> Clockwork Dreams
>  by Dark0592
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: She Sleeps
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight gracefully returned to the land of the living at the prod of her mentor’s hooves. Though, as the world of consciousness returned to her she couldn’t help but pale. Graceful was not the word for it. Celestia probably would have used descriptors like ‘cute’ or ‘adorable’. Unfortunately, as they were in the middle of court, the only one that came to mind was ‘embarrassing’. And then a few more came to mind. Words like ‘I just fell asleep in the middle of court and the Princess says I have this cute little snore and I never wanted that knowledge to see the light of day and now everyone is staring at me please warrior princess of mine strike me down where I…’ The thought went on until she realized she couldn’t quite finish it.

She wasn’t sitting, as she originally was. She wasn’t standing, she wasn’t lying down either. The best way it could be described was ‘haphazardly floating’. Actually no, it wasn’t just a term to describe how one is somewhere between all known postures used when utilizing a chair. She was actually floating, about an inch off of her seat. An almost imperceptible squeak found the mare back on solid furniture and a beet red glance at Celestia finally took the attention off of her. Well, not all of it. Celestia was still bathing her student in her attention as usual, though her soft laughter brought the eyes of the nobility to her rather than her charge.

“It would appear it is late in the eve, gentlemen. I do believe if we go for any longer we will starve, or at least you might and that will most certainly not do.” The Princess finally broke the silence, aiming the last part at Twilight. The Unicorn adjusted her waistcoat, straightening the wrinkles that had formed in her slow descent and levitation, but grumbled grumpily in response. This earned a little snort from the Princess.

“I do suppose we’ve been at it for over twelve hours. Are you sure you want to go through with this Princess? The Council will be more than capable of running the kingdom during your absence, but do you truly feel your place is on the front lines?” One of the older stallions asked, or rather repeated, as they all stood.

“Come now, Scribble, though I wish for peace and loathe war I do actually take pride in my title of Warrior Princess. Besides, if there is something out there that can actually kill me then I’d rather get it over with first so fewer ponies have to die figuring that out." Celestia explained, again, but rather than continuing on to the vivid examples to drive the point home she was stopped but a muffled voice that was now pressing against her chest.

“I’m sorry, Twilight dear, could you repeat that when you’re not trying to see what kind of shampoo I used three weeks ago?” The Princess cut herself off, looking down at the lavender unicorn that was now looking up at her. The mare rolled her eyes.

“It’s Honeyshine and Pine, the only time you differ from that routine is during black week… Anyways, can you please not talk about that again? I seriously don’t like the mental image of you dying, you know how vivid my brain likes to get when I don’t want it to.” The younger mare started off almost teasingly, but it very quickly faded into a softer note of concern. Celestia just smiled and nodded, draping a wing over her student.

“Of course. Gents, until the morrow. Scribble, if you really wish to have this discussion for the three hundredth time then do please remember I will not be leaving for three weeks yet. I would very much prefer not having my student’s lesson interrupted… even if she did get some insight on the world of politics.” The Princess said to Twilight and Scribble respectively. The council members nodded and they all left the conference room as a blob. Celestia guided Twilight towards the dining hall, the faint hiss of water boiling in the pipes along the wall quieting as Celestia pressed a hoof to a small button on the only piece of exposed pipework in the area.

“The usual please, Add a few coffee beans to the wine tonight like you do so well. It’s going to be an all-nighter again.” The Princess called into the pipe, not quite a yell.

“Jawohl meine Prinzessin!” The pipe called back. Already, a delectable aroma filled the private dining hall.

“Ooohhh, I love Chef Rabenkrahe’s ‘Zitternder Wein’! Twilight practically drooled. Celestia rolled her eyes. Alcohol and Caffeine, one to warm the heart and one to warm the brain. Twilight was infatuated with her newest chef’s invention, more so than the mare would ever admit. Afterall, the Princess didn’t know that her caffeine addiction had actually become an addiction right?

“So, I wasn’t aware you were capable of self levitation. Let alone proficient enough to do it in your sleep.” Celestia broke the silence before it truly settled. Twilight froze stock still for a moment before sheepishly pawing at the table between them a moment.

“I uh… I’ve been practicing. With the Arcane Engines entering the prototyping phase, I want to be sure that I can deal with the worst case scenario during the testing phase.” The young inventor explained. Celestia nodded before leaning towards Twilight a little bit.

“What could those things possibly do to require the kind of magic power and finesse that mastering the single hardest form of levitation cultivates?” She asked, her curiosity mixing with her concern. Twilight once again pawed at the table.

“I guess you didn’t read the full report then…” The mare mumbled. Celestia’s diplomatic smile fell to the neutral line it had probably meant to be in the first place.

“Even if that wasn’t an admittedly decent attempt at deflection, your report was three hundred and ninety-seven pages. I have set an hour per night before bed to read through what I can, but it will be a week’s time before I finish.” She explained. She didn’t like dropping her smiling mask, especially when Twilight was there, that much had become obvious to the student, but it was obvious that the concern was more for just Twilight’s own well being- dominant though it was. The mare sighed.

“Complete catastrophic failure is ultimately not a threat to anyone but myself during the testing phase, I’ve made sure of that. Unless something happens that’s not even on the list of ‘literally impossible things that I managed to think up in my nightmares’. It would be the equivalent of an adolescent unicorn breaking their horn while channeling every ounce of magic they’re capable of- using the average recorded levels of arcane potency for reference of course.

“The results of both the horn breaking and the arcane engine failing on the catastrophic level would both instigate a violent roiling source of wild magic. In both cases, the easiest way to deal with it is isolation and the tried and true method of getting the hell out of there. However, you know just as well as I do that there are other ways to tame wild magics. Even sudden, violent eruptions of it.” Twilight explained. Celestia nodded, finally understanding. They both thought back to the day they met, when Twilight nearly leveled the palace with such an eruption of violent and wild magics.

To the witnesses, it seemed like Celestia had merely laid a hoof on the young filly’s shoulder to calm her down. What had actually happened was that Celestia had brute forced the wild energy into obeying her will. It had nearly killed the poor filly, but Celestia had been careful.

“So you want to train your reserves so that you can simply force it to not destroy your years of research and hard work.” Celestia nodded as she spoke, almost solemnly. She was surprised when Twilight rocked her head a bit.

“Ehhhhh, yes and no. While I could simply throw my magic around it like a bubble and smother it out, it would probably drain me to near arcane deprivation. Forcing it back into the engine would just dust the testing caverns, and probably cause some sinkholes, not to mention myself. No, I’m training my magic to as near perfection as I can so I can guide the energy, rather than force it, into something less dangerous and destructive. And then of course still have enough left over to emergency teleport or bubble it anyways afterwards if it goes tits up.” The inventor explained. Celestia would have chuckled at that last part if what Twilight was describing wasn’t so… monumentous. Yes, that was a good word for it. Although, on that note, she needed to add that vulgarity to her vocabulary. It was amusing if one knew what the term meant, though she had no idea how the mare came across it.

Her musings, and her reply, were halted as the grand oak doors to the kitchen opened and a young griffon with what appeared to be a metal beak and no wings rolled through it with a dinner cart.

“Taming wild magic, meine liebste? Very dangerous.” The griffon commented, his equestrian was getting better.

“Ah, Krahe. It smells incredible as always.” Celestia said, her somewhat astonished look quickly growing into a warm smile at her newest chef. The Griffon bowed in reply before quickly and expertly dishing out the plates. The meal was strange for ponies, some would even say downright barbaric. Bratwurst with kettle roasted vegetables and the chef’s special wine was Rabenkrahe’s specialty and as such was his best dish.

The consumption of meat started to become more than a taboo only fifteen years prior. Not long before Celestia met Twilight, actually. In fact, it was nearly becoming a necessity in Canterlot. So much import was industrial, there sometimes wasn’t enough vegetarian meals to go around. When the Griffons made peace and began slowly integrating into Equestrian society, many discovered they were quite brilliant cooks. Fish and Pork tended to be their primary sources of meat, the former being plentiful to catch along the coasts and the latter being a creature that really didn’t care what it ate or where it was, and it showed in their Sushi and Bratwurst exports.

“I heard wind you are going to fight in front. I feel sorry for old bedfellows.” The chef said idly as he returned everything that wasn’t being used in the meal to the cart. He accentuated the sarcastic tone of the last part by clicking a talon against his metal beak. Celestia’s expression hardened somewhat, glancing over to Twilight. The mare was pretending to be too interested in their meal to have realized what they were talking about, but her eyes gave the mare away.

“Another time, best not to spoil the meal.” She said softly. Krahe nodded and gave a little bow as he wheeled his cart back towards the door. He pulled the lever inlaid into the doorframe and the faint whirring of old fashioned gears and hydraulics opened the heavy oak doors before he could get his cart through. Before they closed, though, he turned back towards them.

“Have wunderbar night, don’t stay too late.” He said. Celestia smiled again at Twilight’s relieved sigh as the door closed. The mouthed ‘thank you’ was the last of the conversation until they had finished their meals, carrying the bottle of caffeinated wine to Twilight’s study.

“So, let’s have a summary of your report on the arcane engines. I’d like to know what exactly you’re testing, your safeguards, your contingency plan, and which testing cavern you may be dusting.” Celestia started. She would have regretted it if it weren’t for the fact that she loved hearing Twilight explain her inventions. It was very intriguing, so much in fact that neither of them noticed the ‘in’ tray on Twilight’s desk giving off the faintest of blue glows as an ancient tome settled into its new place.
> The Arcane Engine, Part One
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight grumbled to herself as she used a bit of magic to open the door at the knock as she left the living area of her massive office. It was really an old astronomy tower, but the Princess had given it to her since nobody used it and she had turned it into a small library with how many books were crammed in here. The coffee machine- bless its inventor- was slowly grinding the beans and pushing water through them to create the wonderful bliss that was morning coffee as Spike carried a rather large covered tray inside.

“Ooh, this smells like a new blend. I see you fixed the blown seal.” The young dragon commented as he entered. Twilight grumbled a few more moments as she took a seat at her desk. She decided to properly answer as a plate of food was placed in front of her.

“Yeah, turns out trying to use the water the boiler used to make the new steam power work was just waiting for it to break down. I’ve swapped the grinder back to clockwork, never tasted quite right anyways.” The industrious mare answered her assistant as said assistant poured two cups and it was placed next to her plate of fresh eggs and a couple pancakes. “And I’m trying Zebra roasts, even if they are a little controversial.” She added after taking a sip and humming in delight. Much stronger than its equestrian counterpart!

“Hey, I thought you cleared your week of invoices so you could focus on the arcane engines.” Spike said questioningly. Twilight gave him a confused glance as she took a bite of her breakfast. Following his gaze, he saw the book in her tray. She attempted to say something, but almost choked on the piece of pancake. She quickly swallowed, downed some coffee to wash it down, and cleared her throat.

“I did, this wasn’t here last night…” She said, levitating it effortlessly and bringing it over to her. It was a rather beautiful tome, but the style of it screamed old equestrian. There were actual gems inlaid into the cover, five different colors, though their magic seemed to have seeped out of them long ago. The title was also in old equestrian, though that was one of the first languages Twilight became fluent in. What really drew her attention was the way the cover looked like the night sky, and the vague outline of an imposing unicorn was indented into it.

“The Elements of Harmony and the Mare in the Moon?” Spike read. Twilight smiled and nodded, patting him on the head.

“I’ve never heard of anything like a mare in the moon, however I know Celestia has mentioned the Elements of Harmony before. I’ll have to ask her more about it next time we see her…” Twilight started, but started slowing down after mentioning the princess.

Celestia had been trying to teach Twilight more about harmony, and suddenly this book appears after they spend most of the night here together? She cracked a little smile.

“Spike, I think the Princess is trying to guide me in her usual mysterious way, to what I haven’t the slightest clue. Whatever it is it’ll have to wait until after the test today, though.” The mare said, her grumpiness from before erased by a new mystery as she continued her breakfast.

Five hours, lunch with the Princess, a visit to her peers at the university, and one long elevator ride down into the testing caverns saw Twilight in the testing chamber she practically built with her own hooves- if levitation counted as your own hooves at least. The last grumbles of the piping faded after the elevator ride and she was happy to see Spike and Celestia behind the abhorrently reinforced glass nearly two hundred feet above in the observation room.

The Chamber itself was almost completely covered in steel reinforcements and various framework from previous tests. The far corner was currently occupied by a structure consisting of far too many wires and pipes leading out of an encased sphere with grounding pylons in place. The sphere was currently open on the top and sticking out of it was a mass of copper and gold and some steel plating that looked like what those doomsday conspirators would call a death ray. Twilight adjusted her reinforced safety suit to be a little more comfortable as she levitated over the fifty pound chunk of sapphire that was to be the thing’s power supply. The energy consumption would of course be far refined and reduced in the future, but for now it would have to do.

“Be Careful, Twilight. Have you done your mental exercises?” Celestia called, her voice passing through the glass like it was nothing thanks to an enchantment to do just that. Twilight rolled her eyes behind the goggles.

“Three times, actually. Calm down and please don’t interrupt… if I get startled while hooking it up something may go terribly wrong.” Twilight called back. She couldn’t help but let a little smirk form as she moved towards her device, it was strangely satisfying to be able to scold the princess without fear of punishment. This was, after all, her experiment. Celestia would never punish her anyways, but she wouldn’t dare pull that in the middle of court for example.

She could hear Celestia’s nervous grumble as Twilight slotted the lumpy chunk of gemstone into its place and many things started happening at once. First, the sphere closed with a hiss and a thunk. Then, many of the wires began to glow softly as many more hydraulics and mechanisms started whirring and chugging and hissing. Boilers started doing their thing and the sound of lubricant could be heard sloshing in the pipes into the sphere.

“Electricity output stabilized, heat levels well below safe levels. I wouldn’t want to try that with a ruby, but I’d go as far as even sticking a topaz in there and calling it safe.” Spike called out from the little bunker nearby. He was looking at various meters and gauges that were attached to most of the wires and pipes coming out of the thing.

“These readings look very good, Twilight! I’m proud of you!” Celestia called out over the hum and mechanical noises of the room, she was getting the printed version of most of them rather than another analytical machine like Spike’s. Twilight responded with a little bow to show she had heard before she started throwing a few levers and turned a few knobs on yet another machine connected to the structure.

“Output is starting to increase, heat levels still under the safe limit. It isn’t turning off is it?” Spike asked, a surprising lack of concern in his voice.

“Eenope. Going for the first emergency shutdown procedure.” Twilight called out as the hum started growing louder. She threw the final much larger lever and some of the mechanisms stopped.

“No Dice, the heat levels haven’t moved but the output is increasing much quicker now.” Spike called in response, a small amount of worry evident in his tone.

“Secondary shutdown procedure then.” Twilight said, mostly to herself at this point, as she tried to keep herself calm. She proceeded to gracefully unplug most of the wiring and turn a few valves on the piping. Most of the noise, aside from the hum that was getting louder and louder, ground to a halt. The hum wasn’t stopping, she knew it wasn’t working. She still looked back over to Spike for confirmation and had to read his scaly lips.

‘Temperature getting too high, output way too high, abort!’

She took a deep breath and turned back towards the thing. It wasn’t quite at the catastrophic failure stage, that would all depend on what happened next. She let the breath go and closed her eyes in concentration. Her horn lit up behind its reinforcement in the helmet she was wearing and suddenly the room wasn’t humming anymore.

She wasn’t in the room anymore.

Apparently she wasn’t even on the planet anymore, because that’s definitely what a planet looks like. Apparently the cartographers were pretty accurate. That was Equestria, the griffonlands, Draconis, Zebrica… Where was she?

She tore her gaze from the planet and looked around. Endless black, but there were stars. She was definitely in space. The great Aether not even the mighty pegasus could come close to flying through. Something wholly undocumented, not a single soul had experienced it. Well, here she was.

The almost painfully white surface below her told her exactly where she was. Was she the mare on the moon now?

The hum was back, and it was loud. She turned towards it as she blinked and the stars were gone. The sky was gone. The moon was gone. She was staring at the cold shell that was her grounding structure for the arcane battery test. The room seemed significantly brighter, however.

“Wha-!” She started, about to ask what happened, but her voice sounded… different. It rang through the cavern. It reminded her of the time someone tried to Assassinate Princess Celestia in the middle of her own birthday party and she had laughed so loud the zebra’s ears bled. She looked over to Spike, he was pressed against the glass of his bunker with a look of both concern and awe. His eyes were glowing!

Actually no, that was her reflection of her in his eyes glowing. Why was she glowing? Twilight Sparkle didn’t actually sparkle!

Deep breath.

Release.

Think.

Scanning spell, definitely do a scanning spell.

Her horn lit up as she tapped into her reserves and immediately the hum stopped again. She hadn’t realized it was still humming, really. In fact, it startled her and she lost concentration. The hum returned when she stopped channeling. Then it dawned on her, the hum wasn’t really a hum. It was a phantom of the sound the power made when it was in the engine.

The scanning spell started again, the humming stopped. Her eyes widened.

The idea behind shutdown procedure two was to envelop the wild magics contained in the arcane engine in her own and ‘calm it down’ to be diffused back into the original power source, or at least harmlessly into the surrounding area as ambient energies. Instead, she had drawn the wild energy into her own personal pool of arcane energy and assimilated it. This normally wouldn’t be that strange of a thing to happen, but her reserves were almost completely full just in case. Instead of overflowing and slowly bleeding the excess energy off, it had expanded her reserves. Exponentially.

“Princess?” Twilight asked shakily. She didn’t even need to yell, her voice was carried on the winds of arcane potency she now possessed. She looked up to where Celestia was in the observation room and saw something she never thought she’d ever see before.

There was fear in her eyes, in her posture, her expression.

Fear of her.
> The Arcane Engine, Part Two
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight almost didn’t notice Celestia teleporting next to her. The look of fear had been hidden under a mask of concern. Twilight could read Celestia like a book, though. Half of the concern was for Twilight’s well-being, but the other half was concern for her own. She only saw that expression when she was approaching a potential threat to both her own life and her kingdom.

“Princess, please don’t look at me like that…” She whispered. Celestia’s eyes widened  and she took the tiniest of steps back from her glowing student. She closed them and took a deep breath. Twilight saw her entire demeanor change then, one to genuine concern for Twilight. She had flushed the less than savory thoughts and feelings from her mind.

“I’m sorry, dead memories… Twilight, I need you to take a deep breath and focus yourself inward. You are currently in possession of far too much arcane power and it must be bled off or it may damage you.” Celestia explained, though an eyebrow raised when Twilight shook her head. She did the first part, taking a deep breath and focusing more on self-analysis.

“Princess, this isn’t overflow… Well, some of it is… I’ll bleed that off within a minute. Spike, can you please bring me some of the inert emeralds?” The glowing unicorn called. Spike nodded from within his bastion of safety and, seeing that the two ponies he trusted most in his life seemed to think it was safe, he rushed out with a small armful of dull emeralds. Twilight smiled at him and made to pat him on the head, but thought better of it. She didn’t know what would happen if she touched another source of magic like a dragon while overcharged like this.

It took an immense amount of concentration to channel only her excess energy directly into the inert gems, which would diffuse the concentrated energy safely into ambient magic since they couldn’t properly hold their energy due to imperfections and bite marks. After half a minute or so, Twilight seemed like she normally did on any average day. Celestia’s horn lit up to check for herself and found that Twilight was indeed perfectly normal. That is, if it was perfectly normal for a Unicorn to have so much arcane potential.

“Twilight, when I made you my student it was because I saw much potential in you… Specifically, just how large your reserves were and how potently you channeled it. Right now, you have more than any unicorn I have ever met. I would hazard a guess that you have larger reserves than myself, though of course you don’t have the near limitless supply of energy the sun gifts me…” Celestia explained slowly. It was taking a lot of self control to keep the ‘this person is now a threat’ mentality out of her head, that much Twilight could tell.

Twilight couldn’t really believe that. She was going to voice that thought, but she caught the momentary slip in Celestia’s mask. She wasn’t keeping the ‘this person is now a threat’ mentality out of her head. She was just hiding it. It caused her words to catch in her throat and she could feel her eyes watering.

Celestia caught it too. She couldn’t meet Twilight’s gaze.

“I’m sorry…” Twilight managed to choke out. Celestia’s gaze snapped back to the unicorn, surprised.

“You have nothing to apologise for… It was made perfectly clear this wasn’t the intended outcome… I’m honestly impressed you even survived so much magic rushing into you… Any other unicorn probably would have exploded…” The alicorn practically snapped back, though Twilight could tell the words were more for the princess than herself. She was trying to convince herself that her most faithful student was not in fact a threat to herself or her kingdom.

She had to do something.

“I-I could use an inhibitor, one keyed only to you j-just in case…” Twilight started. She was going to ramble on more suggestions but was stopped as a hoof went over her mouth.

“Twilight, stop right there. I may have… terrible things rolling around in my thoughts right now about this, but the mare who is your mentor in me would never allow you to do that to yourself. No, before I leave I will have to expand my lessons with you to encompass your new power and make sure you can control it.” The Princess explained, taking another deep breath. Twilight just nodded slowly, not daring to speak around the hoof pressed against her lips. Celestia’s eyes softened and she slowly pulled Twilight into an embrace. The unicorn couldn’t help but nuzzle into her favorite spot on the princess’ shoulder and lean into the embrace.

This wasn’t right. She opened her eyes, the cavern was an endless expanse of white with an expanse of stars above. Celestia’s coat was blue.

It wasn’t Celestia.

It wasn’t the cavern.

On the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape. Not to bring about an endless night, but to bring harmony to this day.

“Princess, who is the mare on the moon?” Twilight asked, looking up at Celestia. Twilight Blinked, where did that come from? Celestia blinked as well. Both of them looked confused for a moment before their gazes were drawn to a book on the ground between them. Celestia’s expression became horrified for just a moment as Twilight picked it up.

“What… what is this doing here? I don’t remember casting the summoning spell on it…” The unicorn started before looking back up to see Celestia’s expression. The horror had mixed with the confusion.

“Twilight, you are my most faithful and loyal student. Because of this, I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and you will have the chance to explain yourself before being convicted of the highest forms of treason. Whether or not this will come to pass depends entirely on your explanation and if I detect any lies in said explanation.” Celestia explained in her most diplomatic voice, which made the unicorn and the dragon in the room suddenly fear for their own lives.

“Ba… wha… What? But I thought… I assumed…” Twilight started blubbering, though a single raised eyebrow from her apparently very close to vaporizing the room princess stopped her there and she took as calming a breath as she could. She would never commit treason, the fact that Celestia was giving her this chance to explain it was proof enough of that!

Ok, stop thinking about it and talk before it gets very hot in here.

“I woke up this morning with it sitting on my desk, in the ‘in’ tray to be precise. I had assumed you had left it there for me to research or as material for a later lesson which is the only reason I didn’t immediately come to you.” Twilight answered evenly. Her tone was confident, though even the old griffon warlord couldn’t completely keep his composure this close to Celestia’s fury. The fact that her voice didn’t crack more was a testament to just how confident Twilight was that this was just a misunderstanding.

By the way Celestia’s body immediately relaxed and she let out the most relieved sigh Twilight had ever heard reaffirmed her confidence.

“Normally I wouldn’t just assume something like that, but when I picked it up in my telekinesis it felt kinda like… you. Or at least it felt like something I’ve only ever felt interacting with your magic.” Twilight continued, looking at the thing that was still in her magical grasp. Celestia sighed deeply and wordlessly placed a wing over the two and led them back towards the elevator.

“It’s… a long story… A story you know part of already apparently... “ Celestia started. She hesitated to continue, though. Twilight seemed confused.

“I have no idea what any of this means, Princess…” She admitted. Celestia looked a little surprised by that.

“Wait, have you not read it?... No, no I suppose you wouldn’t have if you’re asking who is the mare in the moon… Damn me and my mysterious educational tendencies…” The Princess groaned as they rode the elevator and started heading towards where Twilight knew the Princess’ chambers were. It was a familiar path.

“Open to the first page, at least… I haven’t decided if I should let you read any more…” The Princess continued as they made an unfamiliar turn. Twilight, unsure, did as she was bade and read the inside cover. She let out the tiniest gasp.

‘On the longest day of the thousandth year, only the stars could aid in her escape. To bring eternal night.’

That was wrong.

“Equestria did not always have a single ruler, you know this correct?” Celestia asked before Twilight could comment. She nodded, opening her mouth to say something about the words being wrong.

“It is not very well known knowledge, but it is also false knowledge, that Equestria’s other ruler died in battle a thousand years ago. She fell in battle, yes, but she did not fall into death’s embrace. And she did not fall protecting her kingdom…” Celestia cut her off. Now was Twilight’s chance to bring it up as Celestia seemed to be collecting her thoughts. Her words caught in her throat again as she noticed where they were.

She had no idea where they were.

The architecture was gothic to say the least, the aesthetics here were to the rest of the palace what the night was to the day. Dark, sombre, beautiful. There seemed to be far less industrialization here, if there was any at all. No pipes, no faint hiss of steam or the grinding of gears or whirring of mechanisms as the doors opened and closed. They had stopped in front of a large door, however, what appeared to be a modern vault door. It bore the mark of a crescent moon carved into the mechanism.

“What you two are about to see in this room are never to be spoken of. Period. Herein lies every single reminder of my greatest folly. My greatest regret.” Celestia said softly as her horn lit up to manipulate hidden mechanisms not even Twilight could discern the exact positions of. The grinding of gears rarely used and the slight whistle of steam through some crack in the piping made the two younger creatures flinch. Twilight was going to say something, but Celestia hadn’t even reacted.

That’s how it was supposed to sound, so loud half of the palace probably heard it. In fact, Twilight remembered hearing this exact sound very rarely in the palace. A certain realization dawned on her then.

She remembered hearing it only once a year the few times she spent the day in the palace without Celestia. The day of mourning.

“Please, I would request you didn’t ask questions here Twilight. Perhaps some other time, but I’ve had enough regret today I don’t think I could handle much more…” The Princess asked softly as the door slowly creaked open. Twilight almost couldn’t believe what was on the other end of this secluded vault.

It was a bedroom, similar to Celestia’s. A bedroom that hadn’t been used in a thousand years. The walls were covered in art and tapestries depicting ancient festivals and conquered battlefields, somewhat out of place podiums held various trinkets and oddities. What was an abacus doing on what appeared to be a display?

“There are only four creatures alive that know this room exists. I’d rather that number not drop back down to two… I beg for your secrecy, you two... “ Celestia said, her voice wavering at the end of it. That scared the two more than the threat. They could only nod as they looked around and Celestia took the book Twilight was still carrying in her own magic. Twilight actually had to relinquish control of it, Celestia either couldn’t or chose not to simply overpower her own magic.

“Wait, Princess…” Twilight started. Celestia turned to look at her. The expression seemed to say ‘I thought I requested no questions’. Twilight shook her head. “If you didn’t leave that book on my desk, then what did?” She asked. Celestia looked at the floor and hummed in thought before looking at the book and squinting at it, almost as if it would reveal its secrets if she looked hard enough.

“The wards around the book itself have been completely dissolved, though the wards on both the room and its podium are still wholly intact. Worse yet, I didn’t notice the wards being dissolved even though they were expressly designed to tell me if they were changed in any way. There isn’t even a trace of them left…” She explained as she examined it with both her sight and her magical sense. She looked over at Twilight and seemed to be deep in thought again.

“This morning I received news that means my departure for the griffon lands will be as soon as possible rather than in three weeks’ time… I had made the time to oversee your initial test of the arcane engine and I was going to discuss my departure with you over the results… I refuse to let this leave the castle, but how this appeared in your care is something that must be discovered…” Celestia explained. Twilight’s eyes showed concern for a moment, but one shake of her head told the unicorn that the news itself wasn’t something she intended to share.

“I’m not too good with this kind of stuff Princess… are you sure you want me to be here for this?” Spike said softly, cringing at the fact that he was breaking the silence that had formed himself. Celestia’s look softened.

“I’m sorry Spike, sometimes I forget that you’re far more mature than your age… What you’ve already heard and seen is more than anyone else has ever heard or seen… I trust you enough to keep it that way. If you aren’t confident in your ability to do so then I will not think any less of you if you wished to leave.  If you really aren’t confident then it may be best to pull this particular memory from your mind…” The Princess suggested. Spike slowly shook his head.

“I… still don’t have the self control to stand my ground when Twilight bribes me with rubies to do her a favor… If this is really that important then I think you should wipe it.” The young dragon explained as he bashfully scratched the back of his head. Twilight let out a little noise and nuzzled him.

“Spike, I think that’s the most mature thing you’ve said to me… Very well. Perhaps when you’re more confident in yourself you can be filled in… I hate to do this, but I’m proud of you for recognizing that it needs to be done.” Celestia said after a few moments of silence. Spike puffed up his chest at the praise as Celestia touched her horn to his head and he was gone in a golden flash.

“Home or back to the testing chamber?” Twilight asked.

“Kitchens, actually. He will remember shutdown procedure two being successful and us tasking him with making sure he’s properly fed while we go over the results.” Celestia answered. Twilight smiled and nodded before they both frowned as the book floated between them.

“What do you want to do?” Twilight asked. Celestia sighed.

“I want this mystery solved, I don’t want to leave my kingdom until it is… but I have to. I trust you, Twilight Sparkle, with even my life if necessary. I suppose I can trust you with my failures… I only ask that if your curiosity drives you to read the contents of this book that you promise to always be my faithful and loyal student…” She replied. Twilight nuzzled her.

“Without hesitation.” The unicorn replied. Celestia smiled and wrapped her wings around the smaller mare. The tome was transferred back into Twilight’s lavender telekinesis as they parted and Celestia cast one last glance around the room before leading Twilight out and back towards the testing caverns.

“So, before I leave after dinner, I want to know exactly what all of this means.” Celestia asked as they returned to the observation room where the arcane engine’s test printouts were still there waiting to be looked over.

“Well, what the arcane engine was supposed to do was improve upon the design of arcane batteries. The battery is a self contained arcanotech power source that uses magical energies found in gemstones to create power- primarily electricity. The problem with them is that they don’t last too long and they often destroy the gemstone inside, which needs to be replaced.

“The Arcane Engines are supposed to be the same thing, though this one was pretty big since it’s a prototype and easier to fiddle with. Instead of having to swap out the gemstones, it was supposed to regulate the use of power and leave the gemstone completely intact but simply drained. This would mean that the gemstone inside could be recharged by any unicorn, but what I discovered during the preliminary testing was that with a few tweaks to the spell structure and adding a little bit of technology- explaining exactly what went into it took nearly a hundred pages in the report- it would gradually recharge on its own by taking in ambient magics and even tapping into natural leylines.” Twilight explained. Celestia nodded, she remembered this much from Twilight’s summary last night.

“It was working too well however. Shutdown procedure one charged the frame structure with an artificial dampening field, but the engine was already tapped into Canterlot’s primary leyline, the field isn’t strong enough to block that kind of natural energy. Procedure two was unplug everything except the primary monitoring systems and hope it turns off. By then, it appeared to have taken in far too much energy to cease function and the only way to shut it off at that time and avoid it just pasting the entire room with shrapnel and bits of Twilight was to manually cut it off from the leyline- easy enough- and siphon the energy out safely.” Twilight continued. Celestia nodded.

“And, for inexplicable reasons, rather than diffusing it into the environment it stuck with you and has advanced your magic far beyond what I thought it’d ever reach.” Celestia finished. Twilight nodded. It was kinda fuzzy up until she had channeled the overflow into the cracked emeralds.

“I had a few strange hallucinations but they were well within the normal expectations for symptoms of arcane overflow. That’s another mystery I’m going to have to solve, why the energy stuck to me and why it wasn’t al loverflow.” Twilight said. Celestia nodded as they made their way down to the husk itself.

“It would appear that, aside from the shutdown procedures, your prototype was a success.” Celestia said as they popped the sphere open to find the large chunk of Sapphire drained but still in perfect condition. Twilight squealed and pranced in place for a moment before levitating the Sapphire out.

“Now that the theory is solid I can work on refinement! And finding a safer way to shutdown…” Twilight started. She stopped herself from rambling on the possibilities as they returned to the elevator after Twilight returned the chunk of Sapphire to its previous place.

“I fear I must be leaving soon, Twilight Dear, we should head to dinner. I’d like to speak more than just business since it’ll be the last time we’ll see each other for some time. I don’t know how long I’ll be needed…” Celestia said as they reached the top again. Twilight nodded and teleported the tome into her securely locked chest hidden behind her bed in her room. Hopefully nobody found out about the first prototype for the engine in there, and especially not what it was used for when Spike fell asleep out in the tower rather than in her room.

“Well, regardless of how long, hopefully I’ll have all of this figured out before you get back.” She said with a smile as they started towards the dining hall.

“I have utmost faith in you my dear.” Celestia said with a smile.
> The Wandering Workshop
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What a wholly strange and unique contraption…” Twilight was startled out of her work that night. Looking up, she found someone she’d never met before standing and looking down at her small model of the arcane battery. She was beautiful, her blue mane seemed to twitch on winds that weren’t there. She was a good head or two taller than Twilight, though not quite where Celestia stood. Most importantly, though, was that she had both a horn and wings.

“It’s uh… It’s an Arcane Engine, the next iteration in arcanotech after the Arcane Battery…” Twilight explained slowly,  not entirely sure what was going on. As if on cue, a little model of the battery appeared.

“I see. May I?” The strange alicorn asked, nodding to the models. Twilight, still not entirely sure how to react to the situation, slowly nodded. The alicorn took the two models in her magic and they started functioning. The battery hummed softly with magical energy and the alicorn inspected it with great interest before it practically exploded, though every part was intact. She hummed to herself as she examined each individual piece before letting it come back together. When she looked at the more advanced model, however, she spent a lot of time turning it over and feeling around it with her magical senses.

“I believe this one’s intent is to be self-sustainable, or at least reusable, correct?” She asked. Twilight nodded again. The alicorn hummed as the model slowly disassembled itself again. Twilight stood to walk over to the mare, but was somewhat startled as they were walking down the hallway in front of her study instead.

“Ah, I see. This mechanism here is supposed to help keep the arcane forces in line so as to preserve the power source for recharging, and this glyph here is to draw in ambient energies to self-recharge. I can’t figure out what this section is for…” The alicorn hummed as they walked.

“Oh, that’s a universal outlet junction. Anything equipped to work with a battery can use this instead, any machine or device.” Twilight answered before stopping. The alicorn stopped as well. They were both staring at the large doors leading into the throne room, the ones with the most showy forms of technology put into it.

“Would you mind opening this up for me? I can’t seem to find the knob…” The alicorn grumbled. Twilight seemed confused as she watched the mare try to push the door open like a normal door. She stepped up next to the alicorn and, without even looking, threw the lever on the side of it. The one where normally a royal guard would stand to do so for a visitor. The alicorn watched with great interest as the hiss of steam from the underground boilers filled the piping. A few glyphs glowed softly and great gears started turning and whirring as the great metal doors groaned open to reveal…

That wasn’t the throne room.

“Oh dear, it would seem you’ve truly begun to question what’s going on. I was wondering how long it’d take.” The alicorn said with a smirk as she stepped into the night sky beyond. That’s all it was, the night sky. And this mare was walking on it. There was almost no distinction between it and her mane and tail.

“Well, come on then. If you’re truly terrified of what lay beyond then you should probably wake up.” The alicorn said with a small frown as she stopped and turned to look back at Twilight. Twilight blinked.

Wake up?

This was a dream.

She opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling of her bedroom.

“Why am I having strange dreams about mares I’ve never seen before?!” Twilight groaned into her empty bedroom. She quickly looked down to find Spike’s preferred sleeping basket gone, that would have been awkward to explain.

“What?!” She heard said dragon’s muffled call through the closed door. Oh, he was already up. That’s… weird.

“I said I’m going to the workshop!” She called, opening the door. Spike, who was down the staircase into the study proper, just waved in acknowledgement and returned to where he was in the kitchen preparing breakfast. Twilight let out a little sigh, so she wasn’t awake at a later hour than usual. Spike just woke up on time for once.

“That freaky book of yours was doing some weird stuff again by the way, could you take it with you?” Spike said as he ran out a few minutes later with a neat little packed breakfast and lunch for the mare. Twilight accepted it and looked at the thing sitting on her desk.

“What was it doing?” She asked as she pulled it over in her magic to look it over.

“I dunno, I just heard paper rustling around and when I woke up it was just sitting there. You and the Princess get anything useful out of those test results by the way?” The little dragon asked, shivering slightly before turning to her in full.

“A bit yeah, the engine itself works and the technology itself is solid, but obviously we’re going to need to be able to turn it off easier. That’s why I’m heading to the workshop, I think she’s over near Ponyville at the moment.” The unicorn replied as she levitated the food and the book up as she stepped outside of her study.

“I’ll man the fort over here in case any of the university ponies come around, or if the Princess has a message for you.” Spike said. Twilight smiled and patted him on the head and gave him a little pouch.

“Be good and there’ll be more where that came from young drake.” She said as she closed the door.

“Oh wow, fresh cut Rubies!” She heard through the door before she twisted the handle a way only she and a few other living creatures knew how, which caused the engravings on the door to line up with the handle and flash golden for a moment. She then opened the door, stepped into the entirely different room and closed it. The golden light faded and any passing servants would find Spike rushing out of the door again to the chefs for them to make ruby rock candy.

Twilight took a deep breath, reveling in the smell of her workshop. Ink, Paper, Oil, sulfur, lilacs, lavender, copper, it was an amalgamate of her scholarly pursuits all in one- with a hint of cleaning chemicals. Her magic immediately untied her waistcoat’s tie as she practically flew out of the thing and a much more open tunic with leather around the forelegs and a pair of leather trousers floated up to her in her magic.

“Hells it’s hot in here. Philomena love, you aren’t moving. Could you please vent off a bit?” She called out as she changed. A high pitched craw from the furnace below rattled up the piping and a few metallic grinding noises signaled vents opening up. Immediately a nice breeze filled the workshop and she let out a nice sigh.

“Better, have fun exploring?” She continued as she trotted down the stairs into the boiler room, which was still sweltering, but at least this room was supposed to be. A metallic sound, signaling the pulling of a lever, warned Twilight that the furnace was about to open so she formed a small heat shield in front of her to avoid singing her coat. Another craw signaled that the phoenix within was climbing out and was now perched on Twilight’s shoulders. The furnace automatically closed after a few seconds and Twilight lowered the shield.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Go ahead outside and play, I’ve got some work to do.” Twilight said to the phoenix as she returned to the main room above. The bird nuzzled her cheek a moment before taking off out of one of the ventilation windows. Twilight smiled and watched before taking a sweeping gaze around the room.

It was rather furnished for a workshop. When she had built the place she had entertained the odd notion of having guests, and so she had made enough room to comfortably house half a dozen or more ponies. Most of that furniture was covered in various prototypes or blueprints, however, but they were still kept in good position. The floors were wood while the wall, and a few support beams, were stone. The boiler room was all stone and some metal reinforcement under the wood of the ceiling in case a boiler decided it was having a bad day. It was heavy oak, from the depths of the Everfree, and reacted well to preservation spells. Through a heavy metal door with a mechanical lock like the ones in the palace was the massive workshop. Here, there were no aesthetic or cozy compromises with construction. This was a workshop, the walls and floors were metal or stone and reinforced. Pipes weren’t hidden and neither were their valves or various gauges.

She set the book down on the cleanest workstation in the massive hangar-like room and did her routine inspection. The metal pipes were in good condition, not even too hot to the touch. Philomena has been much kinder to the architecture than before. The chunk of the floor that had been warped by the last prototype’s explosion was fixed now and she started checking the enchantments on the room. She’d have to replace the battery charging the reconstruction array, but the lights and their wiring seemed to be in good condition.

“Better than I left it, I’ll have to get that bird a gift in thanks.” Twilight said to herself as she looked over the grounding structure similar to the one in the testing caverns below Canterlot. That wasn’t wired up to the reconstruction array so it was still in shambles from her last test. She groaned and tried to find a chair that wasn’t too cluttered with scrap and plans. She sat down at looked at the table in front of it.

The book was there, right. This is the table she dropped it on ten minutes ago…

Well it wouldn’t hurt to look at what’s actually inside of it right? She flipped past the incorrect statement in the inner cover and turned to the first page.

“The stars will aid in her escape?” She said to herself, questioning the writing. She flipped the page. It said the same words. She flipped through every individual page before quickly flipping back through a few times. She was about to put some o the griffon curses Krahe taught her to use when a resounding knock was heard on the ‘front door’ in the other room. She looked in the direction through the open workshop door and shook her head, must be Philomena messing with her again.

‘Loyalty’

The page had changed.

“Wha-” She started, but the knock was even louder this time. Definitely not Philomena. “Damn it, why now?” She grumbled as she glanced one last time at… the now empty pages of the book. She sighed in frustration out of her nose before trudging to the door. She heard a muffled voice on the other side of the heavy reinforced metal. She threw the lever and eyed a large hydraulic crossbow leaning against the wall just in hoof’s reach. She made sure it was loaded but didn’t draw it. Bandits weren’t uncommon this far away from Canterlot, but they were usually scared of the ‘wandering workshop’ as many had started calling it. Especially since it looked like a great metal beast meandering around the countryside whenever Philomena was ‘driving’ it. It could be a lost traveler, or an uninformed guard patrol wondering what the hell this thing was.

She was not expecting a cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail to be standing there with Philomena standing on her head.

“Uh, hey, is this monster yours?” The pegasus asked. Philomena squawked and seemed to almost smirk as a little trail of smoke came from under her talons.

“HEY HEY WHOA WHOA NO, NEVER THE MANE!” The pegasus yelled and swiped at the phoenix on her head. Philomena squawked teasingly and shot off  into the air. “You little!” The pegasus started and shot off after her. Twilight was honestly impressed as the pegasus caught up to the phoenix almost instantly. They scrabbled around in the air a bit, a few singed feathers falling in their wake, before they were finally back in the same position they started in. The pegasus blew a singed feather out of her face.

“Sorry, is this Phoenix yours? Happy?” She grumbled. Twilight stood there for a few seconds, her mind processing exactly what just happened. She snorted.

Her snort made the pegasus snort in response. Then they both simultaneously broke out into laughter.

“Philomena, when I said go play I didn’t mean go torment some crazy Pegasus! Which, speaking of, what are you doing all the way out here?” Twilight finally said. The pegasus recovered quickly after her and looked confused.

“What do you mean all the way out here? Ponyville is right there, and look up!” The pegasus pointed off to where you could indeed see the small village of ponyville not even on the horizon. She then looked up and saw a little cloud home floating almost directly above the wandering workshop.

“Oh, do you live there?” Twilight asked. The pegasus nodded.

“Do you live here? Seems pretty big to be living by yourself in a moving castle. Though I guess if you have a moving castle it wouldn’t really matter if you lived alone since you could just hang out in Manehattan or something. OH, do you have a fire spirit powering your moving castle? Or a magic door that leads to all the major cities?!” The excitable pegasus started rambling. Twilight’s eyes flashed at the questions and she stepped aside a bit.

“Why don’t you come inside for coffee? I can see you’ve read the book this place was obviously inspired by. No, I don’t have a fire spirit. The equivalent is sitting on your head right now. This place uses a combination of steam boilers, arcane arrays and batteries, and quite a bit of hydraulics to run. Philomena chooses where it goes when she’s in the furnace. And while I do have a magic door, it only leads back to my study in Canterlot.” Twilight explained as the pegasus happily stepped inside to look around.

“Oh wow! It’s even furnished like a cozy little house! This place is awesome!” She exclaimed, practically spinning in place to see the simple little room in its entirety.

“I was infatuated with the story when I was little, and I’ve always been good at building things. Do you want cream or sugar?” Twilight asked as the coffee machine in the workshop started up and she quickly levitated a small tray with two large mugs and a chipped cup of cream and a few sugar cubes with it. “Oh hell, looks like I bumped it again…” Twilight grumbled as the porcelain quickly mended itself with a slightly stronger flash of the unicorn’s horn.

“Wow, fancy with magic and with building. I’m surprised the university hasn’t snatched you up or something like that. And I take my coffee black, strong and bitter!” The pegasus replied with a smirk as she accepted the cup with a wing. Twilight smiled, a mare after her own heart it would seem. Well, at least when it came to her tastes in heated bean beverages.

“They tried, turns out I was a little too smart for them. My name is Twilight Sparkle, by the way.” Twilight retorted with a little smirk hidden behind her cup. While she normally didn’t care for how the nobility always tried to get on her good side after hearing her name, she was interested to see this mare’s response to it.

“What? Really, you mean Celestia’s trophy student? Wait, no, yeah your coat does look purple under that soot. I thought you were just grey… Shit, I’ll be damned. My name is Rainbow Dash, I’ve been trying to get onto Princess Celestia’s special forces team for so long. It’s an honor to meet you, I think?” The now named Rainbow Dash started almost rambling out. She stopped, made some noises accentuated with ‘words words words’ for a moment before taking a breath.

“Ok, rewind. It’s nice to meet you, Twilight. I’m Major Dash of the Canterlot Reserve, currently working on the weather team here in ponyville to recover from an injury sustained during a training session four years ago.” The pegasus said much more professionally. Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“An injury? Four years is usually enough to recover from an injury… when are you slated to return?” Twilight asked, curious. Dash rubbed the back of her head and looked at the ground.

“My leave of absence is indefinite, I’m afraid. I can’t keep in the air too long or it really starts to hurt again. My rank and position have been set in stone unless they figure out a way to fix it so that’s nice, but my progress trying to become a stunt flier during my off duty time is almost nonexistent. I can handle the performances just fine, but the practice is what kills me.” The mare answered and continued. Twilight seemed a little confused, but then she noticed the wing not holding the mug of coffee. The feathers seemed to be just a little off-color, and a little less lively.

As if she were reading Twilight’s mind, or just following her eyes, she spread the wing out and Twilight couldn’t hold in the little gasp. Dash’s left wing had a nasty scar along nearly the entirety of the wing arm, it seemed liked feathers wouldn’t grow properly on it either. Whoever had done the feather graft was a master of their craft for sure, the fact that she could still fly like she was a moment ago was a testament to that.

“I’m so sorry…” Twilight started, but Dash quickly folded it back up and shook her head.

“Nuh-uh, The first year back was long enough with the pity party thing. My liver is still recovering from all the booze. I messed it up not pasting myself against the ground. See, my best friend fell out of Cloudsdale. She wasn’t a super strong flyer, and some ass hole pushed her off. It shocked her so much her wings snapped shut and she couldn’t for the life of her get them to open. So I went after her, and I pushed myself as hard as I could. Turns out, I can break the sound barrier. I didn’t know that at the time, and I flew right past her and my bank to not splat against the ground caught my wing in the worst way and I tumbled down. Luckily, my friend hit a few clouds on the way down and bounced on the treetops. She found me unconscious on the ground and I woke up a week later with someone else’s feathers on my wing and a whole lot of pain, she’s a damn good medic I’ll give her that much.” Dash explained. Twilight listened intently, she had heard about that ‘sonic rainboom’ as it came to be known.

“That’s… so much wingpower, you broke the sound barrier?” Twilight asked. Dash downed half of her coffee and nodded.

“Hoo mama, this is good shit! A couple mugs of these and I might just do it on accident! But yeah, I can. I can still do it, though it rips the graft out and I managed to spiral into a controlled crash landing instead of killing myself.” Dash replied. Twilight just nodded. She really didn’t know how to respond to that. They both looked over as the door opened to see Spike partially hanging off of the handle with a note in his hand.

“Hey Twi! Letter from the Pri- Oh, hello. Twi! Letter from the Princess!” He said, not noticing the pegasus in the room until he was halfway to Twilight.

“Thank you Spike. Rainbow, this is Spike. Spike, this is Rainbow. Philomena was picking on her so I decided to let her in for coffee.” Twilight said. Well, summarized. She was far more interested in the letter now floating in front of her face. It was a quick one, Twilight recognized the tone and hastened hoofwriting as what Celestia usually writes when she’s still on the front lines. The simple letter stated that she wasn’t to send her any letter via dragonfire unless she was sent one first giving her permission to do so. Twilight understood that receiving a letter in that way in the middle of a fight was detrimental to one’s health. Or, in Twilight’s case, one’s dentistry. That tooth still didn’t feel quite right after she had regrown it magically. Shining had apologized for it afterwards, but now she was getting off track again. She refocused just in time to catch the end of some conversation the two in the room were having about how he was a dragon.

“Spike, if you intend to stay would you please get the door? The less people know about it the better.” Twilight finally said. Spike nearly jumped at her voice and quickly dash over to shut the door. Dash was looking over his shoulder, though, and managed to catch a glimpse of the palace hallways.

“Whoa, magic door! You DO have one!” Dash exclaimed as she opened the door again to see ponyville once more.

“I did say that didn’t I? Well, Dash, it was certainly nice to meet you. However, unless you find the discussion of arcanotechnology and how to get this damn prototype to work interesting I’m afraid you’ll be rather bored if you stick around here. Philomena, would you please go get the boilers fired up? We’ll be needing a lot of juice for this one” Twilight explained.

“A lot of Juice, you mean power right?” Dash asked as Philomena squawked and flew down the stairs to her furnace. A light rumbling from beneath signaled she had entered her furnace and was indeed starting up the various power sources down there.

“Yeah, we need to fill up some batteries for the workshop itself- but it’ll take two days to fill up the engine enough for what I need.” Twilight replied as she and Spike ducked into the workshop. Dash looked through and her jaw dropped at all the stuff in here.

“Whoa! Is that a tank?!” Dash exclaimed, winging over to where the treaded vehicle lay in pieces in the corner.

“The prototype I’m slowly dismantling for parts, yes. I helped design them. You mentioned power like you had something to add, if not then I’m afraid I will have to ask you to leave. This is intricate work and I’d rather it not be widely known until it’s functional.” Twilight replied, turning to the pegasus. Dash snorted.

“Pegasus, remember? I’m like a walking source of power. Plenty of room in here to condense a storm cloud, definitely enough moisture with the boiler vents, and I’ve never missed unless it was intentional.” The pegasus stated proudly. Twilight and Spike looked at each other.

“We don’t have Electricity generators setup unfortunately, we’re running on steam and phoenix power at the moment.” Twilight said.

“Hey wait, if we’re charging up the gems in the engine, couldn’t she just do it directly?” Spike asked. Dash nodded enthusiastically. Twilight hummed and rubbed her chin with a hoof.

“I suppose if you really are confident in your aim. Are you prepared to pay for about five thousand bits worth of damages if you miss?” The unicorn countered.

“I don’t miss.” Rainbow challenged back.  Twilight hummed and pulled her goggles on.

“Alright, go ahead and start making the cloud then. I’ll show you where to shoot it. If you do well enough I might even pay you.” She said with a little smirk as she pulled the bottom half of a welding mask on under her goggles and wrenched the sphere on the trashed grounding structure open by hoof. She levitated out the large chunk of ruby, still pulsing slightly, and handed it off to Spike. Spike proceeded carry it carefully to a wall of bins and put it into one. Out of another he pulled a mass of golden gemstone.

“Whoa, you were using rubies that big as power? The hell is this thing?” Dash asked, a witty retort to Twilight’s pay comment forgotten.

“Think of an Arcane battery, but way more powerful and way more efficient. Rechargeable, self- charging even. You sure you wanna use the Topaz?” Spike answered before handing the large mass of stone off to Twilight.

“Well the only pieces big enough to test it again properly that I have here are the Ruby, the Topaz, and the Lapis. Lapis just isn’t powerful enough and I don’t want to blow up my workshop again with the Ruby.” Twilight explained. She turned to Dash and raised an eyebrow. Getting the hint, the pegasus saluted and started doing circles in the air. Her wings condensed the moisture in the somewhat humid air and started forming a fluffy grey cloud. She spun around it a few odd ways and it slowly turned nearly black.

“Ok, we got about a minute until it starts raining, I’d rather do this before then because boiler rain usually isn’t too good for the feathers. Or fur.” Dash said, standing on top of it and looking over the side. Twilight nodded and slotted the chunk of Topaz back into the sphere. She double checked the wiring and machinery inside of the sphere and found it to be mercifully intact. The grounding structure had taken all the damage.

“Just put as much of it as you can into the Topaz Dash!” Twilight called out as the cloud rumbled with thunder. Twilight stepped aside and waited, her horn glowing around the sphere. She was ready for it this time. Dash rose in the air and then practically body slammed the cloud. A massive bolt of lightning struck the topaz dead center, charging it and what would have normally been the entire room with a potentially lethal electric charge. It was insulated by Twilight’s magic, however, and the cloud dissipated away after expending its energy.

“Whoa, that’s cool.” Dash said as she landed beside Spike.

“Spike, I’m gonna need my tools and the first prototype from the corner. It’s maintaining a steady charge, and without being hooked up to anything it won’t expend that charge and overheat. I’ve found the faulty gearwork that caused the initial shutdown procedure to fail, and that first prototype has the dissipation glyphs already done so I’ll just transpose them.” Twilight explained as various bits of junk and paper started floating around. The paper turned into notes and pieces of blueprint while parts on the device and the junk traded places or combined to reinforce or repair unseen damages as the thing was lifted out of the lumpy grounding sphere. Spike saluted dutifully and rushed to quickly do as he was told.

“Uh, Dash? She doesn’t know you exist anymore so it might be best if you leave. If we’re still around you should come back so she can thank you properly for your help today, otherwise I’ll make sure to remind her.” Spike said to Dash after delivering the requested items.

“Huh? Oh, yeah I guess. How does she do that with magic? The best I’ve ever seen was a friend of mine able to levitate all these light fabrics around like crazy. This is like… mesmerizing.” Dash said as she continued watching Twilight work.

“Yeah, took a while to get used to. But really you should go before you get hit in the head by something. She’s used to keeping things above my height but not yours.” Spike said with a little laugh. Dash just nodded and headed out of the door.

“Thanks Spike, I won’t forget about a fr-... Wait, is she a friend?” Twilight asked. Spike shrugged.

“I dunno, I’ve never made friends before.” The little dragon replied. Everything in the room stopped for a moment as Twilight rubbed the back of her head.

“Neither have I…”
> The Mare in the Moon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Night had started to fall when Twilight finally took a break. The grounding structure had been fully repaired and the prototypes in the room had been scrapped and repurposed for the new piece of arcanotech. Extensive testing had concluded that yes, it did indeed shut down when you flipped the off switch. She even perfected the insulation glyph array so that the energy held within the mass of gemstone didn’t bleed any off while the machine wasn’t running.

She took a deep breath and turned the lights off in the Workshop as she made her way back to the living section of the Wandering Workshop.

“Philomena, thank you for your hard work today! Go ahead and take a nap, you deserve it!” She called down one of the vents. She thought she heard a soft squawk in response, but the fact that the rumbling of the boilers faded into the ambient hiss to keep the place comfortably warm told her that the bird had indeed heard her. She smiled as she yawned wide and looked around the room. Spike had gone back to the palace to sleep and she ...was debating doing the same.

Just as the decision was made to head upstairs for the night her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. She made a curious noise and pulled it open with her magic. She half expected the rainbow hued pegasus from before to be standing there, and she wasn’t wrong, however she wasn’t expecting the rainbow hued pegasus to stand there looking like they had just seen death.

“Rainbow? What’s wrong?” She asked, heavily concerned. The pegasus kinda shook her head, as if clearing it, and looked up.

“Oh, sorry… I uh… I was having some pretty bad nightmares and I couldn’t sleep. I saw the workshop still pumping smoke so I thought I’d come and say hello.” The pegasus explained. Twilight was a little uneasy about the whole thing. What happened to the playful and powerful trickster from this morning?

“Do you want to come inside? We can talk about it over tea or something if you’d like, I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to help problems like that…” Twilight suggested, rubbing the back of her head. Dash nodded slowly and moved to enter, though before Twilight could step aside the pegasus pulled her into a weak embrace.

“Thank you, Twi… I don’t think I would have made it all the way to Ponyville like this… and everyone else would be asleep…” The pegasus said softly. Twilight, unsure of exactly how to react, just pat the mare’s back a few times and she stepped back on her own.

“Of course. While I’m not exactly a social butterfly by even a rock’s standards, I think we’re friends? That’s what friends do right? Help each other when they need it?” Twilight replied. Dash smiled and nodded, sniffing slightly. Twilight smiled and nodded back and did a few things with her magic.

First, she levitated the mattresses and blankets from two of the bedrooms upstairs down in front of the fireplace. Then she started the coffee grinder, though rather than Zebrican coffee beans she put cocoa beans and some other spices in it. She then dimmed most of the lights so the only sources were the softly burning fireplace, fed directly from the furnace below, and a few oil lanterns hanging around- which she proceeded to light.

“Whoa there, girl, you getting romantic on me?” The pegasus asked in a teasing voice. Twilight scrunched up her face in confusion.

“Romantic?! What?! No! I’m conserving energy while still having enough light to see, and this is supposed to be like a sleepover right? I thought this is the kind of thing you do…” Twilight started, but started grumbling and her protesting tapered off as she noticed Dash’s face and registered her teasing tone.

“I mean it would be kinda romantic if that’s what this was, but it is kinda nice in a friendly sort of way. Besides, your face was priceless!” Dash snorted. Twilight replied by shoving a cup of spiced hot cocoa in her face and plopping the pegasus down on the appropriated mattress.

“So, do you want to talk about it or do you just want the company?” Twilight asked as they both settled down. Dash shifted around a little bit and took a sip of her drink, which she gave an appraising look afterwards, and gave a heavy sigh.

“It’s not like I can’t usually handle nightmares, because I can’t remember the last time I had a dream that wasn’t one. Psychiatrist said it was something like PTSD from my time on the front… Kinda adds up, but the nightmares are almost never about griffons. This one, though, hit home a little too hard and it just really freaked me out.” The pegasus started. She seemed to hesitate though, so Twilight shifted a little closer in an attempt to comfort her new friend. The weak smile she got in response showed at least some success.

“I saw this scary monster of a pony… I think it was a mare. Her coat was jet black, like the kind of black that’s so black it kinda hurts to look at. Her mane and tail were kinda like Princess Celestia’s, except for instead of a rainbow it looked like the sky at night but with no stars or moon. Her eyes were slits like a dragon, and even her teeth were sharp like one. We were fighting her, and be we I mean my friends and you and me… I don’t know why it was us… Anyways, we were fighting her and we really couldn’t do much… She was playing with us. After awhile though you did some cool magic thing and we thought you blasted her, but she just looked pissed. I don’t really want to tell you how the rest of it went, but let’s just say it was messy… my nightmares are pretty bad sometimes. I just thought about my friends dying, even you, and I just… I needed to not be alone.” Dash continued. Twilight put a hoof on Dash’s shoulder and the pegasus leaned into her slightly. She was shaking.

“Oh Rainbow Dash, it’s alright. We don’t have to keep talking about it if you don’t want to. Was there anything else about it that wasn’t just bad? All dreams are usually representative of something, even nightmares, so we might be able to figure out what’s causing them.” Twilight asked. Dash looked like she was thinking for a moment.

“There was something, actually. ‘The stars will aid in her escape’... but it wasn’t just that. Underneath that voice that said it, the monster’s voice, another voice said it too. I don’t know, I was already kinda freaking out at that point. It sounded like, before I woke up, it said ‘help me’...” Dash replied. She was looking at her mug, otherwise she would have noticed Twilight’s dumbfounded expression. She did notice the strange book floating over to them from the table.

“Hey, that’s what she said!” Dash exclaimed, pointing as Twilight opened the first page to where the words she had read before were. “Who’s the mare in the moon?” She asked. Twilight shook her head and flipped through a few pages. She was surprised when they actually had words on them. Different words.

“Rainbow Dash, I think we just made progress on my research… I’m sorry, you should probably get some sleep… I’ll look through this for awhile. If there’s something like what you mentioned I’ll let you know in the morning, ok?” Twilight said. Dash looked a little skeptical but downed her drink anyways.

“I guess, but I warn you I snore.” Dash said with a smirk. Twilight was already in her own world of reading, though. Dash just smiled and nuzzled into her provided blankets. She leaned against Twilight, the warmth of her new friend letting her fall back to sleep quickly. Twilight, meanwhile, lost herself in the tome. This must have been what Celestia thought was going to be in the book, or rather what SHOULD have been in the book, instead of blank pages or random words.

It told the story of the princesses, Celestia and Luna, who were sisters. This of course shocked Twilight, she had no idea the old princess was Celestia’s sister. She read of their younger years, after they had become alicorns- implying that they were not originally alicorns in the first place- and taken the dual throne. Together they fought great evils and made a home for their little ponies as warrior princesses. The last major foe was Discord, who was currently residing in the palace gardens trapped eternally in stone.

After that, however, it started explaining the Elements of Harmony. Loyalty was first, it explained how True loyalty is a conduit for harmony. Not Loyalty to one’s ruler, or even one’s nation. Loyalty to oneself most of all, but also Loyalty to what you hold dear. If you could remain loyal to yourself and those you care for then there is no chance for disharmony to take its place and cause pain.

Frustratingly, the next dozen or so pages were blank, Loyalty was the only element explained. As she was about to put the book away, she found more writing. The name of the chapter was ‘The Mare in the Moon’, so it was safe to say her interest was stoked again.

‘Princess Luna, Princess of the Night and the Matron of Dreams, found herself in the shadow of her elder sister. For centuries she lived there, the ponies of their now strong nation slowly favoring the day and its princess over the night. For centuries more she grew to resent her elder sister and her day until one day it was too much for the younger princess to bear. She could not stand the loneliness, the shadows, how her subjects could not even properly be called hers anymore. One day, she succumbed to disharmony and let the shadows within herself take over. The Matron of Dreams because the Queen of Nightmares that day, and that day was the last day Equestria saw for nearly a week.

It wasn’t until this ultimatum did the Princess of Day notice what her sister had lived through, and to this day she claims it is her greatest regret. They did battle for weeks, never tiring, living and fighting with the power of the day and the night themselves until the sun no longer pushed against the night, and the moon did not rise. A stalemate had formed, but only for a small while. The sun’s warmth could not reach its princess, and the moon’s cool could not reach the other. However, the Queen of Nightmares had just that on her side, Nightmares. Foul energy formed from the terror of her ponies, this was the night that Nightmare Moon was truly born, and it was the day the Elements of Harmony manifested to defeat the Queen of Nightmares. 

Unable to truly strike down her own sister, the Princess of the Day pleaded with the elements to save the Princess of the Night instead. Her plea did not go unheard, and rather than being struck down the Queen of Nightmares was banished to her seat of power. It was foretold on the dawn of the new day, only the stars could aid in her escape. But on this day, it is clear that it is the stars that shall aid in her escape.’

Twilight blinked, this bold writing seemed to be more recent. The ink was fresh, but it was not wet. For the first time, she decided to scan the book with an advanced scanning spell and nearly dropped it. It was just like when she tried to trace the magic before, it felt… familiar. Something she only felt from Princess Celestia.

Celestia had used the Elements of Harmony, even now its energy clung to her and she’s been able to sense it. This book was about the Elements of Harmony, and it retained some of their energy as well!

“By my previous forays into your dreamscape, I never thought I’d expect to find you in such a position. I believed Spike to be your only companion.” She heard, startling her, from one of the couches nearby. She looked over and it was that same blue alicorn from before. It was…

“Princess Luna…” She breathed. The alicorn smiled and politely inclined her head from her position lounging on the couch.

“At your service, my dear.” She replied elegantly. Twilight giggled a little bit before shifting, finally noticing Rainbow snuggled up against her side. Her first instinct was to reel back in surprise, and the way her fur stood on end betrayed that to the princess in the room, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

“Friendship is important, I am glad that you are no longer alone in that regard.” The princess said, melancholy strong in her tone. Twilight’s expression of ‘what am I even doing?’ fell to a soft smile as she looked at Dash, and then at Luna. So she was asleep then, figures she’d dream of her research again when she fell asleep doing it. The smile turned into a line of recognition as she looked back at the pegasus and at the princess again.

“Princess? I have no idea why you’re here, but could I ask you a favor?” The unicorn asked, a bit of hesitation in her voice. Only her familiarity with royalty let her even say the words if she were honest.

“If it is within my ability then I would be happy to.” The alicorn replied. Twilight looked back at Rainbow and noticed her expression and general demeanor. Her face was scrunched up, as if she was in pain, and she was just short of clinging onto Twilight for dear life.

“You used to be the Matron of Dreams right? I mean, you’re in mine right now… could you help hers? Nightmares are a good night for her, she’s here because she was awoken by full blown night terrors and didn’t want to be alone… She has such a good heart, I couldn’t send her away… Do you think you could at least help with the night terrors?” She explained slowly. Her hopeful expression fell when Luna’s expression turned grave.

“I wish I could, my dear… It used to be one of the things I took the most pride in… but for a thousand years, every dream I entered I would be followed by her.” The princess replied, the last word practically spat with venom in the tone. It only took Twilight a moment to remember what she could be talking about.

“Nightmare Moon, the Queen of Nightmares… Well, I haven’t seen her yet… and this is the second time you’ve entered mine… Do you think you could try at least? I can’t imagine what terrible things a queen of nightmares could do when she’s already plagued with them…” Twilight insisted. Luna hummed softly.

“For you, my dear, I will try… I hope for her sake you are correct…” The princess answered after a few moments of thought and stood. She neared the two of them and Twilight couldn’t help but stare at the ancient mare. She was stunningly beautiful, more so than even Celestia was- dare she say. The alicorn seemed to notice as she laid a hoof upon Dash’s head and looked over.

“If you keep giving me those eyes your dreamscape may shift into something you may find terribly uncomfortable.” She said with the softest of smirks. Twilight blinked a few times and flushed up, ducking her head. This earned a snort and a little chitter from the other as she turned back to the pegasus and closed her eyes. When Twilight finally looked back up, she found herself nearly lost in the other again. Especially when the princess started humming a soft tune. It was like a lullabye, it certainly would have put Twilight to sleep if this wasn’t already a dream.

“I know not whether it is by chance or some miracle, but she sleeps soundly now. This first true dream in her memory will be sacred to her, I dare not intrude upon it. She experienced much hardships in the war for her country, and her mind had been poisoned by her own perception of herself due to her injuries… She did not follow me and I unwound the knots and wove them into harmony once more… I… I never thought I’d be able to do that again... “ The princess explained, by the end she was nearly in tears and it showed in her voice.

Twilight didn’t know why she did it, or what part of her brain told her to actually do it, but she put a hoof on Luna’s shoulder where she had knelt down. The princess smiled and blinked away the tears that hadn’t yet fallen.

“You’re giving me those eyes again.” She said after they had been staring at each other for more than just a moment or two. This time Twilight giggled.

“Maybe I am. This is a dream afterall, is it not?” The unicorn replied somewhat playfully. This earned a larger snort from the princess, who was trying to hold back laughter. Before she could reply, though, Twilight’s playful smirk fell into a line that betrayed a deep thought. Luna held back her playful retort upon seeing this.

“Princess… Why did you start coming to me in my dreams?” Twilight finally asked. Luna’s expression became unreadable for far too long to be comfortable, but Twilight would be patient. This was a dream, she had all the time in the world.

“I… sensed the largest spike of magical and harmonic energy since the defeat of Nightmare Moon… so I traced it through the dreamscape. I found you, working on your arcanotech in a dream. Last night, and even this night, you didn’t seem to notice you had even fallen asleep. Not until I manifested and spoke. I admit I risked a lot on your end manifesting like I did, or even entering your dreamscape in the first place, but the Nightmare dared not follow for a reason I still cannot fathom… And you even explained your contraption and allowed me to analyze it. I’ve been causing nightmares all around the scientific community trying to learn more about it on the off chance I could contribute, or at least understand it in full…” The princess started explaining. It was slow at first, though as she went on her tone got more excited.

“...See, you were the first pony I’d ever talked to, or even interacted with in any way or observed, in almost a millenia. And you didn’t just wave me off as some facet of your dream, you gave me a chance. And you’re even researching me and my past...It makes me truly wish that I could meet you face to face…” The princess continued. It dawned on Twilight how much the fact that they were conversing here meant to the Princess. She had meant to ask what Luna meant by ‘for you’ earlier, but that could only be the reason.

“Well, haven’t you spent a thousand years at the source of your power? Couldn’t you come back if you wanted to at this point?” Twilight asked, just a little hopeful. Luna’s excited grin fell to a sad smile.

“I could have returned mere days after my banishment… but I was no longer the Queen of Nightmares… she is an entity that clings to me. There’s nothing to gain by taking over again while we are trapped, and so she is biding her time until the day I finally crack and succumb to her again, or succumb to my loneliness and damn Equestria for the chance to speak to one pony…” She met Twilight’s gaze then, and Twilight felt her heart tighten a bit at it. She was seriously considering it right now. The princess shook her head and took a breath.

“Well… what about the Elements of Harmony? Could they help you now that you aren’t corrupted by Disharmony?” Twilight asked. Luna shook her head.

“My sister and I used to wield them together, I could never command all of them. She never truly could either, for true Harmony lies in the cooperation of others… In doing so, she forfeited her right to them as I did when I became the Queen of Nightmares.” The alicorn replied. They stayed silent for a little while longer before Twilight spoke up again.

“Well, this book suddenly appeared to me for a reason. It has residual harmonic energy on it even now, something I mistook as Celestia’s magic before… maybe I’ll learn something to help you. Perhaps what it means by ‘the stars’.” Twilight said, more to herself than to Luna really. Luna nodded.

“‘On the longest day of the thousandth year, only the stars could aid in her escape. To bring eternal night.’... The Prophecy of the Mare in the Moon, yes… The best guess to be made is that it means that only the stars could aid in my escape, and not even I command the stars any longer…” Luna recited. Twilight’s eyes widened.

“You too… No, that’s wrong… Look!” She said, flipping to he first page. She couldn’t help but ‘hah!’ triumphantly as the words were indeed what they were supposed to be. Luna took a moment to read it and she looked confused.

“That’s… wrong? No, you are far too meticulous to misremember something like that… The prophecy changed? I… have never heard of such a thing.” The bewildered princess said.

“Maybe that’s why the book came to me, maybe I’m supposed to figure out what can aid in your escape!” Twilight exclaimed. She was about to start rambling off theories when two hooves on her shoulders stopped her dead and she looked back up to see Luna gazing into her eyes again.

“Twilight, do not come to such conclusions so fast. From what I have gleaned, my sister is not very forgiving when it comes to bringing our past up… She has become much harder in her ways than I remember… I know she cares for you, but do not push this to the limit of her patience… She may not mean to harm you, but she may… The flames of the sun were always volatile even when she was in perfect control…” Luna explained slowly. Twilight sighed but nodded.

“She did almost execute me because I had the book in the first place, but she trusted me enough to let me explain myself. Princess, she dedicated an entire day to mourning your loss… I never knew what the day of Mourning was actually for until now… but even the week prior we call Black Week because the days wane and the nights last longer, and she wears black like a mourning widow. I think she would jump at the chance to have you back, I’ve been with her on that day before… She just… sits on her balcony. Staring at the moon… crying.” Twilight explained, and only barely noticed the room change into that very scene as most of her conscious thought focused on the memory. Luna gasped at the state of her sister.

“For the past three years, since I graduated from her school to become her personal Arcanotechnician and student in full, I’ve been keeping her company during the day of mourning- if not the entire week of Black Week…” Twilight continued softly as she walked over to Celestia on the balcony like she had the past three years. She said nothing, did nothing, merely sat there next to her princess as she silently cried the night away. After what felt like seconds, though what Twilight knew to be hours, Celestia finally unfurled a wing and pulled Twilight closer to gently hold her and stroke her mane.

“It’s… strange… to see my sister in such a state… She was always the stronger of us… In more ways than physically.” Luna said softly. Twilight nodded as the dream-Celestia wiped her tears and moved into the adjacent bathroom to clean herself up.

“She told me once, that she had to restrain herself from striking me the first time I dared knock on her door during this day… but when I told her I just wanted to keep her company she told me all of her fury melted away. Since then, I’ve started keeping the entire day open so I can make sure she doesn’t have to cry alone… It hurts me so much to see her like that…” Twilight continued, looking towards the closed bathroom door. She was a little surprised by Luna pulling her into an embrace, wings and all, and sniffling a bit.

“Thank you, Twilight Sparkle… It pains me as well to see her like that… but knowing you grant her such comfort at this time… I… I can only thank you and admire your kindness even in the face of such potential danger to yourself…” Luna nearly squeaked out. Twilight didn’t really know how to respond to that, and by the time the thought came to her that she should probably return the embrace or say something the princess had let go and pulled away a step. Before Twilight could even think of something to say after that, however, Luna sharply looked in one direction and deflated somewhat.

“It would appear it is morning… Someone is knocking on your door. I hope to see you again next you dream, my dear…” Luna said. Twilight was startled out of her response as Luna bowed to her. Before she could recover she heard the faintest of knocks and opened her eyes. She groaned softly at that, staring into the softly glowing embers of the fireplace. She heard what she thought was a voice coming from the door, but it was far too soft to make out what was being said.

She slowly slid away from Rainbow Dash’s sleeping form and couldn’t help but smile as the grimace from before was now replaced by an almost giddy smirk, accentuated periodically by an almost cute snore. She heard the knock again and sighed, turning towards it. She failed to notice that the book read something different this time, as it lay open just beside where her head had been resting.

‘Kindness’
> Kindness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Oh! I’m so sorry that I woke you up! I was just worried because… um… my friend is missing and…” The soft spoken pegasus at the door said when Twilight opened it up. She stopped when she heard Dash snoring softly and peeked around Twilight to see her.

“Oh my… she looks… peaceful… I’ve um… never seen her look like that in her sleep…” The new pegasus said, awe evident in her tone. After a few moments she seemed to remember she was at someone else’s doorstep and quickly bowed her head low.

“I’m so sorry again for waking you up! She’s clearly in good hooves, I think I should go now…” The shy pegasus continued, backing away from the door slowly. Twilight blinked a few times before yawning wide and stepping aside.

“Come on in, if you’re a friend of Rainbow’s then I trust you. I know the workshop is a little intimidating at first, at least form the outside, so coming up to it just to make sure your friend was ok was pretty brave of you.” Twilight said. The pegasus nodded slowly, some of her confidence returning, as she shuffled around Twilight to enter.

“Philomena love, it’s morning! Go on outside and play, I know you love the dawn!” Twilight called down one of the pipes leading down into the furnace. A lazy caw was her response as the fireplace went out in full and the sound of the phoenix leaving the great source of energy was heard. Fluttershy froze in place when the phoenix, eyes narrow with sleep, hopped up the stairs. They all looked at Dash as she let out a particularly loud snore and Twilight giggled.

“Seems even us yelling doesn’t wake her up. Wanna try your talon at it?” Twilight asked the bird. The mischievous look in her eye was all the response they needed before the bird hopped over to the sleeping mare. She let out a particularly piercing screech right in her face, but Dash only flicked a wing in response. The bird cocked her head and appeared to even smirk. She hopped onto Dash’s head and her smirk deepened. The slight sizzle and smell of burned hair finally caused the sleeping mare to crack an eye open.

“What’d I say about the mane, feathers?” The pegasus said grumpily. The bird cawed in response before shooting out of the still open door. Dash mumbled something under her breath as she slowly sat up and let out a massive yawn.

“Sleep well?” Twilight asked, her tone hopeful. That seemed to remind the pegasus that something wasn’t normal about this. She had just roused from a deep sleep, not bolted upright screaming again. In fact, she could remember actually dreaming. She looked at the off-color feathers on her right wing and sighed. Then she looked up at Twilight. Both she and Fluttershy were a little worried when the mare got up and started walking towards them, tears in her eyes, but it quickly warmed as the mare pulled Twilight into a full embrace. It wasn’t too different from how Luna had held her in that dream.

“Thank you… I… I don’t know what you did… but…” She started, sniffling, until she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She started crying, but they were tears of happiness. Twilight was shocked, some instinct or another driving her to gently stroke the mare’s mane as she cried. She looked to Fluttershy, grasping at straws for what to do, but she seemed to be almost in tears as well.

“Oh my gosh! Dash, did you really not have a nightmare?!” Fluttershy exclaimed. Well, an exclamation for her was still apparently barely above a whisper. Dash just nodded as she practically clung to Twilight for dear life.

“I-I… It started out as a nightmare, the one where I lost my wing again… but right before I hit the ground, I heard this… song...This soothing hum, and suddenly I was flying high above this beautiful field. The thermals were perfect, the wind was behind me, I could have glided forever!” The rainbow hued pegasus explained, finally composing herself slightly. “I… I kinda don’t want to go back home to sleep anymore… if that’s ok with you…” She continued to Twilight.

“What?! I-I mean, I don’t even sleep here most nights… And there’s definitely not enough room for you in the office. I have Spike sleeping in a basket, though he says he loves it…” Twilight started rambling. They were all startled out of it as the door suddenly slammed shut and started glowing blue for a moment before the dragon in question practically swung in again. He opened his mouth to say something, but paused when he saw not only Rainbow Dash here, but Fluttershy as well.

“Oh, since when did you start making so many friends Twi? Anyways, there’s a mare here to see you. Said it was something important about her livelihood.” The young dragon said. Twilight’s uncertain reply was cut off by Fluttershy practically squealing.

“OHMYGOSHISTHATABABYDRAGON?!” She got out, which roughly translated into ‘oh my gosh is that a baby dragon?’. With the softest gusts of wind, Fluttershy was next to Spike in the blink of an eye. She had reached out to presumably grab him like a child, but she quickly stopped and looked at Twilight. Still a little bewildered, Twilight gave a little nod and couldn’t help but grin as Spike was swept up in the shy mare’s grasp and doted over like a new mother with a foal. Spike giggling and half hearted protests only accentuated it.

“You gave me my dreams back, Twilight… I’d sleep out in the rain if it meant that never went away…” Dash said softly, leaning into Twilight ever so slightly while Fluttershy was still doting over Spike. Twilight looked over and saw the mare’s soft pink tinted cheeks and how she was looking everywhere but directly at Twilight’s eyes. The unicorn smiled but shook her head.

“I didn’t do it, Rainbow. I just asked…” She replied. Dash seemed a little confused about that, but nuzzled Twilight just under the chin. It caused all of her fur to stand up and her pinks to match Dash’s.

“Either way, it was still because of you.” She said before pulling away just as Spike finally wriggled free from Fluttershy’s grasp and plodded over to them.

“Anyways! Business! Stuff!” He huffed out, embarrassed at being treated like a child again. Twilight kissed him on top of the head, though. She knew he loved it, Celestia knows he does when she does it. And that wasn’t just a figure of speech.

“Alright. It was nice meeting you. It seems Spike’s taken a liking to you as well, I’d say you’re welcome here whenever you want really. I’m not around all that much to be honest, but if Dash is going to be sticking around more maybe I’ll spend some more time on this side. My name is Twilight Sparkle, by the way. And speaking of, you’re free to come and go as well Dash. I don’t mind if you bring some cloudstuff in here or if you want to claim a room upstairs, I can’t promise I can be here every night but it’ll be good to see if your nightmares come back.” Twilight said to the two.

“Oh! I’m so sorry! My name is Fluttershy, and that’s… um… nice…” The shy mare said, apparently not really knowing how to respond to the current situation now that she didn’t have a baby dragon to distract her. Twilight nodded and made towards the still open door leading into the hallway of her office at the palace.

“Uh, Twi?” Spike said. Twilight turned to look at him, he poked his nose with a talon and Twilight looked cross-eyed at her own nose. It was filthy. She hadn’t bathed last night after spending the entire day working with machinery and volatile magic. She debated having Spike stall for time while she took a quick shower, but decided to just use a quick cleaning spell. She and Spike entered the hallway and turned to shut the door. Fluttershy waved with a smile, but Twilight almost made a whining noise when she saw Dash’s face. She seemed like she thought she wasn’t going to be able to survive without Twilight. She gave her a warm smile and mouthed ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon’ before closing the door and twisting the knob back into its normal place.

“Well, he said not to touch it while it was glowin’... Is he back now?” They heard through the door. Twilight proceeded to open it, which startled the earth pony on the other side. Twilight was barely out of range as the mare swiped a hoof in the air and stumbled backwards a bit.

“Consarn it! You scared the nellies out of me!” The mare exclaimed. Twilight was suddenly very aware she probably would have been out for days if that hook had connected as she could see the muscle on this mare.

“Sorry, I don’t get many guests that don’t know about it… What can I help you with?” Twilight asked as she closed the door behind her and led the mare into the office proper adjacent to the astronomy room. The mare had a soft orange coat and a blonde mane and tail that looked reminiscent of hay if hay looked like it was soft as a cloud. This mare clearly made sure to use her conditioner this morning.

“It’s alright, sorry I swung on ya. Anyways, My family and I run a farm not too far away from here an’ we’ve been relyin’ heavily on our machinery lately. So many of the family moved out to other cities to be more active with all the fancy tech that’s poppin’ up all around. Mac an’ I can’t keep up usin’ the carts so we’ve been usin’ the tractors more an’ more. Problem is, they’re old old tractors and the ponies we had fix em up to use them batteries you thought up did a real bad job of it and it makes the batteries drain right up real fast. We can’t afford new machinery an’ all my technical know-how is in hydraulics an’ steam engines. We can’t even afford to have a proper Arcanotechnician come out an’ fix em up.” The mare explained. Twilight hummed and wrote some things down in a notebook.

“I see, what exactly can I help you with though?” She asked, prodding the mare for more information. She was far too used to the nobility trying to sugarcoat lopsided requests with a sob story.

“Well, I heard that the Princess’ personal Arcanotechnician was in the process of makin’ a better battery that don’t need replacin’. The Apple Family don’t get by on handouts, so I didn’t come here to ask for no favors. I came here to make a deal. I try an’ help you with whatever you need doin’, even if it’s just heavy liftin’, and you either come fix our current machinery up nice or we can let you test yer stuff out on em. The farm’s done for either way otherwise so it won’t hurt none if it fails.” The mare answered. Twilight hummed.

The idea of having more help on her project was appealing, though she didn’t know exactly what the mare could do. The heavy lifting part wasn’t really an issue because of her magic, she’d have to take a measure of what the mare’s technical skills were. A farm pony usually wasn’t the first place to look for a technician, but there were certain things she said that led her to believe otherwise.

“Alright Miss…” Twilight started.

“Applejack.”

“Miss Applejack. Where is this farm of yours? The least I can do is take a look, my week is fairly empty since I’ve made some significant progress on my Arcane Engine recently. I could at least point you in the right direction even if I can’t help you.” Twilight continued. Applejack lit up at that.

“Oh thank you! We’re in Ponyville, see my family founded the place and it kinda sprouted up around the orchards.” Applejack replied. She was confused when Twilight started laughing.

“Sorry, Just an amazing coincidence. My workshop is over next to Ponyville at the moment. Come on, let’s take the shortcut.” She said, leading the confused mare out of the tower.

“I’ll hold down the fort, bring me back something sweet!” Spike called out from where he took his seat at Twilight’s desk. She waved at him in response and closed the door.

“Shortcut? But Ponyville is a four hour train ride away…” Applejack said skeptically.

“Magic.” Twilight said. Applejack snorted.

“Girl I aint heard of no unicorn strong enough to teleport two ponies that far.” The earth mare retorted. Twilight giggled.

“I can make it alone, two might be a bit of a drain but I probably wouldn’t die. No, even cooler magic.” She replied, twisting the handle as it glowed golden. “Welcome to the Wandering Workshop.” She continued as she opened the door. Fluttershy was still there, petting Philomena who was cooing softly like a purr.

“What in… Flutters? What’re y’all doin’ here?” Applejack said. Fluttershy looked up, surprised.

“Oh! Applejack! You were the mare that needed Twilight?” The pegasus asked, Philomena grumpy at the fact her perch had stood up without telling her.

“Yeah, I left yesterday remember? Went to go get help from that famous Arcanotechnician Rares was talkin’ about.” Applejack replied, stepping inside and taking a look around.

“Where’d Rainbow go?” Twilight asked.

“Oh! She went home to grab a few things. I know you told her she could claim a room, but I think she might completely move in here…” Fluttershy replied, looking out  of an open window towards Dash’s cloud home.

“Wait what? Since when was Dash movin’?” Applejack asked.

“It’s a bit of a long story. I can tell you while we walk. Are you going to stick around, Fluttershy?” Twilight asked. Fluttershy shook her head.

“No, I’ve already spent enough time away from my animals. I just never expected to meet a phoenix and a baby dragon today!” The mare said.

“Be careful with that one, she loves to play pranks.” Twilight warned as she penned a note as she closed the door and twisted it, the blue glow fading and opening it again to reveal the countryside near Ponyville again.

“That is cooler magic.” Applejack mumbled to herself.

“Philomena love, make sure you let Dash in if she comes back before me. Otherwise usual procedure.” Twilight said as she motioned for the two to follow. The phoenix squawked in an affirmative, even giving a salute with a wing, before flying back out of the window.

“If you don’t mind, um, I’ll walk with you. I’m not the greatest flier so, um, I might as well not travel alone.” Fluttershy suggested. The two nodded happily and they climbed down the plated steps to the ground and made their way towards the road.

“So you all know each other?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, we’ve got a nice little circle of ponies here. It’s me, Flutters here, Dash, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie who runs the bakery. Rarity makes the prettiest darn dresses you’ll ever see, even got me to wear one for her birthday and I didn’t hate it. She and Pinkie do some other stuff on the side but I’ve kinda lost track of it with the troubles an’ all.” Applejack replied.

“I believe Rarity is in Canterlot right now taking the Arcanotechnician course at the university, something about making her designs come alive.” Fluttershy explained. Applejack nodded.

“Arcanotechnician? Interesting, sounds like someone I’d be interested in meeting.” Twilight said.

“Hm? Oh yeah, probably. She sure as hay wants to meet you. But anyways, what’s this about Dash movin’?” The earth mare asked.

Twilight proceeded to explain what happened that night and most of the morning, sans the princess of course.

“Wait, you’re tellin’ me that she didn’t wake up screamin’ her head off this morning?” Applejack asked. The two nodded.

“She looked so… peaceful… I still feel kinda bad about having to wake her up actually… She hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep since she came home, not to mention since her accident.” Fluttershy replied.

“I’ve lost four cousins to that war, and got three more fightin’ them rebels now. Mac still can’t look at a rifle the same- though he was finally able to shake hooves with a griffon and not have a fit. He was just a corporal, Dash climbed from Private all the way to Major in that war in just two years.” Applejack said as the shook her head. “Well, whatever happened yer a damn good influence on her psyche for some reason and I’m glad to hear it. Fer helpin’ her like that, even if it’s just one night, you’ll always be welcome at our dinner table.” She continued to Twilight.

“Um… Thank you? I was just helping a friend. She helped so much with the testing yesterday I had to help her, and she just looked so… downtrodden… I just wanted to help her.” The unicorn replied. Applejack smiled and nodded.

“Darn good of ya too, mighty fine heart you got in there. I tell you what I was worried when I came to yer place, all them snooty nobles lookin’ at me like they were. I was worried you’d be just like them professors at the university thinkin’ they were hot stuff because they solved some equation or another.” The earth mare said. Twilight snorted.

“Darn right I’m hot stuff! I invented the most efficient energy source since steam power, made it mass producible, perfected the dozens of glyph arrays written form almost scratch to do so, AND I’m improving upon the design already. I just don’t go holding it over everyone’s head. I sure as hay couldn’t run an apple orchard that’s for sure.” Twilight replied.

“Hah! The right amount of Pride and Humility. Looks like we found ourselves a keeper huh flutters?” Applejack said, nudging the shy mare.

“You do seem like a very interesting mare. While I’m no good with all of the technological stuff, there are a few things I would like to know in the future… um… if you don’t mind. I’m heading an environmental preservation committee due to have its first meeting with the council in Canterlot this week and I know too little about Arcanotech to properly assess it for its threat to environment.” The pegasus replied. Twilight hummed.

“I bet you had a field day when Steam first became popularized…” Twilight said. The surprisingly agitated hum from the pegasus confirmed that statement. “Don’t worry, it’s heavily based on the old practice of magical talismans made from gemstones. Cleaner than burning coal or other fuel sources for steam, and hopefully it’ll slow down the industrial digging operation for oil for the hydraulics. I use a lot of everything, but even my boilers are phoenix powered.” Twilight explained. Fluttershy hummed again.

“She did seem happy… is she alright with being used as a fuel source?” Fluttershy asked. Twilight laughed.

“Absolutely. Until I suggested it, she was actually somewhat miserable as Princess Celestia’s pet. The Princess saved her when she was young and she could never bring herself to leave, but she couldn’t really burn much in the palace. One day, as a joke, I suggested making her a fuel source for a magical walking building and she jumped on the idea and here we are. There are fire talismans that she keeps powered in there to avoid the need for coal or other fuels to burn, we use rain and water talismans for the plumbing and steam, I designed a filtering glyph array so that the oil for the hydraulics lasts exponentially longer as well. And as far as Philomena goes, she gets to fly free whenever she wants. She can open the furnace to come and go as she pleases, gets to explore without risk of being hunted for her feathers or by predators, and I spoil her rotten with treats when I’m around.” Twilight replied. Fluttershy seemed satisfied with that.

“I should go back home. I’ll see you later AJ. Twilight, if you have time later, you’d be welcome to come and visit me at my home there- that tree yes. I’d love to talk more about this over tea.” The mare said when they reached the small town. They both nodded and she trotted off in the direction of the tree home she pointed out.

“I’m impressed. You’re the first tech pony I’ve ever seen explain how they do their stuff and she didn’t even grimace once.” applejack said with a laugh as she started walking towards the apple orchards even Twilight couldn’t mistake.

“Cleaner energy is the main reason I designed the Arcane Batteries. Talismans are too out of practice to be practical anymore, the effort and energy that goes into making them not up to modern standards, so everyone went towards the nastier stuff. I still use Talismans to stay as clean as I can and to set an example.” Twilight replied. Applejack nodded at that but didn’t speak for awhile.

“Say, are you really just gonna take a look? I‘ve come to find that you’re not no liar, but you’re also darn kind. I already told ya the Apple family don’t take no handouts…” The earth mare said when they finally entered the orchards. She sighed and stopped. “Ah’d love to have you at the dinner table and chat with the family, they’d love ya, but I won’t let you near them tractors if you’re just gonna fix ‘em up fer no reason.” She continued. Twilight was confused, but she could hear the hesitation in the mare’s voice. She clearly didn’t want to turn down a handout, they couldn’t afford to, but her honor and pride meant she had to work for it. Apparently it was how they lived. She could definitely respect that.

“Well, the way I see it, I won’t know if I CAN help until I see it. We can figure things out from there. If you insist on working or paying for it after I figure out what’s wrong then we can see to it then.” Twilight said in response. Applejack hummed but nodded and started leading again. There was a massive house, clearly meant to house at least two dozen family members comfortably, and an equally massive barn. There was also an obviously more recently added garage with four machines in the open doors. A large earth stallion with a red coat and orange mane and tail was currently under one that was jacked up. He slid out and stood to meet them when they neared.

“Greetin’s Miss.” He said simply. He was massive! Probably twice Applejack’s size!

“U-Uh, hi…” Twilight practically squeaked in response. Applejack chuckled and nudged her shoulder.

“Mac this is Twilight Sparkle, she said she’ll take a look at ‘em for us. Got a fancy magic door that took us right nearby. Twilight, this is my big brother Big Macintosh. Folks just call him Mac though.” Applejack introduced them. They both nodded.

“Glad of ya t’come Miss Twilight. I know my way around the guts of these beasts, but them brothers twisted ‘em around some and them batteries are like oranges growin’ on an apple tree t’me.” The large stallion explained. Twilight nodded and stepped towards the one that was jacked up.

“May I?” She asked, putting a hoof on the wheeled sled he was using to go under. He simply nodded and Twilight slid under the machine without any hesitation.

“Oh wow these really are old. These things really did run on oil, I can see the stains. Oh wow, how much did you pay those brothers? This is the equivalent of duct taping a lantern to the ceiling and calling it a chandelier!” Twilight called out from under it.

“‘Bout a hundred bits per tractor, includin’ the price of the batteries. Theirs lasted the longest, ‘bout two weeks, but the only ones we were able to afford only lasted half that.” Mac replied.

“Oh for the love of Celestia, what did they…? Oh… Oh those hacks!” Twilight exclaimed. She rolled out from under the thing, clearly annoyed, and stood. She quickly turned to the two.

“This one is on the house, just because it physically pains me to see such a crime against technology. You’ve been scammed, the housing on this one at least has been tampered with and the glyph array to keep the pressure down is straight up gone. The batteries are incredibly low quality but there’s nothing wrong with them, they should last at least a month before breaking down with this kind of work.” Twilight explained. Before they could respond, and Applejack seemed like she was going to put a few obscenities into their rare use, Twilight turned and her horn started glowing. The tractor lifted off of the jack about a foot and every single piece of it came apart. Twilight continued to speak as she did this.

“I’ve encountered this kind of thing before, usually with Hydraulics and Clockwork since they’re either delicate or prone to breaking down naturally. In this case, they mess with it so that it works but you have to keep buying their batteries. They probably offered you some discounts on the first few batteries before you switched right?” She asked looking back at the two as the tractor slowly reassembled itself around the battery. The two could only nod, in awe of the feat of magical prowess in front of them.

“I’ve disassembled the housing and rewritten the glyph array. It won’t be able to hold a battery right now, I’ll need to grab a few things from my workshop to do it all, but if you have any standard lightning talismans on hand it’ll work just fine until then.” She said as the thing settled back down on the ground next to the jack.

“We do have one, was gonna be our last resort next month.” Mac said and struck off towards the barn, presumably to fetch the thing.

“Right, what do you want in return?” Applejack asked after she recomposed herself. Her tone was serious. Twilight shook her head.

“I told you, this one’s on me. You’ll need at least one functional for harvest right? It’ll help you at least catch up. Besides, like I said I would have nightmares if I let that atrocity of a patch job stay.” She started, but turned on Applejack to cut off her protest. “As far as the rest of them go, according to your suggestion, I will take them to my workshop and begin prototyping. I’ve actually just reached that stage in my testing, seeing if it’ll work hooked up to something and not just explode.” She continued. Applejack closed her mouth and let out huff of breath through her nose.

“An’ if it works we’d still owe ya.” The retorted. Twilight hummed and rubbed her chin in thought for a moment, looked down at it to see that yes there was soot on it and now her chin, channeled some magic to dissolve it, and continued rubbing it in thought.

“Well then, sounds like lunch is on you.” She said with a little smirk. Applejack blinked.

“What?” She asked, a little confused.

“You can’t afford to pay me, even though I usually don’t even charge, in bits so why not apples? With the one tractor alone you should be able to keep up with the demand. And if we do fix them all up completely then you’ll be back in business. Ponyville does have the best apples, the chefs in the kitchens refuse to stock anything but, but having my own personal supply sounds like adequate pay to me.” Twilight explained as Macintosh returned with a topaz encased in some wire mesh and glass. Without even really looking, Twilight took it from his grasp and placed it into its new housing. The engine roared to life and didn’t pop a few times like it used to.

“Oh yeah, one of the pistons weren’t sitting right in its housing. We’ll call that a courtesy fix.” She finished, rubbing her cheek for effect. She narrowed her eyes and looked at her hoof and saw there was oil on this one, which was now on her face as well.

“Basket a week as well as a permanent spot at our table sounds like a done deal ta me.” Mac said.

“She already had that spot, forgot to mention, but I guess I can live with that fer now. Don’t be afraid to ask for help at all though, yer doin’ this family more good than it’s seen in a long time…” Applejack said after a moment of pawing the ground. Twilight smiled and nodded. It was at that moment her stomach growled. She did kinda skip breakfast, and they had walked for awhile.

“Speaking of, I uh… don’t suppose that offer extends to lunch?” She asked sheepishly, earning a laugh from the two.
> Friendship
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight had spent much more time at Applejack’s than she intended, she hadn’t realized how long she had been talking with the family until Applejack put the dinner plate in front of her. They were just talking about nothing over coffee! She did finally get the family to let her leave, pulling the ‘got a baby dragon to take care of at home’ line. In all honestly Spike could care for himself, and often cared more for Twilight than the other way around, but it got her out of dessert at least. She did take one of the offered pies and send it home with a note to Spike though.

The sun was still out, though it was just beginning its slow descent towards the horizon. Her note to Dash said that she didn’t know how long she’d be and where she was so the fact that the rainbow maned pegasus hadn’t come flying told her that things were alright at the workshop. She decided to go over to Fluttershy’s home and see if she was still up and about. She could spare a few hours until she really had to leave if she got into another elongated conversation with the shy pegasus.

It had turned into two hours of talking, though less about the EPC and more about their experiences with their animals and young dragon. Fluttershy enjoyed hearing of Spike’s adolescence and Philomena’s pranks while Twilight was fascinated by the vast wealth of knowledge on both flora and fauna the mare had. She had even shared a few tea recipes and tonics with her! By the time Twilight finally left it was nearing midnight. She didn’t fancy a walk through the countryside alone soshe simply concentrated and teleported back to the workshop. She was ready for the wave of fatigue to pass after using so much magic in one go, but was pleasantly reminded of her recently enlarged pool of energy by the fact that it barely gave her headrush.

She opened the door, teleportation inside was made nearly impossible by a series of protective glyphs, and was about to call out to see if Dash had indeed returned. Her call died in her throat and she couldn’t help but smile as she saw the mare in question on the mattress from the previous night. There was an empty mug next to her, and a now cold mug of cocoa next to the other mattress. The pegasus was fast asleep, though, the pleasant smirk from that morning replaced with a small smile.

“Oh Rainbow, you waited for me…” Twilight said softly as she quietly closed the door and trotted over. A quick spell comfortably warmed the cocoa  and she slid into place next to the mare, their sides touching slightly, as she pulled the book over. She looked over as Dash’s good wing slowly unfurled and laid itself over her, though the soft snored  told Twilight that it wasn’t a conscious effort. She watched Dash sleep for a little while before sipping her cocoa and turning to the book. She had to blink a few times.

“Honesty?” She asked aloud.

“You should turn the page back, I think you missed one.” She was startled out of her confusion by the now familiar voice of the Princess of the Night. She looked up, confused, to see her lounging on the same couch as before. “You fell asleep watching her, it’s rather adorable if I do say so myself.” The princess giggled. Twilight took a few seconds to process everything and, choosing to ignore the Princess’ comment, turned the page back.

“‘Kindness. Kindness is one of the more powerful catalysts of harmony. With it, war is turned to peace. Anger is turned to forgiveness. To truly show kindness is not to blindly give it whenever possible. One must know when to show kindness and when to withhold it. Most importantly, however, one cannot truly learn to show kindness if they are not kind to themselves. Some mistake insecurity or humility for na inability to be kind to themselves, but these are often facets of kindness or unrelated whatsoever. There are some who come to loathe themselves, sometimes through no fault of their own, in one way shape or form. To truly show kindness is to overcome this hate for oneself, or to allow others to pull it from you. Kindness is only ever shared, afterall, be it with the one you see down the road every day or the one you see in the mirror.’... That’s… That kinda sounds like Celestia…” Twilight read, finished solemnly. Luna raised Twilight’s chin with an extended wingtip.

“It also sounds like you. You were there for her were you not? Slowly pulling her out of her cycle of self loathing?” She asked softly. Twilight nodded and looked down as Luna turned the pages with the wing tip before folding it again.

“‘Honesty. Honesty is one catalyst of harmony, like many of the others, that is neither consistent or absolute. While the truth is important and should always be laid bare in time, it is not always the right decision to tell the truth. Again, like most of the other elements, Honesty is often mistaken for the lack of lies and the telling of full truths. In truth, one must be honest with themselves. To tell a lie that you know is a lie for the good of those who hear it may be harmonious, but convincing yourself that a mistake was anything but is not. Conversely, telling yourself that you are wrong even when you are clearly in the right does disservice to more than one element of harmony.’ I’m starting to sense a pattern here… It seems all of the elements prize the internal reflection of their influence rather than the external- what is felt rather than what is shown.” Twilight read and commented. Luna nodded.

“It is true, I’m glad you came to this conclusion. The Elements of Harmony are catalysts of pure harmonic energy, but in order to be a catalyst yourself as a bearer of the elements- or at least an example of one- you must show them to yourself. As the book said, you cannot be truly kind to others if you are not kind to yourself. Your loyalty to your nation will always falter if you betray your own ideals. Your tongue is little more than a snake’s if you cannot share the truth even with yourself.” Luna explained. Twilight listened closely, though by the end of it she had looked over to Rainbow at a particularly loud snore nad was now watching her as she listened to Luna.

“She cares deeply for you, you know… Even though you told her it was not you who returned her dreams to her, she still sees you as the reason for it. And rightly so… She waited there for hours, reheated the beverage a few times. She slipped in and out of sleep near the end and finally succumbed. She feared beyond fear that lacking you at her side this night would lead to the nightmares again, but I made extra sure she would dream sweetly. I dare not enter it myself, however, she is a very lucid dreamer.” The princess said, Twilight looking back to see her small smirk.

“I mean… I remember I developed a really bad case of insomnia when I was younger. A growth spurt in my horn was causing some of the magic to mess with the sleep center in my brain and I physically couldn’t sleep until a medical unicorn fixed it, for two weeks my body rested but my brain was active the entire time. When I dreamed after the procedure, I felt like I could live my life again. I can’t imagine what years would feel like…” Twilight said softly, looking over at Dash again and gently stroking the sleeping mare’s mane.

“Ahh, known only for a few days and you’ve grown to care for her as well I see.” Luna said somewhat teasingly. Twilight flushed up but stuck her tongue out at the princess defiantly.

“She’s my first friend! Though that list is very quickly growing. I’m hoping you’re up there too, even if we can’t snuggle up and drink cocoa like I can with Dash.” The unicorn retorted. Luna stuck her tongue out in retort and stood.

“Says who? I believe your words were ‘We’re in a dream, aren’t we?’ or something of the sort?” She said with no small amount of sass as she sauntered over and plopped down next to Twilight and lifted her mug up to take a drink.

“Oh dear, whatever this is I think I’m going to need more of it. Do you think Cocoa beans grow on the moon?” The princess said after tasting it. Twilight just giggled and yawned wide. Luna looked down at her and her playful smirk fell to a soft smile.

“You are growing weary, I’ve kept your mind awake these past nights. I should give you the rest of this one to properly rest, loathe as I am to leave you early. I shall leave you with this to think about, however. I was honestly surprised to see what Rainbow Dash began to dream about. I had expected something to make even my sister blush, but instead what I saw as I warded her sleep from nightmares this night was something not dissimilar from the current scene. You are awake of course, but you are simply lying next to each other. Reading. Occasionally you’ll chat about your research and she’ll mention something in whatever she’s reading. Cozy is the word I’d use for it.” She explained Twilight’s ear flicked as she looked at the pegasus that still had a wing unconsciously around her.

“Do I detect a hint of jealousy in that tone?” Twilight said teasingly, though when she looked over her heart almost caught in her throat. She was hiding it well, but Twilight could see through even Celestia’s carefully crafted mask. Luna was jealous. She nuzzled into the princess’ shoulder.

“You’re both my friends, Luna… I’m starting to realize how important that is… I’ll figure this stuff out soon. Worst case scenario I perfect the Arcane Engine and use a dozen of them to power a teleport so powerful it’ll get me to the moon to sit with you in person.” The unicorn said softly, laughing softly as she said the last part. She could feel herself falling into a deeper sleep, however. She nuzzled a little further into Luna’s side and hummed, trying to push it away as long as possible.

”Well then, I’ll be anxiously awaiting the day my dear. Do remember to bring some with you, otherwise they’ll have to change the prophecy to ‘Mares on the moon’ rather than ‘Mare’. Twilight giggled weakly  as she continued to fight the sleep. Luna leaned down and kissed Twilight on the head and started humming.

“Sleep now, love. I’m not going anywhere.” She whispered softly. It took another few moments as she hummed, but the dreamscape finally faded into the darkness that followed deep sleep.

Twilight opened her eyes again to the sound of the door opening. The familiar thump and clicking of talons on the floor signalled that it was Spike and it was probably morning.

“Aw man, you’re having slumber parties over here!” Spike whispered, seeing that Dash was still asleep. Twilight pulled him over with her magic and caught him in an embrace, snuggling into him and the pegasus next to her at the same time.

“Hush you! How was the pie?” She whispered back.

“Probably the best dessert I’ve ever eaten. Chef Krahe heard me singing its praises halfway through it on a dinner delivery nearby and demanded he be the test of that. Last I heard he was putting in a massive requisition for apples.” Spike replied. “What’s with all this by the way? I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.” He continued. The noise Twilight made in response would have made a dog flinch.

“She’s not my girlfriend! You were there when we first met! She… it’s a long story…” Twilight grumbled. Spike was trying to stop from cackling at that.

“Anyways, I got a message from the Princess. She said any time today she’d love to hear about your progress with the Arcane Engines and anything else you may wish to share. I’ll be around the workshop all day, closed up the office, so I can send her any letters you want!” The dragon said, changing the subject. Twilight let out a sigh of relief as the dragon wriggled himself free. She looked over to her current cuddle buddy and debated the pros and cons of getting up. Ultimately, writing a letter to the Princess was pretty important and she needed to get up anyways.

“Dear Princess Celestia…” She started after finding a nice scroll of parchment and a pen. She wrote of her progress with the engines, as well as her new friends and the deal she made with Applejack. She gave vague allusions to making some progress on her ‘research project’ but said she hadn’t found anything concrete yet. She decided to leave Luna out for now, that’s something they’d have to talk about in person. As such she left out the part where she asked Luna to protect Rainbow Dash’s dreams. She finished by wishing the Princess good luck in her endeavors and to return home safely and having Spike send it.

She yawned and started the coffee machine with actual coffee beans today, though she didn’t mind the cocoa powder still left in the filter, as she entered the workshop to clear space for the tractors. An hour later  found the task complete and Twilight was at an impasse. She didn’t want to just go get the tractors and get to work with Dash still sleeping, but at the same time she didn’t really want to wake her up. After a few more moments of deliberation she decided that she could stand to read some more.

“You know, I know that whole girlfriend thing was a joke, but in all seriousness is she?” Spike asked, poking his head in from the workshop. Twilight rolled her eyes.

“Spike, I’ve known her for three days. For some reason her being here abates her nightmares. She’s too terrified to sleep in her own home for fear of them coming back. And besides, she’s super comfy.” Twilight replied, snuggling into her spot. The wing extended over again and tightened slightly.

“So are you.” Dash’s groggy voice came. They both looked down at the waking mare and Twilight snickered.

“It’s pretty easy when you can keep your coat perfectly clean with magic.” She said. Dash slowly sat up, yawned wide, and then booped Twilight on the nose.

“You came home so late last night…” She mumbled. Spike was poorly keeping back laughter at the interaction, Twilight was currently doing a good job at ignoring him.

“I’m sorry, after I took a look at Applejack’s tractors they invited me in for lunch. I hadn’t realized how long I’d been there until the lunch table turned to dinner table. Then I stopped by Fluttershy’s at around dusk and lost track of time there as well. You have some incredible friends.” The unicorn explained. Dash grumbled a few things as she leaned into Twilight heavily, obviously fighting the urge to go back to sleep. Twilight just giggled and gently shoved the pegasus back into proper stature.

“You’re no fun!... But yeah, they’re a cool bunch. Pinkie is even better! Rarity and I don’t exactly have the most in common, but when we do hang out she always has funny stories and she has like the most generous heart you’ll ever see- nobody really knows how her business is so successful when she gives so much.” The pegasus retorted.

“Speaking of, weren’t you going to go grab those tractor things and bring them here?” Spike asked. Twilight nodded and stood, Dash grumbling about not having the unicorn by her side. Twilight snickered and ruffled her mane, the tired flailing protest ineffective against the assault.

“Philomena love, have you had breakfast yet?” Twilight called down one of the pipes. An affirmative caw was her reply. “Good girl! Could you please bring us around the town near the orchards? We’ve got some heavy machinery to pick up!” She continued. Another affirmative caw and the house practically shook as the boilers started running at full and the hydraulics in the moving parts groaned into life.

“In the meantime let’s head into town for breakfast. I owe you for making you wait so long.” Twilight said. “Any recommendations?” She asked. Dash grinned and started singing the praises of a place called Sugarcube Corner.

It was an… interesting building to say the least. It looked like a foal had decided to make a building out of sweets, and an architect went ‘sure, why not?’ and turned it into a bakery.

“Hi! Welcome to- OH Hey Dashie! Oh wow who’s your new friend? I don’t know her and I know EVERYBODY!” The pinkie mare behind the counter practically explained in a single breath.

“Pinks, this is Twilight. She’s the one who helped me with my dreams. Twi, this is Pinkie Pie. There are no words that can describe this pony so we’ll just let her do it herself.” Dash introduced them.

“OHMYGOSH You helped Dashie? That makes you one of my bestest friends in the whole world because she’s one of my bestest friends in the whole world and she was having so much trouble sleeping every night but you helped her and she said she can sleep all nice and stuff and that’s SUPER important!” The pink mare rattled out so fast Twilight almost couldn’t comprehend it. Almost.

“I’d be happy to make more friends! Yes, I was the one who helped it along. Yes, it is super important to sleep soundly.” Twilight replied. Dash looked impressed. “What?” She asked upon seeing the mare’s expression.

“Twilight I STILL can’t understand everything she says half the time, that’s impressive.” Dash said. Twilight rolled her eyes.

“Oh, you’ve never heard silver tongued nobles try to fast-talk their way through uneven tax reforms and business ventures. Well Pinkie Pie, I was told you have the best pastries in the country. What do you recommend for breakfast?” The unicorn replied and asked the pink mare. Pinkie hummed a bit as she looked at everyone.Twilight looked a little concerned when a few extremities started twitching.

“Well, Dashie’s favorite breakfast is the coffee cinnamon danish. My tail frizzed up and my left forehoof twitched left then right, so the little dragon wants the rock candy muffin. My back right hoof and my nose both twitch all the way around so that means you want the cinnamon honey rolls!” The pink mare listed off, like her involuntary movements were some sort of published chart. Dash saw the confusion on her face and snorted.

“We call it her Pinkie Sense. Don’t question it, the best doctors in the country couldn’t figure it out.” Dash said before nodding to the pink mare, who immediately rushed behind the counter to apparently make the pastries fresh.

“Wow Twi, in three days you’ve made four cool friends. I’m impressed.” Spike said. Dash snorted and Twilight rolled her eyes.

“Well, Nobody had ever come to the workshop like that… And Applejack was far too kind for that to stay strictly business. I have a feeling even if all of this wouldn’t have happened the way it did I would have met the lot of you through her at the very least.” Twilight explained. Dash nodded, though Spike scratched his chin.

“The question is, would you have been able to see it as more than business if you weren’t already making friends?” The young dragon retorted. Twilight opened her mouth to reply, but the words caught in her throat. He was right, she probably wouldn’t have thought of Applejack’s friendliness as more than just ‘sucking up’ or at the best just being a good business mare.

“Well that’s not how it happened, so seems like fate decided you were getting some cool friends.” Dash said. Twilight smiled and nodded and Spike shrugged.

“Once Rarity gets back we can introduce her to you too! And then I’ll have to throw a new best friends forever party!” Pinkie exclaimed, causing the two that weren’t used to her ways to jump out of their skin and scales respectively. They hadn’t noticed her appear between them and were pulled into a big hug.

“That sounds… nice…? When is this Rarity coming home?” Twilight asked.

“She’ll be in university for the rest of the year, but their first major break is supposed to be sometime soon. I don’t know too much about that stuff though.” Dash answered. Twilight nodded and Pinkie was suddenly behind the counter again, their orders on a nice platter.

“Well, since this is your first time at Sugarcube Corner, and you’re one of my bestest friends now, this one’s on the house! Though i can’t do it every time or Mr and Mrs Cake will get mad at me and make me clean the ovens again, even though I already clean them every week!” Pinkie exclaimed as she pushed the platter over.

“Come sit and chat with us Pinks, at least until someone else walks in.” Dash suggested. The pink mare nodded enthusiastically as she carried the platter over to their table for them and set out the plates. There were two extras however. Pinkie sat at one of the empty spaces, but the other one- an apple danish- was empty.

Just before any of them could ask about it, Applejack walked in looking out of the door.

“Holy Hay Twi, I didn’t realize that thing walked! Half the town’s all up in a huff about it comin’ so close! Took Mac an’ I ten minutes to convince the militia it wasn’t a threat.” The farmer said as she turned to see Twilight sitting there with Dash and Pinkie. She walked over and Pinkie patted the seat the danish was in front of.

“Oh I’m sorry, I forgot to let you know I was sending her over… Once we’re done here we can head right over and I’ll get to work.” Twilight said before sampling her pastry. The look on her face caused Dash to snort and almost choke on her own breakfast, causing the rest of the table to break into laughter.

“Y’all are adorable you know that?” Applejack asked with a little snort. The little smirk on her face caused Twilight and Dash to look at each other. Twilight hadn’t even noticed Dash’s wing around her shoulder, and Dash didn’t even notice how the unicorn leaned into it. They both flushed up.

“Twilight insists you’re not dating but you’re really starting to make me wonder.” Spike said. She dodged the telekinetic swipe at his head like he was expecting it and stuck a forked tongue out in retort.

“We’re not! At least I don’t think we are… Are we dating? I don’t really know how it works to be honest.” Twilight said, her face turning red as she turned to the pegasus. Dash had only sunk further into her seat.

“Uh… I mean… I kinda want to…” Dash almost squeaked. The table went silent at that.

“Oh… Is it normal for two ponies to date even though they’ve only known each other for a couple days?” Twilight asked, looking around the table.

“I mean, some ponies go to bars at night and come home with a partner after an hour.” Applejack said, rubbing her chin.

“Twi, I can’t really say I know you all that well to be honest… but you’ve seen me at my worst. And you fixed my worst… You took care of me when I needed it, and you’ve been putting up with me being super clingy… I’d say you know me better than anyone else except for those at this table right now- minus one Rarity. I kinda wanted to date you since that night you let me stay with you.” Dash explained softly.

Twilight took in the pseudo-confession and thought about it. She looked around the table, even Spike seemed to be smiling about it. Dash looked hopeful of course and she couldn’t really form words at the moment.

“It’s totally ok if you don’t want to do the whole dating thing… You said you’re new to the whole social interaction thing. As long as we can still be friends, and I can still hang around your place, I’ll be happy.” Dash explained. Her eyes fell a little bit at that but she still looked determined. She was telling the truth as far as Twilight could tell, not just trying to lower the tension that had formed. Twilight took a deep breath and looked over at Dash.

“I… I can’t promise it’ll last, since I have no idea what I’m doing, but as long as we’ll still be friends either way I don’t see the harm in trying it out.” She finally got out softly. he was suddenly suffocating under a pile of pony and dragon as they all seemed to be trying to crush her in a massive group hug.

“I’m proud of you Twi! Making friends and getting a hot date!” Spike said. Twilight was too stunned to get him back for it- for now- and just relished in the warmth her new friends provided.

“Wait for it, one more on the way!” Pinkie whispered. They all looked around a moment to see that Fluttershy had entered, apparently hearing the last few things. Dash smiled and opened up a wing, to which the shy pegasus quickly joined the group hug.

“I’m so happy for you two!” She said in her softspoken voice. No more words were needed after that. They stayed like that for a good minute or two before Twilight was actually having trouble breathing. They finally disentangled themselves and chatted about their plans before they finally dispersed.

Fluttershy was going to head to Canterlot for her committee meeting, and was delighted when Twilight offered her magic door as a shortcut, and would return with Rarity in four days. Dash was going to head over to the weather outpost in the town to see if they needed any help to earn some bits on the side, her military pension only went so far afterall. Pinkie had to run the shop all day but promised to come say hello and to see the workshop during her lunch break in a few hours while Applejack and Twilight headed over to the orchards to get to work.

“So I know you got all that fancy magic and stuff to help you with the heavy liftin’ stuff, but are ya sure there aint nothin’ I can do t’help ya up there?” Applejack asked as they came to the clearing where Philomena had settled the workshop and Mac had rolled the tractors over. He nodded to them when they arrived and he left to presumably go work on a different area of the farm.

“Hm, I can’t really think of anything at the moment, although another pair of eyes to keep track of the stuff you do know never hurts. Philomena love, could you open up if you would?” Twilight replied and called out to the workshop. A little affirmative whistle from the main smokestack preceded the large hangar-like door to the workshop proper opening wide.

Twilight hopped onto one of the machines as began lifting them up in her magic. Applejack took some coaxing but she followed suit and they were working together to align the machines on the racks the now disassembled tank prototype previously sat on. Turns out having another set of hooves as strong as a hydraulic jack did in fact come in handy as they worked on the machines.

They continued working for hours until they were interrupted by Spike belching a spout of green flame to reveal a letter. He handed it off to Twilight’s telekinesis as Applejack opened a bottle of apple cider she had brought along for that very reason, hoofing another over to the unicorn.

“Anythin’ important sugarcube?” Applejack asked. Twilight shook her head.

“Just an update on the state of things. According to this she should be able to return to Equestria in two weeks’ time, right before Black Week.  Turns out the Griffin Rebels are getting more aggressive, even to their own kind, and Celestia personally stepped in to assist the civil war going on to gain the trust of the Griffon Republic.” Twilight explained.

“Bet they’re glad we’re on their side.” Applejack said with a smile. Twilight nodded and looked over their work. They had successfully implanted the Arcane Engine Prototype into one of the tractors and managed to keep it from exploding, which was always a good thing.

“Wanna keep at it and see if it’ll turn on or would you rather wait until tomorrow?” Twilight asked. Applejack hummed.

“While I’ve been glad to help out ‘round here, I really should be gettin’ back to Mac. It’s almost dinnertime and Granny’s already gonna talk my ear off fer missin’ lunch.” The farmer said. Twilight nodded.

“Not a problem, we made a lot of progress today! Tomorrow we’ll see if it works as intended. If it blows up I’ll make you lightning talismans to power the other two as recompense so you can still use them.” Twilight replied. Applejack grumbled but nodded. She left the workshop proper while Twilight cleared some of the detritus that had formed around before heading into the living area. Dash was lying upside down on a chair with a book in front of her.

“How do you like it?” She asked, closing the door behind Applejack and twisting it to glow blue. Dash looked up and her expression fell immediately.

“It’s awesome! but you’re leaving?” She asked. Twilight smiled softly and walked over to nuzzle the pegasus.

“Only for a little bit. I need to be at my office sometimes too, and I have a few reports to write up in order to keep my stipend from the university. I might pass out doing it again, so don’t wait up for me again. If I’m not back in the morning Spike said he’ll be over here to make sure Philomena gets some exercise.” The unicorn replied. Dash hummed but quickly kissed Twilight on the nose.

“‘Kay… As long as you come back.” She said with a little smile. Twilight was a little stunned by the kiss, but smiled and pecked the pegasus on the nose in return.

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind, don’t worry.” She said before heading through the door. She sighed and turned and opening it again to reveal the old tower and her office. She hadn’t been back here in three days. She certainly didn’t remember to grab the book sitting on her mattress open to the page that read ‘Laughter’.
> Generous Days, Bloody Nights
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Damn it all!” Twilight heard as she walked by one of the various classrooms, all usually empty by now, at the Canterlot University for the advancement of Magical and Technological Study. Most people called it the CUA or the University. She was on her way back out after delivering her reports on the development of more efficient glyphwork when she heard the somewhat startling curse. She peeked her head in and found a peculiar sight.

For starters, the mare pacing around the podium looked more like a noble at a gala rather than someone who would be caught dead in a place of education. The chalk boards were covered in a combination of formulae and what looked like blueprints and she would occasionally swipe at it with an eraser. She would sniffle every now and then when she looked at it, shake her head, and then continue pacing.

“Excuse me? Are you alright?” Twilight tentatively asked as she stepped into the lecture hall proper. The mare seemed startled by the newcomer but quickly recovered.

“Oh I suppose so, Darling. I guess this whole Arcanotechnician thing was never my forte anyways.” The mare replied, throwing a hoof to what was left of the board. Twilight took a closer look as the mare continued.

“My instructors did not care for my presentation and I fear I just flunked out of my courses because of it.” She continued. She paused as Twilight lifted the chalk and filled in some of the now missing patches of equation and the design and changing a few things around.

“I can see why, there’s a reason this place is called the university of wartime technology by a lot of graduates. I can’t quite tell what this is intended for, but it’s clearly not meant for killing griffons.” Twilight replied, continuing to fill a few things out. Rarity sighed.

“My mother is a very frail mare, you see, and she can’t wear her favorite ballroom dress anymore and dance in it. She can’t in anything nowadays to be honest, so I wanted to change that.” The mare sighed. Twilight nodded, changing a few things again to account for the new information.

“I believe I see… So the intent is using a combination of glyphwork and hydraulics to create a support platform that’s small enough to fit on a dress- or under it. Sounds like an incredible idea to me.” Twilight replied. The mare nodded and looked at the new changes, her eyes widening slightly.

“Who are you?” She asked. Twilight smiled.

“Someone who wants to help you. Would you be interested in an apprenticeship?” Twilight asked. The mare seemed confused for a moment but nodded slowly. “Perfect! Follow me then!” Twilight said happily and left the room. The other unicorn slowly followed her and before long they were back in the dean’s office.

“Professor, I believe this mare is on the verge of flunking her courses?” Twilight asked, not even knocking as she entered. The stallion looked up but nodded as he recognized both the unicorn speaking to him and the one behind her.

“Yes, Miss Belle has good ideas but lacks the understanding to make them a reality and as such we believed it be best if she retake her courses.” The Dean replied.

“Would it be too much trouble to request an official apprenticeship?” Twilight asked. The Dean gave her an unreadable look for a few seconds before rubbing his chin.

“Hm… I see she’s piqued your interest Miss Sparkle. I’m not entirely sure she can keep up with you, but if you wish to take her under your wing then I’m in no position to stop you. I’ll have the paperwork sent to your office.” The stallion said. Twilight nodded and turned, motioning for the other to follow. As soon as the door closed the mare spoke.

“Miss Sparkle? As in Twilight Sparkle? THE Twilight Sparkle?” She asked. Twilight nodded. “Why… Why would you want to help a flunkee like me?” She asked, uncertainty heavy in her tone. Twilight smiled back as they left the university and headed towards the palace.

“Well Miss Belle, you may not have the understanding to make your ideas a reality, but I do. I’m very good at teaching as well, and that design of yours may have just solved a very important problem I’ve been trying to fix. What’s your name by the way? You know mine.” Twilight replied. The other unicorn blinked a few times.

“Rarity, Darling. Pleasure to meet you.” She answered. She almost ran into Twilight. Her confusion only grew when Twilight started laughing. “Is something the matter, Darling?” She asked.

“Not at all! I’ve just heard quite a bit about you. Hi! I’m Rainbow Dash’s girlfriend.” Twilight said, holding a hoof out. Rarity balked. They talked about the last few days as they walked, when Rarity finally recovered at least, and Twilight found Rarity to be a hopeless dramatic. Especially when she talked about the unintentionally romantic things she and her girlfriend had done together.

“Truly, she has no more nightmares?” The mare asked as they neared Twilight’s office door. Twilight nodded and opened it up, poking her head in.

“Spike! Heading back over to Ponyville!” She called into the room. A scaled wave was her reply as she closed the door again and twisted.

“Oh my, is that a static portal glyph array inscribed into the door?” Rarity asked. Twilight smiled and nodded as she opened it up again to the workshop. She was startled but ultimately not surprised when she was greeted at the door by a particularly chromatic pegasus. With an audible ‘boop!’ she bumped her snout againt Twilight’s.

“Please don’t tell me you were waiting like that this whole time…” Twilight said softly.

“What? Naw I’m not that clingy. I saw it light up.” The pegasus replied and turned to settle back down in her ‘nest’ to continue reading. She apparently hadn’t noticed Rarity behind Twilight and they caught it. With a shared glance confirming their simultaneous idea they trotted over to the pegasus.

“So hey, remember when you were saying it must have been fate how we all met?” Twilight asked. Dash nodded without looking up, earning a giggle from Twilight. “Well, when I was at the university today to turn in my reports I found a struggling student who had some cool ideas. I decided to take them on as an apprentice to help her out. Three guesses who it is.” She continued. Dash looked up at that.

“No way!” The pegasus exclaimed, though before she could make an actual guess the unicorn in question leaned around Twilight with a little smirk.

“Absolutely, Darling, and you simply MUST tell me EVERYTHING about this new relationship.” She said.

By the time they finished discussing it, Applejack had arrived to continue working on the tractors. True to her word, Twilight had Rarity assisting them and was making sure to explain their process and ask questions to make sure Rarity understood what was being done. The dressmaker was a surprisingly capable technician, she just took time to learn as her perfectionist habits carried over in full. She couldn’t really move on to another topic or area until she was satisfied with her skill in the previous one, and she had very high standards for herself.

The four of them, Dash providing power again, managed to get the modified arcane engine prototype running alongside the tractor without significant malfunction, and they were even able to shut it off!

“We’ll need to keep an eye on it and test it regularly, but I’m happy to say the mk.VII prototype of the Arcane Engine is a resounding success! After a week of observation and regular use we can determine if the rig is stable or not and work on making it more efficient so it doesn’t need an industrial sized chunk of gemstone.” Twilight explained to Applejack as they levitated down on the completed thing. Applejack hugged her as they landed back on the ground.

“You wanna come by fer dinner? Granny wants t’have ya back soon, and it’s the least we can do fer helpin’ us like ya have.” Applejack offered.

“Sorry AJ, She promised to take me out to a fancy place in Canterlot tonight!” Dash replied, Twilight nodding to confirm.

“And then I have to be at my office, I got a message from the council today giving me a heads up on something important I’ll want to be in Canterlot for and knocking doesn’t always go through.” The unicorn explained.

“Ah, fair. Yer always welcome either way.” The farmer said before driving the tractor off towards the garage.

“Since I’m back in Ponyville I’ll have to head home and make sure Sweetie Belle is alright. Remind me to thank Fluttershy for checking up on her regularly.” Rarity said. Twilight nodded and her new apprentice left them as well.

“Come on I’m super hungry now after talking about dinner!” Dash exclaimed, already flying up back towards the workshop. Twilight met her at the doorstep with a flash and they entered together.

“We need to wash up first, Rabenkrahe has something special planned for us and I will not have us stinking up the dining hall.” The unicorn retorted. Dash kinda froze.

“That sounds like a griffon name…” She said. Twilight couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy at that comment. Dash was a war veteran afterall, she never thought about the fact that her girlfriend could still harbor some ill feelings towards Griffons.

“He’s a wonderful chef and I’m sure you’d enjoy trading war stories. He fought on Equestria’s side, his beak was smashed and he lost his wings for it. Celestia hired him on as a chef when he showed his cooking skills!” Twilight explained. Dash seemed to relax at that.

“As long as he doesn’t serve me meat. It’s the one part of their influence I can’t stomach.” Dash replied. Twilight nodded, by her tone she felt the pegasus had a particularly bad experience with meat judging by the way she shivered at its mention.

“While I’ve come to enjoy it on specific occasions, I made sure to tell him to make it vegetarian. I didn’t know your preference and I kept forgetting to ask.” Twilight said as they made their way upstairs to the bathroom. They bathed and left the workshop trying to guess what the griffon would serve them.

Their arrival at the dining hall was met with little reaction from the staff though a few guards saluted Dash or exchanged greetings with Twilight.

“Ah, finally! I was starting to think you forgot meine liebste!” Rabenkrahe exclaimed upon them finally entering the hall proper. He was waiting, their food just being wheeled out on covered platters. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. He looked to Dash and bowed low.

“And it is honor to meet you in peace, Major. You gave my clutch-brother an honorable death at the capital when I could not. We did not fight alongside each other, you and I, but as a leader of the rebellion it is the best I could have asked for him.” The griffon continued. Dash stepped up to him and examined his metal beak.

“You have been dishonored… you really did fight for Equestria…” Dash said softly. He nodded and she smiled before putting a hoof to his face.

“Ich respektiere dich, großer Jäger. Now, whatever the hell that is it smells awesome!” Dash started very seriously, both of them closing their eyes as if the words meant something very important before she retracted her hoof with the exclamation. Rabenkrahe nodded and motioned for them to take a seat.

“While Bratwurst and Zitterwein may be my specialty, I’ve mastered a new dish geared towards Equestria.” The griffon explained as he served them the platters and removed the lids to reveal a meal consisting of fried rice with egg, stir fried vegetables, spring rolls, and something that resembled a fried doughnut but was nothing like Pony Joe made. The two mares shared a look before digging in enthusiastically.

The meal lasted the rest of the evening, The two of them speaking with the griffon about their recent ventures and a bit about their experience in the same war. Before too long, however, Twilight found herself nearly dozing off and it didn’t go unnoticed.

“Meine liebste, you should go sleep. Major, you know where she sleeps?” The griffon asked the pegasus. Dash smiled and nodded, nudging Twilight out of her seat. The unicorn grumbled incoherently as Krahe started cleaning the table. Dash thanked the griffon again and said something in his native tongue before they departed, Twilight was too exhausted to translate it.

Twilight became aware that she had fallen asleep before reaching the bed when she saw the familiar princess of the night sitting in the tower proper, gazing up at the moon. Twilight trotted over and sat down next to her. She noticed the princess had a somber expression.

“Is something wrong, Princess?” Twilight asked, putting a hoof on the alicorn’s shoulder. Luna glanced at Twilight and her frown raised just a bit.

“There is, my dear, but it is not something I am prepared to share just yet. for now I just wanted to enjoy the company if you wouldn’t mind.” The alicorn replied. Twilight nodded slowly. As an afterthought, she scooted over and laid her head against Luna’s shoulder.

“The night really is beautiful. I don’t think I’ve told you that yet.” She said after a moment. She looked up at Luna and caught the little blush as the princess seemed to be avoiding her gaze. Twilight smiled and nuzzled a little closer, she was tired even in this dreamscape. Luna’s expression turned to concern when she noticed the yawn and now the unicorn’s eyes looked like she was fighting to keep them open.

“Twilight, are you quite alright?” She asked. Twilight hummed in acknowledgement and nodded, though Luna’s worry only increased. She looked around at a few seemingly random places before looking back to Twilight.

“Twilight?” She asked, nudging her slightly. The nudge turned to a little shake, then a very worried shake. “This isn’t natural…” She said to herself. She took a deep breath and concentrated on other nearby dreamers. She found Rainbow Dash, though it seemed like she was also getting sleepy in her own dreamscape.

She watched in something akin to horror as the mare suddenly stopped and looked around frantically.

“This is poison!” The pegasus exclaimed before the dreamscape collapsed.

Rainbow Dash was being poisoned… and so was Twilight… They were in danger and there was nothing she could do. She felt Twilight’s heartbeat slow down to a painfully slow pace and she almost yelled out for help.

There was one thing she could do, she realized… She just hoped her sister was asleep at this hour…

Dash opened her eyes, she knew this feeling. It was a Zebrican paralysis poison. The Zebras were allied though, why would they be here poisoning her? She felt her skin crawl in fury as she heard the voices whispering. Whispering in the griffon language.

“The winged one is conscious, we’ll have to eliminate her before taking the important one.” The voice said. It wasn’t a voice she recognized.

“Like hell you are!” Dash growled. She had developed a natural resistance to poison during her time in the military, but the toxin caused her an immense dizzy spell as she bolted upright. Lucky for her the griffons were too shocked by her being lucid to react in time as she bucked them with all of her might. She followed up with a mighty flap of her wings, ignoring the pain in her right one, and sorely wished she was wearing wing blades.

She had to settle for channeling what little magic a pegasus could muster into her wings to cause at least some damage. Luckily, being as fast as a flier as she was afforded a bit of leeway in terms of how sharp the things had to be to make a proper cut. Two griffons followed her out of the door, their heads trailing behind a few feet. She crashed right into a third that had just taken to the air to dodge and they fell flailing to the ground of the tower proper.

“Major!” She heard the voice of a familiar griffon as she bucked the third griffon into the floor hard enough to break his spine. She looked over to the door, as did the four other griffons in the room, where the grounded chef was standing. Dash took the opportunity to slam into one of the attackers and feel a few things shatter against the wall. This distraction then gave Rabenkrahe a chance to charge one of them down, dragging his talons along the belly of it as it spun to face Dash once more.

“Major!” The chef called out again, this time in warning. Dash spun with her wings, intending to deflect whatever blow was directed at her, but almost toppled to the ground when her wing burned like the day it was injured. The false feathers of the graft were charred from the energy channeled through it and the old wound was beyond exacerbated at this point. She hissed in pain and tried to kick the attacker away as he dragged his talons across her back, but was unable to do so as he twisted the already damaged wing and wrapped his talons around her. She couldn’t even make out the words he was saying, something about an honorable death, before she couldn’t struggle anymore.

She felt, in excruciating clarity, as his beak tore through the skin and flesh of her neck and he jerked, ripping her throat out. She fell, gasping, to the floor as her hooves instinctually went up to try and plug the new hole in her neck. It was a poor job, done in haste, because her hooves were able to keep her from suffocating immediately. It ultimately succeeded at what it was meant to do, incapacitate her. And she’d definitely either suffocate or bleed out very quickly, but as she desperately clung to her life she heard the griffons again.

They were trying to smash the unconscious chef’s beak, significantly harder to do when it was made of metal. She could barely hear it, but the sound of metal being torn wasn’t one you mistake easily. While they were busy with that, she started slowly crawling towards them. Both of her hooves were in use keeping her short, gurgling breaths from spilling out of the new airway so it was more of a shimmy, but by the time they finished she had almost made it to them.

One of them looked down at her, as if they were surprised she was still alive, before the other one said something.

“Go get the other one, we need to go now.” He said. Dash couldn’t say anything past her hooves as the griffon next to her nodded and quickly dashed towards the stairs to where Twilight was. Except he stumbled as Dash managed to reach out and latch her jaws around a leg. It could barely even be called latched, actually, and as they both tumbled across the room Dash almost let go- her vision got real dark as her hooves rushed to keep her throat closed again. She would never let them get to her.

It was all she could do, channeling what little energy she had left into her own body. She felt her fur standing on end as the moisture in the room condensed into a tiny cloud before the griffon could react and sent a bolt of lightning into her. The electricity passed harmlessly through her, she was the one channeling it afterall, but the nearest outlet happened to be the griffon’s leg held in her jaws. He yelled out some griffon obscenities, she wasn’t paying much attention to it any longer. She barely even felt the kick that nearly ripped her teeth out getting her away from the griffon. She could barely feel her own breathing at that point, the only reason she knew she was still alive was because the blood hadn’t stopped coming around her hooves and she could still make out a small diameter of her vision.

She was staring at the door. Please let those last gasping breaths of her be worth something to keep Twilight safe. Someone, anyone, please walk through that door.

The door’s runes started glowing.

They were glowing black. She’d never seen that color before.

The door exploded and the one thing she hoped but never expected to see come to the rescue stepped through. A particularly bothered warrior princess was standing in the doorway.

Celestia surveyed the room quickly, noting griffons and a whole lot of blood. A pony, probably dead, still tingling with lightning magic. A griffon on the ground next to her, still twitching from the assumed application of said magic. Another griffon standing over a very familiar griffon.

“It’s over, stand down.” The griffon in front of her said in his native tongue. Celestia entered the room after that, the griffon on the ground staying there.

“Good dogs, knowing when you should surrender.” Celestia said lowly. She walked up to the pony and was surprised to see her still breathing, if it could be even called that. She recognized this pony, both from Twilight’s recent correspondence and from her exploits in the war. It took only a moment to put a rank to the name and the face.

“Major Rainbow Dash… I-” She started, about to thank the mare for her service, but the pegasus gurgled out something and flopped a hoof in the direction of the stairs. The princess saw the extent of her injuries and leaned down, horn glowing, to begin the process of healing.

“-ight…” She barely managed to make out around the sounds of the mare trying to speak with her throat ripped out. Her eyes widened and she followed the hoof to the stairs as the pegasus managed to get her hoof back to her wound. Celestia nodded, it was very clear whose live she valued more. She took in breath and, in a concentrated version of the royal canterlot voice, called out a quick command.

“Medics and Emergency Response to the Astronomy Tower!” Rattled the walls of the palace. Before she flew up to the living area, foregoing the stairs, and found Twilight halfway to the door. Her horn was softly glowing and she was moving a few inches with each flash. Celestia immediately swept the paralyzed unicorn onto her back and returned to the tower where medics were arriving.

She placed Twilight down gently near Dash, who was still clinging to life, and the griffon she had shocked.

“You will produce an antidote to whatever poison you applied to her or your life is forfeit.” Celestia said calmly to the griffon.

“No antidote, harmless poison. Numbs body. Cure is time.” The griffon replied in broken equestrian. He couldn’t even scream as his head fell to the floor, Celestia sheathing a great blade back in its scabbard on her side.

“Wrong answer.” She said to noone in particular.

“Princess? What should we do with him?” One of the royal guards asked as more filtered in. Shining Armor immediately rushed over to Twilight upon seeing the unicorn on the ground. The guard was pointing a spear at the last griffon, who was standing tall and proud.

“He is no longer a threat. You will Tell me who let you in and who sent you or your life is forfeit.” The warrior princess replied, taking the step over to be in range of the griffon should he refuse. He glanced over at Rabenkrahe, still unconscious on the ground. Celestia sighed heavily.

“Rabenkrahe, I trusted you…” She breathed and drew her great blade. “Take him for interrogation, I’ll deal with the traitor here and now.” She said around the grip of the blade. The guards nodded and Celestia reeled back to bring the blade down on her chef, but froze as a small pressure on her leg stopped her. She looked down to see Rainbow Dash’s hoof, still coated in her blood, just barely touching her. She couldn’t make out what the pegasus was trying to say around the hole in her neck, but it sounded little more than desperate gasps for air at this point.

The pegasus proceeded to draw her hoof back to herself, but instead of putting it back in its place plugging her neck up- the medics were applying magic and gauze to do that- she lethargically tapped her muzzle a few times. Her look of confusion spurred the mare to very briefly touch her muzzle again, then point out the slash wounds still slowly seeping blood on her back. She looked down at her chef and the realization dawned on her.

“Wait, keep that griffon here. He did not answer my question.” She said, looking up at her guards. They all nodded and the griffon stopped.

“Rabenkrahe did not aid you. The wounds he sustained are from talons, not my Major’s arcane wing. And you wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of breaking his beak again. Is your life worth so little that you would lie to me?” She asked, sheathing the blade for now. Shattering the beak of a griffon is to label them a traitor or an exile- one unfit to hunt. Culturally it is similar to the ripping of sleeves in the navy to signify one who has betrayed their comrades.

“It is my contract. All criteria of success have failed so it has now become void. If I return and am not killed for my failures, my beak will be shattered and I will be exiled.” The griffon explained. Celestia nodded in understanding.

“A Talon Mercenary then. So you are not of the griffon Rebellion, just hired by them. Who let you in then? You may be granted an honorable death yet.” The princess asked.

“The one you just beheaded did. He was to infiltrate the palace staff and let us in when our target was confirmed. Rabenkrahe either suspected something or was just a good staff member because he fired the spy for ‘improper treatment of those not of your kin’. I believe your kind call it ‘Racism’.” The griffon explained without hesitating. Celestia nodded.

“I am interested to know that you know his name…” She started. She paused as she looked down at her chef she nearly beheaded.

“He is my father’s brother, I believe the term you use is Uncle. I had hoped he would not interfere…” The griffon said, showing the first sign of anything other than a stone face. “On the promise of a swift and honorable death, I will tell you who hired us and what our mission was. It was not the rebellion He continued, looking Celestia in the eye. Celestia nodded and he nodded in return.

“It was not a griffon. All I know is they are one of your people. We were to enter the palace, cause as much dissent as possible and attempt to make it clear that griffons did not like ponies. If possible, we were to make it seem as if a known griffon aided us to break more bonds. After capturing the target, we were to bring them to an address where they would be ransomed off. Of course, the ransom would never happen. Knowing who the target is, you would have arrived and taken her and our heads- but the ransom was to be made out ot the Griffon Republic.” The mercenary explained. Celestia hummed.

“Give me the address and explain to me your contract and you may have earned your life.” The princess said after a few moments of thought.

“Blueblood Manor. And my contract states that any contractor that crosses my line are enemy and nothing else.” He continued. Celestia nodded in response. “It was a foolish contract, and I now no longer have any right to it.” He continued, almost in disgust.

“We will speak of this later. For now, take him to the dungeons but accommodate him. He is still a prisoner but he is no longer doomed.” The princess said. The guards nodded again and led him away.

“Princess? Will they be alright?” She heard her captain ask softly. She turned and looked to the medics.

“It’ll take a day or two of rest, strong Zebrican paralysis poison, but Twilight is unharmed. Major Dash, on the other hoof…” One of them started. They all looked at the pegasus then, who was still miraculously conscious. Twilight had inched herself over with magic so that her muzzle was practically pressed against Dash’s. She was crying.

“She’s lost too much blood, and there’s no way to fix the damage. The only option would be prosthesis, but it wasn’t a clean tear.” The other medic picked up. They all looked down at the two now, Twilight’s tears started falling a little heavier at hearing that. “The poison was applied to her as well, it’s in her blood… The fact that she could even kill one of them, let alone many, in that state shows how strong this mare is…” He continued, this time to nobody in particular.

“It’s… ok....you’re safe… all… matters…” The pegasus gasped out to Twilight, mercifully no longer gurgling around her own blood. The Princess and the Captain observed in interest as the pegasus gently kissed Twilight’s paralyzed muzzle. Silence fell on the room for a few moments before Celestia knelt down.

“Major Rainbow Dash, you have served both this nation and this princess well and above any expectations we have set on you. You will be remembered as Admiral Rainbow Dash from this day on, one of the greatest protectors this princess has ever had the pleasure to fight alongside.” Celestia said softly as she gently pressed her horn to Dash’s head. The act was reserved only for the most prestigious of ceremonies, but she felt the now Admiral deserved just as much.

“No…” Twilight managed to whisper through her involuntarily clenched jaw and stiff tongue. Celestia looked over and put her forehead against the unicorn’s, hoping to comfort her student.

“Heal… her…” The unicorn whispered out. Celestia pulled back so she could look at the unicorn’s puffy eyes.

“I cannot, the morning is three hours away and she will not last that long.” Celestia replied. She didn’t dare keep her regret from her tone, she didn’t care at this point.

“Make...morning...now” Twilight hissed out. Celestia shook her head once more.

“That takes more magic than I may command at this time… I used so much to get here…” The princess explained mournfully.

“Mine…” Twilight hissed, almost angrily. It took a moment for Celestia to realize she was being asked to use the unicorn’s magic to supplement what she’s lost. She was about to protest, but the memory of the last few days flashed into her mind.

Twilight’s arcane pool had increased exponentially. It might have been enough.

“I… will try, then… If the strain begins to harm you I will not value your life over hers.” The princess said softly before closing her eyes and gently touching her horn to Twilight’s. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes as she began channeling magic. She was surprised as Twilight’s eyes began to glow like they did in the testing caverns, but she focused. The unicorn almost immediately lost consciousness, this was no ordinary magic. The drain was not harming her however, so she continued to channel.

It felt like years to the princess, but it was only seconds, as for the first time in recorded history the dawn came early. The sun slowly rose while the moon was still in the sky. The warm rays bathed the room in light through the window and Celestia exhaled deeply. The pained gasp from the pegasus drew her gaze and she saw as the wounds on her back started sizzling as if the sun was burning them away until only the mare’s blue coat remained. She too lost consciousness as the sizzling stopped and the medic tentatively opened the bandages around her throat.

“Princess.. You did it! This will still take months to heal in full, but she will live.” The stallion said with relief. She nodded and stood.

“Captain, send me letter by dragonfire when they awake. I can afford the morning away from the fighting to personally track down these traitors. They clearly mean to frame my nephew- for while he is stupid and narcissistic as they get he is loyal without question. I want the mercenary questioned further but for no more harm to come to him unless I say.” The princess commanded. Shining nodded and helped the medics carry the two out towards the medical wing. More staff entered to begin the process of cleaning as Celestia left the room and took to the sky to head in the general direction of Blueblood Manor.

She looked up, then. Not at her sun, but the moon still hanging awkwardly in the dawn.

“I don’t know why or how… but thank you…” She whispered to it.
> On Wings of Promise
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight opened her eyes to the white ceiling of a hospital room. She sat up and looked down at the bed, this wasn’t her hospital room. The paralyzing poison had ran its course and she was just a little sluggish from it the next morning, this was Dash’s hospital room. While the rainbow maned pegasus was no longer in danger of dying, she was still recovering from major blood loss and the scars on her throat were still in the process of scarring.

“Twilight!” Caught her attention from the door as the four other ponies, and one dragon, she had come to call her friends entered and crowded around the bed.

“Thanks for rounding everyone up, Spike…” Twilight said softly. The dragon just nodded and they all looked at Dash.

“She’s going to be alright, right Darling?” Rarity asked, breaking the silence after a few moments. Twilight nodded.

“She just needs time to recover… Princess Celestia herself healed her, I helped her bring the sun up early to do it… I had to, she almost died for me…” Twilight started explaining, but Applejack quickly moved up next to her and pulled her into a sideways hug.

“It’s alright now, sugarcube. You don’t gotta talk about it anymore none, Spike gave us the story. Somethin’ I was thinkin’ of askin’ though is how the Princess knew you were in trouble, and how she got here. I mean, wasn’t she in the Griffon lands?” The farmer asked. With something to distract her mind from the previous night, Twilight wiped her forming tears.

“I… don’t really know how she knew. She got here using my door, though. She helped me write the glyphs and perfect the array for it, she just overpowered the static portal array and used a large burst of magic to use it as a teleportation beacon. She’s investigating the attack in person right now.” The unicorn explained.

“You helped raise the sun?!” Pinkie exclaimed, her now straight main curling slightly. The others held their questions to hear that answer, it wasn’t exactly a normal thing to hear you helped raise the sun.

“Well, technically. I didn’t do any of the raising, but Rainbow wash dying and the Princess didn’t have the power to raise the sun and heal her after the teleport… so I let her use my magic for it, I have a lot of it, and it was enough.” Twilight answered, looking at Dash’s sleeping form and nuzzling her cheek.

“Oh my! What happened to her graft?” Fluttershy asked, noticing the lack of discolored feathers, or feathers at all really, on Dash’s right wing.

“I’ll… tell you later. I really don’t want to talk about it right now. I didn’t even see any of it… Speaking of, however, there’s something I wanted to ask for your help on.” Twilight replied, turning to the other pegasus.

“Of course, if I can help I’d be happy to.” The shy mare said with confidence.

“If’n ya need our help you just holler, just so ya know.” Applejack said. Rarity and Pinkie nodded in agreement. Twilight smiled and pulled them all into a hug.

“I’ll be sure to let you all know if I need it, I’ve requested a week’s leave from my duties here at the palace so I can stay at the workshop with Dash without needed to worry about missing work.” The unicorn explained.

“Then y’all best be comin’ to us fer dinner.” Applejack said.

“There’s a formal coming up soon as well, you simply must attend and I simply must make your attire.” Rarity added.

“I’ll help you however I can, but if you want to learn some of my recipes I can write some of them down too!” Fluttershy continued.

“And I AbSOLUTELY have to throw that ‘we’re all together again’ party as soon as Dashie wakes up!” Pinkie exclaimed, her mane back to its normal poof. Twilight smiled and hugged all of them harder. They stayed like that until the voice of one of the palace doctors entered and cleared his throat.

“Miss Sparkle, Chef Rabenkrahe has regained consciousness.” He announced. She nodded and the group disentangled.

“Watch her for me, guys. I need to talk to Chef Rabenkrahe.” Twilight said. They all nodded, Pinkie giving a salute, as the doctor led Twilight to a nearby room.

“Ah, Meine Liebste!” The familiar greeting met Twilight as soon as she entered the room. The voice wasn’t quite as clear as it usually was, he was missing most of his beak again afterall, but it was certainly understandable.

“Rabenkrahe, I want to thank you with all that I am for your help and sacrifice. Both Rainbow Dash and I owe you our lives.” Twilight said, walking up to the bed and bowing.

“Oh stand up you silly pony, I was doing my job. I may have become a chef but I never stopped being a warrior. Our Princess asked me to keep an eye on you whenever you were in the palace.” The griffon explained. Twilight nodded in understanding, this wasn’t the first time she’d learned a staff member was tasked with her safekeeping.

“Either way, I still want to thank you.” She said, smiling as she leaned in to nuzzle the griffon. He laughed softly and returned the embrace.

“You are one of my favorite patrons, meine liebste, and one of the few that does not show any animosity towards me because I am a bird and not a pony. I would have laid my life down in your protection if I had to, though I admit I am glad it did not come to that. Major Rainbow Dash is truly to thank, however. She did most of the fighting.” The griffon explained. Twilight’s smile fell slightly, but it returned.

“It’s Admiral now, actually. I’ll be sure to bring her around or vice versa when she’s awake, she’ll pull through thank the sun.” The unicorn said. Rabenkrahe sighed in relief at that.

“I had noticed my nephew’s killing blow wasn’t as lethal as he had hoped, but even a poorly done killing blow is still dangerous… I hear that Celestia raised the sun early to save her life, I am honored to have fought alongside her and am glad she is alive.” The griffon said. Twilight turned to the doctor then.

“Doctor, when will he be well enough to leave?” She asked.

“Most of his injuries were minor, he was beaten and bruised but that’s easy to heal with magic. I’d say as long as he rests he shall be fit to return to work when he feels ready.” The stallion replied. Twilight nodded and turned back to the chef.

“Well then, when you get the chance come by the workshop. I’ll fix your beak up again, it’ll be much better than the what the palace artisan can do.” She offered. Rabenkrahe smiled as best he could and nodded.

“Did any of the attackers survive?” He asked after a moment of silence. Twilight nodded.

“Just your Nephew. He was cooperative so the Princess had him detained for interrogation. Beyond that I’m not sure.” She replied. The griffon nodded.

“Good, He was bound by contract to do what he did. Now that he has effectively failed his contract he may as well defect like I did.” He said. Twilight hummed and put her face into his neck.

“Can we please not talk about this war stuff? You know I don’t like thinking about it…” The unicorn asked softly. He smiled and patted her head.

“Sorry, meine liebste. I will be fine if you wish to return to your girlfriend, I know you must be worried. I’ll let you know beforehand when I come to visit.” The griffon said. Twilight smiled, hugged him again, and turned to leave. She was surprised when the door open and Celestia was standing there, though she was no longer in her combat garb.

“Ah, good, you are here then. Rabenkrahe, I shall need to speak with you later about this- but for now I apologise for almost executing you unjustly.” The Princess said, inclining her head. Rabenkrahe waved a talon dismissively.

“Way I see it, if you would have, it wouldn’t have been any different than if you hadn’t shown up except Miss Twilight would be in trouble still. You did as you thought was right at the time.” The griffon replied. Celestia smiled and looked down to Twilight, who had latched onto her in an embrace.

“Come, let us return to Rainbow Dash. There’s a few things you didn’t mention in your letter.” She said with a smile. Twilight nodded and, after separating, they walked. “By that kiss earlier I assume you are more than just friends?” She continued as they set off.

“We’re trying it out… I’m still a little unsure about it all, but I know I’ll never let her go as a friend… Especially now.” Twilight replied, the last part seemed almost nervous. Celestia always could read her like a book, however.

“You must talk with her about it then, knowing you- and that tone- you are worried if you do not wish to continue your relationship in a romantic manor she may feel like you are not grateful for what she has done for you. Or, at the very least, that you feel obligated to love her after she nearly gave her life for you.” The princess explained. The way Twilight flinched confirmed its accuracy.

“I still don’t know… but, Princess, how did you know we needed help?” Twilight asked, perfectly happy to change the subject. Celestia’s expression was unreadable as they walked, but she did speak as they reached the door to Dash’s room.

“I had a dream, and the dream changed in a way I never thought I’d see again… I urge you to continue your research on that book during your leave from the university.” She replied before opening the door, the tone and the action clearly stating that it was to be discussed at a later date. Twilight nodded and they entered. Shining Armor was there with their friends as well, he hugged his sister.

“Captain, thank you for coming. I want you to station your best Valkyrie with your sister for her protection. I will have a unit of centurions stationed in Ponyville with express orders to be near enough to the workshop to react to an emergency at all times.” Celestia explained. They all looked to the captain, who took his helmet off and shook his head.

“All of the Valkyrie that have experience are-were with you in the fighting. I think the best I could station is already there.” He said, nodding towards the sleeping pegasus.

“Even in her injured state you think she can protect Twilight?” Celestia asked, legitimate curiosity for his reply evident in her tone.

“She just took on a full headhunter unit almost single handedly while crippled and poisoned. Knowing Twi she already has plans to make sure it won’t happen so easily again, and probably plans to make sure the Admiral doesn’t almost die again, so if you are stationing centurions then I believe that is all that need be done.” The stallion explained. Celestia nodded slowly.

“I suppose she’d be there either way... “ She said more to herself as she remembered how the pegasus had directed her to check on Twilight before trying to attend to her very lethal wounds. “Very well. Twilight, if you ever feel unsafe then do not hesitate to request more protection. I’ve also ordered a policy to have at least one guard accompany you whenever you are in Canterlot, if you wish me to extend that to other cities simply give the word.” The princess continued. Twilight nodded.

“While I normally wouldn’t like all the attention…” The unicorn started, looking at Dash. “... I don’t want anyone else to get hurt protecting me. I’ll make sure we’re all safe, Princess.” Twilight said, hugging her. When they separated again the princess turned her gaze to the other four ponies in the room. They seemed a little uneasy at being this close to their princess. She tried to diffuse the tension by giving a warm smile to all of them.

“I know your names from my student’s letter, but it is a pleasure to meet all of you. Poor Twilight hasn’t had the best of luck with friendship for some time and I am afraid I have been too busy with the griffon rebellion to try and push her along in that regard. I am truly grateful you have allowed her into your circle of friendship, and as such you will always be treated as a guest in the palace. For now, I have an investigation to finish, I’ll let you know before I leave again.” The princess explained, ending by nodding to Twilight. The other ponies didn’t really know how to react and were silently digesting the statement.

“Thank you, Princess. Let me know if you need help, I always was faster than you at deciphering mysteries.” Twilight said with a little smirk. Celestia snorted as she turned to leave.

“I’ll keep that in mind. For now, I believe you still have one to work on.” She said, a bit of sass bleeding into the end of it, before leaving with Shining in tow. The rest of them all looked at each other.

“I’ll be right back. I need to fix my door and head back to the workshop to grab some research material while I wait for her to wake up. If anyone needs to go back home just let Spike or I know and we can take you back.” Twilight said.

“If’n ya don’t mind waitin’ a bit I can grab lunch fer us.” Applejack suggested. Twilight nodded and they both left for the tower. It had been cleaned, and the door itself fixed, but she had to spend an hour repairing the glyphwork. While she was waiting in the workshop for Applejack to return, however, she was a little surprised when Celestia came through.

“Ah good, it is fixed then. I apologise but breaking it in the first place, but I wasn’t particularly careful in my haste.” The princess said as she stepped through.

“You don’t have to apologise to me, you saved Rainbow’s life…” Twilight retorted. Celestia smiled and nodded. “Did you need me?” Twilight continued. Celestia shook her head.

“Something I must bring to your attention. When you provided me the energy to raise the sun when I did, you came into direct contact with not just my personal arcane pool, but the energy of the sun- and indirectly the moon. I have not been able to test this theory yet, but I fear the energy may have left residue within you, residue that can’t be removed. If this is the case, then you may develop the ability to use magic very few know exist, and only I should be able to command…” Celestia began. Twilight looked surprised at this.

“I trust you, intrinsically, and if there was one pony I would teach this magic to if I could it would be you. I must ask you never to practice this magic on your own if you are able to command it, when I return again we will work together in that regard. There are many dangers to using it, and I would not have you harm yourself or others due to careless use.” Celestia continued.

“Princess… I promise, but I haven’t even felt anything like foreign energy yet… If that changes I’ll be sure to let you know.” Twilight said, still somewhat processing that information. Alicorn magic? She’d never dreamed of being able to do anything like that. Celestia nodded nonetheless.

“Very good. I have also come to warn you of my departure, your brother will continue the investigation in my stead. I have confirmed that my nephew had nothing to do with this, and that the holding place was indeed meant to incite action against my own people unjustly. We found traces of who was supposed to be met there but I do not have time to follow the trail anymore. With the aid of the sun I can return without issue, so this will be farewell for now.” The princess explained. Twilight nodded and hugged her.

“Be safe, I’ll figure out what I can. I’ll let you know if I find anything and when Rainbow Dash wakes up.” Twilight said. Celestia returned the embrace.

“Please do, I would like to write her a formal letter of gratitude if I cannot come in person again.” She agreed. They separated Celestia exited the workshop to stand on the porch/balcony before the steps down. With a flash of blinding light, the princess was gone.

“Whoa nelly! I ain't never seen no light like that!” Applejack’s voice down the stairs alerted Twilight to the return of her friend. Twilight held the door open for the farmer as she hauled a particularly delectable smelling picnic blanket wrapped bundle on her back.

“The Princess went back to the griffon lands.” Twilight explained. Applejack seemed to accept that as an answer that didn’t need explaining and Twilight opened the door again to the palace.

Two days’ time found Fluttershy shuffling nervously in the workshop. Rainbow Dash had yet to wake up and Fluttershy had agreed to help Twilight with something special.

“Are you sure about this, Fluttershy? It could seriously injure or even cripple your wings if things go wrong.” Twilight warned. The shy pegasus gave a little sigh but nodded.

“I may be scared, but I’m sure. I can live without my wings if I have to… Rainbow Dash can’t. She got the injury trying to save me, so I’d give her my wings if I could…” The mare replied with more conviction than Twilight had heard from the pegasus. Twilight nodded.

“Ok, this might hurt a little.” The unicorn warned before stepping forward. She had what looked like a skeletal wing made of metal in he magical grasp and brought it towards Fluttershy. The mare nodded and tensed up slightly, but extended a wing without needing to be asked. She practically held her breath as Twilight placed the mechanical one under the the real one and fastened it with a harness. She looked at the pegasus, who nodded, and Twilight socketed the miniature arcane engine into its mount.

Fluttershy’s sharp inhale of breath followed the sound of tiny pistons causing the thing to tighten and small receptors to stick into the mare’s flesh around the wing arm and into the wings themselves, drilling swiftly and cleanly into the bone of the wing to remain in place.

“Everything looks good, no blood means everything was clean and perfect, how do you feel? It didn’t hurt too much did it?” Twilight asked. Fluttershy took a moment to let her breath out and answer.

“It… hurt a lot, but not as much as I thought it would. I think I’m ready for the other one.” The pegasus replied. Twilight nodde and levitated a mirrored mechanical wing and began the process again. Meanwhile, Fluttershy started moving, folding, unfolding, and even somewhat flapping the first wing experimentally. She repeated the process when the second one was attached and extended both to their full wingspan.

“They feel… strange, but stronger. I’m going to try and hover now.” She reported after the pain subsided to a dull ache. Twilight nodded and her horn started glowing to prepare to catch the pegasus should the wings give out with the new attachments. Fluttershy nodded and beat the wings a few times in preparation before hopping into the air, fluttering the wings lightly to maintain enough lift to hover in place. She opened her eyes and looked at the ground.

“Twilight, I think they work! The strain is barely even noticeable anymore, I feel like I could fly for hours instead of minutes at a time!” The pegasus exclaimed in her usual relatively normal volume. Twilight smiled as Fluttershy landed and hugged her. Twilight hugged her back.

“Fluttershy, thank you so much for letting me do this… When Dash wakes up she’ll be thrilled!” The unicorn exclaimed. Fluttershy nodded as they separated.

“Twilight this is… You can’t possibly understand how much this will mean to her… Or me. I’ve always been afraid to fly because I wasn’t that good at it… With these though… I don’t know. I already feel like I can be a more confident flier, I’m not relying solely on my wings anymore. I’m relying on your ingenuity- which I trust bounds more.” The shy mare explained. A knock on the door drew their attention from the reinforced wings, as well as a familiar voice.

“Darlings are you quite finished? I was expecting you at the Boutique half an hour ago!” The familiar voice of Rarity called after the knocks. The two looked at each other and shook their heads, they had forgotten that they had planned to meet at Rarity’s for a spa day.

“Coming! Give me five minutes to wash up, I don’t think they want oil and char in their water!” Twilight called back as she turned towards the stairs to the bathroom.

A bath and a quick walk found the three relaxing under the gentle hooves of Aloe and Vera, they rotated around the triangle of tables regularly.

“Fluttershy Darling, you simply must let me put some time into prettying those up for you. No offense Twilight but your design leans heavily towards practicality or bust.” Rarity said as one of the spa ponies had Fluttershy extend a wing to knead the muscles beneath.

“Well it IS a prototype a very successful one but a prototype nonetheless. I was going to assign you a project to slim it down and help me make it mostly removable, can’t pull it all out without risking massive damage to the frame since it’s drilled into the bone.” Twilight explained. The two spa attendants shared a look as Vera worked around the frame and was now even more careful not to touch it.

“Oh of course Darling, just leave me the designs and I’ll have something by the end of the week at the latest. Sweetie has done a marvelous job keeping the business alive and has become a marvelous business mare in her own right. Her elegant but ultimately generic work has its purpose of course, so I only need to work on special orders.” Rarity explained.

“Um… I don’t really mind how they are now… but um… they do kinda chafe against my side a bit if I’m not paying attention to how I fold my wings.” Fluttershy added before the topic was completely swept away by the fashionista and arcanotechnician in training.

“Really? I suppose some compromises had to be made for functionality when it came to fitting the form… Something to work on. Let me know if it gets bad.” Twilight hummed and the talk continued until they moved on to the hot spring.

“Naw, ya’d hurt yer hooves tryin’ to help me. Only Mac can get ridda my knots.” The three heard through the door as it opened and Applejack stepped in. Twilight hadn't seen the farmer looking like she had done more than brushed her mane and taken a shower, it looked like she had let Rarity ‘pamper’ her for an hour or two. Twilight had to admit, she looked like she’d make a fine lady if she tried. That thought caused her to snort.

“Y’all best not be laughin’ at me now.” The mare in question said with a bit of sass as she sank into the pool next to her friends.

“Only a little, thought about you wearing a dress at a gala. It’d be beautiful, but I think you’d probably hit something. or someone.” Twilight replied. Applejack snorted.

“Ok, that is kinda funny. I’ll let it slide. Sorry Pinks ain’t comin’, sugarcube corner was busier than a dairy farm the day they invented ice cream. I think that’s actually why they’re so busy, got themselves an ice cream machine.” The earth mare explained. They were all silent for a little while after that before Applejack noticed Fluttershy’s wings. That started more technical conversation that helped the visit pass quickly
> We Glide
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight knew she fell asleep at Rainbow Dash’s bedside again, she had done so almost every night since the attack four days ago. She became acutely aware of the fact she was dreaming due to the dark alicorn that was now in the room.

“Luna!” Twilight exclaimed and quickly hugged the alicorn. She pulled back a bit when she noticed hesitation in Luna’s return embrace. She looked at her and saw an expression of conflict between joy and sadness. “Luna? Is something wrong?” She asked softly.

“There are many things wrong, Twilight Sparkle… I am just glad your lives were not lost.” The alicorn replied. Twilight put a hoof to her chest.

“Luna? It’s alright, you can talk to me… I’m the only friend you have right now, it’s kind’ve my job.” The unicorn said, smirking slightly at her attempt to add a bit of humor to the situation. Luna’s smile showed its success before falling again.

“I… I don’t know. It took me all this time just to build up the courage to return to you after I made sure you were both alive… But she’s done so much for you… and all I’ve done is steal your nights away…” Luna explained. Twilight put a hoof to her mouth for only a second after that, enough to make her pause.

“Luna, whatever it is that’s bothering you I want to you tell me. I promise you our friendship will fare none the worse for it. I care about you too you know.” The unicorn said. Luna took a deep breath and nodded, looking at Dash’s sleeping form for a moment before turning back to Twilight.

“I apologise if this makes you uncomfortable, but even in this land of dreams I am still terrible with words… Forgive me.” The alicorn said softly before quickly leaning forward and kissing Twilight.

The Unicorn was more confused than anything at first, but before Luna pulled away again she returned it. It didn’t turn into a long thing, just a sweet kiss, but they were both a little shocked when they did pull apart. They stared at each other for a moment before they both looked at Dash.

“I love you, Twilight Sparkle… And that is why I must stay away… I-” Luna started, but was cut off by Twilight grabbing her.

“Don’t you dare say you must stay away… This is something we must discuss and figure out, and I will come to the moon myself and make you come back if you stop visiting me…” The unicorn practically yelled. Luna was shocked by it and wasn’t able to get a reply out before Twilight continued.

“I… I know I love Rainbow Dash, but I don’t think I love her in that sense. She almost died for me, and she’s so… attached… and I love her, but I don’t see a future with her like that. I never want to leave her side, but I’d rather it be left at that… I just haven’t had the chance to explain this to her yet…” She explained. Luna nodded slowly.

“She is dreaming, you know… I could link your dreamscapes and we may speak with her together…” The alicorn suggested softly. Twilight considered it for a moment, but then remembered her breakthrough with Fluttershy.

“No, I want to talk about it in person… I also want to give her a proper thanks for saving me to hopefully make up a tiny bit for what’s going to come after…” The unicorn replied. Luna nodded.

“What kind of gift is it? Could I help?” The alicorn asked, interested in anything Twilight would come up with. Twilight giggled and shook her head, though the mechanical wing reinforcements appeared on Luna’s wings. She looked at them curiously and extended the wings to see them.

“They’re already done thanks to Fluttershy’s help. It’s already helping Fluttershy reach even better flyin stamina than the average pegasus, and she used to hardly be able to fly for more than a few minutes without getting tired. I’m hoping it’ll bring Dash back to her former glory at least.” Twilight explained. Luna nodded slowly and examined them closely.

“It seems like their primary function is to reinforce the bone structure and take stress off of the muscles, though it may be easier to replace the damage bone structure with a completely mechanical alternative- a prosthetic I believe it is called.” Luna explained. Twilight nodded.

“I thought about it, especially when I was thinking about repaying Rabenkrahe for his help… but there’s no easy way to study the bone structure of a pegasus wing without permanently…” Twilight started, but tapered off in fascination as Luna’s wings seemed to moult and the skin and muscle dissolved until it was only the bone.

“Mine are a little larger, but as it’s the aspect of a pegasus that grants me my wings they should be close enough. Mayhaps I could aid you in your research afterall no?” The alicorn said. Twilight just smiled and hugged her.

“Let’s get started then!” She exclaimed, a veritable wall of empty books and pages appearing around them.

“My, you’re getting rather proficient at manipulating your dreams.” Luna said as Twilight started sketching.

“I’ve figured out a few things, when I know it’s a dream I can start doing it lucidly like normal- but I started looking closer and seeing kind’ve how it all works. It takes a lot of concentration, but I’m sketching this in a real notebook right now as well.” Twilight explained. Luna stared at her for a solid minute before Twilight noticed and stopped.

“You’re… using magic to do it?” Luna asked. She was clearly shocked. Twilight slowly nodded.

“Is that… bad?” The unicorn asked, worried she had done something wrong. Luna slowly shook her head.

“No it’s… that’s… Twilight, that’s dream magic. There ae only two creatures alive capable of it and you’re speaking to one of them.” The alicorn answered. Twilight’s eyes widened.

“And the other is Celestia?” She asked. Luna nodded. She looked down at her sketch for a few moments before coming to a realization. She remembered what the monarch had told her before she left.

“I helped Celestia raise the sun to save Rainbow’s life… She told me that the sun may recognize me like it does her should I call for it, and to be very careful in that regard… Would that have anything to do with it?” Twilight asked. Luna stared at her again.

“Helped her raise… You… I… I suppose that since she has taken over my duty and domain, though she never practices dream magic, it may have opened itself to you… Or perhaps it is my influence rubbing off on you in a literal sense. We cannot be sure. I-” Luna began, though she suddenly paused and looked to Rainbow Dash. She smiled.

“You should probably wake up now, she’s getting worried.” She said. Twilight followed her gaze, confused, but then lit up as she realized what she meant. She looked between the sleeping mare and the alicorn and quickly nuzzled the alicorn.

“We’ll talk about this later.” She said. Luna smiled and nuzzled the mare back until the dreamscape dissipated as Twilight woke up.

“Aw, you were actually super adorable.” Dash’s voice greeted her as she blearily opened her eyes. It sounded scratchy, like she was sick and had phlegm in her throat. She blinked a few times so that the multicolored blob in front of her clarified into a surprisingly alert looking Rainbow Dash.

“Dash!” Twilight could only exclaim as she nearly tackled the pegasus in a hug. The pegasus chuckled and wrapped herself around the unicorn.

“So the nurse came by while you were still out. Said I’m good to go as long as I don’t go getting into fights again any time soon. Can we go back to the workshop? I miss it already.” The pagasus explained softly. Twilight just nodded in the embrace. They stayed like that for a while until they finally got to their hooves. Twilight made sure to alert someone they were leaving and filled out the appropriate paperwork before meeting Dash back at the door to her office.

“You ever gonna show me how to do it myself by the way?” The pegasus asked as Twilight opened the glowing door into the workshop.

“You’ll figure it out eventually.” Twilight replied with a little smile before she walked through. Spike was at the coffee machine and he turned to look at them as the door opened.

“Rainbow Dash! You’re up!” The little dragon exclaimed, his tired slouch straightening immediately. Apparently it wasn’t as early as Twilight thought if Spike was already up A glance at the clock informed her that it was 8 in the morning, fairly early even for Spike.

“What’s got you up so early, Spike?” They both asked at the same time, earning a giggle from Twilight. The dragon looked between them before shaking his head.

“AJ came over with the report on the tractors, I had to let her in. They’re on the main desk in there.” The dragon replied. Twilight smiled and patted his head.

“Can you do me a favor and go get the girls? I want to give Dash her gift right now.” Twilight asked. The dragon poured his coffee into a thermos, saluted, and dashed out of the door. Then he came back inside, closed it, twisted it so it stopped glowing, and then dashed out again. This earned a bit of laughter from the two as Twilight practically dragged Dash into the workshop proper.

“A gift huh? Waking up with you passed out on my bed was pretty awesome already.” The pegasus asked. Twilight nodded and stood her in the center of the room.

“Close your eyes and brace yourself. This is going to hurt.” Twilight said. Dash did as she was told, and was clearly resisting looking when she felt the harness go over her chest and what was left of her wing feel something poking it. She flinched and opened her eyes when the drilling started and stared at the contraption that was drilling into her crippled wing. After a few seconds it stopped and Twilight made a few adjustments on it and the harness before turning back to where Dash was somewhere between stunned and confused.

“Try it out, move it around.” Twilight prodded. Dash slowly started moving the wing around. Rarity’s modifications to make it much less abrasive seemed to be working as Twilight didn’t notice any visual chafing. She pointed towards the still open door.

“Fly.” She said in almost a whisper. Dash’s eyes widened and with only a glance between the unicorn and the door she was out into the morning air. Twilight watched the pegasus fly, perform simple maneuvers, and even do some of the more death defying stuff usually done during stunt shows. She landed on a cloud and looked at herself for a moment before Twilight was suddenly skidding accross the floor of hte workshop as the pegasus-turned-projectile tackled her in a hug.

“Twilight… thank you.” The pegasus said, tears evident in her tone and as they fell freely form her face. Twilight, after making sure that all of her bones were intact, wrapped her forelegs around the mare and squeezed.

“You saved my life. The least I could do was give you your wing back.” The unicorn said softly. Rainbow pulled back for just a moment and Twilight’s heart sank.

Rainbow kissed her again, but she couldn’t bring herself to kiss her back. She reciprocated of course, but when it was clear that Rainbow wanted to deepen it she pulled away. Twilight suddenly felt terrible at Rainbow’s confused face. She looked away, unable to meet her friend’s gaze.

“Something change when I was out?” The pegasus asked, a little confused but the tone seemed to reveal more understanding than anything. Twilight slowly nodded.

“I… Technically… I think I’m cheating on you?” The unicorn said, still not meeting Dash’s look. She thought of how Luna kissed her and how she kissed the alicorn back. Dash snorted.

“Is she cute?” The pegasus asked. That brought Twilight’s gaze back to her. The pegasus has a little smirk on her face. “Twilight, you gave me everything back. I don’t care if you want another mare or stallion or whatever, I can do the whole polyamory thing.” The pegasus explained. Twilight cringed. Dash nodded, another look of understanding.

“Ah, I see. You… don’t love me like I hoped you did…” She continued. Twilight quickly grabbed her and pulled her into a hug.

“Of course I love you Rainbow Dash! But I also love Applejack, and Pinkie, and Rarity, and Fluttershy. You guys are the best friends I’ve ever had. I never want to leave you guys, I want you all to be in my future. I just don’t see us having that kind of future together…” Twilight quickly explained, tapering off at the end. Dash smiled and nuzzled into Twilight’s neck.

“As long as you’re happy, and I still get to be with you as a friend, then I’m ok with it then… Do you know what PGD is?” The pegasus asked, her expression and tone falling at the end. Twilight slowly shook her head as she looked down at the mare.

“PGD is Post Grounded Depression. It’s something that happens to a Pegasus after they’ve been grounded. Usually they mope around until they can really fly again, but it’s worse when it’s permanent. A Pegasus that can’t fly anymore, even if they can still do it for short periods like me, they usually only live for another year or two… and not because of outside influence if you know what I mean.” Dash started explained. Twilight’s eyes widened as she processed what was being said.

“The only reason I lasted so long was because the girls kept me cheered up and happy… But combined with the nightmares I was having… I… Do you know why Fluttershy was so worried when she came to check on me and didn’t find me at home?” The pegasus continued. Twilight shook her head, not wanting what she thought the answer was to be true. It was.

“Fluttershy was so worried because I’ve been grounded for four years. I was barely hanging on. Meeting you gave me another day, but the nightmares… I left home that day intending to just hop off and snap my wings shut… And I did, but I saw your workshop… Something made me open them up again and glide to your door.” She continued. Twilight felt tears welling up in her eyes but said nothing, waiting for Dash to continue.

“And you gave me my nights back, my dreams back… I fell hard for you- which by the way if this new mare screws up I’ll still be here of course- and you gave me another month… maybe two.” She went on, taking a deep breath and looked at the machinery on her wing. “But now you gave me my wing back… You saved my life, Twilight. I thought that if I died for you, saving you from those griffons, it wouldn’t be like suicide. I guess it technically wouldn’t be, but now I’m glad I survived.” She continued, nuzzling further into Twilight. Twilight could only wrap her legs around the pegasus a little tighter.

“Tonight, I want to introduce you to her. The other mare… She’s the one who gave you your dreams back. I just asked her to try…” Twilight said softly. Dash gave her a strange look at that.

“What really? I may have to give her a nice big smooch then. When do you wanna do it?” The pegasus replied. Twilight smiled.

“Tonight, you’ll see… We don’t want a lot of people knowing about her until I can help her come home.” The unicorn explained. Dash looked a little confused but nodded.

“Whatever you say, between the two of you I feel like an actual person again. I wouldn’t care if she was a griffon rebel or something. Well, maybe. You know what I mean!” The pegasus rambled on for a bit before Twilight giggled and hugged her.

“Say, do you think you could attach wingblades to these?” Dash asked after a few moments, looking at the wing reinforcement. Twilight snorted.

“No, but if you want one on the other wing Rarity and I have been working on something better.” She replied. Dash’s eyes lit up.

“If it’ll help me get stronger then hell yeah!” The pegasus exclaimed, earning a giggle from Twilight as the sound of voices carried from the open front door. There was a gasp and an exclaimed ‘Dashie!’ before the two found their embrace being shared by a familiar pink earth pony. Within seconds it was a whole pile of six mares, and one dragon, as they all reveled in being together again. They stayed silent for awhile before they finally untangled and started talking business.

“So I dunno if ya read mah report on that tractor, but it’s still runnin’ strong just on ambient energy.” Applejack explained as they moved into the workshop. Twilight was both surprised and not surprised to find party streamers and a ‘WELCOME BACK DASHIE’ banner hanging from the pipework.

“Good, I used a smaller design to power the wing reinforcements. And how are those treating you Fluttershy?” Twilight asked. Dashed looked to Fluttershy, confused for a moment, before the shy mare extended her wings with a smile.

“I’ve been getting more confident in the air. I even did a few tricks last night, nothing fancy like Rainbow Dash or anything…” The pegasus answered.

“Oh that reminds me darling, I finished up the designs for the changes, haven’t had any dress orders lately you see, I have them here.” Rarity said, levitating a few scrolls out of her bag and laying them out on the table.

“But what about the party?!” Pinkie exclaimed. They all looked up at her.

“Tell you what. Clean all of this up and stick it in Sugarcube Corner and we’ll be there in an hour.” Twilight said. Pinkie saluted and, in a comical whirlwind of motion, the workshop was back to its normal aesthetic and the pink mare was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh my, those are incredibly detailed!” Fluttershy said, noticing the wing sketches Twilight had moved next to Rarity’s designs.

“I… had help. I’ll explain later.” Twilight replied a little sheepishly. Fluttershy seemed satisfied with that, and Rarity seemed a little preoccupied with the designs, but Applejack gave her a funny look.

“Who’s helpin’ ya?” She asked. Twilight shook her head, but Applejack put a hoof to her shoulder. “Twi, ya can tell us anythin’... Whoever this pony is helpin’ ya we’d be glad to invite them into our little circle if they’re a friend’a yers.” The farm mare continued with a soft smile. Twilight gave a hefty sigh.

“It’s… not that simple. Half of it you probably wouldn’t believe, the other half of it might be kinda dangerous if word got out.” The unicorn explained. Applejack snorted.

“Twilight, think about it. In one week I’ve seen my tractors fixed and running on clean and renewable energy, Flutters flyin’ high an’ proud, Dash bein’ happier than a kite in a windstorm, Rarity being tutored by the best arcanotechnician in the country, a walkin’ building powered by a cheeky phoenix, and ah’ve personally met the princess. I would believe you even if ya told me yer friend lived on the moon.” Applejack explained. They all stopped to think a moment at that.

“Wow, when you put it that way you really have changed all of our lives. For the better.” Dash said, booping Twilight on the nose. Twilight rubbed the back of her head with a hoof.

“What if that’s exactly what I’m telling you?” Twilight finally said after a few moments of silence. It took a few seconds for everyone to realize exactly what she was saying.

“On the… I was only jokin’! How does someone live on the moon?” Applejack asked.

“They’re banished…” Dash replied before Twilight could. Twilight gave her a surprised look. “That book, the one that’s supposed to be all secret and stuff, I’ve been reading it out of boredom since you kept leaving it out. Nightmare Moon is scaring away my nightmares?” The pegasus asked softly. Twilight shook her head.

“Luna is warding your dreams against them. Nightmare Moon can’t follow her into our dreams for some reason. She’s been visiting my dreams almost every night, we kept each other company. “ Twilight replied. Dash’s eyes widened at that and she dashed back into the living area, returning with the book.

“No! Not for some reason! It’s because of the Elements of Harmony!” The mare exclaimed. Everyone gave her a funny look. She opened the book up and started flipping through pages that were there. "What? I like to read sometimes..." She grmbled at most of their looks.

“Honesty… Generosity… Kindness… Pinks is totally Laughter… and Loyalty.” Dash read out, pointing at everyone in the room respectively. “Whoa… that’s new…” The pegasus continued as she flipped one page too many. They all looked to see the page. It looked like the other pages for the elements, but this one read ‘Magic’.

“Ahah! And Twi is Magic! It says here that the element of magic can bring all of the others together, and combined they will aid in her escape. That prophecy wasn’t about actual stars! It was about the stars on your butt!” Dash exclaimed, pointing to Twilight’s cutie mark. Everyone stared at her, and then Twilight’s cutie mark, and then at Twilight.

“That… doesn’t make any sense…” Twilight started. Dash shook her head.

“You said this book magically appeared to you, right? You also said that the version the princess read said something else right? And the thing changes based on what’s happening! If it weren’t for all of that, we never would have met you. But you brought us even closer together and all of us are better off for it. I said before it was like destiny. Well, what if it actually is like destiny? Maybe we’re supposed to help you free your saucy marefriend on the moon.” The pegasus went on, flipping a few more pages in the book before letting it drop as she paced and spoke.

“What’s all this about marefriend? I thought y’all were datin’?” Applejack asked. Twilight avoided the farmer’s gaze but Dash smirked.

“Talked it out, not the best time. More of a joke really, but anyways… How do we start Twi?” The pegasus continued. Everyone stared at Twilight then. She looked around at them, even Spike was giving her an expectant look.

“W-What? You all… Just want to follow me like that?” Twilight asked. Dash just gave her a look, she had already explained her piece.

“You’ve changed all our lives fer the better sugarcube. ‘Least we can do. Have ya told the princess?” Applejack said, everyone nodding. Twilight was somewhat startled to find Pinkie next to her nodding as well, apparently having heard the entire thing.

“Well… Last time I mentioned the mare in the moon, she almost executed me on the spot. She trusted me enough to let me explain, but I don’t know how she’d react if I told her I was trying to free her sister. For all we know it’ll be Nightmare Moon we’re freeing, Luna says she’s gathering her strength for something... “ Twilight finally replied.

“Wait, didn’t the elements of harmony put her on the moon in the first place? If they’re trying to bring all of you together and all of this maybe it’s trying to fix its mistake and make things right again?” Spike suggested. Most of the others nodded.

“But…” Twilight started. Everyone gave her a shushing look so she stopped. Rarity stepped forward.

“It would appear, Darling, that we’ve all made up our minds on the manner. Where do we begin? Knowing you, you’ve already got some ideas.” The other unicorn said. Twilight gave her a sheepish smile before turning to Spike.

“Spike, can you write to the princess and tell her Dash is recovered? Before we start on… that project, I want to finish our current ones. We’ve perfected the design for the arcane battery, now I want to work on further improving on the wing reinforcement design. Luna was able to manipulate her wings in my dream to show the skeletal structure and the way the muscles and everything worked, so I wanted to try my hoof at making actual prosthetics. Rabenkrahe deserves to fly again.” Twilight listed off, going into professional mode.

“Griffon wings are a little different than pegasus wings, but I can help with that. I know how they work almost as good as mine.” Dash said.

“Can it wait until after the party? I got it all set up just like you asked!” Pinkie asked, her lower lip quivering in her pinkie-pout.

“Of course, Pinkie. Why don’t we head over now?” Twilight replied. They all nodded and the squeal that came out of the pink party pony brought a bout of laughter from everyone as they filed out of the workshop. A caw and ruffling of feathers alerted the group that Philomena had invited herself and was now on her usual perch on top of Dash’s head.

During their walk back into the town, Celestia replied and said that she would be able to return in one week’s time, but she would be able to make a quick visit the next day. Twilight decided that she wanted to be able to present the modified reinforcements to her then and immediately after the party they got to work.

While they weren’t technically dating anymore, Twilight was perfectly fine sharing their new combined ‘bed’ with Rainbow Dash in front of the fire. She always slept the best like that she found. She gave the pegasus a look when she kissed her goodnight.

“What? I had to get at least one more in. Helps me sleep.” The pegasus said with no small amount of snark. They both yawned and Dash nuzzled into Twilight’s neck. The unicorn just let out the sigh she was holding and let it go, resting her chin on Dash’s head. They stayed like that for quite a while, though it was made abundantly clear when they were dreaming.

“You haven’t told her yet, then?” Luna’s voice came softly. Twilight looked over and saw the alicorn on the usual couch. Twilight smiled and almost snorted at Luna’s surprised face when the unicorn’s horn lit up and she was dragged over. She was shocked into silence when Dash opened her eyes and opened a wing to welcome the third pony into the cuddle pile.

“Told me a lot more than you think apparently. Thanks for giving me my dreams back by the way.” The pegasus said, keeping true to her word as she gave Luna a ridiculous kiss. The alicorn pulled away, her face turning pink, and looked between the two.

“I learned a little more about dream magic. Turns out linking dreamscapes is very similar to telepathy. And I was going to say I can’t believe you just did that, Dash, but I’d be lying if I did. I think you two know who each other are, I just wanted you to meet.” Twilight explained. Luna slowly calmed down and even found herself leaning into the two ponies that had a wing or leg wrapped around her.

“You never cease to amaze, my dear. It is a pleasure to finally meet you directly.” Luna said, nodding to Dash. The pegasus stuck her tongue out before her expression got serious for a moment.

“So, it was you I saw before I woke up. I thought it was the zebra poison messing with my memory.” The pegasus said. Luna froze, and Twilight stared at her, before slowly nodding.

“It was your reaction in your dreamscape that told me you two were in danger… I am beyond glad to know my call for help was answered.” The alicorn explained softly. Dash nodded and pulled Luna a little closer. Twilight was gaping at the alicorn though, dumbfounded.

“Well thanks for that. Because of whatever you did, I’m still alive and Twilight is still with us.” Dash said. Luna nodded but had noticed Twilight’s reaction and was giving her a questioning glance.

“Luna, you... “ Twilight started, remembering what Celestia said about her dream that night. “Did the nightmare not follow you?” She asked, deciding she didn’t need to repeat what was already known at this point. She had gone to Celestia for aid. Luna shook her head.

“She may not be able to follow me into your dreamscapes, but she dares not go near my sister. Not while she still commands the moon.” The alicorn answered, she seemed satisfied by that. Or at least a particular memory.

“Oh yeah! We think we know why she can’t follow you here.” Dash said. Luna gave her a questioning look. “We’re the new bearers of the elements of harmony. Or something like that. She doesn’t because she can’t, all of this stuff that’s been happening with that book and everything kinda point to it.” Dash continued. Luna was the one to look dumbfounded then. She looked to Twilight, but found the unicorn with her eyes closed and a smile on her face as she was held against the two of them.

“I… Well… I know very little about the elements, especially after I lost the few that I had… I suppose it would make sense.” Luna started. She stopped as Twilight opened her eyes and fixed her with a look. “I know that look. You’re planning something.” The alicorn said, bumping her snout against the unicorn’s. Dash snorted, but Twilight kept her expression unchanging.

“In one week’s time, we’ll be able to do this in person. For real. I’m sure of it.” She said with determination. “In one week’s time is when Celestia returns, the day of mourning.” She continued. Luna blinked.

“Aw hell yeah, I knew you were cooking something up!” Dash exclaimed. Luna just seemed confused for a moment before she felt tears welling up in her eyes.

“You… are coming for me?” She asked softly.

“Duh, we all are. I wanna give you a real smooch, and I’m pretty sure Twilight wants to give you a bit more than that.” Dash said, earning a boop on the nose from the now embarrassed unicorn. That didn’t stop her though. “And the rest of the girls want to meet you too. Oh! Not to mention the Princess! She’ll be super happy to see you again!” the pegasus continued. Twilight and Luna met each other’s gaze at that point, though.

“What are you planning, really? You will have to deal with the nightmare… She will be ready for you.” The alicorn asked softly. Dash quieted down at that. Twilight snorted.

“I‘m going all the way to the moon and back, do you really think a bad dream is going to get in my way?” The unicorn replied with a little smirk. Luna just gave the softest of chuckles and kissed her. And Twilight kissed back.

“Whoa. When we kissed it was awesome, but yeah you totally deserve each other. That’s hot.” Dash said after a little while. They paused and pulled away slightly and looked between each other and the pegasus.

“Anything goes in a dream, right?” Twilight asked. Luna nodded and they both turned towards Dash. Dash didn’t seem to notice her wings had suddenly shot out at that look, but her blush betrayed her smirk at what it sounded like they were suggesting.

“Dreams are awesome!” The mare exclaimed before the other two tried to kiss her at the same time.
> Treason and Trust
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today. Celestia was coming home today and Twilight wanted to present the wing reinforcement to Celestia. The modifications were made and with the insertion of some glyph marked gemstones and glyph arrays on top of Rarity’s sleek modifications, the things were ready. She would even hazard to call them ‘combat ready’. The magic she had put into Dash’s were to channel energy into arcane wing blades, grant large bursts of speed like an afterburner, and to shield from kinetic impacts like a griffon charging you or smacking into a tree. They were completely customizable, however, and Twilight even got a much larger pair ready for the Princess. Just in case.

She was working off of the modified sketches Rainbow had helped her for griffon wings, just completing a mechanical wing frame in its entirety, when the door glowed black and Celestia stepped through.

“Ah, I was hoping you’d be in here! And you as well, Admiral. It’s good to see you with us again.” The Princess said when she entered and found Twilight at her work and Dash lounging on the rafters in the living area. They both rushed to the Princess. Twilight hugged her while Dash bowed.

“It’s good to be back, thanks to you from what I hear.” The pegasus replied. Celestia smiled and inclined her head as Twilight stepped back. “Twilight, you have something you want to show me. I know that look in your eyes.” Celestia continued, Twilight was almost bouncing in excitement. Dash grinned and spread her wings out.

“Mechanical and arcane reinforcement. She flies better than she used to.” Twilight started as the door behind Celestia closed and opened again to revel the area surrounding Ponyville once more. Dash took a ready stance as a low hum filled the room for just a second before Dash shot out of the door with the enhanced speed boost. She then proceeded to pull maneuvers that could probably get her into the Wonderbolts and demonstrated the other enhancements .

“That’s… your arcane engines are already so advanced as to power that?” Celestia asked, looking at Twilight as they watched Dash fly. The unicorn nodded and they both continued to watch as Dash came back in for a landing.

“My, it would appear that you are once again fit for duty. I specifically remember your applications to my private guard, but before they were approved you had your accident. Are you still interested?” Celestia asked. Both of the two stared at Celestia at that. Celestia noted that both of them seemed almost scared of the idea.

“What?... I mean, I totally am still interested… but… I don’t think I can leave here. If they went after Twilight once they’ll do it again. Not to mention the fact that I’m basically half of her power supply for her experiments.” Dash said after a few moments of silence. Celestia smiled. She had already decided on this with Shining Armor of course.

“I’m afraid I can only trust my best soldiers to defend one so precious to me as Twilight.” The Princess said. She put a hoof up when both of them opened their mouths to protest and her smile widened. “So I wouldn’t dream of putting her safety in anyone else’s hooves.” She finished. Twilight could only let out a sigh of relief while Dash snorted.

“In the meantime, are these very difficult to create?” The princess continued, looking closer at Dash’s wing reinforcements.

“Yes, nowhere near ready for mass production. They’re not too expensive to make, it just takes time and they need to be generally fitted to the pony. Would you like to see yours?” Twilight replied, her confidence waning slightly at the last part. She had no idea how the princess would react. Celestia’s look of confusion almost brought a giggle from the unicorn, but instead she motioned for her to follow and led the alicorn into the workshop proper.

“This morning, in preparation for you coming to visit, Rarity and I made a set for you just in case. The enhancements can be swapped out or inscribed on the spot, and if there’s not enough ambient magic to keep them fully charged you can always overcharge them. I… just want to make sure you’re safe out there.” Twilight explained as she retrieved the much larger frames from their place. “Rarity even figured out the proper way to make them removable! The feathers hide the receptacles to go back in pretty easily.” She continued. Silence fell over the workshop for a few moments as Celestia seemed to be deep in thought.

“What does the process entail? And you said they’re removable?” She asked after nearly a minute of thought. That caused the two to enter a lengthy conversation about the finer mechanics of the things for quite a while.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt, I’m heading into town. I promised AJ I’d help around the farm. Both of you should come around for dinner she wanted me to tell you. Granny Smith would love to have you again.” Dash said after nearly an hour of discussion. Twilight smiled and nodded.

“Ah, that old mare. We always had the most interesting conversations. I’d love to.” Celestia answered her. Dash nodded and shot out of the door. Philomena had joined the ‘party’ since Celestia’s arrival and she was now watching in interest as Twilight carefully fit the reinforcements on her mentor’s wings.

“So, I thought you weren’t exactly together anymore?” Celestia asked not long after Dash had left.

“It’s… kinda complicated. We talked about it and she’s fine with whatever we are as long as we’re friends.  It’s nice living with someone, though. I didn’t have the heart to kick her out and we both like having her around.” Twilight explained after a pause. “Hold still, this’ll sting a bit.” She said quickly before the drilling started. Celestia seemed to barely notice it as she continued.

“I Dare say it’d be a trouble getting her to leave regardless. She was one of my most loyal soldiers before, she wanted to become one of my personal guard for so long. Would’ve done anything for it. Not only did she hesitate when I offered it this time, though, but she refused it on the basis of wanting to keep you safe. I’m impressed you’ve inspired such loyalty in her. Especially if you’ve talked about your feelings.” The princess explained. Twilight smiled as the reinforcements were properly put into place.

“Yeah… Speaking of that, I have some ideas about that book. I don’t have anything concrete yet so I’d rather not make assumptions, but it’s getting there. I’d rather not muddle up this day with any more business though, I promised Pinkie Pie I’d bring you over to her place for pastries.” The unicorn said with a smile. Celestia gave her a look, she knew the unicorn was dodging the subject even though she was the one who brought it up.

“Twilight, do remember how that particular subject is a very important matter to me personally and of the nation’s security… “ Celestia started. Twilight nodded and rubbed the back of her head.

“I… Like I said I don’t have anything concrete… but I don’t think Nightmare Moon is a threat anymore.” The unicorn said. Celestia blinked a few times.

“You… You’re sure?” The alicorn asked, trying to process what exactly that could mean.

“No, not yet. Now that the wing reinforcement project is done I’m returning my full attention to it. Dash kinda saw more than I meant her to as well, we may or may not have enlisted the help of the girls as well- though only Dash has seen the book.  I also unblocked Spike’s memory now that he’s confident he can keep those secrets again like you said.” Twilight explained. Celestia nodded slowly as the unicorn finished.

“I… would have preferred your new friends not get involved, but if the only other person that has seen what the Admiral has seen is my most loyal soldier then I suppose I can trust her… I’m putting a lot of trust in you, Twilight, and I trust you not to betray that trust… If it weren’t for that dream I don’t think I could believe you but… Nevermind.” The princess explained.

“It was Dash who figured some of it out, actually, I’m just cross referencing and double checking it. Anyways, pastries. Pinkie Pie’s.” The unicorn replied. Celestia smiled and nodded. The alicorn’s legendary sweet tooth would be sated on this day if it was the last thing that pink mare would do.

That night, Twilight sat with Luna, gazing up at the stars together. They hadn’t spoken much, simply enjoying each other’s company.

“So, my rescuer, how dost thou plan to get here and abscond with your princess?” Luna asked with a little smirk, dipping into the old tongue for effect. Twilight snorted.

“Magic.” Was her reply.

“Magic?” Luna asked, an eyebrow raised. Twilight stood and threw open the door to the workshop proper. It had been mostly cleared of all equipment and detritus, and nearly every inch of the floor was covered in arcane scrawlings. A massive glyph array.

“Magic.” Came Twilight’s repeated reply. Luna just stared at it. She traced the lines and translated the arcane symbols to try and figure just what its function was.

“You… You’re… teleporting here?” Luna breathed out. Twilight nodded.

“And the Workshop, I’ve fitted the boilers with some overcharged rubies to replace Philomena for up to a week. I’ve placed air talismans around the place so that I won’t suffocate and my eyes won’t pop out of my head in the vacuum. I’ll be using a significant amount of energy stored in the arcane engines to do it, but a few days of charging them from me and an alicorn should be enough to get us back.” Twilight explained. Luna stayed silent for a few moments, doing calculations in her head.

“And… the nightmare?” She asked. Twilight smiled and nuzzled into Luna’s neck.

“Won’t be a problem.” She said without hesitation. Luna hummed, not sure, but she couldn’t argue with that confidence. They stayed like that for awhile before they both looked off towards the door. It made no sound here, but they could both hear it being knocked on in the waking world.

“I don’t suppose you want to ignore that, do you?” Luna asked. Twilight quickly kissed the alicorn’s muzzle before closing her eyes.

“It’s coming from the palace, so it’s important. I’ll see you tomorrow night.” She said with a smile. Luna’s grumbling was the last thing Twilight saw before she opened her eyes and groaned. Her horn lit up and the door opened, revealing Shining Armor holding two cups of coffee.

“Hey Twily, sorry to wake you up… You two are adorable by the way.” The stallion said as he walked in, noticing Twilight and Dash sharing their makeshift bed.

“It’s comfy. You’re gonna make me get up, aren’t you?” Twilight grumbled, accepting the coffee as it was offered to her. He nodded and she groaned again.

“I’ll keep warm for ya.” Dash grumbled just as sleepily before her gentle snores revealed the flash of consciousness was just that. Twilight smiled before teleporting out of the sleeping pegasus’ grasp so as not to wake her.

“I was having a good dream, so this better be good.” The unicorn said to her brother, the flash of magic waking her up a bit more. He nodded and motioned for her to follow.

“It’s about the investigation. There’s some serious glyphwork we found at the meeting point. That Griffon doesn’t know anything about it but it gives me the creeps. I was hoping you’d be able to figure something out about it.” Shining explained as he lit up his horn for teleportation. Twilight nodded, giving him permission, and they appeared in what looked like a darkened ballroom.

“Miss Sparkle.” A very tired voice greeted her arrival. Twilight had never seen Blueblood so… subdued. Or polite for that matter. He looked like he was genuinely happy to see her here. “Thank you for coming, I hate to have any remnants of this terrorism in my home.” He continued. Twilight nodded and looked at the black scrawlings all over the floor and walls.

“This wasn’t black before I assume?” Twilight asked as she started walking around, reading the glyphs.

“No, they were very well hidden. I traced over them as best I could, it’s flash powder enchanted to cling to magical residue. Once ignited it’ll erase the magic it’s clinging to.” Shining explained. Twilight nodded to signify she heard as she continued.

“From what I’m seeing here these glyphs are designed for observation, transportation, communication… This doesn’t make sense.” The studious unicorn said more to herself. Twilight moved over to look but she waved him off, she was just talking to herself. He nodded and started looking around the room more.

“By the way, I meant to ask you, what made you decide to stay in the palace that day? The Griffon told us that it was the first day they would make their attempt according to orders. Sounded like someone knew you would be there before they did.” Shining asked. Twilight was mumbling to herself, but she suddenly stopped. Shining gave her a questioning look when she stood straight up and looked at Shining.

“They never came for that meeting… I thought… no… This doesn’t… no, it does make sense.” She started thinking aloud again before looking Shining in the eye.

“The council. I received a message saying they wanted to meet with me sometime that night. I slept in my room at the palace for that reason because knocking on the door doesn’t always go through when I’m in the workshop. I assumed nobody came because of the attack but…” Twilight explained. She tapered off as she looked at the glyphs again.

“But it adds up. These glyphs are clearly of Equestrian design. This string here is designed to render the magic untraceable. Normally I‘d still be able to trace it since I practically invented the strings currently in use in Equestria, but these are new ones. I had just submitted them to the university to be forwarded to the council. I don’t know who it could have been, but at least one of the council members is a traitor.” Twilight continued. She lit her horn and the flash powder ignited, erasing the massive glyph array.

“Then we’ll need to start detaining and questioning them…” Shining started. Blueblood nodded as well.

“You should begin with those who have been recorded having Griffon Prejudice, this whole charade seemed to be designed to start open war with the griffons in general again rather than the small rebellion. Give me ten minutes and I can scour some of my records for places to start.” The noble suggested. Shining nodded and the noble turned to leave the ballroom while Twilight quickly cleaned the char from the ballroom.

“Thanks for your help, Twily. I’d keep an eye out and stay at your workshop. Keep it moving even, until we find the traitors it might be dangerous for you.” Shining said, hugging his sister. She hugged him back and smiled.

“Don’t worry, I can take care of myself. And if not, I’ve got some powerful friends now. It’d take an army to beat us.” She said with a little smirk. He nodded.

“I’ll walk you back to the door either way, then I’ll come back here and continue the investigation.” The captain said. Twilight nodded and they quickly made their way back to the astronomy tower. Shining paused a few times to give orders to patrolling guards but beyond that they reached the tower quickly.

Twilight squinted at the sun peeking just over the horizon in the distance out of the workshop’s window, a frown on her face. She smiled as she felt a wing drape over her as the coffee machine to that side started up.

“Find anything?” Dash’s groggy voice asked. She frowned as Twilight gave her the summary and passed her a mug of zebra brew.

“Damn bigots. With all the shit I’ve seen you think I’d be the one hating griffons, these guys probably haven’t even met one.” The pegasus grumbled into her mug. Twilight leaned into her, happy for the comforting presence.

“So… I normally don’t ask about this kind of stuff because I hate war… but… could you tell me about it?” Twilight asked softly. Dash said nothing for a little while, but eventually she hummed and looked down at Twilight.

“You wanna know why I won’t eat meat?” She asked. Twilight half nodded.

“It was the first thing I wondered. Rabenkrahe’s best dish is Bratwurst afterall.” She replied. Dash nodded and sipped her coffee.

“Have you ever had raw beef?” Dash asked. Twilight nodded.

“It wasn’t my favorite but I have.” She replied, a sinking feeling in her gut telling her she wasn’t going to like the rest of this topic. Dash nodded and took a deep breath.

“You ever eat raw pony?” She asked, cringing slightly as she said it. Twilight just kinda blinked and stared for a moment. ‘Eat’ and ‘pony’ were definitely in the same sentence there, that was…

“Because I have. One time when my unit was captured, the sick fucks tore my second into pieces and started trying to force feed it to us. It… wasn’t actually that bad, but you can imagine what goes through your mind when you’re eating a *person*. Especially a person that until five minutes ago you were *responsible for their lives*... I can’t even watch a pony eat meat without wanting to hurl or beat the shit out of them… And my nightmares never let me forget about it.” The pegasus continued, interrupting Twilight’s rapid train of thought.

She looked at the Pegasus again. She looked like she was going to vomit again, so she did the first thing that came to her mind to get rid of the thoughts she brought up. She booped Dash’s muzzle with a hoof, and then caught the pegasus in a quick little kiss when she looked up.

“Hey, don’t tease me like that!” The pegasus grumbled, but her little smile told the unicorn it had worked.

“Luna doesn’t really mind, and I dunno. After that… dream… she might even think it’s hot.” Twilight retorted. this caused Dash to enter a little snorting fit of laughter before leaning into Twilight again. “I brought it up, sorry. Maybe not hte best topic to talk about at the moment..” She continued. Dash pawed the ground a few times before sipping on her coffee.

“You’re the only one I’ve told about that… Even Flutters thinks it’s because I’ve seen griffons eat ponies in front of me before. Which that doesn’t help mind you, but the only person I’ve ever told about it was Princess Celestia when she lead the rescue operation on my unit. That’s when I became a Major, I didn’t crack. Do you know what she told me after that?” The pegasus asked. Twilight shook her head, letting Dash continued.

“She told me about this one time she went to the Griffon Capital for peace talks. They tried to disrupt it passive aggressively by serving meat, but she and her ambassadors weren’t phased. That is, until they were told it was pony meat. Half of the ambassadors started calling for their heads, the other halve couldn’t stop throwing it up. Do you know what Celestia did?” She told. Dash shook her head, she hadn’t heard this story before.

“She finished her meal without batting an eye, gave her compliments to the chef, and pulled out the treaty to be looked over. Stone faced and all. It freaked her people out, it freaked the griffons out even more.” Dash continued. Twilight balked.

“That actually happened?! I thought it was a terrible joke floating around!” She exclaimed. Dash nodded.

“She told me something then that I’ve kept with me since. ‘Sometimes we do terrible things, things we may come to hate later, but you cannot regret them for they were done out of necessity. I did what I did to both intimidate and demand respect not only the griffins, but my own people at the table. You were forced to do what you did, but you did not let it break you. It will not be the only terrible thing you will do in your life, or even this war, but those who know why it was done will only respect you for it.’ She explained to me.

“My whole take away from it is that we do things we aren’t proud of, but when they’re out of necessity for the greater good or something like that then I shouldn’t regret them. If I would have cracked like my guys did our whole platoon, maybe even our whole army, would have been in trouble.” Dash explained. Twilight slowly nodded.

“I guess she’s right, though… If someone did… that… to me then it probably would have broken me. You stayed strong, and while it still affects you it’s not for the reasons it would be. Now I’m kinda worried that I might order something like that one of these days and forget that it’s a no no around you.” The unicorn explained. Dash snorted in response.

“Naw, I’ve gotten better with it recently. Just don’t do it like every day or expect me to eat any of it and you’re fine.” She said. They stayed like that for a little while before Philomena gave what seemed like a very cautious caw. Dash seemed confused but Twilight knew that tone. She stood up and walked to the window.

“What…” She started, almost unconsciously shifting over so Dash could look too. Outside were a fairly large group of armed ponies and griffons. Unless there were some she couldn’t see there had to be at least ten of each. One of them stuck out, though. A pony. A pony she recognized.

“That snake, we trusted you!” Twilight practically growled. Dash didn’t recognize him, but she correctly assumed that he was on the council. Dash turned to her.

“Go back to the Palace, I’ll keep an eye on them. Get to Spike and get a message to the Princess and your brother.” Dash explained. Twilight nodded and turned the knob, but was surprised when it didn’t glow. Her eyes widened and she turned back to the pegasus.

“Only Spike knows how to block it… They must be at the Palace too.” She said. Dash swore and looked out of the window again, but a knock interrupted her sweep.

“Twilight, we know you’re in there. Please, just come quietly. Nobody else has to get hurt.” The pony’s voice came through the door.

“Tell me, Councilor, why are you doing this?” Twilight called back. There was silence for a few moments as Twilight made a few hoof gestures to Dash. The pegasus was a little surprised that her friend knew Equestrian Military hoof gestures but she nodded. they didn’t seem to know that the pegasus was here too and so she prepared to dash out of the door. ‘Hit and Run’ was the sign Twilight gave her.

“The Griffons think they are above us. Even those who call themselves allies. I believe that finishing the war that was started years ago is beneficial to our country, and I’ve been paid a lot of money to make sure the war continues.” He explained as Twilight’s horn lit. More glyphs appeared on Dash’s wing reinforcements as she wove more protective wards into them.

“What have you done with Spike?” Twilight asked. This answer came much quicker.

“He’s being held hostage by griffons in your tower, they tried to get in your magic door but the damn birds can’t figure it out. We don’t want any more bloodshed, Twilight. Not on our soil.” The pony replied. Twilight snorted. She made anothe hoof gesture that honestly surprised Dash.

‘VIP first, no mercy. Ready in 5 seconds.’

She nodded nonetheless and prepared to dash out of the door as soon as it was opened.

“I’m sorry Councilman, but you’ve admitted high treason and threatened my life in my own home. By the authority of my warrior princess and my duty as her student and all of the other titles I have earned I convict you of high treason and give you appropriate sentence. Your mercenaries should run or surrender.” Twilight called out with some magical amplification to get the point across. Ponyville probably heard it too. Then she opened the door. The pony she recognized as the councilman still had almost a cocky smirk as his head hit the ground before his body, the chromatic blur trailing blood out into the open air.

“I don’t want to kill any of you, get the hell out of here or I will kill you.” Dash said, pausing a dozen meters from the small force of armed creatures. The ponies seemed a little unsure, but the griffons looked as if they regretted their life decisions. They all stood their ground, however, and Dash frowned as a few arrows went her way. When she dodged the shot of a rifle she used the momentum of her twirl to slice the air with her wing.

A barely visible wave of air cut another incoming bullet in half, as well as the rifle and part of the griffon’s face that was holding it. Two of the unicorns in the group lit up their horns to try and stop the pegasus, but they screamed in pain as their horns simultaneously shattered after being wreathed in a lavender glow.

“And you’ve forfeited your lives.” Twilight said lowly as the excess wild magic generated by the shattered horns were fed into great lances of magic that then skewered the crippled unicorns into the ground.

She effortlessly grabbed three bullets out of the air and sent them back into the heads of their previous owners without even looking. Dash cut swathes through the griffins and two pegasi that dared follow her into the air as her recently inscribed glyphs repelled spellfire from below and what little rifle fire reached her.

One pass brought her almost dangerously close to Twilight as the unicorn deflected a spell bolt into the ground to kick up dirt as cover. Twilight used her magic to guide her friend around her and the pegasus activated her afterburner glyphs to rocket back towards the casters still slinging bolts blindly into the cloud of detritus. Their focused beams melted off of her as her barriers held and the unicorns were swiftly decapitated.

Twilight ducked under a hammer as a griffin above shot down at her- causing a bit of friendly fire on the hammer wielding earth pony. The pained flinch gave Twilight an easy opening to dig a spike of solidified magic into the stallion’s heart and she used his body to block the second bullet coming in. She shrugged him off of her as the griffin then fell to the ground, part of his face and a wing falling separately due to a chromatic streak passing through it.

Twilight stared down the last two earth ponies as Dash landed on the other side of them, her speed keeping even her wings clean of any blood.

“Well, you’ve yet to attack. Do you want to die too?” Twilight asked. They looked at each other, dropped their weapons, and bolted. Dash sighed in relief before walking over to the unicorn.

“You alright Twi? That was pretty awesome, but were those your first kills?” She asked. Twilight took a deep breath.

“No I’m not alright, yes they were, and we’re going to Canterlot right now to get that part over with before I have a complete meltdown.” The unicorn replied, her horn glowing. Dash nodded and stepped up to her and with a flash they were standing in the astronomy tower.

They teleported right into the middle of a standoff between Shining Armor with his guard and a group of griffins. Both parties seemed surprised, though Twilight and Dash did not attack.

“Where is the dragon.” Twilight didn’t ask, she demanded of the griffins. The one apparently in charge motioned with his head to where the baby dragon was sitting with a little smirk on his face in the corner, three rifles pointed at him just out of reach of what appeared to be scorch marks on the floor. She nodded and turned back to the griffin.

“Was this your contractor?” She asked, holding up the head of the councilman Dash decapitated. He didn’t even need to nod as they all lowered their weapons and bunched up.

“Our contract has been nullified. We did not harm any ponies in our infiltration and I will attest to that one’s involvement in exchange for our lives.” The lead griffin said. Twilight nodded and turned to Shining, placing the head in her magic in front of him, and giving him a quick hug.

“I’m going to go throw up and have a complete emotional breakdown back at the workshop. There were more there. Come get the story in about four hours.” She said softly to him. Before he could do more than nod she was gone, along with Dash and Spike.

Dash followed Twilight into the bathroom and held her close as she emptied her stomach into the toilet and simultaneously bawled her eyes out.

“Hells alive what happened here?!” They could barely hear a familiar farmer’s voice call out through the still open door.

“I’ll take care of them… do you want to see them?” Spike said softly, poking his head in. Twilight just nodded her head as there was nothing left to heave out and Dash gently stroked her mane, disregarding other ponies’ blood now caked in it.

Twilight allowed Dash to guide her to the shower and carefully started cleaning her up as four heads poked in. Twilight was still barely holding back sobs as she practically melted into the floor of the shower as Dash carefully scrubbed blood out of her coat. The pegasus answered the question nobody had asked yet before they could do so.

“Traitors and mercenaries, we took care of them. Twi’s never killed anyone before so she’s a mess right now. We’ll be out in a sec, she needs everyone right now.” Dash explained. They all nodded and everyone but Fluttershy backed off. “Don’t worry Flutters… none of it is hers.” Dash continued. Fluttershy nodded and she too backed out.

As soon as they walked out they were surrounded by their friends. They didn’t ask questions, they simply converged in front of the fireplace and stayed there together.

“Mind if I tell them what happened, Twi? Or would you rather not hear it again so soon?” Dash asked Twilight softly.

“I… barely remember it… go ahead.” Twilight replied, her voice cracking. Dash nodded and told them all what happened. They had indeed heard the enhanced declaration and, along with some of the militia, gathered and converged to see what happened. The militia was already cleaning up, even.

Within the hour, Spike received a letter from the princess congratulating Twilight and expressing her deepest relief that she was unharmed. The civil war in the griffon lands had come to blows so she would be fighting as well, but it meant that the rebellion was down to its last resort and would be over soon.

Twilight didn’t say much for the rest of the day, however once her meltdown was finally stopped she practically threw herself into working on the massive glyph array that was supposed to help her get to the moon. The others helped when they could of course, but some of them came and went as the sun slowly fell.

Shining came by while they were working to find out that after investigating the councilman’s accounts they traced his employer to another councilman who was subsequently arrested for trial when the princess returned. The griffins that ‘captured’ Spike returned to their homelands, having offered their contract to Celestia as a show of trust in exchange for their freedom, and would arrive to aid in the fighting.

“You’ve had a terribly busy day…” Luna’s soft voice told Twilight that she had fallen asleep at her table again. She instantly buried her face into Luna’s chest, the alicorn pulling her into a winged embrace as she wrapped a foreleg around her to hold the unicorn.

“I killed people today. Four griffins and five ponies. I hate fighting and killing. And I did it.” Twilight softly explained, sniffing slightly. Luna lifted the unicorn’s chin and planted a sweet little kiss on the mare’s lips.

“Well I still love you, if that makes you feel any better. Your friends do too. I got the story from Rainbow Dash. Tell me, why did you kill those people? There had to have been a reason when you could have just stayed in the workshop until help arrived.” Luna asked. Twilight sniffed again as she wiped her eyes and leaned a little more into Luna.

“I… I didn’t want Dash to get hurt fighting so many at once… and Spike locked the door’s magic. He’d only do that if it wasn’t safe to come back or he was trying to stop someone from using it. Then he said he was being held hostage and I… I got angry. How dare they come after the people I care about for leverage! How dare they come after me in the first place! I didn’t do anything to them! I-!” Twilight started, but as it started turning into furious declarations Luna interrupted her with another kiss.

“You killed not just in the defense of yourself, but in the defense of those you hold dear. There is no more noble a fight.” The alicorn said. Twilight slowly nodded and leaned her head into Luna’s.

“I will stay with you a little longer, but you need rest. Besides, there are a few nightmares I wish to spread now. When you come for me, we will have all the time in the world. In the waking world.” Luna said after a few moments of silence. Twilight nodded and they stayed like that for an amount of time before Luna slowly let Twilight fade into a deeper sleep.

Now, it was time to look for more traitors. Dream Interrogations used to be easily thwarted, but since the practice faded with her reign it should be easy to get the information she wanted and spook the people she wished to be afraid. Besides, it might even satiate the nightmare for some time.
> To the Moon?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the few days past the attack the centurians posted in Ponyville began doing regular patrols around the area. Dash would occasionally catch up to one and chat when she was bored as Twilight continued to cover the walls and even ceiling in glyphwork. The others came around to keep her company regularly as well, Pinkie had even invited her to a party the same day she was going to be getting Luna back.

More importantly, though, she had a plan. Dash and Philomena didn’t like this plan, but it was her best shot. At first she had intended to create simple teleportation arrays to help get her there, but she didn’t know the first thing about surviving out in space. Nobody did.

She knew it was a vacuum, so she had air talismans installed in the ventilation, the new fire talismans would keep the workshop warm, and for the pressure she had installed atmospheric control arrays around the workshop.

Oh yeah, she was teleporting the whole workshop. Fluttershy would take care of Philomena and Dash would crash with Applejack since she didn’t want to return home alone.

Finally, it was the big day. Pinkie Pie and Applejack gave Twilight plenty of snacks and food to help her recover enough to return home quickly. They were saying their temporary goodbyes when a Centurion knocked on the door.

“Miss Twilight, we’ve just received news that the Princess is returning. We understand you are performing a great feat of magic today, perhaps it is best to wait for her arrival?” The pegasus suggested. They all looked at each other.

“Thanks for the heads up, let’s go meet her girls! We’ll bring her right here for you Twi!” Dash said happily, though by her expression and somewhat hidden gestures she was saying she’d stall. This was supposed to be a surprise for Celestia afterall. The centurion nodded with a smile and took off.

“If she threatens you don’t challenge her. After these attacks she’d probably only hesitate to hurt you Dash, and even then I really don’t want any of you getting hurt for this. She won’t be able to stop it once it’s in place or the entire area is going to be a crater. If she does try to stop it I’m relying on you to explain that to her Rarity.” Twilight started quickly. They all nodded.

“Darling you’ve nothing to worry about. Just get started already, I can see the entourage now.” Rarity said, looking through the open door.

“Come back soon. It sucks without you here, no offense girls.” Dash said, giving a sheepish smile to the group. Applejack snorted.

“No you’re right! We may have lived our entire lives without Twilight here, but now I’m already missing her!” Pinkie Pie said happily before her smile fell and she hugged Twilight.

“Please come back?” She asked softly. Twilight smiled and kissed the pink mare on the forehead.

“You know it.” The unicorn replied. That brought the smile right back and she bounced out of the workshop.

“She’s headin’ right fer us sugarcube. Y’all get started now.” Applejack said as they all left the house. Twilight took a deep breath and lit her horn, standing in the center of the workshop.

In the meantime, Philomena and Dash took to the sky to meet Celestia and her entourage of twenty pegasi guards. The Princess seemed overjoyed as the phoenix fell into formation with her on one side, and nodded respectfully as Dash took the other side.

“Where is Twilight? I would have expected her to be out with you!” Celestia called as they angled down to glide into the clearing the workshop was ‘parked’ in.

“Surprise!” Dash exclaimed. Celestia rolled her eyes at that, sensing nothing wrong with the admiral’s tone. They all landed and the group bowed.

“Stand, my ponies. We meet as friends here, though as I hear I am to be surprised on this day.” Celestia said with a smile.

“Somethin’ like that. It should be startin’ up any minute now.” Applejack replied. Curious, Celestia looked towards where she felt the familiar magic of her student building up in the workshop. She took one step towards the stairs, but raised a brow as Dash stepped in front of her.

“Not to be like treasonous or anything, but don’t ruin the surprise.” The pegasus said with a smirk. Celestia rolled her eyes again but waited patiently.

And then the workshop exploded.

Not actually exploded mind you, but it was so much arcane power the aura was visible. Celestia practically flew around Dash, but was blocked by the rest of them before she could start up the steps. Rarity stepped forward as the princess opened her mouth to demand they move.

“Dash would probably say something along the lines of ‘this is the surprise, relax!’, but this is what’s supposed to be happening. It’s a very delicate and powerful bit of magic that I will be happy to explain to the best of my knowledge. And before you tell me to stop wasting your time, please know that stopping this would result in a massive catastrophic cascade large enough to turn everything within a four mile radius into a crater.” Rarity explained without skipping a beat or batting an eye. Celestia held back her threats and looked up at the workshop. Genuine worry showed on her face.

“I see… Tell me then, what is this… spell… designed to do?” Celestia asked as the magic only grew and began concentrating, no doubt filling arrays with power.

“Teleportation on a massive scale.” Rarity replied. Celestia stared at her for a moment. With this much power Twilight could teleport anywhere on the planet.

“Where is she going?” She asked.

“You probably don’t want to know, but you’re going to demand to know anyways. With the reminder that trying to stop it will at the very least vaporize her, she’s going to the moon.” Dash explained. She blinked. She had to make sure she heard that right. The moon. She couldn’t even reply, she just stood there frozen.

“I don’t know if she told you or not, but she figured out that book. At least we think she did. The Elements of Harmony seem to embody the five of us, and Twi is totally the Element of Magic. The book appeared when it did to bring us together, because we were able to help each other together. I think the Elements want to fix what they did a thousand years ago. I’m the only one who read anything in the book, but there’s something you should know.” Dash started. Celestia’s response was only silence.

“Your Sister has been coming to Twilight in her dreams since the experiment in the testing chambers. Nightmares did not plague her. Then she met me, and she asked Luna to try and fix my nightmares. And it worked. The fact that the nightmare couldn’t follow her to me kinda got me thinking after I read some of that book. She even met all of the girls here after we all agreed to help get her back, and none of us had nightmares, but everyone else she looked in on did. Except you. She came to you, saved my life. Twilight’s confident she can deal with the Nightmare so I’m confident there’s nothing to worry about.” The pegasus continued. The princess soaked in the information and took a deep breath to calm herself.

“How long…?” She asked softly. She trusted her student with this issue, even if it wasn’t what she thought it was, so she must continue to do so. Twilight never took risks she wasn’t prepared for and didn’t have backup plans for. If what Rainbow Dash said was true and these mares really were the new bearers of the elements, then the worst case scenario is a repeat of a millennium ago.

“Any minute now if you mean when the cast is complete, no more than an estimated day if you mean when she should be able to return if things go well up there.” Rarity answered.

“What do you mean if things go well up there?” Celestia asked.

“If there is no ambient magic up there then it will add another two days to that because she’d have to recharge the arcane engines, at least four if it’s by herself. The biggest factor is if Luna is able to aid her or not. Either way she has a week of food.” The alabaster unicorn explained. Celestia nodded. She looked up as the arcane force crescendoed, and she craned her neck to look through the open door. That energy felt… familiar.

“Princess?” The mares asked as the alicorn lifted off the ground and hovered up to see into the door a little more clearly. What she saw astounded her.

Twilight was there, but it wasn’t a way she’d ever seen the unicorn. She had so much power coursing through her it appeared as if there were glyphs scrawled across her coat. Her eyes were glowing a bright lavender and…

There was that familiar energy. It was coalescing around her, generated by this legendary show of arcane power and prowess. She saw it form wings of light before everything disappeared. She had to blink a few times to convince herself that she saw what she saw and that the whole workshop had indeed been teleported.

She slowly touched back down, turned to the assembled ponies, and let out a long sigh.

“I’m going to need a drink.” She said.

Twilight, meanwhile, opened her eyes in wonder as her hooves left the ground. She giggled a bit as she flailed her legs around before sending a bolt of magic through the atmospheric arrays and talismans around the building- no use activating the gravity spell when there was already gravity.

As she touched back down, she felt something on her back. Curious, she turned to see what it was and stopped.

She just caught the edges of purple feathers swinging away from her vision.

This time she craned her neck around, looking at the pair of wings extended from her back. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. And another one. More than a few seconds of calming breaths passed before she finally felt she wasn’t at risk of hyperventilating.

“Not important right now. Here for a reason. Find Luna first, THEN deal with the fact that I now have wings.” She said to herself. Her understanding of alicorns told her that she did not need worry about the aether beyond the workshop, but she still tied the personal atmosphere talisman around her neck as she walked towards the open door.

That was when she saw her. She frowned. There was a mare galloping towards her, one she only vaguely recognized. Where they should have been a beautiful blue and cerulean there was only black. She trotted down the stairs and started walking to meet the nightmare coming towards her. It only took a few seconds, the nightmare skidding on the surface of the moon so as not to crash into the lavender mare. She was panting slightly but smirked. She opened her mouth, but Twilight put up a hoof.

“You aren’t Luna. Begone with you.” Twilight said, almost demandingly. The Nightmare scoffed.

“You truly have learned nothing you poor little pony. I am Luna.” The spectre sneered. Twilight just gave her an unamused look.

“You were Luna. When Luna fell to Disharmony you were corrupted. You are a natural part of her, or you’re supposed to be. Dreams and Nightmares, just like Order and Chaos. Shadows and Light. Her terrible thoughts and depression warped you into a nightmare of a nightmare, kinda like a night terror. You’re just the ghost of a creature that is no longer being fed.” Twilight explained and started walking towards her. The Nightmare glared at her and stood her ground, but started slowly backing away when Twilight flared her new wings out like Celestia does to intimidate people and kept getting closer.

“When she came to me, you could not follow. Not in the way you usually do, the queen of nightmares. Because I’m the bearer of an Element of Harmony, but also because Luna found her harmony again. Kindness drove away Rainbow Dash’s night terrors, Laughter allowed her to befriend all of the others, Honesty brought the two of us together, Loyalty drove her to visit Celestia to save our lives, and Generosity allowed us to share in this newfound friendship with the others. And now I’m here, the Element of Magic, to bring it all together and focus it.” Twilight continued, stepping closer. After a few more backpedaling steps, the nightmare seemed to be straining against an unseen force. There was a tear running down her face.

“There’s my Luna.” Twilight said and continued forwards.

She kissed the Nightmare then, though it wasn’t the nightmare that kissed her back. Her wings intertwined with deep blue ones and they opened their eyes.

“Have I ever told you I love you?” The alicorn said softly, wiping her eyes quickly and sniffling. Twilight giggled softly and kissed her nose.

“You could stand to say it more. Come on inside, Pinkie baked you a special dark velvet cake and Applejack demands that you try her granny’s apple pie.” Twilight said, taking the slightly larger alicorn in a wing and leading her towards the workshop.

When they entered, Luna just stopped and took in a deep breath of air.

“I never knew how much I missed being able to take in a breath… This place, it smells of you. And it smells of Rainbow. I like this smell.” The alicorn said softly, her voice crackling horribly as she nuzzled into Twilight’s neck.

“What’s wrong? Oh, right, you haven’t been in a proper atmosphere for so long… I’m surprised the gravity isn’t affecting you.” The new alicorn said. Luna hummed and practically trudged over to the still lit fireplace. She spread out and let out a very content sigh, taking in a deep breath while her muzzle was buried in the mattress filled with cloudstuff still in its normal place.

“I adjusted to the one from your talisman so it’s not that bad, but heavens I missed feeling warm!” The princess of the night practically moaned. Her body shivered as if trying to shake the last remnants of being cold. She looked up as the coffee machine turned on and watched in interest as Twilight soon approached with two steaming mugs. With a flick of magic she threw a blanket over both of them as she passed one mug to Luna and settled in right next to the other.

“Then you’ll love this.” Twilight said softly. Luna sat up slightly as they leaned into each other and both took a sip of the hot cocoa.

“It’s very nice…” Luna said, wrapping a wing around Twilight and pulling her even closer. “... but your warmth is the greatest of them all.” She continued, catching the other in a sweet kiss again.

Before long their mugs were almost forgotten and Luna was practically on top of Twilight.

“Hm, I wonder if Dash would get jealous now?” Twilight asked. Luna’s smirk caused Twilight’s tail to flick.

“Time is strange here, at least in comparison to down there. Night has fallen already, and it appears she is asleep. Maybe we should make her watch.” The elder alicorn suggested with a little smirk. This earned a little chortle from Twilight.

“No that’s too mean. Besides, I want you all to myself right now.” The younger alicorn replied and nuzzled into Luna  further.

“As you wish, my dear.” The princess of the night relented and they stayed like that for awhile. It wasn’t long before Luna felt the familiar feeling of Twilight’s dreamscape opening up and she looked down to find the lavender alicorn dozing off against her chest. She gave a little chuckle and kissed the top of her head. She dared not enter the dream, not while she could physically hold her friend. No, instead she hunted for one particular dreamer.

“I can’t quite tell if I’m dreaming of you out of anticipation or not…” Celestia’s voice met her as she opened her eyes. She was sat in a familiar moon-marked throne while Celestia sat in a sun-marked one. They were close enough where they could whisper to each other without anyone else noticing or hearing.

“Considering the locale I would image so, but it’s good to see you again too sister.” Luna replied, a little smile on her face. She looked over to look at Celestia’s expression since she was silent and was surprised. Celestia seemed like it was taking every fiber of her being to hold back tears, and even that wasn’t quite enough.

“So she…” The solar monarch started. Luna nodded.

“The nightmare will never be gone, but we are once again in harmony. And Twilight is fine, she sleeps…” The darker alicorn explained. Celestia nodded slowly before she rose from her throne and took the two steps to put herself nearly muzzle to muzzle with her sister. There was a wash of emotions in her expression, but Luna smiled at her.

“Do you not hate me?” Celestia practically whispered, almost begging for the answer. Luna’s smile softened further as she gently leaned forward to press her cheek against her sister’s.

“Never, I know what I did was not how things should have been handled. On both of our parts really… but I miss you so much more than all of that. I may have to delay that by a day to have just one full day with Twilight to myself, but after that we will come home. Did you know she grew wings by the way?” Luna asked, pulling back to look at Celestia. The elder princess nodded slowly.

“I do, I saw it just before she teleported, but what’s this about keeping her to yourself?” She replied, giving a curious smile. Luna fidgeted in her seat a bit.

“I believe the modern vernacular is ‘dating’... Though I plan to make it a full courtship like old times. She was the first creature I had met in a thousand years or more that held no animosity or ill will towards me. We have spoken nearly every night since the experiment that allowed me to sense her in the first place. I have looked into her life through others, causing nightmares to do so even, and ultimately she genuinely wanted to help me. She risked everything trying to come and get me. Me, someone who was supposed to be a vile nightmare. And she just brushed it aside like it wasn’t there.” Luna slowly explained before gaining momentum. By the end it was like she was regaling an epic story. Celestia slowly nodded.

“Celestia, she’s even figured out dream magic. I never taught her, she figured it out. I’d say you were the luckiest mare in the world to come across such a student, but I fear I may be luckier still since she holds my heart. And her mine. Rainbow Dash is somewhere in the middle there as well, but that’s beside the point.” Luna continued. Celestia’s arched eyebrows of surprised turned into a single raised one at the mention of a potential triangle with the admiral.

“I… seem to have missed quite a lot about my student’s new social life in recent weeks. I have mostly been in the griffon capital negotiating or fighting the rising rebellion.” Celestia said. Luna nodded.

“I’ve been hopping around dreams of rebels, both pony and griffon, learning more about it and allowing the nightmare to run rampant to hopefully dissuade them from acting upon their treasonous thoughts. If not, then I’ll be home soon. I’ll know faces when I see them.” The younger alicorn explained. Celestia was silent for a while, processing this new information.

“All of this… All of this because the young mare I took under my wing found that damn book- or rather it found her- and I went off to war and couldn’t stop all of this. You’re really coming back?” The elder alicorn said softly. Luna smiled and nuzzled her sister.

“It’s hard for me to believe too. But Twilight’s mass teleportation array is still intact and the arcane batteries are already soaking up the ambient energy of the cosmos to recharge. I couldn’t tell you exactly when, or where, we’ll be back but in the meantime I’d make preparations.” The younger alicorn replied. Celestia chuckled softly.

“I have recreated your wing of the old castle in Canterlot, there was always a place for you to return to. I suppose I’ll have to fetch your throne as well.” Celestia said. Luna seemed surprised at that but shook her head.

“I don’t think my return to Equestria should coincide with my return to the throne. I would enjoy a proper seat on the council, but at least for now I think I would need time to properly adapt. If we are no longer at war with the Griffons then I would like to cooperate with them to root out rebels still clinging to their rebellion.” Luna explained. Celestia hummed in contemplation.

“I suppose it would make sense. I suppose it’d also give you the proper chance to get used to the nobility… They’re not all bad, but there’s a reason they aren’t allowed to buy their way into council seats. We also need to do a complete investigation on the rest of the council as two of its members have been recently found as traitors. My Captain believes they weren’t acting alone or in tandem with only each other.” The elder alicorn mused before getting a little serious.

“Yes, I’ve been looking into that. Dream Interrogations are much more effective nowadays than they used to be. I’ll continue the investigations in person when we get home. For now, though, it is nearing morning and I fear Twilight may sleep the day away if I don’t wake her.” Luna replied. Celestia nodded and hugged her sister.

“It’s good to see you again, Lulu.” She said with a little sly smirk. Luna snorted.

“You too, Tia.” She replied and faded out of the dreamscape. Celestia indeed felt the pull of the sun and the moon, they were ready to trade places for the day.

Luna opened her eyes as her senses bombarded her with warmth. The fire was still going and Twilight was still in her grasp, though the unicorn-turned-alicorn was staring at her with a little smile.

“You’re adorable when you’re sleeping.” Luna was informed by said mare. Luna just smiled and pulled Twilight a little closer.

“You’re always adorable, my dear. We need to take care of those, however. Preening is an important part of wing care and I won’t have your feathers fall out due to lack of education.” Luna replied, pushing Twilight just slightly away and taking a ruffled wing in a hoof.

“O-Oh wow, they weren’t this bad when I fell asleep!” Twilight exclaimed. Luna smiled and they both stood.

“You’ve never had wings before. You don’t have the instinctual muscle memory to keep them from getting this bad during your sleep. The main reason pegasi usually sleep on clouds is so that they don’t toss and turn. Come now, extend and do as I do.” The older alicorn explained as she fanned her wings out and started looking them over.

“Your primaries should be fine, bent but sturdy. Just be gentle and bend them back into place. The smaller ones may need to be pulled if they’re damaged or bent too far, which stings just a bit but you get used to it. If you’re not confident using your teeth to bend then use your lips. It’ll take a bit longer but you won’t be pulling out healthy feathers on accident- that hurts quite a bit.” Luna continued as shedid a quick once over on her own wings before looking at Twilight’s. She was only mildly surprised and greatly amused to see a notepad and quill floating in front of her, she had taken notes.

She was looking at the feathers of her wings and occasionally giving a cautious nudge to a feather. She was so focused on one of them she didn’t notice Luna assisting her on the other wing until she plucked a frayed downy feather. Before the younger mare could give anything more than a little squeak the feather was blown in her face.

“Hey!” Twilight protested, earning a little chuckle from the other as she continued to work. “How are you so good at that? I don’t even feel you unless you pull one…” Twilight asked. Luna stopped and gave her a look.

“Two millennia of practice my dear. I daresay I could even find flaws in Rainbow Dash’s maintenance and she has the best kept wings I’ve ever seen.” The older alicorn replied. Twilight just hummed in response and they continued working.

“So, I took a peek at your magical reserves while you were dreaming. I think we could leave in about an hour if we wanted to.” The lavender mare said as they finished.

“If we wanted to?” Luna questioned with a little smirk.

“I mean, we don’t have to go *right* away. We’re never going to be able to get rid of Dash once we get back, not that we’d want to but you know what I mean, I was hoping to get a couple of extra hours in. I was prepared to spend up to a week here, longer if I rationed.” Twilight explained. Luna smiled and leaned into Twilight.

“I told my sister something similar. She seemed not entirely against the idea, though she is obviously worried about you. It would appear that she has faith in you, especially since I was able to speak with her.” She said. Twilight hummed and they were silent for a little while longer.

“I have an Idea.” Twilight finally said, a little smile forming. She hoped Rainbow Dash was still asleep, it was supposed to be around noon. Knowing the speedster, if she was able to sleep without her there to wake her up she’d be out for at least another hour.