Shining Armor had dropped back to the ground after his brief attempt at rising. His head was pillowed in Twily's folded forehooves, and turned toward Sunset and Twilight as they approached. A brittle smile split his face as he laid eyes on the doppelganger of his sister, but it soured to a grimace when his gaze flicked toward Sunset.
Serena, standing over the siblings, politely excused herself to speak with Amblejoy and Spike, rubbing her shoulder against Sunset's as she passed.
Sunset swallowed down the urge to flee, and paused a respectful distance away. "You, uh, doing okay there?"
Shining Armor's eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to speak. A thin, gurgling note issued forth; he winced, rubbed his throat, and slumped back into Twily's embrace.
Sunset wilted. "Guess that was a dumb question."
"You always had a knack for those." Twily ran a hoof along Shining Armor's mane. "He'll be fine, though. Long-term. We'll get him home, we'll put things right, and as soon as he sees Cadance..."
Shining's tail swished at the mention of his bride, and that brittle smile returned.
Twily leaned down and kissed the base of his horn. "See? On the mend already."
"Surprised that's the part of him that sprang to attention," Midnight remarked.
Immediately, Twilight covered her mouth with her hoof, her eyes wide open, her cheeks red-hot. "Sorry, Sunset, but I think I'll take my alter-ego and her poor verbal filter, and go harass Serena and Amblejoy awhile."
"'Harass,'" Midnight murmured as Twilight retreated, mortified. "Of all the words you could have chosen."
"Is nothing sacred to you?"
"Learn to take a joke, Twilight. I'll bet the Dazzlings would've laughed. Whatever happened to them, anyway?"
Twily watched her go, her ears flattened in embarrassment. "Is it too late to give her back to Discord?"
"You don't want that. Trust me – he does not look good in a miniskirt," Sunset said wryly. The ex-lovers shared a chuckle, as Shining Armor turned his head, burying his face in his sister's hooves.
Twily looked mutely at Sunset for a long, painful moment. Then she said, "Guess you'll be off, huh?"
"Guess so." Sunset rubbed the back of her head. "Look—"
"You don't need to say anything." Twily interrupted. "I'm not... I'm not mad at you, Sunset. I was, for a long time. But we already had it out, and after everything we've gone through since then, it's not a grudge worth holding onto anymore. So, if you're going to apologize, then let me save you the trouble."
Her eyes twinkled with an old, deep-seated affection that Sunset ached to see.
"I forgive you."
Shining Armor made a guttural sound and swished his tail again. Twily shrugged.
"He'll come around."
Sunset smiled, relieved and abashed, and flattened her ears self-consciously. "Thank you."
"Think nothing of it. Just promise me one thing, okay?"
Sunset's head quirked.
"Don't make this a forever-goodbye." Twily paused to sniffle. "Come and see us again, okay? You and... your Twilight. Come see my Sunset and I."
"I don't know if she's 'my' Twilight, exactly."
"Well, that's a talk to have with her, now, isn't it?" Twily said knowingly. "Now. Get going. And, remember – don't be a stranger."
Shining Armor growled vehemently.
"Ignore him," Twily said.
Sunset chuckled, fought back tears and sniffles of her own, and left Twily with a final nod of acknowledgment. She rejoined Twilight, who was exchanging parting words with Amblejoy, Serena, and Spike.
"You're sure that you don't mind giving this up?" Twilight said, hefting the Amblejoy's TPT around her neck for emphasis. "Those two have a head start on you as is."
Amblejoy waved her concern off. "Fabricating a new TPT might take some time. Tracking down Skylark and Lady Sparkle, that's the easy part. Once we're ready, Spike and I can calculate their destination and pick up their trail without much hassle. There won't be any multiverse-spanning road trip for this Sunset and Twilight, I guarantee."
Twilight swiveled her head, and exchanged a look of uncertainty with Sunset.
Amblejoy noticed, and sighed. "Look. Skylark's in the wrong here. What happened to you – to all those other Twilights, in all those other universes – we can't risk letting it happen again. There must be a reckoning for Lady Sparkle."
Twilight bit her lip. "You'll be... gentle... with her, won't you?"
With only the briefest hesitation, Amblejoy nodded. "You have my word."
That brought less comfort to Sunset than it should've. But she smothered her misgivings, and forced herself to be cheerful. "We'd better hit the road. Sparky's got a long overdue trip home, and I've gotta..."
Again, she trailed off – what did she have to do?
Amblejoy coughed. "About that – I'd recommend letting the TPT make a couple random jumps, before you start targeting specific universes. New core, new device, and all that – give it a chance to calibrate, get its bearings."
Sunset nudged Twilight. "What do you think? Got a couple more field trips in you, Sparky?"
Twilight tried to mirror Sunset's expression. "Y'know... what could it hurt?"
Serena stepped forward and bumped Twilight's cheek with her nose. "I'm grateful to have met you. And that we had a chance to speak, once you were whole again."
"I'm glad I met you, too. Both of you. Amblejoy, Serena, I..." Twilight's eyes were misty behind her glasses. "I'm sorry, but... there's still a part of me that isn't used to all of this. Having people who're willing to fight and sacrifice for me, after being alone for so long—"
"Please don't turn this into a long-winded friendship speech," Midnight interrupted.
Twilight facehoofed, blushing profusely.
Amblejoy smiled slyly. "I haven't decided if I'm going to miss this or not. I'm leaning toward 'yes,' though."
"You've got some Midnight in you, too, don't you?" Spike thumped Amblejoy with his mechanical arm. "I'm sure there's a way to bring her out to play, if you really think you'll miss this."
"I'm definitely not going to miss it enough for that, Spike."
A laugh rippled through the group, and carried over to Twily and Shining Armor. Despite everything, Sunset felt light – a little closer to the cheer that she was trying to project. She cherished the moment, for as long as she could...
...and then she took a step back, gently pulling Twilight with her. "Let's go, Sparky."
Twilight nodded. Her horn glowed. The TPT opened, light building within its core. The ground below gave way; Sunset and Twilight fell through the portal, and left their new friends behind.
Sunset had gotten used to collapsing on new ground in a pile of tangled limbs. To greet this world on her feet – not hooves! – was a welcome change of pace.
Twilight wasn't so lucky.
The two of them had arrived on a grassy hilltop, with a cloudless blue sky overhead. A brisk, cool wind rustled through the grass – the grass that Twilight was face-down in, her butt hiked gracelessly in the air. Sunset wanted to laugh at the sight – she wanted to stare a little, too – but there was something gnawing at her. Some disquiet, a sense of deja vu, that kept her from appreciating the comedy in the scene.
Still, after she pushed the massive braid of flower-strewn red and gold hair off her shoulder, she had the decency to take Twilight by the arm, and guide her back to her feet.
"You know what I'm not gonna miss about sliding?" Twilight muttered, adjusting her glasses.
Sunset brushed some blades of grass off of Twilight's blouse. "What's that?"
"Sliding. As in, the act of." Twilight huffed. "I've had quite enough of teleporting into random locations and landing in undignified poses for one lifetime, thank you very much."
Sunset looked past Twilight, off the hill and into the distance, and nudged her companion's shoulder. "Know what you probably will miss?"
"Hmm?"
Sunset pointed. Twilight looked out, and sucked in a shocked breath.
Below the hill, a ruined city sprawled far into the horizon. Towering structures, urban skyscrapers that looked chiseled from solid marble, jutted toward the sky. Some were half-crumbled; some stood whole and tall. All of them were covered in thick bands of moss, snaking up each tower's length, and all of them glittered where the moss didn't touch.
"You don't get views like that back home," Sunset remarked.
Minutes passed without a word between them, until Sunset broke the silence with a sigh. "Think that was enough for the TPT to calibrate? Or should we make another jump, just to be safe?"
Twilight blinked. "Uh. We probably should go an extra time, to err on the side of caution, but..."
Sunset frowned. "What is it?"
"I don't know. Just a feeling, like something's not quite..."
Twilight reached for the device, and opened it. Her face paled.
"...It's not recharging."
"What?" Sunset reached for the device, pulled it toward herself. No light, no energy radiated from the talisman. "How could it not—?!"
And then she realized what the feeling was – where she'd experienced it before. In the void left behind by Discord, the world destroyed by his battle with Lady Sparkle.
"Ambient magic." Sunset looked Twilight in the eye. "The talisman isn't charging because there's not enough magic to power it. Whatever happened to this place, the magic's just..."
Comprehension lit in Twilight's eyes. "Not quite gone," she supplied in Midnight's husky tones. "But close enough to gone that it make no difference."
Sunset sank to her knees, pressed her trembling hands to her face, and shook. Disappointment, and self-reproach, and anger welled inside of her.
How? Sunset thought to herself. It had taken two gods – or near enough as Lady Sparkle could've gotten – to create a catastrophe on this scale. Who, or what, could have done it here, How...?
"Sunset. Turn around."
Sunset turned.
And looked upon a massive, marble likeness of Twilight Sparkle.
Stony wings sprouted from her back, and a horn jutted from her forehead, as she scowled imperiously over the city in the valley. Behind the statue, a crumbling castle soared, whose spires, tipped in tarnished gold, brought to mind visions of a fallen, long-abandoned Canterlot.
Twilight swallowed, hard. "You don't think that's her, do you?"
"...I don't think so. But maybe someone like her." Sunset snorted – an ugly, humorless laugh. "It would be, too. All this time, everything we've been through, so close to the end... and who should get in the way but another megalomaniac Twilight?"
She raised her hand and uncurled her middle finger at the ersatz Lady Sparkle.
Thanks, babe.
She dropped her arm and let her finger go limp when Twilight's hand found her shoulder.
"What do we do now?" Twilight asked.
Sunset had no reply to the question. She could only cover Twilight's hand with her own and sit, in silence, as the wind whispered past them.
Then something stepped out from behind the statue.
Immediately, Sunset leaped to her feet, balling her hands into fists, as the myriad possibilities of what could have survived in a dead, magicless world shot rapidly through her mind.
A small, slat-sided, purple-coated form edged toward them on four slender legs. Its face was long, and narrow, the flesh around its right eye blackened and disfigured. Tufts of wispy green mane poked from the top of its head, and ran down the back of its neck. It approached Sunset and Twilight quickly, without fear, a curious glint in its cat-slitted eyes.
"A fawn?" Sunset relaxed, and held out her hand as the fawn drew closer. It bent to sniff her fingers, its nose rough and dry as it bumped against her palm. Sunset peered closely at the fawn, at the disfigurement around its eye. The coat on that part of its face looked torn away, revealing what lay below: black flesh, covered in a faint, hexagonal pattern.
"Synthetic skin," Sunset said. "You're not organic, are you? Not all the way, anyway. An android?"
"Technically, 'android' would suggest a synthetic human," Twilight interjected. "Since this is a deer... and a fawn, specifically... what do you think of 'fawndroid?'"
Sunset looked flatly at Twilight. "Under no circumstances."
Twilight shrugged, and bent to peer closely at the fawn. Her eyes traced over its body: its purple coat, its tufts of mane, its vertically slitted green eyes...
"Are you... Spike?"
A note of recognition sprang into the fawn's eyes at the mention of that name. It stepped back, and turned away, though it tossed an expectant look back to the befuddled voyagers.
It wants us to follow it.
Out loud, to Twilight, she said, "What do you wanna do here?"
Twilight regarded the statue of herself with a blank, pensive stare. "We should see what it... he wants. Whatever happened to this world, whatever it was like before... Spike's still Spike. I think we can – I want to trust him."
Sunset looked back at the Spike-deer, who still stood, and stared, unmoving at them. She reached out to take Twilight's fingers in her hand. "Let's go, then."
A small smile bloomed on Twilight's face, as she gave a tiny squeeze back. "One thing, though, Sunset."
"Hmm?"
"Call him a fawndroid. It's a good word."
Sunset sighed. "You're lucky you're cute, y'know."
Nature encroached upon the castle's interiors, everywhere that Twilight and Sunset went. Yet even so, flashes of the castle's former glory showed everywhere.
Suits of armor, standing watch, with rusted swords and halberds in hand. Intricate wooden carvings, miraculously intact after centuries (millennia?) of neglect. Busts of humans, some of whom resembled people from Twilight's own life. She noted a chipper Pinkie, a somber Fluttershy, a noseless face that might once have been a Celestia. More than once, she glimpsed her own face, with the same imperious look as the statue outside.
Memories of Lady Sparkle kept surfacing, making Twilight pull closer to Sunset for support as they walked. And though Sunset sent her an encouraging look, and a squeeze of her hand, every time, her feelings weren't so easily dispelled.
In her mind, Twilight wondered – what separated her from whoever, and whatever, built this kingdom? Or from Lady Sparkle? What did it take to turn someone like her into...
...what had Amblejoy called Lady Sparkle? "A multidimensional megalomaniac?" She seemed sure that the Lady hadn't been the first to threaten the multiverse. And given the infinite possibilities of reality, there had to be, logically speaking, many more maniacs waiting in the wings. Twilight could only guess at how many.
And out of all of them... how many are Twilights, too?
More than you'd expect, but fewer than you think, I'm sure.
Twilight almost scoffed out loud. That was a rhetorical question, you know.
Yeah, Midnight said smugly.But your self-reproach stinks like sweaty gym socks, and I've had as much of that as I can take from Shimmy, without you piling on as well. So, I'm gonna answer it for you.
Y'know what, I officially retract what I said before. I'm not glad you're back after all.
I'm almost hurt by that. Midnight sighed. Sparky, think about everything we've seen since Sunset whisked you off into the wild blue yonder. All the places we've been, all the Twilights we've met – and all the Twilights out there that we haven't. Now think about how many Lady Sparkles we've run into. Uno. Dos, if you want to be generous; we can say that monstrosity outside counts, if you'd like.
That doesn't mean—
Of course there might be more Lady Sparkles out there. Infinite possibilities means just that, doesn't it? But Lady Sparkle didn't just spring out of nowhere. Something happened to make her turn out the way that she did. Before that, she was just... well, you saw how she was when she was normal.
But she still became Lady Sparkle.
Doesn't mean it was inevitable. Doesn't mean it'll happen to her again. Doesn't mean it could happen to you. One Twilight in a million million Twilights might crack and go tyrant, sure. But it's all about how you get there. Something happened to make Lady Sparkle; something happened to make whoever that was outside go crazy, too. But the rest of 'em? Bunch of goodie-two-shoes squares, from sperm to worm. I guarantee it.
But...
If you're worried it's gonna happen to you – that's what all this is about, isn't it? – then let me tell you, right now: It's not. It's never going to happen to you. She said it firmly – almost seriously. But her characteristic playfulness returned immediately. You don't even have the nerve to ravish Shimmy here, let alone launch a transdimensional extermination campaign.
Twilight's face went hot. I kissed her, didn't I?
And you stopped before you could go anywhere really fun with it, didn't you? She chuckled, then asked, What are you planning to do with her, anyway? She's into you, you're into her... where do you go from there?
...
...You have no idea, do you? Midnight clicked her tongue. Figures. All that yuri fanfiction you wrote when you were fifteen, and you're—
Oh, shut up!
Hey, I'm just saying. I get this is all new to you, but, y'know. You might want to figure out a course of action here.
I'm sure you've got ideas of your own. What's stopping you from taking the wheel and making 'em happen?
Yeah... about that. Midnight's voice quavered. Don't think I'm gonna be around long enough to pull anything with your girl.
What do you—
You know as well as I do that this was never a permanent arrangement. Midnight's voice sounded a little thinner now – fading, almost. Sooner or later – or, actually, just sooner – I'm supposed to fade back into your subconscious. Y'know. Go back to just being "the Midnight in you." Get it?
...You're serious.
Discord said so himself, didn't he? The voice in Twilight's head echoed, as though through a long hallway – gradually, Midnight was receding.Look, I'm not gonna pretend that I don't want to stick around – you're much more interesting with me tagging along. But if I gotta go back into the proverbial cornfield, well. At least this feels like an appropriate time for it.
Mist clouded Twilight's eyes. Midnight?
Mm?
...I take it back. I mean, I take back me taking it back. I – I'm gonna miss you.
Midnight chuckled. Who wouldn't? But I'm sure I'll make my presence felt some other way. You ever get the impulse to goose Sunset in a crowd, you can bet it was me.
Twilight laughed out loud – wetly, tremulously.
Sunset noticed. "Are you okay?"
Twilight forced herself to smile.
Do what comes natural to you, Sparky. Just, whatever you do... don't blow it. Okay?
I'll do my best. She sniffed. Midnight?
She heard another echo in her mind – and then nothing.
"Haven't heard from Midnight since we landed," Sunset muttered. "She's being awfully quiet. Should I be worried?"
"No." Twilight shook her head. "I don't think you're not gonna hear from her again."
Sunset pursed her lips and turned away. Her hand squeezed Twilight's tightly.
They finally came to a stop before a massive stone door at the end of a long corridor. Etched on its face was Twilight's sigil – the cutie mark of her equine counterparts. Spike the fawndroid reached a petite hoof toward it, and placed it against the door. Immediately, pink light traced along the mark's outline. The door, from the top down, disintegrated into pale pink sparkles.
"So there is still magic in this world," Sunset said.
"At least enough to keep the doors working." Twilight's eyes were on the bottom of the door, watching the light travel down to consume it.
The Spike fawndroid glanced toward the chamber, but made no move to enter – Twilight intuited that he wanted them to enter without him. She did, Sunset at her side.
The chamber beyond the vanished door awed Twilight with its size. She guessed that it could fit CHS's auditorium, twice, and have room to spare. The design brought to mind a cathedral: it was a long, wide hallway, with indents in the floor where benches or pews might've been, and gaping holes in the walls for stained-glass windows. The floor was all but gone; earth and grass carpeted the hall's interior.
Halfway into the hall, lit by a narrow shaft of light, was a hill – a tiny mound of raised dirt, topped with a smooth boulder. It glinted and gleamed in the shaft of light.
Resting against the rock was a small disk that Twilight's heart leaped to see.
She raced to the boulder, dropping to her knees as soon as she reached it. The case was dinged, dusty, and rusty, and the purple color had faded, but it was, unmistakably, a TPT.
And it thrummed beneath her touch.
Twilight picked it up and turned her neck, grinning. "Sunset...!"
Sunset smiled back, though her expression was a bit more guarded. "Easy there, Sparky. Don't get overexcited."
"Overexcited? Overexcited? Sunset, just – touch it! Touch my TPT!"
Twilight swore she heard an echoing laugh in the recesses of her mind.
Sunset did touch it, though – reaching for it slowly, and covering the device with her palm. "It's carrying a charge. But the ambient magic in this world..."
"It's not all gone, remember? Whatever's left must be just enough to power the TPT." Twilight, still on her knees, swiveled her whole body to face Sunset. "Which might mean there's enough in this world to recharge our own – just very, very slowly."
"For all the good that does us. Look at this thing, Sparky – it's ancient." Sunset lifted the TPT out of Twilight's hands, and flipped it open, the hinge giving off a rusty squeak of protest. "Must've taken years for it to gather enough ambient magic to work. Or decades, or centuries..."
"Well, yeah. It might take forever for our own to recharge. But this one's got a full charge, doesn't it?" Twilight clasped her hands together. "We've got a ticket out of here, Sunset. We're not marooned after all!"
Sunset said nothing – her expression, plain and pensive, gradually morphed into a worried frown.
Twilight felt her forehead prickle with sweat. "Sunset?"
"You're right The device is carrying a charge." Sunset shut the device. "Enough for one jump. And only enough for one of us."
Twilight's face fell, and her gaze drifted to the grass, as her hopes, so quickly raised, were dashed once again.
Then Sunset pushed the ancient TPT, gently, back into her hands.
Immediately, Twilight lifted her head and narrowed her eyes at Sunset, fully cognizant of her implication. "No."
"I didn't say anything."
"But I know what you're thinking. And the answer is no."
Sunset, momentarily deterred, set her teeth before trying again. "Look. We've got two TPTs. One's dead, but the other can still get you out of here. You can use the one from this world to slide somewhere with enough ambient magic to recharge yours – or both! Then, you can come back for me."
"You're assuming I could find this universe again, once I left. That I wouldn't get lost out there without you. That I wouldn't slide into another world like this one, and maroon myself for good. That nothing would go wrong." Twilight shook her head. "I've learned too much from this little field trip to leave things like this to chance."
Sunset growled. "Sparky, think this through. Even if you couldn't come back for me, so what? You've got your own life, your own world, to get back to. So go! Forget about me – about Twilights, and Sunsets, and destiny, and all this other multiversal B.S.! Just go live your life, and—"
"Would you give it up, already?" Twilight dropped the ancient TPT and bolted to her feet. "I'm sick and tired of you pulling these little self-sacrificial stunts! This isn't about destiny, or Twilights and Sunsets, or whatever... whatever you call this thing between us!"
She gesticulated rapidly between herself and Sunset.
"If I couldn't come back for you – even if there was nothing between us – then do you seriously think that I could just go back to my life and forget all about you? That I could live, knowing I abandoned you in a world without magic? Is that your idea of nobility?! Because it isn't mine!"
Sunset clenched her jaw tightly, cringing. She stepped around Twilight, and sat on the grass, her back against the boulder. "That TPT might be the only way out of here, you know. And considering how old it is already, the odds that it'll recharge enough to let us slide out of here together, in our lifetimes, are pretty slim."
"Maybe so." Twilight sighed. She crossed back to the bolder, pressed her back against it, and slid down, until her bottom touched the grass beside Sunset. "Then again, there's still magic in this world. There might be some other way to recharge the TPT – or something else, something we haven't even thought of."
"You're speculating. Taking a lot on faith." Sunset blew a curl of gold-slashed hair out of her face. "Not like I can judge you on that. But suppose we can never find a way out of here? What do we do?"
"I don't know, Guess we stay here, explore this place. You know, when was the last time we stuck around in any of the worlds we visited? Maybe we find something else, maybe we don't." Twilight squared her shoulders, and looked at Sunset. "But we leave here together, or we don't leave here at all. Everything else? We'll figure it out as we go."
The smile Sunset gave her was small, and crooked. "We could always do like Twily and her Sunset. Make a little love nest, live in domestic bliss. The way Sunsets and Twilights are, apparently, supposed to."
Twilight's determined posture softened, and she tilted her head quizzically. "The smile says you're being earnest. Your tone says you're being ironic. Help me out here; which are you shooting for?"
"Both, I guess." Sunset looked at the TPT, still on the ground where Twilight had dropped it.
Twilight bent her knees and hugged them against her chest. "What do you mean by that, exactly?"
Sunset wrung her hands. "It's something that's been on my mind ever since we bumped into Twily again. This whole thing with Sunsets, and Twilights, how we're all supposedly destined for one another – how that's just a multiversal constant. You? You're Twilight, but you're not my Twilight. Me, I..."
She edged her hand closer to Twilights, closing the gap between them.
"I think it's pretty obvious by now that I feel something for you. But I don't know what it is, exactly. If I have feelings for you – the person who you are – or if it's just... leftover feelings for my Twilight that I'm projecting onto you. If I'm attracted to you because I'm just supposed to be, then is that real? Or is it just destiny telling me to fall in love with you, just 'cuz?"
Twilight's cheeks reddened "You're in love with me?"
"I don't know. I..." Sunset blushed, withdrew her hand, and groaned. "This is so confusing."
Twilight snickered. "If it's any consolation, I'm sure you're not the first Sunset in the multiverse who's had trouble parsing her feelings for a transdimensional doppelganger of their ex."
"That's zero consolation, Sparky."
"At least I tried." Twilight looked away, toward the entrance. The Spike fawndroid was gone. She briefly wondered where he'd gone, before dismissing the errant thought. "I don't know if we have a connection just because of destiny, though. Think about it: that hasn't been the case for all the Twilights and Sunsets we've run into. There's Skylark, and her Applejack. Me, and my Sunset."
Sunset turned her body to face Twilight, spreading out her legs and resting her weight on her hip. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that I've never been attracted to my Sunset Shimmer. She's hot, sure, but I've never felt for her the way that I feel for you. So I don't think my feelings for you exist because destiny says they have to exist." Twilight shrugged. "But I also don't know what's up with my own feelings, either. If they're real, or if they're just a byproduct of Midnight, and Lady Sparkle's futzing with my brain, and all this other mishegoss that's happened to me lately."
Sunset worked her jaw in a circle and nodded thoughtfully. "You know, that... actually does make me feel a little bit better. Nice to know I'm not the only one who doesn't know what to make of all this."
They shared a quiet laugh. And, when it was over, Twilight reached her hand out. Sunset covered it with her own.
"In all fairness, we've just been going from one crisis to the next ever since we met," said Twilight softly. "Hasn't been a lot of time to just sit down and talk. Figure out if this is real."
Sunset smirked. "Well. I guess that's one advantage to our current predicament. We got all the time in the world to get to know each other."
The hour was late when they emerged from the chamber a TPT around both of their necks. Behind them, the door reformed, rematerializing from the bottom up.
Outside was Spike, standing silent and expectant. A herd of fawndroids, in a diverse palette of colors and patterns, were arrayed behind him in neat ranks. They looked at Sunset, at Twilight, and waited.
"Hey, Spike," said Twilight. "What say you show us around the place?"
Spike's lips twitched – faintly, almost imperceptibly – into what was almost a smile. The ranks of fawndroids parted, and Spike turned to lead the voyagers out of the castle.
"Hey, Sparky?" Sunset said, as she and Twilight moved to follow him.
"Hmm?"
"Suppose things between us work out – you think your world's got enough room for two Sunset Shimmers?"
"More than enough." She flashed Sunset a smile. "And, if it doesn't, I heartell there's an opening for a Sunset Shimmer in Equestria."
Sunset laughed, and laced her fingers together with Twilight's.
Together, they marched into the fading sunlight of the evening.