//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: The Mailmare // by theamberfox //------------------------------// The Mailmare By theamberfox Chapter 8 “Ummm… I’m not really sure what’s going on here,” the unicorn presenter with the silly tinfoil hat admitted to the room of shocked faces. One pony was even crying, though I honestly don’t know why. Perhaps she had simply been frightened by the shear gloriousness of our hoof slap. Celestia pulled the bottle of maple syrup from her lips, swished some of the residual liquid around in her mouth, swallowed and smiled a silly toothy smile, revealing a shiny silver bottle cap pinched in between her front teeth. Turning to face the presenter, she promptly spit the cap out onto the floor and resumed her peculiar facial expression. Luna twitched. “Don’t worry about it, buddy. You were getting kinda boring anyway.” Celestia laughed cheerfully and took another quick swig from the bottle of amber liquid. The unicorn presenter frowned. “You know, I watched this same presentation two-hundred and fifty-three years ago.” Celestia nodded insightfully. “Guy just like you walked up on stage and complained about ‘ambient rays’.” She rolled her eyes and smirked humorously. “I waited politely through his entire presentation, walked back behind stage, and proceeded to tell him exactly why his theory was wrong and well… kinda stupid too. I guess I didn’t want him to feel bad by ridiculing him in front of the crowd or something... “But that was a different time, a time when I had…” Celestia pondered her next words for a moment. “What is it called?” But the crowd did not have an answer; nor did the unicorn on stage; nor did I. “Grace!” Celestia smiled politely. But after what was only a second or two, her smile turned upside down, seemingly causing her to drink from the bottle again. “Well I certainly don’t have that anymore. And this… this is just too boring. It’s like…” Celestia stopped and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “It’s like… having a heart attack in a volcano filled with other ponies having heart attacks would actually be a more pleasurable experience than this right here, you know? Like, you can’t really see it, but I’m sitting over here and I’m like,” Celestia lurched forward and dramatically clawed at her chest. “AAAAHHHHHH!!!! I’M DYING!!! I’M DYIIIINNNG!!!” Celestia flung her hooves into the air and waved them about. “I’M DYING BECAUSE YOU’RE BORING AND ALL THESE OTHER PONIES IN THIS VOLCANO WITH ME ARE DYING TOO, BUT I GUESS THEY COULD BE DYING FOR DIFFERENT REASONS BECAUSE I HONESTLY HAVEN’T HAD THE CHANCE TO ASK THEM WHY THEY’RE DYING BECAUSE I’M TOO BUSY DYIIIIINNNG!!!!” Luna watched the whole thing with a very blank expression. Her right ear twitched. Celestia took a huge breath and then said, “So you know what!? I’m just going to end it right here, right now.” Celestia pointed fiercely at the unicorn on stage and boomed out, “I know what you’re doing, you devil! You’re just trying to get everypony to buy your stupid hats! Well the jig is up, buster! You lose! Nopony will buy your hats! Not now, not ever!!!” The crowd gasped loudly and the unicorn presenter looked around the room, having obviously no clue what was happening. Celestia narrowed her eyes to thin slits and glared at the presenter. The room fell silent. And without any warning at all, the unicorn presenter screamed in frustration and in a flash of light, he transformed into a much more feminine creature with translucent green, paper-like wings, a strange, crooked horn on her head and long slender black legs. “Queen Chrysalis!” Celestia shouted in surprise. “Guards! Guards!” she called frantically, once more waving her hooves around in the air. It seemed to me that her occupation consisted of a lot of flailing about. Luna’s mouth twitched. Several armored ponies, having just realized that this was actually a real emergency, rushed into the room and toward the stage. Although, I had no idea why everypony was so concerned. I mean, sure, maybe she was acting a little inappropriately for such a fancy, one-of-a-kind event, but cross-dressers are just a natural fact of life. And if this ‘Queen Chrysalis’ character wants to dress like a stallion for the first half of the party and a mare for the second half then we shouldn’t be so judgmental of her. On the other hoof, she really should have considered investing in a good quality exfoliating scrub. Her pores were so bad it almost looked like she had big holes in her legs. And I won’t even begin to mention the atrocious state of her mane and tail… “Curse you, Princess Celestia! You may have found me out,” Queen Chrysalis laughed hysterically, “but I’ll be back! You cannot protect your precious little ponies from my pyramid schemes forever! And the first time you misstep, I’ll ruin your self-sustaining economy and then I’ll have the largest GDP per capita!!! Hahahahaha!” And In another bright flash of light, the weird queen with the terrible hygiene was gone, just before the guards had reached the stage to put a stop to her bizarre, unexpected reaction. Luna’s eye twitched. “Awwwww!” Celestia roared and pounded the table with her hoof. “Not again! Last time she tried to take away all our love so she could suck us into some expensive telephone dating service and this time she tries to sell tinfoil hats to protect us from imaginary radiation.” Celestia hopped on top of the table, which was still broken and only a couple inches higher than the floor. “Well fear not, Equestrians! For I shall protect you from Chrysalis’ evil schemes and Equestria will always have the largest GDP per capita!” I think Celestia was expecting a roaring applause from all over the room, but she received only a very enthusiastic clapping and vociferous encouragement from a table of economists in the far left corner. But these economists were really having the time of their lives! They were so happy one of them even fainted! The rest of the ponies were, however, left as bewildered as Trixie and I and so we both shrugged and quietly returned to our places on the floor beside the broken table and proceeded to act like we had never even left the room in the first place. “What a couple of lunatics.” I joked, prodding Princess Luna in the ribs and laughing. Luna stared at me strangely and waited a very long time before answering with a very monotonous, “Yes.” Luna seemed a little different. Her neck twitched. Celestia stepped off the table and sat down again. “Well, I can’t thank you enough for the whiskey, Twilight. You know, you really are like the little sister I never had.” Luna’s nose twitched. “Haha!” Celestia slapped her real sister on the back. “I’m just joking, little Luna, joking! Haha!” Is that what they call it now? I wondered. Whiskey? I hadn’t actually bought any maple syrup for a while now, so I wasn’t incredibly up to date with all the street-slang for it. Celestia smiled. “Well anyway, without this whiskey, who knows!? Maybe we would have actually bought into Chrysalis’ evil schemes.” She chuckled. “I guess it would have been kinda funny to see all those ponies wearing those stupid foil hats. Though I fear the first lightning storm would put the death toll in the thousands!” “Oh, it was no trouble at all, Princess Celestia.” I reassured her. “All in a day’s work!” Celestia fixed a questioning look in my direction. “Twilight, you know as well as I do that you never do any real work.” I just stared back at her in silence. She was oddly serious right now. Perhaps the effects of the syrup wore off more quickly than that of the wine. But Celestia smiled and laughed again. “Oh, I’m just kidding, you egghead! But it’s funny though, I think I was about to do something very important before I started drinking this whiskey.” Celestia took another quick swig from the bottle. “But for the life of me, I can’t seem to remember what it was!” Luna’s entire body seemed to twitch. “Haha!” Celestia enthusiastically pounded the table with her hoof. “Oh Well! Couldn’t have been that important!” But afterward, she, quite unexpectedly, put on a very grim face. “But now we’ve got a real problem. See, now we’ve got a couple o’ minutes to kill before the next presenter starts. So? Anypony gotta a suggestion? How can we murder a couple o’ minutes!?” It seemed that one choice word Celestia had used, ‘murder’ to be exact, had caused Princess Luna to reach some sort of incredible epiphany. For as soon as she heard that word, she spoke up immediately. “The royal we have an idea, sister dear!” She smiled queerly. “Yes! Thou hast merely forgotten what the royal we have discussed earlier. Yes! When Twilight and her friend were away. Yes!” “Hmm?” Celestia, Trixie and I mumbled all at once with nearly the same amount of confusion in our tone. “Oh, yeeessss!” Luna grinned a great big toothy grin. “Thou hast just forgotten, silly dear! We were going to give Twilight here such a wonderfultastic opportunity when she returned! She’s going to speak in front of everypony! With that speech you told her to prepare, yes? Yes.” Something about Luna’s voice sounded very strange right about then, like something inside her head had simply popped and now she was really losing it. “Yes, yes, yeeesss!” Luna chuckled. “Yes, Twilight, thou art going to trot thy silly little bottom of thine up on to that stage and thou art going to present a really good speech. Yes!” I pointed at myself and raised an eyebrow in her direction. A speech? Me? I was certain she was losing it now… she was acting much too nice! She had lost all of her grumpiness! Why, she was downright pleasant now! Letting me speak in front of such a large audience? That sounded like one heck of a wonderfultastic opportunity! “Don’t be silly, Luna.” Celestia patted her sister lightly on the head. “Twilight’s a terrible speaker. She can’t even chew bubble-gum in front of a crowd, let alone open her mouth.” Celestia scrunched up her face, making her repulsion quite clear. “She just gets it stuck in between her teeth and then complains about how the milk doesn’t loosen the gum up. But everypony knows you drink milk to loosen the-” But Luna just cut her sister off, “Yes. Yeeess, she is a terrible speaker.” Luna giggled abruptly and for an unusually short period of time. “And that’s exactly why she needs to speak. Yes. She needs to get better at it. She needs to learn. She needs learn about the magic of friendship speaking! Because she’s definitely Twilight Sparkle and not some silly imposter! Yes. YEEEESSS!” And with that, she hopped to her feet and walked quickly up to the stage. "YES!" Luna said again to no pony in particular when she was almost halfway up to the stage. “Do you think she’s alright?” Celestia asked Trixie in an unusually sober tone. “She’s fine.” I nodded. “Yeah, if this evening has been any indication, she’s not really acting that unusual.” Trixie said with a roll of her eyes. “You might want to give her some milk to loosen some of that crazy though.” Celestia nodded in agreement. “Yes, that’s what I was thinking too; I’ll get the waiter.” “Haha! Yes!” Luna declared loudly, somehow reappearing directly behind Trixie and me and making our hair stand on end. “Twilight! You forgot to come with the royal we! Yes! Yes, thou hast forgotten to come with the royal we up to the stage! That’s the most important part. The stage! Yes.” Luna whisked me up off the floor, her horn glowing dully as she held me in mid-air with her magical power. Trixie and Celestia looked a little more worried, but I was sure everything was going to be just fine. I was excited about giving my prepared speech! So I just decided to hang there helplessly as she pulled me to the stage. It was a rather comfortable ride, actually, like floating on a cloud. …Well, at least most of the time it was comfortable. Every once in a while Princess Luna would accidently drop me, but she always apologized for it, so it was okay. When we were finally nearing the stage Luna’s head snapped backward and she smiled at me. “Hast thou noticed how orange the walls are today, Twilight dearest?” Come to think of it, I didn’t think the walls were orange at all. “You know, I actually haven’t noticed.” I responded with a cheerful nod. “But I’m sure glad you pointed that out.” I looked around the room once more. “For some reason, they look grey to me…” “And what of the ceiling?” Luna asked with a crooked grin. “Hast thou noticed how much it has been melting this evening?” I started to turn my head up towards the ceiling to inspect this ‘melting’ for myself, but Princess Luna grabbed my cheeks firmly with both her fore hooves. “Thou does not have to look! Yeeessss!” she blurted out with a healthy grin on her face. “Thou knows it’s true because the royal we said so! Yes! Yes.” She let go of my cheeks and walked more quickly towards the stage, now dragging me along the floor behind her. At that point, however, I had other concerns than being dragged. I was afraid! Why in the world was the ceiling melting!? Even if Luna had let me look, I don’t think I would have wanted to! That sounded terrible! When we came to the stairs leading to the top of the stage, Luna lifted me and accidently dropped me on every single step, but like always, she kindly apologized, so I didn’t mind… even if it hurt a little bit… or a lot... When we reached the top at last, she dropped me in a heap on the ground in the center of the stage and smiled at the big crowd of ponies. “Well, this evening is certainly going just exactly just as the royal we had planned it so!” Luna announced. She must have been scared of the melting ceiling too, because her words weren’t making much sense. “Yes! Don’t you all agree to those words the royal we spoke!?” Luna didn’t give them time enough to even nod. “Yes, you do! So, the royal we need to throw it off balance a little bit, don’t the royal we? Yes? Yes.” The noble ponies in their handsome black suits and their pretty coloured ball gowns looked more confused than ever. And for some reason, I still thought the walls looked grey, not orange. Maybe it was one of those pictures that, while it normally looks like just a bunch simple coloured dots, when you focus your eyes and stare at it for a couple of minutes then you can see a picture of a house or a puppy or something. I hated those things. I didn’t have so much free time that I could waste it on silly trick pictures! Maybe I would just have to get Luna to point it out to me again. Meanwhile, Trixie and Celestia were talking to each other and periodically glancing up at the stage. Maybe they can see the orange… “YES! YEEEESSS!!!” Luna smiled and tilted her head slightly to the side. “Yes, the royal we need to SHAKE IT UP!! So let us all listen to this glorious speech the real, genuine Twilight Sparkle, student of our sister, the wonderful and royal and not drunk at all Princess Celestia, has prepared for us. Yes.” Luna stared at me. “What is thou doing on the floor!? Get up! Thou has a speech to make. Yes! Yeeesss! Get up!” She pulled me to my feet and pushed me to the front of the stage. “A speech!” I said. “Of course! I almost forgot!” And much to Luna’s apparent surprise, I pulled a crumple of papers out of my suit pocket. “It’s a good thing I wrote this speech last week in preparation!” I announced to the crowd, who were still looking very concerned, but slightly less so than before. I suppose they, like me, were realizing that a melting ceiling wasn’t the worst thing in the world, especially one that was melting as slowly as this one. There was hardly even any ceiling on the floor yet. “Of course thou did!” For a split second, Luna seemed intensely angry at me. But it didn’t last long and she smiled again. “Thou art the real, genuine Twilight Sparkle, student of my sister, the wonderful and royal and not drunk at all Princess Celestia! Yes! Yes!” Luna giggled childishly. “Now make the speech, now. And remember,” Luna yelled at the top of her lungs, “THE REAL TWILIGHT SPARKLE WOULD HAVE SOMETHING INSIGHTFUL AND WITTY AND INTELLIGENT TO SAY!” Luna slowly moved away and sat down in the back corner of the stage. All the while, the crowd looked at me in great anticipation. As they should, I thought. This will be a speech to remember… "Ponies of Equestria!" I called out to them. “Our fair princess has promised you a speech! But tonight, I do not have a speech for you…” I glanced back at Luna. She frowned at me. I merely smiled back and turned to face the crowd again. “No, for you, ponies of Equestria, I have a legend!” I bellowed, drawing in the attention of the few stragglers that weren’t yet drawn to my voice. “I have a magnificent truth that few ponies know and yet, a truth that few can live without knowing!” I smoothed out the piece of paper I had pulled out of my pocket and lifted it into the air. “This!” I said, motioning towards the ratty old script. “Is not that truth!” The crowd of ponies fidgeted in their seats, not quite sure what to make of my words and yet, drawn into them all the same. “It is not that truth because a truth, a legend as great as this cannot be captured by mere words! And nor should it be! For the legend of two great kingdoms and the one who stood between them is one of epic proportions and nothing that could be told by a mortal being.” The noble ponies in front of me were now completely entranced. A thief could have walked into this room and stolen every single pony’s wallet and not a soul in the room would pay him any mind. Even Princess Luna was completely quiet. “Though I, the pony who would tell you this powerful legend, am of mortal flesh myself, and thus, one who can never truly give voice to this legend, I will attempt to retell it to the best of my ability.” My voice was like a cannon, my words like steel piercing their hearts. “For only then, when it is all said and done, will you know what you should have known long ago. You will know the legend of… The Muffin Man!” At that moment, I noticed Luna was no longer entranced in my story, but was instead, gritting her teeth together in a very aggressive and irritated fashion. I wasn’t exactly sure why, because every other pony in the room was as silent as the night, their eyes like stars watching me from afar. Perhaps she does not like hearing the same story twice? No doubt a pony as old as her would have heard this story at least once before. I continued regardless, raising my voice slightly and watching the crowed attentively as I went on. “Oh, do you know The Muffin Man? The Muffin Man? The Muffin Man? The one true knight in a sea of falsity and evil, he was a hero who took no sides, fought for no kingdoms, and lived for no riches. He alone fought for justice, lived for the happiness of the others, and took only the side of truth. “It was a dark time, long ago, when the fields were bare and the lakes were dry. Two mighty kingdoms sat atop two different mountains, each one so convinced they had nothing in common with the other that only hate and prejudice ever left their gates.” I stamped my hoof against the floor and watched as every pony in the room, well except for Luna, jumped in surprise! “Each one grew and ate and lived from a different crop. One was a kingdom of wheat, oats and salt and the other was a kingdom of milk, eggs and butter. And whenever they met each other, in any circumstance, they would make it their objective to hate and ruin the other! It was not long before the kingdoms and their folk had enough of the bickering and the fighting. They, like all good inhabitants of this world, wanted peace! But peace, they thought, was something that had to be won! Peace was something that had to be fought for! Peace was the spoil of war! And so, when they had argued enough, the two kingdoms declared war on one another, only content with the other’s complete destruction!” The crowd gasped and several ponies leaned forward in their seats or looked to one another in shock and awe. “But why!?” I asked them all, pleading to them as if I were pleading for my very own life. “That, my friends, is what The Muffin Man asked that day. How are they so different? How do they live apart when they are meant to be together?” I pressed my fore hooves together and closed my eyes. “The muffin man alone knew this truth. But more importantly, he knew the war could be stopped, and much bloodshed prevented, if he could only share this truth!” I glanced behind me, if only for a split second, to see if Princess Luna was still discontented with my telling of this great legend. However, from her quickly reddening face, it was quite obvious she wasn’t enjoying herself. I decided to cut the story a little short, to save the moon princess some discomfort. “By the time The Muffin Man knew of the war, some said it was already too late to stop it. But he wasn’t one to give up, not now, not ever! And when the armies marched from their gates, taking all their hatred and bigotry with them, The Muffin Man marched from his own gate, taking with him a cart full to the brim of his secret weapon.” I glanced over the crowd, wide-eyed and amazed with my own words. “He brought with him, a joining of the two kingdoms! He brought with him wheat, oats and salt! He brought with him milk, eggs and butter! But none of this was left in its raw form, as one might have expected. No! These things were put together, combined into one all-powerful thing! For the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and only through these glorious items in the back of his cart did he know how to show them!” The crowd leaned even further forward in their seats, so far in fact I thought they would fall to the floor. But as engrossed as they all were, they wouldn’t even have noticed if they fell… Well, except maybe for Luna. Luna would have noticed. Luna definitely would have noticed. And she probably would have been angry about it too! “But though he had his secret, he did not have his time. For when The Muffin Man arrived, the war had already begun, the ponies were already fighting, and indeed, they were dying…” I wiped away a single tear, shed for the lost souls of a pointless war. “It was dark and terrible to witness all the bloodshed, but The Muffin Man was a true knight and a banisher of the darkness! He did what was right. He did what was just. He did what only a hero could do! He strode into the middle of the fighting, pulling that wagon on his back and dodging the arrows and the magic and the hate and loathing that flew this way and that!” I could actually hear the grinding of Luna’s teeth now. That and the tapping of her hoof against the stage forced me to quicken my pace, if only by a smidgen, as this story still deserved a proper telling, no matter how many disliked its message or its voice. “Only when he reached the very center of the fighting, with his shoulder pierced by an arrow and his leg nearly slashed to pieces, did he finally stop!” I was shouting now. “And when he stopped, he mustered everything that was left of him and cried out these very words: ‘Your fighting ends now!’” The noble ponies gasped again. Every eye was on me, unblinking, unmoving. Even Luna was watching carefully! “And when he loosed those words, the fighting that had grown from differences, ended from commonalities. For those ponies, though they may not have entirely understood why, stopped completely! They didn’t know this pony that stood before them with his battered wagon and his broken body, but they all understood one thing.” I watched the crowd carefully. “If this pony was so committed and so noble and so determined that he would kill himself to get here, in the middle of a war that he had no part in starting and no part in ending, then his words were worth listening to, even if it was only for a second. “Knowing this, the muffin man made his words count. He said to them the one thing that would change their hearts, the one thing that would stop their swords and their arrows from flying at each other’s throats. In the perfect silence, he said this: ‘What you seek, you will not find! What you want, you do not deserve! What you think is so different, is actually the same! You point your sword, where you should be pointing your hearts! The world is only as different as you make it out to be and the differences that do exist are things that should be treasured, not thrown to the dogs!’ And when he said this, even he did not expect what would follow. It was not anger or sadness or even happiness and understanding, as he had wanted, but instead, what followed was only more silence. They knew he wasn’t done. They knew he had something else to say and so they listened.” I paused for a moment. They were all so eager to hear the end. And, in my head, I felt like him right now. I felt like The Muffin Man, speaking to a crowd of ponies I did not know nor did I have any reason to fight for. And yet, I was here. I was here to stop the reign of terror the evil Twilight Sparkle had begun. And so, after I had finished the legend of The Muffin Man, I knew it was time to end another legend, a legend of my very own creation. “Perhaps he knew it, perhaps he didn’t,” I said with grave tone, “but the next words The Muffin Man would speak would be his last. For his wounds were deep and his strength was gone. But that did not stop him from committing those words to something he truly believed in. He told the crowd this: ‘I have here before you a pact! A joining! I have peace, for you, your family, your neighbour, your king… I have peace and all you need to do is take it from me! Do not end what you have yet to experience. For if you do, you will never know what it was that you have lost!’” Some ponies in the crowd had to wipe the tears from their eyes. And it was then, that I knew I had done The Muffin Man the service that he deserved. “And after that, he was no more.” I said, tears starting to form in my eyes. “The Muffin Man fell, never to rise again. But when he fell, the most remarkable thing happened. Every single pony there, regardless of the kingdom they came from, dropped their swords and their bows and their weapons, and rushed to help him. And though The Muffin Man did not survive the day, no matter what they tried to do, his wagon and its contents lived on.” I looked out into the crowd, no longer seeing the individual ponies inside it, but the union they were all a part of. “The things he left them were called ‘muffins’. They were everything the ponies of the two kingdoms could have ever hoped for, and yet, they realized they could only be made from all the ingredients they both possessed. And they realized what he had meant that day. They realized they could work together to make something better, something good. An everlasting recipe to peace and freedom, the muffin ended the terrible hatred between two kingdoms. The muffin ended what should have never begun.” I closed my eyes for a minute, to let it all settle in. When I opened them again, I said, “And so ends the legend of the muffin man. His true name never spoken, but his legacy never forgotten. He brought together two vastly different things, and with them, formed peace and a nation we refer to today as only: Equestria!” And as soon as the last word was spoken, every pony rose from their seats and the room erupted into a shower of praise, a roaring of voices, and a thundering of hooves. These ponies, however they chose to enjoy their night up until now, had found some common ground on which to share their happiness. And though I was held responsible for this deed, I only bowed my head before them, knowing I was unworthy of taking the praise from the pony that truly deserved it. “NO!” Her voice was powerful beyond belief. It was like a windstorm, sweeping through the room and bringing everything else to an abrupt and forceful halt. “I’M TIRED OF THIS NONSENSE! I’m tired of talking like a proper princess while my sister makes a mockery of everything I stand for! I’m tired of trying to enjoy a night that I will obviously never be capable of enjoying!” The noble ponies in the crowd below did not seem to know quite how to react. “And most of all, I’m tired of you!” Princess Luna pointed an angry hoof in my direction. The room was very quiet. Quiet enough that it was impossible to shrug off Luna’s antagonism. But that doesn’t mean a mare can’t try… “Me?” I asked innocently, taking one slow step backward. “Yes! You!” Luna shrieked. “You’ve ruined everything! You’ve ruined the pleasant, pre-meal banter, the delicious food that followed, the interesting and insightful presentations… You’ve even ruined my sister!” Without turning her hateful gaze away from my direction, she pointed at Celestia. “Look at her!” Celestia smiled ignorantly and waved back. “She’s broken!” Acting as if all the eyes in the room weren’t looking at her right now, Celestia took a massive swig from the bottle of whiskey and swallowed hard. “And what was that story you told just now!?” Luna shook her head. “THE MUFFIN MAN!? That was complete BULLSHIT!! It was a total lie! That never happened!” Bah! I rolled my eyes. Really Luna? As if ‘Overdramatic Baking Tales from the Deep’ is just a book of complete lies! That’s probably about as likely as Twilight Sparkle being a friendly librarian and not an evil, tyrannical overlord! “You’ve destroyed the entire night,” Luna accused, “and you’re not even supposed to be here! No matter what you or anypony else thinks, YOU ARE NOT-” I knew it was rude, but I had to cut the princess off before she said another word. “ENOUGH!” I declared in my own authoritative voice, a voice that stole all the attention away from Luna’s complaints and frustrations. “Perhaps you are right, Princess Luna. Perhaps it is time to stop hiding in the shadows. Perhaps it is time to let everypony in on the secret I was hiding for so long.” Right then and there, everything came to a standstill. The ponies did not move, did not speak, did not even breathe. Even the horrible nausea from that meat thing had finally stopped churning in my stomach like a disgruntled walrus. Luna herself merely watched with stunned exasperation and wonder as I threw off that amazing, beautiful starry violet hat and that less impressive stained tablecloth that was my cape and stood before the crowd of ponies with a very smug expression on my face. Everything was finally going to end. Everything I worked so hard for. Everything I planned. If this whole journey was to be described as a charging train, full of inevitable events and roadblocks that constantly and consistently barred the way onward, then this was where that train was going. This was the end of the line. This was the destination. This was where I got off and went home. ________________________________________________________________________ Author's Notes: Oh yeah! See! We're really rolling along now! But in all honesty, it is as I said before, this chapter was done when the last one was published, so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that it's out already. On another note, this marks the first time in sixteen months that I've written a chapter without any help from prereaders, editors. Yes, this is truly a landmark on the path to glory! This chapter will have, by no stretch of the imagination, the most spelling and grammar errors ever! And on a very related note, I really could use a prereader. In all honesty, I'll take just about anyone, but I'd really like to find someone with a bit of experience in the field and who can also read 10 pages of text within a two day time frame. (Because, as you all know, I've only got about four or five days left to meet my goal...) So if you're at all interested in doing something like that, send me a pm and we'll work something out. And for everyone else, thank you for reading! I hope you're looking forward to the last chapter as much as I am! ________________________________________________________________________ Disclaimer: “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” and its derivatives are the sole intellectual property of Hasbro©. I do not have, nor claim to have, the rights to the intellectual property that this story is based on.