“Take the carriage down at the farm,” Luna ordered. Her bat-winged royal guards lowered the chariot to the farm. Her personal escort of two guards made themselves comfortable as she went to the house.
Luna knocked, and waited. She knocked and waited longer. There were no ponies stirring in the farm house. Clearing her throat, she cast the small enchantment on her throat to generate the Royal Canterlot Voice. “Applejack! Thine Princess demands you answer thy door!”
After another minute of silence, she sighed. She was about to talk away and head to find Twilight when the door opened.
“Eh? You found a Jack doing incest with Azure mule thirty-four?” Granny Smith said.
Luna turned and nearly blew her eardrums out, before remembering to deactivate the Royal Canterlot Voice enchantment. “Granny, I am looking for Applejack. I had wished to send her to gather the others, while I speak to Twilight. Where is she?”
“Oh, Applejack! She said she’d be back in a day, had business with Twilight. I think it’s about Big Mac getting drafted. She said Apple Bloom is staying with Rarity and Sweetie until she sorts things out.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “Did you say drafted? I have co-signed no royal decree for such a thing, tis not even a war in over a century!”
Granny smith frowned and tilted her head. “But Applejack wouldn’t lie to me. She’s the most honest pony I had the honor of raisin’. Twice as true as her old man, never thought such a thing possible.”
Luna sighed and rested a hoof on her shoulder. “I understand. She truly would have done anything to be true to herself and her friends. Even if it meant putting herself in a bad position to protect their reputation. I promise you: I will find her.”
Luna ushered Granny back indoors, watching her close the door. She walked over to her personal escort. “Store the chariot in their barn. Nightwing, you are to fly to Canterlot with all due haste. I expect a contingent of two dozen lunar guard here well before nightfall of this first day.”
“Lunar guard, not the royal guard?” Nightwing asked.
“Do not question my order, and do not fail me. You will speak of my order to nopony except my lunar guard. Do not even be seen arriving or leaving Canterlot. Am I perfectly clear?”
Nightwing saluted. “Yes, princess.” He turned and flung himself into the air like a missile, his powerful legs and wings carrying him at a speed to rival the Shadowbolts.
“Echo,” Luna addressed, causing him to snap to attention.
“Princess, permission to speak freely?” Echo asked.
Luna smiled at her most loyal bodyguard, charmed by his unfailing devotion to his military bearing. She trusted him with secrets not even Celestia was privy too. “Proceed.”
“If you’re sending for two dozen of your personal guard so secretly, what treason do you suspect that you do not trust your own sister?”
She smiled at his cunning. “I have felt a change in the elements, a remnant of when I once wielded them. One by one, the faint link began to feel wrong, until my link to honesty severed completely.”
Luna used her magic to create an invisible field around them, so nopony could eavesdrop. “Something is very wrong with the elements. Celestia feels it too, but she has been. . . broken since Cadance’s death. I must handle this alone, for I feel Applejack or one of the other elements is at the heart of something truly horrific.
“The second word reaches Celestia, or anypony in this town, our quarry will run to ground and hide. We must discover who is weakening the elements, and why, without tipping our hoof.
“Therefore, you shall guard me and will not leave my side for any reason while we are here. And you shall never broach this subject unless we are alone.
“I will not let the Nightmare rise again in another innocent pony.”
Morning came too early for Twilight, who wished to stay asleep and pretend yesterday was just a nightmare. Even when she drifted off to sleep, her limbs managed to stay firmly locked to her Big Mac plushy. Lyra had even leapt down from the nightstand to sleep next to her, stroking her chin to sooth her to sleep.
Twilight did not speak a word to either of them all night. She crawled into bed, barely clean of the blood. Neither doll asked whose it was, for neither truly wanted to admit it was, in fact, the blood of a dead pony.
Throughout the night Twilight replayed the events in her head over and over. She had calculated fourteen different scenarios in which she could have captured Applejack. There were an additional eight where she could have seen Silver coming, and directed her to the emergency syringe of barbiturates in Twilight’s saddlebag.
Silver had killed to protect her mentor. It had forged an unbreakable bound of trust between the two, of master and apprentice. Despite the fact Twilight would be in prison, or executed, had Silver not acted, she still blamed the filly.
It was Silver’s fault Applejack had to die. It was Twilight’s fault Silver was put in that situation. If she had just been more careful, planned the game a few more steps ahead, her plan would have worked flawlessly.
“I set out to save everypony,” she whimpered. At first, Lyra and Mac did not even turn to face her. They were sure that they were just hearing things.
“All I wanted, all I needed was the elements. They. . . were my best friends. I did all this for them, for every nice pony. Nopony in Ponyville would ever suffer the loss of a loved one again. Nopony. . .”
Both Lyra and Big Mac were giving Twilight their undivided attention at this point. Neither one spoke to risk interrupting her confession.
“I failed. I’ve ruined everything. I wasn’t smart enough, I formulated a plan based on a logical fallacy. Now she is dead. . . she is dead like Cadance and Shining. I can never bring her back.”
Twilight had not moved a muscle save her mouth this whole time. Her tone was as flat as sheet metal, unwavering, emotionless. She had gone emotionally numb, filling neither the comfort of Big Mac pressing against her chest nor the sorrow of his sister lying in a puddle of congealed blood downstairs.
“Now I can never save everypony. I’ve failed. The worst part is, I’m stuck with that decision now. Maybe in a few hundred years I’d have found true immortality, mastered the alicorn spell and re-assembled it to grant eternal youth. I could have reversed the doll spell, given enough time, and made you truly immune to death.”
The two dolls exchanged a curious glance at her admission that true immortality might in fact be achievable for a non-alicorn. Not only that, she might be able to undo what she had wrought.
“But now, if Celestia finds out the punishment will unquestionably be death by lethal injection. I can’t even reverse the doll spell yet, so law dictates she consider my transformation and binding spell on the dolls to be twenty-eight counts of first degree murder.”
Twilight finally moved, using one limb to cradle Big Mac against her bosom.
“I thought, in the worst case she’ll understand. They’re not really dead. The laws of alchemy prove I haven’t really killed you, just changed your state of existence. However, now that Applejack is dead, she’ll have me put down like a rabid dog.”
Big Mac opened his mouth in shock, unable to verbalize the horror of his realization. Applejack is dead.
“Please, I’m so sorry. . . I lied to you Big Mac. I had to save Apple Bloom and Applejack from death but. . . I failed her. I failed you. Please, forgive me. . . I’m so scared, Big Mac. I don’t want to die. Please. . . I don’t want anypony to die.”
Lyra looked at Big Mac, who was still moving his lips like a fish out of water.
Everything clicked together for the stallion in that one moment. She took him first to spin the web. Apple Bloom, the sweet honey to lure in the prey. Applejack, the fly in her web.
The bruises around her face, ribs, and horn were the only sign left of the violent struggle. The faint signs of blood as she climbed into bed, not quite washed off completely. Her uncontrollable trembling and crying throughout the entire night, clinging to Mac like a life preserver in the middle of the Pacificolt Ocean.
“Ah trusted you, loved you. . .” was all Big Mac could manage.
“I know. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me. I will never forgive Silver for killing Applejack, but she made the right choice. Applejack had to die so the rest of us could live. Only I could ever hope to bring us all immortality and happiness. Without me. . . you’d all become lifeless husks, children’s toys in the truest sense of the word.
“You need me as much as I need you. . . You two are the only two I can relate to anymore. I broke all my other friends. They hated me before, and now every single one of them wants me dead. Even Celestia, my mentor, would smile in glee to murder me.”
“Twilight,” Lyra cooed, stroking her chin. “I love you.”
Twilight smiled, and her eyes drifted to Big Mac who looked lost in thought.
“Ah. . . ah want you to end it. Ah can never love you again, Twilight,” Mac said.
For the first time the emotionally numb alicorn’s voice wavered as she spoke.
“I. . . please, I always had a c-crush on y-you. Getting to c-cuddle with my very own s-special s-some p-pony. . . being loved. . . I can’t go back to b-being alone. It’s like we’re a happy couple. I think. . . I need you the most of all.”
“And ya can have your silly plushy. Ah just want ya to scrap my mind outta this gilded cage ya put it in. Let me die, Twilight. Let me see my Sis again. Or, are ya breakin’ that promise too? Did ya lie when you promised to grant me this request when the time came?”
Twilight curled up in a tight ball until Lyra and Mac rested in the nook between her neck, legs, and belly. Even her tail and mane were pulled into the tight sobbing mass. From a reservoir she didn’t know remained, fresh tears began to flow.
The sun had not yet risen in those early morning hours. The last two words she uttered before finally crying herself into blissful sleep were “I can’t.”
Twilight was awoken as the first rays of Celestia’s sun fell upon her. She had only gotten a few short hours of sleep, yet she felt oddly refreshed. Her admission to her friends had eased her mood.
Big Mac, however, had not been as forgiving. Twilight felt the emptiness inside herself, and the emptiness beside her bosom. Her favorite plushy had removed himself from her grip while she slept.
The stallion now sat perfectly motionless on the windowsill. He stared out over the horizon, bathed in the warmth of the beautiful gift Celestia nurtured and protected each day. The gift of life, warmth, and safety; the promise from their ruler to watch over them, to protect them from the shadows, and those that would harm her little ponies.
She cursed herself for admitting to killing his sister and then leaving herself vulnerable. The fact he had not tried something in anger only deepened her trust for him. It was the proof she desperately wanted that someway, somehow, Big Mac still loved her
Lyra brushed along her flank and walked over to look at Big Mac. Twilight felt the emptiness inside her shrink ever so slightly. While no doll yet had removed the void, at least they had begun to heal it.
“May I?” Lyra asked, never taking her gaze from the sun.
Twilight levitated her onto the windowsill, and she sat down beside Big Mac, mimicking his posture, and staring out the window at what was the most majestic sunrise they had witnessed since joining the Dollhouse.
A part of Twilight filled with joy, masking the pain. To see the two dolls on the windowsill happy, and not just ‘okay’ or ‘all right’ let her know that today was going to be a perfect, joyous day. Perhaps the first morning she could count as a gift from Celestia in a long time.
Her mind turned to the body downstairs. She left her friends to watch the sun rise high into the sky. She closed the door to her room behind her, and went downstairs.
Twilight began cleaning up after Applejack’s murder. The shutters and doors on the first floor were all still tightly shut. She used her magic as sparingly as possible, not wanting to aggrevate the swelling and damage Twilight received in the fight.
Before long the crime scene had been scrubbed clean. The body had been shrunken into a lifeless mannequin, a part of her dollhouse only in spirit. She would bury it in the replica cemetery in New Ponyville. Applejack would rest in the replica coffin under six inches of loose dirt. To her left would rest Bon Bon; to their right already sat tombstones and empty caskets in honor of Shining and Cadance.
Twilight went to her room to put the Applejack toy in her dresser. Lyra and Mac still hadn’t moved so she let them be.
Returning to Spike’s old room, she checked on Silver. The filly was just being roused from sleep. When she cracked an eye open and saw Twilight, she began to wake up much quicker.
“Twi?” she said.
Twilight smiled, remembering how Spike used to call her that. “I’m here.”
“Are. . . we going to be okay?” Silver asked.
“Yes, Silver. Everything is going to be fine.”
A knock sounded from the door downstairs.
“Wait here, Silver, I need to see to our guest.”
Twilight walked down to the front door, already sensing the powerful aura of the alicorn on the other side. She opened the door in an inviting sweep with her foreleg. “Luna! So great to see you, I’ve been most worried lately. Would you care for some tea?”
“I would be delighted.” Luna let herself in, as did the guard behind her. Twilight took a quick peek outside behind them, before closing the door. “You say you are worried?”
Twilight smiled and headed for the kitchen, talking loudly so she could hear her. “Oh yes, ponies have been disappearing and I can’t figure out why. I’m. . . scared Luna, that I’ll fail as a princess.”
“We shall solve it, for you are no longer alone. A most strange thing has happened and we need your help to find who is responsible,” Luna stated.
A grin, not visible to her guests, crossed Twilight’s face. Luna had only come with one guard. It took two to pull a chariot, not to mention a royal princess was required to have a pair of body guards.
The second guard was not outside, guarding the Library. That meant Luna had sent him with word back to Canterlot. The chariot was not parked outside. Twilight deduced that the princess had already caught on.
The fact she sent her bodyguards and not a letter via the magic the alicorns, and Spike, used to communicate meant she didn’t even trust Celestia.
Twilight almost started laughing audibly as she reached for a bag of hemlock.
“I visited the Apple family. Has Applejack been acting strange? She lied to Granny Smith about Big Mac being drafted, she sent Apple Bloom off to stay with Rarity. We found it odd, so we visited Carousel Boutique. Neither Apple Bloom, nor Rarity, nor Sweetie Belle were there.”
She retracted her hoof from the bag of hemlock and smirked. Was Luna really that stupid? Applejack living a life of crime and deceit?
“Luna, she did seem a bit odd the last we met. I’ve been trying to figure out why,” Twilight explained.
“I think I can show you why. Please, bring me your chest with the elements of harmony.”
After setting the tea down, Luna began to sip daintily from her cup. There was one thing bothering Twilight, grating on her nerves: her bodyguard.
Ever since the bodyguard had entered the house, his eyes had not left Twilight for a second. If half the rumors were true, the bat pegasi could hear a pin drop a mile away, and use their echo location to know the exact position of every solid object within fifty meters.
If the other half of the rumors were true, they were omnivores like the Griffins, and could disable a unicorn’s magic by emitting a special frequency.
Twilight hoped the other half of the rumors were not true.
The chest with the elements landed on the table with a dull thud. Luna lifted the lid, revealing to Twilight the elements of harmony.
The red lightning bolt and dark purple diamond were glowing weakly, occasionally pulsing to their normal brightness, before trying to hide within themselves. The blue balloon glowed more vibrantly than any other there, almost with an urgency or concern. The purple star had taken a milky black hue, with the faintest of green flickering through it. The pink butterfly had a steady, timid glow.
The orange apple, the element of honesty, was blacker than the darkest night. The inert element sat in the box, without a single trace of magic left in it.
“It is exactly as I feared,” Luna explained. “The elements are being corrupted, and it began with Applejack.”
Twilight caught a laugh in her throat, barely keeping Luna from noticing. The bodyguard raised an eyebrow, as if he heard her muffle that laugh before it risked passing her lips.
“The elements are interconnected. These trinkets are as much the source of their power as the actual quality of friendship within you. Were you to forget about the magic of friendship, your element would become inert. Were Dash to lose her loyalty, it’d be reflected here,” Luna explained.
“If Applejack were to forget honesty, to live a dishonest life, her element would leave her and this trinket would become inert.” Luna frowned. “Either, Applejack is involved in what is happening in Ponyville, or she is already dead.”