but couldn't bring up any magic at all. In desperation, she'd poured every ounce of strength into making something happen, anything at all. Then there was a rainbow-colored explosion outside the window and she'd blacked out. When she'd woken up, she had a cutie-mark showing her special talent for magic and the dragon's egg had hatched.
And everypony in the room was dead.
Nopony knew what had caused the explosion, but the rest of it was obvious to Twilight. She'd already been scared and stressed, and when the explosion startled her it was enough to push her past her block. All the magic inside of her had come out in one massive surge of uncontrolled thaumaturgical energies, and then...
She pulled the blanket tighter. Maybe it was right that she still had nightmares.
With her eyes still closed, Twilight started her morning ritual. It was something Celestia had taught her as a filly, one of those stupid placebo things that grownups told foals to do when they're scared because it makes them concentrate on something else, and then suddenly they're not scared anymore. It was stupid and childish, and Celestia would probably laugh at her if she knew that Twilight still did it.
Twilight took a deep breath and in her mind's eye she pictured Celestia's face, wise and kind and always with that tiny smile, like she knew something that nopony else did. She reconstructed every detail as best she could remember, from Celestia's violet eyes that matched the color of her student's coat, to her still youthful and unlined face, to her mane which always reminded Twilight of the Aurora Borealis.
Then Twilight moved on to her teacher's body: her pure white coat and her wings large enough to enfold a normal pony in their embrace; her long flowing tail in pastel pinks and purples, greens and blues that matched her mane perfectly; and last of all, her cutie mark, a bright yellow emblem of the sun. Before she knew it, Celestia, the Empress of Equestria, Goddess of the Heavens, and the most important pony in the whole world stood against a background of black in Twilight's mind's eye, every detail exactly as it was in real life. When she was certain that she had it, Twilight moved on to the next pony, careful not to let the image of Celestia fade as she divided her attention.
Shining Armor's eyes were sky blue and very striking, and they seemed to radiate...something. She never was sure what. Her brother had presence. He wasn't particularly strong looking or imposing—though he was very handsome—or even smart, but anypony who looked at him immediately knew that he was a good pony, and that they could trust him with anything. He was a member of the Palace Guard, and even more importantly, on Celestia's personal detail. Twilight had a feeling that it was only a matter of time until he was promoted to Captain of the Guard. He was definitely going to be first in line for the spot when Ivory Tower decided to retire.
One by one, Twilight visualized the faces of all the ponies—and dragon—who were important to her, and her shivering slowly faded away along with the cold. Last of all, she remembered her parents as they were when they were alive, happy and proud of her, with love in their eyes.
They were both unicorns. Her mother was grey with a light purple and white-striped mane, sky-blue eyes, and three purple stars for a cutie mark. Her dad was the cool blue of the sky at twilight, with a slightly darker, meticulously combed mane. His cutie mark was a somewhat ludicrous picture of a crescent moon nestled snugly inside the curve of another, larger crescent moon. Sometimes when she couldn't sleep Twilight lay in her bed trying to imagine what special talents went with those cutie marks, but she never could come up with a satisfactory answer.
Mentally, Twilight stepped back and looked at the image she'd wrought. Everypony was standing together like they were posing for a family photograph. Everypony was happy, and even the years since her parent's death hadn't done anything to dim their images. She felt better, ready to face the day, but she couldn't get up quite yet. There was something wrong with the picture. Somepony was missing.
The cover of History of Equestria, A Foal's Guide flashed in her head unbidden, almost driving out the imaginary family portrait she was holding on to, and suddenly she knew what was missing. Next to Celestia, almost on its own, another pony began to take shape.
The book said Celestia's sister was in charge of the night while she was in charge of the day, so Twilight imagined another Alicorn like her, a little smaller, and dark blueish purple instead of white, but every bit as regal. Her face was imperious and had an inexplicable, but undeniable exotic beauty, unparalleled by anything else in existence. Like Celestia, her mane and tail flowed in a breeze that didn't touch anything else, and Twilight could see stars in them, as if they were a tear in the fabric of reality and the other side looked out into the void of space.
Twilight smiled in satisfaction. The new addition might not be a real pony, but it felt right to have her there next to Celestia. Slowly, she opened her eyes and unwrapped herself from the blanket. Today was going to be a long day, but she was ready for it. And when she was done trying to find ponies for the Summer Sun Celebration Committee in Ponyville, she could see if the little town had a library and start doing some real research into the story of Nightmare Moon.
Pinkie Pie Comprehension ~ Day 2
"Oh good, you're not dead."
The first sight Pinkie Pie saw when she opened her eyes was The Great and Powerful Trixie's face right up in hers. It wasn't every day that a pony was able to render Pinkie Pie speechless, but in her defense, it was very early in the morning and she wasn't actually awake yet.
Slowly, she closed her eyes and opened them again. Trixie was still there, so she croaked out the only thing she could think of.
"Huh?"
"Trixie was a little bit worried about making you spend the night outside, but we're not close enough to Canterlot for the Cutie-Mark-Killer to come after you—not that Trixie has any idea why they'd want your cutie mark anyways—and there was no way in the nine hells that Trixie was going to let you sleep in her bed! Now get up, it's time to go. If we hurry, we'll make it to Canterlot today, and Trixie will have a chance to rest up before her audition tomorrow!" Trixie's head disappeared from view and Pinkie Pie found herself staring up at a wooden ceiling crisscrossed with beams and chains and a whole bunch of other junk about two feet over her head.
"Huh?"
"Er..." Trixie's head reappeared with a plastered on, toothy smile. "Trixie means your audition of course. Don't mind her. Sometimes her tongue gets a little ahead of itself. Trixie is sure you understand what that's like." Then she disappeared again, leaving Pinkie Pie looking at what she now recognized as the underside of Trixie's wagon. The grass Pinkie was laying on tickled her cheek as she turned her head to peer blearily in the direction Trixie had gone.
"...Huh?"
Rainbow Dash Comprehension ~ Day 2
The air up here was just the way Dash liked it. Cold.
Yeah, it was summer, but at this altitude, and this early in the morning, it was still cold enough that she could see her breath as it puffed out into the crystal clear air in time with every other downbeat of her wings. She could feel the air's numbing bite on her nose, her ears, and the leading edges of her wings, but the exercise of flying was enough to keep the rest of her body pleasantly cool instead of freezing. It was like a slap in the face to wake her up. She could nap in the afternoon when it was hot and muzzy. Right now, it was time to fly.
Nearly all of the streets in Canterlot below were deserted, probably because even Celestia herself was just barely out of bed and raising the sun. Dash could see it barely coming up over the horizon from her vantage point high above the city streets, but most of Canterlot still sat in the shadow of the mountain.
The only thing that wasn't hidden was the royal palace itself. Since it sat so high up the mountain, and was a little more southward than the city, some sunlight just barely managed to catch on its golden domes and minarets, making them look like little spots of fire against the black backdrop of the sleeping city.
Somewhere down there was the Canterlot Pony Express station, and her soon-to-be new job. All she had to do was find it, and that wasn't going to be hard at all. Pony Express stations were important, so it was going to be in the nice part of town. And since the Express was a pegasi-only outfit, their buildings always had an easy-to-see landing pad on the roof for couriers. It made them nearly impossible to miss from the air. She'd probably be able to find it on her first fly-over. She reached back and gave her saddlebags a quick tug to make sure they were still strapped down tight and then nosed downwards into a dive towards the city.
Canterlot was a pretty weird city when you thought about it. All the buildings looked the same, whether from the air or from the ground, and the entire thing was one gigantic maze of cobblestone streets that were way too narrow for a place that big. And then there was the whole "built on a cliff" thing. How on earth did all those unicorns and earth ponies keep from killing themselves?
The crowds during the daytime probably sucked like nothing else, but right then the streets were almost empty. The only pony Rainbow Dash could see was a blue unicorn in a nice suit lying in one of the gutters. Probably some noblepony who'd passed out drunk after a party or something.
In spite of herself, Dash started drifting lower and lower towards the city until she was skimming just above roof-line. The narrow, twisty streets slipping by below her hooves would have made the perfect obstacle course, and she wanted nothing more than to go blasting through them at top speed. The problem was, she needed to stay high in order to spot the Pony Express station. She didn't have time to go off and start having fun.
"Oh come on!" she cried, her voice loud in the quiet morning air. She reached out and gave a chimney a hard slap with her left hoof as she blew past. "It's not like I've got an appointment! There's nothing wrong with having some fun for a few minutes." It was still really early in the morning anyways. Sure, the Express stations were open twenty-four seven, but that didn't mean they'd want ponies knocking at this hour. Her whole plan to show up early to impress them was starting to look a little stupid anyw—
"Wait a minute..."
A flash of red and white flickered between the roofs in the distance. Dash flapped her wings hard a few times to gain some altitude and scanned the area again. After a few back and forth passes with her eyes, she saw it. About half a mile off, just above the roof-line, was the landing pad for a Pony Express station. She back-winged and hovered in place while she stared hard at the building and tried to think. She shouldn't just rush into this.
Yeah, she could go straight there and beg and plead for a job like any average pony, but that wouldn't cut it. She needed to do something...awesome. Something that would make them forget about even asking her for a resume. Something that would show them she was the best flyer in all of Equestria.
Sonic Rainboom.
Her wing-beats slowed down, and Dash landed on the purple-tiled roof of somepony's house, chewing on her bottom lip. A Sonic Rainboom would be awesome. About as awesome as anything could get in fact. The problem was, she'd only ever done a Sonic Rainboom once in her life, when she got her cutie mark. She'd practiced her flying flank off ever since then and still couldn't pull another one off under even the best conditions.
Wuss.
"I am NOT a wuss!" she blurted, and then snapped her mouth shut when she heard her words echo in the silent pre-dawn air. Nervously, she cocked her ear to make sure she didn't hear anypony stirring in the house below. After a few tense seconds of silence, she relaxed, convinced that nopony had heard her; but just to make sure, she fluttered over to the roof of another house a few buildings down. Who knew how a Canterlot pony would feel to find some stranger just hanging around on their rooftop?
"I'm not a wuss," she muttered to herself again. She could totally do a Rainboom if she needed, but these weren't optimal conditions! All she'd had to eat for the last, who knew how long, was wild grass. Not exactly the most filling or nutritious thing around. And she had saddlebags with her. Those would totally kill her aerodynamics! Yeah, she could still go fast while wearing them, but not anywhere near Rainboom speeds. And she sure as Celestia's Sun wasn't going to just leave them somewhere where some other pony could rifle through them and take her stuff!
Suddenly it dawned on Rainbow Dash what was happening. This wasn't about doing awesome stunts. She was just stalling because she didn't want to do it.
"Ugh!" She gathered her haunches up underneath her and leapt into the air with a powerful spring, flapping her wings hard and fast as she sped towards the Pony Express.
Rarity Comprehension ~ Day 2
Rarity stepped back and admired her handiwork with an exhausted, but incredibly smug smile. She'd done it. Three days worth of hard work in one night, and every single dress was fabulous. Who would have guessed that the key to inspiration was simply a lot of pressure, a bit of sleep-deprivation, and entirely too much caffeine? The input of generous and knowledgeable strangers didn't hurt either.
The triumphant fashionista had to fight down the sudden urge to burst out into fit of giggling. That wouldn't do at all. Ladies didn't have giggle-fits, at least not when their little sisters were staying with them because their parents were out of town for a few weeks and might get woken up by the very un-ladylike behavior that she was trying so very hard not to do, and see said lady in the throes of said un-ladylike behavior and blackmail her with it for the rest of her days.
Rarity swayed a little on her hooves and tried to think, was it un-ladylike to feel a little loopy after doing the impossible on no sleep and too much coffee? Probably. Yeah, she should probably go do something else. Something else that wasn't sleeping.
At the very least, she needed to get out of the boutique for a few minutes. She still had an incredibly important and long day ahead of her, and she needed to figure out what to do with the town hall. A change of scenery would help her focus, and the morning air might help her clear her head.
Rarity could probably use the opportunity to send some hoof-written notices to all her customers informing them that their dresses were ready for pick-up and payment. Mail that went out in the morning usually made its way to its destination that very same day so long as you were sending it to another address in Ponyville, not that many ponies did that when they could just walk next door, but Rarity was running a business and using the post would help maintain that air of professionalism she always strove for. That would be a nice touch, better than sending Sweetie Belle around to tell them, and much better than just waiting for them to come in one by one. If everything went right today, she was going to be leaving town soon and she'd need to have all her orders picked up and paid for as quickly as possible.
Excitedly, she ran over to her desk and pulled out several sheets of paper and a quill and started writing furiously. During the night, Rarity had developed a non-stop jittering throughout her entire body, and it took every ounce of control she had to keep the quill from shaking around in the grip of her magic and ruining the notes, but somehow she managed. Then she folded them all up, placed them in some envelopes, magicked a saddlebag from its place by the door, and carefully placed them inside.
Rarity started towards the door, but on her way she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror hanging on the wall and gasped.
"Oh no no no no no!"
She was an absolute wreck! Her mane stuck up all over the place, her tail looked like a ball of yarn after her cat Opalescence had had her way with it, and she didn't have one bit of makeup on! Rarity dropped the saddlebag and bolted for the restroom.
A few minutes of quick and painful brushwork later she at least looked presentable, however the makeup was proving to be more of a challenge than she'd expected. Her jitters weren't going away, and she nearly put her eye out with the mascara brush. But with a little patience, and some muttered curse-words that nopony else knew she knew, she had herself looking presentable. With that done, she was ready to face anything the day could throw at her.
Quickly, so as to try and get her blood flowing a little bit, she trotted to the door and walked outside into the cool morning air.
***
Rarity was just turning the corner next to the post office when she was nearly bowled over by Clementine coming the other way at a dead run. "Mrs. Clementine," she exclaimed as the other pony ran past, "Is something the matter?"
The other mare was a mess. Her mane was down and it looked like she hadn't brushed it at all after getting up, and she had a frightful expression on her face. At hearing Rarity's call, she abruptly skidded to a halt, turned, and ran back to where she was standing. "Applejack sent me to find you! She says you know Fluttershy. You haven't seen her have you?"
"Yes, Fluttershy is one of my closest friends." Rarity didn't know what was going on, but Clementine's distress was contagious, and she was starting to get worried herself. "But I haven't seen her in days because of work. Why, what's wrong? Has something happened to her? I was supposed to meet her yesterday at the spa, but she didn't show up."
"She's gone missing!" Clementine said. "She was staying with Applejack last night because of the news about Macintosh, and when we woke up this morning she was gone! She left a note saying she was going looking for him. Everypony's out looking for her, but we can't find her, and Applejack asked me to come and see if she'd showed up at your boutique."
Rarity's breath caught in her throat at Clementine's words. News about Macintosh? Gone looking for him? Missing? A torrent of questions swirled through her head, and she couldn't figure out which one to ask first! "I...I'm not sure I understand. Fluttershy's missing?"
Clementine nodded frantically. "Gone, last night. She just up and left without telling anypony."
Where would she go? What news? Was this why she skipped out on the spa visit yesterday? Big Macintosh is on his way home from Zebrica, why would she go looking for him? How would she go looking for him, that's halfway around the world! That's not like Fluttershy at all!
Rarity swallowed. There would be time for questions later, first they had to find her. "Where have you looked?"
Clementine gestured back the way she'd come with her hoof. "Applejack's heading up to Fluttershy's house right now, and she sent Applebloom over to the Carrot farm next door to find out if they'd seen anything. The poor filly was a right mess; she thinks this is her fault. I think Applejack really just gave her something to do so to keep her from breaking down. Applejack told me to come find you since I already knew where you lived, and Mimosa is walking around town to see if she's still here for some reason." The older mare shook her head. "Though if she's not at her house or with you I don't see why she would. Her note was pretty direct. And none of us could ever hope to catch a pegasus with a head start"
"I can't think of any other ponies she would go to if she wasn't even going to tell me she was leaving." Was Fluttershy really gone? What kind of news could prompt her to just up and leave? Why didn't Applejack have any pegasus ponies out looking if they were the only ones who could catch her? "Maybe..." Rarity said, glancing around as she tried to get her sluggish mind around the situation and at the same time think of something productive. Her gaze landed on the bulletin board outside the post office, with that picture of the handsome stallion in the cowpony hat still up.
Would Fluttershy go there to check her mail first?
Of course not! Rarity wanted to smack herself for thinking something so stupid. What would Fluttershy do if she was going to leave on a long trip?
She didn't have a clue.
Okay. What would Rarity do if she was going to leave on a long trip for mysterious reasons? "It's a long way to Zebrica. She would need supplies. Maybe she went shopping?" she finally blurted out the only thing she could think of, fully aware of how stupid she sounded.
Thankfully, Clementine didn't laugh, just nodded and asked "Are there any stores open at this time of day?"
"This way." Rarity took off down the road as she looked back over her shoulder and called to Clementine. "I think there's a few ponies in the market who open their stalls this early. And while we're there we can find some pegasi to help look for her."
Rainbow Dash Comprehension ~ Day 2
The inside of the Pony Express station was surprisingly posh, not the sort of thing you expected to see from the fastest, most no-nonsense delivery ponies there were. The walls were covered with wood paneling and there was a painting on each one of different pegasi in various epic but stupid flying poses. In the corner between the walls and the ceiling, there was some sort of carved wooden thingy that went all the way around the little waiting room. There were two very comfortable looking red velvet chairs whos arms were formed from the back of the chair curving around and dipping just low enough that you didn't feel like you were sitting in a big teacup.
Then there was the counter where customers came in and did whatever it was they did to get a letter or package delivered. It looked like a bar. One of those high-class bars that probably cost a whole lot of bits. And behind that very bar-like counter stood an older but still in-shape red pegasus with a yellow mane who seemed to be trying not to fall asleep.
Just the way she'd practiced before, Dash casually strolled up to the counter and said "Hey, I heard you were hiring pegasi. One of your guys delivered a scroll to me yesterday and said I should apply. Brown pegasus, about my age, never got his name though."
Should have gotten his name Dash. Name dropping doesn't work if you don't have a freaking name to drop! There's got to be a million brown pegasi i—
"Ah, so you're the mare Sandy was talking about!"
Rainbow Dash blinked. "Wait, what? He told you about me? But how did he know I was even coming?"
"He didn't, but told me I should keep an eye out for you anyways. He was quite keen about it, said I'd recognize you on the spot, and I quote '''cause there ain't no other pegasus who looks like her."
Crap! What do I say! This was completely throwing off her groove! She'd spent all last night on a cloud practicing how she was going to answer any questions that they asked and everything they talked about, but now the whole conversation was off course. It was time to improvise.
"I, um..." Okay, it was a bit confusing that that stallion was so keen to recommend her like that, but never look a gift horse in the mouth, right? She was pretty darn recognizable though. With her mane, she tended to stand out in a crowd. "So yeah, you need fast ponies, and it looks like this Sandy guy's put in a recommendation for me. So do I have the job?"
She felt very much like pounding her head on the table, but instead, she looked the old pony straight in the eyes and smiled her most confident smile. Her "I'm awesome and I know it, and you know it, and I know you know it," smile. It was the sort of smile that made ponies who thought they were fast challenge her to a race. If she could just get him to take the bait...
The old pony's eyes darted back and forth between the two of hers for a half a second, and Dash felt a bead of sweat forming on her neck. Finally a smile started growing all over his face and he started laughing. She chose to believe that was a good sign. Until he fell on his back behind the counter and started kicking his legs.
"Ha ha ha! Oh wow. Bucking perfect. I can see now why my son was so keen on you. Just perfect."
His son? Was that a good sign or a bad sign?
After a few attempts to get up that were stymied by some pretty hardcore chortles, the old pony managed to pull himself to his hooves and wipe a tear from his eye. "The name's Red," he said as he extended a hoof over the counter for her to shake.
"Rainbow Dash," she replied, taking his hoof.
"Well Rainbow Dash, don't get ahead of yourself there. It doesn't matter who you are, you gotta prove yourself able to work here first. We can't have any slow ponies working for the Express after all."
It was all Dash could do not to start flying laps around the room. She had it! She had it! She freaking had it!
"You don't have to worry about that one bit," she exclaimed with a much more genuine smile. "I'm the fastest pony in Equestria."
"Yeah, we'll see about that." Red stepped away from the counter towards a little door in the wall next to it and opened it, beckoning her inside. "Step into my office for a minute. You got your resume on you?"
Son of a— Dash almost froze up mid-stride as she walked through to the other side of the counter, into Red's "office," but she didn't think he noticed. This was the part where everything always went straight to tartarus.
"Yeah, I got my resume right here." She patted her saddlebag but didn't reach into it, instead she just walked into the room pretending to inspect the scenery.
Play it cool Dash. He likes you. All you got to do is get him to give you a flight trial. The resume doesn't matter. Just a little speed bump, and you're a pegasus. You can fly over speed bumps. Speed bumps don't mean jack to you. Now figure out what to say.
It was a boring room. An almost empty room. A room with absolutely nothing in it that she could comment on to distract Red. All that there was behind the front counter was a desk against the back wall with a swivel chair and a filing cabinet in the corner next to it, along with another door that led somewhere else.
Desperately, Rainbow Dash scanned the room for something, anything at all that she could use to change the conversation, and then she hit the jackpot. Right there on the desk was a scroll case that had a seal with an emblem of the sun stamped onto it, and behind it was a small picture in a frame.
With a flap of her wings, she lifted up, propelled herself to the other side of the room, and landed right in front of the picture. "Is this your family?" she asked while most definitely not picking the frame up. That particular move had already cost her one job interview. She just pointed at it.
"Yup," Red said with pride. "That's from a few years back, before Sandy was old enough to start working here, but that's everyone."
"Everyone" was six ponies. A younger version of Red was standing next to a scarlet unicorn mare that had to be his wife, and in front of them were three pegasi and an earth pony; all except the oldest had coats that were varying shades of red. Sandy had to be the brown one, and it looked like he had a sandcastle cutie mark.
"Cute kids."
Seriously. That's it? That's all you've got?
"Thank you." Red walked past her and sat down on his swivel chair, then he took the scroll case and put it into his delivery bag that had been sitting on the ground next to the desk. When he was done, he swiveled around so that he could see her. There weren't any other chairs in the room, so Dash just stood there, shifting from hoof to hoof. "Now, if you could just hand me your resume, we'll get started here."
Dash couldn't help letting her ears droop a little as she reached into the bag and pulled out one of the copies of her resume and gave it to him.
Red scanned the piece of paper quickly, and then scanned it again, his eyebrows climbing higher and higher as he looked for all the stuff that wasn't there.
"You seem to be missing the first page."
Dash's wings twitched and her ears drooped even lower. "No," she said. "That's the whole thing."
Red looked up over the top of the page with one eyebrow raised. "You don't have any work history on here."
"This'll be my first job."
"Or schooling."
"I uh..." She should lie. She really should. This was the part that always screwed her over. "Ididn'tfinishschool."
The silence in the room could have smothered a baby.
Why wasn't he saying anything? He was just looking at her! Was he waiting for her to say something? She should say something. Something that wasn't stupid!
Wait, she'd prepared for this! She'd memorized a whole little speech for things like this!
"I dropped out of flight school because they were going too slow and I needed to train so I could get accepted into the Wonderbolts." Her words started running together, and Dash realized that she was on the verge of babbling. This wasn't going to work. She needed to be calm. Cool. If she was cool, then everything else was cool.
Rainbow Dash closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them and started again.
"I needed a more specialized and tougher training regimen than what flight school could offer, because I'm working to get into the Wonderbolts. It totally paid off too, I really am the fastest pony in Equestria and I've got one of the best aerobatics repertoires you'll ever see. The problem is, getting approved for entry into their training program is a longer process than I expected because they only accept about three candidates a year. I missed the deadline for this year and I need a job to keep me aloft until I get everything squared away."
***
Holy crap, it worked!
Somehow, against all odds, Rainbow Dash and Red were hovering ten thousand feet above the top of Canterlot Peak about to start her flight test.
It must have been 'cause I threw in "repertoire." I should probably learn a few more words like that. Could come in handy.
In all actuality, her flight test had probably already begun, because they were a whole lot higher than pegasi normally went. Anypony less fit than her would have passed out from lack of oxygen long ago. As it was, she was flapping frantically just to keep her altitude in the thin air, and her chest was heaving in and out two or three times to each flap.
Red didn't look much better. She had to respect him though. The dude was old, but he was giving her a workout.
"So, you think you're good," he shouted at her. His demeanor had completely changed now that they were up in the air. Gone was the friendly laughing pony from the office, and in his place was a hardened Express Pony.
"The best!" Dash shouted back at him.
"Are you fast?"
It didn't matter what he threw at her though, Express Pony or not. She'd passed the interview and now they were in the sky. This was her turf. "The fastest!"
"Can you think on your hooves? React at a moment's notice no matter what happens?"
"Nopony smarter!"
Red grinned wickedly. "If you beat me, you've got the job." Then he snapped his wings closed and plummeted to the ground below.
"Wha—" Rainbow Dash didn't finish that word, because she realized that she should be flying, not talking. She pulled her wings in and started free-falling after him.
You couldn't catch up to another pony in free-fall, because gravity doesn't play favorites, but there weren't many things better at accelerating a pony with no effort either. Gravity was a pegasi's best friend.
Another good friend of the pegasus was her tail. Yeah, it added a little bit of drag, but not enough to offset its use as an excellent rudder. That tiny amount of drag generated by it waving in the wind was all she needed to nose down and streamline her body. No wings needed.
For the first hundred feet, all Dash did was keep them tightly folded against her side to pick up speed. Her nose and ears were immediately numbed by the icy wind at this altitude, and her face was so cold and stiff it felt like it was made out of wax. The rushing air made it impossible for her to keep her eyes open more than just a fraction of an inch, and she berated herself leaving her goggles in her saddlebag back at the office. What if she hit a cloud of mosquitoes or something when she got lower? But it was way too late for that kind of thing now. She was committed. She was right behind Red. And she was still going way too slow.
She opened her wings just a tiny bit—not so much that it slowed her down, but enough to catch a wingfull of air—and snapped them back to push herself even faster as she rotated mid-dive to orient herself so she wouldn't be upside down when she came down to the mountain.
"Hey you cheater!" Dash's words were ripped away by the force of the wind, but Red looked back anyways. It looked like he could hear her. "Where's the finish line?"
"Figure it out, you're a smart pony!" he tossed back at her.
Oh. It. Is. ON.
Wing-beat after wing-beat, she pushed herself faster and faster towards the ground. She was going to beat him. Just look ahead, predict his flight path, scan the ground for the landing, and blow on past. Red was fast, but not as fast as her. Not by a long shot. This was going to be awesome. This was going to be spectacular. This was going to make Gilda cry herself to sleep at nights in envy.
This was going to be Wonderbolts worthy!
And then Red spread his wings. Only a tiny bit. Not enough to slow him down very much, but just enough to give him a little bit of maneuverability and turn his dive from a straight line into a tight corkscrew.
Dash's eyes narrowed even more. She could catch him now, pretty easily too. The corkscrew didn't slow him down much but, but it did add a lot of distance to his flight path. His saddlebag wasn't helping his aerodynamics either, this was almost certainly as fast as he could go, so there wasn't going to be any surprising bursts of speed.
Problem was, in that flight pattern he could break off at any time in any direction. There was no way she could predict where he was headed now. Unless she thought of something quick, Dash would have to stay right on his tail and then pass him when he picked a direction, and hope it wasn't a feint.
Think!
She could beat him. All she had to do was think. There had to be a clue where he was going. He would have said something, or done something to tip her off. It was pretty clear now that Red was a humongous plothole, but she didn't think that he wouldn't give her a fighting chance to—
"Wait a minute, the delivery bag!"
That thing wasn't just for show! Red had put something in it before the interview. A scroll that he was going to deliver. What was it? She didn't remember seeing an address, just a seal that looked like the sun. Just like Empress Celestia's cutie mark in fact.
All of a sudden, the pieces clicked into place and she knew where he was heading. She could see it right there below her. The palace had its own Pony Express landing pad for urgent messages to the Empress.
Rainbow Dash grinned and surged ahead with her wings. They'd only been diving for a few seconds, but that was easily enough to cut the distance between them and the ground in half. She still had time to catch him though. The thicker air down here was refreshing. She was strong. She was fast. She was passing Red.
The mountaintop streaked past them in a blur, and she angled herself towards the palace below, but she wasn't done accelerating yet.
One beat, and her wings were starting to ache. Two beats and she felt pressure building in front of her face. She could do it this time.
Every time Rainbow Dash had tried before, she'd failed. But this time was different. She could already feel it. Something in the air and in her feathers told her that she could do it if she just pushed hard enough.
Three beats and she broke through that resistance. The world around her exploded in a rainbow glow, and though she knew that everypony in Canterlot was going to hear it, she didn't catch the faintest hint of the sound of the explosion. For her, everything was silent, because she was going faster than sound itself.
Sonic Rainboom.
In less than a second, she was so close to the ground she felt she could probably start counting ants. She threw her wings wide and caught the air. All at once she felt the dual sensation of somepony trying to tear her wings from her back while trying not to black out from the extreme g-force as she slowed just enough that she didn't splatter like a bug when she came down on the landing pad hard enough to crack it and kick up a mushroom cloud of rainbow colored smoke.
Twilight Sparkle Comprehension ~ Day 2
Only a few minutes after they had left the hotel and climbed back into the chariot to head for Ponyville, Twilight found herself slipping into an unaccountably bad mood. Maybe she'd slept worse than she thought, or maybe she was just bored. It wasn't like anypony had said anything to make her feel this way. In fact, Spike was taking a nap on the floor next to her, but she was irritated and restless, and not looking forward to the long trip at all.
She glared down at Spike. Why the hay was he sleeping anyway? The sun was barely up, he shouldn't need a nap this early in the morning, baby dragon or no. With a snort, she stomped her hoof hard on the floor of the chariot to see if that would get him to stir, but all it did was make the whole vehicle wobble in the air behind the two guard-pegasi that were pulling it. One of them glanced back, and Twilight shot him a murderous glare. He blanched and quickly turned to look forward again.
What? Did he think I was gonna fall out? Or throw Spike off or something?
He probably did. He probably thinks that since I'm not a pegasus I'm going to get all stupid the second we're in the air. Never mind that I've ridden in one of these things a thousand times and never even come close to having an accident!
Twilight knew she was being unfair, and she knew that she needed to get her mood under control pretty soon or else she'd be grumpy all day long; but as she stared at the pegasus flapping away in front of her, she couldn't help but wonder how he would react if she clocked him in the back of the head with a book.
With a sigh, she closed her eyes and started imagining Celestia's face.
Rarity Comprehension ~ Day 2
Rarity walked with her head hung low, her coat all sweaty, and her legs sore from running willy-nilly around Ponyville. Nopony else had seen anything of Fluttershy. Most of the ponies, like Rarity, hadn't seen her in days, let alone this morning. And while she and Clementine had managed to get the members of the weather team to organize a search party, they weren't having any luck because nopony knew where to look except "East." For everypony else in town though, life went on like nothing had happened.
What was wrong with them? Did nopony care? What were these ponies doing that was so important?
She twitched her ear around to listen when she trotted past a mare who was talking in a low voice to a friend of hers. "Did you hear about Fluttershy? Well, I heard..." The other mare lifted a hoof to her mouth to stifle a gasp of horror.
Rarity dropped her eyes to the ground and sped up a little, her saddlebag feeling like a heavy weight on her back even though it only held a few letters. Perhaps it was uncharitable to say they were acting like nothing had happened. They just felt like there wasn't anything they could really do, and they couldn't drop everything in order to feel sorry for a pony they barely knew. Fluttershy might be one of the best, kindest ponies alive, but her shy nature meant she hadn't made very many friends besides Rarity. Even Clementine had eventually gone back to the farm with Mimosa after they'd run into her in the streets, citing that they had done everything they could until news cropped up.
She sighed and kicked at a rock in the street, unmindful of the fact that it might scuff her hooficure. Was there really nothing else she could do? No matter how she turned the problem over, her mind came up blank every time. Fluttershy was long gone and they didn't have any clue where she was. She could have an entire night's head start and be dozens of miles away by now. She had a hard time imagining Fluttershy flying all night without resting, but then again, she had a hard time imagining any of what was going on.
Rarity still had things she had to do as well. If she could think of anything that would help her help Fluttershy, she would have dropped everything to do it, but today was an important day and she couldn't just abandon her promise to Mayor Mare.
Maybe she could get Applejack and go after her?
No, Applejack couldn't leave the farm right now. Not with the way things were right now. And how would they find her, or even just catch up to her? Fluttershy wasn't the most physically fit pony around, but even a slow pegasus could travel fast since they didn't have to follow roads or go around things that got in their way.
She could always try the train, but there weren't any direct routes to Zebrica. The only line she could think of would take her so far out of the way that it would be faster just to walk. And how would she find Fluttershy when she got there? Assuming that the pegasus hadn't taken the much more likely option of turning back rather than fly half-way around the world on a wild goose chase. Fluttershy was obviously distraught and not thinking clearly, but with how much time a trip like that would take, she'd eventually calm down and come back. The real danger was that she'd get in an accident, or fall afoul of some unsavory ponies.
She prayed to Celestia that those weather ponies could find Fluttershy soon.
In the absence of any good ideas, Rarity found herself just standing in the middle of the street. It suddenly struck her that they'd never set a specific time to meet, only that it was sometime in the morning. Would she even be there yet? She was very enthusiastic about her job, and this day was as important to her as it was to Rarity. Probably more, actually. So she might have stepped out to go to the office early this morning. By now there were plenty of other ponies out on the street starting their day anyways, so it wasn't out of the question.
Suddenly, Rarity noticed that some of them were giving her nasty looks and she realized she was blocking the path. With a quick word of apology, she stepped off to the side of the road underneath the eaves of a building.
Maybe she should go to the post office and drop off her letters? They suddenly didn't seem so important, but she really should get those dresses out of her shop as quickly as possible, regardless of what she did next. It would give Mayor Mare more time to get to the town hall too, if she wasn't there already. It would also give Rarity some opportunity to think up ideas.
Not that she was feeling in a very creative mood at the moment.
"Yes. I think I'll do that!" she exclaimed a little louder than she'd intended. Without another moment's hesitation, she started walking again. It wasn't long before she drew into sight of the building.
The post office was a pretty small building, perhaps about the size of the Cakes' bakery, but that was only because Ponyville was a pretty small town. Despite that however, it was one of the central social venues in Ponyville. Not in the sense that ponies gathered there for town meetings or events, but in that when you stopped by to pick up or drop off your mail, you couldn't help but run into three or four acquaintances and start talking to them.
Everypony goes to the post office sometime, and the community took full advantage of that. Just outside of the door was a very large bulletin board where ponies placed event announcements, news, and anything else that could affect the ponies of Ponyville. And on that billboard right now was a poster of a handsome stallion.
The poster had caught her eye several times before, mostly on account of the intriguingly good-looking western style outfit he was wearing, with worn, but still nice vest and cowpony hat. To be honest, he reminded Rarity a lot of Applejack.
Speaking of Applejack, Rarity really needed to go visit her as soon as possible. She was Rarity's friend too, and with everything that was happening, even the strong little mare was probably having a hard time of things.
"Perhaps I should tell Mayor Mare that I can't help her today..."
As she drew closer the post office, the poster on the bulletin board once again drew her attention, but this time it was for a different reason than his outfit or nice features. In big block lettering above the picture was spelled out
WANTED FOR MURDER
and underneath,
BRAEBURN APPLE
100,000 BIT REWARD, DEAD OR ALIVE.
"Wha?"
What on earth was this? Was this stallion related to Applejack?
After a moment's hesitation, Rarity tore the poster down with her magic, rolled it up and put it in her bag, and bolted as fast as her tired legs would carry her towards Sweet Apple Acres.
Rainbow Dash Comprehension ~ Day 2
Oh crap, I came in too hard. She'd probably get in trouble for accidentally wrecking their landing pad. Good thing there wasn't anypony nearby to get hurt.
It seemed like an eternity before the smoke started to clear. In reality, it was only a few seconds, but it was still more than long enough for Rainbow Dash to imagine the looks on the faces of the ponies who were even now probably running out to greet her. Shock. Awe. Shock and awe, but mostly awe, and maybe a few fussy ponies going on about her having to pay for repairs to the landing pad, but who cared about that because she had a job now and she'd done a Sonic Rainboom!
As she stood there, still in her perfect landing pose, with her chest heaving in and out as she tried to catch her breath, Dash was jumping around in her head like a little filly who'd just discovered espressos. She'd done it! She was the only pegasus to ever do a Sonic Rainboom, and now she'd done it again when it really mattered! That job was as good as hers, if she decided to keep it that was.
The Wonderbolts were based out of Canterlot, and there was no way they would have missed seeing that Rainboom. Hay, she'd done right over the frigging palace! They'd probably offer her a position on the spot! "Suck it Gilda. Who needs to get their rear in gear now?" she said to herself.
Finally, the smoke began to thin enough that she could see a bunch of ponies running out of a set of doors that led into the palace. No doubt they were here to gawk and cheer. Dash straightened up even more, and prepared herself mentally for what was about to happen.
Rainbow Dash expected a lot of things, gushing, excited squealing, autograph requests; but one thing she hadn't expected was to feel a unicorn's magic wrap around her sand smash her into the ground and pin her wings and legs so tight it felt like he was trying to make some Rainbow Juice.
For all of a second, she struggled violently against her restraint as she tried to open her wings and get her hooves underneath her. What the hay were they thinking! But then the magic field squeezed her so tightly that it forced all the air out of her lungs in one squeaky wheeze, and all of a sudden taking another breath was the single most difficult thing she'd ever done.
The pieces of the cracked and broken landing dug into her side like knives, and she couldn't even turn her head to look up as she heard the sound of clopping hooves approach her. She could still move her eyes though, and out of their corners she saw that the pony walking up to her was snow white and wearing golden armor. Apparently he was a guard, and probably the unicorn that was holding her down.
Oh horseapples.
Dash's field of vision twisted around all of a sudden so she could see her attacker's face clearly, and the sudden lack of pain in her side and a touch of vertigo made her realize that he had lifted her off the ground so they could see eye to eye. Aside from being pinned, the sensation of floating through the air without actually flying or having any control at all was very disturbing.
Frantically, she pushed against the magic with all her strength, tried to get away, or even just loosen it enough to say something like "Could you let up a bit? I can't breath." All she got for it was a painful squeeze, so she settled down and contented herself with returning his glare and trying not to pass out.
The stallion was a little bigger than average, but next to some of the other guards that were filing onto the landing platform and surrounding them, he looked kinda small.
He was white all over with a shockingly bright blue and blue-streaked mane, and was looking at her with a piercing glare that could have struck some ponies dead. His golden armor covered up his cutie mark, and even though it was exactly the same as what the other guards wore, they were looking at him like they expected him to give them an order. He wasn't giving any orders though. In fact, he wasn't saying anything at all. He just stood there glaring back at Rainbow Dash, and with every passing second his bright blue eyes grew harder, and his magical grip around her body tighter.
The stare-off was broken when a middle-aged white pegasus with a golden mane and wearing purple-enameled armor with golden edges stepped out of the doorway behind the unicorn. "Is everything under control Shining Armor?" He asked in a high tenor voice.
The unicorn's eyes widened a tiny bit and he whirled around and saluted, all without lessening his grip on Dash one bit. "Yes sir! Ivory Tower sir! I have apprehended the culprit, and Concord and Maximus have gone after her accomplice!"
Right on cue, Dash heard shouting coming from somewhere behind and above her. Both Shining Armor and Ivory Tower turned to look at it, and Dash recognized Red's voice. He wasn't yelling at the guards though. He was yelling at her.
"What the hay were you thinking! You bucking idiot! You bloody foal! Do you have any bucking clue what you've gotten us into? I have a family to take care of you festering pile of horse apples!"
All of a sudden, she was glad that she couldn't turn around to look at him. Apparently, she didn't realize what she'd done. Yeah, she'd banged the place up a bit, but nopony got hurt, right? So why were they treating it like she'd murdered somepony?
"Be silent," Ivory Tower said, and even though his voice was thin and reedy, Red shut up mid-rant like Celestia herself had threatened to banish him. Then he turned towards Rainbow Dash and she saw why. He might not have a very intimidating voice, but his eyes were as grey and cold as iron. Dash wasn't normally the kind of pony to put much stock into old mare's sayings, but if it was true that the eyes were the windows to the soul, then this pegasus didn't have one. She shivered and tried to look away.
"You are under arrest for the usage of a rainbomb in Canterlot, an Act of War under article three of the Geneighvah convention, and for assault on the Empress's person," the pegasus said, and without another word he turned around and walked back into the palace. Red let out a low groan, and Dash, who was just starting to realize how much trouble she was in, would have echoed it if that Shining Armor pony wasn't squeezing her so tight that she was threatening to black out.
One by one, the other guards followed him, and just before the unicorn that was holding her went through the door, he turned Rainbow Dash onto her back so she was looking up at the tower above her. Right off the bat, she noticed two things.
The first was that it was The Tower of the Sun, where Celestia held court. Even though she'd never seen it before, it was easy to tell. That exact same view was stamped on one side of every bit in Equestria.
The second was that every single window on the tower was blown in from when she'd buzzed it while doing her Sonic Rainboom.
The how and the why escaped her, but the one thing that was obvious to Dash was that she was in more trouble than she'd ever been in her life and she'd gotten another pony caught up in it too.
The white pegasus guard, Ivory Tower, led the little procession through the palace hallways at a swift pace that bordered on a canter and Dash knew that it wouldn't be long at all before she met her fate, whatever that was going to be.
Shining Armor, the unicorn who had her trussed up, came right behind him while levitating Rainbow Dash in front of himself and holding her so tight that she couldn't even turn her head to look back at him. Or at Red.
How was she supposed to react to this kind of situation? Nopony would like being held like that, but for somepony like her, never not moving except when she was sleeping, it was... Well, her first reaction was to try and break free, and buck him in the face. She just barely managed to stop herself before doing something stupid.
This is wrong!
Her eyes shot back and forth, looking for what, she didn't know. Not help or anything like that, just some way to get out. Though she wouldn't turn help down if somepony offered.
Maybe one of the other ponies in the hall would realize how wrong it was and try to stop them. There had to be all sorts of nobleponies here. One of them had to be a decent pony, right? But no one stepped forward. In fact, everypony just stood back and gave room for the group of guards to pass while staring hard at her.
Dash gritted her teeth and tried to shrug her shoulder in spite of herself. If she could just open her wings...
I didn't do anything wrong! Red didn't do anything wrong! She never attacked the Empress! She hadn't even gotten in a fight with anypony at all since leaving flight school!
Hay, the last person I ever hit was Gilda, and she forgot all about that ten minutes later!
Her eyes caught on the long gold mane of Ivory Tower marching in front of her and her stomach sank another inch. He at least should know what this was like for a pegasus. Why wasn't he doing anything?
What was all that stuff about a rainbomb?
He had said she'd done a rainbomb. And that was an act of war? What in the hay is a rainbomb? He wasn't talking about her wrecking the landing pad was he? That was nothing! They could fix that no problem, and nopony got hurt anyway. Anypony could make an explosion like that if she was going fast enough, and she'd just done a freaking Sonic Rainboom! It was just an accident! You don't commit acts of war by accident!
I was just trying to get a job.
Dash's eyes started itching, but she blinked it away before anypony could get the wrong idea. The hallways in the palace were really fancy, but everywhere she looked—which was pretty much just in front of her because she couldn't turn her head—the floor was littered with shards of broken glass. Mixed in with the scurrying nobleponies, there were dozens of others all dressed in black and white uniforms who were sweeping up the shards. From the looks of things, they were going to be at it for hours.
A cool breeze blew through the open windows to tease a few hairs from the servants' tightly tied manes, and she suddenly wondered if anypony really had been hurt. If someone was standing in front of one of those windows when she'd done her Sonic Rainboom... Her stomach did a little flip-flop. Buzzing the palace had been a freaking stupid idea.
...and for assault on the Empress's person... Ivory Tower's whistling voice shot through her mind and a little piece of understanding clicked into place. She was suddenly glad that she hadn't eaten anything this morning.
What's the penalty for hurting the Sun Goddess? Imprisonment? Banishment? Both? Could she be hurt? Whatever was happening, it was going to be bad. Really bad. She rolled her eyes back to try and catch a glimpse of Red, but it wasn't any use. She couldn't see him.
Rainbow Dash's increasingly distraught thoughts were interrupted by one of the weirdest sights she'd ever seen when Shining Armor floated her around the corner. Sitting on her rump in the middle of the glass-strewn corridor, completely ignored by all the nobleponies and servants, a pegasus mare her own age was playing with some toys. She was all white, from her mane to her coat to her tail. In fact, she looked like she'd fallen into a vat of bleach as a filly or something. The only spots of color on the mare were her purple eyes and her cutie mark—a bunch of light purple sparkle shapes that looked like they were being sucked into the center of a swirling vortex that was a different shade of purple so dark it was almost black.
The mare was setting up a bunch of pony action figures in a circle around a spiky wingless dragon toy. When she was done with that, she picked up the dragon with both her front hooves, heedless of the shards of glass all around her, and started knocking the ponies down with a growl that Dash realized was supposed to sound fierce. It sounded more like a kitten caught in a blender.
As the group of guards and prisoners drew closer, the mare noticed them and dropped the toy. She smiled hugely and waved wildly like they were on opposite sides of the Cloudiseum instead of only a few paces apart.
"Stop that Starswirl," Ivory Tower spoke for the first time since he'd arrested Rainbow Dash. The mare's hoof slowed down as if she was confused, and then when the golden-maned pegasus shot her a look, she finally put it all the way down with a worried and slightly hurt expression. "Take your toys and go home," he continued in a slightly more gentle voice. "You're going to cut yourself on the glass, and you know you're not supposed to come here while I'm working anyway."
The mare's—Dash was having a harder and harder time not thinking of her as a filly—wings drooped almost to the ground and she said, "Okay." Then without another word she scooped the toys up into a brown paper bag lying nearby—miraculously managing not to cut herself in the process—and vanished down a small side corridor carrying it in her mouth.
Ivory Tower watched her walk away for a second, and then they continued down the corridor, leaving Rainbow Dash with nothing to distract her from her thoughts but the accusing stares of the ponies they passed. And of the ponies behind her.
Red was looking at her. She could feel his gaze on the back of her head like a nearby fire. That hot feeling was by far the worst part of all of this, worse than being attacked out of the blue, worse than being wrapped up in this unicorn's magic so tight she couldn't move, even worse than the horrible sensation of hardly being able to breathe at all. That feeling was what finally pushed her to act.
It was pretty safe to say that what she was about to try was stupid beyond belief, but it wasn't like she could get in anymore trouble than she was already in, right? The pegasus put every ounce of strength she had into a sudden surge against the magical field that held her. She pushed out with her legs and wings as hard as she could. She strained to get free, turn her head, twitch her tail, swivel her ears, anything at all.
Rainbow Dash didn't know what she was going to do, she just needed to move, to do something besides be carried along like some helpless foal. If she caught this Shining Armor off guard she might be able to break free and take out the guards that were holding Red, or cause a commotion so he could get away—she gasped in pain as the strain caused instant charlie horses to knot throughout her unmoving legs and wings—or just look at him and say she was sorry.
She couldn't see Shining Armour's expression because he was behind her, but his response was immediate. He tightened his magical grip around her neck to choke her out.
Dash panicked. A part of her burned with shame at that, but that wasn't enough to stop her. In an instant, her mind was flashing through every single possible way she could think of to pry that grip away from her neck, and her body did its level best to follow through.
Anypony would be scared right then, but for an athletic pegasus like Rainbow Dash the threat of blacking out took on a whole new level of horror. It was something you always lived with when you pulled dangerous stunts, but it was also something you never allowed to happen under any circumstances.
Blacking out in the middle of a stunt was practically guaranteed pony pudding. It was better to straight up crash than to black out, because at least that way you could try and aim for something soft and roll with the impact. It was the first and last thing they trained you for in any high-intensity flying situation, right up there with "don't fly tired." Once in flight school before she dropped out, they showed pictures of the aftermath of when a Wonderbolt rookie made too tight of a turn at low altitude and passed out. That kind of trained-in fear wasn't something that just went away because you weren't flying at the moment.
Dash swore that she could feel the magic give just a little as she tried to push her back legs hard enough to buck the guard in the face. It wasn't enough though. Even with her new-found adrenaline rush and all the strength panic could lend, she couldn't hold on. After only a second or two, she felt herself slipping away from consciousness. The last thing she felt before she went under was a deep, consuming hatred towards the unicorn.
***
When she woke up, Rainbow Dash felt strangely refreshed, as if she'd just gotten a full night's sleep. She couldn't have actually been out for very long though, because she was still being carried by Shining Armor. She almost tried to get away again right then and there.
Ivory Tower moved on without a word or a glance back, and everypony followed him up a huge set of stairs at the end of what had to be the palace's main corridor. At the very top, there was another long hallway. This one was lined on both sides with stained-glass windows that were somehow still intact, showing lots of little flat ponies in weird poses and candy-colored scenes with lots of pinks and purples. It was an enclosed sky-bridge from the rest of the palace to the Tower of the Sun. Empress Celestia's throne room.
She could hear a lot of ponies walking behind her, more than just the guards; probably some of the nobleponies they passed following to see what was going on. She could also hear Red breathing heavily. Couldn't blame him. They were closing the distance between themselves and the door much faster than she liked herself. In spite of herself, Dash couldn't help but grimace a little bit at the irony that she, of all ponies, wished they would slow down.
Two guards standing on either side of the heavily decorated doors saluted Ivory Tower, then started pushing them open. They were obviously straining against the weight, but the doors swung open on completely silent hinges.
Probably magic.
The first thing she saw in the widening gap was Empress Celestia sitting on her throne at the far end of the long room, framed by the shattered remains of a window that had once been the entire wall behind her. The throne was on top of a large dais, below which milled a crowd of ponies that were all dressed in really fancy clothes.
A white unicorn with a very light pink mane at the back of the group noticed the opening doors out of the corner of her eye and tapped the shoulder of a stallion wearing a suit and a mustache. He glanced back and when he saw the group he turned around to look at them with an inscrutable expression.
One by one, the gathered ponies stopped talking and turned to stare at Rainbow Dash. She barely noticed though, because she couldn't tear her eyes away from Celestia's. The Empress's gaze was trained directly on her, and she was not smiling. Dash gulped as the last vestiges of hope that this was all a misunderstanding flew out the window.
Even from across the room, the Empress's eyes seemed like they were trying to consume her. They were a light shade of purple and seemed to be at once deeper than the ocean and filled with a fury that threatened to spill out and consume everything they rested upon.
Being overshadowed was an unnerving feeling for Rainbow Dash, enough that when Shining Armor put her down and let go of his magic, she barely spared a glancing glare for him. He prodded her in the side to make her start walking.
For one brief second, Dash considered making a break for it, but her common sense chose that moment to chime in with a bazillion reasons why that was an incredibly stupid idea. Why it hadn't said anything sooner, like before this whole mess started, she couldn't fathom. She would have given the thing a good buck in the face if she could have.
The bright clop of hooves on the stone floor sounded like thunderclaps, underscored by the constant low-level rumble of murmuring.
She had never felt so much like a little filly in her entire life as she did walking through that room, even when she really was a little filly. The crowd parted around them to form a pressing corridor of well-dressed ponies so close that she could smell that someone in the group hadn't brushed that morning. She was pretty sure that the only thing that held them back from rushing her was the presence of the guards and Celestia. Some of them looked curious, but most had really angry expressions on their faces.
They made their way all too quickly to an open space just below the dais. Shining Armor herded her front and center, and the two pegasi guards who were holding Red brought him forward to stand next to her. Dash tried to give him a confident look across Shining Armor's back, but he just glared back at her. The rest of the guards spread out around them. Ivory Tower came up on her left and saluted the Empress, saying, "The prisoners, as you requested your Highness."
Empress Celestia didn't say anything, didn't even acknowledge that he'd spoken. She just sat there on her throne, watching Dash with unblinking eyes.
What she'd thought was an angry look from across the room, Dash was a little relieved to see was actually not a look at all. Celestia wasn't frowning. In fact, her face was was as blank as a doll's.
The complete lack of lines suggested that neither frowns nor smiles actually showed up on her face very often. It didn't make her look young though, just not old. If Rainbow Dash had met some normal pony with a face like that in the streets she wouldn't even have been able to begin to guess her age.
Celestia was big, much bigger than anypony Dash had ever met before, with wings that she could use to hide a foal underneath if she wanted, and a horn big and sharp-looking enough to drive straight through the throne-room doors, with enough left over to skewer the poor guard on the other side. Her coat was every bit as white as any cloud that Dash had ever flown across, and her cutie mark—an image of the Sun with thick wavy rays coming off it—almost looked like it was made out of actual gold and sunshine.
Then there was the thin line of blood oozing slowly from the cut on her cheek.
The Empress still hadn't moved from her spot on the throne. If it weren't for the fact that her mane billowed in the air as a stray breeze coming through the broken window caught it, Dash might have been tempted to imagine that she was a statue and everypony in the room was just crazy. Was she waiting for her to talk first or something? Dash was doing her best to keep her trademark confidence on her face, but this was seriously starting to get freaky.
Dash shifted from one hoof to the other and then opened her mouth, only to have Shining Armor smack her in the back of the head. She shut her jaw again and shot a glare back at the guard, who returned it with one of his own. Then she quickly brought her eyes back to bear on Celestia. She had something more important to worry about than an angry guard.
The ponies in the crowd were getting antsy too. They made rustling sounds as they jostled each other to get a better view of the non-existent action, and there was even the hiss of a few nobleponies whispering into the ears of others around them. Out of the corner of her eye, Dash even saw one of the guards fidget a bit before Ivory Tower somehow shot him a glare without taking his eyes off the Empress.
Nearly ten minutes of increasingly uncomfortable silence passed, and Celestia never took her eyes off of Rainbow Dash.
At first Dash met her gaze because she wasn't going to let anypony stare her down, Goddess or not. Then she met her gaze because this was all wrong and she was pissed. Then she met her gaze because she'd been staring too long to look away. Did Goddesses not need to blink or something?
After what felt like an eternity, Celestia stood up.
The murmuring and shuffling of the crowd had been growing by the minute as everyone waited to see what the Empress was going to say, but now they all fell silent.
The Alicorn stepped down from her throne and turned to her right, finally breaking eye contact with Rainbow Dash and leaving the pegasus feeling very relieved to be able to look down. Step by careful step, she walked across a bunch of glass shards to stand at the window behind her throne and looked out on the city below, turning her back on Rainbow Dash and the nobleponies in the process.
The murmuring started up again in full force. Rainbow turned one ear back and heard a nearby stallion whisper, "What is she doing?" A question she desperately wanted to know the answer to herself. Unfortunately, nopony had an answer for him. Minutes passed and the background noise grew until some ponies weren't even bothering to whisper anymore.
"Whoa, she's mad!"
"Why isn't she saying anything? Maybe she doesn't know what to do?"
Another pony snorted. "The very thought! There's nothing here to be confused about here. Everypony saw what happened and the law is crystal clear. I'd bet my entire estate she's planning something."
"It must be something big for her to act like this."
"Who's the mare?"
"I can't for the life of me say. I would certainly remember a mane like that if I'd seen it before."
Dash smiled to herself at that one. Heck yeah they would. But then she remembered where she was and turned her attention back to the Empress and her smile faded into a confused frown. Why was she just standing there?
"No, she was looking at the Express pony, and can you blame her? He's pretty good looking for an older pony."
"This is not the time for jokes!"
"She's not doing anything. You think she's hurt? I mean, more than that cut?"
"Are we not supposed to be here? Should we leave?"
"Are you insane?"
Rainbow Dash couldn't tell how much time passed, but it felt like hours. The conversations grew more heated as the crowd debated everything from what idiot hired her to assassinate an immortal Goddess to what sort of punishment Celestia was thinking of that had her so lost in thought. Some of the ideas bandied around had Dash feeling more than a little bit queasy, and she had a pretty strong stomach. But it wasn't until a young stallion started talking about what the manticores in the Everfree Forest were probably going to do with their corpses that she couldn't stand it anymore.
"He didn't do anything!" she blurted out. An instant later, a purple magic aura from Shining Armor's horn forced her mouth shut, but it was too late. Several ponies gasped out loud when Celestia looked over her shoulder and gave her a long look.
"What is your name?" she asked at last. There was no expression in either her face or her voice. It was quiet, even, and emotionless, but even if the crowd had been at full roar, nopony could have missed hearing it.
Shining Armor dropped his magic so she could speak. "R—" She swallowed and shifted from one hoof to the other and stretched her wings nervously. She desperately hoped that the wobbly feeling in her legs was just in her head. "I'm Rainbow Dash... Your Majesty," she remembered to tack on at the end.
"Rainbow Dash..." the Empress said in that same expressionless voice. Slowly, she turned the rest of the way around to face the gathered ponies. "Do you understand why you are here?"
"Umm." No, not really. Not at all. A little bit. Because I was the first pony to do a Sonic Rainboom ever. Because I hurt the Empress. Because I don't think before doing anything. Because everypony here is crazy and making a huge deal out of a stupid busted landing pad.
Because I could have really hurt somepony.
"Red didn't do anything! He was just watching me while I flew by!"
"I see." Celestia paused and then said, "Your loyalty to your friend is commendable." She picked her way back through the shards of glass to stand in front of her throne and then sat down. Lifting a hoof to her face, she wiped away a drop of blood that had been growing at the lower end of her cut before it had the chance to fall to the floor. "Yes, you are right. I happened to be looking out the window when you went past, and I saw what happened."
Rainbow Dash exchanged a confused look with Red. She wasn't sure the older stallion would like being referred to as her friend, but it looked like he at least might get out of this.
"Red has proven himself to be a most capable courier over the years, one whom I can entrust important messages to without fear of them flying afoul of their destination. I do not believe he would knowingly include himself in something like this."
Red knows the Empress? In her astonishment, Dash turned to look at him with wide eyes. He met her gaze with an equally wide-eyed look that shouted as plain as day this was news to him too.
Celestia turned her gaze to the pegasus stallion as well. "Would I be correct in assuming you have a delivery for me? I was expecting a scroll this morning."
Red started and reached into his pack, fumbling to grab the scroll he was supposed to deliver. After a few clumsy attempts, he pulled it out. The guard on his right took it from him and climbed the dais, bowing low as he offered the scroll to the Empress. It was enveloped with a golden glow as she took it with her magic and set it down on the arm of the throne. "Thank you," she addressed Red. "You are free to go."
Red sighed a huge sigh of relief as the guards stepped away from him to let him go. He looked at Dash with a smile that seemed both grateful and worried. She tried to return it with a "Don't worry, I've got this," look, but it was more than a little stiff. With one last glance over his shoulder at Celestia, he then moved quickly through the surrounding crowd of ponies and made for the doors. They cracked open just wide enough to let him through as he approached. A few ponies sent curious glances after him, but no one else left. There was still more to see in here. When the doors closed behind Red, Empress Celestia lowered her eyes back down to meet Dash's.
Rainbow Dash shivered. Honest to Celestia shivered. The Empress's expression was still exactly the same as always, like the face of a statue whose creator was trying to carve something even more expressionless than the blank white marble it was carved from, but her eyes weren't the same as her expression.
"Now, I ask again. Do you understand why you are here?" The power in that question would have made a dragon cower, and Rainbow Dash had the feeling that those purple eyes were windows into a realm filled with something much, much hotter than just flames.
As a filly, she'd never quite been able to wrap her head around the idea that there was a pony in Canterlot who had lived forever. Sometimes she used to wonder if it was all pretend. That there was some unicorn who got dressed up in a costume and pretended to be a Goddess, and when she died, another one took her place and everyone pretended that she was the same pony. She was wrong. Dash knew that she was wrong and if any of the ponies in the crowd used to think that too, they didn't now. She was so very, very much wrong.
Actually saying anything was beyond her. The wobbling in her legs was so bad that she knew everypony in the room could see it. It took everything she had just to shake her head. Silence reigned over the Hall of the Sun. Nopony moved. Nopony so much as coughed.
"Very well then," Celestia said at last. "I have decided."
What? No! She hadn't gotten a chance to say her side of what happened! Dash almost worked up the courage to protest, but she was still looking into those eyes. Her throat closed up before she could say anything.
Celestia spoke on, with absolutely no inflection to her voice. "You will begin your duties tomorrow morning at sunrise. Report to Ivory Tower's office in the barracks and he will see to your training as the newest member of my personal detail. Do not be late." After another pause, she continued. "Welcome to the Royal Guard, Rainbow Dash. I look forward to working with you. You are dismissed."
Celestia stood up and addressed the crowd of gathered nobleponies and guards. "I will not be holding court today. You are all dismissed as well, except for you." She addressed those last words to Shining Armor, who looked absolutely furious. "Please come with me Shining Armor."
Celestia walked out of the room with the scroll in tow and the guard left Rainbow Dash's side, following a respectful distance behind her. When they were out of sight on the other side of the now open doors, the crowd exploded.
Applejack stood over the remains of the shattered kitchen table and the shredded poster, lungs heaving as everypony else looked on in shocked silence.
WANTED FOR MURDER
Macintosh was gone.
BRAEBURN APPLE
Aunt Orange's marriage broken.
100,000 BIT REWARD
Fluttershy missing.
DEAD
It only took one day to tear apart her family.
OR
And she couldn't do anything.
ALIVE
She could smell the smoke from her dream. It burned her nose with its acrid stench and choked her lungs until she couldn't breathe. In the dream it was the Everfree Forest that was burning, but that was just a dream. Now it was her home.
"I..."
Had she ever seen Rarity look that scared before?
“I...”
Or Granny Smith speechless?
“I...”
Thank the Goddess Applebloom isn't back yet.
"I’m sorry, I... I think I need to be alone for a minute..."
She walked out the door on bruised and unsteady legs, with the smell of smoke heavy in her nose.
Rarity was dumbfounded as she watched the heaving form of Applejack glaring down at the remains of the kitchen table. This wasn't her friend. Applejack couldn't be this...this angry. Applejack was steady and solid. The pony she was looking at wasn't like that.
"I’m sorry, I... I think I need to be alone for a minute..." Applejack walked across the large kitchen to the door on the other side with her head down, and Rarity saw that she was trembling all over. The cowpony paused in the doorway for a second as if she was about to look back but changed her mind. Then, with an agitated swish of her tail, she stepped out and closed the door behind her.
The eyes of everypony in the room shifted from the door to the broken table at their feet. For a long moment, Rarity, Clementine, Mimosa, and Granny Smith all just stared wordlessly down at it. Absently, Rarity wondered if it was possible to fix it. She mentally started to piece the table back together, and all the while in the back of her mind, she was trying to do the same with the shattered image of her friend.
Granny Smith was the first pony to speak, her voice creaky and tired. "Well, Ah reckon' we should get this mess all cleaned up while she calms down."
"Do..." Rarity swallowed and tried again, pointing down with one hoof. "Do you think we can fix it?"
Granny Smith looked up at her, squinting her eyes to focus on Rarity. "No. Applejack did a number on it. It's done good and broken. Ah don't reckon anypony could fix it now."
Clementine started gathering up some of the pieces one by one while Mimosa did nothing at all to help her mother. Granny Smith started helping too, infirm and barely able to get around without a walker though she was. Rarity joined in, levitating a table leg out of the pile, uncertain what to do with it.
Rarity didn't think she'd ever been in the house when Applejack wasn't there. It seemed strange and a little uncomfortable, like she shouldn't be there.
That's because I shouldn't!
The leg hit the floor with a wooden clatter as Rarity turned, flung open the door, and ran out.
Applejack had just learned of the death of her brother, stood helplessly by while Fluttershy disappeared, and just now found out that another family member was wanted for murder of all things. She had just had her whole world torn out from under her.
And Fluttershy? Rarity remembered all the late nights she'd stayed up with Fluttershy. The conversations, the happy smiles as the pegasus told her about Macintosh's clumsy but sincere romantic overtures. Her absolute giddy happiness when she came knocking on Rarity's door at eleven o'clock at night to tell her that he'd proposed. Trying to convince her that he was going to be all right when the army called him up to active duty.
One night, a week after Macintosh left, she'd shown up on Rarity’s doorstep at three in the morning. When Rarity invited her in and asked what was wrong, Fluttershy confided that she and Macintosh had been planning to start a family, and she was terrified that it was never going to happen. Neither of them got any sleep that night as they talked quietly until dawn. Yesterday, her worst fears had come true, and Rarity hadn’t been there.
Rarity hadn't been there for either of them. Now her best friend was missing, and another dear friend was breaking down. Of course she shouldn't be in the farmhouse! She should be with Applejack!
She galloped through the living room, and burst out the front door. Skidding to a stop, she frantically looked all around.
There!
Applejack was slowly walking along the road that led out from Sweet Apple Acres. Her head was still down, but she was walking faster than before. Every step the cowpony took hit the ground with an audible thump.
Rarity could have been there, but she hadn't known anything was wrong. She would have been there, dresses be damned. This time she did know, and she wasn't just going to let her friend walk off alone after something like that.
"Applejack, wait!" she called as she ran up alongside her.
Applejack just kept walking.
"Applejack!" Rarity reached out her hoof and put it on Applejack's tense shoulder.
Maybe I can convince her to come to the spa and get a massage when we’re done. She could use it.
Applejack stopped walking and simply stood there with her eyes and ears hidden under her hat. Her continued silence was starting to worry Rarity.
"I... I'm sorry about everything Applejack. I wish I was here last night to help. I should have been, but I didn't know."
Applejack's words came drifting out from under the brim of her hat, so low that Rarity could barely hear. "I know that, Rarity, and I ain't gonna hold it against you, but now ain't a good time."
She gathered her courage and took a deep breath. What she was going to say would be hard but she had to say it, and trust that her friendship would be enough to make Applejack listen. "I think now is the perfect time Applejack," Rarity pushed. "You're upset and aren't acting like yourself. We should go inside and talk about what happened. Or we could go down to my boutique if you want to keep it private. But either way I think you need to get this off your chest. It will help you feel better, I promise."
"Please leave me alone, Rarity."
"No," Rarity said firmly as she put her hoof down. "I'm not going to stand idly by while a dear friend is hurting and I can do something about it." Applejack still wasn't looking at her, but she put on a gentle smile anyway and let the tension in her voice slip away. "Please, just talk to me Applejack." She put her hoof out again and rubbed Applejack's shoulder.
The other mare's skin twitched under her touch, and suddenly Applejack raised her head. Her eyebrows were pulled down over narrowed eyes, and her mouth was clenched so tightly that Rarity could actually see the muscles in her jaw bunching up. It was the way she’d looked back in the kitchen, only the target was different this time. Rarity took two steps back as Applejack directed a look of pure rage at her.
"I said leave me alone!"
Applejack's shout hit Rarity like a physical blow. Rarity stumbled back, her ears flat against her head and her eyes wide in shock. Applejack took a deep breath, then swung her head around and started walking back down the road.
When Rarity could get her legs to work again, she turned around and ran into the farmhouse.
Pinkie Pie Comprehension ~ Day 2
"There it is! THERE IT IS!" Pinkie Pie was leaping so high she almost felt like she could hurdle Trixie's wagon if she really tried, but she was too busy pointing and explodiciting at what had to be the most exciting non-exploding sight she'd ever seen with her own eyes, or anypony else's eyes.
The thing that had Pinkie Pie so excited was Canterlot. Sort of. You could see Canterlot from miles and miles around, but what you couldn't see from miles and miles around was the main gate, because it was on the side of the mountain and even though the road was big and paved with big stones (Granite! And from a high-quality, high-yield farm too! That had to be expensive) it was steep and winding. The road curved back and forth up the side of the mountain so you couldn't see the gate until you were almost there, and it was pretty tiring for anypony who was pulling a heavy house-shaped wagon, which might have been why Trixie wasn't happy when she stopped pushing and started jumping and squealing. But she couldn't not sqump! They were there! At Canterlot!
Trixie (The Great And Powerful) shot an extremely exasperated look her way and snapped, "What do you think you're doing? Stop talking and start pushing!"
"Just imagine! The excitement, the parties, the pastries!" Pinkie Pie bounced to the front of the wagon, where Trixie was straining against her harness, and let off a burst of streamers in the other mare's face.
"Stop. Doing. That." Trixie was trying to make a scary face, but the effect was completely ruined by the streamer that hung from her nose, and she seemed to understand that because she sneezed. "Where do you even get those things from? Also, stop talking and start pushing!"
"I hear"—Pinkie stopped to hyperventilate, then started again—"that there's a doughnut shop here that sells doughnuts so superficiacicaly delicious that CELESTIA HERSELF stops by every single day to get a dozen!" Pinkie Pie stared at Trixie so hard their eyeballs touched. "A goddess! Buys their doughnuts! And that's just the glazed ones!" Then she grabbed Trixie's face and squeezed her cheeks so that she looked like a goldfish with her lips moving in and out while she tried to say something. "The ones with sprinkles could probably kill somepony!"
Trixie violently pulled her head away from Pinkie Pie's hooves, and then struck a snooty pose, nearly getting pulled over for her trouble when the wagon tried to roll back down the mountain. Nevertheless, Trixie prevailed in the face of adversity. "The Great and Powerful Trixie has it on great authority, meaning her own, that Celestia is nothing but a fraud who is using illusion magic, which happens to be Trixie's area of expertise, to fool the poor deluded masses into thinking she's a goddess. And by poor deluded masses, Trixie means you, as well as anypony who believes anything you believe."
Pinkie Pie patted Trixie on the head as she made another bouncing lap around the wagon, knocking the other mare's hat askew and said, "Silly filly of course she's real! You can see for yourself when we stop by Pony Joe's to get sprinkle doughnuts!"
Trixie straightened her hat and glared sewing needles at Pinkie Pie. "The Great and Powerful Trixie refuses to spend bits on junk food! And why aren't you back there pushing! You're an earth pony! Manual labor is all you're good for so get back there an—Wah!"
The Great and Powerful Trixie cried out in surprise as the wagon started moving seemingly all on it's own, dragging her along in front of it by the harness, but it wasn't moving on its own because Pinkie Pie was in back pushing it as hard as she could, which was pretty darn hard because she'd grown up on a rock farm and rocks are super heavy which means they’re a bazillion times harder to push than a house on wheels.
"Why are you pulling so slow anyway, Trixie? Didn't you want to get to Canterlot as soon as possible? It's Canterlot! And you're Trixie!" Pinkie Pie was so excited she felt like singing. In fact, she should sing the most songful song ever. Maybe that would help Trixie cheer up. For some reason Trixie seemed like she was in a bad mood even though Pinkie Pie was helping push again. Seriously, Canterlot was right there!
It was settled. Trixie needed a song.
The other pony's voice drifted up and over the top of the wagon, "If you start singing, Trixie swears, she's going shove a pine cone down your throat!"
Pinkie Pie stopped in her tracks as her jaw dropped open.
"No, The Great and Powerful Trixie can't read minds, she's just that good! Now pick your jaw up off the ground and push you foal! Push like you're pregnant and constipated!"
Pinkie Pie shook her head and started pushing again for the second time in as many seconds. This time, she didn't let up though. She wasn't sure she bought Trixie's claim that she couldn't read minds, and it wasn't ever a good idea to make a mind-reader mad. They might make your head explode.
"Hah! The Great and Powerful Trixie wouldn't stop at just one explosion!"
Pinkie Pie squeaked, "Okay, how are you doing that? Are you a wizard?"
"The Great and Powerful Trixie has already gone over this! Yes she is a wizard! And as for how she's doing it, it's magic! She doesn't have to explain—"
"Halt!" interrupted a loud voice, cutting Trixie’s rant short. Pinkie Pie, however, was too busy trying to figure out how you could make something explode twice to pay attention. Why had the wagon just gotten so hard to push? It was like it was heavier all of a sudden.
"Pinkie Pie," Trixie said nervously. "Stop pushing the wagon."
Trixie let out a terrified scream that curdled Pinkie Pie's saliva, breaking her out of her reverie.
Quick as a talking cupcake, she stuck her head out from behind the wagon to see what the matter was.Turned out it wasn't a rampaging dragon. Just a white unicorn in gold armor. He stood his ground in front of the drawbridge that led into Canterlot (they were already there!), his eyes wide as he stared directly into the baby blues of The Great and Powerful Trixie. The only reason their lips weren't touching was because the magician had managed to cover her mouth with her hat just in time.
"Eeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" Trixie squealed, her hooves scrambling on the stone as she tried to push the wagon backwards. There were actually two guards in front of the drawbridge, but Trixie had only kissed one.
Pinkie Pie nodded her head in approval. "Wow Trixie!" she said as she popped up next to her friend. "We just barely got to Canterlot and you've already got yourself a boyfriend!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" Trixie bunched up her hat in her magic and threw it away like it had grown three legs and a slime-tongue. Her horn glowed a brilliant blue, and the hat burst into flame in mid-flight. "The Great and Powerful Trixie does not have a boyfriend! The Great and Powerful Trixie would never have a boyfriend because the Great and Powerful Trixie does not like stallions!"
The one guard's expression fell, and the other looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. It was everything they could do to maintain their professional demeanor.
Trixie whirled on Pinkie Pie. "This is all your fault! What if The Great and Powerful Trixie caught something! Huh? What if she has the cooties now!"
Oh, maybe they weren't so professional after all. Wait, never mind. Still professional, but not so happy. "Umm, Trixie?" Pinkie Pie said hesitantly.
"That's a real disease you know! Of course you wouldn't know, because it's a magical disease and only affects unicorns, not stupid, imbecilic earth ponies like you!"
"Trixie?" Pinkie Pie asked, finally getting the other mare's attention by waving her hooves in the air (like you just don't care!). "If only unicorns can get the cooties, how could you catch it from an earth pony?"
Pinkie pointed, and Trixie turned to look at the guard, whose face was every bit as stony as the stones he stood on. And those stones were very stony because of the high-grade granite.
"If you are quite done," he said, "I need to see your papers please."
Trixie wasn't dismayed in the least. "Ugh, fine!" She rolled her eyes and unhitched herself from the wagon. It only took her a moment to walk around back, open the door, and levitate out some pieces of paper which she held up for the guard to see.
He spent a few moments looking over the papers and nodded at Trixie, who folded them up and was about to strap herself back in when he said, "Everything seems to be in order, now we'll just need to search your wagon."
Trixie froze, and so did the air around her. Seriously, the air actually got colder. Pinkie Pie started shivering, so she pulled out a scarf and wrapped it around her neck.
"And just why do you need to search Trixie's wagon?" Trixie bit off every word with a snap of her teeth. "Her paperwork is fine, you said so yourself. And Trixie can vouch for the fact that they're fine because she spent five hours in line and thirty bits to get her permits."
"Policy, ma'am. In light of recent events, we're to search every wagon and cart that enters the city."
Pinkie Pie decided that she would never ever play a game of poker with that guard.
"And if Trixie refused?"
"Then you'll have a long walk down the mountain."
Trixie glared daggers that Pinkie Pie was surprised were only metaphorical, and both of the guards returned it with a silent stare of their own.
"Fine," Trixie growled, then she swept her cape and turned around to lead the guards to the door. "You stay right there!" She glared at Pinkie Pie. "You're not allowed in Trixie's wagon! And you!" This time she glared at the guards. "If you touch or even look at anything hard, Trixie is not responsible for the consequences! She doesn't need you blowing her wagon sky-high!" The guards exchanged a look. "And yes Trixie has a permit to transport and handle fireworks and other explosives! You just saw it!"
Trixie stomped her hooves and led the two guards inside, closing the door behind her. A few minutes passed, during which Pinkie Pie somehow managed not to explode with curiosity, and then all three of them came back out, Trixie wearing a half-triumphant, half-bitter look, while the guards looked almost disappointed. Without a word, they signaled for the ponies on the wall to lower the drawbridge.
Trixie strapped herself into the harness again, and she pulled it across the bridge and into the city.
Canterlot was awesome. There were ponies everywhere! Ponies walking, ponies talking, ponies eating, ponies doing things that ponies really shouldn't be doing in public! And there were buildings too! White buildings, and some other colors, but mostly white because apparently Empress Celestia really really liked the color white so she made her city white, but Pinkie Pie was all right with that because frosting is white!
It was awesome just looking at it from far away, but now they were there and all of the awesomeness was still there even though Pinkie Pie looked at everything really closely while the drawbridge raised behind them and shut with a dull thud. She was so excited that she just had to hug Trixie. "We're here! I know I said that before but that was a 'we're almost there' we're here, and this is a 'we're really actually for sure here' we're here. I can't believe we're—" Pinkie Pie looked down in confusion as she felt something small and hard shift between her body and Trixie's. "What's that?"
Suddenly, Trixie was sweating bullets for some reason. She quickly stepped away from Pinkie and said, "What's what?" as her eyes darted back and forth.
Pinkie Pie pointed at Trixie's cape. "That thing in your pocket."
"Trixie doesn't have anything in her pocket. Trixie doesn't even have any pockets. It's a cape, why would anypony put pockets in a cape anyway? That would make it so it doesn't billow properly in the wind, so it's silly to think that Trixie has anything in her pocket when she doesn't have any pockets. See?" At this, Trixie threw her cape wide open to show Pinkie Pie that there were indeed no pockets in her cape.
"Huh." Pinkie Pie stepped in close and examined every square inch of fabric. There weren't any pockets. "How come your horn is glowing?"
Trixie's eyes grew even wider before she went cross-eyed trying to look at her horn. All of a sudden, the glow surrounding it disappeared. "It's not!"
"Oooookay." Pinkie went back to examining Trixie's cape while keeping an eye on her horn. The magician was acting weird, and Pinkie wasn't going to stand for any funny business. Not until Trixie learned to tell a joke at least. "That's weird. Still no pockets, but I could have sworn I felt something right here..." She reached out a hoof to touch the cape where she thought the whatever-it-was was.
"Newspaper!" The Great and Powerful Trixie yelled in a manner that on anypony else would have seemed kinda nervous. "Go get Trixie a newspaper right now!"
"What?" Pinkie Pie asked.
Trixie tossed her mane with a hoof and replied, "Trixie needs a newspaper! The guard said he had to search her wagon because of 'recent events,' and she wishes to know why the privacy and sanctity of her home had to be violated in such a manner, so go get Trixie a newspaper right now!"
"Oh, you mean like this one?" Pinkie Pie pulled out a brand-new, folded newspaper from behind her back while Trixie did a double-take. It was a copy of The Canterlot Times.
Trixie took the newspaper away and checked the date—that morning's—before reading the headline as Pinkie Pie crowded in close to read it over her shoulder.
Celestia takes day off, gives job to exploding pony! Panic sweeps Equestria!
"Oh wow!" Pinkie exclaimed as she scanned the article. "I really really really want to meet this Rainbow Dash! She sounds awesome!" She started tapping her chin with a forehoof. "I wonder if she'd come if I threw her a party."
Trixie wasn't having any of that though. She rolled her eyes and unfolded the paper to see what was below the fold. The article they saw there sounded a lot less awesome.
"The Cutie Mark Killer strikes again," Trixie murmured.
Pinkie Pie slowed her jumping, and then stopped as the two of them stared at the picture of a blue unicorn with a nice suit lying in the street. He didn't look like he was dead, just sleeping. The only thing wrong with the picture was the bare spot where his cutie mark should have been. He was a blank-flank.
"Lord Nobliesse Oblige was found dead early this morning in the vicinity of Old Town Canterlot the morning after attending a philanthropic auction and party being hosted by Fancypants and Fleur De Lise. Witnesses claim that they saw him leave late that night around eleven o'clock saying he wanted to walk back to his mansion on Bit Street since it was such a nice night in spite of the misgivings of his host and hostess. It seems he should have paid more heed to their warnings, because on his way he became the latest victim of The Cutie Mark Killer, the fourth life that the killer has taken since the beginning of his reign of terror two months ago. Nobliesse Oblige was good friends with Fancypants and Fleur, and reportedly a very warm and welcoming pony who had nevertheless made quite a few enemies over the course of his life due to his business dealings. Police are currently looking into several potential leads. In the meantime, they urge all ponies to stay indoors during the night, as every victim has been killed after dark..."
Trixie's eyes met Pinkie Pie's as she trailed off, wide and unblinking.
Applejack Comprehension ~ Day 2
Applejack attacked the dirt with a fierce intensity that most ponies would not level at a blood enemy. She'd taken up where she'd left off yesterday, digging the last stretch of ditch across the road into Sweet Apple Acres so she could lay a culvert. The problem was, even though she'd broken up the top layer of dirt with the pick, it didn't do diddly jack for the stuff underneath it. Three generations of Apples trotting up and down that road while pulling heavily laden carts had compacted the mixture of dirt and gravel into something that approached the consistency of slightly crumbly concrete. Every time she jabbed her shovel in, she came back with only a half a hoofful of dirt and rock, a sore jaw, and a heaping helping of steadily mounting frustration.
Even her own body seemed to be determined to betray her today. Her heart had been beating like it was trying to climb out of her chest ever since she read that danged letter, and the combination of strenuous labor and her building anger at how little headway she was making had every thump feeling like Big Macintosh had just given her a good applebuck right in the ribs.
Her stomach didn't know what to feel. One moment she was having hunger cramps like her stomach was trying to eat itself, then the very next she was trying not to toss her breakfast even though she hadn't had any that morning. But regardless of how it felt at the moment, her gut never relaxed, like she needed to be ready to take a blow at any second.
Her chest hurt. Her stomach hurt. Her back hurt. Her legs were bruised from breaking the table. Her throat ached. No reason, it just did. And her eyes hurt. They stung like she was getting a faceful of smoke, so she kept digging.
Applejack was so busy trying to use the tip of the shovel to pry up a particularly entrenched stone that she didn't even notice her aunt until she set a bucket of water down next to her with a watery plunk. Before the younger mare could say anything—not that she felt like talking at all—she walked off in the direction of the barn without a word.
Suddenly, Applejack realized just how parched her throat was. She really didn't want to take even a small break, but it wouldn't do her any good to work herself sick, so she reluctantly put down the shovel and lowered her head to drink from the bucket. When she was done, she wiped a few clinging drops from the corner of her mouth and straightened up, stretching her back in the process. She was about to pick up her shovel again when the sight of Aunt Orange returning with another bucket dangling from her mouth made her pause.
"Now what in tarnation? Does she really think I'm that thirsty?" Or that she wanted company right then? She probably wanted to talk, like Rarity. Applejack didn't want to talk though. She didn't want to talk about Macintosh. She didn't want to talk about Fluttershy. She didn't want to talk about Uncle Orange. She didn't want to talk about Rarity or her tantrum.
She'd never done anything like that before, at least, not since she was really little. She knew the right way to handle getting mad, and that wasn't it. Like Granny always said, breakin' things didn't make your problems go away. Then you just had a problem and a broke problem. A smart pony didn't do that. A responsible pony wouldn't do that. A strong pony did better than that. She dug her hooves in and worked the problem until it was solved, or if she couldn't solve it, she worked on something else until she could come back to it with a fresh mind. She didn't need nopony to tell her that. She just needed to do better next time. She just needed to be stronger and smarter, and more responsible.
The family was having a hard time, and she'd just made it a whole heap worse. How were the rest of them supposed to keep calm and work through this the right way when there was somepony acting like...that? How was she supposed to hold the family together if she couldn't even hold herself together? What she'd done was a bad example and an invitation for all sorts of boneheaded acting out. That was why she didn't want to talk about it; not with Aunt Orange, not with Granny, not with Rarity. The damage was done, and they needed to move on. "I ain't gonna do anything like that again," she muttered to herself. "And pickin' at scabs is just askin' for an infection."
I'm gonna have to apologize to Rarity at some point though.
Applejack ignored the ache in her throat—which the water had completely failed to get rid of—as well as the approaching mare. Picking up the shovel in her mouth again, she stabbed it into the ground by that rock and tried to pry it up. She couldn't push the shovel in far enough to get under it though. There was just enough loose dirt and grit in the trench to make it hard to see what she was doing, but not enough to actually shovel out. Applejack growled around the handle. She should switch to the pick, but that would mean she'd have to put the shovel down and risk having to talk to Aunt Orange.
Applejack's right ear swiveled around and she caught the sound of hooves on gravel coming up behind her. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Aunt Orange put the second pail down next to the first one and walked off again. When she was sure that her aunt was gone, she leaned over to look into the bucket, and sure enough, it was full of water.
Applejack put down her shovel and took off her hat to scratch her head. Then she turned to look at the retreating mare and back at the bucket before giving a mental shrug and walked over to where the pick lay in the grass beside the road, forgotten there from yesterday. She felt a quick twinge of guilt. You didn't leave tools outside. They were expensive and that was a good way to lose them.
She drove the end of the pick into the ground right next to the rock with a strong swing and started prying, and that was when she realized it wasn't going to do any good. This was one of those dishonest rocks, the kind that's way bigger than it looks with most of it underground, and you had to break your back digging around it before you could get it out.
This time, Applejack was caught completely off guard when her aunt returned with the third bucket. It wasn't that she wasn't expecting it, she was just caught up in cursing out whatever sun-forsaken being had invented rocks—all in her head of course. She wasn't about to risk Applebloom chancing by and hearing her using that sort of language. That's why she nearly jumped out of her skin when the older mare tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Can I borrow that?"
Applejack looked at her blankly, trying to figure out what "that" was until her aunt gestured at the pick. Then she looked at her blankly, trying to figure out what her posh, hooficured, fancy-dinner attending aunt wanted with a pick.
"Applejack?" Aunt Orange said. "The pick please?"
"Uh, okay," Applejack said as her confusion started to short-circuit her frustration. She handed the pick over to her aunt and stepped back as the mare took it and went to work.
It was a mighty strange sight seeing her work. Her mane, still done up in that fancy towering hairstyle, bobbed up and down with her head, and her swings, while not nearly as strong as Applejack's own, were swift and sure.
The ground where she worked sat in three levels: first the road, then the broken ground where Applejack had managed to dig down about three inches below the road surface, and then the completed ditch that ran up to either side. Her aunt was using the pick to dig a sort of mini-ditch in the second level that was about an inch deep and stopped six inches before it dropped off into the real ditch on either side of the road. As soon as she was finished with that, she used the shovel to scoop as much of the loose dirt out of the indentation as she could.
When Aunt Orange put the shovel down and went for one of the buckets, Applejack decided that she'd had enough. She wasn't going to fall for it if this was some kind of ruse to get her to talk, but she could still ask what in the hay was going on.
"So," she said, trying to keep her voice neutral. "Mind tellin' me what you're doin' to my ditch?"
"Diggin'," her aunt responded in a what Applejack could swear was not a Manehatten accent before she picked up the bucket in her front hooves and slowly poured it into the indentation until it threatened to spill over. "If you're gonna dig a ditch, ya should at least dig it right. Give that a good ten minutes to soak before diggin' out what you can, and keep repeatin' until you're done. Doesn't take any less time, but it's a whole lot easier."
Applejack had to admit, it was a bit of a clever way to go about doing it, if the water actually soaked in. Whenever the pegasi made a storm, the water just pooled in the ruts on the road; it was so compacted it never got muddy. You could pull a full cart on it without any problems in the wettest of conditions. Applejack frowned a bit. She wasn't so sure she wanted to make it easier anyways. That sort of ruined the whole point of working off her frustration.
Aunt Orange stepped back and looked at her handiwork with a matching scowl on her own face. The silence stretched on until it started threatening to become awkward, and then her aunt spoke again. "When I moved away from this sunforsaken farm I swore to Celestia that I'd never dig another hole again so long as I drew breath." Applejack didn't know what to say, and Aunt Orange didn't seem inclined to continue. Neither of them said anything for several minutes while they watched the pool of water slowly soak into the packed earth. "'Course, I also swore I'd stick with my husband 'til the day I died. Seems like I'm breakin' a lot of promises today."
If the silence wasn't uncomfortable before, it sure as hay was now.
Somehow, with everythin' going on, she'd never gotten her aunt's story. Last night had been hectic, and she didn't remember if her aunt had even gotten to talk to granny alone. Applejack raised one leg and scratched self-consciously at the base of her neck, then she put it back down, and, staring down at the ground, she softly kicked a pebble into the water. She opened her mouth a few times, and all the while, they never once met each others' eyes. Finally, Applejack raised the gumption to ask the question she didn't want to ask.
"What happened, Aunt Orange?"
Applejack realized her mistake even before she saw her aunt's pained cringe out of the corner of her eye.
"Just... Just call me Clementine, Applejack." Her voice, which was back to normal now, took on a wry tone. "I never did like being called Aunt Orange anyway. We're both adults here, and that always made me feel old. A lot of ponies don't understand how much of a faux pas it is to bring up a lady's age. Your friend Rarity though, she seems to get it. She—" Suddenly Clementine stopped herself short. Her head drooped and her ears wilted. This time, she sounded like she was trying not to cry. "He was cheatin' on me."
It was at once the most unexpected and the most obvious thing Applejack had ever heard. She struggled for several seconds to find the right thing to say. Aunt O—
No. Clementine.
Clementine took her silence as invitation for more, or maybe just opportunity.
"We'd been having problems with our marriage for a long time. That's a big part of why we waited so long to have a foal, but then we worked all that stuff out, and you came to visit all those years ago and it was so great, and I knew it was time... Everything was good for so long, but then we started arguin' again after Mimosa came along, and I knew somethin' was wrong. I felt it in my bones. Really wrong, not just fighting, so I tried. I tried to make it up, to change, to talk to him about it. I even managed to convince him to go to marriage counselling once, but nothing worked and then I went to surprise him at the office because my therapist said that loss of spontaneity and appreciation is one of the reasons why a lot of older marriages break up, and I saw..."
At that point, Applejack couldn't make out any more between the sobs. Somehow—she didn't know exactly when it happened—Applejack found herself holding the older mare in a tight embrace and cursing herself for not wanting to talk about it before. That was about as selfish as a pony could get.
"...and I still don't know what to tell Mimosa. She knows somethin's wrong. How could she not? She's a smart filly, but I don't want her to hate him, or me. And all of this happened at the worst possible time and—"
"Don't." Applejack's voice was hard as stone.
Clementine made a querying sound that was muffled because her face was buried in Applejack's mane.
"You were about to say somethin' about how you shouldn't have come here because of all this...this stuff that's goin' on, and I'm sayin' right now before you can get it out that that's a right load of horseapples. This is exactly the right time for you to be here. You're an Apple. That didn't ever go away." She didn't even need to say the rest. Clementine probably knew even better than Applejack what Apples did during bad times. They helped each other stand no matter how bad it hurt.
Applejack extricated herself from Clementine's hold and looked her in the eyes, and when she was sure that she understood, she pulled the older mare into another rib-crushing hug. "You're not alone, and you don't deserve to be."
Clementine sniffed once and then said in a thick voice, "Neither do you."
There was the blow to the gut that she'd been bracing for. Applejack was glad that Clementine couldn't see her face. She opened her mouth to talk, only to realize that she didn't have anything to say. Her mouth was empty, and so was her head. For some reason, she couldn't even think about it to figure out if Clementine was telling the truth, let alone why she was wrong.
Clementine sniffed again, and when she spoke, her voice was a little bit stronger. "I've been to enough society dinners to know when somepony is putting on a mask, Applejack. And you're not very good at it to begin with." She pulled away from the embrace and looked Applejack in the eyes. The younger mare wanted to stare at the ground, but she forced herself to meet her gaze.
"You're an Apple too."
All the anger and frustration from before suddenly boiled up in Applejack's belly. There wasn't a single second of the day she didn't think about that! Not a single word she said didn't try to help them! Not a single thing she did that wasn't built around that fact! How dare she!
Applejack's angry response was interrupted by the sight of three pegasi flying in formation. As one, they swooped down low over the apple orchards and made a complete circuit of the farm. They were all different colors, but every single one of them was wearing a green uniform that she recognized instantly. Big Macintosh had one just like it.
Clementine turned, her eyes following Applejack's gaze, and she asked, "What are they doing?"
"I don't know," Applejack said slowly. Barely contained anger dripped from every word, "but they're tresspassin'."
"It's like they're looking for something," Clementine said a bit nervously. "Maybe Fluttershy?"
"No. The search teams already went over the farm from leaf to root, and these ponies aren't from around here. I don't recognize them."
Something about this was wrong. Very wrong. As they watched, the wing of pegasi banked and made a pass over the barn, circled, and landed in front of the house.
Applejack broke into a gallop, the memory of smoke strong in her nose.
Twilight Sparkle Comprehension ~ Day 2
In Twilight's opinion, Ponyville was really small for a town so close to Canterlot. It probably didn't even have a thousand ponies living in it.
It's probably because it's right on the Everfree Forest.
As the chariot descended towards the town below, she took a moment to gaze over the rooftops at the dark forest in the distance. The Everfree Forest was legendary throughout Equestria for its unnatural, uncontrollable, and unpredictable weather, and its extraordinarily dangerous wildlife. According to her research, the only thing the town had going for it was their weather team. They had a reputation for being among the craziest and the best in all of Equestria. A lot of weather pegasi on fast-track careers came from Ponyville.
Before long, the chariot fell below roof-level, and a couple seconds later it landed without even a bump in front of what looked like the town hall. That was when she saw the first uncomfortable signs that a few ponies in this town might be a few syllables short of an incantation. As she and Spike stepped out of the chariot, a grey earth pony wearing a large, nearly manic, and obviously fake grin ran up and stopped uncomfortably close Twilight's face. She could smell the other pony's breakfast on her breath.
Twilight put on her own best fake smile while trying not to fall back into her foul mood and asked, "Would you happen to be Mayor Mare?"
It was a bright, beautiful morning, the streets of Ponyville were already filling up with ponies, and someone was invading Twilight Sparkle's personal space.
Twilight took a step backwards to try and put some distance between herself and the grey-maned mare that was currently in her face but it was useless. As soon as she did so, the other pony stepped in to close the distance again with a slightly fake and slightly manic-looking smile on her face.
Twilight was more than a little uncomfortable with the situation. However, Celestia had given her a task and she wasn't about to shirk it. Okay Twilight, you can do this. Your homework, should you choose to accept it, which technically you already did two days ago, is to make friends with this pony.
With another futile backwards step, she put on the best smile she could muster, gathered herself together, and asked with only a second's hesitation, “Would you happen to be Mayor Mare?”
"That I am," the space-invader replied in a bright, cheerful voice. "And on behalf of Ponyville and all the ponies who live here, I welcome you to our humble town and thank you for recognizing how much we have to contribute to the Summer Sun Celebration."
As a pony who loved books, Twilight understood the value of words. The written word was a comfort to her, a familiar friend that she could always turn to in times of need and stress. With the mayor of this town standing so close that Twilight could smell what she'd had for breakfast, stress was definitely an issue.
An Egghead's Guide to Conversation recommended both promptness and confidence when conversing under pressure, so Twilight said the first thing that sprang to mind. "Actually, I only added Ponyville to my itinerary because it was on the way from Cloudsdale to Appeloosa, and I figured that I should be as thorough as possible."
The written word was an old and trustworthy friend. The spoken word, however, was a treacherous creature that loved nothing more than to stick a knife in Twilight’s ribs. It was a rather uncomfortable feeling, made just a little more literal by Spike's elbow while he muttered under his breath, "That's not how you make friends Twilight."
"Oh, uhh."
Mayor Mare's smile faltered for an instant, but then she mustered herself and brought it back in full force. "In that case, I hope that you enjoy your stay here in Ponyville. I believe that you will find it surprisingly productive. You are of course free to explore the town as you see fit, but if you have a list of positions you need to fill I would be happy to guide you to the ponies most suited for your needs."
"Oh, of course!" Twilight exclaimed a little more enthusiastically than she should have out of sheer relief that the mayor didn't seem too offended. With a little application of her magic, she undid the clasp on her saddlebag and pulled out a scroll that weighed at least five pounds, offering it to the other pony.
"Oh my," Mayor Mare breathed as she took the scroll from Twilight and hefted it with one hoof. "With a list that long, I'm sure we'll find somepony for you without any trouble."
"Well, actually—" Twilight said embarrassedly as she lowered her eyes and drew a circle in the dirt with her hoof. "—it's more detailed than long. There's only five positions left, and since the Empress asked me to find the best ponies for the job, I took it upon myself to draft a list of nessecary qualifications. Then I figured that since this is the Summer Sun Celebration, we needed the absolute best of the best, so I made a list of secondary qualifications that, while not required, would be really helpful. After that, I think I may have gotten carried away."
Mayor Mare unrolled the scroll part way and gave it a quick look. "Qua..." She trailed off as she moved her lips experimentally, trying to figure out the correct pronunciation of the word she was looking at.
"Quaternary," Twilight offered. "It comes after tertiary." After a short pause, she added "It means fourth."
"Oh really?" Spike asked as he turned to look at Twilight with a suspiciously mocking look of shock on his face. "I thought it was some sort of exotic bird!"
Twilight wasn't sure whether she should cringe in sudden realization of the patronizing tone she'd used, or glare Spike into oblivion. In the end though, she chose neither course of action because Mayor Mare was still right there in her personal space and would have noticed.
With an almost imperceptible roll of the eyes that made Twilight's spirits sink just a little bit more, Mayor Mare rolled the scroll up and turned towards the building behind her, beckoning them to come along. "Why don't we take this into my office and go over what you need a little more thoroughly?"
Applejack Comprehension ~ Day 2
"What in tarnation are military ponies doin' here?" Applejack muttered to herself as she galloped towards the house.
The ditch where she and Clementine had been working was a good distance away; even running as fast as she could, she had plenty of time to get a good look at the arrivals. A large white pegasus was knocking on the door of the farmhouse while two other pegasi stood on either side of him. All three of them wore drab green army uniforms that covered their cutie-marks.
"I don't know," Clementine answered between panting breaths, much to Applejack's surprise. She hadn't realized that her aunt followed her when she started for the house. "But I've got a feeling they're not here about Macintosh."
Applejack had a feeling that she was right about that. There was something was wrong with all this, these ponies and them being here.
The military ponies turned around as one to face Applejack and Clementine as they came to a stop a few paces away. Right at that same moment, the door behind them opened, revealing Granny Smith, Rarity, Mimosa, and...
Applebloom? When did she get home?
The big pegasus in the middle was the picture of calm confidence, but the two smaller ones looked around nervously as if they weren't sure who they were supposed to face, Applejack and Clementine, or the ponies in the doorway.
There was a pegasus on the Ponyville weather team who was almost as big as this guy, but where he looked like a swollen freak of nature, this stallion was just... really big. He stood a good six inches taller at the shoulder than Applejack. His coat was mostly white, but he had some very light grey dappling over his face and down his neck that probably kept going on underneath his uniform. The most striking thing about him though, was his mane. It was a brilliant yellow that shone in the sunlight.
"Are you in charge here?" he asked Applejack.
His accent sounded a bit like Rarity's, all high class and fancy; but where her friend's voice was warm and inviting, his had a rough sound to it that set Applejack's teeth on edge.
"I reckon I am," she answered back, drawing herself up as tall as she could. It was a little funny that he'd spoken to her when Clementine was standing right there and Granny Smith behind him; but on the other hoof, Clementine didn't look all that authoritative at the moment—it seemed she wasn't very used to running—and most ponies didn't take Granny seriously until they heard her talk.
The two smaller pegasi shifted a little, trying to watch both her and the ponies standing in the doorway behind them, but Applejack ignored them because she was too busy keeping her eyes on the big guy. "You mind explainin' who y'all are and what you're doin' here?"
"Of course." The stallion reached a hoof towards his breast pocket while Applejack watched closely. She narrowed her eyes even more when she noticed that his uniform didn't have a name tag above his pocket like Macintosh's did, but that was driven clean out of her mind when he pulled out a slightly worn piece of paper and unfolded it for her to see. "I'm looking for this stallion."
Applejack's stomach lurched as she looked right into Braeburn's eyes. It was that dang wanted poster.
Granny and Clementine exchanged a look, and Rarity let out a faint gasp of "Oh my stars.”
The fillies and the two of them couldn't see the poster from where they stood, but it looked like the adults had guessed what it was. Applejack couldn't tell if Mimosa knew. She just leaned casually against the doorframe, trying not to look anything but bored. She was pretty darn good at looking bored too, but the twitching in the little filly’s ears gave away her unease.
Applebloom had no clue what was going on. For a second, Applejack’s heart about crawled out her mouth when her sister tried to run out to get a look at the poster, but Granny grabbed a hold of her just in time.
Applejack's face set like concrete and she answered the stallion's question quick and blunt. "He ain't here. And I'd kindly ask you to get off my property."
"Now miss..." He shot Applejack a questioning look.
"Applejack."
"Miss Applejack. I understand that family ties are very important to ponies in this part of Equestria—" He lowered his brows and shot a scowl at her that was probably supposed to be intimidating. "—but the fact remains that Braeburn Apple is a very dangerous pony and he needs to be brought in to stand trial for his crimes."
"What?" Applebloom shouted. Quick as a whip, Granny shushed her and whispered something in her ear. Applebloom didn't say anything else, but the scowl on her face didn't give any doubt about what she was feeling.
Maybe Applejack should have been a little scared. That was the way most ponies would probably feel when a bunch of folk from the army showed up on their doorstep, pushing them around and demanding that they hand over one of their family. But Applejack was an Apple standing on her own land. She wasn't scared. She was angry.
Applejack forced herself to take a deep, calming breath as the rage that had been simmering ever since she broke that table tried its best to boil over again. This was not how she had wanted Applebloom to find out about Braeburn. For a long moment, nopony spoke, then she took a step forward with her head high to look him straight in the face. He was big, but not as big as her brother, and she wasn't going to let anypony push her around in front of her family. Especially not now.
"Now you listen and you listen good,” she growled. "Braeburn is one of the kindest, most outgoin', most decent ponies that I know. He ain't never hit another pony in anger in his whole life, and I darned well know that he didn't kill nopony. But none of that makes a lick of difference to you because He. Ain't. Here.
"Besides all that, there's somethin' fishy goin' on here. If anypony was gonna come lookin' for Braeburn, it would be the police, not the army. This ain't your business."
Nopony else said anything, but they were all looking really out of sorts. Granny's eyes were hard as flint, and Applejack was suddenly very conscious of the fact that while she may be old and a bit frail now, she was still the mare who had carved Sweet Apple Acres out of the wilderness with nothing but her own four hooves when she wasn't nothing more than just a filly. She and a very nervous-looking Rarity moved to fill the doorway, placing the fillies behind them where Appplejack couldn't see anymore.
The last pretense of politeness dropped off the stallion's face as he drew up to his full height and answered back. "It most certainly is the military's business when somepony murders one of our stallions. Now stand aside while we search the property."
Applejack caught a sudden flash of scared orange eyes from behind Granny's legs. It was all she could see of her sister at the moment, but it was enough. Applebloom shouldn't have to see any of this after just hearing about Macintosh.
Applejack needed to put an end to this, and quick. "No," she said, firm as a rock on the outside, but praying to Celestia in her head that she wasn't spoiling to start a fight. "I know my rights, and military or no, you can't search my farm without a warrant, which I'm more than willing to bet you don't have." Applejack raised an eyebrow at the stallion, and when he didn't respond she continued. "What y'all are doin' here is illegal as hay and I have half a mind to send Rarity there to go fetch the police to arrest y'all for tresspassin'. I already told you once to clear out, so you best do that while I'm feelin' generous." Rarity looked scared as all get-out when Applejack pointed at her, but she still nodded her head in agreement.
It was so quiet, the gathered ponies probably could have heard an apple fall from one of the trees in the orchard. Applejack put her hoof back down and watched the pegasus with narrowed eyes. Several feelings ran across his face as he met her gaze, but the easiest one to figure out was anger. It didn’t matter what he felt though, because Applejack wasn't going to back down.
It was one of the smaller pegasi who finally broke the silence. "Captain?"
He flinched as the stallion whirled around and snapped at him, "Move out!"
"B—but Captain!"
"I said move out!" With that, he turned around again, shot Applejack a look of pure venom, and stalked past her while the other two followed. Ten steps later, they took to the air and flew off to the north.
When they were out of sight, Applejack let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She still kept her gaze on the sky for a little longer though, just to make sure they didn't come back. That's why Applebloom's flying tackle-hug knocked her off her hooves, dropping her straight to the ground with a rib-pounding thump.
"Whoa there kiddo," she chuckled after she managed to catch her breath. She tried to break free from the wiggling, squealing filly that was climbing all over her, but she was no match for the little bundle of energy. "I can't understand a word you're sayin'." Clementine plucked Applebloom off of her so that she could get up, and Mimosa and Granny crowded in close. That was when Applejack met Rarity's eyes.
Even after the way Applejack had snapped at her before, Rarity had still stuck beside her. She was going to have to properly apologize and thank Rarity later. Her friend was hanging back a little, but judging by the smile on her face, she already knew how Applejack felt.
Twilight Sparkle Comprehension ~ Day 2
Mayor Mare's office was surprisingly small, and with the hot summer day in full swing, it was feeling more than a little stuffy.
Technically the room had space to spare. It was just packed from end to end with filing cabinets, shelves, and anything else you could ever imagine a pony would need to fill out and organize the masses of paperwork that sat on the mayor's desk.
At least it's tidy, Twilight thought as she let her eyes wander around the place for the thirtieth time while trying to stave off boredom-induced narcolepsy. In spite of the clutter, everything had its place and was happily sitting in it. That was less of a comfort to her than it normally would have been.
It didn't help that the only window was blocked by filing cabinets so they couldn't open it and get a breeze going. It didn't help that Mayor Mare never dropped that too-wide, too-enthusiastic smile either. It also didn't help that Twilight and Spike had been there for hours, a captive audience for the politician while she tried to sell them on every pony who lived in Ponyville whether they fit the requirements or not.
Ugh. Twilight just barely resisted facehooving as her "friend to be" pulled yet another dossier on one of the town's inhabitants out of a filing cabinet. Are those sorts of files even legal? After pausing to think about it for a second, she came to the conclusion that they probably weren't. Mental note, check into Mayor Mare's background for other activities of questionable legality.
Twilight was starting to lose her cool and she knew it. It was hot. She was frustrated. In spite of the relatively good sleep she'd gotten the night before, she was tired. If she didn't get out of that office, she was going to do something she'd regret, and it was only now seeming like the mayor had forgotten Twilight's earlier blunder. The threat to her progress in befriending Mayor Mare—and thus failing the Empress's assignment—was what finally tipped the scales.
"Actually, Mayor Mare," Twilight said, choosing her words carefully as she stood up. "Before we discuss anypony else, would it be alright with you if I took a restroom break?"
"Of course! The restroom is the second door on your left!"
"Thank you." With that, Twilight scampered out the door towards the relative safety of the little filly’s room, abandoning Spike to whatever fate the mayor had in store for him while she was gone.
After spending a few hours with the bureaucrat, Twilight was starting to think that she would cheerfully raze Ponyville to the ground in order to erect a statue of a giant kumquat if the request was delivered by a representative of the crown and stamped with the Sun Seal. But still, Twilight was supposed to be practicing her interpersonal skills and she was quite proud of how well she'd done after her initial blunder.
I might not have filled any of the positions for the Celebration yet, but I'm well on my way to...
Twilight found the restroom and opened the door, a little surprised to find facilities more akin to someone’s home than what you would normally find in a public building.
...To what?
She stepped inside and locked the door behind her, then plodded over to the counter to look in the mirror. She was still Twilight Sparkle, still the same violet eyes with the same familiar bags under them from never getting quite enough sleep. She still had the same slightly stubby horn that she used to work the magics that she studied twenty-four/seven to perfect. She was the same student that she'd always been.
Improving her social skills was one thing, even if it was a thing that she didn't particularly want to do, but all of this went way beyond that. Why did Celestia say all that stuff about taking over? I'm not a politician. I was never supposed to be.
Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Relax Twilight. The Empress gave you this assignment as a vacation. Sort of. At least you're not still in Canterlot trying to hide from all the nobleponies."
Surprisingly enough, trying to talk herself out of panicking worked this time, a little bit. Twilight put on a determined face and opened her eyes, staring her reflection straight on. "Okay. Time to get to work."
She didn't have a checklist to write on—having left her saddlebags in the office—but she still had her head and a moment away from Mayor Mare to think. She was going to make good use of both.
"The only pony in Ponyville who looked like she might be qualified to provide catering is unavailable due to some sort of family crisis," she listed off. "It would have been nice to see that bird choir in the music program, but that's got the same problem. Their weather team is pretty good, but already overworked because of a budget shortage."
Mayor Mare had made a face like her teeth were being pulled when she told Twilight she really couldn't spare any of them.
"And I don't see why the Canterlot weather team shouldn't handle that aspect anyway. It's one thing to bring in talent from outside in order to foster a greater sense of community in Equestria as a whole, but that's a bit ridiculous.
"There was one pony who might have been able to handle setting up the celebration, as long as we limited her to the informal party, but she's out of town. Really, that just leaves the possibility of finding a decorator."
Twilight mentally ruminated over the dossiers that Mayor Mare had already presented, but it was pretty obvious that none of the other ponies were qualified. She sighed as she came to the inevitable conclusion that she was going to have to sit through some more of the bureaucrat's chattering. She sighed again and used her magic to flush the toilet and then run the sink for a few seconds just in case somepony was walking by the door, and then stepped out into the hallway and headed back.
Twilight was about to open the door when she heard a voice coming from inside the office. “This Rarity pony really sounds great.”
Spike’s voice was a bit muffled by the door, but clear enough that Twilight could hear without any trouble. She was impressed that he was still going over potential applicants even though she wasn’t there. Spike was a lot of things, but a slacker wasn’t one of them.
I need to give him some time off when we get back.
Mayor Mare’s voice drifted through the door, still enthusiastic, but with just a hint of what sounded like disappointment. “Rarity is probably the best fit out of all the ponies in Ponyville. I saved her for last because I was hoping she would be able to be here to wow you in person, but I’m afraid that looks like it won’t happen now.
“Rarity was supposed to come by this morning to help decorate the town hall before you arrived, but I haven’t seen her all day. That isn’t something you should hold against her though. She is Fluttershy’s best friend, and is almost certainly out somewhere with one of the search parties. The Summer Sun Celebration is a big deal to her, but some things take priority over even that.”
Twilight felt a strange combination of relief at the news that they were done and guilt because she shouldn't feel that way when something like that was going on. "Are you sure that there's not anything we can do to help?" she asked while entering the room and taking her seat.
Mayor Mare looked a little startled at her sudden entrance, but regained her composure quickly and shook her head. "I'm afraid not, unless you just happen to have a pegasus locating spell."
Twilight shook her head and the mayor sighed.
"I figured as much. The ponies we already have out searching know both the area and Fluttershy much better than you or any of your guards, and we already have so many ponies looking that another few pairs of eyes won't really make a difference."
"All right then..." Twilight hesitated. She felt like she should be helping, but what Mayor Mare said made sense. She couldn't think of a single way she could really be of use. "I guess that means we're done here then, if Rarity was the last pony on your list?"
The look of disappointed resignation on the elderly mare's face as she nodded pricked at Twilight's heart a little more than she'd expected it to, but what was she supposed to do? There really wasn't anypony in Ponyville that she could use.
"All right then. Um... thank you for your time?"
Twilight stood up and made for the door, Spike following close behind. On her way though, a thought struck her and she paused in the doorway so suddenly that Spike ran right into her. Self-consciously, she scratched at her neck with one hoof and said, "I really hope you find that pegasus, and... I'm going to be at the library for the rest of today and tonight researching a personal project. If Rarity turns up and has the time, she's more than welcome to stop by for an interview. Spike said she sounds good and it doesn't seem right to just rule her out like this because of extenuating circumstances. I have to leave really early tomorrow morning, but I'm not doing anything else today that can't be interrupted, so, like I said, she’s welcome to come by anytime. That goes for you too if you think of anypony else we missed here."
Twilight's words sounded clumsy and stupidly obvious to her ears, but the smile that lit up Mayor Mare's face was the first genuine one she'd seen all day. For once, Twilight felt like maybe she really had made friends with the bureaucrat. After bidding goodbye one more time, she walked out the door and headed towards the Ponyville Library with a lighter heart.
Pinkie Pie Comprehension ~ Day 2
Pinkie Pie was confused and bored, two feelings she never thought she'd ever feel in Canterlot. Even worse, she wasn't confused about one thing and bored about another, she was confused because she was bored! On top of all that, in a mind-twisting mess of confusaboredom-ception, she was confused and bored because of the Great and Powerful Trixie! Those things just didn't mix, like oil and water, or griffons and water, or cesium and water, or zombies and fire; except that zombies and fire actually went very well together if you looked at it from the zombie's point of view, because the only thing worse than zombies is zombies on fire. Griffon zombies who rubbed themselves all over with cesium-oil lotion, lit it on fire, and then fell into a swimming pool. A swimming pool filled with piranhas. And now it's raining flaming zombie piranhas everywhere.
There was no rain of flaming zombie piranhas though, even though Pinkie Pie would have welcomed the distraction. No zombie piranhas, no explosions, not even a doughnut. All she had was a wall to distract herself from the fact that the Great and Powerful Trixie had parked her wagon in a back-alley and locked herself up inside saying she had to "prepare her performance." What performance she had in mind Pinkie wasn't sure, because Trixie only came with her to cheer her on for her audition.
She thought about walking off to find a doughnut shop without Trixie for a second, but that didn't feel right. What kind of friend left a friend behind while she went off to eat sweet scrumptious things made by another friend who might not be a very close friend because they had just met but was still friends because they made sweet scrumptious things while that first (second?) friend was working hard at something that that was obviously really important? No, Pinkie Pie wasn't going to leave a friend behind. Unless she wasn't done in five minutes, because she had other friends to meet.
No, three minutes.
Three minutes was too long! With a single bound, Pinkie Pie was at the wagon's door with her hoof raised to start pounding furiously. Before she could start though, she heard a voice come from inside.
"For the last time, Trixie said she did not wish to be disturbed today! She is busy!"
Pinkie dropped her head in disappointment, but then a thought struck her and—
"No, The Great and Powerful Trixie does not want a doughnut! Save your bits for somepony who needs them!"
Okay, that was starting to get really creepy. Maybe Trixie really could read m—
"Trixie already addressed that. She is not a mindreader and will not make your head explode if you look at her funny, though she is seriously considering looking into the matter since you won't leave her alone!"
But then ho—
"You move your lips when you think."
Pinkie Pie narrowed her eyes at the door that stood between her and the Great and Mysterious Trixie.
"Solid objects mean nothing to magic! Now go, and seek no more to learn of Trixie's mysteries, for she is subtle and quick to anger!"
After squinting one last time at the door, Pinkie Pie dejectedly turned around and walked away.
As she stepped out into the main streets of Canterlot, she found her normal smile and bouncy gait returning. She couldn't stay down for long here. She was in Canterlot! There were ponies to meet, doughnuts to eat, and other verbs that kept the rhyme scheme going!
Twilight Sparkle Comprehension ~ Day 2
Twilight Sparkle stood outside the front door of the Ponyville town library which, much to her fascination, had been built into the trunk of a massive oak tree. She had the rest of the afternoon off and this was her chance to do some research.
There were so many questions buzzing around her head that she wasn't really sure where to start. Why did Celestia effectively name her heir to the throne when she wasn't qualified, there were other ponies who were qualified, and there wasn't even any point in naming an heir when the current ruler is an immortal goddess? Why had she never seen that book, History of Equestria, a Foal's Guide, before? Why did an apparently non-fiction book tell such an obviously untrue story? Why was there nothing else in any other books she knew that referenced it, fiction or non?
The only vaguely familiar thing in it was the name Nightmare Moon, but even that was at best a tangential connection because the Nightmare Moon it featured and the one in pony tradition shared almost no characteristics. Come to think of it, she'd never seen Nightmare Moon show up in any other books either. As far as Twilight knew, the character was a purely oral tradition. Perhaps the modern tales were a corruption of something from an earlier time that just wasn't written down for some reason or another? So would that make History of Equestria, a Foal's Guide a corruption of the oral tradition, or a precursor to it?
Did that mean that Nightmare Moon really was Celestia's sister, in spite of the non-indicative answer that the Empress had given when she'd asked about her family?
Twilight didn't think that any amount of research would answer why Celestia did things the way she did, and the rest of her questions hinged on that single pony, Nightmare Moon. She was the key. If Twilight could find anything that shed some light on who she was, that would set her on the right path. Even just a name, something connecting the legend with a real, known historical figure would be helpful.
Looking up at the tree and the relatively tiny library it housed, Twilight couldn't help but wish that she was back in Canterlot. This library was so small, and Ponyville so unimportant a place that it was probably next to hopeless to look for anything here.
"Come on Spike," she said without turning her head to look at the baby dragon sitting on her back. "Let's go do some research."
Rainbow Dash Comprehension ~ Day 2
Rainbow Dash quickly and quietly glided down to land in a giant hedge maze on the castle grounds, all the while casting glances back over her shoulder all the while to make sure none of the press pegasi had managed to find her. When she didn't see anypony silhouetted against the sky, she let a sigh of relief escape into the late afternoon air. "Goddess, I thought I'd never lose them!"
Ever since her encounter with Empress Celestia that morning Rainbow Dash had been hounded by mobs of press ponies and nobleponies, each and every one of them shouting at the top of their lungs demanding that she explain what had happened that morning in the throne room. Normally she would have loved the attention but she was just as confused as any of them, and trying to explain that to a crowd of angry Canterlot snobs wasn't the sort of thing she wanted to do. She wasn't even sure if palace guards were allowed to talk to the press anyway. Putting her miraculously won job on the line was the last thing she wanted to do.
What she really wanted was a moment to herself to figure things out, and it looked like she might have just won that prize.
Absentmindedly, Dash started trotting through the maze as she tried to clear her head. The place was actually pretty cool, with hedges twenty feet tall, all sorts of blind corners and dead ends and enough twists and turns that a half-dozen ponies could wander within feet of each other and never know it. Exactly how she wanted.
"Okay," she said aloud. "So, this morning I went in for a job interview with Red and nailed it. Then he took me out for a flight test, which I also nailed."
And by "nailed" Dash meant she'd blown out most of the windows in the palace with her Sonic Rainboom and broken the landing pad. Which was apparently a war crime.
Yeah, that was way overreacting on the guards' part, but Dash still felt pretty bad about it all now that she had a chance to let it sink in. The Rainboom was awesome of course, but she really could have gotten someone hurt with that stunt.
"And the next thing I know, I'm meeting the Empress and she gives me a job." Dash paused and thought for a moment to see if she'd left out any important stuff. "Not that I'm complaining about that or anything." She peeked down a side-corridor to make sure nopony was coming and then continued on her aimless path. "Still doesn't make any sense though."
As she rounded another corner that led into a five-way intersection, Dash heard something. Stopping, she looked around for the source of the sound, a little unsure if she’d actually heard it in the first place. After a moment though, her confusion was washed away as she heard it again, a soft hissing sound to her left.
"Psst! Dash! Over here!" a familiar voice whispered at her.
A clawed hand reached out from one of the openings in the hedge and beckoned at her.
Rainbow Dash cocked her head and stared at the outstretched arm for a second before the pieces clicked together in her head.
"Gilda?"
"Can it featherbrain, and get over here!"
Yup, that’s Gilda.
"Good to see you too, Gilda," Dash said dryly as she walked around the corner. "What in Equestria are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be training with the Wonderbolts?"
There, in a dead-end clearing in the maze, was her best friend from Junior Speedster Flight Camp. Gilda the griffon stood in front of a weird statue with her chest puffed out and a fierce glare on her face.
"Yeah I am, but then I heard about some idiot rainbow pegasus assaulting the Empress and I cut out to try and find her. Spitfire thinks I'm back in my bunk with a stomach bug and I probably don't got much time till she sends somepony to check on me."
In spite of herself and the day she'd had, Rainbow Dash couldn't help but laugh. Everything might be weird, but it was good to see Gilda again. It looked like she hadn't changed one bit either. "Yeah, that whole deal was just a little bit weird, but it all worked out so you didn't have to worry."
Gilda blinked, and for a second Dash thought she saw something glinting in her eye. Then it was gone before she could even be sure it was real, replaced by an even fiercer scowl as the griffon got up in her grill.
"You don't get it do you? You really don't!"
"Umm, I guess I don't?" Rainbow Dash said as she leaned away. "What's going on Gilda?"
"That's my question! I haven't heard from you in years, and then out of the blue you show up in Canterlot, do some Goddess-only-knows-what trick that blows out all the windows in the palace, injuring the Empress—you injured the Empress Dash! You injured the Empress and then did a rainbomb on the castle! Do you not get the sheer amount of crap you've landed yourself in?"
"Uh..." Rainbow Dash backed away from the irate griffon that was advancing on her until the pricking branches of one of the hedges forced her to stop.
"Each of those offenses carry the death penalty Dash! And you're flying around free and with your head still attached, not a single care in the world. What in Tartarus did you do!"
Dash's blood turned to ice at the words "death penalty" and she had the sudden urge to fly away from Canterlot right that instant without looking back. "I didn't do anything! I was just trying to get a job, and then all that stuff happened. T-they wouldn't give me the death penalty over something like that, it was an accident!"
Gilda buried her face in her claw. "Ugh! Classic Rainbow Dash. The clueless featherbrain who accidentally launches a single-pony assault on her Empress and capitol!" After a second she lowered her claw to reveal a curious look on her face. "So how'd you get out of it then? Somehow I don't think that Captain Ivory Tower is the sort to just let you off the hook because you said 'it was all a mistake officer. I swear!' He came and inspected the recruits my first day at training, and I know for a fact he's a gigantic hardflank."
In an instant, Dash relived the events of the day yet again, and just like every time before, all she came away with was the feeling that she'd missed something important. Dropping her eyes to the ground, she said, "I don't know Gilda, I really don't. I've been trying to figure it out all day, and none of it makes sense. One minute I'm in the middle of a flight test, trying to impress this old stallion guy so he'd give me a job, and the next I'm standing in front of the Empress, and she just lets me off—"
"Whoah whoa whoah!" Gilda broke in. You got an audience with Celestia? And she just forgave you like that?"
Dash snorted, "Not just that, she hired me! You're talking to the newest member of her personal guard." The look of shock and outrage on Gilda's face was almost enough to make Rainbow Dash laugh in spite of everything. She looked like an eagle that just got struck by lightning. "Don't get too envious though. I've got a feeling I’m gonna spend the next couple decades paying for all the windows I broke. I thought you already knew about that though. Celestia wasn't exactly doing anything to keep it a secret. It's gotta be all over the papers by now."
Gilda's beak snapped shut as she pulled herself together and tried to play it off cool, though she couldn't keep the unsettled tone out of her voice. "Nah, I heard it second-hand through the staff at the training camp, who heard about it from the guards. I had no idea you met Celestia. I came here thinking I'd have to break into a dungeon cell just to talk to you..." A troubled expression crept across Gilda's face as she fell silent.
For a little bit, Dash just stared awkwardly at her, but when the griffon didn't say anything she reached out a hoof and prodded her shoulder. "Hey Gilda, you okay?"
Gilda grimaced and looked up at her, a strange, glittery look in her eyes. Not tears or anything like that. Gilda didn't do tears. It was a hard look. "I don't like this Dash. It's all wrong. Nopony's acting like they should. I think... I think you've gotten yourself mixed up in something big."
Rainbow Dash raised her eyebrow. "What’re you talking about?"
"I don't know. I don't play those games. It's just... when you're in Canterlot and ponies start acting weird, it usually means that there's something going on. And it gets worse the closer you get to the Empress." Gilda looked around nervously, and then glanced up at the sun like she was checking the time. "Look, I've got to go before somepony figures out I'm not in my bunk. I'll see you again, but for now... Just watch your back, okay Dash?"
"Yeah... sure." The only ears Rainbow Dash's reply fell on were the deaf ones of the statue behind her. Gilda was already gone.
The statue was a weird creature with the head of a pony, a deer antler on one side and a goat horn on the other. His right arm was a lion’s leg, and his left looked like Gilda's arm, but one of the fingers was broken off at the joint. And then there were the wings. The creature had a pegasus wing on one side and a dragon's on the other. The whole thing was an unsettling mishmash of animals, and she could swear she heard it laughing at her.
Suddenly, she walked up to it, whirled around, and bucked the base of the statue as hard as she could. "What are you looking at?" She asked, turning around to glare at it's ugly face.
When it didn't say anything, Rainbow Dash was suddenly and uncomfortably aware of just how stupid it was to get mad at something that couldn't talk.
"Eh, whatever," she said, fluffing her wings in dismissal as she turned away. "I need to find a hotel or something and lay low 'til tomorrow." She could afford a hotel. She had a job now.
Spike walked up next to the desk Twilight was using and set a load of books almost as tall as he was down on it. "Eeeeeh. Maybe?"
The Ponyville library was big by tree standards but tiny by library standards, and it was as useless as she'd feared.
They'd started with history of course, but none of those books covered the right period. The legend of Nightmare Moon obviously came after the foundation of Equestria and the unification of the three tribes, but still just as obviously took place very early on, back during the time when ponies still called alicorns 'unicorns.'
It had all been useless though because there was not one book there on the subject of Nightmare Moon. Not. One.
Next, they'd moved onto myths and legends. It was the exact same story there. Children's books had proven fruitless as well. Now Twilight was reduced to simply picking stuff at random. While many of the books were interesting in their own right, she didn't have the time to actually stop and read them. Even for a studious pony like Twilight, hours upon hours of skimming over texts was exhausting.
Twilight sighed and closed the book she was reading, leaning back in her chair as she tilted her head back to gaze dejectedly up at the ceiling. "We're not going to find anything here are we Spike?"
Spike's feet made a soft padding sound on the wooden floor as he approached her seat and laid a comforting hand on her side. "Well, we knew it was a long-shot anyway. Right?"
"Yeah, you're right," she agreed softly. "It's just..."
"What, just you don't like that it's looking for something that probably doesn't exist?" he asked skeptically. "Twilight, I hate to call you crazy or something, but, well, you're acting kinda crazy. I still don't get why you even think that book is important."
Twilight righted herself in her chair and looked down at her assistant with a frustrated look. "That's just it Spike. It's not connected to anything! It's not based in any real history. It doesn't refer to any mythological history I recognize either. There's no context for this book at all! All I have to go on is a foal's tale. How can any single book be this... this isolated?"
Spike's only response was a raised eyebrow.
"Oh don't look at me like that. The rise and fall of myths are a very well documented phenomenon. Take the boogeybuck for example. It’s nothing but an amorphous imaginary being used by adults to frighten their foals into behaving. It doesn’t have any specific appearance, and because it represents such a non-specific terror, occupies a unique position in our modern mythology.
“On the one hoof, the unknown is one of our most primal fears. It is a built-in, lingering fear that gives the boogeybuck staying power in our collective consciousness. On the other hoof, because the boogeybuck doesn’t have any defining characteristics beyond that vague menace, it is easy to dismiss as a children's tale. The truth couldn't be less foal-friendly if it tried though, and even though there's not much left of the original legend in the modern monster, we can still figure out why it’s there at all.
“Boogey, or bogey, comes from the middle Equestrian word 'bugge,' which was the name of what we today would call a hobgoblin. If you look back through the various mythology books, you'll find that in all the earlier ones, they were presented as small, ugly creatures that looked a bit like a pony, and who's sole purpose in life was to cause mischief. They were so ugly, in fact, that their name served as the root for the modern word 'bug.'
"So how did something like the hobgoblin, an ugly, mischievous pony-like creature, turn into an object of undefined, but nevertheless powerful, fear?” Twilight asked before crowing excitedly. “They didn't! The ugly little pony is merely one aspect of the ancient myth, modernized and simplified beyond recognition. They are not an early incarnation of the boogeybuck so much as a parallel evolution stemming from a common ancestor.
"You see, originally, hobgoblins were believed to be low-level members of the Seelie Court, or the court of the 'good fairies.' I say 'good' simply in the sense that the Seelie Court wasn't outright evil. Fairies back then were more than superstition to ponies, they were serious business. According to their beliefs, having any dealings with the Seelie Court was a huge gamble. There are many stories of ponies being granted aid and help by fairies, but just as many where they caused nothing but anguish and grief. Sometimes they did it out of lack of understanding of ponies, sometimes out of boredom, sometimes for completely unfathomable reasons known only to them
"The Queen of the Seelie Court was the perfect embodiment of that concept. There are many tales of her granting boons to ponies on quests; magic weapons, mysteries only she knew, and so forth. There are just as many tales that depict her as cruel and sadistic though.
“It is said that she wished above all else to be beautiful, and so when the mood struck, she would find a mortal pony of renowned beauty, slay them, and wear their skin over her own hard, bug-like body. What is more, she would then return to the home of that pony and live as him—or, more often, her—for several years until she got bored of the charade.
"That part of the myth is likely where we get the formless, faceless terror of the boogeybuck." Twilight gave Spike a grim look. "And it gives new meaning to the phrase 'the boogeybuck is coming to get you,' doesn't it?"
Spike shivered.
"It is also what gives name to the third incarnation of the myth. Changelings. At first, the term referred to the Queen when she took on the identity of some poor pony, but over time it was embellished and added to until it referred to a foal that she had kidnapped to raise as her own, leaving behind a bugge disguised as the child in exchange. Eventually, even that faded into obscurity and now the changeling is even more extinct than the boogeybuck."
"Okay," Spike said slowly. "I think I get that, but what exactly does it have to do with Nightmare Moon?"
"Nothing! That's the point!"
Spike smacked his face with one claw and opened his mouth to say something no doubt unbelievably sarcastic before Twilight cut him off.
"I just demonstrated how myths grow and change. They're all part of an interconnected web of culture that reveals as much about the minds of ponies as any historical document can. Myths aren't standalone things, they all build off each other and eventually stem from a real world source or inspiration if you can manage to dig deep enough. They are born, they grow, they propagate, fall, and then are forgotten.
“But Nightmare Moon skipped all of that and went straight to the 'forgotten' phase. As far as I can tell, she's always been the same stupid being who steals candy and gobbles foals every Nightmare Night. Spike, we have a holiday dedicated to horror named after a creature that couldn't scare a six-year-old!
"Huh." Spike rubbed his chin with a contemplative look on his face, and Twilight knew she was finally starting to get him to see what her issue was. "I never thought about that before."
"And then there's the whole problem with the history books. I can't believe how I never noticed before. Actually, I can believe because it's so gradual. All the sources just sort of fade out over time until about midway through Clover the Clever's life, and then they fade back in over the course of the next hundred years. But there's a gap right there of about twenty, thirty years where we don't have any historical record at all for no good reason."
"Maybe it was a really boring twenty years?"
This time it was Twilight's turn to raise an eyebrow.
Spike sighed and said, "Yeah, yeah, I know. It's a big mystery and you need to figure it out or you'll go insane. I admit, it does sound weird, but I think you need to take a break. You're not going to find anything here anyway."
"But—" Twilight protested.
"No 'buts!'" Spike said sternly. "I'd tell you to go to bed because we've got an even earlier day tomorrow, but I know you're not going to listen to that."
Of course she wasn't going to go to bed, the sun was just barely going down! Yeah it set pretty late in the middle of summer, but still!
"But I need to get some sleep, and you need to drop this until you have the time and a proper library with proper reference materials on hoof."
Twilight didn't like it, but she couldn't argue with him. So she didn't. Instead, after a grumbling acknowledgement, she reached out and picked up one of the books she'd skimmed over earlier, an interesting looking one about the diamond dog-griffon wars in the third century.
Twilight could practically hear Spike's eyes rolling in their sockets, but he mercifully didn’t say anything else, so she added, "Mayor Mare said there was a bedroom upstairs. Why don't you go up there and go to bed?" She only hesitated a second before adding, "Don't worry. I promise to go to bed at a reasonable hour."
Spike leveled a stern look at her, one of those looks that he could only get away with on this one subject. "And by reasonable hour, you mean ten o'clock?"
Twilight nearly had a heart attack. "What? No! Ten o'clock is not a reasonable hour! One is a reasonable hour, maybe twelve."
Spike just leveled a glare at her without saying a word.
"Eleven?" Twilight proposed with a wince.
The dragon let the silence drag out for an interminably long moment before nodding once and saying, "Good night Twilight."
Without another word, he started up the stairs to find the bedroom.
***
Twilight read the last few words of Dogs and Cats: The Predator's War and gently closed the book. Leaning back in her chair, she contemplated what she'd read with a slightly dissatisfied expression. The author had concentrated entirely too much on the instinctive hostility between the Diamond Dogs and the Griffons, and not nearly enough on the political and economic causes of their conflict. He made it clear he thought the carnivorous races were ruled by their violent impulses outside any control of the mind. That was a common enough view at the time the book had been written, but these days that attitude was the sort that would ruin an academic pony’s credibility.
With a stretch and a groan, Twilight looked up at the window. It was dark out and the rest of Ponyville seemed to have settled down for the night, but a quick glance at the clock reassured her that she still had plenty of time before her agreed upon bedtime.
"All right," she said as she stood up. "Let's find something a little better to read."
She walked over to a sparsely populated shelf on the far side of the library that neither she nor Spike had gone through yet and started reading titles. It turned out it just held local stuff, like the history of the town and a few tax codes. As she scanned the books though, one group of volumes stuck out at her. They were four thin books, all done with the same style of binding and missing the titles on the spines.
Twilight reached pulled one of the volumes off the shelf and opened it to the first page. Instead of a proper title page, it just had the words, Journal of Britemac Apple and Log of His Journeys and Findings.
She cocked her head to one side and eyed the book quizzically. "What's somepony's journal doing here?"
Twilight glanced up at the clock and then back down at the journal before she shrugged and started leafing through it. "I guess they must have donated it to the library or something."
As she flipped through the journal, one entry near the end caught her eye. She was skimming over it when the words 'rainbow-colored explosion' leapt up off the page and practically hit her upside the head.
Twilight didn't even bother to take it back to the desk before she dove in. Instead, she just plopped her rump right there on the floor and started reading.
***
I have encountered a great many strange things in my travels, but today's events just show that you don't have to venture very far from home to find mystery. It started this morning as I was walking into town. I was just getting back from my recent trip to the Badlands when a strange, rainbow-colored explosion shot through the sky over Ponyville. Nopony is really sure what happened, but it came from the direction of the flight camp just outside of town that a lot of Cloudsdale ponies send their foals to over the summer. The rumor is that some filly performed a sonic rainboom. Can you believe that?
We weren't the only ponies who saw it either. My daughter Applejack had been staying with relatives in Manehatten while trying to find her cutie-mark, and she saw it from her window. She said that the rainbow trail leading to Ponyville made her realize just where she needed to be. Imagine everypony's surprise when she showed up back here in Ponyville the same afternoon with a brand new cutie mark on her rump, three shiny red apples!
I don't know if I've ever been so proud, and to tell the truth, I'm a bit relieved. I find myself coming back home sooner and sooner, and staying longer than ever between trips since we had children. Most of the time Creamy stays home these days too, but the trips are still hard on family life. It makes me feel a little safer knowing that Applejack and Macintosh don't seem to have inherited my wanderlust.
If that had been the end of the events that day, I think I would have been content. It was a mystery, but a good one I think, and I wasn't in any hurry to solve it. Something else has happened today though. It's a lot less magical, but it seems to have laid hold on my mind in a most peculiar way.
I was out at my favorite spot overlooking the reservoir just after the sun had set when I saw something white moving through the Everfree Forest. I couldn't figure out what it was, but it seemed larger than any pony I'd ever met. When I saw it, I felt a strange melancholy overtake me. My feet started moving of their own accord and before I knew it I was following the apparition into the forest.
As I sit here now contemplating what happened, I can't help but wonder what I was thinking. The Everfree Forest is no place to venture into during the day, let alone at night. I thank Celestia that we didn't go very deep because I don't know if I would have been able to turn back, so strong was the compulsion to follow. Instead, we kept a course parallel to the edge of the forest.
There is a very lifelike and frightful statue of Nightmare Moon near the town but just inside the edge of the Everfree Forest. It features a central role in the festivities of Nightmare Night, but lies ignored the rest of the year. It is that statue that was the destination of the mysterious visitor.
I can hardly believe that it didn't strike me until tonight just how strange that statue is. Why is it there at the edge of the Everfree Forest? Who made it? Nightmare Moon is a ridiculous legend that only frightens the smallest of foals, but the statue is about as far from ridiculous as it is possible to get. It depicts a fearsome, cold-hearted, monstrous pony; fiercer and more intelligent looking than any story would have you believe. After looking through records going as far back as I could find, including my mother's journal, I can safely say that it has been there as long as any pony can remember. I'm starting to think that it might even pre-date Ponyville itself.
That is the statue I saw when I finally stepped out of the treeline. I had long since lost sight of the pony, (for I am convinced that it was a pony) and was starting to feel a little silly when I espied something at the base of the statue. It was a folded piece of paper.
When I walked over and picked up the paper to unfold it, four long, shimmering hairs fell out of the creases. They were all of pale pastel shades, one pink, one purple, one green, and one blue. The only thing written on the paper was a poem or set of lyrics, which, after much hesitation, I have copied below.
Ask not the sun why she sets
Why she shrouds her light away
Or why she hides her glowing gaze
When night turns crimson gold to grey
For silent falls the guilty sun
As day to dark does turn
One simple truth she dare not speak:
Her light can only blind and burn
No mercy for the guilty
Bring down the lying sun
Tears so silver black by night
Upon the face of twilight
Cruel moon, bring the end
The dawn will never rise again
I did not—and still don't—understand the meaning of these words. What sort of feelings could drive a pony to write something so terrible, so full of malice, and dare I say it, grief? As I stood there underneath the light of the moon and the shadows of the forest, I felt the most horrible, soul-rending feeling of loneliness I've ever experienced. I wanted nothing more than to go back home to my family and never leave again; to forget the statue and the poem, to pretend that I had not intruded on this profoundly private place. I should not have gone there, and I should not write anything about it.
I am writing though. I cannot help but write it or else I feel I should burst. I have spent my entire life wandering, poking into ancient mysteries and wonders, but this... this is something profoundly different. The question has arisen inside my mind, who is Nightmare Moon that she inspires something like this? Who is this pony who holds such a grudge? These words and feelings could not have been conjured up by some simple children's tale or monster of superstition, but something real.
Perhaps it is just a product of the peculiar mood I am in tonight, but I feel that pursuing the answers to these questions will bring calamity down on my head and the heads of my family. I should leave the matter where it lays.
***
Twilight put the book down and tried to stand but her legs wouldn't hold her up. She looked down at her right hoof and realized it was shaking uncontrollably. Her heart was trying to burst out of her chest or crawl its way up her throat.
She tore her gaze away from her hoof and looked around the library, still lit up by the light of various lamps, but infinitely darker than before and even colder than that.
She tried to call out to Spike, but she couldn't stop the trembling in her jaw or loose the strangled feeling in her throat. Instead of words, all that came out was a keening whine.
There was something about that journal entry that summoned a terribly familiar, but utterly incomprehensible feeling stronger than she’d ever felt before. It robbed her of her warmth, her voice, her hope, and her self. Terror was not what held her in its grip though. The sensation that flooded through her body with every beat of her faltering heart, that clawed at her paralyzed vocal cords to be let loose, that erased every thought from her mind; that sensation was not fear, it was pure, undirected hatred. If she could have conjured up an iota of magic, or moved so much as a hoof, someone would have died in that very moment; whether herself or another, she couldn't tell.
Rarity Comprehension ~ Day 2
Rarity couldn't remember ever experiencing a more stressful or difficult day in her life, which was why when Applejack sent Applebloom, Mimosa, and Sweetie Belle upstairs to go to bed, she was surprised at the feeling of utter contentment that washed over her while she watched them go.
She had stuck around after those beastly pegasi left because she wanted to be there for whenever Fluttershy came back, and Applejack had agreed. Not long after that, Sweetie Belle had shown up looking for her and the two of them had spent the entire day at Sweet Apple Acres helping out where they could.
"Well, I guess that's all taken care of," Applejack said as the fillies' retreating tails disappeared up the stairs. She turned to where Rarity sat on the couch conversing about fashion with Clementine and said, "I want to thank you Rarity. You've been a mighty big help today."
"Oh, don't worry about that darling," Rarity turned towards her friend and dismissed the thanks with a wave of the hoof. "Anypony would have done the same."
"No," Applejack insisted as she lowered her eyes to the floor. "It means the world to me, what you've done. Stickin' around like that when those pegasi showed up took guts, especially after the way I treated you earlier. And I know you've made some real sacrifices stickin' around the whole day too."
For a second, Applejack stopped talking, then she lifted her head and looked Rarity right in the eyes. "I've done you wrong and you proved yourself the better mare, Rarity. I'm sorry."
Rarity was caught aback by the unexpected fervency of Applejack's words and found herself casting about for an appropriate response. "I... Thank you Applejack. I think you're selling yourself a great deal short though. You've been dealing with stuff that nopony ever should have to face, what with Macintosh, then Fluttershy, and now Braeburn and those ruffians."
"And explaining it all to Applebloom," Clementine said added in. Her voice seemed a little bit rougher than usual when she said, "That's not such an easy thing to do either."
"Yes, that too."Rarity added with a frown. "How did your talk with her go?"
Applejack sighed and walked over to a large, ugly armchair that sat by the fireplace and sat down "About as well as you'd expect. She's powerful hurt and upset, though she's tryin' not to show it, and I don't think she rightly understands everythin' that's goin' on."
"Do any of us understand what's going on?" Clementine asked softly.
Applejack's whispered response came out so softly that Rarity wasn't sure if she and Clementine were supposed hear it or not, "I sure as hay don't." Then she added louder, "She'll pull through though. Applebloom's always been a tough filly."
"Applejack?" Rarity asked hesitantly after some hesitation. "I've been meaning to ask all day, but with everything that happened, I just never had the chance. Why exactly did Fluttershy run off?"
Applejack put her hooves on the arms of her chair and slowly pushed herself up and out of the seat. Without meeting Rarity's eyes, she said, "I've got a feelin' we're going to be talkin' for a while. Before we start, you mind if I go get somethin' so our throats don't get parched in the middle of all this?"
"O-of course," Rarity said, a little bit taken aback.
Applejack walked across the living room and disappeared through the kitchen door as Rarity and Clementine exchanged a look. After about half a minute, she reappeared with a tray on her back that held three large mugs and a pitcher full of apple cider.
"There we go," she said as she transferred the tray to the end-table by the couch and started pouring cider into each of the mugs. Taking one of the mugs for herself, she returned to her seat and took a long drink.
Meanwhile, Rarity levitated the two remaining mugs and passed one to Clementine before taking a dainty sip out of her own. The cider might not have been quite as good as when squeezed fresh during cider season, but it still tasted exquisite.
Finally, Applejack put the mug down on the end-table by her chair and started talking, "I don't rightly know why she left. The best I can think of is that the news about M-Macintosh just plain pushed her over the edge and she doesn't know what she's doin'. It just don't make any sense otherwise." She looked at Rarity and said, "I'm real worried about her Rarity, and it doesn't sit right with me that I'm sittin' here nice and cozy while she's out there in Celestia only knows what kind of trouble. But to be perfectly honest, I don't know what else I can do about it. We've already got all the weather pegasi out lookin' for her afield and we covered all of Ponyville three times over this mornin'."
There were very few times when Rarity felt like she truly understood where Applejack was coming from, but she was certain that this was one of them. She'd tried not to show it, but staying on the farm all day, just waiting idly for news that somepony had found Fluttershy had been eating her from the inside out. The fact that it was now nighttime, and they still hadn't heard anything had her only a hair's breadth from charging out the door into the darkness and doing for herself what the pegasi apparently couldn't. "I understand Applejack," she said sympathetically. "I really do. I find this waiting every bit as unbearable as you do."
Rarity glanced down and noticed something on the tray she hadn't seen before, a note written in Fluttershy's mouthwriting. Her heart caught in her mouth, and her eyes darted back to Applejack, who met them with a knowing look and a nod. Gently, almost reverently, she picked the note up with her magic and read it to herself.
I'm going to look for him. Please tell Applebloom I'm sorry.
Fluttershy
P.S. Please look after the animals while I'm gone. They need to be fed three times a day. Angel knows which animals need what food and how much, so you can just ask him. Also, make sure their water is refilled twice a day. I'm so sorry about asking you to do this, but I have to go now or I won't ever be able to do it, and I just know you'll take good care of everyone. And if it's all right with you, could you please explain to Angel what's going on? He's probably worried because I never came home yesterday.
Rarity wasn't sure how to react. A large part of her was disappointed that Fluttershy hadn't written more. Another part was a bit let down that there wasn't a goodbye for her in it, even though it was silly to expect Fluttershy to mention her in a letter intended for Applejack. Mostly, she was just confused and greatly saddened now that she had something concrete, something right in front of her to confirm that Fluttershy had indeed run off to parts unknown.
Applejack banged her mug down on the end-table with a crash that made everypony jump. "And the worst part? I had to explain to Applebloom why it wasn't her fault that Fluttershy ran off, when I don't know why Fluttershy ran off! Why in tarnation would she go do somethin' so bone-headed stupid! What on Celestia's green earth was she thinking?"
"Maybe," Clementine interjected softly as she looked down into her own mug of cider. "Maybe she loves Macintosh more than you thought."
The resulting silence made the fur on Rarity's back stand on end.
"And just what, exactly, do you mean by that?" Applejack asked dangerously.
Clementine startled and looked up, blinking her eyes furiously as if she hadn't meant to say that out loud. It made her look for all the world like a filly Sweetie Belle's age for a second. "Oh dear. No no, that's not what I meant at all!"
Seeing the expression on Applejack's face, Rarity felt it best that she be the pony who spoke the next words, so she interjected before Applejack could open her mouth. "I'm sorry Clementine, but I'm afraid that I'm a bit confused. Could you explain what you mean for my sake?"
Clementine put her mug down and rubbed her hooves self-consciously together, not quite meeting either of their eyes and took a moment to think before answering. "I know how much family means to you Applejack. You love Applebloom with all your heart, and it's wonderful. However, for how devoted you are, you've just never had the chance to experience what it's like having that very special somepony to share the rest of your life with. I chose my words poorly, because it's not a stronger sort of love, if you can even measure it that way, but it is different."
Clementine turned to address Rarity directly. "I really don't know your friend or what kind of pony she may be, but if her reasons are anything like mine, I think I can understand a little." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing on. "You see, I came all the way out here with Mimosa is because I found out that m-my husband was cheating on me and I had to leave. I don't know how else to explain it. I simply had to leave. So I came to the only place I could think of."
Clementine fell silent for a long time, but Rarity knew she wasn't finished. When Applejack looked like she was about to say something, she gave her friend a discreet shake of the head. Fortunately, Applejack seemed to understand and settled back into the chair, picking up her mug to nurse the little cider that was left in it.
Just when the silence was starting to get very uncomfortable, Clementine continued. "It may sound strange to you, but I still love him. I guess that is what marriage does to a pony. I've spent so much time with him, working with him to build both our business and our family. It was every bit as wonderful as I hoped, though in a very different way than I dreamed as a filly. Now, I've spent more time with him than I did growing up here on Sweet Apple Acres. It doesn't matter what he did, that kind of love doesn't just go away. If there was something I knew that could take things back to the way they were, I would do it without a thought.
"The way it happened is different and comes along with an entirely different kind of pain, but I don't think Fluttershy's reaction is that far removed from my own. I lost the pony closest to me, and that loss prompted me to gather up Mimosa and the few things I could carry, and travel halfway across Equestria. I ran away from my husband, she's running towards hers."
"I'm so sorry," Rarity said gently as she placed a hoof on Clementine's foreleg. "I had no idea."
Clementine smiled weakly at her in return.
Applejack's voice came low from across the room saying, "I reckon I owe you an apology too."
Clementine closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and when she opened them again, she was back to her old self. The vital energy that seemed to drain out of her as she said her piece seemed to return in full force and she replied the firmness that an only an Apple family member steeped in the social intricacies of high society could bring to bear. "And I won't hear a word of it. This has been a trying day for everypony, and I think that instead of wasting any more energy thinking about who wronged who, we should do what we can about the problems in front of us. The ones behind can wait.
"I've been meaning to talk to you about what's been happening today when we had a chance alone," she continued. Clementine nodded to Rarity next to her on the couch and said, "You too Rarity."
"Okay..." Applejack seemed a little lost at the sudden change of pace and subject, but leaned forward to hear what her aunt had to say.
"Yes, please go on," Rarity said. "I confess that I've found today's events highly irregular." She winced and then continued. "Er, beyond even what they should be that is, but I haven't had a chance to really put what it is into thought."
Clementine settled back into the couch cushions, her face scrunched up a little as she tried to come up with the right words. All the while, Rarity couldn't help but secretly think that if she made that face often, the mare would soon end up with some very unsightly wrinkles.
"It's what you said to those military pegasi," she finally spoke. "There is most definitely something fishy about them."
Clementine had just put into simple words the uneasy feeling that Rarity had been feeling ever since they left, a feeling that was difficult to distinguish from her unease about Fluttershy, but had nevertheless been eating at her. "Yes,"she couldn't help but answer. "They struck me as a particularly shady lot too."
"I don't think they're actually soldiers at all." Silence filled the room for a long time before the older mare continued. "They just showed up out of the blue and demanded that you hand Braeburn over without any sort of due process, demanded to search your property without a warrant, and in general conducted themselves in a very unprofessional manner."
"Are you sure Clementine?" Rarity asked. "That's a strong accusation to level without much proof."
"No..." Applejack mused. "No, I think she's right. Did y'all notice how they never introduced themselves proper? They didn't say their names, or unit, or hay, even what branch they were in, though the uniforms said army. That's another thing. They didn't have name patches on their uniforms either. Now, I don't know all the rules, but I'm pretty darn sure that real army folk aren't allowed to walk around without name patches. Doesn't seem right."
"And it's not just that," Clementine nodded at her. "Their story seemed to have an awful lot of holes in it too. Braeburn lives in Appleloosa, a hole-in-in-the-wall town right in the heart of Equestria. Besides the fact that Braeburn would never commit murder, why would any military ponies be there in the first place? Who was the victim? What was the manner of death? For a murder investigation into a dangerous criminal, and one that offers an enormous sum of bits for his capture, they were remarkably tight with the details. And why hasn't this been plastered all over the newspapers? Murder isn't exactly a common occurrence in Equestria these days."
"And they did seem awfully put out when Applejack threatened to bring the police into the matter too," Rarity mused, her chin resting in her hoof. "You would think that in a matter such as this they would be working closely together. In fact, I would expect the police to have come with them. But on the other hoof, if they aren't official, then how do you explain the wanted posters and the reward? Those aren't exactly subtle things for ponies impersonating official military personnel to be using. Who else would care about something like this enough to go to those lengths?"
All three of them fell silent as they though about the implications of that last question.
It was Clementine who broke the silence again. "I think we should go to the police about this."
"What?" Applejack protested. "Now hold on a min—"
Clementine looked at Applejack. It wasn't a hard look or a challenging one, but it was also a look that didn't brook any nonsense. "What if they come back Applejack?"
"You... don't really think they're going to come back do you?" Rarity asked.
Applejack scowled down into her lap. "No, she's right. It ain't a matter of if they come back, but when. If these here ponies are legit, they're gonna come back with a warrant. And if they're not... Well, if they're determined enough that they'd impersonate officers like that, then they ain't the sort of ponies to just give up after bein' chased off once."
Rarity sat bolt upright and looked nervously at the window. "You don't think they'd go so far as to hurt anypony, do you?"
"I don't believe so," Clementine laid a comforting hoof on Rarity's as she replied. "They did carry themselves with the sort of self-control that you see in soldiers. They acted shady, but not like thugs. If they were those sort of ponies, I don't think they would have just backed off when Applejack threatened them like that." She turned her gaze back to Applejack "I was worried for a moment when you confronted them like that, but it turned out well in the end. I do think it would be wise to speak to the police about this though. That way if those pegasi aren't who they say they are, we'll have told the right ponies. And if they are legitimate, it will look favorable for us to go to the police rather than waiting for them to come to us."
Applejack looked like she was taking a bite out of a lemon, but she nodded her head curtly and said, "I'll go down to the station first thing in the morning. There's got to be somethin' else we can do though. I don't like relyin' on anypony like that, and goin' in without anything more than just a hunch that somepony's pullin' shenanigans ain't gonna look good no matter how you slice it."
"Yes, that's true," Rarity murmured as she took a sip of cider, her mind wandering inadvertently back to Fluttershy in spite of herself as the other two continued on.
It wasn't that Rarity wasn't interested in the new direction the conversation had taken, but Fluttershy was her best friend. The feeling of helplessness that came with having to stand by and do nothing while she wracked her brain for any to help wouldn't stop niggling at the back of her mind. She glanced back up at Applejack, who was sitting stiff as a board in that ugly chair, and all of a sudden, she thought she understood her a little more.
How has she managed to keep herself together like this? Have I been taking her strength for granted?
All of a sudden Clementine's words popped into her head.
"we should do what we can about the problems in front of us."
Applejack was her friend too, and she was suffering just as much as Fluttershy, though she might not show it so easily. If she couldn't do anything to help one friend, then she was free to help another.
But what can I do about this? Rarity thought to herself. I don't know anything about murder investigations or framing ponies. The only ponies who would know how to help are the police or somepony who ran in crimin—
Completely unbidden, a thought struck Rarity out of the blue so hard that she choked on her cider. Coughing and sputtering, she just barely managed to keep from dropping the mug and spilling her cider all over the floor.
"Are y'all alright there Rarity?" Applejack asked, interrupting whatever she'd been saying before her little fit.
"Oh, yes," Rarity managed to gasp out. "Just a little trickle down the wrong pipe, so to speak. I'm sorry about that. But since I have your attention, I think I may know something I could do to help."
No no no Rarity! I know what you're about to say, and the answer is NO.
"What is it dear?" Clementine asked.
Not in a million years! Not for anypony! Not even to save your own life!
"Well," she said, putting the tips of her hooves together as she tried to stall for time. "I'm afraid that I don't know anything about the sorts of ponies who would do something like this... but I might know a pony who does know, or at least, can find out if he should so choose."
Applejack leaned so far forward Rarity was afraid that she might fall out of her chair. "Really? Who?"
Rarity chuckled nervously, "Oh, it's nopony you'd know. Just an acquaintance of mine from the time when I lived in Fillydelphia. I understand he lives in Canterlot now though, so it would be a bit of a trip."
Clementine frowned. "That's a very long way to go to ask someone a question. Is a trip really necessary? I imagine it would be faster to send a letter."
"Well..." All of a sudden, Rarity found that the back of her neck was extraordinarily itchy. "I don't actually know his address per say, just the sort of places where he could be found, so that would make a letter difficult. I think it would go better if I asked in person anyway."
"Come on Rarity," Applejack said. "If you know somepony who can help, it doesn't do any good to be all mysterious about it. You don't look all that happy about bringin' him up anyway. What kind of stallion are you talkin' about?"
Stupid Rarity! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
Rarity sighed and slumped down low into the couch. It was terrible posture, but right then, she didn't care. "His name is Greaser. He's my ex-boyfriend."
Applejack nearly raised her eyebrows right off her face, and Clementine was certainly having a bit of difficulty not reacting to that.
"Look, you have to understand that I was young and naive and on my own for the first time in the big city. I made some bad decisions and some worse friends in Fillydelphia. Greaser tended to hang around with ponies who you normally wouldn't want to associate yourself with. He liked to... ingratiate himself with anypony who had sway, whether or not that sway was legitimate. If those pegasi were criminals, he'd probably know. And even if they aren't, I'm sure he could supply some information about why the police want Braeburn so badly all of a sudden."
"Okay. I'm not gonna pry into somethin' you're obviously sensitive about Rarity," Applejack said. "But is he even gonna help? Stallions aren't exactly known for appreciatin' when their ex suddenly shows up out of the blue."
"Yes," Clementine added. "When you separated, was it on good terms?"
"Eh heh heh." Rarity coughed nervously. "I guess that depends on what exactly counts as 'good terms.'" There is no universe where 'piling all his stuff in front of the building, lighting it on fire, and skipping town before he came home' counts as good terms. "I may owe him an apology or two, which is the other reason why I think it would be best to ask him in person. Air out the old laundry, so to speak."
Applejack frowned as she spoke, "I don't know Rarity. The more you talk, the more I keep thinkin' this is a bad idea. Canterlot's a long way away, and it sounds like this fellow isn't going to give you the time of day anyway."
Rarity didn't know why she was so set on arguing her case. Applejack had just given her the perfect out and she should have taken it. Instead, her mouth decided to completely sever the formerly close alliance it had enjoyed with her brain. "I know it sounds chancy Applejack, but I can do this. It may not be pleasant, but he will talk to me. If there's one thing Greaser can't pass up, it's talking." And he probably won't just walk away from a chance to hold a favor over my head.
"Is he dangerous?" Clementine asked.
"Oh, heavens no!" Rarity laughed. "He couldn't hurt a fly if he wanted to! No, he never got involved in anything. He didn't have the—ahem—apples for that. He's just the sort of pony who always seems to know the ponies who know what's going on."
"Okay, but what about your business? Ya can't just leave it to go traipsing off to Canterlot on a whim like that." Applejack protested.
"Ah. That should not be a problem. You see, I hope to have business in Canterlot anyway," Rarity said with just a hint of smugness. "I simply need to convince this Twilight Sparkle that I am the best pony for the job of decorating the palace for the Summer Sun Celebration, and that's all the excuse I need to head straight there."
Applejack and Clementine exchanged a look, and Applejack asked, "What do you think?"
Rarity's mouth couldn't resist putting one more nail in her coffin. "Please, I want to do this. It doesn't feel right to just sit around doing nothing when there's something I can do to help."
"I... I guess it's all right," Clementine said hesitantly. "And if you're going to Canterlot anyway, I might know some ponies who might be able to help that I still keep in touch with through the post. Fancypants and Fleur de Lis always seemed to know everyone and everything that was going on around them. If I wrote you a letter of introduction that would probably get you through the door to meet them, and I've never known them to turn a pony away when they needed help."
In spite of the gravity of the situation, Rarity's heart couldn't help but stop when she heard that. A letter of introduction to Fancypants? It was an absolute dream come true! She would of course never ever misuse such a letter for personal gain while her friends were in trouble, but she couldn't help but think of the benefits to her boutique should she be on speaking terms with the most important pony in Canterlot after the crisis was resolved.
"That," she gulped and tried again. "That would be wonderful, thank you."
Twilight Sparkle Comprehension ~ Day 2
It wasn't until Twilight heard a soft knock on the library door that she realized she was crying. She didn't know why she was crying when she was angry. She didn't know why she was angry for that matter.
"O—" She gasped, trying to steady her voice through the crush in her lungs and throat. "One moment please."
Forcing herself to climb to her shaking hooves, Twilight steadied herself on the bookshelf as she tried to catch her breath and calm down. One by one, she went through the faces of the ponies she loved just as she did when she woke every morning. It seemed to help. She didn't know if whatever pony was at the door had heard her or simply left, but she was grateful that they didn't rush her by knocking again. When Twilight finally felt like she was able to stand on her own, she wiped her eyes with her foreleg and walked across the main room of the library to the door. Taking one more breath to steady herself, she opened it.
The white unicorn on the other side jumped in surprise and lowered a hoof to the ground. It looked like she had been about to knock again after all. She recovered herself quickly though. "Oh dear, I did wake you up didn't I? I'm so terribly sorry. I was hoping you were still awake even though it's so late, and when I saw the light still on, I'm afraid I assumed..." The pony eyed Twilight up and down quizzically and asked. "You are Twilight Sparkle, are you not?"
Twilight nodded. "I am. May I ask who you are?"
The mare seemed to puff up a little bit at the question. "My name is Rarity. I was hoping you might have a spare moment. You see, Mayor Mare informed me that you were going to be staying at the library tonight and said it would be all right for me to stop by when I could. I was also lead to understand that you were leaving early in the morning so I took a bit of a gamble that you would still be up and about."
Oh, so this is Rarity. Slowly, the wheels in Twilight's head started turning as her brain caught up with the situation. For a moment, Twilight considered telling her that she hadn't woken her up, but decided against it. She didn't need a mirror to tell that her mane was all messed up and her eyes were red and puffy, and she was grateful at the ready excuse. Twilight really didn't feel like explaining her current state.
"Don't worry about it. Come on in." Twilight stood aside to make room for the other mare to come inside the library and gestured for her to take a seat on the reading couch, closing the door behind her. Quietly, she mentally geared herself up, trying to bring to the front of her mind all the books she'd read about etiquette and conversation. In the state she was in, she was going to need all the help she could get.
Flattery is always good.
"To tell you the truth," she said. "I'm actually glad you stopped by. The mayor told me about you and your qualifications, and I was worried that I'd end up having to leave Ponyville without getting to meet the pony she spoke so highly of."
Rarity waved a hoof through the air as she leaned forward in her seat on the couch. "Oh you flatter me. I confess that I do have some small skill in the decorative arts though. And I daresay that if you give me the opportunity, I can help you make quite the splendid impression at the Celebration."
Okay, things are going well. I think. Formal, but well. Formal is good, right?
Twilight smiled as she walked across the room to where her guest sat, and to her surprise, it was a genuine smile. Small, but still genuine. Suddenly Twilight decided that formal was good, but she could do better. "Would you like some tea?"
***
When Twilight climbed into bed, she did so without any idea of if she'd stayed up too late or not. She was exhausted.
Her chat with Rarity had gone extraordinarily well. It hadn't taken long at all for the other mare to warm up to her. Before Twilight could process how or why, Rarity had mysteriously produced a brush and some other styling tools and had insisted on giving her an impromptu makeover, steamrolling right over Twilight's protestations that she would just mess her mane up again when she went to bed.
More than just being very friendly, Rarity was also among the most competent ponies Twilight had ever met; in her own field at least. For once, she found that Mayor Mare hadn't exaggerated when she'd spoken of Rarity's skill. If anything, she'd undersold her. When Twilight offered Rarity the position of decorator, she'd thought for a minute that she was about to cry. Instead, the other mare had thanked her profusely and left so that she could get to bed. The only regret that Twilight had about the evening was that she hadn't thought to ask Rarity about her friend until after she was gone.
Fluttershy Comprehension ~ Day 2
The moon rose into the sky in front of Fluttershy as she glided low over the treetops through air that was as still as a deep forest pond. To her weary eyes, it looked like it was so close that she could reach out and touch it.
In a great many ways, it had been the worst day of her life and it showed. It showed in the look of utter exhaustion on her face, in the way her muscles trembled uncontrollably just trying to hold her wings steady, in the limp way her legs dangled beneath her as she glided inches above the whip-like branches of the forest canopy. She would have tried to climb higher, but she just couldn't flap her wings any more.
Every second of the day, every part of her mind was screaming at her to turn back, to go home where it was safe, to apologize to Applejack and Applebloom, and to cry until she couldn't move. She'd left without saying goodbye because she knew that if anypony had said anything, she would have caved in immediately. She'd flown without stopping because she knew that if she looked back, she wouldn't be able to go even one wing-beat further from Ponyville.
Fluttershy wasn't a distance flyer. In fact, she barely thought of herself as a flyer at all. By the standards of any other pegasus, the distance she'd covered in that amount of time was probably pretty pitiful. She'd glided most of the way, only ever flapping to maintain altitude, but she hadn't stopped and that was what was important. She hadn't looked back, and she was farther from Ponyville than anyone would think to look for her, if they were looking at all.
Now she was so tired she couldn't turn back if she wanted to. She was too tired to panic, too tired to think. Too tired to do anything but keep her wings level and hope that when she came down, it wasn't into the side of a tree or in a pond.
All of a sudden, the shadowy trees vanished from beneath her, and in the light of the moon, she saw a vast field of wheat stretching out ahead. It was the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen.
Completely out of her control, Fluttershy's speed slowly wound down until she just barely floated a few inches above the wheat. For just a moment, she seemed to hang in the air, and then she landed in a crumpled heap, cushioned by a bed of thick green stalks. She passed out before the plants finished rustling in the wake of her arrival.
