//------------------------------// // Chapter Thirty Eight : Sweetie Belle - Equestrian Girls // Story: This Platinum Crown // by Capn_Chryssalid //------------------------------// SPECIAL AUTHOR NOTE Before this chapter begins, please indulge me and take a proverbial seat. I will try and keep this short(ish) and to the point. It seems I have rather sharply polarized my readership by my recent move in the previous chapter, adding Sweetie Belle from ""Sweetie Belle Chronicles"" to the story. Or, as I see (and saw) it, re-introducing her, after the canon events of the Best Night Ever chapters in that fanfic. In the interests of brevity, I will skip over my working relationship with Wanderer D, who I consider a friend. As some of you may be aware, TPC was largely designed and outlined well in advance, with allowances made for improvisation and alteration as time went on. I have tried to incorporate show canon, for example, as it was revealed over the last season. It was always my plan to have Blueblood tortuously revisit the loops as part of 'his story' in TPC. Bringing TSC-Sweetie in obviously came later, for reasons that will hopefully become clearer in this chapter. Was this the right move to make? Should I have stuck with my earliest outline? Was the additional character interaction, the callbacks to the character development in TSC-TBNE, and the parallels between characters worth the friction caused among the readership? I don't know. It could well be I've made a mistake I will come to regret, and one that will cost me many readers who have stuck with TPC for half a million words worth of content. If that is the case, and this author note is the last thing you read from me, then please accept my apology. I don't want to be the sort of author who just says "deal with it" - I do honestly care what everyone thinks about my writing and my story, even though I do not generally change the story as a result. I value people's criticism and opinions and the time people take to properly express them to me. This is why I am resolved to release two chapters at once. Hopefully, they should both be ready. Chapter 38 - this chapter here - is very Sweetie Belle heavy. Hence why her name is in the title. Chapter 39, which follows, deals more with Blueblood and Cadance, their past, and their attempts to move forward together. I will be uploading both chapters in an attempt to give those who do not want to read about TSC Sweetie a chance to "skip forward." All the same, I do encourage everyone, even those who are unhappy with my using TSC Sweetie, to at least skim through chapter 38 here. Because it also covers how Sweetie ended up in Blueblood's nightmare realm (obviously, Luna is involved, which is hinted at before in chapter 37) and some other potentially amusing or introspective moments. I will conclude by saying that this is clearly my longest author note yet. Longer, even, than the one for Chapter Zero (where I added a whole new chapter based on readers comments and criticism). The note is long because this is an important issue I felt needed to be addressed directly. - - - Thank you for indulging me. Now. Back to the story... - - - - - - (38) Sweetie Belle: Equestrian Girls - - - “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Sweetie Belle’s eyes snapped open as a deep, disturbing sense of deja-vu left her wondering where, exactly, she had messed up again. She turned in her bed, drowsy mind starting to recall last night’s sudden and horrific end when her snout bumped with… her snout. Sweetie Belle looked into the eyes of the local Sweetie Belle and they both froze, staring at each other from opposite sides of the same bed. Finally the local Sweetie spoke. “You! You’re not supposed to be here… wait, what?” Sweetie grinned. “Do you remember last night?” Eyes wide, the evil Sweetie shook her head, slowly. “Well then,” she said, with a widening grin. “It’ll make things easier if you don’t.” Local Sweetie’s brow wrinkled into a frown. “What do you mean?” Slightly more alert, she started getting angry. “Rari-!!” She stopped when Sweetie’s hoof touched her lips. “Hush now… quiet now.” - - - Sweetie Belle carefully closed the door behind her, locked it, and then broke the keyhole mechanism. She had enchanted her local self to sleep through the day, but just on the off chance she would wake up, she had taken a couple countermeasures. Like making the bed sheets unmovable. Even if local Sweetie eventually got out (the traps were not deadly, of course!) the dimension-hopping Sweetie was confident she would have enough time to get to Blueblood first. Her hoof lingered on the door. She had missed this, just a little. Okay. Maybe a lot. Despite the whole trapped-in-an-endless-time-loop scenario, it had become… well… normal. It had even been comforting in a strange way! Every day she had woken up reasonably confident of what was to come, and better yet, she had always woken up knowing there was somepony out there looking out for her. She had never been alone in the loops, not like Blueblood had been. After everything that had happened to her after she left, the time she had spent here in this world and the lessons she had learned were some of the best times of her life. The question now was if that artifact could keep her here until the loops were done again? She shook her head. What did it matter? If anything, helping Blueblood would at least balance the karmic scales a bit for what she had become and everything she had done. For a second, her foreleg was not covered in soft hair… Sweetie shook her head, dispelling the mental image. Pushing herself away from the door, she headed downstairs. She had a Prince to meet. A brother to help! It didn’t take long for Rarity to make her appearance. She did not look happy at seeing her little sister. “Sweetie Belle.” She paused, blinking dumbly for a second before snapping out of the trance. “Just what are you doing here, hmm?” Rarity huffed, barely glancing at her sister while making her way to heat up some tea. “Are you trying to skip school? Is primary education too much for you, Sweetie Belle?” Sweetie was taken aback by the venom in her sister’s voice. “I - I’m about to leave, sis.” “Good riddance,” Rarity stated, calmly sitting down on her end of the table. She had only made breakfast for herself this morning. “Maybe Cheerilee will have more luck knocking sense into that rock you have for a head than I have, but from how disappointed she sounds every time she mentions your name. I fear she’s about to give up on you, too. Honestly!” Sweetie cringed. Even after she had become Twilight’s student, she hadn’t entirely shaken how some ponies made fun of her for the occasional bout of foalhood obliviousness. How could Rarity – her own sister of all ponies – say something like that? Rarity had fussed about her little sister’s appearance plenty of times, but she had never made so hurtful a jab at so soft a spot. “Sis…” For a moment, Sweetie didn’t even know how to respond. She shook her head in dismay. “What happened? Why are you being so… so mean to me?” “I’m not being mean, Sweetie, just practical,” Rarity responded, taking a sip of her tea and unfolding one of her tattler magazines. “Even I have to realize when a wreck is a lost cause, and you, my dear, are one.” Rarity sipped more tea, seemingly unconcerned by Sweetie’s hurt look. She didn’t even care when the incredulous expression turned into a glare. Sweetie opened her mouth to reply, to bite back or to cry, she wasn’t sure which, but she was interrupted by a series of rapid-fire knocks on the door. "It seems your ‘friends’ have come to pick you up. You should count yourself fortunate to have ponies who are willing to help you like they are. Now, go off to school, and do try not to be an embarrassment.” Blue eyes peeked over the pages of Rarity’s magazine as Sweetie continued to stare. “Don’t tell me you need me to hold your hoof…?” “Yeah, well, I mean NO! I can find the door perfectly fine on my own, you--” Sweetie forcefully clamped shut her mouth and stomped her way to the door, opening it so violently with her magic that she loosened the hinges. “Oh, there you are!” Scootaloo said, with a bright smile, only to pause again. Just like Rarity had. She blinked, and it was as if a switch flipped in her. Her grin melted away like it had never been there. “Finally! I thought we’d have to go into your room and drag your sorry flank onto my scooter if we wanted to make it in time!” “Yeah, nice to see you too, Scootaloo,” Sweetie muttered. “Good morning and all that.” “Aw, don’t be too hard on the filly,” Apple Bloom playfully punched Scootaloo’s shoulder. “Not every filly needs a map ta find her own horn! It’s not her fault she’s havin’ a really hard time just makin’ it to the door. You can’t ask too much of her.” “Well, yeah!” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “I know that, Apple Bloom, but do we have to do this every day? Be her ‘friends’ and see her to school? Even Snips and Snails can make it there on their own.” “You don’t expect her to make it otherwise, do you?” Apple Bloom asked. “Ah mean, she’ll probably walk straight into the mouth of a hydra if we don’t watch over her.” “Maybe we should let her do that!” Scootaloo retorted, fluttering her little wings angrily. “At least she’d stop being an extra annoyance in our lives! Plus, she makes the Cutie Mark Crusaders look lame!” Apple Bloom tilted her head. “Sweetie, what in the name of Celestia’s Golden Apples are you doing levitating a diamond?” Sweetie, killer diamond quivering in her telekinetic grasp, gritted her teeth and tried to rein in her self-control. “I’m reminding myself that murder is generally looked down on by local law enforcement.” Apple Bloom scoffed. “Oh, Sweetie, you couldn’t kill a fly. Literally. Ah’ve seen you try. Come on, it’s time for school. We don’t want to be late!” “You know what, I remember how to get to school just fine,” Sweetie snapped. “Why don’t you and Scoots here go ahead? If I’m late, you can always tell Cheerilee I got lost.” “Tsk, you know we can’t do that, Sweetie,” Scootaloo replied, testily. “Simply leaving you on your lonesome? Where will you be without us?” “Extremely. Happy.” Sweetie’s eyes glowed for a moment as she took two steps back into the shadows. Scootaloo trotted forward to make a grab for her, only to fall forwards with a yelp as the unicorn filly vanished. “Hey! Where did she go?!” Apple Bloom asked, turning around and failing to see Sweetie. “Aww, we’re gonna get in trouble if we lost her! And since when could she use magic?” “Pffh! So she bails. What’s the worst that’ll happen?” Scootaloo asked, pushing Apple Bloom towards the scooter. “So you get grounded for a few days. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and a griffon will eat her. Come on, let’s go to class.” Sweetie sighed from within the shadows and slowly emerged. “If this is what Blueblood’s coming back to every day, there’s no way he’s going to be sane.” She turned to look at the distant spires of Canterlot overlooking the valley and started trotting towards the train station. “I guess I should get going. I don’t think he’ll pick me up this time.” - - - “You'll be seeing Rain Booms! Ooo-ooo-oooh! Equestrian Girls, we're kinda magical! Boots on hooves, bikinis on top!” Blueblood remained in bed, letting the song – so often interrupted by his hoof or his magic – continue on to the end. The bed was empty beside him, a hole in it that never filled, no matter how many times he died. That one loop… that one impossible, wonderful loop… he had filled it, and now waking up alone and hearing that song... it was like a stake driving into his heart. Every time it still hurt. Every night he wished it wouldn’t. Every morning his one wish went unanswered. “So put your hooves up, oh-oh-ohoh!” As the song ended, the magical radio dissolved into static. Nothing ever played after the song. Just static. It was like the radio station didn’t care either. It was the Gala, but he didn’t need to look outside to know as much. It was always the Gala. It would always be the Gala. And every one was worse than the one that came before it. ‘There’s a ceremonial spear down the hall. Thirty paces. Brush past Light Touch and Sandy. Put it through your throat and sever the carotid artery. Hard reset. Painless. Pointless.’ His mind numbly ran through the possibilities. So far, the best loops had been the ones where he just ran away, rather than try to outright kill himself. Sometimes he could have hours of peace and quiet if he left a false trail for the Royal Guards pursuing him to follow. ‘That dragon from the other day was pleasant company,’ he recalled. The cave was only a few hours away by sky chariot or airship. ‘She ate me… but until she did, she wasn’t a terrible companion. And at least she was honest about her intentions. Plus, being eaten wasn’t the worst way to go. Yes. Maybe I should do that again today. I bet I could beat her in chess this time around, too! She always uses the Queen’s Gambit, and I can counter that in move sixteen….’ “My Lord,” Light Touch’s voice interrupted his daydreaming along with her gentle rapping on the door to his room. “Her Highness has requested your presence at the breakfast table. We must make you presentable.” “Yes,” he replied, weary beyond description. “Presentable. Of course. Enter.” Mechanically, he rolled off the bed and trotted over to the same spot as always. Light Touch and Sandy entered, as they always did, and began to comb and clean him for the day. One time, a lifetime ago, the brushes and the gentle ministrations had brought a measure of peace, even in the worst of the Gala loops. The two maidservants were no less competent than before, but even when he asked their names or made polite inquiries about subjects he knew they entertained, the pair wanted nothing to do with him. Where once he had even been able to coax a giggle out of shy maid Sandy – and a smile out of the dedicated, professional Light Touch – all that met him now was a stark and uncomfortable silence. He was nothing and nopony. He was a pariah. Then, to his surprise, Light Touch rested her hoof on his heart, bereft of a brush. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” she asked, to his surprise. Those words… Not sure what to say – “it does” or “how do you know?” Blueblood merely nodded. Light Touch leaned closer to whisper in his ear. “It hurts because you let it hurt.” The Prince recoiled slightly, and Light Touch motioned Sandy to gather up their supplies and leave. The maid’s words echoed in Blueblood’s mind as he tried to make sense of them. It hurt… because he let it hurt? “I don’t understand,” he admitted. It didn’t matter how Light Touch even know what was in his heart. He reached for her. “How can it not hurt?” “Hurt them back.” Light Touch contemptuously batted his hoof away. “That’s how.” Blueblood closed his eyes, fighting the suggestion. How could Light Touch even say such a thing? Hurting others didn’t solve anything. He had learned that. He understood that. How could he ever look his Aunties or… or his Rarity… in the eye again, if he turned his back on everything he had learned from them? Even his old self hadn’t done more than hurt a mare’s pride. Light Touch had to be kidding. ‘Hurt them back,’ his own voice whispered. ‘Just once. Why not? They’ll reset. It’s all pointless. So why not hurt them back?’ Blueblood shook his head. “No. Never. Never again.” ‘Make all of Canterlot pay. Bring this vile city to its knees. You can destroy it. Show me how!’ “Equestrian Girls, we're kinda magical!” Blueblood sang, forcing himself to finish getting dressed and head down to the solemn solarium dining hall. “Boots on hooves, bikinis on top! Equestrian Girls, we're kinda magical! Boots on hooves, bikinis on top! Equestrian Girls, we're kinda magical! Boots on hooves, bikinis on top!” The hateful thoughts faded away as he repeated the annoying diddy like a mantra. The trick worked, but it took longer and longer and got harder and harder with every loop. Blueblood found himself not just whispering the lyrics but outright yelling them at the top of his lungs to try and clear his mind. It wouldn’t be hard to make Canterlot pay, he knew. He still had the suicide spell he had used before to destroy the Palace. All he had to do was repeat it and make a few changes to the containment circle. But why bother being repetitive? The Bluebloods had hoarded the most terrible secrets and magic in Equestrian history. They were sworn not to use them, by all the old gods and the Princess and the living stars, but why not? This Equestria had gone steadily to Hell. Why not bring Hell to this Equestria? Why not throw open the Gates of Tartarus itself? There were a dozen crisis-level magics sealed in The Black Box that even Twilight couldn’t be allowed to open or explore. Why not just let one or two loose to bring this festering pit to its knees? Why not find a high tower and a bag of popcorn and watch as everypony that spat on him screamed and DIED?! ‘Burn them all. Burn them all. Show me how! You know you want to!’ “Equestrian Girls, we're kinda magical! Boots on hooves, bikinis on top!” He announced at the top of his voice, once again driving away the spiteful, treacherous thoughts. He even added a pronk to his trot, pulling off his best Pinkie Pie as he sang out loud. Finally stumbling into the dining hall, Blueblood noticed how Proper Place and Stylus, the Chamberlain and his assistant, the Keeper of Seals, began to conspicuously whisper. ‘They’re plotting against you. They loathe you. Look in their eyes.’ Even the serving ponies stopped to stare at him with contemptuous expressions. ‘They hate you. You know they spit in your food. You can taste it.’ Celestia, though, continued to demurely eat her breakfast of oats and apples. ‘You aren’t worth her time. She hates you. She hates you most of all!’ Princess Luna, eating dinner rather than breakfast, simply frowned at her nephew. ‘She’ll kill you. She’ll kill you. She’ll kill you. She’ll kill you. She’ll kill you!’ And, every night at the end of the Gala, Luna did find reason to kill him. ‘Kill her first. You know how. You know how. Show me. I’ll do it for you. Kill her. Kill her before she kills you. Show me how to kill her!!’ “Equestrian Girls, we're kinda magical! Boots on hooves, bikinis on top!” Blueblood blurted out, right there at the breakfast table, and the thoughts slowly receded. “Boots on hooves, bikinis on top…” He tried to eat, but the food – all food – tasted like ashes in his mouth. - - - Mirrors. Auntie loved her mirrors, but not for vanity. Philosophers and romantics often said that eyes were the window into the immaterial soul. Mirrors, similarly, could be a window into the arcane and the otherwise unseen realms that surrounded ponykind. There were entire rooms in the Palace devoted to certain magical mirrors. As a Blueblood, versed in the mysteries of such things, he knew which ones could be used and, in many cases, how to use them. Standing in front of one such mirror, framed in Braygyptian gold and inscribed with faint geometric shapes that shimmered beneath his reflection, Blueblood imagined for a moment that he could plunge into his reflection and escape. It didn’t even matter where. Anywhere was better than this. “Which one of these did you escape through, Shimmer? Are you happy, wherever you ended up?” Blueblood lightly ran his hoof over the crystal. “Or are you dead?” He lowered his head until the tip of his horn scraped against the mirror. “I never thought the day would come when I ended up envying even you.” ‘Sunset Shimmer… one of Celestia’s two old students? Which mirror did she use? Was it this one?’ “No, it was… fifth from the end of the hall, on the right,” Blueblood whispered to himself, though he hardly understood why. “Every thirty full moons… I think…” ‘How strong was she? Is she a threat?’ “No, she was just…” ‘Is she a threat?’ “Maybe,” he finally said, if only to shut the nagging voice up. He growled and slammed his forehead into the mirror. “Damnit! I’m not crazy! Stop talking to me!” ‘You want to escape,’ his treasonous thoughts whispered, despite all his protests. ‘Act on your impulses. Do what you know you want to do! If you use the Archives, maybe you can see the other side of one of these mirrors. Show me! Show me what to do to save you!’ Pressing the flat of his hoof against the cold glass, Blueblood could feel the faint magic dormant in the crystal. It only yielded so much, however, before rejecting him. Like all the magical mirrors, Auntie had locked this one. There would be no escape. He knew that. But it was nice to dream. Maybe, out there somewhere… In that lost loop, the one that had lasted all those months, he had funded a project of his own. To construct a new and special mirror. To find a certain somepony. It was all lost now, but… the other night… “Sweetie,” he asked himself, “was that really you?” Could she really have been the same pony he had looped with? Could she really be the filly that three years of Gala loops had turned into a little sister? That same filly he had seen do the impossible and escape from the loops? His eyes watered as he remembered seeing her vanish that one Gala night. The Sweetie here was so like her, but… but not. Then, just last loop; she had come back and… Had it really been her, or was it all just another cruel joke? ‘She abandoned you. You have no one. No one but me.’ His hoof slipped on the glass, and when Blueblood leaned harder to keep from falling, he glared at his reflection. The pony there was so tired. So damned tired. Maybe it was time to try something… different. That one spell hadn’t killed him, though it was supposed to utterly consume a pony’s soul, but there were others. There were… others. Pressing his hoof against the glass, his eyes narrowed. ‘Do it,’ a voice whispered. ‘Show them all the folly of their ways.’ A magical neon-blue circle extended from the flat palm of his hoof, shining bright against the mirror. A second circle then extended over the first. As soon as it did so, the area between the two circles filled with magical sigils and runes. A third circle appeared, along with another layer of glyphs. Then a fourth and, finally, a fifth. Beyond that last circle, two squares separated, turning forty five degrees until they intersected, producing an eight-pointed star. Behind each point of the star, a large rune glowed white hot. Blueblood then released his hoof and brought it up to his horn, cutting the frog – the flat – of his hoof enough to draw a few drops of blood. Reaching out for the magical mirror lock, he hesitated. Once the key was empowered and turned there would be no turning back. Twilight already had the dummy-access key, or she had back in that other loop. This was the personal all-access code that only the family heir could use. It would provide single pony teleportation through the security at Hockford. Right to the Black Box itself. No. There would be no turning back after this. “We don't know…” Luna explained, haltingly, after pondering his question. When you can't live and you can't die, and nothing you do changes anything around you, can you really say that you exist? How can anypony go on? "Maybe our advice isn't the best,” she admitted, and he knew the root of why she felt that way. “This was why we didn't want to give it before." The Princess of the Night smoothed back some of her mane and nodded to herself. “But," she continued anyway. She looked up at him, and he could see there that she had come to see him as somepony close to family. It would all be gone by the morning, wiped clean by the time-loop, but for now, it was there. And he was glad for it. "You should endure,” the dark alicorn told him. “And adapt. And grow. You do exist, nephew. My own immortality has cost me everything but what I have with me now." She gestured to herself. "And my dear sister, too, thank the heavens. The only thing we can do, as ponies, is move forward." What would she think if she saw him do this? What would either of them think? The mares he cared most about in this world. Wouldn’t this be throwing away everything they had once seen in him? Auntie Luna… Auntie Celestia… Rarity, and… “Blueblood!” He sighed. Even now, he could hear the voice of his Sweetie Belle… the one that cared. It was a cruel and malicious taunt. Giving him something precious, only to snatch it away? Would she pretend to be the Sweetie he had spent all those loops with, only to laugh at his face the moment he confided in her? Spit in his face as Rarity had, whenever her affection for him turned to spite? Maybe she would kill him, night after night, as his Aunties did? ‘Forget her. Turn the key!’ “Blueblood! I know you’re around here! Come on! Where are you?” Sweetie’s voice echoed again, making his head snap up and his ears perk up. Even if… even if a thousand times, she said ‘I hate you’ … wouldn’t it be worth it, just to hear ‘brother’ once? Wasn’t that what he had sworn to live for? ‘She hates you. They all hate you. Turn the fucking key!’ “Equestrian Girls, we're kinda magical, boots on hooves, bikinis on top! Bikinis on top! Bikinis on top,” he whispered the lyrics, drowning out the voice. The knowledge. It was right. Everyone hated him. There was no escape. No end. No solace or joy. “Bikinis on top,” he said, one last time. His hoof was still pressed up against the glass, the blue glyph-key stained red with royal blood. It was ready to unlock. Blueblood forced himself to take a breath and reassert control. “I won’t,” he told himself, and even after he pulled his hoof away, the marks on the mirror lingered. Long seconds passed before the runes dissolved in black smoke. Cautiously, almost second-guessing himself, Blueblood stepped out of the room and looked down the hallway. At the crossing stood a little filly he knew… or had thought he had known… so well. “S-sweetie Belle?” Her head turned his way and blue eyes met green. Her smile was beautiful and honest. “Blueblood!” she galloped up to him, throwing her forelegs around his neck and hugging him tight. “I found you! Or you found me!” “Is it you?” he asked, afraid to really believe it. “Really you?” He wrapped a leg around her and returned the hug, emboldened by the first act of kindness he could remember since that monster with Yumi’s face had murdered him during Rarity’s Art Festival. “Not – not the other Sweetie… the one that hates me?” “I don’t hate you, big brother,” Sweetie’s voice sounded muffled, she was pressing her muzzle so hard against his neck. “I never will.” This… Was this real? “But… how is this possible?” Blueblood stammered, shaking his head and pushing her back so he could look down at her. “How can you be here? You were free! I - I thought I was free, too… but… I think I died and came back here. Did you… you didn’t d--” Sweetie shook her head. “I came close… but no… and I’m not trapped in this world… I think. And I didn't die. I came here; I went looking for you, because of..." She trailed off, as the words she had practiced died on the tip of her tongue. "Because..." “Sweetie,” he said, relieved, but now terrified. Not for himself, but for her. “Sweetie, you have no idea how glad I am to see you, but… but you should never have come back here. This place is horrible, and – and no matter what I do, or say, it just gets worse. I don’t understand what’s happening, but you shouldn’t be trapped here.” He gritted his teeth and resolved himself. “You can’t be trapped here. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy!” “I - I know…” Sweetie looked up at him in confusion. “When I woke up today, there was another Sweetie there. The one that…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. “A-anyway, after that… Rarity she just… she hated me. She was so mean, Blueblood… I don’t think it’s you; this whole world is just evil…” “It was never like this before,” he said and quickly led Sweetie into another of the mirror chambers. A pair of royal guardponies were slowly making their way down the hall, and it was probably wise not to raise any further questions with them. The mirror in this room reached almost to the ceiling, set in a mural of jade and silver. The rest of the room was comparatively bare, with empty shelves and conspicuous spiderwebs in the corners. Sweetie quickly realized why the giant mirror seemed vaguely off. Blueblood had no reflection in it… and her reflection… “I couldn’t believe it after I died and ended up back here. It was… It was crushing,” he admitted, paying no attention to the giant mirror behind him or what it revealed. “Oh, Sweetie, you’d have been… you’d have liked how things turned out there, before all this!” He shook his head, not wanting to get off on a tangent. “But I ended up back here. It was the exact same at first. The usual Gala time-loop… except you were there, you-you, not the local Sweetie. That made no sense!” “And you just kept resetting!” He almost spat the word, like it was a curse, and in a way, it was. “So even the you-you, wasn’t really you! And then you… then everypony… started to get worse! Everypony I tried to get close to turned against me.” “But… that’s not how it worked!” Sweetie said, forcing her eyes from the painful reflection to look at Blueblood. “How could everypony just get worse? The resets should have left them normal… just like that time that I… that I tortured Diamond Tiara… She was fine the next day… She didn’t remember how horrible I’d been.” She shook her head in dismay - the loops shouldn’t just change their rules like this. “Why would it change? It doesn’t make sense…” She took a deep breath, nodding resolutely. “Well, now you’re not alone, and no matter what, I won’t be mean or nasty to you. I’d… I’d rather die and reset a hundred times than say something like that… me… said to you.” “Oh, oh, stars… Auntie Luna killed you last night, didn’t she?” he realized, just then, and reached out to Sweetie only to realize his hoof was still stained by blood. What had he been thinking? What had he almost done? Focusing a bit of magic on his hoof, he whisked away the self-inflicted injury. “I’m so sorry, Sweetie,” he said, the rest of that last night came back to him. “She killed you, and I just sat there...” Sweetie smiled a bit sadly. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I died right? Besides, you did do something… I felt you hold me close. I didn’t feel so lonely right then.” Blueblood allowed a small, tentative smile at her light-hearted view on time-loop resets. “I must’ve half crushed you by the time Auntie finished the job…” Then, to Sweetie’s shock – she tried to cry for him not to turn around – he glanced back at the mirror. Her shout died on her lips, and her hooves hit the ground with a ‘thump’ that filled the long silence that suddenly stretched between them. When Blueblood turned back to face her, she’d almost expected him to look and act as disgusted by her as everypony else was in this horrible, warped version of the Grand Galloping Gala. When all she saw on his face was confusion and concern, she sort of expected a joke instead. Instead, he sighed. “Sweetie,” he asked, simply, “what happened?" Sweetie couldn’t speak. Her heart beat faster inside her chest, her throat felt dry, and her eyes watered. The illusion broke around her, and the smell of earth and rocks reached her nostrils, as surely as they did Blueblood’s. Whispers caressed her mind as she struggled to speak. Sweetie swallowed, her eyes meeting Blueblood’s. Her lip trembled. “Y-you don’t hate me? You’re not… afraid of me? Or… disgusted?” She stepped forward and then collapsed, holding onto Blueblood’s chest as her whole form shook with sobs. “I’m me!” she swore, desperate for him to believe her. “I promise I’m me! How c-can you not be scared? How can you not push me away?” she asked, her mind completely undecided on whether she should laugh, comfort him, cry, or be comforted. “I’m so sorry I left you… I’m so sorry this happened! I’m so sorry I left! I’m so sorry!” “Sweetie Belle.” She felt his hoof gently rest on her shoulder. He had the sort of serious expression she only remembered from a hoof-full of times, but the concern was still there. “If you’re still you, then I couldn’t care less what you look like.” He coughed, hiding a tiny smile with his hoof. “Though I am sort of curious just what you did to--” A hard knock on the door instantly caught the attention of the two ponies. “Is that you, Your Grace?” a baritone voice yelled through the heavy dogwood. “These areas are off limits! Is somepony in there with you?” Blueblood motioned for her to hide behind him, even as he yelled back, “Indelicate buffon! The mirrors in here contain the souls of deceased ponies! Do not interfere with royal business!” There was only a brief pause. “That can’t be,” one of the Guards whispered, too loudly. “We are opening the door!” the first Royal guard roared back. “Do so and your plebeian souls will be frozen in Iolite Crystal! Is that what you want, hmm?” Few ponies could sell a lie like the Prince of Canterlot. At least, Sweetie assumed it was a lie. She glanced anxiously at the giant mirror that had revealed her secret self only moments before. “Now,” Blueblood bellowed, “resume your rounds before I put names to voices and have you flogged for incompetence and insubordination! I am Prince and Duke! Do not presume to question me! Your only concern is following orders. My orders! When I tell you to jump, you ask in midair, ‘is this high enough, your Grace? Should I keep going?’ Do you understand me?” It was long seconds before the guards formed a response. “The Princess will hear of this,” the guard promised, but didn’t dare to call the Prince’s bluff. Blueblood glared at the door, and Sweetie heard under his breath, “As if there’s anything she can do to me that I haven’t been through before.” He actually started towards the door, a sneer on his lips. “But if you’re feeling so damned chatty, maybe I should remove that wagging tongue of yours while I still have the…” “Um, Blueblood?” He stopped short when Sweetie caught him by the leg. “Why don’t we go somewhere else? I really don’t think being here in Canterlot is good for either of us.” A dark shadow passed over Blueblood’s face as he continued to glare balefully at the door, a quick shake of his head and a whispered, “boots on hooves, bikinis on top” and he seemed to return to normal. “Yes,” he agreed, talking a calming breath and nodded down at her. “You may be right.” - - - “What in the name of Tartarus is this?” Night Shade grumbled, wiping a trickle of blood from her nose. “This figment he’s conjured up! Where did she come from? None of this should be happening...” “Is there a problem?” Moonshine asked, glowering, from his corner of the cell. “Was it the Princess?” Night Shade continued to murmur to herself. “Did she do something? Infiltrate the nightmare somehow? Should I use Celestia to break them up… or see how things play out? Crush his--” “Is there a problem,” Moonshine repeated, more loudly. Night Shade’s eyes briefly flashed. “A small one,” she replied but kept her attention and eyes on her unconscious victim. She wiped at her nose again. The blood was dripping steadily, now, and no amount of snorting or wiping got rid of it. “I have it under control. With the Shadow Candle, I can break him. I can keep the Princess at bay. I can do this.” “Whatever it takes, do it.” The bat pony’s eyes flashed green. “I love you.” “I love you, too,” Night Shade replied and fixed her eyes on Blueblood. She clopped her front hooves together and focused on her magic. The dark candle’s shadows wrapped around her, constricting tightly, painfully, around her horn. “For the Queen. For the Queen, I … I will have your secrets!” - - - “You have skill, young one,” Luna spoke the words aloud, her breathing steady and calm and supremely confident. All around the alicorn, an unnatural wind stirred lunar diagrams and pictures of the night sky. “We will grant you this. But you lack discipline. You have already lost. Even in the deepest darkness, hope sheds light.” The Lunar Princess’s lips curled into a grin. “And where there is a light… there is a shadow.” - - - “…finally, Bon Bon--” “Which one is Bon Bon again? Not the green mare?” “You know who she is,” Sweetie said over the table and raised a hoof to cover up her horn. “The earth pony.” “Oh, yes,” Blueblood mused with a little chuckle. “The one with candy on her flanks.” “Maybe that’s how I should tell you about everypony I met. The one with a lyre on her flanks. The one with a bow on her flanks. The one with the wine glass on her flanks…” “You’ll have to forgive me. I am a fan of flanks – neigh, a bon-vivant of flanks – so please bear with me.” He shrugged, helpless in the face of his stallion-dom. “Anyway, go on! How did a confectioner get her hooves on dimension shattering magical artifacts?” “Well, the thing is… in that universe, she’s not really a pony… she’s a cha-a-aaa-something else!” Sweetie looked away for a second, mouth still running and threatening to say inopportune things. “I don’t think the artifact is hers… She just took me there. She said it was rightfully owned by all such as us. Um. Her.” Sweetie took a big gulp of milkshake and grimaced at the blossom of pain that quickly prompted her hooves to fly up to her forehead. “Ah…! Brain-freeze! Why isn’t there a spell to prevent brain-freeze?!” “There are limits to even magic,” Blueblood remarked with a laugh, and soon Sweetie found herself joining him. And the more she giggled, the more boisterously and freely he laughed, until it seemed like half the ponies in Sugarcube Corner were glaring at them. Best of all, neither cared what looks they were getting. They had each other again, after so long. Blueblood reclined back, still chuckling, and bit off a corner of colorful vanilla and almond butter cake. Sweetie smiled to herself and finished the last of her milkshake before picking a soft, still hot cookie from one of the plates on the table. For a long while, the two ponies just ate and sipped and relaxed in each other's company. It felt good. It felt almost guiltily good. “I missed you,” Sweetie said, half whisper and half declaration. “I missed you, too,” Blueblood replied, and the smile on his face really did fill Sweetie with a peculiar sort of happiness. There was nothing in this world he had to smile about except her, yet there he was, finding at least some peace because they were back together. It had to be what Pinkie Pie felt and sang about back in Ponyville that one time, just wanting to see another pony smile. If only it could last forever. There were still fragments to collect, of course, but would it so bad if there was some way her brother could come with her? If only it worked out that way. More melancholy thoughts gradually crept to mind after that, and Sweetie Belle sighed, resting her head on the table. She looked up at Blueblood. Despite the joking before, she could see he was thinking seriously about something. Maybe even about her rather unique situation. “You said you missed me,” she found herself saying, and the words began to spill out, even as afraid as she was to give voice to them. “But… I can’t go back to what I was before… You saw me. The real me. This change… it affected my soul, not just my body.” She sniffed and made a point to stare at the treats piled up on the table rather than risk seeing a dark expression on his face. “I don’t even know if I’m Sweetie Belle… after all that I’ve done and seen… how I’ve changed… how can I claim to be Rarity’s sister?” She drew a little, wet circle on the table, using water condensed from her milkshake’s glass. “I haven’t even heard from her again. I don’t know if she’s alive. Twilight’s fragments… I don’t even know how many there are. I’m older, then younger, then older again, then I’ve never existed, or died a hundred years ago. How do I even… Do I even belong anywhere? Will this ever stop?” Blueblood reached across the table to poke her gently on the horn. “Wherever I am, Sweetie, you’ll have a place,” he promised, and just like that, she felt a smile begin to form on her lips. Because he meant it. He genuinely meant it. No matter what happened, no matter what she became, no matter what she looked like, there was at least one place in the multitude of universes where she would be welcome. One place where she could belong. “Don’t cry,” Blueblood said with a pout. “You mares are so emotional.” “Like you weren’t crying before!” Sweetie objected and laughed as she wiped away her tears. “You cry more than I do!” “A stallion’s tears are different. They’re… dignified.” “That’s dumb.” They laughed again, together. ‘It isn’t just me,’ Sweetie realized, then. ‘He just wants me to smile, too.’ “Tell me all about the good loop!” she insisted, obliging him and grabbing onto his hoof, swinging it back and forth. “I want to hear all the juicy details!” - - - Night Shade flinched, as if struck. “Damn her,” the oneiromancer whispered, her breathing labored. “I can’t… can’t find the link for the projection? It isn't Luna herself? I don’t... understand. This third pony... and Luna’s power is… I can’t…” “I love you, Night Shade,” Moonshine’s voice filled her ears and made her head swim. “Do you love me?” “I love you,” Night Shade droned and reached a shaking hoof to grab hold of the lantern and force it right up against her chest. “I won’t fail! I just need more power!” Still sitting and watching, the changeling that was Moonshine smirked. - - - “Come now, Sweetie! Where’s that innocent little filly I remember? The one who didn’t even realize that crazy DJ wanted to scratch her record?” “Wait, what?” Sweetie’s eyes went wide as, for the first time, some of what had happened on that drunken night started to come together and make sense. “She… Vinyl… She…? Eeewww!” Blueblood laughed, unashamedly and untroubled by all the burdens of the loops. He banged a hoof on the table, even. “Oh, you spent the whole night – the whole night! – completely oblivious! It was wondrous to behold!” “Ugh, Vinyl is weird no matter where I meet her,” Sweetie muttered and blew Blueblood a raspberry. “At least I looked like an adult at the time!” “I’d have stepped in if things got too messy. I would, wouldn’t I?” he wondered, and the way he played out the question made it clear it was just a joke. “Yes, I suppose I would’ve had to,” he decided. “It wouldn’t do to have anypony else corrupt you but me. But it does seem like you picked some things up while we were away! Who told you about the naughty things us grown-ups do?” Sweetie frowned at one particular memory. “I once went a world where Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were dating. Let’s just leave it at that. And yes! We were older in that loop, before you ask!” Blueblood waggled his hoof teasingly. “Now, now, you know if you were my biological baby sister, we’d likely have arranged a marriage for you by now. Or a few! And you’d have the pick of the litter when you hit sixteen. Cadance…” He frowned a bit at the name, and his hoof lowered to the table. “She was your age when she met that chivalrous oaf of hers.” Sweetie blinked. “She was fourteen?” “No, I meant…” He trailed off, tilted his head, and boggled at her. “You’re fourteen?” “Well, I didn’t stop aging! Okay, I did. Sometimes. But I counted most of the days! Even the birthdays you didn’t celebrate for me. Some big brother you are.” “Fourteen,” Blueblood repeated and sucked in a breath. “I see. And, yes, I’ve been terribly negligent.” Leaning back in his chair, he called for a certain somepony. “Delightful Pink Waitress!” “Yeesssss?” Pinkie Pie emerged from behind Sweetie without a hint of warning. “Aaaah!” Sweetie jumped straight into the air and crashed next to the table. Looking up painfully, she glared at Pinkie Pie. “Why? Why do you torture me?” Both older ponies seemed to ignore the frankly quite relevant inquiry. “So, yeah, what do you jerks want?” this Pinkie Pie asked, her voice a lethargic, surly grumble instead of her usual hyperactive prattle. The supposed element of laughter had not been particularly enthusiastic when it came to serving Sugarcube Corner’s two loudest customers. She reached a hoof up to brush her limp, rose-pink mane out of her eyes. “This filly needs six birthday parties,” Blueblood replied, pointing down at the prone Sweetie Belle. Pinkamena’s left eye twitched. “Six.” “Six.” “Two sets of three?” “Or three sets of two.” “So six. Six parties. She needs six parties.” “Six birthday parties, with six sets of presents and six sets of guests,” Blueblood ordered and leaned forward slightly. “You aren’t going to give me trouble with this, are you? I figure the one bloody thing in this whole universe that will change before this dimension completely inverts is your love of--” “PARTIES!!” The dour pink pony suddenly exploded. Her mane proofed up faster than a unicorn could cast a spell, and she immediately started to bounce. “Oh, oh oh! I do love parties! Even though that voice in my head keeps saying you’re a bad, bad pony, and that I should hate, hate don’t be late, even the worstest pony in the worstest world needs to party sometimes! And that’s only one voice, anyway! All the other ones want to have fun! Democracy rules!!” In a spray of confetti, she blasted off to make the six-parties-in-one happen. “Okay, you have proven that I’m not a monster,” Sweetie spoke up from her prone position under the table and pointed at the snickering Prince. “I can still feel fear. Six parties?” “Six parties.” - - - Moonshine watched as his wife hacked and coughed blood. He felt nothing, of course, except a sense of regret. He would need a new host when she died, and at this rate, that would very likely be soon. Night Shade had provided an ample supply of affection for him since her inclusion in their ranks. She had nourished him well, and he was thankful for it, but she was still expendable. Making use of her, even from the start, had been a product of happy circumstance. She was the only mate and wife of one of Princess Luna’s guardponies, and the Queen had put a high priority on infiltrating the sentinels of the night. Replacing Moonshine had given them the opportunity to indoctrinate Night Shade, and the skilled oneiromancer had remained on retainer for some time as part of the changeling ‘fifth column’ within Canterlot. The fifth column, the unwitting equine puppets, they were all expendable now. “Maybe I’ll try a younger pony next time,” Moonshine muttered to himself – herself really – as she considered the new world to come. “A foal’s love is said to have a fine flavor.” Like veal. The creaking sound of the cell door opening instantly captured the changeling’s attention. Moonshine gathered himself up, cocking his head to the side as he got a look at who was coming in. It was… “One of the bridesmaids?” he asked, seeing her enter. “Heartstrings, isn’t it?” “Yeah! That’s me!” Lyra announced with a grin and a little salute. “So how are things going? You know. With the plans. Our plans. How are our plans going?” Moonshine frowned at her, one eyebrow slowly arching. “Gotta go forward with the plans!” The bridesmaid rambled on. “Plans don’t go backward! They definitely go forward. Going into somepony’s dreams and maybe playing around a little, getting some blackmail material, you know how it goes. Good stuff!” “Why are you talking so much?” Moonshine asked, turning his eyes to the door. “Where is your keeper? Where is Bon Bon?” “Well,” Lyra rambled on, “You see, um, Bon Bon is… Rocket Punch NOW!” She suddenly pointed, and something black and gold flew through the air, coldcocking the changeling turned bat-pony stallion. Moonshine spun around, not just once, not just twice, but around and around like a top. At the same time, Lyra lunged for Night Shade’s lap and the lantern there. “Gotcha!” Lyra yelled, surging towards her objective. “Got me,” the previously silent unicorn snarled, alert despite her intense concentration. “I think not.” Remaining in apparent repose, one hoof on the lantern and the other keeping herself from collapsing, the oneiromancer threw up a hasty wall of shadowy magical force. More blood trickled from Night Shade’s nose, but Lyra, charging blindly forward, ended up squashed, face-first, against the barrier. For a moment, she made a squeaking noise as she drooped against the shield, only to bounce back with unnatural resilience. Lyra pointed again, and that gold and green thing in the air lashed out, ripping through Night Shade’s shadow barrier like so much wet tissue paper. It quickly made a grab for the lantern, but there, it finally encountered some difficulty. A violent wave of sparks erupted from the lantern as Lyra’s magical familiar shredded part of the iron lattice that encased the Shadow Candle. Light and Shadow, magic and fire, joy and despair, all erupted from the split in the enchanted lantern. Stumbling back, away from the blast, Lyra was largely unharmed, but Night Shade ended up on the floor, desperately clutching the lantern with one burned and smoking hoof. She glared up at the former bridesmaid with wild green eyes, furious and possessed. “The power of the Shadow Candle is mine! Mine!” “No, you Foal. It. Is. Mine.” Lyra and Night Shade both turned their eyes up, where a form was starting to congeal from shadow and smoke released by the candle. It was the wraith-like silhouette of an alicorn, tall and terrifying, with two narrow, white eyes, like slits in the night sky. The figure’s wings spread, frightfully, causing both mares to squeal in terror, only for those same wings to snap-shut a second later. Luna’s smoky avatar glanced down at the candle on the floor. “A Lantern of Tireless Watch,” she said, nodding, and turned to Night Shade, “together with My Candle, I can see how you managed to cause me such trouble. Where did you acquire such powerful artifacts?” Night Shade only glared up at the apparition, defiant and unrepentant. “Foal!” Luna bellowed. “Can you not feel it? The Candle is snuffing out your very life force!” “She isn’t entirely at fault, Aunt Luna,” Cadance said, drawing the attention of both the apparition and the two unicorns in the room. Having just entered, the young Princess quickly closed the door behind her. “Night Shade herself is a victim of mind control.” “Mind control?” Luna asked, surprised. “And, Niece, what are you doing here? What has transpired? Who dares assault the royal family on this of all days?” “Enough! I am no victim!” Night Shade finally roared, still clutching the partly broken remains of the lantern to her chest. “I am no victim, and you are no royal!” She pointed accusingly at Cadance and then at Luna’s avatar. “None of you are! The True Queen will lay you both low! She will break both Sun and Moon! You are nothing to her! Nothing!” Luna’s shade scowled disapprovingly at the interruption, and Lyra and Cadance both took a step forward. “Stop right there! All of you!” Night Shade hissed, clutching the lantern to her chest. “Half my mind is still inside your precious Prince. I can fry his feeble little brain as easily as I can bite down on an apple. I hold all the cards here, and you will do exactly as I say!” “Neigh!” Luna’s wraith form bellowed. “You will find I am not so easily dismissed!” She thrust her hoof out. “Come, niece! To me!” “Lyra, watch the door!” Cadance yelled, already running forward. Luna was rarely the most expressive of ponies, but when she gave a command, a wise pony listened and followed. Cadance did not doubt her now. Night Shade’s eyes widened with fear and anger as the Princess of Love’s hoof touched that of her incorporeal Aunt. The world spun around Princess Cadance, and she suddenly felt very… sticky. - - - “Ugh… do I need to make another wish?” Sweetie asked, glaring at the eleven candles on this cake. It was but one of many, each with their due pomp and circumstance. “Yep! A wish for each cake!” Pinkie shouted in glee. “What will you wish for!?” “Maybe she should wish for a cutie mark!” Diamond Tiara sneered. “I have a cutie mark, you doorknob!” Sweetie retorted. Diamond Tiara gaped. “What? No you don’t!” She blinked slowly, as if seeing the mark on Sweetie’s flanks for the first time, and instantly, her expression fell. “W-well! Wish for a new one! That one looks like somepony broke it!” Sweetie rolled her eyes. “Waaaaaaaaaait! Does that mean you didn’t have a cuteceanera either?” Pinkie Pie gasped, rising off the ground like a balloon, only to turned in midair and glare accusingly Blueblood. “Why didn’t you tell me? We can’t have six consecutive birthday parties and ignore the cuteceanera!” Blueblood nodded somberly. “This is true. This is very true. And what do you suggest we do, Miss Pie?” “Well, gee, I don’t know!” Pinkie put her hooves on her hips and pouted. “Maybe, uhhh, I’ve got it! A party!” she declared, her enthusiasm for the same thing never once diminishing. She adopted a thoughtful pose. “But we’re already having a party. Think, Pinkamena Diane Pie, think! She would have gotten it right in the middle, I would guess! So, after this birthday party is done, then we start the cuteceanera party, followed by the rest of the birthdays! WEEE!” “Please,” Sweetie begged Blueblood. “Please, stop her. I’ll do anything!” “Maybe that should be your next wish then?” he asked with a wink. “Wish for an end to the parties?” Sweetie wondered, and turned towards one of her multitude of birthday cakes. “Okay. Why not?” She directed a half-hearted puff of breath at the candles, extinguishing the tiny fires. Then she sat down and waited for the magic to happen. “Well?” Blueblood asked, nudging her with his hoof. “What was the wish? Do you feel it working?” “If you repeat your wish, it won’t come true,” Sweetie informed him, crossing her forelegs in a pout. “HEY!” Pinkie Pie announced, jumping between Sweetie and her Prench vanilla and blueberry cake. “You’ll never guess what just happened!” “What?” Blueblood asked and Sweetie Belle sighed. “It better not be--” “I got YOU a CLOWN!” Pinkie cheered, pointing at the birthday filly. “His name is Homey the Donkey! I found him at the train station, and he seemed really reluctant to play around, but a few special brownies totally helped his mood! I’ll go get him!” Sweetie was moments from grabbing onto Pinkie’s leg and asking, ‘Please don’t.” When fate intervened. With a pop, a pair of ponies appeared in thin air. One of them hit Pinkie Pie in mid-prance, butt-first, and the two crashed to the floor with a comical yelp. A second fell right into the cake, splattering it across half the room. For a second, nopony said anything. Then they began to point and laugh and jeer. It was par the course for the rotten ponies in this dimension. “Well, at least I won’t have to eat that one,” Sweetie muttered as she edged away from the smashed cake. “I hope…” “Why do I feel a certain irony in this?” Pinkie asked from beneath a black and blue rump. “A-auntie!” Blueblood cried, rushing past Sweetie towards the alicorn that had face-planted their party planner. Princess Luna lifted a bare hoof – one conspicuously absent the normal royal raiment – and glanced around her in confusion. She did recognize somepony calling her, however, and quickly stood on all fours to face her equally confounded nephew. “Nephew,” she breathed, joyfully, and reached out a hoof to him. “Thou art a most welcome sight! But… this is most strange. We had expected a dream, a nightmare, but not this… merriment… and why hast our speech regressed?” “A nightmare?” Blueblood asked and even after he graced her noble hoof with a respectful kiss, he briefly touched her hoof with his own, as if to assure himself she was still something solid and real. “Oh, no, no Auntie. If you… if you aren’t her, then you’re trapped with me…” “How do you know it isn’t her?” Sweetie asked, walking up to stand next to Blueblood. “Luna was never trapped in the resets.” “I know my Auntie’s body language,” he explained, and Luna visibly huffed in indignation. “We do not have ‘body language’!” she objected. “Note the wing tips and how they curl slightly,” Blueblood told Sweetie, pointing to the ends of Luna’s outstretched wings. “Her pinions tense a little when she’s relieved or happy. I haven’t seen the Luna of the last hundred loops happy before. Usually it’s all shadows and brimstone and stomping my face in.” Luna quickly shut her wings tight, fast enough to make an audible snapping noise, like a cracking whip. She coughed into her hoof and adopted a regal, proud pose, chest out and head held high. “Hello.” Sweetie waved a hoof. “Hello, Sweetie Belle,” Luna replied, inclining her head in a polite greeting. She smirked, too, though it wasn’t all too clear why. “Sweetie,” Blueblood whispered, bowing his head to the side. She rolled her eyes and curtsied. This was one thing that would never change about her brother. “But she thinks I’m like… eight!” Sweetie whispered harshly. “I bet she thinks my informality is cute!” “Of course she does,” he replied with a shake of his head. “But cuteness and propriety aren’t mutually exclusive.” “Fine, have it your way…” Sweetie rolled her eyes again, faced the Princess, and curtsied. “You know, Nightmare Moon was never one for formalities. She’d rather put a whoopie cushion on your chair than expect you to bow.” “I can’t believe that…” “A whoopie cushion?” Luna asked, walking up to the pair and glancing between them. “Ist that one of thy noise-making contrivances? The one that resembles an inopportune passing of vapors?” The two ponies just stared at her. “Yes?” Blueblood asked. “I think.” “I do find those rather amusing! Vulgar humor, of course, but clever!” She laughed, and it sounded rather like a villainous ‘whahaha.’ Halfway through what would have been a good and proper cackle, she coughed again and shook her head. “But such things are not the reason behind my visit. Nephew, do you know where you are?” Sweetie smiled smugly at Blueblood with a look that said, ‘told you so.’ “Oh, hush,” he whispered back, and then replied, “I’m at a party, Auntie.” “Six parties in one!” Pinkie Pie corrected him, still partly flattened by the Princess of the Night’s abrupt entrance. “A party that is also a part of a time-loop,” Blueblood added. “A time-loop?” Luna asked, and her eyes settled on Sweetie Belle. “This filly is involved somehow? So she is the one I… To which I mean, she is Lady Rarity’s younger sister… but the Sweetie Belle I know does not have a cutie mark.” “You would be surprised by how many ponies ignore that,” Sweetie quipped, looking towards Diamond Tiara. The other filly, like most of the other ponies in the room, seemed frozen. A few were in mid-bow, and others were just staring. It wasn’t as if they had completely stopped; a few looked like they were forming words, but caught in a tiny time-loop of their own. It was surreal. “This isn’t… normal, even for what passes for normal here,” Blueblood observed, and Sweetie couldn’t help but nod in agreement. “Nephew,” Luna tried to explain. “Blueblood,” another voice interrupted, coming from the squashed cake. A light pink alicorn was on all fours, brushing bits of frosting and smears of blueberry off her coat. There was no mistaking Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the pony Sweetie knew as Queen Chrysalis. Yet, she knew right away, this was no changeling Queen. “Cadenza,” Blueblood said, and where he had all but run to Luna, he backed away from the younger Princess. Sweetie looked from one to the other. “Uh…” “Blueblood,” the Princess said. “You’re in a nightmare. We’ve come to get you out.” - - - “So this is all some sort of amped-up super-dream?” Sweetie asked, slowly swirling about the ice-cream head of her latest milkshake with the straw and watching Princess Cadance across the table. She had taken up the very same spot Blueblood had occupied only hours ago. “How come you only got here now?” she asked. “Do you know what being – what feeling trapped in the loops again did to Blueblood?” She shook her head and lowered her voice. “He was about to do something crazy again when I found him in the castle. Kill himself, maybe, or blow it up… I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have been good.” Cadance seemed extremely uneasy in a way that clearly had more to do with her just being in somepony’s nightmare. She had kept conspicuously quiet while Blueblood and Princess Luna went off to talk. “That is exactly what Chrysalis and Night Shade wanted him to do. Chrysalis wanted access to the most deadly spells and artifacts in the Family Archives. These… changelings…” The Princess of Love shivered in revulsion. “Just when I think I’ve seen the limits of their evil, they show me a new shade of cruelty.” Sweetie looked away, more than a little guiltily. It was a good thing the Princess couldn’t see through her disguise. “They’re… worse here than in other places,” she admitted, closing her eyes as she remembered how she had found her poor brother. This was all Chrysalis’ doing. Damn her. “He was… I had honestly never seen him so desperate… so alone. I thought for a moment that the loops had broken him, that the Blueblood I knew was gone. And if he been… don’t know what I’d have done. ” Cadance cut short her first response and took a long look at the filly before her. “All those months in this pit… and I never even considered Chrysalis would be so cautious with her prize,” the Princess said, softly, and forced her attention towards where Luna and Blueblood were having a private conversation. She was supposed to be catching him up to speed: on the changelings, on the wedding, on his abduction. “How,” she asked, before Sweetie could speak up. “How long have you been here with him? And who are you, really?” Sweetie sighed, knowing this was a more difficult question to answer than it seemed. “I’ve only been in these dream loops a few days, but the first time… in the real time-loops… I was there for more than two years with him.” She smiled, as the last question was the hardest of them all to answer honestly. “Two years,” Cadance whispered, trying to wrap her head around it. Hundreds and hundreds of loops. “As for who I am,” Sweetie continued, “There was an accident on my world. My Twilight Sparkle ended up really badly hurt, and I’m trying to save her, but the only way to do that is to move through dimensions and different version of Equestria. I’m Sweetie Belle… just… not the one you’ll meet on the outside. At least that’s what I keep telling myself, and what Blueblood insists I am.” She smirked and raised her milkshake in a half-hearted toast. “But like I told him, if I can’t trust my older brother, who can I trust?” “You… he’s your brother?” Cadance squinted, clearly not understanding and taking the phrase too literally. “My adoptive brother,” Sweetie explained. “I adopted him. Or he adopted me. We’re not very clear on the exact way it happened, but I think he insists that he adopted me because then he can show me off. I say I adopted him because somepony needs to be the adult.” She took in Cadance’s bewildered look. “It’s uh… just, sibling-like love. Not official. We spent a lot of time together in the loops. Did he… did he manage to talk to you at all?” “Blueblood and I haven’t really talked in years,” the Princess explained and ran a hoof through her mane. “Not since his mother died. There was that time, well before the Gala, when I told him about Shining’s proposal. If that even counts as a conversation.” Cadance sighed despondently at the magnitude of the task before her: making up with her adopted brother had seemed so easy in her head. She had been so confident in assuring Alpha Brass that she could do it. Now, finally face to face with him again, all she could conjure up was the memory of how he had declined to even attend her wedding. It seemed insurmountable, even in the face of the crisis in the waking world. “I didn’t attend the Gala,” she told Sweetie. “Chrysalis had already…” “Replaced you?” Sweetie asked. “I know. She was staying with the Sparkle family.” “You knew even that?” She paused. “Well, I suppose Blueblood would, so you would, too. No offense, Sweetie, but I’m not really convinced you’re real…” “So you think I’m a figment of his imagination?” Sweetie asked, sounding a little amused. “Somepony he created to escape being alone again? I guess that’s flattering.” “He once told me he never wanted a sister,” Cadance whispered, joining Sweetie in watching Blueblood and Luna. “It makes no sense for him to invent one. I don’t think he’s…” ‘Lost his mind,’ she wanted to say, but didn’t. “Aunt Luna will know what to do. I guess… I just don’t…” “Don’t?” Sweetie prompted. “Don’t what?” “Don’t know why, if you are somepony he imagined, why you aren’t me,” Cadance’s voice dropped and Sweetie almost couldn’t hear her. “He has a sister. He had a sister. We were family once.” “He did talk about you,” Sweetie tried to reassure the Princess of Love that she was anything but unloved. “He said you had a beautiful singing voice and that… you were nice.” “That’s it?” Cadance asked, and Sweetie could see the conflict on the older mare’s face over how much she struggled to believe and how much she wanted to share. “Did he ever… visit me?” “No,” Sweetie answered, truthfully. “I don’t think so, anyway.” A flash of anger passed over the Princess’s expression, her brows creasing just a fraction. Sweetie could sympathize. Blueblood could be a very frustrating pony, even by stallion standards. Cadance tapped her front hooves together as she mulled over something. “I - I was in the cell next to him,” she finally blurted out, careful to keep her voice down enough that only Sweetie could really hear her. “I could feel his heart weakening. Fraying. Chrysalis made sure I could. I know he… we… we’ve had our problems. I want us to… the whole point of this was to work things out, but… will he even listen to me? I wouldn't blame him if he hates me… especially when I tell him I asked for his abduction to be arranged just so I could escape.” “You what?!” Sweetie whispered harshly, very nearly knocking over her milkshake as she leaned forward over the table. “How… how could you?!” She glanced at Cadance and then at her oblivious step-brother. “I don’t even--” “It isn’t as if I wanted him hurt!” Cadance snapped, fighting to keep her voice low. She wiped her face with a hoof and took a deep breath to focus herself. “I didn’t want him to go through any of this. Chrysalis was supposed to just put him in the cell and taunt him. I expected she’d try and seduce him in my body or do something similarly depraved. Something to humiliate me. To rub in my face how powerless I am. She’s been torturing me for months, but she never used drugs or dream magic before. I - I made a mistake…” “And!” she quickly added, gesturing off in the distance, somewhere beyond Sugarcube Corner. “Having Blueblood as an ace… bringing him here… stopping Chrysalis took precedence, didn’t it? I thought so. I thought… it was worth the risk.” She hung her head. “A Princess is the country. Nothing else comes first. That’s… what I was told…” Sweetie shook her head. She could guess where Cadance had heard that phrase. “You Bluebloods and your stupid, stupid traditions!” she muttered, but made sure it was loud enough for Cadance to hear. Sweetie visibly shook as she bit back words that would only make things worse. “If you do care for him… if you really want to be a family again… you will apologize, and I hate to say it but he’ll most likely forgive you…” “You really think so?” Cadance wondered, a little hopeful, a little afraid to take the risk. The way she kept looking down, the worry in her voice… it was becoming very clear that she had never really hurt anypony before, not on anything approaching this scale. ‘She thinks he’ll see her as a monster,’ Sweetie realized. ‘She’s worried that after what she’s done, she really is a monster. And… what nopony knows is… I knew about Chrysalis, too. How would I feel about telling Blueblood about that, after all this?’ Sweetie felt her hooves shake at the thought. ‘Maybe we have more in common than I imagined?’ “He’ll forgive you,” Sweetie assured her – her sister of sorts. And, maybe, if he could forgive Cadance, he could forgive her, too. “I know he will.” Cadance blinked, owlishly. She even smiled, to Sweetie’s surprise. “That feeling,” she said, lowering her eyes to get a good, level look at the filly before her. “I can feel it… you love him. I knew he loved you, but you love him back.” Sweetie nodded, slowly. What even needed saying? “I suppose that’s proof enough for me that you’re real,” the young Princess decided and stole a quick look at her step-brother. “If what you said before was just as true, then maybe you changed him as much as these time-loops did. To love someone, and to be loved, is to build a bond that transcends reason or explanation…” “He’s trying hard to earn your love and everypony else’s he cares about,” Sweetie pointed out. “It’s about time he gets it.” “Sweetie,” Blueblood called to the filly as he and Princess Luna approached. He inclined his head to his other sister. “Cadenza.” Cadance politely inclined her head in reply, but Sweetie jumped out of her seat – and maybe a little because she could – stole a quick, possessive hug from her big brother and best friend forever. She didn’t miss Cadance looking on with a wary expression, either. “Allow us to explain... what has transpired in brief,” Luna began, and Sweetie gave the Princess her full attention. A bit of magic and the dark alicorn conjured up an illusion to display a stern-faced unicorn mare with faintly glowing green eyes. Next to her was a dark, glass candle. “My nephew was poisoned and brought to an unknown location that may, we suspect, be somewhere in the mountain range that is Canterlot’s foundation. It may even be directly under the city itself. His captors have ensorcelled and made use of this pony.” She gestured to the image of the mare. “Her name is Night Shade. The candle to her left is… well…” Luna rubbed one leg against the other, an unusually shy gesture from the somewhat frightening Princess of the Night. “The candle is mine,” she explained. “Luna’s Shadow Candle, it is called in this era. It was one of a pair I brought with me from the Old Kingdoms. Among other things, the ever-burning fires produce a magical fragrance. As you may know, when a pony sleeps, all of his or her senses are dulled.” Luna threw up another illusion, this one of a sleeping pony. The stallion’s skull turned transparent, revealing the brain. “Sight, sound, touch… these signals are stopped by the inner humor… the thamus it is called now.” A small part of the pony’s brain, buried deep, flashed red as little dots transmitted from the mouth and leg and ears. “Smell, however, is the gateway to the sleeping brain. With the proper magic, it is also the gateway into the sleeping world or the dream-time.” A series of dots propagated from the nose right to the brain itself. “That is where we are now.” She drew down the illusionary candle until it floated in her upraised hoof. “The candle adds substance and permanence to the sleeping world. It also allows a skilled pony to actively manipulate the dreams of another… to program it. Is that the right term? Program?” Sweetie’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I see! So the smell from the candle triggers the dream effect, and Night Shade tried to use the thing that scared Blueblood the most against him, in this case being trapped in the loops again and having everypony he loves hate him!” “I wouldn’t call it ‘scared’… exactly,” the proud Prince of Canterlot muttered. “Terrified beyond belief?” Sweetie suggested instead. “Disconcerted,” Blueblood insisted. “If you’re here, now, then that means something changed,” Sweetie reasoned. “Very astute,” Luna replied, nodding at the insightful filly. “Before we were partnered with the moon, we were the patron of dreams. It…” She almost said more, but shook her head, her starry mane swirling majestically behind her. “That is of no matter at the moment. What matters is putting an end to the nightmare here.” “We were eventually able to sense my nephew’s distress and quickly realized that our vision was being obfuscated by our old candle. We could not penetrate the veil enshrouding our nephew’s nightmare, so we took certain measures… this is where you come in, Sweetie Belle. You were drawn into the nightmare, as the one pony our nephew most wished to have by his side. I had… honestly expected his subconscious would call to and summon our sister, Celestia, but given the details of these time loops… I can see why it was you. He also explained to me that you were similarly seeking him via alternative means. To provide a more modern analogy, it is as if your spell created the radio signal and mine provided the receiver and antenna.” Sweetie nodded, seeing, for the first time, the broader picture at work. The different dimensions she had jumped through were not all set to the same time frame. Some were in what she considered the future, some in the relative past. It was no coincidence she had ended up here just when she did. Her efforts to reunite with the pony she had wanted to see again had coincided with Luna using magic to draw out a champion for Blueblood to help him with his nightmare. “You brought hope back to my nephew’s heart and disrupted Night Shade’s control over the nightmare,” Luna continued, smirking. “We owe you our thanks, for that, and for giving us the opportunity we needed to strike. Night Shade is only a minor threat in the physical realm. Subduing her should be easy, but the greater part of her power and her menace will still be hiding somewhere inside the nightmare she crafted for you, nephew. She must be overcome.” “So there’s a pony out there somewhere, waiting to do… what?” Blueblood asked. “Kill us?” “Killing us seems likely,” Luna agreed, all too easily, and she used a wing to point to Cadance and then herself. She smiled. “We have not had a dream duel since our banishment. We hope we are not ‘rusty.’” “But, usually if Blueblood or I die, we start the dream again,” Sweetie reasoned. “Why would it be different now for you two?” “These loops are unusual, as you describe them. You and little Sweetie here may be immortal within this nightmare realm. You have looped, so you will continue to loop,” Luna speculated. “But we who have not looped…” “Can die for real,” Blueblood guessed. “Lovely. Auntie, Cadenza,” he said, staring at the two who had come to rescue him. “Your being here is a risk.” Cadance nodded but showed no sign of backing down. “It always was.” “Our purpose here is unchanged, no matter the danger,” Luna continued, unperturbed. “I cannot rouse you myself, nephew. Your physical body must awaken on its own and overcome the magic keeping it here. If the candle were extinguished, that may occur naturally in four or five hours…” “We do not have hours,” Cadance said. “We have minutes of real-time. At most.” “Then you must break yourself out,” Luna concluded, pointing at Blueblood. “Cadance believes she can assist you in this. That, brother and sister, you will empower one another with common purpose and mutual affection.” “Blueblood,” Cadance started to say. Whatever else she had meant to share, though, became buried by a long, awkward silence. “We should… talk.” “One of the more bone chilling phrases a mare can utter to a stallion,” Blueblood noted, drolly, slowly coming around to the task ahead. “We’re going to air some dirty laundry, aren’t we?” Cadance just nodded. “Lovely.”