Just after dusk, Twilight stood on the balcony of her library, watching the train to Appleloosa depart in the far distance. Although she had not gone with her friends to see Sanguine off, she knew the pegasus was on board, with a note from Applejack to the sheriff and saddlebags full of bits.
Twilight felt the magic beside her and did not have to look. "Hello Luna."
"Does thou know what thou hast wrought?" Anger and disapproval flecked the dark alicorn's voice. Standing next to Twilight, the black and celestial blue ruler of Equestria's night could have been mistaken for an older sister, though the mistake would have been more than a thousand years off - and yet only a single generation, in so far as Luna's sister Celestia had been Twilight's mentor.
"I've set a pony free from her own cutie mark." Twilight glanced at her own cutie mark: sparkles, still the same as they had always been. There was no crown or other alteration to denote her promotion to Princess.
Luna noted Twilight's examination and smiled. Some night, she would have to tell Twilight where her mark truly came from. But not tonight. "Not...entirely. She will still kill, you know."
"I know." Twilight looked up at Luna in mild defiance. "But it will not be by Celestia's order, or yours. It will be by her heart's alone."
"Indeed. But by the same token, she is now unguided." Much as you yourself are, Luna did not say. Twilight might hope for guidance, and might even still receive some from Celestia, but the only way to truly learn to be a Princess was to be one.
"Not true," Twilight retorted. "She's got a better guide than we would have been." She looked at the town again. It seemed awfully quiet: even just after dark, there were usually still some ponies finishing the day's labors and heading home. But now the streets were completely empty.
"'We'." Luna smiled. "So mine sister's plan worked after all."
Twilight looked at Luna.
"Thou hast...erm," Luna caught herself. She was still getting used to the linguistic drift that had occurred during her thousand years away from society. "You have leagues to go, but know this: friend you may be, student even - but you are necessary, too."
Purple alicorn gave dark alicorn a flat, "What."
"We have noticed the reluctance with which you approach the art of governance, save when we specifically requested your aid. While it is commendable to resist the corruption of power, to shun what power you have is to let the evils of this world arise unchecked." Luna looked up at the stars. "How did mine sister phrase it? 'Silly fillies may need friends to rescue them from themselves'?" She smiled at Twlight. "And you have made a new friend from all this."
"Then...this was all...a test?" Twilight wondered where her anger was coming from. She looked forward to tests - nervously, sometimes, and sure she could get a bit obsessive about preparing for them, but evaluations were...were...they were what she did, right? Everything in preparation for the next test, the next grade?
"More like a remedial class, as you were failing your test."
"..." Twilight's skin crawled at that description.
"Not that mine sister was entirely acting," Luna continued. "The ability to just make problematic ponies go away would quickly solve so many issues." She sighed. "Long lives are not ours just to fix a never ending series of today's crises, though it may oft seem that way. Always to the future must we keep one eye, to make sure we will have a future. I...worry that controlling power such as your new friend represents might tempt me into once more becoming the vile Nightmare Moon that you freed me from, but I would not hesitate if I thought it would prove more boon than bane to fair Equestria. It is why mine sister forbade me any contact with the prisoner while she was under mine sister's direction. Even now it would be so easy to slide into her dreams, to comfort and mold her until she eagerly embraced being my little dispenser of justice - but you have placed her beyond my limits. To use the condemned is one thing; to sacrifice a free pony, innocent of further wrongdoing, is another."
Twilight sighed. "Well. Anyway. She's just going to be hunting down monsters now. She'll probably roam all of Equestria...well, except for her home town."
Luna gave her a look.
"What?"
Luna tilted her head. "Did she not say where she was from?"
Twilight blinked. "No. I just figured, if her parents wouldn't come see her, she'll never want to go home again."
Luna smiled. "And yet you have sent her there."
"WHAT?!?" Unfortunately, neither Fluttershy nor Sanguine were present to comment on the consistency of Twilight's pose of surprise.
"Did you not wonder how a single filly, even guided by her cutie mark, could slay so many? Her parents lead the bandit raid on Appleloosa five weeks ago. She was trusted, and she betrayed their trust that justice might be served. Mine sister was quite surprised to find the filly had become without family," Luna explained.
Twilight's eyes searched for the train, but it was already out of sight. "Then the sheriff..."
"...knows exactly who he is dealing with," Luna confirmed. "It was no mistake that mine sister sent her new servant home for her first mission. The mistakes did not happen until Manehattan; mine sister was so rattled by them that she allowed a hungry dragon to get near."
"But why didn't the sheriff mention it? Applejack said she's been talking to him." Twilight felt a gentle breeze rustle her mane.
"Two dozen ponies murdered. Mine sister asked him not to spread word, pointing out that calling attention to it would only cause grief." Luna stifled a chuckle. A thousand years and some political truths remained ever present.
"But we would have heard rumors by now."
"Indeed, I was surprised so many followed the sheriff's lead. Of everypony in Ponyville, only Rarity had learned of it before mine sister's letter reached you, and it apparently failed to inform you where the massacre took place. At mine sister's request I have been advising ponies who knew not to relay the news further, even assisting them in sealing their disquiet unless and until confronted with it. But it is a crumbling dam: I can not only examine so many dreams per night, and bloodshed is not so nightmarish to everypony as to always stands out. You have blessed Sanguine with anonymity, which she will need when word goes public - which it will, and soon." Luna considered. "Today, perhaps."
Twilight looked up at the still-rising moon. "You mean tomorrow?"
The moon swam, becoming Luna's grin. "Where did you think we were speaking?" Luna, and the world around Twilight, began to dissolve. "Mine sister sends her concern over your late hours, both of waking and of achieving slumber."
Twilight grimaced as true light - that of dawn - thrust into her eyes, washing away the dreamtime environment. She allowed herself a look around - no ponies with pressing, dire emergencies; no sounds of catastrophe from downstairs or outside; nothing that couldn't wait. "She can stop with the bloody wakeup calls." Telekinetically tugging shut a window blind to thwart the sun just now cresting the horizon, she turned over, facing away from it, and went back to sleep.