Pinkie had heard stories of Everfree. It was an overgrown place, they’d said, full of danger at every turn. But those stories hadn’t quite captured the scope of the place. Trees with broad, reaching boughs formed a vast canopy that only occasionally let in the moonlight. While there was plenty of room for walking, though, there was a definite sense of being closed in by the gnarled tree trunks and undergrowth. There was no telling what lay within every shadow.
“If I remember right, the castle shouldn’t be too far away as the pegasus flies,” Twilight was saying. From above, the faint glow of night washed over and past them as they walked. “There’s just the matter of getting through the bushes … past the rivers … over the hills … away from the animals …”
“Don’t think about that too much,” Pinkie advised, thinking of her own corpse being carried away in the jaws of wolves. “Or, well, do think about it, but we should probably also think of something happier.”
“Like what?” Twilight snorted as she brushed a low-hanging branch aside.
“Tell me about Canterlot! What’s it like living with Princess Celestia?”
“Well … she’s perfect. That about sums it up.” The small smile on Twilight’s face was short-lived. “But that’s not important right now. Maybe you should tell me about how you know everything.”
“I’m not entirely sure.” The night seemed cold, despite the lingering summer radiance. “It’s the third time now that I’ve gone through today. I died twice, and after those I suddenly found myself in the kitchen again, at 3:14 each time.”
“Hmm.” Twilight said nothing.
A break in the foliage drew their attention. Before them, the ground ended abruptly in a jagged cliff, which overlooked the rest of the forest below. In the distance sat a crumbling ruin, a rugged landmark in the midst of the brooding trees.
“3:14 both times?” Twilight said idly, gauging the distance to the castle. “And in the same place? Then you’re obviously going back to that place and time over and over.” She blinked. “Assuming you’re telling the truth, of course.”
“Over and over,” Pinkie repeated, pawing at the ground. “Something to do with … time?”
“You’re sure you’re not actually hallucinating?”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t hallucinate you shouting like crazy when I got crushed to death by books.”
“I …” Twilight’s eyes crossed. “What?”
“So things are resetting to this afternoon.” Pinkie wrinkled her nose. “And it seems safe to say that’s triggered whenever I die. So I just have to make sure I don’t die, and everything will be fine.”
Twilight shook her head. “Yes, everything ... except for that.”
Pinkie followed Twilight’s pointing hoof, taking in the sight of the Mare in the Moon. “Well, yeah, that is a problem. But we’ll figure this out, right? I bet we need to have Nightmare Moon defeated before I can get out of this!”
“Right.” Twilight sighed. “Well, enough lollygagging. We have to get down there somehow.”
They considered their situation. The cliff was steep enough that the idea of climbing down its face was laughable. Pinkie couldn’t tell how high the drop was, exactly, but she had a hunch that she wouldn’t bounce back from that kind of jump.
“There might be a way around,” Twilight suggested, walking along the edge with eyes peeled. “Like … yes! Here, it slopes down a little. Come on!”
“Right behind you!”
Pinkie started to bounce after Twilight … and then paused, wondering what she was doing. She examined her hooves, but they didn’t seem suspicious. So she shrugged and continued on, making her careful way down the cliffside in the light of the unblinking moon.
Sometimes, though, careful doesn’t cover everything. A wayward frog squished under her hoof, sending her slipping over the side of the cliff and down, down to the rocky mountain base below.
∞
“Frogs.” Pinkie rubbed her nose. “Gotta watch out for frogs.”
Pinkie made her careful way down the cliffside in the light of the unblinking moon. A lazy frog gazed up at her from the rocky path, and she couldn't resist sticking out her tongue as she passed. Small victory, but she'd take what she could get.
Once they had reached the bottom, they continued on their way. Twilight seemed strangely quiet, so Pinkie perked her ears and listened, wondering if something awaited them in the gloom beneath the trees.
They had just caught sight of a narrow place, bordered by twin cliffs, when a sudden harsh growling sound made them jump. Pinkie darted for cover behind a bush, and she watched in disbelief as Twilight took a few steps forward, searching for whatever could be making a noise like rocks rattling together.
Twilight’s eyes focused on something in the shadow of the cliffs. “It’s a pretty big lion,” she whispered. “With a scorpion’s tail … a manticore? But it’s sleeping pretty soundly.”
“Maybe we should go around.”
“The quickest way to the castle is past it. We don’t have time for detours.”
Pinkie stared. “Are you saying we should go right past it?”
“I think I can teleport us past it. It’ll take a lot of energy, but as long as we keep quiet we should be fine.”
Pinkie weighed the relative merits of risking an attack of a hungry manticore and risking the slow death of everything on the planet. It seemed a good idea to choose the path of the least suffering for everypony. “Okay. I trust you.”
“Good. Stand next to me.”
With some hesitance, she did so. Now she could see a better view of the creature, from its hulking golden body to its thin dark wings. Being exposed like this, though, did not seem like a sufficient trade-off for this sight.
“Distance is acceptable,” Twilight mumbled to herself. “If I calculate the flow of the leylines like so … yeah, that should do it.” Magic sparked to life around her horn, and her eyes narrowed in concentration. “You might want to hold on.”
Pinkie held onto the unicorn’s leg, wondering how tightly she needed to grip it. She wasn’t sure how this was going to work, but if Twilight was Princess Celestia’s student, she could probably be counted on to not mess it up.
As Twilight’s horn grew brighter, a breeze whistled past, tickling the hairs of their coats as it brushed them from behind … and carried their scents forward, wafting the smell of ponies toward the slumbering manticore. The beast sniffed deeply, sneezed, and snorted as it began to stir.
There was a flash of magic — for a moment everything was an incomprehensible swirl of colors, pulsating in a mess of abnormal normality, and then—
They stood in the forest, hooves on solid ground. Pinkie wobbled in place, struggling to keep her balance after the sudden shift. Beside her, she heard Twilight groan faintly, but she too stayed upright.
“Did it work?” Pinkie looked back, and she smiled at the sight of the cliffs standing several yards away. The manticore still stood between them, looking back at the place they had just vacated as only a slumbering monster could ...
Wait a minute.
“Pinkie?” Twilight’s whisper was harsh. “We need to move.”
“Right.” Not taking her eyes off the manticore, she took a few cautious steps, wary even as her hooves carried her farther away from it—
A crunch. Pinkie froze.
The manticore swiveled around, nostrils flaring. It crouched into a coiled position, tail twitching and lip curling, before springing at the hapless ponies with speed unbecoming of its size.
Twilight barely managed to put up a shield in time. There was a ringing clink of claws against magic, and the manticore snarled as it fluttered its wings to steady itself. A massive paw lifted, blotting out the watching moon, and came down with enough force to make the earth beneath them rumble.
In a burst of noise like glass, the shield shattered. Twilight screamed, seizing her head in her hooves at the backlash. But all Pinkie could think of was the lunging maw that swallowed up her vision, and the dripping teeth that crunched into her skull.
∞
“Oh my! You’ve certainly been productive, haven’t you?”
“Can’t talk, Mrs. Cake.” Pinkie’s voice was faint and hoarse, but the tautness of her throat betrayed the scream that was trying to escape. “It’s progress, and that’s all that matters … I’m not gonna think about it, no sir. Gotta find Twilight …”
Pinkie was careful this time. She kept her eyes trained on the dark forest floor as they sneaked away from the manticore, nimbly putting each hoof in a twig-free spot with each step. Twilight employed far less caution, but she moved just as silently. Once they had put significant distance behind them, Pinkie wondered how that was fair, but the question wasn’t quite enough to drown out her sense of relief.
They continued along through a grove even more shadowy than the rest of the forest, so dark that no moonlight could filter through the canopy. Twilight’s magic lit the way, but something about the grove still made Pinkie’s skin crawl. She thought she could feel eyes watching her, eyes that burned her like fire; when she looked around, however, she could see nothing but blackness. When they emerged out into ordinary night once more, she let out a sigh of relief.
To both ponies’ surprise, the next part of the trek passed without incident. The river before them appeared deep, but thanks to Twilight’s scanning spell, it was easily crossed at a certain bend. After that, no beasts leapt out at them, and no traps of nature had been laid before them. Even the noises of the forest seemed subdued, as if it was holding its breath.
After a few minutes, they found themselves staring across a gorge, peering through the fog at the castle crouching in a mangle of stone and glass. Despite the wildness of the forest, the general area around the ruin was clear, with only the occasional tree growing nearby to show the efforts in overtaking the place.
“Maybe we should have brought Butterfly,” Twilight said eventually. “She could carry us over without much of a problem.”
“We’ll just have to find a way without her.” Pinkie glanced over the edge, wondering if they could climb down along this cliff as well. “Hey … what’s that?”
She made her way along the edge, and Twilight followed uncertainly. Soon they came upon a pair of aging posts, around which were tied thick ropes connected to fragile-looking planks. The bridge seemed to have collapsed some time previously, as it lay against the side of the gorge as far as the fog would let them see.
“I think I can fix this,” Twilight said, uncertain. Her horn lit up, and through the fog a faint light responded in kind. Pinkie watched as the distant light pulled the far ropes upward, tying them around the posts on the other side. There was a rustle as Twilight made certain that the knots were tight, and then she was done.
“Nice job!” Pinkie patted her huffing friend on the withers.
“It’s a little farther away than I thought,” Twilight admitted, swallowing in between deep breaths. She looked to the sky, where four stars seemed a little closer to the moon than they were supposed to be. “We’d better move.”
Pinkie nodded, taking a step onto the bridge … and then she scampered back, eyeing it with suspicion. “Maybe you should go first.”
“Really? Do you really think I wouldn’t make sure this was safe?”
“It’s not that. I just don’t trust it to not suddenly give out if I’m the first one on it. That wouldn’t be quite as embarrassing as the bookshelf, but it’d be close.”
Twilight grunted in annoyance. “The more you talk about this ‘time loop’ idea, the less I believe it’s true. And I didn’t think that was possible.”
Pinkie shook her head. “Please go ahead of me? If you did a good job with the bridge, it shouldn’t be a problem if you do.”
“Mhm.” Twilight half frowned, but she didn’t argue. “Fine. If you think it’ll do any good …”
The bridge didn’t collapse, though it shook a little under Pinkie’s weight in the brief second when Twilight had stepped back onto solid ground. The unicorn rolled her eyes and continued on toward the castle; Pinkie followed behind after a quick look back it, as if it would crumble beneath her glance alone.
The castle lay sprawling before them, its doors hanging open expectantly. Whatever trappings had decorated this place in the past, they had rotted away long ago. Though they crossed through several cold, silent rooms, the stone around them was only disrupted by windows lined with jagged glass.
Pinkie was careful to watch her step — who knew what a carelessly placed hoof could trigger? — so when they entered yet another room, Twilight’s wordless exclamation was her first indication that this one was different.
In the center of the room stood a stone statue, a pedestal from which five branches sprouted that ended in additional pedestals. Each of these bore a stone sphere with a unique shape embedded in its surface. The center was a much larger sphere, big enough to crush a pony.
“Is that all six of them?” Pinkie asked.
“I don’t think so. The book said the sixth would appear when the other five are present, but I doubt it’d be as easy as just finding them all together at the start.” Twilight levitated the smaller spheres to the floor, one at a time, and looked at them expectantly. “For metaphysical embodiments, they’re a little … underwhelming.”
“How would you use these?” The spheres were heavy, Pinkie realized as she picked one up. “They don’t look much like rainbow lasers.”
“Predictions and Prophecies made them look like jewels. Maybe something needs to happen to trigger their transformation into that form.”
“Interesting.” She examined the sphere from a variety of angles. “Did it say what kinds they were, specifically? Because if they’re Elements of Harmony, then the microscopic structure would have to be in the form of a particular lattice. At least, that’s if they’re crystals. So probably they need something harmonic to happen in order for them to align correctly and therefore function.”
“That … sounds right.” Twilight squinted. “How do you figure that?”
“My sister’s a rock enthusiast. I think you two would get along great!”
Twilight lifted a sphere and gazed at it, as if she could will it to transform. “I’ll take your word for it. So if they need something harmonic … would that have to do with the virtues they’re associated with, or with the sixth element? Or both?”
“That’s the question, all right.” The gears began to turn in Pinkie’s head. “I wonder if …”
A flash from outside drew their attention. They clambered to the window, through which they could see the expanse of Everfree laid out before them. Trees, hills, gorges, rivers, and lakes, all lay beneath a broad expanse of sky. All was calm, Pinkie noted. All was bright.
“Oh no.” Twilight’s ears were pinned back as she stared upward. “It’s happening.”
Pinkie followed her gaze. What she saw made her heart sink.
The Mare in the Moon was missing.
“It’s so empty,” Twilight breathed, as if the moon had suddenly become fragile. “She’s really … This is bad news. This is really, really bad news.”
“We have the Elements,” Pinkie said, speaking mostly for her own benefit. “We’ve got that going for us. Now we just need to figure out how to use them before we all die.”
“Don’t say that!”
“But it’s true! I mean, isn’t honesty one of the Elements?”
“You can’t just go and …” Twilight blinked. She looked back at the motionless Elements, then at Pinkie. “That’s right,” she mused. “Good point. I wonder … Maybe the virtues involved in harmony have a bigger role to play than I thought? Honesty might really be part of the issue.”
Pinkie pulled her mouth to the side in confusion. “But I was just kidding. It was more for motivation than anything.”
“No, it makes sense,” Twilight assured her, beginning to pace between the window and the Elements. “Could a pony who lives by one of those virtues most effectively wield the corresponding Element? That would make sense. Having five ponies involved for each Element would definitely make it easier to wield them, since it would divide the load between them while also fostering cooperation. And cooperation seems like it’d be important in doing that.”
“But what about the sixth Element?”
“Oh, that’s right. Six ponies, then, unless it works on its own. So what we need is to find four more ponies, and we can—”
Whatever Twilight was going to say was smothered beneath a rush of wind howling among the trees. The two ponies struggled to keep their balance as the air nearly knocked them over; their hooves gripped the stone floor in attempt to be as steady as possible. The light of the moon and stars faded gradually, so that Pinkie only realized it when she could no longer see the Elements just feet away.
“Twilight?” Pinkie called over the din. “I …”
Eyes loomed out of the dark. She shouted in alarm at the thin-slitted pupils within those ice-cold irises, seemingly floating on their own in the midst of the growing darkness. Beneath them, teeth bared in a sharp grin.
“My little ponies.” The creature’s voice slipped into their ears and wormed into their minds like honey and oil, though beneath them lay an edge of malice. “You seem quite lost. As your rightful ruler, I would be happy to help you escape this place.”
“Nightmare Moon,” Twilight whispered, sounding small and feeble.
The eyes regarded her. “Somepony who remembers me. It is well that my sister did not completely obliterate all mention of my glory.”
Pinkie couldn’t move. The Mare in the Moon radiated coldness, and with it came the memory of the dwindling silence. Pinkie tried to say something, to defy the creature from the stars, but it only came out as a whimper.
“You wish to defy me even before I arrive? How clever of you.” Feathers rustled in the dark. “But not clever enough. I will take these.”
A horn lit with deep purple magic, and the Elements were illuminated just long enough for Pinkie to see them vanish.
“And, because I am merciful,” Nightmare Moon added with a smirk, “I will take you.”
There was an almighty crack, followed by another, and then silence reigned.
∞
Muffins. Warmth. 3:14 PM.
Pinkie stood perfectly still. She basked in the heat of the open oven, taking comfort in the light. After a moment she closed the oven and took a deep, deep breath, chasing away thoughts of the monster she had just seen and the death she had just endured. The thoughts flocked back like vultures, but she let them wash over her without introspection. There were more important things to think about.
“Six ponies,” she said. “Six ponies for six Elements. I need to find them.”
“Need to find who, dear?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Cake. They could be anypony.”
“... Can I help with anything?”
Pinkie thought about this. “Maybe. I’ll talk to you about it if I can’t find anypony else. There’s got to be a connection.” She gazed out the window, where happy ponies frolicked. “Where can I find Twilight at this hour?”