//------------------------------// // Exhibition // Story: Triptych // by Estee //------------------------------// The storm was no longer speaking to her. It was screaming, words created from rain and wind blasting against her ears, lightning creating italics while thunder added punctuation. The voice of the earth was gone (and she couldn't remember what it had truly sounded like), replaced by the rage of the world -- a fury which mostly failed to get past the groove which her own internally-repeated speech seemed to be carving into her mind. The same thoughts, over and over, and she couldn't stop. She even began to recognize the words. He had a sister. Another lightning strike, somewhere to her right. He loved her from the moment he saw her. The thunder rippled across her sodden fur, failed to shift her attention away from the self-loathing. He was going to be her best friend forever... The storm told her she was a killer, and there was nothing left in Twilight which could disagree. To believe she'd killed, to have that thought going around and around, no way to stop it, the groove getting deeper, carving out a path of absolute belief -- -- is this what it's like for her? What does it feel like to have this in your head starting almost from the moment you understood what words were at all? To believe that you killed, you killed someone who cared about you without ever meaning to, without having any control over what happened, that you're a murderer and you have to do something to make it right, but you can't ever bring back... At most, Twilight had been living with that thought for a minute. But it was enough to extrapolate, project that pain across a lifetime. She knew what living with that belief would be like. It would be torture. The storm screamed at her, and did so by name. "Twilight!" The world knew what she was. She had told them that they might have to kill, she had recognized the potential reality, but now it had happened and Twilight had been the one to -- "TWI!" The lightning briefly illuminated the world, pushed just enough past streaming rainwater and tears to let her see the orange body which was racing towards her -- but now all four legs were quickly decelerating, and the left hind one stumbled somewhat as the farmer came to a stop. An injury from one of the fights, or a rock in the grass. They were all hurting. Twilight had her own share of agonies, and so many were her fault -- -- Applejack. I'm not alone. But they'll know what I did. They'll leave. They'll finally understand how dangerous I -- (And even with so much fresh pain to boost its rising, the weight of desperate experience held the thought down.) "...you found me," the little mare half-gasped, disbelief saturating the words. "How did you...?" Another streak across the sky provided enough light to see Applejack's expression -- but not to fully work out what it was. There was some pain in it: Applejack had spent the most time within the enemy front lines, had been on the receiving end of kicks and horn pokes. Twilight recognized a surge of relief. But there was something else... "'course Ah found you," Applejack quietly said. "Twi, what happened? Tell me quick: we may not have much time." "It..." She could lie. But lies always fell apart in the end. "...it was Quiet," Twilight made herself say, and the next words nearly finished her. "He managed to follow me, he was trying to stop me, his talent -- I couldn't find him and when I did, when I hit him, Applejack, I can't find his body, I think I killed --" "-- y'hit a pony whose talent is not having ponies know where he is," Applejack cut her off, "and you're wondering why y'can't find him?" Twilight blinked. Most of a small lake fell away. "I --" "-- maybe he's hurt an' limped off," Applejack broke in again. "Maybe y'knocked him out, but his magic's still going. Maybe we don't have time t' worry 'bout it, time t' care. Ah know he could still be a problem. But we've got other ones, an' they're still movin'. Ah found you, Twi, an' now we've gotta find everypony else --" Very little of the words sunk in. She simply looked at the hatless presence. The mare who was so much larger than she was, so much stronger in so many ways... She almost lunged forward, pressed streaming eyes against fur which could absorb nothing more. For water, the saturation limit had been reached. But this was pain, and so her friend took as much of the burden as she could. A powerful foreleg came up, gently rubbed against the slim body. "Easy, Twi," Applejack softly said. "Easy. Just keep going for a little while longer. We'll catch them soon or we won't. Either way, when it's done, then we'll all rest. It's a big job -- but maybe it's almost over. Because we harvest the Acres one tree at a time. It doesn't matter how many there are: one tree at a time, with enough ponies on the job -- that'll add up to the whole thing. Right now, there's still two ponies to deal with, and one of them has to be saved. So can you give me one more tree? And then one more after that, an' one more, until the whole thing's done?" She shivered, as little rivers ran through her fur. Managed a tiny nod. "Okay," her friend told her. "We'll keep an ear out for Quiet, as best we can. But right now, we've gotta find everypony else. So what Ah want you t' do is get your horn lit. Make your field move like lightning, send flashes into the sky. Maybe there's a lot of fireworks goin' off right now, but nopony's gonna miss your color. And they'll close in." There was a major problem built into the tactic, and Twilight managed to voice it. "It'll tell the conspiracy where we are. If any of them are still in the storm and looking for us..." "Maybe we finally ran out," Applejack proposed. "And if we didn't, Ah'm up for cracking a few more skulls. It's the fastest way, Twi, especially with all the rain coming down. Help them come to us." A new level of fear was beginning to shove its way in. "And if anypony ran into some of them, got hurt or --" "-- this is how we start t' find out," Applejack steadily replied. "Are y'up to it?" "...yes." She needed a little casting room, and so she backed away. Looked up, ignited her corona, sent burst after burst of fieldlight into the chaotic sky. But every so often, she would pause to listen, to look around. Trying to spot a friend on the approach, or an enemy in full charge. But the first few attempts had her find nothing more than Applejack, quietly watching. Guarding. And every time, that mixed, unreadable expression was the same. He never considered that the gesture might have been familiar to her. The unconscious raising of a foreleg, the awkward angling towards the chest. In her case, it would have been to adjust the necklace's position. For him -- he was reaching somewhat higher. Trying to touch a place very close to his throat. Attempting to bring a hoof against metal, simply from the completely natural, utterly futile instinct to get it off. The pegasus, with the restraint pressed between her forehooves, swooping in... All she'd needed to do was get it over the horn, and her aim had been precise. The enchantments, detecting something more than bone, had taken care of the rest: straps had moved of their own accord, and the lock had automatically snapped shut. He'd thought... it wouldn't be a problem. (Although it had taken some time for thinking to return. He believed himself to have more experience with chaos than all but two other living ponies, had certainly spent the most modern time within its terrain -- but none of that had prepared him for an actual chaos storm. Star Swirl's notes had failed to capture the experience, and he didn't blame the caster for that. He wasn't sure the necessary words existed.) He could project his field into an object -- after the initial appearance of his corona. Star Swirl, capable of working through a hat (and more), had pushed his power through solid matter during field ignition. It made sense for the effects to be related, and so he'd felt that with a little work, he could get through the restraint. But... There was silver, here and there: sparks of light flying everywhere, like the initial projections of a filly who was coming into her magic for the first time. But there was no focus. He couldn't fully surround any object. He couldn't lift, pull, manipulate at all. A portion of his energy was in fact working its way past the restraint's barrier: it just wasn't enough to do anything. And so he was trying to reach the restraint, just like -- -- he stopped. This can be fixed. There were currently three potential methods of removal. He could potentially work out how to fully defeat the barrier created by iron, spinel and howlite -- and even then, he would need to find some way of defeating the locking enchantment: it was attuned to those unicorns who worked for the settled zone's police department, and nopony had ever thought to create an exception for him. The second option was to find one of those ponies, but that would mean diverting towards the town: more time spent in the area, a better chance to be caught. And lastly -- patience. Wait enough time for her to assume the unicorn state, and then she could simply pull the entire thing apart. Admittedly, she potentially had enough physical strength in her current form to at least do some serious damage to the restraint. But that would mean kicks aimed at his head and while the horn didn't transmit impact, the skull around the base would be happy to conduct any force which went into the metal. The amount of power required could easily fracture bone, and -- he was already hurt. Injured again, because he'd seen the pegasus coming in, started to drop his field -- and hadn't been fast enough. At least, not completely. It took a single corona to use the Exception on a mother and foal, and that was simply the benefit of experience: he'd done that more than anything else, and so had worked out the most efficient method for accomplishing the feat. Anything else currently required a double. And the sharp impact of a restraint's inner cone against a horn... He'd seen the danger, instinctively began to release his effort -- but the pegasus was among the swiftest of her generation. He'd just barely managed to dim his corona somewhat when she'd hit him, and so the resulting backlash had been somewhere on the border between the first and second stages. He was having some trouble breathing. His vision had been blurred by more than rain. When he'd raced away from that which the Princess had unleashed (not his magic, the Princess: he hadn't been the one to deflect the effort and so the storm hadn't been his fault), he had done so on instinct, moving as fast as he could with no regard for any hurt at all, extant or new -- and so he hadn't discovered the cracked rib until after he'd finally stopped. His right hind leg had already been injured. But it had also been slowly healing -- and then the desperate flight had stressed it. Rationality had returned, movement had ended, and now he had to force himself to move. Every step was an effort. He might not be able to keep going for all that long, not on hoof. There was also a headache, for the pegasus hadn't exactly been gentle. This was presenting him with some additional difficulties. The stallion who had been with thousands of mares as they birthed, who had seen the sheer agony his daughter was in -- forced himself to lower his foreleg, and wondered how he was supposed to think normally while in so much pain. Most of the potions and drugs had been in the cart... On hoof. If she was a unicorn... if she could teleport and escort me through the between... But she was still an earth pony, would be for hours. Her options were currently limited to trotting, and the pegasus form had no training in carrying another across long distances. Even then, maintaining the necessary pressure against a wet body... Her heritage had not been restored, and so she retained the most distinctive feature of her broken magic. And then he realized she was looking at him. "What. Is...?" She had raced away at his side. Even acting on a fear nopony had known for generations, from the heart of instinct, she had remained with him. She knew her place. "That sentence," he pointed out (with a pause for the thunder), "requires an ending." "What is. Useless? You said..." He didn't remember saying anything. "You're hearing the storm." A small sigh. "It's a wonder either of us can hear anything right now." And that could so easily work against them, especially if the Bearers managed to regroup and renew their tracking. He was restrained, and he doubted the vegetation trick (a rather useless stunt, if one thought about it) would do so much as stall them if seen for a second time. "We have to find --" "-- Quiet." He looked up at her. (Up. She had always been a little on the tall side. Even as a newborn, she'd been -- well, not huge, really. Just a little over the typical earth pony foal in size and mass, and by the time he'd learned that, he'd already been prepared to dismiss it.) Wondered exactly what had gotten into her. She didn't interrupt him. She listened. She knew to let him speak. To let him think. "He offered to buy us time. I accepted. You are what's important. He'll catch up if he can. If he cannot -- then a sacrifice had to be made. He chose to be that sacrifice." A soft sigh, one filled with more than one kind of pain. "I will -- honor that decision." His most devoted... "We cannot go back for him, and we can't try to help him. There's only one thing we have to find right now --" "-- sacrifices." The word had some odd undertones to it. There was pain, of course: the last dose had fully worn off by now, and he wasn't sure if the failed booster potion had done any extra damage. But somewhere beneath that, there was something which almost seemed to approach a question. Or a -- statement. "Our patrons put themselves into combat for you tonight," he tersely said. "Quiet did the same. Respect what they gave of themselves. Sacrifices have always been part of the Great Work. Decades of sacrifices --" "-- foals." He didn't know why she'd said that. He didn't understand why she kept interrupting. "Foals," she slowly said, "are --" "I. Am. Speaking." She stopped talking. "There is one thing we have to look for," he stated, and tried to force his blurred vision to focus through the storm. It didn't seem to be happening. The rain continued to pound against the land, lightning was going off in all directions -- -- that was the Princess' field hue. She's signalling the others. They'll be coming... "LOOK!" Instinct directed him to use a burst of silver for indicating direction: frustration had him jabbing a foreleg in the general direction of the few escaping sparks, and she reared back from both. "That was a signal flare! They're going to be regrouping, and that means they may get into the unicorn's range! If there's a single flaw in my garment's anti-detection spell...!" That unicorn. An average specimen chosen to bear Generosity when the previous Bearer had been Princess Luna and given that, the current occupant seemed to be something of a step down. "We need to find one thing: an entrance into the tunnel network! We need to --" Where can we go? They'd lost nearly all of their supplies... "-- go home," he finished, just a little more softly. "Collect what little is there, as quickly as we can, and then use the tunnels to reach the furthest possible exit." It would put them close to the settled zone's fringe, and from there, they could vanish. "It will also give us some time out of this storm." He had no idea what had happened there. The schedule had dictated severe weather, but this... "But in this storm, simply finding an entrance..." Even with clear vision, trying to make out the subtle signs which indicated a nearby doorway through sheets of rain... Her only response was "The tunnel." Why wasn't she thinking? "Yes. The tunnel. We need to find --" Dark purple twitched. Rotated. "This. Way," she said, and turned towards the left. Began to slowly, painfully trot. He stared at her. "How can you know? The most time you've spent in them was tonight! Unless you --" no, she wouldn't leave her quarters, she wouldn't disobey like that -- Although in one interpretation, she already had. She glanced back at him. Glancing down. "I know," she painfully declared. "I..." Stopped. "...see? Hear? I..." (He had trained himself to think in different ways, to perceive what others could (or would) not... but still, he did not consider it. He could not.) No, he had to be fair. He had told her how to recognize some of the entrance blazes, just in case she wound up outside after having to flee from discovery and needed to get back in again. There was a chance she'd spotted something while they'd been running. And even if she hadn't, the search had to start somewhere. As long as they weren't heading towards those flares of corona light... "Then show me," he told her. She nodded, moved forward. Slowly, so that he could keep up. "If. He ever..." Thunder took the rest. "What did you say?" "...nothing." Rainbow, as the last to arrive, had wound up with plenty of time to prepare her excuse. Naturally, she'd prioritized. The first thing she said upon coming into view was "Thank Moon you're all okay!" But after that, "I was trying to find everypony, but with the storm still going like this --" a pause to glare at Rarity "-- it's not exactly easy! And I still can't fly in this! You try staying on course, on hoof, when you're used to working from --" spotted Fluttershy "-- oh. Yeah. So what are we --" A grinning Applejack, who'd been trotting up throughout the speech, leaned in and nuzzled her. "Ugh!" A cyan foreleg desperately came up, swiped away moisture and in doing so, made room for plenty more. "You're all wet!" "Yeah, an' so are you," Applejack stated. "Either way, y'had it coming. Everypony ready to move?" "...I think so," Fluttershy softly said. (She'd been the second to arrive.) "I just..." She shivered. "The voles... I felt them jump off, and I think they're okay. But they won't come back. I don't think... I can get anyone to come with us, not after that. The animals... between the rain and what happened to the cart, they won't come out..." Pinkie (the fourth to find them, and the only one who'd been in a fight on the way in: she'd encountered two cultists who'd fled from the playground battle, had been working their way back, and made the mistake of deciding they could take on one pony) slowly nodded. "It was too scary," she plainly said -- then paused. "And sort of -- pretty?" Then, before the others could even begin to stare, "But it was pretty like lava after a volcano erupts. You know that between heat and fumes, there's too many ways to die, and without the right workings, you shouldn't even be close enough to look..." "I wish it had been lava," a trembling Spike said. (He'd always had trouble with cold, the rain was a chill one, and he couldn't afford to waste any flame in playing it across his own scales.) "I don't want to see that again. Ever." "Nor do I," Rarity quietly agreed. "There was already a part of me which automatically recoils when colors clash. When the very world clashes against itself..." Rainbow trotted up to Spike. "Stick with me for a while. I'll try to shift some heat towards you." (He gratefully smiled.) "What's our next move?" They're alive. They're all alive -- -- Quiet... ...no. She would obsess over it: she knew that. Her thoughts might return to the groove again and again. She was capable of recognizing the process while being unable to permanently stop it: a familiar kind of pain. But right now... "We try to find them again," she told them. "However we can. If it's even still possible --" -- and Applejack's right foreleg stomped for attention against the saturated ground, sending the splash in all directions. "She just used her magic." Everypony blinked at her. Then they did it again, mostly because it temporarily cleared the water away. "Not that many other voices around here," the farmer told them. "Ah've been trying to hear her -- well, ain't like I have to strain much, not with her. I was more worried about her nearly deafening me all over again. But she didn't shout this time. Just asked a question." "What kind of question?" Twilight quickly asked. "If it was asking for something visible --" Applejack quickly shook her head. "She was looking for a tunnel entrance. Easy question, easy answer." "Tunnel," Rainbow half-groaned. "Oh, come on..." "...which means," Fluttershy more steadily said, "there was a tunnel to find. You said there were caves..." That produced a nod. "Yeah. That network Ah picked up on while I was getting the feel for her echo. Part of it's around here. I'm guessing the locals used it as the base for some of the underground stuff. Don't have to dig as much when the hollow's already there." "But she didn't open a hole?" Twilight checked. "Looking for a trapdoor," Applejack clarified. "Same as we came out of the castle by. They're going back down, Twi. She asked her question, she got her answer -- an' she doesn't know anypony else can listen in." A slightly mercenary smile played about her lips. "She knows where to go underground now -- an' so do Ah." "We've got one more chance," Twilight softly exhaled. "Applejack, you're in the lead. Get us down there." She would hurt later. The internal wound might never heal. But right now, she didn't have time. The first thing they found was the remains of her dress, half-submerged within an exceptionally deep puddle. "The same reason we shed ours, I suspect," Rarity decided as the group quickly moved past it. "Freedom of movement." A small sigh. "So along with everything else in the poor mare's life, she had to deal with the insult of making her public debut in that. How much further, Applejack?" "Not much," the farmer replied. "Ah'm getting a better sense for them now that they're starting to move out of the rain -- and yeah, it's a plural. Two bodies. Moving slow." "He's got that limp," Twilight considered, "and I don't think his corona completely winked out before Rainbow got the restraint on. He probably got an extra backlash from that. So he can't run, and she's keeping pace with him..." Applejack nods. "That's how I figure it." "Could you collapse the tunnel in front of them?" Rainbow quickly asked. "Keep them from going anywhere?" "Hard t' do small-scale," Applejack replied. "I could try -- but most of it is pretty solid rock, Rainbow. Wouldn't be easy to start with. And even if I managed, there's aim. We're trying not to hurt her. Besides, I do too much and she might hear me. All she's got to do is say 'no' on instinct. And once she says that, she might start saying a lot of other things." The pegasus groaned. "It just can't be the easy way." (Her wings shifted again: Spike's shivering continued to slow.) "Fine. So once we're in a tight space again --" "-- it ain't," Applejack reassured her. "Not exactly the castle's great hall, but there's some room to work with." Firmly, "Good." They kept moving. Watching. Listening... "...if we'd just been able to get in!" The group only froze for a split-second. Mutually regarded the nearest trees, considered the chance of lightning strikes as a unit, and still stepped back into the shadows. "It wasn't a bad idea," an unfamiliar stallion voice decided, with the tone suggesting that agreement was being made for at least the tenth time. "Can we just go back to town now?" "I thought we were heading back to town!" There weren't many mares who could essentially mutter a yell, but this one managed the trick. "Swung around to try and intercept some of the guests while they were leaving, but no, nopony wants to talk! And it's bad enough that we were out there all night in what was scheduled as the worst storm of the season after the bucking servant blocked us, but then this happened, and we got lost... I'm going to be filing stories. Lots of stories. And at least one of them is going to be about the incompetence of the local weather team." "What about those two ponies in full-body robes who galloped past us? Any ideas there?" The mare snickered. "Well, we could say it was just some performance art held at the party. Or maybe they were toys. An offering given to a Princess who doesn't know what to do with them..." Followed by, with the frustration dropping back in, "It should have worked. It might have been the best idea for sneaking into something anypony's ever had, and it didn't work..." The pair came into view. "Still a great idea," the stallion told her, possibly for the eleventh time. "Great ideas work." She snorted. "Something's going on with the Princess and that castle. Why else would she be staying so long?" "Maybe," the stallion proposed, "she's pregnant." The mare stopped moving. "Gallop with that," she urgently said. "Right now." "Well, that doctor is living there now, right?" the stallion continued. "The one the locals say is so special. And what's more special than an alicorn giving birth?" The green and brown unicorn mare stared at her partner. "Page One," she happily declared. "That is Page One for the next eleven and a half moons..." And they continued on their way, merrily working out the false details of the rumor while completely unaware of the seven sapients who were less than thirty body lengths away. Rarity was the first to risk speech. "So now we know where the reporters were all night." The others nodded. "Also that they don't seem to be particularly lucky." Again. Rarity took a deep breath. "That," she concluded, "is the single worst fake pregnancy belly I have ever seen. And I am comparing it to a nearly-full educational career of having to attend plays at my boarding school. Ones where I was not permitted to be in the costume department." A tiny shrug. "One wonders if the birdseed leakage began before they were turned away..." It started as a fairly normal cave, albeit one which had seen most of the stalagmites cleared away. There was enough room for three ponies to trot side-by-side -- or one pegasus who was taking the first possible opportunity to spread her wings, shaking out the moisture as quietly as possible. Twilight had taken the lead again: the passage had no lighting devices, and so they were once again relying on corona glow. Rarity and Applejack had wound up next to each other: one tracking hoofsteps, the other straining to pick up on the chaos pearls again. So far, the farmer was the only one having any luck. "They've got a lead," she whispered. "But we could close the gap. The problem is figuring out what t' do when we reach them." "I'm not going to trust the restraint," Twilight softly replied. "Not with him. If the Exception lets him get past it..." But they'd had to try. "We keep watching for his field. No matter what." "And her?" Spike asked. She sighed. "I wish I knew, Spike. I keep thinking there has to be something we can do. Say. But we'll be confronting her underground..." Perhaps the single worst place to confront an easily-scared earth pony who had an extremely loud vocabulary. "I want it to be peaceful. But maybe it can't be." "Try to teleport with her, if it looks like it's going bad," Applejack suggested. "Get next to her, take her with you. Put her on the surface." "But that leaves all of you with him. If I'm not countering -- Applejack, I've never tried to take more than three with me. I don't know if I can get all of us out at the same time. And if I take him, it's leaving you alone with her, even for a few seconds, and -- all she'll know is that I just made her father vanish. I don't think she's going to take it well." "...there's no easy answer, Twilight." The near-whisper was Fluttershy's natural mode of communication. "I don't know if there can be a plan." "We talk to her," Pinkie firmly (if quietly) said. "As much as we can." "But will she listen?" Twilight asked. "Just about everything she's ever heard is from him..." Nopony had an answer, and so they moved on. There wasn't all that much in the way of fieldlight: they had to worry about a reflection bouncing ahead, and so partial coronas were the most anypony was willing to risk -- especially since there was a chance that those ahead of them were moving in the dark. It was still enough to let them watch the little displays as corona hues moved through the water which occasionally dripped down from the stalactites, or that played off the moisture on the walls. There was an odd beauty to it, even with the somewhat muddy hues which resulted near the middle of the herd. But there were also dripping noises. Tiny impacts, when all of their senses were straining forward, when they'd already been hit by the chaos storm and so every nerve was waiting for the next attack. It was hard not to jump when moisture impacted fur, or if a tiny pebble was accidentally kicked into a hock. We're all still alive. For now. She wanted to pace. She wanted to scream. But she didn't have time... "No traps so far," Twilight whispered. (She was searching for magic: Applejack was checking for potential rockfalls.) "At least there's that. But it doesn't mean there won't be any --" "-- keep looking," Applejack tightly said. "The walls ahead just went smooth." Twilight saw what she meant: the natural, uneven, potentially injurious patterns of the underground corridor were being replaced by something more friendly to fur and flesh. (The ceiling remained fairly natural.) Somepony worked on this section. Which means somepony may have put workings in this section. "Got it," Twilight softly replied. Extended her senses again. Still nothing. "But we're okay so far." She took another hoofstep forward. There were only four ponies in the world who could have set off the newest type of resonance bomb, and the youngest went right into it. Everything should be new. Everything is the same. {There is pain. There is pain. There is pain.} She doesn't really understand words yet. She knows about sound. She makes a sound when she's upset. When she's hungry. When it seems as if she's been alone for a very long time, and part of her recognizes that there is a sound she can make which is supposed to bring somepony else. A sort of magic, the only kind she can work -- and so much of the time, nothing happens. She cries and nopony comes. She cries and she cries and something in her knows that somepony is supposed to come -- but it usually doesn't happen. So she cries more, because it's the only thing she knows how to do. She doesn't know about names, and so she doesn't understand that nopony has given her one. She sees colors and couldn't tell you what any of them are, for the first bit of speech is many moons away. But she loves colors. At this age, it would usually be the brighter, the better, but she'll take anything she can get. The dominant hue in her life starts with grey, runs through grey-black, and sometimes takes a dip into the browns. That's what's available in her room, the place she spends nearly all of her time. There are rare excursions to other sections, but -- they never leave the overall area. To that extent, the view never changes, and the walls are always the same. {Why does it hurt?} But sometimes she cries, and a snout appears. (She doesn't know what that is yet. She's somewhat aware that she has one. She's attempted the first explorations of her own body, but they're hampered by the sack of cloth which starts at her waist and surrounds her hind legs and tail. She can't really walk in that, and it makes other kinds of investigation difficult.) The snout is very large. Everything is huge. The world dwarfs her and she takes it as natural, for she knows nothing else. The air is always still and the temperature doesn't change very much. The light is even and steady, except when it's dark. There are those her age (she will never see anypony her age) who wouldn't like the dark, but there's some subtle shades there. There's also a weight around her neck, all the time. That has lots of colors. Still, she likes the color of the snout best. The snout belong to him. (She recognizes that there is a him, and that he is important.) She likes that he brings her food. That he cleans her. Washes her. Checks on her when she cries (but perhaps not often enough, and so she won't cry for very long). She likes his eyes. She likes the sounds he makes, because it means somepony is making sounds for her. She strains to listen, and it won't be very long before she starts to understand what a few of them mean. {Why is her skin on fire?} Sometimes silver picks her up. (Silver is interesting. It tingles.) It brings her almost all the way to him. And he looks at her, and he makes sounds. I love you I love you, and so you will love me too In spite of what you did, I love you You killed your mother and I love you still You are broken... They must be important sounds, because he makes them all the time. She has to pay attention. "-- Twilight!" As close to a scream as a whisper could ever manage: something else which Fluttershy was naturally good at. "Twilight, look at me, focus --" She reeled, or tried to: the pink and orange forms were holding her up, one from each side. "What...?" "Good," Fluttershy exhaled. "You're talking. Where are we?" "...underground," Twilight eventually managed. "In the tunnel, following them." A small nod. "What happened?" She did her best to focus. Fought her way through the memory of pain. "I was... I think I was her. As a foal. We couldn't have been more than a few moons old..." The caretaker was staring at her. It was lower-case, but it had plenty of company. "You froze," Fluttershy said. "Then you started twitching, and Rarity had to clamp her field around your mouth to keep you from screaming. You were like that for about a minute, Twilight: we were trying to figure out if there was some way we could help you, we were going to evacuate you if things got any worse. You didn't even respond when Spike tried a light pinch. You were gone. And now you're saying you were her?" Twilight shakily nodded. "It was -- it was like a resonance bomb," she told them, looking at the faces crowded around her. "But instead of an emotion, I got a memory. One which was tainted by pain. Because when a caster works a spell under high emotion, you can get some sense of what that emotion was, and she was in pain when she brought back that memory. So I got that, and... she was a foal. Somehow, she remembered something from when she was an infant. And it stuck here." "But that's magic!" Pinkie protested, unwilling to risk moving her body away just yet. "You said so in the orchard, and how they were made! You were checking for magic! Why didn't you find it?" "I don't know," Twilight replied. "I should have. But... it was just a memory, everypony. We'll just watch out for the next one." "There could be more than just memories," Applejack darkly pointed out. "And if you can't find them..." A slow nod. "I know. But all we can do is be careful. We can't stop --" "-- we can if it's your life," and the interruption had come from Fluttershy. "You were hurting, Twilight: anypony could see it. And maybe we can deal with the pain, but if it gets worse than that --" They trusted Pinkie for emotional issues. Applejack took the lead in practical problems. Medical risks meant Fluttershy was in charge. "A little more," Twilight requested. "I'll just look more carefully." But she'd thought she was searching on a level which would allow her to pick up on passive workings... "And that's a weird choice for a trap." "False sense of security," Rainbow's limited reading experience told them. "There's probably something really big up ahead." "You're sure you're okay?" Spike worriedly checked. "It was just pain," Twilight told them. "The -- memory of pain --" and truly saw where farmer and baker were standing. "-- wait. Did you move me?" "...a little," Fluttershy admitted. "Just enough to stabilize you." "Let me look at where I stepped." It was still a request, and so it took a moment for the others to comply. But eventually, she had a view. "Applejack should have gotten some of it," she quickly decided. "If it was anything approaching a standard size and charge, there would have been enough for at least two ponies, and she would have walked right through it. So maybe it's underpowered. And it could be completely discharged now: I'm not picking up on anything." "...you didn't before it went off, either," Fluttershy reminded her. "We can keep going, Twilight. For a while. But now that we know something's here..." She nodded. "I'll be more careful." Began to trot down the tunnel. She made it through five hoofsteps. On the best days, he tells her about her mother. Those days don't come often. It's a subject he's reluctant to approach, and it feels like it's too easy for him to figure out when he's being led. (She is six. She's not very good at leading. She never will be.) If he senses that, he sort of -- closes up. And then it's back to the lessons, and the lessons just keep coming. There are times when it feels as if all she does is study and normally, since she's a filly, all she really knows of fillies is herself and all she does is study, then studying would be normal. Except that... ...she's not normal. She's broken. She's broken and her daddy just wants to make her better. But she still wants to know about her mother. It feels like it's very important to know about one's mother, especially because there seems to be some obligation to learn about the pony she -- killed. (She hurts when she thinks about that. She hurts a lot of the time. She studies so it'll stop hurting.) There aren't many days where her daddy will talk about the time before. But they happen. When he's in a good mood, if there was a book which was just found, when he's just come back from somewhere with a new stone for her necklace... it's possible. And on those days (or nights: she's not always sure, because with no natural light, her sleep schedule isn't quite in sync with a Sun and Moon she's never seen, and of course he's up at all hours for his very important job), he tells her about dances and parties. About a first date which he still feels never should have worked out. On one great day, he tells her about the wedding and of course she wants details about the guests and the food and the dress, because there was a dress and so it had colors which went with those of her mother, which means he has to tell her about what her mother's colors were. She almost begs for the finest details. The curve of the tail, the way her eyes would twinkle. She has never seen her mother. She never will, because she killed her. But she wants to have some kind of image. Something in her head, so she'll know just who her mother was. It's a lot to ask, and after he talks to her... the best days are followed by quiet ones. Sometimes after he talks, he won't say much of anything for a week. A week in which all she can do is study. But she's starting to get some idea of who her mother truly was. She's had the name of her victim for a long time. Maybe someday she'll have a face. The best days are worth the silence. And then there's the greatest day. (The greatest day, which led to the worst day, winding the trail across the path of years.) It's not her birthday. (She doesn't know that birthdays are something to be celebrated. Her birthday is one where her daddy always goes silent, and that never changes.) It's an anniversary. The day her daddy and mommy first met, only lots of years later. (When you're six, single digits are a lot.) And her daddy is a little silly. He smells funny, especially around his mouth. His field is carrying a bottle, and she's not allowed to have anything from it. This seems unfair. "Did I ever tell you," he says, quite spontaneously, with no prompting at all, "what your mother did for a living?" He hasn't. The topic has come up, but he's never answered her. He's volunteering this. {Her bones are breaking themselves.} "No," she says. And she can't pray to the Princess, because the Princess is a pony. (A very special pony. She's going to be a pony like that someday, if she's good.) Sun and Moon -- they're names and pictures in books. So she just hopes. "Well," he conspiratorially (and drunkenly, although it'll be years before she figures that out) says, "she --" and stops. Her heart begins to fall. "Actually," he says, "why don't I just show you?" And he signals for her to follow, and they go into the study and he taps part of the wall, it sort of slides aside and they go through a hallway, a new hallway, she's never been into a new hallway and every part of her is shaking with excitement, they're going somewhere new for the first time ever and then he opens a door and gestures a foreleg. He wants her to go ahead of him. She does, and she steps into magic. There are colors. So many colors. There are racks filled with colors. There are surfaces upon which colors have been applied, and when the colors unite, they become places. Like the ones she sees in her books, only so much brighter, so much more alive. And there are ponies, and there are things which are not ponies, and Sun, is that Sun? She thought it would be brighter than that. And a lot bigger. But it's in the corner of that one place, and maybe there isn't much glow, but there's a moment where it's almost as if she can feel that warmth. The warmth she's been told can only touch her when the Great Work is complete. {Her bones are breaking themselves.} "She traveled a lot, before she came to Trotter's Falls," her daddy softly tells her (and she hears his voice starting to choke up, like it usually does when he talks about her mommy for a while). "She wanted to remember everywhere she'd been. All the ponies in her life. It was natural for her..." She can almost hear the tear forming. She can't look back to see it. She has to see this. "These," her daddy says, "are your mother's memories." He lets her stay in the room for what ultimately turns out to be twenty minutes. Then he takes her back out. The next day, he sends her into her bedroom, closes the door behind her and tells her not to emerge until he calls for her. Shortly after that, strange sounds come from the study. The wall never opens again. He never talks about what's on the other side. To even try and bring it up leads to silences. Absences. Weeks when it's just her, and it's usually days, it's very often days because he travels a lot in trying to make her better and she learned how to take care of herself very early. At six, she cooks, cleans, does her own laundry for bedding, and now has learned that the best way to do it all by herself for most of a moon is to talk about what's beyond that wall. The treasures hidden inside the stone. {Her bones are breaking themselves.} {She deserves it.} But there's more than one wall. She was lying on the smoothed-out floor, and so got to learn it wasn't completely smooth. It had been some time since the last maintenance sweep, and so something which might be a stalagmite in four or five hundred years was poking into her side. "I scouted ahead while Fluttershy tended to you," was the first thing Rarity said. "Nothing happened. I risked standing directly over where you'd been when you fell. The same result. I am starting to believe this is attuned to you. Attacking you. We already know that Doctor Gentle can create a resonance bomb. We could be looking at her trick, Twilight. You were in more pain this time, and if it keeps getting worse --" "-- she didn't do this on purpose." Water dripped. Some of it came down from the ceiling. A little more fell from Rainbow's wings. "How do you know?" Applejack challenged. "How can you --" "-- because of the pain. I felt... I felt like my ribs were breaking, Applejack. Over and over. Fast. When you're casting, and your emotions are strong... it leaks in. It can even change the way things come out. It's the same for you, isn't it?" The farmer slowly nodded. "I think... she did this by accident," Twilight slowly said. "When she changed for the first time." It was a wild theory -- but it was one which felt as if it had arisen from the heart of her mark. "Something went wrong, and maybe she was remembering everything which she thought had made it go wrong. But she was remembering it while she was changing. I think she must have been changing fast. Faster than we even saw on the stage. Over and over. She was hurting, she was thinking about what had made it hurt, and... it just went outwards. She created a new kind of resonance bomb, without meaning to. But... she made it while she was changing. The pain leaked in -- and maybe the other forms did too, in one way. Maybe..." It felt right. It felt like a horror. "...maybe I'm the only pony here who can trigger them. Because I'm a little of everything, and so is she. Maybe you have to be an alicorn to set them off..." She began struggling to her hooves: Spike quickly moved in to help her up. "They're hurting you," her little brother insisted. "We saw that! You can't keep --" "-- it's a memory, Spike, it's a memory of her pain. But I think it's also what she thought went wrong. Maybe if there's more of them --" "-- we might not be able to stop you from screaming every time! You could kick out, or hit your head, or --" "-- you're right." She looked past him, to Rarity. "Keep your field around my jaw." The designer blinked. "...Twilight?" "So I don't scream when I set the next one off. If there is a next one." "...the memory of pain," Fluttershy softly said, "if you're reliving it, is pain." Starkly, "Twilight, if this gets bad enough, it could kill you." "It hasn't killed her." "You ain't her," Applejack pointed out. "We need this," Twilight insisted. "If it's what went wrong, we have to know -- !" "An' where were you just now?" the farmer broke in. "Where did you think you were?" "Underground -- no, not here. The lower level which Doctor Gentle mentioned during the presentation, the one below his estate. He took her to Primatura's old workspace. Where she was born, only he didn't tell her that. Applejack, this could be crucial. She can't tell us what happened: he won't let her. But if I keep going -- if the right things are here..." She steeled herself. Straightened her spine. Pulled herself to her full height, which still left her looking at least slightly up at all of those with fur. "I'm going to find the next one. Rarity, field clamp. Please." Nothing happened. "You're being stubborn," Applejack said. Twilight nodded. "Y'told me once that I was the one who taught you to be that stubborn." Again. Applejack sighed. "Y'know what friendship and leadership are like?" she asked the most local part of the world. "It's like having a bunch of extra siblings who don't listen to you either. Fluttershy, can she take another one?" "...at the current level," the caretaker cautiously said, "yes. But we don't know how much worse this could get." "We'll find out. Rarity, clamp her." "You cannot be serious," the designer declared. "Or rather, you should not be --" "-- only way through is forward. Every one of these things stalls us. But we don't know how big they are or how to avoid them. We can't even find them. So we've gotta go through. We can't leave Twi behind unless it looks like one could kill her. So we monitor her, close as we can. An' we hope there's something worth learning at the end." A long pause, too long with all the time they'd already lost -- and then soft blue glow wrapped around Twilight's jaw. They moved on. Spike was now at Twilight's side. "Nine times," he quietly reminded her. "I had to bring you to the nurse after you drained yourself into exhaustion. Nine times. And that was just at school." She was almost glad she couldn't answer. "I'm supposed to stop you when you're about to do something stupid. That's my job." 'Almost' fled the tunnel. "But I can hardly ever stop you," he quietly finished. "You won't let me..." He stayed with her, moving in silence. Waiting. She wasn't sure where the quilt had originally come from. Well -- she knew about stores. Craftsponies. There were talents for sewing, certainly, and maybe there were even quilt specialists, although that felt like a really narrow focus for a mark. But when she'd originally mentioned that the walls had been growing very cold at night (it was an exceptionally chill winter, at least from what her father had told her, and he had yet to find a pegasus who could be brought down to lend their magic to the standing, apparently fading techniques), he'd just gone up and, a short time later, come back down with the quilt. So it was possible that he'd teleported to town, made a quick purchase, and then come back, but... it had been a very short absence. That suggested the quilt had in the main house all along. It was also a very large quilt. Large enough for two adult ponies to curl under it. Maybe... maybe her mother had used that quilt. (She is nine. She has been tapping walls for three years.) It quickly becomes her favorite. It's warm and colorful and she can play all sorts of games with it, which mostly means she goes all the way under and then pretends it's somewhere else. History books and atlases give her an endless selection of somewhere elses to be in, although she's not completely sure what the parts outside the pictures are supposed to look like. Still, she has fantasies. Most of them involve talking to strangers, which means anyone else in the world. Others just have her outside. It means she's dreaming about the day when the Great Work will be complete, which is an admirable thing to do because it encourages her to work towards that goal and so playtime is necessary. Maybe it's even needful. She's almost certain her mother picked out this quilt. The colors are just that good. She cuddles up with it. She snuggles it on the cold nights when her father doesn't come to see her. She plays under it and with it and then one day it tears. It's just a rip along the stitch line. It could be fixed. But the stuffing is coming out. And she hates that. She hates that she tore it. (It was normal wear for an old piece.) She feels like she broke something precious. Like she killed something. Again. She doesn't want to feel that way. Not about the quilt. There's stuffing coming out. She... doesn't know what to do about that. She doesn't have sewing materials. But the stuffing shouldn't escape. So she tries to get it back inside the quilt, only she can't. It doesn't taste good in her mouth. She can't nose it or push it with her hooves without scattering it everywhere, breaking it up into smaller pieces in the process. If she gets any close to the quilt, then her attempts to put it back only widen the tear. She's making things worse. All she ever does is -- -- her father could have fixed it with a thought. He would have looked at the stuffing and it all would have gone back inside. But she can't... ...it's been years since she's cried like this. She keeps waiting for him to come down, find her curled up and sobbing upon the remains of what she loved. But he doesn't. She's alone. She's almost always alone. It means nopony can see how broken she is, and that's a good thing. It means nopony hears her cry and sees her shame. She's broken. She's broken and she breaks things and she ruins whatever's beautiful and he loves her he shouldn't she killed her mother and he loves her anyway "A bad day," Twilight finally told them, once she'd come back to herself. "Just -- a bad day." She's getting stronger. This isn't a good thing. The broken are the strong ones. (Princesses are allowed to be strong, but she's not a Princess yet.) Her increasing strength means she isn't getting any better, and so it's a mark of shame. (The only mark she has. What is she doing wrong...?) But it does make certain things easier. For example, she can now shove some of the furniture around, which allows her to, with feather duster in mouth, clean places she could never reach before. This also happens to provide fresh portions of the same old walls to look at. It might not mean much to anypony else, but for her, it's a change. A lot of things are changing. Her father has been very quiet, too much so. When he does speak, many of his words concern those he's delivered. The ones he used the pearls on. Some of them don't seem to be doing well, although he really doesn't provide much in the way of details. But she knows it's related to the Great Work, and so it worries her. If he's concerned, then so is she. She just doesn't know how to fix it. How to fix anything at all. She can't make things better, and so she's cleaning. The furniture can be moved now, so she moves it -- -- there's a crack in the wall behind the bookcase. A rectangular one. Larger than her father's body. About the size of a -- hallway. And it's very thin, hard to spot -- but when all you have to look at are stone walls, it becomes easier to pick up on the little things. She stares at it. Her father hasn't been home for days. She taps... It takes six minutes, and then she touches the right place. {Her skull splits. Something rises from the crack. Sinks back down.} She can barely breathe. She feels as if she must be breaking a rule. But leaving is what's wrong, one of the many wrong things she might do. She doesn't seem to be doing that. The stone is familiar, so she's in the same place: that's right, isn't it? It's just -- -- and then the other door opens, and she steps into a room she has only seen once before, only from a new angle, and the colors rush forth to meet her. Her mother's memories. They're all there, while her father is not. She has all the time in the world. Hours. Easily hours, looking at them all -- well, some. She finds memories stacked under memories, behind memories, cabinets full of memories which weren't quite ready for open display yet. There are also blank memories -- actually, they must be the things you make memories on: she doubts her mother had any days that boring. There's a lot of those blanks. Enough to make memories for years and years. Things she made memories on, and -- the colors she made memories with. (They're still liquid. Still fresh. She doesn't know about the little enchantments which make that so.) This is her mother's workplace. It's sacred. It's as close to her mother as she's ever been (excepting the day when she killed her) and so she stays as long as she dares. She nearly sleeps there. But her father could come back and -- she remembers the great day. She knows that being in here hurt him. Finding her in this room, even if it's still part of her place, might hurt him all the more. She can't tell him. She -- has a secret. She's never had one of those before. But she doesn't want to hurt him. She does enough of that every day of her life, simply through being broken. So she won't tell him. She just puts the bookcase back. He returns two days later. He's smiling. "I have news," he tells her. "Good news. The best we've had in some time." She gets up from her low-set study table. Trots over to him, automatically adjusts the necklace (seven stones now), waits. And he tells her about a filly, one somewhat younger than she. He doesn't really go into details like names (he seldom uses them in front of her, perhaps because she might become envious) or appearance. He's more focused on what happened. A filly has created miracle. "We have proof," he tells her attentive ears, which are strained in amazement with the rest of her. "Finally, we have proof. And so I think --" still smiling "-- it's time for the next stage." "And what's that?" Almost wriggling inside her skin. Because her father was right, and she doesn't have to be broken forever. "You're studying as best you can," he says. "But studying isn't always enough. And I can't teach you everything. I've told you about some of the ponies I've met, the ones who are trying to help. And I know you've been struggling a little with budget balancing. Would you like to meet somepony who can tell you more about it?" ...there is going to be another pony. She's going to meet another pony. She presses herself against him. He nuzzles her. And they talk about plans, some of those she might see, some he could try to recruit... Hours. He hasn't been this happy in years, and so they talk for hours. And when that topic wraps up, he has one more. "The necklace is not to be removed until the Great Work is complete." She eagerly nods. She would nod to anything just now, even the near-oldest of lessons. "The chaos pearls hold the essence of those who may yet help you." Again. With orange eyes twinkling, "But I've never told you whose essence is in the oldest pearl, have I?" He hasn't. Just that it was the most special pearl of all -- -- he tells her. And now she's touching the necklace more than ever. Touching the center... ...it's been twelve days. He brings her a dress. They review etiquette for most of the morning. Then he introduces her to their guest. It's a good day. It's one of the best she's ever had. There are strange looks and expressions which she eventually realizes represent pity, but there's another pony. And not only that, there's actually been a pony there all along. With her for years and years... (But I killed...) She is perfectly polite with their guest. She thanks him profusely for having come to see her. And then he's gone, and she will never see him again. (She thinks she recognizes his exact eye color at the conference. But without the fur, she can't be fully certain.) She wants to always remember what he looked like, because he came to see her and nopony had ever come to see her. He's special. She knows how to get into a room full of perfectly preserved memories, a place which retains all the supplies required for their creation. What she doesn't know is how to make one. But how hard could it be? And besides, if it was wrong... Her father shouldn't know. It'll hurt him. But... the chaos pearl was with her. It never did anything while she was in the room, either time. It simply changed, as it always has. Maybe that means it doesn't think she did something bad. Or that it's still waiting for her to do something right, the best thing, but since nothing bad happened... So she waits until she feels she has privacy (and her studies are up to date, because that's important). She goes back in. And now she has two secrets. "...he said 'I'll be taking her back.' Her." The pain was receding, and Twilight still felt sick. "This isn't just about transformation. It started that way, but when he learned more about essence..." "If I vomit right now," Rarity far-too-calmly said, "do you think they would hear me?" "...maybe?" "Pity." It isn't easy. She has nothing she can study, not through her most standard method, as there are no books about memory-making on the shelves. (She has no way of knowing that they were present before she was born. They were removed, and they will never be returned.) Asking for an expert to visit would require that she explain why. She wants to make a memory and for a long time, it feels like all she's making is a mess. But she practices. She improvises. Lacking all formal training, with nothing except her mother's examples to go by, she invents. It isn't easy. It also isn't something she can attempt regularly. Her father does come to see her, after all: she has to pick hours when he won't be there, and there's one early close call when she hears hoofsteps which just barely echo through the stone ceiling and realizes she has to get out: she just barely makes it in time. And then there's the fact that memory materials can, if she's not careful, stain her fur. Her mother would have just thought about where they had to go, but she's broken and so she has to work by mouth: one slip... (There's an old stain on the floor, just about in the exact center of the workplace. She often stands over it while she's practicing or, more realistically, failing.) It requires time, learning how to stay clean. Before that, she winds up taking a lot of showers. Her father notices, and just says something about her age. She gets so much wrong. She wipes it clean, gets back to the blank state, starts over. Eventually, she's getting less wrong. Then an eye starts to look almost right. More ponies come. She does everything she can to fix their images in her head, all the better to try and render that ultimate memory properly. There seems to be a pattern developing. She's using all the time she can spare (and is it too much? Is she taking hours away from the Great Work? What if she's ruining) {The base of her tail feels as if it will snap in half. It settles for thirds.} and she's definitely improving. But at the same time -- she's been studying magic for years, workings and techniques she can't use. Now it seems as if she's inadvertently cast something, and she calls it Summon Father. Because when she figures out what she's been doing wrong, when she takes a leap forward, gets better -- then all too often, there will be hoofsteps. She's still learning about memory creation, but she has mastered getting out in a hurry. She's just lucky that he doesn't really teleport into her rooms: his safe zone is directly over the workplace, and so she can know when he arrives. She improves, and he appears. It happens over and over. And when he appears, he has something for her to study. A new topic to discuss. An old one to review. He keeps distracting her. But she keeps going back. She feels... good, when she's in that room. Better than she thought she would. She is surrounded by her mother's memories, and it is as close as she can truly be to the mare she killed until the day the Great Work is complete. She is doing what her mother did, and doesn't that honor the lost in some way? She practices. She experiments. And there is a day when she looks at the newest of memories and calls it her own. Then she does it again. The process can make her father appear, sometimes from rather far away. After a while, she figures out how to use that. She speaks with him about the new topic. She waits until he seems relaxed. And if she's lucky, it'll be a good time to ask him about her mother. Everything about her. Everything. "...you didn't hear your heartbeat just now! I did! You can't take much more of this!" "I have to! The last one was Coordinator, Fluttershy: he insulted her, she went after him... we're getting close. I think it's one more. One more and we might be there!" "You don't know!" The caretaker hadn't raised her voice: she had simply changed the tone into the sound which made it very clear that the patient had no idea what she was doing or worse, didn't care. "You could just teleport ahead, avoid some of them --" "-- I could appear right in the middle of one. The spacing isn't regular. They may be columns going into the air --" "-- and it's taking you longer to recover. If they weren't moving so slowly..." Carefully, "Twilight, the next one could have everything. And then you take another step and there's forty more beyond that. We don't know." "I've gotten this far." She staggered to her hooves, spit out the blood from where she'd bit her tongue. "I can get through one more. She goes through this every second, Fluttershy, goes through worse. You heard Applejack. The only way through is forward." And before they could stop her, she moved. She just barely felt Spike's claws clutching for her tail. And then that, and everything else, went away. She's failed. She spends every day feeling like she's failed. It -- should have happened by now. She's an adult. She's studied so much, and one of the topics was marks. She's aware of the record for the greatest age at manifest. She's getting close to passing it. What did she do wrong? ...maybe... ...she should stop. She has to stop. She keeps telling herself that: she has to stop. And yet she keeps going back, especially since... It's almost finished. When she finishes this one -- then she'll stop. This is the most important one. All of the others -- she completes them, and then she puts them behind other memories. Sometimes under memories. Every so often, when she's in the room, she'll take them out for review. She likes remembering those who came to see her, even when it was only once each. She hides them again when she's done. He's never gone back into the room: she isn't sure he knows how. But if he ever did -- well, he can't know how many memories were there to begin with, right? Maybe if he looks around too much, he'll just decide he missed a few... (Naturally, there is a memory of him. It is not hers.) ...she's lying to herself. She knows that. But it's a lie she just keeps telling. And -- she has to finish this one. She has to do it for him... She'll tell him, after she's finished. She'll apologize. (As if any apology could ever make up for years of deceit.) But she'll have something for him. A gift, something special, something he would have never gained on his own. She's been making memories of her visitors for years now. (The process seldom goes uninterrupted.) But creating those memories -- that has become easy. This one has been harder. She is trying to create a memory of something she's never seen. And she has to get every detail right, or it won't be a memory at all. It's the hardest thing she's ever done. She keeps starting over. For the first time, the supplies are starting to run low. Once they're gone, she'll have to stop. She won't have a choice... This is the last. Begin again. Find a mistake. Begin again. They have a talk, she adjusts something, winds up starting over... Sometimes she touches the center chaos pearl while she's working. It provides no guidance, but it also doesn't tell her she's made a mistake. She finds enough of those on her own. She's been up for most of the night, correcting the last errors. Sun-raising is probably close, and she once again wonders what that looks like. ...and then it's done. She stares at it. Everything she was told is in that memory. Everything. It's beautiful. It... may be the reason the Great Work hasn't succeeded. It could be why she remains broken... ...or that could just be her. Maybe she's always been beyond fixing. She may have wasted his life from the very first day. (From the moment of murder.) But there could still be a chance for her to finish, especially as he recently came to her with news. Incredible news, something nopony except him might have believed possible. There had been two. Then one had Returned. ('Been recovered,' he'd told her at the time. He has his theories there and shortly after the Lunar Princess appeared, he received what he called the most important letter of his life. More would follow.) And now -- somepony has ascended. There is a new alicorn. One of the Bearers. Not only have the Elements been found, but they still fully work. It may give them another option. So it's possible that she's failed. Or it could just be taking a long time, with one more thing still to learn. Perhaps the last crucial fact will come from a freshly-created Princess? Could she soon be welcoming royalty to her halls? There's special etiquette for that. She should review it. But for now, there is a new memory, and it's beautiful. She just hopes it's right -- -- there are hoofsteps above her. (She was expecting that.) She slips out, waits. "This day," her father tells her as he approaches, "has provided an opportunity to review a certain category of material. There's been something of a political event outside Equestria. We've talked about griffon leadership and the dominance chain, but now we should refocus our attention on overturns. After all, a Princess may be asked to conduct diplomacy..." He seems to be talking faster than usual. The grey in his muzzle (there's so much grey now) gathers and sheds highlights as the mobile speech shifts through the light. "We can do that," she agrees. "But -- can we do one other thing first? Please?" He's looking at the necklace now. The center jewel. The start of the back piece. Returns his gaze to her face. "You seem to be rather intent on that other thing," he notes. "Surprisingly so. And what is more important than preparing to be a Princess?" She feels as if she's shrinking slightly. "It's..." Why does it seem as if words are fleeing from her tongue? "...a gift." His head tilts a little to the right. "A gift." "For you," she says. "I made it. It's... taken a long time. I just -- want to give it to you. And talk about it. And -- then you might be angry." She's certain he'll be angry. That he'll tell her she extended her own breaking. "But -- it's yours. I had to make it." Still looking at her. "...please...?" "Something you made for me," he finally says. "A gift so important that making it was worth time away from your studies." He's looking at the necklace again. "Well, I certainly admit to curiosity. May I see it?" She turns. Moves away from him a little, gestures a foreleg. After a moment, he follows. She's not sure he's ever done that before. "If you're mad," she softly requests, pleads, "just... don't tell me until after you see it. Please." (He's not really looking at her. She has no way of knowing that all of his attention is focused on the necklace.) "And there's nothing else you'd rather do." It's not quite a question. It seldom is, coming from him. "It's for you. It -- wasn't when I started. But then I thought... it was something I had to do. Something I could give you." It doesn't feel like she has the right words. "Something I could -- give back?" (It's not what he truly wants. She knows that, and -- that it won't be enough. But it's all she can give.) "Then show me." She braces herself. Moves to the bookcase, puts her left shoulder into it. A steady, careful push is followed by a tap. The little inhalation which comes from behind her fills her tiny world. "...oh," her father breathes. "I had forgotten..." She risks a glance back. He isn't smiling. Just -- staring. "I thought," he softly continues, "I had closed them all. But this one... it was never used, not from the other end. And so I forgot about the exit. Or in this case, the entrance. You were cleaning?" She nods. "Have you ever been back there before?" He doesn't remember? This is why memory creation is crucial. If he could forget that -- well, he did have the bottle, but still. "When I was six," she carefully tries. "With you. It was -- the anniversary of your first date." A slow nod. "Yes. I think I recall that. And now you found another way in." The tone is calm, more so than she'd expected it to be -- but there's something about the way some of his fur is resting against the grain. Like it's been vibrated into a new position. The tremor of excitement. "Is that the gift? To see this again? Because I shut it away for a reason --" "Just -- come and see," she pleads and, for the first time in her life, slips into the passage while in full view. He follows, and does so rather quickly. He's almost forcing himself to keep up: she's younger, somewhat larger, can move faster than he, and she once again feels like this is all about to go wrong and so she has to finish it in order for the criticism and explanation of just how she did everything wrong to begin. It's in the center. She's placed it on a display stand and draped a cloth over it. She'll need to nip the edge of that and pull it away, as a broken pony would. There's no other choice. "It took time," she tells him, if only because otherwise he'll wind up saying it. "I know I could have studied more during those hours, and I'm -- I'm sorry, but I -- I hope you like it. I hope it helps. I just..." She's repeating herself. She's that desperate. "...wanted to give you something..." She steps towards the cloth. Part of her is dreading this. Terrified of what will happen when it comes off. But -- this is everything he told her. Everything. It's all the hours she's spent in this room. It's toil and dedication and something which felt very much like love. It's time away from the Great Work, time he must consider wasted... ...but it's the best thing she's ever done. It's the best of her. She did everything she could and she feels like she did it right. She's -- proud. (There is something shifting within her. Something -- rising.) "This is for you," she tells her father. "Because I love you." Her neck arcs forward. She's almost there... He says one word. "Now." His horn ignites. Silver without sparkles surrounds her, coats the necklace. And before she can vocally react, ask what he's doing, what she's done, it goes into the pearls, and does so at the exact moment when something rises to meet it from within. The instant before her teeth can reach the cloth -- that is when her body drops to the floor, covers the old stain. She has very little choice in the matter, for it feels as if all four legs have just fractured themselves. Within her torso, several ribs separate, create space through tearing muscles. And then there are wings beating at the air, and then those bones break as feathers vanish and there is a pounding at the interior of her skull, a pushing and something erupts and subsides and her teeth crack and the world around her seems to scream and pinions spike at her skin from the inside and it's happening over and over, faster and faster and she tries to scream she needs to scream but her jaw is locked as muscles spasm, as joints along her flanks appear and vanish and come back over and over and over and -- -- he's saying something, and the words are -- calm. But it's more than that. He sounds happy. "This is your ascension." It is a statement. It's also wrong. It isn't ascension. It's agony. It feels like something is going inside her. (The chaos pearls are flashing through their changes, faster and faster.) It feels like there's so much that there isn't room for her any more. Things go in, push wings and horn out and then back in again. A heartbeat there, another gone, and it's the worst pain of her life right up until she lives through it to the next heartbeat and that takes over the role. She tries to focus, tries to think about anything which isn't the pain. Is it supposed to be like this? Nothing he told her about Star Swirl's notes had said there would be pain. And she thinks about her memories, tries to see them in her mind and that seems to help a little, but then her spine twists and her head goes up as the horn comes back and goes away and he's shouting now, he's shouting and she's never heard so much joy in his voice. So much hope. "Can you feel her? Can you feel her?" She can't. All she can feel is the pain, and that agony radiates into the world. Colors are changing before her eyes. There are new colors, hues she's never seen before, they flash in and out of her vision, they hurt and so she tries to push them away -- -- something goes past her and over him, moving through the air. Then she smells smoke. It just barely gets through the sensory assault. The air around her is freezing. A blank memory, one leaning against the wall, something she'd never gotten around to using -- it's on fire. And her father is just starting to notice, perhaps because he's less than two body lengths away from the flame. The fire is beginning to spread. She tries to stand up. To reach him. But her legs won't work. She tries to get her head up and the weight of the intermittent horn holds it down. He's near the exit. He might be able to get out. But the fire... her mother's memories are in this room, memories are fragile and when the fire reaches them -- they're going to burn, they're all going to burn -- she has to save him. She has to save them. She shoves. Something erupts from her, something initially gold, something which sweeps across the room, and it moves in four waves. The first reaches her father, surrounds him, picks him up and flings him through the passage, sending him to safety. (She doesn't see where he lands, or how. She doesn't know that his right hind leg was caught against a table, or that the resulting injury will produce a limp which lasts for days.) The second is protection for him, an unseen bubble which will move with him for a time, because the third sweeps all the heat out of the room, not so much snuffing the fire as potentially relocating it -- but the pain makes her effort imperfect, the heat seems to move into the walls and it needs to go further, she needs to keep it away from the memories, she needs to protect them beyond all else and the next wave comes as her body flickers between states of torture, magic meshing and combining into a golden construct whose visible portion solidifies into a dome, the intermittently invisible pushing the majority of the heat up into the rooms she has never seen. The dome also closes the door. Simple pressure. The memories are safe. He's safe. But the pain isn't stopping. It builds and builds, it endlessly escalates, rises until it seems as if it must enter a state of vacuum where her very life is snuffed out, and then it goes still higher. She can barely think. She can't move. She can't even scream. All she knows is that she failed, this wouldn't have happened if she didn't fail, she's trying to figure out why she failed, her agonized thoughts rush along the path of her life and there's a new light in the room, a blaze of power coming from her hips and that hurts more than everything else, the world burns her, the world hates her... I failed. {We failed.} I deserve this. {We deserve this.} I can't be here. I should never have come here. I can't be here. I -- {-- have to get out --} The pearls flash. Her flanks blaze. There's one more burst of gold -- -- and she's gone. (Above her, outside the realm of memory, the fire begins again, spreads quickly, begins to destroy everything which Sun can directly touch. In an outer room, an injured stallion tries to get up, stays as long as he can risk, eventually smells a few wisps of smoke moving down through hidden vents and then drags himself along. He winds up going through the heat's border, only half-aware of what's happening, and the invisible protection keeps the fire away -- but not the soot. It still gets him into the exit passage.) {In the tunnel, a small tortured mare, surrounded by friends and family, opens tear-streaming eyes and weeps for all which was lost.}