Tail: A Story of Time and Forgiveness

by NumberNine99

Choice and Uncertainty

CHOICE AND UNCERTAINTY

Some of the diamonds didn't hold complete memories; they lacked the tangibility. What they had instead was curt and unclear, absent of any real substance. It was just emotion with a brief flash of context.

He tapped a smaller diamond and felt a terrible rage. For a second he saw somepony—a foal—reading a book that had a purple and gold cover.

He touched a much larger diamond and saw a tall, white alicorn lying in a black box. Dread grabbed his heart with icy fingers.

As he continued to touch the incomplete diamonds, he wondered what they meant. Perhaps they were only phantoms? False remembrances or stories from a book? Yes, they must have been things like those. Things that hadn't happened to you; stories that you heard from your friends or read about in a newspaper. Things that might happen, but haven't yet.

Many of the diamonds were quite large, despite their contents' fragility. They must have weighed their owners down tremendously.

"For all your decisions to be colored by memories you don't really have," he mused. "It must make some choices very easy."

He touched another one of the bigger diamonds and saw a pony carrying a stethoscope and a clipboard. He felt like he was going to die.

"Then again, it could make some choices next to impossible."

---

Twilight knew she wasn't fit for any sort of company, let alone royalty. She hadn't showered, brushed her teeth, or even combed her mane. The only thing she had going for her was the ribbon in her hair, though she knew her mane looked better when it was let down. And yet, Prince Blueblood seemed far too concerned with his own appearance to notice anything other than himself.

"This is all very kind of you, Miss Sparkle," he said, trembling. "I've been craving a good cup of tea since I left Canterlot. I must look dreadful." With a flash of her horn, Twilight dropped a sugarcube into a cup of tea and set it down gently before him. He brought it to his lips and took a long drink, then ran a shaky hoof through his mane. It did seem like a few hairs were out-of-place.

"Don't worry about it, your grace." Twilight poured a cup for herself and sat down across from him. She began to chew the inside of her lip; the situation felt uncomfortably familiar. "So, you were saying that Princess Luna sent you here?"

"Sent me!? She practically shipped me!" Blueblood scowled and took a deep swig of tea. "Just as I've retired for the evening, she batters down my door, drags me out of bed, and tells me I have to go to Ponyville to accompany you and the other Spirits of Harmony on some sort of pilgrimage!"

That clinched it: Prince Blueblood was one of the guides. Twilight chewed her lip a little harder.

"It was a truly mortifying experience, let me tell you!" Blueblood continued. "I barely had time to pack half of what I would need before she teleported me off to the train station!"

"Uh-huh." Twilight looked past Blueblood and found at least five suitcases stacked on top of the guest bed.

"I mean no disrespect to her majesty, of course, but honestly." Blueblood downed the rest of his tea, then swiftly levitated the pot over to the table and refilled his cup. "I tried to get some sleep on the way over. Of course, the ride was simply tempestuous. I barely got in two hours before I arrived."

"Uh-huh."

Blueblood pulled the bowl of sugarcubes over to the table, plucked one out with a bit of magic, dropped it into his tea, and took a fragile sip. Twilight was chewing her lip so hard she could taste blood.

Tartarus was supposed to be a place where all the most evil creatures that had ever threatened Equestria were imprisoned. Blueblood took his tea with one sugar and had trouble sleeping on trains. He wasn't even properly equipped to enter Tartarus, let alone trek all the way to the bottom and back.

"Listen, your highness..." Twilight cast a sidelong glance at the bathroom. The door was still tightly shut, meaning Spike wouldn't be able to hear. "I received a letter from Princess Luna just before you got here. She told me you would be coming."

Blueblood scoffed. "Did she also tell you that when I requested a security detail, she grabbed the first Lunar Guardpony she could find and forced me to drag him along?"

"Not in so many words…" Twilight glanced around the room. "Where is he?"

"Where is who, Miss Sparkle?

"The guard." She leaned to the side and peered behind Blueblood. "I'm not sure if he's here. If he is, I can't see him."

Blueblood spun around in his chair and let out a fierce yell: "Oh, for heaven's sake, would you just stay visible!?"

A unicorn wearing a black suit of armor appeared a few feet away.

"What is wrong with you?" Blueblood asked, giving the guard a violent sneer. "Do you think that Twilight Sparkle is an assassin or something?"

"My apologies, your highness. It's just that, because of the changelings—"

"I don't want to hear about changelings right now!" Blueblood jabbed his hoof at the door. "Wait outside! You can defend me all you want from there."

"Understood." For a moment, Twilight thought she saw the guard's eye twitch. He turned around and walked briskly out the door before she could study him any further, vanishing as he went.

Blueblood gave Twilight an apologetic look. "He used to be a personal guard of mine. When he asked to be reassigned, I was more than happy to oblige. He had this unpleasant habit of sneaking up on me, you see." He glared at the door with hatred in his eyes. "But that's not worth getting into at the moment. Now, you probably know far more about this quest than I do. What else did this letter of yours say?"

By the time you read this, she will almost certainly have passed.

Twilight looked down at the letter sitting beneath her chair and swept it under the table with a bit of magic. "Well, it didn't go into great detail, but it boils down to this: I and the other Spirits of Harmony will be journeying into Tartarus, and you will be coming with us."

"Tartarus?" Blueblood set down his teacup with a sharp clatter and leaned contemplatively over the table, his brow furrowing. "Now I see why she sent me. As a member of the royal family, I know far more about Tartarus than most ponies. I imagine the letter said as much, but then..." Twilight thought she saw a few drops of sweat appear on his forehead. "Did the letter say why she specifically sent me, as opposed to some other prince or princess?"

Twilight pursed her lips. Basically, it said we need to find a bunch of ponies who never learn from their mistakes and you're probably one of them. Care for some hay bacon?

"Well, it did... but you might not want to hear it."

"Oh, that's quite alright. I like to think I have thick skin."

So do I.

Twilight thought she felt the ribbon slipping off of her mane, so she grabbed the bow's ends and tugged them as hard as she could, stretching her forehead a bit. "I'm sorry, your highness, but there was a lot of information in that letter. I'd like to wait for my friends to get here before I explain everything."

"Well, that's understandable," Blueblood said, pulling a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and dabbing at his brow. "Although I don't suppose I could just read it myself?"

That thought hadn't occurred to Twilight. She nodded her head, then pulled the letter out from underneath the table and showed it to Blueblood.

He cocked an eyebrow.

---

Pinkie Pie skipped down the street, saddle bags bouncing buoyantly on her back. The treehouse was only a couple blocks away, and she wanted to finish writing her Library Day Party song before she got there, though she wasn't sure if she would make it. All she had to do was think of a few more lines.

How about… 'The cupcakes are dee-lectable! The music can't be beat! So, come on! Come on! One and all, to the Librar-ee Day feast!' She shook her head. Naw, that's no good. It's a party, not a feast.

Pinkie Pie was trying to focus on the song, but how could she? It was such a beautiful day out! And Twilight's treehouse was only seconds away! Still, she had to try. Library Day bash! What rhymes with bash? Dash? We've got Rainbow Dash! But what if Rainbow Dash doesn't show up?

Pinkie found herself in Twilight's front yard before she could come up with anything better. Oh well! I've got a few hours before the party starts anyway.

Pinkie Pie cantered across the lawn, up the walkway, and onto the doormat, then raised her hoof to knock. But just as her hoof tapped the door, something shoved her back onto the grass. A black unicorn wearing a thick suit of armor appeared before her, seemingly from out of nowhere. He loomed over her menacingly. "Please state your name and the business you have here."

Pinkie was silent. Her jaw hung open and her head sloped to the side.

"I'll ask you again," the guard said, his horn starting to glow. "State your name and the—"

"A BAT PONY!" Pinkie Pie dashed up to the guard and studied him with wide eyes, an impossibly large smile on her face. "You've got the frilly ears and the lizard eyes and everything! Except you don't have any wings, so I guess you're not really a bat, huh?" She craned her neck, trying to get a better look at his horn. "What's an animal that has one horn and only comes out at night?"

The guard's horn glowed a little brighter. "Okay, I'm going to ask you one more time. Tell me—"

"You guys guard Princess Luna, right? Is she gonna come to the party!?" Pinkie Pie trotted over to his side and poked one of the spikes on his breastplate. "Hey, how have things been going in Canterlot since we left?"

The guard disappeared. Pinkie blinked in shock. "Hey, where'd you go? I've got more questions!"

An invisible force lifted Pinkie Pie up and hurled her through the fence next door, slamming her into the house with a loud, painful thwack.

Pinkie sprawled out on the green, her head throbbing and her ears ringing. There was a sickening chill in her bones—she couldn't tell what it was, but she knew it was doing a lot of really weird stuff to the world around her. It made the ground tremble and shake and caused the grass to prickle against her coat. The chills disoriented her, too; when she tried to stand up, she found that she was too dizzy and could only shift along the ground.

After a moment, Twilight burst through the front door, followed by a white stallion with a very angry look on his face. Twilight cantered over to Pinkie Pie and helped her up. "Are you okay?"

"Kinda," Pinkie said, her legs wobbling, "but I don't think that guardpony likes me very much…"

Twilight felt Pinkie Pie's head, examining it for any injuries, and touched a tender spot with her hoof. The bone-chill shot through Pinkie's body, ripping the earth out from under her legs and forcing her back onto the ground.

"Sorry about that. This should make you feel a little better." Twilight leaned over and shined a magic light on Pinkie's head. Much to Pinkie's relief, the chills started to fade. The grass felt more itchy than prickly, and the tremors were reduced to a low quiver.

"Twilight, what's..." Pinkie Pie tried to turn her head, but the few remaining chills kept her from moving more than an inch.

"I think he hit you with an anti-magic spell," said Twilight. "It tends to make earth ponies feel really unsteady. I don't know a full counter-spell off the top of my head—all I did just then was cast a charm that mimics the natural magic of earth pony physiology—so I'll have to ask the guard to lift the hex himself. Don't try to move." She galloped away.

Pinkie glanced over to see the guard standing at the foot of the walkway with an exhausted look on his face. The white pony shouted at him furiously, eyes bulging, veins popping out of his neck. "Oh, excellent work! Yes, thank you so much for protecting me from the fluffy, pink filly!"

"She seemed mentally unstable and there was a very good chance that she was a changeling. I followed standard protocol. What else would you have had me do?"

"I'll tell you what I wouldn't have had you do!" the stallion roared. "At least thirty bits in property damage! That's what I wouldn't have had you do!"

Twilight dashed up to the blonde stallion and gave his shoulder a few quick taps. "Sorry to interrupt, your majesty, but Pinkie Pie needs to be de-hexed."

"Ah, of course! Where are my priorities?" The two stallions cantered to Pinkie's side; the black guard kept his distance, but the white one leaned over her, his brow knitted with concern. "I'm terribly sorry about this. My name is Prince Blueblood, and it is truly an honor to meet you, Miss Pie. I only wish our introduction could take place under better circumstances." He turned to glare at the guard. "Any time now?"

The guardpony reluctantly tapped Pinkie's forehead with his glowing horn. All the chills and disorientation vanished from her body, leaving her just as spritely as she was a moment ago. She hopped up and gave Blueblood a vigorous hoof-shake that moved his entire body. "Aw, don't worry about it! It's nice to meet you, too!"

Once the full-body hoofshake was over, Blueblood let out a relieved sigh. "I am very glad to hear it! I'd hate for my first visit to Ponyville to be marred by such—"

"This is your first time in Ponyville!?" Pinkie Pie whirled around, dove into her saddle bags, and yanked out a brightly colored wagon.

Blueblood's jaw fell. "How did you fit that in your—"

"Finally, I get to sing my welcome song!" Pinkie shouted. "I've been dying to test out the new confetti cannon!"

Blueblood tilted his head to the side. "Confetti… cannon?"

"Confetti cannon!"

The guardpony took a step towards Pinkie, his horn aglow, but Blueblood held him back. "Confetti cannon."

Pinkie Pie shoved the wagon in front of Prince Blueblood and pushed a red button on its side. The wagon-cover split open, and out popped a tiny oven, followed by several blaring trumpets, flags, and steam whistles. The machine started to play a sugary jingle, but before Pinkie could begin to sing along, Twilight nudged her side. "Pinkie, don't you remember what happened last time you tried to make friends this way?"

"Don't worry, Twilight! This time I remembered to put the confetti in the confetti cannon and the cake in the oven!"

Prince Blueblood took a step backwards. "What's this about cake?"

"Wait for it…"

When the music stopped playing, a large, fully frosted cake burst through the oven doors and smashed into Blueblood's face. Pinkie Pie giggled. "That's this about cake!"

At first, Blueblood didn't say or do anything; he just stood there, a look of horror and disgust frozen on his face. Then, he dry-heaved so hard his forelegs collapsed beneath him. "Bathroom!?"

"In the back, next to the reference manuals," Twilight said.

Blueblood shot through the library door like a bullet, the guardpony galloping behind him. Twilight gave Pinkie a furious glare.

"Okay, point taken. No more welcome song."

Pinkie Pie peered into the library and watched Blueblood kick down the bathroom door, giving it a look of intense distress. A voice came from beyond the bathroom's doorframe: "Who're you?"

Twilight gasped. "Spike!"

"How'd you get into—What're you—" Blueblood retched. "OH, GROSS! IT'S ALL OVER ME!"

---

Cranky was not having a good morning. It was never a good morning when he had to argue with Matilda. "No, I don't dislike Pinkie Pie," he said, scowling at her from across the kitchen table. "I can like somepony without wanting to be around them all the time, can't I?"

Matilda returned Cranky's scorn with an apologetic look. "I know you like her, Doodle, but I don't always know if you like being her friend."

"I do like being her friend," Cranky said. "I'm not avoiding her. I see her whenever the Cakes come over for dinner and I always try to be polite when she invites me to something, but that's not the issue here. The issue is that I don't like big parties."

Matilda gave Cranky a knowing smirk. "Is that so? Because I seem to recall a certain young jack who loved parties so much, even a party as boring as the Grand Galloping Gala could entertain him."

"Fine," Cranky said, his teeth gritted. "Yes, I used to like parties. But I don't anymore, so I'm not going to this one no matter how many times you ask, and that's the end of that."

"But it would mean so much to her, sweetie. She asks about you whenever she sees me, did you know that?" Matilda trotted around to Cranky's side of the table and rested her head on his shoulder, nuzzling him affectionately. "Besides, wouldn't it be nice to leave the house more often? Get away from all these old things of yours?"

"Well, you know I have a soft spot for old things." Matilda nipped at Cranky's ear. "I didn't mean it like that..."

With a low sigh, Cranky leaned into Matilda's touch and inhaled her scent as deeply as he could. She always smelled like either daffodils or vanilla—this morning it was daffodils. He preferred vanilla.

"Listen Matilda, I understand what you're trying to say. I know how good you think this will be for me, and I know that Pinkie Pie really wants me there. But I shouldn't have to go to some big, crowded open house just to prove I'm her friend, and she understands that as well as you do."

Matilda let out a soft chuckle. "Big? Crowded? This party is going to be thrown in a library, Doodle. It won't be nearly as exciting as you think."

"Well, I just don't know..."

Matilda touched Cranky's chin and gently guided his head out of her mane. She gave him a kiss as warm and sunny as the summer sky. "Please?"

"...Alright, fine. Just this once."

"I'm glad to hear it." Matilda gave Cranky another kiss, a more chaste one this time, and trotted across the kitchen. "The party starts in about twenty minutes, and if I were you, I'd stop by early. I'll see you soon, okay?" She winked at him, grabbed her saddlebags, and trotted out the door.

Cranky sat up in his chair and stretched, letting the sunlight shine onto him from the kitchen window. Maybe this morning wouldn't be so bad after all.

He stood up and carried his half-finished bowl of oatmeal over to the sink, humming a little tune to himself. Then, just as he turned on the tap to rinse the bowl out, he heard the unmistakable sound of a confetti cannon firing in the distance. His smile dissolved.

---

The din of the shower captured Twilight's attention. It was muffled by the bathroom door, but it mesmerized her all the same, making her feel as though a curtain had been drawn over the rest of the world. She was shrouded in an imaginary darkness; she could have slept the rest of the day away if she chose to. She stretched out in her chair and rubbed her eyes meditatively.

"Twilight? You there?"

She pulled her hooves out of her face. Rainbow Dash was eyeing Twilight suspiciously, her mouth full of hay bacon. "Di'choo hear wha' I shaid?"

"Uh…" Twilight blinked a few times, trying to get the spots out of her eyes. "Sorry, I wasn't listening."

Rainbow Dash swallowed her food with a loud gulp. "I asked you if we really need to find those guides. I mean, Tartarus can't be that bad, right? Didn't you go there once?"

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Well, I didn't exactly go spelunking. I only went as far as the gates, and that was just so I could return Cerberus. You know who Cerberus is, right?" She reached over the table and snatched up a strip of bacon, rattling the plate. "Cerberus, the forty-foot-tall, three-headed guard dog? The one that went on a destructive, day-long rampage through Equestria? The one that's just barely scary enough to intimidate the hordes of evil monsters locked away in Tartarus?"

"The one that Fluttershy gave belly-rubs and that you lured back to Tartarus with a rubber ball?" Twilight shot Pinkie Pie a deadly glare. "What! I'm just trying to help you jog her memory."

Rainbow Dash shrugged her shoulders and grabbed another bacon strip, a few crumbs flecking onto the table. "I'm not saying Tartarus isn't dangerous, Twilight. It's just that we're all kinda used to danger by now. I mean, come on! We beat the changeling queen and Nightmare Moon! Not to mention Discord!"

Twilight rolled her eyes a second time. She swallowed her bacon before speaking. "We didn't beat the changeling queen. My brother did."

Rainbow Dash wasn't listening. She flew out of her chair and started to box the air with her hooves, pep-talking through the food in her mouth. "Shey're da baddesht ba' guysh Equestria'sh e'er faced, an' we shent 'em all ruh'ing scared! Compared to shem, Tartarush should be a ca'walk!"

Rarity scoffed at Rainbow Dash. "Did you truly read the letter, or did you just breeze through it? See, right here..." She pushed the letter into Rainbow's face and tapped the important part with her reading glasses. "The inside of Tartarus is so frightfully chaotic, it leaves the Elements of Harmony as powerless as any other gaudy set of jewellery. Even Discord couldn't do that, and he was chaos incarnate! Oh, and don't talk with food in your mouth. It's unseemly, and you're getting crumbs all over the table."

Rainbow Dash crossed her forelegs and fell back into her seat, her mouth now only one-third full of bacon. "Fine, be negative."

"Rainbow does kind of have a point, though," said Fluttershy. "I mean, I'm sure Princess Luna knows what's best, but I don't know if we have all the time we need to look for these guides. If we take too long to find them, the other alicorns might, um… you know… especially if Princess Celestia is already—"

"If we don't have time to waste on the guides," Twilight snapped, "then we certainly don't have time to waste talking about death. You're right, though, Fluttershy: Princess Luna does know best. Now, she said that we've already met every guide, even if we don't know who they are, so all we have to do is think—who do we know that doesn't easily learn from their mistakes?"

Nopony answered Twilight. They just glanced at each other uncomfortably, then looked up at her with sympathy in their eyes. Rarity touched Twilight's hoof. "Darling, we know how you like to take charge during a crisis. But it's perfectly alright if you feel—"

"Who do we know"—Twilight pulled her hoof away from Rarity's—"that doesn't easily learn from their mistakes?"

After a few more seconds of awkward silence, Rainbow Dash spoke. "What about Scootaloo and her friends? The last time I talked to her, she told me a story about how she tried to help Rarity's sister get a cutie mark in fire magic."

"Yes, I heard that story as well," said Rarity, shaking her head. "It took me hours to get the singe marks out of her fur. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be fair to consider them. They're only fillies, after all; everypony has trouble learning from their mistakes when they're young. Take Spike for example." She gave the bathroom door a frustrated look. "He's been in the shower for at least fifteen minutes now. If left unattended, he'll probably use up all the hot water in Ponyville again."

Pinkie Pie giggled smartly. "That's not Spike! He's taking a bath upstairs! Prince Blueblood's the one in the shower."

Rarity blinked. "Prince—Prince Blueblood!?" She threw her glasses on and skimmed the letter with a frantic eye. "Don't tell me he's the pony Princess Luna sent over!"

"Yes, he's the one," said Twilight. "He got here just before you guys did."

Rarity dropped the letter on the table and turned up her nose, forelegs crossed in a pout. "Well, that simply cannot be right."

Twilight grumbled under her breath. I knew this would be a problem. "Rarity, if you don't want to travel with Blueblood, you're out of luck. We're stuck with whomever—"

"Oh, I'm not complaining exactly," Rarity said. "It's just—well, he seems fairly capable of learning from his mistakes, is all. The last time I spoke to him, he was very apologetic about the Grand Galloping Gala fiasco. That's not to say I've completely forgiven him, of course, but nevertheless."

"Yeah, I remember you talking about that," said Rainbow Dash, her mouth finally empty. "Wasn't he the guy that invited you to the Wonderbolts derby?

"No, that was Fancypants." Rarity let out a dreamy sigh. "Prince Blueblood didn't take me anywhere. He just happened to preside over an airship-christening I attended."

Twilight cleared her throat. "Stay focused, everypony. We've ruled out foals; who else could the guides be?"

Again, nopony said anything for several seconds. Rainbow Dash let out a groan and fell against the table with a soft whump, wings splayed in frustration. "This is gonna take forever! Why couldn't Princess Luna just send letters to all the guides, telling them to find us? I mean, she must've sent something to Prince Blueblood, right?"

"Oh, no." Rarity's eyes grew wide. She leapt out of her seat and paced around the room, her face twisted up with worry. "Oh, that reminds me—Oh, no! This is going to be so terribly awkward!"

Fluttershy flitted to Rarity's side. "Rarity? Is something the matter?"

"Yes, something is the matter!" Rarity spun around, a manic look in her eye, and spoke in a deceptively quiet tone: "Upon my return from Canterlot earlier this year, I received a letter from Prince Blueblood asking me all sorts of questions. But I was so busy making replicas of Twilight's dress, I completely forgot to write him back! Do you realize what this means!?"

"Oh, I'm sure it isn't as—"

Before Fluttershy could finish her answer, Rarity grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her violently. "It means I ignored a letter written by the scion of a noble house! By word of this fact alone, he could thoroughly devestate my reputation among Canterolt's elite! How can I possibly—"

Rainbow Dash swooped over to Rarity and, with great effort, tore her away from Fluttershy. "C'mon, Rare. Is this really the best time for a prima donna spaz-attack?"

"Well, I… No. No, I suppose it isn't." Rarity let out a heavy sigh and turned towards the now thoroughly dizzied Fluttershy. "I'm sorry for taking my nerves out on you, dear. I hope you can forgive me?"

"S'okay, Rarity..."

Twilight pushed her head into her hooves with a loud groan. She was starting to see why she and her friends needed those guides so badly. "Okay, let's get back on track. Is there anypony we don't really get along with? That might be a good place to start."

"Well, Hoops and Dumbbell have a lot of potential in that department," Rainbow Dash said. "What do you think, 'Shy?"

"No, it couldn't be them." Fluttershy smiled softly, looking out the window with hopeful eyes. "They've been very nice to me lately. In fact, ever since we brought all that water up to Cloudsdale, not a single pony has made fun of me at all."

Rainbow glided back to her seat, kicked her legs up on the table, and leaned back in her chair. She had an uncharacteristic look of contemplation. "What about that minotaur guy you told me about? Has he been giving you any trouble?"

"Hey, that's right!" said Pinkie Pie. "The letter didn't say the guides had to be ponies! I bet he's one!"

"But Iron Will learned from his mistakes," Fluttershy replied. "He came back to see me a few days ago and asked if I could help revise his assertiveness seminars. They're a lot more positive, now."

"Darn! I was so sure." Pinkie Pie tapped her chin with her hoof, humming thoughtfully. "How about… Gilda the griffon? I know she's hard to get along with!"

Rainbow Dash bolted upright, kicking the table and scraping the floor with her chair.

Pinkie let out a nervous giggle. "I guess that's a 'yes,' huh?"

"Well, yeah," Rainbow said. "Come to think of it, Gilda really fits the bill. But if time's a factor, we're in trouble. I'm pretty sure she moved to New Leoquillia." She floated out of her seat and drifted towards the window, a sullen look in her eye. "I mean, I don't know a hundred percent. That's just the last thing I heard about her."

With a creak of her chair, Twilight stood up and walked over to Rainbow Dash. "Who told you that? Whoever they are, can you trust them? Because if you can't, there's no way—"

"They're trustworthy." Rainbow leaned against the windowsill and folded up her forelegs, sighing through her teeth. "About a week after Gilda made that scene at Pinkie's party, I flew over to her place in Griffustown—just to see if I could get her to apologize, y'know?" She dropped back into her seat and frowned. "But she wasn't there. All her flatmates said she'd packed her bags for New Leoquillia. They said she told them not to tell me..."

Pinkie Pie gave Rainbow a puzzled look. "I'm lost. What's New Leoquillia? Is there an Old Leoquillia?"

"Leoquillia is a kingdom ruled by griffons," said Twilight. "And New Leoquillia is a colony of theirs, situated on the southwestern border of the Frozen North. Leoquillia isn't an HN member-state, and neither is New Leoquillia, so unless one of us happens to have a diplomatic passport we might not be able to visit."

"Yeah," said Rainbow Dash, her wings spread expressively. "And on top of that, it's twice the size of Unicorn Range, and it's three weeks away on hoof."

"Oh my goodness." Fluttershy gave the floor a piteous look. "Prince Blueblood might have a passport for us to use, but simply getting there… We may not be able to find Gilda, even if she is a guide."

Twilight tapped her hooves against the table. "...Which is why, for now, we should concentrate on locating potential guides who are in Equestria, not some foreign country. So, who else is there? Any ideas? How about you, Rarity?" No response. "Rarity?" She turned to find Rarity stealing nervous glances at the bathroom door, her teeth gritted anxiously. "Rarity, there are more important things happening right now!"

Rarity blinked. She looked back at Twilight, putting on the most regretful look she could. "I'm sorry, Twilight, but I simply cannot focus on—"

"Well, try to focus! The fate of Equestria is at stake, and you can't get a grip long enough to—"

Twilight was interrupted by a knock at the door. An old, rusty voice came from outside: "Is anypony home? I thought this was supposed to be an open house."

"CRANKY!" With a happy squeal, Pinkie jumped out of her chair, skipped across the room, and flung the front door open. A wrinkled donkey with a sour visage stood on the walkway. He was immediately pulled into a hug. "Oh my gosh, I can't believe you actually came! Thank you so much!"

"Yeah," he choked, wrestling himself out of Pinkie Pie's grasp. "Great to see you too, kid."

Pinkie Pie backed up apologetically. "Whoops. Personal space. I forgot."

"Eh, don't sweat it." Cranky clung to the door frame, trying to catch his breath, and glanced around the library. "Huh. Seems pretty sparse for a Pinkie Pie party." His face lit up. "Is it cancelled?"

"Yes, it is," Twilight said. "Now, Mister Donkey, my friends and I have some very important things to discuss, so if you could—"

"Hold on!" Pinkie Pie tugged Cranky back inside, giving Twilight a clever look. "Do you think maybe Cranky could be…?"

Twilight shook her head. "No, Pinkie, I don't."

"But he spent decades looking for Matilda! Ponyville was literally the last place he looked when it was the closest place to Canterlot and the first place he should've tried!"

"Pinkie, that doesn't mean—Although…" Twilight studied Cranky intently.

There stood a jack who had spent the best years of his life searching tirelessly for someone he'd only known for one night. And didn't he meet her at the Grand Galloping Gala? Only the most important ponies in Equestria were invited to that event. What made him so special? And why would he give it all up just for Matilda?

Cranky glared back at Twilight. "Can I help you?"

"Maybe. I mean, yes, there is something you can help us with." Twilight tightened the ribbon in her hair. "That is, there's something you might be able to help us with."

"Okay, happy Library Day to you too."

Twilight bit her lip. Something told her she couldn't just hand him the letter and expect him to do whatever it asked. "Look, it's all really complicated. I'll explain everything as soon as my houseguest gets out of the shower. Just stay here until then."

"Yeah, hang out with us!" said Pinkie. "The party may be cancelled, but we've still got a ton of hay bacon!"

Cranky slunk into kitchen, plopped himself into a chair, and pulled a strip of bacon out of the pile. For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the smacking of Cranky's lips. Eventually, he spoke: "It's a little stuffy in here. Does somepony want to open a window or—" The top half of the door tore itself open with a bang! "… or something."

A spark popped off of Twilight's horn. "You're welcome."

"Yeah, thanks a bundle." Cranky grabbed another bacon strip. "Hey, aren't there supposed to be six of you guys?"

"Oh yeah." Rainbow Dash hopped out of her chair and sailed over to the open half of the door. "I was gonna say something—Shouldn't Applejack be here by now?"

---

Trixie was feeling very warm. The sun blazed down without a single cloud to block its light—a result of last night's rainfall. Her outfit certainly didn't help; she knew she wouldn't be able to get away with the same disguise she wore last night, so she took some extra precautions. They included a heavier wig, a fake cutie mark with thicker paste, a t-shirt, a scarf, some eyeliner, and a pair of sunglasses.

It all seemed like a good idea when she was in her caravan. When the fan was running.

Now, after what felt like hours walking down a shadeless dirt-road, Trixie found herself in a café she didn't know the name of, holding a drink she didn't remember ordering.

She took a moment to survey her surroundings in greater detail: there was a window right next to her, a ceiling-mounted fan up above, and a very concerned-looking cashier standing by the door. She peeked out the window for a few seconds, just to figure out where she was, and took a sip of the brown liquid in her cup.

Iced tea with lemon. Of course.

Trixie took another few sips and leaned back in her chair, trying to soak up as much cool air as possible. It wasn't enough to distract her from the reason why she was doing this.

For a script. I almost put myself through heat stroke for a script. And not just any script, either! I'm trying to get a script from a pony who held me in her home against my will, and I'm getting it so I can watch a play that's being performed in a language I don't speak. Trixie fell forward, dropping her head onto the table with a low groan. I don't even know how to get to the library from here...

Trixie knew she wasn't the smartest pony in Equestria, but she always thought she had some common sense. She wouldn't risk death by dehydration for the HCT—the Canterlot Royal Theatre, maybe, but not the HCT.

Maybe it's that unicorn. Maybe she did something to me.

She had to admit, there was something strangely magnetic about Twilight Sparkle. It wasn't that she liked her, of course, and it certainly wasn't that she felt attracted to her. There was something else: something very strange, something that almost felt like envy. That couldn't be it, though. It wasn't malicious enough to be envy.

Is now really the time to be thinking about this? I need to get out of here and get that script before I lose my mind!

Trixie pulled her head off the table, lifted her drink, and called out to the pony sitting at the cashier. "Excuse me. Did I pay for this?"

A loud honking noise came from outside the café, followed by several weird jangles and cranks. It was as though somepony had dropped a tuba and a drum-set into a washing machine. Trixie poked her head out the window, searching for the source of the noises.

She saw an orange mare with a cowpony hat and a furious look on her face bustling down the street, chased by two nearly identical stallions riding atop a large, metal carriage. The carriage was scratched and dented in several places and appeared to move without the aid of a drawer. The orange pony turned towards the stallions and screamed at them just loud enough for Trixie to hear over the racket: "For the last time, I ain't gonna buy that flippin' machine o' yours!"

It's one of the ponies that was talking to Twilight Sparkle after the ursa minor incident. Maybe she'll lead me right to her. Trixie hopped up from her seat and trotted out the door, iced tea floating by her side.

One of the stallions shouted at the cowpony. "Well, if you're not going to take us up on our offer, could you at least ask your extended family to stop blackballing us!?"

"I never told 'em to blackball ya in the first place and I ain't gonna tell 'em to stop neither! And ruinin' my morning ain't helpin' your case!" She turned away and broke into a lopsided gallop, yelling hoarsely at the twins without facing them. "I was gonna have a nice, relaxin' time with my friends. I was gonna bake some cupcakes, maybe read a book or two. Now, thanks to your contraption, I'm gonna have a headache and a ringin' in my ears for the rest o' the day!"

Baking cupcakes and reading books. Those sound like library-slash-kitchen-based activities to me. Trixie chugged the rest of her iced tea, threw a few bits at the cashier, and dashed after the orange mare.

One of the brothers stood up from his seat and leaned over the prow of the carriage. "Believe me, Miss Applejack: if we had the choice, we wouldn't be bothering you at all! But ever since our little cider-making contest, we haven't gotten a lick of business!"

"Not a lick!" The stallion's twin stood up as well, mimicking his brother's movements. "Is there a single town in Equestria where your family doesn't live!? As soon as we set up shop, an Apple or two rallies the whole farming community into a frenzy, and then the entire city's boycotting our product before you can say 'bankrupt!'"

"I don't care!" The orange pony's gallop turned into a full-tilt sprint. Trixie was having a hard time keeping up, but thankfully the library was starting to come into view.

"Applejack, we're presenting you with an opportunity you just can't ignore!" yelled the one with the mustache. "We're giving you full, unlimited access to the new and improved Super Speedy Cider Squeezy Six-Thousand-and-One!"

"It works just as quickly and efficiently as the previous model, and it's got a nifty post-production cider filter!"

"Right you are, brother o' mine!" The twins stood up on their hind legs and tipped their caps, slick grins on their faces. "And this beautiful machine can be all yours! All you need to do is agree to the profit split we discussed at your farm!"

"Seventy-five!"

"Twenty-five!"

The one without the mustache winked at Applejack. "And this time, you get the seventy-five!"

Applejack stopped. The carriage screeched to a halt behind her, nearly throwing the stallions off-balance. "Y'all want twenty-five percent o' my profits, do ya!?" she yelled, kicking off her saddlebags and glaring murderously at the twins.

The brothers glanced at each other, then back down at Applejack. "...Yes, that's the idea. Do you want us to explain it again?"

The mare tugged several apples out of her saddlebags, tossed them in the air, and bucked them straight into the mustachioed stallion's face. He tumbled backwards off of the prow, landing on his head with a loud thunk. "There you go! That's twenty-five percent o' what I got on me right now! Wanna sweeten the deal!?"

"Flam!" The stallion's brother leapt off the carriage, marched up to Applejack, and raised his hoof to smack her, but she shoved him away before he could. The brothers scrambled to their hooves and pushed each-other back onto the carriage.

"Don't tell me y'all are gettin' cold hooves!" Applejack hollered. "Keep talkin'! I was thinkin' 'bout givin' ya fifty percent!"

Trixie trotted past the ensuing fight, smiling to herself. The library was only a few steps away! She strode across the lawn, up the walkway, and raised her hoof to knock.

The door swung open. Trixie leapt sideways, narrowly avoiding a blow to the face, and scuttled around the side of the house. She peered around the corner, looking to see who opened the door.

It was Twilight Sparkle. She stomped across the lawn, grabbed thecowpony, and pulled her away from the pair of stallions. "Applejack, what in the world is going on out here?"

"I'll tell ya what's goin' on!" Applejack jabbed her hoof at the twins. "These two are tryin' to con me outta Sweet Apple Acres again!"

The non-mustachioed one, still inspecting the other stallion's head, sneered at Applejack. "My brother and I wanted nothing to do with that dilapidated field of manure you call a farm! But now, you can bet your flank that we're going to sue you for all you're worth!"

Applejack gave the brothers a heavy snarl. "I know y'all ain't gonna sue me for hittin' you with a couple o' apples."

"Why shouldn't we? You assaulted my brother and me, then threatened further violence upon our persons!"

"Well, maybe I should sue you for drivin' me too it!"

Twilight strode across the yard and cut between Applejack and the twins. "Nopony is going to sue anypony! Applejack you can deal with these two later. Right now, you need to—Hang on." She turned towards the brothers, her eyebrows piqued. "Were you two really trying to sell your services to Applejack again?"

"Well, not that it's any of your business"—the brothers scowled at Twilight—"but yes. We presented Applejack with an even better deal than the one we gave her during cider season, and what does she do?" They both leapt off the carriage, barged past Twilight, and glared wolfishly at the cowpony. "She attacks us! She pelts us with the very product we asked for!"

"Okay, change of plans." Twilight shoved her way back into the middle of the fight. "All three of you are coming inside my house right now, whether you like it or not."

Trixie rolled her eyes. Oh, I see. That's how she solves all her problems.

"Unless she takes us up on our offer," said the stallions, "we're going nowhere but a courthouse!"

"I bet you had this planned from the beginnin'! Y'all were gonna goad me into losin' my temper and then file a lawsuit!"

"What? That's absurd! Do you really believe we'd put our faces at risk just to get some money? A good appearance is two-thirds of a sales pitch, as you are so clearly unaware."

"Well, your brains are pretty banged up. I figured y'all wouldn't mind puttin' the other parts o' your heads in danger."

"You think we're brain damaged? Oh, that is rich!"

Twilight looked ready to kill Applejack and the twins. Every time somepony spoke, she turned around and opened her mouth to scream them down, but before she got the chance, another pony would say something, forcing her to spin around to face them over and over until—

"SILENCE!"

Trixie staggered back against the side of the house, clutching her ears in pain. She looked towards the shout and found a white stallion with a sopping-wet mane perched indignantly on the walkway. "When a Spirit of Harmony tells you to do something, YOU DO IT! NOW GET INSIDE THIS INSTANT!"

The four ponies glanced at each other, then scurried across the lawn and into the library.

Twilight Sparkle is a Spirit of Harmony. Not possible. Trixie crept around the side of the house to find the top half of Twilight's Dutch doorway open. She cast an invisibility spell, steadily weaving a barrier of magic that would take all the light touching her and carry it to the opposite end of her body. only her pupils were uncovered—if she turned them invisible, she wouldn't be able to see. She double-checked the spell, pulled herself up over the door's bottom half, and looked about the room.

A small crowd was gathered around the kitchen table. The stallion from before sat at the head, Twilight Sparkle beside him. They both had grim looks on their faces, though Twilight seemed far worse for wear: her coat made her look like she had been dragged through a field of briar bushes and steel wool, and her mane was somehow clumpy and frizzy at the same time. It was as if somepony uprooted a black bramble patch and bound it to her head with a ribbon. Her eyes were the worst—they were dark and heavy, but she still looked wide awake. Every few seconds they darted towards the table and back, like Twilight was afraid something sitting on it would jump up and bite her.

Behind the unicorns stood a tall, intimidating stallion dressed in a midnight-black suit of armor. For a second, Trixie thought he might be a royal guard, but she decided that probably wasn't the case; his outfit looked like something you could buy at a costume shop on Nightmare Night.

There were five other ponies—and one donkey—sitting at the table, not including the twins. Those two were leaning against the kitchen counter instead, their forelegs crossed in an identical fashion.

"I am very sorry to have yelled at you, Miss Applejack," the wet stallion said, bowing curtly before the blonde-haired cowpony. "Had I recognized you, I would never have—"

Applejack gave the white stallion a halting look. "Don't think on it, Prince Blueblood. Let's just skip all them royal formalities for now; I wanna know what's goin' on."

"Took the words right out of my mouth," said a donkey sitting at the other end of the table. "Is somebody finally gonna tell me why I need to be here?"

Prince Blueblood pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbed at his forehead, and took a long, deep breath through his nostrils. "Well, I would hardly consider an apology to be a 'royal formality...' but, alright. I suppose I'll cut to the chase: the alicorns of Canterlot have fallen deathly ill."

Trixie gasped. Well, I'm definitely not supposed to be hearing this. If they catch me listening in, I could get in serious trouble... Maybe I should turn back?

The cowpony removed her hat and held it up to her heart. "Oh, that's just terrible! Twilight, do you know how Princess Cadance is doin'?"

"No."

"Aw, I'm sorry, sugarcube," Applejack said, leaning across the table to rest a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "It must feel pretty awful, gettin' that kinda news so soon after—"

Twilight shrugged off Applejack's hoof. "We can worry about that sort of thing later. Now, the disease does have a cure. Unfortunately, it's been sealed away in Tartarus, so my friends and I won't be able to—"

"Hold on a second, Miss." The mustachioed brother cocked an eyebrow at Twilight and leaned forward, revealing the counter space behind him. There sat an empty teapot, a sugar bowl, and a small script. It was exactly where Twilight had left it the night before.

Well, if it's right there I might as well go for it.

Trixie focused her levitative grasp on the script and gave it a single tentative nudge. The armored stallion's head shot towards the kitchen counter. She quickly dropped the book and retreated behind the bottom door. I guess he could be a guard after all. Maybe I should just turn the script invisible? She shook her head. No, I might accidentally hit somepony with it. Besides, I don't know how to conceal the levitation-spell itself; if I tried just moving it through the air, everypony'd see a big, purple light shining all over the place. I guess I'll have to go in and get it myself.

Trixie constructed a sound-proof bubble of magic around the doorway, crouched down, and vaulted over the door as high as she could, landing inside the library with a heavy thud. Nopony seemed to have heard anything, though the guard looked a little antsy. He shouldn't be able to hear me. But just in case... She shifted the bubble of inaudibility into pony-sized charm and began a slow, careful crawl to the kitchen counter

The mustached stallion leaned against the table, his head tilted in condescending perplexity. "Just how do you know all of this? Don't tell me you and your friends really are the Spirits of Harmony."

"We're the Spirits of Harmony, alright," said Applejack , "and I happen to be the Spirit of Honesty. So when I say that y'all are a pair o' no-good, weaselly li'l snakes in the grass, you can be sure I'm tellin' the truth."

"Applejack?" A blue pegasus pony sitting near the end of the table—another familiar face—ran a hoof through her mane uncomfortably. "It's not that I don't like you making fun of Flim and Flam, but… Priority check?"

"Sorry, Rainbow." Applejack turned back towards Twilight. "Go on, sugarcube. What's all this about a cure?"

Blueblood cleared his throat. "As Miss Sparkle was saying, the cure—a panacea, actually—is locked deep within Tartarus. So deep, in fact, that the Spirits of Harmony will be unable to procure the panacea on their own. You see, the chaos found at such depths is highly corruptive: it will tug at the souls of the Spirits of Harmony and nullify the Elements altogether."

The jack sitting at the other end of the table massaged his brow. "Please tell me this isn't the part where I come in."

"I'm afraid it is, Mister Donkey."

Trixie crept into the kitchen as slow as she could, her eyes trained constantly on the guard. Everything about him was unnatural; from the bristling of his fur to the eerie, yellow glow in his eyes, every part of his body marked him as something wholly alien. She wondered if he could smell her.

"There are individuals who have something of a... tolerance, for lack of a better word, to chaos," said Blueblood. "Where the Spirits fold in agony, these beings are at their strongest. I am one such pony"—he pointed to Flim, Flam, and the donkey in turn—"as are the three of you."

"There's probably another one in New Leoquillia," the blue pegasus said, hovering from her seat. "We'll need to go there before we head for Tartarus, so everypony should—"

"Stop right there." The donkey leaned over the table, his eyes narrowing petulantly. "You know how crazy all this sounds, right?"

The white stallion gave his forehead another few dabs with the handkerchief. "I know this must be very hard to believe, but—"

"No, you don't know. You're asking me to go to Tartarus, and as if that weren't enough, you want me to get there by way of griffon country." The old donkey fell back into his seat, forelegs crossed indignantly. "I don't care if the alicorns are sick. I'm not going."

Trixie bit her lip in anticipation. She was right by the head of the table, a few feet from the countertop and a few inches from the guardpony. He seemed even more agitated than he did a second ago—nostrils flaring, eyes shifting frantically about the room. If Trixie messed up now—tripped, fumbled the spell, whatever—he would catch her. And what then? Would she get arrested for listening in on such an important conversation? Would they wipe her memory? Would they take away her mind!?

Panic swept through Trixie's body: cold sweat, gasping breaths, a pulse that ran as fast and hard as the beat of a snare drum. She could feel herself shrinking into her brain, losing her handle on—No! She stopped. With a sweeping motion of her foreleg, she took several long, hard breaths. Don't freak out. Do not freak out. You've made it this far already, you can't turn back now.

Yes, that was right. She couldn't turn back. That script was more than worth the trouble, it had to be; she wouldn't have come this far if it wasn't. After taking one last breath, Trixie closed her eyes, double-checked her soundproofing spell, and stepped forward.

The guard didn't notice.

Trixie let out a quiet sigh of relief. There, see? You'll be fine. Now feeling a little more confident, she straightened herself up and took a few more steps past the guard. He was barely an inch away, close enough for her to hear the armor bumping against his skin and see the bristling of each individual hair. It was scary, but... No. He won't notice me.

She held her breath just in case and took one more tentative step.

The guard's tail lashed out. Trixie ducked, missing it by fractions of a centimeter, and skittered against the counter drawers. She felt sick—sweating, panting, heart thumping like a piston. But the hardest part was over. She was almost there.

Blueblood stuffed his handkerchief back into his breast-pocket before he continued, no longer looking at the old donkey. "The journey is not as insurmountable as it seems. I have a Leoquillian diplomatic passport, and I can extend my status to anypony traveling with me."

"So they'll let us in," said the jack. "Well, that's great. Now all you guys have to do is figure out how to get there in the first place."

A pink filly sitting next to the jack raised her hoof. "Oh! Oh! I know! You went all the way around Equestria and back, so you're super good at reading maps and stuff! And Flim and Flam have a big carriage that can drive itself, so we'll get there lickety-split!"

One of the brothers let out an incredulous chuckle, waving his foreleg in protest. "Uh, no. I'm not about to turn the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy Six-Thousand-and-One into a trolley-carriage for a bunch of ponies that hate me."

"The feeling's mutual, Flim! Besides, how can you tell whether or not we really are these special, chaos-proofed ponies, anyway?"

The white stallion started to sweat again. "There are... signs."

"Signs?" The jack snorted. "Like what?"

The pink pony's hoof shot back into the air. "Signs like how you guys never learn from—"

A white unicorn mare shoved her hoof into the pony's mouth. She blanched, looked around the room, and let out an awkward chuckle. "Well, er... You're all here, aren't you? Isn't that a sign in and of itself?"

The prince nodded his head. "You are correct, Miss Rarity."

"I am?"

"It wasn't mentioned in the letter, but yes. The fact that you are all here is something of a sign."

Having caught her breath, Trixie pulled herself onto the kitchen counter and reached for the script. She couldn't quite get it.

You're kidding me! It's right there!

The script tantalized her, taunted her, laughed at her efforts. She let out a determined growl and stretched her foreleg harder still. Again, she couldn't reach it.

"Now, I'm fairly certain none of you are here because you want to be," said Blueblood.

The brothers rolled their eyes. "You got that right!"

Trixie just wasn't close enough; no matter how much she stretched her foreleg, she couldn't get her hoof on the script. She stood on the tips of her hooves, kicked up, and reached as far as she could. Oh, for—This is impossible. I'm going crazy, aren't I?

"Yes, I think it's safe to say that none of you came here because you thought it would be a grand old time." Prince Blueblood gave Rarity a keen look. "You came because you felt drawn to a Spirit of Harmony."

Trixie kicked herself farther up the counter and grabbed at the script, only to miss again. Ugh! So close! If only those dumb stallions weren't in the way!

"Perhaps you felt they owed you something."

Now Trixie really could hear the script laughing at her. It was barely an inch out of her grasp.

"Perhaps they were a means to an end."

Trixie crouched down, gritted her teeth, and leapt as far as she could for one final, desperate grab.

"Perhaps you simply felt magnetized."

Got it! Trixie turned the script invisible and dragged it off the countertop, smiling with pride. Once she was sure that all of her spells were still in check, she turned around to—

She froze. The guard's face was inches from her own.

"Found you."

Trixie slammed against the wall with a deafening whack. She shook her head, then pulled hard against the tide of the guard's magic. He kept her pinned. On instinct, she summoned a counter-spell to break the force that bound her, but just as the energies took shape, a chill ran through her horn. The chill turned into a icy wave that washed away her magic, rending her counter-spell, tearing off her invisibility glamour like a wet bandage. She went limp from the pain. The chills were so intense, she shut her eyes involuntarily.

"Trixie!?"

No! Trixie tried to open her eyes. As soon as she did, the sweat from her brow poured into them, blinding her. She heard the sound of chair legs scraping the floor, lots of hoofsteps and chattering. Somepony—the prince—started to yell, but he was interrupted by something Twilight said.

Eventually the clamor settled. When it did, Trixie could only hear the sound of beating wings. Soft wind blew against her face, brushing away the sweat and returning her vision. She opened her eyes. All she could see was the face of the blue pegasus.

Trixie recognized her, now. The pegasus's name was Rainbow Dash, and her special talent was stunt-flying or something to that effect. Trixie remembered wrapping her up in solidified light and spinning her around untill she got sick in front of the audience. It must have been humiliating.

"Trixie," Rainbow growled, "you better have a really good reason for sneaking in here. Cause if you don't, I'm gonna—"

"It's alright, Rainbow Dash. I'll handle this." That was Twilight's voice.

"But—"

"I said I'll handle this."

Rainbow Dash reluctantly backed away, giving Trixie a view of the whole room. Most of the ponies therein were shooting her venomous looks; the others stared at her in astonishment. The guard wore a proud smirk.

And then there was Twilight. She gave Trixie a placid look with just a hint of sympathy, the kind of look you gave to an insect on a microscope slide. "How much did you hear?" she asked.

"A lot, probably. When I was on my way over, I saw somepony wearin' that exact outfit. I reckon she followed me here."

Twilight narrowed her eyes. "Is this true?"

Trixie tried to say 'yes,' but the word stuck in her throat. She gave Twilight a weak nod instead.

"Then you know what I'm about to tell you?"

Trixie's heart sank. She was one of those guides they were talking about. She was going to Tartarus.

All she wanted to do was check out her script. She wanted to head back to her caravan and spend the rest of the day practicing magic tricks. She wanted to walk down to Hoofington after lunch, maybe get something cool to drink, and see The Stranger performed at the HCT tomorrow. She wanted to put everything that had anything to do with Ponyville or the ursa minor or Twilight Sparkle behind her and just get on with her life.

And she was going to Tartarus.

Trixie gave Twilight another feeble nod. She felt like throwing up.

---

The rest of the meeting went by pretty quickly. Everypony except Cranky figured out what they were going to do to prepare for the trip with ease, so they decided his role for him: he was to be the navigator, whether he liked it or not. Cranky tried to talk his way out of it, of course, but those ponies had a counterpoint to every complaint he raised.

You're too old to make it all the way to New Leoquillia? We've got an automobile!

You don't want to worry Matilda? It's okay! She'll understand!

You have trouble breathing at high altitudes? Twilight's got a spell for that!

Don't speak a word of Russo-Scythian? Prince Blueblood's got a spell for that!

You don't think you'll be helpful in the long run? You think you're only going to slow everypony down? You think that because there are already six other guides out there, each of whom are probably younger, stronger, and generally better qualified to do this job than you are, that taking you along is just going to be a big, pointless chore, and that it would be better for everyone if we just left you behind?

Too bad! Every little bit counts, so suck it up!

"Excuse me, Mister Cranky?"

Cranky pulled himself out of his gloom and looked towards the voice. He found Flam leaning through the kitchen window, a few sheets of notepaper floating at his side. "You said it was eight-hundred miles to New Leoquillia, right?"

"Hang on." Cranky grabbed his ruler and measured the distance on the atlas. Four inches, so... "Yeah, about eight-hundred."

"Thanks!" Flam tipped his cap and trotted back to his machine.

Cranky looked down at the atlas and let out a long, low grumble. Distance was the least of their problems.

New Leoquillia was spread out over a tremendous mountain range. Port towns and major cities were separated by entire canyons, and the highway system connecting them was a navigator's worst nightmare, full of confusing twists, hairpin turns, and high-altitude drop-offs. Thankfully, the roads themselves were fairly safe.

Yeah, 'cause when you visit a country that never signed the HN charter, safety's always gonna be your main concern. Still, I should check for fog.

Cranky tore the political map out of the atlas, flipped to the weather section, and grabbed a pencil-compass and a red marker. He used them to highlight every route that the climate map listed as being in an area of high relative humidity, then did the same in yellow for all the spots whose temperatures fell between forty and fifty degrees that time of year. Any overlap meant dense fog, and low visibility was dangerous in the mountains, especially with such a poorly designed highway system.

After a few seconds of scribbling, Cranky leaned back in his chair and looked over his handiwork. Most of the routes were now orange. When he compared the road map to the topographical atlas, he found not a single trail below six-thousand feet that wasn't completely non-navigable without wings, an airship, or a well-organized flock of pegasi.

No surprise there. Why build safe roads when everybody in your country can fly?

Cranky was getting nowhere; a bit of procrastination was in order. He pulled himself out of his chair with a groan, turned away from the atlas, and walked over to the window to see what the twins were up to. Flam was gutting out the inside of the carriage with a wrench and a pair of pliers, while Flim diligently sorted the scraps into a set of neat, organized piles.

They were a well-oiled machine, those two—though a more fitting simile would have been a well-paid machine. Had Prince Blueblood not offered them that hefty sum after the meeting, they wouldn't be working at all. But he had, so they were, and they were doing it so well, they could probably make their contraption do anything they wanted it to. In fact...

Cranky called out to them: "I don't suppose you two could turn that thing into a zeppelin?"

One of the brothers waved back without looking up from his work. "Oh, sure. We can do that. Just give us an hour."

Yeah, right. Those two make good on that promise, and I'll chew my own ears off.

With a roll of his eyes, Cranky pulled his head back inside and slunk out of the kitchen, trying as hard as he could to ignore the atlas on the table. Maybe there was something neat in the library proper; the way Pinkie Pie always described her friends, you'd think Golden Oaks would be filled with all sorts of fantastical things.

Turns out, it wasn't. It was a library. It had books. They weren't even very interesting books, and there were no comfortable places to sit and read them. Cranky thought it was actually pretty sub-par, as far as libraries went. But just as he was turning around to re-enter the kitchen and resign himself to his navigational duties, he saw something: one of the books pulled itself out of its shelf. He watched with an open jaw as it drifted lazily across the room, eventually settling in a small closet beneath the staircase. A faint light came from just beyond the doorway, beckoning him. He followed.

It was that blue unicorn mare. She was just lounging there in the dark, reading a script by the light of her horn. She pulled the book out of the air like it was a ripe fruit and flipped through the first few pages, smiling with childlike curiosity.

During the meeting, Cranky thought the mare looked pathetic, the way she wordlessly took a seat at the kitchen table, head hanging on her shoulders. The girl was different now, though. She was free.

If Cranky was more like Matilda, he might start a conversation with the mare. He would say hi, maybe get to know her, and then they'd help each other kill time. It was a pleasant thought.

"Hey, uh..." At the sound of Cranky's voice, the mare stood up and poked her head out of the closet, frowning in annoyance. Cranky looked away. "It's Trixie, right?"

"Yes? What is it?"

Cranky kicked himself inwardly. He should've thought of what he wanted to talk about before he tried to start a conversation. After several seconds of desperate thinking, he came up with something: "What do you make of the whole 'tolerance to chaos' thing? Because if you ask me, it sounds like a bunch of malarkey."

"The Great and Powerful Trixie has many magical blessings. The power to withstand chaos is just one drop in a very large, gilded bucket."

"Just a drop in the bucket, eh?" Cranky laughed. The girls were right; she's got bragging down to an art. "Y'know, I've had my fair share of chaos over the years."

"Is that so?" Trixie returned to her script, flipping the page disinterestedly. "You seem like you prefer the quiet life."

"Oh, I do, believe me. If I had the choice, I'd just stay at home with Matilda all day."

"Matilda?"

Shoot. Cranky let out a long sigh, meandered back into the kitchen, and took a seat facing the window. "Matilda's—She's someone special. Someone I don't want leave behind." He pushed his face into his hooves with a tired groan. "Someone I can't wait to explain this to..."

Trixie walked out of the closet, her script tucked under her foreleg, and leaned against the doorframe. She chewed her lip for several seconds, not saying a word. Then, her face lit up.

"What if Trixie told you that seeing this 'Matilda' of yours could be as easy as looking into a mirror?"

Cranky peered over his shoulder, giving Trixie a confused look. "I'm not sure I follow."

"Oh, it's a clever little charm! The Great and Powerful Trixie came up with it herself, you know. I doubt you'll find it in any spellbook." She sauntered across the room and took a seat opposite Cranky, a confident smile hanging on her face. "All it takes is a pair of mirrors. Just swap their reflections, bind sound to light, and voila! You'll be able to talk to your beloved, no matter how far from her you venture."

Cranky's frown slowly turned into a wide smile. "You can really do that?"

"Just find two mirrors of similar size and shape. That's all Trixie needs," she said, inspecting her hoof nonchalantly. "Then, you'll be able to talk to her whenever or wherever your heart desires. The Great and Powerful Trixie guarantees it."

"That's wonderful. Thank you."

"You're absolutely welcome." Trixie reclined proudly in her chair, then pulled her script out from under her foreleg and began to read.

Curious, Cranky leaned across the kitchen table and examined the cover. There was a picture of a stallion with sullen eyes and a blank flank, as well as a bit of text:

The Stranger, by Albert Chameau

Adapted for the stage by Berdine Bardot

Translated by Rosetta of Trottingham

"Is that any good?"

Trixie peered up at Cranky. "Oh, this? It's based on a very interesting book. You might like it."

Cranky picked up the atlas, tossed it onto the kitchen counter, and gave Trixie a wide grin. "Do you know if there are any more copies in here?"

---

It had only been a few minutes, and Applejack was already starting to regret her offer to escort Blueblood to the bank.

"I don't know how you can possibly stand to work on a farm in these conditions," he said, a childish whine permeating his voice. "Honestly, I don't think I've ever been so hot in my entire life! It's simply maddening!"

Applejack tilted her hat, hoping to hide the annoyance on her face. "Bank's just a couple blocks away, Prince Blueblood. I think you're gonna make it."

Assumin' you don't talk yourself into heat stroke, ya big wuss.

When Prince Blueblood offered to pay Flim and Flam for their services, Applejack was ecstatic. She figured he was a swell guy after all; that under all his pomp and pretension, there was a great, big heart of gold. In that state of mind, she decided to take him to the bank—maybe they'd get to talking, turn over a new leaf on the way there. Besides, she would be traveling with him for the next few days. Might as well get to know him a little better, right?

But all Blueblood did was complain about the weather! There was no pleasant conversation to be had, just humidity this and sun exposure that. It made Applejack wonder how she could have ever thought it would be easy to get along with him.

"And the air! It's so stagnant!" Blueblood tugged a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and fanned himself vigorously. "Why, it's as if Ponyville's weather team had never heard of a cool breeze!"

"Y'know, the pegasi 'round these parts actually work pretty hard. I think they did a good job, considerin' the storm last night."

Blueblood didn't seem to have heard her. He looked towards the sky and shielded his eyes with the handkerchief, giving the sun a foul grimace. "I tell you, I almost find it hard to believe."

"What's that, Prince Blueblood?" Applejack asked, bracing herself for another gripe.

"Well, I'm not quite sure. To know that the sun can shine so brightly, even when Princess Celestia lies on her deathbed. It's a strange feeling, is it not?"

Applejack frowned. She didn't expect to hear that.

No matter, though; Blueblood didn't pay her discomfort any attention. "When I was just a little colt, I thought that if Princess Celestia ever died, the sun would stop moving, and daytime would last forever." He looked at the ground and laughed under his breath. "Of course, back then I knew naught of how Celestial magic worked."

Applejack pushed back her hat and peered confusedly at the edge of the sun How did Celestial magic work?

She'd always known that heavenly bodies moved more predictably in Equestria than in other parts of the world. In most places, the sun rose and set at very different times each season. The Lunar cycle wasn't properly synchronized with the months of the year, and stars didn't always fit right into their constellations. Applejack had even heard that the sun and the moon could both be in the sky at the same time.

With Celestia and Luna gone, would Equestria become like those other places? Would the sun set that much earlier during the winter and that much later in the summer? Would the harvest moon happen on a different day every year? Would some years need to be longer than others to account for all those differences? Sure would be a pain for farmers...

"You must'a had a pretty morbid childhood to be thinkin' 'bout what would happen if a princess died," Applejack said, letting out an awkward chuckle.

Blueblood said nothing back.

Applejack chewed the inside of her lip. She figured it was a good idea to change the subject. "So, uh... I take it you read that letter Princess Luna sent to Twilight?"

Blueblood gave Applejack a stern look. "I did. And before you ask; yes, I can see why Princess Luna would think that I have difficulty learning from my mistakes."

Applejack wasn't surprised to hear that. According to Rarity, Blueblood deeply regretted his actions at the Gala, and would never have been so rude had he known who she and her friends were. On top of that, it was "very forgiving of him to pardon my not writing him back. He's more than made up for his rudeness at the Gala, if I do say so myself. And again, your majesty, I am truly sorry!" Still, one had to wonder why he was so rude in the first place.

"Do you think you have trouble learnin' from your mistakes?"

The question took Blueblood by surprise. He gave Applejack a curt stare, then turned up his nose noncommittally. "It depends what you would call a mistake, I suppose."

"And what sort of thing would you call a mistake?"

"I would very much like to know where you're going with this," Blueblood said, still holding his nose in the air.

"I'm goin' to the Grand Gallopin' Gala. Where else? I know you already explained yourself to Rarity, but I wanna hear it straight from the horse's mouth." Blueblood gave Applejack a chastening glare. "...Your majesty."

Blueblood pulled the handkerchief back out of his pocket and gave his forehead a few quick, gentle dabs. "Well, Miss Applejack, when I spat out your fritter and called it—What did I call it?"

Applejack glowered. "Common carnival fare?"

"Common carnival fare, that's right!" Blueblood said, smiling innocently. "When I spat out your apple fritter and called it 'common carnival fare,' I was being quite dishonest. I assure you, your fare is far from common."

Well, ain't that just the sincerest compliment you ever did hear?

"You know, you still haven't explained why you were bein' so mean to Rarity in the first place."

With a flip of his mane, Blueblood turned up his nose once more and gave Applejack an impatient leer. "Well, surely it isn't that difficult to understand. You see, a stallion of my good breeding draws quite a few female suitors. I can't deal with all of them, of course; I have time only for the best." Applejack thought she saw him grin for a split second. "And when I'm faced with a mare who isn't the best, I... put on a boorish air. Just to dissuade her, you see?"

"I see you'd sooner ruin some poor filly's whole evenin' than just tell 'em you ain't interested," Applejack said, looking Blueblood dead in the eye. "Or did you want me to see somethin' else?"

Blueblood chuckled contemptuously. "The Spirit of Honesty, indeed."

"Heh. Only one o' you political types would think bein' honest is a bad thing."

"Au contraire, Madame Applejack!" Blueblood cantered ahead of Applejack, giving her a pained look. "You act as if I take pleasure in my actions. Why, I would gladly turn down a plain or disinteresting mare straight away, if it weren't for..."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "For what?"

"...Allow me to demonstrate." Blueblood unfurled his handkerchief, then magically folded it into a paper crane. "In the aristocracy, birds of a feather flock together, and the birds I'm forced to put up with can be quite treacherous. Where one falls at my polite declination"—Blueblood tore the bird in two, then folded the halves into a pair of cranes—"another soon rises to take her place. But if I'm impolite in my rejection..." With a flash of his horn, Blueblood crumpled the birds up and stuffed them both back into his breast pocket.

"Hang on. You're tellin' me you were only a jerk to Rarity 'cause you didn't wanna deal with her friends?"

A pernicious smile flashed across Blueblood's lips. "Now you're getting it."

Applejack marched in front of Blueblood, stopping him. "Alright, Prince Passive-Aggressive. You really don't think you did anythin' wrong at the Gala?"

"I thought I made myself very clear," Blueblood replied, meeting Applejack's glare unintimidated. "Of course, if the message didn't sink in, I would be happy to give you another visual demonstration."

"You've demonstrated plenty. Bank's another block down. Find your own way back." Applejack shook her head, tilted her hat to the side, and stormed past Blueblood without looking back. She made it two blocks before she started to feel guilty.

It wasn't very mature of her to just walk out of an argument like that. It was downright petty, not to mention ungrateful. Blueblood had just done Applejack a huge favor by getting Flim and Flam off her back! How could she be so quick to forget that, but still have time to hold a grudge?

With a reluctant sigh, Applejack turned around to apologize, hoping Blueblood hadn't gotten too far ahead to catch up.

But he hadn't moved an inch. At first, Applejack thought he was just a little shell-shocked from being told off, but that wasn't it; he looked like he was talking to himself.

"Honestly, I should have known you were lurking behind me," he said, giving the imaginary pony a venomous sneer. "Well, what is it? What's so important that you had to follow me around until I was alone instead of merely asking for a private conversation like a normal pony?"

The black stallion of the Lunar Guard appeared before Blueblood, looking as creepy as ever. Was he following the two of us around through our whole conversation? She ducked behind a nearby building, far enough so they wouldn't see her, but close enough to hear them talk.

"You left out a lot of information during the meeting," the guard said, "and I was wondering if you could tell me why, your majesty."

Blueblood gave his guardsman a haughty look. "I only told them what they needed to know; my omissions aren't putting anypony danger. In fact, they'll be better off in the dark." He turned away from the guard and started towards the bank, the sneer still on his face.

"What about the keys?" the guardpony asked, trotting after Blueblood. "I'm pretty sure they have to know about the keys, don't they?"

"They don't," Blueblood snapped. "I'll tell them about the keys when the time comes. We will not cross this bridge until we reach it."

The guard cocked an eyebrow. "And the panacea?"

Blueblood turned to give the guard a condescending look. "You do know it isn't really a panacea?"

"Of course I know that. But what I don't know is why Princess Luna called it something that it isn't."

"Because that's how we're going to use it. Besides, if the others knew what was really waiting for them at the bottom of Tartarus..." Blueblood took a sharp breath. "Well, I still have a hard time believing it. Nothing good can come from telling them, believe me."

The guard bit his lip. "So, we don't say anything?"

"Not a word. Now, I know how well you tend to handle secrets"—Blueblood gave the guard another vicious sneer—"but right now, I expect you to keep your mouth shut. Understood?"

"Understood." With that, the guard vanished from sight, and Blueblood was free to walk away as if nothing had happened.

Applejack's blood boiled. Prince Blueblood was keeping secrets from the Spirits of Harmony, and he was doing it for no reason but for the sake of keeping them in the dark! I better tell the others about this. They gotta know. They gotta—

"Excuse me."

Applejack gasped. The guardpony was standing a foot away from her, a dark glare in his eyes. "I know you were listening in on my conversation with Prince Blueblood, Miss. Granted, I didn't figure out you were there until after we'd finished talking." He brought a hoof to his face and shook his head. "Knew I should've cast a muting spell. Stupid..."

Applejack let out a nervous breath. "I ain't gonna try to deny it. So, you gonna cast a spell on me, now? Make me forget about all the stuff I heard?"

"No. I'm not allowed to do anything like that without a direct order from Prince Blueblood, and I think that's an order he'll be reluctant to give. I can't exactly let you off scot-free, though." The guard took a step forward.

"Well, hold on now!" Applejack shoved the guardpony over to the other side of the alley, putting on a defensive air. "I ain't gonna let you bully me into lyin' to my friends. They're gonna know about this here clandes-tine meetin' o' yours whether you like it or not!"

With a clank of his armor, the guard marched back up to Applejack, his frown growing deeper still. "You're talking about classified information, Miss. Prince Blueblood has reasons for keeping secrets, and—with all due respect—those reasons are probably a lot better than yours. Now, I know can't stop you, but I strongly urge you to—"

"You're right!" Applejack yelled. "You can't stop me, and you shouldn't!"

The guard let out an angry snort. "Alright, fine. What are you going to tell them?"

"You mean it ain't obvious? I'm tellin' 'em everything!."

"No, I want you to be specific. What, exactly, are you going to say to the other Spirits of Harmony?" The guard inched a little closer to Applejack, mocking her with his eyes. "Are you going to tell them that Prince Blueblood knows more than he lets on? Or that the panacea isn't exactly what it's being made out to be? Or that there's more to this journey than just going to Tartarus? All those things are common sense, and none of them are very helpful to know."

"Well—Well, so what! Just 'cause it's common sense don't mean it ain't worth sayin'! Besides, tellin' 'em's the right thing to do."

The guard rolled his eyes. "Just because—and, again, no disrespect—just because it's the right thing to do doesn't mean it's the smart thing to do. Telling the other Spirits of Harmony what you heard is only going to lower morale. You won't be doing anything helpful."

"Well... you're only keepin' secrets 'cause Prince Blueblood's tellin' you to!

He gritted his teeth. "Does it matter?"

"I guess not, but—" Applejack looked away. She tried to think of a retort, but the words wouldn't come together; the guard's reasoning made too much sense."Alright, fine. I won't tell nopony what I heard. But only if they don't ask! And if this comes back to bite me in my hindquarters, don't expect me to do any more secret-keepin' on your behalf. Understood?"

"Understood. I'll be sure to tell Prince Blueblood about the talk we just had." After a few more seconds of distrustful glaring, the guard vanished.

With a heavy groan, Applejack collapsed against the side of the building and sighed through her teeth. Lying to her friends was going to be just as big a pain as it always was, but things could be worse. Lies of omission certainly weren't the hardest lies to tell, and it's not like she was hiding anything that her friends needed to know. After all, those bits about the panacea and the keys couldn't be that important, could they? Blueblood clearly didn't think so, and neither did Princess Luna, or she would've mentioned them in her letter.

Applejack held her hat against her heart. Good or bad, it would not be easy keeping this from her friends.

---

Twilight couldn't believe how quickly things had come together. New Leoquillia seemed so far off at first, but now, thanks to the guides, everything was falling into place. Cranky had navigational skills, Prince Blueblood had diplomatic immunity, Flim and Flam had an efficient means of transport. Even Trixie had something to contribute: with those magic mirrors of hers, everypony had a way to keep in touch with their loved ones during the trip. Just like that, the Spirits of Harmony had everything they needed to make the journey.

Twilight managed to organize a town meeting almost as quickly; a few minutes with mayor mare were all it took to set something up. Once that was taken care of, Twilight headed back to her treehouse, re-stocked the pantry for Spike, packed her bags, wrote her speech—though not without help from Prince Blueblood—and spent the rest of the afternoon studying Leoquillian culture. Before she knew it, it was time to deliver her address.

Now Twilight stood before the entire town, her speech hovering by her side in a small stack of papers. A nervous clamor filled the air, ringing through the audience like atonal bells, smothering the calm of the evening sun.

Twilight laid her speech before her, cleared her throat, and began:

"This morning, I received some very distressing news from Princess Luna: the alicorns of Equestria have all fallen fatally ill."

The crowd gasped, breaking into a fearful chatter. Twilight managed to pick a few words out of the din: words like "changelings" and "Discord."

"Thankfully, this disease has a cure," she continued, silencing the audience. "I and the other Spirits of Harmony will embark on a quest to find said cure. However, I did not call you here this evening to tell you that everything will be alright."

The ponies in the crowd gave each-other worried looks.

"You see, I have the utmost confidence that my friends and I will succeed in our endeavours. I want to tell you that we will cure the alicorns, because I truly believe that's what's going to happen. But for all the assurance I can give you, the fact remains: we might fail. We might not find this cure in time to save the alicorns. In fact, we might not find the cure at all."

A depressed hush fell over the crowd. Twilight took a deep breath—the hard part was coming up.

"I called you here this evening to tell you that this doesn't matter. That even if our efforts are all for naught, even if the alicorns succumb to their illness, even if Princess Celestia herself d—"

Twilight stopped. She didn't remember writing that. The sentence was supposed to end after "illness;" she didn't write anything about Princess Celestia. It must have been one of those last-minute changes Blueblood threw in.

Whatever. Just say it anyway.

"Even if Princess Celestia herself d—"

Twilight stammered. The word just stuck to the back of her throat like a thick paste.

"Even if Princess Celestia d—"

Again, she faltered. Twilight fumbled nervously with the ends of her hair-tie, looking out into the audience. Over a hundred ponies stared back at her. Was the crowd that big when she began the speech?

No, stop that. Calm down.

She screwed her eyes shut and massaged her temples, trying to clear out her thoughts. They're just words on a page. Say it.

"Even if Princess Celestia is—"

She stuttered again, louder this time. A few of the ponies in the audience turned away and shook their heads, embarrassed for her.

Say it.

"Even if Princess Celestia—"

That time, Twilight literally choked on her words. She felt awful: like she was going to die, like her soul was pushing its way out of the sweaty, nauseous wreck she was turning into.

Enough. Just say it.

"Even if Princess Celestia—"

Say it!

"Even if—"

Say it!

"Princess Celestia... Oh..."

A loud, wracking sob escaped Twilight's throat. She collapsed, heaving against the podium, her eyes stinging with tears. The crowd was dead silent. She couldn't see their faces, but she knew they were looking at her. Everything was spinning. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think.

She wept.

She braced herself on the podium, sank into her hooves, and just wept. The words on the page echoed through her mind: Even if Princess Celestia herself dies.

But Princess Celestia couldn't die! She was immortal, beyond death! She had been alive for who knows how long! And now, thanks to some stupid disease, she was just gone? It wasn't fair! That wasn't how things worked!

Twilight felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned around, wiping the tears from her eyes, and saw her friends looking at her with troubled smiles. It was as if they were trying to sympathize with her; like they felt as miserable as she did, but were just better at hiding it. They gently pulled her away from the podium, guiding her towards the side of the stage, whispering little words of comfort in her ear. Twilight just stared at the floor and allowed herself to be led like a foal.

Prince Blueblood's voice flooded town square: "Even if Princess Celestia herself dies, this will not be the end of Equestria. Nothing will ever be the end Equestria."

Twilight looked towards the front of the stage and found Blueblood standing there, reciting her speech from where she left off. Might as well. He basically wrote it.

"For have we not overcome challenges far greater than this?" Blueblood rapped the podium with his hooves. "Have we not faced terrors beyond our most horrific nightmares and done so with courage in our eyes and smiles on our faces?"

The crowd's silence turned into a confused buzz.

"Nearly two years ago, Nightmare Moon escaped from her Lunar prison and tried to shroud us in everlasting night. Had she succeeded, she would have destroyed our crops, usurped our kingdom, and ruled eternally as a tyrant queen. Now, I ask you: did we endure?"

Blueblood outstretched his forelegs expectantly. Most of the ponies in the crowd nodded their heads, a few of them replying, "Yes."

"Not one year leader, the trickster spirit, Discord, escaped from his prison. He flooded the land with chaos and tortured us, tearing at our souls, poisoning our hearts with disorder and fear. I ask you again: did we endure?"

A great deal of ponies shouted, "Yes!"

"Canterlot was invaded by an army of changelings just a few days ago! Their queen wished to enslave us all; to turn us into living troughs from which her subjects could feed. Do you know why she and her swarm found us so appetizing?"

The audience leaned forward, their eyes wide.

"She wished to gain power from the very thing that makes us so strong: our love. Our harmony. The kindness we show each other in times of need. The courage we inspire in each-other's hearts. The bonds of friendship that make us proud to be Equestrians. One last time, I ask you: did we endure?"

"Yes!" cheered the crowd.

"Yes, we did!" Blueblood pounded his hoof against the podium. "Now we find ourselves faced with a new threat: a land without our leaders. A land without the guidance of the alicorns. A land where pony-kind will be forced to rule itself alone. One last time, I ask you all: can we endure?"

"Yes!"

"Can we survive?"

"Yes!"

"Can we face this brave, new world with courage in our eyes and smiles on our faces?"

"YES!"

Twilight watched the crowd break into applause, cheering as loud as they could. Hope sang through town square in bright, shining waves, blossoming forth like primrose beneath the sunset.

Something clicked in Twilight's head: everything that happened that day lead up to this moment. The bright and sunny weather, Pinkie Pie getting attacked by the guardpony, Rarity flipping out over Blueblood's letter, Applejack arguing with Flim and Flam, Trixie showing up in that stupid outfit. Everything blended together like cheap paint, coating her brain in a cruel irony.

All of those happy things. All of those funny, silly, happy things. They were the kind of things that made Twilight laugh. The kind of things that made her glad to be who she was.

The kind of things I'd want to write about to Princess Celestia.

Blueblood stepped down from the podium and took a long, deep bow. The crowd cheered even louder, though Twilight could only but roll her eyes.

It was a brave, new world indeed.

Author's Note:

To learn more about the nature of antimagic, be sure to read Section XII, Subsection I of Gloaming Glimmer's Sorcerological Compendium.

Comments

[Seether00]

Most excellent. I have been waiting. for this. Blueblood's speech was quite excellent and I like how the alicorn's control only affects Equestria and not the rest of the world, so them dying isn't world ending.

[RTStephens]

What I took away from this part is the promise of character interactions that I've never seen. Cranky talking to Trixie? Blueblood arguing with Applejack instead of with Rarity? Neato!

Trixie also keeps the prize of silliest pony in this story so far. She just couldn't give up that script, could she?

That ending with Twilight breaking down and realizing all the stuff she won't be sending to Celestia... Too many feels.

Also, it was made obvious that Blueblood knows more than he's telling, but I wonder... What does Luna know? She's the one that got this going after Celestia prodded her to. Luna wrote the letter and was very vague about things. It's got me thinking that she's pulling strings on all the characters and may have plans of her own that will be sprung when least expected.

Or I could be totally off my rocker!

Nice to see this continue! Looking forward to more!

[jroetzer]

Spotted fine literature:
The Stranger
Brave New World

Did I miss any?

[NumberNine99]

1270124

I'm glad somebody recognized those. There'll be a few more in the future.

[jroetzer]

1270754 yay. I am (on another account) working on a fic that has made references to a Christmas Carrol, Lord of the Rings, and Tangled, so i know to look for the ones that i may recognize.

[nemryn]

Okay, so we've got six of these 'spirits of chaos'; who's the seventh one? (Is it Ditzy? I bet it's Ditzy.)

[Aquillo]

Chapter 2's up? Woo!

Seeing as I'm terrible at providing compliments whilst I'm reviewing/proofreading/reviewing/whatever-the-hell-it-is-I-do, have some now:

1) Your characterisations are superb, both in that they're easily traceable to the ones from the show and yet you also manage to expand on them, taking them in new directions. Your handling of them is spot on, too. It's all too easy to make the mistake of lumping Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie, Dash and Fluttershy into a group called Twilight's Friends, and then changing the story to being about just the group and Applejack having adventures. You don't do that: each character feels like they have their own motivations and thoughts on something rather than just deciding as a group.

That being said, Flim & Flam do have a bit of that feel to them. I didn't bring it up in the doc because they've only just been introduced, and the show tended to treat them the same way, but... Well, in future, it'd be nice to get to know Flim and Flam, rather than the single entity with two bodies called Flim & Flam.

2) You take your time over things, or, in other words, you do excellent showing rather than telling. Rather than just having Cranky accepted immediately, Twi starts off by rejecting him. Rather than starting off with Trixie noticing the chase and then going from there, we have her in a cafe. It's little details like this that help to either set the scene or give the world a believable edge without - and this bit's the important bit - being boring or entirely irrelevant. Too many people try to get the former two in and end up inserting the latter; you don't, and it's an enviable skill to have.

3) This one'll echo some of the points brought up in 1), because it's mainly just the same thing applied to the world. This is one of the most curious mixes I've seen between the infant world of MLP and the adult views of it's unexpected demographic. There are parts in here that feel like they've stepped straight out of the show: Blueblood's reaction to getting covered in cake again is one of them, as is Pinkie's song composition and Rainbow's self-important 'we beat the changelings' moment. And yet, at the same time, there's this gloriously dark undercurrent flowing through it all that occasionally rears its head before sinking back into a tugging reminder. It's a story I'd count as 'Equestria +', in that it's an example of what might happen if MLP stopped being a children's show and started growing up.

Not that I want it to stop, of course. It's just that fanfiction should be exploring the places a show isn't going to go, and this is one that does that. It heads off into the dark places without forgetting where it came from, and that's a more than admirable juggling act.

There. I think I'm done clogging up your comment section with one huge-ass set of drivel. Hopefully this should give me some brownie points to lose when I'm being my usual picky, mean self. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Scootaloo_lolface.png

[Clockwork Insomniac]

Hmm. Colour me intrigued.

So far characters seem to be working well enough. That said, a few of them did seem to be swept to the side somewhat sometimes, but thats to be expected i suppose. I recommend perhaps splitting them into smaller groups in the future? Not now, but later it could help. Especially since that way the group dynamics will change. If Twilight isnt always in charge for example another character fulfills the leader roll and has a better place in the story.

Not without my little niggles however, and i wouldnt be me if i didnt state them. I was going to say i was disappointed you kept with the 'unable to learn from mistakes' thing instead of choosing something more interesting. Except i sort of cant because its implied now that its only one of many signs... and i suppose thats okay? Im not sure yet. The way id prefer it is - again - that something else a little more.... meaningful is allowing them access to tartarus. As of yet, im not sure if thats the case. Blueblood seems to imply the ability to withstand Tartarus is something more than this personality trait. That its some other personality trait but the whole mistakes thing is tied to it.

Problem with that is that people keep mentioning the 'unable to learn from mistakes thing' though. If that ISNT whats letting them in then it seems an unusual amount of attention is being paid to what could just be one aspect of the chaos-ness

The thing is though... so far it just doesnt fit in any way. Even in the show itself in fact it doesnt fit. None of the antagonists are shown to have any problems learning from mistakes. For the most part we only see them once, so how could they be shown? It just doesnt work for me. in fact, in very few cases do the chaos characters make any sort of mistakes at all. In-canon, Blueblood didnt make any mistakes. Hes just obsessed with class. Thats not a mistake, its an opinion. It doesnt make him wrong except possibly morally. it makes him a jerk perhaps, but not wrong. What was gilda's mistake? she just has a massive anger problem that she suppressed around Rainbow Dash because she liked her - but didnt care about anyone else. What was Trixie's mistake? Shes an unpleasant narcisstic ass with few redeemable qualities, but thats a personality. not a mistake. Her problems didnt come about because of something she did wrong, her house was destroyed by random bear attack at best tangentially related to her lying. But i cant describe her doing that as a mistake, not really. A mistake isnt really a mistake if the consequence is something completely freaking irrelevant. Its like saying ' it was a mistake to go to the dentists today' because the dentist's chair went haywire and ripped your spine out. Yes, you'd regret doing it, but thats not the same.

And thats just the show! In your fiction plenty of these characters seem quite reasonable too. Though really id like a better definition of mistake because im not sure which your using. What is perceived as a mistake is for the most part subjective. You might claim Trixie (im using her because shes easiest) made a mistake in lying about the Ursa. But you could counter argue that she knew exactly what she was doing lying, and did it for a very simple reason (to shut up her detractors) and that it suceeded in that. If she doesnt care about the fact she lied you cant tell her its a mistake to do so, and while you could claim that thats 'failure to learn from mistakes' that in itself basically defies free will because your telling someone what to believe and what is right or wrong with no real grounds for doing so.

If i seem to be over focusing on this one aspect im sorry, but thusfar it seems to be the unsteady lynchpin holding the story together and thus tugs at me constantly when there are so many better more interesting, far more freeing and yet far less vague alternatives that could have been used. After all, people have to make their own way in the world. You can declare a person is hateful or self-obsessed or narcisstic or whatever, but declaring them as one long string of mistakes strikes as more of an opinion than anything. And once again, if theres a celestial committee declaring certain ponies are this kind of creature it defies the basic concept of free will because it implies there is always a 'right' way of doing things.

To put it in as short a way as possible. I still think 'ponies who cant learn from their mistakes' is a really really reeeeeeeeally stupid plot point. but now it seems too late to change it and now its going to hang over the whole fiction.

You claim them incapable of learning from mistakes - but if that was literally true they likely wouldnt be alive or functioning. But if you really mean something else, something other than the incredibly literally, then there are a thousand better ways to put it than something so vague and yet confusingly restrictive as 'mistake'..

Okay i think im done. Next!

I kind of want that night guard pony to fuck off. He wasnt so bad earlier, but i didnt realise hed me made into a proper character and i got bored of him a while back. Sadly i cant really think of any way to shake him. In the meantime i must certainly say hes using too much magic. Remember how rare unicorns with real magical talent are. in all Spikes time in Canterlot he has never seen any other pony at all with a magical based cutie mark but Twilight, and those without those marks are only capable of a few extremely basic spells (Bluebloods was fine for example). I get that showing off magic is cool. but frankly youve already sort of flooded the magic based economy and made it a little boring. He certainly shoudlnt be capable of anything that Twilight - or for that matter Trixie really - would find impressive or in any way daunting. Any spells he can cast should be quite easily shaken off by a pony with an actual talent in magic.
For some reason I thought the majority of his magic came from enchanted armour, and i was fine with that. but he seems to be doing it of his own ability now, and that makes me sorta shrug and ask why.

Magic is implied to be something so difficult and hard to master that to seriously try it you have to work so hard you become a social recluse. its all but stated that twilight is only as good as she is because she completely ignored friendship for a decade or so. and i sort of assumed trixie was the same (except twilight turned to apathy in the face of other ponies while her jerkassness turned to actively despising them). If this bat pony is a good soldier and a good guard - he should be automatically a poor mage for the simple reason of not having that many character points to spread around.

Hes just another character to have to work into the story, and he seems alarmingly competent for a non-main-character. itd be like if luke skywalker was upstaged by a random pilot fighting the death star. A pilot who could use the force and was called Mary Skystrider. Not that im declaring him a particularly bad OC or anything - but at the very best hes extremely unneccessary to the story.

Right - i had more to say i think but i wrote enough aleady i feel. Enjoy reading all this rambling nonsense!

[NumberNine99]

1295630

The mistakes-thing doesn't fit with the characters? Did you truly read my story, darling, or did you just breeze through it?

The guides to Tartarus all have character flaws that cause them to make the same bad choices over and over again:

Trixie refuses to come out of the shell that is her stage persona, which keeps her from making friends.

Blueblood becomes very hostile when people question his behavior and motivations, leaving him unable to form non-professional relationships.

Cranky's devotion to and reliance on Matilda keeps him from enjoying other aspects of his life.

Flim and Flam: "Next town, brother?" "Next town." So, there's your in-show example.

These characters are crawling with not-learning-from-mistakes-ness. If you're not seeing that, I think you're looking in the wrong places.

Now, moving onto the guardpony. So far, he's used four spells: invisibility, muting, telekinesis, and anti-magic. He knows a total of six, three of which he only knows thanks to some pretty rigorous royal guard training. I imagine just about every guard was taught how to dispell changeling illusions shortly after the events of A Canterlot Wedding, and telekinesis seems to be a pretty common ability. Besides, it can't be too hard to believe that a royal guard would be able to cast more spells than the average unicorn.

Also, he is important to the story. But I can't tell you how or why, because spoilers.

See, that's the thing. I could show you a plot outline, and you'd probably retract just about all of the criticisms you've made so far. But I can't do that, so I guess you'll just have to trust the author.

Also, just to let you know, this isn't constructive criticism. You're not giving me stylistic or technical feedback that I can use to improve my storytelling skills, you're just nitpicking immutable plotpoints. If these comments were being posted after I'd finished the story, I'd give them some credence, but they aren't, so I won't. I appreciate your interest in my story, but don't expect me to make any of the changes you're suggesting.

[Clockwork Insomniac]

Ah. It seems ive been taking it too literally - i do this sometimes. I was looking for... actual real mistakes. Of all the examples you gave... perhaps Flim and Flam are genuine examples. Perhaps. A mistake is defined as an error (be it in action, judgement etc) caused by incorrect reasoning, a lack of knowledge or incompetence. All along ive been confusedly looking for any sign of those things in your chaos ponies.
Im seeing character flaws - but thats it. All good characters have flaws. if having character flaws is whats allowing them access to tartarus then why isnt say... Twilight getting in? She doesnt learn from certain 'mistakes'. She takes studying too seriously and hugely overstates the importance of pleasing the Princess at the expense of social growth. Shes gotten better, but its never stopped and thats no less a 'mistake' than any of the things youve pointed out. Or perhaps - just perhaps - that isnt a mistake in her eyes. Perhaps she sees studying seriously because she has different priorities to some ponies.

If tartarus requires such messed up chaotic bizarre ponies to enter - it seems bizarre that the creatures youve selected seem to be perfectly ordinary peoplewith the same bumps and grazes on their psyche as anyone has.

To choose Flim and Flam. They simply declare 'next town'. What that says about them isnt that they are somehow incapable of learning from their mistakes. After all, all signs point to the idea that this has been incredibly successful previously and presumably will be again. All it says is that they now what theyre doing is vaguely wrong, dont care about the fact and are now willing to move on to try it again. It would be refusing to learn from their mistakes if in the new town they did the whole no-quality-control thing, but ironically i truly doubt they will do that. because theres a mistake i daresay they will learn from.

And please dont say i wasnt reading correctly. For several of your examples its flat out impossible for me to have gotten the impression i was apparently meant to. Blueblood for example. In order to know that his phobia to psychoanalysis causes him to have issues forming personal relationship i would have had to have actually had this shown to me. Not vaguely implied. And even then id hardly call that a 'mistake'.

Basically - youre getting ponies with different priorities and moralities to you mixed up with ponies who are mistaken in their lives. Because they really arent the same thing. Ive been utterly confused all this time because a mistake is something you do wrong because you either have wrong information or you did it by accident. But very few of the things these creatures are doing are mistakes by the dictionary definition (which i was following - and thus confusing myself with), theyre doing them intentionally with all the information available at the time.

Even more basically - i was confused by the wording.

As for the guard pony, i was certainly a bit harsh on him. It was sort of the invisibility that did it as it immediately flags in my mind as a high level spell. Frankly i was surprised when Trixie used it, let alone him. Of course, magic is completely undefined in MLP. perhaps invisibility is an easy spell. Im just not used to it being so.
Theres the problem with magic in MLP. You really dont know where you stand. I tend to assume only ponies like Twilight and to a far lesser extent Trixie can do much of anything, and that everyone else is stuck with maybe one or two low level spells. Seeing a pony wander around doing all sorts of magical stuff is disorientating without some more explanations on how magic works in your specific fiction. An upper level and a lower level of skill would be helpful for example, showing me whats the norm.

My apologies if im not giving you the right sort of criticism. However i can only give out what occurs to me. Right now the biggest problem is the plot, especially the way certain things tend to jump out at you with no previous explanations. However ive already mentioned that previously, so i saw no point restating. Ill try to me less niggling in the future and more concentrated on bigger things then.

[NumberNine99]

1297933

I think you've solved your own problem in that first paragraph. Twilight tries to improve as a person, but the guides to Tartarus don't.

See, in MLP, all protagonists learn what they were doing wrong at the end of the episode, and subsequently vow never to make those mistakes again. Antagonists don't. The guides to Tartarus are either unaware of their problems, or unwilling to do anything about them, and they allow themselves to make bad decisions repeatedly because of this. Trixie keeps putting up a front, Blueblood keeps being a jerk, Flim & Flam keep trying to swindle people, and Cranky keeps avoiding opportunities to get out of the house. That's partially how I define the word "mistake;" a bad choice. It's a lot broader than the letter might have implied, I'll admit, but it's certainly there.

[dark magshin]

Bacon, really?

They're herbivores.

EDIT: Okay, so I didn't read it all the way through... my bad

[Vexy]

Is this on Hiatus? or just a pause?

Would be a shame to see this wither away; I like the idea too much

[NumberNine99]

1434706

It's not on hiatus; the next two chapters will probably be posted before the end of November. In any case, this won't be one of those stories that just goes off the grid.

[Vexy]

1435373

*Ahem*

[NumberNine99]

1932006

Yeah, it's been a busy year.

Chapter three is going to be quite long--upwards of twenty-thousand words, in fact--so you'll have that to look forward to. In the meantime, uh... Sorry!

[Starlight Nova]

In terms of percentages, (ex:10%) how close is the next chapter to this fanfic to being completed?

[NumberNine99]

2213960

I'd say... Seventy percent? I can't make any promises as to when it will be released, though. Sorry.

[PaxMano33]

“Don’t worry about it, your grace.”

you use the term your grace to refer to a duke, or duchess.

[PaxMano33]

Discord couldn’t do that, and he was chaos incarnate!

big difference between "chaos" and "discord". chaos refers to the vast, primal energies of the primordial soup our universe was before anything was created. discord is the lack of order among ponies.
or at least, that's my version of it. maybe im being nitpicky.

[PaxMano33]

why didn't Trixie just use teleportation to move herself and the script?

[PaxMano33]

you do realize that using magic to counteract magic in itself is contradictory, right? a spell that negates magic cannot exist. just so were clear.

[PaxMano33]

“Can we face this brave, new world with courage in our eyes and smiles on our faces?”

oh, btw, that was the stupidest speech ive ever heard. while it might have been a motivational one; not meant to reveal the truth and make everyone worry but to smooth things over, I have a problem with speeches like that in general. equestria IS facing the biggest, riskiest challenge thus far; one probably even worse than if nightmare moon HAD come back or if the changelings HAD won or if discord HAD stuck around. at least, with their leaders still around, equestria would still be rock solid. there would be no crippling nationwide mourning, no questions about the divinity of the sisters, no political turmoil, no chaos in the streets, nopony coming to canterlot with family trees rolled up under their arms vying for the throne, everyone would have direction, a purpose; and order would remain. but if celestia dies, the nation is crippled immensely. she is the primary decision maker and the driving political force behind the equestrian government. everyone and everything rallies behind and under her leadership. not to mention that (in the words of antonyc) not only everything she does or orders to be done is law, but everything she allows to happen also becomes immediately circumspect. somepony else in charge may not be as good as celestia--no, they WONT be as good as celestia. with celestia cone, equestria will fall almost like a house of cards whose bottom card has been removed; to say nothing of the other nations, who are comparable to a group of kids rampaging through the weakening pile, assisting in its collapse ant way they can. downplaying this is foolish; the equestrian people deseve to know what will happen should the hammer come down that they failed their quest. all of equestria deserves to know, in fact, so that they might avoid it.
in fact, it kind of reminds me of how the guard wanted applejack to keep the information from her friends for the reason that it would keep morale up. sure, they would probably be discouraged if they heard that blueblood was keeping things from them, but at least they wouldn't be walking into anything unprepared.
kind of a problem I had with that scene, actually, was that they were about to walk into tartarus and applejack thought it was okay to keep ANYTHING from her friends. tartarus is not a place you go to unless you can be ertain everyone knows the stakes. how could she overlook that blindingly obvious fact? isn't she the sensible one in the group?
I have other problems with this chapter, but ive spent too much time here as it is. if youre looing for another critic, I guess I can come back, but clockwork insomniac has that covered I guess. he can cover the big stuff for you, ill be the nitpicky one. hows that?

[hauntu4ever]

Very nice