Dear Faithful Student

by Muramasa


CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY:
THE LAST WALTZ
STARLIGHT GLIMMER


Everything else faded to nothing.

The regality around us dissipated. There were no more Elements of Harmony, no more apprentices, no more princesses.

There was me, a machine, and Melody Waltz, our horns both alight and our eyes gazing into each other. She was impossible to read, but somehow, the moment she launched off the magical bolt that would start our duel, I was ready for her.

Of course, she went for me first. She had no idea what it would take to bring down the drone, but she had plenty of experience bringing down ponies, and so her first bolt soared toward me viciously. I was already in the process of moving my drone to counteract, it, however, and once it was in place, I brought up its shield to easily deflect the projectile.

Now, though, I needed to go on the offensive. Cobalt had clearly become a master at using his own magic in conjunction with the drone's, but seeing as how I was using it for essentially the very first time, I didn't quite have the coordination to use it optimally.

So I decided to alternate shots instead of trying to commandeer the drone and my own horn at the same time. I did my best to fire off shots in random patterns, launching two bolts at her from my horn and then one from the drone, and so forth. I made sure to keep my horn charged all the while, and with how fast I could switch, there was no way Melody could keep up with the variance.

Or so I thought.

I figured Melody certainly had some sort of combat experience based on the way she had tortured me a month ago, but right now, she was flawless. She evaded every bolt I sent at her, and her eyes flickered back and forth between me and the machine in perfect rhythm. I knew she would be trying to read my body language, but it was as if she was taking a test with the answer key right in front of her.

Our dance continued, and neither us were gaining any ground. Melody was pushing harder and harder, though, and it didn't take long until she was able to land the first hit.

It was a simple concentration of raw energy, and it grazed my side well enough to cause me to yelp. My horn and the machine both powered down for a second before I immediately reignited them, and when I looked up to Melody, she was gazing at the drone as it hovered in the air beside me.

"This is Cobalt's, I presume," she said. "It's impressive, but it's better suited in his hooves. It's foolish of you to wield this without--"

Unfortunately for her, I'd caught my breath, and I immediately fired on her from my own horn. Her eyes widened at the sudden noise, but she started to move just a bit too late, and the bolt collided with her front right hoof. She inhaled sharply and jumped back, and when she looked up to me, she gave me the most expressive face I'd ever seen from her: A feverish glare, baring her teeth and breathing heavily.

"No, no, continue," I told her with a smirk. "I was rude to interrupt." She dug her heal into the tile and she took a step forward as she stared me down.

"I'm beginning to regret leaving you--"

Of course, I fired again, this time from the drone. She was expecting a shot from me this time, however, so she wasn't even looking towards the machine when it sent a bolt that only just grazed her neck. She grunted loudly before charging up her horn and launching a wild spell at me, but I quickly pulled the drone in front of me and brought up a shield to block it.

"You aren't yet. But you will."

The dance began anew. This time, though, Melody Waltz was approaching me differently: The calculated bobs and weaves were getting a bit sloppier, and the precise bolts of magic she had been firing were coming out a bit wilder. It wasn't anything drastic, but in such a short time, I'd already thrown Melody off her game. That didn't mean she wasn't still formidable, of course, but thankfully, I found myself settling into a bit of a groove with the drone.

It took a few minutes, but I finally found the courage to teleport. It was something I hinged my fighting style around, but I was waiting until I really got a feel for the drone before I started to do it. Melody was right in that I was hindering myself a bit by using the drone, but I'd decided in that little moment before I teleported here that the unexpectedness of it and my capacity to learn it as I went along would make it worth it in the end.

And at the moment I began to teleport around, I saw my gamble paying off in front of me. I brought myself behind her and fired a bolt, making sure to do the same from the drone. She was already turning to face me, and while she harmlessly deflected my projectile, the spell from the drone launched into her side and brought her toward me.

Seeing the time to strike, I grabbed her with my magic, making sure I had a full grip on her before bringing her up into the air. She started to resist, but it was in vain, and with one swift motion, I flung her toward the wall behind me.

She did her best to slow herself down, but the little I saw of the impact when I turned around still looked like it hurt quite a bit. I was able to take in the glory of her sliding to the floor after making a very slight dent in the wall, but I found myself letting out a short gasp as I watched her rise to her hooves.

Her changeling magic was faltering. The visage of Melody Waltz rapidly flickered to the changeling features of Cyrilla, and the resulting image was a grotesque visage of disassociation as she staggered upright. Her face stuttered between bright green eyes and fanged teeth as Melody and Cyrilla fought for control.

"You," she seethed, another voice that wasn't Melody's creeping into her tone, "Are going to pay for that."

Quickly, she got her changeling magic under control, and the mare called Melody Waltz began to flood back. The scene had not only been terrifying, but it also made me realize that Melody was using a small stipend of her power to keep up her Equestrian appearance. I could feel my eyes widen for just a second, but I quickly narrowed them and put on a wry grin in a show of bravado.

"Don't expect a tip," I told her. She rose an eyebrow and, after a few moments of reflection, I violently shook my head.

"Yeah, that was stupid. 'I don't see a bill'. No, that's a little... wait, wait, I got it! 'Put it on my--'"

Melody had clearly caught on, and she interrupted me just as I'd done to her a few moments ago. I was ready this time, though, and I easily deflected it with the drone's shield. I tried to grab her again with my magic, but my hold was broken almost immediately as she advanced toward me.

The next thing she went for was my goggles.

I'd been expecting she would try something like that, too -- why wouldn't she? -- so when I felt her magic try to pull them off of me, I did my absolute best with my own magic to make sure they stuck to my face. During the struggle, I pointed the drone toward her and fired off as many shots as I could, and though she managed to get around all of them by deftly weaving around the bolts, the pressure forced her to let go after a few moments.

The wild shots got wilder, and the fluid movements grew clumsier. Melody seemed to think that this would be over quickly for all her intelligence, and the more our battle grated on, the more aggressive she became. While she was getting more reckless, it seemed like every bolt of magic was getting to me faster with each consecutive one.

And then she slipped. Literally.

She was making a move to avoid me, and she seemed to have caught her foot on some of the debris from the wall I had thrown her into. With a grunt, she fell to the floor, and the moment I saw her tumble, I rushed her. Quickly moving around the throne pedestal towards the giant glass window she'd tripped near, I allowed both myself and the drone to gather as much energy as I possibly could to channel the most powerful beam I could muster in an effort to end this at once.

But right as I approached her, I saw a glow from her horn as she was scrambling to get up. And much to my horror, she was able to turn toward me with a massive burst of her own right as I let go of mine.

I'd been taught from a very early age a simple mantra: "In a magical deadlock, nopony wins". Of course, somepony did, but the volatile state of magic colliding with itself meant that whoever ended up on the "winning" side was still likely to suffer. When Melody glared up to me as the sparks from her horn trickled down onto her icy countenance, I knew this wasn't going to end well for either of us.

But it was going to end better for one of us. And that "one of us" was going to be me.

We'd both fired extremely powerful blasts at each other, but I had an advantage she just couldn't match. I knew I was using all of the drone's power, but I pressed on, and I combined our raw energy until I felt I could step forward. The beams were still colliding in a spectacular, horrific blaze, but the two of mine were beginning to overwhelm hers. It was very, very impressive for her to be able to keep a direct blast from two magical entities locked for so long, but she knew she was beaten, and as I came down upon her with a final push, she wailed into the air.

I don't remember flying. I remember the bright flash of light that enveloped my sight, and I remember the first taste of inertia that would send me careening across the throne room. I blacked out for the rough landing and the slide across the tile, so when I came to, I was lying on my side and gasping desperately for a hint of air.

The glasses were gone, but that didn't matter, because I knew the drone was, too. I made an effort to get up, but I staggered with a scream as I felt a horrific pain shoot through my side. I brought a hoof over to the affected area and immediately felt a medium-sized piece of metal jutting out from it. It seemed as if the drone would stay with me after all, but having it stick as a decently-sized piece of shrapnel was what I would call less than ideal. I couldn't take it out, so I felt it to make sure it would stay firmly in place before I continued in my efforts to get up.

My entire body had been bruised from the fall and I knew I had quite a few cuts from smaller shrapnel all over me, but on a third try, I was able to stagger to my feet. I had to blink a few times to put the world back in focus, but the first place I looked to was the pillar nearest the window we'd had our stalemate at to make sure the ponies attached to it were fine.

The first thing I noticed was that the cocoons were somehow unharmed, which was a huge relief. The second thing I noticed was that it was snowing.

The clash and ensuing explosion had shattered the entirety of the massive stained glass window at the left edge of the room, and the blizzard outside had come pouring into the throne room. The temperature was plummeting, too, I knew, but I didn't feel it in the slightest as I tried to get my bearings. It was getting much harder to see, but after a few squinted glances, I was able to make out Melody as I staggered toward her.

I could hear her breathing from a mile away. She'd reverted entirely to her changeling form -- I'd imagine the excessive use of magic to hold the deadlock and the ensuing blast would prevent her disguise from coming back up again -- and she was resting on a very large piece of the drone that had fallen at her feet. It was glowing very brightly orange, though, striking clearly in my vision through all the snow, and I could hear her seething quietly as her body shook every slightly. I could feel my head tilt to the side as I tried to get a better look, but when she finally rose to her hooves, I felt my stomach churn as I looked upon her.

She was missing her front left leg.

That piece of the drone was glowing bright orange because she had heated it up with magic. She'd been writhing in pain and resting on it because, amidst what I knew was a stunned and stupefied recovery, she had cauterized what was left of it.

That wasn't the only damage she had suffered. The tip of her horn was gone, too, and she was bleeding from her chest and sides.

"This... this has been fun, Starlight Glimmer," she cooed through short breaths. Her voice was no longer that of the mare called Melody Waltz, but a deep, feminine boom that spoke for Cyrilla. I wanted to vomit, but I managed to stave it off with the fight-or-flight instinct that was overwhelming my body as she readied herself.

"You almost killed me," she continued, letting out a spurt of coughs. "But you didn't. And I promise you that when I'm done with you tonight, you're going to wish you were back in that cabin."

My body was revolting at the thought of entering another extended battle, but at those words, my heart started burning with a want of nothing else. I stepped forward, and I felt my own horn spark alight as I took in her new form.

"And you're gonna wish this was that easy."

The first mistake I told myself I wasn't going to make was to underestimate Melody now that she was missing a leg. She was already freakishly fast before, but now that she didn't have a second party to worry about and she had me one on one, there were a number of ways she could open up her magic. As such, the last thing I wanted was for her to set the pace, and so I fired off a quick laceration spell toward her to kick off the next act of our duel.

I knew it wasn't going to hit her, but I wanted to see how it wasn't going to hit her. And when I blinked, she had moved just a bit to the left out of harm's way and sported a pitch-black aura around her horn.

Ever since Melody had told me she read Zephyr's journal, I prepared myself to see some dark magic. She was a pragmatist, and I knew well that she would have come to the understanding that there are some things dark magic can simply do better. I also knew that she would be able to handle dark magic far better than Zephyr could, and so it only served to open up her combative prowess to dangerous levels. Sunset and Twilight had told me that Zephyr was almost impossibly fast, but I had a feeling she was apt to use far more dark magic than a simple dodging spell.

I had to be careful, but I didn't have to be timid.

I teleported behind her, and the moment I felt myself appear at my new destination, I fired a shot. She's caught on to that when I started doing it with the drone, though, and she once again phased out of harm's way. She whipped toward me and stomped her hoof on the ground, and I only just managed to teleport out to where I originally was before a massive crystal shot up from the floor.

It was how Sombra had physically materialized dark magic, since there were crystals all around him in his youth, and anypony who studied his particularly usage of it did the same thing as a result. Melody had learned it from Zephyr, and Twilight had learned to materialize dark magic in a crystalline form because Celestia had seen Sombra do it all those years ago. The concept of that had fascinated me as I read about it, but that was all I wanted those crystals to do to me at the moment.

Shooting bolts wasn't working, so I had to resort to something else. Melody could still move around, I knew, but she was currently controlling the flow of the battle around her being stationary, and I wasn't too keen on giving her that advantage.

I looked behind her to see that large glowing piece of the drone she'd just used a few feet away. Despite the raging snowstorm in the building, it was still very hot and was apt to do some damage, so I grabbed it with my magic and, as hard as I could, yanked it toward her.

She could hear it coming, but it was too late to fully evade. She did manage to lunge toward the side, but the burning piece of metal caught her back leg and spun her around. She let out a shriek as it collided with her, and I immediately went to seize the opportunity I'd opened.

But, to my horror, it closed just as quickly.

I was expecting her to be knocked off her hooves, especially now that she only had three of them. Instead, she'd somehow kept her balance amidst her missing foreleg and now badly-scorched back leg, and so when I came charging at her, she was entirely too ready to meet me.

I tried to stop, but my momentum was already carrying me. She stopped me herself, launching a dark crystal up from the floor to halt me in my tracks. I hit it almost immediately, and through the stunning impact, I was only just able to brace myself as a second crystal came in from the left of me. I managed to bring up a shield to my side to prevent it from skewering me, but the impact itself was more than enough to send me soaring across the room.

I knew I couldn't land on my right side with the shrapnel sticking out, so I used an inkling of magic to rotate myself to ensure I took the hard landing on my left side. It was still hard, and I found my breath entirely flooding from my body when I collided with the ground. I started a coughing fit, too, and I was dismayed to find red specks on the floor where I had done so after my eyes readjusted themselves.

I slowly turned to see Melody limping toward me. The impact with the burning metal plate had clearly done a number on her and she was still getting used to walking without a fourth leg, but it didn't really matter: Melody Waltz had me beat, and in a few moments, she would surely seal her victory. I couldn't spring up to a standing position and the blow to my other side had very likely bruised my lung, and so all I could do was watch it happen

Until I saw what she was about to walk under.

High, high above us, a glass chandelier hung from the ceiling right across from where Melody had pinned the apprentices and Luna. You wouldn't ever see it if you never looked to the apex of where the ceiling met, and although it was fairly large, it was dwarfed by the massiveness of the throne room around it. I'd never paid too much mind to it ever since Rainbow Dash had pointed it out to me last year when we visited the castle, but Melody was about to walk right under it.

I made sure to time it right because I didn't want to miss her, and I had to make sure I was still able to judge the distance with the heavy snow and wind howling around us. Once I saw her step right where I wanted her, I let off a quick spell with a grunt towards the mount on the chandelier. I wasn't worried about my accuracy -- I was Starlight Glimmer, after all -- and once the small bolt broke the mount, it came crashing down toward her. I'd timed it perfectly, I knew, and I watched with a grin as it prepared to come down upon her.

She wiped it off my face with ease.

She didn't even bother to look up. Instead, she charged a magic bolt for a half a second, and when it was about five or so feet above her, she shot it upward. The glass chandelier exploded in pieces all around her, and she trampled over the little shards with no heed and with a gaze cold as a corpse as she advanced toward me. It was a sickeningly amazing reaction, and I could only lie dumbstruck on the floor as she towered over me.

She didn't say anything at first, opting to merely watch me. I looked up at her with what I knew was a scowl and spit in her direction, and to make everything even worse, she used magic to phase out of the way of that, too. The wind was howling now, and I was beginning to feel what I hoped was the biting chill of the snow flurry and not my body temperature dropping.

"I was going to torture you again," speaking up over the wind. "I was going to make you wish you were in Tartarus. But you're quite the combatant, Starlight Glimmer, so I think I will show you mercy. I hope your friends are watching closely." Her horn began to glow, and though I couldn't see or hear them, I knew my friends on the throne podium were instead probably averting their eyes.

I was just about ready to give in when I had thought of it. I saw the images of my best friends flashing through my mind and the things we had done together, and I let myself remember the brief moments I'd had with the new apprentices. It was when I thought of Violet's sweet, bubbly smile that I remembered what she had told me on the farm just yesterday and the spell we had been practicing that completely left my mind in a flurry of instinctual combat.

Let the magic be a sweven in thy mind.

I still didn't know exactly what a "sweven" was, but I certainly knew what she meant by the phrase. This was going to be extremely difficult, but if performing a spell I hadn't really mastered with an almost nonexistent window to do it could be an alternative to instant death, I was damn sure going to try it.

I closed my eyes. I let the hum of Melody's horn ring through my ears, passing back and forth like my favorite song. It would be soon, I knew, and this entire process hinged on the chance that she would try to get the last word in to indicate when she would fire it. She was Melody Waltz, though, so sure enough, she spoke what she believed would be the last words I would ever hear.

"Don't fret," she told me. "You'll see your them all very, very soon."

I felt my horn light up.

She fired.

Her spell coursed through me, and with all my might, I pushed it right back towards her.

I heard a loud, thundering noise, and when I opened my eyes and discovered I was not, in fact, dead, I only just caught the end of Melody careening across the room. She had attempted to hit me with a spell of pure force that would absolutely have ended my life, but since I'd hit her with Violet's counterspell, it instead had sent her soaring into the air. She looked initially as if she were about to fly out of the open window, but she drifted only just to the left of it and hit a spot on the wall with a sickening thud. She'd used a tremendous amount of force, and as I had doubled it back on to her, she made an impact with the wall and was sent quite a few inches into it before she took the high fall from where she was to the floor below her.

Somehow, I knew that was it. Grunting heavily, I forced myself up to all fours, and I began to make my way over to that left-side window she was now lying prone in front of. The flurry of snow was pounding into my eyes and the wind was pushing against me hard, so walking was almost a chore beyond my means. I was beginning to feel dizzy, but I staved it off for as long as I could as I staggered over to where she was.

She was still alive and breathing, and I could hear her labored growls as she heard me approach. I expected her to roll over to face me, but I quickly realized as I stood over her that she was physically unable to. The impact to her back had made it so that she could not move her body, and so I grabbed her with my magic, lifted her up to eye level, and brought her to the broken window.

The air was thin already up here, and the wind certainly wasn't helping. Now that the window was broken, we were standing at a massive drop from the side of the mountain, and as Melody looked back with the only body part she could move, I heard her chuckle at the fate she knew she was about to meet.

"How fast... things can... change," she muttered slowly. I was sick of hearing her talk, and I edged her closer to the drop-off as I began to speak.

"I was a mare who believed in equality," I told her. "I believed that we were all the same beneath our special talents, and I tried to make that world a reality in Our Town. But I was so, so wrong, and today, you've shown me why." I could see her eyes narrow through the blizzard.

"And why is that?" she spat. There was still some distance between us, and so I walked toward her until my hooves had just met the ledge and our faces were mere inches apart.

"We are not equal, Melody Waltz," I said. "Because I'm better than you. And if you have a rune somewhere that's going to bring you back, and you wake up and forget that, you know where to find me."

She took one last glance at Celestia's throne before I dropped her.

I didn't look down. I stared at the space she'd been a moment before, and I felt a pit in my stomach as I replayed the moment over and over. Melody Waltz would not have been saved by the Elements or purified by the Crystal Heart, I knew -- she was too far gone for that -- but to finally end her reign of terror in such a manner had still left me shellshocked. Once I thought of the Elements, though, I remembered where they all were at the moment, and I blinked a few times before turning around and rushing to the pillars at my side.

Thankfully, I remembered where Twilight was, because I needed to get to her first. Melody had placed her hanging right next to Luna on the ceiling, and so I used my magic to fetch her down. Carefully retrieving her cocoon, I placed her at my hooves, and she held a wide and horrified gaze beneath the veil.

The moment I used my magic to cut it open and free her, I knew I wasn't going to be standing for much longer. The dizziness and nausea were flooding me like a bursting dam, and when I had finally given her leeway and she crawled out of the cocoon, I felt my legs begin to wobble and my breath begin to labor.

She'd gotten to her hooves, but I didn't see her do it. My eyelids were getting heavy, and she rushed over to me and wrapped me in a hug as she called my name.

"Starlight!? Starlight!" The hug was a shot of warmth in the barren cold of the blizzard that was just beginning to die down, and I felt a curl at the end of my lips as everything faded and I passed out into her embrace.


When my eyes fluttered back open, I felt like I'd just woken up from a really good nap. The fact that I was in a hospital told me otherwise.

Once my eyes adjusted to the light, though, I found them narrowing, because this wasn't the castle. It was a hospital I did not recognize, so I figured it had to have been Canterlot General. The white on the walls stared back at me stoically, and I looked down to see a myriad of bandages and an IV into my right hoof. As my eyes continued to adjust, I saw a pink blur amidst the stark white in the corner of my eye, and I felt myself smile weakly as I realized who it was. She seemed to be very deep in thought and staring at the far wall, so I called out to her to grab her attention.

"Hey, Pinkie."

I had expected my voice to be raspy and weak, but I found it coming out decently normally. With a jump, she turned to me, and her eyes went wide and that massive beam I'd come to know her for flooded across her face. Thankfully, she didn't yell, and she instead spoke with a soft (but somehow still extremely uppity) voice.

"Starlight, you're alive! Well we knew you would be alive but you were really hurting there after Melody but we couldn't find the doctor at the castle so we rushed you over here and then they did the surgery and you were gonna be okay but you were still really sleepy so the doctor told us that you might be sleepy for a while but now you're awake which is good because--"

"Pinkie," I interrupted, unable to contain a chuckle. "Thank you for waiting for me. How long have I been out? Where is everypony else?" Pinkie scooted her chair closer to my bedside as she responded.

"You've been out for a day! The doctor said that you were never in any danger of anything crazy happening, but that you would need some rest to recover. We all wanted to make sure we were here so we could thank you for really taking it to Melody! You were awesome! She came and got me at the bakery and I thought I was a goner, but you really gave it to her!" Pinkie moved her hooves around in what I assumed was a mime of my battle against Melody. That got me laughing again -- she was pretty good at that -- and once she was done, she pointed toward the closed door.

"Some of us had to go do a few things here and there, but Twilight is talking to one of the doctors out there and the others are in the waiting room. They'll be so glad to know you're up!"

I was about to smile at the mention of "others", but when I realized just who I was thinking of, I felt my stomach drop. Sunset had very valid concerns about the apprentices once the source of their resurrection had been discovered, and I found myself staring at the bed awkwardly as I began to speak.

"Uh, Pinkie," I started. "Did Vy, Cobalt and Silver--"

"Be right back!" she bubbled, and she had already shot out the door before I finished my sentence. I decided to let Pinkie do what Pinkie does, and I propped myself up on the bed using the pillows I'd been allocated. When I moved to get up, I felt a familiar pain missing, and I reached over to my side to feel the absence of the metal drone piece that had lodged itself into my side. It seemed like they'd taken the liberty of removing the smaller pieces that I didn't notice, too, and I looked toward the ceiling and breathed a long sigh of relief as I settled into the bed.

Like we always do.

I gazed emptily above me for a little while longer before the door creaked open. Pinkie came in first, and she was followed by an orange and red unicorn and a rather regal-looking lavender princess I'd been expecting to see.

And then Violet.

And Cobalt.

And Silver.

That was when my eyes started watering, but with a wipe from my free hoof, I managed to combat it. It was a bit of a crowded room, but they all gathered in a half-circle around my bedside.

"What is it with us and hospitals?" Sunset mused. "How ya feeling, gladiator?" I rolled my eyes at her, but I was very glad to know that nothing had changed in the short time I'd been gone.

"I got stabbed with sharp metal and just got done being thrown around Canterlot Castle like a ragdoll, so pretty damn good," I told her. "What did the doctor say about me?" It was a question directed towards any one of them, but it was Twilight that answered me.

"You bruised your lung, lost quite a bit of blood, and had a bit of shrapnel in you, obviously," she said with a wry smile. "But I thought... I feared the worst when you fell out on me. I was so relieved to hear the doctor tell us you were gonna be fine. He'll be in to check on you soon." Nodding, I turned to the three apprentices that had gathered on my left. Silver was eyeing me curiously, while Violet and Cobalt had locked their forelegs together as they smiled warmly upon me.

"You're incredible, Starlight," Silver said, taking a step forward. "I don't think any one of us could have done what you did. She just came and took us in the middle of the night, and... I thought that was it. We all did. And I think Equestria can thank you, too." I was all for the compliments, but ever since I came to my senses, I had a question gnawing at the back of my head that I didn't want to know the answer to.

"I threw her off the mountain," I told them. "Did you all send a search party at the base of it?"

"Yes," Twilight said quickly.

"Did you find her?" I asked.

The delay was all I needed to know, and the look that everypony gave the floor was conformation in spades. Twilight gave a short sigh before she finally answered.

"No."

I nodded. I'd expected it, really, but the truth of the matter was that regardless of her current status, I had a feeling I wouldn't have to think about Melody Waltz for a long, long time. There was another matter of inquiry I wanted to address, though, and I turned back to the revived students as I felt my eyebrows raise.

"So... you're here," I said eventually. "You're still alive. You're all starting over." Carefully, they nodded in unison as they studied each other over.

"...Yes," Violet answered. "We are. 'Tis will be strange, for certain, but I could not ponder a better collective to begin our lives anew with than ye." Cobalt hugged her a bit tighter at that, and I felt my heart melt a little at the sight. I was waiting for him to say something about what he'd seen, and sure enough, his face molded to that of foal in a candy store as he addressed me.

"I was nervous to see you'd brought the drone, but you were bloody brilliant!" he exclaimed, causing Violet to roll her eyes and chuckle. "Wonderful bit of business, that. I think she's finally perfect. If we could get ponies to stop blowing it to smithereens, we'd be getting somewhere." That got us all in a short fit of laughter, but I still wasn't done with my cross-examination of the whole group.

"What's next? Everypony getting back into the swing of things?"

Twilight pointed toward the far wall. There was a calendar hanging there, and my eyes widened as I caught the date.

"Hearth's Warming is in two weeks," she began. "We always do a thing at my parents' house, and since we're all already here, I thought I'd invite everypony. You're welcome to come." I loved Hearth's Warming, and I had entirely forgotten we were in the season for it these past few days.

"I'll be there," I told her, "But I have an excuse for not bringing any presents."