DECEPTION

by Christian Harisay

Chapter Five - The Real World

Spike couldn’t help but scream as he careened out of control through the slanted passage of the catacombs. His yells of panic were only interrupted by the occasional “Oof!” or other exclamation of pain as he slid through the tunnel. Tumbling over rocks and colliding against many protrusions, each with enough force to knock the wind out of him or leave him concerned for the state of his physical being, left him with a very unsettling sense of deja vu.

For half a second he was left completely airborne, flailing helplessly for a grip that did not exist as he continued to scream before landing on the graveled floor with an unhealthy crunch.

Whatever wind was still left in his lungs was knocked out of him. Trying to steal back all the escaped air with huge, ragged breaths was a thoroughly disagreeable experience. When he did finally catch his elusive breath, his first response was to groan in an exacerbated pain over the whole ordeal. For a moment, he just wanted to lay there on the uneven and uncomfortable ground until his aches and pains subsided and he could move without worry that he’d sprained or broken something.

But his mind was untarnished by the physical stress he’d just endured.

My friends could be trapped down here, too. Or worse, at the mercy of... him...

Any desire that he had to take a momentary break on that uncomfortable floor ended.

He groaned again as he moved to stand back up. His aching muscles protested his movements. Back on his feet again, he held up a clawed hand and breathed a small fire into it, using his own brand of magic to weave the flames until he held a small sphere of self-contained light in his palm. With that small source of illumination slightly lighting his surroundings, he began to get his first look at his crude containment cell.

To his dismay, there were no discernible openings or passages from where he was, save for the chute he had fallen through, which to his discouragement was well above his head and just as well out of reach.

But as it stood, it appeared to be the only way out. If it got him back to his friends, he’d take it.

He quickly started scanning the walls for the most feasible way up to the hole in the ceiling. If he could climb halfway out of an abyss, a trapdoor chute was nothing.

The only possible problem lay in the fact that the opening in question was smack dab in the middle of the ceiling. Climbing his way out was looking problematic now; he was a dragon, not a gecko.

“If only I had my wings by now,” he grumbled barely under his breath, once again cursing his youth. In spite of the situation, a stray thought flickered across his mind.

Hm, I wonder if Rarity would find me more handsome if had wings, or if I could take her flying with me...

He sighed with a grumble as he made his way over to the wall“Scootaloo isn’t the only one down about not being able to fly. At least she actually has her wings...”

With nowhere to go but up, Spike made his way to the rock wall, put the orb in his mouth and held it with his teeth, then tested the holds and readied himself for a climb.

Okay, just like last time; one claw above the other...

“You... would DARE call me that disgusting, pathetic, contemptible little gecko?!”

Spike froze with fear. The sound was muffled by the walls, but he knew that terrible voice anywhere.

“AH!”

The light orb slipped from his mouth and fell to the floor. If Spike was frozen in fear before, now he was frigid. He knew that second voice anywhere too, and to hear her in pain stabbed daggers through him.

“Twilight?”

"You want to know who I am? I’ll tell you who I am!

”I... Am... AVARICE!!!”

Then Spike heard a roar of murderous hate and a distant whoosh of a hot, scornful wind... and then, silence.

It lasted only seconds, but each felt as long as the passing of a season in the still, unbroken silence. Uncomfortable silence: unnerving silence: deathly silence.

Move...  something in the back of Spike’s mind said, but he didn’t.

Move, it said, more forcefully. He remained as still as the silence.

Move, dang it! MOVE!

Spike began to scramble up the wall, all his steps forgotten to automation in a desperate attempt to reclaim his freedom and save his friends. The silence was slain by his own heavy breathing, the gravel dislodging from the grip of his claws, and the low sound of the heavy rocks shifting behind him.

Wait... behind me?

“I really don’t see how you hope to get out of this one.”

Spike let out a scream, losing his hold on the fiery orb and the wall, and slid back down what little of it he had scaled. He turned and braced himself against the wall he’d been backed into. He fervently picked up the orb; a trivial token comfort to keep from being fully overwhelmed by dread.

“Avarice...” Spike whispered in fear. “Where’s Rarity? Where’s Twilight? What did you do with Twilight?!” Whatever air of confidence he’d hoped to regain was belied by the slight tremble in his voice.

Avarice chuckled as he strode forward into the light, bearing a foul smirk like a putrescent stench.

“Spike,” Avarice’s words were slow, cocksure, and dangerous. “How long has it been since we last got to talk face to face?”

Avarice’s expression hardened when Spike remained silent. “That was a serious question; how long has it been? It’s impossible to keep track of time down here.”

“I’m not telling you anything!” Spike retorted. “Now what did you do with Twilight and Rarity?”

Avarice only chuckled darkly at this. “Only demand of others and offer nothing in return... I like that. You know, maybe we aren’t so different...”

“We’re nothing alike!” Spike spat back.

“Really now...” Avarice mocked. “It seems we are at an impasse, so tell you what; we’re both civilized dragons, so we’ll do it your way. You tell me how long it’s been, and I tell you where your precious masters are. Deal?”

Spike was thrown for a total loop and remained silent as he attempted to process the situation.

“We don’t have much time, so tell me; how long has it been?!” Avarice growled.

Spike saw no other options. “How am I supposed to know if I can trust you?”

Avarice grinned, standing up even taller over Spike. “If there are only two things that you can count on me to always be known for, the first is that “I want it,” and the second is that I’m a dragon of my word.”

His demeanor fouled again. “So if you would stop WASTING our time!”

“Okay, deal!” Spike cut in. “Almost six months; that’s how long it’s been.”

“Six months?” Avarice took a moment to reflect on that. The face that always brimmed with barely contained hostility was now quisitive and etched with concentration. “How long is six months?”

“Hey, you already got the answer to your one question, I believe you owe me mine.”

Avarice snorted in amusement. “I see some of the know-it-all has rubbed off on you.”

His smirk briefly turned to a scowl before he became rather interested in the state of his claws. “Oh, I’ve just stored them in separate adjoining chambers like this one; I figured I’d return the favor.” He threw a quick dagger back at Spike with his eyes. “As for Twilight, I merely took certain... preventive measures to make sure she couldn’t interrupt our little reunion.”

Spike went numb.

“You... you...” He couldn’t hardly bring himself to think it, let alone say it. You killed...

“What? No!” Avarice answered, suddenly defensive. “No, I didn’t. In fact, you can’t even die in one of these dreams.”

His eyes shifted to the right and his tone became disappointed. “Apparently...”

“What?” Spike was suddenly confused. “Wait, Rarity...”

Spike tensed as he furrowed his brow. “I swear to Celestia, if you’ve done anything to her...”

“You’ll what?” Avarice sneered. “Hold on; you think I hurt Rarity?” His expression became flat and unamused. “Why would I do that?”

Spike remained stern. “Last time we met in person, you were about to throw my love into an abyss.”

 Avarice threw a claw up into the air. “Well, forgive me if I’m not as rational when I’m completely reconstructing myself after I’ve been spat out and discarded like spent tissue!”

“And forgive me if I don’t recognize live snot when I see it!” Spike snapped back.

“No, I don’t think I will.” Avarice leered, swiftly moving in and meeting Spike at eye level, making the smaller dragon flinch from his palpable disdain. “There’s something else that you should know about me, and it’s that I’m not the forgiving type.

“I didn’t even get ONE DAY to exist! Yet all I could tell was that within that short span of real life, we had achieved completion. Nothing could have exceeded such an apex of purpose. We couldn’t have owned anything more important. Then at that pinnacle of life accomplishments... I was ripped away from everything; even from things I didn’t know I could lose. I became something barely even resembling a memory.

“And the next thing I knew...” Avarice became deathly serious, hissing his seething resent through his teeth. “I woke up in a trash can, malformed and ugly.”

“I’m... I’m sorry, Avarice.” Spike shuddered. Calling his mortal enemy by his name gave him a feeling like somepony was walking on his grave. “But doing what you wanted to do was going to destroy everything I cared about. You were just an idea, but following it wrecked my home, my town, and almost ruined my relationships with all my friends, and with... with...”

Spike had to look away. His voice trembled with sorrow. “I never wanted any of this to happen...”

Avarice sneered. “I’d almost respect that kind of egocentrism if I wasn’t the one getting screwed by it.” His sneer turned back into a smirk. “But that’s all going to change soon.”Avarice rose back to his full height. “Do you still remember what you asked me all that time ago, about what I wanted?”

Spike only half met Avarice’s gaze. “I seem to remember that you said you wanted everything,” he answered.

“You’re right, and the truth is I still do,” Avarice said. “But then I realized something; when I want everything, what should I strive for first? And after... six months of deliberation, do you know what I decided I want first?”

Spike was almost scared to ask. “What?”

Avarice leaned in again. “Freedom.”

Avarice suddenly looked back up in another direction, bladed ears twitching with slight movements like he was trying to pick up on a sound only he could hear.

“Time’s almost up,” he said as he looked back to Spike, “but that’s okay, because soon we’ll be seeing each other a lot more.”

“I doubt that,” Spike mumbled in reply.

Avarice chuckled deviously at this. “Oh, then you’re in for a nasty surprise.”

Spike squeaked as Avarice picked him up and began to stride across the room. He clutched his fire sphere tightly to him, tail curled around himself.

“Since we’re about to get so much closer, I’m going to make you another deal,” Avarice said.  “You don’t say, write, imply, or otherwise communicate in any form so much as a single word to anyone about me, about anything, under any circumstance, and I won’t incinerate any of your friends.”

Spike gulped. “That sounds more like an ultimatum.”

Avarice acknowledged Spike with a slight tilt of his head. “Take it or leave it,” he said as they reached the hidden passage covered by a stone slab that he had entered from.

“But keep in mind that I know where all of them sleep.” Avarice slid the entrance to the passage open. “And I have a general idea of what temperature their fur has to reach before it ignites.”

With that, Avarice threw Spike into the neighboring dark room. He braced himself for the impact; it still didn’t hurt that much less as he once again slammed into the rocky floor, skidding to a halt as he lost his grip on the light.

“Just so you know,” Avarice finished as he resealed the entrance, “it’s below the temperature of dragon fire!”

The heavy thud of the stone door closing echoed through the chamber. When that moment passed, he found himself alone again.

Spike let out another small groan as he picked himself back up again, brushing the dust and dirt off himself as he picked up his tiny fire. He held it up to survey his new surroundings. Then he saw it, and the horror replaced his blood with ice.

Lying in front of him was the remains of a severely burned body.

It was a pony, that much was immediately obvious. A mare from the looks of it, but she had been too badly burned to tell much else. Just about all of her coat was either melted or burned away, same as her mane. Most of her skin had been incinerated, and what hadn’t was shrivelled and blackened. The exposed flesh had been seared and burnt and had a slight sheen to it.

She didn’t move. She didn’t make a sound.

Spike’s dread could be measured by the bile in his throat. For a moment, he stood petrified until some morbid curiosity prodded his shaken mind. He inched closer, holding out the light source to illuminate more of the terrible sight. Then he saw one of the only places that hadn’t been charbroiled. A small patch of her coat still remained on her flank.

It was lavender, and bore remains of a pink, six-point star.

The orb fell from his hand. If it made a noise when it hit the ground, he didn’t hear it.

“Twi... Twilight?”

He barely heard his own choked voice. What distant noises that did peirce his numbed senses and reached his upended brain sounded muffled and alien. His vision blurred as he fought the urge to vomit until he was a hollow bag of scales.

“Twilight?”

She did not move. She did not speak.

“Twilight!”

He was with her in an instant, cradling her head in his hands and trying to ignore the thought of what exactly the slimy substance he was getting on his claws might be.

“Twilight, say something! Please! Say something!”

She did not move. She did not speak. She didn’t even react as Spike held her. Her violet eyes just continued to stare forward in a glossy haze, unresponsive to her friend. They didn’t blink. They didn’t even twitch. They did nothing even when the first of many tears to fall from Spike’s eyes landed directly in her own.

“Twilight, wake up! Please wake up!... PLEASE!”

She didn’t.

“Twilight, p-please... don’t be... oh p-please d-don’t b-be... Twilight...”

He lost it. Spike pulled her body close to him and filed the cave with his cries of anguish.

“TWIIILIGHT!”

The dream world was swept away into nothingness and memory as a wave he neither saw nor felt dispersed the fields of energy that created it. With no dream, Spike fell into deep, thoughtless slumber. But his misery remained, overwhelming and omnipresent as the impenetrable dark. So his despair persisted as he remained in his troubled and tormented sleep, miserable and alone.

Mostly alone.

        
Month six, day nine Month five, day twenty-five, entry four hundred and eighty-four.

Nine. Seconds.

I was asleep... for nine seconds. Only nine seconds. Yet I was so far down into a dream that it felt like over two weeks.

Nine. Seconds. I was only asleep for nine seconds!  I mean, I cross-referenced all the data between brainwave activity and the timeline and everything checks out, but nine seconds! Nine seconds meant that I spent over two weeks in an empty ghost world that I had to build up from the ground myself! Nine seconds meant over two weeks of being completely alone, without any of my friends, without any of my family... without anypony even just to talk to...

How am I even supposed to be sure if the time passing is even the real time and not some imaginary perception of it? What if I got so accustomed to time passing at the relative theoretical speed of 16000 times greater in dream time than in the real world that I’ve lost my grip on what’s actually happening?

Twilight, calm down.

Why should I calm down? What if I got so lonely in this goddess-forsaken no-mare’s land that I subconsciously attempted to dupe myself into another dream where I only think that I woke up and I’m actually still trapped in my own mind and I’m really never ever going to see any of my friends again?

Because you’re doing that thing again where you’ve gotten so stressed out that you’re talking to yourself in the nearest reflective surface.

There was a small break in the writing.

Except this time, you’ve written the entire conversation down more dutifully than a stenographer.

Another small break.

Okay, I just had another coffee... I needed that.

I suppose I should start from the beginning...

The beginning of the parchment lay strewn across the floor underneath its own rolls and buckles, bunched up as more of the comically long scroll poured like a waterfall over the top of the desk, which had so much build up from the runoff of so many candles that small stalagmites of wax had begun to build up at the base of the furniture.

At this desk sat the disheveled wreck of Twilight Sparkle. Her mane was an unkempt mess that begged for the attention of a comb. Even her coat was below standard fare, being matted and slightly grimy in places from bouts of cold sweat. There were blackened, puffy bags under her bloodshot eyes, which were held wide open, pinpricks for pupils and twitching frenetically as they tracked the hovering quill in its urgent dance across the paper.

And that’s when I realized just how much I hated the train. Twilight wrote on the section of the parchment immediately in front of her. Without diverting her eyes from the paper, she dipped the quill into the inkwell and returned it to the paper, only to find she was just scratching it now.

With a twitch of her head she looked at the bottle. She picked it up with her magic and shook it gently. No sound came from it.

Breathlessly she whisked the empty inkwell over to a nearby cabinet without even looking back to it, dropped it off next to the other three empty flasks and procured a filled one. Without missing a beat as it hit the desk, the quill was in the well, and she continued to write.

Okay, maybe it’s not so much that I hated the train as much as I hated what it made even more painfully obvious. Empty street after empty street of nothing to see; empty train from engine to caboose; empty world. Nothing. Nopony...

I... I just wished there was something... I wished that there was something better... wished there was something more than this... saturated loneliness.

The cold sweat began to seep through her pores like ghosts. Twilight could feel herself shake as her breath started to shudder and bubbling tears haunted her eyes.

I wished I couldn’t feel it. I wished somepony would steal it: abduct it: corrupt it. But I never could. It was just...

A spot of the fresh ink smeared into a stain as a tear hit the paper.

Saturated loneliness...

The aura around the quill disappeared, and it fell onto the paper with a little clatter. Twilight put her hooves to her face as if she could push the tears back into her eyes, but she couldn’t. So she just sat there and quietly cried, eyes clenched shut, shrouding her vision in darkness.

Darkness...

She remembered the darkness. She remembered standing in it, being immersed by darkness: the infinite, impenetrable darkness. She remembered talking to it.

“Hello?” She remembered asking, but she wasn’t inquiring of the darkness.

“Hello?!” she called out desperately for anypony to answer.

“No...” she whimpered as she sat there in her bedroom.

“HELLO?!”

She remembered screaming into the omnipresent shadow. She felt the cracks beginning to reopen in her heart. Still nopony answered.

Nopony...

“NO!” Twilight yelled as she bolted upright and slammed her hooves onto the desk. There was light again, illuminating her room in a gentle glow.

Light...

Twilight looked out the window. A brilliant halo of golden light had already broken the horizon, heralding the arrival of the majestic sun with a cascade of light across the morning sky. Blushing clouds floated lazily in the navy blue air.

She closed her eyes again with an insufferable sigh. Absentmindedly she wondered if Luna would’ve found it less disrespectful had she just slept through the entire night rather than staying up until dawn having ignored every second of it to practically write an autobiography... an autobiography that encompassed only sixteen days.

That was really only nine seconds.

No, don’t think about that, she hastily reminded herself. Distraction; what was I just thinking about?... Oh yeah, Luna, Princess of Equestria: Goddess of the Moon. Younger sister to Princess Celestia. Fully reformed from her Nightmare Moon phase: doesn’t so much mind anymore that most ponies sleep through the night.

“Sleep...” Twilight could feel herself learn forward as fatigue weighed upon her, thoughts becoming more sluggish.

“NO!” she screamed and bolted upright again, and proceeded to smash her head several times against the desk. She lit her horn and summoned another Starbuck’s Java from the refrigerator that she’d relocated from the kitchen. She ripped the cap off, chugged the entire bottle down in three gulps, and shook her head vigorously as she chucked the empty bottle back towards a wastebasket. It shattered upon the pile of thirty-six other empty bottles that had long since been overfilling the can.

“Can’t sleep, won’t sleep...” she muttered to herself. “Not if it means a dream like that again. Not if... not if he...”

“Twilight?”

Twilight let out an involuntary scream and jumped slightly in surprise as she turned to face the newcomer, first glance making her heart rate shoot up and pupils shrink in fear.

Amethyst scales, lime frills, emerald eyes... it was just Spike, standing by the door.

Twilight felt herself remain inexplicably tense.

She gulped. “Spi... Spike?”

“Twilight!”

She tensed up as Spike charged directly for her. She almost screamed as he got within the last few paces and lunged her, smacking into her with a death-grip and burying his face into her grimey coat.

Something had paralyzed her mind, gears spinning in indecision until she realized; Spike was hugging her, tightly and fearfully. He was holding her so close that she could feel each one of his shuddering breaths.

“I was so worried,” he sniffed. “I just had to make sure, had to...” Spike looked up at Twilight, pain pouring from his eyes. “Don’t scare me like that!”

Twilight looked down to him, stunned. She stared down into his gaze in surprise, watching as the hurt edge slowly disappeared from his face to be replaced by sadness. Bottom lip quivering and eyes on the verge of tears, he buried his face back into her dirty fur.

Slowly getting her senses back, she lightly returned the embrace.

“Spike,” she carefully asked, “Spike, what’s wrong?”

He looked back up at his dear friend.

“I–” he choked, “I dreamed that you had died.”

Twilight’s eyes slowly grew wide. Oh, dear Celestia... He found my body.

She returned the hug in full and pulled Spike in close to her.

“Oh Spike,” she comforted, “it’s okay. It was just a dream.”

“Not just a dream...” Spike mumbled. “I mean, yeah, it was a dream, but... it felt so real...”

Twilight stiffened, noting how a phrase that had once enamored her so now just kept coming back to bite her in the butt.

“A-and when I held you, I tried to wake you up, but I couldn’t,” Spike continued, starting to get worked up again. “Y-you were just staring off into nothing. Your-your eyes weren’t even moving. You d-didn’t even blink.”

Spike looked back up at Twilight, tortured eyes filled with sorrow and despair. “I-it was like y-you were dead...”

Twilight quieted Spike with a soothing shush and pulled him back in with an empathetic nuzzle. “Shhh... Spike, it was just a dream, and that’s all that it was.”

Though that would’ve been nice to know when your evil alter-ego killed me and sent me into a subconscious limbo for over two weeks.

She mentally smacked herself. Don’t think about that right now.

“Spike, what matters is that it’s over now, and this right now is real,” Twilight said, “and I’m very much alive.”

“Yeah, I... I guess.” Spike tightened his grip. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Twilight.”

She smiled. “Nor would I.”

Spike looked up at her fondly, only for his face to fall with concern as he got a better look at her, which he called her on. “You’ve been crying.”

Twilight paused, her ears drooping backwards. “What? No! I just...” Her sentence hung as she brushed away at her cheeks.

Spike’s face scrunched up with a whiff of indignance. “If get-together poker night reassured me of anything, it’s that you’re a terrible liar.”

Twilight submitted. No point in prevaricating any further.

“So what’s wrong?” Spike asked.

Twilight sighed. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t sleep very well, either.”

“Oh,” Spike responded. “Bad dream?”

Twilight didn’t answer right away. Spike’s second question had spurred an involuntary recollection of events.

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Come on,” Spike protested, “I told you my story, it’s only fair that you tell me yours.”

Twilight peered at her inquisitive little friend, and conceded. “I...”

Memories flashed across her mind like the night visions she experienced during her own mental incarceration. The heartache of finding the thief. Spike’s despair over his interior turmoil. The wicked antithesis incarnate of her friend murdering her. Unknowingly waking into a dream of nothing. Counting herself for dead. Unbearable heartbreak. Spurs of creation failing to stave away the loneliness that stalked her more tenaciously than her own shadow. Shepherding the sun and moon across the sky. Solitariness. Gifting herself with wings. Isolation. Appointing herself ruler of an unpopulated kingdom. Nothingness. Nopony.

Saturated loneliness.

Twilight hugged Spike tightly, letting loose several more tears in the embrace she’d wanted to give him since last night. Her voice shivered, barely above a whisper.

“I was infinitely alone: introduced personally to the concept of total loneliness.”

Spike patted her on the back. “Well, it’s over now,” Spike returned in kind. “You’re awake, and you don’t ever have to worry about not having anypony around again.”

Twilight was struck with realization. “Anypony...”

Spike stumbled over as Twilight bolted for the door.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“My friends, Spike!” Twilight answer from the door. “I need to go see my friends!”

“But the sun is hardly even up yet! Everypony is still probably asleep!” Spike protested, stopping her. “And... well, if you’re going to go see Rarity, you should probably clean up first, and... hey!” Spike got another look at Twilight’s baggy, bloodshot eyes. “Did you even sleep at all last night?”

“Um...”

“You didn’t!” Spike proclaimed, getting his first look at the pile of parchment rolling off the desk, the hill of empty java bottles, and the relocated refrigerator. “Remember what we’d said about overnight projects?”

“But...” Twilight pawed at the ground sheepishly. “Spike, I had to! I just couldn’t go to sleep! I...” She looked down at a hoof. “I was afraid.”

Spike backed off her case. “Of what?”

A knot formed in Twilight’s suddenly dry throat. She looked back up at Spike, and for the briefest of moments she could’ve sworn she saw not her bedroom, but the empty plane of nothing again.

“Of...” the word got caught in her throat.

Of being alone... 

Some treacherous part of her mind found it most expedient to interject its dissension into her internal conversation. For a moment shorter than when she saw the empty planes of limbo again, standing in place of Spike, she saw another dragon.

And of you.

Her face contorted in shame, and she turned away, unable to look at the dear friend that she would dare hold such mistrust against.

 “Oh Twilight, I understand; you were just afraid of being alone again.” There was not a single inflection in Spike’s voice that wasn’t full of genuine empathy.

He slowly walked back over to Twilight and gave her another hug. She didn’t resist despite her insides squirming with guilt for her deceitful thoughts, telling her that she didn’t deserve his sympathies and that she was a bad pony for keeping such a secret from him.

“Don’t worry; you don’t have to anymore,” Spike said. “But you need some sleep, Twilight. You get all jumpy and wound up when you don’t get your rest. Tell you what; I’ll stay with you, so that way you won’t have be alone, even when you’re dreaming. How’s that?”

Twilight smiled weakly, vaguely remembering having said something similar. It felt so long ago.

“But.. but I have to...” Twilight yawned, eyelids drooping and posture slouching. “What were we... my friends!” She jolted upright, shaking her head. "I need to go..." She yawned. "See my friends!"

“Twilight, they’re probably all still sleeping, and you need to get some for yourself because you can’t function without it.”

“You have a point but...” Twilight was cut off by another lengthy yawn. She looked back at Spike through half-lidded eyes. “Uh... what were we talking about again?”

Spiked sighed. “See, this is exactly what I mean. Twilight, you need some rest.”

She looked back through the door again. “But...”

A slight smirk appeared on Spike’s face. “This is probably the only time I’m going to get to say this, but Twilight: go to bed.”

“But... but I can’t be alone...”

“You won’t be, Twi,” Spike offered in proposition. “I’ll stay with you until you wake up, and I’ll wake you up early if it looks like you’re having another bad dream. Okay?”

Twilight thought about it for a moment. “You’d do that?”

“Sure would,” he said. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

“You promise to wake me up if I’m having another bad dream?”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. See? You even got a free Pinkie Promise out of it.That’s the kind of dedication you get from a number one assistant.”

Twilight chuckled. “Alright Spike...” She yawned. “You win.”

Satisfied, Spike bounded over to Twilight’s bed and pulled back the indigo, star-flecked blankets, beckoning her to submerge herself into the comforting sheets. She climbed into bed and laid down with a heavy, audible sigh, her body relaxing almost immediately upon sinking into the mattress as Morpheus welcomed her to his kingdom with open embrace. Twilight yawned wide as Spike pulled the sheets back over her, then to her surprise yet delightful content he proceeded to lovingly tuck her in, bringing back fond memories of the many times when she was still just a foal that her parents would tuck her in for the night before singing her to sleep with a lullaby. She used give the same kind bedtime procedure to Spike when they were so much younger.

Spike jumped down from the bed and scampered over to the desk, extinguished the candles, then moved to the window and pulled the curtains closed, shrouding the room with a darkness broken only by the faint light of the approaching dawn.

Something seized up inside Twilight. She had to force herself to remember that the darkness was not total. She could still see well enough; she was still in her room. Her real room, in her real library, in the real world.

Twilight felt a tugging at the foot of her bed as Spike pulled himself back up upon it. He made his way back over to Twilight and lay down next to her, pulling the blanket from his own bed over himself.

“Hope you don’t mind, but...” Spike grunted as he moved into a more comfortable position, “I didn’t sleep at that well either, so I figured I’d catch some extra Z’s right with you.”

Twilight frowned a little. “You haven’t been sleeping well for a while now, have you?”

“Not really, now that I think about it. Ever since...” Spike furrowed his brow in recollection, “since about after the wedding… Well,” Spike yawned, “good night... or, good morning.” He chuckled to himself. “Anyway, ‘night Twi; love ya.”

“Yeah...” Twilight paused, “I love you too, Spike.”

He smiled and closed his eyes, snuggling up closer to his best friend.

Twilight hesitated, and cursed herself for still having even any residual fear still lingering within her that she felt towards him.

Get a hold of yourself, Twilight. Spike is your friend, so stop being such a scaredy-pony around him. He’s not the problem, it’s just...

She looked back to Spike, curled up and content in his resting place.

He looks so peaceful, she thought. Flying in the face of her hesitations, she leaned him and gave him a little kiss on his forehead.

Spike’s contented smile grew wider and he nuzzled closer to her, sighing happily. Twilight was hit with another unprecedented pang of guilt as she continued to try and stay awake, knowing that there was no way Spike could’ve known that her gesture wasn’t as much an unabashed expression of affection as it was more along the lines of a coping mechanism.

It could concern her for the moment no longer. She could no longer resist the siren call of slumber, and she collapsed into its enticing, captivating grasp.

So after that intensive bout of studying my own memories of avian and pegasi specific limbic anatomy, I felt like I had enough of an idea on the proper construction of functional sets of natural (if artificially created) wings. And with that first step cemented firmly in place, then I started thinking about possible methods I could use to actually create…

Wait…

Twilight slowly raised her head up from the paper in slow, awful realization.

How did I get here? she thought. I don’t remember waking—

Her breath ceased after a sharp inhalation. Her whole body became rigid as an all too familiar fear seized her again and her pupils shrunk to dots as the quill fell to the floor.

“I can’t be… I can’t be…”

Twilight felt something clench up stiffly at her sides. Some part of her mind told her to look, but her neck refused to comply. Even her eyes remained rooted in place, determined to stay fixated upon some meaningless part of the bedroom wall in front of her. She wanted to know, but she couldn’t look; some part of her already knew.

She managed to overcome her trepidation long enough to command her muscles to pivot her head enough to look back towards her sides.

Her wings were folded tightly against her. The down feathers began to quiver fearfully upon the air of Twilight’s returned breath: a series of quick gasps of mounting panic.

“Oh no; Oh No… No no no no NO! I can’t… I’m…”

“Twilight…” she called to herself from the front of the desk.

What?

“Twilight!”

She looked in the direction that her disembodied voice was coming from to see her glass gyroscope, catching glimpses of her broken reflection across its frames and the rotor.

Wait, that couldn’t be her reflection; the image looking back was glaring impatiently at her, and she was quite certain she wasn’t glaring at anypony.

As she watched, her reflection in the gyroscope lit its horn with a magenta glow. Twilight staggered back at this; she hadn’t lit her horn.

The quill on the floor became surrounded with the aura of her reflection’s magic and lifted off the floor. It dipped into the inkwell as another large sheet of paper floated over to the desk. The quill flew across the paper, the reflection spending a moment to doodle something onto it before floating the paper down in front of Twilight.

She looked at the sheet, unsure. A little drawing had been sketched onto the paper, but what it was she couldn’t tell immediately. Twilight looked back up to the gyroscope to ask an explanation, only to find that her reflection was no longer there.

Twilight cast her gaze back down to the paper and did a double take. The drawing had not only changed, it was moving. Not only that, she could tell was the image was now; it was a sketch of herself, and she appeared to be swimming up towards her as if the cartoon was about to…

Twilight yelped in surprise as the Twilight from the paper broke the surface, fully formed as an exact duplicate of her, minus the wings.

The new Twilight got her hoofing unto the floor, sucking in the air with deep, hungry gasps.

“Okay…” she managed to get out from between breaths, “maybe… maybe that wasn’t the best… the best idea I’ve ever had...”

“I… what… how…” original Twilight stammered. “Who are you?!”

New Twilight cracked a grin. “You know the reflection you talk to when you’ve gotten so stressed out that your schizophrenia kicks in and your psyche needs somepony to be the voice of reason for you? That’s me; so I suppose you could call me “Voice of Reason.” Or just “Reason” for short… or “VoR” if you’re feeling particularly biased for acronyms…”

Reason shook her head. “But that’s beside the point. The important thing is that the gears in your mind have already started turning. You’ve already figured out you’re in a dream, so the next logical step is to conclude that I’m a projection; but why I’m here if you haven’t reached your breaking point yet…”

Reason circled around Twilight to her right so that Twilight was looking towards the direction of the bedroom door, opposite the window. “You’ve undergone enough stress recently that you’re subconsciously summoning me just to circumvent freaking out. So remain calm, and whatever you do,” Reason looked squarely into Twilight’s eyes, “do NOT freak out.”

Twilight fidgeted with unease. “B-but… if I’m in a— in a dream, a-and I’ve g-got these,” she looked down at her tense wings again, “does that m-mean…”

Her head shot up and she gasped in horror. She snapped her head around to look out the bedroom window behind her.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!”

Outside her bedroom window, she saw a tower; a grand palace of smooth, whitewashed stone overlooking a massive clock embedded into the surface of a towering stone mesa.

Twilight half-flew into the opposite wall as she reared back in terror. She didn’t even flinch as she smashed straight into the wood, wings still fluttering in a nervous panic; eyes wide and pupils miniscule with fear, mouth drawn open with horror.

“No NO NO! I- I’m: I’m HERE! I’M TRAPPED IN LIMBO AGAIN!”

“Twilight, calm down!” Reason tried to order.

“NO! I’m trapped i-in he-here again an-and I’m never ev-ever going t-t-to s-see any of my friends again!” she sobbed.

“TWILIGHT!” Reason yelled as she silenced the hysterical unicorn’s cries with a hoof over the mouth.  “Calm. Down.”

Twilight just continued to sob through the obstruction.

“Twilight.. Twilight…” Reason further pressed in an attempt to get a hold of the situation. It was getting her nowhere; Twilight continued to weep and shudder out of control.

“TWILY!”

Her shaking ceased and her crying slowed. She looked back up to the projection, eyes wide, almost pleading.

“Good,” Reason said. “Yes, you’re in a dream but that doesn’t mean you’re trapped in limbo. So if you can promise that you’ll be a good filly and try to remember how you got here, I’ll take my hoof off your mouth. Now... do you promise to be good?”

Her breath still wavered and a stream of tears still marked her terrified eyes, but slowly, Twilight gave a tiny little nod.

“Okay, as promised.” Reason slowly withdrew her hoof. “Now, can you remember?”

Twilight was still trembling. Her breath came in short gasps as an occasional tear streaked down her face, but she wasn’t crying out of control anymore.

“Only…” she sniffed, “only Shining Armor gets to... gets to call me “Twily”…”

“Good; you can remember our personal big brother pet name clause, so you can remember how you ended up in this dream.” Reason moved along. “Now think; how did I get here?”

“I… I... I can’t remember…” She started to cry again.

“Yes you can!” Reason reassured. “We’re a smart pony; we know we are! You just need to think!”

Twilight looked off in concentration. “I… I really can’t remember, because… because a dream takes place during... during R.E.M sleep, a-and memories aren’t formed before then…”

“That’s good! So then what happened before the time where you have no memory?”

“I…” Twilight choked back another sob. “I was… writing, because…” The words caught in her throat. “Then Spike came looking for me, because he’d had a bad dream, too.” She looked up. “Then he saw how shaken I looked, and he convinced me to get some sleep, so… I’m not in a spell generated dream, I’m just—”

“Dreaming,” Reason cut in, smiling, “in your own natural, healthy sleep.”

Twilight sighed in relief, a familiar feeling of a great weight being lifted from her once again beset. “Thank you. Really, I mean it.”

Reason cocked her head to the side in a nonchalant gesture. “Think nothing of it. Technically, you should be thanking yourself.”

A thought crept back into Twilight’s mind, trudging its dirty hoof-prints of worry back onto the carpet that she had just cleaned.

“But, if I’m just in a dream, why does the outside look like...” She pointed to the window, and again found her voice seized up upon itself.

Reason sighed in sympathy. “Like I’ve said, you’ve been through a lot recently. You’ll probably be feeling the repercussions of that kind of psychological damage for a while, but we both know what can help us with that…”

“My friends.”

“Precisely,” Reason said. “That, and keeping me a little closer might help, too.” She smiled, turning back to the paper.

Twilight stopped her before she got to the paper. “Wait! How am I supposed to know if I’ve actually woken up for real when I do?”

Reason looked back to Twilight, wearing a clever grin. “You’re learning... but the real conundrum is a little more complex than that.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “What then? Am I supposed to come up with some personal way of telling if I’m in a dream?”

“That’s closer, but you’re still missing the point,” Reason answered.

“What are you talking about then?” Twilight asked.

Reason looked straight at her. “You don’t just need a way to tell whether or not you’re in a dream, Twilight; you need a way to keep track of reality.”

Twilight looked at Reason with uncertainty. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“Hey, do I look like Creativity to you? That’s an answer you have to come up with for yourself; but for what it’s worth,” Reason glanced out the window, “we both know you’ve got one hay of a creative spark in you.”

With that, Reason turned and jumped back into the blank canvas lying on the floor.

Twilight got back up onto all four of her hooves and slowly made her way over to the paper. To her surprise, she found it empty.

She looked up from the paper to her desk, expecting to see Reason reflected there, but the only image she saw was her own.

Slowly, cautiously, she dared steal a peek at the dream world outside. The sight of the palace… her palace, immediately struck her with that terrible pang of loneliness that had wracked her for so long. But the longer she looked, the more she realized there was something beyond that initial reminder of a monument ultimately built to combat her grief.

Steeling herself to hold her gaze, the answer emerged from the dark depths of memories she wished she could forget; it was admiration. She had built something that was incredible and beautiful, and now that she was no longer trapped here, there was something to respect about that from an artistic standpoint.

Twilight looked back to the gyroscope.

“A spark of creativity…”

She thought about it for a second, and then looked back to the palace. The pure white palace, and grand hall for the queen of an unknown world… an unpopulated world….

She could feel loneliness coil around her again and begin to suffocate her with its presence. She could feel it strangle her, raking its fangs across her fur and burning her skin with its dripping venom. Whatever glimmer of appreciation she had been able to glean from the great structure sunk back into the murky depths of prolonged, isolated discomfort, and she could look at it no longer.

I… I need to wake up. I’m going to have another breakdown if I don’t go to see my friends.

Willing herself to be out of the dream, she could begin to feel her own body, her real body, lying limp under the covers of her bed. Sleep still clung to her, and she squirmed in unease at her continued captivating slumber.

Wasn’t Spike supposed to wake me up? she thought to herself, annoyed.

“Twilight?”

The unicorn looked behind her. Spike was standing at the door, sorrow and remorse written all over his face.

She knew it wasn’t the real Spike, but she answered him anyway.

“Yes, Spike? What is it?”

He stood there, woe visibly weighing down upon him. Whatever words he had to say got caught in his throat, and he had to exert himself to speak them..

“Twilight, are… are we still friends?”

Twilight felt herself smile with reassurance at him. “Of course, Spike, and we always will be.”

Spike still didn’t look convinced. “Really? Even with… considering… that I’m…”

Twilight redoubled her efforts to wake. Get out of this now.  This is going to end badly; you need to get out of this now!

She paused for a moment before her dream-self spoke automatically. “Spike, no matter what problems you have, you can count on me and the rest of your friends to help you work through them. Everypony has problems, so we won’t think any less of you for having your own.”

Her words of encouragement only seemed to make his spirits sink even further. His shoulders slumped and his spine hunched over. Spike looked away from her towards the vanity mirror on her dresser. Twilight could almost see through his eyes to watch his soul being crushed .

“Spike?”

He didn’t even acknowledge her.

”Spike?”

Twilight stared at him in ominous curiosity. On a whim she looked to the same mirror to see the dragon’s reflection.

The reflection of Avarice smirked back at her, then spoke.

“Poker night, Twi.”

Then he roared and lunged at her through the mirror, claws outstretched and fangs bared.

Avarice tackled her into the desk. It took the collision to unfreeze Twilight from her paralyzing fear. Her instinct came back in an instant and she lit her horn, teleporting away in a flash of light and appearing next to where she last saw Spike.

“Spike, get out of here!” she said as she lowered her horn for a counter attack, flashing a glance to him. “I’ll hold him off long enough for you to— Spike?”

He was nowhere to be seen.

Twilight heard Avarice grunt with a heave. The broadside of her desk smashed into her again as it flew through the air, knocking her off her hooves. Their momentum carried her through the air, both her and the desk crashing her into the wall.

She groaned from her injuries, fumbling against the remains of the desk piled upon her in a daze. She was about to use the magic to lift the desk when it was ripped off of her by force. She attempted to stand, only to receive a roundhouse punch from Avarice, knocking her back to the floor. The aura around her horn sputtered out and died.

Ears ringing. Head pounding. A throbbing pain in her horn jabbing spears into her brain with each beat, keeping her from focusing enough to use magic. Yet through it all she felt her body lying in a different position, half buried in fabric, cold with terror, and twitching with fear. She refocused on that, burrowing her way through the false sensations towards freedom like it was the surface of water after her last breath had lost it’s oxygen.

Avarice towered over Twilight. He grabbed her by the neck, choking her as he hoisted her up to eye level.

Cold sweat wrung itself out through her pores, drenching her. It wasn’t just the dream, she could feel his hold on her; feel the cruel points from each of those claws digging into her skin; feel his hot breath and sharp eyes drilling through her.

“Come on, Twi,” he said with a mocking laugh. “It’s just a dream, so wake up!”

For the only time that she had ever encountered him, Twilight frantically tried to comply. She could feel herself in her bed shaking violently, feel her wings futilely flapping in protest, feel his talons poking her flesh, and feel the weight of her eyelids that she was desperately trying to wrench open.

Avarice titled his head back in euphoric elation, soaking in the intoxicating smell of her panic. Then with a new lash of ferocity, he grabbed her by the side with his other arm and forced her head back, exposing her throat.

“WAKE UP!” Avarice roared, and sunk his teeth deep into her neck.

That’s when Twilight started screaming.

She ripped her eyelids open, thrashing about in her bed before her vision could even focus. She could still feel the claws on her neck and her side. A jolt of electricity shot into her hind legs and she bucked out against her captor.

Twilight felt gashes open up on her neck as the claws were ripped away from her. She tumbled out of bed in a tangle of sheets, backing up until she hit the wall. Her horn burst to light, cackling with power, ready to strike back against her attacker.

She didn’t realize that she had still been screaming until she ran out of air and had to start breathing again. When it returned it came in deep, panicked bursts of air being sucked in and blown out of her lungs. She blinked in rapid succession, clearing as much sleep as possible from her eyes without daring to obscure them by rubbing them with her hooves. Her sight darted back and forth across her view of the bedroom, scanning for her attacker.

There was none.

She designated every possible vantage that he could be waiting behind, just waiting for an opportunity to jump out from hiding and hurt her again.

There was no movement, and there were no sounds save for the fierce magic still sizzling around her horn. Then...

“Ow...” Spike whimpered from the other side of her bed.

Twilight gasped. She extinguished her magic in an instant and rushed around the bed.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!” Twilight tried to apologize as she cantered to his aid.

“What the hay was that for?!” Spike whined, clutching his injury and shooting Twilight an accusing glare.

Twilight froze; the anger in those eyes... she had to force herself to shrug it off.

“Oh Spike, I’m sorry; I... just had a bad dream. Here, let me help you.”

Twilight gently moved Spike’s arms away from the wound. He winced and she gasped when she saw what she’d done. A fat, angry welt in the exact shape of her hind left hoof had formed on his torso where she’d kicked him.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sor—”

“Yeah, I get it; you’re sorry. Can I go to the hospital now? I think you bruised my ribs.”

“Don’t... don’t worry about that, I can fix this.”

Twilight activated her magic and pointed her glowing horn at the wound. Spike winced again in discomfort as a gentle green glow laced with dancing white wisps surrounded the injury, and slowly the swelling reversed and the discoloration disappeared as the wound healed.

“There,” Twilight said when she had finished. “It’s not quite Curaja, but you should be good as new. Feel better?”

“No,” he grumbled. “My so-called best friend just bucked me halfway across her bedroom for no good reason.”

“Yeah... I’m sorry.” Twilight apologized again. “I just had—”

“A bad dream; yeah, I got that. What, did you dream you were getting attacked by timber wolves or something?”

“I... something like that...” She let her sentence hang, opening up a awkward silence. “Thank you, by the way.” She trying to give him a thankful ruffle on the head, but he tensed up and moved away from the gesture.

“Sure, whatever,” Spike muttered. “Next time you need me to wake you up, I’ll do it by poking you with a really big stick, or I’ll just set up a Rube Goldbuck machine to dump a bucket of water on your face.”

“Hm... that actually might not be a bad idea...” Twilight thought aloud, “but it’ll have to wait for later.”

The unease and unrest swept back over her with sudden force, and Twilight almost began to shake with discomfort.

“I... I need to go,” she said with a hurt tone as she brushed past Spike towards the door.

“Go where?” Spike asked.

Twilight turned to look at him “To see my friends, Spike. I’m going to have a breakdown if I go any longer without seeing them.”

“What’s so important that you need to see them today? Most of them are probably... hey, wait!” He ran outside the bedroom to call to her from the threshold. “You’re not going to leave me with all this stuff to clean up, are you?!”

“I’ll find some way to make it up to you later,” she muttered from halfway down the stairs. “Don’t worry about the refrigerator, I’ll put that back later.”

Spike ground his teeth, growled, turned around, and slammed the door to the bedroom.

Twilight was already at the door. Her physical trembles were making her breath shudder, which was coming in deep, quick bursts on the verge of gasps. The very air of the library felt suffocating. Her skin was clammy and her ears twitched in annoyance, and the whole of her body yearned to break out into the open air of her free nation and bask in the loving warmth of the sun.

In spite of her own protests, she looked back up to her bedroom and stared for a moment. However long that moment lasted, she didn’t know, but try as she could, she couldn’t rip her sullen gaze from the door until her own shaking made it hard to stand.

She put her hoof on the handle and hung her head. The springs of coils and clinking of locks never sounded so loud as she open the door, and the rays of sunlight and fresh breeze almost pulled her entrails from her body. But she still kept her gaze fixed at the ground as she exhaled a single, sorrowful sigh:

“Those eyes... why do they have to have the same eyes?”

Twilight stood outside on the front porch of her library and home. Her eyes were still fixated on her hooves, and she was still shaking: legs wobbling: breath shivering in anxiety.

Her senses were overwhelming her with their own sudden hyperactivity, making her intensely aware of her surroundings. She could feel the sun blazing overhead. She could feel the gentle breeze tug at her mane and tease through her fur like a foal desperately wanting to play, chilling her as it cooled the cold sweat on her skin. She could feel it sting her fresh cuts and bother her eyes, pulling at the tears building up at the corners. She could feel the weight of her own body, every fiber of it still fidgeting.

She could see the surface of the porch that she remained faceted to, see every little minute detail of its ridged and wooden textures, see her shadow beneath her, and see her own forelegs still trembling.

She could smell the plethora of aromas wafting through the idle air, oak bark and sap from her treehouse, pollen drifting on unseen currents, honey coming from a nearby beehive, and the crisp smell of the humidity and dew evaporating in the heat from the surrounding grass. She picked up on the sweet, distant scent of baked goods and the musky odor of her own perspiration.

She could hear the gentle rustle of the leaves, hear the tiny buzzing of the bees, the twittering chirps of birds, and the faint gurgle of water in nearby streams. She heard her own deep, trembling breaths, the dull thud of her heartbeat in her ears, and the quiet clatter of her hooves, still shaking on the wood.

Off in the distance, she heard the indecipherable babble of ponies as they went about their daily business or sat down for friendly chats.

Her uneasy muscles, sociable drives of her psyche, and unhealed void in her heart all screamed at her to move; to find any of her close friends and hug them like she never wanted to let them go, but she remained rooted in place. She hated staying there, but some more logical part of her new she had to, if just for a little longer. She knew why, and she hated the reason almost as much as being stuck there.

Somewhere in her own memories, something she’d heard in a much earlier time returned from the forgotten recesses of her own mind like an ironic echo. Sometime, so long ago, she remembered reading about an allegory that likened being introduced to concepts of world-shaking profoundness to being raised in a cave and then coming out to see the sun for the first time. It had to be a slow process of acclimation, least it all prove to be overwhelming and promptly rejected because it was too much to take in.

That was why she stood there, unmoving save for her own shaking. She had been away in her own world for so long that she had to get used to being in this one again. This world, the real world, she thought with grim understanding, was the sunlight to her dark-acclimated eyes, and the cave she was trapped in had been her own mind.

That was why she loathed having to stay there on the porch.

As much as she dared, she slowly raised her head from the point on the ground she had fixed it to. The sunlight stung her eyes, so she squinted, taking in the sight of the vast field of green grass blades that stretched out before her.

She froze, becoming deathly still in the middle of gradually lifting her gaze to officially mark her return to the real world, to the Ponyville she knew and loved, to the beginning of her mission to see the friends that she cared more that anything for. She tried to move, but suddenly found her own muscles unresponsive and her body stricken with a chill that drilled all the way to the marrow, and she could not figure out why.

Then she realized; she was afraid.

She was afraid that if she lifted her eyes back up that she wouldn’t see Ponyville, but a circle of earth and grass upon which she and her library were its only feature. That she would see not her beloved town, but great, jet-black marble arms of a massive clock extended over swirling paths and beautiful gardens placed in the center of a monolithic granite mesa, surrounded by eleven glorious towers and a palace of pure white.

She could almost hear the hiss of loneliness in her ear.

Twilight snapped her head up to full attention, pupils shrunken and breath held with a death grip.

She saw the scattered stone buildings of the cottages that surrounded her library. She saw gentle rolling hills and the various spots of bushes, tiny trees, sunflowers, and shrubs strewn across them. She saw the blue sky above and the clouds that lethargically floated through them.

She held her unblinking stare on Ponyville, fearful that it might disappear into memory if she looked away.

The scenic view held. For as long as she kept her gaze on it, it held.

A speck of dust blew into her eye and she attempted to blink it out, realizing her folly far too late. She ripped her eyes back open again in fear.

Ponyville still stood before her, exactly like it had just a fraction of a second ago.

A lone stallion trotted down the street just in front of her. The sudden movement made Twilight jump in surprise, and her still hyperactive senses took in all his features. Beige coat, average build, wild, tousled brown mane and tail badly in need of a comb, blue eyes, white collar with a red tie, and an hourglass for a cutie mark.

“Good afternoon, Miss Sparkle!” he said merrily as he passed by with an accent that reminded her of Trottingham.

She followed him with her eyes, momentarily dumbfounded. That’s the first pony I’ve seen in over two weeks, some part of her realized.

Say something to him then! At least say “hi!”

“Uh... h-hey,” she stuttered. With another start, she realized it was the first time she’d spoken to somepony else in over two weeks, too.

He didn’t respond; he was already halfway to the next corner. As Twilight watched him go, she realized that she’d seen him on several occasions before, but after all this time she still didn’t know his name. The closest thing to a name for him that she knew of was she’d heard-tell that Derpy simply called him “Doctor.”

She thought of the accident-prone mailmare, and on impulse she looked up to the sky. As luck would have it, she saw the happy-go-lucky pegasus swaying lopsided in the gentle breeze, saddlebags strapped to her. Something caught her attention and suddenly she dived, dropping out of sight behind the roof of a nearby house. A split second passed before Twilight heard a heavy thunk and a subsequent “Ow!” as Derpy crashed into a mailbox.

Twilight caught the sounds of distant conversations again. The full realization finally began to sink in, and for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, the fluttered pulse of her heart was not from worry or woe, but from bliss.

She really was back in Ponyville, and her friends really were out there, waiting for her.

She took the first step off the porch and off the cobblestone path. She heard the chorus of grass crunching underneath her hoof. Not once in her entire life could she remember feeling so exhilarated to feel the grass under her hooves. Another step, another chorus, and another wave of joy swept over her.

She left the lawn and returned to the road, trotting to her destinations. She was still shaking, but this time it was partially out of excitement.

I’m going to go see my friends, she thought.

Her hooves were almost carrying her automatically. Passing the first few buildings, the entire layout of the town began unveiling itself once more in her mind’s eye; the recollection coming with joy that after all that time, she still remembered the mapping of her beloved town.

I’m going to go see my friends!

Her trot became much more brisk.

She remembered the exact routs she would take to get any-which-where, even the detours she would take when one way was closed off. She remembered where each of her friends lived, and she remembered that the closest residence to her library was Sugarcube Corner.

I’m going to go see my friends!

Twilight was full-on galloping through the town, deftly ducking and weaving through the crowds and rounding each corner without losing a single Newton of momentum. Her heart felt so light and invigorated by her mission that she felt if it was fueled by a single iota more of drive, she’d be able to grow wings and fly there.

She rounded the last corner and ground to a halt to take it in. Sugarcube Corner stood directly in front of her, just like she had always seen it in both in real life and her waking night visions. A single, joyful laugh escaped her throat, clenched from the threat of bursting into tearful sobs of joy.

Her heart could take it no longer. She took off at a gallop, pumping effort into her legs until the blood coursing through them became acidic. She weaved like wind through the crowds, eyes never deviating away from the door to the sweet shop for a second.

She was just a few paces away now. She could already taste the cupcakes, already hear the bubbly laughter of her hyperactive pink friend, already smell the aroma of cotton candy that her mane always bore, already see the unfathomable joy beaming in those bright blue eyes, and already feel her heart soar to hold a dearly loved friend again.

Twilight leapt through the air into the door. It burst open from the collision of her front hooves. The smells, the sights, the colors; it was all still a blur from her own movement and tears of joy.

“Oh; afternoon, Twi! Welcome back to—”

“PINKIE!!!” Twilight called out for her, unable to hold onto her excitement for a moment longer.

“Oh, sorry,” Mr. Cake apologized from the counter, “but she’s not taking visitors now.”

One of Twilight’s eyes twitched.

“What?”

“Yep,” Carrot explained, “said she was feeling under the weather and called for a rain check.”

The words rung with a chime of dissonance in her ears. She understood them, but couldn’t comprehend their meaning; she didn’t want to put the meaning to them, because that meant committing to something other than her disbelief of the statement.

The cold sweats and shaking began to creep back in, joined by an involuntary, fitful prance. Pinkie, her dear and beloved friend, whom along with many others she had missed so much that it hurt, didn’t want to see her.

“No, I... no! No!” Twilight stammered. “I-it can’t be! I need to see her! I need to see my friends!”

“I, uh, could check on her, if you’d like?” Mr. Cake suggested.

“I... but... yes; yes, please do!”

“Okay, then; wait here, I’ll be back in a sec,” he said as he left the store counter and trotted upstairs, leaving Twilight alone.

She put a hoof to her chest and tried to steady her breathing and thumping heart. Easy, Twilight. He’s going to go get Pinkie for you, and everything with be fine.

She looked around the currently empty shop, at all the empty tables surrounded by empty chairs. Immediately she jerked her head away from them, and her eyes locked onto the stairs in front of her. Just up those stairs was a remedy to the loneliness that had haunted her for so long.

Something unseen pulled at her heart with a fervent bidding that would not be denied. Her hooves began to move her of their our accord, and she was at the base of the stairs before she even realized, staring up the ascent of steps, hopeful and longing.

Off in the distance, she heard a hoof knocking on a wooden door, followed by a brief moment of silence.

“Pinkie, are you feeling any better?” Mr. Cake asked through the door. “Twilight just stopped by and she seems pretty insistent on seeing you.”

“What?”

Twilight’s heart skipped a beat, catching her breath in her chest. Her voice was muffled and barely understandable, but it was still her voice. It wasn’t just some dream puppet projected upon her eyes for all those night visions while she “slept,” like a movie made only to mock her; it was Pinkie. The real Pinkie... and she sounded terribly distressed.

“No! I... I can’t see any of my friends... or anypony right now! Please, I just need some alone time!”

Twilight didn’t even have time to think. The next thing she knew, she had flown up the stairs, pushed aside the bewildered Carrot Cake, and was hammering on the door to Pinkie’s room.

“Pinkie! Pinkie! It’s me, Twilight! Please open up! I need to see you!... I just need to see somepony! Please, let me see you!”

Mr. Cake watched the frantic unicron with shock. “Uh, Twilight...” he started to say, but his sentence got caught on something halfway through.

Twilight reared up on her hind legs, pressing both forehooves and her face onto the door as if doing so would let her phase through it. The other side remained deathly quiet, even as she pounded on the door.

“Pinkie, if this is about that dream we had all that time ago, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you so upset; honest! Just... please! I need to see somepony...”

Twilight ceased slamming her hoof on the door. Her hind legs gave out and slumped to the floor: forehead still resting against the door as the tears began to pool up in the eyes.

“I need to see my friends...”

She felt a hoof on her shoulder. There’s an actual hoof on my shoulder. I haven’t had physical contact with anypony in over two weeks, either... She looked up to see Carrot Cake, looking at her with concern and empathy.

“Twilight,” he said as he sat down on the floor next to her, bringing himself to eye level with her, “are you okay? You don’t look so good yourself... beg your pardon for saying... What’s bothering you? Care to talk about it?”

“I... no, I... I  just really need to see my friends...” she muttered in sorrow.

“Hmm...” Mr. Cake put a hoof to his chin, “do you only need to see Pinkie?”

“No...” Twilight answered. “No, I need to see them all.”

“Tell you what; maybe it’s best to come back to this a little later. And while you’re off visiting with the rest of your friends, I’ll try and help Pinkie Pie sort out whatever she’s going through. Deal?”

“I...”

Twilight looked at the vigilant door; not for the first time was she stricken with such longing to be with even just one of her friends again that she thought about teleporting to the other side or using her magic to just blast the cursed thing down.

“I can all but assure you Pinkie isn’t going anywhere.”

Twilight looked to him, then back to the door, and finally back to him before she hung head head and sighed. “Okay.”

Mr. Cake put on a reassuring smile. “Well, deal’s a deal. I haven’t seen Fluttershy, Applejack, or Rainbow Dash around recently, but I did see Rarity heading for the market about an hour so ago, if that helps any.”

“It does, thank you,” Twilight said to the floor, getting back up to pace down the stairs. “I... I need to go.”

“Okay, then.” He smiled. “Can I get you anything before you leave? You sure look in need of a good pick-me-up; how ‘bout a cupcake, on the house? Or I think there might be some of that cupcake cake left in the fridge...”

“No, thanks,” Twilight mumbled in a nonspecific direction.

“Well then, see ya later; feel free to drop on back whenever your finished with your other business. Oh, and I do hope the rest of your day goes better.”

“Yeah,” Twilight muttered as she left, “me too.”

The door closed softly behind Twilight. She was back outside in the fresh air and warm light of the sun again, but she could’ve hardly felt more cold.

Pinkie didn’t want to see me... Pinkie Pie was right there, and she didn’t want to see me.

She may have woken up from her terrible dream, but the gaping hole in her heart had followed her all the way back to reality. All that time trying to figure out just what had happened to her, all that time she’d spent completely alone, and all those times she wished she could just be back with her friends again... but now that she had gotten her wish and returned to the world where her friends were, they didn’t want to see her.

It hurt. It hurt so much that the more reasonable part of her mind had to force its way to the front of her thoughts and remind her that her other friends were still out there.

Twilight exhaled and began to walk away from Sugarcube Corner. Her trot was slow from the heavy burden of her heart. It cried like a foal being taken out of its playpen, urgently trying to remind her that Pinkie Pie was right there.

Carousel Boutique isn’t too far from here, Twilight thought to herself, trying to ignore the protests of her heart. At least I know Rarity is out and about. If she’s not back yet, I can just wait for her there.

She made her way through the streets slower than she would’ve liked, as she was still torn between the logical option of seeing another available friend and the emotional one of waiting it out for Pinkie.

She caught sight of the shop around the next bend. Twilight picked up her pace, hoping, praying, that the happenstantial circumstances of life wouldn’t politely slam the door in her face.

She made to to the courtyard where the shop stood, and Twilight stopped cold. Trotting back to the front door with several items in magical tote was Rarity: the real, actual living Rarity.

“Rar—” the word got caught in her throat. “Rarity!”

She stopped in her tracks and looked back to her. Twilight froze at the sight, watching her movements take place in slow motion. Dream-Rarity never even acknowledged my presence, not for over two weeks...

Then Rarity smiled at her. Twilight almost burst into tears of joy right there.

“Oh, good afternoon, Twili—dear, is something wrong? Twilight, slow down or you’ll—oof!”

The wind was knocked out of Rarity as Twilight slammed into her, tackling her to the ground.

“TWILIGHT!” Rarity yelled. “What in BLAZES is WRONG with y—”

“I missed you...”

Rarity fell silent when she realized just how tightly Twilight was hugging her.

The sensations overwhelming her could not have been more welcoming. The sound of Rarity’s voice in her ears was as beautiful as any emotionally moving song she’d ever heard. The feeling of holding Rarity: the warmth and weight of her body, the touch of her soft fur and its ever so delicate aroma of strawberries, and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed; never before had all those little things that made even a simple hug what it was feel so precious. Even just to see Rarity, the features of her white coat, swirling mane and tail, and sapphire eyes had never filled her with such joy.

Twilight’s heart was pounding in her chest, but for the first time in too long, it was out of elation, soaring on her own happiness.

“I missed you,” Twilight whispered in reverence as tears flowed freely from her eyes. “For so long... I missed you all so much...”

“‘Missed me?’” Rarity echoed in confusion. “Twilight, you’re acting like you haven’t seen me in weeks!”

Twilight sniffled and hugged her even tighter. “I haven’t...”

Rarity just stared at Twilight for a moment, thoroughly perplexed. “Dear... we saw each other just last night.”

Twilight’s eyes opened in surprise. “Did we?”

“Yeeees...” Rarity affirmed, unsettled. “At Pinkie’s less-than-stable soiree, where the pilfered property from an apparent thief was returned to their rightful owners, remember?”

Twilight paused. Was it really only just last night?... Oh yeah; it was two weeks for me... for everypony else it was just another nine seconds...

“Um, Twilight, not that I don’t appreciate the affection, but could you get off me, please?” Rarity inquired. “I think you might have gotten dirt in my mane.”

“Oh, sorry...”

Rarity grumbled as she got back up on her hooves and brushed the dust off her. “Seriously, Twilight,” she started to say as she picked up her rolls of fabric, “did you not get enough sleep last night or—AAH!” Rarity let out a small scream when she saw just how dirty and disheveled her friend was.

“Twilight! Did you not... bathe, either?!” Rarity looked at the messy unicorn in horror, then sniffed the air and grimaced. “Never mind, just... please, get inside before somepony else sees you!”

Just like that, Rarity whisked Twilight into the shop, set the items to the side, pushed her up the stairs, and had her in the bathtub with the water running at a speed that would’ve made her mother proud. Rarity turned to a nearby cabinet, rummaged through it for a moment, and returned seconds later with various bottles in her magic.

“Only the finest bath soaps and shampoos, of course,” she commented offhoofededly as she poured a combination into the tub and shut off the water.

“Now then, just get yourself cleaned up straight away and then we can get back to the other matters at hoof,” she instructed, then gave a little huff. “To think, I usually only have to go through this routine with Sweetie Belle...” Rarity turned around and trotted towards the door.

Twilight’s eyes shot open. She’s leaving me... alone.

“Wait!”

Rarity stopped and turned to look back, curious over the outburst.

“Please...” Twilight implored, “please don’t go...”

“Twilight, come now,” Rarity objected. “It’s impolite to simultaneously occupy a private bathroom while somepony else is using it, especially when its occupant is a mare...”

“But Rarity, I... I don’t want to be alone... not again...”

Rarity exhaled in dissent. “Really, Twilight; you’re a grown mare, surely you can—”

“I’ll let you style my mane!” Twilight blurted.

Rarity froze in place with her mouth half open. Her eyes darted back and forth between the door and Twilight in indecision. She bit her lip, then sighed.

“Well, Twilight, don’t you know how to tempt an artist...” Another sigh. ”Very well, then; you get your wish, I get your mane.”

Twilight exhaled in relief. She rested against the rear of the tub and let the warm water coax her tense muscles into relaxing.

Rarity returned to the bathtub with several other bottles that she set off to the side. “If we’re going to do this properly,” she said to nopony in particular as she applied various amounts of shampoo and conditioner to Twilight’s mane.

“Perhaps it’s best to keep your eyes closed, dear,” Rarity said. “Don’t want to get anything in them and all that.”

Twilight did as was suggested, and simply laid back and let Rarity go on with her work as she relaxed. The warm water and company of a friend felt more rejuvenating than she could’ve hoped for. She couldn’t help but smile, her appreciation further spurred by a newfound gratitude.

“Now then,” Rarity started up typical mane-dresser conversation, “behoove it of me to ask, but was there a reason for your previous... enthusiasm?”

It took only a fraction of a second to recall the reason, but it only took that moment and all of a sudden she didn’t feel so warm anymore.

No, don’t think about that: not now! Stay out of there; go back to your happy place. This right here is your happy place: stay here!

“Twilight, is everything okay?”

“No, it’s...” her response came out before she could catch it. She sighed. “I... had a bad dream last night.”

“A... bad dream?” Rarity echoed, incredulous. “That’s what had you so worked up earlier?”

“No, it wasn’t just that. It... there was also... I was...” The words didn’t seem to want to come out of her mouth. She gently moved away from Rarity to turn around and look her directly in the eye.

“Have you ever had a dream, Rarity, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?”

Rarity thought about the query for a moment. “Yes, I’ve had a few dreams of my own that were so real that I couldn’t tell the difference...”

“And what happens then when you can’t escape?” Twilight questioned further. “When you’re trapped in your own dream for longer than you can keep track of? How do you stand it?”

“Well... I’d have to say that it depends on the dream, really. I don’t think it’d be so bad if it was a pleasant dream,” Rarity answered, then her tone became one with slight foreboding. “But if the opposite is the case... like there was this one time I got stuck in a recurring dream; you know those ones where you’re in a dream, and then you think you wake up but it turns out you’re still in the same dream? Case in point, I had a recurring dream... or nightmare, really, that I was working on those... questionable dresses that I made all of you for the Gala...”

“You don’t need to be so modest about them, Rarity,” Twilight leveled with her. “In hindsight, they were pretty bad, so you don’t need to avoid expressing your true feelings for them.”

“Those blasphemous, uncouth, ludicrous, loathsome, sickening, horrible, intolerable, trashy abominations that were a capital offense against all things fashionable!” Rarity hollered. “For the love of all that is fabulous, I couldn’t make anything as vile as those things unless I made a dress out of somepony else’s skin!”

She took a moment to breathe heavily. “I’m sorry, it’s just... I have a lot of bad memories about those dresses, and... they all sort of came back at once...”

A paranoia settled around Twilight. She had unintentionally made Rarity upset, and now she wasn’t going to want to see her any longer: she would leave, or make her go.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, feeling miniscule. “I... I didn’t mean...”

“Don’t worry dear, it’s all in the past. Everything turned out in the end, and I should be able to talk about them rationally from here on out. So...” she exhaled, “I was having this dream where I was working on those awful dresses, but I would keep periodically waking up only to find that all the work I thought I’d done on them I’d only dreamed, and then I had to do all that work all over again!“

She snorted in annoyance. “Believe it or not, that wasn’t even the worst part...”

Rarity let her sentence hang, almost prompting Twilight to ask:

“What was the worst part?”

Rarity forced out a strained laugh at her own expense. “The worst part was that when I actually did wake up, I had to go back to working on those bloody dresses!” She sighed. “However, there was another that was almost heartbreaking over how beautiful it was.”

The connection between their eyes severed, and Rarity stared off into the distance as she reminisced.

“I was sitting in the front, center row of a spacious, magnificent theater where not a single seat was left empty, and I was wearing an absolutely beautiful dress of satin. Then the velvet curtain pulled back, and I gasped; there was no backdrop or stage set, but several large panes of glass through which I could see an entire planet! Before I had enough time to absorb the marvel of it all, a single spotlight illuminated the center stage, and if seeing an entire planet from orbit wasn’t astounding enough, who should humbly trot into the spotlight but Sweetie Belle!

“She was wearing a long, flowing, aqua blue dress that came complete with an ornate headdress, collar plate, and saddle of polished onyx. The most curious thing was that the ensemble was finalized with many slender, whip-like tassels adorning each accessory. It looked so... alien, and yet... so mysteriously captivating at the same time.

“Them the opera music started; first a breathtaking melody on the flute, then the strings. Then Sweetie Belle opens her mouth to sing, and...” Rarity paused, looking up and away, misty eyed. “Dearest Celestia, I’ve never heard anything so beautiful before!” She used her magic to summon a nearby handkerchief to wipe her eyes. “The emotion, the passion, the power and perfection of her soprano melody... words fail to do it justice. I was quite literally moved to tears. I thought my heart was going to burst from my chest, it was so lovely!

“When the song ended, the entire auditorium exploded into thunderous applause. She smiled, bowed, and right when she looked at me, and I looked back at her, beaming with pride, a faint light appeared at the rear of her gown. Then she got this odd look on her face, and dared to lift up her dress in front of an entire theater of ponies. When she saw it, her face lit up brighter than the sun.”

Rarity breathed in deep, and let one of her happy tears escape unchecked. “She got her cutie mark. Right there in front of everypony after hearing her deliver the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard,  my little sister finally got her cutie mark!”

Twilight simply stared at Rarity, breathtaken. “Wow....”

She caught the runaway tear with the handkerchief and looked back to Twilight. “Indeed. It was so touching in fact that I truly lamented returning to consciousness. So the next day, I tried to get her enrolled into a special vocal techniques class for musically gifted foals; she really does have a beautiful singing voice when she puts her heart into it.” Rarity sighed, painfully.

Twilight noted the drop in her mood. “What? Did it not go very well?”

“No, they didn’t ‘go’ all. She missed the first lesson and was automatically removed from the course because she scampered off to Sugarcube Corner with her friends to play with Gummy, claiming they had to, and I quote, 'practice before trying to get their crocodile hunting cutie marks.'”

Rarity scoffed in disappointment and dejection. “Honestly, you would think it might have occurred to them that part of discovering their special talent is trying something they enjoy doing and can do well, and would enjoy doing well for the rest of their life, but... they just don’t seem to get the point of earning a cutie mark; like it’s the universe’s idea of a cruel joke. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I love my little sister to pieces, but I can’t help but raise an eyebrow over her ‘crusading’ methods.

“Anyway, that’s enough about my concerns; what about your dream?” Rarity inquired.

“W-what?” Twilight stammered.

“Come now, dear; you just said it yourself that you had been bothered by some dream you just had, and then you invoke a conversation about indecipherably realistic dreams? Doesn’t take somepony as smart as you to put two and two together. Besides, I just told you two of mine; it’s only fair you tell me yours.”

Twilight squirmed. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Oh, come on!” Rarity whined.

“It’s really a sensitive issue...”

“Tell me!” she insisted.

“Rarity, please...”

“Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me!”

“RARITY!”

Silence descended like a winter chill between the two.

“Okay, now you need to tell me.”

“But, Rar—”

Rarity cut off Twilight with a raised hoof. When she spoke again, the sincere concern in her voice was crystal clear.
        
“Dear, I’ve come to learn that when something has you this distressed, the one thing you need most is a friend you can confide in. Twice I’ve made the mistake of dismissing something that had you this upset, and both of those times, what I thought was you making a mountain out of a molehill turned out to be an avalanche headed our way. And both of those disasters could have been circumvented had somepony just taken a moment to sit you down and ask, “Twilight, what’s wrong?””

She looked deep into Twilight’s eyes. “So it’s as your friend that I ask you to share; what is it that’s bothering you?”

Twilight found herself presented with a dilemma. On the one hoof, she could try and bury it, and maybe she could push it out of her mind long enough to take the edge off so it didn’t hurt so much. On the other, she could bleed it all out now, but she knew that reopening that wound would hurt, and it would hurt a lot.

Twilight heard echoes of her earlier conversation with Reason.

“We both know what can help us with that…”

“My friends...”

“I...” She only managed to get that one word out before choking. Twilight had to summon the will to force more out of her dry throat. “I dreamt that... that I had... d-died.”

Rarity sat still, listening intently. “Oh my...”

“Not... okay, I didn’t die; not like...” Her vocal cords seized up again. “I-I was...” Twilight began fiddling with her hooves. “I was...  killed.”

Rarity gasped. “Oh, dear! By what?”

“By...”

Amethyst scales. Lime frills. A powerful form that towered over her. Wings flared out in triumph. A muzzle like an axe. Scores of sharp teeth behind a wicked grin.  Cruelly twisted features of the one she called her friend. Those eyes... they have the exact same eyes...

Twilight gulped. “By a dragon.”

“My stars, how terrible!”

“Yeah...” Twilight muttered. “I... could feel the fire, murdering me... and then...”

Wha-what happened? Where did he go? Where is he? Where am I? WHERE AM I?!

“The next thing I knew, I was... I didn’t know where I was. I was completely whole again, but I didn’t know why. It was dark, and...”

Why can't I see? WHY CAN'T I SEE?!?

“I lit my horn to try and find my way out of... wherever I was, but... but there was nothing. I tried to call out for somepony, but...”

Hello? Hello!?

“I couldn’t find anypony. I got scared, so I galloped off...”

HELLO?! SPIKE? CAN YOU HEAR ME? SPIIIKE!

“Eventually, I collapsed, too tired to go any farther. I couldn’t even remember how long I’d galloped for, just that I still didn’t know where I was, or what had happened to me. I couldn’t figure it out, but then I remembered what had happened just before I got there...”

Am I...? Oh, no... Nonononono... Please no... I can't be...

“I thought I was...”

Am I...

“Dead.”

Think, Twilight! Maybe you’re still just in a dream.

“I tried to wake up...”

If that's the case, all I have to do is reach out with my mind and...

“But I couldn’t... that’s... that was when I knew...”

Dear Celestia... I'm really... I really am...

Despair crushed her.

Five mares dressed in black surrounded the front of a somber grey monolith under dark, weeping clouds that cast a miserable shadow over the world. Fluttershy was trembling, her face buried into the crook of a crying Rarity’s neck. Pinkie wailed uncontrollably, lost to anguish. Rainbow had a foreleg around Pinkie as she desperately tried to remain strong, and failed. Applejack held her Stetson over her heart, head bowed in mournful prayer.

Spike clung desperately to the cold memorial as he sobbed, just underneath the words:

The bathwater rippled from the teardrops that fell into it.

“Oh, darling...”

Twilight looked up at Rarity. Her sorrowful eyes were filled with sympathy.

Without saying a word, Rarity opened out her forelegs in invitation. Twilight didn’t even wait; she rushed forward and latched on, holding her friend tight, and letting herself cry in the embrace.

“That’s why I needed to see you, Rarity,” Twilight sniffled. “That’s why I need to see all my friends. So after I get finished up here, I need to go see them, too.”

“Oh dear...” Rarity broke from their embrace, shifting nervously. “Twilight, uh... oh, I do so hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, I’m afraid that won’t be likely today.”

Twilight stared at her in horrified disbelief. “What? Why?”

“Applejack is out of town on business, and probably won’t be back for a few days. Fluttershy is way off in the farther reaches of Whitetail Wood, helping a flock of young birds with their distance flying. And given how much distance we’re talking here, she’ll probably be gone for just as long. And Rainbow Dash is busy working with the weather team, mapping out the weather for the next week or so... that, or she finished early and is using all her free time to go napping on a cloud somewhere, blasted lazy mare. However, I think Pinkie Pie might be available.”

Pinkie Pie... the fresh wound still stung.

“I was just at Sugarcube Corner before I came here,” Twilight shared, miserably. “Pinkie... she didn’t want to see me...”

Rarity gasped. “Really? Whatever for?”

“I don’t know. But she seemed really upset about something, and Carrot said she was having some issues, but why wouldn’t she want to see me? I mean, I could’ve helped her, couldn’t I? But... but she didn’t want to see me....”

Rarity pulled Twilight back into another hug. “Twilight... shhh... your friends are still out there. Just because we can’t always see to you doesn’t mean we don’t care about you. And whatever Pinkie is going through, I’m sure she’ll get past it eventually, and she’ll come to you if she needs help. Everything will be okay, I promise.”

That just made Twilight want to cry again, remembering trying to glean that kind of solace out of Spike’s blanket.

“Now then, so long as you’re still here, what do you say we finish up with your mane?” Rarity suggested. “This shampoo has already been in your hair long enough as it is.”

“Okay,” Twilight said, trying to find comfort in Rarity’s words. She turned back around and tried to relax as Rarity went back to work. Right at that moment, her stomach gave a loud grumble, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since last night.

Rarity sighed. “So long as I’m postponing my work projects as it is, could I interest you in staying for lunch?”

“Oh, I’m sorry; I didn’t know you’d been working. Would that be any trouble for you?”

Rarity waved a hoof. “Not at all; it won’t be the first time I’ve had to make a bonfire from the midnight oil. Besides, sleep is for ponies without anything to do. So... lunch, then?”

A small smile pulled on the corners of Twilight’s mouth. “Yeah... I’d like that.”

“Will you be alright, dear?” Rarity asked of Twilight as she made her way towards the front door.

“Eventually, I think. I just need some time… Thank you, by the way.”

Rarity waved a hoof. “It’s nothing, really. What are friends for, after all? Oh, but darling, I simply must insist that you allow me to take you to the spa with Fluttershy and myself. Our next visit will be in three days; I could even personally retrieve you if you’d like.”

Twilight smiled. “I would like that, thank you.”

“So it’s settled then!” Rarity proclaimed. “In three days, to the spa we shall go! I just hope I’ll be finished with all my work by then...” Some of her enthusiasm wore off as she looked back to her workroom.

“Oh yeah, that... do you need any help?” Twilight asked.

“No, I’ll be alright. Besides, this is one of those projects that’s best left to the hooves of one. It’ll probably keep me busy for several days, though...” Rarity furrowed her eyebrows. “Oh dear, that spa visit sounds more enticing than it should already. Anyway, is there anything else I can do in your service before you leave?”

“No, but thanks for asking. You’ve already helped so much, and I don’t want to keep you busy longer than I should. Besides...” Twilight looked out the window with a longing glance at the clear skies. “Rainbow Dash has to be out there somewhere, and I need to go see her, too.”

Rarity nodded. “Very well. I shall see you in three days’ time, but don’t be a stranger!” Her eyes softened. “And please, do feel free to to stop by anytime should you so need a friend; I hope you know that we’ll always be there for you.”

Twilight smiled graciously. “I will, and thank you for everything. Goodbye, Rarity.”

“Adieu, Twilight.”

Twilight opened the door and stepped outside, letting the door shut behind her. She looked around Ponyville, warm and bright in the mid-afternoon sun. She made a move to leave the patio of Carousel Boutique to see if she could find Rainbow Dash.

Only she didn’t move. Her hooves had again decided to remain steadfast, stuck in place.

That terrible chill began to seep its way through her again. There was a high possibility that she wouldn’t be able to find Rainbow. She could just go check on Pinkie, but it was probably just as likely that Pinkie would still shun her all in her personal, spontaneous isolation. Fluttershy and Applejack were still gone, and they would be for a while. And even though she had just spent a few hours of quality time with Rarity, that time was over now, and she was back to standing on a porch by herself again: alone...

Her chill became a panic; Twilight whipped around to look back at the door, and she had half a mind to run back inside and stay in Rarity’s company for as long as she pleased.

Twilight saw her reflection in one of the windows. She could hear Reason speaking in her mind.

You had your time with Rarity, but now it’s time to go find Rainbow Dash.

“But...”

Remember what she said; just because you’re friends aren’t always available doesn’t mean they love you any less. Now go find Rainbow Dash!

Twilight nodded. Recomposing herself, she stepped off the balcony to search of her friend.

She looked to the skies first, since Rainbow Dash spent more time in the air than she did on the ground. The sky over Ponyville was free and clear of the clouds, so Twilight figured that she had already finished dealing with the weather. So Twilight looked through the sky on the outskirts of town, thinking perhaps she would be spending her free time to take a nap. That venture proved fruitless, however. Adding to Twilight’s increasing consternation was that she hadn’t seen the daredevil flying around at all: practicing her freestyle stunts, performing aerial maneuvers that were as impressive as they were stupidly dangerous, or just zipping through the air for a daily adrenaline rush.

 Twilight asked just about every pony she’d ran into if they’d seen Dash, but none had. She’d encountered other pegasi on the weather team who’d confirmed they had finished work early, but they hadn’t seen Rainbow since. She’d even managed to flag down Thunderlane and get him to fly all the way to Dash’s house and see if she might have been home, but to no avail.

She scoured every place in town where she thought Rainbow might go to hang out or pass the time. Every single one failed to turn up the pegasus in question. After over an hour of searching, she had crossed off every place she could think of where Rainbow might be, save for one. She trotted there with heavy hooves, already feeling overwhelmed with disappointment and dejection.

Twilight stood outside of Sugarcube Corner, staring at the shop with despondence. Part of her didn’t want to check the shop again. If she did, she most likely just faced more grief. None of the places where Twilight had gone looking for Rainbow had revealed her or indicated where she might be.

Why should she be here, either?

Check anyway, Reason told her. If she’s not here, than at least you can say you looked everywhere. You can check up on Pinkie as long as you’re here, too. And if that doesn’t work out, well... you can always try again tomorrow. Besides, you’ve left Spike in the library all day, and you still owe him one after bucking him like a hoofball after you mistook him for… you know who.

Twilight’s sigh was ladened with her anxiety. Gripping to a minute sense of hope, she moved back towards the shop, taking a single step to—

“LOOK OUT!” a rough-and-tumble voice frantically screamed over a rush of wind.

Twilight snapped her attention to the right just in time to see a full-spectrum blur come hurtling towards her. It slammed into the ground and skidded to a halt just inches from her, kicking up a cloud of dust that made her cough. When Twilight brushed the dust away, she came face to face with a wide-eyed Rainbow Dash. Her pupils were darting back and forth between Twilight and the smidgen of distance between them both. Then a smile cracked her face.

“Ha...” she chuckled. “Ha ha!” Rainbow flared her prideful wings with a cocksure grin. “Whaddaya know, I’m so awesome that even my crash landings are impro—“

Rainbow was cut off when Twilight tackled her with a hug.

Rainbow sighed. “Just couldn’t let me get outta that one, could ya?”

Twilight didn’t answer; just held Rainbow Dash tightly in her forelegs.

“Uh, Twi; you okay?” Dash prodded her affectionate attacker. “Yo, Equestria to egghead! You alright, Twi?”

Twilight smiled. “I am now.”

Dash was at a loss. “Uh... okay... could you let me up now?”

“Oh; sure...”

“So what gives?” Dash asked as she got back to her hooves and shook some of the dust off her. “Is that your way of helping me prepare for when I’ll be mobbed by adoring fans everywhere I go?”

“Not quite,” Twilight said. “I’m just happy to see you.”

Rainbow looked uncertain. “Really? Geez, not even Pinkie is that happy to see me... most of the time, at least.”

Just like that, Twilight’s spirits fell. The sudden plunge in her mood did not go unnoticed by Rainbow Dash.

“What? Was it something I said?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“No, it’s not you, it’s just...” Twilight looked past Dash to Sugarcube Corner, only to look away, sullen. “I really, really needed to see you and the rest of our friends today, but Pinkie wouldn’t see me. I heard her say she wanted some time to be alone, but she wouldn’t even tell me what was wrong.”

Rainbow looked worried. “Alone time? Oh boy... Pinkie never says she needs ‘alone time,’ not unless something was really bothering her...”

Dash turned and flew up to Pinkie’s window, then began knocking on the sill with a hoof. “Hey Pinkie, it’s Dash! Twilight told me that something came up. You alright? Is everything okay?”

The window remained closed and the curtains unstirred.

“Yo, Pinks! Wouldja open up? You in there?”

Silence answered her.

Rainbow peered at the window, uncertain and anxious. She put her forehooves on the window and started to slowly slide it open.

In a flash, the curtains parted, two pink hooves grabbed the window, slammed it shut, locked it down, and yanked the curtains closed again.

Rainbow Dash flew back in surprise, gawking and taken aback at the rebuttal.

“Wha—did you see that?! She just slammed the window on me!” Rainbow flew back to the window and started pounding on the sill with her hoof. “Pinkie! Open up! You can’t just shut Twilight and me out like that!”

“Rainbow, please...”

“You had better open this window right now!”

“RAINBOW!”

Dash stopped for a moment and looked back down. Twilight was shaking with a minor tremble and her ears had folded down.

“I— ” Twilight gulped. Her throat was suddenly dry again. “I tried that earlier, and it didn’t work any better for me, either. As much as I hate to admit it, I think we should respect Pinkie’s wishes if she needs some time to herself.”

Now Rainbow was torn, looking back and forth between Twilight and the window. “But I can’t just leave her! Not if she’s like that!” Dash pointed at the window. “You should’ve seen her, Twi! She looked so... boy, what’s the word... distraught! Yeah, that’s it! See looked so distraught! What kind of pony just abandons their friend when she’s that upset about something?”

“You’re not abandoning her, Rainbow Dash. Just honoring what a friend wants. If Pinkie wants to be alone, it would be more insensitive if we barged in on her.” Twilight looked away towards the ground and mumbled, “Even if that’s what I need...”

A few moments passed in silence, then there was a small gust of wind as Rainbow landed in front of Twilight.

“Hey; doesn’t take somepony like Fluttershy to tell that something’s upsetting you, too.” She nudged Twilight on the shoulder. “So what’s up? Don’t think I’ve seen you this bummed out about not being able to see Pinkie. Wanna try and talk to her together?”

“I don’t think that will help much. Mr. Cake tried to talk to her, I tried to talk to her... we’ve all tried to let her know we care about her. I think if we press the issue any further, it might seem like we’re imposing.” Twilight did another hard swallow; her throat was still dry. “I’ll try to think of something we can do to cheer her up, but for now it’s probably best if we let her have her peace.” Twilight tried to sound reassuring. “Does that sound okay?”

Rainbow cocked an eyebrow at her. “You don’t sound okay... come on, this really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

All the moisture that had disappeared from Twilight’s throat seemed to have begun relocating to her eyes. “It does, but... it’s only part of... when I said I needed to see you all...”

A memory flashed to the forefront of her mind. She was still standing on top of the diner table after watching each of her friends toast her memory. Dash was still trying to keep up her tough-mare demeanor, even when it was clear she was just as deeply hurt as the rest of them.

“I’m gonna miss you, egghead.”

Twilight rushed forward, pulled Rainbow Dash into another hug, tears dripping from her eyes.

“I dreamt I was alone, and that dream felt like it lasted for over two weeks.” Twilight’s hold around Dash tightened. “I didn’t have you, or Pinkie, or any of our friends, or anypony for over two weeks...”

Dash stood there for a moment, absorbing what she had just heard. “Wow...” she said as she put a foreleg around Twilight. “And to think that I feel like I’m going crazy if I’ve got nothing to do for more than two hours...” She nudged Twilight with her muzzle. “Hey, now you’re here with none other than your awesomely awesome Rainbow Dash, right?” Dash tried to offer a smile. “Gosh, I’m really no good at this ‘shoulder to cry on’ thing...”

A chuckle softened Twilight’s sadness. “You’re here now, and that’s what counts. Speaking of which...” She moved back to make eye contact with Rainbow. “Where were you earlier? I looked all over town and asked everypony I met, if they’d seen you, but nopony had. So where exactly were you?”

“Oh, I was flying really high up in the sky, practicing my upper atmosphere stunt flying,” she said as she flew off the ground. “I was up way higher than even most pegasi bother flying, above the cirrus clouds even, so I was definitely out of sight for the most part.

”But holy cow, it was awesome!” Dash did a flip in the air. “Flying around that high is really something else. Less air pressure means less drag, but the tradeoff is that there’s less air to displace for thrust and it’s easier to lose your breath, so it’s definitely a different kind of challenge. Hard to gain altitude too, but sweet Celestia, can you pull off some awesome diving maneuvers!”

Rainbow zipped around in the air, illustrating her feats. “First thing I started with was some barrel rolls, then those turned into doing barrel rolls and corkscrews at the same time, then just for fun I started making loops out of helixes...”

Rainbow Dash’s voice faded in Twilight’s ears as her focus became transfixed upon the aerial display, specifically on Dash’s wings.

After studying them for literally days, Twilight found herself with an extraordinary new appreciation for wings. Their construction from all the complex bundles of nerves, pathways of blood vessels, structure of bones, and masses of muscle and tissue made them a physiological and anatomical marvel to comprehend, indeed. Just watching the way Dash’s wings flexed and pumped down through the air was hypnotically fascinating.

Now that she really thought about it, their purpose was nonetheless significant, either. She’d seen pegasi in flight all her life, but she’d never truly recognized how significant flight was. There was so much behind even the most simple of flight trajectories that she felt newfound respect for even less accomplished flyers like Fluttershy. That was to say nothing about Rainbow Dash; Twilight had known her for a while now, and she still regularly performed feats that left her awestruck. She made it look so easy, but Twilight knew from experience that it was anything but...

“Twilight? Yo, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash landed in front of the unicorn, looking slightly irritated. “Geez, I usually only have to tell the colts to keep their eyes to themselves...”

Twilight’s eyes went wide and she whipped her head away, blushing with the implications over what she had been doing.

Rainbow approached her, annoyance leaving her face for smug teasing. “What’s wrong? Do you have wing envy or something?”

Twilight’s cheeks went from magenta to scarlet, and her ears tucked back as she bashfully pawed at the ground.

“Okay, seriously, what’s up?” Dash prodded.

Twilight floundered about sheepishly. “I, um... I was just...” She fought off her embarrassment and looked right at Rainbow. “What’s flying like, Dash?”

Now it was Rainbow Dash’s turn go go wide-eyed. “What’s flying like? Well... it’s awesome! And it... hmm...” Dash looked off and rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. “Wow, it’s hard to think of another word to describe it than ‘awesome.’ I mean... well, you got to walk on clouds before. What was that like for you?”

Twilight thought back to the time that she and her friends went to Cloudsdale to support Rainbow Dash for the Best Young Flyers Competition. “It was incredible: breathtaking, really. I never thought I’d ever get to visit Cloudsdale, so stepping off the balloon and onto the clouds for the first time was... well, magical.”

“Well, thanks kinda what flying is like, except you’re not limited to just walking on clouds. You can go anywhere!” Rainbow Dash zipped up into the air again. “The rush from going wherever you want and as fast as you can, it’s awesome! It’s so... so...”

“Freeing?”

Rainbow looked down to Twilight.

“Like the wind suddenly has a personality and it wants you to spread your wings and fly away in it’s current?” Twilight postured.

Rainbow rubbed a hoof across the back of her head. “Sort of like that...”

“Like riding a roller coaster when you’re not strapped in, but it’s so fun that you only care if your hooves are in the air?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what it’s like! Except you aren’t stuck on the track; you can literally make up your own!” Rainbow flew down to Twilight. “Why do you ask?”

Twilight paused before divulging. “I recently had a dream where I could fly, and I wanted to know if flying in reality feels like how I felt when I got to soar.”

Rainbow perked up. “You dreamed that you got to fly? Cool! What was that like?”

Twilight looked to another place in recollection.

The wind blowing past her face and through her mane was thrilled to have her in its domain. Her coat shone like a majestic jewel in the vanishing light of the setting sun. The waking stars never looked brighter, and she felt a fellow kinship from being closer to them than she ever had before.

Twilight couldn’t help but smile a little. “It was awesome.”

Rainbow opened her grinning mouth to say something, but cut herself off as she broke eye contact with Twilight to glance over her shoulder, looking concerned.

Twilight looked back in the same direction to see Scootaloo, just as she averted her gaze strained gaze from the two of them to become very interested in the state of the street.

Rainbow looked back at Twilight. “Uh, could you excuse me for a second?”

Her initial, internal response was to say “no,” but she had to reason with herself. Rainbow is just going to be a few paces away; it’s not like she’s going to leave you alone...

“Sure, go on.”

Dash nodded, then turned her attention back to the filly. “Hey, Scoots!” She said as she trotted past Twilight.“What’s up?”

“Oh, nothin’...” Scootaloo muttered, brushing at the dirt with a hoof.

“What’cha doing out here alone, kid?” Dash asked. “I thought you’d be using your free time to go crusading with your friends.”

Scootaloo sighed. “Sweetie Belle is with her parents right now, and Applebloom has to stay and help Big Mac out on the farm because Applejack just had to pick now of all times to have business out of town...”

Just like that, Twilight was struck with another pang of longing. So she wasn’t the only one hurt by the absence of her friends...

She turned back to her own thoughts to momentarily keep her company until Dash was no longer preoccupied. Her thoughts returned to flying: of drifting in the open, carfree sky like she was gliding somewhere on the other side of nowhere. Of being there to watch the constellations emerge from behind space. Of beholding their magnificence, making some notion trigger that made her want to collect some stars to shine for her.

Of looking down and seeing the infinite nothing still dominate the land, stretching from one end of the horizon, reminding her that even if she terraformed the entire plane, she would still be alone...

“Hey, Twilight!”

Dash’s call snapped her back to Equestria.

“You don’t mind if I let Scootaloo tag along with the two of us to go get some ice cream, do you?”

A big smile broke across Scootaloo’s face. “You... you want me to hang out with you?” Her little wings began to buzz in excitement, almost lifting her off the ground. “Awesome!”

“Wait, when did you decide to go get ice cream?” Twilight asked.

Dash smirked. “Just now! Come on, we can talk more about flying while we munch on some cold, creamy goodness!”

“Talking about flying and eat ice cream AND hang out with Rainbow Dash?!” Scootaloo’s face was on the verge of being torn in half by her smile. “AWESOME!”

Twilight couldn’t help but smile. “I’d love to.”

A few hours had passed, and after they’d had their sweets, Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and Scootaloo stood outside Pinkie’s bedroom door.

“Do you think this will help any?” Scootaloo asked. “I mean, you girls both tried to talk to her earlier, and both Mr. and Mrs. Cake said they hadn’t got anything out of her. How are we supposed to help cheer her up if we don’t even know what’s wrong?”

Rainbow looked to the filly. “The very least we can do is let her know we’ll always be there, so she can count on us to be by her side if she does eventually want our help. Remember that, Scoots; always be there for your friends to do whatever it takes to help them with their problems.” Dash let out a heavy exhalation. “I just wish there was more we could do...”

Rainbow raised a heavy hoof to Pinkie’s door and gently rapt upon it.

“Hi Pinkie, it’s Dash,” she said to the wooden door. “Twilight and Scoots are here, too... hey, I’m sorry for trying to barge in on you earlier, that was kinda rude of me. But I’m worried about you, ya’ know? ‘Cause that’s the kind of pony I am; I don’t leave my friends twisting in the wind.”

Dash stood there for a moment, waiting for a response. The door did not answer.

Rainbow put her head to the ground and looked under the door through the crack. She lifted it back off the floor and breathed out through her nostrils when the peek turned up nothing.

“Well, I’ll still be around for you, Pinkie. I hope you get better, and if you need my help, I’ll be there for you. If nothing else, you can always count on me to be there.” Rainbow Dash backed away from the door.

Scootaloo bounced up to the door. “Hope you feel better soon, Pinkie! Nopony can brighten up the day by pulling a song out of nowhere like you! Or a parade, or a snowball fight, or a water balloon brawl...” Scootaloo pursed her lips together in thought. “By the way, I’m sorry if you’re still upset about the whole cheap-shot thing two days ago. It really was an accident, and I know you sorta got me back something like thirteen times, but if it’s still upsetting you, I’m sorry.”

Scootaloo turned around and paced back to Rainbow, looking to Twilight as she returned to her spot, signaling her somber turn.

Twilight’s throat was already feeling dry. She hadn’t meant it, but Scootaloo’s apology had dug fish hooks into what was an already thin scab. It may have been only two days for everypony else, but it had been over two weeks for her since the last time that the six of them were together and truly happy; two weeks of total, agonizing loneliness that for all she knew could’ve lasted for the rest of time.

Her heart had already turned to a lodestone, so she sat down and leaned her head up against the threshold.

“Hey Pinkie.” She couldn’t have hidden the depression in her voice had she even bothered to try. “It’s me again.”

She paused. It was harder than it should have been to find words. “I’m sorry for trying to hammer down your door earlier...” Twilight exhaled with a shudder. “If you’re still upset about that tense moment we had two we—yesterday, I’m sorry... if that’s not it, then...

“Pinkie...” Twilight sniffled, and at that moment her voice decided to seize up. “Pinkie, please; it hurts me so much to not be able to help with whatever you’re going through.”

Twilight scoured the door through tear-clouded eyes, like there might had been some miniscule passage carved into the side that would tell her just what to say to make Pinkie open up.

Nothing. No Pinkie.

She was fighting to hold back now. Her heart told her to stay there, no matter how long it took, but her reason knew that it wasn’t liable to accomplish much, even if to spite acceptance of rejection.

Twilight breathed out some of her misery through a morose sigh and separated from the threshold. She looked back in one last act in defiance of the stoic door.

“We just want to help. I care about you; we all do, Pinkie.”

She couldn’t take it anymore. Twilight hung her head and paced away, knowing that she was going to start crying if she stayed there any longer. The dead weight in her heart was too insufferably lethargic to to voice its protests, so instead it tried to use its mass to pull her down into the dumps where at least they could be together.

She descended the stairs and left the shop almost by automatically; she didn’t even bother to look up to see where she was going. Her eyes remained fixated on the ground, from wooden steps to linoleum floor until the cobblestone streets lit by a warm sunset lay under her hooves.

She just stood there for a moment that she couldn’t bother to measure, with her ears drooped and a frown that was trying to pull her mouth off while her miserable thoughts wandered in an unaligned mess, until she felt a gentle nudge from a muzzle prod her nape.

Twilight looked back at Rainbow Dash. She bore so much sympathy in her eyes that it almost looked alien coming from a hardened mare like her.

“Hey, Pinkie will eventually come around. She always does,” Dash said with a soothing assurance.

Twilight tried to find some solace in that. “I suppose you’re right.”

“You gonna be okay?” Dash asked.

Twilight tried to put on a convincing little mask of a smile. “Eventually.”

Before Dash could call her on it, Scootaloo let out a little yawn, which upon realizing she quickly tried to stifle it.

Dash looked back down to the filly. “Come on, squirt. Time to take you home.”

“Aw, but I’ve been having such a good time with you! The sun hasn’t even completely gone down yet!”

“Hey, I never said we had to stop hanging out. But it’s starting to get late and your parents are going to be wondering where you are. Besides, I’ve gotta hit the hay early for weather patrol so I can use all that to free up time for flying later on. I could even pick you up so you can watch if you’d like that.”

Scootaloo perked up at the prospect. “I’d love to!”

“Alright,” said Dash, taking a step only to stop in mid-trot. “Uh... where do you live again?”

“Oh, it’s not too far from here. We just go down this street—”

“Yeah, tell ya what,” Rainbow interrupted Scootaloo and hoisted the filly onto her back. “How about you just point me in the right direction while I’m flying, ok?”

Scootaloo’s little wings buzzed in excitement. “Sure!”

Dash spread her wings to take off, but she stopped herself and looked back at Twilight.

“Want me to swing by the library after I’ve said my goodbyes to Scoots?” Dash offered. “You look like you could use the company...”

Her reflex reaction told her to say “yes,” but Dash mentioning the library reminded her of a massive entry she reluctantly had to finish, and that there was a certain baby dragon that still had a few pretty good reasons to be ticked off at her who she had to reconcile with.

“It would be nice, but I’ve left Spike at the library all day. I saddled him with a bunch of extra chores before I rushed off to see all of you, so he’s probably still mad at me, and I have to make it up to him.”

Rainbow acknowledged her with a nod. “Well, okay. Just try and stay cool about all this, alright? Give me a shout-out if you need it. What I said about not leaving my friends twisting in the winds, that goes for all of you.”

Rainbow Dash turned and tensed up to take flight, but then turned back to Twilight for a parting thought.

“If you ever need me, just look up in the sky!”

Dash took off. Scootaloo started whooping and hollering in delight as they soared through the warm skies of the late afternoon, flying away over the rooftops, and out of sight.

Just like that, she was alone again, and it wasn’t long before those familiar chills returned. Her instinctive response fell back on her mental list of friends that she needed to see, only to realize there wasn’t anything left for her to do. She got to see Rarity and Dash, but Applejack and Fluttershy were still well beyond reach, and Pinkie Pie...

Alone again, Twilight began her sad trudge back to her home. She tried to think of what she could do to make up with Spike, if for nothing else than it gave her something else to focus on other than the lump in her throat, the trembling in her legs, and volatile emotions that were thrashing about as she departed from Sugarcube Corner, making her feel like she was on the verge of a panic attack.

She was still hanging her head as she made her slow trot back up to the library. She put a hoof to the door, ready to open it, but something stopped her, forcing herself to ponder all the reasons for her own reluctance to move.

First there was the matter of her friends. Yes, she had gotten to see Rainbow Dash and Rarity, but she felt so cold and alone the instant she was out of their presence. Now that she thought about it, even if she could have seen them, it probably would have been the same way with Applejack and Fluttershy, too. Worst of all, the more she thought about Pinkie, the more it rubbed salt in the wounds her heart was still afflicted with: a thought that hurt all the more over the possibility that she might have something to do with Pinkie’s turmoil.

Then there was Spike, bucking him halfway across her bedroom, then loading him with her share of the chores. He had every good reason to still be mad at her, and that was without him knowing the truth that she had violated his privacy and invaded his dreams without him knowing. She could only begin to imagine how angry he’d look if he found out...

A terribly familiar dread returned to her at that thought. It wasn’t so much Spike’s discontent that she feared, but how much Spike’s anger looked like... that thing lurking in his subconscious...

A jolt of panic threatened to overwhelm her, and she snapped her attention back to the door that she had curiously yet to open. Then the reason why hit her like a sandbag. The last time she had been in this position, of being reluctant to enter her own home, was when she had given up all hope of ever seeing anypony again—when she was trapped on an empty plain that went on forever.

Her remaining rationality had to seize her reins, open the door, and automatically carry her inside, lest she collapse out of her mounting hysteria.

Spike brushed his claws together, sweeping off a few clinging motes of dust as he looked around the library. Despite the fact that he was done with his chores, and had even finished them early despite the extra work he had been stuck with, he wasn't happy.

Ever since Twilight had left in a rush he had been in a sour mood. For a pony who was good at solving problems, sometimes Twilight just caused more headaches than she cured.

His stomach suddenly gave an audible grumble. He sighed, realizing that the likely reason he had finished his chores so early was because he had forgone breakfast. And lunch. And it was now getting into the evening.

He made his way into the kitchen and opened the pantry door. Spotting his jars of jewels on the bottom shelf, he grabbed one and tried deciding what to do with the tasty treasures. He tried to recall a quick and easy recipe, only to realize that he couldn’t immediately remember one.

His stomach gave another seismic grumble. To hay with it, he thought. He went to the table, sat down as he opened the jar, and began shoveling jewels into his mouth.

Five minutes later his stomach felt better, but even the dazzling trove of jewels he had just consumed had done little to improve his mood. However, now that he'd had some time to think about it, he'd realized he wasn't entirely sure why he was so upset.

Yes, he'd had that horrible, horrible dream, but it had only been a dream. Yes, Twilight seemed to be keeping something to herself, but she'd obviously just had a really bad dream as well and didn't want to think about it. And yes, she had bucked him across the room, and even now his chest was still sore, but she had apologized and fixed him back up as best she could.

So why do I still feel so grumpy?

His thoughts were interrupted by the slow rhythm of hooves clopping on the cobblestone path coming up to the library. He perked up. Had Twilight finally come back? Or was it just somepony else coming to rent a book?

He listened intently, waiting for some telltale sign that this was someone he knew. The hoofsteps stopped just outside the door. Then...

Silence.

What was going on? Was it Twilight? Was this somepony who got lost? Was this Rainbow Dash trying to set up another prank? Several long moments passed in a silence where Spike could have heard a spider walking across the floor.

Then came the grating of wood as the latch finally opened, and whoever this was finally let themselves inside. It had to be Twilight, then. Anypony else would have knocked.

Hopping out of his chair, he went to the door of the kitchen and looked at the entrance.

Sure enough, there was Twilight, slowly looking around the library from her place by the door. Spike began to walk towards her, eager to ask if he could go see Rarity, but something about her demeanor stopped him. She wasn't the frantic, wild-eyed, sleep-deprived pony she had been several hours ago. She still seemed subdued, melancholy even: almost mournful. She hadn't noticed him yet.

"Twilight?" he asked in a meek voice.

She jumped the moment he spoke, her head whipping in alarm towards him, her body visibly tensing up. But then their eyes met, and she visibly relaxed.

Though not right away. It took her a moment that lasted just a little too long for her to tentatively lowered her defensive posture. She was also looking at him funny, with an expression that bespoke of... what? Wariness? Fear?

Why the hay is she looking at me like that?

Wait… that’s what’s wrong, Spike realized. It wasn’t just because she'd callously saddled him with extra chores, or because she'd left a painful hoof-shaped bruise on his chest, but that she had been looking at him the same way this morning when he'd first gone to check on her, and he couldn’t figure out why.

Spike let some of his terse indignation boil to the surface. "I've had to do a lot while you went and played patty-cake with everypony else."

There was a flicker behind her. A flash of guilt played across Twilight’s face, giving him a little bit of satisfaction.

"Actually, Applejack and Fluttershy are out of town for a couple of days. And Pinkie Pie..." Twilight's expression changed to being visibly hurt. "She didn't even want to see me."

Now Spike was the one left feeling like a jerk. "Oh... um... really? Why? Did you have a fight or something? I didn't even think it was possible to have a fight with Pinkie." Spike tried to put enough sympathy in his questions to make up for his first statement.

"No, not really. Well, we had a little confrontation a couple of w—yesterday, but we apologized to each other after it happened. I can't figure out why she's acting like this..."

An awkward silence settled between the two of them. Eventually Twilight decided to break it. "I'm sorry I left you here like this, Spike."

Spike didn't reply, but his countenance softened and he nodded, wordlessly accepting her apology.

"And I said I'd make it up to you. So if there’s some way that you like me to repay you, feel free to name it."

Spike smiled. “Actually, can I go see Rarity?”

"She said she would busy for the rest of the day, but I won’t stop you. Tell you what; if you pick up the groceries on the way back, I'll cook dinner tonight, too."

Spike's smile immediately faltered as his eyes widened and he inhaled sharply. Despite all the books she had read on the subject, Twilight's cooking skills left something to be desired. Her last attempt had been nothing short of apocalyptic, and since that day everypony involved, even Celestia, had simply referred to it as “The Spaghetti Incident.”

Quickly covering up his reaction, Spike improvised a little white lie. "Uh, actually I'd had something special planned for tonight. Maybe instead you can help me out? It's complicated, though, so just do exactly as I say." He answered, blinking several times

Twilight thought about it, then replied, "Are you sure? After all you've done today..."

"Yeah Twilight, I'm sure."

Unfortunately Twilight seemed to catch on to what he wasn't saying. "Spike, I'm not that bad of a cook, I just made a little—"

"Three guards had to be rushed to the hospital," Spike said flatly.

Twilight sighed and put a hoof to her forehead. "Okay, Spike. I promise to just help you out."

“Okay. Is there a time you want me back by?” Spike asked as he moved towards the door.

“Actually, um, I’ll be busy for a while, so you can stay out a little later than usual if you’d like. Sound fair?”

Spike’s smiled, and he scampered outside. “Deal! See ya’ later, Twi!”

She stuck her head out of the door and called after him. “Just don’t stay out too late!”

“Aw...”

Five minutes later, Spike was walking down the cobblestone path en route to the other side of Ponyville. He felt happy. How could he not? He was going to go see Rarity.

Spike bounded up the steps of Carousel Boutique, excited at the prospect to be graced by the breathtaking presence of that beautiful mare. Even if she was busy, acting as a helper while she worked was well worth the time to him. There had never once been a time where he would have considered doing work for her as a chore; he always thought of it as a service for the mare he loved.

He held up a hand to knock on the door. Except his fist wouldn’t connect.

He stood there for several moments, ready to knock on the door, but he remained unmoving. And he couldn’t figure out why.

A stray thought rose up in his mind.

Why are you still trying?

Okay Twilight, you really need to stop looking at Spike like that. Reason echoed inside her mind.

Like what? Twilight thought.

You know “like what;” the way that you’ve been looking at him every time you’ve seen him today.

Hey, I didn’t look at him like that after he woke me up.

No, you didn’t... but you did after he glared at you for kicking him like a hoofball.

Twilight didn’t have anything with to argue against that. She went into the kitchen for a cool refreshment to soothe the knot in her clenched throat, only to remember that the refrigerator was still in her room when she saw the empty spot where it usually stood.

You should try to do something to help him. And looking at him funny isn’t going to accomplish anything. It’s only a matter of time before he notices and starts getting suspicious, if he hasn’t already, Reason said.

“I know, but what am I supposed to do?” Twilight asked aloud as she went up the stairs. “I know that he has a serious problem, but unless I can learn more about...” She gulped. “About him... I’m not sure what I can do. The only reason Spike revealed as much to me in the dream as he did was because I...”

Twilight exhaled in shame as she reached her dimming bedroom. “Because I lied to him.” Her ears folded down, and she hung her head.

“You saw how much he dreads letting anypony know what he’s struggling with. And what if I tell Spike that I know about...” She reflexively stopped herself. Just thinking about it made her drenched in fear.

“That I know about... about Avarice.” The last word came out as a whisper, but it still made her blood turn cold and left her with the feeling that a millipede made of ice was crawling down her back. “If I tell Spike that I want to help, will he know, too? And what will he do? Can he retaliate when he’s still locked up? To what extent?”

Twilight opened the door to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of apple juice. She took a sip as she lit some lights around her room in anticipation of the coming night. “As much as I hate to admit it, I think the only way I’ll be able to find out what I need to know without further upsetting an already delicate situation is if I...”

Twilight fell silent as her eyes fell upon the scroll of her unfinished entry.

Is if you keep lying to him, Reason said, disapproving.

Her ears drooped further and she became particularly interested in the floor. Those words sounded even more disgusting in her head than she thought.

You won’t be able to do this for long.

“I know,” Twilight mumbled. “But it’s like I told him; I can’t come up with a solution that solves everything if I don’t even know everything that’s wrong.”

Twilight could almost hear Reason’s reluctant sigh. You’re going to need to recalibrate the functional operation for Dreamscape, then. It’s already not safe, even when you’re not sharing a dream with him...

“I know that, too. But it will have to wait until tomorrow,” Twilight said as she approached her desk again.  The dreaded, beckoning call of the parchment pulled her in, and she picked up the forlorn quill once more.

Why are you so intent on documenting this? Reason asked. It’s clear that this is just emotionally unhealthy baggage for you.

“As terrible as it was, it happened while I was under the effects of Dreamscape, so I have to include it in the logs. Besides... maybe this can help me cope with what happened while I was there.”

So you’re not really doing this for scientific purposes, then. You’re writing this all down as some form of therapy; like understanding everything will sugarcoat that bitter pill enough so that at least the logical part of your mind can better come to terms with what happened.

“As the logical part of my brain, I don’t see how you’d have a problem with that,” Twilight said.

I don’t, but this compulsion for comprehension it is just a symptom of the root problem. Being stuck in limbo hurt you, Twilight. It hurt you in ways you’d never even dared imagine before. As is the case with Spike, understanding the problem is only one step to ultimately fixing the problem, and it’s not even a step in the right direction unless you consider all the other factors.

Like how I’m talking to myself to hide from the fact that I’m alone again.

Twilight gasped. The chills seized her again and she bolted into the main room in a panic, looking for anyone to stave off seeping loneliness. Her first presented solution came in the form of Owloysius; the raptor had just flown in and was settling down on one of his favorite perches with some of his writing materials.

“Owloysius!” Twilight cried out to him.

Owloysius jumped slightly, hooting from her startling outburst.

Some of the edge wore off of her. “Oh, thank Celestia,” she breathed. “Hey, um... sorry about that. So... I’m working on something up here, and I’d rather not be alone, so... could you keep me company? Please?”

Owloysius peered at her with uncertain cautiousness, hesitant to leave his perch.

“I promise, no death-grip hugs this time.”

Owloysius stood there for a moment, considering the request. Eventually he picked up some of his scrolls and flew up to the bedroom, still keeping some distance from her.

Twilight sighed in relief. “Thanks, Owloysius.”

“Hoo,” he noted, taking a perch that still put some distance between them.

With the issue of her loneliness dealt with Twilight turned back to her desk. Just the sight of the paper struck her with the unease of an unpleasant task.

Might as well just get it over with, otherwise this is just going to keep gnawing at me.

The gentle whirr of her magic sounded in the quiet bedroom. Twilight picked up the quill again, dipped in the inkwell, and proceeded to write from where she had left off.

So after I got off the train at the palace station, I went straight to the laboratories to try and come up with another way of travel that could I rely on. I contemplated multiple possible solutions, but each one I thought of lacked either practicality or conceptual satisfaction. After I had spent the rest day in the labs I returned home, frustrated and tired, both from failing to come up with a way of transportation that didn’t involve the cursed train, and because having to raise and lower the sun and moon was a task that had really started to wear on me.

That alone gave me a whole new appreciation for the importance of the roles held by both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, now that I was essentially in their horseshoes.

That’s when I got an idea; one simple idea that took hold in my mind, and that I just couldn’t stop thinking about:

I could give myself wings.