//------------------------------// // 2 - All We Are is Stars // Story: Bezithan // by chrumsum //------------------------------// “Contrary to what you may think I think, friend, progress is not made by theories, rules, or lectures. Those are mere benchmarks. No, progress comes from curiosity, persistence, and lucky accidents.” —Star Swirl “Dearest Magistrate, I am pleased to inform you that the Fogwind and her crew, after six and a quarter months abroad the Outlands, is eagerly bound for home. This voyage has brought some fascinating questions to mind...” —Cypher, in a letter to Magistrate Cloudhorn of Gildport *** Twilight gasped a ragged breath. Searing eyes flashed in the darkness. Screaming in her ears. Guts twisting and falling, must be falling but nothing moves. Head spinning and ringing. Pounding in throat. Phantom noises and voices. Sand and blood and fire and eyes piercing through her heart. Twilight screamed until there was no air left in her lungs, and crumbled into desperate tears. She clutched at her body, as if trying to tear off some filth coating her fur. Her heart pounded against her rib cage. That thing… Oh Celestia, what did that thing do to me?! Why can’t I see? Those eyes— “Calm down!” Twilight choked out the words, pressing her hooves against her heaving chest. “C-calm down! Breathe, Twilight, br—” She gasped as a spasm of pain in her gut doubled her over. Her entire body lurched, as if her mind and body were cut off from each other. She twisted, her body struggling against the perceived fall. Nothing seemed coherent. Every motion was met with twisting nausea and dizziness. She squeezed her eyes shut, and tears rolled down her cheeks. A weak sob escaped her. This has to be a nightmare. I’ll wake up. Please, oh please, let me just wake up… The creeping sickness in her stomach ebbed. She reached out before her. Her movement was dream-like, with no resistance or substance around her body as she moved. Her mind told her she was falling, but there was no rushing wind, no whistling in her ears. There was no sound at all. Her eyes darted around in her skull, searching for some point of reference. There was only thick, impenetrable darkness, as if her eyes were sealed shut. She felt her breathing quicken again, the strange vertigo rearing in her brain once again. “Keep it together, Twilight,” she whispered. “For the love of Celestia, keep it together.” She closed her eyes and waited, her hooves tucked into her chest. Her body tensed, anticipating the touch that would bring her back to the real world. But nothing came, nothing but the horrible, endless silence. There had to be something out there. Somepony had to be looking for her, trying to find her. Princess Celestia, her friends, anypony. Her throat tightened at the thought of them. Never before had her friends felt so far away. Squeezing her hooves close to her chest, she felt only the faint beating of her heart. Am I dead? A chill slithered down her spine. She clasped at her throat, searching for a pulse. Could the dead tell when they were gone? Ever so faintly, she felt a throb at the side of her neck. But what did that mean? Could the dead still feel their blood flow, hear their heart pump? Stay calm. Look around. You can figure this out, Twilight. Acting on a hunch, she focused on funneling magic through her horn and cringed as her headache intensified. A faint glimmer of purple light shone from her forehead. Looking down, she saw all four hooves. Thank the goddesses. I’m not blind, either. The thought was only vaguely comforting. Looking to either side, her light brought nothing new. It travelled onwards and vanished, as if absorbed. Twilight focused her hearing and flicked her ears. Total silence. Never before had she known such a horrible sound. Not even the whispering of leaves in the wind, or the rustle of pages as a book turned. Only cold, dead silence, as if the world around her had come to a complete standstill. “Hello?” Twilight rubbed her ears and swallowed. Her voice sounded muffled, as if she were hearing herself speak from the other side of a wall. “Is anyone there? Can anypony hear me? Hello?” A pulsation. Twilight twisted to look behind her and found nothing where the sound was supposed to be. It came again, this time accompanied with a series of muted pops and crackles. Her breathing quickened. “Hello?! Is someone there?” She froze in place. As her ears accustomed themselves to the silence of the void, she sensed where the noises were coming from. They were inside her. The pulsing of her arteries. Fluttering lungs. A heartbeat. Crackling as air bubbles in her joints and ears popped and reformed. Every sound once made silent escalated in her skull. Her heart raced, the tempo of the internal orchestra increasing in time. Every sickly squelch and organic pulse creeped through her brain like minute, frozen claws. Her head went light. “Help! Someone, please!” she screamed, desperate for the slightest sound to ease the horrifying sounds echoing inside her mind. Her teeth dug into her lip and she pressed her hooves against her ears. The noises crescendoed. The wet throb of her heart as it pushed against her lungs. The burbling of the liquids sloshing in her guts. The moist wheeze as her breath passed through her gullet. Over and over. “Make it stop! Make it stop! Somepony get me out of here!” She thrashed in her suspended state, triggering the disoriented nausea building in her stomach. Her suppressed a gag and arched her back, clawing at her face. Her ragged screams were lost in the darkness. Somepony… Celestia... A searing flash turned the black void white. Twilight threw her hooves over her eyes, twisting away from the light. She rubbed at the spots of light flickering in her tear-blurred vision. The terrified thumping in her chest eased, the nightmarish noises mercifully ended. The weight of her body shifted, and the disorientation ceased. She opened a cautious eye, sniffling away the agonized tears. Before her, the darkness of the void had vanished. In its place was a blinding, crackling wall of flame. The orange-red light throbbed and swirled with energy, spitting tongues of fire. Looking down, Twilight found her body was awash in a brilliant white glow, as if a spotlight had been aimed at her chest. Her mind spun as she took in the size of the wall. No, not a wall. A sphere. A parabolic arc of red light outlined only the slightest curvature miles upon miles away from her. A star. She flailed her limbs in a panic, and the inferno backed away. No. Not right. If this was a star, she’d be dead. Dead on the spot. The radiation would fry her brain, the heat evaporate her blood. Not right. That wasn’t there a second ago. Think. Rationalize. Maybe she’d gone crazy. She had to be crazy. She squeezed her eyes shut. When I open my eyes, I’ll realize that I’m only hallucinating. No such luck. The star pulsated, radiating its power undisturbed as if it had been doing so for billions of years. There was no threat, no danger. Only a quiet, dominant force. Waiting, watching, illuminating. She swallowed hard and extended a hoof towards the surface of the star. Her fur didn’t ignite, her flesh didn’t burn away from her body. In fact, she didn’t feel a thing. The fire of the star licked at the bottoms of her hooves and curved around her foreleg. Twilight turned her hoof inside the surface of the star, and pulled away a sliver of glowing plasma. It evaporated into the space around her. “Incredible,” she whispered. It was impossible to look away. A queer giddiness warmed her insides, as if re-experiencing the first time she’d discovered magic. She sunk her hooves into the depths of the pulsating fireball. There was no pain, only a slight, pleasant tingling. A smile flickered across her face as she immersed herself within its body. Coils of energy and plasma swirled around her, twirling into intricate patterns, collapsing on themselves and tearing apart under their own power. She watched, transfixed, as it passed through her, spiriting away the anxiety and fear. Superheated gases and unbelievable heat and flame poured through and around her body like an electric wind. How did this get here? The thought scratched at her brain. Think. Had she somehow travelled here? But that couldn’t be. She would’ve had to break the speed of light to get here and only now notice the star’s presence. And considering she could barely move without wanting to throw up, that was unlikely. Her brow furrowed, and the exhaustion subsided in favor of irritated curiosity. More importantly, why would it choose to appear now? It bothered her to think of the star having some sort of ulterior motive, but there wasn’t much else to assume. But what, the star was invisible and just decided to appear? The words clicked in her brain. Decided? She hovered in thought before stretching her hooves before her in an awkward swim. Twilight frowned, managing no more than to flip herself upside down. She wrapped her magic around herself and levitated her body towards the entrance. Soon, she broke the surface of the star, and it receded from her view faster than she expected possible. Twilight contemplated it, as if trying to commit its exact curvature and coloration to memory. It was a hunch, but it was all she had. She closed her eyes and let the feeling come. The panic, the desperation, the pain. And somewhere in the turbine of darkness and confusion, a single image rose. A foothold in the world, a beacon in the madness and chaos. A single light illuminating the world. She thought of Princess Celestia. The darkness around her thickened with specks of flickering lights. Purples and blues and yellows rushed past her head, blowing through her mane and collecting together. Like an intricate web, filled with patterns to complex for her to ever understand, they came together and condensed. Before her very eyes, gases and matter formed from nothing and came together, forging a single point. Time passed in an instant, the point growing and expanding and swirling with energy. In mere seconds, it assembled itself before her. Twilight found herself between two stars. There was a moment of silence and clarity. Twilight pressed her hooves to her temples. “Ohmygosh. I made a star. By thinking it!” Spontaneous creation of matter! A compulsive giddiness swelled in her chest. She’d created an infinite source of power and energy. And that had been without even trying! She could potentially do… anything! Create metals, generate historical artifacts only hinted at in historical documents. Where did the limits of this power begin and the fancies of her mind end. This had to be categorized, noted. Perhaps she could whip up parchment and quills to get this all— Twilight Sparkle froze as she realised the smile her face. It had crept there, without her noticing.  The momentary high evaporated, and her hooves fell to her sides. What am I doing? This was too much. She pushed herself away from the pulsating stars. Their gravity seemed to pull her in, draw her towards them. It was enticing, alluring… dangerous. Not the stellar bodies themselves; they were as harmless as pebbles to her. And that frightened her more than anything. The prospect of this power lain before her, bare and unrestrained, polluted her mind. She shook her head in hopes it would clear the strange buzz in the back of her skull. That sensation had, for the briefest moment, wiped everything away. Every fear and loneliness of her entrapment, every anxiety and worry that gnawed at her heart had been replaced with that thrilling rush. She’d forgotten them. Spike, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, all of them. She focused her mind on her creations. Picturing them as dots or as lamps, she poked and prodded them uncertainly. There were no books on how to do this. Everything was uncharted, nothing was certain. And yet with a strange, instinctive purpose, the two suns extinguished themselves. They flickered briefly, then were put out as if they’d been nothing more than candles. Once more, Twilight plunged herself into darkness. She waited in silence. A coldness she hadn’t noticed until now crept around her. Long ago, this is what she would have wanted. All the potential knowledge and genius to her own. No books would even be needed; she’d be rewriting all of them. Here, alone, she’d be at home, content with the infinite possibilities and outlooks that needed exploring, the questions that needed answering. But that had changed, hadn’t it? Twilight looked about her, hoping that somehow this revelation had brought forth a doorway or passage that she hadn’t noticed before. The void remained impenetrably black. A thought came to her, and that was enough. With all this power, that’s all it would take, wouldn’t it? A simple thought? It was a feeble hope, but it was the only one she had. After all, they might be waiting for her. Who knew how long she’d been out or what time had passed. It could have been hours or even days. She let her muscles relax, the tension easing out her body. Her hooves curled inwards towards her chest. Her eyes closed. Cadance had taught her that, if anything, a calm mind brought answers to the worst of problems. Her mind unclouded, the doubt leaving through her measured breaths. With her thoughts limpid, she grasped onto a single, clear thought. “I want to go home.” *** Oak, cedar, wood polish. The comforting musk of books and the sweetness of spring flowers. Like a new breath, they wafted into her, gently waking her. Twilight opened her eyes. It smelled like home. She blinked away the shadows swimming around the edges of her vision, and the world slipped into focus. Looking down, she found the familiar hardwood of her kitchen floor; above her, the countertops and cupboards. She reached out with a shaky hoof and touched the shelves. The grain was rough beneath to the touch. Real. It had worked. As the dizziness of her dreamstate left her, Twilight rose to her hooves. Her stomach lurched, threatening to send her back down to the ground. A groan escaped her, but she managed to stand. The warm glow of the morning sun poured through the kitchen windows, slow and syrupy. Outside, the birds chirped and twittered away the good news of another night passed. Cautious, as if terrified she might wake herself up from a dream, Twilight edged over to the window and pressed her muzzle against it. Ponies were already about their business. Hayseed, carrying a cart of full of weeds, waved to a pony who was putting together a rose booth to catch early morning customers. A shopkeeper waved to a friendly passerby before returning to sweeping her front steps. Nothing unusual. Twilight glanced at the clock. It was just past nine in the morning. “Spike?” Twilight turned away from the window, looking out the kitchen to the foyer. She waited for a moment and heard no answer. “Spike?” she called again, louder. Her heart seized in her chest, and she galloped out the kitchen. Her eyes darted to the front door. It was still locked, and the windows hadn’t been opened yet. There was no sign of anyone having come or gone. She rushed over to the calendar hung above her desk. The date hadn’t been changed. How long have I been gone? “Spike!” Her voice rang hoarsely through the library. Twilight flew up the stairs, her hooves barely touching the steps as she galloped. The curtains upstairs were drawn, leaving the bedroom dark. She rushed over to the basket at the foot of the bed and threw the tightly bundled covers aside. “Spike!” As if being stung, Spike shot out of his bed. “What? Who? Fire? What is it? Twilight, what’s going—” Before he could say anything more, Twilight grabbed him and pulled him into a crushing hug. “Oh thank Celestia…” she whispered, squeezing him. “Thank Celestia, you’re okay.” He raised an eyebrow before awkwardly patting her on the back. “Uh… good morning to you, too?” She ran an affectionate hoof through his spines, closing her eyes. A relieved smile crossed her face. Spike, thank goodness. If she had lost him... Spike squirmed in her grip, and she quickly released him. Heat rose in her cheeks and she chuckled sheepishly. “What’s with the cheery wake-up call? Aren’t you going to bite my head off for oversleeping?” Twilight bit her lip and smiled again. “Nothing wrong with a slow morning here and there, right?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess not.” He twiddled his claws. There was an awkward pause before Twilight suddenly snapped to attention. “Uh, right…” Twilight pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She flashed a disarming smile and clapped her forehooves together. “How about breakfast?” Spike nodded and rolled himself out of bed. He paused at the stairs to scratch the back of his neck, then hopped down to the foyer. “Do you want toast or oats?” he called over his shoulder, heading to the kitchen. “Actually,” Twilight said, following him down the steps, “I was thinking I could make breakfast this time around. After all, you do it all the time. I could just—” Turning on his heel, Spike stopped Twilight in her tracks. “Uh, I don’t think so,” he said. “We have a deal, remember? I handle cooking, and you don’t set another oven on fire. Remember that one time you tried to cook gryphon pastries?” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, that wasn’t that bad.” “We were scraping the floor for three days straight! And I’m telling you, Mrs. Hillberry said she didn’t mind, but she still gives you dirty looks after you managed to get boiled brocolli all over her—” Twilight pressed a hoof to Spike’s lips. “Spike, it’s just toast and cereal. I think I can manage.” He tapped his claws against his chin. “Well, if you say so.” Not waiting for Spike to change his mind, she went straight to work. Whistling as she went, she levitated cereal boxes and bread without the slightest effort. When she turned back, Spike was looking at her as if she’d grown a second head. “What?” “Twilight, are you sure you’re feeling okay?” he asked. She paused for a moment, looking past him. “I feel…” She searched for the words to describe the bubbling feeling in her gut and the unexplainable euphoria. “I feel different. Better. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever felt better.” She retrieved some berries from the fridge and cutlery from the drawers. “Come on, have a seat!” Spike clambered onto a stool as breakfast assembled itself before him. Twilight finished slicing a couple strawberries and turned to find Spike looking down at a handful of parchment. He held them up and pointed to the pages. “Uh oh. Don’t tell me you were up all night working,” he said, his brow furrowing. “No, of course not.” She waved a hoof dismissively and poured out a bowl of corn flakes. “I was just… uh… flipping through some old notes. You know, to brush up on the basics.” “Basics, huh?” Spike picked up the diary left carelessly on the countertop and flipped through pages. “What about this? Never seen this book before.” Twilight slipped the diary out of Spike’s claws and replaced it with a bowl of cereal. “Oh, that? Just some old notebook I found just… you know… lying around at the market. Nothing important. Now eat up! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, after all!” He looked down at his bowl of cereal, then back up. Twilight smiled, waiting. “Go on.” She motioned to the bowl. “Okay, Twilight,” Spike said, pushing the bowl away, “you’re kinda creeping me out here. What’s gotten into you?” “What do you mean?” she answered, pushing it back. “The niceness, the breakfast, the creepy smiles. And I mean, it’s almost ten in the morning and I haven’t even gotten a single lecture about oversleeping. What’s wrong?” Twilight took a seat next to Spike, propping her hooves on the table. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just… I don’t know. Happy to see you.” “Well, I’m glad to see you too, but...” He took a bite of his cereal. “Lasht time I checked, vough, ‘oo were freaking out ofer dat letter.” Twilight looked down at her own breakfast of raspberry jam on toast. She’d forgotten all about the letter until now. “Yeah. I guess I was thinking about what you said. Maybe I... overreacted just a little bit.” Smiling, Spike waved his spoon in triumph and swallowed. “I’m glad you’re seeing it my way! Trust me, this whole thing will blow over and you won’t even notice. With your number one assistant by your side, we’ll reshelve the library in no time.” “Well, I’m still going to write a letter,” she said, waving her hoof. “I guess I just realised that there are bigger priorities.” Spike looked at her curiously. If he saw the unsettled look in Twilight’s eyes, he didn’t show it. Troubled, he returned to his cereal. “Well, if we’re not writing a letter, then what are we doing today? I totally cleared your calendar for the day.” Staring down at her hooves, Twilight’s mind calmed, the jittery feeling in the back of her head vanishing. Her glance hovered over the diary on the counter. She took it in her hooves. Its unassuming appearance almost fooled her a second time. But she knew better know, and she refused to be bested again. She had to know. “Spike, we’re going to do what we do best.” She flipped back a lock of her mane and placed the diary onto her desk. “We’re going to do some research.” *** Zuph-ill: spirit in South-Eastern Zebra tribal culture responsible for the passing of the rainy and dry seasons. “Twilight? Don’t you think you should maybe take a break?” Zupko: mythical half-bear, half-goat beast of folklore, claimed to inhabit the Jeneh-Pah-Deunon Mountains in the Dragonlands. “Twilight? Hey, Twilight?” Zymp: corruption of “symp” in some archaic dial— “Twilight!” She flinched in surprise as Spike slammed closed her copy of Mythical Beasts Compendium. “Sheesh! I was worried I was going to have to send a search party to pull you out of there.” Twilight yawned and rubbed at her eyes. She blinked away the tears of fatigue before reaching over for the book again. “Spike, I wasn’t yet done with that.” His claw stopped her. “Twilight, you’ve been through that book five times now. I’ve counted. And that’s an almanac.” He kneeled down to get a better look at it. “It’s literally thicker than my head. Maybe it’s time for a break?” Reaching for the sky, Twilight moaned and stretched out her sore back muscles. She rubbed the back of her head and smacked her lips. Her tongue tasted like chalk dust. “No time for breaks, Spike. Besides, we’ve only just started. Could you bring me the next few books from the reference section? Particularly anything on mythical beasts or portal phenomenons?” “Twilight, there’s no reference section left!” He threw up his arms in frustration. “You’re literally surrounded by every reference book we have.” Blinking slowly, Twilight looked around. Stacks of precariously stacked encyclopedias, dictionaries, and atlases climbed to the ceiling in rickety pillars. Come to think of it, she wasn’t quite sure which way was out. Twilight smiled sheepishly. “I guess I might have gotten just a little bit carried away?” Spike’s expression soured. “It’s almost midnight. You’ve been at this all day. Aren’t you supposed to help Applejack at Sweet Apple Acres tomorrow?” She paused. “Right. Very carried away. Look, I’m sorry, Spike, but this is very important.” “Why?” asked Spike, leaning against a massive, upright copy of The Essential Equestrian Cartographer. “I haven’t seen you working this hard since your final exam in Canterlot. What’s the big deal?” Twilight looked down. For some reason, she couldn’t meet his questioning gaze. He placed a claw on her foreleg. “Twilight, what’s the matter? Since this morning you’ve been acting strange and you haven’t even told me what it is we’re after. Are you absolutely sure there’s nothing you need to tell me?” “I’m fine,” Twilight said. “No you’re not. Just tell me what’s—” “I said I’m fine!” Twilight jerked her leg out of Spike’s grip. “If you’re not going to help me, Spike, then at least make yourself useful and find me the next edition of this almanac.” She dropped the thick book at his feet with a decisive thud. “I know we have it around here somewhere.” With that, she turned back to her desk and cracked open the next book in the pile. Spike didn’t leave for a while, as if wanting to say something. He stared at her back for a moment longer before taking the book under his arm and vanishing into the labyrinth of books. Twilight massaged the bridge of her muzzle. She shouldn’t have said that. Spike was only looking out for her best interests. Of course he’d want to know what had gotten into her. She mindlessly turned a page. The problem is she couldn’t tell him, because even she wasn’t sure what the problem was. Twilight leaned back in cushion. She should just outright and tell him. But tell him what? That some spell written by an amateur magician had transported her to what may as well have been Tartarus? That she had… She looked down at her forelegs, watching the muscles twitch beneath her skin as she flexed them. She had nearly died. She wasn’t entirely sure how, but the pain that went through her when that thing fixated itself on her was immeasurable, as if her entire body had been dissected atom by atom and reassembled. But something else had been poured in, some kind of energy and knowledge that she couldn’t put her hoof on. Images that had flashed and burned themselves into her mind like flying cinders flitted beyond the edges of her subconscious. The whole thing made her head hurt. She’d gone through book after book and had found nothing. Twilight leafed through the one before her anxiously. Nowhere in recorded history had there ever been a sighting of either the place she had gone to or the monster she had seen. It probably didn’t help that she didn’t exactly know what she had seen either. Basic biological facts were plain on the matter: a creature of that size couldn’t possibly exist. Then again, why would biological laws add up when laws of physics and magic had gone from absolutes to suggestions practically overnight? “Spike? Where’s that almanac?” She shouted to be heard through the wall of books. “Coming!” Twilight smacked her head against the desk and snorted angrily. None of this added up. Every possible myth, legend, fact, and hypothesis in the world was at her disposal and she couldn’t come up with a single lead. What kind of researcher was she, so inept and pathetic that she couldn’t even figure out the reason behind a backfiring spell? “Twilight?” “What?” Twilight spun in her cushion, her voice rising before she could stop it. Spike recoiled, nearly spilling the tray he had brought for her. Twilight’s expression softened. “Spike, what’s this for?” He kicked the ground uncomfortably, then held out the tray. “I think… I think you need this more than you need that book. If we’re going to stay up all night, we’re gonna need our energy. You still like rose petal tea, right? And blueberry scones?” Spike looked up at her with glistening eyes that had watched over her through all their years together. Twilight placed a tender hoof against his cheek. “Thank you, Spike. That’s sweet. I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to snap at you like that. I’m just a little stressed out.” “Look.” Spike walked past her, placing the tray on the desk beside her book. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. But it’s not good if whatever’s bothering you starts giving you white hairs. So if you’re going to stay up all night, at least try to stay hydrated and fed, okay? Applejack’s still counting on you for tomorrow. I’m not letting you go there looking like a zombie.” She couldn’t help but smile. Sometimes it was hard to tell who was taking care of whom around here. Twilight levitated the teacup to her lips, blowing a sleepy cloud of steam from the brim. Taking a sip, it soothed her parched throat as it went down, and the rose aroma equally eased her nerves. She took it between her hooves, letting it warm her both inside and out, before giving Spike a tired smile. “You should get to bed, Spike.” He crossed his arms. “Not until you eat something, too.” A giggle escaped her. “No, you’re right. It’s not healthy for me to be obsessing over this right now. I’m going to go to bed. I’ll try this again some other time.” “You sure?” Twilight nodded. “Positive. And no oversleeping, this time.” Spike rolled his eyes sarcastically, but he couldn’t hide the look of relief that stole across his face as he took the tray from Twilight. “Well, goodnight then, Twilight,” he called over his shoulder before vanishing behind a stack of books. She watched him go, reclining in her cushion and letting the steam of the tea swirl about her nostrils. She stared into the patterns vacantly. He was right, of course. Strange how a baby dragon seemed more knowledgeable than the student of the Princess at times, as if ancient dragon wisdom knew no age. She looked down at her book. It was probably for the best to call all of this off. She was alive; that was all that mattered. She still had her friends, her family. She might never know what had happened to her. It might haunt her for the rest of her life. She tapped the spine of the book against her chin. Maybe this was an issue best brought before the Princesses. Where recorded history failed, the knowledge of ponies well over a millenium old couldn’t hurt. It was indecipherable, and more importantly, it was potentially dangerous. Yes, that justified it. She took a pensive sip of her rose tea, swirling the bittersweet liquid in her mouth before swallowing. I’ll write a letter tomorrow. And that’ll be that. Twilight finished the rest of her tea, hissing in discomfort as it burned her throat going down. She levitated the book off her desk. Before she could close it, the front cover caught her eye. Tenets of Magick, by Star Swirl the Bearded. She brushed a hoof over the golden lettering. As a filly, she’d revered this book. This was a fourth edition, the oldest existing edition known of one of the, if not the, most influential book in unicorn history. Twilight leafed through the pages she had spent countless hours reading, rereading, and memorizing. Every paragraph was familiar to her, every page like a small trip through her childhood, spending night after night secretly reading under her covers far past her bedtime. Twilight turned to the last page. “Therefore, it can be hypothesized, researched, and supported, through reasoning, the nature of magick. This is the most beautiful thing. This is the science and the art, to take that which is ambiguous and obscure and to sharpen it and to refine it, through the will and determination of one’s spirit. Many a pony jest of the differences between a shut-in bookworm and the honest work of a craftsman. Yet we are more similar than they may think. As many train their craft, we so train our minds, relying on none but ourselves and our powers of deduction. As the weary hooves of a blacksmith forge and hone edges and steel, we manipulate and craft our knowledge to create something more pure, more valuable. That task in itself transcends the boundaries of race, species, and culture...” “It is the most noble act of all,” Twilight finished under her breath. She stared into the pages, the words echoing in her soul as if Star Swirl the Bearded were whispering them into her ears. Twilight smiled and shook her head. “Crazy.” Twilight frowned, her eyes glittering as the flame of the candle reflected in her pupils. Without another moment of hesitation, she put it out. She said nothing, closing her eyes as the darkness set in around her. In the shadows, she waited for an answer to come, though the question itself was a mystery. *** “All flowering on this side.” Applejack hopped off the ladder that she’d leaned against the umpteenth apple tree. With a swift bump of the hip, she dropped it down on her back and trotted over to the next one in line. “How’s that lookin’ so far, Twi?” she called over her shoulder. Trailing behind, Twilight stifled a yawn before looking down at her clipboard. What were supposed to pass off as careful notes looked like deranged scribbling. “Uh… that’s twenty flowering out of twenty-three. That’s a eighty-seven percent success rate so far…” “This one’s flowering too,” Applejack added, pawing through the branches. “Eighty-eight percent.” She duly noted the number on her carefully organized spreadsheet. “That’s good right?” She managed to work up a half-hearted smile. “Better than the last row.” Applejack shook her head and sighed. “Shoot, this is a heap more trouble than it’s probably worth. Ah’m mighty sorry I had to drag you into this, Twilight. I appreciate the help.” “Oh, no problem,” she squeaked through a stretch, cracking a particularly satisfying crick in her neck. “It’s just that last season’s crop wasn’t as bumper as we were hopin’ it would be.” Applejack pushed the ladder into the branches, but turned and leaned against the trunk instead of climbing it. “Granny Smith reckons we might have a few bad apples in this orchard, so we’ve been looking through ‘em to see which ones we need to get rid of.” “Strange,” said Twilight, sitting to rest her haunches in the grass. “I never knew Granny Smith had such an interest in plant breeding.” “She doesn’t,” Applejack answered over her shoulder, her answer muffled by the leaves as she stuck her head into the apple tree branches. “As far as Granny’s concerned, ‘apples git along jus’ fine wiffout us’, and we don’t need to be poking around in their business. It was actually Big Mac’s idea.” She leaned her head out the side of the tree. “This one’s good, too.” Twilight jotted this down and stood to follow Applejack as they headed for the next row in the orchard. “So Big Mac’s interested in crossing? I never knew.” “Yup. He keeps to himself, ya know, so you can’t tell that he’s actually all that booky. Turns out he’s been reading up a whole lot since that whole Flim Flam incident. Says it keeps the orchard ‘competitive’. Say, Twi, you gonna sow the seeds, too?” Applejack gave Twilight a friendly bump on the shoulder, prompting her to raise her head. “Hmmm, what?” She blinked her eyes rubbed at them. “Ah asked if you’re gonna sow the seeds,” Applejack mused. “The way you’re draggin’ face, you’re ploughing just fine.” Twilight managed a weak chuckle along with her friend. “Yeah, sorry about that. Guess I didn’t get much sleep last night.” Applejack stopped, placing the ladder down in the grass, and turned to face her friend. “Why’s that? Got something on your mind?” “Oh, no.” Twilight waved a hoof dismissively. “It’s just some stuff with one of my experiments. It’d bore you.” “Try me.” She sat down, folding her forelegs, and motioned for Twilight to join her. She hesitated for a moment before joining her, and the two of them looked out over the orchard. “I’m just having trouble with an experiment,” she said carefully. “Something unexpected happened while I was testing a new spell.” Applejack nodded, as if saying “been there, done that”. “What kind of spell?” Twilight sighed, closing her eyes and rubbing the side of her head. She didn’t want Applejack to worry needlessly; everything was fine. Moreover, the thought of recounting what had happened twisted her gut. An uncomfortable chill down the back of her neck. She settled for a medium ground. “Transmutation. Turning one object into another,” she added when Applejack gave her a glassy stare. “Uh huh.” Applejack nodded. She ran a hoof through the grass. “So what went wrong?” Twilight sighed. “Well that’s the thing. I can’t figure out what went wrong, or what happened.” “What happened?” “I guess… I ended with something that I wasn’t intending to get.” That was a truth. Applejack gave Twilight a curious glance. “Like what?” “I don’t know. That’s the other thing. It was some kind of uh...” Twilight fiddled with a dandelion between her hooves, watching the petals rotate as she spun the head about the stem. “Some kind of gemstone. Shaped like a star. It was like nothing I’d ever been before. I ended up doing some research and couldn’t find anything on it.” Applejack blinked in surprise. “Beg yer pardon? You didn’t find anything?” “I know, right? I looked through every book I own, every last encyclopedia and reference. Heck, I even went through the old Crystal Empire archives I have access to and got nothing.” “You reckon it’s something totally new?” Her brow furrowing, Twilight chose her words carefully. “It’s possible.” “Wow.” Applejack looked past her, her eyes focusing on the barn hidden behind the rows of apple trees basking in the warm sunlight, their leaves quivering in the pleasant spring breeze that wound its way between the branches. “Sounds like you stumbled across something mighty interesting.” Neither of them said anything for a while, simply enjoying the moment of silence and the view of the orchard. After a few moments, Twilight spoke. “I was going to give it over to Princess Celestia.” Applejack’s eyebrows raised. “Why’s that?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it, what to do with it, where it came from. Like I told you, there aren’t any books on that place. Thing, I mean.” She corrected herself. “Hmm. Ah’m surprised at you, Twi.” Twilight looked up. “What?” “Well, here you are with something new and unexpected, something that maybe nopony’s ever seen before, and the first thing you do is to go to Princess Celestia for the answer?” She couldn’t help but blush. “Well, when you put it that way…” “It sounds mighty silly,” Applejack finished for her. “You’re a smart pony, Twi. Heck, you might just be the smartest pony Ah’ve ever met in my life. There’s no reason you couldn’t handle something like this all on your lonesome. If anypony can figure it out, it’s somepony like you.” Twilight looked away. “What if I mess this up?” Removing her Stetson and placing it beside her, Applejack shifted one of her hooves to prop up her head. “Twi, you know how Ponyville became founded, right?” “Of course. Granny Smith and her parents, right?” “You betcha.” A smile crept at the corner of her mouth. “Granny would always tell me so many stories about those times. Every night, when Ah was just a lil’ filly, no older than Applebloom, she’d tell me about those times. And not just the good times. She told me about the dark days, before they ever found what they’d turn into Ponyville. “It was never easy. They’d come all the way from the far east, far beyond Manehattan. Sometimes they’d walk for days, weeks without seeing so much as a single friendly face. They’d go to sleep hungry when there wasn’t enough food, and cold when it was winter. They went from place to place, looking for seeds and a place to settle down.” Applejack tapped her hoof against the earth, as if to emphasize her point, and Twilight felt something strange twist inside of her. “They didn’t have nopony tellin’ ‘em whichaway to go. They didn’t know what was ahead, all they knew is that they had to keep goin’. Because if they stopped and went back, they wouldn’t find anything. They kept goin’ even though they might wind up dead. And they did that all without no books or teachers or Princesses telling them what to do.” Twilight was quiet for a moment, letting Applejack’s words sink in. “But wasn’t it Princess Celestia who told them where to settle down?” It was Applejack’s turn to blush. “That’s not the point! The point is that they went out and pioneered the unknown.” She jabbed a hoof at Twilight chest. “And I think that if they could cross half of Equestria, you can easily catalogue some new rock or… whatever it is you do.” Twilight bit the inside of her cheek. She was torn. A part of her brain was screaming, begging her to tell the truth. The other part digested Applejack’s words, and they tickled at something inside of her. She couldn’t quite put her hoof on what it was. She couldn’t quite describe it. But she could feel it there, like a subtle, but powerful undercurrent, a riptide that could snatch her from shore the instant she let her guard down. And those words came back to her, etched into her mind by page and candlelight. It is the most noble act of all. “I guess you’re right,” she finally said. “I’ll give it a shot.” Applejack beamed and gently punched Twilight on the shoulder. “Atta’ girl. Ain’t no sense in giving up so easy. You’re better than that. Now come on. We’ve still got work to do.” She hopped to her hooves and stretched out a crick in her neck before turning to help her friend. Twilight took Applejack’s outstretched hoof and stood with her. “Oh, and Applejack? Can this stay between us? I don’t want anypony getting worried or anything.” She gave her a curious look. “Why would anypony be worried? It’s just a rock.” An uneasy smile flashed across Twilight’s lips. “Yeah. Just a rock.”