> For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
>  by Corejo
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> I - A Grand Entrance
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	
For the Benefit of Mr. Kite


A Grand Entrance


Twilight Sparkle had never considered Equestria a dangerous place.  She had grown up in Canterlot studying countless books on Equestria and its neighboring countries, and further works read in preparation of princesshood never swayed her belief.  It wasn’t the idyllic place she held it to be as a filly, but it was far from grim.  And while villains arose seeking dominion, the power of friendship was there to see her through.

  There were no wars, no famine, no social crises to threaten the Equestrian way of life, only her and her friends in the town of Ponyville, living and loving the days that life brought them.  

Twilight was thankful that becoming a princess hadn’t changed her life as drastically as she had expected.  Though always eager to please Princess Celestia and strive to learn everything she could on the magic of friendship, she was never fond of change.  Ponyville was a comfort zone, a place where she never felt insecure, never felt alone.  Having to move away from her friends—losing them—was her greatest fear.  But as with war and famine, she had no reason to worry.  Her only responsibilities were toward her friends and the library.  Friends and books.  It didn’t get any better than that.

The only grievance she ever had between the two was when the friends checked out the books and then kept them longer than they were supposed to.  Among the residents of Ponyville, keeping books overdue was more habitual than accidental, a problem Twilight greatly despised—especially before her monthly custom of recataloguing the library—and was the reason why she had woken early, a list in her saddlebags and a frown on her face.  She was by no means a morning pony, but the task at hoof was far more important than beauty sleep.  Books were for sharing, not hoarding!  

She had planned her course in a clockwise fashion around town, to minimize travel time.  The sheer number of returns had crossed her mind, but only in passing, thanks to a healthy dose of ingenuity; books were both easy to stack and carry by magic.
Halfway through her route, she decided it best to hit town square, as the morning rush had started dying down.  And it was while considering changes to the library’s rental policy that she happened to notice a poster tacked to the front door of Town Hall.  It was a simple thing, so minute in her surroundings that she wondered what about it had even caught her eye.  

The only logical answer was that it was exactly that: a poster.  A poster in the close-knit town of Ponyville, where advertisement travelled far better by mouth than sign.  Whoever posted it wasn’t from around here.  She broke off from her route to investigate.

The wooden porch of Town Hall creaked its greeting as she trotted up to the door.  Twilight could have stopped at merely raising an eyebrow at the gaudy block print and kerning that bordered on heresy, but the message itself also earned a cock of the head.


Mr. Kite’s World Circus Royale


Ponyville, Equestria





This Night Only!


Setting the Stage For the Greatest of Acts:


Longneck the Flexible


The Timber Brothers and Their Rings of Real Fire


Anslo the Magnificent and His Daring Feats of Strength


...


And to Twilight’s bewilderment, the list went on.  The thought perplexed her, though; only a hoofful of circuses with such an array of spectacles travelled the known world, and she couldn’t recall any of them having the word “Royale” in their names.  Maybe one of her friends would know more about this circus that had cropped up out of nowhere.  

She smiled and turned to resume her book collection from the remaining overdues on her list.  She scanned down the page to land on a personal favorite of hers: Illusions, Elementary, held captive by none other than Rainbow Dash.  She rolled her eyes.  Of course she would be on the list.  Why expect any less?  

Regardless, it gave her a familiar somepony to ask about the poster.  She rounded a corner and beelined for the house of swelling cumulus drifting above the outskirts of Ponyville.

Her venture across town proved a quick one, and when she arrived, looking straight up at it put quite a strain on her neck.  A sigh and flex of her foreleg—just like Cadence had taught her—readied her for a hard lecture on timely returns.  She took a few tentative flaps of her wings before leaping into the air.  Although she had learned it well enough, flying just wasn’t her thing.  She preferred keeping her hooves on the ground, where the dirt supported her weight with hard reassurance.  It stayed where it was supposed to, and that’s how she liked it.  

But Rainbow Dash’s porch was rather supportive, she decided upon landing.  It had a heaviness to it, absent in most clouds, that gave spring to her step.  Rainbow Dash’s experience as a flyer showed in such attention to detail, and her job as the weather mare only gave her the ability to act upon it.  She showed understanding of momentum and force conceptually, though Twilight assumed she steered clear of them mathematically.

If only she applied that understanding to due dates.

Twilight cleared her throat before knocking on Rainbow Dash’s front door.  Well, before trying to, anyway.

Her hoof passed through the condensed vapors to leave quite the hole in the door.  She winced, then frowned at her newly drenched hoof.  Apparently Rainbow Dash hadn’t given the same consideration to her house as she did her porch.

Rather than destroy more of her friend’s home, Twilight called out, “Rainbow Dash?  Are you in there?”

Silence.

“Rainbow?”

Still silence.

“Rainbow!”

A bump preceded the shattering of what sounded like glass and a series of muffled curses.  The large rose-colored eye of Rainbow Dash peeked through the hole Twilight had made, brow arched in confusion, before the door swung open.

Mane more dishevelled than usual, Rainbow Dash stood scratching her head, still looking curiously at the hole.  “Uh... good morning?”  Sleep bagged beneath her eyes.

Twilight grimaced at knowing she had woken her friend, and tried hiding it with another cough.  “Uh, good morning, Rainbow Dash.  I was just stopping by to collect your overdue book.  You do have it with you, don’t you?”  She forced a smile.

“You know it’s like, eight in the morning, right?”  Rainbow Dash yawned.

“Actually, Rainbow, it is eight-oh-five.”  She closed her eyes and stood tall.  “Which by library policy means your book is overdue by five minutes.”  She finished, widening her smile.

Rainbow Dash blinked.  A third and, hopefully, final yawn escaped her before she spread her wings and stretched her back.  To Twilight’s surprise, she then plunged her head into the floor and reemerged, face damp, vapors whipping into the air.  She shook herself like a dog, reawoken.

“So you need it back now?”  There was a glint of energy and challenge in her eye.  To her namesake, Rainbow Dash was up the stairs and gone around the corner before Twilight could draw breath for an answer.  A split second later, she landed at Twilight’s hooves, nearly startling her off the porch.  Illusions, Elementary was balanced on her back, and she was grinning at it slyly.

“All read and done with,” Rainbow Dash said.  “I gotta say, all your sciency stuff is waaay boring, but this illusion stuff is pretty cool—even if I can’t do any of it.”

Twilight smiled, remembering how she felt the first time she had cracked it open herself.  “‘An illusion is only as strong...’” began Twilight.

“As the illusee is observant!” Rainbow Dash finished with her, gleeful, hoof raised as if part of a cheer.

Twilight blinked, then cocked her head, a smirk forming on her lips.  Rainbow Dash had actually remembered that all on her own.  She had to admit, when Rainbow Dash put her mind to something, she was pretty good at it.

Rainbow Dash blushed furiously at her outburst.  She glanced aside before clearing her throat and straightening herself.  “Yeah, uh, just don’t go loud-mouthing that to everypony, alright?”

Twilight chuckled.  “Of course not, Rainbow.  Cross my heart and hope to fly.”  She floated the book into her saddlebags as she removed the checklist to cross off her friend’s name.  She smiled, thankful no corners were bent or pages torn.  “Alright.  Thanks.”

“Like I said, no problem.”

Twilight turned to leave, but remembered the poster tacked to Town Hall.  She spun back.  “Oh, I almost forgot, do you know anything about this ‘Circus Royale’ that’s supposedly coming to town tonight?”

Rainbow Dash looked up, then shrugged.  “Can’t say I do.”

Shoot.  She would just have to ask the others, then.  “Alright.  Thanks anyway.”  She took a few apprehensive steps toward the edge of Rainbow Dash’s porch.  Her wings were as able and trustworthy as her hooves, but the initial fall she could never get used to.  She glided carefully to the ground, giving her flight no chance for surprises.  She landed at a trot and sighed relief.  Good old ground.  

A quick shake to settle her feathers and she was off for the pond at the north end of Ponyville.  Sweetie Belle had borrowed a pop-up book a while back that was in desperate need of circulation.  Twilight smiled.  It needn’t worry; she would be there soon.
Stirrup Street was the quickest route since it cut diagonally through Ponyville.  She followed it down a hill, letting gravity lengthen her stride.  

As she went, she chuckled to herself, pulling Illusions, Elementary from her saddlebag. The large eyes on its cover stared back at her.  “An illusion is only as strong as the illusee is observant,” she said, returning its gaze.  Many years had passed since she read that opening sentence, the book’s first and foremost law regarding the nature of illusions.  She knew her memory was sound, though, undiminished despite the weathering of time.  It was, after all, her favorite book from before she became Princess Celestia’s pupil.  It still was, if she didn’t count—

“Oof!”  Twilight bumped shoulders with another mare.

“Sorry,” they each said.  The mare continued on her way as if their meeting had never happened to become part of a commotion developing around them.  Twilight looked about, confused, at all the ponies that had seemingly come out of nowhere.  She knew she was prone to close-mindedness, but never to such a degree.  They couldn’t have simply appeared out of thin air.  Wherever they had come from, though, they were all headed in the same direction, toward the center of town—toward Town Hall.

Again the poster flashed like a phosphorus bulb before her eyes.  She shook her head.  She was being obsessive again.

But what could be the attraction that they all were so obviously drawn to?  She had to find out.  Twilight diverted from her course and followed the crowd.

As she trotted, particular voices stuck out from the general hubbub.

“I wonder what it is,” a high-pitched voice said.

“I hear they’re really amazing,” came another.

“Somepony said the minotaur can lift the weight of an elephant with just its nose ring!”

Twilight’s curiosity doubled with the mention of a minotaur.  Surely, it had to be related to that “Anslo” character from the poster.  She quickened her pace.

The crowd was thick around the front of Town Hall.  She tried pushing her way through, but to no avail and instead found a spot beside an earth pony couple, where she strained her neck to see a figure cloaked in black standing on the porch.  The figure’s frame bulged at odd segments of its body, and yellow, slitted eyes glowed beneath the hood like lanterns in an unlit alley.

“Ladiess and Gentlecoltsss,” it said.  Its voice was deep but soft, and seemed to almost purr on the inhale.  “It is my honor to announce the arrival of the mossst magnificent spectacle of our age.  For thisss night, and thisss night only, Mr. Kite’s Cccircus Royale will hold its show here in your very town.”

It shifted its gaze from one side of the audience to the other.  “Witnesss this once-in-a-lifetime exxtravaganza, or forever regret the wonders never to be seen again.”  It let the sentence hang like a carrot in front of the crowd before a pair of claws emerged from the folds of its cloak and drew back the hood.  Blood-red scales shone like glass in the sunlight.  A forked tongue flitted from its mouth to a round of gasps from the audience, Twilight included.

A salamander in Equestria?  Such an event had never before been recorded—let alone dreamed of.  The knowledge it must have of its homeland across the Great Ocean would be beyond invaluable.  She took an instinctive step forward.

“I am but a harbinger of the exoticsss in sstore,” the salamander said.  “Tonight—” its eyes flicked directly at Twilight for the briefest of moments “—you will see the world!”  In a sweep of its cloak, it vanished into nothingness.

Murmurs and yelps rose from the crowd.  As a single body, it shifted back and forth in a swirl of excitement, fear, and curiosity.  Twilight kept her eyes fixed on the space the salamander had occupied moments ago, skin crawling, mouth agape.  

It disappeared without an ounce of visible exertion.  No glow.  No flash.  No sound.  The absence of those three physical manifestations meant it hadn’t drawn its energy from the leylines that run through the earth, as all magical creatures do.  Its power was not bound by the laws of reality.  And never in the rare, documented contacts with salamanders did they ever display any sort of magical capability.  A chill ran down her spine.

Whatever this circus was, it wasn’t natural.  And the way it had looked at her not even a moment before disappearing screamed maleficence.  She needed to tell the others.  She turned for the nearest of her friends’ homes, Carousel Boutique.


≈≈≈×≈≈≈


“And you say he was red and scaly?  Like a lizard?” Rarity asked as she poured herself a cup of tea.

Twilight sat across from her at the kitchen table, an impatient frown slapped across her face.  “Sal-a-man-der,” she corrected.  “He was a salamander, Rarity.  Do you even know what that means?  A salamander!”  She threw her hooves into the air.  She waited for a reply, but when none came, groaned.  “It means he’s from across the ocean.  The other side of the world.  They don’t just... pop up out of nowhere.”

“Zecora is from quite a ways away, Twilight, and she’s a close friend, isn’t she?”  Rarity took a sip of her tea, winced, and added a cube of sugar.

“I’m not talking about Zecora; I’m talking about this—” she jiggled her hooves in front of herself “—circus thing, and that magic I saw.  That wasn’t natural magic, Rarity.”  Her frown grew, almost into a scowl.

“So you’re worried over a little something you know nothing about?”  Rarity looked up, brow raised.  “That doesn’t sound like the Twilight I know.  She would be excited, eager to learn!”

Twilight felt her jaw drop, the heat in her cheeks rising.  “Wha—I’m worried about why this would just show up out of nowhere.  Why Ponyville?  Why not a bigger city with larger crowds?”  Twilight’s voice continued escalating as if it would slap such ignorance out of her friend.  “I mean, Trixie was one thing, but this?  And I told you already about how it looked at me.  That wasn’t just a passive glance.”

“Oh, do stop fancying such a silly thing, dear. You and I both know that could only have been coincidence.  Why, you said there was practically all of Ponyville there!”  She idly stirred her tea.  “Why in Equestria would it single you out of hundreds of ponies?  And it didn’t even do anything when it saw you, either, did it?”

“N-no.  But—”

“Well, there you have it, Twilight.  It was just a coincidence.  Anyways, I think they chose Ponyville because they simply wanted a smaller venue. To test the waters, as it were.”  Rarity took another dainty sip and smiled at her friend.

Twilight returned the opposite.  She stormed out of the boutique with her frown and headed down the street.  Of all ponies, Rarity should have been one of the easiest to convince something was amiss, what with how she loved to gossip.  Practically drooled over the chance to.  Why in Equestria she would be so dismissive was beyond comprehension.  Twilight huffed, but then stopped in her tracks as she noticed the position of the sun.

It sat directly overhead.  

There was no way she had spent nearly four hours at Rarity’s.  Ponyville Elementary’s bell chimed noon, proving she wasn’t seeing things.  Twilight shook her head.  Maybe she had.  Just losing track of time.

She turned for Sweet Apple Acres.  Applejack would understand.  Yes, she was a very level-headed pony.  Vigilance was her mainstay, the nearby Everfree and its dangers the perfect fosterer for such a trait.  The care and maintenance of such a sizeable estate alone would—

Twilight stopped and rubbed her eyes.  Before her stood the large, red barn of Sweet Apple Acres.  There was no way she had walked across Ponyville that quickly.  The breath she had taken seemed to have disappeared from her lungs, and they refused to draw another without conscious effort.  This wasn’t right.  Ponyville didn’t just move around.  Her mind was screwing with her.

“Twilight?” came Apple Bloom’s voice.

Twilight turned her head to see the little filly beneath a tree, an empty basket beside her.

“What the hay’re you doin’ here?” she continued.

Twilight smiled away the tension in her chest.  “Oh, I was looking for Applejack.  Is she around?”

“Sure is.”  Applebloom nodded over her shoulder at the barn.  “Should be in there workin’ on the plow.”  She bucked the tree, an apple fell into the basket, and she hopped around, shouting for joy.

Twilight chuckled, glad that at least something still made sense today.  “All right, well, you have fun.  And thanks.”  She headed for the barn.  At the door, she paused, listening to the clamor of metal on metal within.  Instinctively, Twilight cleared her throat before knocking.

“Just a second!” Applejack yelled.  Though it took by definition more than one second, she opened the door promptly and gave her usual, warm smile.  Her forehead was damp with sweat, and the smell of straw and wood graced her like a perfume.  “Well, howdy, Twilight.  What brings you ’round here?”

“I was just coming down to talk with you about something that happened this morning,” Twilight answered.

“Oh?  What’s that?”

Twilight straightened herself.  “A poster about some ‘Circus Royale’ appeared on Town Hall.  Then, there was a salamander—a salamander—right here in Ponyville.”  She leaned forward, almost pressing into Applejack’s snout as she hissed the beast’s name.

Applejack leaned back, grimacing.  “Oh.  Y-you mean like them little ones Fluttershy keeps next to the birds in her living room?”

“No, a salamander!”  Applejack raised an eyebrow at the outburst. Twilight continued: “Big as a pony, claws like a manticore’s.  It was at Town Hall advertising the circus.  And then it just vanished—no magic!”

Applejack scrunched her face.  “Well, if’n you put it that way, I guess it does sound mighty fishy.  Course that’s just prob’ly one of their fancy magic tricks gettin’ the best of you.”  She chuckled.  “Least this time it did, Twi. Last time some show came to Ponyville it was—”

“Trixie, I know.”  Twilight rolled her eyes.  “But this is different.  I don’t know what’s going on, but all day things haven’t been normal.”  She looked away, biting her lip.

“Like what?”

“Like the time for one thing.  It was eight-o-five on the dot when I spoke with Rainbow Dash about her overdue books, right before the salamander came.  But when I left Rarity’s directly after that to come straight here, it was noon.”  She looked back at Applejack, hoping for a reassuring smile, but her friend’s face was far from comforting.

“Twilight.”  Applejack’s voice treaded the border of worry, face forming a wince.  “I’ve been fixin’ our plow all day.  What time did you say you came here?”

A gasp caught in Twilight’s throat.  Muscles tensed at the implication.  No answer dared cross her lips, and she slowly craned her neck to look at the sky.  An evening sun hung low over the distant mountaintops.  No.  She shook her head in disbelief before dashing back toward Ponyville, Applejack’s cries lost in the distance.

Whatever it was, it couldn’t be happening.  This was unnatural.  Time didn’t speed up or skip entire days.  The poster.  The salamander.  The circus.  It was all connected somehow to this violation of natural law.  And she would have to get to the bottom of it.  There was no time to—

Beasts and monsters torn from the darkest pages of the Canterlot Library’s bestiary lumbered and snaked and scuttled among massive tents in the clearing between Ponyville and Sweet Apple Acres.  Their screeches and roars were jumbled in the distance, reached out from the valley’s mouth at her like claws to drag her down into whatever nightmare spawned them.  Her legs trembled beneath a weight growing in her stomach.  

Indeed, there was no time to lose.  She clenched her eyes shut, gritted her teeth, and thought of the soft grass outside the library.  The pressure of the world left her for just an instant as the magic gathered in her horn cracked the silence.  

She opened her eyes to see home standing before her.  Here this nightmare would not follow her.  Here she could shut herself in and formulate a plan.  She was safe here.  

The door opened at the glow of her horn, and she stepped into a darkened library.  It shouldn’t have been dark, though.  Even if the day were going normally, Spike would still be up tidying the place, the lamps along the bookshelves warm and aglow.  But it instead looked as if he had done quite the opposite; papers lay strewn across the floor, books left unshelved.  Spike never went to bed without putting everything in some semblance of order.

A shadowy figure swooped overhead.  Twilight shrank into the floorboards, her eyes shooting into the darkness above.

“Hoo!” came a high-pitched voice.

Twilight eased herself, sighing away the spike of adrenaline that had set her heart pounding away.  It was just Owlowiscious.

“Hoo!” Owlowiscious called, assumably flying circles somewhere up near the ceiling.  “Hoo!”

Twilight cast a torchlight spell to bathe the room in a warm glow and return it to an easiness she longed to feel within herself.

“Hoo!!!”

She stopped, looking back up at Owlowiscious.  His wing flaps were crooked and frantic, not at all like his normal, precise flying.

“Owlowiscious?  What’s wrong?”

The owl careened down from his wild circles and tumbled into a heap at her hooves.  He scurried to his claws and flapped about, hooting at the top of his lungs.  His feathers were far more ruffled than she had ever seen them, and some even seemed to be missing.

He made his clumsy way toward the papers in the center of the room, wings wild like a baby chick trying to take flight.  As if the scattered papers magically returned his ability to fly, he was again up in the air and diving straight at her, his hoots louder than the screeching of an eagle.

Twilight ducked her head as he passed, and heard his claws scratch wood before he was lost to the night with a final “Hoo!”  She stared out the door, mouth agape.  “Owl… owiscious?”  That was nowhere near normal for him.  He didn’t even act that weird the times he got sick after a night hunt.  What in Celestia’s name was going on?

She thought of what his actions meant.  He never did anything without a purpose; he was a smart owl, after all.  He had struggled through the pages scattered on the floor, and then—

She saw at that moment the claw marks on the doorframe.  They started on the inside, dug deep into the grain, and tapered off toward the outside.  And they were far too large to be Owlowiscious’s.  It felt as if her heart had been sucked out of her chest by a vacuum.  “Spike!”  She could practically see the terror in his eyes as he clung to the doorframe, screaming for her at the top of his lungs as some unknown monster dragged him away into the darkness.

She leapt out into the night, fear gripping at every inch of her skin it could cling to.  She turned to dash into the heart of the circus grounds, ready to fight tooth and nail with whatever monstrosity she must to save her dearest companion.  But just as she looked up, she stopped, the blood freezing in her veins.  

“Misss Twilight Sssparkle.”  

Before her were the lantern-like eyes of the salamander and its bulging, cloaked body.  She heard it breathe in with the faintest of wheezes and flicker its tongue on the exhale.  It stood hunched over as if ready to charge on all fours at a moment’s notice, its foot-long talons absently shaving the tops off blades of grass.  Its eyes became paper-thin slits as sharp as its claws.

“I knew you would come back here sssoon.”  It flitted its tongue.  The glossy scales of its lips were pulled back into a silent snarl, possibly the creature’s attempt at a smile.  “This library is heavy with your ssscent.”  It tilted its head, drawing its lips back further, revealing just how long its teeth really were.  “It smells... deliciousss.  Just like your little Ridgeback.”

Spike!  “What have you done with him!?” Twilight yelled, feeling a weightlessness in her legs.  

The salamander gave a hissing laugh.  Its tongue again danced out from the slits between its teeth.  “The Massster, the Great Missster Kite, would like an audience with you.”  It turned heavily on its claws, which ripped up chunks of grass with every step.

Twilight couldn’t swallow the lump in her throat.  Her knees threatened to give on the spot, hooves rooted in place, until it turned a bright eye over its shoulder at her.  This monster wanted her in tow, would only tell her where Spike was if she met this master of his.  Slowly, she willed herself the strength to lift a hoof, then the other.  If he was leading her to Spike, then all the better.  She had to know he was okay.  Oh, how could she have let this happen to him?  And if he had been targeted, then her friends were in danger, too.  This wasn’t right.  If only she could find and warn them.  She needed to.  Somehow...


≈≈≈×≈≈≈


They walked deep into the heart of the fairgrounds, the salamander leading with a commanding, weighted gait.  It didn’t flinch as a pteros screeched and beat its leathery wings at the chains around its neck, nor did it so much as blink when a minotaur twice the size of Iron Will stomped across its path, three trees’ worth of lumber over its shoulder.  Despite instinct telling her how easily it could tear her to ribbons at the flick of a claw, she kept as close to the salamander as possible for fear of the dark and skittering things around them.  Once—and only once—did she bump into the salamander while trying to avoid a slimy, glistening appendage reaching through the bars of a cage, and its cloak felt oddly warm.

They soon came to a large white tent with a zigzag trim of the deepest scarlet.  The salamander pulled back the flap and bid Twilight enter with an elaborate sweep of a claw.

Goosebumps ran up and down Twilight’s legs at the enormity of the interior, far greater than the dimensions of the outside and rivaling that of Canterlot Castle.  The red velvet carpet beneath her hooves certainly reminded her of it.  It flowed down from the hallways beyond the foyer staircase like two rivers meeting before a waterfall.  Vases of stenciled porcelain stood like sentries atop pillars flanking the mahogany railings.  Tapestries of unnamed kings and warring armies were draped across either far-reaching wall, concealed partly in shadow.  A great fire roared to her left inside a brazier large enough to hold the library itself.  It smelled of cedar, and faintly of cinnamon.  

Her wonder at its grandeur was enough to make her forget her situation and mouth a “wow.”  

“Wait here,” the salamander said, a claw raised in what might have been a threat, drawing Twilight back from her fascination.  It took slow, careful strides up the staircase and disappeared down a hallway.  The fire crackled in the silence.

Twilight bit her lip, feeling her hooves inch for the exit, despite the possible consequences.  Nothing about this place comforted her.  It was too clean, too perfect.  It couldn’t be real.  She shut her eyes, wishing the others could hear the silent screams of her heart, come and rescue her from this nightmare.  Just seeing their faces would make everything better.  Just knowing they were there beside her.  It wasn’t until she heard the pitter patter of her own sweat that she realized how greatly the ordeal was affecting her.

She took a deep breath, keeping her eyes closed.  “Stay calm, Twilight,” she whispered.  “You’re strong.”

Hoofsteps grew in the distance.

Twilight scryed every inch of the foyer for the source.  Sweat trickled into her eye, but she dared not blink away the sting as the hoofsteps chose the top left hallway.  The scratching of the salamander’s claws was distinctly absent.  Only one pony was coming—The Master, Mr. Kite.

Torchlight threw a shadow across the wall and wrapped it up onto the ceiling.  Jewelry clinked, soft and steady, just barely heard over the blood pounding in her ears.  At least, she hoped it was jewelry.

Despite its hoofsteps ringing clearly in her head, she imagined the likeness of a wolf: slavering teeth and matted fur—an ugly, drooling beast wearing necklaces of teeth and trinkets of bone, with a penchant for flesh and sadistic yearnings blacker than its hungry eyes.  She took another step toward the door.

The hoofsteps crescendoed to a peak as the shadow’s legs stretched toward the bottom corner of the doorway, and at last, the pony—a unicorn—appeared and descended the stairs.  Twilight blinked, a breath seizing in her throat.  The figure approaching her looked nothing like what she had been expecting.

Maybe what threw her off was the myriad of purples making up Mr. Kite’s tuxedo, or the yellow and orange polka-dotted kerchief in its pocket.  Perhaps it was the daffodil dangling from the buckle of Mr. Kite’s top hat and the curly, grass-green mane beneath it that bounced with each sauntering strut.  It could have been Mr. Kite’s half-lidded, midnight-blue eyes flickering in the light of the brazier, a grin steadily growing just below.

Or maybe it was due to the fact that Mr. Kite was actually a mare.

“Hello... Twilight Sparkle,” Mr. Kite said in the most honeyed of voices.  “I have been waiting ever so long for this moment.”

And it was with those words that Twilight knew, deep in her heart, that this pony was every bit the drooling, hungry wolf she feared.




[Author’s Note: Thanks to Pascoite, Pre-reader 63.546, RazgrizS57, and Belligerent Sock for their reviews of this chapter.]


[Onward and Upward!]

> II - The Ringmaster
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Ringmaster


“My name is Mr. Kite.”  She descended the final stair into the foyer, her hooves padding on the velvet runway, the bangles around her right hoof jingling together.  “Though, I’m sure my dear Sylissyth has already made that known to you.”

A wave of fear rippled across Twilight’s back.  Something about this mare tripped many wires in her brain, all signalling that she should turn and run—the way her voice carried forth in slow, melodious rhythm, how her smile was a little too thin all the while.  But Twilight’s hooves had found themselves like stone, unwilling to budge.  All she could do was stare back into those deep-blue eyes.  They had yet to blink.

There was a depth to them, like oceans so unfathomable as to hide countless secrets.  She didn’t know why, but they reminded her of Canterlot Castle.  Someone she had once met?

“Ye—” she swallowed and forced what little confidence she could into her voice “—yes... He did.  He called you ‘The Master.’”

Mr. Kite leaned her head back, a brow rising over a smile brighter than the polka dotted kerchief in her pocket.  “Ah, well it seems he has taken to his old manners, then.”  She took a step forward, her eyes cast to the brazier for a moment.  “His kind can be so… aggressive, but Sylissyth…”  She flicked her eyes back to Twilight.  “Can be, quite harmless.”  She giggled.  It sounded like that of a foal, scampering through a playground.  It reminded Twilight of a laugh she had heard once as a filly, but like the eyes, she couldn’t place it.

“But enough about him,” Mr. Kite said.  “I must hear about you.”

Something lurched in the pit of Twilight’s stomach.  “M-me?”

“Why yes.”  The brazier’s fire danced in Mr. Kite’s eyes, but its glow rather seemed to come from within.  Slow, calculating, watchful, she turned for a doorway on the left behind the staircase, her gaze locked with Twilight’s.  “The prized student of Princess Celestia herself.  Bearer of the Element of Magic.”  Something else flickered in her eyes.  “Princess Twilight Sparkle.” Each word rolled slowly over the other like a candy in her mouth.  “Who could possibly not want to hear all there is to know about her?”

Twilight hesitated.  She could think of a dozen ponies in Canterlot alone who didn’t care for any of the princesses.  Fame was one of many things that never came her way with princesshood.  And she felt better off for it.

“Come,” Mr. Kite said, apparently sensing the pause.  “We can speak as we walk.  There is so much I want to show you.”

Twilight raised a hoof for stepping, but planted it firmly.  Spike was still missing, and it was because of this mare and her lackeys.  “No.”

Mr. Kite glanced back.  “Excuse me?”

She wasn’t about to play her little game.  “Where’s Spike?  What did you do to him?”

“Your little dragon friend is safe, for the time being,” Mr. Kite said.  She turned back toward Twilight, head turned to the side, eyes scrying every inch of her.  “But I’m afraid Syllisyth isn’t the most, how would you say—forgiving—of rude guests.”  She traced the shape of a hook on the carpet.

Twilight felt herself span the distance between them reflexively, snout pressed against Kite’s.  “If you touch a single scale on his head...”

“Ah,” Kite said, stepping back, smiling.  “Rather quick to threaten, are we?”  Her horn glowed red like a blushing cheek, and a flap of her tuxedo drew back to reveal a silver stiletto, keener than a hair’s width.  “As am I, Twilight Sparkle, if you so choose.”

The way the dagger shimmered without the light of the brazier held Twilight in place.  It hummed in the aether on a frequency only practiced unicorns could perceive.  She felt it more than she heard it.  The enchantment within held immense power.

Mr. Kite buttoned her tuxedo.  “I trust we are on the same page?”  Her eyes were inquisitive, yet set.  She already knew the answer, but desired hearing it regardless.

“Take me to Spike,” Twilight said like gravel.  “Now.”

The corner of Mr. Kite’s mouth curled in suppressed victory.  “My dear, Twilight Sparkle, you forget your predicament.  You—”

“Now.”  Twilight stomped a hoof forward, a carpet-dampened chink of marble splitting the silence.

Mr. Kite turned for the door.  “You will see your little friend again soon.  But first I would like you to walk with me.”

There was no arguing with her.  With a salamander potentially lurking around any corner and Spike held hostage, the playing field was hers.  Twilight offered a growling sigh.

It was received politely enough with a smile.  “Follow me, if you please.”

Mr. Kite led Twilight through a side door into a dimly lit hallway.  Tent flaps branched off into what she could only guess was a maze of rooms and more hallways.  She had given up expecting it to act anything like a normal tent and instead imagined it as a castle, with just as many secrets as rooms.

Why this mare had come to Ponyville gnawed at Twilight.  Of all ponies, she felt herself the last on any possible list worth meeting.  Kidnapping Spike made a statement, though.  Whatever it was, it was important to the monster walking ahead of her, and worth such despicable, underhanded methods.

“So tell me, Twilight Sparkle, what does a princess such as yourself do?  Surely you have some administrative duties about Ponyville?”

Fishing for dirt?  It was an innocent enough question on the surface, perhaps meant to reestablish formalities.  No reason to take chances.

“I have some,” Twilight said.  “But mostly I just run the town library.”  They turned down another corridor, Kite slowing to pace her.  

“Only a library?  Does Princess Celestia not delegate responsibilities?  One would think being a princess would mean assuming a position of power, even if only a minor one at first.”

“Power?  Not hardly.  I couldn’t see myself running a town much less ruling a nation.”

Mr. Kite snorted.  There was a hint of momentary detachment, a jaggedness to her face at thoughts elsewhere.  Her smile was quick to return.

“Hmm, I guess not everypony is as eager to claim what is given them.”

An odd statement.  Personal experience, perhaps, and a sore spot if so.  Needed a neutral answer.  

“I guess not,” Twilight said.

“But I’m sure it will come in due time,“ Mr. Kite appended, rather quickly.  “With such friends as I’ve heard you have, I would believe anything is possible.”  

A redirection.  Definitely fishing.  Nibble, appease.

“Definitely.”  Twilight turned her head toward Kite in show of validation.  “They’re the best friends anypony could ask for.”

Mr. Kite turned her head, chin raised slightly.  “That is wonderful to hear.  And they think highly of you for everything you’ve done, no?”

Twilight hesitated.  Though she hated when Kite smiled, the lack of one with the question was unnerving.  The one moment it would have been acceptable to do so, it was withheld—a statement.  Kite was drawing cards from her deck—exploitable weaknesses—and laying them on the table for both to see.  It suddenly felt warm in the hallway.

The others were next.  

“I would think so,” she said, and too quickly added, “why do you ask?”

A glimmer in Kite’s eye belied the nonchalance she maintained.  She continued speaking, slower, more collected.  “Because, Twilight Sparkle, your reputation is... impressive.  Not many ponies could travel through time and come out in one piece, or save an entire kingdom from infiltration and certain destruction.  Not to again mention you’re a princess.”

A deflection.  “Well, I guess you could say so,” Twilight said.

Mr. Kite gave what sounded like an idle “Hmm,” but Twilight made sure to remember it.  It was an odd place to end the conversation, and with the subtle threats from moments ago it surely meant something to Kite.  Twilight kept her eyes peeled and her ears sharp.  She had to be ready for whenever this would come to a head.

Mr. Kite led her around a corner and to the end of the hallway, where a bustling commotion could be seen through the sliver between the flaps of the exit.  She parted them, allowing Twilight first entrance into what was, at first glance, bedlam.  A moment’s digestion changed her mind, settling on a middle ground of organized chaos.

The sea of nightmarish creatures she had waded through when following Sylissyth had finished the frameworks of dozens of circus houses, stretching beyond the northern hills.  Some were fully set and draped, their massive canvases towering into the starry sky.  Others were still only skeletons of their true might as muscled beasts of fur and scale hoisted enormous skins overtop the center poles with ropes thicker than Twilight’s legs.  The sight was enough to make her forget her situation.

“Are you not impressed?” Mr. Kite asked, a single eye peeking out of the corner of her vision.  “It takes quite the crew for such an undertaking.”

Twilight nodded, her gaze locked on the scraggly feathers of a crooked bird-like creature.  It passed on stalky legs, its head twitching about so as to take in all directions with its unblinking eyes.  Her nose scrunched instinctively at the stench of mouldy hay.  

They walked around a pen of blindfolded cockatrices and their stone-like gargoyle caretaker.  It sounded like slabs of stone sliding across one another when the creature moved its head to regard them.  “Where exactly are they all from?” she replied, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“They are from every corner of the world.  And there are many, many corners.”  She began down a path between two completed circus houses, the many beasts and their heavy loads parting like water around a rock.  They gave Mr. Kite an abnormally wide berth, their eyes alert and locked on her as they passed.  “Every one of them was hoof picked.  I do not care for mere adequacy.” Mr. Kite let a chuckle drift over the clamor about them.

Celestia help me, whatever this is... Twilight willed herself to gulp, and fell in line.


≈≈≈×≈≈≈
	

Mr. Kite led Twilight through a maze of tents.  There was seemingly no method to the madness that was this setup.  The tents reached high above, and the pathways between were narrow like the Canterlot alleyways she had always feared being caught alone in as a filly.  Only by the stars above did she know they headed north, toward Canterlot Lake and its mirroresque surface—a nighttime sky all its own, just visible from the library balcony.  What she wouldn’t have given to be back there, a book propped against the railing, Spike’s snoring muffled by the balcony door.

She noticed as they walked the top of a tent far larger than any of the others looming in the distance.  Its upper body was a clouded grey in the nighttime darkness, the carnival lights unable to reach such heights no matter how they tried, and there were indistinct designs along its creases.  She caught glimpses of it between the tents and figures walking about them.  Six points reached toward the heavens like a mountain range, and Twilight could only wonder where trees grew tall enough to support such a frame.

“It is quite... magnificent, isn’t it?” Mr. Kite asked.

Twilight knew the question was already answered for, so she merely continued gazing.

Mr. Kite seemed to have understood, and continued.  “It is called simply, Le Magnifique.  A personal favorite of all my showcases.”

Even before it came fully into view, Twilight had already concluded it was indeed magnificent—and twice as imposing.  Its enormity walled off the valley’s bottleneck like some great gate hiding away the unknown.

“In here we showcase the most dangerous and exotic acts.”  Mr. Kite’s ever-present smile curled just a little bit further up her face.  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what they were.”  Twilight continued staring, trying not to imagine what could possibly be worse than the claws, the fangs, and the guttural and shrieking things she had witnessed already.

They neared the entrance, where Twilight could more readily see that the tent’s greyish color was actually sky blue, and the inner lining of the tent flaps, pinned out and away by tree-sized stakes and ropes so as to beckon her in, had an olive embroidery with a curling design that reminded her of one she had seen in a book about Saddle Arabia.

It was bright within, torchlight scouring every inch but the highest reaches of the tent.  Mr. Kite gestured.  “After you.”

Twilight complied, her steps light, eyes scrying for any sort of trickery. 

The grass that had once grown lush was gone, covered over with a layer of dirt and straw.  Cages huddled together like packs of wolves as far as the eye could see, forming crude aisles and partitioning vendors from trainers and their scaly, furry minions.  Some of the cages were occupied, and the things within growled and reached their dangerous limbs out through the bars at excited but nervous passers-by.  One of these ponies seemed unfazed by them, and it took Twilight a second to believe who her eyes saw.

“Fluttershy!” she yelled.

Fluttershy, of all ponies, was standing beside a cage, peering in at some animal as it prowled back and forth, its matted fur dancing between colors so as to blend in with the bars and shadows.  She gasped at Twilight’s yell, wings clenching to her sides, and whirled about.  Only Fluttershy could be more scared of her own name than being surrounded by a thousand animals animals that all wanted to eat her.  “Oh, Twilight.  It’s you.”

Twilight wrapped her in a hug, glad to finally find somepony she knew.  “Fluttershy, what are you doing here?”

Fluttershy smiled.  “Oh, I was just looking at all the animals locked up in these scary cages.  Especially this little guy.  He looks so sad.”  The tiger-like beast in the cage beside them made a series of clicks with its tongue and then hissed.  

Its breath reeked of rotten meat.  Twilight recoiled at the stench, but something about the beast held her attention, made her stare back through the bars.  It made her feel warm and cold at the same time, both alone and aware that she wasn’t.  Its eyes—piercing yellow—reached out to touch her, begged her to come closer.  

She wanted to.  The way its eyes shone like glass in the firelight told her to walk forward for a better view.  An inkling of doubt, a curiosity of her compulsion settled in the front of her mind.  There was something else she should have been doing.

“Twilight?”

She blinked, shaking herself from the fog clouding her senses.  Fluttershy was staring at her, concerned.  “Are you okay?”

The tiger thing snarled and paced back and forth in its cage, eyes locked on her.  There was a sentience within that made her thankful for the bars between them.   It gave a final hiss before slinking away to meld with the shadows.  Though it had disappeared from view, the feeling of being watched remained.

“Twilight?”

Twilight blinked back to reality, turning to Fluttershy.

“Are you al—”

“I’m fine.”  She cast a glance over her shoulder at Mr. Kite, who was inspecting a chimera in the cage beside the tiger creature’s.  “Fluttershy, where are the others?  Are they okay?”.

“Um, I think—I mean, I hope so.  Why?  Is something wrong?”

Twilight didn’t answer, still staring at Mr. Kite, who had turned to grin back at her.  “Yeah, there certainly is.”

Fluttershy leaned to follow Twilight’s gaze.  She gasped, blushed, and hid behind her mane, absently rubbing a hoof along the other.  “Oh...”

“Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.  “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing.”

Twilight fixed her friend with a resolute stare.  “Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy squeaked.  Her eyes danced between Kite and the ground.  “T-that’s the pony Rainbow Dash said you were with earlier...”

Adrenaline shot through Twilight from head to hoof.  “You saw Rainbow Dash?  When?  Where?  What about the others?”

“Well, I saw her over by the pteros cages in the back, and everypony else—”

Something metal clanged to the side, and Twilight turned to see Mr. Kite’s hoof against a cage door.  She strode forward, chin raised.  “Are you ready to continue the tour, Twilight Sparkle?  The two of us must be off if we’re to see all that I want to show you.”

Twilight stood tall, setting her face with her best glare.  “You mean the three of us.  I’m not going anywhere without Fluttershy.”

Mr. Kite gazed back, smiling as if she found the statement humorous.  “My dear Twilight Sparkle... whom might you be speaking of?”

A prickle on the neck.  Twilight snapped her head around.  There was nothing but rusty cages and straw littered around her.  “Fluttershy!”  She locked her gaze on Kite, who had already turned about and was heading down the aisle, neck craned so as to peek at her with an eye.

“What a shame your friend had to… leave for the moment.  But perhaps we will find her again on our tour, yes?”  There was a twinkle in her eye.

Twilight had to restrain herself from leaping with bared teeth.  There were too many circus hands milling about to make anything of it.  And another hostage worsened the situation.  Something about this mare told her she wasn’t afraid to stoop so low as torture.  Or worse.

“Is something the matter, Twilight Sparkle?”

The innocence in Kite’s voice only boiled the blood in Twilight’s veins.  “Nothing.”

Mr. Kite smiled.  “Very well, then.  Come along.”

Twilight followed in silence.  Her breath felt short, unable to relax knowing that two of her friends must be tied up and locked away in some dark hole.  The thought clawed at her heart.  Being powerless to protect her friends cut the deepest, and left her with only the hope the others were safe and somehow foiling Kite’s plot.

The spaciousness of Le Magnifique seemed to have disappeared, the torchlight throttled by some heavy oppression that now closed in.  It made the shadows seem darker, the growls and hisses of the caged animals harsher.  She looked in at them, wondering if they were part of Mr. Kite’s plan or just the backdrop for a grander show.

She followed Mr. Kite to the farthest ring in the tent, where an eerie silence took hold.  There was not a creature in sight.  Empty cages pressed in around them.  Mr. Kite turned to present herself with renewed dignity.  She said nothing.

“What?” Twilight asked impatiently.

“What do you think?”  Mr. Kite tilted her head ever so slightly, eyes still trained on Twilight, searching.

Twilight felt her muscles tense of their own accord, her ears strain for the shadow of a sound creeping up behind her.  “Of what?”

“Everything, my dear Twilight Sparkle.”  She swept out a leg to gesture at their surroundings, then swaggered slowly forward.  “What do you think of everything I have shown you?  I am proud to say that almost everything is real.”

Twilight paused before answering, sensing the prompt in Mr. Kite’s voice.  Danger exuded from the nearing smile, echoed soundlessly, an inaudible symphony in the silence off dust and cage, a harsh, unending ring that screamed she turn and flee; but doing so spelled certain death.  A brave face and voice was all she could muster.  “‘Almost everything’?”

Mr. Kite looked away, demure, for a moment, as if conjuring the strength to admit a terrible fault.  Her tone, however, belied the gesture.  “I’m sure you’re aware much of my collection is… hard to come by, and even I could not manage to obtain some of them.”  She took a step forward, her horn trailing a puff of smoke.  She followed it with her eyes.  “So with a little magic, I simply... created them.  I wanted to know whether or not you noticed.  Am I safe to say you didn’t?” Her eyes traced down to Twilight’s.  “So… what do you think, Twilight Sparkle?”

Twilight’s brain hardly processed the question.  It was stuck on ‘created’ animals.  Polymorphs: beings spawned through mashing others together with magic.  Live creatures were needed for such an unspeakable act, and it took all of her willpower to keep her stomach from turning inside out.  “You’re… you’re sick, Kite.”

Kite raised a brow.  “What do you mean?”

“Stop playing games, Kite,” Twilight spat.  “Where Spike?  Where’s Fluttershy?  Why are you doing all this?”

There was a moment of silence between the two as the final question drew satisfaction from the ringmaster in the form of a laugh.  “Why am I doing this?”  Mr. Kite cocked her head to the side.  “Tell me this, Twilight Sparkle: what is the point of a worm?  Something so helplessly oblivious to the world around it?”  She paused for reply, to which Twilight instead glared death.  Kite giggled, and she shifted her head to the other side, raising it and her brows slightly.  “It is to be watched, enjoyed by those who are capable of understanding.  But what is the point of watching it other than to see it squirm?”

“Get to the point!” Twilight barked.

Mr. Kite giggled that same giggle.  She took another step closer, her bangles jingling about her hoof.  Her eyes seemed bluer, deeper than they had before, swirled like whirlpools in bottomless oceans.  “You are the worm, Twilight Sparkle.”  

The hair on Twilight’s nape stood on end.  She leaned away, willing but unable to force her hooves to follow.  They felt as if knee-deep in mud.  The silence was drowned out by a low roar like air rushing through a vent as the grin on Kite’s face became all the more profound.  Twilight tried prying away from her luminous gaze, to check that the mare wasn’t drawing her dagger, to find a voice and cry for help, but she was trapped in those eyes that moved slowly closer.  

They drew at her, she could feel—pulled at her like one might tug at a loose string of cloth, the whole of her self unmoving, resisting, but threading apart until she no longer remained.  The magic choked the air between them, pulling, unravelling her.  It wrapped about her horn when she tried calling upon her own, stifling what little glow had formed with an icy chill that clenched her wings in place at her sides.  She could already feel the cold grip of death around her throat as she choked on the buttery sweetness of Mr. Kite’s breath.  I’m sorry, Spike… Fluttershy.

She shut her eyes, pulled her head back to the point of snapping, her body quivering as it awaited the blade’s inevitable plunge into her heart.  There was the soft hum of a horn—another spell.  

A lush warmth met her lips, and she shot open her eyes to Kite’s embrace.  Heat flashed to her cheeks, and her brain hazed as if drowning in poison.  She jerked her head away, her body following in sudden freedom.  The grip about her wings vanished, and they spread wide, ready to carry her into the highest rafters, legs coiled for launch at the slightest hint of advance, though she could feel the remnant of magic that hung loose between them but tight around her neck, a leash that would pull taught or crush the life from her at the whim of its caster.  Only it kept her from leaping into the darkness above or casting a spell.

Mr. Kite smiled, eyes half-lidded.  She spoke barely above a whisper, slow, meticulous, savored.  “Are you afraid of death, Twilight Sparkle?”

There were no words for the terror clenching Twilight’s heart, the sudden chill from the ebb of Mr. Kite’s breath on her sweat-dampened skin, the paste that held her tongue to the roof of her mouth, silencing any reply she could have wanted to give.  

“You shouldn’t be,” Mr. Kite said.  She reached a hoof up to caress Twilight’s cheek.  It felt like ice as it traced her jaw to her chin, then slowly down her neck and chest.  Twilight couldn’t muster the courage to move, lest a flick of the wrist produced the wicked blade, but her muscles trembled a symphony beneath the touch.  

Mr. Kite drank in the fear, and a haunting chuckle wormed its way out of her lips.  She leaned forward to whisper in Twilight’s ear.  “There are far worse things to fear.”

She drew back her hoof, and slowly the rest of herself.  The magic dwindled the further Kite stepped, until she at last turned, her eyes no longer locked with Twilight’s, and she vanished beyond the ring of cages.





[Author’s Note:  Thanks to RazgrizS57 and Belligerent Sock for their reviews of this chapter.]

[Onward and Upward!]


> III - The Coldest Reality
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	
The Coldest Reality


Monsters weren’t real.  It was a truth Twilight Sparkle had held all her life.  Unlike other foals who hid under their blankets at night, there were no monsters under her bed, or creatures lurking in the shadows of her closet.  Maturity came early for her, and that meant she had no reason to think such things existed.  But the way Mr. Kite had spoken moments ago, dangled her life before her very eyes, proved just how wrong she could be.

The air had settled, the magic that lingered in the aether receding like dusk before night set in.  She could no longer feel Kite’s presence on the higher frequency, but she consumed Twilight’s mind from the inside out.

Are you afraid of death, Twilight Sparkle?

The trembles that consumed her moments ago—had her convulsing beneath a skin she could not move for fear of the blade—subsided.  A fog cleared from her head, leaving herself with more questions than was willing to admit.

She could still taste Mr. Kite’s lips.  Licorice.  It was heavy on her tongue and wafted to her nostrils.  How real it was—the kiss, the threat, then gone—yet how impossible it was to believe.  

The circle of cages hadn’t moved, and yet it felt as if they did, had shifted to conceal away the monster that lured her to this circus of nightmares and all memory of her.  She knew what had happened, but it made no sense.

There are far worse things to fear.

How effortlessly she had said those words, so easily whispered them in her ear, like a passing compliment, as if the unimaginable things worse than death were beautiful in her mind, something fantasized.

They were meant to hurt her.  For what, Twilight didn’t know.  What hints had Kite given?  Her motives hid somewhere in her words.

In their first conversation, Kite had poked at her status as a princess, fought to steer the topic toward it and her friends.  What was the connection?

A polite cough behind Twilight broke the silence.  She wheeled around to see Rarity, blushing in the dim light.

“I’m sorry, Twilight,” she said.  “Was I interrupting something?”

The clenching feeling in Twilight’s chest disappeared, a sudden warmth spreading through her body.  A smile overtook her.  “Rarity!”  She ran as fast as she could to wrap her friend in a hug.  Twilight had never considered the softness of her friend’s coat comforting in an emotional sense, but at this moment it eased her mind as if she had woken from a nightmare.

Rarity squirmed a little, prompting Twilight to release her.  She fixed Twilight with a foalish smile.  “So that’s who Fluttershy was talking about.”

“You saw Fluttershy!?”  Twilight almost leapt upon her.  “When?  Where?”

Rarity all but jumped out of her skin, staring at Twilight as if she was a shadow that had darted between her hooves.  “W-why, yes, Twilight.  About an hour ago, outside by those, eugh...”  She twirled a hoof and rolled her eyes, grimacing as she fished for a word.  “Horrible, snake-like things.”  She shuddered.  

Twilight’s hopeful smile deflated.  She had seen Fluttershy far more recently than Rarity.

“Why, what’s wrong, Twilight?”

“It’s Kite,” Twilight said.  “She…”  Twilight’s mind continued on to think ‘kidnapped Fluttershy,’ but her tongue lolled in her mouth.  The silence left her with a blank stare on her face, one Rarity returned.

“She what?”

What was happening?  The words were there but stuck in the back of her throat.  Twilight pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, trying to work out the warning that refused to spill forth.  “Kite’s…”  Her throat seizedfor an instant like an asthma attack.  ‘After you and the others’ never made it out.

Her heart beat faster.  The words she desired to say fled into the depths of her chest, hellbent on keeping Kite’s plan a secret.  Fluttershy’s life depended on them, yet she could do nothing.  Her tongue hung limp in her mouth at the very thought of speaking.

It was unnatural.  To have gone mute so suddenly… It wasn’t nervousness, and fear only urged her to speak.  There was only one possible reason.

Magic.

Mr. Kite’s kiss—the hum of magic.  It was a Kiss-and-Tell pact, a paralysis hex placed on the bearer’s tongue, meant to guard lovers’ secrets.  Whenever one might attempt to divulge the contents of the pact, it would cut off nerve function to the throat.

By virtue, it was reciprocal: Kite could speak only with her on the matters constrained by the spell, but it left Twilight without recourse other than to find the boundaries of the pact she had unwittingly consigned to.

“Ah.”  Rarity glanced away, searching for an answer.  “I’m not sure what it has to do with Fluttershy, Twilight, but if you’re trying to tell me about you and that mare, well, it was rather obvious.”

After struggling for so long to speak, Twilight wasn’t sure what to say.  “Obvious?  You saw what she did?”

Rarity laughed.  “Well, yes, I just happened to be walking by and couldn’t help but notice the two of you.”  Her smile was unnervingly dreamy, the kind that often meant gossip was soon to follow.

Twilight fixed her with an uneasy stare.  “Rarity, why are you looking at me like that?  What was obvious?”

Rarity waved a hoof at her, starry eyed.  “Oh, please, Twilight.  I’m not blind.  You following her here.  Alone.”  She giggled.  “Where nopony would see.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped.  “I… wha—no!  That’s not what happened!”  It had suddenly become rather warm.

“Well it’s certainly what it looked like,” Rarity retorted, smiling proudly.  “It doesn’t matter to me who you like, Twilight.  Even if it is another mare, I will never judge you.”

Twilight worked her mouth and failed as if the Kiss-and-Tell had decided everything was off limits.  How Rarity could be so wrong when the evidence unfolded before her very eyes made her want to scream.

“Rarity,” Twilight said.  “I’m telling you, you’ve got it all wrong.  Kite…”  Nothing.  Kiss-and-Tells always protected themselves in addition to the secrets they guarded.

Rarity’s smile turned bland.  “Twilight.  We both know what I saw.  We are above this childish nonsense.  Can we get on with seeing the sights?  I would particularlylike to meet the giraffes.  I was told these two know a thing or two about fashion.”

“Rarity, this is no time to be fooling around!”  Twilight stamped her hoof.  “We need to find Fluttershy.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow.  “Really, Twilight, what has gotten into you?  First you’re on about Fluttershy, and then you try and shoehorn in your little romance—but get offended when I ask you about it?  That’s not like you.”

The warmth Twilight had been feeling became like a hole, one whose sides both grew taller and crumbled away like soft dirt whenever she tried climbing out.  Distress tinged her voice.  “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right I don’t understand, Twilight, you aren’t saying anything.  You simply clam up at the mention of this Kite pony you just kissed.”  Her face took on a motherly look.  “I’ve seen lovestruck ponies, Twilight, but you’re something else.”  Rarity cleared her throat.  “Now I think we’ve talked about your little affair long enough.  I for one would like to see the giraffes and would be more than happy if you came with me, but I don’t want to hear any more about this Kite nonsense.”  She turned to leave.

Twilight hesitated.  Fluttershy was out there somewhere in the innumerable alleys and tents, stuffed in a hole or locked in a cage.  She and Spike could do nothing but wait for rescue.  But while they were already captured, the others skirted the same fate.

Kite might be a scoundrel with little regard for the well-being of others, but her methods so far gave Twilight reason to believe Spike and Fluttershy were safe.  A trap isn’t worth much without bait.  Given that, she had to gather the others so they wouldn’t also fall victim.  

And Rarity was walking away.

“Rarity, wait!”  Twilight ran to catch up.

Rarity gave her a smile, and Twilight withheld a groan.  Always with the gossip.  She had to know everything about everypony.  Her skill in it did have its benefits, though.  Twilight could always count on her to know something about anything.  Or anypony.  Which made it odd how grossly wrong her friend had been moments ago.

Rarity might have been a gossip queen, but she was no fool.  Her stumbling upon them wasn’t coincidence.  Seeing how Kite liked to play dirty, there must have been an illusion at work.

It made sense in the grand scheme of things.  This circus was far too large for all of it to be real.  Kite had to have taken shortcuts.

“I do simply love the embroidery,” Rarity said, looking back and forth at the far sides of the tent.  “Though it seems a little too cultured for some of these… hardier beings.”  They passed a pair of steely-eyed dragonkin loitering by a stack of crates.  Whatever species they might have been, they appeared far younger than any she was used to seeing in the dragon migrations.  Their bipedal statures reminded Twilight of the salamander, Sylissyth.  

“It’s a shame you didn’t bring Spike with you to see all this,” Rarity said.  “I’m sure he would have loved it.”

Twilight winced.  Not something she wanted to hear at the moment.  “I’m sure he would have, too.”

“Then why didn’t you?”  There was a hint of accusation in Rarity’s voice.  

“Because…”  Because he’s been kidnapped.  “He couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t?”  Rarity smiled.  “Don’t tell me he’s too busy cleaning the library to come out and have a little fun.  You work him too hard, Twilight.  All work and no play, as they say.”

“It’s not that.”  The Kiss-and-Tell threatened to tie her tongue in a knot.

“Then what is it?”

“I…”  She could feel her tongue going limp.  “I can’t say.”

“Twilight.”  Rarity’s eyes were set directly upon her.  “I don’t like being strung along.”

Twilight couldn’t take such a stare.  She knew it was insulting, but fishing for that curiosity was the only way she could communicate.  The spell might stop her from directly speaking what she knew, but it held no power over a trail of breadcrumbs.  She had to try.

“I know, it’s just, it’s the only way I can say it.”

“By not saying anything at all?  That hardly makes any sense.”  Rarity made a show of looking away, more than likely expecting an apology.

They re-entered one of the many larger aisles that ran the length of the tent.  It was loud again, as it was when she had first entered with Kite.  Twilight had to speak above the rukus.

“Look, I’m sorry, Rarity, but it is.  I need you to understand.”

“You need me to understand something I assume is important about Spike but you won’t say what it is?”  Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but Rarity continued unabated.  “Fine.  I guess I’ll just have to find out what’s so secret from him later.  I’m not here to play twenty questions with you, Twilight; I’m here to enjoy a fabulous ensemble of exotic art.”  She strutted off down an aisle, where the giraffes were visible in the distance above the heads of passers-by.

“Rarity!”  Twilight had to trot to keep pace with her.  “Rarity!” she shouted again.  The only response was an away-turn of the head, poised upward.  Twilight growled, and wrapped her friend’s head in a bubble of magic.  She whirled her around, face to face.

“Rarity!  I’m trying to talk to you.”

Rarity scowled as if she had been called fat.  But whatever retort came out of her mouth was lost on Twilight.  The scent in the air had changed, like a cold snap in a desert.  An acrid stench of something that had long since died masked the low-hanging pungence of straw and dirt.  It was far stronger than anything she had ever smelled before, as if the thing lay right beneath her nose.

Twilight gagged, tried gauging where it was coming from.  She looked around for it, and she realized that nopony else seemed to notice.  They all ran about smiling as if through a field of daisies.

She held a hoof up to her nose, a futile attempt to block the smell.  No beast in Equestria smelled so rank.  But then again, almost every creature on display came from some far off land.  What in the world could reek so strongly of death, and yet nopony else notices?

When she again faced forward, Rarity was already several spaces ahead.  She trotted to catch up.

“Rarity,” Twilight said.  “You have to listen to me.  It’s not safe here.”  Rarity kept walking as if Twilight hadn’t said a word.  “Hello.  Rarity.”  Nothing.  “Will you listen to me?  I’m being serious.”

Rarity upturned her nose.  “If you’re going to ignore what I have to say, Twilight—as you so rudely just did—then I suppose it only fair I do the same.”

She didn’t smell it either?  She was standing right beside her.  “Rarity, I wasn’t ignoring you.”

“Then what did I say?”  Rarity shot her a stare as cold as ice.  Twilight clenched her teeth, looking away.  Rarity harrumphed.

It was overly dramatic, even for Rarity, but Twilight dismissed it.  “Look, I’m sorry, Rarity.  But you didn’t smell that?”

“Smell what?”

Indeed, the smell had faded by the time she caught up.  Nopony noticed, Rarity among them.  “That smell.  It was like… like something died.”

“Twilight, that is simply appalling to hear.  Why on Equestria would you think such a thing?”  

Twilight huffed inwardly.  Convincing Rarity proved itself an impossible task.  She needed to change directions.  Accomplish another goal.  “I don’t know… Why don’t we just go try and find the others.”

“You don’t sound very convinced about that.”  Her remark felt true enough.  Every step they took weighed heavier than the last.  Magic hung thick in the air, like a cloud she had just passed through.  It tasted of copper and had a static to it, a charge potential that tugged out and away as if lighting poised to strike.

The smell returned, stronger.  It stung at her eyes, made breathing difficult.  Rotting flesh held no place in the realm of sense.  Such a foul smell should never exist.  It sent her stomach retching all the way to the giraffes.

The walk was short, thankfully, and the smell went away as they neared.  They were a lively bunch, the giraffes.  Twilight could hear their banter long before reaching their stall.  Motley and Longneck, as a squat, top-hatted capybara was quick to announce every few seconds to new passers-by, acted the part of two grade school brothers.  Motley, the—ironically—slightly taller of the two and—to his namesake—much spottier, appeared to take the role of older brother: joking and antagonistic.  Longneck came across as more reactive, though not without well-mannered retaliation.  Headbutts and expletives seemed to be the main of their attraction.

Rarity, surprisingly, took it in stride, nothing but a smile on her face as she and Twilight approached the stall.

“Oi, Long, getta look at these two!” Motley said, craning his head upside down.  He leaned down uncomfortably close to Twilight, eyes almost touching hers.

“Get off it, Mot, I can’t getta look if yer all in me way!”  Longneck pushed his head beside his brother’s, eyes like saucers.  

“Aye, Mot, that’s a pony that is.”  Longneck nodded emphatically.  Twilight wouldn’t have been surprised if she had heard rocks banging around inside.  She opened her mouth to speak, but wasn’t sure what to say.  She hadn’t expected Trottledee and Trottledum.

“She don’t know what to say, Long,” Motley said, rearing his large face toward Longneck.  “It’s probly yer big, ugly mug mum gave ya.  S’why ponies keep starin’ at ya.”

“Shut your mouth, Mot, everyone knows you’re the one got all the ugly.”  Longneck shoved his face into Motley’s, who pushed back.

“That so?”

“Aye!”

They started bickering, and Twilight took the opportunity to ignore them.  Rarity seemed amused by their antics, though, her eyes wider than normal and her lips pursed to suppress a giggle she was surely hiding.  She held her hoof to her lips, an unusual thing for her to do, either to keep herself from bursting out laughing or awaiting a moment to interject.

But there wasn’t much to interject about in terms of fashion, as that had been her reason for coming.  The massive bowties they sported, while acceptable for giraffes as part of a spectacle, weren’t anything Twilight would have written home about.  Everything of Rarity’s already shimmered, shone, sparkled, flashed, and any other word she would have probably used to describe them, more, by orders of magnitude.  

Or to not describe them.  They looked like they hadn’t been washed in weeks, the giraffes not too much better.  Though that could just have been from their roughhousing throughout the day, it still didn’t excuse proper presentation, something she would have expected from Kite, what with how she had touted everything on their walk.

She heard Rarity get a word in, and she apparently struck up a conversation, but Twilight only heard one of the giraffes say “the pretty one’s talkin’” before the stench brushed against her nose like the tail of a passing cat.  She scrunched her face in disgust, looking around for whatever reeked so horrifically.

It seemed to grow in power every time she came across it.  The last time she almost lost her lunch, but this time it practically knocked her off her hooves.  She stared at a single point on the backdrop of the stall to steady herself.  A wisp of smoke moved against the back partition, and the canvas waved with it as if in a breeze, but the only draft Twilight felt went the other direction.

“Oi, Mot, this one’s checkin’ me out!”

Twilight blinked, realizing the point she had fixated on was just to the side of Longneck’s rump.  She blushed furiously, her voice stalling.  “I… Uh, I wasn’t—”

“Ye like it, lass?” he said, smirking.  “I do work out y’know.”  He wiggled his hindquarters in her direction.

Twilight cringed, and both giraffes burst out laughing.  Longneck flopped to the ground, his legs cycling out of his control, before he pointed a hoof at her.  

“Got you good, eh?” he said, a tear rolling down his cheek.

Twilight rolled her eyes and groaned inwardly.  A couple of pranksters through and through.  She turned away, hoping Rarity would take the hint.

Thankfully, she did.  “Well, it was fun meeting you boys,” she said to the giraffes.  “Hope to see you perform later tonight.”

Motley jabbed his brother with an elbow, a devilish grin on his face.  “Y’hear that, Long? She wants to see me later tonight.”

“Ya, but she’s gonna be disappointed,” Longneck retorted.  “Last I checked, you weren’t the long-necked one.”

Rarity laughed along with them, waving a final farewell before sidling up beside Twilight and beginning their walk down the aisle.  She sighed.  “They were quite the pair, weren’t they?”

If by “pair” she meant psychiatric ward roommates, then Twilight would have certainly agreed.  She nodded anyways.  “I guess you could say that, but what’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

“What ever do you mean?”  Rarity returned her inquisitive stare.  The way her brows arched practically screamed how unabashedly determined she was to know.

“Well, for one thing, the Rarity I know would have thought they were dirty, and their bows weren’t very impressive compared to the things you make.”

“Tcha!”  Rarity waved a hoof.  “I most certainly know I would probably have a bit of dust on my coat too if I had to stand around in this place all day.  And I’m sure the’ve got much better sense than whatever those dreadful...things they were forced to wear were.”

Twilight shrugged.  “Fair enough, but what about all those other things they said about you?”

Rarity chuckled.  “Oh, you know, stallions…”  She let it hang is if it was self explanatory.

Except they weren’t stallions.  She wasn’t sure of Rarity’s views on that sort of business, but she smiled, chalking it up to her usual fawning for attention.

It was all in good fun, she had to admit to herself.  They were just making the best of a boring situation—a lesson she had learned herself at the Gala all those years ago.  She put a smile on her face, though the lingering smell reminded her of the situation.  “Where do you want to go next?  We could go look for Rainbow Dash over by the pteros; I heard it’s pretty interesting.”

She hadn’t heard anything of the sort, but it seemed effective; Rarity nodded in agreement after brief thought.

They walked down the aisle, in the general direction of the winged creatures’ section of Le Magnifique.  Half of her kept one eye open for Mr. Kite.  She knew from the depths of her soul that everything around her played a part in the grand scheme of this game.  It was a ruse, an attempt to keep her confused, unable to see clearly her motives.

The other half kept its own facade.  If Kite or her lackeys were watching, she had to maintain some semblance of ignorance.  Overt paranoia would only make things worse.

She hadn’t seen hide or tail of Mr. Kite since Rarity had intruded, and she didn’t know if that was good or bad.  What she did know, however, was that something was out there, watching.

Her alert side sensed there was more to the smell she had been noticing.  It had been following them since the cages.  What bothered her most was the distinct novelty of it; she hadn’t first experienced long ago.

“So what makes you so urgent on finding Rainbow Dash?” Rarity asked.

The sudden question startled Twilight.  She glanced over her shoulder, unsure how long it had been since any words had passed between them.  The giraffes barely stood out above the sea of heads.  Had they walked that far already?

“I just want to find her.  We need to get everypony together…”  ‘Before it’s too late’ refused to leave her lips.

“What for?”  The tone of her voice was oddly curious.  “I mean, besides just seeing all the sights with our friends.”

Twilight gave her a glance.  The words had come out a little too quickly for her liking.

“Well, yeah, I think it’d be nice to know where everypony is.”  She held Rarity’s gaze for a moment longer.  She seemed to be measuring her words, as if trying to decipher them, which was weird since Rarity didn’t usually hesitate to meet with their friends.

“I must say I agree,” Rarity affirmed.  “I haven’t seen Rainbow Dash in a while.”  She put on a smile only the grumpiest of ponies could refuse, almost strained for some reason.

And while Twilight might have been worried, she was most certainly not grumpy.  She returned the smile, before holding her head high, happy to have finally convinced her friend.  How, she didn’t know, but glad all the same.

She set a commanding lead through the aisle.  The noises and fanfare of the circusgoers  pulsed with an energy she hadn’t felt since her coronation.  The sliver of emotion felt like a long-lost friend, a sensation she hadn’t experienced in days.  Was she dreaming, or had the pieces of the puzzle finally set themselves straight?

“This will be so much fun!” Rarity said.

Twilight couldn’t help but bolden her smile.  “Yeah, it will,” she said, squinting, moving her head to better see an odd pair of lights hidden beneath a nearby food stand.  

They could have been candles moved hastily out of the way for a demonstration, but no other stall around had any of its own.  The ambient torchlight did its job too well to need them.  Were they food warmers?  

The lights flickered in unison for a split second, and she noticed the darkness that engulfed the middle of each, where the flames should have been brightest.  She raised a brow.

As if trying to strangle her, the stench returned.  Twilight coughed, holding a hoof up to her nose.  There she noticed the smoke about the flames, how it floated unnaturally still in the air, seemed stuck, frozen in time.  The flames had yet to bend in the draft at her back, and again they flickered, down and up, in perfect unison.

Twilight became a statue, the blood in her veins turning to ice as the stench of death invaded her nostrils.  The flames hadn’t flickered; they had blinked.  At last she remembered where she had first witnessed the smell: by the cages, with Fluttershy.

“R… Rarity,” she whispered.  She couldn’t peel her gaze away from the lamp-like eyes beneath the table.  They drew at her, tugged like a fishing line reeling in its catch.  The mind set beyond the glow focused on her, desired her.  The draft in the aisleway became damp and warm, a breath upon the nape of her neck.  “Rarity.”

No answer.

She couldn’t break away, couldn’t turn to her friend for help.  The piercing gaze held her fast, and a part of her believed hers held it in turn.  Looking away would allow the creature to move, to slink away and strike from the shadows.  “Rarity… Please.”

Twilight couldn’t help the tears forming in her eyes.  They blurred her vision, yearned that she blink, but doing so meant losing sight.  

It bared its teeth, sharp and yellow, bright against the sallow camouflage of its fur.  She couldn’t hear it growl, but the sound rumbled in her heart nonetheless, sounded in the chasm that consumed her from the inside.  It looked like it was grinning.  “Just say something…”

Rarity.  She knew the word hadn’t come from her mouth.  Her throat had long since swelled shut, but she continued to plead as her eyes burned and the last bits of strength were sapped from her legs.  “...Anything.”

A sea of friendly faces flooded past her.  But she would die there alone.

The burning in her eyes became too great, and she could hold them open no longer.  A blink, and when the world came to, the creature had vanished.  She shot her gaze above the crowd, ears swivelled to pick up the sound of a thousand pounds of death hurling itself upon her.  Only excitement and cheer lilted upon the air.

Left.  Right.  She spun about to take in every crevice, every shadow in sight.  Even the light could hide it, the color of its skin fluid like water over stones.  A flicker to the left, a snap to the right.  Shadows danced and stretched along wall and canvas, a hundred movements in a thousand places.

There was a whoosh of wind and a bright streak above.  Twilight dropped to the floor, hooves tensed over her head.  She gasped and then stood, realizing the smear was an off shade of blue, eyes scanning the darkened upper regions of the tent.  “Rainbow Dash!”

Rainbow Dash zipped about far above, where the torchlight simply could reach no higher.  She banked back and dove toward Twilight, finishing with a loop to soften her landing.  Twilight shielded herself from the kickup, but was unable to stop the smile spreading across her face and the relief that came with it.

“Heya, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Rainbow Dash!”  Never had Twilight been so happy to say her name.  

Rainbow Dash swept a hoof through her mane.  “You having fun?”

A wave of emotion rolled over Twilight.  “Oh, Rainbow Dash, you have no idea how terrible today has been.”

“Terrible?”  Rainbow Dash gawked.  “How come?  This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened in Ponyville!”  She beamed as if she had been accepted into the Wonderbolts.

Twilight winced.  “Coolest?  How can you even think that?”

“‘How can I even think that?’” Rainbow Dash parroted back.  “Have you even looked up, Twilight?”  She pointed into the empty blackness above.

“Rainbow Dash, there’s nothing there.”

Rainbow Dash stuttered, disbelief blanking her face.  “Nothing up there?  Come on, Twilight, don’t turn me into your broken record.  The pteros!  He’s right up there!”  Again, she jabbed a hoof upward.

Still only darkness.

“Rainbow, this isn’t the time to play games,” Twilight said.  She hadn’t the patience to hide the edge in her voice.

“Wha?  I’m not playing any games.”  She shook her head, confused, then grinned.  “You hit your head or somethin’, Twi?  You’re not actin’ right.”

No, you’re not acting right.  What in Equestria was going on with these ponies?  First, Rarity hadn’t properly seen what Kite had done, and now Rainbow Dash was seeing imaginary pterodactyls.

“What’re you glaring at me like that for?”

Twilight blinked.  She bit her lip, looking over her shoulder at any shadow that moved.  “It’s not safe here.  There’s some tiger thing loose in this tent.”

“Tiger thing?  Ugh...”  Rainbow Dash sighed, wiping a hoof down her face.  “You gotta stop with this weird stuff, Twilight.  Seriously, you’re freakin’ me out.  If there was a tiger running loose, don’t you think we’d have heard somepony screaming about it by now?”

“I… I don’t think so,” Twilight said.  She tensed: a chunk of ash clattered to the ground from a post torch.  “It’s after me.”

“You?”  Rainbow Dash laughed.  “Okay, now I know you’re just actin’ all loopy.”  She lifted off the ground, eyes sparkling like fireworks.  “I know what’ll screw your head back on right.  Come on!  I’ll show you all the other pteroses!”

Twilight felt the cold fingers of dread clutch about her heart.  “Rainbow, wait!”  But she spoke only to a cloud of dust.  “Rainbow Dash!”

She pushed through a couple ponies in her way, eyes desperate to maintain contact with her shrinking friend.  Her hooves felt heavy, weighted down by ball and chain.  Each breath came stubbornly, more resistant than the crowd she pushed herself through.  They had come out of nowhere, the busy aisleways suddenly standing room only.

She spread her wings to fly, but their bones, once light and delicate, became leaden and refused to flex.  “Rainbow, slow down!”  

Hundreds of eyes were upon her.  She felt them reaching out at her, grasping at her.  Which ones were friendly, and where between them would she see the yellow, slitted portals, the claws extending to peel the skin from her bones?  She pushed herself harder, yearning to catch Rainbow Dash, to keep a friend by her side and break free of the oppressive stares.  

They bled together, like a thousand heads of a single monster, their colors congealing with the world around her.  She felt her steps becoming heavier, uncoordinated.  The stench—the miasma—closed in, drawing the life out of her with every struggling breath.

She stumbled and fell, unable to breathe.  Sweat stung at her eyes, and snot trailed down her snout.  Dirt mingled with what little of the heated air she could draw.  It was more than just stifling air.  A hint of magic danced in it.  Its sour residue coated the back of her tongue—a World Weary charm, a fatigue illusion she should have recognized sooner.

Twilight coughed, squinching her eyes to focus her mind on the magic and reverse it.  She began to rise, feeling an immediate effect on her senses, and channelled the newfound clarity into her counterspell.  Its final vestiges melted away like snow beneath a summer sun.  Weariness gone, she blinked away the tears, happy to again be able to catch up with her friend.

But before she could take a step, she saw, huddled low in the dirt, the glowing slits.  A roar from the depths of her darkest nightmares blasted away all sense and stilled the blood in her veins.

A flash of teeth, and the beast leapt into the air, its fur changing from brown to dark blue before her very eyes.  

Twilight didn’t have a moment to react, only just registering that death bore down upon her with gaping maw.  She felt her body go rigid and her eyes go wide to take in every vivid detail.  

Its massive jaws twisted so as to clutch her firmly about the head.  Claws extended from its paws far beyond the thickness of her throat.  A purple sheen grew stronger upon its body in every moment of the eternity she witnessed.  She heard a fleeting plea for salvation shoot through her mind, something to Celestia.  It didn’t matter; it would be over too quickly to feel.  She closed her eyes to the darkness within its throat.  There was a crack of lightning, and then a slow fizzle.  

She waited.  She stood and waited to feel a weightlessness, a sense of ease, anything that she had fantasized death would be like.  But all she heard were hushed whispers.

Twilight peeked open her eyes.  There was no tiger.  Not a trace.  She glanced around at the onlookers—suddenly a sparse few—hoping for an explanation, but then she felt it in the tip of her horn: a vestigial spark of arcane overload.

She had been casting an illusion counterspell on the World Weary charm.  Twilight looked down at her hooves, at the warm puddle beneath her seat.  It grew cold, mocking her for letting herself become so witless in the face of a simple illusion.  These ‘exotic’ animals weren’t polymorphs; they weren’t even real.

Her reflection stared back, hollow and wide-eyed, as if it too mocked her before soaking into the earth.  And as she let the magnitude of her feelings wash over her again, she felt an altogether new emotion.

Words could not describe it.  It made her grind her hooves into the moistened dirt, grit her teeth until it hurt, tears well in her eyes, her legs both tense and tremble.  There was a fire in her heart, and it made her rise.

Of all the terrible, disgusting tricks a pony could play… Twilight stormed down the aisle, past what little of the crowd remained, past the artisans and caged animals.  She shoved her way out the front entrance against a stream of circus-goers, pushed aside tent builders and livestock tenders.  The circus parted itself like waves to a ship, back to the large tent with scarlet zigzag trim.  She thrust open the tent flap and stomped into a darkened room.  She paused, noticing the room had altogether changed.  A single candle sat lit on the desk, Mr. Kite reclining in a red leather chair behind it, eyes hidden beneath the brim of her hat.  The daffodil dangling from her hat buckle covered half of her demure smile.

“What the hell kind of game do you think this is?” Twilight spat.

Mr. Kite giggled, slow and melodic.  She took pleasure in the inhale, letting her mouth open just enough to see the whites of her teeth, and peeked out from under the brim of her hat.  The candlelight flickered far too brightly in her eyes.

“Game?” Mr. Kite asked.  She put a hoof on the desk, by the candle—whose brass bobeche was clean of wax drippings, as if it had been lit for her arrival.  “I didn’t know we were playing a game.”

Twilight gritted her teeth.  “I’m serious, Kite!  It isn’t funny.”

Mr. Kite looked down at her hoof, flat on the desk.  She supinated it till the cup of her hoof stared back, and then raised it to eye level, studying it for a moment.  Her mouth danced with unspoken words, what might have been invisible incantations.

Twilight sensed the air, tasted at it with her own unseen magics, like slender antennae of an insect.  All about her the voiceless words spiralled, waiting.

“Funny,” Mr. Kite said, her tongue lingering on the final syllable.  She rose from her seat—slowly, effortlessly, gliding out from behind her desk.  Her head and neck moved as if floating on a cloud, but her legs were clearly strutting, her body swaying this way and that as she arched her head to peer down her cheek at Twilight.  “There are many funny things in this little town of yours, Twilight Sparkle."

She came dangerously close, as she had with the Kiss-and-Tell.  Twilight stepped back, determined to keep her distance but holding herself firm.  She was going to get to the bottom of this gamemaster’s plot this instant, whether she liked it or not.

“Yeah, and you’re one of them,” she said.

“Oh, ho, clever, aren’t we?”  Mr. Kite smiled.  “But while that may very well be true, there is another thing here I had in mind, something I find very, very funny…”  She regarded Twilight with a predominant eye, and within it, something flickered.  “You, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight growled, standing her ground as Mr. Kite came close enough to touch horns.  “I don’t care what you think!”  She flared her wings to impose a fuller size befitting her anger.  “You came here with your circus, kidnapped Spike and Fluttershy, and then tried to kill me with a fake tiger!”

A loud chuckle crossed Mr. Kite’s lips, almost breaking free as a full-bodied laugh.  She took a moment to settle herself, but never removed her gaze from Twilight’s.  Despite it being behind her, the candlelight still shone in her eyes.  “Sylissyth is better than I give him credit for.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight spat, narrowing her eyes.

“Simply that and nothing more, my dear Twilight Sparkle.  But surely you know, a fake Gui’etzen can do one no harm.”

Her words, as Twilight knew, were spot on.  Illusions, Elementary dedicated a whole chapter to the idea.  Illusions held immense sway over the mind, but no matter how wholeheartedly the victim believed, it could never kill them.  But this mare was hiding something in her words, dangling it before her.  Best tread carefully.  

“Yeah, I do,” Twilight said.

“But if you know that, then why fear the Gui’etzen?”  Mr. Kite blinked, and the candlelight was gone from her eyes.  It instead seemed to shimmer in her grin.  “Why fear... anything?”

Fear anything?  Ugh!  Twilight clenched her teeth to the point of cracking them.  “Why!?  Because it was real to me then!”

“Ahh”—Mr. Kite grinned wider—“and that’s what makes you so funny, Twilight Sparkle.”  She lowered her head to gaze at her from just under the brim of her hat.  “You so easily believe everything you see.  How gullible you are.”  She turned back toward the desk, gliding away as smoothly as she had come.

The nerve.  Twilight’s breaths came out in trembles, her muscles taught with a rage she couldn’t control.  She only noticed the power radiating from her horn after it started crackling.  The noise caught Kite’s attention, and she smiled.  Then she faced Twilight.

“So very funny.”  Her words had come out flat, absent of cheer or guile.  “I am not something that can be touched, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Then prove it!” Twilight said.  She whipped her head back to sling the power built within her horn.  It seared the very air, screamed through the distance between them.  It punched through Kite’s face as if it were fog, white contrails in its wake.  Slowly, Kite’s face reformed, the blue of her eyes settling back in place, locked on her as if the spell had never been cast.

“Nothing is.”

The room grew dark, as if the tent had been thrown into the deepest of pits.  Only the candle lit the room, and the shadows it threw became like monsters scratching at the world.  Mr. Kite’s shadow crawled up Twilight’s legs.  She could feel it moving underneath her skin.

“Tell me, Twilight Sparkle...“  The smile she once wore had vanished, became stone beneath eyes that glowed with their own light.  “What happens when one dies in a dream?”  She let silence linger between them, clawing at her like the shadows.  Twilight felt the weight in her question, the magic condensing like a thunderstorm ready to hurl its first bolt.  Static collected along her back, tugging her hairs upward.  As the seconds passed, she could see the emotion within Kite’s face slowly drain to nothing.

“They wake up,” Kite said.

There was a tiny pitter patter of liquid, slow at first, building to a steady drizzle.  The smell of burning wick wafted beneath Twilight’s nostrils, and her eyes were drawn toward the candle upon the desk.  It was melting as if thrown into a fire.  

Wax ran in rivulets to overflow the bobeche and pour onto the desk.  As the puddle consumed the last bit of candle, it snuffed out the flame in a puff of smoke and caved in on itself like a sinkhole.  The depression widened, deepened, taking with it the desk and the books atop it.  Its underside oozed downward as its drawers leaned inward.  The lacquer began dripping, melting away with the wax running down its face.  And slowly, Twilight realized that everything else in the room began to sag.

Portraits of nameless ponies ran like fresh paint, their frames weighing down lengthening strings and limp hooks.  The bookshelf in the corner leaned, and its contents ran from its shelves, miniature waterfalls in slow motion.  Even the ground became soft beneath her, stuck to her hooves, and drizzled back down with every raised hoof as she struggled to stagger away.  

“What are you doing!?” she shouted.  The canvas walls were melting, a blackness unlike any other visible through their streaky holes.

“It is time, Twilight Sparkle.”  Streaks of wax ran down the length of Mr. Kite’s body.  Her top hat and overcoat slumped to the floor in bubbling globs.  Her eyes and ears ran down her cheeks, drizzling onto the slow cascade that was her shoulders, yet she smiled.  “Time to wake up.”

Darkness yawned behind the thinning streaks of canvas, a heavy warmth washing forth as if from an oven.  It pulled down against her body like a thousand grasping hands.  She could feel herself becoming lighter on her hooves, and looked down at them to see a puddle of purple forming beneath her.  She jerked back and tried flailing her wings, but they gave no strength to her escape as she felt them melt down her sides.  Her hooves were stuck, impossible to pry from the pool of her sloughing, liquified skin.

Everything hazed purple behind the smear of melting hair, and she felt herself shrinking, incapable of screaming behind the substance pouring over her mouth.  She shut her eyes, unable to breathe, unable to bear the nightmare consuming her from the inside, pleading from the bottom of her heart for it to stop.

The floor gave out.  She was falling.  Instinct screamed to thrash her limbs, to catch hold of something, anything—anything to hold tight and cry for an end to this absolute loss of senses and spiralling descent.

Her lungs burned with a flame she had never believed possible, clawed at themselves in their need for air; but there was none to breathe, her face encased in melting wax.  She held at bay the urge to suck in, willed herself to hold out for air like a diver swimming for an invisible surface.  

Her body convulsed in free fall, every muscle twitching, demanding the impossible.  Tears pushed through squinched eyes in her fading efforts to survive, teeth clenching as a last defense against the inevitable.  She could stand it no longer.

Her lungs forced open her mouth, and she couldn’t even gasp as her skin flooded inward.

Wake up!

Twilight snapped upright.  Air filled her gasping lungs with a cool, sharp pain.  Sweat poured down her face and slicked her mane flat against her forehead.  Light flooded in around her, and she had to shield her eyes.  It took her a moment to adjust, but slowly her surroundings revealed themselves.

To her left was a bay window, where a bright blue day greeted her.  Bookshelves stood tall along either length of the room, a soft purple to complement the shades of wallpaper cramped beneath a low-hanging ceiling.  A table stacked high with books sat in the middle.  

The more she saw, the more the warmth of her very existence faded.  She had seen this place before, but she couldn’t be there now.  She shut her eyes, covering her face with her hooves.  There was a swish of fabric.  Twilight shook her head, trembling, denying the touch and smell of what she held in her hooves: soft cotton, daisy-scented detergent.  No, she was not sitting up in bed, not holding her sheets in her hooves.

Slowly, she peeked open her eyes, hoping beyond hope that she had been mistaken.  But she could not deny the warmth of the sheets or the mattress beneath her.  The bookshelves were solid and laden with the scent of paper and ink.  The clock on the wall was real, and it ticked away in the silence, failing to echo amidst the piles of books and papers strewn about the room.  

Twilight could only cradle her tiny filly legs as the final walls of denial came crashing down around her.  

She sat in bed in her old room back in Canterlot.  And she was very much alone.






[Author’s Note: Special thanks to Belligerent Sock for his review of this chapter.]



[Onward and Upward!]


> IV - Examination
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	
Examination


This wasn’t home.  None of it was real.

Twilight closed her eyes to the books and the window, shut her ears to the ticking of the clock.  She imagined where she had stood moments ago: darkness, canvas, the candle—even Mr. Kite and her hellish grin.  Ponyville, Rarity, Rainbow Dash.  She was there, they spoke to her.  She had felt the world around her—heard, tasted—knew from the bottom of her heart it hadn’t been a lie.

She opened her eyes.  

Nothing changed.  Every book, every detail of her room was exactly as her childhood memories.  The flooring moulds were engraved with prancing ponies.  The left knob on her bed stand was missing.  The smell of old books weighed on her nostrils, but sharp and light, unlike the heavy mustiness of the Ponyville library.  

“No,” she muttered, breathless.  Her heart tried and failed to block out the ticking, the infernal silence that had consumed the circus’s unending din.

Twilight leapt against the bay window beside her bed.  A garden of lilacs and chrysanthemums bobbed outside, and fish swam lazy circles in a pond nestled within the flowers.  Twilight shook her head.  “It can’t be.”

She backed away, feeling the cushion of her mattress support her tiny weight with ease.  A careless step found only air, and she tumbled over backwards onto the hardwood flooring.  Everything around her was so familiar, yet so hostile.  She shouldn’t be here.  None of this should be here.

She shut her eyes and buried her head in her hooves as she curled into a ball.  It wasn’t real.  It wasn’t real.  It wasn’t real...

A cry for help resounded in her skull, pleading for Celestia—anyone—to save her, rid her of this nightmare.  The clock boomed the quarter hour, loud and reverberating.  Her heart leapt to her throat, and she to her hooves.  

She dashed for the door, feeling the stubbiness of her legs through her stride, the way they wouldn’t reach as far as she desired.  Her steps were uncoordinated and feeble, but she had enough strength to shoulder the door open, sending it crashing it into the outside wall.  The hallway was exactly as she remembered it: white shoulder-height moulding separating the wall into two shades of beige, and a claw-footed table beneath an oval mirror across from her parents’ bedroom.

“No.  This can’t be real,” she muttered breathlessly.  “This can’t be…”

“Twilight?  Was that you?”

Twilight felt her heart squirm in her chest.  A haze overtook sight and sound, as if she were looking at the world through a dirty window.  She had to catch herself from falling.  That soft, demure voice, like Hearth’s Warming bells.  It normally would have warmed her, filled her with a fuzzy feeling she could never describe, but hearing it so out of place—so out of time—brought her mind to a halt, and her breathing with it.  Down the other arm of the hallway approached a mare of cream-white coat, and white and purple stripes of mane.  

Her mind ran circles in her head, and her lips trembled as she muttered: “Mom?”

The mare frowned at her.  “Twilight.  What have I told you about slamming your door open?  You know it leaves marks.”  She walked past Twilight to inspect the wall.  She sighed.  “I know you’re excited that today’s your big day, but you’ve really got to stop doing this.”

She felt her heart skip a beat.  Big day?  There was only one big day she could think of.  But it couldn’t be...

“Honey, what’s the matter?”  Her mother was staring at her, concern peaking her brows.  “I thought you were excited to go to school?”

School?  No.  Not school.  She should be in Ponyville, with her friends.  She should be a princess, already finished with school.  Twilight could barely breathe her head was spinning so badly.  She had been excited to go to school once.  ‘Had been’ was correct—not here, not now.  This was an illusion.  It was just another one of Mr. Kite’s illusions.  But it felt so real.  

Mom—Velvet Sparkle—was everything she ever was.  Illusions were never so exact, never so perfect.  There were always flaws, no matter how much they relied on the victim’s recollection to work.

“Twilight!  Velvet!  You two ready?”

No… Twilight shut her eyes.  This wasn’t real.  This wasn’t real.  She shook her head, refusing to gaze down the hall.  She could see him regardless: short, dark mane; blue fur; cheerful smile.  She pushed her magic to the tip of her horn, calling upon any and all illusion-breaking spells she knew.  It struggled to channel, as if trying to escape through the eye of a needle.

“Twilight.”

No…

“Twilight, are you ready to go?”

You’re not real…

“Come on, Twilight, look at me.”

A hoof drew her chin up, and she couldn’t help but obey the soft, firm voice.  She opened her eyes, and towering over her, just as she had seen in her mind’s eye, was Dad.

“Don’t tire yourself out, kiddo.”  He smiled.  “Save some of that for the exam.”  He ruffled her mane, then turned to Mom.  “Ready?”

Mom nodded.  “Mhm.”

“Alright, let’s get goin’,” Dad said.  “Don’t wanna be late.”  He turned back down the hallway, Mom beside him.  

Twilight couldn’t find the strength to lift her legs.  She felt hollow, a shell of what she used to be.  Her magic was weak, her legs short, and her mind on the verge of breaking.  She shook her head again.  It was an illusion.  She knew it deep in her heart, beneath the fear and worry of what her eyes saw and her ears heard, beyond the perfect details and seamless nuances.  It had to be fake.  

But Dad never called her “kiddo” outside of home.  It was his secret pet name for her.  Nopony could have known about it except her and her family.  And no illusion was proactive enough to draw that deeply from her psyche—not without her mind consciously wandering there.  It would take an illusionist beyond even Far Sight, mentor of Star Swirl himself, to form a spell that complex.

It is time, Twilight Sparkle.  Time to wake up.

Wake up from what?  To what?  Reality had been taken from her, not given back.  The lies surrounded her now, not then.  But how they held such lucid detail brought her mind to a halt.  

How to describe it?  Everything seemed brighter, clearer; the little things she noticed—the scratch on the baseboard beneath the mirror, the two creaky boards just outside her parent’s room as her father walked over them—more pronounced.  Were her senses always this in tune as a foal?

Her life had been so vivid, so real.  It couldn’t have been a dream.  And yet here she stood beside what could only be her parents in the flesh.

Every spell had a catch.  Where she would find it—if this was indeed an illusion—she didn’t know.  However, no matter where it would be or how much she yearned to find it, fighting the illusion wouldn’t help.  Searching for answers or slip-ups would only strengthen it; as connected to the mind as illusions were designed to be, thinking of flaws mended any that could be found.  Against every desire to break away and hunt them down, waiting for one to fall into her lap posed her best bet.  She closed her eyes.  Breathe in, hoof to chest.  Breathe out, hoof outstretched.  Everything would be okay, one way or another.


≈≈≈×≈≈≈


Canterlot Castle was both much larger and smaller than Twilight was used to.  Though it had fewer towers, they seemed to reach further into the heavens now that she was again just a filly.  The astronomy wing hadn’t yet been expanded to include the deep-space telescope, nor had the Guard’s barracks been moved to the front quad to make room for three additional embassies; none of those would happen for another three years, according to her reality.

Canterlot Castle’s main gate, an archway of solid gold that could humble even the wealthiest of ponies, stood taller than memory served.  The blossoming flower at its crest glowed as if with its own light beneath the morning sun.  Despite the circumstances, Twilight couldn’t help but gape in awe.

She and her parents, as she suddenly noticed, were not alone.  Within the main gates were at least a dozen other foals and their parents, herded by a royal guard.  Her father briefly put his hoof on her shoulder, guiding her toward the group.  

The hoof was everything it should have been: strong yet soft, commanding but with more an air of usherance than directive.  She knew who it belonged to, would have even if blindfolded, but she couldn’t keep herself from tensing under its touch; no matter how much she was told to believe by every sense in her body, she couldn’t accept him as Night Light, her father.  It was right in so many ways, but the fact—the hope—that it was somehow an illusion burned brighter than all the rest.

She knew they were being led to the Star Swirl Auditorium, in the eastern wing of the academy.  It was a far walk from where they were.  The memory of how fraught she had been this moment years ago struck her.  It was all the same.  Everything was.  Which made no sense, since she had never been here before except in her reality.  Statistically, the chance for even a small hoofful of coincidences was slim to none, much less those for an exact match of everything around her.  That fact alone kept her calm for the moment.  But if all else failed and this truly was real…

Twilight shook her head.  She shouldn’t be thinking such things.  But still.  If they were, it would only be a matter of reliving the past.  It wasn’t a terrible worst case scenario.  For now, though, her focus had to be on proving this was an illusion.

But how to logically disprove her surroundings?  Factors such as when and where certain things happened that couldn’t be effected by an illusion crossed themselves off on a mental list.  Her parents were already too well established; they were too obvious.  Random ponies couldn’t be proven against, as she didn’t know them well enough.  Oh, what had she learned in Advanced Metaphysical Manipulations that could apply to this?

Wait.  She stopped walking.  No, that couldn’t work.  Her logic had to come from a source outside the possible illusion, before the events of this day in her other reality—something Kite couldn’t retroactively change.  

“Twilight?”

Her father was staring at her.  Smiling, she brushed away her thoughts in order to prepare herself for the exam.  She had time to break the illusion.  Her entrance exam only came once.  Or twice, as it seemed.  And she needed a safety net for the worst case scenario.  So on she followed.


≈≈≈×≈≈≈


Star Swirl Auditorium was much taller than Twilight had become accustomed to.  The ceiling, though no more than two feet higher in this body, seemed to stretch upward for miles.  They and the bannered green walls practically radiated with the sunlight streaming through the towering windows.  The desks where the four proctors Twilight had tried so hard to forget about sat in freshly painted seats.  They didn’t look any happier than last time, either.  And she knew being last on the list wouldn’t help the strain she could already see on their faces.  If anything, she would have to again rely on Rainbow Dash’s sonic rainboom to see her through.

As she remembered, none of the foals before her would pass the exam.  They stepped up as they were called and were almost as quickly dismissed.  The line grew short in a matter of minutes.

She heard the name of the filly before hers called, and her pulse spiked.  Though she knew the rainboom would be there for her, she couldn’t help the nervousness tingling in her belly.  What if she was sent off too early?  What if she failed anyways?  A slight change in performance could alter the outcome entirely.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

Her heart skipped a beat.  Here she was again, stepping out into the middle of the auditorium to earn her place as Celestia’s personal student.  One more time.  Just like before.  Rainbow Dash’s rainboom will happen, and the rest will be history.

The proctors stared at her, their patience far gone after all the other hopeful students.  A cart carrying a dragon egg was rolled out toward her, and she felt a tug at her heart.  Spike’s egg.  Her faithful assistant.

She thought of him, of all the years they had spent together—she hard at work studying, he right by her side.  Her number-one assistant.  She could see him in the library, a shadow dragging him toward the door as he screamed her name, tied up and wasting away in a dungeon.

“Well, Miss Sparkle?” asked one of the proctors.  Another coughed loudly.

Twilight glared at the mare before turning it to the egg.  She had to get out of here.  Spike needed her.  The real Spike needed her.  She closed her eyes and summoned her magic.

There was the creak of a desk chair.  Twilight turned to see who had interrupted, but could only gawk as her brain turned to mush.

Princess Celestia sat beside the proctors, brightening the room like a ray of sunlight.  She looked directly at Twilight.  “Don’t mind me, my little pony.  Please, continue.”

The years she had spent with Princess Celestia drinking in every drop of her wisdom like it was the only sustenance in the world, all the lessons she had learned at her side, the moments of Celestia’s pride at her success—there was no trace of them in her face, no mark or tinge of emotion behind her benevolent smile.  Twilight was just another filly to her.  And she couldn’t help the sudden kniving pain in her heart.

Focus.

The egg was her only chance of maintaining her safety net.  She could worry about how Celestia felt later.

A part of her mind rested in confidence that she knew the spell required to hatch her fake Spike.  It was elementary magic, after all.  The thought that she might not be able to perform it in her filly body was unsettling.  The confident part of her mind she kept open to feel about her for the hum of other magics, and to observe herself from within.  

It was weird feeling herself draw upon her power.  Normally, it flowed freely and without thought, like the blood in her veins.  Consciously feeling herself struggle with the arcane bottleneck natural to all young unicorns was both awkward and embarrassing.  How incapable she had been.  Was.

The egg hadn’t budged.  It sat staring at her on its bed of straw, as if the fake Spike inside enjoyed her suffering.  She gritted her teeth.  

Any day now, Rainbow Dash.

Twilight strained her neck, clenched her jaw, shut her eyes, everything in her power to force out her magic.  She could feel it wobble at the tip of her horn, hear it fizzle and sputter.  A sharp pain stabbed her in the lungs, and she gasped for breath.  It felt like all the power had been sucked out of her.

“I think we’ve seen enough,” the proctor said, levitating a pocket watch to her eyes.

“W-wait!” Twilight shouted.  “Just a little bit more!”  She held her breath as the mare stared her down.  The mare blinked.  Celestia watched, unphased by the outburst, still smiling as if watching her own child perform.  Just a little longer.  Come on, Rainbow Dash.  Twilight looked out the window, biting her lip, before thrusting her horn at the egg like a spear.  She gritted her teeth till they hurt, squinched her eyes till they blotted, willed her mind till her head pounded, wrung herself of every drop of energy.  Come on!

Her lungs started to twinge, and the world became unbalanced.  Don’t let go.  Don’t give in.  The twinge became pain, then fire.  She gasped, everything snapping to in an instant.  The egg remained still, hadn’t even the faintest traces of magic lingering about it.

A stallion entered to pull the cart away, and the proctors stood, marking their final notes on their clipboards.  

The mare gave Twilight a final glance, saying, “I believe now we have indeed seen enough, Miss Sparkle.  Good day to you,” before following her peers out the door.

Princess Celestia was the last to rise.  She seemed taller than Twilight remembered, towered over the desk where she had sat.  She looked down at Twilight, a smile on her face—that loving yet unknowing smile.  “Perhaps another time, young one,” she said, and followed the proctors.

Twilight could only stare as she left, her jaw hanging by a thread.  Disbelief curled its cold tendrils around her.  Something about the world phased out, as if she were sitting inside a glass jar staring out.  It took her several moments to realize her mother had sidled up next to her and wrapped a hoof around her shoulder.

“It’s okay, Twilight,” she cooed.  “We’ll look into a different school for you.  Don’t worry yourself, okay?”

But… Twilight looked out the window at the clear blue skies.  “Rainbow Dash…” she whispered.  “Why?”

“Come on, honey.  Let’s go.”

“No!”  Twilight jerked away from Mom’s grasp.  “Princess!”  She took off for the hallway with all the speed she could muster.  Mom called out to her, but the words were lost in the torrent of Twilight’s mind.

This couldn’t be happening.  What she had said couldn’t be true.  She had simply misunderstood.

“If only she had the talent,” came Celestia’s voice just outside the door.  “She was so eager to try.”

“Eagerness doesn’t count for as much as you say, Princess.”

Twilight stopped dead, the room suddenly cold as ice.  She knew that voice.  It was soft, honeyed—slow on the upstart, but every bit intentional—and it floated on the sudden silence like a feather upon the breeze.  Twilight didn’t need to step across the threshold to see the speaker’s face—calculating midnight-blue eyes, grass-green mane—but when she did, it merged with the one in her mind like double vision.  Rather than her ensemble of purple and lace, she wore a simple, dark-blue shirt, and the curls of her mane swept back.  

“Ah, but isn’t ambition what got you—”

Princess Celestia and Mr. Kite turned at the sound of her hoofsteps.  All were silent for what felt like an eternity.

“Is this the one?” Mr. Kite asked, her eyes never straying from Twilight.

“Yes.”

Another long pause.  “I see, Princess.  So there were no potential students this semester?”  There was an intensity to her eyes.  They seemed harder, as if cut from stone, drawing Twilight into them.

“That seems to be the case.”  Celestia sounded uncharacteristically flippant, as if unaware Twilight was standing in front of her.

Mr. Kite hummed.  “A shame.  And I thought at least one would have been good enough.  Perhaps next year.”  She turned away.

The break in eye contact shattered whatever power had held Twilight in place.  A boiling heat whiplashed in her chest.  Every memory of her life poured themselves into her consciousness—every day spent with her friends a vivid image among thousands that had been stripped from her life.  They flooded through her and carried her on their swell toward Mr. Kite, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Give them back!”

Surprise flickered in Mr. Kite’s eyes when she rounded back on her heels, but it was minute, only in passing.  She didn’t lift a hoof to stop the beating Twilight was about to deliver, nor did her horn light with magic to protect her fake, unknowing stare.

Twilight leapt, hooves outstretched, teeth barred, ready to sink to the bone.  But her body went suddenly rigid.

An unknown haze tinged the world a deep violet, and magic hummed in her ears.  “Twilight!  What has gotten into you!?”  Mom’s hoofsteps were loud on the marble floor, adding their own punctuation to the scolding.  The magic about Twilight lessened, and she struggled to pull her legs and neck free.  “I am so sorry, Your Highness.  I don’t know what has gotten into her.”

Twilight felt herself floating away.  She wrestled with the magic carrying her aloft, grunting, drooling her fury, her eyes locked with Kite’s.  “What have I done to deserve this!?”

“Twilight!”

Mom’s voice, raised as it was, would normally have made her shrink away, but the rage in her heart boiled over.  “What did I ever do to you!?”

“Twilight, that’s—”

Mr. Kite raised a hoof.  She cocked her head with an expression that any other pony would have taken as genuine curiosity.  Her steps forward were slow, her eyes devoid of all emotion save intrigue.

“What did you do to my friends?” Twilight seethed when Mr. Kite stopped just out of hoof’s reach.

Kite blinked, as if to punctuate the silence before her answer.  “What friends?”

Twilight could feel her breaths getting heavier, her legs tensing, the hair on her nape rising.  “You know who—in Ponyville.”  

Mr. Kite raised an eyebrow.  “Ponyville?” she repeated, before looking to Princess Celestia.  

Celestia looked equally confused, though genuinely so.  She shook out her wings to set them more comfortably.  “Ponyville, my dear little pony?  Do you perhaps mean Brayville?”

“No!”  Twilight struggled against the magic, reaching for the bridge of Kite’s nose, just out of reach.   “She heard what I said: Ponyville.  Applejack!  Rarity!  Pinkie Pie!  Fluttershy!  Rainbow Dash!  Spike!”  Her voice elevated with every name.  “What did you do to my friends!?”

It was Celestia’s turn to walk forward.  The single, sorrowful eye uncovered by her flowing mane bespoke the tone of her voice: “My dear little pony, there is no such place.”

The halls seemed to ring with her voice, replay the words like an unending echo.  She and Mr. Kite began shrinking away, drawing further from the hooves Twilight held outstretched.

The door frame passed around her, hiding them from sight, shrinking with every passing second as she was floated further away.

“Princess…”

The girls crowded around in a group hug, swaddling her in love and laughter.  The warmth of their bodies against her own in the middle of Sugarcube Corner that day the Crusaders asked their story, made them realize the connection they shared since before they had even met.

“Princess.”

The surge of friendship they instilled in her, the mere thought of them, rolled over her like a warm wave over a ditch to fill every distant crevice of her body, but quickly receded.

It washed away into nothingness, left her frozen without succor, until she saw only the great golden gates of Canterlot Castle slowly floating away.  She reached out a hoof.

“Princess!”






[Author’s Note: Thanks to Belligerent Sock for his continued work in making this fic awesome.]



[Onward and Upward!]

> V - Hatred
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	
Hatred


Twilight Sparkle stood in the corner of her room, staring at the wall.  Her mother had just left, and she didn’t dare move, in case she was listening outside the door.  She hated the sound of the clock ticking away while unable to do anything but think.  There was far too much to do, and standing in the corner, grounded, only scratched away the valuable time she had.  But, as it always had—and was its intent—the act helped her focus on what she had done.  Or, in this case, had to do.

First, she had to stay calm.

Panicking would do her no good at a time like this.  Stress would make her mind vulnerable to any more tricks that might be awaiting her.  Her breaths were in rhythm with the ticking of the clock.  She was calm.

Second, she had to limit her thinking.

Illusions fed off the knowledge of the victim.  That much she knew off hoof.  Feeding it excessive thought would only make breaking it more difficult.

Third, she had to escape.

No more would she be the pawn of this sadistic pony.  This game was going to be played on her terms from here on in.  If Kite wanted to threaten her with death and torture her with past memories, then she was done playing the nice pony.  

Every illusion had a catch.  She just needed to find it.  Where it would be was the hard part.  She had to think back to her days as a filly, before Kite could have had any reason to distort her reality.  Only those memories could she could rely on.  Though the illusion might try and corrupt them, her mind wouldn’t. 

Sure that her mother was out of earshot and not returning any time soon, Twilight walked to her bookshelf, gazing up at its towering form.  It reminded her of those at the Canterlot library—how Spike used to have to climb up and down the ladder to retrieve countless books for her.  She let her eyes wander the shelves.  They gravitated to specific spots where her mind unconsciously knew her illusion books rested.

Now You See It, Now You Don’t.  Illusions for the Absolute Beginner.  Mind Benders and Other Spells.  Illusions, Elementary.

She stared at the final book, at the swirling text on its spine.  It was her favorite—and most read—of them all.  It would undoubtedly hold the knowledge she sought.  But a little thought nagged at her in the back of her head: they would lie—every single one of them.

They were part of the illusion and could not be trusted.  Oh, how Kite dangled the answers before her.  She took in and released a sigh.  Calm.  Focus.  She dragged her chair to the bookshelf to reach Illusions, Elementary.  She knew the words.  They were all in her head.

The book was heavier than she remembered that morning, in her real body.  She set it on the table to stare at its cover.

Its title swept and curled across its beaten face.  It used to be Shining Armor’s from his years in middle school.  How excited she had been to unwrap it one Hearth’s Warming day.

She again sat by the Hearth’s Warming tree, the fireplace roaring, wrapping paper everywhere.  Shining Armor nudged her out of her wonder and gestured at it.

“It’s all yours, Twily,” his voice echoed.

She wrapped him in the biggest hug she could.  “You’re the bestest brother in the whole wide world!”

“Of course I am!”  His smile at that moment was the biggest she had ever seen him wear.  “Now are you gonna keep strangling me or you gonna read your present?”

Twilight giggled.  That was a silly question.  She opened the book and read the first line.  “An illusion is only as strong as the illusee is observant.”  

She blinked back to reality and stared at the book’s cover, feeling the memory flood through her, the words that had rolled unconsciously off her tongue.  “Illusions cannot alter past knowledge,” she recited from memory.  “Successful illusions become a new mental reality.  These are the three laws of illusions.  Remember them.”

A warm sensation grew in her chest as she recited the opening paragraph.  She had read it countless times in her youth.  Many more as an adult.  She smirked at how she had already applied the second law unconsciously.  How innate they were to her.  She let her mind’s eye wander down the page.

The rest is corrupt.

The sentences winding through her head ran dry.  She blinked to, her hoof resting atop the book.  She knew the words within, could recite the chapters by heart, but fragments had been learned beyond this moment in time in her real life.  She knew from chapter seven that illusions could cause psychophysiological disabilities, or that chapter ten discussed how time within an illusion is arbitrary and discontinuous with true reality.  But her recollection of them and all other chapters stemmed from a lifetime of reading, not just the first.  She knew all there was to illusions, and that meant she was just as easily wrong, given the chance that Kite’s illusions could have surrounded her all her life.

It was a test.  Nothing more.  She took a deep breath.  “Problem one: derive from the first and third laws a proof regarding the nature and weaknesses of illusions.”  

Twilight took in the room around her.  Sight.  She could see the books and shelves and bedding.  Sound.  The clock ticked in solitary rhythm; her heart pounded in her head.  Smell.  Ink wafted beneath her nostrils.  Sweat tinged it with a hint of salt and body odor.  Touch.  The floorboards were hard beneath her hooves and creaked with her shifting weight.  But only the ones that she recalled doing so did.

They were all a reconstruction of her memories, down to the last detail.  ...As strong as the illusee is observant.  Successful illusions become a new mental reality.  Perception gives way to fact.  

If she were to close her eyes, rid herself of the perception and thus the concrete evidence that she was in her room, and step forward, she would feel wood flooring beneath her, simply because she had seen and therefore ‘knew,’ making it ‘real.’  Likewise, if she were to close her eyes and leap out the window, she would still land in the backyard—she knew her real house too well.

Mental reality.  The adjective was key.  It meshed it with the first law—a back-and-forth communication.  What the mind believed, with or without perception, would become what she would then perceive, and then so on.  A lack of one could be supplemented by addition of the other.  Did that mean the one weakness of an illusion was complete deprivation of sense and awareness?  Illusions, Elementary never touched on the subject of dispelling illusions, only their characteristics.  If she became irrevocably lost, the illusion might not be able to support itself.

Twilight took another breath, retracing her steps.  After a minute, she nodded.  “Alright.  Problem two: prove it.”

She looked at the door.  Mom would undoubtedly catch her if she left her room.  The window.  It was her only other option.  She took care not to step on the creaky floorboards on her way to it.

As she hoped, the locks were just as she remembered.  A quick check of the door, a rip of her bedsheet, and an unlatch of the window, and she was outside.

The lilacs of the garden blanketed the air in a heavenly perfume, and birds chirped in the oak tree that cast its massive shadow over the back half of the yard.  Twilight snagged a clothespin from the laundry line and pinched it to her nose, then wrapped the torn piece of sheet around her ears.  She couldn’t smell a thing, but could still hear the muffled chirping of the birds.  It would have to do.

Twilight ran for the gate.  There, she stopped and put her hoof on the latch, a sense of trepidation building in her gut.  She breathed in deeply.  “Okay, Twilight.  Let’s get out of here.”  She shut her eyes, opened the gate, and took off.

The only acute sense Twilight had was of her breathing, loud and clear, in her head.  The thought that she had no idea where she was going or what surrounded her fought for superiority in her mind.  What if she got ran over by a carriage?

Pain erupted in her muzzle.  She crumpled to the ground, clenching her nose.  The clothespin had fallen off, but what concerned her more was the warm blood running down her face.

She put a hoof against what she had run into: smooth plaster.  A wall.  

Her mind leapt to the initiative.  A plaster wall meant—no.  Twilight shot to her hooves and ran alongside it.  

Think nothing.  Run.

Faint noises of rolling carriages and angry ponies met her ears.  She wondered how ridiculous she looked running blind, deaf, and dumb through the streets of Canterlot, what all those ponies were thinking of her at that moment.  It didn’t matter.  They weren’t real.  None of this was.

The carriage noises grew more prominent.  She collided with the legs of other ponies, pushed past, unwilling and unable to stop.  She had to keep moving, find a place she couldn’t possibly know.  Only there could she open her eyes.

Pain jarred all sense from her mind as she collided with a wall of stone.  Twilight fell to her stomach, clutching the crumpled stub of her nose, blood gushing over her hooves.  She trembled in pain, tears flowing freely, her head swimming as if in a whirlpool.

Her legs didn’t want to stand, as if they finally decided she had gone insane.  She gritted her teeth, seething at the pain.  This was no time for weakness.

A hoof touched her shoulder.  “Get away from me!” she screamed as she batted it away and dashed away.

Ponies shouted above the muffled drum of her hooves on the pavement.  They sounded concerned and must be trying to catch her.  Twilight pushed herself harder.  It was the illusion trying to stop her.

The shouts became louder, more urgent.  Twilight thought she could hear hoofsteps behind her.  She leaned into her run, fighting the weightless dizziness in her head.  Blood drained down the back of her throat, choking her as she gasped for breath.

“Twilight!” came Mom’s voice.  Twilight shook her head.  Just think of Ponyville.  

“Twilight, stop!”—Dad, deeper and angry—”What are you doing?”  Rainbow Dash.  Pinkie Pie.  Applejack.  She only had to think of them.

More legs and shouts of anger.  Every bump felt like a crushing weight and every jostle like a buck in the nose.  Rarity.  Fluttershy.  Spike.

“Twilight!” 

She gasped.  That voice—strong and commanding like Dad’s, yet gentle and friendly, faithful, steadfast.  Shining?

A distinct pain accompanied a crunch and creak of wood, and Twilight felt herself tumbling.  Up and down became one and the same in her head, and her legs flailed about like those of a ragdoll as she felt the ground hit every part of her body at once.  Something wooden toppled.

All became still.

Hoofsteps thundered toward her.  “Twilight!” they all said.  She was being pulled upward and downward.  The sensations were there, but she couldn’t feel a thing.  “Twilight!”

Her eyelids were heavy.  She still held them closed, but no longer needed to hold them so.  The voices were getting farther away.  There was something she was supposed to be remembering.

Her head was shaking.  Her eye lid was pulled open.  A blurry Shining Armor was there.  But he couldn’t have been.  He was in guard training.

His mouth continued to move, but she could no longer hear his voice.  Behind him the sky grew dark.  It seemed to close in around them.  Mom.  Dad.  All had disappeared to leave her alone with Shining Armor.

Though he continued to blur, the darkness around them took shape.  Paintings.  A bookshelf.  A desk.  Canvas walls.  And a very peculiarly-dressed pony with grass-green mane whose eyes shone in the candlelight.

“Welcome back, Twilight Sparkle.”

The words only half registered.  The world was fuzzy as if seen and heard through wax paper.  She gathered the fact that she was standing rather than laying, and that things were much smaller than they were moments ago.  Or they were back to normal.  Or something.  That carriage hit her harder than she thought.

Welcome back…  Welcome…  She mouthed the words, trying to make sense of them.  Back.  Her head pounded like a book dropped from a second story balcony.

The mare sat up from her chair behind the desk and came around front.  “I didn’t think you’d return so quickly, Twilight Sparkle.”  She strode up to Twilight, face to face.  “But it seems you still aren’t all here yet.”

Twilight’s mind came to, sharp as a blade.  “You!”—she cracked Mr. Kite across the jaw, staggering her backward—"You!”  Her body trembled as she tried to find the words for her rage.  There were none.  All she could muster was a violent scream before launching herself at Kite, who grinned back at her.

Something flashed in the corner of Twilight’s eye.  A shadow rushed toward her in the blink of an eye and collided with her mid leap.  It slammed her against something hard, and books cascaded down around her.  A pair of lantern-like eyes seethed out at her from beneath a black hood.

Claws sharper than steel gripped her about the throat, teasing her skin with their hot-blooded fervor.

Instinct called for her to paw at them in hopes of relieving the pain.  It only goaded the beast into clenching tighter, drawing gasps for air.  She felt blood trickling down her hooves, mingling with the warmth of the salamander’s claws.

Syllisyth snarled, its snout full of fangs protruding from the shadow of its hood.  Its breath reeked of fresh kill.

“Or maybe you are,” Kite said.  She fixed Twilight with a contemptuous stare.  “My dear Syllisyth doesn’t appreciate those who try and hurt me,” Mr. Kite said, testing her jaw with a hoof.  “And neither do I, Twilight Sparkle.”

“You.  Foul.  Animal,” Twilight struggled to say through the vice around her neck.  She aimed a kick at the salamander’s face and felt the heavy weight of its jaw against her hoof very satisfying.  It snarled and clenched tighter.  Twilight thought she heard something crunch, and breathing became all but impossible.  Her eyes started rolling back.

“Syllisyth,” Kite said.

Immediately, Twilight found herself sprawled out on the floor, coughing for precious air.  Mr. Kite’s hooves sounded across the floor toward her.  She looked up through bleary eyes.

Mr. Kite towered above, her form almost a silhouette in the candlelight.  She was clearly not smiling.

“Give me back my friends,” Twilight spat.

Mr. Kite waited to answer.  When she did, there was a tinge of false hurt in her words.  “Already, my dear Twilight Sparkle?  Are you sure you don’t want to see the grand finale of my Circus Royale first?  It is the reason I went through so much work to build that illusion for you.  I needed a bit more time to… line things up.”

Twilight coughed, her breathing still raspy.  “I’ve seen everything I need to, Kite.  This whole thing is a lie.”  A cough.  It tasted like iron.  “Every bit of it—even this thing.”  She glared at Syllisyth.  

“Hmm?”  Kite raised an eyebrow.

Twilight shifted her glare to Kite.  “Reptiles aren’t warm blooded.”

A torrent of magic, the same brilliant blaze that reduced the Gui’etzen to a mere memory, channelled to the tip of Twilight’s horn.  She released it with a flash and a grit of her teeth, engulfing the salamander.  One less illusion to deal with.

The room fell back into a faint darkness only staved off by the glow of the candle.  And the glowing, lantern-like eyes of Syllisyth.

A low, slithering rumble outplayed the whimper that slipped from Twilight’s mouth.  It started low, then built to rasping laughter as the thing struggled to remain standing.  It looked at her with that snarl, that menacing smile it had the first time they met.

“My dear, Twilight Sparkle,” Kite said, stepping forward.  I do believe that you are very much mistaken.”  There was a glimmer in her eyes, much like the moment before the world had started melting.  “Of all the curiosities of mine, you will find that my dear Syllisyth is by far the most real.”

Twilight pushed herself back against the bookshelf, shaking her head at the beast crouching before her.  “But... there’s no way.”  

It snickered at her, placing its foreclaws on the ground.  Its claws flashed white.  The blinding light spread up its body to consume it and the room, and when it faded, revealed an altogether new being.  

Chitinous, hollow legs stood in place of scale and claw. Instead of its cloak, diaphanous wings absently hummed on the creature’s back.  Its fangs seemed sharper, slimmer, designed to pierce flesh rather than rend it, and large compound eyes flickered with the million flames of a single candle.  Twilight stared, mouth agape, slowly coming to recognize the creature that stood before her.

Mr. Kite sidled up beside it.  They leaned their heads against each other’s while staring down at her, as if exchanging an unspoken message.  “There is quite clearly a way, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight gathered herself to her hooves, confusion giving pause to her anger.  “There can’t be.  Changelings feed off the love they steal from ponies.”  She hoped for a crack to appear in some façade around her, to spot a chink in some illusion’s armor.  But there was only Mr. Kite’s soft giggle.

“Must you say that as if Syllisyth is some sort of thief?  Are all things you don’t understand evil in your eyes, Twilight Sparkle?”  She smiled, the whites of her teeth just visible.  “But I digress.  You wanted your friends back, didn’t you?”  

Mr. Kite turned to the changeling and placed a long, slow kiss on its cheek.  “Go be a dear and give her what she wants.”

Syllisyth smirked before the light again flashed over its body, changing it yellow, whole, and smooth.  Twilight’s stomach churned as locks of pink mane flowed down around its shoulders and feathered wings folded at its sides.  

Fluttershy grinned at her, a menacing spirit dancing in her eyes.  She—it—opened her mouth to speak.  To Twilight’s horror the voice that came belonged to the very pony her eyes claimed to see, but was far from timid.  “It was more fun the first time by the Gui’etzen cage.”

“By the...” Twilight felt the warmth leave her skin.  “The Gui’etzen?”

The changeling played with its Fluttershy mane and smiled as its eyes briefly flashed sapphire blue.  Its head flashed white, and out sprouted a unicorn's horn, a curling purple mane framing it.  “Oh, and with the giraffes, too,” its Rarity head said in her friend’s distinct tone.  “Right after she told you off?”  It gave a high-pitched laugh.  “That dumb look on your face was priceless—made slipping in a cinch.”  The thing turned for the door, smiling at her over its Fluttershy shoulder.  “But I must get going.  You be good, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight’s mind had stalled at ‘slipping in.’  The smell.  The Gui’etzen’s breath she had smelled while arguing with Rarity.  She had been taken right out from under her nose.

The changeling’s hoofsteps brought her back to the present, and a fire gathered strength within her heart.  “Don’t you dare take another step,” she seethed.

It stopped before the exit, turned its gaze toward her, and snorted, its Rarity head melting into yellow and pink.  It pulled back the tent flap, but not before Twilight had lit her horn with a fire that would have boiled oceans.

She drew back her head to whirl the gout around like a whip, eyes blazing hotter than the fiery tongues that licked the bookshelf into ash.  It gathered speed and bellowed its fury alongside her as the air itself screamed from the heat.  There was a flash in the corner of her eye, but she had already committed, and followed through with the swing.  She curled her wing at her side like a shield for the incoming blow.

Twilight felt herself lifted off her hooves by a blinding red light.  Everything somersaulted over her for what felt like minutes before the floor rose to meet her.  The air left her lungs.  The room lay sideways, and her ears rang.  Laying still was all she could do to lessen what felt like lava seeping through face and wing.

A pillar of flame reached for the ceiling from where the changeling had leapt mere moments ago.  Its eyes glowed just beyond the flames, it’s sharp smile wide beneath singed hair.  It shook its head to restore Fluttershy’s mane and strutted for the entrance.  Twilight could only watch, unable to muster the strength to lift her head.  The tent flapped shut, and hoofsteps came closer.

The effect of whatever magic Kite had hit her with began to fade, the molten heat subsiding to a leaden weight.  A mixture of magic—to warn, not to maim.  The hungry wolf was playing with its food.

“Twilight Sparkle.”  The mirth was gone from Kite’s voice.  She spoke in a hard, shallow tone.  “Do you still not understand?”  Twilight could feel her eyes in the back of her head, the cold, jaggedness of her stare tearing into her soul like a serrated blade.  “Do you still not know why I am here?”

The hoofsteps were almost upon her.  She had to focus.  See the room, make her move.  Kite wasn’t the only one who could mix magic.

Twilight squinched her eyes and forced everything into her horn, the bookshelf behind Kite at the forefront of her mind.  The world squeezed in around her as she blinked out of and back into reality, her horn already ablaze.  She let it fly as Kite wheeled about.  It washed about her, drowning out her scream in a roar of flame as Twilight drew back her head for another spell.  It propelled from her horn like a howitzer, but blasted apart only the desk as Kite burst into a flock of crows.

Twilight tried to follow their erratic escape into a sudden darkness that pressed down from the ceiling.  “Coward!” she cried, drawing magic from her every fiber.  She drove its flame skyward to beat back the darkness.  The clash of magic hurricaned around the tent.  Books and sheets swirled in the madness.  It was a battle of immovable wills as neither light nor dark yielded an inch.  “You are done playing games, Kite.  This is over.”

“My dearest apologies, Twilight Sparkle.”  The voice was everywhere, all around, echoed as if off stone.  “But that simply is not true.  I haven’t yet accomplished what I came here for.”

Twilight felt the rise in her chest, an anger beyond the deepest of loathings and mere retaliations.  This was still a game to the mare, part of some sadistic plan she still desired even to the point of pain.  It was madness to the extreme—unchecked and unjustified, a parasite of the mind.  “Tell me what you want, Kite,” she growled, “and I’ll make sure you never get it.”

She listened for an answer, but heard only the burning around her.  “I know you want to tell me.  That’s the point of it all.  The mastermind needs her work seen by everyone so that they know her genius.  That’s how it works, isn’t it?”  Twilight puffed out her chest and fanned her wings to complement her goading.  “You want me and everypony to know how brilliant you are… unless you’re a fraud—even at that.”  Still no answer, but the darkness began to wilt.  She scowled.  

The darkness further wavered as the blaze of her horn reached skyward like a mighty sword.  She scryed the darkness for the crows, strained her ears for the jingling of bangles, sensed the air for her piercing gaze.  She saw and heard nothing, but could feel Kite’s strength waning in the air about her.  

But Twilight was implacable.  The tables had turned.  Hers was the power of the princesses, the unending and unerring might of the immortal alicorns.  Behind it surged the tidal wave of friendship for those held captive, and that of raw and willing magic, ready to crash down upon her enemy.  She ground her forelegs further into the earth and redoubled the inferno of her horn.   The sharpness of her words belied their quietness.  “So then… Tell me.”

The room was all but reduced to ash as she stood tall, awaiting an answer.  More still the darkness receded, and the magics she overpowered dispersed.  A presence materialized beside her, instantaneous and magnetic.  The voice seethed clearer than crystal within her head.  

“Revenge.”

Pain, long and sharp as an icicle, ripped through skin and bone like paper.  It pierced her heart, and a chill stole away every last drop of warmth in a breath of frost.  Eyes wide, her magic ceased, and all fell silent.

Slowly, she gazed down at her chest, at the silver blade driven in to the hilt.  It sucked from her the very life she lived, the glowing runnels of her being flowing freely about the white hoof that held it fast.  She followed the hoof up to the purple overcoat standing so near, and further still to the midnight-blue eyes gazing into hers, gleaming with the candlelight that had long since blown out.  

Mr. Kite smiled, the blade a twisting, jerking harpoon that drew her closer.  Twilight’s heart beat a fury in her chest, unendingly impaling itself upon the stiletto of ice as the smiling mare brought her lips to Twilight’s.

Twilight was a statue as the only warmth in existence touched her lips, long and sentimentally, as if pleasured.  A release, and the blade swept away the warmth like a blood drop in a cataract.

“You forget yourself, Twilight Sparkle,” she whispered sweetly, like a diner sampling the world’s finest wine.  She drew herself against Twilight in an embrace so as to whisper venom into her ear.  “You are the worm.”

Kite ripped away the blade, and with it every ounce of energy, every molecule of air from Twilight’s lungs.  A moment of absolute nothingness passed.  

And then Twilight fell.

She lay still, the last remnants of herself draining away, pooling luminescent red before her eyes.  She struggled for breath, each unwilling gasp further prying open the wound like little fingers.  It was not a pain she had ever suffered before—not of her physical being, but of her very essence.  Vampiric, all-encompassing, it reached through her veins to every extremity and sucked away an alter lifeforce.

A small fraction of her mind free from the wracking pains eked out the one possible nightmare that was the warm liquid ebbing against her lips: 

Magic.  

Fabric shifted in the silence, and Twilight had only the power to look with her eyes.  Kite stood overtop her.  “You are a fool, Twilight Sparkle.  The true genius does not tell her prey what is not yet due, nor let slip her desires without it forwarding her goal.”  She walked toward the smashed remains of her desk to regard it idly, then cast a smiling eye over her shoulder.  “But to humor you… I do not do this for fame or glory.  I desire your suffering.”

Twilight only half listened, the pains of her body subsiding to leave her alive and still.  She checked her breathing and let her body reach out with invisible feelers to sense the world around her.  But there was no sixth sense to draw upon, as it was a part of the now dull fluid that bathed her.  And though it left her weary, she wrestled with the voices in her head, waiting for an opportunity to fight or flee.  No matter the situation, the element of surprise was still in her favor.

“But… why?” Twilight asked, barely wretching out the words.

Kite had paced past her again in her monologue, toward the exit.  “You took everything from me, Twilight Sparkle.  As I now take from you.”  She faced away, her guard down, her back exposed.  It was Twilight’s only chance.

With every shred of strength that clung to her, she drew herself to her hooves and was in the air, crying her desperation.  Kite turned full on as Twilight bore her weight upon her.  They tumbled to the ground.

Instinct, primal and ferocious, directed movement of hoof and wing.  Twilight gave no thought to the way they rose and fell repeatedly, nor the warm, pounding wetness they elicited.  Kite reached up to shield herself but found neither mercy nor reluctance.  Vaguely the realities of pain and anger called to her as if beyond a thick fog in some other lifetime.  To Twilight, only the air in her lungs and the fire in her muscles reached her brain, a small fragment of the desire to survive.

All too suddenly, it abated, and Twilight saw with unglazed eye, hoof raised, ready to assail, the beaten and bloody face of the one who had all too often smiled at her misfortune.  A moment passed as both mares fought for breath.

Kite wretched beneath her, her gasps short and hard.  “Does it feel good, Twilight Sparkle?”  She coughed a spray of blood.  “Do you enjoy hurting me?”  She wrapped a hoof over Twilight’s shoulder and drew herself up.  Within her eyes boiled an enmity Twilight had never before seen in her life.  Crazed, absent of thought, it sought only a singular goal.  The words hissed from Kite’s lips were spattered with blood.  “No matter how you try and stop me.  You are still the worm.” 

A blood-red aura enveloped Kite’s horn.  It washed over her body, made her smoulder and shrivel.  Her clothes sizzled away, every thread a lit fuse, a soft purple shining forth beneath.  Her mane shed its green hue for a color too dark to see clearly.  Wings emerged from her sides like a butterfly from a cocoon, and the last traces of blue drained from her eyes as they flooded purple.  

The blood-red glow rushed upon Twilight before she could scream, blasting away her fur like sand in a windstorm.  Her veins boiled beneath her skin, swelled with a liquid fire that flooded every inch of her body.  She jerked and writhed as her bones cracked, shifted, and refused, bulging against a skin that could not hold them.  The air in her lungs refused to move, and her eyes felt liquid as the magic bored upward into her skull.

It pounded outward, sought an exit in any direction.  The power mashed her brain against the sides of her skull, the vacuum inside sucking it back in with every pulse.  Only the warm liquid running from her ears registered outside of the deep drumming.

A final pulse, and the tent came back into focus.  The sudden stillness rang louder than any bell, and her head lolled in the absence of feeling.

Strands of green fell about her eyes in the still air.  She saw herself beneath her, nose bloody and broken, a crazed look in her eye, and recollection of the last few minutes trickled in.  

“I will watch you squirm, Twilight Sparkle,” the Twilight beneath her—Kite—said, “until you breathe your last.”

The tent about them lifted away in Kite’s aura, and Twilight looked up to see all of Ponyville standing before her.  They gasped, wide eyed, waiting on baited breath.  Some looked on in terror, hooves over their mouths; others, disgust, anger rising to their faces.

“Somepony stop her!”  Fluttershy pushed her way out to the front of the crowd, terror in her eyes.  The crowd shifted forward, shouting.

Hooves pawed at Twilight’s chest.  She looked down at the false Twilight that cried like a school filly beneath her, staring at her forehoof.  “Please… Please don’t,” it whimpered.

Twilight followed its gaze and gasped at the realization that the stiletto had somehow found its way into her hoof.  She staggered away, the dagger falling point first into the earth.  Among the crowd were her friends, their eyes locked upon her in scorn.

“No!” she yelled.  “You’ve got it all wrong!  I’m not Kite, she is!”  She pointed at the Twilight curled up on the ground.

“Liar!” somepony shouted.  

“You foul beast!” Rarity yelled.

“How could you do such a thing!?” Fluttershy said as she and Rarity dashed up to the imposter, shielding her from Twilight.

A stone struck her across the forehead, drawing blood.

“Let me go!” Rainbow Dash shouted, forcibly restrained by Applejack.

The crowd marched forward with every backward step she took, their cries growing more violent.  The grins on Fluttershy and Kite’s faces disappeared as the mob enveloped them.

Twilight tried lighting her horn with an illusion-breaking spell, but magic no longer flowed through her veins.  Here, powerless, she finally fathomed the depths of Kite’s hatred.  

Death was not her intention, but exile—thrown to the fringe, hated forever by those she called friends.  Scowls and snarls marred their faces; their voices rose in anger.  And as they closed in, sticks and stones and other forms of hurt raised high, she knew there was no recourse.

Twilight ran.






[Author's Note:  Big thanks to Belligerent Sock for his review of this chapter.]

> VI - Into the Everfree
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Branches cut and brambles clung at Twilight Sparkle as she dove through the Everfree.  The voices of her friends and other Ponyville ponies rose over the treetops, angry, out for blood.  She could barely hear them over her rasping breath, but knew they were close.  She couldn’t stop now.

A gully had been eaten away by a river ahead.  A desperate leap cleared the water, but landed her thick in mud that she could likewise give no thought to.  It stuck to her hooves and felt as if she had tied bricks to her legs.  Behind, the voices trailed off.

She looked over her shoulder, ears swivelling every which way, chest straining to silence itself.  An owl hooted.  Crickets chirruped.  The voices were gone.

Twilight waited an extra minute to ensure they wouldn’t come back.  Confident they weren’t any time soon, she trudged to the river for a quick drink and to rinse off her hooves.  The mud washed easily away, but the white of her coat wouldn’t.  She stared at her hooves, her breathing subsiding.  Her heart still raced.  She scrubbed, but the white remained glued to her.  Illusions could not be washed away like dirt.

The river ran around her hooves, babbling along the rocks and fallen branches.  She gazed into it at her reflection, but no part of her brain could convince her that she was the blue-eyed, green-maned mare staring back.  She wasn’t.  She couldn’t be.  

And yet she was.

She was Mr. Kite—magicless, hated, exiled Mr. Kite.

She lifted a hoof to her chest, to where the blade had pierced her through the heart.  The skin was unbroken, unblemished, but beneath it festered a knot.  Swollen, blood-gorged, she felt it throb with her rapid heartbeat.  Each beat felt like the tip of the blade was being pressed against the wound.

How much of her magic she had lost, she couldn’t measure.  She had become acclimated to the sixth sense it gave her. but that had been ripped away with the blade.  Perhaps all of it.  She felt like a mare with only three legs.  If it could ever return—if she could regain it somehow—she didn’t know.  The idea only made the knot throb harder in her chest, as if refuting her hopes.

Twilight sighed, shaking her head.  Magic or no, she needed to get away, somewhere safe where ponies wouldn’t recognize her, maybe find somepony willing to help.  Then she could plan how to reverse the illusions and reveal Kite for what she truly was.  When that time arrived, there would be hell to pay.

The stars had begun appearing in the sky sometime during her flight and were now out at about half strength.  Twilight was grateful for the clear skies, as she recognized Canis Minor and could orient herself with the river.  She concluded it headed south, which would ultimately lead to Appleoosa.  A good start.  Getting as much distance between herself and Ponyville was her best bet for the moment.

As far as the Everfree stretched east and west, it didn’t reach nearly as far north and south.  It couldn’t be much more than a ten-hour hike straight through—certainly a better option than hiding in the forest in the dead of night.  Or for the rest of her life for that matter.

Zecora came to mind, but she doubted hiding with her would be safe—if she could even convince her.  They’d find her eventually.

No, away would be the best start.  She continued on into the darkness.

The only reason she could see beyond an outstretched hoof was thanks to the waning moon.  She shuddered to think how hopeless she would have been without it, and whispered a silent ‘thank you’ to Luna.  A quick dip of her tongue to the river to cool her aching throat, and she was off like a shadow.

She slid along the bushes that lined the river, careful not to make a sound.  Her ears pricked and swivelled for any sign of the search party, or other prowling things.

It was eerily quiet.  The scurry of nocturnal animals in the bushes and buzz of insects hadn’t claimed precedence over the night like she was used to.  It hadn’t been often that she visited the Everfree, but the creeping loneliness of her previous treks pressed in, all too familiar.  And the distinct lack of sound was all the more unnerving.  She stopped.  

Something was spooking the animals.  And it wasn’t her.

Twilight crouched low, brushing her belly against the soft clay.  The moon reflected off the waves, bathing everything in a pale blue.  Twigs cracked to her right.  A warm glow broke over the grasses between her and a thicket of trees, gruff breathing on its heels.  Two ponies.  One of them muttered something before their hoofsteps receded with the lamplight.  She waited until only the crickets and night birds gave sound to the forest.

So they had split into smaller parties looking for her.  That would make matters worse.  More groups, more chances to get caught.  Stay hidden.  Keep moving.

Twilight continued along the river, head down, ears alert, hooves low and soft to avoid squelching in the mud.  There were tiny illuminations of light—not much brighter than those of fireflies—across the way, her pursuers’ lamplight too weak to penetrate the foliage.  They grew and dimmed as they weaved in and out of what must have been dense thickets.  

The river wound its way southward below the great moon and its guiding light.  The lamplights faded and appeared, some near, some far.  Luckily, none seemed to be on her side of the river yet; though, she had the strangest feeling that something else was following her.  

She first noticed it at the fork of the river.  She would have taken it for a small night animal if not for the care it gave to avoid noise amidst the grass and muddy bank; fleeing critters cared only for speed.  She never stopped moving for a better listen, choosing safety in feigned ignorance over coming face to face.  Whatever it was, it remained content simply following—which Twilight prefered, because she doubted her magicless abilities.

The creature was light, not much more than her own weight she guessed by ear.  It remained far behind, no less than twenty meters.  It was enough distance for her to react should it decide to pounce.

But the creature held its patience.  What felt like hours passed in their journey down the river—over eroded ledges, across sandy banks, under broken and gnarled tree branches.  Twilight almost became accustomed to the padding behind her, and had to remind herself it couldn’t be friendly.

She came to a log, hollowed and moss covered, nearly as round as she was tall.  The trek had sapped her energy, and her jump brought only her forehooves atop the log.  The slick moss kept her from pulling herself up.  She cursed under her breath before stepping back for a better running start.

A twig snapped.  She turned, and saw only a blackness rising to swallow her.  Twilight toppled sideways, instinct twisting her around to sweep at it with a foreleg.  She connected with something hard in the blur, and she rolled over before gaining her hooves.

The creature’s momentum had carried it into the log, where it staggered to its hooves.  Its sleek, pockmarked carapace shone like a blade in the moonlight, its gossamer wings like oil on water.  The changeling fixed her with eyes burning hotter than coals and let out a blood-chilling hiss.

They stared each other down, each daring the other to make the first move.  The changeling began circling.  Twilight did the same.

So this was how Kite wanted to end it: a betrayal-staged assassination in the woods by her very own changeling lover—a fitting irony she would no doubt enjoy poisoning her friends with.  How the two loved torturing her, the way they smiled all through their little scheme.  Though at the moment the changeling wasn’t smiling.  Its lips were tensely drawn, teeth clenched, muscles ready to spring.  All the better to beat it senseless.

The changeling lunged at her again, fangs bared.  It closed the gap in less than a second, and the weight of its shoulder smashed against her chest, tearing her from the earth.  There were hooves at her face and stomach as dirt and twigs pounded at her back, before she found herself beneath the weight of its body.  

A blind kick found purchase on a leg, and the weight collapsed atop her, forcing the air from her lungs.  She surged upward with her hips to unsettle it and then pushed with both hooves.  She rolled aside to regain herself, but a heavy skull cracked her in the ribs, again taking her down.

The world spun for a moment, and she wrestled with both the flurry of punches and a thought in her mind: she must stay on her hooves—stay on her hooves or die.  The primal fear was enough to harden her resolve.  She pushed away the hooves and somehow planted her own to the ground before Sylissyth pressed the attack.

They came shoulder to shoulder, necks locked together, their forelegs battling to throw the other down.  It was a moment’s opportunity to catch a breath, but not one to relent.  Though its body was sleek, it betrayed no weakness in the coils that rippled against her chest and pushed her around with ease.  She had to take the upper hoof soon if she was to survive.

The changeling snarled an answer to the struggle.  It filled Twilight’s ears with the vileness and hatred of its kind and the sadistic yearnings of its master, uncontrollable to the point of drooling on the nape of her neck.  Its hooves were like clubs against her own, beating and bruising with all the power it could muster as it sought leverage to topple her.  As the struggle reached a crescendo, its final hiss ended in a muffle of sunken fangs and a fire like a cattle prod in her shoulder.

Twilight screamed as the changeling clamped its jaws until its teeth clicked together.  There was a buffet of wings and a separation of bodies.  The ground hit her hard; a hoof hit her harder.

She curled into a ball instinctively as the blows rained down, before one caught her in the side of the stomach, sucking the breath from her lungs.  A weight pressed itself upon her heaving chest to smother any chance for air.  She again tried shrugging it off with a surge of her hips, but the changeling had learned and beat the attempt out of her.  All she could do was shield her face from the blows.

Sylissyth’s hisses shot to her heart as the last sounds she would ever hear.  She couldn’t help but listen, to grasp at the smallest sliver she had left of what it meant to be alive.  The pain subsided; sound dimmed.  She couldn’t let them go.  She had to fight.

Twilight lunged upward with her horn straight at the changeling’s heart.  Her horn was no sword, but was sharp enough to elicit a cry and granted the opportunity she needed.  A thrust of the shoulder unseated the changeling, and Twilight was up on her hooves, already staggering back to catch her breath.

The forest around them had grown silent in the chaos, listening, waiting to see who would fall first.  Twilight listened too, to the changeling’s grunts and hisses.  She took in how it stood—head low, eyes simmering, legs ready to spring.  It was nothing like the temperament it had shown before in the tent.  Before it was coy, taunting, toying.  If anything, Twilight expected at least some hint of that, but there was none, only the pure rage of blood-soaked fangs and tense muscle.

It regarded her differently, too.  Its eyes, though faceted and omnidirectional like a fly’s, seemed focused on her horn.  The changeling began circling again, light on its hooves, wings spread for takeoff.

Twilight spun in place to keep it in front of her.  The pain in her shoulder was too great to manage more, and already she felt the darkness creeping into the corners of sight.  Why it didn’t press the attack in her state she didn’t know.  It continued circling, head low like a wolf.  Its eyes flickered in the moonlight, and just like that it leapt in with buzzing wings.  It landed short, pivoted on its forelegs with a lightning-flash of hind hooves. and it was back out to its circle as if nothing had happened.  

White fire erupted in Twilight’s shoulder as she lay crouched, still reeling from what could have been the last thing she ever saw.  Instinct had dictated reaction, and she felt her head a few hairs less for it.  She staggered to her hooves, breath heavy, legs like springs, ready for the next attack.  Her shoulder throbbed.  Blood ran freely from it.  The world seemed detached, but she knew how very real the wolf-like Sylissyth before her was.

Another flash of hooves, just across her shoulder.  Twilight screamed as the wound was ripped to the bone.  Instinct again kicked in despite her need to maintain clarity, and she aimed her horn at the changeling to fire a non-existent spell.

In the blink of an eye, the changeling shot into the air and circled before landing with legs and wings ready to again take flight.  Its eyes were fixed upon her horn.

Twilight could only stare back, confused.  The moment it noticed her horn it went from brawling and strength-reliant to aloof and dicey, as if realizing she might cast a spell.  But it had to have known she couldn’t use magic, even if it hadn’t witnessed the blade with its own eyes.  Kite’s plan was too calculated.

The changeling dashed in for another strike of the hooves, but Twilight held her ground.  She pointed her horn as if ready to charge a spell.  As quickly as it had come, the changeling leapt aside, but undeterred.  

The crack of bone split the air as Twilight was launched sideways off her hooves.  The blow knocked the wind from her lungs, and refused her a scream in the moments she floated through the air.  Her mind shattered like a jar thrown upon the ground when she landed.  Bone ground against bone as the changeling’s weight crushed the air from her chest, its hooves about her throat.

Twilight’s head swam with the pain.  Her mind yearned for life, yet also for the ease of release—to simply let go.  She questioned why it had to end like this, at the hooves of some monster in the darkness of the woods—why she couldn’t have been left in the relative comfort of exile to at least live and breathe until her time would come with dignity.  It would have been more befitting Kite to have done so, or had the changeling taken the form of a friend.  To stare into the eyes of Applejack or Rainbow Dash as they throttled her to death…  They would have been the most believable forms.  Kite had slipped up there.

Or had she?

Twilight grabbed at the hooves about her throat.  The world grew dim, but she put all her strength into prying them free.  They were like a vice and wouldn’t budge as the changeling hissed flecks of blood in her face.  She swung at the creature’s belly and found its gut satisfyingly soft.

The changeling lurched its barrel upward to absorb the blow, which was all Twilight needed to wedge her hind legs into position.  She launched it head over hooves behind her, and gasped for the sweetness of breath far too long denied her.  She rolled over on her stomach to see the changeling buzzing its wings to regain its balance mid air. 

Wings, temperament, ignorance.  It all added up: another illusion.

“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said.

The changeling shot a glare over its shoulder.  A hiss erupted from its throat before it charged.

“An illusion,” Twilight said, “is only as strong as the illusee is observant.”  The changeling stalled, regarding her warily.  “That means something to you, doesn’t it?”  She took a hesitant step forward, like a child trying not to scare off a small animal.  “Illusions, Elementary.  It’s a wonderful book, isn’t it?  Illusion stuff is pretty cool... even though you can’t do any of it.”

The changeling had taken a step back, confusion wracking the fight from its eyes.  Its wings held fast to its sides, and its hoof was raised for another step backward.

“You said those words to a certain somepony, Rainbow Dash, and you said them only to her.  You enjoyed reading that book, even though her usual sciency stuff is ‘way’ boring.”

The second phrase stole any wind left from the changeling’s sails.  It flattened its ears back and glanced briefly over its shoulder toward Ponyville.

“You came out here to get revenge on the mare that hurt your friend, because you stick up for your friends.”  Twilight was on the verge of tears.  “But Rainbow Dash, you only walked right into her trap.  She changed appearances with me.  And she cast an illusion on you, too.”

Rainbow Dash hesitated before glancing down at herself.  A moment passed in disbelief before she hissed a gasp and scrubbed at her hooves.  Her panic subsided instantly with a fierce glare at Twilight, a low growl, and a threatening step forward.

“And then she sent you out here to kill me, Rainbow—or for me to kill you and then have to live with that for the rest of my life.  That’s the kind of pony she is.”  Rainbow Dash took another step forward.  Twilight took her own, backward, the tears making it difficult to see.  “And I can’t remove these illusions and prove it to you because she stole my magic from me, Rainbow Dash.  She stole it with that evil knife she framed me with.  I know you can see it...”

Twilight began shaking.  She couldn’t keep it in any longer, couldn’t fight to survive.  Enduring meant nothing at the price of her friends.  

She whispered, hollow, “Rainbow Dash… it’s me… Twilight.”

Her name hung in the air between them like a leaf caught in an updraft before sweeping away into the darkness.  Twilight fought back the sobs, praying for a miracle to strip away the magic that bound her in this vile form.  There was only silence, then Rainbow Dash lunged, roaring.

“Rainbow!” Twilight cried.

She felt the hard keratin of her chest collide with hers like a battering ram.  Her body staggered in some direction—she didn’t know which—desperate only to keep her hooves beneath her as the force continued to push.  A turn of the head forward and she crashed face first into the mossy log.  The force pushed harder still, bending and squeezing her already cracked ribs.

“Rainbow Dash!  Please!”  A hoof plunged itself into her gut, and the only other noise she could make was a desperate wheeze.  Twilight crumpled to fall, but another hoof pinned her up against the tree.  She struggled with the blinding pain, trying to suck wind and shield her stomach from the swinging hoof.  Her eyes could hardly focus, only the blurred, chitinous skull and faceted eyes drowning out what little she could see.  Beyond it, like a ghost, was Rainbow Dash’s true face and its winning smile, the very one she saw the first time they met.

“The R-Rainblow Dry,” Twilight heaved.  Rainbow Dash stopped.  “Do y-you remember your Rainb-blow Dry—when w-we first met?  You cr-rashed into me and got me all m-m-muddy.  And then, and then messed up my mane.”  Twilight tried cracking a smile, but everything started moving far away.  “You almost… almost died laughing.”  It was getting darker.  “And, when App… Applejack let go… you were there to catch m-me.”  

The nighttime noises had gone, and the changeling was nowhere to be seen.  Only Rainbow Dash stood before her, bold, brave.  “You… saved me...”  Twilight reached out for the smiling, keen-eyed face, but felt nothing.  Without a support to hold her weight, Twilight let herself fall into the spiralling darkness that reached upward with welcoming embrace.




> VII - A Close Call
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	There was a thud.  Clothing shuffled.  Bottles scraped along wood and clinked together.  They sounded far away, like they echoed through an impossibly long tunnel to reach her ears.  Glass clattered just behind her.  Her mind snapped to like a rubber band, and she peeked open an eye.

Laying sideways, she saw a countertop.  Bottles of liquids lined the wooden backsplash, along with jars of tongue depressors and cotton balls.  Cabinets ran from wall to wall, their glass windows exhibiting boxes with labels too chicken-scratched to read.  Antiseptic tinged the air.

She listened to a set of hooves walk the length of a wooden floor behind her.  She dared not turn her head for chance of being discovered.  The pony stopped directly behind her, at the far end of the room.  It then came closer, its hooves trumpeting its arrival on the creaky floorboards.  Closer.  Closer.  Silence.

A warmth draped itself over Twilight’s forehead.  A wet towel.  She considered herself lucky the pony applied it slowly; she would have flinched otherwise.

“So you have no idea who this is?” the stallion applying the towel said.  An older voice, one that had worked many years with little rest.

“Not a clue, Stitch.”  Twilight recognized the voice, but couldn’t quite place it.  A gruff voice, with a heavy twang to it.  The pony with the familiar voice strode up behind her, next to Stitch.  “Will that stitch hold?”  A slight shift of clothing from both parties, perhaps the two catching each others’ eye.  The familiar voice laughed.  “Yeah, yeah, happens all the time, I know.”

“But this one didn’t get here on her own, I don’t think, Sherif,” Stitch said.

Sheriff?  Sheriff Silverstar.  Then she was in Appleloosa.

“No?  How you reckon?”

“Unconscious on my doorstep.  Curled up in front, not slumped against it.  Somepony left ‘er—banged on my door ‘n skedaddled.  Three in the damn mornin’, no less.”

Somepony left her.  Rainbow Dash.  So she believed her, then?  It suddenly felt as though a vice had been loosed from around her heart.  Finally somepony was on her side.  Though, the thought turned to yearning, a desire to know where she was now, just to hold her in her hooves, apologize that she had been dragged into this mess.

Silverstar whistled.  “Helluva long time on just one suture, Stitch.  What’s that make it, then?  Five, six hours?”

A short silence.  “Six, I think,” Stitch said.  “Poor girl was bit to the bone.  Had to do multiple layers, temporary drain.  All that fun stuff.”  His last words seemed dismissive, casual.

Silverstar huffed.  “Whatever that means.  Those her clothes?”

Stitch ‘hmm’ed.  “That ain’t all of ‘em, though.  Shoulda seen her tuxedo.  More red ‘n it was purple.  Threw it out after I cut it off.  No use keepin’ it.”

“Tuxedo?” Silverstar asked, incredulous.  She could practically see his bushy moustache dancing around on his face.  “Who in their right mind’d be wearin’ a tuxedo ‘round these parts?”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to say she’s from ‘round here, Sheriff.  Can’t see it under the pad, but this ain’t no coyote bite.  Too big.”  Twilight felt her heart leap to her throat.  “Nah, Sheriff, I’d reckon she came from the Everfree.  Big monsters up’n there.”

“Huh,” said Silverstar.  Twilight could mentally see him lifting his ten-gallon to scratch his head.  “What you suppose she was doin’ there?”

Her heart settled back down into her chest.  They hadn’t gotten word from Ponyville yet.  She was still safe.  But Twilight kept her eyes closed, decided it best not to reveal herself.  Doing so would take time, a commodity she was not keen on wasting, and a slip of the tongue could easily lead things south.  

Her shoulder didn’t hurt much at the moment, but that meant powerful analgesics ran through her system—both a crutch and a crucifix, if it came down to fight or flight.  She was better off undiscovered.

Slip out at the first opportunity.  Find Rainbow Dash.  Form a plan. There was no telling when word on the ‘assassination attempt’ would arrive.  She would need every minute.

“Can’t say for sure, Sheriff,” Stitch said.  “But she was definitely runnin’ from whatever got her.  She’s all cut up one side and down the other.  If I had to guess what got her, though, I’d say a wolf.  One ’a them timberwolves, I think’re called.”

“Hmm… Still don’t explain how she wound up here.”

“Not a bit, Sheriff.”

A pause.  “Well, she’s one lucky lady,” Silverstar said.  “I’ll give ’er that.  She gonna make it?”

A hoof patted her gently on the barrel.  It felt padded behind clothes.  She still wore a part of Kite’s outfit, then.  Or a blanket.  Whatever drugs pumped through her made it impossible to tell without looking.  

“I think she’ll pull through,” Stitch said.  There was a hint of pride in his voice.  “Mighta lost a good pint or two, but I got her stable on an IV of saline.  Best I could do since Bar Fight needed the last of my blood packs, and my next shipment isn’t due until Tuesday.  If she’s made it this far, though, my bits are on the conductor, not the carpenter.”

“Heh, well, we’d ship her home in a match box if we really had to, Stitch.  An’ then you’d be outta double your bits.”  The two shared a laugh before Silverstar let out a sigh.  “Well, I’ll be leavin’ you to it, Stitch.  Got some business back at the station.  I’ll start gettin’ word out about this missin’ mare here.”

“Thanks for checkin’ in, Sheriff.  Good day to you.”

Twilight heard Silverstar walk to the back corner of the room, where a door creaked open and then banged shut.  Stitch whistled a tune to himself, taking up the towel from Twilight’s forehead.  Water swished in a basin and then dribbled back down.  He placed the towel—newly warm—over her head.

He gently patted her face with a cloth, wiping away a few stray drops of water.  It took her all the effort in the world not to twitch.  He whispered to her, solemn, sad.  “What kind of creature could do something like this to a pretty ‘un like you?”  He stopped, and silence reigned for nearly a minute.  He sighed, and his hoofsteps followed after Silverstar’s.  The door swung open, but no slam came.  She knew him to be looking back over his shoulder.  He said nothing, but the air felt ripe with well-wishes and promises of a speedy recovery.  The door banged shut, and Twilight lay alone in the room.

She counted off ten seconds before lifting her head.  The screen door the two had left through would hardly give her a chance to react if Stitch decided to return, but she hadn’t the time for caution.  She rolled onto her stomach, and immediately the world darkened, her ears ringing incessantly.  Her balance wavered, and she had to let herself adjust to the new position.  

Stitch must not have been exaggerating when he said she lost a lot of blood.

Twilight took a breath to settle the sudden beating of her heart.  She noticed the IV inserted in her foreleg, and she squirmed, never being one for needles.  She looked away, eyes shut, as she slowly pulled it out.

Another sigh as she kept pressure on the site for a minute, and then swung her legs over the side of the examination bed.  An unsteady but quiet slip to the floor and she crept for the front door of the room, opposite the one Stitch had exited through, walking on three legs to keep her injured shoulder still.

She gave the room a quick glance, pondering some way to thank him for saving her.  There were none she could think of without running the risk of him returning.  She settled for a wish of good fortune and a promise to return after all this had blown over before heading out.

The streets of Appleloosa were dustier than she remembered.  At least, they looked it, what with how the morning sun didn’t quite glare off any particular surface.  The dust clung to everything: buildings, signs, clothes.  It kicked up in the breeze, and Twilight had to squint through it.  

She brushed it out of her collar, which was when she noticed how much less of Kite’s outfit she wore: a black vest overtop a white short-sleeved suit shirt, the yellow and orange polka-dotted kerchief neatly folded in its chest pocket.  Much more comfortable, she had to decide.  Not that she had any room to think about it before.  Surprisingly, there wasn’t a drop of blood to be found.  The sleeve of her injured shoulder had been cut clean away, but otherwise only the tuxedo appeared missing.  She considered ridding herself of the shirt, as having only one sleeve might attract attention.  Best hold onto the vest, though.  The ponies in Appleloosa often wore some semblance of clothing, and removing all of hers would only make her stand out more.  

There weren’t many ponies out—which only added to her reasoning.  She had to blend in as much as possible, and so followed through with her internal compromise.  That left her mannerisms.  Head down, eyes up.  Look unimportant.  Then plan everything out.

For starters, she had to find Rainbow Dash.  Normally, spotting a changeling would have been a difficult task, but Rainbow couldn’t shapeshift.  A rule of illusions: they can’t grant biochemical or magical abilities, only take them away through mental limitation.  Which meant she was looking for a plain, old changeling.  Unfortunately, that meant she would have to find Rainbow Dash, rather than vice versa.  Hiding and meeting in plain sight wasn’t an option.

Twilight snuck glances at the rooftops, hoping for hide or tail of her friend.  Just that would make everything bearable.  She had to form a plan, and fast.  There were questions that needed answers, dots that needed connecting.

Kite had claimed revenge as her motive.  For what, Twilight didn’t know, but she believed a clue lay somewhere in the illusions.  The circus had to have been a façade, a means of setting herself up for everything leading to this point.  

Screwing with her friends was meant to get at her, pull strings that would lead her down whatever path Kite desired.  That left the big illusions: the false past and the body swap.

She passed by the sheriff’s station, and Twilight did her best to not look its way, for fear of catching Silverstar’s eye, if he happened to be about.  Nothing good would come of that kind of attention.  She hobbled a little faster.

The illusion of her past had been constructed perfectly.  Everything had matched to the smallest detail—even her parents’ nuances that no one would have known except her—and how it was staged to be the day of her entrance exam.  No Sonic Rainboom.  No Ponyville.  And Kite showed her face as Celestia’s protégé, just to push her buttons—or perhaps the idea held more water than it seemed.  She had mentioned revenge, after all.  There had to be a specific reason the illusion was of her entrance exam and not some other memory.  And come to think of it, she had been rather pushy on the subject of her princesshood, and all the fame and responsibilities it entailed, at their first meeting in the tent.

Jealousy and entrance exams-turned revenge nightmares.  Princess Celestia came to the forefront of her mind, and there she stayed as if awaiting a friendship report in person.  Suddenly, revenge seemed all the more plausible.  High time she paid Canterlot a visit..

Ponyville was out of the question, and nowhere else had been alluded to in her limited interactions with Kite.  She had come to Appleloosa to escape her friends.  A lateral motion, if anything.  A side step.  She needed to move forward, and that meant taking a gamble on the breadcrumbs of Kite’s hubris.

She suddenly noticed a couple of ponies standing before her waiting for a cart to pass at the intersection, and stopped before bumping into them.  She blinked herself out of her stupor, noticing something off about the cart.  The painted trimming was not a style of Appleloosa—far too colorful—and the wheels were thin, weak things meant for better-paved roads.  Within were a number of stallions.

It rounded the corner, heading past Twilight.  She followed it over her shoulder with her eyes to where it stopped outside the sheriff’s station.  The stallions stepped out, looking none too happy.  She recognized one of them: Bright Light, from the Ponyville candle shop. 

She took off across the street at a brisk walk.

Her shoulder complained—dull but there, still masked by whatever painkillers pumped through her.  She ignored it as best she could; a healing wound meant nothing if she was caught.

A train whistled somewhere in the distance.  She perked up, ears swivelling toward the sound.  The station wasn’t far, just past the town square.  Another quick glance at the sheriff’s office and she ducked through an alley.

Her shoulder throbbed at her exertion, and sweat trickled down her face.  She had forgotten how hot the desert-plains of Appleloosa could get.  The sun beat down overhead, casting thick shadows from the tops of the building.  She noticed a blob of shadow run its length.  A silhouette peeked over the roof at her, the sun directly behind.  It all too suddenly leapt down at her, and she found herself backing up against the wall to make room.

The dark chitin shell glistened in the sunlight, apparently the only thing the dust couldn’t or hadn’t bothered clinging to.  Rainbow Dash grinned sheepishly at her, fangs just poking out between her lips, ears flattened back, faceted eyes reflecting a million Kites back at her.  She took a hesitant step forward, and Twilight met her more than halfway, wrapping her in the largest hug she could manage with her bad shoulder.

“Thanks, Rainbow,” she said.

Rainbow Dash cooed, throwing a hoof around her.  Strong, but restrained—head not quite leaned in toward the hug.  Still guilty about the fight.

Twilight released her, but shifted to meet Rainbow Dash’s eyes.  “Don’t worry about anything.  I’m just glad you’re on my side.”

Rainbow Dash nodded weakly, but Twilight could tell every little hexagon in her eyes gravitated toward her shoulder.  She clicked and sputtered some unknown language.  Guttural, but remorseful.

“I can’t understand you, Rainbow Dash.  The illusion’s making you speak like a changeling.  At least, I think.”  She’d have to read up on changeling linguistics sometime.  She shook her head.  “But that’s not important right now.”  A quick glance over her shoulder.  “There’s ponies here from Ponyville looking for me.  I have to get out of here.”  The train whistled again, just around the corner.

“I’m going to take the next train for Canterlot.  I have a feeling the only place I’m going to get the answers I need is from Celestia.”

Rainbow Dash jerked back, alarmed.  She made a high-pitched hiss, wincing, biting her lip.  

“I have to.  It’s the only way I’ll figure out what Kite’s motives truly are and how to expose her.  How I prove that I’m not Mr. Kite and get rid of this illusion—our illusions.”  

Rainbow Dash looked down, ears still laid back.  She chittered, low, unconvinced.

“Look,” Twilight said.  “I have to get out of here before I’m caught, and you need to hide.  I don’t think they know you’re out here, too, just me.”

She put a hoof on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder, giving her a heartfelt smile, one her friend hesitantly returned.  “I’ll leave you a sign on which car I’m in.”  She leaned her head into Rainbow Dash’s, smiling.  “Follow, but stay out of sight.  I don’t want you to get hurt.  Just trust me.  Okay?”

It took a moment for Rainbow Dash to muster a nod.  Twilight knew she asked the hardest thing in the world of her—telling her to hide, to do nothing.  Let somepony else handle it.  She herself had problems with the same thing, but Rainbow Dash was the most action-oriented of her friends.

They stood there enjoying the company of one another for a long moment.  Two friends lost in a hostile world, soon to be separated. 

Twilight drew back, Rainbow Dash likewise.  A moment, then a gust of wind.  Twilight shielded her face from the dust.  When she lowered her hoof, she was alone.  

Things were going to get a lot worse before they got better.  She put her hoof to her chest, breathing in.  Release, hoof out.  Forward.

Out from the alley, the station stood just beyond an open field.  The wood and windows of its face she knew well, and seeing them gave her heart a flutter.  Steam rose from the other side, and ponies shuffled to and from the large, open doors.  She followed, doing her best to conceal her limp.

It was cool inside.  The high ceiling magnified the conversations of those around her.  On the other side of the long glassless windows stood a train and its conductor, just stepping onto the platform.

“All aboard for Dodge Junction!  Final stop: Vanhoover!”

That could work.  The Vanhoover train would run through Canterlot.  Plus, Appleloosa would soon be off limits to her, assuming the Ponyville stallions had come looking for her.  The earlier she left the better.  She started toward the train, but stopped upon seeing the first boarding passengers.

The conductor stood steely-eyed before the only door to the train, checking everypony for their ticket.  

She had no ticket, nor any money.

Missing this train ran the risk of getting caught by the posse at the sheriff’s station.  She looked between the coming and going ponies, and wondered how easily they would notice her hopping the train at the last minute.  A step toward the train reminded her of her wounds.  It had already been enough of a struggle getting to the station.  She hadn’t a hope in the world of running alongside it on startup.  That left her with only one option.

Ponies continued filing past her.  She eyed their pockets and purses.  Some flaunted their wealth through lacy frills and bulging waistcoats, while others had little to show for themselves.  It was amazing what she could glean off a pony just by sizing them up—their attitudes and social statures given voice by mouthless cues, which ones might be too busy to notice a little something missing.  Her heart beat faster just thinking about how many morals she would be breaking, her stomach churning something fierce.  She had read books on tourism and safeguarding belongings, but never believed she would find herself on the other end of the situation.

No.  She shook her head.  It was wrong.  Stealing was wrong.

Out the corner of her eye, she noticed the carriage stallions enter through the front doors.  A shiver ran down her spine, a pitted sensation in her heart.  She turned fully forward, praying to Celestia they wouldn’t notice her.  Stay calm.  Stay natural.  Forward.  The station teemed with ponies, and she would have to rely on the chaos to blend in.  But the station was only so large.  She had to get aboard the train, and she had to get aboard it now.  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes to whisper a silent prayer for forgiveness, and opened them.

She eyed out one stallion in particular.  His stride concerned itself with nopony else; and his tie had a sheen to it that no other stallion’s in the station had.  Silk.  A wealthy one, from Canterlot or Baltimare.  Alone and oblivious.  He’d be the easiest.

Twilight stepped in line behind him for the ticket booth.  One book she had read mentioned that thieves would often bump into their target as they swiped money from their pockets, the victim’s attention on the bump rather than on their coinpurse.  She had no experience with such a thing and couldn’t see how she would pull that off.  A snatch-and-run wasn’t possible, either.  Manipulations with magic could get pretty creative.  Desperate hope raised her hoof to her heart, to the knot resting beneath her chest.  It pulsed quietly, as if asleep, too tired to trouble her today.  Perhaps she wasn’t as disarmed as she thought.  She had to test it.

Her focus rested on the yellow and orange polka-dotted kerchief in her vest pocket.  What was once a subconscious action—wrapping her magic around an object—felt like trying to lift Canterlot Mountain.  Pushing her magic to her horn also pushed sweat to her brow.  It didn’t feel bottlenecked like it had as a filly, rather a lack of pressure.  There was magic in her, but minutely so.

The line moved up, and it was soon the stallion’s turn.  She listened to him speak with the teller.  He had a rather boisterous voice, one befitting the business stallion he claimed to be.  A stuffiness rose to her collar, fresh sweat trickling down the back of her neck—his bits or her life.  She repeated it in her head.  His coinpurse came out.  There was her chance.

As he opened the clip, Twilight strained to give it a little magical tug.  The purse slumped to the ground, and the ring of coin silenced every turning head.  

Luckily for the stallion, the majority of those around him were of higher society and weren’t about to pounce upon his coin like hungry wolves; those of lower status refused by mob rule.  

Luckily for Twilight, he didn’t notice the five bits beneath her hoof while racing to recover the rest, and the stallions at the door had dismissed the scene too quickly to notice her standing right in front of them, their heads already sweeping the far-reaching crowds.

The business stallion regained himself, grabbed his ticket, and stormed for the platform, eyes very forward, as if it would make up for whatever social faux pas he thought he had committed.  Twilight stepped up, watching him go.  Her cheeks felt red as fire.

“One ticket to Vanhoover, please,” she said to the visored pony behind the ticket window.

He rolled his cigar to the other side of his mouth.  “Two bits.”

She tossed them in the tray.  The stallion took them and slid out a ticket.  

“Have a good one.”

Twilight nodded stiffly, pocketed the remaining coins and ticket, and headed for the platform.  The sun beat down on her for a minute as she awaited her turn in line for the conductor’s approval, staring all too forward as the stallion had.  

He took her ticket and nodded.  “Welcome aboard.”

She found a window seat and stared straight ahead.  No other ponies entered after her, leaving the carriage relatively empty.  There, in the silence of the train car, her daring theft and evasion behind her, the last vestiges of mental fortitude finally withered.  She heaved a sigh as she slid down her seat.  Her hooves shook like leaves clinging to a branch in a hurricane, and she felt light headed.

The cool wood beneath her felt unreal, as if there was no possible way she had managed getting this far.  She let it sink in, opened her eyes to prove to herself that she was indeed on the train and safe from the hunting party.  Another deep breath and she regained her seat to look outside.

That left flagging down Rainbow Dash.  A maintenance ladder climbed the outside wall between her window and the one behind her.  She wrapped her kerchief to one of the rungs and gave it a tug.  Nice and secure.

A final whistle, and the train started rolling.  The familiar chug of the engine began its rhythm beneath her hooves.  The station started crawling its way behind her as she shut her window.  

The carriage stallions stepped out onto the platform, staring at the train as it gathered speed.  One of them met her eyes, and he paused briefly, as if not expecting the very thing they were searching for.  “There she is!” he cried.

They ran along the platform, shouting down the conductor.  Twilight pressed back into her seat, hiding her face from the window.  Her heart beat loud in her ears against the chug of the train and the shouts of the stallions.

She had been found, and they were going to take her back to Ponyville.  Or worse.  The deserts south of Appleloosa were famous for their myriad of deadly animals and insects.

She listened to the steam engine chug, the pistons push and pull beneath her.  She gripped her seat until it hurt, jaw clenched, neck stiff as a board.  Just keep moving.  Just keep going.

There was a thud against the side of the traincar.  Another.  Hooves.  “Stop the train!” 
they shouted, their voices muffled behind the pane of glass yet clear as day in her head.  Twilight closed her eyes, feeling her legs tremble.  Don’t stop.  

The sounds fell away as quick as they had come.  The click of the tracks approached a steady rhythm, and Twilight knew the station was far behind her.

She breathed in a slow, trembling sigh, one she almost couldn’t will, so shot were her nerves.  It came out just as broken, but she managed to recline in her seat and hold back tears of relief.

The trials and terrors of the last two days rushed back upon her.  She still didn’t understand Kite’s plan.  There was little to go on, and less to trust.

All she had was her hunch: Kite had claimed revenge as her motive, and if it had any merit, the only place she would find out was Canterlot, from Celestia herself.

That didn’t sit well in her stomach.  The mere thought of her mentor and the inklings of her situation reawakened the Kiss and Tell as a knot in the back of her tongue.  Meeting with her meant doing so not as herself but as Mr. Kite, and whatever past demons that entailed.  She would be walking into a manticore’s den, except this manticore could be infinitely more ferocious if things went south.  

Or if they were already south to begin with.  Just what Kite’s history could be with Celestia kept her eyes unfocused, staring out the window.  All she knew was that it was her only option for obtaining the information she needed, and her window of opportunity already grew thin.  

She needed a plan for confronting Celestia.  A game of words to weave around both the Kiss and Tell and any history between them in hopes of dispelling the illusion for at least one more pony.  The most important one to convince.

But that would be then.  Now, here on the train, the world weighed heavy on her shoulders, and heavier on her eyelids.

Twilight rested her head against the window sill, closing her eyes as the wind reached full roar, the last thoughts on her mind before sleep crept in that everything would most certainly get worse before they got better.

> VIII - Canterlot
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	A stray bump of the traincar woke Twilight from sleep.  She rubbed an eye before yawning.  The sky shone bright, yet darkness stretched across the rolling fields outside her window.  A better look told her she sat beneath the great shadow of Canterlot Mountain.  No more than a mile ahead waited the first of many tunnels that lead up through the mountain core to Canterlot.

She yawned, stretching her legs out in front of her.  They complained, sore and stiff, as if she had run a marathon.  Which didn’t stray far from the truth.  Her flight through the woods had tested both body and spirit to the breaking point.  Not to mention her fight with Rainbow Dash.  The thought brought a throbbing discomfort to her shoulder.  Painkillers wearing off.

Twilight glanced at the ladder rung outside her window.  The yellow and orange kerchief whipped around in the wind, fraying at the edges from the abuse.  Satisfied, she reclined her head.

She had slept through the train’s stop at Dodge Junction, and felt like she could do the same until it lapped all the way back around again.  Luck had it those stallions hadn’t stopped the train back in Appleoosa.  Equally so that others hadn’t been in Dodge Junction looking for her.  They had travelled by carriage; hopefully they had limited their search only to the towns south of Ponyville, where she was last seen heading.  Word might not have spread north yet.  If it hadn’t, it was her only saving grace.

Darkness swallowed the train, the clicking of the tracks a sudden thunderous roar.  Its repetition drowned out the quiet conversations of the few other ponies around her.  She listened to it, as if it was a voice speaking to her.  

It spoke of the tracks beneath her and where they headed, the pony at the other end.  Already she felt a detachment from her mentor.  The illusion seeped into her head, contaminating her thoughts, the happy memories she had as a filly under her wing.  

She could see Celestia clear as day in the blackness outside her window.  Tall, elegant as always, but no matter how often she had seen it, Twilight couldn’t create the smile she had always known her for.  Only a cold, bitter gaze, not directed at her but at who she had become.  

The train wound its way out of the tunnel.  From the mountainside she had a brief glimpse of Canterlot Castle before the darkness again enveloped her.

She saw the Star Swirl auditorium again.  The high-reaching ceiling and its bannered green walls.  Of all days, there had to have been a reason for reliving her exam day.  Even if only a temporary torture, it hit too close to home for mere entertainment.  Twilight sighed.  Celestia would know.  If she didn’t blast her to smithereens first.  The Kiss and Tell teased her with a grip in the back of her throat.  

It knew her intentions well.  Though, it held no power over her ability to tell Celestia who she was, only that Kite had kidnapped Spike and Fluttershy, and had some nefarious scheme planned.  It didn’t tighten at the thought of being turned into Kite herself—and had done nothing when she confessed to Rainbow Dash.  But that only raised more questions, considering Kite’s attention to detail.  Perfection had been her mainstay as far as Twilight could tell.  Why she hadn’t ensured her inability to tell others her real identity teetered on the line between mistake and master plan.

Now was the most uncertain point of Kite’s plan, the time where each version of Kite’s ‘assassination attempt’ had the time to permeate and settle in the minds of Equestria’s citizens.  But at the same time that meant caution remained all the more paramount.  Suspension of disbelief would be a massive barrier to hurdle, one Twilight had only a single chance at.  And given her uncertainties over Kite’s relationship with Celestia, perhaps a slower approach would be necessary.  Test the waters before making too large a splash.

The train whistle wailed their nearing the station.  Daylight flooded the train car, and out the window lay Canterlot Lake, its crystalline blue waters sprawled out to touch the wild edge of the Everfree and lush green of Canterlot Valley alike.  The tracks veered left, the mountainside panning into view, and with it the great white castle walls.

A pit grew in Twilight’s stomach.  If the guards knew about Ponyville, they would be upon her within seconds.  Some more of her magic might have returned during the train ride, but surely not enough to save her.  She said a silent prayer that word hadn’t arrived.  

The train gave another wail as the station came into view.  Its wheels screeched against its weight, and Twilight felt herself lurch forward in her seat.  Outside her window, ponies of pinstripes and lace rolled by, slowing to a stop at the hiss of steam.

A commotion bubbled up around her as those in the traincar rose to gather their belongings from the overhead storage compartments.  Twilight gave the barred shelf above her an errant glance, wishing for something that could fill the pit in her stomach.  Even just a bag of her own to grab and blend in with the bustle would have lightened the thoughts weighing on her mind.

She still hadn’t seen hide or tail of Rainbow Dash since the alleyway in Appleoosa.  She had hoped her handkerchief signal would have been sufficient, that Rainbow Dash would have taken it during transit as a return signal.  A sigh escaped her.  Twilight left it to avoid attracting attention.

Having somepony by her side would have been the greatest comfort of all.  But she had to sidle out into the aisle alone and wait to exit the train car, lest curious eyes fall upon her.

It was loud on the station platform.  Gossip held full sway, light as whipped egg whites on the tongues of Upper Canterlot’s elite.  The snippets Twilight picked out held no more day-to-day relevance than the tabloids lining the nearby newsstands.  The train gave a final whistle, and the smokestack plumed white, exhaust rising high as if trying to escape the noise.

Twilight took a deep breath of the humid morning air.  Canterlot Castle lay past the Lingerlight District to the north, its golden towers reaching just over the rooftops.  A parting glance to the roof of the train, the crevices between cars, and the shadows beneath the wheels to see no Rainbow Dash staring back; and she took her first heavy step forward.

She knew the city like the back of her hoof.  She didn’t need a map or the skyscraping walls of the castle towers to guide her.  Her past self used to gaze up at them in wonder.  Now, she could only look down at their shadows beneath her hooves.  Every step brought the towers closer, and as they came closer, they grew taller, their shadows bolder.

Guards patrolled the streets here and there.  In twos they made headway along the cobbled sidewalks, their prominent hoofsteps like distant thunder to the lightning flash of their polished armor.  Her heart raced every time a patrol came near, but she always passed by unmolested, save scanning glances.  Her pursuers apparently hadn’t yet spread the word north.

The patrols and their ever-vigilant eyes coaxed Twilight’s to the rooftops above, hoping to catch a glimpse of silvery wing or shimmering eye.  But she knew Rainbow Dash wouldn’t be brash enough to stand atop a roof and make herself seen.

Her hopes of finding Rainbow Dash in some shape or form spanned the remainder of her walk until she came to the front gates of the castle.  Guards flanked either side, and they each afforded her a smile and nod as she passed them by.  

Most of the grounds would be open to the public for the weekend.  Everything leading to the throne room itself was accessible without fear of trespass.  That only left her the task of earning an impromptu hearing with Celestia, which was unheard of in its own right.  She was a very busy pony, after all.

Time was of the essence, however.  It had been thirty-six hours since her flight from Ponyville, give or take.  She had little time to reach the Princess before the news did.  If it hadn’t already.

Spike had direct contact with the Princess through his dragonfire.  It would have taken mere minutes to write Celestia of the attack if Kite knew of his ability.  Coercion, Twilight believed, would have been simple enough, given her sampling of the hell Kite could wreak, and subsequent action of the Royal Guard would have been heavy and swift.  But as Twilight walked the castle grounds, a more unnerving thought crossed her mind.

Celestia was a wise ruler, and twice as careful.  Both calculating and strict in dispensation of sensitive information.  She very well might have known but withheld notifying the Guard—or worse, ordered they wait.  If so, then every step brought her deeper into a trap.

A beautiful trap, though, as beautiful as Canterlot Castle always was.  As she climbed the front steps, she allowed herself the brief luxury of enjoying the chrysanthemums, which blossomed gold and white like sunbursts and full moons along the castle walls, and the breeze brought their perfume to her nostrils, reminiscent of the tea she shared with Celestia on occasion.  Inside, banners depicting historic events—Starswirl’s creation of the amniomorphic spell, the first Summer Sun Celebration, the foundation of Equestria—lined the high walls.  Sunlight filtered through the Great Hall’s stained-glass windows to dance off the innumerable marble pillars.  A beautiful trap, indeed.

Other ponies seemed to be enjoying their visit.  Fillies and colts romped about the hallway, their parents scolding them with reminders of where they were in between conversations of their own.  Twilight stopped before the closed doors of the throne room.

“Sorry, ma’am,” the guard on duty said.  “The Royal Court is currently in session.  The Princess will be available for public greetings at noon.”  His voice was firm and practiced.

“Wha—” she coughed to stifle the quiver in her voice,  “—What time is it now?”

The guard kept his gaze forward in dignified-soldier fashion.  “Should be about a quarter ‘til eleven.”

About an hour, then.  Fair enough, Twilight decided.  She could wait if it meant remaining inconspicuous.  She spied an empty space in the corner and sat.

The marble floor was cold to the touch, but welcome.  It wasn’t often she had the opportunity to stop and appreciate the castle—an odd thing to do in her situation, she knew, but nothing could be done about it.  It was a chance to sit back and feel normal, if only for a moment.  And that was gratifying in and of itself.

But she had to avoid falling too far into reverie, as tempting as it might be.  Her conversation with Celestia had to go flawlessly.  Otherwise…

She shook her head.  First thing’s first: an escape route.  On the off chance her plan fell through—that perhaps Kite had warned Celestia of her attempted assassination—she would need a plan B.  The guards would close off the main gates and surrounding areas.  An attempt to corral her within the throne room or Great Hall, if she even made it that far.  Granted such luck, that left her with few options.

Her head turned almost of its own volition toward the stained-glass windows lining the Great Hall, the only exits they couldn’t barricade.  Those behind her overlooked the royal gardens.  At least a two-story drop for sure, but a last resort was a last resort.

Large bushes lined the base of the Great Hall, she recounted from her countless walks through the gardens.  Not a welcome landing, but better than breaking an ankle or four on the grass.  From there, she saw her path through the gardens and their blooming chrysanthemums, past the Lunar Statue and Dais of the Sun, and to the pond beneath the Canterlot wellspring.  

Everypony knew of the pond and the beautiful waterfall both feeding it from above and emptying into Canterlot Lake far, far below.  But only Princess Celestia and herself knew of the secret tunnel behind it, and of the network that webbed beneath all of Canterlot.  From there, it was only a matter of finding Rainbow Dash and escaping in one piece.  She just had to make it that far.

She shook her head.  Stay positive.  Don’t get caught in the first place.

She would have to craft her words carefully.  No blurting anything out.  ‘I’m actually Twilight Sparkle stuck in the body of the mare who tried to murder me and is now parading around as me, but I have no proof to show for it’ didn’t sound very convincing, especially when the chips were stacked on Kite’s end of the table.  Discussions would be had, and nothing good would come of it.  Kite knew too much of her past to risk that course.

Subtlety seemed best—act like Kite, gather the information she needed, and get out the safest option.  Though, she could subvert that if she played it right.  Don’t act like Kite, raise Celestia’s curiosity before leaving.  Celestia was the wisest pony she knew.  Perhaps leaving a trail of breadcrumbs wouldn’t be a bad idea.

But that could backfire spectacularly.  One little slip up had the possibility of crossing an unknown line, something from their past obscured by ignorance.  That could spiral out of control far faster than she wanted to admit.

Her shoulder wouldn’t allow for anything but a stiff walk, and, by extent, a simple conversation.  Pushing that boundary ran the risk of getting caught one way or another.  Better safe than sorry, even if that meant missing an opportunity to break the illusion.  That would fall into place shortly after gathering the information she needed.

So she would play Kite.

The thought sickened her, but so did the alternative.  The Canterlot dungeons were rather nice as far as dungeons went, but they were still exactly that.  Getting locked up wouldn’t do her any good.  

She would have to remain vague.  Probe their history from the outside, let Celestia fill in the details.  Nothing more.  Watch the termite mound, but don’t touch.  Celestia would most certainly pick up on her evasiveness, though.  A couple thousand years’ experience in the art of linguistics would make anypony sensitive to even the subtlest hints of avoidance.  How to work around that…

The great hall doors opened.  Out strode a dignitary of Saddle Arabia, his long, slender body all the proof she needed.  His bells and purple lace only accentuated the fact.

The guard stationed at the inside of the door conversed with the one Twilight had talked to.  He nodded to the other before turning to her.  “Seems like they finished negotiations early.  You might want to get in now before the crowd does.”  He jerked his head toward the foals running about.

Twilight smiled.  “Thank you, sir.”  Though she stood, eager to earn her hearing with the Princess, Twilight couldn’t help the sudden heaviness in her chest.  Her heart beat a racket against her ribcage, and her hooves held the consistency of jelly.  Every step she took sounded like the toll of a bell in the silent throne room.

Ahead, in all the radiance of the world, sat Princess Celestia, high upon her throne of velvet.  Behind her, a stained-glass window poured forth a rainbow of the power she held at a whim.  She did not speak as Twilight approached, the shimmer of her smile eclipsed by a growing frown, her silence louder than any words of condemnation she could have uttered; greetings were always from afar with her, no distance too great to brighten another’s day.  Twilight stopped but a length from the throne steps, and she had to tilt her head to meet Celestia’s eyes.  

Her face was one of recognition.

“Leave us,” she said.  Without a word, all the guards in the throne room marched for the exits.  At the far end, the main door shut, its echo off the high ceiling like the closing of a coffin.  It was a long, grating moment before the hall fell silent again.

“Good morning,” Celestia said.  She used the tone she reserved for court hearings, firm and sincere, but Twilight detected a shortness to it.

Start small.  “Good morning, Your Majesty,” Twilight replied, slow, put-forth, the way she heard Kite’s voice drawl out in her head.  She affected a bow, wanting to appear sincere, but not keen on taking her eyes from Celestia.  Something about her stiff welcome gave the impression she stared at a bug beneath her hoof rather than a pony.

Celestia’s gaze remained unmoving, as relentless as the sun at the peak of summer.  “I must say, Smoke, you’ve certainly gotten over your fears of... outward impressions.”

A soft insult.  Like Rainbow Dash’s occasional raillery.  So they were close to some extent.  Twilight glanced down at herself.  It had been a day and a half since Kite’s guise had been forced upon her, and it definitely showed in the dirt and scrapes of her vest.  The dove white of her coat fared little better.  She smiled, hopefully reservedly enough for ‘Smoke.’  “Yes, heh... well, it’s a long story.”

Celestia blinked, her eyes never losing their power.  “One I might like to hear.”

There it was.  Her biggest worry, the blank pages of Kite’s past, demanded right off the bat like an unfinished essay.  Stay calm.  Reflect the question.  She cleared her throat.  “Well, Princess, as much as I’d love talking about it, it’d surely be a better story over lunch.  Yours, though, I’ve been paying close attention to, and I must say, you’ve been working wonders.  I’d personally love to hear more about how you managed to win over Spatial Plan in the recent zoning dispute.”  She let her smile widen for effect.

A small but genuine smile graced Celestia’s lips.  “Ever the stickler he is.  But in due time, Smoke.”  She inhaled slightly, her mouth open for a moment.  “I must say, it’s a warming sight to see you taking an interest in others again.  The Smoke Screen I last knew wouldn’t have bothered.”

Twilight drank in every word.  Selfish.  Greedy, even.  That explained this whole ‘revenge’ deal.  And her name was Smoke Screen.  A far cry from ‘Mr. Kite.’  Keep digging.  

“Well, Princess, I’m a completely different mare now.”  Twilight smirked at her own joke, but forced the sharpness from it, hoping a softer, more natural smile shone through.

Celestia chuckled, surprisingly cheery for the way she acted moments ago—perhaps a long-forgotten memory rising to the surface.  “Is that so?”  Her eyes seemed deeper, telescopes with thicker lenses so to peer farther into Twilight’s.  She felt them scrying at her soul.  

She knew her mentor well enough to hear the chord of interest struck high in her voice.  Her words hit something deep down.  A nerve, perhaps simply curiosity.  Whatever mystery she had brought to light, it peered out the gazing lenses with subtle intensity.  

Before she could reply, Celestia sighed, eyes softening.  “Very well, Smoke.  Where do I begin?”

“Where all good stories do, of course.”  Twilight sat down, shoulders relaxed.  A wish for quill and paper bounced around her mind, but was caught and caged by common sense; only mental notes would escape this conversation unquestioned.

Celestia laughed, closing her eyes.  She remained so for a moment, breath drawn, before slowly opening her eyes, like a pony stepping out into a warm summer day after spending far too long indoors.  “Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said.  “You remember her, yes?”

Only slightly.  Twilight cracked a smile, if only to hide the yearning in her heart.  “I do.  She’s a princess now, if I recall correctly.”

Celestia gave a disarming chuckle.  “So they do pay attention to such events in the Neightherlands.”

The Neightherlands.  One of the smaller nations across the Great Ocean.  She knew little of it, as ships rarely made the journey.  If they made it at all.  Downplay.  Minimize.  “Of what little news makes it, the coronation of a princess is certainly one.”

Celestia eyed her, silent.  Her smile never wavered, but something within suggested it was more than just an idle thought.  She blinked, and it vanished like fog beneath the morning sun.  “To be truthful, Smoke, I didn’t think I would see you again.  The way you left after I took Twilight under my wing, I was afraid I had lost you for good.”

A redirection?  She mentally bit her lip.  Follow, but don’t overstep.  “A few years can change a pony, Princess.”  Or a few seconds and an illusion.  She pushed away the thought, keen on maintaining her guise.  These were darker waters she treaded.  The fins of circling doubt would be harder to see.

“So you’ve come to learn forgiveness, then?”

The answer to that question was a resounding ‘no,’ on behalf of Smoke Screen.  Twilight could have easily voiced it, and would certainly have loved to, but the situation warranted a lie, a thought that twisted her stomach into a knot.  She had never lied to Princess Celestia before.

“I’ve learned that letting the past control you will only make things worse in the end.”  A heat rose to Twilight’s collar as the words spilled from her mouth.  She struggled with a lump in her throat, hoping Celestia couldn’t see.  All that kept her from retching on the spot was the fact it hadn’t been a true lie.  A half lie, at least.  More of a tangential statement.  That’s what it was.  She could stomach that.

Her words seemed to be what Celestia had been hoping for.  A tension Twilight hadn’t noticed before lifted from her expression.  Sincerity reigned within her eyes—soft sunshine warming a spring afternoon.  A perfect mood to dig deeper into their relationship.  Perhaps it was time to probe their origins.

Twilight chose a gentle voice for her next words.  She looked down at her hooves in hopes of appearing humble.  “Princess, do you remember when we first met?”

“Of course I do,” Celestia said, that warm spring afternoon all the warmer.  “Why wouldn’t I?”

Twilight shied away, scrounging for an oblique angle to strike from.  “Am I… different?  Than I was then?”  An innocent glance up at Celestia.  

“Everypony changes as they grow older, Smoke.  It is the way ponies are.  We learn from our experiences and grow into better ponies for them.”

Or vengeful ones.  Twilight shied away again to hide any unconscious sign of the thought.

“What is it that has you thinking on such things?”

Twilight eyed one of the pillars lining the throne room to stall for time and steady the sudden racket in her chest.  Marble of the purest white, only exceeded by the princess before her.  “I don’t know...”  She looked back at Celestia, who had peaked her eyebrows.

“Is there something you wish to tell me?”

Twilight felt her heart leap into her throat.  She clenched her teeth to force it down, along with the millions of things she wanted to cry out at that moment.  All the pain and misery of the last two days pushed back like water up a faucet ready to burst, but she told herself such weakness would only dig her hole deeper.

“Does it have to do with your time in the Neightherlands?”

The question came across simply.  All the sympathy she had known Celestia to possess carried it gently to her ears, like a lullaby for a filly slipping into dreamland.  Her siren-like voice unearthed old feelings deep within Twilight’s bosom, long-cherished memories of her early years under Celestia’s tutelage.  That everlasting smile encouraging her to reach for the stars, strive for excellence.  Tears pushed to the corners of her eyes despite her efforts, and in light of her façade falling to pieces only acquiescence came to mind.  Ride the emotions, draw out the answers.  She gave a troubled shake of the head.

“Smoke…”  Soft.  Quiet.  “You would never lie to me, would you?”

A feeling of hot worms wriggled down her backside, more of them in her stomach and pasting the back of her tongue.  Her whole body tensed to hold in a retch.  No matter how dire the circumstance, or even if she held the appearance of another pony, could she tell a full, explicit lie to her mentor without hating herself.  But the heaviest of hearts, spurred on by the will to survive, found the courage to shake her head again.

There was silence.  Long.  Unbroken.  Twilight couldn’t bear to bring her eyes around.

“Of course not,” Celestia said, her words pale like the sun hidden behind a film of clouds.  “My Smoke would never lie to me.”

‘My Smoke.’  Not ‘you.’  The racket in Twilight’s chest threatened to crash free.  The little subtleties, her carefully chosen words.  ‘The Smoke Screen she last knew.’  She caught a gasp in her throat, realizing how heavily she had been breathing, the trembles resonating up and down her body.

“But then tell me, Smoke,” Celestia continued.  Her wings stretched out part way like half-drawn curtains about her frame.  “Why you headed north beyond the Crystal Empire when you claimed you sailed across the Great Ocean.”

Twilight flinched, looking her dead in the eye.  Breathless: “Wh-what?”

“Or why you then headed south to the Badlands and the kingdoms beyond the desert sands, without so much as a message.”  Her wings opened fully, and the haze veiling the sun burned away, its brightness growing with every step down her throne she took.

“You questioned my concerns for ending your tutelage, why I believed you weren’t qualified to further Star Swirl’s research, despite your magical prowess.”  A pause, waiting for an answer Twilight couldn’t muster the vocal strength to give even if she had it.

“Did you not think I had sent word of your coming?  That the Duke of Neightherland keep an eye out for your wellbeing?”  Twilight matched every downward step with one backward.  She could only stare in fear at the fire in Celestia’s eyes, the heat radiating from them that could have sublimated steel.  “That when I received word you were not aboard the ship and instead last seen at the outer reaches of the Crystal Empire, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was right in my decision, and that my long-standing fears had been true.”

Twilight’s lower lip trembled.  The loving ruler she had known all her life stared down at her with a wrath she had never believed could exist.  The mysteries of Kite’s past ran deeper than Equestria’s largest mines, and she had struck a wellspring that ran deeper still, already flooding her heart with a water boiled beneath the heat of a nearing sun.  Her words tumbled out like the fragments of her crumbling hope.

“Princess… I don’t know what you’re—”

“I have played along with this game of yours long enough.  You have evaded my watchful gaze for many years, but I have not forgotten.”  She tilted her head up ever so slightly, so as to look down the bridge of her nose at Twilight.  “I could never forget that filly I knew all those years ago.  That little filly that wanted me all to herself.”

“I…” Twilight’s legs quivered.  Of all the slivers of hope she had dared cling to, Celestia’s benevolence became little more than a drop of water in the desert.  She had yearned for that one saving grace, that one certainty she could lean on while traversing this dark and dangerous path.  Her throat swelled shut, and she slowly shook her head, vision blurring, as she tried to whisper: “Princess… I’m not who you think I am.”

“No, Smoke.”  Her gaze darkened.  “You are not.  So let us speak freely, as who we are.  Would that please you, Mirror Image?”

Twilight gasped, the world suddenly draining away until only she and Celestia remained.  “Wh-what?”

Another step.  The sun sat full behind the stained glass, casting a blinding corona about Celestia.  “I will stand for no more of this, Mirror.  You have impersonated Smoke Screen long enough, and I will see to it that whatever your motives are, they never come to fruition.”  She stepped beneath the sun, and by its light Twilight could see a transformation had come over her.

Her face of stone had become one of clay, eyes shining not with fury but with tears.  She swallowed slow and hard.  “Just find it in your heart to answer me one question I have waited far too long to know.”  She spoke slowly, wrestling with emotions churning beneath the surface.  “Mirror… What have you done to Smoke?”  Her brow pulled tight above her eyes, a long-withheld pain pressing forth behind her mask of stoicism.  Her next words came breathlessly.

“What have you done to your sister?”

Twilight stood numb, mouth agape.  Everything in her mind told her to blurt out the truth, that despite Celestia’s assumptions her words would shine through.  From the poster tacked to the front of Town Hall to Rainbow Dash’s fangs sinking into the flesh of her shoulder, the memories crashed endlessly around in her head.  The words she desired to hear ring high and loud off the cavernous ceiling pushed to the tip of her tongue, but the Kiss and Tell cinched off her throat as the memories of Spike and Fluttershy’s capture—Kite stepping forward with eyes bluer than the deepest oceans to plant the kiss of death upon her lips—tumbled amidst the others.  She could only stare at the pain on Celestia’s face, at her yearning for an answer she had already formed.

The Great Hall doors burst open.  Shouts poured in like floodwater through a broken levee, screams of frightened children riding the waves.  A shadow fired straight at Twilight, a buzzing sound quickly growing to overpower the shouts.  It flashed to a halt before her in a gust of wind, and she came to realize what it was.  Who it was.

Rainbow Dash spun about, head sunk low to the floor, wings flared, teeth bared at the soldiers tramping in after her.  She backpedalled toward Twilight, head sweeping around so as to give each of the circling soldiers ample warning.  A quick toss of the head back to Twilight, fear and apology in the brief wince.  It was then that Twilight noticed she wore the yellow and orange polka-dotted kerchief around her neck.

“Mirror,” Celestia said, fierce.  “What is the meaning of this?”

Twilight turned back to Celestia, who glared at Rainbow Dash.  It was a glare of resurfaced memory, flashbacks to Chrysalis and the changeling invasion.  If her fate hadn’t been sealed already, the sight of Canterlot’s most despised enemy staving off its protectors with threat of hoof and fang in her very throne room certainly would.  

She stared her mentor in the eye, felt her rekindled hatred heating the room, and trembled, knowing there remained no chance for words to see her through.  Only Canterlot’s dungeons awaited her if she abided, and for that knew only one hope for salvation.  She closed her eyes, a tear running down her cheek.  

I’m sorry…

She forced all the magic she could muster through her horn and into the space beside Celestia’s ear.  Color washed away in the milliseconds before her spell was complete, and swept with it the noises of the room.  Twilight felt within that span of time all her memories of Celestia—every radiant smile, every glowing compliment—shatter like portraits falling from their hooks.  Vision distorted and snapped to, sound and color rushing back into existence to boom off the walls and blast away every window, thrusting Celestia to the opposite end of the throne room.

Power coursed through Twilight’s veins, a primal and fierce adrenaline surge to every inch of her body.  She turned to Rainbow Dash, who even behind her bug-eyed mask she could tell disbelief cored out the bottom of her heart.  And in that moment, there remained only one option for survival.

“Run!”

Together they dashed for the entrance, Rainbow Dash kicking any guard who dared throw themselves upon them.  Twilight leapt around the nearest guard, his heavy armor unable to turn in time.

Already her shoulder resisted her efforts to run, the bandages wrapped about her wound turning red as stitches snapped and ripped apart flesh.  She felt the pain, but distantly so, masked as it was beneath her endorphin high.  She pushed herself harder, taking advantage of the momentary suppression.  Time was in their favor, but only barely.

Through the door, she charged the nearest stained-glass window.  “Rainbow!” she cried, not waiting for a response.  Another burst of magic from her horn—what felt like her last—barely earned a few cracks.  But Rainbow Dash thought on the same wavelength, it seemed, as before Twilight could open her eyes from the effort she was already poised to buck it out of its frame.

The glass shattered into a thousand rainbow-colored fragments, and Twilight paused at the edge, staring down at the bushes below.  It looked a lot farther than she thought it would.

No time to think.  Hooves already trampled in from the throne room.  Neither Twilight nor Rainbow Dash hesitated.

Twilight had acclimated to the feeling of flying since becoming an alicorn.  Though not fond of it, she had still made use of her wings on occasion.  Falling, though, never came to her, and the feeling struck tenfold in the unbearable moments she spent weightless, watching the world rise to meet her at a speed her wingless body couldn’t control.

The bush reached up with thorns and stiff branches that stabbed and tore.  She screamed as one punched through her bandage and ripped open the wound.

“They’re in the gardens!” came a voice above.  “Get down there, on the double!”

 Twilight tried prying herself from the grasping thorns, but every move found only pain.  A hesitant hoof touched at the stick lodged in her shoulder, and she couldn’t find the strength of will or stomach to free it.  Before she could flinch, something grabbed her vest collar and pulled.

There was a rip of cloth and meaty wetness, and the pain became like a twisting knife.  She screamed as she drew herself into a ball, unable to process the white-hot fire in her shoulder.  Through blinding tears she saw the fissure running its length, and she retched.  A hiss registered in her ear, and Rainbow Dash dragged her up.  

Her hooves fought the act, wanting only to lay still—a shoulder refusing weight, and a back leg that couldn’t fully extend.  But she knew they had to run, and she swallowed the pain, moving forward at what hobbling pace she could manage.

Her breathing became laboured, her head heavy.  Focus was key, and quickly it had no desire to remain with her.  “Across the gardens,” she had to say aloud in order to hear herself.  “Across, and past the dais.”

She stumbled through to the garden proper while Rainbow Dash ran ahead to clear the path.  Rainbow Dash made it to the garden’s Lunar statue, a brilliant crescent moon, where the pearlescent paving stones made concentric circles about the exotic flora and shoulder-height hedges.  Fancily dressed ponies ran amok at the sight of her, and she hissed to underline their terror.

There came the sound of wind, and Twilight knew by instinct to duck.  Her shoulder slammed to the ground, drawing a bitten-back cry.  The crash of metal grinding on stone quickly drowned her out.  She looked up to see two pegasus guards skidding smoothly into a charge for Rainbow Dash, their golden armor flashing in the sun.

Twilight saw the momentary fear in Rainbow Dash’s eyes, the millions of little facets focused on the guards and their heavy boots.  They circled about her, wings flared in intimidation.  

“No…” Twilight grunted, clenching her eyes, drawing forth any magic she could call upon, just enough to get one of the guard’s attention.

Just enough.  She wrapped it about his foreleg as he tried stepping, holding it down.  The guard noticed her, then looked to his partner.  The other snorted, a dismissive smile on his face, and jerked his head at Twilight, stepping forward to stop Rainbow Dash from intervening.

Twilight pushed herself backward on her belly, too weak to stand and run.  Her blood trail slickened the paving stones, her foreleg unable to find purchase and push her any further away.

His shadow passed over her, and she gazed up into the darkness of his silhouette.  He raised a hoof to knock her out cold, but he himself was jerked backward by his tail.  He shot a glance over his shoulder, too slow to see the leg sweeping beneath to take his out from under him.

He landed heavily on the stone and before he could bring a hoof up to shield himself, Rainbow Dash had raised her own.  

Once, twice, three times the golden steel rang like the castle bells.  Twilight looked on in horror as he fell limp, blood trickling down his face.

She kept staring as Rainbow Dash heaved her to her hooves, shouldering her forward on the good side.  Breathless: “Rainbow, you just—”

A violent hiss and a stronger push.  Keep moving.  She swallowed the lump in her throat and tried.  The other guard lay sprawled out against the marble crescent moon.  She prayed to Celestia they would both be okay.

Shouts lilted over the babble of a nearby water fountain, sending her already furiously beating heart into overdrive.  Rainbow Dash hissed, her assistance more forceful, sending shooting pains down Twilight’s back leg with every step.  Twilight let out a whimper, slowly feeling herself lean more and more on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder the farther they ran.  Her head swam in the strain of exertion, her endorphin high long spent.  A fire raged in her lungs, its tongues licking their way out through her veins.

They passed beneath an ivied trellis to where the path widened to accommodate a grander walkway flanked by rows of chrysanthemums.  The dais sat directly ahead.  In its middle rose a monument to the sun, a great statue of the ever-burning orb that served as both reminder of Equestria’s ruler and sun dial, its great shadow cast toward them by the true sun behind it.

“Just a little further,” Twilight said, more to her failing limbs than to Rainbow Dash.

The shouts behind them grew louder, just beyond the Lunar statue.  Ahead, she could see the waterfall and its churning waters.  A dense mist hung about its base, a cloak waiting to hide them away from their pursuers.  Water lilies grew thick along the bank and reached far into the center of the pond, from the cliff face to the next waterfall that led all the way to Canterlot Lake below.

They came to the water, and Rainbow Dash looked at her, confused.

“Under the waterfall!” Twilight shouted over its roar.  They waded past the lilies, careful not to disturb them and leave a trail to follow.  

The water was cold to the touch.  Don’t stop.  Almost there.  A quick breath for courage’s sake, and she stepped forward.

The sudden sting sucked the air from her lungs, and she stifled a cry, sucking wind through her teeth.  Walking had been difficult, but swimming quickly became a fight for her life.  Her legs refused to tread water, and she felt herself sinking, unable to cry for help.

Rainbow Dash was quick to her side, a hoof around her barrel, pulling her onward.  She grunted against her own pains, ones Twilight had forgotten about until that moment, plus a clean gash running the length of her cheek.

She listened to the sounds she made, the pained but purposeful hisses in rhythm with her strokes.  Though their situation remained urgent, Twilight couldn’t help but admire her friend’s strength.

The mist wrapped about them as they swam beneath the waterfall, and Twilight cast a final glance over her shoulder.  The first pair of guardsponies came around the bend, their eyes sweeping across the pond just as she vanished behind the veil.

  Rainbow Dash hauled them up onto moss-covered stone, and both fell limp, heaving for air, relishing the rest they had long denied themselves.

Twilight lay listening to the water echo down the tunnel.  A long, unbroken roar, warped by higher unseen ceilings within.  It had been ages since she had seen them, but she remembered the layout, likened to a spoked wheel.  For the moment, though, they had earned a brief respite.

Rainbow Dash let out sputtering hisses.  They grew larger, full bodied.  Twilight had to stare at her for a moment, only realizing once she rolled over onto her back, hooves clenching her stomach, that Rainbow Dash was laughing.

She drew it into a long sigh, her gaze drifting to Twilight’s horn.  A few clicks of her changeling tongue and a sly grin was all Twilight needed to infer a comment about attacking Celestia.  Probably something about never thinking she’d have the guts to do something that crazy.

Those guts churned, and, trembling, she promptly lost them.  Little came up, given she hadn’t eaten or drank anything substantial since her noontime tea with Rarity the day before.  Her stomach stabbed with pain in unwanted reminder.

Twilight shuddered, face against the cold stone floor.  It felt like a lifetime had passed since she sat at her friend’s table arguing about the oddities of the day.  How she wished she could go back to that moment with the knowledge she held now, just be with her friends and share a laugh.  The only faces that would come to mind were those just before she ran.  The hatred that creased their brows and gave frown to what should have been such happy smiles.

A hoof touched her good shoulder.  Rainbow Dash stood over her, crestfallen—a silent apology.

Twilight looked away ears flattened back.  “I didn’t hurt her because I wanted to…”

Rainbow Dash lay down beside her, eyes closed, gently pushing her muzzle beneath Twilight’s chin.  Twilight rolled her head into it, closing her eyes to better feel the warmth beside her.

“I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you, Rainbow Dash.  Thank you for believing me.”

Rainbow Dash cooed what little she could with her altered voice, and gave a calm but meaningful snort.  They stayed there awhile, the only motion about them that of the waterfall.  In time, she raised her muzzle to signal they rise.

Twilight nodded.  Her body wanted nothing more than to roll over and close her eyes for sleep, but she knew even here they still weren’t safe.  Though only Celestia and herself knew of the tunnels, it would only be a matter of time before her mentor came to and had them guarded, or the guards outside wisened up.

It took her a moment to stand, the blood loss bringing splotches to her eyes and a tremble to her hooves.  She steadied herself against her friend, but found the strength to hold herself up on three legs, her sprained back leg willing enough to help.

Out of breath, she gasped.  “Let’s get going.”  They turned for the tunnel leading into the heart of Canterlot Mountain, but a sound broke the roar of the waterfall.  Rhythmic, purposeful.  It grew louder the longer they peered into the darkness.  Others joined it.  Twilight froze, the hair on her nape rising.  

Hoofsteps.

No.  Impossible.  Nopony but her and Celestia knew these tunnels existed.  No, no, no.  They couldn’t… Twilight gasped.

Chrysalis.  The changeling queen had used far deeper tunnels in her invasion of Canterlot.  The Guard must have found them soon after the wedding and thereby knew to preempt her escape.

Rainbow Dash backed up, ears flattened, whimpering.

Her plan had worked.  Though far from flawless, it had gotten them this far.  But it was supposed to get them out all the way.  Her legs shook like a newborn foal’s.  It wasn’t fair.  They weren’t supposed to be in there.  They weren’t supposed to know.

A hiss.  Rainbow Dash tugged Twilight’s tail.  She pointed behind them, at the waterfall.

“Rainbow,” Twilight whispered.  “We can’t go back out there, we’ll get caught.”  She could even see some of the guards running about, scouring the flowers and shrubbery.

Rainbow Dash shook her head.  She lifted a hoof, slowly stretching it out toward the waterfall.  She lowered it as she reached still farther, then raised it before lowering it all the way to the ground.  Her wings buzzed enthusiastically, and she had never worn a more serious face.

Twilight stared at her, then through the waterfall and at the sky beyond the pond.  Realization dawned, and she blanched as much as Kite’s white coat would allow.  “You can’t be serious, Rainbow…”

The hoofsteps grew louder.  Rainbow Dash grabbed her by the tail, pulling her toward the entrance.  It took all of Twilight’s courage not to resist, the growing tramping from the tunnel barely enough to quell her fears.  She turned, her heartbeat drowning out all other sounds, and they stepped into the water.

A thousand voices screamed in her head that she shouldn’t do this, that she would die and could do nothing about it once she had committed.  But Rainbow Dash waded ever deeper into the water beside her.  That alone kept her moving forward.  It was the only hope of escaping they had left.  A quick pause, Rainbow Dash turning toward her.  She extended her hind leg backward, pointed to it, then at Twilight.

Twilight nodded.  Grab her hoof.  Grab her hoof and pray.

Beneath the waterfall, Twilight took a deep breath, and under she went.

The waterfall’s roar became muffled rumbles, the cold water churning about her, bubbles sinking and then rushing for the surface.  She grabbed ahold of Rainbow Dash’s leg as she had commanded, who powered the two of them beneath the water lilies, using them as cover from the sharp-eyed pegasi patrolling the skies.  

Though she put forth little effort swimming, Twilight could already feel the sting in her lungs.  It built to a stabbing pain, her teeth clenching to stave off the urge to breathe what her body wished was air.

Ahead, daylight shone bright, like a horizon dipping low to let her peek beyond and see what no other pony ever had.  It grew larger, and only the wish to fill her lungs with air kept her heart from bottoming out at the knowledge of what was to come.

The edge swallowed them.  She felt her stomach rise toward her chest as stone and water gave way to open sky.  She let go of Rainbow Dash’s leg, and she fought to suck in the precious air whipping past her.

With the air quenching the flames in her lungs, her brain finally allowed her to fully comprehend the consequences of their choice.  Her body went rigid at the sight of Canterlot Lake below, no larger than a dinner plate.  Realization snuffed thought as quickly as it had come.  She flailed about in freefall, the water dissipating into millions of droplets about her, little prisms that danced away from her hoof at the slightest touch, slowing her descent no more than she could have hoped, even with a rational mind.

Twilight screamed above the wind, her body twisting uncontrollably, land and sky blending together.  She thrashed, trying to blink the water from her eyes, but every attempt only blinded her further.  Non-existent muscles tried in vain to flap her wings, her mind instinctively snapping to her flight lessons, only to drown in the fear that she could do nothing but shut her eyes to the stinging water and scream.

“Rainbow!”

She heard only the wind rushing past her, roaring an unending countdown to the inevitable.  It cut chill straight through her, the water that soaked her coat and vest stealing away the warmth from her bones.  The droplets stopped misting in her face, allowing her the chance to wipe them away and regain sight.  But she knew it to also mean how far she had already fallen.

“Rainbow!”

The wind redoubled its efforts in her ears, but she heard a sharp hiss pierce it like an arrow, somewhere in the tumbling chaos.  She wiped her eyes clean and dared to open them.  Her heart shot clear to her throat, the lake not five hundred meters below.

Her body twisted to face the sky, and she saw Rainbow Dash banking a wide downward spiral.  She pulled out at a steep angle toward her, the water spinning back into view, only seconds away from crushing her utterly.  Her eyes bugged out, and she couldn’t quell her final shriek.

Something smashed into her ribs, forcing the air from her lungs and stars into her eyes.  The world fuzzed over for a moment as she held on to the physical world by only the sense of touch.  A hard shell locked her chest between a vice, and she was falling sideways.

Twilight clung to it, part of her mind coming to the realization before the rest of her.  Though she heaved for air, she let a smile play on her lips and closed her eyes.

“Thanks, Rainbow…”

Rainbow Dash banked downward.  They slowed, and Twilight felt a cool shade on her skin, the sun blinking in and out of existence on the other side of her eyelids.  She opened them to a myriad of trunks and branches crowding over the edge of the lake.  Their wide, green leaves and dense thickets decried themselves of Everfree origin.

A short hover, and Rainbow Dash gingerly lowered Twilight to the ground.  The thick moss welcomed her hooves, and she happily collapsed, more than once considering kissing it.  She let out a breathless laugh in compromise, laying her head upon it, its damp mustiness filling her nostrils.  Good old ground.  It had never felt so wonderful beneath her hooves.

She looked up at Rainbow Dash, who stood at the edge of the water, eyes to the sky.  Following her gaze, Twilight saw she was looking for search parties—pegasus guards branching out their marehunt.

A long, silent minute passed before Rainbow Dash let out a contented sigh.  She turned to face Twilight, a foalish smile on her face.  She snickered, a hoof failing to hide her shining fangs.  

“Don’t you ever make me do that again,” Twilight said.  Her voice came out cracked and excitable, though she hoped her face made up for it.  Not until she had her wings back did she ever want to see another ledge.

Rainbow Dash sputtered.  She retained her boastful smile through sheer force of ignorance.  Twilight didn’t think she realized how close she had cut it.  She forced herself to take a deep breath.  There was no harm meant by it, or by her decision to swim their way free.  They had been stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Somehow, they hadn’t been crushed.

The pain in her shoulder returned for lack of more urgent stimuli.  She clenched her teeth, eyeing it like she would a centipede she had just smashed with her favorite book.  Red ran freely across the bandage, which hung looser than it should, due to her exertion.  Already she could feel the weariness of blood loss in her head, and she rested herself against a tree.

Its bark felt cool to the touch, like a gentle breeze on a hot summer day.  It told her to close her eyes and rest, that she had earned it.  She didn’t know how long it would be until the search parties widened their zone, but she doubted they would spread this far any time soon.

She flicked her ear at the soft pad of Rainbow Dash stepping forward.  Unwillingly, she opened her eyes, wanting only to enjoy her respite in complete tranquility.

A look of hesitation had come over Rainbow Dash, the way she shied at Twilight’s gaze.  Perhaps she too didn’t want to ruin such a wonderful moment.  Twilight afforded her a smile, if only to ease her friend’s discomfort.

Rainbow Dash took the sign to heart, returning it in full.  Her ears perked back up, and eagerness squared her shoulders.  She nodded at Twilight, gestured a general circle about her, then pointed up at Canterlot.

How did her chat with the princess go?  Twilight didn’t answer, and Rainbow Dash’s smile faded, though she knew it was because her own had been whisked away by an unnoticed breeze.

She had learned much in the little time she had spent before Celestia.  Kite’s origins.  Her place in Celestia’s past and how it fit into this grand scheme.  Her true identity.

That was the clincher.  Of all the information she could have obtained, knowing Kite wasn’t truly Smoke Screen, but Mirror Image—her sister—would play the biggest part in her rebuttal.  Her ace in the hole.

But that hole was a dark one to delve.  Attaining the answers she sought brought with it a slew of new questions.  What had she been seeking in her journeys?  Why impersonate Smoke Screen?  What did she do to her?

The pain that final question had brought to Celestia’s face, the implications of such emotion, what she must have assumed Mirror Image had done.  If such worries were to be believed, then they faced a far more dangerous foe than she first imagined.

She put a hoof to her chest, feeling at the knot.  It was smaller than before, like a cancerous mass growing in reverse.  It didn’t even throb anymore.

She thought back on her concussion spell in the throne room.  It had blasted out every window and launched Celestia across the room.  A pang of guilt shot through her heart.  She had never so much as looked at her mentor funny before.  Never again would she be able to look her in the eye the same.

But it was for a good reason.  She swallowed that lump in her throat.  She had no other choice.  Use her magic, or face imprisonment.  Far more magic than she had anticipated, though.  The reserves deep within herself were filling in again, the wellspring of her soul trickling into the bottomless basin that was her talent.  Even now she felt its revitalizing energies at war with the weariness overtaking her.  And she knew she would need every drop of it if she were to humor the thought flitting about her head.

She turned to gaze into the Everfree.  It sat ripe with noise and the smells of moss and dirt.  The map in her head told her it wrapped east all the way around Ponyville, like a crescent moon cradling a single star.  Freedom to roam far and wide, unhindered by ponykind.  They needed to get away from Canterlot before the guards wisened up, and she knew just where to go.

“Come on, Rainbow,” Twilight said.  “I have a plan.”

> IX - Green and Red
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Luna conspired to aid them.  At least, that’s what Twilight wanted to believe.  She needed to feel that somepony out there besides Rainbow Dash was on her side.  And whether true or not, the sparkling night sky and waning moon played godsend to their needs.

Its silver glow illuminated what would have been the darkest of nights, just enough to allow safe passage for those familiar with the Everfree.  Given her past experiences, and her wild flight the night before, Twilight felt herself among that ilk.

It led them safely through an uncertain path, one possibly made by larger animals best not thought about.  But by Luna’s grace they found the trail they had been searching for, and with little time left to Twilight’s wounds.

Strength of will had scrounged up the final reserves of her magic in a spell to staunch the flow of blood, but it did little to ease her existing weakness.  She had leaned heavily on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder for longer than she cared to remember, her hooves barely heeded her desires, and her body had forgotten how to sweat hours ago.  It was only on an otherworldly perseverance that she pressed on.

Rainbow Dash felt the effects of their journey, too.  Though not one to voice weakness, Twilight could hear it in her ragged breath, the slightest pauses she would give to uneasy ground when her hooves found themselves stumbling.  

They were almost there, though.  She knew this path.  Zecora’s hut would appear at any moment.

It had taken much to convince Rainbow Dash on their journey through the Everfree.  Zecora was a wise zebra, but had no doubt been notified by the citizens of Ponyville that Mr. Kite and her changeling minion were on the loose.  Though they had disproved the ‘evil enchantress’ rumor long ago, both Twilight and Rainbow Dash couldn’t deny a hesitation for stepping up to her door as marked criminals.  They had never seen her bad side, and they hoped it would stay that way.

Zecora’s hut came into view as they rounded a fallen tree, its trunk bulging out like the belly of a pig.  The colored vials hanging from ropes slung over its curling branches clinked like wind chimes in an errant breeze.  Its windows glowed warm, and shadows danced on the inside wall.  

They stopped beside the log, sharing a look, then a nod.  They approached the window and peeked in to see Zecora lording over her cauldron.  A thick smoke wafted over the edges and to the ground.  Rainbow Dash gave Twilight a concerned look, one she couldn’t help but sympathize with.  It was risky, she knew, but it was one of their last chances.  Twilight nodded at the door.

They shifted as one, and before it, Twilight raised her hoof.  A pause.  She gulped.  A soft knock.

A moment’s wait, and the door opened on creaky hinges.  Zecora stood fully in the doorframe, hoof at the latch, the other resting her medicine staff against her shoulder.  Her eyes ran up and down them both, mouth pursed, brow raised.

“Stranger pony, hurt and weak.  Could this be the one they seek?”

“Zecora,” Twilight said.  “Zecora, please... help us.”

Zecora bristled at her name, but maintained her statue-like gaze.  Her eyes danced between Rainbow Dash and Twilight’s shoulder, which had become far more red than white.  “My ears and eyes are open, true.  For injured ponies, doors are too.”  She stepped back, a wave of her medicine staff gesturing them in.

Twilight sighed relief.  “Thank you,” she said, breathless, Rainbow Dash helping her hobble in.  The air hung heavy with the smell of thyme, the dirt beneath her hooves warmer than sun-touched sand.  The cauldron bubbled red, the heat of the flame beneath it already making her head spin.  Rainbow Dash eased her onto a stool beside a table, and the door slammed shut, prompting both look to Zecora.

She stood at the top of the stairs, regarding them in a manner befitting a judge’s shadow towering over a criminal.  In hard silence, she strode for a pitcher at the other side of the room, taking it and a clay cup from a hanging rope.  She set it before Twilight and filled it.

Twilight stared at the offering as if it were the key to the Canterlot Library.  Greedily, she gulped it down, feeling the cool wetness wash away the paste in her mouth.  Hours had passed since they set out from Canterlot Lake, and the hasty mouthfuls she had taken there were long spent in their journey.  Zecora left the pitcher beside her, and Twilight didn’t hesitate in refilling her cup.

“Many words have filled my ears,” Zecora said, doubling back for a cupboard across the room, “of all your deeds and all their tears.  ‘Mr. Kite’ is what you’re named, and Twilight’s life you’ve failed to claim.”  She gathered from the cupboard a pestle, mortar, and a hoofful of grassy herbs, never taking her eyes off them for a moment.  “Though I humbly let you in, to tend to you when strength is thin, do not think you two are free from dungeon’s biggest lock and key.”

Twilight shot Rainbow Dash a quick glance.  “Zecora, please listen.  We aren’t who you think we are.”

She set her supplies on the table, adding the herbs one at a time to the pestle.  “Silver tonguéd liar, cheat!  Do not force me to repeat!  The only truth that you can sire is your wound that is so dire!”  Mortar in mouth, she went to work grinding the herbs.  “Do not test me with your cesspit, or you’ll lose yourself this respite.”

Twilight’s jaw fell lax.  Never had she known Zecora to harbor such hatred.  Generosity overflowing, wiser than the ocean was vast, quick to help even the weakest of ponies—those were the qualities she knew.  Clearly the latter shone through despite her feelings.  If she retained that value of treating all ponies regardless of stature, there remained a hope she would see the truth.  Given her last remark, though, she would have to proceed delicately.  Draw from experience.

“Zecora… do you know what it’s like to be misunderstood?”

Zecora paused.  Her eyes wandered up from the pestle to meet Twilight’s.  They held hard for a moment before she returned them to her work.

Twilight withheld a wince.  Bad angle.  Start with herself.  “If you dislike me so much, why help?”

“Were my words not fully clear?  Do you have beeswax in your ear?”  She set aside her mortar and pulled a yellow vial from another rope.  She poured its muddy contents into the pestle and stirred it with a reed brush.  “No matter who comes to my door, the hurt and weak need but implore.  I will never turn away a pony who would else decay.”

Quick to help anypony, indeed.  But she didn’t know they needed more than just medical aid.  That was her hoof in the door.  Press that advantage.

“But my shoulder isn’t what I’m worried about.”  Zecora didn’t reply, focusing on her pestle.  Keep pushing.  “At least, not as much as I am about somepony believing us.”

“And what, dear Kite of smoke and mirror, should I believe is crystal clear?”

A glance to Rainbow Dash.  Holding in the truth was what found them in this predicament.  How much different the present could have been had she been up front with Celestia.  She would never know, but she knew one thing for certain.  No more running.  No more hiding.

“That I am not Mr. Kite.”  

She gave the statement time to soak in, but Zecora proved harder ground, her brow barely raising, her stirring losing no rhythm.  To be expected.  Just keep going.  She pointed at Rainbow Dash.  “And that she isn’t a changeling.”  Still no response.  Twilight took in a small breath.  “That...”  This was it.  

“That I am Twilight Sparkle.”

At this, Zecora stopped her mixing and looked up.  They stared each other in the eyes, Rainbow Dash glancing despondently between them.  Twilight held her gaze firm, hoped the seriousness of her face would find effect and bolster her claim.  But long before anything happened, Twilight knew her words had fallen on deaf ears.

Zecora snickered.  She tried holding it in, but her hoof simply couldn’t hide the massive grin stretching from ear to ear.  Her laughter burst forth like water through a dam.  “Precious pony, what a laugh!  Do I look like a giraffe?  Surely I don’t seem a foal, if a hoodwink was your goal.”  She relaxed her smile, the apparent humor of the situation settling down.  “A hippo’s chance that you aren’t Kite; how could you prove that you are right?”

Twilight felt a lump in her throat.  She knew it was a fool’s hope, but that didn’t stop the laughter from hurting.  It did, however, lull Zecora into a false sense of security.  Time to shatter it.  Speak from experience.

“Alright, Zecora, if I’m actually Mr. Kite, then tell me why I would know what ‘Apple Bloom Soup’ is.”

Again, Zecora bristled, but this time anger hardened her gaze, shrouding the room in darkness.  “Mada-le a mada-lo!  Tell me how this fact you know.”

Twilight stood.  “I bashed in your door the day we first met, when we were there to save Apple Bloom.  The parasprite invasion?”

“Who do—”

“Nightmare Night?  Apple Bloom’s cutie pox?  Trix—”

“Enough!”  Zecora heaved for a moment, letting her outburst subside.  She let a slow, deep breath out through her nose beneath a stern gaze.  “Enough with this, your lies are through.  Ms. Twilight Sparkle is not you.  Your wounded shoulder, strong as steel, I have promised I will heal.  Any more than this, I say: come again another day!”

Still defiant.  Break her support.  Find a weakness.  She lived and died by the tales she wove on her visits.  “But if you’re willing to help, why aren’t you willing to listen?  You have loads of stories that you stand by.  You’ve told me so many of them over tea.”  Twilight let her frustration take the reins.  “Zecora, tell me there isn’t one fable of yours that would say you’re being too vindictive.”

Zecora opened her mouth to retort, but her anger halted its boil.  She raised her chin slightly, face growing tense, gears within her head cranking away.  Stoicism did its best to hide the simmer in her eyes.

Bingo.  Twilight leaned forward.  “There’s one.  I know you’re thinking of it.”

Zecora held her stare a little longer, her brows furrowing in admonition for the added statement.  A glance down at the pestle, its muddy contents staring back.  Something softened her features, and she sighed in acquiescence.  “Listen close to what I say, as it is the Zebra way: for once we were at war with flame, those with tooth and claw and mane.  An older tale than you or I is that of Dolich’s ‘Battle Cry.’”  She returned to the cupboard and rummaged through it.

“‘Win the war with love so pure; Nemea’s pride we will endure.’  Great Dolich ordered them to treat both friend and foe, no simple feat.  To only hurt and never kill took many mountains’ strength of will.  Despite the fact they ran away to strike again another day, his stance remained but tried and true.  A test of valor through and through.”

She found what she was looking for: a hemp bag filled with what Twilight realized were seeds, once she brought it back to the table.

“For long they waged a war of blood that reddened grass and thinned the mud.  And on one fateful night foretold, the lions struck a blow so bold.  Great Dolich’s death all mourned as one, but none so much as Dolich’s son.

“‘With me!’ he cried before the wake.  ‘We’ll crash the pride, their lives we’ll take!’”  She drew a hoofful of dark-brown seeds from the bag, placing them on the table.  She started crushing them one at a time beneath her hoof, separating the hull from the germ.

“And so he rallied forth his zeal, their hooves like distant thunder peals.  They found the lions on the plain and made them feel a tenfold pain.  Soon he found the massive king, whose name across the grasslands ring: Nemea, lord of tooth and bone, raised himself up from his throne.

“He stood before old Dolich’s son.  By end of day, there would be one.

“Hoof and claw then clashed like fire—two hearts burning, one desire.  The battle raged into the night, when torches burned with waning light.  ‘Til Dolich’s son, eyes filled with hate, then struck a blow to seal his fate.

“Nemea lay beneath his hoof—broken, beaten—blatant proof of zebra strength and hearty line—that which the Sun had blessed divine.”  Her voice crescendoed to a peak.  “But as he readied for the kill, drunk on bloodthirst’s heady thrill…!”

Zecora leaned in, grinning.  “He paused…

“Beneath the moon and starry sky, he saw his father in his eye.  The kind and gentle face of love, he knew looked down and frowned above.  His father’s cry he had forgot, compassion’s oath, had left to rot.  He held himself before the blow that all who watched had surely known would close Nemea’s eyes for good.  And so he stood there, simply stood.

“Nemea might have fathered strife, but he had also fathered life.  To end him for his father’s sake would undo all he’d tried to make.

“‘Fetch me water, Meerkat Weed, a lump of clay, and Grevy’s Seed.’  His zeal looked on in dumbfound gaze; the lions, too, all blinked, amazed.  They quickly ran and brought to him...”  She looked down at the mud-filled pestle, a faint smile on her lips as she added the seed germ, stirring.  “All he asked for, on a whim.

“Long into the early day, did Dolich’s son then slave away.  He tended every cut and bruise; his zeal’s rebukes he long refused.  He knew the words his father’d say, that he would have been proud that day.”

She pulled the reed brush from the thick mixture.  Gently, she brushed it against Twilight’s wound, and a cool, tingling sensation eased away the throbs.

“For instead of turning ‘round and reddening the hardened ground, he buried there with heart so pure the hatchet he for all endured.”  She wrapped a fresh bandage around the wound, cinching it tight and tucking it away.  “Never since have stripe and mane once clashed upon the open plain.

“And so you have it, what I say.  So it is the zebra way.”  She stood gazing into the pestle, eyes glazed over.  It was a long while she remained so, and it took Twilight several minutes to realize she had finished her story.  She bit her lip, unsure if she should interrupt.  

At last Zecora spoke, curiosity inflecting her tongue.  “Perhaps I am too quick to see the monster I was told you’d be.  It’s true to lend a helping hoof is only half the lion’s tooth.  Suppose the words you speak are true.  Tell me then…”  Her large, almond-shaped eyes gravitated toward Twilight, brow slightly furrowed.  “What should I do?”

Twilight opened her mouth, but no words came.  She blinked, gathering herself.  “Mr. Kite placed an illusion on the two of us.  Do you have any way of expelling it?”

Zecora smiled.  “Illusions are but simple tricks to plague the mind like little ticks.  We will see who is the fool, and who’s the one that’s pulling wool.”  She grabbed her medicine staff and drew a strange glyph in the dirt.  A spiral, with a line slashing out from the middle.  She began humming one of her many nursery rhymes.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash shared a look, and both watched in silence, prayers to Celestia bouncing around in their heads.

Zecora used her staff to scrape a hoofful of dust from beneath the cauldron’s fire.  She gathered it in a hoof, lullaby unbroken, and blew it in Twilight’s face.  Twilight shut her eyes, coughing, and kept her mouth closed, more to hold in a multitude of questions than to keep from breathing in a lungful of ashes.  Zecora did the same to Rainbow Dash, who sneezed, wings fanning in an annoyance that spread quickly to her face.  Twilight shot her a glare.  When she turned back to Zecora, she stood nose to nose with her, and Twilight tensed.

Zecora simply smiled.  “Curiosity, like snow, is whirling in your head to know the what’s and why’s of what I do.  Do feel free to ask a few.”

More than she knew.  Twilight opened her mouth to inquire the reason for the dust, but Zecora shoved some green paste in it before she could fully draw breath.  She gagged on the sudden taste of wood cleaner, the stench of formaldehyde burning away the hairs in her nostrils.  She coughed, turning in time to see Rainbow Dash shaking her head, mouth pursed, ears flattened at the sight of the syrup-covered herb Zecora held out to her.  Rainbow Dash caught her eye, and she scrunched her face at Twilight’s ‘just eat it’ glare.

Zecora shoved the herb in her mouth at the slightest pry, and Rainbow Dash’s changeling eyes watered.  She gagged, her tongue lolling out.  Twilight rolled her eyes, as the taste was very much acute, her palate already clean and sinuses clearer than if somepony had gone in with a wire brush.  There hung a ripe smell of boiled potatoes in the air, and it made Twilight’s stomach growl in desperate yearning, the pangs of starvation stepping up to the front of her thoughts.

Metal and wood clattered to the left.  Zecora rummaged through a bin tucked away in the corner, drawing out a hoof mirror.  She brought it back to Twilight.  “Close your eyes and count to three, then would you tell me what you see?”

Twilight did as instructed.  One.  Two.  Three.  She opened her eyes, and her reflection stared back.  The one she had grown accustomed to the last two days.  “Still Kite,” she said, glum.

Zecora shifted to Rainbow Dash, who closed her eyes.  She opened them excitedly, but fell into a pout upon gazing into the mirror.

“Well, that’s just one thing that didn’t work, right?” Twilight said.  “What else do you have?”

“The words you speak do go to show how little of my art you know.  All short and simple tests you see; that was not one failed test, but three.”  She put a hoof to her chin, looking down at the dirt.  “I work so little with illusions that they leave me in confusion.  I’ve nothing else at my disposal.  But…”  A turquoise eye swivelled around to Twilight, a flash of curiosity within.  “What about a new proposal?”  She headed for a heap of masks and miniature effigies beside her bed.

Twilight raised a hoof, concern laxing her jaw.  “Zecora, what new proposal?”

The zebra returned with two unpainted tribal masks.  She placed one on each of their heads.  

Twilight fidgeted with hers.  Though the wood had been whittled smooth, it weighed heavy on the bridge of her nose, and she could already feel her face growing sticky with sweat.  With what little she could see through the eye slits, she shared a look with Rainbow Dash, whose mask stared back is if in the middle of saying ‘boo.’

Zecora gathered two bowls from the counter and a hoofful of berries from the cupboard.  Into one of the bowls, she crushed them into a red paste with the mortar, filling the room with the scent of evergreen.  The other she filled with a jar of green liquid that sat in a row of other color-filled jars along the backsplash.  Before them, she sat and dipped a hoof in the red paste.

Again chanting her nursery rhymes, she traced a single line down either side of Twilight’s mask.  Once, she tried following with her eyes, but Zecora’s free hoof held her still.  She remained so for a long time, staring ahead at the front door, listening to Zecora’s soft voice drift about the room, feeling the slight pressure of hoof against mask.  The hoof traced down Twilight’s neck and onto her chest, making rectangular spirals and switchback lines that then proceeded out and beyond her barrel to her legs and flank, a faint chill where it left the paste to dry.  

Zecora did the same with the green liquid, and Twilight held the wonder in the back of her mind just what she must have looked like at that moment.

Her body a living labyrinth of stripes, she dared open her mouth.  “Zecora, what exactly are we doing?”

Zecora made no answer.  Her lullaby had gained in strength, her hoof dipping into both the red and green pastes.  She made a final swirling pattern where Twilight’s horn would have poked through the mask had it a hole to allow so, and smiled.  She took her medicine staff in hoof and gently touched its tip to the swirl.

“Fickle magic, curséd leech.  Quit thy game and heed my speech!  Out from one and into new.  Reveal the mare you hide from view!”

The room darkened for an instant beneath a magic gripping Twilight by the horn, powerful and magnetic.  A ball of light at its tip whitewashed the room, slowly growing in power until she could see nothing else.

Like rainwater water filling in troughs of tilled farmland, a wetness seeped into Twilight’s skin along the lines painted on her body.  The fresh pitter patter tickled her flanks, their droplets slowly running the length of the lines, filling them in from the back forward, to the spirals on her chest and up her neck.  It flooded into her skull, a basin collecting a runoff that heeded no sense of gravity.  The cold chill of magics at war froze her brain.  Her mouth fell agape, and her legs quivered as her head tilted back to allow better drainage of the mind-numbing power.

She felt herself changing.  Obtuse and unnatural forms whittled away.  Layers of skin peeled away as if she was a snake molting away its younger self.  The world became heavier on her shoulders, feathered outgrowths on her sides drawing her down with imbalanced weights that her mind barely recognized as self.  The magic concentrated in her horn, spindling out like yarn through a loom.  The light faded with the final dregs of power leaving her horntip, and all felt suddenly calm.

Twilight let her eyes flutter shut, a sense of peace, like the moment she had ascended in that aetherial plane, overtaking her body and soul.

The mask was lifted from her, and a soft voice spoke.  “It seems that I deserve reproof, for you have clearly told the truth.”

Twilight opened her eyes.  In the hoof mirror held before her stared back the very face she had dared hoped to see.  Purple fur.  Indigo mane.  Stripe of pink, and violet eyes.  She gave herself the stupidest smile she had ever seen, and she felt a lump in her throat.  

She looked down, and the mirror held no lies.  Purple fur and hooves.  Wings stretching out at her command, feathers preened and glistening in the cauldron fire.  For so long she had been trapped in Kite’s body, lost within a prison that should never have been.  To see herself—feel herself wear her own skin—brought forth tears she couldn’t hold back.  She threw herself around Zecora.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Speak no thanks, there is no need.  I simply live the zebra creed.”  Zecora allowed herself to be held a little longer, a hoof of her own resting on Twilight’s good shoulder.  She pulled away, turning her smile toward Rainbow Dash.

“As for you of hardened shell,” she said, sliding her bowls over, “this black embrace we will dispel.”

As she had for Twilight, she painted spiralling squares and lines all along Rainbow Dash’s body, her methods delicate, practiced.  She took up her lullaby again.

Twilight let her gaze wander to her own mask, leaned against the table leg.  Though Zecora had only painted two stripes down its cheeks and the spiral at her horn, the red and green paint covered every discernible inch in zig zags and crosses and squares.  A quick glance at herself, where no paint remained, then back at the mask.

“Zecora,” Twilight said.  “What exactly did you do to break this illusion?”

A chuckle, and a brief pause for Zecora’s eye to swing around to her.  “Have you not the right conclusion?  It was never an illusion.”  She regarded Twilight’s mask, then Rainbow Dash, who she neared covering entirely in green and red.  “Pastel colors, green and red, will draw away what many dread.  From one host they refocus—vex—a darker magic, called a hex.  Hexes cannot be destroyed, and so are simply redeployed.”  

She painted the final swirl at Rainbow Dash’s forehead, then, as she had for Twilight, gently touched her medicine staff to its center, repeating her incantation.  There was no flash of light, but the way Rainbow Dash jerked her head skyward, every muscle tense, told her she was not meant to see it.  The magic glowed within, not without.

The lines on her flanks bubbled, the dried paste becoming liquid under magical properties Twilight couldn’t grasp.  They curled in on themselves, like ribbons crinkling away and disappearing beneath their own folds of spirals and switchbacks and squares in an ultimate journey for the mask.  

With them was drawn away the black and shimmer of Rainbow Dash’s chitinous shell.  Every switchback pulled with it a layer of darkness, debriding away the hex to reveal the sky blue of her true coat.  Up her chest, onto the mask, the ribbons spun their intricate weave, encasing the hex upon its new vessel.  

They sealed fast to the wood, and Rainbow Dash went suddenly lax.  She wobbled for a moment before she found her balance.  Zecora drew away her mask, and beneath it Twilight saw a friendly face she hadn’t seen in what felt like forever.  

Rainbow mane.  Rose-colored eyes.  The one and only Rainbow Dash.

“Oh, my head,” she said, putting a hoof up to her temple.  She blanked, then a smile cracked wide across her face.  “Hah!  I can talk!  Finally!”  She swept her smile to Twilight.  “Man, you wouldn’t believe what it’s like not being able to talk.  I almost feel like Pinkie Pie after that whole Poison Joke thing.”  She and Zecora shared a laugh, but Twilight remained contemplative.

“I don’t understand,” Twilight said, turning to Zecora.  “Kite is, err, Mirror Image is an illusionist.  I’ve seen it first hoof.  Everything about her was one giant illusion, from the Gui’etzen and the circus to that nightmare she put me in.”

Zecora simply smiled.  She set the bowls on the table and sat down, staring at them.  “Perhaps, like me, you tried to see the magic that you thought it’d be.  Instead, these spells that you despise took on the role of perfect guise.”

Twilight opened her mouth to clarify, but her thoughts couldn’t find their way to her tongue.  A misdirection?  After all the illusions she had been through, the final one wasn’t an illusion at all.  She smirked.  Quite the bait and switch.  A defense, secondary to removing her magic, against any attempts to remove the ‘illusions,’ if anything.

“Well, that’s great and all,” Rainbow Dash said, rising from her haunches.  “But now that we’re back to ourselves again, let’s bust in there and kick some flank!”  She stomped the ground, wings spread.

“No,” Twilight said.

“What?  What do you mean ‘no’?  Then what do you think we should do?”

What should they do?  An obvious but important question.  She didn’t have a concrete answer herself, but rushing headlong into Ponyville would only be counter-productive, knowing Mirror Image’s propensity for over-preparedness.

At the very least, they needed a disguise of some sort.  And she grinned, having just that sort of plan.

“We put the hexes back on.”

Rainbow Dash gawked at her.  Even Zecora seemed surprised.  

“Think about it.  If we walk in there as ourselves, she’ll know we discovered the hexes and got rid of them.  And she might suspect that I have my magic back.  If we put the hexes back on us the way they were, she’ll be none the wiser.”

Incredulous stares.  “So we’d have gone through all that work for nothing,” Rainbow Dash said flatly.  “If we’re all talking about illusions and stuff, why not just use one of those instead?”

“Because, Rainbow, Mirror Image is a powerful illusionist, more powerful than I am, I’m sure.  She’d see it from a mile away.  We need to get in with our advantage unnoticed.  We need her to think we’re still weak, that she still has the advantage.”  She stood, wings fanning out, head square and high.  “We hit her with a taste of her own medicine: have her think she’s in control, and then when she least expects it, we unleash everything at once.”

She turned to Zecora.  “Can you mimic the spell she used to change us?  And is there a way we can undo them there on our own?”

Zecora hmm’d, hoof to her chin, glancing at the painted masks.  “Reverting hexes I can do; removing twice is something new.  How to do it in the field, instead of with the staff I wield, will pose another problem, too.  Please let me think on this a few.”

Rainbow Dash continued staring at her, jaw tense, wings flared.  “I-wh… Why?”

Twilight stepped face to face with her.  “Rainbow, we didn’t come this far to get just our bodies back.”  She put a hoof on her friend’s shoulder, feeling the tension coiled within.  “We came to get our lives back.  And that means doing whatever it takes to get them, even if we have to give up what we gained.  Besides, we’ll still have gained something for it.”

Rainbow Dash frowned at her.  “And what’s that?”

“An ally.  A friend.”  She turned a smile toward Zecora, who was staring at an array of beaded necklaces hanging from hooks on the far wall.  “Somepony who believes us.”

The tension in Rainbow Dash’s shoulder relaxed, and a moment’s hesitation folded her wings.  She looked away.  “I hate being a bug…”

“It’s not for long, Rainbow, and then you’ll never have to do it again.”  

A small grunt, but Rainbow Dash nodded.  She grinned, a glint in the eye she swivelled back to Twilight.  “Alright.  I can do this.  If it’s what it takes to get us in the same room as them.”

Twilight opened her mouth, concerned, but pursed it.  Whatever motivation she needed, however barbaric it might be.

Zecora returned with two of the necklaces.  She laid them on the table, miniature bas relief wood carvings held fast at the middle by a small silver loop.  On closer inspection, they were of a zebra bust, a stern, chiselled face gazing off into the distance.  “Take these trinkets, old of mine.  They will serve your purpose fine.  For Grevy’s Will shall lead the way, as by his guide no ponies stray.”

“Are you sure you can make these work without you?” Twilight asked, holding up a hoof.  She had never received a more comfortable smile in reply.

“As many think, and as I say: where a will is, there’s a way.”

“Alright!” Rainbow Dash said, pumping a hoof in the air.  “Let’s get back there and show ‘em who they’re dealing with!”

Zecora put a hoof in the crook of Rainbow Dash’s elbow, lowering her hoof to the ground.  Her smile never faltered.  “Enthusiasm is a boon, but time for sleep will be here soon.  You’ll need your strength to face your foe.  Surely this you both must know.”  She turned to Twilight.  “Your shoulder needs its time to rest, else it will fail the coming test.”

“We don’t have time, Zecora,” Rainbow Dash said.  “We need to get back there and kick some flank before the whole world thinks we’re the bad guys.”  She stared at Twilight’s shoulder, blame heavy on her face.  “Don’t you have some other magic potion that’ll speed this up?”

“Rainbow,” Twilight said, frowning.  “We can’t just rush in there.  We have to come up with a plan.”

“Well, we can’t just sit around here and do nothing.  I’ll go crazy knowing somepony out there’s getting away with this!”  She plopped to her haunches, groaning, hooves pulling her cheeks down.

Something sparkled in Zecora’s eye, Twilight noticed.  It made its way to her smile, and she turned away, a hoof raised for stepping.  “Have a potion, that I do, and it’s the perfect crimson brew.”

Twilight blinked.  “You-you do?”

Zecora’s smile never wavered as she gathered two bowls and spoons from the cabinet.  She ladled into them the concoction bubbling in her cauldron and set the steaming bowls before them.  At a closer sniff, Twilight immediately realized the source of the earlier heavenly smell.  Her mouth watered, and her stomach growled its pleas for satiation.  She took a delicate sip.

Immediately the taste of tomatoes lit up her world, garlic, cayenne, and cumin dancing a sweet and spicy ballet on her tongue.  An instinctive and careless hunger dove in for more, and the scalding pain was well worth the cubed potato that melted in her mouth.  She afforded herself a few heavy breaths to cool her palette, wherein she saw Zecora’s smile directed at her, then at Rainbow Dash, who had thrown both caution and her spoon to the wind.

“A hearty bowl of tuber stew is just the thing to strengthen you.  Success is not a bottled fate.  It simply comes to those who wait.  Do not worry, Rainbow Dash, nothing changes in a flash.  Remember patience, quell the flame.  The world will surely be the same.  So take your seat and plan tonight.  Tomorrow you will have your fight.”

Rainbow Dash came up from her bowl for a deep breath.  The look she returned wasn’t quite one of acceptance—more bitten-back annoyance, if anything—but, knowing her, it might as well have been.  She said nothing, prompting Zecora turn to Twilight.

She had expected Zecora to say something, but slowly she came to realize the question resided in her eyes rather than on her lips.  They questioned without voice, asked what was to come, what part each of them would play once the sun rose.  Infinite indeed was her wisdom, and Twilight knew it waited for the right words and questions of her own.

Tomorrow would be dangerous.  A single hair held against a razor’s edge.  Any sudden flick of the blade or unplanned twist of the hair would sever their one and only chance.  Tomorrow would have to be only movement.  Choreographed.  Precise.  Here, now, in the warmth of the dying cauldron fire and the noises of the forest outside would tomorrow’s battle of wills be won.  They would have to plan for and see past the smoke and mirrors of Image’s game and strike at the heart.  Shatter the illusions, dispel the lies.

Twilight took a deep breath and released it.  “Alright.  Let’s get started.”

> X - The Mare Unmasked
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The road leading to Ponyville felt foreign beneath Twilight Sparkle’s hooves.  She had travelled it countless times, yet still it wouldn’t evoke the sensations it had in the past.  The dirt hadn’t changed, only herself.  She was not Twilight Sparkle now, and the very ground refused to welcome her home.

Beside her walked Rainbow Dash, in full view of anypony who happened to look their way.  They couldn’t afford to be seen together, but Twilight needed the extra comfort until they came within view of town.  She feared what might come if their plan failed, and the courage her friend’s proximity instilled kept her hooves moving one in front of the other.

Those hooves, she hoped, would appear exactly as she had planned them to.  Brown.  Dirty.  To match the blandness of her sandy mane.  Ears up, eyes ahead, she walked.  Look happy, look like she belonged.  Blend in with the crowd of smiles and small-town charm.  Easier said than done, given her situation.

She felt the weight of her saddlebags, full of ‘personal’ effects meant to throw a random search, but the heaviest item hung about her neck, hidden by Smoke Screen’s vest and the illusion layered over both.  Dabs of red and green had been painted on its back—which she had faced forward for the time being—and when the time came, need only be turned and pressed against her skin.  That time was a long ways off, however.  She shook the thought away.

A glance to her friend.  Blue eyes.  White mane.  Wingless, with a coat like the grassy fields.

Illusions for illusions.

Twilight caught her eye, and they shared a nod.  Rainbow Dash broke off into the treeline.  She knew her role: circle around wide and enter town from the west.  She knew the necessary timing.  Twilight only hoped their assumptions were true and that their backup plans would hold if it came down to it.

She followed the path at a slow stroll.  Not so much for her shoulder; Zecora’s salve was far more effective than any modern medical practices she knew.  Rather, Rainbow Dash would need the time, and she herself needed to keep it all straight in her head.  It all came down to presentation.  And with as many illusions as they had on their side, presentation meant everything.

She passed the first houses into town.  A hoofful of ponies she knew went about their morning.  Cloudkicker preparing the town for an afternoon of scattered shade.  Roseluck on her way to the market square, her saddlebags overflowing with reds and pinks and whites.  Many more opened windows and called to one another while the foals played tag through the streets on what she couldn’t have considered any less than a perfect day, had the circumstances been different.

Then she saw the guards.

A lump settled in her stomach at the sight of their armor, glinting gold in the sun.  Her mind flashed back to the guard that Rainbow Dash had beaten senseless before her very eyes, the blood running down his face.  The guards ahead wore a sternness she seldom saw, an almost vengeful determination.  

A select few wore medallions about their necks.  Ancient ornaments of crudely chiselled obsidian from the Pre-Equestrian era, when spies and real assassins were as common as the blood feuds that funded their trade.  Nowadays, the medallions were as rare as they were powerful, and were used as part of low-key surveillance operations from time to time.  The incantations to create them had been lost to time, according to her history textbooks.  If they had brought them to Ponyville, they certainly believed her to be a grave threat.

She could sense magic about the guards as well.  In their eyes, she saw the faint pink glimmer of a True Sight Spell, magic meant to pierce the veils of illusory magic.  Though far less potent than their obsidian counterparts she knew to stay clear of those lacking medallions just as strictly.  At least, unless the plan took a turn that called for it.

She preferred not to begin down that route, though, and so weaved a scenic path through Ponyville, relying on her peripheral vision to sight the guards and plot her course.  What should have been less than a five-minute walk neared fifteen.  She found herself where she wanted to be, Stirrup Street, which she knew to have the most number of alleyways this side of Town Square.  No reason not to put statistics in her favor.

A casual stroll across the street to avoid two patrolling guards, and she ducked into an alleyway.  She melded with the bustling crowd of the marketplace, further closing the distance to the library, which quickly came into view over the heads of those around her.

The crowd thinned the further she walked, until she stopped half a block from the library, where she spotted a pair of soldiers flanking the library entrance.  Though the door sat open for any who wished entry, both wore medallions and stoic expressions.  She wasn’t a welcome pony with them in the way.

No matter.  She cast her gaze down the road, a little ways past the park.  She could already see Rainbow Dash crossing the river, which meant she best prepare.  A slow stroll around the back of the library to stall for time, and she kept up a smile to dispel any curious eyes.  Coming around the side of the library, she casually watched the scene unfold.

Rainbow Dash walked past the guards, in clear range of their medallions.  She feigned a nervous glance at them before shooting it to the ground at her hooves.  They might as well have drawn their swords for how vindictively they followed her with their eyes, and Twilight could only shiver at the thought of how piercing they must have felt.  One of the guards stepped inside the library for a moment, then back out and both followed Rainbow Dash.

Twilight sent off a prayer to Celestia for when they inevitably ‘caught’ her before ducking into the library.  Inside, she saw Fluttershy reading a book at the round table.  Or, what looked like Fluttershy.

She knew instantly it wasn’t her friend by the subtle flick of an ear and momentary interest in her eye before the façade went up, her ears falling down against her skull.  Twilight had to admit Sylissyth had a knack for it, however much seeing the imposter in the act boiled the blood in her veins.  Those submissive eyebrows and ever-so-slight dip of the head would have fooled even herself had she not known beforehoof.  She swallowed a dozen spiteful things she wanted to say and drew breath.

Blinding pain erupted across the side of her face, and she saw stars as the world turned sideways.  She hit the floor, the impact stealing the air from her lungs.  A heavy hoof pressed down on her throat before she could draw breath.  Her vision blotted, but not enough to miss the iron ring slipping over her horn, its magical properties cinching off her flow of magic.

She struggled to turn her head upward, where a guard—a unicorn sergeant, judging by the silver trim of his armor—stared back almost contemplatively, a True Sight Spell glowing bright in his eyes.

“There’s a window just over my shoulder,” he said, his aura shutting the door to trap her inside.  “We know how to lure ponies, too.”

Twilight instinctively looked to the window in question.  Though having a guard stationed inside had crossed her mind, she had assumed he would have taken a closer bodyguard role rather than sitting just inside the door, and more than a little heat rose to her cheeks at how blatantly she had forgotten to check the window before passing it by.

Well, looked like stage two was starting early.

The sergeant’s horn glowed silver, magic snaking out and around Twilight’s hooves and undoing the strap of her saddlebag to dump its contents on the floor.  A wallet full of bits, a bag of oats, and a few quills and inkwells.  He scanned the array, snorting after a moment, then stared at her.  “On your hooves,” he said, stepping off her throat.

She coughed at the sudden release, sucking in a lungful of air she almost thought she’d never enjoy again, rolling onto her stomach.  Rising proved a struggle with the chaining spell clasped tight about her fetlocks, its tethers pulling taut like rubber bands the farther she spread them.

Rudimentary magic.  Strong for sure, but not unbreakable, and the ring on her horn was only an afterthought to her—a flick of the wrist when the time came.  Two mistakes she had full intention of capitalizing on.

“Move.”  He placed a hoof on her chest to push her out the door, but Twilight resisted him at the sound of little claws padding in from the kitchen.  

“Here you go, Fluttershy” came Spike’s voice.  “Another cup of tea, just for—”  He stopped in his tracks the moment he saw them.  His eyes locked onto Twilight, and all the happiness drained from his face.  His legs trembled, and the tea cup dropped from his claws, shattering on the floor.  Fluttershy squeaked.

Twilight saw it in his eyes, the terror all consuming.  His wide draconic eyes saw through the illusion like a glass pane, and she could practically behold Smoke Screen’s image reflecting off them.  “T-t-t-Twilight…”

“Spike?” Twilight heard her voice call from behind him.  The instance reminded her of an echo chamber, her words so pitch perfect in her ears.  It made Twilight’s blood boil.  “Is everything okay?” 

“Princess Twilight,” the sergeant said, setting his hoof back on the floor, “we found her.”

Mirror Image poked her Twilight head out the kitchen door, skepticism tense on her face.  A short pause as she took in Twilight’s illusory form, and she slowly came abreast of Spike, placing a cautious, defensive hoof in front of him, eyes locked on Twilight’s, wings halfway open as if ready to leap into the air should she make a sudden move.  

“Is… Is that really her?”  Her eyes flicked to the ring about Twilight’s horn.

“It is, Your Highness.”

“Th-thank you, sir.”  She gave him a quick, worried bow before snapping her eyes back to Twilight.  “It seems that Celestia was right to use all these... preventative measures.”  She lit her horn, and Twilight felt the illusion of brown coat and sandy mane melt away, locks of green falling about her withers.  “I honestly didn’t think she would come back to try anything.”  She looked away, shuddering.

“I didn’t come back to hurt you,” Twilight said.  She kept her eyes level with those of herself before her.  Somehow, talking to her own image evoked her words easier, brought them forth methodically, sincerity never straying from her eyes.

“I came back to talk to you,” she said.  “I wanted…” She looked down, tensing her jaw ever so slightly.  “I wanted to apologize.”

Mirror Image opened her mouth, a scowl beginning to form, but something held back what she wanted to say, and so she only stared.  Spike huffed, not bothering to hide his own scowl.

Twilight continued, “I’ve been a rotten pony for far longer than I care to admit.  I had plotted my scheme for a long time, and it’s only after everything fell apart that I see my mistakes.”  She focused on Mirror’s hooves.  She took a breath to settle the thought of apologizing for a crime she didn’t commit.  No matter its necessity to their plan, she couldn’t shake the wrongness of it.

“I just,” she continued.  “Want to set things right.”

Mirror Image stared at her, confused.  Twilight could see on her face a million thoughts whirling in her brain—reactions and their consequences.  Surely she knew it to be a feint, but her choices piled up with no clear option, evidenced by her glance to Fluttershy, then to Spike.

The glance doubled as credit to Spike’s ignorance.  As Zecora had said, he believed the nightmare to be over and was more than happy on her visit the day before.  Though Mirror Image could dismiss the guards to speak freely, she couldn’t do so with Spike.  With the way he clutched to her leg, contempt bright in his eyes, he wasn’t going to leave her side for an instant.

His unbreakable love held Twilight’s plan fast, forced Mirror to remain in character for just a little longer.  And she did so with a smile.  Small, but there.

“I’d be more than happy to set things right,” Mirror said, almost strained, like this victory wasn’t going the way she had imagined it in her head.  She held her composure, though, and had she been an actor in a play, Twilight would have applauded thunderously.  “But it’s… hard, knowing what you did, what you tried to do to me.”

“What you did to me!” Spike yelled.

“Um, us…” the fake Fluttershy added.

Mirror gave each of them a glance, one possibly meant to affect an air of apology, that she could have possibly forgotten the hells they had endured.  “And it’s even harder knowing what you did to my friends.  How anypony could do something that-that… evil.”  She let anger rise to her face in the form of a frown.  “If you’re here for forgiveness, I’ve learned it best to do so and move on with my life.  But if you’re here for acquittal, I don’t… I don’t feel comfortable making that call.”

Twilight lowered her gaze.  Move on with her life... Easy words to say from the other end of the sword.  She felt the muscles tense in her legs.  A terse nod.  “I understand you…”

Behind her, through the door, she heard the muffled grunts and curses of a struggle, and all heads turned except Twilight’s.  A moment later, the library door opened, and she made sure to flatten her ears back as she looked over her shoulder, worry etched on her face.

In trudged a behemoth of a guardspony, his body at an angle to just scrape the gold plating of his shoulderguards through the doorframe, one of the two door guards following him in and shutting the door.  Between his teeth he effortlessly gripped the scruff of Rainbow Dash’s collar, her flailing hooves bouncing helplessly off his breastplate.  Though, one look at him and Twilight figured her strikes would have been just as ineffective had he not been wearing it.

He dropped Rainbow Dash flat on her stomach, the heavy thud drawing a wince from Twilight.  His hard eyes would have seemed like stones had it not been for the soft ghostly pink within them.  “Here’s the other one, sir,” he said to the sergeant.  “We cornered her in the alley.  Stone Wall’s on his way to the commander as we speak.”  He turned to Mirror Image, giving a small bow.  “Your Highness.”

Mirror Image returned the bow.  The sergeant replied first, stepping forward.

“Good work, Bulwark.  You, too, Ironclad.”  He aimed his horn at Rainbow Dash, a flash of light melting away her illusion like butter to the chitinous sheen of Mirror’s hex beneath, another casing her hooves and wings in the same spell he had placed on Twilight.  He stepped back, a small bow yielding the floor to Mirror Image.

She wore a dark frown.  “So you were here to ask for forgiveness, yet you still tried sneaking into my home instead of being open about your intentions?”

Twilight averted her eyes.  “I—”

“Save it, Kite.  I think I’ve heard enough of your lies.  You come into our town, set up your circus of illusions, and then proceed to torment my friends and me.  And for what?  Why?”

Twilight let out a quiet grunt, feeling her ears press down against her skull, eyes to the floor.  She knew the answers, ironically.  Knew exactly why Mirror Image had done what she did.  She could have played the part to a tee, but that could only damage their plan that so far hadn’t teetered off its hair-thin tightrope.  Silence filled the room with her answer.

A scornful gaze grew on Mirror’s face as the seconds passed.  It reached almost to disdain before she forced a sigh out her nose.  “Fine.  I… I don’t know what to say anymore,” she added, casting her smouldering gaze aside.

“By your orders, Princess,” the sergeant said.  “Should we escort her off the premises?”

“I…”  She cast a sidelong glance at Twilight, pain and worry etched across her face.  “No, not yet, sir.”  The glance became resolute.  “I want her to hear this.  Spike, take a letter.”

He grabbed the nearest quill and paper from the far shelf and, glaring at Twilight, stood poised to write.  

Mirror cleared her throat to speak.  “Dear, Princess Celestia.  Today—”

There was a knock at the door.  Everypony stood silent in the seconds after, all but Twilight gazing at it in hard curiosity.  Mirror exchanged glances with the sergeant, then nodded.  He turned to the private, who moved to open it.

Zecora stood on the threshold, saddlebags about her barrel, medicine staff rested in the crook of her neck, bringing with her a bright smile to light up a room that very much needed it.  But she paused, curiosity turning it into an ‘o.’  “Pardon me, for my abruptness; I did not mean to interrupt this...”  Her mouth hung loose, unsure words beneath unsure eyes that flicked to Mirror Image.  “Surely what I have to say can wait for you another day.”  She bowed and turned to leave.

Twilight’s heart almost leapt out of her throat.  Where was she going?  Was she crazy?  That wasn’t—

“No, wait, Zecora,” Mirror said, earning a curious eye from the zebra.  “I could actually use your help.”

“I am needed, did you say?”  She stepped inside, shutting the door.  “How can I help you this fine day?”

Twilight smiled inside.  She didn’t know whether to hit or hug her for such a gamble.  Whatever worked, worked, she guessed.

Mirror Image opened her mouth, glancing at Twilight.  “Zecora, this is Kite… the mare who…”

“Ah,” Zecora said.  “This is her, the trickster mare, who brought to town the carney fair?”  She cast an appraising glance at Twilight as she swung around to stand between her and Mirror, and the brightness in her eye made Twilight shudder.  Even knowing she sided with her, such a look could steal the wind from any pony's sails.  She cast her eyes down, trying not to stare at the elegant reds and greens curling up the base of Zecora’s staff.

“Yes.  She came back asking for forgiveness, but the way she tried to sneak in says otherwise.”

Zecora hmm’d, putting a hoof up to her chin.  “So you believe her words a lie—another trick she meant to ply?”

“What else could it be?”

Zecora tilted her head, chuckling, eyes never straying from Twilight.  “So tell me if I get the gist: you seek my counsel on this twist?”

Mirror afforded her a burdened smile.  “You’re one of the wisest ponies I know, and I don’t… I don’t think I’m able to make a fair judgement.”

A shiver ran down Twilight’s spine at how closely Mirror’s words, down to the last inflection, rang exactly as they would had they come from her own lips.  She herself had never been in this situation, but even had their roles been reversed, she had no guide for it, no procedure set in her mind for any sort of dispensation of justice.  Princess Celestia remained the judge of that, and it was toward her she ultimately felt her conscience lean, despite Zecora’s arrival.  That, hopefully, would prove to be Mirror’s downfall.

“You’re just as wise, your statement proves,” Zecora said, “for acting without vengeful hooves.”  She smiled at Mirror.  “The worry brewing in your breast; my dear, it’s natural, I attest.  A sign of strength and conscience clear, of justice that all should revere.”

Mirror reflected a portion of Zecora’s smile, though downcast.  “I appreciate you thinking I’m somepony who can think clearly, but I don’t understand why you would think I’m capable of deciding something as important as this—somepony else’s future.  Who’s to say what I think will be best is any better than you or Fluttershy?”  She pointed to the fake Fluttershy still sitting at the table.

“Clairvoyance is a trait to trust.  For any leader, it’s a must.  So do not feel it lacking thus.  There is no need to raise a fuss.”

Mirror looked to the floor, her eyes searching the wood grain for an answer.  A deep sigh.  “I guess you’re right.”  Her eyes fell upon Spike and the letter in his claws still awaiting her dictation.  “Spike, you can put that away.”  

She set her gaze upon Twilight.  “So… after all that you’ve done.  After all the pain you’ve caused me and my friends.  What do you have to say for yourself?”

A million things sprang to the tip of Twilight’s tongue, vile words she would have believed unfathomable had they not been directed at the very mare before her.  Holding them in, feigning no recourse, tensed her jaw.

The silence brought a scowl to Mirror’s face.  “Nothing?  Not even another fake apology?”  A shadow of pain fell over her, wings hanging at her sides.  “I… I hoped there would be at least something I could have done to help you learn what friendship can be.”  She looked down, and the guards took it as their cue to apprehend them.  The first hoof to grab Twilight by the shoulder shot her heart into her throat and her eyes toward Zecora.

The recognition was instantaneous, and she held a hoof up to the guards.  “Not all’s as lost as you might think.  No creature steps beyond that brink.”  She stepped forward, circling around to face Mirror with forehoof raised.  “Somewhere inside her heart is pure.  Just dig a little, pray, endure.”

Mirror raised an eyebrow.  “What do you mean by that?”

She gave her a knowing smile.  “Within all ponies lies some good: the true mare that’s misunderstood.  Just give a chance for all to see the true mare that she ought to be.”

“And how might we do that?”

“That answer can be found right here—” she raised the painted point of her medicine staff at Mirror, her smile turning coy, “—where red and green meet Smoke and Mirror.”

Mirror’s eyes shot wide as the words sunk in.  She staggered away, but not out of reach of the staff, which Zecora drove into her chest.  White light, far more blinding than the one Twilight had seen in Zecora’s hut, flooded the room with its purity, everypony but Zecora shielding their eyes.  Twilight heard from another mouth her own blood-curdling scream drown out the world, its clarity sending a paralyzing shiver down her spine and her ears flat against her skull.  In the momentary loss of sense, something heavy crashed into her.

She felt the unforgiving hardness of the library floor drive the wind from her lungs and a fumbling of hooves.  A pair of teeth gripped about the ring on her horn, and only by their rigorous planning did she know it to be Rainbow Dash.

She slipped it off in one quick motion, and Twilight already had a shield spell waiting at the base of her horn.  It formed a dome of pink, made brighter by the white engulfing the room, the screams muffled as if behind thick glass.

A hesitant glance to Rainbow Dash met only grim, determined eyes.  She pulled the necklace from beneath her vest and held it trembling before herself, preparing for the screams she would share.

She pressed it to her heart, and the world vanished beneath a blanket of fire.  From her hindquarters forward she felt knives slice through skin and sinew before peeling them away, drawn not peacefully into a labyrinth of reds and greens painted across her body but into the tiny specks dabbed on the back of the necklace.  The screams began anew as her bones cracked and ground themselves down to those of her smaller self.  Every hair on her body pulled itself out one by one to regrow purple, tears streaming down her face in defiance of the inexorable.

The world faded back into reality, and Twilight found enough sense within her mind to feel the twitch of a wing and the floor against her back, and realize the screams she had been hearing were truly her own.  The pink light of her shield dome dominated her vision, its rectangular fractals blinking out of existence as its power came to an end.

She rose to her hooves, feeling the weight of her true body and her wings folding at her sides.  A flick of the horn dispelled the glow binding her hooves and those of Rainbow Dash, who immediately squared up with Sylissyth, staring apprehensively back with its Fluttershy eyes.  Determination set Twilight’s upon the mare Zecora had pinned to the wall by staffpoint.

Mirror Image no longer looked like Twilight Sparkle, and moreso did Twilight come to realize just how different she truly looked beneath the tangles of magic.  Gone was her purple coat, driven not to dove white but to tarnished silver.  A bobbed mane of newly fallen snow framed an elegant horn and what would have been an equally elegant smile had it not been twisted in rancor, a hardness even her honeydrop eyes couldn’t soften.

Twilight flared her wings.  She sensed the guards behind her looking on in confusion, the magics built at the tip of the sergeant’s horn ready to fly at any sudden movements.  She let his apprehension be, his True Sight spell surely giving him reason to abide for the moment.

“Your magic,” Mirror said, rising from a gritted whisper.  “How!?”

Zecora slid her staffpoint up to Mirror’s throat and shoved her against the wall.  Twilight ignored her question.  “This is it, Mirror.  No more hexes.  No more games.”

Mirror snorted.  “A game?” she spat in a low, gravelly tone far removed from her sister’s saccharine sway.  “You think this is a game, Twilight Sparkle?  I don’t play games with foals.”

Twilight afforded herself a scowl at the remark.  Even when the tables had turned so completely she held onto her spite.  “Mirror, it’s over.  Tell me why you did all this.”

“Why do you think I did it?”  Her words came out subdued, but her eyes belied the volumes she could have echoed off the walls had Zecora not stiffly reminded her of the staff against her throat.  “Because you took everything from me.  You took her from me.”

“Her?  You mean Princess Celestia?”

The only response Mirror gave was a grunt and gritting of teeth. 

“You claim to love Celestia, and I know she loved you, too, just as she loves everypony in Equestria.  But that also means she loved Smoke Screen—”

“Don’t you say that name!”  The rancor in her eyes billowed outward, her breath gurgling in defiance of the staff.  “Don’t you dare say it again.”

Twilight settled her feathers, realizing the outburst had startled her more than it first appeared.  She let her gaze sit silent upon Mirror for a moment before speaking.  “Celestia loved her as a student.  As much as she loved you, I’m sure.”  Mirror snorted, but Twilight continued.  “But you didn’t see her yesterday like I did, the heartache you’ve caused her by impersonating your sister for so long.  Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Mirror held onto her glare as if losing it meant death.  She said nothing in the silence; and  Twilight couldn’t find the words she wanted to say next, so she instead asked a question that had harped on her mind since fleeing Canterlot.

“Mirror…” Twilight almost whispered.  “What did you do to her?”

The room held its collective breath in the uncomfortable silence, and the hardness of Mirror’s eyes became stoic resolve.

“The same thing I’m going to do to you.”

Her horn flared red to wash the room in an inferno that sought every nook and cranny.  Twilight had only the time to erect a sheet of ice in front of herself, and before she could counter saw through its warped surface a ball of light that blasted it into frozen shrapnel.

The shards cut through her skin like paper and uprooted her, sending her tumbling over backward, wings flailing to find some semblance of control.  The floor met her hard, its impact bringing stars to her eyes in the moments she struggled to find footing and an awareness of her surroundings.  She squinched an eye to fend off a runnel of blood.

Around her, the others wailed in terror, their voices a discordant song lifted high to drown out her thoughts, eyes and hooves focused on things beyond sight.  The wild fervor in their eyes shimmered of nightmares brought on by the inferno—a mixture of fire and hallucination magic.  Thuds in time with her racing heartbeat resounded from the door behind her, muffled shouts of guards outside unable to breach the blood-red sheen sealing the windows and doors.  The sounds throbbed in Twilight’s skull, the weight of the world bearing down as the effort of rising caught up with her.

Already Mirror charged up another spell.  A lance of energy fluoresced teal and silver beside her before screaming through the air, straight for Twilight’s heart.  She had only a moment to conjure a shield—this time, a heavy sheet of light designed for impact.  It shattered the spear into a million fragments that whistled helter skelter about the room.

The convergence of magic left a glittering haze to settle to the floor like fog, swirled and eddied as Sylissyth leaped for a spellbound Rainbow Dash, a flash of white peeling away its Fluttershy skin to bared fangs and glossy black shell.  The crunch of jaws clamping down around her withers sent an icicle down Twilight’s spine.

“Rainbow!” Twilight cried, drowned out by her scream and the whistle of another spell.  She curled her wing in front of her face, unable to draw any magic to her horn quickly enough, and braced for the searing heat she already felt burning her feathers to ash.

A gout of fire real as the hearth washed overtop her wingbone to singe her mane, and she grit her teeth to stifle the pain and conjure a spell of her own.  She folded away her wing as she snapped her horn forward, unleashing a purple beam that set the air ringing as if she had unsheathed a sword.

Mirror deflected it with a shell of silver energy, the beam blasting away a bookshelf not a length away from Zecora, who sat with her back pressed against it, swinging her staff at the empty air, chanting frantic verses of her native tongue.  Mirror smirked, stepping forward through the glittering haze swirling about her fetlocks, away from Rainbow Dash and Sylissyth rolling around on the floor, wings buffeting and hooves flailing blindly.  The glow atop Mirror’s horn stilled any thoughts of helping her friend.

“The true genius does not tell her prey what is not yet due, nor let slip her desires without it forwarding her goal,” Mirror said, a thin slit of teeth showing behind her smile.  She turned a bright eye toward her, a giggle bubbling over the chaos.  “Do you remember those words, Twilight Sparkle?  I’d like to add that neither does a genius reveal her true power.  Always she keeps something in reser—”  

She yelped as a dictionary struck her across the face.  She had the mind to erect a barrier between herself and Twilight as she turned toward Spike, who stood at the far end of the room, another book in his claws ready to be thrown.

“You leave her alone!”  He glared at her as a gladiator would a foal, his courage never wavering despite her snarl.

“You little…”  She lit her horn with a white-hot energy that lifted her mane from her withers.

Twilight’s eyes went wide, sensing the power swirling through the aether, a death blow building like a tidal wave.  She charged a power of her own at the base of her horn, aiming it at the space between Mirror and Spike to let loose a bolt of lightning and intercept the flare rushing for Spike.

The air fizzled like hot grease as spells collided, but the oblique angle of contact diffused the effect of her spell.  Spike lifted his book like a shield in the milliseconds before impact, and the explosion that blasted him backward into the bookshelf brought Twilight’s heartbeat to a grinding halt.

“Spike!”

Before she could take a step toward him, Mirror’s barricade dissolved into dust to make way for a fireball.  Twilight had the reflex to drive forth a spear of magic that blinked it out of existence.

The heat distortion made Mirror’s smile flicker from where she stood in the middle of the room.  Finally with a lull in the conflict, Twilight had a moment to think.  Her eyes darted to the cascade of books that had spilled over Spike and across the room.  The pangs of fear almost sent her to the floor, but she forced herself to keep her head.  

Zecora remained glued to the wall, staff swinging wildly—in no immediate danger.  Same with the guards, who fought against shadows and invisible demons clouding their minds.

Hisses mixed with grunts and cries of pain.  In the far corner Rainbow Dash still struggled against both illusion and changeling, blood freely smearing her coat and the scattered books and parchment.  Superficial for the most part judging by the strength she still possessed, but blood was blood, and she only had so much of it.

Triage.  Prioritize.  Her heart went out to Spike, but her focus remained on Rainbow Dash.  She set her hooves, eyes locked onto Mirror.

She brought an illusion-breaking spell to the forefront of her mind, held it at the base of her horn, locked and loaded but hidden from view.  Mirror undoubtedly knew how to counter it.

“That’s not going to work,” Mirror said, almost chirped.  Her smile grew wider to reveal a row of teeth that almost looked like fangs.  “Your spell… I can feel it from here.”

Bluffing or not, Twilight felt her muscles tense in worry.  If she indeed anticipated the spell, then she would need some way of bypassing her counter.

Feign the cast, mix her magic.  Just like last time.  She took a step toward Zecora, jerking her head toward her, and pushing the stream through to the tip of her horn.  

Mirror took the bait.  She snapped a red glow at Zecora to encase her in a bubble as Twilight reeled her magic back and forced a teleportation spell to her horn.  The world stretched impossibly distant at her center of vision, compressing outward near the edges to suck her through a higher dimension.  Reality rubberbanded to a crack of arcane lightning just behind Mirror, and Twilight rebounded the illusion-breaking spell, encasing Rainbow Dash in a sheath of white.

She whirled around, defensive shell going up instinctively just as a torrent of lightning cascaded overtop and burned chaotic patterns up the walls.  Another spell to protect Rainbow Dash from another illusion and Twilight flapped her wings, the remnants of magic aglow on her horn shattering the barrier into little fragments to be carried on an amplified wind like broken glass.

Mirror lowered her shoulder, a shimmering dome of light grinding the shards into sand as they passed through it.  Twilight seized the moment to launch herself into the air and charged another illusion-breaking spell for the guards by the front window.  Her burned wing struggled to lift her, but the other compensated with a whirlwind of ash and paper.

Twilight felt the reservoir deep within her surge, the unending flow of magic rise from her bosom to her horn and blast away the lies clouding the minds of those around her.  Her horn flashed white like the foam of a cresting tide.

Out the corner of her eye, something else flashed.  It sliced apart the very air, its keenness shriller than a banshee’s wail.  Twilight jerked aside to dodge the silver blade as it slit a groove along her chest and embedded itself in the wall behind her.  She screamed from the pain, the magic leeching from the enchanted wound shattering any remaining ability to hover.  Crashing to the floor stole the wind from her lungs, and she stared up with gasping mouth at the wild grin plastered to Mirror’s face.

“No more games, Twilight Sparkle.”  Her voice grated the ear like nails on a chalkboard, all sweetness lost to the bloodlust flooding her eyes.  “I will take your magic,” —the grin widened— “and then I will take your life.”

She heard the scratching of wood, and she rolled over to see the blade pulling loose from the wall, its hilt shining like an eye fixated upon her.  Her mind froze at the sight—at the terror of what it had wrought last she saw it—body struggling backward out of instinct.  Her hoof fell upon the dictionary Spike had thrown, and she moved autonomously, hooves grasping and thrusting it out like a shield as the knife broke free to seek her again.

The knife thudded into the book, its keen edge piercing through, not inches from her heart, the enchantment drooling fluorescent green on her chest.  She found the strength to wield her magic, and she took hold of the book, pushing back with mind and body.

Her heartbeat played a symphony in her ears as she stared solely at the oozing, dripping blade.  The enchantment mixed with the blood-red magic seeping from her wound, gorged on it, sucked its luminescence away like light into a black hole.

She felt the effects already, the power within fading.  Like a leaky pipe she felt the pressure moving toward her horn grow weak.  The pain had subsided, but a fatigue settled in, one she knew wouldn’t outlast the magic bearing down upon her.

Mirror laughed as she strutted up alongside Twilight.  “Twilight Sparkle...”  Her voice had become saccharine again.  She cast a smile down at Twilight, who struggled for breath, sweat beading on her brow.  “Twilight Sparkle, the worm beneath my hoof.”  Her honeydrop eyes shone deeper than the richest amber, seemed to beg for a rebuttal.

Twilight didn’t respond.  She poured all her focus into her horn and hooves, bracing the stiletto out of reach of her heart.  The struggle further worked open the wound, and she felt her magic waning as it ran down her side to pool on the floor.  The blade pushed harder the longer she struggled, Mirror’s smile in the corner of her eye growing all the more pronounced.

“Do you know what the inside of a coffin looks like, Twilight Sparkle?”  She giggled, slow, savored.  “My sister does.  She learned after I ripped from her every ounce of magic she claimed I couldn’t best, could never hope to… mirror.  Oh, but mirror her I did.  And watching her stare into her own eyes as I drove the blade through her heart was only the first reflection she saw.  Shutting the coffin lid gave her six more to stare at.”  A soft intake of breath, eyes closed.  “I only wish I could have seen the look on her face in those last hours of her life.”

The memory washed away from her face as if she slowly woke from a wonderful dream, her eyes sweeping about the room until they focused again on Twilight.  “But I had a role to play.  I had to be Princess Celestia’s prized pupil, the one she deserved and that wouldn’t take her dedication for granted.  

“And you, Twilight Sparkle.  Because you refuse to play along.  Because you refuse to be a good girl and leave your magic in the past where it belongs.  Because you refuse to lie down and accept your fate like my sister.”  She narrowed her eyes.  “I am forced to make you join her.”

Mirror leaned in, her smile twisting into a sadistic grin that drained the color from Twilight’s cheeks.  She put a hoof on the the dictionary.  “Now... squirm.”

Twilight stifled a yelp as Mirror pressed down to cripple her already crumbling strength.  Breaths came in ragged gasps, the strain in her hooves building to a fire that threatened to sear away her flesh from the inside.  

“Come, Twilight Sparkle!  Let me see you squirm!  Let me see you suffer while I can still enjoy it!  I want to watch the light leave your eyes!”  Her voice crescendoed to boom off the walls and in Twilight’s skull.  “Look at me, Twilight Sparkle!  Look at me so that I know you hear my words!  Celestia is mine!”

The knifepoint drew closer to her chest, seemed to absorb all the light in the room until its fluorescent green became a glowing beacon in the void.  Sound drained away to naught but her breathing and the tremors of her heart as the blade touched her skin, colder than the highest reaches of the atmosphere.  She heard Rainbow Dash scream her name somewhere beyond the endless expanse, muffled beneath countless layers of magic.  A sickly-green miasma rolled in from the darkness to choke her lungs with sulfur and ash.  

She threw open her mouth, soundless despite her screams as the schlickt of the knife curdled her innards and stole away the warmth of magic.  Her eyes bleared at the pain, but she saw all the clearer the honeydrop eyes that smiled beside her, drinking in her suffering like fangs burrowed into her neck.  Their presence slithered into her head.  Cold, slimy.  She felt it press against the back of her eyes as the knife drove deeper to drain the wellspring within, and the more it pressed, the more she felt it smile inside her.

Squirm...

It whispered between her ears, a thousand voices overlapping with that singular word.  She felt the presence worm its way through her skull and down to her chest.  It held her lungs fast, refused her the will to breathe as it did her eyes from rolling back.

The presence reached further in, like a hand slipping on a glove, each leg a finger Mirror’s magic sought to fill and clench tight.  Twilight felt the presence like a swarm of ants crawling along the underside of her skin all the way to her hooves.  Her muscles trembled as two wills fought for control, an inferno all too real igniting up and down her body as eternities passed without breath.

The maddening whispers grew louder, directional.  Through squinched eyes she saw in the darkness the honeydrop eyes lording over her, a smile slitting open the darkness beneath.  The rest of kite’s face pressed through the miasma as if through sheer fabric.  She stood overtop her, head bent low to hers, as the library bled back into reality, choked to the rafters with the effluvium wisping from Mirror’s nostrils.  Her smile cracked a little wider.

Do not be afraid of death, Twilight Sparkle...

Mirror’s horn glowed a shade brighter, and a white light swept down her body to wash her silver coat purple.  Wings spread wide to encompass Twilight’s vision of herself staring down at her, Mirror’s twisted smile cutting through her soul.

Be afraid of dying.

The floor vibrated ever so slightly, and a pony-sized rectangle glowed about her on the floor, overpowering the light of the room.  It burned hotter than a frying pan against her back in the wake of the blade’s eternal chill, and her panicking brain knew it as alteration magic long before she felt herself sinking.

Though Mirror had stated her intentions, Twilight couldn’t morally fathom the four reflections slowly rising about her, staring back dumbfounded.  The deepest reaches of her mind screamed for action, that what she saw was real and terrible.  That terror brought her gaze up to Mirror, to her Twilight eyes and their glinting satisfaction.

She saw within them her own reflection, her reality playing out from another perspective.  But beyond the infinite whirlpools of Mirror’s eyes she saw her friends.  Their happy smiles, the joy she felt knowing and being with them—the joy they shared.

Farther they drifted away behind those eyes the more she sank into the wood of the library floor, their smiles fading to frowns.  Rainbow Dash.  Fluttershy.  They flashed before her eyes, terror stricken, bound in chains, far below, voiceless screams calling out into the nothingness, left to rot for knowing too much.

Another Twilight stood with the rest, one her heart knew without hesitation was not her.  It led them away, further into the darkened recesses opening wide to leave her true reflection alone and mewling.

No… she heard it plead in the back of her mind, the voice, broken and choked, barely recognizable as a pony’s.  It travelled beyond the blackness, no echo returning, it too refusing her even the smallest of respites to her solitude.

She reached out a hoof toward the darkness, and through the impossible distances saw her own as if through a dirty window.  She blinked, and she again lay in the library, hoof outstretched, staring up at Mirror, whose forehead beaded with sweat.

“No…”  Twilight said.  She reached down grasping at the book against her chest, blinking away a trail of tears that had run down the sides of her face.

Mirror gritted her teeth, the noxious fumes ceasing to flow from her nostrils, her magic redirecting into a telekinesis spell Twilight felt chaining itself about her.  Blunter and weaker than the black magic that had slithered through her moments before.  She could feel the desperation, the last dregs of Mirror’s magic, in the way the spell buckled against raw strength, weak as she was.  Mirror’s growing snarl drew forth power from a deeper wellspring within Twilight that no dagger could ever drain.  

Love.

Love of the friends Mirror’s final illusion had threatened with death and dungeon.  Ponies she would fight for—die for—endure no pain too great to protect.  And her cries as she wrested the blade free of her chest solidified her determination.

A gurgling gasp spanned a moment of nothingness as the library briefly unfocused, and the returning clarity sounded the call to arms in her head.  She grasped at the ledge beneath Mirror to pull herself up.

Mirror shoved a hoof in her face, forcing her back down as her snarl returned to a grin raised to the sky.  “You will lie in this hole, and you will embrace death as I have lived it.”

Twilight braced herself with her other hoof, pushing back with her head, gritting her teeth to the pain grinding into her temple.  The air chilled her sweat-slicked back as she raised herself higher, turning an eye up at the Twilight sneering down at her.  She struck at Mirror’s foreleg to better force herself up, but Mirror held firm, leaning her body weight onto her hoof, tilting it so its tip dug in like a knife blade.

Twilight cried out, falling back, but hooked her hoof around Mirror’s other foreleg balancing her on the edge.  It slipped out from beneath her, and Twilight saw Mirror’s wide and frightened eyes as she fell forward to collapse on top of her.

A minute gasp punctuated a sharp, heavy pain digging into Twilight’s chest, and the world came to a standstill.

Mirror lay atop Twilight, her face close enough to feel the broken gasps of frost ebb across her face, wide, paralyzed eyes smaller than pinpricks staring unfocused into her own.  Her body felt colder than death, shivering as if it had never known the warmth of life.

Reality settled in, Twilight’s senses finding their place beneath the frozen mare, and she too froze, knowing the pain in her chest for what it was—the enchanted blade’s hilt—staring at the mare who pawed so helplessly at the book shoved against her chest.

Mirror trembled, whimpering as her eyes slowly swivelled down to comprehend the reality befallen her.  Her breathing intensified, her whimpers crescendoing into sobs that became an ear-splitting scream.

She pushed herself out of the casket in a heap, hyperventilating, futilely grasping at the dictionary to pry away the knife.  But it held fast, ever thirsty, and Twilight could only watch in horror as the shimmer of magic went out from her eyes.  Mirror’s forehooves twitched, and she curled herself into a ball, sobbing, face hidden behind her hooves.

Syllisyth reached out toward her, letting loose a desperate cry cut short by Rainbow Dash’s hoof to its gut.

Those around them stirred, the illusions placed upon them lifted, and the door slammed open, the guards outside leaping in.

“Princess Twilight!”  One rushed to her side while the other helped Rainbow Dash pin Syllisyth to the floor.

Twilight felt the guard’s body pressing her away from Mirror quicker than she could call him off.  “We’re here Ma’am.  We’ll take it from here.”  Over her shoulder.  “Sergeant, she’s bleeding!”

The unicorn guard had already intervened for the door guard, having snagged Sylissyth in his aura and held it firmly against the wall.  He looked back at them.  He nodded at Rainbow Dash.  “So’s this one.  Ironclad,” he said to the private shaking his head clear of the illusions.  “Get the medical unit in here now!”

“Sir!” the guard replied, rushing outside, where many curious faces peered in.  The sergeant slammed the door shut behind him with a flick of his horn.

“Ma’am,” the guard beside Twilight said.  “Everything’s—”  Twilight brushed past him toward Rainbow Dash.  

So much blood.  Soaking her coat, drenching her feathers.  Sweet Celestia… The smile painted on her face as she sat up made Twilight all the more fearful.

“Rainbow,” Twilight said, frazzled, her hoof reaching out to hold her at any spot not slicked down.  “Are you alright?”

The chuckle Rainbow Dash gave sent shivers down Twilight’s spine.  “Me?  Yeah, I’m fine.  Just a couple bites is all.  You’re the one that looks messed up.”  Her eyes followed the blood stains running down her coat, a hint of pride turning up the corner of her mouth.

The sight made Twilight’s stomach churn, and she could hardly force her words.  “But you’re…”  

Rainbow Dash laughed.  “You think this is bad?  You should see him.”  She smirked up at the changeling held against the wall by the sergeant’s magic.  It thrashed against its magical tethers, chitin fractured and dented, a foreleg bent in a direction it was never meant to go.  “That’ll teach you to mess with us!” Rainbow Dash yelled.

Twilight sighed relief.  She was certainly fine if she could make remarks like that.  That left Zecora, who sat leaning against the bookshelf rubbing her head, and—

“Spike!”

Twilight rushed for the pile of books at the far end of the room.  She threw herself atop it without hesitation, tossing, shoving books aside.  He was in here.  He was still alive.  Her breathing became more frantic the further down she went.  He had to be.

She froze at the sight of a little claw sticking out of the pile.  Twilight gingerly reached for it, almost recoiling when she touched it.  She threw aside the topmost book, and he lay beneath, eyes closed, jaw lax.  She put her hoof to his neck.

She felt his pulse.  Faint, but there.

The door opened behind her, and in crowded a hoofful of ponies hauling boxes of first-aid equipment.  A pair of unicorns bee-lined for her, their eyes and voices all over her like a swarm of parasprites.  

Twilight waved them away.  “I’m fine, I’m fine!  Help Spike!”  They did as commanded, their attention centering on the little dragon they took to with penlights and diagnostic magic.

Rainbow Dash’s voice cracked over the general fuss, something about not needing help and getting their hooves off of her.  It was hard to concentrate on anything but Spike.  She again saw him standing there, book raised, ready to fight, ready to defend her with his life.  How reckless he had been, how easily he could have been swept aside for good.  It was getting hard to breathe.

A hoof wrapped itself around her shoulder, soft, gentle.  Zecora’s eyes smiled forlornly at her when she turned, and she could only manage raising a hoof to the one over her shoulder and snuggle her head into it.

“A hard-fought battle you have won.”  A soft chuckle.  “Similar to Dolich’s son.  I’m sorry I could do no more than break the spell and hug the floor...”

“You did more than your fair share, Zecora.”  She looked her in the eyes, smiling as genuinely as her rattled mind could.  “Thank you.”

“As I said last night to you: the creed I live is tried and true.”  She looked over her shoulder.  “But now that we have won the fight, what is to come of Mr. Kite?”

Twilight followed her gaze to Mirror sobbing silently on the floor, clutching at her heart and the dull redness oozing from it.  She felt the lack of magic within herself and knew her pain.  Though she herself had been the victim in this ordeal, she knew by experience—and no small bit of Zebra lore—what her role had become in all of it.  

She strode toward Mirror, stopping just outside hoof reach.  The way she flinched signalled her awareness, but she made no attempt to look up, keeping her face hidden behind a hoof.  A few words worked up to Twilight’s tongue, vindictive phrases meant to salt the wound she had so deserved.  Her mouth opened of its own accord, but she held them back.  Such hurtful things were unbecoming of the paragon of friendship fate had destined her to be, she knew.  And if she were to have any hope of assuaging Mirror’s hatred, she had to start with herself.

She stepped up beside the sergeant, who still held Sylissyth prisoner against the wall.  Without a word, she wrapped her aura about his, feeling both his eyes snap to her and his will recede.  She brought the screaming, drooling changeling down from the wall and set it before her, its rage dissolving into confusion.

She let go, and the whole room tensed.

“Princess!” the sergeant said.

Twilight held up a hoof to him, and nopony made a sound.  She simply stared into Sylissyth’s millions of eyes, seeing the soft but steadfastness of herself looking back.  She gave a glance to Mirror, then back to Sylissyth.

Its eyes stretched with hers and snapped to.  Head hunched, a hesitant hoof raised, it then dashed for Mirror, lying down beside her.  It placed a delicate hoof over her shoulder and chirruped into her ear, rocking gently back and forth.  The sight was enough to lessen the tension of the last two days, a reminder of what was truly important in the world.

“May I ask why?” the sergeant said.

Twilight smiled.  “Mirror has suffered a long time under her own emotions, and she’s done a lot of terrible things.  But, somewhere in it all…”  Twilight nodded at Sylissyth.  “She found friendship.  Nopony deserves to have that taken away from them.”

Out the corner of her eye, she saw the medical team carrying Spike out on a stretcher.  “I trust you can manage the rest without me, Sergeant?”  She started after them without waiting for a response.

She caught them at the door.  Hoof holding claw, the door opened to raucous commotion and curious eyes watching them pass by.  But her mind faded them into silence.  The only thing in the world that mattered at that moment lay beside her, and she wasn’t going to leave him for an instant.






> Epilogue - Hoofprints
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Twilight found Celestia in the royal gardens.  Not so much a garden anymore.  The rows of chrysanthemums had been torn out and cast aside, the brown of the earth piled high as guardsponies worked their shovels tirelessly, casting the heavy scent of dirt to the wind.  Celestia sat on the only visible patch of grass, just off the pearlescent flagstones leading to the Dais of the Sun.  The chrysanthemum petals danced about her in the wind, their colors of gold and white saturated by evening’s orange glow.  Twilight sat down next to her.

Neither of them spoke for a long while, the sound of earth being moved more than making up for their silence.  Twilight looked at her hooves, not for a loss of words, but for an understanding that Celestia should be first to speak.  Her presence spoke its own volumes.

“Thank you for coming,” Celestia said.  Her voice held its usual shimmer, but on its back rode a chill hollowness.  Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight could see how absently Celestia stared into the holes before them.

“Of course, Princess.”  She left it at that, unsure what to say after hurdling the greeting.  

“My advisors are busy running Day Court, and I couldn’t bring myself to disturb Luna.”

“I would have come whether you asked me to or not,” Twilight said.  She turned a smile to her mentor, one she surprisingly received in return.  Love shone in Celestia’s eyes and squared her shoulders.  But the light blew out of them just as quickly, and she turned away.

“I am sorry for what I almost did to you, Twilight.  How blind I was to not see you standing right in front of me.”  Her mouth hung open, words poised on the tip of her tongue.  “I…”  The rest didn’t come.

Twilight’s ears fell back against her head.  “I should have told you from the beginning.  I was afraid if I had been forthcoming that you wouldn’t have believed me, and with how much Mirror knew about me…”

She trailed into silence, the sound of shovels again taking the reins.

“So why the digging?”

Celestia didn’t answer immediately, but Twilight saw out the corner of her eye a tiny, hurt-filled smile play across her lips.  “Mirror always knew chrysanthemums were my favorite.  This garden specifically.”  Her eyes gravitated toward a little swirl of petals an errant breeze kicked up.  “The last place I’d look for Smoke Screen...”

Twilight shied away.  The day before came back all too real.  The honey-drop eyes smiling down at her.  The threat of living her last moments inside a coffin of mirrors had fortune not smiled brighter...  

“How is she?”

A pause.  “She’s feeling better.  I arranged for her and Sylissyth to share a cell, by your suggestion.  They’re cooperative, and it seems we have you to thank for that.”  

Twilight glanced back to catch her smile, like a ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds.  She thought back to how she had let the changeling down from the wall to comfort Mirror.  The chirruping sounds it had made.  True friendship.

She blinked away the memory and found herself staring up at the sun, not needing to squint.  It wasn't particularly bright that evening.  “They might have made bad, unforgivable choices, but their love is real.  And if that exists, then maybe there’s hope they’ll learn to love others, too.”

Celestia chuckled.  “It seems you’ve learned a valuable lesson these last few days.”

Twilight restrained a sigh.  A lesson learned through an ordeal that could have had disastrous consequences.  It was hard to see it as a lesson.  How it had been aimed at her, out of malice rather than the vague sense of conquest all her other adversaries had sought, took it to a personal level she had never felt before.

But she had a responsibility to uphold a standard, to be the beacon of friendship despite the hurt they had conspired to cause, to give of herself and take charge of rather than succumbing to a situation anypony else would warrant her deserving of playing the victim.  

Princess Twilight Sparkle.

She had a lot to learn.  About herself, and about the world.  “Yeah…”  She stared at the grass beneath her hooves.  “I guess I have.  We went through a lot,” Twilight said, her voice becoming distant.  “Me and Rainbow Dash.”

“I can only imagine how it felt, Twilight.”

Twilight looked down.  She heard in Celestia’s voice the careful treading, the specially picked words, avoiding the pitfalls of what had happened in the throne room.  Things like that didn’t leave the heart any time soon.

“It’s not so much that.  She went through it with me, that… that nightmare.  She believed me.  She believed in me.”  She looked up at Celestia.  “She trusted me with her life.”

Celestia returned her gaze with a smile.  “From the sound of it, Rainbow Dash isn’t the only one.”

Twilight looked off into the distance, into the dark memories of the last three days.  When she was alone, Rainbow Dash was there.  Where she ran, Rainbow Dash followed.  Where she had fallen, Rainbow Dash picked her up.

In many places, only four hooves left prints.

“Do you know why she trusted you?”

Twilight met her eyes.  Celestia didn’t speak immediately, but Twilight could already hear the words the radiance in her eyes bespoke.

“Because I would have trusted her.”

Celestia’s smile widened a hair’s width.  She looked back out onto the piles of earth growing ever higher around them.  “More than that.  You did trust her—to trust you when you needed it most.  She followed you into the dark, even though neither of you knew the outcome.”  Her wings partly unfolded from her sides.  “And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years, Twilight, it’s that friendship like that isn’t given.  It’s earned.”

Twilight absently followed her gaze, letting the statement bounce around in her head.  She had endured many hardships both great and small since moving to Ponyville, and her friends had seen her through them time and again.  Not a moment had passed when she ever felt unable to ask for help, or they were unwilling to give it.

Spike held a special place in her heart for that simple truth.  Her unfailing voice of reason, now lying silent in a hospital bed.  No number of needles or wound cleanings could have driven her from that room, but she would have been lying had she said the sight didn’t tear her up inside.  She would have traded a thousand enchanted blades to the heart for his injuries.  

Reading him the entire series of Power Ponies and the bags beneath her eyes could never make up for his bravery, but the smile on his face all through the night was worth her weight in gold.

“Is everything alright, Twilight?”

She tensed, wiping away tears she just noticed.  “Yeah, everything’s fine.”  He was in the hooves of the best doctors in Equestria, and Fluttershy had volunteered to stay by his side in her absence, even after all that had happened to her.  She had no reason to get teary eyed.  He’d be okay.  He was a strong, brave dragon.  “Will… will Mirror’s magic ever come back?”

“No.”  Celestia’s voice came out cold, grieving.  “Our best mages broke down her knife’s enchantment.  Dark magic, from ages older than myself.”

The sentence hung in the air, a subject unwanted but unwilling to leave.  Twilight desired nothing more to do with it, but a question gnawed at her.  She looked up to Celestia.  “Then why did mine?”

A genuine smile crossed Celestia’s lips.  “I do not know.  But I do know that I’ve never had a student with as much talent as you, Twilight.”  Her eyes flicked to Twilight’s cutie mark.  “And with a talent in magic, I can only speculate.”

They returned their gazes to the holes after a while, and the crunch of shovel against dirt filled increasingly uncomfortable minutes.

“Princess…” she said.  

“Hmm?”

“Mirror had said... Mirror had said that I had taken everything from her.  That… I had taken you from her.”

Only the sounds of the guards answered her, and as much as Twilight wanted to, she couldn’t bring herself to look her mentor in the eyes.  Not with the weight of her last words on her shoulders.

“It was many years ago, Twilight.”  Celestia spoke plainly, her voice neither floating like a summer breeze as was its norm, nor laden with guilt or heartache as it had been on their last meeting.  “Smoke Screen and Mirror Image were sisters, Smoke the eldest.  I had taken her under my wing for her gift in illusion magic.  Like you, she always had her nose in a book, and she never bothered with making friends.”  A light chuckle, and a glance.  “Just like you.

“But where you discovered friendship, Smoke dove further into her studies, to the point of never even leaving her study.”  She lowered her head.  “Mirror was fascinated with her sister’s abilities long before they applied to the School for Gifted Unicorns.  When I met them, she latched onto the idea that I would teach them both.”  Something tensed her eyebrows ever so slightly, and her ears fell back.  “She latched onto me.

“She followed me around wherever I went.  At least, wherever she was allowed to follow.  Half the castle thought she was my personal student instead of Smoke.”  She chuckled.  “That little smile of hers…

“But as much as I would have enjoyed teaching her, Mirror simply didn’t have the prowess of her bigger sister, and I was fool enough to direct her to Canterlot Academy’s standard classes.  I had no idea how deep it hurt her, and even less how much it consumed her.

“She did everything she had to gain my approval, to take what she believed was her rightful place as my personal student, but when I didn’t grant her her wish, she left in a fit of rage.”  She took a tremulous breath.  “I don’t know when it happened, but…”

They both looked at the holes dug before them.

“You’d think after ruling for hundreds of years, I’d notice cues like that more easily.  That I would have noticed the differences in Smoke’s attitude sooner, connected the dots like anypony else would have been able to.”

“Princess…”  Twilight raised a hoof, but put it back down, instead leaning toward her.  “It’s not your fault.  You know that.”

A weak smile slowly crept onto Celestia’s face.  “They say time heals all wounds.”  She turned to Twilight.  “But the only ponies to ever say that weren’t alicorns.”

The urge to refute and comfort—to say that time did indeed heal all wounds—rolled to the tip of Twilight’s tongue, but Celestia’s voice rang of experience, not just wisdom.  She swallowed her words, looking down.  All she could do was stay by her side, remind her she wasn’t alone.

The shouts around them grew louder, and Celestia perked up, looking to the far end of the garden.  There, the guards gathered around one of the holes.  

Twilight could feel the tension in her mentor, the way her ears swivelled forward, wings slightly open.  She wanted to be there for her, to help her through what must have been a tempest of emotions.  But she knew herself to be just one student in a list that could span the globe, and that never lessened how special each and every name was to Celestia.  She couldn’t intrude on that sanctity.

“I’ll be here, Princess.”

Celestia leaned back, her ears flicking toward her.  Her face came around, bringing with it a smile warmer than the sun above suddenly felt.  “Thank you, Twilight.”  With that, she took to the air, landing before the coffin the guardsponies were pulling out with ropes.

Cherry, Twilight couldn’t help but notice.  A bright polish that flashed in the sunlight, despite unknown years underground.  She saw the tiny figure of Celestia raise a hoof to its side, her horn aglow.  The casket opened, and for a long time, nopony moved.

Slowly, Celestia’s wings fell limp to her sides, her head lowered to the casket, and the sky fell dim.  Bodies gathered around Celestia, obscuring her from view.  

Though she could see no more, Twilight remained.  She was a mare of her word, and no matter how much it hurt to not stand by Celestia’s side, she held firm.  She let out a sigh, watching, waiting, as the sun slipped behind the Clefthoof mountains across the valley, until all but Celestia departed from the casket.  

The moon shone full despite its waning schedule to cast the world in a brighter candescence, twinkling off the pearlescent flagstones and distant Dais.  Condolences from Luna, Twilight knew.  She wondered where in the castle, what tall tower she watched from, sympathizing from afar.

Twilight’s eyes rose to the castle skyline, where innumerable shadows reached up to blend with the night sky.  Though she caught no glimpse of Luna, she saw her image spread across the starry backdrop.

She had been consumed by jealousy once, had let it drive her to destroy all she had once loved.  The Elements of Harmony brought her back from that ledge, and long since had her worries of reinstatement been banished.  She found love again, despite a thousand years spent alone in darkness.  And if Luna had, then hope remained for Mirror.

The thought lowered her eyes to Celestia in the distance.  She could no longer see the casket, and likewise Celestia’s mane had long since melded with the shadows.  But the way her shoulders dipped, Twilight knew her head hung low, possibly nestled beside Smoke’s as she caressed her mane.  

What lengths Celestia would have gone to had she known of Mirror’s deceit.  How wholly it must have consumed her once she did.  

If only Mirror could have seen it.

She would have to visit her soon.  Twilight had never been fond of the dungeons, but her duty—her friendship—exceeded her reluctance.  No creature stepped beyond that brink, as Zecora had said.  No matter how far they had fallen.

But that was not now.  Now belonged to Celestia, as she had promised.  So Twilight waited, beside the holes and cast-aside chrysanthemums, the still night air long spent of its earthy smell.  For Celestia.  For as long as she needed.