Chapter 1: The Big Apple...

Perchance to Dream

Chapter 1: The Big Apple

The wheels of the shopping cart creaked behind Shady Blossom. Shelves full of groceries glided by on either side. Though all the lights were out and the grocery was dark, she could make out just enough light to see. A jug of milk joined a bag of cornmeal in the hitched cart, and she carefully felt two watermelons before selecting the smaller, firmer one.

It wasn’t enough, though. Just a little more, here and there.

The cart soon became heavy with great stacks of cans, bags of flour and oatmeal, and enough hay to feed an army. After dragging the cart to the counter, she passed it without notice, departing into the night.

No one to see, no one to hear. Softly, silently into the night.

The moon hung white and full in a clear sky devoid of stars. The heavy cart dragged at Shady’s every step, but she pressed on beneath the watchful gaze of the moon. Silvery light lay in slats across the street, slotted through the towers of Manehattan here and there.

She stopped, realizing suddenly that she was going the wrong way. Forward led to Canterlot, along high roads to a mountain far away. Her family lay behind her, not in front of her.

They needed her. They were everything she needed. Everything she ever wanted.

Her ears twitched, and she turned her head. A distant cracking sound was echoing through the hollow streets. The earth was shaking.

“Mom! Mo-o-om!” The voice came from someone bouncing on her sheets. Small hooves pounded on her.

Shady groaned and shifted. Her eyes creaked open slowly. “Sto-o-op, honey... mommy’s sleepy...”

Babs Seed beamed down at her. “We’re going to be late, Mom! Come on!”

“All right...” Shady slid up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “All right... go wake your daddy. We’ll go right away.”

While Babs went to stomp on her father, Shady went into her bathroom to freshen up and ready herself for a new day.

* * *

“Are we late, Mom?” Babs Seed asked. Blowing her red mane out of her face, she stared up at a clock. “I thought Apple Bloom’s train was supposed to be here at eight or somethin’.”

“Let me check, dear.” Leaping into the air, Shady Blossom flapped her wings and flew into the air. They carried her up and over the concourse, coming to a hover beside the board announcing arrivals. There, she could see that the train from Ponyville had come early. Which means that my guests have arrived before I could greet them. Isn’t life grand?

“Hey, lady,” a pegasus stallion said from atop the billboard, where benches had been set up for fliers, “don’ block the view. Folks below need to see the board, too, ya know.”

“Oh, of course,” Shady Blossom apologized and then lifted herself up higher to search through the crowd.

There was a certain feeling to passing through the Grand Terminal that couldn’t really be felt anywhere else. It was motion and purpose, a press of ponies, mules, griffins, and more that pulsed together to a beat measured in slamming doors, emphasized in the way hot air from the train tunnels buffeted against her, and the scent of fresh newsprint mingled with the sweat of porters and the dust of travelers from a thousand destinations, the sensations wafting up to her aerial viewpoint. All order in the station’s little universe was managed by the hands of great clocks that hung over the throng, each one round, white, and glowing like moons from some crazed painting.

Shady Blossom squinted just enough so that the moving shapes dimmed in her view, forming blurred lines that snaked their way across the flow as they merged and split. With a little imagination, one could paint the great train station as if it were a scene set outdoors, with little rivers washing around hard, blocky terminals and kiosks. The light streaming in through the great arched windows could have been dappling through trees.

Reminds me of something, but what? Perhaps I saw it in one of Lin’s paintings...

“Mom! Do ya see them?” Babs Seed shouted up at Shady, her hooves planted on a bench overlooking the concourse. Ponies parted around her, glaring at the rose-maned filly. The girl had a pair of lungs on her that she was not reluctant to use.

Ducking under one of the big clocks hanging from the ceiling and steadying herself with a hoof on the metal latticework, Shady shook her head. “Sorry, dear. I got distracted,” she called back and then scanned the platforms and terminals below. Spying a cowboy hat among the mass of equinity, she pointed a hoof. “I can see them over by the tofu stand now.” She kept pointing until Babs started moving through the crowd, then dove down, unsure if her daughter had heard or not.

Three small heads were peeking over the lid of a food cart, each filly watching long slices of tofu sizzle and pop in a tub of oil, the heavy tang of soy sauce hanging around the card like a miasma. A burst of hot juice sprayed against the glass shield protecting them and the girls darted back. They clustered around a blonde earth pony mare in a worn cowboy hat, who was dumping a few shiny silver bits on the counter.

Finding a reasonably clear space, Shady Blossom gave a quick bark of “Look out below!” and flapped her wings to land down by the cart. A blue-coated colt bounced out of the way, and she offered him a small smile in apology. He continued to stare at her, his jaw slack as he took in her appearance.

A little filly, who must have been the colt’s sister by their similar blue coats, tugged at her mother’s tail. “Mommy? Where did her feathers go? Did they fall out?”

“Hush, dear. It’s rude to point.” The mare tugged her children away into the crowd after a glance at Shady Blossom.

Shady sighed a little and turned away to find the three fillies she had been watching gawking at her as well. They each held little fried tofu burgers, and the little orange pegasus was happily scarfing hers down, even though her eyes were still locked on to Shady.

“Shucks, girls, clear a path for ponies. Dontcha go blockin’ the way,” the golden-haired mare chided, and chivvied the girls out of Shady’s path. After Shady didn’t move, she turned and squinted up at her. Then she grinned, holding a hoof out. “Well, I’ll be! Sorry, Shady Blossom, I plumb didn’t notice you there.”

“How can’t you have?” the pegasus filly protested. “Just look at her! She’s just about the most impossible to miss thing I’ve—”

The orange mare’s hoof lodged firmly into her mouth. The burger spilled to the ground, with the half-eaten bun splitting open and the tofu patty smearing the floor. “Kids these days! Scoot, I am going to tan yer sorry hide—don’t think I won’t. Your folks made it crystal clear I was to make sure you behaved.”

“No, Applejack, it’s all right,” Shady Blossom said, putting a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder. She moved over to the filly and then knelt in front of her. Applejack removed her hoof. “Scootaloo, right? I’ll bet you haven’t seen somepony like me before.”

“Ah...” Scootaloo murmured, now scrunching down. Her friends were trying to look as innocent as two fillies who had clearly been thinking the exact same thing could be. With her magenta tail wrapped around her, Scootaloo glanced down at the floor. “Once, actually. Back when Princess Luna visited Ponyville for Nightmare Night last year. There were some ponies just like you pulling the Princess’s chariot. Night Guard types, you know, in the blue and black armor.”

“Well! That’s more than most ponies, certainly.” Shady laughed softly. Tossing her inky mane out of her face, she tilted Scootaloo’s face up with the tip of her hoof to look into Shady’s own catlike eyes, her fluffy ears tilting forward attentively. “I can’t say how grateful I am to you and your friends for helping my Babs out when she visited Ponyville. As far as I’m concerned, you can stare as long as you like.”

The remaining girls scuffed their hooves and tried not to look directly at Shady. Extending her wings, she touched the tips to their noses, drawing their attention back. “That goes for you girls, too, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle,” she said, her tone warm. “I only wish somepony had told me about her behavior while she was there, so you wouldn’t have had so many troubles when she visited, but Babs couldn’t stop talking about how you girls rose to the challenge and made her a part of your lives. You, all three, are little heroes.”

There was a moment of silence, then the girls spoke up. Apple Bloom was first, her red mane and ribbon drooping, “I’m sorry. I didn’ mean to stare, honest; it ain’ right to judge a pony by how she looks—”

Sweetie Belle was almost on top of her, hopping forward. “I’m really, really, really—”

Laughing again, louder and happier still, Shady Blossom stood. She spread a foreleg and her leathery wings to gesture them to stop. “Girls, girls! It’s okay, really. No harm done.”

Applejack chuckled. “They’re good kids. Some of the time, at least.”

“Jeepers, what’s with all the racket?” Babs Seed’s voice broke into the little gathering as she pushed her way among them. “I could hear you guys halfway across the station! Apple Bloom, you aren’t blubberin’ like a li’l crybaby again, are ya?” she demanded of her cousin, but her grin belied the harshness of her words.

Apple Bloom tackled her to the ground at once, and the two fell to play-wrestling, squealing the whole while.

“Hey, Babs,” Sweetie Belle said, waving a hoof.

“’Sup?” Scootaloo asked, picking her spilled tofu off the ground and considering it. When she half-opened her mouth, Applejack quickly snatched it away and chucked it into a trash bin, before going back to the vendor.

“N’much,” Babs slurred, her face smooshed to the ground by Apple Bloom’s hoof. She had her lower legs free, though, and managed to tilt herself and her cousin sideways in order to squirm free. By the time the pair stood up, they were giggling quite enthusiastically.

“We were talking to yer mom. How come y’never mentioned she was a... um...”

“Bat pony?” Sweetie Belle supplied.

“Thestral,” Scootaloo corrected her friend. “They’re like pegasi, except they see in the dark better and other things. Luna’s Night Guard is made up of ’em.”

“What, somethin’ wrong with that?” Babs asked, raising her voice and stepping forward. A leathery wing tucked around her midsection calmed her, and she gazed up at her mother, who smiled and tightened her grip briefly.

“Nothin’!” Apple Bloom declared, and puffed her chest out. “I ain’ got nothin’ against no pony. It jus’ surprised me is all! Why, Applejack was the one who got all jelly-legged when a zebra came to town, an’—”

“I think that’s enough history lesson for one day, Apple Bloom,” Applejack said, talking over her sister as she returned with a burger in hoof.

Apple Bloom stamped a hoof. “Aw, shucks. Ain’ you always tellin’ me to do my history homework?”

Smirking, Applejack leaned forward. “What year was the Ponyville dam laid down?” Offering the fresh burger to Scootaloo, she had to snatch her teeth back before the little filly’s enthusiastic chomp nearly took a bite out of her nose. Eager to finish her meal, Scootaloo downed the meal in two bites.

Sweetie Belle, who had been delicately nibbling at hers, turned a shade of green at the sight. “Maybe I’ll finish mine later,” she muttered.

Apple Bloom gaped at her sister for a moment. Cogitating, she tapped out numbers on the floor with a hoof. “Uh...” she said at last. “A long time ago?”

Applejack snorted. “See? Then you need to do your history homework.”

“You don’t know what it is, either, I’ll bet!”

“Nope!” Applejack said, grinning. “Course, I ain’ in school no more, so I don’t need to remember.”

“The point of learning the date ain’ to learn the date, li’l girl, it’s to understand the significance of the event in the course of time,” the tofu vendor supplied, leaning out from the side of his cart. “Time of mine which you’re wastin’. So scoot.”

“Huh?” Scootaloo looked up at the sound of her name.

“Come along,” Shady Blossom said, gesturing with a wing. “Barry should be here by now, girls.” Turning, she trotted through the crowd at a brisk pace, taking on the no-nonsense look every Manehattanite adopted to get through a crowd without being bumped aside. Babs Seed fell back with her friends to chat, while Applejack moved forward to join Shady.

Though she lacked the look, no pony was inclined to stop a heavily-muscled mare—particularly not one who seemed as though she could plow through a brick wall without noticing it was there—and so the two had no trouble at all clearing a path for the fillies to follow.

“Bit of an awkward first meetin’,” Applejack said.

“Oh, no, it was all right,” Shady said, chuckling. “Actually, I’m glad I got to see it—that was a very sweet little scene. Those fillies certainly have what it takes to lift anypony’s spirit.”

“Yeah, well, they could stand to be better mannered, still,” Applejack grumbled.

“Not going to argue there, but I wouldn’t be worried. Fillies grow up in their own time,” Shady said. She turned her head and glanced back over her shoulder to watch the girls cantering behind them.

“True enough. I suppose I had a lot of growin’ to do; done a lot of it since I left this place,” Applejack mused as they passed through the concourse. From the terminals, they passed up the stairs into a long gallery lined with shops and tourist traps underneath an arched glass ceiling. An aged, bald earth pony with tiny tools was fixing up clockwork behind one counter, while a trio of musicians played next to a fashionable little cafe.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom stared at one of the food vendors with their jaws slack and eyes glassy. “Can we—?”

“No, we’re eatin’ at their place.” Applejack steered them back to the concourse.

“Actually, we were thinking of taking you and the girls out somewhere,” Shady Blossom said, trotting past the tables, where cafe goers sipped from little cups of coffee, “and the others are waiting for us.” At one table, a rough stallion who looked like he had desperately tried to clean up to impress his pretty date was kneading his hat to pieces with a hoof. That made Shady smile broadly. It didn’t seem so long ago that she had been a pretty date, with her hair cut short, her hooves carefully wrapped, and a big stallion overly conscious of his size and gruffness trying to show her a good time.

So distracted, she hardly noticed the colt until she had almost plowed right into him. Starting at the feeling of a body against her forehoof, she snapped her wings forward and halted in midair, wide eyes staring down. The little guy, equally startled by her hoof, stared up, his blue eyes widening into saucers as he took in the bat-winged pony that towered over him.

“Are you a vampire?” the colt asked, his voice quivering.

“Oh my gosh, I am so—what?” Shady tucked her wings as she stared back through her curtain of black hair.

“A vampire. You’re going to suck my blood, right?” He gazed back from under his newscolt cap, his eyes brightening more and more by the moment.

“I, uh...” Shady Blossom hesitated. She fixed her mane with a hoof. Glancing around, she spotted the Crusaders looking at the scene and winked at them. “Yes, I am. I’m not hungry for your blood today, though, so you can go free, little morsel.”

He gasped and bounced up and down. “Cool!” With his face breaking into a broad grin, he scuttled off, tiny hooves scrabbling on the hard tile. Along the way, he banged into a newsstand, setting it tilting crazily. Applejack stuck a hoof out to halt its teetering, even as she laughed, and Shady went over to help her, stifling her own giggles.

“‘Small Medium at Large’?” Sweetie Belle said aloud, reading one of the headlines. A mugshot of a pint-sized earth pony mare with moons and stars dangling from her mane graced the front page, along with a posted reward.

“Oh yeah, I heard of her. She was takin’ folks for a lotta dough, tellin’ them she could talk to their dead loved ones,” Babs said, her tone frosty. “Guess she broke out.”

Shady Blossom tucked a hoof around her daughter, drawing her close. “Don’t let what other ponies do bother you, dear. They’ll catch her.”

“‘Study Shows Decrease in Science-Related Cutie Marks: What Does This Mean For Tomorrow’s Research?’ Future quality of research may suffer for lack of qualified applicants, but public figures remain undisturbed,” Scootaloo read from another paper. “‘Mysterious Fires Stun Public’? Private buildings burned in a series of shockingly violent fires. Witnesses report ‘unnatural red hues.’”

Picking that paper up from Scootaloo, Shady Blossom frowned as she read down. “Two drug stores on Monday and an alchemy shop Wednesday, last night, burn to the ground despite heavy rains and a rapid response from the Manehattan Fire Department. Investigators believe the incidents to be related...”

“‘Stories of Ten-Million Bit Crochet Fabricated’?” Apple Bloom scrunched her face up. “And I thought the Foal Free Press didn’ have anythin’ fit to print.”

“Are you guys gonna just read, or ya gonna buy?” the newsstand proprietor asked, giving the fillies a scowl.

“Let’s go, y’all,” Applejack said, shuffling the girls along towards the exit. It didn’t take the little group long to reach the wide, broad steps that led out from the shelter of the foyer to the street below.

Under a bright summer sun, the small group spilled onto an open plaza lined with rearing pony statues on a level just a few yards above the street. An elderly griffin tossed bread crumbs to pigeons, while a couple none-too-subtly made out on the bench next to his. In front of a tall, free-standing arch, a group of fillies and colts played an impromptu and entirely unregulated game of hoofball.

All around them, they saw that the streets were filled with teeming masses, ponies walking purposely or running frantically to and fro everywhere, as if every one of them had somewhere to be that was of earth-shattering importance. Drivers harnessed to carriages literally pushed and shoved their way through, shouting at pedestrians and each other.

Over some of the streets, trains rattled along elevated rail lines, even passing through an arch in one of the larger buildings. Embracing them all was the Manehattan skyline, its towering edifices of concrete speaking of wealth and power. Above even that, a blimp lazed its way to one of the tallest skyscrapers, where tiny black shapes darted out to catch its mooring lines and pull it towards the building’s airship dock.

Applejack took it all in with one long look, and then grunted sourly. “Ain’t changed much.”

“Perhaps it might surprise you. A lot of things change in ten years,” Shady Blossom suggested.

“Can change the spots on a leopard—don’t make it any less what it is.”

“Mmm, well, I’ve only lived here a few years,” Shady agreed, her tone flat and noncommittal. Spying a red mane among the carriages, she grinned. “My husband would probably know more. Barry loves this city like no other place; almost as much as he loves his family. I’ll bet he could find something even somepony like you could enjoy.”

Meeting Shady’s challenging gaze with a skeptical one, Applejack snorted and waved her hat in front of her face, as if trying to rid herself of a bad smell. “Place stinks to high heaven, and that’s that.”

“We’ll see,” Shady said lightly. Trotting over to the girls, she arrived just in time to accidentally intercept a spiraling hoofball tossed in her daughter’s direction. She flared her wings and caught it with a neat little gesture. Blossom turned a bit to look for somepony to toss it back to, only to find a tide of foals poised to bowl her over. Without any time to yelp, she found herself plowed under by tiny, colorful bodies.

“Oof,” she grunted, after the sea of children had washed off her with the hoofball bouncing wildly over their heads. Shady could swear that she heard tiny hoofprints pounding still. A big, shorn hoof with dark green fetlocks presented itself in front of her, and she took it, allowing it to haul her up. The owner of the hoof was a powerfully built stallion with a mane of light red hair, a bucket visible on his flank. “My hero,” she gushed in faux girliness, and tilted her chin up to kiss her husband.

Oblivious to Scootaloo’s gagging, Shady Blossom held her husband so for a long time. Eventually, they parted and nuzzled one another, him at her mane and she at his chin before turning to the others.

Barry Seed put one huge hoof out and hauled Applejack in, crushing her against his side. “There’s my favorite niece! What’re ya doin’, lettin’ my wife get herself trampled like that?” he said.

“Gak!” Applejack wheezed at the grip, her ribs creaking.

“Thought as much. Hey, you,” he told his daughter with a broad grin, “introduce me to your friends, why don’t ya?”

“Sure thing, Pop,” Babs Seed answered. “This here is my cousin Apple Bloom and our friends Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle!” Each of the three fillies, when introduced, hopped onto the back of the pony announced before her, until Sweetie Belle, at the top, could extend a leg at the proper height for shaking the hoof of such a tall pony.

Barry Seed did so, laughing. “So these are the little fillies who started it all. Y’know, I got parents bangin’ on my door about this Crusade of yours almost every day, demandin’ to know what it is and why my li’l girl is recruiting foals for it.”

“You big oaf,” Shady interrupted, poking her husband in the ribs, “you’re not letting Applejack breathe.”

“Oh! Whoops.” He slackened his grip, letting Applejack free.

Wheezing, she gathered her breath and collected her hat from where it had fallen. Then she cracked Barry in the ribs herself. “Nice to be seein’ you, too, uncle.”

Eyes watering, he wheezed. “Apple family legs still work.”

“Your family seems to smack each other around a lot, Babs,” Sweetie Belle observed, confused.

Babs shrugged. “It’s just how we say ‘hello’ around here.”

“Oh, gosh! I should have had Rarity pack me some hoofball pads.”

“Babs is just teasing,” Shady Blossom assured Sweetie. “The Seeds are just a demonstrative, physical folk.” Looking up at the latest member approaching, she amended her statement. “Mostly.”

Another young mare was approaching the group. A teenager, she had a long mane that swept just past her knees, its color identical to Barry Seed’s aside from the blue stripe dyed into it. Deviating strongly from the stocky appearance of her sister and father, she was a high-stepper, all long, graceful legs and a slender body, with a painter’s palette and brush on her flank. Swishing her full, straight tail, she smiled at the gathered ponies.

“Hey, all. Sorry to leave the cart unattended, but you really need to have a look at Dandy, Shady,” she said. Most of the Lower Manehattan accent had been scrubbed out of her voice, leaving behind only a few faint echoes. “Hey, Applejack. Girls.”

Babs waved. “Yo, big sis.”

“Hey, Lin Seed, how ya doin’?” Applejack returned. “See you’ve just about grown up.”

Barry Seed laughed, chuffing Applejack on the shoulder. “Yeah, my little girl was all worried about being coltish her whole life, then all of a sudden she turns around and discovers she’s a beaut. Naturally, I didn’t like it.”

Lin Seed rolled her eyes. “Dad, you’re just mad because I’m noticing boys.”

“You noticing boys wouldn’t be such a problem if they didn’t notice you back.”

“What’s up with Dandy, Lin?” Shady interrupted, stepping forward. She fluttered her wings slightly, glancing towards the carriage before looking back at Lin, her face intent.

Lin Seed turned towards her, meeting her eyes. “Oh, she’s getting really fussy, Shady Blossom. I tried to hold and pat her, but she just kept crying. I think she might be hungry.”

Shady groaned. “Thank you, Lin, I’d better see if she needs feeding again. I swear, she’s insatiable.”

“My kids have a healthy appetite!” Barry declared, winking at his wife. Shady batted him with a wing, and then leapt off with the sort of speed only a pegasus could manage, clearing the plaza with a single bound and a flap of her wings.

“Wait, uhm, why did Lin call you—?” Sweetie Belle asked, but Shady was already carrying herself out of earshot, landing beside the family carriage. Inside were two young foals, just as she had left them. One, curled up on the back seat, looked bored, though his fluffy ears perked up at his mother’s approach, cat-like eyes coming alert. The other, wrapped warmly in a basket, squealed at the sight of her mother and held up a pair of tiny hooves. Her own slit eyes were puffy and red.

Climbing inside, Shady settled herself and slipped the foal out of her basket. “It’s all right, Momma’s here, Dandelion,” she cooed, holding the filly up against her. The tiny foal nuzzled against her and pressed her face into her mother’s warm coat. It didn’t seem like she was hungry at all to Shady, as she began to settle down at once. “Just wanted your mommy, didn’t you?”

“Can we meet the new ponies, momma?” the tiny colt asked, buzzing his little bat wings excitedly. He was far too old now for spontaneous flight—for which Shady Blossom was profoundly grateful, given the trouble a baby pegasus of any sort could get into—and so he stayed where he was.

“Of course, they’ll be here in just a moment,” she reassured Hop, reaching out to ruffle his reddish-blue mane. “You’ll have plenty of time to get to know them, Hop. They’ll be here for a few weeks, after all.”

Leaping over her to the other side of the carriage, he pressed his hooves against the side and peered out. “They’re the Cru... cru,” he struggled.

“Crus...” she prompted, smiling at her son.

“Crusaders?” he asked, eyes wide as he looked at her.

“That’s right!” she congratulated him, and Dandelion made a squealing cheer as well, clapping her tiny hooves. Shady nuzzled his mane, and he tucked himself up against her.

With her daughter calmed and son energized, she got up in time to open the door for a pile of fillies and a teenaged mare, the latter squeezed into the front seat. Applejack took a harness in lieu of Lin Seed, and, together with her uncle, they setk off into the street. “Out of the way, you putzes!” Barry called at the other drivers on the street, practically shoving in among them to make room for his family.

“Who you talkin’ to?” somepony shouted back, annoyed.

“You, ugly!”

Applejack groaned, loudly. “See you ain’t changed a bit, neither.”

In the back, the girls were rolling and sliding back and forth with the carriage’s motion, as if they were loose marbles on a tilting ship. The Ponyvilleans stared up at the enormous Manehattan architecture on one side only to tumble back and gawp at the enormous statuary in front of City Hall. Babs Seed delivered commentary, the filly leaning back over the front seat she shared with her older sister. Lin Seed, smiling at the fillies’ antics, added a few points here and there as well, pointing out landmarks Babs was ignoring. Hop, for his part, had lost his nerve and was tucking himself into his mother’s wing to hide. The little colt wrapped himself up in it like a blanket, while the girls bounced around at the bottom of the carriage.

All of them except for Sweetie Belle, however. The unicorn’s head was low as she contemplated the floor of the carriage as she sat next to Shady Blossom on the cushioned back seat.

Remembering that Sweetie had wanted to ask her something, Shady deliberated. Well, not many things that question could have been. The question is, do I tell her, or... ah, yes. She offered her other wing, spreading it out. Sweetie Belle glanced up, allowed herself to scoot closer, and let the wing fold over her shoulders.

“Something the matter?” Shady asked, her tone gentle.

“It’s just, you know...” said Sweetie, glancing away again, albeit clearly for a much different reason than she had at the station. “I was just thinking. Looking at you, and Babs.”

“Tell you what,” Shady murmured, giving her a little squeeze with her wing, “why don’t you ask Babs about it later? I’m sure she’d like the chance to explain to such a good friend.”

“Well...” Sweetie glanced down, then started, squeaking, “Your hooves! What happened?” Her own pale hoof reached out to touch one of Shady’s grey ones, planted in the seat next to her. The hoof traced a white scar that faded into the hair of her ankle before she snatched it back, looking sheepish.

Shady grimaced slightly, but smoothed her features. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice before, actually.” Indeed, it was hard to see how anypony could have. White scar tissue ran up both of her front hooves, marring the wall and continuing onto her ankles all the way up to her knees, though the upper reaches were hard to glimpse through her grey coat.

Ignoring them was easy enough, most of the time. She could forget that they were there, and often did—everypony staring at her wings, ears, and eyes instead. Not noticing a little thing like the scars on her hooves. There was a dull heat that seemed to linger in the cracked and and bubbled walls of her hooves and the veins of her ankles, intensifying as she studied them. The roar of a fire echoed somewhere in the back of her mind, the smell of burned hair—No. Shady shook herself free. Now is really not the time.

Shady patted Sweetie’s fluffy hair, giving her a smile. It wouldn’t really serve any purpose to worry her with more information than she really needed. “It’s nothing, really, just some old burns.”

Sweetie Belle hesitated, her lip trembling slightly as she gazed up at Shady. Even as she contemplated what to say, though, her rambunctious friends intervened. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo toppled over one another to try and get a look at one of the tallest buildings in Manehattan, which they glimpsed over a pair of shorter buildings.

“Sweetie, come look at this! Wow, that place must be awesome to fly from!” Scootaloo gushed.

“It is.” Shady Blossom reached down to rub Scootaloo’s mane. “Maybe I’ll take you up sometime, if Applejack says it’s okay.”

“Really? Great!” Scootaloo leapt up, buzzing her wings. Sweetie Belle had to catch her friend’s pink tail in her teeth to keep Scoot from accidentally shooting out the window. Then both of them fell down to where Apple Bloom lay, landing in a pile.

I do so love kids. Shady Blossom giggled and tucked Dandelion against herself, watching the girls’ antics with a contented smile.

* * *

Hop Seed rode into the front room of the family brownstone on his father’s head, the stallion pretending to buck and stumble while the colt squealed, flapping his tiny wings for balance. Outside, Shady Blossom was shepherding the girls out of the carriage and up the steps.

Waiting alongside Lin Seed on the sidewalk, Applejack's eyes wandered up and down the neighborhood, lingering on the healthy trees growing in little patches of earth. “Seems I remember this place being a bit more run down, last I saw. No trees, lots of dirty kids runnin’ around. These houses had like three or four families each.”

“Gentrification! This whole neighborhood changed over the last couple years; a lot of families had to move out when the property prices went up.” Lin Seed lifted a hoof to gesture up at the narrow three-story townhouse. “We’re probably one of the few families to move up with it, actually.”

“Well, can’t say I can complain about family gettin’ a good break,” Applejack admitted. “Yer dad worked hard to get you there.”

“You’re telling me. It was just the three of us for a while there, while Barry was getting the new business started,” Shady said. She reached inside the carriage and took out Dandelion’s basket. Her youngest daughter’s eyes were open wide, the foal excited by the trip and the presence of other ponies. She reached her hooves out, and Shady leaned forward. Dandelion scampered up her side, and then perched herself on her mother’s back before staring around with owlish curiosity.

“Heh, yeah,” Lin Seed murmured, “just the three of us. That was, well... interesting.” Perking up, she gestured down towards the far end of the street “There’re a lot of nice little shops around here now. They really cleaned up the place. That mom-and-pop store we went to as fillies is still there, and they still give out the best taffy, too.”

“There’re some nice parks here, too, and a good school opened up a couple blocks down,” Shady Blossom added.

“Where Babs got teased so mercilessly,” Lin Seed muttered, kicking a loose bit of pavement. “I still can’t believe I didn’t notice.” Coming alert at her sister’s discomfort, Dandelion leapt abruptly from her mother’s back and landed on Lin Seed to cling to her. Lin laughed and tugged her barnacle-like baby sister off to cuddle her. The tiny foal began to chew on her sister’s long mane at once.

“None of us did.” Shady glanced to Applejack. “Babs would come home most days pretending nothing was wrong. Even when we did notice she was feeling down, she made up stories—little things, minor problems that covered it all up, so we wouldn’t worry about her so much.”

“Till you did notice and sent her my way?” Applejack asked, starting up the stairs.

“Walked in on her getting teased by some of the girls who had their cutie marks,” Shady confirmed. “Thanks again, by the way. Getting Babs out of the city was the best possible thing we could have done.”

“You already thanked her twice, Shady,” Lin Seed said, tucking Dandelion against her as she walked up with Applejack.

“Can’t do it enough,” Shady Blossom asserted in a firm tone. “It’s like I said, those girls made all the difference.”

“Yeah, I guess I can’t deny that. Practically the first thing she did on coming home was ask me to help her with the bullies at school.”

Applejack waved the sentiment off and held the door open for them. “Shucks, y’all are gonna make me blush. Just call it family lookin’ out for family.”

The door sported a fresh coat of brown paint and a shiny new number nine. Not so long ago, Shady Blossom recalled, she had been led up to a much more worn entryway and edifice by a large stallion who was practically falling over himself to apologize for the state of the place. Once upon a time, the living room beyond had been poorly lit and dingy, with a scraggly little foal and a skinny filly staring up at her from a ratty couch.

Here and now, the room beyond was brightly lit by broad bay windows and new lamps, with a new carpet and repaired walls lending it a cozy embrace; the reupholstered furniture showed its age, but wore the years well. The girls had already donned their capes, forming a little circle in the center of the room. Apple Bloom flared hers dramatically a few times, seeming to be practicing the move. “I can’ wait to see the other foals you got to join, Babs. I wanna be there to officially open up the Manehattan Chapter of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

“I thought she already did that?” Sweetie Belle asked. The little unicorn shuffled her hooves, her ears still drooping, but spending time among her friends was perking her up again.

Scootaloo scoffed. “Yeah, yeah, she got the recruits and signed them on, all right, but it’s not official until we’re there to present them with their capes. We’re the founders! We get special privileges like that.”

Shady Blossom beamed to see Babs looking so excited with her friends. There was a sight that had become hard to find of late. Taking Dandelion from Lin Seed and depositing her infant in a cradle by the door to the kitchen, Shady went back to the family room. “You can meet Babs’s new friends tomorrow, girls. It’s such a nice day, your father and I thought we should take you girls out to Coneigh Island.”

Three sets of eyes glanced at one another with a complete lack of comprehension, but Babs sprang into the air bouncing around the others. “Coneigh Island! Yes! You’re the best, Mom!”

“What’s Coneigh Island?” Sweetie Belle squeaked, cocking her head.

“Only the best place! You guys gotta see it. It’s like a beach, see, ‘cept there’s awesome rides and great snacks and tons and tons of games and other cool stuff.”

“I don’ think I’ve ever even seen the ocean,” Apple Bloom said, her voice wavering with a tinge of awe. Her cousin’s enthusiasm was infectious, and before long all four fillies were bouncing around the living room, singing in dubiously keyed voices, “We're off to Coneigh Island—” a pause and a beat “—which is really hard to rhyme, where there's lots of treats and games, to help you waste your time!” Even Hop Seed, who had been watching from the couch, joined in, the toddler bouncing along behind the girls.

Lin Seed and the adult ponies all moved into the kitchen. Shady followed them in last, asking, “Does anypony want a drink?”

Barry went over to the dinner table. “I could do with one. Pulling a carriage filled with ponies is hot work.”

Busying herself, Shady Blossom went over to a rack by the hall and started taking down coats to pack into her saddlebags.

“I don’t think we’ll be needing those, Blossom,” Lin Seed objected. “There’s no scheduled rain for a few days.”

“Never hurts to be prepared. The weather team sometimes surprises ponies, especially if some bigwig wants to shuffle around rain and sun days for some unexpected event. Remember the time your dance class was caught out in the park during a rescheduled thunderstorm?”

Lin Seed scrunched her face up, while Applejack snorted. “Don’t remind me. One of my best friends is the weather captain back in Ponyville, and I swear she doesn’t know what she’s going to do from one day to the next. She changes her mind more times than Rarity changes her outfits.”

“Oh! Rarity! I was hoping she’d come, too,” Lin Seed said, springing to life at the mention of the name. She ran a hoof through her long mane, adjusting it to fall about her knees so as to show off her best side. “I’ve always wanted to meet her. Ever since her designs hit the market in Canterlot, she’s been a household name among the girls in school.”

“Don’t tell her that. After the big show there became a hit, her head’s gone and swollen like a melon left too long in the sun.” Applejack laughed. “And she wanted to come with Sweetie Belle to see the Big Apple and all, but you know how it is for some careers—some big event came up and she couldn’t miss it. If there’s a bad week at the farm, I may not even be able to stay as long as I’d planned.”

“Ah, come on now, AJ,” Barry Seed said, prodding her. “You won’t be disappointed, I swear. There’s more ways to live in Manehattan than my Orange cousins would have you believe.”

“Eh,” Applejack grunted. “Besides, Rarity said she’d try to make it in a week or two. Figure she’ll be tons more excited than me.”

“Speaking of,” Lin Seed said, “when were we planning to hook up with the Oranges? Weren’t they going down to Cape Sod?”

“March’s Vineyard,” Barry corrected, rolling his eyes. “Hobnobbin’ with the summer crowd from Canterlot.”

Applejack frowned. “Perfect waste of good cropland. I swear, you could feed Manehattan from that island alone.”

“But we don’t have a food shortage here,” Lin Seed said, looking at her cousin and tilting her head.

“Ain’ the point!”

Shady Blossom poured each of them a glass of apple juice and slid them onto a tray, which she then loaded onto her back. Her husband gave her a bemused look as he took one of the drinks. “Don’t tire yourself out already, hon. Day’s barely started.”

“Sorry, can’t help it. Mommy thing,” she said, giggling, and took one for herself once the other mares had their own.

Applejack took one of the cups and sipped. “Ah, now there’s Apple Family produce; I’d know the taste of my own apples even if they were painted pink!” She smacked her lips, then slapped a hoof against the floor. “Speakin’ of, I almost forgot! Brought a little somethin’ to share, for those old enough to ‘preciate it.” Reaching into one of her saddlebags, Applejack pulled out a small iron-bound cask, stamped with an apple brand.

“That’s not fresh apple cider, is it?” Barry asked, grinning.

“Sure ain’. That’s fermented, it is. One of our reserves,” Applejack said, screwing a tap into one side and propping it up on the counter. “Bit belated of a housewarmin’ gift, but all the same.”

“I’ll take it,” Barry said, pouring himself a mug. “Care for a sip, Lin? Be a shame if you didn’ at least get to taste it.”

Applejack poured a mug after Barry let his eldest have a quick sip, before extending it to Shady Blossom. Quickly, Shady retreated from the proffered drink. “No, thank you. I don’t drink, really,” Shady shook her head slightly. At Applejack’s raised eyebrows, she elaborated, “I stopped when I got married. Didn’t want to drink while pregnant, never really picked the habit up again.”

“Fair enough,” Applejack said, and downed the mug herself. As she savored the taste, she sniffed at the air. “Actually, speaking of crops, is that loam I smell?” She wandered towards the back of the kitchen. Shady Blossom winced and moved to join her, as Applejack pushed open the back door.

Spread out before them and taking the place of the tiny, insignificant backyard most of the neighbors’ brownstones had was a quaint greenhouse. The top and back of the yard were covered in glass, which had been dirtied by the frequent rains and definitely needed some cleaning.

“Oh, for the love of Celestia... Barry, have you been mutilatin’ plants again? I thought you were stickin’ to designin’ landscapes these days instead of tryin’ to grow them,” Applejack scoffed, looking out of the corners of her eyes at him and elbowing him in the ribs. “I’d call it a metaphor for something, but, really, I think you just stink at raisin’ anything that grows out of the ground.”

“Yeah. Seems I’m better at raising kids than crops,” Shady Blossom said, stepping in after her. Half-turning, she displayed her side.

Applejack stiffened. “Uh.” Her eyes tracked back, coming to rest on Shady’s flank. A trio of blooming white flowers rested there, their stems tied together.

“It’s my garden, yes,” Shady confirmed, walking over to one of the planters. She let a wingtip brush one of the wilting flowers and gave her a wan smile. “I used to have a really beautiful garden in Canterlot. This one is being a lot more stubborn. Once the girls are back in school, I hope to give it proper care and attention. I’m just so tired most days, they really take it out of me, and I end up lazing around instead of working on them like I should.”

“Kinda funny, that’s an oleander cutie mark, ain’ it? I don’t see any here.” Taking a hoof and checking over the leaves, Applejack grimaced at the brown and black specks. “You’re gonna need to do more’n that. Most all of these plants are blighted. I don’t think you could save them with the Princess herself on yer side.”

“I had some in my old garden back in Canterlot, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to plant any until Hop and Dandelion are past the age they’ll eat random flowers. It’s so poisonous, after all, I just don’t like the risk.”

“It’s okay,” Barry said, walking up and tucking his wife against him. “She’s still a fantastic cook. Also, drop-dead gorgeous, did I mention that?”

“Once a day. I wouldn’t mind hearing it more often, either,” Blossom purred, “even if you are a liar.”

“About your cooking? Maybe, but there ain’ another mare like you out there.”

“Get a room, you two,” Lin Seed groaned, rolling her eyes.

“There’s an idea,” Barry agreed, grinning wider.

“Nuh uh,” Shady protested. “No way. I have four little fillies to take care of today, buster. Besides, somepony needs to get something from the corner drugstore so that some poor, beleaguered mother doesn’t end up pregnant unexpectedly. Again.”

Applejack and Lin began to look uncomfortable, glancing at one another.

Barry tucked a hoof about Shady. “I dunno, doesn’t sound like such a bad idea to me!”

“You try flying with an infant on your back and another in your belly. See how you like it.” Shady rolled her eyes, prodding him in the ribs.

“You were even more beautiful like that,” Barry insisted. He narrowed his eyes and his grin turned wicked. “All this talk of fresh earth, seeds, and foals is makin’ me wonder why we’re just standin’ around here talkin’ about it.”

The others blushed brightly, Applejack stammering helplessly for a moment. Both she and Lin Seed fled the gardens as quickly as their legs would carry them, Lin Seed going so far as to kick the door shut in passing.

Shady Blossom giggled, glancing up at her husband. “That’s adequate payback for the crack about my garden, I think.”

“Sure is,” he agreed. “Mind, I’d like to continue that conversation about you bearin’ my foals again.” His hoof reached around her side to rub at her thighs.

“Oh, you!” Batting her husband with a wing and fending off his advances, Shady Blossom started back towards the kitchen door, which earned her a swat on her own rear. Barry leered at her as she squeaked and jumped. “Oh, you are so in trouble,” she promised, giving him a glare, the ice in her eyes quenched by the warmth of her smile.

“Lookin’ forward to it!”

* * *

With Hop Seed and Dandelion Seed both far too young to enjoy Coneigh Island, Shady Blossom stopped by a neighbor’s and dropped them off at a playdate with their foals. With the foals squared away, the Seed family and their guests piled back into the carriage and took off towards the ocean.

“Aw,” Scootaloo said, peeking out. “Why aren’t there any tall buildings out this way?” All along the way to the waterfront, they could see no building taller than four stories, many sporting rooftop entrances for pegasi.

“Local ordinance,” Lin Seed explained. “They keep all of that to the big commercial centers in uptown and near the wharfs.”

“That’s boring,” Scootaloo declared. The other girls nodded with her, the four of them in a tight ball by one of the windows.

“It’s so no pony living out here has to stare up at huge buildings every which way, and everypony can enjoy the sun and sea air.”

“See? Boring. I’d build them everywhere.”

It wasn’t until their destination was in sight that they started to perk up. The carriage queued up in traffic on a small suspension bridge, while the wind whistled merrily through the ribbed cables holding the bridge aloft. Poking her head out of the carriage to look at the stacked up lanes, Shady Blossom wagered that they wouldn’t arrive at Coneigh Island for at least another hour, if that—doubtless, they weren’t the only family taking advantage of a good day.

Being responsible for four overly excitable fillies, she elected to take a more pragmatic route and threw the door of the carriage open. “Honey?” she called to the front. “I’m going to take Applejack and the kids ahead. Why don’t you meet us at the Ferris wheel?”

“Sounds good to me,” he responded, prodding Applejack when the mare hesitated. “Go on ahead with your aunt, AJ. I can move this thing on my own, especially if everypony is so callously abandoning me and lightening the load.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine. Guess it won’t hurt to see what all the fuss is about.” She gazed ahead at the great wheel rising over the low shops and amusements, along with an enormous wooden rollercoaster lined against the late-morning sky. “Looks kinda like a county fair, actually.”

“Not far off,” Shady agreed. “Didn’t the Oranges ever take you down here?” Lifting her wings, she could feel the sea air tugging at her, carrying a refreshing hint of salt and sand past the greasy whiffs of carnival food.

“They made it sound like I’d be robbed and foalnapped within minutes if I so much as looked at it,” she said, and then paused. “In hindsight, I probably shouldn’a been that gullible.”

“That’s all right! Good foals listen, don’t they?” Shady Blossom asked the girls. All four fillies grinned up at her with the most innocent little smiles—the only way they could have looked more sincere would be with halos over their heads. Naturally, she didn’t believe them for a minute.

Indeed, as if she were reading Shady Blossom’s mind and was determined to prove the older mare’s doubts correct, Scootaloo almost immediately slipped off the side of the bridge when she ran too fast to the edge, forcing Applejack to snatch her up by the tail. “Sometimes, Scoot, y’got more gumption than you’re built to handle,” she muttered around the pink mouthful, with the filly swaying beneath her head.

“Aww, c’mon, Applejack. I was just looking at the boats!”

“You certainly display an alarming lack of concern for heights,” Shady Blossom observed, chuckling. “If you’re that restless, why don’t we do a little flying right now?”

“Oh, oh, can I?” Scootaloo begged, flailing her limbs.

“Well, if’n it’ll burn off some energy, might as well,” Applejack conceded, and let Scootaloo drop to the sidewalk. The filly bounced around Shady Blossom, who spread her wings again and held out a hoof. While her friends watched, Scootaloo took the offered limb and braced herself.

Beating her leathery wings, Shady Blossom took off. In truth, her motives may have been a little more elemental—what pegasus could pass up a chance to spread her wings a little? Seeing Scootaloo’s face light up as they cleared the earthbound ponies below merely sweetened the deal.

Tiny orange wings beat furiously, giving Scootaloo a few moments of unsupported air before she had to fall back to Shady’s hoof. It was deeply reminiscent of Babs’s swimming lessons, and Shady Blossom smiled as she lazily drifted towards the distant fair. A riot of colors greeted from the ground, vividly painted shops and theme parks glittering along the shoreline.

“Your parents teach you, right? Just remember their words. Relax, let the air carry you,” she said. They were flying so slowly that her mane was barely being disturbed, though she kept her tail slightly elevated for balance, particularly with a flailing filly on one hoof.

“Oof!” Scootaloo grunted. Shutting her eyes, she tried to concentrate on beating her wings and untensing the rest of her body at once. It was a mixed success; her outspread legs were slack, but her neck and lower body were both rigid.

Feeling her charge’s buoyancy fade and the filly start to sink, she encouraged her again. “Let your legs go, open your eyes. Breathe in the sea air and just think of soaring out over the ocean.”

With a reluctant twinge, Scootaloo opened one eye, and then the other. Her gaze fell across the water, and she took several deep breaths, one after another, evening out her breathing. It wasn’t immediate, nor was it complete, but the muscles in her neck and barrel unknotted, her legs dropped, and her wings even slowed for a moment.

“Not bad,” Shady complimented her passenger. “Of course, if I remember Babs telling me right, one of your teachers is also Rainbow Dash, isn’t she? Small surprise you’re as far along as you are.”

“She’d take me up like this a lot,” Scootaloo murmured. “I’ve never seen the ocean though. I wonder if she’d fly me out there?”

“Worth asking. You’re a lucky girl to have ponies like those to look up to.”

“I’ve never met anypony as amazing as Rainbow. Did you ever have anypony to look up to when you were a filly?” Scootaloo asked, her tail flying out behind her in a gust.

“Oh, well, I...” Shady began, and then hesitated. A confused welter of images bubbled up inside her, robbing her of certainty. “I-I suppose I didn’t, really. My parents, I suppose. I don’t think I really had anypony else.” A strange sense of vertigo reared up in her—no common ailment for pegasi nor their thestral cousins.

Scootaloo flailed, losing her concentration as Shady’s own balance shifted. “Whoa!”

Startled, Shady Blossom steadied Scootaloo at once, using both of her forehooves. Her heart was pounding furiously, yet her passenger hardly seemed to notice, yelping more with glee than fright. Scootaloo’s small body tensed, and she stuck her legs out ahead and behind her, as if hoping to dive.

Feeling a powerful need to be on the ground again—like a weight in her gut, dragging her down—Shady obliged her. Tucking her wings, they swooped down towards the ponies below. Shady deposited Scootaloo by her friends and then landed by Applejack, before brushing her mane back a few times to settle it—rather more than was necessary. Her heart pounded, yet Applejack didn’t seem to notice, focused ahead.

The group approached the entrance, evading the carriages trying to park,. It was a grand arch, glittering with lights and evoking all of the glamour of a movie. Four great spoked wheels were bolted to the gate, each festively colored and glowing with neon light. Ticketmaster booths lined the center column, and large queues stretched across the field. Many ponies were simply bypassing it—the tickets were all for specific rides or attractions, to help cut down the lines deeper inside, not to enter Coneigh Island itself.

Slowing to a halt, Lin tugged on Blossom’s bags for a moment. “I see some friends of mine in line. How about I get some tickets; we can meet up later?”

“Sure. Let’s say...” Shady tapped a hoof against the ground. “The Ferris wheel, the Wonderbolt ride, and how about the Luna ship?”

Applejack dodged a pair of colts rushing by with massive cotton candy tufts. “Luna ship?” she asked as Lin Seed nodded and stepped off to join a group of young mares already in line.

“Oh yeah,” Babs said, hopping up, “It’s great! There’s this big ship, see, and it’s got wings like the princess, and it takes you straight up to see the moon!”

Blanching, Applejack looked ahead, as if trying to find someone to glare at and blame. “That sounds all sorts of wrong.”

“Oh, it’s all right. After last year’s Nightmare Night festival, Luna said she wanted ponies to remember her fondly. Some entrepreneur took that very seriously, and made a whole park devoted to her. I think it’s lovely, if a little commercial,” Shady Blossom said.

“Yeah, I bet. I mean, all that tradition with the thestrals, it’s gotta feel pretty close to home, right?” Scootaloo asked, and then thought better of it, lowering her ears. “Uhm, not that I mean to imply anything... I just think thestrals are cool...”

“I told you, I don’t mind,” Shady said, tapping Scootaloo’s chin again to lift her head. “Besides, it is rather nice seeing ponies appreciate the moon rather than being afraid or uncertain, and the foals absolutely love it. I’m glad to see her portrayed in such a good light, really, especially with all the uncertainty that came out of her return. Though, again, it is very kitschy.”

“You mean awesome! C’mon, let’s go!” Babs demanded, tugging her mother’s tail.

Shady laughed, gesturing her on with a wing. “All right, though we need to wait for Lin to get tickets first. Why don’t we go down to the boardwalk, play some of the games?”

The fillies looked amongst themselves, and then, as if it had been coordinated beforehand, they clapped their hooves together and shouted, “Cutie Mark Crusader Game Masters, go!”

“What—?”

Applejack hauled Shady Blossom out of the way before the four girls could accidentally plow her under. They were off like a shot, barreling through the crowd towards the beach. “Best just to let them get it outta their system.”

Following their wake of displaced ponies, Shady shook her head. “How in the world do you deal with this every day?”

“Mostly? By giving them a tree house so they don’t wreck the farm and warning ponies when they get particularly crazy. You can rein them in once they’ve tired themselves out. After a while, they figure out they haven’t gotten their cutie marks and get disappointed.”

“How long does that take?”

“Dependin’ on what they’re doing... up to six hours.”

Shady stared ahead for a long moment. “Oh dear.”

* * *

Damage control for four overly energetic fillies ended up taking most of Applejack’s and Shady Blossom’s time, which left them little opportunity to talk. The Cutie Mark Crusaders raced up and down the boardwalk, bouncing with abandon as they participated in as many games as their meager allotment of bits allowed them. They stuffed themselves on candy apples, popcorn, cotton candy, and gallons of soda. Indeed, it was during the fillies’ little food coma that the two mares finally had a chance to settle down.

They sat and let Shady Blossom rest her hooves—Applejack’s own hooves and legs were nigh-indestructible, but she tolerated the wait patiently enough. "I suppose ya aren't used to dealin' with so much bundled energy, huh?" Applejack asked, tilting back with a bag of popcorn held in one hoof.

“Not as such,” Shady muttered. “It’s... certainly different. When I first met Babs, you couldn’t have convinced me that she might have this much passion in her.” Leaning back to follow suit, she glanced up at the balloons rising over the waves washing upon the sandy beach, ponies playing and splashing. A pegasus was darting around, collecting the lost balloons. “You know, when Barry warned me that he had a pair of daughters, I think he was afraid I’d stop dating him.”

“Yeah? He have reason to fear?”

“More than a little. What did I know about kids? I barely remembered my own... well, I didn’t really spend a lot of time around foals of any age. He was giving me an opportunity to back out before we started to really get serious, and I nearly took it.” Turning her head, she looked at Babs, who was sprawled on the bench next to her. “I didn’t, though. I stuck through it.”

“Ain’ a situation I would want to deal with.” Applejack shook her head. “Ya gotta love a guy a lot first, I s’pose.” Her eyes tracked across to one of the lines of ponies. The queue crawled over the boardwalk, snaking around the corner. Ponies were jockeying for space, butting one another out of the way. Her scowl deepened, and she grunted.

“Troubled?”

“Manehattan, that’s the trouble.”

“Try to resist the urge to beat sense into everypony you see. You’ll never leave the city then,” Shady said, chuckling.

Applejack grunted again, and it seemed to Shady that all of the other pony’s sentiments about being in Manehattan were contained therein. For all that she clearly had her life together, what with running her own farm, raising her sister, and even saving Equestria on at least two occasions that Shady knew of, it was obvious that some scars ran deep.

Not that I don’t know what it’s like to feel trepidation in a place that holds ugly memories, she reflected, sighing. Babs stretched and yawned, rolling off the bench. Apple Bloom joined her as they wandered a little, the two looking at a curtained-off area which displayed a number of fish with three lines down their sides leading around to a small flap. Every so often, a griffin or even a diamond dog would push the flap open and enter or leave. A young dragon popped out with a huge sack thrown over one shoulder.

“What’s that place about?” Apple Bloom asked, pointing a hoof. “I don’t see any ponies going in there.”

“Oh, uh...” Babs hesitated and edged away from the curtain with a pinched look. “You don’t wanna go in there. Ain’ really a place for ponies, y’know.”

“Why’s that?” Apple Bloom asked, the light of curiosity burning in her eyes. As she watched the flap, a young colt popped out and went to a nearby table before eating alone. He was an unusual specimen, even to Shady’s eyes—hippogriffs were, after all, probably rarer than thestrals. Lacking a mane, he had a crest of speckled white feathers in its place, and articulated talons instead of front hooves.

“Wha’cha eatin’ there?” she asked in a bright tone. Babs tried to tug at her side, but Apple Bloom waved her off.

The hippogriff colt looked up, clutching his plate as if he expected somepony to snatch it from him. He looked to the fillies, his long, tufted tail curling up nervously. “Uhm. Nothing.”

“Don’t be shy!” Apple Bloom said, hopping onto the table. “I’m just curious, what sorta stuff is in there, if it ain’ for ponies?”

Scootaloo, spotting the pair, zipped over to join them with a quick buzz of her wings. “Yeah!” she took a whiff of the food and looking at the crusty fried morsels tucked in buns. “Smells great, too. Mind if I try a bite?”

“Y-yeah, kinda,” he said, turning increasingly defensive. His wings folded up tightly at his side, and he scrunched forward in his seat to cover the food as much as he could.

Shady rose and started over to tell them off and apologize when Babs burst out. “Fish!”

“Huh?” Apple Bloom asked, looking to her. “Fish? What fish’re you...” Her gaze settled on the curtains, her features turning pale.

“What?” Scootaloo asked. “I don’t get it. What’s so strange about fish that... you would...” Her eyes tracked down to the sandwich. Orange turned a distinct shade of green.

Slowly, both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom backed away. Their faces were scrunched up, and they were trying not to look directly at the colt.

The little hippogriff looked set to cry, trembling. He was pressed back from the bench and looking around for an escape. The girls’ faces were turning red, and they scuffed their hooves in the deepening silence that surrounded them.

“Girls,” Shady said, raising her voice to catch their attention, “remember that talk about not judging ponies—or anyone else, for that matter—about the things that make them different?”

“Yeah, but...” Scootaloo protested, at a loss.

“Winona eats fish, too,” Applejack said. “You know that, Apple Bloom. We get it processed in cans, but you don’t think we’d let poor little dogs and cats across Equestria starve, would ya? Besides, fish don’t talk the same way even woodland critters do. You can ask Fluttershy, she’ll tell ya.”

Babs looked to Shady Blossom for a long moment, and then turned resolutely. Pausing to blow her hair out of her face, she steadied herself and nudged the little hippogriff back into place. “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean it, we just... ain’t used to it.”

The colt was none too eager to remain, but he looked alarmed as the three fillies surrounded him with their eyes wide and glistening.

“I’m sorry, too,” Apple Bloom apologized. “I ain’ ever met carnivore folks before.”

“Me neither,” Scootaloo said, and winced as Apple Bloom’s rear hoof dug into her ribs. “Yes! I’m sorry, too! For acting all weird I mean,” she muttered, then perked up, her eyes widening. “Hey, I know! Why don’t you join our club? We’ll get you a special discount of free and bonus perks.”

“Cl-club?” he stammered.

“We’re the—!” Scootaloo paused, frowning. “Wait a tick.” She ran over to whisper to Shady Blossom, who bent an ear to listen. “Can hippogriffs actually get cutie marks?”

“Yes, I believe so,” Shady answered, nodding.

Zipping back, Scootaloo coughed. “Ahem! Yes, we’re the—”

“Cutie Mark Crusaders!” all three shouted in unison.

“—and we’d like you to join up. We’ve got a Manehattan branch and everything now!”

“Sure do,” Babs Seed agreed, offering a hoof. “Anypony or anygriff who wants to join and ain’t got their Cutie Mark yet is welcome.”

Dumbstruck, the colt shook Babs’s hoof in his talon like someone who had just recovered from a concussion. Still, the good cheer being directed at him was infectious, and even he couldn’t avoid peeking at each of them curiously. “Uh... if it’s okay with my dad, sure...”

“Shucks, we’d be happier than a puppy with two tails if ya’d join!” Apple Bloom gushed.

“Uh,” he asked, hesitant, “is that happy?”

“Sure is!”

The hippogriff looked more poleaxed than reassured by the fillies’ attentions, but he went back to eating in peace as they hopped off the table and rejoined Shady and Applejack.

“That was very sweet, girls,” Shady said. “Though maybe you can try not terrifying potential recruits so much.”

“He’ll be there,” Scootaloo said, confidently.

“What if he doesn’t go to school around here?”

“Oh. You know, I probably should have asked. Lemme go—”

Shady captured Scootaloo before she could run off to bother the hippogriff again, laughing and ruffling her pink mane. “No! That’s enough damage for now. Now go scamper off, and remember, we’re meeting in front of the Ferris wheel with Dad and Lin, so don’t go too far.”

Needing no further encouragement, the Crusaders zipped off, leaving little trails behind them.

“Ye’re a good mom, Shady,” Applejack offered, in the silence that fell between them.

“I try. You’re not so bad yourself, Applejack,” Shady replied, beaming back at her.

“Shucks,” Applejack muttered, kicking a can lying on the boardwalk. “I just try to do right by Apple Bloom and those girls. Ain’t always easy, lemme tell you. Sometimes, they just go haring off, doing things I can’t understand.”

“I know how you feel. Lin Seed, well... she needs a mom, I can tell, but I don’t know if I can ever be that for her.”

“When my folks...” Applejack took her hat off, glancing up at the cloudless sky for a moment. “It ain’ easy, not on young fillies nor old ones. Ain’ easy on big, strong stallions, either. Big Mac couldn’t take over, and Granny was too old. I had to be responsible. I still gotta be responsible.”

“You all have each other, though, and you have your friends. I don’t know much about the things that you do, Applejack, but from what I’ve heard, those mares will support you through anything.”

“Heh, you ain’ wrong,” Applejack said, smiling.

“Though I bet you wish you were back there with them,” Shady murmured, testing the waters.

Applejack didn’t immediately brush her off, though she did go a little stiff. “A little, yeah, Farm’s waiting for me. I know Big Mac can handle most of it, but it ain’ really his temperament, you know? He don’t like managin’ things—prefers to let the world flow around him.”

“Not really, we haven’t met yet, but from what I’ve heard he sounds like he’s very thoughtful. Still, this place must be tough to come back to.”

“See you won’t be deterred,” Applejack groused.

Shady Blossom tucked her wings at her sides, scraping the ground with a hoof. “It’s okay, we don’t have to—”

“Nah.” She brushed it off, with a slightly forced dismissal. “It was just filly stuff is all.”

“Sometimes, the things we do and encounter in our foalhood are very important to us when we’re mares.” Shady Blossom was keenly aware of the fact that she had barely more than five years on the other mare, but she wasn’t going to let the chance to talk to her slip by.

“S’pose so. Back then, I just thought I could fit in, like I could... belong here,” Applejack said. They both turned to look at the Manehattan skyline. The Orange family penthouse faced west, which meant they were looking at it from the wrong angle, but the meaning was hardly lost on either of them.

“Who’s to say you couldn’t have?” Shady asked, drawing a look from her niece. She smiled. “I think you have it in you to be anypony you like, Applejack, and probably did back then as well. I don’t know what drew you back, but the Oranges are family the same as Barry and the same as Big Mac and your grandmother. Think about it—maybe you would have had a positive influence on them?”

Applejack snorted. “Not likely. They were drivin’ me crazy with all their fancy, stuck-up rules. Rainbow Dash brought me back. She lit up the sky with a sonic rainboom, and it was a call home,” she said, and tapped her chest. “Could hear it right here. I knew I belonged back on the farm, then.”

“What made you want to move to Manehattan in the first place, though? Surely it must have been something.”

Applejack glanced away, refusing to meet Shady’s eyes. “Movies, really. Stories. Glamour. I saw a film when I was knee high, it never left me,” she murmured, her eyes turning distant again. “What was it called again? Ya think I’d remember the name at least. It was one of those Silver Screen films. You know her stuff, all fancy and polished, with beautiful mares and handsome stallions whirlin’ about. I wanted to be a big pony in a big world.”

“A starry-eyed filly dreaming of making it big?” Shady asked, giggling.

“Laugh it up, cat-eyes,” Applejack muttered, hiding her eyes under her hat. It couldn’t hide her rosy blush, though, nor the way she scrunched her face up.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that! Heck, that’s why I came here from Canterlot. Of course, I didn’t have connections like you did—I thought I could break in somehow.”

“Guess that didn’t work out too well?”

Shady cocked her head. “Well, yes and no. On the one hoof, I was one of the only thestrals auditioning, so I got parts all right. Plays, a couple short movies. Problem was that they were all, you know, typecast sorts of roles. Casting directors didn’t really see me as leading lady potential, if you get my drift.” She lifted one of her hooves to examine the white lining of the scars there.

“Anypony who doesn’t see you and my uncle together would, maybe.” Applejack snorted. Still, she looked was looking at Shady now with her eyes alight. “Is that how you met him?”

“Pretty much. I was upset because I was cast as yet another two-bit villain. My friend took me down here, actually, to cheer me up. She was trying to point out that if the director and the audience liked me, that if I made a good impression, I might be able to break into better roles. More villain roles, of course, but once you have a little leverage in the business, you can push people around a bit yourself.”

“You haven’t done that in a while, though,” Applejack pointed out. “I guess you didn’t have time after you married Barry?”

“Well... no, that’s not entirely true,” Shady admitted. “Actually, until I got deep into that first pregnancy, I worked small jobs around the neighborhood to help out. But, well... I do enjoy acting, but sometimes it felt like I was just covering up for something. I didn’t have any people back home, so acting was a way for me to feel like I belonged, I guess. After Barry took me in, and especially after I got to know his kids, I didn’t really feel the need any more, you know?”

“I can see that. You still wouldn’t mind going back, though, wouldja?”

“No,” Shady said, giggling. “But we’re getting sidetracked. My friend took me down to Coneigh Island to cheer me up, like I said...”

“So, what, you met in a bar down here?” Applejack stepped around a larger mare, careful to avoid knocking into her.

“Again, getting ahead of yourself,” Shady chided her niece, waggling a hoof at her with a grin. “Actually, he was working as a janitor. You know, to help pay for the schooling, one of about a dozen jobs, after his wife died.”

“And he swept you off your hooves?” Applejack asked, grinning.

Shady socked her one for the pun. “Totally didn’t notice him, actually! It sounds like a play, when I talk about it now, come to think of it: out-of-his-league actress, the earnest part-timer. I swear I had a bit role in a movie like that, once. Anyway, he basically made a nuisance of himself. Telling me I was the prettiest actress he’d ever seen and that not only should I be the leading lady in a play, but he’d come see every one of my showings.”

“Ah, I get it. Naturally, y’told him he was a punk and to get lost.”

“Of course! He’s five years older than me, had a corny accent, and looked like he’d just blown in off the street,” Shady said, and then grinned wider. “But here we are talking about me when I asked you all about your past. You can hear me gushing about how Barry and I bagged each other later.”

“Now that’s just no fair,” Applejack protested, stamping a hoof. “I was gettin’ into the story!”

“Tough beans, sister. Call it incentive for you to make up for your end of it!”

“Fine, fine,” Applejack grumbled, putting her hat back on. For all that she made it sound like it was a great imposition, though, Shady Blossom could see that sharing her story had allowed her niece room to breathe. Considering how poorly they knew one another, Shady thought that a little trust-building between them could only be a good thing.

If there was one thing that Applejack couldn’t resist, it was family, after all.

“Yeah, I guess I could have made it work. Maybe if I had gotten to know Barry Seed and my other family here a bit better, and had a chance to even out all the froufrou stuff with more normal things...” Applejack stared off towards the buildings in the distance.

Taking a leap of faith, Shady Blossom jumped into the silence. “You feel like it’s all been a big missed opportunity. That if you had just stuck it out, you could have made a life for yourself here, and you’re wondering what it would have been like if you had. Maybe you’re even wondering if it would have been better for you.”

Applejack’s head jerked up, stricken. For a moment, Shady worried she had gone too far. The look in her eyes was so conflicted, it made her wonder if she had crossed a line, or perhaps insulted her niece.

“Haunted by the past... heh,” she muttered, glancing at the boards under their hooves. “Well... it’s complicated. No, stop lookin’ at me like that, I ain’ mad. You didn’ strike me as the kind to come out and jus’ say somethin’ like that.”

“We can talk about something else,” Shady offered again, quickly.

“No, it wouldn’t be, y’know, terribly honest of me if’n I just hushed it up. How do you say it?” she asked. “It’s a bit of everything. Jus’ a big jumble I haven’t looked at in so long.”

“And here you are, being confronted with it everywhere you go,” Shady murmured, offering a sympathetic hoof, which Applejack accepted.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am glad I didn’t become a namby elitist,” Applejack said, giving a disgusted look. “I’ve seen that sort, before and since, here and in Canterlot, and it ain’ for me. That’s not the sort of life I could live. I’m especially glad I got to meet up with all my friends in Ponyville. Maybe the world could have found another Element, but that would have made me the one left short for not knowin’ them.”

Searching the skyline, though, she exhaled heavily. “Still, sometimes I wonder if perhaps there was a way to do it all. Hold on to being myself and also bein’ somethin’ a little more, y’know....” Applejack paused to turn back to Shady. “Heh, there’s this unicorn back in Canterlot by the name of Fancy Pants. He may dress ridiculous, and he does things I think are plain boring, but he has the air of a pony who is totally in control. He sets his own rules in the upper class world, and he makes it bend to him, rather than the other way ‘round.”

“Perhaps it’s not too late,” Shady Blossom encouraged her. “You’re the scion of a big farming empire—well, one of its most important members anyway—and you’re close to the Princesses. I can’t imagine it would be too hard to break into any scene you chose on those credentials.”

“Eh,” Applejack waved it off. “That’s all in the past now. I’m a diff’rent pony now. I’ve seen big parties like the Gala and the junk Rarity gets up to. Ain’ my scene.”

“Not even if you can make your own rules?”

“I won’ drag my connection with the Princess into it, neither,” Applejack said, quickly. “That’s personal, between her and my friends and me.”

“No, but you were seen at the Gala, and with this Fancypants character. You do have other connections, you know, like the Oranges or the other members of the Apple family.”

“It ain’—” Applejack paused, ears perking.

They both heard something from further down the boardwalk. Picking out anything in the din was in itself a difficult task, for Coneigh Island was noisy at the best of times, let alone on a crowded day, but noise had special importance to both of them: fillies scuffling.

“Stop, stop!” Sweetie Belle shouted, crying helplessly as she watched her friends. They were in the middle of a ferocious tussle with what looked like a griffin and an older pegasus filly. Flying, Shady Blossom cleared the intervening ponies and dove in amongst the girls. As it was three on two, the fight wasn’t going well for the pair, but Shady Blossom and Applejack weren’t exactly inclined to see how it would play out. She was in like a flash, shrugging off their blows and forcefully separating the fighting girls with quick, efficient motions, bouncing Apple Bloom and Scootaloo away with her flank, holding her daughter in one hoof, and thrusting the other girls away with her spare forehoof.

Babs reared up, and Shady Blossom was worried she might have to pin her daughter to keep her from getting back into the fight, but she collapsed against her mother’s legs instead and started sniffling. Tears were steaming down her face, and she pushed her head into Shady’s chest. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, for their part, did try to fling themselves back at the two girls before Applejack sat on both of their tails. The griffin was nursing her eye, while the pegasus favored one of her hind legs while glaring at the other girls.

“Fine! Hide behind your monster; she’s not your real mommy anyway!” the pegasus shouted, before flaring her little wings and taking off. The griffin stammered something incoherent to the Crusaders, her eyes uncertain. Glancing up at her friend, she clawed into the air after her, leaving the confused adults behind.

“What happened?” Applejack demanded of her fuming sister.

“Excuse me,” a somewhat older stallion said, stepping forward and rubbing his mustache nervously. “I don’t mean to intrude, but I saw how it started. I was stepping in, but you were on top of ‘em right quick, had ‘em apart in a flash of light.”

“Ain’t right,” a mare murmured, but in response to what was unclear, as she and most of the crowd began to move along.

Shady Blossom slid a foreleg around her daughter. “Thank you, sir, but I think I’d like to hear it from their mouths first.” She looked down at Babs. She nuzzled her mane for a moment, soothing her. “You heard the nice stallion, Babs. I can hear it from him, or I can hear it from you.”

“That witch called you a monster, twice!” Scootaloo growled, beating her wings furiously, hoping to overcome gravity and chase them down in spite of Applejack’s grip on her.

“You are my mom,” Babs insisted, pulling her face away. “I-I don’ care what anypony says! I d-don’t c-care, you are my mom! I’ll fight her again, I-I’ll—” She sniffed and pressed her face against Shady Blossom again.

“And you’re my daughter,” Shady Blossom said, her own voice a little thick. “My little girl. My Babs.”

Applejack harrumphed and stood up. “Well, I’m sure y’all had a good reason, but that ain’ excusin’ the fact that y’all started a fight,” she said grimly. “We’re goin’ back to the house, right now.”

“No!” Sweetie Belle cried, leaping forward and skidding in front of Applejack. “I started it, I did! Send me home, don’t send them home!”

Judging by the look on her face, the set of her jaw reflecting sternness, Applejack could clearly see what Sweetie Belle was doing, and she didn’t look like she was having any of it, either.

“No, it was me!” Babs Seed said, pulling away from her mother to shove Sweetie aside and instead stand beneath Applejack’s glare.

Glancing between each other, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo raised their hooves.

“I did it,” muttered Apple Bloom.

“No, me,” Scootaloo insisted. “I started it! Stupid ugly face, couldn’t help myself.”

The fillies kept it up, each one trying to top the others over Applejack’s most dire looks and insistences that they cut it out. All so their friends wouldn’t be stuck going home.

Shady Blossom couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh. The fillies all looked mortified, but they stared steadily at Applejack and Shady regardless. “What do you say, Mister?” she directed at the bystander. “Who started this little fight?”

He looked among the four crying girls and adjusted his hat. “Ma’am. Those two girls who were so gosh darned unkind started it. Said you were a monster, that they were all blank flanks, and then threw the first punch. Celestia’s truth.”

Liar. Sweet, blessed liar.

Applejack rolled her eyes. Shady Blossom met her gaze, quirking a smile. Her niece heaved a sigh. “Fine. But if it happens again, I’m chuckin’ y’all into a barrel and haulin’ you off to Sweet Apple Acres in the luggage compartment, no matter who started it, y’hear me?”

The four fillies swarmed Applejack, hugging her. They then tackled the tourist and Shady Blossom in turn. “My little heroes,” Shady said, giggling, and kissed their little heads. “Defending my honor like that. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if that earned you your cutie marks.”

Gasping, all four girls turned to examine their sides. When confronted with equally blank expanses of hair, though, they slumped. Taking the advantage, Shady rose and nudged them with her wings, drawing them close. “Don’t worry. Just keep it up. You girls are on the right track. One day, you’ll all find where you belong... and you’ll do it together, because you’re all such great friends.”

Applejack rolled her eyes again, but grinned this time. “Is being a good mom all cheap tricks?”

“Some of them are very expensive, but a good heart carries you through life better than material goods, anyway,” Shady Blossom answered sweetly.

Scrunching her face up, Applejack glared at Shady Blossom. “Okay, now I know ye’re just sayin’ sappy stuff t’make me gag.”

“Guilty!” Shady admitted.

“All right, girls, let’s go see Barry and Lin. They’re probably waiting for us at the Ferris wheel.” Nudging them along, she gave Babs a nuzzle and pushed them on with her hooves.

“Hey, uhm, Babs... this kinda reminded me of something I asked your mom about back in the carriage,” Sweetie Belle said as they started off.

“Yeah, what’s that?” asked Babs.

“Why doesn’t Lin call Shady ‘Mom’?”

“Sweetie!” Applejack protested. “Don’t you go around askin’ folks uncomfortable questions.”

“Nah, it’s all right,” Babs said, pausing to blow her hair out of her eyes. “I mean, when she first came around, I wasn’t really all that peachy about her myself. When she married Da, all of a sudden we had somepony who was practically a stranger in the house all the time. Just meetin’ her a couple times didn’t really do it, you know?”

“That was just a coupla years ago,” Apple Bloom supplied. “It was a few months after Princess Luna came back.”

“I missed my mom real bad, still, even though it’d been a while,” Babs said, looking down at the ground. Shady’s reassuring touch on her back encouraged her, though, and she went on. “I wasn’t exactly nice, neither. I screamed a lot. Fought all the time.”

“We worked things out,” Shady murmured, smoothing back her daughter’s mane with a wing. “Lin was already a teenager, though.”

“Yeah, she didn’t want no pony as her mom no more.”

“But why?” Sweetie asked, her eyes wide. She walked backwards to keep ahead of the others, watching them as she backed up. “She’s so nice! I’d be happy to have her as my mom if I didn’t have mine.”

“It’s not that simple, Sweetie,” Shady said, turning her around before she could plow into an elderly griffin on his walker. “Lin’s nearly a grown mare. I wouldn’t mind being her mom, it’s true, but she needs to find her own way. I’m content to help her along as much as I can.”

“She still cares,” Babs insisted. “It’s not like it was before. You couldn’ even get Lin to speak if Shady was in the same room, and she kept tryin’ to drive her and Dad apart the first couple months.”

“I don’t think she knew how to handle it when I got pregnant,” Shady murmured. “But when Hop was born, that was pretty much the end of the fighting.”

“Family is family,” Applejack preached, “whether it be by kin or kine.”

“And you called me cheesy,” Shady teased, laughing. They trotted on, towards the Ferris wheel that revolved gracefully before them.

* * *

“So, why did we go through all the trouble of meeting at the Ferris wheel if we’re actually going to ride it last?” Lin asked as they filed into the line for Luna Park. Ahead, the park itself was sheltered in a vast tent, with an enormous expanse of dark blue canvas covering the area.

“You really can’t beat sunset on a Ferris wheel, at least if you don’t have an airship handy,” Barry insisted. He winked at his wife. “Of course, you won’t really fully appreciate it until you have a very special somepony to share it with.”

Lin Seed tossed her long mane, harumphing. “I’d have a very special somepony if it weren’t for an overprotective father who growls when boys come anywhere near me.”

“The last guy had a black denim jacket. Didn’t trust him.”

“And Pierre? He came from a great family!” Lin glared at her father.

“Too fancy. Didn’t trust him.” Barry was grinning now.

Lin ground her teeth. “So my boyfriends can be neither too low, nor too high, can they?”

Barry tapped his chin. “Well, sure, but they also can’t be too average, neither. My princess deserves the best.”

Lin stamped one of her hooves. “Daddy! Ugh, I’m never getting a coltfriend at this rate.”

“Suits me just fine!” Barry ruffled his daughter’s head.

Seeing the Crusaders start to perk up, Applejack glowered at them. “No, not after the Cheerilee and Big Mac incident, and I’m still watchin’ y’all. Meddlin’ with special someponies oughta be the last thing on yer li’l minds.”

“Aww,” they complained, pouting.

Raising eyebrows at one another, the elder Seeds decided not to inquire further.

For her part, Shady was feeling excited. She peeked over the heads of the crowd, looking towards the pavilion entrance, where two thestral statues stood holding the flap open. Already, she could hear the soft music from within piping out, and a whiff of rice cakes and moon pies on wafted the air. Shady closed her eyes and breathed in, letting her mind drift back. It seemed to her that she could just capture a night long ago, when she sat on the edge of a cloud and watched the lights of Canterlot and nibbling on a soft rice cake filled with ice cream with the treat held delicately between bandaged hooves. She tried to remember if it had been strawberry or chocolate, attempting to pull more of the moment back to her.

When she opened her eyes, she ruffled her wings and spread them slightly, as if prepared to leap forward over the crowd and into the pavilion, line or no.

Spying her enthusiasm, Applejack poked her. “I thought you said this was junk.”

“Mmm, well, yes,” she agreed, but couldn’t keep herself from grinning. “Yet it’s my kind of kitschy junk. You have to understand, this is the sort of stuff I grew up listening to—every young thestral hears the tales growing up. ‘The Tale of the Lost Comet’? I still read that to my babies when they’re sleepy. The ‘Tears of the Night Mother’ can still make me cry, and you wouldn’t believe how you can move a bar full of us with a rousing telling of the ‘War in the Stars’.”

“She’s not lying. I saw an old stallion with one eye get up and dance near the climax. It was terrifying.” Barry shivered.

“It’s like a trip back into my foalhood—all the best and brightest parts of it. And you know the best part? It’s all in the dark, with the only light no stronger than moonlight. You can’t really tell the stories in broad daylight.” Shady sighed happily. “The sun is nice, but it chases away all of the mystery. The most beautiful flowers are the ones that bloom at night, not in the light of day.”

“You can’t stop her when she gets like this,” her husband said in a stage whisper to the others. “She can wax poetic for hours.”

“You’re still not off the hook for earlier, mister.”

Lin Seed rolled her eyes, presenting her ticket to the stand and collecting a token, one that resembled a full moon, complete with pockmarks. Shady was pleased to see they had gotten rid of the ones with the image of the Mare in the Moon—that had been downright tasteless. “It’s all right. I still prefer Dreamland.”

“Oh, sure, if you like raging fires and hammy actors,” Shady scoffed.

“Considering her recent boyfriends? I think she does,” Barry agreed.

“Ugh!” Lin tossed her mane again as she strode inside.

Within, it was like being in a little village. Storefronts and houses marched along their streets. It was dark as deepest twilight within the tent, the thick canvas blocking out the sun as promised. Dozens of tiny lights descended from the ceiling, their placements forming various constellations—Canis Major and Minor, Orion and his belt, the big and little Dippers. In the very center of the mock-night sky hung a luminous clock, its four faces glowing warmly with the four major phases of the moon, bathing visitors with its gentle radiance. Night flowers, with their sweet fragrance, bloomed everywhere, and some ponies found it so relaxing that they lay together on the grass and simply talked, cuddling together in the semi-darkness.

As always, there were more than a few thestrals, some strolling, others gliding along, taking in a bit of the pleasing atmosphere before they had to thrust themselves back under the harsh glare of day. For once, Shady Blossom didn’t feel like she was being judged for walking with her own family. She pressed close to her husband and drank in the sensation.

“You’ll always be my night blossom,” Barry murmured into her ear. It made her feel as if she was floating, lifted up on a cloud of warmth and affection.

“Mom, jeeze.” Babs Seed reached up to grab her mother’s black tail and haul her back down by her teeth.

“Oh!” Shady gasped, putting her hooves back on the ground and blushing. “Sorry, just got a little carried away.”

They all laughed, and, together, went into the park. Shady couldn’t help herself, and started to sing:

“Blue moon of Canterlot, keep on shining

Shine on the one that's gone and left me blue

Blue moon of Canterlot, keep on shining

Shine on the one that's gone and left me blue

It was on one moonlight night

Stars shining bright

Whisper on high

Love said goodbye

Blue moon of Canterlot keep on shining

Shine on the one that's gone and left me blue!”

Appreciative hoof stomps echoed from a gaggle of young foals, and Shady bent a knee with a little giggle. Rising, she paused as her eyes fell on a pretty thestral mare with the group. Several years younger than Shady, she had short blue hair raked over one eye and a cheerful smile. When their eyes met, they jolted in mutual recognition.

Seeing the two mares staring at one another, a filly lifted her head curiously, looking between them. “Do you know her, Miss Star Gazer?”

Star Gazer’s smile became strained, but she nodded slightly. “Yes, uhm... hello, Shady Blossom.”

“Star Gazer,” Shady acknowledged, her tone a little uncertain. Her body language was no clearer, and for a moment Shady didn’t know whether to let her wings hang open or tuck them against herself. She settled for leaving them open and glanced at the kids. “Class from Canterlot?”

“Yeah, they’re... yeah,” Star Gazer answered. She seemed determined to look anywhere except at Shady Blossom’s eyes. “It’s a field trip to the city. We’re stopping by here on the way to see the Statue of Harmony.”

“Ferry at the pier?” Shady asked.

“Yeah,” said Star Gazer. It hadn’t really been a question, but she appeared eager to keep the conversation going rather than letting it lapse into silence. Looking past Shady, she saw something that caught her attention, and Shady followed her gaze to see the Seeds and friends. Babs and the Crusaders had, from the looks of it, noticed Shady’s lack of progress and were coming over to investigate. “Are you here with, your, uhm... family?”

“I am, yes.”

“Good, that’s... that’s good. I’m glad. They look really nice.”

Shady nodded, sliding a wing down over Babs.

Again keenly aware of the silence between them, Star Gazer sputtered, “I’m really happy for you.”

“What’s up, Mom?” Babs asked, blinking at the thestral stranger.

“Are you okay, Miss Star Gazer?” the filly with Star Gazer asked, nudging the other mare with a leathery wing, her fluffy ears alert. “Is something wrong?”

“N-no, I mean, yes, I mean, no n-nothing’s wrong and... I...” Star Gazer stammered, meeting the little girl’s gaze.

Star Gazer seemed especially conscious of her ward's opinion, doting on the small filly and trying to find an explanation that would make sense to her enclosed world view, whilst remaining at least somewhat faithful to the truth. Shady Blossom stepped forward. “Nothing’s wrong. We’re just old acquaintances is all.” She took one of Star Gazer’s hooves. The mare stared back at her, blushing brightly, though only Shady and the other thestrals could see it in the dim light. She glanced away, eyes downcast, but didn’t pull free. “You’ve got a lovely little class. I’m sure you’re learning a lot from Miss Star Gazer, aren’t you?” Shady looked down to the filly.

“We sure are! No pony knows more about the night sky than she does!” the young thestral gushed, eyes bright.

“Then she has a lot to be proud of, I think,” Shady insisted.

Star Gazer bit her lip, looking first at the foal, then up at Shady Blossom. “Thank you,” she murmured quietly.

“It’s okay,” Shady whispered back. “Go on, have a good time. Are, ah... are you staying in town for a while?”

“A day. I wouldn’t... I mean...”

“Maybe we can... talk sometime. Clear the air a bit,” Shady offered. “Where are you staying?”

“A hotel, the Sunset Inn. Well, uhm... thank you, again. I hope things are going well.” Star Gazer caught her breath.

When Shady Blossom released her hoof, she was like a puppet briefly cut from her strings, wobbling. At the filly’s prodding she recovered herself, though, and turned to trot back to the group with her. She glanced over her shoulder once, but said nothing.

“What the heck was that about?” Scootaloo asked around a moon pie. Evidently, Barry had treated them while Shady was gone.

“Just someone I knew.” Shady watched her go. “Way back in Canterlot.”

Sweetie Belle stepped forward, looking up at Shady Blossom. “Were you friends? Did you have some sort of falling out?”

“No. We weren’t friends,” Shady said. She looked up at the false moon in the sky and sighed. “But, well... maybe we can be. You can’t hold a grudge forever, right?”

Scootaloo opened her mouth to disagree, but Babs swatted her. “C’mon, Mom, let’s show them the rides!”

“All right. Come along, girls, let’s go take a trip to the moon,” Shady Blossom said, smiling as she started down the thoroughfare. The past could wait for another day.

* * *

It seemed as if the day couldn’t have been more full. Walking along behind tireless fillies, Shady Blossom was light-headed, her hooves and wings sore. It was a good soreness, though, a pleasant sensation of family that left her whole and complete. With her husband at her side, her niece to talk to, and even her stepdaughter being pleasant, it was hard to think of any way it could have been improved.

After swimming at the beach for a while to cool off, they were all just about ready to go home. However, the four fillies all wanted to get in one more ride, and their puppy dog eyes meant neither Applejack nor Shady could possibly say no.

The Ferris wheel was one good option. With the sun lowering towards the horizon, it was getting to be the perfect time to ride it, which meant that they’d have to get into line very soon indeed to catch the ideal window of opportunity.

Another good option, though, would have been sleep. Looking at the line and the amount of time she’d need to spend on her feet, Shady contemplated the benefits and drawbacks of waiting. On the one hoof, it would be a nice bit of time spent with Barry Seed, and she could tip the operator to pause their car at the top so they could cuddle. On the other hoof, with her yawning so loud, that would probably not be terribly romantic.

“Shady? Shady Blossom, is that you?” a mare’s voice called, sparing her from further contemplation.

In fact, it perked her up immediately, seeming to drain some of the fatigue from her bones. “My ears must be failing,” Shady declared, rubbing at one of them. “I swear I just heard an old ghost.”

“Who is it, Ma?” Babs looked up to Shady. A unicorn mare, her curly mane hanging off one shoulder, approached the group and met Shady Blossom in a hug.

“Look at you!” the unicorn declared, looking her up and down. “You know, it’s funny, I swear your last letter had claimed you were pregnant, but by the stars I call you a liar. You’re as trim and fit as a girl.”

“Twice, in fact,” Shady declared, and smiled at the others. “This is an old friend of mine from the theater—Velvet Curtain.”

“We’ve met,” Barry said. “As I recall, you referred to me as a leering layabout.”

“I was absolutely correct, too,” Velvet Curtain agreed, waving at the others. “I can’t believe my luck, running into you like this. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends and family?”

“Of course! This is Babs Seed, my daughter,” Shady said, tucking a hoof about the filly’s side. “This is her cousin, Apple Bloom, and her friends Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. Applejack here is Apple Bloom’s big sister; she’s a farmer from out in Ponyville.”

“Howdy,” Applejack said. It seemed to Shady Blossom that she was keeping her distance for now, watching the others.

“And my other daughter, Lin Seed,” Shady said. Lin let it pass, smiling at Velvet. “My other foals are back with some neighbors; they’re a little young for Coneigh Island.”

“They must be darling.” Velvet beamed. “You know, for a long time, I thought you were crazy for leaving the theater, but seeing these faces, I don’t have to wonder any more. You look so happy you could burst, dear, and I’m glad for you.”

Shady Blossom blushed, rubbing the back of her head. “Yeah, well, the first pregnancy was just such a surprise, and then there were all these family emergencies. It would have been impossible to hold down a rehearsal schedule, really. Always did want to go back, but the time never seemed right.” She glanced back at her family and beamed. “I’m pretty much over it now, though.”

“No, don’t make excuses. You’re doing a beautiful job, and I can see that,” Velvet said, waving her down. “It’s hard enough to keep going, sometimes. I’m glad you found something worthwhile.”

“Y’know, it’s funny,” Applejack spoke up. “My aunt here was just tellin’ me about how y’shouldn’t let opportunities fly by, even if you feel like ye’re too old and busy to do it.”

“Oh, did she?” Velvet asked, grinning. “So, not pining for the stage at all, are we?”

Shady Blossom stared back at Applejack. Her niece put on an innocent look, crossing both sets of legs. You traitor!

“Sweet, Mom, ye’re goin’ back into theater?” Babs asked.

“You’re an actress?” Sweetie Belle squeaked, her eyes going wide.

“Well, I was—”

“She was in a coupla movies and everythin’!” Babs told her friends. “I’ve got ‘em all back at home.”

“Wow, really? I can hardly believe it, that’s so cool,” Apple Bloom gushed.

“Yeah, she was a villain and everythin’!”

“Awesome!” Scootaloo said, grinning.

Sweetie Belle bounced. “We should watch them when we get back!”

Wincing, Shady Blossom waved a hoof dismissively. “Uhm, maybe that’s not such a good idea. They’re really not all that good...” she said, trying to discourage them, but there was no helping it now. The fillies had the bit in their teeth.

Hooking a leg through one of Shady Blossom’s own, Velvet Curtain looked at her old friend thoughtfully. “You definitely still have the look. Tell you what, why don’t you come talk to some friends of mine? We’re just getting some drinks down at the waterfront. A few actors, some set designers, and a director from Applewood.”

Against her will, Shady’s ears perked. “Applewood?” she asked, a little breathless in spite of herself.

“Applewood,” Velvet repeated, the words possessing a magic all their own.

“You don’t mean—” Scootaloo gasped.

“—the place—” Apple Bloom said, staring.

“—where stars are made?” Sweetie Belle squeaked, her eyes filling with stars.

“Oh, get going already,” Barry said, nudging his wife in the ribs. “We’re going to be all evening at this. Go on, I want to hear all about it.”

“I, uhm,” Shady said, finding it hard to breathe. “Wow. Okay.”

“I’ll bring your mother back intact, don’t worry, dears,” Velvet promised Babs and Lin, the latter looking wan at the words ‘your mother.’ Even she couldn’t hide a little look of excitement, though.

“Good luck,” Lin said.

“Y’all have fun now, y’hear?” Applejack said, waving an orange hoof, her face plastered with the most smug expression Shady had ever seen on a pony.

It was as if all of the soreness had drained out of her. Shady Blossom found herself walking by her old friend in almost a daze. I’ll probably just have to tell them no. I have a pair of tiny foals and Babs, and I want to get back to my gardening... just a quick drink and a little reminiscing. One drink won’t hurt. Yeah, that’s the ticket. This’ll be quick.

* * *

“...And can you believe they have a renowned foal care system?” Shady Blossom gushed, as she had been gushing for what seemed like the entire trip home. “Some of the best tutors, and they travel around with the shoot, so you’re never far from your kids.”

“That would take Babs away from school, though, wouldn’t it?” Lin Seed pointed out.

“Psht, like I care,” Babs said, climbing up on the back of the seat. “I’ll get to see movies being made! That meeting must have gone great, Mom; you were out for a long time.”

“I still can’t believe that went as well as it did. You are right, though, Lin,” Shady Blossom said, rubbing her forehead. “I really should look into all possibilities. My family comes first. Just, you know... eeehehehe!” Her hooves pattered on the seat as she squealed, her wings flaring.

“I guess I haven’t really seen you this excited in a long time,” Lin Seed murmured. “I... if you can do this, you should do it. I think it could be... good.”

That was it. The way Lin Seed was smiling at her. That capped her day.

Perhaps we can’t be mother and daughter, but we can be family of some sort.

Then, quite suddenly, the carriage jerked to a stop. Catching herself, Shady checked to make sure the fillies were all right before hopping over the front seat. “Honey? AJ? What’s wrong; did you hit something?” Flapping her wings, she hovered over them, glancing at the road to find it largely empty aside from a few parked carriages. The street lights were on, lending the early evening a quiet, contemplative feel. It was always a nice time for flying, in her mind.

Then, as she studied the scene, she started to put certain facts together. For one, there were indeed a few carriages parked, but almost all of them were clustered in front of her house.

For two, her husband and Applejack hadn’t hit anything, for there was nothing to hit. Indeed, their faces were locked forward, staring at the brownstone. Slowly, Shady Blossom craned her head up.

Shattered windows. Broken glass. A pair of pegasi in city police uniforms, scanning the horizon from high above. Police carriages, their occupants going over every inch of ground. Her neighbors, talking to the police, their eyes wide and frightened.

Feeling numb, Shady Blossom floated towards her house, unable to believe what she was seeing. Slit eyes drank in the light, seeing the door blown inward, chairs tossed out onto the sidewalk.

“Sarge!” one of the police unicorns shouted, and flared her horn, red light preparing to grab Shady.

The scene was interrupted, however, when Barry Seed, freed from his harness, came up and roared, “What in the name of Tartarus is going on here?” His booming voice startled the unicorn so much that she dropped her spell, and Shady Blossom drifted down to join her husband, who put a hoof about her.

“This is my house, officer. What happened here?” he demanded of the gathered police again, who had all gone rather understandably defensive at the huge, hostile-looking earth pony approaching.

They all looked to him, then to Shady. “Sir, please calm down,” said one of the older officers, a greying mare with marks of rank Shady could not identify on her shoulder, stepping forward. They all had to step back as he and his wife walked up to the top of the steps, looking in.

The living room was trashed completely. Somepony had managed to not only upend the big couch, but fling it so hard that it had embedded itself into the plaster of the wall and exposed the stone beneath. The light had been torn down, the glassware broken.

Smeared on the wall, in what seemed at first blood but what must have been Lin Seed’s own paints were words, scrawled in jagged lettering:

THE NIGHT WILL LAST FOREVER

TRAITOR

* * * * * * *

Chapter 2: ...If You Can Make it Here...

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Chapter 2: ...If You Can Make It Here...

Shady Blossom couldn’t quite remember what had happened after seeing her house. In vague terms, she recalled that she had been wailing. She had flown from room to room, searching, shouting the names of her babies. Horrible images had flashed through her brain as she tore open cabinets and pulled shredded covers off beds, searching. She could see the claw marks through Hop’s sheets and imagined his blood staining them, pooling on the mattress. When it seemed clear that they weren’t in the building, she pictured her babies screaming for her in a bag, heaved into the river where their struggles faded and died as the bag soaked through and sank.

Preparing to leap out a window, she found herself abruptly intercepted. Applejack had finally caught up and tackled her out of the air, pinning Shady to the floor.

“Let me go!” Shady cried, squirming against Applejack’s immense strength to little avail. She couldn’t even twitch. “I have to find my babies!”

“Shady!” Applejack shouted, cutting through Shady’s cries. “For the love of Luna, listen to me! Your kids are fine! The neighbors, we sent them to the neighbors! They’re right outside.”

Whimpering, Shady went slack. Her chest heaved as she panted, staring at a wall. The word “traitor” stared back at her, red paint still dripping slowly down the wall like old blood. Her legs came up around Applejack, and they held each other for a long time while Shady Blossom sobbed. Lin Seed, her face ashen, came up with Dandelion and Hop clinging to her, and it wasn’t until Shady could hold and nuzzle both of them that she felt anywhere close to all right again. Dandelion was asleep, peaceful, while Hop cried silently, holding tight to his mother. Thankfully, he fell asleep shortly thereafter.

Applejack helped her up, and together she and Lin Seed aided her back downstairs, while she held her babies close to her. In the living room, some of the policeponies were helping a grim-faced Barry Seed carry something out from the house and into the family carriage. He moved to nuzzle Shady Blossom, enfolding her and the other girls in his forelegs.

When they parted, Shady dug up her foal carriers and slid Hop and Dandelion on either side. Going down the front steps to look for the Crusaders, she found them when they thudded into her, hugging tightly. Possessively, Shady swept her wings about them, sheltering the girls in her embrace. All four had signs of recent tears, though Scootaloo and Babs both glared out at the world. Babs in particular looked livid, her eyes tracking to the windows on the front of the brownstone.

Setting her hat on her head, Applejack joined them and laid a foreleg on Shady’s back. “Are ya feelin’ all right?”

“No,” Shady murmured, and tightened her grip about the girls. Her face felt numb and her throat sore, but she put forward a steady face. “No, I’m not. But... I have you all, that’s what’s important.”

“Lawponies will be wantin’ to ask you some questions,” she said evenly. “That unicorn said they could start as soon as you were ready.”

“I wagered they would.” Shady sighed. “I don’t want the kids to hear any of this, especially not the little ones; could you...?”

“Course. Don’t even need t’ask.”

It was difficult to move from her spot sheltering the girls. Shady Blossom found it hard to shake the feeling that letting her foals or even Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle go would have meant the possibility of losing them. Another look into Applejack’s hard eyes allowed her to slacken her grip, though—all the howling hordes of Chaos could not get past Applejack. It wasn’t hard at all for her to believe that her niece was a hero worthy of saving Equestria right then.

Going out into the street, she could overhear one of the locals being questioned. Mister Black Vein, a old retired prospector who was as leathery as he was hoarse, was standing before a uniformed officer and a detective in a heavy coat and fedora.

“...Like black lightning! Whoosh! In from the sky, crashing through the windows!” the ancient pony was telling them, gesticulating wildly with his cane. “All clad in black armor, cat eyes glowing like Nightmare Moon h’self! Oh, I got up from my seat, started out towards the door with my old spear, but the legs are so creaky, by the time I got m’self down to the street, whoosh! Gone! Like black lightning!”

“How long did that take you, about?” the detective asked, her tones clipped and precise.

“Mayhaps ten, twenty... or thirty minutes.”

“When would you say this was?”

“No more’n an hour ago. Matty, when was it?” he asked his granddaughter. “Smart girl, always gets these things right.”

Mattock, his granddaughter, shook her head, vibrant green mane swinging. “It was just a few minutes before the hour. I know because it’s when Grandpa gets his evening pills.”

“So a few minutes before eight?”

“That’s right,” she confirmed. Her eyes shifted, and she caught sight of Shady Blossom. For a moment, she shrank back. Seeming to realize what she was doing, she straightened, her eyes apologetic as she shuffled her hooves awkwardly.

“Mistress Shady Blossom,” the detective acknowledged, her blue eyes and smooth face giving nothing away. “Continue taking the statement, officer,” she told the uniformed pony before moving to join Shady.

“Detective...?” Shady asked.

“Noir, ma’am. Detective Petite Noir.” Her eyes glanced upwards. A pegasus officer was shadowing the two of them, hovering over the street and watching like a hawk. “I’m sorry if this question comes across as rude, ma’am, but I’m obliged to ask it. Where were you at eight o’clock this evening?” Her face softened for a moment at the apology, then returned to a civil mask.

Taking it for what it was worth, Shady nodded. “With my family, in Coneigh Island,” she answered, her tone dull. She felt drained, her ears and wings drooping. All of the day’s soreness was back, with interest. “I had just gotten some drinks with some ponies. I can name them.”

“I would appreciate that, ma’am.”

“Velvet Curtain, an actress. Film Reel, a director out of Applewood. Quick Lime, a stage designer. A few other actors: Sans Nom, Class Act, Vaudeville, and James Li.”

“James Li?” she asked. Her hat flipped up enough to reveal a unicorn’s horn nestled in her black mane, and she scribbled notes on a pad held in a hazy blue aura.

“It’s a stage name.”

“All right.” Noir added an annotation to her pad. “Do you know where any of them can be reached?”

“Velvet Curtain has an apartment uptown. I’m not sure about the others.”

“All right, thank you. Would you mind answering a few more questions?” Noir glanced past her shoulder before meeting her gaze again.

“Not at all,” Shady answered, reaching up to rub her hoof against her head. A fantastic headache had been another reward for her screaming and carrying on earlier, and now her forelegs were throbbing as well, the scars pulsing. The sight of her husband approaching helped set her at ease, and she flashed Barry a small smile to let him know she was all right, waving one of her wings.

“Do you know anything about what happened here?”

“I know somepony attacked my house,” Shady answered plainly. “They smeared scary messages on the walls and smashed everything up.”

“Can you speculate as to why? It’s all right if you aren’t sure, just give me the best information you have, ma’am. Even some idea of what might be the cause could be helpful. Why they wrote ‘traitor’ on the wall, for instance.”

Shady Blossom sighed. “No, I can’t. Perhaps a little, and I don’t like thinking about it. If it will help, though...”

“Please.” Noir gestured with a hoof. “I want to help you and your family get over this incident. If there’s anything, even a tiny bit of information, it might make a difference.”

“When I was younger, there were some... ponies. Thestral ponies,” Shady said slowly, letting her mind sink back down into the depths of her childhood. Not all of that foalhood had been as bright as it could have been.

Barry was almost there, but his wife’s gaze stopped him before he could reach out to her. She turned it back on Noir, answering quietly. “You have to understand, there’s a lot of stories we’ve kept alive, our kind. We don’t really share them with other ponies, since they wouldn’t appreciate or even understand a lot of them. While everypony else was celebrating Nightmare Night to appease a legend they barely remembered, we...” Shady sucked in a breath, hesitating. “Well. A lot of thestrals liked to remember Luna differently.”

Looking up at the moon, devoid of the terrible face of the Mare of Darkness that the Princess of the Night had become, Shady Blossom gathered what strength she could from it. Princess Luna may not have been looking down on her right then, but it was the best she could get. “We remembered Celestia as the tyrant and Luna as the brave upstart, the rebel. We so loved the night; how could we turn our backs on it? It was wrong and foolish, and most of us understood that. Princess Celestia had been so good to us over the centuries, trying to help us even when other ponies didn’t trust us anymore...”

Noir glanced up from her notes as Shady Blossom trailed off. “There is more to it, though,” the detective said, gesturing with her pen.

“You know about that already,” Shady Blossom murmured.

“Please, ma’am,” she said, her tone gentle, “what you know of it may be more important. If you know the story differently than we do or parts of it that we don’t know, now is the time to tell us.”

“All right.” Shady gathered another shuddering breath. “Yes. There are some thestral ponies who... didn’t buy it. It’s a stupid kid thing, for the most part. A young buck or mare wants to be bold and edgy, so they denounce Princess Celestia and bring back the old stories. They get paranoid, seeing her as a controlling, stingy dictator instead of what she is.”

There was a noticeable pause before Noir went on. “And for the ones that don’t grow out of that phase?”

Shady shut her eyes as images crowded about her consciousness. A midnight banner, with a crescent moon swallowing the sun. A burning cloud house. Screaming. The street around her started to fade away even as she tried to push the sensations aside.

“Ma’am?” Petite Noir lowered her notepad and took a step forward.

Shady felt as though she’d just been yanked up and had to catch her breath. “It’s gone now,” she said, her voice quiet and strained. “When Luna came back, that was supposed to be it. She didn’t hate Celestia, she didn’t want to overthrow anything.”

Noir took up her pad again and wrote dutifully. “But before that?”

“Yes. There was the Order of Eternal Night, who wanted to bring about Everlasting Night as Nightmare Moon had foretold,” Shady said, hot and angry. She stamped a hoof, flaring her wings. “They hurt everypony around them. It wasn’t enough just to avoid them. You were with them, or you were... you were a...”

Noir didn’t supply the word. It was still smeared on the Seeds’ living room wall, after all. She exhaled, scribbling notes—taking pity, Shady surmised. “Yes, we’ve heard of them. We had... well, every guardspony and policepony in Equestria thought they were gone, too. Disbanded when Princess Luna returned,” she said. “Do you know anypony who might have been in the Order who held a grudge against you or members of your family? Your family by marriage or birth.”

“Just a couple. There was a big push against them, a few years before Princess Luna returned. A fair number died, the worst of them, the ones who hurt... other ponies.” Shady lowered her head. “I honestly thought the rest had gone back to their lives after the end.”

“If they’re still carrying on their activities in secret, they may have pretended to do so,” Noir said. “We’ll check up on them. Don’t worry, we won’t run anypony in on hunches or old names.”

Brushing her long mane back from her face, where it had fallen, Shady lifted her head and nodded. “I... there is one. I met her today, actually. Star Gazer, a mare; she’s a teacher from Canterlot. She’s staying at the, ah, Sunset Inn. I think that’s off Greenway.”

“It is. Anypony else?”

“There’s also Bell Tone, another mare; I’m not sure what happened to her. Black Cloud, though he was just a kid. Arc Light, he was pretty nasty, though I think he took up sailing after. I know Light, Gazer, and Cloud all made amends, though, or tried to. I just met Star Gazer and she was... well, I thought she was contrite.”

“Sometimes, ponies can surprise us, ma’am,” Noir said, her tone remaining dry. “And you yourself were never part of this Order in any capacity?”

“No! No, of course not,” Shady said, shaking her head vigorously. “I could never hurt anypony.”

“Of course.” Noir glanced over at Barry. He stepped forward to nuzzle against his wife. “We’ll leave a few officers with you to make sure you’re safe. I’ll try to keep you apprised of the investigation’s progress.”

“Thank you,” Shady Blossom whispered. “Please, just help keep my family safe. They’re all I have.”

“My duty, ma’am,” she replied, tipping her hat to the pair before taking off.

Gradually, the sounds of hooves on pavement, talking police, and carriages faded away. Silently, Shady Blossom began to cry again, and her husband held her. The ruins of what had been a perfect day crumbled around them.

* * *

It had been a very long time since Shady Blossom had been in a bed with so many other ponies. With a half-dozen foals snuggled about her, she felt very warm indeed and, even if she could have moved, she had absolutely no desire to. If only she could sleep in it—yet she feared what dreams may come as much as she feared somepony swooping in through the window and taking what was hers to protect while she slept.

The Oranges had, of course, immediately had their apartment opened up for the displaced family. They had answered an express message to March’s Vineyard with one of their own, full of condolences and sympathy. For all that they could be stuck-up elitists, the Oranges understood the importance of family.

A great dark mound on the floor shifted, and Barry turned over, his hooves in the air. He wasn’t sleeping, either, and probably wouldn’t for some time to come. Without a doubt, Applejack and Lin Seed, who were sharing the guest room, weren’t getting much shut-eye, either.

She jerked, realizing her eyes had begun to droop against her will. Evidently, the day’s stresses were catching up to her. Though she fought it for a few minutes, Shady Blossom eventually surrendered. She laid her head down near her daughters’ and closed her eyes.

Darkness followed her.

* * *

The moon shone. Shady Blossom’s juvenile wings beat furiously against a powerful headwind to reach a cloud house, its silvery vapor alight with unnatural flame. All around, laughing black shapes with eyes aglow raced ahead of her, darting into the flames and dancing. The sinister one-eyed face of Arc Light loomed out of the darkness, lightning wreathing his wings. No matter how hard she beat her wings, she couldn’t get closer. They were coming for her.

One of the figures flew forward, her eyes burning from the slits in her helmet and her mouth agape.

THE NIGHT WILL LAST FOREVER

Dodging desperately, Shady felt hot knives burn into her neck and chest. Even though she couldn’t get any closer to the burning house, its radiant heat found her nevertheless. The edges of her front hooves, stretched in desperate flight, burst into flames that blackened the tips, while Star Gazer looked on, uncaring. The hard wall bubbled and cracked, filling with fire. The flames advanced up her ankles, curling the hair into ash. Coming to take her.

The mare swooped back again, screaming.

TRAITOR

Ahead of her, on the cloud, Lin Seed was walking into the front door, heedless of the flames dancing about her, shriveling her long mane. Babs Seed stood wreathed by orange light in an upstairs window, staring out at her with empty eyes. All she ever had.

Shady started to scream. The black figures crowded around her, their mocking laughter melding into the roar of the flames. Somewhere above, a dark blue shape circled high in the night sky, silhouetted the moon...

Everything she ever...

“Mom! Mom!” Babs shouted, while hooves shook her. “Are you okay? Mom!”

Voice and touch alike cut into her nightmare. Jerking, she barely caught herself short of clocking the watching heads about her with her hooves.

“Honey? Where’s Dandy?” she called, slurring. “Need to feed her.”

Babs was at her side, shaking her. Hop sat beside his half-sister, shaking their mother as well with his tiny hooves. Dandelion cried. The other’s faces watched Shady. It was almost as if she’d been injured.

Rising, Shady Blossom felt like a mess. Her long black mane was tangled. Her tail was askew. Her coat was matted in places.

“Got her, right here.” Lin Seed held the flailing baby sobbing in her foreleg. She had Dandelion pressed against her body and was gently coddling her, whispering sweet words with no real progress on calming the baby.

“Sweetheart, you should—whoa!” Barry caught Shady Blossom when she tried to get off the bed and stumbled in the process.

“Baby, hungry, scared.” Shady tried to push him off. “Worry about me later.”

“Worrying about you now, honey.” He used his greater strength to pin her back on the bed. “Lin, we brought the formula and put it in the fridge, go take care of it.”

“Is she okay?” Scootaloo asked. “Is she sick?”

“No, no, I’m doing better.” Shady Blossom tried to stand. Her husband wasn’t having any of it, however, and kept her down.

“C’mon, girls. Aunt Shady needs a little time to herself.” Applejack shuffled the fillies out. She picked Hop up and hauled him out bodily.

She was prepared to give her husband a good tongue-lashing, when she realized that all four of her legs were shaking terribly. She hadn’t even realized how dehydrated and empty she felt. Her heart raced, faster and faster, and she felt as though she were crashing, as if she were choking in mid air.

It took a few minutes for the attack to pass. Stomach-crunching, chest-squeezing anxiety always made it difficult for her to breathe, let alone stand. Eventually, though, Barry helped his quivering wife up. He even helped run a brush through her mane and tail, the rhythmic motions helping her feel once again like she was in control.

Indeed, if there was any word that encapsulated how she felt right then, it was control, or the lack thereof. So few ponies experienced a breach of peace so severe as they had, in the secure society of Equestria. Fewer still could claim that they were haunted by the spectres of the past. It was stupid, and it was silly, but getting her appearance back in order was a symbolic step towards gaining just a little control back over her life. It was a small step, but it was enough to start on.

“What happened?” Shady Blossom asked her husband and tore her gaze away from the small mirror she had been straightening her mane in.

“You were thrashing in your sleep. Sweetie ran to get me, and by the time I got there, you had started screaming.” Barry pulled her close to him.

Allowing herself a nuzzle against him, she shivered. “I’m sorry. I just...”

“Shh, it’s okay,” Barry muttered, but his eyes belied his calm. He didn’t say anything else, but Shady knew her husband well enough by now. There was only so much that muscle and courage could do.

Shady nuzzled him again, rubbing up against his neck. “Thank you. I’m glad you’re here for me.” If pulling together helped him feel like he was helping, then she would pull together. There was a certain irony to finding comfort in helping someone else find that same contentment in succoring you. Gathering herself, she smiled up at him through the curtain of her mane with a coquettish look. “You’ll always be my hero.”

Barry snorted, but kissed her all the same.

The next phase of normality involved going out and facing her family. No words were exchanged at first, but none needed to be. No pony begrudged her little panic attack, after all, and their concerned looks were blunted by her facade of good cheer and purpose. Darkened windows and moonlit halls lent very little light to the apartment on their own, and so somepony had gone and lit a few candles around the dining area rather than turn all of the lights on. To the ponies huddled on the couch, it lent a warm glow that forgave little imperfections like tear-streaked faces.

Shady Blossom walked into the kitchenette and pulled down a pan. “Would anypony care for something to eat?”

Glancing out at the still-dark sky, Applejack shrugged and looked over at the fillies.

“Well, I’m not getting any sleep for a bit.” Sweetie Belle grimaced.

“Sure, then, I could use a bite. Need any help?” Applejack asked.

“No, no, just set the table up,” Shady Blossom said. “I can handle it.”

When she took on the Oranges’ kitchenette—finding it stocked well for haute cuisine if a bit bare of raw ingredients—that was another step to normalcy. Some eggs, cream, peppers, chopped onions, tomato, and liberal dashes of the Oranges’ spices made for generous helpings of omelettes, which sizzled satisfyingly in cast iron skillets. By the time she slid them onto the dining room table, she felt almost like herself again.

“Never thought I’d see this kinda food on this table.” Applejack let her loosened hair fall across the back of her chair. She poked at the omelette in front of her. “I’m half expectin’ Aunt Orange to break through the door and call it an abomination.”

“Then we can feed her one of them and watch her entire life crumble.” Lin Seed stuffed her face. “Soh goofd.”

“I’d have a go at you for insultin’ our absent hosts, but I’m gonna have to agree with that.” Barry Seed chuckled as he ate.

The four fillies had snarfed down their breakfast almost as fast as it had been put down, and the Crusaders were now at the penthouse window, pressing their faces to the glass and staring down at the city far below. Its glittering lights almost reflected the sky above, the hallmark of a sleepless city.

Glancing back from them, Shady Blossom smiled wanly at Applejack. “I guess you’ll be wanting to get them back, soon, hmm?”

“Well, actually.” Applejack nibbled at her own omelette. “When I messaged Rarity, she told me she was coming for Sweetie Belle herself. Normally, I’d tell her to give me a break, but she pointed out that if somepony really wanted to get at us, they’d hit us somewhere really vulnerable, like a train in transit, where there weren’t nothin’ we could do about it.”

“Do you think she’s bringing in your friends?” Lin Seed asked, eyes wide.

“Dunno. Wouldn’ put it past her.” Applejack shrugged. “Maybe she wants to bring more than that.”

There was a longer silence as Applejack finished her food. After she had eaten, she pushed her plate away and turned towards Shady Blossom. “So I don’ suppose we could get an explanation? You were out talkin’ to that detective pony for a good long time.”

Shady Blossom turned her head to stare meaningfully at the children.

Applejack waved a hoof. “They’re gonna hear it anyway. Better they hear it now, from you, rather than some garbled eavesdropping attempt or a secondhoof account.”

There was a sucking noise as the girls peeled their faces off the glass, turning and gazing up at Shady Blossom. They watched her with their ears cupped forward intently.

Reluctantly, Shady nodded. “I’m not sure I really approve, but... all right.” Taking a breath, she launched into her account. It came a little easier than it had the night before. Talking about it the first time had evidently helped get the weight of it off her back. She omitted very little, careful to leave out the names and some of the unnecessary details that might potentially scare children. Of course, she needn’t have bothered—if anything, the uglier details seemed to excite the girls more, if the way their eyes gleamed was any gauge.

Barry, who had heard none of this before last night, leaned back on his chair with a heavy settling of wood. Lin Seed simply blanched, her face going ashen once more as she contemplated the possibility of an entire group of ponies who might wish harm on others.

Applejack in particular looked incensed, her brows furrowed and the muscles of her neck tight. “Are you tellin’ me I busted my behind freein’ Princess Luna from her thousand-year curse and there’s these ponies runnin’ around who think the whole Nightmare Moon bit was s’posed to be a good thing? Don’t they know everlastin’ night would—”

“—kill every pony in the world and then some?” Shady Blossom said, and Applejack nodded. “Yeah, that part never made sense to me. Not that any of it ever made sense to me. I don’t understand how a pony can go so wrong.”

“There’s always been criminals and such.” Applejack shook her head and glowered out the window. “I guess an impressionable pony hearing the wrong sort of thing at the wrong time can have an effect.”

“But why would they wanna hurt you?” Apple Bloom came up to Shady’s chair and planted her forelegs on the mare’s side.

Picking her up in her forehooves and smoothing her mane, Shady sighed. “Before I moved out here to Manehattan, before I met your uncle, I lived in Canterlot. Well, above it. My family had a little cloud house. My mother was on the weather team; Father was a Night Guard for Celestia, one of the few in those days. I had a bunch of little siblings who adored me, and we all lived together in harmony.”

After the events of last night, it all felt so strangely distant to her. That intrusion had shot a lightning bolt through her and left her complacency in ashes. The memories of her family were seen as through a pane of soot-stained glass, cloudy and indistinct. They may as well have belonged to someone else, a set of photographic plates she could hold up to the light and see through a glass dimly some other pony’s life. It only made her want to clutch at her new family all the more tightly.

“But... you don’t have people,” Lin Seed said quietly. It was an awkward question at the best of times and, coming from her, it could easily have been an accusation. At one point, it might have been. Today, however, her face held nothing but worry. “Did these Order ponies... do something to them?”

“They did.” Shady Blossom let Apple Bloom down, which was just as well, because her forehooves had burned and ache again to the point where even resting them against her skin felt like agony. Her head pounded as intense memories crowded against her consciousness. Colors in the room began to bleed, one into the other, as her vision came unfocused...

I couldn’t stop the fire. Nothing worked. Water only made it hotter. Wind only fanned it further. Red and unnatural under the evening stars, it consumed the cloud substance of my home as I screamed. The Mare in the Moon watched the scene from above the clouds, pitilessly. Hot wind blew my mane back as I dropped the bucket and let it plummet to the earth below. I was heedless of anything but the sight in front of me.

Desperate, I dove into the smoke and crashed through a window. I choked and coughed, searching. I had to find them—I had to!

There. In the hall. They were lined up, beneath the banner, tied together. The flames licked at the walls, making them sag and drip. The banner of the crescent moon swallowed the sun. My own voice tore at my skull, my mind unwilling, uncomprehending. I tried to reach them, but the fire was so hot. I reached forward, and the coat on my forelegs burst into flame; the hooves cracked and ran like wax...

For the second time that morning, Shady Blossom jerked, freeing herself of a terrible dream. She looked up at the others, then down again, studying the white, bubbled scar lines on her hooves and ankles. From the way they were aching and throbbing painfully, it was as if the alchemical fires that had inflicted them were still burning.

She became aware of Lin Seed’s and Sweetie Belle’s sobbing, and a horrible sinking feeling settled into Shady’s gut. Evidently, she had just unintentionally narrated her own thoughts.

Rising from his seat, Barry Seed came over to her at once, closing her up in his hooves again. His mouth opened, and then snapped shut. “Why?” he asked, though to whom or about what Shady could not have said.

Applejack stared at Shady for a long while—Shady might have expected her to be angry for frightening the foals, but she did not see any of that on her face. Seeing her aunt have such a public breakdown couldn’t have been any easier for her than it was for Barry. Trauma is never pretty.

“I’m sorry.” Shady shut her eyes. “I’m sorry for ruining your vacation, girls. I’m sorry, everypony.”

“It isn’t your fault. When ponies do bad things, it’s on them, not on their victims,” Barry said with quiet fervency.

“I should have been better prepared.”

Barry shook his head. “For what? Y’said it yourself. Luna put a stop to all that foolishness, or you and she and everypony who knew about it thought so.”

“Dad’s right, Shady.” Lin reached over to cover her stepmother’s hooves with her own. Her eyes were puffy, but she wasn’t crying any more. “There was nothing you could do to anticipate this.”

Letting her shoulders slump, Shady reluctantly had to admit that it did seem silly and foalish to blame herself for the attack. Shaking the feeling that there was more she should have done was difficult, however. At the very least, she could try to prepare for the future.

Banishing the cloud of ill thoughts from her mind, she forced a smile for the benefit of the others. “I suppose you and the girls are still my guests, Applejack. As long as you’re here, I don’t think... I don’t think we should let somepony terrorize us.”

“That’s my girl.” Barry tightened his forelegs about her.

“I can get behind that.” Applejack nodded. “What didja have in mind?”

“Well,” Shady said, looking down at the girls, “I seem to recall some ponies I know talking about opening up a chapter of their club here in Manehattan. It would be a shame if they missed out on that. And, you know, while we have a police escort anyway, it might be nice to lend a little air of officiality.”

Four sets of eyes widened, and Applejack laughed.

“Oh dear.” Lin Seed covered her mouth. “Are you sure it’s all right to encour—”

“Cutie Mark Crusaders Clubhouse opening, yay!” The windows rattled in their casings at the shout.

Just as they were cleaning up and preparing to go back to bed, however, a buzz came at the door. The adults exchanged looks, and Lin Seed moved to grab the Crusaders before any of them could rush for the door. Shady slotted her children into her foal carriers and waited by the window, while Applejack and Barry went to the door. Barry stood to one side with his shod hooves ready and Applejack peeked through the eyehole.

“It’s the detective,” she hissed. They all relaxed a little, though they remained in their positions until Applejack had opened the door and the trenchcoat-wearing mare had stepped into the apartment, then they moved around the table to greet her.

“Good evening, Detective.” Shady slid her sleepy babies onto the couch and sat with them nestled against her side.

Petite Noir nodded, setting her hat down on the table. “I’m sorry for intruding at this hour. I had a squad of pegasi sent to the hotel you mentioned right after our conversation, but it seems the fire department beat them to it. Star Gazer’s room was firebombed shortly before your house was hit.”

There was a collective gasp. Lin Seed stared at her, scuffing her hoof. “So this Star Gazer mare didn’t attack us?”

“I didn’t say that.” Noir shook her head, turning to face the family. “Point of fact, neither her nor anything belonging to her was found in the hotel room. The night clerk said she’d left in a hurry not long before the attack. We’ll be questioning train staff, but most likely she either fled cross-country or remained in the city. What we did find is something we identified tentatively as the Banner of the Night strung up over her bed.”

“Their banner.” Shady swallowed. A cold pit settled deep in her stomach, and she stared out the windows, wondering if she could spot anything. Her forehoof went around Hop and Dandelion, holding them close.

Noir nodded. “The fire was started in the living room, over a pile of furniture. There were a lot of warped metal pieces there we might be able to make something out of, but if there were incriminating papers, identifying clothing, or other material there, it’s doubtful we’ll be able to extricate it.”

“I’ll guess the papers noticed, then,” Barry said.

“Not much we could do about that. Two thestral-related attacks in the same night? It’ll be in the morning print. For the next few days, I’ll be surprised if I don’t see most thestrals in groups of two or more everywhere they go. Present company excluded.” Noir grimaced and shook her head. “I’ve managed to keep you and yours out of the paper so far, but it may only be a matter of time until somepony talks. In the mean, I’ve assigned some MPD cops to protect you around the clock. Try and work with them.”

“I should take a couple days off.” Barry grumbled. “Hopefully they won’t run the place into the ground while I’m gone.”

“Thank you, Detective,” Shady said. “Can we help you with anything else?”

“No, ma’am, I think that’s about it. Have a good night.” Petite Noir took her hat and stepped back out. The family stewed on the information in silence.

That night, there wasn’t much sleep to be had for anypony.

* * *

Under the awning behind a bustling deli, Babs Seed glared at the rain. There was very little rain—indeed, it was really little more than a sporadic drizzle—but it evidently earned a scowl nonetheless. Her short tail flicked back and forth, twitching in an arrhythmic pattern. Watching her from steps leading up the back of the building, Shady Blossom bit into a sandwich. Above her, the sounds of moving furniture echoed out of an open door leading into the second floor space. Sweetie Belle popped out long enough to sweep the entryway with her tail before hopping back in.

“It’s just a little sprinkle. They’ll be here.” Shady Blossom stuck a wing out, letting a few droplets catch on the leathery surface. Though she could not recall ever having joined her mother in her weather patrol duties, she had still been the beneficiary of enough pegasus education to make an educated guess about the weather’s probable course. “It’s going to let up in a few minutes, anyway. I can feel the pressure shifting.”

“That’s not gonna help, Mom!” Babs pointed a hoof at the sky. “No pony’s gonna come out in the rain! They’re probably all still at home or somethin’.” She plopped her head down on her forelegs, blowing hair out of her eyes. “Probably didn’t want to come anyway.”

“That’s just nerves talking, Babs.” Shady reached down to ruffle her daughter’s mane and smooth it back. “It’s still a little early yet. Why don’t you go practice with the girls?”

“I already practiced, for, like, hours!” As usual, Babs pushed her mane back, which caused it to fall over her eyes again. “Dunno how I ever thought I could do this. Must be crazy.”

“It’s just for a few of your friends. You can handle talking to ponies, Babs. Well, that and a hippogriff.” Shady giggled. “You know, how did you let him know where we were?”

“Sweetie Belle’s got some cards Rarity made for her in her cape; she slipped him one before we ran off.” Babs frowned more deeply. “It isn’t just that though, Mom. Some of them said they’d bring their friends.”

“I’d think that’s a good thing. Wasn’t your club supposed to be about helping ponies feel like they belong?”

“Well, sure, but shucks, Mom, what the heck do I know about running a club?” Babs lifted her head to meet Shady’s eyes. “It’ll be a lot of foals lookin’ to me for what to do.” Her foot stuck on one corner of her cape—which had come askew—and tipped her off balance. Babs landed in a heap, looking decidedly miffed as she glowered out at the offending sky. The clouds had already begun to clear, and the lot behind the deli gleamed with shiny wetness in the renewed sunlight.

Laughing quietly, Shady bent down and fixed Babs’s cape, cinching it a little tighter about her daughter’s neck. “Come on, now. Is that the sort of attitude you gave those bullies? I heard about how you dealt with those fillies from Ponyville. You have activities planned, your friends from Ponyville are here to help, and you’re the toughest, bravest girl in the city.”

Babs blushed and pressed herself into Shady’s side. “It isn’t that easy, Mom. They were just some stupid kids who were buggin’ my friends. This is a whole bunch of ponies lookin’ up to me!”

Considering Babs for a moment, Shady smiled, resting a hoof on her back. “Do you want me to tell you a secret?”

Babs nodded, and lifted her ears to listen.

“I was a terrible actor at first. That part isn’t the secret, so much—most ponies are rubbish when they first start out, unless they have a natural inclination. I didn’t really hit my stride until a few months in, when I got my first real break in a speaking role and nailed it.” Shady glanced up over her daughter, looking nowhere in particular. “The thing I haven’t really told anypony is that acting, for me, was a way to get away from myself.”

Babs gaped. “I thought you liked acting! You wanted to be famous and stuff. And what do you mean by gettin’ away from yourself?”

“Of course, eventually I wanted those things. Once I’d tasted a little success, it was hard to go back.” Shady smiled ruefully. “The thing is, though, for a good chunk of my career, acting was like one long scene of me running away. Every role I took was a new attempt to bury myself in a part.”

“But why? I don’t get it.”

“You never wondered why I didn’t just take up gardening in Canterlot?” Shady asked. “I tried that for a while, but it was... hard. Everywhere I went, there was always something reminding me of what had happened there. My hooves took years to heal right, too, and so I spent a lot of time in bed or a wheelchair. Making funny voices and trying technique with the other patients in the hospital gave me something to do.” Brushing back Babs’s mane again, she sighed. “When I was pretending to be somepony else, it became easier to put aside my real feelings for a bit. It got to the point where I didn’t even want to use my cutie mark for a while, because of how painful it was. It was like they’d taken who I was, and I was just living a lie, so pretending to be somepony else was a blessing.”

Babs lapsed into silence, listening. Her eyes searched her mother’s face, though they glanced briefly down towards the scars on Shady’s limbs.

“It would have been horribly cliche if your father entering the picture had been enough to complete my life, and if I had been the pony I was at the beginning of my career, that might have been the case. When my identity was stripped from me with my family, I wanted to crawl up on a cloud and just hide until I felt better again.” Shady exhaled heavily. “Instead, though, I’d managed to make a new purpose for myself by expressing a creative outlet I didn’t know I had in me. Being a leader isn’t unlike being an actor, Babs—you convince others that you know what you’re doing, and, even if you really don’t at first or find that it’s hard to stage it, you discover that, over time, you become accustomed to it. Leaders grow into their roles.”

“So you’re sayin’ I’m gonna do a terrible job and everypony’s gonna be there to see it?” Babs asked, but it was with a sly look.

Laughing, Shady rubbed her mane. “Yes! It’s okay, though, because they won’t really care after a few weeks. You just have to do the best you can and keep trying to do better. Besides, look at it this way...”

“Yeah?” Babs’s ears cupped forward.

“Getting your cutie mark is a part of your identity. It’s finding out who you are and where you belong in the world. Part of what helped me to feel less like my life was just a lie after the attack was when I found somepony very special to care for.” Shady bent down to nuzzle at Babs. “In a very real sense, you helped me find who I was again, and so you can count one success to your scoreboard already, as far as I’m concerned.”

Babs’s freckled cheeks rosied and she squirmed, scuffing her hooves awkwardly. “Mooom, don’t get all mushy.”

“You’re my little girl; I’ll be however mushy I like.” Shady giggled. Glancing across the field, she saw a pair of heads poking around a red brick corner, and then a pair of young foals stepped out before nervously stopping. Above her, in the loft, Applejack and Apple Bloom hung a banner against the window overlooking the lot, one depicting a rearing caped foal that was picked out in yellow thread against a blue background.

“Show time, Babs.” Shady pushed her daughter forward.

Babs took a deep breath. When she let it out, she lidded her eyes and put on a cocksure smile that creased her freckled face. Her father couldn’t have done it better. “Hey! You! You here for the Cutie Mark Crusaders?” she called.

“Uh...” One of them, a black-coated unicorn filly, gave a hesitant nod.

“Great!” Trotting over, Babs hooked the two foals in her forelegs. “I’m Babs Seed, and this here’s our club house! You’re Gee’s friends, right? Where’s she at?”

“Well, ah, she kinda sorta, uh...” The filly glanced away. “Got her cutie mark yesterday.”

The other, a green pegasus foal, nodded vigorously. “Yeah, her horn just went whoosh! Then she flew up into the air. Her folks got a letter from Fillydelphia saying she’d gone and gotten her cutie mark.”

“Well! That’s great for her.” Babs grinned broadly. “You stick with me, you’ll be just like her.”

“What, flung into the sky?”

“No, you’ll get your Cutie Marks!”

Rising, Shady Blossom strode up into the clubhouse. Within, bunting hung from the ceiling, softening what had been rough corners, and a podium had been set up at the end of the main room in front of dozens of little cushions. Applejack took down an Orange family emblem off a door leading into a kitchen and tossed it into a box with the health code certification and the other few remaining signs that had come with the place.

From the front balcony, a pair of uniformed officers were pushing in through the door, tucking their wings up as they entered. Shady Blossom trotted over. “Hello, officers.” She smiled at their chaperones. The two policeponies, a pegasus mare and stallion, glanced up at her approach. “Just got back from your patrol?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The mare offered Shady Blossom a friendly, if professional, smile.

Shady shuffled her wings. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about... about Star Gazer, have you?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, we haven’t been informed of any developments yet.” The stallion gave her a sympathetic look. He then glanced past her, taking in the decorations.

Glancing past Shady Blossom as well, the mare waved a hoof. “Nice little setup your kids have here. What is this, anyway?”

“Oh.” Shady Blossom laughed, turning aside so they could see the banner reading “Cutie Mark Crusaders” behind the podium. “This is my daughter’s clubhouse. Her friends from Ponyville formed a club a couple years back for young foals without their special talents to get together and socialize. They try different activities and try to find where they belong in society. This annex was donated by our cousins

“That sounds adorable.” The policemare grinned. She doffed her cap and straightened her braided blue mane as she took in the sight.

The stallion chuckled. “I can certainly sympathize. Took me a long time to find my talent. Might have been nice to share the blank years with other foals.”

“I’ve got a little sister who is despairing of ever finding hers. Maybe I’ll suggest this to her.” The mare glanced over at her partner. “You know, we’re supposed to be watching over them anyway.”

“Hmm? Did you have something in mind, Jay?”

“Why don’t we make this look a little more official for them, Surf?” Jay waved a hoof in the direction of the audience. “A little MPD escort.”

Surf pursed his lips, glancing back outside. “We’re kind of on duty.”

“We’ll still be on duty. Everypony we’re protecting is going to be in here for a while, and it won’t be all that long. We can go on patrol right after, and the foals’ll love it.” Jay beamed.

“Well.” Surf fiddled with his cap for a minute before nodding. “All right.”

Shady laughed as she walked back across the room with them. “Thank you. My daughter’s going to be thrilled.”

More foals trickled in throughout the morning. Some of them had parents in tow, others older siblings, while most simply came on their own four feet. All of the young ponies were in awe of the sight, as if they’d never even heard of a clubhouse before. The two officers of the law were standing at attention by the podium, as though they were flanking the mayor, and foals sitting closest were gaping. Even the young hippogriff colt made an appearance, an imposing griffin carrying him in on her back from the balcony .

“Shucks, she’s a sight bigger than the last griffin I saw. Her stallion’s gotta be one tough pony,” Applejack observed, watching the pair come in as she and Shady set out snacks. Applejack turned a skeptical eye towards the wagon they had brought for supplies—they had already dwindled their stocks down to almost nothing.

“You never know. Maybe she likes the quiet, bookish type?” Shady Blossom giggled. Her eyes tracked to the balcony. Designed for pegasi and other airborne races to land on, it was a convenient way for many second-story establishments to attract clientele. Theirs was modest, though many places uptown, particularly those catering specifically to pegasi, had lavishly decorated balconies that were like little foyers. For some reason, though, Shady Blossom felt as though there should be curtains to draw across it at that moment. The great big windows on either side of the building made it seem terribly exposed.

There came a tug at her mane, and she looked down to find Babs staring up at her. “Mom? I’m, uh, goin’ up now. Wish me luck?”

Beaming, Shady nuzzled her daughter. She did it quickly and surreptitiously, so the filly wouldn’t feel embarrassed at such a critical moment. “Knock ’em dead, honey.”

Swallowing past a lump in her throat, Babs trotted across the back of the room, passing her friends from Ponyville, who were sitting at a table with forms, capes, and patches laid out in front of them. She surmounted the podium and stared out.

The room was filled. The clubhouse had smaller rooms that were open, but no one wanted to stay where they might miss something. The cushions had two to three foals each, and chaperones hung out in the back. They all quieted as Babs rose up, looking towards her expectantly.

Apple Bloom mouthed to Babs, “Hit it!” Babs remained silent, however, eyes wide.

Sweetie Belle tugged on her mane, as if trying to hide herself behind her own curls.

Scootaloo, grinning suddenly, banged her hooves on the desk like it was a drum set. The remaining whispers died down, and Babs gave Apple Bloom a quick, uncertain look. Whatever passed between them seemed to do the job, because when Babs straightened she had on the confident, self-assured look she’d taken when first welcoming ponies to the clubhouse.

Rising up on her rear hooves, she took in the room. “Welcome to the grand opening of the Cutie Mark Crusaders Manehattan Chapter!”

* * *

The pot of water glared balefully back at Shady Blossom. It just wouldn’t boil, no matter how long she left it on the stove. She checked again, but the flames were definitely rising from the gas cooker, coating the bottom of the pot in blue fire.

There was a strange sound upstairs, a hissing, gurgling noise. Preoccupied by the dinner, Shady called to her husband. “Barry, can you check the pipes? I think they’re acting up.”

Barry cocked an ear. “Are you sure? I don’t hear anything.”

“I think they are. Be a dear.”

“Your wish is my command.” He offered a grin as he rose and started upstairs.

Hop Seed started to bang his hooves on his high chair, and the water was still refusing to boil. Exasperated, she turned. “Lin, could you calm your baby brother down, he...”

Shady stared. Sand, coarse and black, was pouring down the stairs. It hissed softly as it cascaded down, the grains running over the top of one another as they started to fill the room. Barry pushed his way downstairs through the dry mass, paying it no heed as he joined Lin Seed at the table. Far from panicking, Lin was stroking Hop’s mane, soothing him, while Babs read her homework at her end of the table.

“Barry, what’s going on up there?” Shady demanded. Outside the windows, sand was falling in great clumps, then waterfalls. The kitchen continued to fill.

“Hmm? Oh, I checked, didn’t see anything offhoof.” Barry shrugged. “I’ll give it a more thorough look later, might have to call a plumber if it’s bad.”

“Can’t you all see what’s happening?” Shady gaped at the sand pouring into her house. “We have to get out of here!”

“What’s up, Mom?” Babs looked up at her. She didn’t even seem to notice as a tide of black sand swept up against her chair. Barry was walking through some of it on his way to the cupboard. A wave of sand flooded out of the compartment, and yet he simply pushed through it to reach for the coffee within.

“The sand!” Shady shouted. She dove, picking Hop Seed up, but the kitchen was nearly full already and no pony was moving. Shady stared with a look of utter incomprehension as her family looked at her as if she was crazy, trying to go on about their day even while they were buried, no matter that they were becoming sluggish and unresponsive.

With a final sob, Shady turned to the window. Outside, she could just make out the presence of a tall, dark blue figure. Hoping she wouldn’t hit anypony, she bucked the window, shattering it into shards. She flew out, only to find that she was gazing right into the burning eyes of a mare garbed in black armor...

“Honey, honey!” Barry hissed, his voice low and urgent as he shook his wife awake.

“Barry?” Shady slurred as she came to. “Everypony’s in... danger...”

“We’re fine. It’s okay.” He stroked her tangled mane with one huge hoof as the other held her close against his chest.

Slowly, Shady started to realize that there was, in fact, no sand choking her; all she felt was the warm presence of her husband. He smelled of work—dirt, leaves, and flowers. For all that her husband was hopeless at growing things, he could move earth well enough, and if not him. then one of his staff did the actual planting. The smell meant he had been to work, and that brought her back to the here and now. “Dreaming?” She reached her hooves up to rub at her eyes. “I was… a nightmare.”

They were alone, for once, aside from Dandelion snoozing away in her crib. On this, the third day of their ordeal, the fillies had elected to sleep in their own bed. The Oranges’ master bedroom seemed almost too spacious to Shady Blossom just then. She felt keenly the minor separation from her family members. That same sense of exposure she had felt in the clubhouse was back in full measure, and her hooves throbbed painfully.

“How are you feelin’?” Barry Seed kept his voice low. They had been lucky not to wake the baby when he called her out of her dream, and parents swiftly learned not to push that boundary.

Shady shook her head, pressing up against him as if to absorb herself into his substance entirely. “Terrible. Better, but still terrible.”

He didn’t respond, and Shady glanced up to see his broad face looking worn and even a little uncertain; the lines around his eyes had deepened. His whole body sagged into the bed as if a terrible weight had settled on his back.

“It’s not your fault, you know.” She reached up to run her hoof along his face.

Barry heaved a sigh, lowering his head. “Of course it isn’t my fault. Don’t mean I have to like it. I’ve got a wrecked home, a wife who has awful nightmares, and there isn’t a darned thing I can do about any of it.” He snorted. “Plenty not to like there, let me tell you.”

“Fair enough.” She turned to wrap a wing about him as she glanced at the wide windows. They were shaded, letting only the faint glow penetrate. This far up, sound did not really carry from the street below, and so the night was as silent as could be. They might as well have been living on a cloud to have such serenity.

Of course, if anything, living on a cloud would expose them more.

“I wonder if the pegasi patrol that window,” she mused aloud.

“Probably,” Barry muttered, distracted. As a long few minutes passed, he said, “There is one more thing. Minor, really. Well, no, not at all.”

“Spit it out already, love.”

Barry eased her up in bed, with her mane falling over her side. “You know, you’re absolutely beautiful.”

“Flattering, but also not the point.” She giggled. “You aren’t trying to butter me up for a roll in the hay, are you?”

“No!” Barry protested. “Well, yes, but for a purpose.” He took a deep breath. “I want to have another foal.”

Shady’s mouth worked silently for a moment before she could respond. “Barry, I... I mean... a foal? Again?”

“We’ve been talking about it.” He rubbed a hoof behind his head. “Well, we were talking about it. I know, I don’t want to pressure you, but we said we’d talk about this after Dandelion’s birthday and it’s been a couple months now.”

“Is this really the time?” Shady lowered her eyes. “Another foal, right now?”

“Well, maybe not right now, but we could at least start trying.” He rested a hoof against her side. “You’ve said before you wouldn’t mind another. Always wanted a big family, right?”

“Barry...” Shady sighed, pulling her forelegs about herself. “I don’t know any more. It’s... this, it’s all this.”

“Didn’t you say yourself that we shouldn’t let this keep us from living our lives?”

“I did, I know what I said,” Shady said. That indefinable sense of exposure was, if anything, getting worse. She tightened her grip about herself, and Barry watched helplessly. “It just doesn’t feel right for me to... to bring life into the world.”

“I don’t understand.” Barry put his hooves around her. “We’ve already had two beautiful children.”

Shady sniffled, pulling deeper into her husband’s arms, her breath coming faster even as she started to cry. “I just don’t feel like I can any more. I’ve been... I’ve been thinking about my family a lot, my old family, and I just don’t know if I want to bring another pony into the world who might have to face that kind of horror. Hop and Dandelion are already being threatened, and what they might have to grow up facing.”

Pulling his legs tighter about her, Barry nuzzled at her mane. “If that was a reason not to have kids, no one would have families at all, love. I know you’re scared, but I’m not going to shy away from living my life the way it should be lived, just because some ponies can’t get with the times.”

“I... I just...” Shady drew a shuddering breath. “It’s easy to pretend I’m not scared in front of the kids, but I am. Every day we go out there—”

“Shh,” Barry hushed her gently, stroking her hair. He turned her face up and kissed her softly. “It’s okay. Forget I asked, I was just… I want us to be a happy family.”

Once Shady’s tears dried, and her breathing slowed, she rubbed at her face. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the same girl you married. I’ve felt so weak since the attack...”

“You’re my flower, no matter what anyone says or does. It’s just shaken you up.” Barry frowned slightly. “Though I wish you had told me about what happened to your family.”

“Sorry. Again.” Shady wormed deeper into his embrace. “I wouldn’t say I forgot, just... it never seemed like the right time. How do you even broach that topic?” Exhaling, Shady closed her eyes. “Maybe... maybe when this is all over we can talk about growing the family more. I know how much it means to you, and I... I do want to go on living. It’s just... so hard, sometimes.”

Barry nudged her and lay his head on top of her. “You call the shots there. I’m just here to help.”

Shady tucked her head under his. “Mmhmm, and you will face that harsh duty with stern resolve?”

“Darned straight.”

Shady giggled, but her eyes searched the windows past her husband’s shoulder. Shadows seemed to loom in the dark, between the slats of the blinds. A second glance proved that it had been her imagination, a trick of the light.

* * *

The markets uptown bustled with life and noise. Here, near the beating heart of Manehattan, ponies didn’t stop for anything, plowing through any tourist foolish enough to stand still too long on the sidewalks. The markets themselves had just about anything a pony could dream of. Spices and exotic wares shipped in from across the seas. Products from every corner of Equestria in such abundance that even Applejack had to admit that the Ponyville market seemed bare by comparison. Taxis careened wildly along the street, cutting across lanes to pull up to waving passersby. Applejack had to dive to pull Apple Bloom out of the way when one cab flew across a corner, bouncing up onto the sidewalk, and shouted at the mare hitched in front.

“Ya crazy nut! Where’d ya learn to drive?”

“I didn’t,” the mare responded, “it’s a gift!” A pony in a top hat dove into her cab, and she took off at once, zipping down the street. Shady shook her head and laughed before turning towards Applejack.

“Where else could a pony find a set of top-quality farm tools forged by griffin claws, just a few hoofsteps away from your favorite apple cinnamon tarts?” Shady Blossom prodded her niece in the ribs.

“In a few business days? My barn,” Applejack said, before taking up a pen and writing her address down on a card attached to the boxed-up tools.

“Fair enough.” Shady glanced over at the girls, who were sitting in on a street performance. A pair of minotaurs were putting on a puppet show featuring a green dragon and an army of armored pegasi. “It’s a shame we can’t afford to let them out of our sight now. Manehattan isn’t an unsafe place for foals.”

Applejack gave the sky a stony look. “Sure is when there’s a crazed evil cultist on the loose.”

Shady Blossom’s ears twitched, and she glanced around, almost as if expecting to see a dark streak in the sky. A thestral in broad daylight would have been easy to spot, however, especially against the griffins and brightly colored pegasi who winged their way overhead between the tall buildings. Still, her eyes lingered on the gargoyles and statues and flagpoles looming from above, where somepony might hide from the ground if they were careful enough.

“Ain’t gonna jump us now. Probably.” Applejack placed a hoof on Shady’s back.

“Yeah, well... can’t hurt to be too careful. Actually,” Shady said, taking a look at one of the shops nearby, “let’s go take care of something while we’re here.”

“What’s that?” Applejack trotted by her side. Jaybird and Surfline, the two pegasus officers—who were presently out of uniform to blend in—settled down to earth, with the former landing by the fillies and the other alighting at the entrance of the shop. The shop itself was a quaint little ground-level store, the lighting intentionally dim to put the incense-scented, dark wooden-furnished inside to best effect.

Applejack scrunched up her face, evidently at the pungent odors wafting out. “Is this an herb shop?”

“Indeed.” Shady nodded towards the rows of bottles containing powders, liquids, pickled ingredients, and more lining the shop’s exterior and interior partitions. An elderly earth pony was mixing ingredients in a mortar for a waiting stallion, his grey beard stained and shriveled from being held too close to flame. His eye wandered, lingering a little too close to her and Applejack’s thighs for comfort. “More of an alchemy shop, really.”

“What’re you lookin’ for?” Applejack went over to a bowl of speckled eggs and frowned down at them.

“Just some things.” Shady began to peruse the shelves. “When they came against my family last time, well... they used some fairly nasty potions.”

“How do you know what you might need to counter, though?” Applejack was about to reach for a jar of what looked to be fermented lizard skins—Shady identified them at once by their discoloration—before the owner’s glare warned her off. “I mean, there could be a dozen, a hundred possible things you’d have to try and prepare for.”

“Yeah, but some things never change. Poison, fire, explosives,” Shady said in a grim tone, selecting a few bottles from the shelves.

Applejack blanched. Following Shady around the shop, she asked, “All right, I s’pose if’n you know what you’re doin’. Where’d you learn alchemy, though?”

“Cooking, sort of.” Shady piled the bottles on the counter to wait for the owner to finish with the other customer. “My mom taught me.”

“Warn’t she a weatherpony?” Applejack frowned.

“Yes,” Shady said, nodding, “but she had other skills. Thestrals don’t really visit day pony villages very often, so we kind of had to be self-sufficient. If somepony breaks a tooth the day after the weekly food run, it becomes a big hassle to go back down to the earth to pick up a tooth-growing potion.”

“Still seems a mite paranoid, but it is yer family after all,” Applejack said. “Our family, really.”

“What happened before won’t happen again. I won’t let it,” Shady muttered.

The alchemist exchanged bits with the stallion and came over to join them, adjusting his spectacles. Once again, his eyes lingered on them in a fashion Shady found off-puttingly forward. “My, what have we here? A pair of pretty mares, and—ah... what have we here?” The second time around, the question sounded a lot more sincere as he examined the powders and flowers and more that Shady had collected.

“I’m making a few potions.” She tapped the counter with a bag of bits and pushed her irritation with his gaze aside.

“You’re making a few gallons of potions, from the looks of it.” His eyebrows raised. “Young mare, you know that many of these are exceedingly toxic, yes?”

“I’m familiar with all of the contents, yes.” Shady Blossom’s eyes tightened at the questioning. It seemed to her that his eyes roamed just a little too much. The thought occurred that, perhaps, he wasn’t merely ogling them, but had something to hide, and she allowed herself to glance around, to see if perhaps somepony was hiding in the shadows. “I’m making some antipoisons, among other things.”

“Well, if you’re going that route, why don’t you try a little jack’o’wisps; it’ll counteract a huge variety of—” He reached to a shelf and put a jar by the others, only to leap back when Shady Blossom slammed both of her hooves into the counter, rattling the bottles.

“It also causes blindness, loss of coordination, and acute respiratory problems in subjects with weak constitutions! On a foal, it could seal their lungs shut in sufficient concentration! Are you trying to kill my children?” Shady shouted at him with her wings flared.

Stunned, Applejack and the apothecary were both silent, watching Shady snort. “I di-didn’t,” the stallion stammered. “I mean—tiny, insignificant doses...”

“For Luna’s sake, I’m trying to protect my family! Just who are you working with, huh? I’ll—”

“Enough!” Applejack shouted, and shook the entire store with a stomp of her hooves. “Take whatcha need, pay the stallion, and leave, Shady. What in tarnation has gotten into you?”

For a moment, Shady herself wasn’t sure. Staring at the stallion, and then at Applejack, it seemed to her that she should have been angry for some reason. It was as though somepony had pulled a cork out and let all of the emotion drain out, so suddenly it left her feeling drained and dizzy.

Sliding away from the counter, she looked, and saw that she had collected a frankly enormous stack of ingredients. Bottles and boxes were stacked two rows deep and three rows high. Most of them weren’t even safe to store without great care, let alone use in any setting short of a full alchemical workshop. Gently, she divided the stack, taking only a few bottles which would serve for magical fire suppression and a few more for a variety of antipoisons—including a small box of jack’o’wisps she pulled from a nearby shelf. With the stallion still quivering, she weighed them herself on the scale, put a stack of gold bits on the counter, added a few with an apologetic glance, and went to the door with Applejack on her heels.

Jaybird had stepped in, her eyes wary. She looked to Applejack and Shady Blossom with a quirked brow, and Applejack shook her head. “Weren’t nothin’, just a temper flare.”

Though her face appeared skeptical, the policemare looked around anyway, but didn’t see any damage. The apothecary had fled behind the counter, and did not pipe up, not that he would have been likely to recognize an officer out of uniform in any event. “You all right?” she asked Shady Blossom, who nodded quickly. Then she stepped outside, returning to scanning the sky.

“Feelin’ a little frayed?” Applejack asked once they were outside.

“More than a little.” Shady tried to remember just what it was that she had been feeling. It wasn’t really anger, precisely. “More like... like everything is about to fall apart, and I need to fix it.”

“Sweet jackrabbits, Shady, y’can’t go around shoutin’ at folks like that because you’re scared.” Applejack sighed, patting her back with a hoof. “Not that I need to tell ya.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I should have told him I was sorry.”

“Well, he sure won’ give a mare’s thighs the eye ever again, that’s for sure.”

Shady Blossom giggled, a little unwillingly. As if to punctuate the point, a colt in a newscap was standing atop a pile of papers and shouting, “Extree, extree! Read all about it! Mysterious arsonist burns thestral-owned business!”

Shady’s eyes darkened, and her ears lay back. It seemed to her that the sunlight had turned harsh, and the shadows cast by the skyscrapers loomed ominously about her.

* * *

The morning of the day Rarity came to town held almost a festive air for the beleaguered family, one that was desperately needed. For the Ponyvillians, particularly Sweetie Belle, it was a joy to see somepony from home again. For Shady Blossom, it meant that the burden would be shared just a little more. As they had when Applejack and the Crusaders had arrived, the Seed family packed into the carriage and went down as a unit to Grand Central. Dandelion Seed had spent the previous evening dancing on the ceiling, and so she now wore a belt around her midsection with a leash attached to her big sister Lin.

“No, honey, you’ve already fed,” Shady Blossom protested, nudging Dandelion away from her with a hoof when the filly pawed at her belly. “I swear, you’re worse than your daddy.”

“Mom!” Lin Seed gasped. “Right in front of the... uhm...” Her eyes widened. Flushing and sputtering, she stammered, “I-I mean, Shady. That was, uhm. Crude.”

“See? I knew you’d come around eventually,” Sweetie Belle said as she popped her head up from between the seats.

“Sweetie!” Applejack called back from where she was pulling the carriage alongside her uncle. They were just now coming to a stop and freeing themselves from the harnesses. “Don’t you butt into other ponies’ business!”

“No, it’s all right.” Lin smiled awkwardly at Sweetie Belle. “It was a slip of the tongue, Sweetie. I don’t think of Shady as my mom. I never have.”

Sweetie blushed, her ears drooping.

“Don’t feel bad.” Shady popped the door open and let the girls spill out. She bent down and rubbed Sweetie Belle’s back. “It doesn’t hurt my feelings. Lin and I came to an understanding a while ago.”

“That’s right.” Lin nodded. “And, well... I’m sorry if it comes across as rude or callous to you. It’s not meant to be.”

“Doesn’t that get a little confusing?” Sweetie’s eyes were wide as she backed up to keep in front of the older ponies. “It’s like having two different ponies in the same house! One’s Babs’s mom, the other’s your stepmom.”

Shady laughed and turned Sweetie Belle around before she could plow into an elderly griffin on his way to feed the pigeons. “Not really. I can be ‘Mom’ to Babs and ‘Shady’ to Lin easily enough.”

“I, well...” Lin smiled at Shady. “In different circumstances, maybe we could have had a different relationship, you know?”

“You’re a teenager, it’s natural,” Barry Seed said as he joined his family. Unlike before, they had a policestallion to guard the carriage, and none of them felt like letting the kids go, so they all went as a unit. Dandelion flew down to Lin Seed’s head and started to gnaw on one of her ears enthusiastically. Hop, of course, went to sit on his customary place atop his father’s head.

“You were there for Babs Seed when she really needed it, though. When Mom, well...” she looked to the girls. “Babs needed somepony after that, and maybe I did, too. And you’re the mother of my other siblings, so that’s close enough. Ow, Dandy, stop it,” she whined, pulling the filly off her head. Dandelion went back to buzzing over their heads, staring wide-eyed at everything around her.

Sighing, Lin looked over at Shady Blossom. “I guess I mean to say that... that I do appreciate you. A lot.”

Shady wrapped her forelegs about the younger mare, who returned the embrace heartily. Sweetie Belle sniffled, rubbing her eyes.

Scootaloo fluttered her wings and landed on Applejack’s back. Her face scrunched up. “Yeah, yeah, enough mushy stuff. Let’s go!”

As they took the steps up into Grand Central Terminal, Shady found that their party was drawing a lot of stares. She knew that ponies were putting two and two together at seeing the thestral children and her walking alongside Barry. It was always a little sad to her—no wonder the hippogriff’s mother had looked so challenging.

Somehow, though, even without the stares, the station seemed more stifling to Shady than it had the last time she had visited. In objective terms, the press of ponies was no greater, but it seemed to her that, if anything, it held more dangers. Past the earth pony vendor selling clockwork toys, there was plenty of space for an assassin to hide among the boxes and hanging machinery. Up above, a whole wing of thestrals could be hiding behind the clocks hanging from the ceiling.

A whole wing of thestrals couldn’t hide from an entire station filled with ponies who can’t possibly mean you harm, she chided herself. Shaking the thoughts from her mind, she focused on locating the platform where Rarity’s train should be coming in within the next few minutes.

Shady was still trying to put aside the strange feeling that they were being watched, however, and an obscure noise she was picking up in one ear wasn’t helping her concentration. Shaking her head, she tried to clear her ears. “Wish they’d stop that buzzing,” she muttered. “It must drive everypony crazy.”

“What buzzin’?” Applejack asked, cocking her head.

Shady blinked, and glanced around. The sound was gone, as was the feeling.

“Glad to hear it,” Barry said, evidently in response to Applejack’s comment. No pony other than Applejack seemed to have heard Shady. “Will let us see each other a lot more often.”

Stopping by the tofu frier, Shady Blossom shook her head again. The vendor had to ask her order twice before she heard him.

“Twenty-one cubes,” she said, glancing at the squishy white blocks swimming in the bubbling oil, “and make it fast,”

“Uh... you sure?”

“Yes!” she snapped. “Of course I’m sure, I—”

Shady paused with her mouth hanging open. What in the world did I need so many tofu burgers for? She glanced around at her party, consisting of seven who were grown enough to even eat burgers and two who weren’t.

Three times as many, in case we needed to make a run for it and couldn’t rely on getting food, she realized as she thought back on her actions. “No, just seven, please. Sorry.” Her head was starting to throb now, pulsing behind her left temple. The buzzing returned, and it seemed to her that if she just cocked an ear and listened, she could hear somepony speaking. Her forelegs started to ache.

“Yeah, whateva.” He shrugged and began to dish food out, which Shady then distributed among the others.

As they approached the platform, Shady Blossom tried not to listen to the buzzing. For some reason she couldn’t quite put her hoof on, it didn’t feel like a good idea to try. Her certainty that she was being watched increased tenfold, however, and she started to scan the station continuously. They reached the platform and the fillies hopped up onto a bench to wait.

It was when the others were about to settle down that she glimpsed something glinting among a stack of luggage laid out on the platform. She shouted “There!” and sprang into the air with powerful thrusts of her wings. Dive-bombing, she tackled a dark shape lurking behind one of the pillars and hiding among the stack of luggage, and there was a surprised gasp of another pony losing all of the air in his lungs.

The figure struggled, hooves flailing, but she was fast, faster than she could have believed. Wrapping her lower legs around the dark pony’s midsection, she tilted her whole weight and spun them both around, slamming him into the ground a second time. Pinning his rear hooves to his sides, she reached down and yanked his forehooves around, immobilizing them behind his back, eliciting a girlish squeal from her captive as she tugged.

It was at that point that her head cleared. Quite abruptly, Shady Blossom realized she was straddling and rather effectively disabling another pony, one half again her own weight. It was, moreover, not another thestral, but merely a grey-coated pegasus stallion with a midnight mane. A camera, one that he had evidently been using, had clattered to the floor beside him, popping open and spilling a roll of film out.

Stunned bystanders cleared quickly when station security and both pegasus police officers dove in to the scene. The crowd formed in a circle around them, heedless of the scattered luggage as they clambered for a better look.

“What happened?” Jaybird demanded, moving to push Shady Blossom up and take up pinning the strange stallion.

Before Shady could answer, another mare in the crowd shouted, “That stallion was taking photos of ponies from behind the luggage! I saw him snapping pictures!”

Even as Surfline picked up the camera to peer at the film, Shady Blossom’s memory rewound as well. She realized she had caught the gleam of a camera lens from behind the concealment of the stacked bags and boxes. It was as if she could see the scene in a different light, the camerapony revealed in her memory where she had thought she’d only seen a blur before.

How in the blazes had I been able to do that? Stunned, she stared at the pegasus she had struck. Spot a tiny thing like that in the middle of a crowded station...?

“Celestia’s flanks. Can you believe it?” one of the station guards said, disgusted, as he held back the crowd.

“Next time, ma’am, please report this to somepony in authority,” Surfline informed her, closing up the camera. “That was dangerously close to excessive force.”

“I’m sorry,” Shady muttered. “I thought... I thought he was the thestral.”

The two police officers looked down at the stallion, sharing a quick nod. “If a pony saw this guy in the dark, she could think he was a thestral, especially if he was covered up,” Jaybird suggested. “Maybe wearing armor, he’d pass for one without too much effort, if no pony could see him clearly.”

“It’s pure speculation.” Surfline shook his head, frowning. “Still, it’s worth asking him some questions. Can run him in for stalking, at the very least. This guy has a whole reel of the Seed family.”

“Well, ma’am,” Jaybird said, chipper. “If this is our culprit, we may owe you an apology for not catching him sooner.”

“Heh,” Shady Blossom said, looking blankly at the stallion she had knocked down. The buzzing, the soreness in her legs, and the headache were all gone, as was the sensation of being watched. She didn’t recognize him in the slightest, but the photos of her and her family indicated a rather unwholesome interest of some sort. Sufficiently so that she didn’t feel too bad for plowing his face into the floor.

“Whoa, that was so cool!” Scootaloo hopped up and cleared the distance faster than the others, thanks to her rapidly beating wings. “Where did you learn those awesome moves? Whoosh, bam!”

“I...” Shady said, searching her memory. “My dad. He taught me. Night Guard.” That sounds right; of course he taught me. She could remember receiving lessons back in her cloud home, now that she stopped to think about it, with memories of a hard-jawed thestral staring at her.

“You gotta teach me. Rainbow Dash has been showing me some kung fu, but that was neat, too!”

“Sure, kiddo,” she said, her voice strangely dull. The others raced up, the fillies looking on in awe. Barry Seed and Applejack, however, were both giving her uncertain looks.

“Wow, mom, didja catch the bad guy?” Babs asked.

“Huzzah... somepony get the number on that thestral...” the grey pegasus slurred as he was hauled up by Surfline. Jaybird stood by, not trying to fade back into the crowd again, but staying close to the Seeds.

It seemed ridiculous to think that this was the end of it. A staged attack, pulled by a stranger, and then foiled in broad daylight by pure coincidence. Were it not for the fact that the sense of danger had passed and the buzzing had gone, Shady Blossom might have been waiting for the other horseshoe to drop.

Instead, she smiled radiantly and embraced her husband. “I don’t know, honey,” she told Babs, “but I’m feeling a little better about things, at least.”

“Sweetie Belle! Darling!” a high, cultured voice called.

“Rarity!” Sweetie squealed and leapt to tackle a white unicorn who had gravitated to the scene. The sisters collided and bounced off an enormous train of luggage behind the older mare. “It was so cool! Shady Blossom just took down the bad guy, right in front of us!”

“Oh! That’s just wonderful, dear. Excellent for you,” Rarity said. She beamed as she greeted the others and extended a polished hoof. “I was worried I’d have to take Sweetie home with me, and that would have been a terrible disappointment to her, I’m sure.”

“Darned right,” Sweetie Belle agreed, her curly tail practically wagging.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Shady Blossom said, taking the hoof. “Lin Seed and Sweetie have told me a lot about you. I actually wore a variant of one of your Gala dresses to an event with my husband. The Starry Night?”

“Twilight’s dress!” Rarity gushed. “Yes, of course, that would look marvelous on you. Though, I might say, I’d have altered it considerably to take in the effect of your wings. A silver chain, just so, would set them off beautifully.”

“I’ll have to remember that. Come on, let me introduce you to the rest of the family. Lin is dying to meet you,” Shady said, gesturing with a wing.

With her husband helping carry the luggage and the foals clustering around Rarity, they all started on their way back to the Oranges..

* * *

Lin Seed sat rapt as Rarity nattered on about her time in Canterlot. The teenaged filly had taken a minute to polish herself up in Mrs. Orange’s powder room and throw on a simple dress. It struck Shady Blossom that her stepdaughter had armored herself, as if overwhelmed by the presence of the fashion designer and in need of additional protection.

With the mixed stories she had heard, Shady Blossom herself had half expected Rarity to be either a socialite to the core, demanding and impossible to please, or a saint, and was pleased to find that her latest guest was a happy medium instead. She lodged no complaints about the accommodations, opting instead to complain about the noise and crudeness of the city ponies. Her small talk, light and airy, served as a pleasing distraction for Shady and Lin around the dinner table, even if Barry, Applejack, and the girls were more interested in a board game on the coffee table.

Eventually, though, Rarity moved on to weightier matters. “Absolutely dreadful business, the matter that brought me here. I put my affairs in Canterlot on hold and came as soon as I could, of course, though I wish I could have arrived sooner. Better, have come with Sweetie Belle in the first place.”

“It’s all right,” Shady said, having anticipated the response as well. “With any luck, it’s been resolved, and we’ve all sort of gotten used to it. It’ll be sad to see the girls go, of course. We’d been all set to receive them for a couple weeks, but this whole mess has just, well...”

“Been a mess,” Lin agreed.

“I don’t see why that need change, actually,” Rarity opined. “Why, if the danger has passed, why not permit the girls to stay on?”

“Even if it was—and I’m not saying I entirely believe that it is,” Shady said, “our house is a wreck. We’re not going to lay claim to the Oranges’ apartment for several weeks.”

“Au contraire, Miss Blossom,” Rarity said, looking at her over the teacup she floated delicately before her with a sly smile. “I live in Ponyville, and there have been more than a few disasters there I’ve had to help clean up. I cannot fix gross structural damage, of course, but a little household magic should straighten it up as good as new, with some help moving the heavy things and arranging it to your liking.”

Shady blinked and smiled back. “That would be marvelous, actually. Thank you.”

Lin Seed opened her mouth, doubtless prepared to steer the topic back to fashion and Canterlot, but a knock at the door interrupted her. Rising, she went to check the peephole before opening the door. “Detective Noir! Nice to see you again,” she said, stepping aside.

The detective mare stepped in. She had neglected to wear her trenchcoat, though she still wore her fedora over her black mane. “Thank you, Miss Seed. I was wondering if I could have a word with... ah, Mr. Seed and Mrs. Blossom, yes,” Petite Noir said, nodding towards the couple.

“Ah, yes, of course.” Shady gestured her over. The board game was abandoned as the others crowded about.

Noir gave the fillies a skeptical look, but Barry waved her on. “It’s all right. They’ll find out anyway.”

“Very well,” she said, her hat lifting to reveal her glowing horn as she levitated her note pad. “There were a few questions I wanted to ask Mrs. Blossom, and I thought I’d catch you up on the developments in the case while I was here.”

“You can call me Shady. What did you find out, Detective?” Shady asked.

“We questioned the stallion you brought in. He’s being stubborn, but we found press credentials on him—the Fillydelphia Tribune. Right now we’re operating under the notion that somepony in the department or one of your neighbors leaked the case to him. He’s still considered a suspect, and we’re contacting his editor to see what assignments he was on.”

Shady deflated. Unless he’d been assigned to watch them before the incident ever occurred, she knew that meant she had not, in fact, caught the right pony. Barry Seed set his big hoof on her shoulder, giving her a quick embrace.

“More encouragingly, the Canterlot Guard says they’ve detained Miss Star Gazer, and we should get that report soon. They’ll question her, and, with luck, we can put an end to this whole affair.”

“Well, hopefully that settles it.” Shady shook her head, feeling a little disappointed as she contemplated the possibility. Star Gazer returning to her old ways was a tragic and fairly dark way for this to end. She wondered what it bode for the other members of the Order who had also supposedly reformed.

“There were just a few loose ends I wanted to tie up, too,” Noir went on. “Velvet Curtain also left that night. I was wondering if you could give us a forwarding address?”

“Ah? Yes, of course.” Shady nodded. “She should be with one of the Applewood studios; I can give you the name and address before you go.”

“Right. Has anything unusual happened over the last few days? Any strange ponies, any peculiar incidents?”

“Not really.” Shady shook her head, glancing to the others. Each of them repeated her gesture in turn, and Petite Noir made annotations in her little booklet.

“I think that should be all, thank you. Ladies, gentleman.” Noir put her hat back on and tilted it towards the family.

Lin showed her to the door, and Shady fetched her the contact information she had promised. When she returned to the table, Rarity twirled her curly mane about a hoof.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Lin asked.

“It occurs, dears, that perhaps we ought to have brought this matter to the attention of certain important ponies long before this,” Rarity said.

“Wha’d’ya mean?” Applejack asked, looking up from the board game, which had evidently resumed.

“Should we not inform Princess Luna that elements of her—” Rarity made a scrunched face “—let us say cult have re-emerged?”

“Shucks, Rarity, we can’t go botherin’ the princesses for every little thing.”

“It’s hardly a little thing for a family to be attacked by a nightmare, Applejack,” Rarity chided, giving her friend a wry look.

“Fair point,” Applejack muttered. “I s’pose we could send off a letter, askin’ if she knows anything.”

“Or if she wants to help.”

“Yeah, well, that too.”

Shady blushed, squirming. “I’m not sure how comfortable I’d feel soliciting help from Princess Luna, of all ponies.”

“She’s kind of a big deal to thestrals,” Scootaloo said, in a tone that suggested she was now an expert. “They’ve got a park devoted to it and everything.”

“It’d be great to meet a princess.” Babs looked to her friends. “What’s she like, anyways?”

“Tall.” Scootaloo waved a hoof above her head.

“Beautiful,” Sweetie Bell gushed.

Apple Bloom swept part of the board, planting a token triumphantly. “She’s real nice, even if she talks kinda funny sometimes. Always lookin’ out for other ponies, makin’ sure they’re safe and stuff.”

Shady waved a hoof at Rarity. “Seriously, don’t impose.”

“Nonsense, dear! She won’t mind at all.” Rarity rose and liberated some of the Oranges’ stationary. “I’ll have a letter out without the hour. It should arrive tonight if I catch the afternoon pickup time.”

“Oh, dear.” Shady grimaced.

“Might have to take extra care cleanin’ up the house, if there’s a chance of royalty visiting,” Barry said. “What say we head down later and get to preparing?”

“Cutie Mark Crusaders janitors, yay!”

* * *

With the help of Rarity, Jaybird, and Surfline, fixing up the house was a surprisingly easy task, considering the damage dealt. The fillies ran around with dustbins in their teeth, while Lin Seed fixed up the kitchen. With the damaged windows and walls patched up by a contractor, the replacement furniture was easy to move in with some muscle and magic. Rarity’s spells cleaned hard-to-reach fixtures, repaired damaged frames and photos, and even spruced up the decorations. She replaced their fading wallpaper and old curtains, sewing the latter and then attaching them with a flash of power.

By the time night fell, they were tired but just about done. Up in the master bedroom, Shady Blossom and Applejack were cleaning up. They’d replaced the sheets on the town bed and taken down the damaged outfits in the closet.

“I hope Rarity can do something for these.” Shady sighed, looking at a shredded dress and one of Barry’s suits—he might actually be pleased the latter was destroyed, given how much he complained about the fit.

“Can’t believe that’s it. I s’pose they’ll be figurin’ the story out in Canterlot.” Applejack swept her hat off and wiped sweat from her brow after they finished righting a dresser. “And that photographer. If he did it, what might have driven him to it, you reckon?”

“Who can say?” Shady Blossom shook her head as she started for the door. “It’s not impossible that he was hurt by the Order, too, some time in the past. He could have wanted to get back at any thestral he found. Maybe he didn’t like Barry and me being together? Maybe it had to do with Barry, one of his business rivals getting back at him? For all I know, this was just a sick act and he needs help. Most likely, his editors just wanted him to follow up on the story and Star Gazer was the one who did it.”

“If so, she needs help. Ain’ no pony with sense does somethin’ like that.” Applejack growled. On their way down they passed Surfline and Barry, who were going into Lin’s room.

The garden, for its part, had been mostly left alone, aside from the greenhouse windows—a section of them had been smashed in completely. They swept the broken glass up, and then Shady Blossom left to fetch a stepladder for Applejack to help her in patching the broken part. As she returned, she found Applejack staring at the soil in the back.

“Yes, I know, those flowers are completely diseased and need to go.” Shady rolled her eyes with a smile.

Applejack nudged the earth, which was covered with dead, blotched flowers. “Ain’ that. Look, someone’s gone and completely uplifted this part.”

Shady frowned, looking at the planter. “I don’t see anything wrong.”

Applejack gave her a puzzled look. “Ain’ you a gardener? Well, nevermind, let’s have a look-see.” Her hooves worked the earth, digging it away.

“Applejack, wait a second.” Shady glanced back at the house. “Shouldn’t we call for Jaybird? What if something was left there?”

“Sure was.” Applejack tapped something hard.

“Oh, gosh,” Shady Blossom said, looking at the exposed object. “I can’t believe it!”

“What is it?” Applejack asked, staring down.

“My hope chest,” she growled, pulling it out from the planter with help from Applejack. A white paneled box bound with black iron, it slid out the hole to rest in front of the planter. She pointed a hoof at the lock, which was dangling, torn off by what seemed like great strength.

“Now that’s all sorts of sick. Think she was lookin’ for blackmail, maybe?”

“Can’t imagine what she’d find,” Shady said, but then hesitated, one hoof on the lid. “Why did she bury it, anyway? How did she get it out of my closet?” For some reason, the chest felt intensely private, for more reasons than just its relation to her wedding. Something’s wrong... something... oh, don’t tell me the buzzing is back again!

The greenhouse suddenly seemed a lot smaller than it was, the sense of eyes on her again. Staring up, Shady Blossom tried to see if there was anypony watching. Outside there was nothing but shifting shadows, which could have held anypony or no pony at all.

“Well?” Applejack asked, still fixated on the chest. “Let’s have a peek.”

“Wait, don’t!” Shady Blossom shouted, feeling as if a vise were on her. She leapt for the chest, but it was too late. Applejack’s hoof had kicked it open.

THE NIGHT WILL LAST FOREVER

Flames leapt in Shady’s vision. A terrible keening wail pierced her thoughts.

TRAITOR

The buzzing became a roar. Voices howled at her.

TRAITOR

They won’t leave, they won’t stop. Why can’t I stop them? What—

TRAITOR

Applejack stared at the contents of the chest. Stacks of jars filled with orange jelly were packed carefully, sealed with lead but for a thin filament leading from each one—there was space for two that were not there. Papers were stacked, lists of names, locations, and times, including the movements of important city and state officials. There was a diagram of the above-ground rail lines around town and another of the train tracks leading to and from Manehattan, with locations circled and noted. A map of City Hall was marked in similar fashion, red marks indicating structural lines and emergency exits. There was a map of the city, with thestral-owned houses and businesses stenciled in. Hoof knives, wing blades, vials of clear liquid, needles, darts, and more lined the sides of the trunk.

The night will last forever, voices around her were chanting, heartfelt and eager. Down with the sun! Down with the Tyrant! Down with Celestia!

Above them all, pinned proudly on the underside of the lid, a midnight banner hung. Its upturned crescent moon was swallowing the sun, and rays of deep blue and purple radiated off it.

Light was dawning in Applejack’s eyes. Her face turned white, and she looked at Shady Blossom, her face slack and uncomprehending.

Raise the black banner! The night shall last forever!

“I’m sorry, AJ,” Shady Blossom said, her voice dull. Faster than either mare could believe, she snapped a hoof into Applejack’s throat. The thrust crushed her windpipe immediately.

* * * * * * *

Chapter 3: ...You Can Make It Anywhere

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Chapter 3: ...You Can Make It Anywhere

Shady Blossom watched Applejack stumble back, gasping for air and trying to cry out to no avail. She studied her niece with clinical detachment. Applejack’s legs buckled as she tried to stand, and only her great strength allowed her to get up.

It felt a little strange for Shady to watch her tremble and shake. Applejack was such a powerful mare, but right now a kitten could have shoved her over. Snapping a pair of knives out from the chest and strapping them to her hooves, she advanced. Her hooves crushed the decaying flowers, sending up a pungent odor of dust and rot. The light from the house cast her shadow across Applejack as she raised a hoof to strike.

Applejack forced in air, enough to wheeze weakly. “Why?” Her eyes were wide and her legs trembled such that she almost fell again; she might have tried to run or fight, but it seem to be all she could do to hold her ground. “Sha... dy?”

That strained voice may as well have been a solid wall. The blade, deadly sharp, gleamed in the light before her neck, but no matter how Shady twisted or angled the knife, she couldn't bring it to bear upon Applejack—her niece, her family.

Primal instincts screamed to silence Applejack. The blade wavered as it drew closer to her. It would be trivial. Slit her throat. Tear the room apart. Claim somepony else had done it. Shady could cut herself a few times with the same knife before she disposed of it, too. Make it seem like she put up a fight against Applejack's unknown assailant. No pony would ever suspect Shady.

Flickering images assailed her, of a smiling Hop Seed and a date at Coneigh Island, threatening to overwhelm her. The warm, balming sensation of their embrace bubbled forth like spring water.

Snarling, she shifted the blade away and struck her across the face with a hoof, sending her spinning to the ground. Excruciating pain shot up her foreleg, as if Shady had struck a brick wall instead of Applejack, but she pushed it out of mind and glanced around. Her eyes darted between the still-living mare and the chest.

Rasping for breath, Applejack whispered a few words towards the house as she mouthed a call for help. Making up her mind, Shady reached into the chest, grabbing a small vial and forcing Applejack’s head up. She tapped out three drops, right into the back of the throat. Applejack tried to gag, but Shady simply closed her mouth and stroked her throat until her struggles stopped, her entire body going limp and unresponsive while her eyes rolled back.

Out came the wing blades, the papers, the vials, and two jars of jelly. Rope was next, and she put to use tying a quick harness for Applejack. The armor, revealed after she removed the remaining fire jelly, came after that, and she belted it on. After she picked her helmet up, she stared at the banner for a long moment, considering whether to take it as well.

Somewhere inside, voices were rising. Petite Noir’s light tones drifted out into the garden. “...Thing is, Velvet Curtain said she’d run out of their meeting almost immediately, after only a few drinks.”

“That’s ridiculous, though,” Barry said. “She talked about that meeting all the way home. She was out for at least an hour.”

“That’s exactly what I’d like to know, Mr. Seed.”

Shady’s hooves abruptly came alive with pain, and she dropped her helmet as if it had burned her. It bounced and clanged before she could catch it again.

“Wait, did you hear something? Shady?” Barry called.

“Mom?” Babs shouted. “You okay out there?”

Hooves pounded in the living room.

Shady slammed the helmet on her head before grabbing the banner and quickly wrapping it around Applejack so that it made a wide bundle. She then grabbed the harness and clawed at the air with her wings. For a mare that didn’t look particularly big, Applejack was heavy, and the moment it took to bring her out of the window was enough for Babs to shout “She’s taking Mom!” as the ponies rushed into the greenhouse.

Petite Noir’s horn flared, and a hot bolt of light cut through the air and glanced off the armor around her flank, managing to singe her. Shady Blossom ignored it and flew on, struggling against Applejack’s weight. She was intensely conscious of the fact that two much bigger pegasi were in the house and would be roused on a moment’s notice, and with such a burden it wouldn’t be hard for them to spot her. The idea of dropping Applejack hurt almost as much as striking her did, however, and she settled for diving behind the line of brownstones.

Somewhere above, it was certain that Jaybird and Surfline would be staring down and trying to spot the fleeing thestral, but black armor and a black-wrapped burden were nearly impossible to see without the benefit of direct lighting. Shady flew towards the river, fighting to stay aloft even as her mind raced.

* * *

The underhang of the West River Bridge was dark, but for a few steady lights here and there, casting the shadows of catwalks and ladders across Shady Blossom and Applejack. The whole thing was ugly, clearly not intended for pedestrians or casual fliers, and it rattled with the passage of railcars overhead.

Applejack lay heaving, mere feet away from a hundred-foot drop to the dark water below. Her throat was bruised, if functional, and she stared around wildly until her eyes fixed on Shady Blossom. Struggling, she tried to rise, but found her legs thoroughly bound.

Shady sat with the Banner of Night wrapped about herself. Her helmet was off, and she stared blankly into the distance, perceiving but not really seeing the lights of the city reflected on the broad river. Her hoof tightened the banner around her, displaying the crescent moon against the light.

“Shady?” Applejack coughed. Though her passageway had cleared in the trip, it was clear from the scratchy sounds she was making that it hurt to breathe even without the added stress of speech. “Wha... what’s goin’ on?”

There was no answer. Shady huddled deeper into the banner.

“Shady!” Her shout was little more than a hoarse whisper. “Darn…” She wheezed and had to catch her breath. “Answer… me! What’s goin’ on?”

“You know what this is!” Shady snapped. Her eyes came to rest on Applejack and hardened. She wavered, and her eyes watered. Applejack had become painful to gaze upon. Shady rose with a snort, trotting back and forth across the walkway. “It was me, Applejack,” she whispered, barely loud enough to carry. “It was me all along.”

“Why? How?” Applejack demanded. “Your own family. Your husband and kids!”

Shady winced. She could remember potions held in her mouth, pouring alchemical fire onto a cloud house below her. She had watched as the fires caught and lit up the cloud substance, blazing as if it were fresh tinder, and smiled.

Almost right on top of it, the memory of Babs Seed crying in her forelegs, wailing her heart out, pushed the first memory aside. The whispered word “Mom” had swelled her heart. They had spent the whole day after in Coneigh Island together, as mother and daughter.

A hard, cold gust of stinging salt air brought her back to her senses. Shivering, she reached for the banner and found it had dropped to the floor. She snatched it before it could drift away and considered it for a moment, taking in the emblem.

“I’m not a terrible gardener nor a failed actress,” she said, through clenched teeth. “I am wh-what I have always been. Faithful.” Her eyes were drawn to the scars on her hooves. The bubbled tissue of the hoof and the white lines on the ankles pulsed with her heartbeat, each surge bringing a fresh sense of heat.

“That ain’... ain’ true. You were... a victim!” Applejack coughed heavily. “They killed your family... you said it yourself!”

“Yes, they... they set fire... No... no, that's…” The banner slipped between her trembling hooves and fell to the floor, Shady along with it, collapsing atop the flag. She put a hoof to her temple, breathing hard. Flashes of a burning house raced through her mind. A perfect, picturesque home burned to ashes. It all seemed so real. Too real. Shady looked again, through her own eyes and not through the eyes of her memory, and things shifted out of focus. The house still burned, but the building, the clouds, the sky, even the fires seemed stretched and distorted, as though the entire memory were some kind of twisted projection on a film—a facsimile of a tragedy that had never happened. "It's... not... real."

Another wave of coughing rolled through Applejack, but she pushed through it. Her voice sounded much clearer—an incidental side effect of the sleeping draught. “Wh-what? What’s not real? For heaven’s sake, Shady, talk to me!”

“My family was never real!” Shady shouted with such temper, such ferocity, that it surprised even her. The echoes of her proclamation stole her breath, and she continued in a hushed whisper, shocked at her own revelation. “I've... I've never had a family.” Her lip trembled. “H-how could I not know that?” She shut her eyes tightly, her jaw tensing for a moment before her voice rose, stern and raw. “I... I never had a family.”

“You must have had a family. I don’t understand, Shady, what’re you sayin’?”

Memories swamped her again. She was fighting, struggling against another thestral, a stern older stallion with a scarred face. He wasn’t shy about using his hoofblades, and blood poured down her face into her eyes. She reared up, striking. Fierce pride burned in her as she struck true, sending bright red spraying across the floor.

The stern stallion was there again, only she was much shorter. He slapped her tiny hoof as she reached for a hug. Dimly, she recalled him saying something, but all she could remember clearly is that she cried herself to sleep.

In the next instant, she was gasping, her legs held up in a hospital bed. Another contraction wracked her and she cried out loudly, pushing and struggling to give birth to Dandelion, a foal who would fill her world with light and love.

“I...” Shady Blossom said, sweat breaking out. “Applejack...”

“Shady, please, listen to me. We can get through this, we can—”

“Shut up!” she shouted and snapped her wings open with their glittering blades bared. “I had someone! I had... I had... a father? No... never father. Never father. Never, ever call him father. Master. I had a teacher, a Master. An orphan, never knew my folks...”

Applejack twisted in her ropes until she managed to push herself up on her rump, so that she was sitting. “Okay... okay, let’s talk about your Master, then.”

“No, no we won’t. You are going to... going to...” Shady bit her lip. It was like being caught without her lines memorized, the script she was meant to follow misplaced somewhere. Perhaps she could just buck her into the river. It wouldn’t take long, just a long drop and a lungful of water.

There was a painful stinging as her head screamed at her, and she yelped. Pressing a hoof to her face against the sudden headache, she gasped for a moment before turning back to Applejack. “Y-you’re going to stay right there while I think of my next move!”

“Next move? Flyin’ fiddles, Shady, what do you think you’re doin’?”

“What I should have done, what I always do, when you weak, stupid...” Shady paused. “Wh-when you and the others aren’t paying attention, when you’re asleep! I make a statement, I keep the cause alive!”

“What cause, Shady?” Applejack’s eyes tracked over to the jars of orange jelly. “Firebombin’? What kind of cause is that?”

“The cause I was made for!” Shady grabbed the banner and shoved it into Applejack’s face. “You know what this is, you know what I am. A member of the Order of Eternal Night!”

Before Applejack could respond, she wheeled about, staring out at the night sky, with a full moon hanging over the city. “No, I am the Order of Eternal Night. I’m all that’s left. I was going to send a message to that traitor Star Gazer, but she skipped town. Guess that makes her a coward, too.”

“Star Gazer? Tarnation, Shady—”

“I gave her everything! She betrayed Luna, she betrayed me!” She banged her hooves, steel ringing against steel. “I took her from nothing and made her into a... a... I... oh, Luna...” Just like that, her mood was shifting again, drawing her back down. She stared blankly at the jars of jelly.

She could remember smashing through the window, hoping to pin Star Gazer to the bed. The earlier promise for them to meet had sparked something in her. There had been just the dimmest spark of hope, the thought that she could have reached out to her, before she noticed the place abandoned, and then had come the smashing of furniture. One incendiary planted in the center of the room and then it was off, racing back.

“I’m the traitor. Oh, Luna, I’m the traitor. Applejack... please, I... I don’t know what’s going on, I... I know I wrote those messages, I... was so angry at myself. I couldn’t do anything, I felt trapped...”

“Trapped? Trapped how?” Applejack asked, intent.

“I just want to lash out and hurt things, but... it’s like I can’t! Everytime I so much as think of really, seriously hurting somepony I just hurt myself. Sometimes I’ll set fire to an abandoned building just to scream in frustration! Why can’t I do it?”

Shady felt her gorge rise. “Wait, wh-why would I want to hurt ponies? That’s... that’s vile...” She gagged. The urge to vomit was strong as the desire to harm, even kill, and her disgust met one another.

Try as she might, she couldn’t hold back the tide of images. They jumbled, without respect to chronology or even rational connection. Memories of throwing a bomb into a watch store owned by an aging thestral mixed with memories of long hours as a filly, mixing potions. A recollection of the time Barry had proposed to her bled into her talking quietly with Star Gazer, the two holding each other to share warmth on a cold mountain as they waited out a Royal Guard patrol.

“That ain’ who you are, Shady! Listen to me!” Applejack said, her rasping voice low and fierce. “You’re my aunt. You’re a mother of four. You love those kids, and you’d never hurt a single one of them.”

“No, I... I mean yes...” Bubbling up from within, new images flickered into her consciousness. The feeling of warm mouths nuzzling at her, seeking out her milk. The happy faces of the Crusaders, egging for seconds, as she made them breakfast each morning.

“It’s all so wrong. What happened to me, Applejack?” she asked. “I... I thought I was just somepony who got lucky. The acting... the acting was...”

“Yeah?”

“It... it was all a lie. Everything was a lie. I felt it, I knew I was just going through the motions, before I came here. Acting... I acknowledged that I was lying. It was all a big charade, it made it...”

“Barry ain’ a lie. Dandelion, Hop, Babs. and Lin aren’t lies.” Applejack emphasized each name with a clap of a bound hoof against the steel.

“No! They’re just... they’re part of the cage!” Shady said. She spun once more on Applejack, her eyes burning, but the fire was weak. “They’re holding me back, making me turn against myself.”

“And why not? What’s it all worth, Shady? You told me yourself, it’s a stupid cause. All you’ll do is kill everypony who ever lived, even if Luna did help you and if you did succeed where she failed!”

“It’s not true, the Elements can do it! They can make the world warm enough to survive Eternal Night, as they should have done before you and your friends got your filthy hooves on them and... and... corrupted them somehow!”

Applejack matched her gaze, and Shady felt herself wavering again. The pain in her ankles flared up, and her head started to ache. “Do ya really think that?” she asked. “You’ve known me, now, Shady. You know what I am and what I ain’t. Think about it: if I’m the real deal, what does that make of your fancy Order legends or whatever the hay those are?”

With a roar, Shady threw herself at Applejack, but the pain in her head forced her down again, making her stumble and trip. “No, no...” she groaned where she lay.

“Yes! I’ve met Luna. She never wanted any such thing, it was all this monster possessing her, Nightmare Moon!” Applejack crawled forward, trying to reach Shady. “I met her, too, and she was about as stable as a twig house in a hurricane!”

“You liar!” Shady said, surging up again and knocking Applejack back. “Nightmare Moon, no, Queen Luna was a hero! She tried to reason with the Tyrant, and only when everything else failed did she strike out, only to be betrayed!”

Applejack gawped at her. “What the hay kinda nonsense is that?”

“Don’t you—!” Shady winced, the pounding in her head returning. “I... I remember when I met her...”

“Shady? You met the Princess? What happened?”

“I... I think I know why... everything is so....” Shady’s eyes grew blank. An enormous, overpowering surge was sweeping over her. She could remember the last time she had met the Princess of the Night, as certainly as if it had happened yesterday.

* * *

Shady Blossom tapped her armored hooves against the stones of the old castle, her eyes scanning the horizon. Her helmet sat on the stone beside her and the wind caught her short mane. Above her, the moon was bare, devoid of the presence that had been imprisoned in it for so many centuries.

“Do you see Her?” Black Cloud asked, the teenager practically bouncing in his ill-fitting armor. He was young, cute, and too enthusiastic to live, a bad combination in a career warrior. “Is She here?”

“Shut up,” Bell Tone said, swatting him with the butt of her spear. Tall and taciturn, she returned to sitting patiently. In others, it might have been seen as an active refusal to fret, but Bell Tone let nothing unsettle her that she did not wish to. “The Queen comes on Her own time.”

“I still can’t believe what happened,” Star Gazer said, morose. She perched on top of a crumbling parapet, looking down into the remnants of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. “I thought this would be over already.” One step away from covering her face in her hooves, it was little surprise that Gazer would be the first to voice such concerns. Shady felt a little like smacking her, but she didn’t have the heart. Anypony could have doubts at a time like this.

It was the job of a leader to rally her troops, not to demoralize them further.

“If it were,” Shady said, with quiet conviction, “She wouldn’t need us. Our Queen has called, and we will respond at last.”

“But... but She was beaten,” Star Gazer said, squirming uncomfortably. No pony raised a hoof to her, as they might have in other times. They all felt what she was voicing, after all, even if none of them were saying it. “Weren’t the Elements of Harmony supposed to aid us? They just... took Her power away like it was nothing, and then the Tyrant came back and they embraced each other, like it never happened!”

Arc Light lifted his face to speak, but then lowered it, rubbing at his missing eye. For a moment, Shady Blossom worried that he might strike at Star Gazer. It was definitely within him. Of all of them, though, he had seemed the most broken up by the events of the previous day.

It was a day that hadn’t been supposed to come, either. Nightmare Moon had declared to the world that night was everlasting, and then dawn had risen in stark defiance.

Shady couldn’t allow herself to be dragged into despondency, though. She needed to be strong for them, and for Her. Everything was for Her.

“It’s a trick. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. She’s been wounded, but not beaten,” Shady Blossom said, rubbing the scars on her forelegs. They were throbbing particularly badly tonight. “It has to be, or...”

“...or it’s all been for nothing,” Arc Light whispered, his voice hoarse. “Everything we did. All the preparations we made. Everypony we hurt.”

Silence reigned.

Just as it seemed they might all give in to despair again, a shout went out from one of the towers. “The Queen! It’s Her!”

As if the words were a spark to oil, thestrals all around the castle leapt into action, boiling off the castle walls and soaring up to get a look. Each of them spied the glint of a distant carriage, as dark as night. Then they dove down, in through the holes of the ruins, to gather in orderly ranks in the main hall, leading up to where the Elements of Harmony had once awaited their representatives. Midnight-armored bat-winged ponies, all of them armed and ready, waited patiently. Shady Blossom stood in the front row, as near to the dais as she could, her heart pounding.

Part of her knew that this was it. This was the moment that all of her long years of devotion would pay fruit. She would look into Her Lady’s eyes and see the gratitude in them. Her life would have meaning.

Past the great windows, a black chariot passed by, sharp and foreboding as it swept through the air. The thestrals raised themselves slightly, then quickly bowed, abiding against the coming of their mistress.

After a few minutes of nothing happening, somepony coughed. The kneeling Order of Eternal Night began to shift uncomfortably, finding the obedient pose difficult to keep up for so long.

Eventually, somepony went over to the doors, peeking through. “Dread Majesty?” he called, his voice echoing in the empty hall. “We’re meeting in here.”

“Ah, of course, our apologies...?”

“B-B-Black Cloud, Dread Majesty,” the stallion stammered.

“Thank you, Black Cloud, thou art a fine young buck,” Her voice said. Black Cloud fell to his belly at once, overwhelmed by the honor of being addressed so.

Striding into the room, flanked on either side by a set of wary Night Guard, was the Queen of the Night. A slim mare with a short, powder blue mane, She projected power and confidence in spite of her reduced stature. Rather than be disappointed by the sight of the Queen, who was barely taller than Shady Blossom herself, she felt awed. Her Mistress came among them in a beautiful, pleasing guise, a sign of Her favor if anything.

Coming to a stop near Shady Blossom, she turned and looked over the gathered crowd—some two hundred ponies, all of them waiting breathlessly on Her word. It must have been Shady’s imagination, but she thought saw sadness in those eyes. That gave her pause—the thought occurred to her that the Queen might be displeased with how few their numbers were. It was true that some had fled with the dawn, but they were young and lacked conviction. The greater problem by far had always been recruitment. Shady considered drafting plans to step up their efforts, but put them aside to give Luna her full attention.

“My little ponies,” the Queen called, Her voice booming over the gathering, “I extend my gratitude to thee for coming on such short notice. I pray my summons did not trouble thee.”

“For you, My Lady, we waited a thousand years,” Star Gazer gushed. She squeaked, realizing she had spoken out of turn in her excitement, and lowered her blushing face. Her hooves spread as she braced to be blown into oblivion.

“Yes, thou hast.” Luna’s voice barely carried. She looked to Shady with sad eyes. “What is thy name?”

“St-St-St...” she squeaked at the ground, squirming.

“It is all right, my little pony. Thou mayest look upon me; I hold thee no malice. Clear thy throat, take thy time, we have all night.”

“St-St...” She swallowed, daring to look up after a moment. “Star Gazer, Your Majesty.”

“That is a lovely name, child. Tell me, what wouldst thou be doing, wert thou not bound to my service as thou art?”

“I, uhm...” Star Gazer blushed brightly, looking around. Shady Blossom prodded her, gently but firmly. The Queen had asked her a question, which could not be denied. “I-I was going to st-study to be a teacher, Dread Majesty.” Her blush deepened, particularly as the gathered warriors snickered. Shady herself stared.

“Why didst thou abandon this study?”

Star Gazer gaped for a moment. “Why, to follow you, of course! I mean, my brother—he told me how much it all meant, the truth of the stories, and when he died, I just had to take his place, I-I...” She shuffled awkwardly from hoof to hoof.

“And thee?” Luna asked. Shady started, realizing that she was being addressed. It was a little humiliating, but she intended to make up for it.

“With you, Majesty!” she answered at once, snapping to attention.

“Forgive me, the question was unclear. What is thy name?”

“Shady Blossom, My Lady.”

“I see upon thy flank oleander flowers. What is thy special talent?”

“Alchemy and poisons, My Lady. Oleander is a poisonous plant,” Shady said, her voice throbbing with pride as she lifted one of her scarred hooves. “I got it mixing in your service, along with these, when I accidentally made a more potent fire potion, one that could catch fire to even the wettest cloud stuff. I’ve been with you since foalhood.”

To be able to tell her cutie mark story to Luna Herself, and tie it into Her service, was an honor Shady Blossom intended to savor for a long time. Dreams of Luna inviting her to Her side, once She had heard of her accomplishments and seen her in action, dared to enter into Shady’s imagination.

“Foalhood?” Queen Luna asked. Even the Night Guards looked taken aback by that, the hardened warriors staring at Shady Blossom. That suited her right to the core—let them see what true devotion looked like. They had refused to join with the Order for too long for her to truly respect them.

“Yes, Majesty. I was orphaned as a girl, and one of our Order took me in, raising me from a filly with the true stories and the certain knowledge that you would soon return. I’ve been preparing my entire life for this night,” Shady Blossom said, her heart swelling as she went on. “I lead a full squad and am the youngest member of the Council, replacing my Master.”

“And what wouldst thou do, in the event of the Order of Eternal Night’s success?”

In the event of...? Shady brushed that aside, answering, “We’ll bring the glory of your night to the masses, of course. We’ll finally show those ponies that we were right all along.” The other thestrals, aside from the Night Guards, were nodding along with her, some stamping their hooves in approval. “We’ll take back everything they stole from us, and make them understand what it feels like to be judged and stared at wherever we go.”

“We’ll show them how to... how to thrive in eternal night,” Star Gazer said, raising her voice to join Shady’s. “That the night can be as beautiful as the day.”

Shady nodded. “We’ll be compassionate victors, of course. It does Your Majesty no good to rule a crushed and burning country, after all.”

Now Shady knew she was imagining things. The Queen’s eyes, looking into hers, seemed on the verge of tears. For a moment, Shady wondered if she had done something to displease Her, and lowered her ears. Hopes of joining the Queen at Her side were fast fading.

“Majesty... is something wrong?” Shady asked after a moment of silence. She could feel Her gaze as their eyes met, and something akin to a thousand years of disappointment and regret burrowed into Shady.

Despair creeped in. Shady felt low, so close to that ground that nothing could have squashed her. “I...I can change if you like,” she whispered. Anything to please Her.

“Oh, Shady Blossom, thou canst scarcely conceive how much we wish that were true.”

“Majesty?” Shady asked, confused. Against her own better judgement, she stepped forward. Her hooves were throbbing painfully, and she withered inside to see her Queen questioning her dedication.

“If I asked thee to abandon my service, to cast aside thy weapons and armor, wouldst thou?”

It sounded like banishment. Shady Blossom felt herself quaking, her eyes wide. “Majesty?” she asked again. It felt as if her entire world might crumble. “N-no, I mean, I-I would do anything you say. Please, please don’t send me away.”

Years of hardening fell away, and the first tears she’d felt in years fell down her cheeks. Though she could only imagine what having a family might be like, it seemed to her that this is what it must feel like to be disowned—chucked out into the cold and discarded as worthless.

Throwing herself at the alicorn’s feet, Shady Blossom looked up at Her imploringly, abandoning all decorum. “You’re everything to me! I’ve done... I’ve done so much in Your name, I can never go back! Please, I’ve never had a life of my own!” Around her, the other Order members were drawing away, terrified.

Above her, the Queen’s face was lined with pain. Her eyes shut, and tears started to stream from them. “Canst thou not live without doing so in my service?”

“No!” Shady proclaimed. She reasoned that it must be a test, a show of devotion. If it was meant to gauge her stoicism, that boat had sailed, but she still had a chance to save herself. “I can’t, not one moment without you! I don’t have a life without you, my Queen!”

“I... I see. The situation is more dire than I had surmised.” The tears had stained Her lovely cheeks darker than usual, and She lowered Her head. “If thou indeed retaineth no life without me, then I must needs give it to thee. I shall give thee a life of thine own, free from me.”

Midnight fire flared along Her horn. It grew to fill Shady Blossom’s vision and subsumed everything else.

* * *

“She did it,” Shady said. “Princess Luna is the one who made me forget.”

“If that’s true, she must’ve had a reason.” Applejack had not managed to get far while Shady was out. The recollection must have only lasted a moment, even if it felt like an eternity.

Shady rose, pacing back and forth again. She looked down at the banner. “The princess wanted me... to have a life of my own. Free.”

“Then take it! It’s your life now.”

“N-no... I have to continue...”

Applejack shouted, “Continue what? You ain’ part of that anymore! It ain’ got nothin’ to do with you! Come on, Shady! Pull yourself together, you’ve got a family who loves you. Where would Babs be without you right now? What about Lin?”

“Lin... she... she never...” Once again, Shady found herself pausing as her voice caught in her throat. The thought of Lin’s legs around her, squeezing her tightly in an embrace, rose up unbidden. The honest warmth of that moment cut through her denials, embedding itself deep within her.

“She needs you, don’t kid yourself. She’s a teen, and they’re always thinkin’ they can handle more than they really can.”

Shady closed her eyes, parading the faces of her family in front of her mind’s eye. Her limbs were paralyzed, leaving her unable to so much as twitch her lips, for all that she trembled like a leaf in autumn.

“How can I just abandon my... my people…?”

“You were never with them. Terrorism ain’ how you solve problems, Shady. If you mean the Order, well, they ain’ with you now, neither. We’re your people, now—me and the Apple Family.”

There was a twinge deep inside Shady. One by one, images of her family populated her mind, crowding out the dark and bloody scenes of her Order life. She plucked one and brought it to the fore: lying in the grass and watching the clouds go by while Babs laid her head on her belly. It was a simple, peaceful memory, and it was all she needed. She broke down as wracking sobs echoed from the steel rafters.

“How am I ever going to go back to them?” Shady wailed. “How can I ever face them again?”

Applejack tried to shuffle closer, though she only managed to fall onto her side. “It ain’ that bad, Shady. You can go back to them.”

“How? How? I... look at me, Applejack, what am I? Who am I? Even if I did, who would let me? The law should lock me up. Look at what I did to you, Applejack!”

“I understand, Shady. Well, no, most of it’s way beyond my ken, but I know you ain’ been right. This ain’ you, no matter that it used to be you. Untie me, we can talk about it.”

“But...” Shady looked down at her helmet and picked it up. “It is me, and whenever I get tired or sick or drunk or scared or whatever, it pops out again. I’ve spent months putting together potions, scouting out positions, tracking important figures, everything. All of my inhibitions go right out the window.”

“You didn’ kill me, didja? I saw it in your eyes. Ya couldn’ kill me when you had the chance, when ya had everythin’ to gain from puttin’ me down and pretendin’ it was just another attack.”

“Saying I couldn’t murder you isn’t the same as saying I couldn’t hurt you, Applejack! What about crushing your throat? What sick monster would do that to somepony, let alone her own niece?”

“Darn it, Shady, listen to yourself!” Applejack twisted against the ropes again in pursuit of freedom but found no purchase. “If you were a bad pony, a monster who deserved to be locked up or whatever, would you be talkin’ like that? You need to fix this problem in your head, you need help.”

Shady lifted her head. “No... you’re right. I do need help.” Standing, she walked over to the jars of jelly and picked one up in her teeth.

“What’re you doin’? Shady?”

Tossing the container, Shady smashed it against a catwalk nearby. The substance, now exposed to the air, ignited, though it did not explode as it might have if properly primed. The jelly clung to the catwalk and dripped tongues of flame down to the river. Grabbing the other, she threw it to the other side, creating another pool of fire.

“Rarity sent Her a message, didn’t she? After you, a hero of the realm, was kidnapped, She should be involved personally. It shouldn’t surprise me, really—She’s been touching my nightmares.” Returning to Applejack’s side, she reached down and snipped one of the cords binding her with a hoofblade—she didn’t help her out of the ropes; she didn’t quite trust herself to touch Applejack just then. She leapt up to a higher walk before Applejack could squirm free, and strung the banner so that it was framed by the fires.

“I’m settling this, Applejack.” Shady settled down into the shadows, pulling her helmet on. “I have to. I won’t be right in my own head until I do.”

Applejack rubbed her hooves and rose to look up at Shady Blossom. She hesitated, looking as if she had something to say, with her mouth opening and closing a few times. “She’s probably not gonna come; I doubt Luna herself would come,” she said at last.

Staring up at the moon, Shady whispered, “No. She’s already here.”

A shadow crossed the face of moon. It flashed down, quick as lightning, and a wave of stars encased in inky blackness washed across the bridge before coming to rest between the fires. Out of the haze pressed a mare of darkness, and all of the starry universe was contained in her mane.

The Princess Luna of present day dwarfed ordinary ponies like Shady Blossom and Applejack. Shady braced herself, but did nothing to strike at the Princess, not even to reach into her belt of potions. Even if Shady had been as skilled as she once was, she seriously doubted she would have had a chance against Luna.

For all the eldritch strength possessed by Princess Luna, she made no move to strike. Tired eyes were belied by a mask of determination that hid nearly all emotion as the Princess beheld the armored Shady Blossom standing above. Luna’s wings spread low, an umbral gown of midnight down, as she lifted a hoof toward Shady, only to hesitantly withdraw it. Were it not for the crackle and roar of the bonfires, there would have been no sound at all.

Applejack, standing off to the side, broke the silence. “Princess Luna, please, Shady Blossom needs help. She ain’ responsible for what she’s done.”

Luna lowered her gaze slightly. “I know.”

“You... know?” Shady asked. “Is that all?” Her face was set into a mask of its own. “You’ve come all this way just to say that you know what you did to me?”

Shady looked down at her ankles. The scars, the proof of her devotion, were beating their fiery cadence. She could remember now how it had truly happened—desperate to please her Master, she had been mixing together some of the most dangerous potions they had, and then the cauldron had started to bubble over. White foam had poured out and lit up even as she tried to back away, cracking open her flesh, and then pouring into the cracks, searing her veins. The rest of the day, she’d been unable to move, her mind filled with heady, fevered dreams of a palace on the moon, where a softly radiant figure had spoken to her.

“I thought I’d known you, when I got these. You said we’d make a beautiful world together, a night garden where no pony would ever have to fear e-ever a-again.” The mask cracked. Shady, forcing herself to go on, bit back tears as her voice threatened to break. “It was just like the stories. Do you know what that was like for a little filly? Were you ever even a foal yourself?”

Princess Luna did not answer. The light cast by the flickering flames gave her an almost unreal glow.

“Doesn’t matter, I guess. You never shed a tear for a race you didn’t really birth. I’ve since discovered that you were never the great and noble queen I’d believed in, either. Quite the opposite, really.” Shady pulled her helmet off and threw it to the floor below. It banged and clattered, denting its crescent moon. She unstrapped the chest plate and threw it down as well, then she peeled the rest off her back and let it drop. “Everything you ever meant to us was meaningless. We were chasing a dream, a nightmare.”

Shady allowed herself to slump to her belly after kicking her armored boots and the hoofblades off. “Turns out I wasn’t really the hero of my own story, either.”

Once again, no pony spoke for several long moments. The cold wind intensified, blown ahead of a bank of dark clouds staining the horizon. Applejack wheezed and coughed a little, gently touching the broken, bleeding skin on her neck, but made no move to interrupt.

Luna lowered her face and breathed a sigh. A tear slid down her cheek. More joined it shortly.

“No. Don’t you start crying,” Shady said. “Not you, of all ponies.”

“I must, Shady Blossom.” Luna looked back up at her, tears flowing freely now. “If I do not, who else will weep for my mistakes? My sister cried for my sake, but no pony yet has wept for you and yours. Who yet living besides me remembers how I, in the dim recesses of history, gave unto your kind the seed that would one day germinate into your Order?” Taking a step forward, she tilted the helmet up with a hoof. “The repercussions of my actions extended far beyond the battle with my sister. They continued to reverberate long after Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and their friends defeated me with the Elements. I find now that the furthest ripples did not stop even after I thought I had closed the book on the Order.”

“Wasn’t there a better way?” Applejack asked. “I mean, look at what’s happened... How couldja just go and wipe a pony’s identity like that? It’s led to a whole heap of trouble.”

“Hindsight. It is vision you need most before you possess it.” Luna shook her head. “You must understand, at the time there was no way of knowing what we—my sister and I—were dealing with. It was the very night after you and your friends had removed the darkness from my soul. Perhaps, Applejack, you are right, but I was convinced at the time that Shady Blossom would not soon outlive my pronouncement disbanding the Order of Eternal Night. Even if I had kept her under constant guard to protect her mind, would it have borne fruit as it did? I accept that I trammeled too readily on her right of mind, however. I was distraught and terrified of these ponies, I must admit, when first I arrived. If I had been thinking more clearly, another, better way may have presented itself, but even today, how would I know how to deprogram someone of such deeply held beliefs?”

“I ain’t got an answer to that.” Applejack sighed.

“Neither do I. Right or wrong, it was what was done. I took precautions, I had her checked up on regularly. Not enough, clearly.” Luna spread her wings and rose up to kneel by Shady. Her mane, blowing in its own ethereal wind, veiled the banner from sight while she watched the stars peek out from over the horizon. “Regardless of whether it was the right thing to do or not, the fact remains that everything that has happened here is not your fault, Shady Blossom. It is mine.”

Shady turned her face away. “Princess... it wasn’t you who did all those things.”

“Is it? ’Twas Nightmare Moon who created the Order, your Master who shaped you from foalhood, and my failure to adequately address the problems you were left with.” Luna rested a hoof on Shady’s shoulder. “It was a patch, little more, and it frayed. Were it not for your finding love and a family, I shudder to imagine what the consequences would have been when my spell wore off—that should not happen for years, and those watching you should have warned me earlier than this that it was breaking. You managed to evade their notice.”

Shady whimpered, covering her face. “It’s hard to know what’s real, sometimes. I... I had found a pony who loved me and I cared for his children and bore his foals.” She turned her face up to look at the others. “I had fun acting. There were friends and parties and wonderful things under the sun.”

She stretched her hooves out, gazing at Luna with bright eyes. “Oh, Luna... it was so beautiful. But... it’s all just part of your dream, isn’t it? You put me to sleep and I dreamed of a different life.” She lowered her face again, closing her forelegs against her chest. “When I woke up, I went back to being just the way I really was.”

“Hogwash,” Applejack said as she pulled herself up with them. “Which feels more real, Shady? Your old life or your new one?”

Shady pulled her head up. Her eyes were dry again—if she could have picked a time to cry, it would have been then, but mood swings were not always cooperative. It took several deep in-and-out breaths before she could really even focus on the question. “I’m not even sure what you... What’s that really mean?”

“Think about it for a minute, Shady.” Applejack sat down on the edge of the catwalk, lifting a foreleg. Her voice sounded much clearer now, though she still winced as she moved. “On the one hoof you got your old life, where you’re a special secret agent terrorist whatever. It was how you were raised and all, and it’s the got the closest thing you had to a family growin’ up. Then you got your other hoof, your new life, one where you started out hatin’ it, but you found things in it that you liked, all by your lonesome.”

“But... I didn’t really choose that life, either!” Shady looked to Luna, whose silent tears offered no answers.

“Sure enough, ya didn’ choose it at first. Come on, Shady.” Applejack leaned in, almost touching noses. “Luna didn’ get you into actin’, and she didn’ set you up with my uncle—right, Princess?”

Luna nodded. “I am not in the habit of playing matchmaker. Actually, I was rather pleased when the news came. My hope had been that you had found something worth living for at last.”

“What’re you saying?” Shady asked. It felt like she should have been able to answer the question on her own, too; the thought was just niggling at the edge of her consciousness. Putting a hoof up to stop Applejack, she then frowned and concentrated. “No... you’re trying to say... that it was my choices that led me to the Seed family. That I am the one who chose to become a mother.”

“Darn right I am.” Applejack settled back, watching.

“It’s more than that, though, isn’t it?” Shady looked between them. “It wasn’t just my choice; it’s really the first choice I ever made on my own in my entire life. My whole experience with the Order was dictated to me, first by my Master and then by my peers. I... I’d never really decided anything for myself until that point.”

“Put it all together, Shady.” Applejack waved a hoof towards her.

Shady slid to her feet, going over to look down at the banner and the guttering fires, the fuel jelly just about burned out. “A pony who finds herself in a life she can’t control, because she’s... she’s scared and confused. Waking up in a bed with a stranger, lacking any support from the Cult... she reverts to her training and lashes out at a world that seems to have betrayed her.” She swallowed heavily, rubbing the material of the banner between her hooves. “Even… even her own body and desires betray her, because they’re living a life apart from her and... and... and changing the way she looks at the world.”

Taking the banner up in her hooves, she untied it and held the emblem up to the light. “There was... th-there wasn’t any more choice in that. And... Babs, and Lin, and everypony else... I felt loved like I never had been. I had nothing before that. No mother or father, no lover, no real friends, just me and my Master. He was so cold, all I had to cling to was Luna’s memory. I sang to her, every night, hoping she would answer and come down to me.”

Turning, she looked at Luna. “You did, eventually; you gave me that life I never even knew I needed. But... though that’s all true, how does that invalidate everything bad I’ve ever done? Maybe I was forced into it, maybe I... maybe I am a victim of my circumstances. How does that excuse hurting other ponies? I wasn’t possessed, like you.” Kneading the banner fretfully, her voice sank. “Even after I met my family, I hurt ponies. I even trashed my own house.”

“You didn’t hurt them nor anypony else after that point,” Luna corrected Shady with a voice that was quiet, yet firm. “Never once did you lay a hoof on your family, neither hide nor hair. No matter how your angry, hateful other self raged, it couldn’t strike at them, nor anypony else directly. You protected them, and did so from my failure. The only things you destroyed were property.”

“I attacked Applejack!” Shady countered, flinging the banner down between them. “I smashed her throat in and was going to kill her when she found out!” Pausing, she amended, “Well, no, I wasn’t going to. I c-couldn’t. But I wanted to!”

“Do you want to kill me now?” Applejack asked.

“No! Of course not!” Shady said, and then worked her mouth for a moment. “All right, but th-that doesn’t pr-prove a-anything.” The inconstant tears found their way to her once again, and she looked at Applejack through watery eyes. “Applejack, I’m so, so sorry. I just... I can’t help myself. Even if I am different, look at me!” Shady lifted her forehooves, staring down at them. It was almost as if they belonged to someone else—as if she had been piggybacking some other pony all her life. “I’m unstable, I’m not safe to be around, I don’t de-deserve to have a f-family any more.”

Applejack walked over and pulled Shady into a tight embrace. Shady tried to fight it, but Applejack’s grip was like a vice. After a few moments of struggling, she gave a whimper and submitted to the hug. She slumped against Applejack and wept. “What am I going to do?” Shady moaned against her. “My children... how can I face them again? Th-they can’t have a mother who might att-tack some pony at a moment’s notice.”

“Luna. Please.” Applejack looked over Shady’s shoulder to the Princess.

“I can clear this matter up, Shady Blossom. The law need not get involved. As I have said, the blame for these attacks should lay squarely on my shoulders for improperly controlling the effects of my magic.” Rising to her hooves, Princess Luna looked down at the two of them. “In spite of my errors... will you trust me to help you?” She extended a hoof to Shady. “Let me start correcting my mistakes and repaying you for what has transpired by my actions. Do you want to remain with your family, to give them the care and comfort that you have so ably provided in the past?”

Shady lowered her gaze. “I... I... I don’t want Babs to grow up without a mother again. I don’t want to abandon Lin Seed. I want Dandelion and Hop to know who their mother is.”

“And what of you? What do you desire for your own sake?”

Closing her eyes, Shady Blossom drew in a deep, painful breath. A large part of her wanted to condemn herself still, to pay the price for the things she did.

In a strange way, though, that thought helped. The old Shady Blossom would have felt only faint tremors of remorse for her actions. A crushing burden of guilt might mean that she had some chance. “I love them so much... I want to be with them again. Luna, please, I would like to be better, for my sake and theirs.”

“Such love, Shady Blossom—selfless, compassionate love, free from jealousy—is what helps separate you from your darker impulses. Take it from one who remembers being a monster, who remembers hurting ponies and laughing about it, who sought to drown the world in darkness and consume it. There is a better way.”

“I’ll be there for you,” Applejack said, firmly. “I swear it.”

Shady’s eyes welled up again, and she embraced Applejack. They shared the moment for a while, partaking in one another’s presence. Eventually, they came apart again and look to Luna.

Luna smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of doing this without your help. All right, then... Shady Blossom.”

“Yes, Princess?” she asked, lifting her face again.

“This is your life now. Once, my power was used to take your life and fashion a new one for you. How would you have me use it now, in your service?”

Shady swallowed heavily, and her eyes tracked over to the banner, and then to the armor and plans she had rescued from the house. She walked over to them and stared down, taking them in. Now that her memories had awakened, she knew them intimately, of course. They were the tools of anarchy and destruction, meant to break down one order and usher in a new one. Perhaps the individual implements, such as the armor and hoofblades, were no more harmful than the uses they were put to, but the arsenal as a whole had been assembled with intent to cause great harm.

The banner was the hardest thing to look at, of course. For so many years, she had cared for it, or another like it. Deliberately, she reached a hoof out to touch the material. It had hung over her head in the small cot she occupied in her Master’s house and been a comfort to her in the many lonely nights. As a young girl she would wrap it around herself to think of a future where she wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore. It had filled her with pride and a vengeful fury.

Looking at it now, she still felt those things.

It had brought her together with ponies she had cared about, however distantly. It had given her a purpose and sharpened her. For all the harm caused under its sign, it was still an important, even key part of her.

“Send it away. Light it up. Destroy it all,” she said. Her voice was heavy and dull, but her eyes were determined as she looked back to the others.

Wordlessly, Luna lit her horn. The armor, the remaining potions, the weapons, and the banner all drifted up in her aura. She looked at them distastefully for a moment with pursed lips before lifting her head and flinging them far into the sky. Somewhere, far above, there was a burst of light.

The brief little spark was like a falling star, leaving Shady Blossom’s life forever. She found herself smiling at the sight and closed her eyes to preserve it. It hurt, a chunk of identity had been cut out of her after all, but in the same fashion any great change did.

“All new beginnings hurt, don’t they, Princess?” she asked, looking up at the alicorn.

Luna sighed. “They do, in some manner or another.”

“I... I think I want another memory spell after I explain things to my family.”

Both Luna and Applejack started and stared at Shady Blossom with wide eyes. Applejack stepped forward and gripped her shoulder. “But, Shady, look at what we just went through t’get you here!”

“I know.” Shady waved her hooves to calm them. “That’s not what I’m asking. It... wouldn’t be right to go through that again.” Turning to Luna, she ran a hoof across her mane and took a deep breath to steady herself. “I don’t know if it’s possible or even desirable, but would you be able to sort of… dull my memories?”

“How do you mean?” Luna asked. She frowned, but she was clearly reserving judgement until she had heard Shady Blossom out.

“I don’t want to forget who I am again, or the things that I’ve done, but they’re all jumbled in my mind in a way that’s hard for me to sort them out properly. They’re sharp-edged and colliding with one another, with no real respect for placement in time or even emotion,” she explained. “If you could... ease the transition, I think that would help a lot. If I could face up to those hard memories, I think I can deal with them.”

“I see. That is a tricky sort of spell... but I shall try. I promised I would help.” Luna rubbed at her face, trying to dry it. “Is there anything else?”

Shady glanced down, bracing herself. “Yes... I want to explain things to my family. I don’t... They deserve to understand what happened here and the truth of who and what I am.”

“I’ve got one, too. Get her off the hook with the law—I don’t want anything to fall on her, she didn’ do nothin’ and she doesn’t deserve punishment for what her other self did,” Applejack said, thrusting forward. “Oh, and you better be there to help explain all this in person.”

“Of course, Applejack.” Luna moved to join the two ponies, resting a shod hoof on Shady’s shoulder. The thestral tensed—Luna’s presence could almost be felt, the already tall mare swollen in her imagination enough as it is. Her image had been fixed in her mind since she was a child, dominating her younger days. Luna seemed to sense what her touch had aroused and withdrew her hoof. “I am indeed obliged to make matters right with your family. Is this acceptable to you, Shady Blossom?”

Shady looked towards the city and soaked in the night air for a moment. Facing her family and admitting to them that she had been the one to hurt them would jeopardize everything she had worked towards with Babs and Lin. Barry himself might decide she was too dangerous to have around his kids. Certainly, Princess Luna could step in and keep her from losing Dandelion and Hop, but the cost of separating the family would be an enormous burden on everypony’s peace of mind, Shady’s in particular.

Letting out a wavering breath, she shoved those doubts aside. If her husband and family were to afford her trust, the least she could do is trust them in turn. She had no reason to believe that they wouldn’t support her, and thinking thoughts like that was uncharitable. All she had to do was look at Applejack to know that love and friendship counted for more than just words.

“And if they don’t accept, well... penance starts one hoof at a time, I guess.” Shady sighed.

Luna gave a knowing nod. “Indeed it does. I have learned, in my time with Twilight Sparkle and her friends, that the only true path to redemption is in forgiveness. The most important step in that is forgiving yourself. You must make amends and do so at your own initiative. It’s a long, difficult journey, but I believe you are up to it, especially with such fine ponies around you.”

Lowering her face, Shady sniffed. “I... I don’t know if I can forgive myself, My Lady, but... but... thank you. I will try. You... you’ll always be the lady of my heart. My Qu—I mean, my Princess. I am sorry for accusing you earlier.”

“No, I think that you are not at all sorry, and that is well and good.” Luna smiled. “I pray I can earn that favor instead of merely inheriting it from millennia past. Are you ready, Shady Blossom?”

“No, but I don’t think I really have a choice.” Shady closed her eyes, breathing in the night air.

“You do,” Applejack said, pressing against her side. “But this time, ya made the choice to do what’s right for your family, even if it costs you. Let’s go, Princess, they’re waitin’.”

There was a flash of midnight blue, and they winked out of sight.

* * *

“I, Princess Luna, am commandeering this investigation. All members of the Manehattan Police Department are to vacate the premises at once!”

The sudden appearance of one of the rulers of Equestria could do strange things to ponies. For instance, an entire brownstone full of Manehattan’s finest could be cleared in under five seconds when the order was bellowed at them. They piled out the door and leapt from the windows after only a moment’s freezing. The house had been full of them, too, all armed to the teeth with spears and blades, evidently prepared to defend the family to the death after the disappearance of Shady and Applejack.

Petite Noir, who must have been examining the crime scene, gathered her legs to leap with them, but Luna’s aura caught her and pulled her back. “Not you, Detective. I would like to speak to you personally.”

Jaybird and Surfline, hovering outside waiting for her, looked inside, swallowed, and remained where they were. They did not appear inclined to leave.

“Them, too. They’ve been protecting us; they deserve to know it wasn’t their fault they failed,” Shady whispered.

A gesture from the princess was all they needed, and they swooped in to land, Somehow, Babs was the first to arrive, dodging past fleeing police to throw herself upon her mother. The other Crusaders, all wearing pots as helmets, soon followed suit, piling atop both Applejack and Shady Blossom.

“What’s going on he—?” Barry bellowed, storming up the stairs with his heavy, shod hooves pounding. His cry died in his throat as he beheld the regal personage in his bedroom. Then, glancing down, he perceived the pile the Crusaders were making and, with a startled exclamation, swept up the entire mass into a hug. Applejack didn’t escape his grasp either, and all five of them were held aloft. When Lin Seed arrived, she slammed into the pony mass and stayed there, glued.

It was enough to start Shady Blossom crying again, and she wasn’t alone, as the tears of the other ponies mingled with hers. Of everypony, only Applejack, Princess Luna, Petite Noir, and Surfline looked dry-eyed, though the last of those was rubbing at his eyes with one wing. Rarity, joining the group late, stood aside with the princess to avoid interrupting the scene.

It took a very long time to get everypony settled down again. The living room downstairs was filled up, with Shady Blossom taking a stool from the kitchen to sit on. She fended off her husband and children all, pushing them down into the other seats, while she sat alone before them all.

“Everypony, I... I have something important to say.”

As one, they all leaned forward.

Beginning was hard. Stopping was harder. The story spilled from Shady Blossom’s lips in a torrent, the cracking of her voice as she fought back another wave of tears failing to so much as slow her down. She went over everything, from her earliest memories of being raised by a member of the Order of Eternal Night, to the true story of her cutie mark, to the training she had undergone from foalhood, to the attacks she had performed as a young mare, and rounding it off with the actions of Princess Luna and how it had led her to a string of nighttime arsons and the present attack on their home. Throughout the entire speech, her eyes were riveted on the floor, refusing to glance up and see.

When her story concluded, she wrapped her hooves about herself. She didn’t need to be loud—the room was as silent as a tomb. “I... I’ve not really had time to digest this. It’s all so... unreal, and my memories feel jagged and strange. I know... I feel sorry, so sorry, for everything that I’ve done. I’ve terrified you all, not once, but twice now, and... and my only wish is that I could take it all back so that it never happened, so that I wouldn’t have to be here telling you. You all deserve to know the truth, and... whatever you decide, I’ll abide by. I don’t know that I can really forgiven myself yet for what I’ve done, so I’ll understand if any of you don’t forgive me, either.”

The following stillness befit a tomb, as well. Shady perceived her family and friends through eyes squeezed shut as silent, judging statues. Her expression was brittle and strained, her jaw tight and her brow slightly knit, but no more tears issued forth. For all that she had threatened to during her speech, Shady's eyes remained stubbornly dry, despite her body trying to go through the motions, still trembling and heaving occasionally.

One voice broke through the stillness. “Why?”

Shady Blossom turned her head up, looking at the speaker, Lin Seed. The young mare was looking intently back at her, searching her face.

“I mean... why shouldn’t you forgive yourself?” she asked.

“Because... because it’s not like I chose this life. If anything, I chose to continue the fight. I may say it’s a darker side of myself, but the truth is that the other pony was me. I acted out whenever I had the chance.” Shady rubbed her face. “Even my acting was... was just a way to try and figure out what was wrong with me. I was living a lie and I knew it, deep down.”

“Princess Luna did not force you to marry your husband,” Rarity said, then looked to Luna closely. “Did you, Your Highness?”

“I did not.” Luna sat, watching the proceedings with an unreadable face. “I had her checked up on now and then, though obviously my inquiries did not go deep enough—the developments in her life led me to believe that she had adjusted well. But, no, I did not interfere with her life at any point following my intervention.”

Rarity nodded. “Then we can infer that you chose to marry Barry Seed, care for Babs, Lin, and your own two foals all by yourself.”

Shady looked at them hopelessly. “But... but they were on false pretenses.”

“Not to you they weren’t, and what resulted from it was certainly real. Do you love your family or don’t you?”

“Of course I do!” Shady said, rising up in her chair. “I love Barry and the kids and Applejack more than anything!”

Rarity leaned back in the easy chair she’d ensconced herself in, sizing Shady up for the killing blow. “More than Princess Luna and the Order?”

“Yes! What the Order stood for is meaningless; they saw oppression where there was none and, if anything, their actions made them to be the very thing they stood to oppose! I loved my comrades-in-arms, but the cause was lost and, worse, counterproductive, and we should have seen it from the start! Just because I adore childhood stories about Princess Luna doesn’t mean I want to give my life up for her; that ship sailed when it turned out Nightmare Moon was a monster after all. It doesn’t compare to how I feel about my family in the slightest. Why would you even—?” Shady paused. “Oh.”

Scootaloo rose up. “All right, Cutie Mark Crusaders Intervention Team, let’s go.”

The three fillies from Ponyville advanced and pushed Shady Blossom out of her chair, herding her towards the couch which held her family.

Shady squawked, but in her present state was powerless to resist, particularly when Barry reached out and simply tugged her in. He was silent, but his actions spoke volumes as he held her close.

“You ain’ leavin’ us, Mom,” Babs insisted, the very first time she spoke since Shady’s return. “I’m not gonna lose you.”

“Hear, hear,” Lin said.

“I see no reason for her to go anywhere, particularly if the Crown fronts any damages, yes?” Luna asked, directing the question to Petite Noir and the police pegasi.

Noir played with her hat in her hooves and exhaled mightily. “With Your Highness’s assurances that nothing further will happen, the MPD is obliged to accept regal judgment. I, personally, see no more reason to hold this against her than against Your Highness for Nightmare Moon. The ‘old’ Shady Blossom is effectively dead, and the pony remaining shouldn’t be prosecuted for actions she could not really control.”

“Making the responsibility mine,” the princess said. “In light of the sensitivity of the circumstances, the truth of the matter is to go no further than yourselves and the police commissioner. I will draft a press release with a version of events protecting Shady Blossom, and submit damages as soon as they can be adequately assessed.”

“Then I have no objections, Your Highness.” Replacing her hat, she looked at Shady Blossom. “My apologies, ma’am. It would appear that my department and I have failed your family.”

“Mine too,” Jaybird said, the burly mare looking embarrassed.

Surfline had practically crushed his cap between his hooves, and simply nodded along with the other two officials.

“Why are ponies suddenly asking for my forgiveness?” Shady asked the air.

“If you’re so determined to pay for your past mistakes,” Rarity said, “why not arrange to do some form of service to the community?”

Barry tightened his grip around his wife. “She can worry about that later. Right now, I think we all need to get a little rest, and my family needs to renew certain bonds.”

One by one, the room cleared. Petite Noir and the other policeponies went outside to inform the others that the case had been resolved, while Rarity hauled Sweetie Belle off to bed. Applejack stood by long enough to embrace Shady before retiring, silent thanks to the bruise making her throat sore; she took Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in tow behind her.

Princess Luna was the last, walking towards the door. “Please, call me when you are ready to have that spell cast for you, Shady Blossom.” The Princess wore a tight, timid smile across her thin-pressed lips, but with a solemn gleam in her eyes. Once it became clear that Shady would, indeed, be welcomed back by her loved ones, Princess Luna finally removed her stoic facade, showing just a fleeting moment of regal emotion.

Barry put a hoof to Shady’s mouth to still her before she could speak. “No. You’ve apologized enough.” He smoothed back her tangled mane, looking her in the eyes. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re still the most beautiful mare in the city. You’re my and you brightened my whole life. Nothing could make me let you go.”

“Darned right,” Babs insisted.

Her husband kissed her. Warmth spread throughout her. It both healed and exhausted her, stealing the panicked tension away while revealing it to have been the only thing holding her awake any longer.

“I don’t deserve you,” she said to all of them, and at last the tears came.

After they had all hugged and Lin and Babs had been sent off to bed—all over Babs’s protestations, as she had wanted to stay up with her mother—Shady sent Barry for Luna and rose to meet the princess again. Her ears perked as she recalled one last loose end. “Oh, Princess, what happened to Star Gazer?”

“Star Gazer?” Luna joined the husband and wife in the center of the room, looking to Shady. “She fled Manehattan because she was worried you had it in mind to take revenge on her for abandoning the Order. I corrected her at once, of course.”

“So, you didn’t wipe her mind?” Barry asked.

“I did not. She was not in as... deeply as Shady or some of the others were.”

Shady winced. “I was the only one of my team...?”

“You were their heart and soul.” Luna smiled at her, sadly. “I can understand the pain of being the one to inspire destructive urges in others.”

“Just one more thing I need to address.” Shady exhaled. “I’m ready now, Your Highness.”

“Very well.” Luna nodded, lowering her horn towards Shady’s forehead. Soft blue light shone from the horn, and it flickered gently, casting strange, hypnotic shapes. It was a gentler light than the first memory spell that had been used against her, and a lulling hum filled Shady’s ears.

Shady drooped into Barry’s supporting foreleg. Tension ebbed out like flood waters draining away after a storm. Her limbs became sluggish and her eyes refused to stay open. Despite the awkward posture, in defiance of the week she had been having, it was already the deepest rest she had ever had in her life.

“Sleep, now, perchance to dream,” Luna murmured, “for what dreams may come. Your life lies ahead of you, Shady Blossom, not behind you. Let yourself be ruled not by fear and mistrust, but by hope and love.”

The last thing Shady saw before drifting off was her princess’s warm, caring smile.

* * *

Standing on the platform in Grand Central Station, Shady Blossom marveled at how much had been crammed into just a few short weeks. Standing there, hugging Applejack, Rarity, and the girls, she felt exhausted. Small wonder, after the ordeal she had just been through. Given the chance, she might have fallen asleep for a week.

Sleep was a difficult thing to face, though. It meant owning up to her mistakes and past actions, and dealing with the guilt and pain that arose from that contemplation. Shady suspected that her journey had only begun. Luna’s spell had taken the edge off—the headache that had haunted her was gone, and her memories no longer threw themselves at her, even if her ankles still ached occasionally—but there was no blunting the sharpness of reality.

Not to mention, her family still needed raising, her husband needed supporting, and she had an appointment with a casting director that her stepdaughters were practically shoving her into. Evidently her darker self had managed to impress her with a commanding presence and “an almost palpable sense of menace.” There was so much left for her to do that it seemed a wonder that she could get any of it done at all.

Lingering around her neck, Applejack whispered into her ear. “You hold on tight, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“You’d better,” Shady Blossom said, laughing as she embraced her niece tighter. “You have a business here, too. You must be insane, shuttling back and forth.”

“Yeah, well... some things really just are that important,” she said, tilting her hat to hide her face and blush.

“Come on, dear,” Rarity told Sweetie Belle, tugging at her. “We’ll miss the train. Oh, and, Shady Blossom?”

“Yes?”

“Bad dreams fade with morning light, and we wake to find those we care most about close at hoof. Should you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to write.” Rarity glanced around. “Of course, I may have to set up something myself. I can’t have Applejack staking claim to all of Manehattan.”

“I’ll box your ears, you wait and see,” Applejack grumbled. She bit down on Apple Bloom’s tail and bodily hauled into the train.

“Thank you, both of you,” Shady Blossom whispered. Tears stained her cheeks. “Goodbye, everyone.”

“It’s not truly goodbye if we’ll see one another again. Farewell,” Rarity said. She had to resort to levitating Sweetie Belle out, since her sister appeared to be trying to merge into Babs’s side.

“So long! I’ll be back in Ponyville soon!” Babs called, waving a small hoof.

“Bye! See you soon! You’d better show me those awesome moves again, Shady!” Scootaloo called.

“See ya next time, cos!” Apple Bloom said, standing on her hind legs to wave both of her forehooves.

With so much waving going on, by the time the train did pull out of the station, Shady thought her forelegs might fall off. Lifting up to drift a bit over the crowd, Shady Blossom felt the wind rush through her mane and watched the train as it started out west.

It is a good life, and I wouldn’t leave it for anything in the world.

* * * * * * *

THE END

Author's Notes:

Wow, look at that. I've managed to complete my first novella. Sure, it's ponyfiction, but I can still take a measure of pride in that.

Since posting this chapter I have had some comments about Deus ex Machina, and, to an extent, those complaints are legitimate - after all, Luna busts into the story and resolves it.
Ultimately, though, she would have had to be involved at some level. She would have come for Applejack's sake, if no one else's. Even if Luna hadn't of been responsible for the problem in the first place, the lingering impact of the Order would have drawn her. Some way or another, she would have been involved.
I want to emphasize, though, that this is Shady's victory, not hers. It was Shady's love for her family that allowed her to fight off her own dark self. If she hadn't of been, she would have evaded Luna and kept on with her eternal guerilla war. A shattered, terrified veteran betrayed by everyone.

I'd like to thank Pascoite and Morning Angles for their long hours helping me edit. Morning Angles encouraged me to rewrite Chapter 3 to a different (and better) conclusion. Pascoite went line-by-line.
I'd like to thank GaPJaxie for helping me conceive of it.
Shady couldn't be here today and I couldn't have done it all without you.

And to you all:
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Please leave a comment below. I encourage everyone to tell me how they feel – be as detailed or as sparse as you like, but I promise I will read every single word. Follow me, like Perchance, comment!

Remember to check out my other fics:
Through the Well of Pirene - Human in Equestria done right. Three young female protagonists in a journey to set their lives right.
Them - A horror story with a triumphant narrative of fighting against fate itself.
A Mile in Her Shoes - What happens when your life is no longer what you thought it would be? Walk with the Mane 6 as they find out what it's like to be another kind of mare.

Farewell, and thank you for reading.