Diamond took a slow, deep breath. No. She was NOT going to find her predecessor adorable. The mare was at LEAST twice her age. Probably more like three times. If she counted the time after her passing, it was likely four or five times times. Okay so a lot older and she didn’t know the exact number. She supposed she could try and calculate it out, find out how old the mare really was, but who cared?
But watching a pony many times her age hop around like a giddy school foal and giggle with excitement was oddly adorable. Even if she was annoyed that her predecessor decided THIS was how she was going to make her appearance, she couldn’t help finding it endearing.
“Yes yes yes yes yes--” Twilight’s eyes then opened and she eeped, coming to a stop.
Diamond smiled, cocking an eye. “Are you okay?”
“Eh heh heh. Ummm… yes,” Twilight said sheepishly.
“Mind telling me what that was about?” Diamond asked.
“I made contact with an ancient avatar,” Twilight said proudly. “A really, really, really old one. Supposedly the third one.”
Diamond’s eyes went wide, her mouth falling open. “Wait, WHAT?”
“I know, right?” Twilight said. “It really adds a lot of credence to the notion that I am more than just a memory! Or not, who knows? But it’s fascinating. Am I a soul? Are we all just one soul experiencing multiple lives? Or are we something else, a spirit that possibly thinks it’s a pony, or fused with a pony, or who knows what? But it seems if I try hard enough I can still act on the world! I’m beginning to think I AM more than just a memory. Or maybe I’mnot and you just think I do and so I am perceived as thinking this. I mean, I think I’m thinking this but I suppose you can’t--”
Diamond gave a groan and face hoofed. She had a headache already. Why was her predecessor such an egghead? “The point, do you have it?”
“What? Oh! Right! Sorry,” Twilight said sheepishly. “The third avatar. Val.”
“Val?” Diamond asked. “That doesn’t sound like a very pony name.”
“Oh, it happens from time to time,” Twilight said. “Rather than giving pony’s names like ‘Sunset’ or ‘Diamond’, they’d get partial names. For example, you’d be Dia, I’d be Twi, he was likely Valley or Valiant. But that’s not important! Well, actually it is. You see it crops up from time to time where--”
“Can I talk with Val now?” Diamond asked.
“Uhhhh…” Twilight said softly before giving a nervous gulp. “I ummm… I only met him. I couldn’t really… get to him.”
“You said you made contact,” Diamond said.
“Made contact. Then he kind of… threw me out,” Twilight said sheepishly. “Twice. I don’t think he wants to talk.”
“Well, we’re going to see about that,” Diamond said. She closed her eyes and started to dig, only to pause and open her eyes after a moment. “Twilight?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. I know you might not… well… approve of this,” Diamond said. “But I have to know. I can’t do this if I don’t.”
“I know,” Twilight said.
“Could you?” Diamond asked.
“Maybe,” Twilight said. “It depends on how mad I was or how emotional I was.”
“If it was Discord?” Diamond asked.
“Oh, in a second,” Twilight said. “No hesitation, just bam. Destroyed. Gone. Just zap. Not even that hard to consider. Bye bye big meany.”
“Then Silver?” Diamond asked.
“… I imagine she is a lot like Trixie,” Twilight said. “Another broken, tainted soul.”
“Trixie killed you,” Diamond said.
“She did,” Twilight said. “And that was partially my fault. But… I can’t say for certain I wouldn’t have made that mistake again. I knew she was capable of it. But I had to try. I’ve seen so many ponies do terrible things, make terrible choices. But I’ve seen those same ponies do everything they can to fix their mistakes. I wanted to offer Trixie the same chance. I think a part of me still does, silly as it sounds.”
“So you’d give her another chance to?” Diamond asked.
“Well, somewhat,” Twilight said. “I’d likely keep her at leg’s reach the whole time and knock her on her flank if she tried anything. Not let my guard down around her. But maybe. She was broken, Diamond. That was what Discord did. He broke ponies. He hurt us, played with us, toyed with us, destroyed us. But most of all? He broke us. He took everything we were and changed it into something else entirely. Made us into something we despised. He’d take the deepest, darkest, smallest bit of us that we loathe and make it all we were. Just to see what happened. To him it was all just a game, he didn’t see us as equals. Just toys. I can’t know how much of Trixie was truly Trixie and how much was his influence.”
“I heard the stories, though,” Diamond said. “Only Nightmare Moon was said to be possessed by his power, right?”
Twilight shook her head. “The main portion of it, yes. But his influence spread and left so much destruction in its wake. Perhaps Trixie was a monster that reveled in the environment. Or maybe she was another victim. I thought I could save her.”
“You trapped her though, didn’t you?” Diamond asked.
“I was hopeful,” Twilight said. “But I wasn’t a foal. I knew there was a chance she might be irredeemable and kill me. I had to be sure that, should I fall, she’d never hurt anypony again. Were it just me, I likely wouldn’t have. But that’s part of our responsibility. We have to consider everypony else. Honestly, I think that’s why the Element of Magic took the form of a crown. Though, for you, I think it would have been a tiara.”
“Oh? Because the Avatar rules?” Diamond asked with a light chuckle.
“No,” Twilight said. “Because the Avatar is responsible. For everypony. The world rests on our heads and there are times we have to make the choices nopony else has to. Should have to. More than that, we have to bear that burden afterwards. It’s a heavy weight, that crown.”
Diamond’s smile faded and she gave a nod. “Could you have killed one of your friends? If they’d turned? If they were Discord?”
Twilight stopped for a moment before finally shaking her head. “No. I don’t think I could have. I may have tried, but I don’t think I could have. But…”
“But?” Diamond asked.
“Discord tried every trick he could on us,” Twilight said. “He took what he could from us. Changed how we saw the world. Did all he could to break us. He even gave us everything we wanted at times. But even then we could fight him off eventually. We lost so many battles, but we won the war. If that time came, I would trust my friends to fight him off and become themselves.”
“And if they were Discord himself?” Diamond asked.
Twilight gave another soft sigh before shaking her head. “I don’t know. I really don’t, I’m sorry. That’s something you’ll need to figure out on your own. In the end, Diamond, you are the Avatar now. I can only offer advice and guidance, as our predecessors did for me. But just like them, sometimes I’ll be right, sometimes I’ll be wrong. You were chosen for a reason, Diamond. But I can’t say I know what it was.”
Diamond nodded and closed her eyes again. “Thank you.”
She was greeted with silence. She reached deep within herself. “Come on, Val. Valley. Valiant. Valuable. Val-something. Get your flank out here.”
Nothing happened. She rolled her eyes but kept digging. “Come on, I know you’re in there. Twilight may be a massive egghead, but she’s smart. If she found you and you’re the third then I know you’re there. Come out.”
She was greeted by silence.
“Don’t think I can’t do this all day. I’m an earth pony, we’re very stubborn.”
Still, silence.
“Fine then,” Diamond said before she started to sing, poorly. “Val was a pony who didn’t want to show, so I kept bugging him because he did blow. He never--”
“FINE!” a voice said, the frustration evident in his voice. “Just stop THAT.”
Diamond opened her eyes and saw a black coated unicorn with a pure white mane. “Was that so hard? Val, I take it?”
“Yes, Val,” the pony said bitterly. “You shouldn’t have called me.”
“I kind of had to,” Diamond said with a small smile. “I--”
“No, you didn’t,” Val said. “I told Twilight to leave me be, and I’ll tell you the same. There is nothing you’ll learn from me worth it.”
“And yet, I need to,” Diamond said. “So please, tell me about yourself. Tell me about your home. Tell me--”
“Very well, Avatar. But I did warn you,” Val said before his eyes glowed. The world around them shuddered and then faded away. A moment later they were hovering over a wasteland. She could see a city surrounded by a great wall. It took her a few moments to realize what else she could see.
The portal to the Spirit World that they had come through. They were in the badlands, at the place where Twilight’s village had been. Except there was a city in its place. So long ago that she doubted anypony had even an inkling it had been like this once. The fields between the city and the portal were torn to pieces, spikes of stone rising up from it.
“My name is Val, I was the third Avatar. The only Avatar who was worse, who did more damage, than the first. Than Nyx,” Val said.
“W-what?” Diamond asked. “What… happened? What is this place?”
“The battlefield,” Val said bitterly. “War. Destruction. That was my life, Avatar.”
Below them the fields came alive. Spirits, no, monsters flowed out from the portal while ponies flowed from the city. They ran into each other. Bending, weapons, fighting desperately to tear each other apart. All of them were fuzzy, slightly oozing and disjointed, as if she was watching the scene through a window that was soaking wet.
“The first Avatar started this,” Val said, the pain evident in his voice. “But I won this war. Oh by the stars I won this war. In doing so, I destroyed everything I held dear. My predecessor, the second Avatar, sought peace. She tried to fix this, tried to repair the bonds between our people. Between us and the spirits. She died in her quest. I refused to allow that to happen to me.”
Diamond felt like she was going to be sick. The world below seemed to rush by rapidly. New homes were built, new defenses. Then they’d be destroyed, battles raging on wildly, rapidly. Spirits against ponies.
“A spirit is something else,” Val said softly. “Alive in its own way, it can’t truly die. It can change, alter. But it doesn’t die. Our war was one we could never hope to win. We could drive them back, but we couldn’t win. At least, in most cases.”
Below she saw more spirits rushing out from the portal. This time an army didn’t meet them. Instead, six ponies stepped out from the city. Each glowed with a brilliant light before a beam of light blasted out, overwhelming the spirits and sending them back into the portal.
“But we could stop them,” Val said. “For now. But it wouldn’t last forever. More and more spirits would come. They’d destroy us, eventually. They were… they were hurt. They were scared. Harmony was dead. Discord was broken. Our world was torn to pieces, what was I supposed to be? What could I do? I just… I just…”
Diamond watched the pony and had to resist the urge to reach out and hug him. He looked so angry, so sad, so broken. How hard was this for him to show her? Yet, she needed to know. Needed to see this.
“I wanted peace. We were all scared, though. The spirits needed me just as much as the ponies did. But I didn’t realize that. It wouldn’t be until my successor took over that peace would be achieved. That he would…” Val choked on the words. “There was only one way to end this war that I saw. It was to win. I did something I never should have done.”
Diamond nervously gulped, chewing on her lip. “What did you do?” she asked softly.
“I lied,” Val said. “I deceived my predecessor. I did the one thing that should never have been done.”
A moment later the two of them were standing on the battlefield, the six ponies standing in front of a massive spirit that seemed to be made of ice.
The creature let out a scream when their magic touched it. It wasn’t the magic of the elements, though. It felt strange. Impure. Even though it was just a memory, she felt it sickening her. The creature turned to a strange, wispy mist before flowing into the alicorn, being absorbed by him. Instantly she saw his cuts and scrapes healing before he fell to his knees, gasping. Then a smile form on his lips.
“I did what nopony should have done,” Val said. “The very thing that started this war, that Nyx had made me swear to never do. But I was so much worse. I knew the consequences, I knew what happened. I knew what would happen. I thought I could accept the price. To win this war, to end this fighting, I would do anything. I twisted and forced the elements to do this.”
“What is that?” Diamond asked softly. “What happened?”
“A forbidden magic,” Val said. “A spirit doesn’t die, not by natural means. It can be bound into a pony. Molded into them. In some cases they become one, similar to the Avatar and our bond with the Spirit of Harmony. In other cases they can be suppressed and added to the pony. Taking the spirit’s power for their own. Breaking it to their will. Much like the Water Nation attempted, and failed, to do with Discord.”
Diamond’s eyes went wide. “W-wait, you mean when they tried to, the stories that--”
“They were nowhere near succeeding,” Val said. “It was… clever, in a way. Discord used our greatest mistake to undo his own captivity. But it wouldn’t work. That magic required power and a lot of time to study the spirits. Or… a way to cheat them. Anxiety and Beguile fell first. I bound them into myself and my dearest friend. They…” He stopped for a moment, a hoof lifting to his head. “I made a mistake. A horrible, horrible mistake. It was my duty to bring peace between the Spirit World and our world. Instead I tore the Spirit World to pieces. With the first spirit bound our power grew. With every attack the spirits grew weaker, less of them came. We were stronger. The power, it drove us mad. For lifetimes I ruled. My elements and I. We were unstoppable. Eventually we took the war into the Spirit World, binding all spirits that we came across. Many fled, but not enough.”
Diamond shuddered as the world shifted into the Spirit World now. The six ponies, once just blurry, faded shapes, were now darker and more malevolent than she’d ever imagined a pony could look. Twisted, in many ways. The Spirit World was in shambles, decaying and rotting. Much like it was in her time. With each step the Avatar and his friends took, the decay spread faster and faster.
“I saw the rot as another sign of the spirits being a threat,” Val said softly. “I saw it as… I saw it as a challenge. The spirits couldn’t stop us so long as we were together. We were too powerful. We were immortal. Immortals created by stealing the lives, the essence, of others. If not for one of us, we may well have destroyed the Spirit World forever. I would have. I shattered the portals that combined our worlds, making it harder and harder for them to escape with each victory.”
One of the ponies suddenly stopped. For a moment the pony just looked around and it was as if they began to come into focus. Diamond’s breath caught in her throat. Silver Spoon?! Wait, no, that was impossible. She just shared the coloration with this pony. Besides, that pony was a unicorn.
Still, the look of horror on her face hurt none the less.
“The Element of Kindness,” Val said softly. “Silverbelle. As our power grew, so did our corruption. We didn’t see what we were doing as bad. We were the saviors. We were the heroes. They were bad, evil. They wanted to hurt us, we wanted to protect. That was what we told ourselves. Silverbelle had her doubts, however. She told us what we were doing was wrong. That this wasn’t Harmony. This wasn’t protecting ourselves. We were destroying our world. Just like the elements required each other to keep our balance, our world needed the spirits to keep its own balance. A balance we were shattering.”
Only that one pony was clear of the six. She yelled at them, pleaded with them, begged them. She shook her head, argued, fought. Finally, with tears in her eyes, she ran and fled through a new portal.
“We lost her,” Val said softly. “Our elements were still there. But without all of us, we couldn’t do the spell any longer. Or… she thought we couldn’t.” A few fresh tears formed in his eyes. “I was afraid. We all were. We had so much power, but if the spirits came back? If we died, would they be free? Would they…”
Once more they were in the Spirit World. Except the decay which once spread was now fading away. New life springing up in its place.
“She was gone. Likely dead,” Val said softly. “In our grief for what we had lost, we… we only tried harder. We believed she was wrong, that she had tried to show kindness to these spirits and they had killed her. But they hadn’t. We did. Our greed, our selfishness. Our fear. It drove us forward until we finally discovered how to tap into our elements. Even when we weren’t all together, when we were apart, we could use them. We could bind the spirits with them. But she was right, we weren’t balanced. We needed kindness. Without it… we…”
For a long moment there was silence. Then they were back in that city once more. Except the city was rubble. Ponies were fleeing from the rubble or trapped within it. “We became obsessed with Harmony. True Unity. Any voice that spoke out was silenced. The remaining four elements turned to me. Trusted me. Believed in me. After all, I was the Avatar. I… let them down.”
The alicorn of the five ponies now stood between the other four, an earth pony, a pegasus and two unicorns. They bowed their heads to him as he rose into the air, surrounded by a ring of fire, earth, wind and water.
“Without kindness to balance us, we were cruel. Vile. In an ironic twist of fate it was the very spirits we had waged a war on that eventually led me to my end and what I had driven away,” Val said with a hollow, cold chuckle.
The five ponies were together again, galloping through the Spirit World. Fighting. Fire, water, earth, wind. Blowing through the spirits, binding them. The alicorn galloped ahead, though, through the trees. Leaving the others behind Until eventually coming into a small clearing and a lake.
The world was clear now. Silverbelle was there, sitting on the edge of the lake. Except she looked so old, her body wrinkled and withered. As opposed to Val, who looked as young as ever. She glanced back at Val, but then turned back towards the lake. “There there, little ones. You’ll be safe.”
It took her a moment to realize there were little ice cubes in front of her and she was petting one. “They’re ice screams, I think. They’re usually so loud, but they’re scared.”
“Silver,” Val said softly, taking a step forward. “You’re alive. I thought… I thought you…”
“This world is so beautiful,” Silverbelle said. “The spirits can be as well.”
“Come back with us,” Val said before walking towards her. She didn’t move, even when he finally knelt down besides her. “Let us help you.”
Silverbelle was crying, still petting the ice scream. “You can’t help me, Val.”
“I can,” Val said. “If we bind another spirit, you’ll recover.”
“Go,” Silverbelle said quickly before lightly pushing the ice screams away. They rolled away from her, disappearing into the lake. She finally turned towards him again before giving a soft, gentle sigh. “Oh Val…”
“Silverbelle,” Val said gently. He leaned his head forward against hers, rubbing their horns together.
“Do you remember when we first met?” Silverbelle asked. “You were just a clumsy pegasus.”
“Yeah,” Val said with a light chuckle. “True knocked me into the lake and you helped me out. Tittering couldn’t stop laughing. Gracious spent ages drying my clothes out, I thought she was going to turn them to ash.”
“I miss those days. It was so much simpler then,” Silverbelle said before looking up at him. “Remember our first battle?”
“Of course,” Val said softly. “We were terrified.”
“But True was right, then. All of our efforts, all of our training, it meant nothing if we couldn’t act,” Silverbelle said. “What good was power if we didn’t use it to protect those who needed it?”
“Stony said we should run,” Val said.
Silverbelle gave a light laugh. “He did. But that was because he knew how scared I was. But we didn’t have a choice, then. Stony wouldn’t have run, though. He was far too loyal. You really did have an eye for friends, didn’t you?”
“What can I say? I was lucky,” Val said. “I knew to which ponies my heart should belong.”
Silverbelle gave the smallest of smiles before leaning against him, her hooves wrapping around his neck. “And I did as well. I will always love you, Val.”
“And I will--” Val’s words were cut off when suddenly a spike of ice rose out from the lake, piercing his heart. His eyes went wide and he stared at her. “W-what…”
Silverbelle just stared at him, the tears flowing down her aged face like two waterfalls. “Goodbye… Val… Please… let it go. Don’t let this nightmare go on.” Then the pony’s eyes closed one last time and she collapsed, a white mist flowing out from her and into the world around them.
Val shuddered, a white mist flowing over the chest wound, trying to close it around the shard of ice lodged in his heart. “It hurt,” Val said from behind Diamond, making her jump. “Not just the ice. But the betrayal. Of all the ponies who’d betray me, I never thought she would. I never thought she could. By the time my friends found me, however, I finally understood. What I had done. What I had started. Why she had to do what she did. Why I had to no longer fight it.”
Four ponies burst out from the trees, galloping towards him, only to stop when he finally collapsed. For the first time Diamond could see them clearly.
For the first time she could recognize them, even though the world turned dark a moment later.
“Your… your friends,” Diamond said softly. “Who… who were they?” It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible.
“Hm? True Breeze, the Element of Honesty and my dearest friend. Stony Brace, the Element of Loyalty and one of the greatest earth benders I ever knew. Tittering Splash, the Element of Laughter and my sister-in-law, a pony who seemed to find just about everything hilarious. Gracious Warmth, the Element of Generosity and an incredible healer for more than just the body, but the heart. Then there was Silverbelle, the Element of Kindness and my wife. The pony who ended my life to protect the spirits she had grown to see the need for,” Val said. “The pony who stopped me when I had gone too far.”
Diamond stared at him, struggling to keep her calm. “They’re… they’re still alive. Aren’t they?”
Val was quiet for a time before, very slowly, he shook his head. “It’s possible, but unlikely. They--”
“I’ve met them,” Diamond said. “I’ve met some of them. Why didn’t you warn me?”
“W-what?” Val asked. “I’m sure they--”
“I’ve met them,” Diamond said again. “Is this what’s happened to the Spirit World? Is this why everything is decaying?”
“I don’t know,” Val said softly. “I’ve been trying to avoid interacting with any of the other avatars. To avoid tainting them with… me. I don’t know why they, how they—”
“Is Silver in danger?” Diamond asked.
“What? Silverbelle? She’s--”
“Silver Spoon,” Diamond said, her eyes narrowed. “Are they a danger to Silver Spoon? Discord’s Avatar?”
“I don’t… know?” Val said. “But—”
“What do you know about Discord?” Diamond asked, cutting him off. She could feel the panic rising, but she tried to suppress it.
“Only the stories I was told. That he was a cruel, vicious monster that changed ponies on a whim,” Val said. “That Nyx defeated him and--”
“Then I’m going to Nyx,” Diamond said.
“She won’t talk with you,” Val said. “After what I did, she won’t talk with anypony. She--”
“Then that’s my problem,” Diamond said. “Goodbye.”
“Avatar, don’t--”
But she didn’t listen to him, instead cutting him off.
She didn’t care anymore. She needed to know what Discord was. She needed to know what she had to do. She needed to know if she had to strike or if she had to show mercy.
She needed to see Harmony and Discord.
“Nyx,” Diamond said softly. “Show yourself. I need to see what you saw. I need to see Discord. I need to know who he was. What he was. I need to know who Harmony was. Please.” She put her hooves together, struggling to dig even deeper. Nyx was there. She had to be. She had to know.
Nothing answered.
Diamond let out a low growl. “Come out! COME OUT! I’m here! I’m trying to listen! I’m not trying to use you! I’m not trying to betray you! I just need to know! I NEED ANSWERS! WHY WON’T YOU TELL ME?”
Her words echoed through the silent Spirit World. There was no answer, though. Just silence. No spirits to run in fear from her outburst.
Diamond sighed and fell back, laying on the ground and staring up at the strange, swirling sky. There were no stars, at least not now. “Please, just help me. I can’t do this on my own. There aren’t any elements. My friends are fighting each other. The world is falling apart. The spirits are trapped. So many ponies know what they need to do and who they are. But I need to be the one to make the choice. I’m the Avatar. Discord is my enemy, but can Silver be my friend? Can I save her from him? Can I save her from herself?”
Still she was greeted by nothing but silence. She sighed and abandoned even the pretense of meditation now. Instead she just let out a scream of frustration, flailing her hooves in the air. When she stopped, it felt oddly good and she did it a second and then third time before collapsing again, laying there and lightly panting.
“Nyx, please. Help me. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. If you hate Discord, then fine. If you hate me and all the future and past avatars, that’s fine. Do it anyway. Do it because I can’t, I won’t, make a choice anymore. Because no matter what I say, it doesn’t change things. I can say I’m ready to strike, but that doesn’t mean anything when the pony I have to strike is my friend. I just… can’t. I can’t beat Discord like this. I can’t…”
Diamond gave a light sob before finally curling up on her side and lightly sobbing. “I can’t fight her. Even if it’s a trick, even if it’s all a lie. Even if she’s just playing me, I can’t. I can’t do what I’m supposed to do. Please, just please show me that I don’t have to. Give me the excuse. Give me something, anything, that tells me it’s okay for me to be selfish this time. That this time I can be greedy and it can be the correct choice. That I wasn’t chosen for the wrong reasons. Harmony chose a greedy, selfish, arrogant pony for a reason.”
Diamond didn’t know how long she laid there, curled up and letting all of her pain out. But, in the end, she felt better. She felt empty, but in a good way. “I won’t stop. Ever. I’ll keep digging. I’ve already lost my cutie mark, my bending, my friends. I have nothing left to lose. I will never, ever stop, Nyx. You’re the last pony in this line, so I will find you. I will dig and dig and dig. So help me. Please. I can’t set things right alone.”
“Are you so scared of this fight?” a voice asked softly. “What makes you think I’ll be able to tell you what’s right?”
Diamond opened her eyes and then froze. “W-what… are you?”
An alicorn stood in front of her, but not like one she’d ever seen. Her eyes were green and slitted, like a dragon’s. Her mane a light purple, though the colorations seemed to keep shifting and changing erratically. Even her wings didn’t seem like normal pegasus wings, almost see through. The pony stared at her before giving a soft sigh. “I am the first Avatar, Nyx.” Her wings spread out, casting a weak shadow over her. “If you wish to know more of Discord, then I will show you our encounters.” She held a hoof out to her.
Diamond reached out a hoof towards it, but then froze. Something felt… wrong. Off. Why--
A smile crept on the alicorn’s face. “If you take my hoof, Diamond, there will be no turning back. I am not like the others. You won’t see these spirits. You will live them. You will walk amongst Discord and Harmony. Though our encounters were few, you will see them through my eyes. It may even shake all you believe. I doubt it will give you the comfort you seek, however. Nor the answers. The excuses. All you will gain from it, if anything, is perhaps some awareness of your own insignificance. In the end what you’ll ‘have’ to do won’t change. So it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it.”
Diamond stared at the hoof before lunging out, taking it in her own.
------
Nyx’s eyes opened and she stared into the eye’s of Discord’s. He looked… amused. “My my, look who’s finally decided to wake up. Sleep well?”