The Night is Passing

by Cynewulf

XXXIX. Jannah, the Last: What If This Present Were the World's Last Night?

JANNAH

The symposium continues. But it shifts.

What do you think of this place? It is safer to ask that of Jannah when you are not crawling in its streets--or thinking of what is crawling with you. It is the kind of question that any who reach the high sanctuary can ask safely, and one they are often compelled to ask. What is Jannah? What does it mean?

What do I mean?

Celestia thinks that it is like regret. It chases you and chases you, and you have to be strong. Luna thinks about loss--she knows loss well even now. How many lovers already has she lost to fire and age and violence? Many. There is a legion of the dead. She has seen them dying and living below in Jannah’s streets. Celestia sees old mistakes, and Luna sees what she did right.

Either. Or. Both things lead them to regret.

A thought occurs to the wanderer with them, the one with the pipe and the smile named Harmony. Bear with me, she says, but I have an inkling. When I was down there, walking, I thought like this:

What do you do with bad memories?

Well, you could deal with them. Work your way through grief.

Or, alternatively? You could push it away. Far away. Take those things you did or were done to and lock them up in a box and then bury that box and then build a house on it. In fact, that’s exactly what you did. Maybe you even built a city.

It’d be a mighty big, sad thing that you’d build a whole city to try and forget.

RARITY

She had felt a little like herself that morning. Being at the head of an army… not so much. But helping supervise the Quartermaster with the standards? Now that was her speed. She’d had far more fun than was probably warranted. But then that had ended, and she had returned to being pensive.

“You don’t have to come with us, Fluttershy. I won’t bother you again, I promise. I just…” Rarity sighed. “I worry.”

Fluttershy had suited herself in some light scout barding. The Quartermaster had been more than willing, but for Rarity it had seemed almost an abomination. Fluttershy was not a fighter. She was a healer. But she supposed a healer was still a target.

But it still didn’t feel right.

Rarity looked every bit the part. Thank you for that unfortunately sharp critique this morning, Rainbow, she thought with a spark of irritation. She was playing a role, though. Technically, it was Sweetie Belle who was Lady of House Belle, but that was temporary. For all of her interest and fantasizing, Rarity knew nothing of what a Lady at war was supposed to look like. Or be. So the Quartermaster had worked the whole journey from Imperial Center on the barding she wore, using spare materials from the Legion’s stocks and what she’d borrowed from Shining of his old Equestrian gear. He’d offered her that last. She’d been touched.

So she wore an iron tiara that held back a perfect mane, tied into a tight braid down her shoulder. Her armor was heavy--far, far heavier than anypony would have expected. But she was not fast anymore. If anything, she was rather sluggish now with her iron leg. The stallion with the hammer cutie mark had done good work. He’d actually thought of her leg--her armor fit around it well, almost as if he had built the rest of it around the idea of the prosthetic.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“I’m sure,” Fluttershy said. “I have to go. I can’t just sit around. Not anymore.”

Rarity bit her lip. “Fluttershy…”

“I will be fine,” Fluttershy said, her voice a little harder. She placed a hoof on Rarity’s breastplate. “I promise. I’m not that weak, you know? I can handle it. I was here too, you know. Just not on the front lines.”

Rarity looked away. “I didn’t mean you were weak,” she said carefully. Didn’t you? Cruelty. Or worry. “I just… you’ve been so troubled. If Rainbow had acted anxious I would have offered her the chance to stay behind. I didn’t mean to offend, dear, please don’t hear that. You’re my friend. I am a worrier.”

Fluttershy pursed her lips, and then sighed. “I know, Rarity. It’s alright. I understand--I do. I have been troubled. But I think I should go, even if it is really bad in Manehattan. I feel like I owe it to the ponies we couldn’t save. I feel like I owe it to myself to do it, no matter how hard it is. To prove that I’m not useless. And I know you want to talk. Rainbow has tried. I know I haven’t made it easy to talk. When we have some time… I’ll talk.” She smiled at Rarity. It was her old smile again. “I promise. You’ve always been my confidant.”

“I… I’ve always tried,” Rarity said, stiff and surprised at first when Fluttershy nuzzled her. But she loosened, and nuzzled back. “I really have. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you.”

And when they pulled away, Fluttershy’s smile was still the same. It was a rare blessing. “You’re here now,” she said simply.

There wasn’t much to say after that. The honor guard had already been picked--automatically, in fact. The First Cohort of the Ninth was traditionally assigned to protect the persons of any important figures travelling with the legion. They bore before them a stnadard with a bronze dog head and a stylized crystal heart. Rarity thought about the dog, and decided that it wasn’t coincidental. She hid a smile.

The scouts who had entered Manehattan ahead of them had reported mostly good news, or as good news as could be expected. No fires, no fighting in the streets. If what Luna had told her, briefly, to supplement Twilight’s accounts of her own journeys was true, than they were lucky.This was not Vanhoover.

Rainbow, of course, trotted on her right side. Even she wore barding--after complaining loudly that it was too tight, too loose, too heavy, not cool enough, etc--and to be perfectly, absolutely honest, Rarity thought it looked nice on her. It was a foolish thought to be thinking just then, but she thought it anyway. It was somewhere between her own impressive regalia and Fluttershy’s sleek array. Flexible, but strong. Like Rainbow, really.

Fluttershy was on her left. Opal had stayed behind. Someone had to be in charge, and the Legata frankly had little interest in her mission here. Rarity didn’t care what she felt about it.

“So, like, you know what I really miss?” Rainbow mused.

“What?” Fluttershy asked, craning her neck to look past Rarity.

“You’ll roll your eyes, but I can’t help thinking that it’s gonna be, like, the most boring thing ever. Rarity going to talk to the mayor? Bleh. I graduated to heavier stuff a long time ago, but it’s probably the best time to have one of those old Daring Do novels.”

Rarity chuckled at the image. “You know, I read those when I was younger.”

“I’ll choose to ignore the implication that they were for younger ages because I made my peace with that like forever ago, and instead nod and grin because it’s cool we shared that,” Rainbow said.

And Rarity’s chuckle became an outright guffaw. “Rainbow! Honestly, you surprise me. I meant nothing of the sort! Well, not at first.”

“Gotta be one step ahead. That’s how you stay the fastest, you know, always a few wingstrokes ahead.” Rainbow grinned at her and Fluttershy.

“Do you think he or she will want to talk?” Fluttershy asked.

“I do hope so,” Rarity said. “It’s why I had the legion alter the banner Shining let me have. I wanted it to look fabulous. Not only because, and let’s not be coy, I quite deserve to be announced with such--” she waited with a patient smile for them to stop snickering, “but also to convince ponies here that we are the real deal. That they can trust us to bear Luna’s word to them.”

“If they wanna hear what she has to say, that’ll be great,” Rainbow said quietly.

Rarity didn’t comment. Rainbow had hit the nail on the head. Yes, if they actually cared for Luna’s words at all, this would be wonderful. But it might backfire. Luna had come to save this city, but she had been too late to protect it from harm.

They entered the city limits and found… nopony. Not a single one. She thought she saw a few watching from boarded up windows, but every time she turned her head, there was no trace.

An idea occurred to her. “Decanus? Ah, sorry. Centurion.”

The pony who walked ahead of her looked back with a raised eyebrow. “Yes, your Grace?”

“Bear with me, for this’ll be an odd request. Do you soldiers sing on the march?”

“Sing? Sometimes, I suppose,” he replied, looking puzzled. “What of it?”

“Anything that would be, ah, how should I put this? That is a bit more lighthearted. I would give off a softer air.”

He mulled this over, still walking. “If you wish, your Grace. Though, for the record, I state that it is hard to make a century of legionaires look like anything but.”

“Yes, I had noticed,” Rarity said dryly under her breath. The Centurion badgered one of his Decani to sing something which was greeted by a light chorus of genuine mirth, which swelled until it was the entirety of her hundred-pony strong bodyguard singing a song which frankly she found a little off-color. But it was happy, and they seemed a little less like armed invaders.

They encountered ponies a few minutes later. They were a sorry sight, but Rarity tried not to show them she felt this. They were skin and bones, hollow eyes and old scars, dirty manes and dirty coats. They were hungry. They were defeated.

When there were more than one or two, she stopped the column and strode out with Rainbow and Fluttershy to address some of them. She smiled warmly.

“Hello there!” she called. They stared at her. “I was wondering if you might help me for a moment--”

“Ma’am,” said one of them, shrinking away. “We don’t have anything left t’ steal. You should keep going.”

She pursed her lips. “Young stallion, I am not here to steal anything. I was simply wondering if you might help a mare find the, well, mayor.” She smiled at her own joke. They did not. The crowd was growing. There were a dozen of them now. Two more. Three more. All of them stared at her.

“What’s with the flags? None of the raiders had flags!” Someone said in the crowd.

“Shut up!” another said.

“I bear the standard of Equestria,” Rarity said loudly to the crowd, answering his question. “And also of my own house. House Belle.”

“Never heard of it,” the first pony said.

Rarity chose to ignore this. “I have urgent business regarding relief in the form of food, and would speak to your mayor.”

“He died in the siege,” the first pony said.

She sighed. “I had hoped that would not be true. Who rules in his stead, then?”

“Nobody!” said somepony from the crowd.

“Hey, she could talk to Red!”

“Can it! She’ll get pissed at you if you send these weirdos to her!”

“Look, she said something about food and I’m friggin’ hungry.”

“Mares, gentlecolts, please!” Rarity spread her forelegs in a calming gesture. “Let’s not be too uproarious now. This Red? I would love to talk to her. If you could give me directions, I would go myself.”

A stallion pushed through the crowd, lanky, with a nice mane and calculating eyes. “I can take you,” he said. His voice was soft. Rarity gave him a winning smile.

“Thank you, gentlecolt. Your name?”

“Mixolydian. I can take you to her,” he repeated. Rarity accepted this, and the century split. Only ten followed her, while the rest went with the centurion to retrieve the wagons hidden just outside the city. She would want to act on her promises of food soon. They would wait until word reached them.

It wasn’t that she wanted to hold food hostage. It was that, more and more, she was worried that bringing wagons of flour and magically-preserved produce was going to start a bloodbath in the streets as people rushed to hoard.

Mixolydian said little. They had been on thirty-second street, he told them, and the enigmatic Red was holed up closer to the bay, in the old King Hoofward hotel. He didn’t really need to comment on the city, for it spoke for itself. Most of it was fine, in theory. It wasn’t quite as… Well. It looked better than Stalliongrad had, in a lot of ways. In Stalliongrad, she had felt that the city was pressed on all sides--by nature, by raiders, by famine--but here? She did not feel any outward threat. The city was simply an empty, half-ruined shell. That building was fine, but its neighbor had taken a shell or a rather violent spell and sported a gaping wound. This street was fine, but its neighbor had been torn. There was very little real reason to any of the damage.

Fitting, she thought, for a place of madness. Except it wasn’t that, anymore. It was just sort of quiet. Empty. Or appearing empty. She saw ponies watching from the windows, waiting. Waiting for what? For her to begin the slaughter again, probably. For her to make her move, to begin the play. She didn’t know if what beat at her chest was anxiety or sorrow. She had come… to ask them what she would ask them, here? To this place?

How generous.

When they came to the Hoofward at last, Mixolydian’s neutral expression grew pained. “I’ll go up first and tell the boss you’re here. Do you mind? She… tends to sleep a lot these days.”

An old mare, then. Rarity nodded. “Of course. Decanus, I think I’ll be meeting this pony alone. Could the rest of you stay here in the lobby?”

The leader of her ten-pony honorguard scowled. “I would rather not, but your orders hold a priority. Try to avoid drawing fire, your Grace.” He saluted, and readied his battle saddle. The legionaires around him began to find windows to watch or desks to wait behind.

Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash walked to the elevator with Mixlyodian and then waited as he embarked on it alone.

It was Fluttershy who spoke first. “He seems alright,” she said. “The way they talk about this mare named Red… I think she might not want to help us.”

Rarity rubbed her temple. “I am ashamed, Fluttershy. I am not sure I would help me either. We’ll give them the food regardless, obviously, but I had hoped to gather some volunteers or rally what was left of the police and guard but…”

“But we haven’t seen any of either of those,” Rainbow finished. “Like, nothing.”

“Should I even try?” Rarity asked, strained.

“I don’t know,” Fluttershy said, laying a hoof on her shoulder. “Do what you feel is right, Rarity. You know I don’t like the idea. But I know that… that it may be something we have to do. All of us. Luna told you she needed every single pony we could find.”

“Everypony deserves the chance to protect their home,” Rainbow said. “Even if they can’t, or they won’t, you owe them the chance to make the choice.”

She snorted. “They really are not going to see it that way.”

“Eh. I do.”

“Yes, you do.” Rarity leaned on her, and then smiled at Fluttershy. “Well, he’ll be back any moment. I’ll just have to get back into character.”

But Fluttershy shook her head. “Or you could just be you.”

Red was not red. Her coat was brownish and dirty and her mane was really more pink. She was barely an adult, probably around Sweetie’s age.

That last thought hurt Rarity. Her heart was almost… sore, in a way. Sweetie Belle… was she okay? Were her parents okay? Would any of them be safe? Her parents. She was a noble now. She hadn’t had any way to talk to them about it. Oh, hello mother, father. We have all sorts of wonderful titles and a whole estate in Canterlot now. Also an army. Do you like my tiara? It really does wonders for the whole get up, doesn’t it, mother? I think it sets off my eyes. I mean--

She stopped her mental babbling when Red arched an eyebrow at her.

“Whaddya want, huh? Why’d youse come?” the mare asked. “Well? C’mon, I got a busy schedule of wallowing and hating to get back to.”

Rarity took a deep breath. “I am Rarity, of House Belle. I have come here for two reasons. The first, and most important, is food.”

“Food’d be good,” Red said. “But I know you don’t have any.”

“I have quite a lot, actually,” Rarity said. “Flour. Carrots. Apples. Crystal berries--those are the best part,” she said with a little smile. “They are rather lovely. My initial mission was to secure food and medical aid with our northern neighbors, and I have done so. This comes with the blessing of both Princess Luna and Empress Cadenza I of the Empire. I have it waiting at the edge of town.”

Red glared at her, and for a moment, Rarity almost thought she was about to lunge up in an attack.

“Bullshit,” she said. She settled back into her ratty chair behind her pilfered office suite desk. “Sorry, but I call bullshit. You couldn’t get food all the way from up there down here without it getting raided, and even if you did… it won’t be that much.”

“I have enough to feed all of Canterlot.”

Red blinked. “Run that by me again?”

“I have enough to feed the post-collapse refugee population of the capitol city with leftovers sufficient enough to allieviate the immediate hunger in Stalliongrad and Manehattan, hopefully getting both cities through the winter.” I also have medicine, though I have a lot less of that. And some, ah, scarves,” she finished, lamely. “Winter wear. To keep the cold out. Blankets and such. We had quite a few donations from the citizenry.”

The mare in the chair stared at her. Her hooves dropped off the desk. “And youse ain’t shittin’ me.”

“No, I assure you I am not, ah, doing that,” Rarity said.

“Why would we lie?” Rainbow broke in. “I mean, what would our angle even be?”

“Good question,” Red said, and back came the snarl. “What’s yours?”

Rarity sighed. “The food is not negotiable, in that I am not going to attach anything to it. You get food. Nothing that happens here will keep me from feeding my fellow Equestrians.”

“So ya do want somethin’.” Red almost seemed to relax.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s bargain.”

“I’m not here to bargain.” Rarity took a deep breath. Another. She ran a hoof over her cheek. This was where it was going to fall apart. “I’ve come to beg.”

Red blinked at her, and that was about the extent of her reaction. The balance of power shifted.

Rarity continued. “Canterlot is swollen with refugees, many of them from here. My own family is there. One of the reasons we were able to move our food so easily was because I have an entire legion at my back. The other is that much of the banditry of the north has left. The raiders have moved on. They have gone south. Canterlot is under siege by bandits, raiders, rebels…” She closed her eyes. “They have been kept at bay, but the noose around the city is tightening. It’s only… it’s only a matter of time. Luna is trying to keep them all together, but hope is slipping.”

“Canterlot? They’re… but it’s got walls,” Red murmured. Her lazy hostility was gone now.

“You can fly over walls,” Rainbow groused. “And you can knock ‘em down. The world changed on us. When I was a kid, guns were fancy and there were probably only a few dozen in the whole country. There was talk of them even being illegal. Now we can destroy whole city blocks with a bomb. Knock down walls with a shell.” She shivered, and Rarity--who didn’t give a damn what this insolent mare with the pink mane thought--touched her shoulder, then her cheek. “World got a lot worse, really fast. I talked to Luna too, Rares.”

Red spoke then. “You know, you look a lot like her.”

Rarity looked back at her, brow furrowing. “Who?”

“Sweetie Belle.”

“How do you know--” Rainbow began, but Fluttershy interrupted her.

“Babs Seed. I remember you now. You were Apple Bloom’s cousin. I remember when you visited Ponyville forever ago.” Both of her companions turned to her and she gave a soft smile. “It’s been a long time. You probably don’t remember me. We didn’t speak much.”

“Uh… Fluttershy, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Well, least I got it right.” Babs Seed sighed and laid her forehead on the desk for a moment. “Yeah, that was a long time ago, huh? How is Sweetie Belle, Ms. Rarity? And… when the hell youse get all noblesse-obli-gay?”

Rainbow snorted. Rarity sighed. “Oblige, darling,” she said automatically, mind reeling a bit. She tried to put a name and a face together, but--oh. Oh, right. She did remember this mare now. She had been just a filly then. What a strange world. “I, ah, Sweetie was fine the last I saw her. She is leading the House in my stead, back in Canterlot. The last I knew, she was alright.”

Luna was a little vague about what she was doing, but…

It suddenly occurred to her that Babs was grinning at them in a distant way. “You haven’t changed. I didn’t knows ya very well, but I thought ya were alright when I was a kid. I had to be sure I remembered right. You… you really have food?”

“A lot,” Fluttershy said. “Enough for the city to get through winter, we think.”

“Aw, Celestia.” Babs closed her eyes and grinned at nothing. “I can’t believe it.”

“We can start hoofing it out today,” Rarity said. I was actually coming to find the pony in charge to assist me in doing just that.”

Babs snorted. “Why the hell youse here then? I ain’t in charge of nothing.”

“Well, you were the mare on everypony’s lips,” Rarity murmured. “They seem to respect you, and consider you the closest they have to a leader.” The why was lost to her, but she didn’t say that.

“Respect? Nah, they just know whatever mess there is--I’ll clean it up. Didn’t respect us enough to join the resistance, did they? Fuckin’ griffons.” She spat. Rarity grimaced automatically. “You were here. You know.”

They all nodded.

“The stallion who broughtcha here, he could handle that logy-istics--”

“Logistics,” Rarity murmured.

“Yeah, he can do that. Good with numbers, good with his head. I can get ponies to come and put the fear of Celestia into ‘em so they behave all good like. Rest of it is up to you. But… what did you need to beg for?”

“I want to raise a volunteer levy,” Rarity said with a rush. “To aid me in breaking the siege.”

Babs opened her mouth, closed it, looked at the others. Looked at Rarity. “You’re crazy.”

“That’s why I’m going to beg,” Rarity said solemnly.

SPIKE

It had been a long, long day. It was growing even longer as the sun retreated.

He furrowed his brow and growled at nothing. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish more than you know that I was jesting,” Luna said.

Spike scratched with one claw at the table. He was glad it wasn’t one Luna cared about. There would be a deepish mark when he was done. At least. “A bomb.”

“Yes.”

“And she can’t figure out when?” Spike asked, and then groaned. “This is hopeless. Do you know how big this city is? Even if we know why those stupid white hat losers are so hard to keep up with, its not like we can find something like a bomb in any short amount of time. She doesn’t know, but it has to be within the week. We can’t find a bomb with no clues in that amount of time.”

“Yes.”

Spike wanted to scream, but he didn’t. He slowed his breath. “Whatever. I’m ready, my team is ready. We’ll find the traitors and their stupid bomb. We can narrow it down by looking for strategically important targets. They aren’t stupid, obviously. It took a changeling to get even this vague information, so they run a fairly tight ship. They’ll hit important things.”

He looked up at Luna, and she was smiling grimly at him. “Good. I’m glad that you have returned to the fight. Yes, I have an inkling of what they will hit.” She stood away from the table and retrieved a map from the cubbyholes full of scrolls that lined the annex. She had chosen an out of the way, little-used room for this. It was isolated, and easier to defend and seal off.

She spread it out in front of Spike, and Spike examined the map. He’d mentioned how big the city was, but even he forgot sometimes. He felt a tiny stab of hopelessness, but shook it off. No. Focus. Luna needed him. Apple Bloom needed him. She lived in the bottom tier now.

“The first target I can think of is the gate,” Spike said.

Luna had fetched a bit of charcoal, and she marked the gate. “Agreed, though it is not the most likely target, I think. The main batteries will also be targets.” She marked these as well. “These are the main barracks in the lower level. I do not think they are the targets, but it would be unwise to completely ignore them.”

“Soarin’ and I have been together fighting a lot, and we’ve been on the walls. The two of us can take a tour of the barracks and look on the side.” He pursed his scaly lips. “It’ll take a little while, but it will also look like we’re ignorant of a threat. Your real spies and forces are gonna be a lot more useful than the Bats.”

“The… bats?” Luna stopped, seeming genuinely puzzled.

If Spike was capable of blushing in the way a pony did, he would have. “Uh… heh. The Bats Out of Hell. We decided to call ourselves that.”

Luna chuckled. “A colorful name, to be sure. I think your plan is sound. But those are not the only target.” She marked a few more locations. “Here and here, stores of material. Shells, ammunitiion, replacement parts for the machine gun emplacements. Finally…” she tapped the wall.

“The wall? Isn’t it, like… I mean, you’d need a pretty big bomb.”

“Or, one would need to strike the foundations.” Luna hummed. “Which, unfortunately, is very possible. There are miles of tunnels, catacombs, cellars… all manner of spaces, all under our city. The warrens aren’t across the Morningvale gap, but under our hooves.” Another smile, a grim line. “I am beginning to think that it is the most likely target. If it is, we are fortunate.”

“Fortunate?” Spike drew back. “What? How? Finding a bomb in a building is one thing. Finding one buried in a pitch black ancient tunnel maze? That’s impossible.”

“Unless, of course, one can see in the dark. Have you met any of the Duskwatch? I introduced you to my Nightshades, but I don’t believe you’ve met the Duskwatch. It so happens the newest of their order is outside.” She stood, shook herself, and walked to the door. “Amaranth, could you come in, please? Just a moment.”

She stepped away from the door. Spike stared at her in dumb fascination.

“What?” he managed. He saw Amaranth flying at Morningvale. He felt the warmth on his cheek as the air thrummed with heat as mortar shells raked the earth. He saw her trembling in the fire-tilled craterland. He felt her in his arms. He saw her legs broken--

The door opened, and before his eyes… Amaranth. She wore a thick, strange cloak, black, and yet it shimmered like a field of stars. Her eyes--had they been the color of blood before? Her features were sharper, leaner. Aggressive. She looked almost as predatory as he did. For the first time in a long, long time, Spike no longer felt like the only predator in the room.

“No way.” It was the dumbest thing he could have said.

She grinned, flashing impressive fangs at him. Is that what he was always doing to people? Huh.

“Totes, Companion. In the flesh.” She pulled her cloak up, which for some reason Spike found rather embarrassing, and wiggled one of her back legs. “And I can walk. Crazy, right?”

“How?” he asked, staring. Not at her leg. Okay, kind of at her leg? But mostly just… staring. Confused.

“I gave Amaranth a choice,” Luna cut in. She smiled at Amaranth. “A choice I have given many others fallen or mauled in my service, whose hearts were steadfast even in ruin. She has joined my Duskwatch, and accepted the Change.”

Amaranth’s smile faded. “It’s kind of a lot to take in, Companion. I know it is--I’m still… I’m kinda still figuring it out.”

Spike worked his jaw. “I saw you get hit,” he said.

She nodded. “And you carried me all the way to the ship. You saved my life.” She walked to him and laid a hoof on his shoulder. It was freezing to the touch. He almost flinched. “I owe you so much. They tell me you kept me from flying out of the damn thing when you couldn’t find a way to strap me in.”

“Couldn’t… find one,” he said. “You changed? Change, like, how?”

“Well, got these big ole red eyes,” she said with a little smile that didn’t grow. “The sun burns. Like, really, really burns. They show you when the change is complete so you believe them and it hurt. It hurt a lot. I can see even better in the dark than I used to. A better sense of smell, better hearing… I, uh,” she looked down at her hooves. “I eat mostly meat now.”

“What, really?” Spike was not overly perturbed by the idea. Okay, ponies eating mostly meat was weird. But carnivorism was not exactly foreign to him. A thought occurred to him, and he chuckled.

“Have you had bacon yet?”

She stared at him, and then they laughed together. Behind Amaranth, Luna smiled.

“Yeah, I have. It was friggin’ great,” she said after a moment. “One of these days, I’ll get Stormy to try some. Just gotta bully him into it.”

“As Amaranth said before,” Luna said at last, moving forward, “the Duskwatch can see and hear and smell beyond you or I. Since ancient times, they have been extraordinarily good at finding that which others would hide.”

Amaranth seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if she wanted to ask some question, but no question came. “Your Highness, your aide came by earlier. He said it wasn’t urgent, but it was important. I told him you had requested that you not be disturbed. Should I send for him, or will you see him later?”

Luna pursed her lips. “I’ll see him later, I believe. Thank you for the warning, Amaranth. Return to your post for now. And be ready for a long night,” she added with a little predatory grin. Amaranth answered it with one of her own.

“Gladly,” she said, and with a wink for Spike, she turned to leave. Then stopped. “Oh.” Amaranth looked to Luna. “I… I have a request.”

Luna arched an eyebrow. “Of course, Duskwatch, speak straightly.”

“Would you permit me to continue working in tandem with Colonel Ice Storm, your Highness? I know the Duskwatch value independence,” she added hastily. “I understand that. It’s just…” She faltered.

Luna watched her--Spike knew her expressions well enough to see there was no coldness or judgement there, but he wondered if others saw those things. “The Colonel is very competent and very brave,” Luna allowed. “Though chafing a bit at his temporary transfer. I had promised him he would be returned to his own force in time.”

Amaranth sighed. Her ears drooped under her hood. “I know. He accepted for my sake, ma’am. I am sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

Luna shook her head. “It would not do any harm to ask. If he agrees, then I give my blessing. Have him inform my aide if he is to accompany you.”

Amaranth perked up. “Yes! Yes, your Highness, I will.” And with that she left, and Spike watched her go.

“Think we can find it?” he asked Luna quietly.

“We have to,” she said, also watching the door.

BRIGANTINE ROWAN-OAK

She was not a good pony. To be honest, she didn’t like to think of ponies in terms of Good and Bad. She substituted other things, most of them a bit more stinging but less… well, important. You called those Epona bastards pricks, but you didn’t say they were Bad. If they could be Bad, then so could anypony.

They were the words that children and fools used. Children and fools had to categorize the world into tiny boxes they could understand. Brigantine was no child and she was certainly no fool. She had learned at her father’s side that the Will was the important thing. The Will to Power, the Will to Control, the Will to Create. Weak ponies called names because they were weak. They had no will.

Brigantine Rowan-Oak had Will in spades.

She showed this by kicking the door to the safehouse in the lower tier almost completely off its hinges. She also showed this by cursing at it and giving a look that could curdle a new mother’s milk at the wide-mouthed guards on the inside. Yes, try and ask what’s wrong or what I’m doing, she seemed to be saying. Try. Ask. Make noises. I’ll show you why they cower from Equestria’s finest house, her eyes almost pleaded. She wanted a fight. And by fight, she really meant she wanted to hit something until it bled and died. She felt like that a lot. There were a few less commoners in the world from when she had been younger. She too had wandered the lower tier of the city, rambling and gambling in the dark streets. Her idiot son did it for drink and cards. She did it to beat the life out of the ponies who inevitably thought a noble mare was a good mark. That was why she was strong and he was weak. Cards and drink? Cards and drink were the pleasures of ponies too easily happy with life, too easily appeased. Work, violence, dominance, creation--these were pursuits for the pony who would not be satisfied by piss and rain gutter water that just happened to have a smidgen of alcohol. Yes, she’d had a few drinks in the same dives her son did. She’d used the dullness of the warm liquor in her belly to enable her to take one more blow. Her son faffed around laughing on his stupid, miserable ass.

It’s not that she hated him. She was just disappointed in almost every way possible. He was weak. Easily pleased. He had little to plan for and little ambition with which to plan. He was pathetic on the sparring grounds and useless with the account books. The only things beside wasting himself in luxury that he was remotely good at was getting ponies--not that he had a preference! Of course not!--to lift their tails, and a penchant for the lyre. Both of which made her want to kick him. Not in the face. She had restraint.

She used this restraint to not break down the second door. She merely opened it. Forcefully.

What would become of her House? Ah, there was the question. That was the question, the only one that mattered. Preserve. Grow. Endure. Strengthen. Dominate. Leave nothing unturned and no passage unlooted. Rowan-Oak over all. Against all.

Yet, she had standards. She was not an evil pony. Not a bad one. She certainly didn’t think so, whatever pricks like Epona said.

She didn’t double-cross. She didn’t betray. When the realm needed Rowan-Oak playing along, she played along. She would work with Epona if the realm needed it, and lo and behold, the realm did. Fancy that. So she was willing to work with them and their mewling populism and their disgusting smiling and their endless, gods-fucking-awful weakness. Because Brigantine Rowan-Oak had standards, and even she understood the greater good.

Part of being strong meant picking your battles. Part of being strong was knowing what to fight about.

Equestria was worth fighting about. And for. Nothing dissauded her from this. When she had formed her entente with Coldblood and Iron, she had done so to array her House against Epona and nothing more. She did not oppose Luna. If Luna would pick the right house for once. If Epona didn’t have everyone convinced with their snide act, their obvious play.

And she was angry all over again. Wonderful. The third door she did not break. Barely.

Even in her rage, Brigantine noticed everything. The guards in their nondescript barding, more than before. The startled ponies peering out from bunks where there had been no bunks before. The crates marked with the same symbol as her own armory’s supplier. The stockpiles of material.

And understanding began to worm into her mind, but she did not face it yet.

She built Equestria the guns it needed. She watched Epona like a hawk because they were snakes. She gave her Princess soldiery when the walls needed them--and been alone among the ponies who called themselves her allies with oily grins.

She had questions. Actually, no, not questions. Questions implied that she would wait for answers, or that any answer they gave would satisfy her.

She wanted to know where her stocks had gone--she had a feeling that she had already found those--and she wanted to know why they had committed not even a token force to the trenches or the walls--she had perhaps already seen those reserves as well--and she wished to know what it was they planned. Because Brigantine was no scholar, but she could see a plan. See it’s shape like a boat rising out of the mist, yet could see no flag to hail her by. And it made her furious. To not know was to lose, and Brigantine did not lose.

She came at last to the room that Iron called--with that bored voice of his--the “Inner Sanctum”. It wasn’t a Sanctum, and he was an ass. It was a meeting room.

Brigantine Rowan-Oak opened the door.

Lord Iron sat at his accustomed place. Lord Dawn flinched at her arrival, but she had no time for worms. Lord Coldblood raised an eyebrow and smirked at her and she felt a little dirtier than she had. Lord Epona sat in her seat, a white cloak around his shoulders. And he laughed, his horn glowing and a scattergun held in his magic’s grip.

“Welcome,” he said.

She stared at him.

“Oh, Brigantine, it seems I was correct as to who was, ah, causing a ruckus. You know, I do own this building. I’m sure, of course, you can pay for the damages,” Lord Iron said in almost kind way. “But it is fortuitous that you arrived when you did. I was just about to send for you.”

“You.” Brigantine was a grenade and somepony had rolled her across the floor into a crowded room. Just another few seconds. “You. And You. All of you.”

“Yes, welcome, my good friend,” Epona said. “Welcome to the Revolution. The Manichean sends his regards.”

And Brigantine Rowan-Oak lost.

TWILIGHT

Eon had to choose between speaking and guiding Twilight with visions, and she chose the latter. Twilight saw Rarity usually--the same Rarity, she thought, looking like she’d been in the wild for months. Sometimes she hovered a worn flintlock pistol before her. Other times, she did not. Two strong earth ponies covered in strange markings joined her, or one did, or she was alone. Sometimes, she limped. Sometimes, she cried. Once, she sat against a wall and stared at Twilight.

Eon cut one vision short when one of the Rarities stumbled out of a side room, but Twilight couldn’t ask her about it. She wanted to know why. Something told her that, no, she didn’t. She wouldn’t want to know.

The others followed her lead without speaking. Why? It was easy for Twilight to tell herself they were all worried about Abdiel and trying to focus. That they were worried about guards or being heard. But sometimes, when she would pause while Eon found the right… whatever it was that she was looking for, Twilight would notice that Applejack was staring at her. Or that Pinkie seemed… Unenthused. No, that was stupid. Why would Pinkie be enthusiastic when Abdiel’s life was on the line? Why would she be that way here, of all places? That was the normal reaction. Dammit! Damn. This time it was not Rarity who was thrown into her line of sight out of nothing but rather…

Rainbow Dash hurtled down the the hallway, then spasmed and dropped--

That one vanished. Twilight trotted the way the Rainbow vision had come.

Another Rainbow.

Rarity and Rainbow, struggling through the hallways. Rarity crying. Rainbow’s wings spasm, but she grits her teeth. They hurt--oh, they hurt!--but she has to keep going. They almost made it! They almost made it! She didn’t have the energy to cry or scream or curse. Rarity needed to stop. Dash set her against the wall. One of her legs was broken--no, no it wasn’t, the bone was shattered. The leg was a mangled, ruined mess. Rainbow couldn’t take her much farther. She reapplied bandages. Rarity cried. Every time Rainbow touched her she tried to scream and ended up coughing violently. Rainbow panicked. She kissed her forehead, under her horn, her eyelids, her cheek, her mouth. Please, please be okay. Please be okay. This is all my fault. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to help I don’t--

Twilight reeled. But she had the sense of where to go. She had to keep going.

She kept seeing Rarity cry on the wall. No, she didn’t see it. She felt it.

Because she knew that even if it had not happened that way, it could. Hadn’t they all known that, so long ago, what felt like years, when they had parted at the crossroads?

Pinkie stopped, whirling about in the middle of the road. A huge grin covered her face, her eyes alight.

“I did it!”

The rest of the party—except for Rainbow, who had to circle back—stopped short and stared at her. Her grinning continued, undaunted, and finally Twilight simply had to ask. “What did you do, exactly?”

“I remembered the song!”

Twilight followed another Rarity. She was thankful to every god and star ponies had ever prayed to or thanked that this Rarity was alive and whole, even smirking. She was fiddling idly with some sort of mechanism.

Humming to herself, an old waltz half-remembered from her undergrad phonograph. One-two-three, one-two-three, round and round, like the locks she learned to pick. You panic too easily, Rarity, you’re wound up so tight! Find a hobby! Find something that’s small and meaningless more like she groused but now she had gone further than fate had allowed. If small things with great could be allowed to compare, then Rarity had overcome this place with a half-remembered bag of college tricks. It wouldn’t be so much longer. She would make it--

This Rarity continued. Twilight followed after her, slowing her pace to match this Rarity’s still remaining grace. Twilight liked this Rarity. This Rarity wasn’t about to die or looked like she wanted to.

She found a stair, and they mounted it together. She walked alongside the vision now, mouthing Rarity’s thoughts, not saying them, just… mouthing them. Feeling them. Yes, she could be Rarity for a moment. This Rarity wasn’t troubled. This Rarity was confidant. She didn’t have friends who thought she was losing her mind.

“How much farther?” hissed Applejack, trying to keep her voice down. It didn’t work as well as perhaps it could have.

Twilight groaned quietly. “I don’t know. We’re making good time, I think. Come on, there--”

At the top of the stair, they found a vast vaulted chamber. No cover.

She heard hoofsteps, and their party scrambled back down the stair. Tradewinds pushed to the front, rifle ready. Twilight was at her right flank, trying not to breathe too fast, too shallowly. Applejack tensed, ready to bowl over the first pony to try the stair.

The vision continued, grinning, and walked out into the open. At the top, she turned, her ears flickering--she had heard something--and then a look of joy! And then she opened her mouth and--

The vision was gone as she spun to do… something? It had been confusing. What had she seen? Another dying Rarity? Or almost dying, or hurt, or wanting to die, or lost? Over and over. What did she expect? Did she expect victory in Jannah? Did she expect laughter in hell? Those hoofsteps were coming.

Twilight was going to hyperventilate. She felt it happening and she tried to stop it.

Not again. She was going to be useless to them. Again. She was going to fail. Again. Here, right here at the end, again. Again and again and again. She felt Celestia’s hoof on her shoulder again, as if she were twelve all over again. Breathe, Twilight. My good and faithful student. Breathe. It’s alright.

But it wasn’t alright she was always doing this! She was always so nervous and she got so worked up and she was just a huge burden and maybe those colts were right--

“What colts?”

“What colts? Twi, shh!”

“The ones who called me crazy! They said I was crazy and what if they’re right and I am crazy, Celestia? I don’t want to be crazy. I just want to be a good student and learn everything and be good at magic and and and”

“Pinkie! For land’s sakes, grab her and shut her up! Aw, Twi, sorry, honey!”

“They are near! Please, Twilight, be quiet! Oh, chyort, is she going to--”

Something was forced into her mouth. Pinkie. Pinkie singing at the crossroads--

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet hooves that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

--A valediction forbidding all mourning. She was--

Panicking. Reverting.

Twilight Sparkle pushed Pinkie off of her. She shook her head. The steps came closer.

She was not a child. She was herself. She was the Apostate, and the Apostate did not care what her magic burned. She reached out.

“Three zebras,” she said, and her voice made Applejack’s eyes go wide as saucers. “Three. I can handle them. Give me a moment.”

“Twi, hold on, let ‘em pass--”

“They’ll be back. They always come back. The ones you don’t want to,” she said.

She pushed past Applejack’s pleading and hooves and emerged. The zebras were there, as she had sensed. They stared at her. One opened his mouth to challenge her. Maybe to shout in alarm. Maybe to surrender outright to the outsider who brought down monsters. Maybe, if she were living in a fairy tale, they wanted her to free them.

Twilight Sparkle hit all three with rapid-fire bolts of purest arcane lightning. The bolts pierced right through their thick robes, through their warm and living bodies. She slew them in a second. The Apostate looked down at what she had done.

Her friends climbed out.

She would not be a child anymore. She had been a child before. Foals did things like burying their foes, as she had done, or waiting for their mothers to come back, as she had done. They listened to songs like she had done. They cared what simulcra of their friend bleeding in the dust felt. But the Apostate put off childish things when she became a mare, and so did Twilight. For the moment.

After a long hesitation--and the Apostate waited it out--another vision arrived. She followed it.

No more weakness.

The Apostate left. Twilight Sparkle returned. Nervously, she navigated other rooms, negotiated other passages. There other zebras wandering the halls. They were not difficult to avoid, announcing their presence loudly with the trinkets that hung from their ears and hooves, and by the strange tongue they spoke in that echoed on the dead stone.

They continued in silence. Even if they had had anything to say to each other, there was no time for it. This was no place for it.

Three, two, one. Like that vision’s waltz, and they were dead. What was three more on a mountain? What was three ponies in the scope of an ocean of blood?

Another stair, another ascent into another open chamber. Temples, she recognized vaguely. These were the antechambers of some ancient temples. She did not find anything in her that cared about that at all.

Another vision. She followed. This one was Twilight and her friends--Pinkie on one side and Applejack on the other. Tradewinds walked behind them without her rifle, she--

--hummed, seemingly unmoved by the trials of the city or the weight of the dead temples. Applejack smiled back at her. Twilight was excited despite herself. To be walking through such history!

Twilight followed, head hung low. Another Twilight that could have been. Of course. That Twilight probably hadn’t waited so long to go looking. She probably hadn’t yelled at Luna or let Ponyville be destroyed. Twilight saw her smile. No doubt nopony had ever called that Twilight an Apostate, and she had never been one. Maybe she had yet to kill anypony or hurt anything. Maybe when she came to Vanhoover, the city was still healthy and alive and a pony named Axiom worked on the docks and she met him briefly and he was alive.

The spaces became wider and more open as they ascended. The sun shone through easier and more brazenly with every floor. And how many floors were left? Twilight didn’t know. The levels were taller up above than the ones below. It was hard to judge from the inside how high those lofty ceilings climbed. More and more robed cultists walked the walls, but Twilight had not seen any Black Hoof mercenaries. They seemed to stay outside, and she found that she was okay with that.

Twilight watched a vision-Twilight walked down the hallway between two rows of columns. She herself hid behind one as he friends did, and waited for the cultist with a metal mask to wonder by. He passed her column, seemingly ignorant, and Twilight summoned her magic.

The cultist whirled, catching her by surprise as he lowered his shoulder and hit her in the neck. Gasping, Twilight lost her concentration and went sprawling, struggling to breath. She tried to get back to her hooves, but Applejack was there. She swiped with a foreleg but the zebra dodged it easily.

Not that Applejack expected any different. It was a ruse--she used the momentum to plant her foreleg hard on the ground and twist her body even as the zebra tried to bring his hoofblades to bear. He had perhaps a second-long view of Applejack’s tail in his eyes and then her legs had kicked him between two columns, smashing him against the wall. He tried to rise but collapse.

Twilight, coughing, stood. “He shouldn’t have been able to hear me,” she said. “He didn’t.”

“Well, he heard somethin’,” Applejack said, not looking at her. She kept her eyes on the fallen zebra. “Think, Twi, you’re smart. What else could some crazy magical zebras do?”

“Well, zebra magic is alchemical… I’m unfamiliar with their capabilities, but know what can be grasped from what I’ve read…”

“Oh, oh, can they be invisible? Cause if he has, like, invisibility potions, we should totally borrow those,” Pinkie said with a smile as she hurried back from her hiding place.

“I think they can brew such things,” Twilight said slowly, “but it’s not common or easy. Applejack, could you check the cultist for anything resembling a flask, canteen, anything that could hold liquid?” She tongued the inside of her mouth. “Actually, AJ, do you see anything like… exotic? A necklace or a hoof bracelet. Something that’s got writing on it.”

“Uh… well, he got plenty of these potion thingies. And yeah, here ya go, Twi.” She flung a hoofbracelet to Twilight, who caught it in her magic. She gave it a once over and then sighed.

“My zebra is rusty,” she said. “It feels like forever ago since I was teaching Spike rune-based magic. I wonder if he ever got the hang of it?”

Tradewinds shuffled to her side. “What is it saying?”

“Like I said, my zebra is rusty. But I do recognize enough keywords to make a guess. This thing gives the wearer the ability to read thaumaturgic signatures in its proximity. That’s not just me, by the way. It’ll just be easier for me. If Tradewinds flies, or Applejack tries calling on those endless reserves of hers…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Consarn it, that’s cheating.” Applejack spat. “How do we get around it?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight said. “Using magic to mask magic is… circular. If this were unicorn magic, I could interfere with the enchantments themselves from a distance, but even then it would have to be quick. But this isn’t unicorn magic. It’s runes, and the structure of the spell comes from the words. I’d have to make new ones or destroy old ones.”

“So we keep hiding, and just assume they see us if they’re close?” Applejack asked.

“Yes. Yes, more or less. Wonderful,” Twilight groused. “We’ve been pretty close to others down below, so it may not be that common. Let’s just… be careful.” Twilight put the bracelet in her pack and they moved on.

JANNAH

When Luna leaves Jannah, her friends are gone. One betrayed them and only Celestia and Luna trudge on in the wake of that betrayal.

Luna is thinking now about Loss.

When one lives functionally forever, loss is an old enemy. Being an alicorn means that the last enemy you shall see defeated is death--if you can stand the wait. But the waiting, that’s the hard part. Imagine having to wait for anything and everything you wanted. Imagine the way you feel in a hospital waiting room, or in a long line for food or tickets or anything you’d like. Now imagine that you sit in the waiting room or stand in the line for years. Day after day. You have memorized every detail of every crack in the floor. You have imagined whole civilizations springing up on the wall, in the space between two windows. You have talked about every single thing you could possibly talk about with those around you.

How many lovers can you have before they begin to blur together? How many times can you lie with another before you mix two partners in your head?

Luna has thought about this a lot. With the shadow of Jannah’s walls only an hour behind her, she finds that it is all I can think about.

Her last lover was an earth pony named Topsoil. She grew up as a Triballi barbarian farmer south of the Everfree. She was one of the few ponies Luna had known who truly enjoyed meat. She swore in her barbarous tongue and was always eager for a fight. She haved the side of her head and died her mane solid black. She painted her muzzle with reds and blues. Her body bore more scars than Luna had seen on a pony before or since. She smelled of sweat and work. She liked to be bitten, right where her shoulder met her neck, and she liked it when Luna nibbled on her ears. She had a terrible singing voice. She liked to listen to Luna sing when they made camp.

So she remembered. But the comfort that came with memory was at best fleeting. Topsoil had been dead over a century. Her death had been much like her life--brief, chaotic, and involving an earth pony lance through her throat.

Did that make her sad? It did, but did she mourn? Luna is not sure. Maybe it was the brief span of time during which she had lain with Topsoil. Maybe it was true that time healed wounds.

Who before? Who before? Moonflower and Uriel and Quicksilver and Saphoof and Yuletide and Silver Stars and…

They all went away, didn’t they? One by one. These new friends were simply a few more motes on a mountain. Death came for them. Death, who none could excell, could not come for her but made her pay for her safety by watching. Her friends and loved ones succumbed to plague or poison. They died in battle, some horribly in a moment of awful terror, some over hours in her embrace. Some by their own hooves. Some by accident, meaningless and random. Some simply stopped and lied down after their allotted four score years. Again and again.

When would it end? When would she see death done? When would death no longer be proud?

And she begins to think of it as betrayal. The first bits of darkness worm their way in. One had betrayed them to save himself, but hadn’t they all betrayed her? Hadn’t they all left her in the end? Yet she had been faithful. Remembering them even when they traipsed off into the last sunlight.

Jannah was a city of betrayal, but it was just a microcosm of the whole world.

TWILIGHT

Twilight and her friends hid in the balcony while she feverishly scrawled runes on a scrap of paper torn from the logbook she had not touched since Vanhoover.

They had acquired three more enchanted pieces of jewelry. Sneaking was becoming impossible. It was becoming increasingly clear that they had not so much been unlucky going up but lucky down below. If she were honest with herself, she should have realized this earlier. They hadn’t been close to D’Jalin’s zebras before the first fight. But now it was hard not to be within the range of their enchantment. The zebra had brought at least a hundred with him. Maybe more. She had no idea.

How did Eon shepherd this many in? She thought as she scratched out one of the runes. Teaching herself zebra runology was desperate even for her, but they couldn’t afford to be caught again. There weren’t wandering sentinels anymore.

Below, in the great chamber, the followers of the Mad God mingled, speaking softly.

A few Black Hoof soldiers leaned against the far wall. One of them took a drag off of a cigarette, and the edge of it glowed like a small sun in the half-light. Torches flared on the walls, casting already dark figures as even stranger sights.

But Twilight didn’t have time to worry about them. She had runes to decipher.

Tradewinds was pressed to her side, sandwiched between Twilight and the balcony. Her battle saddle and rifle were reach. Every now and then, Twilight’s ears would twitch and she thought she could almost hear a silently eager warrior lick her lips, desperate to peer over and end the Black Hoof in a half of bullets. Pinkie was on the other side, watching Twilight’s attempts with a kind of focus Twilight only wished she could muster. Oh, Twilight was focused. She was focused like a madmare scribbling on a wall.

“That one’s upside down,” Pinkie whispered.

Twilight nodded and corrected it without a comment. Pinkie didn’t know runology, but she had a sharp eye for pattern and she was willing to help. And Pinkie’s just a little weird. She’s not, you know, freakin’ crazy! Like you are! Twilight compared the captured examples.

Applejack sat in front of her, holding her hat between her hooves. “How’s it comin’?”

“Swimmingly,” Twilight grumbled.

“Good,” Applejack said, as if she hadn’t encountered sarcasm in her entire life. Or, Twilight reflected with not a little shame, she was better than Twilight and wasn’t going to rise to the bait.

“I’m just… It’s been a long time since I was… translating,” she said, needlessly, almost to herself. “Princess Celestia told me I should know things about our neighbors, but if you don’t use a skill you start… losing it.” She compared the writing on the sheet to one of the bracelets and sighed. “Okay, I think I’m starting to get it. But I’m still not sure this will be fullproof.”

“As in, it won’t work at all, or…?” Applejack cocked her head to the side.

“As in, it’ll probably work, but it might be a little unstable. If we stick around too long or get too close it might not matter what I’ve written, it’ll sense anything we do anyhow. Just… I think this is the best I can do.”

“It’s okay,” Applejack said and patted her shoulder. “You did what you could, and you did more’n I could, for sure. Get to rune-ing, or whatever it is, and we can get a move on.”

Twilight acquired a blade from Tradewinds and started to enchant it when the crowd below silenced. At first, Twilight dropped the bayonet and stared ahead, her heart beating in her ears as she tried to tell herself that they couldn’t have felt that--they were too far away!--but when she picked the bayonet up again, they still did nothing.

“What are they doing?” Twilight whispered as she glanced down at her scratch paper and then duplicated the enchantment across her saddle bag. Where the enchanted bayonet touched, there was a glowing silver fire, tracing out the strange letters.

Pinkie moved from her side. Twilight heard her creep closer to the edge and assumed she was looking over the balcony.

Pinkie crawled back to murmur in her ear. “Those weirdo baddies are doing something. I think they’re waiting for somepony. Like, they set up a little stage and everything!”

“D’Jalin, maybe?” Twilight commented and bit her lower lip. She finished the inscription. “Applejack, give me something to enchant.”

“Don’t got… oh yeah. I got bardin’ now. Whoops. Ugh, does it matter if it’s--”

“Anything will do,” Twilight said absently, and when Applejack gave her one of her greaves Twilight began to inscribe again.

“I think so,” Pinkie continued. “I think he’ll be here soon. It’s that feeling of anticipation you get right before a party, except I’m pretty sure this isn’t a get together shindig I wanna be around for.” She shivered.

“Well, give me a moment and we can leave--”

“All done?” Applejack asked. Twilight hoofed the greave over.

“Yep. Here you go.”

“Thankya, sugarcube.”

Twilight smiled. That name was ridiculous. It always had been. It still made her smile. “Alright… next?”

Pinkie gave her an earring that Twilight had forgotten she had, but it was too small and Twilight didn’t have the skill so they decided to mark her saddlebags instead.

“Okay… Tradewinds, what do you--”

“AZRAEL! AZRAEL! AZRAEL!”

They all started as the crowd below began to chant, louder and louder. None of them moved.

“Party’s… started,” Pinkie said and closed her eyes.

“He is here,” Tradewinds agreed. She was the one who peeked over the side first.

“T-Tradewinds,” Twilight managed past the lump in her throat. “Give me something to inscribe on. I need to give you the enchantment…”

“Do I have to wear your enchantings?” Tradewinds murmured.

“Yes.”

“Well.” She ducked back down and rooted through her bags. Twilight only now noticed her lack of barding. Crazy and unobservant! Two for two!

“Is this good for holding silly letters?” Tradewinds whispered, and held out a strange… furry hat. Twilight really hoped that fur was collected in a far less painful way than her imagination supplied, and she took it.

“Yes, this will work. Thank you.”

“Dobro pozhalovat',” Tradewinds breathed and returned to her watching.

Only Twilight did not look over the railing, held in awful fascination by the sight below. But she could hear it as she tended to the hat. The crowd was calling, “AZRAEL! AZRAEL!” and Pinkie was whispering to Applejack, but Twilight couldn’t hear over the shouting.

And then it stopped abruptly.

Twilight paused and looked towards the balcony rail. Still, even now, she did not look over it. Her friends could tell her. She still felt… unwell. All of the Twilight that had come back to her on the way from Vanhoover to Valon seemed imperilled. She had killed in cold blood. She had thought of herself as…

Twilight squeezed her eyes shut. She hated Jannah. She hated this place.

“Yes! YES! Thank you, my children, for your grand welcome!” cried a voice, and there was an ecstatic roar. Twilight shivered at the sound. That would be him. That was D’Jalin, she just knew it was him. “I know that you have been waiting! I too have been waiting! But the dance goes on. The dance ALWAYS goes on!”

Another roar. Twilight didn’t even want to know what the hell he was talking about. She just wanted to go home. She finished enchanting Tradewind’s hat and then went back to closing her eyes and waiting for the noise to die down.

“And we will be dancing soon! You wonder, you wonder my children--” he held that word out like a hiss-- “why I speak to you in a tongue not my own! Well, I will tell you. Yes, I will tell you all why. Or maybe, perhaps, it would be better if someone else explained for me!” He laughed.

Twilight stopped ignoring him because all of a sudden, she realized that he was speaking common. Why was this odd? It really wouldn’t have been, normally. Ponies spoke Common on all three continents. Griffons spoke common. Dragons knew common. Deer, bovines, changelings, zebras. All of them spoke the common tongue or knew it a little.

But if his audience was zebras, why not use their own language? Why not--

“Please, please, my children. Be quiet a moment. I think our guests will clear that up. Ah, but you know them! You have heard of their brave progress!” He giggled below like a child. “Thinking they were unseen and unheard! Thinking they had fooled us! Fooled you, children of death! FOOLED ME, YES! EVEN ME! But they have not! They have not fooled me. I am no blind old matriarch droning on about suns and love. Did I not come to teach you the error of this world, children? Did I not come that you might have death in abundance?”

“That guy really needs to stop talkin’,” Applejack grumbled above her. “That voice is gettin’ on my last, frayed little nerves.”

“Could always apply bullet to problem,” Tradewinds whispered back.

“I’ll take it under advisement, honey,” Applejack replied.

"It's kinda like watching a really weird play. Least that's what I think," Pinkie whispered.

“BUT WHO? WHO ARE OUR VISITORS? OUR GUESTS? FOR YOU KNOW THEY ARE HERE BECAUSE I ALLOWED THEM TO BE HERE! They are a test for you faith! They are the last lights for you to crush into the rock! They are here on an idiot’s errand at the end of the world to recover a dead god and save things which nothing can save!”

Twilight could hear nothing over the hubhub. Her ears pricked up. She felt like somepony was watching her, but dared not turn or make sudden movements. They were all one edge. Abdiel must have talked. She felt a brief flash of anger, and then shame. He would not have parted with anything without severe agony. They had hurt him for her sake.

And she hadn’t trusted him. She had suspected him, and he was now injured and suffering for her sake. She wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.

“COME OUT! COME OUT, TWILIGHT SPARKLE, AND I WILL TEACH YOU DEATH!”

Twilight would have jumped. She would have responded with a gasp of alarm or a whimper or anything at all, but for one thing.

The long, serrated blade at her throat.

Instead, Twilight let out a wheeze. Her hindlegs spasmed as the assailant dragged her back towards them, and one of her legs touched Tradewinds. Tradewinds turned, and she cried out--loud enough to be heard in the crowing--and swung her gun. Twilight stared down its barrel and she saw the cannons of Vanhoover.

“Predatel'!” She snarled. “You hold the mare who worried for you, who led us here and hurt her mind in of madness just to find you! Bastard! False!”

“Wha-what?” It was hard to breathe, let alone talk, but Twilight tried.

The others had turned. She saw the horror in their faces, but did not understand it. What was going on? What was happening? Did it matter? She was failing them again. First she started losing her mind and now she was captured.

But she had her magic! She began to call it up, screwing her face into a grimace… only to feel the blade press a little harder at her throat.

She knew the voice that spoke in her ear. “Ah, Apprentice, do be careful. I know what you can do. A theiftaker knows how to deal with unicorns. He knows also how to keep them from knowing many things.”

“But…” Twilight went limp. Abdiel. Abdiel. “But you’re our…”

He continued to drag her, and then from the hallway they had travelled only moments before came a dozen hooded zebras screaming.

“I’ll kill you!” Tradewinds screamed and she heard the rifle fire. Her ears rang as the noise bounced off of the hard walls.

“Don’t shoot! You’ll hit Twilight!” Pinkie cried.

She couldn’t see them. She couldn’t see what was happening.

Tears streaked her cheek. “Why?” she croaked.

Abdiel’s warm breath was on her ear. “Twilight, Twilight, I am using your name now. You wished me to, did you not? Well I do so now because I speak only the truth to you. Would you pick a traveling companion--even one as nice and powerful as yourself--over your beloved wife? If yes, you are a monster, and if no? Well. Well, then you will be silent, for it will not matter in awhile.”

And Twilight was pushed forward, the blade pulled away. When she tried to rise, tried to fight, she felt something heavy and hard hit her in the back of the head and she fell.

FABLE ROWAN-OAK

It was nice to not be a part of the problem for once.

Fable shared his mother’s dislike for House Epona, and like his mother he was mostly interested in keeping the smiling bastards down. So it was with a great relief that he had received the news from his mother’s mouth itself that Rowan-Oak would no longer be witholding its aid. Already, the compound had been emptied of all but the barest of garrisons, with the levy reporting to the wall to be positioned on the front as they were needed.

He had hated the endless sound of the guns, but he had also been proud. He had been proud of his House before, fleetingly, but this was different. This was something that reverberated in his bones. House Rowan-Oak--his own house, his family--was leading the charge. They were keeping the darkness at bay.

For the first time, he was glad to say that he was the heir of the House.

Rainbow Rays and Paradise stood by the door while Fable looked over his barding. He had not worn it in a long time. His pistol was in poor condition, as was the saddle and mechanism. He sighed.

“Perhaps, Paradise, I should have listened to you about maintaining my mother’s gifts,” he said. Behind him, he heard his bodyguard snort. “I shall have to find a replacement for the pistol in the armory, I think. My barding is fine, I shan’t be in the front lines. Just trying to keep the spirits up and coordinating.”

“Your mother really trusts you,” Rays said, as if this were the strangest thing he’d seen in his life. Maybe it was--he’d had a very different experience.

“Not at all,” he said flatly, without much interest. “She simply has bigger and better things to do. Also, she knows me. I am an eternal disappointment to my gracious dam precisely because she understands me.” He turned and smiled. “I have no head for war, leadership, money, or really anything else. But I am good at joking and jocularity, and I am excellent at raising the spirits. And, perhaps, she would concede that I have a useful touch with the common pony. Precisely because I do not put a capital C on that word,” he added, and chuckled to himself. “As if it was a distinction I care about.”

Fable hummed a few bars of an old tavern song as he gave his gear one last look. “Help me get this on, would you, Rays?”

The pegasus approached and with a bit of fumbling, helped Fable into the barding. The guard reached down to tighten his greaves on, but then paused. He came back up, looking a bit flustered.

“Problem?” Fable asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Er, you don’t need me to do the back legs, right?”

Fable snorted. “Uncomfortable, hm?” Rays snorted, as if this were ridiculous, but Fable had grown used to reading expressions. “Of course not,” he said smoothly. “I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable, now would I?” Fable grinned almost predatorily and let his boundspony squirm as he finished the job.

“It fits you well, young Master,” Paradise grumbled.

“Thank you, Para. Think I shall be needing the helmet? Or would it be better to forego it?”

“It would be safer to wear one,” Paradise said.

Fable rolled his eyes. “My levy wouldn’t let me get anywhere near danger, old boy. Even if I weren’t useless in a scrap, as Rays here well knows!” He chuckled. “They are all too terrified of Mother. Now, which do you think would be a better choice to look the part, hm?” He said this last to himself more than his bodyguard.

“Helmets are safer, but you can’t see a pony’s face very well,” Rainbow Rays offered. “I mean, like, if you’re just there to be seen… shouldn’t you be seen?”

“Aptly put,” Fable said evenly, and turned. “Well, shall we go, lads?”

They did. The young Rowan-Oak hummed a new tune as he walked down the steps. Something martial. The kind of thing that went well with rolling snares and glistening armor in the sun. He had to look the part--Rowan-Oak led from the front, and he would be the best that his House could offer before his mother returned. His other siblings were too young, his cousins were not of high enough status.

The journey to the armory was short. The usual quartermaster was gone, but one of her assistants had a long revolver much like the one he had neglected for so long. Fable thanked him, and returned to the atrium.

He stood before the door, and took a deep breathe. “Well,” he said quietly, “let us see the adventure that awaits us, gentlecolts.”

He opened the door.

It took him a few seconds to understand what it was he saw. It took him a few seconds to recognize who he saw, stumbling up the many steps from the streets below. Her face was bloody, half of it red with blood and milled, ruined flesh. Only one good eye glared up at him. Her chest and back were scored and ruined. She should be dead. She should be six feet underground with a burial and weeping family.

But he knew that one good eye glaring at him. Oh, he knew it.

“M-Mother?” he breathed, feeling his knees go weak. It didn’t make sense. That wasn’t his mother. His mother was meeting with her allies to convince them to help. She wasn’t here.

Paradise pushed by him, barking at Rays to shield the young master and keep his eyes peeled. “Take him inside! Your Grace!” He tried to help her up the steps. She shoved at him weakly, trying to speak and failing. But Paradise ignored her. The batpony through force of will brought her safely inside the doors whilst Rays shut them. Inside, there was already the beginnings of a panic as the remaining staff and guards had been attracted by the shouting.

“Mother! Mother, what happened?” Fable was at her side, trembling, unmoving from where Paradise had laid her. She grunted and tried to rise. “Please! Stay still! The doctor is on his way. He is, isn’t he? Rays! Rays, get him here now, carry him if you have to!”

“Always… too late,” his mother growled.

He stared down at her. “What?”

“Too late for that. Took…” she coughed, and spat blood on the perfect carpet. “buckshot to the face, stupid… stupid colt.”

“Doctor Hayburn has magic, mother, he can close the wounds or remove any…”

“I’ll bleed out and he won’t be able to stop it,” she said without an ounce of force. She closed her eyes. “Shut up. Shut up for once in your stars-damned life and listen to me.”

And he did. Everypony around him moved in chaos and panic, but Fable lay next to his mother and waited.

“Epona’s not just… a prick, he’s a traitor. White… whitecloaks. They’re his. Or he’s theirs. I don’t--Oh, fuck! Could that damned hornhead bring morphine when he comes?--I don’t know. They’re all traitors. I made a mistake.”

“A mistake?”

“A huge, bloody, fuckin’, mistake, child. I was so focused… hating those Epona bastards… didn’t look too closely. Didn’t ask any… questions. Seems like our disappointment can be mutual,” she added, and hacked up another batch of blood. Fable just stared at her, gaping.

“Talking is taking too much energy. Please, just lie still,” he said. His voice was hollow. Already he felt like he was somewhere else. This wasn’t happening.

“Listen,” she hissed, and she yanked on his barding, pulling him close. Her hooves were soaked in her own lifeblood, and now it was on him. All over his armor. Defiling his cheek. “Epona is with the whitecloaks. Iron and Blood are with them. Somepony… tell Princess. You.” She was stabbing at his chest with her trembling hoof. “You. House is yours. Give me… give me pendant. In pack.”

Horror can be an almost physical sensation, and Fable was learning this. He blanched. “Mother, I--”

“Now.”

He dug through her pack. The pendant--the Tree emblem of his family--hung on a silver chain. How she had managed to keep it safe was beyond him. He held it draped over both of his hooves, staring at it. This was an admission of death.

“It’s yours, son,” she said. “You are Rowan-Oak. You. Go tell.”

“Mother…” He tried to find words, but only one came. She began to slump against him, losing her grip. Ponies were yelling around him. At some point the doctor had arrived, and was already shaking his head. “Mother?”

“Don’t be a…” she said, and her hoof rose, as if she were trying to stand. But her task was complete. She was in her House and it continued. The will that had animated her ruined form was fulfilled, and she went still. He heard her breath catch, come out strangled, and stop.

His first thought was that somepony was crying, and why should they be crying? It wasn’t their mother. It wasn’t like they had anything to cry over. Who was it, anyhow?

Oh. It was him.

“Para,” he said, his voice raw. “Para, I need you.” He couldn’t yell. He could barely speak. He felt frozen. He was frozen.

“My Lord, we must move you to safety. Whoever attacked your Lady Mother will be here soon, no doubt, and we cannot let them harm you.” Paradise began to pull at him.

But he would not move. He stared at the emblem. “Do I put it on?” he asked flatly, in a voice that was almost calm.

“My Lord, please!”

“I probably should,” he said, pushing at his bodyguard with a firm hoof. His eyes settled on his mother’s blank stare. He laid her badge of office around his own neck. He tried to close her eyes, but his hoof shook too badly. “Para, close her eyes.” Before Paradise could protest, he cut him off. “Close. Her. Eyes. Bondstallion mine, as you love me, you will do this for me. And then you will help me stand. Then you will have my mother laid in her own bed, and when that is done, you and Rays will accompany me to… to see the Princess. My mother’s last words must be fulfilled.”

“Master, I--”

“I give you my command as Lord Rowan--” he couldn’t finish. His voice choked and lodged in his throat. He turned away. “Do it, Paradise. Now.”

His bodyguard did, and quickly. Brigantine’s body was carried reverently away under the manor doctor’s auspices, her eyes shut and a bit laid over each eye from Paradise’s own coinpurse. Shocked and confused house staff milled about him. The guards left behind all turned their eyes to Fable.

So he spoke to them. “My mother is dead. The situation has changed, but our course may not yet,” he said softly. “She would not want… she wouldn’t want us to…” he took a breath. He was here. He had to hold on to that. He was here. He had to be the one to speak. “You.” He pointed to one of the guards. “Go to the walls. Find our levies however you can. Warn them that the House has been betrayed.”

Rays stepped forward. “Your… I mean, my Lord, will you go yourself? I or another pony could simply deliver your message. I could take it.”

“It must be me,” he said. He considered. An idea he had dismissed came back to bother him… but he didn’t have time or heart enough for it right now. “But you shall accompany me, so worry not. I know you and Paradise can keep my person intact. You… You have my full confidence. Now… We need to go. I need to go right now. Immediately.”

He stumbled towards the door, with his calling guards behind him.

TWILIGHT

She lay on her side, staring at the wall. At least, she thought she was staring at the wall. There was no light to see it by, of course. Their captors had made sure of that. Why? She didn’t know. Twilight Sparkle didn’t know anything.

Abdiel had betrayed him. He had told her why, in his own way, but she found that it was hard to care about why. It mattered to him, she supposed. It might matter to her, if he had been her friend. But he wasn’t. He hadn’t ever been. He was a snake.

What are you then? she asked herself. If Abdiel was a snake, a traitor, what was she? Oh, you’re a murderer. Ah, well that was nice. Enlightening, even. It was nice to have that sorted out all nice and neat. Twilight was all about things being ordered and catalogued, wasn’t she?

She didn’t cry or beg. She didn’t vow revenge. She didn’t even move or speak. She just stared. D’Jalin would push them into the well, whatever that really was. Or he would just kill them. Or torture them. For a moment, Twilight was almost curious how he would do it. The why of the whole thing barely fazed her. Why not? Nothing made sense. Not to Twilight. Killing them would, if anything, simply confirm the pattern of the new world she found herself in. It was almost comforting. Finally, the new rule would be laid bare. Everything killed you or tried to. Simple. Sometimes your friends killed you. Sometimes your friends killed other ponies instead. Riveting.

And she was the one with the biggest hill of bodies, wasn’t she? If she were an alicorn, she would be Princess of Blood if she weren’t already Princess of World-Shattering-Mistakes or just… Apostate. That was nice and simple and easy to remember.

Twilight wasn’t even sure where her friends were in this cell, exactly. She was reasonable sure some of them were here, at least. Maybe only one. Maybe all of them. She hadn’t checked. A few hours ago, she was sure somepony had been making noise, but that had been a long time ago and also it had been hard to care.

She had failed. That was all there was to it, really. They had slipped a nullification ring around her horn and chained her while she was out. They had trapped in her the dark and there wasn’t really anyway to free herself. Jannah had won. D’Jalin had won, whatever he was. She didn’t care. There wasn’t anything worth caring about anymore. It was over. All of it had been for nothing.

All of those ponies running from the fires of Vanhoover.

Yup. Yeah. That was useless. Didn’t have to happen. She did that and there was no payoff.

Way to go, Twilight. Way to be Celestia’s number one student! No more dreams about falling asleep in the library. No more Luna dreams. Do you even want those? Would you go if she asked you to come to her?

Twilight felt something strange. Something that started in her stomach and moved up to her chest, like a dull ache. Like a hole. Like loss. What am I going to tell you, if I fall asleep and Dreamwalking works through the ring? How am I going to tell you I couldn’t bring her back?

It occurred to Twilight that she didn’t want to leave Luna alone. Not again. That she didn’t want Luna to be alone ever again.

I don’t want to be alone.

Finally, after the long silence, finally the shuddering breath came. She shut her eyes. She cared about one thing so far. She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want anypony to be alone.

“Is anypony there?” she asked the darkness.

“Jus’ me,” Applejack’s voice answered. She couldn’t tell where her friend was.

“Oh. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Same goes for you, except I did. Ya didn’t answer, so I figured you were still out. Asleep or something.”

“No, I can’t sleep.”

“”It’s good to hear your voice,” Applejack continued. “Was mighty lonely. Don’t… don’t know what they did with the other girls. Suspect they ain’t too far away.”

We both know they might be dead already. “Yeah,” Twilight agreed. “I’m sure they have them somewhere near.”

“Jus’ gotta figure us a way out.”

“Yes.”

“And… do whatever it is we do.”

Twilight wanted to laugh but didn’t think she could. “Whatever that is.”

“So… gonna get your noggin on a plan? That’s your department. I’m just the one with the big ole kickin’ legs.”

“I think plans are a little… Ugh. I don’t know. I don’t have one.”

“You’ll find a plan. I know you will, sugarcube. I believe in you.”

“Do you?”

“What?”

“Applejack, do you think I’m crazy? Honestly.”

There was a long pause. Twilight shifted uncomfortably.

“Where’s this comin’ from?”

“Just tell me the truth. It’s your thing,” Twilight added. “Do you think I’m crazy? Do you think something’s wrong with me?”

“Do you?”

“Please answer.”

“An answer for an answer.”

“I asked first.”

“But you’re the one who wanted an answer first. You gotta offer money ‘fore you buy somethin’.”

“Fair. Quid pro quo. Yes, I think I might be very, very messed up in all kinds of fascinating ways.”

“I never thought you were crazy, Twi. I worry. Heck, I worry a lot. If Pinkie hadn’t heard Eon too… and if we weren’t makin’ such good progress, maybe I woulda thought you were going crazy and hearin’ voices that ain’t there. You can be high strung sometimes.”

“I’ll never live the Smartypants incident down, will I?” Something almost like a chuckle.

“Eenope.”

“Probably for the best.”

“I think you can be anxious and sometimes you’re a little more fragile than you wanna let on. I think… I think you scared me earlier with those three. I think you scared you too, didn’tcha?”

“Yes.”

“So I don’t think you’re crazy. Mighty distressed, though. Of course you are.”

Twilight wanted to turn and look her in the eyes, but she couldn’t see anything. “I’m so… I’m different.”

“Yeah, you are. Daresay we all are.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Didn’t say I did.”

Twilight closed her eyes. Not that it mattered at all. No light, remember? “Why did you even follow me after Vanhoover?”

“Why?”

“I mean, the docks.” She said, because it was really all that could be said. “Or even before that. When we left Canterlot, I was a mess. Even then. I avoided going home. I avoided Spike. I avoided the girls, you included, outside of official duties and things. I wasn’t in any condition to be leading anything or really doing anything. My magic had faded and I couldn’t explain it.” She stopped. “No. I can. I just didn’t want to.”

“I always wondered about that. It seems like you’re better now.”

“Some.”

“Magic always terrified me a little bit, on the down low, if you understand me. Ain’t really my thing. Not that I dislike anypony for it. Just made me nervous.”

Twilight pursed her lips. “I guess I get that. It’s okay. Magic is tied to who we are, Applejack. Not just unicorn magic, either. Our sense of Self, our sense of who Twilight is or Applejack is. When a pony loses herself, she loses her magic, see? It’s a gross oversimplification, obviously. It’s not really an immediate thing, either.”

“If you knew somethin’ was wrong…”

“But what? It didn’t mean I was wrong about how I felt, just that I had lost who I was before. Twilight before Celestia left is gone. I… I think she’s gone forever. I can be another Twilight,” she added, and her voice broke slightly. Just slightly. “I can be another Twilight. I can be me. I’m not her. I’m just me, Applejack.”

“Twi…”

“I mean it. And I have to be okay with that. Not that it matters. We’re not getting out of this, AJ. We’re just not.”

“We have to.”

“I can’t think of a way to do that. I was finally… finally getting my magic back, feeling like my old self. And now it’s gone. They put a nullification ring on my horn. I’m through. I can’t lift it off with magic, and even without chains it would be hard to get it off with hooves because they fit pretty tightly and get all messed up with the grooves and it doesn’t matter because I am all chained up and I can’t get my forelegs up high enough to pull it off.”

“So you’re just gonna lay down and die, Twilight?”

Twilight sniffled. “I just don’t wanna care anymore.”

The only sound was Twilight sniffling and crying in her corner. Applejack did not answer for what seemed like hours, but could be only minutes. It probably was only minutes.

“You know, when they first started callin’ you that name, I got so mad.” Her voice was so soft. Twilight strained to hear it. “Weren’t fair to you. It’s right awful to kick a mare while she’s down. You were grievin’ same as anypony else, and you didn’t have the comfort of knowin’ what had happened or if it had happened or havin’ a body to bury. I right about kicked the tar out of a few ponies for repeatin’ it. But something happened, Twilight, along the way. Somethin’ bad.

“You listened to ‘em. You were sad and hurting and you’d have listened to anyone who would tell you it was your fault, or that you were bad. You’ve always been so quick to hear that you weren’t enough. You started believin’ it somewhere along the way. You were this Apostate, this pony who didn’t care about anypony else, either cause she didn’t know how or didn’t want to. I knew both of those weren’t true. You knew they weren’t. You used to.”

“I used to.”

“But even then, you didn’t give up. You didn’t really stop caring. You got rougher around the edges, kept all your feelin’s in a little box, but you kept workin’. You did more than any other pony in Canterlot. I remember finding you runnin’ numbers on food stores and ammunition, or writing letters to nobles or trying to talk down some angry merchants. You were mean about it sometimes. You weren’t happy. But you never gave up. You realized we weren’t gonna make it little by little, and what’d you do? You didn’t give up. You went runnin’ West to do the only thing you knew to do.”

“And left a trail of dead.”

“I didn’t see any dead in that village with the griffons. You didn’t kill those Grays--they did it themselves, fair and square. And they woulda done the same and were gonna do the same, given even the smallest chance.”

“That’s not… that’s not an excuse.”

“No, it ain’t. You have a reckoning to answer for them, Twi. I can’t help you with that. You can try to forget but I know you, and you’re too good a pony to forget. You’re too nervous of one to be easy about it. Life ain’t about dragging around your chains trying to fix all the divots you dig behind ya. It ain’t about tryin’ to weigh up all the good and the bad you did and hoping it fixes itself. Know yerself, bookworm. Be yourself. The more you try to kill yourself over what you do the more you’ll do! Because that’s how ponies give up. They just keep counting and counting all the bad that happens one way or another, and then they stop moving, and then they die.”

“I can’t just… be okay with it.”

“No, and you shouldn’t be. What are you gonna do? I know you're sorry.”

“I am. Oh, stars, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s a start. I mean it. You say you can’t be Twilight, my Twilight, again. I think you’re right. But why do you think you have to be a worse one? The Twiight who hides in this stupid room? Be a better Twilight. Be a good Twilight. Be the Twilight that would have made the right…. who would have made right choices. I don’t know what to tell you. I ain’t a philosopher, Twilight. I’m just me. And you’re just you. I don’t know how to make you feel better. I don’t know how to make peace with it cause I don’t know how I made peace with the one’s I’ve sent on their way, and I know I’ve done it a dozen times at least. But I know I’ll find out. You’ll find out. Or maybe, somehow, we can make it a little better. But we can’t do it in here.”

“I’m still not sure I can get us out.”

“We can try. I wanna go home, Twi. I wanna go home really, really bad. Because I’m tired of all this walkin’ and fightin’ and this damned city and, consarn it, I really just want to have a farm again and have Soarin’ fly over sometimes. Is that so much?”

“I hope not.”

“Me too.”

RARITY

What is one pony in the scope of existence?

It was a thought, or a whole constellation of thoughts, that Rarity had had many times before. But usually, such questions were asked between midnight and morning. Those were the hours when a pony could question anything, and run circles around herself. Nothing was solved when morning came. Except, hopefully, the overlarge order that she had begun the day before. But the big questions? Of course not. Else they would not be so over large.

But she was thinking those sorts of thoughts now, as ponies milled about the square. They had come in droves for food and medicine and it had been, by and large, peaceful. Any pony who tried to take a bit extra under false pretences found themselves under the baleful eyes of the lean Babs Seed.

Rarity had figured out, bit by bit, why the offenders scurried off at her look. Some revered her. Some were terrified. Most just knew that crossing her wasn’t really worth it, and when you live hoof to mouth, you’re not inclined to go out on a limb. And Rarity understood the immediate risks. Babs had grown into a mare with what could only be called a “shooty” look and a body full of scars. Rarity hadn’t needed any demonstrations of prowess--she would probably believe anything that involved Babs Seed’s ferocity in battle.

Beyond legs meant for swift kicks to the face, Babs Seed had led the short-lived resistance. At first she had found it hard to believe, but the tale had come out. A young mare dragging her friends along on a harebrained scheme, making their tiny circle look bigger than it was until one day it was bigger. When ponies saw their tags on walls and flyers in the streets, it was easier to believe that a whole network of brave fighters rested somewhere just out of sight.

It had been mostly smoke and mirrors. Except Babs. Babs, fighting until they burned the tenements on the south side down around her ears.

Babs was looking up at her with a single eyebrow raised. “Well. If you’re gonna be talkin, now’s the time.”

Rarity gulped.

Fluttershy was at her side. “Are you alright? It’s just a huge crowd of ponies who don’t really ca--”

“That is quite alright, dear,” Rarity said, cutting her off. “Oh, I know. It’s not the crowd. It’s the words.”

“You’re good at words,” Rainbow began.

“And if you make that into a joke of linguistics I will gut you with my horn.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just… on edge,” Rarity said and sighed. “Just… be myself. I guess. You think this is the right time, Babs?”

Babs shrugged. “Good as any. For what it’s worth, I hope youse guys nab a few. I’m coming with, I know that. Nothin’ for me here.” With that, she trotted off into the milling crowd.

Rarity watched her go. “Well. There’s one.”

“See? A start,” Fluttershy pressed.

“A start. But we’ll need a lot of bodies to get the pressure off of Canterlot,” Rainbow groused.

“I’m aware.” Rarity massaged her temples. “Give me a moment, and then I’ll find the words.”

She walked off, hoping they would not follow, and found they did not. They waited on her. It was lonely, not to have her lover and her friend at either side, but the space was welcome. What would she say? What do you say? Oh, I know you’ve suffered but now I need you to suffer more! Or better yet, Here I am with my fancy flag and my fancy barding here to tell you, the peasants, what I need. She sniffed, and glanced at her standard. Her flag was fabulous, so that last thought was doubly silly.

Rarity groaned and sat by an overturned cart. She knew a few of the ponies in the crowd were watching her, wondering who she was. Part of her wanted to chat with them. But what would that look like? What would--

“Hello,” she said softly to a young mare trying to keep her foal from staring. “It’s quite alright, darling. I would have been entranced with such a silly thing myself at her age.”

Why speak? Well, why not? She felt generous. She usually did. It was nice to talk.

The mare scooped up her child and seemed to watch for some sudden change in tone, but Rarity only smiled at her. She seemed to let go of her bated breath. “She’s a real hooful of energy, uh, miss. Thinks she’s gonna be some kinda smith or something.”

“A smith? Hm. Is that so, my friend?” Rarity asked, smiling at the filly.

“Yeh! I’m gonna make all kinds of stuff. I bet I could make you better armor than that,” boasted the little sea green pony, and Rarity realized she was a pegasus only as her wings flared out in pride.

“Perhaps, one day. You think you can outdo the quartermaster of the Ninth Legion of the Crystal Empire?” she asked, injecting just enough haughtiness into her tone to elicit a giggle. “I wanted to work with fabric when I was your age. I had a lovely little boutique.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a store, Cheerful,” murmured her mother.

“Oh. Well I’m gonna have a workshop.”

“I’m sure you shall, Miss Cheerful,” Rarity said. “And I shall have my shop again, one day.”

“Thank you. I’ve been so worried,” the mare said. “Food… my husband has been ill, and this medicine can help him get back on his hooves again. You are a bringer of light, madame. What is your name?”

“Rarity,” she replied. “Rarity Belle. Of Ponyville,” she added, figuring that it was the time for formalities. Especially with what she was about to do. “Of House Belle. It is an honor to meet you, ma’am. And your name?”

The mare paled a little. “I didn’t know you were a noble. I’m very sorry, I wouldn’t have let my little filly have bothered you!”

“It is quite alright. It is good to meet another craftspony so far from home.” Rarity winked at Cheerful. “Perhaps in a few years I can teach you some color coordination if you shall teach me to manipulate the finer metals. I would love to one day include gold or platinum in designs. In moderation, of course.” The filly nodded as if this was perfectly reasonable, and in fact she was in the position to consider this a deal. She spat on her hoof and stuck it out.

“Proper bus’ness procedure,” she said.

“My, what big vocabulary,” Rarity murmured to the horror of Cheerful’s mother. She briefly considered simply shaking hooves without the… blegh. Rarity in a long gone day would have blanched. This Rarity decided that a child being happy was worth a little more than feeling clean for a few seconds. She spat on her hoof and awkwardly shook Cheerful’s outstretched limb.

“See, all proper. I’ll hold you to that. Gotta diversify. Uh… mom?”

“Oh dear…”

Rarity chuckled. “I wish your husband well, miss…?”

“Tree Song,” she said. “Your, uh, grace.”

“None of that! Now, off with you. I’m sure I’ve kept you distracted long enough.”

Song and her boisterous child departed quickly. Rarity sighed at their going. Reminds me of Fluttershy. And Sweetie Belle. Somehow.

If she malingered about trying to figure out what to say, she would say nothing. A lady knew when to act! Or, well, Rarity felt like she should. More and more she was less sure of what it was a lady knew and did. The masks were harder.

So a moment later, before she could really think about it at all and thus realize that she was making some sort of catastrophic mistake, Rarity found herself standing on top of a hopefully stable fallen cart. Already, she felt a great gaping absence in her belly. She felt the tell-tale way her breathing shortened, became shallower. Only now it occurred to her that her that the circlet she had worn pulled her mane out of her face and revealed her hideous scar, and it took every ounce of her considerable will not to frantically hide it once more. I’d forgotten. I was so busy with the food distribution and the crowds and…

Rarity took a deep, steadying breath.

She was not afraid of crowds. If anything, she adored crowds, especially crowds that were focused on her or on her creations. For years she had dreamed--literally and figuratively--of adoring Manehattanite crowds, of dazzling the high society of Equestria. Being the talk of the town.

The deepest of all ironies was that she had all of these things now. Here was Manehattan. Here was Rarity, before a great crowd, dressed in extravagance, with her own entourage, soon to be the center of attention. It was everything she had ever dreamed.

Rarity coughed. Some of the crowd had already been looking at her, waiting. Most of their gazes were flat, the kind of gaze one gives when nothing more can be done to make things worse. It was something past boredom.

“Excuse me?” She began, and cursed silently. Excuse me? Really, honestly. Rarity, you must be more confidant. She cleared her throat and tested her magic. The old vocal amplification spell that Sweetie’s foalhood had made distressingly useful was still with her, and lo, her magic was cooperating today. She felt almost normal, in fact.

“PONIES OF MANEHATTAN.”

Rarity turned the spell down significantly, and waited as every head turned to her. She smiled automatically, the same way that a cat arches its back and flattens its ears before the eyes of its enemy. She began to speak, her magic carrying her voice throughout the crowd.

“Ponies of Manehattan, today is a good day. When I left Canterlot, this was our highest hope. Our friends in the north, in the great Crystal Empire, were hard pressed. Yet, in the hour of their victory they generously shared their surplus with us. With you and with me, my friends!”

There was a quiet murmur. Rarity tried to wear the face of the Lady, of the Noble, of the… of the… none of them wanted her.

“You,” she said, pointing, “what news comes to Manehattan these days?”

The stallion in question looked around, as if some friend might help him, but the others shrugged. His reedy voice answered. “We don’t hear much.”

“I thought so,” Rarity said, quieter than before. “Manehattan, I want to tell you about the world outside of your walls and streets. I want to tell you about my home.

“I am Rarity Belle, of Ponyville. I do not come to you in the name of my House, newly forged in war. I do not come to you in the name of Luna or Celestia or the Empress, though I carry their blessings and their fervent wish for your health and safety. Rainbow, darling, could you help me?”

Rainbow, startled, heard the request and obeyed automatically. She flew over and hovered next to the cart. “Whatcha need?” she whispered.

“Remove my armor, if you would. The leg will give you trouble. It is… ah, it is bolted into the back plate,” she admitted, grimacing. “Thank you, dear.”

“Sure, Rares.” Rainbow began to work. Rarity stood still as she might stand upon another dressmaker’s pedestal, as if this were merely a fitting and she spoke to the mirror in measured tones. But she wasn't’ doing those things. She was in Manehattan at last, and she was no Lady out of the mind. She was Rarity. Just Rarity, whatever that meant.

“Ponyville is a wonderful place,” she said to the crowd. “Or it was. The fields were verdant. The houses close together and thatched, and the winding streets were dirt paths. It was a simple and rustic place, but I loved it with all my heart. Even when I complained of its smallness, of its lack of decor and grandeur… I would never abandon it in my heart. But it is now a grave.

“I owned a dress shop, a wonderful boutique on the edge of town. I sold dresses to clients all over the realm, but my favorite orders were the ones from my neighbors. The scarves I crafted for the pegasus who delivered my mail, to keep her warm on her lonely, meandering way. The dress for my dear sister’s cutecenara. A shawl for my friend Applejack, a gift for her grandmother. A list! What a long list I could make, but it is over.” Rainbow had removed most of her armor. Each piece was deposited on the street. She was working on the backplates now. “My boutique is gone. My memories remain, but the place is a shattered husk and my work is torn to shreds.

“The cities of Equestria are much as yours is, or worse. Vanhoover is a place of war. Las Pegasus was ruled by gangs and roving bandits, last we heard. Fillydelphia is silent as the grave, and nothing escapes from its borders. Stalliongrad suffers in the cold. Lunangrad and Petrahoof and Baltimare… so little news. All of it is bad. Fire and thievery, desperation and uncertainty.”

“Rares, I’m not gonna be able to get this plate off. It really is bolted to your leg. I’d have to…”

Rarity smiled at her as best she could, though her stomach twisted at the thought. “It’s fine, love. Will you stay with me?” Her voice was not amplified. Rainbow nodded.

She returned to amplification. “And Canterlot has gathered its lost and frightened children and it has fed them. It has tried its best. Love does its best, even in times such as these. The great needs of the city are what drove me north on my quest. But now that last hope of Equestria is under threat.”

There was grumbling. She heard one voice specifically.

“Who says they’re the last hope? We’re doin’ alright.”

“Silence, you!” said another. “Would you interrupt your betters?”

Rarity cut in, having found the sources of the dispute. “Let him speak,” she said, and the whispers died. “Do not quiet him. I am not his better anymore than you are, my good lady.”

A rather affronted mare in what looked like the remains of finer clothing sniffed at this.

The stallion who had complained shifted awkwardly. The crowd was looking at him, now. “I just… I meant, like, who says it has to be them? Just cause they got a princess? We got a lotta hungry mouths to feed and a lot of ponies that could do just as good.”

She smiled at him. “I hope there is less of the former, though the times are turbulent and to predict is to be proven wrong. But Canterlot has no greater claim than your fair city, sir. You look surprised.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, weren’t you just saying the capitol is the one in danger?”

“Oh, but it is.”

“Well, so are we.”

“And you are,” Rarity said. “But not in the same way.” She looked out at the crowd again.

She continued. “Canterlot is under a direct siege by an army of thousands. The great plans of a quiet evil have come to fruit! Once, I thought it was a tragedy when a lone malcontent set the grain stores of Las Pegasus ablaze on accident, but I no longer think it was an accident. Rebels have defiled my home. They have rounded up the raiders and malcontents of Equestria and set them against a city filled with refugees. How many of those refugees are Manehattanites? How many are from Fillydelphia, or the north, or the frontier towns of the south? How many from Vanhoover or Baltimare or Tall Tale? How many from the Zebra lands? Far too many. I could not count them all.

“And an army will devour them presently. The army of Canterlot holds the darkness at bay, but it is not eternal. It cannot keep the fires out forever.”

“What are we supposed to do about it?” the heckler asked, though his tone had softened.

“That is the question, isn’t it? Ponies of Manehattan, I have shed my armor before you. I remove the badge of my office.” She did so, lifting the circlet and placing it on top of the armor. Her mane fell forward, but she brushed it from her scar. “What are you supposed to do? I cannot tell you. I can only tell you what I have done, and I may tell you what your choices are, but I cannot tell you what it is you must do because it is, in the end, your own and solitary choice.

“I have given my beauty and my leg for the ponies of Equestria. I have suffered wild magic and even now it is infused in my bones and tainting my magic. The leg you see is not armored. Do you understand? It is prosthetic. It is fake,” she said, and her voice broke. “It isn’t mine. It is a lie! A lie that I am still whole!

“You may stay in Manehattan and your food will be yours. I have arranged for some of it to be taken to Stalliongrad, your neighbors, and the Legion will continue on to aid in the defense of Canterlot and the souls within. You may rest in your bed and know that in another place, under those beautiful and ancient walls, ponies are dying. You may walk your streets as I once walked mine and know that in Canterlot, in Las Pegasus, in every corner of this land there are ponies who live under the shadow of a loaded, outstretched gun. They tremble in the shadow of the slavery that comes with defeat, with the outrages of a looter’s victory, of the last silence of all arguments. In peace, in short lived peace, you may enjoy the sun and your children and your lovers’ forelegs until there is no more sun and the moon is red as your own lifeblood, for I assure that Luna will die before she abandons the foals of Canterlot. And then, in that night…”

Rarity shook. She shook, and no hoof on her shoulder could stop her. She saw Sweetie Belle, dead in the street, her eyes wide open in shock. She saw Spike crushed under a mountain of rubble. She saw Luna torn down from the sky as she kept a great formless darkness from the last safe room in Canterlot. She saw… she saw…

Rarity took a deep breath. Another. Ponies were silent.

“Friends,” she began again, her voice cracking. “Oh, friends. Ponies of Equestria, my own people, my own kind. We have been cowards, all of us. I was a coward when I convinced myself there was nothing to be done. We knew that things were getting worse, and instead of being kind to one another we panicked. We saw two loaves and thought of only our own security and our brothers starved or looked on enviously. Only when a chance was too obvious to ignore did I leave the safety of those city walls. I am no different than you. I am no greater. I am vain. I am selfish. My anger is petty and my generosity is too often faltering. I do not tell you to follow my example. I have not come here to cajole you or exhort you. Only to beg you. To beg you for your aid against the last darkness. It… I have a sister and a mother and father in Canterlot,” she said. Her cheeks were wet. “And I know that if we fail to break the siege, they are going to die. My darling sister will be run down and used horribly and then they will execute her. My parents will burn. My friends, the ones I left behind… I will have failed them. My world will be over.

“And every night, before I lie down for sleep, I think to myself: What if this were the world’s last night? What if this were the last chance to save my loved ones? To save anypony at all? What if tonight is the last night of Canterlot’s hope? I have tried to stand tall for the ponies of Equestria, but I cannot be the only one. If I am the only one, then I will be that solitary individual gladly… but it won’t be of any use, I fear. It will be a very short and brutish and futile stand.

“I haven’t talked to you about my House or our princesses or even your country because… because those things simply don’t matter to us, here and now.” She sniffled, and yet her voice grew firmer. “It is not Luna’s choice. It is not Celestia's choice in the far off western unknown. Babs Seed cannot tell you what to do anymore than I can. Canterlot needs your help. The refugees of Canterlot need you. They need everypony who will come. And that is your choice, whether or not to come to their aid.

“We have been, all of us, in a long and terrible night. Deep and dark and dreadful. Ghastly,” she added, with a broken smile. “And we have been in that night for such a awfully long time that I fear we are forgetting how to be ponies. We are forgetting what it is like to Live Together and Be Together, to be Kind, to Love each other, to smile at our neighbors and to invite a stranger weary from the trail to tea, to praise the sun and delight in the stars, to enjoy the morning walk and the sound of the wind whistling through the orchards. I am so afraid that we will never be that again, beautiful… and… so happy. So very happy. I have been waiting for the morning to come.

“And now I think… now is the last chance!” Now she was yelling. Her voice had lost its cultured grace. Her face had lost its civilized restraint. Her body trembled. A thousand eyes bored into her but she continued. “I am calling for volunteers to help the Legion and the House of Belle break the siege of Canterlot and break the power of the raiders while they are gathered together in one place! I am tired of waiting for the morning to come! And it will come, if we let it! I am tired of living in the night. Aren’t you? Haven’t you passed through this night long enough? We have a chance… I beg of you. Take that chance. Join me. Come with me to Canterlot, and help me push back the darkness.” She held out empty hooves. “The night is passing. Morning is so close. The dawn is… it’s so close. Please, don’t wait. Don’t hide and wait for later. You’ll just be waiting to die alone. The night is passing at last. The night…” at last, she faltered. Her knees felt weak. Her heart hammered in her chest. “You all remember what it was to love your neighbor. Please, for the star’s sake, for pony’s sake, please remember. Please do not go… please don’t go quietly into the night. Please. We have to try.”

They were silent. The whole crowd might as well have already been dead. Rarity despaired.

Babs Seed stepped back out of the crowd. She, too, had tears that lingered in her coat. “Apple Bloom’s in Canterlot,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if I believed you. Damn. Dammit, Lily, you woulda been ashamed of me. I said I was comin’, miss, you know I’m good for it. I don’t care if they come. I’m coming.”

Babs bowed in front of her. Trembling, Rarity dismounted and approached her. She laid a trembling hoof on Babs’ head. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, so much. Thank you.”

And when she looked up, others followed suit. They came and they bowed before her, one after another. Rarity stared at them. She would have continued staring if Rainbow hadn’t touched her shoulder and whispered to her to go. Talk to them. Do something. Say something big and grand.

But she didn’t. She went to each and every one of them. She touched their heads, holding each of their faces in her hooves so that their foreheads gently rested together, and she told them that she was grateful. She cried again. They were all going to die. She was probably going to die. It was the night before the Mitou again. She had to remember them. She had to remember every single one of them.

“Thank you,” she whispered, over and over again. “Thank you. The night is passing.”

“The night is passing,” some of them whispered back.

Where she went, she went under their staring eyes. She spoke to every single pony who bowed. Others came, brought by the first wave of volunteers, and Rarity repeated this for every single one of them. A thousand came and her voice was cracked and raw, and she said--over and over--thank you, thank you.

If she were going to die, what better company to do it in then these?

TWILIGHT

When the zebra cultists came for them, Twilight was silent. She was silent because there was nothing she needed to say. Also, because she was still working on something that in many ways resembled a plan.

When the guards weren’t looking, Twilight scraped her the side of her shackles against the tile and then subsequently tripped. The four zebras brayed at her in their own tongue, before one yelled into her face in common to stand up. She did so, looking down at her hooves.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m having trouble walking with these,” she said, her voice warbling. Her eyes were glued to the results of her experiment. Perfect. That might just work.

“You will have more trouble if you are not hurrying,” hissed the guard, and then they were on the move again.

Applejack looked at her, and Twilight looked back. They shared only a brief second, before the zebras could see them, and Twilight mouthed, Yes.

The halls were longer and more ornate… wherever they were. Twilight wasn’t sure if they had gone up or down. Applejack seemed to think it was up, but professed that she’d been busy fighting at the time and honestly wasn’t much more use than the unconscious Twilight had been. But it didn’t matter. Tradewinds would know, no doubt, and even if she didn’t, as soon as Twilight got the ring off her horn? In these cramped quarters?

She had a lot of ideas about what to do then. Spectacular ones.

Neither prisoner tried to speak. Twilight had been firm about this. Give them no reason to lash out, no reason to do any damage that might make their escape any more difficult. Play the defeated mare. Or, rather, play the one willing to cooperate. Let them forget you can still struggle and maybe they’ll oblige and forget.

They brought Twilight and Applejack into what was unmistakably some sort of reception area. A dining room, perhaps? There were long tables here. She was reminded of the large meeting room in the Palace at Canterlot.

Tradewinds and Pinkie were there. The guards with them seemed much more frazzled than the ones who had been with Twilight. Twilight fought a smile. She had no doubt that those two were the most unruly captives imaginable. This was confirmed when one of their guards came closer to talk quietly with one of her guards and she saw his rapidly-bruising black eye. Definitely unruly. That would be Tradewinds’ work.

And Pinkie… I have these visions of her just appearing all over the place, only staying in chains because its part of the joke. Too much to hope for, but still.

Pinkie smiled at her approach. “Hey, Twilight!” There was something odd about her voice. What was it? Like something stuck in her--

“Quiet!” the guard beside her ordered. He seemed at wit’s end.

“Oh, don’ mind Mr. Sourpuss here, it’s jus’ his job.”

The zebra reared and kicked her in the face, sending her sprawling. Twilight shrank back, but Applejack tried to surge forward to protect her. Her chains tripped her up, and she was beat as she tried to rise.

But then Pinkie did something strange. She looked up from the ground, in the second before the guard was on her, and she smiled at Twilight.

And when she did, a bobby pin was sticking out of her teeth.

You’re kidding me. Twilight blinked, and that was all it took.

Pinkie sprang from the ground, and her chains fell away--they had always been undone, barely holding on. She darted between the guard’s legs, and his momentum carried him straight into the ground. The others jumped to aid their fallen comrade, but Applejack tripped one and held onto his back leg. Twilight pushed--more accurately, she fell--into the one beside her, knocking him off balance.

It was chaos. Pinkie danced between two kicking zebras, and they only barely missed each other. She laughed, pausing long enough to gesture to a stunned, gasping Twilight as if to say, “Oh, will you look at that?” and then pushing one of them into the other.

“Pinkie! My horn! Ring!” Twilight snapped as the guard she had shoved pushed her off. She lay sprawled out on the floor. Applejack was trying to fight without her legs, but it was going poorly. She heard Tradewinds snarling--

“Gandon shtopanniy ! Gandon!”

--but could not see her. Pinkie was in front of her, fiddling at her horn.

“Hurry!” Twilight hissed. “Pinkie, you’re a miracle--”

“Ha ha! I eto vse na chto ty sposoben? Atron na tebya galko tratit!”

“Got it!” she cried, holding the ring up for a moment in triumph. “It’s mine! Hehe--”

“Vasha pesenka speta! Nahuy poshel!’

A guard tackled her and Pinkie was gone in a pink blur. But Twilight’s magic was freed. It boiled within her blood, it sang in her ears. She called on it and it answered in spades.

Three arcane bolts, queued in rapid succession, hit three different targets, sending them flying. She threw one of the zebras off of Applejack and heaved onto a table. The one who had attacked Pinkie she lifted and threw into a wall.

A door on the far end of the chamber opened. More zebras entered, and from the core of the mass emerged Abdiel, grimacing. He leveled his rifle.

“Cease! Apprentice, if you will cease this foolishness, I--”

Twilight picked him up like she had picked up Smartypants as a foal and tore the rifle from his saddle, tore the saddle off and threw it aside, and then used him as a bowling ball to knock over the first wave of attackers.

Applejack whistled, but Twilight had no time for complements. She forced the shackles on Tradewinds open, and then turned to Applejack to find Pinkie working on it frantically.

“How in tarnation did you do that, Pinkie?” Applejack demanded as she stood, free.

“Oh you know! I keep all kinds of things in my mane,” she said and laughed.

Twilight honestly didn’t care. Not only did she believe it, but she’d believe anything right just then.

The next wave of zebras approached. Tradewinds bowled into them, and Applejack mounted a table and threw herself at another knot of fighters. Pinkie slid across the floor to trip one who had gotten too close to Twilight.

And Twilight herself shot them down, with no time to pull punches but with no killing intent. She had little intent besides keeping them away. Arcane bolts, fire, ice, gusts of artificial wind and telekinetic force--she used everything.

It was all a blur of action and reaction. Twilight the Uncertain and Twilight the Apostate alike were swallowed up in Twilight the Tactician. This was the supreme end of her endless organization. Two dozen zebras against four ponies. Twilight thought they would have needed another dozen to make it fair.

And then it was over. Twilight sat down heavily, trying to catch her breath. Her magic had come to her--eager--and she, for a moment, felt like herself again. Magic is connected to the self, she thought, and then sighed. Which either meant she was supposed to be a crazed battlemage or…

Or maybe it just means you were meant to help your friends all along, Twilight. Time for this later. Go find Abdiel. Wherever you threw him.

She had thrown him on purpose--specifically, knowing that it would get him out of the fight with a higher chance of surviving it. She had questions. Her companions did not need to ask where she went. They followed her, no doubt with the same batpony on all of their minds.

Abdiel was crawling towards the door with a pained expression when Twilight pressed her magic down, pinning him.

“Ah, hello, Apprentice.” He winced. “It seems you are victorious. I cannot say I am completely disapointed. Make this quick, would you? I have someone to meet in the clearing at the edge of the path.”

Twilight wanted to do that spitting thing Applejack did when she was disgusted, but AJ did it for her, so she settled for a scornful grimace. “Seriously?” she said.

“Twilight, please if you would be giving his bullets to Tradewinds with magic, would be very good. Da?” Twilight glanced at her, and Tradewinds rolled her eyes. “I promise not to be shooting suka on floor without of being asked, ah… whatever word is.” She shrugged.

“Expressly? Specifically?” Twilight supplied almost idly as she rifled through Abdiel’s person, pulling several clips from his packs. It was a pragmatic move--she needed another pony who could strike at range. As much as she disliked the weapon, Twilight couldn’t react to everything.

“Whatevers,” Tradewinds repeated, and gleefully took the ammunition. “Will be retrieving of traitor’s gun. Hope is not too damaged.” She looked down at the helpless Abdiel, and her face grew very dark for a moment. She spat on him. “Your friends, the ones who lie with mares with threats, they did not save you, da? Will use your for target practice, and then you will rot in hell. I hope. Maybe something good will happen for final, yes?”

As Tradewinds stalked off, grumbling, Twilight and her friends looked down at the traitor.

“Well, now what do we do?” Pinkie asked.

“I ain’t sure myself. Twi, as much as Tradewinds wants to go ahead an’... I’m not sure I can feel right about it, with him all tied up and what not. It’s… it’s different.”

“Or harder to justify,” Twilight said softly. “You know, we ran through all of these hallways because we thought they were going to kill you?” she asked him. Abdiel did not meet her eyes at first, but when he did she found his expression… not unreadable. She wished it was unreadable. This was baleful. He hated. Her? Maybe. Something, certainly.

“Why would you go off and do this?” Applejack asked.

“You know, I was wondering,” Pinkie began, trotting until she was right in front of Abdiel. She sat down in front of him, meeting his hard gaze. “When? That’s really the question. Were you ever our friend, Abdiel?”

They stared at each other for a moment. Twilight wasn’t sure how long.

“This is a hard question to answer,” he said finally.

“Not really,” Pinkie countered. “Most questions are pretty easy. It’s just sometimes we don’t know when to say ‘I dunno!’ or ‘No’ or whatever. No, I think you can answer. I just want the honest-to-Applejack truth.”

“That ain’t a sayin’, Pinkie.”

“It is now! For serious, though.” She looked at him intensely. “You really should tell me. It’s kind of important.”

Abdiel licked his lips. “Fine. You want me to explain? I’ll explain, Jester. I was approached by agents of the Mad God when you first docked in the city, yes? You were being watched. You did not know you were being watched--”

“Kinda did,” Pinkie replied softly. “Thought it was just silly Pinkie being nervous.”

“Well. They offered me something I could not turn down.”

But Pinkie shook her head. “Nah. You just didn’t want to.”

The captured Abdiel snarled at her. “You know nothing! Nothing! They could give me the only thing in life I had! You fool! You laughing, boucning imbecile what do you know of loss?”

“My parents have been missing a year and a half now,” Pinkie replied flatly.

Twilight blinked. It was true--she’d heard nothing of Pinkie’s family in the chaos. Many of the farmers in their area had headed to Canterlot and Shady Hollow to seek refuge, but Twilight had found no definitive proof that her parents were among them.

To her shame, she realized that she had never talked with Pinkie about it once. Twilight took a deep breath and tried to school her expression.

Pinkie continued, her voice still flat. “I have three sisters, and a caring father and a wonderful mother. My father used to make us work because he had to, but he always made sure that he took every bit of the heavy load he could so that we could still be foals. Our mother made us sweet things when we could afford them, and sometimes when we couldn’t. She put up with my energy and my silliness and she sent me letters from home every month in Ponyville. They’re probably dead,” Pinkie said. “My sisters may be as well. The youngest was only a few years old. The oldest was going to go to college. She was going to be a doctor and I was very proud. She sent me a letter the month that Celestia left, and she said, ‘Pinkie, now that I’m a doctor, I have to give you lots of boring warnings about your health! You have to stop eating sweets for every meal,” and I wrote her back and told her not to be so boring, and if she wrote me another letter it got lost.”

Pinkie laid on the floor so that she and Abdiel were eye-to-eye, on the same level. Face to face. He did not flinch, but neither did Pinkie.

Pinkie finished just above a whisper. “Don’t tell me I don’t know what loss is, Mr. Abdiel. Because I do. Even if my parents are alive, I was friends with every single pony in ponyville and a lot of them are dead right now. I lost my hometown, and my second hometown, and maybe my parents, and my apprenticeship, and a lot of other things. So I’m going to be very rude, okay? Tell me what they offered you, or I’ll get Tradey to bop you on the nose with her rifle and I won’t feel bad about it for like, at least a few hours.”

“Gosh,” Applejack murmured beside her. Twilight was wide-eyed as well.

Abdiel took a deep breathe. “My wife died in Sarnath when the plague came. I was chasing a thief on the veldt and so was not allowed into the city because of the quarantine. She died alone. I had heard rumors of the Mad King’s magic, and the ones that say he can raise the dead from the blood of the living…”

“You missed her.”

Abdiel nodded mutely.

“So you betrayed your friends, made a deal with a crazy zebra who kills ponies and uses their blood for weirdo parties, and all that… do you think that would make her happy?”

“I do not really care, to be honest with you, if it would make her alive.”

Pinkie sighed and looked at Twilight. “I believe him. Do you?” When Twilight nodded, Pinkie stood. “I don’t think he’s gonna be our friend, Twilight. I don’t wanna kill him. Please? Just because he’s a bad pony doesn’t mean he’s a bad pony, you know? I think one day he’ll realize what he did, but right now… can’t you magic up something? If you can’t, I could juryrig restraints…”

“I’ve got it,” Twilight said absently. She levitated the batpony, gritting her teeth as she forced him, squirming, against the wall and applied a seal. “That should keep for awhile. Not sure if the city will warp the enchantment, but it’ll hold for long enough.

Tradewinds had returned silently. “We are not killing, I take it.”

Twilight shook her head. “No. This is good enough. I’m not killing a prisoner.”

Tradewinds shrugged. “Bullet solves all problems. He is problem. No pony, no problem. But Twilight is smart pony, will be trusting of Twilight.” She moved on to the door that the attackers had come through, deftly avoiding a groaning zebra who was crawling out of her way. “Keeps enemies all alive, would be terrible Petrahoof pony. Nopony is in the hall, but will change soon. We should go.”

Twilight looked at the zebras scattered here and there. Most were alive. “Yeah. Yeah, we should go.”

And so they did. Applejack took point, barreling down the hallways, flanked by Pinkie and Twilight, with Tradewinds watching their rear with her rifle. They had no destination. Twilight knew from the start that any escape would require flight away from the complex above… and yet she also knew that the complex would be where Celestia was. Or had been. It was the only place she could have gone.

If they abandoned their pursuit here, they could escape with their lives. But it would cost them the chance to follow Celestia. There was no way they would manage a second journey through Jannah. Twilight knew she wouldn’t. Her mind would break.

Any debate was stalled by the running battle they found themselves in upon breaching the topmost floor. To her horror, the choice had been made for Twilight: they had been held at the top of the great tableland. True escape would have been impossible. Too much area, too many pursuers.

“We need to get up into the air!” she cried, throwing yet another cultist running out from a side hallway into the wall. “AJ!”

Applejack corrected her course, heading the way the last attacker had come. “If y’all see a stairway, then I’ll take it! But I wouldn’t know how---there! Follow me, girls!”

Their charge carried them into a wide open basilica where a rag tag camp had been set up. Zebras ate and slept among the tents, staring dumbly at the four ponies who barged into their living quarters.

In the center of the small encampment, the stairwell to what Twilight hoped was the complex rose up into another room.

Somewhere in her mind, there was enough space for Twilight to reflect that if they had stopped in surprise, hesitated even a moment, they would have died quickly. Or been captured, at any rate. As it was, Applejack burst through their crowds and between their tents, roaring a wild rebel’s yell, and the shock of her advance destroyed any chance of counterattack. She didn’t fight. She simply kept going, whatever was in her path, like a castle wall that moved.

A few larger zebras moved to block their path up ahead, recovering from their disorientation, but Twilight saw them. Working fast, on the run, she summoned her magi and formed it into a wide plane in front of Applejack. The shield hit the zebras first, and when they pushed back, Twilight split her plane in two and sent both sides moving in opposite directions. Caught off balance, the zebras’ resistance ended in confusion and Applejack stormed through the newly formed gap with Twilight and her friends in tow.

They came to the stairs. Twilight heard something whistling through the air and ducked. A flask exploded in green fire beside her, and she felt tiny shards of glass rake her leg. She cried out.

“Twilight! You were not mentioning grenades!”

“It’s magic! Just don’t get hit! Tradewinds, stay with me! AJ, take Pinkie ahead and we’ll follow!”

Applejack didn’t answer. Pinkie did, but Twilight didn’t listen--she was already turning, her magic already burning as Tradewinds lined up a shot and fired. Down below, a zebra hoisting another flask filled with glowing green fire found it shattering in his hoof and spilling its corrosive contents all over him. His robes burst into alchemical flame, and Twilight lost track of him as he rolled between two tents. But she couldn’t have kept up regardless--she was intercepting another flask and throwing it back.

Tradewinds hovered, firing, re-orienting, and firing again. They fought side by side, advancing up the stairs quickly as the churning crowd below began to give chase.

They gained the top. Applejack yanked Twilight’s pack with her teeth and flung her out of the line of fire. She didn’t see what happened to Tradewinds, but then Applejack’s nose was digging into her side, pushing her back onto her feet. “Jus’ missed ya! Now, c’mon! We’re way up high and I ain’t sure where I’m goin’!”

She heard the cries of the cultists below growing louder and more frenzied. Blood was in the air. It was spilt. This was what they wanted. Twilight shook herself. “It… I…” And she looked around.

And found she knew this place.

How? How did she know this place? This room, these tapestries! The luxurious couches and the silver vessels she knew would contain Sarnath wine kept in perfection in eerie silence for millenia. This was home.

Twilight grit her teeth. No it wasn’t. The city had her still. She couldn’t let her guard down. This was not home! This wasn’t Ponyville. I can be crazy later!

“This way,” she said, and led them down a hallway lined with portraits in a strange style. Ponies dead for thousands of years watched her with varying looks of compassion of stoic caution, regarding her like gods from afar. She felt their stares as if she knew them, as if she could stop and name every single one. Things began to blur together. She thought she was hearing things again and her head and sight grew foggy, her limbs grew heavy, and she--

Twilight woke up on her hooves, panting.

The scriptorium. The library. It was dimly lit, but she could still see the walls filled with books and scrolls. Mostly scrolls. Twilight finally began to feel that her head was clear. She stumbled, and shook herself.

“How? How did we get here?” she said, looking around. She barely remembered. Where had they gone? What had they done? She remembered… using magic. Running. A pony in the water. She thought hard, furrowing her brow, and remembered--

--Pinkie, running alongside her, saying she heard somepony coming up behind them--

--a great dining hall--

--a music room where lay instruments more magnificent than any made since the fall of the world’s first City, harps made of solid gold, lyres fit for goddesses to strum, flutes she knew would be so soft in their complete perfection, argent horns and--

--through a bathhouse built above the lesser springs, right through a light pool with warm water that splashed around her, throwing off a startled Black Hoof mercenary who had been dozing in the warmth, Tradewinds crying a battle hymn as she stomped his face into the stone, blood on her tile, in her bath--

“What? What… what the…” Twilight reeled. She clutched the sides of her head. She was losing it. She was finally losing it. That hadn’t been her. She hadn’t done those things. Somepony else had done them! Sompeony else was pulling her along like a puppet on strings!

“Twi! You were right about barricading the door, but it ain’t gonna work like this. I need somethin’ heavier,” Applejack said behind her.

Twilight jumped and turned.Applejack was there with her other friends, moving furniture in front of a great onyx door with massive handles, obviously trying to block it. “Who are you?” she snarled. This wasn’t Applejack! If she wasn’t herself than she couldn’t know if Applejack was Applejack! Or Pinkie! Or Tradewinds!

“Chyort,” Tradewinds grunted as she pushed a couch in front of the door. “She is of the crazy, do not have time! Tradewinds will find another couch if Pink one will hold, da?”

“Nah, I got it!” Applejack said, squeezing between Pinkie and the haphazard mass of wooden fixtures. “Go see to Twilight, get her to snap out of it, Pinks. I need ya.”

“Yes’m!” Pinkie said with a salute.

Twilight was backing away in horror. Who was she? Was she even Twilight Sparkle? Could ponies just… just burrow in your mind and--

Pinkie was in her face, gripping both sides of it with her hooves. Twilight stared, agape.

“Twilight, stop. Please? You’re gonna be okay, okay? Pinkie Promise. If I thought you would stay still, I would do the motions, but it’s kind of a special case so I guess it’ll be fine this time. Breathe, please? There you go. I dunno what happened, but I don’t have time for you to tell me. Can you help us bar the door? It would be pretty super duper if you could.”

“Th-the handles,” Twilight said, realizing only now that she had been on the verge of hyperventilation. “Find me something long or thin that I can jam into them... thread through both of them… It’ll keep the door from opening.”

Pinkie nodded. “I’ma let go, but you gotta promise not to go all freak-out. Okay? Good.” Pinkie released her and turned. “Tradey! Find something that you can stick in the handles.”

“Already… already on it,” Twilight wheezed. Her magic searched the room and found a bench. She grunted as her magic snapped the legs off of the thing, and she felt three times the resistance she should have. “If… Abdiel was right, this should go back to normal somehow… later,” she said, and after a moment, the barricade was complete.

Applejack sank next to the pile, seemingly exhausted. “Don’t even care if there’s a whole dern army outside. Too tired.”

“Is much flying on tired wings,” Tradewinds agreed, and came to rest next to Twilight. “Is head on properly, Twilight? Tradewinds would offer something to drink. Usually makes everything better. But has nothing.” She said this as if the lack of alcohol was truly a tragedy. Perhaps, for her it was. Twilight just blinked at her.

Twilight shut her eyes. “Okay. We should be okay. Just… just fine. For a moment. And then we can go outside. We need to get to the Well.”

“The what?” Applejack asked. Twilight glanced over at her to see her lying flat on her back, hooves splayed, hat on her face. “What in the sam hill are you talkin’ bout?”

“The Well. It’s where… it’s important,” she said lamely. “I’m pretty sure it’s why Celestia came here. I think Eon will be up here somewhere too.”

“I hope she’s safe,” Pinkie siad softly. “She didn’t really sound like much of a fighter.”

“I think she’s in better shape than us,” Twilight responded.

“Not in better shape than Tradewinds,” came a grumbled boast from the floor. Twilight looked down to see an exhausted pegasus curled into a ball at her hooves. “Tradewinds is, what is word?”

“Superior? The best? Strong?” Twilight offered, more out of habit than anything else.

“Zadiraaaaaa,” she clarified almost drunkenly.

Twilight couldn’t help it. She smiled. “Adrenaline is one heck of a drug. I think I’ll--” and then she felt back on her flanks. “Yeah. Knees. Takes energy to stand. Pinkie, I don’t suppose you keep food in that voluminous mane of yours?”

“That would be silly,” Pinkie replied. “I mean, c’mon smart pony, there would be hair in the cupcakes. Manes are good for stuff like bobby pins and balls.”

Twilight gave a weak laugh. “Of course.”

The pounding at the door stopped shortly after it began. Tradewinds and Applejack passed out, but Pinkie woke both of them after ten minutes or so.

The library was vast, but it was very finite. Twilight looked at the massive doors that led out into the courtyard. The courtyard had rooms for sleeping on either side and another great door beyond and that led… Well, it led to the end. Of one thing, or another.

The layout of the complex was seared into her memory. She knew how many could sleep and live comfortably on the table land, how many gardens (four), how many paths weaved through the gardens. She knew all sorts of things that she shouldn’t know.

It was then, of all times, that she heard the voice.

There is not much time. You must come now, or never come at all.

Twilight took a deep breath and then let it hiss through her teeth. You did things to me.

Not the things you suspect. Not in the way you suspect. Your… it is hard to explain. You are leaking. That is a way to say it. The city and my own help has weakened the barrier between you and I, and you and the City. But I can fix this. Please, allow me to fix this.

You were in my head.

I found myself there, with your thoughts and memories. It was frightening. But I did not want you to be hurt because of me.

YOU WERE IN MY HEAD!

I had no choice in being there!

Twilight ground her teeth together. I have no reasons left to trust you and every reason not to. I am trapped, my head is full of things I shouldn’t know, and you won’t show yourself. Stop being vague. Where are you? What are you? Who are you?

Eon was silent. Of course she was. Of course she was.

Twilight was in the middle of a mental rant when Eon finally did answer.

Eon is what they called me in the city. This is my city. I was the one who stayed close to home. I never left our home when the song slipped away into the Wells. I was the firstborn and Celestia is my sister as all Alicorns are. I have the message of her presence, which she left for anypony who followed… but who she said would be you. She was sure of it. I have meant no harm. Please believe me. I did nothing to hurt you! I was…. I was rude, but I have had a single visitor in the last thousand years. I bungled my aid, but it was aid! It is the city that does this new indignity, not I.

Where are you?

Come to the Well and I will no longer hide. I swear to you. You will be the second to see me in these thousand years.

Oh, so I just have to get there. No big deal. Through the complex which I’m almost positive is filled with ponies who want to sacrifice my friends or stab me or whatever! No pressure.

I can do… I can help you, but only if you allow me to will I make an attempt. In my long exile, I have weaved magic slowly… bit by bit through the whole of my home. You need only run to the Well. I will fight your battle for you. Nothing will touch you if I can keep it at bay.

Twilight looked back at her friends. Applejack was their front line, and though Twilight knew she would go on, none of them had eaten in awhile or slept or rested. Tradewinds could kill from afar, but she would run out of ammunition. Pinkie was not a fighter. She was a dancer who caused unfortunate accidents and her strikes were weak. Twilight’ magic was coming back, yes, but it was not all back. Even with twice the magic she had left Canterlot with, she was still in danger of burnout if she kept slinging spells.

They would be herded into a corner and then they would be overwhelmed.

What do you intend to do?

I will use the floors and walls against them. There are several of those Black Hoof ponies walking in my home. I can feel their steps like drums against my head. I could… I do not know. I could throw them? I can crush them. But I am not sure I could make myself actually do this… But I can make passage impossible, and keep them trapped or far away. It is a matter of manipulating rock, nothing more. It cannot be anything more, or else I unmake more than I would intend to.

Fine. Give me a moment, and I’ll get them going. I don’t think it’s smart to trust you. But I don’t have any other choice. I’m going to the Well anyway.

Twilight walked over to Applejack, who smirked up at her. “Feelin’ ready for another gallop?” Applejack asked. “Cause I sure ain’t.”

“Well, I think we have one more in us. Can you be ready in a few minutes? I’m worried that if we stay here much longer, the ones downstairs will brew something potent enough to get through the door.”

“After seein’ those little glass things, I don’t doubt it. Fire in a bottle. Magic.” She said the last with something between resignation and scorn. She stood and stretched. “Fine by me. A mare’s alive when she’s movin’, Granny used to say. I’m ready.”

“Tradewinds would like to be outside,” said the indolent pegasus behind her. “Would like to see sky again. I am not a fan of small rooms and hallways.”

“Oh, a big blue sky would be great!” Pinkie agreed.

Twilight managed to smile at them all and mean it. Eon was far away for a moment. The cultists below didn’t matter. This was an adventure, she was younger, and at the end of the day she knew she could go back home and Spike would make her a nice pot of tea and her books would be there when she closed her eyes. She almost felt like it could be true.

“Then let’s go find it,” Twilight said, and after helping Tradewinds to her hooves, they stood before the great doors that led to the courtyard.

“So. Don’t suppose you know where we’re going,” Applejack said and whistled.

“Straight on ‘till morning,” Twilight groused.

“Sounds great!” That would be Pinkie.

Tradewinds just loaded her weapon.

Twilight cleared her throat. “Ready? Stay close together. Just keep going forward. If we can make it to the Well, we’ll be safe. I think I can get us out if we can just make it there. Don’t stop. Don’t get side tracked. It’s like… it’s a rotunda? That word’s as good as any, I suppose. A circle of columns, you’ll recognize it. Get there, no matter what.”

They all nodded, and then Twilight pushed at the doors with her magic and they opened.

The first thing she saw was the sky, cloudless and neverending. The sun was starting to rise, but it was not dawn quite yet. The heavens were caught at the moment where blackest night faded into a royal purple, reminiscent of Twilight herself. On the columns that framed the gardens torches burned and cast a warm glow.

But Twilight had no time for this. She had no time for the eerily familiar garden. No time for madness. Applejack was on the move again and they followed in her wake.

What followed was impossibility. When they stepped out onto the rocky roof of the city’s heart, they found Black Hoof rifelponies waiting for them, aiming… until the ground beneath them shook or turned soft. Columns from the gardens detached and stood on either side of them like great stoic sentinels. A potshot richocheted off one of them, chipping the stone.

More of D’Jalin’s followers milled about them as they jogged along a pathway marked out by statues of alicorns in various poses. Zebras hid behind these or jumped out from behind them, only to be tripped by rocky terrain or to find one of the pillars bowling them over. Beneath her hooves, the ground moved like it was alive.

“Twilight! Twilight, is this you? You’re scarin’ me! Applejack called as another Black Hoof was pushed aside from her path.

“It’s Eon!” Twilight shouted.

And then the howling began. There were no clouds, but she felt on the edge of a storm all the same. The wind picked up, blowing. And then it raged, blowing her mane everywhere, gripping at her bags. Applejack held on to her hat and hurried.

None of them were trying to fight anymore. Black Hoof, Cultist, Twilight and her friends, everypony on the plateau--they were all together in cowering. The sides began to break down as Twilight’s company broke into an all-out run for shelter. The others ran for their lives. The stones were eating them, the wind was trying to push them off into space. There was nothing to be gained.

The shrine was intact, obviously. Rough, unschooled stone gave way to pristine marble slab and mosaics. The Well sat before Twilight, waiting for her--a great pool of pure water, shining and beautiful, waiting like the edge of a larger sea--and she felt her grip on herself lessen. She had to get there. She had to touch the water. Celestia had been here. She felt it. It was the same feeling as the familiarity in the garden and the hallways. She didn’t just think her teacher, her beloved mentor, had been here. She knew it.

The earth stopped crawling. The wind stopped howling. The columns fell away. Tradewinds fell away to cover their flank but did not shoot. Twilight had only the well before her in mind. Nothing else mattered. If she could touch this… if she could be where Celestia had been, it would solve everything, it would--

From behind a column, out of the shadowed sanctum, stepped a massive zebra. He had stripped his robes. Every inch of his flesh was scourged and scarred. His eyes were red and his teeth as he laughed were filed into points. All over his body there were packs which would be filled with flasks and bombs and poultices, waiting to be used.

“I knew you would come!” he said, standing on his hindlegs with spread forelegs, as if preparing to greet her in a great hug. “I knew she would not fail me! She would bring you to her very doorstep! What a goddess is Manat that she provides her own sacrifice!”

Applejack didn’t waste time retorting. She charged the mad zebra, lowering her shoulder. But he was fast, despite his size. D’Jalin stepped to the side and then brought his whole weight on Applejack’s back. She fell flat, and with a sneer D’jalin kicked the startled earth pony aside.

Pinkie was next. He attacked, keeping her backing up even as Tradewinds turned to face him. She tried to dance around his blows, but she was only so quick. A hoof clipped her cheek and she spun and fell. Tradewinds shouted and fired.

The first shot pierced his shoulder. As Tradewinds worked the bolt, D’Jalin had pounded his right hoof against the ground and only now Twilight saw the runes that were cut into the skin. They flared to light.

“Tradewinds!” The Well was gone. Twilight was in the present again, and she was pushing Tradewinds out of the way with her magic as a great fist of rock erupted from the spot where she had been standing. “Fly!” she called, and Twilight began her own dance with D’Jalin.

Twilight arced two arcane bolts. D’Jalin danced between them, pulling a flask from one of his pack in the same flawless motion and throwing it at her. Twilight backed up, but the fire she expected did not come. Instead, red smoke poured out, clouding the air between them. It touched Twilight’s skin and it burned like it was eating at her.

Panicking, Twilight fell back and then rolled away, trying to brush the cloud off of her. Above, she heard Tradewinds strafing the blood mage, who laughed at her screaming.

“Mudak! Die! Bayonet in your ass!”

“Come to the ground, little lost soul! Come and greet us!”

Twilight stood back up and summoned up fire from the air. At least some of those potions had to be flammable. She threw it.

D’Jalin saw or felt it before her fire could hit him and threw himself flat. She heard the sound of breaking glass, but saw no explosions or clouds. Twilight tried to pin him with her telekinesis, but her magic slid off. Runes, like the ones she had shown Spike forever ago. She wanted to curse, but spent the energy attacking again. Fire would still burn him and raw power would still hurt, but she couldn’t manipulate his body.

D’Jalin tried to dodge her bolts and Tradewind’s fire, but a bolt hit him in the leg and he went sprawling. She was about to crow in victory until she saw the knife in his mouth. She opened her mouth, trying to warn Tradewinds, but what happened froze her.

He stabbed his leg and cut through the flesh. Blood seeped out of the weeping wound. And then it danced in the air as he chanted. It was only a moment, but the sight of it rising in the air transfixed her.

Blood Mage.

“Tradewinds! Get out of the sky!”

She did not. The blood arched out at her, hungry to cut and bind. But Tradewinds did not cower or dodge. She dove, rifle roaring. The blood formed ragged whips which broke her skin and scourged her legs, her wings. It formed knives which cut her. It tried to bind her wings but it could not overcome her.

But it didn’t need to. Her shots were wild and they went wide, and when she was close enough, a newly strengthened D’Jalin met her charge with a hoof and she went sprawling.

Applejack had risen shakily. Twilight saw her out of the corner of her eye. But D’Jalin, mercifully, did not turn towards her. He had eyes only for Twilight Sparkle. He smiled and showed every one of his filed teeth.

“Yes, yes. Yes! She brings her own sacrifice, of course! Of course she would, is she not worthy? And you came, escorted by her power! Escorted by the bride of shadows!” He cackled even as he dug through his pack.

“What are you talking about?” Twilight shouted at him, keeping her magic ready.

Twilight found herself backing up to keep those crazed eyes at a distance. She turned, hoping to keep her back from the well and his eyes off of Applejack, but he was quicker by far. He was herding her back towards the well.

And she was beginning to think that the City had played her for a foal.

“The Lady! The Lady of the Water!” he laughed. As he closed the distance between them, Twilight saw his antimagic runes flash. How had he cut those into his flesh? How had he borne the agony?

“E-Eon?” she asked. She had to keep him talking. Applejack needed time to get up. Tradewinds and Pinkie needed time to get back into the fight. They would, they had to. She couldn’t do this alone!

“You speak a lesser name for her,” D’Jalin said in an almost casual voice, as if Twilight were back at Celestia’s school and this was just another lecture. “When I realized that my soul was not within me, I became aware of her. And now she will help me reclaim that soul which is mine! I have been kept locked away so long, ‘Apprentice’!” His smiling turned instantly to screaming. “I WANT OUT! GIVE YOURSELF! INTO THE WATER!”

“NO!”

"I have waited so long! In a thousand forms! In a thousand voices! The plans were so well arranged! Everything has gone so perfectly! You are the last little puzzle piece and you need to play along you miserable bitch! I will be reunited with myself once more!"

He threw two flasks with lightning speed and then charged after them. Twilight deflected one, but her charged magic touched it annd it instantly shattered, blinding her with light. She reeled, crying out--a trap! He’d known she would try to throw them back!

Something heavy hit her and the next thing Twilight knew her face was resting against something hard and uncomfortable. Her face felt wet. Everything felt hot. She saw only white light, with strange moving black shadows flitting here and there.

Twilight tried to rise. The white light did not go away. Her head ached. She tried to wipe her eyes, but nothing changed. She closed her eyes--nothing changed.

She had no time to register what this meant. The shadows were moving, and Twilight concentrated her magic on feeling what was around her.

D’Jalin was a cold spot that she could see only by seeing the absence. Applejack was moving again, no longer stunned and charging. She dodged something thrown that felt sickly. She felt Tradewinds taking to the sky again. She felt Pinkie hanging back. No, heading for her.

Twilight felt hooves touch her and she panicked. “Who? What?”

“It’s Pinkie! Twilight, please, don’t go all kooky again!”

“I can’t see,” Twilight said. She was starting to breath to fast. “Pinkie, I can’t see. He did something to me. I have to see with my magic, but it’s… it’s ineffecient.” Talking hurt her face. She grit her teeth and continued. “H-help me up, Pinkie. You’ll have to help me walk.”

Pinkie did so. She felt surprisingly strong legs pull her up and steady her. She smelled a smell she recognized as being uniquely Pinkie, something between cinnamon and bread. She still saw almost nothing.

“This guy is tough, Twilight. He’s…”

“He’s crazy,” Twilight said. “Pinkie, something is in this city. Luna found an infection in her Dreamwalking, and I think that whatever did that is here. And I think this guy thinks that it is also somehow him. We can’t reason with him. He has to… he’s gotta go.”

Pinkie nodded into her cheek so that Twilight could feel it. “I’ll hold you steady, Twi. You do your magic thing, okay?”

“Right.” Twilight took a deep breath, summoned her magic, and fired an arcane bolt at the cold spot.

D’Jalin did not dodge. This time it hit him square on and he shook and fell. Applejack reared to fall on him, but then the cold spot expanded, and she fell back, writhing. “What’s happening?” Twilight asked, but Pinkie was pulling her away.

“He’s got some--ack!” Pinkie began to cough. The cold spot was expanding. Twilight felt colder. Nauseous. The cold washed over her.

“Pinki--ugh.” She coughed. The air tasted vile. “Get us away from it! We can’t engage him up close, he has too many tricks. We have a chance if--oh, Celestia!” Pinkie was retching, and Twilight felt dizzy again.

The cold was swirling around her. Pinkie fell away, but caught Twilight before she could stumble.

“G-gotcha!” Pinkie managed to say.

They tried to walk back towards the Well. Twilight felt its siren call again, but now she feared it. Who was she? There was no time to think about it, but it could mean everything.

The last pony I trusted betrayed me!

Pinkie fell again, pushing Twilight forward before she collapsed. Twilight could see her pink outline in her mind’s eye, shivering, curling into a tight ball and retching. Twilight stumbled towards the well. If she could find a pillar to lean on in the shrine… she could keep fighting. She could pull her friends out of the cloud--

Something grabbed her roughly. Twilight was being dragged forward. But she was out of the cloud at last.

D’Jalin had her by the scruff of the neck. She felt his teeth digging into her skin now and she screamed and flailed. This only made them tear at her.

D’Jalin threw her against something hard and flat. Twilight went sprawling, rising only to be pushed down again. He was forcing her down, forcing her to be still. She whimpered.

“N-no! No, please!”

She heard the knife. She squirmed, she tried to kick--it was useless. He was bigger and stronger than her. He had won. She felt the cold blade against her neck. She tried to pull back, but she couldn’t. Her head was against the floor. There was nowhere to run.

“Thank you, thank you!” he was whispering in her ear. “I have come to teach you death, Apprentice. I have come that you might have it in abundance! You have come all this way, just for me! Your teacher will be very proud! I shall send you to her, would you like that? Would you like that?” He was laughing. She heard the sound of water as he pushed her along the floor. “Would you like that? Together! Together always! Cut throat and ashes! Always always! And I will mix the knifeblood with my wine and you will taste so sweet on my lips, little pony! Oh, you will.”

Her head was against something read. She was crying. No! Please no! Celestia! Luna! LUNA!

And he cut her throat and then there was a great rushing wind and he screamed. And somepony else screamed.

“DOS VIDANIYA YOU SON OF BITCH! NOW WE FLY TOGETHER!”

Twilight couldn’t breath. She choked. She gurgled. She knew blood was pouring all over her front. She was going to die. No, she was dead. She was already dead.

She knew the well was there. She turned, and lay flat on her stomach. Seconds left. A minute at most. Her thoughts were starting to lose shape. She couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t hear anything. Something smelled like hyacinths. There was water here. She felt so filthy. Wouldn’t it be nice to be clean again? The water smelled like hyacinths. It was nice. No one would mind if she slipped in for a nice soak.

She pulled herself up and fell forward.

Good night. I’m sorry, Luna. The Answer was--

Author's Note:

The story is not over. Please, keep with me awhile. Wait, and watch, and see.

Thanks Carbon, who helped me with my Russian. The faults are mine if there are any.

From John Donne's Holy Sonnets,

What if this present were the worlds last night?
Marke in my heart, O Soule, where thou dost dwell,
The picture of Christ crucified, and tell
Whether that countenance can thee affright,
Teares in his eyes quench the amasing light,
Blood fills his frownes, which from his pierc'd head fell.
And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell,
Which pray'd forgivenesse for his foes fierce spight?
No, no; but as in my idolatrie
I said to all my profane mistresses,
Beauty, of pitty, foulnesse onely is
A signe of rigour: so I say to thee,
To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign'd,
This beauteous forme assures a pitious minde.

---

LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS

ALL WILL COME RIGHT

OUT OF THE DEPTHS OF SORROW

AND OF SACRIFICE

Comments

[Cynewulf]

6494448 I always liked their interaction. I go back and read that chapter sometimes for their scenes.

[Scarheart]

Oooh, this looks intriguing...going into my pile to read.

[mimimi]

so much santa-barbara

[lordofmyth]

...... Yeah unless something is up here imma itching towards the downvote.
When a canon character senselessly dies there is issues to be had. Its always, always a bad sign. There are only a few exceptions, very few.

Know you ended it saying wait watch and see, but all the other times i have with other stories, it was as bad as ever.

[Cynewulf]

6498743 every movement of Jannah has had an interlude. There's a Postlude to this symphony. Please stay with me long enough to finish it. You've been around awhile. I would hate to lose people on the road after so long, especially before Jannah is over.

I've been burned before too, if it makes you feel better.

[TheLastBrunnenG]

6498743
Re-read the previous 370,000 words (or read them, if you haven't already); it's not senseless. And something tells me The Well isn't just a watery hole.

We haven't seen the last of Twilight.

[lordofmyth]

6498821 Perhaps. just have an immensely bad experience with stories where the mane six end up killed.
Its something like every other story has >_<

[neokiva]

No to end this chapter like this! Pouts

[RoboRed]

...
...Oh...
...Oh damn...

Twilight stopped ignoring him because all of a sudden, she realized that he was speaking common. Why was this odd? It really wouldn’t have been, normally. Ponies spoke Common on all three continents. Griffons spoke common. Dragons knew common. Deer, bovines, changelings, zebras. All of them spoke the common tongue or knew it a little.

And it was at this moment my brain started screaming, "HE KNOWS! FLEE!"
Also, it's too bad Abdiel went traitor on the group.

Babs Seed being in a position of power was really something I didn't expect.
Then halfway through I remembered Lily's Song. When are you going to get back to work on that, anyways?

Rarity's speech was absolutely amazing. I felt twinges in my eyes at the end of that scene. Also, that title drop.

Things are heating up in Canterlot as well. Can't say I have any tears to shed over Brigadine, though. God, I hate stuck-up nobility...

There's were a few typos I noticed, but I didn't record any of them. I remember one where you accidentally typed "Twiight", though. There was also a sentence with an extra space in the middle of it.

[Iron Nebula]

Worst. Cliffhanger. EVER. You are a horrible person. However, another update will redeem your twisted soul.

[Commander Darklight]

I feel an ascention coming on

I dunno its just that whole bit about luna being sick of her lovers dying and this whole well thing

queue the outer body experience hear the song and be reborn with wings twilight

I hope

[Cynewulf]

6501262 it's not over. It really isnt

[Cynewulf]

6501700 this is going to be my desktop

[Carbon]

I dont think Twi is dead, that will be terrible end of story. I expect big talk with Eon in next chapter.
Or mb i.imgur.com/3Jj8tPS.png reunite!

[Some Jerk]

You know, just...fuck you for the cliffhanger, man. Now I'm thinking about not asking Claudio to sign your shit on Sunday.

But, as for Rara: Is there no world for tomorrow, if we wait for today?

Jannah crew? Good eyes, sniper. Now I'll shoot, and you run.

[Cynewulf]

6504098 :( It's only a few days...

[Shiyo]

What do you do with bad memories?
Well, you could deal with them. Work your way through grief.
Or, alternatively? You could push it away. Far away. Take those things you did or were done to and lock them up in a box and then bury that box and then build a house on it. In fact, that’s exactly what you did. Maybe you even built a city.
It’d be a mighty big, sad thing that you’d build a whole city to try and forget.

I found this the most wonderful thing ever written on this website. And I have read a lot of things.

[Cynewulf]

6507072 Man, I really enjoyed writing the chapter you're on.

[Some Jerk]

6504178 let's face it, I'm going to try to get it signed anyway. Maybe throw in a devotional statue to a dark elder god. Your choice of black or white.

Though the statue is contingent on some...previews via Skype? Consider the offer.

[FloydienSlip]

6507444 The last one, with Cadance.

[Cynewulf]

6508476 aw man, see, at the time I thought I was pulling punches

[Ita-Ita]

This is a major / massive chapter, and so many of the characters featured here really get to shine --- as much as they can, in a Night like this. Some seriously powerful moments. If there's anyone that deserves to drop the title like that, it's Rarity, after that speech.

[StormyVenture]

Ah, another cliffhanger, isn't life full of surprises.

I have the strange impression that the true nature of the Well is something beyond the knowing of the crazy blood mage and maybe even Eon and Celestia. Perhaps it matters how one enters it? Forcefully vs voluntarily. After all they said something about the Song entering the well.

Unless she is having visions again, I think Twilight is dead or will be shortly. Whether she will remain so, who can tell?

If I'm not completely off the mark, then Eon is helping Twilight, but has also played into D'Jalin's plans. The question remains whether things will work out the way he wants them too. I do have to wonder whether Jannah unmakes deaths like it unmakes other changes; that would explain the hordes of the not quite real not being whittled away.

Of course I could be entirely wrong. I hope the story ends well or at least better than it started and that we don't have to wait too long for a conclusion.

[Esle Ynopemos]

Now, why does it feel like I've seen that chapter title somewhere recently?

Good stuff, good stuff. I especially dug Rarity's... well, everything Rarity's done so far in the story's entirety. You write some mighty fine fashion horse.

I've seen you earlier lamenting your disappointment in the villain of this whole circus, and, having seen a bit more of the big guy now, I can kinda see where you're coming from. It's a tricky balance to strike; I am certain I could do no better, but I had expected this D'Jallin character to pose more of a philosophical threat to Twilight's quest than a shooty-stabby threat. That fight scene at the end, while well-written and choreographed to convey a great sense of dread and defeat, was still easily the weakest part of this chapter.

In other news, Abdiel turned out to indeed be hiding something. I don't want to be that one reader who cries out, "Called it!" but... aw, who am I kidding? Yes, I do.

[Cynewulf]

6517552 In the original tabletop campaign he was invented for, Abdiel was a helpful NPC who was mourning the death of his wife to plague in Sarnath and who was going to offer his assistance as a guide... not to betray them so much as to abandon them in the city to go die or go crazy chasing the visions of her. I wanted to see if they would go after him, how far they would go, would they reason with him or just let him... have his final delusions.

D'Jalin, the big bad? Well. Well.

Actually, I smiled when you mentioned him as a philosophically lacking because it's very true. It was actually intended from the beginning, tho in hindsight I should have stuck with the here and now and not a moment of cleverness a bajillion forevers ago. That angle is missed here, but we'll see it. I'm actually setting it up as I type this in the postlude. The first inklings of that somewhat distant but not distant last interview.

(Also, where HAVE you seen that chapter title? I don't remember talking about it! Did I? I have no idea. I did read it for pledges when I was back home and visiting my alma mater, but unless you are a pledge you would not have been there and if so that would be strange. I'm curious where you saw it! Unless you just like Donne. Which is understandable. Donne is pretty super neato.)

[Esle Ynopemos]

6517703 You quoted that very line in a comment on one of my stories a few days ago.

Out of curiosity, how far did your party follow this particular incarnation of Abdiel?

[Cynewulf]

6517870 oh yeh! i remember that now :D i distinctly remember leaving like a bajillion comments.

They made it to the point of departure for the West before we broke up. TNIP owes a ton to that game, but the story was very, very different. No Celestia disappearing for one! They were the first of Luna's new Companions--Free Agents or Champions, people who were her version of Celestia's Knights and Crusaders. Where the sun's champions went openly and directly, the moon's were to use other means. Basically I gave them a steady job with tons of money and a blank check morally to make their own decision. Luna wouldn't force them into anything, tho she did write them letters through a Google Doc commenting and demanding they explain themselves sometimes, and short of murder most foul... Lots of diplomancy. Also lots of hitting things. And ponies. That story involved a Griffon plot, pegasus seperatists, bizarre experiments and magitech constructs, tons of different things, which were all sort of being manipulated from the shadows by a single force.

[redsquirrel456]

Really? Really? I'd have rathered Abdiel die than just...

*sighs and quietly flips over a table*

Ah well. Everything else is as bright and beautiful as it's always been, especially Rarity being Rarity. She has no one grand moment, because every moment she is Rarity, and every moment someone is Rarity is a grand one.

[Sarda]

Luna has thought about this a lot. With the shadow of Jannah’s walls only an hour behind her, she finds that it is all I can think about.

Is that 'I' a mistake, or a hint?

[Zenith Sparkle]

I'm in love. I have never been more in love with anything or anyone in my life. Rarity's speech? Wonderful, tear-jerking, and also the best title drop in the history of this website. This Harmony pony's bit about building a city? Well holy shit! That part where you personify Jannah? Well goddamn! Brigantine dies but Fable takes over? Well, I don't know what to say, I'm not particularly fond of either of them, but you've redeemed yourself with the hint of a romance between Rays and Fable. Twilight's entire arc? You are the best author on the planet.

[Ice Star]

" " - me upon reading the ending.

Don't worry. It's a good speechlessness.

[JSAR1562]

You have made me to tears yet again. Like a scene out of a great movie (which this is), like a captain before D day, like a mother begging for an open door in the midst of the twister clutching a child to her breast, this moved me. I have been listening to this and reading this since 7 days ago when I started a drive from Kansas to Oregon. A journey much like our friends that spans the whole nation. This has provided easily 50 hours of listening material and I am not done yet through my road trip is over in 30 minutes. The last line of her speech was so well crafted. No one who speaks common tongue could hear that phrase and not understand it's depth. Bravo seems too simple a word for the adoration I have of your craft. Thank you. Just, thank you.