> Prisoner of Butterfly Island
>  by Magic Step
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Friends Are Never Far Away
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sunshine was hot as ever on Butterfly Island, at least so Twilight was told. Once she and her friends had made an ice castle playset so she could experience what cold weather was like, but she had a hard time imagining that there were places where there was snow all year, or weirder still, one fourth of the year.

That hadn’t lasted forever though; the ice castle playset was only limited edition, so it had been taken away and replaced with the water slide playset. Everypony loved to relax in the pool or play on the slide.

Which was of course why the changelings had conquered it. What trolls.

The two of them who were holding the slides hostage weren’t even really using them; they were just lying on an air mattress in the middle of the kiddie pool. From her hiding place behind the sand dunes, Twilight couldn’t tell much about them, but it didn’t matter; all changelings were the same, dumb, petty, and with no desire to do anything except spoil everyone’s fun so they could be alone on the island. Twilight Sparkle wasn’t even sure if they came in male and female; they all had the same grating buzzy voice.

“Ah, this is the life,” one of them said to the other.

“No pesky pastel ponies in sight!” snickered the other.

“Nice alliteration.”

“I know.” The second changeling yawned, showing off its tiny, sharp fangs.

Twilight turned to check if her friends were ready. Rainbow Dash was twitching from eagerness to fight. Pinkie Pie had her party cannon ready, shaking with silent laughter. Fluttershy had her normal battle expression; one of complete terror. Rarity had her attack gems spinning around her head in her magical aura. Applejack had a satchel full of apples, ready for bucking. Each of them had a golden necklace with each one’s special power gem embedded in it.

Twilight adjusted her crown and took a deep breath. “Show time,” she told them.

Perfectly coordinated, the team leapt out from behind the sand dune. Pinkie, Rarity, and Applejack formed the bottom of the pyramid, Rainbow and Fluttershy swooped in to form the middle, and Twilight landed squarely on the top. “Elements of Harmony to the rescue!” the six shouted triumphantly.

“Eh!?” The two changelings sat up and stared at the six ponies, dumbfounded.

“How did you get past the slime monster we set to guard the perimeter?” one changeling demanded.

“He was no match for the magic of friendship!” Twilight said, leaping down and assuming a crouched, ready stance. She heard the rest of the pyramid break formation behind her as her friends assumed a fighting position. “And neither are you! We’re giving the water slide back to the ponies of Butterfly Island!” It was important to loudly explain everything; she’d learned that as a little filly.

“We’re not giving it back without a fight!” the more confrontational changeling shouted, while his partner continued to look baffled. After shouting this challenge, he used his wings to splash water on the six ponies.

“Oh no, my manestyle!” Rarity wailed.

“Ha! Thanks for cooling me off!” Rainbow Dash laughed. “Now to return the favor!”

With a little loop-de-loop for extra style points, the rainbow maned pegasus started to race around the changelings in a tight circle. Round and round she flew, pulling the winds behind her, faster and faster. The water the changelings were floating on rose into a pillar, taking the air mattresses with them, which the changelings clung to desperately.

“Now Twilight!” Rainbow Dash shouted.

Twilight fired a beam of ice magic at the pillar. The air mattresses and the changelings’ creepy, hole-filled hooves were stuck inside.

“H-hey!” one shouted. “I can’t move!”

“Now we’ll make you pay,” Applejack said smugly, bouncing an apple in one hoof.

“Most assuredly, dearie,” Rarity said. Her attack gemstones stopped swirling around her and hovered in front, ready to fire.

The two changelings were pelted mercilessly, howling in pain as the apples splattered against their heads and gemstones embedded into their chitin from impact.

Two apples out of five just hit the icy pillar and rolled into the unfrozen water, where they bobbed up and down, unharmed. Twilight just stared at them. Applejack never missed, of course.

“Um… guys? I think they’ve had enough for now…” Fluttershy said, bringing Twilight back to the present.

“All righty everypony!” Pinkie Pie said. “Let’s charge up the harmony cannon and send them flying!”

“It wasn’t supposed to end this way!” the whinier changeling cried.

The six friends surrounded Pinkie’s party cannon, and their necklaces started glowing. “FRIENDSHIP HARMONY ATTACK!” they all shouted.

Rainbow light burst from the cannon, disintegrating the two changelings instantly, but melting the ice and leaving the air mattress to float unharmed in the pool once more.

“Aw, yeah!” Rainbow Dash shouted, doing a midair flip. “That was so awesome!!”

“We did it!” Pinkie Pie bounced over to Twilight and held out her hoof for a high one. “Easy-peasy lemon squeezy!”

Twilight met Pinkie’s hoof, a broad grin on her face. “We sure did.”

“Yay!” Fluttershy whispered.

“You know what this calls for, right?” Pinkie Pie said.

“Hot fudge sundaes!” everypony said in unison.

Except Applejack, who missed her cue. Applejack never missed a cue.

Twilight stared sadly at her before following the bouncing pink pony back to town.


***

Sugarcube Sundaes was the only ice cream parlor on Butterfly Island, but every tourist reassured Twilight that it was the best ice cream parlor in the world. Just like everything on Butterfly Island, because it was an absolute paradise.

The walls of the building were textured like a waffle cone, and the roof was sculpted to look like a banana split, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a scoop of strawberry on each side, dripping hot fudge, loads of sprinkles and peanuts, and a cherry on top. The door had pictures of tessellating ice cream cones painted on it. Applejack held the door open so the six friends could enter.

Inside was just as tasty looking as the outside, with floors patterned like fudge marble ice cream and wallpaper covered with gummy bears, peppermints, wrapped taffys, and chocolate shapes. The booth seats and chair cushions were a sweet color between red and pink, and every table had a picture of a different ice cream flavor on top. The six friends gathered around a round table that was white with pictures of chocolate chips.

“Girls!” Mrs. Cake cried delightedly as she caught sight of the six. The blue mare came out from behind the counter and walked over to their table. “How did it go? Did you rescue the water slide playset?”

“They never stood a chance,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Not against the magic of friendship,” Applejack concurred. “We licked ‘em good.”

“Speaking of licking,” Pinkie Pie said, “all of you need to check out the new flavor we’ve got in: blueberry swirl!”

“Blueberry?” Twilight said. “You mean the things you put in pancakes?”

“The very same. Let me get you a taste, dearie.” Mrs. Cake started back to the counter.

“Ooh, one for me too!” Rarity said.

“Me too,” Fluttershy said.

“Rainbowberry blast for you again, Rainbow?” Mrs. Cake called over her shoulder.

“You know it!” Dash said, flying in a midair loop-de-loop again.

“Skyhigh sundae for me!” Pinkie said. “Extra… brownies, today!”

“And Ah always take apple, o’ course,” Applejack said.

“Of course,” Twilight said. “Except when the Zapapples are ripe, and then you have Zapapple Ripple. When are they in season again…?”

Applejack just shrugged. “Ah can’t keep nuthing straight anymore on account’a how happy and summery it is on Butterfly Island all the time.”

Well. Applejack had complained about that before, yes. Twilight let her lip curl into a very slight scowl at being unexpectedly outwitted.

“Here you all go, dearies,” Mrs. Cake said, coming over with a tray of ice cream dishes on her back.

Rainbow Dash swooped down and plucked hers from the tray and ate it in midair, burying her muzzle in the dish.

“How uncouth,” Rarity said coldly, telekinetically accepting her dish and spoon and delicately lifting a small bite to her mouth.

Twilight also telekinetically grabbed her dish. “It’s… it’s purple. Are you sure it’s not purpleberry?”

“Grape,” Mrs. Cake said. “You mean grapes, dear. And no; blueberry juice tends more on the purple side and we didn’t want to use any artificial coloring.”

“Fascinating,” Twilight said, idly swirling a spoon through the ice cream to study the marbling colors. “Simply fascinating…” She took a bite. “Wow, it tastes delicious!”

“We’re so glad you like it, dear,” Mrs. Cake said.

“Did you pick the blueberries yourself? What kind of tree do they grow on? My books only have pictures of native fruits…” Twilight asked.

“No, dear, they’re shipped in from the wastelands,” Mrs. Cake said. “I… I’d better go check if my husband needs help.” She hastily trotted back behind the counter and into the kitchen.

Twilight turned to the rest of her friends. “What about you? All of you have seen the wastelands a few times each. Do you know about blueberries?”

“Oh, well,” Pinkie Pie said, nervously folding her napkin into a balloon dog, “you know, blueberries are… pretty boring. Just like the rest of the wastelands.”

“But I’m eating them right now and they taste great!” Twilight turned to Rarity. “You agree, don’t you?”

“Aaaaah but they grow on these, uh, super thorny bushes that scratch you up when you try to pick them!” Rarity said. “So, you see, not anything worth wishing to do.”

“So ponies hurt themselves picking these berries?” Twilight asked, adopting a sad expression.

“N-no, of course not!” Rarity said hastily. “Please don’t look so down! They, uh, they, uh….”

“H-have a spell to pick berries with!” Applejack said.

“I have magic too! I could learn that spell!” Twilight said.

Four of her friends started stammering at once,  but somehow, Fluttershy’s “Please,” was heard above the din and silenced all of them.

“Please, Twilight,” Fluttershy said, pain in her gentle blue eyes. “We know how much you want to leave the island, but you know that you can’t.”

“I… I… I knew that,” Twilight said softly. “I just… I… I don’t know.”

Fluttershy reached over and took Twilight’s hooves in her own, stroking them comfortingly.

“But really, come on! There’s nothing to see outside of Butterfly Island,” Rainbow Dash said, landing next to Twilight’s chair and putting one hoof on her shoulder. “We’ve told you that time and time again…”

“And every time you sound like you’re lying to try and make me accept how trapped I am,” Twilight said with sudden bitterness. When he friends all started back in shock, she smirked wryly. “What? Didn’t think I’d ever figure it out?”

“Twilight, dearie, we’re not lying!” Rarity said. “Butterfly Island really is the best place on the planet!”

Everypony else nodded vigorous assent, even ponies who weren’t involved in the conversation. Twilight studied the panicked looks on each face, trying to detect any hint of doubt, of deception. Trying to detect if any of them winked at each other when she wasn’t looking, if any of them were enjoying fooling her.

Nothing. Either they were very good actors, or this was 100% the truth.

As they saw it, anyway.

“And if you left…” Fluttershy whispered.

The sentence was unfinished, hanging ominously in the air. No one needed to be reminded of the prophecy; Twilight had known it since she was a little filly. She was the linchpin of the island; her presence was what allowed the island to be magically protected from the gray, dull world outside. If she ever left, Butterfly Island would be destroyed, and Twilight would lose all her magic, and with it the ability to make a piece of the world perfect.

“But if this place is so much better than the rest of the world… then… then why does everypony keep leaving…?” Twilight whispered.

“Oh, darling, is that was this is about?” Rarity said, her eyes softening from panic to concern.

“All right, spill,” Applejack said. “Who’s the lucky stallion? Is it that Flash Sentry?”

“It’s not one stallion!” Twilight protested.

Flash Sentry was a pegasus that had literally run into Twilight on his first day on the island. For weeks he’d followed her around, trying to do nice things for her and get her to be with him alone, and finally Twilight had asked Shining Armor to chase him off the island to get him to leave her alone. It was a power she’d only abused once.

“It’s just everypony. It seems like every time I make a new friend I have to say goodbye to them a week later…” Twilight says.

“But… but we’re your friends, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie protested.

“Yes… but… but I just want more friends too,” Twilight said. How could she admit she was getting bored of the same five mares day in and day out without sounding like a jerk? It wasn’t their faults that everypony kept receiving urgent mainland news and dashing off, or needing to go back to families or any of a myriad excuses. Some ponies like the Cutie Mark Crusaders or Flash Sentry stuck around for nearly a year, and Shining Armor and Spike were always in and out, but the only ponies who never left the island were her five friends.

“Ooh, I just had the best idea in the history of ideation!” Pinkie Pie shouted, leaping out of her chair and swinging from one of the waffle-cone shaped light fixtures. “We need to throw another reunion party and invite everypony Twilight’s been missing!”

“And some of our old friends too!” Rainbow Dash said. “Wouldn’t it be the best thing ever if the Wonderbolts managed to come back?”

“Or my family,” Applejack said. “Ah reckon they can take some time out of their schedules.”

Applejack was always insistent that farmers didn’t take breaks.
> Joyful Reunion
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The night of the party was finally here.

There’d been several comedic mishaps getting together the decorations, the food, the dresses, the musicians, and every other aspect of the party, but nothing so frustrating that Twilight ever felt the need to call the whole event off. All in all the minor struggles had only served to teach important lessons about friendship, which she was grateful for.

Now, today, finally, the special guests would arrive. So many old friends she hadn’t seen in forever. Twilight was trembling with anticipation as she entered the portal cave.

The portal cave was near the shore of Butterfly Island; Butterfly Island was too far away from the dull grey mainland for even the strongest pegasus to fly to, so this portal was the only way in or out. The cool blue-grey granite walls of the cave were studded with shards of sparkling mica. The cavern was pear-shaped, with the larger part big enough to hold dozens of ponies, and the smaller part containing the portal, a craggy, irregular door filled with swirling green and aqua energy. She and her six friends, along with other residents of Butterfly Island hoping to see acquaintances of their own, surrounded the portal and watched intently to see who the special guests would be.

The whirling spirals of color grew tighter and tighter until they blended into pulsating teal light, glowing brighter and brighter. Then, two small dark silhouettes appeared in the center of the light. It was two foals, running towards them. Then, they stepped into the light of the cavern, revealing their orange and white coats.

“Sweetie Belle!” Rarity cried happily, scooping up her sister into a hug. The two clung to each other tightly, tears in their eyes.

“I… I… m-m-missed…” Sweetie Belle sniffled, before becoming too choked up to talk.

Meanwhile, the orange pegasus filly who’d come behind her watched the pair. Scootaloo was smiling, but there was a distant look in her eyes. She turned to the waiting crowd. “Hey, everypony! I’m back!”

The crowd cheered generally.

“Is your big sister Cheerilee coming?” Twilight asked Scootaloo.

“No, she’s… no… she’s been busy,” Scootaloo said, waggling her hoof vaguely. “But I’m sure glad to be back!”

“What about Apple Bloom?” Twilight pressed.

“...Also busy. With different stuff though. But, uh, I heard Big Macintosh is coming!” Scootaloo said.

“That’s good,” Twilight said, checking if Applejack was hearing these things, and whether her reaction seemed wrong. Applejack was just staring intently at the portal.

Twilight looked back at Scootaloo; Scootaloo was scanning the crowd, trying to smile at everypony, but they were all watching the portal for the next pony to come it.

Impulsively, not letting herself think too hard, Twilight scooped up the orange filly into an embrace. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said. “I’ve missed your wild scooter tricks.”

Scootaloo wriggled in surprise. “You remember those?”

“I remember everything because all I ever have of anypony is memories, eventually…” Twilight Sparkle said. Then, feeling self-conscious, she set Scootaloo back down.

“That’s kind of true of everypony, isn’t it?” Scootaloo asked.

Before Twilight could think how to answer that question, the portal glowed again. Two ,more silhouettes appeared, these ones the size and shape of full grown ponies.

In a bright flash, two mares emerged into the cave, one mint green unicorn and one tan earth pony.

“Is… are you…?” Twilight asked.

“Come on, Twilight,” Lyra said, “I know it’s been ten years, but don’t you recognize your old friend?”

Twilight wrapped her forelegs around Lyra’s neck. “It’s really you! I didn’t know if you’d ever come again!”

Lyra hugged Twilight back. “Yeah; heard you’ve been doing a great job keeping changelings at bay. Can’t wait to see how the island’s changed since I’ve been gone.”

“What have you been doing with your life on the mainland?” Twilight stepped back and sat down, tail curled around her hooves.

“Oh, y’know, not much. It’s pretty boring there…” Lyra said.

“Your music makes everything better, though,” Twilight said.

Lyra winced visibly, but quickly turned it into a smile. “That’s right. Everypony loves my music…” Her eyes looked haunted. She quickly pushed the other mare forward. “Uh, hey, you have to meet my best friend Bon Bon!”

The yellow mare tucked her blue and pink curls behind her neck and nodded, holding out one forehoof. “Pleasure to meet you, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Same, Bon Bon,” Twilight said, shaking the offered hoof. “So… where’d you two meet?”

“Food gathering,” Bon Bon said, an amused twinkle in her eye.

Lyra laughed loudly. “Oh, th-that’s an old in-joke; actually we were trying to share a bench and… it’s a long story.” She blushed a little. “S-sorry, Twi…”

“For what?” Twilight asked.

“...I don’t know…” Lyra said softly.

“Hey, look, somepony with a poofy mane like Pinkie’s!” Scootaloo said.

“Really!?” Twilight whipped her head around. “Is it Cheese Sandwich? I know how much she missed him…”

No, the silhouette had a horn, and had a mareish figure. Twilight gave Pinkie Pie an empathetic look.

The mare turned out to be pink, with a purple puffy mane. Twilight had never seen her before.

“Um… hi?” Twilight said, a little confused. Weren’t there only supposed to be established friends at this party?

The pink mare had a blank expression on her face and just glanced around the cave, taking everything in but staying neutral. All the ponies stared at her expectantly.

“Say something, dear,” Mrs. Cake said.

The pink mare froze up, like a deer in headlights. “I… I…”

And then she suddenly burst into tears.

Bon Bon raced over and escorted the sobbing mare to the side of the cave. “Poor thing’s overwhelmed with joy,” she said apologetically. “Give us some space; we’ll be back to do the introduction shortly.”

“Can I help?” Twilight started to follow.

“NO. Go wait for more friends,” Bon Bon ordered.

Twilight started back, then turned to Lyra. “Is your new friend always so…?”

“Authoritarian?” Lyra said. “More or less.”

“Big Mac!” Applejack cried excitedly.

Twilight Sparkle whirled around to see the orange mare embracing a huge, muscular red earth pony. “Eeyup,” he told her, wrapping one foreleg around her.

Twilight Sparkle studied the pair, looking for inconsistencies with how she remembered, wondering if Big Mac had the same suspicious she had… or if he even knew for certain.

No doubt existed in her mind; he was definitely more reserved than he normally was with his sister. She was right to be paranoid and her friends were wrong. If only she could get Big Mac alone…

“So… how’s Marble?” she asked Big Mac.

Big Macintosh just shrugged.

“Oh… I thought you two really hit it off at the Hearth’s Warming Party,” Twilight said apologetically.

“She farms rocks. We farm apples. Our paths don’t cross much,” he said.

“Ohhhhhhmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!!!” Rainbow Dash shouted.

Three blue-suited pegasi emerged from the portal, flying in perfect formation and causing everypony watching to ooh and ah. The trio landed next to Rainbow Dash and took off their flight goggles one by one.

“Hey, sport,” Spitfire said, ruffling Rainbow Dash’s mane. “Did you miss us?”

“Only every minute!” Rainbow Dash said happily.

“We’ve missed you too,” Soarin’ said in his fatherly way, sidehugging Rainbow Dash.

“So,” Misty Fly said, surveying the crowd, “let’s get to business. Where’s our venue for tonight?”

“There’s no rush,” Soarin’ said, looking annoyed. “We just got here. Try and relax, please? This is such a rare opportunity…”

“Which is why we can’t relax,” Misty Fly said. “We need everything on point…”

“S-sorry, everypony,” the pink unicorn mare said, rejoining the group. “I just… I’ve waited so long to be here, and… and…”

“Just your name, sweetie,” Bon Bon said.

“S-Sugarbelle,” the pink unicorn mare said. “I, uh, I bake cakes. I’ll also be taking over the ice cream parlor.”

It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

“But… but… but what about our children?” Mrs. Cake asked.

“I mean…” Mr. Cake shot a nervous look at Twilight. “W-we want to take them with us, of course, because we love them and we can have a great family life in the mainland, of course, b-but if they stayed on Butterfly Island…”

“Oh, of course my husband and I can take care of them, if you want,” Sugarbelle said, breaking into a huge smile. “Right, Macky?”

“Eeeeeeeyup,” Big Macintosh said.

“Macky…?” Twilight said.

“What… what happened to you and Party Favor?” Pinkie Pie asked Sugarbelle. “And Marble!?”

Sugarbelle’s giant smile grew a little bit wider, she shut her eyes, and she shrugged casually. “You know… things. C-can I go now?”

“Cakes, if you wouldn’t mind showing Sugarbelle and Big Macintosh to their new shop?” Bon Bon asked.

The two of them nodded numbly and all four ponies hurried out of the cave.
“Th-the Cakes are leaving?” Twilight said. Of course the ice cream parlor had gone through a lot of owners, since nopony stayed longer than a year at a time. But saying goodbye never got easier.

“Oh my gosh! It’s Songbird Serenade, the best singer in the world!” Rarity said, pointing emphatically back at the portal.

“Yay,” Fluttershy whispered.

“Wasn’t that Sapphire…?” Twilight turned around, confused, to see a pegasus mare she didn’t know exiting the portal, accompanied by two bodyguards. Everypony around her broke out in wild cheers, but Twilight just stared, confused. She turned to leave for Sugarcube Sundaes.

“Twilight! Don’t you want to hear her sing?” Rarity cried.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack both zipped over and gently herded Twilight back toward the strange singer.

“But the Cakes…!” Twilight protested.

Before she could continue or anypony could reply Songbird started warbling a song about how beautiful Butterfly Island was. How she knew was beyond Twilight’s comprehension, since she hadn’t even left the cave yet. Everypony danced, and finally, Twilight gave up and danced with them, since she clearly wasn’t going anywhere for the next several minutes.
> Trust is Everything
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Forty minutes later, Songbird Serenade’s impromptu concert was over. Everypony tried to have general conversations about how happy they were that she was here, and how much they were looking forward to the party.

“Pinkie Pie!” Twilight Sparkle said, weaving over to her pink friend. Pinkie Pie had been unusually crazy with her dancing. Well, she was always crazy, but something was different now. She couldn’t exactly articulate what. “Pinkie Pie… I’m so sorry about your friend Party Favor and your sister Marble.”

“They’re fine,” Pinkie Pie said. “Everypony’s fine. They’re just in the wasteland and I probably will never ever see them again but who cares!? We have a party to plan Twilight! A PARTY!” She shook Twilight’s shoulders.

“W-we already planned it!” Twilight said. “It’s all ready!”

“Yeah, but I just had a great idea for a water slide!” Pinkie Pie screamed. “I have to get it ready!”

“We already have a water slide; don’t you want to say goodbye to the Cakes with me?” Twilight asked.

“No, Twilight, I just… I just can’t do this anymore!” Pinkie Pie inhaled sharply and shut her eyes tight. For a moment, she sounded like she was struggling to breathe. Then, suddenly, she ran out of the cave like it was on fire.

“Pinkie!” Twilight cried, pursuing her friend out of the cave. But when she reached the beach outside, she couldn’t see a flash of pink anywhere. The sea air ruffled her mane as she scanned for Pinkie Pie, but the beach looked abandoned.

“Twilight?” Applejack asked, making Twilight jump. “You okay?”

Twilight Sparkle turned around to study Applejack’s concerned expression. What was even the point? “Didn’t she seem upset to you?”

“Yes.” Applejack said bluntly. “But you being there will make it worse. Poor girl needs time alone. Please, Twi.”

Twilight stared at her, confused. She sounded so much like herself…


***


It had been a day much like any other. With the help of Applejack’s siblings, they’d wrangled that morning’s batch of invading changelings. The six teenage friends were drinking apple cider by the beach at sunset to unwind, when suddenly Flash Sentry had coincidentally arrived, and had tripped over Twilight, spilling her cider everywhere.

Twilight had yelled at him for nearly a minute straight. Flash tried to interrupt several times trying to say the same forced pun about running into each other and each time it only made Twilight angrier. Finally Flash had left, sulky and angry.

Her friends expressed disappointment in her for being so mean to him when he clearly liked her. They tried to encourage her to give him a chance… repeatedly and excessively.

Twilight insisted that she thought he was a creep. That she thought he was selfish and didn’t really like her for her. That she thought they had nothing in common and no basis for a relationship except that he thought she looked cute. That he didn’t at all match her criteria for a relationship and she wasn’t that picky anyway. That no, she didn’t even want to just give him one date, because that would be encouraging him to keep following her around and don’t think she hadn’t noticed and how could her friends keep taking his side over hers?

They wouldn’t let up. They kept insisting she had to give him a chance, that she owed it to him for his devotion to her, that she was being mean spirited for not even giving him a chance.

And Twilight found herself crying. She felt like the whole world was against her and forcing her into a relationship she didn’t want and she had no choice but to comply. Her friends abruptly fell silent.

“Why do I have to date him?” Twilight sniffled. “It’s not like leaving the island. There’s not a prophecy making me, is there?”

After a moment, Rarity sighed and walked over, taking Twilight’s hooves in her own. “We didn’t want to tell you because we hoped we could just talk you into it. But, dearie, you’re right-”

“Oh, Ah can’t take it anymore!” Applejack shouted, standing up. “Look at poor Twilight! What right do we all have to make her do something she doesn’t want to do?”

“But it’s a prophecy-” Fluttershy whispered.

“It’s all a lie, Twilight! There’s no prophecy and there’s no island and there’s no elements of Harmony!”

Everypony gasped. Rainbow Dash quickly picked her up and tried to zip away, but Applejack clung to a palm tree with all the strength in her earth pony body.

“It’s nothing but a lie to make ponies happy! Nothing in this world is reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal!”

As Rainbow Dash snapped her grip and dashed away with her, Applejack’s final word echoed through the skies.


***


“You’re still letting that bother you, sugarcube?”

The six ponies were in the grooming parlor playset, getting ready for the party. They’d sing a musical number in a few minutes, but for now they could talk. The walls gradiated from plum at the bottom to aqua near the ceiling and were covered with mirrors of all sizes. There were three blow dryers and a mane-twisting chamber with hooks on the ceiling and many sinks and showers for washing manes. The one wall not dedicated to mirrors was filled with shelves lined with glittery crystal bottles of magic beauty potions.

Daffidaisy was gently rolling Twilight’s mane into curlers. Applejack had already been done and was sitting next to Twilight, reading a rodeo magazine.

“Ah already told you, Twilight,” Applejack continued, “it was just... a little breakdown. Ah… Ah just got so upset about the fake prophecy about you and Flash Ah just didn’t know what to believe anymore. Rainbow was only trying to protect you because she thought Ah’d gone completely off my rocker.”

“You’ve said,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Your story never varies…”

“Anyway, why worry about it?” Rarity said from where she was getting a shampoo. “That false prophecy maker has already been dealt with. Shining Armor got rid of him for good.”

“I’m not worried about Flash anymore!” Twilight shouted. “It’s about Applejack…”

“There’s nothing to worry about, Twi,” Applejack said, reaching over to stroke Twilight’s foreleg comfortingly. “Ah’m here, and Ah’m fine again. There’s nothing we can’t face when we’re all together.”

That’s what Applejack had been reassuring her ever since that day. And there was no solid reason why Twilight should suspect otherwise.After all, if this wasn’t Applejack, who could it be? Ponies didn’t just have clones lying around. And how could everypony on the island agree so unanimously to fool Twilight like this?

“Twilight? You’re twitching,” Fluttershy said. “It’s actually rather scary.”

“A-am I? S-s-sorry,” Twilight said, trying to steady her nerves. Tonight was not the night to think about this. “Can we sing our party preparation song now?”

The six performed a harmonious rendition of This Is Our Big Night. Daffidazey was moved to tears.

Without missing a beat in the song, they traveled to Rarity’s house to don the brand new ball gowns Rarity had made in her sewing room. Every set of dresses they made was always more elaborate than the last one; Twilight occasionally missed the blue starry dress that she’d worn to her award ceremony after her first changeling kill, but everypony knew it was bad luck to wear the same dress twice.
This dance’s theme was birds of paradise so they all had super feathery dresses. Twilight’s was made of fluffy white feathers edged in purple and orange; she appreciated the sunset effect and the wordplay it made with her name. She worried she’d be tickled all through the night though.

Fluttershy’s peacock dress was stunning, as was Rarity’s dress made of fuschia feathers. Rainbow Dash had been turned into a macaw, while Pinkie Pie’s dress was a ball of fluffy plum and pink stripes. Applejack’s dress was mostly yellow with a hint of green and a few black stripe accents to look like a parakeet.

The six assembled in a choreographed formation to sing the last part of the final verse. Then Pinkie Pie enthusiastically hugged everypony.

“This is going to be such an awesome night!” she cried happily.

“Pinkie, are you… sure you’re okay?” Twilight asked as they left Rarity’s place.

“Please don’t ask me that, Twilight,” she said in an oddly calm voice. “I just want to party and not think about how... disappointed... I am…”

“Okay. I just don’t want you to be sad. You can tell me anything.” Twilight hugged Pinkie Pie, who felt unusually stiff.

“R-right,” Pinkie Pie said. “Oooh, look, lanterns!”

“You set those up yourself,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Y-yeah, I know, but, but, but they look so much prettier in the dark!” Pinkie Pie bounced up to the strings of paper lanterns to get a better look.

The party was a grand outdoor ball after their original venue had been covered in chocolate fondue in a wacky misadventure. Strings of lanterns hung from every palm tree. Several snack tables were arranged around the clearing covered in elaborate tableclothes and ribbon and lace, because Rarity had said she’d needed something to do to distract herself from… something she didn’t want to say. The refreshments had been the funnest part to prepare: pineapple upside down cupcakes, key lime bars, coconut macaroons, fruit kabobs, and so much more. Plus three kinds of punch. The dance floor in the center was cleared and from a stage, a small band was warming up. Apparently Songbird Serenade would sing a little more later, like they hadn’t already heard enough from her.

Right now Big Macintosh and Sugarbelle were slow dancing together while everyone oohed and ahhed about what a cute couple they were and how they were sure this relationship would last forever, like Marble Pie had never existed. Pinkie Pie was busying herself with increasingly minor chores and wouldn’t let Twilight help.

Twilight found Mr. and Mrs. Cake sharing a carrot cupcake. Both were smiling, but Mr. Cake’s looked forced and Mrs. Cake had tears in her eyes. Their children were sleeping by their side.

“Oh, Twilight!” Mr. Cake said as she approached. “Don’t worry about two old ponies like us. Get out and dance and have fun!”

“But I’m going to miss you,” Twilight said. “This is all so sudden. Can’t you stay another few days?”

“We wish we could, dearie,” Mrs. Cake said. “Celestia knows we wish we could…”

“There you go on about this ‘Celestia’ again,” Twilight said. “You tell me she’s a benevolent goddess somewhere out there but if she knows you want to stay and is so powerful she lights the sun, why can’t she help you stay?”

“It’s… complicated,” Mrs. Cake said, looking off into the middle distance. “Let’s not talk about that. Go have some fun for us, please….”

“Why are you leaving your children here?” Twilight asked.

“The wastelands are no place for a child,” Mr. Cake said decisively.

“But they must be; everyone except me was born there,” Twilight said. “And why are you spending your last days here eating carrot cake? I thought carrots were a wasteland vegetable and you have plenty there; why not have some tropical fruits that you can’t get there?”

“Twilight…?” Mrs. Cake said. “Why do you sound so confrontational?”

“Can you please just let us enjoy this moment!?” Mr. Cake said.

Twilight reflexively glared in annoyance at being cut off, then realized they were right. “Sorry… I should just… dance or something.” Then, quickly, she hugged both of them around the neck. “If I don’t get to say this later, thanks so much for all the great memories, for all the great ice cream, for always be willing to listen when I have problems…. I love you both so much and I’m going to miss you so much… please say you’ll come back for the next party?”

Slowly, first Mrs. Cake, then Mr. Cake hugged her back.

“We wish we could promise that,” Mrs. Cake said. “We’ll miss you and…. And the little twins…” Then she was too overcome to talk.

“You’re such an angel Twilight,” Mr. Cake said. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

“It’s… it’s okay. The world doesn’t revolve around me,” Twilight said, nervously laughing. Slowly she released them from her hug. “Come back and visit? Please?”

“As soon as we can,” Mr. Cake said, and Mrs. Cake nodded.

Twilight smiled at them sadly and returned to the general party area.

“How can you look so bummed out, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked as she and the Wonderbolts soared overhead. “Isn’t this party the most epic thing ever?”

Twilight Sparkle tried to smile, but her heart wasn’t in it. It seemed hardly fair; everypony had worked so hard to put this party together because she was feeling sad, and now she was going around moping.

Cupcakes. She needed some cupcakes. Those would make her happier. They always made everypony happier.

When she reached the table, nopony else was around. The cupcake tree was half-eaten, so she examined it for a while, trying to pick the best flavor.

“I know what you want.”

Twilight started. “H-hello?”

“Shh,” the strange female voice whispered, echoing through Twilight’s head like normal sound didn’t. “Everypony will think you’re talking to yourself.”

Twilight looked around wildly. “Wh-who?”

“No talking; just listening. I know how to speak telepathically; you don’t. I’ve been watching you, Twilight. I know how much you want to leave the island. Oh, I know what you’re thinking: I can’t, or the island will be destroyed! I won’t make you do anything that will hurt anypony who really cares about you. I just want to talk.”

“Wh-where….?” Twilight whispered. Her heart was in her mouth. What if this was a changeling trap? Should she bring someone with? What was going to happen? Could she… could she actually leave? Maybe stop having to say goodbye…?

“The Lunar Lagoon playset. Come after the party; I’ll give you further instructions once you’re there.”

Twilight nodded, then wondered if the mysterious voice could see her.

“Penny for your thoughts, Twilight?”

Twilight whirled around. “Shining Armor!! You came!”

The white unicorn stallion smiled down at her and ruffled her mane. “Spike and I will be taking shifts; someone needs to man the watchtower after all. But I didn’t want to miss spending a special night with my little sister.”

Twilight Sparkle wrapped her forelegs around her brother’s neck. “It’s horrible… the Cakes have to leave…”

“I heard.” Shining Armor hugged her back. “I’m so sorry, Twi, but I’m sure they’ll be fine. The Wastelands are boring and I’m sure they’ll miss having such a special customer but they’ll be just fine.”

“Oh, Shining,” Twilight said.

“Now, may I have this dance?” Shining Armor asked, gesturing to the dance floor with his head.

Twilight smiled warmly at him, feeling her eyes prick with tears. “I’d love that.”

By pure coincidence, Songbird Serenade was singing a ballad about the beauty of family. Twilight and Shining Armor slow danced, spinning in circles shoulder to shoulder, switching sides in time to the music, just like they did when Twilight was little and Shining was a teenager. For one magical moment, nothing mattered to Twilight anymore. Not the island and not the mysterious voice.

As Songbird Serenade intensified the final chorus, Shining Armor scooped up Twilight and swung her around, spinning in circles on his hind legs, as Twilight squealed with delight. Then at the finale, he tossed her into the air and caught her in a tight embrace.

Twilight snuggled into the hug. “I’m so glad you came, BBBFF.”

“Me too. I missed you, Twilie,” Shining Armor said.

Then, gently, he released her. “I need to get back to the lighthouse now…”

“It feels like you just got here,” Twilight said, a catch in her voice.

“That’s because I did.” Shining Armor laughed halfheartedly. “But Spike will be here for a little while too. He’s been missing you.”

“Mmmhmm.” To be honest, Twilight felt like she couldn’t relate to Spike anymore now that he was a huge dragon instead of an adorable drake. He’d morphed from sweet and eager to please to all grown up and professional overnight because dragon life cycles were weird; he didn’t even seem like the same dragon.

She saw Shining Armor off at the edge of the clearing. She didn’t feel like waiting around to talk awkwardly with Spike, and the Lagoon playset wasn’t that far away. Maybe she wouldn’t be missed…


After circulating a story amongst her friends that she didn’t feel well and was going to find some stomach-ache curing ferns, she galloped off to the Lunar Lagoon playset.


***

The Lunar Lagoon was a beautiful semicircle filled with reflections of stars. The sand around it was white and very fine. Glittery seashells dotted the shoreline.
Twilight shuffled through the sands, kicking up clouds of white powder. “H-hello?” she whispered.

“Good, you’re here,” the voice in her head said. “Now, don’t you feel like a swim?”

“What? Are you going to drown me?” Twilight squeaked in panic.

“What? No! I’m here to help you, Twilight.”

Twilight hesitated at the edge, muscles tensed to run away.

The mental voice sighed heavily. “I have an underwater cave and swimming is the only way to get in. It’s the only way to keep it hidden. I wasn’t going to tell you in case you ran away to tell somepony.”

“Oh.” Twilight slid out of her beautiful ball gown and left it by a palm tree. Then she headed into the warm starlit water, letting it wash over her body as she walked down the gentle slope of the shore. Then, when the water was up to her neck, she launched herself forward and dove under the water.

“Very good.” The mental voice was exactly as clear underwater as it was above; in retrospect this made perfect sense but it still felt surreal. “Do you see the teal light now?”

Twilight swam in a slow circle and saw a strange glow coming from under a rock shelf. It was a turquoise glow but she could lecture the strange voice later. Swimming towards it, she found a hole in the rock and stuck her head up through it.

There was breathable air, so Twilight gasped for oxygen as she used her magic to brush her wet mane out of her eyes.

The small cave- was it a cave playset? She’d have to ask- was fairly Spartan. The two chairs, small side table, and long workbench were made of natural wood. Twilight hadn’t even known furniture could come in wood colors; it seemed exotic. The workbench was loaded with gemstones in strange colors and shapes and flasks filled with strange liquids. On the floor was a crude drawing of a six pointed star in a circle; it looked like it was drawn in charcoal.

“It’s strange finally seeing you in pony,” a female voice breathed.

Twilight gasped and whirled around to find a pink unicorn standing near her. The unicorn mare had a purple mane with a teal streak and a cutie mark of a four-pointed star with a teal tail trailing upward.

“Wh-who are you?” Twilight asked.

“Glimmer. Starlight Glimmer.” The unicorn mare waved a hoof around the cave. “This is where I’ve been working.”

“What do you mean, finally seeing me in pony?” Twilight asked. “You’ve been spying on me!?”

“Don’t make it sound so evil,” Starlight Glimmer said. “I’ve just been keeping an eye on you, is all.” Her face hardened. “You’re ready to hear the truth about this island, and why you’re kept prisoner on it.”
> The Whole Truth
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starlight Glimmer’s horn lit up with a teal aura matching her mane streak. The glowing gemstones embedded in the cave wall dimmed, leaving them in near darkness.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Twilight said fearfully.

“Shh, I’m focussing on my illusion spell,” Starlight Glimmer said. A white blob materialized in front of Twilight, slowly taking the shape of a pony. It had both wings and a horn and a wavy man of many colors. As the lines of its face refined, Twilight saw that it was a mare. A mare with eyes that burned with fire and a mouth set in a hard cruel line.

“This is Princess Celestia,” Starlight Glimmer said.

“I remember!” Twilight Sparkle said. “Everyone is always thanking her and praising her.”

“Because they fear her.” The illusory alicorn suddenly threw back its head in a silent cackle, her horn lighting up with blazing fire. “She’s been known to wipe out entire villages in her rage.”

“What!? That’s horrible!” Twilight Sparkle said. “Where is she?”

“She rules the wastelands outside with an iron hoof.” Starlight Glimmer dispelled the illusion and the lights came back on. “And you… are her prisoner.”

“P-prisoner!? Why?” Twilight whimpered.

“She made a horrible mistake,” Starlight Glimmer said. “Power over the sun and fire weren’t enough for her; she wanted immortality. And to get that immortality, she used you as the keystone. As long as you’re alive and happy, she’ll live forever… but this also means you have incredible power. Enough power to destroy her without hurting yourself. So to keep you from ever turning against her, or even finding out her existence, she keeps you as cozy and happy as you could possibly be… without leaving the island. Everypony who comes here is carefully screened and faces severe punishment if they ever reveal the truth to you.”

“That’s why everypony is so afraid when I ask them about the outside…” Twilight felt tears welling in her eyes. “What can I do!?”

Starlight Glimmer smiled benevolently at Twilight. “I knew I could count on you to help. The first step is to get you off the island. Once you escape, the rest will fall into place. You have more power than you could imagine, but this island suppresses your magic.”

All of this sounded so outlandish, but it did explain much of Twilight’s suspicions. Anyway, if she left the island and found out it wasn’t a wasteland, she’d know Starlight had lied to her. Butterfly Island would be gone, but the outside world wouldn’t be that bad. On the other hoof, if Starlight was right, how could she stay here enjoying paradise while ponies were suffering? “How do we leave?” Twilight asked. “The portals in the cave won’t let me through… I tried…”

Starlight Glimmer nodded solemnly. “I know. Princess Celestia thought of that, of course.” The pink unicorn levitated a book over to Twilight. It had a picture of a unicorn, then an arrow pointing to the next picture, where the unicorn now had wings. “I have a spell that can give you wings like a pegasus, but much stronger, so that you can fly to the mainland.”

“But… what will I do when I get there?” Twilight asked.

“You’ve fought changelings, right?” Starlight Glimmer said. “Trust me when I say even if you completely wing it against Celestia, you’ll probably be fine, but don’t worry.” She flipped to another page. “I also have a spell to shrink myself so that I can ride along. I’ll give you more advice once we reach the mainland, but as it is it would take too much explanation and too much time to prepare you for what the mainland is like. We need to get started on this spell right now.”

“Okay, okay. I’m ready.” Twilight closed her eyes and wondered what growing wings felt like.

“...What are you doing?” Starlight deadpanned.

“Um… you can cast the spell now,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“I’m going to be altering your biology and magical aura on a fundamental level; it’s not as simple as a flash of a horn,” Starlight Glimmer said. “Open your eyes again and let me go over this.”

“Oh…” Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes, feeling a little silly.

Starlight Glimmer shoved her spell book in Twilight’s face. Now it was a picture of a runic circle with a five pointed star in the middle. Each point of the star had a capital letter next to it, and the paragraphs under the star diagram were each marked with a matching capital letter. Little teal motes danced across the page to highlight the parts of the diagram Starlight was talking about.

“There are five items we need to cast this spell,” Starlight explained. “Each component is a representation of the concepts that go into this transformation. And ideally they aren’t just any objects; they should be saturated in the aura of powerful ponies that have special meaning to you.”

“Oh… like my five friends?” Twilight asked.

“...Yes. Your five jailers,” Starlight muttered.

“Hey!” Twilight said. “That’s not very nice! They’ve stood by me forever and-”

“And lied to you repeatedly and didn’t think twice before trying to trick you into dating a pony you hated!?” Starlight shouted, her face contorted into an evil grimace.

Twilight screamed and backed away, tail between her legs.

Starlight’s face shifted to a worried expression, and she took a deep breath before continuing. “Sorry. I… I just was so upset at them for tricking you like that, and I found it hard to forgive them…”

“You’ve been watching us?” Twilight asked.

“Yes. These spell components are really tricky and I knew that once you knew the truth, we’d be in a very dangerous position, very likely to be found out. So I had to determine which things would be most likely to work in advance.” Starlight Glimmer set the book down, still open to the spell, on a corner of the workbench. “Anyway. First, we need something to represent the new, beautiful growth that we hope to achieve when we create your new wings. Probably a flower. Your friend Fluttershy has a small flower garden, correct?”

“Oh, yes,” Twilight said, “but if we’re looking for growing things, wouldn’t Applejack be a better pony to start with?”

Starlight Glimmer paused before answering. “Well, I said that the objects need to be saturated in the auras of ponies who have been your friends your whole life, right….?”

Twilight felt her stomach sink. She’d long suspected it and long been trying to prove it, but hearing it confirmed was still a small shock. “What happened to the real Applejack?” she whispered.

“It… it would be too hard to explain,” Starlight Glimmer said, suddenly looking sympathetic, like she regretted saying anything.

“Can I save her?” Twilight’s throat was hurting. Please, please, please…

“We… we can try,” Starlight Glimmer said, smiling weakly. “But… right. So. You think you can get Fluttershy to give you a flower?”

“Okay,” Twilight said, her mind elsewhere. “Should I just come back here when I have it?”

“Be extremely careful you’re not followed,” Starlight Glimmer said. “If anypony, even your friends or Shining Armor, suspects anything you may lose your only chance.”

“Even Shining Armor?” Twilight said fearfully.

Starlight Glimmer nodded. “You can’t trust anyone,” she whispered.

The self-contradictory nature of that statement wasn’t lost on Twilight.


***

Twilight made it back to the party just in time to watch Spike light the fireworks. The giant purple dragon, five times the size of any pony and covered all over with green spines, waved at Twilight as she ran up, a sly grin on his face that made him look hungry.

“S-sorry I wasn’t here to greet you,” Twilight said, feathers flying off her hastily redonned gown. “I was looking for ferns--”

“I heard,” Spike said, rolling his eyes. “You little ponies are such weaklings.”

“Don’t talk to your adopted mother like that,” Twilight said, glaring at him.

“Well excuse me, princess.” Spike spat a glob of acid into the sand, leaving a blackened crater. He’d gained acid powers in addition to fire powers when he’d grown up, and lost the ability to send mail. All normal for a dragon’s life cycle, according to the book Twilight had ordered from the mainland. “Now that you’re finally here, the party can start.” He dramatically arched his neck while blowing fire to create a figure eight of flame, then, once he had everypony’s attention, he blasted the fireworks in a blazing green inferno. Many of the ponies missed the fireworks because they were trying to put out the grassfire and Spike had set off everything at once instead of sequentially.

“So, Twilight. Anything else?” Spike asked.

“No,” Twilight said, masking her annoyance. She tried to remember what a sweet child he’d been and how she’d told herself she’d never, ever regret having him in her life.

“Then I’d better head back to the lighthouse,” Spike said, before yawning in an exaggeratedly bored manner. “Smell you candy ponies later.” He leapt into the air and divebombed some ponies to startle them. Then he circled higher and higher until he blinked out of existence like everything did when it went too far up.

Twilight stared after him for a moment, then returned her thoughts to earth. She had a mission.

Fluttershy had found an inchworm to spend time with on the far edge of the dance floor. She was quietly cheering it on as it scrambled along the ground.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“Eek!” Fluttershy jumped behind a bush and shyly peeked out. “Oh, it’s just you Twilight. How do you like the party?”

“It’s… it’s a little melancholy, since I learned the Cakes will be leaving,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Oh, but we get to keep those adorable Cake babies!” Fluttershy closed her eyes and smiled sweetly.

“Mmm-hmm… Um, anyway, I was thinking of making a bouquet of tropical flowers for them to take home and press,” Twilight said. “You know, since the mainlands have no flowers.”

“Oh, that’s very thoughtful of you, Twilight. You’re such a sweet friend,” Fluttershy said. “Would you like to visit my garden for some flowers? I’d love to make all of you happy.”

This was truly the simplest espionage act ever. “Thanks, Fluttershy. I really appreciate it.”

Twilight followed her friend away from the gently dying party. She began to worry about how easy it was. If Starlight was correct and these friends of hers were really her jailers, why were they so unsuspecting? No, she’d asked Fluttershy for flowers many times. Surely this didn’t mean Starlight was mistaken…or lying.
> What's Mine Is Yours
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight emerged from the water and gasped for air. A little blue flower was tucked into her mane. She was careful not to dislodge it as she climbed out and used an air-drying spell. “I got the flower, Starlight!”

“That was certainly fast,” Starlight Glimmer said. She was flipping through her spell book making notes. “I didn’t even get a chance to observe you; did anypony suspect anything?”

“No,” Twilight said nervously. “Because Fluttershy is nice and sweet and gives me flowers all the time…”

“Good to know,” Starlight Glimmer said. “Then you should be able to steal the other pieces without them suspecting much.”

“St-steal?” Twilight Sparkle said. “I don’t want to steal things from my friends!”

“They aren’t your friends, Twilight!” Starlight Glimmer snapped her book shut. “Would friends lie to you your whole life?”

Twilight blinked tears from her eyes. “What’s the next item…?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know anymore.

Starlight took the flower from Twilight’s mane. “We’ll need something soft and floaty and colorful to represent the fun and joy of flight. I was hoping you could get me some ribbons from your jailer Rarity.”

“Stop calling them that,” Twilight snarled. Then she blinked. “Wait. But I wouldn’t have to steal a ribbon! Rarity just puts those on every dress.”

“It has to be a rainbow ribbon though,” Starlight Glimmer said. “And my recon revealed she saves that for extra special occasions, and your special occasion just passed.”

“Oh… she does love her rainbows…” Twilight Sparkle said. “Are you sure it has to be that one?”

“It needs to be very colorful,” Starlight Glimmer said, nodding with authority. “Rainbows are saturated with sky magic so rainbow ribbons will be perfect for this spell. I just need a tiny spool. She can always get more.”

“Sky magic…?” Twilight had never heard of that before. But then it wasn’t like magic was her talent or anything… the gemstones she and her friends wielded didn’t really count.

Starlight Glimmer placed her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders. “Just remember; you have a tyrant queen to overthrow. You can’t put that off based on sentiment.”

Twilight nodded numbly. Rarity would understand, surely…


***

Rarity’s dress studio used to be a sunroom in her house; she’d filled it with fabric and thread and manikins and patterns in accordance with her hobby and had never lost an obsession with fashion. Sometimes Twilight found it borderline scary, but for the most part it was one of Rarity’s most endearing qualities.

Twilight had very carefully ripped a favorite dress on a nail in order to have an excuse. She planned to go to Rarity’s first thing in the morning.

As it happened though, two changelings, a male and female, had robbed a fruit cart, and she and her friends had to chase them all over town to vaporize them. What a pain; at least none of the kiwis had been eaten.

Then they had to spend the afternoon on some wacky shenanigans when Big Mac and Sugar Belle had difficulty running the ice cream parlor the way the Cakes did. Finally they’d settled into a rhythm and everypony could go home.

“Well,” Rarity said as the six friends walked away from the ice cream parlor, “I guess we know what the moral of that story is, don’t you Twilight?”

“That nothing will ever replace the Cakes…?” Twilight said, her voice hollow.

“N-no, dearie, I meant that you shouldn’t try to replicate the past,” she said, looking disturbed. “What’s then is then and what’s now is now. Look forward, not backward! Embrace the change!”

Twilight tried to muffle her internal screaming. At least she’d no longer feel bad about what she was about to do. “Speaking of change… um, I had a dress that needs fixing. The one from the Sibling Ball.”

“And just after I got done saying to stop looking back,” Rarity said with a sigh. “But I must admit, I have a fondness for that dress; it was one of the first I’d made entirely by myself… All right. Bring it in.”


***


Rarity’s sewing room playset was deeply familiar to Twilight since they were in and out of it all the time for their new dresses. One of the walls had such huge windows it was nearly all glass, for natural lighting, and the ceiling was a glass dome skylight. But to keep nosy ponies from watching her struggle in frustration, she also had thick lavender velvet curtains around each window.

The other walls were crowded with shelves and racks of fabric bolts. In the middle was the sewing machine. Rarity gently carried Twilight’s yellow silk beribboned Sibling Ball dress in her blue aura. She carefully arranged it under the silver needle. “This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, dearie,” she said.

This was it. Twilight had a few minutes to think of a plan.

What was she doing? Here Rarity was going out of her way to help her, and Twilight was going to rob her. But then, nice ponies didn’t try to make their friends forget that other friends existed. Right?

The needle whirred, the sound hammering in Twilight’s brain as she scanned the sewing room. The rainbow ribbon was right where Rarity always kept it, on the top shelf next to her silk. It was right behind Rarity’s head, out of her field of vision. It was her last spool. All Twilight had to do was levitate it down…

Surely the spell didn’t need all the ribbon, right? She could snip off whatever Starlight needed and sneak the rest back. It would all be fine.

“Something wrong, dearie?”

Twilight gasped and dropped the ribbon. It rolled out all over the floor. “S-sorry,” she said, praying Rarity wouldn’t look down. “L-lost in thought.” She tried and failed to scoop all of the ribbon back into her telekinetic grip. Her concentration was scattered. Jerking her head to the window, she cried, “Oh no, Rarity! A dog just chased Opalescence away!”

“What!?” Rarity leapt away from her sewing machine and ran outside.

Alone at last. Twilight sighed and started scooping the ribbon up, taking her time. Then she slipped it into her saddlebag.

“What are you doing with my sister’s ribbon?”

Twilight whirled around to see Sweetie Belle staring at her. “Oh gosh-! I forgot you were…”

Sweetie Belle looked so innocent. So concerned. What on earth could she say? She couldn’t tell her the truth because she might be in on it- no, a conspiracy involving preteens? Surely not…

“It’s bad to steal,” Sweetie Belle said. “And it’s bad to lie. Opalescence is in her cat bed; I saw her.”

“I… I…” Say something, anything… “I don’t want to show her that I messed it up and I just need a moment to get it back on the spool. Alone. You know how she freaks out when things get messy.”

“Oh, but you don’t have to be worried about admitting mistakes to your friends!” Sweetie Belle beamed with pride. “You can even admit others’ mistakes for them; that’s just what makes a good society!”

“No, Sweetie, please don’t tell, I said I just need a moment,” Twilight Sparkle panicked.

“No, I think this sounds like a very important lesson to learn.” Sweetie Belle’s eyes were shining with excitement. “I get to teach Twilight Sparkle a lesson! I want strawberry-”

“Strawberry what?” Twilight Sparkle said, going from anxious to suspicious in seconds flat.

“St-strawberry, um, lesson!” Sweetie Belle looked alarmed. “Y-yeah, lessons have flavors now! I learned about them in mainland school-”

“I have a better idea,” Twilight Sparkle said. “I’ll forget you said that if you forget you saw me. Deal?”

“Deal,” Sweetie Belle squeaked, looking way too panicked for somepony who’d just said something a little silly.

Twilight sighed with relief.

“Twilight, are you sure?” Rarity trotted back into her sewing room, looking a little exhausted but no longer in a panic. “Rainbow Dash was clearing clouds outside and she said she hadn’t seen Opalescence all day.”

“S-sorry, I guess I must have seen a bunny or something and panicked,” Twilight told Rarity. “Can I make it up to you? Would you like to cool down with some lavender lemonade?”

Rarity dramatically collapsed on a couch with a heavy sigh. “That would be delightful… of course I forgive you, Twilight.”

Twilight smiled and trotted off to get lemonade, then noted with a concerned furrow of her brow that Sweetie hadn’t stopped looking shell-shocked. What was the poor thing so afraid of…?
> Pineapple Acres
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You really sure you need all of it?”

“Stop asking me twenty times a minute.” Starlight Glimmer slid the ribbon along under her microscope. “The answer’s not changing. The sky magic in this ribbon isn’t as potent as I’d hoped; if I want enough to complete the spell, yes, I have to consume the whole thing.”

“C-consume?” Twilight lowered her ears in distress. “It’ll all be gone?”

“There is a mad tyrant princess outside this island that likes to set villages on fire for fun, so pardon me if I have a little trouble weeping over a pampered pony not having pretty bows for her dresses,” Starlight Glimmer said, her voice dripping with bitterness.

Twilight remembered when Spike had set one of her books on fire and tried to imagine what she’d feel like if he’d set her home and friends’ homes and favorite shopping places on fire instead. It was too huge to wrap her head around. More pain than she could imagine. “I’m sorry… I guess I kind of did lose perspective…”

“Well, I hope your head’s on straight now, because the next item is much harder.” Starlight Glimmer looked away from her microscope and back to her book. “The next item is supposed to represent hard work and reward, and I’m told Applejack used to keep the first coin she’d ever made selling apple juice as a filly.”

Twilight felt her heart sink. “And you want me to steal it.”

“You can’t steal something that was stolen in the first place,” Starlight Glimmer said, shrugging. “Unlike plants which replace old cells from year to year, a mineral like that coin will still hold traces of the aura of… the original Applejack.”

Twilight was very quiet. “Is Applejack okay? Can we still save her?”

“I… I don’t want to promise anything, but…” Starlight Glimmer rested her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders. “If there’s any way to find her, we will.”

Twilight hugged Starlight Glimmer tightly. “Thank you.”

“Okay, okay, don’t fall apart on me and don’t start inexplicably crying in front of your friends,” Starlight said. “You have a mission to complete.”

Twilight Sparkle rubbed her eyes. “Got it. I won’t let you down.”


***

Applejack had been one of the few ponies to openly pine for the wastelands, since that was the only place where apples grew, but she’d always been careful to emphasize that pineapples were almost as much fun to grow and everypony else had been careful to emphasize that Applejack was weird.

In retrospect, it would be weird to wish you were in a sun-scorched land ruled by a sadistic tyrant.

Pineapple Acres was close to the center of Butterfly Island and was targeted a lot by changelings. Most of the time Applejack tended it with the help of a few cousins who rotated out regularly.

Twilight crept around the edge of the farm stealthily. Unlike the last two items, she didn’t see how it would benefit her to ask Applejack for a favor to get closer.

The orange mare was showing Big Macintosh around the plants, talking about how much each had grown. The silent red stallion nodded along solemnly. Twilight wondered if he knew she was fake. Or maybe both of them were fake.

In any case, they’d probably be busy for another hour, right? She’d have plenty of time to sneak into their house.

Applejack had never been much for fancy buildings. AJ’s Cottage playset was small and homey, with simple furniture covered in apple-patterned cushions. Applejack kept the first bit she’d ever made in a tiny frame on her mantlepiece.

Twilight had had a hard time wrapping her head around the concept of bits. Apparently on the mainland resources were scarce, and bits were a way to quantify how much your labor was worth. Then you’d trade your bits in for food and other items. This way everything was distributed based on merit. Or something.

Butterfly Island had never needed anything like that because there was always enough material goods to make everypony happy, but once they’d trucked in a Carnival playset where you won ticket from games and trades them in for prizes, and Applejack had said it was a similar concept, except with manual labor instead of ski ball and food instead of sticky frogs. When Applejack had earned her first bit on the mainland, she’d felt so special because she’d known her labor had made a difference. On Butterfly Island she had no kind of measurement…

Twilight wondered if the real Applejack was on the mainland now, and if she was happy to have apples and bits again. But maybe Celestia burned up apples and bits in addition to houses.

Twilight fetched the small framed coin off the mantelpiece and studied it. She wasn’t stealing it from the real Applejack anyway. The real Applejack probably wanted Twilight to come find her. So this wasn’t wrong.Everything would be fine; Starlight had everything figured out.

Part of her wondered what she was doing though. One of the first morals she’d learned when she was little was that it wasn’t nice to steal things that were important to others.

Well, better get going before she faced a repeat of what happened at Rarity’s…


***

“Twilie!”

Twilight Sparkle whirled around to see Shining Armor galloping up to her. She felt like the stolen bit was burning a hole through her saddlebag.

“Hey BBBFF. What’s up?” Twilight tried to smile naturally.

“I was just wondering if you wanted to go swimming in the Lunar Lagoon playset together. You know, since I have some time off.”

Twilight felt her insides freeze up as she struggled to hold her composure. No, no, no, surely he didn’t know, it was just an innocent request, wasn’t it?

“Sounds fun,” she said. “And I don’t have anything to do right now either, so that just makes it even more perfect!” She hugged Shining Armor to try and stop him from seeing her face.

“Yeah, it’s been forever since we went swimming… or rather since I went swimming,” Shining Armor said. “You’ve been busy on that water breathing spell, haven’t you?”

Twilight pushed Shining Armor out of the hug. “Y-you were spying on me!?”

“No, no, not on purpose!” Shining Armor looked genuinely regretful. “I just see everything on the island from my lighthouse, and when you didn’t surface right away I got worried… but by the time I got there you were already leaving and I didn’t feel like admitting how silly I was.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes at him. Then she forced herself to sigh heavily. “It was supposed to be a surprise… I wasn’t sure it would work…”

“Well, I should say it worked. You were under for, what, several minutes?” Shining Armor laughed.

“I wasn’t counting. It’s really pretty under there,” Twilight said, her mind racing. Did she know a spell to breathe underwater? Could she throw one together really fast? Probably not. Her talent wasn’t magic or anything.

On the way to the lagoon she sorted through her options. Magically give herself gills… too complicated. Magically make an air bubble around her head… too temporary.

What about a magic snorkel? Just a thin cylinder of telekinetic force pushing the water out of the way near her nose, creating a channel to the surface?

That sounded like the best thing to try on such short notice. She started trying to unobtrusively practice making telekinetic cylinders.

Despite trying to walk slowly, they reached the Lunar Lagoon playset before she felt ready. She swallowed nervously; if she didn’t have a good excuse for why she was underwater for several minutes, Shining Armor would find her out…

“What’s wrong?” Shining Armor turned to her with sincere concern etched in his face. “Twilie, you look sick!”

He seemed so earnestly worried. Like all he did was care about her. Like big brothers were supposed to do. Like he’d done all her life. And she’d bought the word of a stranger that he was a monster.

Twilight burst into tears.

Shining Armor looked shocked for a moment. Then he pulled her close and rocked her side to side. He didn’t question her or judge her; he just held her tightly.

At first, that made Twilight cry harder. But soon her tears subsided as she snuggled into his chest. “I… I’m sorry…”

“For what, Twilie?” His blue eyes were full of compassion. She should just admit everything. He’d never deceive her.

Twilight took a deep breath. “I really didn’t-”

“Hey, mini horses!” Spike swooped down on them from above. “Get your acts together already! Changelings are swarming Pineapple Acres!”

“What!?” Twilight Sparkle twisted out of Shining Armor’s embrace. “But… but…”

“Spike’s right,” Shining Armor said. “You’d better hurry. Spike, bring me to the lighthouse; I’ll direct operations from there.” He leapt onto Spike’s back while the dragon was still midflight and was gone.

Twilight felt like her head was spinning, but she galloped off to find her friends.
> Changelings Attack
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight Sparkle found Rarity and Rainbow Dash already hovering near the outskirts of the farm.

“Where are Fluttershy and Pinkie and AJ?” she asked.

“Fluttershy’s behind the tree,” Rainbow Dash said scornfully.

“S-sorry,” she whispered, still unseen. “B-but there’s so many…”

“That’s okay; they’re no match for the power of friendship,” Twilight said. “What about the others?”

“Shining’s still trying to find Pinkie Pie… you know how the poor dear’s been lately…” Rarity said.

“And as for Applejack, well…” Rainbow Dash pointed to the farmhouse. “Trapped inside.”

Twilight surveyed the scene. There were at least a dozen changelings climbing all over the farmhouse like it was their personal jungle gym. Where had they all come from? And why were they at the place she’d just robbed…?

“We have to go in and save Applejack!” Rainbow Dash said, tapping her hoof impatiently.

“Foolhardy,” Rarity said. “Without Pinkie Pie we wouldn’t stand a chance if we got swarmed.”

“What do you think, Twilight?” Fluttershy slid out from behind her tree and met Twilight’s gaze with her soft blue eyes.

Twilight studied the building. “Do you know if anyone else is inside besides Applejack?”

“I think Sugar Belle was in there too,” Rarity said.

“Big Mac should be there too then,” Fluttershy said. “He’s never happy unless he’s looking into Sugar’s eyes…”

“Such a perfect couple,” Rarity sighed.

“Well, then they can probably handle themselves,” Twilight said. “It doesn’t look like any of them are going inside yet, but if they move in, we attack. They’re probably just happy to terrorize everyone in the barn, those creeps.”

“What do you think they get out this anyway?” Rainbow Dash asked, flying in circles like a caged animal.

Twilight had never wondered before what changelings wanted. They were evil incarnate, worthy of death and nothing else. But if Starlight was right, what were they anyway? Puppets to distract her and make her feel needed?

Come to think of it… if Celestia burned a village down, the village would stay burned. It could be rebuilt but it wouldn’t be the same. But changelings never did anything except block people from doing things and make messes. All things which were easy to reverse. Maybe she’d been taught to view changelings as the worst thing in the world… to keep her from being able to imagine, or realize, that there could be anything worse…

“Found her!” Spike shouted, and then a heavy weight fell on Twilight’s back.

“Oof!” she shouted, collapsing.

“S-sorry Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said, getting off of Twilight. She glared at the purple dragon, who was now flying away. “That’s not what I meant when I said to drop me off, you jerrrrrr mean you silly dragon!” She giggled, suddenly happy again.

“All right, we’re all here!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Now let’s get those bugs!”

“Wait!” Twilight shouted, but the rainbow mare zoomed toward the farmhouse, eager for a fight. “Oh well…” she turned to the others. “Okay, new plan. No plan. Just go! You too Fluttershy; I mean it!”

Rarity summoned her attack gems to spin around her body as she raced into the fight. Pinkie Pie whipped out her party cannon and half rode, half pushed it into battle. Twilight followed at a more moderate pace, unsure why everypony with ranged attacks felt the need to get so close before attacking. She blasted one changeling after another with her horn lasers; they screamed as they let go of the farmhouse and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Rarity embedded her attack gems into the fallen changelings’ chitin, then triggered them to explode, blasting off huge pieces of their exoskeleton to expose their soft, squishy muscles below.
Twilight was just picking where to aim the next laser- she had to be careful not to damage Applejack’s house- when a changeling landed right in front of her face.

“You ungrateful witch,” it hissed at her. “When we were good enough to cover for you…”

Then it slapped her across the muzzle and flew off.

“Twilight! It’s getting away!” Rainbow Dash screamed as she struggled to get out of a wrestling match with a changeling to pursue. “Shoot it! What’s wrong with you?”

Twilight just stared at the retreating changeling, jaw slack, dumbfounded. It wasn’t even so much that a changeling had spoken to her, or that the changeling had claimed to be helping her.

It was that, under that strange, grating buzz, she’d recognized the changeling’s voice.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy started shaking her by the shoulders. “You need to snap out of it! It’s time for the finisher!”

“Wh-what?” Twilight said.

Applejack clambered out of her farmhouse window. “‘Bout time y’all broke through,” she said. “You’ve got my necklace I take it?”

Rainbow Dash slung the apple-gem studded trinket to Applejack, who quickly slipped it over her head and leapt to join the others.

“Ready Twilight?” Rarity asked.

“Twilight?” Pinkie Pie asked. “You’re ready to start, right?”

“Twilight? Twilight?” they all chorused.

Twilight stared, stunned, at the changelings she was expected to vaporize, all lying on the ground, too broken and weakened to flee.

What was she doing? Why was she doing it? Was this okay? What if she was…?

“Get it over with!” one changeling hissed loudly.

The chorus was immediately taken up by the others, some taunting her to take the shot, and the rest begging to be put out of their misery. The voices of the changelings and the ponies all pressed against Twilight’s ears and crowded out her thoughts.
“All right, all right already!” she screamed. “F-f-friendship…”

“HARMONY ATTACK!” her five friends shouted.

The recoil from her necklace made Twilight jerk backward as the rainbow light engulfed the changelings. When it faded, no trace of them was to be seen.

“W-we should split up and check for that one changeling that g-got away,” Twilight said, trying to wipe the events of the last minute from her mind. She had to focus. “Um. Meet at Sugarcube corner in half an hour if you don’t find her.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Applejack said. “I’ll search the-”

“I’ll search the Lunar Lagoon playset!” Twilight shouted, then ran off, not caring what the others picked.


***


When Twilight splashed her way into the cave, Starlight was holding a book in front of her face, but her eyes weren’t moving.

“Starlight.” Twilight shook herself off and slowly approached the pink unicorn.

“So, do you have the bit?” she asked.

“You should already know,” Twilight said. “You were there, weren’t you?”

“What?” Starlight said, looking confused. “No, it’s not safe for me to leave this cave…”

“Then why did one of the changelings speak in your voice!?” Twilight said.

Starlight stared, dumbfounded, then tilted her head back and laughed. “You really fell for that old trick?”

“What old trick?” Twilight said.

“Changelings can imitate the voices of other ponies. Didn’t you know that?” Starlight asked.

“No they can’t!” Twilight said. “They’ve never done that before!”

“Well,” Starlight said, “They only do it when, um…”

“And anyway, the only way they’d know how to imitate your voice, and that imitating it would throw me off, is if you were working for them!” Twilight fired a beam of magic at Starlight. Changelings were evil and desired to die. That included any of their associates.
> A Common Goal
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starlight screamed and conjured a quick teal shield. “Twilight! No!” she shouted.

“What else have you lied to me about!?” Twilight kept a steady beam of magic pouring into Starlight’s shield. It made her head ache, but surely Starlight would cave first. “Was Celestia ever real!? Did you make me steal from my friends for your own sick amusement!? Were you-”

A sudden concussive blast of magic knocked Twilight backwards and into a desk. Her entire body tingled with numbness.

Starlight groaned in pain as she struggled to her hooves. She stiffly walked over to Twilight. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” she said. “I’m sorry, Tw--why are you laughing?”

Twilight’s voice sounded weak and strange as she giggled. “You blew your hand, didn’t you? All this time you’ve claimed I’m the strongest pony alive, with magic strong enough to take out a princess that burns whole villages, and yet you ended me in a few minutes.”

Starlight blinked, stunned. “No, wait, you… you don’t know anything about magic! Don’t draw conclusions like that! I beat you because Celestia is suppressing your power! Stop talking nonsense, Twilight!”

She looked genuinely baffled but Twilight didn’t trust her instincts anymore. “You still haven’t explained the changeling, though! If your presence was truly secret they wouldn’t know to imitate you!”

“I…” Starlight’s expression relaxed to contemplation. “I… I don’t know… how to explain that.”

“Ha!” Twilight said. “You disgust me. I can’t believe I ever listened to you. I’m telling my brother--”

“And what about Applejack?” Starlight asked. “You’re going to throw away your chance to save her because the ponification of pure evil did something neither of us can explain? You plan to spend the rest of your life trying to pretend that faker is your real friend?”

Twilight quietly reflected on all the time she’d spent with Applejack, before the poor girl had snapped. All the times they’d saved each other’s lives. All the things Applejack had taught her about farming. The way she made everypony feel welcome.

Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry!”

“Shh…” Starlight wrapped her arms stiffly around Twilight. “Sorry, I’m not very good at this comforting thing, but… but I’m not mad. I understand how hard you must find it to believe I only have your best interest at heart…”

Twilight gently unwound Starlight’s legs and looked her in the eye. “You have no idea why that changeling sounded like you?”

“None at all!” Starlight said.

“If they know you’re here, then… then are we exposed?” Twilight asked.

“If anypony knew for sure I was here or that you knew the truth about the island, they wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever it took to restore the status quo. Maybe they’d even force you to forget everything you ever learned, or make you regress to an infant.” Starlight telekinetically pulled her spellbook over. “So, let’s hurry and get the last two ingredients for the spell.”

Twilight was shivering at the thought of having her memory erased. “What’s left…? Pinkie Pie or Rainbow Dash?”

“Next will be Rainbow Dash,” Starlight Glimmer said. “We need something to symbolize accomplishment in flight.”

“That’s Rainbow all over,” Twilight said wistfully. Then she started. “I’m not going to cut off her wings am I!?”

“No, no, why would you think that?” Starlight Glimmer said, looking offended. “I just want one of her trophies or medals or something like that. Must be a first place one though.”

“Oh! Ahahaha, of course, silly me,” Twilight said. “Sure, I’m sure she won’t miss one... “ Well… then again, Rainbow Dash was kind of overprotective of them. Maybe she did count them all…


***


Actually, the hardest part about getting into Rainbow Dash’s trophy case would be getting into Rainbow Dash’s house.

Rainbow Dash lived in a palm tree grove. Once it had been very misty, but Rainbow Dash had coaxed every little wisp together to make an elaborate set of cloud platforms that made up her jungle tree house. It had been designed purely for her own comfort and use; she could always hang out with her ground-bound friends somewhere else. The exception was that every now and then she’d personally lift someone up to look at her trophy case. But that would hardly work for Twilight’s purposes, since Rainbow would be in physical contact with her the whole time, and looking directly at the things Twilight wanted to steal.

Twilight circled Rainbow Dash’s palm grove, collecting palm leaves. She had a cover story about wanting to measure palm leaves for a science project, in case anypony interrupted her. She could hear Rainbow snoring; that mare did love her naps.

She debated using a balloon to get close enough to use telekinesis. But the palm grove was too thick. And Pinkie Pie’s flying bicycle was too noisy, even if Twilight did manage to borrow it.

This was so frustrating! She even knew the approximate cloud the trophy case was on. She could put her hoof right on the tree that the case rested against…

Twilight did so, and started to laugh. Who needed to fly to get something out of a tree? If she wanted to save Applejack, she’d have to act like Applejack.

Standing an ideal distance from the tree, she took a deep breath and remembered everything Applejack had ever told her.

“In this moment nothing matters but the strike. Throw all the power you can into the stroke and let gravity do the rest sugarcube!”

Twilight shifted her weight ot her front legs, then kicked out with her back legs.

Pain shot up her back half as she made contact and she fell right over. Just like every time she tried this.

Twilight punched the sand in frustration. Then she heard a creaking noise above. She scrambled to her hooves and whirled around, staring intently at the clouds above, her heart in her mouth. Creak… creak…

Then with a jangly tumbling crash, a giant glass display case filled with trophies and medals smashed into the ground beneath the palm tree grove, scattering glass and other sparkly items everywhere.

Twilight could barely restrain the urge to dance with joy. Then she heard Rainbow Dash screaming.

“Noooo!” Rainbow Dash dove out of a nearby tree. “How could this happen!?”

“I don’t know! Maybe it was the wind?” Twilight said. “I was just walking by and it just fell…”

“No talking! Help me gather these up!” Rainbow Dash looked like she was about to have a mental breakdown as she scooped up trophies and carried them back to her cloud house.

There was no more perfect setup Twilight could have asked for. She was literally ordered to collect medals, and Rainbow Dash would be ducking in and out of sight. She telekinetically picked up dozens of medals and subtly slid one among her palm leaves. When Rainbow Dash swooped back down she helpfully held a bundle of them up so that Rainbow Dash didn’t even have to land.

In ten seconds flat, the sand was clean of medals and trophies, and Rainbow Dash flopped under the palm tree, panting.

“You okay?” Twilight asked.

“F-fine… just a little panicked… that’s all…” Rainbow Dash slowly stood on her hooves again and stretched like a cat. “I’d better count them just in case…”

“Okay; I’m off to study these,” Twilight said, lifting her palm leaves into her saddlebag. “Glad I could lend a hoof!”

“I just don’t know what went wrong,” Rainbow Dash muttered to herself as Twilight turned aside and trotted away.

Twilight smiled to herself; she was getting pretty good at this. One more item to go…

She made it to the Sugarcube Sundaes playset before Rainbow Dash suddenly zipped in front of her.

“Twilight!! You didn’t happen to see anyone odd around the grove, did you?” Rainbow Dash demanded.

“Odd? N-no, there was nopony around, just me collecting palm leaves…” Twilight said.

“Huh.” Rainbow Dash’s lip curled into a snarl. “That’s surprising. Because there are scuff marks all over the palm tree next to my display case, like the case fell over because somepony hit the tree…”

“You can tell they were put there just now?” Twilight said, trying to hide her fear with innocent surprise. Her eyebrows were probably unnaturally high.

“They were fresh.” Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes. “And you’re really sure you didn’t see anypony or hear anything?”

Oh dang. She should have invented a mysterious pony, but now she was stuck. “N-no. I wonder what could have happened?” She let her terror show on her face as she said “Wh-what if it’s a new changeling trick? Turning invisible?”

“They can’t turn themselves invisible; just into other-” Rainbow Dash gasped.

“Other what?” Twilight said.

“Other, um, pests. Yeah. From pests to pests. It, uh, sounded better in my head,” Rainbow Dash said. Then she shook her head as if getting water out of her mane. “Quit distracting me! This is serious! That medal meant a lot to me!”

“What did it look like?” Twilight asked. “I can help you look for it once I get these palm leaves to my house.”

“You really can’t help right now!?” Rainbow Dash said, looking anxious.

“Rainbow, come on. It’s not like your medal is running away and if you don’t chase it now, it’ll have too much of a head start. Can’t you search the whole island in under an hour anyway?” Twilight said.

“Y-you’re right; you’re right,” Rainbow Dash said. “Go on and finish… I… I shouldn’t worry anypony else with my problems…” Rainbow Dash flew back the way she came, looking forlorn.

Twilight hoped that would be the end of that. It hurt to see one of her best friends looking so down.

Especially since she’d caused it.

***


Starlight was drawing a five-pointed star on the cave floor when Twilight entered.

“Oh, hi. Was just getting started,” Starlight said.

“I thought I had one more item to go,” Twilight said.

“You do, but this kind of thing is finicky.” Starlight brushed chalk dust out of her fur. “I was making sure the groundwork was laid down; I’ll draw the more complicated runes in while you get the last item. The sun’s going down so you should have a perfect opportunity.”


“What is the last item anyway? Something from Pinkie Pie?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“Yes, but something very specific. We need a physical representation of avians, but a flightless one. And it needs to be made of an elastic substance.”

Twilight felt her heart sink. “No… no… I can’t do that.. I can’t…”

“No, I promise, I’ve done my research, and I know she has an item that fits that description,” Starlight Glimmer said.

“I’m not taking her rubber chicken!” Twilight shouted. “You don’t understand! It’s all she has left from a dear friend who hasn’t come back in years!”

“Twilight, you’ve come too far to be like this,” Starlight said.

“All I have to do is tell Shining to come take care of you and this will all be over,” Twilight countered. “Nothing’s too late for anything.”

“And you’d honestly leave thousands of ponies, and your own friend Applejack, to suffer over a stupid gag item?” Starlight Glimmer glared at Twilight.

“It’s not stupid! Pinkie Pie had a fiancee named Cheese Sandwich but he was suddenly called away and he left that as a reminder!” Twilight stomped her hoof. “I’m not going to use it up in any spell. Think of something different that will work!”

“There is nothing else that will work!” Starlight Glimmer said. “Twilight, did you really believe those two? Do you really believe any relationship on the island is real?”

“What are you talking about!?” Twilight snorted.

“Don’t you remember Flash Sentry, and how everypony was pushing you to be with him?” Starlight Glimmer asked. “Everypony wanted you to fall in love with him so you’d be too starry eyed to clearly see what was happening around you.”

“What’s that got to do with Cheese and Pinkie?” Twilight asked.

“Since they couldn’t make you yourself fall in love they settled for something similar,” Starlight said. “They gave you some other sweet couples to swoon over.”

“No way!” Twilight said. “What they had was… it was real!”

“Twilight, you silly pony, you’ve never experienced anything real in your entire life,” Starlight Glimmer said. “So don’t tell me about true love!”

There was fire in her eyes as she said it, that made Twilight jump back. “A-are you okay?”

Starlight Glimmer glared silently at Twilight for a moment longer before slowly taking a deep breath and restoring her face to a more neutral expression. “Do what I tell you,” she said tersely.

Twilight felt herself shivering. “I d-don’t want to.”

“Then let more ponies die for you. DIE. Do you understand that word!?” Starlight asked.

“Singular dice?” Twilight nervously guessed.

“Wrong, you puddinghead. It means snuffed out. Lifeless. Motionless. Thoughtless. You get bashed up and burned up so badly that you just sit there in a bloody charred heap and you’ll never move or talk to anyone ever again. Literally gone forever. Never coming back.”

Twilight felt her heart race. “I-I don’t believe you. Something that horrible can’t happen!”

“Don’t be dumb. What do you think happens to changelings then!?” Starlight shouted.

“They just… they… they…” Twilight shook herself. “No, no, that’s not true! We vaporize the changelings; we don’t just break them until they can’t move anymore!”

“And what do you think happens to them after they disappear, huh? Have you ever thought through anything in your entire life or do you just believe anything your friends tell you?”

“That’s not fair!” Twilight shouted, tears in her eyes. “Why are you being so mean to me? I thought we were friends!”

“Shut UP!” Starlight Glimmer slapped Twilight across the muzzle.

Twilight gave Starlight Glimmer a hurt look. Then she just turned away, crying softly. How had everything gone so wrong? Why had she trusted this stranger so much?

A few minutes later, Starlight Glimmer spoke. Her voice was quiet and shameful this time. “Twilight?”

Twilight didn’t answer. Just hiccupped and sobbed.

“I… I shouldn’t have said those things. I’m sorry. I… I just get so frustrated that there’s so little I can do without your help sometimes…”

Twilight slowly turned around to see Starlight hanging her head. Then as Twilight watched, Starlight began to shiver. A muffled sob escaped from her throat, though her eyes were dry.

Twilight crossed the distance between them and gently hugged Starlight. Starlight tensed from Twilight’s touch, then gently relaxed.

“I’m sorry Starlight,” Twilight said. “You’re right. I really don’t know how hard this is for you. I… I want to trust you… I really do… but I’m so scared of everything…”

Starlight sighed softly. “Can’t be helped, I guess. I… I know you’ve considered these ponies as your friends for your whole life, but you need to believe me when I say they’ve been play-acting for you. You need to believe me when I say that though what you’re doing may hurt now, you’ll be saving thousands.”

Twilight nodded stiffly. “Okay. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
> Brotherly Trust
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was night when Twilight returned to her home. It was hard to believe how much had happened in a single day.

Twilight’s home was the tree castle playset, with a pulley-operated elevator and stairs that turned into a slide with the click of a lever and enough bunk beds that folded out of the wall for her friends to have sleepovers. The tree was a magical tree with a silvery trunk blue crystal leaves that complemented the pink walls and purple roof of her house. Twilight had always known she’d had the best house on the island. She’d been told she was given the magic tree to make up for the fact that she wasn’t allowed to leave, so the least anypony could do was make her home awesome.

Inside, the walls were lined with bookshelves. Twilight had always loved reading, but her friends rarely left her alone long enough to really get into it. It was like they thought that because the action wasn’t visually interesting, that must mean that Twilight was bored. So Twilight had invented a super coffee that would let her function on only half normal sleep time, so that she could get lots of reading done at night.

Twilight ran her hoof along the thick volumes as she passed. By the stairs to her room, there was a small table with a vase of flowers and a picture of her and her friends. They’d taken it on the day when they got their magical jewelry. They were on the steps of Twilight’s castle; they’d tried to do a pyramid pose and had all fallen into a pile, and were laughing. Applejack- still the real Applejack- had a hoof around Twilight’s neck.
The walls of the palace were spattered in green blood. There’d been a glitch with their necklaces and Twilight had had to resort to smacking the bug beast to death with her magical necklace manual. It had been her first real kill- before they’d just had to shoo changelings away.

It had been so long since Twilight had accepted that changelings were evil and deserved to die. She no longer remembered if she’d felt anything when she’d killed the changeling. Any remorse? She only recalled finding all the goopy blood disgusting, on purely sanitary grounds.

Twilight climbed the stairs to her bedroom, with bookshelves filled with more books, and a desk where she’d written letters to her many friends that had returned to the mainland. A small bed on the floor had been empty for years, ever since Spike’s sudden growth spurt. He’d been such a sweet little thing who’d always wanted to hear bedtime stories… Twilight felt teary thinking about it. She knew it wasn’t fair of her to feel bitter about Spike growing up, but why had it happened overnight? And why did he have to be so thoroughly…

Nasty. She’d admit it to herself. Grown-up Spike was nasty and cruel and a jerk. She didn’t like to call him that, since he’d been such an adorable obliging child, and she’d loved him so much. But it was almost like he was a different dragon…

Twilight’s bed felt so deliciously soft after what a long day it had been. Lavender canopy curtains gently closed around her.

Probably less than twenty-four hours from now, everything would have changed. She’d never come to this house again; she’d have lost all her friends, and she’d be fighting for her life against a monstrous queen that destroyed her own people. Even her body wouldn’t be the same.

But could you lose something you’d never really had in the first place?

Yes. Of course you could. She was losing everything.

Twilight cried herself to sleep.

***
Twilight knew she didn’t need an excuse to visit Pinkie Pie’s house without being suspicious. Pinkie Pie was just all around sweet and loving, and most of all, loved spontaneity. She was just a bundle of upbeat positivity and always a joy to be around.

She was also a huge packrat. Her house was filled and decorated with all kinds of whimsical, colorful, random stuff. Broken balloons became wall art; confetti in bags became bean bags. Broken tricycles and mixers and failed experiments in aeronautics were pressed into service for wacky cake-making or streamer-throwing machines. Everything was organized according to Pinkie’s own mad filing system. Pinkie Pie also loved secrets and hidden compartments, many of which seemed to defy spatial laws.

So Twilight would have virtually no chance of finding Pinkie’s rubber chicken by herself.

Getting Pinkie to bring it out wouldn’t be hard at all. She used it as a visual aid whenever anypony asked her about Cheese Sandwich.

All Twilight had to do was get Pinkie Pie to talk about a dear friend that they both missed very much, and that neither of them would probably ever see again.

And then steal the only memento Pinkie Pie had left from him.

Twilight hesitated a few yards from Pinkie Pie’s house. She pretended she was watching a butterfly, but her eyes were focussed on nothing.

What was she even doing?

No. It was much too late to question herself like this. Why would Starlight be lying to her anyway? Except for being a changeling minion of course…

Starlight had to be right. And then… and then when Twilight left, she could make it up to Pinkie Pie by finding the real Cheese Sandwich and reuniting them! Everything would be perfect. She had nothing to lose.

Unless of course Cheese Sandwich was already dead. Twilight swallowed and forced herself to forget that possibility.

Twilight trotted up to Pinkie’s door, heart in her mouth, and knocked once. Before she could knock the second time, the door swung open.
“Twilie!” Shining Armor said. “It’s so great to see you!”

Twilight stiffened up as her big brother threw his forelegs around her. “BBBFF? What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the lighthouse?”

Shining Armor released Twilight and beckoned for her to come inside. “I wanted to know how Pinkie Pie was doing, but she seems to be out, so I was just waiting for her. Now we can wait together and talk about some things.”

“Wh-what do you mean?” Twilight asked, following her brother inside.

Shining Armor sat down on Pinkie’s candy-patterned couch and shrugged. “I don’t know. What would you like to tell me?”

Twilight sat next to him, facing him. “What do you mean?”

“Twilie.” Shining Armor looked dead serious. “I don’t want to make this harder than it has to be. I’m… a little hurt that you’re acting like this, and I’m trying to understand it.”

“Acting like what?” Twilight asked, probably overdoing her shocked expression. “What do you mean?”

“You can stop saying ‘what do you mean’ over and over; you and I both know what’s wrong,” Shining Armor said. “I need you to be honest with me, because it’s the only way I can help you.”

Twilight swallowed. How much did he know? What would he do if she was honest? 

“How did you find out?” she asked, looking deflated.

“I was watching you from the lighthouse when Rainbow Dash’s medal was stolen,” Shining Armor said. “Twilight, why would you do such a thing?”

Twilight let tears overflow from her eyes and sobbed freely, but inwardly her mind was whirling. So he didn’t know about Starlight. There was a chance to salvage this, if she could just come up with some kind of excuse…

“I… I just wanted some more palm leaves… I didn’t know that that was Rainbow’s medal case… I was just so upset I broke it that I just did the first thing that came to mind and feigned innocence… and now Rainbow’s medal is missing and I just have no idea where!” She rested her head on Shining Armor’s shoulder. “How can I tell her? It meant so much to her…”

“Twilight.” Shining Armor pulled her into a hug. It sounded like his voice was cracking. “You know I love you. You know you mean the world to me. Ever since you were little, you were the most precious thing in my life. I would do anything to protect you.” He slowly inhaled, then exhaled. “Please. Stop. Lying.”

Twilight tensed up.

“Why would you deliberately steal Rainbow’s medal?” Shining Armor said. “It has nothing but sentimental value to her. How could you do something so… so cold? It’s not like you, Twilie.”

“I… I’m scared to tell you,” Twilight said.

“Please don’t be. You know I love you. Don’t you?” Shining asked.

“But what if Applejack was right and everything is a lie?” Twilight muttered bitterly.

“Please… please don’t doubt me like that,” Shining Armor said. “I guess I can’t take my love out and show it to you so you can measure it with a ruler. But Twilight, we’ve been together since you were little. Hasn’t… hasn’t everything we’ve been through...” He choked, then sobbed. “I… I only want you to be h-happy…”

His legs were shaking has he held Twilight. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried.

Twilight felt her resolve melting. “Are you okay?”

Shining Armor inhaled shakily. “I’m sorry. I just get scared too sometimes… scared that someday someone will try to take you away from the island. You know how important it is that you stay here; I don’t want you to live with that kind of guilt.”

He also was in on keeping Twilight on the island. His love had been audible, tangible. But he still wouldn’t let her leave.

“What will really happen if I leave?” Twilight asked. “It can’t just be that Butterfly Island will become gray and boring. You sound too serious for that.”

Shining Armor gave Twilight one more tight hug. “If I tell you the truth, will you tell me the truth?”

“Of course,” Twilight said.

Shining Armor released Twilight and let her sit back against the couch, so they could make eye contact during the story. “Butterfly Island is on top of an active volcano. The island is actually pony-made. We wanted a paradise to retreat to, an escape from the grey wasteland. But the spell we used awakened the volcano more than was anticipated. A second spell was cast to keep it under control, but a keystone was needed.” He looked at Twilight with shame in his eyes. “I was desperate to correct my mistake… but… but the keystone needed to be someone young. I didn’t have the willpower to keep them from using you, not after I’d nearly brought about our destruction.”

“Destruction? Huh?” Twilight said. “Wouldn’t you only lose the island? Couldn’t you evacuate everypony?”

“It’s not just the island. If the volcano blew up, ash and smoke would cover the sun for decades. You could imagine how ponykind would suffer from eternal night…” He stared at Twilight thoughtfully. “It… it would take too long to explain. It would be bad… very bad. Like losing all your friends.”

They’d all die, Twilight intuited. He didn’t know she knew about death now.

“There,” Shining Armor said. “Now you can tell me why you stole that medal.”

Twilight stared down at her hooves and sighed. “Applejack.... That time when she went crazy started to get to me, and I started thinking maybe I needed to get off the island and find answers for myself. So I found a ritual in a book that was supposed to give me wings, and I’ve been collecting components for it in a secret underwater cave.”

Shining Armor stared at his forehooves. “And now?”

“Now that I understand… I’m certainly not going to endanger all my friends,” Twilight said. “I’ll go fetch the medal right away. I’m sorry I was so deceptive…”

“Don’t apologize to me; you can apologize to Rainbow later.” Shining Armor reached out and stroked Twilight’s mane. “I’m sorry too. So very sorry.”

Twilight stood up and walked out the door into the sunshine again.

Shining Armor’s story wasn’t internally inconsistent that Twilight could see, but she wasn’t satisfied. That didn’t explain why her friends kept leaving like Starlight had, and it didn’t explain changelings. Most importantly, it didn’t explain why he hadn’t told Twilight this in the first place.

Her brother had lied to her again, under the pretext of telling her the truth.

Was he even her brother at all?
> Wings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You told him what!?”

“That I’d get the medal and come back.”

“Twilight, how could you!?”

Starlight Glimmer paced frantically around the cave, looking ready to bite her own tail off in frustration. “All my work and planning to get this far, and you have to go and give up like this…”

“What was I supposed to say!? He had me cornered!” Twilight said. “Can’t you just cast the spell now?”

“No, it wasn’t- it doesn’t- give me a minute!” Starlight Glimmer yanked a book off her worktable and flipped through it. She glared hard at one of the pages.

Then after a moment, she slammed the book shut with a huff. “Okay. Here’s what I can do for you. I can cast most of the spell and give you wings, but they won’t function until I cast the final part. For which I need that rubber chicken.”

“But then I can give the medal back?” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Yes, you can give the stupid medal back,” Starlight Glimmer said. “I wouldn’t be needing to do this if you weren’t such an idiot, you know.”

“Stop yelling at me!” Twilight said. “I’m trying my best. Do you think I want ponies to suffer? Do you think it’s easy betraying everypony like this?”

Starlight Glimmer sighed. “Let’s just get this over with… please stand in the star.”

Twilight cautiously stepped into the center pentagon. “Is there anything you want me to do?”

“No. Just stand very still. And if your sides start itching try to resist touching them.” Starlight Glimmer set the book down and levitated the five stolen items into the air, setting one on each point of the star. “You might want to close your eyes.”

Twilight did. A moment later she felt her body heat climb and her skin tingle. Her sides felt like they were contracting. And then the predicted itching began. It felt like ants were wriggling around in her sides. Then it felt like the ants were biting her, gnawing their way out.  

Twilight screamed. Pain spread through her skin. She was on fire. She couldn’t feel anything anymore, not the ground beneath her, not the cool air of the cave. She couldn’t hear Starlight over her own screams. Time itself seemed to be frozen in this horrific state.

Then the itching feeling gradually subsided. Twilight could feel the tears running down her cheeks, hear the pounding of her heart. She gasped for breath.

“I’m so sorry!” Starlight said. “I had no idea… my book didn’t say it would hurt that much!”

Twilight couldn’t reply, only sob, for another minute. Slowly, she tested her limbs. Her front legs were fine, her back legs were fine… what were these strange wriggling things at her sides!?

Twilight jolted upward and whipped her head around, staring at the fluffy purple wings that were suddenly attached to her. Tentatively, she flexed the extra side muscles she’d acquired and watched them slightly unfold, then cling back to her sides.

“It’s s-so real…” she whispered. She’d thought this would be a happy moment somehow. Instead she just found it creepy.

“Again, they won’t do anything without the last step,” Starlight said. “Don’t mess with them too much; you might hurt them.”

“How do I hide these!?” Twilight asked, alarmed. “Shining might be waiting for me right outside the pool!”

“You told him where I was hiding!?” Starlight asked.

“And that I was planning on giving myself wings,” Twilight said miserably. “So if I show back up with a cape over them he’ll know what’s up. Do you have a spell to make wings invisible?”

“I only have one to make ponies invisible,” Starlight Glimmer said, frantically flipping pages. “Why didn’t you think of this before I started?”

“We just have so little options as it is,” Twilight said.

“Yes, because you choked and told your precious non-brother the whole plan,” Starlight said.

Twilight was going to yell at her again, but then Starlight pressed her face against the pages and started to sob.

“I… I was so close… to saving them… saving you…” she sobbed.

Twilight hugged Starlight gently. “Look, don’t give up. We can figure this out. We can defeat Celestia.”

Starlight lifted her face from her book and sniffed. “I just don’t know what to do…”

“What about an, um, amputation spell?” Twilight asked. “Or a spell to make my wings look like something else?”

“Like something… Twilight, you might be onto something.” Starlight flipped through her book again. “Illusions… illusions… okay, I think I can do something. But if you move your wings the effect will be shattered. I should have used that first…”

“It’s okay,” Twilight says. “No one’s perfect. Let’s do this.”

***
Twilight trotted over to Rainbow Dash, hanging her head. The medal bobbed in the air a few inches in front of her, suspended in her telekinetic grip.

Shining Armor had arranged her five friends in a circle of shame on the Party Playset. He’d insisted that all of them needed to hear what Twilight had done.

Fluttershy looked upset; Pinkie Pie and Rarity looked worried. Applejack and Rainbow Dash both looked angry.

Rainbow Dash’s death glare didn’t subside.

“Rainbow,” Shining Armor hissed.

“I can’t believe you could do this-” Rainbow Dash snarled.

“Rainbow!” Shining Armor shouted.

“It’s okay!” Pinkie Pie leapt over to hug Twilight. “We know you’ve felt alone.”

“No, it’s not okay!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “I thought you were our friend!”
“We’re not here to yell at her, dearie!” Rarity said. “What’s done is done. Please. We’re here to offer forgiveness.”

Fluttershy nodded. Tears streamed down her soft yellow cheeks.

“I… I made a mistake…” Twilight said over Pinkie Pie’s shoulder. “We’ve all made mistakes before, haven’t we? But friends can forgive friends… can’t they….?”

Rainbow Dash pulled her lips back into a snarl.

“Why were ya keeping secrets from us!?” Applejack demanded.

“Both of you, cut it out,” Shining Armor said. “Twilight… didn’t have enough information to make an informed decision. Now she understands, and we can all go back to normal.” He spoke with grim authority, but then he whispered, “Please,” in a near-desperate tone.

Rainbow huffed. “Just…. Don’t ever mess with my stuff again. My treeclouds are special to me and those trophies are everything.”

“Not more important than our friendship,” Pinkie Pie said, tightening her hug.

Twilight gratefully hugged Pinkie Pie back…. And then heard something crack.

And everypony gasp.

“Twilight!?” Shining Armor shouted.

“Are those… wings?” Rarity cried.

Twilight pushed Pinkie Pie away and whirled around in shock. The hug had broken the illusion; her fledgling wings were fully visible again.

“Twilight! You promised!” Shining Armor shouted.

“What the hay did you do to yourself, Twi?” Applejack asked.

“I-I don’t know how those got there!” Twilight shouted, tears streaming down her cheeks. Maybe she was panicking enough to be convincing. “I swear-”

“Why won’t you stop lying!?” Shining Armor stomped his hoof into the ground, stunning everypony into silence. “I told you the truth! You promised you’d be honest in return!”

“Oh, that was the truth, was it?” Twilight Sparkle turned to the other girls. “Girls, I want you to admit to me why I really can’t leave the island. See if it matches Shining’s story.”

Fluttershy and Applejack looked panicked. Pinkie Pie looked on the verge of tears.

“No, stop it! The project was top secret!” Shining said. “That doesn’t prove anything!”

“Mmm-hmm, sure. But then what’s the real reason behind why ponies have to keep leaving the island?” Twilight asked.

“Stop changing the subject! This isn’t about what I told you; it’s about what you told me,” Shining Armor said.

“Why? Why am I the one getting picked on when you’re also a liar?” Twilight shouted.

“That’s not true!” Shining said.

“Did you ever love me?” Twilight asked. “Am I even your sister?”

The question seemed to truly cut Shining to the quick. His face contorted in pain. “Twilight…. You’re my everything!”

“Liar,” Twilight spat out. “Nothing but lies, lies, lies.”

“Stop it!” Shining looked near tears. “It’s all for you! Everything I’ve ever done is all for you!”

“You have a warped way of showing love,” Twilight said. “I’ll see you and call your bluff!”

And then she turned and fled.


“No, stop!” Shining shouted. “Rainbow!”

“I’m on it!” Rainbow shouted.

Twilight made it to a small sand dune, then whirled around to face her attacker. Reflexively, she fired off a random laser shot.

The blue pegasus cried out and crashed to the ground at Twilight’s hooves. She gave Twilight a hurt expression.

Twilight had no time to apologize. She turned and continued her mad dash away.

She had to get back to Starlight Glimmer. The two of them had to be able to stop this-

A sharp gemstone hit her in the side. Twilight screamed in pain and turned to see her other friends coming after her.

“Why are you hurting me!?” she shouted.

Rarity, who’d been preparing more gems to throw, suddenly stopped and looked horrified.

Fluttershy kept going, her eyes filled with tears as she flew towards Twilight. “Please! Stop!”

Twilight fired another laser, this time letting it just hit the ground in front of Fluttershy, making the shy pegasus screech and flap backwards.

“Leave me alone!” Twilight shouted at them. “All of you are liars!” She stumbled backward, keeping more spells at the ready. Why wasn’t Shining Armor pursuing? Why was he letting the grunts do all the work?

Then one of her hooves scraped into thin air. Twilight whirled around; somehow she’d approached a cliff unaware. Rarity, Applejack, and a recovered Rainbow were closing in on her.

The cliff was only a dozen feet high and the water below didn’t look too rocky; she had to take a chance; she had to escape…

Twilight didn’t let herself think. She leapt off the edge, hooves first, wings flapping. Maybe they could slow her descent if nothing else--

With one single flap, she was already higher than her original jumping off point. Flapping harder, she soared forward almost effortlessly. It was so surreal that Twilight burst out into gleeful giggles.

She was dancing on air! The sky felt like a trampoline beneath her wings. She flapped further out into the dark sea surrounding Butterfly Island.

“Twilight, no!” Pinkie Pie shouted somewhere behind her.

“You can’t leave!” said Rarity. “Not like this!”

“Rainbow!” Pinkie Pie pleaded.

Twilight spun gracefully around in midair. Time to test how powerful she really was.
With a burst of magical energy, Twilight conjured a jet of water to blast Rainbow Dash back to the shore and then freeze her in a block of ice. Her friends gaped at her in horror, but Twilight felt like laughing.

Then another pony flew out from behind her friends.

It was Shining Armor. Now with his own set of white wings.
> The Escape
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shining Armor flew up to the same level as Twilight. His expression was hard but not furious. “Well, Twilight?”

“H-how did you…?” Twilight asked.

“Because this is actually a really easy spell, Twilight. No fuss, no muss, wings in fifteen minutes, fully functional. Any book would have told you that. Whoever told you that you needed objects from your friends was nothing but a liar.”

“No, that can’t be!” Twilight said. Starlight had just been tricking her? She made Twilight go through all this trouble for… nothing?

But it was true that Twilight was now in the air, flying freely, in defiance of what Starlight had told her.

“Please… please don’t go through with this, Twilight!” Shining Armor said. “Come back! We can pretend this never happened! I forgive you! I love you!”

Pretend this never happened….?

Pretend she had never wanted to leave? Pretend that she hadn’t noticed anything off with Applejack? Pretend to buy everything about how nopony could stay on the island for more than a year?

Twilight faltered. Shining Armor pressed on.

“There’s nothing out there, Twilight. If you leave… I can’t tell you about it, but you won’t like it. Please. Trust me. I love you! We all love you! Don’t do this to yourself! To us!”

Starlight had lied from beginning to end. There was no reason to throw everything away on the words of a… madmare.

But to go back home and live in a glossy fake paradise again? Now, when she was closer than she’d ever be to leaving?

“Don’t you get it, Shining? It’s much too late now,” Twilight said. “I know better now. I know that it was nothing but a lie. You’re asking me… to try and act like I don’t know that? You really think that’s going to work?”

“It has to work!” Shining Armor said. “You can’t leave! You have no idea-” He caught himself.

“Shining… Maybe… maybe you really do love me and this wasn’t all an act,” Twilight said. “Thank you for protecting me for so long… but now… now I’m ready to face whatever’s outside. I don’t need to be sheltered anymore.” She turned to leave.

“No, no you’re not ready! You don’t understand!” Shining’s forelegs suddenly wrapped around Twilight’s neck.

“Shining, wh-”

“I’d rather see you DEAD than let you witness what’s outside!” he screamed in her ear.

Twilight screamed and flailed as her wings were pinned against her back. She didn’t have enough upward thrust to stay aloft. Then, she felt Shining Armor grow heavier and the two of them plummeted. Panicking, Twilight imagined casting a laser spell… but one that surrounded her body. Shining Armor gasped in pain and reflexively loosened his grip for just a second, but it was all Twilight needed. She kicked behind her with her back legs and forced one wing free, then wriggled with it until her other wing got free also.

Shining Armor redoubled his grip on Twilight’s rib cage, making her cry out in pain. Then he bit her shoulder.

“Sh-shining, why?” Twilight wailed, trying the same electrified body trick again. But this time Shining Armor only grunted a little.

“It’s mercy!” he shouted, his voice cracking.

Twilight Sparkle flapped her wings, climbing higher and higher into the sky. As hard as she wriggled she couldn’t get free.

Shining Armor put a shield spell around her head. In only a few breaths she’d be out of oxygen. Twilight kicked behind her but knew her blows were pathetic. The night sky seemed to be getting lighter.

“I’m sorry,” Shining Armor whispered to her. “I failed you… I n-never wanted to have to do this.”

Twilight’s wings kept flapping but her vision was fading. Her path grew shaky and all she could see was white, brilliant light.

“I promised… to keep you safe…” Shining Armor was sobbing. “To never let you see-”

And then they crashed into the moon.

Shards of glass streamed around them as the white light of the moon consumed them, blinding Twilight and making Shining Armor scream in surprise. Twilight hit some kind of guardrail and her wings gave up; she crashed to some kind of nearby, cold, metal floor and felt the bubble around her head smash. She gasped for air. Between her swirling vision and the bright light, she couldn’t see anything, but she heard voices.

“No, what are you doing here!?” Shining Armor shouted.

“What do you think?” Starlight responded. “This is for Sunburst. It always was.”

Twilight tried to sit up. The spots in front of her eyes faded and she saw the two unicorns facing off.

“Wh-who is Sunburst?” Twilight asked.

“Your goal is exactly the same as mine and I’ve already completed most of my plan,” Starlight Glimmer told Shining Armor.

“You monster! All this was your fault? How could you!?” Shining Armor’s horn surged with energy.

“You and I both know Twilight is the REAL monster here!” Starlight said, preparing a shield spell.

“LIAR!” Shining Armor blasted Starlight’s shield to pieces.

“What are you doing!?” Twilight scrambled to her hooves and ran closer to the battle. What were they saying? Who should she be helping? The pony who’d tried to kill her a few seconds ago, or the pony who sounded like she wanted to try to kill her?

No, what was wrong with her? She should be running!
> Starlight's Story
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight dodged stray lasers from the combatants and ran around the edge of the room. The inside of the moon was like nothing she’d ever seen before. The floors were shiny and slick; the walls were curved like a sphere. One wall was a giant window crisscrossed by metal beams in a geodesic dome pattern.

The rest of the room was filled with strange things Twilight had never seen before. Desks filled with glowing boxes with moving pictures on them. Bins of butterflies that looked frozen. Huge metal cubes with blinking lights and spinning wheels behind glass.

Then she found a back door, with a strange green light shining through it. In the light she saw the shadow of a hole-filled leg.

Twilight gasped and approached the door, peering in cautiously from the side.

Behind the door was a cave… no, more like a hallway made of metal. Glowing green globs the size of her head were stuck to the wall at random heights and regular intervals that provided light. At the end of the hallway was a ladder.

Behind her, Shining Armor cried out in pain. Once, twice, then a third time was more like a muffled gurgle.

“And now for- Twilight!?” Starlight Glimmer roared in annoyance.

No time to hesitate; the unknown seemed safer now. Twilight raced for the ladder. The tunnel made her claustrophobic, and the ladder felt awkward, but she slid her back hooves into the hole and flailed them a bit until she found her footing. Then she carefully lowered the rest of her body down and tried to take a step down to the next rung, but instead she lost her balance and couldn’t hold herself up with her forehooves. She free fell a few feet before thinking to slow her fall with her wings; as non-life threatening as that had been, her heart was still racing.

“Twilight! Don’t think you can hide from me, you pathetic little filly!” Starlight shouted.

Twilight landed on the strange metal floor with an audible clank that made her wince. She turned away from the ladder and surveyed the new room.

It had strange machines similar to the ones used in the room above. There were large pictures all over the walls of various places in Butterfly Island; her house, the portal room, the dance floor-

No wait, they weren’t pictures. They were moving. These were some kind of magic mirrors… or something.

Ponies were darting back and forth across the mirrors; others were huddling and hugging each other. The two Cutie Mark Crusaders and a hoofful of other children were at the water park playset, swimming; they looked like they were trying not to think about something horrible so they could have a good time.

After searching all the magic mirrors, Twilight finally found her friends. They were at Fluttershy’s house. Fluttershy was tearfully bandaging up Rainbow’s wing; Rarity was walking around in a hysterical tizzy; Pinkie Pie was hugging her rubber chicken and crying; Applejack just looked morose. 

“Smile for the cameras,” Starlight said.

Twilight had somehow completely forgotten her life might be in danger. She whirled around just in time to get blasted with ice right in her face. The cold spread down her entire body and no matter how much she struggled, none of her limbs responded. She toppled to the ground with a loud clatter and watched Starlight’s pink hooves cross the floor.

“Glad you could make it, Twilight. So now, I guess you know the real truth.”

“Y-you just wanted to kill me!?” Twilight shrieked.

“No, no, the larger picture. Come on you moron. Why do you think all of this was in the moon?”

“I don’t know!”

Teal energy surrounded Twilight and she was lifted upright again to see Starlight’s annoyed expression. “Please at least make a token attempt.”

“What does it matter to you? You’re going to kill me anyway!” Twilight said.

“Twilight, if that’s all I wanted, why would I put so much effort into this…? Because believe me, while tricking you is incredibly easy, it’s incredibly painful to try and get you to notice the obvious…”

Twilight didn’t answer. She felt tears run down her cheeks; her throat was too tight for speech.

“But why should I be surprised? You always were stupid and naive and only did exactly what you were told to do.” Starlight glared at Twilight. “And when you met ponies who looked a little like bugs and were told you should kill them without mercy, you went above and beyond, didn’t you?”

Twilight sobbed. She should have known. She was so foolish. Why was it not until she saw the swarm at Sweet Apple Acres that it occurred to her that maybe changelings were just like ponies?

“But of course, you had all your little friends to support you and tell you that what you were doing was right. How does it feel to know that you hurt all of them for no reason?” Starlight tightened her telekinetic grip around Twilight’s jaw, making her squeak in pain. “The only ponies who ever cared for you, and you betrayed most of them, would have betrayed Pinkie Pie if you had the chance, and you delivered Shining Armor over to his death.”

Twilight had no answers. Her heart was broken. She’d had everything and she threw it away on the word of a pink pony she never should have trusted.

“I had a friend, once. Sunburst was a huge fan of yours, you know. He watched you every spare minute he got.”

“W-what!?” Twilight said. She’d had a stalker…?

“He thought you were such a bright and shining spirit. He would have done anything to be on the show. Then he finally had the chance when the changeling invasion began.”

“Oh no, no, no, please…” Twilight said.

“Oh yes, yes, yes,” Starlight Glimmer said. “You do remember, don’t you!? Your magical sparkly weapons that would have teleported him safely off the island, giving you the illusion of victory, suddenly malfunctioned on you, didn’t they? And what did you do, you sick, twisted monster!?”

“Y-your friend… was that changeling?” Twilight was shaking as she remembered the feel of the heavy book in her forelegs as she bashed the head of the strange bug pony over and over and over…

Starlight was right. She was a monster.


Twilight wept bitterly. For a minute, that was it. Starlight said nothing and Twilight’s vision was too blurred to see what reaction she had, if any.

Then Twilight stammered, “Why didn’t you just kill me from the start?”

“I thought…It wasn’t enough to just repay bloodshed with bloodshed. I wanted you to understand why you deserved to die. I didn’t want you to be ignorant.” Starlight’s tone was weird. She was a lot less angry now. “I tricked you into betraying your friends, because I thought only that would hammer home to you what a horrible pony you are.”

Twilight was starting to feel numb from so much crying. “Stop beating a dead horse. My life is already over.”

Through her blurry vision, Starlight came into focus. She didn’t look angry anymore. She looked… deep in thought. 

“Starlight, no!” Shining Armor shouted.

Starlight cried out in anger and Twilight in shock as they both turned back to the ladder they’d come down.

Shining Armor had a cut in his neck with blood gushing down; he was practically holding his own limbs together in a pink blob of magic. A sputtering shield spell floated in front of him, just large enough to cover the more vital areas.

“Please, no! Twilight was just doing what she was told!” Shining Armor begged. “If anypony deserves your rage, isn’t it the Queen!?”

“The queen?” Twilight asked. What was a queen?

“How d-dare you speak badly of her!?” Starlight Glimmer demanded, firing a turquoise bolt at Shining.

Shining Armor managed to maneuver the shield to intercept it, but he still cried out in pain as the shield flickered.

“No, please!” Twilight ran to stand between them. “I’m the only pony who should die!”

“Please don’t say that!” Shining Armor said.

“You were trying to kill her yourself just ten minutes ago! Ponies are so emotional!” Starlight Glimmer rolled her eyes.

“It wasn’t Twilight who decided to kill changelings on the air for entertainment! It wasn’t even my idea! The Queen wanted to punish limp-wristed and nonconformist changelings.”

“Lies!” Starlight Glimmer glared at Shining. “Sunburst wasn’t harming anypony! Everypony said his special effects were the best!”

“I killed him on the ground…” Twilight muttered, confused.

“Your Queen cares about nothing except herself and she’s as entertained by the death of her disobedient children as our viewers!” Shining Armor shouted.

“LIAR!” Starlight Glimmer roared, turquoise flames bursting from her skin and hiding her. When they burned away, a changeling stood in her place.

Of all the recent twists, this was the least surprising to Twilight.

“Twilight killed Sunburst and it is Twilight who will die!” the changeling shrieked, in the same buzzy voice as the changeling on Applejack’s farm. “If the Queen meant to punish him, why would she have given Twilight teleportation necklaces?”

“And by the same token, do you really think they just malfunctioned by accident? Because if they did, wouldn’t that mean Sunburst died because he built a trinket stupidly?” Shining asked.

Then Twilight heard a faint voice buzzing in her brain. It was Shining Armor’s voice. “I’m distracting her, Twilight! Run, please, run!”

As Twilight tried to subtly pull away, she heard one last tiny whisper in her mind. “I love you, Twilie.”

Twilight turned away from the combatants only to be faced with a wall of green flame. Her screams attracted Starlight and Shining’s attention.

The flames flickered and faded, revealing the largest changeling Twilight had ever seen. She had large, blue-green eyes with real irises unlike the small blue lights the smaller bugs had. She had a mane and a tail too, made of shiny blue fibers that didn’t look like real hair. She had a much longer horn and a tiny crown on top.

“Your highness!” Starlight gasped, horrified. “I-I didn’t… I know you didn’t want me to ruin the show!”

“Whatever,” the giant changeling said in an echoing voice. “What’s done is done. It’s over.”

“No, Queen Chrysalis, please!” Shining Armor threw himself at the giant bug’s hole-ridden hooves. “She’s ignorant! We can make it work! Everypony still loves Twilight!”

The queen smacked Shining Armor in the head. “Shut up you fool. Your denial is pathetic.”

“What are they talking about?” Twilight cried. “Who are you?”

“I’m going to explain everything to you and we can settle this once and for all,” Queen Chrysalis said, with a wicked looking smirk.
> Free at Last
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Twilight, you dear, stupid beast,” Queen Chrysalis said, putting one hoof under Twilight’s chin. “Come, walk with me.”

“Are you going to kill me too?” Twilight whimpered.

“Not interested.”

“Are you… are you the good one?” Twilight asked. Not that she expected an honest answer.

“Such a meaningless word outside of your tiny island, where every conflict is carefully planned out for you.” Queen Chrysalis smiled. “Here we have only the strong and the weak. And I am so powerful that none can compare to me. That said, I will be the first creature you’ve ever met who will be completely, utterly honest with you, for I no longer have any reason to keep you in the dark now that your ignorance merely annoys me.” She flicked her head to glare at the two other ponies in the room. “I’ll deal with you both later.”

Starlight and Shining Armor both burst into green flames. Starlight shouted the Queen’s name while Shining called out to Twilight.

“Are you going to kill them?” Twilight whimpered.

“Probably not. Shining Armor’s love for you is still pure and delicious.” She turned to Twilight with a hungry looking smile. “Did you know changelings feed on love?”

“Really?” Twilight said, blinking. “Then why don’t you look… um… happier?”

“Fluke of nature,” the queen said, shrugging. She started walking into a small closet at the back of the room. “Let me show you something, Twilight.”

Twilight hesitated, then stepped into the small room with the queen. She only had one life to lose, and she no longer felt sure there was a cause worth dying for.

The floor began to move, making Twilight gasp.

“I thought we included an elevator in the tree house playset,” Queen Chrysalis mused.

“That was a large bucket on a pulley. Is… is that just what this is?” Twilight asked.

“I’m not here to educate you about elevators. Let me see, I was explaining that we need love to survive. But as you’ve noticed, we weren’t blessed with a natural form conducive to love. That’s why we adapted to be masters of disguise; so we could pose as loved ones and feed.”

“That’s horrible!” Twilight said.

“Oh, yes, Twilight, it was horrible, but not for the reasons you think. We were nothing but scattered scavengers, sipping a little love here, a little love there, always scraping and hiding and afraid for our lives. Well, then I came along. And I changed all that.”

The floor stopped moving and the doors opened again. This time they were on some kind of rooftop.

The sky was rust-red and cloudy; the ground was empty, sandy clay. As far as Twilight could see, the only thing resembling plant life was strange black towers, somewhat tree-like. The trunks of the trees were covered in strange green blobs; the tops of the trees were structures made from perfect cube. Some trees had many small cubes; others one large one. Others had a single structure made from a few connected cubes of different sizes.

“This is all,” Queen Chrysalis said. “We’ve scouted far and wide, and every life form we found is now contained in structures, like these. My drones live slumberous lives of opulence in their homes above.” She gestured to the cubes.

“What… what do you do to them?” Twilight whimpered.

“You can fly, can’t you? Come take a look.” The queen’s wings buzzed as she gently left the balcony.

Twilight followed her strange guide. Even the air felt dead and lifeless, the only breeze coming from the queen’s wings. The surealness of how easy flight was and the nightmarishness of the landscape made the entire experience feel like a dream. Like soon she’d wake up home on her beautiful island.

As the strange tree-like structures drew closer, Twilight could see that each green orb had something inside them.

No, not something. Somepony.

Thousands of ponies, curled up fetally in individual glowing green capsules. Stallions, mares, elders and foals. All were faded, like ponies when they first arrived on Butterfly Island. The younger ones were without cutie marks, without exception. Some looked asleep; others were staring at the wall of their prison with a vacant expression.

“How long do they stay here?” Twilight asked.

“More or less forever,” Queen Chrysalis said. “If they look bored to you, that’s because these pods drain their emotions every few minutes. Not enough time to develop true horror or fear at their condition.”

“How do they live?”

“I hardly think you’re genuinely interested in the gory details but no, I don’t deliberately destroy my food when they reach an arbitrary age or starve them to death.”

“But living in a small sphere for your whole life?” Twilight said, her heart beating a little faster at the horror of it.

“You lived in a large sphere for your whole life; what’s the difference?” Queen Chrysalis said, gesturing back the way they’d come.

Twilight turned around. A giant hemisphere of dully grey metal was behind them, stretching as far as Twilight could see. She could see the balcony they’d come from, and a few other doors at occasional intervals.

“All of Butterfly Island was built inside that dome,” Queen Chrysalis said.

“Built?” Twilight said.

“Yes; it gave my drones something to do for years. Finding sand, scrounging for lost seeds from plants we’d driven extinct, etcetera etcetera… They didn’t complain at the massive task, bizzarely enough.”

“But why? Why did you build such an amazingly better house just for me….?” Twilight asked.

“Silly Twilight. You were chosen completely at random; just another foal born in captivity, pulled away from the lunchline by a toss of the dice.”

“But…” Twilight whimpered.

“But that still doesn’t explain why we did it at all, does it?” Queen Chrysalis sighed and gestured to one of the ponies. He seemed to be staring intently at a shiny painting on the side of his pod. No, on second glance, the picture was moving.

“As I mentioned, changelings feed on love. We don’t feed on boredom; we don’t feed on insanity. Love. It has to be love. But I’m not about to let our prey roam about freely until they feel happy. So instead we invented the mirror network; magic mirrors that all show the same image streamed into them. At first we had musicians play happy music; then, when that started to lose its charm, we had magic shows. But one of my changelings theorized that what would make the love and happiness of our prey explode would be if they could see just one pony living a normal, happy life, just like each of them used to have or could have had.”

“That’s me,” Twilight breathed. “You mean me.”

“We added other ponies, of course. We had contests where prey ponies who met certain quotas might be rewarded with a small toy based on the show. A tiny pony, a playset, etcetera etcetera. The absolute winners might get a chance to visit your island.”

“I… I had no idea…” Twilight said.

“But there was a catch. You would only make them happy if you were happy, and you could only be happy if you had no idea what misery lay outside.”

“So… so now that I know….?” Twilight’s eyes widened.

“Yes. The show is over.” 

Queen Chrysalis shot herself up in the air before Twilight could respond and hovered high over the strange tree-buildings. Her horn glowed with magic, but she was too far away now for Twilight to see what spell it was. When the queen spoke, her voice was magically amplified.

“Changelings! The Twilight Show is finally over! Initiate shutdown protocol!”’

“No, wait!” Twilight shouted, but her voice sounded so small.

Hundreds of bug ponies streamed from their tree homes, forming a swarm that blotted out the meager brightness of the sky. The hoard of monsters dove as one onto the building that contained Twilight’s home. The metal curved walls peeled open to reveal a sky-colored interior, and beneath was Butterfly Island, looking grim under the new light of the outside world.

The screaming started almost immediately. Each bug came away with a squirming pony. Bon Bon and Lyra, screaming that they’d done everything right. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, silent with fear. Rarity, contorting herself in her efforts to escape. Fluttershy, weeping profusely. Pinkie Pie, shaking and muttering to herself.

Rainbow Dash tried to outfly the swarm, tried to fight back, but there were just too many of them. The only one missing was Applejack. Twilight saw an orange changeling join the swarm and slowly fade to black.

“No, what are you doing!?” Twilight wailed, launching herself at Queen Chrysalis. Before she got very far, two changelings flew between her in the queen. Twilight tried to let gravity carry her away from her attackers, but they seized her forelegs tightly. Twilight squirmed, casting the spell to electrify her body again.

If it had any effect on her captors, they didn’t show it. One of them even sighed in a bored, buzzy voice.

All her life, she’d only been fighting changelings that had held back.

“Take her to any empty pod,” Queen Chrysalis said with a dismissive wave of her hoof.

“No, please! Don’t hurt my friends!” Twilight begged.

“You honestly have no right to complain,” Queen Chrysalis said. “We spelled out very plainly what would happen if you left the island, didn’t we?”
> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight wondered how much time had passed.

She'd been watching TV nonstop, unsurprisingly, since there was nothing else to do in her small pod. There were three different channels. 

One was music played by various creatures, sometimes changelings, sometimes ponies. Twilight even saw Lyra there once; if Lyra was still torn about the loss of Butterfly Island, she didn't show it.

One was mostly random colors and shapes, like they just left a kaleidoscope in front of a camera, while some kind of easy listening music played. It was nice to fall asleep to if the music channel was too raucous.

Twilight mostly avoided the last one. Apparently it was the one The Twilight Show used to air on. Now sometimes it showed interviews with changelings who worked on the show, sometimes it featured hints of a reboot using the Cake twins, but most of the time it was simply footage of an empty room with two chairs.

Twilight only watched that channel long enough to learn that the real Applejack, baby Spike, Cheese Sandwich, and all the other friends she'd made who'd never returned to the show, were for the most part not dead. The Queen felt no strong urge to destroy food. But apparently Cheese Sandwich, who'd also been a regular on the music channel in addition to his Butterfly Island appearance,  had attempted to run away, which had sealed his fate as far as future show opportunities would have gone.

The channel made Twilight's heart hurt too much. She was never going home again; she was never going to see her friends again. She's betrayed everypony who'd tried to protect her and now they were paying the price.

But maybe it was only fair. She never did anything to deserve such bounty in the first place. She should have lived here her entire life from the start.

Twilight tried to distract herself from her musings by thinking of names for the colors on the soothing channel. Cool ocean mint, sunset tangerine, candy cane red....

She wondered how many years before every color became boring.

She wondered if she'd ever get invited to visit the Cake twins, or if they'd ever get to meet their parents.

She must have dozed off, because a loud clunk suddenly jerked her awake. A changeling was hovering right outside her pod. He looked like he was messing with a crank attacked between her and the neighboring pod.
Slowly, the green film that shut her off from the rest of the world peeled downward, and Twilight could see the landscape in all its barren brown colors.

"Escape and die," the changeling grunted at her.

"What do you want?" Twilight asked.

"I'm risking my rank for this so just follow me quietly," the bug hissed at her.

The changeling lead Twilight up the pod-riddled stalk in a zig-zagging pattern, dodging areas where the other imprisoned ponies could see them and casually sliding through the shadows when changelings were around. Twilight found herself slipping into her meager stealth training from Butterfly Island; it was refreshing to stretch her wings.

Eventually her guide lead her to the cube on the top of their strange prison/changeling house hybrid. He slid up to a door on the corner and held it open for Twilight.

Hesitating slightly, Twilight flew inside.

The changeling's apartment was in various shades of gray and all the furniture was blocky, like everything was made of cubes. The main source of color was the shelves covering every possible inch of the wall. They were loaded with playsets. Her playsets.

Her tree castle playset; the water slide playset; playsets of all her friend's houses; the lighthouse playset... even the limited edition Rainbow Cruise ship playset. Every single location Twilight had ever visited... well, except a playset of a small green prison of course. They were populated with tiny plastic figurines of everypony Twilight had ever known, decorated with incredible detail, posed in lifelike positions. In between playsets were framed photos of exciting moments from Twilight's show.

"There's love in the oven; give me another minute," a buzzy voice called from the other room.

"You sit here," Twilight's guide said, aggressively pointing to the couch.

Twilight obeyed, still in awe at all the playsets. Her gaze fell on a figurine of Shining Armor hugging a tiny figurine of her. A tear slid down her cheek.

She wondered if Shining could ever forgive her.

The changeling guarding Twilight flew into the room the second changeling voice had come from. "There's someone here to meet you," Twilight's guide said; Twilight could tell because his voice was a bit lower pitched. "I'll take care of dinner; you go out and talk to her."

"Make sure you test if it's done first; I went through a lot to get that oven thermometer..."

Twilight turned to watch the door. A changeling came out; Twilight could only assume from the conversation that it was the changeling who'd been cooking. She couldn't tell them apart.

When the new changeling saw Twilight, he stopped, blinked, and dropped his jaw.

"H-hello....?" Twilight said.

The changeling closed his mouth and laughed weakly. "W-wow, that's a really good imitation. You're a fan, too?"

"No, I'm not a changeling," Twilight said. "I'm just Twilight."

The changeling kept staring at her. "Th-this isn't funny. Please just show me your real self."

"This is my real self. Your, um, roommate brought me here for some reason. How can I convince you?" Twilight asked.

The changeling's jaw dropped again, and then he flew back the way he'd come. "Pharynx! Why are you teasing me like this!?"

"Oh my gosh, why is it so impossible to believe I'd do something nice for my little brother!? Just go and talk with her about the show and stuff like you've always wanted and hurry; I don't know how long she can be missing before somebuggy gets suspicious!" the low-voiced changeling shouted back.

A changeling re-entered the room, this time on hoof. Or whatever those hole-ridden things were. "Y-you're the real Twilight." High pitched voice.

"Do you guys have names?" Twilight asked.

"I'm Thorax; I live here with my brother Pharynx." Thorax was shivering. From excitement? Fear?

"Did you... work on the show?" Twilight asked, still confused why she was here.

"N-no. But I watched it every chance I get. I'm a housebug so I'm always here alone."

"House...bug....?"

"I guess you never learned that word... I just take care of cleaning and cooking. I do it for other changelings who have more important jobs. Like my brother; he's a Level 3 security drone."

"Level... security..." Twilight's head was spinning with questions, but what did any of them matter? She was destined to fill a pod for the rest of her life and that was all. Might as well only talk about the past. "Why did you watch my show anyway? I tried to kill things like you!"

"I...." Thorax said.

"See, I told you it's weird!" Pharynx said, sticking his head into the room. "uh... 275?"

"It's not done; it needs to be 300. Did you stick the thermometer all the way to the bottom? Because if it touches the pan it doesn't count," Thorax said.

"I'll try again..." Pharynx said, pulling his head back.

"Also please tell me you didn't leave the oven open while you're testing it!" Thorax shouted after him.

"Don't pester me!" Pharynx shouted back, followed by the sound of an oven slamming.

Twilight smiled weakly in spite of herself. Then her face fell again, and she waved her hoof around the room. "So as I was asking... all this? For me? I know why ponies watched my show; because it's a fun fantasy of a better life and because you can win a chance to be on it. But don't changelings have everything they want anyway?"

"We're well fed and our lives are very leisurely, I guess," Thorax said, looking around the room. "We all have standard issue houses and a sibling to keep us company. It's very cookie-cutter and stuff."

"Instead you want to get blasted into pieces?" Twilight said.

"I don't know! I just thought..." Thorax stared at the waterslide playset intently. "I just wanted a distraction while I was cleaning houses, and a friend gave me a magic mirror so I could watch the shows the ponies watch. I was just going to listen to music but I found your show and... and it was so colorful and fun and exotic and there were so many different things you were doing and you and your friends were so inspiring and I just couldn't stop wishing I could be there. I thought maybe if I could slip in, in disguise, maybe I'd get to try ice cream or the slide... maybe you would all even... want to hang out with me..." Thorax looked ready to tear up. He sighed. "The changelings you met were always in their natural form and were acting like villains to wind you up, because that's what they were there for. But I thought maybe I could act like a pony. Maybe."

Thorax swayed back and forth a little, staring at the ground, looking a little lost.

Twilight almost felt sorry.

Then a loud beeping came from the kitchen.

"Thorax, where's the fire extinguisher!?" Pharynx shouted.

"My oven!" Thorax wailed, rushing through the door.

Twilight followed, her horn already gathering power.

The kitchen was also grey, except for the crimson flames coming out of an oven in the wall. Thorax was digging in a cabinet while Pharnyx was doing what he could with a kitchen sprayer.

Twilight cast a quick spell at the oven, and the fire winked out immediately. Inside was a glass pan with some kind of crusty grey slab inside it; it looked about as appetizing as paper Mache.

"I take it we're too late?" Twilight asked, pointing at the pan.

"No; it's still on the raw side," Thorax said.

Twilight wrinkled her nose. Who knew love would look so unpleasant?

"Your magic is... decent," Pharynx grunted.

"Thank you," Twilight said. She swayed awkwardly as the two changelings started slicing at the baked love; their knives sounded like they were scraping through drywall. "Um. I guess I need to go back now?"

"We don't really have food for a pony," Pharynx told Thorax.

"Oh... right..." Thorax gave Twilight a heartbroken look. "It... it was nice meeting you."

"Mmm." Twilight didn't want to be rude; this certainly was a different experience. But all it had done was stir up painful memories.

Thorax opened his mouth like he was about to speak, then closed it.

"All right; I'll take you back," Pharnyx said.

"No, please... you'll come again, won't you?" Thorax pleaded.

"I don't have a choice; ask your brother," Twilight said.

"No; the first time was risky enough," Pharynx said.

"But... but I have friends that watch you too!" Thorax said. "We all want to hear about what it's like, and..."

"I'd rather not talk about it," Twilight said. She let Pharynx herd her into the living room.

"And you're a hero! Can't you... can't you do something!?" Thorax followed them, looking near tears.

"Something about what? It's over! You've won!" Twilight said. "You have everything and we have nothing; why the hay are you asking me to 'fix' this?"

"It's not like that at all!" Thorax said.

"Shut up you moron; do you want to be executed!?" Pharynx said.

"Why not? So I can lie around and clean gray houses for 50 more years?" Thorax shot back.

Pharynx zipped over and pinned Thorax against the wall, fire in his eyes. "Do NOT. Talk like that. Understand?"

Thorax's expression was defiant, but he said nothing.

"I can't... I can't always be here, or wherever you are, okay?" Pharynx said, his voice quieter. "Sometimes... you don't think clearly, but I wouldn't want you to throw everything away in those moments. Understand?"

Thorax didn't acknowledge this second question either.

"...Let's go together," Pharynx said, releasing the pin he had on Thorax. He jerked his head roughly at the door.

The two changelings stood on either side of Twilight, and when they filed out the door, Thorax let Pharynx through first, then Twilight.

"Maybe have Twilight fly close to the wall, and Thorax, you be on the outside, to hide her from view," Pharynx said.

Thorax didn't acknowledge the suggestion but he did as his brother suggested, buzzing softly to Twilight's side.

"He reminds me of my brother," Twilight muttered to Thorax.

"Shining Armor was good and noble," Thorax muttered darkly. "Pharynx sells his fellowlings out to keep us in line so that he personally is safe."

"Exactly like my brother. Minus the bugs. I think... I think in their own way they're trying to love us," Twilight said. "Maybe that's just how older brothers are."

Thorax seemed to be mulling this fact over as they wound down the stem to Twilight's pod. A few changelings passed.

"Don't you want your home back?" Thorax asked.

"My home was a lie. The world was always gray."

"No, we built it before! The materials were real... the care was real!"

"Keep your voice down!" Pharynx hissed.

"But what if... what if there can only ever be just one happy pony in the world? There's no reason it should be me..." Twilight said.

"That can't be right," Thorax said. "Even if it was mostly just you, you made so many ponies happy just to see you happy, and weren't you happy making others happy? It's not... happiness isn't a limited commodity... r-right?"

Twilight couldn't answer. Something was caught in her throat.

Then she choked out, "I don't know... what I want.... anymore. What... what do you want?"

"I want what you had."

"Beaches?"

Everything came gushing out of Thorax at once. "Friends and family that I could go to ice cream stores with and hug and show emotion around in the open, and play with on slides and wear bright colorful clothes and like what we like and dislike what we dislike and it's not a national crisis if we're different and we don't have to worry we'll be rounded up and reeducated for daring to have different opinions than the queen."

"The queen arrests you if you don't like the color gray...?" Twilight said.

"Well.... more or less. It's complicated and we don't have time to explain."

The small party arrived at the empty pod that was now Twilight's world. Pharynx held the door open for Twilight. Twilight dutifully re-entered her prison.

"Do you think I'm alone....?" Thorax asked.

Twilight turned and stared into his unnerving blue insect eyes. She couldn't see fear or pain; from the outside he looked like a monster. Everypony in Twilight's life had never done anything except trick her; for all she knew even this outside world was a construct by a deranged demigod of chaos who was just messing with her for fun. It had happened before.

But there was nowhere to go but forward.

"If I'm as beloved as you say I am, and if the queen is truly as cruel as you say, then all we're lacking is communication. Maybe if we all talked to each other and knew how many of us there were, then... then maybe..."

Twilight didn't know how to finish that sentence. What did she know about battles that weren't prescripted for her?

But Thorax's fang-filled mouth curled into a small, tentative smile.

Pharynx inserted some kind of giant key into a crack beside Twilight's pod, and the green walls started to shut her in again.

"Talk to you soon?" she asked the changeling brothers.

Thorax nodded numbly, looking to his brother for approval.

Pharynx grumbled softly as the world assumed its green tint.

"Be ready."