Princess Twilight had been in Donut Joe's, nursing a coffee—or, perhaps, letting it nurse her—when she sat bolt upright, stared him in the eye, and said, “We need to go.”
“What?” Donut Joe said, before Twilight reached out her hoof, grabbed him, and teleported both of them away.
'Twas the night before Hearth's Warming, and all through the city, not a creature was stirring.
Which was weird, because it was ten in the morning, and the city should have been bustling with last-minute preparations and frantic shopping. For that matter, it shouldn't have still been night.
“So how did you know?” Donut Joe asked, staring at what had become of Canterlot. “It's not like you were looking out the window.”
“Not sure.” Princess Twilight was pacing in a circle, and had made a donut-shaped track in the snow. “Peripheral vision? Alicorn instinct? Your theory’s as good as mine.”
In front of them—well, Princess Twilight was pacing in a circle, but in front of Joe—lay a huge region of darkness that covered all of Canterlot Castle, the city, and the road leading to it for at least a mile. Here, at the boundary, Joe just saw darkness that not even moonlight would touch.
As Joe watched, a white rabbit hopped across the snow. As soon as it went through the boundary it stopped moving and flopped over. It was completely motionless in the darkness.
Joe's breath caught. “Oh, that’s not good,” he whispered, his breaths coming faster and faster. “Oh, that’s really very not good at all—”
Twilight pulled the bunny back, and its eyes immediately opened. It started squirming, trying to get free of her telekinetic grip. “Okay,” Princess Twilight said, and however far past panicked Joe's voice was getting, the Princess's was that far away. “It... puts you to sleep? Hmm....”
With an experimental scowl, she moved the bunny back and forth several times: into the boundary, out of the boundary, into the boundary, out of the boundary.... “Princess,” Joe said, feeling a crawling awkwardness in his skin. “That's really weird.”
“Oh, fine. Just one more time.” Princess Twilight shoved the rabbit inside the boundary again. “Lemme just get some readings....” A bunch of multicolored lights floated up from the bunny's head, out of its ear: Joe couldn't make hide nor hair of them, but Princess Twilight seemed to.
“All right,” she said, pulling the rabbit back out and releasing it. The rabbit shot her a dirty look before hopping away. “So, two important things I need to say,” she said, turning back to Joe and sitting down.
“Firstly, whatever's causing that... fainting spell is only putting whatever goes inside to sleep. It's not hurting anyone inside there, it's not preying on their dreams or using their brains to run some fake reality simulation or….”
After a few seconds, Joe piped in with, “Or what, Princess?”
“I really thought I was going to come up with a third thing there.” Princess Twilight dragged a hoof down her face. “The point is that they're all fine. For now.”
Joe squinted. “And you say 'for now' because....”
“Well, when you sleep for too long without eating or drinking, you die.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh.” Princess Twilight nodded. “So I'm going to whip up some sort of spell that lets us go in there without falling asleep, and then we are going to save Hearth's Warming.” She paused. “Equestria too, I guess.”
It took a few seconds for Joe to notice the plural pronouns she'd used. “Wait—you want me to help you, Princess?”
“I mean, yeah?” Princess Twilight grimaced. “Basically everyone I know is in there. Elements, Pillars, Princesses, Starlight, even, ugh, Trixie is out of the question. So I could go all the way over to the human world and drag back Sunset Shimmer, or I could yell really loudly and hope Discord shows up... assuming he's not causing this....” She frowned, but then shook her head. “No, too boring. The point is, you're right here. So we're going. Which brings me to the next important thing.”
“What is that, Princess?”
“Just Twilight is fine.”
“Okay, sorry.”
A pause.
“So,” Joe said, just as his brain was starting to make the connection, “what is the next most important—wait, really? That was the big thing?”
Twilight nodded.
“I mean—I can try, but I don’t want to seem overly familiar—”
“Joe,” Twilight said, groaning a little into the word, “you've known me when I was a strung-out student working back to back all nighters, clutching a coffee mug like a life preserver. Thank you for trying to be polite, but it really is okay to be ‘familiar’. Particularly if we're saving the world together.”
“All right, Twilight.”
Twilight ambled over and laid a reassuring hoof on his back. Once upon a time she'd been over a hoof shorter than him, and now she was taller. “I guess you never really thought of yourself as someone who'd be saving the world, huh.”
“Well....” Now wasn't that a hard question to answer? But after pondering for a bit, he decided that she probably wasn’t talking about fantasies, and decided to stick with the safe answer of, “No.”
“I don't think anypony does, before their first time.” She smiled. “Don't worry. You're the perfect pony for the job, after all.”
“Pr—Twilight,” he said, enunciating the second word a bit overly loud to make up for the near-flub, “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but you don't need to flatter me.”
“No, really!” Twilight winked. “I mean, who else is better at waking up a bunch of ponies in the morning?”
As Joe and Twilight walked along the snowy path to Canterlot, the air around his face shimmered just like the boundary had.
Twilight had spent ten minutes pondering the boundary earlier, before she’d cast a spell on herself and stuck her head through the boundary to test it. Her head had stayed moonlit in the shadowy realm, and she hadn’t fallen asleep. Now, she and Joe were walking through the shadows, each with their own personal non-sleep-aura like a pony-shaped bubble of air.
The falling snow muffled each footstep, and it wouldn’t let up any time soon: some clouds had been left to add a little extra winter wonder and no one was around to clean them up. Joe shivered as the flakes fell upon his skin. He was dressed to work next to a hot stove all day, IE in his white donutier's hat and a thin shirt, and it wasn’t enough.
But he didn't complain. He tried not to shiver. This was the most important day of his life, and he was saving the world, and in a land where danger could be behind any corner, he knew he couldn't afford to make a—
“Joe?” Twilight said. “Are you forgetting to breathe?”
“No,” Joe wheezed.
Twilight sighed. “Look, I know it probably doesn't come naturally the first time, but I'm used to a certain amount of banter during these adventures. Or at least a little conversation? Nothing's actually going wrong so far, and we don't have any time crunch.” She frowned. “So can we please talk?”
“Mmm....” Joe squirmed.
“What?”
“No, fine, I'll try.” A pause. “So... your friends are in Canterlot?”
“They’re with everyone else, preparing for the big holiday celebration. Well, they were.” Twilight grimaced. “And then this happened, because of course it did while we were all together. I think after this, and the Storm King fiasco, Equestria needs to start looking into the concept of a designated survivor.”
“Well, you weren't preparing for the big holiday celebration?”
“I spent my last several nights doing that with the other princesses. I came to your shop because I needed some caffeine.” A bit of her confidence fell away, or at least he could see the cracks in it. The wrinkles, more accurately. “I might be slightly running on fumes. Not a problem! Do it all the time! But I figured you should know. Hence, wanting to talk.”
“Right.” Joe trudged on for a few more paces before asking, “And you didn't just get a coffee at the castle?”
“Hah!” Twilight shook her head. “I've found that you can get just about anything you could possibly ask for at Canterlot Castle, except a decent cup of coffee. Or maybe I've just been spoiled by yours.”
“Haha,” Joe said. It wasn't actually a laugh, it was just those two syllables.
Silence again. They trudged forward, nearing the city gates. Now that they were closer, Joe saw that there ponies asleep in the street, and he winced: beyond eating and drinking, hypothermia could become a concern, couldn’t it? He had to stay serious.
“Aaaaanything else you want to talk about?” Twilight motioned with a hoof. “Any thoughts about saving the world? How you're feeling about that?”
“I'm not really in the habit of sharing how I feel with customers. Or... anyone.” Which wasn’t to say customers didn’t talk to him, but the barista’s job wasn’t really to answer back. He shivered. “Particularly if the ‘anyone’ happen to be royalty. Sorry.”
Twilight groaned, not merely rolling her eyes but her whole head. “Again with this! I wasn't born royalty, Joe, and I wasn't royalty for most of when you knew me! And in fact—hang on,” she said, “I’m pretty sure Cadance brought me to your shop for donuts, while she was a princess! That was like twenty years ago or something! How are you not used to this?”
“I don’t serve princesses at my cafe—”
“I was literally there an hour ago!”
“—I serve customers.” Joe shrugged. “And for the record, you and Pr—you and Cadance aren’t the only princesses ever to come. It’s just… my cafe is where the most interesting ponies in Equestria come to be boring. It’s a different context.”
He gestured to her with a hoof, mostly at all of her but particularly at her determined expression. “But see, right now, you’re being all princess-y. Saving the world and all. It’s a different side of you.”
“It feels like the same side to me.” Twilight sighed. “Look... I dunno, royalty is just how I look from the outside. From the inside, even after getting used to it, I still spend a lot of my time feeling like the weird nerdy student. It's....” She trailed off, eyes closing, and Joe wondered what thoughts she might be gathering.
He didn't have to wait long. “All right,” she said, “have you ever heard of the Ship of Thegasus?”
“Uhhhh....” That sounded vaguely mythological, so Joe ransacked that part of his brain and came up with, “The one where that stallion slept under it and it fell apart and killed him?”
“Good guess, but that was Golden Fleece, and he was a ram, not a stallion. No, this one's more of a thought experiment.”
Twilight's horn lit up, and an illustrative projection of a child's drawing of a ship appeared. “Imagine you have an old ship,” she said in a lecture voice, and patches of wear and tear appeared on it. “It’s old enough to be falling apart, piece by piece, and you have to start replacing it piece by piece. You replace the sail, because it's got rips and tears. You replace the mast, because it's been cracking under the weight. You replace the boards of the ship because they've got rot....”
At each step of her explanation, the corresponding part of the ship flew away and vanished, only to be replaced by a slightly different sail, mast, or body. “And sooner or later,” she said, “what you find is that the entire ship has been replaced, piece by piece. So what you have to ask yourself is, is it the same ship? And if it isn't, when did it change?”
“Huh.” Donut Joe stared at it. “Well, I think... I mean, it's clearly not the same ship, but....” He frowned, rubbing his chin.
Twilight shook her head, releasing the projection spell. “Honestly, ponies have been arguing this question for centuries, so it's not like there's a clear answer. If there were, it wouldn't be fun. The point is....” Twilight looked at him heavily. “I sometimes think that's what growing up is like. Bits of you keep changing, getting updated, and someday you realize that you're a whole new person, but it never feels like you changed in any real way. So I don't know if I'm ever going to feel like royalty, no matter how it looks from the outside.”
“Wow. Really?”
“I mean, what do you feel like?” She tilted her head. “Because I bet it's a bit more than just 'the pony who makes great coffee and okay donuts'.”
“Hey. I make exceptional donuts.”
“Chalk it up to my personal bias.”
They walked under the city gate, as Joe thought about that. Not for long, unfortunately: the moment they made it past the gate, a voice rang out: “At last! An audience!”
The gate slammed shut behind them. Its noise resounded through the still streets, setting his teeth on edge. “Twilight?” Joe hissed. “I thought everypony was asleep.”
“They have to be,” Twilight hissed back. “But... I know that voice....”
“Come one!” the voice yelled, and spotlights burst from the snow around them. “Come all!” it proclaimed, and a massive stage rose out of the street, lights glinting all around its base like a Las Pegasus act. In the middle of the stage, a podium rose still higher, telescoping upward, and once it reached its apex a curtain closed around it, a curtain that had appeared from nowhere. “Come witness the amazing magic of the Great and Powerful—”
“Trixie?” Twilight blurted, as the curtain opened and vanished in one, revealing the blue mare in all her glory. Fireworks burst out from the stage, flying haphazardly through the sky and exploding against nearby houses. “What in Tartarus are you doing here? And—” She stopped talking, and Joe figured it was for the same reason he didn't start: because Trixie was an alicorn.
Sort of. Most alicorns, Joe knew, didn't have three pairs of wings. Or five horns. Or, and he had to take a moment to count here, seven crowns haphazardly piled between her horns.
“Watch in awe,” Trixie declared, sticking out a hoof in grandiose fashion, “as the Great and Powerful Trixie performs the most spectacular feats of magic ever witnessed by pony eyes!”
“Huh?” Twilight said.
More fireworks erupted, at least twice as many as before, and their trajectories were even crazier. “Twilight,” Joe said, sidling closer, “is it just me or is that one getting kind of—”
Twilight fired a blast from her horn, and the firework which had been sailing toward them turned into a pale cube, falling inertly into the snow. “Trixie!” Twilight said, with a sort of fake-laugh quality in her voice, even though she wasn't laughing. “Fancy meeting you here! We were just—”
“And for my first trick,” Trixie said, her voice echoed by speakers that hadn't been hanging from the eaves a moment ago, “the cannonball escape!” She beamed at a crowd only she could see, her eyes glassy.
Twilight grimaced. “Okay, classic Trixie, probably doesn’t know we’re here. As I was saying, we were just....”
“Twilight,” Joe said, realizing it as he spoke, “she doesn't have a spell protecting her. How is she awake?”
“I noticed that too....” Twilight threw on a big, fake smile. “Yeah, we're just gonna... keep going. Nice to see you, as always—”
Trixie's gaze focused directly on them, and her eyes went wide and frantic. “No! Trixie needs an audience!”
The largest salvo of fireworks yet burst from the stage. “Okay, so maybe she knows we’re here?” Joe said through a half-closed throat.
“Move!” Twilight yelled.
They ran. The fireworks exploded behind them, ringing in Joe's ears. Twilight's horn lit up again and again, blasting fireworks out of the sky ahead of them.
“We need cover!” Twilight yelled, as they rounded a corner. “There!” And she dove through the door of Joe's own donut shop.
The artillery of fireworks still rained down outside, but Twilight quickly yanked all the curtains closed and slammed the door, which at least helped with the flashing lights. “There,” she panted, “that should buy us a little time—”
“Oh my Celestia!” Joe yelled. “I left the stove on!”
“What?” Twilight said, as he sprinted to the burners and yanked them around to the off position. “Oh, right, that is a fire hazard. Your shop could have burned down because I teleported you out. Sorry.”
“Ugh,” Joe moaned, picking up the big carafe that had been there. “This coffee is ruined.” Then he shrugged. “Eh, it's not that bad, compared to that other stuff you mentioned—”
He turned around to find Twilight’s eyes welling with tears like the tide had come in. “Twilight?” he said.
“It's fine, I'm fine.” She wiped at her eyes, sniffling. “It's just such a... senseless waste of coffee....” She sucked in a big breath and shook herself. “No, I'm okay, I'm okay. Back on topic. Trixie is some sort of tacky multi-alicorn abomination, and she shouldn't be awake. Any ideas?”
The booms outside were getting louder.
“I don't know,” Joe said, gesturing with one hoof and also the hot carafe of coffee. “Maybe she somehow isn't awake?”
Twilight stared at him. “What do you mean by that?”
“Sorry, I guess it sounds stupid—”
“I'm being inquisitive here, not dismissive. What do you mean, Joe?”
“I just....” Joe shrugged. “It's like a logic puzzle, I guess? The point isn't to try and figure out how she's awake: if she's in the place where anypony who's there is asleep, then she's asleep.”
“Where anypony who's there is asleep,” Twilight repeated, scratching her chin with her hoof. “Where any pony who's there....”
Then the door burst in with a flash of color. “Fools!” Trixie yelled, the window glass shattering with the force of her speech, or possibly the force of her fireworks. “You thought you could escape the stagecraft of Trixie? Have you not heard that all the world's a stage?”
“The back door!” Joe yelled, as the sounds of rockets firing filled the room. “Come on!”
He turned and ran, letting his telekinesis go and fully expecting to hear the glass shatter on the floor. When it didn't, he glanced around to see Twilight holding the carafe in her grip. “Leave the coffee!” he yelled.
She gasped. “Never!”
The back door was by the bathrooms, and led into an alley. Joe and Twilight made it out safely, but the sound of Trixie's stage was still loud, and explosions filled the air. Some of them were coming from inside his shop. Joe cringed.
“She'll find us again soon,” Twilight said, and glanced down at the carafe she’d saved. “I've got an idea. But you need to distract her for a minute.”
“Run that by me again?” he said, and then he felt a telekinetic shove against his keister. “Oh, come on,” he whined, digging his hooves into the snow and finding no purchase.
“You'll be fine! I just need a minute! Good luck!”
And then he was out in the street. Trixie's stage was ahead of him—apparently it could move around now, which was great—and rolling slowly down the street as Trixie looked for them left and right. Joe gulped, and then croaked out the first words that leaped into his head. Unfortunately, those words were, “Hello there, gorgeous!”
Oh, why had he done that?
The moving stage stopped moving. Trixie's stage spun around, pointing her in his direction, which was bad enough—but then the pedestal telescoped up and forward, extending like a gigantic spiderleg to bring her face to face with him. He had to duck her horns. “Hmm?” she said. “What did you just say about Trixie?”
He gulped. Well, in for a bit, in for a bundle. “I said... hello, gorgeous,” he said, trying to un-croak his voice. “Because you are!” She wasn't, at least not for him—he wasn't into girls with grotesque multiples of horns and wings, although it had admittedly never come up—but she seemed to be buying the lie no matter how bad he was at saying it. “I mean,” he said, stepping a little closer and even daring a smile, “look at yourself. You're beautiful.”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie does enjoy looking at herself,” Trixie said, smiling as she preened at her cheek with a hoof, “and she is both gorgeous and beautiful. Please, devise more adjectives with which to please Trixie.”
“Oh, I could come up with a few,” Joe said, walking closer to the stage as Trixie's pedestal shrank back to a more normal size, returning her to the stage as well. “Glamorous. Elegant. Surprisingly understated.” He spat on his hoof and used it to slick back his hair, and then tried to adjust a bowtie before remembering this outfit didn't have one. “I mean, I could go on, but I don't want to bore someone so great and powerful.”
“No, no, go on.” Trixie settled down on her front, looking down at him, apparently drinking up every word.
“Well, if you insist....”
In Joe's peripheral vision he saw a flash of purple. It was Twilight, creeping along a nearby rooftop with her horn aglow, still outside Trixie's field of view. She was shooting him a look of utter bewilderment.
“Ah,” he said, wrenching his attention back to the monstrosity before him, “I was just... concerned that you'd be annoyed by the attentions of a humble pastry chef such as myself.” His smile came easily, to his surprise, and his voice had become buttery smooth. “But I can see you're not a girl who worries about superficial appearances.”
“Yes,” she said, grinning, “those words you said absolutely describe Trixie.”
“In fact, I was wondering,” he said, hopping up on the stage and sidling closer, “if I could convince you, Miss Great and Powerful Trixie... to kiss me.”
In his peripheral vision, Twilight was mouthing some very un-princess-like language.
“Why,” Trixie said, jumping from her pedestal: her many wings allowed her to glide to a landing in front of him. “It would be my pleasure, Mister....”
“Joe,” he said, inclining his head. “Donut Joe.” Then he stared up into her face. “Close your eyes, Miss Trixie...” he said, leaning forward, puckering his lips—
“And open wide!” yelled the voice of Twilight, fast approaching.
Before either Joe or Trixie could react, she arrived in a flash of purple, took the entire carafe of coffee, and poured it down Trixie's throat. Her eyes went from blissfully shut to wide open in a heartbeat, and Trixie spluttered and coughed before finally collapsing.
She wasn't the only thing that collapsed, either. As she fell, the stage slumped and caved in on itself beneath Joe, jolting him downward several feet. The pedestal fell to pieces atop it, leaving Trixie in the wreckage. She coughed and hacked, and then stared up at Joe. “Farewell... my love....”
With that, the stage vanished, and so did she.
“What did you do?” Joe blurted.
Twilight looked back at him in confusion. “Oh, uh, I cooled down the coffee with magic before doing that.” She gestured with the empty carafe before setting it down. “ The point wasn't to burn her to death from the inside, or anything. That would be morbid.” She grimaced. “It was to... I mean, what does coffee do best?”
“Wake ponies up... but Trixie didn't wake up, she disappeared!”
“Well, I don't think that was actually Trixie.”
Joe blinked a couple of times. “What?”
“Remember? Nopony can be awake out here.” Twilight waved her hoof. “Which means that either she wasn't awake, or she wasn't a pony. Now, this is just a hunch, but I think it was a mixture of both.”
She said those words as if they were meant to make the situation less confusing. Joe just stared at her, hoping she'd realize the effect they'd actually had.
After a few seconds, she seemed to figure it out. “Look, don't worry about it for now—it's just a theory, or strictly a hypothesis. But if it's right, then I know what's causing this. And I don't like it.”
“So what now?” Joe said.
Twilight turned around, and looked up. “We need to get to Canterlot Castle,” she said, staring at its massive spires. “But first, we need weapons.”
The weapons were the contents of Joe's shop. He now wore caffeine bandoliers, and Twilight had fashioned him saddlebags with cupholders. She was similarly laden, but had also re-jiggered his espresso machine into a revolver of sorts, although it would fire a very different kind of shot.
The whole time, Twilight had kept glancing at him, and he could see she was biting her tongue. The banter she'd been so insistent on had fallen away.
Finally, a few minutes later, Joe was tired of it. “Look, Twilight,” he said after having bitten the words back a few times, “you clearly have something you want to tell me.”
“What?” Twilight grinned unconvincingly. Joe would have thought monarchs would have better poker faces, even if they had once been manic students cramming for finals. “No, it's fine. If you don't want to talk, everything's fine.”
“You're the one who wanted to talk.”
A few seconds more of silence passed, as they themselves passed under a marble arch that opened into central Canterlot, the part surrounding the castle. The streets were even thicker with sleeping ponies here, and Twilight levitated them into nearby houses as she passed by. Then Twilight said, in a rush, “Okay, fine, so what the hay was that back there?”
“... I'm going to assume you're referring to the kissing—”
“Yes, I'm referring to the kissing!” Twilight threw up both hooves, flapping her wings a few times so that she didn't fall down. “I asked for a distraction, not a seduction! You could have just, I don't know, done anything else! And instead you decided to try to make out with Trixie Lulamoon?”
“I thought you said she wasn't Trixie?” Joe asked, eyebrow raised.
“She's not, she's just Trixie's—look, whatever she was, the fact remains that she is definitely not the kind of pony you'd wanna be in that sort of relationship with.” Her eyes narrowed. “So would you mind telling me, pretty please, where the hay that came from?”
And, to his surprise, Joe had an answer. “Actually... did you ever read the Con Mane series?”
As if a switch had been flipped in her head, her eyes lit up and her expression cleared. Mentioning a book was apparently a safe bet. “Only a dozen times!” she said. “I couldn't put them down! It's the only series that comes close to Daring Do for sheer gripping action! Con Mane, secret agent for Her Majesty Princess Celestia, saving Equestria from annihilation with nothing but charisma, perfect aim, and a trick watch! Foiler of evil plans, seducer of... lovely ladies....”
And the switch flipped back. “Hang on,” she said, squinting once more.
“Yeah, I, um....” Joe scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “I kind of wanted to be Con Mane when I was younger. But I stopped. You know, it's just one of those things you grow out of?”
“Except you clearly didn't.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Do I have to bring up the ship metaphor again?”
“I thought you said it was a thought experiment—”
“Halt, citizens!”
“Oh, what now,” Twilight groaned.
Before them stood the castle itself. It had hundreds of balconies and windows and it would probably have taken Joe's breath away in this dark dream world except, and this was the crucial bit, every single balcony and parapet and window had a Royal Guard leaning out. Staring daggers at them, and worse still, pointing spears.
And none of them seemed to have any sort of protection that would stop them from falling asleep, either.
Joe sidled up to Twilight and whispered, “Can't you just, I dunno... teleport past them?”
“Maintaining this barrier around us takes enough magic as it is,” she whispered back. “I don't think I could do both.”
“Citizens of Equestria!” the guards declared. All of them spoke at the same time, and now that Joe really looked at them, they were even more identical than your average Royal Guards. “The princesses do not wish to be disturbed at this time! Please return to your homes!”
Twilight looked at the guards, and then at herself. At the guards, then at herself. “One moment,” she said, and pulled the sip-shooter out of its holster, pointed it directly into her own mouth, and fired. That was a little grim, Joe thought. “Mm,” she said, smacking her lips. “I needed that.”
She re-holstered the gun, although it shook slightly in her telekinetic grip. “Hi!” she said, her voice strained. “My name's Twilight Sparkle! As in, y'know, Princess Twilight Sparkle? You might remember me from, ah, everything about me?” She indicated her horn, her wings, her cutie mark. “My friend here and I were just going to head into the castle, so if you don't mind—”
She took a single step forward, and a spear impacted into the ground directly before her hoof. “Turn back now,” said the guards, “or face the consequences.”
Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Joe, you know what to do?”
“Aim for their mouths,” Joe said, grabbing two instant coffees from his bandoliers. Of course, saying it was one thing.
Twilight opened her eyes, stared right at the closest guards, and took another step forward.
“Then perish!” The guards' eyes glowed red, and their skins turned from the standard Royal Guard white to deepest black.
The spears started flying, leaving afterimages like lasers through smoke. In the same instant, Twilight drew up a giant semicircular shield all around the two of them, blocking the first blasts. “Move!” she yelled, diving to the left. “Other direction!” she added, as Joe was about to dive left as well, so he sprinted right instead.
A trail of spears traced his galloping hoofsteps, and he was running right at another Royal Guard who had his spear cocked and ready. Joe yelped and threw one of his instant coffees into the guard's snarling mouth: he hacked and coughed, and then vanished, leaving his alcove blessedly free. Joe dove into it just as a veritable forest of spears planted themselves behind him.
Joe peeked out the other side to see that Twilight was in much the same position on the other side: in an alcove of her own, peeking out and firing her sip-shooter at the attacking Guards. Joe gulped, then gathered up some coffee grounds in his own magic and started throwing. It wasn't that hard, when he thought about it: he'd used to have a more difficult time sending coffee cups to all the tables in his diner, before he got used to it....
He'd brought a lot of coffee, and he had a lot of eager customers. Every throw landed true, because the Royal Guards were not moving: it was like a shooting gallery. Joe found himself smiling as he did it: this would be the sort of thing Con Mane would pull off, fighting against impossible odds with a lady by his side—
He looked over at Twilight, and the fantasy was dispelled for the moment. “Twilight!” he yelled. “Are you hitting any of those?”
Twilight was relying mostly on the sip-shooter, but she didn't seem to have good control over it: it shook in her grasp. “Shouldn't have had that shot of espresso,” Joe muttered, before calling out, “Twilight! Give me the gun!”
“What?” she yelled back.
“Trust me!”
Twilight gulped, but pulled the gun back, then tossed it across the arena. It seemed to sail in slow motion, and grabbing it out of the air was easy. “All right,” he said, “let's do this!”
As one-liners went, not the best. And as he leaned out of his cover and started blasting, his aim steady and his shots firing true, and as he kept having to duck and weave to make sure that more spears didn't hit him, a thought occurred. And the thought went like this:
This is actually terrible.
He yelped as a spear missed him by less than an inch, shearing off a bit of his coat.
“I can't believe we made it through that,” Joe wheezed, still recovering as they tiptoed through the castle's halls. They didn’t pass any slumbering forms as they walked, so Joe was more or less alone with his thoughts—and they weren’t happy thoughts. “I never want to do that again.”
“Hmm?” Twilight shrugged. “I thought you were having fun.” When he stared at her in disbelief, she continued: “Blasting all the bad guys? Saving the girl? You must have been living out your fantasy, right?”
“It was more like a nightmare.” Joe shivered. “I don't want to think about what would have happened if one of those spears had hit me.”
“Oh, it would have pierced through the protective field keeping you awake, so you would have fallen asleep.”
“I mean in terms of bodily impalement!”
“Well, you wouldn't have felt it, is my point.” Twilight sighed. “In any case, they were never going to hit you.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I've figured out what they were. And keep your voice down.” Twilight took a breath. “They're dreams.”
Joe stared at her.
“Look, you're allowed to talk, just be quiet about it.”
After a few seconds, when he found his voice, Joe whispered, “What does that even mean?”
“We're in a land of slumber. Ponies are sleeping, which means they’re dreaming. And in your dreams, you don't appear as other ponies see you. You appear as you see you.” Twilight peeked around a corner, nodded, then motioned Joe forward. “What you hope you are, fear you are, think you are.”
Joe thought upon this. “Trixie had, er, three pairs of wings. And five horns.”
“Yes, that's about right for her self-image.” Twilight opened the door to a service stairwell, slowly so it didn't creak. “And the Royal Guards were uniform and disciplined and eager to serve, but also fundamentally kind of terrible at it—because being a Royal Guard is an exercise in inferiority. Let's face it, usually my friends and I are doing their job for them, better than they do. And we're part-timers.”
She was taking the stairs three at a time. Joe wasn't. “So how did any of this happen?” he gasped. “Please slow down.”
“We don't have that kind of time!” Twilight, paradoxically enough, stopped briefly on a landing as she said this. “Because there's only one pony who could have done this. Only one pony whose magic is strong enough, and specific enough for this to happen....”
She jumped up to the final landing in a single leap, reaching the top of the staircase, and shoved the door open.
“Twilight Sparkle,” said a voice that chilled Joe's bones like no winter could.
“It's been a while, hasn't it?” Twilight said, stepping out into the corridor. “I wish I could say I was surprised to see you... Nightmare Moon.”
Joe's breath caught. He peeked around the corner, hoping that he had misheard both times, but no: Nightmare Moon was there in all her dark resplendence. Her mane was a window into a starry sky, shifting and amorphous; her skin was as dark as the new moon; and her smile only existed to show fangs as much as pleasure.
She grinned at them. “I hope you've enjoyed my dark domain, my little ponies. However, I must express some disappointment... you see, I believe my lovely Royal Guards should have told you to keep away from the castle. Imagine that: a Twilight Sparkle who doesn't follow the rules!” She cackled. “And you've brought a spectator with you, to enjoy your defeat!”
Joe gulped.
“You're not real,” Twilight said.
Nightmare Moon's smile widened. “I beg your pardon?”
Twilight's voice was tired. “You're not real. You don't have an aura around you, which means that you're another dream. So as soon as I can wake up the real Princess Luna—who should be somewhere down that hallway if my memorized map of the castle is accurate,” she said, pointing past Nightmare Moon, “then you'll vanish and this will all be over.”
Nightmare Moon cackled once more. “Oh, I assure you, Twilight Sparkle. I'm more than real enough to keep you from her.”
Twilight wiped at her face again. “This would normally be the time when I tried to talk you down, and said something about friendship, but... I am so tired, Luna. I just want to be done. So if you want to play the villain....” She suddenly bent down in a fighting stance, charging up her horn as it pointed at Nightmare Moon. “Then I can play the hero.”
“Hah!” Nightmare Moon bent her head forward as well, pawing at the ground. “Take your shot.”
And Twilight did. The blasts of light met in the center of the hallway, making an echoing blast that shook the walls. Twilight kept firing blasts, filling the hallway with yet more noise, but Nightmare Moon kept blocking them without stopping her laughter. “You're so weak, Twilight Sparkle!” she crowed. “You think you can beat me like that?”
“I don't need to beat you,” Twilight said through gritted teeth, firing another blast. “Luna's just down the hall. If I can make enough of a racket....”
But Nightmare Moon deflected it with a flourish of her head. “Foolish girl, you give me such little credit. I've already placed a soundproofing spell on Luna's room!”
With another peal of laughter, Nightmare Moon went on the offensive. In short succession, she fired several blasts that forced Twilight to shield and dodge. “Joe!” Twilight yelled as she dived to the side. “There's another staircase up here on the other end! Go down and get to it! I'll hold her off!”
“Hold me off!?” Nightmare Moon's latest cackle was the loudest.
Joe dove down the stairs, his body screaming in protest. One hoof stayed firmly upon the railing, and the others skedaddled him down as fast as he could go. What was he doing, for goodness's sake? He wasn't a hero! He was just a coffee shop—
He slowed, panting, at the bottom of the steps. An idea had just occurred to him and, surprisingly enough, he was pretty sure it hadn't occurred to Twilight. But he needed to be sure.
He rushed down the hallway, pausing to grab an ornamental sword from the wall with his magic—from what he understood, heroic do-gooders were allowed to take these sorts of liberties. Then he reached the other staircase and ran up it, trying to ignore the protests of joints who weren't as gung-ho as the brain leading them.
By the time he'd reached the upper landing, it was quiet. And when he walked out, Twilight lay on the floor, scorched and bruised, and Nightmare Moon faced him from the middle of the hallway.
“Joe,” Twilight wheezed, “move.”
Nightmare Moon grinned. “Joe? Not exactly a hero's name, is it, no matter how pretty your sword is.” She stalked closer toward him. “Just who do you think you are, challenging me?”
“Good question—and no, no it isn't.” Joe's voice was steady, even if the sword shook. “Before you do... whatever you're about to do to me, one question. Not for you, though.” He raised his voice. “Twilight, you said you were working on Hearth's Warming for several days straight. Remind me, were you with all the other princesses? Including Princess Luna?”
Twilight looked at him, confusion overriding the fatigue in her face for a moment, but then nodded.
“Thanks.” Joe smiled. “That's all I needed to hear.”
And with that, Joe took the sword and stuck its point against his breast. Not piercing his skin, though—merely piercing the aura that surrounded him.
It popped like a balloon, leaving shimmering fragments in the air all around. He felt the weight of bone-deep exhaustion close in immediately, and the sword clattered to the floor a moment before he himself did. Joe let out a sigh, and closed his eyes—
And Con Mane, on the other end of the hallway, opened them.
The situation: two alicorns, one of whom harbored disastrous intent, stood before him. The corridor was too narrow to do much in the way of evasive maneuvers. All he had was his perfectly fitted suit, a bowtie at his neck, and a completely ordinary watch around his fetlock. Just a simple watch.
“Well,” he said, adjusting the bowtie and looking forward at the stunned Nightmare Moon. “Shall we begin?”
She snarled and fired a blast. He was faster, though: he smacked the face of his watch, and a shield expanded around it, which he raised. It deflected the attack into the adjacent wall, and Con Mane advanced, blocking blast after blast as he moved. “Come on!” he hissed once he reached Twilight.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving the girl!”
With Joe blocking Nightmare Moon's attacks, Twilight was able to get shakily on her hooves and run to shelter in the stairwell. Joe backed up as she went, still covering her. “I was wrong,” Twilight said, heaving breaths. “I can't get past her. Maybe playing hero was a mistake. Joe, what do we do?”
“That’s the wrong name, my dear.” Ducking around the corner, he flashed a charming smile. “The name's Mane. Con Mane.” He deactivated the shield with another slap of his watch face, then rested his watch-hoof comfortingly on her shoulder. “And I think you'll find I've got it all under control.”
Twilight looked up at him. “Really? What are you going to do?”
And then Con Mane tapped a button on the watch's side, and Twilight winced with pain. Mane couldn't blame her: the hypodermic needle that had jabbed into her neck, sticking out from the side of the watch, was probably not very comfortable. Still, she'd be all right soon enough. “Joe?” she whispered, as the aurora around her flickered and died. “What are you doing....”
“What I do best, my dear.”
Con Mane smiled as Twilight's eyes slid shut. Then he tapped the button on his watch again, retracting the needle.
“All right,” he said, and walked out into the corridor again. “Now that our mutual friend isn't trying to antagonize you any longer... Miss Moon, I believe?”
Something inside him that was still Joe was screaming that this was Nightmare Moon, for goodness's sake, and you can't just flirt her into submission! But Nightmare Moon just nodded uncertainly. Apparently the situation had become too strange for her to do anything but accept.
“A fitting name,” Mane said, letting himself glance once at her flank. After all, everyone knew that Con Mane was a bit of a womanizer. “I was wondering if you'd permit me to see Miss Luna? I'm worried she may be in some distress.”
Nightmare Moon stared at him. “She doesn't want anypony to see her right now—“
“Ah, but you'll find I'm merely a charming fiction, not a pony.” He eased himself forward, still smiling. “Come now, dear, I think we both know she'd love to talk to someone right now.” When that didn't seem to convince her, he added, “If it helps, I can sweeten the deal. Not figuratively, either.”
He winked, and that seemed to do it. She stepped to the side and turned around, letting him walk past her—or with her, rather, as she fell into step with him as he drew level with her.
He set the pace at an easy amble, though it wasn't long before he passed his own sleeping form. Well, it was technically Donut Joe's sleeping form, snoring in the corner of the wall—but it was him too, wasn't it? They were both him. It was still the same ship.
At length he reached the door, which shimmered with what Con Mane assumed was the silence spell Nightmare Moon had set: his own footsteps seemed quieter as he approached. She touched her horn's tip to it as she reached it, and it vanished without any fuss. “Try to be a little tactful,” Nightmare Moon said, a sneer audible in her voice. “She's not well.”
Mane inclined his head. “My dear, I am but a humble servant of the crown. I shall be on my best behavior.”
“You had better be. Else I'll rend you to shreds with my teeth.”
Con Mane just smiled at that, and pushed the door open—and there was Princess Luna, upon the bed.
Of course, Con Mane had seen many beautiful mares sprawled upon beds, but this one wasn't exactly the kind that would end up on a novel’s cover for the purposes of fanservice. Princess Luna looked awful: her hair was tangled, bags undermined her eyes, and her body had contorted into a strange position. She tossed and turned from side to side in her fitful sleep, and he decided that she could not possibly be getting any rest.
Con Mane walked to her side. “Princess?” he whispered in a lilting tone. When it didn't get a response, he raised his watch and pressed another button on it, and the sharp scent of fresh coffee sprayed out past her nose.
At first glance, it didn't seem to be working. However, he glanced back at Nightmare Moon, and saw her form dissolving from the hooves up. “Remember,” she whispered, “your best behavior.” And then she was gone.
He turned back to see Luna's eyes open. “Who are you?” she mumbled. “What are you doing in my chambers?” As he'd expected, Luna—the source of the sleeping spell—needed no aura around her to maintain consciousness.
Con Mane inclined his head in a bow. “Princess? I wonder if you might come with me? There's a slight a situation outside.”
“What? But....” Her gaze sharpened. “You're not a pony. And... and I feel the moon in the sky. But it is....” She sat bolt upright, and her gaze fixed on a clock upon her bedside table, proudly proclaiming the late morning hour.
Without further ado she rushed to the windows and threw them open, revealing Canterlot without all its glory: ponies asleep in the street instead of bustling about, with most Hearth's Warming decorations half finished. “Oh, no,” she groaned, rubbing her head. “I've done something truly terrible again, haven't I?”
“My dear, it's all right.”
“It is not all right—I can't just have magical outbursts whenever I feel like it!” Her voice was gaining a harsh edge. “I've been good for all these years, keeping stable since Nightmare Moon, and now—”
“Princess,” Con Mane said, cutting across her. “Everypony is fine. Some of us may be a little shaken, but most of us have not even stirred.” He raised his hoof—the one without the watch on it—and offered it to her. “Might you allow me to explain the situation on the way?”
“On the way to... where, precisely?”
“A donut shop, as a matter of fact. Somewhere you might be able to sit down, so that we can talk.”
Luna seemed to be considering it. “Will there be coffee?”
“My dear Princess, I have it on good authority that the coffee is the greatest in Canterlot.”
So she took his hoof.
When they walked down the corridor and reached the stairs, he found Twilight waiting for him, standing above her own sleeping body. “Did it work?” she said, eagerly. “If she's awake, why am I still asleep? Why am I still like this, and why are you still like that?”
She seemed almost less interested in getting the questions answered, and more in the sheer joy of asking them. Con Mane smiled. “All under control, Twilight. Now don't you have somewhere else you might like to be?”
He and Luna descended the steps past her.
The first pot had been brewed, and the second was on its way. Con Mane stood behind the counter, still wearing his tuxedo and bowtie—a gentleman had to look his best—but also wearing a spare white cap. “Order up,” he said, pulling a tray of donuts from the oven with his magic, then floating two over to the Princess.
“Thank you,” she said, sitting at the counter. She blew on one of the donuts once, then started chewing, apparently heedless of its intense heat.
“You're quite welcome.” He smiled. “Now, you were saying?”
“It's just....” Luna set down the donut, wiping her lips with a hoof. “They act like I'm entirely forgiven, like my transgressions are over and done with. And maybe that's how it feels to Celestia, and Cadance, and Twilight, and my subjects. To me, it feels like all those crimes just happened. They don't understand how hard I work just to scrub my conscience clean.”
She grabbed her coffee cup, brought it to her lips, and drained it at once. Then she let it slam on the countertop and slumped forward. “And I'm so... tired,” she said. “Even when I sleep I'm still tired. And I don't think they really understand that either.”
“Mm, perhaps not.” Con Mane slid her mug away for just long enough to let him fill it up again. “Does talking about it help you feel less exhausted?”
Luna sighed, and didn't respond for several seconds, preferring instead to finish one of the donuts. “A little,” she finally admitted.
“I thought so.” Con Mane, or perhaps just Donut Joe, smiled and raised the hoof with his watch. It was shimmering, starting to vanish. “Do try to talk to them about this, won't you? We've just seen first-hand how poor of an idea it is to forget to talk, and to try to be a hero all on your own.”
Luna snorted at that. “Yes, I suppose that we have.”
The timer dinged. “Coffee's ready,” Joe said, turning off the heat under the pot. “I think I will be going soon,” he said, “but feel free to enjoy the rest of the coffee. It's on the house.”
“Thank you,” Luna said. “But surely I can repay you somehow for this?”
“No need.” Joe adjusted his bowtie again, just before his hooves could disappear fully. “I'm just listening to my customer like any good cafe owner should. Have a lovely day, Princess Luna.”
Well, he thought as he vanished, I hope Twilight took advantage of her chance.
Princess Celestia heard a knock on the door, and said, “Come in.”
Twilight Sparkle came in. But not the Twilight Sparkle that Celestia had known recently. This was Twilight Sparkle as Celestia had first met her: young, wingless, with a brand-new cutie mark and a head full of questions. “Whoa,” she whispered, glancing around the room as if she was going to be quizzed on its contents. “Everything looks so big!”
Celestia couldn't have stopped the smile from coming to her lips if she'd tried. “My faithful student,” she said. “Come up and sit with me. There's plenty of room, although I'll admit the bed's a little more crowded than usual.”
Twilight beamed, and eagerly ran over to the bed, although jumping up to it was a challenge: she made it halfway and had to kick with her hind legs against the side to push herself up fully. “Whoa,” she whispered, seeing the sleeping Celestia on the bed—and then looking up to see an identical Celestia, smiling beside her. “So you're just... you?”
“I've had a long time to get used to myself.” Celestia scooted both of her selves over, letting Twilight have a little more space. “In time, I'm sure you'll get used to how you've changed too.”
“Aww, but this is nice,” Twilight said, pouting. “I haven't been like this in... forever!” Then her eyes widened, and her smile returned, in a sudden flash of thought. “Can I tell you what I did today? I think I learned a really good friendship lesson!”
Celestia smiled back. “Twilight, nothing would make me happier.”