//------------------------------//
// Lithography 
// Story: Triptych 
// by Estee 
//------------------------------//

She told him so much while they were in that room (a spare pantry, with most of its shelves emptied for the party:  there was some spare flour left and a few grains, but not much more).  She talked to him because he was her friend, truly her friend, they were allowed to recruit any help they could and in the chaos storm of both mission and world, he was the newest barricade point which could represent stability.  The buoy which would keep her from drowning.

But she didn't tell him everything.

There was a reason for Twilight's verbal editing, and it wasn't due to lack of trust.  It was the absence of exposure.  Quiet hadn't been through it all with them, hadn't heard the vast majority of the stories and for most of what little had reached him -- just by way of example, the Murdocks' fictionalization which had resulted in an army of earth ponies who were, for some reason, pink -- there had been...  some degree of distortion.  Only those who had experienced all of the events could truly be braced for how the mission had begun:  even Coordinator, who had only seen an account of that first year, might have been justified in openly questioning Twilight's sanity for having accepted it.  There was only so much she wanted to kick Quiet with at once, along with an absolute limit to what anypony should be asked to believe -- especially when it came to the oldest enemy known.

And so she didn't tell him about Discord.

There were moments of self-loathing when she held back words, because this was her friend and she wasn't being completely honest with him.  But she had to ask him to believe in so much, and...  she didn't want to scare him off by telling him who had truly sent them.  It left the draconequus' part on the cutting room floor, and Twilight made plans for apologizing to Quiet when it was all over -- or, given the paths along which her luck frequently galloped, at the moment after Discord appeared in front of them.  But she'd also convinced herself that for the moment, lies of omission were justified, and so she let the partial truths flow.

When she reviewed her words later (and there would be ample opportunity while locked within chains of sorrow and steel), she would perceive the totality of the illusion which had been constructed from sound.  That news of Doctor Gentle's disappearance had reached Ponyville, as it had reached so much of Equestria.  Two of his had asked their friends for help, seven had traveled to join the massive search and then, lost in the wilderness, while making camp and standing guard against the wild zone...  there had been her. 

Twilight spoke about portions of the encounters.  Of what they'd found so close to the orchard:  bodies buried, but not the words Pinkie had spoken over them.  About surges of magic born from fear -- but only two kinds, because there was a Secret in play and the part of her which could truly understand what Applejack was going through also recognized those words weren't hers to say.  (It was surprisingly easy to leave those details out.)  She talked about the snitcher, brought up deathstones, and invoked the possibility of somepony else while being unable to provide a hint towards any such pony's identity, for she seemed to have no sudden instincts that could be offered.

She told Quiet about many things and he listened to all of them, not entirely in silence.  There were times when he swallowed (the accidental attack at the lake did that, even with all of Applejack's actions removed) and others when the winces were nearly audible (such as Twilight's near-fall from the observation tower).  She briefly touched on what Rarity had felt might be going on internally during the transformations, and his very breath had shuddered.  She spoke of Coordinator and watched eyes narrow, his tail lashing with instinctive rage.

She didn't tell him everything.  She didn't mention the original Bearers, or that the sisters had once been ordinary ponies:  she couldn't bear to shatter any faith he might have possessed.  And with the North thus far silent, there had been no need to bring Cadance into the tale.  But she had made her mistake, and so she told him enough.

He was almost completely still within the narrow pantry after she finished:  head slightly down, with only his tail twitching.  There was a certain amount of sag to his posture, as if he'd just been through a race:  one where he'd oddly completely stopped moving immediately after crossing the finish line, instead of wisely proceeding into the much slower trot of a gradual cooldown.  And he was very visibly thinking.  It seemed to be something of an underreaction for a pony who'd just learned about a disruption to the very foundations of the world.  Or perhaps there was simply no outburst which ever could have been large enough.

The next words came easily.  "I'm sorry," Twilight softly told him.  "I know it's a lot to take in.  I understand how scary it might be.  Just -- looking at her mark..."

He nodded, although it didn't really feel as if he was nodding at her.  A general acknowledgement being directed towards the air.

"And I'm sorry I lied to you," she added.  That I'm still lying.  But it's Discord, and...  is this what the Secret does?  What Applejack has to go through every time?  It hurts...  "I didn't want to.  I know it might hurt, thinking I didn't trust you..."

"You..."  A shallow breath, and then a steadier one.  "...you had your reasons, Twilight.  Good ones.  This isn't -- it isn't news which should just be casually spread around.  Even if you'd just gone to Chief Copper..."  A quick, rapidly-suppressed shudder.  "...no, that is something I don't have to think about right now.  Let me focus on the nightmares I can deal with.  Or at least -- want to pretend I can.  Twilight..."

Another breath.  She watched the pain travel from ribs to features, got ready to move closer in case she needed to tap there and there.

"...it -- means a lot, that you told me this.  That you...  trust me with it.  But..."  His tail steadied.  "...I'm pretty sure I have to ask some questions.  I think anypony would."

She wished she could find a smile.  "I'd be shocked if you didn't."

He managed a bare nod.  "I guess..."  And now it was a very familiar expression:  that of somepony trying to figure out just which order the checklist was supposed to be in.  "...the first one would be 'Have you tried to contact Canterlot for help?'  If anypony might understand about failed attempts to become an alicorn -- the Princess might have seen a few over the centuries, maybe even something just like this..."

Twilight slowly shook her head.  "We can't."  Discord had not been mentioned, and so neither had his rules.  "At the very least --" and this was a form of truth "-- we'd need to have her with us and willing to travel there, or to let herself be met here.  We couldn't ambush her with the Diarchy:  that would scare her, and...  so many things happen when she's scared.  I've seen her strength, Quiet:  I've had to fight it off.  If she doesn't want to go..."  She needed a breath of her own, and took in flour-scented air.  "...if it came down to it, the Princesses could beat her in a fight:  I'm sure of that.  But it would destroy any trust she had in us.  It might bring her to the point where she wouldn't accept our help, and -- just the fight could do a lot of damage."  

She tried to fight off the internal image of a single working getting through and only managed to push it slightly to one side, leaving her looking at him through the edges of apocalypse.

"So I've been asked for help," he decided (and there was some wryness returning to his tones, something which was so good to hear), "where the palace hasn't.  I feel either extremely flattered or decidedly overestimated.  Possibly both.  And given that we're still talking about somepony with alicorn-level strength, is there any chance of reinforcements appearing on the horizon?"

"Right now, it's just Trixie.  And she's still a few days out."  Twilight repressed most of the sigh.  "She doesn't even know why she's coming.  Just that there's a situation which requires a pony who knows about essence, in case that's what was involved.  I actually told you more than I told her, but...  there are things I couldn't put in a scroll."

Another, somewhat steadier nod.  "It's hard enough to hear.  It's...  having you speak which lets me believe it.  Just reading the words..."  A long pause.  "So the next question is probably...  her.  Twilight -- when it comes to her, ultimately, what are you trying to do?" 

"Help."  It was the only possible answer.

His head came up all the way, and a thin smile just barely managed to manifest on his lips.  "I think I need a more exacting definition."

She sighed.  "I don't know what can help her, Quiet.  It's her mark.  The mark doesn't change.  It just is.  But -- I think..."

And she truly thought about it then, as he watched her.  Being patient.  Waiting for her, exactly as her friends would.

"...she isn't a bad pony," Twilight finally went on.  "I believe her, when she said she was trying to change in order to help the broken.  Even if --" and she felt an odd blush beginning to suffuse her cheeks "-- I still don't know what 'broken' means.  Maybe she's fooled all of us, but -- right now, I think she has a good heart.  But she's still killed, if only in self-defense, or by accident.  She's still dangerous, and...  it's the mark.  It may not be possible to stop her cycle, and the pain..."  It was her turn to shudder.  "I want to help her, in any way I can, and I don't know if that's even possible.  I just -- want to try."  Her right foreleg came up, went down:  a single small stomp.  "And I feel so helpless, because it's so hard to believe anything could ever work.  I don't know if it's possible for me to do anything, for anypony..."

"Helpless," Quiet softly said, "is -- a rather large portion of what I'm feeling right now.  Twilight, if you feel as if there's nothing you could do for her, then what are you hoping for from me?  I understand that you may need a fresh reason for remaining in the area, or that you might wind up hiding in the wild zone while you seek her.  If you need to stay in the castle, I can do that much.  I can help find a story to suit.  But beyond that...  how can I help you and her alike?"

It was both question and request, and it came from a friend.

"You're a native," Twilight told him.  "I've been hoping that she lived around here.  That she didn't gallop or teleport across the continent to reach Trotter's Falls.  I can't judge by her accent, because there's...  too much pain in her voice to find one."  A faint smile, one with no real humor behind it.  "But -- a mare.  Maybe one of her three aspects is close to her original appearance.  I told you her colors, and she's around Fluttershy's age, maybe a couple of years older.  A mare who maybe wore dresses a lot, ones with thick collars, because she would have had to hide the snitcher and --" this had just occurred to her "-- Doctor Gentle was surprised to see somepony wearing one of the deathstones -- shiftstones -- one of them as jewelry and he's from here, so she wouldn't have had that part on display.  A mare who kept to herself a lot, who studied, who..."  Stopped.  Sighed.  "I don't know, Quiet.  Anything you might somehow know, anything you might have heard.  I'm sure the resonance bomb sent her home, because I know what it made me feel.  But we don't know how far she came to get here, or how long she's been like this.  It's possible that --" and the thought just barely made it through "-- she's like the Princess, she doesn't...  age...  and she could have been like this for --"

But that was when his left foreleg came up:  stop. 

"Anything I might know," Quiet thoughtfully said.  "Anything I might have heard..."

There were emotional states which Twilight would never need to record on a scroll in order to understand, tones instantly recognized by something close to the core of her being.  She knew the sound of a pony putting an idea together in a hurry.

"Quiet?"

"There are..."  A moment of visible struggle, trying to find the right words.  "...whispers.  Things ponies talk about in undercurrents, things I've ignored because they're not subjects I care to hear discussed in public.  Everything you just told me -- it's bringing those memories back, forcing me to view them through a new lens.  I know time is precious, Twilight, I know the party won't reach morning and you need to think of something before then -- but please, if you can, give me a minute...  I'm sure -- I'm sure there was something I heard..."

She did, watched as he breathed.  Thought.  And finally, he spoke.

"This," he softly told her, "isn't the kindest of settlements, in so many ways.  The land is barren, and...  more than the soil lies fallow.  I try not to think of my home that way, because there are things I don't want to think about at all.  But now I have to, Twilight.  I have to think about poisonous words, and the ponies who speak them.  Things everypony would be better off without.  Ponies.  One pony..."

It wasn't quite a guess.  "Coordinator?"  And something rose within her, something partially comprised of blame with aspects of rage, all bound together by a need to find somepony she could take it out on...

Twilight focused on Quiet:  what he was about to say, with no doubts regarding why.  It was perfectly naturally to do so, for he was her friend, and there was every chance he was about to tell her what she wanted to hear.

"He wants power," Quiet reminded her.  "Finding a way to become an alicorn -- that would be power he'd desire, don't you think?"  The words were now being forced out from between his teeth, syllables half-bitten by rage.  "Power he would do anything for.  If he had even a hint that it was possible, he'd chase it to the end of his days."

Her eyes widened.

If anypony would try to convince somepony that they were broken...  

"He wanted me," Twilight said, her voice suffused with a mixture of realization and fury, "to stop doing things.  He was trying to chase me off the search, wasn't he?  He was trying to get us all to stop looking for her!"

He was in the Gifted School...  there's so much he could have seen...

(She didn't consider that just about all the things at the Gifted School were texts she could have accessed -- and possibly more for her, if the Princess granted permission.  She simply considered his ability to talk his way past things, to blackmail, for this was a pony she already hated.  A pony she could believe anything of.  It was so easy to place him in the role of what Pinkie had called the worst pony in the world.  So natural and welcoming.)

"He has to be part of it," Quiet slowly nodded.  "If anypony is wrapped up in this, Twilight, it's him:  I can almost feel that.  And --"

This time, it was his eyes which went wide, and she watched the spark of realization ignite within.  

"-- there was something I overheard when I was going into his office, something about the castle and the party..."

She needed to place blame, and so readily accepted the target.  The actual range, however, was unexpected.  "Your castle?"

"He was talking about slipping away," he went on, anger still building.  "A conference.  And he stopped quickly enough, as soon as he realized I was there.  I thought he was just going to use the party to solidify a few connections.  And it's possible that he was just talking about what he intended to try with you.  But now, thinking about all this, seeing some of the ponies who are here tonight..."  

The growing anger receded, if only for a moment, and he smiled.  

"Forgive me, Twilight," Quiet said, "but...  I've been hearing some rather odd accents tonight, and I was thinking that...  it's a rather long way to come, just to meet a Princess."

She recognized it as half a tease, an attempt to boost her spirits in the midst of horror, and also knew most of the remainder was theory.  It still left something unexplained.  "But -- your castle?  Why would he need your castle?  And how could he slip away?"

"It's an old castle," he reminded her.  "Planned out in Early Canterlot Look What A Strong Field I've Got.  That part of history when ponies still had to worry about the possibility of invaders.  That encourages a few interesting design choices, Twilight.  Hidden passageways.  Secret rooms.  When all else fails, one final means of getting out.  I'm guessing the Princess has a few of her own, things so old as to leave only two ponies who remember them.  There's a chance he knows about a few of the ones here, if only because one of his spiritual ancestors forced one of my direct ones to render a few partial blueprints or pay a rather large fine.  Or because he's just been sneaking around, like he did when he stole Rainbow's manuscript.  But I grew up in this castle, Twilight.  I know them all.  It's still possible that he was talking about you, but..."

He blinked.

"It's too early," Quiet cut himself off.  "It's too early.  He clearly used the first opportunity he had to try and blackmail you, but there was a time in what I overheard.  And unless I've completely lost track of the clock, it's still too early..."

"A conference," Twilight tried.

"Yes. I only heard a little, but..  let me think..."  Visible concentration.  "He used a plural.  Multiple ponies."

It brought up the natural question.  "Who was he talking to?"

Which triggered a sigh.  "I don't know.  He was using a speaking tube --" and spotted her confusion.  "You haven't seen them.  They're just channels for sound, Twilight:  talk into this end and somepony listens on the other.  There's no magic involved.  Some government buildings are trying them out, to keep ponies from going up and down ramps all the time.  He saw me, and he rotated his end against the wall."  Carefully, "Twilight -- this could still be a false alarm.  He tried to blackmail you.  This party is an opportunity to directly blackmail ponies from all over the continent --"

He stopped.  Shook his head, two hard tosses, left to right and back.

"Directly."  It was half a mutter.  "A direct blackmail attempt.  It could have been an anonymous note slipped under your door, but..."

"He -- wanted me to see him as..."  She sought out the word.  "...necessary.  That I needed him as the first member of my staff."

"Necessary," Quiet slowly nodded.  "Yes.  And he could wind up trying something else before the end of the night.  Something which isn't connected to her.  But if there's a chance..."

She waited.

"Let's go back out to the party," he suggested.  "Let me wander around a little.  The seven of you stand out, and -- I don't.  I'm not a Bearer:  I'm just the local Lord, one whose use of the title generally centers around paying what feels like the majority of the local taxes.  I can get fairly close to ponies and they won't change the topic because I'm there.  You get your friends together:  tell them whatever you can, and let them know we all may need to take a little side trip.  But --" another wince "-- and I already know you're not going to like this...  it means you have to leave Coordinator alone, at least for the rest of the party.  I know you must want to try turning him in -- but if he's any part of this, we need him running loose for a while longer, just to see where he runs to."

"I don't know what I can do about him," she softly admitted.  "He talked about making copies..."

Quiet sighed, dipped his head -- then brought his gaze up again.  "We'll think of something."

We will.  What did the pronoun indicate?  The two of them?  All of her friends, with a sibling providing a little extra advice?  She didn't know.  She just understood that he was part of it.

His right foreleg came up, and the hoof thoughtfully rubbed his chin.  "Let me go out first?  And give me a couple of minutes before you go back.  Keep some separation between us once we're both out there:  ponies already got to see us together and if I'm going to eavesdrop, they have to see you without me.  If I learn anything, I'll make my way to you."

She nodded -- and then felt her skin go pale beneath her fur.  "We -- Quiet, I know I got you in trouble with your spouse, I just didn't think about it, I wasn't thinking and --"

"-- it's my trouble," he gently interrupted.  "And it's not as bad as you might think.  I'm used to a little trouble, and..."  A pause, and then, "Twilight, you could learn to dance, if you really tried.  Not just the Sapients Dance.  That's about spotting and repeating patterns, and that's what a lot of dancing comes down to.  Memorizing and anticipating movement.  Learn to dance, when you get home.  It'll be useful."

She didn't know where the words came from, or why they chose that moment to emerge.  "I can't even learn how to be a Princess..."

He smiled, straightened his posture, began to trot towards her.

"Dancing's more important."

And then he slipped past, just barely managing the feat in the narrow aisle between shelves.  No part of him brushed against her.

The door closed behind him, and she began to count seconds.  Two hundred would give him enough of a lead.

Coordinator.

It could lead nowhere:  even in mystery, speaking to the pony who had just the right words to begin unlocking everything was a chance best played out within fiction.  But in the here and now, it remained a chance.

Twilight was intelligent, and so the things she told herself in the name of creating personal conviction were well-reasoned.  But in the end, she wanted it to be him.  She needed it to be him.  To know there was a monster which wore a pony's skin, and that she'd had it in her field's grip a little while ago...

Get my friends together...

Every friend she had in the castle.

It's what Rarity said.  So many ponies see six.  They don't understand that it's seven.

And now it's eight.





"Your spouse is looking for you."  Doctor Gentle's smile was sincere, and it was also sincerely tired:  the older stallion was leaning against the edge of an archway.  He'd had enough rest, or what he hoped would be enough -- but there was an effort ahead, something he was used to making and one he still knew would drain him.  Some of that payment was made long before the actual deed:  memories came forth in the hours before a speech, placed themselves into the proper marching order, and their movement constituted an internal trampling.  

Besides, he'd never really been much for parties.  He enjoyed spending time with his own, and he would soon be speaking to so many of those within the hall -- but when it came to the actual festivities, it was something best done with company.

Still, he smiled at his most devoted.  "Oddly, despite so many having seen the direction which you and the Princess left in, she doesn't seem to have found you.  And neither did anypony else --"

But that was when Quiet glanced out at the party.  A gathering which began less than two body lengths away and, for all the attention they were paying to the stallions, might have been in the rough vicinity of Baltimare.

Doctor Gentle followed his gaze, and saw no notice flowing back.

"-- exactly how much," he smoothly, worriedly changed verbal direction, "are you exerting yourself right now?"

"I have wake-up juice," Quiet quickly said.  "When it comes to refreshments, I have a lot of things circulating through this party and since I paid for just about all of them, I think I'm going to sample a few.  Doctor, we need to talk.  Now."

"Bad enough," the older stallion steadily asked, "that we do not have time to move?"

"We can go slip into a room.  But we have to slip away."

There was no desperation in the younger male's voice.  But there was a hint of the underlying effort, and so Doctor Gentle nodded.

"Quickly," he said.  "And I will be keeping an eye on you."

"I'll be all right."

"Every moment we continue this --" which was when he realized he was now contributing to the problem, and exchanged speech for motion.

They slipped away.

At the moment they were out of sight (an oversized closet, mostly occupied by vaguely musty coats), Doctor Gentle moved closer, his head leaning in to the thin stallion's chest.  The younger male held still, permitted warm mauve ears to make contact.

"Too fast," Doctor Gentle immediately said.  "Far too fast for my liking."

"It can't be helped.  And it's not the last effort I'll have to make tonight."  More quickly, "Before we do anything else:  what, exactly, did Coordinator tell you?"

The older stallion pulled back, softly sighed.  "He spoke of failure, none of which was his fault.  That the Princess is insane, with no regard for the welfare of those everypony else falsely perceives as her friends.  That she cares about nopony, not even herself, and a pony who cares for none cannot be manipulated.  Oh, and he claimed that she attempted to kill him, and he barely escaped -- which given his original plans, would have to be from a chance encounter in the hallway which went rather wrong, although it is extremely easy to imagine him offending somepony exactly that much.  So in all things other than the admission of failure -- something which may have only emerged because he seemed far too stressed to think of a way to conceal that part -- he lied.   Even so, it means our first option..."  his ears dipped, with tail sagging to suit "...has, at least for the moment, failed.  We cannot control the Bearers through his dubious arts."

"That still leaves our second option," Quiet pointed out, perhaps a little too quickly.  "And -- Doctor, we don't have much time.  What happened between Coordinator and Twilight was snout to snout.  He spoke to her directly."

It was rare for Doctor Gentle to take so much as a quarter-hoofstep back in shock, and the injury to his hind leg prevented the full expression of that locally extraordinary measure.  It left the base of his tail poking into dusty linen.

"I had...  thought he might wish to," he admitted.  "Certainly I believed that he would have dreamed of it.  But to actually have done so -- to have given the Princess somepony she could face down --"

"-- it doesn't matter now," Quiet interrupted -- and then immediately looked apologetic for having done so.  "Twilight spoke to me.  She --" a deep breath "-- just recruited me."

And that got a blink.

"Recruited," the older stallion stated.

"Because there's a mare somewhere out there who's in pain, a mare she wants to help.  She hasn't told Canterlot about what's going on.  It's just been them.  All Twilight's done for backup is to call in a researcher, one she hasn't even told everything about what's  been going on.  She wants to help, Doctor, and -- as risky as that second option is -- it's the one we have left.  I could do whatever I could, if I personally joined the Bearers in their search.  I could misdirect and mislead and gallop them in circles for moons, and none of it helps.  You said you would run if you had to.  I told you I would go with you.  And if this fails, that's what we'll have to do -- but if it works..."

Doctor Gentle took a slow breath.

"You do realize," he said with a small smile, "that some of this determination to place an all-or-nothing bet may be the natural reaction of a stallion who has just drastically offended his spouse and thus feels himself to have very little left which he can truly lose?"

Quiet's eyes went wide -- and then the right corner of his mouth convulsed, the first laugh started to emerge as his left foreleg came up for the facehoofing --

-- stopped, and he choked it back.

"Maybe," and there was still more than a touch of dark mirth in it.  "Just -- maybe.  But let me tell you what she told me, while we still have time.  They've managed to assemble a small few aspects of the how:  more than we thought, but much less than we feared.  I'll tell you what they have, and then -- it's your decision, Doctor.  It always was."

The older stallion nodded, listened.  The younger talked.  And when it was over, each could see the decision in the other's eyes.

"Do it," Doctor Gentle said.  "I will make myself ready --" this smile was a faint one "-- which at least gives me an excuse to leave early.  With all my concerns about the evening, I was already a poor partner for conversation, and so many failed to understand that the middle of a party was not the best place to approach me and ask about the reasons for an emergency meeting, one which would justify crossing a continent to attend.  One of them had a concept of 'whisper' best suited to a stage, and given that she was trying to make her questions known at the moment when Fluttershy --" not without pride "-- had finally managed to force herself through the masses towards me..."

"She didn't overhear?"

"She did not.  But she has her own concerns.  She told me I looked stressed.  That she felt as if something was wrong, and so she wished to help.  A healer's empathy, Quiet:  not on the level of a talent -- but in matters of pain, there are times when she perceives somewhat more than others do.  I excused myself by speaking of births:  always a convenient fallback.  And now I know that when it comes to myself, she had no other concerns."  A small sigh.  "And it also explains why the unicorn wasn't wearing the chaos pearl.  That might have set off a few reactions, if only from near-instinctive attempts to purchase and add it to our collection.  So much of their funds has already..."  

He stopped, took a partial step forward.  The injured leg continued to drag.   

"Go forth, Quiet," he told his most devoted.  "We each have performances to give.  Yours is improvisation, while mine is stagecraft.  And in both cases -- they will be the roles of our lifetimes."

"We could still be fugitives by Sun-raising," Quiet softly noted.

"Or we could find ourselves with resources extracted from the nightscape itself."

Quiet nodded -- then raised a forehoof:  something which Gentle Arrival recognized as taking the initiative, and it made the older stallion proud.  

"Something else, clearly," he said.  "Have at it."

"I'm going to prepare the area," Quiet told him.  "There's some things I can take from the armory.  Just in case.  But I may need help at the end.  Reinforcements.  If something goes wrong, I can make one quick strike, but after that..."

"You'll have it," Doctor Gentle promised.  "I'll speak to a few before I go down and instruct them on how to reach that section."  A brief pause.  "Are you guarding against the possibility of something going wrong, or anticipating that it will?"

Quiet took a deep breath.  (Doctor Gentle noticed the accompanying wince, resolved to stay with his friend long enough to find that wake-up juice.)  "Anticipating.  They're going to hear all of it, Doctor.  And 'they' very much includes yours.  They're going --" a pause which was too short in duration and too strong in worry "-- to learn what they are.  They'll...  be the first to ever learn it.  They've always known they were different, but... when they hear it...  there's no telling how they're going to react."

Kind orange eyes briefly closed.

"They will," Doctor Gentle stated, "know just how special they truly are.  How special they always were.  There will likely be shock, but...  in the end, I believe it will be good for them.  It will answer so many of the questions which they were never able to fully voice..." 

His ears went up.  The tail straightened.

"So we both have things to do," he concluded.  "You prepare the Bearers, and the skybox of our theater.  I will set out the costumes.  Get them there, Quiet.  Whatever it takes, whatever you have to say -- get them there."

A lifetime, her lifetime, of trying to do the needful.  Of learning that there was always one more thing to do and that somehow, the very next detail would forever be the most crucial...

He had said the words so many times.  But certainly not with a Princess in attendance.  Never to his.  And now, at the moment when he stood on the balance point between desperation and hope, with one last chance to tip the scales...

In the end, she was what mattered.  If it all failed, he would give everything up for her.  Quiet was ready to do the same and for that, the older stallion loved him.

It all meant he had things to do.  But he still hesitated, just before he opened the door.  

If he listened...  if he truly focused his ears, he could hear the party.  Hints of music, with the lyrics made from the ever-flowing babble of conversation and concern.  Ponies who only knew there was a party,  those who were waiting to learn what the party was concealing -- 

-- and some who wanted to help, who would soon know so much...

He had made his speech so many times, and no number of repetitions ever served to dull the pain.  He would remember, he would share his agony -- and when ponies truly listened, ones he had already known would hear him, support for the Great Work followed.  But now for the first time, he would be speaking to his, the words would hurt him again, and...

...he wanted to speak.

"Tonight," he said.  "Tonight, one way or another, at least for this stage...  it ends."

And what came next was a statement --  but it was one which remained entirely within his thoughts, the inner voice sounding with absolute certainty and conviction.  He knew how they would react in the end, after the shock had faded.  He believed that and so for him, it became true.

An absolute statement, made in certainty and conviction.

It will be good for them to hear it.

The sound of a mind, so very practiced in the art, which was lying to itself.