//------------------------------// // Epilogue // Story: Harmonized // by ferret //------------------------------// Dear Princess Celestia, The truth is a complex thing. Sometimes a lie becomes the truth, and sometimes pursuing what you think is the truth, is to lie. In the end, I think if you accept your feelings, and don’t deny what is there in front of you, then it doesn’t matter if you’re wrong, because you can always learn better if you are. I am happy to inform you that the world is saved. The attached report should offer full details regarding the mental stability of subjects alpha through epsilon. Rather than any magical solution, it turned out all they needed was somepony kind enough to answer their questions about identity, without judgement or fear. My new friends showed me that what I wanted was not always best for them, even if I wanted it to be. Sometimes, most times even, the best thing you can do for a pony is give them room to decide for themselves, and support their decision, instead of deciding how to help them all on your own. I think I know more about what life is worth, now. Yes, I unknowingly changed five ponies’ lives forever, but it would be no service to them to change them further. With this crisis behind us, I hope that they can discover on their own their special place in the world. We need to respect them for who they are, rather than reject them as if they weren’t ponies anymore. Five ponies that I barely knew became my friends overnight. A truly terrifying power, I consider us lucky having escaped unscathed. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. Our friendship just is, and it doesn’t need more justification than that. The best we can do now is stand together, and become stronger ponies, and better friends, for having done so. Dash hovered over Twilight as she scratched out her important letter, the unicorn rapt in concentration as she put her thoughts to words. After Twilight was done, Rainbow Dash asked curiously, “Hey, how come your hornwriting is the same as ours?” “Oh, you mean... this?” Twilight said, gesturing the floating quill at her drying letter. “It’s how we figured it out. See?” Dash said, pulling out a receipt she had filled out recently. “My mouthwriting changed to that, so I knew I had to be somepony else, back before it changed. And Rarity, and Pinkie and Applejack and me all have the same mouthwriting now. But why did it happen to you?” Twilight blushed in embarassment, mumbling, “Erm, actually...” “Actually what?” Rainbow asked the reluctant unicorn, landing to give her a serious look. “I may have given you all my writing style,” the embarassed unicorn said abashedly. “I didn’t actually... know how my friends wrote, you see. I was always the one writing the letters. I just... never had a chance to see them write. When your writing styles were different from mine, I assumed it was more corruption from Discord. Making ponies unable to read each other’s writing seemed like the sort of thing he’d do.” Twilight rolled up the letter with her magic and sighed, saying, “I know I said you’re your own pony, but you’re right, you do have... a lot more in common with me than even my own friends. Even talking to you, sometimes I feel like I might as well be talking to myself. You know, if I was just pretending to be Derpy instead of myself.” Rainbow Dash frowned, at this again. Anything but this again. “Well, uh, for one thing,” she suggested cooly, “If I was pretending to be me, why would I come to tell you that I’m not? If I were you, I’d have been all freaked out and afraid to let anypony know too. But I wasn’t, so it’s different.” Twilight smiled at the rainbow pegasus, saying, “You always know the right thing to say to me... Dash.” Rainbow Dash nodded, but Twilight looked troubled then, and Rainbow Dash could guess what a pony like her would say, in a situation like this. “And that’s what I’m worried about,” Twilight and Rainbow Dash said at the same time, though Twilight said it sincerely, while Dash said it in a simpering, squeaky sounding voice. Twilight’s face at the same time blushed, and fell in horror then, and Rainbow Dash just smiled and slapped her on the shoulder. “I’m just messing with ya, egghead,” she said, “You are so predictable sometimes. “...and that doesn’t mean I’m you in a me suit,” Rainbow added uncertainly. “I feel so comforted,” Twilight groaned in exasperation. Twilight Sparkle ended up sleeping for like, two days straight after revealing to all of them who they are. But after that, they had the big birthday party for all 5 of them. Rainbow Dash had initially expected Pinkie Pie—or well, Lyra, she supposed—to deliver the invitation. It was still weird thinking of Lyra as a party planner, rather than just Pinkie Pie planning parties for all of Ponyville. The town was way too big for just one of them though, and between the both of them it luckily added up to just about right. But instead of those two crazy ponies, Rainbow Dash walked outside one dark morning, and there on her doorstep was a purple unicorn illuminated in the porch light, a unicorn who immediately started dancing on her hooves, and singing. “This is a singing telegram, I—” Rainbow stuffed a hoof in Twilight’s mouth, saying, “Stop, stop, stop. It did not work. That did not work.” Twilight wilted as Rainbow Dash took her hoof back, but then Twilight brightened up quickly again, saying, “Pinkie and Lyra let me deliver the invitations, if I promised to sing the song, but I wanted to bring you some good news, too! I think I figured out why you’re all so mentally stable.” “I thought you weren’t gonna work on that anymore?” Dash said cautiously. “You really pushed yourself the last couple weeks.” “Oh, it’s fine, I came up with the idea as soon as I woke up, in fact!” Twilight said prancing in place on the cloud floor. “I did a little checking, and it makes perfect sense! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before, really.” Rainbow yawned, and said, “Okay, what’s that?” “The Elements of Harmony!” Twilight offered merrily. She was in a really good mood, it looked like. “We used the Elements of Harmony,” she repeated. “You remember us using them on Princess Luna, of course. It enabled her to escape from the Nightmare that was tormenting her! That’s what they do. Their power makes things more harmonious.” “Oh, so...” Dash lifted a hoof, thinking to herself on just what those Elements did. She didn’t really understand it. For her it was just point, shoot and bye-bye villains. “Well,” Twilight said eagerly, “Discord selected the most discordant ponies he could find, assuming their true natures would disable the Elements of Harmony. And combined with my ill applied sorcery, it was a real mess in your head, at the time. So the Elements would see that as disharmony, and smooth it all out. They repaired any mistakes, and pushed your minds past the danger zone, past the point of no return. Just like the princess, you all came out of your self-inflicted Nightmare, and became like new ponies!” “Hold on, wait, no,” Rainbow said backing up a step. “We used the Elements on ourselves? And they made your magic permanent? What about Discord’s curses on everypony else? The Elements just got rid of those. Last I checked, they didn’t change Big Macintosh into a literal dog.” “Yes, but we used the Elements on Discord,” Twilight countered, “We weren’t trying to do anything to me, only to my friends, and him. Him to stop his evil reign, and you all, to protect you from that naggingly persistent corruption. So they made use of my magic, instead of dispelling it!” Twilight paused thoughtfully, correcting herself by saying, “They did technically dispel my magic too, but only after we had already changed you into you, so to speak.” “We?” asked Rainbow Dash warily. “Oh uhm... me, and my um... yous,” Twilight blushed, looking at a hoof. “Sorry, it’s kind of hard to put to words. I don’t know what your old selves were doing, but you as enchanted constructs would have been actively reinforcing the spell. You remember trying to resist his influence, right?” “He tried to tear Applejack’s element right off her neck!” Rainbow replied hotly. “You didn’t make up that memory too, did you?” “No, I didn’t modify any of your memories after I thought you were harmonized,” Twilight said softly. “But every time you thought you were resisting his influence, you’d have actually been... sort of... beguiling your old selves to act differently. So when you used the elements, you were in a sense your own targets, because you thought you were resisting Discord, but instead you were resisting... you. “A-a-anyway, I can’t change what happened any more than you can,” Twilight said scraping a hoof nervously, “But with the Elements involved, it’s much less likely that there’s some explanation I’ve overlooked that might put our mental stability into question..” Dash tilted her head and tapped a hoof, saying, “So... this is a good thing, right?” She was kind of really nervous about this, and Twilight was sort of throwing off her schedule now. “I mean, I don’t know if it’s a good thing to fire magic rainbows down on yourself, so...” “While I wouldn’t recommend it on a regular basis, it does lend support to the idea that what happened may be permanent,” Twilight offered, “Fluttershy should be especially pleased at that. And it looks like you’ll all be able to respect your Elements in the forseeable future, so the world isn’t going to plunge again into chaos and ruin any time soon. So I would say... yes. Yes, it is a good thing.” “Great,” Dash said with another yawn, “Now can I get ready for work now? I gotta have the sky ready for the sunrise.” “Oh, right! No, I have to give you the invitation!” Twilight stated, whipping out a card in her magic, and scanning over it. “Ahem You’re invited to a party,” she sang distractedly, “Because we think you’re really—” Dash stuffed a hoof in her mouth again. “Can I just have the card?” she asked. “Please?” “Mmmhmm,” Twilight said amiably. Rainbow Dash took the card in her hoof, looked at it and... and smiled at her friend. “Thanks for giving us a chance, Twilight,” she said, trying to ignore the hint of blush she could feel tinting her cheeks. When Rainbow got done stashing the card on her dresser and headed out again, Twilight had already trotted back to her balloon, but Twilight waved gladly at her as Rainbow Dash took to the grey skies. As she flew by her, Dash made sure to give Twilight a salute in return. And that felt just right. After that party, which was incredible by the way, life actually started settling down for Rainbow Dash. Ponies stopped freaking out when she showed up on time, or ordinary, reasonable things like that. Rainbow Dash got back into shape slowly... faster than Applejack though, that mare was in serious trouble for a while. If Dash had known... well, suffice to say AJ’s family had a reason to distrust her, more than usual even. Apparently Applejack started having these crazy nightmares and... well, she didn’t know why, but she was getting horrible headaches for a while, and getting really... confused and upset. Her family had her housebound for the first 2 days after their victory over Discord, because Applejack got it in her head that there were weevils all over her apple trees... and uh, herself. And weird stuff like that. Rainbow Dash figured that it was because Twilight used the spell on AJ first, and did her spell better the next time. But it was kind of chilling to find out about Applejack, after the fact. At their weekly picnic, Applejack had only seemed worn out and exhausted. She hadn’t seemed like she’d been stuck in a freaky fever dream a few days ago. Only weeks later, after losing her juice because her hooves were still really shaky, did AJ finally bring up the subject to Dash, tried to downplay it as nothing big, but it sounded like something really big. Rainbow told her to ask Twilight, and Applejack seemed satisfied by the answer she got, whatever it was, but it was still a touchy subject around her. And that’s not even getting into when Applejack almost got herself killed getting all those ponies arrested that one time for unlicensed alchohol sales. Really, Rainbow Dash felt like she got off lucky. She didn’t have any friends before, and that was sad, but it meant that nopony had been counting on her. She only had up to go from here. Compare that with Rarity, who seemed like she was a hair away from going out of business every week, with that crummy lending company who got to charge exhorbitant rates since Rarity had gotten the loan without any credit, and Rainbow Dash had gotten off lucky. Compare that with Pinkie Pie who uh... Well... see the thing is, Lyra has a big family with this amazing family history, of a long line of miners harvesting precious stones up on Canterlot mountain. And now Pinkie sort of had that too, except her family wasn’t really... real. Pinkie knew her memories weren’t true, but she liked to forget that sometimes, and pretend that she really had a... family waiting for her somewhere. Rainbow Dash was curious what did happen to her old family, but Pinkie was an orphan, and sort of afraid to find out what happened to her parents. Instead, she kind of... held onto a happy fantasy of what might be true. For all Dash knew, maybe Pinkie’s fantasy was all true, but it certainly wasn’t what Pinkie Pie remembered before. So Rainbow Dash got off lucky. Since Derpy didn’t show off her family to Twilight at some point, Twilight didn’t have any reason to mess with Dash’s memory of her own folks. They were unhappy memories for Rainbow Dash, but they were important to remember, about her mother, and her father, and what her father had driven her mother to do. Rainbow never wanted to forget that as long as she lived. Bastard. They were all having problems, but it seemed like the worst of it was over. Fluttershy had a royal edict that allowed her to apprentice with a real animal caretaker in Ponyville, which was about the best she could have expected, or desired for herself. Flutters’ house still seemed so empty without all those animals, but she could go visit them any time she wanted, and regain their trust and stuff. Once she proved to them, and to herself, that she could care properly for animals, then she could start restoring her collection. Uh, her... assortment; Fluttershy didn’t like it if you called it a collection. Rainbow Dash’s workmates started relying on her, and her team made it to the nationals for the first time this year. Once Rainbow’s neighbor, a kindly old pegasus mare with four grandchildren, stopped thinking she was the devil incarnate, it turns out Ms. Windy made a really mean batch of chocolate fudge, and she was just dying to share it with somepony! Rainbow Dash was working on teaching Scootaloo less about breaking into houses, and more about being awesome, and the kid seemed to take pretty well to that. Scootaloo had... flying difficulties, and Scoots had come to expect ponies would give up on her because of that. That meant Rainbow Dash only became greater in her eyes, just because of a little dedication and passion that Scootaloo couldn’t get elsewhere. Scoots was even whipping some of the other foals at the orphanage Dash had set her up with into a Rainbow Dash fan club. It was absolutely adorable. Had Rainbow Dash remained any longer as her old self, Scootaloo might have been... well, Rainbow Dash might not have gotten off so lucky, if that had happened. But it didn’t, so Rainbow had no trouble at all with the squirt, could start teaching her to respect other ponies, instead of trying to get her to disobey them for Rainbow Dash’s sake. It was kind of problematic how Drizzle had gotten in the habit of following Rainbow around at practice like a puppy, instead of doing her own stuff like she was supposed to. Dash wasn’t sure what to do about somepony who liked you too much. Wasn’t a huge problem, but it did end up with Drizzle in tears again, by the time they had to work it out. One thing led to another, as things will do. Things got crazy, and things got calm. Rainbow never did recover her memory, or at least not all of it, but she knew the important stuff: what she was supposed to do, where she was supposed to be, and what a huge jerk her dad was. She learned a little more about lightning from Derpy, but they actually didn’t have much reason to hang out together. Plus it was sort of unsettling being around somepony who kept copying you. Dash wasn’t sure if she felt like it was Derpy doing the copying, or vice versa. Twilight Sparkle assured Rainbow that Rainbow Dash was her own pony, even if she got a little mixed up with Twilight’s ideal version of Derpy at one point in her life. Twilight said there were big differences between Rainbow Dash and Derpy, and Rainbow Dash really hoped that was the case. She didn’t think she could have lived with just being a clone of somepony, especially somepony so... derpy, so she was glad she was her own pony. But her not being a Derpy clone kind of made some trouble for Twilight, because now Twilight had to juggle two different circles of friends. Ponies like Pinkie/Lyra could know literally everypony in town and not have a problem with it, but the bookworm was actually kind of new at this whole friendship thing, so she found it pretty overwhelming. Rainbow knew you had to be pretty radical to handle being friends with Rainbow Dash, so she could understand why somepony like that would feel caught between a rock and a hard place. Rainbow Dash was getting pretty comfortable with who she was, now. Even the awful pony she was before, Rainbow Dash was starting to feel kind of okay with that. It sucked, but it was gone now. Like her friend said, it was like waking up from a bad dream. Rainbow was just glad to get that chapter of her life behind her, and eager to take up her new role, the one she was so familiar with. Rainbow Dash was done just being a pony living from day to day. She was ready to be a hero. So that’s why when she saved that filly from drowning in the old well, Rainbow Dash knew she was doing exactly what she was meant to do. She was on the right track now, and things were only gonna get better from here. ~o The end o~