//------------------------------//
// Chapter 15 
// Story: The Mare in the High Castle 
// by ponichaeism 
//------------------------------//

	Of all the ponies on the street, Applejack was the only one who could feel the storm picking up in intensity. The tempest of misery and pain emanated from the Chariot theater and stung Applejack's face. It made her sweat, teared her eyes up, and wore on her body like the whipping wind as she struggled towards its heart. Her breath resounded in her ears as if it were rolling thunder, while her head grew light and her vision sparkled like flashing thunder. How much longer could she struggle against this torrent? Would she pass out? 
What a relief that would be!
But she struggled through the invisible wind. Hammer was watching, and she shuddered to think what such a pony fueled by rage would do if she failed him. Of course, she also shuddered to think what the unicorns would do to her family if a bomb exploded in the heart of their city. Somehow, she suspected all the excuses in the world would pale before that, no matter how true they might be. She shuddered at the thought that her days were numbered, that she was a pawn playing a game she didn't even know the rules to, that her life was not her own.
All in all, she did a lot of shuddering these days. Meanwhile, through the storm, the Chariot approached.


The minutes dragged on and on into agony. 
"I can't wait," Cup Cake said. 
“Me either,” Carrot said, his voice gruff and scratchy from years of inhaling chemical fumes.
Together, on the roof of the Magnum Smelting plant, they gently swayed in place as they waited for the fire flare and the plume of smoke to erupt from downtown. She patted her husband's warm foreleg, wrapped around her neck. His presence set her tortured nerves at ease. She twisted her head to get a glimpse at his strong, sure face. Despite the years of weary toil that had sagged his ears and recessed his eyes, and the pitted skin and stained coat from a lifetime of waste byproducts dripping onto him, and the scars and faded bruises from pegasus truncheons, in her mind's eyes she saw his beautiful inner self. He shone in this dark ghetto, and she wanted to shine with him. She leaned closer and rested her head on his neck, waiting for the sunset to bloom on the horizon, if only for a moment.
A bottle clattered in the alleyway below, hit something metal, and rolled across the stones. Cup Cake jerked away from her husband as the echo filled the air. The irresistible pony urge to bolt and run until she could run no more ripped through her, but she wrangled herself under control.
“I heard it too,” Carrot said, his ears erect. 
He scanned the buildings around them while Cup glanced over the parapet and scoured the street below. Her eyes went to all the dark and shadow-laden corners, out of the pools of light from the few street lamps that still worked. Holdovers from the days before the Winter Rising, those old soldiers lining the streets. But her eyes couldn't pick anything out from the darkness.
“Was this a mistake?” she whispered. Panic clawed at her insides and dug into her nerves. “Coming up here? Did we....?”
“Shh,” he whispered back soothingly. “Everything's going to be alright. Let's go back downstairs.”
As he turned to go, Cup followed his lead, but a flitting shadow leaping out of an alleyway caught the corner of her eye. She spun around to follow it, and she was certain she had seen a pair of wings and a beret, but then it melted back into the darkness that it came from, and she couldn't say if it had ever really been there in the first place. But what they were doing, their mission, it was far, far too important for her to dismiss her suspicions outright. Not when there was a chance the warehouse was compromised.
After swallowing heavily, she said, “I think I saw a pegasus.”
He froze in place, one hoof off the ground, his muscles tensing. His breath began to rattle in and out, as if a chilly wind were descending on the two of them. Barely turning towards her, he asked, “Are you sure?”
“I-I don't know. It might have just been my imagination.”
He broke into a trot and headed for the wedge on the rooftop, where the entrance to the stairwell was. “Let's get back downstairs and tell the others. We'll let them decide.”
As she trotted behind her husband, she gave a panicked glance over her shoulder, dreading the moment her eyes would land on the pegasus streaking out of the shadows towards her--
Carrot began to yell, but then his voice was suddenly silenced. When she faced him to make sure he was alright, he was nowhere to be seen. “Carrot?!” she yelled into the night. Then, like a bolt of lightning from the clouds, something shot down from above, wrapped itself around her, and lifted her hooves off the ground. She thrashed and twisted in its grip, but the ground was dizzyingly distant now. The roof she had been on moments ago was just one square among many in the moonlight. If she wrangled herself loose, she could fall to the ground and kill herself before they could torture her for information. At night, she comforted herself with the idea that she could do it; could give her life for the cause. But up there, in the wind-whipped sky, as she was seized with the desperate urge to run where there was no ground, her bravery deserted her. She wanted to live more than anything else in the world. Just the thought of hitting the ground at impact velocity was too much to bear.
So she stopped struggling, but to make up for it, she screamed into the night. An ugly, primal neighing that made her throat sore. She kept it up until a foreleg closed over her mouth and clamped it shut. She screamed into the fine coat. She wanted to bite down on the skin in anger, but she didn't want to fall, either.
Up and up and up she went, into the dizzying sky, until her abductor arced back towards the ground and landed gently on a roof of a ten-story apartment building that had been abandoned during the Winter Rising. The pegasus shoved her roughly to the ground. She kicked around to get free and run for the stairwell, but the pegasus was well-trained. Her limbs were soon expertly twisted and forced around until he had slipped the manacles on and fastened her legs together. Trussed up like a pig, she thumped onto her side, helpless to move. Her eyes rested on her husband, lying near her and fighting against his attacker. But with one short, sharp kick, his head hit the floor and he was unconscious.
“Carrot!” she screamed, but a kick rained down on her and caught her in the jaw, breaking it with a searing lance of pain. She lay there dazed, unable to think of a plan, unable to ever move. She stared up in helpless horror as the two pegasi, those cruel killers, talked about her and the love of her life like they were insects scurrying across the ground, waiting to be crushed.
"We found these two, Major Fleetfoot," one said. "Colonel Dash's lead must have been right. They were on lookout. The others will notice they're missing, sooner or later."
"We better hope it's later," a mare in a Shadowbolt uniform said. "Something suspicious is going on down there, and I don't like it."
"We should go in."
Cup Cake's spirits revived themselves enough for her to make a feeble moan of protest, but the pain lancing through her broken jaw made forming actual words unbearable. The harsh eyes of the Shadowbolt and the implied violence shining in them made Cup Cake seal her lips, trailing her moan off into a whimper. Then the Shadowbolt pulled her pocketwatch out of her vest and stared at its face.
"Captain Rapid Fire, ready your ponies." The Shadowbolt's inequine eyes returned to the other pegasus. "We're going in."
It was all too much for Cup Cake to deal with, far too much. All their best laid plans, dashed to pieces. The Shadowbolts must've known the whole time, and here she was thinking the EPLF could have ever fought them. The life of an earth pony was never their own, not ever. Crying to herself, Cup Cake rested her temple on the ground, trying to sail away into the darkness, away from the pain and the horror and the indignity of it all.
The Shadowbolt put her pocketwatch away again.


Right on time, Applejack thought.
The crowd outside the Chariot Theater buzzed around her: paparazzi with cameras slung around their necks waiting for the show to end and the stars and starlets to emerge; ushers repositioning the velvet ropes; valets guiding the traffic building up in the street; a few unicorns who had ducked out to smoke while the show finished up. They glared at her with unmitigated contempt, but with a flash of her documents, a Civil Force soldier brusquely directed her to a fifteen-minute unloading zone near an alleyway. What are you doing? she thought. Can't you see these papers are fake as can be? Arrest me! But Hammer was surely watching from the shadows. He would know how she had betrayed him. So she slunk away to the unloading zone, under a sign mounted on the theater wall that read: 'To Stage Exit.' She maneuvered the cart into a space between a few others, unhitched her harness and stepped away from it.
And that was that. Such a small act, with such enormous consequences.
Inside the wooden frame, the timer was ticking away to oblivion, waiting to destroy the cart and the ponies who would be walking past it. A vile black cloud hung around it all, but she was the only pony who could see it. The only pony present who knew its evil contents. Why weren't the Shadowbolts swooping in to disarm it?
Before she walked away, she took a good long look at the High Castle, perched above the city. It, too, watched her like a hawk from on high, ready to devour her like a field mouse if it should move from its roost. Everything in this city was trying to kill her. Including herself. It was all she could do to stay alive.
Applejack checked to make sure nopony was watching her unduly, then walked away from the terrible burden. Across the street, through the bumper-to-bumper traffic, away from the theater, she went. After a block, she looped back around and ducked into an twisting alleyway. Even the alleyways looked nicer in the unicorn part of the city. All the trash went in dumpsters, all the windows were intact, with no bars across them, no rude graffiti scrawled on the brick walls. Paradise, she thought sarcastically. Hammer waited for her at the end, in a slanted shadow, in front of a chainlink fence allowing them to see the front of the theater. While it was still intact and unbloodied.
“It's done,” she said.
He replied, “Excellent,” and then turned to the theater. “And now, we wait.”
Ah reckon ya ain't gonna like what ya'll see if ya do, she thought bitterly.


In the lone spotlight, amidst the ashes of the fallen tyrant's devastation, River Wilde eulogized acapella: “In the end Fayton choose how he lived and died.” The glowing orb of the newly eternal moon shone down on her and her alone, rendering the cast assembled around her in darkness. Though she was ostensibly addressing them, in truth she sang to the audience, offering them wisdom gleaned from a life of hardship and hard-won victory. “He was free to embrace the goodness in his heart. The natural order connecting us all far and wide. The unnatural love he held surely played its part.” She held up in her fetlock the hoof-written copy of Lily Gild's manuscript. “And though he may be dead and buried and gone, in the hearts and minds of the ponies he freed, his sainted memory will carry on, as we canter on, down the road to Canterlot, his name will be our creed!”
This quiet and melancholy interlude had broken the showstopping final number in half, and while a quiet moment of reflection wasn't unappreciated, the return of the finale would be the perfect end to the evening. As the quickening instrumentation came on, propelling River's words like a lapping river, Twilight thought, Here it comes. She could barely sit still, she was so giddy for the grand finale. Giddy to see that glorious mare rise up and triumph over the ponies who thought she was weak. But she wasn't; River was so, so strong. The strongest mare in the world, and she was victorious. 
“No, Fayton, we will never forget!” River wailed. “We'll never forget what you accomplished....” Ash began to harmonize with her. “In freeing us, in seeing us, as we are and always shall be....” The whole chorus of ponies in the darkness joined in: “Because of him, we're free. We're free! We....are....free....!
The interlude effortlessly flowed into the thundering chorus once again, bringing a grin to Twilight's lips. As the brass cut loose, the drums snapped out a rhythm, the woodwinds piped a delightful flutter, and the strings broke out into major chords, everypony on stage sang out loud and clear: “Free at last, free at last, thank the princess, we're free at last! All the pain, all the tears, thanks be to Luna, are in the past! Free at last, free at last, thanks be to Fayton, we're free to see! Brand new world, brave new world, where we will know, who we should be!”
What triumphant, joyous, celebratory music! The distilled sound of victory incarnate, played in honor of everypony who had ever struggled through life. This musical, its procession of chords, was an aural journey through the ups and downs of life itself. A psychopomp through the underworld of the soul. And here Twilight was, emerging back into the moonlight like a moth from its cocoon. And what was there left to do but dance to her heart's content, just like the expertly choreographed parade on display down on stage?
“So let's gallop on down the road to Canterlot,” River sang at the forefront of the marching cavalcade. “The sun has set forever on this blessed plot! Let's build a city to shine for eternity! Let's build a city in natural harmony!”
Ash stepped forward to take the reins of the next verse. He bellowed out, “Where you're free to be you, and where I can be me.”
Swinging her body with exaggerated exuberance, Brownie Bay bounced across the stage to him and River, singing, “Where we's be takin' are place in de high-arkee!”
“A brand new dusk....” River sang.
“....for a brand new night of pony,” Ash finished.
Together, they finished the verse by singing in unison, “The moon is shining down on our new liberty!”


“Hey,” Thoroughbred called. “Are the Cakes back yet?”
With a mighty heave, Serf Supper lifted the last crate and piled it onto the wagon bed. He wiped the sweat from his brow, glanced around the empty, soon-to-be-abandoned storeroom, and then shook his head.
Thoroughbred muttered under his breath. “Well, if you see them, tell them to get their flanks moving.”
“Why? What's up?”
“What's up? What's up is that we're supposed to have all this stuff ready to move to the new hideout by the time Hammer gets back. That's 'what's up'. You know how he gets. And seeing how we're all yoked together in this, I don't really feel like picking up the Cakes' slack.”
“Hey, you know what the pegasus ponies did to Carrot Cake. Give 'em a break, alright?”
Thoroughbred moaned. “And what about Caballeron?! He disappeared hours ago. Has his miserable carcass turned up yet?”
“Hey, calm down. Stop taking everything as an insult against you.”
“Seeing how you and I are the only two actually doing any work around here, how am I not supposed to take it as an insult?”
“Has anybody ever told you you're just a miserable pony?”
The snarling Thoroughbred opened his mouth to speak, but Serf would never know what he was about to say. At that moment, the grimy skylight exploded. Glass rained down and littered the cracked concrete floor. The fresh moonlight streaming in lit up the room and made elongated winged shadows dance across the walls. Thoroughbred and Serf, deeply spooked, ran. Serf bolted into the hallway and galloped for the side door, but when he was halfway there it blew inward. Shadowbolts, judging by their black uniforms and purple berets. They poured into the cramped hallway, blocking the way forward, truncheons held up in raised fetlocks. Coming straight for him.
Serf turned back the way he had come, but the pegasus ponies who'd flew through the skylight had already blocked off his retreat. They wrestled Thoroughbred away, back towards the meeting room. The pegasi who'd come through the door marched up behind Serf. With rough hooves they grabbed him and pulled him deeper into the compromised hideout. He let them carry him away. He was far too shocked and stunned to do anything about it.
They brought him to the meeting room where, only a few hours ago, Hammer had set the plan in motion. All the others were there, surrounded by Shadowbolts. Those visions of death all had uniform expressions of contempt on their grim faces. The ponies marched Serf into the room and threw him down beside the quivering Thoroughbred. Serf looked around, counting the faces. No Cakes, and no Caballeron either.
“I suppose now you torture us,” Serf said.
But the Shadowbolt in command, pale blue with a coiffed white mane, didn't ask a single question of them. She just had her minions drag the crates back in and open them. Sorted through all the incriminating evidence they hadn't had a chance to get rid of. All the maps and newspaper clippings and diagrams. She didn't need to ask anything; the evidence spoke for itself. Yet she didn't seem surprised at what she found. It was too early for the bombing to have happened, and there wasn't anything in there which would identify the pony carrying the bomb. A maddening thought appeared in Serf's mind as he tried to make sense of what was happening:
Why wasn't she asking what she could do to stop it?


Onstage, the assembled company bellowed out one final refrain of “FREE!”. The sonorous drums pounded under it and the orchestra sustained its final chord at full blast, until the wall of sound filled the auditorium completely. Nothing in the world existed beyond that single, triumphant chord. Not even Twilight, who held her breath for its duration so she did not miss a single vibration. It was everywhere; it was everything; and it was joyous on the ears. It washed over her, undoing the knot in her chest and purging all the bad feelings in her heart until she was left feeling clean, new, reborn. Happy, for once.
Then the song ended and silence settled in. The hall was plunged into darkness for a moment, but the stomping of hooves on the floor and the cheers and hollers rendered the air alive once again. The lights went back up as the curtain call began and the cast took their final bows, but Twilight wasn't particularly interested in watching. She got up and headed for the door, edging past the yellow pegasus as she went. The pegasus was crying at the scene.
You'll cry a whole lot more when I'm done with you and your worthless race, Twilight thought, because she was the strongest mare in Equestria, and she had a book to write.


Be brave, Fluttershy thought to herself. Be bold.
She sat in the dark, chewing over the moral arc of his journey. It was one of ascent, and of the flight upwards. Not being stuck on the ground, like she was. Always lifting oneself higher and improving oneself. Using the courage Fayton's story had lent her, Fluttershy stood up and headed for the exit. With that image of bold Fayton in her mind, she felt stronger; his presence and his struggle comforted her in her time of need.
Be like Fayton, she told herself. You certainly haven't gotten anywhere by being yourself, so leave you behind and become more like him.


After the actors had all left the stage, Rarity got up to go. Coco Pommel was right at her side, as always. Sweetie Belle, though, sat sullen and morose, only getting up after Rarity gave her a stern and sustained stare. Her little sister slid off the seat in a distinctly unladylike way and slouched after Rarity, her pony servant in tow. Together, they all headed for the lobby and waited for a moment at Rarity's request; she glanced at the ornate clock over the ticket booths. 
It read ten o'clock exactly.
And there, nervously walking into the lobby, was Trotten Pullet. Rarity swept up to her and said, "Come now, my dear, and walk with me. We have so much to discuss. Tell me, have you ever ridden in a hovercarriage?"
Rarity and her entourage headed for the door.


Crouched on the rooftop, the Colonel roused herself when she saw the ponies begin to emerge from the Chariot. She pulled out her pocketwatch and checked the time. Then her eyes went to the unassuming little wagon nestled among the others in the unloading zone. The wagon she had shepherded all the way from the ghetto. The crux of her plan. The one device that, despite the chaos and insecurity it would temporarily inspire, would inevitably prove to be the saving of the city.
Thirty minute fuse, she thought. Armed at nine thirty-three.
She twisted the knob of her radio on and lifted the mic in her fetlock, holding it close to her mouth. But she didn't depress the send button. Not yet. In her other fetlock, she held the pocketwatch and obsessively watched its hands tick away. In an operation like this, timing was everything. Had to wait, inspire the right amount of panic. Make them feel the searing heat of the flames. Below, the crowd spilled out messily onto the sidewalk, filling the air with the buzz of a thousand overlapping conversations. All of them, so happy. So secure in their lives. Completely unaware of how quickly everything could turn to dust if ponies like the Colonel weren't looking over them.
Well, they'll learn. She eyed the crowd and estimated how this would all play out. Not yet. A few more seconds.
Wait for it. 
The Colonel held her breath.
Wait for it....
She started to tremble with anticipation as the crowd swelled and the hands of time slipped away from her.
Now!
She held down the send button. “All units, all units, this is Colonel Dash. I have conformation of a threat at the Chariot Theater, repeat, a confirmed threat on the Chariot Theater, by elements of the Earth Pony Liberation Front. There is a bomb only seconds from going off. All units, evacuate the area, immediately.”
She let go of the button and waited for events to unfold. For a few seconds, everything continued as it had been. Blissfully unaware of their impending doom, the crowd continued to chatter and saunter in front of the theater. Then, faint stirrings of action began to take place. Civil Force troops galloped through the crowd to gather together and autocarriages turned their lights and sirens on. The civilians at the fringes of the crowd watched the bustle with confusion and surprise, while the ones in the center, insulated, kept on happily chatting.
All it takes is a few words, the Colonel thought with burgeoning awe, to set all this motion into action. She grinned. Like telling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater.


Twilight Sparkle had been so preoccupied with standing up straight that she didn't hear the police sirens until the crowd surged suddenly and she was almost knocked over.
“What's going on?” she asked nopony in particular.
But the ponies around her didn't hear her, and the sounds of stomping hooves and panicked yelling for friends and family members drowned out her voice. Twilight didn't feel so strong anymore. She turned her head this way and that, but the sudden motion made her alcohol-drenched head become light and airy. Clasping her hooves to her temples, she staggered along with the flow of the crowd, but towards what, she couldn't have said.


“No, no, no!” Colonel Dash shouted. “What are you idiots doing?!”
This wasn't protocol; this wasn't supposed to happen. She had gone over the guidelines from the Bureau of Public Works until her eyes bled, and they said, in no uncertain terms, that for evacuation from this part of the city, civilians were to be directed towards the open park on Broadcrest. Away from the bomb, in other words. 
But now these fools from the Civil Force were abandoning the plan. The corralled ponies were being herded right into another Civil Force unit who was trying to evacuate them according to the actual protocol. All those civilians were now caught between two forces going in opposite directions, and stuck right next to the bomb. And it was going to explode any second now. She was the only pony who could see that, because of her vantage point.
She raised the radio mic again to order Lightning Dust to take control. Then she remembered she retasked Major Dust, and that she wasn't in her position. There was nopony to clean up this mess Dash had made. She backed away from the parapet, perspiring and hyperventilating.
You can take control.
But....but right now, nopony knows where I am. What if, at the inquest, they figure out I was too close to the Chariot? That I knew too much? That I knew where the bomb was ahead of time? This whole thing I've worked so hard on could unravel! No, I can't do it.
The Colonel began to slip away into the shadows before some keen eye saw her up there. 
But she hadn't taken two steps before a pile of dead bodies haunted her imagination. She had been prepared for a few casualties, sure. This couldn't be too clean. But dozens? Hundreds, even? No, that went far beyond the pale of good conscience. Dash rapidly turned around and made for the theater to help, but again she froze in indecision. 
The big picture, the war for Canterlot's soul, depended on all this going down perfectly. The higher the death toll, the more convincing it would be to sell Spitfire's incompetence to an outraged Defense Council looking for somepony to blame. The easier it would be for the Colonel to get what she wanted. Nay, what she needed to save this city.
Looking back over her shoulder, she beheld the moonlit sky. The moon beckoned for her to fly away, into the all-encompassing night. The Colonel opened her wings and spread them out to take flight. 
But a heavy dread weighed Dash down. Those ponies are going to die because of my stupid mistake. It's all my fault, I didn't think this through. I sent Lightning Dust off after Armor's sister, even though I should have kept her on-task....
In her absolute lowest moment of self-loathing, Colonel Dash thought, Spitfire was right: it's not about fighting battles. It's about picking them. And I picked the wrong one last time.
She whipped her head around to face the Chariot theater for the final time. I have to make this right, Dash thought, galloping to the parapet and leaping over it with her wings gracefully spread out wide. She sailed over the crowd, heading for the nearest Civil Force officer, then folded her wings and dived to the ground. “Stop!” she shouted to the unicorn over the shouting, jostling crowd. “You're pushing them into another team! Go the other way! We need to get these ponies away from the theater!”
Dash tensed herself for the unicorn, wearing a haughty expression, to fight her attempt at command. But, mercifully, she took one look at Colonel Dash, folded, and directed her troops to let the crowd pass. Like a dam breaking, the civilians surged towards her and around her. With a wide wave of her foreleg, Dash gestured for them to move quickly. 
Before her terrible mistake cost them dearly.


First one way, and then the other, the crowd abruptly changed directions. The dizzy Twilight was thrown off-kilter. The thinning crowd ran past her, but she was having enough trouble telling all the directions apart. They blurred together into a smear of color, and the simple act of moving made her want to heave. She struggled to get her bearings as she lagged behind the tail end of the crowd.


“Come on,” Hammer whispered. “Come on!”
“Yer really looking forward ta this, ain't ya?” Applejack asked.
“I want to see them pay for what they've done to me.”
His fiery eyes surveyed the crowd of innocent ponies at the cusp of death, delighting in the cloud of darkness that hovered over them, blackening their life-filled bodies. His lips curled up in a maniacal grin. Hammer was too far gone to be saved, Applejack concluded. But then he surprised her. When the crowd thinned on the street, his grin dissolved. AJ stared at him, confused, as his mouth hung open. He lunged forward, but the chainlink fence blocked his way and clattered when he hit it.
“No!” he shouted. “Twilight!”
What in the hay is that supposed ta mean? 'Twilight'? That some kinda victory cry?
“Twilight, get away!” He slipped his forehooves into the links and rattled the fence. “Run, Twilight!”
Applejack grabbed him. “Hammer, this ain't the way it's supposed ta go down, ya hear?! Let's go!”
But Hammer struggled against her grip as she dragged him away, down the alleyway. He took a deep breath and shouted at the top of his lungs:
“TWILIGHT!”


Twilight's ears perked up as the shout broke through the blur of sight and sound fogging up her senses. A distant voice, but one she knew so very well. An impossible voice, calling to her from the grave.
“Shining Armor?!” she called back.
The silence lasted long enough for her to think she imagined it, but then the call, even more distant this time, came back to her: “Twilight!”
The alcohol was slowing her down, making her numb and dumb, but she wasn't going to let that hold her back. A Civil Force pegasus tried to grab her and push her along with the crowd, but when he laid his disgusting hooves on a unicorn of her stature, she shoved him away and strode past him. She staggered back the way she came. As she went past the abandoned limousines, their running engines breathed smoke from their tailpipes like sleeping dragons. Her dearly departed brother was out there somewhere, and she wasn't even going to let a little thing like dragons stop her in her pursuit of Shining Armor.


It was only a vague intuition, a sense of a presence no longer present, that made Fluttershy look back. But when she did, sure enough, that purple unicorn was walking backwards, ignoring the pegasus ponies shepherding them to safety. She's going to be in trouble, Fluttershy thought. Her first thought was to keep running away, to save herself. But then she asked herself one simple question: 'What would Fayton do?' It was a pegasus pony's duty to safeguard unicorns, and now one of them was in danger. One of them needed saving.
Fluttershy wasn't necessary anymore. Instead, she fixed Fayton's image in her mind. She ceased to think about what Fluttershy would do and instead became that valiant pegasus like slipping on a suit of armor. It was her duty to help the unicorn, even at grave personal peril. And if she did, then everything would work out for the better. Nopony would look down on her, even if she should die in the attempt. At least she had done her duty.
Feeling bolder already, Fluttershy slipped past the soldiers and galloped after the unicorn. Fayton was firmly at the reins of her mind and body. Before she had a thought, first it passed through her own litmus test of how Fayton would react, because that was what was expected of her race. He was everything a pegasus should be.
And then the world exploded.
The sidewalk erupted in a tremendous pillar of fire that gouged out pieces of the building and sent a pile of brick and stone collapsing onto the concrete. If Fluttershy had still been herself, she would have run away like a coward, but Fayton's instincts were what came to her, and he was so very brave. Time seemed to slow down to a crawl. The ferocious fireball ripped through the air and the metal autocarriages, which detonated as the flame touched their gas tanks. The massive explosion ripped one autocarriage door free of its hinges and sent it hurtling and spinning through the air. Its sharp twisted edges were on a collision course for the unicorn's head. But the unicorn didn't see.
Fluttershy used her paltry wings to give her an extra boost and took flight, the spirit of Fayton making her soar.


One moment, Twilight was running. The next, thunder clapped right next to her ears, even though it wasn't cloudy at all. Something heavy jumped on her back and pushed her to the asphalt right before a rush of sweltering heat roared over her head. A razor-sharp whistling whipped past her and crashed into the windows of a parked autocarriage, sprinkling her with broken glass. As she went down, her head collided with the autocarriage's side. Its impact reverberated throughout her skull, dulling every sense tenfold, like her head was being submerged in water. Her knees collapsed and sent her plummeting to the pavement, face first. With a crack, she heard the bottle of cider in her bag break on impact.
The blackness filled her vision.


"No!" Hammer screamed. "Twilight!"
He stared in horror at the plume of black smoke rising into the sky. He refused to budge. The hypocrisy of it all enraged Applejack so much she smacked him across the face for making her follow through with this. For putting all this blood on her hooves. But he didn't fight back. He didn't even seem to notice the blow. He simply staggered back from the impact and fell to the ground, his eyes still fixed on the smoking flower of destruction growing strong and bold, which he had planted the seeds for.
"Fine," she spat at him. "Stay here, then. Ah hope the Shadowbolts get ya."
Applejack left him there on the ground and ran down the alleyway, alone.


Twilight rolled onto her back, and the weight on it slipped off and thumped to the pavement next to her. Her bleary eyes laid to rest on the moon, hanging so far overhead. Its pale light streamed down through the night, crossing the celestial fabric of the firmament. Her vision started going blurry. She was underwater now, and sinking deeper. She blinked rapidly to get her eyes to focus through the murk. With a thrash, she grabbed the side of the autocarriage and hauled herself to her hooves. She couldn't feel her legs very well, and the blurriness smoothed out all motion until it felt like she was floating through the sea. The whole world was made of shimmering water. Just like in her dream.
Thick black smoke billowed around her, polluting the currents.
On the ground, a familiar yellow pegasus rolled around and moaned, clutching her wings. The stench of singed feathers filled Twilight's nose. Dazed, she stepped over the pegasus and wandered down the street. She staggered past other ponies, all of them rendered in vivid orange from the fire and deep silver from the moonlight. They wandered as aimlessly as her, looking like fish in an aquarium, gaping at something they couldn't comprehend: the world beyond the tank.
Twilight became aware of a strange tingling running through her body. Like an electrical charge. It made her feel lighter, almost as if she could fly without wings. It had dwelt within her ever since that something had pushed her down. The pegasus? No, couldn't be. A pegasus pony would never try and save her; they only wanted to stab her in the back.
Her knees gave out suddenly. They scraped the street as she fell down and bowed her head.
The dim figure of another mare appeared over her and gave her a steadying hoof. Twilight looked up, straining her eyes to see through the smoke shimmering sheen of the world. The mare was vaguely familiar, but Twilight's fragmented brain couldn't pick it out of the sea of faces swirling through her head. 
Something about the dress piqued Twilight's messy and addled attention, though. It was all black, but it shone nonetheless. A hidden quality within its form was shining, although it was buried deep. It was as solid as a rock, while the world flowed around her. The concealed quality shone in a hue of seven different colors at once. She struggled to remember the name ancient tomes gave to the phenomenon, when it appeared in the sunlit sky.
A rainbow.
The hidden fundamental form behind the dress's outward appearance blazed bright in the rippling world, like the moon streaming through the fragmenting surface of the water. Some kind of energy is animating this dress. Twilight's thoughts were detached and dreamlike, existing not just inside her head, but coming from somewhere else at the same time. They floated much like the world around her did. A deeper and more harmonic form is buried inside, struggling to get out. A light in the darkness. The shimmer of the watery world became blurrier and murkier, but that hidden form shining behind all things and everything shone all the brighter and firmer.
A strange thought burst into Twilight's head. A snippet of a transmission that leaked through the water walls, like her mind was just now able to tune into a station on a different wavelength: “Your destiny's uncertain, and that's sometimes hard to take. But it will become much clearer, with every new choice you make.”
Twilight shuddered and clapped her forehooves to her head. The world became slightly more firm. She, however, was far from stable. She launched herself to her hooves, but she swayed so badly just standing still that the pony with the shining dress needed to help her stand up.
“Are you alright, dear?” the silver pony asked from a million miles distant. “Do you need help?”
It wasn't until Twilight saw Trotten Pullet standing right next to the silver unicorn that she understood. Buried inside the dress was an alicorn. And it was burning bright behind the water. As bright as the sun in her dream....and the alicorn burned, too....
No! she thought suddenly, shaking her head in revulsion. Not like the sun. Never the sun.
“What's going on?” she asked, hardly recognizing the words she was speaking. They felt distant and strange to her ears. Muffled, almost as if by water. She then answered her own question, although she hardly knew why she said what she said. The words came to her all at once, and she said them without knowing why. They just bubbled out of her. “No, don't bother explaining. Only Thorny can make it make sense. As long as there aren't any commercials!”
"This is no time for Thorny Bends," the other mare said. "I think you need a paramedic...."
Twilight pulled herself free of the helping hooves and staggered away from the mare, lurching dangerously. Out there in the city where dreams came true, that blazing alicorn was transmitting, and Twilight was receiving. Twilight needed to find the source, wherever and whatever it may be. Luckily, she felt the pulse of the broadcast right behind her eyes, guiding her, growing stronger the close she got. The world blurred and slurred around her as she walked, like she was at the forefront of a massive tidal wave, but the signal in strong and clear. Twilight walked into the night, absolutely determined to learn the truth. All around her, the street signs and street lamps and storefronts and benches and autocarriages, all these attendant props in her reality, became unmoored and floated in the watery world, seemingly more jarring and out of place with every step she took.
She lurched down a side street, the whole world twisting and turning around her like a whirlpool. She leaned heavily on the wall when her legs failed her, seeking shelter from the raging vortex. Everything around her dripped and melted and ran together, swirling into infinity, but the burning alicorn in the distance was still there to guide her. Like a lighthouse seen from the sea floor, its beam playing across the surface. The street narrowed as it went around a bend and turned into an alleyway. Its twists and turns became tighter and tighter until Twilight burst out on the other side, onto a wide street with very low buildings. Fortunately, the watery shimmer of the world seemed to solidify somewhat when the brisk breeze brushed her face. She took a few steps out into the street, but with nothing to support her she started listing wildly. She had to give up on her relentless trudge, if only for a minute. She had to sit down.
A nearby wooden sign caught her eye: 'Donut Joe's'. Food seemed like a good prospect. Marshalling her strength, she walked toward the little shop on the corner. A bell over the door announced her presence. Quaint and plain inside, the shop seemed cozy enough.
“Evenin', Twilight,” a stocky beige stallion behind the counter said. “Long time no see.”
Did she know him? Sweat dripped down her face as she tried to remember, but all her thoughts swam around her skull, so hard to catch hold of. She made a noncommittal grunt and shuffled towards the counter.
“Here for the parade?” he asked.
“....parade?” Every word was a struggle for her to say. “I just want a donut.”
“Well, you came to the right place.”
She was almost at the marble-topped counter when she noticed all all the stools were occupied. What she saw made her blood go cold. Sitting between the unicorns and the pegasi were earth ponies. And their manes, as well, weren't shaved according to regulation. Nor did they have their earmarks. 
Twilight marched over to the nearest one. “Get up,” she sneered, “you filthy dirt-eater.”
He gave her a long, slow, almost contemptuous glance over his shoulder. When he finally spoke, it was only to say, “Excuse me?”
She grabbed him and tried to pull him off the seat. “This is my seat. I am a unicorn, and I demand you obey me!”
But to her surprise, he raised his hoof and pushed her away. An action punishable by execution, but none of the others seemed to care. The dirt-eaters remained where they were, the pegasi didn't so much as lift a feather, and the unicorns let this mockery go unpunished.
“Watch it, horny,” the earth pony snapped.
“Twilight?” the beige stallion asked. “What's gotten into you?”
She picked herself up and addressed the crowd. “You better believe I'm going to get the Civil Force down here and shut this place down.” With that she sprinted out the door, looking eagerly around for the nearest gray uniform she saw. But she couldn't find any. Only pedestrians, casually walking down the street. Walking completely at ease. Unconcerned. And, it was strange, but the more she looked around, the more things started to nag at her. Autocarriages, for one. Where were they? Where was the noise, the smog? These were still the unicorn sectors, surely. She hadn't passed any checkpoints. She had to be in the city center still. And, for that matter, where was her saddlebag? It was no longer on her, and she couldn't remember it ever falling off.
Then she looked up, and an unsettling disquiet came over her. Where were the skyscrapers? This whole city was so low to the ground. Just plain wrong. All of it, so wrong. Where had her city gone? Then her eyes went higher, to where the High Castle should be, and with a sudden shock she saw it wasn't there. Totally gone, like it had never been built. In its place, situated right in the city itself, stood an alabaster castle with golden minarets.
Just where the hell was she?


This strange city was like a bad dream, and it was only through sheer force of will that Twilight kept going on her long and unsettling slog through it. Breathing heavily, she sought out something familiar, a safe harbor in this alien world where she could take refuge. But in every corner lurked bizarre perversions of the real Canterlot: the pony-drawn carriages were the only vehicles on the cobblestone streets; the advertisements were subdued and subtle, if they were present at all; the earth ponies and the pegasus ponies happily walked side-by-side. Twilight's nerves were extremely on edge. She kept her gait tense, ready to power her legs and run if something untoward should appear.
After she passed between two pegasus ponies, one of them whispered, “Isn't that the princess?”
“Nah, it can't be,” the other one said. “She doesn't have any wings.”
Twilight gave them a withering glower. Not looking where she was going, she plowed right into a unicorn with a jet black mane, who grabbed her and shook her. His eyes were narrow and folded over, but they went wide as he declared, “Twilight state obtains!” She bucked wildly and threw him off, but he didn't seem to know or care. He staggered past her and continued walking, mumbling to himself, “This hypnagogic condition....” as if she didn't exist. 
As she watched him go, she got a jolt. There was a symbol on his flank: six horizontal lines, the top and bottom two unbroken, whereas the two in the middle were split in half. Here eyes went to all the other ponies she could see, and sure enough, they all had those marks as well. The marks the legends spoke of, revealing a pony's inner destiny. They know who they are, she thought.
But there was no mark on her own flank. She did not know who she was, obviously.
I do! I'm Twilight Sparkle, a unicorn and archivist in the Canterlot archives. Sister of Shining Armor.
An unsettling suspicion came over her: that described what she was, not who. 'Who' was a question that ran deeper still. The thoughts streamed into her head, surprisingly lucid, and clicked into place and made sense instantly, as if she had already known them. Had always known them. If she tried to substitute the question of 'what' for the more essential 'who', it would only be a lie. A lie directed at the self. When she was a filly and her mother had caught her in a lie, Twilight had felt shame. So it was now, only the shame was magnified by how long and how well she had lied to herself.
This is ridiculous, she thought suddenly. I know who I am.
She began to walk again, for lack of anything else to occupy her mind, but it felt like her true self was still pondering the question back there, and now Twilight was leaving her behind because she didn't want to know the answer. She had split herself into pieces and buried the inconvenient parts deep down in herself. But those pieces still existed down there, shaping the contours of the bedrock of her mind and influencing her unconscious.
Who am I, then? she asked herself passive-aggressively.
And then she saw. The black-and-white photograph stared at her from a newsstand. Her own mirror image drew her eye. Cautiously, she approached the stack of newspapers. On the copy on top, there she was. Smiling, happy, surrounded by other ponies. Familiar ponies. That yellow pegasus was there. So was the silver mare, and Trotten Pullet as well. Two others she didn't recognize. An eclectic group, all in all. The headline read, 'Princess Twilight Guest of Honor at Summer Harvest Parade!'
“If you want it, it's yours,” the elderly earth pony behind the counter said. He picked up the paper and held it out to her. “After the way you whooped Tirek, you deserve a whole lot more than that, princess!”
He's....just giving it to me? What does he think, I'm some kind of Griffon?!
Stop lying about who you are, Twilight.
I....I'm not!
She took the paper, and again that electric feeling ran through her. Had been running through her the whole time, she realized. The closer she got to the center of the city, the stronger it became. It mounted so gradually she didn't notice it. Now it radiated out from the paper, which shone with that same rainbow sheen the silver mare's dress had had.
What's going on? she thought to herself. She looked up from the newspaper and saw herself again. In the window of a bookstore, this time. She went to herself and took a long, hard look into her own eyes, wondering who was staring back at her. She stared so long, in fact, that she didn't realize quite what she was staring at. She blinked and her eyes refocused. The Unabridged Starswirl's Storm rested on a shelf inside the bookstore. She walked inside the shop and went to it, its cover new and unblemished, resting on its stand. Once she lifted it up and flipped it open, she got the shock of her life. And considering how her day had been going, that was saying something.
Some of the passages were familiar, but others were not. She knew the play inside and out, and the oddness of this new text jarred her terribly. Stripped away the sense of comfort she had always felt from it. She flipped to Act V, near the end, and glanced at an ancient woodcut of Starswirl the Bearded casting an illusion of a giant flaming heart onstage while Clover watched from the wings. The caption was reprinted directly from the original woodcut. 'The Mage reuells inn delighting his apprentife Clouere the Cleuere with the Arte off the MAGICKE OFF FRIENDESHIPPE.' Confused, she turned to the text for illumination.

Like sprouting seeds that bloom with loving touch
A kindness done is planted and grows such
That from its trunk a bough does shoot and sprout
A hundredfold for what from seed grew out.
What sceptered jewel could shine so bright as this,
The magic that does guide us in our bliss
To kindle each and every others' flame
And light the fire of friendship to tame
The cold and ice. It binds us close in love,
Transmitting from a higher point above,
As we all crew this land, like swiftest ship,
United by our magic of friendship.

A....magic of friendship? Trembling, Twilight shut the book and put it back down. But she couldn't put what she had just read away as easily. The magic of friendship, binding ponies together in love. When that pegasus had pushed her down....had saved her....the electric feeling had appeared. Was that what the passage meant? Was that the magic of friendship? She still felt it, deep down inside her, in the core of her being. That electric feeling resonated there. One of the pieces of herself she had cut out and buried, so very long ago. And it was the source of these evil thoughts she was plagued with, she realized. That fragment. That spark inside her. It was trying to get out.
No! She reared up violently and neighed, to the puzzlement of the pony behind the counter. She turned tail and galloped outside, but that earth pony with the newsstand was still there, and he was still watching her. She wanted to kick him, to beat him down and show him his rightful place. I am a unicorn! I am superior to the other races!
But a quiet, calm part of herself asked, Why?
Twilight's hooves clacked against the cobblestones as she fled deeper into the city, trying to outrun the evil thoughts. Because I am!
Stop lying to yourself. How are you better?
BECAUSE I HAVE TO BE! They're the ones ruining the promise of Canterlot for me! They're the ones destroying my city! They're the ones making me miserable!
But the thoughts would not go, and she didn't have a bottle of cider to drown them out with. They pounded in her head with the intensity of the sun: And yet this city, where all three pony races are equal, seems just fine.
She had to run faster. Get away from this place before it infected her. It's not real. It's just an illusion.
The only illusion is the one you constructed for yourself. You're the one making yourself miserable, by buying into the garbage the High Castle is feeding you.
But it's true!
It's not true. It's just convenient for you to believe, because that's how you get the things you need: food, shelter, entertainment. Part of the entrenched herd, remember?
Twilight wanted desperately to look for something, anything, that would prove the evil thoughts wrong. But everything about this world reinforced them and exposed how wrong she had been. This place was made of love and light, and it filled the air. How could she fight against such overwhelming power? She could only give in and accept it into her heart. Bursting into tears, she skidded to a halt on an arched overpass over a gentle babbling brook, feeling broken and battered. The fireflies in the street lamps, dutifully lighting the city, cast their luminescence over her. But she hung her head in shame and stared down at her own shadow.
What a fool she had been!
All around her, she sensed the electric feeling, like it was an ethereal radio transmission she could tune into, if only she bothered to receive it. It was a carrier signal that superimposed itself on the static of her soul, made her primed and ready to receive. It filled the air, invisible and yet warm and bright and alive nonetheless. She looked to the skies, at the alabaster castle, and felt an inexorable call. A summons from this strange new castle. There was nothing of the old world she could cling to here, so with a dreamlike stillness she wandered over the bridge and down a small path, feeling the glow of the lights ahead brighten. All around her, streams of ponies came together into rivers, all of them following the same path as she. They formed a vast ocean of life and light at the center of the city, under the magnificent new High Castle. Inside those walls, Twilight sensed the source of the transmission that flowed forth and united them all. It's coming from the mare in the High Castle, she realized. It all flows from her.
The parade rolled past the congregation, quaint old rickety wooden floats decorated like fruit and vegetables. The harvest was the source of life, and in this world where earth ponies stood as brothers and sisters to the other races, it sprouted from the earth abundantly. And the marching ponies moved in perfect clockwork synchronization, because they were all tuned into that sublime transmission as well. It joined them together in a most splendid harmony. 
The whole city. It was so beautiful.
“Twilight!”
As the night sky came alive with fireworks, the name struck her, standing in the midst of this vast gathering, like a wayward rocket and detonated with a dazzling flash. She spun around, searched for the pony who had spoken. But the oceanic crowd pressed around her tightly, cheering at the parade floats, roaring with delight, full of love. The bright and beautiful lights of the city and of the fireworks and of the ponies overwhelmed her eyes. They blinded her to distinction, so that for a moment it seemed like the world was made wholly of light. Undeterred, Twilight pressed forward. She had to find that pony who knew her name. The pony who knew who she was. But which way should she go? She started to go left, then doubted herself and chose to go right instead. But the doubt sunk in again, and so she stood in place, full of shame at herself, in stark contrast to all the happy, smiling, cheering ponies around her.
“Hey, Twilight!” a different voice called.
She took off at a canter, trying to make it to where the spot the voice had come from before it disappeared again. But the ocean of ponies, as the waves yielded to her mad dash, were like an ever-shifting maze. She couldn't tell which way was which. She was so, so lost.
“Oh, Twilight....”
She raised her head and saw through the crowd, very close by, a familiar coat. A very familiar coat. She plowed through the waves of ponies until she broke through into an open area. He rmouth dropped open as, again, she saw herself from a distance. But it was her, no doubt. The same unicorn that stared back from her mirror every morning. Only....she was so beautiful it took her breath away. She walked so carefree, free of her burdens, free of the pain and fear, and surrounded by the five friends from the newspaper. It was a beautiful sight. She was a beautiful sight.
But....why couldn't Twilight be as beautiful? What happened to her beauty?
That's not you, she thought, looking at the mark of destiny on her other self. She knows who she is.
Twilight was off at a gallop, convinced that if she could only talk to herself, she could ask who she was and who she should be. But, at the same time the six other ponies casually walked away, no matter how hard Twilight galloped she couldn't close the distance.
I need to know who I am!
She cut to the side, trying to head the other Twilight off, but blundered right out of the crowd and accidentally found herself in the middle of the parade route. A troupe of jugglers, fire-breathers, stilt-walkers, and tumblers expertly danced down the road, leading the way for a massive parade float. Not missing a beat, one of the grinning dancers grabbed her and traipsed around with her in a tight circle, then let go of her and sent her spinning off until she felt like she would be sick, only for another dancer to grab hold of her and wheel around with her. The blaze of light and color blended together around her. The world was a whirlwind of light in her eyes. She and the tumbler tumbled under a fire-breather exhaling a stream of flame into the sky like dragon's breath. Then the tumbler sprang up again and hoisted her up into the air, displaying her to the crowd. As she saw those faces smiling and cheering at her, the awe of the moment overpowered her. They were cheering for her, unicorn and pegasus and earth pony alike. They loved her.
What did I ever do to deserve this? she thought.
No, I haven't done anything. They think I'm the other me. But maybe....it's not too late to find out how I can become her.
She jumped free of the tumbler's raised hooves, then leaped atop the parade float. She galloped past the ponies atop it waving to the crowd, and climbed to the peak of the cornucopia rising from the rear end. Her eyes swept over the crowd, seeking out herself.
There she was! Far away, across the pavilion, walking away from the parade.
A fluttering above her head caught her attention. Sturdy-looking balloons shaped and colored like fruit were tethered to the cornucopia, and the breeze was heading in the right direction. Twilight grabbed the binding rope loops that held the flock of balloons together, then kicked at the knot holding them to the float. It broke off, and she went up and up and up, into the sky. The wind took her over the heads of the crowd, who murmured in awe, and then lifted her up into the night.
The wind blew straight and true, and sure enough she was almost upon herself. But a sudden updraft picked up. She got ready to let go of the ropes and drop down, but....she was awfully high now. And to her surprise, she was getting higher by the second. The ground was now a dizzying fifty feet below, and she couldn't survive that drop. The balloons were more uplifting than she anticipated.
My other self has wings, she thought. If I were her, I could fly down. But....I'm not.
She hung on for dear life as she sailed right over the heads of her other self and her five friends. The crowd watching the parade became an indistinct glowing blur of light, a lantern in the darkness of the night. The balloons took her up, past the golden minarets of the High Castle, and again she felt the radiance of the mare within. She burned with warmth, like the sun.
But the balloons kept taking Twilight up and out to open skies. A stiff breeze pushed her away from the mountain shelf the city had been built on. The great mountain itself was wholly in her vision now, and she beheld Canterlot in its entirety, that beacon of warmth and love, that city seated upon the mountain, burning in the dark.
But something was wrong. The moon was especially bright tonight. So why was the countryside shrouded in darkness? Why was the city, growing fainter by the moment, the only thing shining? Almost like the world was....receding. The balloons carried her higher, towards the moon. She lunged forward in a panic, trying to hold onto the city. But there was nothing below her. To keep herself from falling, she was forced to keep her fetlocks wrapped around the ropes. Tears streamed down her cheeks, tears for that fading city of light, but all she could do was call out to it.
“No, come back! Don't go away!”
But the night swallowed her words. The world blurred, like water, and grew murky and indistinct. All that was left of the city was a faint glow on the horizon, fading away, lost in the ocean. All around her, the rippling darkness grew ever more intense until it was everything. Just her, and the darkness. The eternal darkness, consuming her once again. She would float in it, forever. The light of the city shrank into a pinprick. When it was on the cusp of fading, she thought she would never see anything ever again.
But then, at the moment before it blinked out of existence, the point exploded in an eye-searing flash of white light that banished the darkness. It gouged into her eyes like searing lances of fire. She threw up her foreleg to shield her face; the balloons had faded with the rest of the world.
Is this sunrise? she thought.
She slitted her eyes and squinted at the raging heart of the white void. And there stood a burning tree. Shining jewels dotted its upper branches, forming a pentagon. Her other self's mark of destiny was in the very center, at the heart of the tree. And below that, on the trunk, the sun and then the moon, leading down to the roots, where were planted firmly in the material world.
“I don't understand!” she called.
Her eyes were still wet, but it no longer felt like tears. It was too sticky. She touched her cheek, and her forehoof came away wet with blood. She had been crying tears of blood. They were splattered all around her eyesockets and dripped down the coat covering her cheeks.
"Behold."
Twilight, shocked by the sudden appearance of the voice, turned around. There, in the middle of the white void some ten paces away, stood another mare. There was something maddeningly familiar about the way she looked, but Twilight couldn't place it. In fact, what was most astonishing was just how normal she was. Average, really. And there was something familiar about her voice too....as if Twilight had heard it all her life.
"Behold," the mare said, "the Princess Twilight Cometh."
"I'm....going to be a princess?"
"A princess, yes....and a queen. The queen of queens! Princess of the cosmos, slayer of demons, and Lordess of Light. And all the world shall be your dominion, and the light shall never fade from an iota of it while you rule....but first, you must shine."
"H-how do I shine?"
The other pony raised her foreleg and pointed at the burning tree. 
Twilight had a moment to contemplate the spectacle before she fell. But she wasn't falling down, she was falling away from the tree. The law of gravity had no power here. The only thing she knew was that this was the nexus point. In her own world, everything that rises would diverge, but in this place, everything that rises must converge. Now, though, she, she was falling, falling, falling, and the light around her slowly faded. The stark white void of the world rippled like water, melted away, and morphed into the dark murk of the ocean, and she was powerless to stop her descent....