"No. I'm not going anywhere."
The other four ponies gaped at Rainbow Dash.
"What?" said Twilight.
"Are you all deaf? I said I'm not going. Put the harness back on me and I'll walk back to the stable."
"You're crazy!" burst out Pinkie Pie, with her usual tact.
"No, I'm not crazy. So I'm notcoming with you."
"But Rainbow, we need you," said Twilight pleadingly.
"Yeah, right. You don't need a crippled failure. And even if you did, I still wouldn't be joining whatever stupid rebellion you have planned this time."
"We do need you. Without you we haven't got a chance of defeating Nightmare Moon."
"Did you get hit on the head? Are you mistaking me for another pony? Or are you just stupid? You don't need me, and I don't care if you do. Get it through your heads, I'm not coming with you!"
"But Dashie, why?" asked Pinkie Pie.
"Why? Why? You were there when 'why' happened, Pinkie, the first stupid time around!" The anger in Rainbow's voice collapsed into bitterness as she continued. "I've already given more than I had to give. If I go with you and fight again, what'll they take this time? Are they gonna cut off my back legs so I have to drag myself everywhere? Maybe they'll take out my eyes! At least then I wouldn't have to look at the sky anymore!" The renewed anger in Rainbow's voice quickly died back to cold, bitter embers again as she stared at the cobblestones under her hooves. "They'll probably just kill me this time. Which would almost be a relief, but I'm not so tired of living yet that I want to join you and your crazy rebels. You haven't got any chance of accomplishing anything except getting yourselves all maimed and killed. I've been there, done that, and I'm not doing it again! Now put me back in that harness and let me go back to what little life I have left!"
"Oh Dashie... it's not like that this time."
"It's not? Have you got Celestia stashed away somewhere then? Because I don't see any sunlight yet."
"We do not have Celestia," said Luna, breaking in. "But we do have me." She dropped her illusion, revealing her wings, and spread them slightly. "I am an alicorn too. And we have stronger magics even than that. Which is why we need you, Rainbow. There is a way to defeat Nightmare Moon, a way that has worked in the past, on other worlds, but we cannot do it without you."
Rainbow Dash stared at Luna. For a moment a touch of wonder and hope crossed her face, but as Luna finished speaking her eyes narrowed again. "There is no way that some big, awesome magic needs me. My answer is still no! How many times do I have to tell you crazy ponies that? No! I've lost my wings! Fighting Nightmare Moon cost me the sky! I have nothing left to give!"
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence in the wake of Rainbow's tirade. What does a pony say in response to such things? How could they ask somepony who had given so much to give even more? But then Twilight had a scrap of memory float through her head, and with it came a flicker of hope. She took a deep breath and said, "What if you could get your wings back?"
"Don't say that!" Rainbow leapt up to stand nose-to-nose with Twilight; she was practically vibrating with anger. "Don't you dare say that! Nothing can give me my wings back!"
"I wouldn't say it if I didn't have strong evidence it might be true," said Twilight sternly. She leaned back and away from Dash, but held her ground. "The magic that we need you for, the Elements of Harmony, has restored ponies before. We were all bruised and battered, and more than that, one of my friends had lost her tail; but after we used the Elements all our scrapes and scratches were healed, and the tail had been restored as if it had never been lost." Rainbow opened her mouth to speak, but Twilight pushed on. "I won't make you any false promises. A tail isn't the same as a pair of wings. But it's a chance, and a real one. This isn't some kind of story where everything ends happily ever after, but it's also not a hopeless endeavor. Luna is a match for Nightmare Moon all by herself. With you and the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony with us we have a real, solid chance to beat Nightmare Moon permanently and completely. So please reconsider, Rainbow. We're not crazy, we really do need you. Please."
Rainbow stared at Twilight with intense, narrowed eyes for a long time. "If you have something that great, why aren't you saying 'it's sure to work' and 'we can't possibly fail'?"
"Because nothing is sure. Something can always go wrong. But this is something that has worked, and can work. All we need is the right group of ponies, and that group includes you."
"Me. Rainbow Dash. The cripple."
Twilight opened her mouth to insist that Rainbow was not a cripple, but she managed to finish her second thoughts before the words came out of her mouth. Instead, she just nodded and gave a simple "Yes."
"And I'll get my wings back if I join you."
"Probably, yes."
"Okay. I'm in."
Pinkie Pie bounced up and down and cheered. The other ponies exchanged grins. Rainbow Dash, though, held up a hoof. "If."
Pinkie stopped cheering.
"If?" asked Twilight, feeling suddenly unaccountably nervous. She had the horrible feeling that all her plans were about to go right out the window.
"If you rescue the rest of the ponies in the slave stable."
"What? You are crazy!" said Pinkie Pie. "They'll be free once we defeat Nightmare Moon, that is way more important!"
"I'm not leaving without them."
"But..." started Twilight.
"No. That's my condition for joining your dumb rebellion and risking everything. You want me, you free my friends."
My friends. Twilight heard those words, saw the determination on Rainbow's face, and suddenly her heart lifted. Her plans had definitely just gone out the window. Rescuing more than a dozen ponies was going to complicate things immensely, but even so, Twilight felt an enormous weight of worry disappear from the back of her mind as she looked at the pony they had come to rescue. Wings or no wings, the pony that stood before her was still Rainbow Dash; she was still the ponyfication of Loyalty.
She was still the pony who was Twilight's friend.
A broad grin spread across Twilight's face. "We'll do it."
"Twilight..." Luna looked worried. "...is this a good idea?"
Twilight laughed. "Maybe not. But it's worth doing."
"Time to plan." Back at the "rebel base" Twilight floated a pencil over a fresh sheet of paper while Luna, Dale, and Pinkie Pie looked at her expectantly. Rainbow Dash had refused to come with them, even temporarily, without her friends. Luna and Dale had gotten back into the carriage, loudly slamming the door closed just as Twilight released the driver from her sleep spell. He had awoken with a start and immediately glanced around himself fearfully, thoroughly convinced that he had somehow dozed off.
Rainbow had promised that she'd let the other enslaved ponies know that rescue was coming, so they would be ready. Twilight just had to come up with some way to get a dozen ponies out of a guarded stable, without letting Nightmare Moon know who had done it.
"This is not going to be easy," she said. The expectant faces of the other three, all obviously certain she could come up with yet another brilliant plan, made her stomach twist. "I... I really don't know what to do! Even if we somehow lure away the guards, clerk, and drivers, when they come back they'll notice all the ponies are gone, and rescue by rebels is the obvious conclusion!"
Pinkie Pie frowned. Luna's brow furrowed as she thought. "We have to somehow make them think something else has happened to them. Re-direct them in a different direction. What if... hmm... I cannot make an illusion that would last more than a day or two, otherwise I would suggest we put illusory bodies in the stalls, make them think something had killed them all."
Twilight thought about that. "Yes, having Nightmare Moon think they're dead would be great. But if we can't leave bodies behind..." She thought some more. Then her face lit. "Of course! I know exactly what we need to do. We just need to work out the details. Except..." she frowned again. "I know you're good at illusions Luna, but just how good? Can you do sight, scent, sound, and touch at the same time, across a whole building?"
Luna considered. Purely visual illusions were easy. Sounds weren't too hard either. Touch was trickier, doing the illusory coins that could be felt earlier had been the hardest part of their plan, magically speaking. Adding scent, and making it cover an entire building... "I suppose it depends on what the illusion is of. If I have to fill a building with individual ponies that move and talk and can be felt, I could not do it without drawing on the moon's power, which is of course a Bad Idea, but if it were something simpler I might be able to."
"It is fairly simple. I need to light something on fire."
"Ooo, fire!" said Pinkie Pie, with an unexpected glint in her eye and enthusiasm in her voice. "I can set things on fire for you!"
"Uh... thank you Pinkie, but I don't need real fire. Or rather I don't need real fire right away; I suppose you could set a fire for me later on for this plan. But Luna... can you make a fire that's really convincing? It would need to feel hot and smell right."
"Heat is much easier than doing solid tactile illusions. Fire is fairly easy visually and aurally as well. The scent will be the most difficult, but... yes, I think I can do it."
"Good. Here's the plan then."
The other three gathered close as Twilight explained how they were going to rescue Rainbow Dash's friends.
"Ready Luna?" whispered Twilight from where they both crouched in the dingy alley behind the slave stable. It was dark, of course--it was always dark. The eternal night was wearing more and more on Twilight with each passing--well, not with each passing day, but... whatever passed for such here. Her mind knew that dawn wasn't coming, but her body and soul kept hoping for a relief that never appeared. She was heartily sick of night already, and she knew that even Luna felt the same. She couldn't imagine how the ponies that had lived with it for more than a year were coping. But perhaps they weren't, really. The lighted streets of the city were strangely manic, pretending to a never-ending brightness and energy as if it were a Summer Sun's Night that never stopped. It did ebb at times; nopony could party forever, not even Pinkie Pie. Not even a depressed subject of Nightmare Moon pretending desperately that they were happy and all was well.
Now was one of those ebb times. If night and day had had any meaning, it would have been the small hours before the dawn, but of course no dawn was coming. Not yet.
"Ready," replied Luna.
"Pinkie?"
"Ready."
"Dale?"
"Ready, but I hope I won't be needed."
"I hope so too." Half to herself Twilight added, "Maybe we are crazy."
"Probably," replied Luna quietly, with the ghost of a smile. "But we are doing this anyway." Her horn began to glow. This would be her show most of all, so she obeyed her own cue to begin. The other ponies' parts would come once her illusion was well underway.
Her fire started small. The first flicker of flame that licked up from a pile of straw sitting against the wall the barn shared with the office was hardly bigger than a candle's flame. It was easier to build a small illusion and then push it outward, and it would look more natural that way. It looked like fire. It sounded like fire, though at first the crackle was small. It smelled like fire. And it radiated heat like fire, though the heat was as unreal as everything else. If it hadn't been, the false fire would soon have started real fires as it grew.
She built it rapidly from there. There could be no chance of an attempt to put it out! It appeared to consume the haystack entirely. It climbed the wall. It crept rapidly across the wooden floor and leapt eagerly onto the carriages.
The enslaved ponies inside saw it and many shifted nervously from hoof to hoof, but they said nothing. Dale had passed a telepathic message to Rainbow Dash, and she had quietly passed it to her neighbors, so they all knew that the fire wasn't real, no matter how it looked. Or sounded. Or smelled.
Eventually the ponies in the office noticed, but only when the fire licked around the door between office and stable proper, and by then it was too late: the interior of the barn was an inferno. Any pony who tried to go in was pushed back by the intense heat.
In the alley Luna's horn was glowing brightly, and her eyes were shut firmly in concentration. Twilight spared a moment's thought to admire Luna's poise; she was all too aware of the ridiculous scrunched-up faces she made when performing serious magic. Her thoughts were interrupted when Luna began adding the screams of tortured ponies to the crackle of the fire—that was Twilight's cue to start in on her own work. Her horn glowed as well, and a spark of intense magic traced an arch in the wall before her. She shoved and the cut out interior of the arch fell inside. Pinkie swept in immediately and began untying ponies with practiced ease. The illusory fire licked over them all, but there was no heat with it here.
Soon a stream of ponies was going out the newly cut door, past Twilight, and down the alley. Pinkie led them, tip-hoofing quietly, while Dale watched down a side alley for any sign that the guardsponies were trying to circle the building. As the strongest of the little group his job would be to fight them off long enough for Twilight or Luna to bring magic to bear, but that would be... less than ideal.
Fortunately, they got just enough luck to keep their plan intact. The guards, clerk, and drivers were rushing around in a disorganized mess. There was plenty of shouting, angry orders and panicked wailing alike, but nopony could make himself understood over the roar of the flames. A pair of guardsponies tried several times to reach the inside of the barn, but the flames were spreading into the office itself and they soon gave up, retreating to the street to watch. One of the guards finally raced off, presumably to summon firefighters. The other, with the clerk and drivers, stood around looking baffled and helpless. A few of the drivers tried to get in through the huge double doors, but Luna's firey illusion engulfed those doors as well. Nopony had any reason to check the back of the building. There were no doors there.
Pony after pony slipped out through the hole cut in the wall and followed Pinkie Pie towards the relative safety of the "rebel base." Twilight counted them: Nine out. Twelve total. Three to go! Almost thereohmy Celestia it's--
"Applejack?"
It was, and she paused, giving Twilight a quizzical look that she knew so well. "Do ah know you?"
"Yes. Well, no. Wait..." Twilight shook herself. "No time to talk now, follow the others. I'll explain later."
Applejack nodded slowly and moved quietly down the alley after the others, shooting Twilight a sidelong glance as she went. Behind her came a yellow pegasus with a flaming orange mane and tail, and then Rainbow Dash close on her heels. Dale peeled off from his watch to fall in behind the column, to make up the rearguard. He might be needed if they were spotted. They would have to cross several major streets, though most of their route would be by back alleys and deserted ways where shops and houses were all abandoned to decay.
"That's everyone!" whispered Twilight to Luna.
"Right," muttered Luna. Her horn grew brighter still, and Twilight's glowed once more as well. Luna kept up the illusion of spreading flames, but she and Twilight both were now starting real ones. They had decided to pass on Pinkie Pie's offer and use magical fire instead. Magical fire that burned hotter and brighter than anything natural possibly could. The flames spread even faster than the illusion had, and soon the roaring inferno engulfing the building was very real, enough so that the casting pair had to retreat down the alley as the flames reached the back wall of the stable.
The fire would leave a magical residue that any unicorn could read, of course, but in doing so it would mask the residue of Luna's illusions. Nightmare Moon and her guards would know that the stable had been burned down by magic that had reduced everything to a fine, floury ash, and that there were no longer any slaves. They would also 'know' that there was nopony in Equestria save Nightmare Moon herself who was capable of convincingly faking the fire to cover for an escape, so they would be left with only one possible conclusion: it would look like an attack. A clumsy failure of an attack that had missed its real targets, and caught the innocent slave ponies instead. Nightmare Moon was used to Pinkie Pie's raids, she knew there were rebels out there. It would be a simple matter of a moment's egoism for Nightmare Moon to assign the bungled attack to the forces that she already knew and loathed.
"I was very convinced of my superiority to all other ponies when I was Nightmare Moon," Luna had told Twilight. "This Nightmare should be even more so. She will hopefully be eager to see stupidity, rather than cleverness, here. Though I do not know for sure. I had some... paranoid tendencies. She will see a plot against her here no matter what we do. But at least if this works she shall be thinking of the wrong sort of plot, looking in the wrong direction. 'Tis a better plan than anything I can think of, at least."
Now it looked as though they were going to get away with it. The magical fire had taken root over the entire building. Out on the main road the firefighters had arrived, with their pumping truck and hoses, but they were merely spraying down the neighboring buildings to keep the fire from spreading. They were all experienced enough to know that the fire in the stable had passed well beyond their control.
Luna finally let go of the last of her illusion, including the sounds of screaming ponies. Now there was only the crackle and roar of real flames. And with no chance of setting the whole city on fire, there was no reason for her and Twilight to stay and watch their handiwork. They quickly followed in the wake of the others, moving through the darkness, away from the warm, hungry glow that would eat every last scrap of evidence for them.
They walked calmly through the city, resisting the urge to gallop and catch up with the others. Running would only attract unwanted attention. For the first few blocks, at least, all eyes were on the glow and roar of the burning stable. Nopony noticed them trotting casually across a broad thoroughfare, as nopony had noticed the column of rescued ponies following that same path a few minutes before.
A second crossing, further from the fire, was more nerve-wracking, but once again they manged to slip across the major road without drawing any undue attention. At last the pair reached the warehouse, still apparently abandoned from the outside.
Thankfully, inside the warehouse all twelve of the rescued ponies, plus Dale and Pinkie Pie, proved to be safe and sound. They were loosely gathered around a little glow of light, provided by a slate-blue unicorn stallion that Twilight vaguely remembered seeing around Ponyville.
"Twilight! Luna!" Pinkie bounced up to them. "You made it back!"
"You didn't have any trouble leading the others back here?" asked Twilight.
"Nope!"
"That's good." Twilight scanned the ponies they'd rescued. Her eyes fell on Rainbow Dash, who was lying down a little ways off. A yellow pegasus that Twilight belatedly recognized as Spitfire was lying next to her, and had pillowed her head on Rainbow's flank. They were talking softly and Twilight hesitated to interrupt them. Something about the way the were looking at each other suggested something private and personal--intimate even. Twilight blushed and, for reasons she couldn't quite articulate, glanced at Luna. Then she saw Applejack, standing next to the unicorn providing the light, and she trotted over to greet her.
"Applejack. Hi there."
"Howdy. Ya'll seem to know me, but I can't say I've ever laid eyes on you."
"Well, no you probably haven't. I'm Twilight Sparkle. And I do know you, sort of, but it's kind of complicated. I need to talk to you about it though, because we need you in order to defeat Nightmare Moon."
Applejack gave Twilight a dubious look. "Me? No offense, but that sounds nuttier than a dead squirrel."
Twilight hesitated a moment at the strange metaphor. Why a dead squirrel and not a live one? She shook off the thought and responded. "I know it does sound a little bit out there, but it's true. You see, there's something called the Elements of Harmony, which have defeated Nightmare Moon in the past. They're actually six ponies, each one holding one element. You have one, Rainbow Dash has one, I have one, and Pinkie Pie has one. So we've already got four out of the six. We'll have the other two soon, and then Nightmare Moon won't stand a chance."
"Ah don't have any Element, sugarcube. Ah lost everything ah ever owned, so if ah ever did have somethin' like that it's long gone."
Twilight shook her head. "It's not an object you own, it's something inside you. You've had it probably since you got your cutie mark. It's not something you could lose." Unless you're no longer honest, thought Twilight to herself, and I don't know of any way to be certain of that. But so far the others have all been true to their elements. Surely Applejack is too.
"Well, ah don't know... Ah don't feel like ah'm anythin' special... Ah'm no better than any other pony."
Twilight shook her head again, trying to explain. "It's not that you're better, it's just... something you have. Honestly I don't completely understand the relationship myself. I never felt any different because I have the Element of Magic. But I do. I've used it before, so I know it's there. And Princess Celestia has told me that you have an Element as well." That was true enough, at least. That was more or less all the detail that the Princess had given Twilight and her friends when she was explaining things to them after... after Luna's rescue from the Nightmare. Twilight didn't quite want to get into the discussion that started with her telling Applejack that she'd seen her use her Element as well. Not right this second, anyway.
"The Princess? Do... do ya'll know what happened to her? Nightmare Moon," to Twilight's surprise Applejack turned her head and spat on the floor after speaking the name, "told everypony that the Princess was gone forever, but ah've heard a passel o' rumors about her. Everythin' from her bein' deader 'n a drowned filly to her havin' run off to some other country 'cause she was afraid o' Nightmare Moon."
Twilight hesitated a moment at this second macabre metaphor, but only a moment before jumping to her mentor's defense. "She'd never do that! She's gone because she's been banished to the sun, the way Nightmare Moon was banished to the moon until she escaped. But if we succeed in defeating Nightmare Moon, then Celestia will return, she certainly isn't gone forever." I hope, added Twilight to herself, thinking of the growing cold, the possibly weakened sun.
"Well! That's mighty good to hear." Applejack smiled.
"So are you willing to join us, and fight Nightmare Moon?"
"Ah reckon so. Ah'm not the kind of pony to sit back when there's buckin' to do. And if anypony needs a good flank-buckin' it's Nightmare Moon."
"Great!" Twilight glanced around, seeing that most of the ponies were settling in to sleep. She noticed her saddlebags set against one wall and the thought of how much planning she needed to do passed through her mind. "Thank you for joining us," she said to Applejack. "I really need to study my notes again now though, so I'll talk to you later."
"Sure thing sugarcube."
Twilight crossed the room, settled next to her bags and pulled out a sheaf of notes. She paged through them, crossing off everything that was no longer relevant, circling things that seemed particularly important, and occasionally jotting down a new note. Some time later she dozed off over her notes, as she had many times in her bookish life.
Luna remained wide awake, thanks to the never-ending night and an alicorn's natural need for less sleep. She gazed across the room full of sleeping ponies towards where Twilight lay. The unicorn looked so sweet lying there, her papers beneath her head, her quill beside her, a faint frown of concentration still creasing her brow. It was like a painting, The Scholar After A Long Day, perhaps.
I used to paint, thought Luna. Maybe I should pick it up again. That could be my first piece. The thought made her smile. She picked her way across the room, circling around sleeping ponies, to reach Twilight's side. She felt a strange urge to lie next to Twilight and cuddle up with her. The thought of such warmth and closeness with the beautiful and intelligent mare was wonderful, but also frightening. And what would Twilight think, if she woke to such intimacy? She would no doubt be uncomfortable, or even upset at Luna for taking such a liberty. It wouldn't be right, said Luna to herself with a touch of regret, for... so many reasons. I suppose I could wake her, tell her how I feel, ask her... Luna snorted mentally, ...panic her, addle her wits in the middle of the most dangerous journey she's ever been on, make her uncomfortable to be around me when we need so desperately to be working together. Luna sighed, and sat down a few feet away. We have more important things to worry about, she told herself. Gathering the Elements of Harmony and defeating Nightmare Moon is what we need to concentrate on now. Relationships can wait.
She knew that was partly an excuse, that her own fear of rejection was much of the reason why she didn't want to say anything about her growing feelings towards Twilight. She had seen many romances over her long life, and even gently shepherded a few special ponies through their own fears of rejection, many, many years ago... but she had avoided such entanglements assiduously. The idea of deliberately entering into a relationship after so long was terrifying, and that fear seemed stronger, strangely, than her worries about Nightmare Moon. Still, it was a good excuse, and she was going to stick to it. So she lay down where she was, and tried to go to sleep. But her thoughts kept returning again and again to the mare that lay nearby, and to the dark mare she had once been, and those two fears chased each other around and around in her head until she heard ponies beginning to stir into wakefulness around her, and she gave up on sleep.
Pinkie Pie was one of the first up, and she set about quietly waking the rest. As they had not expected to be rescuing a dozen ponies, there was not enough food to make a proper meal, but what the rescuers has brought was shared out, a few bites for each.
"There's more when we get to the Everfree," Pinkie told the hungry ponies.
"That's just fine, sugarcube," said Applejack to her. "Those no-good bootlickers only ever gave us mushrooms anyhow, I won't miss 'em!"
"Well, we mostly have mushrooms too," said Pinkie with a sad frown.
"Mushrooms in freedom or mushrooms in slavery, I know which one I'd rather eat," said Spitfire. There was a general murmur of assent from the gathered ponies.
"Come on," said Rainbow Dash. "Let's go. The sooner we go, the sooner we get to food, right?"
"Just a moment." That was Twilight, still blinking sleep out of her eyes. "I have one more thing to do before we leave."
"What is that?" asked Luna.
"I need to scry again. We're eventually going to need to know where Rarity is, and if I don't do it now, we'll have to come back here to do it again. I'm pretty sure the mine isn't underneath Manehattan, so that would be a waste of time."
"I am very glad you're doing the planning, that had not even crossed my mind," said Luna ruefully, once again forced to admire Twilight's intelligence and foresight. Not that it takes much forcing...
"Just let me go get a bucket of water. It will only take a minute, and then we can all go."
"We need to go out a few at a time anyway," said Pinkie Pie. "I'll start sending out ponies while you do your stuff."
Twilight nodded and looked around for the bucket.
"Ah saw it over there," said Applejack. "Lemme go fetch it for ya." She trotted across the room and soon had the bucket they'd used before refilled.
Twilight peered into it, her horn glowing. Luna could just glimpse the pale white unicorn against the darkness of the mine. Then the view moved through the dark, seeking an exit. When it came out into the brighter, moonlit night above it zoomed out, and Luna didn't recognize the tiny images from her angle. Twilight, however, smiled.
"She's in the Diamond Dog tunnels, not half a day's walk from Ponyville. That makes things much simpler. We have to stop in the Everfree to pick up Fluttershy, and we may be able to rescue Rarity the same day!"
"What-all is this?" asked Applejack, peering down at the tiny image, now showing the ruins of Ponyville as seen from above.
"Scrying. It's a way to see things with magic."
"An' you can see anything?"
"Well... within limits. I wouldn't want to look in on Nightmare Moon, for example. Now that we're so close to her she might sense it."
"What about normal ponies? Jus'... ordinary folks."
"Yes, I guess I could look for any ordinary pony," said Twilight slowly, fearing where this was going. "Though they have to be somepony I've seen before."
"An' have you seen my sister Applebloom?"
Twilight hesitated, then nodded.
"Then you gotta' look her up for me, see if she's doin' all right. Pinkie tole me that Big Macintosh is alive an' well, but nopony knows what happened to any o' the young 'uns from Ponyville."
"Applejack... I don't know if that's a good idea. Anything might have happened to her. If what I see is bad..."
"Ah can handle it." said Applejack, her eyes narrowing. "Ah can handle anythin'."
Twilight looked at Applejack. A friend, a stranger. The Element of Honesty. Maybe. So much unknown, but that determined stubbornness was the same. It had led the Applejack Twilight knew dangerously close to lying; self-deception was the easiest sort of lie to tell, and this Applejack might well be deceiving herself now.
"Applejack... be completely honest. Don't lie to me, and don't lie to yourself either. If something bad has happened to your sister, can you handle it? Don't tell me it won't hurt you at all if she's been harmed. We'd both know you were lying."
Applejack frowned, opened her mouth to say something angry, then stopped and frowned again, a more thoughtful frown this time. Then she heaved a sigh. "You're right. An' I'd be more than hurt, I'd come all to pieces faster than a month old corpse that's been bucked good n' hard. It'd probably be the last straw that broke me. But now that I know I can see if she's alive, ah have to know. Ah can't go along not knowing any longer, I'd go plumb crazy anyway, like the ponies they put in solitary. Please; ah have to know."
Something in Twilight's heart jerked at Applejack's pleading. Not just because she'd shown still was still honest, though that was part of it, but the sincere need in her friend's voice touched her deeply, twisted her heart and made it impossible for her to say no. Without a word her horn lit again.
The second or so it took the picture to change was agonizing. Twilight thought she might burst from the tension, not knowing if the spell would find Applebloom at all or if it would be unable to locate her, as it had been unable to locate poor Spike.
But then the view of Ponyville vanished, replaced by a familiar yellow filly.
Twilight nearly fell over with relief. Applebloom was alive! She was in a school room, and as Twilight widened the view another sigh of relief escaped her. The room was full of familiar colts and fillies. Some she didn't know, but she saw Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Snips, Snails, and even the obnoxious Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara. All the fillies and colts of Ponyville seemed alive and well.
All the young ponies wore moon badges. The unicorn teaching the class, who had one as well, was writing on the board, and Twilight could read it easily enough. "The benefits of the Kingdom of Night," it read, and the teacher was filling in item one of the list below it. The youngsters were apparently being taught some insultingly obvious propaganda, but that was miles better than the horrible torture or slavery that Twilight had been unable to keep from picturing.
"She's all right," breathed Applejack.
"Yes," said Twilight. "Hoofington, it looks like. A long way from anywhere we'll be, and that means it's safe." Twilight smiled slightly. “She'll be waiting for you when we defeat Nightmare Moon; I can't imagine how happy she'll be to see you. But now, it looks like it's our turn to get out of here."
They were the last two ponies in the room; Luna and Pinkie Pie were hovering just outside the door.
"Right. Let's go get ready to buck some Nightmare flank," said Applejack with grim and yet delighted determination. She grinned at Twilight, and Twilight grinned broadly back.