Luna conspired to aid them. At least, that’s what Twilight wanted to believe. She needed to feel that somepony out there besides Rainbow Dash was on her side. And whether true or not, the sparkling night sky and waning moon played godsend to their needs.
Its silver glow illuminated what would have been the darkest of nights, just enough to allow safe passage for those familiar with the Everfree. Given her past experiences, and her wild flight the night before, Twilight felt herself among that ilk.
It led them safely through an uncertain path, one possibly made by larger animals best not thought about. But by Luna’s grace they found the trail they had been searching for, and with little time left to Twilight’s wounds.
Strength of will had scrounged up the final reserves of her magic in a spell to staunch the flow of blood, but it did little to ease her existing weakness. She had leaned heavily on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder for longer than she cared to remember, her hooves barely heeded her desires, and her body had forgotten how to sweat hours ago. It was only on an otherworldly perseverance that she pressed on.
Rainbow Dash felt the effects of their journey, too. Though not one to voice weakness, Twilight could hear it in her ragged breath, the slightest pauses she would give to uneasy ground when her hooves found themselves stumbling.
They were almost there, though. She knew this path. Zecora’s hut would appear at any moment.
It had taken much to convince Rainbow Dash on their journey through the Everfree. Zecora was a wise zebra, but had no doubt been notified by the citizens of Ponyville that Mr. Kite and her changeling minion were on the loose. Though they had disproved the ‘evil enchantress’ rumor long ago, both Twilight and Rainbow Dash couldn’t deny a hesitation for stepping up to her door as marked criminals. They had never seen her bad side, and they hoped it would stay that way.
Zecora’s hut came into view as they rounded a fallen tree, its trunk bulging out like the belly of a pig. The colored vials hanging from ropes slung over its curling branches clinked like wind chimes in an errant breeze. Its windows glowed warm, and shadows danced on the inside wall.
They stopped beside the log, sharing a look, then a nod. They approached the window and peeked in to see Zecora lording over her cauldron. A thick smoke wafted over the edges and to the ground. Rainbow Dash gave Twilight a concerned look, one she couldn’t help but sympathize with. It was risky, she knew, but it was one of their last chances. Twilight nodded at the door.
They shifted as one, and before it, Twilight raised her hoof. A pause. She gulped. A soft knock.
A moment’s wait, and the door opened on creaky hinges. Zecora stood fully in the doorframe, hoof at the latch, the other resting her medicine staff against her shoulder. Her eyes ran up and down them both, mouth pursed, brow raised.
“Stranger pony, hurt and weak. Could this be the one they seek?”
“Zecora,” Twilight said. “Zecora, please... help us.”
Zecora bristled at her name, but maintained her statue-like gaze. Her eyes danced between Rainbow Dash and Twilight’s shoulder, which had become far more red than white. “My ears and eyes are open, true. For injured ponies, doors are too.” She stepped back, a wave of her medicine staff gesturing them in.
Twilight sighed relief. “Thank you,” she said, breathless, Rainbow Dash helping her hobble in. The air hung heavy with the smell of thyme, the dirt beneath her hooves warmer than sun-touched sand. The cauldron bubbled red, the heat of the flame beneath it already making her head spin. Rainbow Dash eased her onto a stool beside a table, and the door slammed shut, prompting both look to Zecora.
She stood at the top of the stairs, regarding them in a manner befitting a judge’s shadow towering over a criminal. In hard silence, she strode for a pitcher at the other side of the room, taking it and a clay cup from a hanging rope. She set it before Twilight and filled it.
Twilight stared at the offering as if it were the key to the Canterlot Library. Greedily, she gulped it down, feeling the cool wetness wash away the paste in her mouth. Hours had passed since they set out from Canterlot Lake, and the hasty mouthfuls she had taken there were long spent in their journey. Zecora left the pitcher beside her, and Twilight didn’t hesitate in refilling her cup.
“Many words have filled my ears,” Zecora said, doubling back for a cupboard across the room, “of all your deeds and all their tears. ‘Mr. Kite’ is what you’re named, and Twilight’s life you’ve failed to claim.” She gathered from the cupboard a pestle, mortar, and a hoofful of grassy herbs, never taking her eyes off them for a moment. “Though I humbly let you in, to tend to you when strength is thin, do not think you two are free from dungeon’s biggest lock and key.”
Twilight shot Rainbow Dash a quick glance. “Zecora, please listen. We aren’t who you think we are.”
She set her supplies on the table, adding the herbs one at a time to the pestle. “Silver tonguéd liar, cheat! Do not force me to repeat! The only truth that you can sire is your wound that is so dire!” Mortar in mouth, she went to work grinding the herbs. “Do not test me with your cesspit, or you’ll lose yourself this respite.”
Twilight’s jaw fell lax. Never had she known Zecora to harbor such hatred. Generosity overflowing, wiser than the ocean was vast, quick to help even the weakest of ponies—those were the qualities she knew. Clearly the latter shone through despite her feelings. If she retained that value of treating all ponies regardless of stature, there remained a hope she would see the truth. Given her last remark, though, she would have to proceed delicately. Draw from experience.
“Zecora… do you know what it’s like to be misunderstood?”
Zecora paused. Her eyes wandered up from the pestle to meet Twilight’s. They held hard for a moment before she returned them to her work.
Twilight withheld a wince. Bad angle. Start with herself. “If you dislike me so much, why help?”
“Were my words not fully clear? Do you have beeswax in your ear?” She set aside her mortar and pulled a yellow vial from another rope. She poured its muddy contents into the pestle and stirred it with a reed brush. “No matter who comes to my door, the hurt and weak need but implore. I will never turn away a pony who would else decay.”
Quick to help anypony, indeed. But she didn’t know they needed more than just medical aid. That was her hoof in the door. Press that advantage.
“But my shoulder isn’t what I’m worried about.” Zecora didn’t reply, focusing on her pestle. Keep pushing. “At least, not as much as I am about somepony believing us.”
“And what, dear Kite of smoke and mirror, should I believe is crystal clear?”
A glance to Rainbow Dash. Holding in the truth was what found them in this predicament. How much different the present could have been had she been up front with Celestia. She would never know, but she knew one thing for certain. No more running. No more hiding.
“That I am not Mr. Kite.”
She gave the statement time to soak in, but Zecora proved harder ground, her brow barely raising, her stirring losing no rhythm. To be expected. Just keep going. She pointed at Rainbow Dash. “And that she isn’t a changeling.” Still no response. Twilight took in a small breath. “That...” This was it.
“That I am Twilight Sparkle.”
At this, Zecora stopped her mixing and looked up. They stared each other in the eyes, Rainbow Dash glancing despondently between them. Twilight held her gaze firm, hoped the seriousness of her face would find effect and bolster her claim. But long before anything happened, Twilight knew her words had fallen on deaf ears.
Zecora snickered. She tried holding it in, but her hoof simply couldn’t hide the massive grin stretching from ear to ear. Her laughter burst forth like water through a dam. “Precious pony, what a laugh! Do I look like a giraffe? Surely I don’t seem a foal, if a hoodwink was your goal.” She relaxed her smile, the apparent humor of the situation settling down. “A hippo’s chance that you aren’t Kite; how could you prove that you are right?”
Twilight felt a lump in her throat. She knew it was a fool’s hope, but that didn’t stop the laughter from hurting. It did, however, lull Zecora into a false sense of security. Time to shatter it. Speak from experience.
“Alright, Zecora, if I’m actually Mr. Kite, then tell me why I would know what ‘Apple Bloom Soup’ is.”
Again, Zecora bristled, but this time anger hardened her gaze, shrouding the room in darkness. “Mada-le a mada-lo! Tell me how this fact you know.”
Twilight stood. “I bashed in your door the day we first met, when we were there to save Apple Bloom. The parasprite invasion?”
“Who do—”
“Nightmare Night? Apple Bloom’s cutie pox? Trix—”
“Enough!” Zecora heaved for a moment, letting her outburst subside. She let a slow, deep breath out through her nose beneath a stern gaze. “Enough with this, your lies are through. Ms. Twilight Sparkle is not you. Your wounded shoulder, strong as steel, I have promised I will heal. Any more than this, I say: come again another day!”
Still defiant. Break her support. Find a weakness. She lived and died by the tales she wove on her visits. “But if you’re willing to help, why aren’t you willing to listen? You have loads of stories that you stand by. You’ve told me so many of them over tea.” Twilight let her frustration take the reins. “Zecora, tell me there isn’t one fable of yours that would say you’re being too vindictive.”
Zecora opened her mouth to retort, but her anger halted its boil. She raised her chin slightly, face growing tense, gears within her head cranking away. Stoicism did its best to hide the simmer in her eyes.
Bingo. Twilight leaned forward. “There’s one. I know you’re thinking of it.”
Zecora held her stare a little longer, her brows furrowing in admonition for the added statement. A glance down at the pestle, its muddy contents staring back. Something softened her features, and she sighed in acquiescence. “Listen close to what I say, as it is the Zebra way: for once we were at war with flame, those with tooth and claw and mane. An older tale than you or I is that of Dolich’s ‘Battle Cry.’” She returned to the cupboard and rummaged through it.
“‘Win the war with love so pure; Nemea’s pride we will endure.’ Great Dolich ordered them to treat both friend and foe, no simple feat. To only hurt and never kill took many mountains’ strength of will. Despite the fact they ran away to strike again another day, his stance remained but tried and true. A test of valor through and through.”
She found what she was looking for: a hemp bag filled with what Twilight realized were seeds, once she brought it back to the table.
“For long they waged a war of blood that reddened grass and thinned the mud. And on one fateful night foretold, the lions struck a blow so bold. Great Dolich’s death all mourned as one, but none so much as Dolich’s son.
“‘With me!’ he cried before the wake. ‘We’ll crash the pride, their lives we’ll take!’” She drew a hoofful of dark-brown seeds from the bag, placing them on the table. She started crushing them one at a time beneath her hoof, separating the hull from the germ.
“And so he rallied forth his zeal, their hooves like distant thunder peals. They found the lions on the plain and made them feel a tenfold pain. Soon he found the massive king, whose name across the grasslands ring: Nemea, lord of tooth and bone, raised himself up from his throne.
“He stood before old Dolich’s son. By end of day, there would be one.
“Hoof and claw then clashed like fire—two hearts burning, one desire. The battle raged into the night, when torches burned with waning light. ‘Til Dolich’s son, eyes filled with hate, then struck a blow to seal his fate.
“Nemea lay beneath his hoof—broken, beaten—blatant proof of zebra strength and hearty line—that which the Sun had blessed divine.” Her voice crescendoed to a peak. “But as he readied for the kill, drunk on bloodthirst’s heady thrill…!”
Zecora leaned in, grinning. “He paused…
“Beneath the moon and starry sky, he saw his father in his eye. The kind and gentle face of love, he knew looked down and frowned above. His father’s cry he had forgot, compassion’s oath, had left to rot. He held himself before the blow that all who watched had surely known would close Nemea’s eyes for good. And so he stood there, simply stood.
“Nemea might have fathered strife, but he had also fathered life. To end him for his father’s sake would undo all he’d tried to make.
“‘Fetch me water, Meerkat Weed, a lump of clay, and Grevy’s Seed.’ His zeal looked on in dumbfound gaze; the lions, too, all blinked, amazed. They quickly ran and brought to him...” She looked down at the mud-filled pestle, a faint smile on her lips as she added the seed germ, stirring. “All he asked for, on a whim.
“Long into the early day, did Dolich’s son then slave away. He tended every cut and bruise; his zeal’s rebukes he long refused. He knew the words his father’d say, that he would have been proud that day.”
She pulled the reed brush from the thick mixture. Gently, she brushed it against Twilight’s wound, and a cool, tingling sensation eased away the throbs.
“For instead of turning ‘round and reddening the hardened ground, he buried there with heart so pure the hatchet he for all endured.” She wrapped a fresh bandage around the wound, cinching it tight and tucking it away. “Never since have stripe and mane once clashed upon the open plain.
“And so you have it, what I say. So it is the zebra way.” She stood gazing into the pestle, eyes glazed over. It was a long while she remained so, and it took Twilight several minutes to realize she had finished her story. She bit her lip, unsure if she should interrupt.
At last Zecora spoke, curiosity inflecting her tongue. “Perhaps I am too quick to see the monster I was told you’d be. It’s true to lend a helping hoof is only half the lion’s tooth. Suppose the words you speak are true. Tell me then…” Her large, almond-shaped eyes gravitated toward Twilight, brow slightly furrowed. “What should I do?”
Twilight opened her mouth, but no words came. She blinked, gathering herself. “Mr. Kite placed an illusion on the two of us. Do you have any way of expelling it?”
Zecora smiled. “Illusions are but simple tricks to plague the mind like little ticks. We will see who is the fool, and who’s the one that’s pulling wool.” She grabbed her medicine staff and drew a strange glyph in the dirt. A spiral, with a line slashing out from the middle. She began humming one of her many nursery rhymes.
Twilight and Rainbow Dash shared a look, and both watched in silence, prayers to Celestia bouncing around in their heads.
Zecora used her staff to scrape a hoofful of dust from beneath the cauldron’s fire. She gathered it in a hoof, lullaby unbroken, and blew it in Twilight’s face. Twilight shut her eyes, coughing, and kept her mouth closed, more to hold in a multitude of questions than to keep from breathing in a lungful of ashes. Zecora did the same to Rainbow Dash, who sneezed, wings fanning in an annoyance that spread quickly to her face. Twilight shot her a glare. When she turned back to Zecora, she stood nose to nose with her, and Twilight tensed.
Zecora simply smiled. “Curiosity, like snow, is whirling in your head to know the what’s and why’s of what I do. Do feel free to ask a few.”
More than she knew. Twilight opened her mouth to inquire the reason for the dust, but Zecora shoved some green paste in it before she could fully draw breath. She gagged on the sudden taste of wood cleaner, the stench of formaldehyde burning away the hairs in her nostrils. She coughed, turning in time to see Rainbow Dash shaking her head, mouth pursed, ears flattened at the sight of the syrup-covered herb Zecora held out to her. Rainbow Dash caught her eye, and she scrunched her face at Twilight’s ‘just eat it’ glare.
Zecora shoved the herb in her mouth at the slightest pry, and Rainbow Dash’s changeling eyes watered. She gagged, her tongue lolling out. Twilight rolled her eyes, as the taste was very much acute, her palate already clean and sinuses clearer than if somepony had gone in with a wire brush. There hung a ripe smell of boiled potatoes in the air, and it made Twilight’s stomach growl in desperate yearning, the pangs of starvation stepping up to the front of her thoughts.
Metal and wood clattered to the left. Zecora rummaged through a bin tucked away in the corner, drawing out a hoof mirror. She brought it back to Twilight. “Close your eyes and count to three, then would you tell me what you see?”
Twilight did as instructed. One. Two. Three. She opened her eyes, and her reflection stared back. The one she had grown accustomed to the last two days. “Still Kite,” she said, glum.
Zecora shifted to Rainbow Dash, who closed her eyes. She opened them excitedly, but fell into a pout upon gazing into the mirror.
“Well, that’s just one thing that didn’t work, right?” Twilight said. “What else do you have?”
“The words you speak do go to show how little of my art you know. All short and simple tests you see; that was not one failed test, but three.” She put a hoof to her chin, looking down at the dirt. “I work so little with illusions that they leave me in confusion. I’ve nothing else at my disposal. But…” A turquoise eye swivelled around to Twilight, a flash of curiosity within. “What about a new proposal?” She headed for a heap of masks and miniature effigies beside her bed.
Twilight raised a hoof, concern laxing her jaw. “Zecora, what new proposal?”
The zebra returned with two unpainted tribal masks. She placed one on each of their heads.
Twilight fidgeted with hers. Though the wood had been whittled smooth, it weighed heavy on the bridge of her nose, and she could already feel her face growing sticky with sweat. With what little she could see through the eye slits, she shared a look with Rainbow Dash, whose mask stared back is if in the middle of saying ‘boo.’
Zecora gathered two bowls from the counter and a hoofful of berries from the cupboard. Into one of the bowls, she crushed them into a red paste with the mortar, filling the room with the scent of evergreen. The other she filled with a jar of green liquid that sat in a row of other color-filled jars along the backsplash. Before them, she sat and dipped a hoof in the red paste.
Again chanting her nursery rhymes, she traced a single line down either side of Twilight’s mask. Once, she tried following with her eyes, but Zecora’s free hoof held her still. She remained so for a long time, staring ahead at the front door, listening to Zecora’s soft voice drift about the room, feeling the slight pressure of hoof against mask. The hoof traced down Twilight’s neck and onto her chest, making rectangular spirals and switchback lines that then proceeded out and beyond her barrel to her legs and flank, a faint chill where it left the paste to dry.
Zecora did the same with the green liquid, and Twilight held the wonder in the back of her mind just what she must have looked like at that moment.
Her body a living labyrinth of stripes, she dared open her mouth. “Zecora, what exactly are we doing?”
Zecora made no answer. Her lullaby had gained in strength, her hoof dipping into both the red and green pastes. She made a final swirling pattern where Twilight’s horn would have poked through the mask had it a hole to allow so, and smiled. She took her medicine staff in hoof and gently touched its tip to the swirl.
“Fickle magic, curséd leech. Quit thy game and heed my speech! Out from one and into new. Reveal the mare you hide from view!”
The room darkened for an instant beneath a magic gripping Twilight by the horn, powerful and magnetic. A ball of light at its tip whitewashed the room, slowly growing in power until she could see nothing else.
Like rainwater water filling in troughs of tilled farmland, a wetness seeped into Twilight’s skin along the lines painted on her body. The fresh pitter patter tickled her flanks, their droplets slowly running the length of the lines, filling them in from the back forward, to the spirals on her chest and up her neck. It flooded into her skull, a basin collecting a runoff that heeded no sense of gravity. The cold chill of magics at war froze her brain. Her mouth fell agape, and her legs quivered as her head tilted back to allow better drainage of the mind-numbing power.
She felt herself changing. Obtuse and unnatural forms whittled away. Layers of skin peeled away as if she was a snake molting away its younger self. The world became heavier on her shoulders, feathered outgrowths on her sides drawing her down with imbalanced weights that her mind barely recognized as self. The magic concentrated in her horn, spindling out like yarn through a loom. The light faded with the final dregs of power leaving her horntip, and all felt suddenly calm.
Twilight let her eyes flutter shut, a sense of peace, like the moment she had ascended in that aetherial plane, overtaking her body and soul.
The mask was lifted from her, and a soft voice spoke. “It seems that I deserve reproof, for you have clearly told the truth.”
Twilight opened her eyes. In the hoof mirror held before her stared back the very face she had dared hoped to see. Purple fur. Indigo mane. Stripe of pink, and violet eyes. She gave herself the stupidest smile she had ever seen, and she felt a lump in her throat.
She looked down, and the mirror held no lies. Purple fur and hooves. Wings stretching out at her command, feathers preened and glistening in the cauldron fire. For so long she had been trapped in Kite’s body, lost within a prison that should never have been. To see herself—feel herself wear her own skin—brought forth tears she couldn’t hold back. She threw herself around Zecora.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Speak no thanks, there is no need. I simply live the zebra creed.” Zecora allowed herself to be held a little longer, a hoof of her own resting on Twilight’s good shoulder. She pulled away, turning her smile toward Rainbow Dash.
“As for you of hardened shell,” she said, sliding her bowls over, “this black embrace we will dispel.”
As she had for Twilight, she painted spiralling squares and lines all along Rainbow Dash’s body, her methods delicate, practiced. She took up her lullaby again.
Twilight let her gaze wander to her own mask, leaned against the table leg. Though Zecora had only painted two stripes down its cheeks and the spiral at her horn, the red and green paint covered every discernible inch in zig zags and crosses and squares. A quick glance at herself, where no paint remained, then back at the mask.
“Zecora,” Twilight said. “What exactly did you do to break this illusion?”
A chuckle, and a brief pause for Zecora’s eye to swing around to her. “Have you not the right conclusion? It was never an illusion.” She regarded Twilight’s mask, then Rainbow Dash, who she neared covering entirely in green and red. “Pastel colors, green and red, will draw away what many dread. From one host they refocus—vex—a darker magic, called a hex. Hexes cannot be destroyed, and so are simply redeployed.”
She painted the final swirl at Rainbow Dash’s forehead, then, as she had for Twilight, gently touched her medicine staff to its center, repeating her incantation. There was no flash of light, but the way Rainbow Dash jerked her head skyward, every muscle tense, told her she was not meant to see it. The magic glowed within, not without.
The lines on her flanks bubbled, the dried paste becoming liquid under magical properties Twilight couldn’t grasp. They curled in on themselves, like ribbons crinkling away and disappearing beneath their own folds of spirals and switchbacks and squares in an ultimate journey for the mask.
With them was drawn away the black and shimmer of Rainbow Dash’s chitinous shell. Every switchback pulled with it a layer of darkness, debriding away the hex to reveal the sky blue of her true coat. Up her chest, onto the mask, the ribbons spun their intricate weave, encasing the hex upon its new vessel.
They sealed fast to the wood, and Rainbow Dash went suddenly lax. She wobbled for a moment before she found her balance. Zecora drew away her mask, and beneath it Twilight saw a friendly face she hadn’t seen in what felt like forever.
Rainbow mane. Rose-colored eyes. The one and only Rainbow Dash.
“Oh, my head,” she said, putting a hoof up to her temple. She blanked, then a smile cracked wide across her face. “Hah! I can talk! Finally!” She swept her smile to Twilight. “Man, you wouldn’t believe what it’s like not being able to talk. I almost feel like Pinkie Pie after that whole Poison Joke thing.” She and Zecora shared a laugh, but Twilight remained contemplative.
“I don’t understand,” Twilight said, turning to Zecora. “Kite is, err, Mirror Image is an illusionist. I’ve seen it first hoof. Everything about her was one giant illusion, from the Gui’etzen and the circus to that nightmare she put me in.”
Zecora simply smiled. She set the bowls on the table and sat down, staring at them. “Perhaps, like me, you tried to see the magic that you thought it’d be. Instead, these spells that you despise took on the role of perfect guise.”
Twilight opened her mouth to clarify, but her thoughts couldn’t find their way to her tongue. A misdirection? After all the illusions she had been through, the final one wasn’t an illusion at all. She smirked. Quite the bait and switch. A defense, secondary to removing her magic, against any attempts to remove the ‘illusions,’ if anything.
“Well, that’s great and all,” Rainbow Dash said, rising from her haunches. “But now that we’re back to ourselves again, let’s bust in there and kick some flank!” She stomped the ground, wings spread.
“No,” Twilight said.
“What? What do you mean ‘no’? Then what do you think we should do?”
What should they do? An obvious but important question. She didn’t have a concrete answer herself, but rushing headlong into Ponyville would only be counter-productive, knowing Mirror Image’s propensity for over-preparedness.
At the very least, they needed a disguise of some sort. And she grinned, having just that sort of plan.
“We put the hexes back on.”
Rainbow Dash gawked at her. Even Zecora seemed surprised.
“Think about it. If we walk in there as ourselves, she’ll know we discovered the hexes and got rid of them. And she might suspect that I have my magic back. If we put the hexes back on us the way they were, she’ll be none the wiser.”
Incredulous stares. “So we’d have gone through all that work for nothing,” Rainbow Dash said flatly. “If we’re all talking about illusions and stuff, why not just use one of those instead?”
“Because, Rainbow, Mirror Image is a powerful illusionist, more powerful than I am, I’m sure. She’d see it from a mile away. We need to get in with our advantage unnoticed. We need her to think we’re still weak, that she still has the advantage.” She stood, wings fanning out, head square and high. “We hit her with a taste of her own medicine: have her think she’s in control, and then when she least expects it, we unleash everything at once.”
She turned to Zecora. “Can you mimic the spell she used to change us? And is there a way we can undo them there on our own?”
Zecora hmm’d, hoof to her chin, glancing at the painted masks. “Reverting hexes I can do; removing twice is something new. How to do it in the field, instead of with the staff I wield, will pose another problem, too. Please let me think on this a few.”
Rainbow Dash continued staring at her, jaw tense, wings flared. “I-wh… Why?”
Twilight stepped face to face with her. “Rainbow, we didn’t come this far to get just our bodies back.” She put a hoof on her friend’s shoulder, feeling the tension coiled within. “We came to get our lives back. And that means doing whatever it takes to get them, even if we have to give up what we gained. Besides, we’ll still have gained something for it.”
Rainbow Dash frowned at her. “And what’s that?”
“An ally. A friend.” She turned a smile toward Zecora, who was staring at an array of beaded necklaces hanging from hooks on the far wall. “Somepony who believes us.”
The tension in Rainbow Dash’s shoulder relaxed, and a moment’s hesitation folded her wings. She looked away. “I hate being a bug…”
“It’s not for long, Rainbow, and then you’ll never have to do it again.”
A small grunt, but Rainbow Dash nodded. She grinned, a glint in the eye she swivelled back to Twilight. “Alright. I can do this. If it’s what it takes to get us in the same room as them.”
Twilight opened her mouth, concerned, but pursed it. Whatever motivation she needed, however barbaric it might be.
Zecora returned with two of the necklaces. She laid them on the table, miniature bas relief wood carvings held fast at the middle by a small silver loop. On closer inspection, they were of a zebra bust, a stern, chiselled face gazing off into the distance. “Take these trinkets, old of mine. They will serve your purpose fine. For Grevy’s Will shall lead the way, as by his guide no ponies stray.”
“Are you sure you can make these work without you?” Twilight asked, holding up a hoof. She had never received a more comfortable smile in reply.
“As many think, and as I say: where a will is, there’s a way.”
“Alright!” Rainbow Dash said, pumping a hoof in the air. “Let’s get back there and show ‘em who they’re dealing with!”
Zecora put a hoof in the crook of Rainbow Dash’s elbow, lowering her hoof to the ground. Her smile never faltered. “Enthusiasm is a boon, but time for sleep will be here soon. You’ll need your strength to face your foe. Surely this you both must know.” She turned to Twilight. “Your shoulder needs its time to rest, else it will fail the coming test.”
“We don’t have time, Zecora,” Rainbow Dash said. “We need to get back there and kick some flank before the whole world thinks we’re the bad guys.” She stared at Twilight’s shoulder, blame heavy on her face. “Don’t you have some other magic potion that’ll speed this up?”
“Rainbow,” Twilight said, frowning. “We can’t just rush in there. We have to come up with a plan.”
“Well, we can’t just sit around here and do nothing. I’ll go crazy knowing somepony out there’s getting away with this!” She plopped to her haunches, groaning, hooves pulling her cheeks down.
Something sparkled in Zecora’s eye, Twilight noticed. It made its way to her smile, and she turned away, a hoof raised for stepping. “Have a potion, that I do, and it’s the perfect crimson brew.”
Twilight blinked. “You-you do?”
Zecora’s smile never wavered as she gathered two bowls and spoons from the cabinet. She ladled into them the concoction bubbling in her cauldron and set the steaming bowls before them. At a closer sniff, Twilight immediately realized the source of the earlier heavenly smell. Her mouth watered, and her stomach growled its pleas for satiation. She took a delicate sip.
Immediately the taste of tomatoes lit up her world, garlic, cayenne, and cumin dancing a sweet and spicy ballet on her tongue. An instinctive and careless hunger dove in for more, and the scalding pain was well worth the cubed potato that melted in her mouth. She afforded herself a few heavy breaths to cool her palette, wherein she saw Zecora’s smile directed at her, then at Rainbow Dash, who had thrown both caution and her spoon to the wind.
“A hearty bowl of tuber stew is just the thing to strengthen you. Success is not a bottled fate. It simply comes to those who wait. Do not worry, Rainbow Dash, nothing changes in a flash. Remember patience, quell the flame. The world will surely be the same. So take your seat and plan tonight. Tomorrow you will have your fight.”
Rainbow Dash came up from her bowl for a deep breath. The look she returned wasn’t quite one of acceptance—more bitten-back annoyance, if anything—but, knowing her, it might as well have been. She said nothing, prompting Zecora turn to Twilight.
She had expected Zecora to say something, but slowly she came to realize the question resided in her eyes rather than on her lips. They questioned without voice, asked what was to come, what part each of them would play once the sun rose. Infinite indeed was her wisdom, and Twilight knew it waited for the right words and questions of her own.
Tomorrow would be dangerous. A single hair held against a razor’s edge. Any sudden flick of the blade or unplanned twist of the hair would sever their one and only chance. Tomorrow would have to be only movement. Choreographed. Precise. Here, now, in the warmth of the dying cauldron fire and the noises of the forest outside would tomorrow’s battle of wills be won. They would have to plan for and see past the smoke and mirrors of Image’s game and strike at the heart. Shatter the illusions, dispel the lies.
Twilight took a deep breath and released it. “Alright. Let’s get started.”