//------------------------------// // Unicorn // Story: Glimmer // by Estee //------------------------------// It felt as if all normal protocol had just died, although Twilight was willing to admit that emotion was something of an overreaction. There had just been nothing in her which had been prepared for the sight of the Princess resting on the floor of the farmhouse's kitchen. You didn't reasonably expect to get ruling Princesses in kitchens, especially if you'd heard any of the more dubious rumors regarding the elder's lack of cooking skills. And to have her on the floor, quietly occupying that amount of room because there hadn't been any bench big enough... You didn't expect to get Princesses in kitchens and in part, that was because Luna usually wound up in the dining room. The Bearers had a seasonal poker game: something they'd managed to accomplish in the face of personal schedules, missions, and casual disruptions inherent to Ponyville life -- some of which were their own fault, and Twilight had put a lot of mental effort into not working the math -- simply because it gave them four guaranteed nights per year where they were all in the same room. (Or rather, a series of rooms, as the game rotated between residences. Rainbow's hosting duties required Twilight to do some spellwork, along with relying on everypony else to bring the food.) The card game itself had initially been seen as secondary, but... Twilight had come to appreciate it. Not for the gambling aspects, because she understood how probability worked, knew she was guaranteed to lose a given number of rounds, and therefore was trying really hard to treat the next session as yet another long-overdue opportunity for the odds to finally even themselves out. For similar reasons, she wasn't really capable of treating the evening as an occasion for picking up a few bits, and made sure she only brought what she could afford to lose. She had come to appreciate the game because it had been another way to learn about her friends. Twilight had initially been worried about having Fluttershy involved, to the point where she'd proposed that everypony play for hay twists: the caretaker had the most fragile finances in the group, and sacrificing even a few smidgens to the evening felt as if it had the potential to be catastrophic. It just hadn't worked out that way, because a pony whose most natural instinct was for concealing herself had turned out to be exceptionally hard to read. You could stare across the table and find yourself looking at a face-down card grouping, quite a bit of feature-obscuring manefall, and a single blue-green eye which was forever reserving the option to Stare back. The best way to find out what Fluttershy had in her grouping was generally to wait for the round to end and once enough of them had, she usually wound up quietly trotting out with the majority of everypony's bits. By contrast, Rainbow's tendency to project her personality into a room was still backfiring. Even after Rarity had gone through some pains to tell the weather coordinator about how everypony had learned to work out the strength of her grouping as each card was examined (along with how she always shifted them into exactly the same order of suits), the pegasus hadn't figured out how to eliminate her tells. She wasn't always the most capable liar, at least when she was half-embedded in her own crash groove and trying to sell Somepony Else Totally Did That, but she had her moments -- and all of them took place away from the game. Rainbow generally went broke first and then grumbled her way around the table, offering unhelpful advice on everypony else's groupings because misery loved company and ideally, that company would arrive after she'd finished raiding the snack table. Applejack tended to be cool and silent: Honesty didn't require her to tell anypony what was in her grouping (and the jokes had stopped after the first night), but she also didn't seem to bluff that often. Rarity, however, brought a dozen personas to the game: some were flamboyant, others stoic, and every last one of them had horrible luck on the final draw. Pinkie was mostly concerned about whether the game was fun and, with minimal expenses added to very little concern about where her bits would wind up, occasionally seemed to be betting almost at random: the exceptions usually arrived when somepony walked into the teeth of a Princess Flush she'd been carefully hiding for the last three raises, all of which would have been proposed by somepony else. The game was one more way for each to understand who the others were and one season after that crucial Nightmare Night, there had been an invitation offered. Something none of them had truly believed would be accepted, and they'd kept on believing that almost up until the moment when Luna had slowly, almost skittishly pushed up a bench up to the table. The younger of the Diarchy had played. And in time, they'd all come to learn a few things about Luna. There was something cold in the alicorn's dark gaze -- if she wanted it to be there. Rainbow projected her personality into a room: Luna radiated presence. To meet her eyes across the table for too long was to feel a certain weight: the force of power added to age and the ongoing palace rumor that the younger was occasionally referred to as Diplomacy's Other Option. To Luna, there was a difference between invoking fear -- something she dreaded, at least when it wasn't being done with purpose -- and the bearing held within royal presence which simply made her imposing. It was something which could make you want to look away, and that was deliberate because if you weren't looking too closely at her, then you were going to have a lot more trouble figuring out what she had. There was something in Luna, unconnected to Nightmare, which took pleasure at being able to unnerve others at will -- and could be impressed by any who held their ground. None of them were ever entirely certain when Luna was bluffing. At the most basic level, the implication of a bluff meant the pony might not follow through and when it was Luna... you could never be sure. Not in cards, not when the younger was conducting negotiations with those in other nations who'd seen the newly-Returned as smaller, weaker, lacking in knowledge, vulnerable, and were now mere seconds away from openly begging for affairs to be brought back under Sun. But when she was caught, when she lost -- there was no flare of temper, no outward creep of chill. A nod of respect towards the victor (unless Luna decided it had been pure dumb luck, in which case, there would be some silent fuming as mane-held constellations dimmed and a few stars considered shedding their outer shells), potentially a query as to just when the determining card had appeared in the grouping, and on to the next. She listened to the gossip, but almost never contributed and if she did, whatever was said could be proven as factual. On occasion, she would ask for a joke to be explained in some detail, because she lacked the background to understand why that was supposed to be funny in the first place. It was possible to tell when she'd been the one to make the ice cream because she would just about lurk near anypony who risked trying it, awaiting reviews. They'd all learned something about who the younger of the Diarchy truly was, when she'd joined them at the table. They had offered her an invitation to the game and in return, they had been invited to meet the pony. She was forceful and understated at the same time, determination and power wrapped around what sometimes felt like a core of uncertainty, complex and contradictory and -- Luna. But now there was a white mare on the floor of Applejack's kitchen. (Her brother had gone into town, the youngest were both at school, and Granny was napping on the upper level.) The mane had been restored to what Twilight still thought of as normal, but she had yet to retrieve her crown. Her tones weren't as soft as usual: no word rang with overt power, but it felt as if she no longer saw the need to minimize her voice. There were little snorts here and there, keratin scraped across wood as foreleg gestures were allowed into the world... Twilight had thought she'd known her mentor. The most constant presence in her life from the Gifted School going forward. The Princess. She was just starting to learn about Celestia and within the darkest thought she would allow herself, Twilight wasn't entirely sure whether she liked the mare yet. "I'm not going to claim I'm happy about this," the oldest alicorn grumbled. "But I also know what's going to happen if I outright forbid the group to act, especially when we now have family involved. You'd be trying to operate under my snout the whole time, we'd eventually find ourselves working against each other... and as much as some of the papers might delight in my having to put the Bearers under detainment, we all know things would have fallen apart before it got that far. So let's start with the obvious: this is now a mission." Twilight wondered if she was trying to work the nod in before Celestia changed her mind, then glanced at Spike and was gratified to see a scroll already being withdrawn from a garment pocket. "I can have the others notified in --" "Won't take long t' pack," came in on top of it. "Ah've jus' gotta tell --" "I don't have enough with me for everypony, but if the Princess is willing to send --" Celestia's right forehoof shifted, moving ever so slightly up. They all stopped. (Luna was left-hooves dominant, while Celestia was right. It had taken a while before Twilight had spotted it...) "A mission which is enjoying a luxury we seldom have," the white mare added. "Preparation time. We don't know what we're facing and since there's no sign of immediate risk, we get to decide exactly how we're approaching this. You already went up one mountain before I was expecting it, Twilight. Which had an adult dragon waiting at the top --" Spike automatically winced "-- and given how many Archives departments your employment took you through, I thought you'd turn to the shelves -- the bookcases -- the section filled with books about negotiating with dragons before you tried anything. You didn't." With strictly inner defensiveness, The smoke was spreading and since nearly all of those books were duplicated from various fiction genres and the remainder don't smell like brimstone and ashes while having a posthumous copyright application, I'm not sure there was anything to work with in the first place. The vocal end of that emerged as "...oh." Applejack simply snickered again. "And if you think about it," Celestia finished, "there's a very good magic-based reason not to rush in." Which instantly centered her instincts. "The lockdown." She'd seen the scroll's condition after the rebound... ...her mark focused, and it took a moment before she could swallow back the nausea. The illness even had the chance to double itself, because it had to shove a lump of dark respect out of the way. "That could be what happened to the stallion," she softly determined. "He got out through a lockdown effect, but it tore into him, the same way it shredded the scroll. We saw what happened to the inanimate objects he was carrying. Ratchette thought we were looking at one of two devices: the second might prevent the damage. Without that..." Spike's scales were beginning to lose luster, and several crests had wilted. Applejack had a faint tide of green rising within her undercoat. The elder alicorn simply, slowly nodded. "Which means we have to be very careful about how we send you in," Celestia told them. "You also said Ratchette felt the device would almost get you to the departure point. But even if that's the case, we don't know if that means you'd appear outside the lockdown. He could have left from the center of the effect. I'd rather not rely on using it as your only means of getting there. If at all possible, we have to figure out where he was without invoking it. That means more research into his life, and we need some time just to figure out if Linchpin is the pony we should be looking into." "An' now we've got Scootaloo's parents t' consider." It had almost been a snarl. "Ah know Miranda talked t' her 'bout where she thought her parents were goin' when they left town for the last time. Bunch of ponies followed up on that, an' Ah had t' watch her try an' come home after each. Jus' barely movin'. If'fin we're lookin' at the exact same effect..." The huge forehoof shifted again. "We're going forward based on that assumption, but we can't rely on it -- no, Spike: I trust you. But there's only so many corona colors possible, even when you sort it out by the finest of shades. There's probably a few unicorns who share that exact hue of turquoise and no matter what you try to plan for, coincidence is the one factor you can't see coming. It's not impossible for us to be dealing with two different casters. But because it's so unlikely, we're going to start by assuming one. We just have to be ready in case we're wrong. So..." and this time, both forelegs gestured outwards "...Miranda's investigation has been pursuing things from two approaches. The first assumed that Scootaloo's parents didn't want to be found or removed from their current location, and had themselves enclosed or enchanted accordingly." Twilight nodded. She'd been trying to research the means by which it might have been done, because lockdowns were normally performed on an area: as with shields, the effect needed to be anchored. Still, if somepony had found a way to build it into something portable... It was still a factor which invoked a few questions. Escorting meant taking another pony through the between in the teleporter's company: you couldn't just pull somepony to you from gallops away. Unless the lockdown managed to kill the pony making an attempt via direct contact -- and Twilight didn't think that was possible, because the radius for something portable felt as if it would almost have to be small -- they would know they had failed, they would know why, and they would go back to try something more physical. Of course, the device they knew about meant the possibility for the targets to have teleported away on their own before anypony could get back, but... And the scroll? Celestia's ability to send messages wasn't a national secret, but it wasn't a matter of public knowledge either. Ponies who didn't work in the palace or one of the nation's embassies were generally unaware of the potential for fast (if one-way) communication. So it was unlikely that somepony would have been trying to defend themselves against the horror of receiving a letter -- although Twilight, who had to sort out unwelcome solicitations from the library's mail, had acknowledged a certain desire. "An' the other," Applejack pointed out, "is that they're somewhere they can't leave. But Miranda had the prisons checked." "For Equestria," Celestia clarified. "We haven't been able to get prisoner rosters from all of the other nations yet, and not all of those jails have lockdown enchantments." Another one of those little snorts. "Some places don't commission them until after they've failed to confine their first unicorn." And just a little more softly, "But there was always another question built into that one, Applejack: whether they were being held against their will." The hat's brim seemed to dip. "...yeah. An' the worst part is, that's the one Scootaloo's been hopin' for most, since double amnesia is kinda goin' against the odds. That it ain't their fault, they didn't do anythin' wrong, they would come home if they could..." Stopped, sighed, and the thick blonde tail fell still. "The one where they're innocent, they love her, an' it could still be any day now. The one where they're heroes tryin' t' fight their way back t' their daughter." "She may be right," the white mare quietly said. "But you're right, Applejack. We need to track them, as much as it's possible to do so. Find out if anyone, in any nation, remembers seeing them. Because wherever they were when that scroll rebounded, they might have just gotten there -- or they could have been in that location for a few years. Whatever happened to that poor stallion may be nothing more than having been so unlucky as to find the wrong wild magic at the wrong time -- or it could have been the end result of something which has been building under our snouts for --" She stopped. Shook her head, and the pastels seemed to shift a little behind the base movement. "-- we'll deal with it," Celestia firmly told them. "But we're not rushing in, not unless things get worse very quickly and even then, we still have to think about what we're dealing with. Just for starters, between the device and this variation on the lockdown working, we have to look at teleportation itself in ways we've never even thought of before. That may mean involving the Equestrian Magic Society, or the Gifted School --" "-- oh!" And then everypony was looking at the little mare. "...Twi?" Who wasn't looking at anything, not when just about all of her attention was now focused on possibility. "What time is it?" "The clock," Celestia carefully said, "is on that wall --" "-- no! I mean, what time is it on the west coast?" With words steadily accelerating and knees beginning to flex for what would only need a few seconds to become something very close to a standing pronk, "Because there's time zones. And a schedule. There's always a schedule. She tells me what times she's going to be working just in case I try to send something! We could go get her right now!" They were still staring at her. "Her," Spike cautiously tried. "Who's --" and it was possible to see the moment when the answer arrived for all of them, because it was also the moment when thin lips shifted into a reptilian grin. "Oooh," Applejack breathed. "Ah don't know if that's inspired or evil. Might be a little of both..." Celestia nodded. "I'll take you." Long legs began to unfold, push. "Just tell me the settled zone and we'll use their gatehouse. And I'll also go with you into the city to find her, because you might need me there to enforce it. So that's going to be me, Twilight, and Spike --" "-- an' me," the farmer firmly declared. "Applejack," the tallest mare in the world said from what was rapidly approaching her full height, "despite what the wings and horn would like to suggest, you are speaking with an earth pony. We're talking about teleporting halfway across the continent. Twice. When it comes to the resulting sickness, nopony is asking you to subject yourself --" "-- illness ain't nothin' compared t' this!" Applejack grinned. "What y'all are headin' out t' do? Ah wouldn't miss seein' her face for a fifth of the trees in the West Fields!" "Applejack," Twilight desperately tried to caution, "I've seen how you react. Are you sure?" The farmer thought about it, and did so as all four knees began to bend for the pronk. "Maybe a fourth," emerged from variable heights while dishes began to jitter within cabinets and benches jumped in rhythm each time the muscular form came down. "We're talkin' 'bout the ones with the fruit bats, mind, so it don't exactly cost me nothin' t' give 'em up. Can we leave right now? Oh, tell me we can leave right now!" Consider the nature of magic. There are many ways to do so, although so much of the Last Question concerns whether there might be something singular awaiting within the core. In this case, the word we want is... ubiquitous. Magic permeates the world, and to be alive and truly sapient is to possess some form of it. It's a power which is everywhere, and within everyone. Now: consider the problems inherent in a career which requires the showmare to put on a magic act. Think about it. If you're going to be realistic about your career prospects, then you're probably going to be looking at a life outside Equestria, because at least you can show off a form of magic other than what the resident species are used to. And even then, there are nations with significant pony populations. Some of the most isolated locations still turn up the occasional expatriate, usually just in time to make a comment about how your corona shouldn't have been flickering there. If you're just working with standard effects, then you're bound to come across somepony who recognizes the effort -- and in any case, this particular showmare has been stuck in her home nation for a while now. (Under the terms of her agreement, she's allowed to cross a border, but she would have to tell the palace exactly where she's going and somepony will check.) So you're trying to perform for an Equestrian population and again, we have to look at standard effects. Any pegasus can potentially learn any technique. Every technique. It doesn't mean they'll necessarily possess the field strength to power it or the field dexterity to keep it under control, but those who apply themselves will at least understand the principles involved. You think you've come up with a unique twist on a standing technique? Congratulations. Once you show it off in public, you're going to have, at most, three years before the knowledge spreads through the population and if you're exceptionally lucky, someone will remember to name it after you. The Rainboom could be duplicated, and there's only two factors preventing it: the number of pegasi on Rainbow's level is a rather small one, and just about all of them have heard about what seems to be a required minimum number of crashes. Earth ponies do occasionally show off -- in private. It's accepted that some tools only appear in a few kits, and a number of those seem to be passed down through family lines. Most singers have ranges, and it's a rare pony who can work across multiple octaves. Still, there are those who find unique ways to phrase their requests and every so often, somepony becomes desperate enough to ask a question nopony's ever thought of before. But once the notes have been sung, there's going to be echoes. If anypony reaches the site before they fade, and just listens closely... When it comes to magic, every unicorn has a limited learning capacity. (For some, those limits have yet to be reached -- but ponies feel better if they assume those rare specimens still have one.) Six to eight spells (plus minor variants, which don't count) is typical, added to the universality of telekinesis. So nopony can do everything -- but if you're in one of the larger settled zones, the odds are very good that somepony knows how to do what you just did. Let's make our showmare a unicorn. Most of the ground settlements are mixed ones. (One of the exceptions is currently being rather forcibly solved.) So even if somepony you're performing for can't do your kind of magic, they know somepony who can. In fact, the odds are pretty good that said pony is somewhere in the audience, and they're about to tell you they can do that. In fact, they can do it better than you can and if they don't know the trick, they're going to defy the existence of learning capacity entirely through declaring that it could be mastered in about five minutes. (The showmare has yet to have a true conversation with the designer and yet when it comes to how some others regard the things brought into the world by those mares alone, they're going to have a lot in common.) Those ponies are everywhere, because magic is everywhere and so what does the showmare have to offer: a collection of basic tricks being shown off in a single place? How are you supposed to impress your audience? Even displays of unusual strength or control are only good for so much and in any case, this mare mostly edges towards the latter. You're going to need multiple selling points. So... start with the personality, because you're about to craft an artificial one. Make it big and bold, then add a heaping helping of loud. Make yourself into the center of attention. Ponies have to pay attention to you, because you won't let them look anywhere else! Dress to impress, or at least to give ponies that much more to look at (if only because you're dressed in the first place). And you're going to need some public ego, or rather, if you're going to make this work at all, you're going to need an Ego. Dramatic gestures, the tone-shifting vocal patterns of the true showmare, there's probably things you can do with your mane, and you meld it all into the Ego because you're not only the center of attention, you have to make the audience feel like nopony else deserves to be. You need an Ego, to be a traveling showmare. You just have to learn how to leave it on the stage, because if you start believing in it... ...anyway, hecklers. You'll need to watch out for those, so have some prepared responses ready. Be continually on the lookout for chances to use them, because once you shut down a few, you can effectively stop them all. Admittedly, that's going to put you on something close to the permanent defensive. In fact, keep it up long enough and your efforts might effectively become... preemptive. So you've got your Look. There's a Style and, if you've been careful about it, you're even managing to control the Ego. But you're still a showmare in a world of magic and no matter what kind of spin you can put on any of the standard tricks, somepony is going to be better than you. Displays of field dexterity? So you can manage a dozen disparate items now: there's a mare in the audience who can manage hundreds, and too many of them are sewing needles. Strength? You're above average, and you could have gone to the Gifted School if only your entire life had been different. But you met the winner of the blood lottery one day, and... you try not to think about what you did after that, any more than might be necessary to keep you from ever doing something that stupid again. This is your career, because there was another option and... it hurt too much... ...this is your stage. Yours. What do you have to offer? Because Look and Style only go so far, and you made the mistake of taking your Ego off the stage. It nearly cost you everything. It... ...it wasn't you, even the Princess said it wasn't you and that if it had been just about anypony in the world other than you... ...ponies might have died... ...maybe ponies would have died if that horror had been around your neck for five more minutes... ...you need more than showmareship and patter. This is a world when everyone can do some form of magic, and some of those who share yours will always decide they can outclass you in the basics. There's only one way to do this. You'll just have to show them something new. Every show. Every fresh pass through the same town. Something they've never seen before. Something nopony has ever seen before. And that's how you stay alive. By never stopping, through making your life into an endless chase and even on the best days, what you're mostly chasing down is yourself. You -- can't live by trying to catch up with anypony else. Not any more. You have to bring the new. Every day. Every time. And even then, some idiot who reached their learning capacity on Spell Two is going to try duplicating it and take out half their living room in the process. Which won't include the bookshelves, because none of those morons ever seem to have any. (You've been trying to open and close performances with warnings. Nopony listens. It's probably because so many of them are stupid.) Equestria was in winter. Vanhoover, which was just about the northernmost settlement, occasionally found a need to kick in a few seasonal capital letters and optional boldface. It was widely considered to be one of the most beautiful settled zones. The architecture wasn't quite like anything else in the nation, the nearby mountains to the east were magnificent, you had the ocean on the other three sides and in summer, there were sweet scents, water warm enough to swim in, and the feeling of being cradled by the world. It was much the same in winter, except for the parts where the local weather team considered themselves to be having a good day if bone-cracking winds were only sluicing in from one direction. Some claimed that Vanhoover ponies had their own language: to wit, it was supposed to have eighteen words for 'snow.' In reality, there was only one. The modifying curses tended to slur. Most of the ponies who lived in Vanhoover had been there for generations, and what should have been centuries of slowly-building cold resistance still left them traveling at speed with their heads down. (Because it was Vanhoover, any resulting collisions almost always triggered full apologies, including from whoever had been hit.) You went outside, you got to wherever you were going, you warmed up, and then you got ready to do it all over again because it was Vanhoover and winter might only be a fourth of the year, but that just made it feel like nine moons of cold had been compressed. It took a certain amount of skill to make Vanhoover ponies stop in the street during the winter. Or... it was possible that the mare had seen it as a challenge to herself. If you could stall out a crowd for a full performance in Vanhoover while working on a fully-exposed outdoor stage, then what could the rest of Equestria ever do to you? Believing it was even possible might have required something in the way of an Ego. It took a little work for the smallest of the approaching parties to spot the mare: she'd managed to draw and keep a decent crowd, and lack of height added to minimal control over her wings was putting her neck at some awkward angles. But for the librarian... it was somewhat like watching a dance. The unicorn on the collapsible stage was occupying one section, and then she was flowing towards another. She had partnered with her own corona, sent it to one place, twisted it whip-like to another, had it wind its way through the audience in a gentle caress. An audience she wasn't even really looking at, because the hecklers had been silenced long before the four had arrived and this was her own part of the dance. The ornate hat raised itself from a nearby table, seemed to twinkle as it settled over head and horn, followed by having the crowd gasp as the next burst of corona went through -- ("Illusion," the little mare whispered. "That hat hasn't been real for at least ten minutes. She told me she was working on that one.") -- and the mare basked in it, the incredulity and disbelief from the audience soaked into her as something very close to warmth... ...that was, perhaps, what she felt first. It was certainly what the crowd registered, because the mare had captivated all those who had stopped and for the rest -- they were traveling with their heads down. But there was a new arrival in Vanhoover and wherever she went... It started at the back of the crowd, worked its way in. Fur strands separated. Hooves which had been making an effort to stay in one place relaxed, as their owners no longer felt the need to almost canter in place against cold stone. A scarf began to feel inappropriate. Degree by degree, it wafted forward until the warmth registered in the minds of those who were watching, until the concept of a wild warm breeze off the ocean shattered in a hundred minds under the pressure of disbelief. Some of the more practical began to turn, if only to find out what was on fire and how long it would take to put it out. (If nopony or property was in danger, Vanhoover residents would take any normal estimate and add five minutes.) They turned. They stared. A few of them began to speak. The one they were about to try speaking with raised a huge forehoof to her lips. More of them turned, curious to see just what everypony else was looking at... Perhaps the showmare felt the warmth first. Or it could have been hard-won instincts recognizing that the audience was shifting focus, knowing something was happening on the outskirts, that she had to get them back before it was too late and how could she even have lost them when she'd just been starting to demonstrate the new? Whatever was going on had to be stopped, the dance went into a new beat, one which let her look across them and over them and then there was a very large white mare in the way. The showmare's initial, rather complex expression might have still been familiar to anypony who'd ever been on parole. It was the face of a mare who knew she was innocent, but didn't know exactly what the officer who'd just shown up at her workplace had been told -- while being all too aware that her personal credibility was rather low. Her mouth opened. This was followed by having it close again, with no words emerging in between. Just about anypony who knew the unicorn would have considered it to be a rather rare occasion. She kept looking at the white mare. Directly at that silent, smiling face, which meant it took a few extra seconds to spot the little dragon riding on the broad back. Purple eyes instantly focused on scales. He waved at her. Slowly, inexorably, the gaze slid down the white body. It had to travel quite a long way towards the ground before it found the first hint of librarian, and wound up having to largely skip across a widely-grinning farmer along the way. It was just barely possible to see the showmare's mouth moving. Those with true skill in lip reading might have been able to spot the outer framework for Buck My Life. Her corona winked out. The hat vanished accordingly (with the real one appearing under a table), but there were only four left who even noticed, so that was more or less all right. "Trixie Lulamoon," the Princess calmly called out, "the palace regrets and will compensate for the interruption, but Equestria has need of your services. In your own time, please." There were forms of magic which Twilight was still trying to master, many which she had yet to understand, and the mission to come would introduce her to a number which never should have been allowed to exist. The interior of Trixie's caravan involved none of them. Instead, the space existed in open violation of topology, and to watch its owner furiously stomp inside was to listen as physics went off to find a quiet place to cry. The stage was easy enough. She'd seen the stage fold up, had witnessed the process again just a few minutes ago, and so she understood how it was carried, balanced, and deployed. The stage was basic, even if the required thinness of the materials meant Trixie was forever recasting a number of reinforcement spells. But just about all of the equipment required for the show had to be stored within, and that narrow area -- no more than two body lengths across at the widest point, and a consistent seven in length -- also had to include living space. A place to wash up. Food supplies. Somewhere to sleep. And Trixie. Trunks covered almost all of the floor. Most of them held stagecraft supplies. Subtle odors suggested that a few stored dried fruits and vegetables, along with twisted hay: travel hardtack. There was a sink, and a water cistern. Some makeup was strewn around the rim. There were also dishes waiting to be cleaned, and the plural only applied because the occupant owned two. Even when you lived alone, it helped to have a backup. The floor didn't offer enough storage, so there were stacks of narrow shelves. Smoke powder was readily available. A few potion ingredients had been carefully labeled by a mare who couldn't brew potions, but she was always traveling and you never knew if you were going to meet someone who would want to trade. One shelf held a twisted, tangled remnant of what Twilight recognized as ruined, inert platinum wire: something which almost looked as if it had found a way of exploding in reverse. There were bookcases built into the walls, along with ropes strung in front of each: keeping the contents from being jolted out every time the wheels hit a bump. Most of the shelves were filled with notebooks, and Twilight knew every last one of them was full again because shelves, bookcases, equipment, and miscellaneous debris still somehow left parts of the walls and ceiling (because there were things hanging from the ceiling) exposed and wherever there was open space, there was writing. It was formulae and theory and conjecture and she had to stop looking at it because if she kept going, she would begin to either debate or cry. There was a chance for both. No bed was visible. Oft-folded padding was strewn across the top of the largest trunk. The occupant furiously trotted back towards that trunk, spun, jumped, slammed her body onto it, and yelped "What?" Three mares pulled back, at least as much they could. Twilight was the only one small enough to get inside, which had left Applejack on the entrance ramp and Celestia awkwardly angling her head in through the doorway. Spike was tightly-pressed against her neck, the better to stay warm. (They had privacy. A ruling Princess asking ponies to give them some privacy had cleared out the cold streets for two blocks.) "As I said outside," the white mare began, "Equestria has need --" "-- I haven't done anything! I've been following the terms of my parole! I check in whenever I enter a new town! I've been reporting my travels! I swear --" "-- of your services --" "-- I would never do anything like that again --" the light blue fur was beginning to vibrate out of its natural grain "-- nothing like it, nothing even close, I'm just trying to live --" Twilight took half a step forward, which was all the Mystery Cabinet would allow. "-- I told her about the exoteleports." The showmare's mouth soundlessly opened. "Huh," Applejack observed. "Twice in one day. Gotta be the record --" It was just above a whisper. "-- you did what?" "...an' that went an' ruined it," the farmer grinned. "Thanks a lot, Twi. Anyway, as the Princess was sayin' --" Furiously, with exposed horn beginning to show corona spikes, "The Great and Powerful Trixie confided --" -- and the kicked snow bopped her snout. "OW!" "Told me t' do that if'fin y'went third-person," Applejack called out. "Got some more waitin', too." The showmare fumed. Glared. Eventually bothered to wipe off her face. "I told you that in confidence, Twilight. Because we were trying to work out that one spell, it kept taking more and more scrolls, and I thought it would help --" "-- and Twilight," Celestia smoothly cut in (although the motion required for doing so meant her horntip scraped against the ceiling), "couldn't remember anypony ever having done it before. She was trying to get you a potential award from the Equestrian Magic Society, Ms. Lulamoon. But she also wanted to protect your privacy until you were ready for it, so the first step in doing that was to ask somepony for help. A pony with connections to the Society, who could look into the matter without raising a disturbance. That would be me. And now that I'm here -- I'd like to see it." This time, the unicorn managed to glare at all of them, which took quite a bit in the way of wide-angle work. Raised her left forehoof, upturned it, and then switched to glaring at one of the dishes. It flashed. Vanished. And then it was balanced atop keratin. "...it's stupid," the showmare muttered. "Something small, something completely unsecured. I can bring it to me, when I still can't move myself. Big deal. I've mostly been using it to collect tips. Giving the audience something new..." "And that's why we're here," Celestia stated. "You talked about your talent with me, prior to my placing you on parole. Ms. Lulamoon, the palace can legally impress any Equestrian citizen onto its staff in an emergency: we just try not to do it too often, lest that power be challenged. It can't be overridden -- but we could lose some time to a court which is trying to figure out a polite way of agreeing with us. In your case, you are, as you noted, on parole. Seeking and using the Amulet is a crime. But you are the one pony I can name in generations of that thing resurfacing in the world who didn't kill with it. Or rather -- when it took your body --" "-- don't." They barely heard it. "I don't want to remember --" "-- and used your personality as a template, it found only that which wanted to impress." "...I wanted an audience," the showmare whispered. "Dead ponies can't stomp. That's all it was..." "Still more than anypony else," Celestia gently offered. "That's why you're on parole, Ms. Lulamoon. Because I thought you needed another chance. And now the palace needs you, because we both know what the icon on your flanks truly means. The lost channeling device. You are a means by which new magic finds its way into the world. A talent --" The anger came back, and did so all at once. The showmare's horn was sparking, forelegs draped over the edge of the trunk went forward and slammed into the floor as Twilight just barely projected her own field in time to catch the dish. "-- for creating spells I don't have the strength to cast! For dreaming of things I can't do! I'm trying to live with my talent, I'm trying, but when I go too deep, when I push too hard and my own limits stop me --" "-- for innovation. Who can look at things in ways nopony else can. And," the white mare calmly added, "who can 'exoteleport'. Because there's a reason we came for you, Ms. Lulamoon. Will you let us explain?" Gray-tinged magneta winked out. "Like I have a choice," the showmare muttered. "What's so bucking important?" "The following information is classified," Celestia informed her. "So I suggest you listen very closely. Twilight?" The librarian found a way to take another step forward. They waited until the unicorn had finished rinsing out her mouth, which took most of the cistern and nearly displaced the other dish onto the floor. "...getting rid of a mark," she finally said, directing the words at the half-mirror over the basin. Watching them all through reflection alone. "Or changing it. Switching it, and the results vanish when you die," Twilight reluctantly repeated. "We don't know..." "Do they take volunteers?" Three ponies paled, and the little dragon nearly lost his grip. The showmare reacted to all of it with the thinnest of smiles. "I don't have the best relationship with my own talent," she told the mirror. "Still." Sighed. "But that's me. For just about anypony else, this would have been an abomination. I get it, Twilight." "You'll be compensated at a fair rate," Celestia promised. "Since we're pulling you off the road. We're not asking you to go bankrupt, Ms. Lulamoon. Just to assist your nation, when it comes to request your help. Will you?" Starkly, "Do I have a choice?" "There's other nations," the white mare observed. "You always have choices. You just might not like some of the options. Personally, I did have the choice of not placing you in prison." The last of the clean water came out of the cistern, and the reared-up showmare awkwardly splashed some of it towards her face. "Are you taking the caravan?" "Not in a single trip," Celestia stated. "I take Applejack back to the Acres first. You, Twilight, and Spike to the tree. After that, I'll come back for your things. I can even mail the notebooks to your storage unit, since you seem to be at capacity again. But I'd recommend you use her guest bed rather than continue sleeping in --" "-- then let's go." They watched as she dropped back down, turned, slowly walked towards them. Some withdrawal was required before she could use the ramp. "I've just got to lock up..." Her corona ignited. Light prodded at the closing door, here and there. Trixie glared back at Twilight. Her lips quirked. "So the Element of Magic herself," the unicorn tried out, "needed to seek help from a simple showm --" With an open, accepted (and almost returned) smile, "...oh, shut up." The notebook's pages turned, because there were many notebooks in the community, and yet there were ways in which there only seemed to be one. Eventually, she reached the pages which concerned Gez, because that was who had died. He'd done so before the teleport had taken away the remnant which had named itself after a disease to... Her eyes moved across them, taking in a word here and there. On the whole, she often found very little need to truly read something she'd personally written. With her own work, it only took a little to serve as a reminder, and with the words of others... She'd read a lot about how certain things were impossible. The term had mostly turned out to mean 'things we don't want anypony to try'. And then you had to start asking questions about why they didn't want you trying any of it. It was enough to make you question the intent behind so-called educational material, if you were capable of thinking at all. So that's where he was from. There had been so many of them. Having notes helped. She thought about it for a while, and did so while trotting within her personal quarters. Movement kept the blood flowing. It was, in many ways, a question of where the corpse had appeared. Would he have tried to return to his birthplace, because pegasi had certain recognized homing instincts in times of stress and just about every other pony was stuck with an unreasonable attachment to wherever their blood had first touched the ground? His last place of residence prior to joining the community? Some secret clubhouse from the days of his youth? She didn't know what he had been thinking at the last, and so she couldn't be sure where the body had turned up. There were ways in which she could try to find out, of course. But so few of hers had the strength required to leave for a time, to take up the burden again, if only for a little while. Her best wouldn't be back for at least a few days, and would hopefully be bringing company. There was a house waiting to be occupied, after all, and as far as the structure was concerned, the residents were... fungible. If he'd appeared in just the right place, there was a chance that the body hadn't even been found. But if it had been the wrong one... Corpses, despite what the total cessation of active biology would suggest, had the potential to reproduce. In fact, under the wrong circumstances, having one discovered might cause the total to propagate quite rapidly. She knew that from experience. She couldn't be sure where the body had wound up. Not just yet. It wouldn't hurt to prepare.