Friendship
Flurry Heart started to fret. She’d looked everywhere for Auntie Twily! Then she turned to Mommy and Celestia, saw them smiling, and knew everything was going to be okay.
Hide and seek was one of Flurry Heart’s favorite games to play with Auntie Twily. Today they were playing at Celestia’s and Luna’s home in a room with a whole shelf of books Flurry Heart could read on her own, lots and lots of toys, and a big fuzzy rug. Mommy and Celestia watched from a corner, but they weren’t playing, so they couldn’t give Flurry Heart any hints.
Today Auntie Twily had shown her a new way to play hide and seek. First, she taught Flurry Heart how to tell when another pony cast a spell, which was called ‘sensing.’ Then Auntie Twily would cast a spell to hide, and Flurry Heart had to sense the spell she used and find her. Auntie Twily had already hidden as the ballerina in a music box, as a picture in a book, and even turned herself invisible. But no matter what Auntie Twily tried, Flurry Heart always found her with sensing.
This turn, Auntie Twily said she’d be extra tricky with the spell she used, so as soon as Flurry Heart counted to ten and opened her eyes, she sensed so hard her head hurt a little. But she couldn’t sense any spell, and she couldn’t see Auntie Twily anywhere.
She did sense a something near a strange bump in the rug. Maybe Auntie Twily had shrunk herself and hidden under the rug? Flurry Heart made the whole rug go up over her head and peeked under, but Auntie Twily wasn’t there, so she let it drop.
The something was still there. Also, part of the rug didn’t want to drop anymore.
Daddy always told Flurry Heart that she was a very, very smart girl, and Daddy never lied, unless he was telling silly stories like that the moon was made of cheese or that an evil queen had pretended to be Mommy and tried to marry him. Because she was very, very smart, Flurry Heart knew there were different kinds of rules. Some rules, like staying quiet during naps, had to be followed only when somepony said so. Other rules, like never saying naughty words, had to be followed always, and if a pony didn’t follow them, they got in trouble.
Then there was a third kind of rule that everything everywhere always had to obey, no matter what. One of those rules was that everything fell down if it wasn’t flying or being held up. But if everything everywhere always had to obey that rule, why didn’t all of the rug fall down?
Flurry Heart realized what the something was. She looked up, and there was Auntie Twily, standing on the ceiling because she’d made it so that where she was, everything always fell up instead of down. Then Auntie Twily’s horn twinkled, Flurry Heart burst into giggles, and she fell up into Auntie Twily’s big, warm wings just before the rug covered them both.
“The original draft of Star Swirl’s Birth, Life, and Offspring of Alicorns is kept…in here?” Twilight Sparkle eyed the cabinets of cold steel shutters beside her, one of which was marked Tartarus Containment Procedures, T’q through Z. Even with a dampening aura dulling her perception, she sensed enchantments strong enough to repel a platoon of trained unicorns.
“Luna and I collected as much of his original work as we could find after he and the Pillars disappeared,” Princess Celestia said. “His most sensitive material we were compelled to store in this secured vault. Of course, he had to swear to secrecy regarding his work when he returned.” She nodded to a guard on the other end of the aisle. Simultaneously they turned a pair of keys with their hooves.
The cabinet nearest to Twilight clanged open. She peered into its dark interior and saw a tray holding a crudely bound book, a tied-up scroll, and a messy pile of loose pages cut in various sizes. If it was like other manuscripts from the era, the bound volume would be his book, the scroll would be a list of corrections known as a corrigenda, and the looseleaf papers were appendices. Twilight tried an easy glow spell for a better look, but a sharp headache from the dampening aura cut her efforts short.
“In particular, the editions of Alicorns available to the public omit certain topics.” Princess Celestia beckoned Twilight to stand back while the guard lifted the tray out and set it on a folding table. “If we are to measure Flurry Heart’s growth against alicorns of the past, we’ll require the full scope of his research. You may find it most useful to begin with his second appendix, which contains his observations of Luna’s and my adolescence.”
Twilight looked over the cover of the bound tome. Its title, translated from Olde Ponish, read Observations on the Alicorns, including Phenomena Relating to their Birth, Life, Offspring, and Death.
“I’m sure, but…” Twilight’s eyes didn’t budge from the title. …and Death.
“Is something wrong? There are meditation exercises to help with the dampening aura if it’s still bothering you.”
“No no no, it’s not that. It’s just that I hadn’t realized alicorns could…well, I thought they, I mean, we, were…”
“Immortal?”
“Yes…that.”
“Oh, we might be, but none of us ever live long enough to find out.” Princess Celestia laughed gently. “No, Twilight, everypony is mortal. Even in the distant past, alicorns rarely lived more than a few tens of thousands of years before succumbing to disease or injury. Of course, life was different when Star Swirl found Luna and me…”
Princess Celestia’s look grew dour, but Twilight didn’t dare interrupt her. As far as she knew, neither of the Princesses spoke of what had happened to the other alicorns of the past.
“If there is one immutable law of the universe,” Princess Celestia said, “it is that everything except entropy is temporary. Do you know the ruins rule?”
Twilight hesitated, unsure of the non sequitur. “Isn’t it part of the architectural approval process in Canterlot? I don’t really know the specifics.”
“The rule is rather simple: when deciding whether to approve construction of a new building, Luna and I consider the quality of the ruins it will leave behind.” She fixed an eye on Twilight. “I have watched many great works turn to ruins in the past thousand years, and we alicorns will watch many more in the millennia to come.”
Celestia changed topics again and explained Twilight’s assignment to study how a race of reproducing alicorns would affect Equestrian population dynamics. As she did, Twilight began to wonder how outliving countless projects, commitments, and relationships had changed the way Celestia thought of time.
“…Most of the population dynamics equations are based on a normal distribution for age of reproduction,” Twilight said as she and Starlight Glimmer left the Ponyville train station, “but with alicorns, it’s better to use a log-normal distribution. Each alicorn could bear offspring for millennia after her peak fertility.”
“Uh, wow…” Starlight said.
“And then there’s life expectancy! For other ponies it’s a right-skewed normal distribution, but for alicorns I used a simpler exponential distribution, which means alicorns don’t need actuarial tables. However, the more complex demographic simulations rely on actuarial tables, so I’ll have to come up with new models from scratch!”
“That’s…really something.”
Twilight giggled. “Let me know if I’m going overboard. I might be a teensy bit excited about all this new mathematics.”
“It’s fine,” Starlight said. “I do feel a little like I’m back at school, though.”
“That’s so funny, I feel the same way! Probably from researching so much for Princess Celestia’s assignment.”
Her trip to the vault, and the information she’d gleaned from Star Swirl’s book, had left Twilight unsettled until she began translating it all into mathematics. A median life expectancy of 4,529 years didn’t mean she had to think about the next forty-five hundred years of her own life. A mixed-parentage birth rate of 50% wasn’t a coin flip that Princess Cadance would outlive by millennia any other children she and Shining Armor decided to have. Numbers made everything manageable.
Somewhere along the way they’d turned down the wrong alley. However, a peculiar urgency drew her further into it.
“Let’s hurry up,” Starlight said, “we don’t want to get in trouble.”
“Get in trouble?” Twilight hesitated. What did Starlight mean by that?
Then she remembered: if she arrived in her seat even a second late, their stern homeroom teacher would gleefully mark her tardy to ruin Twilight’s perfect attendance record. She and Starlight had spent too long reviewing their notes before class, so now they had to take this shortcut…
“Please stop, both of you!”
They ground to a halt. An albino quadruped with pairs of both feline and lagomorphic ears, a vulpine body and tail, and tiny red eyes without discernible pupils hopped in front of them. Probably some miscreant’s idea of a prank with the biology lab’s taxidermy models.
“You may be experiencing atypical urges due to an outpouring of psychic energy,” it continued. “Ignore them and turn back.”
“Psychic energy?” Starlight asked. “That better not be on the test.”
Twilight shook her head. “Oh, you’re always getting worked up about tests. Don’t worry, we aren’t getting to that until next year—”
A belief that Twilight held in her core shattered. She and Starlight weren’t rushing to school, they were in a dead-end alley facing a mysterious talking creature.
And Fluttershy had appeared behind it.
She shook on her hind legs, steadying herself with a hooked staff she held with one foreleg. With her other foreleg, she clutched a colt Twilight didn’t recognize. Ash covered them both. Something like the Element of Kindness hung around her neck.
“Fluttershy?” Twilight’s word seemed to set everything in motion. Fluttershy dropped the staff, and her forelegs swooped together to cradle the colt while a whimpering dog skittered from behind a trash can and licked the colt’s cheeks. The white creature leapt to a pearl wrapped in black wire that hadn’t been there a moment before while Starlight stepped towards them hesitantly.
“There, there,” Fluttershy cooed to the colt, “it’s all over now.” The white creature said something to Fluttershy about ‘psychic energy transfer,’ but she ignored him and turned her attention to Twilight and Starlight. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.”
“What happened?” Twilight asked. “You just appeared out of nowhere.”
“I’m sorry, I’m really not sure I could explain it.”
“I can explain everything,” the white creature said.
“I’m fine, though, and luckily he slept through all of it,” Fluttershy said, brushing the colt’s mane. “But how about you, Augusta? Are you feeling better?” She placidly watched the dog paw at her side, at first. Then she squinted and her ears drooped.
“What’s wrong?” Twilight asked.
“Nothing, just…I can’t understand what Augusta’s saying. We should get them home now.” The colt began to wake, and she set him onto the ground.
“What do you mean that you ‘can’t understand’ the dog?” Twilight said.
Fluttershy shrugged. “It’s like she was only barking.”
Twilight’s forelegs wrapped around Fluttershy in a heartbeat. “We need to get to my workshop, now,” she said, and teleported them both to the crystal palace.
Twilight was setting up the thaumameter when the white creature appeared.
“I’m sorry, I never asked who you are,” she said to it.
“My creators are from a distant world in a parallel realm of existence—”
“Inter-dimensional space alien, got it. Fluttershy, hold your breath…”
The crystal palace workshop never felt adequate. Despite tools arrayed in dizzying variety, reagents stocked as if from bottomless caches, and reference books shelved like a monolith, some vital resource always went missing. Starlight, for instance. Besides being a terrific lab assistant, Starlight had unique experiences with respect to ponies losing their special talents, although that’d been from a darker part of her life. When she got back from helping the colt home, Twilight would have to think of a tactful way to ask about it.
Twilight also made a mental note to contact the princesses about the alien. Equestrian history brimmed with first contacts, although never with a race from space as far as Twilight knew, and the Foreign Ministry could get the standard diplomatic process started with the alien. For now, she had to focus on Fluttershy.
The thaumameter chimed, signaling the end of its test, but its results returned as normal as everything else she’d tried. Twilight crumpled up the printout with a throaty “Ugh.” She would have to go back to scientific basics: gather data, hypothesize, test.
“What happened back there?” she asked.
The alien answered first. “My creators projected me to your world to help remove escaped experimental psychic energy sources. Generating psychic energy surrounds the adjacent area in participant-dependent, dissimulative phenomena, which lured the colt inside and injured the colt’s dog. Fluttershy came next, and she made a wish to heal the dog, which I granted. Then…” It hesitated. “Your language lacks sufficient terminology for this concept, so I’ll use euphemistic placeholders: I taught her to use a Soul Gem, which is the object around her neck.”
Somewhere in what it’d said hid a clue to restoring Fluttershy’s special talent. “Tell me about these ‘experimental psychic energy sources.’ What generates energy like that?”
The alien didn’t say anything for a moment. “This is strange. Your language has the terms to explain in detail, but the definitions are nonsensical. Is there anything I could read for supplemental context?”
Twilight pointed to the bookshelves. “I’ve got reference texts on physics, chemistry, and thaumaturgy over there.”
“Actually, it appears your world studies this under… What is ‘psychology’?”
Using a mix of duplication and teleportation spells, Twilight summoned a stack of psychology textbooks in front of the alien. The alien nudged the first book off of the stack and, a little adorably, wrestled it open to the first page. It read quickly, flipping each page after only a few seconds.
“I felt like I was in a labyrinth,” Fluttershy said while the alien read. “I knew that I needed help, but whenever I tried to get out, some trick drew me closer.”
“Closer to what?” Twilight asked.
“Closer to…” Fluttershy shivered. “It loomed over him, leeching his life like a witch from a scary story. Somehow, though, I felt sinister.” Fluttershy’s eyes flashed, two emeralds catching the light. “And that felt right. I’d been made to hunt it.”
Twilight leaned away from her in shock, but whatever had possessed Fluttershy vanished.
“Oh, it was awful!” Fluttershy moaned. “I wanted to talk to it, ask it nicely to let the colt go, but I couldn’t stop myself from swinging away.” She slid prone to the floor. “In the end, I kept him safe, I guess.”
“That’s right,” Twilight said and hugged her. “You did keep that colt safe. If there had been any way to help him without hurting this ‘witch,’ you’d have found it.”
Fluttershy wordlessly clutched her close.
“Here it is,” the alien said. It pushed the psychology textbook, open to a chapter titled ‘Emotions,’ to them with its forehead. “This is what witches, as you call them, use to generate psychic energy. However, the definitions in this chapter are still nonsensical. In particular, could you explain ‘fear’ objectively?”
Twilight didn’t respond. Talking to the alien had been useless, and explaining feelings to it wouldn’t help. She’d have to rely on herself to solve this, and so looked over Fluttershy again. One pegasus mare, mysteriously lacking her special talent…and wearing a duplicate of the Element of Kindness, which the alien had called a ‘Soul Gem.’ The Elements were related to cutie marks, and cutie marks were related to special talents, so if the imposter necklace affected Fluttershy’s special talent…
“Hold still a second.” Twilight extricated herself from the hug and seized the necklace with a levitation spell.
“Actually, I’d rather you didn’t,” Fluttershy said, resting a hoof on it. Twilight hesitated.
The alien said, “Before you do that—”
If only the alien had stayed quiet, Twilight might have slowed down. She might have thought more. She might have asked questions.
She wasn’t trying to excuse herself.
But the alien pushed her over the edge, the necklace flew off, Fluttershy shimmered away, a featureless white pegasus statue appeared, and Twilight watched helplessly as everything stopped making sense.
The alien appeared at Fluttershy’s side. “As I said earlier, I taught her to use a Soul Gem. A pony’s body wouldn’t survive long in a labyrinth, as she called it, so the body is replaced with this construct, which can replicate all of a pony’s normal biological and neurological processes. United with the Soul Gem, it is a nearly perfect replica of an average pegasus, except vastly more resilient.”
‘Average pegasus’ stuck out. “What about her special talent? There’s nothing average about a special talent.”
“Then it has probably been annulled.”
Annulled. All she’d wanted was to save a colt and his dog, and as thanks…
“Don’t do this to anyone else,” Twilight said. “Not until we can fix it.”
“Even with Soul Gem training, a labyrinth is very hazardous. A total of nine witches escaped from my creators’ world, and a tenth spontaneously generated here. Fluttershy will need help to eliminate them all.”
“Then we’ll help her.” Twilight wiped dust out of her eyes. “Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Starlight, Spike, and me, we’ll all help her. But don’t you dare recruit them, not if you’re turning them into this.”
“I understand,” the alien said. It launched into more explanation of Soul Gems, transdimensional escapes, psychic energy transfers, and…
Fluttershy deserved an explanation of what’d she lost and what lay ahead. She deserved to hear that from a friend. Twilight only had to find the way to tell her…
“If you’re done observing Fluttershy,” the alien said, “I recommend replacing her Soul Gem. It loses psychic energy when removed from the construct. If kept away for too long, it may cause catastrophic damage.”
No. It was asking too much. Fluttershy shouldn’t have to bear both the truth and the burden of what was to come. Instead, Twilight would shoulder what she could: the truth. That would be how she helped. She floated the Soul Gem back onto the statue’s neck, and her friend returned.
“What happened?” Fluttershy asked woozily. “Everything went dark.”
“That’s my fault,” Twilight said. “You must have had a carotid sinus reflex when I took off your necklace too quickly, causing you to faint.”
“Oh, okay. I better keep wearing it then.” Fluttershy patted the necklace and then frowned at Twilight. “Have you been crying?”
“No.” Twilight wiped her eyes again. “It’s just dust.”
Two full moons had passed since the alien told them about the ten witches in Equestria. The alien told Twilight much more in confidence, such as that no one had ever artificially created a witch and that witches could in theory be harnessed to reverse entropy, but little of that affected Fluttershy’s work. Because she’d made a selfless wish, she alone had to brave all ten labyrinths and destroy all ten witches. After tonight, she’d have four left.
Ponyville glittered like a phosphorescent ribbon dividing the night sky from the prairie as Twilight and Starlight quietly waited for Fluttershy to appear. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were somewhere in the woods to the right, while a cozy-looking campfire to the left marked Rarity’s and Pinkie Pie’s post. As with for every other witch, the six of them needed only to wait for Fluttershy from a safe distance and signal once she appeared.
Twilight had no reason at all to sift through her working theories about witches and labyrinths, or imagine what spells she could use to rescue Fluttershy. She did anyway. It probably wasn’t necessary. Fluttershy had done fine by herself against the other five witches. Why would something go wrong now?
But didn’t that mean it was more likely something would go wrong now?
Twilight was definitely not hyperventilating.
“Are you okay? It sounds like you’re hyperventilating,” Starlight said.
“No no no,” Twilight said, and then sucked down a breath. “Oxygen helps you think—” she gasped, “—so if I expel carbon dioxide—” another gasp, “—faster than my body produces it—”
“Twi, you just defined hyperventilation. Here.” Starlight conjured a paper bag and pushed it in front of Twilight’s muzzle.
“Thanks,” Twilight said as her agitation eased. “It wouldn’t hurt to think about backup plans, though. Fluttershy’s never stayed in a labyrinth this long.”
“It’s been…” Starlight’s horn illuminated a watch. “Forty-eight minutes.”
“Exactly! Her last labyrinth was forty-six minutes! We should plan for exigencies, right? Maybe if we combine Dizzy Flute’s Spell of Astral Projection with Palfrey’s Hex of Insulative Psychic Contrivance—”
“Or, we could make wishes and go in there with her.”
Twilight’s teeth ground together. They had all helped Fluttershy outside of labyrinths as best as they could—Rainbow and Applejack trained her in flying and fighting, Rarity and Pinkie relaxed her with spa days and parties, and Spike made her snack packs—but each had asked Twilight, at least once, about joining Fluttershy inside. Twilight couldn’t tell them the truth and risk Fluttershy finding out what had happened to her special talent, so she’d found other ways to dissuade them.
“That’s an interesting idea,” Twilight said. In her past conversations, it had helped to act sympathetic at the beginning. “What kind of wish would you make? Knowing every spell? Being able to read an entire book in a minute?”
“Heh, you too?” Starlight winked. “But I actually wanted to make a wish that would help Fluttershy, like to make her stronger.” She paused. “Then again, I don’t really know what she needs. I could ask Rainbow, since she already helped Fluttershy get way better at flying. You know, she told me once that Fluttershy would have improved even faster if there had been a Gilda in Fluttershy’s life.”
“‘A Gilda?’ Like, Fluttershy should have had a non-pony friend?”
“The way Rainbow put it, it was more about having someone to motivate you. She said that in her Junior Speedsters flight camp, whenever she lost a race or slacked off with practice, Gilda would start calling her a dweeb, a weakling, a loser, a failure, all this really nasty stuff. She said it peeved her, but afterward she’d push herself to get better. So maybe I should wish that somepony had motivated Fluttershy like that.”
“Ooh, Starlight, I don’t know. You’re talking about changing Fluttershy’s entire personal history.”
“Not her entire personal history.”
“She’s the Element of Kindness, though. Any change to her past could affect all of Equestrian history…”
Starlight’s head dipped, and Twilight realized what she’d done: unintentionally, but nonetheless cruelly, reminded Starlight of her mistakes.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say that,” Twilight said. “We don’t know how the alien’s wishes work, though, so maybe a badly worded wish can cause a universe-destroying temporal paradox. That’s why we have to be careful.”
“That’s…kind of a stretch,” Starlight said. “I doubt the alien could grant paradoxical wishes… Oh, I didn’t see you there.”
“See who?—GAH!” The alien was inexplicably by Twilight’s side.
“Yes, I could grant a paradoxical wish,” the alien said. “However, the paradox would have to be resolved by the creation of a new entity. For example, suppose a pony wished that her grandfather had never been born. Logically this means she could not be born, and thus couldn’t make a wish, producing an immediate paradox. To resolve it, a new entity is created to assume the grandfather’s place in the universe. Other ponies who knew the grandfather would no longer remember him, but would find the labyrinth of the new entity familiar for reasons they couldn’t explain.”
“Labyrinth?” Starlight asked. “Is this new thing like a witch?”
“In theory, they’re very similar, but it would be very inefficient to extract psychic energy from the new entity.”
Twilight thought for a moment. “So a wish that causes a paradox would spawn these…” She searched for a name for this new entity associated with witchcraft, and struck upon the pun: ‘familiar’ could also mean a demon that served a witch. “Let’s call them familiars. We don’t know with total certainty that a particular wish won’t make a paradox, so every wish is a gamble.”
“That is accurate,” the alien said.
“Therefore, no one else should make wishes.” Twilight stifled a grumble. Paradoxes and familiars would have helped a lot five conversations ago.
“I’m not so sure,” Starlight said slyly. “Why couldn’t a pony wish for what they wanted and that what they wanted didn’t make a familiar?”
“That would be two wishes, and I can only grant one wish per hunter.”
“Okay, so what if Twilight wished that wishes couldn’t cause familiars, then—”
“I couldn’t grant that wish either. From a metaphysical standpoint, each familiar is unique, so the elimination of each one counts as a wish.”
Starlight eyed him with one arched brow. “You know, you’re making wishes sound pretty boring. Next you’ll say a pony can’t wish for more than one bit.”
“That’s different. A pony could wish for theoretically unlimited quantities of metaphysically indistinguishable items. For example, a pony could wish to travel throughout the past and future to watch a series of lunar eclipses, or make a similar wish for a series of solar eclipses, but not both.”
“And how many familiars would that ‘see all of one kind of eclipse’ wish make?”
“Incalculable.”
“Yeah, I think I’m going to pass.”
In the distance, Fluttershy emerged from nothing. Twilight cheered and launched a flare spell, which was answered by Pinkie’s party cannon and Rainbow’s brilliant trail. She teleported to Fluttershy’s side, eager for a full report to add to her notes, and froze.
Wobbling on her hooves and drawing shaky, labored breaths, Fluttershy stared into the distance with pinprick pupils. She mouthed noiselessly.
Twilight took a step forward. “Are you okay?”
Fluttershy turned, and her horror vanished behind a gentle smile. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really.”
Twilight and her friends had gathered on one of the crystal palace’s balconies hours ago to watch Ponyville’s Arrival of Autumn Night fireworks. When the show had finished, she’d seen it first: a contorting void in the sky that towered over Everfree Forest, like ropes of pure black wreathed in blazing filaments slithering through a mutating knot. Second by second, it drew closer to them.
“Is that the last witch?” she asked the alien when it appeared. “I thought only ponies in a labyrinth could see a witch.”
“My creators’ models don’t predict what you’re perceiving. It’s a familiar, but of such strength that it’s visible outside of its labyrinth. However, this is definitely the last entity they detected.”
“Good enough for me. Fluttershy, ready to finish this—”
“I’m going to die,” Fluttershy whispered.
All color had drained from Fluttershy’s face. Twilight’s other friends bore their own terror-filled expressions, ranging from Applejack’s grimness to Spike’s claw-chewing.
Stress. It had to be stress from all the prior witches finally overwhelming her. Worse, the rest of them had only helped her outside of labyrinths, and watching her unravel proved how little it’d mattered.
But maybe it’d be different tonight.
“If we can all see that familiar,” she asked the alien, “does that mean we can help Fluttershy fight it?”
“Yes, normal ponies could damage it. However, only a hunter can defeat it with a blow to its weakness.”
“Girls? And guy?” Twilight said. “Did you hear that? Tonight we’re sticking together.”
Horror loosened its hold on them, and seven pairs of eyes turned to her.
“This is scary, I know, but just think of all the end-of-Equestria threats that we’ve overcome together. Remember when we met? We went from a Summer Sun Celebration party to freeing Princess Luna and Princess Celestia. And we didn’t stop there, did we?”
No response…at first.
“Yeah! Like when those pirates helped us kick the Storm King’s sorry flank.”
“I for one would commend our performance during Discord’s usurpation…aside from a trifling mineralogical frolic.”
“Don’t y’all forget about helping Princess Luna deal with that Tantabus so it wouldn't go around vexing everypony with nightmares.”
“I may have gotten the only statue in the Crystal Empire, but trust me, they know we did it together.”
“And do you guys have any idea how many catch up birthdays all of Star Swirl’s friends had?!”
Twilight’s pride in them bubbled up. “We overcame all of that with just the magic of our love for one another. Then, when the challenges grew too much for us, like when Queen Chrysalis kidnapped us and the Princesses, our love grew to match.”
She answered Starlight’s uncertain look with a nod. Yep, that means you.
“I don’t know exactly what we’re up against tonight,” Twilight continued, “but as long as we stick together, I know we’ll overcome it too. We might have to expand what ‘we’ means again, though. Here’s what I’m thinking…”
A few minutes and one group hug later, Twilight’s friends galloped out of the palace with their missions, leaving her and the alien. As they left, she tried to think of whether she’d missed anything or squandered any resource.
There was the one.
“If I need to make a wish,” she said to the alien, “grant it.”
Pinkie had found the perfect place for an ambush. Located just inside the Everfree Forest, the gulch’s entrance lined up exactly with the familiar’s path to Ponyville. Deep ledges lined its steep clay walls, on which countless enormous boulders sat ready. Trees thick enough for ponies to hide behind surrounded it.
“And that’s not all!” Pinkie said, pulling her sister from seemingly nowhere. “Take it away, Maud!”
“There is a karst cave system located underneath. One of its domes is near the far entrance. I removed some of the dome’s support walls, so it will collapse under geologically negligible weight.”
“Thanks so much, both of you,” Twilight said and sent them to their next tasks.
“Make way! Relief mare coming through!” Rarity cried as she galloped up to Twilight. “Is there any chance Spike finished those delightful cookies of his for Fluttershy?”
“Yes he did! Lemon lavender shortbread, fresh from the oven.” Twilight levitated a paper bag to Rarity.
“Spike, you magnificent gem!” She blew a kiss in the direction of the palace with exaggerated gestures. Spike would be watching the battle through Twilight’s telescope and reporting their progress to the Princesses so they’d know the situation when they arrived in the morning.
“How’s Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.
“Nervous, but keeping her chin up. Would you mind terribly stopping by to give her a quick pep talk? We’ll be on that overhang.” Rarity pointed to a rock formation on the right wall.
“Of course, as soon as I can.”
Rarity left, and Rainbow swooped in. “Check it out, Twi, Thunderlane and I got storm clouds set up all around here. Our teams are going to use them to send that spooky thing on a one-way trip to lightning town. Boom!”
Rainbow darted off to rejoin the other pegasi. Twilight spotted Applejack still at work on the gulch floor and teleported beside her. “How are the berms coming?”
“We’re about done down here. Also, I got a few good buckers up on the walls next to those boulders. Figure I’ll join ‘em in a second.”
“Did you find Nurse Redheart?”
“Sure did. A couple of her assistants tagged along too. They’re near the back lines for now, but I hope we don’t need ‘em.”
“I hope so too, but I’d rather be better safe than sorry.”
Applejack made her way up the wall to the left as a small stampede of unicorns led by Starlight approached. “Sorry we’re late!”
“Don’t worry, we’ve got a few minutes left. How’d target practice go?”
“Really well, actually. When this is all over, we might have to get Amethyst Star into the biathlon for the next Equestria Games.”
A magenta mare blushed and waved. “Oh, I just got lucky with those ten bullseyes in a row.”
Twilight ushered them deeper into the gulch. “Everypony, use these dirt walls for cover when you’re not firing. We don’t know whether shield spells work against the familiar, so until we find out, use them only as a last resort.”
Thunderlane and his pegasi team landed nearby and gathered juice while Starlight’s unicorns arranged themselves. Twilight ran through her mental checklist: she owed Fluttershy a pep talk; Applejack had gotten into position; Pinkie had joined Rarity and Fluttershy on the overhang; Rainbow was scouting to make sure the familiar didn’t do something unexpected—
“It’s speeding up!” Rainbow cried out, and everypony scrambled. Unicorns ducked behind berms, pegasi clung to trees, and earth ponies pressed themselves against boulders. Twilight scooted next to Starlight behind a berm.
First she felt the rumble in her lungs and throat. Wind from Ponyville’s direction picked up force, and then howls swept over them from the far end of the gulch. Distant trees cracked as if snapped in half, but without the sound of them falling over. The howls swelled as rays of ghostly scintillation speckled the gulch.
Starlight rocked on her haunches with her head buried in her chest. Nurse Redheart breathed in hurried gulps like a racer. Thunderlane shook and fidgeted. It was so peculiar; even watching their visceral fear, Twilight felt completely normal.
She peeked over the berm. The familiar had stopped at the gulch’s mouth, just shy of Maud’s trap. Its only motion was the endless, twisting distortion of void into itself. Then it began to move sideways, as if to sidestep Ponyville’s only line of defense.
Oh, buck no.
“Hey, you!” Twilight yelled as she hopped into the open. “Aren’t you supposed to be scary?”
The familiar stopped.
“Because if I made a list of what scares me—and trust me, I’m great at making lists—I’d add how my friends are doing, whether I’m a good princess, do I see my family often enough…” She flipped her mane. “Did I leave the oven on?”
She spied Starlight and Thunderlane signaling to each other, and then to their teams. A few unicorns and earth ponies stealthily shifted position.
“You, though… See, when the alien told us there would be ten of you, I just started thinking of you all like a countdown. Fluttershy had already taken care of one, so it was nine, then eight, then seven… Now we’re down to you, and you’re just another number.”
The familiar’s twisting accelerated.
“But you’re just another number,” Twilight said, “and never in my life has a number scared—”
Cacophony: the familiar surging down the gulch, ground shattering beneath it, unicorns blasting it, earth ponies bucking boulders into the air, and the familiar finally hitting the bottom of the underground cavern all combined into a riotous chain of noise. Tendrils sprouted from the familiar and flung out dozens of crackling black orbs, three of which sped towards Twilight. She snapped out bolts to vaporize the orbs and landed one hard blast of pure, dizzying alicorn energy into the familiar’s middle, sending it tilting backwards. It sprang back while she regained her balance, and its tendrils twisted together into a beam that speared at her.
Then Starlight was beside her with a brilliant turquoise shield, the mental force of a single unicorn against all of the familiar’s frothing malice, and it held, deflecting the beam into the sky.
Suddenly, a mass of charcoal-colored feathers crashed in front of them. Twilight teleported the pegasus behind a berm and pulled Starlight to cover with her. “Be careful where you’re sending those! That hit Thunderlane.”
Starlight watched Nurse Redheart’s team gallop to his motionless form. “Oh, no, no, no…”
“Don’t worry, they’ll take care of him,” Twilight said. “Go tell the unicorns that we know shield spells work.”
Starlight nodded and teleported away. Behind where she’d been, Nurse Redheart and her assistants crowded over Thunderlane.
“His body’s cold as stone,” Nurse Redheart said bleakly. “No pulse.”
Lightning bolts thrown by Thunderlane’s teams and blasts cast by Starlight’s team pummeled the familiar from high and low. Amethyst Star rolled into position between two berms and fired a string of ruby missiles into it, earning an ear-splitting howl with each strike. As soon as she relented, the familiar spun in its hole and flung a volley of black orbs in her direction. She dodged one and shielded herself against another, but a third veered without warning and caught her flank before Twilight’s shield congealed next to her. She crumpled, and another unicorn levitated her out of harm’s way. Nurse Redheart’s team swooped in again.
Twilight couldn’t move. She’d thought telling them that shields worked would help and give them more options for cover, but the first pony to try it… She couldn’t see Nurse Redheart, and decided against teleporting to her. Knowing more could hurt.
Clouds drifted down from the sky. Twilight searched the sky for Rainbow, but couldn’t see any pegasi in the air at all. Then the clouds exploded, and burning arrows shot through the familiar. Its howling turned into wild screeches as unicorns and earth ponies redoubled their assault. Twilight joined them, stringing together focusing and amplifying spells into into a surge she unleashed into the familiar’s base.
There. Near its top, curling blackness unwound and exposed a pulsing orange pearl like the heart of a dying star. That had to be the weakness, Fluttershy’s target. But from the overhang, no motion came.
She teleported up to it. Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy huddled together on the ground. “Fluttershy, the weakness is out!” Twilight said. “You just have to hit it on the big glowing spot.”
Fluttershy glanced from beneath her forelegs. “Where?”
The familiar’s top radiated like a lighthouse. Who could miss that? But Rarity and Pinkie shared Fluttershy’s lost expression, and Twilight began to wonder if her own eyes could be believed. She turned back to examine the familiar.
But instead she watched Nurse Redheart’s assistants drag her limp body behind a wall.
“I’ll guide you,” Twilight said and lifted Fluttershy into the air. They soared together above Everfree’s canopies, leaving the battle to dwindle below. In front of them, the familiar’s peak burned against the background of the forest.
“I can feel it,” Fluttershy said as if struck by revelation. “It’s so warm.” She slid away from Twilight and glided down, her hooked staff at the ready. Twilight caught up, took Fluttershy’s foreleg, and squeezed it to comfort her. She turned to Fluttershy and saw her softly smiling back.
If Twilight had been looking in any other direction, she would have missed the tendril whipping at them.
Her bubble shield snapped into place, but the tendril’s immense kinetic energy knocked them down. They slammed through tree limbs and hit the ground with bone-rattling force. A flock of black orbs rushed towards them, and Twilight’s horn ached as she shot them.
The familiar’s tendrils splayed on the ground and pushed it part way out of the underground cave. Then a thunderous crack rang out, and the overhang toppled down into the familiar, pinning it. Maud stood at the precipice as if to stoically take credit.
Hooves clattered nearby, brush pulled away, and Rarity, Pinkie, Applejack, and Rainbow appeared.
“Twi, we’re out of thunderclouds,” Rainbow said.
“Boulders, too,” Applejack said, “and Maud’s probably only bought us a minute or so.”
The familiar’s tendrils wrapped around the biggest piece of the rockslide and began to pry it away.
Twilight took Fluttershy’s hoof in her own, and Fluttershy clasped her tight, seeming to understand. The six of them were the Elements of Harmony, the channels of friendship that bound Equestria together, called once more to protect everything they held dear. Without another word, Fluttershy reached for Applejack with her free hoof, who reached for Rarity, who reached for Rainbow, who reached for Pinkie. Already Twilight felt kindness, honesty, generosity, loyalty, and laughter pour into her, combining with her to form a harmony that no wish could ever replace. Yet their circuit was incomplete. Somepony was missing.
In the gulch, Starlight raced between cover, blasting and shielding with breakneck speed, until in a blink Twilight brought her to them and took her hoof. Starlight’s shocked expression faded as their multi-color trails surrounded her. Together, they rose into the air and towards the familiar. Sweltering heat now gushed from its weakness. Orbs filled the sky, but a helix of rainbow wrapped itself into a corridor from them to the familiar’s weakness, protecting Fluttershy as she flew towards it. The familiar’s heat grew into a beam of fire mitigated only by Fluttershy’s shadow.
Twilight could remember every moment since she’d met these ponies. Every peril and triumph, every bout of anger and lesson learned, every prank and laugh, and every moment of quiet. As Twilight’s fur burned away, water boiled from her body, and hyperthermia fogged her brain, she clung to the memories that would dissolve on her last breath.
Then Fluttershy swung, and a howl like the world shattering filled the air. Twilight fell and crashed into tree limbs, but in front of her the familiar twisted in on itself, its weakness sputtering. An explosion sounded, and shards of void dissipated into the sky.
“We did it,” she tried to cheer, but produced a raspy croak. “Girls, we did it. We did it.” She propped herself up and searched for her friends. “Girls?”
Only the patter of raining ash answered her.
In the hospital, Princess Celestia told her that grief was merely another life process: the slow, quiet mending of one’s heart. There were common steps, but no two ponies grieved the same way. Twilight, for one, had started with a checklist:
- Follow her doctor’s instructions.
- Remember to eat.
- Talk to a counselor.
- Rest.
- Write in her journal.
- Visit Mom, Dad, and Shining Armor.
- Go for walks with Spike.
- Attend their funerals.
- Plan the memorial.
The memorial had proven to be the most laborious item, although she didn’t mind. Busywork meant she didn’t have to think as much. By mid-winter, only the memorial’s location had been decided: a hill outside of town roughly where the familiar would have exited the Everfree Forest. Today would be her first visit to it.
Unblemished snow lent the scene tranquility, and Twilight hesitated before tarnishing it with her hoofsteps. More snow would fall, she reasoned, burying her disturbance. When she got to its crest, she pulled out sketches of different memorial proposals, planning to consider them with the location in mind. There were two designs she liked in particular, simple walls engraved with each of their cutie marks, but for some reason she couldn’t focus on them. She decided to take a minute to rest. A memory of her first Winter Wrap Up in Ponyville popped into her mind, and…
Hours passed. That sort of thing happened, although less often recently. When the sun began to set, she prepared to go home until she realized she wasn’t alone.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“I am a creature of need,” the alien said. “I exist because I am needed, and where I am needed, I exist. It appears I have not been needed.”
“And you are now?”
“Arguably.” It bowed its head in an affectation of empathy. “From my study of emotions, I understand goodbyes are important to ponies.”
Cold wind had made her eyes sting and her nose run. She rubbed her face to warm them. “That’s right.”
“I’m leaving soon, as my functions are complete,” the alien continued. “I’ve confirmed all the witches were destroyed, and gathered data about the anomalous familiar. Unfortunately, I could not ascertain its origin.” It paused. “What is the purpose of your crying?”
“It’s just the cold,” she said, rubbing her face again.
“I see. Before I leave, is there any other information I should convey to my creators?”
Looking at the alien had started to hurt. Something about white on white, surely. She turned to the setting sun in all its stunning beauty.
What she would give to share this view.
“Have you thought about recruiting a hunter before you go?” she asked. “That way, if another familiar shows up, she could deal with it.”
“No. You told me not to recruit anyone else.”
“Well, I also said to grant my wish if I needed to make it.” She smiled. “And you are a creature of need.”
Its undulating tail and featureless expression ate into her thinning restraint. She gritted her teeth behind the tiring smile.
Then it said, “What is your wish, Twilight Sparkle?”
“I wish they were all still alive.” A sob escaped. “Please. I miss them so much.”
“I’m sorry,” it said, and a lecture about metaphysics, conservation of sapience, and psychic energy dynamics followed.
She wept through every word.
“However,” the alien said at the end, “if you wished for one of your friends to come back, I could grant her a wish as well.”
Whomever she revived would wish, without hesitation, to bring back another pony, and so on, until they all lost their special talents. It shamed her how long she considered it nonetheless.
She’d made so many mistakes. Overworking Fluttershy, botching the battle with the familiar, delegating too much; those errors had cost her friends their lives.
“I wish…”
One wish to set right all of her mistakes.
“…that I had the power to return to the past.”
“Okay,” the alien said, “then it’s done.”
She felt weight on her head as a crown materialized. Then, before the alien said a single word about hunting witches, she sent the hourglass in her mind spinning backwards.
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So.......... ?
All right! Back to Friendship Is Magica!
This is such a cool idea and great use of Twilight's canon abilities. I almost want to see this happen in the show.
This chapter actually includes a lot of really neat ideas, completely separate from the overarching Madoka crossover. I feel like adding a bookmark to this chapter just for the headcanons.
Wait a minute. The hell? Is this the show universe right now? Holy shit.
I love how incredibly casual Twilight is about this. It's just so good. As horrific as it is that Kyubey has found his way into the prime universe, the way Twilight is reacting to it is just perfect. Fluttershy turns to stone? It's okay, we'll fix it. She may cry about it, but she's confident in herself to work something out.
Though I can't believe Fluttershy's wish was to heal the dog. It makes perfect sense for her to do that, and obviously she had no idea what the consequences would be, but just makes me want to scream.
Welp.
Ohhh! I can't believe it took me this long to realize. This chapter is the equivalent of the flashback episode of Madoka! Homura-Twilight incoming!
Typo.
I wish Twilight got the chance to finish that badass boast. It's so perfectly Twilight. Really great line.
Starlight is an Element now? That's a pretty huge thing to just casually throw in.
Wait a minute. I'm confused. Okay, so I'm assuming that the Elements backfired because Fluttershy was a false construct. But then why did Twilight survive?
Oh, Kyubey, you little shit.
Awesome chapter. Awesome, awesome chapter. Eagerly looking forward to seeing what happens next!
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Yay! Playing with these ideas in the MLP world and writing for Twilight made the first few scenes a lot of fun, even though I knew the darker Madoka points would roll in soon after. Thanks for catching the typo, too!
My editor was also confused.
I left it unclear in this chapter because I wasn’t sure how anyone in the story would know for sure how Twilight survived, but I think that uncertainty can get addressed in the next chapter. That said, the explanation in my notes is pretty underwhelming.
That quote at the end was, arguably, the most emotionally resonant part of the chapter for me. That hurt.
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Thanks for your comment! Independent of this story, that speech resonates with me for personal reasons, so I’m glad I could share that feeling with someone.
It's interesting how knowing what the prime timeline is supposed to be affects the story.