An hour, a hot meal, a long bubble bath, and over a dozen mom-tier mega-hugs later, and I’m back to at least 90%. Spike was pretty shook up after everything the Princess said, but he always bounces back quick, and today’s no exception. There’s not much of the usual wind in his sails as we catch up with mom about the last couple months, but to be fair mine are pretty deflated too.

A bit under an hour later the sun’s begun to set, and dad gets home. We give him the short version, since he’s dead on his hooves after another extended shift to make up for leaving early the day I got to Canterlot. He mostly sits quietly and nods in agreement, but he looks worriedly back and forth between us all when I mention the fight with the Princess. He hugs us both all the same, though, and we have to all but force him to go to bed before he collapses in the living room.

It’s about an hour too early for the sun to be setting, but I deduce that the Princess must be doing it now to free up some time for thinking about how to deal with us. Or maybe she’s not, and I’m putting too much value on our relationship from her perspective. Maybe she’ll decide we’re not worth the effort, and forget all about us until she needs us again.

’You’re being ridiculous, Twilight. She obviously cares, she just doesn’t want to tell us everything. There must be hundreds of stories of horrible or awful events she’s lived through. We barely heard one and look at us...’

“I think I’m gonna get some sleep.” Spike says as he hops down from his spot on the couch beside me, giving mom a quick hug and heading upstairs.

“I think I’m gonna call it a night too, actually.” I follow up, hopping off the couch myself and giving mom one last hug for the night from her armchair.

“You’re sure you’re okay, dear? Your head’s not hurting anymore?” She brushes my bangs away from my forehead as if she could tell by looking at it. I wince internally a bit as I remember the fib I told her.

“Nah. I mean, yes, I’m fine, and no, no headaches. A botched spell was causing it before, actually. Princess Luna took care if it, it’s why the guards brought me to Canterlot in the first place.”

“A botched…? Twilight, honey, you’ve got to tell me these things!” She scolds me with a disapproving look, and I shrink a bit under the deserved reprimanding.

“I’m sorry, I just… Promised her I’d keep it secret. For now, I mean. I still don’t think I’m supposed to talk about it, but honestly it’s been difficult to talk to her at all, the other day with you is the first and last I’ve seen of her since-” I cut myself off before I say something I shouldn’t, but thankfully she doesn’t catch the last part.

“What do you mean, didn’t you talk to her before she…?” She gestures widely at my head, still unsure the scale at which we’re talking.

“No, I was already asleep by then. Well, technically I passed out. Oh!” I perk up despite myself as I remember the events. “Guess what? I cast Alicorn magic! Well, I powered Alicorn magic at least. Well, technically it was a ritual spell already mid-cast and I hot-swapped in after learning how to change my magic, but it counts!” I beam at her, and she’s smiling back and blinking rapidly at the barrage of self-corrections and addendums.

“Change your magic? That- I don’t understand a lot of that, but congratulations, honey!” She pulls me into another last-last hug, and I giggle happily despite the circumstances of it all, still proud of myself for it. “I think.”

“Thanks. I still can’t really believe it, but maybe it’s not as hard as I thought it was. I need to try it again some time.” I think out loud, absentmindedly rubbing a hoof against my chin.

“Not now you don’t, little filly. Come on, up to bed!” She gets up from her chair and tugs at my ear with her magic, less-than-gently tugging me along towards the staircase until I follow.

The magical tugging fades as I concede, and I turn my ears this way and that to get some feeling back. I give her a last-last-last hug and head up the stairs, careful to skip the fifth and ninth ones. They creak and I don’t want to wake dad up. He’s always been a heavy sleeper, but it’s still only considerate.

I open the door and Spike is curled up at the foot of my old bed, with his old pillow and blanket wrapped up around him. He lifts his head when I walk in, and points at the small bed on the floor he used to sleep in.

“That’s okay, I’m sure we can make room.” I smile at him, closing the door behind me and trotting over to the bed.

Despite the joke, I’m actually not completely sure. Spike and I cuddled up in this bed plenty of times as kids, but it’s gonna be a tight fit side to side. He thankfully notices me puzzling it out in my head and scoots towards the end without a word, leaving the top two-thirds for me. I climb up and crawl under the covers, letting my hind legs hang over the side so I don’t accidentally kick him.

I nestle deeper into the covers, a newfound appreciation for the quiet. No tempest in my head, no ringing ears, no guards outside my room. Just peace and quiet.

I’m rooted to the spot. Everything’s happening so fast, the wards are gone and there’s an unbelievable amount of magical interference buzzing around in the air.

I make out a light gray unicorn, adorned in blue robes from an era before Equestria. He’s speaking to me, telling me to jump through the portal. There’s a pressure on one of my hindlegs, and it brings my senses back to me. Looking down I see a dark green hoof prodding me forward.

“Gold…?” I remember my surroundings. The telltale signs of the impromptu holding area sharpen into focus, with unkept swathes of dirt and grass and massive gnarled trees spanning out in all directions. There’s guards, so many guards- all around us, all charging right for me.

I whip my head left, right, left; They’re coming, I need to move. I lift a hoof to charge forward, but I see a flash of movement as Star Swirl raises his hoof to Goldfish, muttering something as his horn flashes.

“No!” I scream, and before I can think, I’m weaving the familiar magic together to stop him. His hoof inches closer in slow motion, his horn glowing brighter. I can’t let him touch her, I need to stop him now.

The hoof gets closer, but just before the contact I fire off the spell, and suddenly everything stops altogether.

The charging hordes of guards, the touch of death Star Swirl’s inches away from executing, even my own heart’s climbed out of my head and I don’t hear its’ frenzied beats anymore. It’s all in perfect stillness, and I’m free to observe everything.

I trudge forward towards the two, reaching out to push Star Swirl away, but as I do I see my own muted hoof, a dull grayish-purple, and it seems to lose the little color it still has rapidly.

“This again…” I feel the familiar rising urge to panic, to scream. I almost give in, but there’s a sickening crick! in my mind as I remember the kitchen, my fractured hoof, the blood…

‘I’m not a crazy pony.’ I remind myself, closing my eyes. Surprisingly, I listen, and with a huge breath in I recenter myself, emptying my head so I can observe. I let the breath loose and open my eyes again.

The scene is darker than a moment ago, and there’s a hint of heat dancing across my coat. It’s not unpleasantly warm yet, but after moving I can definitely feel it. Everypony and everything else haven’t moved, but I’m a pace closer to Star Swirl. I take another step closer, and there’s a massive resistance from the air itself. I push harder, trudging through the soupy molasses of the place, and by the time I’ve taken the three steps up to him, my body’s starting to burn up from the outside in as if I were stepping into a furnace.

I lift both forehooves against his torso and push as hard as I can. At first he doesn’t budge, but after a few seconds he starts moving. The difference is incredibly slight, but it’s there. The heat is burning now, but I need to get him away from Goldfish before he kills her. I try to weave a spell, but my wellspring won’t react. My entire mana network is as if it’s in a stasis, completely unresponsive.

I’m running out of time to observe, even outside the scene’s light is draining with the color. I try reflexively to summon a dancing light spell, but quickly am reminded that’s impossible here. How can I regain light?

I try stepping backwards, the heat increases, and the light fades. I try standing still, the light fades. I yell and close my eyes then open them again, the light fades.

“What am I supposed to do?!” I yell, but this time in frustration as the now-painful burning sensation dancing across my skin starts to affect my focus.

‘Think. How did you get out last time? There was the burning, you fractured your hoof, freaked out and then…’ I narrow my eyes, waiting for the last piece to fall into place with a satisfactory mental click! But when it doesn’t come, I’m left more frustrated than before.

Before the last vestiges of light leave me and jut the world in darkness, I take a forehoof and begin to wave it wildly through the air, observing anything that happens to the dim, muted limb.

Surprisingly, or rather unsurprisingly, the leg starts to burn much more intensely, and quickly I stop waving it and grit my teeth against the pain, forcing my eyes open to observe. There’s no apparent change that I can see, but it sure hurts like a barrelbucker. The part that’s most fascinating is that only the limb is burning so intensely, the rest of my body seems to be relatively unaffected, content with an intense and uncomfortable tender sensitivity.

There’s nothing else for it; The last of the light fades, and I’m left in the darkness. True darkness, one that can’t be alleviated by energy or magic. The only reason I know I still even exist is the tragic simultaneous existence of both my consciousness and the intense discomfort in my forehoof. Against my better judgement I reach out in front of me with the less-burning limb to feel for Star Swirl, and sure enough I find purchase, even if I can’t see him.

This is infuriating. This makes no sense! I was able to get out of it once before, so why can’t I-

“Twilight Sparkle! Speak, so that we might aid you!” A booming, regal voice rings out in all directions, startling me. I jump, but the sound of anything except myself is a massive boon towards discovery, so I call back in return.

“Here! I’m here!” I turn my head in all directions as I yell, since the voice seemed to emanate from everywhere. Which… Doesn’t make any logical sense, now that I think about it rationally. That was almost definitely Princess Luna’s voice, and I’m currently in an explicable scenario where, for the second time, I’m being blinded and burned from the outside by an unseen flame. “Princess, please tell me I’m dreaming! If I’m not I think you might have been wrong about me not being a crazy pony!”

In the blink of an eye the light and color rushes back into the scene, but it’s artificial-looking. It’s as if a perfectly set stage full of colors and props were flooded by unfiltered white stage lights, ruining the immersion and making everything as believable as cardboard cut-outs.

I jump back a pace as Luna, horn glowing a gentle azure to illuminate the dreamscape, appears directly in front of me, having apparated soundlessly from seemingly nowhere. She looks on towards me with worry, and she closes the half step in rhythm with me, leaning in closer.

“I sensed your distress so early in the night, and had hoped to offer you assistance. Are you alright, Twilight Sparkle?”

The Princess looks around at the scene my mind’s sat us in, and suddenly I feel deeply uncomfortable at having Luna in my mind now of all times. She stares right at Star Swirl for a few long seconds, then takes in the nightmarish swarm-like behavior my nightmare painted her guards in.

“Apologies are unnecessary here, Twilight Sparkle. Few ponies are capable of controlling their dreams, I shall never judge nor repeat anything seen in this realm. Such is my duty.” She swears, and she’s incredibly serious about it. It doesn’t stop the twinge of guilt, but it does make me feel better that she’s understanding about it. “Though let us be away with this sight, it irks us so.”

With a wave if her horn the scene’s gone, and it’s just us standing in a starry nightscape, the light of the constellations and galaxies impossibly far away tinting the endless sky a serene cyan and indigo. With it goes the burning sensation, and the ever-present lingering stress of the unknown.

“Thanks, Luna… Sorry to bother you with this, I don’t know why but even after our talk I can’t help but dream about it.”

“Again, Twilight, such apologies are misplaced, though I accept your gratitude. You feel guilt, do you not? Though you revived her, you feel as if you are to blame for her death to begin with?” She asks. She sits down on the nothing we’re standing on, and prompts me to do the same. I follow suit.

“I… Honestly, I haven’t even had time to think about it, not really. My dreams have always been like this, when I’m scared or disappointed. I think of what I could have done better, how I could have stopped myself from screwing up. I could have shoved him, I could have teleported her with us, there was time. I could have projected a barrier, I don’t know.”

“You hold yourself to the standard of halting time and the heavens themselves, it seems. A rather impossible expectation, do you not agree?” She suggests, reaching over and laying a hoof on my shoulder.

“When you say it like that… I know it sounds silly, but…” I think carefully about how to word it, not wanting to be dismissed this time. “I… I think it was real, when everything stopped for me. I don’t think it was a panic attack. I think it was a spell, and I cast it. It’s the only way things make sense. Pinkie swears I lit my horn and teleported, but I didn’t. I just let whatever came to me loose in the moment, and I think… I think it was that. I realized in the moment I could fix everything with that spell, and I fired it off without even realizing I was doing it. I still don’t know what it was, I can’t remember, and that’s the part that hurts the most.”

She sits in quiet contemplation while I talk through things, putting it all into perspective with my words. Just talking about it helps me solidify my hypothesis, building a more robust set of events to outline what must have truly happened. If there is a truth to this besides a one-off case of hysteria, whatever spell I fired off subconsciously is almost assuredly the cause.

“If you believe it to be the cause, I would be humbled should you allow me to relive it with you once more. I would give insight, if it would bring you peace.”

I’m taken from my trance of contemplation by the offer. “You can do that?” I ask incredulously, and she simply nods in return.

“We can, though it will mean you must face your feelings once more, to relive the trauma as you already have. If it is something you believe you can handle, I will observe and intervene when I feel it necessary.”

“Let’s do it.” I consent immediately, the thought of reliving the awful experience meaning almost nothing in the face of knowing what really happened. The gusto catches her a bit off guard, but she nods again and lights her horn. Slowly, steadily, I feel the thoughts in my mind coming to me unbidden, lighting up the false world with images and emotions, and I feel each of them as they zoom past.

The fight with Princess Celestia, the feeling of harmonizing myself to her magic, my musings on the application of Smart Cookie’s Law of Three Roads in mainstream city planning. There’s several private and embarassing moments, but Luna doesn’t linger on them, not does she joke or chide, which I appreciate to the moon and back. Pun notwithstanding.

I get the feeling of panic and confusion out of nowhere, and Luna snaps everything to a halt as the scene melts away to wherever we’ve landed on, but it’s incredibly dark and I can’t tell if we landed too late in the memory, or if it’s a spell malfunction. A second later I realize my eyes were closed, but before I can open them I’m already up and out of the bed, watching Rainbow Dash wrestling with a bat-pony Lunar Guard on my bedroom floor as a wave of relief washes over me just like back then.

“A little further ahead, the morning after this. Just after I wake-“ The memory skips forward to its’ conclusion with blazing speed, and less than a second later I’m stuck in a freeze-frame with Pinkie riding a jackhammer along my ceiling. “Yeah. Yeah, this is it.” I call out. I notice my mouth doesn’t move, and in noticing that I also notice I’m hyper-aware of myself and my surroundings in a very literal sense. I can’t see myself, but I know what I look like, how I’m moving, how I’m feeling, like I’m simultaneously both myself and an observer.

The scene plays out exactly how I remember it. Pinkie claiming the Guard told her everything, the empty mug, the coffee spilling through the air, the rising panic at what could happen if- No, I can’t let that happen. If Pinkie had coffee, it could destabilize reality itself!

‘I need to think fast, I need to stop this, I need time to think! There’s no time, I need it to stop. I need time- I need it to stop- I need time to stop, I’ll stop time-‘

Cyr's Seeing, modified. Momentum, modified. Jer’rahd’s Lesser Reinforcement. Star Swirl’s Chronomancy, modified. Unnamed Spell.

Verita/Osu - Fi(Extended) - Ri - Verita/Lunaris(Major)/Mité(Major) - Unknown

And suddenly I’m back where it happened. I feel that initial sense of confusion, a tinge of wonder, but they’re both quickly overpowered by a primal fear as I realize I can hardly move, and the light’s quickly fading.

‘It’s just a memory, stop… Stop panicking. Stop it, Twilight! CALM DOWN!’ I watch myself begin to panic, and I start flailing around, unable to see myself or the world around me anymore. Pure hysteria’s setting in, I’m losing track of where the dream world ends and where my real emotions start. I want it to stop, I don’t know what’s ha-

“Return to us, Twilight Sparkle!” Luna’s voice commands, and in an instant everything’s fine again. I blink and raise my head, and I see Pinkie on the ceiling with the jackhammer, frozen in place. Luna’s standing tall beside me now, the faintest look of curiosity crossed with concern playing at her face, though the usual stoic demeanor overpowers it ten times over. “I have returned us to a point of relative ease. Is this how you recall the events?”

“I… Felt thoughts I don’t remember thinking. I felt myself weaving a massive spell, I don’t even know what half of the spells were. I mean, I’ve heard of most of them, but…” I narrow my eyes, looking down at the ground with a frown. “Do you… Feel everything I do? Did you see- I mean think- or when I thought it did you-“

“We share your experiences in exactly the same way, indeed. We recognize the spellcraft piecemeal, though much of it is beyond our time… It does, however, utilize my custom runecraft as a catalyst. I am most curious where you might have learned it.” She raises a brow and tilts her head, and I can’t help but feel I’m being subtly interrogated all of a sudden.

“I… don’t know. Like I said, I don’t even remember casting the spell, I don’t remember thinking any of that! I guess I really was just panicking, huh…?” I look down at the ground again, pawing at the floor and biting at the inside of my lip. I can’t see her expression through my bangs, but I can tell she’s disappointed. She went through all this trouble, and I don’t even know what spell I cast. “Thanks for trying, I don’t want you to have to waste any more of your time.”

She moves over towards me and slowly raises her hoof towards my face, forcing me to face her as she rebukes.

“To aid a pony in need is no waste, Twilight Sparkle. You of all ponies must have learned that. Or would you categorize our first encounter a waste of time?”

“What? No! Freeing you from Nightmare Moon was an excellent use of time! I- I mean, I was- We were all happy to help-“

“Then we understand each other.” She keeps staring at me with her deadpan stare, but I can see the faintest hint of a smirk on her face after a second or two. Was she teasing me?

“That’s… A little mean, Princess.” I pout, and the faint smirk fades back into the darkness of her coat as she takes the hoof away, giving me some personal space.

“I apologize for the poor timing, though not for the sentiment. I am happy to assist anypony when I am able, you are no exception nor outlier.” With a swift flick of her horn, we’re back in the expanse of empty night sky, and she seems to relax a bit.

I decide to let her off the hook and move on, following her gaze at the massive space.

“Is this the dream realm? The theoretical metaphysical manifestation of pony subconsciousness?” I ask, suddenly very curious if such a place could be proven and observed from the waking realm. When I don’t get a response, I look back to her, and I can tell she’s grappling with something in her head.

“Not allowed to say?” I ask with more than a hint of bitterness, and immediately I shove a hoof in my mouth.

‘Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why would you say that out loud?!’ Before I can levy another apology, she does something unexpected, something I haven’t seen since the last Nightmare Night; She laughs.

It’s a rich and genuine laugh, but more… Regal than usual. Not to say Luna isn’t every bit as regal as a princess should be, but it reminds me of Nightmare Moon’s voice, as if it were coming out of Luna’s body. She notices my curiosity, and immediately cuts it short, clearing her throat and frowning a bit, straightening her neck and head.

“You truly are every bit the astute and inquisitive unicorn sister claims you to be. You are correct, in that I am uncertain if it would be wise to respond to your query. You seem perturbed, however; What is your qualm?”

“Oh, nothing, I was just… Your laugh, it sounded…” I trail off, considering if my question is too rude to ask, or maybe too personal? She takes it the wrong way, though, and her wings flare out as she raises her head.

Silence. I crouch down as low as I can get and cover my head with my hooves. I’m not scared that I may have just offended her, I’m absolutely certain of it. I was trying to figure out a better way to put it, but there wasn’t time, and oh sweet Celestia she’s gonna kill me if I don’t clarify that.

“What I meant is your laugh sounded really rich and pretty and it wasn’t your normal tone and then I remembered hearing the other-you talk in the Everfree Forest and it sounded like that so I thought maybe it was possible that you were actually Nightmare Moon but just looked like luna to-“ Hoof back in mouth. Difference, it’s hers this time.

“When we remove our hoof from thine lips, will you be calm?” She asks plainly. I take a couple seconds longer than I really should to think about it, but eventually I nod in agreement. The hoof falls away, and true to my word I stay calm, at least on the outside.

“We are Nightmare Moon, and I am Luna. We are one in the same, insomuch that for one of us to perpetuate, so must the other. Yes, I am in control, and no, we are not evil.” She pauses a moment to let me contemplate that, maintaining a level gaze and reserved demeanor.

"I... Can't say I understand. Not completely at least, but I trust you, Princess. I'm sure you're doing your best. But..." My words trail off as I look down at my hooves again.

"It's like... you know how some ponies can't tell one another apart when they're covering their cutie mark? It's like that only with your voice. It's almost uncanny, honestly. It… Kinda sounds like you're behind somepony else, if that makes any sense.” I look back up at her, and there's a glisten of something behind her eyes I can't quite identify. I pause a beat and add: "Sorry, that's presumptuous to say, isn't it?"

Luna shakes her head slowly, looking away and out at her vast realm. I wish I could peer into her head and tell what she's thinking, but that's magic I haven't had the time to learn yet, and I curse the lack of hours in a day for it.

"Not presumptuous, no. Genuine." She smiles out at infinity, and I get a humbling feeling like I’m being allowed a glimpse into her psyche. How she really thinks, behind the crown and the weight of her authority. “‘Tis a rare thing in this time, I have noticed, to meet a pony with untainted intent one could observe so plainly on their breast.”

She turns back to me after her thought, and the fact she’s talking about me finally registers. I feel a bit of heat in my cheeks, and I force my ears back against my head to save a bit of face before they signal my distress like the traitorous appendages they are.

“Oh, well, you know… I try!” I give her a half-smile, hoping she doesn't notice. She nods in acknowledgment, and thankfully the moment passes as she turns her entire self away with a quiet huff.

“It is nearly time, I am afraid. Sister is preparing to come to you; with a practiced apology, I can only hope.”

“Wait, like, right now? As in, to my parents’ house where I’m currently asleep right now?” I furrow my eyebrows a bit and hold back a frown, not wanting to be rude but also more than a little annoyed that I’m not even being allowed one single night to be mad alone. Or alone together with Spike, at least. Still!

“She cares for you greatly, Twilight, as I’m sure you know. She has changed in the many years of her rule, she is not as whole as she once was. Parts are missing, among those is her sense of expression, buried meticulously amongst both the expectations of everypony around her, and those she has set for herself.”

Her eyes soften as she lays it all out, and I feel like I’d be the biggest jerk in Equestria if I didn’t at least let Princess Celestia explain herself after hearing that. Thinking back on it, I didn’t even give her a chance to respond before I took Spike and left, leaving her alone in the castle.

Scratch that, I already feel like a pretty big jerk now that I realize how unfair I’m being in all of this.

‘I don’t want to feel like a jerk, I want to feel vindicated, dammit!’ I lift a forehoof and go to slam it back down, but the look Princess Luna’s giving me gives me a little pause, and I let out a huge, aggravated huff of air before letting it go. The silence stretches between us again for a few long moments, until she picks up the slack again.

“I was hoping to say as much in person, though now is as apt a time as any. You are forgiven for your rash decisions, Twilight Sparkle. After much deliberation we have come to understand that such actions are indicative of your good nature, it would be wrong of us to condemn you for what you did.” She turns around and looks right into my eyes, before closing her own and dropping her front half into a deep bow. “We apologize, verily, for our behavior.”

…Wow. Princess Luna of all ponies, bowing to me, and apologizing for being a jerk. Of all the improbabilities I could imagine, this week has managed to keep stacking them up.

“…It is good form, after one pony apologizes to another, to acknowledge such things.” She deadpans, opening her eyes and looking up at me, still bowing from her apology.

She lets a small smile show for a second or two before she rights herself, nodding back at me.

“Perhaps I was mistaken, it seems apologies are rampant here, after all. No matter, it is time you awoke so that you might be prepared to receive sister’s apology. I would suggest you bring your spell quandary to her, as you are readily aware spellcraft is a specialty of hers. She will likely be able to make some sense of it, at least.” Her horn begins to glow, and I can’t help but wonder if she even needs to do that in the dream world, or if it’s just a courtesy for me.

“Before we part, a final query.” The spell she’s weaving pausing, dancing on the edge of her horn and she gives me a curious look.

There’s a pause between us, and I blink a few times as I replay the question again in my head to make sure I understood it correctly. As she waits the curious look gets a bit apprehensive, and that insight I realized I was getting into her psyche might have been miles deeper that I realized.

“Yeah, I do. If that’s how you really sound when you’re happy… Well…” I start to trail off again, but somehow I find my way back when I see how intently she’s hanging on my words, like a filly being reassured that everything’s fine. “I hope everypony will get to hear it sometime.”

I give her a genuine, knowing smile, and she returns it without an ounce of hesitation or trepidation I would have expected after an exchange like that, though her wings do flare out slightly before she reins them back in.

“Thank you, Twilight Sparkle. Your words are of great comfort. We shall come speak to you in person soon. For now though, I must be away. Fare thee well, and best wishes in your coming discourse.”

Before I have a chance to respond my eyes dart open, looking up at the dark ceiling of my room. I feel the bed vibrating slightly as Spike snores away, and Luna must have raised a full moon tonight, because there’s plenty of starlight streaming in through my window.

‘Remember that spell matrix, Twilight. Matrix, matrix, matrix. I should write that down.’ I nod to myself, quickly but quietly slipping out of the bed and giving my old room a once-over. Most everything’s exactly the way I left it, which means in the middle-left drawer there should be… Aha!

The desk and its’ contents are just what I was looking for, and I float a blank sheet of parchment onto the surface, using an old quill and a freshly-unsealed inkwell to quickly inscribe the entire rune sequence, sans the final one I still can’t really make sense of. It felt more like raw data than a rune, but for now I just put a big ‘?’ at the end, then roll it up and stick it halfway into my bit pouch as I head downstairs.

I’m feeling surprisingly well-rested after what can’t have been more than an hour of sleep. The lights are out and mom’s probably long since gone to bed, so it’s just me in the living room, waiting for the Princess of Equestria to knock on my door. Just another day in the life.

I don’t have to wait long, because I hear the clattering of metal on stone from a couple houses away, and I’m able to unlock the door and step outside before before anypony can wake up the house by knocking. It’s still relatively warm despite the hour, and there’s a thin layer of cloud cover diffusing a blazingly bright moon across Canterlot.

I pull the door closed behind me with my magic, and turn to face the source of the heavy hooffalls as they stop a few feet away. Standing there, starlight radiating off of a pristine white coat in the middle of the sidewalk is Princess Celestia, fully adorned in her regalia, but strangely unaccompanied by any of her guards. She also has a set of saddlebags on with some large rolls of heavy-looking papers with the official Royal Canterlot seal poking out, and a few blueprint carrier tubes strapped to her back. The sight’s very curious, and I let it show plainly on my face.

“Good late evening, Twilight. I was hoping you might have the time to talk, if you’re not too busy.”

She’s standing tall and proud for the few passers-by to admire, but her voice is incredibly gentle, as if she were coaxing a baby bird from its’ egg, scared to frighten it in its’ first moments in the light. Despite the unnatural circumstances and my time to prepare, I’m still the tiniest bit starstruck by her beauty. She’s in her element, and it shows to perfection.

“Of course, Princess. My family is asleep, though. Do you think maybe we could take this back to the castle?"

Her smile widens just a touch more, and she flourishes her wings instead in a dramatic flare, turning her side to me and nodding me over. Confused, I step forward.

“If you’ll accompany me, my faithful student, I believe you’ll be very interested in what I have to show you.” She crouches down and furls the wing on my side, inviting me to climb up onto her back.

She nods to me reassuringly, but I see a trio of fillies across the road gawking at the display. If I actually went along with this, it’d be in the tabloids for weeks, I just know it.

Before I can levy my argument, the world’s suddenly tinted a brilliant gold. It takes a moment before the realization that I’m airborne catches up to me, but by the time it does I’m already on her back and she launches us both away into the night sky.

The capital city below us quickly fades from view as we ascend, and I cling onto the Princess’ neck for dear life as we fly upward until eventually only clouds surround us in all directions. Eventually that, too, gives way to the open night sky as we breach the troposphere. I can feel the air around us begin to chill, and the moon is suddenly blindingly bright as the insulating layer of cloud cover between us is lost, forcing me to keep my gaze earthbound.

Looking down I see the Princess smiling, eyes closed in a rare reverie. With a few more mighty wingbeats she brings us above the clouds and fully extends her wings, bringing us to a much more gentle glide. As she evens us out I take a second to steady myself, and I marvel at the fact that somehow her saddlebags and all their contents are somehow still attached to her. She catches me staring, and offers some insight, raising her voice a bit to be heard above the ambient wind.

“An anchoring charm, one of Commander Hurricane’s making, some twelve hundred years go. At least, that’s what the history books say. In truth it was the combined efforts of collaboration between the Unicorns and the Pegasi during the Magician’s Renaissance.”

“The Magician’s Renaissance? I thought that didn’t come about until after you and Luna had founded the Everfree empire, and that wasn’t until eleven hundred years ago!” I shout back, and she angles us up to burn off some of our momentum, slowing our glide considerably. I hold on just a bit tighter to account for the shift in course.

“Until after the empire had been founded, that is correct, though not my us. Sister and I inherited the Everfree, we were not the ones to build it. Nearly a hundred years passed before it collapsed following sister’s coup, and the tribes were once again split before reuniting under our banner of Equestria.”

“How did things change so dramatically that soon after your coronation?" I interrupt. If the timeline I’m piecing together is correct, then their rule over the Everfree would only have lasted two, three hundred years at best before it collapsed.

"In all honesty, a lack of experience gave way to ineptitude, both personal and professional. Mother tried her best to teach us, but…” Her head hangs low as she trails off, and I find myself feeling sympathy for her.

"She passed during the Chaos Wars, when Luna and I were well into our third or fourth millennium. She was a wonderful pony, truly, though she only ruled after Luna and I were born. She decided she would rather take up the responsibility of uniting everypony so that we could know peace, rather than let it sit vacant and raise us in a divided world.” She looks up at me and smiles sadly before continuing.

“We learned what we could from her in the many years leading up to the Chaos Wars, though ponies change so quickly, their opinions so fickle, much of what we’d learned became obsolete in mere centuries. The generations that had survived the war gave us the benefit of the doubt, seeing us for the good we brought and thankful for saving them, but with every generation beyond, that reputation meant less and less in lieu of our many mounting ineptitudes of the time. Tactless negotiations, idealistic doctrines, a loose code of ethics in place of proper law… It was doomed to fail, I’ve come to realize. But I took that failure in stride and within two generations united Equestria, some nine hundred years ago using all that I had learned, so that I might restore Harmony as she had.”

She takes a deep breath and shakes her ethereal wind-whipped mane back out of her eyes, smiling up into the bright sky at the thought of the memory. I wait for her to continue, but after half a minute it becomes clear we’re both just enjoying the silence.

“Harmony. Queen Harmony. No relation to your Elements that you’re familiar with, they came later, but I did name them after her. An homage of sorts, though it seems a bit morbid now that I say it out loud." She sound like she’s genuinely sharing a piece of herself with me. I’m not quite sure why, but the petty desire for vindication I’ve been holding onto is quickly evaporating.

“I think it’s a beautiful sentiment, I’m sure she’d be happy you thought of her.” I lean forward and rest my forehead against the back of her neck, horn combing into her mane before the last part registers. “You’ve never told anypony that?”

“Only Luna, though she wasn’t nearly as close. Father, brief though his time with us was, was her inspiration in most things. An artist, and an earth pony, if you could believe it.”

“Father wasn’t, no. Only Mother was able to accompany us on our long journey through the ages. When he passed, little Lunaris spent a thousand days and a thousand nights grieving. One night she looked up at the stars, and she was struck with an inspiration that gave her peace. Without ever having been instructed, she lit her horn and began to paint a beautiful night sky into being, the first the earth had ever seen. It was that night she rose her moon for the first time, and the morning thereafter I the sun. That’s when we were showed our destiny, before we were even a hundred years old.” She turns her head to the side to look back at me as we hover, calm and gauging my reaction.

“Princess, I… I don’t know what to say. I’m honored, but… Why are you telling me all of this?”

I feel her tense up as she forces down a deep breath, then slows our glide to a stop, flapping her majestic wings just enough to keep us aloft above the canopy of cloud cover.

“Because… You’re so very special to me, Twilight. Sister remarked to me that it’s, how did she put it… ‘Seldom that words fail me,’ and I’ll admit with more than a small sense of hubris she’s right, but it’s even rarer that I need to express myself, or that I’m even allowed for that matter. So, this is how I decided to show you I care, with action instead of words. A bit unoriginal, perhaps, but I hoped that you would appreciate what it means, knowing how close the heavens are to us.”

She turns her head skyward and lights her horn, and the moon seems to dim considerably even though I can’t see any other notable change in the sky. I didn’t realize the moon’s luminescence was even a controllable factor in their spells, I’d just assumed it was based off the lunar phases.

I blink as I look up at the familiar night sky, the same normal spread that dots the night any day Luna doesn’t grace Equestria with a unique display twinkles back at me. The issue is that something isn’t the same, and that something is a blazingly bright star bearing somewhere between 358-001 degrees, just offset of Polaris and hanging slightly lower on the horizion. It’s nearly triple the size of most of the others, and despite the moon showing much less of its’ earlier luster, it’s so blazingly brilliant that I have to squint and avert my eyes after a few seconds for fear of permanent damage. I look back down at the Princess in confusion and find that she’s been staring at me the whole time, biting at the inside of her lip, gauging my reaction. I feel like I need to say something, but I’m still unsure what this is all about.

“It’s beautiful, but I don’t understand.” I admit. It would make sense to attempt to add an offset for Polaris as a secondary nautical navigation point to help ponies triangulate their bearings, but its’ spot just off-center in the sky makes it incredibly difficult to even see the other nearby astral bodies with how bright it is.

“Its’ name is Vespera.” Her chest inflates with another big breath, and she holds it while I narrow my eyes, searching through the index in my mind for the smaller-than-I’d-prefer section of Old Ponish translations. Barring ‘Night Fight’ and ‘Insect Plague’ (Which I suspect I’m confusing for Vespula,) that would mean that it’s literal translation is Eventide, or evening. In the modern pony dialect, that would mean it translates to…

“You named a STAR after me?!” I stare back at her in disbelief. “Why would… When did you- HOW did you get that past the Astronomer’s Navigation council? There hasn’t been a permanent addition since Clovis Minor seven centuries ago, and how did Luna-“ For the third time in one night, albeit the first in the waking world, there’s a hoof in my mouth. For a second I wonder how she could have reached around behind herself like that, but then I see the faint gold glow surrounding a very familiar purple hoof. Clever.

“As for all the technical questions, suffice it to say I considered this important enough to ask forgiveness rather than permission. The when, last night. The why,” I finally see her chest decompress, and she beams a wide smile back at me, causing a rush of heat to flare up in my face. “I needed you to know. I’d hoped to show you when you woke up, but fate had other plans it seems. You wouldn’t believe the favors I had to pull to have the local weather pegasi arrange the the cloud cover on such short notice.”

She chuckles a bit, but I’m still too dumbstruck to remember it’s polite to laugh along. A star? A real, permanent star in the night sky that the Princess made! For me!

“I… Thank you, Princess! I really… Thank you for sharing this with me." I say quietly, feeling the comforting weight of thousands of celestial bodies weighing down on me. I shiver, and I’m not sure if it’s the gentle breeze coming off her wingtips, or the dopamine and endorphins shooting through me like a euphoria spell. We stare at each other for a little while, and her smile’s wider than I’ve ever seen before. There’s relief, there’s that proud undertone she has whenever I figure something out, and a real, genuine glee I can only imagine she’s had buried somewhere beneath that mask all these years. She leans forward and closes her eyes to nuzzle my face. I follow suit, tilting my head a bit to the side and scooting up on her back so she can reach without stretching too hard.

“So, apology accepted?” She asks, giggling in a way I’ve never heard. It feels almost taboo, hearing my mentor and Princess laughing like a school filly, but it’s contagious and quickly I’m giggling with her like she’s got her primaries against my belly.

“Apology accepted. And… I’m sorry, too. I’ve been beating myself up so much about thinking about things a certain way, that I started to only think about things that way. I should have realized I was being narrow-minded, and took your feelings and circumstances into account before making a rash decision.”

Somewhere in my apology I enter academia mode, and the triple-threat of addressing the Princess in the most familiar tradition we have of a friendship lesson, being showered in her intimate attention, and the streams of new synapses firing as my emotions try to find some equilibrium I start to devolve back into a fit of happy giggles, making it difficult to keep us from knocking heads together.

My grip on her neck and shoulders falters a bit as I recover, but she adjusts beneath me and I feel us fall slowly for a few seconds before the sine wave of the hover disappears. Looking around I see she’s descended onto the thick layer of cumulonimbus, splaying her massive wings out to either side as she sinks into the fluffy mess to stay stable on its’ surface.

“Oh, hehe- here, let me- heh lemme just-“ I struggle to maintain concentration for the couple seconds it’s needed, but I manage as a huge blanket of thin force presses down from above, easily twenty feet in every direction. It passes harmlessly through us, but it squishes the wispy tendrils of chaotic cloudstuff down into itself, creating a well-packed and relatively smooth surface for her to walk on.

I follow it up with a cloud walking spell that fizzles on the first try as I remember that ‘Princess Celestia named a star after me!’ Though I manage to keep my cool the second time around, and I slide off her back and onto the cloud with her, nestling up to her shoulder. I feel almost greedy hogging her attention like this, these exchanges usually last less than ten seconds, twelve and a half if you allow for outliers. When her wing drapes itself over my entire body though, I let myself shelf the idea and indulge in the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be truly alone with my mentor.

“You are very dear to me, Twilight, as is Luna. I'm sorry for keeping these things from you for so long, but Star Swirl has always been a problem I'd foolishly resolved to facing alone, and I knew you revered him greatly." A brief silence follows. "I promised you the truth, Twilight. The truth is that I failed him. In my own grieving for Luna I failed to console him as he wallowed in the loss if his lover and friend. He found whatever faults he could with me, and one day everything came to a head when he orchestrated an exodus with several members of my head staff, eventually leading to the end of my rule of the Everfree. He founded a small sect of devoted followers known as the Chronomancer's Guild after I reclaimed the throne with Equestria. He exploits them for his own means and then disposes of them when it suits him, likely luring them in with false promises and exaggerated retellings of my failures of the past."

I sigh as the moment is interrupted by shop talk, but she's right to bring it up. We've got a plan to make, and I still have questions that she needs to answer. I promised to hold her accountable, and I will, but this time I'll deliberate more carefully before passing any judgement or criticisms.

"Then the first question is where he gets his information- Actually, that's superseded by knowing what his endgoal is. A close third is how to stop point number one, being said goal, though we should think linearly here. Do you have a scroll and quill I can borrow? I think we should write this down.” I look over at the Princess and realize I’ve gotten up and started pacing out of habit, robbing myself of a heartfelt moment in exchange for what promises to be a mentally stimulating one.

She smiles warmly at me and flips a smaller pouch sewn against the side of her main saddlebag, and out floats a set of fine writing quills (with counterweights for hornwriters,) four extra large wells of ink, and two hardleather-bound spellbooks, each emblazoned with masterfully-cut (what I assume to be) tourmaline in the shape of my cutie mark.

“One for notes and erratum, the other for spellcraft. I imagine you’ll fill half their pages before the night is out.” She replies cryptically. I feel my head tilt to the side as I ponder what she means, but before I can go down the rabbit hole the main bags affixed to her sides flip open and at least three dozen books, a number of research papers, and some blueprint bundles are plucked into the air in a wavy conga line of parchment and ink.

Out of the other side she produces a thin collapsable rod, setting it between us on the cloud as I watch, entranced. She mutters some verbal component for a quick transmutation spell, and the rod extends nearly four feet deep, then the metal it’s composed of is stretched ten feet wide, easily large enough to support all the tomes that drop on top of it as the Princess dismisses the levitation. For a second I’m afraid it’ll all plummet through the cloud, but as is to be expected of the Princess, it seems she had the foresight to enchant the strange rod-table-thingy with a cloudwalking spell.

“Princess, I don’t understand. What’s all this for?” I tentatively approach the stacks of books piled on the metal platform, leaning down and glossing over some of the covers.

What looks like a university textbook, ’”It’s Simple Rocket Science!” Vol. I’ jumps out at me. I flip it open to a random page and immediately the number of strange and unrecognizable equations and symbols all but force me to take a step back. I glance up at the princess, not sure if this is some academic prank she’s stringing me along for, or if this is really what I think it is. She lays patiently watching me look around, and nods towards the pile for me to continue. I reach out and hover over a small string-bound thesis paper, though the string is perfectly smooth all across itself, not a single fray in sight.

The Decade in Recap: Nuclear Fusion and its’ Mounting Concerns in Regard to Climate Change.” I flip through a few pages to skim its’ contents, and it seems to be a hybrid report on ecological statistics cross-referencing power-generation facilities’ and their inadequate regulatory procedures. There’s several graphs displaying a correlation between power output and pollution, though that doesn’t always guarantee causation. In any case, I’d need to read a lot more to really understand what it is they’re referring to.

Another book. ‘Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge.’ This one’s a properly published softcover, though the binding is impeccably smooth. I can’t even feel any ridges from the adhesive in my magic, meaning this was either crafted with great care by a talented presser, or by some new process I haven’t read about or seen the handiwork of. Flipping through it there’s dozens of strange diagrams depicting an elongated flying saucer with wings on either end, what look to be pressure zones for major regions of a map I don’t recognize, and explanations for an uncountably high number of levers, buttons, and “displays.”

I gently set everything back down on the makeshift table. My tail’s flicking back and forth viciously as I try to make sense of it all, and I can feel the creases on my face getting creases with how hard I’m focusing.

“Why?” I finally ask, looking up to her. Surprisingly enough she’s still smiling, and she stands up, making her way around to me. I keep my eyes locked on hers the entire time, still trying to divine some sort of explanation.

“Because this is the last thing he would ever expect me to do. I have a trick left I’ve been waiting for a moment like this to use, but before that it’s time I make good on my position as your teacher.” I feel something inside me ignite as I bear witness to quite possibly the most extraordinary sight in the world; Princess Celestia putting up her ethereal mane in a ponytail and cracking open a massive book in front of the both of us. Two more follow suit on the side, and she points to the one closest to me, beginning her instruction.

“’Smart Cookie’s Fundamental Sigil-Casting, Revised,’ ‘Arcana Irrationality,’ and ‘Quantum Informality: The Fourth Dimension.’ We’ll start with theoretical sigil networking. Open that one to chapter three, I’ll summarize the first two as we go.”

My heart’s absolutely blazing now. It feels like it could burst right out of my chest, and yet I feel oddly calm. This is what I’m good at, and this is without a doubt going to be the most important study session of my life. The fact that the Princess is going to be staying up all night with me is the icing to top it all off. She trusts me enough to let her guard down, to break her own rules and entrust thousands of years of lost knowledge to me. I’m not going to let her down.

I sit down next to her, cracking open my blank note-keeping book and preparing a quill, ready to be instructed. She doesn’t miss a beat, and true to her word we dive right into the lost art of Sigils.

Soft Reset - A Novice Chronomancer's Guide to Tempomancy

by Foxvolt

18 - Lost Knowledge