Chapter 1 - Pissing Off Your C.O. and Other Hazards of Cake Guarding

“Legionary Twilight Sparkle, reporting for duty, sir!” Twilight sounded off with a perfectly executed salute.

The Twilight in the mirror saluted back, bringing a smile to her face. The smile was quickly adjusted as she wiped all traces of emotion away. Royal Guards didn’t smile, they merely watched, ever vigilant and ready to serve at Her Highness’ command and pleasure at a moment’s notice.

She dropped her hoof and managed to hold her stoic discipline for a few moments longer before finally giving in to her girlish excitement.

“Eeeeeeeeeee~!” she squealed as she bounced excitedly. “I’m finally in the guard!”

Her helmet bounced around loosely as she danced in place. She ceased her celebration and pulled the headwear off, careful not to scrape her horn against the horn-port in the unicorn-type helmet she’d been issued.

The Royal Guard, despite being the largest standing armed force in Equestria, had very few mares within its ranks, which really made it something of a pain getting your hooves on a properly fitted uniform or suit of armor. Sure, it wasn't unheard of for a mare to join the Guard, but it was very uncommon, and many armories just didn't even bother stocking female-fitted Royal Guard armor.

As a result of the armorer's poor bookkeeping and lack of planning, Twilight had been forced to make do with a standard issue armor in the smallest size. Sadly, even the smallest suit, while the appropriate size, was still made to conform to a male body type. The armorer had made a few adjustments, but modifications to an off-the-shelf design only went so far. The end result was a suit of armor that was a little too loose in the shoulders, a little too tight on the flank, and a little too wobbly in the helmet.

Her Decurion – her immediate superior – had informed her that a suit that would fit her had been located in Vanhoover, but military efficiency meant that the armor would be held up in red-tape and requisition forms for at least three more months. Some of the other guards had overheard her conversation and commented that by then she'd qualify to put in a request for a custom-fitted uniform and armor. The best option seemed to be to just wait until she could put in the custom order request, but in the meantime she was on her own as far as figuring out how to make the suit fit.

A minute or so of careful study and she pinpointed the problem. A bit more padding in just the right spot and her galea would fit perfectly without chafing. In fact, if she skipped breakfast, she might even be able to catch the armorer before her first inspection.

She lifted the helmet into the air, trailing it behind herself as she left her private quarters – which she was quickly realizing was the best benefit of being the only mare in the Guard – and headed past the barracks, towards the armory to see if the smithy was in yet. A few of the other guards waved to her as they dressed and prepared themselves for breakfast and inspection.

“Today’s going to be a great first day, I can tell,” she told herself with confidence.

* * *

Every potential member of Celestia’s Royal Guard was issued a kit with basic supplies upon acceptance into the basic training camp. This kit contained a number of things necessary for the candidate’s education and indoctrination into military life. There were odds and ends included – which was comprised of things like armor polish, toothpaste, shampoo, and other basic toiletries – but the most important item in any recruit’s kit was their very own copy of The Royal Guard Training Manual.

The Guard’s manual wasn’t too different from the manuals distributed to recruits in other branches of the military. It had all basics about survival tactics, combat techniques, and other life-saving knowledge. Interestingly, a lot of the same information, minus the combat drills and exercises, could be found condensed into The Survival Hoofbook, which was standard issue to members of the Colt and Filly Scouts.

Where the Guard’s manual differed from others was the extra thick section about etiquette and procedure. The Royal Guard was much more visible than other branches of the Protective Pony Platoons. They were stationed everywhere, not just in the castle but throughout Equestria, and followed Her Highness everywhere she went. They interacted with nobles, foreign dignitaries, and civilians alike. Their job, aside from being the elite units assigned with protecting the most valuable asset in Equestria, was to be the face of Equestria’s military might.

Despite the importance of this manual, most young soldiers put off reading it, sometimes skimming over things the final few weeks until graduation and hoping to ‘wing it’ as they went along. Twilight Sparkle knew this to be a mistake. She’d read her manual cover to cover, several times, and memorized its contents backwards and forwards.

That was how she knew that she’d made a very big mistake on her first day.

She stood before the Captain of the Guard – an enormous pegasus stallion with a silver coat peppered white with age – and held at attention despite the need to collapse to the ground and catch her breath.

“Legionary Twilight Sparkle,” the old stallion said coldly as he circled her, inspecting every inch of her in search of a flaw in her posture. “I trust you’ve read your manual.”

“Yes sir!”

A few of her fellow guards snickered, earning a glare of disapproval from their captain for the minor break in discipline.

“Then you can tell me what the Guard’s schedule is every morning,” he asked.

Twilight inhaled deeply and responded: “Reveille is forty-five minutes before appointed sunrise, breakfast to be eaten within a half hour, inspection at first light, sir!”

“Very good,” he said in an unimpressed tone. “Now maybe you can tell me why you showed up five minutes after first light, sweating and out of breath?”

“I was getting my armor refitted in the armory and the smithy lost track of time – we didn’t notice how late it was until he’d finished, so I had to run all the way here, sir!”

“That sounds like something that shouldn’t have waited until the last possible second,” the captain said as he paced in front of her. “Or maybe Shining Armor’s little sister – little Miss Hotshot First-In-Her-Class-At-The-Academy – thinks she deserves special treatment and can just show up whenever she wants?”

Twilight ground her teeth but held her silence.

“I don’t want any confusion later on, so I’ll get this friendly little warning out of the way so everypony’s on the same page, Sparkle,” he said as he leaned in close, lowering his voice so only she could hear him. “I can’t stand nepotism. It’s got no place in the military, and it especially doesn’t have a place in my command. I don’t care who your brother is, I don’t care what kind of grades you got in school – all I care about is how well you follow my orders and how well you keep my schedule.”

He pulled away and spit on the ground in distaste. “Fall in, and if you’re late again you’ll be spending every waking moment from now until retirement doing laps around the castle.”

Twilight’s hoof snapped up in a quick salute and she cantered over to an open spot in the ranks that obviously was meant for her. Out the corner of her eye she noticed the unicorn standing next to her snickering in amusement.

“Somepony got in trouble~” he sang in a whisper.

“Glowstone!”

The unicorn went rigid as he snapped back to attention at the sound of his name. “Sir!”

“Push-ups!” their captain barked. “Fifty of ‘em! Now!”

The other guards, including Twilight, all laughed at Glowstone’s misfortune as he lowered himself into the push-up posture and began counting off.

The captain allowed the laughter, just this one time.

"We've got less than two weeks until the Summer Sun Celebration, ponies!" he shouted, the corners of his mouth threatening to curl into a smile. "Legionaries Glowstone and Twilight Sparkle better be the last two to break discipline between now and then, or I will be displeased! This year's Celebration is going to be one to remember, I can feel it in my bones!"

* * *

In all her years, Twilight Sparkle had never been so humiliated. She still couldn’t believe she’d gotten herself a reprimand in front of her fellow guards on her first day, by the Captain of the Guard himself, no less. To make matters worse, it had been entirely her fault. She and the armorer’s apprentice had gotten into a heated discussion about the importance of a galea’s crest. The young blacksmith had insisted that it made all the guard helmets look like brooms, while Twilight tried to explain that the crests were a way to signify rank and division from a distance.

In short, he’d been dumb, she’d been right, and it didn’t matter because she was still late to inspection. The whole ordeal had been her fault because she’d let that argumentative part of her brain rope her into another academic debate.

Once inspection was over, her squad received their orders from their Decurion – an earth pony named Flat Hoof. Decurion Flat Hoof informed his squad that they would be spending the week patrolling the inside of the castle and standing sentry in high-traffic, high-value locations.

Twilight had been assigned the kitchen, a ‘high-value’ target that didn’t even warrant a second guard. Her entire job for the next week would be to stand outside the kitchen doors, watching for ponies twirling mustaches and carrying vials of poison.

Not that that wasn’t a real fear – the princess’ food was prepared in this kitchen, after all – it was just incredibly unlikely that somepony with such dark intentions would slip this deep into the castle. The only ponies that ever passed through the kitchen doors were wait staff and the cooks. Very rarely did Twilight have to stop somepony unfamiliar and ask their business.

If the boredom wasn’t bad enough, the guard stationed at the kitchen had to do a full twelve hour shift smelling delicious food and being unable to even sneak a snack. It was widely accepted by everypony to be the worst assignment for a day-shift guard.

She wasn’t sure whether she’d pulled the short straw because she was new, or because she was being punished for her earlier mistake, but whatever the case, it wasn’t much of stretch to imagine that she would be stuck on kitchen duty for a good while.

The day ticked away slowly, the way time seemed to slow down while you were staring at a clock. She knew that time wasn’t actually slowing down, and that time only seemed slower because her perception of it was being altered by her mental state, but she took precious little solace in that knowledge.

The only distraction to break up the monotony was when somepony was coming to or out of the kitchens, and she was beginning to look forward to these brief interactions. A few ponies tried to say hello to her, but even though she would have loved to talk with them, she was on duty and merely politely asked that they continue along on their business unless they had something to report.

Growing up, she’d found herself seduced by the tales of romance and intrigue involving Royal Guard members from the distant past. The Pegasi Air Force had their Commander Hurricanes, and the Earth Pony Infantry had their Corporal Tough Crackers, but in the old stories nopony was as heroic or brave as the Royal Guard.

She reminded herself of this fact as a waiter walked past her into the kitchen carrying a tray of tiny, uneaten sandwiches. He nodded to her and disappeared through the swinging doors leading into the kitchen, leaving her to watch the empty hallway with presumed unwavering vigilance. She stared at the far wall, where the needlessly long hall ended into another corridor that ran perpendicularly to the kitchen passageway. Going to the right took you towards the main entry and out into the courtyard, and going left led further into the castle, towards the dining hall, which connected to the throne room.

There was a painting on that wall – a portrait of Fancy Soup, a chef from over a thousand years ago that had earned a few pages in the history books for sniffing out poisons slipped into the princess’ meals. He was so good at it that even friendly foreign dignitaries made it a sort of game – dark game, though it was – to have all of their meals randomly poisoned, knowing that nothing would get past the chef’s keen sniffer. Eventually, the princess had to politely ask her guests to stop trying to poison themselves, as it was becoming very hard to actually get something to eat when waiters would show up with only a single unpoisoned sandwich for everyone to share.

He was also supposedly very good at sniffing out truffles, like a pig. In fact, with his beady little eyes, flat snout, and rotund little cheeks, he kind of looked like a pig if you squinted at him…

Twilight couldn’t help herself as she yawned loudly. All this vigilance was giving her the drowsies something fierce. The sound of the kitchen door being opened snapped her out of her state of mild hypnosis.

“Excuse me, guard.”

Twilight gratefully turned away from hallway to lock eyes with a pretty mare with a lollipop Cutie Mark. She’d been one of the ones who’d tried to talk to her earlier, and funny enough, her name was actually Lollipop.

A dozen more ponies in chef’s jackets and wait staff uniforms filed out of the kitchen behind her, most of them carrying blankets and picnic baskets. The group of ponies continued down the hallway, chatting away and paying Twilight no mind.

“We’re all going to go on lunch for the next hour,” Lollipop said with a smile. “We’re done with cleanup from lunch and dinner prep, so you’re going to be holding down the fort on your own for a while.”

Lollipop leaned forward and gave an exaggerated wink. “If you wanted to slip inside for a drink or something to snack on, I sure wouldn’t tell anypony.”

The mare bounded off, giggling as she went. She quickly caught up with the rest of the group and they disappeared around a corner leading towards the courtyard.

“Great,” Twilight grumbled to herself, “now there’s nothing around to keep me from falling asleep on my hooves…”

She returned to watching the hallway for suspicious activity, but within minutes the monotony once again began to erode at the edges of her focus. She needed stimulus – her brain craved it. Every waking moment of her life since fillyhood had been spent studying and reading, and while most ponies would’ve had a nervous breakdown from the workload she heaped upon herself, she thrived under it. Unless she figured out a way to keep her mind occupied without affecting her alertness, it was going to be a very long, very difficult career in the Guard.

She heard the sound of muffled hoofsteps coming from down the hallway. The kitchen staff had only been gone for a few minutes of their lunch hour, so nopony was supposed to be coming down this hallway for at least another forty-five minutes.

Twilight tensed up and focused her hearing, zeroing in on the sound and trying to glean as much information as she could. The steps were heavy and spaced far apart. It was likely somepony big, and heavy, probably wearing armor. Maybe it was another guard? Was the Captain of the Guard coming to give her another lecture?

Panic began to build in her chest at the thought that maybe she’d done something to further anger her senior officer. What if he found out that she was having trouble concentrating? What if he was still angry about her showing up late? What if he wanted to send her back to military kindergarten?

The hoofsteps stopped and a head popped around the corner, trailing an ethereally floating mane.

“Oh, what a pleasant surprise,” Celestia said with a giggle. She rounded the corner and trotted towards Twilight, giving her warmest, most motherly smile. “I’d heard you were starting this week and was wondering why I hadn’t seen you around the castle. Now I see it’s because you’ve been hiding in the kitchen.”

Twilight relaxed as the realization that it was just Princess Celestia set in. She then tensed up again as she realized that she was now a guard and the Princess was addressing her.

“It’s nice seeing you, too, Your Highness!” Twilight replied. Her eye twitched nervously as her brain registered the fact that she’d just shouted into the princess’ face.

Celestia broke stride for only a moment before giggling in amusement. “Please, Twilight, don’t be so formal. It’s just you and me right now. I’ve known you since you were a filly.”

Twilight flushed a bit at the reminder that she was now officially under the command of somepony that her big brothers more or less considered a second mother. “Thank you, princess. Can I, um, ask why you’re here?”

“Oh, I come down here every day,” she said airily. “All those tasty desserts are unattended while the kitchen staff is out at lunch. It’s the perfect time to burgle a few pastries.”

She strode past Twilight confidently, and nodded towards the door. “You should join me. I think they were baking cakes today.”

“I probably shouldn’t…” Twilight said as her mouth began to water at the thought of finally eating some of what she’d been smelling all morning. “I’m supposed to guard this hallway…”

Celestia pouted far more cutely than anypony her age had any right to. “Legionary Twilight Sparkle, what is your sworn duty?”

Twilight snapped-to and saluted, sounding off with a reflexive: “To protect and serve at your pleasure, Your Highness!”

“That’s right,” Celestia said with a grin as she pushed aside the swinging doors with a gentle shove of her magic. “And it’d give me no end of pleasure if you’d join me for a bit of cake.”

Twilight wanted to refute Celestia’s assessment, she really did, but there was a very clear chain of command and Princess Celestia was sitting at the very tippity-top of it. She shrugged and followed her princess into the kitchen.

“I hope the Guard Captain doesn’t find out about this…” Twilight muttered under her breath.

Celestia laughed as she overheard Twilight’s comment to herself. “Don’t worry about Centurion Steel Century, he’s just a big kitten.”

“I kind of got yelled at earlier by him,” Twilight sighed. “I showed up late for inspection because I was getting my galea refitted.”

“Ah, that’d do it,” Celestia said as she led them to the counter with the desserts. She levitated a couple of cushions from their hiding place atop the highest cabinets and took a seat, motioning for Twilight to join her. “Just don’t show up late again and you’ll be fine. He’s very strict about his schedules.”

Twilight got them some plates from the drying rack next to the sink and took a seat next to the princess. She selected an enormous cupcake with blue frosting and lots of sprinkles while the princess cut herself an extra huge slice of cake.

“He also seems to think I might try to use my relationship with my brother and you to try and get some special treatment,” Twilight admitted. “It was… embarrassing. I’ve never been accused of anything like that in my life.”

Celestia chuckled sadly as she carefully dissected her cake slice. “That boy, I swear. He’s only like that because his uncle was Captain of the Guard when he joined. He heard a lot of backtalk from the other guards and I think he still resents the very implication that somepony in the Guard could get special treatment because of their private relationships. Nopony besides him and me even remembers those rumors, anyway. It’s very silly.”

“I can see where he might think it would be an issue, though,” Twilight sighed. “Shining is your personal student, and you and I haven’t spent a lot of time alone together, but I did used to see you a lot when I’d come by to visit my brothers.”

Celestia closed her eyes and hummed blissfully, taking her time to enjoy her cake. The castle bakers were some of the finest in Equestria, and she had the hips to prove it.

“It was always a pleasure to see you at our lessons,” Celestia admitted as she wiped her mouth. “You were always very well behaved, and very curious. I knew that you’d grow into a fine young lady, and I was right. You should be proud of your accomplishments.”

Twilight stared down at her cupcake in contemplation of the praise. “I haven’t really accomplished anything yet,” she whispered sadly. She took an aggressive bite of the sweet snack to counter the very bitter taste in her mouth that came with the realization that, despite all the hard work up to this point, she was still only at the very beginning of her life and career. It was a very long time between now and retirement, and her first day had been a disaster up until the point when the princess showed up.

“Tsk-tsk, don’t sell yourself short,” Celestia chastised with a cluck of her tongue. “Shining Armor and Spike have been keeping me updated on your studies since you were a filly, and I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve taken a bit of an interest in you. I hope you don’t feel like I’ve been spying on you, but I’ve been receiving regular reports since you entered the military academy.”

Twilight choked on her half-swallowed mouthful of cupcake. A glass of water appeared before her in a shimmering field of golden light and she gulped desperately at it. She flushed with embarrassment as a thought occurred to her concerning the sort of materials that were at the princess' disposal.

“Did, um… you… my psych eval…?” she asked nervously.

Celestia smiled that radiant, maternal smile of hers. “Don’t worry, Twilight, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she said soothingly. “Everypony has dreams like that. It’s a part of growing up.”

Twilight buried her face in her hooves and leaned into the counter with a groan. She felt a slight tingle around her head as her galea was carefully removed and placed aside with a ‘tink’ of steel against the marble countertop. Celestia began to stroke her mane comfortingly, despite the sweaty dampness that came from wearing her helmet for several hours straight.

“I am a little surprised that you joined as a Legionary, I must admit,” Celestia said as she gently coaxed Twilight from her shame-ball. “With your grades and special certifications, you could’ve gotten a meritorious promotion right out of the academy to at least Decurion, if not Tesserarius.”

Twilight collected herself with a huff and sat up. “They offered the promotion to me, but I turned it down. Canterlot didn’t need Decurions, it needed Legionaries.”

“I think the Manehattan Guard had a few openings for Decurions,” Celestia offered.

“I wanted to be in Canterlot,” Twilight said firmly. “The Guard’s purpose is to protect the Princess – erm, to protect you. I wanted to be here, in the palace. I knew that this was the place for me, and that the rank I had didn’t matter, so long as I was here.”

The certainty in Twilight’s voice brought a smile to Celestia’s face. She could remember hearing that sort of fire in the voices of other ponies that she’d known over the centuries, and it still gave her a tiny jolt of excitement to see that spark, that nascent glimmer of greatness, in one of her young ponies.

“What about the Unicorn Corps?” She took another bite of cake and waved the fork around, talking with her mouth full in a very unprincess-like fashion. “You could’ve gotten stationed here in Canterlot and still gotten a promotion to Lieutenant.”

Twilight shook her head. “My instructors told me the same thing, but I told them it had to be the Royal Guard. It’s what I’ve wanted since I was a filly. They kept telling me that mares didn’t usually join the Guard and almost always ended up filling the ranks of other branches, but I knew what I wanted.” She looked up at Celestia with curiosity shining in her eyes. “Why is that? Nopony could tell me exactly why the Guard was such a boys club. All anypony knew was that it was ‘tradition'.”

Celestia sighed as she served herself a second helping of cake. "That’s sort of an embarrassing story, but… what do you know about the origin of the Royal Guard?”

Twilight cleared her throat and closed her eyes in concentration as she entered the longwinded lecture-mode that had become the dread of her fellow cadets back at the academy. “The original Royal Guard was founded only a few years after the founding of Equestria itself. It was a force formed by the first Captain of the Guard, Centurion Bleeding Heart, who brought together the strongest soldiers in the Equestrian military to protect and serve Equestria’s royalty. Centurion Bleeding Heart also is the reason why the Royal Guard uses the ancient Lambtin ranking hierarchy, in place of the modern one adopted by Commander Hurricane when she formed the Protective Pony Platoons. He wanted a way to distinguish his soldiers from those from other branches of the military.”

“Very good, but I’m afraid that’s only partly the truth,” Celestia said as she stuffed more cake into her mouth. “The original stallions of the Guard were very powerful, but they were not merely the strongest soldiers. They were… my suitors…”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “They were your what?”

Princess Celestia never blushed, especially not under the scrutiny of a filly a fraction of a fraction her age, but if anything could have brought a flush to her cheeks it would have been the look that Twilight was giving her.

“I’ve had a lot of suitors over the centuries, especially back then, when I was still very young. I had stallions lining up outside the castle to ask for my hoof in marriage, but I turned them all down… In those days I was something of a snob, you see.”

“No,” Twilight said disbelief.

“Oh, yes,” Celestia confirmed with a chuckle. “As I said, I was young. Anyway, Bleeding Heart and some of the others said that they didn’t care if I’d turned them away. They wanted to be by my side and swore upon their very lives to defend me and serve me for all their days.”

Twilight’s jaw had dropped again at some point during Celestia’s explanation. She closed it with a click of her teeth and said: “That’s… like wow, it’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

“That sort of chivalry was very in style at the time.” Celestia played with the crumbs on her plate, jabbing them with the tines of her fork and rolling around the bits of cake too small to spear. “It’s not as common today, but back then it wasn’t such a big deal. Attractive mares got declarations like that a lot in those days.”

A wicked smile played across Celestia’s face. “A high-quality mare like yourself probably would have also had admirers banging down her door.”

Twilight knew that she was being teased, but the knowledge of that fact didn’t take from the awkwardness of accepting that kind of compliment. “So, they were all your suitors? Is that why they were all stallions?”

“Indeed,” Celestia admitted. “My personal preferences have always skewed more towards stallions than mares – everypony knew it to be so. Bleeding Heart knew, of course, so he made sure to fill my Guard with stallions, which is what started the tradition of encouraging it to be a ‘boys club', as you put it.”

Twilight gasped. “So the original Royal Guard was just hunky-stallion eye-candy!?”

“Mostly, but not completely,” Celestia said, her voice lowering as she shifted through some long-held memory or another. “There were a few mares, but they came later and were chosen by my sister from her own pool of admirers to join her personal Night Guard… Luna always did appreciate a beautiful mare…”

Twilight’s ears perked up at the mention of Princess Luna. Most historians agreed that Princess Luna had existed at some point, but nopony was exactly sure what happened to her. She wanted to press the issue, to see if she could coax the princess into opening up about the mystery around her sister’s disappearance, but the enthusiasm for it died in her chest as she looked into the face of her princess.

Celestia’s eyes had always held a hint of sadness beneath the bright gleam of loving pride. She had the eyes of a mother who’d buried many children and only took solace in seeing her family grow with every generation – but at this moment, at the mere mention of her sister, that pool of sadness seemed more like an infinitely deep well. There were no tears, but Twilight could see regret and sorrow eating away at the edges of Celestia’s royal visage. It broke her heart to see such an ancient, naked hurt in the eyes of the pony she’d sworn her life to.

“There’s so little time left…” whispered ominously. “She’ll be here soon…”

Twilight blinked. “What did you say, Princess?”

Celestia lifted her head, the light in her eyes returning – though somewhat dimmed – as she smiled at her young guard.

“The royal baker,” Celestia clarified. “She’ll be back soon. Their lunch hour is almost over.”

Twilight checked the clock above the door and was shocked to see how much time had passed.

Celestia stood and cleared away the plates, taking care to quickly wash them to destroy any evidence of their use – aside from the missing cupcake and the half-eaten cake, that is. She then gently nudged Twilight off the cushions so they could be returned to their hiding spot.

“There,” Princess Celestia said with a grin as she placed Twilight’s galea back atop her head with a light rap of her hoof. She tilted her head this way and that, inspecting her guard’s appearance. “Good as new and nopony’s the wiser.”

Celestia headed for the door with Twilight trailing closely.

“Princess… about what you were—“

“You’re probably going to be posted here for the rest of the week,” Celestia said, cutting off Twilight’s question pointedly. “I do hope you’ll be willing to indulge me again. It’s always more fun to sneak snacks with an accomplice.”

Twilight took the hint and nodded as she retook her sentry position. “Of course, Your Highness. I’d love to.”

There was something odd in Celestia’s smile as she walked away, but Twilight assumed it had to do with whatever had come over the older mare during their chat and ignored it. She watched the hall, finding the duty much easier now that she’d had a small break from the monotony, thanks to the princess.

Within a few minutes the happy sounds of chatting ponies floated down the hall, heralding the arrival of the kitchen staff. A few of them snickered as they walked by, and one barked openly with laughter, much to her confusion. Lollipop stopped and tilted her head curiously, biting her lip to hold in the laughter.

“So,” she said with a grin at Twilight, “how was your lunch?”

Twilight’s mask of professional indifference shattered at the question. “What? How did you…?”

The pretty chef simply smiled and pointed at the corner of her own mouth.

Twilight wiped her mouth with the back of her hoof and blanched at the streak of blue frosting covering her arm.

* * *

Twilight shed the last of her armor with a weary moan and flopped onto her bunk bonelessly. It had been a very rough first week as her body adjusted to the rigors of standing still for extended periods of time. Who knew that doing absolutely nothing could be so hard on the joints?

The princess’ daily cake raids made the experience tolerable, at least, and Twilight had found herself looking forward to her daily cake break. Apparently, the chefs knew all about the princess’ little excursions to the kitchen – it was hard to miss the fact that snacks kept going missing – and made it a point to keep quiet about her secret snacking as a matter of respect.

The other guards also knew about the princess’ visits, but when Twilight asked if any of them had been invited to join her for a snack, they all shook their heads and said that she preferred to eat alone. This bothered Twilight, because it felt like the sort of nepotism that her Centurion had warned her against, so she took the next opportunity to bring the topic up to Celestia. The princess had merely laughed and said: “It’s just cake, Twilight Sparkle, don’t over think it.”

Twilight had known the princess all her life, but they’d never been particularly close. Sometimes she’d be reading a book while her brother studied or went over some exercise under Celestia’s instruction, and the princess would ask her what she was reading or how her day was going. It was very minor interactions – the sort of bland pleasantries you would exchange with a friend’s younger sibling.

Despite their initially limited acquaintance, Twilight found herself becoming closer to the princess through their shared love of baked goods and need for a respite from their respective workdays. The princess was easy to talk to, very wise, and endlessly patient. They talked about how Twilight was doing in her new position, things in the news, and Celestia had even asked for her opinion on matters of state. Twilight wasn’t conceited enough to think that any of her opinions would affect Equestrian policy, but it was still very flattering to be asked important questions by such an important pony.

Still, Twilight couldn’t shake the memory of what she’d seen for that brief moment in Celestia’s eyes. She’d studied the older mare’s face closely for any hint that it might have been more than a trick of the light or her own imagination, but never once did she catch even intimations of that heart-wrenching grief.

At the start of the week, Twilight had been depressed at the thought that she might end up stuck on kitchen duty for a long time, now she was desperately hoping the next week’s posting would find her once again in that same overly-long, boring hallway.

But those concerns could wait until the start of the next week. Unless she was called to fill in a shift, she was more or less free to spend her weekend as she pleased.

She lifted her head from the pillow she’d buried her face in and levitated her armor off the floor to stow it safely in the locker at the foot of the bed. Her gear secured, she turned her eye to the bookshelf tucked away in the corner of her small private room.

Twilight had originally been a bit conflicted when she’d been told that she would be allowed to bunk in an unused Decurion’s quarters. Having a private room was much preferred to sleeping in a bunk bed surrounded by snoring stallions, but she resented the implication that she required special treatment merely because of her gender. She very much considered herself a soldier first, and a mare second.

Her indignation had evaporated like a puddle in the sunshine when she was informed that the private quarters’ furnishings included a bookshelf.

She squinted in the light of her desk lamp, reading the titles from afar. More than half of the books had been brought with her from home and the rest were checkouts from the Royal Archives. It had been a pleasant surprise indeed to learn that Royal Guards were allowed unlimited checkouts from every library in Equestria.

She began levitating books off the shelf, piling them around herself on the bed in a makeshift fort. A nice, relaxing weekend of quiet reading was exactly what she needed after the week she’d had.

Two books floated off the parapet of Fort Learning and hovered in front of her, awaiting her scrutiny.

She hummed in thought, scratching her chin as she considered what she was most in the mood for. “Hmmm… Better Demolition Through Alchemy or Tackling Treacherous Tropical Terrain: A Survival Guide?”

They were both good books, but she needed something else to get her study-juices going first. She glanced at the Southwestern wall of her fort and was immediately drawn to a slim manual titled Way of the Crustacean: Fifty Crab Maga Strikes, Throws, and Counters.

Just as she was about to settle in for a nice long reading session, there was a knock at her door. She lifted her head from behind her fort and peered peevishly at the intrusion.

“It’s open,” she called.

One of her fellow guards stepped into the room and snickered at the sight of Twilight backed against a wall, surrounded by books. He was out of uniform, but she recognized him as Glowstone, the unicorn who’d taunted her on her first day and – in the words of her least favorite instructor from Basic – “Earned himself a trip to Push-up Town.”

“Hey, Sparkle,” he said with an amused grin. “Me and some of the guys are going to hit up the bar. We thought we’d ask the rook if she wanted to toss a few back.”

Twilight blinked. She honestly couldn’t remember the last time somepony had asked her to join in on a social function, and while she had been old enough to drink for a few years now, she hadn’t been the type to indulge the way her fellow cadets had. She wasn’t even really sure if she liked alcohol.

She’d once read a book entitled Battle Buddies: Fostering Fast Foxhole Friendships that had stressed the importance of leisurely, off-duty commiseration in order to maintain a good working relationship with her fellow soldiers. The book had said that the consumption of alcohol was a time-honored and tested way to cement such friendships.

“Um… do they have cider?” she asked carefully.

Glowstone’s grin widened. “Yeah, they got hard cider – best in Equestria. The owner of the place we’re going is crazy about the stuff. He gets it from some microbrew in Ponyville, I think.”

Twilight carefully extricated herself from her books and retrieved a scarf from her footlocker.

“Were you really going to read all those books…?”

* * *

It was a beautiful, warm Sunday afternoon. It was the kind of day that made you really appreciate how good it felt to not be completely hungover all Saturday after having discovered the magic of hard cider.

But none of that mattered. The beautiful day, the hangover, the half-finished bookfort still waiting for her on her bed – it all took a back seat to her concern over what awaited behind the door in front of her.

She breathed deeply, calming her jittery nerves with breathing exercises she’d read about in a book on combating battlefield stress. As she closed her eyes and focused inward, she noted an irregularity in her racing heartbeat. It was either her imagination, or a stress-induced arrhythmia that was indicative of an imminent cardiac episode that would likely result in a stroke.

Actually, that was a sort of comforting thought. Sure she might end up with partial paralysis, but a stroke would mean that she would be carted off to the hospital and wouldn’t have to keep her appointment with the Centurion.

She’d been minding her own business, chewing her way through her weekend reading, when Decurion Flat Hoof had knocked on her door to relay that she’d been summoned to the Centurion’s office. The Decurion had said he didn’t know what it was about, but the frown on his face said otherwise.

Every step on the way to her meeting with the enormous stallion filled her heart with growing dread – not only because of his stature and manner, but his position. He was Centurion of the Canterlot Royal Guard, a position which came with two additional titles: First Spear, and Captain of the Guard.

While there were Regiments of the Guard in nearly every outpost and city in Equestria, the Canterlot Regiment was considered the primary location. The First Spear – the formal title of the Captain of the Guard – was a Centurion that held control over every soldier in the Guard, even other Centurions. The First Spear even had a fair amount of authority over other branches of the military, so long as it was exercised as an extension of his duty to defend the princess and her interests.

In short: there was nopony in all of Equestria, short of Princess Celestia herself, in a better position to sink a young soldier’s military career – and she’d pissed him off on her first day.

“Ohhhhh, a stroke would be so good right now…” she commented to herself.

“Legionary Twilight Sparkle?” Steel Century shouted from behind the door. “That you out there huffing and puffing?”

“Yes sir!” she answered immediately.

“Enter.”

Twilight took one final, shaky breath and opened the door. To her surprise, the Centurion wasn’t alone.

The Centurion sat in an enormous wing-backed chair behind a huge antique desk, and to his right stood his Optio, a pegasus named Whippoorwill. While some ponies might consider the post of Optio to be nothing more than a glorified secretary, Twilight knew different. The Optio was a position of great power and authority, with the ability to command every soldier under his Centurion’s command.

She saluted and stood at attention.

“At ease, and I’m glad to see you managed to get here in a timely manner,” the Centurion quipped. He didn’t bother waiting for a reaction and turned to his Optio. “You go on now, tell her I’m taking care of it.”

Optio Whippoorwill saluted and turned to Twilight. He adjusted a small pair of spectacles with the tip of his wing as he eyed her critically. He hummed in thought and left the room without a word.

Steel Century leaned back against his chair, the material squeaking noisily as he adjusted his posture. He stared hard at her in silence, his eyes betraying some conflict playing out in his mind, like he was looking at a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.

“Seems you’ve been making friends,” he finally said, breaking the tension.

“Sir,” she said nervously. “If this is about the bar fight Friday night, I can explain. That Lance Corporal from the Earth Pony Infantry was completely out of line.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Anypony go to the hospital?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why would I waste my time filling out paperwork just because a couple of soldiers couldn’t hold their liquor?” he asked with a scoff. “That’s not why I called you here.”

Steel Century pulled opened a drawer of his desk and ducked his head down. He brought up a small black case between his teeth and tossed it across the desk with a flick of his head.

“Congratulations,” he said without emotion, “you’ve been promoted. There will be no ceremony.”

Twilight figuratively picked her jaw up off the ground. “Whu-wha-what? I don’t understand. I didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

Steel Century pulled a file down from the enormous stack of papers next to him and flipped it open. He squinted uselessly before putting on his reading glasses with a frustrated curse. “First in your class, certifications in demolitions, magical combat, alchemy, first aid, a couple of undergraduate degrees in history, magic, and some sciences…”

He looked up at her over the rim of his glasses. “Should I keep going?”

“No, sir…” Twilight answered with a blush.

He removed his glasses and closed the file. “This is a candidate for meritorious promotion if I’ve ever seen one.”

“I turned down the promotion.”

“Because you insisted on being stationed in Canterlot,” he clarified. “Things have changed.”

Twilight opened the box and found the little metal pin that signified her rank as Decurion. “You’re giving me a squad?”

He shook his head. “No, the promotion is just a formality. It was Princess Celestia’s idea. It seems she’s taken a liking to you.”

The memory of that first day, being chastised and accused of taking advantage of her personal contacts, came rushing back to her as clear as the day it happened.

“Sir! I know you must think that I… campaigned for this, because of my position through my brother—“

She was interrupted by raised hoof from the Centurion. He sighed heavily and rubbed at his temples.

“The princess and I talked already,” he informed her. “I know you didn’t ask for this. The princess seems to think that you’re worth keeping an eye on. She told me she believes you’ll do big things some day.”

He gave a witheringly appraising gaze. “I don’t see it myself, but the princess is smarter than me. She sees further than most ponies – takes the long-view of things. She thinks that when it’s all said and done you’re going to be the kind of pony that makes the books.”

“I’m not that special,” she confessed.

“Sparkle, a word of career advice: nopony ever got anywhere in the Royal Guard by questioning the Big Mare.”

Twilight examined the small, colored bar that would be affixed to her dress uniform, telling everypony that she was now a Decurion. It felt strange to be accepting this, but it looked like she didn’t have much choice. It seemed that the princess was practically ordering her to take the promotion.

“So you’re making me a Decurion, but you’re not giving me a squad to command,” she said in summation. “Do I stay in Flat Hoof’s squad?”

“Like I said, it’s a formality,” Steel Century explained. “The promotion is just a way to give you enough autonomy to perform your new duty."

He reached up to the stack of files again and spread a few out on his desk until he found the one he was looking for. He slid it across the table to Twilight who picked it up with her magic and began reading.

“Princess Cadance?” she asked in confusion.

“Congratulations,” he said as he opened another folder and began reading, “you’re now the personal guard of the Princess of Love. Princess Celestia says she wants to fill you in on the details herself, so after inspection tomorrow go straight to the throne room and report for duty. Dismissed.”

Twilight gave a quick salute and left with the file floating before her so she could read as she walked.

“Decurion Twilight Sparkle,” Steel Century said as she was opening the door. “Did you win your fight?”

Twilight looked over her shoulder and nodded. “We whipped them good, sir.”

“Hoozah!” the old soldier cheered pridefully as he slammed a hoof on the desk. “Oh and, uh, Sparkle… one more thing… let’s not let word get back to the princess that I called her ‘the Big Mare’, understood?”

* * *

Chapter 2 - The Love Boat

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After inspection, Twilight did as ordered and marched straight for the throne room, eager to begin her new assignment. As much as she had enjoyed her lunch breaks with the princess, she was really looking forward to having a more mobile position. As part of a private security detail, she’d be following Princess Cadance around as she attended her daily business. Granted, she had no idea exactly what Princess Cadance’s daily business was, but it had to be more interesting than watching ponies walk in and out of a kitchen carrying plates of cheesy-crackers.

The sentinels stationed outside the throne room eyed her carefully as she approached. They were tired, on the final legs of their night watch and waiting to be relieved of duty by the day watch, but their faces and posture betrayed none of that. Twilight knew those little signs, though – she’d seen them in the mirror enough times to recognize the look of a couple of ponies just waiting to hit the mess hall.

“Decurion Twilight Sparkle to see the princess at her behest,” she announced.

Both guards looked up, and it took Twilight a second to realize they were looking at her helmet. The crest of her galea still bore the pattern of a Legionary, which didn’t match with her stated title. It was a small thing, but being stationed this close to the princess always put guards on extra high alert for little inconsistencies like that.

“Oh, uh, new promotion,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Orders just came down last night.”

The senior guard considered this in silence, then nodded to his partner and they allowed her entry.

The throne room was one of Twilight’s favorite places within the castle grounds. The Royal Gardens and the Courtyard may have been more decorative and impressive, but the cavernous hall of the throne room was easily the most majestic.

Unlike the rest of the palace, there was very little decoration in the throne room, likely owing to the fact that it also served as the audience chamber where the princess met with her subjects and held court. Large groups of excited nobles were often packed into the chamber, tight as sardines in a tin, all jockeying to get the princess’ attention – not the kind of place you would want to keep a priceless Mane Dynasty vase, or any other fragile antiques.

What really struck a chord with Twilight were the stained-glass windows. They were enormous works of art, stretching from the marble floors to the vaulted ceilings high above, with many depicting important events from Equestria’s past. As a filly, she imagined what it would be like to have one of those windows displaying some great deed of hers. As an adult, she knew the likelihood of getting one of the glass murals dedicated to her was very unlikely, but it was nice to dream.

To her surprise, the pony awaiting her wasn’t Celestia, it was a gray coated pegasus that she immediately recognized as Optio Whippoorwill.

The Optio stood in the middle of the long red carpet leading up to the golden dais supporting Her Highness’ throne, his eyes focused on the clipboard he was holding.

“Decurion Twilight Sparkle,” he called to her without looking up. “Approach.”

Twilight swallowed hard and marched up the carpet, trying to look impressive as possible. She stopped a few paces away from him and stood at attention. “Optio, I was told I would be meeting with Princess Celestia.”

Whippoorwill grunted and flipped a page on his clipboard. “You will, but first she’s having breakfast. She gets peckish in the morning – I understand it’s very difficult to lift the sun.”

Twilight wasn’t sure if her C.O had just made a joke or not, so she remained silent and at attention.

The minutes ticked by without another word as the Optio went over what she presumed to be the reports made by the night watch Tessararius. As he flipped the final page he let out a sigh.

“Good, I like quiet nights,” he commented to himself. He tucked the clipboard under his wing and adjusted his glasses. “At ease, Decurion.”

Twilight realized that it was quickly becoming a trend for her to be glared at by her superiors, and she wasn’t happy about it. Steel Century’s eyes were intensely hard, but with a hint of weathering like an old boot left in the sun. In contrast, Whippoorwill’s green eyes were sharp and calculating – it made her feel like a piece of meat being sized up by a great big hawk.

“According to the castle’s chefs, you’ve been joining the princess on her little snack trips,” Whippoorwill stated simply. “And here you are a week later, promoted and being assigned as personal guard to her niece.”

His tone wasn’t accusatory or even disapproving. He was merely stating the facts as he’d gathered them.

“Would you be at liberty to divulge nature of your talks?” he asked with a raise of his eyebrow.

“We didn’t talk about anything special,” she reported truthfully. “It was pleasantries about the day and sometimes we discussed the news; chit-chat, sir.”

His ears perked at mention of the news. “Any news stories in particular that she seemed… interested in?”

“No, sir.”

He sighed heavily and removed his galea, running a hoof through his dark-blonde mane. With his helmet removed Twilight could tell that Whippoorwill was quite a bit younger than she’d guessed, but he wore the stress of his position in the nearly invisible strands of silver in his mane.

“I see,” he commented tiredly.

“Is this about my new assignment?”

“Maybe, I’m not sure,” he said cryptically.

Twilight blinked in uncertainty. “Sir?”

“We don’t know what your new assignment is about, Decurion Twilight Sparkle,” he told her as he replaced his helmet. “All that the Captain and I know is that you were to be promoted, assigned to Princess Cadance, and we were ordered to book your passage by train to Manehattan.”

“Manehattan?” she asked.

“We also know that Princess Cadance won’t be joining us for the Summer Sun Celebration,” he said with a frown. “That in particular is leaving us with a lot of questions and Princess Celestia is playing this very close to the chest. It’s making me… uncomfortable. I don’t like secrets unless I’m the one keeping them.”

Further questions were cut short as a door opened and Princess Celestia strode into the room, a unicorn scribe following a respectable distance behind her, reading from a scroll as he walked. The Optio took his place to the right of Twilight, and they stood at attention as Celestia ascended the stairs of her dais to take the throne. Her assistant pulled a quill from some unseen compartment behind the throne and began checking items off a list and making small notes here and there.

“Whippoorwill,” Celestia said with a fond smile. “Thank you for keeping my new Decurion company, you are dismissed to return to your duties.”

Whippoorwill shifted on his hooves, as though struggling with himself about whether or not it was worthwhile to ask permission to stay. He sniffed sharply, saluted, and turned to march down the carpet to the entrance. He paused long enough to shoot Twilight a final, curious glance and silently mouthed, “Good luck,” before he left.

The princess turned to her assistant, who seemed to sense her gaze without looking up from his scroll. He stopped writing only long enough to bow and left the room, still writing furiously even as the door shut behind him.

“Decurion Twilight Sparkle, you’re out of uniform,” the princess said with mock disapproval once they were alone.

“I’m what?” Twilight asked in confusion. She was already doing a mental assessment of her uniform and wondering how she could’ve passed inspection if she’d forgotten a shoe or left a buckle undone.

Celestia lifted her hoof and tapped at her crown with her golden shoe. “The crest on your galea?”

“Oh!” Twilight exclaimed. She’d completely forgotten about that. “I’m so sorry, Your Highness! I was only promoted yesterday, and most of the other helmets don’t fit me without some extra padding, and I didn’t want to be late to inspection again so I still haven’t put in the order yet, but I’ll do it right away!”

Celestia laughed daintily at the girl’s flustered, breathless response. “Calm down, Twilight, I’m only teasing. You really must learn to relax.”

Twilight took a deep breath and treated Celestia’s comment as an order to be at ease. “Sorry,” she said bashfully. “I’ll get it taken care of today.”

“There will be time for that,” Celestia told her. “But first, I’d like to apologize. I’m afraid your new assignment means that you’ll be missing the Summer Sun Celebration this year.”

“Because you’re sending me to Manehattan?”

Celestia raised an eyebrow. “I see Whippoorwill has been talking,” she said. She looked at the entryway that the Optio had left through and tapped a hoof on her throne in thought. “He never misses a beat, that boy…”

Celestia chuckled to herself and turned her gaze back to Twilight. “I’m getting off topic. Yes, you’re going to Manehattan, but you’ll be leaving for Saddle Arabia from there.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. “You’re sending me abroad?”

“I’m sending Cadance,” Celestia explained. “You’re going to be protecting her on her trip.”

Twilight composed herself, standing at the ready to receive her orders. “Understood. What do I need to know?”

“You’ll be leaving for Manehattan at noon, and you should arrive by evening,” Celestia informed her. “Once there, you’ll proceed straight to the airship docks and search for dock C-7. Ask for Captain Sky Chaser. Princess Cadance will be waiting for you.”

Flags began going up in Twilight’s head when she heard the dock number. If the airship docking arrangements in Manehattan were anything like the ones in Canterlot, the C docks were reserved private and small business class airships. If it were a military ship, it would leave from the A docks, and large commercial class ships like the kind that would be contracted to ferry a high-profile client like a princess would be moored in B docks.

“What about the rest of the security detail?” Twilight asked, setting aside the oddity of the airship’s location. “What about servants? How large is her retinue?”

“There will be nopony else,” Celestia said simply. “It’s just you.”

Twilight was taken aback. A diplomat going abroad was always accompanied by an entourage of servants and assistants, as well as a standard security force of at least two guards – and that was only for diplomats. It only made sense that a Princess like Cadance would have a fairly sizeable number of ponies accompanying her on a trip to such a faraway land.

The Optio’s concerns over the details of Twilight’s assignment were suddenly very understandable.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Twilight said with a shake of her head as she failed to make heads or tails of the situation. “You’re sending Princess Cadance abroad only a few days before the Summer Sun Celebration, leaving via a non-military vessel, with only one guard. Your Highness… is there something going on?”

There was a moment of silence that hung in the air as Celestia considered her answer. Twilight didn’t like questioning her princess like this, but if she was going to do her job then she needed to know exactly what she was getting into.

The tension stretched on until it was broken by Celestia with a cheerful titter. “Oh, Twilight, there’s nothing going on. This is just a good-will mission. The usual diplomatic silliness to smooth out a few ruffled feathers, you see. I know it’s at a rather inopportune time, but as much as I would prefer having my lovely niece at my side for the festivities, I’m afraid royal obligations come first.”

“But… but why only send me?” Twilight asked lamely. “Why are we taking a civilian vessel?”

Celestia’s noble demeanor never even faltered. “Honestly, Cadance prefers to travel with a very small entourage. One guard, especially one of your qualifications, is more than enough for this sort of assignment. As for the choice of vessel – Captain Sky Chaser is a retired military veteran that I often hire when I need a trustworthy courier.”

Twilight didn’t like this – she didn’t like this at all. There were too many uncertainties and too much hoof-waving about this assignment. Something big was brewing, and she was being sent away; sent away with an important charge, but still sent away.

She wanted to ask more questions, she wanted answers… but that wasn’t her place. The words of the Centurion rang in her ear as she accepted the fact that there were some things she wasn’t allowed to know: “Nopony ever got anywhere in the Royal Guard by questioning the Big Mare.”

“As you say, Your Highness,” Twilight said, her voice affecting more confidence than she really felt. “I’ll do my best to make you proud.”

“I know you will,” Celestia said with a sigh of relief. Her horn lit as she cast a spell that summoned a scroll with a quiet pop of displaced air. “This is your itinerary. Captain Sky Chaser will be receiving a copy of the same. The return date is fairly open, but stay in Saddle Arabia at least a few days so you can enjoy the sights.”

Twilight accepted the document with a salute. “Yes, Your Highness.”

* * *

It was well past sunset when Twilight finally arrived in Manehattan, but the nice thing about the city was that it was easy to get lost in the crowds, no matter what time of day it was. The streets were tightly packed as the nightlife equivalent of early risers and the ponies headed home from a late day at the office jostled one another as they hurried along the brightly lit streets.

To any random passerby, Twilight was just some tourist, dragging an old steam trunk behind herself on wheels that squeaked with every tug of her magic. The princess may have been trying to play this off as a routine diplomatic mission, but Twilight got the feeling that discretion was the watchword. To those ends, Twilight had left the barracks wearing only a pair of saddlebags. Her armor, along with her dress uniform, some books, and a number of emergency supplies, were all stored safely in the trunk.

She briefly considered taking a taxi to the airship docks, but decided against it, owing once again to her desire to remain inconspicuous and forgettable. Luckily, the train depot wasn’t all that far from the airship docks, so walking wouldn’t put her too far off schedule.

Twilight kept a brisk trot the whole way and arrived at the docks in short order.

The docks were very dark compared to the rest of the brightly lit city. There were no night clubs or restaurants along this side of the island’s waterfront, so the street lights were spaced further apart and more than a few were burnt out or simply broken and never repaired. The darkness suited Twilight just fine.

She passed by the gates of the various piers, her head down as she passed Manehattan’s Royal Guards at the military docks and the civilian security at the commercial pier. She reached the unsecured public docks and passed through an arched gateway with an enormous letter C written across the top in faded red paint.

Airships were a funny thing. The design was deceptively simple – essentially nothing more than a normal boat acting as a gondola, suspended from an enormous balloon via a series of suspension cables – but the science involved in making ‘flying boats’ was marvelously complex.

Sadly, most ponies that could afford the luxury of their own private airship, even a small one, were less interested in helium-to-air ratio control ballasts than they were in impressing their friends with their expensive toys. Airship pilots could make a fair living for themselves without ever owning a vessel of their own, simply by renting out their expertise to weekend-warriors looking to take a spin around the Manehattan skyline in their vanity purchases.

She passed several airships docked in the water, and a few parked on land, that were painted up to look like fish, or whales, or covered in odd designs meant to evoke the artistic movement du jour. One peculiar airship looked like it had been made from an old parade float of Princess Celestia – she would definitely try to fit that in her mission report when she got home.

Unlike the surrounding vessels, the ship moored at dock C7 was a simple affair: a sturdy but well traveled looking boat beneath a plain gray balloon with a few repair patches here and there. It was also a bit larger than most of the other ships, though not quite as large as a commercial ferry, and the battered propeller mounted to the back of the thing looked far too small to move such a large vessel. Along the bow, written in chipped white paint, was the airship’s name: The Old Mistress.

A grim-faced pegasus stallion stood at the base of the gangplank, watching Twilight approach with obvious tension. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but she could tell from his posture that he was probably also Royal Guard.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she announced as she drew near, purposefully leaving her title unspoken. “I’m here to see a Captain Sky Chaser.”

The stallion relaxed visibly. “He’s on board, along with the package,” the guard explained. “Good luck to you.”

Twilight watched as the guard left, having fulfilled his duty to deliver the princess and guard her until relieved. He probably hadn’t been told anything other than where to deliver the princess and the name of who would be taking custody of her.

Twilight eyed the gangplank as it swayed in time with the boat and tested it suspiciously. She pressed down, ready to pull back in case the wooden plank gave way beneath her weight.

“First time on a boat, missy?”

Twilight looked up into the wide, grinning face of an earth pony stallion in a navy blue pea coat, leaning against the railing. Maybe it was the enormous, bushy black beard, but something about the stallion struck a chord with her and she found herself smiling back.

“Captain Sky Chaser?” she asked.

“Aye, missy,” he said, widening his grin. “And you’d be Twilight Sparkle, I’d take it?”

Twilight put aside her uncertainty and climbed the plank with confidence. Her pride as a Royal Guard wouldn’t let her show trepidation in the face of something as petty as a rickety bit of wood. Her trunk lifted into the air behind her at her command and dropped to the deck with a quiet thud.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle, yes,” she said, extending a hoof towards the russet-coated stallion, which he enthusiastically accepted. “I understand the package is aboard?”

The captain let out a quiet, throaty laugh as he released her from their shake and tapped the deck with the same hoof. “Aye, aye, it is, your ‘package’ is down below. Now that you’re here we can be underway.”

“Do you need any help?” Twilight asked hopefully. It was her first time on an airship, and she was very interested in the takeoff procedures and pre-flight safety checks.

“No offense, missy, but you’ll be a bigger help in your cabin and out of my way,” he answered simply. “Got no time for training swabbies, we’ve a schedule to keep. Go on down below, if you would please? Your cabin’s the one immediately starboard, the package is first door to port.”

Twilight nodded sadly. She was disappointed, but schedules were important, so she did as she was bade and headed for the cabin at the aft of the ship. She opened the door to the cabin and found two sets of stairs – one that ascended into the glass-windowed pilot’s cockpit above the cabin, and another that descended below deck. She tapped curiously at the wall-mounted electric lights and wondered what sort of generator the ship might have.

Out on the deck she could hear the sound of Sky Chaser’s hooves striking the deck as he hurried through his final preparations for takeoff. She glanced over her shoulder and watched for a few moments as he darted about, undoing the ropes and guy-wires that moored the boat and the balloon to the docks.

“I could’ve done that…” she commented sourly.

She descended the stairs and found herself in a narrow hallway, only just barely big enough for two large ponies to stand side-by-side. Further down the hallway were a few more doors that she presumed lead to other cabins, as well as a heavy, bolted door that probably led to the hold.

It took a second for her to remember which side was starboard and which was port, but she found her room and stepped inside.

The cabin was a simple affair with a bed, a small writing desk, and a bare electric bulb dangling from the ceiling. It was also surprisingly spacious – almost twice the floor space as her quarters back at the barracks. She pulled her trunk in behind her, set it against the wall, and dropped her saddlebags atop the trunk.

A yawn came over her without warning, reminding her that she’d been on her hooves since before sunrise. As inviting as the bed looked after her long day of packing and travel, she knew she would have to at least check in on the princess and introduce herself before she could turn in for the night.

Twilight stepped out of her room and knocked on the door directly across from hers.

“Princess Cadance?” she called. She pressed her ear against the door, listening for any kind of response. When no answer came she knocked again with a bit more force and raised her voice a notch. “Princess Cadance? Are you in? This is Decurion Twilight Sparkle.”

She listened again.

Normally, Twilight would never think of entering a pony’s private chambers uninvited, but her duty to oversee the princess’ safety took priority over social niceties. She opened the door and cast a weak lighting spell as she peeked into the darkened room.

The tiny mote of light at the tip of her horn was just bright enough that Twilight could make out the specifics of the room. The cabin was an exact mirror duplicate of her own room, save for a few designer luggage cases stacked neatly against the far wall.

The reason for the lack of reply became clear as Twilight’s light fell upon the bed, where something shifted beneath the covers with a squeak of rusty bedsprings. The bed’s occupant snorted and began to snore with quiet, nasally whistles.

Twilight squinted into the darkness and noted that whoever was under the covers had a tricolored mane of violet, rose, and gold. The writing desk had been pushed closer to the bed to be used as a nightstand, and a bejeweled crown sat in an opened jewelry case next to a golden necklace. Although she’d never met Princess Cadance in the flesh, she’d seen the princess from afar before – sitting in a carriage or waving to crowds from a stage – and recognized that distinctive mane-coloration and the royal accoutrements she wore.

The princess had already retired safely to her bed, which meant Twilight was free to do the same, but nerves got the better of her. She stood in the doorway for a few more minutes to watch the slow rise and fall of the covers as Cadance slept. The gravity of her duty hit her all at once – that this pony was now her sole responsibility. If anything happened to Princess Cadance with no other guards around, it’d be entirely on Twilight’s head.

“Don’t worry, princess…” Twilight whispered softly. “I’m going to keep you safe, no matter what…”

Twilight closed the door just as the boat lurched. The bottom fell out of her stomach at the unfamiliar motion as the ship rose slowly into the air and away from the docks.

* * *

The first thing Twilight noticed when she woke up the next morning was the queasiness. Fascinating or not, she decided that she didn’t like airships. A stiff crosswind pushed against the side of the boat just as she was coming to this decision, causing the whole ship to sway and reinforcing her assessment.

Twilight cycled through the medical and First Aid spells she knew, and when she found nothing useful she cursed her own lack of foresight. She made a mental note to head straight for the library the second she was back in Canterlot, so she could research for some sort of cantrip that could counteract airsickness. Even if she never again set hoof on a long-distance airship, she’d feel more secure with such a spell in her tool-kit.

She checked a small clock mounted to the wall of her cabin. As much as she would’ve liked to stay in bed and nurse the disgusting feeling in her tummy, the sun would be up soon and she’d have to get up with it.

She climbed out of bed and stood still for a while, trying to get her sea-legs – or air-legs, as it were. A minute or two passed and she felt well enough to pull her armor from the steam trunk and dress herself for duty.

The sound of feminine laughter flittered down the stairs as she stepped into the hall. Unless Captain Sky Chaser had a very strange laugh, Cadance had risen early.

“Ugh… Late again…?” she muttered sadly as she climbed the stairs to report for duty.

Twilight Sparkle had never really paid all that much attention to the appearance of other ponies. Sometimes a classmate would nudge her and point out an attractive stallion or mare and Twilight would simply shrug and go about her day. Sure, she could appreciate that somepony else was attractive, and of course she’d had her moments of private fantasy, but she’d never been outright struck by anypony’s appearance.

As Twilight stepped out onto the deck and got her first up-close glimpse of the princess, she realized that Princess Mi Amore Cadenza wasn’t just anypony, and that she was strikingly beautiful… from a completely objective, morphological standpoint, that is. That is to say, her facial features were properly symmetrical and her mane billowed in the cool pre-morning breeze like a field of grass. Her alicorn nature also made her svelte and tall – statuesque like Celestia in peach-colored miniature. And the way she seemed to glow in the bright shine of the slowly setting full moon… well, the overall effect was quite pleasing to the eye…

…objectively speaking.

“They’re beautiful,” Cadance commented as she stood against the side of the boat, peering into the water below with bright-eyed interest.

“Princess Cadance?” Twilight called, pulling the attention of her shipmates from whatever they were looking at.

“Looks like we were a little loud, Your Ladyship.” Sky Chaser pulled an old wooden pipe from between his lips and banged it against the rail. “We woke the swabbie from her beauty sleep.”

“Oh, you must be Decurion Twilight Sparkle,” Cadance said with a radiant smile. “I suppose you’ll be my guard from now on. It’s wonderful to meet you.”

Twilight ran over and lowered her head in respect to the princess. “Your Highness, please forgive me for sleeping in so late. I didn’t expect you to be up this early.”

“I-It’s fine, really,” Cadance assured her with a nervous laugh.

“If it would please Your Highness, we should go over your royal itinerary for this journey,” Twilight suggested. Hopefully she’d be able to at least impress Princess Cadance with her professionalism and dedication to detail.

Cadance smirked. Mare or stallion, Royal Guards were always so serious. “There’ll be time for that later. The captain and I were about to watch the sunrise and we stumbled on a little surprise.”

“What sort of surprise?” Twilight asked, her curiosity piqued by what could be so interesting this far from shore.

She nodded towards the open sea. “We were just watching this jellyfish…” She turned to Sky Chaser and tilted her head. “What did you call it?”

“A swarm,” Sky Chaser replied. He lit his pipe and sucked blissfully at the flavored tobacco.

“Thank you.” She turned back to Twilight. “We were watching this jellyfish swarm swim by. Have a look.”

Twilight went to the edge of the deck and looked out over the sea. They’d dropped altitude to bring them only a few meters above the water, and as far as Twilight could see there were glowing electric-blue jellyfish floating along with the waves. They were a mass of bioluminescent dots, lighting up the sea like a river of stars pulled along by the currents.

“As I was about to say before we were stumbled upon,” Sky Chaser began. “These jellies are mighty pretty, but you don’t want to bite one. It wouldn’t be a good time for you.”

“Who would bite a jellyfish?” Cadance asked with a giggle.

“His name was Wave Runner,” the old earth pony explained with a puff of smoke and an added flourish to his voice, “and he was the dumbest pony I’ve ever met. This was back when I was in the Infantry. My buddies and I were on leave in the tropics, so we did what any good soldiers would do with full coin purses and five days of freedom in paradise: we drank the island dry. Three days into our binge, old Wave Runner wanders off and finds himself a beached jellyfish, just like those ones.”

“And he tried to eat it?” Cadance gasped.

He shook his head. “Nah. Best we could figure he was just trying to toss it back into the water. Tried to pick it up with his mouth and didn’t know it’d sting him up like it did – on account of him being dumb as a brick. It was sweet in its way.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at the story. “Was he okay?”

“Aye, well enough,” Sky Chaser said with a nod. “We got him to a medic before his throat closed up. They mixed him up some sort of salve to relieve the stinging. Never found out what was in it, but it stunk up the barracks something awful whenever he jammed a hooffull of it into his mouth.”

“That story can’t possibly be true,” Twilight said in disbelief. “Even if he was drunk, nopony would be dumb enough to try and pick up a jellyfish.”

“It’s true as the day is long, missy!” Sky Chaser declared with a thump of his chest. “If it’s not true, may the sun never rise again!”

Twilight and Cadance both turned craned their necks over the side of the boat, looking nervously to the East. As if on cue, the very first tinge of orange sunlight spilled over the horizon, pushing away the night as the moon fell to the West.

“See?” Sky Chaser gloated. “Nothing to worry about. Your old captain wouldn’t steer you wrong – and speaking of steering, I should get us back into the air. Jellyfish spotting is well and good, but we’ve got to be across this pond by tomorrow night.”

Sky Chaser blew a smoke ring and held up his right-rear hoof, bending the leg experimentally. “Although… the old trick knee is aching. Tends to do that when we’re in for strong winds. If we catch a good jet stream we might end up a bit ahead of schedule.”

The old stallion nodded to his passengers and walked towards the cabin, with a billowing trail of smoke from his pipe following him like an old steam engine. They watched as he disappeared through the door and re-emerged moments later in the window of the cockpit. He waved down at them and began pulling levers and turning cranks, causing the boat to tilt upwards at a shallow angle.

The queasiness returned to Twilight at the shift in elevation. She definitely didn’t like airships.

“You’re looking a bit green,” Cadance teased. She smiled at Twilight’s poorly concealed discomfort, and the following attempt to regain her stoic countenance. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone – not everypony is meant to fly. Besides, the currents are much more stable at high-altitude, so the ride should be smoother once we’re properly in the air.”

Twilight cleared her throat. “Shall we discuss the itinerary, then?”

Cadance sighed and sat hard on the deck, gazing out over the sea as it slowly fell away. “I already know the itinerary. Two days at sea, one day over the desert, arrive in Saddle Arabia, spend a week there, then we go home.”

Twilight blinked. “Erm… right…”

“Can’t we just sit here for a bit?” Cadance pleaded. “Please?”

The day before, Twilight had spent the train ride planning out exactly how she would debrief the princess. She’d prepared tips about self-defense, contingency plans for any number of scenarios, a discussion about what to do if they were separated, one about what to do if she was killed by an assassin and the princess was on her own – it was all very important information... but it could wait.

It was her voice that did it. Cadance’s voice, from the first second Twilight had heard it, was light and musical… except in that plea for simple company. The Royal Guard’s foremost duty was to serve the princesses in whatever capacity they may need, and at the moment what Princess Cadance needed was somepony to sit with her and ease whatever silent burden she was carrying. Her week spent watching the kitchens and snacking with Princess Celestia came to mind, and Twilight wondered if maybe she’d been unwittingly fulfilling this particular role all along.

Twilight took a seat next to the princess, a respectable distance away, and watched the clear blue skies in absolute silence. True to the princess’ words, the sway of the boat became less pronounced the higher they went, and the intermittent gusts of wind became a fast, steady stream of air. The propeller at the rear of the boat came to life with a high-pitched whine as it hurried them along the jet stream.

Her stomach settled, Twilight was able to enjoy the beauty of the open sky. There was nothing else for miles in any direction she looked. Even the great swarm of jellyfish had gone out of sight from their change in elevation and the coming of the sun. The only thing to watch was a thin line in the hazy distance where the pale blue skies and the dark blue seas touched to form the horizon.

“Twilight…?”

Twilight turned to Cadance. The other mare’s beautiful face was twisted up in hesitation. There was something clearly on her mind, but something else was keeping her from voicing her worries. Twilight merely sat and waited.

“Tell me about yourself.”

For the second time that morning, Twilight blinked in surprise. “Oh, okay, well… I studied at the military academy, I graduated first in my class, I have certifications in—“

Cadance interrupted her with a sigh. “No, no, I don’t want your service file. Tell me about you.”

Twilight floundered a moment as she tried to understand the princess’ meaning. “I… do you mean like my parents?”

Cadance nodded. “Parents, siblings, hobbies… I think I have a right to know a little something about the pony that’s protecting me.”

“Of course,” Twilight laughed nervously. “Well, my mom is a music critic for The Canterlot Sun, and my dad is the Royal Astronomer.”

Cadance let out an impressed whistle. “Wow, Royal Astronomer? You must be really prou—”

Cadance sat up quickly and gaped at Twilight with wide eyes. “Wait! Your dad is the Royal Astronomer, Night Light?”

Twilight leaned away from the princess who was now leaning in uncomfortably close. “Y-yes?”

“Your brother is Shining Armor?”

Twilight almost got up and backed away from the strange look she was receiving. “Yes, him and Spike.”

Cadance leaned back until she tipped over and fell on her side. She rocked back and forth, lightly chuckling from behind her hooves.

“I take it you know my brother,” Twilight said in confusion.

Cadance sat up, shaking her head and grinning like Twilight had told her some incredibly funny joke. “Of course I know Shining Armor,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I am Princess Celestia’s niece, and he is her personal student, after all.”

“Oh, of course… duh…”

“Yeah, duh,” Cadance giggled. “What a small world.”

“Sooooo… you two are friends then?” Twilight guessed.

Cadance frowned and tilted her head from side to side in thought. “Well… yes, but mostly no, but it’s also kind of complicated.”

“Complicated how? Did you two have a fight? Some kind of falling out?”

“Okay, look,” Cadance said with a huff, “I’m only admitting this because it was a loooooong time ago, and because I know that you know that if this ever gets back to him, I can have you shipped off to the coldest, frozenest, most remote part of the kingdom…”

Twilight gulped hard, damning her natural curiosity. It wasn’t that she’d ever even dream of betraying royal confidence, but the idea of being sent to some frozen tundra for the rest of her days was a pretty daunting threat. She really, really hated the cold.

Cadance’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she confessed: “I may have possibly had maybe the teeniest itty-bittiest little smidgen of a crush on him when I was a filly…”

Twilight snorted with laughter. The Princess of Love, crushing on her brother? The very idea was comical. Sure, he was a handsome guy, and he kept in pretty good shape for a civvie, but a princess?

“Don’t laugh!” Cadance shouted as the blush in her cheeks deepened. “There weren’t a lot of ponies my age in the castle, and all the other stallions in school were too nervous to even talk to me.”

Twilight bit her lip to hold back the chuckles. “Okay, okay, no more laughing,” she said breathlessly. “So what happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you had a crush on him, why did he never bring you around the house for dinner or anything?”

Cadance threw her hooves into the air in exasperation. “Ugh, I tried! I practically threw myself at him, but good luck getting him to pull his nose out a book long enough to notice a completely hot filly just champing at the bit for a date. After a while I just gave up and we sort of drifted apart. A girl can only take so much rejection, you know?”

Despite her promise, Twilight did chuckle a little at that. “He wasn’t always like that.”

Cadance tilted her head curiously. “How do you mean?”

“He wasn’t always so… absorbed in his studies,” Twilight sighed. She turned back to the sea and stared into the shapeless horizon as her thoughts turned back to her brother. “He’s got this really incredible sense of duty. The only thing he’s ever really wanted to do was to serve Equestria, and I guess somewhere down the line he finally decided that the best way to do that was to be the best scholar he can be.”

“Love of his country, huh?” Cadance reasoned, putting Twilight’s phrasing into the context of her own field of expertise. “Sounds more like something you’d say about a soldier than a scholar, but I guess I can see it. He does a lot for the nation on Aunt Celestia’s behalf.”

“Funny you should say that – the thing about soldiers, I mean. He actually did want to be a soldier when he was younger. Specifically, he wanted to join the Guard.”

“I didn’t know that,” Cadance said as she scooted closer to Twilight.

“He doesn’t really talk about it much,” Twilight explained. “Mom and dad didn’t even find out about it until a few years ago.”

“Why didn’t he end up in the Guard, then?”

“He passed his test. The one for Canterlot Academy, I mean.”

Cadance nodded. “I’d heard that test was the reason Aunt Celestia accepted him as her protégé, but Shining Armor never really talked about. He hatched Spike during that test, right?”

“Yup,” Twilight said. Her lips curled into a smile as a wicked thought came to mind. “I could tell you that story if you want.”

“Oh, yes, please,” Cadance pleaded gleefully, her nostrils practically tingling with the scent of something gossip-worthy.

“Now, keep in mind, this is all before I was born, and this is just the way my dad tells it. Shining is actually really embarrassed by this story.”

“Then this is already my favorite story,” Cadance said with a grin.

“So he gets the offer to take the entrance test for Celestia’s school and our parents make him go take the test,” Twilight began. “The test was for him to try and cast a spell on a dragon’s egg. Any spell would’ve done it, even just lifting it.”

“That’s a pretty tough test,” Cadance commented. “Dragons are really resistant to magic. Even as eggs, magic just kind of rolls off them like water off a duck’s back.”

“You’re telling me,” Twilight chuckled. “Try having one for an older brother. It gives the term ‘roughhousing’ a new definition when your opponent is twice as strong as you and almost impossible to cast magic on.”

Cadance leaned over, nudging Twilight with her shoulder. “Go on, what happened next?”

“Okay, okay. So here’s the part he’s embarrassed by: he was standing there, straining to lift the egg, with all these adults watching him. You can imagine he was pretty nervous. Well, one of the proctors reaches for a cup of coffee and knocks it over. Shining Armor is so wound up and so deep in concentration, that the sound of the cup breaking spooks him into having a magical-surge.”

“No way!”

“Yes way. He surges, and the unfocused magical output is enough to not only hatch the egg, but cause Spike to grow big enough to crash through the ceiling. Princess Celestia sees this dragon sticking up out of the roof of her school and goes to find out what happened. She offered to take Shining as her personal student on the spot when she heard the story.”

“Wow,” Cadance whispered. “No wonder he never wanted to talk about that… That’s kind of silly, getting such an impressive position all because of a coffee cup. Is that how Spike ended up as your brother, too?”

Twilight nodded. “After Princess Celestia got Spike back down to baby size, somepony needed to take care of him. They’d never intended for anypony to actually hatch his egg, so they had no contingency plan. My mom offered to take him in, and Shining started prancing around and cheering about having a new little brother.”

Cadance giggled. “Okay, now the story rolls right back around to cute.”

“He has his moments of cuteness,” Twilight agreed. “I still don’t think he’s in your league, though.”

Cadance lowered her head behind a wing in shame. “Ugh, I never should’ve told you that,” she groaned.

“It actually would’ve been nice if you two could’ve gotten together,” Twilight said with a sigh. “I really worry about him sometimes. He’s so withdrawn these days. He only ever really talks with Spike, and I think that he might not have any other real friends. I know for a fact he doesn’t talk with any of the ones he had when he was a colt.”

Cadance emerged from her hiding place and scratched at her chin thoughtfully. “I think I’ve heard that he keeps in touch with a lot of other scholars and researchers.”

Twilight shook her head sadly. “Those are colleagues, not friends. He needs somepony who can help him loosen up and come out of that shell he’s put up around himself.”

“I’m sure he’ll find somepony,” Cadance kindly assured her. “He’s a great guy, despite his many, many faults. Somepony’ll reach him one day.”

Cadance wrapped a wing around Twilight, offering what little comfort she could. She’d never had siblings of her own, so she could only imagine what it would be like to worry over one. In all her years of studying the many forms of love, sibling love had always been one her favorites.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Cadance shouted as she pulled away from Twilight. “I was asking about you, so how’d we get on the topic of your brother!?”

Twilight shrugged.

Sky Chaser chose that moment to cough loudly into his hoof from the cabin doorway.

“Begging your pardons, missy and Your Ladyship,” he said, “but I thought you’d be interested in knowing that breakfast awaits you in the galley.”

“Don’t think this means you’re off the hook, ‘missy’,” Cadance teased as she hurried towards breakfast. “We’ve got a few days before we get to Saddle Arabia, and I’m going to get to know you if it kills us.”

* * *

“So there I was,” Sky Chaser proclaimed dramatically from his stage atop the hatch covering the hold, “twenty drunk pegasi air-ponies surrounding me, shoving furniture against the walls. Their C.O. – the most truculent little lass I ever had the pleasure of bedding, though that came later – trots up to me and jabs her hoof right in my chest and asks, ‘You want to repeat that, grunt?’ And wouldn’t you know it? I did want to repeat it!”

Twilight galloped in a circle around the spacious deck of the ship in the early-morning light, taking care to keep her breathing steady and measured. Every stride she took caused the books she’d stuffed inside her saddlebags to thump heavily against her sides. The bag wasn’t too distracting, and had the benefit of simulating the feel of maneuvering in her armor without getting it all sweaty.

She’d been up for a while now, and had been surprised to find Captain Sky Chaser also above deck when she came up for her morning exercise. Sky Chaser, being a soldier himself, was used to being an early riser, and never quite got out of the habit. Twilight knew this because he was perfectly happy to regale her with that fact, along with a seemingly endless number of others about his youth in the Infantry.

His tales were interesting, even if they did often stray into the more bawdy aspects of military life, but Twilight had heard at least a dozen stories in the single day she’d been in the old stallion’s acquaintance. She was only really half listening to his rambling at this point. Sky Chaser didn’t seem to mind, at least. He seemed perfectly happy to just have somepony to talk to, whether they were listening or not.

“And that’s why they don’t put bubblegum in MRE’s anymore,” Sky Chaser said, finally winding down his latest yarn. “It’s all because of little old me, and that magical, horrible night in Hayvana.”

“They still put bubblegum in MRE’s,” Twilight countered. She finished her thirtieth lap around the deck and began a set of pushups. “I have some in my trunk down below.”

“Bah, maybe in the ones they issue to guards,” Sky Chaser said dismissively.

“They’re the same packages,” Twilight said with a frown.

“How would you know? You’ve never been in the Infantry.”

“Because they come from the same manufacturer!” Twilight replied. All MRE’s, or Meals Ready-to-Eat were made by the Sunny Fields Food Conglomerate, a network of farms that served the needs of a hungry army. It didn’t matter what branch you were in, you ate the same crackers and cheese paste as everypony else.

The door to the cabin opened with a creak, announcing the presence of the princess. Twilight leapt back to attention, while Sky Chaser merely snickered at the young soldier’s reflex and touched a hoof to his temple with a half-saluted wave.

“Tut-tut, Twilight,” Cadance said as she emerged from the cabin. “You know better than to question your elders. And besides, the true mark of a good storyteller is that you’re never sure what of what you’ve heard is the truth.”

Sky Chaser laughed heartily at the princess’ assessment. “Aye, aye, Your Ladyship! You’ve got the measure of things better than missy, I’d say!”

“Why thank you, Captain,” Cadance said with a giggle. “Are you working out, Twilight?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Twilight replied. “Just doing my best to keep fit.”

“Well don’t stop on my account,” Cadance said airily. She sat on her haunches, leaned against the cabin, and fluttered her eyes coquettishly. “I’m perfectly fine with sitting here and watching you.”

Twilight was very certain that she was being teased, but never the less, she suddenly felt very self-conscious.

“That’s… okay…” Twilight said bashfully, a blush rising in her cheeks. “I was just about done, anyway.”

Cadance pouted adorably and crossed her arms over her chest. “Aw, no show? No fun.”

Sky Chaser snorted with barely controlled mirth from behind Twilight. “Since Your Ladyship is up, why don’t I go cook up our breakfasts?”

“Thank you, Captain Sky Chaser,” Cadance said with a smile. “You’re ever the gentlecolt.”

“I live to serve,” Sky Chaser commented as he strode past his two passengers and through the cabin door.

The second the door shut behind the old earth pony, Twilight and Cadance could hear him singing a limerick that, while set to the tune of a foal’s song, seemed to be about a drunken housemare and a bucket of carrots.

Twilight flushed again. Being in the armed forces, she was used to hearing that sort of dirtiness, but it was pretty embarrassing to hear it being sung within earshot of Equestrian royalty. A lady as refined and noble as Princess Mi Amore Cadenza surely wouldn’t be used to such vulgarity.

“What a silly song,” Cadance said as she pressed her ear to the door. She began humming along with the tune and choked back a laugh as the limerick reached a punchline.

Twilight sighed and removed her bags, lifting them off her back with her magic and gently setting them down. She stretched out the soreness in her muscles from her light workout. Her body temperature was rapidly dropping now that she was no longer moving, and the chilly high-altitude winds nipped at her sweaty coat.

She felt the presence of somepony approaching and opened her eyes to find the princess stalking closer. Twilight got that same self-conscious feeling again as Cadance circled her, humming curiously and staring her up and down.

“You know…” Cadance began to say. “You’re very cute out of uniform.”

Twilight hid behind her mane shyly. “T-thank you…?”

Cadance paused on her second lap around Twilight, her eyes fixed on the smaller mare’s flank. “It’s a shame that your armor covers up that Cutie Mark,” Cadance said softly. “It’s very pretty. What talent does it represent?”

Twilight shifted uncomfortably as the princess examined the six-pointed starburst pattern on her flank.

“It’s Magic,” she said. She had to resist the urge to sigh as she awaited the question that always came next when she explained what her Cutie Mark stood for.

Cadance blinked. “What sort of magic?”

There it was.

“Pretty much any kind. The starburst signifies my problem solving skills and ability to master new skills, especially magical ones.”

Cadance frowned as she wrapped her head around the idea that a pony could have such a nebulously defined Cutie Mark. A Cutie Mark was usually something much more specific than that. Though, considering what her own Cutie Mark stood for, she supposed it wasn’t too difficult to believe.

“So…” Cadance began. “So you know a lot of spells?”

“I have learned and memorized over two-dozen spells, and more than half have practical applications in the field,” Twilight explained. Sometimes, when answering this line of questioning, Twilight rounded that number down, for fear of sounding like a braggart. But she surmised that the princess wouldn’t be so easily impressed, and she definitely did have a right to know the extent of her guard’s capabilities.

“So it’s mostly combat magic?”

“Mostly, yes, but I’m a quick study for anything, honestly,” Twilight answered. “I just prefer to study combat magic because… well… it’s my job.”

“How odd – impressive, but odd,” Cadance commented appreciatively.

“It’s not any odder or more impressive than a pegasus having a Cutie Mark signifying her flying skill,” Twilight pointed out. “Or an earth pony having a mark that shows she’s a good farmer. I’m just a unicorn that’s very good at the thing that unicorns do.”

“When you put it that way it makes sense,” Cadance conceded.

Cadance walked to the edge of the deck and scanned the water for signs of anything interesting. She and Twilight had spent most of the day before sitting on the deck, talking about anything that came to mind and enjoying the serenity of the open seas. Although Cadance didn’t outright ask Twilight to join her, she got the feeling that the princess wanted somepony to keep her company again.

“Twilight…” Cadance began carefully as Twilight joined her. “If I were to ask you something, would you answer me truthfully, no matter what?”

Twilight was taken aback momentarily. “Of course, Your Highness, I’d never dream of lying to you.”

Cadance turned to the smaller mare, her eyes filled with worry. “Do you know why we’re going to Saddle Arabia?”

“I was told it was a diplomatic mission,” Twilight answered after some thought and despite her leftover doubts from her briefing in the throne room. She felt her heart sink as she saw the disappointment written across Cadance’s face.

“I see…” Cadance whispered as she lowered her head in defeat. “So she doesn’t trust you either? At least it’s not just me.”

“Is this what you’ve been worried about this whole time?” Twilight asked.

Cadance smiled sadly. “I’m that transparent, huh?”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Twilight offered.

“I probably shouldn’t.” Cadance sniffed loudly, only just barely holding her frustrated tears at bay. “I wouldn’t want you thinking I’m pathetic.”

Twilight shook her head. “I could never think that.”

Cadance didn’t answer right away, but Twilight waited patiently for the princess to come to a decision. She wanted to help Cadance in whatever way she needed, not just because she was a Royal Guard and Cadance was Equestrian Royalty, but because it felt right to do so. In the short time she’d known Cadance, she’d found herself growing fond of the princess. Cadance was kind, prone to silliness, and – most importantly to Twilight – she was humble.

This wasn’t about duty, this was about… Twilight wasn’t sure, but it was something more than duty, it was something personal.

“Aunt Celestia told me that this was a diplomatic mission, too,” Cadance admitted. “She said that the sultan is displeased about some minor detail of a trade agreement we signed over ten years ago.”

“You think she lied about that?” Twilight asked in surprise.

Cadance shook her head. “No, I know he’s been niggling over that parchment for years now. But this isn’t something that needed a visit. It could’ve been hashed out through correspondence, like the other dozen or so times he’s taken offense to some vague wording or unclear intent in the agreement. And even if it did require a diplomatic intervention, it could’ve waited a few more days until the end of the Summer Sun Celebration.”

Cadance stood and leaned out over the edge of the boat, her gaze turned East, in the direction of Canterlot. “Something’s going on, I can feel it. None of the other advisors noticed it, but something was bothering Aunt Celestia, and whatever it is, she doesn’t want me there while she deals with it.”

Twilight rubbed her shoulders nervously. She’d finally come down from her post-workout rush and the chill in the air was becoming uncomfortable.

“Do you know what my job is, Twilight?” Cadance asked.

“You’re a princess, right?” she immediately answered.

“And what does that mean?”

Twilight mulled it over. Of course Princess Cadance was a princess, the way Centurion Steel Century was a Centurion, or Chef Lollipop was a Chef – they had titles that matched their professions. Was ‘princess’ a profession? It would have to be, since it’s technically what Cadance did for a living. But what did that job entail? She knew what that meant for Princess Celestia, but not for Princess Cadance.

“I’m not sure…” Twilight admitted.

“Honestly? Neither am I.”

Cadance spun around and sat back down, carefully folding her wings and pressing her back to the side of the boat.

Cadance took a deep breath, and let it out with a ragged sigh. “You know, I got my Cutie Mark the day I became an alicorn. Aunt Celestia said that it happened because my talent was something powerful, something that would someday change the world. That’s why she adopted me into her family and made me a princess.”

Twilight nodded. The story of how Princess Cadance, as a young filly, had reformed the witch Prismia with the power of her love was fairly well known. More than a few books had been written on the subject, and Twilight actually owned a first edition copy of one of the better ones.

“My official title is ‘Princess of Love’,” Cadance stated, “because my special talent is helping others understand their own capacity for it. Love brings living creatures together – it creates harmony. It’s magic, Twilight, and I’ve dedicated my life to the study of that magic in all of its forms.”

“Do you know what I do with the knowledge I’ve gained?” she asked, her voice tiredly bitter. She waved her arms around dramatically. “I do this. I smooth out diplomatic wrinkles, glad-hoof irate nobles, and foalsit uppity dignitaries. I have no real responsibilities.”

“You don’t think what you do is important?” Twilight asked.

Cadance just shrugged. “I know it’s important, but I just wish she trusted me to do more.” She looked up and into Twilight’s eyes, hoping to find more understanding than pity. “I love Equestria, I love all of my little ponies, and I want to do more for them. But every time I ask Aunt Celestia for the chance to do more, she just tells me that my time will come eventually. But she’s been telling me that for years. How much longer do I have to be a princess in name only?”

Cadance looked away, wiping frustrated tears away with a swipe of her hoof. “I’m sorry,” she laughed. “I must sound so petulant.”

“Not at all,” Twilight soothed. “I understand what it’s like living in somepony else’s shadow.”

Cadance gave a watery smile at that. “I guess you would, wouldn’t you? It can’t be easy being the little sister of Shining Armor, Princess Celestia’s number-one student.”

“It’s a lot to live up to, yeah,” Twilight confessed with a smile of her own.

“Thanks for listening, Twilight,” Cadance said gratefully. “I feel better having gotten all that out to somepony… I’m glad you're my guard.”

“I’m always here for you if you need to talk, Your Highness,” Twilight said reassuringly. She stood and levitated her bags onto her back, securing them just tightly enough that they wouldn’t slide off as soon as she moved. “Unless you want to talk about something else, I should probably get cleaned up for breakfast. I smell like an old sweatband.”

Cadance leaned forward and sniffed deeply, wrinkling her nose in exaggeration at Twilight’s odor. “Well I didn’t want to say anything…”

Twilight bowed her head in respect as she excused herself.

“Wait!” Cadance called just as Twilight was reaching the cabin door.

Twilight turned back, tilting her head curiously at the command. “Is there something else?”

Princess Cadance sat on the deck, her back straight and tense as she rubbed her hooves together sheepishly.

“I… wanted to ask if you could do me a favor and… maybe you could call me Cadance?” she asked with uncharacteristic shyness. “Without the ‘Princess’ part, I mean.”

“I don’t know if that’s strictly approp—“

“Not all the time!” Cadance said quickly, cutting off Twilight’s rebuttal. “Just when we’re alone, you know? I think I’d like it if we didn’t have to use things like titles and ranks when it was just the two of us…”

Twilight couldn’t help herself. “Okay then… Cadance…” Her heart skipped a beat as she allowed herself to say Cadance’s name without the pretense of titles or social standing. The thrill of breaking discipline and calling her princess by her name was an odd mixture of emotions. She felt very naughty, like she was breaking the rules – and in truth she was breaking the rules of conduct – but it also felt right and good.

Cadance sighed in relief, the corners of her mouth curling into a happy grin. “Thank you, Twilight.”

Twilight returned the smile. “You’re welcome, Cadance.”

* * *

Rest eluded Twilight that night. She lay on her back, staring up into the pitch black of her cabin as she struggled to take hold of whatever abstraction was keeping her awake.

It hadn’t been a particularly remarkable day, aside from her and Cadance’s little talk that morning before breakfast. They’d mostly lounged on the deck of the ship, chatting and reading together to pass the time. Cadance had been surprised to find that Twilight was as well read as she was. Royal Guards weren’t idiots by any stretch of the imagination, but there weren’t many that read classic literature recreationally.

Captain Sky Chaser had kept mostly to himself, tending to the ship and watching the instruments for any irregularities in the atmosphere. Wild storms were very rare in Equestria, but this far out at sea it was safe to assume that they were just a tad out of the jurisdiction of the Canterlot Weather Patrol. Although, he did periodically pop in on them to spin another dubious yarn about some heroic feat or drinking contest, and on one occasion the story was about a heroic drinking feat.

The stories were almost always unsavory, but mostly humorous. Twilight hadn’t liked how crude the captain was being in the princess’ presence, but whenever she voiced her opinion on the matter she’d be shushed by Cadance who would then ask Sky Chaser to finish the story. After a few times of being voted down, Twilight just gave up trying to curb the saltiness of the conversation whenever Sky Chaser got involved.

The only real surprise of the day had been that Sky Chaser’s tricky knee had proven accurate, or at least coincidentally correct. The winds had been in their favor and hurried them across the ocean in record time, and by early-afternoon they were already at the Zebrican shores. They had to leave that jet stream behind, but they were still a half-day ahead of schedule and by mid-afternoon the next day they’d be docking in the airship port in Saddle Arabia – just in time for the Summer Sun Celebration.

Was that the reason for her unrest? Some sort of foalish pre-holiday excitement? No, that didn’t make any sense. Although the Saddle Arabians celebrated their own version of the Summer Sun Celebration, it wasn’t the same thing as being there to see Princess Celestia raise the sun in the flesh.

Perhaps it was worry. Whatever looming event had been bothering Princess Celestia was going to coincide with the Summer Sun Celebration, Twilight was sure of it.

She held a hoof to her chest, noting the fierceness of her heartbeat and the unease in her stomach that, for once, wasn’t attributed to airsickness. Whatever was the cause of her distress, she wouldn’t be getting to sleep any time soon.

Perhaps some night air would do her good?

Twilight cast a dim lighting spell and climbed out of bed with a groan. She left her cabin and let her illumination spell die as she stepped into the well-lit hallway. The doors to Cadance’s and Sky Chaser’s rooms were both closed, which meant they’d probably already turned in for the night.

Twilight lightly stepped up to Cadance’s door and pressed her ear against it. Even through the door Twilight could hear that faint nasally whistle of the princess’ snore. Twilight held back a giggle at the cuteness of the dainty little noise, but made a note to herself to talk to Cadance about it. Cute or not, the snoring seemed to be a recurring issue and she definitely should see an otolaryngologist about the possibility that it could develop into something more serious down the line.

Twilight ascended the stairs and stepped out onto the deck. To her surprise, she found that she wasn’t the only one who’d been having trouble sleeping.

Sky Chaser stood at the bow of the ship, leaning precariously over the rail. His back was turned to her, but in the bright moonlight she could see the trails of smoke billowing from pipe.

He didn’t even look over his shoulder as he called out: “Missy... Seems I’m not the only one with trouble sleeping.”

Twilight walked across the deck to join the old captain at the fore. “How’d you know it was me?”

He sucked at his pipe a few times and pulled it away to blow another column of smoke. “Would you believe that I know every sound aboard my ship, including the difference between the sound of your hoofsteps and Her Ladyship’s?”

“I might believe it,” Twilight answered wryly. “I might also believe that you had a fifty-fifty chance of guessing who it was when you heard the door open, so you went for it in the hopes of looking all mysterious and impressive.”

Sky Chaser coughed, choking on the smoke in his lungs as he began to laugh. “Aye, I might believe that, too,” he said with a smile.

Twilight placed her forehooves up on the railing and peered over the side. Below them, the desert whipped by, the sands still and barren of life. From this high up she could see the lines in the sand where the desert winds sculpted the dunes of the great sea of sand. It was like seeing the ocean frozen in time, the waves unmoving until acted upon by an outside force.

“It’s beautiful out here,” Twilight commented. “Peaceful.”

Sky Chaser grunted in agreement. “Aye, but like anything beautiful, this desert is dangerous. You’ll never find a more unforgiving heat than what you’ll find here. The air may be chilly now, but come morning we’ll be able to cook our breakfast out here on the deck.”

Twilight nodded at the wisdom in that. “So you couldn’t sleep either, huh?”

“Had a bout of the old terrors,” he admitted freely. He glanced at Twilight out the corner of his eye and noted the way she raised her eyebrow. “Don’t be so shocked. You live as long as I have and you’ll pick up a few bits of baggage yourself.”

“Want to talk about it?” Twilight asked.

He sucked at his pipe and mulled it over.

“Spiders,” he said. “Awful little bastards. Can’t stand them, what with their having too many legs, too many eyes, and too many damned fangs.”

“Ah, arachnophobia,” Twilight said. “Lots of ponies have that.”

“But how many ponies have actually seen a spider the size of a pony?” Sky Chaser asked dramatically.

Twilight scoffed. “Spiders the size of a pony?”

“Aye, and mean as sin itself,” Sky Chaser explained with a thump of his hoof against the ship.

Twilight grinned and took a seat on the deck, settling herself in for another of Sky Chaser’s tall-tales. A bedtime story was just what the doctor ordered.

But the story never came. Sky Chaser just sighed and tapped his pipe against the rail, snuffing it out before he stuck it in the breast pocket of his coat.

“And you, missy?” he asked. “What’s keeping you from dreamland?”

“I’m not sure…” Twilight admitted. “I’m just restless. My pulse is elevated, my body temperature is up a little, my cheeks are flush… and despite all that I feel very… energetic. It’s very odd. I really hope I’m not coming down with something.”

Sky Chaser snorted loudly and began to chortle like she’d just said something very funny.

“Aye, aye, it seems you’re coming down with quite the sickness, missy! One I’ve seen many times before!”

“You think you know what’s wrong with me?”

“You’re sick, girl!” he guffawed. “The best kind of sick: sick with love!”

Twilight shot to her hooves and rounded on the captain. “What!? I’m not in love!”

He shrugged. “A crush then, but you’ve definitely got the bug.”

“Okay then, if you’re so smart, who do I have a crush on?”

“Who do you think?” he asked with a raise of his brow. He nodded down, indicating something below deck.

Her eyes widened in shock. “No,” Twilight muttered with a shake of her head. “No, that can’t be it. I’m just… just stressed out about the mission! And even if I was… that, for Cadance, it’s not like it would matter.”

“And why wouldn’t it matter, missy?” he asked with genuine confusion. “I see the way you and Cadance have been carrying on. She likes you well enough, so I reckon you’ve got as fair a shot at her as anypony.”

“It wouldn’t matter because she’s a princess!” Twilight whispered sharply, as though afraid their conversation would be overheard. “I’m just a soldier. I’m not even close to being in her league.”

“And?” Sky Chaser asked with a scoff. “Her Ladyship doesn’t strike as the type to care for that sort of thing. And I’m supposing you must’ve forgotten, but she wasn’t exactly born a princess.”

“Even still… She’s my princess, and I’m her guard. It would be inappropriate.”

“You’d hardly be the first guard to fall in love with a princess,” he laughed. He began to walk towards the cabin, chuckling the whole way. “Afraid there’s no hope for you, missy, you’ll never get to sleep now. As for me, I think I’ve kept my pillow waiting long enough.”

“Yeah, well… same to you!” Twilight called out as the cabin door shut behind him. She held her face in her hooves and groaned. “’Same to you’? Ugh, what did I even mean?”

She stood and climbed up onto the spot of the bow where she’d found the captain, letting the wind whip through her mane.

Love? Really? That was what he thought? There was no way she would fall in love in only a few days of meeting somepony. That was ridiculous.

A crush, on the other hoof… wasn’t entirely out of the question. It would certainly fit with her symptoms.

She sighed and leaned against the rail, watching the desert zip by as they were sped along to their destination. It was a nice distraction, the stillness of the desert. It played a comforting counterpoint to the bothersome thoughts trying to beat their way to the surface of her mind. She ignored them for the moment. Whatever was going on with her – crush or not – could wait a few minutes, or days, or months, or decades…

For now she just wanted to concentrate on the mission: protect the princess, assist her in her duties while she’s in Saddle Arabia, and see to her safe return. Everything else could wait until they were safely back in Equestria.

There was a flash of movement out the corner of her eye, drawing Twilight’s attention off the port side. It was still dark out, but the moon cast enough light to illuminate the silhouette of something trudging along in the distance. A thin line trailed behind it, showing the path it cut through the soft desert sands.

Her horn lit up as she cast a spell, framing her eyes with a glow of magic that magnified her vision. It was a simple, effective spell for combat unicorns meant for use in the field in place of binoculars.

Twilight adjusted the spell, bringing the distant figure into focus. It was just a bit bigger than a pony and wiry thin, wearing a travelling-cloak that drug along behind it. Something large and round bounced against its side with every step it took.

“Is that a diamond dog?” she wondered aloud. The general outline of it fit the body-type of a dog, and there was a fairly large diamond dog population in Zebrica.

Just as she was about to dismiss her spell, the dog staggered and collapsed. She watched breathlessly, waiting for him to get up, and she began to worry when he didn’t.

It was obvious that something was wrong with him, but from this distance there was no telling what it could be. He needed help, but the fact of the matter was that it wasn’t her problem. Her only responsibility was to the princesses and citizens of Equestria. For all she knew this diamond dog was some mad-dog that escaped from a local asylum.

She shook her head, determined to leave it be. She had a mission and there would be no deviation.

She watched in surprise as the dog began to move again. He rose to his paws and managed a few more steps before collapsing once more.

Twilight ended her spell and ran to find the captain.

* * *

Chapter 3 - Basenji

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Twilight held a wet towel in the grip of her magic and wrung it out over the bowl of cold water atop her writing desk, squeezing out the excess moisture. She carefully placed the damp towel over the eyes and forehead of the diamond dog lying on her bed and sighed.

She held a hoof gently against his cheek and noted that although his temperature had dropped considerably, he was still much warmer than she would have liked. Elevated temperatures were no joke, but they were already cooling him and there were other concerns at the moment, so she continued her examination.

Her earlier assessment of his size was fairly accurate. He was slightly bigger than a very large stallion, and despite his wiry frame, he was surprisingly heavy due to the well-toned musculature that dogs developed from a lifetime of digging. She’d had no trouble levitating him onto the boat once Sky Chaser had swung around and lowered them enough, but Twilight definitely wouldn’t have had a good time lifting him physically. He probably weighed as much as the Captain of the Guard in his full armor.

His coat was a light beige color, except for a patch of white that started at the tip of his short, pointed snout and ran down to his belly. His tail was thin and whip-like – unlike the stubby, clubbed tails of the Equestrian diamond dogs she’d read about – and curled upwards and in on itself.

“Is he okay?” Cadance asked from the doorway. Twilight and Sky Chaser had insisted that she stay in the hallway, much to her annoyance. She’d been asleep when Twilight had raised the alarm, so she was without her royal trappings, and her mane was a poofed out in a magnificently tangled example of bedhead.

“The pup seems a tad dehydrated,” Sky Chaser pointed out as he craned his head to look over Twilight’s shoulder.

“Severe dehydration, yes,” Twilight said clinically. She moved down to his extremities, examining them closely. “In addition, he seems to have burns to his paws.”

“Burns?” Cadance asked with evident concern in her voice.

“Likely from the sand,” Twilight explained with a nod. “Desert sand gets very hot during the day. Diamond dogs have tough paws, but with prolonged exposure… well…”

She gently lifted one of the dog’s forearms to show the ugly red welts he’d developed on his enormous paws.

Sky Chaser let out a low whistle. “Looks painful.”

“Yeah, but it’s only first degree burns,” Twilight said. “Superficial damage only, with no blistering. He’s very lucky.”

“If he’s dehydrated shouldn’t we give him water?” Cadance asked.

“Nah, it’s not safe while he’s unconscious,” Sky Chaser answered, sounding a little proud of himself. “Need to lower his temperature and get him awake, right, missy?”

Twilight chuckled. “Yeah, that’s right. His breathing is very shallow, so we don’t want to block his air-passage or he might start choking, and other ways of introducing fluids require tools that I unfortunately don’t have on hoof.”

Cadance shifted in worry. “What can you do for him right now, then?”

There was actually very little Twilight could do about the dehydration without an intravenous needle with a drip bag or an intubation tube. What she could do, however, was treat his wounds.

She went to her trunk and levitated the armor out, setting it aside as she climbed up on the edge of the container and rummaged around. Bottles clinked and clanked as she moved things aside, until she came up with the handle of a first-aid kit held in her teeth. She set it down and dug around some more until she found a small glass jar with a screw-on lid. She shook the jar between her hooves and eyed the contents carefully.

“Not a lot of it…” she assessed silently. She looked back towards her patient with a frown. A damp towel for his forehead was one thing, but medical supplies were another thing entirely. These supplies were meant for her needs and the princess’ – and Sky Chaser’s, she supposed. Any first aid she gave their guest would diminish what was available for them in the case of an emergency.

Additionally, this diamond dog was an unknown entity with unknown intentions. There was no guarantee that he wasn’t a threat to the princess’ safety, and what would be the point of patching him up if she’d end up having to rough him up later?

She shook her head at her own hesitation. The time for cold hooves was over – she’d made her choice about the matter up on the deck when she’d decided to rescue him.

“In for a penny, in for a bit…” she muttered as she took the jar and kit in her magic and moved back to the bedside.

First aid had been one of Twilight’s favorite subjects back in the academy. Helping your buddies was just as important, if not more important, than knowing how to hurt an opponent, as far was Twilight was concerned.

It only took a few minutes for Twilight to medicate and bandage the dog’s wounds, as well as double check for any additional visible injury. By the time she was finishing up, her patient had begun to stir.

The dog groaned weakly and tried to sit up. Twilight held a hoof to his chest and gently restrained him, soothing him with a quiet shush. Her patient jumped a little at the unfamiliar contact, but allowed himself to be pushed back to the bed.

The three ponies in the room listened as the dog said something in his native language, which sounded more like growls and whines to their ears than words. The inflection implied that he was asking something.

“Do you speak Equish?” Twilight asked carefully.

He reached up with a moan and removed the towel from his eyes, scanning the room with golden-brown eyes. “You are pony?” he asked with a dry, scratchy voice. “Basenji speaks your tongue, but with some difficulty.”

“Your name is Basenji?” Twilight surmised.

“Yes,” he said with a quick nod that caused him to wince in pain from the movement. “Where is Basenji?”

“You’re aboard my airship, pup,” the captain declared, making his presence known. “My name is Sky Chaser.”

“You rescued Basen—” Basenji cut himself off with a grunt as he apparently recognized the linguistic mistake he was making. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and spoke with more deliberation. “You rescued me?”

Twilight cleared her throat. “No, I did. My name is Decurion Twilight Sparkle, of the Canterlot Regiment of the Royal Guard.”

Cadance made a loud, dissatisfied noise from the doorway. “Honestly, you two,” she clucked as she levitated the water pitcher from the writing desk over to Basenji. “Just give him a drink already.”

Basenji’s eyes went wide at the sight of the jug. He reached for it, pausing only a moment to notice the bandages wrapped around his paws, and brought it to his muzzle. He chugged greedily at it and began coughing as he choked on the water.

“Slowly, slowly,” Twilight warned him. “You have severe dehydration. Drinking that quickly may trigger your emetic reflex.”

Basenji, along with the other occupants in the room, stared at her in confusion.

“You’ll vomit,” she clarified with a bashful tint to her cheeks. “Just take small sips or you’ll get sick.”

Basenji made a sour face, as though the very thought of vomiting made him nauseous, and sipped at the water as instructed.

Cadance stepped into the room, ignoring the warning looks from the other two ponies who obviously still thought she should be waiting in the hallway. “My name is Cadance,” she greeted. “It’s very nice to meet you, Basenji.”

The diamond dog’s eyes widened again as Cadance entered. He tried to climb out of bed, causing Twilight to tense up.

“Please forgive this dog for not bowing, God-Pony,” Basenji apologized as he gave up trying to stand. “My body is in great pain.”

“God-Pony…?” Cadance asked with a confused tilt of her head.

“You are she who is pegasus and unicorn, yes?” Basenji asked, pointing towards her horn and wings. “The God of Ponies who lifts the sun and moon?”

“Oh! No, that’s… I’m an alicorn, not a ‘God-Pony’,” Cadance corrected. She lowered her head, grinning abashedly. “And I’m not the one that controls the sun, that’s my aunt, Princess Celestia. I’m actually not even good enough at magic to use that spell…”

“Ah, I see,” he said. “But you are royal?”

“Yes, she is,” Twilight answered for her. “I’m her guard.”

“As you say.” Basenji managed a small, respectful dip of his head and returned to sipping from his water jug.

“If you’re feeling up to it, pup, maybe you could tell us why you were out in this blasted desert?” Sky Chaser asked.

“I was…” Basenji’s explanation died quickly. He began to search the room frantically, craning his head around and trying to see every corner of the room. “Where is my drum?”

Twilight lifted an eyebrow and went to the foot of the bed. When she’d spotted him at a distance, she’d seen a large cylinder bouncing against Basenji’s side as he walked. The object in question had turned out to be a large drum, just a bit bigger than a watermelon, but very light and well cared for despite its apparent age. After bringing him aboard, she’d removed his traveling cloak and the satchel he wore, and wrapped the drum and satchel up with the cloak.

She levitated the bindle and set it onto the bed with a squeak of the springs. Basenji set the pitcher on the floor and reached for his possessions with clear relief on his face.

“Thank you,” he said as he uncovered the bright red drum and inspected it. He smiled as he tapped gently at the skin with one claw. “This has been in my family for many generations. The skin is made from the rind of a Bassonova Fruit. It is very precious.”

Twilight’s ears flicked at the term. She wasn’t familiar with ‘Bassonova Fruits’, so it was likely something local, and rare if a drum made from it was considered precious enough to be an heirloom. In Equestria, drumheads were made from magically treated rubber films, so she didn’t even really have a frame of reference for what such a thing would look like. It had to be enormous if its rind could be used as the membrane for a drum.

“And this drum has something to do with you being in the desert?” Sky Chaser asked.

Basenji rested his paw protectively over the top of the drum. Despite the size of the thing, his massive paw was just large enough stretch across the circumference.

“Not so much, no,” he said softly. “I am searching for Dingo, my brother. We are from far to the South, of the largest pack in zebra lands. Two months ago, Dingo went missing – gone, without even a scent trail.”

“Oh my…” Cadance said empathetically.

“Our pack has many friends within the zebra tribes,” Basenji continued. “We asked them first, but they knew even less than we of his disappearance. After much time, our family gave up searching.”

Basenji unfolded more of the cloak and removed his satchel. He reached inside and pulled out a bundle of papers bound together with a colorful orange string. “I was seeing to tradition, disposing of his possessions as is custom in… in burial.” The word ‘burial’ caught in his throat, and Basenji reached for the pitcher. “I found a journal in his den.”

He held out the ream of papers hesitantly, and Twilight took them with her magic. Cadance and Sky Chaser crowded around, reading over her shoulder. The words were a mix of Equish, some sort of scratching that was ostensibly dog-writing, and zebra script. She turned the book around, trying to read it from different angles, and frowned as she failed to glean meaning from the seemingly chaotic scribbling. Even what was in Equish seemed to be either the writings of a mad-dog, or some sort of code.

“I can’t read this,” Twilight admitted. Her companions nodded in agreement, indicating that they couldn’t make heads or tails of it either.

“It is meaningless to all but Dingo,” Basenji sighed. “Six months past, Dingo said that dreams came to him – strange, terrible dreams that left him when he awoke. He knew not what the dreams were, he knew only that he was afraid. I believe the journal began with the dreams.”

“Did he display any other erratic behavior prior to his disappearance?” Twilight pressed, finding herself fascinated by the dog’s strange tale.

“I do not know this word, ‘erratic’,” Basenji admitted with a shake of his head, “but if you mean strange, then yes. He was disturbed, unpredictable at times – never violent, but very frightening. It was at first small occurrences, like baring fangs at shadows, but over months he became worse. In the days before his disappearance, he was confined to his den and under guard. That he could free himself with nodog witnessing is a mystery.”

He held out his paw and Twilight returned the journal. Basenji flipped to the last page and folded it over, holding it up for the others to see. Unlike the other pages, this one had no writing. Instead there was a map of the Zebrican continent, with a long, dotted trail leading from the center of the continent to a circled spot in the North, where the land turned to desert. The rest of the pages were chicken scratch, but the map page seemed to be startlingly accurate according to Twilight’s admittedly weak geographical knowledge of the continent.

“This is where Dingo has gone,” Basenji said with conviction as he tapped the spot on the page where the trail ended, “I have certainty in this. Nodog else believes he could yet live, but I feel it in my heart – Dingo lives and needs be brought home, no matter the sickness of his mind.”

“I’d say that’s as good a reason as any to be wandering the desert.” Sky Chaser motioned that he wanted to see the journal and Basenji passed it back. He sat on his haunches as he studied the map and pulled out his pipe, tapping the mouthpiece against his lip in thought. “Pretty silly of you to think you could make the journey without any water, though. This is a fair trot, and walking this desert’s no day at the beach.”

Basenji clutched the drum to his chest and lowered his head in embarrassment. “I had water, but it was not enough. I do not often travel far from the pack, and I did not anticipate crossing the dunes. Sand does not behave as dirt does. Tunnels were an impossibility, and I could barely dig beneath the sands enough to escape the worst of the sun.”

“What would make your brother come all the way out here?” Twilight asked. “What’s at that spot?”

“I do not know…” Basenji answered with a sad shake of his head. He squeezed the drum a little tighter, taking comfort from the familiar feeling of holding it. “If it came to Dingo through the Ways, it could be anything.”

Twilight blinked. Something about what Basenji had just said struck her as odd. The tone of his voice and the care he took to carefully pronounce ‘the Ways’ seemed to indicate a greater meaning than just intermediate Equish skills.

“What do you mean by ‘the Ways’?” Twilight asked carefully.

“I and Dingo are of a line of drummers,” Basenji explained, patting the shell of his drum for emphasis. “We keep the knowledge of dogs alive with story and song. We protect that knowledge for all dogs to remember. Some of that knowledge is the Ways – what is called magic.”

Twilight’s ears flicked excitedly at the mention of magic. Theoretically, all creatures were suffused with some modicum of magical talent, but very few had the intellectual capacity, or at least the inclination, to pursue research that tapped that potential.

“You do magic?” Twilight asked excitedly. “What sort of magic? You said ‘drummers’, right? Does that mean that drum acts as a focus? I assume you have to play it to cast spells, which means you can’t cast silently? I imagine that limits the battle applica—”

“Twilight,” Cadance said gently, cutting off the excited unicorn with a gentle prod at her ribs, “take a breath.” She gave Basenji an apologetic look. “Sorry about Twilight, she’s a little excitable, and this is the first time I – and apparently she – have ever heard of a diamond dog knowing magic.”

“You need not apologize, it is not so common,” Basenji said with a shake of his head. “It is The Way of the Old Dogs. Many packs have forgotten the Ways, this is why drummers are very important to dogs – we do not forget so easy.”

“So then it’s some sort of vision, is it?” Sky Chaser asked as he walked to the writing desk and set down the journal.

“I believe it is so,” Basenji answered. “The Old Dogs come to us in dreams, give us visions, whisper secrets to us. Dingo is very strong in the Ways, very connected to the Old Dogs. I cannot say for sure, but it is the will of Old Dogs, perhaps, that led Dingo into the sands. Regardless, I must find Dingo.”

Cadance strode forward, a kindly smile on her face, and placed her hoof comfortingly over Basenji's paw.

"Don't worry, we'll find him," she said confidently.

"Wait, did you say 'we' as in us?" Twilight asked in a panic. She waved her hoof between the three ponies in the room. "As in the three of us in addition to him?"

"Well, we can't send him back out into the desert on his own," Cadance replied. She turned back to Twilight and gave an amused grin.

"Please, Great Princess," Basenji interjected, "your guard is correct! You have been too kind already – Basenji could not trouble you further!"

"It's no trouble at all," Cadance answered cheerfully.

Twilight's armor lifted suddenly with a fling of telekinetic magic and returned to its place in her steam trunk, along with the medical kit. The lid of the trunk slammed shut aggressively, followed by the click of the lock.

"Your Highness, may I speak with you in the hallway?" Twilight asked in a curt, but professional tone.

"Of course." Cadance walked to the door, tossing another smile over her shoulder at their guest. "We'll be right back, Basenji. Captain, would you care to join us?"

Sky Chase hummed thoughtfully and sucked at his unlit pipe. With a silent nod he followed the two mares out of the room and shut the door behind them.

Twilight spun around to gape in shock at her charge. "Princess, you can’t be serious about accompanying him!" she whispered sharply.

"I’m perfectly serious, I assure you," Cadance replied in an equally sharp whisper. "If we send him back into the desert on his own he'll die!"

"We can give him water," Twilight hissed. "Or we can give him a ride the rest of the way to Saddle Arabia and he can try to make the trip again with fresh supplies. What we can’t do is deviate from our schedule to go on a doghunt for someone who – if that journal and Basenji’s story are any indication – is clearly in the grip of some sort of magically-induced mental break!"

“If Dingo is sick then it’s all the more reason we should help,” Cadance said. “We can fly Basenji there, help him find his brother, and fly them both to Saddle Arabia to arrange for medical care.”

Cadance turned to Sky Chaser, her smile tight and her tone unnaturally conversational. "Captain Sky Chaser, you were studying that map very carefully. How far out of our way would it take us to fly Basenji to where his brother is?"

The stallion’s eyes widened and darted nervously between the two mares as he suddenly found himself put on the spot. "A day at most, but likely closer to a half, Your Ladyship," Sky Chaser replied hesitantly.

"No," Twilight said with a stomp of her hoof. "Sky Chaser, I cannot allow this. I am solely responsible for Princess Mi Amore Cadenza's safety, and I say that the risk involved is unacceptable."

Cadance spun back to Twilight. "I can't believe I'm hearing this!" she shouted, no longer caring if they could be overheard through the door. "You're the one that spotted him and brought him aboard!"

"And now I'm starting to think that maybe that was a mistake," Twilight replied coldly. “If I knew he was going to rope us into some foolhardy chase for a lunatic, I would never have fished him out of the sand.”

Cadance narrowed her eyes, unfurling her wings just a bit. The fact that Cadance still had not straightened out her disheveled mane did nothing to diminish her commanding presence.

"Captain, if you'd give us a moment, please," Cadance asked as she held eye contact with Twilight, her voice taking a tone that indicated that she wasn't really making a request, "I think I need a word with my guard."

Years spent as an enlisted troublemaker had taught Sky Chaser that a smart stallion should never call attention to himself when another poor bastard was set to get an earful from a superior. More importantly, years of being attracted to a certain kind of mare – the kind as likely to hit you as to kiss you – had taught him not to get between two ladies in an argument.

"I'll just see about getting some more water for the pup," Sky Chaser said as he beat a hasty retreat down the hallway, to the door at the end of the hall that led to the galley. "I may be a while."

Twilight expected to have to argue the point, to have to explain in detail all the ways that deviating from their schedule could end in disaster. What she didn't expect was for Cadance's eyes to soften the moment the door to the galley closed, signalling that they were alone.

"We have to help him," Cadance said pleadingly. "He's telling the truth, and he's really worried about his brother, I can tell."

Twilight mustered up as much discipline as she could to beat back the urge to simply melt at the piteous look in Cadance's eyes. "How can you tell?" she asked.

Cadance brought a hoof to her chest, holding it tightly against her heart. "I can feel it," she explained. "I can sense the brotherly love he feels, and the uncertainty of what he'll find when he does catch up to his brother, if he even is on the right trail."

Twilight's heart skipped a beat or two as Cadance leaned closer and whispered, "We need to help reunite them."

"They're expecting us in Saddle Arabia," Twilight countered lamely.

"Sky Chaser said that it isn't far out of our way, and we're already ahead of schedule. Please… I want to do something that makes a real, noticeable difference for once, even if it’s just for one little diamond dog. Will you help me?”

Twilight shook her head weakly. She could’ve handled an argument, but the look she was getting was uncomfortably like the one she used to give her father when she wanted an extra scoop of ice cream. Only… it was something more than a foalish urge to ruin her appetite for dinner.

Earlier, Cadance had voiced her concerns that she was being shut out of important decisions and events by Celestia, and in her expression, Twilight could see intimations of just how deeply those fears ran. Hidden within the depth of those big, doe-eyes was something Twilight could empathize with: the feeling of uncertainty in one’s self. She knew that look because she’d seen it in the mirror enough to recognize it. No matter how well Twilight scored in a test, no matter how quickly she ran an obstacle course, she was forever beating down that niggling little voice in the back of her mind that said, “You could be doing better.”

Cadance wanted a win. She wanted to feel that she was fulfilling her purpose by bring together two beings bound by brotherly love. Twilight knew it because if their situations were reversed, it’s what she would have wanted.

To the Princess of Love, this was a matter of duty.

“We have no idea what’s waiting for us there, Cadance…” Twilight said in a final attempt to convince the princess of her recklessness. “I’ve got this feeling in my gut that this might not be a simple retrieval – especially if magic’s involved in some way.”

“I’m not worried,” Cadance said, the corners of her mouth turning up into a smile. “No matter what happens, I know you’ll protect me.”

The last of Twilight’s resistance blew away with the force of the tired sigh she heaved.

* * *

The Old Mistress moved along the cloudless skies above the desert at a quick pace. Morning was already well underway and the only respite from the oppression of the sun was found beneath the ship’s balloon. The fine sands of the dunes had given way to a baked, rocky terrain with sparse patches of brush as they sped along their journey into the unknown.

“I really don’t like this,” Twilight murmured as she peered through the enormous windows of the cockpit to the deck below. Cadance and Basenji were sitting near the bow, talking animatedly about something or other. The dog had apparently never been in the air before and was understandably excited about the experience.

“You don’t think the pup’s on the up-and-up?” Sky Chaser asked. He tapped a gauge on the wall and turned a crank next to it, causing air to hiss through the brass pipes that crawled along every surface of the cockpit like ivy. The ship swayed slightly from whatever his adjustment did, and he hurried to the wheel to straighten them out.

“I don’t think he’s lying,” Twilight admitted after some thought, “and the princess doesn’t sense anything deceitful from him with that empathic magic of hers. I at least trust that he’s not going to try to make trouble for us.”

“But that doesn’t mean he won’t be trouble without realizing it,” Sky Chaser said wisely.

Twilight turned to watch as Sky Chaser went from gauge to wheel to lever, manipulating the various mechanisms that kept them afloat. He’d mentioned something earlier about the shift in temperature requiring a ‘skilled hoof at the wheel’.

“I mean, am I crazy to think that this is crazy?” she asked in vexation. “Unknown elements, unknown theater, unknown magic!”

She groaned as she rubbed the spot between her eyes that now throbbed with the warning signs of an oncoming migraine.

“How is this my life?” Twilight bemoaned. “My first mission and I’m already in a situation where the best outcome is that I don’t get court-martialed for putting Princess Celestia’s niece in unnecessary danger.”

“Bah!” Sky Chaser scoffed. “You won’t be court-martialed, missy! Banished, maybe, but I’m sure they can deliver your pension checks to wherever Her Highness sends you.”

“This is only my second week on the job…” she groused.

“Oh…” Sky Chaser paused as he considered this. “That’s going to be a mighty small check.”

“Joking aside,” Twilight said with a roll of her eyes. “Do you think I made a good choice by bringing him aboard?”

Sky Chaser slowed his frantic systems checks as he mulled the question over. He retook the captain’s wheel, his forehooves on the handles, and gently nudged it to keep the ride smooth.

“I can’t rightly say if it was a good or bad choice,” Sky Chaser answered, “but you saved that pup’s life, and that means you made the right choice, regardless of whether or not it was good for the mission. A lot of folk don’t get the difference, but if I were in your shoes it’s the choice I would’ve made.”

Twilight turned back to the window as the sound of Cadance’s laughter reached her from the deck. Basenji was gesturing wildly with his paws, apparently in the middle of some joke that Twilight couldn’t hear over the sound of the machinery, the rushing wind, and Cadance’s giggling. He was grinning widely, the weariness of his injuries temporarily forgotten as he shared his story.

If she’d left him lying face down in the sand, he would have died. In the face of that fact, Twilight couldn’t help but agree with Sky Chaser’s assessment. It may have been an inconvenience to her in the long run, but she felt a sharp twinge of shame at ever having even considered turning her back on another living creature that needed her help.

“Thanks for not trying to order me to keep the vessel on course, by the by,” Sky Chaser said suddenly. “I know it’s in your power to attempt to commandeer the ship.”

Twilight smirked at the emphasis the old soldier put on the word ‘attempt’, subtly hinting at how well the order would have gone over with him. “If I’d tried to give you the order the princess could have just overridden it.”

“All the same,” he replied with a shrug, his eyes still fixed on the horizon. “You didn’t, and she didn’t, and we all walked away from the standoff as friends – nopony giving orders to nopony. Guards I’ve known in the past would have been more eager to start throwing their weight around.”

“I would’ve if I had to,” she admitted.

“I know you would’ve,” he chuckled.

Twilight let the issue drop and walked over towards the navigator’s desk set against the rear wall of the cockpit, just to the side of the staircase leading up from the cabin. Above the table was a cubby with a dozen compartments, each one holding a detailed map of a different region of the world. Compasses and drafting pencils were pushed haphazardly aside to make room for a large copy of the map from Basenji’s journal, drawn perfectly using a transcription spell onto a sheet of tracing paper. The thin, nearly translucent paper had then been pinned atop another map of Zebrica marked with useful cartographical information.

The map, as Twilight had guessed, was unnaturally accurate when overlaid atop a professionally drafted navigator’s map. Basenji has denied that his brother had ever studied map-making, which lent credence to the notion that the drawing had been made while under the influence of some kind of magic – which only made Twilight all the more uncomfortable with this detour.

“Any idea what we’re heading for?” she asked as she scrutinized the map for the umpteenth time, trying to get a hint at what awaited them.

“No more than I had the last time you asked, missy,” Sky Chaser said pointedly.

Twilight returned to the window with a sigh. She squinted into the distance, only just barely making out a blemish on the smooth horizon directly ahead of them. She cast her long-range vision spell and focused it as tightly as she could. Through the heat haze, the outline of some large structure became apparent.

Sky Chaser had corrected their heading to match the map in the middle of the night, and by morning’s light they’d spotted what they all presumed had to be their final destination.

“Still too far away to make out what it is,” Twilight sighed. “It’s probably just a mountain.”

“Likely so,” he answered, clucking his tongue a few times in consideration. “Not much else out here it could be.”

“I really, really don’t like this,” she repeated.

“Aye, so you’ve said,” Sky Chaser pointed out. “You should head on down to the deck and get some air. It’ll be good for those jitters. Besides, we’re a few more hours out, and it’s going to get mighty uncomfortable inside of doors once the sun’s high enough to have her say.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow and cast a questioning look at Sky Chaser’s thick coat. It was a little ratty, and frayed along the hems, but it looked very warm – a good coat for floating along on chilly high-altitude winds. If the beads of sweat on Sky Chaser’s forehead were any indication, it was decidedly less-suited to desert travel.

“Speaking of uncomfortable heat,” she quipped. “How long are you going to wear that jacket?”

Sky Chaser snorted and let loose a loud bark of laughter. “Missy, this captain’s jacket came with the boat, and it’s never coming off. I’ll be buried in it.”

“Hey, that’s a real fear if you get heatstroke,” Twilight informed him.

“I’ll risk it.”

Twilight shook her head with a chuckle. Her gaze returned to the deck, where Cadance and Basenji’s conversation seemed to hit a comfortable lull. Basenji was up on his hind legs, leaning over the side and trying to see the underside of the boat, while Cadance sat at the very fore of the ship, her mane billowing in the wind.

“Staring at your fillyfriend, eh?”

Twilight sputtered. “What!? No!” She turned sharply and marched for the stairs, her hooves thunking against the wood with every stomp. “I’m going below to check my kit! Let me know if anything happens!”

Sky Chaser watched the girl shuffle hurriedly out of the room and down the stairwell. A few moments later he could hear her door slamming over the whine of the propeller’s engine.

“Huh, that was an odd reaction,” Sky Chaser huffed with a furrow of his brow. “I think I may have lit a powder keg here... Didn’t think the lass would take a bit of ball-busting about that crush of hers so seriously.”

He returned to his duty, never noticing that back on the deck, Cadance had risen to her hooves and turned to stare up at the cockpit with worry etched on her face.

* * *

The sun was directly above by the time they’d reached their destination. Their best guess had been right, and they’d found themselves flying above a small mountain. It didn’t seem like anything special – just a hill in the midst of a vast expanse of arid, rocky desert. What was interesting was the campsite on the Southern side of the mountain, indicating that someone, possibly somedog, was recently in residence. Even more interestingly, there was more than one tent.

After a brief fly over to check for danger – at Twilight’s insistence – Sky Chaser began to lower the airship. As they dropped altitude, they encountered a surprising amount of turbulence.

“Strange winds…” was all Sky Chaser had to say on the matter, though the contemplative look he gave the ship’s balloon indicated to Twilight that something had struck him as odd.

They touched down at the very edge of the camp’s perimeter. The ship groaned and creaked under the weight of itself as it settled into the earth. Four hatches slid open just below deck-level with loud thunks, followed by four deafening bangs as the pneumatic harpoons fired the emergency anchors into the hard soil.

Cadance and Basenji were already lowering the gangplank by the time Twilight and Sky Chaser had joined them on the deck. Basenji was visibly nervous, his bandaged paw rubbing anxiously over the skin of the drum hanging at his side.

“Is full armor really necessary?” Cadance asked delicately as Twilight emerged from the cabin.

“I have to at least pretend to be doing this by the book,” Twilight replied as she tugged at the buckles and straps of her armor with practiced tweaks of her magic. Wearing her armor also had the added benefit of concealing the knives tucked away beneath her breastplate, which she was certain Cadance wouldn’t approve of. “Sorry, Basenji.”

The diamond dog gave a worried look, but nodded in acceptance. “I understand. You have your duty, and Dingo is not of his right mind.” He turned to gaze out over the camp, his nostrils flaring as his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Also, this place smells… strange. I do not trust it so much.”

“Agreed, that’s why I’m going down first,” Twilight announced as she stepped forward to disembark. “You all stay aboard until I’ve swept the area. Pull up the ramp behind me and wait for my signal.”

“Why can’t we come down with you?” Cadance asked with a curious tilt of her head.

“Because if anyone was here and wanted to parlay, the sound of the emergency mooring system would’ve brought them out of their tents,” Sky Chaser supplied. “I’ll come with you, missy. These days I’ve got more piss than vinegar, but I’m still infantry. I’ll follow your lead.”

“Glad to have you at my back,” Twilight said with a grin. She turned to descend the ramp, but paused as she realized her wording and who she’d been talking to. She shot a withering glance back over her shoulder, eyes narrowed and lips pulled tight as she waited for the entendre to drop.

Sky Chaser merely smiled wordlessly.

The pair of soldiers descended the ramp quickly and hit the ground at a trot, staying low to make themselves smaller targets as they crossed the short distance of open space between the camp and their ship. The hard, sunbaked terrain was freed of brush and stones by whoever had set up the camp, but they still watched their steps in case of traps.

From their fly-over, Twilight had memorized the layout of the camp and counted eleven tents of varying construction and materials. They quietly approached the first tent, which seemed to be made of decorative rugs stitched together and hung over a skeleton of tent poles and rope.

Twilight signaled Sky Chaser to hold back with a silent flick of her tail. She dropped down and lifted the rug-wall of the tent, peeking inside to search for occupants. There were basic furnishings – a bed, a table, some pillows – but the tent was otherwise empty. She got back up and silently signaled with hoof gestures, relaying a message to the effect of: “Zero occupants, follow, watch my back.”

Sky Chaser nodded and followed as she rounded the corner and moved to the next tent. He kept close, his ears perked and eyes scanning for danger.

The camp offered very little in the way of clues. The camp had been established long enough that footprints were useless for telling them how many individuals were in residence, but judging from the prints left behind, the camp occupants were all diamond dogs. Other tents were as sparsely furnished as the first, and the tidiness of the dwellings was as unsettling as anything.

They moved from tent to tent, Sky Chaser keeping watch while Twilight took point, checking corners and darting in and out of tents in search of anyone who could answer questions. Within five minutes they had made a full circle of the camp, searching the structures on the perimeter and moving inward as they went. At the center of the camp were a stone well and the remains of a long-dead fire.

Twilight went to the well and created a small spark of magic that glowed brightly even in the hot summer sun. She dropped the spark into the well and watched it tumble into the darkness like a match, fading until it eventually extinguished in the pool of water far below.

“Nobody home,” she said quietly once she was satisfied they wouldn’t be set upon by someone skulking in the well. She swept the camp again with her eyes, looking for any signs of movement. “This is weird.”

“I’ll tell you what’s really weird, missy,” Sky Chaser said as he peered into an enormous black cauldron set over the ashes of the fire pit. “Someone left the stove on.”

The pot was large enough to bathe in, and was obviously some sort of communal stew pot for the whole camp. As she approached, the smell of something fetid filled her nostrils. She looked into the cauldron and wrinkled her nose at the burnt, moldy remains of the abandoned meal. From what she could see through the mass of flies buzzing around within, the pot had once been a mixed stew of vegetables, gemstones, and chunks of something blackened that was probably meat.

“Definitely diamond dog cooking,” she said greenly.

“Aye, and abandoned in a hurry.”

“Where do you think they all went?”

“Can’t rightly say,” Sky Chaser admitted with a frown. “Last I seen the likes of this I was in Prance, helping the locals with a bandit problem. The brigands got wind of us coming and broke for the hills. This, though?” He jerked his head in the direction of the pot. “This tells me that whatever spooked off these dogs, it wasn’t us.”

Any further hoof-wringing was cut off by Cadance’s shout of: “Everything okay!?”

The two soldiers turned back to the airship where Cadance stood, waiting impatiently with the gangplank floating overhead in a field of light blue magic. Basenji was running back and forth across the deck excitedly, lifting his nose and sniffing deeply at the air.

“I told her to stay quiet until I gave the signal,” Twilight muttered into her own hoof.

“To be fair, you only said to stay on the boat, you didn’t mention anything about staying quiet,” Sky Chaser snickered. “She probably took our standing here and jawing as sign we were finished.”

“Ugh, she’s going to be the death of me…” She lifted her galea and wiped away the beads of sweat on her forehead with a flick of magic. “If the sun doesn’t kill me first…”

If the unfiltered light of the sun bothered Sky Chaser at all, he didn’t show it. He laughed and waved at their friends waiting on the ship. “Aye, she’s going to be a chore, that one. I don’t envy your assignment.”

Cadance replaced the ramp and stood aside as Basenji hurried to get down. The dog ran for the camp, loping along on all fours, his head down and ears flat as he searched for scent trails. Cadance spread her wings and leapt over the side with a quick flap, gliding her way to the center of the camp to rejoin Twilight and Sky Chaser.

Basenji joined the group a moment behind Cadance. “Many dogs were here,” he declared as he sniffed the ground curiously. He took a moment to sniff at the pot, and something about the rank meal caused him to sneeze.

“We guessed that from the tracks,” Twilight nodded. “It’s all paws – no hooves or claws, so we can discount ponies, zebras, minotaurs, and griffins.”

“Yes, yes, only dogs, I smell this,” Basenji said eagerly. He crawled along the ground swiftly, snorting loudly at the dirt and reminding Twilight of the time she and her father had been taken truffle hunting by a neighbor showing off his purebred truffle pig. “It has been more than one week, but the scents are still strong.”

Basenji paused, his ears perking as he inhaled deeply at one of the many tracks. “Dingo! This is Dingo!”

Basenji took off, following the trail of his brother’s scent through the camp. His companions followed him as he entered the tent nearest the mountain. It was one of the larger tents, made of white-painted canvas. During her sweep, Twilight had surmised that it had belonged to whoever was in charge of the camp, because unlike the other tents, this one had a large carpet for the floor. There was also a large table that sat low to the ground, surrounded by enough pillows to seat the entire camp. Aside from these small extravagances, the tent possessed no other outstanding qualities.

Basenji made a circuit around the table, sniffing at all of the cushions, before making a beeline for the thin mattress on the ground at the far end of the tent. “This is Dingo’s bed!” he explained excitedly.

“Great news,” Sky Chaser said. “Now we just need to find the pup that sleeps in it.”

“I can do this thing,” Basenji declared. He sat on the bed, legs crossed in a position that would have been difficult for a pony, and pulled the drum into his lap.

Basenji looked at his paws, still wrapped in bandages, and tore away the bindings with his teeth. He inspected his palms until he was satisfied that the magical ointment Twilight had applied had sufficiently healed his burns, and rested one giant paw atop the drumhead.

“You’re going to do magic?” Twilight asked with a note of excitement in her voice that made her companions chuckle.

“Yes, the Ways will bring us to Dingo,” Basenji said with a sharp grin. “The Ways of Old Dogs – magic, as you call it – are what bind all dogs together. Dogs from old times, dogs from now, dogs that will be; all are family. Dingo did not wish to be found, so this did not work at a distance, but now he is close, and even he cannot resist my drum.”

Twilight had spent years trying to understand magic as a tool. Her brother may have been the one renowned as a scholar in the field, but magic was her talent and she was very good at it. Those many years of practice and self-study allowed her to feel as Basenji’s magic began to gather.

It started as a rumble in the air, a vibration that she felt as a tickle at the tip of her horn. He raised his paw up and brought it down with a heavy thump that shook the air. The force of the strike caused the magic in the air to surge and shiver down her horn to tickle her brain in a strangely enjoyable way. He lifted his paw and brought down the other with a soft tap, changing the frequency of the vibrations in the air.

He began to tap and beat on the drum rapidly. The rhythm was strong and exotic, and brought every nerve in Twilight’s body alive with the sensation of unfamiliar magic.

The magic in the air coalesced into a pale, glowing mist that hung about Basenji’s body like a fog. Within seconds he was engulfed in the field of magic, and with a final, decisive note, a tendril of smoke emerged from the cloud and darted off. The spell snaked its way across the ground and out the back of the tent.

Twilight released the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, and beside her came two more sighs of withheld breath. In the end, the casting of the spell had taken less than ten seconds, but it felt infinitely longer.

“That’s really…” Twilight began to say.

“…wow.” Cadance said, finishing her thought.

Sky Chaser nodded, that cocksure grin of his wide on his face. “It was a right pretty show, and I bet you could dance to it,” he quipped, not having sensed how impressively magical the feat actually was.

“I didn’t know there was magic in music like that,” Twilight added. “I mean, I’ve heard of magical arias, but I thought the power was in the words and voice, not in the music itself.”

Basenji smiled knowingly. “There is ‘magic’ in all things, Twilight Sparkle,” he explained as he stood and adjusted his traveling cloak. “As all things have magic, through magic all things are connected. Even dogs and ponies are connected through the Ways – though pony magic is much too… flashy? Is this the word? Dog Ways are very subtle; pony Ways, not so much.”

Basenji was up and on the trail before Twilight could respond. The ethereal tether vanished with gentle puffs as Basenji followed it, the way pegasi burst through clouds in the sky. When he reached the tent wall, he merely lifted it up and slipped beneath the canvas. A quiet whisper of sliding steel gave him pause, and he turned to find his pony friends emerging from the tent through an enormous zipper bathed in light blue energy.

“Pony magic may not be subtle,” Cadance said proudly, “but it has its uses. Case in point: this little number, designed by me. It’s good for tents, and great for getting out of itchy formalwear in a hurry.”

They didn’t have to follow the trail very far. The spell continued on only a few dozen more paces before stopping abruptly against the sheer rock of the mountainside.

“Your spell seems to be broken,” Sky Chaser commented once they reached the end of the trail. He craned his neck and looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hoof. The mountainside was sheer vertical rock, going up at least a hundred meters, and would be impossible for ponies to climb without the aid of wings, magic, or some serious mountaineering equipment. “Unless we’re meant to go up.”

“No, not up,” Basenji said. He waved his paw through the final remnants of the spell and placed a paw against the rock. “We must go through.”

“Why go through when we can go around?” Cadance asked. “Or better yet, over? We can get back on the ship and you can cast the spell on the other side of the mountain.”

Basenji shook his head. “You misunderstand.” He leaned forward to sniff at the wall. “This smells of magic.”

Twilight pressed her horn to the wall and concentrated. “He’s right,” she said as she stepped back to run a hoof over the warm surface. “There’s definitely something magical here, and it’s strong. Maybe it’s some kind of barrier?”

Basenji nodded. “This is Dingo’s Ways. It is an ancient technique, used to hide dog dens from the eyes of outsiders.”

“An illusion?” Twilight asked, her eyes wide in shock. She slipped one of the long, flat blades from beneath her breastplate with a pull of magic – studiously ignoring the disapproving grumble from Cadance – and tapped the cloth-gripped handle against the rock. “But it’s solid rock. I can feel it and it reacts to physical objects.”

“A trick of the mind combined with a shield to halt physical ingress,” Basenji reasoned. “I have never seen such things combined so effectively. Even in madness, Dingo’s mind has brilliance.”

“Can you break it?” Sky Chaser questioned.

“Such a thing is beyond my skill to craft,” Basenji admitted, “but to break it is infinitely simpler.”

Basenji motioned for the ponies to step back as he regained his cross-legged position. He knit his brow in concentration and gave a quick rap on the drum with a single claw. His scowl deepened as he gauged the reaction, and he thumped again. He repeated this process several times more.

Thump.

Scowl.

Thump.

Glare.

At last, whatever secrets the spell held unraveled themselves, and he began to play. The song was more complex than the location spell he’d cast in the tent. His paws were a blur of frantic motion, raising the tempo to something like the sound of stampeding hooves, broken only by an occasional hollow tap against the wooden shell of the drum.

The wall stood unaffected and unblemished as he played, until Basenji’s paw rose high and struck with a hard, final note. Cracks spread across the surface of the rock, like glass under pressure, and the barrier came down without sound, fading into nothingness and revealing the mouth of a cave thrice as wide as the four of them standing abreast.

Air rushed from the darkened tunnel with a soul-chilling howl, rushing over them like the dying-breath of a giant. The group huddled together unconsciously, shivering despite the punishing heat of the midday sun.

“It feels like somepony just walked over my grave…” Cadance said tremulously.

Basenji stood suddenly as his hyper-developed night vision – a result of his species’ subterranean nature – caught sight of something in the distance, and he bolted into the darkened maw of the cave’s entrance.

“Basenji, wait!” Cadance shouted as she galloped after him.

“Princess, wait!” Twilight shouted as she galloped after Cadance.

Sky Chaser, in a show of what he felt to be incredible self-control and personal fortitude, resisted the urge to shout, “Missy, wait!” as he hurried to keep up with the group.

They didn’t have to run far to catch up with Basenji. As Cadance rushed headlong into the darkness, she cast a simple illumination spell just in time to avoid running past Basenji in the darkness.

Basenji was crouched low against the tunnel wall, huddled protectively over a pile of red wooden splinters. He gently brushed away the splinters and held the tattered remains of a drumhead tightly against his chest.

“This… this is Dingo’s drum…” Basenji explained as he turned to the others, his voice shaking and his face clearly grief-stricken by the sight.

Cadance stepped forward and placed a hoof comfortingly on his shoulder. “Would he, or anyone else, have been able to get through the barrier he put up without that drum?”

“Dogs can always dig,” Basenji answer quietly. “If Dingo wished to leave, he would only need dig around the seal.”

“Then why bother with the seal at all?” Twilight asked. The mote of light at the tip of her horn intensified slightly as she leaned forward to closer inspect the remains of the instrument. “And why do this to his own drum?”

“It may have something to do with that.”

They turned to Sky Chaser and followed his gaze to the opposite wall where letters were carved directly into the stone in shallow, angular letters at just above eye-level. The language was not one that the ponies were familiar with, and all three turned expectantly to Basenji.

Basenji knew diamond dog marking when he saw them. Dog tunnels and caves were filled with notes like this, scratched out using their bare claws. A cold knife dug into his heart at the realization that it was written in a jagged approximation of his brother’s script. His mouth went dry and he licked at his lips fruitlessly as he read aloud: “Dream no more, you who broke my seal, father’s teeth are upon you.”

They stared in silence at the wall, at the words of a mad-dog who had led them across the sands and through a hidden passage into the frozen maw of the earth. Mystery was heaped upon mystery, and every new clue to finding Dingo’s whereabouts only created more questions, more confusion, and more unease.

The spell of the eerie message was broken as Cadance split from the group and began to march on shaky hooves deeper into the tunnel.

“What are you doing?” Twilight asked.

“Looking for Dingo,” she said simply. “The spooky curse, or whatever it is, only proves that he’s sick… it’s… it’s just a symptom of his ailment. He needs our help.”

Twilight cast one last glance at the ominous sign and groaned. “Wait, Your Highness.” She galloped forward and took her position at the front of the group. “You and Basenji will be at the rear, Sky Chaser, you’re on point with me. Two-by-two formation, watch your buddy and shout if you see anything.”

“Aye, missy,” Sky Chaser answered. He gave a half-hearted salute and went to her side.

Basenji and Cadance nodded and fell into a sloppy formation at the rear, while the two soldiers led the way into the darkness with Twilight’s spell lighting their path. Twilight and Sky Chaser each had their senses at full attention. Periodically they would look back to make sure the two less-stout members of their unit were keeping up and hadn’t been spirited away.

After ten minutes of walking they had yet to come across another sign that anything had entered this deeply into the passageway. The only change in the terrain had been the deepening of the passage’s mild slope, which was now fairly noticeable and leading them deeper underground.

“Well, missy,” Sky Chaser whispered once the eerie silence became unbearable, “I should’ve asked earlier, but I don’t suppose any of those fancy certificates you’re so proud of were from a class on subterranean combat.”

Twilight shook her head. “No, but as soon as I get back I’m going to write a letter to the military academy’s headmaster about the gap in the curriculum.”

“Incidentally,” he continued, “you remember that bad feeling you were having earlier?” He paused to wait for Twilight’s nod. “Starting to think it’s contagious. I’ve come down with a case of it myself.”

“Trust me, whatever bad vibes you’re getting are nothing compared to what I’m feeling.”

Sky Chaser raised an eyebrow. “You know something old Sky Chaser doesn’t?”

“Yeah,” she said with a sidelong glance at the old soldier. “You don’t know that I’ve had to refresh and strengthen the illumination spell I’m casting three times since back at that little note Dingo left us in the wall.”

“It’s losing strength?”

She shook her head. “No, the spell has maintained perfectly balanced and regulated power levels, and my own reserves aren’t even close to tapped. I’ve just had to strengthen it to keep the same level of illumination up.” She tossed another look over her shoulder to check on the princess, who seemed to be in the midst of her own hushed conversation with Basenji. She felt a twinge of jealousy at that, but squashed it down flat. “I’ve been watching the Princess, and I’m certain she’s had to do the same a few times, as well.”

Sky Chaser frowned. He didn’t know a lot about unicorn magic, but what he did know is that illumination was one of the simplest spells a unicorn could do. Even foals that didn’t even have a handle on levitation could do a fair approximation of a night light.

“What would be causing a thing like that?”

“I don’t know,” she stated simply. “I don’t sense any magic being worked on us, but…” Twilight shook her head to clear away the oncoming train of runaway thoughts. “We just need to be very careful and get ourselves checked out by medical professionals once we get to Saddle Arabia.”

Further chatter was cut as a cry went up from Basenji. “I see something ahead!”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed and her muscles tensed in readiness. She increased the strength of her lighting spell once more, pushing away enough darkness to reveal the massive gateway before them. Two gigantic doors stretched from floor to ceiling, carved from the very rock of the mountain. As they approached, she noticed that there were reliefs carved into the stone – some depicting diamond dogs performing various acts, while others were more abstract patterns that may have been writing – but any significance they had to the creators was lost on her. They were works of art, blemished only by the dog-sized entry hole dug into door on the right side.

“Someone was in a hurry to get inside,” Sky Chaser quipped nervously.

“What is this door, Basenji?” Twilight asked.

“I do not know,” Basenji sighed. “It is of a design of the Old Dogs, but I have not the knowledge to decipher meaning from the carvings beyond this.”

Twilight anxiously checked her gear again and nodded. “Everyone wait here, I’m going in.”

She breathed deeply and cantered forward, her hornlight bright as she stepped through the makeshift entryway. She made it only a few steps in before the sight before her registered fully and stopped her in her tracks.

Here, in a cavern in the very belly of the desert, she found herself in a city.

As far into the darkness as her spell would light, she saw row after row of houses. Most of the domiciles were small, squat huts, arranged with streets running between them in a grid, though she did spy a number of larger homes. Some houses were made from cobbled stones, packed tightly with earth, while others were made of proper bricks. She looked up and found that the ceiling was too high to see, as whatever strange properties the darkness in this place held seemed even more pronounced here. As she scanned her surroundings she found yet more structures built into the very walls of the chamber, high above the ground floor and reachable through a maze of staircases that connected the different levels of the city.

Despite the beauty of the scene, she couldn’t shake the sense of wrongness. Twilight had grown up in Canterlot, one of the largest, finest cities in the world. Canterlot’s grandeur was vibrant, alive with the noise and activity and very essence of the citizens that lived there. This city was cold, dead, and silent. It was alien and unsettling. She squinted into the distance and frowned as she noticed one other very odd aspect of the place: every window and doorway was sealed with bricks.

She was so enchanted by the sight that she didn’t register that her companions had filtered in until Cadance was right beside her.

“It’s incredible,” she whispered as she pressed against Twilight’s side.

“I have never seen such a city,” Basenji said. He spun around, trying to drink in every inch of the place. “To think that such splendor was hidden beneath the sands.”

“This place is really something, alright,” Twilight said, “but look at the size of it. I’m not sure how we’re going to find Ding—“

Twilight’s comment died in her throat as she spied something down one of the side streets – a discolored stain amidst the sandy brown of the unpaved street. She walked towards it, her heart beating faster as she came around the side of a house to where the black splotch had soaked into the earth. A distinctly metallic scent filled her nostrils once she was close to it.

It was blood.

The bloodstain streaked off down the street, indicating that whatever had been bleeding had been dragged away. The ground had also been disturbed, as though from a struggle.

Basenji was at her side in seconds, his nose snorting powerfully at the ground to find the scents hidden beneath the stink of spilled blood and recently damp earth. He sat up and released a deep, shuddering sigh of relief. “It is recent, but it is not Dingo,” he whispered.

“Then whose blood is it?” Sky Chaser asked. “And more importantly, what spilled it?”

“Your Highness,” Twilight snapped as she rounded on the other mare. “We need to leave. Now.”

“I must not go!” Basenji shouted in a panic. “You may leave if you wish, but I must stay! I must find Dingo!”

Cadance glanced nervously between Twilight and Basenji. She looked to Sky Chaser for help, but the old stallion was busying himself inspecting the blood trail.

“I… I think Twilight is right, Basenji,” she said. “Things are more complicated than we thought they’d be. Something terrible happened here and we still don’t know exactly what’s going on. I think we all need to follow her advice and fall back for now to reassess.”

The emphasis the princess placed on the word ‘all’ was not lost on Basenji. He shook his head furiously. “I refuse. I will not abandon Dingo.”

“Please, Basenji,” she pleaded. “We’re not abandoning your brother, but we can’t do this with just the four of us.”

“Exactly,” Twilight added. “We can come back later with more guards.”

“Yes!” Cadance agreed enthusiastically. “We can ask the sultan of Saddle Arabia for help, and he can get into contact with the Zebra Nation. We can even have word sent back to your pack. I’m sure the other diamond dogs will want to know about this place.”

Basenji’s mutinous expression faltered as his eyes drifted back to the spilled blood.

Cadance pressed the break in his resistance. “You still feel that he’s alive, don’t you?” She waited until he gave a nod. “Then he’ll be fine for just two more days. With a larger party we’ll find him faster, and with less likelihood that anyone will be wounded.”

“I’ll lead the party myself, if it’ll make you feel better,” Twilight assured him.

He worked his jaw in thought, rubbing his paws together nervously. “There is wisdom in what you say… Very well.”

“Good, let’s get back to the Mistress and back in the air,” Sky Chaser said eagerly. “I may be an earth pony but I’m more comfortable in the sky than underground. And besides, this place smells like a crypt.”

Twilight sniffed the air and noted the musty smell that had overcome her so gradually she hadn’t even noticed it until it was pointed out. It was that stuffiness that always accompanied truly old places, like very deepest archives in the Canterlot library that her brother had scolded her for sneaking into as a filly. Only this smell was far less comforting than the warm scent of old books.

The faint traces of a memory from foalhood came to her as she took in the scent.

She was very young, and an aunt had died – some distant relative she’d never met. The ashes had to be interred in the family mausoleum, so she, her brothers, and their parents had made a day of the thing. Her father had opened the old stone vault and the musk of generations of her family as they quietly waited out eternity wafted out. It wasn’t rank or foul – it was just death.

“Yeah,” Twilight agreed as she led the way back into the tunnel, “it does smell like a crypt in here…”

Sky Chaser shivered slightly and popped the collar of his peacoat up. “We’re going to catch our deaths in this damned place,” he muttered as he cast one last look at the bloody remains of some unknown dog.

* * *

Twilight lay on her bed, staring at the tiny motes of light floating around her ceiling. The electric lights had proven too bright for her current mood, but she also desperately didn’t want to be in the dark, so she opted to cast a more playful, less energy efficient variant of the illumination spell. The lights fluttered about overhead, winking like fireflies and creating a soothing compromise between light and darkness.

Once they’d left the cave, the first blush of evening had fallen upon them. Twilight could have sworn they hadn’t been underground for more than an hour, but somehow time had gotten away from them.

Basenji had insisted on doing what he could to replace the seal his brother had erected. Though he didn’t have his brother’s skill, he was able to craft a passable approximation of it. Unlike Dingo’s spell, Basenji’s had manifested as an unnaturally smooth dome, just a shade or two darker than the color of the surrounding rock. It was obvious even from a distance that something was there, but it did create a relatively stout barrier that would keep anyone from crossing the threshold.

With the barrier in place, Sky Chaser had hurried them back up the ramp and onto ship. Once he and Twilight had made a quick sweep of the ship for stowaways – the remainders of the camp’s occupants were still unaccounted for, after all – he’d taken them to the air and set their course directly for Saddle Arabia.

Safely away from that strange place, the group had decided to try and get some rack. They’d fished Basenji out of the desert in the middle of the night, and in the excitement of their newfound quest, no one had gotten any real rest. Twilight, Sky Chaser, and Cadance had all taken to their rooms, while Basenji had decided to take the blankets and pillows he was supplied with to make a bed for himself in the hold.

Cadance had tried to offer him her room, saying that she could bunk with Twilight – to Twilight’s barely hidden fluster – but the dog had insisted on not putting anyone out. It had come as a relief to Twilight that she wouldn’t be sharing a bedroom with the princess, but the rush of excitement only served to remind her of the troubles she’d been having moments before they’d met their guest.

The more she thought on it, the more it seemed that the restlessness she'd felt that night had been nothing but jitters from her mission, or some other unrelated issue… but then she had to go and talk to Sky Chaser.

All his highfalutin talk about love and “having a chance” had put a seed of something in her brain. It turned a harmless and easily ignored attraction – a day-to-day, run-of-the-mill crush – on an urbane, beautiful, funny mare, and made it… awkward.

Awkward was a good word for it. Every time she looked at Cadance now, there was Sky Chaser’s voice in her ear telling her that Cadance liked her back.

Twilight had had crushes before. Not many, to tell the truth, and none had been particularly intense, but she’d had her share. It was just a part of growing up that you never really grew out of, if anecdotal evidence and romance literature was any indication. Besides, all those past attractions had been very short lived.

That’s how these things went: first somepony catches your eye intellectually or physically and you get a little flutter in your heart, and a few days, or even a few weeks later, you get over it. Crushes were a lot like the flu, like that. But Sky Chaser’s encouragement had given some hope to those emotions, whether she wanted that hope or not.

She sighed and clutched her upset belly. Their short time back on solid ground had pulled the hard-won sky-legs right out from under her, and her airsickness was back in full force.

At least it was something to concentrate on for now that wasn’t the princess. She knew she could shake this attraction, same as any other crush, it would just take a little more time than usual. All she had to do was limit off-duty exposure, keep her head down, try not to stare, and this whole thing would blow over.

A gentle, almost timid knock at the door shook her out of her thoughts and brought her attention crashing back to reality. The door opened a crack, just enough to let Cadance’s voice drift in.

“Twilight, it’s me, are you awake?”

Twilight briefly entertained the notion of laying her head down and pretending to be asleep, but lost her nerve for the ruse just as she was lowering her head. The rusty bedsprings squeaked shrilly as she sat up and replied: “Yes, I’m awake.”

Cadance stepped into the room, the hinges creaking more loudly than she recalled, and shut the door behind herself with a gentle click.

The most analytical part of Twilight’s mind noticed that Cadance was still wearing her royal fineries, which she knew the princess removed before bed. She reasoned that this likely meant that Cadance hadn’t even attempted to sleep, despite her assurances that she’d try to get some rest.

The rest of Twilight, the parts that were less than fully analytical, began sending up flags of panic. She felt her stomach flip at being alone, in her bedroom, with the princess. That sense of awkwardness fell upon her again and she cursed Sky Chaser’s very name as the princess trotted forward and tilted her head towards the empty spot on the bed.

“May I?” Cadance asked innocently.

“Oh!” Twilight exclaimed. “Yes, um, let me just…”

She tried to rise so her princess could have the bed to herself, but Cadance held up a hoof quickly.

“No! No I meant just… um…” Cadance sighed and made a shooing motion. “Just… just scoot over.”

Twilight did what was asked and tried not to stare as Cadance climbed onto the bed next to her. The springs groaned again as they were burdened with the weight of a second occupant.

“Very pretty.”

Twilight’s head snapped around, her eyes wide as she stared at the princess. “W-what?”

“Your spell,” Cadance clarified with a tilt of her chin towards the ceiling. “It’s the Lightning Bug spell, right?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s Star Watcher’s variant of the Simple Illumination spell,” Twilight said with a nervous chuckle. “I was, um, feeling playful.”

“I always liked this one. I could never get the magical-current values uniform, though. The little bugs are supposed to all be exactly the same and burn for the exact same length of time, but mine are… well…”

Cadance’s horn glowed with magical energy which condensed like droplets of water in the air. The globules of floating magic – all of different sizes and varying levels of brightness – rose to join Twilight’s ‘bugs’.

“As an alicorn, power’s not really an issue, but I’ve just never had the control for really fine-tuned spellwork,” Cadance explained regrettably.

“I like your variant better, I think,” Twilight said with a smile as she watched Cadance’s lights dance. “They’re more energetic. It looks more like actual lightning bugs than my spell. It’s got more… heart, I guess.”

The natural pinkness of Cadance’s cheeks intensified just a shade at the praise. “That’s very sweet of you to say.”

For a while they said nothing else, content to watch the tiny sparks of magical light dance about on invisible aetheric currents. It had been a hard day, and solitude had done nothing to relieve the stress of it. But in the company of a good friend, the silent moment was invigorating. Even Twilight was able to forget her troubles, despite the fact that the source of half those troubles happened to be sitting next to her on the bed.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Cadance said, breaking the spell of comfortable silence. “I wanted to apologize. This thing with Basenji’s brother was…”

“More than you expected, I know,” Twilight finished for her.

Cadance nodded abashedly. “It was unfair of me to put you in that position. It’s just that I really wanted to… I don’t know how to explain it…”

“You wanted a win,” Twilight said.

Cadance shot her guard a curious expression. “Yeah… yeah that’s it exactly. How’d you know?”

“Because,” Twilight answered with a shrug, “if I were the Princess of Love, it’s what I would have wanted.”

Cadance made a show of huffing in annoyance, but the grin she wore betrayed her display. “Oh, so you think we’re that much alike, do you?”

“I think I know what it’s like to spend your whole life living in the shadow of somepony that shines as brightly as the sun.”

Cadance watched the bugs flitter above as she let that thought sink in. “You’ve mentioned that before.”

Twilight shrugged again. “It’s a big part of why I am the way I am, I think,” she rationalized. “I’ve worked very hard my whole life, trying to live up to somepony else’s reputation. Lately, though, I’m starting to realize that it’s hard to be your own pony when you live like that.”

Cadance nodded knowingly. “Doesn’t help when you have to live up to more than one reputation, and one of them is your own.” She cast a sidelong glance down at Twilight. “Did you ever read the book? The one they wrote about my fight with Prismia, I mean.”

Twilight nodded.

“I never liked that book,” Cadance said with a very unlady-like snort. “It romanticizes the story too much.” Cadance lifted an arm and held a hoof to her forehead in mock-swoon, her other arm outstretched as though pushing something away. “A poor orphaned pegasus, taken in by a loving elderly earth pony couple! Her village beset by the evil witch Prismia, who knew only bitterness and sorrow!”

Cadance brought her hooves together under her chin as the tone of her voice became increasingly dramatic. “With her magic pendant, Prismia spread her hatred to all the ponies of the village, and made their hearts grow cold! But that sweet young virgin maiden strode forth, her heart so pure and loving that no dark magic could touch it! She snatched the pendant from the witch’s neck, and used it to spread the power of her innocence and love to save the village and reform the witch!”

“Is that not how it happened?” Twilight asked with a raise of her eyebrow.

“Mostly,” Cadance said with a snicker. “Just the prose is a little too flowery for my taste, and the fight in the book was written to make it seem like it was much easier than it really was.” Cadance stretched a wing out and ran a hoof up her side, along the ribs. “The process that made me an alicorn included some really powerful healing magic. If it didn’t, I’d have a real wicked scar right here from where Prismia knocked me out of the air with a spear of magic ice. The crash knocked a tooth loose, too.”

“Whoa,” Twilight whispered. “Sounds like it was a doozy of a fight.”

“Trust me, it wasn’t anything a professional soldier would have been impressed by,” Cadance sighed. “I was unbelievably lucky that she didn’t kill me. I got my shots in, though. You want to know how I actually got the pendant off her in the end? I distracted her by dumping a bucket of fish on her head.”

“A bucket of fish?” Twilight repeated with a laugh.

“The village I’m from is the number-three producer of salted fish in all of Equestria, so you better believe I dropped some fish on her!” Cadance said with genuine hometown pride and a beat of her hoof to her chest. “My poppa always said, ‘Ain’t no prollum too big ya can’t solve it with a bucket o’ fish’!”

“He sounds like a funny guy,” Twilight remarked with a grin.

“He was,” Cadance said, her smile faltering a bit. “He died not too long after I ascended, and momma went just a few days later… Her heart just wasn’t strong enough to go on without his…”

“I’m sorry…” Twilight whispered. Cadance had said that her adopted parents were elderly, but to hear that they’d died was a bit of a shock. Twilight thought of her own parents, and how much she would miss either of them if they were gone.

“It’s okay, they got to see me as a princess, at least. They were the first thing I saw when I got out of the room.”

“The room?” Twilight repeated curiously.

Cadance nodded. “I don’t know any of the real technical stuff, because I don’t have the head for magic to understand it, but Aunt Celestia says it’s the only place the Ascension spell can be cast. The way she explained it, it’s a place that’s sort of alive with a mind of its own. It summons ponies with big, important destinies once they realize what they’re supposed to do with their lives. For me, it was realizing that I wanted to devote my life to spreading love to every living thing. That was the place where I met Aunt Celestia for the first time, got my Cutie Mark, and became a princess. It was a very busy day for me.”

“Sounds like it,” Twilight said with an impressed whistle.

“Anyway, after that, I started studying at Canterlot Academy. Ponies started expecting me to be special right out the gate. I had to live up to Aunt Celestia’s expectations, the expectations of everypony that read that book, the expectations of my royal title… it’s been… overwhelming…”

Twilight felt a tickle against her sides as Cadance brushed a wing against her.

“It’s nice to finally have somepony to talk to about this stuff,” Cadance said softly. “I wasn’t kidding when I said most ponies are too intimidated to talk to me. Nobles are out of the question, because they don’t really care about me for anything but my title. Guards aren’t much help either. You’re the first guard I’ve ever had that wasn’t all business and frowny stares.” She chuckled sadly to herself. “And I already told you how things went with your brother…”

Twilight felt a light jab from Cadance’s wing, drawing her attention. She looked into Cadance’s big, beautiful eyes and in the back of her head she could hear Sky Chaser’s words again: “…I reckon you’ve got as fair a shot at her as anypony…”

“Thank you for being my friend, Twilight Sparkle.”

A knock at the door tore Twilight away from Cadance’s hypnotic gaze. “Oh, thank Celestia,” Twilight muttered under her breath. “Come in!”

The knob turned and Basenji entered. He was not wearing his travelling cloak, but his satchel and precious drum were eternally at his side.

“Forgiveness, please, if I have interrupted,” Basenji said with a bow. “I was going above and heard voices.”

“What interrupting?” Twilight asked, her voice slightly louder than normal. “What would you even be interrupting? It’s just me and the princess having some girl chat! Chit-chat! Gossip! Pillow-talk!”

Twilight slapped a hoof over her mouth, eyes wide at the implication of that last synonym.

“Anyway…” Cadance said as she cast a worried look at her friend’s behavior. “Couldn’t sleep, Basenji?”

“N-no,” the dog answered. He shook his head and wrote the strange response off as the eccentricities of foreign ponies. “My body is tired, but my heart is filled with worry for Dingo. I saw the wisdom of seeking aid, but every moment brings more doubt that such was the correct course to take.”

“It was the right choice,” Cadance assured him. “We’ll find him, don’t worry.”

Basenji nodded. “It is not only Dingo that I worry for. Other dogs were with him, and one may have lost his life.” Basenji sighed and slumped against the wall beside the door. “I am a drummer. All dogs are my dogs. I worry that others may have been taken by this… perversion of the Ways.”

Twilight managed to shake the last of her embarrassment and joined the conversation. “You think they were summoned there the same way as your brother? Strange dreams and all?”

“Summoned, yes,” Basenji agreed. “This is perhaps the word. But summoned by what? Questions after questions... I feel as though I am the one that is mad.”

"I know the feeling," Twilight grumbled. "I don't like how little we know about what was going on at that mountain. Seems like the only one of us that's made of iron is Sky Chaser."

"I'm sure he's bothered, too," Cadance said. "He's just tired. Old ponies need their rest, and he's been on his hooves as long as we have."

Twilight chuckled. "Don't tell him that. Old stallions like that don't take kindly to the implication that they can't keep up with us youngsters."

A scream rent the air, bringing all three occupants of Twilight’s room to their hooves and paws.

“Was that Sky Chaser?” Cadance asked in a panic.

Twilight didn’t waste a moment. Her heart began pounding, blood rushing through her veins as adrenaline spurred her into action. She went straight for her trunk to fasten a baldric – a simple sash with scabbards for her knives – around her chest and levitated three of the blades into place. The fourth knife floated up to her face and she bit down on the cloth grip of the handle.

“Stay here!” she commanded around the obstruction in her mouth.

She was out the door and in the hall before either Cadance or Basenji could protest. Sky Chaser’s cabin was on the opposite side of the hall, one door over from Cadance’s room.

The time for social niceties was gone the moment Sky Chaser had called out in distress. She turned the knob with a twist of magic and threw the door open, knife held at the ready to defend her friend. The rooms were all the same, she’d learned, and she was able to flip the light switch telekinetically. The light flipped on and dispelled the darkness of Sky Chaser’s room.

Red.

Everything was red. The walls, the bed, the ceiling – it was all painted dark red. And all that redness glistened wetly in the bright light of the bare bulb swinging from the ceiling like a criminal at the end of a noose.

Sky Chaser was in bed, his eyes staring at the door without occupancy, as though in his final moments he’d been looking for somepony, anypony, to burst in and help him.

Standing over him were two of his killers. Each was easily the size of a pony and covered in thick, chitinous black armor. They had too many legs, too many eyes, and too many damned fangs.

“Sky Chaser! No!”

Twilight was startled by the sudden cry from Cadance, who had followed her into the hall. She dropped her knife and it fell to the floor with a thud.

“Cadance, don’t look!” Twilight shouted.

The monstrous spiders had finally taken notice of the intrusion and turned to look at them. Three more of the things fell from the ceiling and joined their brethren as they reached their spindly legs towards the door.

Spiders were fast, but Twilight’s mind and her magic were faster. She flung the knife at the nearest one, striking it cleanly in the face, but her knife merely slid off the thing’s carapace without a scratch and lodged itself in the wall. Her horn flared brightly, and a solid bolt of compressed magical energy struck it with the force of a cannonball, slamming it against the others behind it in the small cabin. The monstrous things crashed against the hull hard enough to crack it and writhed angrily in a jumble of tangled legs, but were otherwise unaffected.

Her jaw dropped as she watched them detangle themselves. Whatever these things were, they were incredibly resistant to damage. She knew that a smart soldier knew when to retreat, so she yanked the lost knife from the wall and levitated it into the empty pocket of her baldric before slamming the door shut.

“Get back to my room!” she commanded the princess.

They ran for Twilight’s cabin, and even as they shut the door they could hear the sound of Sky Chaser’s door being reduced to splinters.

Twilight’s horn glowed as she built power. Every piece of furniture in the room, except her steam trunk, was piled against the door. She closed her eyes in focus and the makeshift barrier shimmered with a bright pink wall of magical energy.

Her shield and barricade in place, she opened her trunk and began rooting through it.

“What is happening?” Basenji asked as he clutched his drum to his chest. “Where is Sky Chaser?”

“He’s gone,” Cadance muttered.

Twilight looked up and felt her heart twist in her chest at the sight of her princess. Cadance was staring at the floor, head down and wings drooped as she barely managed to hold back her tears.

She went to her princess and knelt down beside her so she could look up into the taller mare’s distraught face.

“Cadance, look at me,” she said with authority. “We need to keep it together right now, okay? I know you’re a brave pony, and I need that brave pony with me here, right now.”

Cadance swallowed hard and nodded. She still looked on the verge of tears, but there was enough steel in her eyes that Twilight knew she’d be fine for the moment.

The sound of splintering wood filled the air again and through the barricade they could see long, skinny legs poking holes through the door and scratching ineffectively at the pink barrier. The shield was one of her brother’s designs, and nothing was getting through so long as she maintained the power levels.

Already, though, she could hear the things moving on to the rest of the ship. She could hold the shield on a single wall for a good long while, and if needed she could put a bubble shield around the three of them capable of holding the creatures back for hours. But shields didn’t matter if the enemy pulled the ship apart around them, and strong as they were, it was only a matter of time.

Considering their speed, durability, and presumed strength, a battle in the tight quarters of the ship was heavily against her favor. Plus, she had Cadance and Basenji to look after. The more she thought about it, the clearer it became that the ship was likely a lost cause.

“What is this?” Basenji asked fearfully.

“Spiders,” Twilight informed him. She went back to her trunk and pulled out her saddlebags, which she began to fill with supplies. “They’re big and they killed Sky Chaser.”

“Have you got a plan, Twilight?” Cadance asked shakily.

She nodded and continued packing. “I do. It’s pretty extreme, but I’ve run the scenarios in my head and it’s the option with the highest degree of likelihood that all of us make it out of this alive. These things are too tough for half-measures.”

“I trust your judgment,” Cadance said.

“I as well,” Basenji agreed.

“Okay, first I need to know, princess, can you fly with Basenji on your back?”

“I… I think I can,” Cadance stammered with a flush. “No, I know I can. Just not very far.”

“You don’t have to go far,” Twilight explained as she set the bags aside and stared at the various potions tucked away in the pockets lining the trunk. She began uncorking bottles and mixing them together in seemingly random ways. “You just have to get him to the ground. My hooves are full, so I also need you to take out the wall behind us. Think you can blow it?”

“If I may,” Basenji said. He stood on his hind legs took a wide stance, his drum held tightly against his hip. He beat a quick tattoo on the drum and within moments cracks began to form along the wall. As his paw struck the final note, a portion of the hull crumbled to dust and blew away in the wind, revealing the dark blue night sky.

“Good work,” Twilight shot over her shoulder as she continued mixing chemicals. A few of the bottles were now vibrating from the force of the reactions corked within, and Twilight secured the stoppers with liberal amounts of epoxy. “You guys get out and get far away. I’ll be right behind.”

“No way,” Cadance declared. “You don’t have wings. I’m not leaving without you. I can carry you both.”

“I’ll be fine!” Twilight snapped. “I mean it. I don’t intend to die here.”

Cadance blanched at the thought. “You better not…” she said as she allowed Basenji to climb onto her back. She spread her wings and leapt from the airship, gliding away to safety.

The feeling of relief Twilight felt knowing that Cadance was out of danger was short lived as the spiders chose that moment to redouble their efforts at breaching the barrier. She could see their eyes, glowing unnaturally bright red like burning coals, peering at her as they scratched at the shield and removed parts of the wall in an attempt to find a way inside. Luckily they weren’t smart enough to try breaching a different wall, or the spell would have been much harder to maintain.

Their eyes gave her pause. Spiders, even giant ones, shouldn’t have glowing eyes. That could only mean one thing: magical constructs.

She ground her teeth in anger. It didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was sending the filthy things back to Tartarus.

She placed the cap on the final bottle, a slim vial of amber color liquid that glowed with the reaction inside, and set it aside gently. She spared only a moment to inspect her armor, which she’d thrown carelessly against the wall in her search for supplies. All that time spent trying to get it to fit properly, and in the end all it was good for was the gold used in the alloy.

Twilight shoved the armor back into the trunk with a curse as she slipped on the heavy saddlebags. The vial she’d just set aside flew up and uncorked itself, dumping the luminescent brew onto the armor.

The reaction was immediate. The gold in the armor began to heat rapidly, quickly bringing the highly unstable chemicals she’d mixed to boil inside their containers.

Twilight slammed the lid shut and bucked it towards the barrier as she bolted for the exit.

Twilight held her breath as she leapt out of the ship and into a freefall. She tried not to panic as the ground rushed to meet her in a show of what her instructors used to call “wet physics.”

She closed her eyes and refocused the energy being spent on her barrier towards creating the bubble shield her brother had taught her. A properly cast shield was stiff, unyielding and impenetrable so long as you could supply the magic to maintain it, but what she really needed was something softer. She concentrated on making the bubble firm, but with enough malleability that it would cushion the impact rather than resist it.

Twilight opened her eyes once she was certain the spell was cast to her liking, and to her shock she was only a few meters from the ground. Panic overcame her at the last second, and she was certain she’d screwed up somewhere. Some part of the output was wrong, or her capacity to offset the kinetic energy, or her fundamental conceptualization of the spell patterns was wrong. Her mind buzzed with fancy arcane-talk for what essentially boiled down to: “I goofed and went splat.”

She flinched as her shield hit the ground, and magic flowed from her in response to the load her spell was under. The sensation of falling to the ground was replaced with the sensation of falling upwards as the bubble’s elasticity came into play and tossed her back into the air. Her airsickness returned a thousandfold as she bounced along the rocky desert landscape.

She bounced a few more times and released the bubble with a loud pop, tumbling into a rolling stop. She was dizzy and feeling ill, but all her insides were still on the inside.

Twilight barely had time to gather her wits when her homemade bomb went off. One of the chemicals had reached its transition state and exploded, breaking the other containers open and mixing the various cocktails into a potent mix of explosives and accelerants.

She watched as the Old Mistress went up in flames like kindling, and a few moments later the flames reached whatever fuel the engines used, creating a second kaboom that shook the night air. A third, final boom went off seconds later when the ship's ballast system failed and released all the highly pressurized air at once.

The flaming wreckage didn’t float long. The flames had found their way to the balloon and released the helium back up into the sky. The bright ball of fire slowly sunk from the air like a setting sun – a sad reminder that it was officially the night of the Summer Sun Celebration.

“That was for Sky Chaser,” Twilight declared shakily. “Nothing gets by the Guard.”

The adrenaline came as fast as it went, and training only helped during a crisis, not after. All at once she was hit by the fatigue, the airsickness, and the rush of what she’d just walked away from.

When Cadance and Basenji found her a few minutes later, Twilight was leaning against a rock, shivering and vomiting what little dinner she’d had into a desert bush.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Wow took me quite a bit longer than I wanted to get this out. The holidays hit me hard, so I asked the Sky Father for writing-strength, and he sent me many hardships, which will make me strong. Seriously, sorry about the delay. I hope this chapter lives up to the wait.

I know I said in a previous chapter that Cadance's backstory was just what the book had said, but I decided to take some liberties, which will come into play in a later chapter. We'll also see some more of Twilight and Shining's relationship from her perspective down the line.

I know there have been complaints about the pacing of the romance, but it's leading to something, have some faith.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll join me next time!

Please be excited!

Next chapter: Dream No More

Chapter 4 - Dream No More

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It had been hours since they’d begun their march.

Twilight trudged forward, her legs moving with a mechanical will of their own as she made her way across the rocky desert terrain. The moon hung brighter in the sky than she’d ever recalled seeing it before, providing much needed illumination. She cast a quick glance back and noted that Basenji and Cadance were moving with similar sluggishness.

She knew how they felt. As much as Twilight would have loved to simply lie down in the sand and rest after their ordeal, time was of the essence. The sun had only been set for a couple of hours at most, but they had a lot of ground to cover before the sun came up. Her kit had only contained two pre-filled canteens, and without more water or a tent – a tent being yet another in the growing list of things Twilight was kicking herself for not thinking of bringing – they wouldn’t last very long under the brutal summer sun. The time crunch was especially pronounced because of the date, seeing as it was the day of the Summer Sun Celebration, which was held every year on what was officially the shortest night of the year.

As little as Twilight liked the idea, their best chance of surviving was to return to the mysteriously abandoned campsite that had started all this so they could make use of the well. Twilight had filled her saddlebags near to bursting with MRE’s the second her mind had been made up about abandoning the ship, so with the added resources of the camp, they’d be able to hold out until help arrived.

And help would arrive sooner or later, she had to keep reminding herself. They had been expected in Saddle Arabia by nightfall and even with some leeway to account for poor weather or engine troubles, the Saddle Arabians would eventually begin to worry about the fate of such an important foreign dignitary. Within a day or two they’d send out airships to search for any sign of them, and the smoke from the wreckage of Sky Chaser’s ship and the small brush fires that popped up around the crash site would be as good a beacon as any. Twilight had also arranged a number of large stones at the crash site in the shape of an arrow pointing in the direction they’d be walking.

All they had to do was stay alive until they were rescued.

Twilight frowned at that notion. Something had tried to kill them – had succeeded at killing Sky Chaser. She hadn’t known the stallion long, but she did know she could count him as a friend, and as the on-duty soldier in charge of security for their trip, his death was on her head.

A knife of bitterness and self-loathing went through her. Her first mission had failed even more spectacularly than she could have ever imagined. Their ship destroyed, a friend dead on her watch, and now she was leading the princess back into possible mortal peril.

As far as Twilight was concerned, at this point, a court-martial was too good for her.

She glanced back to check on her party again, her mind unable to shake the feeling that any second now they could be set upon by some conjured assassin. Cadance looked up from the sand and flashed a weathered grin at her friend. She returned the gesture with a false-smile of her own and turned away, unable to meet the other mare’s eyes a second longer. On any other day that small act of recognition would have sent Twilight’s heart into cartwheels, but right now all it did was rub salt in the freshest wound to her pride.

Twilight’s fit of post-battle shakes hadn’t lasted long – only long enough to be embarrassing. Cadance had taken it upon herself to pull Twilight into a hug, and hold her tight until the last of the adrenaline bled from her system. It wasn’t until Twilight got her fit under control that she realized that Cadance had been shaking just as hard, with tears in her eyes over the loss of Sky Chaser. Twilight had, for only the barest of moments, taken a guilty sort of comfort in knowing that Cadance was just as shaken by the attack, but that fact only brought about a different kind of shame.

Twilight Sparkle was a guard. She was supposed to protect her princess from terrible things, not take comfort in said princess’ fear and sadness.

Mercifully, Basenji had seen fit to give them some privacy while they sorted themselves out. He hadn’t seen what had become of Sky Chaser, and a very large part of Twilight envied that ignorance.

Twilight suddenly felt a bit of warmth at her side. Cadance had sidled up next to her and moved to press herself against Twilight’s side. It made walking awkward, but it took away a bit of the bite of the surprisingly frigid desert night.

“Are you okay?” Cadance asked quietly. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud over the steady hiss of their hooves and paws dragging over sand and the occasional clink of stone against Cadance’s shoes. Her shoes were made of the same alloy as a guard’s armor, and offered fantastic protection against the rocks and brush in their path.

“Yeah,” Twilight lied.

“Don’t do that,” Cadance said sharply. “Don’t bottle it up. Talk to me.”

“How do you know I’m bottling things up?” Twilight asked with more heat in her voice than she’d intended. She nearly flinched away at the sight of Cadance’s worried face. Even through the bloodshot eyes and tear-streaked cheeks, Twilight could see genuine concern in the other girl’s face.

“Because you said you’re fine, and nopony would be fine after… after that,” Cadance reasoned calmly. “Besides, I can sense the turmoil in your heart. Emotions are my thing, if you’ll recall.”

A little flag went up in the back of Twilight’s mind at the princess’ words, but the reason for it was lost in the haze of her fatigue. “I’m just really tired, same as you. And I’m angry – I’m angry that Sky Chaser is gone, and I’m angry at myself for not being able to save him.”

Cadance looked like she wanted to say something, and Twilight feared that she might ask for more details, so she cut her off quickly. “We can talk about it later, I promise. I’m not avoiding it, just… one thing at a time, okay? We don’t have the luxury of setting aside time for that right now.”

Cadance didn’t seem satisfied, but she backed down all the same, to Twilight’s great relief.

Twilight looked back, suddenly remembering the third member of their group. Basenji was trailing behind, but not by far. The diamond dog was moving along at the same sedate pace they were, his eyes locked to the ground. He had been silent for the last few hours of their trek, save for a few nearly silent mutterings to himself.

She considered asking what was on his mind, but the very notion felt hypocritical after the brush-off she’d just given Cadance, so she opted to simply continue walking.

For now, she was content to let what little brainpower she had busy itself over the unshakeable sense that she was missing something obvious. There was something about their predicament, about the way Sky Chaser had died, that was gnawing at her, demanding her attention.

Twilight just put the bad feeling off as exhaustion and stress, and continued to march Westward.

* * *

Hours later, they finally arrived back at the mountain. Twilight had insisted that Cadance and Basenji remain at a distance while she proceeded to check the camp once more. Given their predicament, Twilight wasn’t willing to risk any more nasty surprises.

The search took a bit longer than it had when Sky Chaser had been on her six, and Twilight felt the loss of her friend more acutely than ever as she moved from tent to tent. Even through her saddlebag she could feel a chill along her spine – a literal reminder of her figuratively exposed back.

The tents all checked out, and a quick inspection to Basenji’s ward told her that nothing had risen up from the depths of the cavern. She went to the well and performed the same spell as last time – a tiny flare of conjured fire that flickered the whole way down the shaft. She sighed in relief as the little spark hit the water and went out with a wink.

Twilight took a final trot around the perimeter, her horn aglow as she went. Every step she took left behind a small, invisible charge of magic. The arcane circuit closed once her circle was complete, and a field of magic surrounded the encampment with an alarm that would silently alert her if anything besides she or her friends approached, even from above or below ground.

She turned in the direction of the boulder that Cadance and Basenji were hiding behind and lit her horn, casting an illumination spell despite the perfectly serviceable moonlight. She covered the tiny dot of light with a hoof, removed it, and covered it again. She repeated this twice more, flashing her light three times and signaling the all clear.

Around behind one of the tents near the center of camp was a small cord of firewood, likely gathered from a wild date tree, and a small tinderbox stuffed with dry brush. She gathered the supplies and moved the disgusting cauldron of rotting muck to the edge of camp. A spark from her horn similar to what she dropped down the well was all she needed, and by the time Cadance and Basenji marched tiredly into the camp they were greeted by the warmth of a fire.

The pair flopped onto the dirt, moaning with the aches of a hard march over uneven terrain. Cadance wasn’t trained to traverse long distances on hoof like Twilight was, and their lack of rest only made matters worse. Basenji, while in better overall shape, was still in fairly poor health from the severe bout of dehydration he’d suffered only a day before. It spoke volumes to the fortitude of his kind that he was even still standing, let alone keeping up with the group.

Twilight let them catch their breath while she removed her bags and went back to the well to refill the canteens that had nearly been emptied during the trek. A wooden bucket lay next to the well, sitting upturned atop a coiled length of rope. She lowered the pail into the darkened shaft and listened for the splash as it touched down.

“Please be drinkable,” she silently begged as she reeled the line in with smooth tugs of her magic.

The water was surprisingly clear, and a cursory sniff didn’t reveal any obvious contaminants. At the very least she’d expected the water to be a bit cloudy. She cast a quick spell, releasing a glowing blue droplet of condensed magic that rolled off the tip of her horn and fell into the pail with an audible plop. She studied the water for a few moments, waiting for her spell to reveal any microscopic dangers, but the tell-tale glow of the spell coming into contact with harmful microbial agents never came.

Twilight drank directly from the bucket and sighed at the feel of cool, freshly drawn water sliding down her throat. She scooped up the rest of the water with her canteens and lowered the bucket for a second time.

Twilight untied the bucket once it was refilled and set it down on the ground in front of Basenji. “Sorry, only two canteens,” she apologized as she levitated one of the flasks to Cadance.

“This shall suffice,” Basenji answered, his voice sounding very dry. He hadn’t spoken aloud to either pony since they’d abandoned ship, and he’d only taken the barest of sips from their water rations at Cadance’s insistence. He withdrew a small drinking-gourd from his satchel and filled it before drinking deeply from the bucket.

“You guys hungry?” Twilight asked. She received two tired groans in response, which she took to mean yes.

There was a bit of light conversation as they worked out who wanted what to eat.

Cadance opted to have whatever Twilight was having, which meant ravioli drenched in cheap tomato sauce pretending to be marinara. It wasn’t even as palatable as the store-bought stuff from a can, but it was edible, and she tore into the meal like it was the best thing she’d ever eaten.

Basenji had settled for some humus with pita bread, garnished with jewels from his satchel. Cadance had flinched at the grating crunch of gems being crushed between the dog’s teeth, but Twilight was no stranger to how loud a geovore could be at the dinner table.

Twilight sat in front of the fire, her MRE package unopened, and just listened to her companions eat for a while. The crunch of jewels and the smack of lips, peppered with polite requests to pass along the little paper-packaged condiments, brought back memories of family dinners. Despite the danger, or maybe because of it, her mind grabbed onto the memories of home and sunk comfortably into their embrace.

The crack of stones being ground between sharp teeth was remarkably like the sound her dad and Shining would make as they chewed through a couple of tall glasses of ice cubes when the summer heat was in full swing. On those sunny days, everyone back home for summer vacation and sitting on a blanket on the lawn, she’d just lie in the grass and listen to the sound of the three males in her life, chatting away about work and school between the hard crunch of breaking ice and chilled gemstones. Their mother hated that sound, but only Shining and their dad ever got scolded for making it.

Twilight finally opened the package and pulled out the sterile pouch of food. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the meal, but the first bite shook her out of the comforting fantasy straight away. It was hard to fantasize about mom’s home cooking with the spicy tang of government-issue pasta sauce on your tongue.

She sighed through her nose and resigned herself to simply filling her belly. They ate in relative quiet, everyone too famished and too weary to talk.

Twilight fished around in the packaging and the last two pre-packaged items fell to the ground. The small square packet of gum was what caught her eye immediately. The sugary treat brought to mind the argument she’d had with Sky Chaser just a few days before about whether or not soldiers were still given a ration of gum with their meals. The memory of the stallion threatened to bring tears to her eyes, and she quickly levitated the offending packet into her saddlebag.

There’d be time for that later.

Twilight held up the second of the items and tore it open with her teeth. The strong scent of cheap, highly-caffeinated coffee grounds filled her nostrils pleasingly. She dumped the packet of instant coffee grounds into her canteen, replaced the cap, and shook it vigorously.

Cadance caught on quickly and mimicked Twilight’s actions. Basenji simply sniffed at coffee grounds curiously and poured the entire thing directly into his mouth.

“Why don’t the two of you get some bunk?” Twilight suggested with a groan of relief as the caffeine hit her bloodstream and slowly beat back the fog at the edges of her vision.

“What about you?” Cadance asked, her voice laced with gentle concern. “Of the three of us, you’ve had the least amount of sleep in the last forty-eight hours.”

Twilight shook her head and gulped down another mouthful of coffee. It tasted like an old rubber tire, but it made her feel alive again. “Don’t worry about me. I don’t need sleep. Someone’s going to have to keep watch.”

“I can do it,” Cadance declared. She showed her commitment to staying awake by swigging from her canteen. She shuddered at the bitter, grainy taste of the battlefield coffee. It was unrecognizable from the smooth, cream and sugar-laden stuff she was use to being served in the castle.

“No,” Twilight answered simply. “I’m the guard. I stay up and guard.”

Basenji raised a paw between the two, effectively drawing their attention and curtailing the oncoming argument. “I do not believe any of us should sleep.”

“What does that mean?” Twilight asked as she narrowed her eyes at their diamond dog companion. “You think I can’t keep us safe while you two sleep?”

“Please, I meant no disrespect,” Basenji added quickly. “I have been meditating on the nature of our… predicament. Surely you have as well.”

Twilight rolled her shoulders, wringing out the tension with a huff. “Of course I have.”

“I have an… idea?” Basenji offered tentatively, unsure of his language. “No… a proposition?”

“A theory?” Cadance suggested.

“Yes, I have obtained a theory on our predicament, but I require more information before I dare speak of it.” Basenji took his drum and placed it in his lap, taking the position the others had come to associate with his spellcasting, but he did not play. He leaned forward, resting his body weight upon the drum, and nodded to Twilight. “I did not see the beasts clearly. What can you tell of them?”

“They weren’t natural,” Twilight answered. “That much is simple. This wasn’t just some random group of weird creatures that snuck aboard. I got a good look at the things, and I know for a fact that they were made of magic. And magic doesn’t just take the shape of murderous arachnids all on its own. Something with a deliberate will shaped raw energy into a specific form.”

“Someone wanted us dead,” Cadance summarized.

“Yeah, and they chose a pretty effective weapon to do it,” Twilight said grimly.

“But why give the beast such forms?” Basenji asked. “Why such a shape explicitly? And why attack Sky Chaser first?”

Twilight groaned. All night long she’d felt like she’d been missing something obvious. Now, removed from the scene of the battle, fed, rested, and slightly more alert thanks to chemical stimulation, the pieces started falling together.

“Blast it all,” Twilight muttered as she rubbed at her temples. “I’m an idiot. It was right in front of me this whole time.”

Twilight slammed a hoof into the dirt in frustration. If she hadn’t been so tired she would have made the connection sooner.

“Spiders!” she shouted. “Sky Chaser was terrified of the things! He told me he had arachnophobia, that they gave him nightmares. I thought he was just… messing with me…”

There was a moment of silence before Basenji spoke again. “This confirms my suspicions…” he said ominously, a slight tremble in his voice. “Greatly have the words of Dingo weighed upon me. ‘Dream no more, you who broke my seal, father’s teeth are upon you’. I believe they have importance greater than simple madness.”

“Wait,” Twilight said as she shot to her hooves. “Are you saying your brother is behind this? He tried to kill us?”

Basenji shook his head vigorously. “No! I do not believe this is so! Dingo’s words were no curse, but a warning!”

“A warning against what?”

“Against our very dreams.”

Twilight fell back to her haunches, her legs suddenly very weak as she realized that Basenji’s suggestion – his bat-shit crazy, completely insane suggestion – wasn’t just plausible, it was the most likely explanation. Sky Chaser was the focus of the attack on the ship because he was the only member of their group that actually got to sleep, and something brought his nightmares to life. Something gave his fears flesh and blood enough to tear him to bits in his bed.

It explained how the things had managed to sneak their way onto the ship. There was no way that a wily old veteran like Sky Chaser didn't have his ship rigged up with all manner of secret alarms and booby traps to catch anything trying to board without his permission. The proximity alarm spell she'd laid down suddenly felt amazingly deficient.

“Dream magic…?” Twilight whispered, only just loud enough for the others to hear her over the crackle of firewood.

Cadance’s ears perked at Twilight’s words. “That can’t be. Nopony knows dream magic anymore. Nopony is even sure it ever was a thing in the first place.”

“We’re not talking about ponies, are we?” Twilight pointed out. “You know any dream magic, Basenji?”

The dog shook his head sadly. “No. Such Ways are lost even to drummers. Dreams have great power, this we recognize, and as I have said are the Ways through which we receive wisdom from the Old Dogs. The veil between sleep and death is thin, which allows the Old Dogs to speak with us. Drummers have studied this connection to better know their words, so perhaps we understand the Ways of sleep better than most, but to directly influence the dreams of others? This is beyond even one of Dingo’s great power.”

“Can you think of anything that such abilities wouldn’t be beyond?” Twilight pressed. She was a stranger in a strange land, and only Basenji knew enough of the legends and stories of Zebrica to make sense of the situation.

“This…” Basenji looked away, his teeth grit in frustration. “This I do not know… Dingo and the others of this camp, all were summoned to this place and then, I believe, compelled to dig their way into the city below. Something within took from them their minds, then…” His throat grew tight with emotion, but he coughed out the knot in his voice with a sniff. “…then took their lives. What this something is, I cannot be sure.”

“Is that why your brother placed that seal?” Cadance asked. “To prevent whatever it is from escaping?”

Basenji nodded solemnly. “As you say. No doubt an action committed in some moment of clarity of mind. Whatever has called to them, it placed upon them a sickness, which I believe they have all succumbed to. Whatever this curse, this plague, it is of an unnatural magic – Ways not of this world. Such forces are powerful, but the earth is sacred and can withhold such evil – this have dogs believed since ancient times. Such is why diamond dogs choose to live beneath the sacred earth, though many packs without drummers have forgotten this. Perhaps the Old Dogs abandoned the city below to seal away something beyond their control.”

Twilight shot a look back towards the mountain. She could just make out the unnaturally smooth dome of Basenji’s ward over the tops of the tents. The magic in the thing seemed to reflect the moonlight in a strange way that made it stand out even clearer than during the day.

Things were starting to make sense. If Dingo knew what it was that had befallen them, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that he’d crafted something tailor-made to hold back whatever ancient thing had been hidden away beneath the sands.

All these diamond dogs had been called to through their dreams, tainted by some madness whispered to them as they slept. Once they’d freed whatever had summoned them, they were done away with by an unthinkable curse, crafted with knowledge lost to – and literally buried by – the sands of time.

And now she, along with her friends, were all sitting beneath the sword of that same curse, waiting for it to fall.

“I don’t sense any magic being worked on us,” she said with a shake of her head. The evidence was beginning to pile up, but she still had to be certain. She had to grasp at that last thread of possibility that they were wrong about the sinister nature of Sky Chaser’s death, and that it was just a mundane, run-of-the-mill assassination attempt. “I didn’t feel anything too overt while we were exploring below, either. How can we be sure it’s some kind of dark magic?”

“This has been on my mind,” Basenji said with a sigh. “I believe I have crafted a Way which can reveal that which is hidden.”

“Is that what you were mumbling about on the trip here?” Twilight asked.

“Yes…” Basenji answered sheepishly. “It is a bad habit, but I have been told that I, as you say, mumble as I craft when I am especially distressed.”

Before another word could be spoken of it, Basenji raised a paw and struck the first note of his improvised song.

The tempo was slow, Basenji’s paw sometimes hovering above the drumhead for several seconds before banging out the next note. Cadance and Twilight watched and waited, neither wanting to interrupt, but both unsure if the untested song was having any effect. It took some time, but it became apparently that each beat of the drum, every vibration in the air, was gradually diminishing the bright moonlight.

Twilight soon realized that, rather than the light dimming, the amount of darkness was increasing. Her mind went back to the oppressive darkness of the tunnel, and how her illumination spell could barely hold back the shadows.

As he played, the darkness gathered clearer and clearer, curling about them and hanging in the air like stray wisps of fog. Twilight looked back towards the mountain, and she could see great plumes of darkness billowing out from around the edges of Basenji’s seal, which rose into the sky to gather in an enormous cloud. Soon there was no light beyond their fire, and all three sat together, surrounded on all sides by a blanket of pitch-black nothingness. Twilight stared in wonder at their tiny fire, its warming glow the only thing holding the shadows at bay.

Basenji struck the final note, ending the spell and removing their ability to see the invisible threat even as it curled around their throats.

“It would seem I have once again proven deficient in comparison to Dingo…” Basenji commented sadly as he stared back at the poor attempt to emulate his brother’s craft.

“We have to go back in there,” Cadance stated worriedly.

Twilight stood, glaring at the princess with fire in her eyes. She wanted to shoot down the very notion that they should go back in, but her protest died on her lips.

Cadance had only said what Twilight was already thinking.

“The wellspring of this curse lies below,” Basenji said in agreement. “If we are to avoid that which I believe to be the fate of the others, we must venture forth and end this ourselves.”

“You’re right…” Twilight agreed, her voice quiet with grim resignation. “We’ve all mostly been awake for over forty-eight hours. Past seventy-two our mental faculties will begin to be severely impaired. There are reports of soldiers going beyond that in combat situations, but it’s definitely not something you want to push.”

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, focusing on the bracing sting of the cold night air filling her lungs. “We can’t just wait for rescue, because we have no idea how long it will take them to find us. Eventually the coffee’s going to run dry and one of us is going to pass out, and whoever is awake probably won’t be in any kind of shape to fend off whatever pops out of their head.

“I’d prefer to go in alone but that’s not an option,” Twilight continued as she began pacing before the fire, much the same way she would pace in her dormitory when puzzling out a difficult homework assignment. “Basenji’s knowledge is too valuable for him to stay behind, and if he goes, you have to come too, Cadance. I don’t want you alone, not with crazy nightmare magic in play.”

Twilight froze as she felt something warm drape itself over her back. She lifted her head to find that Cadance had come to her side and pulled her close with a wing.

“It’s okay, Twilight,” Cadance said soothingly. She leaned in and nuzzled into the smaller mare’s neck. “It’s okay. We’ll do this together.”

“Indeed,” Basenji agreed. He stood and stretched the kinks from his joints with a series of satisfyingly loud pops. “The Old Dogs have already gifted us with fortune. What odds are they that have led me to join with one who controls the heavens?”

Despite the gravity of the situation, Cadance managed a kindly laugh. “Oh Basenji, I already told you, I can’t do that spell. I don’t have the skill to control the sun and moon.”

Basenji tilted his head in confusion. “Truly?” he asked as he pointed a claw to the starry sky. “If this is not your doing, then what boon has spared us the wrath of the desert sun?”

Twilight lifted her gaze to the sky and her blood went cold as she realized something else that her tired mind had failed to notice: on this, the night of the Summer Sun Celebration, the shortest night of the year, she hadn’t seen the sun in over twelve hours.

* * *

Cadance had had a minor panic attack at the realization that Princess Celestia had failed to raise the sun on time for the first time in centuries. She’d already been on edge with worry over something happening back home during the Summer Sun Celebration, but the unrisen sun proven that whatever she’d been sent away from was beyond serious.

It had taken some doing, but Twilight had finally managed to calm her princess down enough to explain that there was nothing to be done about whatever was going on in Canterlot. They were in a foreign land with no backup, and every second wasted brought them closer to exhaustion and inevitable death. They couldn’t save anypony if they were dead.

Nonetheless, Twilight’s heart was heavy with worry for the fate of their kingdom. All she could do was do her job, try to keep Cadance alive, and hope that Princess Celestia and the other Royal Guards would be able to handle whatever was happening.

And so it was that Twilight found herself making her way through the darkness, her torch leading the way into the gloom. Thanks to Basenji’s spell, they’d seen first-hoof how effective fire was at holding the darkness away. Unlike the light cast by her illumination spell, the fire’s light stayed strong and constant even as they descended deeper into the shaft. The slight increase in magical drain for a levitation spell was worth it for the return in visibility.

She kept alert for any changes in the air, movement in the darkness, or unrecognized noises in the distance. The tunnel had been eerie during their earlier trip, but now that she knew there was some kind of malevolence skulking in the shadows, every instinct in her body was screaming at her to run in the opposite direction and keep going until she hit the horizon.

She decided that was a good thing and held on to that fear, clutching it close to her heart in welcome. The fear would keep her alert, and staying alert meant staying alive.

Twilight checked her knives compulsively, pulling at each one with a tweak of magic just for the reassurance that they were there. They hadn’t helped against the spiders, but she felt better knowing she had them. Likewise, she checked to make sure her saddlebags were firmly in place. She’d opted to leave many of the supplies back at camp, deciding that she’d be better off with a light kit that wouldn’t be too draining to carry. She’d only brought their canteens, a bit of their food, a few extra torches, and whatever medical supplies hadn’t ended up in her improvised explosive back on the Mistress.

Behind her, she could hear the clink of Cadance’s hoofsteps and the nearly silent thumps of Basenji’s padded paws as they followed behind her, side by side in a triangular formation with her at the point. Their torches – Cadance’s in her magic and Basenji’s held in one paw as he plodded along upright – crackled in concert with her own and the sound was as comforting as the chink of the knives bouncing against her chest.

Cadance had known a spell to keep them burning all day long. It was a derivation of something she’d developed to get extra life out of scented candles, she'd explained with a blush of embarrassment.

They’d passed the remnants of Dingo’s drum and the hastily scrawled warning several minutes ago. Basenji had insisted on stopping to exam the writing once more, and his companions had waited patiently as he stared at it with a frown on his muzzle as though he were trying to will a fourth line of text to appear.

Eventually they reached the doorway again, and they all paused to gaze up at the reliefs. The stone carvings had presumably remained untouched for decades prior to the entrance being unearthed, and the day or so since they’d last seen them hadn’t changed that fact.

“Still not getting anything from this, Basenji?” Twilight asked as she withdrew a knife from her baldric and ducked her head into the small entry way to make sure nothing was waiting to ambush them.

Basenji examined the murals intently, his torch held close to the stone as he searched for clues. “This imagery exists nowhere else in dog culture,” he explained. He wiped away some excess dirt from a portion of the door and tapped a claw gently at a carving of two dogs standing in profile, upright with something large wrapped tightly in a bundle and held aloft between them atop their shoulders. “This is interesting, however…”

“Why so interesting?” Cadance asked, approaching the doorway to inspect it herself.

“I believe this to depict funerary rites,” he replied. “Such a thing would not be carved into the entryway of a dog’s den.”

“So it’s not a common motif?” Twilight asked. “Are there any more like it?”

They all scanned the doorway, squinting in the flickering light for similar images.

“There,” Cadance said as she thrust a hoof upward. In the far right corner of the doorway, partially covered by rocks, was another carving of two diamond dogs. They were placing a similar bundle, roughly the same size as themselves, into a seated position on a throne.

“Stranger still,” Basenji muttered. “This is not the way in which we deal with our dead. Present practices are merely cremation and returning of the ash to the sacred earth.”

“It’s not uncommon for that sort of thing to change over time,” Cadance suggested.

“Very true…” Basenji conceded. “But… perhaps there is…”

Cadance and Twilight shared a look of concern as Basenji leaned back and began to hum in thought. Just as abruptly as his humming began, it stopped. His eyes went wide with some realization and he quickly darted around Twilight before either pony could react.

“Basenji, wait!” Twilight hissed as she and Cadance followed him through the entrance.

Basenji made no attempt to slow down, and bolted for the nearest of the houses – a short, square home with perfectly chiseled edges and corners. Like every other structure, the door and windows were all sealed tight with bricks.

“Basenji, what the heck is wrong with you?” Twilight asked in a harsh whisper once they caught up to him. “Are you trying to get killed? Don’t run off like that.”

“Apologies,” Basenji said dismissively. “I believe I know where we are, but I must confirm.”

Basenji ran his paw gently across the sealed doorway and leaned his forehead against the ancient bricks. He said something in his native tongue, which came out only as whines and whimpers to his two pony companions, but seemed to convey a sense of remorse.

Basenji stood back and curled his paw, digging his claws into the bricks and crushing them. The baked clay was no match to dog paws capable of digging through solid rock. Even with only one paw, his other still holding the torch, the doorway was cleared in a matter of seconds.

They stepped inside to find a fairly mundane living space. There were two beds in the corner, a table made of lacquered wood, and a few small trinkets sitting on shelves carved into the walls. The only out of place objects were two large bundles, sitting upright in high-backed chairs at the table and wrapped in brittle yellow cloth.

“Are those bodies?” Twilight asked.

Basenji approached the table with his head dipped low in deference to the occupants whose rest they had disturbed. “This cannot be,” he said in disbelief. “This place… even to drummers it was believed merely a story…”

Twilight and Cadance joined him, staying a respectful distance from the remains of the deceased. A symbol was carved into the table. It resembled a dog’s head, but angular and sharp, with tall, pointed ears that sat high on the head.

“This is the symbol of the First Dog,” Basenji whispered reverently, his paw hovering over the symbol that he dared not touch. “It signifies the protection of Great Anubis, the Jackal.”

“Anubis?” Twilight asked.

Basenji began to inspect everything in the room, his eyes twinkling with wonder at the discovery. “Great Anubis is Protector of the Land of the Dead – the place from which all souls come and to which all souls return. The Oldest of legends speak of his compassion for all his charges. But he could not protect souls which came to the World of the Living.

“This brought to Great Anubis much sadness, and so he created many children to watch over the souls of the living: the Old Dogs. Much time has past since then, and dogs of now do not remember this purpose. Those that do, think it only a story told to trick pups into being good.”

“What would the dead need protection from?” Twilight asked.

Basenji gingerly set down a small statuette he’d removed from a shelf and turned to give Twilight a gravely serious look. “There are many fates much worse than death, Twilight Sparkle, and no end of creatures beyond this world capable of dealing such.”

The subject of death wasn’t something ponies delved very deeply into. Even truly dedicated magical scholars shied away from poking their noses into matters involving that particular subject. As far as Twilight knew, not even her brother had opened that particular box. It seemed, however, that dogs had no such taboo among their scholars.

“You mentioned earlier something about a connection between death and sleep,” Cadance interjected. “Dingo and the other dogs were all brought here by dreams, right? Could it have been something… from the other side…?”

Basenji slumped against the wall, hugging himself with one arm as he contemplated the possibility. “Perhaps… Great Anubis protects this realm indirectly by preventing such trespasses, so the possibility – while magnificently unlikely – exists that such a being could have slipped by even the notice of Great Anubis.”

“Unlikely or not, it’s something that makes sense, so let’s move forward with that as our working theory,” Twilight proposed.

Basenji worked his paw up and down his arm nervously, but eventually accepted the unicorn’s logic with a solemn nod.

He turned back to the shelf to resume his lavish inspection of the artifacts of his ancestors as he continued the tale. “To speak more of this place, many are the songs that sing praise of the first city of dogs – the place from which all dogs came. Our kind lived here long, but as time went on it fell to dogs to at last fulfill their lot, and so we spread across the land in all directions to be sentries of the living.”

“I get it,” Cadance said. “You left the city behind and turned it into a huge mausoleum.”

“As you say.” His eyes drifted back to the two dogs propped up in their seats. “This makes clearer the reason for the name of this place in the old songs.”

“What name would that be?” Twilight asked.

Basenji frowned, his claws idly plucking at the strap of his drum as he considered his answer. “There is no truly accurate equivalent in your tongue to my knowledge. I believe there is a term in the old language of the minotaurs that applies. They would call this a Necropolis – a ‘City of the Dead’.”

“Does this information help us at all?” Cadance asked eagerly. “Does it give you any idea who or what might be trying to kill us?”

“For whom, I still cannot say,” Basenji answered with a sigh. “However, if this is indeed the Necropolis of legend, we must make for the center of the city.”

“What’s in the center of the city?”

“There lies a temple to Great Anubis. This will be sacred ground, protected from dark influence. If there are clues to our salvation, or others who have been spared the fate of friend Sky Chaser, they are to be found in that place.”

Twilight scratched at her chin in thought. “You said the Old Dogs were meant to be warriors, right? Think there might be something there we can use to protect ourselves?”

“There is a great possibility, yes.”

“Good, we’ve got a heading, then,” Twilight said with a smile as she turned to lead the way back into the street.

Her blood went cold as she saw something – nothing more substantial than a shifting shadow – dart past the doorway. As it flickered by she caught a glimpse of something glowing in the darkness. She’d seen the like of it before – a pair red eyes glowing like burning coals in the darkness. Whatever it was, it caused a ruckus as it disappeared down the street with the sound of something sharp scraping at stone.

All three friends stood stock-still, breathlessly waiting for the other hoof to drop, but nothing came. There was no attack. There was no screeching or clawing at the doorway, no long, spindly arachnid arms reaching for them through the walls.

There was only silence and the beating of their racing hearts as they cautiously stepped out of the tomb and back onto the dirt road leading further into the city.

* * *

Twilight had no idea how long they’d been walking. In the dank, stuffy darkness of the underground city there was no frame of reference for the passage of time.

One thing that they knew for certain, though – this place was massive.

The strange magical properties of the darkness surrounding them prevented them from knowing just how large the cavern was. However, considering the distance they’d walked, Twilight was beginning to suspect that this city might be even larger than all of Canterlot.

Luckily, they knew they were headed in the right direction thanks to the layout of the city, which was changing every few minutes. While the homes on the periphery of the city had been very tidy and well cared for, the homes as they neared the center of the city were more worn-down – more lived-in. In some places the neat blocks and narrow streets gave way to roughly-shaped row-houses and huts that looked like enormous house-sized clay ovens. Every home they passed had the windows and doors walled up, the same as the one they’d searched earlier.

Despite the fear she felt, Twilight couldn’t help but be in awe of her surroundings. Such a city, of such scale and density, presumably with at least one dog interred within every structure, was astonishing. That sort of population didn’t boom up over night. A city this size suggested tens of dozens, even hundreds of generations of occupancy.

How long ago had the diamond dogs settled this place? It was certainly long enough ago that Basenji’s kind had lost the majority of knowledge about the city of their origin.

Judging by the sheer number of dogs entombed in this once living city, the Necropolis probably pre-dated the pre-Unification Era of Equestria by far. It was a shame that such an incredible archaeological discovery had to be tainted by whatever malevolence was hiding in the shadows.

Her ear twitched as she picked up the sound of something thumping in the distance to her left. She motioned for the others to stop as she prepared a battery of spells for their defense.

The effort was wasted. The thing in the darkness ceased its thumping and went silent.

“They’re doing that a lot,” Cadance said worriedly. “Like, more often than before.”

Twilight nodded. Ever since that first contact back at the edge of the city, they’d caught little glimpses of things hiding in the gloom. The beasts reminded them of their presence with flashes of glowing red eyes, a black tendril drifting along the edge of their firelight, or the sound of claws or hooves or clattering teeth just outside their visible range. As they neared the center of the city the creatures were becoming braver, appearing more frequently and sometimes more than one at a time, but none had dared attack them directly… yet.

“They still haven’t made a move on us,” Twilight reassured her as she began walking again. “I think they’re scared of the fire.”

“The beasts did not seem to possess much by way of intelligence aboard the ship of Sky Chaser,” Basenji pointed out. “Though, I suppose all predatory beasts possess some measure of cunning.”

“I can’t wait to get my hooves on whatever set these things loose on us,” Twilight said between grinding teeth. “I’m going to put all of my knives into it.”

“The possibility exists that the wellspring of these beasts is something which is formless,” Basenji piped up nervously, still skittish of the thought that he might be marching to face the sort of horror that existed only in the oldest of his kind’s songs. “Your blades may not be effective.”

“I don’t care,” Twilight growled. “I’ll find a way to stab whatever is doing this. Nothing puts my princess in danger.”

Cadance bit her lip nervously as she felt her cheeks burn at the declaration from her guard. She stepped out of their formation, drawing a curious look from Basenji, and moved closer to Twilight.

“Twilight…” Cadance called softly as she sidled up to the shorter mare. She spared a glance back to where Basenji was scanning the darkness and pretending he couldn’t hear them.

“What is it?” Twilight asked quickly. “Did you see something?”

“No, I just want to know if you saw anywhere safe we could stop and take a breather. We could set up the extra torches to keep the things away.”

Twilight shook her head. “Negative. There’s no time. We have to keep moving forward. If we stop to rest we might not have enough in us to get going again.”

“Twilight, you’re dead on your hooves,” Cadance whispered sternly.

Twilight opened her mouth to deny the accusation, but her body betrayed her and let loose a deeply satisfying yawn. She closed her mouth with an angry click of her teeth and glared into the darkness without meeting Cadance’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” she stated brusquely. She levitated a canteen from her saddlebag and chugged down the last dregs of cold coffee.

Cadance sighed. “Please, Twilight, it’s not just about taking a break… There’s some stuff I want to talk to you about. Things I think I need to say just in case—“

“No,” Twilight said sharply. She turned her head to look Cadance in the eyes with a pleading look in her own. “If there’s something you need to say you can say it later.”

Cadance swallowed the lump in her throat. “We still don’t know what we’re headed for… There might not be a later…”

“I can protect you,” Twilight said half-desperately. “I can do it, but I need you to believe in me.”

“I do believe in you, Twilight, but, I just…” She surrendered and fell back into formation next to Basenji, who reached out and pat her back reassuringly.

Twilight returned to her vigil as the pointmare, trying not to think about the needles digging into her chest over the look of defeat in Cadance’s eyes. Twice her princess had tried to comfort her, and twice she’d shoved that concern back in her face.

She didn’t deserve to be the personal guard of the Princess of Love.

It was all the more reason to get out of this. Once they were back home – and whatever fresh hell was awaiting them there was dealt with – she’d do whatever it took to make it up to Cadance.

Tired little fantasies played out in her head. She imagined herself blowing an entire month’s worth of pay on bouquets of flowers and boxes of chocolate. The idea to get her mom or Spike to teach her to play the piano so she could write a song – An Ode to Apology – crossed her mind. Or maybe she could take Cadance on a candlelit dinner. Her mom was good friends with the food critic at the paper she worked for, and she could probably use that connection to get them reservations somewhere nice.

Twilight bit the inside of her cheek painfully, hard enough to fill her mouth with a faint coppery taste. She was trying to shake this attraction, not nurture it with fantasies – worse yet, fantasies on the battlefield.

She put it off as the symptoms of her tired mind and wished she’d had more canteens so they could’ve brought more coffee. There were more pouches of the stuff in the MRE’s, but she didn’t want to use the last of the clean drinking water just to make more. She brought the canteen out again and shook the last of the undissolved coffee grounds free, pouring them onto her outstretched tongue. It tasted terrible, but there was just enough caffeine left to give her a start.

It was another half hour or so – or it could’ve been a full hour for all Twilight could tell – when they finally came across something other than row after row of houses. They stepped past a pair of squat, limestone houses and found the unpaved roadway gave way to an expanse of flagstones that stretched on into the darkness.

“Can you see anything, Basenji?” Twilight asked.

“Apologies,” Basenji replied as he squinted into the distance. “Dog sight is greatly suited to darkness, but this deep into the city even it cannot pierce this veil beyond the reach of our torches.”

“Let’s just take this as a sign that we’re close, then,” she sighed as she stepped forward.

Twilight proceeded swiftly but carefully, mindful of the fact that they were now very much exposed. If the nightmares could see through the preternatural gloom, as she suspected they could, then the entire group was now out in the open and away from any sort of cover.

She nearly gasped as she caught the first glimpse of what could only be the center of the city. Enormous columns of marble, sculpted with artfully swirling patterns, rose higher than their field of vision allowed them to see. She led them between two pillars and the flagstones gave way to tiles of the same marble. She nearly tripped when her hoof touched the strangely ice-cold tile, her reflexes pulling her leg back like she’d dipped it into a freezing lake. It was cold this deep underground, but the tile shouldn’t have been this cold.

“Looks like we’re somewhere,” Twilight said to her companions.

She slowed down a bit, alarms going off in her head and telling her that something was off. Was it something she’d heard, or seen? No, it was a smell, she decided.

Something smelled like blood.

Twilight looked to Basenji, who clearly had picked up the scent much faster than she had. He was right on her heels, but he had an unmistakable look of dread on his face.

A sudden squeal of surprise from Cadance snapped Twilight’s eyes forward again. She’d almost run straight into a dark smear of blood on the marble tiles in front of them.

Twilight skidded to a halt and swallowed her heart back into her chest. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt Cadance trot up to her side without a word.

“Hold your torch up, princess,” Twilight asked.

Cadance tore her eyes away from the grisly sight long enough to cock her head curiously to the side, but did as she was asked and levitated the torch a bit higher above them. Twilight huddled closer, sharing the protection of her torchlight so she could sweep the area with her own torch.

There was blood and tattered shreds of cloth everywhere. The cloth especially caught her eye. Stained with gore though they were, the scraps were clearly pieces of a travelling cloak like the one Basenji had left been wearing when she’d found him. The article of clothing had been lost in the explosion that destroyed the ship, as he’d left it in the cargo hold as a part of the bed of blankets he’d made for himself.

Strangely, there was only blood and cloth left behind. No meat, no bones or hair, nothing of the dogs themselves but their precious lifeblood. Twilight went green as the idea struck her that the things may have eaten the remains, bones and all.

“I think we found the rest of the dogs…” Twilight declared somberly as she levitated her torch back to her side.

“This much blood had to have come from at least a dozen dogs,” Cadance deduced. The sight of all that death made her feel sick, and the mostly-digested ravioli in her stomach was threatening to make a reappearance. “Do you think this is where they made their last stand?”

Basenji stepped forward, tears falling silently from his eyes at the scene. “No,” he croaked. He raised his free paw and pointed to the scraps of cloth. “These dogs willingly laid in this place, atop their cloaks, and surrendered to their fate knowing that the darkness was contained by Dingo’s Ways…”

“How can you be sure of that?” Twilight asked curiously.

Basenji was silently, he merely strode forward, his body tensing at the sensation of dried blood beneath his paws, and waved an arm over the carnage around him.

“I have certainty in this, for it is as I would have done in their place…” he whispered sadly.

“Don’t say that, Basenji,” Cadance begged. “We’re going to be okay. You, me, and Twilight, we’re going to figure this out.”

“There is nothing to ‘figure out’!” Basenji barked angrily. “Do you not see? Have you not understood yet? Do you not remember the cloud of darkness rising into the sky from this place!? This is as Dingo warned!”

“Stop… yelling…” Twilight said in a calm, commanding voice. “Stop yelling and tell us what you mean.”

Basenji clenched his jaw, his sharp teeth bared in frustration as the tears continued to fall. He was staring at something on the ground and trembling so badly that the torch he held flickered with the movement.

Twilight followed his gaze and her eyes went wide as she realized what his keen eyesight had seen as her torch had swept the area. Next to one of the piles of stained cloak tatters, something was carved into the marble tile by a dog’s claw. It was rough, just as the message left in the tunnel had been, but it was clearly a simple drawing: a dog’s head made of sharp, angular lines, with tall, pointed ears sitting high atop the head.

“The final part of Dingo’s warning,” Basenji growled as he pointed to the carving. “‘Dream no more, you who broke my seal, father’s teeth are upon you’. The word he used referred to our father, and I attempted to write it off as a symptom of his ill-mind... And even once I learned the nature of this place I did not wish to believe that which was most likely, but I now know… I know he meant he who is Father of all dogs, Great Anubis!”

He rounded on them and glared, his eyes ablaze with anger. “Great Anubis has done this to us! He has turned his back upon the living for forgetting our purpose! Dingo sealed Great Anubis’ curse within this place, and it should have held for all time!”

He raised his paw and thrust a claw at them in accusation. “But no! Pony brought Basenji here! Ponies saved Basenji’s life, and Basenji broke seal of Dingo! This is pony’s fault! Basenji should have died! Now all will die! Great Anubis’ curse shall spread across sands like plague and wash away all dogs – all that lives!”

In his fevered rant, Basenji’s Equish had slipped into an even cruder form, but he didn’t care. He was angry beyond rational thought, and with a final cry of, “Pony should have left Basenji to die!” he threw his torch – the only thing he was holding – forcefully to the ground.

Twilight watched in horror as the torch struck the marble hard enough to put out the flames. Cadance gasped beside her, and they saw the look on Basenji’s face as the final, dim embers of the torch-materials scattered in all directions. His eyes were wide with fear as he realized what he’d done in the heat of his anger. Just as the last flicker of light died, something pulled Basenji’s legs from under him and dragged him into the shadows with a high-pitched yelp of pain.

“Basenji!” Cadance screamed.

Time slowed for Twilight, and the moment she saw him hit the ground she flung her torch as hard as she could in the direction he’d been being dragged in. It struck something in the darkness, which screeched with unearthly fury before darting away from its prey. The torch blew out from the impact, just as Basenji’s had done, but as it died Twilight saw Basenji’s arm in the darkness and grabbed onto it with her magic. She pulled him across the filthy tile and into the protection of Cadance’s torchlight.

His leg was bleeding. Whatever had grabbed him had pierced clean through his thigh. He was pale and whimpering from the pain. Even as she heard the clatter and the growling and shrieks of the things in the darkness all around them, she knelt down and inspected the wound.

“Bone isn’t broken, bleeding is minimal suggesting the artery was missed,” she said clinically. Her horn lit and began withdrawing supplies, dumping a whole jar of some poultice that sizzled as it touched the wound before wrapping it tightly with bandages. There was no time to be gentle, not with the nightmares all around them whipped into a frenzy by the scent of fresh blood and wounded prey.

“Forgiveness,” Basenji whimpered softly. “Forgiveness, please, but you must go without Basenji. By my own idiocy I am wounded. Save yourselves.”

“Shut up,” Twilight commanded. “Stop talking like that.”

Twilight removed her saddlebags and the flap of one bag opened, allowing her to withdraw five unlit torches.

“I am so damned sick and tired of seeing my friends get hurt,” she proclaimed as she lit the torches one by one with the flames from Cadance’s. “I’ve had enough of this, and I am not watching another friend die.”

One of the torches settled gently to the ground beside Basenji, and he held it high from his seated position.

“Princess, can you make a simple bubble shield?” Twilight asked. She received a nod. “Then put one around yourself and Basenji.”

“I want to help,” Cadance declared.

Twilight smiled. “Just make a shield, that's all the help I need.”

Twilight stepped away from Cadance and Basenji, the four remaining torches slowly circling her in her magical aura. She withdrew the four knives from her baldric and they joined the torches in an impressive display of telekinesis. Levitation was a simple spell that any unicorn could do, but it still required concentration and skill to move multiple objects – and Twilight had concentration and skill in spades.

She checked over her shoulder and saw that her friends were wrapped in a shimmering shield of light-blue magic. She gave the shield a once-over and nodded. The casting was a little sloppy, but it was strong with alicorn magic, and it would hold back anything.

“I don’t care what you are or who sent you or any of that!” Twilight shouted into the darkness once she was certain her charges were safe. “You want to eat me? Come and try it!”

Something rushed at her from the shadows, a huge, hulking thing with shaggy onyx hair that ran at her on two legs. Two of her knives darted forward, stabbing it in those horrible red eyes that they all seemed to share.

Blinded, it never saw the torch flying into its face. Twilight poured her magic into the flames of the torch, willing the fire to burn hotter, and the monstrosity dropped to the ground, howling as the flames ate away at its face.

Twilight watched curiously, the back of her mind noting that the fire had caused a magical disentanglement effect, reverting the condensed shadow magic that made its form back into unclaimed aetheric charge which was absorbed into the field of darkness around them.

At the fore of her mind, she noted that the fire made it die, so she bashed the torch against it again. Her knives flashed, dancing across its form and stabbing it repeatedly as it writhed in agony and dissolved back into tendrils of blackened smoke and falling ash.

The stabbing didn’t appear to be completely necessary, but it caused pain enough to distract it while she set the thing ablaze. Plus, it was very satisfying to her.

She felt something approaching – as vague certainty that she was about to be attacked – and she sent one of her blades screaming into the darkness to her right. She was rewarded with a shriek, and she turned to focus her attack on whatever she’d struck.

Another hunch had her sending a torch flying into the air, where it collided with something winged circling overhead. It fell to the ground as the fire struck, smoke and ash trailing behind it.

The creatures were in a frenzy now, attacking her heedless of the danger of her flames.

“That’s right,” she muttered darkly. “Keep coming at me… Don’t pay any attention to the pretty girl or the nice doggy behind me…”

* * *

Cadance and Basenji watched in wonder as Twilight did battle with the beasts. She was a whirl of blades and magic and fire, shooting off blasts of condensed magic strong enough to blow through steel.

Cadance pulled the torch from Basenji’s paw and levitated both torches through her shield to slowly circle around them the way Twilight had done with hers. She huddled low, draping herself protectively over her wounded friend.

“We’re going to be okay, Basenji,” Cadance said to him reassuringly. “Twilight’s going to get us out of here.”

“She is fierce,” Basenji said in awe, “but how long can she last at this pace? She is already weary, and we have no idea the number of creatures birthed by the fears of my brethren – one per dog? Three? Ten?”

“What are you saying?”

“You must convince her to run, friend Cadance, please,” Basenji begged. “If any can end this curse, it is one with such fire within her belly as she. I see that now.”

Cadance shook her head. “Twilight’s not leaving you. I haven’t known her long, but I know that that’s not her style.”

He averted his gaze in shame. “You have much faith in her…”

“I do,” Cadance said with a smile.

Even as Cadance proclaimed her faith in Twilight, her heart felt heavy with worry. Basenji was right. Twilight was strong, way stronger than she’d realized, but it had been days since she’d last slept, and they hadn’t been easy days. Twilight had been on her hooves the whole time, marching from place to place, doing her best to protect their group, and doing battle with literal nightmare-beasts.

Twilight wasn’t just fighting monsters, she was fighting her own body. Cadance watched with worry as the small mare struggled, panting and wheezing from the effort of the battle as much as the effort to stay on her hooves.

There was a massive thump as something heavy stomped around in the far away darkness. Judging from the tremors it caused with every thud, whatever it was, it was enormous.

The sound of shattering stone filled the air, and Cadance watched in horror as a section of the gargantuan marble pillars, thick around as a thousand year old oak tree, soared through the air towards Twilight.

* * *

Twilight's head snapped around as she heard the sound of falling stones. She’d barely registered the shaking of the ground moments before, her attention being too focused on nearer opponents.

Her eyes went wide as the light from one of her torches pushed away enough darkness to reveal a huge section of one of the marble columns flying directly for her. It was roughly the size of one of the smaller huts they’d passed in the city, and being solid marble, the weight was definitely measured in tons.

Twilight tried to run, but one of her knees quivered weakly and gave out beneath her. She fell to the ground with a pained grunt. Unable to evade, magic was her only choice. She focused her power, trying to conjure a shield to protect herself, but she knew it was a hopeless effort. She’d never be able to get a shield strong enough to withstand an impact like that, but she had to try.

Her horn burned as she tried to focus enough energy to summon a shield, but with her magic already holding aloft her torches and knives, her already low reserves were spread thin. Even if she could project the shield, it was too late. There would be no time to properly configure the spell to redirect the kinetic load of an impact that huge. Without proper dispersal, the sensory feedback and magical draw of a direct hit would be immense, and immensely painful – painful enough to put her out of the fight long enough for her foes to close in on her.

A thin shield materialized around her, and the focus it took to put it up caused her to lose control of her levitation spells, dropping her blades and torches to the ground with a noisy clatter. In the few precious seconds she had before impact, she realized it wasn’t enough.

It was going to crush her, and she didn’t have the time or the energy to do anything about it beyond her third-rate shielding. She was tired, and hurt, and so weak. Her muscles screamed and throbbed. Her joints popped with every movement. Her heart was still in the fight, but her body had already surrendered under the punishment she’d subjected it to and the strain of channeling so much magic without rest.

A sense of failure unlike anything she’d ever felt came over her, but she forced herself to push it out of her mind. Instead she chose to close her eyes and thought fondly of home and of her silly crush on the pretty pink alicorn princess.

A spike of pain drove into her mind as she felt the hit through her horn. The air crackled, like the sound of arcing electricity, followed by something between a pop and breaking glass. Twilight opened her eyes as the last remnants of the two shields surrounding her – one a pale-pink and the other a gorgeous blue – fell to the ground in a shower of intermingling sparks. The projectile hit the ground behind her with an earthshaking thud and rolled away into the darkness.

Cadance had saved her. She’d wrapped a second shield around Twilight’s, strengthening the defense and absorbing the lion’s share of the impact. As Twilight turned to shout her thanks and praise, she realized that Cadance’s spellwork hadn’t been so neat.

Cadance was lying atop Basenji protectively. The two torches she’d been holding aloft had fallen to the ground but luckily remained lit, keeping them relatively safe.

Twilight rose to her hooves and took a step towards them.

“Cadance?” she called, her voice trembling and weak.

Basenji was shaking the girl desperately, panic clear on his face. He looked up and Twilight could tell from his eyes: Cadance was out cold.

She’d passed out and he wasn’t able to wake her.

It was only a matter of time until she fell under the influence of their curse and she began to dream.

And then she’d die.

Twilight gnashed her teeth, real tears welling in her eyes for the first time since this whole thing had began. She’d failed. Sky Chaser was dead, Cadance would be joining him soon, and she and Basenji wouldn’t be far behind.

Anger welled up inside of Twilight. She felt hot. Her head was pounding and she could hear the rush of her own blood pumping through her veins like the roar of the ocean.

Thoughts of weariness, surrender, or rest fled from her mind. Her heart was breaking, but she’d never felt more alive.

Something rushed her from behind, and Twilight turned to meet it. Her eyes were aglow with surging power, flickering in the darkness like the flames of Tartarus. She lowered her head and pointed her horn in the direction of her attacker.

She didn’t see what it was, but it didn’t matter. It blew away in a gout of flame that burst from her horn, as hot and deadly as any flame her brother – her dragon brother – could produce.

A new shield sprang up around Cadance and Basenji, glowing brilliantly pink and obscuring the two occupants.

Her friends safely within her bubble, Twilight gave in to the surge of magic within herself. She stepped forth into the darkness, her hooves leaving scorch marks in the tile.

Twilight held her head high and called for an inferno to wash away the darkness. Pillars of flame erupted from her horn, filling the cavern and writhing like serpents, licking at the walls and columns, burning everything in their path.

Her flames revealed more of the city than ever before. It was every bit as beautiful and massive as she’d imagined. The marble square they were standing on turned out to be courtyard of a gleaming white palace. It was no doubt the temple that Basenji had indicated. It was almost funny how close they’d gotten to their goal before it all fell apart.

She ignored the buildings and focused on the task at hoof. Basenji had been right, the things did have some measure of predatory cunning. The creatures had all gathered at the center of town, having sensed blood in the water like sharks. But now that they were faced with a creature bursting with living flames, they all turned to flee.

They didn’t get far.

In the distance she could see the hulking form of an enormous diamond dog, easily the size of a three story house, standing next to a broken marble pillar. It was almost a hundred yards away, and probably thought it was safe. Twilight proved it wrong.

Her flames reached out for the thing even from that distance, slithering along the ground and wrapping tightly around its body. It howled as the flames constricted, and quickly consumed the monster.

Soon all that was left was ash and smoke.

Just as quickly as the surge came, it ended. Twilight teetered dangerously on her hooves. She’d never been so drained in all her life. Only one other time had she’d ever experienced a magical surge, and it hadn’t been anything like that.

She’d lost her torches, but the burning embers of her massive firestorm still smoldered in some places, providing adequate light. She stumbled towards where Cadance and Basenji lay, her shield having fallen once her surge had passed.

“Cadance…” she called weakly. She finally made it to her princess’ side and sat heavily on the ground. She pulled the other girl off of Basenji and held her tightly to her chest as she rocked back and forth. “Cadance… I beat them all, Cadance. Aren’t I a good guard? I got them all…”

She barely registered the sound of Basenji stabbing his claw into the ground and using the hole to hold one of the still-lit torches upright. He sat up as best he could with a wounded leg, and began to play his drum.

“What are you doing?” Twilight asked.

“I will not surrender so easily,” Basenji declared as he furiously tapped at his drum. “Never again. I have no Ways which can control dreams, but mayhaps it is not beyond me to prevent dreaming for a short time.”

Twilight blinked her dry eyes painfully. “What? I don’t… you can save her?”

“Should this work at all, it shall only withhold the inevitable,” Basenji corrected. “You must continue onward. If there is salvation for your princess, it will be within the temple of Great Anubis.”

Twilight didn’t want to get up, she didn’t want to continue. She was so tired. She just wanted to lie down next to Cadance and rest, but Basenji’s words filled her with hope, and hope wrung the last bit of strength from her weary, broken body.

Twilight tugged the saddlebags closer with her magic, grunting with the effort to will them to flip them over and dump the contents. She carefully folded the material and laid Cadance’s head down atop the improvised pillow.

“I’ll be back,” she said confidently.

“Of that I have no doubt.”

Twilight levitated the second torch and held it aloft. It felt like it weighed a thousand tons, but she grit her teeth and broke into a run. She passed one of her knives that had somehow survived the inferno, and stopped to stoop down and pick it up with her teeth. She didn’t have it in her to levitate two objects at once, so she tucked the blade back into her baldric the best she could.

She half-galloped in the direction of the temple, limping the whole way. The knee of her right hind leg had buckled when she’d attempted to dodge the projectile the giant beast had hurled at her, and it still refused to hold very much of her weight.

The stairs at the entrance of the temple were a living hell as she struggled to make the short ascent on only three legs. She quickly hobbled into the main lobby, squinting in the firelight for something, anything, that could help Cadance. At the far end of the room she could see a shaft of light pouring in through a partially opened door leading to another chamber.

She moved between statues and pillars, kicking aside the rotting remnants of old tapestries and rugs as she made her way towards the light. The doors appeared to be made of solid gold and matched those at the entrance of the city in size and craftsmanship, but unlike the stone doors back in the tunnel, the dogs had chosen to pull them open rather than dig their way through.

Twilight ducked inside and knew that she’d found what she was looking for.

Scattered around the room were braziers containing warm, flickering fires. Golden and bejeweled treasures had been shoved against the walls in huge piles. Everywhere she looked, there were magnificent statues and time-worn murals to Anubis.

At the rear of the chamber, upon a dais, was a golden throne that reminded Twilight distantly of the one back in Canterlot. It had only been a few days since she’d been standing in that throne room, standing before the Princess she’d sworn her sword to, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Though this place was older by far, it felt like a pale imitation of Canterlot’s throne room.

A tawny-coated diamond dog sat atop the throne. He was deathly thin for a member of his species, and wore nothing except a large pendant with an enormous ruby set in the center. But more than anything, what stood out about him were his eyes: they were terrifying. They were golden, and glowing with an unworldly light as he stared through her with an intensely indifferent gaze, like he was looking at an insect.

It was Dingo. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but her gut told her that this was the dog that had started everything. She shook her head sadly as she corrected herself. No, this wasn’t Dingo. It was something riding inside him, wearing him like a suit.

The dog’s eyes literally brightened in recognition, as though he’d only just noticed her, even though he’d been staring at her since she’d walked in.

“Ah, a pilgrim,” the thing inside Dingo’s body spoke. Its voice was smooth, almost liquid, and caused Twilight to grimace as the words dripped wetly into her ears. “You’ve come to worship at the paws of Anubis?”

“You’re Anubis?” she asked, her capacity to be surprised dulled by exhaustion.

“Yes, and I see you are in pain, little child,” Anubis said. He leaned to the side, propping himself against one armrest as he dangled one of his legs over the other. In his paws he held some sort of discus – a flattened ring of metal around the size of a dinner plate – which he tapped against his golden throne lazily.

“Lift your curse,” Twilight demanded. She released the spell holding the torch and pulled out the knife. She pointed it at him threateningly, and it took all her willpower to keep the blade steady. “Or else.”

Anubis chuckled. The sound of his laughter crawled over her body like the legs of a thousand insects, making her shiver.

“Curse? I’ve given no curse. I bring to you the gift of death. I shall return you to your natural state, and liberate you from pain.”

“Death is no gift,” Twilight replied. “Life is a gift.”

“Death is mercy to the sick and injured,” Anubis replied coldly. He sat up and held his arms apart wide, his cracked lips parting into a smile. “You are afraid, little child, and fear is the pain of the living. Let me give you release. Return to my embrace.”

Twilight gathered what willpower she had left and flung her knife with a battle cry.

Anubis merely cocked his head to the side and held up a paw, halting the projectile mid-flight. He tilted his head the other way and held up one claw, spinning the ring he’d been holding like a foal’s loopty-hoop.

Twilight’s eyes went wide as she realized what was coming. She tried to run, but her right leg betrayed her again. She pushed into the fall, hoping to at least roll away. The disc whizzed by her with a shrill zip, and she felt a fresh burst of pain along her left flank as the projectile grazed her.

Twilight tried to stand, but all at once a fog came over her. Her vision blurred, and everything in the room doubled, then tripled, and the whole world was spinning.

Anubis was smiling down on her from atop his throne, his eyes shimmering with golden radiance as he worked his power upon her.

“Sleep, little child,” Anubis commanded. “You are so very tired. Once you realize the pain of living is too great, my gift shall find you. Sleep…”

Twilight’s vision swam, her eyelids grew heavy, and she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Chapter 5 - The Weighing of the Hearts

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Twilight’s eyes opened slowly as she rolled onto her back with a groan to stare at the clean, white ceiling. Her body was stiff from oversleeping and protested the attempt. She did that from time to time. She’d push herself really hard for a few days, then let herself fall into bed for nearly another.

Though, she couldn’t quite remember the last time she’d felt so sore.

Twilight let out a yawn and sat up in bed. She inhaled sharply through clenched teeth as her weight shifted and something jabbed into her left flank painfully. She leaned to the other side and ran a hoof under herself, wondering what she’d sat on, but found nothing. The bed was old and sagged in the middle from years of bearing the weight of countless cadets, so she had half-expected to maybe find a spring poking up through a hole in the mattress.

“No…” she muttered as something about that train of thought struck her as odd. “No, this is wrong…”

She looked around her sparsely decorated dormitory, unable to shake the feeling that something was out of place. The pile of unfinished books from the academy library was piled high at the foot of her bed, and her academy dress uniform hung from a coat hook near the door. The big red alarm clock – a present from Spike for her ninth birthday – ticked away on her nightstand next to a half empty glass of water. The window was open, and the thin curtains billowed softly over her writing desk from a light breeze that filled her room with the familiar scent of cut grass from the campus’ freshly manicured lawns.

Nothing seemed wrong.

The harder she thought, the sharper the pain across her hip felt. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to think of what it could be.

Twilight rolled out of bed and the pain was immediately forgotten as the clock began to ring. The little hammer sticking out the top of the mechanism was flinging violently from side to side, striking the bells and drawing her attention.

“Ah, is that the time!?” she asked of the blaring alarm clock.

The ringing ceased as she slammed a hoof down on the clock, turning off the alarm before running out the door. She didn’t even bother grab her books or check her appearance with the mirror in her nightstand before dashing into the dormitory hall.

She galloped at full speed down the wide hallways of the female dormitories and through the doors leading into the stairwell. The fillies’ dorms were on the highest floor of the three-story building, with the colts’ on the floor below. The common rooms, reception, and mess hall were on the lowest floor.

She descended the stairs two steps at a time, reaching the ground floor quickly, and stepped into the hallway leading to the Magical Demonstration Lecture Hall.

She blinked. Wasn’t this supposed to be the lobby?

The pain she’d felt while in bed returned, milder this time, but still quite uncomfortable. She ignored it and took in her surroundings.

She was in the Commander Hurricane Building, the largest of the class buildings. To her left was a long bank of windows that overlooked the courtyard where the fountain with a huge statue of the Commander herself stood vigil over the school. To her right was the display case, filled with trophies the school had won for the various athletics and academic achievements by alums.

Twilight glanced over her shoulder and realized with a start that the stairs were gone. In their place was another hallway, leading off further into the building.

Why were there were no other students around? These hallways were always packed.

No, she thought as she absentmindedly shook away the cramp in her hind leg. It made sense that they’d be empty. She was late. Of course everypony else was in class.

She made her way to the end of the hallway and entered the classroom.

The Magical Demonstration Lecture Hall – informally known throughout the school as ‘The Unicorn Room’ – was the largest classroom at the academy. It was nearly the size of the gymnasium, with an enormous presentation floor and stadium seating.

Here, the unicorn students were given instruction on ways to hone their battle magic, which necessitated a large room, filled with hidden safeguards and magical protections. The school spared no effort in maintaining the safety of the students and faculty when it came to battle magic being wielded by young unicorns.

Despite the safety precautions, the room was not without its battle scars. All around the room were scorch marks and broken ceiling tiles where a stray spell had gotten away from a cadet. Every year the little blemishes would vanish over the summer break, only to be replaced by new ones over the course of the coming semesters.

She had expected to be greeted by Professor Heavyhitter, a burly unicorn stallion who had retired from his position as a Tesserarius in the Guard to take a post teaching battle magic to the next generation of soldiers. Instead she found herself face to face with a young stallion with a brilliantly white coat and handsome blue mane. He was awkwardly thin, in that way that young stallions were when they weren’t quite done growing into their bodies, but still impressively large.

“Hey, Twily!” he greeted with a smile of pearly-white teeth. “You’re late! I thought you said you were always first to class!”

She stepped forward in confusion. “Shiny? What are you doing here?”

Her brother laughed. “I told you already, the princess arranged for me to come down and give a demonstration to your class on proper shield casting technique.”

“A magic demonstration?” she asked.

It did seem familiar. She remembered something about this… but when had it been?

“That’s right,” he said, laughing again. “I just put up a shield, like this,” he explained as a simple bubble shield sprang into life around him, “and I let the whole class try to break it. This way they can see that even the simplest spell can be powerful as long as you understand proper fundamentals.”

That’s right, she thought. Shining Armor had sent her word of his plans an entire week ahead of his arrival. He’d been so excited that he’d be visiting that he’d spilled the beans about the whole thing in his letter.

“Right…” she said slowly. The pain in her leg throbbed slightly, just at the edge of her senses. “Right, I remember this…”

“Of course you do, silly filly!” he guffawed. “I wrote about it in my letter!”

The pain in Twilight’s leg spiked, like a hot knife slicing away at her flank. She turned her head and examined herself. There was nothing there. No burns, no cuts, nothing – just a bare patch of lavender hair where her Cutie Mark would go when she finally discovered her talent.

The invisible knife cut at her again and a fresh wave of pain brought more questions. She was a blank flank? No, she’d had her Cutie Mark for years. She’d had it for over a decade. She’d been nine when she got it, and now she was nearing twenty.

And why was her brother laughing so much? Her oldest brother was always so serious, so occupied with his studies. Spike was the jokester of their family, and Shining Armor never laughed that often, or that loudly… when had been the last time she’d heard him laugh at all?

“Are you going to stand there staring at your flank all day or are you going to take your turn?” Shining asked with a chuckle from within his bubble shield.

Voices began shouting at her from all directions. She looked into the seats and saw a packed house. At least a hundred students were seated and stomping their hooves, shouting encouragement at her.

“Go on, Twilight! You can do it!”

“Show him what you’ve got!”

“You can’t do any worse than we did!”

Their voices came together, slowly unifying into a chant of her name as they cheered for her to step forward.

She walked to the center of the room, the pain in her leg forgotten as the cheering washed over her in waves. She felt very small, nervous. Every step made her feel less confident. The encouraging words of her classmates were having the opposite effect on her.

She hated being at the front of a classroom. From the safety of a seat, even front row and center, she could confidently answer any question she was given, but that was with the other students behind her, where she couldn’t see them. At the front of the class she could see every individual pony in the room, their eyes all on her. She could practically hear their thoughts – half of them expecting her to do what they couldn’t, and the other half judging her and waiting to watch her fail.

Shining Armor was completely indifferent to her discomfort. He sat on his haunches, watching her with a look of smug amusement from within his bubble.

Twilight took her position on trembling legs and sized up her opponent. The shield was strong, she knew that much just by looking at it. He’d done everything flawlessly, the way he always did. It shimmered the same familiar pale-pink as her own magic, but that did nothing to ease the daunting fact that this was her brother’s magic.

Shining Armor was the personal protégé to Princess Celestia. He was one of the most promising, gifted, and powerful magical scholars in all of Equestria.

And she was supposed to break one of his shields? She was expected to break the shield of a stallion who had earned his Cutie Mark for successfully creating a self-sustaining shielding spell so efficient that it could theoretically surround the entire city of Canterlot with only minimal upkeep?

She’d received word from him a week early, she’d known his plans for the demonstration and she’d spent the entire week studying, racking her brain and losing sleep as she drafted a plan of attack. Twilight had fretted and worried and poured every ounce of herself into finding a way to break that shield, but it had all been fruitless.

Twilight bit her lip nervously, trying to shut out the demanding cheers of her classmates as she searched in vain for a weakness in the seemingly impenetrable defense. Her heart was racing and sweat was pouring down her body like she’d run a hundred laps with a full kit in her saddelbags.

“What’re you waiting for?” he asked, still grinning in amusement.

Twilight licked her lips dryly and narrowed her eyes in concentration. She prodded the shield with her magic a few times, testing its rigidity. A small lance of condensed magic – just strong enough to test the waters – struck the bubble and dissipated along its surface harmlessly.

“You can’t break it,” he commented. “Any magic suffused with the intent to harm is filtered out by the spell, and as for physical force? The harder you press on the shield, the stronger it gets. That’s why this simple shield is so effective.”

Her eyes widened in recognition. He was right. The bubble shield spell was one of the most basic battle magics a unicorn could learn, and it was wildly effective so long as you had the strength to power it.

Simplicity was its strength, but at that moment she realized that it was also its weakness. It could prevent physical force from passing the membrane of the spell, and also protected against any attack-oriented magic, but what about non-attack magic?

Twilight lit her horn and gathered power. She cast her spell, and the pink bubble darkened as a second shield came to life around Shining, within the perimeter of his defense. She concentrated on expanding the shield, pushing against the figurative underbelly of her brother’s protection.

Her face screwed up with effort, pouring every ounce of her will and focus into expanding the shield. Her heart beat like a machine, pounding in her chest so hard it felt like it would burst at any moment.

The bubble was expanding. She could feel her shield pushing against Shining’s. He was resisting, flooding magic into the spell to try and hold it together. Shining Armor was strong, but Twilight had the advantage. She was exploiting a fundamental weakness in the basic formula, so the energy efficiency of her casting more than made up for the difference in talent.

But just because she had an advantage didn’t mean he wasn’t putting up a fight. Shields were his forte, and he had vastly more experience and training in the subject.

She needed more magic. She needed more power. Twilight reached deep into herself, groping for every teensy ounce of magic she had in her and dumping it into the casting.

Twilight wanted this. She wanted to beat her brother. Just once in her life she wanted to be better than him.

Power welled up inside her body, bursting forth from some untapped reserve she never knew she had. It surged through her horn painfully, and all around her the cheers turned to gasps.

There was a loud pop, like a balloon bursting from being overfilled, and all at once the power left her. She trembled where she stood, sweat pouring down her in rivulets and pooling around her hooves on the hardwood floor.

She’d done it. This was it.

This was the day she’d gotten her Cutie Mark – the day she’d realized that Magic itself was the thing she was best at.

She looked over her shoulder, turning her flank to examine the starburst pattern that her achievement had earned her that day.

But there was nothing. Her flank was blank as the day she was born, and once again the pain of a wound she couldn’t see – in the very spot where her Cutie Mark should have been – overtook her.

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how this went at all.

“Oh, it’s right, Twily,” Shining Armor guffawed from the other side of the room.

He was smiling at her with a grin too wide to be his, with teeth just a shade too sharp to belong to a pony. It was a predatory grin, the kind a wild beast got when it was moving in for the kill on a wounded prey animal. He reached up and tapped at the intact bubble shield, and a fresh snicker of laughter oozed from between his teeth.

“You really thought you could beat me?” he asked with cruel delight.

“I did beat you,” she panted as she struggled to stay standing. Her body felt so tired. “I beat you and I got my Cutie Mark.”

The shield around Shining Armor burst with a flaccid little pop as he stepped closer.

“Oh? Is that right?” He scratched his chin and puckered his lips. “I suppose you’re right. It did happen more like this, didn’t it?”

Shining Armor stomped his hoof and the room changed around them. She and Shining were now off to the side of the room. They looked on as ethereal copies of themselves stood center stage and played out the events of that day as they actually happened.

Twilight watched as the younger version of herself experienced one of the rarest phenomena in the magical world: a magical surge. It was strange to see herself as a young filly, eyes glowing pure white with temporarily limitless power, her horn surrounded by multiple layers of energy.

The other Shining’s bubble popped and the surge ended. The room was silent for a few moments, save for the ragged panting of the smaller Twilight, until somepony in the back stood and shouted: “Look! She got her Cutie Mark!”

The students, and even her professor, rushed forward to congratulate the filly on both her performance and on achieving one of life’s great milestones. They flooded onto the demonstration floor and surrounded her, patting her on the back and shoving one another to try and get a good look at what her mark was.

In the excitement, Shining Armor quietly made for the door, his face an unreadable mask as he slipped into the hallway without notice.

“I look pretty down, huh?” the version of Shining Armor standing next to her asked.

“What?” she asked in surprise.

“How could I not be?” Shining Armor asked. “I’m the great Shining Armor. I’m personal student to Princess Celestia. I’ve studied my ass off since I was six years old trying to become the finest magical scholar in Equestria… and my kid sister beat me at the thing I’m best at.”

“Shut up,” Twilight snapped. Her hind legs buckled under her, the pain across her flank bringing her to her knees. “Shut up. That’s not true. You were… he was proud of me! He told me himself!”

The Shining Armor at her side fell to the ground and began rolling around, clutching his belly and cackling with delight.

“Really!? You believed me when I said that!?” He began laughing even harder, tears falling from his eyes.

“It’s true!”

His mocking laughter died slowly as he rose to his hooves. He shook his head in pitying disbelief. “Twily, Twily, Twily, poor delusional little Twily…”

“Don’t call me that,” she growled. “You’re not Shining Armor. You’re not my brother.”

“Not your brother?” he repeated with feigned hurt in his voice. He brought a hoof to his chest and scoffed as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Twily, I’m as real as any of your memories of Shining Armor.”

Twilight struggled to her hooves and stared the faux-Shining down. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Because you need context,” he chuckled. He stepped closer, his eyes alight with cruel mischief as he closed the distance between them to mere inches. “You needed to see this to understand why your life is pointless.”

Twilight recoiled in disgust. The smell of his breath was horrid, like the musty stench of death and decay.

She’d had enough.

Twilight wheeled around and shifted her weight forward as she brought up her hind legs. She kicked as hard she could, aiming her strike for his chin. In unarmed combat classes, the same kick had knocked out stallions twice her size and thrice her weight.

Just as she was about to make contact, the thing vanished. She dropped low, her eyes darting about looking for where it had disappeared to. At some point, without her realizing it, the classroom had vanished. She was surrounded by darkness on all sides, and she was alone.

Twilight felt her left side blossom with pain, followed a split second later by the crack of her ribs shattering. The force of the impact sent her skidding across the ground. The floor was smooth and cold, like glass, and it squealed shrilly as she slid into the void.

Every breath was agony. Back in First-Aid training, she’d learned that injuries to the ribs were some of the most painful. The constant expansion and contraction of the respiratory system put pressure on the damaged bones, turning the most basic life-sustaining act into agony.

The ethereal Shining Armor strode out of the nothingness, his face no longer containing that grotesque mirth. Gone was the lanky teenaged colt. He was now fully grown, looking just as he had when she’d seen him months ago at her graduation from the military academy. He cut a fairly intimidating figure, stalking towards her from the darkness. The life of a scholar was fairly sedentary by nature, but he always made time to keep himself in shape and watch what he ate.

He approached and laid a hoof onto her flank, pressing down and grinding painfully into her flesh.

She focused her magic, trying to shove him away with a hard telekinetic push, but the magic refused to gather. Even more clearly than the pain he was causing her, she felt emptiness – a hollow feeling like something integral to her very being was missing.

“You think that day was a happy one?” he asked coldly. His voice had darkened to match their surroundings, becoming a distorted imitation of her brother’s pleasantly raspy tenor. “That was the day it all went wrong for you, you stupid girl.”

He lifted his hoof to reveal that Twilight’s Cutie Mark had returned.

“Do you know what a Cutie Mark is?” he asked. “It’s a sign, a guide. It’s not just a cutesy little picture that shows what your special talent is. It helps ponies find their destinies, their true callings in life.”

Twilight sucked in shallow, rapid little breaths, and tried to stand, but a kick to her face had her seeing stars. When her vision cleared again the faux-Shining was leaning down, staring into her face without emotion. His mouth hung open just enough to let his hot, fetid breath wash over her.

“A carpenter might have a saw or a hammer,” he further explained. “A blacksmith might have an anvil. A librarian might have a book. Tell me, Twilight, what does your Cutie Mark mean?”

“M-Magic,” she panted. Ponies were always asking her what her Cutie Mark meant, and the answer always came without thought.

“What does that mean?”

Twilight’s heart seized in her chest at his question. Something in the way he asked it resonated inside her, and it made her stock reply seem cheap and hollow – insufficient.

“What a big thing to have a destiny for,” the thing commented airily. “And what do you have to show for it? You’re a foalsitter for a spoiled little princess that chased off after a stray puppy. She shook her ass in your face and batted her eyelashes, and you ran headlong into a situation that you knew you had no business involving yourself in. That weakness got a good stallion killed.”

She followed with her eyes as the thing began to slowly pace around her, looking down on her disdainfully. A note of disgust had tainted its mask of indifference. Its once pure-white coat had become blackened and sooty. It looked filthy, and every time it opened its mouth to speak she could see the color of its gray, rotted teeth.

“Something went wrong in your life. You’re not where you were meant to be, and you know it. Deep down inside your heart, in the place that nopony else can see, you’ve always thought you deserved better. You’ve always resented me for my success. It’s okay to admit it to yourself. You’ve sat up at night fantasizing about what it would’ve been like to be in my place, because you think you’re better than me.”

Twilight closed her eyes, trying to drown out the pain from her broken ribs and the ache in her heart. She knew the thing was wrong, she just knew, but she couldn’t think of a word to say against its accusations. Was that what was really in her heart? Was something so ugly hidden so deeply inside herself that she couldn’t even see it?

“Let me tell you something, Twily,” it rasped into her ear. “You’re not better than me. Even if our situations had been reversed, and I had joined the Guard, I would be better at it than you will ever be. This situation you’re in right now? It would’ve never happened to me. And do you want to know why?”

The thing leaned in closer, and though she couldn’t see it, she could hear the smile in its voice.

“If I’d have been on that ship with Cadance, I wouldn’t have been up on the deck crying and bitching to Sky Chaser that night,” it croaked, adding a wheezing sort of laughter. It stuck out its tongue, licking her ear and leaving behind a thick, slimy trail of saliva. “Unlike you, I wouldn’t have been too much of a coward to tell Cadance that I wanted her. I’d have been down in her cabin, showing her what kind of stallion I am. That filthy mutt would’ve died in the desert while I rode that princess you love so much the whole way to Saddle Arabia. What better place to protect her than from her own bed?”

Twilight was disgusted. She was angry. She wanted to stand up, to beat the horrible thing with her bare hooves… but she couldn’t. She could feel the darkness closing in on her, sapping her will to fight. The more she let go of her instinct to struggle, the better she felt. The pain and the sorrow faded into the background, slowly disappearing as a sort of peace – the peace of nothingness – draped over her like a shroud.

“Everything you’ve ever done has been based in fear, Twilight Sparkle,” the creature explained softly. “And your greatest fear? It’s that you’ll never know what your Cutie Mark means – that you’ll never know what Magic really is.”

It reached down and stroked her mane gently, exactly the way her mother used to when she was a filly and ran to her parents’ bed after having a nightmare. “Fear is the pain of living. Fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of failure. Give up your life and find peace, little child. This is your truest destiny.”

The final grains of her awareness fell away, and she found herself in that moment that exists as the last of the mind’s conscious thoughts separated the waking world from the dreaming. As she drifted away she could hear something distant, so faint that she almost missed it in her hurry to leave her pain behind.

Somepony was sobbing.

“Twilight…”

Pain seared across her flank again, sharp and clear. Her eyes opened and she looked to her flank, where her Cutie Mark was marred by a long, bleeding gash. She grit her teeth and concentrated on the pain, on the fear she felt. She felt alert and clearheaded for the first time since the dream had begun – and she knew for certain now that this was a dream.

Anubis was trying to use her fears to subdue her, to make death seem like an appealing alternative – an escape from fear. In her moment of clarity, however, she realized that the thing she feared above all else was that she’d let her friends down when they needed her most. She couldn’t let herself be taken, not here, not now. She had to put her own comfort aside to protect them.

That’s what it meant to be a guard.

“You’re right,” she stated simply. She got up from the ground, the searing pain on her hip fueling her will to stand. “Pain and fear… they’re a part of life, but that’s not a bad thing. Feeling these things lets us know we’re alive, and when we overcome them we grow, we become strong.”

Twilight reached out for her magic, and this time it came to her. Her horn glowed brightly in the darkness as she stared down the manifestation of Anubis’ curse.

“I don’t care about destiny, or what I’m supposed to be,” she snarled. “I like being a guard. I love it. I don’t know what my Cutie Mark is meant to mean, but I know what I choose for it to mean.”

Thoughts of her friends and family filled her heart with warmth, pushing back the freezing tendrils of Anubis’ spell.

“Love brings living creatures together – it creates harmony,” Cadance had explained only days before on the bridge of the airship. “It’s magic, Twilight…”

She remembered her brothers showing off magic tricks to her as a filly. Despite the dire nature of the confrontation, she nearly laughed aloud at a memory of Spike setting the living room curtains ablaze. He’d been trying to show off a technique he’d figured out that allowed him to change the color of his flames, but still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it. It had been scary at first, but in the end even their parents had laughed about it.

“There is ‘magic’ in all things, Twilight Sparkle,” Basenji had lectured as they sat in Dingo’s tent, blissfully unaware of the horrors they were moments away from unleashing. “As all things have magic, through magic all things are connected. Even dogs and ponies are connected through the Ways…”

Twilight thought of Princess Celestia, and the Summer Sun Celebration held in the year she turned seven. Her father had been arguing for weeks with their neighbor over something trivial – somepony cutting somepony else’s hedges or the like – and they had taken every opportunity to argue. When they bumped into one another at the ceremony, she thought a hoof-fight would break out. Then, as Princess Celestia took the stage, spread her wings, and lifted the sun, that moment of perfect beauty and harmony put their pettiness into perspective and ended their little feud.

“I know what Magic is,” Twilight declared. “Magic brings us together. It binds all living things, and it makes us better than when it found us. That’s what I want to do. I want to use my magic to help others, and to help them to be better than they were before they met me.”

She raised her head, puffing out her chest as she shouted: “I am Decurion Twilight Sparkle of the Canterlot Regiment of the Royal Guard! Cutie Mark or no Cutie Mark, I will choose my own Way!”

The energy in her horn dispersed with a blinding flash, washing away the terrible thing and the surrounding darkness with it. Twilight found herself standing in a field of tall grass. In the far distance she could see Canterlot and the mountain range the magnificent city was built into.

“Hell of a show you put on, missy. Heard ya from all the way on the other side, I did.”

Twilight spun around, her heart jumping into her throat as Sky Chaser chuckled at her. He sucked happily at his pipe, wisps of smoke rising from the corners of his mouth as he smiled at her, his grin reaching from ear to ear.

“Another one?” she asked, her anger rising as she deduced that the thing that had impersonated her brother had taken the form of her recently departed friend.

“Throttle it back, missy,” Sky Chaser said with a gentle laugh. “This stallion’s the genuine article.”

“You died,” Twilight said bluntly.

“Aye, that I did,” the old earth pony sighed. “Didn’t see that coming, truth be told. Knew it’d be spiders that got me in the end, though…”

“Basenji had mentioned that the divide between the realm of sleep and the land of the dead was thin,” Twilight said. “Is that what this is?”

“That’d be the long and short of it,” he said with a nod. “Wasn’t an easy trip, mind you. Didn’t have much of a choice, though.”

“What do you mean?”

Sky Chaser’s eyes went hard. “You have to send him back.”

Twilight blinked. “Send who back?”

“Anubis,” he explained. “I don’t know all the details, but he’s some sort of big-wig on the other side of the street. There’s other big muckity-mucks trying to keep it together, but without Anubis the inmates are in charge of the funny-farm over there.”

“He didn’t seem all that interested in going back when he gave me this,” Twilight said with a scoff as she turned to show off the wet gash across her flank.

“He probably ain’t in his right mind, from what I’m told,” Sky Chaser explained. “He’s a creature born of the other side, he don’t belong in the world of the living. Something’s keeping him there, and they want you to do something about it.”

“Why me?”

“Why not you?”

There was a moment of silence between the two. A gentle breeze swept across them, rustling the grass and catching the smoke rising from Sky Chaser’s pipe.

“I’m sorry I failed you…” Twilight said sadly.

“Ya didn’t,” Sky Chaser said as he sat heavily on the ground and stroked his bushy black beard. “Wasn’t your fault, and it certainly wasn’t Her Ladyship’s fault. I’m trusting you to assure her of that. It was just bad luck, is all.”

“But if I’d just been more attentive…” she started to protest. Her point died before she even made it as she realized how flimsy her argument was.

“No more of that,” he told her as he raised a hoof. “I backed every call you made, and I’m still backing you, from the other side, no less. Just take my word.”

“Even still, I am sorry, I want you to know that.”

“I know,” he said with a chuckle and a shake of his head. “You’re a good girl, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Twilight, I’m so sorry…”

Twilight and Sky Chaser looked to the sky as they heard what was clearly Cadance’s voice drifting in on the winds.

“Sounds like Her Ladyship needs you, Decurion,” Sky Chaser said, his voice tense with concern.

“Can you help me get to her?”

Sky Chaser tugged at his beard, extra thick little puffs of smoke rising as he considered it. “Not with that dream-whammy on Her Ladyship, no,” he said apologetically. “I was only able to intrude on your dream because you had the fortitude to resist him on your own. Tough lass though she may be, I don’t know that Her Ladyship has your mettle for the like of this.”

“What can I do then?” Twilight asked quickly, panic rising in her voice.

“What you were already going to do,” Sky Chaser explained. “Send the Old Mutt home and it’ll break the curse.”

“Got it,” Twilight said with a nod.

“Better be off, then,” Sky Chaser told her. He plucked the pipe from between his lips and tapped it lightly against a half-buried rock, extinguishing the flames before returning the implement to his breast pocket. “Not polite to keep such a beautiful lady waiting.”

Twilight sprinted forward suddenly, rushing up to the old stallion and throwing her arms around him. She squeezed tightly, burying her face into his shoulder and breathing in the scent of orange-flavored smoke that had long ago seeped into the fibers of his pea coat.

“I’m going to miss you,” she said, her voice cracking as she spoke.

“Aye…” he replied as he returned the hug. “Didn’t know you long, but I reckon you were a friend worth having… and I’m sorry if my teasing made things awkward between you and Her Ladyship.”

Twilight pulled away from the hug, wiping away tears as she shook her head. “It’s okay, I think we’re going to be fine… provided we get out of this alive, that is.”

“You’ll be fine,” he assured her. “I get the feeling I won’t see either of you again for a very, very long time, and nothing would give me more joy than for that to be true.”

Twilight stood at attention and brought her hoof up in salute. Sky Chaser snapped to and mirrored the sign of respect.

“Goodbye, Captain.”

“Good luck, Decurion.”

Twilight lowered her hoof and disappeared in a flash of light.

* * *

As consciousness returned to her, Twilight realized that the pain she’d felt in the dream was nothing to what her physical body was feeling. She bit her lip to hold in a cry of agony as her body demanded that she stay where she was and let it go back to sleep.

The pain was good, she kept telling herself. Just like in the dream, the pain meant she was still alive. She opened her eyes with enormous effort and looked for her target.

Anubis was still seated on his throne, his head rolling limply from side to side as he stared at the ceiling and muttered to himself. He lifted his head and looked at her with those awful golden eyes. The otherworldly glow they’d held earlier had dimmed, guttering like a candle on the verge of going out. He stared at her without seeming to notice she was there, just as he had when she’d first entered the room.

His gaze began to twitch erratically, searching around, tracking something that only he could see. A flash of insight struck her, and all at once she realized what she was seeing.

He was dreaming.

Sky Chaser was right. Anubis wasn’t in his right mind. Whether it was a case of this realm’s magic affecting his mind, or something brought about by the method that bound him to Dingo’s body, it didn’t matter. This was her chance. He was too powerful to fight head on, especially in her condition, but if she could strike him down while he was unawares, then he would be freed from the mortal flesh he was bound to and could return to the other side.

She tried to stand, but her body refused her command. She crawled closer to the wall, leaning her weight against it to take some of the pressure off of her bad knee. The cut along her left flank was burning as she moved, and she almost laughed at the fact that both of her rear legs were now injured.

With great effort, Twilight managed to stand.

The dagger she’d hurled at him had disappeared, likely tossed somewhere into the piles of treasure lining the walls. She looked around for something, anything, that she could use as a weapon.

Embedded in the wall behind her was the discus that Anubis had thrown at her. It was the very thing that had scored the oozing gash across her Cutie Mark. It was a reasonably sharp weapon, and it would do the trick nicely.

Twilight stepped away from the wall and turned to grip the metal ring with her teeth. She pulled hard and nearly fell as the disc slid free with surprising ease.

She summoned her power for one final attack, wrapping the disc between her teeth in the faint glow of her magic.

Twilight nearly dropped the object the moment it came into contact with her spell. It began to vibrate, humming slightly as a result of some sort of magical feedback. In her head she could hear the booming sound of heavy drumming, and the air around her rumbled with the thrum of magic that she had begun to associate with Basenji’s exotic spellcasting.

She was running on less than fumes, but the disc seemed to be weightless as she released it. The thing had been a bit heavier than her daggers when she’d held it between her teeth, but the feedback she was feeling from the spell was telling her that the object was nearly weightless.

Twilight set aside her natural curiosity about the phenomenon, just this once. She had a job to do.

She set the disc to spinning as she rounded on the diamond dog that had formerly been her friend’s brother. It was regrettable, but this was the only way.

Anubis’ head had rolled back again, exposing his throat. Just as she was taking aim and preparing to end it, the golden pendant around his neck caught her eye.

It was a simple golden bauble, with an enormous ruby set in the center. There were dozens of necklaces just like it littering the room. In fact, there were three or four necklaces even nicer than that one sitting right next to the throne.

But something in the way it reflected the firelight of the braziers told her it was something special. Her gut was telling her that this was her real target.

“Gut’s gotten me this far,” she muttered to herself as she adjusted her aim.

She flung her weapon, aiming straight for the oversized ruby. The discus whizzed and squealed as it sliced through the air with the speed of cannon-fire. When it struck the jewel there was a crack like the sound of thunder, and a fierce wind filled the room, threatening to blow out the fires.

Twilight shielded her eyes as dust was kicked into the air. The wind roared angrily, sounding for a moment like the cry of some great wolf howling at the sky. Underneath the rumbling wail of the wind was the sharp clatter of metal clinking against stone. Gold coins and loose gemstones were being swept up in the winds, rolling across the floor and flinging against the walls.

She didn’t dare to lift her head until the winds had died down and she was no longer being pelted by golden hail.

With a start, she realized she was being watched. The diamond dog on the throne was looking at her with curious brown eyes, half-lidded with weariness. He looked haggard, but otherwise unaffected by the ordeal.

“You’re Dingo?”

The dog just tilted his head to the side and simply stared at her in apparently fascinated silence.

“Your brother’s outside,” she said simply as she limped towards the door.

The words felt strangely inappropriate, and almost immediately she regretted them. After the ordeal she’d just undergone she felt like maybe the occasion deserved a little more poetry than that.

She decided that in the end it didn’t matter what she said. She was just glad that it was over, and for the life of her she didn’t think she could have come up with anything more appropriate if she’d spent a lifetime puzzling it out. Spike had always been the poet in the family, the one with that romantic streak in him. He would’ve known what to say.

The moment she stepped through the doorway she was thrust back into total darkness. Her heart skipped a beat in terror as she realized she was without the protection of a fire, but the moment passed as she remembered that the curse had been lifted.

She cast an illumination spell, barely strong enough to qualify as a child’s night light, but the puny spell still managed to push back the darkness. It was all the proof she needed that Anubis’ influence was gone from this world.

Twilight made her way through the temple, casting a look backwards at the pitter-patter of padded steps to see that Dingo was indeed following. The cursed necklace was still around his neck, the jewel cracked and blackened by the sudden release of whatever magic was holding the spirit of Anubis bound to this world.

Curiously, Dingo was holding the discus weapon between his teeth as he plodded along after her. It reminded her idly of a pet dog playing fetch – she’d thrown it, and now he was bringing it back.

She continued her painful march back to the courtyard, and dread filled her as she realized that she didn’t hear any drumming.

Had she made it in time to save Cadance?

Twilight hustled a little quicker, hobbling at a stuttered quarter-trot until she could see the outlines of Cadance and Basenji in the light of their torch. As she got closer, her friends took notice of her approach and stood.

Cadance was running towards her, horn alight with an illumination spell bright enough to hurt Twilight’s eyes. Basenji was limping along behind her on three legs, his drum bouncing at his side with every step.

They were safe.

Relief washed over the poor soldier, and by the time her friends were close enough to notice the guest she had in tow, she’d already collapsed in exhaustion and fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

Twilight hurt. That was all there was to it. There was nowhere she could point to as a source of the pain, no exact locations of her discomfort that she could create a list of – the sensation of injury she felt was too large for specifics. Her entire body had become a mass of pain in the shape of a pony.

Her eyes had been opened for a good long while before she realized she was staring at a wooden ceiling. An overhead electric fan rotated with hypnotic lethargy, casting a large shadow on the ceiling from whatever ground-level light source was in the room.

It was just a shadow, she tried to convince herself. Nevertheless, she kept a wary eye on it for a few more minutes – just in case.

She sat up, every joint in her body creaking and popping with the movement, every torn and tired tendon and muscle resisting use. Twilight wondered to herself if maybe this was what it was like to be an old pony. Her grandmother had been a slow riser, sometimes taking ten or fifteen minutes just to summon the courage to get out of bed.

The silken sheets that had been draped over her slid away with a pleasant whisper against her coat, and she almost lied back down just so she could feel the comforting sensation of the sheets falling away again. The mattress moved as something at the foot of the bed stirred.

Cadance was curled up atop the covers, presumably awoken by Twilight’s weight shifting on the mattress. They were both lying on what Twilight now recognized as the biggest bed she’d ever slept in. They were in some sort of suite, with expensive looking antique furniture and Spursian rugs everywhere. It was certainly a step up from her quarters aboard Sky Chaser’s ship.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been out, but judging from the décor and the faint whine of propeller engines, the Saddle Arabians had pulled through and rescued them.

The bed shook violently and a fraction of a moment later she felt herself wrapped up in a hug so tight it made her a little light-headed. Cadance had buried her face into Twilight’s shoulder and begun sobbing.

“I-I was so s-scared that you wouldn’t w-wake up…” Cadance managed to stutter out between sobs.

It was unbecoming of a guard to let herself be embraced by her princess in this manner, and Twilight couldn’t have cared less. She wiggled out of Cadance’s embrace enough to scoot herself backwards, the silken bedding making the painful act a little easier, and propped herself against the headboard. Cadance followed her, pressing her face to Twilight’s chest and continuing to vent her emotions.

They stayed that way for a while, with Cadance bawling into Twilight’s chest, soaking her coat with tears and snot. At some point while comforting her princess, Twilight had begun crying as well.

So much had happened in such a short period of time, and to finally be free of the curse was such a relief that Twilight felt as though she’d been unearthed after being buried alive. Twilight couldn’t bring herself to so fully embrace catharsis the way Cadance had. Maybe she was just too tired for it, or maybe the gravity of what they’d escaped still hadn’t fully hit her. Either way, the silent tears rolling down her face were release enough to be comforting for now.

After some time, Cadance’s tears slowed to a trickle. Twilight stroked her princess’ back soothingly, watching with amusement as the older girl hiccupped like a foal after a crying fit. Twilight nearly chuckled as she realized that they would look rather silly if anypony walked in on them, with the alicorn curled up like a child in the embrace of a smaller mare.

“How long have I been out?” Twilight asked.

“Two days,” Cadance answered with a final hiccup. “We’re about two more from Canterlot at current speed.”

Cadance sniffed loudly and sat up, running the back of her hoof across her nose like an ill-mannered tomboy. “I’m sorry,” she squeaked sheepishly.

Twilight looked at the mess on her chest and chuckled. “It’s fine, you couldn’t help it. When you cry, excess tears enter the nasolacrimal duct and drain into the nasal passages, causing your nose to run. It’s honestly more tears than mucus… and I probably need a bath anyway.”

Cadance flashed a watery smile as her horn lit up. The sound of splashing water brought Twilight’s attention to a large bowl sitting next to Cadance’s crown on the bureau near the bed. A big, fluffy sponge was ringing itself out under Cadance’s command and floated over to dab at the mess she’d made of Twilight’s coat.

Twilight’s cheeks began burning as the realization struck that she might’ve already had a bath without knowing.

“I’m not sorry about this,” Cadance explained as she finished cleaning Twilight and dumped the sponge back into the bowl. “Well… I am, but, this wasn’t what I was sorry for a second ago…”

Cadance reached out and pulled Twilight’s hoof closer, stroking it tenderly as she chewed her lip. Fresh tears were beginning to form in the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over.

“It’s all my fault,” she said. “If I hadn’t been so selfish, then our lives would’ve never been in danger. You would’ve never gotten hurt! Sky Chaser wouldn’t have died!”

Twilight pulled the other girl back into an embrace and shushed her gently.

“Don’t ever be sorry for trying to do the right thing.” Twilight pressed her cheek against the top of Cadance’s head, breathing in the pleasant smell of sweat and the lingering sweetness of shampoo as she nuzzled the distraught princess. After spending two days building up a sweat from marching across the desert and battling nightmares in an ancient, stuffy crypt, the smell of the other mare was absolute heaven.

“It all worked out in the end,” she continued. “We lived, and we even brought back Basenji’s brother.”

“But we didn’t all live… Sky Chaser died…” Cadance protested.

“He doesn’t hold it against you, and he doesn’t think you should hold it against yourself.”

Cadance pulled away, shaking her head and rubbing her hooves together abashedly. “You can’t know that.”

Twilight considered pulling her back into the hug, just so she could bury her face back into the other girl’s mane, but a second thought on it made her blush at how creepy that sounded in her head so she decided against it.

“When I went to go fight Anubis,” she began to explain, “he knocked me out. I ended up in a nightmare, but I was able to fight it off. When it was over Sky Chaser was there with me in the dream.”

Cadance’s eyes went wide, and it took her a moment to process this information before she could ask, “How’s that possible?”

“Remember when Basenji was saying that his ancestors were able to talk to them through their dreams? Seems that it’s not something diamond dogs have the monopoly on.”

Cadance sat there, staring at Twilight in shock until she finally managed to give a whispered, “Wow…”

“You think you’re surprised?” Twilight snickered. “Imagine what it was like for me to have that old grump just appearing in the middle of my dream like that. Anyway, he said I should make sure you knew not to blame yourself for what happened. I don’t think he’s happy about how things turned out, but he’s not bitter. It was just bad luck.”

Cadance flopped over, laying her head down on the humongous, fluffy pillow next to Twilight as she stared at the ceiling in obvious contemplation.

Twilight yawned and began working some of the kinks out of her body from where she sat. The bed was much softer than anything she’d ever had before, and while she was sure it was luxurious beyond the dreams of a commoner, the lack of support was making her miss the stiff government-issue mattress in her quarters back at the barracks. Maybe it was the throbbing, full-body pain she was experiencing that was hampering her ability to enjoy the doubtlessly expensive bed, but she was beginning to suspect that she was strictly a firm-mattress girl.

The silk sheets were definitely nice though, and she resolved to spend her next paycheck – provided it didn’t end up being her last paycheck – on a set for herself. That seemed like a good investment.

“How’d you do it…?”

Twilight looked up from the sheets as the material spilled smoothly between her hooves, and hummed curiously at the bed’s other occupant. “Hm? How’d I do what?”

“The dream,” Cadance said. “How’d you manage to shake off the dream curse? When I went under, I saw…” Cadance hesitated, shooting a furtive glance at Twilight out the corner of her eye before quickly looking away again. “…I saw somepony who told me horrible things…”

Twilight turned towards Cadance, inhaling sharply as the shift in position put pressure on the wound across her flank. Cadance made to get up, but Twilight waved her down with a smile and gingerly wiggled herself into a comfortable posture.

“What kind of horrible things?” Twilight gently urged.

“Things that I was afraid of,” Cadance replied timidly. “She said that Sky Chaser’s death was my fault, that I’d never live up to everypony’s expectations, that I’d never do anything that ever made a difference…”

Cadance shot one last glance at Twilight and rolled over, turning her back to the other girl. “She also said that… that even though I’m the Princess of Love, I’d die without ever knowing what love really is…”

Fear had become something of a brother to Twilight in the last few days. That time had been spent in a state of near-perpetual terror, and she knew it had been the same for Cadance and Basenji. Twilight felt that she was personally acquainted with fear well enough at this point to recognize it when she heard it in another pony’s voice. Twilight’s heart began to ache at how thickly fear laced the other girl’s words, and it gave her a pretty good idea of how close Cadance had come to the worst possible outcome of her confrontation with her tormentor.

“I almost didn’t beat it,” Twilight admitted with a sigh. “I saw Shining Armor in my dream, and he was pushing all the right buttons to hurt me. I wanted to give in, to let myself go. In fact, I did let go…”

Twilight took a deep breath, letting her head fall back against the headboard as she watched the ceiling fan spin silently. She could feel the bed move as Cadance rolled over again.

“But then I heard your voice,” she continued. “I don’t know how, but I heard you crying, calling my name from somewhere far away…”

Twilight felt her hoof being taken again as Cadance pulled it to her chest and hugged it tightly enough that Twilight could feel the other girl’s heartbeat.

“You saved my life, Cadance,” Twilight told her as a matter of fact. “First with that shield when that thing threw a chunk of stone at me, and then again when you called to me in my dream.”

“I was saying your name,” Cadance said with a sniffle. “In my dream, you were the pony that was taunting me. You must’ve heard my voice through our connection.”

Twilight blinked. “Connection?”

“The crush.”

Twilight sputtered in surprise. She reflexively tried to pull her arm free of Cadance’s grasp, but it was pinned to the other girl’s chest by that ridiculous alicorn strength.

“What crush!?” Twilight asked, her face aglow with an embarrassed flush.

“The one you’ve had since that first day we met, silly,” Cadance said with a soft, musical chuckle. “Don’t pretend. I’m the Princess of Love, remember? Didn’t I mention a few times that I could sense the emotional states of others? Did you think you were exempt from that?”

“M-maybe…” Twilight stuttered, feeling silly even as she said it.

Twilight felt the grip on her hoof loosen as Cadance sat up. The princess gently touched her chin, turning her head so they could face each other.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Cadance soothed. “Everypony has crushes. They’re the most common type of love there is. In a pony’s life she might have a dozen, a hundred, a thousand crushes. A crush is the smallest, briefest kind of love, but that brevity makes it strong. A crush burns hot, intense like a spark, and like a spark it can be nurtured into a great big roaring fire that lasts for as long as it’s fed.”

Cadance reached up and brushed away a strand of hair from Twilight’s face.

“Crushes are the Love of Infinite Possibilities. It’s a fork in the road that can completely change the direction of a pony’s life. Most times, we ignore these detours, and leave them behind as we continue on our way. Other times, if we’re brave or curious enough, we follow them in the hopes that the choice we’ve made takes us somewhere more beautiful than where we were heading before.”

Twilight’s entire body began to tingle with electric excitement. A deep scarlet flush had filled Cadance’s cheeks, matching her own. It was quite a sight, to see the living embodiment of all things Love blushing like a school-filly, and in that moment Twilight knew that she’d never forget the sight of it.

“The crush you felt… and the one that was growing in me as I watched how hard you worked trying to take care of everyone… created a connection between us, and that kind of connection can cross any divide.”

They sat there for a while, staring into one another’s eyes, each waiting for the other to do something. The moment stretched on, becoming tense and awkward as neither of them dared to make the first move.

“Or at least that’s my theory on it!” Cadance shouted nervously. She released Twilight’s hoof and turned away, toying frantically with her own hair.

Twilight groaned painfully, letting her head fall back with a loud thunk against the headboard. She had conquered a supernatural manifestation of fear conjured by a Death God, but she was too spooked to kiss a pretty girl? The irony of it would’ve been funny if it weren’t so damned vexing.

“So like…” Cadance began cautiously. “Like in the old storybooks and stuff, whenever a princess gets saved by her knight, she always grants him – or her – a favor, right? I was thinking, like, maybe my favor could be to take you on a date, or like, if you prefer it I could let you take me?”

Twilight’s eyes went wide at the offer.

“I know what you’re going to say!” Cadance added, her words gushing out of her. “You’re going to say that it’s improper for a guard to date a princess! But to that I say that I would like to cite precedent on the matter! Now, I don’t know if you know this, but the original Royal Guard—”

“Let’s do it,” Twilight said quickly, eager to make up for the opportunity she’d just lost.

“—was made up of Aunt Celestia’s potential suitors! I don’t know if she ever actually entertained romance with any of them, she never gave me a straight answer on that, but…” Cadance blinked. “Wait, did you just agree?”

Twilight smirked wryly. “Let’s give it a try. I don’t know if I’m good enough for you or anything like that, but I get the feeling that if I said no Sky Chaser would spend the rest of his afterlife haunting me.”

Cadance nodded almost violently, the grin on her face as wide and bright as any Twilight had ever seen. “Yes! Yes, you should definitely date me in order to avoid ghostly reprisal! That is the correct choice!”

“We’re probably going to have to hold off on that date, though,” Twilight added seriously. “We still need to find out what’s going on back home. If something’s happened to Princess Celestia, then we might be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

“Oh!” Cadance cried out, slapping a hoof on the bed excitedly. “Oh, it completely slipped my mind! When Basenji and I dragged you out of the cave, the sun had risen again! We still don’t know what happened that kept Aunt Celestia from raising it before – we can find out the specifics once we get home – but whatever it was it seems like it’s over already.”

It took a few moments for Twilight to metaphorically pick her jaw up off the ground. “Oh…” was all she could say.

At least that was one less thing to worry about.

“Where is Basenji, anyway?” Twilight asked. “I don’t imagine he’s on the ship with us headed for Canterlot.”

“No, the Saddle Arabians sent him home on another airship at my request,” Cadance answered with a shake of her head. “I pulled some strings and got them to leave a contingency of guards to take care of the Necropolis until Basenji could arrange for his pack to secure the city for themselves.”

“That’s good,” Twilight sighed, relieved in the knowledge that her new friend was also on his way home. “I might not like the place, but it’s an important archaeological discovery for diamond dogs. That place has meaning for them, so I’m sure they’ll send somedog qualified to oversee its study right away.”

The sound of the bureau opening drew her attention, and she watched as a cloth bundle levitated out of an opened drawer, suspended from the knot by the blue aura of Cadance’s magic.

“He left this for you,” Cadance explained as she set the package on the bed. “Be careful. I don’t know what this thing is, but touching it with my magic does weird things.”

“Weird things?” Twilight asked as the cloth bundle fell between them on the bed.

“Yeah,” Cadance said with a frown. “I tried to levitate it, but I couldn’t lift it, and trying gave me a really bad headache for a few minutes.”

Twilight reached for the package, her curiosity now greatly piqued, but stopped as she felt a cramp in her gut. A burbling noise from deep inside Twilight reminded her of the MRE that had been her last meal. The pre-packaged meals had remarkable shelf-life, and were chock full of calories, but nopony would ever accuse them of being even remotely digestible.

Cadance snickered in amusement as she pointed to one of the two doors in the room. “We’ve got a private bath,” she explained.

Twilight threw off the covers and hobbled painfully to the door.

“I’ll take a peek in the galley and see if I can talk the chef into making us some breakfast,” Cadance called as the other girl hurried away.

A few minutes later, Twilight had finished her business and headed straight back to bed. She felt better, but she definitely didn’t feel well. Her empty stomach was now angry with hunger, demanding sustenance, but it would have to be patient until Cadance came back with their meal.

She crawled back onto the bed, her joints still stiff as she carefully pulled herself onto the high mattress. It occurred to her that the bed was probably this large to accommodate an average Saddle Arabian frame, which meant that it was designed with somepony as large as Princess Celestia in mind.

With tremendous effort, Twilight was able to settle back into her place on the bed. The indentation she’d left in the plush mattress was still warm, and slightly damp with sweat.

She reached her hooves for the gift that Basenji had left her and immediately felt the familiar shape of the discus. She undid the knot with a tug of magic, revealing the item in question along with a plain white envelope with her name written in surprisingly elegant lettering.

She set the letter aside and picked up the ring between her hooves. She hadn’t gotten a good look at it back in the throne room, but now that she had time to look it over she realized it was quite a beautiful piece of metalcraft.

It was a simple ring, about the diameter of a large dinner plate. The outside of the ring was flattened into a bladed edge, though time had worn away much of the sharpness it may have once had. Here and there were little nicks and gouges in the steel, showing that the discus had seen some action even before she’d gotten her hooves on it. The ring was clearly old, but curiously the steel was free of tarnish or rust.

Along the surface was some sort of embedded design that she thought was decorative at first blush, but the more she looked at it, the more it seemed like writing. There was more of the same on the reverse side, but no matter how she turned her head it just looked like gibberish.

She chewed her lip thoughtfully. Cadance had said that she couldn’t levitate the ring, but Twilight had not only been able to levitate it back in the throne room, it had been nearly effortless to do so.

She lit her horn, just brushing the thing with the barest touch of her magic, and the response from the ring was immediate. Again she could hear the hum and the tattoo of distant drumming, though it was far less pronounced than it had been the first time she’d experienced it. She fed more magic into the spell, lifting the ring without strain.

“Very curious,” Twilight muttered to herself as she set the ring down.

She picked up the envelope and removed the letter inside.

Friend Twilight Sparkle,

It is my hope that this letter reaches you in health, as Friend Cadance and I have been greatly worried for your recovery. I also hope that this missive is pleasing to read. It is my seventh attempt at such, for I wish my words to be plain and clear to you.

The debt I and my pack owe to you is eternal, and can never be repaid. Should you ever require our aid, you have only need to ask. From this day until the final, you are a Sister to all dogs of my pack.

Dingo is well, though he has not spoken a word since following us out of the Necropolis. The Old Dogs speak to us and give us wisdom, and I believe he may have learned some great Truth – something which he must never speak. Regardless, my joy is boundless to have my brother alive. It is strange to feel this joy while also feeling so great a sorrow for the loss of so many dogs, as well as that of Friend Sky Chaser.

The item I have left with this missive is known as a chakram. I do not know why, but Dingo insisted that you have it, and I have agreed. Please consider it the first meager payment of our Unpayable Debt.

The chakram is an ancient weapon of dogs, though this knowledge I only know from songs. The art of properly wielding such a device has been lost to time, so its usage has fallen out of favor. The script it bears is intriguing, and holds no resemblance to anything I have ever seen before. I have made rubbings of it, and will take them to my father, as he may know more. Furthermore, the chakram itself seems to react strangely to the Ways. Would that I could have had more time to study such a wondrous thing, but soon the ships will be departing.

I have studied the amulet that Dingo wore. Once again, I have only old songs to draw wisdom from, but I believe it to be a device for sealing powerful spirits. Dingo has said nothing, and you are infirmed, so I may only speculate that Great Anubis had been sealed within. Was Dingo vessel to Great Anubis? Judging from the damage it sustained, my beliefs regarding the nature of his silence, and the fact that he alone survived, it would seem so.

This troubles me greatly. Great Anubis, angered or not, would never have lured the others to the Necropolis only to bind his power in such a way. And the amulet would never have held him indefinitely. The question is thus raised: Who, or what, would have wished to have Great Anubis temporarily bound to mortal flesh? What benefit would they have reaped by such a plot? I fear this may not be the last of our troubles.

Finally, a personal observation, and a piece of advice. It would seem that Friend Cadance is greatly taken with you. When you fell unconscious, she bore you upon her back, refusing my help and insisting that she carry you alone. She cares much for you, and I suggest you cherish her affections.

May your heart beat for all time,
Basenji

Twilight skimmed the letter a few more times, paying especially close attention to Basenji’s theory about a mysterious third-party, and studiously ignoring the embarrassing final paragraph with each reread. The idea that there was another player in this game hadn’t crossed her mind until now, but now that it was in her head, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was right on the money. She’d been killing herself trying to find what she thought was the final piece of the puzzle of why things had happened the way they had, but it seemed like there were still pieces missing.

And if Twilight hated anything, it was an unfinished puzzle.

It was a problem for another day. She folded the letter and stuffed it back into the envelope with a sigh.

Her hoof brushed against the cold metal of the discus – the ‘chakram’, Basenji had called it – and she reached for it with her magic. Once more she felt the hum and heard the drums. It was pleasant, warm even. The first time it had been startlingly loud, and the second it was less so. Now, the beating of the drums had faded into the background. It was still present, but only noticeable if she searched for it, like the beating of her own heart. She felt a connection with it that seemed to strengthen with every application of magic, and it filled her with a sense that the chakram was actually hers. That it really belonged to her.

She spun the ring lazily on the tip of her hoof. It was just another piece of the puzzle, as far as she was concerned.

The door opened and Cadance walked in, pushing along a service cart piled with silver serving trays.

“Room service!” she announced cheerfully as she levitated a domed cover off one of the serving trays to reveal a stack of pancakes as big as her head. She blinked in surprise as she saw Twilight toying with the thing Basenji had left her. “Hey! How are you doing that?”

Twilight looked at Cadance, then looked at the chakram as it continued to spin on her hooftip, then looked back to Cadance.

“You know what?” she asked with a laugh. “I got no idea.”

* * *

Author's Notes:

Well there we go. I wasn't sure how much of what I wanted to do with this chapter would spill over into the next, but right now I feel like if I really wanted to, I could mark this story as Completed and just have the epilogue be a bonus chapter. I won't, but I still feel like I could.

Despite being easier to write than the last few chapters, this chapter gave me problems because I still wasn't 100% sure if I wanted to commit myself to more TwiGuard after this is done. But with this chapter in the can I think I can say I've pretty firmly committed myself to further installments. More details on that will be included in the blogpost that will accompany the release of the epilogue, so look forward to that.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you'll join me next time for the final chapter of this arc of TwiGuard.

Please be excited!

Next chapter: Her Own Way

Chapter 6 - Her Own Way

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“So tell me about your dreams.”

Twilight stretched out with a yawn, the upholstery squeaking loudly as she settled herself into the doctor’s couch. After four days convalescing aboard the Saddle Arabian airship, and an additional three in the royal infirmary, she was sick of laying down all day. She only acquiesced to the doctor’s request to lay on the couch as a matter of formality. At least it was something new to lay on, even if she would’ve preferred to have a high-backed chair like the kind the elderly, green-coated unicorn mare sat in.

“I’m not really dreaming too much,” Twilight explained.

Twilight watched out the corner of her eye as the doctor reached up to the half-moon spectacles she wore, tilted them up, and squinted at the open notepad levitating before her. Her dark red mane was pulled back tightly into a bun that pulled at her face, possibly in some vain attempt to smooth out wrinkles.

A second field of orange magic pulled a coffee cup from the large desk a short distance away, bringing it to her lips for a sip. The coffee cup returned to its place on the desk, between a name plate that read ‘Blue Ego, Psy.D.’, and a loudly clacking Newton’s Cradle – a simple office toy that demonstrated Newton Cookie’s Law of Conservation of Momentum using steel marbles.

It was all much as the last time she’d been here. Doctor Blue Ego had been the psychiatrist that had done her psychological evaluation when she’d enlisted. It had been a bit of a relief to know she would be dealing with a familiar face for this assessment, though Twilight would have rather not had one at all.

“Is that so?” the doctor asked, barely able to hide the skepticism in her voice. “As a military psychologist, I’ve been privy to some of the details of the action report you filed. It’s quite a tale.”

The tone of disbelief the mare’s voice pulled the corners of Twilight’s mouth into a shallow frown. “You don’t believe it?”

“Of course I do,” Blue Ego assured her patient. She let her glasses fall back to her nose and adjusted them as she jotted something down. “I’m merely saying that such an experience would be traumatizing to anypony. This sort of trauma is often accompanied by recurring nightmares or otherwise unpleasant dreams.”

Doctor Ego set the notepad and quill aside as she leaned forward in her chair. “This is a safe place for you to discuss anything of that nature that might be troubling you. There’s no weakness in asking for help.”

Twilight let herself focus on the sound of the Newton’s Cradle. The little steel balls had been clacking away hypnotically the second she got in the room. The rhythm of the clicking was supposed to be soothing, simulating a heartbeat in the womb or some such thing, likely.

“I know that,” Twilight mumbled. She squished herself down into the couch a little deeper and the soft, overstuffed upholstery accepted her weight, surrounding her like a cocoon. “I’m just not really having any trouble sleeping or any disturbing dreams at all.”

“And why do you think that is?”

Twilight shrugged, the sofa squeaked, the marbles clacked, and the doctor hummed.

“What happened was pretty outside the realm of what I’d been trained for, I’ll admit,” Twilight said evenly. “But it’s not like I’m denying or suppressing any of it or anything. I still remember everything clearly… I’m just not dwelling on it. I made peace with it while I was in the desert, and now I’m just glad to be home.”

Blue Ego leaned back in her chair and sat in contemplation. Twilight could feel the older mare’s eyes boring into her, looking for signs of deceit. After a few moments of scrutiny, the doctor nodded silently. She lifted her quill and pad and began writing notes again.

“Putting that aside for now,” Blue Ego began again, “tell me how you are doing otherwise. Are you adjusting well to being home? Do you feel stressed or afraid, any general anxiety?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, no anxiety. And I haven’t really had time to adjust, I guess. I’ve been home for three days and I’ve spent them all in a sickbed. Princess Cadance had sent word ahead requesting a medical team, so as soon as the airship pulled into Canterlot half the royal infirmary was waiting for us.”

“Yes, I’d heard there was a bit of excitement down in the infirmary,” Blue Ego commented.

“Yeah, I don’t know what Princess Cadance said in the letter, but she must’ve put the fear of the Sun in them to get a response like that,” Twilight said with a laugh. “After they got me into the medical wing and the doctors had their way with me, the Captain of the Guard and the Optio showed up to do my debriefing in person.”

“That must’ve been quite stressful,” the doctor suggested, her quill sketching something out rapidly on the page, “to be under the scrutiny of your two highest ranking commanding officers.”

“I was kind of worried, yeah,” Twilight admitted. She focused on the clicking of the marbles as she pushed forward. “Truthfully, I’d been a little afraid of how my actions would look in hindsight…”

Doctor Ego took a sip of coffee and raised an eyebrow as she carefully studied Twilight’s face. “Do you think you made any poor decisions?”

“I think that if I think hard enough on it I can find fault with almost everything I did,” Twilight answered uneasily, “but that’s just what hindsight is, isn’t it? In the end what matters is what my superiors think, and they said I did everything in my power to fulfill the Guard’s stated purpose of protecting the crown.”

“Indeed,” the older mare commented with a satisfied nod. “Let’s move on to the rest of your support structure, then.”

“My family?”

“Yes. Have you seen them since you’ve been home?”

Twilight frowned. “They let my parents know where I was as soon as they were done with the initial examinations and testing. They live here in Canterlot so they rushed over right away. It was good to see them… until my mom had something of an emotional moment…”

The doctor made an interested little noise.

“She never wanted me to join the military in the first place,” Twilight explained. “So when she found out I got hurt, she started crying and begging me to quit the service as soon as I could… Took a while but my dad and I managed to talk her down from it. Broke my heart a little to see her so upset…”

Twilight noticed movement off to the side and followed it to find a box of tissues hovering near her head. She was about to decline the offer, but as she turned her head she felt wetness streaking down the side of her face. The memory of her mother crying and pleading for her youngest daughter to quit such a perilous profession was still strong, and it had brought tears to her eyes without her even realizing it.

She accepted one of the tissues with muttered gratitude and dried her eyes. They sat in silence, save for the ever-present clack of the Newton’s Cradle. Doctor Ego had stopped taking notes, and simply allowed Twilight a moment to compose herself.

“So then,” the doctor began once Twilight had nodded her readiness to continue, “what about your brothers? Shining Armor and Spike, was it?”

“I haven’t seen them yet because apparently they live in Ponyville now,” Twilight said with a chuckle of disbelief. “From what I heard, while I was out having an adventure a quarter of the globe away, they were here doing the same thing!”

“So then you’ve been filled in about the Nightmare Moon incident?” Doctor Ego asked, her tone of detached, clinical interest becoming warmer, like real, personal interest.

“Yeah, it was part of my debriefing. It’s a pretty unbelievable story, but everypony swears it really happened – and I suppose I don’t have a lot of room to talk about somepony else’s unbelievable story.”

“What do you think about it?”

“I don’t know yet,” Twilight said, blowing a strand of her mane out of her face with a puff. “We’ve got a new princess now, which I guess means more work to go around, so that’s exciting. Everypony that’s talked to me about it – and honestly it’s the only thing those gossipy nurses in the infirmary have been talking about – keeps saying what a surprise it was. I kind of saw it coming, though.”

The doctor’s quill dug deeply into her notepad with a crunch of tearing paper. Blue Ego smiled abashedly.

“I didn’t see that coming specifically, mind you,” Twilight explained with a raise of her eyebrow at the doctor’s queer reaction. “We knew something was going on, though, Princess Cadance and I. Princess Celestia was acting very…” Twilight held her hooves in the air and gestured vaguely with them. “…distracted, I guess you would say, in the days leading up to the Summer Sun Celebration. Then she mysteriously sends Princess Cadance away? Something was going to go down, and it was going to be big, regardless of what actually played out. I’m just glad that it all worked out in the end.

“I’m a little worried about Princess Cadance, though… I haven’t seen her since I got back – which I completely understand. I know she’s busy helping sort things out with all the inquiries and stuff coming in from other nations wondering what was going on with the sky. She was sending me notes down in the infirmary, though, keeping me posted on what’s been going on. She says she’s fine, but me being paranoid like I am, I probably won’t believe it until I see her myself. Plus, I hear she kind of had an argument with Princess Celestia, but she never mentioned it in her notes, so I’m wondering what was going on with that.”

There was a pause in the conversation. Once again, the only sounds in the room were the clicking of the pendulum and the soft breathing of the two ponies in the room. The doctor’s chair creaked lightly as she leaned to one side, and the sound drew Twilight’s eyes. The other mare had removed her glasses and set them aside along with her notes.

Blue Ego held her mug between her hooves as she stared into it, her forehead wrinkling in thought. The cup was steaming, the contents still hot despite the fact that it hadn’t been refilled since Twilight had entered the room.

Twilight sat up, the couch announcing her movement squeakily. “You okay?” she asked in concern.

The doctor looked up from her mug, her eyes a little glassy, and she stared at Twilight for a long moment before she realized that she’d been addressed. “Oh! Oh deary me,” the mare laughed. It was a tight, high-pitched laughter, but charming all the same. “Deary, deary, deary, that was very unprofessional of me.”

“You looked a little lost there,” Twilight pointed out. She sat up a little straighter on the couch and gave her doctor a soft, understanding smile. “You want to talk about it?”

“No, no,” Blue Ego said with a wave of her hoof as she replaced the mug she held with her notepad and quill. “Getting back to your support network, it seems that you and—”

“We don’t have to do this anymore if you don’t want to,” Twilight interrupted. “I’m doing well, but you look like you need somepony to talk to.”

The doctor huffed, her metaphorical feathers ruffled by the interruption and the assumption. “Really, it was a moment of distraction. We still have…” She checked clock on the wall behind Twilight’s couch, in a position where only she could tell how much time had passed. “…twenty minutes of our session to go.”

Twilight tilted her head, a smile playing across her lips. “Is that in real-time or dream-time?”

Doctor Ego blinked and sputtered. “What?” she asked sharply.

Twilight climbed down off the couch, lowering herself into a bow. “Please, Princess Luna, I can listen if you need somepony to talk to.”

The doctor stared for a moment. She shook her head in disbelief, her lips curling into a small, amused grin. “We were warned your mind was sharp, Decurion.”

Twilight lifted her head to find that the unicorn psychiatrist and her chair had been replaced with an alicorn. She was fairly taller than the average mare, though closer to Cadance’s height than Celestia’s. Her coat was a gorgeous blue and her mane was the color of the night sky, complete with twinkling stars and constellations that danced as her hair drifted on invisible currents – the very picture of Princess Celestia in inverse.

“Prithee, explain yourself,” Princess Luna urged. “How did you undo Our beguilement?”

“It was the little things, of course,” Twilight explained. “First, the Newton’s Cradle on the desk has been clacking away since I walked in here. It’s not enchanted as far as I can tell, so it should have stopped by now. Those things are office toys, not perpetual motion engines. Second, the coffee in your mug’s still hot enough to be steaming, so same give away as the toy. Third, you seemed a little too interested in what I thought about the return of Nightmare Moon – way more interested than a figment of my subconscious would be. That led me to believe I had a… let’s say ‘guest’, in my dreamspace.”

Luna listened, frowning at the overlooked details as each thing was listed off. “And how did you know that We were your ‘guest’?”

Twilight smirked, but quickly wiped the expression from her face. One should never be smug with royalty, even if one was especially proud of oneself.

“Remember when I said Princess Cadance was sending me notes? She mentioned meeting you. She said you knew dream magic. That you could walk into another pony’s dreams. That’s an art so lost that I only know of one other being capable of it, and since I personally sent Anubis home to the other side, process of elimination says it had to be you.”

Twilight fell to her haunches and almost leapt up in surprise as her rump fell upon a soft, velvet cushion that had replaced the couch. She shrugged and settled into the seat as Princess Luna did the same on a matching cushion across from her.

“I suppose there was the possibility that you might’ve been somepony dead trying to talk to me through my dreams,” Twilight proposed as she prodded at the cushion with a hoof. “That was pretty unlikely, though. I don’t see what a ghost would gain from that kind of deception.”

Luna’s frown deepened just a bit. “And what do you believe We have gained from this?”

“No idea,” Twilight admitted, shrugging as she flashed a quick grin. “You’re probably doing it as a favor for Princess Cadance or Princess Celestia.”

Luna laughed behind her hoof. It wasn’t the high-pitched, charming titter of the pony she’d disguised herself as, but a light, dignified chuckle that was suppressed at the back of her throat. It was kind of cute, the way Luna restrained her laughter out of what Twilight could only imagine was polite modesty.

“You are quite the detective,” Luna said. “It is no wonder that Sister and Niece Cadance speak so highly of you.”

Twilight smiled. “So, did you want to talk about what was bothering you? I’m told I’m a pretty good listener.”

Luna folded her legs under herself, resting fully on the enormous cushion with a sigh. She sat there for a while, silently contemplating as Twilight patiently waited for her to make a decision.

Twilight knew she was being presumptuous to ask her new princess to confide in her, but if her time with Celestia and Cadance had taught her anything, it was that her duty didn’t end with merely protecting the lives of her princesses. If Princess Luna didn't want to talk all she had to do was decline, so it didn't hurt to ask.

The time ticked away slowly as Twilight waited. Princess Luna’s presence seemed to have a fascinating stabilizing effect on the dreams she intruded on. The dream Twilight had been subjected to under Anubis’ influence had been more – for lack of a better word – dreamlike. There had been those little impossibilities in this instance that had clued her into the nature of her surroundings, but it was nothing like the mind-bending impossible space and disorienting time-lapses she’d felt before.

Princess Luna took a deep breath through her nostrils and exhaled heavily, groaning as though she were laying down a heavy burden.

“We were thinking about what you said of Niece Cadance and how busy she is…” Luna said quietly. “We fear We are the reason she has been kept from your side, and also the reason for her strife with Our dear Sister. It would seem that Our foalishness brought harm even to family We were unaware of… Had We not attempted to steal the skies a second time, these troubles would not have befallen those of Our noble house.”

“You were under the influence of dark magic, right?” Twilight offered, thinking back on the story that had been going around. One of the younger nurses, a chipper girl with a nightingale for a Cutie Mark, had droned on for nearly an hour over the specifics she’d read in the newspapers. Twilight had the impression that the silly girl had a crush on one of her brothers, and Twilight wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“Magics of Our own creation, perhaps,” Luna said sadly. “We fell prey to childish desires to be as beloved as Sister, like a jealous foal acting out for her mother’s attention. Whether Our negative emotions conjured the Nightmare or merely invited it, it matters very little. In the end it was still an affliction of Our own making. Every day in which We labored under the Nightmare’s thrall was a day of weakness and shame.”

Twilight shook her head. “You can’t blame yourself like that. Dark magic exists to bend the backs of good people – ponies, dogs, zebras, alicorns, it doesn’t matter. Everyone is susceptible to darkness once it has taken root. Take it from somepony who also knows what it’s like to face real darkness.”

Luna gave a sad, watery little grin. “As We said earlier, We were privy to your report, and have heard the tale from Our lovely niece, so know that We speak true to say that those words would be hollow from one of less merit.” Her voice grew heavy as she added, “We are ashamed that We lack the fortitude you have shown in the face of your own adversary. Though, We are glad to see that this new age has no want for ponies the like of you.”

“I’m sure Princess Cadance is making it sound way more impressive than it actually was,” Twilight quickly said, flustered by such a grand compliment. “At the time the only things on my mind were staying alive and keeping my friends safe.”

“You are not the first to have spoken in such a way of her own bravery.”

“But it’s true,” Twilight quietly insisted. “The only reason I lived was because I heard Princess Cadance’s voice as Anubis was killing me. My connection with her is what gave me the strength to drive back the darkness. Magic that connects hearts together is what saved me, and from what I heard it’s what saved you. The Magic of Friendship, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, the Elements of Harmony,” Luna said. She waved her hoof and six colored jewels appeared to hover between them.

The gems were wholly unremarkable, of a simple cut that made them look like they wouldn’t have been out of place in Spike’s snack cupboard – except for the largest of the jewels. Unlike the others, the central stone was cut into a six-sided starburst pattern, the same as her own Cutie Mark.

No, she had to remind herself, not only the same as hers. That same starburst was also a part of her brother’s Cutie Mark.

“Pretty, are they not?” Luna asked. “We see they catch your eye. Do you wish to know more?”

Twilight could only nod in reply.

“The Elements of Harmony were ancient by the time We discovered them,” Luna explained. “They are foci for the purity of Laughter, Generosity, Kindness, Loyalty, Honesty, and Magic: the basic foundations upon which ponies come together in Friendship, and in doing so create Harmony.

“Long ago, We used the Elements to bring Harmony and peace to the land. To Celestia went the responsibilities of Generosity, Kindness, and Magic, while We kept Honesty, Loyalty, and Laughter.”

A look of pain flashed across the princess’ face, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving only a weary smile.

“We are aware of the irony that those would be Our elements, considering Our bitter duplicity and disloyalty in becoming Nightmare Moon… And when We did fall, Sister was able to command enough of their awesome might on her own to banish the Nightmare to Our moon, sealing it away until the rightful bearers, chosen by Destiny itself, would be found.”

Luna waved again, and five of the gemstones changed. They took new shapes: apples, diamonds, butterflies, balloons – all in trios – and a single cloud with a rainbow-colored lightning bolt.

“The Elements have true wielders now, and they have taken the form of their bearers’ Cutie Marks. It was this group, led by Shining Armor, that quieted the evil within Our heart, releasing us from the thrall of darkness.”

Twilight stared at the gems, and an odd feeling of discomfort came over her. It was very small, something like loneliness. A yearning deep inside herself to reach out to the image. She was profoundly aware of her own Cutie Mark at that moment.

In her nightmare, she'd been forced to face the reality that she'd always felt a little odd in her own skin. Like her place in the world wasn't fully formed. It had been the truth, as much as she hated to admit it. No matter how much she loved working towards her dream of being in the Guard, she'd always had the feeling that she'd been destined for something else – not necessarily something big, but something else, at the very least.

She tore her eyes away from the sight of the Elements, and looked to her mark, to where she bore the symbol of Magic. The parting gift Anubis had left her was fresh as the day she’d received it. It scored across her mark, crossing it out angrily the way her professors back at the academy would correct a mistake in dark red marker. Slowly, the small loneliness faded away, flowing out of her body from the wound like her lifeblood.

The stray feeling that she might have been meant to use the Element of Magic was a flaccid epiphany, ineffectual and gone as quickly as it had come to her. She'd made her choice, and Destiny could tug at her emotions and make her feel listless all it wanted, but in the end it didn't matter, not to her.

Not so long as she had her own Way.

“Decurion Twilight Sparkle?”

Twilight’s head snapped around as Luna called to her. The alicorn’s face was laced with worry.

“Are you unwell?” Luna pressed. She waved her hoof once more and the image of the Elements blew away like smoke.

Twilight looked to her Cutie Mark, but the wound was again covered by bandages, and beneath the dressing she could feel the vague pressure of the stitches tugging at her flesh, holding it together until it mended itself. The stitches were fresh, made by the infirmary to replace the shoddy job done by the Saddle Arabian field medic that had attended her initially.

“I’m fine,” Twilight replied, sure of that fact herself, even if the look on Luna’s face hinted that the princess wasn’t so convinced. She decided that it would be best to change the subject. “I was just thinking that there seems to be a lot of these ancient magical artifacts just sort of… lying around.”

Luna was quiet, watching Twilight with her eyes half closed in consideration. “Yes,” Luna began slowly. “There are many lost wonders in this world. There exist remnants of things that were ancient when this world was young, and this world is very, very old. We may seem timeless to one of your age, but there are places like this Necropolis, and artifacts like the Elements of Harmony, that have existed since long before even Our time.”

“Things like my chakram,” Twilight added.

“Yes, things such as your chakram,” Luna said uneasily. “We have seen this object. It causes Us… disquiet. Even Sister could not levitate it, and We are unable to read the cipher etched upon its surface.”

It made sense that the other princesses had seen it. The infirmary had a strict policy against carrying arms, even for off-duty guards, so Twilight had been forced to leave the precious item in Cadance’s care, who no doubt would have shown the odd thing to her aunts by now.

“It’s weird that nopony else can lift it, right?” Twilight asked. “I have no trouble at all. It resonates really well with my magic.”

Luna nodded. “Indeed. This is also why We wished to speak with you. Setting aside Our debt to Sirs Shining Armor and Spike, and our favor to Niece Cadance, we wished to see what sort of impressive mare the mistress of such an item would be.”

Twilight rubbed her hooves together self-consciously. “You’re very kind, Princess Luna.”

“We speak only the truth,” Luna said with a flick of her hoof through her star-filled mane. “Whether giving or receiving, We are far too old and have seen far too much to entertain empty compliments. The few nobles daring enough to approach Us were ill-equipped to parlay with the Lady of Dreams.”

The corners of Luna’s mouth curled slightly, becoming a mysteriously wistful smile. It was the kind of smile that older ponies wore when they were becoming lost in pleasant memories.

“The Lady of Dreams?” Twilight asked.

“An old epithet by which We were known in days bygone,” Luna explained. “Our duties as Mistress of the Night mean We act as sentinel to the dreams of Our subjects. We search for disturbances in the dreamscape that links the minds of all ponies, and assist them in overcoming their own nightmares.”

Twilight let loose a sharp bark of laughter and slapped a hoof over her mouth in shock. “Um, sorry,” she apologized. She was absolutely mortified that she’d laughed like that. “It just occurred to me that somepony looking out for my dreams would’ve been helpful back in… you know…”

Luna managed to look a little embarrassed herself, and Twilight was struck by how oddly cute it was to see a centuries-old alicorn of possibly incalculable might look abashed. If nothing else, Princess Luna wore her emotions far more openly than Princess Celestia, and Twilight couldn’t help but like her.

“Yes, well, We were not in the mind to fulfill this duty at the time,” Luna said as she cleared her throat. “Banished to the moon as We were, it has been a thousand years since We have guarded the realm of dreams, and it will take some time before We are ready to do so again.”

Twilight rubbed at her chin thoughtfully. Princess Luna wasn’t just skilled in the ways of dream magic, she was also some sort of defender of dreams?

Dreams, dreams, dreams – it all came back to dreams, apparently. This whole mess had come about because something had come to Dingo in a dream, reached out to him, tainted his mind, and lured him to the city of his ancestors – presumably all just to get Anubis out of the way temporarily.

And while that was going on, a quarter of the world away, the ‘Lady of Dreams’ was making her return? It was all too much to be just coincidence. More of the puzzle had revealed itself, and she needed to fill those blanks.

“Princess, can I ask a question?”

Luna shrugged. It was a motion that Twilight felt was oddly modern for the alicorn princess, and she briefly wondered if ponies a thousand years ago shrugged like that, or if was something she’d picked up recently.

“What do you know about the divide between the world of dreams and the land of the dead?” Twilight asked.

Luna stared, visibly taken aback by the forwardness of the question. “This would be about the being known as Anubis, yes?”

“You called me a detective earlier,” Twilight said, “so let’s just say it’s more detective work. I’m working on something of a puzzle, you see.”

The Princess of the Night inhaled heavily, idly pawing at her cushion as she considered her response. She frowned and tilted her head slightly, willing a pair of teacups into existence between them.

Twilight looked at the cup of hot tea. She leaned forward and sniffed it. It certainly smelled like tea, and the steam was warm and damp against her face. She took a sip, and was pleased to find it was a lovely jasmine-mint flavor. The taste of the tea was all in her head, as was the sensation of the liquid filling her body with warmth, but it was relaxing all the same.

“The realm of dreams is an intermediary between the lands of the living and the dead,” Luna began. She levitated her own cup and sipped. “In dreams, the walls which separate the worlds are thinnest. This is why the dead are sometimes known to speak to the living in their dreams. The dead are not constrained by time in the way those of us bound by earthly flesh are, and sometimes they give warnings of possible calamity. Those who are especially attuned to certain magics are often visited by such apparitions, and in days past they were seen as soothsayers of a sort.”

“Isn’t that dangerous, though?” Twilight asked. “Why don’t we see things crossing over all the time? From what I’ve learned, the lands of the dead are filled with terrible things.”

“It happens, and dealing with such things is one of Our responsibilities as Lady of Dreams,” Luna explained. “It does not happen often, though, for while the walls separating the realms may be thin, they are very strong. Any malicious creatures that manage to make the incursion tend to be rather weak and easily dealt with. A being such as this Anubis could not normally cross the divide with his might intact – it would be something akin to trying to squeeze an elephant through a mouse-hole.”

“But he did come through,” Twilight pointed out. “He came through and he was tremendously powerful.”

Luna cast her gaze down, staring into her cup as she swirled the contents around. “We fear this is yet another thing which can be laid at our hooves…” she confessed. “As We’ve said, We have not held dominion over dreams in a thousand years, and as the time of Our return grew near, Nightmare Moon made certain that she would again have full control of all her seats of power. Months before returning, Nightmare Moon once more exerted control over this wondrous realm – not to guard it, but merely to again claim it as her own. We fear that she was none too gentle while planting her flag, and her influence likely weakened the walls between the worlds to a greater degree than they ever have been.”

Another piece fell into place in Twilight’s mind. If Nightmare Moon’s seizing of the dream realm had begun months ago, around the same time that Dingo first began to have the dreams that would eventually drive him mad, then the timeline matched up.

“This is making sense…” Twilight muttered. “If the walls were weakened, then that means…”

“Means what, Twilight Sparkle?” Luna asked as she leaned forward curiously.

Twilight lifted her cup and drank, swishing the hot tea around in her mouth and swallowing with a sigh. “Optio Whippoorwill asked that it be left out of the official report because it was just speculation on my part,” she began to explain, “but my friend Basenji and I think there’s another player on the field that we haven’t seen yet.”

“What do you mean?”

The princess was frowning, and Twilight got the distinct impression that she might’ve just gotten her Optio in a bit of hot water for approving a less-than-complete action report. Not that he’d done anything wrong, as the official action report was only supposed to be descriptions of the events and observations by the field operative with concrete evidence behind them. Her personal theory on the events was probably jotted down on some footnote somewhere where the princess hadn’t seen it.

It was something she could explain later, though. She was on a roll and didn’t want to lose her train of thought.

“Anubis wasn’t a bad guy. He didn’t plan to lure those dogs down into that city and get himself sealed in some kind of… ghost trap or whatever it was. Something else plotted the whole charade, and if Anubis couldn’t normally be pulled through to our realm, Nightmare Moon’s return destabilizing the dream realm might’ve been exactly what our mysterious architect may have been waiting for.”

Twilight was grinning from ear to ear, certain that she’d finally fit another piece to the mystery. The explanation had gushed out of her, and by the time she’d finished, she was nearly out of breath with excitement.

“We see…” Luna said sullenly, clearly not sharing Twilight’s enthusiasm at the revelation. Her eyes were downcast as she toyed with her teacup, tipping it just until the liquid was about to spill. “Yet another mistake to atone for… It would seem that Our sins gather like falling snow…”

Twilight sat up and frantically waved her hooves in denial. “No-no-no-no-no! I didn’t mean to make you feel bad! Please don’t feel bad! I’m just trying to figure this out, and besides, whatever planned this whole thing probably would’ve found another way to get its way!”

Her eyes went wide and she brought her hooves to her mouth, forcibly stopping her excited babbling.

“Oh no, I’m shouting at a princess again,” she whispered into her hooves. “Why am I always shouting at princesses?”

Twilight continued to stammer in panic, cursing her excitable nature and her ever-damning inability to control the volume of her voice when she got worked up. The sudden feeling of a hoof resting atop her head snapped her out of her mild episode, and she turned to find Princess Luna standing beside her, patting her head gently.

Twilight looked back to the cushion across from her to find it – and the occupant – now gone. She’d just been looking right at Princess Luna, but now she was beside her?

It was just dream physics, she realized as Luna continued to pet her reassuringly.

“You, Twilight Sparkle, are a singularly amusing mare,” Luna complimented as she laughed that light, dignified little laugh. “In fact, We will soon be reforming Our Night Guard, and while We imagine you are content with your current assignment, should you ever desire a change of circumstances…” Luna lifted Twilight’s chin, bringing their faces closer as she flashed a predatory grin. “…We are certain We might be amenable to finding a comfortable position for you directly beneath Us.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped, and the next thing she knew she was staring at the clean white tiles of the infirmary ceiling. The sound of the princess’ dainty snickering was still in her ears.

“Did I just get hit on by another princess…?”

* * *

“Should you be up yet, ma’am?” the guard standing at the castle entrance asked.

Twilight stopped and turned to face the unfamiliar stallion that had addressed her. He was a few years older than her – older enough that it felt odd to be addressed as “ma’am,” at any rate – and the crest of his galea bore the colors and markings of a Legionary. She didn’t know his name, but she’d seen him in the barracks and at inspection before.

“I’m sorry?”

“You just got out of the infirmary, Decurion,” he said, casting a glance at his partner standing sentinel at the other side of the entrance.

His partner – another familiar stranger bearing Legionary rank – nodded, tilting his chin upwards towards the sky. “We’re scheduled for some rain today, too. We wouldn’t want you catching a cold, Decurion, ma’am.”

“Don’t worry about me, boys,” Twilight said as she smiled reassuringly. “I already know about the rain, I just wanted to sit out in the gardens and watch it come down for a while.”

She made to leave but was stopped by another shout from the first guard. The stallion stared at her, shifting his weight almost imperceptibly and clearly arguing silently with himself. His eyes darted down, towards the bandage on her side, and quickly went back up to meet hers.

“Is it… true…?” he asked cautiously. “What they’re saying about what happened to you and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza in the desert… did it really happen?”

They both leaned forward, ears perked eagerly as they waited for confirmation.

Twilight raised an eyebrow suspiciously. The events of her encounter with Anubis were supposed to be classified. A tame version of the story was still being discussed between the three nations involved, to be included in whatever release would be made regarding the discovery of the Necropolis. Archaeologists from around the world would be flocking to the site once word got out, and they’d need a sanitized version of the discovery for the history books.

Last she’d heard of it, they were still a while away from putting together the official story. There was no way that a couple of Legionaries would have been cleared to hear the details of it so soon.

“Where’d you hear about that?” she asked.

“Ma’am, everypony’s talking it about,” the second guard answered for his partner.

“Well, I don’t know what you heard, and I don’t want to hear,” Twilight said, “but I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”

She left the matter at that and began to slowly limp in the direction of the gardens. Once she was a good distance away she could hear the sound of the two guards excitedly whispering to one another. As their superior, she considered turning back and chastising them for breaking discipline, but she just shook her head and continued on her way. She was off duty anyway.

To the two stallions, her refusal to talk about it had probably been as good as confirmation of whatever they’d heard. Any attempts to correct them now would be pointless. That’s how rumors tended to go. The harder you tried to squash them, the more outlandish they got, like a game of Griffon-Whispers where the story changes with every retelling.

The sound of thunder rolled across the courtyard, rumbling deeply with the promise of rain. Pegasi in weather team suits were moving around in the sky above, shoving small cloudbanks together and massaging them into place like bakers working fresh dough, forming a single storm front that spread over the whole of the city like a great big pie crust.

Maybe she was just getting hungry. She made a mental note – and underlined it six times – to drop by the mess later to get some pie.

She picked up her pace a little, hurrying to the spot she’d picked out from the window of her room in the infirmary. She wanted to be settled in before the rain started to fall.

She limped along, mindful of her bum knee. The injury wasn’t so bad – just a sprain to the ligament, which could have been much worse – but it still didn’t like supporting too much of her weight. It’d be another couple of weeks before she was back to fighting-form, even with the first-class medical care she was getting.

The minor ache in the joint made her wonder if it’d be like this every time it started raining. The thought that she’d earned her own ‘trick-knee’, like the one Sky Chaser had professed to have, brought a smile to her lips.

“There you are!”

Twilight looked up, her smiling widening until it took up her whole face as she recognized the voice of her new paramour. “Cadance!” she shouted excitedly.

The princess was descending from the air, her wings beating slowly as she approached. She touched down a few paces ahead of Twilight and rushed forward to nuzzle her.

“What are you doing out here?” Cadance asked, her voice a mix of disapproval and relief. “You should be in bed.”

Twilight inhaled deeply, once again a little disturbed by how readily she gave in to the temptation to sniff another pony… even if she did smell really good.

“I’m tired of being in a bed,” Twilight grumbled as she rubbed her face deeper into the taller girl’s mane. “I saw the weather team getting the clouds ready for a shower and checked myself out of the infirmary.”

Cadance pulled away to glare down at Twilight. Her lips pulled into a tight line as she made a nasally growl of dissatisfaction. “I’m going to have a talk with those nurses later…”

Twilight rolled her eyes as she stepped around the irate princess and continued on her way. “It’s not their fault, Cadance. I was very insistent. If it makes you feel any better they threatened to call the orderlies on me.”

“Tell me you didn’t hurt anypony…” Cadance asked as she moved to keep up with Twilight.

“What kind of girl do you think I am?” Twilight asked with a snort. “It was a bluff, I called it. End of story.”

“You still shouldn’t be out here,” Cadance said, her voice soft with worry.

Twilight could feel Cadance’s eyes on her, watching as she hobbled along the paved walkway leading further into the gardens. It gave her a warm feeling in the pit of her belly to know that Cadance worried about her, but that warm feeling also came with a little twinge of guilt that she was the source of her new girlfriend’s worry.

This love stuff was very confusing.

“Just for a little while, okay?” Twilight pleaded. “Please? I just want to watch the rain. I know a dry place we can sit, and when we go back in I can use a shield to keep the rain off us.”

She felt a tickle along her ribs as Cadance brushed a wing against her side, a silent assent that Cadance had accepted her terms. Twilight relaxed at the touch with a sigh, tension from days of being cooped up indoors bleeding out of her as she felt the stones beneath her hooves and the soft caress of Cadance’s feathers.

They walked in silence for a while, enjoying the gardens in the quickly cooling summer afternoon. The gardens were more of a park than anything else. The plateau of the mountain the city had been build on had been flattened and cultivated by generations of earth pony landscapers and architects. There were topiary displays, centuries-old sculptures, hedge mazes, reflecting ponds, streams fed by hoof-crafted waterfalls – every act of beauty that could be achieved by earth pony ingenuity and stubbornness could be found in this place. For all that beauty, though, Twilight found her eyes wandering to the girl walking at her side.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come visit,” Cadance said.

“It’s fine, I know you were busy.”

“Really busy,” Cadance grumbled. “You know what the worst thing about important government officials is? They all know they’re important.”

“I can imagine,” Twilight said. After a moment of hesitation, she broached a subject that had been on her mind. “I heard you had an argument with Princess Celestia… you okay?”

Cadance’s stride hitched for just a second at the question, but if she was more surprised than that it didn’t show on her face. “Where did you hear that?”

“The nurses in the infirmary are kind of gossipy,” Twilight explained. “Apparently you can’t keep a secret from anypony in this castle.”

“Tell me about it,” Cadance said with a huff and a roll of her eyes. “How else do you think everypony and their mother knows about how you battled six Cerberuses and a Hydra atop a flaming airship that crashed into an oasis where native zebra mares nursed us back to health by mouth-feeding us dates?”

Twilight stumbled, tripping over her own hooves as her head whipped around. The tingling shimmer of Cadance’s magic was the only thing that kept her standing.

“Is that what they’re saying!?” Twilight sputtered.

“That’s what the guards are circulating,” Cadance said with a wry grin. “The maids insist that it was ten Cerberuses and a whole aerial battalion of griffons. And the cooking staff says the zebra mares were actually diamond dogs that wanted you as their warrior princess. My favorite, though, is the landscapers who think you beat a Goddess of the Hunt in a sewing contest.”

Twilight pressed a hoof to the bridge of her nose, gently massaging the angry throb forming between her eyes at the sheer idiocy of it all. “I don’t know whether any of that is more or less outrageous than what actually happened…”

“Aw, look at you,” Cadance cooed, “all flustered by your newfound celebrity. Aren’t you happy that your legend has already begun to spread?”

“No,” Twilight said simply. There was a rumble of thunder from above that reminded her of the gathering rainclouds and she started on her way again. “So changing back to what I actually asked, what happened with Princess Celestia?”

Cadance’s good cheer evaporated quickly. She followed Twilight sedately, her head down and gaze fixed on the paving stones as they walked.

“I kind of blew up at her…” Cadance admitted shamefully. “I said some… very mean things.”

Twilight slowed her already sluggish gait so that Cadance could catch up. “What kind of things?” she asked, darting her head forward to nuzzle against Cadance’s neck reassuringly.

Cadance returned the gesture briefly but quickly turned away. “Nothing I want to repeat. It was just a lot of pent up stuff about feeling unappreciated. I hadn’t meant to get into an argument. I swear, I just wanted to find out what happened while we were gone and ask why I was sent away, but when I saw her face I was just so…”

Cadance grit her teeth and growled as she stomped a hoof down angrily. Her metal shoe struck the paving stone hard enough to crack the stone and throw off a spark.

Twilight raised an eyebrow at the display, but didn’t comment on it. The look on Cadance’s face immediately following the act hinted that it was better to pretend she hadn’t seen that little slip of emotion.

“Despite how utterly stupid I was, though, she was the one that kept apologizing,” Cadance continued. “You can imagine how dumb I felt when Aunt Luna came into the throne room to see what the shouting was about… Turns out the reason Aunt Celestia sent me away was because we were the back-up plan for if Nightmare Moon managed to seize control of Equestria.”

When Twilight had heard about the return of Nightmare Moon during the Summer Sun Celebration, she'd put the pieces together and realized straight away that it had been the reason that Cadance had been sent away. Even still, it was nice to have confirmation.

“You were just frustrated,” Twilight offered. “We’d just gotten back from a high-stress situation, and you were looking for somepony to blame.”

“Exactly,” Cadance agreed bitterly. “That’s why I’m so angry with myself. I’m a princess. I shouldn’t be looking for anypony or anyone else to take blame. It was unseemly, unbecoming of my station to let my emotions go like that. There I was, ranting and raving about not being treated like a proper princess, and I couldn’t even act like one... And to make matters worse, she was completely right to keep her plan a secret. I would’ve just insisted on staying to help, and who knows how my presence might’ve affected how it all went down?”

Twilight was a bit taken aback by how similar Cadance’s explanation was to how Luna had described her own struggles with living in Celestia’s shadow. How much older had Luna been than Cadance when she’d first started to feel that no one appreciated what she did for her ponies? It was a striking reminder that beneath all that regal poise and otherworldly power, the alicorn princesses were ponies, just the same as her.

“I met Princess Luna,” Twilight said. “Did you ask her to pay me a visit in my dreams?”

“I may have asked her to pop in on you because I was worried how you were doing,” Cadance admitted with a thin smile. “I like her, I’m glad we’re getting along. It’s hard to believe all the stories I heard about Nightmare Moon.”

“She’s nice, yeah,” Twilight said with a nod.

In a move that she felt was vastly wise, Twilight decided not to admit the part where her meeting with Luna had veered off into a job offer. Twilight had the feeling that Cadance might change her tune about her newly un-estranged relative if she knew about the implied… benefits package… that came with the position Luna had offered her.

“The fact that she’s an ageless dream sorceress aside, you two are a lot alike in some ways.”

“I hope in the good ways,” Cadance snickered.

“Why, are you worried about succumbing to your inner darkness the way Nightmare Moon did?” Twilight teased.

“You’d better hope I don’t become Nightmare Cadance.”

“Not Nightmare Love?” Twilight suggested.

Cadance smiled and shook her head. “Nightmare Heart!”

“Overly Attached Marefriend?”

Cadance laughed sharply. “Yes, yes that one! That’s definitely the one I’m going with if I go evil.”

“Things are okay now, though?” Twilight asked hopefully. “With Princess Celestia I mean.”

Cadance nodded. “Yeah, we’re okay now. This stuff happens in every family. It’s probably not the same argument, but the same kind, at any rate. If anything, things are kind of better. She’s blaming herself for what happened to us out in the desert, so she’s really taking my feelings to heart and trying to include me in this sticky business of smoothing things out with our foreign allies.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. Something in Cadance’s tone told her there was something she wasn’t saying. “Things are going well, but…?”

Cadance glanced at Twilight out of the corner of her eye, chewing her lip apprehensively before she added: “…but… she insisted on having me sleep in her room with her. We haven’t done ‘sleepovers’ since I was twelve, but I went ahead and agreed to it, because, you know, I still feel bad about having yelled at her. She’s just being super clingy and that’s part of the reason why I wasn’t able to make it down to see you until now…”

“Did you wear little hoofie-pajamas and tell ghost stories?”

Cadance snorted. “Hah, shut up,” she said as she choked back laughter.

The path led them the long way around a hedge maze, and as they rounded a corner they came upon the spot Twilight had picked out. Away from the path, in the middle of an immaculately groomed lawn, was a reflecting pond, just about the size of a small swimming pool. A short distance from the pond was a white gazebo, consisting of a simple roof suspended from four ornately carved, ivy covered posts above a wooden patio. Some previous visitor to the spot had left behind a checkered blanket that had been rolled up and set off to one side.

Twilight stepped onto the patio and unfurled the blanket with a snap of her magic. She turned and cleared her throat before giving a deep bow.

“Ahem, here you are, My Lady,” Twilight said, her voice affecting a nasally-snobbish accent. “This should keep thy Regal Rump pleasantly toasty.”

“Oh, what a gentlemare thou art, Lady Guard,” Cadance replied as she tittered theatrically. “This pleases the Royal Behind, and We look forward to any other services thou might render unto it in the future.”

Cadance stepped onto the patio, striding past Twilight with an exaggerated sway of her hips. She flicked her tail against the smaller girl’s side, swatting her playfully.

Twilight shivered at the feeling of Cadance’s silky soft tail dragging along her spine as she passed. Cadance was much better at this flirty-flirty stuff than Twilight was, and she wasn’t afraid to show it.

“Good try, hon,” Cadance teased, “but I’m afraid you’re still just a Flirting yellow-belt.” She plopped down onto the blanket with grin, pulling her legs under her and lying on her belly. “The effort was appreciated, though. It’s cute when you try.”

Twilight settled in next to Cadance and made a frustrated little noise. “I’m still new at this stuff.”

“Hey, so am I, kind of!” Cadance countered as she gently leaned over and nudged her girlfriend.

Twilight scoffed. “Yeah, but you’re the Princess of Love! You’ve probably read as many romance novels as I’ve read… anything! Your level of research competence in this field is orders of magnitude higher!”

Cadance leaned over and nuzzled her face into the crook of Twilight’s neck. “Oh, baby, keep talking nerdy, I’m almost there.”

Twilight’s ears folded back and her face grew hot at the intimate act. She reached over to pull one of Cadance’s hooves to her chest, hugging it tightly. Cadance responded by scooting closer, pressing their bodies together as she draped a wing over Twilight’s back.

Twilight had spent most of the return trip to Canterlot unconscious – sleeping without gaining rest, only to again succumb to unconsciousness within a few hours. She’d slipped in and out of the waking world, and every time she’d awakened, Cadance had been by her side, snuggled up against her, their bodies pressed together reassuringly just like they were now.

They’d spent most of their time just holding each other, getting comfortable with the sensation of each other’s warmth and learning to appreciate the silent presence of one another. They’d spent their waking hours together sitting in contented silence as much as talking.

Twilight traced the tip of Cadance’s hoof with her own, letting her mare know that she was happy to be there. Cadance responded by flexing her wing, fanning out the feathers and gently stroking Twilight’s back. It was a little like learning a new language, Twilight thought as they lay on the blanket and made up for the days they’d lost to convalescence and duty respectively.

Like the flirting that Twilight was only just starting to grasp, this was a new way of communicating. A sign language of touch. It was something she could share with only one other pony – a secret language just for the two of them. Every stroke and every nuzzle meant something different in the lexicon they were creating.

When the rain began to fall, it started as a slow pitter-patter. Little thumps of water striking the grass as the weather pegasi did whatever it was they did to the clouds to make them release their burden. The raindrops that fell into the reflecting pond were a much sharper ‘thwip’ to the deeper ‘thwap’ of the drops hitting the earth.

Thwip-thwip-thwip.

Thwap-thwap-thwap.

Twilight’s ears twitched as she listened to the rain falling. Maybe it was the result of having spent so much time learning about magic from the perspective of a diamond dog drummer, or maybe it was just increased environmental sensitivity because of the ordeal she’d undergone, but at that moment it felt like the sky and the earth were making music together. The beat of the falling rain was like one of Basenji’s Ways, casting a spell that filled her with a sense of finally being well and truly home.

“I didn’t think about it at the time,” Twilight said softly, “but this is probably what I missed most while we were in that dusty place. I’ve always loved the rain. It reminds me of being a filly. Whenever it would rain and everypony would be stuck indoors, I’d be in my dorm with a mug of cocoa, studying in peace like I was the only pony in the whole world… Would’ve been a shame if I’d never got to see this again...”

“I wasn’t worried,” Cadance said. “I knew we were coming home. I knew you’d protect us.”

“Well of course I was going to get you home,” Twilight chuckled. “It’s me that I wasn’t sure would make it back or not.”

Twilight felt Cadance stiffen at her side.

“Don’t talk like that,” Cadance whispered. She leaned into Twilight’s side harder, burying her face into her girlfriend’s shoulder. “No gallows-humor. Don’t ever even think about not coming back to me.”

“Sorry, just being dumb,” Twilight apologized with a sigh. She jumped as she felt Cadance’s teeth nip lightly at her neck.

“You’re my dummy, though,” Cadance stated as a matter of fact. She flicked her tongue against the spot she’d bit and gently kissed it.

Twilight’s cheeks burned as she felt Cadance’s lips drag across her skin. The light, tender kisses became little tugs at the sensitive hairs of her coat with Cadance’s teeth.

Despite all their cuddling, hoof holding, and playful tickle-fights, lips still hadn’t entered the vernacular of their ‘language of touch’. Twilight hadn’t so much as given or received a chaste peck on the cheek, and now she had the beautiful princess nibbling at her neck. Thinking about it, they’d probably skipped a few steps in this little courtship of theirs, but the awkwardness on Twilight’s part, the circumstances of their sleeping arrangement aboard the ship, and Cadance’s patience had gotten them this far.

Twilight’s highly developed warrior-scholar mind dimly recognized that Cadance’s patience might have run out, and that this was very probably – within a six-to-seven percent margin of error – an overt invitation to further their relationship by going back and touching those bases they’d skipped over.

A louder, more primal and lizardy part of her brain shouted that this was most definitely an invitation for smoochies.

Twilight pulled away and the princess lifted her head, smiling down at the girl she’d just peppered with butterfly kisses. Twilight leaned in and pressed her lips to Cadance’s.

For the first few moments of the kiss, Twilight’s mind was racing, trying to remember all the make-out scenes she’d read in the few romance novels she’d ever bothered cracking open – and they were mainly war-romances – in an attempt to fish out some pointers. Her lips were probably chapped and dry from the infirmary’s air conditioning charms, and it had been at least a few hours since she’d brushed her teeth. Girls hated that, right? Dry lips and smelly breath were supposed to be a turn-off, or at least Twilight knew it’d be a turn-off for her.

She was doing terribly.

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, her Cadance, her first romance, was kissing sandpaper that reeked of the cottage cheese and ranch dressing from the salad that said sandpaper had had for lunch. This would forever be the memory of their first kiss, and Cadance would hate it, and she’d dump her on the spot, and Twilight would be alone, and…

Twilight’s thoughts drifted away as Cadance pressed harder into the kiss, humming in delight. She pressed deeper and deeper, seemingly trying to pour herself into Twilight through her mouth. The heat in Twilight’s cheeks began to creep down her body, spreading over her skin with a tingle of increased bloodflow and a euphoric surge of hormones.

Cadance’s tongue licked at Twilight’s lips as she pressed deeper still. Twilight let her have what she wanted.

Time slipped away, and when they finally pulled apart, the rain had changed from a light drizzle to a heavy downpour. Twilight licked her lips, running her tongue over them slowly in wonder at the lingering tingle from the kiss. The kiss had been very hard, and her lips probably had the same swollen puffiness as Cadance’s. It made the princess’ lips look fuller, plump and inviting. Twilight had the sudden urge to kiss her again.

“I can’t believe that’s what it took for you finally get the message,” Cadance giggled breathlessly. “I was throwing up flags for you the whole time we were flying home. I was starting to think you were never going to kiss me.”

“Sorry?” Twilight said, smiling sheepishly. She was feeling a little lightheaded and couldn’t think of anything more pithy or eloquent to say in response.

“Oh, well. I guess it works out. I’d be absolutely mortified if anypony heard that I’d given up a kiss before our first date. That’s not ladylike at all! It just isn’t done!”

“Wait, we still haven’t had our first date yet,” Twilight pointed out. The gears in her head began spinning again as her brain recovered from the heated make-out session. She blinked. “Wait… wait, is this a date?”

Cadance leaned forward, her tongue darting out of her mouth to remoisten her lips. “It is now.”

Cadance’s horn lit up as she pushed her mare onto her back. The corners of the blanket lifted, wrapping around the two girls like a sleeping bag. The rain was coming down in sheets, the air grew chilly, and the wind began to blow, but neither of them noticed. They had their blanket, a roof over their heads, and the warmth of their bodies to see them through whatever weather came their way.

* * *

Twilight stood in her quarters, examining herself in the mirror as she shrugged and tugged at the straps around her barrel. The armorer had done an excellent job on the holster she’d requested for her chakram. The brown lacquered-canvas straps fit snuggly across her chest, and the stiff holster for the disc was tight against her left shoulder. She walked in circles a bit, pleased that nothing chaffed as she moved.

She levitated the weapon off the bed and into its new home with a hiss of friction, then secured it with a locking strap. It was a perfect fit, and the weight felt great on her side.

The holster was just for her to wear while off duty and out of uniform. The Centurion himself had approved the construction of a new set of custom armor to replace the suit she’d lost in the field, and she’d requested that her new armor have something in the same place to hold the weapon while on duty.

She nodded at her reflection and went to the other item she’d picked up on her way back to the barracks.

Twilight had never owned a hat fancy enough to come in a box. The only piece of headwear she’d ever worn that even came close was her galea, and that had been issued to her in the same strongbox as the rest of her armor. Luckily, her new fillyfriend owned many fancy hats, and as such had a nice big hatbox that she said Twilight could have.

Twilight pulled the box out of a saddlebag along with a stack of letters that were neatly folded and tied together with a long pink ribbon. She held the letters and ran a hoof over them with a grin.

Like many aspects of her relationship, love letters were a new thing for her. Twilight hadn’t even been sure at first if the little notes Cadance had been sending down to the infirmary every couple of hours counted as love letters. Eventually though, she decided that there was evidence enough to consider them romantic communiqué just from the way they smelled.

Twilight held the letters to her face and inhaled the sweet, flowery scent of Cadance’s perfume. Every missive had been given a quick squirt of the stuff. If books were to be believed, that was supposed to mean they were in fact love letters, and there was no reason to distrust books about this sort of thing.

She opened the hatbox and carefully set the letters inside. According to her mom, that’s the place where a lady kept keepsakes that were precious, but not valuable enough – in a monetary sense – to keep in a safe.

Her mother’s keepsake box had been filled with notes and souvenirs and pictures of her parents as a young couple. There had even been an old, desiccated starfish at the bottom of the box that had fascinated her young mind. When she’d reached into the box to pull it out for a better look, its brittle body had split in two. Twilight had cried, thinking that she’d broken one of her mother’s possessions, but her mom just laughed and explained that it had always been broken. Twilight had asked why her mom would keep something that was broken, and all the older mare would say is that she’d understand why when she was older.

Twilight replaced the lid and tapped the box, noting the hollow sound. “There’s still plenty of room in you,” she said to the box as she pushed it under her bed. “I wonder how full you’ll be when I’m her age…”

She checked the time on her alarm clock with a frown. She didn’t have much more time, and she walked slowly enough as it was, what with the limp and all.

The saddlebag lifted with her magic and dumped the remainder of its contents onto the covers. She put the bag away, shoving it under the bed next to the hatbox, and sorted through the various medical supplies.

With a sigh she opened a bottle of pills and worked her mouth to gather enough saliva to swallow one of the antibiotics without having to get a glass of water. Next she pulled the bandage off her flank, the tape holding it in place pulling away from her coat with an uncomfortable sound to match the uncomfortable feeling. The soiled bandage was tossed into a trash can next to the nightstand and Twilight went to the mirror to inspect the damage.

The chakram had made a very clean cut, despite the dull edge, and the seam in her flesh was cleanly visible where the medics had shaved a strip of her coat so they could better inspect the injury and sew her back together. The faint coloration of her Cutie Mark could still be seen on her skin where the coat had been shaved away. The skin along her cut was the sickly discoloration of mending flesh, laced together with bits of stitching that probably wasn’t fishing line, but looked a lot like it. The bits of thread holding her together oddly reminded her of the patchwork doll she’d had as a filly, Optio Smartypants.

Even still, it was an ugly souvenir to bring home.

She levitated the medical supplies off the bed and set them next to her mirror. Even with the oral antibiotics, she still needed to clean the wound and change her bandages. Infections weren’t pretty, and she could’ve picked up almost anything from some whatever-thousand-year-old dog-mummy.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” she told her guest. She ignored the opening door in favor of hurrying her task, and poured a measure of a topical disinfectant into a small bowl. “You’re a little early. I’m just cleaning this up really fast and then we can go, okay?”

“Twilight…?”

Twilight looked up to find her brother standing in the hallway, his eyes wide and fixed on her side. She had assumed her guest was Cadance, who had seen the wound already, but aside from her, the only other ponies that had seen her… disfigurement… were doctors, nurses, and medics. Not even her parents had seen it.

She suddenly felt very self-conscious.

She opened her mouth to ask him to wait in the hallway while she finished up, but the look in his eyes – the pitying, sad look – made her think better of it. It might make things worse if she made him feel like he had to leave. The weight of a request for privacy would only add to the severity of her affliction in his mind.

“Sorry, thought you were somepony else,” she said with a forced chuckle, trying to downplay the tension. She opened a little plastic case and removed a square of sterile cotton that she soaked in the disinfectant. “Come on in and have a seat on the bed, and shut the door behind you, please.”

There was a pause that lasted long enough that she almost looked up to ask him to come in again. Eventually, the soft patter of his steps preceded the sounds of the door closing and of his weight settling onto the mattress.

“It’s good to see you, Shining, how’ve you been?” Twilight asked, trying to make small talk. She sucked air in through her teeth as she dabbed at the cut with the disinfectant. “Spike didn’t come with you?”

“I had some business to discuss with Princess Celestia,” Shining Armor replied, his voice very tight and obviously nervous. “Spike, um… had a date, so he stayed home.”

Twilight managed a little more sincerity in her laugh. “A date? Well, good for him! He’s been chasing skirts for so long I was starting to think he’d never catch one.”

“Yeah, it’s a friend of ours. Spike made something of an impression on her when we, uh… did you hear about the Nightmare Moon thing, yet?”

Twilight nodded.

“Right, well…” He cleared his throat loudly. “The two of them have been all moony-eyed over each other for like a week. I walked in on them making out in the periodicals the other day – we’re living in the library in Ponyville, by the way, in case you haven’t heard.”

Twilight nodded again. “I heard.” She opened a tube of something that smelled like peppermint and applied a small amount of the clear gel to the wound.

“Do you want some help?” Shining Armor asked suddenly.

“I’m good,” Twilight said as she waved him off over her shoulder. “So, what about your love life? I hear you’ve got some kind of friendship harem going on down in Ponyville.”

“Harem!?”

“Well, what else would you call it?” Twilight teased with a sly grin. “My big brother’s never had time for girls before, and suddenly he’s got five – well, four if Spike’s already got a hold of one – girls beating down his door? I don’t need to go down there and give them a talking to, do I?”

“Those are my friends, Twilight!” Shining Armor declared, clearly scandalized by the accusation. “I’d never!”

“Well, you should,” Twilight said with a chuckle. She finished up, placed a new bandage over the wound, and cleaned up her mess.

“Is that… going to leave a scar…?”

Her teasing had wrung a lot of the nervousness from his voice, but Twilight frowned at her inability to turn the conversation onto a new topic. “Hopefully not,” she answered, trying to sound chipper. “The gel stuff is supposed to help with scarring, but it’s a big cut, so maybe. They’re not sure.”

She went over to the bed to have a seat next to her brother. When he saw her limp, he made to get up, his face etched with concern, but she stared him down and gingerly climbed onto the bed.

“What happened to you?” he asked. “Spike and I got word that you’d been hurt while on duty, but they said it wasn’t anything serious. We sent a letter to Princess Celestia asking about it and she said that your stay in the hospital was just a formality.”

“She probably didn’t want you to worry.” Twilight shrugged. “Trust me, it looks worse than it is. The limp’s just from a sprained muscle. As for what happened… well… I’ll tell you about it later, or you can ask Princess Celestia if you can see the action report. She probably wouldn’t deny you that, being her student and all.”

He opened his mouth like he wanted to insist on more information, but nodded in acceptance of her unwillingness to discuss it.

“What’s that thing you’re wearing?”

Twilight was happy for the topic of discussion to finally change, and unholstered her weapon with her teeth. She held it out for him and Shining Armor took it from her to examine it. He turned it over in his hooves and frowned at the inscriptions.

“It’s called a chakram,” she explained. “It’s a weapon of diamond dog design, though I’ve been told they haven’t been used in a long time.”

She left out the part where the thing in his hooves had been thrown at her with the intent of taking off her head. He’d probably find out later, anyway, if Princess Celestia let him read the report.

“It’s old…” he commented.

“Really old. We found it in a place called the Necropolis. You’ll probably be hearing a lot about it in the coming months in the academic journals. It’s going to be a hot-topic for a while, I think.”

“Necropolis?” he asked, his eyes going wide. “That’s a kind of intense name…”

“It’s kind of an intense place,” she laughed. “I don’t suppose you can read the engravings.”

He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Yeah, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna couldn’t make heads or tails of it either,” she sighed.

Twilight tugged the chakram out of his grip with her magic and almost laughed at the look on his face. It was a mixture of shock and eagerness that she could really empathize with, one pony of science to another. She considered having a little fun by asking him to try and cast magic on it, but something told her that the poor boy’s head might explode if she made the artifact any more enticing.

“Sounds like it was a pretty amazing adventure you had,” he said, his voice thick with some emotion she couldn’t place.

“So did you,” she shot back, still trying to keep her voice light and conversational.

“I guess…”

There was another moment of awkward silence, like when he’d first been standing at the door, but prolonged and somehow stronger. It was the kind of awkwardness that came up when you were sitting with someone you knew well – but not well enough to have companionable silence – and had run out of things to catch up on.

But this was her brother, not some simple acquaintance. She’d known him literally all her life. Surely she had to know him well enough that they could just sit together and not feel strange.

And yet here they were, struggling with that exact problem.

When had been the last time they’d sat together alone, anyway? Twilight sorted through her memories, trying to find an instance of when she and Shining Armor had spent time together, just the two of them, without their parents or Spike as a buffer. She came up dry, at least as far as recent memories were concerned. Would he have even come down to visit her if he hadn’t heard she’d been hurt?

“What happened to us, Shining…?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, trying to sound confused and doing a poor job of it. The look in his eyes told her he knew exactly what she meant.

“Why is this so damned weird? Why can’t we be comfortable around each other without Spike – or mom, or dad – running interference?”

Shining’s face was screwed up in discomfort, but whether it was because he disapproved what she’d said or just how she’d said it, Twilight couldn’t tell. She knew he wasn’t a big fan of ‘blue’ language, and she’d always made an effort to avoid it when she could, out of deference to how she was raised, but when it was apt, it was apt.

The memory of the vision she’d seen in her dream back in the Necropolis was clear in her mind. The sight of her brother sneaking out of the classroom, his gaze fixed on the ground as he walked away from the crowd of her peers celebrating her success in breaking his shield and earning her Cutie Mark.

“I look pretty down, huh?” the shadowy, nightmare version of Shining Armor had surmised.

“Shining…” she began. She looked away, unable to stand the uncomfortable look on his face anymore. “Do you hate me…?”

“No,” he said quickly, his face filled with panic. As soon as the denial was past his lips, his panic melted away into something more like shame. “Not hate, no… never that…”

“Then what?”

Twilight looked up and watched her brother stare at the wall, seemingly trying to bore a hole through it with his gaze alone. He was working his jaw like he was physically chewing on something – an old nervous tic that she’d always assumed he’d developed from years of chewing on the end of his quill while he studied.

He dropped off the bed and took a few steps across the room in the direction of the door. Twilight reached a hoof out to him, ready to tell him not to go, but it wasn’t necessary. He stopped in the middle of the room, spun around sharply, and fell to his haunches with a heavy thud against the rug.

“Do you even realize how…?” His words trailed off and he worked his jaw some more as he struggled with his words. “You make everything look so easy…”

Twilight didn’t know how to respond to that. She opened and closed her mouth like a hooked fish, wondering what he could mean. She was spared having to hold up her end of the conversation when Shining Armor finally found his words.

“Until very recently, I couldn’t tell you the last time I was happy, Twilight…” he confessed sadly. “I’m… I’m not stupid, but I’m not smart, not the way Princess Celestia’s personal student should be. I’ve gotten as far as I have because Spike’s been by my side the whole time to push me, and because I was willing to work thrice as hard as anypony else in my position would have.”

The words began to spill out of Shining. Twilight could tell that this must have been brewing inside of him for a long while, and now that the stopper was off the bottle it was all gushing out.

“I’ve been buried under the pressure of what everyone expected of me. No time for friends, no time for girls, no time for family, nothing. Just work, work, work, study, study, study…”

His cheeks pulled back into a tired, humorless grin, and he let out a feeble chuckle to match.

“But you’re different. I’ve seen it in you since you were barely old enough to levitate a pencil. You’re absolutely brilliant, Twilight, whether you realize it or not – don’t deny it, trust me, I’ve met enough bright ponies to know when one used to sleep in the room across the hall from mine. The way you pick up new spells and knowledge, the way you push yourself and find joy in it… you made it all look so easy. Even when you beat me at the one thing I still had that I loved… you still made it look easy…”

“Is this about the time I got my Cutie Mark?” she asked bluntly, having already figured out his meaning.

Shining flinched.

“You’re still doing it,” he said. The grin came back to his face, but this time it was lighter, with just a hint of genuine amusement. “That day, you really put me in my place. Maybe I was being… childish, I don’t know… but you really drove home the point that you were better than me. I threw myself into my studies after that, and tried not to think about the fact that it should’ve been you, Twilight. You’re the one who should’ve been Celestia’s apprentice. You would’ve done a better job.”

Twilight’s heart twisted in her chest at those words. It was all so close to mirroring what she’d been told was in the deepest reaches of her heart. So much so that she suddenly felt physically ill.

All her life she’d looked up to her brother. He was hoof-picked by Princess Celestia to learn the deepest secrets of magic. He was honored and respected by his peers in nearly every academic field that they printed diplomas for. He was larger than life, and cast a shadow so huge that she’d spent her entire life trying to run out from under it. Yet here he was, pouring his heart out and confessing that her meager, quiet accomplishments made him feel inadequate.

He’d never seemed so… mortal. It was almost obscene – blasphemous, even.

She hadn’t realized that she’d been staring until he began to speak again.

“You know the Elements of Harmony…?” he asked.

She nodded.

“The Element of Magic, my element,” he began to say, “it had your Cutie Mark on it…”

“That’s your mark, too,” she pointed out quickly.

“Yeah, but—“

“Stop,” she commanded him. She jumped off the bed much quicker than she should have, and she inhaled sharply as she felt something that might have been a stitch popping from the sudden movement. She hobbled up to him and pulled him into a hug. “Are you happy right now?”

He sat there dumbly, not catching her meaning and not returning the hug. “I don’t understand.”

“You said that until recently, you couldn’t remember the last time you were happy,” she reminded him. “You were saying you never had time for friends or family or girls. What about now?”

Shining Armor slowly reached up and returned the hug. “Yeah… yeah, I’m happy. Definitely.”

She squeezed him a little harder. “Why?”

“Because I’m finally studying something that I feel is worthwhile,” he said. “We saved Princess Luna. We did that, my friends and I… I finally have somewhere I belong. I have friends that I care about and that care about me.”

“If I offered you the chance to trade lives with me right now, would you?”

He shook his head vigorously. “No, I wouldn’t trade my life right now for anypony’s.”

Twilight pulled away, flashing a wide, happy grin as she batted playfully at his cheek. “Then shut up about who should’ve been what. You made your choice, so stick with it, and tell destiny to go screw itself. And remember, if you ever lose your Way, you know your little sister will be right there to back you up and set you straight.”

If Shining Armor understood the significance of the stress she put on the word "Way," he didn't show it.

“Hey, I’m supposed to be the big brother,” Shining chuckled. “Aren’t I supposed to be the one giving life lessons?”

“I think Spike would phrase it as, snooze and lose,” she surmised. “I don’t have time for you to figure out something poignant to say, I’m late for dinner.”

“Dinner?” he repeated, his ears twitching excitedly at the word.

There was a knock at the door.

“Uh oh, that’s probably her this time…” Twilight sighed. “She must’ve got tired of waiting.”

“She?”

The pony on the other side of the door obviously didn’t feel the need to wait for an invitation.

“Twilight, aren’t you ready yet?” Cadance asked as she stepped into the room. Her eyes fell on the room’s occupants and she jumped a little at the surprise of the second pony in the room. “Shining Armor! What are you doing here?”

“Visiting Twilight, my sister…” he said as he raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “What are you doing here?”

“Picking up my girlfriend for dinner,” Cadance said as she went to Twilight side and folded a wing over the smaller girl’s back.

Shining Armor stared blankly for a few moments before shaking his head. “I’m sorry, what? You have a girlfriend?”

Twilight looked to Cadance, who had an infectiously impish smile. They turned to Shining Armor and replied in unison as they nodded towards one another. “Yeah, her,” they both said.

The look on his face was priceless, and so deliciously succulent Twilight could have filled her belly on that alone, but Cadance ruined the moment with a bright, girlish laugh.

“Aw, we broke your brain,” she teased. “As cute as it is to see you all flummoxed, you should come with us to dinner. I’m sure your mom made more than enough.”

Shining Armor blinked. “My… my mom…?”

“Yup, dinner at your parents’!” Cadance said excitedly. “Tonight I’m going to ask for their permission to court their daughter!”

“Wait, is that why you asked me to set this up?” Twilight asked, frowning at the very silly notion. Cadance had even insisted that Twilight refrain from saying who she would be bringing to dinner. The only thing her parents knew was that she’d met a very nice girl that wanted to meet them. “I don’t think that’s a thing if both the ponies are mares.”

Cadance held up a hoof to Twilight’s lips and made a shushing noise. “Don’t take this from me. We’re going to do everything like the proper, cultured ladies that we are. This is going to be the most storybook romance ever, even if it kills us both.”

A chill went up Twilight’s spine as she considered how many novels ended up with the lovers both dead. Those were storybook romances, too.

“This is going to be a wonderful night!” Cadance declared as she slapped Twilight on her uninjured flank with a wing and strode out of the room. “Hurry up, you two!”

The two siblings stood in the room for a minute, not daring to look one another in the eyes after the embarrassingly playful spanking.

“You didn’t see that,” Twilight demanded, her cheeks flushed cherry-red.

“I didn’t see anything,” Shining Armor immediately replied, though the matching blush on his face said otherwise.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle of the Royal Guard

by King of Beggars

Chapter 0 - Heads or Tails?

Chapter 1 - Pissing Off Your C.O. and Other Hazards of Cake Guarding

Chapter 2 - The Love Boat

Chapter 3 - Basenji

Chapter 4 - Dream No More

Chapter 5 - The Weighing of the Hearts

Chapter 6 - Her Own Way