//------------------------------// // Assembly // Story: Glimmer // by Estee //------------------------------// She was thinking about killing her friend. It wasn't exactly for the first time. There were certain truths associated with friendship (most of which the librarian had come to years after everypony else, with five ponies carefully leading her every hoofstep of the way), but there were also things which had always felt a little too uncertain for a scroll. She'd never written the Princess with anything about 'To know somepony is to love them' because she still wasn't really sure there was anything real backing the old saying. There were times when coming to know somepony a little more deeply was to uncover the reasons why you would have been better off not meeting them at all, because nopony could conceal the worst of themselves forever. There had been some... recent experience with that. (Part of the little mare was still waiting for her friends to see the true worst in her. To use it as the justified reason for trotting away forever. She had been waiting for years, and she sometimes wondered if she would ever stop.) In the case of the pegasus who was hovering over the little body which was so awkwardly spread-griffoned in the Moon-dappled snow, with the sleek cyan form buckling against itself as the raucous laughter continued to resound above the rim of the dam -- to know Rainbow was to think about killing her. There was a near-universal countdown for new arrivals in Ponyville, and it wasn't so much Time Until First Meeting With The Local Weather Coordinator as Time Until Initial Plotting Of Murder. Twilight, whose first meeting with Rainbow could be summarized as Who is this, why did they just crash into me, exactly how deep is this mud puddle I'm lying in, and where's a good place to hide the body?, had been at the low end of the range. And somehow, she still didn't hold the record, because she'd been within Ponyville's boundaries for a few hours at that point. Thistle Burr existed and he hadn't even cleared the train. The murder fantasies were, when it came to the settled zone's population, pretty much universal: a set which very much included the weather coordinator's friends. There had been a night about a year into Twilight's town tenure when a fuming Rainbow had wound up having to leave a full gathering of Bearers in order to deal with a situation, one which could best be summarized as 'Rainbow Dash, only caught this time.' Twilight had watched her go, thought about all the times she'd personally had to replace the glass in her own balcony door, and darkly wondered whether anypony else had thought about killing Rainbow. Out loud. She'd been expecting horrified gasps. Screams. On the deepest, most uncertain level, being turned out forever. Instead, there had been four soft sighs. And then they'd all rested in Pinkie's attic bedroom, sharing stories. Tales of times when having Rainbow in their lives had led into a shared feeling of Almost Killed Her. There had even been a little discussion of potential methodology, although Twilight still wasn't sure how Pinkie was really going to accomplish anything with black currant scones and a wistful look. Twilight was lying on her barrel and belly in the snow, and it had her thinking about killing Rainbow. Again. Now that she thought about it (because thinking about it was keeping her from thinking about several other things, like carefully going over every attack spell she knew), Twilight wasn't sure she was technically lying in the snow. There was only about a double hoof-height of the stuff accumulated around the dam: even with her own petite-and-currently-much-lower body, that wasn't exactly enough to conceal her. It was, however, more than sufficient for her body heat to start melting it, leaving cold water to soak into the too-thin winter garment which was covering part of her torso. The garment was, incidentally, Rainbow's fault. Twilight's instructor in all thing flight-related had told her not to wear anything too heavy or bulky, because it really wasn't all that cold yet (and insisted on this despite the fact that the ground was covered by, and she had proof of this working deeper into her own fur, snow), she couldn't afford to sacrifice any limited degree of aerodynamics which her body might somehow possess, and as long as Twilight was listening, she was not allowed to cover her wings. At all. Coating flight feathers with cloth generally resulted in a pegasus who could move through the air in one dominant direction, although the exact rate of 'down' could be modified through a well-maintained glide. A rather new alicorn who had been told to discard thought for instinct in the name of learning how to fly at all... that pony wasn't exactly up to gliding. Or maintaining flight for more than a few minutes under so-called combat conditions, which was something that arose from the other pony. The one who had effectively pulled Twilight out of the sky, was currently snickering at ground level, and could presumably be murdered second. The inadequate garment was Rainbow's fault. The snow could normally be blamed on the Weather Bureau, but Rainbow was responsible for implementing that schedule and therefore it was also her fault. Twilight's training hours were set by her instructors and therefore the fact that she was also under chill Moon instead of inadequate Sun was additionally the result of Rainbow's direct attack on the librarian's sanity. And whose idea had it been, having another pony present and calling out questions designed to knock Twilight out of both instinct and sky? Rainbow's. The pegasus thought of things like that, on some of the occasions when she decided to indulge in thought at all. Most of the remainder consisted of creating hasty excuses for why that fresh trench which had just been plowed through somepony's garden couldn't possibly be her fault and the fact that she'd been found lying at the far end was just a coincidence. Oh, and that pony who just crashed through your window because a stunt went wrong? Somepony else. She'd just been following them, trying to catch the real culprit. Where was that pony now? They'd turned invisible. Because ponies could totally do that. Or maybe they teleported out -- okay, sure, once you eliminated any and all possible devices, maybe that meant the flying pony needed to also be capable of casting unicorn workings, but hey, at least that narrowed down the suspect list! So now all the pegasus who was covered in shattered glass and whatever was left of the bookcase had to do was find all four of them and shout for a while! Something along the lines of 'I know you did it! Own up!' because historically, that was effective! She'd just go get started on that right now, and in the event that you were still thinking about suing her for damages? Not her fault, so why would you ever do something like that? Plus there was sort of a line and you were going to be at the back of it. There were those who might say that to know Rainbow was to love her. To spend any real amount of time around the pegasus was to make a rough count of Ponyville's total population, because just about everypony in it had considered killing her at least once and therefore, when you looked at it logically, there was a chance for each of those ponies to have individually come up with at least one minor aspect for committing the murder properly. The master plan for the perfect crime was potentially spread out among several thousand ponies: it was just a matter of identifying which ones had the best parts. That was research. Putting the results together hardly even counted as work. And if the librarian somehow got caught anyway, all she needed was a lawyer good enough to prevent any change of venue, keeping the trial in Ponyville. Have the jury filled with residents and there was no way Twilight wasn't trotting away free. She raised her head just enough to glare up into the slowly-lightening night sky, and once again reviewed her plans for the post-mortem mane and tail. There were a lot of options for the body, but just about all of them required Twilight to do something about the colors. In the event that something went wrong and whatever was left of the corpse was somehow discovered, prismatics were just too distinctive. At the very least, shaving was going to be required. "I hate you," she told her friend. "So much." It didn't even slow the laughter. Rainbow's wings frantically beat against air and darkness, keeping the pegasus within an unusually uncertain hover. There was a lot of bobbing involved. The pony form hadn't really been meant to double over with mirth, but Rainbow was giving it a go anyway: the results were doing cruel things to altitude maintenance. It was still enough to keep the weather coordinator out of Twilight's vertical leap range, which was more of a vertical hop and wouldn't have allowed her horn to do anything more than deliver a Stop That poke to the belly anyway. "Your face!" Rainbow gasped. "When you realized you'd switched out, just before your wings locked...!" The ground-level snicker trotted a little closer, heavy hooffalls crunching into the snow. "You all right there, Twi?" "I hate you too," the librarian muttered. "No, y'don't." It was possible to hear the farmer smirk. "Y'hate lookin' undignified. An' failing, y'ain't exactly good with that. But at least the only ponies who got t' see it are a couple of mares who've seen it before. Come on, Ah'll give you a nudge up." Soft fur and a hard head gently pressed against Twilight's left flank. This was done just behind the wing. The wing itself was spread across the snow, and it was making Twilight consider the newest portion of her anatomy. Wings were flesh and bone. They were also part of a pony, and so they mostly had to be the same kind of flesh and bone as would be found anywhere else in her body. There might be some minor changes, but overall, the types just about had to match. So on the flesh and bone level, there was no reason for them to be acting as conductors drawing ice directly into her blood. That was clearly the fault of the feathers. "I can get up," Twilight muttered, and began staggering to her hooves. (It wasn't as easy as it should have been. Her wings felt as if they wanted to stay at ground level, and she didn't know how to shake them in a way which got rid of snow.) "That wasn't fair. Of all the things you could have called out..." "But now you'll be ready for it next time," Applejack offered. "How many times," the librarian inquired through both gritted teeth and the core of heroically excessive patience, "am I going to find myself flying while somepony on the ground is --" "-- every practice until y'get it right," cut her off. "Get in the air. Ain't much time left." The little mare looked up at Moon. It was three-quarters full, just about completely visible through a gap in the clouds high in the chill, dark sky. A sky which wouldn't be all that dark for very much longer. "Come on, Twilight," Rainbow's laughter dubiously encouraged. "Before we've gotta trade switching out for switching off. Get up here!" The pause was entirely deliberate. "If you can..." Her teeth ground a little harder. She began to concentrate. The snow was Rainbow's fault. The cold was Rainbow's fault. The season itself probably wasn't because Twilight understood how a planet's axial tilt worked, but she'd never tried to research any ultimate origin for its cause. If there had somehow been a pegasus involved in that, Rainbow might stand a chance to inherit the blame under a grandsire clause. She was cold. There was snow in her fur and feathers, flakes stuck within wings which she still wasn't sure she was supposed to have at all. It was something which happened over and over, and it only happened because they loved her. Twilight understood unicorn magic. Becoming an alicorn had opened two additional categories to her direct investigations -- but they were magics she had no personal familiarity with, understanding them only as part of the background rhythms of the world (and when it came to earth pony magic, it had turned out she'd never really understood anything at all). It meant she needed teachers, and the most suitable ponies were those who'd inadvertently made it possible for her to change in the first place. This had turned Rainbow into her flight instructor, because there was nopony better in all the world and besides, it was at least one-fifth Rainbow's fault that Twilight had wings at all. The lessons had been taking place for a few moons now, with regularly-scheduled sessions plotted on the calendar starting from the week after they'd all gotten back from Trotter's Falls. Having missions intrude on Twilight's planning merely relocated those lessons across various portions of the continent. They took place because Twilight needed to learn, and her teachers continued to make the effort because they loved her. On the deepest level, the little mare understood all of that. In more snow-covered terms, the lessons also required privacy: one set more than the other. Even with pegasus magic, Rainbow wanted Twilight's slow advancement to be kept out of sight. (There were several reasons for that, not the least of which was the number of citizens who didn't understand why an alicorn might need to learn anything.) So they met at isolated sites, frequently working under Moon and for those who truly knew Rainbow, the most incredible part of that was the pegasus continuing to show up more or less on time. For this lesson, they'd gone up to the dam because that was where the fresh snow hadn't been disturbed. It gave Twilight a softer landing on low-altitude failures, along with providing one more thing for Rainbow to laugh at. It was that awkward hour of a winter morning when the pony mind insisted that Sun should have been raised at least ninety minutes ago, while daylight was just barely beginning to touch the furthest horizon. There was probably just enough time for one more try before the trio had to switch venues. And she was cold, with foreign limbs weighed down by snow, trying to get into the air just so her supposed friends could do their best to drop her onto the frozen ground. Again. It was something which was giving her some trouble with concentrating. Her friends watched, giving her a touch of silence to work with. (Training her in assuming the necessary mental states under duress was another lesson: this particular early morning was about learning how to hold them.) She focused as best she could, mentally repeated one of the many personal mantras she'd been working on for moons, tried to delve down within herself until she caught the faintest glimpse of shadowed magenta eyes looking back. The little alicorn's wings instinctively shook. Snow flew to the left and right, and the small body was back in the air, hovering in front of the still-laughing living patch of warmth in the sky. "You," she glared at Rainbow. "You're not even gonna get a head start. We'll make it a real race, and when you can't go Rainboom at this hour without getting the police chief after you --" "Oh, really?" Rainbow grinned. "That's how Twilight Sparkle wants to settle things? With a race? How were you planning on getting fifth place when there's only two ponies involved?" "-- and you have to slow down sometime," Twilight growled. "You've said it: your mark is about speed more than endurance. Once you're tired --" "-- hey, Twi?" casually came up from below. "Been meanin' t' ask you somethin'." The librarian ignored it. "-- and I start to catch up, when you don't have time to nap, to get some fast sugars, to do anything but wonder what's going to happen when I reach you --" "Jus' your first impression, of course," Applejack added. "But what's your solution for Occlugraph's Last Question?" "-- which, just in case you wanted to start thinking about it early, is going to start with --" Twilight blinked. "The Last Question? Oh, come on, Applejack! Nopony's ever been able to even make a real start on that one! It would take me moons of research just to --" The warmth before her vanished, replaced by grinning cyan. Foreign limbs locked against her sides, and she heard the farmer offhoofedly step back just in time to avoid the impact point's inevitable spray of snow. Some of the white didn't get kicked out to the sides, of course. There had to be a portion which went into her horror-opened mouth, and naturally that was the bit which had most of the dirt in it. She stopped spitting after a while. "The Last Question," Twilight muttered. "Seriously, Applejack? I know I asked you to go through the Thaumaturgy Review and look for things which could distract me, but the Question? Researchers have been trying to get through the first phase of the Question for two centuries! It took half the Gifted School just to decipher enough of the initial clause to make something which could make a visual recording of a unicorn's signature, and that's half of all of the ponies who graduated since his death! Anypony who cares about magic is going to be distracted by the Question --" "-- an' that's why it's one of the best things t' use against you," Applejack interrupted. "Gonna be fights where there's a lot of things t' think about, all at once. An' if'fin you can't stay in the sky when y'need to, one of 'em is gonna end with you losing. Y'have to learn how t' work in Rainbow mode. How t' hold it, while y'bring as much of yourself forward as y'can. That's why we're doin' this. An' we're gonna keep doin' it until you've got it right." Because they loved her. Because they didn't want to lose her. She understood that. But she'd been falling over and over -- -- and then Rainbow was hovering so low as to nearly have her wingtips hit the snow on every downbeat, smirking all the way. "Just not now," the pegasus said. "Because it's time to head over to the Acres for Applejack's shift. So until next time --" Volume doubled. Proximity halved. The combination allowed the pegasus to joyously shout directly into Twilight's face, and it happened at the same moment when the right forehoof made contact with Twilight's forehead. "-- you awake in there, little me?" The hoof mockingly rapped against Twilight's skull again. "Can you hear me? Tell her this isn't good enough! She's got two days before the next lesson, and you're all I've got until I can take over again! Tell her that I need her to be at least twenty percent more awesome at flying! If there's such a thing as a twenty percent improvement over zero!" The hoof merrily knocked one last time, gave the unlit horn a parting tap as the pegasus moved higher -- -- the librarian didn't think. She didn't consider her next action in any way. She just flared her wings, and then she was in the air. Directly in front of Rainbow, small body blocking the most likely retreat point. "...pretty fast," the weather coordinator shakily said. "I'm not sure I've ever seen you do it on purpose that fast. Was that on purpose --" Answering would have been a waste of time. The pegasus stared, and did so with her mouth hanging slightly open. More importantly, she did both of those things instead of dodging. "WHIMF!" Twilight blinked. Abruptly landed, touching down on the left of the farmer as light played across wide green eyes. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to -- it's so hard to keep control of my emotions when I'm trying to be you, I -- I'm sorry, Rainbow, I..." "Twi," Applejack softly asked, "did you mean t' do that?" "I don't know!" was almost a wail. "I just wanted -- I was just mad, and I shouldn't let myself get mad like that, I'm sorry..." One more "Whimf...," and then Rainbow spit out the mouthful. "You just hit me with a snowball," the pegasus said. "I'm sorry..." "Which you scooped off the ground," the just barely hovering pony continued. "With your field. While you were in the air." Twilight's jaw dropped. "You've never done that before," Rainbow mused, doing so much more softly than most ponies would have expected. "Not attacking as a unicorn while you were still flying. It's been one or the other, for moons..." The librarian's field winked out, and did so from sheer shock. "Ah call that progress," Applejack quietly decided. "So Ah think we've both gotta know. Did y'mean t' do it?" "I... I was angry," Twilight half-whispered. "I was sick of falling. I just wanted Rainbow to get hit with snow for once..." The pegasus nodded. "She calls a surprise snowball attack progress," her friend observed. "I'm just gonna call it cool." Applejack's solid form gently nudged Twilight's motionless body. Then did so again, until slim legs began to awkwardly shift forward. "Payback can wait for later," Rainbow added. "Because it's still Applejack's turn, but there's gonna be payback. But now the next lesson is about seeing if we can get you to do that again!" It was a long trot to the Acres from the dam, and it cost them a portion of the concealing night. By the time the border came into view, the sky was streaked with the chill rose tones which Twilight associated with the local winter. There was also some grey in the air, and that was because the Weather Bureau had somehow decided Ponyville needed more snow. It wouldn't be all that long before everypony had to get their plows out of the stable again, and Rainbow inevitably spent a lot of time dodging airborne flake-based messages from those ponies who felt that a pegasus who lived in a cloud house needed frequent reminders of what those on the ground had to deal with. The weather schedule also mandated a very slow rise in temperature throughout the day, and Twilight's garments weren't all that heavy. But Rainbow didn't want the little mare to get sick. The fact that keeping Twilight healthy came with the chance to show off a little was seen as an incidental bonus. Heat had been shifted towards Twilight, and it had allowed her to move towards the Acres in a personal zone of early spring. Moisture saturating fur and fabric had -- well, it had almost been separated out in a single fall to create fresh rain hollows in the snow, because working on that kind of fine scale wasn't one of Rainbow's strong points. The actual results had mostly left Twilight dripping her way across the majority of the trail. "Later than Ah'd like," Applejack decided. "Ah want t' come around from the west. Make sure we avoid Mac. Unless Rainbow wants t' head for home, or --" the next part was both somewhat subtle and, when it came to the target, a rather open suggestion "-- t' take a nap..." "I want to watch," the pegasus firmly said. She was trotting on Twilight's left, and had been for the whole trip. It was normally unusual to see Rainbow self-grounded for even a fraction of that duration, but her lesson was over and besides, it freed up her wings to do nothing except direct the ongoing gift of warmth. Applejack softly sighed, shook her head. The hat never shifted. "As y'like," the earth pony allowed. "Long as y'keep t' the rules. High in the trees, quiet as y'can be on a branch. Ah swish mah tail for the signal, y'clear out. Got it?" "We go through this every time..." Rainbow groused. "Got it?" "...yeah," the weather coordinator groaned. "Every time. Because of Mac. I don't know why you think we've got to keep avoiding him. He's the one who said Snowflake needed training!" "Because of everypony," Applejack firmly said, "who ain't Mac. Keepin' it concealed is the way we should be workin' in the first place, at least while Twi's bein' trained. Secret ain't broken yet." "He won't do anything that dumb again," Rainbow repeated. "Like he did with the rest of your family. You know he won't." "Ah know," Applejack allowed. "But Ah'm still not ready t' tell him. 'cause with Snowflake, there were two qualifiers. Ah'm the first, an' that's somethin' Ah could call in again. The relationship, even when it ain't the same. But the other one, y'ain't got, Rainbow. Y'ain't gonna have it unless the Elements go an' do it again. Ain't takin' any bets there." "I just want to watch," Rainbow protested. "It's fun to watch. When you know nopony else ever gets to --" "-- y'ain't got a voice," the earth pony finished. "Not one the earth can hear. An' once he realizes you know..." Another, slower head shake. "He's had a rough time of it," the older sister decided. "Only so much Ah want him t' deal with at once. Give me that, Rainbow. Let me take it slow." The pegasus reluctantly nodded, and the group crossed the border onto the Acres. A rough time of it. Twilight had only gotten the bulk of the details after the events had wrapped up. That Mac, who had been hoping for Applejack to continue the pure bloodline, had reacted to the announcement that she was intending to date Snowflake through contacting multiple relatives in the hopes that they would talk her out of it... she'd known about that, because Spike had been asked to send out those scrolls with contents unknown. But that there had been a fight between Applejack and one of those relatives, a formal duel... she'd wound up listening to that story two days after the fact, and found herself crying through the end of it. There had been too much leading up to the actual first date between the powerful ponies, and part of it had led to Mac taking custody of a new secret. Applejack's elder sibling now knew about hybrids, because he'd heard Snowflake's voice within the earth and to have even a battered song (a dented tuba with half of the valves missing, according to Applejack) coming from a pegasus was something which needed explanation. And as Rainbow had observed, Macintosh, who would soon be heading off to college so he could study the subject he'd originally hoped for years ago, had made a rather philosophical decision: if there was a voice, then somepony had an obligation to teach it how to sing. With Snowflake, the actual instruction was being done by a rather bemused Granny Smith, whose main comment had been that it was interesting to see something new in the world before somepony old passed out of it: the one tool which the hybrid even partially possessed was vibration control, and the elder was better with it than anypony else in the family. But Mac having accepted Snowflake -- and in more ways than just the one: the two stallions now spoke semi-regularly, which shocked those who'd mostly believed that neither could really speak at all -- that had opened the door for Twilight. Applejack had eventually told him that alicorns, who were a little bit of everything, had some earth pony in them. And Twilight, as the newest of alicorns... She hadn't gone into any details beyond that, because Mac had been through a lot and telling him which earth pony had been involved would have raised too many questions. But her brother had accepted Twilight under the same philosophy which shielded Snowflake: a singer needed training. It just made sense to have Applejack do it, especially if that help prevented an untutored voice from trying out a full lyric in front of a rather surprised public audience. Mac knew about hybrids. He understood a little about Twilight. What he didn't know was that the Secret of truespeech and the ultimate nature of earth pony magic had been broken for all of the Bearers and their Protector. Twilight felt that a stallion who'd already had to accept so much would be able to get through that with a little company, a lot of sibling nuzzling, and truly heroic amounts of wake-up juice. Applejack felt she'd kicked her brother with enough already, and wanted to hold back the next impact for as long as possible. Twilight understood that. It didn't keep her from gently asking Applejack to pick a moment and use it, because keeping things from each other was what led to most of the problems. But this was family, and... that was harder. She'd told her friends about nearly everything she'd learned from Trotter's Falls. That she now possessed a soul which had been infused with their essence, a composite soul, and that her change wouldn't have been possible if every last one of them hadn't loved her. She carried an impression of each as they had existed at the moment of her own transformation, and would for the rest of her life. That talk (which had come just before her self-assigned deadline, shortly after the moment when she decided that every reason for stalling would be exactly that) had been the most awkward of her life. There had been dozens of reactions scattered among six sapients, all of whom were cascading between emotions at a rate of up to ten per minute. Questions had rained down on her like acid, she hadn't been able to answer so much as a quarter of them, they had stared and they had tried to force themselves to keep breathing, Fluttershy had nearly fainted and Rarity had pretty much beaten her to the best spot for a dramatic collapse, Pinkie had been crying, Spike didn't know what to do and... ...then all of them had told Twilight that they loved her. Again. Always. (There were days when she still had trouble believing it. They were just more infrequent now.) She had told her friends about the shadows of their essence which were bound up in her soul. But she hadn't told her parents. And so when it came to asking Applejack to tell Macintosh about one more detail, she tried not to push. "It's pretty out here in the winter," the librarian gently offered, because it felt like one of those times when she just needed something to say. "I don't get out here when there's snow. Not among the trees, with white on the branches. It just feels... soft." She'd originally intended to say 'quiet.' It... wasn't a word she used very much. Not any more. "An' y'ain't gonna get out here with a plow." But the farmer was smiling. "Ah know, Twi. The Acres are sleepin'. That's what winter is for: lettin' the world get some rest." The powerful legs slowed. A muscular body paused, and those green eyes stared up at the silent trees. "We could all use a rest sometimes," Applejack quietly offered. "But it ain't like we can get the missions t' understand that -- hold up, everypony. Got two comin' this way." Twilight's hackles immediately went on high alert: Rainbow just went high, immediately picking out and clearing a thick branch as snow cascaded onto the ground, partially burying an exposed tree root -- "-- jus' hold back some of the subject matter," the farmer hastily added. "Ain't no threat." And smiled. "Two on the ground. One of 'em is towin' a little cart. They're both small an' light. Well -- one's on the ground most of the time..." They understood, and waited until the fillies came into sight. "Heya, AB," Applejack greeted, and a slightly-surprised front edge of hair bow bobbed with surprise under the thick fur-lined hood. "Ain't your usual route t' school." "Stoppin' at Miss Ratchette's first," Apple Bloom said from somewhere within the depths of the garment. "Got a project Ah wanted t' drop off with her." She nodded back to the tarp-covered miniature cart. "This way saves us some time over the road, since the snow ain't that heavy yet." The older sister nodded. "And you're jus' goin' along?" she asked the other filly. "It's faster," the small pegasus shrugged, and a number of new flight feathers rippled with the movement. "And it's easier if we go together. So what are you two doing out here?" There was a quickly-muffled snicker from the trees, followed by a rather desperate (and poor) attempt to pass it off as winter birdsong. Neither filly spotted it. "Jus' takin' a trot with Twilight," Applejack casually said. "We've got someplace t' be." "A mission?" Scootaloo quickly asked. "You said you'd tell us if you were going on a mission!" Just a little more frantically (not that the youth would have admitted to it, or was even aware), "You promised..." "Ain't no mission," the farmer reassured her guest. "Mares out for a stroll, fillies goin' the other way." More firmly, "An' the fillies, if they stay here any longer, are gonna be late." The smaller earth pony jumped, and whatever was in the cart rattled accordingly. "Yeah! We've gotta move, Scootaloo!" "No, you have to move," the little pegasus grinned. "Just try and keep up!" The cart raced past the adults: Twilight stepped to the side just in time. A second later, Scootaloo followed, legs pushing the growing form into the highest leap they could manage, with wings flaring out into a glide formation at the apex. Time spent in the air was time not used to push through snow. Three mares watched them go, and every gaze found itself lingering on the place where the youths no longer looked. At least, not when anypony could see them. "Ah know what you're doin', Twi." "Sorry --" "-- an' you, Rainbow. An' Ah know 'cause Ah try not t' get caught." The farmer sighed. "Been moons since the Crusade broke. Jus' 'bout as many with Scootaloo stayin' here, where Ah can usually stop her from tryin' the craziest things an' Snowflake gets some of the rest. An' no marks. None of 'em manifested yet. Apple Bloom's been doin' so well at the shop, and still no mark..." She sighed. Forehooves scraped trenches into the snow as Rainbow touched down. "Maybe it's flight for Scootaloo," the weather coordinator suggested. "She's just waiting until she really gets in the air. That's not going to be long now. I can see that. A few more weeks --" "-- weeks," Applejack morosely declared, "for a filly who still wants things t' be 'in a second' most of the time, an' while sayin' the second under discussion was supposed t' be years ago. Y'ain't sayin' anything that Snowflake hasn't, Rainbow. But..." The blonde mane seemed to sag under its own weight. "...he's got a theory. As to why none of 'em manifested yet." Twilight's ears perked. A theory about marks... "What does he think?" Applejack's, by contrast, sank against her skull. "That they're all afraid t' go first -- okay, Ah can feel y'all starin'! It's what he said! He thinks -- it's in their heads. Psychological. That they all worked together for so long, tryin' over an' over, with all the failures, because they wanted t' do it together. Triple manifest. An' that was never gonna happen, 'cause how often are three fillies that different gonna turn up with the same talent? But now that the Crusade's broken, Apple Bloom's apprenticed at the fix-it shop, Scootaloo's got a little bit of brakes an' Sweetie is tryin' t' figure out how t' move forward..." She sighed. More snow shifted in front of awkwardly-shuffling hooves, with a little dead grass becoming mixed in. "...somepony's gotta be first. An' that leaves the other two behind. So he thinks they're holdin' themselves back. Or at least AB is, since she's got the clearest path. Scootaloo... maybe she jus' does need that first real flight. An' maybe Sweetie's jus' gotta open up more in public, let that voice go all the way free. But Sweetie isn't really tryin' that. Just sort of... trottin' in place, from what Rarity says. And Scootaloo..." Another, deeper sigh. "...she's complicated," the farmer conceded. "More than Ah thought she was, or could be. Jus' didn't figure that out until Ah had her under mah roof." "And no word there," Twilight carefully asked. "Still." Applejack shook her head, and the three mares silently stood in the snow. Looking at the tracks of youth, where one set of hoofprints was much more intermittent. Because things had changed over the last few moons, and one of those alterations was threatening to become permanent. A status forced by the endless echoes of a silence larger than the nation. The whole settled zone knew now: Scootaloo had been living on her own for years. There had been a letter from her parents every moon or rather, there had been an envelope containing a prepaid voucher. A simple trip to the bank, and a filly who'd been left explicit instructions on how to live alone was managing the mortgage, buying her own food, and lying to every adult because she truly believed her parents would be back any day now. She just hadn't allowed herself to work out the grand total of days for a very long time. The legal system had an opinion when it came to minors who had been living on their own for years, and it began with 'Stop.' There had been two major options offered, and the one which wasn't an orphanage had been the Acres. On most days, it was a weaponized truce: Scootaloo understood that to push too far would potentially summon the police chief to the Acres as a representative of Foal Protective Services, and then she would be alone. But living by herself for so long, managing everything... Scootaloo actually had a highly-developed sense of responsibility, because she had been responsible for keeping up home and life and lie. But she had been the only party responsible for all of it, and so could still chafe when anypony asserted authority over her -- a category which currently just about began and ended with Applejack. It meant there were clashes of personality, and the echoes never completely faded away. That was on the bad days. On the good ones... Scootaloo would accept some nuzzling now, allow a larger body to curl up against her and offer comfort. She'd done her part for the harvest and cider season, albeit while muttering under her breath about how a few deliberate small mistakes would at least keep her from getting a mark in anything so boring: Applejack had drawn the line when she'd spotted Scootaloo trying to work out how to mismake change. She shared a bedroom with Apple Bloom and talked to somepony who was now a cross between friend and slightly older sister deep into the night. There were times when she even turned to Applejack for advice, or at least in an attempt to make somepony else do her homework. But there were also the worst days, and those arrived once per moon. They were delivered by a grey pegasus who miserably hovered around the upper windows of the main house while trying to subtly signal any adult within, far too aware of the pain she was about to bring and hoping for some way to escape filly notice. Something which kept failing, because while the delivery had been successfully made in secret, it had been on the second attempt. After the first failure, Scootaloo had known to look. And no matter how long the Apple family tried to hold her off, she had to become involved eventually. They didn't have a choice. The vouchers were still coming in. It was something which had Miranda Rights' horn sparking with frustration, and most of Ponyville was waiting for the police chief's field to start showing its first-ever public spikes of rage. There had been arrest warrants sent all over the continent, courtesy of a little dragon who had just been trying to help. Law enforcement in every settled zone stood ready to detain, imprison, and charge two adults with neglect. When it came to the police, an entire country was watching... ...and yet the vouchers were still being purchased. Mailed, with that first one delivered to the Acres because anything which arrived at Scootaloo's house was being automatically forwarded. After that, each successive envelope spent some time at the police station, being inspected for evidence. And when that came up empty once again... It was a prepaid voucher, made out to Scootaloo alone. The funds merely had to be deposited, and there was still a mortgage on the house. So they always had to accompany the filly to the bank. Let her make the payment. And on those worst of days, Scootaloo would once again believe that the vouchers were a sign of love. Her parents were still taking care of her: they were just doing it from widely-separated portions of the continent. They wouldn't keep sending her money if they didn't mean to come back and as soon as they arrived, they would explain everything... "Hard t' keep a patrolpony in every post office an' bank full-time," the earth pony wearily admitted. "Some basic disguise tricks would get past the pictures which got sent in the second wave, an' they're old photos t' start with. Don't even need magic t' fool most ponies on your looks, not if you're jus' tweakin' fur an' mane colors. An' there's still no guarantee that they're the ones doin' the buyin'." The hat dipped a little more, putting half-closed eyes into shadow. "Miranda said a lot of cases reach this point. Where you're jus' waitin' for somepony t' make a mistake. An' if they don't... then it's gonna be dumb luck, or -- they just stay out there, sendin' vouchers until the mortgage is done, an' then maybe it's a new set of instructions, all 'bout how t' apply for college. Givin' her career advice, when they don't know how she's been doin' in school or what her mark is. It's been years. Right now, the only thing they could still know about her is the address, an' they've got that wrong..." One last sigh. For Scootaloo, the hope renewed itself every moon. The poorly-hidden tears were usually about two days behind. "If'fin they ever do come into town, it's gonna be a race t' see who starts the kickin' first," the substitute parent stated. "Ah figure Ah can get a pretty good lead with a decent gallop. Already called the father, since that's the earth pony." She glanced at Rainbow. "Could use some help knockin' the other one out of the air." "Just point a hoof." The pegasus' tones were dark enough to shade the hues of her tail. "I'll do the rest." There were precious moments when the librarian didn't need a scroll to tell her when to be careful: unfortunately, they usually turned out to be the most uncertain ones. Cautiously, "Nopony needs either of you to be in prison. Let alone both --" "-- keepin' them from getting away," Applejack cut in. "That's all. An' the best way t' make sure they don't run is t' put 'em in a state where they can't move. Unconscious qualifies." So does dead. No. There would probably be at least one kick aimed to a sensitive spot during any prospective fight and somepony would need to keep Rainbow separated from any and all clouds, but... it wouldn't go that far. It never had. When it came to dealing with another sapient being, no Bearer had ever killed. Quiet. ...that they knew of. Eventually, all three turned back towards the heart of the Acres. "So what are we doing today?" Twilight asked. "Want t' work on your speed," Applejack replied as she shifted her tail away from cold bark. "Small, fast, sharp notes. Little changes, things y'can do in a hurry. An' as it turned out, you gave me a little --" the accent shifted for the duration of one word, and four syllables placed Rarity's spirit among them "-- inspiration! on the how." There were ways in which Twilight had learned just about everything from the other Bearers. How to be a good pony. A good friend. A good mare. How to be. However, she was pretty sure she'd picked up how to be justifiably nervous on her own. "Inspiration," she carefully repeated. The farmer grinned. "D'you know how earth ponies have private snowball fights?" "...no," the librarian softly Fluttershied. "Y'will." Rainbow had gone home, placing a slow-fading trail of renewed snickering across the sky. Applejack was taking Twilight to the farmhouse for a late breakfast and thorough drying: the process was somewhat impeded by the fact that bits of practice-battered alicorn kept dropping off along the way. Well... technically, it was snow falling off. It was just that when snow was covering somepony to the point where anypony who looked at them from the wrong angle might see nothing except snow, then it was reasonable to assume the pony was in fact made of snow. A snowpony. Which in terms of legends was exactly like a seapony in that neither really existed, but any so-called local sightings of the former would allow Twilight to readily explain things away. Just as soon as her jaw stopped chattering. "We're doin' that one again tomorrow," Applejack firmly said. "Without Rainbow watchin'." "W-w-w-why?" "'cause we've gotta work on your tempo. An' aim. An' defense. Plus all the laughter was gettin' kind of distractin'." "F-f-f-fine..." Twilight stammer-muttered. "Got anything you want to say to your little piece of essence?" "Yeah. Dodge. Come on, Twi: Ah'm gonna get you in a hot bath. Assumin' two fillies left any hot water t' work with an' if they didn't, I'll get kettles goin'. After that, Ah'll make sure y'get a meal. Library ain't gonna open for a few hours yet: plenty of time t' warm y'up an' get you fed." The windows of the farmhouse were beginning to come partially into sight. "Thank you." It was sincere, especially since a second round of the exercise offered a faint chance for taking revenge. "Ain't nothin' -- Twi?" Whose head was down, all the better to let some more snow fall out of her mane before it had to be brushed away on the doormat. "What?" Tentatively, with more than a hint of concern, "Do y'know there's somethin' goin' on in the capital?" "Nothing anypony's told me," found what would have been natural worry slowed by the cold. "Why?" "'cause there's Solar Guards in front of mah kitchen windows. Hitched to an air carriage. Which is carryin' two unicorns. Stallions, middle-aged. One brown, one white. An 'they look kinda familiar." Twilight's head snapped up. Snow went backwards, with none of it landing in the blonde tail. "I know those stallions," she breathed. "They were the ones who examined Tish..." Both mares accelerated, The muscular brown stallion carefully stepped off the back of the carriage, or as carefully as he could when all four knees were spontaneously trying to bend further than they should have. The windswept black tail unevenly swayed as the two Bearers approached. "I'm sorry," wasn't the worst choice of first, shaky words. "We tried the library first. Your brother told us to wait at the farmhouse: we could intercept you here." "What's going on?" Twilight quickly asked. "Is there a mission?" "'cause we never got a scroll," Applejack hastily added. Twilight didn't really think about that until much later, and then it would keep coming back to her in the days to come. There had been no scroll. No summons arriving in a burst of sunlight or flame. Just two stallions, with the smaller and thinner now shakily stepping down. "It isn't a mission," the diagnostician of the Royal Physicians said. "The Princesses are still at the conference: they won't be back until this afternoon. They don't even know yet, and we... we don't know how to tell them." "It's..." the surgeon began, and then words briefly fell apart. Brown eyes helplessly moved to his partner, just in time to see the bulk of the upright mane tremble. Both stallions stopped. Breathed over and over, bringing in the chill air as if nothing their bodies did could ever warm it. "There's a corpse," Chocolate Bear resumed, and a surgeon who'd known death's company shuddered at the same moment the mares instinctively pulled back. "It just appeared in Canterlot, outside the palace's border walls. Literally appeared. There was a confusion of jurisdiction between the Guards and the capital's police: somehow, that wound up placing it in our offices while they tried to sort things out. And..." Another stop, and the white stallion took over. "We can't let his body go to the morgue," he unevenly continued, all four hooves vibrating out of concert with each other. "Not when there were witnesses who saw it before it went behind the walls." Which was when his voice began to fade, doing so at the same moment his tail seemed to wring against itself. "We thought of a way to preserve it perfectly, as long as we need to. And..." The mares' ears strained forward -- but that was where all volume had stopped. He was just looking at his partner in silence, and that state had become mutual. "What's wrong?" More than a little desperate now, because Twilight could recognize when friends were trying to take comfort in each other, and two stallions who'd been through a generation of mutual support were coming up with nothing at all. "Is... is it somepony we know --" The words froze her more thoroughly than the snow. Shining. Dad. Quiet -- Applejack, who had so many more names to review, was beginning to shake. "-- no," the surgeon just barely managed. "We're still trying to identify him, but we know he wasn't a Bearer relative or associate. We thought we knew who he was, but..." The diagnostician forced himself forward. Each thin leg nearly collapsed in turn. "You may not believe us without evidence," he forced out. "We'll try to brace you before that happens. But we need you. We need you to see this." "You need an --" a self-description of 'Princess' was just about never going to emerge of Twilight's own free will. "-- alicorn?" Both stallions shook their heads. (They were acting independently of the palace.) (They were doing the only thing they could think of.) (They thought they were the first witnesses to horror...) "No," Chocolate and Vanilla Bear said. "We need Magic."