//------------------------------// // Deceit // Story: Corrigenda // by Jay Bear v2 //------------------------------// It was noon, and Fluttershy was starting to worry. Rainbow often slept in. Fluttershy hadn’t expected their appointment with Rarity to be any different, so she had arrived early the next day at Rainbow’s home, only to find no one there. Fluttershy’s next stops had been to the Weather Service headquarters, the Air Guard Reserve training field, and the apartment where a pair of the Air Guard pegasi lived together. It was all in vain. “Maybe she went back to Sweet Apple Acres,” one of the pegasi at the apartment said. “Yeah, nothing like a little hair of the dog that bit ya,” her companion retorted. “For Dash?” the first one said. “With the cider she put down yesterday, she’d need the whole dog pelt.” Fluttershy had laughed it off at the time. As she found herself walking down the forest path to Sweet Apple Acres, though, it became obvious that Rainbow winding up here was the most likely outcome. Fluttershy could no longer deny that Rainbow’s problem was getting worse. Somepony would have to help her. There was a fork in the road that Fluttershy didn’t remember from the day before, and she paused to consider it. Down the left path were the outlines of a few farm buildings, while the path to the right felt more familiar in a peculiar way. It was the trees, she then realized, the way they grew in twos and threes. This march of oaks would lead her true, her destiny to bid adieu. “Fluttershy, stop.” The unexpected voice made her jump. She looked behind her to find Kyubey sitting at the junction in the path. He, and the junction, were at least a hundred paces away. Had she really walked all this way and not noticed? “There could be a witch nearby,” he said. “I can feel an enormous amount of psychic energy here.” “No, there couldn’t. A witch wouldn’t trap ponies here, that much is clear,” Fluttershy said, shaking her head. “Wow! It’s even stronger down this path.” He appeared by her side with his weird polished hide. “You are in immense danger. For your own safety, please stop trotting.” “What a thought you have got! I am not in a trot…” Except that she was. Until the cold stab of fear killed her movement, she had been trotting, accelerating into a canter. Her heart was racing as she skittered backwards to the fork in the path. “I didn’t realize…” She gasped. “I didn’t…” “Were you looking for witches for Rarity?” “No! Good heavens, no. I was trying to find Rainbow, and some of her friends said she may have gone to Sweet Apple Acres last night.” “Oh.” Kyubey looked down the right path. “What is it?” “It’s possible the witch has Rainbow.” “No.” She followed his gaze down the path. “No. Don’t say that.” “It is a possibility. Regardless, we should inform Rarity. Stay here. I’ll get her.” “Please say it’s not true,” she said. She kept looking down the path and began to shake. “What I say is irrelevant to reality.” For a long moment Fluttershy could only stare down the path in silence. She looked behind her, but could find no sign of Kyubey. When she turned again to face the path to the witch, she came eye to eye with the stranger. All wrong. Rarity had placed four settings on her table, each with: salad and dinner forks on the left; knife, teaspoon, and soup spoon to the right; bread plate and butter knife in the top left corner; teacup with saucer, water glass, and tumbler in the top right; and a napkin with blue floral patterns folded into a crown on each plate; all resting on white lace place mats. The center of her table blossomed with wildflowers that sheltered a banquet of fruits, berries, juices, oats, pastries, biscuits, scrambled eggs, butter, marmalade, and cream. Their aromas mingled and drifted throughout the house, aided in their passage by a gentle breeze from a propped-open door connecting to the atrium. That morning, the light through the windows had caused the entire display to glow as if made of gems. It had been nothing less than perfect. Now, as the flowers wilted and the buffet staled, Rarity grew to realize her sense of disappointment was all wrong. Disappointment meant to expect something and have that expectation unmet. To be sure, a part of her had expected Rainbow’s and Fluttershy’s arrival this morning, but that had been greedy of her. In life, one receives only what is earned, and Rarity knew she had done nothing to deserve their company. Even if they had had been so generous with their company as to join her for brunch…four settings, for two guests and herself. What an inexcusable waste. She disassembled the settings and returned each piece to its place in a nearby bureau. Rarity had always been perfect. Even as a filly, whatever craft she practiced, she was not satisfied until the results of her work marveled every sense. The meals she cooked had to look as beautiful as a rose. The flowers she grew had to sound like music when they rustled in the wind. The songs she played had to warm her audience’s hearts like a winter jacket. The clothes she made had to feel as soft as fresh cream. One time, during a school play, she spied one of her classmates furtively lick the bejeweled collar of a costume Rarity had made. Even as she exclaimed the foal’s faux pas, a devious part of her considered it the proudest moment of her middle school career. She had grown up with the most enviable family. Hardworking and caring parents, a life of modest comfort in the heart of Manehattan, and at the center of it all, her. Rarity’s life was perfection dearly won. And then it was perfection frivolously lost. To this flawless balance was added a snotty, clumsy, brash little thing they named Sweetie Belle. Ever her parents’ faithful, and first, daughter, Rarity had loved her precious little sister, even as the brat sent her time and again over the precipice of animosity with her crying, her meddling, and her larceny of their parents’ attention. In the end, Rarity always forgave Sweetie Belle, even when she didn’t deserve it. Rarity’s contrition served as proof that someday she could forgive her parents for introducing this continuing disturbance into her life. When she had started high school, a wave of foal disappearances struck Manehattan. Rarity knew she was too bright to fall for some abductor’s chicanery, but nevertheless her parents decided they would move to some quaint village in the country named Ponyville. She had accepted this turn in her life—a temporary exile from the high culture of Manehattan—but Sweetie Belle had turned into an unceasing tempest after the announcement. The move was calamitous. Their furniture went missing in transit; they all came down with a stomach flu the first week; the deal on a new house fell through at the last possible moment; and their parents struggled with starting new jobs while the four of them shared a single hotel room. One weekend, their father arranged a surprise: a morning hot air balloon ride over Ponyville. “We’re too down on this place, but that’s cuz we never got a good look over this new home of ours,” he said at the balloon launching grounds. “What we need is a pegas-eye’s view of it.” He nudged Rarity. “Get it? A pegas-eye’s view?” “‘A’ as the indefinite article is used only with singular nouns, but ‘pegasi’ is plural,” she said. “Your pun is nonsense.” Later she would realize that was the only thing she said to him all day. The rugged-looking earth pony operating the balloon had an air of nonchalance that bordered on inattention. As their basket ascended, and as her mother tried to shush away Sweetie Belle’s terror of the loud burner, Rarity sulked in one corner. She moved only when her father approached, to turn her back to him. “You enjoying the ride, huh?” he asked. She said nothing. “Yeah, it’s a sweet view,” he continued. “Hey, you can see the hotel from here. Check it out, it’s tiny! Heh, and I didn’t think there was anything that’d make it feel even smaller.” He looked down at her. She focused on counting the strands of wicker in the wall of their basket. “C’mon, dragonfly, you’ll miss the whole show.” He only called her ‘dragonfly’ when he was trying to be affectionate. She did not respond. “Okay.” He sat next to her. He started to reach a foreleg around her, stopped when she tensed, and returned it to his side. They let the roar of the burner fill the silence awhile. “So listen,” he began, “your mom’s gonna kill me for saying this, but this whole move, y’know, it’s been manure.” “Magnum,” her mother grumbled. “Hey, it’s true! Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Then everything that couldn’t go wrong got screwed up even worse. It’s been tough. Real tough. “I’m gonna let you in on a secret about managing a household. Your mom and me are struggling to keep anything else from going haywire, but I don’t think I’ve done a great job of it. Sure, we’re getting the bills paid, and once we find a place, we’re gonna make those nitwits at the moving company buy us all new furniture for it.” An obnoxious clanking sound came from the burner, and her father paused while the operator jabbed the device back to normalcy. The earth pony returned to his post, and her father resumed. “Now you and Sweetie, you’ve been pretty upset and it was kind of getting to me. I’m thinking, here I am, busting my flank, worrying about keeping you guys safe from whatever the hay was going on in Manehattan, trying to keep everything here going not-awful, and you guys are acting like the whole world is about to cave in. I was getting kinda steamed about that. I kinda wanted to come over here and tell you knock it off because it’s not making my job any easier. “That was real selfish of me, wasn’t it?” His last comment, uttered almost under his breath, surprised her. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” he said, “but this must have been huge for you. Changing schools, making all new friends, having to get used to a whole new town. You probably need a buddy through all that. I don’t know how much of a buddy I’ve been to you before, but I know I haven’t been there for you since we got here. For you, or Sweetie, or your mom. “I’m sorry for that. I want you to know, if you ever need to talk, I’ll put down whatever I’ve got going on and be there for you. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick the whole dang baker’s dozen in my eye. “So, uh, does that make things okay between us?” He reached out a hoof to her. She wanted to say to him that she had nothing to say to him. That he was clearly incapable of understanding how he and her mother had taken an idyllic life and debased it with gratuitous complications. That Rarity may not have been destined for fame and fortune before, but at the very least, she deserved a trifle better than this. The one thing he needed to know was that it was never going to be okay. In retrospect, she was so petty. “Okay?” her father said again. She was about to open her mouth, but stopped at the jarring sight of an all-white creature like an otter crossed with a lynx perched on the rim of the gondola. It sat, looking serenely back at her, while the clamor of the burner turned into a piercing squeal. Then came the flash, and the sweltering air, and the ringing sound drilling through her head, and she couldn’t tell what was up or down anymore. “I can help you,” she heard. “Make a wish and I will grant it. In return, you will help me fight witches.” The otter-lynx was next to her, motionless. The ground raced towards her. “Just make a wish.” His lips did not move. Nothing about him moved. “I wish you would save me,” she whispered. How could she be so careless? She was standing on the grass and beginning to make sense of what was happening when the remains of the balloon and its four passengers hit the ground. “Save me,” she had said, not “save us.” Singular and plural. Perhaps it had been unconscious, wrought from her residual antipathy, she told herself. Maybe that feeling was amplified by her father’s awkward apology. None of that absolved her, though. As the life insurance policies and settlement from the hot-air balloon company paid out, Rarity knew who was to blame for why she was singular: her. There had been a glimmer of hope when she rescued Applejack from the disorienting vineyards of a witch’s labyrinth. Rarity had seen potential in the beleaguered earth pony right away, and after they had slain the witch together, Rarity set about trying to entice Applejack. For almost a year, she let Applejack watch as she prepared for, and executed, hunts. She was always willing to answer Applejack’s questions, but never pushed her to talk to Kyubey. It worked: one day, Applejack appeared at her door with a brilliant necklace and a knowing smile. The next day, Bright Mac returned, and it all fell apart. Applejack threw herself into witch hunting with a zeal that Rarity worried was unsustainable. When Rarity broached the subject of moderation with her protégée, Applejack raged at her. She claimed Rarity was too controlling, too nosy, too much of a mother. Rarity tried to reason with her but ultimately resorted to giving Applejack a few days by herself to cool down. She never saw Applejack again. When Rarity had presented her past to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash the day prior, it wasn’t fair to say she deceived them about her certainty of Applejack’s fate. Falling to a witch was the most likely outcome for an inexperienced hunter. For Rarity to say she had no doubt that it actually happened was, at worst, an exaggeration. The deceit was in hiding her fault for it. Fluttershy was wrong. Rarity didn’t feel alone. She had no right to feel alone. Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash had abandoned her because she deserved it. Until she earned someone’s forgiveness, she was entitled only to being singular. Kyubey had appeared on the newly cleared dinner table. Rarity forced a smile and said, “To what do I owe the pleasure?” “There is a witch near Sweet Apple Acres,” he said. “It’s very strong, and it may have Rainbow Dash.” She was confused at first: why had Rainbow been near Sweet Apple Acres? Where was Fluttershy? However, there was no time to wonder. Rarity sprinted down a hallway, peppering Kyubey with questions along the way. “Where precisely?” “About halfway down the path from Ponyville.” “What’s the lure?” “Something to do with rhythm in sound. It might be musical.” “Entrance cue?” “Yes, there’s a visual cue. It appears as a false fork in the road.” Rarity reached the study, the only locked room in the house. She produced a key from her dress and extended it towards the keyhole. “How do you know it has Rainbow Dash?” “I’m not sure it caught her, but it almost captured Fluttershy. When I asked her why she was there, she said she was looking for Rainbow.” Rarity fumbled the key, and it dropped to the floor. “You shouldn’t have left her there,” she said. Kyubey was silent. Recovering the key and opening the door, she entered the study and began flinging open the file drawers. A hurricane of maps and notes filled the air, each page whipping past her before returning to its place. “There’ve been no reports of missing ponies around Sweet Apple Acres,” she said, “and none of the roving witches pass near there. This one must be new, but you said it was strong already?” “Yes, very.” Rarity began sorting through the possibilities in her head. In more than a decade of witch hunting, she’d learned how to use reports of missing ponies to track witches, distinguish between their types, predict how they moved or when they wouldn’t, and determine the best time to strike. Had Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash joined her, she would have taught them everything. Her lessons would instead have to wait for the next protégé, whoever it may be. First, she needed to save Rainbow and prevent Fluttershy from falling prey to the witch. “Kyubey, I’ll hurry to the…” She looked around the room only to find Kyubey had disappeared. It wasn’t the stranger. It couldn’t be. As the unicorn, or what looked like a unicorn, spoke, Fluttershy grew more and more convinced that the witch was playing a trick on her. She distracted herself by humming along to waltzes she remembered. “…though now clandestine, by the autumnal equinox, the miscreation’s esurience will impel it to strike,” said the witch pretending to be the stranger. “Hmn hm hm, hmn hihmhi,” hummed Fluttershy. “Hmn hm hm, hmn hihmhi.” “…must eschew from complicating my stratagem. That is the most critical imperative. I will engage it alone.” “HMMM hmmm hi-hmmm,” hummed Fluttershy. “Hm hi hmnhmm hi hmnhmm hi hmmmn-hmm.” Fluttershy lost track of time as she danced around the illusion’s spells. She lost track of the world soon after that, closing her eyes and imagining an enormous ballroom filled with masked ponies, sweeping and being swept across the floor. Standing apart from the crowd, she felt out of place, until a stray glance downward revealed she was dressed as splendidly as everyone else in a gown made of pink and fuchsia fairy wings. A stormy cloud hung low amongst the gaiety. It was Rainbow Dash in a hooded dress, skirting the edges of the ballroom, a lost expression on her face. Rainbow had nothing to fear and would fear nothing if only she knew. Fluttershy had to tell her. She started to gallop, the crowd parting around her, but no matter how hard Fluttershy drove herself, Rainbow remained in the distance. “Put her down this instant!” Rarity’s shout broke the daydream. Fluttershy opened her eyes to find herself floating in the air, surrounded by a unicorn’s aura, and her legs furiously working without result. Rarity and the illusion of the stranger were a few paces behind her. “She would now be under the witch’s sway but for my intervention,” the illusion said. Fluttershy floated down until her hooves touched dirt. “It’s a trick,” Fluttershy said to Rarity. “It’s not really the stranger. The witch is making it all up.” “Your so-called stranger is quite real,” Rarity said. She walked to the stranger’s side with her eyes closed, as if following a scent. “Kyubey was right, this is quite a vigorous beast. I suppose you’ve come to claim it.” “No.” Rarity cast a sidelong glance. “Then you won’t object if I do?” “Your druthers are your own, but do not involve Fluttershy. She will remain here with me.” “I had something a little different in mind,” Rarity said, and instantly the stranger’s staff menaced the side of her head. She did not react. “I know our brief history has been more marred by acrimony than marked by harmony, but I propose we change that today. Kyubey said this witch is powerful, and I’ve not had time to make the preparations to which I’m accustomed. In short, I’ll need help.” “What are you proposing?” “I was hoping that we could cooperate.” Rarity turned to face the stranger and reached out a forehoof. The stranger said nothing. “At least for this one time,” she added. “We could see how it goes.” The stranger’s gaze drifted to Rarity’s outstretched hoof. “Not once have you offered me an armistice. I had not thought you capable of surprising me any longer.” “That is my speciality,” Rarity said sweetly. “Being underestimated.” The stranger lifted their head, adopted a smile, and tapped a forehoof to Rarity’s. Rarity’s expression turned cold. “I am so, so sorry.” Ribbons sprang from the ground, streaks of purple snapping through the air, and wrapping around the stranger, leashing them to two trees by the road. They cried out in a hoarse bellow until the strips of fabric tied their muzzle shut. Their exposed eyes burned. “I truly am,” Rarity said as she backed away, “but I can’t trust you. With what’s at stake, it’s too important to put my life in someone else’s hooves. You understand, don’t you?” The stranger convulsed against their bindings. “Those will hold you fast, at least as long as I command them to, and sap any normal magic you’d throw at them. Knowing you, I can’t rule out that you have something extraordinary to undo the effect. All I ask is to abstain from that. Show me that I can trust you.” The stranger made a sound halfway between a growl and a huff. “Please.” The stranger made the growl-huff a few more times, but then after a quiet moment, nodded slowly. “One last thing,” Rarity said. Her attention turned to Fluttershy. “I’m afraid it’s a ‘no’ on your earlier demand. It wouldn’t do to come back to a hostage situation.” Before the stranger or Fluttershy could respond, Rarity grabbed her, and galloped down the path to the right. A song of hums. Strings for hymns in sustained harmonies. Strong and handsome: a strained heroine, surviving horrors unseen. Strangled or hanged or chopped, chopped, chopped. (The composer works out of sight. Her minions, in the shape of metronomes emitting dulcet buzzes, stand atop a soaring tower, defending her from any critic who would tamper with her timeless masterpiece. An imposing edifice grows as the minions place one brick atop another. The impact of brick meeting brick is their percussive accompaniment as they chant.) Where is our voice? Our voice is gone. Where is our voice? Our voice is gone. Where is our voice? Our voice? Our voice? Our voice? (Enter: RARITY.) (She tries to speak but produces no sound. Seeing the minions and hearing the rhythmic beat of their construction, she improvises a dulcimer by attaching threads across a crack on the tower wall. Using her needles as hammers, she plays it and sings.) Brick by brick, building ever higher Mortar laid, is all this permanence assuring? Or maybe it’s solitude you seek Tell me, what’s it you’re securing? You have built a fortress for your master I’ve come to bring about disaster Now, show me to the witch! Where is? Our voice? Our voice? Is gone. Where is? Our voice? Our voice? Is gone. Where is? Our? Voice. Now, show me to the witch! Whereisourvoice? Now, show! Ourvoiceisgone! Show-ohwo! Whererererererere (Rarity slings four needles into the top of the tower and pulls down, attempting to topple it. The tower refuses to budge.) I know you’re here I’ve come to save the life The life! The life! The life! Of my friend Rainbow Dash from this foul strife Foul strife! Foul strife! Foul strife! She and dear Fluttershy have said they’d be They’d be! They’d be! They’d be! A help to all the ponies that I free I free! I free! I free! But in this labyrinth she has no hope No hope! No hope! No hope! Rainbow has no capacity to cope. You dope! You dope! You dope you dope you dope! (Rarity throws more needles. This time, they tear away the uninterrupted repetition of the tower to reveal ruts and bridges built into the bricks. Her threads fall into these grooves to become taut, thrumming wires.) Your labyrinth is a temple for your strings Such soothing solitude it brings A murdered choir sings of piety While stolen holiness Reinforces loneliness And protects you from society Or did you fear an audience Would see your work while incomplete And judge your genius On this imperfect feat? You beckoned Rainbow to your clutch And called Fluttershy to follow It is time your ballad was begun Or was your promise hollow? (The minions vanish, while the bridges, grooves, and wires multiply. The remaining bricks transform into stone arches and stained glass windows. A cathedral rises around the ponies. The wall facing them is lined with countless gray strings of different lengths.) (Enter: THE VIOLINFINITA.) One voice. What infinite joy comes from but what one voice. Though a string begets countless tones, A horn is rich with bass and treble, A chime may twinkle like the stars, And drums resound with their rumble, I find no voice in my music Each note is lonely in its instant. When strings are added (Two tones may be heard) When strings are added (Two tones may be heard) {Four tones may be heard} When strings are added (Two tones) {Four tones} *A dozen tones* -A thousand tones- …May be heard But with a chord (In every chord) Do you hear a voice? The voice of one being? (And if there is a voice) {When there is a voice} *Where there is a voice* Does it exist if forgotten? Sound in time will never linger All that’s left behind is lost (An altar rises before Rarity and Fluttershy. It bears Rainbow Dash.) Forgotten? Your music isolates A voice? Yours never mattered Eternal silence from your victims Is the only thing that’s heard You cannot deceive me This is not by my choice Rainbow Dash will be free I sing not of my voice I’ve the tools to shatter you I’ll be complete seizing my Soon my needles will fly true Brand new prize, Fluttershy (Fluttershy and Rainbow disappear. Among the strings of the violinfinita, two additions appear: one, yellow, making soft, hesitant, lulling tones; another, blue, sounds haggard, melancholy, and frail.) (Rarity returns to her dulcimer and faces the yellow string.) My friend’s deep sweetness is her strength Her gentle words are brave Through patience she showed I was wrong Her ceaseless hope can save (The yellow string vibrates concordant with her, while the rest of the violinfinita is quiet. Rarity turns her attention to the blue string.) Ms. Dash’s courage knows no bound She always finds a way Although her purpose she’s not found Her friends she won’t betray (The blue string resonates, but this time the rest of the violinfinita echoes. Rarity adopts a jauntier melody and faces the entirety.) The potential of these ponies Would be squandered by your schemes Nor will I be their master They are free to live their dreams Each one of us is made with flaws That our loved ones will accept Greater are my imperfections I’ll leave promises unkept A life submerged in despair Wishes made with little care My ambitions all postponed Naught by death will be atoned Transgressions made me who I am Yet they love what I became If they accept my past mistakes Maybe I can do the same Connections to our friends make right What we’re not forgiven of And when our bodies turn to dust All that’s left behind is love Was that my father’s meaning When a string of jewels flew by I asked him what their name was And he called them dragonfly. (The entire violinfinita rumbles to life. Rarity plays on, dissonant.) One voice You alone are nothing A gift A song of stolen lives Pure Refinement means to cut away Unique Every string held prisoner Mine Free them to live, create And destroy (The cathedral explodes. Uncountable strings break free from the wall, and each regains the form of a pony. All but two are gray and lifeless. Rarity seizes Fluttershy and Rainbow from the air, but cannot help the others. The two pegasi awaken.) (The composer’s heart lies exposed in the ruins of the altar. Rarity sets Fluttershy and Rainbow on the crumbling ground and charges towards it, her needle and thread cutting the air around her.) (She does not see the minions hiding in the ceiling. They descend on her, their swinging armatures cutting more than air.) (Where once was one pony, alone, there is none, in pieces.) (The minions surround the two pegasi. The great work, the work of my life, is ready to be debuted. I begin my cadenza.) Wasted are your final seconds as you realize All that’s left behind are lies Words of comfort make you fragile Be shattered or unknown. The brightest life will burn away Every ounce of tarnished flesh What remains will be unsinged. Artistry is agony So suffer for your spectators Scream until we hear you sing! A tortured soul Is immortal The easy part is when you Die. (Enter: THE STRANGER.) This impetuous intruder will Annihilate. An army of lethal minions Disarmed. The walls of this cathedral are Razed. Wires wrap around your neck to be Snapped. Wince in winnowing winds of whining sound that Die. All those who approach my blackened heart shall Die. You cannot defeat me I will never Die. (The stranger’s staff hammers my heart, fracturing it with the first blow and splitting it with the second. The labyrinth is dissipating like a curtain burning away, as my undeserving heart shatters into fine powder. The entire world is as silent as Rarity.) The sun always took its time pestering Applejack. She’d gone to all this effort turning an abandoned Canterlot warehouse into an abandoned Canterlot ware-home, but the thing had been built so that every corner got some sunshine during the day. No matter what she tried, she never could sleep through it. Even with a blindfold on, she’d get overheated if she stayed in any one spot too long, so she found herself dragging her flank to another corner every hour or so. She had to, or else she’d be too tired to hunt that night. Applejack needed to hunt because if she didn’t, someone else was going to get what was hers. It was a classic problem: she had a rival, and Canterlot wasn’t big enough for the two of them. Things had been different when Applejack first moved. Rarity had been so persnickety about witch hunting in Ponyville, making all those maps and diagrams that drove Applejack nuts, that she had worried witches might be scarce in Canterlot. It’d turned out to be no problem: the city was lousy with them. For years, she didn’t even need to look. She simply wandered around, got a quick kill, and was good for at least a few days. Then something changed. Starting around last winter, the witches stopped being so common. She cut back on hunts to let them get back their numbers, but if anything the witches vanished even quicker. She’d begun to despair. Until she found her rival’s memento. It had happened just two weeks ago. Applejack’s jury-rigged version of Rarity’s witch tracking system had finally given her a lead: based on missing pony reports she read in the local paper, there was liable to be a witch occupying a basement of the library at the Star Swirl college. She snuck in the next night. The moment she entered the labyrinth, she could tell something was amiss. The card catalogs that had meant to hide fancy-looking poleaxes—she’d found out later they were called “halberds”—had been bashed up. The swirling clouds of ink she figured were minions lay crumpled on the floor. Before she could get any further, the labyrinth began to disintegrate. Some unseen hunter had killed her witch and taken her fresh Grief Seed. For all of Applejack’s hard work, her reward was watching everything turn to ash. Everything except the feather. A new shadow emerged among the sun’s dying rays. The bleached eyesore begotten of a hot mess of different varmints had arrived. She and Kyubey had a bargain, which was he wouldn’t tell Rarity about her, and she’d stuff him with used Grief Seeds. Lately, she had been a little lacking on her end, but it didn’t seem to bother him much. He only ever showed up when she had something for him. That wasn’t the case today. “What could you possibly want?” she asked. “I’m here to tell you Rarity died,” he said. Applejack ear’s perked up. “Is that right? Did someone’s poor manners finally make her stroke out?” “No. A witch killed her.” Applejack chewed her lips awhile. “So I suppose Ponyville is ready for the return of its long-lost daughter?” “Not exactly. There were two ponies she was training when she died. Also there’s a strange unicorn who was adversarial to her.” Applejack whistled. Three hunters cooped up together in her little hometown were going to run out of witches to chase awfully quick, and it wouldn’t take a Manehattan minute before they turned on each other. Applejack had more than enough horse sense to steer clear of that impending bloodbath. “I suppose I better stay put for now.” Applejack rested her head on her forelegs. “Do me a favor, though. If any of them decide they want to visit their folks in Canterlot, try real hard to dissuade them for me.” “That’s unlikely,” Kyubey said. “Two of them are from Cloudsdale.” Applejack sat up. “Cloudsdale? As in, the pegasus capital? As in, two of them are pegasi?” “Yes.” Her rival’s memento lay on the floor below her, radiant in the sunlight, its color revealing its former owner. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me,” she asked Kyubey, “if one of those pegasi was blue?”