//------------------------------//
// 7. Megan Grooms Princess Twilight Sparkle 
// Story: A Mighty Demon Slayer Grooms Some Ponies 
// by D G D Davidson 
//------------------------------//


A Mighty Demon Slayer Grooms Some Ponies

by D. G. D. Davidson


VII. Megan Grooms Princess Twilight Sparkle

Megan held her father’s hand as she stared down at Blackie.  She saw blood, and a jagged shard of bone stuck out of the horse’s front right leg, right below the knee.  Blackie shivered and shook as if cold.  Molly was bawling, but she wasn’t hurt.

With his free hand, Megan’s father rubbed the reddish stubble on his long, lean jaw.  “He’s well past his prime,” he said in his slow, quiet, and gentle voice—that same voice that lulled Megan to sleep every night when he sat on the corner of her bed and read to her from the Grimms or Bullfinch or Hamilton or Swift or any of the other writers both she and he loved.  “Ain’t much help for it, I reckon.”

“Should we call the vet?” Megan asked.

“It’d take him a good hour to get out here, at least.  Blackie’s in shock, Megan, and even if the vet gave him an injection, his heart couldn’t carry it around his body for him.  It wouldn’t do no good.”  He slung the Winchester rifle off his shoulder.  “No, there’s just one way.”

He passed the gun to Megan.

She took the rifle in her small hands and stared down at it for almost a minute.  Then she gazed up at him.  “Why me, Papa?”

“Because,” he answered.  He didn’t look at her, but instead kept staring at the injured horse.  Still, she thought she saw a tear in the corner of his eye, and that frightened her:  her father never cried.  “Because,” he repeated, “you have to.  You have to be able to do this.  When somethin’ ain’t right, when somethin’ has gone bad, you gotta put it down.  You, Megan, have to do it.  Someday, you’ll understand why.”

With slow, faltering steps, Megan walked toward Blackie.  Molly’s bawling grew louder.

“Hush now,” her father said.  “Just hush now.  Megan’s gonna make the pain go away.”

Blackie’s labored breathing filled Megan’s ears, overwhelming even the sound of Molly’s sobs.  Megan loved horses and always had, and it was her dream to run a horse ranch of her own someday, but horses were no longer just horses to her:  she had been to Ponyland, and she knew the ponies might come back for her at any time.

She had told nobody about it except her brother and sister.  Molly had heard the story with rapt attention and an expression of awe; Danny had called it “junk,” but had listened anyway.  Telling them had eased the nightmares:  when Megan closed her eyes at night, Tirek still roared in rage or screamed in desperation and pain, but he was quieter now.

After she had slain Tirek, the ponies had gathered in front of Dream Castle and accepted her as one of their own.  She had knelt in the grass as, one by one, the little ponies had touched her nose with their noses, snorted in sharp puffs, and memorized her scent.  For over an hour, they had breathed on her.

Applejack, while walking up to Megan, had tripped over her own hooves and earned a ripple of laughter from the rest of the ponies.  Heart Throb had not only taken Megan’s scent, but had also given her a homemade Valentine’s Day card.  Whizzer had not been content merely to sniff her nose, but, jabbering all the while, had snuffled her in several places like an over-eager dog.  Surprise, instead of standing in line with the others, had sniffed her by sneaking up behind her.  Wind Whistler, after taking a few quick snorts of her face, had made an indecipherable comment about the chemical makeup of her pheromones.  Sundance had not only sniffed her, but had also given her a kiss.  Gusty, with one puff from her nostrils, had knocked Megan over with a blast of air, and then had tried to utter an apology while laughing uncontrollably.

After sniffing Megan’s nose, Galaxy, with her dead-looking jeweled eyes glimmering in the moonlight, had rubbed Megan’s cheek with her muzzle and whispered terrible vows of allegiance on behalf of the twinkle-eyed ponies—the same vows she had once sworn to Queen Majesty.

After Megan had been through all that, could she kill a horse?

Her hands trembled on the gun as she looked down at Blackie.  The horse lay on a patch of hard, sunbaked earth.  His foam-flecked lips were pulled back from his teeth.  Once or twice, he tried to roll from his side and return to his feet, but he tumbled back to the ground.  His black eyes rolled, showing the whites.

“Imagine two lines,” her father said calmly, “running from each ear to the opposite eye, forming an ‘X.’  You shoot straight at the center of that ‘X,’ and you won’t cause him no more pain.  He’ll go suddenly, just like that.  Horses’ eyes are sensitive, so, after you do it, touch his eye.  If there’s anything left in ’im, he’ll feel it in his eye.”

Megan swallowed.

“Hurry up now, Megan,” her father said.  “He’s hurtin’.”

She cocked the gun and put it to her shoulder.  Much to her surprise, Blackie raised his head.  His ears, laid back a moment before, now pricked forward.  He looked right at her, and he looked strangely calm.

She swallowed once more.

Then she squeezed the trigger.








With her shoes off, Molly sat on the bank of the creek and kicked her feet through the cool water.  Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy stood at her shoulder.  Rainbow looked uncomfortable; she had said that she wanted to throw herself down at the base of a tree and lounge around until Megan finished grooming the others, but Molly had warned her that she’d get dirt in her coat.  So she stood instead, but made it plain that standing around made her grumpy.  Fluttershy didn’t appear to mind as much, but hung her head and offered Molly occasional timid smiles.

They had been deep in conversation when Twilight Sparkle had arrived, told them that Megan was nearly finished with Applejack, and promptly flown off again.  Still, they knew they had a few minutes to linger before it was actually time to go.

“I really am sorry,” Molly said.  “I should have told you the truth.”

“It’s okay,” Fluttershy whispered.  “I understand why you said what you did.”

Molly put her arms around Fluttershy’s neck and pressed a cheek to hers before flopping onto her back and kicking her legs vigorously.  “It’s been rough on sis, you know.”

“Grooming us?” Rainbow asked.  “I figured, after I talked to her, that she’d be okay, but then she went off again—”

Molly, lying on the ground, rolled her head back and forth.  “Oh no, she loves grooming horses.  Sometimes I think working the ranch is the only thing keeping her together.  It’s everything else that’s rough on her.”  Molly touched a hand to her chest.  “She’s got something, all tight and twisted and bottled up, right here.  Right where she wears that locket she never takes off.  She used to take it off, you know.  Sometimes the ponies wore it.  Sometimes, when she came to our world with it on, she put it on the nightstand and didn’t worry about it.  But it’s always on now, even when she takes a bath.  It’s small and light, but she drags it with her like a big ol’ chain.”

“Why?” Rainbow asked.

Molly spread her arms out to either side and stared up through the tree branches at the blue sky.  “She did something.  Something bad.  She thinks I don’t know anything about it, but I know.”

“What did she do?” Rainbow asked.

Molly shook her head again.  “That’s for her to tell.”








Pinkie Pie slowed to a canter as she crested a low rise at the end of the driveway.  When she reached the Williams family mailbox, she stopped, and Danny climbed from her back.  With one hand on her withers and the other shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare, he gazed across the county road; the land on the other side belonged to the nearest neighbors, who ran mustangs on their ranch.  Danny could see a few horses nibbling the yellowing grass and swishing their tails to ward off flies.

He didn’t speak, and, to his surprise, neither did Pinkie.  She seemed uncharacteristically pensive.

“I kinda sorta know almost how you feel even though I don’t know what you’re fighting about,” she said at last.  “I’ve sometimes kinda sorta argued with my family, too.”

Danny dropped his hands to his sides and looked down at her.  She kept her eyes on the horses across the road.  She didn’t bounce or skip, but she shuffled her hooves a little, as if it were hard to hold still.

“They run a rock farm,” Pinkie said.  “It’s super-duper hard work, and it can be real, real dangerous and scary, so when I was little, there was never any talking or laughing or playing while we harvested the rocks.  But once I got my cutie mark, I couldn’t be as serious as Mom and Dad wanted.  I just wanted to jump and roll and dance, and they said I might hurt myself or my sisters.”

She bounced a couple of times, but then held still again.  “Most ponies get their rocks from the Crystal Empire now, so lots of rock farmers are sad and lonely, and rock farms are closing.  My parents were gonna lose their farm, so I decided to be serious so I could help.  I really thought I could do it:  I’d stared at drying paint for hours, and I’d once even tried to give up seeing Ponyacci, my favorite clown, so somepony sad could see him and smile and laugh and cheer up.  I thought I could be serious if it would help somepony, especially Mom and Dad and the sisters.”

“How did it work out?” Danny asked.

She lowered her head and shook it.  “It didn’t.  I undecorated my room and painted it brown, and I even wore glasses, but I still couldn’t be serious.  But I did put on a rock concert to raise bits and save the farm and remind everypony how great rocks are!”

“There,” said Danny.  “In the end, you didn’t really have to be serious anyway, did you?”

She looked up at him with wide eyes and a broad smile, but the smile appeared strained.  “It worked for a little while, but the money from the concert ran out, and ponies went back to getting their rocks from the Crystal Empire, since they’re just so sparkly-sparklerrific, and granite and shale aren’t so sparklerrific.  The concert was the biggest, bestest, most wonderfulest party I’ve ever made, and ponies came from all over Equestria to hear Coldhay and Nine Inch Tails and all the other bands we had, and they ate our delicious apple rock cakes, and I was so happy I could do that for my family . . . but they lost the farm anyway.”

She lowered her haunches to the ground and looked across the road again.  “I couldn’t be serious then,” she said, “but I get more bits now for my ambassador-thingy than I ever got from working at Sugarcube Corner or from throwing parties.  I can send them some.”  She paused a moment and added, “So even if I couldn’t be serious for that, I gotta be super serious for this.”

Danny sat down beside her.  A few days after the ambassadors had first arrived, Danny had got to talking with Pinkie.  Time had slipped away as they’d chattered for hours, and she had decided to stay even after the others had returned home.  Danny and Pinkie had sat in the barn and talked long into the night, mostly about inconsequential things, but they had laughed and whispered and giggled, and Danny had felt as if he were sharing secrets and catching up on old times with a dear friend who had finally returned after a long absence.  He had told Pinkie all about Surprise, and she had told him many things about Equestria and her friends and the proper way to bake cupcakes.  Sometime after midnight, he had dozed off on a pile of hay, and when he had awakened early in the morning, she had still been there, slumbering beside him.

He had found in her the same silliness he had once known in Surprise, but he had found, too, that same tendency, every once in a while, to turn quiet and thoughtful. 

Pinkie looked at him now, and, once again, her smile appeared strained.  “I think you help,” she said.  “If you’re there, I think maybe I can be just a little itty bitty tiny bit more serious.”

“I’ll be there,” he whispered.  “You can bet on it.”

Then, to his own surprise, he leaned over and kissed her.








After she finished picking and rasping Applejack’s hooves, Megan used sandpaper to take off the orange hoof polish.  Then she painted on black while trying to ignore Rarity’s wincing.

“Really, darling, black can be quite striking when used correctly, and I suppose I don’t much mind it on my own hooves, but Applejack is an autumn.  She needs warm colors.”

“I already told you,” said Megan, “black is the only color I have.  You should have had Rainbow Dash and Applejack get their hooves trimmed and painted before you came if you wanted everyone’s hooves to match her coat.”

“That is the fashion, at least for mares, but of course you know it’s impossible to coax Rainbow Dash into a hooficure.”

“Not impossible,” answered Megan with a grin.

“Aw, I was busy,” said Applejack.  “I can’t just drop ever’thing an’ run off to the spa whenever Rarity has the inclination.”

“But, darling, we were preparing to be ambassadors.  Surely that deserves some extra preparation.”  Rarity again tried to toss her mane, and she again missed, since her mane no longer had any body to it.

“Well, shoot,” said Applejack, “that’s what we’re doin’ now, ain’t it?”

“I’m finished,” said Megan as she stood straight, arched her back, and grimaced.  “Frankly, Applejack, since you two are the hard-working physical types, you and Rainbow Dash should be more concerned about the condition of your hooves, not less.”

Applejack chuckled.  “Physical maybe, but hard-workin’ Rainbow ain’t.”

“Applejack!” cried Rarity.  “That’s simply not true.  Rainbow Dash just likes to . . . um . . . keep her strength up.  Well, if we’re all finished here—”

“Your princess,” Megan said as she looked around the yard.  “I still need to groom your princess, so where is she?”

“I’m here!  I’m here!” Twilight Sparkle shouted as, flying fast and hard, she zoomed in over the barn.  With her broad wings spread wide, she blotted out the sun for a moment as she banked in a wide circle.  She dipped, folded her wings, skidded into the yard, tripped over her hooves, and planted her face in the ground with a loud thud.

Looking woozy, she fell back on her haunches.  “Ouch!  Ooh, sorry, I’m still not great on the landings—”

“It certainly ruins the effect,” said Megan.  “Come on, Your Highness.  It’s time.”

Twilight, rubbing dirt and grass from her face, looked at Megan for a moment before swallowing loudly.  Mouth set, she climbed to her hooves and walked cautiously forward.  Her demeanor so resembled that of a nervous horse that, without thinking, Megan held out the back of her hand to let Twilight take her scent.

To her surprise, Twilight did indeed sniff her hand in a series of sharp puffs, just as any horse might do.

“I found Rainbow and Fluttershy,” Twilight said.  “They were down by the creek, and Moloch was with them.  They should be back in a few minutes.”

“Good.  That’s good,” said Megan.  “Applejack, Rarity, would you excuse us?  I need to work, and I think the princess and I need to talk.”

Rarity and Applejack frowned at each other.  “Well,” Rarity said, “if you must—”

“It’s okay, Rarity,” Twilight said.  “I think Magog is right.”

Hesitantly, with many glances over their shoulders, Rarity and Applejack walked around the barn.  Megan watched them until they were out of earshot, and then she turned to Twilight and, hands on hips, said, “Out with it.  Ever since Molly did up Fluttershy, you’ve acted like I have the plague.”

Twilight stared at the ground and pawed with a hoof.  After a minute, she asked, “Who are you?” 

“Megan Williams, age eighteen.  I’m graduating high school in a month and going to OSU to major in Agribusiness.  I help my mom raise prize-winning livestock, I’m a licensed welder, I’ve got several blue ribbons in pistol, rifle, and roping competitions, and I built that deck over there on the house.  Why do you ask?”

“Are you Magog the Mighty?”

“No.”

Both were silent for a minute.

Megan took up the curry brush, but when she touched it to Twilight’s shoulder, the muscles under the skin twitched, and her wings snapped open.

Megan grunted.  “You’re going to have to trust me if I’m going to do this.”

Twilight closed her eyes, nodded, and, with a noticeable wince, folded her wings.  “I’m still getting used to these.  It’s easier than it used to be, but they still unfold on their own sometimes.  Especially at night.”

Megan began currying Twilight’s neck.  “What’s your story, Your Highness?  Back in Dream Valley, I knew a Princess Sparkle, and I knew a Twilight, but neither of them looked like you.  What are you?”

“An alicorn.”

“Which is?”

“A combination of all three tribes.”

“Rarity and Applejack both mentioned tribes.  What exactly are they?”

Twilight pulled away.  “You are supposed to be the one who established the tribes.  The pegasi, the unicorns, the earth ponies—”

“Okay, okay, don’t get your tack twisted.  Yes, we had those in Dream Valley, and yes, I split them into groups, but we didn’t call them tribes.  So your little legend is true, okay?”

Twilight appeared to calm down, and she drew close again.  “The word tribe is sort of traditional.  We don’t live separately anymore like they used to.  You can say ‘breed’ instead.  It means the same thing.”

Megan grunted.

Twilight smiled and added, “Until I met you, I didn’t really think I cared about all the legends.  I didn’t believe most of them anyway.”

Megan moved the brush down Twilight’s neck, but noticed that Twilight’s muscles clenched in a spasm whenever the brush neared her shoulders.  “You mentioned that I ruined your paper.”

“You did.  Most ponies think the legends of Magog are real history, but there are two schools of thought on the subject.”

“Which is yours?”

“I learned at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.  Most of the professors there accept the ancient records, and everypony who graduates has to write a commentary on two texts—the Ordinances, which you’re supposed to have written, and the Aponycalypse of Starswirl the Bearded, which predicts your return.  My commentary was a little controversial because, instead of following my professors, I went with a lot of the views of the Timekeepers’ Gymnasium.”

“What do they say?”

“That you didn’t exist.”

“Ah.”

“Both schools are wrong,” Twilight said with a sigh.  “I tried to find a middle course.  I interpreted a lot as symbolic instead of historical, so I didn’t say the stories were false, but I didn’t say they really happened, either.  Most of my guesses were wrong.  We’re all wrong:  it happened, just not like we thought.”

Megan tried to curry near one of Twilight’s wings, but the wing snapped open and flapped, apparently of its own accord.  Megan skipped it and curried her back instead.  Twilight sighed, and her back depressed slightly under the brush.

“You say you went to a school for unicorns,” said Megan, “but you also say you’re not a unicorn.”

“I am a unicorn.  I used to be just a unicorn, but now I’m a pegasus and an earth pony, too.”  Her wings drooped to the ground, and she gazed down at them with a wistful expression.  “The change wasn’t easy—”

Megan took that as an invitation to try brushing Twilight’s shoulder, but the muscles again twitched and shuddered at her touch, so she moved back up to her withers.  “What exactly happened to you?”

“I studied friendship, and, from what I learned, I made my own magic.”

“That made you one of these—?”

“Alicorns.  Yes.”

“Are there a lot of you?”

“There are five now, including me.  Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were the first ones.  Princess Cadance was a pegasus who became an alicorn after she defeated a sorceress with her love and tolerance—”

Megan’s hand slipped.

“Ouch!” Twilight cried as the curry brush bumped her wing.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” said Megan, wiping her brow.  “Just lost my grip for a moment.  Go on.”

“Oh.  Well, Princess Cadance just had a baby, Princess Skyla, who was born as an alicorn.  That hasn’t happened before . . . what are you doing?”

Megan had put down the brush, and she now knelt by Twilight’s left side.  Gently, she probed at the muscles along Twilight’s wing.  As she did, Twilight winced.

“It’s no wonder you have trouble with these,” Megan said.  “You’re all seized up.”

“What do you mean?”

Megan let go of the wing, took a few steps back, and gazed at Twilight while rubbing her chin.  “The same thing could happen to the pegasus ponies back in Dream Valley.  Do you . . . ?  No, I suspect I know the answer—”

Twilight shook her head.  “You lost me.”

“This question is going to sound funny.  Do your friends ever rub you down with their teeth?”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s what I thought.”  Megan pulled back her duster and stuck her thumbs in her belt as she walked around Twilight, examining her.  “Here on Earth, my horses . . . I hope it doesn’t bother you to be compared to a horse—”

“I am a horse.”

“Okay, fine.  Horses around here stay on good terms by scratching one another’s itches, rubbing out one another’s muscles, that kind of thing.  The ponies I knew in Dream Valley acted more-or-less the same way:  they always had their mouths on each other.  But Applejack gave me the impression that things are different in your Equestria.”

Twilight laughed, but her laugh sounded nervous.  “Well, we do take trips to the spa together.  Of course, I never went as often as Rarity or Fluttershy, because, at least when I was a student, I couldn’t afford it on my stipend . . . but we sometimes give each other facials, or—”

“But no rubdowns.”

“Not like what you’re talking about, no.”

One at a time, Megan cracked each of her knuckles.  “I imagine it’s partly because your wings are new, but all the muscles in there are too tight.  That’s probably why you have trouble keeping them folded:  they’re cramping up, so they want to straighten out.  The pegasus ponies I knew could have the same problem, but they always rubbed each other’s muscles after any long flights.  Or sometimes I did it.”

“With your teeth?”

“No, with my hands.  I do a lot of equine massage.  I’m good at it.”  She laid a hand against Twilight’s left shoulder.  Twilight winced, and the skin twitched again.  “It’d be best, of course, if I could give you a full-body massage, but I don’t think we have time for that.”

Twilight lowered her head and blushed.

“I’m going to loosen up your wings and shoulders.”  Megan moved her hands up to the left side of Twilight’s neck and, with her fingertips, rubbed in circles just under the poll.

After a moment, Twilight’s eyelids drooped.  Megan rubbed the bases of her ears and then gently pressed down to stretch Twilight’s topline.

After that, she knelt on the ground and, holding her hands in loose fists, gently punched Twilight’s left triceps, making the heavy muscles jiggle.

Twilight winced, and her wings snapped open and flapped frantically, but, after a minute, they dropped to the ground again.  Apparently unaware that she was doing it, Twilight licked her lips and made chewing motions, just as Megan’s horse T.J. did when he relaxed under a grooming or a massage.

Megan had often massaged T.J. on late evenings.  While a cool breeze blew into his stall, she would slowly work her hands over his muscles as he’d grunt and sigh and, drooling, chew on his halter rope.  Sometimes he would turn his head and watch her as she worked, with his dark eyes, full of mystery and apparent sadness, shimmering in the dim light.  Then the turmoil in her heart would, for a short time, be still:  she could forget her past, and she could focus simply on what she was doing.

But massaging Twilight Sparkle did not let her forget her past.  It reminded her of the one time when Wind Whistler had not merely permitted, but had asked Megan to touch her, and then Megan thought of everything that happened after that, and her memories brought with them a pang of guilt, hot and sharp like a fire-blackened knife. 

Megan shook her head to drive out unwanted thoughts.  “With these wings, you’ve basically got two sets of forelimbs with two sets of muscle groups,” she said.  “The muscles for your wings run through an opening between the muscles at your shoulders.”  She moved her hands up to Twilight’s shoulder and began a cross-fiber massage, slowly kneading up and down.  “You have an extra set of pectorals separated from your regular ones by a membrane.  The pecs for your wings are deeper than those for your forelegs, so they attach more firmly to your breastbone.”

Twilight laughed.  “Rainbow Dash has been making me work hard to strengthen my wings.  It’s really developed my chest, and for a while I was afraid I was starting to look like a stallion.”

“With all those extra muscles, you probably are bulkier in the front than you used to be, but I wouldn’t worry about it.  Rainbow has the same muscles, and she doesn’t look like a stallion, does she?”

“She does a little bit.”

“Oh.  Well, never mind.  Still, I think everyone worries when his body changes:  don’t tell him I said this, but when Danny was about ten or so and started developing more muscle in his chest, he was afraid he was starting to look like a girl.”

“Like a girl?  But that doesn’t make any—oh, wait, I remember.  Yes, I suppose I can understand that.”

Standing at Twilight’s shoulder, Megan bent down, reached around, and began massaging Twilight’s chest.  The upper pectorals were soft, but she could feel the rock-hard wing pectorals underneath.  She bore down as hard as she could, and Twilight scrunched up her face.  Megan continued to push until she felt a release, and Twilight sighed.  Twilight’s ears swung outward, and her eyelids lowered again.

“Anyway,” said Megan, “don’t let Rainbow make you do nothing but strength training.  You’ve got to stretch.  If your muscles get overworked, the membrane separating the pectorals for your wings from the pectorals for your forelegs can get inflamed.”

“The doctor said the same thing,” Twilight mumbled as she resumed licking and chewing.

“You might consider adding a little extra butter or egg to your diet.  Your body needs oil to keep that membrane lubricated.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I learned it from the original pegasus ponies.  Mostly from . . .”

Megan paused, bit her lower lip, trembled, and then silently walked around to Twilight’s right side to repeat the treatment.

After that, keeping her wrist supple and her hand loose, she pounded on Twilight’s neck for a while.

“You know,” said Twilight, “whenever I went to the spa with my friends, I always skipped the massage.”

“Why?”

“It made me uncomfortable.”

Megan paused.  A lump formed in her throat, but she swallowed it down and managed a thin smile.  “That reminds me of . . . no, never mind.  Just to warn you, this is going to hurt.”

“What?”

Megan wedged the fingertips of her right hand between Twilight’s neck and right shoulder, pressing until her hand was half-buried in the flesh.  Twilight squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth, but after a few seconds, she relaxed and her head lowered.  Megan could feel the tight spots loosen up, so she pulled her hand out.  Then she moved a little lower and shoved her hand in again.  After that, she did the same thing on the other side.

When that was finished, Megan stood at Twilight’s left shoulder, bent down, and put her hands against Twilight’s sternum, just behind her forelegs.  She pressed upward and slid her hands back, forcing Twilight to lift her withers and stretch the muscles around her spine.  Twilight licked her lips.

Megan released the pressure, letting Twilight relax for a moment, and then pressed again.  “So, are all of you alicorns princesses?”

Twilight started, as if waking from a nap.  “Hm?  Oh.  Well, becoming an alicorn makes a pony a princess.  It shows that she’s learned what she needs to know to rule.  At least that’s what Princess Celestia says.  I’m not too sure about running a kingdom myself—”

“What kingdom do you run?”

“None, yet.  Maybe I’ll be a princess for a long time before I get a kingdom.  Who knows?”  Megan felt Twilight’s shoulders slump.  “I think I can get used to the pegasus wings and the earth pony heart, but I’m not too sure about the kingdom thing.  Even after Princess Cadance helped me with a new spell that was supposed to prepare me for it, and even with all the help from my friends, I’m still not sure.”

Megan dropped to her knees, gently lifted Twilight’s left wing, and, holding one hand cupped in the other, used her knuckles to make a slow cross-fiber massage up Twilight’s ribs, rubbing against the grain of the muscles.  “Are your friends going to be your advisors or what?”

Twilight sighed.  “I really don’t know.  They advise me a lot already, and the mayor of Ponyville has let me try out some new laws on the town—as experiments, you might say—but most haven’t turned out right.  Pinkie invented several new holidays, and some of those were fun, but she invented too many, so the ponies could never go to work.  Fluttershy wanted a special nature reserve just for baby animals, but it turned out that taking all the baby animals away from their mothers was a bad idea—”

“I could’ve told you that.”

“It does sound a little silly in retrospect.  We changed it into more of a regular nature reserve, and that’s worked out great.  Applejack suggested I make a law that ponies have to have dinner with their families every night—”

“And you did?”  Megan rose to her feet and backed away.

Twilight turned her head and frowned at her.  “Well, I tried it—”

“You’re a dictator!”

“What?”

“You can’t make a law like that!”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s . . .”  Megan raised her hands and looked around the yard as she tried to latch onto the right word.  “I don’t know.  You just can’t.”

“It didn’t work out very well.”

“Not everybody gets along with her family,” Megan muttered.  “Sometimes—”

“The idea was to build stronger, happier families,” said Twilight.  “But it was too hard on ponies away from home and on kids having sleepovers, and it wasn’t enforceable anyway.”

“So you dropped it.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”  Still seething, Megan moved to Twilight’s other side and continued massaging her ribs.

“So far,” said Twilight, her voice sounding cautious, “I think my new kingdom will have an official Cake Day and a home for animals . . . and I will encourage rather than require ponies to have dinner with their families.  Other than that, I’ve got nothing.”

“I guess it’s a start,” replied Megan through grit teeth.  She stood, stepped back, and cracked her knuckles.  “You ready for this?”

“Ready for what?”

“I’m going to work directly on your wings.”

Twilight swallowed.








Megan had slept overnight in Ponyland again.  She knew her mother worried sick and assumed the worst whenever she didn’t come home at night, but Megan still preferred to sleep in Paradise Estate whenever she could:  it meant she could tuck in the baby ponies and tell them a bedtime story, and it meant she could sleep in a large, luxurious, cloud-soft bed beneath a blue silk canopy embroidered with stars.  It meant she would sleep dreamlessly all night long and awake refreshed.

A glint of sun appeared above the mountains rimming Dream Valley and shot a single ray between the shutters of Megan’s window, bathing her face in gold.  She stretched, yawned, and rolled over to get the light out of her eyes.

Megan had often awakened in the morning to find that one of the ponies had climbed into bed with her sometime during the night, so she was unsurprised when she rolled into a warm wall of soft fur.  She merely reached an arm around the pony’s neck and pressed her face against the pony’s mane.  But when she at last sleepily opened her eyes, she saw that the hairs against her face were pink and that the fur under her arm was blue.  Frowning, she drew back.

“Wind Whistler?”

“Good morning, Megan.  I trust that your period of physical recumbence and reparative sub-normal mental operation was sufficiently rejuvenating.”

“I slept well, yes.”

“Excellent.  Rest exists to enable us to resume vigorous activity, so mental rest is at the service of mental activity.  Therefore, sleep is the balm of philosophers.”

“I’m not a philosopher.”  Megan considered putting her arm back around Wind Whistler’s neck, but, remembering that Wind Whistler did not enjoy physical affection, thought better of it.  “What are you doing in my bed?”

“I had reason to believe that you would not consider my presence an intrusion.”

“I don’t, but I didn’t expect to find you here.”

“Ah.”  Shimmying her shoulders, Wind Whistler rolled onto her belly, raised her head, and stretched her wings, letting the covers slide back to her haunches.  “To my chagrin, I admit that I find myself in a state of uncharacteristic inner tumult.”

“Why?”  Megan gathered more blankets to herself and tucked them up under her chin.  

“I have been contemplating certain things, and I have come to unexpected conclusions that, since I am able to find no fault in the logic that brought me to them, I must accept.”

“Hm?”

With a snort, Wind Whistler added, her voice now tinged with a faint hint of disgust, “And I am in season, so my emotions are more unruly than usual.  That distresses me, and, though I have carefully examined both my axioms and my deductions, I nonetheless fear that emotional volatility might be affecting my mental exercises.”

Megan chuckled.

Wind Whistler lowered her head and sighed.  “Theory is useless unless it manifests in praxis, so, having insisted that each of the other little ponies join with one of the big brothers, I decided that I had to set an example.  I spent yesterevening with 4-Speed.”

“How was that?”

Wind Whistler glanced sidelong at Megan.  “If you are asking for a detailed description of private events in order vicariously—”

“I’m not,” Megan answered, her tone now sharp.  “I just want to know that you’re happy.  And I work with horses every day, so there’s nothing you could describe for me that I haven’t seen already.  Would you like a detailed description of the time I slipped with an AV?”

Wind Whistler laughed mirthlessly.  “I see.  Well, 4-Speed and I went out to the meadow and galloped together.  I attempted to engage him in serious discussion, since I am more interested in the meeting of minds than the meeting of bodies, but he was not particularly amenable to conversation on abstract matters, and I certainly didn’t want to listen to him pontificate about monster trucks.  It took a good deal of willpower to force myself to submit to his caresses, which I mostly found obnoxious.  Overall, however, the experience was not entirely unpleasant.  Most distressing at the time was the momentary loss of my intellective faculty.”

Wind Whistler shoved her muzzle under a pillow, and her next words were muffled.  “Megan, I have never before had a foal.  You are aware that the baby ponies came to us when some of the others, unwilling to recognize proper boundaries, snuck into Queen Majesty’s chamber one evening during a ball.  Each pony who looked into Majesty’s mirror received a baby version of herself, but I was not one of those ponies, since I respected Majesty’s private space.  I . . . I willingly admit that I might not possess those intangible qualities generally considered maternal.  Although our inexplicably low fertility rate might make this possibility remote, there is nonetheless some chance I am with foal, and—”

Megan reached over and laid a hand on Wind Whistler’s back.  Wind Whistler fell silent for half a minute.

“Don’t, please,” Wind Whistler finally said.  “4-Speed’s hoof was in that spot—”

Megan pulled her hand away.  “Wind Whistler, a lady in my hometown used to say she was scared to death to have a baby—until she had one.  She loved her baby like nothing else in the world, and she turned out to be a fine mother.”

Wind Whistler snorted again, and the pillow over her face fluttered.  “I have in the past been displeased with the way most of the ponies have conducted themselves with their babies.  I believed that, though they did not conceive them in the ordinary fashion, since they brought them into this world, they ought to assume responsibility for them.  I said this was only logical.  Some, such as Ribbon, have adequately fulfilled their duty in this regard.  Others, such as Surprise, have almost wholly neglected it, leaving the rearing of their foals up to Truly and Paradise.”

“So you want to make sure you act like a good mother, then.”

“I do want that, Megan, but not for the reason you suppose.  I have reflected on why I consider some of the ponies neglectful mothers.  In so doing, I have reconsidered my axioms.  What is ‘neglectful’?  What is not?  Why do I consider ‘neglect’ to be a bad thing?  I assumed that logic supported my assumptions, yet I have found, to my distress, that I cannot make logical arguments for them.”

Megan pulled the covers down from her chin and sat up.  “Wind Whistler, you know what a good mother is.  Maybe, instead of all this, you should just try your best to—”

“Ah, but that is just it, Megan,” Wind Whistler answered, lifting her head out of the pillows.  “Why should I do anything at all?  Other ponies claim they know right and wrong because they feel it.  I have always claimed that doing the right and avoiding the wrong are duties, and that feelings need not be considered.  Now, suddenly, I find that I cannot discern the source of such duties.  I never tried to do so before.  It never occurred to me.”

“If you know what right and wrong are, what does it matter—?”

“Do I, in fact, know?  I may say, ‘Maternal instincts cause me to desire to protect my foals from harm.’  It does not follow that I have a duty to protect my foals unless we admit the additional axiom that I have a duty to obey maternal instincts, but I cannot discern anything that places such a duty upon me.  I have previously assumed that survival and reproduction were good in themselves, but I see now that this is an assumption for which I have no support.  What places on me a duty to help the pony race survive?  Why, in fact, is it better to have foals than to be barren?  Why not simply let the ponies die out?”

“The good of Ponyland,” Megan said.  “You think the ponies can civilize Ponyland, remember?”

“But why is that good?  Why civilize anything?  What makes one goal superior to another?  Why is the ponies’ desire for peace superior to the witches’ desire for bedlam?  All my arguments for the existence of duties are circular, for I cannot make them without referring to other duties.  I may arrive at one ultimate duty from which the others derive—a duty to propagate, perhaps, and to produce, so far as is possible, conditions amenable to propagation.  I had previously arrived at the conclusion that such conditions were all anyone meant by ‘good.’  But I still cannot justify my assumption that the creation of such conditions is a duty.  Indeed, it occurs to me that such justification is impossible, since, logically, a prescriptive statement cannot be a conclusion unless another prescriptive statement, express or implied, is in one of the premises.”

Megan leaned toward Wind Whistler and tapped her own chest.  “Don’t you feel, in here—?”

Wind Whistler stopped her with another snort and a wave of her hoof.  “Please, Megan.  Even if I feel like doing good and avoiding evil, what places on me a duty to obey that feeling?  You see my dilemma, I hope.”

Megan paused a moment and considered, but then at last leaned back against the pillows and placed her hands on Wind Whistler’s cheeks.  “You’ve been through a lot in the last few hours, so maybe—”

Wind Whistler sighed and sank her head onto Megan’s shoulder.  “Oh, Megan.  You are the only one who understands me now that Majesty is gone.  She created me to reason, to ponder.  She listened patiently to what I said, and she answered my questions or joined me in my intellectual quests.  The rest of the ponies merely look at me with blank stares.”

“I understand the words you use, Wind Whistler, but I can’t really follow your train of thought.”

A small, thin grin appeared on Wind Whistler’s muzzle.  “I know, but that is good enough.  You are only a child, after all.  Do you know why I do not appreciate being touched?”

“No, but I’ve wondered.”

“Because I am always contemplating.  The highest pleasure must come from the exercise of the highest faculty, which is the intellect, so, since I am always exercising my intellect, I am necessarily the happiest of ponies.  But, during the pleasant exercise of any faculty, pleasure from another source has the same effect as pain from the exercise itself.  That is to say, being petted—or nuzzled or what-have-you—is distracting to me.”

“Then why are you in my bed?”

Wind Whistler nestled closer.  She opened a wing and draped it across Megan.  “Because I now find myself with an uncharacteristic desire to be distracted.”








Megan took Twilight’s left wing and unfolded it completely.  Placing her buttocks against Twilight’s shoulder, she braced herself and pulled, all the while trying to kill the memory of Wind Whistler’s wings and the way they had felt under her hands.  Like Twilight, Wind Whistler had been uncomfortable having her muscles rubbed out, and so, like Twilight, her shoulders, chest, and wings had been too tight.  Megan hadn’t been quite as experienced in equine massage back then, but, on the one occasion when Wind Whistler had allowed it, she had done her best.

Twilight squeezed her eyes shut.  Megan kept pulling until Twilight released a long, low gasp.  Then Megan kneaded out the wing’s biceps and triceps, working steadily inward until she was massaging the thick pectoralis, at last reaching the point where it disappeared under the latissimus dorsi behind Twilight’s left foreleg.

When Megan at last let go, the wing fell limply to the ground.  Twilight stood with her head lowered sleepily and her ears tilted out.  Megan moved around and repeated the same procedure on the other wing.  Twilight raised her head and clenched her teeth when Megan pulled, but quickly lowered her head again and resumed her relaxed look.

Megan again kneaded the triceps and biceps.  At last, she stepped back and said, “Wake up.”

Twilight’s ears snapped forward and she raised her head.

“Fold your wings now.”

Twilight folded her wings.  Frowning, she snapped them open.  Then she folded them again.  “They don’t hurt!”

Megan crossed her arms and nodded.  “Good.  But the pain’ll be back if you don’t take good care of them, and you should get a good massage on a regular basis.”  

Megan walked back to her table of supplies as an excuse to look away from Twilight.  Annoyance bubbled up in her gut:  the memories of Wind Whistler wouldn’t leave.  She shook her head again, futilely, to clear her unwanted thoughts.  Taking up her curry brush, she said, “Grooming and massage are closely related.  I’ll give you the more vigorous treatment, and that should also help you loosen up.”

When she turned back around, she found Twilight twisting her mouth and shifting on her hooves.  Her irritation turned to vague unease, but Megan nonetheless walked to Twilight and continued currying where she’d left off, working on the pony’s shoulders and sides, which no longer twitched at her touch.

After a quiet minute of looking pensive, Twilight snapped her head up and blurted, “Look, I need to—well, thank you, first.  That really helped—”

“You’re welcome.”

“I . . . yes.  But I just want to say I’m really sorry I’ve not been more understanding.  And you’re right, I was avoiding you.  You’ve just seemed so angry today.  It was kinda disturbing.  But while you were working on my chest, you said something about your brother, and that reminded me of the time I . . . well, I remembered what you’re going through, and now it all makes sense.  I should have realized it before.”

Megan scowled.  “Realized what?”

“That I’ve been through the exact same thing.  In fact, I think maybe I went through it just so I could be prepared to meet you.  I’d wondered why it happened and what I was supposed to learn, but when the Rainbow Bridge opened, I realized—”

Megan paused with the brush on Twilight’s left shoulder.  “What did you go through?”

Twilight turned her head to look at her.  “High school, of course.  I know how it is to go through high school!  The way everypony—I mean everybody—sits in different groups at lunch, and all the pressure, and just, well, everything!  It’s really hard and really stressful.  So I want you to know that if you need to talk about any problems you’re having, about friendships or homework or, um, boyfriends—”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

A flush of pink appeared in Twilight’s cheeks, and she looked away.  “Oh, I’m sorry.  It was about half a year ago, just shortly after I became a princess.  An old student of Princess Celestia’s, Sunset Shimmer, stole my crown and took it through a magic mirror.  I followed her, and on the other side was another world.  I transformed into something . . . well, something that looks a lot like you, but not quite.  And I went to high school.”

Megan put the curry brush down and took up the body brush.  “Really?”

“Yes.”  Twilight kept her eyes to the ground.

“Where was this mirror?”

“In the Crystal Empire—but it used to be in Canterlot.”

Megan held a hand out over her head.  “Was it about this high?  Did it look sort of like a bedroom mirror, but rimmed with jewels?”

“Yes—”

“I might know that mirror.”

“It’s supposed to be ancient.”

“It would be, if it’s the one I’m thinking of.”








As the sun set, Megan, breathing hard from the climb, marched into the topmost tower of Dream Castle.  The grundle king, a trollish creature with crumpled brown skin and an obsequious demeanor, bowed deeply to her and gestured to a knot of ponies clustered around a high, oval mirror, which stood against the far wall.

“Welcome,” said the grundle king.

“Thank you,” said Megan.

Megan looked around.  This, apparently, had at one time been the inner sanctum of Queen Majesty.  Megan was surprised at how sparse it was; aside from a desk topped with a moldering stack of papers, it was nearly bare.  Thick, interlacing wooden beams supported the ceiling.  No tapestries hung on the walls, and only a small throw rug lay in the middle of the stone floor.  Against one wall, the bed was a barren mattress, which Megan could see, from the chaff coming from its seams, was stuffed with straw.  The mirror was the room’s sole opulent item.  Considering how lavishly the ponies were used to living, Megan was shocked to find that Majesty herself had been an ascetic.

She took a moment to mull over why this disturbed her:  it changed her impression of the dead queen, giving her the idea that Majesty had lived entirely for the ponies’ sake, reserving little or nothing for herself.  That plucked from her heart a faint note of guilt.

This was the farthest Megan had ever penetrated into the ponies’ former home:  on her first two trips to Ponyland, when she had fought first Tirek the centaur and then Catrina the cat-witch, the ponies had lived here in this towering fortress, but Megan had entered only the wardroom and the grand hall near the front entrance.  After the witches of the Volcano of Gloom had drowned almost all of Dream Valley under a slimy monstrosity called the Smooze, the Moochick had brought down Paradise Estate out of the sky to be the ponies’ new home, so Megan had never had much chance to explore here.

With the grundle king, an idiot grin on his face, repeatedly bowing as he walked alongside her, Megan strode to the ponies.  Most of the unicorns were here, along with the princess ponies, Slugger, and Wind Whistler.  “What is it?” Megan asked them.  “What happened?”

Wind Whistler looked up and gestured toward the brilliantly white Princess Tiffany.

Megan held Wind Whistler’s gaze for a silent moment, but, shrugging, turned to Tiffany and said, “Your Majesty—”

Tiffany cut her off with a wave of her hoof.  “You promote me, Megan.  My reign has ended.”  She cocked her head toward Princess Sparkle.  “Today, Sparkle is queen of the Royal Paradise.”

Sparkle was a unicorn with a lavender coat so faint as to appear almost white, but her hair was a vibrant, shimmering seafoam green.  She wore her damsel hat far back on her head to make room for her horn.  A faint pink appeared in her cheeks as she bowed toward Megan and whispered in a soft, shy voice, “Since I am the only unicorn amongst the princess ponies, the magic of unicorns is this day in the ascendant.”

“As you are aware, Megan,” said Wind Whistler brusquely, “the unicorn ponies have been studying Queen Majesty’s mirror in the hopes of controlling it.  You suggested to me that the princess ponies should examine it as well.”

“I remember you saying you wanted to make more babies out of it.”  Megan glanced at Buttons, who stood close to Slugger.  “Buttons?  Where are the newborn twins?”

“The first-tooth baby ponies are babysitting them,” Buttons answered. 

“Is that a good idea?”

“They’ll be fine,” said Buttons, a smile settling on her face.  “I’ll check on them as soon as we’re done here.”

“Since a few of us are having natural foals now,” said Wind Whistler, “our objective has changed somewhat, or, rather, it has expanded.  I hope to control the mirror entirely, not merely use it for the limited purpose of artificial propagation.”

“Controlling things entirely seems to be a preoccupation of Wind Whistler’s lately,” said Buttons, her smile growing wry.

Wind Whistler glared at Buttons and snorted.  “You should be glad for that, considering that Dream Valley will now have perfect weather forever on account of the pegasus ponies.”

Tiffany turned away and whispered, so quietly that Megan could barely catch it, “Don’t be so sure of that—”

Wind Whistler snorted again and stomped a hoof.  “If we may all be serious for a moment, please, we have had a breakthrough.  Each of the unicorns attempted her specialty magic on the mirror to see if it had any effect:  Buttons attempted telekinesis, Ribbon telepathy, Gusty wind-magic, and so forth.  The mirror had been unresponsive until today.”

Megan raised her eyebrows.

Sparkle, looking embarrassed, walked to the mirror, leaned her head toward it, and tapped its surface with her horn.  The mirror rippled like water.  With a faint blush, Sparkle lowered her head and added, “I thought it best to test the mirror with my wand.  When I did, it rippled like that.  You probably know, Megan, that all magic in Ponyland comes from the Heart, and that the Heart powers the princesses’ wands—”

“Yes,” said Megan.  “I know.”

Tiffany interrupted.  “But our wands are not all the same.  There are different orders of magic, and those orders become stronger or weaker depending on which princess is queen of the Royal Paradise.  I could give weather control to the pegasus ponies only when I was queen, and Sparkle could only get a response from Majesty’s mirror, probably, because she is queen.”

Sparkle’s blush grew warmer.  “Majesty was a unicorn,” Sparkle whispered.  “She created the little ponies, so her magic is of a different order from theirs.  However, I, like Majesty, am descended from the ancient line of unicorns who once lived in Argyte.”

“Majesty didn’t create all of the ponies?” Megan asked.

“Of course not, Megan,” Wind Whistler interjected.  “Only the little ponies and the big brothers.  She did not create the flutter ponies, the princesses, or the deserters.”

“You mean the twinkle-eyed ponies,” Megan snapped.

“I meant what I said.”

“I do wish,” said Buttons quickly, “that Mimic were still here.  Her golden horseshoes gave her several powers, and she was descended from a unicorn of Argyte.”

“She deserted with the rest of the twinkle-eyes,” said Wind Whistler, “so there is no point in wishing.”

A faint chuckle sounded somewhere among the rafters, accompanied by a voice that faded in and out as if drifting on wind.  “No point in wishing?  Oh, Wind Whistler, you never change, do you?”

Wind Whistler scowled.

Megan clenched her fists, bent her knees, and went up on the balls of her feet as she scanned the ceiling overhead.  “Who’s there?” she demanded.

The chuckle came again.  “Megan?  Don’t you recognize me?”

“I can’t see you,” Megan answered.

“Few ponies do.”

Megan looked down and sucked in her breath as violet mist crept in through cracks in the walls and crawled across the floor.  Whinnying, the ponies clustered close together.

“There she goes again,” said Gusty.

Ribbon closed her eyes and sighed deeply.  “She has grown more eccentric and more reclusive since she helped you defeat Tirek, Megan.  We’ve hardly seen her since then.”

Megan lowered her fists.  “She helped me . . . you mean—?”

The voice from the ceiling, now angry, boomed, “Where is Ember?  Where is she?  Bring her to me!”

“Ember?” Megan whispered.

Buttons nudged Slugger and hissed, “Order somebody to get Ember, Your Highness.”

Slugger started.  “Huh?  Me?  Oh, right.  Um”—he swung his head around to look at the other ponies and finally said to Gusty—“Gusty, go get Ember.”

Gusty rolled her eyes.  “Be right back, Your Highness.”  She blasted the double doors open with a gust of wind and galloped out, letting the air suck the doors closed behind her.

Wind Whistler stepped away from the others and bent her head to examine the mist.  “Ember did not come from the mirror like the other baby ponies,” she said.  “Majesty created her directly, much as she conjured Baby Lucky.”  Wind Whistler rolled her eyes up to the ceiling.  “And she used to treat Ember as a daughter, at least before she began hiding herself—”

The voice spoke again, and, as it spoke, it came nearer.  It flitted amongst the gathered ponies; one moment, it spoke from Megan’s shoulder and whispered in her ear, and the next moment, it spoke from behind Princess Tiffany’s back.  All the while, the mist in the room grew steadily thicker.  “I have wandered the dark spaces between the stars,” said the voice.  “I have delved into the deep places of the earth.  I have flown higher even than Lofty, and I have traveled farther even than North Star.  I have sought out mysteries no pony could divine, not by the subtle arts of the princesses nor by the cold logic of Wind Whistler, for Majesty was the most powerful pony who ever lived, and she created me to be her equal.”

“That is illogical,” said Wind Whistler with a harrumph and another stamp of her hoof.  “A cause must be greater than its effect.  No matter how powerful Majesty might have been, making you her equal was not within that power.”

The voice laughed wildly with a sound like that of a sudden gale on a summer evening.  “Perhaps not, my little philosopher, but she treated me as her equal, and I alone of all the little ponies never bowed to her.”

The door flew open in a fresh gust, and Gusty ran into the room with Ember at her side.  Without any sign of fear, Ember, a spindly earth filly, galloped straight through the mist and left behind a swirling wake.  “Mama!” she cried.

The disembodied voice grew tender.  “Oh, Ember, my darling.  How I have longed to see you these last two years.  My attachment to you has tied me to this world:  it has both kept me sane in my searchings and prevented me from penetrating as deeply into the mysteries as I might have.”

“Mama!  Where are you?”

“I am right here, darling.  I am by your side, where I have always been.”

“Will I be just like you someday?”

“No, sweetheart.  I would never curse you with that.  Now make a wish.”

Ember squeezed her eyes shut and danced back and forth on her hooves.  “I wish . . . I wish . . . I wish to be with you always, forever and ever!”

For a moment, the room was silent, but then the voice released a long, deep sigh.  “Your wish will be granted, yet it is wasted:  someday, we will be together in death, but that is a long, long time yet, and I am already weary.”

“Enough games,” said Wind Whistler.  “Enough of your cryptic, occultic balderdash.  Show yourself!”

The voice answered, “As you wish.”

The surface of the mirror rippled again, and a white glow appeared in it.  Megan covered her eyes as a hard beam of light burst from the mirror’s surface and cut through the room.  Some shape, silhouetted against that brightness, stepped out of the light, and then the light disappeared in an instant, as if it had shone from a door that had suddenly snapped closed.

Standing in front of the mirror was a pale pink unicorn pony with a wild, curly white mane shot through with a streak of purple.  She held her head high, and on her muzzle sat an expression of great dignity and great wisdom.  The lines in her face made her appear older than most of the little ponies, but her eyes sparkled with youth and mirth.

“Twilight!” Megan cried.

“I am,” Twilight answered.

Megan ran to her, but Twilight shied away.  “Do not cling to me, Megan,” she said, “for I have not yet ascended to my place.”  

Megan paused, her arms outstretched.  Twilight stepped around her as if she weren’t there and swept her eyes across the gathered ponies.  She walked toward Wind Whistler and stared into her face for a moment before she turned to Ribbon and said, “Ribbon, you have the magic of telepathy.  Have you ever read Wind Whistler’s thoughts?”

“No,” Ribbon answered.  “The other ponies’ thoughts flit through my mind all day as a constant hum, but Wind Whistler’s mind is like a wall, and I can peer neither over nor around it.”

“Blocking telepathy is merely a matter of mental discipline,” Wind Whistler replied.  “My thoughts are my own; I share them when, and only when, I wish.”

Twilight closed her eyes and, with lips parted, tipped her head back as if she were drinking something savory from the air.  “Wish . . . yes, wish.  I cannot read your thoughts either.  Nor could Mimic, though her telepathy was stronger than either mine or Ribbon’s.”  She opened her eyes and her look became solemn.  “I cannot read your thoughts, but I can sense them.  I catch glimpses, snatches of almost-meaning—”

“I must ask you to mind your own business,” said Wind Whistler.  “I am commander of Dream Valley’s military forces.  Therefore, my mind contains sensitive information:  I share it with the unicorns or earth ponies only on a need-to-know basis, and if I do need to share anything with the unicorns”—she inclined her head toward Slugger—“I will go to the unicorn king, not to a maverick of uncertain rank and disposition.  Your attempts to read my mind are tantamount to spying, and spying on your own is treason, and treason, in most civilized societies, is a capital crime.”

With a light chuckle, Twilight turned from her.  “I wish,” she said, and she disappeared as fast as a wink.

In an instant, she appeared beside Wind Whistler and leaned on her shoulder.  She whispered in her ear, “I know something you might want to know, Wind Whistler, but I don’t know if you need to know.  Should I share it?”

“You came out of the mirror,” said Megan.  “Is it some kind of doorway?”

Twilight smiled, walked to Ember, and gently nuzzled her cheek.  “Oh, yes.  A portal.  At one time, it was a portal to many different worlds.  The ponies accidentally opened it once and received the baby ponies.  Majesty often visited other worlds through this mirror, and sometimes she did not return for days.”  Twilight’s smile fell, and her eyes became distant and dreamy.  She lifted her head from Ember’s cheek and asked, “Did you know it has been two and a half years since Majesty died?  Two and a half years, and the portal has just now become active again . . .”

“When did you go through it?” Megan asked.

“I?  Two days ago.  That’s when it first opened, though the princess ponies did not detect it until today.  I had been watching it.”

“What’s on the other side?”

Twilight looked away from Megan, her mouth tight in a secretive grin.  “I think Majesty would not like—”

“Majesty is dead,” said Wind Whistler with a snort of obvious impatience.  “Stop playing games, stop pretending to be mysterious, and tell us what you know.  To what purpose can we put this mirror?”

“Purpose?” said Twilight with a start.  “Why, you can go in and out of it, at least as long as it is open.  I think it may not be open long—a few days, perhaps.  Maybe in another two and a half years, it will open again—”

Wind Whistler glanced at the mirror.  “You think it’s stuck on a cycle?”

“Probably,” said Twilight.  “I think it has reopened to the same world Majesty went to last.  She must have been there shortly before her death.”

“What world is that?” asked Wind Whistler.

Twilight turned from Wind Whistler and lifted her muzzle into the air.  “A world that can profit you nothing.  It is a pocket.”

Wind Whistler frowned.  Buttons and Ribbon whispered to each other.

“What’s a pocket?” asked Megan.

“A world Majesty must have created from scratch,” said Twilight.  “It is quite small.  She took material from this world to make it, clearly, as it has some vague resemblance to Ponyland.  Left alone, it might even develop on a path similar to that of our—”

“Are there people there?” asked Megan.

“Oh, yes.  I do not think Majesty could have ever been satisfied with an unpopulated world.  She loved life, Megan.”

“What sort of people?” asked Wind Whistler.  “Ponies?”

Twilight’s grin became tight and secretive again.  “Almost.  At any rate, it is a world, I think, that is best left alone.”

“If it has resources we can use,” said Wind Whistler, “we should consider occupying it.  What can you say about its military capabilities?”

Twilight laughed.

Megan stepped to Wind Whistler’s side, knelt, and put her hands on the pony’s shoulders.  “Wind Whistler, you can’t just invade someplace without a good reason.”

“Can’t I?” said Wind Whistler.  She pulled away from Megan and walked toward the mirror.  She touched it with one hoof, making it ripple.  “Our goal, Megan, is empire.  Do you think our empire will stretch no farther than the borders of this valley?  A poor empire, that!”  She spun around and faced the others.  “No, it shall stretch all the way from the Sparkling Sea to whatever is in the far reaches of the east, a vast empire of love and tolerance.  It shall be a land without witches, without monsters, without forests of pony-eating trees, where pegasus ponies keep even the weather on a tight schedule to ensure that all things, every day, proceed as arranged.  It shall be a perfect world, a logical and orderly world that runs like clockwork.”  A broad grin appeared on her face, a grin wilder than any Megan had ever before seen Wind Whistler wear.

The unicorns frowned.  With furrowed brows, the princess ponies lowered their heads and whispered amongst themselves.

“This morning,” said Megan, “you told me you were doubting all that—”

“I was,” said Wind Whistler, “but that was yet another step in the process of my cogitations.  I reached the conclusion that there was no logical connection between moral imperatives and the observable world.  Ergo, moral imperatives do not exist.  That did indeed cause me to question my purpose at first, but now I find that it confirms me in my purpose:  if there is nothing I must do, there remains only what I want to do.  And what I want is to build my empire.  Good is not survival, Megan!  No!  I was wrong, dreadfully wrong, when I reached that conclusion.  Good is fulfilling personal desires, whatever they may be.  No other good can be imagined or described.  When we speak of good and evil, we are really speaking only of what pleases us personally, or of what displeases us.  All arguments on the subject are really nothing but post hoc rationalizations.  Therefore, whatever pleases me is what is good for me.  And what pleases me is building a world of order and peace.  I will build it because I choose to, and it is right because I want it.  What I must do to fulfill my wants is acquire the power to build my world, so I want to know:  will this place on the other side of this mirror give me that power, or at least a part of it?”

“I take back what I said earlier, Wind Whistler,” said Twilight drily.  “You’ve changed a great deal.”

“Once I was blind,” said Wind Whistler as she stepped away from the mirror, “but now I see.”

“When were you blind?” asked Twilight.  She pressed toward Wind Whistler until their muzzles were almost touching.  “When you rode in Fizzy’s mind, perhaps, and dug for jewels in the caves?  Then tell me, for you must know—how would the former slaves of the Jewel Wizard like to toil in this future clockwork kingdom of yours?  Does such a world as you imagine appeal to them?  Ah, but they have already answered that question, haven’t they?”

“You are a powerful unicorn,” said Wind Whistler.  “Far more powerful than Galaxy.  Perhaps, if you had been princess of the unicorns instead of she, the twinkle-eyes—”

Twilight shook her head.  “There is more to leadership than power, Wind Whistler.  You lived with Majesty as long as I did, but you alone, out of all of us, never learned from her.  You were too proud of your intellect, and now look where pride has gotten you.”

Wind Whistler’s eyes narrowed.  She pawed the floor with a hoof.

Twilight sucked in her breath as she looked past Wind Whistler’s shoulder.  “What, already?  Well, then, that answers that.”  She went to the desk, snatched up a pen in her pastern, and hurled it at the mirror.  It bounced off the glass and clattered to the floor.

“There,” said Twilight.  “The portal is, apparently, open for three days at a time.  Assuming my guess is correct, the mirror will remain inert for another two and a half years.”

“Enough time to prepare,” said Wind Whistler.  “You will be debriefed on your reconnaissance, of course.”

“I will be nothing of the kind,” said Twilight.  The purple mist that had been creeping along the floor now swept toward her and swirled about her legs.  “My time on this world is nearly ended.”

Megan started.  “What?”  She marched toward Twilight.  “What do you mean by that?”

Twilight gave Megan a fond look, but then turned to Ember and said, “Kiss me, darling.”

Ember craned her neck and touched Twilight’s lips, but drew back with a cry as the mist enveloped Twilight’s head.

“Stop!” Wind Whistler shouted.  “Explain yourself, Twilight!”

Twilight’s grin shone through the mist.  “You wish,” she said.

And then she was gone in the wink of an eye.








Megan continued working with the body brush while Twilight Sparkle talked.

“I’m not sure how to describe it, really,” Twilight said.  “It was almost like a world halfway between yours and ours.  I met humans there who looked and acted just like ponies I knew, and they even had the same names.  It was like Equestria, but not.  I changed into a human myself, and Spike changed into a dog—”

Megan paused.  “Spike?  Who’s Spike?”

With a nervous grin, Twilight looked at Megan.  “He’s my assistant, a baby dragon.  I hatched him from his egg when I was little.  I read a lot of stories about you when I was small, so I hope you don’t mind that I named my dragon after your mount—”

Megan’s eyes narrowed.  “My what?”

“Your mount.  The stories say you rode into battle on the back of a dragon named Spike—”

Megan sighed, rubbed her eyes, and chuckled.  “I did know a dragon named Spike, but he was a baby, too.  I definitely couldn’t ride him.  I usually rode on the ponies, especially on—”

Megan’s face fell.  She cleared her throat and continued brushing.

Twilight didn’t appear to notice.  She said, “When the Rainbow Bridge opened and we first started learning about your world, I began to think maybe my time at Canterlot High was a test, something to get me used to being in a world like yours, something to help me understand you.”

Megan finished brushing in silence.  Twilight turned her head to watch her.

“You don’t really seem surprised,” said Twilight.

Megan threw the body brush back on the table and picked up the finishing brush, which she stroked across Twilight’s left side.  “I’ve seen weirder things than that, Princess.  Hell, there were always portals opening to other worlds while I was in Ponyland.  There was the Rainbow Bridge, of course, and there was the door to the Land of Legends.  There was the Realm of Darkness.  Once, some of the ponies got sucked into someplace called Ice Cream Land, which was really weird.  Ponyland is like the Swiss cheese of universes:  it has holes everywhere.”

Twilight, eyes still on the ground, shuffled her hooves for a moment.  “So . . . is it high school that has you bothered?”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not.  I just said I know what it’s like.  If you need to talk about anything like, you know, b-boyfriends—”

“What’s with you and boyfriends all of a sudden?”

“Nothing!  Nothing at all!”

Megan had pulled open Twilight’s left wing so she could brush her flank, but now she leaned over the wing to look at Twilight’s face and could see bright crimson showing through the fur.

“Who is he?” Megan asked.

The red in Twilight’s face deepened, and she dipped her head almost to the ground.

Megan shrugged and continued brushing.  The skin under her hands twitched again.

“It’s like this,” Twilight said in a quiet, meek voice.  “There’s a new pony in the Royal Guard who’s really nice.  And while I was human and going to Canterlot High, I, well, I met a boy just like him—I mean, it was him, I think, except a human version in the human world—and he asked me to dance—”

Megan let go of the wing, stepped back, and shook her head.  “Damn, what is it with ponies and human guys, anyway?”

Twilight raised her head, turned, and scowled at her.  “Huh?”

“Heart Throb chased after men, Surprise and Danny were always making goo-goo eyes at each other, and now there’s you.”

“What?  Megan, when I danced with Flash, I was human, too.”

“Sure, whatever.  Hold still.”  Megan grabbed Twilight’s chin and brushed her cheeks.  “Flash, huh?  Sounds like a player.  If you really want my advice, stay away from him.”

“I don’t want your advice.  And a player of what?”

“Never mind.”

“I was trying to sympathize with you—”

“No you weren’t.  You were trying to ask my advice about boys, and you know it.  Well, you got my advice:  forget them.  Happy?”

“You don’t even know Flash.”

“I don’t need to.”

Twilight backed out of Megan’s grip.  “You’re supposed to be the Warrior Judge—a judge, which means you have to be fair-minded!  You can’t just say something like that about somepo—sorry, somebody you don’t even know!  It was you who taught the ponies all about friendship, wasn’t it?  How can you just say—?”

Megan bent down and put her hands on her knees so she could meet Twilight’s eyes.  “I already told you I’m not your Magog.”

Twilight paused and swallowed.  “You sometimes sound like me when I was younger.”

“Wonderful.  I have the makings of a pretentious, self-infatuated, boy-crazy pony princess.  Get back over here and let me finish.”

Twilight stomped a hoof.  “I am not pretentious!”

“Sure you’re not, Princess.  You just drag the friends who are supposedly so important to you all over the damn multiverse even if they’d rather be home working the farm or designing dresses.  And then when you pretend to ‘sympathize’ with me, you just wanna talk about your stupid boyfriend—”

“He is not my boyfriend.  If you’d let me explain—”

“I would, except I don’t care.  Everything in the whole damn world is all about Twilight Sparkle, isn’t it?  Are these really your friends, Your Highness, or are they your tools?  Your accessories?  The little trophies you cart around to show what a great friend you are?”

Twilight’s ears lay flat against her head, and her mouth tightened.  Megan knew the look of a horse about to do something violent, but that didn’t stop her:  “So now you want this Flash guy to be your little trophy husband, too, is that it?  A prince to hang on you when you have your meet-and-greets?”

Megan straightened and stood still with her chin raised, expecting to be champed, kicked, or perhaps blasted with magic.  But Twilight only closed her eyes and put a hoof to her breast.  She took a deep breath and then released it slowly while pushing her hoof out into the air.  After a moment, Twilight opened her eyes and said in a mellow voice, “There.  Do I pass your test, Magog?”

“I wasn’t testing you, Twilight.  I was insulting you.”  Megan continued brushing Twilight’s face.








The Moochick lived in a simple cottage in the midst of the damp and foggy Mushromp, a swamp full of giant mushrooms.  The air in the Mushromp was muggy and thick with the sour scent of decay.  Molly didn’t much like it here, but it was a place she and the others could go to talk in private, a place where Megan was unlikely to find her.

She fidgeted now on a worn-out and overstuffed sofa in the Moochick’s small cottage.  Outside, the sun was still above the horizon, but the shutters over the windows were closed, so the room was dark, lit by only a few flickering, dripping candles.  Moldy books stood around the room in precarious stacks and piles.  Filling the cottage was the smell of musty paper, old cheese, and the all-pervasive sour scent of mushrooms.  Habit, a quiet rabbit who worked as the Moochick’s assistant, handed Molly a cup of jasmine tea, but she wasn’t sure if her stomach, in turmoil due to the odor, could take it.  She smiled at Habit anyway and said thank you.

Heart Throb sat beside her on the sofa.  On the loveseat across the room sat Tux n’ Tails, one of the big brother ponies.  In place of the usual kerchief most of the big brothers wore around their necks, Tux n’ Tails wore an immaculate silk bowtie.  Beside him nestled Satin n’ Lace, a mare of his herd, clad in a filmy white dress.  Before these two, Twilight lay on the floor with Ember snuggled against her side.  Spike the baby dragon and his friend Baby Lucky sat in the middle of the floor and entertained themselves by rolling a ball back and forth.  Surprise, her rump in the air and her tail wagging like that of a puppy eager to play, watched them keenly.

Tapping his walking stick against the floorboards, the Moochick himself, a tiny, rotund elf with a broad gray beard that hung almost to the floor, paced back and forth among his books.  “Oh dear oh dear oh dear,” he muttered.  “Oh my my my.  Oh dear.  What shall we do?  Wait, what were we talking about?  Oh, yes, I remember—”

“Thanks for getting me, Heart Throb,” Molly said.  “Megan doesn’t want Danny and me to come to Ponyland right now, but—”

“You’re welcome, darling,” Heart Throb answered with a sigh.  “I know it would make Megan unhappy, and I do feel it’s not quite right to carry you off without her permission, but we need a human besides her to help with things right now.”  She called to Surprise, “You should have come with me, dear.  You could have brought Danny back—”

Surprise fell onto her haunches and, with a set frown, shook her head firmly back and forth.  “I don’t wanna see him.”

“Darling, you two need to make up.”

For a moment, Surprise continued to look resolute, but at last she ducked her head, quivered, and whispered, “I can’t right now, Heart Throb.  I just can’t.”

Heart Throb clucked.  “Hmmph, I wish I had a boy to fight and make up with.  Ah, well.  It’s your choice, Surprise.  When you want, I’ll help you plan the perfect make-up date.”

Molly coughed loudly and shifted uncomfortably in her seat.  “Megan says we’re too young to go on dates—”

Tux n’ Tails cleared his throat, raised his head, and spoke in a deep, dignified voice as he adjusted his bowtie with his hooves.  “Heart Throb, I want you to know that I understand your plight and sympathize with your inclinations.  If you wish—”

“Wish,” whispered Twilight.  With her teeth, she began rubbing Ember’s shoulders.  Ember squeezed her eyes shut and giggled.

Tux n’ Tails cleared his throat again.  “If you wish, Heart Throb, I will tell everyone that you have joined my herd.  That should satisfy Wind Whistler.  But I will not touch you—unless you wish it, of course.”

Twilight lifted her head and rubbed her lips over her teeth to remove the hair from them.  “Wish,” she said again, and then she resumed grooming Ember.

“Thank you, Tux,” said Heart Throb.  “That means a great deal to me.”

Tux turned his head and nudged his muzzle against Satin n’ Lace’s cheek.  She smiled fondly at him and said, “You should know that there are other ponies who share your dream, Heart Throb.”

“I would gladly leave aside the rest of my herd, marry Satin, and have only her forever,” said Tux, “but I’m afraid that would not be fair to the other mares.  Indeed, I fear my secret desire is already unfair:  it’s hard to be true to all when you love one so dearly.”

Molly, tired of sitting, turned upside down on the sofa and kicked her sneakered feet in the air.  “I’ll tell you what’s unfair,” she said.  “Majesty didn’t make enough big brothers.  That’s what’s unfair.”

Tux smiled wanly.

Twilight raised her head and again rubbed the hair out of her teeth.  “Majesty is gone, so now the little ponies must go their own way—or perish.  Whatever Wind Whistler thinks, we are not mere animals.  We cannot be.  It is not only speech that differentiates us from brutes, but our minds.  Perhaps, even more than that, it is our ability to love, for a brute cannot love another for her own sake.  Only one who can love another can find a friend—or find a lover, who is a superlative friend.  It is impossible to be friends with more than a few, for the feelings of friendship are too intense to distribute widely, and it is impossible to have more than one lover, for the feelings of romantic love are too intense to distribute at all.  No matter what Majesty may have intended, and no matter what Wind Whistler wants, we are meant to live in societies and in families—but not in herds.”

“What are you suggesting, Twilight?” Tux asked.

Twilight smiled.  “Obviously, I am suggesting that we rebel against our creator, who is dead.”

“We should marry as humans do,” said Heart Throb.  “That’s what’s right for us.  I feel that it’s right for us.  I’ve always felt it.”

“You can’t help but feel it,” Twilight answered.  “That’s who Majesty made you to be.”

“Why?” Heart Throb cried.  “Why would she make me like this and then—?”

Twilight shook her head.  “I could never fully understand her mind, even though I was her closest friend”—she smiled at Spike, who still played with Lucky—“except perhaps for Spike, of course.”

Spike looked up from his game; he missed the ball when Lucky pushed it toward him, and it rolled across the room and disappeared behind a stack of books. “I don’t remember her,” Spike complained in his raspy voice.  “I don’t remember much of anything before I worked for Tirek.”

Lucky walked to Spike and licked his cheek.  “I hope you’ll remember someday.  Me and you had such fun together.”

“We’ll have new fun,” Spike promised as he rubbed Lucky’s ears, “but I hope you’re right.  I’d like to remember Majesty, and I’d especially like to remember my parents, if I can.”

Twilight sighed.  “Even if you did remember, I doubt we would be any wiser.  Majesty kept her own council.  And she and I . . . well, we were incapable of understanding each other.  Such was our nature.”  She rose to her feet, walked to the window, and threw open the shutters.  A hard shaft of sunlight shone into the room.  “How I long for nightfall.  Tonight, the moon will be full . . . yes, that is as it should be.  All things come together.  That, at least, holds true—”

Satin laughed with a sound like tinkling silver bells.  “You are being cryptic again, Twilight.”

“I cannot help it,” Twilight replied, “any more than Heart Throb can help being lovesick.  Surely you know that none of us is whole.”

Molly tumbled off the couch, jumped to her feet, and clapped her hands to her mouth.  “Do you mean—?”

Twilight chuckled.  “I recognize that reaction, for intuition and insight are of my realm.  Have you finally figured it out, young Molly?”

“You’re all part of her!” Molly cried.

Twilight closed her eyes and dipped her head to the floor.  “From what could Majesty make us, except herself?  Heart Throb is her love, Surprise her playfulness, Applejack her appetite, and Wind Whistler her intellect.  Lucky and Ember are both what you might call an ‘inner child.’  The other ponies are all other aspects of her.  In every female there is something in the psyche that is masculine, and from that Majesty made the big brothers—but they are few in number, for they came from a small part of her.  She did what she could to make up for this, but it was not enough.”

Molly lowered her hands and frowned.  “And what part of her are you?”

Twilight cocked her head and offered Molly a wide smile.  “You haven’t figured that out?  Oh, well.  I am her unconscious.  Thus she could never fully understand me, nor I her, and thus I was very nearly her equal.”

Now Twilight dipped her head again, but this time, she apparently did so in sorrow.  “Wind Whistler is not whole, either.  As a part of Majesty, even with her vast intelligence, she could think nothing that Majesty herself had not already thought.  Majesty disciplined each of us differently, according to our nature:  she did not discipline me at all, for it would have been futile, but Applejack she treated harshly, for appetites are unruly, and Wind Whistler she corrected with sweet reason and gentle suasion, for the intellect responds to logical arguments.  Wind Whistler needed this check, since, brilliant though she is, she is fallible, and she has no intuition:  she does not feel that sense of suspicion that you feel when you have erred.”

Molly joined Twilight at the window and put a hand on her withers.  “So now that Majesty’s gone—”

“Wind Whistler was fine at first, of course,” said Twilight.  “But at some point, perhaps quite recently, she committed an error of thought.  One error breeds others, so, like a snowball rolling down a hill, hers has grown and grown until it has become monstrous, discoloring and warping her entire worldview.  It has driven her mad.”

Molly leaned down and kissed Twilight’s cheek.  She laid her head against Twilight’s neck and said, “That’s it, then!  We just have to figure out her error, and then we can tell her what’s wrong with it!”

Twilight chuckled softly.  “Do you expect me, the unconscious, to employ logic, Molly?  Do you expect Heart Throb, the passion?  Surprise, perhaps?”  Twilight slid from Molly’s grasp and turned away.  “No.  We sense that she is wrong, but we cannot reason with her.  We cannot equal her mind.”

Molly swayed.  She felt numb.  “Maybe Megan—”

“Megan is a child,” Twilight answered, “as are you.  Even the Moochick, wise though he is, cannot sustain an argument.  We cannot use her tools against her, so we must choose different tools:  when reason is futile, it is time for war.”

Twilight turned her back on Molly, stepped to the center of the room, and looked around at the others.  “Here we have gathered the members of our rebellion.  We are those who oppose Wind Whistler’s schemes and look forward to a better world that does not match the outlines of her dreary utopia.  We are those who recognize that we are ponies, not cogs in a machine.”  She shook herself, letting her wild mane flutter free.  “Our numbers are small, but we have advantages here.  With Lucky among us, chance is on our side and we are unlikely to fail.  With me here, hopes are sure to come to pass.”

Her shoulders sagged.  “Ah, but my time is short.  Sometimes, I forget.”

Molly walked to Twilight and considered placing a hand on her again, but some curious, nervous sensation stayed her.  “What do you mean, Twilight?  Are you sick?”

“If only it were so simple.”  Twilight ran again to the window, turned her side toward it, and let the light roll across her body.  “Look at me, Molly, and tell me what you see.”

Molly gasped.  “I can see through you—”

The Moochick stopped his pacing and muttering.  He thumped his walking stick three times on the floor and cried, “That’s what I wanted to remember.  Oh my, yes.  Sick unicorns.  I have something . . . oh, where is it?  Habit!  Habit!”

Habit, an expression of longsuffering affixed to his rabbity face, appeared at the Moochick’s side with a thick tome in his paws.

The Moochick stroked his beard.  “Oh, yes yes yes.  That’s the one I wanted.  Yes, indeed.  Thank you, Habit.  Hm.”  He took the book from the rabbit and waddled to his desk.  Knocking a paperweight, several scrolls, and a stand full of quills to the floor, he opened the book and flipped through it.  “Let’s see, ahem, oh my my.  Pony Legends and History.  Yes, here it is—”

He recited from the book,

Long ago in the land of Argyte,
Four horseshoes were made of mystical starlight.
They were placed on the hooves of this special unicorn,
And each shoe gave her a magical power:

The first showed the future,
The second had the power of blazing light,
The third made another’s thoughts sound clear and loud,
And the fourth let its wearer float like a cloud.

Deep in Dream Valley the wind left her at dawn,
And there she did stay, for her horseshoes were gone.

“That was the unicorn from which both Majesty and Mimic were descended,” said Twilight.  “As the four missing horseshoes moved farther apart, their magical connection became weaker, and thus Mimic sickened and nearly died before Megan, Wind Whistler, Paradise, North Star, and Lofty—”

“And me,” said Spike.

“And Spike,” said Twilight with a laugh, “found the horseshoes and brought them to Mimic.  When Mimic weakened, she faded and became transparent, even as you see I am becoming transparent, but the horseshoes returned her to her full strength.”

“Do you need the horseshoes, then?” Molly asked.  “If you do, maybe we can find Mimic—”

Twilight shook her head.  “This is something darker, I’m afraid, and no art will cure it.  The other ponies will remember the night years ago when I stepped out from Dream Castle and commanded the moon—”

“We celebrate that night every year,” said Satin, “for the stars are brightest then.”

“Yes,” said Twilight with a nod.  “It is the night that, in your world, Molly, you call Hallowe’en.  On that night, ponies make wishes on the bright stars.”

Tux n’ Tails cleared his throat and said, “Twilight, I realize mystery is in your nature, but you truly must get to the point.  Tell us what’s wrong with you so we can find the cure.”

“There is no cure,” said Twilight.

“Be hopeless if you like,” said Tux with an edge in his voice, “but the rest of us will not be.  Tell us what’s wrong.”

Twilight sighed and said, “Very well.  The stars are so bright on Hallowe’en night because on that night, years ago, I stepped outside to wish upon a star, but saw a sky black as pitch.  Nothing shone except a full moon.  Offended by the flat sky, I pointed my horn at Mister Moon and commanded him to make the stars shine.  He agreed—at a price.”

“What price?” Molly asked.  Her heart pounded against her ribs.

“My soul,” said Twilight simply.

Molly sucked in her breath.

Twilight tossed her head, laughed, and pranced around the room.  “A people lives on the face of Mister Moon, a beautiful race of moon creatures, lovely to the eye and peaceable in all their ways.  But they crawl on Mister Moon’s face, so he loves them not.  For my audacious wish, I am doomed to turn to evil and spite:  I shall become not merely transparent, but disembodied, and then I shall possess the moon creatures and turn them to smoky wraiths, monsters of nightmare.  All the moon shall become the realm of nightmare.”

Molly shook her head.  She felt numb again.  “You can’t.  You can’t do that.  You wouldn’t do that—”

“I have no choice.  Know too that, like Majesty and Mimic, I have the power of prophecy, and I have seen my future:  the time will come when, brooding in the darkness, I shall look out over Ponyland and find a powerful pony who, nursing jealousy and resentment, is open to me.  I shall possess her and seek to destroy all the land, but fail:  I shall be sealed in the moon for a millennium, after which I shall be driven out.  Though weakened, I shall seek to possess another, whom I shall find . . . and then I shall be destroyed forever.”

She turned her eyes to Ember, who stared at her with her mouth open in horror.  “That, my darling,” said Twilight, “is when I shall join you in death.”

“You can’t!” Molly cried.  “You can’t do all that!  You wouldn’t!”

“My fate is sealed,” Twilight replied.  “My destiny is set.  And if ponies believe in anything, they believe above all else in fate and destiny.  But know this:  it is only because I shall soon give myself wholeheartedly to evil that your sister will one day be able to fight to save all Ponyland.  I do not understand how this can be so, but it is so.”

“Will she?” Molly whispered.  “Will she save all Ponyland?”

Twilight appeared to consider for a moment, but then she shook her head.  “The strands of fate tangle and warp around her; even Majesty could not have unraveled them.  No one, I think, could discern what is to be Megan’s doom, but of this I am sure:  she will fight.”

Molly put her face in her hands and felt moisture; she was crying.  She wiped a wrist across her eyes and said, “You don’t have to be a prophet to know that.”

“If our time is short,” said Tux, “let us make our plan.  What is it to be?”

Twilight, as if she had performed an act requiring great exertion, settled to the floor with a long, low groan.  She returned to grooming Ember, who now, instead of responding with signs of pleasure, lowered her muzzle to the floor and furrowed her brow.

Twilight paused long enough to say, “We must first of all produce a record.  There is much we cannnot accomplish in our lifetimes, so let us leave guidance for the ponies who come after.  Perhaps Lucky and Ember’s children, or their children’s children, will recognize and follow the goodness of our vision.”

“Marriage,” said Heart Throb.  “That’s where we’ll start.”

“Let’s write this down,” said Tux.  He glanced at Molly and the Moochick.  “Would someone with hands do us the honor—?”

“Oh, my my my,” said the Moochick as he stroked his full beard.  He made a great show of pulling crumpled rolls of parchment out of his desk while Habit brought him quills and ink.  “New laws for the ponies?  Such a strange day.  Such a strange number of days, and with unicorns coming and going every morning, I can hardly work.  Hm . . .”  Soon, he was scribbling away as the others talked.  Now in his element as a scholar, the Moochick appeared uncharacteristically focused.

“Should we describe what a wedding is like?” Molly asked.  “Or just tell the future ponies they ought to get married?”

Heart Throb, a peaceful smile now on her muzzle, shook her head.  “We shall have a wedding.  That’s the only way.”

Seated on the couch again, Molly shifted uncomfortably and glanced at Surprise, who lay on her back and wrestled playfully with Spike.  Apparently paying no attention to the conversation, Surprise giggled and snorted.  “Who’s going to get married?” Molly asked.

Heart Throb laughed as if the answer were obvious.  She pointed across the room at Tux and Satin.

Satin started.  “Us?”  Turning her head away from Tux, she put her hooves to her face and blushed profusely through her lavender fur.  “Why, I just don’t know.  It’s such a big—”

Tux, his solemn expression still affixed, slid without hesitation from the loveseat, crouched before Satin, and took her hooves in his.  “Will you marry me, Satin?”

“Tux!”  She giggled, and her face grew redder.

“Oh, a blushing bride,” crooned Heart Throb.  “Satin, darling, your look is most becoming.  Say yes, please.”

“Don’t pressure me!” Satin cried.  “Oh, Tux, but what about the others—?”

Tux opened his mouth as if to reply, but then he looked down to the floor with a deep frown.

Nobody spoke for a few minutes, and the only sound came from Surprise and the babies playing.  The Moochick paused in his writing and looked up, but he offered none of his usual mutterings.  Molly coughed quietly once, but immediately regretted it:  the noise was intrusive.

With each passing second, Satin’s blush faded and her happy smile shrank.  She looked down at Tux with a pained expression as he continued to stare at the floor with a sign of trouble on his brow.

At last, Heart Throb said in a quiet but firm voice, “Do what you know is right, Tux n’ Tails.  You feel it, deep down.  I know you do.”

Heaving a great groan, as if he had just accomplished some fierce inner battle, Tux said, “I repudiate my other mares.”

Satin’s eyes widened in wonder, and her mouth fell open, but she did not speak.

“Satin n’ Lace,” Tux said, “I want you and you alone.  You are the only one I have ever wanted.  I love you.  I have loved you since the moment I first laid eyes—”

“Don’t,” said Satin, shaking her head.  “Oh, don’t, or you’ll make it all seem silly.  Yes, already.  Yes, I’ll marry you, you foolish boy.”

“Marriage is silly,” said Twilight.  “That is why it is so good.”

Molly had a few cheap rings on her fingers.  She pulled one off and stuck it in Lucky’s lips.  “There,” she said.  “You be the ring-bearer, okay, Lucky?”

“Ohay,” he said around the ring, “buh wha’s a wing-beahwuh?”

“I think we should have a minister,” said Molly.  “Um, Mister Moochick—?”

“He’s writing,” said Heart Throb.  “You’ll have to do it, Molly.”

“Me?  But—”

Heart Throb clucked.  “Who else?  Go on, you know what to say.”

“Not really.”  Molly turned to Tux and Satin, who had both risen to their hooves and now watched her expectantly.  Molly offered them a nervous laugh.  “Oh, is this really a revolution?  It feels more like play-acting.”

“What’s the difference?” Twilight asked.  “Go on, Molly, or this wedding will take all evening.”

Molly cleared her throat, fidgeted, and began to speak.  She could hear the scratching of the Moochick’s pen as he wrote down her words, and that only made her more nervous.  “Okay, let’s see, um, do you Satin n’ Lace, take this . . . erm, something something husband?”

Satin’s grin turned to one of amusement.  “Yes,” she said.

“Darling,” said Heart Throb, “you’re supposed to say ‘I do.’”

“What’s the difference?” Satin asked.

Tux nudged her.

“I do, then,” she said.

Molly cleared her throat again.  “And do you, Tux n’ Tails, take Satin n’ Lace to be your wife?”

“I do,” he answered, his voice still full of gravity.

“Okay.”  Molly clapped her hands together.  “Then I now pronounce you man—no, that doesn’t work.  Hold on.”  For a moment, she tapped a finger against her chin and a sneaker against the floor.  “How about, I now pronounce you mare and colt?  How’s that?”

“He’s a stallion,” said Satin, “not a colt.”

“Oh, but then it doesn’t sound right,” said Molly.

“It’s perfect,” said Tux.  “What comes next?”

Molly clasped her hands, took a deep breath, and smiled as she said, “You may now kiss the bride.”

“I like that part.”  Tux wrapped a foreleg over Satin’s withers.  She gasped, but he cut her off when he pressed his lips against hers.

Twilight nodded with a look of satisfied approval, but nonetheless placed a hoof over Ember’s eyes.

After almost a minute, Tux let Satin catch her breath. 








“If it isn’t school that’s bothering you,” said Twilight Sparkle quietly, “what is it?  Ever since I first met you, I could feel anger coming off you like heat off a fire, and you try to make everypo—I mean everybody—”

Megan grunted.  “Just say ‘everypony.’  You sound weird when you try to talk human.”

“Fine.  You try to make everypony else angry, too.  I’ve tried to give you a smile, like Pinkie always does to cheer ponies up.  But it hasn’t worked.”

Megan made sure Twilight’s eyes were clean and then walked back to the table to get Molly’s hairbrush.  She could still feel her anger burning inside, just under the surface, but she believed she now had it under control.  With her back to Twilight, she took a deep breath and said, “Nothing can cheer me up.  I’m sorry for taking it out on you.  I know it’s not your fault.”  To her own ears, her words sounded mechanical and unconvincing.

“Whose fault is it?” Twilight asked.

“Mine.  I can’t tell you about it.  Your friends have already cut me deep, but I’m not going to let you finish the job by cutting all the way.”

Twilight said quietly, “Some things have to be cut so they can heal.”

Then the anger boiled up, and Megan exploded.  Teeth clenched, she swept bottles and brushes from the table to the ground.  She spun around and shouted, “You wanna peel my life back like an onion?  You wanna flay off my skin?  Is that it?  Is that why you came here?  To pull me to pieces and look inside?”

“No.”  Twilight shook her head.  “I came here to be your friend.”

Megan picked up the table, swung, and threw it across the yard.  It landed on its side and rolled until it came to a stop against the fence, which creaked and swayed from the impact.  “I cannot be friends with ponies!  I will prepare you for your stupid little horse show, but I am not your friend, and I will never be your friend.  Do you understand that?”

“No.”

“And you never will, but that’s the way it is.”  Through tears, Megan searched the ground until she found the hairbrush.  She grabbed it and roughly combed Twilight’s hair, hooking an arm around Twilight’s neck so she couldn’t pull away without dragging Megan with her.

“Ouch!” cried Twilight.  “Ow!”

“You do not want to know what I did in Ponyland,” Megan said.  “You do not want to know what I did here, in this barn, right where you were standing last night.  You just keep your stupid fantasies about the mighty warrior who laid down your laws and built your empire.  You do not want the real Megan Williams.  Do you understand that?”

“No.  Ouch!”

Megan shoved the brush in deep so the points of the bristles scratched Twilight’s skin, and she yanked hard enough to pull out several hairs.  With teeth clenched, she put her mouth against Twilight’s ear and said, “Whenever I’ve met creatures as powerful and magical as you are, I’ve usually had to kill them.  Do you understand that?”

Twilight winced, but set her jaw and answered, “I do.  I do understand that.  I must really scare you, then.”

Megan let go of her, tossed the brush through the open barn door, and walked away.  She peeled her hat from her head and let it fall to the ground.  Though she knew she was messing up the braids Rarity put in, she ran her fingers through her hair and gripped the back of her own head.

Her eyes fell upon the Winchester rifle she had fired with Rainbow Dash.  Neglected, it leaned against the side of the barn.  Though a voice somewhere in the back of her head told her she was being foolish, she snatched it and cocked it.  Holding it out to Twilight, she shouted, “Do you know what this is?”

Twilight shook her head.

“It’s a weapon.  You are a tyrant, Princess.  You are a monster.  Do you know what I do to tyrants and monsters?”

Twilight nodded.

With the rifle to her shoulder, Megan staggered toward the pony until the tip of the barrel was only a few inches from her face.  Twilight swallowed with an audible gulp, and sweat trickled down one cheek, but she stood her ground.

“You are not learning what I did,” Megan hissed.

“You’re shaking,” Twilight answered.  “You’ll need to hold it steady.”  She leaned her head forward until the gun’s barrel rested against her forehead, right under her horn.  “There.  Is that better?”

Megan imagined an “X” crossing through Twilight’s eyes and ears.  The rifle pointed right in the center.

With a cry, Megan hurled the gun aside and fell to the ground weeping.

She bent her head down.  Her vision blurred, and she could see droplets, glistening like jewels in the sunlight, falling to the grass.  “I was happy.  Just once.  Just once in my whole damn life, I was happy.  I hadn’t been back to Ponyland since I’d killed Tirek.  I was afraid to go back, but the ponies asked me to come back, said they wanted to throw me a party.  I was scared, but I loved them, and I wanted to see them again.  So I went.”

She wiped her face and looked up.  “I was twelve years old.  When I returned to Ponyland, I met the baby ponies for the first time.  I offered to babysit them.  I played with them in their nursery until they were tired out.  I tucked them into their cribs and baby buggies, sang them a lullaby, put out the lamps, and pulled the blinds.  They all snored so softly and murmured in their sleep.  I looked around the room and thought, ‘This is heaven.  This is what I want.  This is what I want more than anything in the world.’”  Her tears poured more thickly down her face.  “That moment didn’t last, and it never came back.  It never will come back.”

Twilight leaned toward her and smiled.  “You know, I foalsit my friends’ little sisters sometimes, and a princess foalsat me when I was little.”

Megan wiped her face.  “Why?”

“Because you did it, and because the stories say you were the best at it.  Foalsitting is supposed to be good training for a princess.”

In spite of herself, Megan laughed.  “When I was little, there were two things I loved more than anything—babies and horses.  I had friends at school, but, living out here, I couldn’t see them just anytime, so I mostly played with my brother and sister.  I always made them play house with me.  Danny hated it.  He had to be the dad.”  She smiled faintly and crossed her arms as if imagining cradling something.  “And Molly was always my baby.  She still is in some ways.”

Megan glanced toward the dark interior of the barn.  “I used to daydream that, when I grew up, I was going to have a horse ranch, and I was going to meet some nice, wonderful guy and get married, and then I was going to spend the rest of my life playing with babies and horses.  That was my dream.”

She rose to her feet, walked to the wall of the barn, and sat down with her back against it.  “At that age, I pictured the man I married looking a lot like Dad.”  She looked down at her hands and turned them back and forth:  they were fine-boned and delicate, but lined with calluses and blackened with grit.  “Dad taught me everything I know.  He told me I had to be smart, had to be strong, had to know how to ride, how to drive, how to use tools, how to fight, how to shoot.  He put me in gymnastics and taught me stunt-riding tricks.  ‘Big girls don’t cry,’ he always said.  He said that all the time.  When I fell and hurt myself, he told me to get back up.  ‘You’re gonna do big things,’ he said.  ‘Terribly big, and you have to be strong.’”

Megan stared into the sky.  The tears ran freely down her cheeks, and now she didn’t bother to wipe them.  For a moment, she choked, but she swallowed, found her voice, and added, “But then the day came when he came home with . . . with her.”  She closed her eyes, shook her head, and slapped the ground.  When she opened her eyes again, she was surprised to find Twilight standing close.

“Her?” Twilight asked.

“I wanted to hate her so much,” Megan whispered, “but I couldn’t.  And that only made me hate her more.”

Megan leaned forward and tucked her head between her knees.  “Have you ever known anyone so beautiful, so graceful, so . . . majestic . . . that you couldn’t help but love her, no matter what she did?”

After a moment, her voice barely audible, Twilight whispered, “Yes.”

“She must have been seven feet tall, like a statue out of a museum.  The fine, perfect lines in her face, her smooth walk, those bright blue eyes, her dark hair, those delicate fingers, that flowing white dress she wore—my dad wasn’t a big man, and she towered over him.  He stood there with his mop of red hair and his long, lean jaw and his flannel shirt and that stubble he could never completely shave off, just gazing up at her like a dog gazing at the master who feeds it.  She looked beautiful, and he looked ridiculous—she made him look ridiculous, and she took him from us!”

Twilight looked indecisive for a moment, but then lowered herself down beside her.  “I’m sorry.”

Megan shook her head, sighed deeply, laughed again, and shrugged.  “I gave up my dream a long time ago, Twilight.  It was stupid.  I was just a kid anyway.  My dad, that son of a bitch, was right about one thing:  I have to be tough.  Big girls don’t cry.  If you’re not tough, the world will chew you up and spit you out.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Then you don’t know.  To survive, you have to be strong, and you have to rely on yourself.”

“Whenever I’ve been in trouble, Megan, I’ve found my strength in my friends.  I don’t have to be tough all by myself when others are there to share my problems.”

“You sound like Clarisse.”

“Who?”

“Just someone I know.”

“A friend?”

“An acquaintance.  You might meet her, but I warn you, she’ll talk your ear off about God.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“I suppose, neither do I.”  Megan rose to her feet.  “Let’s finish your mane.  I’ll be gentler this time.”  

She picked up the brush again and walked toward Twilight, but Twilight rose, took a step back, and shook her head.  “No, I don’t think so.”

“Look, I’m sorry about—”

“No.”  Twilight trembled.  She closed her eyes for a moment as if gathering herself, and when she opened them again, she said, “Tell me what happened to you.”

Megan clenched her teeth and pointed with the brush.  “I told you—”

“You’re not Magog the Mighty,” Twilight said.  “You never were.  You’re Megan Williams.  There is no Magog.”  She looked up into Megan’s face with her brow knitted.  “But you want somepony to know.  It’s eating you up.”  She sat back on her haunches and crossed a hoof over her breast.  “I Pinkie promise you, what you tell me will stay with me.”

“You’re a princess.  Are you trying to be a confessor, too?”

“A what?”

“Never mind.”  Megan let go of the brush, dropped to her knees, and put her hands on Twilight’s cheeks.  “If I tell you, you will not be able to keep it to yourself.”

“You can’t ruin my dreams of you, Megan.  I don’t have any anymore.  I never had many to begin with.”

Megan lowered her hands to her lap and looked in Twilight’s eyes.  “You do not know how much I have wanted—”

“I do.”

Megan paused and swallowed, considering.  She knew what this meant, she knew what she faced, but she knew also that she had already decided.  Hesitation now was pointless.

“Okay,” she said.  “I’ll tell you.”








Molly and the others continued talking until the sunlight shining through the open window had turned a dusky red.  The meeting had lost its gravity and had instead become a celebration of the first pony wedding.  They had drunk a great deal of tea, but as evening came on, Habit brought up wine from the Moochick’s cellar.

Molly knew Megan would kill her if she caught her drinking, but reminded herself that this was both a rebellion and a party.

“A toast to the bride and groom!” Molly whooped.  With cup in hand, she sashayed back and forth with Heart Throb, whose mood was equally giddy.

“Oh, no no no no no no!” the Moochick shouted.  “The books!  Mind the books!  Oh dear oh dear—”

Molly caromed off a large stack of heavy volumes, which rocked back and forth, threatening to topple.  Habit frantically scampered to the stack and nudged it until it settled.  Then he ran to Molly and, with a deep frown and many elaborate movements of his front paws, silently told her off.

“Sorry!” Molly cried.  She hiccoughed.

The effect of the wine was particularly marked on Surprise, who rolled back and forth on the floor in a fit of giggles.  “This is better than the sarsaparilla was!” she squealed.

“Oh my, oh dear, we should have left that in the cellar, Habit,” the Moochick muttered.  “It’s not appropriate for children—or for ponies, I see.”

Habit shrugged.

Tux and Satin were once again cozy on the loveseat.  They had enjoyed a cup of wine between them, but they were clearly too intoxicated with each other to be much interested in intoxicants of any other sort.  “We haven’t finished,” Tux announced.  “We have written of the importance of love and friendship, and we have set down a few rules, but what else?  Surely we have more to say.”

Molly settled down.  She leapt back onto the couch and forced herself to sit still, though she still kicked rhythmically at the air.  Heart Throb, struggling to suppress her own giggles, pinned Surprise to stop her from rolling.

“Shouldn’t there be certain things you should do or be to be a good friend?” Molly asked.  “Maybe we should write about how you ought to treat your friends.”

“You should be true to them,” Tux said as he rubbed his muzzle against Satin’s cheek.

“Loyal,” Molly said.  “A friend should be loyal, then.”

“Well, yes, that’s good,” said Tux, “but I was thinking of another sort of true—”

“Honesty,” said Twilight, who now had both Ember and Lucky nestled beside her, with Spike on her back, to shield them as much as possible from the celebratory shenanigans.

“Honesty and loyalty,” said Molly.  “We should write them both down.”

“Fun!” Surprise shouted from beneath Heart Throb.  “Friends are no fun if they’re not fun!  Heart Throb, get off me!”

Molly flopped back on the couch.  “Er, I dunno.  That doesn’t sound as important—”

“That’s super important!” screamed Surprise as she cycled her hind legs in the air.  “You gotta be able to laugh with your friends or they’re not your friends!  Like this!”  She craned her neck around and blew a raspberry against Heart Throb’s barrel.

Heart Throb erupted into squeals.  “Surprise!  Stop!  Stop it!”

Surprise pushed Heart Throb over and rolled atop her.  “Were you surprised?”

“I was surprised, darling!  Now let me go!”

Molly rolled her eyes.  “Fine.  Laughter.  I guess we’ll write that down, too.  That’s three.  What else?”

“I think it’s important to be nice,” said Satin as she pressed her cheek to Tux’s neck.

“Nice?” said Molly.

“Yes.  Nice.”

“What kind of nice?”

“Nice nice.”

“Well, you two are certainly being nice to each other,” said Heart Throb as she kicked and struggled her way out from under Surprise.

Molly slapped a hand to her face.

Twilight chuckled.  “Gentleness, perhaps?  Kindness?”

“Oh, yes.  Kindness,” said Satin.  “That’s what I meant.”  Then she gasped, “Tux—!”

Tux had begun nibbling at the base of her ear.

“Seriously,” said Molly, “you two need to get a room.”

Though she still looked amused, Twilight sat back on her haunches so she could plant her front hooves over the eyes of both Ember and Lucky.  Spike, with a cry, tumbled from her back and sprawled against the floor.

“I think,” said Twilight, “that it’s very important to grant to your friends the things they want.  Like wishes.”

“Not everyone can grant wishes, darling,” said Heart Throb.

“You can still try,” answered Twilight.

“You mean you should be generous,” said Molly.

Twilight nodded.  “Exactly.”

Molly jumped up from the couch again and stretched her arms over her head.  “So that’s five things we think friends should do.  We got that, and we got marriage, and we made a bunch of rules about how to treat other ponies right.  What else?  It’s kind of a mish-mash.”

“It’s a start,” said Twilight.  “We can’t do more right now than start.”

Something pounded hard on the door, so hard that Molly could hear it splinter around its hinges.  “Open up!” called a gruff voice.

Habit, still scowling, marched toward the door.

“Wait,” said Twilight, “does anyone know we’re—?”

Even before Habit reached it, the door slammed open with a loud crack, and in marched three of the armored, warthog-like troggles, who snuffled with their long, wet noses.  Bullet-shaped helmets sat low on their heads, and in their thick, hairy hands, they held razor-sharp spears.  As they burst into the room, they bowled over Habit.  One of them, with a loud grunt, shoved over the stack of books that Molly had almost upset earlier.

Habit rose to his hind feet and, clearly more upset about the books than about being knocked down, shook a paw at the troggle, who merely kicked him aside.

The Moochick jumped from his chair and pointed a finger.  “Oh, now see here!  No no no, this won’t do at all!  Not at all—!”

“Manners, gentlemen!” called a calm, sweet voice from outside.  “We are here to make arrests, not make a ruckus.”

Into the cottage walked Wind Whistler.  She stepped between the troggles and swept her eyes around the room.  “Just as I had supposed—two of my pegasus ponies, planning sedition and dissention with a known spy.”

Twilight offered Wind Whistler a warm, but plainly ironic, grin.  “Since you’ve been playing soldier, we thought we’d play rebel.  Care to join us?”

“Your antics fail to amuse me,” Wind Whistler answered.

Twilight rose to her hooves and stepped in front of Ember and Lucky.  “I do not recall hearing that pegasus ponies are not allowed to associate with unicorns.”

“They are allowed to associate with any unicorns they please—except you.”  Wind Whistler shook her head.  “Why is it always unicorns who meddle in the affairs of the pegasi?  Well, no matter.  Heart Throb, Surprise, come with me.  You will not escape your punishment this time.”

Heart Throb placed a foreleg across Surprise’s withers.

“They’re not going anywhere!” Molly shouted.

Wind Whistler cocked an eyebrow.  “Molly, shouldn’t you be at home?  Does your sister know you’re here?  Were it up to me, you’d be sent to bed without supper, but it’s not up to me.  Simply mind your business and I shall mind mine.”

“Wind Whistler,” said Twilight calmly, “I am beginning to get angry.  Your foolishness has gone on long enough.”  Her horn glowed, and the mist of the swamp seeped in through the open door.

“What are you going to do?” Wind Whistler asked.  “Wink out?  Guards, restrain her, please.”

One of the troggles, with a grunt, pointed his spear at Twilight.  Droplets of glowing gold slid down the spear’s blade and concentrated into a bright star at the tip.  Then a beam of light shot from the spear and, after encircling Twilight, transformed into a shining, gilded cage.  The troggle grunted again in satisfaction.

“Twilight, just wink!” called Molly.

Twilight chuckled.  “I can’t wink through solid objects, Molly.  You know that.  That is, I couldn’t . . . when I was solid.”  She closed her eyes and, stepping forward, slipped through the bars of the cage as if they weren’t there.

Wind Whistler’s mouth fell open.  “Impossible.  Two objects with extension cannot occupy the same—”

“I’m afraid I have lost my ‘extension,’ as you call it,” Twilight replied.  “My time on this world is over.”  The mist from the door shot across the room like a river released from a dam.  It surrounded Twilight, turned dark black, and spun like a tornado.  Lightning crackled in the midst of it.  Papers and books lifted from the floor and flew around the room.  Heart Throb shrieked.  Molly dropped to the floor and covered her head.

From the midst of the whirlwind, Twilight’s voice called, “My time has come!  Run, my friends!  Protect Ember for me!”

A heavy book struck one of the troggles in the head, knocking him against the wall.

The Moochick, with Habit safely tucked under one arm, leapt onto his chair and fired beams of blue light from his hands.  The beams struck the two remaining troggles, who, grasping their throats, fell to the floor.

“Run!” the Moochick shouted.  He snatched up the parchment on which he’d written all the rules Molly and the ponies had invented, and then he disappeared in a puff of red smoke.

Wind Whistler backed out of the door, spreading her wings as she went.

Dodging books, papers, and various instruments and knickknacks hurtling around the cottage like missiles, Molly and the others crawled for the door.  Satin n’ Lace shielded Ember with her body while Tux n’ Tails shielded Lucky.  Molly snatched up Spike, ducked low, and ran for the door as if she were running a football.

“Nothing will hit us!” Lucky shouted.  “I’m too lucky for that!”

Indeed, Molly and Spike made the door without being struck, and their companions soon followed.  The windows burst open and black smoke poured out.  Another plume of smoke erupted from the chimney.  High above the cottage, the smoke coagulated together into a great mass, which for a brief moment took on the form of a coal-black pony with pale blue eyes, broad wings, and a long, sharp horn, before it swirled again into an amorphous stream that shot through the air toward the rising moon.

“Mama!” Ember wailed.  She pitched to the ground and sobbed.  Heart Throb and Surprise wept as well.

Molly stared into the sky.  “We need to get Megan,” she said.

“Do you think we can save Twilight?” Heart Throb asked.

Molly shook her head.  “I don’t know about that.  But we gotta tell Megan about Wind Whistler.  If she going to use the troggles to attack other ponies—”

“Go to Paradise Estate with Heart Throb,” said Tux.  “Surprise, you should go, too.  We’ll watch the children.  If you’re quick, perhaps you can get there before Wind Whistler does.”

Molly nodded.  She climbed onto Heart Throb’s back.  Heart Throb spread her wings and took flight.








When the night came on, Megan did her favorite thing:  she told the baby ponies it was their bedtime, and though a few made a show of complaining, she scolded then gently until they relented.  They gathered and walked single-file with her to their nursery.  Then she stood by the door and watched them go in to make sure all were there.

“Where are Ember and Lucky?” she asked as she counted them.

Paradise poked her head out of the nursery and smiled.  “Twilight said she was taking those two someplace.  I know it’s late, but I’m sure they’ll be all right, Megan.”

Megan scrunched up her mouth and tapped a fist against her hip in indecision.  She didn’t like the strange way Twilight had been acting, but she didn’t know what she could do about it, and she certainly wasn’t about to lecture Twilight about how she treated Ember.

She went into the nursery and pulled each baby’s blanket up under her throatlatch to tuck her in.  She made sure Baby Heart Throb had her favorite pillow and that Baby Cuddles was snug in her favorite baby buggy.

Usually, Paradise read the babies a bedtime story, but when Megan was in Dream Valley, she did it herself.  Tonight’s story was “Jack the Giant-Killer,” though Megan wondered if that were too exciting for bedtime.  Indeed, as Megan read, Baby Quackers, one of the first-tooth ponies, jumped up in her crib and attacked her duck mobile with her hooves, so Megan had to scold her again.  At last, she settled down under her blanket and blinked her wide eyes, her new tooth poking out from her upper lip.

After finishing the story, Megan sang a lullaby.  Sometimes she sang songs her mother had once sung to her, but she usually sang songs she made up, as she did tonight:

Hush now, quiet now,
It’s time to lay your sleepy head,
Hush now, quiet now,
It’s time to go to bed.

Drifting off to sleep,
Leave the exciting day behind you,
Drifting off to sleep,
Let the joy of dreamland find you.

Hush now, quiet now,
Lay your sleepy head.
Hush now, quiet now,
It’s time to go to bed.

As she sang, she turned off the lamps, blew out the candles, and pulled the blinds.  By the time she had finished and the room was dark, all the baby ponies were snoring gently.

Megan looked around the room and felt peace flood her heart.  This was much the same as that moment, which felt so long ago now, when she had first done this, shortly before she confronted Catrina the cat-witch.  This, here and now, was everything she wanted.

But the moment disappeared.  The nursery door opened, and Wind Whistler entered.  Her mane was wild and tangled, and she breathed heavily, as if she had just flown a long way.

Baby Cuddles sat up in her buggy and rubbed her eyes with her hooves.  “Megan—?”

“Shh.  Go back to sleep, Baby Cuddles.”  Megan kissed the baby on the forehead and then tiptoed out, closing the door behind her as quietly as she could.  The sky overhead was a rich purple, already dotted with stars, and the western horizon glowed rose.  An evening breeze wafted across the meadow, bringing with it the scent of hay and flowers.

“What is it, Wind Whistler?” Megan asked.

Though her appearance was wild, Wind Whistler spoke in the calm voice with which Megan was so familiar.  “You have school tomorrow, Megan.  It is not good for you to neglect your education on our account.  Climb onto my back, and I shall take you home.”

“I was planning to spend the night—”

“And skip school?  You have done that too much already.”

Megan looked toward the fiery sky where the sun had set.  “I suppose you’re right.”

She threw a leg over Wind Whistler’s back and tucked her thighs under the pony’s wings.  Once Megan was settled, Wind Whistler leapt into the air and took her home for the last time.

In a tight corkscrew, they flew up until they were high enough to cross over the Rainbow Bridge.  Megan sensed subtle changes in the air—a greater coldness, a less pleasant smell—as they moved from Ponyland to Earth.  As the cold night wind whipped her hair, she was struck with a sudden fondness, so she ran a hand over Wind Whistler’s withers.  Wind Whistler did not protest.

They rode in silence.  There was no sound aside from the hiss of air through Wind Whistler’s wings.  The stars shone clear, cold, and bright.  Once they had crossed the Rainbow, Megan saw below an endless field of dark clouds, black and forbidding but marked by occasional glimmers of gray where they caught the light of the stars.

As Wind Whistler lowered herself through the clouds toward the Williams ranch, Megan said quietly, “I think I’ve ruined everything.”

Wind Whistler did not answer.

Under the clouds, most of the land was pitch black, but a semicircle of dim light shone around the ranch house:  a sickly yellow porch light was on at the back door, and a moth fluttered hopelessly around it.

After circling a few times, Wind Whistler landed near the barn.  She stumbled in the dark, but did not fall.

Megan slid from her back and patted her haunch.  “Thanks, Wind Whistler.  Tomorrow, after school, come get me—”

“No.”

Megan paused.  Her eyes began to adjust to the light, and she could make out a few features of Wind Whistler’s face, but she could not read the pony’s expression.

“I am afraid, Megan, that your time in Ponyland is over.  You will not return.”

“What do you mean?”  Megan’s hand crept up to her collar and felt for the locket.

Wind Whistler shook her head.  “You and I have always been close, have we not?”

“Yes—”

“But we no longer see eye-to-eye.  You have been a great help in the past, Megan, but you and your siblings are swiftly becoming a hindrance to our empire.  No more pegasi will come across the Rainbow Bridge for you.”

Megan’s heart pounded in her chest in a staccato thump that kept time with the chirping crickets.  “Wind Whistler, you can’t be serious.”

“I can be nothing else, Megan.”

“But why?”

Wind Whistler snorted and looked away.  “Before, even as I planned, even as I acted, I hesitated.  I hesitated because my mores inhibited me.  Now I no longer believe in mores, so I will do what is necessary.  Tomorrow, I put my plan into action.”

The thumping in Megan’s chest grew louder.  “What plan?”

“The desertion of the twinkle-eyed ponies may, in the end, prove to be to our benefit, but the earth ponies and unicorns still represent a potential for dissention.  That potential must be eliminated.  Megan, if we are to have an empire, we must have an empress.  We cannot continue with three leaders:  we need one.”

Megan nodded.  “You might be right.”

“A philosopher-queen,” Wind Whistler said.  “Someone who rules according to reason.  I thought it might be you, but you, like the other ponies, are too much attached to emotion and sentiment.  And you’ve made it clear that you do not wish to be queen anyway.”

“That’s right.”

“We are in a state of emergency,” said Wind Whistler as she gazed up into the blank sky.  “The logical thing to do in such a circumstance is, of course, to declare martial law.  We will have military rule in Dream Valley until such time as a proper philosopher-queen can be found.”

Megan clenched her fists and swallowed a lump.  “So you mean to rule the ponies yourself.”

“For as long as necessary.”

“How long is that?”

“I just said.”

Megan’s voice rose in pitch.  “Do you really think the other pegasus ponies—?”

“They don’t have to.”  Wind Whistler lowered her head.  Megan could make out her eyes, which reflected the yellow light from the porch.  Her pupils shone like heated coals.  “The troggles will put me in power, Megan.  They agreed, as one of the conditions of their move to Dream Valley, to back me and stage a coup if I gave the word.  They once kept Grogar in power over Tambelon.  They will now keep me in power over Paradise Estate.”

The pounding in Megan’s chest stopped, as did her hard breathing.  For a full minute, there was no sound except that of the crickets.

“You’ve been playing me this whole time,” Megan whispered.

“I recognized that we were in a crisis,” answered Wind Whistler.  “And I had great dreams for the future of Ponyland.  My conception of the nature of reality has changed drastically in recent days, but my dreams and desires have changed not one whit.  Now I merely hesitate less when I seek to fulfill them.”  She snorted again.  “The sudden reappearance of Twilight was an unexpected disruption to my plan, but the troggles dealt with that disruption swiftly.  I’ve little doubt that they can both establish and maintain martial law at Paradise Estate.”

“What’s happened to you?” Megan cried.  “This is not the Wind Whistler I know!”

“I am the same Wind Whistler I have always been,” she answered quietly.  “I follow logic relentlessly and without remorse, and I never veer from logic’s dictates even when they are repugnant to others—or to myself.”

“This can’t be logical, Wind Whistler!  Or if it is, I don’t care!  It’s not right!”

“Right is a word without meaning.  It is merely an expression of your personal tastes.”

“Don’t my tastes matter to you, then?”

“When they are in keeping with mine, yes.”

Megan breathed hard.  She put a hand toward the door of the barn in an attempt to steady herself, but she stumbled, for the barn door was open.  She wasn’t used to thinking about things like this, but she thought she caught a problem, a mistake, in something Wind Whistler had said.  “But if right and wrong are just personal tastes . . . then why follow logic if you don’t like what it says?  What if it goes against your tastes?  Why do you have to be logical?”

Wind Whistler opened her mouth as if to answer, but then paused and lowered her head with brow furrowed.  After a minute, she chuckled.  “I see I still use too many concepts from my old way of thinking.  This will indeed take some getting used to.”

“Wind Whistler, please.”  Megan placed her hands over her heart.  “You know what’s right and what’s wrong.  I know you do.  You know it deep down in here.”

Now Wind Whistler sounded cross.  “I know nothing ‘deep down in here,’ Megan.”  She tapped a hoof against her head.  “I know up here.”

“But you just said logic might not be to your taste.  How could it have brought you to the way you think if it and the way you think can conflict?”

Wind Whistler blinked and tossed her head as if trying to escape an annoying fly.  “Stop it—”

“Maybe . . . maybe the rules of how we should live are built in somehow?  Maybe you can’t see them with your eyes, but what if they’re really there anyway, something you can’t see—?”

“Stop it!”  Wind Whistler stamped a hoof.  “Do not attempt to argue with me, Megan!  You do not have the training, the vocabulary, or the experience!”  She snorted.  “I’ve seen your world.  I’ve seen how your people behave, and I’ve seen the way they rationalize their ideas.  What will you use as a basis of morality if not empirical fact?  God, perhaps?  Do you expect ponies to sit in little benches every Sunday with their eyes closed and their front hooves pressed together, talking to an imaginary friend, just so they’ll do what you happen to think is right?”

“I don’t know,” Megan said.  “I haven’t thought about it—”

“Precisely.  But I have.  I have thought about it.  I stand for reason and logic, and therefore I oppose all superstitions, even yours.”  She raised her head high, and the porch light cast stark shadows under her jaw and around her eyes, making her appear craggy and old.  “If I am to build my empire of love and tolerance, I cannot tolerate someone who will not share my vision, even if that someone is you.”  She pointed a hoof.  “One thing remains:  give me the Rainbow of Light.”

Megan reached to her breast and clutched the locket tight.  “No.”

“You will never return to Ponyland.  We need the Rainbow, and you do not.  Give it to me.”

“I won’t give it to you!  I’ll never give it to you!”

Anger welled up.  The old familiar anger.  Megan staggered backwards into the darkness of the barn, and Wind Whistler, eyes blazing and teeth clenched, followed.  Upon thrusting out a hand, Megan found herself gripping something that had been leaning against the wall inside the door—something long, smooth, and cold.

Wind Whistler snarled and leapt.








“Please hurry, Heart Throb!”

“I’m flying as fast as I can!” Heart Throb panted.  “Oh, I wish I were as fast as Whizzer—”

Molly, Heart Throb, and Surprise had arrived too late at Paradise Estate.  Paradise, looking bemused by their urgency and expressing shock that Molly was in Ponyland, had told them that Wind Whistler had taken Megan home for the night.  Now Molly and Heart Throb were up and over the Rainbow Bridge, flying blind through a cloudbank.  Water streamed across Molly’s face and soaked through her pink overalls.  She wrapped her arms around herself as her teeth chattered.

“Don’t let go of me, darling!” cried Heart Throb.  “If you fall off, I’ll never forgive myself!”

“Just hurry!” Molly shouted.  “I know how to ride—whoa!”  She scrabbled at Heart Throb’s mane as she began to slide sideways.  “Okay, okay, I’ll hold on.  Just hurry!”

Heart Throb circled around the ranch and landed hard in front of the barn, staggering forward and falling to her belly.  She lay in the dirt and gasped for breath as Molly leapt from her back.

“Sis!” Molly called.  “Sis!”

Nothing replied except the steady chirping of the crickets.  Noticing the open door of the barn, she walked steadily toward it.  The light from the porch allowed her to see a few feet inside, beyond which the interior turned impenetrably black.  But the blackness of the ground had an odd shape, as if not all of it were due to the shadow cast by the open door.  Molly, heart pounding loud enough to drown out even the crickets, stepped in, bent, and touched the earthen floor.

“What is it?” Heart Throb called.

The floor was warm and wet.  Water?  A horse’s urine?  No, it felt too sticky for that—

“Have you found something?” yelled Heart Throb.

Shaking, with tears running down her face, Molly straightened and backed out of the barn.  In the anemic light from the house, the palm of her hand glistened red.








Megan buried Wind Whistler in the same grave where she’d buried Blackie.

Dragging the body had not been easy.  Her arms felt like jelly, but she forced herself to work anyway.  Frantic, her mind swimming and her breath coming in rattling gasps, she turned over the heavy, wet earth in desperation, trying to dig a hole big enough.

Blood had splattered her shirt, so she had pulled it off and tied the straps of her overalls tight above her hips.  Trickling with sweat, she dug while stripped to the waist.  As she swung the shovel, the locket bounced hard against her skin, leaving a bruise.  She couldn’t seem to make the dirt move:  she had dug so much already, but the hole was still so small—

Yet a small hole was all it took, one hole, right in the forehead, at the center of an imaginary “X” . . .

Her body shook, and she cried aloud like a wounded animal.

As she worked in the darkness, she could see Wind Whistler’s face hovering before her like a ghost.  The memory ran through her mind over and over again, stark and exact in every detail:  Megan’s hands had fallen on the handle of a pickaxe, so she held it high above her head, and Wind Whistler said, “This is what you do, isn’t it, Megan?  This is what you always do.”

Then Megan swung—

She screamed again.  To drive the image away, she muttered and mumbled, but still the memory wouldn’t go.

The pickaxe came down.  Megan wanted to call it back, but she couldn’t stop the swing.  She had used too much force.  It was too late.  She had already started.

And she always finished what she started.

The tip of the axe struck Wind Whistler’s left eye, and blood poured out.  Wind Whistler looked astonished rather than pained, and then her mouth turned up, and she laughed.  She laughed a laugh Megan had never heard before, the laugh of one gone mad.

Through her laughter, Wind Whistler said one word:  “Again.”  Megan wasn’t sure what she meant.

Now Megan was both too furious and too frightened to stop.  She swung from the side, aiming for that spot, that fatal spot at the center of the imaginary “X”—

The memory wouldn’t go.  It was over, but it would not end; she held a shovel, not a pickaxe, but still that moment played and played in her mind and would not pass.  In the space of a minute, she lived Wind Whistler’s death a thousand times.

Her mumblings turned to words, strange words, a childish rhyme of the sort she sang when she put the baby ponies to sleep.  She uttered the words in a tuneless singsong between ragged breaths—

My little pony, my little pony,
I comb and brush her hair.
My little pony, my little pony,
Tie a ribbon to show how much I care.

My little pony, my little pony,
I take her wherever I go.
My little pony, my little pony,
Oh . . . I love her so.

At the last word, Megan collapsed to her knees and sobbed.








On the way back to the barn, Megan kicked up the dirt to hide the trail of blood.  She used the spigot to wash the blood and dirt from her arms.  Then she hooked up the hose and sprayed the barn floor.  She rinsed her shirt as best she could, wrung it out, and struggled back into it.  The night air cut sharply through the wet fabric.

In a daze, Megan staggered toward the house, but, with a start, she returned to her senses when she saw Molly sitting alone on the back porch and kicking her feet.

“Molly?” Megan said.  Her voice sounded hoarse.  “It’s past your bedtime.”

“Yours, too.”

Megan didn’t answer that.  She swallowed once and said nothing.

“How is Ponyland?” Molly asked.

Megan slid her tongue around her teeth as she considered how to answer.  “Fine,” she said.  “I think everything there is going to be fine from now on.”

Molly merely nodded.  “That’s good, then.”  She stood up, and the porch light, behind and above her head, cast her face in shadow.  “We should go to bed, Megan.”

It would be a few years before Megan would get her own room.  At this time, she still shared a bed with Molly.  Carefully avoiding the creaking stairs, they crept up to their room together.  Megan had left her nightgown in Ponyland, so she climbed into bed without it.

The night was cool, but the bedclothes still felt stifling.  Megan’s hammering heart refused to slow, and Molly’s breathing beside her sounded loud in the still room.  Megan remembered how, when she was younger, Molly had wanted to be cuddled at night.  Molly was too big for that now, of course, but sometimes Megan missed it.

“Sis?” Molly whispered.

“Yes, Molly?”

“Do you really think everything will be all right?”

Megan didn’t answer for several minutes.  Though she had rinsed as thoroughly as she could, she could still smell blood.  The stink rose off her hands and off her bare chest and filled the room.  She wondered if Molly could smell it.  She wondered if Molly knew what it was.

“I don’t know,” Megan said.

“But you tried, right?  You tried to do what you thought you had to, to make everything all right?”

Megan stared up at the dark ceiling, and tears welled up until they filled the hollows of her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks.  She choked as she whispered, “Yes.  I tried very hard to make everything all right.”

“Then that’s enough,” said Molly.  “That’s all I want to know.”

Molly rolled over, and her breathing slowed until it turned into the soft, even sound of sleep.








In the morning, with memories of last night still running through her head, Megan arose, put on her work clothes, walked downstairs, and stepped outside.  The air was fresh and cool, and a droplet of dew hung from the tip of every blade of grass.

With her heart churning with too many emotions, emotions she would be unable to distinguish or reflect upon for years to come, Megan looked up and, for the first time, saw an unbroken sky of blue above the ranch.  There were no clouds, and there was no rainbow.

She touched the locket at her breast and opened her mouth, and her breath came out as a faint white mist.








Megan told most of her story while staring at Twilight Sparkle’s purple-painted hooves and at the patch of ground on which they stood.  When she had finished, with her head still down, she turned her hands palm-upward and, with wrists together, raised them until they were before Twilight’s face.

“What is this?” Twilight asked.

“I want you to bind me,” Megan answered.  “I want you to take me back to Equestria to stand trial.”

She knelt with her hands raised for almost a minute before Twilight’s hoof touched her wrists; the hoof was hard, smooth, and slightly moist from the grass.  It pressed down, forcing Megan to lower her arms.

Swiftly, Megan snatched her hands away and seized Twilight by the throat, digging the tips of her fingers into the pony’s jugular grooves.  “Don’t,” she hissed, her nose pressed against Twilight’s.  “Don’t tell me it was five thousand years ago and doesn’t matter to you!  It wasn’t!  It’s been—”

“I won’t,” Twilight answered.  “I won’t tell you that.  I’m going to punish you.”  Twilight’s breathing grew shallow and rapid, and Megan imagined she could hear the pony’s heart pounding.  Slowly, Megan lowered her hands and returned her gaze to the ground.

Twilight said, “As a princess, I can do certain things, things I couldn’t do before.  I have authority, though I’ve never used it.  I’ve never made a decree.  Even when I made laws in Ponyville, I asked the mayor’s permission first.  This is going to be my first real act as a princess.  Are you ready?”

Eyes on the ground, Megan nodded.

“For starters, as part of your punishment, you’re now my subject.  That means you have to do whatever I tell you.  Got it?”

Again, Megan nodded.

“Okay, then.  Now I’m going to give you an order.  You have to do it.”

Megan felt that same hoof, this time on her forehead.  It trembled.  Twilight’s breathing grew still more rapid, and Twilight swallowed loudly before saying, “Here goes.  In the name of Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, and in my own name, Twilight Sparkle, by my authority as a princess of Equestria, for all your crimes against ponykind, whatever they may have been . . .”

Megan’s hands shook.

Twilight took a deep breath and finished, “I pardon you.  I absolve you.  I forgive you.  And as your princess, for your punishment, I order you to forgive yourself.”

Megan raised her head and looked in Twilight’s eyes, but her vision blurred with tears.

Twilight reared, opened her wings, and tenderly wrapped Megan in an embrace.








Molly giggled with excitement as she skipped along beside Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.  On the way back to the barn, they met up with Rarity and Applejack, and the five of them chattered about their plans while they made their way.  Rainbow boasted that she would be the best dressage horse ever, Rarity discussed the future of fashionable horse tack, and Applejack spoke in admiration of the ranch.

Their talk cut off suddenly when they rounded the barn and found Megan weeping in Twilight’s wings.  Frowns on their faces, the ponies looked at one other for a moment, as if communicating wordlessly.  Then, silently, they walked to Megan, surrounded her, and joined in the embrace.

Molly saw Danny and Pinkie walking from the opposite direction.  They appeared to be too absorbed in each other to notice what was going on, but, when they neared the barn, Pinkie at last turned from Danny and saw the group hug.

She looked ready to dive in, but she must have caught sight of Megan sobbing in the center, or perhaps she simply noticed the somber mood.  Instead of jumping, she walked carefully and quietly to the group and found a place.

Giving Megan and the ponies a wide berth, Danny joined Molly by the side of the barn.  “What happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” Molly replied.  “But I have my hopes.”








Megan did not wonder where the other ponies had come from, nor why they clustered around her.  She merely accepted their presence and their warmth as she continued to cry on Twilight’s shoulder.

There, nestled between the six ambassadors of Equestria, the legendary warrior emptied herself.  After five long years of torment, the blade of ice in her heart finally melted, and the wound it had made at last began to heal.