//------------------------------// // Starlight Over Detrot Epilogue Part 2 : The Hard Part // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale // by Chessie //------------------------------//     “--am, he’s waking up.”     “Thank you, my little pony.  Please, wait outside.”     Intense warmth and light fell on my face and I unconsciously raised a hoof to block it out.  Going back to sleep sounded miles better than getting up and facing whatever horrible business waited out there beyond my aching eyelids.  Nothing good could come from being conscious. Besides, whatever surface I was on was very comfortable and the blanket across my chest had just the right amount of comfy to it.  Even the pillow was the perfect amount of fluffed.  It was definitely not worth being awake, yet.  Leave that to smarter ponies.     ‘You finally awaken after I spend an eternity squatting in here with nothing to do but thumb through old radio shows and your silly sexual encounters and now you want to go back to sleep?’ a grumpy female voice in my thoughts snapped.  ‘Not a chance!  Rise!  Rise or I shall call up every irritating advertising jingle you have ever heard and hum them for you!’     I wrestled one crusty eye open, blinking at the sunlight beaming down on my face from a floor to ceiling window.  That was wrong, but I couldn’t have told you exactly why just yet.  My brain still felt like it’d spent the week on a fifty bottle bender.  Who knew?  Maybe it had.     A shadowy figure crossed in front of the sun, leaving the blurry shape of a pony.  There was a faint hum of someone’s horn and the light abated, but my eyes still weren’t working brilliantly.  I scrubbed at the streak of dried tears on my muzzle and tried to speak, but it only came out as a weak honking sound.  I tried again, with only slightly better success.     “W-water...”     “Of course,” the soft voice replied.  “I am afraid even modern medicine cannot make two weeks of unconsciousness much less unpleasant.  Here.  Slowly, now.”     Something cool pressed against my lips and I tried to take it in.  My throat was parched and at first rejected the cold liquid.  Coughing and sputtering, I grabbed the glass before it could be withdrawn and swallowed a few muzzlefulls.  My tongue still felt enormous, but a bit less arid  than before.     “D-dead?” I asked, softly.     “No,” the unseen pony answered as my blanket was folded down a little.  “Though, that being said, I am told by various persons that it is something of a common occurrence that you rise after a brief bout of death.”     A damp towel was pressed against my cheek, wiping my face with a mother’s touch.  I had to stop myself from nuzzling the hoof underneath it.  I’d no idea who was there just yet, but felt sure they meant no harm.     “Your doctors would object, but I doubt there is any long term harm that could be done, and I imagine you are missing this.”     A rich smell filled my nostrils and I almost involuntarily bolted upright in the bed, though my legs felt too stiff to do much more than jerk a few inches higher on the cushions.  A warm vessel nudged my lips and I’d no trouble letting that in; it was coffee, perfectly to temperature, with a hint of milk and no sugar.     Strange how something small like that can restore a pony’s will to live.  My vision had started to creep back towards clarity.  I held up a hoof in front of my face and it looked decently hoof-shaped, but anything farther than the end of the bed wasn’t happening just yet.  While it was a very nice bed, with a lovely yellow comforter that called out to me to hide under it for the rest of my days, I could see the mug, hanging in a golden magical glow near the end of my muzzle.  Reaching up, I carefully clutched it with both hooves, and it dropped gently into my waiting grasp.     “So, not dead,” I muttered, working my jaw a few times as I took another sip.  “That means this probably isn’t the afterlife.  Did...did I...uh...Oh Celestia’s sunny flank, I can’t think--”     “I am glad you appreciate my flanks, Mister Hard Boiled, and yes, you ‘did’.  You have triumphed, though in what fashion I hope you will illuminate us.”     “Y-your flanks?” I asked, dumbly.     Reaching up, I gave myself a good bop on the side of the head.  My eyes rolled about in their sockets for a second before settling on the towering female figure at the side of my bed.  For a long moment I just sat there, staring up at her.     “Oh...horseapples.  I am dead.”     Princess Celestia tittered into one hoof, her great flowing mane swooshing about behind her like a tidal wave of color as she leaned down to study me.  “It was a very close thing.  Princess Twilight arrived just as the structure was falling and managed to arrest its collapse with her magic.  There were tonnes of debris above, but by some miracle none of it killed either you or the little griffin hen who we found alongside your unconscious body.  Mags?”     I tried to think back, finding only a muddled fog where my most recent memories should have been.  “I left her at Fortress Everfree be...before...”     “She stowed away in that odd vehicle you drove into the middle of the city,” she explained, giving the curtains a light shake so they closed out the piercing sun a little more completely.  “I doubt you could have stopped her.  If her attacks on our kitchen are any indication, she is a wiley little thing.  She was holding a broken Emblem of Harmony.  I had not seen one of those in over a decade, though I should not be surprised Twilight kept one.”     Struggling up in my bed, I took my first look around the room and couldn’t exactly place where I was.  It looked opulent, but out of date.  Sort of an old fashioned notion of wealth with high ceilings, gold, and alabaster.  The bed was big enough that a pony could easily get lost in it.     “Your Majesty, I have about fifty questions,” I grumbled, scratching at my chest and finding the pouch over my heart open, its plug in place.  I tugged the cable out and set it to one side before zipping myself shut.  Princess Celestia watched the process with a certain amount of interest.     “I was told you might,” she said, with a matronly smile.     “Well, could you point me at whichever functionary you have assigned to answer them so I don’t actually explode?” A giant pillow levitated over to my bedside and tucked itself under her rear.  Once she was settled, she picked up a cup of tea off my bedside and took a quick slurp before setting it aside.  “I will be answering as many today as possible, though I suspect it will take a while.  Princess Twilight wanted to be the one to debrief you, but...well, age hath privileges.  To begin, you are in Canterlot.  You returned it from the moon in some fashion, yes?”     I sucked a breath.  “I...I think so, Ma’am.  Sorry, my memory is toast with a side of jam.  Speaking of that, I am starving.”     “I will have breakfast brought right up,” she replied, her horn letting off a quick spark before she continued.  “As I was saying, you are in Canterlot.  Before you ask, Detrot is safe.  At least, as safe as it can be.  The royal guard is there, keeping order and providing services until engineers can rebuild infrastructure, but that is temporary and seems largely unnecessary considering some of the individuals involved in the current power structure.”     “Like who?” A tiny grin snuck across her face, but she quickly smothered it in regal poise.  “Like your partner and the gestalt intelligence she controls.  Miss Cuddles came with you when Princess Twilight returned to Ponyville.  I found our conversations most intriguing.  A brilliant young mare...with an interesting complexion.” I blew a breath out of one corner of my mouth.  “Like a kitten with a meat grinder for a jawline and jewelry for eyes?” “Quite.  Our chef was most perturbed by just how much of the larder she and your ward were able to eat their way through in short order.  Miss Cuddles told me much, but I am sure there are things she didn’t know.  In the meantime, you should know that Sweet Shine and Limerence Tome are under care of our best doctors, and they will be fine in short order.  I have already spoken to them, and they were very forthcoming.” I narrowed my eyes at her.  “Forthcoming, but you’re not saying about what.  This is a police interrogation technique.  You let me think they told you more than I’d be willing to tell you, so I hang myself out to dry trying to keep ahead of their stories.” The ancient alicorn grinned even wider, leaning down to whisper into my ear, “Who do you think came up with that technique?” “Eh...heh,” I snickered, lying back in the pillows.  “Alright, fair is fair.  You’re an older hat at this than I am, so I bow to the mistress.  It’s time somepony finally knew everything.” Princess Celestia fluffed her enormous white wings as there was a knock at the door. “Come in!” she called, before a maid pushed her way into the room carrying a heavily laden tray.  The Princess took it from her with a quick burst of magic, lifting it onto the bed between us, then nodded to the maid.  “Thank you, that will be all.” The maid quickly bowed out of the room, leaving me to drool over an enormous array of baked goods and an entire gallon of fresh coffee.  Right near the top, in a tiny basket labeled ‘Hard Boiled’, there was a whole skewer of bagels and a small bucket of cream cheese.  It all looked heavenly and my stomach let out a fierce growl. Celestia picked up a doughnut and took a ladylike bite, then glanced at me before tossing the whole thing in her muzzle and wolfing it down, spraying crumbs all over me.  I couldn’t entirely suppress a gasp, but as she ran her tongue over her lips, the Princess was grinning fit to burst. “Mister Hard Boiled, you are going to relax, even if I must climb into that bed and give you a shoulder rub.” I started at her for a long few seconds, then forced my shoulders to unwind a little as I picked up one of the piping hot bagels and dunked the entire thing in the cream cheese.  “Sorry.  It’s been a while since me and ‘relax’ were in any sentence together other than ‘Hard Boiled, you need to relax’.  Rough couple months.  If you don’t mind me asking, Ma’am, why are you here?  Why not Princess Twilight?” “Princess Twilight is sitting on the throne while my sister regains her strength from our long vigil on the moon.  Maintaining the air shields was taxing for Princess Luna and I, and I would like my former student to get used to the reins of power again whilst we recover.” I contemplated that for a bit, noshing on my bagel.  It was perfect.  Together with the coffee, I might even have started to feel something like equine on any other day. “How is the nation taking to finding out they’ve had a secret Princess for the last however many decades?” I asked, licking the last bits of cream cheese off my hooftips. “Better than hoped.  We’ve only had two attempted coups, four bomb threats, a small rebellion in an outlying town, and twenty-nine hired killers caught entering the city.  Better than a thousand years ago, let me tell you.  My little ponies have always been strong and I suspect the rulers of most of the other countries are facing something similar.  It is the way of things when the world is upset.  Truth be, Detrot suffered the worst of it, making the current relative peace there even more exceptional, if not unwelcome.  We will recover, hopefully stronger than before, and at some point this will be a dim memory to most.” Princess Celestia looked down at her cup and sighed, wistfully.  “Apropos of nothing, it seems someone has poisoned my tea, again.”  With an elegant shrug of her mighty wings, she took another sip. I glanced warily at my coffee, then held out the mug.  She tapped her horn to the rim of my glass, then shook her head.  I went back to slurping at my drink, watching the alicorn out of the corner of my eye. She was so poised, so calm and reserved, but there was something about her that suggested a pony able to burst into sudden action at a moment’s notice. We sat there together for a few minutes, quietly downing our tea and coffee, eating bagels and doughnuts and listening to the palace staff outside doing whatever it was palace staff did to keep a gigantic edifice like Canterlot Castle pumping along. When I could take the strangeness no longer, I asked, “Should...I don’t know.  Should I bow or something?  This is weird.  The only royalty I’ve spent time with were either the Prince of Detrot or people I could point a gun at without feeling terribly guilty about it.  I’ve seen you on television since before I knew which end of the playpen smelled the worst.” “Reminding an old mare of her age?”  She snickered, patting my shoulder with one golden-shod hoof.  “It is fine.  Consider us two who have walked in some of the farthest reaches and returned to tell the tale.  You are not the only one who has delved a few of the old places in Equestria or dipped outside the dimensional plane in search of answers.  Now, please, I would like to hear your story.  When I have, then I will be glad to update you on the recent goings on.  As well, I need to send a note to my sister that we have missed an assassin.  I do hope, for this would-be killer’s sake, the guard catch them before she does.” I lifted my chin in the direction of the pastry tray.  “We might want to get some more bagels, too.  This feels like a carb-heavy day.” ---- And so, for once, I told a pony everything.  I talked until well into the night, trying to explain the frequently inexplicable.  When my throat was sore, she brought me some sort of enchanted draught which made it feel right as rain, and we continued. Princess Celestia was a fabulous listener, knowing just when to tell a joke or insert a smile to put me at ease.  She never expressed shock or dismay, only nodding her head with a slightly grim expression during the darker parts of my tale.  My brain cleared of the persistent fog that’d hung over it since I woke, but as it did I found strange holes in my memories, usually where certain sensations were concerned. I found that though I knew, intellectually, that I’d been burned alive, I couldn’t remember the feeling of the flames licking the skin off my body.  Strange, that. I told her about Juniper Shores, and about all the odd coincidences surrounding his appearances.  Still, she just listened.  I plowed on, determined to have it all on the table and let somepony else judge me mad.  She was one of the few ponies I remotely trusted to do that. When we came to the presence of Nightmare Moon in my mind, Princess Celestia insisted on meeting her. ---- “Free The Moon.” ‘No!  I am not talking to her until my pardon is signed!  Mine and the one for the personality in my armor!  I refuse until such time as sending me to the moon is no longer an option!  I want her promise that you will get my armor back when all is said and done!’ “She doesn’t want to talk until she’s sure she’s not going to the moon,” I groused, pushing a few images of Nightmare Moon with a dog’s anti-chew-cone around her neck in the direction of my brain’s tenant.  “She’s also worried you’re going to stick the armor in a hole somewhere and wants to make sure I get it back.” Princess Celestia frowned for a moment, then called for one of her aides who brought a sheaf of parchment and a pen.  She quickly scribbled something on one page, then held it out for me to read.  It said: ‘I, Princess Celestia, hereby pardon Nightmare Moon and all of her subsidiary personalities for all crimes committed to this date on the condition she gives up all aspirations for political or global domination forthwith.’ “I will need to make certain of accommodation of the armor’s protection, but for now, will this do, Miss Moon?” she asked, seeming to stare right through me to the pony hidden inside. Nightmare briefly took control of my hoof, rolling it in a fashion that said ‘Well, go on.’ “She wants your hoofprint on it,” I murmured. Princess Celestia’s eyes narrowed and she quickly doffed her hoofboot, produced a small compact from under her golden chestplate, and pressed her hoof to the sponge inside before applying it to the bottom of the document.  It left a clean print and she held it out again with a pleasant smile. I felt my body sliding out of my control and reaching out to take the pardon.  Quickly blowing on the ink, my forelegs carefully rolled it up before tucking it under the covers with me.  Then my mouth stuck my tongue out at Princess Celestia and blew a raspberry at her. A second later, I was back in the driver’s seat. “Uh...I...I think that’s your lot, Ma’am,” I explained, hesitantly. “Ah.” ---- The maids brought dinner at some point.  I missed them coming and going so focused on my story was I, but not so much that I wasn’t willing to sit there watching Princess Celestia destroy a hayburger.  Royal she might be, but there was something of Twilight Sparkle in her in private, or more likely something of her in Twilight Sparkle. As we ate I found myself curious again. “Ma’am, how did all of Canterlot and the surrounding cities survive on the moon for so long?” Celestia looked up from her burger, licking a bit of catsup off her chin.  “Hmmm?  Oh.  My sister put the population to sleep for most of the period.  They woke to eat every twenty hours then went right back to sleep.”  She chuckled under her breath.  “More than a few members of the royalty will be needing to work off pounds from this experience.  Otherwise, we had shifts of unicorns filtering carbon dioxide and the palace gardens were replaced with an algae farm while my sister and I maintained the protective bubbles and provided as much light to the plants as we could without the sun.  It was a temporary solution and air was getting quite stale towards the end.” “Did you know there would be somepony trying to rescue you?” I asked, chomping on a hayfry. “We hoped.” I made a soft ‘oh’ noise and sat back in my pillows.  I wriggled down in the blankets until they were just under my chin, considering my next question carefully.  Nothing good could come of it, but I had to know. “When all the inquiries and inquests and committees to examine wrong-doing are over, how long do you think my sentence is likely to be?” Celestia raised one eyebrow at me.  “Pardon me, I do not think I heard you correctly.” “Prison sentence?  Mine?  How long?”  I started counting off by tapping the tip of one forehoof against the other, starting at the heel and working my way around the shoe.  “I’m pretty sure I broke about four treaties just by having my gun loaded, not to mention all the laws involving forbidden artifacts, violating Essy containment regulations more times than I can count, memory manipulation, truck with eldritch powers, storming a friendly embassy, becoming an unregistered agent of a foreign power while working for the griffins, too many counts of assault to actually count, abuse of office as Chief of Police...”  I trailed off, realizing the Princess was staring at me like I’d just wandered into the room with a skunk on my head.  “What?  What did I say?” The alicorn started rubbing the bridge of her nose in small circles with one hoof as though she’d suddenly developed a headache.  “Mercy, they told me you were neurotic.  Mister Hard Boiled, you saved intelligent life on this planet from extinction.” I let my head fall to one side, not really comprehending her point.  “I mean, yeah.  And?” “What made you think prison was ever a possibility?  I do not have a medal adequate to pin on you.  There are twelve artists in lower Canterlot who are coming up with something as we speak.” “Eh..huh.  I guess I hadn’t thought about it.  Just sort of assumed it would be a priority to tuck me somewhere out of sight and out of mind.”  I looked up at the ceiling, noticing for the first time the sun motif up there.  Tucked in a corner there was an alicorn-sized ponykin, and beside that, a tall make-up table.  “Princess, am I in your room?” She nodded, flicking a wing towards the door.  “It was one of the few places I could convince your friends you would be safe without their vigilant guard.  While you were in the hospital wing, they refused to leave your bedside.  Considering the state of Limerence Tome, and Swift Cuddles, that proved most unsettling to the other patients.” “I know what happened to Swift, but...what’s wrong with Limerence?” “He developed a case of what the doctors have termed ‘wandering limb syndrome’ after his encounter in the shield pylon.  It...has not affected his survival, but it is very odd to see.  They say it should be fine to reattach his legs soon, but in the meantime they tend to go where they please and--” I held up my hooves and shuddered before pulling the blanket up to my chest.  “You know what?  No.  No, I don’t need this right now.  I’ll see him when I see him.” “If you like,” she acquiesced, glancing out towards the balcony.  “I am surprised more of Detrot was not severely mutated by the amount of radiant magic in the atmosphere.  You, Mister Limerence, Sweet Shine, Mags, and Swift Cuddles all required a quarantine when you arrived.” “Quarantine?” Princess Celestia patted my leg and smiled.  “The other reason you are in here, rather than the hospital.  Believe it or not, there is an amount of magic that is bad for a pony.  You, personally, have repeatedly exceeded that by a few degrees of magnitude.  It has dissipated by now, but when you were brought in you were somewhat...radioactive.” I sat forward worriedly.  “Mags...Mags is alright?” “Aside from a nasty bump on the head, yes, she is fine.  No mutations of any sort and will go on to live a long, healthy life, terrorizing pigeons and other wildlife.” “And...the rest of us?” The Princess took a deep breath, her chestplate jangling softly as she laid her chin on the bed.  I had an irrational urge to pet her, which might have cost me a hoof or - worse - might not have.  She looked exhausted, a mare who did not deserve the cards life had lately dealt. “Right now, I am not sure what will kill you, but it will not be old age,” she said softly, almost mournfully.  “Sweet Shine’s talent makes her extremely difficult to eliminate in any fashion, though age may still creep up on her in the night.  Limerence will die when the magic powering the wish which preserves him expires.  That could be years, centuries, or it could be next week.  In the meantime, he may continue haunting the Castle Library like a dismembered ghost, or he can return to Detrot and resume his father’s work.” I shut my eyes, pulling the nearest pillow over so I could scream into it for a solid minute.  When I pulled it away from my face, Celestia was grinning, again.  I chucked my cushion at her and she caught it with a good humored giggle, tucking it behind my head once more. “What?  You think this is funny?” I growled, putting my face in my hooves.  “I did not sign up for a long life, dammit!  I signed up to do a job and the job is over.  Dying was supposed to be my reward after a nice, comfortable stay in a place where I have literally no responsibilities.  Do you know how much I was looking forward to three hots and a cot?  Prison was a place where, if the world ended, it was somebody else’s job to fix it!”  I paused in my ranting, realizing somepony had been left out of our discussion.  “Wait.  What about Swift?  You didn’t mention Swift.” The princess pursed her lips and said, “The arcane conservancy hidden in her body had a series of cleverly disguised back-up spells associated with it which were activated by the quantity of magic she has absorbed recently.  I do not know if your partner is even equine.  Her eyes are but one part of her most recent transformation.  Several of her organs seem to have developed what should be an unhealthy number of metallic components.” I started to drag myself to the edge of the bed, intending to climb down. “Where are you going?” she asked. “I need to throw myself off the building,” I grumbled as I swung my back legs off the bed. They immediately gave out, sending me tumbling face first onto the soft carpets that ringed the room.  Lying there with my cheek on the rug, I rolled my eyes up to look at the Princess who was standing over me with a look of amusement.  “I need you to throw me off the building.” “You know, attempting suicide is not the first impulse I have usually met with when someone is informed they are going to live.” “You haven’t had my year!” I snapped, or rather, tried to.  It came out a bit weak and more like someone verging on a sobbing fit than a sharp rebuke. A warm energy wrapped around my body and I was lifted back under the covers which tucked themselves up to my neck.  One of her gigantic white wings unfolded across my chest like an extra duvet and, much as I wanted to shout at her some more, I couldn’t summon up any real anger.  Instead, my vision started to blur. The last thing I wanted to do was cry.  Crying in front of royalty is probably low on the list of things anyone wants to do in life; unfortunately, Princess Celestia was dangerously motherly and if there’s one thing a stallion in my condition needed more than anything just then it was the shoulder of someone in a position to make things better. There was no escape.  She had me good; both of us knew it.  Within a few seconds I was bawling my stupid eyes out. I cried and screamed.  I hugged her wing and made a mess of her perfect feathers. Ruining a Princess’s heavily preened feathers is one of those things you hope they never put in your biography, if you live long enough for somepony to want to write one.  I’d been hoping to get somewhere I could peacefully decay, but that seemed to be off the table. ---- “Then...Ruby opened the door.  At least, I think she did.  After that, things got strange.” “Strange, how?” “I vaguely remember being tortured by my apartment, my friends, and time itself for a few hundred thousand years.  Pretty sure I had an insect eat its way into my spine at one point.  It’s foggy.  My heart apparently took the initiative and tucked away most of the worst memories somewhere.” “My word.  I will tell Luna you need some personal attention.” “Please don’t.  I don’t know how Nightmare would react to meeting Luna in my dreams.  Or worse, how Luna would react to meeting Nightmare.” “A psychologist, then.” “Can you think of one qualified to deal with this?” “Princess Luna is still with us after the Cutie Mark Crusades because I knew several who are qualified.  She was not in good condition.  She still has dark dreams of those days, but she is no longer self-destructive.” “Then...that gives me some hope, I guess.” ----     The hour crept past midnight as I picked apart the events of the past few weeks.  There was much that was hazy and many things which didn’t make perfect sense, but that final conversation was crystal clear.  I was drooping, but still I plowed on, determined to have the entire truth out there for someone. I could see myself sitting there in the near dark of Starlight Tower, holding the star as it experienced equinity for the first time and saw all that it’d missed in its eons spent turning its nose up at biological life.  I could remember our words and in the retelling, I wondered at how they must sound.  Certainly I sounded crazy in my own ears.     It’d taken all day but, at last, the time came. ---- “And...then, I made my wish,” I finished, and with those words I all but collapsed back in bed, my eyes sagging shut as the last of my energy seemed to drain right out of me. Princess Celestia still sat beside the bed, a crumpled napkin on the pillow between her forelegs with the crumbs of what’d been the sixth or seventh tray of munchies the staff delivered to us that day.  She looked no worse the wear for having spent hours sitting in one place, listening to a mad stallion spilling improbable stories.  Her expression remained calm and interested. “If you do not mind me asking, what was the wish?” she asked, dabbing her lips with her napkin. I tucked my forelegs under the blanket and said, “I guess I should ask what you already know?” The Princess gave me a nonplussed look, her chromatic mane billowing a little more quickly in a nonexistent breeze.  “We have been reconstructing what we can from recent changes in global magical fields, but there is much even our best mages do not understand.  Particularly, what you did to seemingly every intelligent being the planet over.  You changed the sub anima mea of life itself.” I mouthed the words ‘the whole planet’ then put a hoof to my forehead.  “You want specifics?” “If you please.  I do not believe the entire Academy has slept in roughly two weeks attempting to discover the truth.” “Can I sleep once I answer this?” I asked, yawning softly.  “I suspect the news that I’m up and about is going to spread quickly.” “You can sleep now, if you like, but there are many students, magicians, and archmages who will not until they have an answer,” she replied, getting to her hooves.  “They are quickly draining the regional coffee supplies and I may have to tap into the royal brew reserves soon.  I have no guarantee there will be a mug left for you in the morning.” ‘Waking up with no coffee?  Unacceptable!’ Nightmare snarled in the back of my head. “That sounds like a threat,” I grumbled. “Think of it as ‘creative incentivization’. The former chief of police mentioned you tend to respond well to gentle reminders where your bread is buttered.” I bit my lip.  “Iris Jade survived?” “She did.” “Can you bring her down here?” “Ehm...From various conversations I was under the impression you two did not get along.” “I need her to throw me off the balcony.” Celestia gave me a look of gentle disappointment.  It wasn’t much, just a tiny drawing together of her elegant eyebrows and the smallest of frowns.  Still, it was enough that my heart felt like it was going to burst.  I’d long heard rumors of her ability to reduce seasoned bureaucrats to blubbering apologies when they acted with greed or selfishness, but being on the receiving end of it was something else. I waved my forelegs at her, placatantly.  “Alright, alright!  I yield!  Uncle!  Skies above, point that someplace else!”  And like that, the expression was gone and the sun returned.  “You could put an eye out with that thing.” “Hard Boiled, I have lived for more than a thousand years.  Believe me when I say, most of the days are better than not.  You have had a rough start, but life is worth it.” “I’ll believe it when I see it.  Right now, there are many conversations I’m not looking forward to and I want to sleep for a month before I have any of them.” “Then tell me what you wished, and I will make sure you have at least one more day.  A day with coffee and bagels.” Rolling onto my side, I tucked the nearest pillow under my cheek.  It was good.  Soft.  My overtaxed brain was ready to shut down for a few hours of additional maintenance.  I’d fulfilled the most significant of my obligations; my story was known.  I would not die a mystery. There was just that one tiny element that remained. “The star couldn’t ascend without us.  Now it will ascend with us.” The Princess canted her head to one side to look at me out of one eye.  “Explain, if you please?” “Everypony has been having dreams, right?  Nightmares?  Strange feelings?” “Yes,” Celestia affirmed, folding her wings tightly against her sides.  “Princess Luna has been most confounded.  They dream of vast distances, of light and breadth of being, of boundless cosmic communion.  I have...found my own dreams touched by these sensations.  Even when raising the sun, I find a deeper connection than before.  The sun and I have always had...understanding...with each other, since I received my talent, but now it is as though we breathe the same solar winds.  Some dreams are pleasant, others frightening, but none seem entirely of the mind of the ponies in question.” “They aren’t,” I explained, trying to hold in a yawn.  “It was too big to comprehend us and too small to understand why.  I wished for it to be given a just chance.” “And that involved altering our very souls?” I shut my eyes, letting the words flow. “It’s part of us, now.  A tiny, tiny piece in each living being.  It gets to be us.  When we rise above this existence, it will rise, too.  If we fail, it fails, but now...it has a chance.” In the darkness behind my eyelids, I heard Princess Celestia get to her hooves and set her pillow back in the corner, then her armored hoofsteps on marble before the door of her chambers opened and shut.  Her hoofsteps faded down the hallway, and I was left to my own devices.  Much as I wanted to sleep, there was one thing left to do. As soon as I was sure Princess Celestia was gone, I sat up. “You might as well stick your head out,” I called to the seemingly empty room.  “I don’t believe for a second that building somehow, miraculously, failed to flatten Mags and I.  You want to save me the trouble of asking her?” For a moment there was silence, then a soft cough from the bathroom.  Juniper opened the ornate door and stuck his muzzle through before stepping out with a bashful look on his face.  He hesitated there for a moment, his brown bomber jacket still sprinkled with what I could only presume was bits of dust from the collapse of Starlight Tower, then trotted over to the bedside and sat himself down beside me. “You did good, Hardy,” he murmured, picking up one of the pillows and fluffing it before setting it behind my head.  “You also earned a few favors with some very reluctant debtors.  They pay their bills.” “So what are you really?” I asked, giving him a firm prod in the knee as he stood there beside me, real as the moment I’d seen him ripped apart by a magical weather machine.  “We’re way off the end of you being a byproduct of my gradually deepening post-traumatic stress.  You are dead, right?” “Very, but that matters less than you’d think.  There are rules, but rules only matter so long as they’re obeyed.  Someone broke some big rules getting us here.  You, personally, broke a few, but they were in favor of keeping a certain balance.” “I see we’re playing the ‘cryptic answers’ game, then?” Picking up one of the remaining pastries on the tray Celestia left behind, he tossed the doughnut into his muzzle, swallowed it in two bites, then propped one foreleg on the bed and gave me a level stare. “Fine.  What do you want to know?” “Who do you really work for?” Without so much as a twitch of a smile, he replied, “Cosmic, metaphysical forces intent on keeping the universe from becoming a lifeless, empty husk, bereft of intelligence or growth.  They are the outgrowth of being, its seed and its fruit.  I serve Truth.  You serve another. Frequently, their purposes overlap.” He jabbed a hoof at his cutie-mark, then pointed at the spot under the blankets where mine was. I had one of those pauses where you realize you’ve had your answer and somehow didn’t actually learn anything.  I tried to think of some question that would give me a bit of clarity, but the answers to all of them seemed pretty obvious as soon as I started to open my muzzle.  I settled for clenching my teeth and kicking myself onto my back, again. “I’m about to get on a weird ride if I press this, aren’t I?” “You’re alive and will probably be for a long time.  That’s a weird ride already.  Being dead isn’t any better.  We’re both working two sides of the same grander development.  There are villains and heroes, all with their own plans, but all more or less playing the same game.  Pretty soon, ponykind will get the first tastes of what is coming: a future of glory or extinction.  You could go flit around the afterlife like a little cheerful, enlightened cherub, content with the idea that having access to ‘infinite cosmic wisdom’ means you theoretically actually understand something, but I know you.  You’ll want to get your hooves dirty.  You’ll want to actually solve some of the mysteries.  There are plenty of them.” “There are things that threaten Truth itself?  Things that could kill all life?” I asked. He ruffled my mane and I swatted at him, halfheartedly.  “You dealt with one.  It might not be the last on your platter, but we can hope.  Still, better to have experienced sorts to handle these kinds of things.” “Then you want me here, huh?  Or is it cosmic powers that want me here?” Juniper ran his hoof down his jaw, brushing it through his beard like he’d done all those years back when delivering rough news to grieving widows. “I won’t lie.  Much as I wish we could ride, side by side, out to bag us a few amongst the galactic ne’er-do-wells, I’m hoping it’s a while before you have to jump this particular fence.  This might be the last time we see each other while you’re on this side of things.  I need you to promise you will keep yourself safe.” “No going off the balcony, huh?” “You’ll always be my partner, kid.  I want you to live.  It’s not my choice, but you can do more good, more quickly over there than you can over here.  It takes time to learn these ropes.” I reached up and caught his face in both hooves, just holding him there so I could look up into his bright eyes for a few seconds. “Juniper, you knew I loved you, right?” “I knew,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against mine.  We held there, for a moment.  “I hear from Mags there’s a pair of sweethearts waiting for you to be back in one piece, kid.  Get it together.  They’re waiting on you.” Then that old, mischievous grin appeared and he shoved me back in the cushions before grabbing the bottom of the blanket and tossing it over my face.  I squirmed, fighting with the enormous duvet for a few seconds before yanking it off.  I found myself alone, once more, in the darkened castle chamber with only the bedside light to ward away the shadows. ---- Without an alarm clock, I’d no idea how long I’d slept.  Twelve hours?  Twenty?  It didn’t really matter.  Princess Celestia was true to her word and I remained undisturbed until at last, I came awake and couldn’t fall back asleep.  Sun was peeking between the curtains, lighting up a tiny sliver of the red carpet near the windows. My muscles felt better than they had, so I gave them a few experimental flexings here and there, finding them relatively solid.  I threw back the bed blankets and the sheets, scooting over to the edge where I found my trenchcoat folded on a chair alongside my hat, both cleaner than I’d seen them in days.  The Canterlot laundry staff somehow even managed to get some ancient stains out of my coat’s lapels.  Someone with considerable needle skills had mended a few of the holes and patched up the fraying edges, too. I picked up my coat and wiggled into it, then flipped my hat onto my head.  The hat had lost its perfumed scent, but I’d little doubt I’d have that renewed sometime soon.  Scarlet was alive.  Lily was alive.  The world hadn’t ended. Just before I headed for the door, I noticed a flat brown box that’d been sitting beneath my clothes.  I opened it and found a gun nestled inside alongside the silver chain with my badge on the end.  The weapon was an ugly, blocky thing, with a strange sheen that seemed more organic than metal. It took a moment to realize it was the Crusader, freshly painted with a layer of changeling resin.  There was no ammunition in the box.  It was a weapon carefully civilized for a more peaceful time. Without a gun harness, I was left to shutting the box and slipping it into my pocket. ---- I wandered the expansive, sunlit halls of Canterlot castle, passing maids and servants who shot me wary looks, but otherwise ignored my goings.  It wasn’t until I came to a set of gold inlaid double doors with armed and armored guards beside it that I stopped to ask for directions.  The younger of the two pointed me towards the guest wing, then offered to guide me there.  I politely declined, enjoying the little time I had remaining to gather my thoughts for the battle I felt certain was coming. After several dozen more rounded corners and two more requests for directions, I arrived in a long hallway with another pair of guards in front of one of a row of five doors whose spacing suggested small apartments.  The identical guards gave me a quick glance, then both did double takes.  I dipped my head at the guest suites. “Should I knock?” The stallion on the left flicked his eyes at the door, then back to me.  “For your safety, I wouldn’t, Sir.  There is a tennis racket just inside for if the young griffin has gotten into coffee or sugar.” Stepping between them, I put a hoof on the doorknob, then stopped.  “Is this being used as punishment duty?” The one who’d spoken opened his muzzle, then shut it and looked across at his companion who swallowed and said, “You are Hard Boiled, right?  You’re the one who brought Canterlot back from the moon?” “Skip that crap, if you please.  Your faces tell me what I need to know.  How many have you lost?” The first guard lowered his white ears and said in a conspiratorial tone, “Private Mouse Trap surprised Miss Sweet Shine bringing her towels.  She is recovering in the infirmary.  Private Gummy won’t go into libraries anymore and had to be put on light duty.  The sergeant twitches whenever somepony mentions ‘meat’ these days.  He walked in on Miss Cuddles having dinner.  She’d caught that rabbit.  It...it wasn’t cooked...” “So what did you two do to earn this gig?” I asked. They exchanged a look, then the one I’d addressed first said, “Itching powder in the lieutenant's armor.” The other added, a bit shamefacedly, “Celebrated a promotion a little too vigorously right before I had to come in for work.” “Right.”  I pulled my hat off and handed it to the guard on the left who took it, shooting me a quizzical look.  “Hold this.  Do not let it get damaged.” “Ar...are you expecting something to happen that is likely to damage you, Sir?” “Just hold the damn hat.” They popped a pair of tight salutes, and I braced before tentatively cracking the door and slipping inside. What ‘guest suite’ meant in Canterlot-speak was apparently ‘individual apartments all your own’.  The open floorplan, two story luxury chambers had ceilings tall enough for a pegasus to do laps and a couch in the front room large enough for three yaks to get comfortably spread out.  A grand staircase circled one side up to what looked like a four-poster bed overlooking the combined living room and ambassadorial dining space.  There was a full dining room table set for eight with a half-eaten basket of something that smelled distinctly of savory meat nestled in one of the chairs. I tried to swallow around the lump in my throat, but it was about the size of a possum. There they were, all four, sitting around the coffee table in front of the couch. Swift’s shining diamond eyes were focused on a book splayed out in front of her as she scribbled in it with a pen held between her teeth, stopping now and then to consider her words.  She wore her battered police armor, freshly mended, with the bunny patch still in place and joined recently by a bright orange turtle over the shoulder. My driver was meditating on a pillow so enormous it made her look like a foal sitting in the middle of it, while Limerence had his nose buried in a weathered stack of scrolls.  There was something wrong with the Archivist’s front legs and it took me a second to realize they weren’t entirely attached at the shoulders, hanging from his vest by loose threads of sinew, though he seemed to be moving them without issue.  Mags was checked out in a fruit bowl, leaving the fruit scattered on the floor as she snored like a little steam engine. I stood there staring at them, wondering how this was all meant to go. How do you say ‘Hello’ to people who you committed to sending to their deaths? I’d been ready to fail.  I knew there was always a chance we’d die in the attempt and all of us could have met up on the other side, if the other side still existed.  It was something to cling to in the dark, when all seemed lost. Sweet Shine noticed me first, opening one eye, then the other.  She blinked a few times, then slid down off her pillow and grabbed Swift’s head, gently turning it in my direction.  At the disturbance, Limerence looked towards the door as well. “Hardy?” Sweet Shine whispered. “Sir?” “It’s me.  I-I saw what you all did through the ladybug network--” Those were the last words said for about five minutes as I was piled onto like a beanbag chair in a den of Beam users.  Even Limerence was in there, upsettingly disconnected limbs finding any open space to wrap around whoever was nearby.  Mags clung to my head like a lamprey, Sweets was about to pop a rib she was holding on so tight, and Swift’s wings provided a warm blanket around us that shut out the horrors for a little while. When we finally broke apart, a stream of questions spilled out of all of them which I had no hope of answering. “--flew into the weather factory, Sir, and then we--” “--had to fight with the dragon, but I made sure--” “--alive, again, and I can’t say I like--” “--bring me any chicken, Egg Pony, cuz--” After a few seconds of this I snatched a pillow off the couch and began hitting anyone near me with it.  A pillow is a surprisingly effective means of encouraging calm in a group of overexcited people.  When I smacked Limerence with it, his horn punctured the lining and a burst of feathers filled the room. Silence settled over us and I dropped the pillow, hopping up onto the sofa.  Mags crawled into my lap and I sighed, not really able to stop myself from stroking her back.  She started purring a few seconds later and, to all appearances, went back to sleep. “Alright!  So, we expected to all be dead and we aren’t.  Questions.  We have a lot of them.  Let’s start at the top.  What happened while I was out?” My friends gave each other a series of looks which simultaneously spoke volumes and didn’t tell me much. Sweet Shine was, by quiet consensus, chosen to start.  She tapped her hooftips together a couple of times, shuffled about on the rug, tugged at her steadily regrowing braid, then gave me a helpless shrug.  “Detrot is...not going to be the same.  Might be better, definitely will be weirder.  Whoever they eventually choose as mayor is going to have their hooves full.” “Nothing we haven’t seen before.  Who is running things?  Celestia likes to sound like she’s got a handle on it, but I have doubts.” Swift unfolded a wing and pulled a battered map out of a side pocket of her bulletproof jacket, spreading it out on the coffee table.  It was covered in little white flags, all the way from the dockage district to the Heights.  There were bubbles of red, pink, blue, purple, here and there, and a few black flags scattered about.  There was an especially large black flag over the former police department headquarters. “What am I looking at?” I asked. “White flags are Miss Stella and the Stilettos, the Marked, the remains of Detrot P.D., the Underdogs, a few friendly Cyclone groups, and anyone else who enforces order in the city,” Limerence explained.  “With Gypsy, Tourniquet, and the Ladybugs monitoring basically everything that happens, we have near perfect surveillance.  The Royal Guard provide regular patrols, but our people are providing most of the civil order in the form of food distribution and getting people’s utilities back in something like working order.” Swift blinked her shining, jeweled eyes a couple times, seeming to look off into the distance before flicking back to reality.  “Sir, Tourniquet says water and electricity are going to be a problem, soon, unless we can get more engineers to repair the grid.  I...I don’t know if you saw but I did a lot of damage--” “I saw, kid.  We’re here now, so I’m calling that ‘good work’.” My partner beamed at me proudly. “People are filtering back to their homes and businesses,” Sweet Shine continued where Limerence had left off.  “I can’t say when commerce is starting again, but we’re seeing the first signs it will.”  She looked a little sick to herself as she added, “Hardy, the body cleanup alone is going to take months.  We’re doing our best to take down cutie-marks and get pictures of the dead, but the list of missing is about a street-block long.” I poked the black flag over the police department.  “What’s that?”     “That’s...a death zone,” Limerence muttered, his left foreleg rising off the ground and drawing a small circle around the former department.  “They are places that, for whatever reason, cannot be reclaimed in a timely manner and kill those who enter.  The extra-dimensional creatures Gypsy released during the fall of the Detrot Police Department are still there.  They don’t seem inclined to leave, but then neither are they against snatching anything bigger than a mouse that enters their territory.”     “And the other color flags?”     “Mostly ‘danger’ of different kinds.  Pink is ‘heavily armed bandits’.  Blue is ‘contamination’ of some kind.  The other colors are different groups who survived, roosted dragons, or other dangers. The sewers here--”  He tapped a spot near the Bay of Unity.  “--still contain Biters who have formed some kind of enclave or pack.  There are no good solutions, there.  We can keep them from hunting, but only by...well.  Slip Stitch must dispose of the deceased somewhere.”     I gave him a wide-eyed look.  “He’s feeding the damn things corpses?”     “As I said, Detective, no good solutions.  If we want to avoid widespread disease and not have to deal with additional Biter attacks, this is the best option.”     Swift waved at one of the picture windows on the far side of the room which incidentally looked out over a giant purple tower of some kind, ringed with floating gemstones the size of tanks.  “Sir, we found the spellwork that turned ponies into Biters inside the P.A.C.T. headquarters and gave it to the Academy to pick apart, but they’ve had their hooves full.  There’s something wrong with ponies’ souls!” Whatever the look on my face was, Sweet Shine picked up on it quicker than the rest. Her eyes narrowed as she asked, “Hardy...What did you do?”     ----     Telling the story a second time was quicker, if only because I wasn’t half awake and confused as to how I’d survived a trip through the mad heart of a star’s emotional problems.  There were parts I glossed over, if only because my own stomach didn’t need to contemplate exactly what’d happened too closely.  The deep self-examination could wait for the psychologist’s couch.     It kept occurring to me that whatever form of sanity that was keeping me together seemed to be holding on inertia alone and couldn’t last.  I knew there would inevitably come a moment when it broke and all of the past few months came flooding in.  I felt a bit like a lit fuse, waiting to find out exactly how big the bomb at the other end was. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long.     ---- My explanation done, my friends sat there staring at me with open muzzles. It was a funny thing, just being there with all of them, again.  Maybe it was the softness of Mags’s fur.  Maybe I’d just had enough. I wanted to fly.  I wanted to leap and frolic in the clouds.  The sky didn’t have all the dead bodies to clean up. “So, Celestia wants to give us medals at some point, I’m sure, so we better be good and sauced for that!” I said and dropped off the sofa.  “Who is up for getting drunk and ignoring everything I just said?  Sure is a pretty day outside!  Have you been out for a walk?  We should go out for a walk!” Sweet Shine was on me before I made it ten steps towards the picture window. I hadn’t particularly contemplated before hand the fact that I was about to throw myself through it, but on second consideration going to inspect a beautiful summer morning doesn’t usually happen at a flat gallop, especially not with the pony in question struggling out of their trenchcoat so as not to get blood on it, lest the fine laundry work of the castle staff be ruined. I don’t remember how she wrestled me into a traveling trunk, but I’m sure there was some assistance from Limerence and Swift.  Blessedly, I was semi-conscious for most of it; whichever nerve pinch she’d laid wasn’t a particularly mean one, but it was effective.  I imagine Gale was helping in some fashion. The guards outside did the sensible thing the second the door was opened and ran like scared bunnies. Some dragging and clunking up and down stairs followed, then there was a moment where the top of the box opened on Princess Twilight’s slightly haggard, disapproving face staring down at me before I was back in darkness.  I heard the alicorn making muffled upset noises outside, but she finally relented and agreed to whatever my driver was demanding she do.  A minute later, the interior of the trunk started glowing magenta. Blinding light filled my skull, followed by the sensation of being dropped in all directions simultaneously.