//------------------------------//
// 5. Draco / ᴉuᴉɯǝ⅁ 
// Story: Everyone Knows It's Cady 
// by Skywriter 
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Consciousness comes slowly. Under the circumstances, I am happy that it comes at all.

I am lying in a field of luminescent blue. It’s foliage of some kind, impeccably soft. It glows serenely in the dark. Motes of gold rise from the bed and drift up out of sight.

I can see angry, spiky, twisted trees on all sides. A miracle, then. This little clearing was the one patch I could have plummeted to, possibly for furlongs, the impact with which would not have wrecked me completely. The spongy mass of flowers seems to have broken my fall without any major internal damage. I am astonished at this mind-bogglingly lucky save.

Nevertheless, I don't feel quite right. My kinesthetic sense is all out of whack. Almost certainly something is broken, despite the fact that there is no pain. I am convinced that I am just waiting for my body to register it.

I roll over and sink my claws into the earth below me.

Speaking of registering pain, do you know that moment when you see yourself whack your hoof hard on something solid, and you know, just know, the pain is going to come, but there's a horrible millisecond where all you can feel is a quiet, prickling intellectual dread? I live in that place for about five seconds as I stare down at my claws.

I scream.

I say that I scream, but it comes out as an unambiguous roar. A gout of intense flame pours from my mouth, reducing a triangular pattern of the flower field and a patch of the dark wood beyond into char and cinder. I am startled by the sudden fire really close to my face, so I scream again, with the same result. It is dangerously close to becoming a self-sustaining feedback loop. I hyperventilate for a minute, which only makes the flames worse, and then gain a certain measure of mastery over myself.

I look down at myself. Back at myself. I scream again. The cycle repeats.

Eventually I am able to not incinerate everything around me in my panic, and I take stock of myself. I'm still pink. There's that, at least. Everything else is unrecognizable. I have glittering scales in place of my coat, and my wings are stretched and bat-like, no feathers to be seen. My tail is huge. It's grotesque.

I have very little reference for the size I have become. None of the plants here are familiar to me. I get a sense just from the way my body moves that I'm bigger, but maybe not enormous? The relative size of my ruined gown beneath me confirms it. I’m probably about two ponies wide and, I don't know, four or five long?

The pollen, I suddenly realize. These are those flowers. This is that pollen. The stuff that goes airborne and gets wrapped up into the hailstones above the Everfree, the ones we came here to harvest. The ones we put in our drinks. Maybe in small enough doses, they produce fun little chaotic effects, like a puff or two of fire breath. But maybe if you tumble into a whole huge patch of it...

I spend another minute dipping back into panic. I try to get a hold of myself, try to breathe without flame. I fail to do so. I have no idea how any of these processes work. I've never been a dragon before.

"Rough night, huh?" says a voice from nearby. A figure emerges from behind one of the unburnt trees.

On top of everything else, the figure is me.

My draconic maw opens slightly in abject confusion. It's me. It looks a little older. A little taller. About a million percent more poised. But it's me. It steps with graceful tread over the smoking wood, crushing some of it beneath its hooves.

"Hey," says the figure. "I bet you're wondering what you're supposed to do next. That's perfectly normal."

"Yes!" I try to say. I cannot make my tongue or my throat make the words. All that comes out is an animalistic growl and yet more fire. The figure, the other me, neatly sidesteps the flames.

"Be careful," Other Cadance says in a gentle tone. "You're not going to be able to talk at this point. Nopony's going to be able to understand you, except me. And the only reason I can understand you is that I remember what I was trying to say when I was you."

Cadance gazes at me for a moment. "Wow. I really didn't get the full effect when I was over there. It's pretty impressive, truth to tell. Kind of fun."

I try to shout the word "What?" It doesn't go well. More tree limbs are incinerated in my attempt.

Cadance shakes her head. "Sorry. Listen, this is all very complicated, and I have to make this brief. We've done the math. Me and … a very close friend of mine believe that you won't make it out of here with your life if I don't intervene at this specific point in history. There are things in this forest that will make short work of a pony, even if that pony is temporarily a dragon."

In spite of her alarming words, Cadance's eyes go foggy. "It's funny. There've been so many instances where I could have done this: go back and tell myself a really important piece of information. I could have saved us all a lot of heartbreak. But this is the only time I remember seeing myself, from your side, I mean. So that must mean that this is the only time I ever choose to do this from my side. Does that make sense? I hope it makes sense."

I stare at her, dumbfounded. Cadance sighs. "Yes, of course. I remember it not making sense. I also remember recontextualizing this whole encounter as a pollen-induced delusion, so I'm fully aware that that's exactly what you're going to do immediately after I finish this sentence."

This has to be some weird kind of hallucination brought about by the enchanted flowers. "I have no idea what you're talking about!" I fail to say. I roar instead.

"I know," Cadance says. She sighs. "I'm not cut out for this. Temporal admin is a trash fire. The point is, I've been trying to puzzle through why I'm here now, of all times, and I think I've figured it out. No matter how bad it got ... gets ... whatever, this is the one time in our life when we're the most alone."

"Just tell me what I need to do to get out of here!" I fail to plead at her.

"Right," says Hallucinatory Cadance, understanding what my roars mean. "Okay, for starters, I can't tell you what direction you need to go, because I don't remember."

"Then what good is any of this?"

"What I can tell you is that there's a family who lives on the outskirts of Ponyville. Orchard folk. In the day and age you're in, right now, that's going to be the nearest settlement. There are ponies there who can help you. Okay?"

"How am I supposed to know which direction to go?"

"Concentrate, Cadance," says Cadance. "There are some very strong family bonds in that household. Just shut out all this weirdness, tune out the confusion, and pay attention. I know you'll be able to feel them."

Finally, the apparition is saying something kind of reasonable. I try to relax, try to sense what the pollen-induced figment of my imagination is telling me to sense.

Eventually, I hear/smell/taste it. It's faint, just on the edge of my perception. A couple, their son, their young daughter. A third child on the way. A grandmother on the father's side. Their love for each other circulates back and forth in a golden braid, a distant wind chime made of sugar and flour and blossom.

There is a sudden pang in my heart. I wonder what it's like to be them, to love so much and to be loved so much in return. I wonder what it's like to have a family. I quickly stow the feeling in favor of more immediate concerns. I can hear (smell, taste) where they are. A way back to civilization. I've got it. I nod to Cadance, briskly, still trying to center myself.

"Good," she says. "Now remember, stay under the canopy to avoid rocs. Forget trying to fly, you're not ready for that. Cragodiles are fast, but they tire quickly on land. Outrun, rather than fight. Stranglevines can be burned. And if you see anything that looks like a chicken, do not look at it. I am confident you can handle this, because I did, and I'm you. All right?"

I nod.

"Good dragon.” Cadance pats me on the snout with her hoof. She glances over her shoulder, apparently at an unseen figure. "I think that's all that I can say without totally rupturing causality. You're going to get through this, Cadance."

She begins to tear up. "You're going to get through all of this. You're going to come out on the other side braver, stronger, better than ever before. And things are going to be wonderful. I can't even describe how wonderful they are. There's—"

Cadance stops, looks over her shoulder again. "It's just as well that I can't describe how wonderful they are, because I'm also apparently forbidden from doing that. I think I've said pretty much everything I can remember me saying, and Tw—my temporal auditor is cutting me off. I have to go. I love you. You love you too."

I try to say something in response, but my words are unintelligible and also on fire. Cadance accepts it nonetheless, and she begins to fade into a fizzing pattern of cobalt sparks.

"Oh!" she says at the last, her voice distorted by powerful static. "Sunny Smiles! You have to know about Sunny Smiles! She isn't—"

The vision of myself fades, but my draconic form persists. Princess Cadance is gone, leaving Dragon Cadance behind. I poke at my sides and run my claws over my wings. Solid and unyielding. I had hoped that this whole situation was part and parcel of my chemical delirium, but apparently that only involved my subconscious talking to me in the second pony. The dragon thing is real.

My introspection is cut off by my stomach lurching. I am hungry again. My brain's just dumped a cartload of information on me mid-hallucination, and it's going to take whole ages to analyze. I'm in no state to think about it now. For one thing, I'm a hungry dragon. I think this fact alone snuffs out any hope of meaningful introspection.

I try to focus, to pick up the scent of the orchard family. It's harder the hungrier I get, but I can still manage. Even without a Cutie Mark, I can still hear what my Cutie Mark is telling me. I pluck my asterite pendant out of the ruins of my dress, select what I pray is the correct direction, and lumber ponderously out of the clearing and into the Everfree proper.

There are monsters here in the wood. I am one of them.







I break the tree line close to midnight. My pink scales are not as shiny as they once were, marred as they are with fang and scorch marks. I claw my way into the clear, breathing heavily, burning everything in my path. Then I throw myself on my back and look up at the stars. Despite everything, I can hear crickets.

I am starving to death. Prior to this moment, I'd thought being an alicorn was bad. It is nothing compared to being a dragon who has poured everything she has into fighting forest monsters. A few hours and an entire lifetime ago, I recall Captain Sungrazer urging me to master the limits of my body. I feel like I've done a pretty good job of that tonight, and it isn't even my own body that I'm mastering. Every fiber of my being is taut, burning. I cough. Fire flickers forth, a weak, guttering flame. The party feast feels like a distant, half-remembered thing.

Weakly, I rise, stumble a few more steps, and fall into a huge patch of ashy earth.

The earth isn't natural. It smells sharp and sulfurous. There is very little organic about it, nothing that feels like it'd be good for plant life. It's like pulverized rock, not soil. It drifts and puffs in the dim light of my dragonfire. I try to assess the size of the patch; it is hard to see in the dim light, but it appears to go on for acres and acres. It feels weird on my compromised scales, alkaline and irritating.

I am hardly able to process it at this time. After the riotously fecund Everfree, whose life is constantly trying to extinguish yours, a bit of a dead patch is calming, despite the mild irritation. It feels like peroxide on my wounds. The irritation of the strange soil gives me impetus to continue. There are ponies ahead, ponies who can help, or at least that's what my subconscious was trying to tell me. Ponies who run ... an orchard?

I smell the apples before I can see them, and my entire focus slims down to a tightly wound crossbow of focus. Surely, it's too early for apples, here in the midsummer. But then again, I've been told that certain talented earth ponies can call forth fruit from the trees far earlier, and with far greater frequency, than their more mundane cousins.

I'm not going to spend too much time thinking about it. I can't, I just can't. No longer in control of my body, I find myself bounding overland, half lumbering, half flying, toward the delicious smell of ready fruit. Soon enough, I can see a line of apple trees in front of me, and I barrel into them with gusto. Somewhere deep in my rational brain, I am trying to tally how much fruit I intend to eat, and what the going market rate of that would be. Deep down, I am vainly attempting to account for everything I consume so that someone, somewhere, can be reimbursed for it.

My last remaining rational particle thus satisfied, I begin wolfing down everything in sight. Tree after tree of slightly unripe (but almost there!) apples disappears down my gullet, dripping juice down the sides of my jaws as they go. It's not really helping, but I keep trying with increasing desperation, moving from tree to tree. I just need a little satiety. A little clarity. Something so that I'm not absolutely mad with hunger when I go to meet the ponies who can help me. They'll understand. They've got to understand. I'll just explain to them what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and surely they'll see the—

There is an impact at my shoulder, unbelievably powerful, and it sends me skidding away from my latest tree. I tumble over once and then sink my claws in the dirt to stabilize myself. I look up in panic to see what struck me, and I see...

"There you are, ya' ragged beast!"

Oh, no.

Standing before me in a ferocious pose is a powerfully built, buttercup-yellow stallion, his flank adorned with the image of a pared green apple. He spits into the dirt.

"Get! Out! Of my! Orchard!"

"Oh, hello!" I say. "Listen, I know this looks bad, but it turns out you're just the pony I've been looking for. I am Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, but you can call me 'Cadance.' It's a pleasure to meet you!"

That's what I try to say, at least. I wince as my words come out as a threatening-sounding roar, accompanied by yet more blue flame. The yellow orchard-keeper leaps into a quick dodge roll, avoiding harm. He taps his brimmed hat back into position and squares up for another charge at me. I concentrate magic into my unicorn horn to try and smooth over the orchard-keeper's mood, until I realize that I don't have my unicorn horn and my will is going nowhere.

"Pa!" comes an adolescent voice from slightly further back in the tree-row.

"Li'l Mac, you stay back! Keep away from this critter!"

"I wanna help!"

"You help me by staying safe, hear?" The orchard-keeper, Pa, charges me again. I try to hold my claws up in a reconciliatory gesture, but my whole body is unfamiliar to me, and the wiggling daggers at the ends of my forelimbs end up looking pretty threatening. Pa skids beneath them and then reverses his motion mid-slide and gives me a pair of rear hooves to the side. It's nearly enough to crack a rib. I fall against a tree. Pa spins around again and goes for my face this time. I hold up my claws again to try and shield myself, and, oh no, I am certain that does not look good either.

I am kicked straight in the snout. I bellow in pain and fire. I don't mean to make fire, but—

—yes. Yes, I mean to make fire. I do intentionally make fire, not trying to hurt anypony, but just threatening enough to make him reconsider another kick. Maybe it'll keep him at bay for a little bit, force a stalemate, let cooler heads prevail?

Pa backs away, assessing my threat response. "Change of plans, Li'l Mac! Fetch my lariat!"

"Yes, Pa!"

Worse. Much worse. I think I might die from the indignity alone. Bad enough being an animal, much worse a trussed one. I consider turning tail and fleeing, but earlier, my subconscious seemed convinced that these ponies were my best hope of making it through this powerfully strange night. I pour everything I have into making reconciliatory gestures, putting myself through a five-second crash course in my own altered body language. Li'l Mac tosses Pa a lasso, and he spins it over his head...

"Well," says a creaky, clipped little voice. "Isn't this a curious thing?"

Stepping placidly into the melee is a tiny, fragile, unicorn mare of dusty periwinkle, with a Cutie Mark of a single lit candle. She walks calmly, but with purpose.

"Miss Lamplight!" says Pa. "Stay back!"

She peers at him over the rim of her half-moon spectacles. "Stay back from what, darling?"

"From the monster! The dragon!"

She makes a little piff noise with her lips. "Dragon! There's no dragon here."

"Yes! There is! Right there!"

She looks at me. "Oh, I see that thing, well enough. But it's no dragon."

"Thank you!" I try to say. Gargle, gargle, fire.

Pa flinches at the display. "But Miss Lamplight—"

"Tell me, Bright Mac, what do dragons eat?"

"Ponies, I reckon!"

She clicks her tongue, shakes her head. "Then why is the beast eating your apples?"

"I dunno!" says Pa, apparently the one named Bright Mac. "Maybe they're like bears! Omni-vorus!"

"Omnivorous," says Miss Lamplight. "Possible. Dragons can and do eat apples. But they don't crave them. Not enough to go ruining crops in the dead of night. This beast believes it can satisfy itself with apples, but it cannot. That means that it does not think of itself as a dragon."

Bright Mac scratches at his cherry-red mane. "I ... I guess I follow."

I nod vigorously. This much, at least, seems universal. Listen to the little old mare, I will at Bright Mac. The little old mare is smart.

"What do we do with a dragon that doesn't think it's a dragon, then?"

"First thing is we give it what it actually needs." Miss Lamplight fishes around in her saddlebag and produces something on her hoof. She approaches me, utterly fearless.

I look at the tiny object nestled in the frog of her hoof. It is a double-sided mahjong tile, made of polished white wood and inset with smooth, precious gems. The gems on the tile are the most delicious-looking things I have ever seen or even conceived of.

Dragons eat gemstones. That much is clear, according to the texts. We know very little about them other than that, since there hasn't been a migration in quite some time. Prior to this moment, I had thought of them as tasting like colorful rock candy. It seemed intuitive enough.

It may have been intuitive, but it was completely wrong. At the least, woefully insufficient. I take a moment to bask in the smells that waft from the tiny little mahjong tile. All the trace elements and impurities in the crystalline structure of the gems give the tile a heavenly aroma, wonderfully complex and subtle and evolving.

She tosses it to me and I catch it in my mouth like a dog. The hunger begins to go away.

"There we go," says Miss Lamplight. "Does it want more?"

I nod pathetically.

She smiles and removes a case from her saddlebag. She opens it. It is stuffed full of glittering tiles.

"Thankfully, I have a whole set."





"Don't know why you had to feed our entire mahjong set to this varmint!" says the creaky, crabby voice of a pony I have quickly come to know as Granny Smith, at my right shoulder.

"It's only a thing, Granny," says Miss Lamplight, who is walking on my left. "Things can be replaced."

"It was a pretty thing, though! What am I gonna do without my mahjong?"

"You could buy your own? Not use mine?"

"Pah. Waste of good bits."

I am trudging along between the two elderly mares, under a tarp. It is somewhat less humiliating than being tied up. Miss Lamplight apologized for the awkwardness at first, but noted that, even in the dead of night, my uncloaked appearance would cause far too much of a stir in town. I had to agree. Bright Mac was evidence enough of that.

"You gotta understand, Bright Mac ain't a violent sort! He's gentle as the day is long! But when a big ol' critter like yourself come hollerin' into the east orchard, rampaging through the red delicious, what'd'ya expect out of a pony?"

I mumble an apology. It singes the edge of the tarp.

"Yeah, you better be sorry," says Granny Smith, who understands the intention, if not the words. "Mac's got enough on his mind, what with Butter expecting like she is. Miz Lampy, what are we fixin' to do with this here animal?"

"If I have ascertained the nature of the problem correctly, I know of a book that can help."

"A book!" hoots Granny Smith. "You're always turnin' to books!"

"I am a librarian. When all your problems are esoteric and magical, every solution looks like a book."

Granny grunts. "So where are we storing this critter while you go fetch your whatever?"

"I was thinking we could store it with me, in the library."

"In the library!" Granny practically shrieks. "You got a weird beastie practically made of fire, and you're taking it into the most chock-full-of-paper place in town?"

"I trust that it has control of its fire now." She gently strokes the scales of my cheek. "I trust it has not completely forgotten who it is."

I murmur something. There is no flame.

Granny Smith and Miss Lamplight hustle me through the deserted streets of the little farming village near the orchard. I am proud to note that I do not burn even a single thatched-roof cottage. Eventually, our path ends at a huge, tangled oak tree in full green leaf. Through some miracle of earth craftsponyship, the interior of the tree looks to have been hollowed out, creating a quaint, twisting structure of rooms and stairs and passages, while leaving the tree itself still alive around it all. It is a singularly miraculous building, and even in my miserable state, I feel my heart opening to it. A small sign nearby indicates that, yes, this is the town library. It is a marvel. I wish I'd known that it was here.

"Here we are," says Miss Lamplight. She pushes open a friendly red door emblazoned with an image of her Cutie Mark and hustles me inside with only a little squeezing. "Home sweet home."

The three of us find ourselves in a calming, dusk-hued antechamber. The walls are lined with an impressive number of bookshelf nooks, shaped with love directly into the mother wood of the tree itself. My nose is overwhelmed by the comforting, vanilla-like smell of old tomes. For the second time this week, I am taking refuge in a fortress of books, like little Twilight Sparkle used to construct out of her home library. Back when I was her foalsitter, back before I was a dragon, back when life was infinitely less complex.

Peeking out from my concealing tarp, I look around at the foyer of the library and allow myself a little smile. Twilight would love this place.





I am a pony again. I never want to not be a pony, ever again.

I am cuddled in one of Miss Lamplight's old bathrobes. It smells like old mare. That is not a bad thing. I lounge in the basement room of her library home after a shockingly complicated series of herbal remedies that slowly but surely washed away my dragonhood and restored me to my proper form. As an alicorn, I am already somewhat mutable based on my mood and my perception of control, but nopony should be that mutable.

There is a film playing, a little light entertainment while I recover from my exertions. Some sort of instructional movie about the archaic means by which Cloudsdale used to gather water, before modern water-collecting methods took over. It was the first film canister Miss Lamplight could find. I am not complaining. It is fascinating to see how times have changed.

"They used to round up every pegasus pony in town," comes Miss Lamplight's voice, as she plods carefully up behind me. "Fly them 'round and 'round and 'round and make a funnel that would suck the water out of our reservoirs and poof! Shoot it all the way up to Cloudsdale."

"Sounds dangerous.”

"Oh, it was, it was." Miss Lamplight gives a dry little chuckle. "I brought you some tea and cookies.”

"I'm ... I'm not hungry." Shockingly, it is true. There is something really wrong with my digestion right now, and I cannot imagine consuming a single thing.

"Suit yourself.” She lifts a pink-iced biscuit in her aura and takes a delicate nibble. "It was dangerous, but it was also alive. Vital. The energy those pegasus ponies put into it. They used to have big competitions between the towns. See how powerful their wind funnels could get. Pegasi love competition. They love having something to fight for. We are healthiest—Equestria is healthiest—when we give pegasi things to fight for that improve all our lives."

"This is sounding a little tribalist."

"Merely observational, ma'am.” She gives a little curtsy. "In any case, that all changed when the Weather Corporation moved into Cloudsdale. Said the old Weather Factory was operating a monopoly, and they got the Senate to agree. And why wouldn't they? Tanker ships were better, safer, more efficient. The CWC was putting out weather at a rate that the Weather Factory just couldn't compete with. And now, ironically, it's the CWC that's the monopoly. And they do whatever they please."

"But that's good, right? You just said it's better, safer, more efficient."

"Mm," says Miss Lamplight. "But what's the cost? Tell me, Your Highness, have you ever seen strange things during your time in Cloudsdale? Substances whose presence you can't quite explain?"

I perk up at the oddly specific question, and then realize that I have an answer. "There was a flow of something, one time. In New Veneighzia. A friend of mine called it 'archonium.' Said it wasn't supposed to be there. All I can remember was that it was cold. Really, really cold."

Miss Lamplight nods, deep in thought. "Anything else?"

"Tonight. There was a large patch of ... some other thing. Between the forest and the orchards. Dirt, but crumbly. Tingly."

"Denebium. Rare sterile earth."

"But that wasn't in Cloudsdale."

"Earth is heavy," says Miss Lamplight. "Earth falls."

"I don't understand. What does this have to do with Cloudsdale? Is strange dirt getting filtered out of the water during weather processing? Is the water picking up contaminants when it's down here? We've already got novelty ice filled with weird transmogrifying pollen. Maybe this is the same, just not intentional?”

Lamplight chuckles. "It's an interesting question. Few enough ponies know what goes on in the Weather Corporation. Trade secrets. It makes me worried when there are things here that should not be here. Much as I am worried when a dragon shows up in a dear old friend's orchard."

"Maybe ... maybe I can find out?"

"Maybe you can, ma'am," she says.

I suddenly get a sick sensation in my gut. Lamplight looks over at me, sees my discomfort written on my face. "I know it sounds a little scary, dear. But perhaps, if you could give yourself some answers, you would find some peace in knowing—"

"No." I wave a hoof in front of my face. "No. I'm not scared. It's not—I'm not feeling—" I take a deep breath, and speak quickly. "Miss Lamplight, do you happen to have someplace I could—"

"Chamber pot is in the side closet." She returns her attention to her biscuit. I leap out of my chair and rush over to the side closet. In a rather dramatic series of coughs and gags, I bring the offending substance up from my gut and back out into the world.

A weary quiet settles back over the room. "Finished, ma'am?"

"Yes," I say weakly. I look down into the pot. There, in the little basin, is the remnants of one hundred and forty-four wooden gaming tiles, every last scrap of their gemstone inlays stripped clean. Just lots and lots of bare-naked wood. Apparently, in extreme enough scenarios, I can be thwarted by roughage after all.

"The tiles?" asks Miss Lamplight.

"Yep."

"Shapeshifting is difficult," she says, as I drag myself back to my chair. "The food you put into yourself one day becomes poison the next. Such is the way of many things in this world."

I smile, despite it all. "You're filled with clever words."

"Librarian!" she shouts, thrusting a hoof in the air. "I am surrounded by so many words on all sides. They seep into me through my skin."

"Sorry about your mahjong set."

"The night has been a strange one for us all. If that is the greatest loss we face from your plunge into the Everfree Forest, we should count ourselves lucky."

A voice comes from upstairs. It's Granny Smith.

"Miz Lampy! Yer Highness! There's a situation developin' up here!"

I sit upright. "What is it?"

"Beggin' yer pardon, it's best if y'all come up and see it for yourselves!"

Miss Lamplight and I rush up the stairs to the library foyer. What was once a peaceful and dark refuge is now flooded with harsh white light, spilling in from the outdoors like sprays of diamond. Shielding my eyes and casting a jagged shadow, I make my way to the front door and push it open.

The little town square abutting the library tree is lit up like full noon. Hovering low over central Ponyville are two capital-class airships of the Royal Navy. Each is equipped with a battery of calcium lamps, the harsh and jarring light of which floods the immediate area. I can hear the hum of propulsion vanes from overhead.

Brighter even than all that is the stern, white figure standing in the middle of the square, wings wide. She has a bearing of sharp poise, a lightning stroke caught and made flesh. She shines like the sun, which, admittedly, is a pretty short intuitive leap.

"Cadance," says Princess Celestia.