When the Everfree Burns

by SpiritDutch

Chapter 32: Ruminations

Night

Flying low to the ground at high speeds was a dangerous feat for only the most experience fliers, so dangerous was it. Keeping in formation at the same time exponentially more so.

The V formation of Wonderbolts hugged the bald hills north of Canterlot, heading eastward. They had been flying for a day nonstop, keeping low to the ground to avoid risk of interception. The knights weren’t sure what they should be fearing, but Spitfire knew, and the risk of the flight was nothing in comparison to the horror that gripped Canterlot. If the monster Velvet was set on creating could fly, there was no way in hell Spitfire was ever going to let it know where they were. The moonlight, broken by infrequent cloud cover, was most likely to reveal the pegasi if they were high in the air.
The Wonderbolts had been confused and resistant to leaving Admiral Rain Gnash and Fleetfoot, but they had seen Spitfire's understated terror under her stern orders. Gnash's airship would be coming along behind them at its own speed, but the Wonderbolts would not wait; They had to get away as fast as possible before Velvet decided she would rather they die than live.

The landscape underneath them was a dour sight by the light of the moon. The treeless hills were devoid of permanent settlements, but here and there the glow of a campfire betrayed the location of a nomad camp. The Don hills were part of the Principality of Canterlot, but Celestia had never bothered to assert herself on the earth pony tribes who grazed there. Dons from the far north occasionally passed through the barrens on their way to Canterlot to trade, but they preferred to patronize the villages along the Crystal River to the East. A lawless wasteland... Nopony in their right mind wanted to be there, except for ponies on the run.

The Wonderbolts had been able to see Cloudsdale for several hours already, the angular cloudbuildings minuscule blips above the northern slope of the Unicorn Range. At their breakneck pace, Spitfire calculated they would arrive before sunrise. Then she remembered that the sun was gone, and the moon’s position was arbitrary. There would be no daybreak. The moon above watched on, her light dancing over the hills.

---

A quarter turn around the globe, in the center of the eastern seas, the moonlight hit the churlish water more sidelong, skimming the waves and bouncing up in an dazzling distortion of the grey orb.

Vinyl had spent many nights looking at the moon, from a makeshift the camp or from the window of a barn she was sheltering in. Anywhere she went in the world, the moon was there to watch her. It never felt as menacing as it did then. There was something very lonesome about being on a boat in an endless sea, even if other ponies were right beside you.

“The world is a weird place.” She said to herself. "But at the same time, its the most normal place there is."

“Hmm?” Octavia looked up from tuning her cello. Vinyl was back in a hammock strung between the mast and forecastle banister. “What do you mean?”

“We know the world is round. I’ve been around it a few times myself.” Vinyl said, and gestured over the side of the ship, to the horizon where the calm seas met the twinkling night sky. “But the sun doesn’t seem to care that its supposed to be orbiting us. Sometimes, it is noon everywhere, and sometimes, its just gone.”

“The sun is gone, Vinyl.” Lyra was at the edge of the ship's deck, kicking her hindlegs into open air while leaned back and holding herself in a sitting position with her forehooves. It wasn't a natural pose for a quadruped, more like the seated position of an ape. "It should have been sunrise five hours ago."

"But like, it can't be gone forever. This is just a gag. A prank." Vinyl said with a hint of roughness.
They had been watching when the sun and moon had played their oddly compelling and horrifying game in the cosmos overhead. It had been like helplessly watching one of two predators bear down on you.

"The princess always regulated the sun's movement. It was supposed to be constant and predictable." Octavia said. She drew her bow across the cello’s A string experimentally, inducting a shrill sound..She winced and fiddled with the tuning peg some more. "Do you really think the princess would do this? A prank, you say, against the world..." She sighed.

"The alternative is mad and stupid. If the sun was really gone we would be dead." Vinyl rolled her eyes. "We're still alive. The alternative, even if its silly, is the only possible choice that our princess is pulling one over on us."

Lyra effected a shrug. "If that's really what you think."

“What's that supposed to mean?” Vinyl scowled

“Some ponies say the sun moves itself.” Octavia moved on to tuning D string. "It disappearing could be just random."

"So it just happened to have disappeared now, after a thousand year-" Vinyl blinked. "Hmm... It's getting close to the Summer Sun isn't it? Maybe what we saw WAS the thousandth Summer Sun. Like, wasn't there a big war during the first Summer Sun?"

"I don't get your point." Octavia said.

"Maybe the princess or the sun acts weird every thousand years. I mean, I wasn't in Canterlot long but I still heard talk about the princess acting abnormal." Vinyl said.

“You two are missing the point. It's gone, and I bet one of the Twilights is to blame.” Lyra said.

“What?” Vinyl and Octavia’s asked in unison.

Lyra twisted around to face them. “Twilight Sparkle, Celestia’s student, or protegee, or something like that. The nature of their relationship was never very clear. That's Twilight one. The other you'll be more familiar with."

“Twilight Velvet.” Octavia grimaced. Vinyl too looked upset, but had a distant glint in her eye.

"I think Twilight Velvet finally executed whatever mischief she was up to in Canterlot." Lyra continued waving towards the moon. "I think she wasn't just assassinating random nobles. She went after Princess Celestia. This situation is the result."

"You're just guessing though." Vinyl said.

"Of course I'm just guessing. Not bloody much else we can do." Lyra said. "Unless you want to turn around and go back to Equestria?"

"Not doing that!" A call from the other side of the deck said; Captain 'H', standing at the helm despite the motionlessness of the seas, with the little colt Pip at his side. "Trust me lassies, we're halfway there and right on time, despite this malaise of air."

"I was speaking in hypothetical!" Lyra called back. She continued, more careful of her volume so the stallion didn't overhead. "Point is, Vinyl, that our sunless situation is a pony engineered cataclysm."

"I'll withhold judgement." Vinyl said.

"How does the other Twilight, Sparkle, come into this?" Octavia asked.

Lyra shrugged again. "I don't know. I just thought about her while thinking about Celestia. Her name naturally came up while I was pulling up dirt on Velvet. She's her daughter, you see. Some court maneuvering between Sparkle and Sir Pants prompted his spate with Velvet. At least I think that is how it went down."

"Velvet's daughter? Pudgy unicorn, around my height, purple?" Vinyl asked.

"I have no idea but that sounds about right." Lyra said.

"Well I met her. She was a frequenter of a coffee parlor I hung out at. You know the Fluyt? Nice little place." Vinyl said. "Anyway, I recognized her while I was trying to get hired by Velvet, then met her later."

Lyra quirked a brow. "Yeah? What was she like?"

"A real humorless nag if I remember. I was trying to get under her tail and she was just not getting it." Vinyl chuckled, but stopped when she caught angry looks from Octavia. "Hey, this was before I showed up at the guild."

"I just think it is unprofessional and reckless to even dare meet with family of a client. But to try to sleep with them? You are a class of your own." Octavia shook her head. "Was that a thing you did while abroad?"

Vinyl didn't answer.

“I found out Lady Sparkle and I were in the Unicorn School at the same time, actually. We never met of course, being she was a noblemare. My family could barely afford to put me in one class, about fine telekinetic coordination. I used it for my lyre.” Lyra returned her gaze to the seas. “I wonder if we could find a lyre in Trottingham.”

Octavia was happy enough for the digression. “Is there a big musical scene in Trottingham, Vinyl?” She asked the resident travel expert.

“What?” Vinyl took a moment to remember her surrounding. “Uh, Trottingham. There’s a bit of an avant-garde scene there, but nothing worth remembering.”

Octavia paused her tuning to appraise her friend’s distraction. “What were you thinking about?”

The pause Vinyl spent deciding whether to lie or not was obvious to the other two. “Well…”

“Come on.” Octavia insisted. “No more secrets between us.”

Vinyl sighed. “Well its... Talking about Velvet, it made me think about what we're doing.” A flash of pain washed over the mares' faces, as they both remembered the time they spent in the tiny dungeon of Chateau la Garde. “Velvet abused me. But for some reason you've been taking it for granted that I'm doing her bidding.

Octavia took note of Vinyl’s selfish phrasing. "You were the one pushing for this, Vinyl. It was your contract originally. We are in this situation largely as a consequence of your relationship to her."

Vinyl's lip twitched. "Tell me you aren't blaming me for all this."

“I don't want to argue. I am simply pointing out the obvious.” Octavia lowered her tone, slightly threateningly.

“Then you'd be open to talking about it.” Vinyl tried to sit up in the hammock so she could face down Octavia. “Where are you going after this? Do you plan to stay in Trottingham or come back to Equestria with me?"

"That would depend. I have no great desire to continue doing Twilight Velvet's work but we still do not know if she has a way of killing us remotely."

"We don't know if she's completely forgotten about us. Making off-the-wall guesses about her is pointless. I'm asking what you want to do."

Octavia set her new cello aside carefully before crossing her legs angrily. “Tell me Vinyl, have you had enough of being a murderous vagabond? Or do you simply love it so much that you are happy to go right back to it after sampling sophisticated Canterlot after so long away? You slob! You don't care at all what Lyra and I had ripped away from us!"

"Sophisticated Canterlot? Poor music students like you live in trash in dear 'sophisticated Canterlot'! The Guild let you stew in the filth while raking in the dough! That's no way to exist." Vinyl yelled back, teeth bared. "There's nobility to how I lived, wandering the world, doing what I wanted. I didn't listen to anypony and I took contracts I wanted. The Musicians Guild was supposed to be protecting us, but it was just our pimp! Where was the Guild when I was thrown out of Canterlot the first time! Where was it when we were being tortured by Velvet!"

"If you want to compare us to prostitutes them so be it, but don't pretend CHOICE is the greatest luxury we can celebrate." Octavia hissed. "We are artists, Vinyl! And I don't mean killing. I mean this." She clasped her hoof around the neck of the cello. "And lyres like Lyra said. And the Avant Garde scene and being a poor student. Guild work was ALWAYS a means to an end, not the end itself. You forgetting that is why Phyte didn't protect you."

Vinyl, whatever anger she was feeling, stayed silent. She lay back in the hammock and stewed in her feelings. Octavia, unsatisfied even though she'd gotten the last word, went back to tuning her cello.

Lyra scooted back from the edge and got to her hooves. "I'm going down below."

Neither of the two other mares responded, but there was a tension where they waited for the other to offer to go down too.

Passing back towards the cabins, Lyra caught Captain H's eye. "Any sea change coming?"

The captain shrugged and the colt Pip squeaked in the negative. "Nay, Mis Lyra. This moon has battered the ocean flat and calm. The only change in sea or speed would be if you mares whittled oars."

"Mmm, not likely I think." Lyra said. "Let me know if anything changes so I can be up here to pull in the ropes."

"Sheets, Mis Lyra. They're called sheets." Captain H corrected with a gruff laugh.

Lyra ducked into the cabins but was immediately stopped by a hoof on her shoulder. It was Octavia, looking unsure.
"Hey, Lyra..."

"I don't have a place in you and Vinyl's arguments. Clearly you and her have been going at it for decades."

"Okay, well, I don't have to hear what you think of her and I. You should still think about what we're doing. Vinyl isn't completely wrong to wonder why we are following through with Velvet's orders."

Lyra led Octavia back to the little cabin the mares shared. On Captain H's insistence they had taken one of the ship's officer quarters instead of the deck quarters. There was something down below he didn't want them to see.
Lyra lay in a hammock while Octavia sat the little bed.

"Go on." Lyra said.

"I know you did what you had to to get me released. I wonder if I was worth the cost, but I think if you hadn't killed the brothers Bright, Velvet would have found ponies who would." Octavia continued. "But you never seem reluctant or wary when talking about this job she has given us."

"I seem nothing at all. I'm controlling my emotions." Lyra said flatly. "Which you should be too. This work doesn't need sentimentality. It's an extension of politics, and like politics it has to be rational."

"Really Lyra. You of all ponies is telling me politics and its deadly extensions is rational? Does rationality cause revolutions? Not the successful ones." Octavia said, then sighed. "What am I going on about? I don't need you to concede some point, just show a smile or frown. Tell me why you are going through with this job?"

Lyra pondered that silently. "Maybe I won't."

"You won't? Lyra you ar-"

Lyra interrupted. “When we reach Trottingham I’m going to meet this Nightingale Bright mare, and if I don’t like her I’m going to gut her. If I like her, I’ll leave, and hide in Griffany for the rest of my life.”

"I... Well..." Octavia blinked. "You aren't worried about Velvet's retribution?"

"No. I was never afraid of that. I was only afraid of being lost." Lyra said. What the beam of moonlight through the slim porthole illuminated wandered as the ship slowly bobbed back and forth. "If Nightingale Bright is a pony that deserves to be killed, then Lady Velvet will have shown she can keep me from being lost. If Nightingale Bright doesn't deserve death, then I guess I will have to throw myself to the currents and rely on myself," Then after a second added. "for once in my life."

"I, well, think that is strange way to look at the situation." Octavia said, by her expression quite unconvinced of Lyra's words. "You are on the opposite end of the spectrum from Vinyl, clearly. Your freedom means little to you."

"Freedom to do what? Freedom to starve and die? Equestria has been tumbling into the abyss for a century. A pony's toil means nothing to the merchants and workshops anymore. The countryside swells with excess population and serf are being thrown off the land they were tied to in favor of cheap labor. The cities get dozens of new arrivals every day, each more desperate, each willing to work for less and less." Lyra scowled. "Ponies feel no responsibility to each other anymore. We're all just competing for resources that are being closed off to us. Weak ponies like you and me have to find somepony who needs us and hang on for dear life."

"Begging your pardon Lyra but where in hell did you come up with ideas like that." Octavia's eyes widened. "Did Fancy Pants tell you this?"

"No, I came up with it myself, standing in his shadow. I'm not taking Vinyl's side but 'sophisticated Canterlot' is just for nobles and fat merchants." Lyra said. "And I was happy for Fancy Pants to pay me to pit them against each other. The thing is, with Lady Velvet here, she'll pay me to kill them." She smiled sternly. "Here's hoping."

"And how did this never come up while we were in Canterlot?"

"It's in retrospect that I realized most of it. I've had a lot of time to think."

“That’s… Fair, I suppose.” Octavia was sobered by Lyra’s words. They were more resentful than she'd ever heard the unicorn be. She acknowledged that all of it was true, but the mares were out of Equestria now and Lyra didn't have to continue to live by its rules if she didn't want to. But still, every thought of Twilight Velvet sent a chill down Octavia’s spine. "I would suppose then you have a scale to judge Nightingale Bright on, once we meet her."

"We will see." Lyra hummed. "It's almost not right of me to make the choice, if one outcome means giving up my freedom to choose."

"You are being so extreme. I don't understand it." Octavia sighed. She did understand a little. Her sorrow for having to leave Canterlot was manifesting differently for her two companions: A desire to rebel in Vinyl and a desire to obey for Lyra. Or something like that.
Octavia wished she had one of Phyte's birdcages so she could know how the too-long night was being received in Equestria.
“What do you think was happening in Canterlot? That dance between the sun and moon must have caused a stir." Octavia ventured into small talk.

Lyra shifted in the hammock. “I don't know. I said before I thought the sun was gone. I think that because I think the princess is gone."

"That is possible."

"You weren’t that big into politics, were you?” Lyra asked softly.

“Not really.” Octavia admitted. “I’ve done one or two political killings, and that was the sum of my contribution to the issue.”

“Do you remember what Fancy Pants was trying to tell us the night he was killed?”

“I’m sorry, but no. My memories of that night are preoccupied on different events.”

“Understandable.” Lyra gave a small nod. “He talked about rebels and seditious ponies. Specifically Lady Velvet. He thought she was plotting against the throne.”

“The throne? Really?” Octavia believed she couldn’t be shocked at the breadth of that mare’s ambition, but was proven wrong. “I thought she was just after her cousin-in-law’s duchy.”

“Who knows. The point is that Fancy Pants thought the princess was in danger, from Velvet and other ponies. Without him, who knows what happened." Lyra let out a short sigh. "It hurts to be so out of the loop. Here we are, sitting on a motionless sea a thousand kilometers from anything, ignorant. I don't even have an instrument."

"Plenty of time to think and develop your ideas more." Octavia said, even though she had her reservations about what cruel places Lyra's mind would create out of her simmering anger and boredom.

“There is nothing to be done until the sun rises." Lyra grunted. Closing her eyes. "Go play your cello, Octavia. Nothing is going to be changing for us for a while."

---

It was shocking how much had changed in Canterlot of the course of a few hours.

Blueblood couldn't remember what the heady hours after Velvet had summoned her alicorn out of blood and flesh. He recalled digging graves with Sel Lech, then returning to the throne room. There was some heated talk with Lady Velvet and yelling before he staggered out, dazed by the whole ordeal. He woke up outside his townhouse, his servants asking if he was okay, and he had lied and said yes. He'd gone to his study and sat in silence until Velvet's next orders came by way of her little messenger filly.
He soberly opened the folded letter and read it a few times.

Rendezvous with Lady Airy at the Canterlot Castle Plaza and proceed to the Old Town Opera House. Lord Light will be there to meet you.

Blueblood donned his coat and proceeded through the dark and silent streets back to the castle. His pocket watch told him it had been about six hours since the apotheosis in the throne room. He looked up at the moon and it didn't offer any contradictory evidence. The blood in the castle would be getting cold by then.

He trotted along the main causeway towards the castle. Everything seemed so dark and lonesome with the ponies staying in their homes with their lanterns dimmed. There was a sense of dread over the city that was impossible to ignore.
Arriving at the broad plaza at Canterlot Castle's front entrance, Blueblood had to climb over some residual wreckage from the Wonderbolt's confrontation with the Black Horn militia. Funny how that had been barely twelve hours ago, when it felt like weeks.

"Hail, Lord Blueblood." A voice called to him. Aurthora Airy was standing in in the center of the plaza with several of her personal guard and about twenty humbly-dressed commoners. "You received Lady Velvet's letter?"

"Yes." Blueblood cleared his throat, glancing around evasively. "Have you been here since the... the incident?"

"Busy. But think nothing of it, as you were surely strained by the grave digging. Look, Lady Velvet had me gather some ponies." Aurthora gestured to the commoners, who bowed or doffed their caps. "Black Horn members and supporters of yours."

"Cheers, chaps." Blueblood nodded. "You decided to step up in Canterlot's hour of need."

"For Canterlot!" The ponies chanted.

Simpletons, Blueblood thought.

"More of my knights are fetching the arquebuses from the throne room." Aurthora said, smile dipping. "Hopefully the mechanisms will not be too gummed from the mess up there."

"Indeed." Blueblood agreed.

Several minutes of waiting in the chill air and the knights emerged from the castle, pulling several carts full of recovered arquebuses.
Blueblood picked one up. "Look here ponies. A .58 rifled Manehatten Armory. I shoot with something similar to this." He turned it around and showed the lock. "Just because these don't have a match like you're used to doesn't mean it works magically. The previous users didn't realize that. This is a fragile gun and you must keep it clean." As he said this a glob of red goo dripped off the stock. Smiling, Blueblood tapped the wheel. "You have to wind this wheel to tense an internal spring. Otherwise you have the same pan and packing as a matchlock."

The commoners oohed and aahed over the fancy gun. Most of them were at least passingly familiar with matchlocks from compulsory service in the city guard.

"Lady Aurthora, will you pass around the wheel wrenches and powder? Ah, I see you all already have your powder and balls. Then, ahem-" Blueblood cleared his throat. "Form up into lines or something and follow me." He nodded to Lady Aurthora. "Off to the next task?"

"Indeed my lord." Aurthora bowed her head, her knights gathering around her. "We will be going to the city guard barracks to make sure no trouble comes from that quarter."

Blueblood bowed back and began the march up the streets of the Old Town, towards the Opera House. The commoners tried to march in mimicry of soldiers as best they could but it was an effort as shabby as their clothing, by Blueblood's judgement.

By the light of the full moon the two-dozen ponies turned onto the main street right by the Opera House. Some ponies were defying the oppressive night to investigate some occurrence. Night Light and Sel Lech were on the scene already to convince them to stay back.

"Lord Light, Lord Sabonord." Blueblood waved to them. "I came as fast as I could!"

Night Light cast an unimpressed eye over the rag-tag group Blueblood brought with him. “That you’re not out of breath indicates otherwise."

Blueblood snorted. The whole affair with Velvet so far had given him a smidgen of tolerance when it came to humor. “My lord, now that Seacrest is dead, would it be too much to ask to be addressed as ‘prince’ again? I deserve as much for my efforts, no?" He laughed. "Princes do not overexert themselves.”

“Just don’t get so big of a head you try to get the monster to bow to you.” Sel Lech said wryly. “Lady Velvet is in there with it now.”

Blueblood blinked. "The... monster?"

"The alicorn, or alicorn-esk entity." Night Light said in a low tone. "Lest you forget she is called Astral Nacre."

Blueblood laughed nervously. "My lords.... Think me not a craven, but should I be taking these colts in there to see it?"

"Blueblood, there has been all kinds of excitements while you were away." Sel Lech said, tiredness creeping into his voice. "The guns aren't going to work on the monster, sure, but they're not for her anyhow."

"Quoi?"

“You’ll see.” Sel sighed. “Go on Lord Light. I’ll keep things smoothed over out here.”

Night Light nodded and lead Blueblood and his troupe into the opera house. The magnificent entrance was darker even than the night-embraced streets, all the candles burnt down to a stump. The gently sloping ramps into the lower seating was in surprising disrepair, the carpets torn and marble chipped, like they had born an unusually large load.

“What did Captain Sabonord mean?” Blueblood whispered. "I am not big on surprises, my lord. That scene in the throne room gave me conniptions."

Night Light gave him a long look. “The past hours, we have been attempting to calm the alicorn down."

"A- Attempting?!"

"It is not berserk, or insane. Or, it may be insane, but not in such a way that is manic." Night Light explained. "The alicorn is misbehaving.”

That didn’t bode well at all. Blueblood gulped. Sometimes he wished he had fled Canterlot and Twilight Velvet when he had the chance. Now he was long since committed, just waiting to see if everything would end horribly, or miraculously okay.

They passed through the inner doors.
The voluminous concert hall of the opera house was, to Blueblood’s surprise, occupied by many other ponies already. He didn't focus on that though. On the stage was a large thin figure, alicorn sized, dressed in a black and white costume. The costume was discernibly theatric even across the room, pilfered from an actor’s wardrobe. The entity under the costume turned to face Blueblood and the other new arrivals.

A sense of dread filled the ranks.
“That’s kinda spooky.” One of Blueblood’s militia noted weakly.

"Stand firm ponies." Blueblood choked out, following Night Light closer.

The other ponies in the room became apperent to him now, milling in the first rows of seats. There were nearly fifty of them, soundless, aimless, unheeding of anything other than their own movement. It was too dark in the seating to tell exactially what was wrong with them, but something was wrong with them.

Suddenly Velvet was beside him.
Her Ladyship was looking very grave. She had on a wimple white dress, not unlike those her daughter often wore, but with a purple trim around the neck. A small pewter brooch in the shape of an oak was pinned at her breast.
"About time." She said. She glanced back to the commoners, who were in varying states of loosing their composure. "Keep an eye on the pony next to you. Mind that they to not begin acting strangely." She announced to the miltia.

"Another parent. Is it..." An indescribable female voice pieced Blueblood's mind, making him freeze in fear.
The alicorn-sized figure on the stage had a candle lifted to its face. Over its head was a black habit and coif like a solar abbess would wear, but it was far too small for the alicorn's massive head , so she’d torn up other articles and wrapped it around the exposed parts. Over her long snout, she had a birdlike mask of a plague doctor, so that with the uncovered sinuous wings she resembled a giant horned thestral.
Blueblood gagged seeing the raw, skinless exposes flesh the ensemble did not cover. He did not regret passing out in the throne room if it'd meant not seeing the horror before him. But when the beady eyes behind the mask turned to him, he was too terrified to make a peep.
"Blueblood. Humph. Unsuitable." The alicorn looked away again.

"Mercy me." Blueblood said, breathless. "Lady Velvet I must protest. T- This is not the place for me."

"Hmm, not you either. Unfortunate." Velvet was thoughtful. "My Astral Nacre has been behaving erratically. Very frustrating, having to split my attention trying to keep tabs on her while we are securing the city."

"Frustrating. Yes. That is a way to put it." Blueblood munched his bottom lip. "Since I am not the answer to this problem as I usually am, I beg your leave."

"Wait until spoken to." Velvet snapped.
She cleared her throat and turned towards the stage. "Astral!" She shouted in a shrill voice.

"Oh?" Astral Nacre turned to the called. This time, Blueblood noticed how every one of the fifty ponies in the front rows turned their head with Astral. They had the looks of ponies possessed, their eyes vacent and lifeless, but reflecting the flickering light like cats'. But even worse, they seemed to be in in various stages of decay, like unearthed corpses.

"Oh goodness." Blueblood retched.

Velvet snorted in amusement. “Her highness seems to be taking her role as god of life too literally. I had to burn down Old Town Hospital on North Mane Street an hour ago, after Astral dropped in and abducted all the patients and bystanders and dragged them here. Based on their current state of disrepair, I think she has been experimenting on them.

Blueblood didn’t want to know, yet he asked anyway. “Experimenting?”

Velvet nodded. “Look on the stage behind her. She was cutting off their limbs and trying to heal them back. When they succumb to death they rise again, as those things.” The waved over the vacant-eyed living dead. “She is either very good or very poor at necromancy, depending on what she was trying to achieve.”

“And now she... asking for somepony?” Blueblood pondered tentatively. “Lady Velvet, is it that your alicorn is constructing cripples because of her failure to heal Rain Gnash.”

Velvet’s face lit up with comprehension. “That is a very plausible theory for a dullard like you Prince Blueblood.”

Blueblood was too pleased by the acknowledgement of his prince title to register the denegration.

"Perhaps mentioning Rain Gnash to her will let me get closer." Velvet continued.

“Did you ask her?” Night Light spoke up.

Velvet shook her head. "Those thralls begin to growl at me when I approach, and Astral Nacre herself begins to bristle. She is like a territorial animal."

"Ahh, I get it now my lady. I was wondering about the arquebuses." Blueblood smirked. He faced the militiaponies. “Form ranks please! Present!”

Once the militaponies noticed that they were the ones the prince was speaking to, they brought up their looted arquebuses and pointed into the crowd of soulless zombies.

“Don’t hit my alicorn or I really will kill you.” Velvet warned Blueblood, and his followers by extension.

“Fire!”

The opera house, a building designed to reflect the sound of the actors to all the audience, became deafeningly loud from the dozen reports that roared and echoed across the hall. Splintering wood and cracking marble was heard nanoseconds later, along with the moans and gasps from the former ponies that the lead balls had actually found.

The air was thick with smoke until Velvet cleared it with a magical gust. In the newly vacated air, Astral Nacre glared indignantly. Her unnatural eyes were still visible between the coif and beak, staring right at Blueblood.

“What are you here for ? I don't need you! Away!” The mental screech said.

Blueblood faltered momentarily, then with instint kicking in he dropped into a prostrate position. “Forgiveness please, your highness! I was simply giving you the twenty-five gun salute customary for our nation’s royalty.”

Astral Nacre shook her head back and forth, shaking odd bits of fabric off herself. "That does not sound convincing."

"Ah- Yes... I-" Blueblood faltered. "It is usually a measly twnety-one-"

A fleshy tendril shot out of the darkness and snatched an arquebus from the hooves of one of the militia ponies, then receded back to Astral. She passed it to her telekenesis, to flip around and observe. “These beasts are very loud, don’t you think?” She pulled back the flint mechanism, pointed the barrel at Blueblood, and depressed the trigger. Without any powered in the pan, a click was the only response.
"Blueblood. Blueblood. Blueblood. Is your blood blue, Blueblood?" She singsonged.

"Your highness, he's hardly worth paying attention to." Velvet stepped forward, stepping around the perforated zombies and approaching the stage. "Neither are guns, slaves, and opera houses. Alicorns have better things to do."

“Have they?” Astral asked, fluttering her featherless wings. “Is there something wrong?”

“Nothing is the matter. Not yet. However it would behove us to begin moving in certain directions.” Velvet explained. “Highness, you have responsibilities to fulfill. The populace needs to see you to believe you, there and there is much to prepare you besides."

Astral cocked her head. “What?”

Night LIght stepped forward. “Astral Nacre, you're indulging in unnecessary things while the city and ponies need you. We ask you come away from here and cooperate with us."

Astral clicked her tongue thoughtfully. “You want to put me on a throne to sit on all? All year?” Her mane under her coif began to thrash. "I can do more than be a figurehead. Look at my work here. Can’t you see the progress I’m making? Can’t you?!”

She telekinetically dragged one of her zombies to Velvet. It had been a very ill pony even before the monster had gotten it’s hooves on her, and now it’s face had degraded to the point of gender ambiguity. It’s ears had been cut of and resewn several times, and it’s front and back legs had been switched up. Still, it looked vacantly at Astral Nacre through green eyes, as if awaiting it’s permission to die.

Blueblood was dry heaving. “Oh, dear.” He gagged. “Lady Velvet, please, gain control over your disgusting spawn.”

"Oh goodness." Sel Lech chose this time to trot in off the street, but forgot what he'd come for when he was the mutilated pony. “And I thought poor Molar was messed up.”

“It’s a very good effort, Astral.” Velvet had to subtly deaden her nerves temporarily with magic to keep from becoming ill herself. “But not what you were born to do. Her highness's skills would be put to more use from the castle.”

Astral shoved the zombie away to give herself space to pace the length of the aisle. “Twilight, you told me and I remember, how very special I am. I'm not like the other mares. You said that over and over. I'm a lifebringer. I'm the answer to the tyranny of the gods. I remember that."

Velvet's expression was indecipherable. "I was telling myself those things. You were just eavesdropping."

This viably frustrated the alicorn, as she began to bob her head back and forth more aggressively. "But Twilight you told me, and I remember! We talked about this at length! We made plans, conferred, decided our decisions. Didn't you hear that? Can't you see that? Could I be any more of a god than I am now?" Astral quivered. "Twilight... Look how close to perfection they are...” Her eyes came alight, and her voice dipped into a rage. “You're not going to pull me away for asinine reasons, Twilight Velvet. I know who I am because you told me."

Velvet glanced around the room, building her rebuttal. Night Light, Sel Lech, Blueblood, and the militia ponies looked to her expectant and fearful.

But Velvet didn't say anything.
Astral Nacre stood over her, waiting for the response.

"Lady Velvet." Sel Lech dared to say at a whisper. "Lady Velvet?"

Slowly, Velvet turned to one of the zombies, gargling vacantly in Astral's shadow. She made a little motion and tried to get it to look at her, but it shambled back, limping on a leg that had been shot.

"So this is what I created." She said to herself quietly. "A queen who can not recognize her own purpose."

"Don't be tricky, Twilight. I'm doing what we agreed I should. This is who I am." Astral said.

"This is who..." Velvet trailed off. She looked into Astral's eyes, trying to find something in the beady little orbs, surrounded by raw flesh and a beaked mask.
Whatever she was going to say, she broke it off. Velvet turned away and trotted up the aisle to the back of the theater hall, to the grand entry hall.

Everypony else backed away several steps from Astral. The alicorn was looking between them intently, perhaps trying to find another pony to talk at in its hierophant's absence.

Sel Lech spoke up. “You have, ahhh... had problems creating perfection. It could be, your highness, if you want a perfect product, you must have perfect materials.” He giggled, nervously and dismissively. "Don't blame us ponies for being so lousy. Heh heh, please."

Astral blinked in uncertainty. “Are my materials imperfect?” She turned suddenly, jumping towards the herd of zombies with a sweep of her fleshy wings. She pressed one to the floor and examined it, then kicked it aside and picked up another with her magic, trying to find answers it its limp squirming.
“Is there a flaw in Velvet's philosophy? Can we not create everything we need from what we have on this world?" She paused, then continued at a grow.. "What does that make me?"

Blueblood cleared his throat. "Don't be embarrassed that you can not repeat the majesty of your manifestation. Lady Velvet worked for years to bring you to us-"

"Cruel. Is that the word I should be using? What Velvet did was CRUEL." Astral hissed, making everypony jump. "How can you conscience it?"

"Er, your highness, we-"

"To manifest a perfect being in a world DEFINED by its imperfection is abject cruelty. Simply unforgivable." Astral retreated back to the stage, the wrappings trailing behind her. "Now I see that I can not even spread my perfection. I should be furious. I should want to kill Velvet for this treachery, if she did not wholeheartedly believe the lie."

Night Light, brow furrowed, considered arguing the point. Instead he sighed softly. "How painful for we ponies who have wrestled with our status for all our lives, generation after generation."

Astral shivered in annoyance. "Don't patronize me. Away all of you."

The militia were happy to scramble back to the entry hall. Night Light and Sel look measured strides, keeping an eye on Astral as she was watching them.

Velvet was sitting near the door out to the street, looking into space. Night Light trotted over to her. There was a moment of silence between them.

"You didn't need us." He said. "You are a mare so powerful her hypothetical postulations take on literal life of their own. Don't doubt yourself Twilight."

"Ah, I am supposed to be proud that my monument to ponykind's accomplishments has decided it wants very little to do with ponykind. I see, and am glad to be corrected." Velvet muttered acidly to the floor. "Ponykind will remain without its queen, its proof that its okay to be a pony. We will continue to limp in ignorance under the hoof of arrogant gods."

"Twilight, if creating a god out of ponies was supposed to give ponykind its guiding light..." Night Light sighed. "You must have known this was doomed to fail. What you created has immediately forgotten what it is like to be a pony. It was inevitable that it did."

Twilight Velvet rubbed her chin, sitting up slightly. "That is what I would think... if I didn't see a glimmer of hope in her." She looked up at Night Light. "She can be recovered for our purposes. I have to believe there is a spark of ponykind in her. We have to grasp it and let it swell until it becomes everything she is. Thoughts of divinity, thoughts of purpose... I was focussed to hard on esoteric principals when I envisioned her. I should have been thinking more about what it is to be us, a pony."

"You can't take her back. You can't un-name her Astral Nacre. If you didn't want her to be a god you should not have named her after one." Night Light said, somewhat pointedly. "Velvet, you are our queen. You are the guiding light these ponies need and want. Ponykind doesn't need to be god to understand its worth. We can understand our value with you."

Velvet stood up. She had a severe look in her eye. "How touching." She grunted. "Do you emulate me? Do you want to be me? Are you going to worship me, Night Light?" She pushed her husband aside lightly with a hoof, addressing all the ponies in the room. "Are all of you going to worship me?"

Once more there was silence, strained silence.

"Lady Velvet, isn't how we serve you indistinguishable to worship?" Sel Lech asked.

"Kill yourself, right now." Velvet demanded.

"Uh?!" Sel blinked.

"You HESITATE! You allow yourself time to think about the order. You give yourself time to process that its a bad order made to prove a point. That's not worship!" Velvet berated, as much to the room as Sel. But through her frustrated yelling was a hint of desperation. "Do you love me?! Do you need me?! Has anyone said please to me without my horn to their throat?"
Her lip trembled, until she looked away with a dismissive scoff. "Pissant ponies. You're all hopeless."

She trotted away, up the staircase up to the second floor of the Opera House. The clack of her hooves on marble and carpet died away slowly.

"Excellent. Grand." Sel Lech slumped. He glanced to Night Light. "Anything to add, sir?"

Night Light shook his head. "Don't lose hope, ponies. If you look up at the moon and feel weak, remember what you are." He laid a hoof on is breast. "A pon who wants to have their destiny in their own hooves. It was never going to be easy, or fast, but-"

"Sir." Blueblood interrupted. "We know." he licked his lips. "It's only... Is she going to stay with us?"

"She..." Night Light was going to ask for clarification, but looking into the eyes of the ponies he found he did not need it.
Twilight Velvet. They still believed in Twilight Velvet. "Of course she is. Count on her, me, us all. We will tame this city and this alicorn soon enough."

...

One of the commoners lifted a hoof. "Uh, does this mean we stop stop harassing earth ponies and pegasi on the streets? I'm uh..." She looked around tentatively. "I'm okay with that."

Some of the other militia ponies murmured their agreement, but some sour looks from Blueblood silenced them.

"You make that determination for yourselves, until we form official policy. This is a new age." Night Light said. he levitated one of the guns and pressed it into the hooves of the pony who had dropped it. "We aren't playing discourse politics anymore. Let dialogue die. Go, show force on the street and keep any rival authority from cropping up. Even after we have our queen, power will grow from guns and swords."

---

Twilight Sparkle and Applejack sat on either side of a small campfire, established at the edge of the ruins and forest.
It would be an almost ironic statement to make. To observe the pair, neither was even close to the ponies who would normally go by those names. The black alicorn, haggard and monstrous, sat away from the fire doing mental planning for her path ahead. The earth pony, almost as large but twisted into a dark reflection of herself. lay near the fire, contemplative, making sure the fillies or passed out nightmare ponies didn't roll into it.

The moon watched them carefully, its light strong through the canopy and cracked walls.

"So..." Applejack cleared her throat. "What are you now?"

Twilight opened her blue, predator eyes. "I feel like a refugee. My refuge is very fine, but it is not supposed to last. That body in the throne room... That's mine."

Applejack winced at the notion, particularly since Twilight had gently advised against moving her living body and Celestia's corpse to the campfire, as if punishing them for their transgressions against her. But she didn't want to change the subject. "Right now, are you still Viscountess Sparkle, first student? Or are you a princess?"

"I am not a princess." Twilight scoffed.

"Are you a viscountess, or does that body in the throne room have your titles?"

Twilight blinked, then scowled deeply. "I was a noble lady the day I was born and I will be until I die, Mis Applejack. As for the titles, there are legal systems that decide such things, and I would probably lose to that body, as it looks me and I do not."

"Is it you?" Applejack asked. "Or are you you?"

"I don't like what you're asking. Are you still Applejack? You sure don't look like her. You might not even have the same brain patterns as 'Applejack'. What would I have to change about you until you stopped being Applejack? " Twilight said. "Let's cut the arguing off at the pass. You are Applejack. Nopony should dispute that. However, you are Applejack, and more."

"So are you Twilight and more?"

"I am." Twilight said.

"And that body. Is that Twilight and less? Twilight and nothing?"

"We might not know for a long time. I can't tell the extent of what Princess Celestia did to it, save that it feels like me in there." The black alicorn shivered. "It's like looking into a mirror. It shouldn't be possible. It is a more perfect reflection than that shapeshifter could ever manage."

"If you say so." Applejack shrugged. She felt a tingle race up her spine and evil thoughts sprang to her tongue. "There's a solution to your quandary."

"I can't kill it." Twilight said quietly.

"Why not?"

"Because its an innocent being, I think. Because its Princess Celestia's last act and creation." Twilight leaned forward. "Because its me."

"You might be making a mistake, especially if you want to return to normal. There is a solution right in front of your face."

Twilight shook her head. "There are other solutions out there. I'm sure of it. Princess Celestia sat on the secret of Nightmare Moon, the alicorns, and the Dark for thousands of years. There has to be more out there I can find to explain what's happened. After that, I can start rebuilding my life. After that I find ways to repair what losing Celestia will do to the country." She sighed. "I hope."

"Sounds like a lot for one pony."

"Nothing like what I have faced so far. Two alicorns died as their secret unfurled. There aren't any more to sacrifice."

"You sure?" Applejack arched a brow. "Looked in a mirror lately?"

Twilight's mood darkened again. "I said that I have, yes. I saw what I saw and what I didn't see too. Don't think I don't realize what my appearance implies. If I go back to normal I'll bury this body, and then the memories of the suffering that's happened here. I'm not an alicorn."

"I more meant the moon princess. Ponies used to think Celestia and Cadenza were the last alicorns, but another one shows up. Could more be hiding?"

Twilight thought about this for a moment. "If there are... I'm not going to let them cause this much suffering. Even if I have to block their way. Even if I must fight them."

---

Some hours later Applejack returned from the edge of the forest with some logs and kindling to revive the fire. Twilight was nowhere to be seen.

"Twilight?" Applejack asked herself. Her ear twitched at a shuffle from deeper in the ruin. The black alicorn emerging from the shadow made her fear flutter with fear for a second. "Hey. What do you have there?"

Twilight carried a familiar bundle of dark blue fabric. "The tapestry I bound to Rarity." She said, trotting over to the aforementioned unicorn. Seeing Rarity, a juxtaposition of sleeping innocence and nightmarish beauty, and knowing she was 'dead' filled Applejack with conflicted feelings. She felt no pony deserved to lose their sister, perhaps more than no pony deserved to die. "I need to make sure she's stable before I leave."

"Leave?" Applejack dropped the wood by the fire and began rebuilding it. "Going looking for 'answers'?"

"You don't need to say it like that." Twilight said dourly. "The more I think about it, the more I'm sure there's assuredly an answer for all this out there. It's how I'm going to return us all to normal."

Applejack poked at the fire. "You can't stomach the idea that this is meaningless?" Se tilted her head back to look at the deep dark sky past the moon. "You think those stars care that we're sad? You could run away from it all, ya know."

Twilight stood over Rarity for a moment, horn glowing. When she was sure everything was okay, she stepped back. "I refuse to subscribe to that nightmare nihilism. Even you don't really think its pointless, even with your corruption. You care about your sister, don't you?"

Applejack felt a surge of anger. She ground her teeth a bit. "You better stay away from her, Twilight. Lay a hoof on her and Spike-" She interrupted herself as a surge of guilt washed over her. "I- I'm sorry. I wasn't thinkin. Spike-"

"I'm not afraid for Spike, wherever he may be." Twilight said evenly, expression betraying nothing. "The changeling hiding him only means he won't be here to see what's happened to us."

Applejack sighed and rubbed her eyes. So, the pretense to nihilism hadn't lasted long after all. Twilight was right: She cared about family, honesty, and safety, more than nightmarish flashes of hatred could take away. "How am I gunna survive this night if my first reaction is to threaten somepony's family? Please, before you go, just tell me how to deal with this."

"I don't know. Be honest I guess, not with me necessarily, but with yourself. The nightmare isn't alone up there." Twilight said. "Ask yourself what led you here? What does the nightmare want from all of us?"

Applejack sighed. "To dominate."

"The nightmare is, I think, more than a parasite. It is what the Dark makes of ponies." Twilight shifted on her hooves. "It's about taking from others. In a metaphysical sense its... Like a hole that consumes and lashes out at the same time."

"Sounds like a spoiled filly." Applejack grunted.

"Sounds like an animal." Twilight countered.
She picked up the folded blue tapestry and unfurled it, letting the meters of cloth unfold to reveal the blue crescent moon, a match to the mark emblazoned on the dark alicorn's flank. "But even animals care about family. The nightmare thinks it can dominate what we care about and control us that way."

"Shameful that its almost working on me." Applejack said dourly.

"But we're more than animals. Even if the world around us is savage, it was purposeful moves that led us here."

Applejack shook her head. "Now its my turn to school you, Twilight. You know there's no point to what happened here. It was just chance by what you admit is a savage world. It doesn't care about you."

"But it cares about your weakness." Twilight gripped the tapestry tighter, her brow furrowing. She looked around to the sleeping nightmare ponies and fillies. "Are you too weak to keep them safe?"

"Don't talk to me like that. I won't fail anymore against my nightmare." Applejack said simply. "I promise."

Twilight and Applejack stared at each other for a few moments, until with a small motion Twilight draped the tapestry over her back. It was large enough go from her wither and drape off her flank like a cape. Twilight tied its ends around her neck. "You won't be able to kill Rarity as long as I have this. Keep that in mind."

"I will." Applejack returned to poking at the fire.

Twilight stepped out of the light of the fire. After a few moments, she teleported away.

---

Time passed, but the moon never changed its position. If one watched long enough, it seemed perhaps to sway back and forth in the sky over a period of hours. Did it want something?

"Hello?" Applejack called to the moon.

"Ergg..." A groan from across the fire came.
The nightmare pegasus, Dash, had awoken. She fluttered her wings and sat up. She looked around, between Applejack, the fire, and the other ponies. "I passed out..."

Applejack waited to see if the pegasus would be violent. She certainly felt the urge herself.

"Hmm." Dash scanned the darkness of the trees and the ruins. "Twilight. Did she die?"

"No. Her ritual worked. She successfully moved herself into Nightmare Moon's body." Applejack said. "It's a right sight, a little mare's mind in a princess's body. It's not right."

"And where did the princess go?"

Applejack knew she was joking but let herself be annoyed anyway. “Twilight’s not a princess.”

Dash smirked. “Okay wiseass, where’d the princess body go, which happens to be piloted by Twilight?”

“To find something. I figure she’s going for a library, either Ponyville’s or Canterlot’s.”

Dash scooted closer to the fire. It was getting colder. "How long ago? Think I could catch up to her?"

"Probably not. She has her senses back and she's teleporting around. She probably wants to be alone now anyway."

Dash scowled. "You let her just leave? What are you, an idiot?! She has the body of an alicorn, which she got with our help, and ran away! We're never going to see her again, until possibly she comes back and kills us."

"If you thought she would do that, why did you agree to helping us with the ritual?"

"Because if she managed to turn us back to normal it means we wouldn't be a threat, and therefore safe from her." Dash said, as though it should have been obvious. "You fool. You should have knocked her out until one of us woke up."

Applejack shrugged nonchalantly. "I think you should tone it down. She's not going to betray us."

"What makes you say that?" Dash demanded.

"She's still a pony." Applejack said. "A pony wracked by guilt. It won't occur to her not to help us."

Dash scrunched her nose. "I don't buy it. Though..." She eyed Applejack. "Guilt controls ponies in funny ways."

Applejack's eyes flashed with anger. "You better keep your trap shut, mis."

"Hey, relax, its just from what I remember from the Tower." Dash assuaged. "Hints, feelings, nothing else. I wasn't even sure if they were yours or Rarity's until you got defensive about them."

Applejack bared her teeth. "I said shut your trap."

Dash, feeling smug, settled down silently. She lay down and set her head on her folded hooves, just staring into the fire.
But Applejack remained fuming, quelling urges to get up and hit the mare. She didn't like that Dash had her figured out.

Guilt. Applejack's heart throbbed as she tried to push the heavy thoughts out of her head. Her brother so long ago now, then Rarity, and now her sister... She couldn't deal with the fact that she didn't have enough self control. How long before her pig-headedness not just turned a pony against her, but got them killed? If she chose to believe everythhing that had happened was at least partially her fault, she had the blood of two princesses on her hooves, and whatever limbo state Rarity and Twilight were in.

She clenched her teeth and stood up.

Dash looked up. "Yeah?"

"I'm gunna punch you." Applejack said, her accent slipping in. "Get up."

Dash smirked. "I saw this coming from a mile away. You get mad easy and then those hooves see use." She cocked her head. "Go ahead and stomp me to death. You wouldn't have to worry about me anymore then."

"I have a right mind to." Applejack snarled. "Git. Up."

"Come on coward. Afraid of getting my brain in your fur?"

Applejack kicked with her foreleg, not hard, but Dash still jumped like a cat and zipped up atop the nearby ruins. "Coward!" Applejack shouted up to her.

"Like you aren't afraid! You're a chickenshit that hides behind violence!" Dash barked. "I've been in tough situations before. Tougher than this, almost."

"And what, you plan to hang around here and tough this out?" Applejack said. "Or do you want to die? I saw you on that Tower as well. Yeah, Maybe I've got problems, and maybe I lash out. Better than rolling over! At least I don't want to die, because my fear and anger protects ponies I love!"

"You're deluded. The ponies who died here could have beat you into the dust if they'd wanted or cared to." Dash scoffed. "Get over yourself. Forget your self-righteousness, and go sit down. You got your punch in."

Applejack stood still for a few moments, eyes locked with Dash, but ultimately turned away and trotted back to her place by the fire. "Tshh. I wasted it. I shoulda hit harder."

"Hey, you're getting some things right." Dash grinned. She hopped down to the ground. "We're all on the same page. That was one thing that nightmare on the Tower got right."

"You pegasi... Always trouble and attitude." Applejack muttered. "I dealt with plenty of you in Manehattan, aprentancing with the Orange Family. When it came to deal y'all could never stop looking for a way out at the last minute. Makes me angry just thinking about it. Bad faith dealers, the lot."

"Hey I'm with you on hating Manehattanites, because honestly, buck Manehattan." Dash said. "But if you want me to gyp you you'll have to get me drinking first."

"Yeah whatever." Applejack mumbled. "You know, I didn't let anypony get in my way, so I know its not personal in buisness. I've had plenty of ponies say my name in anger after I undercut them or poach their buyers. Heck, I've made some of my closest friends despise me over petty stuff like that. Heh heh..." She laughed mirthlessly. "I'll tell you, I was a model Manehattanite. I didn't let anypony stand in my way. I cut myself off from my emotions, and took no guff or disrespect."

"I can see that last part remains true." Dash remarked.

Applejack blinked. She had almost forgotten Dash was listening. "Y- Yeah. I'm a proud pony. Leaving that life behind was difficult. I treated ponies in my life here badly because I was treating them like other merchants and not like family. I... I made some mistakes. I was... reckless with my feelings."
Just thinking about it, she was beginning to feel that flame again, the self-directed anger that she could only let out through destructive means. But she needed to keep it in. Glancing to the sleeping foals gave her time to take a breath, and focus her attention on something before the hatred overcame her mind.

"That's rough." Dash said, somewhere between sympathetic and disinterested.

“What’d you do?” Applejack asked.

“Uh, what?” Dash didn’t understand.

“To get your burden, your deathwish. You seem like a smart pony, but you end up in Ponyville alone?” Applejack asked.

Dash flicked her tail. She stared into the fire. "I wasn't alone. Or, I thought I wasn't."

"How did it go wrong?"

"Lots of things."

"What did you do?"

“Killed things. Ponies, griffins, and changelings. It was my job.”

The changeling Chrysalis’s awful death at Twilight’s hooves had been the first death Applejack had seen, beyond what was a part of farm life. She guessed it was Rarity’s as well. This pegasus was apparently a league above them when it came to the weight of that particular sin.

"You've killed... multiple creatures?"

Dash shrugged, poking the fire with a stick. “It's not very special, unless you think about it. When I was a filly I caused an accident that killed and hurt a lot of ponies. Ever since then, I've been living a borrowed life. Somepony should have put me down, way back when I didn't understand and couldn't resist." Dash cleared her dry throat. "Letting me live has caused a lot of trouble for good creatures, but I'm not sure I regret being alive anymore, but I sure am getting tired of it. Is that good? Is that bad?"

"I couldn't say." Applejack said softly. “What is killing like?”

"It's just a motion, or lack of motion, heh. But you can get obsessed with it in different ways. I was afraid of it. For a long time I couldn't strike in anger when I needed to because I was terrified of crossing the boundary. Eventually, a month ago and far away, I did cross that line, and I just snapped. I didn't even understand what I was doing half the time because of how hard my mind was pushing me not to think about it." Dash shrugged. "But my friend... She reveled in death. She began to love it more than she loved anything, even me. But she was made for it, so I don't blame her... Still..." Dash licked her lips. "It was almost fun, in its own way, swashbuckling across the east. Me drugged out of my mind, and her bathing in blood. You just don't think about it, you know. To stay sane you don't think about what you're doing."
Dash quickly reacted to Applejack’s horrified expression. "What we did was justified. Kinda. Bad creatures with intentions worse than ours were after us. We were the good guys by comparison."

"By comparison." Applejack repeated back, sharper. "Did you hurt innocents?"

Dash looked away. "I don't know. I don't remember." She looked back up. "But I can tell you that we fought a changeling queen. Yes, the dead one in the throne room."

"Is that how you recognized each other?" Applejack brooded over the obscene coincidence. "Was she and you both drawn here perhaps? By the altar?"

"Who knows. In Chitin, we were both after the same thing: A magic amulet thing that dates back to ancient ponykind. My side beat hers and we thrashed her hive. I thought she was dead, but I guess she came here." Dash said. "Me and my friend were supposed to meet a pony here, but by the time we got here..." Dash made a face. "There's a lot I don't remember. There's no use talking about it anymore."

"Whatever you'd like." Applejack said. The pegasus would have to chose when to reveal more, when she was more comfortable. Funny though, that she was now treating Dash as Twilight treated her. "Where's your friend or that amulet?"

"Same place: Not here. My friend got tired of my weakness and ditched me. She might come back for me." Dash smirked. "I want to know what she'd say now. If I worked towards it, I could become more powerful than her, and then who'd be laughing!"

"Your friend is more powerful than a nightmare?" Applejack arched a brow. "Humph, I doubt she was talking about physical strength anyhow."

Dash's suddenly angry look made Applejack fear she'd hit too close to the mark with that quip. But after a moment the pegasus calmed down. "I was weak. After what happened in the East, I just didn't know anything anymore: Who I was, what I was doing, what my future would be. At least I had her, I thought. Of course, she ditched me in Ponyville."
Dash cracked a smile. "I was at my lowest. It was starting to storm. I turned around and Twilight Sparkle was there watching me."

“Twilight? What?” Applejack wasn’t sure she had heard correctly.

“Yup. She gave me a helping hoof to get me off the ground, told me she’d be a friend, and then she hit me with a spell. Poof, I was at the Tower, staring up to infinity. After that point, I was a bit conflicted. I could either scream so hard I get an aneurysm and put myself out of my misery, or accept the evil I had become and let the nightmare consume my mind. You see what choice I made. What a coward I've been. I just want this to end but I can't manage to pull the trigger on myself."

Applejack sighed. “Stop talking like that."

"Eh?"

"Like you want to die. Maybe you do. But you know what? You haven't yet! That means your will to live is stronger." Applejack said with a scowl. '"Don't call it cowardice! Don't call it foolishness! Nopony's life can be thrown away so easily."

Dash looked at her like she was crazy. "Yes they can. I've done it."

Applejack clucked her tongue, ready to keep arguing, but just ended up sighing. What did she care if the silly pegasus went and rotted?

---

Sel Lech found himself in one of the least pleasant situations he could imagine: Trotting beside Blueblood through the streets of the Old Town.

"Naturally, these commoner fillies are just swooning for your attention. They'll do anything for you." Blueblood was explaining. "You have to be careful though. Those fillies hide daggers in their bonnet and I have been held at the point more than once when one of them misunderstood my flattery."

"I don't think calling them dirty peasant swine counts as flattery." Sel said flatly.

"Oh come off it lad. You think I'm unkind with the ladies? No ho no, I'm a model of chivalry." Blueblood chuckled. "Yes, I have been known to be honest regarding a mare's looks, but should I lie?"

Sel gave the prince a sidelong look. "Yes, Blueblood. You should lie. It's called being decent."

The streets of the Old Town ran into the castle gardens on their north side. Sel, Blueblood, and the two militiaponies with them found themselves on the little walking path around the garden lake. Sel found his eyes drawn to the other side, where he'd buried the mutilated remains of the Estates speakers and the city guard.

Blueblood cleared his throat awkwardly. "Let's double back and patrol around the guild hall again."

"Righto." Sel led the way back into town.

Over the course of an hour they wound their way to the southern edge of the Old Town, into the Inner City. The usual worrying sounds of that unfortunate place could still be heard despite the paralyzing night, though much quieter. The ponies peered out their windows with curiosity and concern.

"So... Sir Sel... What are your feelings on our situation, with the beast and all that?" Blueblood asked quietly.

"I think it's a true shame Lady Velvet has been vexed. I don't believe even she foresaw how, ahem, strange her creation would be. And the night..." He gestured to the moon. "Is something even stranger."

"But those ponies the alicorn changed, you saw how they were abused, yet still alive! A bullet in the head didn't phase them." Blueblood bit his lip. "It was an artless version of our late sod Molar: A manipulation of flesh into something utterly unponylike! I tell you young Sel, terror overcomes me to think of myself ending up that way."

"You did an admirable job in the face of that terror." Sel grunted.

They emerged into a plaza in front of a dilapidated temple. Several tramps and other commoners were huddled on the steps of the temple, discussing something fitfully.

"Hey." Sel Lech trotted over to them. "Is there a problem?"

The commoners, startled by the new voice, spun around to face him. They took in his city guard's captain uniform and froze, conflicted between their distaste for callous authority and their problem. "I- It's a monster, sir!" One of them said. "It took Jans!"

Sel frowned. Astral had apparently come to the Inner City too. "Can you describe it?"

"It wasn't a monster. It was a mare." One of the other ponies said. "A young unicorn. I got a look at her face. She appeared out of nowhere, grabbed Jans in her magic, and disappeared!"

What? Sel saw most of the other commoners nodding in agreement.

"A mare?" Blueblood said incredulously.

"With orange hair. She had this big cloak on. We tried to push her away from Jans but she threw us back with our magic like it was nothing." Another said. He looked at Sel accusingly. "Where are the city guard? I haven't seen a patrol pony on the streets all night!"

"I don't know if you've noticed, mis, but it's been night for nigh five hours past when the sun should have risen." Sel said. "The city guard is in their barracks and homes, pending review of their behavior as an institution. A guard contingent attempted a revolt and killed the Estates speakers."

The commoner crowd looked between each other, confused and uncertain.

Sel continued. "Which is why volunteers and guard reservists are patrolling right now to keep the peace. I warn you now, go to your homes to prevent trouble. We're cracking down on ponies who would take advantage of the crisis."

"Most of us are homeless sir." A pony said. "And its getting colder... What are we supposed to do?"

Blueblood adopted the expression like he was about to say something thoughtlessly offensive, so Sel cut in. "The Canterlot Castle is empty while we investigate the revolt. You may shelter in the ground floor.

"Sel!" Blueblood exclaimed. "You're going to let these dirty tramps in the castle?"

"They let you in." Sel snarked, then turned back to the crowd. "I warn you though, stay incognito and stay on the ground floor. I can not say what would happen to you if you are caught." His frown deepened. "Now disperse. You don't want to be caught out if the orange mare or worse gets a hold of you."

"T- Thank you sir!" The commoners said, withdrawing from Sel and dispersing quickly before he rethought his generosity.

"Sir Sel." Blueblood growled. "You just invited vagabonds into the masters house. You should know better."

"If they stay on the street they will fall prey to Astral or other devils."

"Good!"

"Have a heart you fool. Do you actually think the cruel fate you fear is fitting for innocent commoners, poor though they may be?"

Blueblood pretended to think about it. "Actually yes. I do."

"Then think of it this way: When word spreads, all the troublemaking homeless will congregate at the palace. With them all in one place, we can keep an eye on them and keep them out of trouble."

Blueblood hummed. "That is a fair idea indeed. Should we head there now with a few clubs?"

Sel narrowed his gaze. "Listen here, Lord Blueblood. If you head to the castle intending to cause trouble before this bitter night is over, you shall have trouble with me." He poked Blueblood in the chest with his hoof. "You have never given a damn about commoners and it's better for them that it stays that way. Do you think Lady Velvet's work is just for the sake of the nobles or ideology? It's about helping all ponykind, including, and perhaps especially, the vulnerable."

"They are going to freeze and starve no matter what. What has changed that I should start caring about the paupers' wellbeing, when they refuse to stop being poor?" Blueblood gestured to the pair militia ponies watching them silently. "They should take initiative and join us like our decent friends here have."

Sel frowned deeply. "You have no idea what repeated failure and abuse does to a pony and their sense of motivation and trust."

"I suppose I don't." Blueblood sniffed.

"Then broadly, we can agree that you will leave the populace to me. I'm the guard captain here, not you. When a inbred old blood crosses our path, then you may speak. That has, after all, been your preferred company!" Sel turned away and waved for the militiaponies to follow him.

Blueblood blinked, but was soon on Sel's heels again. He said nothing, but there was a clear look in Blueblood's eye, like if he ever had the opportunity he would seize one of the arquebuses and turn it on the young noble.

---

The fire was beginning to die again. Without the movement of the sun or a watch, Applejack had to guess that it had been about an hour since Rainbow Dash awoke. The pegasus had wandered off out of boredom and come back a few times already, and was starting to look like she would go again.

"Hey." Applejack said. "Could you get some wood? Has to be dry, from low branches."

Dash rose silently and stole out towards the forest. She returned with some branches, wet from the rain, and a sharp rock. She set them down by the fire.

"No offense sugar, but this is the opposite of what I said."

"Watch and learn." Dash picked up the rock, set a branch on its end, and split it in half with a swift strike. Then she halved the halves, until she had a bundle of dry shivers. She began placing them on the fire.

"Well I'll be." Applejack watched Dash repeat the process. "As indecent as it is to say, I was at peace with the idea of you laying around and not contributing."

Dash set the rock down. "Yeah?" She looked around. "Planning on keeping everypony else alive?"

Applejack blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I'm asking what we do about the others. Rarity, and that sleeping purple pony in the throne room. Should we kill 'em?"

"You can't just kill ponies in their sleep! Rarity is a sister and a daughter. She doesn't deserve death." Applejack said. By what Twilight said said, Rarity did die. Applejack wasn't sure how that worked so she would just as soon operate as though Rarity was a normal nightmare pony, and not an un-dead one. Though, by what vicious urges kept bubbling up to her mind, even that was not so gentle.

Dash didn't look content either. "And Twilight's body, and the thing that lives inside it?"

“No.” Applejack grimaced. “That’s awful. Twilight said it ain’t a nightmare any more. She can’t threaten us, so there’s no reason. I’ll defend myself, but I'm not gunna start killing sleeping ponies.” She cleared her throat. "Besides its Twilight's call. It's her body."

"Is it?" Dash posed. "Huh, you've already talked to her about it, haven't you. She must have told you what she thinks happened to Forlorn."

"Well... no, she didn't." Applejack admitted.

Dash nodded. "But you suspect she knows, and she's hiding the truth."

"Don't put words in my mouth. I don't suspect anything."

"Think about it then. The 'ascended nightmare' disappears and a pony takes its place? She was kicking Celestia's ass, taking nuclear fire on the face like nothing, and then..." Dash clopped her hooves together, making Applejack jump. "Poof! Whatever Twilight and Celestia did, its maybe more dangerous than we can understand."

"I hear you say 'maybe' and I wave off your exaggeration."

"Do you have a better explanation cowpoke?" Dash challenged. "What happened to Forlorn Spark, and why are there now two twilights?"

Applejack sighed. "So you think something strange happened."

"I'm not saying it like that, no, I'm saying some real bullshit went down." Dash grunted. "And that purple body hides the secret. We will never know, unless we put a bit of pressure on Twilight."

"Says the mare who cowered from a little nudge?" Applejack said. "You need to cool it. You're raring to fight with Twilight when we're not recovered from the last fight. Actually, threatening Rarity tells me you're looking for anykind of fight at all."

"You're a tough mare." Dash remarked.

"And I'm not your friend. You won't get me to do your violence, Mis Dash. If you want to hurt somepony do it yourself. Or not at all."

Dash stretched her legs and laid her head down. "I'll work my way around to it. There is going to be another fight eventually, no doubt about it... You're going to want to punch me again eventually, and next time you won't want to stop." She eyed Rarity. "And you're going to realize the same about her too. And Twilight."

Applejack stared over the fire in silence. Finally she shook her head. "You're not going to get a rise out of me, Mis Dash."

"I don't want to, but I know you won't withstand it for long. I hear it too." Dash tapped the side of her head. "The urge, eh?"

Applejack scowled. "I already had this conversation, much more in depth, with Twilight."

"But you know she doesn't really understand. She had a nightmare queen, while we suffer with nightmare proles. Her 'curse' was about unintelligible ideology, ours with service to it."

Applejack was silent to that point.

"Now Forlorn is dead. What's the prole nightmare in you say now, huh? Because I hear hard, unfortunate truth. You, me, Rarity, Twilight... We're above the entire world right now. The alicorns, Forlorn Spark, they're dead and we're alive." Dash laughed. "You have a chance, for once in your miserable life, to be on top. You have the strength to finally punch down on a world that mistreated you. The world turned upside-down! Come on Applejack, that world is so close, and all you have to do is get through us. I'm not the only one telling you to act on it."

"You know you're toeing the same line as the nightmare, and you'll still say it?"

Dash grunted noncommittally. "I'm just putting words to a feeling, cowpoke." She frowned a bit. "Like I said, I'm working up to it."

Applejack scoffed softly. "You're clutching at irony because you're disappointed in reality."

"Well, find a reality where I'm not a bucking murderer, and I'll be cheerfully optimistic about it." Dash's lip curled. "If you don't like what I'm saying, listen to your nightmare and kill me."

Applejack declined to talk to the pegasus any more. " 'All for ourselves, and nothing for others.' " She recited the Manehattan saying to herself. " 'In every age of the world, it's been the vile maxim of the masters of ponykind.' " She sighed. She did somewhat want to fight Dash, if only to make her shut up.

The campfire snapped, starling both ponies. They stared at each other for a long while, before Dash began to snicker. "This is too rich. We're two scared girls acting tough."

"Speak for yourself." Applejack grumbled, but she agreed fully.

There was another crackle from the fire, and this time Applejack realized the sound was not coming from the fire. Rarity's sleeping body was beginning to glow with a deep purple light, black smoke coming off her fur.
Applejack and Dash both jumped up.

"W- What's happening? What do we do?!" Dash babbled.

"Dang it! Go get Twilight! Maybe she's still in Ponyville!" Applejack exclaimed. She took a step closed to Rarity. "No wait... Hold on a tick!"

Rarity was completely encapsulated in the black smoke, turning her prone profile into a hazy smudge on the cracked stone. There was an etherial hum in the air.
Suddenly, the smoke evaporated away

"Huh." Dash blinked. "She's back to normal."

Applejack could confirm, the prone pony on the ground was now a pony, un-transformed, the Rarity that had walked the streets of Ponyville. "How about that. How about that." She rubbed her chin. The nightmare curse could be dispelled, it seemed. Only, Applejack prayed she didn't have to die like Rarity or Twilight had.

---

A distant bell was ringing. A quick, sharp bell.
Twilight recognized it as the kind of little watch bell that airships used to signal time. She shifted on her hooves, rustling the brushes she was crouched in. She had just emerged from the Everfree and was now across the river from Ponyville, next to the stone bridge, but concealing her considerable frame in the long grass and shrubs.

"Who are these ponies?" She asked herself.
Unicorns, adorned from horn to hoof in steel plate armor, were patrolling the streets of Ponyville. They moved cautiously, silently, inspecting every shadowy corner of the village. Either they were looking for something, or they were very concerned about somepony getting past without their knowing. Either way, with their heavy armor they were expecting trouble, which was not an illogical expectation considering the unending night.
"By their colors... Unicornia?" Twilight speculated to herself. She was surprised how good her dark vision was with her new eyes. She could almost distinguish the dynastic sigil. She had only meant to be in Ponyville a moment to make sure everything was okay and check over certain reading material, but she had to know more about the mysterious visitors.

When she was confident that none of the strange knights were looking her way, she silently teleported across the river behind one of the cottages. She peeked around the corner, watching the knights stop near the stone bridge.

"Still nothing." One of the knights said, his voice tinny through his helmet.

His companion pusher her visor up. "How many places can a little noblemare go?" She said, annoyed. "The forest?"

"That's what that witch-mare thinks." The first knight said. "Lord Lightdowser wants to go in."

"I hope me doesn't expect me to volunteer to go with him. Twilight Sparkle and some boondocks villagers aren't worth my hide." The second knight snorted. She pushed her visor back down. "Let's look along the river. Gods willing we find the bodies washed up on the bank."

"Oh..." Twilight watched them make their way south along the river. "A certain Lord Lightdowser is looking for me, Rarity, and Applejack." She teleported onto the roof of the cottage. Besides the duo heading away from her, there were no other knights in sight. The bell earlier had called most of them away.
Twilight wound up and jumped across to the adjacent cottage's roof, tearing up clumps of thatch with her hooves. She guessed the ponies below were not too pleased with the noise she was making. She went roof by roof, casting detection spells periodically, until she was on the north side of the village.
Her stomach lurched: Ponyville's small hospital was blown apart, everything above the first floor completely gone. In the fields beyond that was strewn the wreckage of an airship, and by the pearl white paint on the splintered hull planks, Twilight guessed it was Celestia's personal airship.

"Oh, yeah..." Twilight remembered the letter Celestia had sent her, alerting of her approach to Ponyville. "I guess that answers where her retinue stayed while she was in the forest."

Several more fields over, Twilight finally saw the source of the ringing bell she had heard earlier: Another airship, this one intact. Property of the Lord Lightdowser, she presumed. Knights were establishing a camp around the airship's landing site; If Twilight wanted to know more about the ponies looking for her, that was where she would have to investigate.

But after a minute of thought, she decided that it was not truly a problem worth getting sidetracked by.
"If they see me or enter the forest, then I will have to confront them. Otherwise, they can knock themselves out." Twilight muttered to herself.

She tugged at the cape on her back. There was an off-putting kind of warmth about the thing, and every time she spoke it exuded an aura back at her, like a sleeping animal objecting to an interloper. Rarity might wake up soon.
Rarity... Twilight had not been lying when she admitted her inexperience with necromancy and binding, but she was extensive versed in the magical theory behind it. Yet in Rarity's case, the interaction of soul, body, nightmare, and other forces was just too complex to speculate about. Twilight just knew keeping the binding safe from damage, so as to preserve Rarity's soul, would be her responsibility forever. Forever, past when (if) she ever found a cure to the nightmarish and returned to her natural form. The idea of forever was daunting, perhaps more daunting even than death.

Some myths said that before mortality was invented, the gods would hide in objects and see how much abuse they would take before they were destroyed. Twilight wasn't sure if that was allegorical to necromancy or something else...

Twilight jumped down from the rooftops, her landing on the disheveled pavers creating sharp clinks from her metal horseshoes. She skulked toward the Golden Oak, looking around at the silent village. The storm had disturbed and damaged some of the cottages, but nothing too bad: Had the ponyvillians not been hiding in their homes most of it would have been fixed already.
Could the sense of fear and paranoia she detected in the air be fixed too? She tasted distrust and thoughtless anger. The Ponyvillians were afraid of the prolonged night. Here and there, surprisingly, she detected expectant caution, as though some of the villagers were waiting for something to come of the night.

Twilight arrived at the Golden Oak. Some of its branches had been twisted by the storm but otherwise nothing seemed amiss. It was calm, subdued.

"I'm glad Rarity and Applejack didn't come and break everything." Twilight said to herself.
She passed through the unlocked front door, having to bow her head not to hit it on the top of the frame, and closed it behind her.

It was dark and still in the main room. Silver moonbeams pierced through the upper windows. Twilight zapped a candle into life and levitated to herself.

"What do I look for when I want to know the answers to everything?" Twilight asked herself. "What book in a backwoods library tells me of the deepest secrets of all time?"

The answer, of course, was none of them. Twilight went through every book twice over, but there was absolutely nothing about alicorns, and more upsettingly, no spell that would help her find Spike.
Twilight slumped, falling into the couch and rubbing her nose with the back of her hoof. Her horseshoe clinked off her helmet.

"I have to go to Canterlot then." Twilight said to herself, sighing.
What was going on in Canterlot? She could only guess about what political madness was going on in Celestia's absence, but hopefully Fancy Pants and Shining Armor, as well as other responsible imperial officials, had keep things under control. If she arived and told them of Celestia's demise, it would throw things into anarchy. If she went to Canterlot with the intention of telling the truth, she would have to lay a lot of groundwork first.
"So I... I have to lie this time. I have to hurry, for Spike's sake."

She ambled up the stairs to the bedroom. She pulled a little clasp out of the closet and secured the tapestry more securely around her neck.
She turned to the mirror, gasping despite herself. The creature looking back at her was terrifying and beautiful. Twilight leaned forward locking eyes with the black monster on the other side of the silvered glass.

"My eyes..." Twilight pulled her eyelids back and admired the cyan deepness of her slitted eyes. "My mane..." She passed a hoof through the vibrant blue hair, streaked with subtle purple, that cascaded around her head. "It was much more alive when it was Nightmare Moon's..." There was no better proof that she was just a parasite in Moon's body, it was that. She could never compare with the alicorns.

She was almost tempted to stand in front of the mirror all night, combing down the countless tufts of fur that stood up in defiance of the black smoothness of her coat. Nightmare Moon deserved to be witnessed as flawless as possible.

"Moon... Why did you die and I got to live?" Twilight fought back tears, remembering the black figure she had sat beside on the grey lunar expanses.

Sighing deeply, Twilight stepped back from the mirror, and almost tripped over a little stack of books didn't expect to be there.
"Huh?" She blinked.
It was Foaly Flux's package from the week before, spell books of ghastly torture and destruction.

Twilight felt the urge to kick out in revulsion, wishing she could unread those wretched tomes and the cruel things in them. But she stopped herself. The books were ostensibly from the imperial library, if she was going that way she should take them back home.

"Goodness gracious." Twilight slumped to the floor and sat against her bed. "I wish I had time to sleep..." Her eyes began to droop.

Flashes of fire danced across her mind. She saw the arrogance of a smiling white alicorn. 'Time', it cackled softly, beckoning Twilight forward. 'If you follow your Destiny, you shall have all the time in THE WORLD'.

Twilight opened her eyes. Moonlight from the window behind her over the bed let streaming moonlight course over her, declaring her in profile on the bedroom floor. For the first time that night, Twilight wondered if it wasn't so bad that it was not the sun that had decided to hang eternal over Equestria.

"Enough stalling." Twilight growled to herself, getting up. "Time to head to Canterlot, and whatever's waiting for me there. Time to go home." She pulled a saddlebag out of her closet. It didn't fit around her barrel well, but it did fit. In fact she could fit two of the unicorn sized saddlebags on, and have just enough room for all the books she wanted to take.
As she began putting the tomes in the bag, she flipped one open idly.

"huh" Her eyes roamed over the detailed graphics of ponies with their chest cavities opened, labels pointing to the various organs and how much pain prodding them caused. One image reminded her of what her body had looked like after Forlorn Spark had erupted out of it.
She shivered, yet chuckled despite herself. "Geez, I'm developing a bit of gallows humor." She put the book in the pack, to pick up and open the next one. This one had page of spells about causing fatal air bubbles in a victim's blood. "Oh this is just awful." Her revulsion came back, so she packed all the rest of the books without comment, save the last. "Wait... What is this? Elements of Harmony? Strange name... I thought I saw a copy of this downstairs." She looked at the tome's spine. "Volume III of VI, Joy and Laughter. Weird."

She didn't know why, but Twilight was struck by the notion of leaving the book in Ponyville. She trotted back to the main room, scanning by candlelight for where she remembered seeing another copy of Elements of Harmony.

"Drat. What organizational system did I have reference material in?" She asked herself. "It wouldn't be under E, would it?"

It was under E. Twilight read down the spine. Volume II of VI, Loyalty and Devotion. Twilight pulled a book out to make room for volume III by volume II. It pleased yet rankled her to have an incomplete set.

"Elements of Harmony... Hmph. When I get you together I promise to read you." Twilight smiled tightly.

She looked down at the book she'd had to remove to make the room. Elemental (as in basic) Travel Magic. Twilight almost laughed out loud at the ridiculous parenthetical. Travel magic though, sounded extremely pertinent and useful.

She opened up to one of the first pages. “..." She blinked. Less than ten seconds it had surprised her with something she had never seen before. "Cloud Walking Spell? ... What?!"

---

High above the navigation cloud Spitfire and her Wonderbolts rested on, Cloudsdale loomed.

The lowest levels of the city, the Stratus District, was Cloudsdale’s equivalent to a harbor. Trade airships and the city’s active fleet docked there, overseen by the cloudborn warehouses and the Cloudsdale Admiralty. Silent now in the dark, the airships bobbed silently under the moonlight overseen by nightwatches.
Above that was the Cumulus District, the abode of the well-to-do. Pleasant craftspony shops and the local branch of the Artist and Musician’s Guild also shared this tier. Little pinpoints of light from street lamps and windows made the district look like an illuminated hearth tree .
Higher still was the Cirrus District, home to the great Cloudsdale Weather Factory. While the massive climate creation facility dominated the level, other factories had recently sprung up as well to sooth the city’s thirst for manufactured goods, something that was imported in great amounts. Even at night, the great cloud-forges and manufactories churned, albeit at a reduced rate, in optimistic expectation of the sun returning and trade resuming.
And lastly the Nimbus District, the largest both vertically and horizontally, wound from the highest to lowest parts of the city, like the branch connecting the leaves. Most of Cloudsdale’s population lived here, a life more luxurious than peasants or commoners in most Equestrian cities, but one not without its hardships. Cloudhomes were packed both vertically and horizontally, and streets were always shifting around making navigation difficult. The district was dark, unlit, like a shawl around the city trying to ignore the night.

Spitfire searched the dark Nimbus district, but it was too far and too dark to pick anything out. Her family home had been parked somewhere in Nimbus when the Wonderbolts had left for Canterlot, but there was no assurance it was there still.

Cloudsdale... What a town, thought Spitfire. It was her home, but she felt more irked by the city's problems every day.
Cloudsdale was in the grip of a deepening recession. Imported food from the Dneighper and Crystal River Valleys had undercut local production to the point that the unproductive local farms were no longer competitive. The city’s poor, used to seasonal work in the farms, was suddenly without a needed source of income. Everything spiraled downhill from there, as ponies moved to greener pastures and merchants and shopkeepers lost their clientele. The only thing keeping the city alive was the airship base, and the slowly growing manufacturing sector.
With desperation and despondence came extremism. Cloudsdale was a hive of Anarchists and radicals, which the ruling body of the city and Imperial Fleet both, the Admiralty, used as an excuse to crush the new worker-rights movements. Strikes, riots, and sabotage where not uncommon. Airfleet Naval Intelligence, Equestria's best spy agency, became a tool against agitators and dissidents. Cloudsdale, pegasi kind's shining beacon in the sky, was a fearful place with fire bombs on one side and batons on the other.

Spitfire curled her hoof. How many protests had she been involved in breaking up? It seemed like that was the Airfleet did more than anything recently. In a way, facing a real and awful threat like a demon was a welcome break.
She clenched her teeth. No... It was okay to revile both.

"Captain! Somepony's coming!" One of the Wonderbolts cried out, pointing up to the city.

Spitfire was expecting a pilot or courier to update them or usher them into the city, but instead a grey-uniformed intelligence agent and a gendarme landed on the navigation cloud.
"Captain Spitfire." The agent didn't need to ask for identities. "We appreciate you waiting while the Admiralty reviews everything. Your information has been helpful."

"No problem pal." Spitfire said icily. "If little written testimonies help that much, let us come up and give our depositions in person."

The agent laughed at the non-joke. "You don't need me to tell you things have been precarious."

"You're right, I don't."

"Right now, Cloudsdale doesn't need ponies coming in, spouting off wild nonsense about coups, rituals, and monsters." The agent continued. "Before you enter the city, you are going to have to understand that."

"Nonsense?! You have no idea what you're dealing with!" Spitfire shouted. "Go knock on the door of Canterlot Castle if you don't believe me."

The agent reached into his uniform and pulled out a letter. "Don't get your pinions in a twist. We have corroborating witnesses." The agent's smile tightened, as he pulled the letter back just as Spitfire reached for it. "Which, while it keeps this squadron out of a court for false statements, does raise serious questions about your leadership and this 'elite' unit's effectiveness." He held out the letter again, letting Spitfire take it. "Welcome back to Cloudsdale, Captain."

"Bite me." Spitfire snarled. The Wonderbolts watched the agent and the gendarme launch off the cloud, to lazily fly up to shrouded Clousdale. "Bucking naval intelligence bunch of motherbuckers." She muttered.
Spitfire unfolded the letter tensely. She hadn’t gotten past the first line before she crunched it slightly with a jolt of surprise.

"Captain?" Soarin ventured.

"Rain Gnash and Fleet. They're alive." Spitfire said. "Alive, in the city, and ready to see us."

---

There were no windows in the dark, cluttered Chateau la Garde library, but Shining Armor could feel the churning in the skies above Canterlot by the sounds and emotion echoing up from the ponies below. There was awe, panic, and despondence.

"We need to finish here." He said quietly. "If we fail to set out for too much longer, I might as well march up to Canterlot Castle and throw myself at my mothers hooves."

"If you need to calm the knights, I will continue." Fancy Pants grunted, looking up from the records he was reading.

Shining Armor pushed back from the writing desk and stood up. Looking around the library, he saw the stack of books, notes, and records they had gone through. There were quite possibly a years worth of sordid reading in the cramped library, and they had gone through so little. What secrets hid among the rest? If there was a clear, succinct answer to Twilight Velvet's pathology and decisions, it was hidden among the mountain of paper and binding.

"No. No continuing. Wrap it up here." Shining said gravely. "We have to leave now."

Fancy Pants blinked in surprise. "Are you sure?"

"That monk Manered confirmed for me that we either leave now, or never." Shining said, pointing to the monk resting silently in the corner. "The knights's fear is valid. More than valid. A few more minutes of preparation is far outweighed by the danger."

Manered perked up at his mention. " Have you sirs finally decided to stop ignoring the signs..." He said with an air of desperation. "and leave while you still can?"

Fancy Pants was skeptical however. "You are being paranoid. Lad Velvet has shown no interest in stopping us."

"But her creation might." Manered said. "Do you wish to die again, Sir Pants?"

Fancy Pants drew his mustached lips into a tight frown. "It... would be wrong of me to risk ponies' lives for my assumptions." He set the records down. "You may have to comfort me, Sir Armor. Every anxiety is welling up in my for the thought of leaving my beloved Canterlot, yet I know it must be done."

Shining Armor nibbled his lip. He didn't want to admit to himself that he felt the same way. If he had an sense the IHG should be in the hills already, far away from the madness of Velvet and whatever was going on in the throne room.
He let out a soft sigh, cleared his throat, and assumed a commanding demeanor. "Then smother your anxiety, sir, in adherence to obligation. I order you to go downstairs and announce our IMMEDIATE departure. Any supplies and ponies unready are left behind."

Fancy Pants blinked. "Left behind?"

"They may gallop, if they wish to catch up." Shining said. "You two, Brother Manered. Get thee downstairs and onto a wagon."

Manered silently obeyed, tucking a few scrolls and darting into the stairwell. Fancy Pants, after a few seconds of consideration, followed.
A minute later, a great ruckus carried up from the outside. The knights of the guard had been given the order, and amongst eagerness, relief, and stress, they rushed to make ready.

Shining Armor stood amongst the dark library. He pondered destroying the room, and erasing the sordid secrets of his family and their project. Ponykind would be better for the complete obliteration of the real legacy of the House Twilight.

"I... I can't. I can't" Shining berated himself. "This is part of me."
He looked around, trying to find his mothers dainty maid. She was where she had been for the last hours, by a sconce, watching silently. Shining struggled to remember the young maids name, and ultimately could not. "I can't destroy it. My heritage will never be forgotten, no matter what I do."

"Such is the nature of blood." The young maid said quietly.

"Will I ever need this place again?" Shining asked. He realized how idiotic it was to ask such a question. "Will ponykind need it? "

"That would depend on yours, and ponykind's, path." The maid said. She gestured subtly to the saddlebag placed against the side of the desk. "You're a panicked animal right now. Your path is nowhere but away."

Shining felt stung by the assessment. "is there somewhere else I should be going?"

"No, sir. Many ponies achieve success by indulging their inner animal."

Now Shining was starting to feel patronized and stupid. What could a humble commoner, whose rapport came from serving to Velvet's mundane needs, tell him about true needs and meanings.
"Yes... Well I suppose manipulating those indulgences is a method of a successful pony." Despite his better judgement he trotted to the saddle bag and picked it up. It was bulging with books that he did not remember filling it with. "And perhaps, When I come back, I shall be doing more of that."

"Perhaps, sir." The maid bowed.

Shining smiled lopsidedly. "And mommy will love me again." He trotted to the stairwell. "Say farewell to my father for me."

Within minutes, the churning of gears echoed through Chateau la Garde as Canterlot's main gate opened. Ponies, knights, their families, and others charged out of the city as if mad or in a race, to escape the moon rising behind them. Shining Armor, ushering his newfound followers through paused before he himself passed through the gate. He looked back, to Canterlot Castle silhouetted behind that looming grey orb, and saw an alicorn-sized figure dart into the sky.
His heart sinking, Shining too passed through the gate. It slammed down behind him, shaking the whole plateau. He felt eyes on his back as he went, as if judged for his cowardly flight: The moon, the monster, and the maid watched and laughed as Shining Armor drove those faithful to Celestia's legacy south.

...

Shining's eyes opened. He felt the wagon bounce and jiggle underneath him on the uneven road.
"Hey." He said scratchily. He cleared his throat and tried again. "HEY. Things still good up there?"

The ponies pulling the wagon shouted back affirmatives, so Shining sat up and looked around. He had chosen to rest on one of the near hundreds of wagons, most covered but his not, that were winding along the narrow mountain road southward.
Wagon trains were a relatively new phenomenon in Equestrian History, appearing only within the last few decades of the slow expansion south by settler ponies. Mutual assistance and mutual defense while they pushed forward towards a new frontier, too often not making it there.
Not making it there was a wracking concern for the ponies of this train, even if the there was no idea of destination or threat. Of fear, there was plenty. Shining's eyes gravitated up to the moon. It had risen and not come down, truly becoming the ceaseless watcher that his anxious mind in Canterlot had seen it as. 'Truly', in a metaphorical sense. While its presence was unnerving, Shining had no reason to believe that it was, in literal fact, scrutinizing the slow progress of the wagon train for some unknowable reason. Then again, he could not entirely disprove it.

Shining jumped off the wagon and trotted to the knights who had generously given him their wagon to rest on. For hours he had run from the front to the back of the train, checking up on everypony, reassuring the panicked or worried, and checking the way ahead. As the distance from Canterlot increased, Shining's twisting fear of being destroyed had decreased, but exhaustion and a kind of mounting horror of the utter depravity the ponies of the train increased. There was a kind of absurdity to the notion of a wagon trail within sight of Canterlot, or in fact stemming from the great city itself. Yet Shining Armor had drove the ponies onward, taking as much as they could carry with them in a bid to escape the insanity his old world had become, until he began stumbling over his own hooves and Fancy Pants ushered him onto a wagon to rest.

The number of IGH knights that had come with him: 180

The number of family that those ponies had brought with them: Roughly 400

The number of Canterlot Castle staff and other hangers-on that had joined Shining: 31

The number of pegasi named Flash Sentry, monks named Manered, and unicorns named Fancy Pants: 3

The number of Shining Armors: 1

The number of Mi Amore Cadenzas: 0

That last statistic had Shining in a melancholic mood. More than the apprehension and uncertainty that should have come with decided an entirely new destiny, he was angry at himself for abandoning a pony he cared about, leaving her to Twilight Velvet and her machinations.
It was an irking revelation to himself, that he had begun to think of her that way, not as mother, just ‘Twilight Velvet’. Shining wasn’t sure if he could trust anypony anymore or if anypony could trust him, if he had severed a deep familial relationship so badly. Had he been wrong to turn his back on his mother? Had she put him in an impossible position?
Perhaps it was for the best that Cadence had been left behind. The son of a creature like Twilight Velvet wasn't a safe bet.

Shining sighed, depressed at his own ruminations. Despite his doubts in himself he had ponies who relied on him, so they cared about him from a certain perspective. So he pushed down his reservations and began trotting the narrow space between the wagons and the precipice of the mountain road, beyond which was a hundred-hoof fall into the forested foothills.

The lack of sun made some things difficult to see, but kept the air cool. A cold winds on the feathery wings of clouds banks rolled from the south and west, refreshing for the cart-pullers but uncomfortable for everypony else. The moon's light pierced through the soft clouds like a foglight through mist.

Shining came up on one of the first wagons, where Fancy Pants was sitting cross-legged at the back of the bed, reading through a scroll.

"For shame sir, that you rest when mares and fillies walk." Shining chided playfully.

Fancy Pants looked up. "Ah, Sir Shining. Glad to see you up. You looked so wearied I thought it would be the next summer sun before you rose again." He smiled. "As for me, I make no excuses, expect perhaps that this atrophied leg came from an old mare or leper. It aches terribly after a while."

"When we reach civilization we will see about getting you a new one." Shining said.

"I hope so sir. I prided myself on my athleticism." Fancy Pants said.

Shining slipped past that wagon, to the very front of the train. Manered was walking beside the ponies yoked to the lead wagon, talking with them. The monk noticed Shining and stiffened. "Sir Armor."

"Hello." Shining said, matching his pace.

"Glad to see you well." Manered dipped his head.

"We haven't had much time to talk."

"That is true sir." Manered said evasively. "Would you like to? Now that being proactive has failed and the worst has some to pass, I would doubt the amount a noble knight would have to say to one such as I."

Shining pursed his lips. "You act as though you expect me to be angry with you."

"Shouldn't you be? You charged me with the task of explaining the sun's deviations. I failed in that regard." Manered said. "I wallow in ignorance. None of this makes sense to a pony of faith."

"Was this avoidable?"

Manered shrugged. "I don't know that either. But clearly I had my eyes turned to heaven, when I should have looked among ponies for the cause. It may not have been the Lady Velvet, but I suspect it was a mortal force."

"A mortal force? How can you be sure?"

Manered's lip curled. "The bolts of sunfire, striking down on something south, the direction Princess Celestia went. At first, just the one. Seeing it, it resonated to me like an executioners axe coming down." He grimaced. "But what our princess expected to squash persisted, past a whole salvo of fiery bolts. I fear it prowls still, while the princess lies defeated."

"I think every pony worries for the princess, considering." Shining motioned to the moon. "But I..."
He licked his lips. He was not ready to say he didn't care about Celestia, for despite her abandoning her responsibilities in Canterlot she was still his liege, worthy of a modicum of respect. Wasn't she? Wasn't she?
"I... hope she did not suffer." He cleared his throat. "Pardon me brother. I have to check on supplies."

Manered bowed his head again. "Sir."

Shining hesitated though. "Brother... Was Cadenza at Canterlot Castle? Was she safe."

Manered nibbled his lip, then sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't know what became of her. I don't think Lady Velvet got a hold of her, nor cared to. I wanted to help her, but-"

"That's enough thank you." Shining grunted. He stepped to the side of the path and let the wagon move past him.
He stayed there for a while, watching the train of wagons pass endlessly by. The IHG knights nodded and hailed him, while the commoners in their midst thanked him for his help. Was he really helping anypony, taking them away from their homes and comforts in Canterlot? How bad could the horrors his mother conjured really be for the average pony? Was he doing this for their sake, or were they doing it for his?

"Howdy sir!" A voice cut into his inner thoughts. Shining's gaze slid to Flash Sentry, the dopey junior pegasus knight. "Doing well?"

"Implacable, like all great leaders." Shining deadpanned.

"Glad to here it sir. This really is an amazing thing we're doing. Like pioneers, or the first migrants to Equestria!" Sentry giggled. "Oh, I almost forgot!" He turned around, so Shining could clearly see the saddlebag the pegasus carried was the same one from the library of Chateau la Garde. "When you went to rest I picked this up. I didn't read any of them I swear."

"That's..." Shining levitated the saddlebag to himself. The nondescript tomes packed inside menaced inexplicably in the moonlight. Shining felt the urge to heave the pack off the path down to the foothills, and let the bears have their pickings of the prime reading. "That's, um, very kind of you."

"Happy to help sir!" Flash Sentry saluted and resumed trotting alongside a wagon, quickly carried down the path.

Shining spent another minute of standing on the side of the path, holding on to the saddlebag.
It didn't matter what he thought, it occurred to him. As a leader, he was a proxy for his knights' thoughts and desires. Their journey was his journey.
He seated the bag on his back held his head up. He had ponies to help.

But during this bit of dramatic posing he caught a burst of purple light out of the very corner of his eye. He turned to look but realized it was much farther than it had seemed. At a distance of several kilometers, something was illuminating the tops of a cloudbank at regular intervals. The tiny bursts of light were progressing quickly north, towards Canterlot.

"A... navigation spell on an airship?" Shining wondered. It was going from the south, so he briefly humored the idea it was Celestia's airship. "No, it had a yellow light." With mixed feelings, he turned away and began on his walk.

How could he have even guessed, in his wildest imagination, that the light was his sister Twilight Sparkle, teleporting between clouds in the unkept sky.

Comments

[TyroidMary]

Glanced over your revised chapters. It went from barely tolerable to very good. Two thumbs up.
Now I'm wondering how your staying sane writing 10000 words in three days. How are you not dead?

[Xaldon Ajide]

Well that's insanely awesome of Twilight.

[SpiritDutch]

5209584 "I have not yet begun to write! "

[StormyVenture]

Err, much appreciated. :P

Interesting tidbit there on the headgear. I wasn't aware of that. You might consider including that link in the author notes in case it confuses anyone else. English is a bit strange I think, there are rules and exceptions to rules and also whatever the current way of writing is.

Another one:

Over a millennium ago in our fair land their came a great crisis.

The correct word here is 'there', not 'their'.

^ I'm assuming you actually understand the differences, but here's a reference that seems decent:
http://www.wikihow.com/Use-There,-Their-and-They%27re

You may want to find someone on here or elsewhere to do an editing pass across the whole thing if you didn't see the things I noted before.

[SpiritDutch]

As of 11-5 Now one of the 500 longest stories, but ranked 34K. Yay, long-windedness.
Now 11-11. Passed 200k words. 404th longest. Rated 36K somehow.