//------------------------------// // Bliss and Ignorance // Story: Two Weeks // by NotARealPonydotcom //------------------------------// Bliss and Ignorance ____________________________________________________________________ We're sitting on a park bench, in the middle of a field that's slowly beginning to fill itself with the world. Landmarks appear, turning it from an empty, anonymous place to the park the bench belongs to. Trees first, then bushes, rocks, and other bits of nature materialize into place. Next come buildings, railings, more park benches, a play structure, and a sand pit. The sky blooms overhead, an expanse of bright blue that leaves spaces in the white nothing that look enough like clouds to pass for them. Finally, I hear hoofsteps around me, birds chirping above me, and the sound of ponies chatting. I blink, and the park is suddenly full of life. Directly in front of me is a group of young foals, all crowded around a purple dragon three times their size. He and I make eye contact several times, but he doesn't see me; rather, he can't see me. He looks down at the crowd of foals and starts a conversation with them, oblivious to the clone of him sitting mere hooves away. Nopony around seems to notice me or the Princess of the Night at all; we're like ghosts, watching the world move on without us. I watch Spike chat with the foals for a while. It occurs to me that I'm not crazy, or in yet another alternate dimension, but simply viewing another one of my memories. In a few minutes, Sundown—who is currently sitting closest to me, almost in my lap—will suggest a game to play. Everypony will think it's a great idea, including me. I will notice, but ignore, the look of disdain coming from the red mare sitting on a bench that's actually directly next to the invisible one the princess and I are sitting on. We'll begin; I'll count to fifty, and start collecting a pile of stones I'll pretend are gems while the foals come up with a battle strategy. When it goes into action, they'll beat me mercilessly with sticks, something I won't be expecting to hurt as much as it does. When they finally let up, we'll exchange a bit of dramatic dialogue, and I'll use an argument between two of them as a chance to attack their leader, Captain Sundown. By attack, of course, I mean tickle, but that's not how the mare next to me will see it. All she'll see is me on top of her son, and all she'll hear are his screams, and then... I blink again and realize that all of this has already occurred; I'm now watching myself walk towards me. I guess what's coming next and shiver as my memory-me goes walking through me; I can almost feel it. I turn and watch Spike walk up to Rarity, and at this point I've been unsettled enough by the reenactment to turn to Luna, who has been waiting patiently and is watching Sundown and his mother with a strange, pensive expression on her face. "How long have we been here?" I ask stupidly. My voice is raspy, like I haven't spoken in a day. My throat feels drier than a desert. "No more than ten seconds," she replies, so quietly it's as if she's not completely there. She's still staring at Sundown and his mother, both of whom are now frozen in a single moment as my memory of them reaches its end. She tears her eyes away from them, and out of the corner of my own I see them vanish. Or, I stop seeing them exist. Something like that. "So," I say, wondering where to begin. "So?" Perhaps she's wondering where to start, too. "I'm dreaming." Luna nods; her starry mane flutters around her. I sigh, trying to accept the truth, and keep talking: "I've been asleep this whole time. Nothing's been real since I woke up in the Everfree, that morning. All of it's been in my head." Luna smiles, and shakes her head; the stars wiggle with it. "I believe that it would be easier," she says, "if you were a bit more specific with the questions you asked." "Okay." I stare out at the now-emptying field and pour out to her: "Has all of this been a dream? Was everything in Dragonsville just in my head?" Silence follows for a while, so I add, in a small voice, "I mean, it isn't real, is it?" "Allow me to answer your questions in reverse," Luna finally begins. "First of all, no; almost none of what's happened to you has been in your head. Only when you are asleep do you visit your subconscious. Second of all, it would be silly to think that just because something is happening in your head, that makes it unreal: it is very much real. I would prefer it if you would stop passing my visitations and dreamscapes off as mere figments of your imagination." Her voice rises as she says all this, particularly during that last bit, and her expression makes her seem insulted, for some reason. I avoid her eyes and mutter, "Uh, sorry, I guess. I didn't mean to, uh..." The rest is lost in my throat. Luna blinks as though coming out of a trance, and blushes faintly. "No," she blurts out, "I should apologize. I am just... tired of hearing ponies call my worlds 'fake'." She turns and stares at some grass. I get the feeling that she's not talking about something that's happened recently. Starting again quickly, she says, "These moments you spend in your memories, and whenever you were with me, were the only parts of this journey that you spent in your head. As for your other question, it will take more than a simple 'Yes' or 'No' to provide you with a proper answer. "As I said before, it's wrong to assume that something that happens in your head isn't real: everything, in some way, is real. In some cases, what's in your head may be more real than what you normally consider to be so. But what you've experienced in Dragonsville is real, Spike. Very real." She turns to me and points at my chest with a boot-fitted hoof. "It is you, young drake, that is the least real in this situation." That almost made enough sense for me to believe her, but I need a little more than that. "I'm sorry, but I don't-" "Please, let me explain." She stares hard at the ground, deep in thought. "You asked if you have been asleep this entire time. I assume that by 'entire time,' you mean the time you've spent in Dragonsville. You are correct; you have indeed been asleep. In a way." Uh-oh. The way she said that sounds bad. "What does that mean?" She looks me in the eye, opens and shuts her mouth, and frowns. She looks genuinely sad. "I mean that you are technically not alive at the moment. Your soul has officially left your body." "WHAT!?!?" The world explodes, literally. The grass turns a violent shade of red, something roars at us from underneath the earth, and everything blurs as the field we're in goes up in flames around us. I hear the screams of familiar ponies. A sick, black feeling comes over me, the feeling that I'm on the edge of something dark and bottomless. My eyes stay fixed on Luna this whole time; she pays no attention to the destruction surrounding us. I feel a slicing pain in my lip—turns out I've been biting it, hard. I grip the seat of the park bench, tearing into the wood with my claws. I can feel sobs trying to force their way up my throat. I think I'm going to vomit. These are symptoms of an anxiety attack, which is something I can't possibly be having because I'm dead, and dead creatures can't feel anxiety anymore because they are dead, dead dead dead— Oh sweet Mother. I'm dead. Luna puts her hoof on my shoulder. "Spike, please let me explain before you overreact-" "What more could you possibly say? I'm dead!" "Spike, you are not-" "I can't be dead! How am I even talking to you if I'm dead? Unless this is- "Spike! Desist!" The Royal Canterlot Voice comes to her as naturally as breathing. I obey, shutting up and gritting my teeth to keep the lump in my throat down; when she speaks again it is in the same calm, collected voice she had when we first appeared in the field. "Spike, let us walk. I will explain, if you will listen." I nod, staying silent; I'm certain that if I try to say anything, all that will come out is "dead." We stand, and the bench folds out of existence. Luna begins to trot down a lone dirt path that wasn't there a moment ago, and I follow her. The explosions around us are calming down (so am I, I realize), and as we walk the scene blurs and changes, shifting into other memories of mine. "I'm dead," I say, after we walk in silence for a minute (or perhaps a year, give or take a few days; time's weird here), "so, that makes Dragonsville heaven, right? Or maybe it's the other place, because there wouldn't be any other Spike if I was in—" "Spike, stop," Luna interrupts. "You are not dead. You are not gone from your world forever, and Dragonsville is most certainly not heaven. Your soul is merely... taking a vacation from your body." "Oh," I say, pretending to understand what that means; something about that hesitation makes me doubt that that's what's happening at all. Next question: "So, I'm half-alive, or something like that? In limbo?" "Yes. Something like that." "I've been like that for, what, a week in Equestria?" Luna shakes her head. "Neigh. I've taken measures to ensure that you can return to your body at an appropriate time." "What measures?" "I have frozen time. That way, your body will not stop functioning and decompose, and your friends will not find you lying in a pool of your own blood." She says this so casually! It's as if she's done it before. "You can freeze time?" "For a time, yes. It isn't permanent, though. I can hold the spell for any time that amounts to at most-" "Two weeks." She smiles. "Yes. Very good." We've reached a place that looks hauntingly familiar; the main room of the Golden Oaks Library. A lavender unicorn rushes around, looking over every shelf full of books for something she doesn't realize is in her assistant's hand. He's holding it out to her, and it takes her some time to notice it, but she thanks him and snatches it up gratefully. Luna and I walk to the library steps as Twilight and Spike talk about something; I can't remember what. "What do you mean, 'I can return to my body?'" "You are only in limbo," Luna answers, "because you so wished it." "Bullshit." She gives me an irate look. "Language, Spike." Oh please. "I'm sorry, but I think I was just told I wished for my own death and got it, sort of. I think that's a very legitimate reason to swear." "Please, let me explain—" "I wish you would!" I'm getting tired of her s— "Spike!" The stars in her mane flare brightly. I'm faintly aware that the Twilight and Spike chatting in the library are now silent and staring at us with faces devoid of all emotion. Creepy. "...Sorry." I'm still mad, though. "Please continue. I promise I won't interrupt anymore." "I understand your frustration," Luna says, "and I apologize for how unsympathetic my explanations must sound. I have been trying to improve upon my social skills." She starts up the stairs. "Please, though, do not let your emotions get the best of you. In these dream realms, emotions have caused the death of a great many ponies, griffons, and dragons alike." I want to know more about this, but I'm afraid to open my mouth again. We reach the top of the stairs and step out of the trunk of an apple tree into the center of a field—specifically, a field of Sweet Apple Acres apple trees. A few rows down, a purple drake is standing on the back of a muscular maroon stallion, picking bright red apples and putting them in a white basket with a tag on it that I can't read from here. I know what it says, though: "Rarity," in big, golden letters. It was an idea for the week leading up to Hearts and Hooves Day, to get a different kind of fruit for her each day, ending with a bouquet on the actual Day itself. It didn't end well; Ponyville really only specializes in one kind of fruit. Luna continues: "A wish you made resulted in your temporary termination. You may return when you would like to, and I will provide you with something that will allow you to do so. For the sake of allowing the spell to run its course, it would be best if you waited the full two weeks before returning. You will have a small window of opportunity to return to Equestria then." "Why wait for the spell to end? Won't I just be frozen in time for a while? I wouldn't even feel it." Luna frowns and answers slowly, as though unsure of her own words. "I believe... that you would not be able to cross over into Equestria without my assistance, and at the moment most of my magic is focused on the time spell. Until it ends, you will be stuck in Dragonsville." I feel as though this isn't the entire truth, but I choose to drop it. "Fine." Looking up into the branches of one of the trees, I decide to pull an apple off it and give it a taste—emerald milkshake, with extra caramel sauce. "So, I've gotta wait until you're done with the spell?" Luna nods and says, "Two weeks. I can maintain the spell for this long. When the two weeks are up, then it will fail, and it will be only a few short minutes before your sister and her friends find you in the Canterlot castle, bleeding to death. If you choose to stay in Dragonsville, then you shall die in Equestria, and you will be buried, mourned, and then, eventually, life will go on without you." She makes it sound so simple and insignificant. "You say I have a choice?" "Of course you do. I would not force you to return if you did not want to, though I would be severely disappointed." "How so?" "I have two very good reasons. Firstly, there is already a Spike in Dragonsville, and he cannot return in your place. To step into his life and try to take it over would not only be a horrible thing to do to him, but a disaster that may end in the destruction of both your world and his." Well, that escalated quickly. "That's worst case scenario, though, right?" "If it occurred immdiately, perhaps, but even if it did not, it would be inevitable. No doubt you have already experienced the chaos energy building between you two." We're walking through rows and rows of books, the apple trees long having changed into shelves. To my left, down an isle, a unicorn and a drake with the same color of fur/scales are sent flying away from each other. Books fly as well, in what appears to be a small explosion. "The shock," I mutter. Luna nods. "Yes. When you and your counterpart first came in contact with each other, reality recognized that there were two of the same beings in one world. The shock you felt was chaos energy, used to keep you and Spike from tearing each other, and consequently all of the universe, apart. The energy acts as a sort of shield, protecting you from each other, though it does have some... side effects." "Like what?" "...disorientation." She pauses, sees that that isn't enough for me, and continues, rattling off a list: "Narcolepsy, short-term memory loss, and, most prominently, emotional instability." Oh. "Emotional instability?" "Indeed. You must have noticed by now that you are acting very radically when you deal with a situation in Dragonsville?" "I—" I have. I realize now why I felt the way I did around Spike, why I morphed back into the bumbling fool I was years ago when I met Rarity, why I almost strangled Twilight when she told me how happy she was that Spike had gotten over Rarity. I feel faint, which makes no sense as I'm already asleep. I sort of whimper to Luna, "You're telling me that I've been acting like a jerk to my pony counterpart, messing with Rarity's head, and been a total mess in general,"—I let that sink in, and it hurts—"because there's some sort of magic energy keeping me from touching myself?" I don't even care how weird that sounds. Luna nods. "I'm afraid so. The chaos energy sets up its own defense system, a way of keeping the creatures protected by it from making contact. Each time that you and your counterpart touch, it weakens. Eventually, it would fail all together, and the next time you came in contact with one another, you would both be torn from reality." "And the universe would go down with us?" "Yours and his, yes. Reality does not enjoy being warped by mortal hooves, Spike, and it will take the most drastic of measures to right any wrongs made. You don't belong in Dragonsville. You never did." That figures. Just for fun, I ask, "What's the other reason I have to go back?" "If you didn't, you would be leaving behind a group of ponies who care about you very, very much." We're in another terribly familiar place; this one's a hallway, one I've seen in my dreams before. Debris and ashes are everywhere. Luna walks past a wounded, scaly form without looking at it, but I have to stop and stare. In the light of the moon, I can see every bit of the me that's just been through hell and back; I'm pretty sure this is one of the only times where I'm not looking at myself and thinking, Oh yeah, there's a handsome drake. Once more I feel like vomiting, but I swallow hard and follow Luna instead. "If my memory serves me right," I say, "then when I 'died,' I was leaving behind ponies that considered me..." (Say it.) "...a pet. Not a friend or a loved one." Luna ignores my statement and reaches a door at the end of the hallway. Instead of opening it, she walks right through without a word. I follow, hesitantly, and pause at the door. After a few moments of wondering whether or not it'll work for me, I try sticking only my head through the door. It works, and after a brief moment of darkness I come out on the other side and find myself staring right into somepony's face. It isn't Luna. I'm facing a mare, very close up. She's frozen in place, in the middle of pounding her hooves against the door, trying to break it down to get through. Her ivory coat has been stained with ash and running mascara—she's been crying. Her dress is torn, her mane is a mess, and her tail looks singed in some places, but she's still the most beautiful pony I've ever seen. Next to Rarity is Twilight, who is handling the situation much more calmly than the ivory unicorn. Or, it seems that way at first. Her horn is glowing, and her eyes are shut in concentration. Her dress looks beaten up as well, and there is a large cut on her cheek that I have the worst feeling is there thanks to me. When I look closer, though, I see that she's in fact having trouble with her magic, because she's crying. It looks as if she's frozen in between chokes. Behind the two unicorns are Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Luna. Applejack's got her hat pulled over her eyes, a clear sign that she's crying. Pinkie's just staring at the ground, blank-faced—absolutely terrifying. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are nowhere in sight. "Do you think that they would be this desperate," Luna says, in almost a whisper, "to find a pet?" No, no they wouldn't. I walk around Rarity, taking this image of her in as much as I can. She looks so scared, so miserable, so... Maybe I'm just making myself see remorse on her face. It worries me that I can't remember very well how she looked as a pony. I turn away from her and look to the Luna standing behind Applejack, with her eyes shut and her horn glowing brightly. "This is your memory," I say to the Luna that is over by Twilight, watching me. "Yes," she replies. Making her way back to the door, she steps through it again. I follow, reluctantly—I dislike the feeling of walking through walls, and there's something about looking down at my own corpse, or half-corpse or whatever, that makes me want to vomit and then go insane—and we stroll down the ruined hallway quietly. I realize that she has made no hoofsteps this whole time, and that I myself make no sound when I walk. Interesting. We reach my body, and it takes some time before I can look at it without breaking down, and even then I feel something trying to rush up my throat. The first time I'd looked at it, I'd avoided looking at the face, for obvious reasons. Now, though, I stare at it, and try to understand just why the hell I'm smiling up at the night sky. "Luna," I croak, "how did I end up like this?" "Would you like to see?" The Spike on the ground grins up at me, giving me an answer: "No, I don't think I'd like to." I look away from the horrid, smiling dead-me to Luna. "But show me anyway. Please." She nods, and suddenly things shift rapidly around us. Everything blurs as time moves backwards at a rapid rate. There are a few seconds of this blurriness and confusion; then everything straightens itself out. The hallway is perfectly clean now, and packed with ponies of the highest caliber. I look around, taking in the sudden noise and activity, and Luna begins walking through the crowd (literally), heading away from me. I follow, staring at everything but the Princess, and I spot Rainbow Dash chatting with Spitfire of the Wonderbolts. I wonder why Spitfire would be at the Expo, until I see the dress she's wearing. So, the Captain of the Wonderbolts is a fashion-lover—didn't see that one coming. I spot another Luna looking out at the crowd of ponies near where the dream-Luna (my Luna?) is headed. She (the memory-Luna) is pretending to listen to some first-class colt with an outrageous mustache-goatee combo that gives him the look of a Con Mane villain. Luna says something to him, turns, and walks through the now-open doors to the main room, now in line with the dream-Luna. I step into the room after her, only to be greeted with the shattering of a certain tray of champagne glasses. The Lunas look over simultaneously towards where the noise sounded; I follow their gaze, and we watch a group of ponies crowd around me. Not me, me; I mean the me that's just walked into a waiter on his way to Rarity, who's moved far enough away that only her ear twitches at the sound of the shattering glass. She doesn't see me (the memory-me), which is good, because it would suck for her to watch me being abused by the countless ponies who saw an untrained animal "attack" the waiter, not a civilized drake who made a mistake. The Luna that's a memory frowns, and starts trotting towards the crowd. The other one, the one that already knows what's going to happen, merely sits down. I know what's going to happen, too, and resign myself to fate as the colt that's going to spit in my face approaches me. Not the me that's dreaming; the me that's about to lose his cool. The me that just wanted to apologize to the mare I love, the me that wanted (wants) to be accepted by everypony. The me that's about to go feral. ____________________________________________________________________ It was over in one minute, twenty-five-point-eight-two seconds. All this happened, more or less. The dragon was spat upon by a stallion named Gilded Gown, who would later admit to being slightly inebriated when he did what he did, and would be charged with assault and receive a fine of 10,000 bits for his actions. That, added to a hospital bill he would be receiving soon, would be enough to force him to sell his summer home in Los Pegasus. These events would give him cause to change his ways, in the hopes of bettering himself and securing his family's future, and he would soon come to found an organization that researched and eventually cured several defects in horns, wings, and other vital pieces of the pony anatomy. By the time he died, forty-seven years thirty-four days and ten minutes after spitting in the face of a dragon, he would be the third richest pony in the world. Before he could be that pony, however, he had to suffer the wrath of an enraged dragon. Gilded Gown's first reaction to the animalistic growls the dragon made after he spat upon him was that of snobbish humor: he assumed that he'd been correct in his belief that all dragons were simply large, unthinking beasts. This humor soon turned to fear, once he realized that he had just become the reason for one of said large, unthinking beast's anger. He attempted to flee the scene, and found that he had been boxed in by the other snobbish ponies who reacted to the actually very dangerous situation with their own snobbish humor. He searched for a way out, but turned back to the dragon when he heard the sound of tearing cloth. The dragon was ripping the suit he was wearing apart, and smoke was billowing from his nostrils. The suit he was destroying was made by the up-and-coming fashionista Rarity, who stepped into another part of the Canterlot Castle at that moment and would not be aware of anything happening in the other room for another sixteen-point-three-eight seconds. In that time, the dragon would start the worst incident in the Canterlot Castle since the Changeling Invasion several years prior. The dragon finished tearing off his suit, and by this time seven different ponies had recognized the danger at hand and were quickly escaping the castle. Gilded Gown was still trapped in the crowd of ponies, and he found himself unable to move as the dragon approached him. He would later testify to having felt as though he were "under some sort of spell," a fact that led a small group of ponies to believe that the entire incident was set up; by whom, nopony could guess. The dragon reached the now-terrified stallion, and swiped him across the face with an unsheathed claw. The damage done in that single swipe would permanently scar Gilded Gown, and doctors would say it was a miracle that he survived. With him lying on the floor screaming, the rest of the crowd became aware of the danger in front of them, and panic immediately took hold of it. Somepony screamed "Murder!" and everypony else fled, flailing or shrieking to some degree. All this happened in six-point-seven-seven seconds, and it was point-two-four seconds later that the dragon began to transform. He grew in large surges, and each surge was unbelievably painful for him. He let out several roars, each one growing more and more ferocious and animalistic. After five of these growth spurts, which left him at exactly thirty-three-point-six feet tall and exactly seventy-one-point-five-four feet long from tip of nose to tail, his roars became accompanied by geysers of flame that scorched the stone walls of the castle and set fire to many of the curtains lining said scorched walls. It also happened to strike most of the guards that stood at the walls, and many of them were permanently scarred, a huge stroke of luck considering what might have happened had they been closer to the fire's point of origin. Onepony that ended up rather lucky in the end was one Ms. Star System, who snatched up the wounded Gilded Gown and rushed him out of the room, saving his life. Some of the guards that had evaded the fire began to escort frantic guests from the castle, while more of them attempted to take down the dragon. Five ponies in total ended up trampled by the rush of ponies trying to escape the castle; two guards, two guests, one waiter. The dragon had reached surge number eight when his tail lashed out and tore a gash in the line of windows on one side of the room. The glass that fell from the windows landed in the garden, where many ponies were still enjoying the Fashion Expo with no idea of what was happening above them. Eight-hundred-fifty-four ponies ran screaming from the garden, after the glass had finished raining down on them. A great many of them were cut, but fortunately none were dead. Above the ruined garden, the dragon roared a ninth time, and the up-and-coming fashionista in another room heard him and said his name aloud. Sixteen-point-three-eight seconds had elapsed; there was still a minute and nine-point-forty-four seconds left before it all ended. The room where Rarity had been led to also held Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie, as well as Princess Celestia, who had summoned them and the other two Elements of Harmony for a spot of tea. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had yet to arrive: the former was in a hallway just outside the room holding the dragon, and the latter had been in the gardens; both of them were now outside the castle or on their way there, trying to fight the current of fleeing guests and get back inside to find her friends. The four Elements and the Princess all became aware of the dragon's roars simultaneously, but it was only Rarity who initially went to the door to investigate. Twilight followed soon after, as did Applejack and Pinkie Pie. Celestia hesitated for some reason of her own, but when the doors opened and she heard the ferocity of the dragon's roars, she realized what was happening and followed intently. By the time the five had reached the room of the dragon, he had already grown to reach the ceiling of the room, which was alight with emerald fire. Twenty-nine-point-nine-seven seconds had passed. The dragon did not see the five ponies when they entered the room; his focus was on the guards attacking him. His roars could now be heard from all parts of the castle, and all guards were either focused on getting guests out of the castle or taking on the monster in the main ballroom. It was for this reason that the Equestrian Royal Guard made up the largest percentage of casualties from the incident, and this percentage would lead to the installment of a Draconic Fighting Force within the Equestrian military ten months later. The dragon swatted aside a group of guards, sending them flying at the princess and Element-bearers at dangerously high speeds. Though not badly hurt, the five mares found themselves stuck back into the hallway they had come from for another eight-point-eight-three seconds, enough time for a startling fact to be discovered about the dragon's fire. Thirty-three-point-one-four seconds after being spat upon, the dragon had released enough flames to light every flammable surface in the ballroom, and with his friends and mother forced into a different hallway there was nothing to remind him of what he had become. At this moment, a group of unicorn guards attempted to dowse the flames with magically-summoned water geysers. This resulted in the aforementioned discovery that, much to everypony's horror, the dragon's fire would not be put out by water. The guards tried in many different ways to put out the green fire, but they found that it could not be stopped by anything they did. By the time the Element bearers and princess reentered the ballroom, the flames had spread to three other parts of the castle. The dragon himself clawed at the ceiling of the ballroom, and broke open an enormous hole into open air in nine-point-nine-eight seconds. He roared another roar, one that was now completely feral, and a geyser of flame blasted into the night air. Around the dragon, the castle burned, and could not be put out. Fortunately, it would burn for only another forty-two-point-seven seconds. Unfortunately, the end of the fire would only raise more questions from everypony present at the castle. Forty-one-point-eight-nine seconds before it all ended, the dragon began to hoist himself up through the hole he had created in the ceiling. At his feet (now each the size of ten ponies) were unconscious or otherwise-incapacitated Royal Guards. At the entrance to the room from a hallway that eventually led to Princess Luna's bedchambers, five ponies looked up and knew the dragon that was the cause of all the destruction they were seeing. All of them were speechless, save for one: the fashion designer Rarity yelled the dragon's name, and got his attention. The dragon paused in his ascent, and when Rarity called his name again he turned his enormous head towards her. With the eyes of a beast he saw the terrified ponies, his friends and mother, and suddenly the horror came to him. The dragon looked at his claws, then his thick, trunk-like tail, then back at Rarity, and knew in that instant what he had become again. It took only point-three-six seconds for the next roar to reach his lips. When it left them, it was a roar of pain and sorrow, one that the five ponies would hear for a long time after it ended. The dragon turned from the ponies in shame, and tried to run. He flung himself up through the hole in the ballroom ceiling, leaving the room to burn. It was at this moment (thirty-three-point-nine-three seconds before the end) that Princess Luna made her first true appearance on the scene; she had been kept from stopping the dragon by a combination of fleeing guests, guards that insisted she needed to be somewhere else, and a pile of rubble that trapped her in a corner that was on fire. She rushed into the room just as her sister, who at that moment feared more for the fate of her son than for any of her fleeing or fighting subjects, went rushing into the air and out into the night, after the dragon. Luna stayed with the Element bearers, and thought of what to do next. The dragon crawled along the roof of the castle, choking out roars that sounded almost enough like sobs to not terrify the ponies that could see him. He did not know where he was going, only that he wanted to be away from everypony. He also wanted desperately to be out of the body he was in, because it was not his and he hated it because of how much everypony he loved got hurt when he had it on. He spent sixteen-point-seven-seven seconds slithering along the castle roof before being halted by Princess Celestia, who had prepared a spell that she knew would help the dragon if he gave her time to perform it. And he did so; he practically begged her to, with his aware-again eyes. Precisely one minute, eight-point-six-six seconds after having his face spat upon, the dragon was struck with a spell that stunned him into momentary unconsciousness. His massive claws dragged along the side of the castle hall he was above, and because it had already weakened due to the fire licking its insides, it collapsed. The dragon, already shrinking, began to fall. As he did, his tail lashed around and struck Princess Celestia, completely by accident, of course. She was sent over the edge of the castle's roof, and landed harshly in one of the Canterlot Royal Garden's duck ponds. The fall was approximately forty-seven-point-eight yards downward, and while it did not kill her (alicorns are very hard to kill, though it is entirely possible to do so), it did knock the breath out of her for the next twenty-one-point-four-seven seconds. For the dragon, it took three-point-four-five seconds to strike the floor of the destroyed hallway, and when he landed he struck a spire of rock that lodged into his back. This shocked him back into consciousness, and he found that he had returned to his normal, smaller form. He also realized, only one-point-six-two seconds later, that he was dying. As his body numbed, he experienced a moment of mad lucidity, and chuckled to himself as he thought of what he'd done. Then he remembered why, and nausea prevented him from laughing again. In the other room, Twilight Sparkle cast a spell and found that her brother was lying in a hallway only one room away. She found that the door leading to the hallway in question could not immediately be accessed, being blocked by piles of rocks on both of its sides, but was thankfully free of the seemingly unstoppable flames that covered the rest of the ballroom. She rushed over to it, as did Rarity, who was all but suffering an emotional breakdown. The two reached the door in seven-point-nine-four seconds, and one began to lift away the rocks blocking the doorway as the other began pounding against it with her hooves. Applejack, the Element of Honesty, found she could not move from her spot, and hid her face. The Element of Laughter, Pinkie Pie, stared at nothing in particular and thought about her good friend Rainbow Dash, whom she loved dearly. She was completely unaware that the Element of Loyalty was perfectly safe, ushering guests out of the castle with the Captain of the Wonderbolts herself, Spitfire; because of this, Pinkie felt worried beyond belief. Behind her, Princess Luna made a decision on which course of action to take, and began to cast a spell that, because of an incident involving a former suitor of hers who wanted to stop time forever, was extraordinarily forbidden. In the hallway, the dragon witnessed a unique event, one that, in his state of delirium, made him do something odd; he wished upon a shooting star, one that took four-point-one-five seconds to pass over his head and out of sight. At that point, he felt himself slowing to a halt, and he faintly heard the sounds of pounding hooves and crumbling stone. Beyond the hallway he lay in, his sister tried to move more debris away from the door, but found that she was crying too hard to do so properly. The fashionista at the door was yelling at the door, as though her voice might fling it open on its own. The farmer and the party planner both stayed in their respective spots, and none of them noticed Luna or her glowing horn. As the clock on the dragon ran down, the alicorn of the night cast her spell. One minute, twenty-five-point-eight-two seconds. All over the castle, the flames died out. ____________________________________________________________________ The hallway again. I'm smiling up at the sky. A stone is floating in midair over by a door that used to lead to the Equestrian Fashion Expo. I'm looking at Princess Luna, who looks back at me with a pitying look on her face. I don't deserve it, but I'm too tired to even try and tell her to stop it. One minute, twenty-something seconds, and I successfully set the castle on fire. I did that; I did that, and I hurt(worse than that) all those ponies. And yet the ones on the other side of the door are still pounding against it to see if I'm alright. All of this destruction. And Luna wants me to return to Equestria anyway. Very, very slowly, I sink to my knees. Then I press my head firmly into the ruined carpet beneath me. Presently, I become aware that my face has become soaked with tears that I didn't know were running down my face.