//------------------------------//
// An Audience With the Mare 
// Story: Her Eyes Reflect The Stars 
// by Lynwood 
//------------------------------//

"Hey! Wake up, stupid!"

The voice sounded soft and distorted, as if it came through water. Fittingly enough, the crashing of waves on a far-off beach accompanied it.

"What, you are dead already? I said, wake up!"

Annoyance lanced through her and she groaned. Judging from the ache in the back of her head, she hadn't been asleep more than a few hours. Her throat felt hot and dry and her nice, soft bed was so wonderfully cool. Whatever fresh hell had reared its head could wait five minutes. 

"Okay, stupid. Here comes the wave!"

The wave? she thought. What wa–

It hit her square in the face. Bitter, grainy, salty water rushed into her open mouth and nostrils and forced its way under her eyelids. She choked and gasped as the wave rolled over her, shoving her across coarse, grating sand and leaving her wheezing, struggling to open her eyes.

Princess Twilight Sparkle, ruler of Equestria, coughed and rubbed at her face with a fetlock. It didn't help. As she moaned and tried to get the sand out of her face, she noticed the laughing of an absolutely delighted mare no more than a leg's length away. Twilight's attempt at words devolved into more gasps and coughs, and as the mare finally got over her case of the giggles, the princess felt a leg curl around the back of her neck.

"Guh!" Twilight said. "Stay away!" She kicked and met nothing but thin air.

A hoof tapped against the side of her skull. "Settle down, Element! I am trying to help you!" Indeed, once Twilight let her legs go limp, the mystery mare dragged some kind of rough cloth across her face, wiping the sandy gunk out of her eyes and nostrils with quick but gentle movements. "There. Open your eyes."

Twilight rolled onto her belly and did as she asked. The mare stood before her, giving her a self-satisfied grin as she shuffled her silver-blue wings and shook out a wind-blown mane. A thick maroon scarf hung from around her neck, its end caked in sandy mud. "Much better, yes?" 

"Yes, I, ah..." Twilight's words died in her throat. Twilight lay on wet sand, where a clean blue sea stretched out beside its white-sand beach, meeting it with frothing, crashing waves. Yellow seagrass scraped at the beach's edges from a low ridge, walling them off from the rest of the world. 

"What? Who–" Twilight paused to cough up a little more seawater. "Who are you?"

"My name is Braves the Cold Waters," said the pegasus mare in a strange, harsh accent that Twilight Sparkle, receiver of foreign dignitaries and visitor to every corner of an increasingly diverse Equestria, had never heard before. "And you are Twilight Sparkle. The princess." 

"Yes, I'm the..." Twilight blinked. "This isn't my bedroom," she said.

"That is true," said Braves the Cold Waters.

"This isn't the palace."

"Yes."

"This isn't Canterlot."

The mare sighed and rolled her eyes. "You catch on very fast, eh?"

Twilight felt a hot blush spread across her face. She rose to her full height and fixed her most stern, disapproving stare down on the pegasus. "Listen carefully, Braves the Cold Waters. I've just woken up on a beach instead of the capital city during the worst crisis in Equestrian history. In case you've forgotten, national stability is my responsibility, so you had better tell me where I am and how to get to Canterlot right now. Ponies are in danger and I–"

"Ah-ah," Braves the Cold Waters said with a wave of her hoof. "No ponies are in danger." Then she paused and put the tip of her hoof to her chin. "Well, no more than usual, at least."

The princess snorted and stamped her hoof. "You clearly don't understand what you're talking about. I need to return to Canterlot immedia–"

"There is no Mountain City, no Canterlot, no crisis." The mare looked her right in the eye, her nonchalance gone in an instant. "I never thought I would be somepony to say this, but Twilight Sparkle, there is no more Equestria. The great battle with the machines is over long ago."

"What?" The gravity of the mare's words felt like a punch to the chest, and Twilight snorted. "Is this some kind of joke? Braves the Cold Waters, it could be considered a crime against the Crown to obstruct matters of national security."

The silvery mare shook her head. "No crimes, no crown. I can prove it to you." She pointed a hoof behind herself, down the beach. "This way is a town. 'Clearwater's Coast', they call it. If you fly there with me, I can show you."

"A town?" Twilight tilted her head. The name sounded familiar, but it was nigh-impossible to keep track of every tiny town on Equestria's coasts. "Yes, of course. I'll be able to meet with the elongation patrol stationed there. They'll be able to actually help me."

The mare snorted and spread her wings. "Follow me, Twilight Sparkle."



It felt strange to fly.

Twilight hadn't flown herself in weeks. When teleportation wouldn't do, she'd summon her best Guard pegasi to pull a chariot faster than she could ever fly herself. 

The yellow seagrass below was remarkably barren. From up high, Twilight could see that the grasses apparently stretched on and on, bleeding from the beach's dunes and flowing over the coastline's hills. They danced in the wind, giving each invisible gust a form as they swayed in harmonic waves. Not a single tree disturbed the grass's surface. She racked her brain, trying to recall which part of Equestria's coastline was so overwhelmingly barren.

The princess would have asked the pegasus about it had they not arrived at the seaside town so quickly. 'Clearwater's Coast' consisted of nothing more than two dozen or so structures all huddled at the foot of a dock, like they were bracing against the wind and the waves. Braves the Cold Waters banked towards the meager cluster of ramshackle buildings, somehow constructed of wood despite the complete lack of trees, and made to land in its quaint little town square. Twilight followed her impromptu guide and they both landed with a little flurry of hoof-tracked sand.

Right away, things began to feel more normal. About a dozen or so townsponies streamed out of homes and side-streets towards them, oohing and aahing at the sight of their princess. "That's better," Twilight muttered before raising her head and summoning her best authoritative princess voice.

"My little ponies of Clearwater's Coast," she began, bringing a hush over the small crowd, "I am overjoyed to see that your home is unharmed, and as much as I love visiting all places in Equestria, I fear I have little time. I must speak to your local EUP Guard station. Can somepony please direct me to the pony in command?"

The ponies all stared at her with a mix of awe and, strangely, confusion. Not one of them responded to her. After a long, stretching moment, a stallion stepped forward, an older pegasus with the same silver-blue coat as Braves the Cold Waters. He spoke not to Twilight, but to the mare beside her.

"Daughter," he said in the same thick accent, "you have not told the princess Element?"

Braves the Cold Waters rolled her eyes. "I have tried, and she will not listen. I was about to show her the Journal."

Twilight cleared her throat. "I am sorry to be hasty, my little ponies, but there simply isn't time–"

"There is time," the pegasus interrupted. Again. "Come with me."

The princess shook her head. "I need to see the local guards, Braves the Co–"

"We will find the guards after. And please call me 'Braves', Twilight Sparkle."

"Of course, Braves," the princess responded through gritted teeth.

The pegasus led her to what appeared to be the settlement's main warehouse: a long, rectangular structure near the dock running parallel to the ocean. She shouldered her way through an unlocked door, ignoring what protocols such a building might have had. Twilight followed with a little more hesitation. She searched for a clerk or a worker, but the building held nothing but rows upon rows of shelves and crates and an overwhelming odor of fish.

As they walked, in the light of grimy, uncleaned windows, Twilight examined the countless shelves. They held food, mostly— a veritable hoard of unlabeled cans— but she spotted heaps of fishing gear, too. She examined the buoys and floats and nets piled high on the rickety old shelves, wondering how long they had been there as they walked. 

Braves the Cold Waters brought her to the very end of the building, to an ancient-looking rack huddled into the back corner. Somepony had stored a scrawny collection of dusty books on its middle shelf, leaned against what appeared to be a little crate of old clothing.

"Here," Braves said, plucking one of the books off the shelf with her teeth. "Take this. Read."

Twilight blinked. "What is it? How does this relate to the Guard station?"

"Just read."

The princess rolled her eyes, took the old book in her magic, and opened it to the first page.



Princess Twilight Sparkle, sovereign supreme of a dead nation, closed the Journal. She studied its faded green felt cover and its fraying gold-thread binding, turning it this way and that in the dying evening light. Once, long ago, this book had been different. It had been printed with a scientific treatise, perhaps, or a thrilling novel. Maybe it had even been somepony's hoofwritten diary. What had been erased when it was enchanted with the Journal spell? What had been lost forever? How many times had this happened? Why did it have to happen? 

"It was desperation," she whispered. "It was sacrificed in the name of winning an impossible battle." 

"I, ah... do not understand," said Braves the Cold Waters, who sat only a foreleg away. It was the first words she'd said since Twilight had opened the Journal.

The princess blinked and looked down at the smaller pony. "I'm sorry, Braves. It's... a lot to take in."

The pegasus studied her silvery hooves and her mussed-up mane fell over part of her face. "I do not know what it is like to be you, Princess Twilight Sparkle," she said. "Are you okay?"

The alicorn swallowed. "We failed so many ponies. So many were hurt, and you all just..." she trailed off at the mare's shake of her head.

"No, Twilight Sparkle. Not us. Your crisis— the Event— was very very long ago. Many generations, enough to mostly forget. To us alive today, it is more like a sad memory." She smiled at Twilight through the grime-stained sunbeams filtering through the warehouse's musty air. "The world is not so bad. Not perfect, but there is safety and kindness to be found. My family and I came here to the land of our ancestors in our time of need and they welcomed us with open hooves, yes?" She chuckled a little. "Very patient they were as we learned the old language."

"Your family?" The princess sniffled. "Oh, yes, of course. Your father was there when we arrived."

Braves' smile grew wider. "Yes, he and my sister, and I would like very much for you to meet them," she said as she rose to her hooves. "Would you like to join us for dinner, Twilight Sparkle?"

The princess took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and gave the pegasus a little smile. "I would love to, Braves. And please, call me Twilight."



Rather unsurprisingly, the main dish in Clearwater's Coast was fish. It wasn't that Twilight had never eaten fish before, she'd hosted enough Griffon ambassadors to get used to it, but it never quite went down right. Not like a good daisy sandwich did, anyway. Still, even after three weeks of nothing but war room meetings and fitful nights, she recalled her table etiquette perfectly.

No, Twilight reminded herself as she swallowed down a bite of baked salmon and halfheartedly listened to Braves' story of her discovery on the beach, my last political dinner wasn't three weeks ago, it was centuries. Maybe more. 

"So, Princess," said the stallion seated across from her, grabbing her from her unsettlingly cold train of thought, "I have seen many of them in my time, but I always wondered what those magic books have written in them. There are rumors, of course, but, you know... only a true Element can read them, yes? Would you, ah, indulge me?"

The princess blinked at the father's straightforwardness, caught off-guard and struggling to recall the odd name Braves had given her. The other pony in the room, Braves' younger sister, beat her to the punch.

"Father!" the sister cried. "What has happened to your manners?"

Twilight smiled as she remembered his name and raised a disarming hoof. "No, no, it's quite alright. To answer your question, Soars in Storms, it's quite a lot. It's very difficult to follow at times, especially early on, when my friends and I were apparently still struggling to contact one another through our... condition." 

She neglected to mention the fact that she didn't actually remember doing any of this. It all felt as if somepony else had taken up the name Twilight Sparkle and accomplished an astonishing amount.

The alicorn pushed the unsettling feeling away and continued. "To actually answer your question, though, it contains an astonishing amount of memoirs, interactions, and notes. The sheer volume of people we've met, the experiences we've had, both good and bad... I don't quite know how to process it all, really."

The younger sister leaned forward, her eyes wide and her plate of salmon and dried kelp forgotten for the moment. "Does it really have entries from the old days?" she said in the same thick accent as her father and sister. Rides the Cool Winds Twilight recalled. She noticed the way that Rides flapped one of her wings when she was excited, but only one. A quick, discreet glance showed her why— her other wing only twitched at her side, a ragged flap of feathers and misaligned bone.

"No," Twilight replied, pulling her eyes away before she stared, "at least, not that I can tell. I think these Journals came about some years after the, um..." 

Piles of casualty reports. Crossing Dodge City out with a quick stroke of an overused quill. A photo of something that used to be a mother.

Twilight noticed that the little sister fixed her wide-eyed stare directly upon her. "...after the Event. Based on the earliest entries, my friends and I seem to have had some way of communicating with each other across iterations, though it must have been inefficient. I think that's why the first entries are decades afterward." She felt an unprincessly blush rise to her cheeks. "I'm not sure, though. That's just a theory."

"A strange problem to solve, to be sure," the father chuckled. "How can one converse with a pony one never meets? And yet, you and yours have solved this generations ago."

"Mm-hmm," Braves nodded and hummed through a full mouth.

A warmth welled up in Twilight's chest. "Yes, my friends have overcome a great deal. The struggles in this book... the accomplishments... I'm so proud..."

The princess realized once again that she'd stared at her half-finished plate for a few beats too long and cleared her throat, willing the tears back. "But, ah, it'd take a lifetime to go over everything. In the most recent section, though, there are some very interesting notes." Twilight hoped they wouldn't ask about her pause.

"Oh?" said Braves the Cold Waters. "What's that?" All three pegasi fixed their eyes on Twilight. 

The alicorn smiled. "Well, the Journal details a kind of... magical compass. It's built from pieces of reclaimed magic from the machines, believe it or not. The notes are fairly confident that if we can find the last component, we can end this, once and for all."

Twilight didn't think Rides' eyes could open any wider. "What component?" she asked, her one wing flapping on her back.

"An eye rune. They're fairly rare because they only appeared on the bigger machines, and most wrecks are so destroyed the rune didn't survive or so old they've been picked clean. We've been searching for a while, apparently." Or so pages and pages of frustrated entries in the Journal implied.

Braves blinked and looked at her father. "Hey, just like in the family story."

"Yeah!" Rides said with a smile. "If the town was hidden enough, it might still be there!"

"What family story?" Twilight ventured, before quickly following up with: "That is, if you're willing to share it with an outsider like me. I wouldn't want to intrude."

"No intrusion, it is all alright." The father dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. "Our family fled from the mainland long ago, but we have a story from then. From long ago, when the old nation's ashes still smoked. One of our ancestors once lived in a hidden town deep in the northern mountains. It was attacked by a machine very much like the ones you describe. Our ancestor managed to bring down the beast, but the town was destroyed, so he is said to have fled west."  

"Really?" Twilight's head raised a little, and he had to remember not to scrape the tip of her horn on the ceiling. "None of the entries mentioned the northern range. If it's there..." 

"You should fly there and search!" said Braves the Cold Waters, practically bouncing in her seat.

"Tell me, though," said Soars in Storms, "what exactly will this magical compass find?"

"The one responsible for all this."

That brought silence to the family. Braves and her father shared a tense look while her sister immediately deflated and began picking at her plate. Twilight swallowed, realizing that she'd brought the conversation to an abrupt end.

"Ahem," the father said as he stood, "I will take your plate, Princess."

The family began clearing away the dinner and Twilight made herself scarce, slipping out the backdoor and sitting the squat one-story home's yard. It had been cleared of the yellow-green grass that stretched over the horizon and, according to her notes, covered a great deal of what had been Equestria. Rows of homemade planters stood in the cleared yard, complete with shore-slate walkways and a variety of flowers. Many of them looked vaguely familiar, and it took a while for Twilight to put her hoof on why.

Roseluck, she eventually realized. She had a shop near Golden Oaks, on my route to the Boutique.

Twilight's ears pivoted at the sound of squeaky hinges and she turned around. "I'm sorry for tonight," she said as Braves carefully shut her home's back door behind her.

"Ah, it is not your mistake," she said, her voice heavy. "Remember when I spoke of our family's, ah, time of need?" 

The princess nodded and Braves sighed. She walked to Twilight's side and sat beside her. She looked ashen in the starlight.

"We used to live over the Great Ocean with my aunt and my little cousin," she began. "One day, when we were visiting an island, my cousin went missing. After we found him, he was... different. Not right."

Oh, dear, Twilight thought as a cold, wet stone slipped into her gut.

"He got sick. Stopped remembering things. Us. Woke from nightmares constantly. Then he started raving about... Her."

Twilight said nothing while Braves took a shuddering breath.

"He changed in the night. We heard my aunt cry out and rushed in, but there was nothing we could do." She shivered for a beat. "My cousin came after us next. In the end, we managed to strangle him with fishing wire, but... well, you saw my sister's wing, yes?"

The princess nodded.

"After that, we couldn't stay in our cloud home, not with my sister at risk of falling. Father refused to return to the island, so we came here..." She sighed. "We have been, trying to, ah, fit in, I suppose."

Twilight tried to find words. "...I'm sorry," she eventually said.

Braves muttered under her breath in a language Twilight didn't recognize, then shook her head and spoke again. "I mean to say that it is not your fault you reminded us of this, but that is not why I joined you out here." When she raised her head, she looked Twilight in the eye. "I am going to join you."

The princess blinked. "Do you, uh, mean that you want to join me?"

Braves' gaze turned sharp and hard. "That thing that took my cousin. I want it gone. I want it gone forever. I don't want it to hurt us anymore. So. I am going with you. " 

"But your family–"

"I already spoke with them. I've wanted this for a long time, princess."

Twilight chewed the inside of her cheek. "Well, my time is limited. Having another set of hooves with me could only help." Then she smiled. "I'd love to have you along, Braves the Cold Waters."

Braves smiled. "We leave in the morning."



They found the machine on the fifth day of travel. 

The valley was nestled between two ridges, set apart from the world by snowcapped peaks and crags for miles, save for a thin, stubborn little valley. Spring had cleared the shallow bowl of snow and painted it with a carpet of yellow and pink wildflowers. A cute little stream bisected them, running from the higher slopes to the lower. Fluttershy would have squealed with delight. 

The machine still caught the eye, even after such a long time crumpled in the middle of the valley. The wildflowers covered its form and softened its harsh edges. "It looks like a massive pony on its side," Twilight said as they circled over the peaks.

"What?" called Braves over the rushing wind.

Twilight shook her head and pointed down at the wildflowers before banking downwards. The duo coasted down to a soft, easy landing in the beautiful mountain meadow. The princess shivered, thankful for the respite from the biting northern winds.

The place's history was evident from ground level. The barest bits of walls and foundations poked up from between the wildflowers' shade, the imprints of what had once been a bustling town. A town that had been built, prospered, razed, and decayed to nothing but a shadow in some flowers while Twilight had caught what'd felt like two hours of sleep. 

She felt a rush of lightheadedness. "Oh, dear," she murmured.

"Twilight," said Braves.

"Y-yes?" she replied as she began walking to the machine, still feeling unsteady.

"When we get the rune, what do we do next?"

The machine loomed overhead as Twilight trotted into its shadow. She lit her horn, pulling off swathes of loamy earth and flowers. Its carapace shined underneath. Not quite rock, not quite metal. Something different.

The princess blinked and realized she'd never responded to Braves' question. "Oh, sorry. What did you say?" 

She heard an annoyed grunt from behind, along with some muttered words she didn't understand. "What will we do with the rune?"

"Oh, yes, the rune!" Twilight said as she spotted the faded grooves in a plate of the thing's armor. Circles within circles within circles. The eye rune. It certainly stood up to its name. "There's a device that my friends and I have—nngh—that we've apparently built. Can you give me a hoof here?" Twilight frowned as she yanked at the obstinate plate of mettalic stone.

Braves flew herself up to the rune, edged her hooves underneath the lip of the plate, and pulled with all her might. "Ugh! Where is this machine?"

"In my old home! Ponyville!"

The plate came loose with a flare of Twilight's horn and a loud Pop! that echoed off the valley walls. It flipped through the air and landed in the soft dirt at an odd angle, like the blade of an oversized spade. The machine groaned.

"Aah!" Braves cried as it rumbled beneath her hooves. She took off with frantic wings and a sound like the skittering of hooves on stone, crystal-barbed tendrils trembling all around her. 

The machine attempted to raise itself up on its remaining legs. It made it about five pony-heights and listed to the side, slamming back into the flowers at a new angle, one that faced its gaping eye socket directly at her. Then it made the sound like shrieking metal and spoke.

"I have waited for you," it said in a horrid, wet voice. The machine moved no more.

A moment passed as Twilight and Braves gaped at the pile of stone and metal. "Oh, my." 

Braves made a little surprised sound overhead. "Hey, what's that?" she said, pointing at a spot of disturbed soil where a shock of deep blue peeked out from mounds of pulled-up flowers and fresh earth. The princess approached with careful steps, flicking her eyes at the dead machine as she walked. 

The machine had been laying on what appeared to be the ruins of a house. It'd been preserved, crushed underneath the machine's weight for who knew how long. Twilight spotted floorboards, shards of glass, what looked to be the mangled remains of a spear, and there, in the middle, Rarity's cloak. She would have had a fit at the mud soaking into its silver-blue fur lining.

"The Rarity from the story," Braves murmured. 

Twilight ignored her, lifting the cloth with her magic. She dispelled the grime and dirt and brought it closer, wrapping it around her neck. She'd grown during her rule, but it still managed to find a graceful way to fall about her withers.

"Princess?" Braves said, giving her a concerned look from above. "Are you alright?"

Twilight spread her wings. "It's time to go."



A day's flight later, at Braves' advice, they skirted around Canterlot on their approach, deftly avoiding the few serpentine shapes flittering around its dark and silent towers before swinging down towards Ponyville.

"Do you see the Children in the streets?" Braves said, flying nearby so Twilight could hear her over the rushing wind. "I hope we do not have to search any buildings!"

"I know where it is!" Twilight called back as she pointed her hoof. "My old castle!"

The Castle of Friendship had certainly seen better days, but Twilight ignored its gashes and missing spires and landed on the uppermost balcony. They passed through a room cluttered with a shocking amount of saddlebags before making their way downstairs, careful not to touch the jags of golden crystal sprouting from the walls—the same kind that Twilight had spotted smothering the base of the castle. The corrupted veins crept everywhere but no light glowed from within. They were dark and dead, frozen in their act of infection long ago.

"What happened here?" Braves asked, echoing Twilight's thoughts. The princess couldn't find an answer.

Somehow, through all of it, the Golden Oaks' roots had survived. They'd shriveled into dry husks, and a few twigs had snapped off, and most of the shimmering jewels hanging from their tips had fallen to shatter on the Cutie Map below, but it was still there, largely intact. 

Most of the colorful shards had been swept away to make room for a mass of mismatched metal and runes written on everything from sandstone to what looked like ice. It hugged the left side of the table, and it sprouted a number of cables and artificial leylines that ran into the base of the dormant Cutie Map. A gaping hole dominated the device's center. 

Twilight's eyes danced over the machine and she found herself taking shaky steps towards it. It must have been decades' worth of work, from countless incarnations of her friends... and herself. She smiled when she noticed faded balloon stickers smacked over one corner, and she rolled her eyes when she saw the 'Rainbow found this!' graffiti written on the side of a banged-up thaumic resonator. She nearly burst into tears when she noticed the note stuck next to the hole: 
'Don't give up! I love you!'

Braves hesitated beside her, unnoticed, while the princess placed her hoof on the side of the machine. "I'll see you soon," she whispered, levitating the eye rune from her bags. With a little tinkering, a little adjusting, and a little thanking to whoever designed the rune's slot, Twilight clicked the slab of stonish metal into place.

The machine began to hum and whir, and then beside it, the Cutie Map leapt to life. The two ponies took startled steps back while it projected its map of Equestria, flickering and crackling, into the world. Then, just as it had generations ago, a symbol sprang up; not a cutie mark, but the eye rune itself. It floated above the hologram's Castle of Friendship for a moment, then slowly hovered to a place on the very eastern edge of what had been Haysead Swamp.

Beside her, Braves the Cold Waters made a venomous smile. "There you are."



The machine was enormous. It was large enough to split the sizeable river it lay in into two streams. Even laying on the ground it was bigger than Twilight could have ever imagined. It could have crushed the entire Castle of Friendship with a single step. Even from the air, they could only see its ten massive legs sprouting out from beneath the entire hill that it had lifted on its back.

"Stars above," Twilight said as she hovered far above it. "This is what we were up against?" Her heart felt cold and slow.

Braves' face had gone ashen. "I'm more worried about what's inside." She said, pointing at the conical valley in the crown of its hill.

The princess turned to her companion. "Braves. Thank you for coming with me, but you don't need to follow me in."

The pegasus nodded. "I'll... look for you out here."

"Whatever happens, I hope we meet again." Twilight swallowed and dove towards the machine.

When she stood on the crest of its hill, she could almost pretend she was in the dead swamp, except for the massive legs in all directions. With a shiver, Twilight made her way to the valley, but as she ventured down its slopes she realized the grass was growing in a distinct steplike pattern. With a start, she realized it wasn't a valley, it was a quarry. A very very old, quarry. She wondered what had really happened to General Gustavus as she stepped into the cave at its bottom.

The sunlight faded quickly, and the ground became damp. The cave walls glimmered in her horn's light as they slowly transitioned to carved, engraved stone, littered with the eye rune among countless others. The remains of statues jutted up out of the smooth stone floor, their broken pieces cluttered around their stumplike legs.

The cave led to a mighty underground river, flowing unimpeded in the dark. Twilight took flight and flew upstream for what felt like hours, and eventually, she reached its source: a wellspring pool of swirling black water.



She landed in its shallows, and looked around for a sign of somepony... or something. Her heart felt cold as ice, but she swallowed her fear and spoke into the spring's dark and clouded waters. "I must speak to you." She twitched at the echo. "I have come here to speak with the Long-Legged Mare." 

"So speak, my little regent," the Mare said in her warm, dead voice because she'd always stood in the pool. The dark, fetid water reached her fetlocks. Her head hung like a steel weight and her knotted, matted mane fell around her horn and over her eyes. Her wings hung by her torn sides, limp and tangled. 

Twilight gasped but didn't cry out, refusing to step back. "You're another alicorn, like me."

"We are very alike, stranger." the Mare responded too quickly. She didn't meet Twilight's eye.

The princess shivered, standing firm. "I'm here to stop you. To stop all of this."

The Mare smiled a rotted, broken-toothed fang-filled smile and said, "Aren't you curious, my daughter?"

"Why would I be curious?"

"You wish to know why." The smile grew even wider. "Why I killed your world." 

Twilight shivered at the cold. "So then... why'd it happen?"

She said nothing, only smiling.

"Why did you do this?" Twilight snorted and stepped forward. The mare didn't even shift. "You will look at me! Why would you ruin my–"

The mare's head snapped up and Twilight saw the eyes within eyes within rings within rings of iris sclera colors blending together pits she knew recognized receding far far into the back of the head endless pits funnels that gaped open into eyes within eyes numerous as the stars and far more cold swallowing her screaming as she fell and sobbed and cried at the top of her lungs "stop it stop it stop–" 

Twilight hit the shallow water with a splash and a smack of flesh on stone. She moaned, her voice weak, while the thing standing before her lowered its dripping head. The wet snapping of flesh-bound bone echoed off the stone walls as the long-legged mare brought her mouth to Twilight's ear without taking a step. Her breath felt wet and warm and smelled of bile.

"We are the same, daughter," she hissed through broken teeth, "different only by our time. You will be like me."

A flare of anger jumped in Twilight's chest and she groaned, struggling to her feet. Water dripped from her fur as she shuddered and spoke. "I will never be like you."

The mare only smiled her haunting, jagged-tooth smile at Twilight. "You have found me, filly.  You've come further than most. Do you wish for answers? " 

Twilight remained silent, letting her magic gather in her horn. 

"Then what do you desire? I so enjoy a bargain..." She chuckled out of a gaping hole in her chest. 

The spell's light cast sharp shadows on the shining walls. The Mare's shadow had too many limbs, twitching and flailing. "Let all of us go. Me, my friends, my ponies. Haven't you tortured long enough?"

"I have never tortured, scholar," it hummed out of tune. "I have what I want. What will you pay me?"

Twilight racked her brain, trying to remember all she knew about the thing before her. "What do you even want?"

"Nine, seven, six, two, eight. Six, nine, nine, nine, five. All those that lie between. The answer was always there." 

The answer came to her in one clear, cold instant. In her heart, Twilight knew the idea hadn't been hers. "Memories, me and my friends'. However many others you've taken." 

"Do we have a deal?"

She let the spell go.



"Hey! What happened? Did it work?"

Twilight opened her eyes. A clear blue sky, framed with tall, yellow grass, stared right back. She blinked. "Did what work?" she responded out of politeness more than anything.

A pegasus mare flew into her view, hovering just before her― or just overhead, depending on how she thought about it. Twilight was sure she'd seen the mare somewhere. A name danced just on the edge of her tongue. There was no hurry, thankfully, because the pegasus wasn't even looking at her. Instead, she stared off to the princess' side, her mouth gaping.

"Twilight... you should sit up, I think."

The princess decided to ask the obvious questions later and rolled onto her belly. Her closest friends lay in her clearing, too, fast asleep. They looked as exhausted as she felt.

Twilight blinked and studied the mare. Her coat was an eye-catching silver-blue and her mane had been swept back by her flight. A thick maroon scarf hung around her neck, loose in the heat. The name would come to her any minute now.

"Who are you? Why are my friends and I here? Also, where is here?"

The mare seemed surprised to hear that. She blinked, and instead of providing an answer, turned to look at a rather odd hill a little ways away.

"Hello?"

"Ah!" The mare turned back. "I am, uh... Braves the Cold Waters."

Twilight smiled. "That's a lovely name," she said, and meant it.

"Oh my living stars."

Twilight and Braves both yelped and spun to face the new voice. A pith-helmeted unicorn stallion, apparently unknown to Braves, stepped out into the clearing, followed shortly by a saddlebagged earth pony mare, a second unicorn stallion, and a pegasus mare that looked like she could give Big Mac a run for his bits in a hoof-wrestle. She was nearly tall enough to look Twilight in the eye.

They all gaped at Twilight with wide eyes, but that was nothing compared to their faces once they spotted her still-sleeping friends. The first stallion took a step towards them, and Twilight immediately placed herself in his way. A moment hardly passed before the massive and rather intimidating pegasus mare matched her, placing herself squarely between Twilight and the rather scrawny-looking unicorn stallion. She locked her eyes with Twilight, who found herself readying a spell.

"Ah!" The little stallion squeaked. "Auburn! That's no way to treat a princess!" The mare snorted but didn't move until he pressed a hoof against her shoulder and gently pushed her aside. Then he cleared his throat, straightened his neck, and began to speak in a confident voice.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle, it's an honor to meet you. I am Quick Quill, and these are my fellows, Four Score, Steady Compass, and our bodyguard Auburn." The earth pony and unicorn behind him waved hesitantly, still looking a little shellshocked. Auburn huffed, her stonelike demeanor unchanged. 

"Erm... charmed," Twilight managed. Beside her, Braves matched Auburn's suspicious stare.

"It's... well, I can't really put into words how excited I am to see you all here. To put it bluntly, this is beyond my wildest hopes and dreams for our little expedition."

The princess shook her head. Too much was happening too fast. "I'm sorry, where am I? What is this? I should be at the Canterlot Palace, and my friends should be... I don't know. How did we get here? What's going on? I'd like to speak to a guardspony right away."

"That, well..." Quick Quill rubbed the back of his neck. "That's going to take some explaining. Tell me, do you know the tale of the Long-Legged Mare?"

Twilight couldn't say she had.