The Mare in the High Castle

by ponichaeism

Chapter 17

"What's the use of trying?"
"Buck up - never say die. We'll get along!"
-A gamine & a factory worker, Modern Times

"The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow. Into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us."
-The Jewish Barber, The Great Dictator

Cavalcade Street had seen better days, to be sure. Much effort went into rebuilding the city after the Winter Rising, but this little corner, formerly a stronghold of the middling middle class, had slipped past the influx of time and money, resulting in a lonely row of crumbling brownstones. Somewhere near the center of the block, foot-high letters ran down the side of one building in particular, advertising 'The Triple Crown Hotel'. Applejack walked into a fading, peeling lobby covered with a thin veneer of upkeep. The furniture seemed fifty years out of date, and the kitschy paintings on the walls looked even older. The unicorn behind the desk looked up from her magazine. The cover said it would reveal 'All the juicy details about Rarefaction's new line!' The unicorn didn't say anything as Applejack passed. She only pursed her lips, then returned to the glossy magazine.

A creaking elevator took Applejack to the eighth floor. As she rode it up, she looked at the key in her hoof. 'Triple Crown Hotel Room #812' was etched on the dangling metal tag. When the elevator opened, she stepped into the shabby hallway and headed for the room. She stuck the key into the keyhole and swung the door open, so that the dingy hall light could reveal the room in all its glory. Once she shut the door and turned the bare overhead bulb on, she pulled her cloak off and threw it across the bed. In the mirror she looked clean, but she felt the dirt and filth covering her from head to hooves.

She turned the radio on and tuned it to the Equestrian Broadcasting Corporation as she filled the bathtub up.

When it was full, she sank into the lukewarm water and let it wash the grime away.

A raging headache filled Spitfire's skull. She entered her office in the hopes of seeking respite, but Cadence's pink, yellow, and purple mane was the first thing she saw when she went through the door. In the window, among the city lights illuminating the blanket of darkness outside, Cadence's reflection locked eyes with Spitfire, who groaned inwardly. She'd forgotten her former officer was still prowling around Firefly Center, what with all the confusion pouring in from the Chariot.

“Problems?” Cadence asked.

“The Defense Council summoned me. There's been a bombing at the Chariot, and I need to give a report.”

“My, my. This just isn't your day, is it? Of course, it hasn't been your time for quite a while.”

Spitfire snapped, “What do you want, Cadence?”

The pink mare still didn't turn around. Spitfire stared at her prissy reflection.

Cadence was a head taller than most other ponies, and with the way she carried herself, she had a way of making it felt very keenly. “Something's nagging me. See, if the Changling had a suicide pill on him the whole time, why did he wait until he was leaving to take it? Why not right after his capture? Because I seem to remember from my time with the Directorate that we pegasi can be very inventive with torture, in ways unicorns just don't have the stomach for. Do you really think unicorns would be able to break him where pegasi couldn't? There's only one solution that fits the facts: he felt safe here. Despite the, er....wear and tear of Colonel Dash's interrogation, he didn't fear for his life. It was only after transfer to a different division that he lost his will to live.”

“Are you accusing the Directorate of having been infiltrated?”

“Between that and this bombing, things don't seem to be going very well for you, do they?”

“For all I know, you gave him that pill.”

“Of course,” Cadence said, finally turning around to unleash the full force of her haughty sneer. “Let's blame the Midnight Guard. We all know about your petty rivalry with us. There have already been casualties. Curiously, only on our side. So far. I do hope the Council believes you, Spitfire, because I sure don't.” She stormed past Director-General Spitfire and headed for the door. “If you'll excuse me, I have to go tell Sunset Shimmer she won't be getting that prisoner. I'm sure she's already at the council chambers, so try not to keep her waiting.”

I've had enough of this, Spitfire thought. She called out, “What did I do to deserve this?! I trained you since you were a cadet. Why do you hate me so much, Cadence?”

Cadence froze at the door, secret thoughts running through her brain. When she turned, a repressed fury was barely concealed on her face. She answered, “What did you do? Nothing, Spitfire. You haven't done a single thing.”

Cadence put her tail to Spitfire and stormed out of the office, leaving the Director-General alone. Spitfire's eyes went over the plaques on the walls, the books of military history on the shelf, the meticulously arranged little statues of heroic pegasus ponies in flight. She had a feeling she wasn't going to be seeing too much of this place from now on. I spent too much time putting my personal touch on this office, and too little time putting my personal touch on my cadets. Sighing, she went to the file cabinets and started digging out folders with information that she could use in her defense. She didn't find much, But somewhere along the way, she began to think she didn't want to find anything, either.

The moon was behind the High Castle, and it cast a long shadow over the Colonel's work. The operation was over, and now came the aftermath. A melancholy reflection on what she had wrought into being. She stood in the mouth of an alleyway, a chain-link fence at her back; apart from the spectacle she had created, away from the photographers capturing the scene for posterity, to stuff in files and slap on newspapers and reprint in history books. Every photo captured heroes at work: industrious fire crews extinguishing the last of the fiery car wrecks and inspecting the integrity of the Chariot's gaudy marquee; medics finishing up with the dead lying in bodybags on the sidewalk; soldiers talking to the shaken witnesses, piecing together what happened bit by fragmented bit.

Dash didn't feel like a hero. And if they learned how she had wrought this, they wouldn't think of her as one, either. Would they ever know the whole truth? The secret motivation that drove her? That their wonderful city teetered on the brink because of Spitfire's failure of leadership? And if they did learn, would they stand by her?

Probably not. At the most, some might say her intentions were noble, if not her actions. But others, rank hypocrites, would condemn her after seeing their friends and family wounded or dead in the street. The same ponies who happily let soldiers gas zebra villages, safely out of sight and out of mind. But when war came to their city, shoved into their faces, they balked. The unicorns wanted it both ways at the same time, and would throw her to the Windigoes as soon as it was convenient.

And it killed the Colonel that she had to make sure the same thing happen to Spitfire.

The responsibility rested on her shoulders, right where her wings were. After all, wings were the bearers of burden. What separated her from the earth and unicorn ponies. They were her burden, and her blessing. She turned her eyes up to the High Castle, and the mare inside it. Dash had sworn her loyalty to the princess of the night, who once led a war to bring this city into being. Would she understand what Dash did? Not only did, but had to do?

It terrified her to find out, but the night demanded action. And it was called 'action' because there was no time to think, only to act. Act on instinct, from the deepest and purest part of a pegasus's racial soul.

With a flutter, Major Lightning Dust swooped down and landed gently beside her. Softly, she said, “Worked like a charm."

“A good luck charm, I hope. What's the situation with Armor's sister?”

“I tailed her all the way into the theater. She didn't notice me, but neither did I notice anything out of the ordinary. Other than her massive alcohol problem, but that's nothing new." Major Dust scoffed. "She seemed to like the musical, though."

"What happened afterwards?"

"When everything started going down at once, I lost her in the crowd. I don't know what happened to her or where she went.”

" If she's alive, she'll turn up. We certainly have enough ponies on our payroll keeping an eye on her. Right now, we should focus on the task at hoof.”

“Speaking of, General Mace just left. The Defense Council is already meeting. They're moving fast.”

“Fast is good. We like fast." The Colonel pointed to a skyscraper that tapered to a point. "Sunset Shimmer's penthouse is a few blocks over. This all happened right on their doorstep. You better believe they're moving fast. They already recalled Fleetfoot to testify about what happened in the ghetto. I'm sure I'll be next.”

“What do you want me to do, Colonel?”

“Get over to Rapidfire and his tactical team. They're still at the old Magnum Smelting place. Make sure the situation in the ghetto is working out to our advantage." She put her shades on. With the glass in front of her eyes, she felt masked from the world. Remote and distant. And that distance was sorely necessary in her line of work. "Tie up any....loose ends.”

“No problem,” Dust said drolly as she took to wing and flew off.

The Colonel was about to take flight as well when a Shadowbolt lieutenant whose name she couldn't remember called her name. He huffed and puffed as he trotted over and delivered a sealed envelope. “The office sent me here to find you. An interdepartmental memo arrived for you. It's marked urgent and eyes only.”

She ripped the letter open. With wry amusement, she noticed the contradiction between the 'Urgent!' stamp on the envelope and the timestamp on the document inside. Typical, she thought. But as she read on, her mood turned increasingly sour. Well, this complicates things a little bit.

When they ripped the hood off of Trotten Pullet's head, she blinked against the sudden light and looked around. She was astonished to see where they had brought her. Of course they had brought her back here. The warehouse had once been full of shipping containers, but it was empty now, its owners having shuttered it up and closed down shop. The dark gray concrete floors she had once dutifully mopped were the same, though. She knew them so well she swore she remembered some of the same cracks running along them. I always did a good job, she thought. The Bureau of Harmony would never have looked at my application to join the theater company otherwise.

The Civil Force soldiers were shouting at the mare next to her; the cream-colored pony who had been Rarity's personal assistant. One of them swung his truncheon into the wall only inches from her head; she screamed and trembled as it hit the cinder blocks with a dull smack.

"I said, where's your earmark?" the soldier shouted.

"It was removed, sir," the mare said, nearly sobbing. She kicked at the air as she tried to worm into the wall and make herself smaller. "I'm a good earth pony. I do my duty."

"If it was removed, show me the documentation!"

"I...." When he swung the truncheon into the wall again, even closer to her skull this time, she shrieked. "It's at the p-p-penthouse! I don't carry it with me!"

"What's your number?! NOW!"

"Uh, um, C-C-CG 139-72."

The soldiers stood up and stared down their muzzles at the earth pony quivering on the ground. "Don't expect to go anywhere anytime soon," he said. "There's a whole lot of dirt-eaters ahead of you we still need to process."

They moved off, into the crowd. It was true, Trot saw; the warehouse was very large, as she knew from all the hours it took her to clean it, but it was full to capacity with earth ponies. Sweating, shaking, scared earth ponies, huddled together on the ground, under the watchful eye of the patrolling pegasus ponies strolling through their ranks. The earth ponies here weren't just from the Chariot, either. There had also been some rioting in the ghetto, too, and the Civil Force had plucked earth ponies from the streets all around the city during the crackdown and the ensuing curfew. Some of them still wore their bright safety vests. That didn't seem very fair to Trot, but then she remembered the city she lived in had a habit of redefining what was fair every decade or so, and it usually didn't favor earth ponies.

There's not nearly enough room for all of us in here, she thought.

She turned to the little shivering filly beside her, who kept retching but had no food in her belly to bring up anymore. Trot ran a hoof along her back and whispered, "Shh, it'll be alright."

The yellow filly looked up at her with bags under her eyes the size of saddlebags. Her little mouth hung open slightly, and her breath was hot with the sickly sweet smell of vomit. She had to concentrate for a little while before her eyes could focus on Trotten. I hope whatever world you're off in is a better one than this one, Trot thought.

She cooed, "It'll be over soon."

"They're all dead," the filly said in a drawl. "All of 'em."

"Shh, shh, shh. That's no way to talk." She pulled the filly close and hugged her. Softly, Trot began to sing. "My name is Brownie Bay, and I am here to recite, that it's my duty to brighten up your night. It doesn't matter much, if you are sad or blue, because carrying your burden is just what I'm here to do."

"How can you do that?" the mare next to her asked. Her red-rimmed eyes stared straight ahead, razor-focused on a point on the far wall of the warehouse. "Some of us actually try and....show how good we can be to our masters and mistresses. But you, you traitor, you cavort on stage like a fool, destroying everything we good earth ponies have achieved."

"I've only ever done what the unicorns asked of me," she replied. "That's how they want us to look. Who am I to argue with that?"

"You could say no," the mare spat.

"Hey, being an actress is the only thing I've ever wanted to be. The only thing. Listening to sitcoms on the radio was the one thing I looked forward to after a long and hard day of work. I told myself, one day that would be me, delighting and entertaining the whole city. Making the ponies love me. And now, they do. Would you throw your dreams away, just because they asked you to do something you don't like?"

"Well, your race doesn't like what you do."

Trot was quiet for a long moment as she marshaled her thoughts.

"If you want to survive in this city," she said, "you have to cut pieces of yourself out. Carve yourself out of your body, and think about what you looks like through other ponies' eyes. Become what the ponies in charge of all the food and money -- and, yes, love -- want and need you to be, if you want even a tiny piece of what they have. Take your part, play your role, on the great stage of society." She thought, How did Thorny put it this morning? "It's just another wonderful facet of standardization: one size fits all; use only as directed; follow the duty they need you to fulfill. Life consists of nothing but acting. And me?" Suddenly full of confidence, she said, more to herself than to the other pony, "I'm the best actress in this city."

That shut the other mare up. As she sulked in silence, Trotten Pullet continued stroking the poor little filly's mane, until the soldiers trooped over to her and ordered her to come with them. She gently laid the filly's head on the hard concrete ground and went with the soldiers, giving the sulking mare only the briefest of looks. Eyes burning with tears, the cream-colored pony avoided the glance and instead stared at her hooves.

The commanding officer had set up shop in the disused management office. The unicorn pushed aside her paperwork and took a long look at Trotten Pullet. Then she said Trot would be discharged shortly, as long as she answered a few simple questions honestly. Trot couldn't say anything about honesty, but she knew how to answer questions exactly how a unicorn wanted them answered. She prepared herself to use a subtler version of the Brownie Bay smile, although she also brought to mind something altogether more somber and serious, in case she wasn't selling it well enough for the unicorn to buy it. Trotten Pullet could be whoever or whatever they needed her to be.

She was the best actress in the city, after all.

Ten minutes later, she was on her way out the door, with a piece of paper in her hooves that officially discharged her from Civil Force custody. She passed a steady stream of earth ponies being herded into the warehouse, far more than the building could ever hold. Soon they would be packed to the walls, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. They would only arrest her again. She gave her discharge papers to the pegasus pony at the door and was waved through, out into the bitter night once again.

Distant sirens sounded from the theater district, and over the tops of the buildings flashing lights from the emergency vehicles flickered red and blue and yellow in the night, like the sparks of invisible fireworks. It was almost beautiful, but it was tainted terribly by the knowledge of what had caused it. A chilly wind rose up and cut her to the bone. Bracing herself, she started walking through the city. She had no time to waste on idle speculation; the paper would only waive her curfew for an hour, and she had miles to go yet.

'No matter the cost, this city we built must be protected.'

Those valiant words, spoken so long ago by the princess of the night, ringed the seal of the Canterlot Defense Council, painted on the wall above the entrance to the council chambers. A wooden relief was carved into the closed doors, depicting two pegasi in profile. They arched their wings, which fanned out gloriously and barred Spitfire's way. The councilors had started without her, which was definitely not a good sign. She pushed them open. They creaked enormously and echoed through the hall beyond. Everypony turned to watch her enter; she wondered if they had closed the doors on purpose, to make everypony stop and stare at her in accusation the moment she walked in. On the fenced-in stand in the open space between the rows of audience seats and the councilors, Major Fleetfoot looked over her shoulder at Spitfire.

What is this? Spitfire thought. What did you do, Fleet?

The Director-General took the council chambers in, gauging how badly this would all go for her. The princess's throne, at the center of the raised semi-circular councilor's table that faced the doors and the audience, was as empty as it had always been. She couldn't remember a single time the princess had attended a session. But the throne was always left there out of custom, to remind them of where their power flowed from. So it was bad, but not bad enough that Luna would get involved herself. That was a small comfort, at least. Praetor Mace, appointed by the High Council as chair of the Council and hence Grand Marshal of Canterlot, sat just to the right of the throne. Spitfire locked eyes with him. Although he was stern and avaricious, the jape with the closed doors wasn't his style. Her eyes went to the opposite side of the throne. Yes, Sunset Shimmer was definitely calculating enough to do it, and Spitfire saw by the twinkle in her eye that had given the order. To mock and humiliate her.

“Glad you could join us,” Shimmer said.

Spitfire gave her a sullen glare as she crossed in front of the hoofful of ponies observing the meeting, Cadence among them. Spitfire headed for the table, to take her seat next to General Mace. The Director of the Fire Brigade pushed his chair in to let her pass.

“Director-General.” Sunset Shimmer's voice was theatrically loud and calculated to cut deep while retaining an edge of formality and innocent criticism. “After all your years on this council, I'm sure you know the protocol.”

The statement hung in the air, its vagueness practically begging Spitfire to ask in confusion which protocol she meant. But Spitfire knew very well which protocol she meant: a pony under investigation forfeited their right to sit on the council. “Is this an inquisition, then?” she asked pointedly.

Across the table, next to Sunset Shimmer, the Director of Public Works said, “I think it's a little too early--”

“Should it be an inquisition?” Shimmer asked. “Are you under the impression we need to render a verdict?”

“Don't you play games with me, Shimmer.”

“Enough.” General Mace's voice boomed in the hall. “Before this meeting, I came from a scene more devastating than any war zone. Dead mares and stallions on the streets of our beloved city. Our security, our very way of life, shattered. And I've seen this before: winter is rising again. I will not let this city degenerate into lawlessness and anarchy again. If a change of leadership of the Shadowbolts is what it takes, then so be it. Have a seat in the audience, Director-General.”

Flush with shame, Spitfire slunk away from the table, towards an empty spot on the row of benches. She met eyes with Fleetfoot as she passed, but officer could hold the stare for long. Spitfire trudged towards the audience, and Cadence's poisonous smile. Spitfire sat down heavily and watched her career go down the drain.

“Continue, Major Fleetfoot,” Mace said.

“Uh, Colonel Dash, she, um, approached me. She told me about how she, ah....”

“I understand it's hard, testifying against a pony you think you owe your loyalty to,” Mace said. “But your loyalty is to this city and to your princess above all. Remember that, even if someponies don't.”

“Right. Anyway, the Colonel confided in me that, um, she had actionable intelligence on the EPLF, but that, uh, she said Spitfire was blocking her. That she was ignoring the intel.”

She never showed me any actionable intelligence, Spitfire thought. She never showed me any intelligence, period.

“Um, her exact words were: 'Spitfire didn't have her head in the game.' The Colonel wanted authorization to pursue, um, where the intel was going. But all Spitfire cared about was Changlings. And, she, uh, shot down the Colonel.”

“And while she busied her time with Changlings,” Mace rumbled, “the degenerates crept up and blindsided us.”

Fleetfoot blinked heavily. After a second, she said, “Uh, sure.”

“We heard a report of some activity in the ghetto earlier,” the Director of Public Works said. “Can you give us any more details?”

“Yeah. After Spitfire shot down the Colonel's lead, she....that is, the Colonel decided to follow through with it anyway. She asked me to send a team to a suspected safehouse the EPLF were using. The old Magnum Smelting plant. I tasked Captain Rapidfire to hit it as soon as we saw some suspicious activity. And, uh, we did. We kept the whole thing off-book, because Dash didn't want Spitfire to find out about it and overrule her. Luckily, her intel was right on the money. It was the staging area for the bomb attack, and it had detailed information on their target. Because of Colonel Dash, we were able to save lives.”

Spitfire seethed to herself and slunk down in her seat. The lies hung heavy in the air and weighed her down, but a sudden loud slam made her sit up and perk her ears upright. It had been the doors closing behind somepony. She turned in her seat to see who had left, and with some confusion realized Cadence's spot was now empty. She looked at Sunset Shimmer, who was just as confused by the abrupt exit. The others hadn't paid the departure much attention, though, and continued questioning the major.

“What was the nature of Colonel Dash's intel?” the Director of the Fire Brigade asked.

“I'm not privy to that. Uh, sorry. It's on a need-to-know basis. Eyes only.”

“We can ask Colonel Dash about that when she testifies,” Sunset Shimmer said. “Now, in your professional opinion, do you consider Colonel Dash reliable when it comes to matters such as these?”

Of course Shimmer would be interested in that. I'm too smart for her to manipulate, but Dash....Dash is a little hothead. And anger makes ponies pliable. Easier to predict how they'll react. Shimmer already knows who she wants to replace me with. And if she's looking for revenge for Shining Armor, getting me out of the way is the first step towards destroying the Directorate. And as far as that racist Mace is concerned, I might as well have planted the bomb there myself, while Dash appears as the brave pegasus ennobling her race by her virtue. Dash played me. Played all of us, it looks like. She can be cunning when she wants to be, when she has time to think and plan, but get her blood pressure rising and all that goes out the window.

Fleetfoot said, “The Colonel has always been a little enthusiastic, yes. But, uh, she has a killer's instinct. Um, that is, a killer instinct, I mean. She knows what needs to be done and she does it.”

“And Spitfire?”

“She, ahem....” Fleetfoot trailed off and bowed her head.

The atmosphere in the council chambers thickened and grew tenser and denser as the silence wore on. After it grew so heavy as to be unbearable, Spitfire jumped to her hooves and announced to the councilors:

“I'd like to make a statement.”

General Mace's face twisted as he snarled. He was livid at the audacity of her interruption. “Sit down, Director-General.” His voice softened in a pretense of formality. “You'll have an opportunity to make a statement later, at the appropriate time.”

Spitfire sat back down and thought, After they've heard all these blatant lies against me. It doesn't matter, anyway; they've already made up their minds. Or at least Sunset and Mace have, and they're the two who count.

“Well, Major Fleetfoot?” the Fire Brigade Director asked.

Fleetfoot twisted around and stared across the hall at Spitfire. Pure panic swirled around behind the major's eyes. A helpless dread. Spitfire had seen it numerous times in her officers before, although mostly in combat situations where Shadowbolts had the benefit of a clear enemy to fight. Here and now, in the courtroom - and Spitfire had no doubt this was both a trial and a combat zone - Fleetfoot had to use her own initiative and choose an enemy from among friends, and it was tearing her apart. Spitfire wondered what kind of expression her face was sending back to the major. Calm insight? An authoritative parental figure? A superior who believed wholeheartedly in her hoofpicked few? The Director-General had spent her whole career cultivating and working to exude these emotions at all times. But now, she couldn't shake the feeling her own inner turmoil and doubt was creeping into her expression. She felt totally helpless at not being able to see or control what was on her very face.

The major faced the council again. “In my professional opinion....” The major gave a decisive sigh, committing herself to what she was about to say. She raised her head and stood up straighter and prouder. Her voice turned confident, almost savage. “In my professional opinion, this agency is in shambles. We're completely unable to fulfill our mandate because of weak-kneed leadership. This attack tonight should be placed squarely at her hooves. She has consistently undervalued pertinent threats brought to her attention by her officers, because of her paranoia about Changling infiltration, and she has willfully blinded herself to the threats from our own species out of naivete. Last month, Spitfire drafted a memo about security arrangements in anticipation of the millennial celebrations that prioritized finding and arresting Changlings, to the exclusion of all other threats. Major Caspain confided in me about a suspicious earth pony with a cart matching the description of the cartbomb being stopped at a checkpoint, but they had to let her go because of Spitfire's operational orders. Further loss of life tonight was only averted by Colonel Dash directly contravening those orders. And Dash was right to do so, because Spitfire doesn't just not have her head in the game, she hasn't the slightest clue what the rules or who the other players are.” There was a stunned pause as the council struggled to digest the sudden stream of vitriol. Then, as a final blow, Fleetfoot added, “And that's just my professional opinion.”

As one, the councillors laid eyes on Spitfire. Her stomach was in knots and her breathing was shallow. Sunset Shimmer's eyes light up with delight, and a smile flitted at the edge of her lips.

The red-faced General Mace's jaw and lower lip twitched. “When our security is as ramshakle as this, can we really blame the bestial instinct of earth ponies for thinking this city is theirs for the taking? Never in all my days have I seen a pegasus fail her racial duty so miserably--”

Spitfire slid off the bench and called, “I'd like to make that statement now.”

“Denied,” General Mace stated.

Spitfire was now beyond caring. Their eyes bore down on her, commanding her to slink away and accept what was coming to her. But she refused to give them the satisfaction. Undaunted, she stood up straighter. “Oh, don't worry, my statement is only one sentence long: you're a herd of absolute fools.” An aghast buzz filled the meeting room, but she shouted over it. "None of you have a clue how to keep this city safe. This council has nothing to do with defending Canterlot. It's about defending your careers. You're all too busy with your little agendas and schemes to open your eyes. But don't feel bad. You'd fit in well with Colonel Dash. This whole inquisition is a sham. She never once approached me with intel about a threat by the EPLF, only vague suspicions. Suspicions about you, Shimmer. She seems to think you've faked Shining Armor's death, and your agency is sabotaging the Directorate because you're jealous of pegasus superiority. And I have to say, even though Colonel Dash went off the deep end, now I finally start to get where she's coming from.”

“Of course you would say that,” Mace declared, exasperated. “You thought you could assume the role of a leader - a unicorn role - and now that everything is going wrong, you shift the blame--”

“We are as you made us!” Spitfire yelled. “All our lives, you tell us to be guardians, loyal and strong, fighting for the Land of the Eternal Moon without hesitation or reservation. As strong as the statues and as bold as the propaganda posters you put everywhere, telling us what to do, what to feel, what to think, even when you're not around. You pile all these expectations onto us and mold us like clay. Tell us we need to be the perfect pegasus, or we're nothing. So we do it, because we all want this city to be proud of us.

“But you! All you unicorns do is bicker and squabble, whether in the tabloids or in the courtrooms, and through it all you have the audacity to claim you have a natural instinct for leadership. You're a bunch of racists and careerists, selling anypony else out for the favor of the High Castle - which, by the way, is home to a pony just as much a pegasus as a unicorn - to satisfy your own selfish whims and desires. You all try and claim you're better than the ponies you climbed atop to get where you are. Ponies like me, who never stopped protecting this city for a second. That's all my honor is to you: a stepping stone on your career paths.

“Want to know why this attack happened today? The truth, I mean? Even as the Bureau of Harmony churn out posters about racial harmony, you all failed in your duty to uphold it. You're just as responsible as the earth ponies who bombed the Chariot, and you're doubly guilty because social harmony is supposed to be managed by you. This is the example you set. This is the world you made. One where each and every pony stabs each other in the back to eliminate competition for the coveted top spot. For the power and prestige it gets you. The power to get you what you want, and make what you want to happen, happen.

“But when you ignore the duty that goes hoof-in-hoof with that power and it all blows up in your face you turn around and blame somepony else. And since everypony else is fawning over you for their own promotion, they agree with you. Unquestioning. Setting the climate of opinion is the real authority you wield, not anything that comes from Luna's empty throne. You have no idea what true honor or sacrifice is, and it makes me sick to my stomach to think I've been trying to protect that for you.

“Colonel Dash was right, in the end. Earth ponies really are the biggest danger to unicorns there is. They might just give you the culling you so rightfully deserve.”

General Mace shouted for order over the uproar.

Spitfire continued, “You call them degenerate, but you made them that way with your greed and incompetence and terrible stewardship of this once-great nation. And now, they've seen through the lies, just like me. They don't have any need for your authority or your blessing. Neither touches them. Neither moves them. Neither affects them. And in the face of that, I am powerless to do anything. But at least I'm pony enough to admit when I'm beat. So consider this my official resignation.” Spitfire tore off her medals and threw them on the floor in disgust. “Before I go, though, I want to put in an official recommendation for my successor. I want it to be Colonel Dash, because this is exactly the job she deserves to have.”

Having gotten all that off her chest, Spitfire was unbridled and unburdened by worry. She felt almost giddy. She savored the snarling, stupefied looks on the council's faces, then turned her tail to them and walked out of the council chambers, wondering where she should retire to. Maybe she should head for the coast and meet up with some old friends reassigned to the Directorate field offices around the nation? No, the more space she put between herself and this den of vipers, the better she'd feel. Maybe she should head overseas, to the settlements. Yes, the more she thought about it, the nicer the territories sounded.

Once she was through the doors, which slammed shut with a resounding boom, she started to cross the antechamber. As she approached the stairwell doors across the lobby, Colonel Dash rushed through them, only to stop and stare as Spitfire casually strolled towards her. They met at a distance of a few paces apart and regarded each other for a moment. Though she wore a pair of mirrored shades, Dash's emotions were written all over her face: trying so hard to be as bold as ever, but it was defiance masking deep-seated apprehension. Fear, even.

I raised her from a cadet into a Shadowbolt, she thought. A lump grew in her throat, but she swallowed it down. Shaped her like clay. Maybe I'm not as different from the Defense Council as I'd like to admit. I'm sorry, Dash. For failing you so badly.

“Congratulations on the promotion,” Spitfire said as she brushed past her former cadet. “I'm sure you'll do better in this city than I ever did.”

Colonel Dash said nothing as Spitfire entered the stairwell and started her descent. The stairwell was tall, and gave her plenty of time to work her thoughts out. Pack up her things from the office. Cancel her utilities and get the rest of the year's rent refunded. Clean out her bank account. Board the next rocket plane heading away from Equestria, destination unknown. She stepped out of the municipal building and descended the broad stone steps, pausing at the sidewalk to breathe the crisp, cool air. The wind stirred her mane and brushed her coat, refreshing after the heat of the inquisition and the stuffy council chambers. Like being born again. And once she left the city and headed for the unspoilt land, the air would be even clearer. General Spitfire, former Director of the Shadowbolts, smiled to herself while she walked away.

She never looked back.

It was impossible to say how long Applejack soaked in the tub. After the long and bloody day she had just had, she was content to drift and stop thinking and passively listen to the news coming from the radio in the other room. But sometime after she had sailed off, a knock on the door brought her back to shore. About time, she thought while getting out of the tub and toweling her mane off. She threw a bathrobe on to dry her coat.

“....and in more breaking news,” the EBC radio announcer said, “the Director-General of the Shadowbolts, Spitfire, has stepped down from duty in the aftermath of the devastating attack. The Directorate issued a press release citing irregularities in her recent performance, but stressed that this in no way diminishes her years of faithful service to the city of Canterlot....”

“Who is it?” she called through the door.

The voice on the other side was brisk and cold. “Shadowbolt Directorate. Open the door.”

The radio on the counter continued talking. “....still preliminary, but her successor has been named as....” Heart pounding, Applejack put her eye to the peephole, not daring to breathe. “....Colonel Dash, formerly head of Internal Security for the city of Canterlot....” Through the curved glass, a warped a pair of mirrored shades stared back. She recognized the rainbow-colored mane with a purple beret atop it. “....now promoted to Director-General of the Shadowbolt Directorate....” Applejack exhaled slowly to steel herself and control her shaking, and then she opened the door. “....and the pony in charge of state security for the whole of Equestria.”

In the hall, the Director-General tipped her shades down and stared at her. There was a silence as Applejack wondered what to say in the scant few moments before the Shadowbolt took hold of the conversation. All sorts of conflicting emotions surged in her chest and head, vying for her voice. Which one would be the best leg forward? The most reasonable? The one that would make this turn out for the best? Aw, nuts ta that, she thought.

“And just what in the hay do ya call that?!”

The Director raised an eyebrow. “Can I come in?”

Suppressing the temptation to slam the door shut in her face, Applejack stepped aside and let the Shadowbolt inside. She strutted to the middle of the room and looked around while Applejack checked the hallway.

“Relax,” the Director said. “Nopony's watching. Aside from us, obviously. The owner and staff are on our payroll. I wouldn't have put the key in your dead drop if this place wasn't secure.”

Applejack shut the door, crossed to the bed, and sat down. She found it very hard to stand all of a sudden. The springs squeaked as she settled into it. The Director kept her distance and dug around in her belt. She pulled out a stack of ration cards and tossed them onto the bed, next to Applejack. To the earth pony, it felt like the clouds had opened up and let down soothing rain after a sweltering dry spell. But it was a bitter, polluted rain, as she reminded herself of what she did to deserve them.

“Extra ration credits for you and your family,” Dash said. “As promised. Who's got your back, huh?”

She stared up at the Shadowbolt, at the eye-masking glasses over a grinning mouth. Wondering what was going on in there. The urge to know overwhelmed Applejack, and so she risked biting the hoof that feeds to ask, “Why didn't ya pull me out at the checkpoint? Ain't ya supposed ya be stoppin' that kind of thing from happening?”

Smoothly, the Shadowbolt explained, “All part of the operation. I wasn't expecting you to be the courier, true, but it didn't matter. You played your part, and you played it well. You don't need to know the rest.”

“And what about all that stuff Ah heard on the radio? All that 'bout yer boss bein' fired and you bein' promoted?”

The Shadowbolt's easy grin faltered a bit. “There are consequences, sure....”

“Ya made me betray all those folks....ya used me ta get yerself a promotion, didn't ya?"

The Shadowbolt grew agitated, which Applejack considered a sign she had cut to the heart of the matter. “You know,” the Director said, “honesty is a virtue, but career advice is not the kind of 'informing' that's in your job description.”

'Job description', Applejack thought bitterly, lowering her eyes. As if Ah ever had even the slightest choice.

“How many ponies....died?” she asked.

“Eighteen, so far. Some of the wounded are critical, so maybe more.”

All that blood on mah hooves. She asked, "What about Hammer?"

Director Dash looked wholly unconcerned. "The leader of the Earth Pony Liberation Front? We didn't pick him up, if that's what you mean, but I'm sure it won't be long. Although, truth be told, he might be useful if he could be turned. What do you think the chances are?"

"Not likely at all."

"Then what do you care about Hammer? You knew when I sent you in there that I was going to bring it down eventually. Unless....you didn't actually get attached to him, did you?"

"No," Applejack said, though she couldn't tell if that was a lie or not. Certainly there was a fair amount of pity she held for him. He was just another wounded earth pony, like her. “Ah hope it was worth it, Director Dash. Ah surely do.”

“You just worry about yourself. You did exactly what your city and your nation asked of you. Those ration credits should help mitigate any bad feelings. Your part in this operation is over.”

“Until ya decide ta come 'round and make me do some more a'yer dirty work.”

The Director bared her teeth and, snorting, flared her nostrils. For a moment, Applejack thought the pegasus was about to charge. But by degrees she calmed herself. Her rough posture broke, and the tenseness in her body flowed out. She sat on the bed next to Applejack, who kept staring at the wall, uncomfortably aware of the pegasus's wings brushing against her side.

“We all have to make sacrifices,” the Director said, her voice curiously distant and high-pitched, like a foal. “Just like you, I've done....questionable things.” She shrugged. “You think I wanted to let that bomb explode? Kill all those ponies?”

Applejack said nothing, and in the silence the only sound was the radio chattering away. She waited for the Shadowbolt to continue.

“You ever listen to Thorny Bends?” Director Dash asked. “All this time you've been my agent, I never asked.”

Unsure where this was going, Applejack said, “All the time, actually.”

“You know how she....sometimes says this city is greater than all of us?” Dash asked. "It's something we build together into something greater, as we all reach for the moon?”

“Ah mayhap have heard her say sumthin' of the sort.”

“It's true, you know. This city is greater than you, and it's greater than me, too. In its name, in its honor, sometimes we have to get our hooves dirty to make sure it continues being great. That's the burden of the pegasus, Applejack. Not many dirt-eaters can ever know how that feels. Now, you're one of the few. The lucky few.”

Thorny Bends was Applejack's lighthouse in the fog, her solitary beacon of hope in this miserable city. A voice in the eternal night, letting AJ know that no matter where she was she was never alone. That there was a pony out there, somewhere, who understood her. Was in tune with her. When Thorny says that, it don't mean 'greater' as in 'better'. It jus' means this here city is bigger than us all, fer better or fer worse. Clearly, the pegasus didn't have the insight into the true meaning of Thorny Bends that Applejack did. But Thorny's words were rich in irony, and that made them easy to misinterpret.

“Should Ah be honored?” Applejack asked, only half sarcastically.

The Director chuckled. “We don't do this for honor, Applejack. We do it because it's our duty.” The springs squeaked as she got off the bed and back on her hooves. “It's what has to be done, to keep this city great. Now, I've got to dash. We'll be in touch.” Dash crossed the hotel room, but when she neared the door she froze. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “Right.” She turned back, frowning, and pulled a folded letter in an opened envelope from her saddlebag. After a bit of hesitation she held it out, but she seemed to shy away from it at the same time. Her ears flattened against her head. “There's one more thing, actually.”

In all the times Applejack had met with her handler, the former Colonel never struck her as the bashful type. This newfound reluctance sent a shiver down Applejack's spine. She swiped the letter from the Shadowbolt's grasp and looked at the envelope. It was from the Bureau of Harmony. Her thoughts whirled around as she wondered what it could be, until she looked up at Dash for an explanation.

“I, uh, I didn't know,” the Shadowbolt mumbled. “I would've stopped it if I'd known.”

Prickles of fear danced under Applejack's skin. She immediately shrugged the letter out of the envelope, which she let fall to the floor. The letter unfolded. Her eyes darted across the little black words stamped on the crisp and new paper, struggling to wrap her mind around them. What the symbols communicated to her. But the meaning inherent in them was far too large to see at once. She could not comprehend it all at the same time. To make matters worse, the letters swam round her vision, too fleet to be grabbed hold of. She realized it was because she was crying. Why was she crying? she asked herself in numb disarray.

Then she understood, and the knowledge horrified her. She wished she'd never learned to read, not if plain little words on paper could wound her this much. Her mouth slack with horror and unable to form words, she stared up at Director Dash, who had delivered this misery to her. Applejack let out a harsh sob, an ugly cry she couldn't believe had come from her throat. She let her head fall into her hooves, crushing the letter still clutched in them.

“I had a flag in her file,” the pegasus said, shuffling her hooves, her voice rising defensively. “They were supposed to contact me, before they....performed any action....but they didn't. Typical paper pushers, they're just a bunch of--”

“Get out!” Applejack screamed. She couldn't stand another justification from this boorish pegasus, fighting to protect a city who would do this to her poor, sweet Granny Smith. “Get out a'my life! Ah ain't spyin' fer ya'll no more!”

As quick as lightning, the pegasus lunged forward. Her hooves roughly raised Applejack's head until the earth pony's vision was filled by a scowling blue-coated face with huge black voids for eyes that reflected Applejack's crying head back at her.

“Listen up, alright? You can blame me all you want for something that wasn't my call, but before you make a decision you'll regret, think about this: everything good in your life came from me. When the Midnight Guard were about to raid your brother's little underground rag, who put a stop to it? I did.”

Applejack lowered her gaze and stared at the faded green design on the walls. A'course she did. By recruitin' me into being a spy, betrayin' mah own kind fer the safety a'mah family. When one pony does it ta a business executive, they call it 'blackmail'. But when a Shadowbolt does it ta a dirt-eater like me, it's 'duty'.

“I could shut him down,” the pegasus said. “Would you like that? Or better yet, know what job your sister was scheduled for before I got her that position at the Super-Duper Market? Wiping grease off industrial engines. It's a nice job, one I'm sure she'll like a lot. Because of the toxic cleaning chemicals, the average life expectancy is about forty. It's never too late to send her back there. Do you want to be responsible for throwing her good future away?”

There ain't a single good future fer our kind. Not in this city.

The Shadowbolt Director swiftly backed away from the broken mare. By the time the pegasus was at the door, she had almost resumed her composure, but she was still slightly flustered. “Think about what I said. I hope that when you've calmed down you'll see things my way. Don't burn any bridges just yet, because I'd hate to sour a good working relationship.”

The Director-General walked out the door, leaving Applejack alone with her misery. But it was for the best. Applejack's life was nothing but secrets and lies, and there were more and more of them every day. Director Dash was the only other pony she could share them with, and at the moment she hated the Director's rotten guts. So that just left Applejack alone with her lies. As usual.

She crawled under the covers and tried to make the world go away for a little while.

The only light in the room was a spotlight, shining down on the table Apple Bloom lay on her stomach on. Still groggy, she raised her head and tried to move, but her heart hammered in her chest when she felt the straps holding her legs down. She tried to pull them off, but they wouldn't come loose, no matter how much she struggled. The last thing she remembered was falling asleep in the warehouse, with all the other earth ponies jammed in tight. Was she still there, or had they moved her? She couldn't tell. Beyond the circle of light, everything was pure darkness.

"Let me go!" she shouted.

A high, sweet, sing-song mare's voice, strangely familiar, came from out of the shadows. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Apple Bloom."

"Why not?!"

"Only you can free yourself from your chains."

Apple Bloom blinked as she tried to wrap her mind around what the mare meant. Plainly, she could not free herself, because no matter how much she pulled, the straps stayed tight. Still, she gave it another shot, but the bindings still did not come loose.

"You've been a very bad girl," the mare in the shadows said.

"Ah don't care."

"Oh, but you should. Don't you want your princess to be proud of you?"

"She ain't mah princess, and Ah hate her, I do!"

"What would she think, to hear one of the ponies she loves so very much say that?"

"Love? She keeps us down!"

"No, no, no, you've got it all wrong, Apple Bloom. She seems harsh and hard because she loves us and wants us to become stronger. We don't become stronger if we don't fight for it. We don't conquer ourselves by being indolent. We don't strike off our chains with hate for our liberator, the glorious princess of the night."

"Just let me go!" Apple Bloom wailed.

A shadow among the shadows stirred and it stepped forward. "No. You must let yourself go. Let go of your false self, and let the lunar divinity fill you up inside."

"Go away!"

But the shadow moved closer still. "When I'm done, little Apple Bloom, you'll learn how much the princess of the night loves you, and how much your own love for the princess is buried under all this hate and mis-education." Then, and only then, did the shadow pause. "But first, a question."

"W-what?"

"....do you know why the Shadowbolt Directorate would have a flag on your file?"

The question baffled Apple Bloom to no end. Shadowbolts? Flags? Files? All she wanted to do was go home. "Ah ain't got a clue what yer talking about."

The shadow stood there, cloaked in the greater shadows, utterly still. Then it seemed to shrug. "That's too bad. But we'll have the truth, sooner or later. We always get the truth." And then the mare stepped out of the shadows and into the thin circle of light, and Apple Bloom was wracked with terror so badly the whole table started to shake. She knew the face very well. Every earth pony did. Its thin, razor-sharp smile and cold, withering, disapproving eyes stared at them from books and propaganda posters all around the city, and her voice came from the government propaganda channels on the radio all the time. There wasn't an earth pony foal alive who didn't live in fear of the Iron Matron of the Midnight Guard.

"I'm Miss Cheerilee," she said, "and I think it's time for your lessons to begin."

In the darkness, Apple Bloom started to scream.

By the time the Director returned to the office - her office, now - she found that Spitfire had already cleaned out all her personal effects. She had been very thorough. None of the statues or pictures or books remained. Even her ashtray was gone. The room looked so bare now, empty and lifeless. It's not her office anymore, the Director thought. You're free to make it yours. She took off her beret and shades and dropped them on a table near the door, while making a mental note to call up the tailoring company and have her measurements taken for a Director's dress uniform. She dropped the folder she had gotten from the Analysis Wing on the bare, empty expanse of a desktop, now clean and clear of the mountains of paperwork. Then she shuffled around the desk, towards the chair Spitfire had sat in since the day the Director had joined up, as an insignificant little rook. Spitfire's own little throne, like the princess's seat in the council chambers. Now it was the Director's. All hers. She reached out a trembling hoof and laid it on the seat back. She couldn't physically touch the history and the power, but she felt them all the same, all the way back to Major Shepherd. She was now the wellspring of Shadowbolt authority for the whole nation, the fountainhead of state security. The whole agency was hers, and the thought of the power and responsibility awed her.

“She didn't say a word,” Lightning Dust said from the door, startling the Director, though she refused to let it show. “I had just returned from the industrial sectors when she breezed in here, packed everything up, and left.” Major Dust closed the door and crossed the room. “How was your meeting?”

The Director gently laid her forehooves on the desktop and spread them out, tracing all the minute bumps and dips in the lacquered wood. Getting the feel of her domain. “The council played right into our hooves. It went down exactly as we predicted it would. They named me the new Director-General pretty much the moment I got there.” The Director sat on her haunches in the chair. She settled into the seat and leaned back, giving Major Dust a slow, satisfied smile. “Now, we can keep our our city safe the right way. And the number one step is finding Armor and root out whoever is helping him sabotage this agency. Anything on his sister?”

“I made a call to one of our sources. The night guard at her apartment building. He says she wandered in not too long after the attack, with what looked like weeds in her mane.”

The Director laughed. “Sounds like she had a rough night.”

"Want to make it rougher?"

"No, no. We need to reassess everything. Go over her file with a magnifying glass, task Source Bellum with working up a new personality profile, find or fabricate somepony we can work into her good graces. I certainly don't think Source Witchcraft is going to cut it.”

"Well, of course she's not going to cut it. Not unless the dead rise from the grave." Seeing the expression on the Director's face, she explained, "Witchcraft is dead."

"Who?"

Major Dust lifted up a foreleg and pointed the hoof at the Director. "You."

Not sure what her subordinate was getting at, the Director's expression turned stern. She leaned forward, one eyebrow raised, and commended the major to speak using nothing but silence.

"It was the biggest opening musical in Canterlot since, well, the last Cynic DeKey show," the major said, her voice flat and unaffected. "Trixie Lulamoon was one of the ponies caught in the blast. And so was the actor, what's his name....?"

"Knight Errol?"

Major Dust shook her head. "No, the other one. Blockbuster, that's it. He was the only one who was irreplaceable, though. The rest were just minor socialites."

"Including our one source close to Sparkle." She leaned to one side of the chair and let it spin gently. "We really shot our own hoof off, didn't we?"

"Well, you said it yourself. Witchcraft gave us nothing."

"True. But Sparkle doesn't seem to have any friends, so that makes getting close to her much, much harder."

Major Dust nodded at the folder on the desk. "What's that?"

The Director roused herself and stared down at the file. "This? Just a pony I was thinking of recruiting as an asset." She flipped it open. A glossy military service photo was clipped to the paperwork. "Sgt. Flash Sentry. He, ahem, came through for me when I needed it, even though we'd never met. I offered him money, but he turned me down."

"So when you say 'recruit'....?"

"I mean I'm going to use my winning personality to convince him of the error of his ways." The Director smiled at her subordinate. It all seemed to be coming to her so easily, now that she didn't have to worry about Spitfire. She flipped through Sentry's file again. "Says here the good Sargent is a suspected courier for Ploughshare. They think he smuggles copies out of the ghetto and takes them to that degenerate art place."

"The Stable."

"That's the one. Do we have any assets inside there?"

"None. The Analysis Wing thinks they have contacts inside the government who tip them off, because every agent who's tried to penetrate the place is turned away. But we haven't really tried very hard. The Midnight Guard can waste their time with that. We have a city to protect."

But still, she thought. He saved my agent. I could fabricate a tearful reunion between them, where she thanks him so much for saving her life, and then I, pretending not to know he's involved with the Stable, ask him to show his patriotism and help his nation. Send the two of them in places where we can't get to. There's a workable plan buried in here somewhere. I don't know what it is yet, but I can feel it.

"I still want him placed under surveillance," the Director said. "I want to know his movements, I want to know his habits, I want to know--"

There came a knock on the door. When the Director called, "Enter," the door opened and somepony she couldn't see passed a memo to Major Dust. The major walked back to the desk, her eyes going over what the piece of paper said.

"What is it?" the Director asked.

"An act of providence. It's a report from the radio room. The night guard at Sparkle's place tipped off one of field officers that she was on the move again. The officer followed her to the hospital where they took the victims of the bomb attack. Seems she met up with the same pegasus pony who got caught with her at the checkpoint and offered tears of gratitude for, quote, 'saving her life', unquote. Wonder what that was about?"

"Did they seem particularly close while you were following her?"

"Close in proximity. But their interaction was negligible."

"I see." The Director leaned back in the seat, briefly in thought once again. Then, abruptly, she closed the folder on Sgt. Flash Sentry. "You're right, we do have a city to protect. Tomorrow. It's been a very long day, and I'm going home to get some sleep. In the meantime, you're in charge of Firefly House. Make sure you keep on eye on the fallout from the Liberation Front. After all, you wouldn't want to neglect your duty as the new head of Internal Security, Colonel Dust.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” Major Dust said with a salute.

“You deserve it. You stood by me, every step of the way.”

“It was my duty, Director. Our loyalty is to the city and the princess who rules it.”

The Director got out of the chair and stood up, yawning. “Too true. Radio me if there are any earth-shattering developments.” She walked to the door alongside the Major, but when Major Dust continued into the bullpen, the Director took a lingering last glance back at her new office. She smiled to herself. Then she flicked the light switch off, bathing the room in deep shadow.

Hammer poured the contents of his saddlebag onto the table of the tiny, rat-infested apartment that served as their emergency safe house. He sorted through it all, looking for whatever he could use. The money, he noticed first, was a pittance. A few coins, nothing substantial. Have they cleared out the caches of money we hid away already? He didn't know, couldn't know, how much of his network would be compromised. And he was unsure who he could go to. He had plenty of old contacts, but they still thought he was dead, which was information he desperately wanted to contain. He felt so blind, flailing around randomly in the dark. He had no intel, nor a support system he could rely on. Very few of his ponies knew about this safehouse, but he didn't know who had been rounded up and who had been broken by torture.

The only useful thing in his saddlebag was a telescopic baton. He clutched it tightly in his fetlock and paced around the room. The walls were too close for Hammer. Much too close. Space was at a premium in the ghetto, where the population kept going up but the cordons around the neighborhood did not. He was trapped in what felt like a coffin. Every time a rat scratched in the walls, he jumped. Every time a rusty pipe creaked, he went to pieces. Every time the clock ticked and one of his compatriots hadn't shown up, he lost another shred of sanity.

And then the door burst open.

His years as an intelligence officer instilled in him impeccable instincts. He twisted towards the door, clicked the safety catch to extend the baton, and swung it at the intruder. The intruder ducked and the steel baton crashed into the door, splintering it. He pulled it out and got ready to swing it again, but a flash of a pink and purple and yellow gave him pause. He froze, the baton raised over his head. Breathing heavily, he matched eyes with the terrified pony on her knees.

“Cadence,” he said. All at once, he sagged and nearly went limp. All four of his limbs shook so badly he felt about ready to collapse. He tossed the baton aside, picked her off the ground, and nuzzled her. “Don't do that!”

“I'm sorry,” she moaned.

"I was so worried about you. Ever since I found Caballeron hiding in the sewers, I thought they might have followed him and found out he was meeting you."

“No, there's been nothing on my end. But I heard about the raid and I-I had to see if you were alright. Oh, I'm so glad you are!”

“I'm not alright. Everything is gone, Cadence. Everything.”

“We'll rebuild, Shining Armor. We built the Liberation Front, we built the networks, we built everything once, and we can build it all again. As long as we're together, I don't care what happens.”

“Me neither.”

“We can do anything.”

He stroked her long, beautiful mane. In a flash, a whole set of memories from another lifetime came to him. The first time he saw the beautiful pegasus who was now in his forelegs. The new liaison from the Shadowbolts, they told him. He remembered all those long, hungry looks they had secretly passed to each other on the sly in those boring departmental meetings. The moment he finally kissed her, after months of suppressing the amorous passion that blinded and overwhelmed him. And then, much later, the time in a dingy little hotel room just like this one when he had asked her to transfer to the Midnight Guard so he could mitigate the fallout if their relationship should become public knowledge. It was, after all, highly illegal, and the Guard were the ones in charge of enforcing racial harmony laws. But after he had seen the pictures of all those dead zebra, how could he keep believing in this city? It gave him some small measure of comfort and vindication to defy the system and snatch these hidden moments for himself from under its watchful eyes.

Of course, he had had a deep and abiding affection for pegasus mares before he saw the photos, too. There was something irresistible about them. The cavalier way they reacted to danger, how they followed their passions and soared to new and dizzying heights, instead of staying earthbound and mundane. The downside, of course, was that the stubbornness and willfulness that made them great warriors also made them utterly intractable, even fanatical. The mare he had loved with all his heart before Cadence, before the pictures that changed his life, had been that way. Too stubborn to see the truth of this society. And after he had seen the photos, he suspected she was too ruthless and pragmatic to care if he showed them to her.

Not like Cadence. Beautiful, passionate, compassionate Cadence. As long as Hammer had her, and she had him, they could accomplish anything. They could rebuild everything. They could take on this corrupt city.

They might even win.

The Director's hovercarriage sped through the air above the city streets, sirens blazing. When the call come in over the radio, bringing those sweet words, "Director, we've located Shining Armor," to her, she had instantly spun the vehicle around and headed for the location, determined to take charge and end this once and for all. She jetted the controls and piloted the vehicle around, searching for a landing spot, before finally spying the othervehicles idling on a rooftop. The moment the landing struts touched down, she jumped out, leaving the hovercarriage to idle, and cantered over to Lightning Dust as the newly-made Colonel briefed a Civil Force tactical team.

“He's in the building across the street, ma'am,” Dust said. “He doesn't have a clue we're here.”

The Director went over to the weapons crate, picked up a hoofcannon, loaded it with shells, and slung it across her back by its strap. As she strapped on body armor over her chest and withers, she asked, “How many pegasus ponies do we have ready?”

“All of them. They're all at your command, Director. Every single one of them, all ready and waiting to take him down.”

“Fantastic,” the Director said. “We go in hard and fast, and we get him.”

“At your command, ma'am,” they shouted.

“That's what I like to hear,” she said to Colonel Dust. Then, to the assembled ponies, she shouted, “Saddle up!”

With a mighty heave, two Shadowbolts hefted the battering ram at the wooden door of the target building. The ruined slab burst inwards and fell down the shadowy room beyond, splinters raining down everywhere. “Go, go, go!” the Director shouted as they breached the darkened room. The Civil Force soldiers fanned out as they poured inside and plunged into the darkness. Some of them took up standing positions near the door and unslung their rocket cannons, aiming the barrels at the interior, waiting and watching intently. The Director went through the door next, into the long, low room. She trotted right out into the center of the room, absolutely convinced she could take whatever he would throw at her.

A shadow shifted at the far end.

“Show us your hooves!” Dash shouted. She unslung her hoofcannon, hoisted it over her shoulder, and aimed it at the figure. “Right now!”

“Uh huh,” he said boldly, but he made no motion to surrender.

“What was that?!” Dash shouted back.

“Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh,” he said. There was something familiar about the intonation, too. She couldn't put her hoof on what, though. “Uh huh, alright,” he said exuberantly, then he started shuffling and lurching towards her in the darkness.

“Back up!” she screamed. “Get on the ground, now!”

If he heard her, he didn't heed her. He kept strutting towards her. She pulled the action lever on her cannon back, but the boom didn't happen. She tried again. It only clicked feebly at her. She stared up at the advancing figure, who kept up his slow saunter at her. Beads of sweat ran down her face. She threw the cannon down in disgust and turned to her officers.

“Open fire!”

But her officers just looked at one another, shrugged, and threw down their cannons. They started swaying in place, gently at first, but they built up speed until they jived in place.

“Stop dancing and open fire!” she screamed.

But it was futile. They weren't paying attention. Why would they, when they could discotheque? In the corner, Colonel Dust turned to her piano and made a run down the keys before laying into the same swinging groove played by the stuttering guitars and thumping bass that burst from the far end of the room. Sweating profusely, Dash turned back to the figure in the shadows. The overhead lights snapped on, revealing a music hall like the one she had met Source Witchcraft in earlier. But rather than a stately, demure music hall, this one was a lurid red-orange, and had a multi-tier stage with flashing lights on the fronts. An enormous backpiece made of a pyramid leading up to an eight-pointed star loomed tall over everything, stairs and stage both.

And there he was, her target, her prey, her quarry: Shining Armor. In a pale blue suit with flaring cuffs. Jiving down a set of steps, knocking his hooves together as he bopped down the stairs to the beat, like a music hall act. On either side of him, rows of Cadences stood on the tiers in creamy dresses, swaying to the music and singing harmonies into a row of microphones. Shining Armor reached the bottom of the stairs and spun around once, his coattails flying out behind him. He planted his hooves on the ground and stopped, staring directly into Dash with his big blue eyes.

“Once upon a time I recall you were mine all mine,” he sang.

“All mine,” the Cadences sang over a funky guitar riff. “All mine, all mine, all mine!”

“And I wonder how I ever could've been so, so blind!”

“So blind! So blind, so blind, so blind!”

“But now my little bird has gone and flown the coop, leaving me broken as I drive 'round in my coupe, wheeling all 'round these lonely old streets to search, for where my long gone baby's made her newest perch!”

“Don't fly away!” the Cadences added. “Oh, oh, oh....don't fly away!”

Shining Armor wailed soulfully as he strutted closer to Dash, then twirled on his hoof and started shuffling nimbly from side to side. The Cadences joined him in stepping from side to side as they added their harmonies to his. Again Dash tried to raise her cannon and fire at that degenerate, that wingchaser, but it refused to do anything but click harshly.

“I wish my baby would fly back home to me,” Shining Armor sang, “cuz I want her back.”

With a dip and a shimmy, the Cadences sang: “I want my baby to fly on home to me.”

Shining Armor drew closer, his stoic, intense face wearing heavy on Dash's posture. “I wish my baby would fly back home to me....”

Dash bowed her head, tears falling from her eyes.

“....cuz I want her back,” he sang.

“I want my baby to fly back home and see.”

He was close now, so close the heat and warmth radiated from him. “I can change, I can change, oh, yes I can change, cuz I want you back.”

“I want my baby to fly on back, not flee.”

“I can change all my ways for you, and then you will see....”

The tears were heavy on her eyes, but Dash raised her head and gave in to that gnawing sensation rising in her chest, clawing to be free.

“....I want you back,” she whispered.

He was so close now, grinning at her, his white teeth huge and gleaming. But when she reached over to grab hold of him, he started swaggering backwards, making his way back to the rows of Candences, who sang: “I want my baby to fly on home to me.”

When he reached the stand, as one the dancing troupe surged forward and laid their forelegs across him. Taking Armor all for themselves. He grinned at Dash from across the music hall, surrounded by those oh-so-perfect mares, who were grinning at her too. Taunting her. Dash dusted the ground and then charged at Shining Armor. Along the way, she started screaming at the top of her lungs.

She was still screaming when she woke up, settled in her penthouse bed. She wrestled with the sweat-slicked crimson blanket and threw it aside. She rolled to the edge of the bed and took her head in her hooves, waiting until she calmed herself. One of her windows was opened slightly, and a distant radio played “Fly On Home To Me”, by the Swinging Colts.

The Rockafilly album, she thought. That's why the song sounded so familiar.

Though the effort was great, she trudged over to the window and shut it, cutting off that song, then padded into the kitchen and poured herself a shot of cider to help her fall into a dreamless sleep. She cursed whoever had left their window open and left that song playing. Dreams about Shining Armor were the last thing she needed. She tilted her head back and downed the shot in one gulp. When it was drained and the bottom of the cup was held up to the night, her eye caught her reflection staring back at her, warped by the glass.

What was so wrong with those eyes? she wondered as she lowered the cup to the counter and put her forehooves on it, bracing herself as the cider flowed through her. This has nothing to do with....us, she thought suddenly. I'm hunting him down because.....because he's a menace. To this city. To the Shadowbolts. I'm protecting the agency, that's why I'm doing this. Not because he....

But Dash couldn't finish the thought. She walked into the bathroom, opened the tap, and splashed some water on her face. When she raised her head, she came face to face with her reflection again. Were those eyes too aggressive? Too callous? Too mocking? Why couldn't he stand to look into them anymore?

The fact that he and I....has nothing to do with this. Not at all. I'm not some dumb filly with a schoolyard crush.

She felt the tears coming on. Before they could fall, she lifted her foreleg and slammed her hoof right into the mirror. With a sharp crack, the whole thing shattered and shards of glass fell down into the sink and settled there. But it was no use, because now her own face stared up at her from each one of them, a thousand times over. Those sullen, angry eyes glared at her in silent accusation. Eyes far too cold and hard and cruel to love, a thousand times over.

She staggered back out into the kitchen, swiped the bottle of cider off the counter, and went to the window. She hit the knob for the radio as she went, and the familiar, reassuring voice of Thorny Bends came over the airwaves. And as Dash took swig after swig from the bottle, slowly numbing herself, she stared out at the city she had been given custody of. Her glorious city. All its skyscrapers and billboards and marquees, glowing in the darkness of the eternal night, under an eternal moon.

"....so, in the end, what is a city?" Thorny asked.

"Is it a collection of buildings, built from the ground up, where we live and work? A place we all make together, as we reach for the moon? A way we organize the means of production, mediated through all these symbols we construct?"

In her penthouse suite, an angry mare stared out at the city, that eternal city, glowing in the dark, and wondered if she could carry the burden of protecting it.

"All of these are true in their own way. But, over the course of this very, very long day, I've come to realize something. We can have a thousand different definitions of what a city is. And all of them can still be true. And yet, so very wrong."

A fearful pegasus who found the strength to be brave walked through the doors of a hospital, and though her wings were bandaged, she felt like she was soaring for the first time in her life.

"Because I finally know what this city is."

A mare whose eyes were opened to the beauty and splendor of the world went beside the pegasus, and as they walked together the two of them felt like they'd known each other all their lives.

"This city is us. When we stare out at it, we're really staring at ourselves. This is the world we made."

In a little ghetto hovel, the greatest actress in all of Canterlot recited, "I lingered in that twilight state of grace/Where such dreams did appear to me anon/Whisp'ring sweet revelations and ideas/And of a way to end all suffering."

"The productive factors of society, running along underneath it all and making sure we get what we need....food and shelter and love....that's the unconscious mind, regulating the body's processes, keeping the heart beating and the lungs pumping and the muscles moving, and also deciding when it's time to eat, time to sleep, time to huddle together for companionship."

In a hidden art gallery, a unicorn who had the world given to her on a silver platter swore she would not rest until its bounty was passed out to all the ponies of the city.

"And all these words, all these ideas, all these ideologies we make and share with each other until they're nearly as omnipresent as oxygen, that's the consciousness of this great beast. They tell us why we eat, why we sleep, why we love. And more importantly, they allow us to agree on these things with each other. They let us share what it's all about, in other words."

In a shabby hotel room, a broken mare sobbed into her pillow, wanting to end it all and yet unable to, because in her heart she knew that in the greatest darkness the tiniest light will seem as bright as the sun.

"Microcosm and macrocosm. They're not just for the universe at large anymore. But it also works the other way, too. We are the city we make. We reflect it in everything we do, think, and feel. What does it say about our city when we live this schizophrenic existence? We are divided. Our unconscious is like a wild and untamed animal, and our consciousness desperately clings to what it needs to believe, so it can keep things going the way they are. Keep getting the resources and the love it wants and needs. Because it's scary when we can't count on what we need being there for us. And so, we turn a blind eye to how much this city is divided and dying because of that clinging."

And above it all, while the stars shone in a glistening milky band in the sky and the pale white moon gleamed through the strands of clouds passing in front of it, the pony who had brought this world into being looked down on her creation.

"We're like....millions of little brain cells, each of us with our own task to fulfill, so we can keep this lumbering beast moving. We carry with us all the ideas that came before, filtered through the ages, selected by countless unconscious minds in order to fulfill the most basic drives of society, and eventually the more complex ones as well. Ideas without a need for them are scorned and rejected, but when a great idea becomes necessary, it will come into being. Nopony can say where or when, but when they look around....there it will be. And it's up to us to recognize it and accept it, as a united city, as a united organism, because otherwise this disease of disunity will ravage us mind, body, and soul. This city doesn't want to die, folks. It wants to keep living, to keep evolving, and most of all....to keep moving forward...."

"....hey, not a bad speech."

"'Not bad'? Is that all you have to say, Freepony?"

"Eh, it had its moments."

"Well, folks, that's Freepony Young who's spent the entire day nagging me, like my very own personal subconscious. Say good night, Freepony."

"Good night, Freepony."

"And I'm Thorny Bends, coming at you live on Radio Free Canterlot, and I'm calling it a night. Because tomorrow is a brand new day, and who can say what it'll bring? Thanks for tuning in to the show, and good night, folks. Catch you on the flip side."

When the jukebox in the corner started playing “Rockafilly”, Joe looked around for the pony who had put the bit into the machine, but they were long gone by now. Probably put the coin in the slot and forgot about it when they left. The machine was an expensive deluxe model, with a queue capable of holding ten whole songs.

Right now, the only customer left in Donut Joe's was an alabaster stallion with a long flowing blond mane crying into his coffee, and he didn't look in a dancing mood. “She left me!” he sobbed, as he did every once in a while. Them's the breaks, buddy, Joe thought as he washed some dirty cups out and hung them on the racks. Every time Joe offered a kind word, the unicorn ignored him. He was off in his own little world. Joe checked the clock on the wall. Twelve minutes to midnight. But with how much money he'd raked in, Joe didn't mind waiting for this one last customer. His assistant was in tomorrow, and Joe could sleep as late as he wanted and dream of all the money that was, at this very moment, stuffed into his overflowing cash register.

The bell chime's sweet song sounded. Joe looked up to see one of his occasionals wander in, a stallion by the name of Soarin. His black uniform shirt was halfway unbuttoned, and his purple beret was stuffed into his golden epaulette. He wandered over and collapsed onto a swivel stool.

“Glad to see you're still open, Joe.”

“Not for much longer,” Joe said, walking behind the counter to the customer, “but what can I do for you?”

“Been on guard duty for hours now. It's gonna be a long night.”

“I heard the sirens earlier,” Joe said. “Then my business just died all of a sudden. What happened?”

Soarin's face fell. “Aw, geez. You haven't heard? There was a bombing in the theater district. Almost twenty ponies died.”

Joe's jaw fell open, and he had to grab the counter for support. “W-what?”

“They say it was the earth ponies, don't you know? There's blood and bones all in front of the Chariot. Timed to happen right when the show ended."

Joe swayed in place, suddenly dizzy, as he glanced around the shop he had built. The life he had created for himself. The sudden terror that some earth ponies with sinister faces would blow it all up, like wild animals. Take away what he made. Leave him with nothing. He dropped the dirty cup into the sink, planted his hooves on the porcelain rim, and leaned over it. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a yawning pit of despair open inside his chest, right where his heart was.

“I hope you get those savages,” he said softly. “Round them up and lock them away forever.”

“That's the plan.” Soarin leaned over the counter and lowered his voice to say, "There's not enough room here in the city, but I was talking to some stallions from the Civil Force, and rumor has it that General Mace gave the order to build these camps, way out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe even overseas. And they're going to load all the degenerates on trains or boats and ship 'em all away. That way, all of us in the capital don't have to worry about them revolting again, like the Winter Rising. Heh, not they they aren't revolting already! Ha ha!"

Joe spun round and faced Soarin. He pointed a forehoof at the pegasus, guardian of civilization. "You....you get them out of my city, you hear me? You take them all, and you get them out of my city." He sprang into action, boiling fresh coffee, to do his part for the city. If this stallion was going to stopping those animals, Joe was surely going to help him in return. That was what civilized ponies did. The only thing that disappointed Joe was that all he had to offer was the food he made with his own two hooves. He piled it in front of Soarin. It still wasn't enough, but it was all he had.

“She left me!” the other customer suddenly cried out. “I'm all alone now!”

Soarin turned to him, his head cocked. “Hey, wait a minute. Aren't you....Blueblood?”

The stallion raised his head and sniffled. “Y-yes.”

“You survived a bombing,” Soarin called out, incredulous, “and you're complaining about getting dumped?”

“I have a right to my pain!”

“You're lucky to be alive!”

“I don't feel lucky.”

Soarin smacked the other pony in the head so hard he fell off his stool. It took the alabaster stallion a moment to realize he'd been upended, but a moment was all he had before Soarin gave him a swift kick in the flank. “Go on, get out of here,” he sneered. “I had to help sort out fried body parts today, you unbelieveable crybaby.”

Still sniffling, the stallion slunk towards the door and left the shop. The coffee finished burbling. Joe poured a cup for the Shadowbolt and set it down on the counter in front of him.

Soarin shook his head. “You believe that guy?”

“Some ponies just don't have the proper perspective on things,” Joe said.

“Too right.” Soarin poured half the creamer into his cup, then downed it all in one go. He reached into his saddlebag for a coin while he said, “That was delicious, but I gotta get back.”

“On the house,” Joe said solemnly.

“Thanks, man. You're the best in town.”

Joe smiled, but he didn't feel very happy at the moment. “I try.”

Soarin started to get off his seat, but he paused when he was halfway up. He got off the swivel seat and turned back. “One more thing, Joe. Uh, I dunno how to say this, but, uh, I heard about some of the things the Midnight Guard are planning for tomorrow. You know, public safety ordinances, and things like that.”

“Uh huh?”

Soarin waved his foreleg at the jukebox and said soberly, “They're about to ban this rockafilly stuff as a degenerate influence. Public performance and private. They're going to say it's hazardous to the moral health of the city. The official announcement is tomorrow, but you might want to take care of it tonight, if you get what I'm saying. Don't want ponies to start whispering. Maybe saying you're behind the times on purpose.”

Joe stared at the jukebox, belting out the final strains of “Rockafilly”. That swinging sound. How could something like that ever be considered as a degenerate influence? It was so fantastic! So vivid and alive. But if he didn't get rid of it, if his customers thought he was defying the Midnight Guard, his income would plummet. The reputation he worked so hard to create would be tarnished. Nopony would come around to his friendly little place anymore. The song ended, and silence reigned. He gave Soarin a curt nod in thanks.

“No problem,” the pegasus said. “Hey, maybe you want to put on the EBC? That way you'll know what's happening all the time. Anyway, thanks again for the coffee.”

The bells jangled as Joe's last customer slipped outside, into the eternal night. Joe locked the door after him and turned the buzzing neon 'Open' sign off. He went to the jukebox and bent down to unplug it, but on a whim he instead fished a coin out of his apron and put it into the slot. He selected 'Rockafilly' again, and the song started playing like it had never stopped. He let the rollicking sound play as he counted the money from his register. The money he had drawn in by simply being the best and most upstanding entrepeneur he could be. Soon he had all the cash arranged in neat little rows on the counter. It added up to a quarter more than he earned yesterday. With all this money, he might be able to afford more staff. Refurbish his apartment. Buy a new autocarriage, or maybe even a hovercarriage. With cash like this, he could do anything he dreamed of. And it all flowed from the pockets of his loyal customers. Customers he had to keep, he realized. His eyes went to the jukebox.

By the time he had all the money stowed in the heavy-duty safe, the final strains of "Rockafilly" faded from the jukebox speakers. Inside, the disc spun its last, revolving around in place like the days going by. And yet today was the last time that wonderful sound would come from the jukebox. He unlocked the neon-tubed frontpiece and swung it out of the way, then started pulling the sleek black forty-five discs out. He piled up anything that could be remotely considered part of the rockafilly sound. There weren't many, but the ones he pulled out were some of the best. And the biggest moneymakers, too.

He held the stack in his forehooves and he briefly considering taking them home, hiding them away, maybe listening to them with headphones on his own sound system when the occasion struck. But he couldn't. Suppose he was careless and word got out? Suppose he forgot about them, only for an unsuspecting pair of eyes to find them and start whispering about how unloyal he was? Suppose the urge to dance overcame him, and he told himself it was alright to listen to it out loud 'just this once', which would inevitably become all the time?

No, he thought as he stared at his reflection in those shiny black discs. Better to remove the temptation entirely. A tear dripped down onto the vinyl. Would he ever hear that sweet sound again?

He broke the stack of records over his knee. The hidden music etched and encoded onto them was destroyed instantly. Black shards fell from his hooves and littered the checkerboard tiles. All those fragments of a lost sound, and of an bygone age lost in time, soon to be forgotten.

His time.

Lost because of them. Earth ponies. They took all this away from him, this glorious new sound that made him feel so young and vital. He would never feel that way again. Those lazy dirt-eaters, he thought, they may bring the plants outta the ground, but they sure suck the life outta us hard-working ponyfolk. I hope they get what they deserve.

But through it all, Donut Joe was a citizen of Canterlot. The city took care of its ponies, and the princess of the night took good care of her city. She protected them all through the Midnight Guard and the Shadowbolts and the Civil Force, and together they made Joe's prosperity possible. And sometimes, she demanded he make sacrifices in exchange for that protection. Rockafilly was one of them. Now it was gone, and maybe forever. The future was hard to tell. Day in, day out, year in, year out; all of time went round and round in cycles, like the spinning hands of a clock. Spiraling ever onward.

He looked outside the plate glass windows and saw a world as black as shadow with glints of light, like a vinyl record. He he took comfort in that. Because when the first track revolves around to its end, and the silence comes in, there's still a whole track list full of songs yet to be heard. He might not have rockafilly, but at least tomorrow he would still have his shop. And so, he got his trusty broom out, thinking that some things in life were worth sacrificing. Ghostlike, he wandered through his empty, silent shop, sweeping the shattered record fragments off the checkerboard floor tiles.

Tomorrow, the Land of the Eternal Moon would call again, and Donut Joe would answer.

THE END OF THE MARE IN THE HIGH CASTLE

***

Dude Letrotski has always tried to look on the bright side. Even though he lives in a city of eternal night, where his earth pony race is held as chattel, he's found there's always a silver lining if you just look hard enough. But his optimistic streak will be sorely tested when his unicorn employer tasks him with venturing into the seedy underbelly of Canterlot in search of the unicorn's missing wife.

As the intrepid amateur sleuth makes his way towards the heart of the mystery, he'll find its reach is far bigger than he ever would have thought. The city of Canterlot is the battleground for a hidden war between ruthless pegasus intelligence officers, Changling saboteurs striking from the shadows, earth ponies waging a terrorist campaign of liberation, and unicorn industrialists blinded by the dollar signs in their eyes. The whole place is a powder keg just waiting to blow, and the only pony who can put out the fire before it all goes up might just be Dude Letrotski.

But first, he will have to figure out a few other mysteries. Like, how does a radical new art collective known only as the Elements of Harmony fit into all this, and why does all their art - about an idyllic fictional world where Solara Victa defeated the princess of the night - seem to be priming the city for a new world order? And what of "spark", a psychedelic drug that lets its users "go electric" and experience visions of "the electric mare", the mysterious Sister Mercy, enigmatic central figure of the Mercyism movement? And why does reality seem to keep collapsing around Dude when he isn't looking....?

All that Dude Letrotski can say for sure is that it's going to be one very, very long day.

The story of The Mare in the High Castle will continue in....

Do Hippoids Dream of Electric Shetlands?

Comments

[Reese]

"DIrectorate"
Typo.

"She didn't notice me, but neither I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary."
Something seems off about this sentence.

"Or at least Spitfire and Mace have"
"Sunset and Mace"?

…I'm kind of surprised that, after that speech, Spitfire still seems to expect to be alive long enough to cancel her utilities, much less retire.

…And knowing Dash, I'm wondering if she was listening for that very statement on the radio before she knocked.

"But Thorny's words were rich in irony, and that made them easy to misinterpret."
Which is how she's stayed on the air.

…Huh. And I was not expecting that to be Cheerilee's position.

And the intrigue around Shining Armor deepens!

And oh my, if they thought that the midden that just hit the windmill was big, if they catch Cadence there…
"She tried again. It only clicked feebly at her."
…Oh. Or it could be a dream sequence.

Ah. I'd had a suspicion about who the mare before Cadence was, yes…

Dear me, this is just one giant tangle, isn't it?

Ah, and Rarity's gone full revolutionary, it looks like.

"THE END OF THE MARE IN THE HIGH CASTLE"
…Eh? What? The end?!

…But is this a blurb for a sequel? Oh, I hope it's a blurb for a sequel.

"by the dollar signs"
"bit signs"?

Eeee, yes, it is a blurb for a sequel!
Oh, but it seems that, for some reason, I'm not following you. Better fix that.

[AugieDog]

Fine, fine stuff:

I'll be looking for that sequel.

Mike

[Balancer]

Fantastic from start to finish, count me in for the sequel

[Ravemastaj]

Hold up. Before I even read the story, I have to comment.

You can't just reference Charlie Chaplin, and the Great Dictator. You just can't. That's not fair. You can't just remind me of the Greatest Speech Ever Made, and fight this evil world you have created with rainbows and friendship!

It isn't fair. It isn't possible. RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
*Vaporizes into dust*

[Ravemastaj]

EXCELLENT! CAN'T WAIT FOR THE SEQUEL!

Very well done, bravo, bravo! Better than the original Man in the High Castle.

I give it 5/5 huzzahs! If only there was a Luna emote...

[Akouma]

That's... that's it? One day? But... but... but... but... b-b-b-b-b-but...

Okay, got that out my system. Great story. Really, desperately want more, but can't tell if Do Hippoids Dream of Electric Shetlands? is a joke or actually a teaser for another installment.

[Grollo]

Just when I think you might go out on a hopeful note, they start talking concentration camps.

[Balancer]

Dude Letrotski Just clicked.

img2.timeinc.net/ew/i/2013/02/14/mlp-big-lebowski_510x317.jpg

[nucnik]

Damn I loved this! Just one spoilerish question.

Cadence is Chrysalis, right? Even here at the end?

[Glazius]

Mainlined this entire story on a lonely night.

It hurt. But it was a good hurt.

And the flash to the canon series was an even better hurt.

(Also, go go canonical hexagram. I see what you did there.)

[Himself000]

This is, without a doubt, one of the best AU stories I have ever had the pleasure of reading, and I eagerly await the sequel.

[Graycoin]

This was very well done. I am looking forward to the sequel. You are a good writer! =)

[Cudgeon Kurosaki]

Well, this is one hell of a day in pony history. Dang, Spitfire went out with a bang. So many ponies have good intentions and plan on going it through with extreme means. Why Hammer, why? I guess he won't find the truth until the next story. And Cadance is . . . well, you know. I can't believe that Rainbow Dash is actual jealous of Cadance. Coco is very loyal but she thinks very lowly of her race and herself. Everypony genuinely thinks that they are better than everypony else. Trot is joyful and lives a beautiful life in such a cruel and unforgiving world.

I really wish I knew who Thorny was. It's probably DJ Pon3, because she's the only unicorn I could consider to remotely work in music or media at the moment. So much death . . . Who will be the actual good guy in the end? Probably Twilight. Everyone else lacks friendship, companionship, an overall values. VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

This is not a story with a happy ending, but that is what "The Best Night Ever" was about wasn't it? This isn't some fairy tale where things just go perfectly. Dude Letrotski has his work cut out for him

[GreenWater]

One question:

"I'm Miss Cheerilee," she said, "and I think it's time for your lessons to begin."

But in chapter 8 there was 'Cheerilee and Her Orchestra' playing swing. Is she multitasking or they are completely different Cheerilees?

[Twilightsparklefairy]

Sequel? EEEEEEE!!!!! And let me just say... This story... was AMAZING. There are no words... That sequel better not be you just teasing us, THE STORY MUST GO ON!!!!! I want to see the Elements... and Good Twilight... and the whole continuation and hopefully a final happy ending, and finally see Nightmare Moon/Luna in person (in pony?), and... Soooo much potentialll!!! Pleeeease do an actual sequel

[General Lemarc]

Please write the sequel. Please. This is so wonderful

[The 24th Pegasus]

How this doesn't have more upvotes and views is beyond me. Though the author may never return , if he does, I want him to know that this was a thrilling ride from start to finish. Beautiful prose, a great story, and all tied up so neatly that it's fitting. Not nicely, because in a story like this, the characters don't deserve nice. But a lot happened in one day, and everything came back together so cleanly at the end. Life in the Lunar Empire will go on. In the end, little has changed. It's still bleak and horrid and only going to get worse from here on out.

But our characters learned, and they found a spark of something inside themselves. Maybe we can imagine that in the future, that spark managed to bloom into something brighter. Or maybe it was snuffed out, cold and mercilessly, disappearing forever.

Who can say?