The bed was cold. She must not have been there long.
Aside from that, Twilight had no idea where she was. The air smelled familiar, like sweat and stale parchment; the lighting was soft and yet harsh at the same time. She remembered nothing of a trip to any white-walled buildings. In fact, she was supposed to be in the forest... because...
“Welcome back, Twilight,” a white figure said.
“Rarity?”
“Not quite...”
She blinked a few times as her eyes focused. Clarity came slowly to her vision as well as her thoughts. A hat, a hat with... red. “Redheart,” she mumbled.
“Yes, that's me,” the nurse said uneasily. “Hold still.”
Suddenly she was struck with a memory. Twilight struggled to rise against bonds she couldn't see. “Applejack?”
“Easy, Twilight! Just lay back.” Redheart looked into her right eye, then her left. “You were hit very hard. I don't believe you have a serious concussion, but you might experience some dizziness or headaches all the same.”
“She hit me,” the unicorn groaned. “Rarity!”
“Yes, Twilight,” Rarity admitted from the corner of the room. “I did strike you.” Her voice was shaking with emotion. “You tried to strangle Applejack. I am not sorry.”
“I didn't try–”
“We don't have time for this,” Rarity muttered. “Are you sure she's alright?”
“She looks fine to me.” Redheart turned away from her patient. “I'd better check on Applejack.”
“Please,” the unicorn said with a shallow nod. “I'll take it from here.” The nurse nodded to Rarity, frowned nervously at Twilight and then took her leave through a doorway set... set in a wall of steel bars spaced a hoofwidth apart.
“Are we in a holding cell?” Twilight asked incredulously.
“Where else does one keep a criminal?” Rarity sniped.
She watched the nurse leave with a curious expression. She'd been acting strange, Twilight was sure. “What'd you tell her?” she asked the other unicorn.
“Everything.” Rarity showed no remorse. “We can trust her to remain silent until the Princesses arrive, although I'm not sure that it's a necessary precaution any longer.”
“But–”
“I've heard enough of your denials for one day, Twilight Sparkle,” the other unicorn interrupted as she rose from her position on the floor. “Off of the bed. We have to meet the Mayor.”
Her instinct to argue was dashed as light appeared at the end of her tunnel. “The Mayor!” Twilight sang as she hopped from the bed. A sudden wave of dizziness wasn't enough to stay her optimism. “Wonderful! I'm sure she'll understand.”
“Yes, I'm sure she will,” Rarity agreed darkly. “Come along.”
The two unicorns left the cell without looking at each other. Rarity, for her part, simply couldn't. Twilight was too busy staring from side to side, inspecting the other cells. “I recognize this place,” she said finally. “We're in the cells beneath the town hall.”
A sniffle caught her ear and her head twisted to the left. There in the cell was a young orange truant with a flaming red mane and breath like a bottle of cider left open for a week. She was staring up at Twilight as if she was the filly's last hope. “I'm sorry, okay?” she whimpered. “Please let me out.”
Twilight's shoulders slumped. “I'm sorry. I can't.”
The filly's horn sparked fitfully as she chased the two unicorns along the bars. “But my mom'll kill me if she finds out!”
“You should have thought of that before you did... whatever it is that you did,” Rarity said firmly.
“Whad habbed, Dwilighd?”
Twilight jerked at the toneless inquiry and turned slowly to the cell ahead and to the right of them. There a winged charcoal-gray stallion stood staring down at her. There was a thick layer of bandages across his nose. Twilight knew him rather well, and now he'd seen her here, in this place...
She hung her head in shame.
“Don't you have enough to worry about, Thunderlane?” Rarity said sharply. “By the looks of things, that broken nose is the least of your troubles.”
He retreated hastily to his cot. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Please?” the filly called pitifully.
They couldn't reach the door soon enough.
Once through, Rarity immediately directed her through another door on her left, “Through here,” she commanded.
Twilight's ears fell. “Can't we do this in the Mayor's office?”
“No, Twilight, we can't,” she said sternly. “Go on.”
Twilight closed her eyes and placed a hoof to her chest. In one smooth motion she pushed out her breath, her foreleg and her negativity. “I can do this,” she encouraged herself in a whisper.
She crossed into the room, one she'd entered a time or two before. This time was very different. The interrogation room was a small chamber sparsely decorated with bookshelves and filing cabinets. A table wide enough for two on either side stood at its center; Twilight's hooves almost took her to the place she had stood those times before.
“The other side, please.”
She circled around the table with trepidation. “You're not going to...?”
“I am,” Rarity confirmed as she shut the door behind her. “Hooves on the table.”
There was no use in fighting. Twilight placed her forehooves delicately on its surface and waited with eyes averted. Two chains lifted from where they dangled beside the legs of the table. The cuffs at their ends swung open and swiftly snapped shut above Twilight's pasterns. “Is this really necessary?” she asked sadly.
“I don't want you escaping,” Rarity said with a waggle of a hoof. “I know you could very well overpower me, but even you would have trouble getting out of those cuffs afterward.”
Twilight let her hooves down. The chains tightened and dug into her flesh, but an hour's discomfort now was better than a sore back later. “I won't fight you, Rarity.”
“How do you know?” Rarity said pointedly. “You may be skilled at this little act, but I've seen you snap before. I don't want you running about if you're going to do something you'll regret.”
“I won't snap!” she insisted.
“Says the psychopath who tried to choke her friend to death not eight hours ago,” Rarity scoffed.
Twilight threw her hooves into the air, or as far as the chains would let her. “I am not a psychopath! If you knew anything about psychopathy, you'd realize that your claim is simply ridiculous!”
“Ridiculous, eh?” Rarity repeated, her eyelids drooping in feigned disinterest. “I think the only one here worthy of ridicule, dear Twilight, is you. You were so proud of yourself for what you did to Rainbow, weren't you?”
“I didn't do anything to her! Somepony else did this and they're trying to frame me!”
“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “I almost fell for your act before, but Applejack's story has torn the wool from my eyes.”
“What?” she asked, elated by the news and crushed by its implications. “Applejack's okay?”
“She's more than okay, no thanks to you and your poorly-hidden attempt at, shall we say, tying up loose ends.” Her mouth twisted in distaste. “For that, Twilight Sparkle, you deserve everything that's coming to you.”
Twilight frowned worriedly. “Can I speak to her?”
“Oh, you will,” Rarity said with a fiendish smile, “but I imagine Redheart's remaining examinations will take some time...”
The door crashed open and bounced off of the wall and the doorway was filled with an angry orange tower of hatred with a shaggy blond lion's mane.
“You heartless, gutless filly!” Applejack howled. She launched herself at her friend, only to be caught by the tail in midair. Twilight jerked away but the chains around her wrists left her no chance to run. The farmer's hooves slammed into the floor and scrabbled for purchase as she tried to force herself onward. “I'm gonna murder you!” she roared, her brilliant emerald eyes burning in their sockets. “See how you like it!"
“Applejack,” Rarity smiled. “Punctual as always.”
Twilight looked up at her friend's writhing fury from behind the weak defense of her hooves. “Applejack, wait!” she begged. "I don't know what you think happened, but I promise I would never have done that to you!"
"Don't you start making excuses now!” she barked, settling onto her hooves and straining to take a forceful step forward. “I broke that spell of yours. You ain't gonna fool me twice."
“Then tell me what you remember,” Twilight pleaded. “If we just talk it over, I'm sure we'll be able to find out the truth!”
“I ain't wasting my breath,” the other mare sneered. “You know what you did and you ain't getting away with it. If Rarity ain't gonna let me at you myself, then I'll just have to wait for the Mayor to do it for me.”
“There's going to be a trial?”
The unicorn in the corner let out a short burst of mirthless laughter. “Of course there will be a trial. Applejack and I respect Equestria's legal system.”
“But the Princesses–”
“Will judge you themselves,” Rarity clarified. “Mayor Mare is simply coming because we need her approval to lock you away until then.”
“No! You don't have to do that!” Twilight yelped. “I can't help you if I'm in prison!”
“Nor can you hurt anypony.”
“I'll stay in the Boutique,” she offered instead. “Lock the doors and windows if you want.”
“I know you can teleport,” Rarity reminded her.
Twilight pushed on. “If I need a book I'll ask Applejack or Fluttershy to get it. You can lock Rainbow and me in separate rooms if you want. We won't even see each other!”
“If we ever find that mare, that is,” Applejack pouted. “Last anypony saw of her was when she barged in here and started yelling at the Mayor.”
“She's missing?” Twilight cried. “Has anypony checked the basement? Was she taken?”
“Nah, she flew off by herself, screaming bloody murder.” Applejack rubbed her neck. “Not before starting a few fights trying to get you out. You really did a number on her, Twi.”
“But whoever hurt the three of you is still out there and they might have Rainbow Dash!”
The crack of Rarity's hoof against the tile silenced her. “That's enough, Twilight. Applejack, Fluttershy and I have seen enough to make our decision. We have to do this, for your sake.”
“Listen to me, Applejack,” Twilight pleaded. “You're the bravest, most stouthearted pony I've ever met. If I was trying to cast a spell this complicated, you would have noticed in plenty of time to stop me!”
“Perhaps she could have, had you not been able to take advantage of her condition.”
Twilight looked from one to the other in confusion. “What condition?”
Applejack glowered at Rarity.
Twilight's mouth fell open. “You did drink last night! I knew it!”
“Don't you go thinking that's your ticket out of here!” the farmer grumbled. “My memory's just fine.”
She fought to hold back a relieved chuckle. “I'm sorry, AJ, but how can we consider you a reliable witness?”
“Look,” she said sternly. “I might have a few black spots from before I passed out, but I remember every little thing after you woke me up.”
“You could be remembering a nightmare!”
“Horseapples!” she swore. “I was so darn blackout drunk I didn't have any dreams!”
“That will not help your case,” Rarity whispered.
Applejack laid her ears back. “Hush, you.”
“Even if they weren't a dream, they could still be false,” Twilight tried. “I'm sure a unicorn with this kind of power over the mind could create and implant false memories.”
Applejack pointed a hoof at her eyes. “Do these look purple to you?” she asked. “I said I broke the spell, and I mean I broke it.” She settled onto her haunches with a little smile of satisfaction. “Everything I feel and everything I remember is real, and I remember you, Twilight. You ain't getting around this one, not after trying to do me in like that.”
Twilight folded her hooves on the tabletop and fell into them. “When is Mayor Mare coming?” she said, her voice low and hopeless. “Hasn't Pinkie come back with the Princesses?”
“I have to know one thing, Twi,” the farmer said suddenly. “Why?”
The unicorn looked up at her friend with one eye. “I don't understand.”
Applejack's glare grew darker. “You know what I mean. How come you didn't just talk to us? Why'd you have to use magic?”
“I di–”
“If you wanted Rainbow to be your fillyfriend, all you had to do was ask her.” Applejack's eyes shone with tears but her cheeks were flushed with fury. “She told me she was kinda into you for a bit there.”
Twilight's head jerked up. She stared at Applejack with disbelief scrawled across her eyes.
“Wouldn't have been too far-fetched for her to say yes to a date,” she muttered. “You didn't even try. You just had to use your magic to solve yet another problem when a little chat would've done just fine.”
“I... She likes me?” she said softly. “Why?”
The earth pony laughed. “Don't matter now, does it?” she said hopelessly. “You broke her. Now you're the only pony she'll ever get to lay eyes on, just like you wanted.”
Twilight licked her lips. “But I don't love Rainbow.”
“Yeah,” Applejack agreed, the words dripping with scorn. “I'd say that's pretty obvious.”
“One doesn't love a toy,” Rarity muttered. “One simply plays with it until they get bored. Is that why you moved on to Spike?” she asked. “Boredom?”
Twilight let her head fall back onto her hooves. “Why am I even talking to you?” she said bitterly. “You won't listen to a word I say.”
“Because they are lies!” she hissed. “I will listen when you feel ready to tell us the truth!”
“I am telling the truth!” Twilight shouted. “If I was going to try to kill Applejack, wouldn't I have done it more quietly?”
“But then we wouldn't know who killed her,” Rarity argued.
“Exactly!”
“And you are too proud a pony to allow that,” she continued. “You love showing off, don't you, 'Miss Sparkle'?”
“You should've seen her laughing,” AJ shuddered. “Creepiest darn thing I ever seen.”
“I'm sure,” her friend agreed. “Well, Twilight, who's laughing now?”
“That's crazy!” their suspect cried.
“Nuh-uh, you are!” Applejack barked.
“Oh, how would you know what really happened?” Twilight snarled. “You were drunk!”
“I am the Element of gosh-darn Honesty!” she roared, flinging spittle over her friend's muzzle. “Truth is what I do!”
“What does that even mean?!”
Applejack's eyes narrowed. “It means I ain't buying none of your lies!”
“Wait!” a firm voice cried from the doorway. “Stop this now!”
The mares froze in place. “Mayor Mare,” Rarity said pleasantly.
Applejack drew back and blew her mane out of her eyes. “Evening, Mayor.”
“Rarity, I could believe this of you, but Applejack!” the earth pony cried. “How can you of all ponies jump to conclusions? Twilight Sparkle has always been one of Ponyville's finest!”
“You kidding?” the farmer yelped. “I ain't jumping to conclusions, Mayor! I broke the spell she had on me. I remember everything!”
The Mayor was taken aback. “What do you remember that could convince me to imprison of one of my most celebrated citizens?”
Applejack threw a hoof at the unicorn chained to the table. “I remember Twi here finding me in the barn and casting a spell on me that made me do what she wanted me to. Didn't Fluttershy tell you what she did to me?”
“You mean sending you into the forest?”
“Hay yeah, and having me tie myself to a tree,” she exclaimed. “And then she had the guts to try and strangle me in front of everypony!” She shuddered at the feeling of ropes tightening around her neck. “I could have died.”
“You very nearly did,” Rarity added.
“See?” Applejack snarled.
“But I didn't do that,” Twi said again. “It was somepony else.”
“No, Twi, it wasn't,” Applejack growled. “I remember it plain as day.”
“But I don't know any magic that can influence a pony's actions like this!” she insisted.
“What about the parasprites?” Rarity said vindictively.
Twilight glowered at her. “I said a pony!”
Applejack silenced her with a deep frown. “Horseapples,” she said again. “You said it was a... a variety of the Want-it Need-it spell.”
Mayor Mare flinched.
“Variation,” Rarity muttered.
“Sounds about right to me,” AJ concluded.
The Mayor wrung her hooves. “Are you quite sure?”
Twilight raised her hooves to her. “That doesn't make any sense!”
“Oh, please,” the other unicorn drawled. “It makes perfect sense. How difficult could it be to take a spell that causes mindless attraction to the object it is cast upon, and turn it into one that causes an only slightly moderated attraction to the caster? It would be child's play for you.”
Twilight opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She couldn't deny that it was possible.
“Mayor Mare, I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Twilight Sparkle is not the mare you think she is,” Rarity said certainly.
Twilight put her head in her hooves and let out a long groan. “Not this again.”
“That mare is nothing short of a dangerous psychopath,” she continued, “and she must be dealt with before she hurts anypony else. Why, if she was free to roam Equestria once more, would you expect her to stop at three victims?”
“If I was a psychopath, how could I be the keystone of the Elements of Harmony?” Twilight argued. “Their power is fueled by the magic of friendship, which is something a psychopath could never feel!”
“I won't argue the fact that you understand friendship, just as I'm sure Applejack understands how an apple tree bears fruit,” she said with a shrug. “That doesn't mean you truly feel them.”
“That's nonsense!” she exclaimed. “The Element wouldn't have chosen me if I hadn't understood friendship as well as I do.”
“Twilight, you'd had no friends at all until less than a day before the Elements appeared to us,” her opponent said victoriously. Twilight's ears drooped. “Obviously the magic isn't that picky. We were simply in the right place at the right time.”
The Mayor looked from one unicorn to another, aghast. “Are you insinuating that the Elements of Harmony could fall into the hands of an evil pony?” she asked nervously.
“I don't know,” Rarity muttered, “and I don't intend to give her a chance to find out.”
Twilight took a moment to organize her thoughts. “But... But Elements notwithstanding, there are plenty of other reasons I couldn't be a psychopath,” she insisted. “A psychopathic mind is different in many ways from that of the average pony. In 'The Cloak of Sanity' by Hervey Hockley - one of the most respected and influential books on the subject, I might add...” She sat comfortably and fell into the calm and careful tones of a lecturer. “...the author asserts that a psychopath shows an absence of nervousness or irrational thinking, traits that she and I do not share if my recent episode with the Want-it Need-it spell is any indication. She's unreliable, untruthful and insincere–”
“Well,” Rarity cut in, “we can't be sure how truthful or sincere you've been with us, can we.”
Her hoof lifted from the floor. “But...”
“Enough of your misleading words, Twilight,” Rarity said firmly. “You've had your say. Now, let me have mine.”
Twi grimaced, but acquiesced.
“It's quite interesting that you brought up Hervey Hockley's work,” she began. “In fact, I was just reading 'A Cloak of Sanity' this morning–”
“'The',” Twilight said bitterly.
“What was that?”
“It's 'The Cloak of Sanity',” she repeated, “not 'A Cloak'.”
Rarity was unimpressed. “I found this list of traits of which you speak,” she said as she lifted a rolled piece of parchment from her bag. “Would you like me to list a few? I assume you already know them.” She tossed her mane and gauged Twilight's reaction out of the corner of her eye. “I assume it was no accident that these were omitted from your defense.”
Twilight studied her hooves.
“Item one: 'A psychopath is a pony of superior intelligence and boasts a charming demeanor in public, but seems much less charming when encountered out of the public eye.” Rarity glanced at the Mayor. “Does that sound like anypony we know?”
“Half of the Royal Canterlot Symphony,” Twilight growled as Mayor Mare stared curiously at her. “A certain seamstress I could mention.”
“What about item seven: 'A psychopath favors antisocial behavior despite having enough positive experiences with social interaction to assuage any fear of being among other ponies.'” she tried. “Oh, and item twelve, a 'surprising dichotomy of apparent generosity and kindness on one side and careless disregard on the other'.”
“My generosity and kindness aren't just 'apparent'!” Twilight barked. “Everything I do is from my heart. I don't do it just to earn the respect of others. I do it because it's right!”
“I doubt you even know what is right or wrong anymore,” Rarity muttered.
A brown hoof slid toward her. “Rarity, please.”
The unicorn glared at the Mayor, but choked back the words. Instead she continued with her case. “Item nine: They show 'pathologic egocentricity' - which I would say is proven by her place at the Princess's side as well as...”
“I earned that!” Twilight yelled crossly. “Do you even know what 'egocentricity' means?”
“...as well as her need to micromanage everypony's lives - and 'an incapacity to feel love for others'.”
Twilight gasped. Two heads swiveled toward her. “How can you say that?” she exclaimed. “How can you say that after everything we've been through?”
“I don't know, 'Miss Sparkle',” the other unicorn hissed. “You tell me. Why, you're the genius here, aren't you?”
“I am,” she snarled. “Does that make me a monster?”
“That's not what made you a monster.” Rarity pointed toward the door. “What you have done to Spike, Applejack and Rainbow Dash... That's what made you a monster.”
“Prove it!” Twilight barked. “I am innocent until proven guilty according to Equestrian law. I don't deserve to be down here in the cells, chained to an interrogation table and... and screamed at by a narcissistic filly with no law degree, no education in the field of psychology–”
“Boo-hoo,” Rarity said dismissively.
Twilight's pupils shrank down to pinpricks. “Don't brush me off!” she roared, her horn flaring to life.
Her prosecutor lowered her horn to match the other unicorn's. “Let it go.” Rarity's eyes were ice chips. “Now.”
The light softened, but did not fade away. “Don't brush me off.”
Suddenly Rarity's forehooves were up on the table, her nose was an inch from Twilight's at most and the room was bathed in a stunning blue glow. Twilight fell back with a gasp. “Unicorns like you are the reason other ponies were suspicious of us in the old days,” she hissed. “We unicorns have a gift, Twilight, but it is not ours to do with as we wish. Magic is a privilege that I will not see abused.” She pulled away and settled herself on spread hooves. “You speak of love, Twilight Sparkle, but you will never understand it like I do,” she snarled righteously. “This isn't about you or me. For the sake of unicorns everywhere, I will tear that horn from your head before I let you hurt anypony else with it!”
Twilight's eyes widened. “I'm not like that,” she whimpered. “I wouldn't hurt anypony.”
“One,” said the frilly, cosmopolitan, defenseless sociolite.“Two.”
Twilight Sparkle collapsed to the table in a sobbing mess. “I didn't hurt anypony!” she shrieked as her forelegs curled against her chest. “I didn't hurt anypony!”
“What you did was far worse than causing pain!” Rarity shrieked back. “You broke Rainbow's mind and you tried to do the same to Applejack! I can't imagine what you put poor Spike through. What was he to you, a test subject?”
A thin line of mucus fell to the table. “I didn't hurt anypony,” she wailed, choking on the words as they came. “I didn't do it!”
“No. Rainbow Dash was the experiment,” Rarity decided. “Spike was the beginning of something worse. Well, Twilight Sparkle, it stops here!”
“I would never hurt Spike,” she moaned. “You have to believe me.”
Rarity spun away from the table. “I can't even look at you anymore,” she told the wall. “You are a repulsive excuse for a mare and I'm sorry I ever called you friend.” She stormed toward the door, threw it open with a telekinetic burst, and sauntered off down the hallway while two guardsmen rushed to take her place.
The Mayor stood to follow her out, but hesitated. Her eyes turned to the filly lying across the table. Despite their history – despite the year or more of heroism and bravery the young mage was known for – she couldn't force herself to offer even a comforting hoof.
Twilight's stomach lurched as she gagged on her sorrow. “It wasn't me!” she sobbed. “Please believe me!”
“I...” The Mayor looked to the two guards, who stared back uncertainly. Finally she shook her head and turned away from the sight. “I have to act in Ponyville's best interest,” she muttered. “Guards, please escort Miss Sparkle to a holding cell.”
“Don't call me that!” she wailed. “I don't want to be Miss Sparkle!”
The guards shared an uncomfortable glance as the stallion unlocked their suspect's cuffs. “Come with us, Miss Sparkle,” the mare said politely.
The young unicorn squeezed her eyes shut as the room lurched beneath her. The two guards were instantly at her sides, supporting her weight with concerned frowns until the wave of dizziness passed. “My name... is Twilight!” she shrieked in the mare's ear. “My name is Twilight!”
,',
Rarity threw open the door to Fluttershy's cottage and collapsed there in the doorway, bawling as even she had never bawled before. Animals scattered to the four winds, chattering and squalling and muting the nervous squeak that echoed down from the second floor.
“I trusted you!” she raged, emphasizing her words with the pounding of a hoof into the floor. “How could you have betrayed us all? What will the Princess think?”
Fluttershy leaped down the stairs to land at her side and quickly swallowed her in the biggest, safest hug she could muster.
“That despicable mare... What's going to happen if she goes free? Our Mayor has as much of a spine as a caterpillar,” she wailed. “An inchworm!”
Fluttershy stroked the elegant coils of her mane. “Well... Twilight is innocent until proven guilty, right?” she said hesitantly.
Rarity threw all of her hatred into a red-eyed grimace. “How much more proof do you need?” she cried. “Even if Rainbow Dash's testimony is unreliable, Applejack's certainly isn't!”
“Um...”
“And my poor baby Spike!” she wept. “Nopony deserves that, especially not a baby!”
Fluttershy's eyes crinkled at the corners. “I know, Rarity, but what if she's telling the truth?”
She bounced off of the doorframe.
Fluttershy looked up from where she lay crumpled on the floor with shock and genuine fear in her eyes. She fought to speak but her tongue would not comply.
“I knew you were a coward, Fluttershy,” Rarity growled, “but this is ridiculous.” She sniffed back her tears. “You cannot run from the facts.”
Fluttershy pulled her hooves up to her chin and looked away. “We don't know for sure,” she whimpered almost silently.
“Look at the facts!” she repeated angrily. “You cannot let your assumed friendship cloud your judgment. If you drop your guard for an instant, you could very well be her next victim.” She spun toward the door and walked face-first into seven feet of growling bear flesh.
Rarity stared up at him coolly. “Harry, you had best step aside. I am not in the mood.” The bear frowned in shame and shifted his bulk out of the doorframe. She passed without another glance.
Harry's shoulders slumped. “Rrmh,” he said dejectedly.
“It's okay, Harry.” The rest of the critters gathered around while Fluttershy picked herself up. “She didn't hurt me, really. She's just mad because I don't want to believe that Twilight could do something this evil. After all, Twilight's been my friend for a very long time and I didn't notice anything unusual about her before she left.” She knelt to scratch the head of a familiar mouse. “Well, nothing more unusual than her usual.” She looked forlornly out the window toward the spire of Ponyville's town hall. “But... But I can't help but think that Rarity is right.”