//------------------------------//
// IV: Shattered 
// Story: Perhaps the Most Convincing Case in Favor of the Solar Empire 
// by WingsOnTheBus 
//------------------------------//

	Not a single refracted ray of sunlight had yet pierced the sky, though the moon had long ago fallen out of its place. Twilight’s timepiece read just past 9 a. m., far later than yesterday’s sunrise, but the small band was too deep into Everfree by today to hear the confusion of Ponyville’s waking.
The three were sitting huddled around a small fire, unnerved by the dark and rustling woods around them. Twilight’s ears were pricked for the sounds of timberwolves.
“Don’t worry about the darkness,” Cadence told Spike, who was shivering nervously, “The dawn will come, and I’m afraid that’s what you should be scared of.” This did not seem to help much.
Twilight decided that that was enough.
“Yesterday you said we could talk later, Princess, and it’s a lot later. I understand that you’re trying to keep us safe, but could you tell me why, exactly, my friends aren’t with us right now and how quickly we can get to them? And...what is this mysterious ‘problem with the princess,’ anyway? Surely it’s not as bad as Zecora made it sound…?” Twilight wondered fleetingly if all her half-baked theories had indeed been correct--if Celestia had been replaced by her.
Cadence simply stared at her wearily for a moment. Twilight was fast getting tired of weary stares. If somepony would just tell her what was going on, perhaps the Element of Magic could find a--
“You deserve to know. So do you, Spike. I really should have said it all last night. I just wish...I wish I didn’t have to tell you this.” Another pause. Another weak, firelit smile.
“Princess Luna has premonitory dreams every so often, as I’m sure you know. Two days ago was an example, but this time she couldn’t confide in her sister.” Cadence inhaled shudderingly. “She told me that ‘it’ was going to happen ‘at the second moonset’--that’s right now--that something awful was going to come over Celestia. She said that she’d try to fight her--she already knew it would come to that--and that I was to come protect you, and you alone, because her sister would have no care for the others.” Cadence’s gaze became abruptly accusatory. “Apparently the sun princess would have reason for a petty grudge against her former student--some purposeful violation of her privacy requiring advanced lockpicking magic.”
Spike was looking wide-eyed at Twilight, but she barely even noticed. She rolled her eyes and broke into giggles.
“What, so Princess Celestia is supposed to turn evil and come after me simply because I went into her private wing? That’s impossible. It’s not like I failed a test or anything. I’ve been in there a hundred times. Honestly, I think Luna was more angry about that than her sister. Probably just having fantasy dreams where I get my comeuppance for--”
“I think you should take my mother seriously. She predicted her own revolt, after all, as well as Sombra’s before that. And are you telling me that you did break into Celestia’s tower?” Her already-withered face fell. “Oh, this will be much harder to handle than I thought…”
“Wait, your mother?” Even with all of the other outlandish things being said, Twilight wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Somehow, the question seemed to help Cadence back up out of whatever delusional pit she was digging herself into.
“Yes. Celestia adopted me as her niece while Nightmare Moon was trapped, remember? She doesn’t have any other siblings.” She peered absently into the sky. “Love, honorary daughter of the moon. Fitting, don’t you think?” 
Twilight was silent for a while. She saw poor Spike, fidgeting with the cold, flickering ground across from her, and wished she could just assure Cadence and Zecora, and all the others Luna had gotten to somehow that the real Celestia would never do anything so rash or crazy, even if Twilight had made some poor decisions herself...right? And when she thought about it, the fact that it had been this long since Celestia’s apparent “troubles” started meant she couldn’t possibly have been switched out. 
The forest creatures were probably far more dangerous than whatever it was that had caused these prolonged nights. Her friends were safer than she was, after all. Now her only problem was getting back home. She joined Spike in worrying and wringing and glancing around.
Then the second dawn began.
It started with a little sliver of light, at which Spike squinted, Cadence’s ears flattened, and Twilight sighed with relief. Almost immediately, though, the air thickened. It was getting hotter around them. Cadence rose and turned westward again.
“Come on--now that the night’s over, we should get moving. We can’t stay in the same place for too long.” More full of questions than ever, they followed her back into the trees.



The heat was becoming hard for Twilight to ignore. It was like swimming, and as the sun broke the line she couldn’t deny to Spike that it looked much larger and redder than usual. 
Did she ever really believe Cadence was making this up, or that Luna was playing a trick? No, she admitted to herself. Not ever. How could the alternative even be processed by a mind that had done nothing but worship Celestia all its life? Her two halves debated in a fire that was almost as hot as the quavering heat around them was becoming.
“How dare you think like that? Most likely some new threat, extremely good at manipulating, has entered Canterlot and taken over, and everypony else has fallen for it!”
“Oh, yes, Twilight, because that’s so probable. Listen to your instincts--even though you had known your foalsitter for so long, you didn’t hesitate to declare her sinister because the signs pointed that way.”
“This is different!” 
Her inner voices quieted as a chorus of squawks and howls went up somewhere behind them, in the east. Cadence set the pace a little faster. Spike tugged frantically at Twilight’s saddlebag.
“Twilight? What is that? Do you think it knows we’re in here?” Before she could speak, Cadence sped to a gallop in the roiling heat and, panting, answered.
“Timberwolves. Cockatrices. They’re--hah--screaming. Didn’t have enough time to get--huh--back to their burrows and--hah--nests. ” She glanced back at Twilight and Spike, wincing. “I’m afraid their scales and bark were--huh--meant for much cooler weather.” Twilight swallowed, her throat already dried. Spike was barely managing to keep up. Soon she’d have to carry him.
“Why are we going so fast? And you’re--ah--saying that the princess is doing this?”
A writhing, screeching line of feathers and scales streaked out of the leaves across their path. Cadence slowed, then stopped. She sighed.
“I thought maybe we could get out of their territory quickly enough to go unnoticed, but in these temperatures, they’ll be on the move too.” Cadence glanced up at the sky and her pupils shrank. Twilight followed suit and couldn’t make herself believe what she saw there. The sun she loved, the yellow, smiling thing that grew crops and shined on cities--the sun Celestia raised--was gone. In its place was a bloodred ball of flame that eclipsed half of the sky, the remainder of which had flushed with the colors of the dawn. Twilight began to breathe faster. This monster sun and its heat...they were all-enclosing. Inescapable. She had to do something...but what?
“Gotta wake up...gotta wake up…”
“I’m sorry, Spike,” Cadence whispered, “but I don’t think this is any dream.”
“Of course not--it’s a nightmare! The worst I’ve ever had…”
Trees shook somewhere alongside them, accompanied by low growls and pained yelps. Twilight blinked. She turned her eyes back toward the wavering ground, but the flaming disc was embedded in her vision, there wearing teal every time she moved her eyes. Shaking her head, she swung Spike up onto her back and followed the princess quietly away from the noise.
“Cadence--forget about what Luna--hah--told you! This is worse than I--hah--could have--dreamed!”
“Huh. Never thought I’d be more subconsciously creative than you, Twilight," Spike observed tightly. She heard him whimper as he pinched himself and pain stabbed her heart. Cadence just walked on. Twilight didn’t see how they could even keep talking, much less moving, any longer in this kind of heat. She screwed up her face, stopped in her tracks, and prepared for a fight.
“Cadence, listen!” Cadence turned and Spike stilled on her back. “I don’t have any idea what is going on here, but if I am to have any say in it whatsoever, my friends will be as safe as I am, no matter what Luna said!” And she collapsed.