//------------------------------//
// Harry Just Doesn't Know What Went Wrong 
// Story: My Little Denarians 
// by Chengar Qordath 
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I should've known things had gone too well.

I’d bluffed a being with low-level omnipotence and godlike powers, turned an entire city against its tyrannical ruler, and managed to deliver a knockout punch to an entity that could’ve wiped me out with a stray thought. Oh, and I did it all with the insanely risky fake surrender gambit which would’ve gotten us all killed if evil-Celestia had been a bit more of a pragmatist. For that matter, there were a couple thousand other places where the plan could’ve gone horribly off the rails and ended with one thoroughly dead wizard. 

It would be just my luck too; at least the first time I died I got a epitaph on my grave. ‘He died doing the right thing’ isn’t a bad thing to have written on a stone over your corpse. ‘Done in by a pony princess’ just didn’t have the same ring to it.

Yet somehow – despite all the opportunities for my plan to backfire horribly – everything had gone exactly according to plan.

In hindsight, that really should’ve set alarm bells ringing in my head. I’m never that lucky. Usually when my plans work at all they go horribly wrong about halfway through, and I manage to pull off a win only after I’ve been beaten to a bloody pulp.

This time I came out of it without a single scratch on me. My plan had worked perfectly. If I’d been a bit more paranoid, I would’ve realized that there could only be one explanation for why things had starting going so well for me.

The universe wanted me to drop my guard. If you haven’t noticed yet, it seems to have some kind of personal vendetta against me. I’m not sure why. Occasional slip-ups aside, I’ve generally tried to do right by the universe, but every once in a while it still up and kicks me in the balls for no real reason. Or at least no reason the universe had ever bothered to tell me. Maybe it found my suffering amusing.

I looked down at Princess Celestia. It bears mentioning that she was fully conscious and standing up at the time. I also wasn’t in an elevated position relative to her. Our hooves were on even ground, and we were both standing reasonably upright by equine standards.

And I had to look down to look her in the eyes.

Apparently my Friendship Nuke came with a couple unexpected side-effects.

Instead of towering over everyone around her like she normally did, Celestia was about the same size as the rest of the ponies I’d been hanging out with. Her wavy multicolored mane had also been knocked into monochrome pink, and the aura of power she’d carried with her wherever she went was notable by its absence.

I think I might have broken the Princess.

Sometimes ‘Oops, my bad’ just doesn’t cover the sheer scale of how utterly wrong things have gone.

All the other ponies in Celestia’s throne room seemed to be taking the setback reasonably well. At least, nobody had gone into a full-scale screaming and panicking mode yet. I wasn’t even getting blamed for what had happened. To be fair, there hadn’t really been any choice in the matter; Celestia had to be stopped, and smacking her with the magical friendship bomb had been the only option I could come up with.

Still, the fact that all the ponies had thought things through logically instead of going all irrational and crazy was nice. If I’d been dealing with the Council, I bet half of them would be calling for my head, despite the fact that I’d just saved their collective ass. There are a lot of ungrateful dicks on the Council.

“So...” I hesitantly asked the Princess. “When you say ‘temporary loss of power,’ exactly how temporary are we talking? ‘Drink lots of water, go to bed early, and wake up the next morning feeling fine’ temporary? Or is it ‘by the standards of immortals’ temporary?” Lifespans that measure in the thousands or millions of years tend to result in a rather different perspective of what qualifies as a short time than you’d get from a mortal who’s lucky to hit a hundred. Even wizards start feeling the years once we hit our third century. 

Despite being reduced to fun-size, Celestia still had every bit of her royal poise and presence. “I believe it will take a week for me to regain my full strength.”

A week. It might as well have been a year, or a century. Nicky and Discord were still on the loose, and they’d probably been causing all kinds of trouble while I was busy taking care of business in Equestria. I sure as hell couldn’t afford to wait a week for Celestia to get back up to full strength before I went after them. 

I might have freed Celestia from Discord’s control, but Equestria’s rules were still breaking down. Even leaving aside whatever they might be up to on Earth, I had a feeling that we couldn’t afford to let Discord and Nicodemus keep doing whatever they’d been up to that was messing around with the basic building blocks of Equestria’s universe.

It was a bit humbling to realize that my hard-fought victory against Celestia was really just a preliminary to the main event.

A particularly worrying thought popped into my head. “Are you going to be able to bring Twilight, Luna, and everyone else back from the moon?” If Twilight and Luna were still stuck on the moon while Celestia was recharging her batteries, we were back to square one when it came to dealing with the baddies. Even if I could serve a substitute user for the Element of Magic, it wouldn’t be nearly as good as having the real deal handy. I had a feeling we were gonna need every edge we could get to pull off a win against Discord.

“Releasing the spells holding everypony on the moon should not overtax my powers.” Well that was a relief. “Bringing everypony back from the moon might be beyond my strength for the moment, but once Luna is no longer bound by my magic she should be more than capable of returning the rest to Equestria.”

Whew. Crisis averted. Good thing too; if I’d had to wear that girly tiara into battle I never would’ve lived it down. It’d be just like the donut thing with the Summer Court, which I had been mocked for by everyone from Donald Morgan to freaking Odin. If I had to go around wearing a big girly tiara, I just know people I’d never even met before would be poking fun at me for years over it. 

“Alright. Super. Make with the magic and bring ‘em back.”

“I would be happy too, as soon as somepony stops distracting me while I’m in the middle of a rather delicate and complex bit of magic.” I caught just a hint of a smile on Celestia’s face when she delivered that line.

Never let it be said that I can’t take a hint (well, except for all the times when I couldn’t). “Gotcha. Shutting up now.”

Celestia closed her eyes in concentration, and I went over to stand with the girls. I suppose it is one of the inevitable side effects of this being a girls’ cartoon; characters more or less always defaulted to female. I’m pretty sure Shining Armor was the only other guy in the room. Seriously, the ponies were pretty cool and I didn’t mind visiting their home, but if I didn’t get out of here soon I was going to end up losing all of my man cards. At least I hadn’t started thinking pink frilly hearts were the perfect accessory for any outfit yet.

For a while we all just watched Celestia doing her work, but since that consisted of seeing Celestia sit down and concentrate it wasn’t long before some people started getting bored. Before long Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash started softly chattering to each other, and once they started talking everyone else joined in.

“So yeah,” Rainbow Dash was busy regaling her friends with the tale of how she’d survived. “Luna sent me this mind-message kinda thing telling me about a couple safehouses she had set up for if somepony needed somewhere to lay low for a coupla days. It’s a good thing Derpy showed up when she did, ‘cause I was getting really bored waiting around. It took ya guys long enough to send somepony to get me!”

“Well we wouldn’t have taken so long if somepony hadn't gone and told us you were dead.” Applejack shot a mild glare my way.

“Not my fault. Luna’s spell was good enough to trick Celestia – I never stood a chance.” Come to think of it, that was a pretty neat piece of magic. Assuming I got out of this alive and relatively intact, I’d definitely have to swap notes with Twilight Sparkle about how the magic systems in our worlds worked. The precision telekinesis and teleportation spells were cool enough, and then you start getting into stuff like weaponized friendship...

It’d probably take a lot of work to figure out, but if I could pull it off I’d get a couple very interesting new magical tricks up my sleeves. Discord and Nicky might be the big issue on my plate for the moment, but there were still plenty of other bad guys out there. Most of my long-term projects had suffered a bit of an interruption when my old apartment burned down and I caught a mild case of death. Figuring out some pony magic tricks I could use back on Earth seemed like as good of a place as any to start getting new projects to occupy myself when the universe wasn’t doing its best to kill me in new and interesting ways.

Before we could take the conversation any further, Celestia opened her eyes. There was a long, awkward pause as we waiting for imprisoned ponies to start popping up, but nothing happened.

After a good thirty seconds of nothing, Applejack spoke up. “Beg pardon princess, but are you sure that spell of yours worked right?”

Celestia simply smiled and nodded.

When the missing ponies still hadn’t shown up after another couple seconds, Rainbow tossed in her two bits. “Well where the hay are they?”

“Patience is a virtue.” Rarity sing-songed.

Personally, I was keeping my mouth shut. With my luck, if I said anything all of them would pop into the room at the perfect time to maximize my apparent stupidity. When the universe is constantly out to get you, the last thing you need to do is start feeding it extra opportunities to show you up.

Rainbow Dash began impatiently tapping a hoof against the floor. “Take it easy Rainbow. They’re coming all the way from the moon; it’s a bit more work than just walking through the door.”

An instant after I said that, Luna and Twilight walked into the throne room through the front door. I guess I’d said something close enough to trigger the universe’s ‘make Harry look like an idiot’ law. I swear, if I could find a way to kill God while making myself look like a complete moron, the plan might actually work.

“GREETINGS SISTER! WE ARE PLEASED TO SEE THAT THY MIND HATH BEEN FREED FROM DISCORD’S WICKED SORCERY!” I swear, Luna had gotten even louder than she’d been the last time I’d seen her.

At least Luna didn’t seem to be suffering any ill effects from her return to the moon. I’d been a bit worried that going back to the moon after her thousand-year imprisonment wouldn’t be good for Luna. Then again, compared to being stuck there for a thousand years, spending a couple days on the moon was probably small potatoes.

Unfortunately, it didn’t look like Twilight had weathered her stay on the moon as well as Luna. Her mane being disarray and a generally disheveled appearance was to be expected after being stuck on the moon, but what had me worried was her body language. She looked scared. Not flighty and nervous like Fluttershy usually was, more like a skittish wild animal that was one loud noise away from making a break for it. Okay, so Fluttershy was probably one loud noise away from panic too, but with Twilight it seemed more ... feral. Like her fight-or-flight reflexes were on at full strength. 

At first I thought she had just been deferentially following behind the Princess of the Night, but now that I looked a bit closer I noticed that she was keeping Luna between herself and Celestia, Cadance, and Shining Armor. 

That wasn’t exactly a good sign. From what I’d picked up, Twilight had been a prisoner in Canterlot for a while before she’d been catapulted to the moon. Having the mentor she idolized and her big brother under Discord’s mind-whammy sounds like a recipe for some broken pedestals.

“There are matters we would discuss with our sister in private,” Luna announced, thankfully turning down the volume a bit. “We also believe the Bearers of Harmony would like the opportunity to welcome back a companion who has been too long absent from their midst.”

Now that Luna had given them tacit permission, the girls immediately swarmed over Twilight and pulled her into a group hug. Somehow, the mass of hugging ponies managed to move out towards the door without breaking the group hug. Ponies seem to have a real fondness for group hugs – at least I wasn’t getting pulled into this one.

Eventually the group hug ended, and the girls all began chattering at Twilight so rapid-fire I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. At first Twilight still seemed a bit on edge, but talking to her friends seemed to be having a therapeutic effect. Before long she was back to normal, laughing along with the others as Pinkie and Rainbow went into a very exaggerated and over-the-top account of their adventures while Twilight was gone.

Well that was a relief. Whatever trauma Twilight picked up while we’d been separated, being around her friends was at least taking the edge off of it. It might sound cold-hearted, but as long as her damage didn’t make her completely incapable of functioning that was good enough for now. We would have to wait until later to be deal with any trauma that didn’t get in the way of saving the multiverse. It might not be the nicest way of thinking, but those are the facts.

Once the group-hug and welcome back storm faded, Celestia stepped forward with a gentle smile. “Twilight Sparkle, I–”

Before she could get any further Twilight let out a shriek of pure terror. The scream startled her friends, and they backed away from her on pure instinct. A second later Celestia was flying away. She didn’t stop when she hit the first wall. Or the second one.

Shining Armor instinctively stepped towards his sister. “Hey Twily, what are you–”

Twilight took several stumbling steps away from her big brother, gasping in terror and wildly looking around for an escape route. When they weren’t darting around searching for a way out, her were fixed on Shining Armor with a mixture of fear and anger. That’s a very volatile combination. When I get scared and angry, I tend to set things on fire. Twilight seemed to prefer smashing people through walls.

First things first, we needed to get Shining Armor out of here before we found out if Twilight was going to take her best shot at making herself an only child. Fortunately for me, the guy had already taken note of Twilight’s reaction to him. He was very reluctantly backing away, accompanied by an equally sad-looking Cadance. The two of them followed Luna out the hole Twilight had put in the wall, presumably going to check on Celestia.

This called for a bit a revision to my earlier analysis. At first I’d hoped she might be alright, but if Twilight was so on-edge that she was lashing out at the Princess she needed some kind of help right now. Twilight had always been incredibly devoted to the Princess; no way she would go to the point of actually attacking Celestia unless she’d taken some serious psychological damage. Someone that fragile could crack way too easily if you pushed her buttons right, and it was a pretty safe bet that Discord would know exactly how to do that. He’d set up the scenario that had caused the damage to her, after all.

The rest of her friends were still gaping at the hole Celestia had left in the wall, shocked that Twilight had attacked her mentor. Fluttershy was the first to recover, and immediately pulled Twilight into a gentle hug. At first Twilight just numbly accepted the hug, but then she slowly brought her hooves up and began hugging Fluttershy back. Then the tears started. Fluttershy held Twilight and stroked her mane, whispering gentle reassurances.  

I was torn between feeling like I should say something and thinking that getting involved would mean intruding on a very private moment. In any case, I’d probably just say something stupid that would end up making it worse. I’ve got a very mixed track record when it comes to crying women. 

Once Twilight’s tears finally began to lull, Rarity gently approached. “What happened to you darling? How can we help?”

“I – Celestia and Shining Armor and Cadance – they–” Twilight couldn’t get any further before she started crying again.

I got the feeling we weren’t gonna get any answers out of Twilight any time soon. She needed some time to rest and re-center herself first. A couple questions to one of the guards told us where her rooms in the palace were. Fluttershy took Twilight into her bedroom, while the rest of us started looking around in idle curiosity.

Unsurprisingly, the place was packed with books of all sorts. On a whim, I took a look at the book occupying the room’s writing desk. Twilight Sparkle’s Journal # 37 (1001.327 –   ). My keen detective skills told me that the journal she’d been writing in just might give us some insight into what had been going with Twilight recently. Well, unless it was one of those evil magical journals that was really serving as a container for the soul of a legendary dark wizard. Wizards named Harry have a bit of a bad record with those.

Lucky for me, there weren’t any nasty magical surprises waiting for me when opened up the diary. Honestly, I’d kind of expected something; most girls are a bit protective of their diaries. Oh well, whatever.

1001.327, 3:21:56 pm

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie played another prank on me! Honestly, those two can be so –

Right, as amusing as the stories of their daily life could be, that wasn’t what I needed. Best skip ahead a bit. After a couple minutes I found what I was looking for. I don’t know when she’d had time to make an entry in her diary about me and Lash arriving in Equestria. I checked the next entry after that.

1001.345, 10:13:42 am

I woke up in Canterlot, which was a huge surprise. Cadance was waiting for me to wake up. Yes the Cadance! Greatest foalsitter in the history of all foalsitters! And she told me she’s dating Shining Armor! We’re gonna be sisters one day!

Gotta go now, Cadance went to go get Princess Celestia as soon as I woke up. I just had to write down the good news while I waited. I can’t wait to see the Princess again!

1001.345 12:42:13 pm

I’m worried about my friends.

The Princess told me that we were able to beat Discord, but I got knocked out during the fighting. I’m not sure how it happened, but if it caused a concussion a little bit of short-term memory loss would not be unusual. The whole fight’s a little fuzzy, but I’m sure it’ll all come back to me before too long.

The Princess told me my friends are alright, but there’s another problem: apparently Discord managed to corrupt Luna after he ponynapped her from the palace. I remember how scary it was watching the fight between Discord and Luna when he showed up there; I’m still amazed we managed to beat him after we got the Elements of Harmony back!

My friends went out to deal with Luna while I was recovering. At first I wanted to go after them, but the Princess says they can handle the situation on their own and that she needs me here. She told me she was going to send Spike to join them too, so she’d be able to send messages to them and get answers. I guess they don’t need the Elements of Harmony to take care of the situation. That seems a bit strange to me, but if the Princess says they don’t need the Elements then I’m sure they’ll be fine. I trust her judgement. Still, I wish she would’ve at least let me keep my Number One Assistant.

In any case, the Princess wants me to help her here in the capital. I’d like to be with my friends, but right now the Princess needs me to work with her and Shining Armor for now. It’s been too long since I had a chance to spend time with my BBBFF (I still can’t believe he’s dating Cadance!), and working more closely with the Princess sounds like the most amazing thing ever. If she thinks my friends can save Luna on their own, I’m sure they can.

1001.345 7:31:29 pm

Shining Armor and Cadance asked me to have dinner with them. The meal was great, and finally having a chance to catch up with him after so long was incredible. We had so much to to talk about I never even realized how much I’ve missed him since I moved to Ponyville...

I still can’t believe Shining Armor’s story about how he and Cadance started dating. Well, it’s not that I can’t believe it; of course Celestia would know he had feelings for her niece, but I’m a little surprised she just told him to date her out of the blue. He must’ve been really surprised by that!

I had a really good time at dinner. Well, except for this one moment. It’s really not even worth mentioning, except ... well, it bothers me a little. We were talking about what’s been going on, and Cadance mentioned that there were a couple ponies who were actually opposed to freeing Luna from Discord’s control.

That seems really strange to me. Nopony sided with Nightmare Moon last time she showed up. Then again, the first time Nightmare Moon returned I was in Ponyville. Despite my first impression of the town, most of the ponies there are pretty sensible. In a big city like Canterlot though, there are bound to be a couple of oddballs.

What really surprised me was that Shining Armor and Cadance actually seemed really worried about a few crazy ponies. Everypony trusts Princess Celestia after all, so a few loons with silly ideas are harmless. I guess I could understand that ponies talking about supporting Nightmare Moon is worrying, but there’s really no reason to get so upset about it that you start talking about throwing anypony who sides with Nightmare Moon into prison. They’re just confused.

It’s not worth worrying over though. I’m sure Shining Armor and Cadance are just worried about everything that’s been happening lately and don’t really plan on arresting ponies just for disagreeing with the Princess.

1001.346 12:31:23 pm

I don’t understand what’s going on.

The more I think about it all, the stranger everything that’s going on is. If Luna’s really been corrupted by Discord and turned into Nightmare Moon again, why hasn’t Celestia had us use the Elements of Harmony again? I know she said we didn’t need them to free Luna this time, but Luna’s already been under Nightmare Moon’s control for longer than she was last time. I understand that the Elements are powerful and need to be used carefully, but we could’ve solved this entire problem by now if we used them!

Where are my friends anyway? When I asked Celestia she told me they were on an important mission for her to help save Princess Luna. What mission? Why can’t I join them? I know the Princess said she needs me in the capital, but I want to help my friends...

And speaking of everything that’s been going on in the capital, why are we spending so much time worrying about that? Shouldn’t we be focused on saving Princess Luna instead? What does it matter if a few ponies think Luna’s right and Celestia’s wrong? Once we free Luna that won’t be a problem anymore! Instead the Princess has me and Shining Armor and Cadance all working on finding out more about these ponies questioning her. It just seems strange to me.

And then there’s the sun! I understand that she can’t raise the moon while Luna’s corrupted without the risk of losing control, couldn’t the Princess do something to at least make all the heat and light less troublesome? It’s so hot outside, and it’s hard to get a full night of sleep when the sun’s always out.

I talked to Celestia about all my questions, and she answered everything and told me not to worry so much about all the little details. I know I can get a little caught up in things sometimes, but... 

I’m starting to wonder if

I think she’s

Something’s wrong with

I want to believe her, I really do–but something just doesn’t add up.

1001.347 7:30 pm

The Princess sent me to find some of the ponies that have been saying Princess Luna is right and Celestia is wrong. She told me she just wanted to talk to them and explain everything, but a couple hours later I heard those ponies had been sent to the moon!

I’m sure they must have deserved it, but why did she lie to me?

Why didn’t Celestia tell me? I thought she was just going to talk to them! If I’d known she was going to send them to the moon instead I would’ve 

I’m not sure what to think of what happened. They didn’t seem like bad ponies. I don’t think they deserved to be sent to the moon.

What happened to those ponies bothered me. I talked to Cadance about it. She’s a princess too, so I’m sure sure understands what’s going on better than I do. She told me that everything Celestia is doing is for the good of the realm. Even if it seems a bit wrong or questionable to us, we must trust her to do what is right.

Then she asked me if I trusted Princess Celestia. I’m not sure if I do anymore Of course I trust the Princess! 

1001.348 3 am

The Princess sent me to find some more of the ponies who’ve sided with Princess Luna. I wanted to tell her no.

I don’t like doing this. There has to be a good reason the Princess is punishing ponies for being confused about what’s going on with her and Princess Luna. I still think it’s wrong I’m sure that the Princess wouldn’t be so harsh unless it were the only way to protect everypony.

Princess Celestia sent guards with me this time. She said they were coming with me ‘just in case anything happened.’ One of the ponies actually tried to run away, but the guards chased after him and caught him. I almost wish he’d managed to get away.

Afterwards, I went to talk to Shining Armor. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, but I felt like I had to talk to somepony about how worried everything that’s been going is making me. If I just keep everything bottled up, I’m going to explode.

The talk with Shining Armor didn’t go well. He said that questioning the Princess’ orders was practically treason. I wasn’t questioning her orders! I’m just worried that’s all. It’s only natural to be worried, with how crazy things have been lately. He didn’t have to get so mad at me for just being concerned and asking a few harmless questions.

I’m starting to think there might be something wrong with him and the Princesses.

Monday

I couldn’t sleep last night. I ended up going for a walk, and saw Celestia talking to the mailpony from Ponyville. I didn’t hear everything they said, but at one point they talked about how the Princess would ask me to take up the coin soon. What coin were they talking about? Why would they want me to have a coin? I feel like I should know the answer to that, but if I try to think too hard about it I start getting a terrible headache.

The Princes sent me to arrest some more dissidents today. This time it was a real prominent high-society unicorn named Fancy Pants. At least she didn’t send any guards with me this time.

All these arrests, all these punishments, it’s just too much! 

When I found myself face-to-face with Fancy Pants, I just couldn’t do it. Instead of arresting him, I told him that Celestia was after him, and he needed to run and hide before she sent somepony else. I’m still not sure if I did the right thing or not.

The fact that I could deliberately disobey the Princess – and that I think it might have actually been the right thing to do – terrifies me.

I wish there was somepony I could talk to about all of this. Shining Armor and Cadance and Princess Celestia are all acting so strangely, and it’s like I’m the only one who notices. I went to mom and dad’s to try to talk to them about everything, but when I sat down with them I just couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

I don’t think it would have done any good anyway. They’d just tell me to trust the Princess, just like everypony else does. It’s like everypony around me has gone crazy!

Final Entry

This has gone too far. I don’t know what’s wrong with the Princess and everypony else, but what they’re doing is wrong.

I’d try to run away and find Luna, but Shining Armor has his barrier spell up around the city. I could probably break through it, but he would know if I did. So would Celestia.

I don‘t know what’s wrong with them, but I have to believe that whatever going on here, she’s still my mentor and he’s still my BBBFF if I can just sit down and talk to them, maybe we can still sort everything out. And if not ...

I don’t know what I’ll do, but I have to stop them before they hurt any more innocent ponies.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding and closed the journal. At least I finally had some answers about what had happened to Twilight. “Alright everyone.” Well, everyone except Fluttershy, who was still busy comforting the traumatized unicorn. “I know what happened with Twilight.”

“How’d ya figure it out Harry?” Rainbow Dash smirked at me. “Did you read Twilight’s diary?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

The pegasus let out a couple giggles before she answered. “Let’s just say it’s written all over your face.” She started laughing so hard she couldn’t keep in the air anymore, and was down on the ground laughing her ass off. Before long Pinkie and Applejack had joined her. At least Rarity was (barely) managing to keep herself from laughing.

When everyone in the room starts laughing at you, that’s usually a bad sign. I checked a mirror. Sure enough, the words ‘I am a very rude and inconsiderate pony who read Twilight Sparkle’s private journal’ were written across my forehead in bright, neon pink. 

Huh.

Guess she had some magical defenses on it after all.

Well, getting rid of this embarrassing little curse should be simple enough. I closed my eyes and concentrated for a bit, getting a feel for the spell she’d hit me with. With a single little tug of magic I unraveled it. I opened my eyes and checked the mirror. The words were gone.

For about five seconds. Then they came back.

“Crap.” Looks like Twilight had put some effort into the nasty little trap she had on her diary.  The ponies had themselves another laugh at my expense.

Well, time to get back to basics. A quick circle would cut off whatever magic she had powering the spell. I was most of the way done with throwing up a quick circle before I remembered that unicorn magic and human magic had a ton of different rules. I finished closing the circle anyway, but wasn’t all that shocked when it didn’t work. Oh well, no need to panic. There were still a dozen other ways to remove a hostile spell from yourself.

Once all of those failed too I started getting a little worried. Pretty much the only thing I hadn’t tried was shaving off all my hair to break any magical connection she might have pulled off using my hair for thaumaturgy. I don’t think I’ve seen pony magic ever use thaumaturgy though, and that branch of magic wasn’t really suited for  defending a diary. The only thing shaving my hair was likely to accomplish was to give the words on my head a bigger surface to work with.

Well, if magic wouldn’t work there was always the mundane solution. “Applejack, can I borrow your hat?”

That prompted another round of giggles from the girls, which probably didn’t bode well for my chances. “I don’t know Harry...” Applejack was clearly enjoying a chance to needle me. “Don’t reckon I’d Twilight thinkin’ I had any part of you readin’ her private journal.” Naturally, this pushed the ponies into full-blown laughter again.

I save their entire world, and a couple hours later they’re all amusing themselves at my expense. I tell you, Rodney Dangerfield got more respect than me.

“Perhaps you could try using this hat instead Harry.” I felt a brief moment of gratitude towards Rarity, until I got a good look at the hat she was offering me. It was quite possibly the girliest piece of clothing ever. How could so much pink, ribbons, and flowers fit onto a single hat? Judging from the giggle she wasn’t even making a token effort to hide, Rarity had picked the hat out for precisely that reason. 

Going out in public wearing that thing would almost be as embarrassing as just keeping the words on my head. Almost.

I’d been hoping that after I got out of wearing the tiara I might be able to salvage most of my man-cred. Apparently I’d been hoping in vain. With a resigned sigh, I donned the super-ultra girly hat. Rainbow and Pinkie cracked up again, but at least nobody would be able to see the words anymore.

About five seconds after I had the hat settled on my head, the words popped up on it instead, now in bright blue so they would still stand out from the pink hat. Applejack and Rarity joined the other two ponies rolling on the floor and laughing.

The racket the ponies were making must have finally been enough to knock Fluttershy out of nurturing mode, because she stuck her head out of the bedroom. “Sorry to bother you everypony, but could you please not make so much noise? Twilight’s trying to rest and...” Fluttershy trailed off as she finally got a good look at what was on my head. “Oh ... My.” 

Fluttershy hastily pulled back into Twilight’s room and shut the door behind her. A few seconds later, I heard nervous high-pitched giggles coming from the other side. Great. Even Fluttershy was laughing at me.

At least the situation couldn’t possibly get any – No! Don’t say that. Don’t even think that. Anyone with a bit of sense knows that the instant that thought enters your mind...

The sound a guardpony loudly clearing his throat interrupted that train of thought. That pretty much confirmed that I’d caught myself too late. “The Princesses request that you join them at once in the throne room.”

Yup. Time for more humiliation.

With a sigh, I discarded the ultra-girly hat; it wasn’t doing anything but making me look even worse. “I guess running away isn’t an option, right?”

“You kidding?” Rainbow crowed. “I’d chase ya down and drag you back kicking and screaming. Best prank ever!”

“Yeah, we can’t let Luna and Shining Armor and Celestia and Cadance miss out on all the fun!” Pinkie agreed with her usual level of enthusiasm.

Nothing left for it but to throw myself on the mercy of the court. “Rarity, you know magic. Anything you can do about this?”

“Really now Harry, it’s nothing less than you deserve for trying to read Twilight’s journal.” Rarity declared, lifting her nose for an artfully haughty sniff. “A true gentlecolt would never violate a lady’s privacy. If anything, Twilight’s spell is a rather lenient punishment for the crime.”

“Eeyup.” Applejack agreed in a fair approximation of her brother’s voice.

Super. Just super. I don’t think there was any way to get out of this with my dignity intact. And even if there was, the girls would probably sabotage it anyway. They weren’t nearly done being amused by my suffering yet. We retrieved Fluttershy and Twilight from the bedroom, and followed the guard.

A few minutes later I walked into the throne room, the neon-pink lettering still glowing on my forehead. Celestia and Luna were waiting for us. Mini-Celestia looked a little worse for the wear from her close encounter with a stone wall, but it didn’t look like she’d picked up anything more severe than a nasty collection of bumps and bruises. I tried to play it cool and not call any attention to words plastered on my head. Maybe if I was really lucky the Princesses wouldn’t notice the bright neon-pink letters.

“GREETINGS HARRY DRESDEN!” Luna thundered. “DIDST THOU FIND ANY INFORMATION OF USE WITHIN TWILIGHT SPARKLE’S JOURNAL?”

Well, so much for that bit of blindly hopeful optimism. “I did learn a few things, yes.” Try to keep it serious. Strictly business. Maybe then they would –

“WE WERE NOT AWARE THAT TWILIGHT SPARKLE USED HER PRIVATE JOURNALS FOR STORING TACTICALLY VALUABLE INFORMATION. PERHAPS WE SHOULD SPEAK WITH HER ABOUT UPGRADING THE SECURITY SPELLS SHE PLACES UPON IT.”

“Yes,” Celestia agreed with a poker face to rival … I dunno, something with a really good poker face. “We wouldn’t want somepony looking in her diary without her permission, would we?”

Always nice to see a bit of sisterly bonding, but did it have to come at my expense? Then again, my idea of quality family time involved killing monsters with my vampire half-brother. Whatever happened to Parcheesi?

“So.” I desperately tried to drag the topic away from my ongoing humiliation. “What did you two want to discuss with me?”

“THERE IS A MATTER OF GRAVE IMPORTANCE WE WISHED TO SPELL OUT TO THEE!”

“And that is?” I had a terrible feeling that I was setting myself up for a punchline.

“I’m afraid my sister is right,” mini-Celestia supplied. “Things have come to a head.”

Oh god. Not bad puns. Anything but bad puns. Those are only funny when I’m making them.

“INDEED, ‘TIA! THERE ARE STILL PERILS TO FACE ‘FORE WE CAN COUNT OURSELVES SAFE ONCE MORE.”

“Well, Lulu?” Celestia said after a pause. “Please begin – you hardly need a written invitation.”

Twilight’s giggle caught us all off-guard, and the lavender unicorn fell silent when we turned to look at her. A tentative smile made its way onto Celestia’s face, but disappeared an instant later when her protege shrank back behind me. It wasn’t much, but it was progress; I guess I could take some bad jokes at my expense if it helped the healing process.

“Now, to business,” the (temporarily) smaller of the two sisters declared. I was thankful that the royal sisters seemed to have finally satisfied themselves. I don’t think my ego could have taken much more of a bruising. “We did call you here to discuss matters other than your choice of reading material.”

“IT IS THY INTENTION TO TAKE THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY TO THY OWN REALM TO STRIKE DOWN DISCORD, NEIGH?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan. Zap him with the Friendship Nuke, and put an end to all this.” 

“WE REGRET TO INFORM THEE THAT WE CANNOT ALLOW THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY OR THEIR WIELDERS TO LEAVE EQUESTRIA AT THIS TIME.” Luna did her best to break the news gently, but it’s hard to convey gentleness at her preferred volume.

“What?” Rainbow Dash cried out indignantly. “You’re not just gonna let Discord get away with everything, are ya?”

“Harry just busted his flank to help us out.” Applejack tossed her hat into the ring. “Ain’t proper to leave him hangin’ when he needs our help.”

Celestia turned to Rainbow Dash and regretfully shook her head. “Discord is not the only threat to Equestria. There are many dangers in our world that are kept at bay by fear of me. Fear that will fade when news of my weakness spreads.”

Rainbow Dash and Applejack immediately began arguing right back, but I didn’t add my voice to the discussion. I could relate to Celestia’s position. I hadn’t realized it until recently, but a whole lot of the lower-level nasties avoided Chicago once I’d established a reputation for myself. That’s not to say I didn’t have more than my fair share of trouble, but most of it came at the hands of heavy hitters like the Vampire Courts and the Nickleheads. The little stuff like random magical predators or wanna-be warlocks usually wasn’t a problem for me, and when it was that was usually because one of the big players was backing them up. Like what happened with Sells and Kravos. 

After I came down with a temporary case of death, all that changed. Once I wasn’t there scaring all the scum away anymore, they’d all swarmed to Chicago. It had pissed the hell out of me, seeing one-trick-pony warlocks and thugs like the Fomor running roughshod over my hometown and all my old friends working overtime just to keep things from spilling over into total chaos.

If word got out that Celestia was weakened, it would be blood in the water for Equestria – especially when you added in the civil war they’d just finished fighting. The Elements of Harmony were Equestria’s ace in the hole; sending away your superweapon when your kingdom is already vulnerable to attack isn’t a smart strategic move.

Of course, that did leave Earth in a bad spot. However, at the end of the day these two were the Princesses of Equestria, not Earth. I couldn’t ask them to sacrifice their own realm and endanger their own people just to protect my home. “I understand.” I didn’t like it, but I understood.

“It is only a temporary delay.” Celestia offered. “I should only need a few days to regain enough of my strength to deter any aggression against Equestria. Once my sister and I are certain that our realm is safe, we will do everything we can to aid you.”

“DISCORD SHALL NOT GO UNPUNISHED.” Luna added. “THE DELAY WILL GIVE SHINING ARMOR AND CADANCE TIME TO PREPARE OUR FORCES FOR DEPLOYMENT TO YOUR REALM. WE BELIEVE THAT THE BEARERS OF THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY WOULD ALSO BENEFIT FROM HAVING TIME TO RECOVER FROM THEIR TRIALS.”

I couldn’t argue with her there. The ponies had gone through the wringer over the last few days. Hell’s bells, I’d taken my share of physical and psychological bruises getting through all of this, and I was a lot more used to dealing with that kind of thing than a bunch of cartoon ponies. A couple days of downtime was probably for the best.

There was just one problem. That plan left my home twisting in the wind. I had no way of knowing what Discord and Nicodemus were up to back on Earth, but I was willing to bet dollars to donuts that they weren’t singing songs to little orphan children. I didn’t even want to think about all the damage they would cause if I took a week off for Celestia to get better.

There wasn’t much else I could do though. Trying to take on Discord without the Elements would just be an elaborate form of suicide. I guess I could always try seeing if Mab or one of the other heavy hitters was willing to take on Discord directly. The problem was, even if I could get one of the big dogs in my universe to break their usual rules and directly fight Discord, the collateral damage from a direct confrontation would leave a pretty big chunk of Earth as a smoking ruin. I guess it was an option in the worst case, but I’d still rather find another way.

Well, there was always looking around the Outside for someone else who could help. I still didn’t really know all the ins and outs of navigating the the Outside though. The Outside struck me as the kind of place that had a lot of potential for some very nasty surprises. That’s not to mention that there were some nasty Outsiders from the non-Fictionland chunk of the Outside with a very personal grudge against me. I really didn’t want to have another run-in with He Who Walks Behind; hell, the only reason I hadn’t died instantly when I first tangled with him was that he’d been deliberately throwing the fight.

Then there are the risks that come with running around in Fictionland. Sure, I could try going to comic-book land to grab the Justice League or something, but as a general rule most Fiction with Good Guys came with a relatively equal number of Bad Guys. Just introducing the ponies to the equation had destabilized things badly enough; add in a dozen more bits of fiction, and who knows what might happen. Stars and stones, the thought of Murphy going toe-to-toe with Heath Ledger’s Joker scared the crap out of me.

That’s not to mention that I had a feeling dragging in too much Fictionland stuff would probably have some nasty side-effects for Earth. Fictionlanders were still Outsiders after all. I’m no expert on the matter, but Outsiders are known for being pretty incompatible with Earth’s version of reality. I had a feeling bringing an army of them to Earth could cause all kinds of unanticipated problems.

Waiting until the ponies could help was pretty much my only option. Well, that or trying to steal the Elements and their bearers. Even if I did manage to get the Elements, there was no guarantee all six of the ponies I needed would go along with a plan to leave Equestria to (potentially) burn to save my world. I guess I could try to replace whichever ponies didn’t want to go along with the plan, or maybe even replace all of the ponies with my own friends. That sounded pretty risky to me though. Bottom line, none of my alternate solutions were good.

“So, what’s the game plan here? We going to just spend a couple days doing nothing while we wait to see if anyone attacks Equestria?” That sounded more bitter than I’d intended. 

“INDEED. WE APOLOGIZE, HARRY, BUT ‘TIS NECESSARY FOR THE SAFETY OF OUR REALM.”

“Well that’s just great.” I snapped. “How many people you figure are gonna die back on Earth while you’re busy covering your own asses?” 

Every pony in the room was staring at me in shock after that little outburst. I took a deep breath, and forced myself to reign in my temper. Getting pissed wasn’t going to accomplish anything other than burning bridges and giving me a chance to vent some frustration. The simple truth of it was that they wanted to protect their homes, just like I wanted to protect mine. I can’t really hold that against them. Back when I was younger and stupider I might have, but spending a couple months dead had given me a little more perspective.

“My sister and I understand your concerns, Harry Dresden. We will do anything we can to aid your realm without compromising the safety Equestria,” Celestia assured me. “Shining Armor and Cadance are already mobilizing the Royal Guard to watch our borders for any threats. Once I have regained my strength and secured the safety of Equestria, my sister and I will personally lead a force to Earth to help in the battle against Discord.”

So, there was going to be a pony invasion. Well, the press was gonna have a field day with that one. Going into the fight against Nicky and Discord with a pair of godlike pony princesses and an army at my back sounded like a pretty good way of doing things. Certainly better than trying to handle all of that by myself.

Shining Armor and Cadance walked into the room, each levitating a substantial stack of papers. “Princess Luna, here are the unit readiness reports you wanted to...” Shining Armor trailed off as Luna stepped forward and took the papers from him, revealing his sister. He took a tentative step towards her. “Oh … hey, Twily.”

Any other time, I would have thought it was a competition; Twilight’s impersonation of Fluttershy was second-to-none as she squeaked and backed away. Fortunately, she seemed less inclined to introduce her brother to the wall than her teacher, but her body language convinced Shining Armor not to press forward. She crouched, ears tucked back and her tail between her legs as she pressed against Luna.

Man. Even after giving Celestia a surprise inspection of the castle’s masonry, I hadn’t thought the damage to Twilight would be this bad. My inner gentlemen raged at Discord for hurting her like this.

“GUARD CAPTAIN!” Luna’s voice had the reassuring serenity of a particularly small avalanche. Surprisingly, it occurred to her to ease up a bit, and she put the paperwork down before continuing. “Ahem. Guard Captain. Sister. Dear niece. Might we recommend that thou grant Twilight Sparkle time to recover? We know not what happened in our absence; however...”

She trailed off meaningfully as Twilight pressed against her hindleg, eyes dancing back from one childhood idol to another with unbridled fear. Cadence tried to take another step forward, but Shining Armor stopped her with a shake of his head. Celestia was the most hurt of the three – the maternal gleam in her eye went unheeded as she saw the frightened creature that was once her prized pupil.

“My faithful student–”

Twilight whimpered and retreated even further behind Luna, and when the Princess of the Night turned to speak with her, I’d swear I heard someone crying.

Fluttershy went into comforting mode again, drawing Twilight into a gentle hug; she tried to get her out of the room, but Twilight broke the hug and retreated to Luna’s side. Luna’s horn glowed slightly as she and Fluttershy gently guided the traumatized pony away.

Discord and Nicky were going to pay. Call me old-fashioned, but no one makes a woman cry on my watch.

Well, technically Twilight was a mare. Whatever, still female.

Once Twilight was out of the room, everyone started doing their best to talk about anything other than her. It had to hurt her friends, seeing her like that, and anything that could distract them from that pain had to come as a bit of relief. 

Rainbow Dash and Applejack pulled me aside and started whispering out a plan to steal the Elements of Harmony and run off to Earth with me. I could tell their hearts weren’t really in it though. As much as it rankled them to not be able to help me out, Equestria was their home. Most folks tend to be pretty attached to their homes. Still, it was worth seeing if we could spin this into an actual working plan and get the others on board.

“Hey Harry!” Pinkie Pie called out to me cheerfully, interrupting an argument between the two would-be conspirators about who should steal the Elements and who should be the distraction. “I got somethin’ to show ya. Follow me!”

I followed after the party pony, understandably curious to see what she was up to. Probably some sort of ‘Don’t worry about the evil trickster chaos god rampaging through your home’ party. Not really the kind of problem a party could fix, but I suppose there was no harm in humoring her.

A couple minutes later we were in a dark deserted corridor, and I was starting to get just a little curious about what was going on here. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something that seemed just the slightest bit off about her.

I pulled up my Sight to check the pony out. The good news was that she wasn’t under Discord’s control and she didn’t have a coin. No idea how that could have happened again after the last time I’d freed her, but it’s never wise to rule anything out. However, there was definitely something wrong with her.

Pinkie’s aura, like most things associated with Pinkie Pie was normally a very bright and bouncy pink. Except now that aura was shot through with black and blood-red streaks that were slowly spreading like some kind of cancer. 

I’ve seen plenty of magic that messes up someone’s mind or soul, but I’d never seen anything like this. The strangest thing was that I couldn’t see any outside force causing these changes. The closest thing I could think of was that this was some kind of natural internal change, except it was happening way, way too fast. People can change over time, but they don’t really change their basic fundamental natures all that much or very quickly. 

It was like the very essence of Pinkie’s being was changing in a matter of seconds. That just doesn’t happen. People don’t go through those kind of massive changes that quickly, and certainly not without some kind of huge external stimuli. Whatever was going on with her was really weird, and really, really wrong. “Pinkie? You okay?”

The pony suddenly collapsed to the ground sobbing. “Don’t make me do it! I don’t wanna!”

Yeah, that definitely sounded bad. “Pinkie, what’s going on?” Until I had some kind of handle on the situation, there wasn’t much I could do to fix it.

By way of answer Pinkie suddenly tackled me and pinned me to the floor. A manic gleam entered her eyes as she pulled out a huge butcher knife from whatever pocket dimension she kept all her random things in. “Hey Harry! Wanna help me make some cupcakes?”