Chapter One: Everything's Gonna Be...

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That morning, Celestia put as much effort into the sunrise as she could manage under the circumstances. The local weather reports would later refer to this particular dawn as “beyond stunning”: reds, pinks and golds melding into a pool of warm color that spread in sweet rays over Canterlot like a dream. Not a single cloud marred the expanse of pure honeyglow, except of course for the sparse bits of fluff she had placed precisely so that they would reflect off the light. Like cotton candy suspended in the air. Meringue in a syrup of sunlight. So on and so forth.

She played with the sky for approximately fifteen minutes longer than she normally did. Then she turned from her balcony, fluffed her wings, and set out to help her little ponies like she would any other day.

Sun Court went by in a saccharine blur of mostly smiles and nods. The few griping nobles were quickly placated with a few pulled strings and compromises. As the sun dipped in the sky, nearing the horizon, Celestia dismissed her court and made sure to tell Raven that she had, as always, done an excellent job.

Right as the sun set for the day, Celestia pointedly ignored the implosion of energy she felt clear across the world. Like a light going out. A snap and then a surprised yell. A silence, so, so quiet that she felt it shiver down her bones. She didn’t wince, nor think about it.

She pushed it from her head and then gifted her most senior member of her cleaning staff, Miss Shoeshine, a night off and a reservation at that restaurant she’d been saving bits for. Celestia listened to Shoeshine’s happy rambling, and then she started her way outside.

She trotted heavily into the statue garden just as Luna lifted her moon. At the end of the garden, near the entrance to their modest hedge maze, Luna had set up a small picnic table and their two favorite cushions to sit for a drink. Already Celestia could see the turquoise bubble of silence shimmering faintly around the area, and at the bubble’s edge there was the glint of harsh gold that had to be Luna’s finest thestral guards eyeing her from the shadows. Luna, resting on her side as her horn waned from the moonrise, levitated a faded novel to her muzzle as she waited for Celestia.

Before joining Luna, Celestia took one second to walk towards a faint whistling coming from the edge of the garden. Mr. Greenhooves was at the end of the yard trimming at the grass, occasionally lifting a piece of trash from a tourist earlier in the day. Working a late shift, as always. He always was so loyal. Always came in early, always stayed late to trim the yard to perfection despite Celestia’s insistence that he had earned more than a few rushed jobs.

He deserved so much more than he’d gotten.

“Why hello, Mr. Greenhooves. I must say, the petunias you’ve been tending look absolutely lovely,” she said, leaning down to grin at him.

He blushed, mumbled something about how he’d only given them a bit more magic lately, and continued to whistle. He always did get nervous around her. Celestia whistled along to his little beat (an old game of theirs) for a little while, before chuckling as she lost the tune.

“Well then, you’re dismissed for the day. Oh! And I almost forgot: an early anniversary present for you and Rose. Do say hello to her for me, won’t you?”

Celestia levitated a pouch sagging with bits from her withers, and gently placed it into one of the flaps of his saddlebags. His eyes went wide and his jaw jiggled as he looked at this, frankly, ridiculous amount of bits, and Celestia was sure he was about to say that he couldn’t possibly have earned so much or something ridiculous like that. So she levitated another bag into his other saddle-pouch, winked at him, and teleported to where Luna was waiting for her without giving him a chance to say anything.

As she popped in and sagged into her golden cushion, Luna raised a brow at her and set down her novel.

“I’m assuming the gifts have gone over well today, Sister? Or have you simply convinced the entirety of our staff that you’ve finally gone senile?”

Celestia breathed out an airy laugh and poured herself a cup of tea. “Most likely the latter. Though they do seem happy, at least.”

There was a pause. Luna blinked and sipped her tea. The air around them got colder in a snap.

“Yes. Well. I suppose that’s the best we can do now.”

Another pause. Celestia sighed and finally let her fake smile drop. Her jaw ached from holding it for so long.

Her body felt so heavy. The tea tonight was so very, very bitter.

“Well then. Should we talk about it then, Luna?” Celestia breathed. “I know you don’t fully agree with my decision.”

Luna crossed her hooves over the table and narrowed her eyes. Those irises, so very blue and icy, should have been angry. Luna should have been furious with her. She should have been standing up and stomping her hooves and breaking the table into shards. That’s what she would have been doing, had this conversation hadn’t come so early. If she was feeling particularly snippy she might even slap her across the face and tell her she was being an old fool. But instead she just looked so tired. She laid there on her side, and she blinked slowly, and tried to hide the twitch of her right ear that always gave away her sadness since she was a filly.

“I find it hard to, Tia,” she relented. “The general populace, I understand. But the Element Bearers? Twilight Sparkle? Do they not deserve to know what will happen?”

Celestia nodded. “I would completely agree with you, Luna, trust me. It’s only that…”

She couldn’t finish her sentence. Her mouth was too dry, like aching sand. It felt like that all day, and now it was getting to her. She greedily downed her cup of tea - and noticed that this second drink, somehow, tasted more like milk chocolate than jasmine. A delayed gift from Discord then?

Luna noticed her scrunch her muzzle up, and flicked her hoof to the side. Beside her, swaying cutely in the grass, were two flowers shining impossibly bright white and blue. Celestia hadn’t noticed them until now but… they were lovely. And they certainly hadn’t been there before this afternoon.

A snap and a scream. An implosion of energy clear across the world.

Celestia’s eyes were tired and dry, so she rubbed them. Then she slumped her chin down onto the table like she hadn’t since she was a teenager. Her hair looked awful splayed out like that and it got in her face, but it felt right.

Luna cleared her throat. “The timing of all of this is unfortunate. I, myself, have concerns as to how Twilight Sparkle would react should we tell her. But what about when she inevitably finds out on her own, dear sister? Won’t it destroy her? Will she not be crushed to know that two of her dear friends have kept this from her? She… I…”

Luna screwed her eyes shut.

“She’s my friend, Tia. They all are. And it pains Us- me- to know that we may be hurting them more by leaving them in the dark.”

“What if we do tell them, though, Luna? Right before the spell? How can we expect them to do their duty and deal with the reality of it at the same time? At least if they raise the sun and moon first--”

“You have no way of knowing if they will do so before Twilight learns the truth.”

“That’s true. But neither do you, Luna. At least I am trying,” Celestia bit. Then she realized how awful that sounded. Of course Luna only wished for her friends’ happiness, as she just said. There was no reason to be so forceful. So she shook her head violently and, “-No. No, you know I didn’t mean that, Lulu. You’re trying as well. I only... “

Luna didn’t flinch at Celestia’s outburst. Only steepled her hooves in front of her and pressed the rim of her teacup to her muzzle. “Yes. A rock and a hard place, it would seem. Especially since Discord never returned.”

Celestia took another sip of tea. So very bitter. She hated jasmine. But if nothing else it helped to clear her head. Helped to harken her mind back, so very far back, to the first time she had her tea at this table all alone. So very, achingly alone. And before even that, when she had dismissed her sister’s sadness as mere whining at a lack of attention.

Celestia wanted to slap herself for many reasons, then. The major one was because she had dared to think that it was she, and not Luna, who was the wise one here. She should have listened back then, before Nightmare Moon. Before everything, truly. Should she not listen now? Would it…

Would it even make a difference in the end? How long, exactly, did they have? Where had it all gone?

“Well, Luna,” she mumbled before she could start spiraling, “You know I value your views on these things. If the past proves anything it’s that I should heed my beloved sister’s warnings.”

Luna tried to object. Celestia wouldn’t let her.

“If you believe,” she continued, “that I should inform Twilight and the Bearers of what is to come… then I will. I trust your judgement, Lulu.”

Silence. Such a long silence, as Luna weighed the options before her. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to put the decision on Luna’s withers. Then again, very little was fair about this situation at all.

It was just so soon. Too soon.

All movement ceased, the two of them falling still as the statues around them. The wind whispered so very quietly through the hedges, the grass, the trees. The guards stood ever faithful, and only their quiet breaths filled the echoes of tinnitus in Celestia’s ear. It was only after what felt like hours of gazing at the flowers by her side, and up to the heavens where the silver moon hung like a gorgeous spotlight from heaven, that Luna seemed to make her decision.

Luna stood. The guards twitched in the blackness, as if ready to follow her at any moment. She stretched her wings, poured half the teakettle down her throat, then steeled her gaze to the grass below.

“No,” she snorted. “I would not have them grieve as we did. Not until they have time to do so properly. I go tonight.”

Then, with a flash of teleportation, Luna was gone. Before Celestia could even fully realize what her sister had said. Before she could contemplate the ramifications of Luna taking her leave now. Before she could say goodbye, good luck.

Before she could say that she loved her and always would.

When the realization hit her, Celestia didn’t weep.

Instead, she sent Twilight Sparkle a very important package, containing exactly one book and a letter describing it as a tome of Starswirl’s unfinished spells. She went up to her balcony, prepared herself for the most powerful and important spell she would ever finish casting in her life. Hours from now, it would have to be perfect.

Then she thought of what she would do for her sunrise this coming dawn. No matter what she did with her pallette, Celestia was confident of two things:

Morning in Ponyville would shimmer. And morning in Ponyville would shine.

When the energy from the Elements of Harmony struck her, Twilight wasn’t afraid. The initial burst was startling, sure, but as the color and light washed over her, filling her being with warmth and cradling her in its grip, she relaxed into the magic’s gentle pull. As the spell coalesced around her she felt a pull on her barrell, her legs, horn, everything, and then the stomach-drop and dizziness that came from a particularly strong teleportation spell. Her vision tunneled, filled with a pure burning white, and then a pop louder than anything rang in her ears.

She fell gently to the ground and opened her eyes.

She whinnied and yanked back as she realized there wasn’t any ground beneath her. Underneath there was an ocean of blue-black, an expanse of stars twinkling impossibly far away. At any second she expected to start tumbling head over hooves in a free-fall, but… her hooves stuck firm. Some invisible force beneath her kept her standing, as if she were high above the sky on a bridge of glass. Like the stars below were nothing but fireflies trapped in a block of resin.

After her stomach stopped churning, Twilight breathed deep and looked up. She was sort of hoping the vertigo would wane once she did, but if anything it only got worse as she realized there were no walls or ceiling either. Instead this place, this plane of wane starlight filled with magic that buzzed through her horn, stretched on infinitely in all directions.

Where in Equestria did the Elements send her? Or, more likely, where outside of Equestria did it send her?

She twirled around in a circle, looking all around her for the sign of anypony or anything to guide her. As she did she noticed there was no wind here, nor any sound that wasn’t her own breathing. Instead her mane floated ethereally in the nothingness like Celestia and Luna’s did, and her hoofbeats were silent.

She tried her breathing exercises and studied her surroundings with narrowed eyes while she waited for something to happen. Eventually it did. A flash of light and heat behind her, and a cracking noise that echoed off into the dead air like a whisper. Twilight whipped around and--

Celestia!

Princess Celestia flashed in, crumpling into her right side at the contact of the ground before righting herself. She lifted up, giant wings splaying to the sky. Her feathers glinted with a thousand lights, twinkled with the flames of suns billions of miles away. As soon as she opened her eyes and saw Twilight she smiled - then started with a tiny gasp. Before Twilight could tell what was wrong, Celestia curled into herself, hiding the right side of her body with her wing.

Twilight frowned at that. Oh no! What was wrong? Could Twilight’s spell or the activation of the Elements have somehow injured her? Or did something else happen? Something terrible?!

Then, with a whinny, Twilight decided that it didn’t matter right now. Because it was Princess Celestia! Oh, thank goodness she was here, surely she’d have some answers. After all, Twilight started her day thinking everything was fine, but then it turns out that the unfinished spell Celestia sent her made her friends’ destinies change -- did Celestia know that had happened? Was that her plan or had Twilight made a mistake? And how in Equestria had the spell worked in such a way anyway? Twilight had never seen anything like it. There was also the fact that the Elements of Harmony were involved and that they sent here here -- wherever here was. Where were they? What was happening?!

Twilight shook her head and tried to get her thoughts straight. It would all be okay now. Surely if the Elements were involved in this then Celestia would know at least something, right? Everything would be okay now and she could go back to Ponyville and apologize properly to her friends for what she had done to them, then maybe even have some time for a good nap. So Twilight breathed deep, rushed to Princess Celestia, and did the most reasonable thing she could think of: she started rambling.

She had made it into maybe her fourth or fifth question before Celestia gently laid a wingtip to her lips.

“Twilight, Twilight, my pupil, I know you must be confused but please. I can only answer one question at a time, and I’m afraid we have a lot to discuss.”

Twilight grimaced. Oh. Right. She meekly chuckled back, then did the breathing exercises Cadance taught her one more time to calm down. She needed to think straight if she wanted to figure out what was happening.

Before she could say anything, Celestia moved to Twilight’s side with the gentlest little shake of her head. She trotted over to stand beside her, and laid her wing over Twilight’s tiny frame like a blanket, like she used to when Twilight was only a little filly and she was about to be taught a hard lesson. It was so warm, and grounding, and Twilight shut her mind off and started listening at the contact on instinct.

“Come now, Twilight. I have a lot I need to tell you, and I’m afraid I don't have much time. Now please,” she murmured, tilting her head forward. She lit her horn. “Look.”

Twilight licked her dry lips and did as told, and--

Her breath caught. All around them, apparating out of the nothingness in a blink, flat planes of light floated in close. Like projection screens made of pure magic, they popped into existence all around, caught in the honeyglow of Celestia’s telekinesis. They hugged beside them and stretched out endlessly into that bright horizon. As they gathered and formed into a neat line they made what almost seemed to be a hallway of screens, like the kind used to give information at magic emporiums Twilight visited back in Canterlot. The light refracting from them illuminated whatever field they were standing on. Beneath Twilight's tiny little hooves, a floor of light and magic glimmered beneath her, obscuring the vast nothingness. Whether Celestia meant for it to or not, it did help Twilight breathe a bit. Staring into an endless plane was a bit… well, a lot overwhelming, actually! Even without a ceiling, having a few borders around her was comforting.

Twilight was about to say so and thank Celestia when the screens turned on.

All at once the hall before them exploded into a cacophony of noise and color. The screens flicked on and… it was her. Twilight, and her friends and family. It seemed to be snippets, little recordings of past events. Twilight turned to look at the nearest screen and watched as it played back what had just happened to her -- the Elements shooting her with magic and the teleportation spell sending her here. Then it faded off, apparently no longer recording the present, and began to repeat. She turned to look down that grand hallway next, and if its length was anything to go by, it held recordings of important events from her entire life.

“As you can tell,” Celestia started, shocking Twilight out of her reverie, “this place is quite old, and quite magical. It is also very important. It serves as a library, of sorts, of all important events in Equestria as witnessed by the Element bearers. As you might have guessed, everything as far back as your birth has been recorded.”

Celestia grabbed the screen closest to her in her magic, then with a twist of her horn, all of the screens floated by as if in a unit. Like film being pulled through a projector, images and memories flitted past in reverse-chronological order, picking up speed and blurring into a dizzying mass of color until Celestia reached what seemed to be the end -- and Twilight… admittedly had to flinch away at the memory the very last screen was showing her. Of course she knew what childbirth entailed, but reading about it and seeing it are two very different things. Especially since it was her own birth.

Celestia gave a laugh at her expense, then continued, “Of course, there’s more than just your history, my pupil. Your friends have their own accounts stored here as well. Mine and Luna’s as well. Would you like to try to summon my history, Twilight? It’s as simple as emptying your mind and wishing for what you want to have called forth. The magic here will do the rest.”

Twilight’s brain short-circuited. She might have squeaked.

Celestia’s history? All of it? As in, thousands of years of knowledge some of it lost to time and found nowhere else in recorded history, now open before her?! Not to mention that these recordings seemed crystal clear in their audio and visuals, at least in the little she’d seen so far. This was more than just a history book, written in a language long forgotten, nor was it a reel of film, with its crackling audio playback and dusty light-blackened edges. This was an impeccably-preserved library of everything that had happened since the moment Celestia was born. Landmasses had changed, dynasties had risen and fell, technology had advanced more than Twilight could even imagine!

Oh, Twilight could dance just thinking about it. In fact she was dancing in place, and maybe even squealing a little bit. She just couldn’t help it! This was so amazing! The most incredible gift she’d ever been given. How much was here for her, Celsetia, Luna, and possibly Cadance alone? Would Celestia allow her to write about and publish any of it?! Oh Equestria, the possibilities granted to her by all this pure knowledge were endless!

“Ehem. Twilight? Are you still in there?”

--Oh. Right. Celestia was here. Right here. Staring at her with a smug little smile.

And oh- Twilight withered. Thought about the sight of her own birth, every detail impeccable and beautiful and disgusting all at once. It wasn’t exactly the most pleasant thing to see herself, but the knowledge that somepony, even Princess Celestia, could watch this whenever they wanted, along with every failure she’d ever known, made her skin crawl. She trusted Celestia not to snoop unnecessarily, of course, but it all seemed... well, breach of privacy might be an understatement.

And these were Celestia’s personal memories. Princess Celestia.The things here… they were things that had happened to Princess Celestia personally. Twilight knew, after everything, that Celestia had regrets that hung over her so heavy, so choking. A thousand years of loneliness and guilt, among other things.

“Are you sure, Princess? I mean, you know I would love to see these things, but… I wouldn’t want to impose if any of this is private.”

Celestia only gave her another shake of her head. “I’m positive. I wouldn’t have offered if I was embarrassed at all, and I feel it’s time to stop keeping secrets. Especially from you, Twilight. Now please. It should be as easy as looking through a catalogue and floating what you want to see forward with telekinesis. This realm does much to ensure the process is easy.”

Celestia squeezed her wing to Twilight’s side and looked at her expectantly. Twilight was still hesitant. Not about the spell - if Celestia was correct then that would be no problem. But possibly seeing something like Celestia’s first kiss or even her birth seemed pretty… voyeuristic. If Twilight didn’t clear her mind enough and got distracted by a thought like that, would she end up calling forth a vision of something embarrassing or terrible? Would Celestia mind?

Still, Celestia had asked her to, said they didn’t have much time...

Twilight lit her horn with simple telekinesis, hoping that was enough.

Really, it was even easier than Celestia said it would be. Twilight had barely started meditating and radiating out the thought of Celestia, and here came the screens. They piled in from nowhere, shuffling in like a deck of cards as the visions of Twilight’s history ebbed away. Much like when Twilight’s screens appeared, Celestia’s filed in cleanly and carefully. It was seemingly all of them, even though Twilight was expecting a single moment, and they only appeared to Twilight’s front instead of to either flank, but there they were. Currently, Twilight stared at a live “recording” of the present, but to her left, pictures of Celestia stretched on and on until they were nothing but dots in Twilight’s vision.

Twilight’s pulse beat heavy as a drum against her breastbone and her mouth went so achingly dry as she saw just how much was stored here. How much information the Princess herself was trusting her with. And it was all already filed chronologically!

Celestia leaned down to Twilight’s level and breathed, “Scrolling through memories is as easy as turning a page. Give it a try, my student.”

Twilight did, breathless at what she was she was seeing, and the next screen over flicked to float before them. The image on it dulled to black as it sensed it was being moved, then started from the beginning.

Images of Celestia faded in, as did the scene around her. She was sitting on her balcony, sipping tea. The cup was shaking in her grip, and her gaze was watery. Twilight watched, perplexed, as Celestia simply laid there on her cushion, staring out towards Ponyville, not doing anything. Not even drinking. The cup she was holding was full, and no longer even steaming.

Then something changed. It wasn’t apparent on the screen. Twilight strained her eyes and ears, intent on absorbing every detail being fed to her, but she noticed nothing. Not even the wind, billowing gently, picked up speed. Still, Celestia stiffened, and even through this medium Twilight, too, could feel a shift. A vibration, normally so easily ignored as the impact of a single hoof to the floor, a single butterfly’s wing beats… but this was different. Somehow, despite not even being there, Twilight felt the dread. It splashed down her spine, clung to the dock of her tail. Her muscles seized painfully at the sametime memory-Celestia’s did visibly beneath her coat and then--

Memory-Celestia’s eyes went wild. Twilight’s nostrils flared as she watched memory-Celestia’s feathers splay and frazzle -- she had never seen Celestia lose her nerve in such a way, not even when she was frightened, Celestia wasn’t supposed to ever get so scared, she was always calm in these situations and--

“No,” came the warble from the screen. It echoed in Twilight’s ears in time with the blood rushing past her eardrums in a sick beat. She sat there, confused and scared, as memory-Celestia snapped her neck towards Ponyville, her throat spasming as she just barely choked out the words, “No. Not yet. Twilight, please.”

There was another vibration, this one dripping with dread. If the wave of energy that rode it held a physical form it would be oozing with ichor and smelling of sweat. As it was there was a sound, just barely caught in the breeze: a scream, perhaps. Or maybe crying.

Memory-Celestia ambled up on shaky hooves, her horn lit. She quickly cast a shield not unlike the one Shining had at his wedding, only on an impossibly bigger scale. In an instant the film of gold, think as traincar is long, stretched in front of Memory-Celestia as far as she could manage to make it, dyeing the entire vision before Twilight in amber-gold: around the two ponies in the present, the color danced off their coats and splashed to the forcefield holding them afloat. Twilight had to squint at the brightness of it.

Memory-Celestia lit her horn with a teleportation spell the same moment another wave of energy surged around Canterlot. Fast, impossibly fast, a haze of magic came with it - Memory-Celestia hesitated as all around her a creeping shadow pooled around buildings, between ponies milling about the castle grounds, in and out windows. In a moment the world was dark as if the sun had been snuffed out, and Memory-Celestia stood stock-still, frozen with fear as ponies began to scream before their voices were cut silent. She stood just long enough to see that her shield held fast; the magic collided with it with a searing hiss, buckling the shield and sending spiderweb cracks across its surface but not shattering it. As it impacted the shield, it just managed to clip Memory-Celestia’s side as her teleportation spell took hold. Right before she blinked from the world in a flash of brilliant light, that black magic curled around her side with such an awful noise it made Twilight’s teeth ache.

Then the screen faded to black. Twilight flung the screen away before it could repeat, then whipped her head to Celestia, who was lifting her wing from Twilight’s side and turning to show her other flank.

Her eyes were dull and glazed, a frown was on her face, one so very severe. Twilight hadn’t seen her face so harsh since their first meeting with Discord years ago. Then she ruffled her wings, drooped them low to graze the forcefield below them and…

Oh no.

Celestia was injured. Not just a cut or a scorch mark like Twilight was relatively used to seeing on her either. On her side, the one Celestia had previously tried to hide, there was a… rot. That was the only way Twilight could find to describe it. A purple-black rot, the color of a bruise, crawling down her entire side like an ivy choking the life from a tree. It pulsated and ebbed down Celestia’s blood vessels sickly, and…

“A-Are you okay?! P-Princess what was that? How did this happen?!” Twilight gasped out. She was going to say more, ask if there was anything she could do, but-

Celestia’s eyes were suddenly so cold.

“I didn’t want to scare you, Twilight, but I’m afraid there isn’t much time. Already this has all come too soon. I had hoped that we’d have hours, perhaps even days to discuss what’s about to happen in detail, but that cannot happen. My shield holds only for as long as I do, and before it breaks we must cast a spell to fix this. That magic you saw cannot be allowed to reach your friends in Ponyville.”

Twilight creaked her mouth open to ask more, ask anything. What was that? What do you mean by “only as long as I do”? What was happening? But she bit her tongue and held firm at Celestia’s expression.

“I wanted to show you this place, ensure that you knew how to navigate it, because it will aid you even when I can’t. I wish to cast a spell with you, Twilight. It will send you and your friends… far away from here, to a place where that magic you saw won’t be able to reach you, at least not for a very long time. When you get there, you should see a decorated dais, which you’ll stand upon and raise both the sun and moon.”

Twilight’s jaw went slack. Celestia only held up a wing.

“I want to explain everything, Twilight. Truly, I do. But I’m afraid I’ve used up too much time as it is. You’ll be able to teleport here whenever you need, study my history, and use that knowledge to learn the details when you are safe. Do you understand, Twilight?”

Twilight’s head was swimming. So much had already happened today, and everything was going too fast. Last night she’d gone to bed thinking that this morning would be beautiful and perfect, this afternoon she thought she’d broken her friends beyond repair, and now everything was being shoved at her and--

Twilight sighed. She had so many questions, she had no idea what was happening, but Celestia had at least given her this. And with the way the black marks running down Celestia’s side were pulsating… Okay. She needed to calm down, and focus, just as she had when Nightmare Moon came back, or when Discord was freed from stone. Right now, her comfort and curiosity didn’t matter. Equestria and the safety of her friends did.

Twilight gulped down the rising bile in her throat and licked her dry lips. She could find out the details later, and once she was reunited with her friends, she could surely do this with their support.

Hopefully.

“I… okay, Princess. What spell do I need to cast?”

Celestia smiled at her, knowing. Warm.

“The one you just learned moments ago, my student.”

Celestia watched as Twilight mulled it over, and she must have seen that spark as soon as it reached Twilight’s eyes. Starswirl’s spell? The one she was tasked with finishing?

“I… well, I don’t understand. Princess, as soon as I learned the ending to that spell, the Elements of Harmony brought me here. I thought I’d be using that to teleport to and from this realm, not… raise the sun and moon, apparently.”

“You would be partially correct. Normally, speaking the aria sends you directly here. Now that the Elements have opened the doorway for you, you shouldn’t even need their assistance to do so,” Celestia said. “However, this spell has two parts, one of which I’ll be providing. As you let your magic flow and speak the aria aloud, I’ll intertwine my magic with yours and complete the matrices. This will alter its use… if only once.”

Twilight nodded. She remembered another spell she’d mixed with Rarity once. Rarity’s natural gift was the ease of cast on her gem-finding spell, and Twilight used her talent in other unicorn magic to blend it with another which let a pony find gems with a strong natural aura to them. That spell could be used multiple times, however, and once Rarity was taught the second half she could easily cast both parts herself without the need of another pony’s help. For a spell to be strong enough that it required the use of more than one pony every time, and for it to only be able to be cast once despite one of those ponies being an alicorn… It was unheard of!

Twilight nickered and scuffed soundlessly at the ground. “I know we’re low on time, Princess, but if I may ask… where exactly are you sending my friends and I that it’d take so much energy? It must be far away from Equestria.”

“The teleportation is only one element, and the simplest. As for the bulk of the energy being used… I’m sorry, Twilight, but it’s all rather complicated. Normally you know I’d love to teach you its intricacies, but…”

“Of course. Sorry just, you know me and my curiosity for magic,” Twilight laughed. “I will enjoy studying it later, though, won’t I?”

Celestia smiled again, but Twilight couldn’t help but notice that it seemed off. Normally Celestia’s smiles were so serene, warm and regal even if it was obvious it’d been practiced. This one… Twilight couldn’t help but think of Princess Celestia, her tears pooling at the corner of her lips as she hugged Luna for the first time in a thousand years. It was too sad to be completely happy. Almost guilty?

It was whisked away before she could think about it anymore. A frown steeled itself on the Princess’s muzzle. Her eyes glazed over and she parted her legs for stability as she prepared for the mental strain.

“Of course, Twilight. Now, this is, as you can imagine, a very complex spell, and while I will be weaving the matrices myself, you’ll still need to provide a good amount of power and focus. Whenever you’re ready, Twilight… just speak the aria.”

Twilight breathed deep. She wetted her lips, let that breath run into her lungs, then out once more through the nostrils. She followed Celestia’s example, planting her hooves firmly and closing her eyes. She could do this. For Equestria, and for her friends.

Twilight lit her horn. Normally while casting she would be focusing the energy flowing through her on a singular point or action, but at the Princess’s instruction she now let it run freely. Like a steadily flowing river her magic built up at her core, rattled up her spine, and tore at her horn in a tooth-aching buzz before pouring out into the world before her in a mighty wave. She could feel it against her rattling hooves, that wild pulse of manic and unfocused energy which pooled around them in a stagnant puddle. It set her mane whipping, her coat tingling, her whole body fighting against its very bounds of bone and flesh. Stagnant but rippling. A hoofbeat’s contact rippling through a pond, the exact second before the water was to splash. Untamed energy without purpose.

She gave it one.

“From all of us together, Together we’re friends...”

Celestia joined in the spell. Twilight felt as she did; her magic gripped Twilight’s, surrounded it so softly. Like a cradle, a friend’s warm embrace, it cocooned the magic echoing out around them and contained it. Along with the aria, song given ethereal form, they corralled it to a fine, invisible point. Twilight strained, her head nearly blowing back as she struggled to keep hold while Celestia and the aria manipulated the magic coming from her. It was a struggle to keep it all pouring out evenly as Princess Celestia and the words coming from her own mouth poked and prodded, stretched and formed as if the energy coming from her very being were nothing but putty, but a child’s plaything. It felt as if at any moment those invisible hooves guiding the magic would rip it out of her in a savage jerk and leave her a smoking husk of a pony.

It was something more to keep giving, and giving, and giving as the spell went on and on, continued to form into a tight, interwoven tangle of precise matrices. Strands of energy woven into an impossibly massive yet tiny orb of a spell. It was all she could do to keep speaking. Her heart was throbbing in her chest, and her lungs felt so dry.

“With the mark of our destinies made one...”

Casting the first part of this spell had just been so easy to cast on her own. Easy as breathing and moving a quill back and forth across the page. This…

Twilight’s body was shivering. In her mind’s eye she was no longer a pony but a shambling bundle of nerves starting to fray at the edges. Her body was nothing but the pages of that book she had written in, paper and ink, spilled over and soaked with water. Sopping wet and falling apart, that paper was tearing and at any second would slough apart. The ink would wash away and leave her nothing. Her horn was vibrating so hard she felt the aftershocks to the dock of her tail. She thought it would explode, or at least chip, but she ignored it.

Across the backs of her eyelids, spots danced in her vision. At first Twilight thought that she was passing out, and these were the death-knells of her consciousness. But then they got closer. Instead of black splotches come to whisk her away into the ether, she found they were actually colorful. Cutie Marks. Against her closed eyes she saw her own six-pointed star, Celestia’s sun… and then, in a blink of color that shot across her body in a crack of pain, her friends’ joined as well. All of them ebbed and flowed before her, swirling around one another in time with the churning of bile in her stomach.

Celestia’s mark glowed the brightest. Even though Twilight’s grip on reality faded as she stared at the Cutie Marks before her, as the spell being yanked and manipulated from her threatened to become an afterthought, Princess Celestia’s magic continued to move. Continued to hold her steady.

Twilight’s breath was nearly gone, but she forced herself to keep choking out the words.

“There is magic without end.”

The marks floating around Twilight all lit up in a shower of effervescent light. They pulsed bright, then brighter and brighter, until their colors were blown out and Twilight could barely make out their designs through the fog. Celestia’s cutie mark started to pulse, then. In time with the weaving of the spell, it flashed. First just as bright as the other marks, but then… it started to fade. It was subtle, but Twilight could see it.

Somewhere far away, through the buzzing of Twilight’s ears and the pain wracking her tiny frame and the visions dancing in her brain, the spell sank in on itself. Celestia’s warm touch of magic pushed against it, pressed it tighter and tighter until it might rupture -- and then it pooled in. Celestia began pouring all of her magic into the spell, in a crashing tsunami Twilight could barely comprehend. At this point her body had gone completely numb. She didn’t know if she was even standing up anymore.

As more and more of Celestia’s magic rushed into the spell, the larger it got, and the dimmer that sun cutie mark grew. It waned in increments, in waves, and as it did the other cutie marks responded in time. They grew impossibly brighter, and started to lift. They rose in that impossible space, floating up like balloons on the wind.

Somewhere, Twilight felt a change. Her physical body, though numb, felt an impossible lightness. A tug and a shift, then a rush. The only thing Twilight could compare it to was that adrenaline of a freefall, when all of your organs lifted within your body and you were falling there in that endless blue sky. Though Twilight’s magic continued to flow, her physical body seemed to ebb and wane with the marks before her - almost like an incomplete teleportation, but purposeful.

She rocketed back.

One moment Twilight’s body was in that purgatory of liftoff, then she was flung backwards so hard she was sure that all her bones would break the moment she impacted something. Her vision, once filled with those marks, swam into a sickening abstract painting, a shifting ocean of color and light. If her body were still in the physical realm she would be vomiting. Maybe she was and didn’t know it.

Somewhere in that blurred tunnel she thought she saw clear images flit past. A pasture, a mountain, an image of a town. An emblem of a green flame, glowing bright as she and her friends’ cutie marks.

Then everything stopped.

Twilight went still. She thought she took a breath but wasn’t sure. Around her, that dizzying cloud of color went still, and revealed a plane of white. Just pure white, and the cutie marks, along with the green emblem she had seen, sitting idly in the nothingness.

There was a chill, somewhere. The smell of ichor.

Right in front of her, Celestia’s cutie mark laid cold and dim. Curled around its right side was that rot, so very black against its normal gold.

There was a scream. Celestia’s scream. The crash of what sounded like a botched spell, a rebound explosion.

Silence.

Twilight fell.

“Oof,” the ground beneath her grunted. It roiled and fidgeted, and something that felt like a horseshoe caressed Twilight’s cheek.

“Uh, Sugarcube,” the ground said. It felt suspiciously soft and warm. Around there was a chorus of groans that sounded a little too familiar. “Y’all okay there? Y’mind getting off ‘a me and telling us all what the hay is goin’ on?”

Then she woke up and spread her wings.

Chapter Two: The New World

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Twilight actually felt much better than she expected when she finally came to. After a spell that intense, with so much of her magic being used, she expected to be a weak little husk of a pony, or at the very least for her horn to hurt. Instead she was… mostly fine. Her head ached in time with her pulse, and her vision was swimming with blobs of color, but other than that she felt almost better than she had before speaking with Celestia. At least, this was certainly no worse than a couple of magical backlashes she had back in school.

Twilight shook her head to clear it, turning the blobs of color in front of her into a sickening smear of brown. After a few blinks, it became most of an orange, as Applejack’s swirly face echoed somewhere in front of her. Then other dots behind her: blue, pink, white, yellow.

Oh, thank Celestia.

“Oh girls, I’m glad you’re all here! After what happened with the spell I wasn’t sure if you all would make it,” she said. She rubbed furiously at her eyes. “And as for your question, Applejack, I’m afraid it’s kind of complicated. You see, after the spell activated and the Elements hit me I--”

After a good few seconds of scrubbing, Twilight opened her eyes properly. She was met with almost nothing but grass. Stretching near endlessly in every direction was a flat plane of soil and emerald grass that looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in eons. No trampled marks from hoofsteps or carts, no taming of weeds, and not even the evenly-patterned patches that came with earth pony magic. The clouds above were churning and angry. A wild land, almost like the Everfree if not as spooky. And immediately around her, her five friends were gathering themselves up from the grass below with tiny groans of pain. None of them seemed injured, thank goodness, but--

They were staring at her. It was as if she had grown a second head or something.

Twilight gave a snort and followed their gazes to her back. What was it? Was something behind her? Was some horrifying snake-creature crawling up her or--

Oh.

On her sides, where once was only purple fur, now sat two wings. They were tiny and frail, curled up and tucked delicately to her coat like the wings of a fledgeling bird. The only time Twilight had ever seen such small wings on a pony was with Bulk Biceps; slightly larger than Scootaloo’s, looking stable enough that they should in theory be able to lift her from the ground, but so tiny all the same. Her feathers caught the faint light above and shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow, as the new pegasus magic inside every primary, every bit of fluff, breathed for the first time.

Cautiously, Twilight rolled her shoulders, felt the shifting of her withers against two new knots - no, muscles and bone - against her sides. Her wings -- wings!!! -- shifted. When she flexed the muscles there, felt them fluidly move like they were always a part of her and not magically duct-taped on a few seconds ago, her wings flapped.

And- yes, with a poke of her hoof and sigh of relief, Twilight realized she did still have her horn. She was an alicorn now.

Fighting off the impending freakout was incredibly, incredibly difficult. Twilight scooped up all of her anxious squealing and her endless questions, and pushed them all down. She did her breathing exercises and then she moved on. She could deal with this later. Right now, she had work to do.

She turned to her friends and tried not to grimace as they all bowed to her, their snouts grazing the dirt. With a flick of her horn, she gently but firmly dragged them all back to a standing position.

“Please, girls. I may have wings now, but that doesn’t make me a Princess. In fact I’m not sure what it means for me at all right now,” she said, and proudly her voice only cracked a tiny bit, “but I do know that I need all of your help to save Equestria right now.”

Immediately, the five of them stiffened (well, except for Pinkie. She did pause in her bouncing for a moment, though). Rainbow Dash stopped from where she was brushing off her feathers and snorted.

“Yeah,” she laughed. “After everything earlier, and then the Elements activating for some reason, we all kinda figured something was up. Where the hay did you go?”

Fluttershy stepped up beside her and let out a little whine. Her eyelashes were wet. “Oh, yes, where did you go, Twilight? After the b-beams shot out we were so worried that something bad had happened, or you were sent off all on your own, and all because of us. What’s going on?”

Twilight reached out and brushed Fluttershy’s mane immediately, and pointedly ignored how her own wing came up to Fluttershy’s without her even meaning to move it. After everything had happened, Twilight almost forgot the thing that started this whole mess. That spell, what she had done to her friends…

Twilight sighed and pressed harder into Fluttershy’s hug. “Well, that’s a long story. Most importantly, I need to know: what do you girls all remember from this morning?”

Pinkie Pie lifted her face up from the ground with a few sprigs of wild grass still stuck in her teeth, and giggled. “Oh, well I think that maybe I slept in super late on accident again, because all I can remember is this really silly dream I had!” she laughed, but after a second it drooped into something softer. “Well actually, it wasn’t super silly at first. At first I was working on Applejack’s orchard for some reason, and I had her Cutie Mark, but I sort of hated working there. I mean, no offense AJ, but I left my old farm for a reason. All work and no play makes for a dull Pinkie Pie, and plus I kept messing things up. I felt like I did back as a filly, so sad and bored all the time… but then you guys showed up and made it better again, so it was okay!”

Applejack hummed at that. Her hoof traveled back to her own flank, her Cutie Mark, and she stared hard at it with blank eyes.

“I don’t know, Pinkie,” she whinnied. “I’m thinkin’ that that wasn’t any dream, or at least if it was then it was a real detailed one. I can remember it so well; I was workin’ in Rarity’s shop with her Cutie Mark, ‘cept I couldn’t ever make anything half decent. I was even startin’ to stress that I’d have to close down the shop, sell it, and move back on home since sales were so low… I…”

Applejack drifted off for a second, her eyes glazing over. Twilight bit her lip, and thought of just what she had done to her friends without meaning to: having your entire life and memories seemingly lost or switched around, listlessly wandering and trying to do your best to no avail despite your destiny telling you that this was what was right? Twilight shivered. If she hadn’t found a way to reverse it…

Twilight cleared her head with a breath.

“You’re right, Applejack. That wasn’t a dream.”

Twilight steeled herself. Around her, her friends gathered single-file and pricked their ears.

“Last night, Celestia sent me a book which contained an unfinished spell by Starswirl the Bearded. I was so excited at the prospect of finishing one of his works on my own, I… didn’t think. I attempted the spell knowing that it was incomplete, just as a test, but didn’t put up any protections or think of the consequences. I thought that, at the very worst, it might just literally blow up in my face. The next morning though, I had seen what I’d done to you all. I don’t know the specifics, exactly, but I somehow altered your very destinies in a way I’d never thought possible before, and locked you into lives you were never meant to live. I…”

Her throat burned. She remembered seeing Applejack, of all ponies, with tears of frustration and desperation in her eyes. Pinkie Pie with a flat mane angrily trying to fix that watershoot over and over. Rainbow Dash nearly got eaten!

Fluttershy pulled her into another hug, and Applejack patted her cheek.

“Oh, it’s quite alright, darling,” Rarity tutted, with a nuzzle. “We know you didn’t mean it, and everything’s… well... “ she blanched, and looked around at the sea of grass surrounding them, “I can’t say it’s fine because honestly I have no idea what’s happening, but! That’s why we’re here, is it not?”

Twilight nodded. She swallowed around the knot in her throat and kept going, “Yes. After I completed the spell with the help of all of you, the effects were reversed, and the Elements hit me with a modified teleportation spell that sent me to… ah-”

Twilight tapped a hoof to her chin. What exactly was that place? Another realm altogether, or perhaps a pocket dimension like the one Discord lived in? Hopefully once this was all over she'd be able to study it more with Celestia’s guidance.
“Well, I don’t really know where I went, to be honest. It’s a sort of… cosmic library, that records events in the lives of the Element Bearers. Celestia was there, but she was injured, and in the little time we had she explained that there’s a darkness that’s crawling over Equestria, and the only way to stop it was to teleport us to a sacred place outside Equestria and for me to… raise the sun and moon, somehow… Unfortunately I don’t have all the details, but Celestia assured me that I can learn more by going back to that Library.”

Her friends were mostly blank-faced after that, but there was a layer of determination burning behind Rainbow Dash. Or at least she was grinning wildly like that because the thought of her nerdy friend raising the celestial bodies was simultaneously hilarious and awesome.

“Well alright, no biggie,” Rainbow said, stretching her wings. “We’ve been through way worse than that. Let’s get to it! So where is that ‘sacred spot’ you were talking about, anyway, because this place is kind of, uh…”

Fluttershy said “desolate” the same time Rarity said “dirty”. Twilight had to admit they were both right, really.

“Well, there was supposed to be some dais or pedestal to stand on. I thought the spell would immediately take us there, but it might have been intended to send us to a safe location nearby instead. And because Celestia was hurt when attempting the spell, there’s no telling what could have happened.”

“Well,” Applejack snorted, “that’s sure helpful.”

Rarity gave her a little flick with her tail, then turned to Twilight. “Come now, Applejack, we’re supposed to be helping. So, the Princess did give you access to that, erm, Library of yours, so surely even if we’re off the path a bit you should be able to guide us with that. Right?”

“In theory, yes. The only problem is that I have to teleport to and from there by myself, which would leave you all… well, right now, stuck out in the middle of a field somewhere.”

“And look at the clouds,” Fluttershy muttered. “It could start storming any time.”

Twilight looked up. Above, a blanket of wild, jagged clouds rolled over a section of the skyline, casting deep shadow over everything. It was pretty dark where they were standing with the sun blocked, and Twilight could begin to feel the cool touch of dew and sweat start to run down her neck. Looking ahead, even the land that was bathed in sunlight was pale; it must be almost time for the sunset, she wagered. So if she just left her friends out here in the cold and dark… Not to mention that meant she would be teleporting back in the middle of what could be a real pourdown...

“Hey, well, I could give the clouds a try,” Rainbow shrugged, “I mean, the wild ones are pretty nasty to wrangle, but I could at least give us a patch of sun for a few minutes. Or, uh, look for that ‘dais’ thing you were talking about.”

Twilight almost slapped herself, she was so relieved. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten Rainbow Dash could fly up and have a look. Or, she supposed she could herself now that--

Nope. Not thinking about the wings. Focus.

“Okay, but be careful up there,” Twilight said.

“Yup, and if nothing else, just try to find us a place to lay low for a while and we can work from there. Don’t mess around with none of that wild lightning,” AJ dropped in. Slowly, she smirked, “after all, wouldn’t want to hear you whining about your tailfeathers gettin’ burnt up by some little cloud.”

Rainbow barked a laugh and prepped herself. She spread out her legs and braced them, her muscles rippling up into her flared feathers. “Yeah, yeah, no problem. I’ll have this done in ten, nine--”

And then Rainbow Dash exploded.

At least, for one dizzying, terrifying moment, that’s what Twilight Sparkle truly believed. One second she was watching her friends casually lift off as she had a million times before, and the next the world was a cacophony of noise and color. A concussive blast of noise rang in Twilight’s ears, and then she was bowled over as a wave of sickening energy rolled over her in a flash - a flash of red, yellow, green, of every color of the rainbow. The taste of ozone lay heavy on her tongue, and the nostalgic scent that she associated with the Cloudsdale weather factory burned her nostrils and filled her lungs. Grass poured into her mouth as she was tossed a few feet away into the dirt, and her horn pounded with the weight of all the magical energy being poured out around her.

Dizzily, with her stomach roiling, Twilight sat up and managed to croak out, “What in Equestria was that?”

And Rainbow Dash was gone! Where she had been standing, just feet away, now sat a dusty crater with blades of grass still raining down into the epicenter from above. It was like a meteorite had struck the earth right where she had been moments before.

Twilight felt the terror, the confusion, the grief, welling up in her, but before she could scream she heard Rainbow Dash yell instead. And it sounded… happy?

Feeling numb and lost, Twilight lifted her head up to the sky in a desperate search for that noise. And there was Rainbow. In the air. High up in the air. So very, very high. It-- that had to have broken the speed record for takeoff surely, but-- but how, she was only doing a casual takeoff, not trying to, to do a--

“W-was,” Fluttershy wavered. Twilight looked over and saw her sitting wide-eyed, spitting up dirt and trying to flatten her mane that had been blasted back. “Was that a Sonic Rainboom? From the ground?! But she-” Fluttershy’s voice hitched, and a giddy little smile bordering on manic was worming up her face. “There was no lead up. No acceleration! She just! Just!”

“Yeah,” Twilight whispered. She couldn’t think straight already and these ponies were driving her even more insane.

Above, while her friends tried to recover from that, Rainbow Dash whooped and hollered like never before. Twilight watched with glassy eyes. She almost expected some sort of celebratory stunt, or for her to set off a chain of Sonic Rainbooms or who knows what else, just to show that she could. But instead Rainbow floated prone in that yawning emptiness where she'd busted a hole in the angry clouds above. She was still and wavering, just gently floating down while screaming in excitement.

Twilight looked away from her for a moment, to the moon. She could see it through that crater of clouds.

Or-- no. Twilight’s breath hitched and she choked back a wad of saliva and grass. Her head swam. That wasn’t the moon.

Rainbow Dash was silhouetted against the sun, and the moon sat right beside it. But they were both so very pale.

The sun was dim and flaring at the edges, so tiny compared to what Twilight was used to. Its wan light filtering out over the field was flickering and uneven, and such a cold shade of off-white. The moon was just as large as the shrunken sun now, but dim. It barely reflected anything, and it was almost lost in the sea of the orange sky. It was cracked down the middle. Shards of space rock broke off of it into the twilight, surrounding the moon in a corona of its own broken parts.

Before Twilight could faint at the sight, the wild clouds had already rolled over the hole Rainbow busted through. Twilight thought that was strange even for clouds filled with black magic like those over the Everfree, but she couldn’t think too clearly about that right now.

Why were both the sun and moon in the sky? Wasn’t Twilight supposed to raise them herself? And what happened to them? Is this was happened when an alicorn… were Celestia and Luna both--

As soon as Rainbow Dash touched down, she vomited. Then she turned back to Twilight with a drunken-looking smile on her face, with her whole body wobbling.

“That. Was. Awesome,” she wheezed. Her voice was hoarse from the screaming. “And uh, I guess you saw the sun and moon, so that’s a thing. Anyway, I didn’t see any fancy pedestal or anything but there’s a, um… forest nearby. We could probably hunker down in a cave or something in there?”

Nopony said anything for a long time. Perhaps it was because they thought Twilight might pass out if they did. Eventually, Twilight nodded, and numbly everypony got to their hooves and, as a shaky unit, turned to the south-east where Rainbow Dash pointed a hoof to.

Well, everypony but Pinkie. She bounced up and down near Rainbow dash in a babbling frenzy, literally shaking with excitement as she spoke at the speed of sound. Not only had Rainbow performed the legendary Sonic Rainboom, but she had done it in a way nopony had ever even attempted before! Well, technically nopony except Rainbow had done a Rainboom at all to begin with, but that didn’t squash Pinkie’s optimism, and if anything made her even more extra excited. She gave Rainbow a crushing hug, which the pegasus accepted with a grumble, and then she suddenly chirped,

“Hey Twi, look! These neat little flowers are popping up everytime I step! Wowie, look, that’s a pink one!”

Twilight’s eye twitched. There were, indeed, flowers and other assorted flora sprouting at Pinkie’s hooves with every step, bounce and wiggle. The flowers perked up and drifted happily in the whipping breeze, already fully grown and glittering with neon colors. Twilight identified one of them as a variety of begonia. On a whim, Twilight snapped her head around and saw that beneath Applejack's horseshoes rested a tiny baby sapling, most likely that of an apple tree.

Nearby, Fluttershy squeaked in panic and firmly tucked her wings to her sides. After all, for all anypony knew, even she could be blasting off and doing Sonic Rainbooms any minute.

Twilight sucked in a ragged breath, as deeply and calmly as she could under the circumstances.

Oh, she really wasn’t prepared for this.

The walk to the forest, while uneventful, at least helped Twilight to clear her mind a bit. Her brain was still itching with half-formed theories and millions of questions, but now she was able to turn to meditation to keep herself calm. As her friends chatted idly and Rainbow Dash boasted about her new-found talent to do Rainbooms whenever she wanted, they mostly left her alone, and she was free to turn to Celestia and Zecora’s old advice. She let their voices, calm and familiar, relax and ground her, with the babble turning to white noise while their steady hoofbeats kept time with her heart. Then it was a matter of breathing, sensing her own body, and gently letting her magic flow through her in gentle waves. Like the ocean lazily lapping against the shore.

There definitely was more magic within her - Twilight could feel it pressing against her chest and horn now that she focused in on herself. She centered in on that magic, especially on the new pegasus and earth pony magic she felt welling up, and tried to adjust to the new “normal” that was her own body. Hopefully, this form of concentration would make it so when she did try to go back to the Cosmic Library she would actually teleport there, instead of her turning into a raging ball of untamed magic like the day she got her Cutie Mark.

Hopefully.

“How about this, then?” Applejack asked, as she flung aside a clump of vines.

The forest, though near pitch-dark and clogged with thorny foliage, seemed to be rather peaceful. Unlike the Everfree, where dark magic hung heavy in the air and a pony’s coat instinctively stood on end, this was much more like Whitetail Wood. A calm, silent atmosphere with only the occasional hoot of an owl, and no sign of dangerous wildlife that Fluttershy wouldn’t be able to talk down. Shortly after tearing their way through the brush, Applejack and Rainbow managed to find what looked like a decent spot for setting up shelter. The canopy above was still thick and left the area in murky darkness, but the trees themselves were separated enough within the clearing so that, if one of them were to be struck by lightning and fall, they should be safe. At the very least they should have time to move out of the way or put up a shield.

“Erm,” Rarity muttered, swiping ahoof at her dirty fetlocks, “Well of course I would like something a bit more… clean. But if this is our best option, then I suppose I’ll have to make do.”

With that, Rarity turned to the nearest tree, one littered with gnarled and knotting branches that swung in the breeze. She lit her horn then - with a start, as she probably remembered Rainbow’s incident - she gently, gently grabbed hold of the end of a branch. It came free with a snap of the weakened bark, and shakily bobbed to the center of the clearing.

“Uh, no offense, Rarity, but if it takes you that much time to get one good stick down then we may be here all night,” Rainbow scoffed.

AJ rolled her eyes. “Yep, and that’s before you go tryin’ to turn our one-day shelter into a palace.”

“Yes, well,” Rarity huffed, “you know normally I’d be much more adept at moving multiple things at once. It’s only…” She rubbed her horn with a wince. “It feels like so much more now. I’d hate to accidentally send a whole tree flying to the moon.”

Twilight stepped forward as she left her reverie, almost clopping her hooves as she realized this was something she actually knew the answer to. And it might even lead to her learning a bit about her and her friends’ new magical surges!

“Oh, well, ever since a filly I’ve had to do magical control exercises to prevent more outbursts. Just recently I talked to Zecora about different meditation techniques to try. If you want, when I get back from the Cosmic Library I could try to help?”

“I would appreciate it, dear. Oh, and that reminds me!”

Rarity trotted around Twilight and gave a gentle shove, guiding her towards where the branch was resting. With a flicker from Rarity’s horn, Twilight’s legs buckled and sent her to her haunches.

“You need to get to that Library of your’s, correct? You go on then, and we’ll finish up right here for whenever you’re done.”

Fluttershy stepped forward with a nod. “That’s right, Twilight, you won’t need to worry about us. Living by the Everfree, I’ve learned all kinds of neat tricks for this sort of thing, and you know Rarity is wonderful at making things cozy.”

Twilight nodded. All around her, her friends were already jumping into action. With Pinkie it was literal, as she jumped up and snapped larger sticks to throw to the pile, while Applejack bucked some larger leaves from the trees. Rainbow set to using her Cloud Scout’s tricks to make the base of their shelter, and Twilight could imagine Rarity diligently, twist by twist, knotting together beautiful cordage with her bare hooves to hold it all together as soon as Twilight blinked off. Or Fluttershy, collecting pebbles and clearing bushy foliage to maintain a safe fire pit.

For a second, Twilight couldn’t help but feel warm. Even though things were confusing, her friends were already working so hard to help her through this. Now that she could go to the Cosmic Library to study, surely all of this would click together and they would save Equestria with ease.

“Thank you, girls, “ she whispered. “Now, I don’t have a surefire way to tell the time while I’m in there, and to be honest with you there may be some sort of time dilation I haven’t accounted for. But I’ll try to come back with any news I’ve found in around an hour, if I can.”

Rarity noddeed, though her eyes were unfocused and she was already drifting some vines and ivy to her muzzle. “Yes, of course. We’ll be here when you get back.”

The others drifted off, milling about and already prepping the base of their structure around her. Twilight breathed deep, through her nose, and steadied her body fully to the grass below. She licked her dry lips. She focused every thought, every ounce of her consciousness, on the image of the astral plane, of the screens floating past, of the vast starscape; she shuddered as an unexpected tidal wave of energy blasted against the base of her horn as she called it forth, before she had to force the majority of it back with another deep breath. Pull it back, as the moon to the tides, just as Zecora taught her. Then she readied the spell, and teleported.

The familiar pop, and then Twilight’s silent hooves settled to the magical floor. Her mane whipped endlessly, and her feathers rose and fluffed of their own accord with that buzz of magic which filled this entire realm. Their tips gleamed with the lights of those distant stars as her hooves and horn vibrated, and Twilight took a moment to think about how she must look like a true alicorn now, with her mane flowing ethereally like Celestia’s and her new wings splaying.

Twilight narrowed her eyes. Alright then. Time for answers. So first things first: compartmentalization.

She sorted through her thoughts to think of every pressing question she had buzzing around in her head. What happened to Celestia during the spell? Why was she an alicorn, and why the magical surge in her friends as well? Why were they sent to what seemed to be an incorrect location?

Twilight sighed and jotted them down on a mental checklist, suddenly craving a scroll or for Spike to be by her side. She had to close her eyes as the yawning emptiness, sparkling on for eternity, only made her head spin more, then raised her hoof to mimic a quill. It might look silly to check invisible boxes like this, but it worked - she knew firsthoof from back when Spike was too young to take proper notes and she had used all of her allowance on ink she’d already used up.

After a bit of thinking, she decided it would be wisest to find out where exactly the dais she was supposed to be raising the sun and moon upon was located. Everything else could come in time with the next step being to study how Celestia herself had first risen the sun, so she could visually deconstruct the spell and learn it for herself in time. Everything else could then, hopefully, be told to her by Celestia herself assuming that raising the celestial bodies was all she had to do to banish the dark magic still crawling over Equestria. If it were more complicated, then the further steps could be learned once she’d gotten the main task finished with.

Twilight clicked her tongue, finished her invisible plan-sheet, and decided it was time to get started.

Oh! But one thing first.

Twilight lit her horn with a tiny spark and, with a tightly-controlled burn of magic, bloomed a shining orb of light at its tip. If not for the magenta aura of her magic, it could almost be mistaken for another of those faraway starbursts. Then it was as easy as getting the count right in her head, gently folding a modifier into the lattices of the spell matrix, detaching the light from her head to float on its own before crafting an invisible tether to her horn’s base and- aha!

An orb of light now wavered beside her, flickering slightly at every approximate minute and set to extinguish on its own in approximately one hour.

It was a simple spell, but Twilight couldn’t help but feel a bit giddy - it hadn’t even left a dent in her new massive magical reserves, and her horn hurt no worse despite the strain it had gone through earlier!

After letting herself do a little skip in place, Twilight brought a hoof to her chest to balance herself, and settled down to the task of studying.

With just as much ease as she remembered from last time, like opening a book, the screens came filing in as soon as Twilight called for them. With a twist of her horn those shimmering cards filed to her front in a near-endless strand, filling her vision with light and casting the field below in the colors of Celestia’s mane. Twilight flicked to the most recent recording, and watched as the screens floated silently past towards the present - Twilight thought that, with no real “table of contents” and all of the events coalescing only recently, it would be fastest to go in reverse chronological order. Finally, the screens, which had blurred into a smear of white as they accelerated impossibly faster and faster, settled to their destination. Immediately the screen buzzed to life and started over from the beginning of the recording and--

Celestia let out a broken, wailing scream that tore into Twilight’s eardrums. She watched as the rot enveloping Celestia’s side pulsed and wormed its way further up her body, a series of black veins snaking up her body with sickening pulses. Celestia fell to her knees with another shriek. Tears beaded up from her eyes before floating up into the nothingness, while that darkness kept choking away at the white of her coat. Celestia kept hold tight on the flare erupting on her horn, but her whole body shivered and twitched; as if she were seizing, she rolled and flailed with wild abandon, as the spell at her horn flickered but held true. The blackness, the cold rot, kept creeping up her body with no remorse. Celestia’s eyes rolled back and--

The screen went black. It stopped right there.

Twilight didn’t know when exactly she collapsed, but when she got back on shaky hooves, her light was still flickering and the memory had mercifully stopped repeating. Somehow, she hadn’t retched all over herself.

Twilight sobbed into her hoof. She was shaking. She just couldn’t help it.

Celestia. She- she couldn’t be gone, could she? Just because the entity recording had stopped it at that moment didn’t mean that she was dead. She could be fine. Everything was fine and Celestia definitely wasn't dead and--

And there was a black magic sweeping across Twilight’s entire home country, apparently reducing the population to agonized, screaming spasms before swallowing them whole or… something else far worse. Who else had been hurt like this. The entire of Canterlot for sure. Her parents. Her old friends from Celestia’s School. And if it had traveled further - Spike? Everypony?!

Twilight choked and gasped at the heat in her throat. Her tears didn’t even give her the satisfaction of rolling down her cheeks. Instead, they floated off before dissipating into nothing. No. It couldn’t -- she couldn’t let this happen. Surely if she restored the sun and moon then everything would go back to normal. It had to. She had to.

It took her ten tries to get Cadance’s breathing exercise correct. She kept hitching at the agony twisting in her chest, kept seeing horrid flashes of Celestia moaning in agony and collapsing.

It all kept echoing in her head, ghostly afterimages poking at her heart through the fog, but she swallowed it down.

Like turning a page. It didn’t matter that the memory in front of her was frozen on an image of Celestia sobbing and choking. It was easy. Turn the page.

She did. The memories listlessly scrolled away. Eventually noise and color once again erupted as Celestia hugged a tiny Luna to her front, as rose-petals rained in Ponyville and Twilight’s brand new friends huddled in close.

It all echoed dully against the forcefield below, casting Twilight’s mane in the color of her friends and washing over her with the sounds of their voices. She watched that screen, over and over again, until she felt calm enough to search further into Celestia’s past.

Twilight sighed. She rubbed her aching, swollen eyes with her foreleg, gave a flick of her tail, and then radiated out the thought of Celestia raising the sun, and of the mission she was given.

The memory that came next seemed less traumatic, at least, if the first image of a plain white terrain was anything to go by. Twilight gave an anxious snort, and settled to her haunches to watch.

Immediately, Twilight was almost shocked back up to her hooves. Ahead, both Celestia and Luna stood in a gaggle of other ponies Twilight had never seen before, but they were, well - tiny! Around the same height and build as Twilight, at first glance. Luna looked as she had after the Nightmare was banished, though lacking regalia and her mane cropped a bit shorter. Celestia was near impossible to recognize, and if not for those same, gentle pink eyes then Twilight would have thought it was another pony altogether. She was downright petite compared to her current stature, with a delicate swirl of pink (and no other colors! Just pink!) coming to a set of blunt bangs at her eyebrows. Both of the sisters’ wings were small as well, not unlike Twilight’s own.

Celestia and Luna nestled close, nuzzling one another. Dark tracks stained the fur under their eyes, and they sniffed as they held each other close. The other ponies did the same, with a pegasus nearby sobbing fully into her hooves.

“I know,” Celestia whispered, in such a young voice, “but we have to keep going. It will all be for nothing if we don’t”

Luna nodded. Around them the other ponies gathered themselves, stood on shaky hooves, and they all turned to the scene behind them.

The land was both deolate and pure. A circular stone dais, decorated with a beautifully complex, twisted rune but marred with hairline fractures which tore across the ley lines, was surrounded by a field of pure whiteness. The landscape looked to have been smothered in plaster- in what used to be a lush, green forest there was now a field of dust, the trees and all plantlife frozen forever in time. Their chalky branches, leaves, petals, stems, all, lay completely still in a pregnant silence. That light, that whiteness, seemed to have taken every drop of life once oozing from this place- at its edge, it was jagged like a scar, the few living blades of grass pulling away and curling into a dead yellow. There were no animals. No birds singing in the pristinely still treetops, no insects crawling among the underbrush. It was devoid of all sapient life, and all life besides was cast as a skin-crawling statue, a still-life painting left unfinished and cast into the real world as-is.

Celestia muttered with her friends, mostly apologies and a sharp promise that they would end this for good, one day, and then she and Luna were stepping to the pedestal. Its eerie red glow was so stark against the pale sea.

The two alicorns looked up, and Twilight saw that both the sun and moon were hanging in the sky. Only, unlike the shattered and dimmed copies that Twilight had seen, they were full and bright. Not as glorious as the ones Twilight remembered from Ponyville afternoons, or her nights stargazing, but full and warm enough to make the snowy-colored landscape below near-blinding as the cold white refracted the light.

Celestia and Luna turned to their friends.

“And you shall be with us? Always?” Luna wavered.

The ponies all drew close in a warm, crushing embrace. An earth pony, his mane swirled up on his head like a spoonful of pudding, gave a laugh that broke in the middle.

“Of course. We promised, remember?”

And then- the sun and moon were absorbed. Numbly, Twilight watched as, without any clear spell being woven together or cast, without an aria being spoken or sung aloud, without either Celestia or Luna’s horns igniting… The heavenly bodies above liquefied and pooled into two great pools of pure energy, before that magic spiraled down from the great beyond and struck Celestia and Luna directly in the hearts. Their eyes blasted open with a flash of rainbow light. The two sisters were engulfed in a hurricane of pure energy, which Twilight felt shake within her bones despite only witnessing second-hoof. They went limp, two marionettes with their strings cut, and rose on that rising column of pulsing magic; they rose up and up, the energy coursing through their veins, visibly burning a hot white beneath their skin. It traveled, up through their hooves, into their barrels and chests, through their wings. The feather tips alit with flaming energy, pouring spotlights of blinding color across the white wasteland below, before the wings themselves began to elongate. Strengthen. Curve to an elegant and royal shape. Then that magic flowed to their horn and - after a blast of energy so bright that it left Twilight’s vision spotting - there was a new sun in the sky. After squinting, Twilight realized there was indeed a new moon as well. They looked just as vibrant as they did from the balcony of Golden Oaks.

The vision ended. When it began to repeat, Twilight raised a hoof and it paused.

Well. Twilight snorted. Her tail and the loose skin above her withers flicked with irritation. That explained nothing! And left her with even more questions! For instance, how were the sun and moon turned into a purely magical form and then absorbed? How did Celestia and Luna do it? Where even were they?! Twilight had seen the pale wasteland, of course, but the memory showed little of the area beyond it. With a start and a rub to her aching temple, Twilight also realized that she was following in Celestia and Luna’s hoofsteps, at least in part. They had just performed the exact task Twilight was instructed to fulfill, and while Twilight had blindly accepted that the moment she saw Celestia and Luna just as young and scared and newly-winged as she was, that didn’t necessarily make much sense at the moment either. Was that mass of black-magic some manifestation of another of Celestia's past foes? Why had it come back now? What did raising the sun and moon have to do with it?

Oh, why hadn’t Celestia told her anything?

Twilight cradled her aching head in her hooves. Beside her, with one final flick of light, her light-orb died and evaporated into the ether. With a sigh and a grumble, Twilight figured she might as well check on the girls and hopefully get a sip of water to soothe her aching everything. Maybe they would have some ideas, or at least be able to scrub that awful image of Celestia out of her head before she had to come back in a while.

One last huff of air, a gathering of energy, and Twilight teleported back to her last on-ground location.

“Girls? I’m back!” Twilight called as soon as the dying light of her teleportation spell waned.

Then she gasped into her hoof as smoke curled into her lungs.

Twilight blinked once, twice, and then realized.

Oh dear Celestia, the forest was on fire.

Chapter Three: Creeping Flames, Creeping Fears

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One good thing about having Pinkie Pie as a best friend was that you quickly got used to things spontaneously combusting. Panic flared in Twilight’s chest for a split second as she coughed against smoke, but then immediately she was lighting her horn and casting a bubble above her. She enveloped a splash of rainwater with a flare of magic, squeezed it down to a tight water-balloon of telekinesis, and let loose a high-pressure stream of water at the flame nearest to her.

She noticed that the fire was glowing a ghastly white at the exact moment the water sloshed against the flame and spewed an acrid cloud of smoke. There was an ugly hiss, a pop, and then… nothing. The white flames kept crawling closer, waving larger and larger all around.

Twilight pulled her tail tight against her thighs. Sweat poured down her coat and dripped from her mane already, the heat was so unbearable. She had to squint against the white light burning into her eyes. She didn’t have time to think. Water didn’t extinguish it. Next on the list: suffocation.

Another bubble of magic, over the flames. She smashed down with as much force as she could muster - and considering the fact that Rainbow Dash had nearly exploded earlier, she half expected to blast a crater into the earth. But the fires flickered and pushed against her magic with equal force. Smoke rolled against the magic and flowed into the pores of it in such a sickening way that Twilight nearly lost her balance.

Twilight tried a few more times, her quick breaths rasping heat into her lungs. After a few tries she thought enough to teleport a small orb of oxygen from the ground below into her lungs, and then kneel down into the dirt. Then she attempted to grab at the flames themselves, wrangling the leylines around the hot eels of plasma--

Snap. Twilight felt the pain of a failed spell crash against her horn, but as the crackling around her grew louder she couldn’t register any pain. She stumbled back, drawing herself down into the ashy dirt and taking as controlled breaths as she could.

Her eyes flicked around. Nothing but white, and the charcoal-shadows of trees. It almost looked like they were popping in and out of place, the sea of smoke was obstructing her vision so much. She couldn’t see the girls. For some reason the fire was rebelling against her magic, even with it being so powerful. Her mind raced. Her ears flapped wildly on her head, desperately listening for anything, anything, that wasn’t the snap of the fire.

A white inferno, blazing ever and ever higher, creeped closer. The twigs Rarity had set out as shelter caught ablaze and then--

Another pop. Instantly, Twilight couldn’t see them anymore. A few strands of her tail hair wafted in the hot wind and grazed at a white wall.

Twilight thought about teleporting, but she couldn’t see anything and she didn’t know where the hay she even was, really. If she stayed here she could get burned alive, but if she teleported she could suffocate in a tree, in the ground, smash herself to smithereens inside of a rock--

She heaved a gulp. Almost on instinct, the tiny wings on her back flared against her sides. She stretched them up far as they’d go, and then, with a very first pump of new muscles, shoved down hard. The flap shot her up into the sky; Twilight squealed as she rocketed up almost to the canopy, and as the oxygen funneled downwards from her feather tips and roared against the flames below in a spiral of fire. The world swam for a second, as she immediatel;y dropped like a stone again- so she flapped again. After a few clumsy tries, she managed to get a sort-of rhythm down. And she hadn’t burned to death!

With a half-dizzy laugh, Twilight spun around on her new wings. She shoved her foreleg over her nose as the smoke rose around her, and squinted her eyes below. Desperately searched for Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy, or any of the girls.

Below, the forest floor was alight, nothing but an ocean of pale embers. Grey clouds roiled over everything, heavy and smelling so sickly. And the trees…

“Huh?”

Taking a moment to really look, Twilight noticed that the trees were behaving oddly to the heat. Before, she hadn’t been imagining the trees popping in and out of existence amidst the smoke. They really were moving; as the flames crawled across them and stained the edges of the bark a tar-black, they let out a mighty pop, and then vanished into thin air as if being swallowed instantly by the flames. Her first thought was that this was some kind of defense mechanism the trees and vines were using to avoid death, or fire actually quickening the burning, but then she looked closer.

With a thought, Twilight grabbed an orb of water and threw it against the fire again. And yes, the water did hiss and steam, but not all of it. It, too, partially vanished.

A split second later, a small sheet of water formed over Twilight’s head with another loud cracking noise, and lapped at her sweaty mane. Twilight hadn’t been trying to do that. In fact, she had quenched her horn the instant she dispelled her orb of telekinesis.

Twilight was struck with a memory of Spike belching up letters.

She nearly slapped herself. She even barked out another strained laugh. Of course! No wonder the fire had reacted to her magic in such a way - it was composed of a particularly resistant kind of magic itself! The initial heat of the fire was scorching, but then everything was being moved, more or less intact, to another part of the forest!

As a wave of heat enveloped her, burning the edges of her coat with an awful stench, Twilight didn’t bat an eyelash. Speaking of which, she might not have any eyelashes left after this, but at the moment she didn’t care. She let herself be swallowed alive by the fire.

The dragonfire.

Pop!

Twilight let herself have a self-satisfied harrumph as her vision swam, and then she was dropped somewhere else. After she picked herself up from the dry grass and brushed herself off, anyway. After all, she was right! And she’d wager...

Twilight turned around and let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Just a few feet away, laying in a pile on the forest floor, were her friends! Rainbow had gotten the worst of it, seeing as she was at the bottom of the ponypile and Pinkie Pie’s hoof was smashed into her ear, and sure, Rarity wouldn’t be too happy about her burnt fetlocks-- but they were okay!

“Not gonna lie,” Rainbow groaned, as she shimmied Pinkie Pie off of her, “getting kinda tired of getting thrown around by magic today. What in the hay was that about?”

Fluttershy was next to extract herself, gently lifting Rarity up from the ground alongside her. With a gentle coo, she immediately started to brush Rarity’s singed mane with a hoof, until she saw ashes and smoke still rolling over their heads. Her teeth clacked together, ner nostrils flared along with her wings, and she shivered fiercely - her body was terrified, but even from here Twilight could see something else boiling in her eyes.

“Twilight,” she breathed, so tight, “the fire is still going! I- I thought I had set the firepit up correctly and-- and now-- Oh, Twilight, the animals--”

“The animals?” Applejack barked. She smashed her hat, scorched and curling at the edges, back onto her mane and started backpedalling from the nearby inferno. The teleportation flames had taken them further into the forest, where the fire hadn’t yet touched, but already it was curling closer in the distance. “I appreciate the concern for the critters, Sug, but what about us? You didn’t exactly teleport us all the way out of this mess, Twi.”

Twilight crushed Fluttershy’s shivering body close and gave AJ a pat on the withers. “Don’t worry girls, I didn’t teleport us here and I didn’t need to. And Fluttershy, this isn’t your fault. This fire isn’t entirely natural, see?”

She flashed her horn to life and stretched out a band of magic energy so the others could see the way the smoke repelled away from it, how the embers tried to burn a hole through the forcefield itself before they were forced to flee instead.

“This is dragonfire, like the kind Spike uses when he sends Celestia our letters. I didn’t move us here, it did.”

Rarity hummed, opting to shimmy in place instead of scrub at the charcoal smears in her coat. “That would explain what happened to me. Why, I thought that I was about to be swallowed up and burn to death! So as the fire touched me I clenched my eyes and- well, then I was here.”

“Exactly! And it’s doing to same to all the life in the forest. The heat of the magic is enough to burn initially, but then the matter that’s engulfed is just sent somewhere else.”

Fluttershy’s wings fluffed at her sides, and she pressed hard into Twilight’s nuzzle. “So-- the animals--”

“They should be fine, Fluttershy. I won’t lie, some of them might get singed, but as long as we stop this from spreading it won’t do too much harm.”

“Well, that’s dandy and all, Twilight, but how are we supposed to stop the fire? Don’t seem like the rain or your magic is workin’,” Applejack asked.

And… Twilight sighed through her aching lungs and took a few steps towards the blaze. That was the problem, wasn’t it? She had only surrendered herself to the flames because every other option she could think of so far hadn’t worked. The water was mostly teleported when used, the dragon magic resisted her attempts at suffocating it, and at this point Twilight suspected her trusty last-ditch effort Failsafe spell would, well, fail. There was the possibility that the fire would douse itself, but given that it had a powerful magical source, that would only happen once the caster (breather?) brought the intensity of the firebreath down a few hundred notches and maybe even helped extinguish it. And that meant…

“Wait,” Pinkie Pie chirped. “If that’s a bunch of dragonfire, doesn’t that mean that there’s some big, angry dragon snoring on everything in there somewhere? Because normally I would say that fixing that would be a piece of cake, because normally I would have a piece of cake as a peace offering, and Fluttershy would be able to use her Stare to make even the grumpiest of grumpy-pants listen. But there isn’t cake anywhere out here and Fluttershy is… not doing so good.”

Twilight turned back to see Pinkie Pie scooping Fluttershy up in a soft cradle. Fluttershy’s eyes were strained and watery at the edges, and her wings and hooves shook like leaves. Her breathing was under control at the moment, but her face was starting to go blank and--

Right. Fluttershy was still terrified of dragons to an extent, and this one had just burned a forest filled with little animal friends. Not to mention all the other craziness that had gone on today. Twilight could still remember Fluttershy, with Pinkie Pie’s cutie mark, with that fake, fake smile plastered to her face as she desperately failed to make the ponies around her happy like her mark told her to. As everypony laughed at her poor attempts instead of with her.

Twilight flicked her tail as if snapping at flies. Pushed that thought away. She had already been forgiven for that, and right now she needed to focus.

Okay, so there was probably a very large dragon setting fire to the woods somewhere deep within it. They didn’t know where it was, or why it was teleporting things around, but Twilight did know that, based on the size, color, and heat of these teleportation flames? This was a powerful dragon. The old grouch who snored smoke over Ponyville would be nothing but a lizard compared to this strength. So, if she assumed that this dragon was as uncooperative and anti-friendship as the other dragons (minus Spike) she had ever seen up to this point?

Twilight was nothing but confident that Fluttershy would rise to the occasion when she had to, but this situation wasn’t ideal. They couldn’t just leave this burning, could they? If this dragon was a jerk, he could carelessly let this inferno rage on and scramble the scenery of this whole region. Or he could decide that that was too boring and let out the acidic dark dragonfire that was actually meant to burn.

On the other hoof, who knew what was happening to Equestria right now while Twilight was sitting here thinking about dragons? Or, no, what if this was some part of Equestria?

Twilight wanted to throw a pillow over her head and scream.

But she couldn’t. With a breath, Twilight turned once again and looked at her friends. While Pinkie Pie continued to pet Fluttershy, the others seemed just as lost in desperate thought as she was. They were invaluable, a steady rock in the chaos that had been the last day, but they weren’t the ones who Celestia had called on. They weren’t the ones with…

Twilight rolled the unfamiliar muscles lodged unnaturally in her back, felt magic bubble both in her horn and her feathertips.

Twilight didn’t realize her breath had gone raspy until Rarity gave her a nuzzle. “Twilight, darling, are you quite alright?”

She swallowed and nodded sharply in response. “Of course! Everything is fine. Everything will be fine. We can figure this out.”

Rarity opened her mouth to say more, but Twilight spun away from her before she could speak. She stared out at the flames, crackling and popping with the displacement of trees and fauna, and weighed her options.

Well, Twilight supposed, before she came to a decision it would be best to at least try the Failsafe spell.

The Failsafe spell, one of the spells she had learned during her studies in Ponyville, was one that worked best when the mage casting it was calm and steady. Twilight fell to the lull of meditation, of the matrices she’d need to recreate dancing in her mind, and breathed harsh through the nose. The faint burn of ash coated her nostrils and throat, and she could smell singed pony hair wafting around her, but she cast that aside with a twitch of her ears. She envisioned the way the spell was crafted, how she had performed it multiple times before, and prepped her horn.

Then the noise around her stopped. All at once. Twilight hadn’t even cast the spell yet.

With a panicked breath, Twilight’s eyes snapped open, her wings flared. Her head darted around with a flick of her burned mane and-- yes, there were her friends. There but silent and-- staring? Pinkie Pie was cocking her head against Fluttershy’s neck, her mouth a confused little “O”. What was it? The dragon?

Twilight’s vision swivelled violently to the direction her friends were staring.

The fire had gone out. Silently, without pomp or circumstance, the flames died into a quiet nothing. The forest, once filled with movement, jumping randomly with the visages of moving plants, went cold still as the flames waned and died down to sizzling gray embers. Besides the singe marks marring the bark, the thin coat of ash clinging to the soil, the cloying after-scent of smoke, it was almost normal. Peaceful. Then:

“Twilight?!”

Spike, with two leathery little dragon wings fumbling around on his back, came crashing through the underbrush.

For a few beautiful moments, Twilight was the calmest she had ever felt in her entire life. Her chest surged with gentle warmth, her hooves felt light as air, her eyes pricked with happy tears, because-- Spike. Oh, Spike!

At the back of her mind, where she had shoved back the afterimage of Celestia’s choking spasms, Twilight had constantly been thinking of everypony else, of all her friends and family in Equestria being filled up with dark magic and screeching in pain while their veins pooled with black ichor. The idea that Spike, her Spike, could be in so much agony, an agony that had brought even Celestia to tears, it… Twilight just couldn’t take it, it was too awful…

But Spike was here. He was here, and alive, and babbling something into her ear as she crushed him into a hug. The others crowded around as well, with Rarity giving one of his little ear spines a nuzzle. Fluttershy dipped forward with a soft coo, and held out her hoof to nudge at his… new wings...

Wait.

Are you kidding me?!

“What,” she squeaked, “in the hoof is happening?!”

And then Twilight was snorting and flicking her tail, and maybe even sort of thrashing Spike around like a ragdoll, because none of this made any sense. Now Spike was here, which wasn’t supposed to happen because the spell Celestia cast was only supposed to send the element bearers, so who in Equestria knew what else was screwed up, and apparently he even had wings now? And she didn’t even get to see him go through the molting process?! She had been looking forward to that, darnit!

“I-I-I-I don’t kno-o-o-ow?!” Spike groaned as his head bobbed back and forth. Twilight shook him by the tiny shoulders, silently begging him and the entire universe which was currently laughing at her to give her the answers she needed, any answer, anything-- but then that was only causing his new wings, around the size of her own, to flop limply around and slap gently against his sides, thus calling attention to the fact that they were, indeed, very real and still there, and that just made it all worse and--

“Now,” Rarity tutted softly to Twilight’s side. Immediately, a gentle blue aura grabbed her shaking hooves to a stop, enveloped Spike, and lifted him out of Twilight’s grasp and to the ground below. He staggered a bit, his eyes swirling, but after a moment Rarity managed to balance him with another flick of her horn. “Honestly, Twilight, I know we’re all quite stressed, but there’s no need to shake poor Spikey-Wikey. At least let him explain his side of the story, hmm?”

With a rush, Twilight deflated. The sharp pinch that had been building in her chest, churning in her gut, faded and just left her feeling hot with embarrassment. And looking at Spike, still recovering and a little singed, she couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty too. Who knew what Spike had gone through, and then she couldn’t hold herself together long enough to even comfort him.

Still, before she could wallow or go down a spiral, Fluttershy gently patted her withers, and Spike shook off his dizziness enough to shrug.

“Eh,” he muttered, “honestly, you get kind of used to her doing that sort of thing after a while. Anyway, that’s not important. I mean…”

Spike turned and rubbed a claw at his new wings. “I nearly burned you guys. I didn’t even know I could do that.”

Before Spike could even think about blaming himself, Twilight had scooped him up into a hug. Gentler this time. Her friends joined her without her saying a word.

“Don’t worry Spike, Twilight told us that nopony or anyone or any of the critters got hurt,” Fluttershy said.

Rarity nuzzled up to him, her eyes clenched tight. “Oh, and don’t you dare feel bad about my mane, Spikey. Why, if anything I’m just overjoyed to see my favorite little dragon safe!”

While Spike blushed up to his ear-spines, Rainbow Dash swooped down and patted him on the back. “Yeah, are you kidding? Sure we may have got kinda singed, but that’s just what happens sometimes when you’re testing out an awesome new trick, right? I just can’t believe you had it in you.”

“Well I for one,” Applejack snorted, “am just wonderin’ what got you to go breathin’ fire in the first place. ‘Course I know you wouldn’t do such a thing in the forest without good reason, or if you could help it.”

Spike’s eyes snapped open wide. Immediately he bounced up in place and smacked his claws to his head. Twilight hadn’t seen him so worked up since he tried to tell them all that Rarity had been abducted by Diamond Dogs.

“Ah! That’s right!I did have a reason! I mean, first I ended up here all on my own after the Elements started glowing, and then there was this--”

A screeching yell ripped through the forest. Something squeaky, but deadly sharp. Twilight’s coat stood on end, and her tiny wings sprung open with a yelp. Beside her, Fluttershy collapsed into a shivering ball.

“Um, that” Spike coughed through chattering teeth. “There’s some huge monster in here with us!”

Of course there was. Twilight would have laughed if she wasn’t busy grinding her teeth.

And then they all heard the screams.

Before even taking a breath, Twilight drew magic from her core and flared it outwards into a shield. Another flick of her horn and built up that magic into another layer - an adjustment to the matrices of her shield spell and that outer layer hardened , thickened into a sparkling purple carapace.

“Woah, Twilight! What are you doing?” Rainbow Dash squeaked.

Twilight stopped. Blinked. Rainbow was a few hoof-falls away, tapping at the inside of her bubble. And Twilight herself, she…

She couldn’t breathe. She gasped hard, her chest hot.

“I-I’m sorry for not warning before casting, girls, it’s just… I…”

She hadn’t been able to control herself. She hadn’t even thought before putting up that shield. It was just…

Celestia. Canterlot. The vision of that galloping poisonous darkness, swallowing ponies whole as they begged for help. Celestia, flailing in agony at that magic’s caustic touch– Twilight had thought for sure that this was it. Those screams– it was all over. She could picture that smoke barreling over the hills, tearing through her friends and rotting them apart into the blackness while all she could do was sit and watch. Because she’d messed up. Because she’d already somehow failed. Ponies somewhere were screaming and soon she and her friends were going to die and Equestria was going to fall because she couldn’t finish this one task and–

But still nothing happened. More yells echoed through the tree branches, but now that she focused on them, it didn’t sound a thing like Canterlot. Not even close. And when she turned to the source of that noise, there was nothing. No cloud of magic coming to tear them apart. Just smoke.

Just… she tried to breathe. It was just smoke.

Her friends were staring at her like she’d finally lost it.

Nearby, Pinkie Pie bounced over and tapped at the shield, the vibration of it rattling up Twilight’s horn.

“Come on, Twilight,” she chirped with a shimmy of her tail. “Sounds like somepony’s calling for a rescue party. Which isn’t as fun as a party-party, but maybe we can throw them one of those too. You know, once we’re done saving them and all.”

“No, of course, you’re right,” Twilight muttered. “Let me just…”

Twilight brought her hoof to her chest, the way Cadance would want her to. She ignored the way Fluttershy was staring at her. She dropped her shield like a calm, rational, totally-not-freaking-out-pony. She could do this.

“Come on girls. We should figure out what those ponies are yelling about before something else gets way out of control.”

Then, with a flick of her tail, she followed Pinkie Pie towards the screams.

Twilight galloped hard to keep up with Pinkie as she bounced through the forest. Thankfully it seemed that the noise of the commotion was taking them away from the remnants of Spike’s dragonfire, and quickly the shifting gray ash underhoof was replaced with a spongy, pleasantly cool carpet of peat. The foliage grew denser, the smell of smoke lifted, and eventually Pinkie Pie disappeared into a thick wall of ivy and moss ahead. Twilight, panting (it had been a while since the Running of the Leaves, and she was out of practice when it came to running), barrelled after her, and nearly tripped over herself as her horseshoes clacked against something hard. With a snort, she looked down.

It was… a road? A path, well-worn with the indents of hoofsteps, made up of evenly spaced bricks of some sort pressed into the earth. She tapped at one of the bricks with the tip of a hoof and the material, newly wet from the rainfall still dripping from the canopy above, depressed oh-so slightly at the touch. Next to the indention she left were older ones, faded over time. They were thinner and smaller than hers, and lacked shoes.

Around her, her friends didn’t pay much mind to the development. Fluttershy and Spike gave her a gentle nudge as they came up from the back, and Twilight shook her head to focus. She looked forward, where Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Applejack just began to reach the apex of a small hill marked with two huge stones at either side. When they just crested the hill– they stopped. Hard. Applejack’s hat nearly flew off her head.

With a harsh whinny, Twilight scooped Spike up onto her back, took one second to make sure that Rarity made it through the wall of ivy, then charged up the hill to meet them. As she reached the top aside Applejack, her forelegs screaming from the effort, she heard that screech again. A horrible, tinny noise that tore down her spine and made some instinctual part of her deep down want to rear up and turn tail. Next came a few more screams and grunts which seemed like ponies, but… no, there was a bit of a deeper snort at the back of some of the vocalizations, and the more she focused the more it seemed like some of the equine-folk were barking out foreign words. None she fully recognized from her studies, but it did sound familiar. Almost like…

Twilight’s eyes just crested the hill, and she gazed down into a dense valley through the gaps in the tree branches. Below…

Deerfolk! She knew it!

A crowd of deer stood in a thick crowd, standing tall with their tails flicking wildly. The bucks roared, drew their heads down and rattled at their antlers as they barked out threats in a language Twilight could barely grasp. Behind them were a few interspersed earth ponies. They yelled too, and in their hooves and clenched in their teeth they grasped what looked like some sort of farming tools. As the bucks charged forward with an intimidating shake of their giant antlers, the ponies followed suit. One mare spat from behind her weapon, then threw a heavy hoof as if swinging at something. At first it wasn’t clear what they were attacking, a dark layer of shrubbery and leaves muddying an already-dark battlefield. But something shot through the branches and–

Eyes! Giant eyes ripped through a tree trunk. Something caught hard at the bark, and with a horrible groaning that shook the ground, the wood splintered and ripped out of place. It flew into the air, whizzed past so fast the air rippled and whistled in its wake. Wood shrapnel dusted the entire clearing, then as it settled to the floor the creature’s head was fully revealed.

Except it wasn’t as large of a head as Twilight expected, and those things she’d seen weren’t eyes.

A bat– a huge bat with rows of hotly-glowing razors for teeth, shrieked. It’s wings were larger than the trees themselves, cramped into the space. One of the claws of those spindly fingers was snared up with the remnants of the tree it had just chucked through the woods, bark and vines choking the limb. A pattern ran down the leathery wings and the creature's chest; just like the bat’s teeth, which glittered like diamonds in the dusk, two eye-like streaks shone bright at the deer below. The bat squealed as it tugged harshly at its wing. There was a creak, an awful crunch, and as blood splattered out from its crooked thumb joint its pattern burned ever brighter, dazzling so bright everypony squealed. In a flash, a sharp white light pierced Twilight’s retinas, the pain lancing all around her head and into her horn.

Twilight threw herself to the ground, pressed her hooves desperately to her stinging eyes as spots danced behind her eyelids. She felt Spike shift wildly on her back, and heard him thump to the bricks beside her. Instantly she opened her eyes, searching for him– but still all she could see was that glaring wall of light.

“Girls! Are you okay?!” she barked, desperately scrabbling her hooves. One of them bumped at Spike’s scales, and she scooped him up to curl him up against her ribcage. She could tell by his groaning and the rhythmic shaking of his body that he was still rubbing his eyes with furiosity.

“What in tarnation was that?!” Applejack whinnied. “Can’t see my hoof in front of my face!”

“It’s some sort of bat, I believe. But don’t worry; it’s still a ways away, and it didn’t look like it was coming in our direction. Just don’t look directly at it!”

As Twilight squinted, the world slowly started coming into view again. The dancing spots died and ebbed, but it was slow-going. From behind a shielding hoof she tried her best to glance past the grubby splotches and find out what was happening. Groaning sounded out below from the deerfolk and earth ponies, but still they roared and bleated at the bat in defiance.

“Ouuugh, jeez, I know a disco-ball-spotlight-combo is a must-have for any good party, but this is just a little too much,” Pinkie whimpered. “How are we going to throw our rescue party when we can’t see anything?”

Twilight strangled down a shout of frustration. “I don’t know! For now just stick close together and wait for your vision to clear. Then maybe we can–”

“Excuse me, Mr. Bat, but, um, that light is kind of hurting my eyes. Do you think that maybe you could turn it down just a tiny bit, and then when I can see again maybe we can all work together to get your poor little wing out of that nasty bind you’ve got it in.”

Oh, thank the Stars Above that Fluttershy was here. She might not be able to use her Stare reliably right now, but from the sounds of it, and from what little Twilight could begin to see as her eyes readjusted, she had already started to handle the situation. Even the deer and earth ponies had calmed, no longer barking out threats and instead mumbling quietly to themselves as the trees and shrubbery noisily shuffled nearby.

Eventually Twilight’s eyes cleared, and she blinked around at the scene below. Fluttershy flew up close to the bat, so tiny next to it, and rubbed a gentle hoof to its injured wing while she cooed. The monster practically melted in her hooves. It’s tiny eyes were glittering, while the shining of it’s markings had dulled to a pretty glow. The deer and earth ponies all muttered to themselves, and at some point they’d gathered together in a tight clump of bodies. Twilight noticed that their behavior had completely changed, and not in a way she expected; while they had all raved and fought against that giant bat creature, now that they saw her timid little pegasus friend they were down-right cowering. A fawn in the back had gone still and unblinking, barely breathing, his forelegs rattling in place.

Well. Out of all the things she’d faced today, Twilight reasoned that a little shyness and unfriendliness was the easiest problem to solve. With a sigh, Twilight strotted down the hill.

As she, Spike, and the others got closer, the deer’s fidgeting increased. They bleated faster amongst themselves, and their eyes grew wider. Twilight watched every movement, and noticed that out of all of them, the deer’s eyes seemed to focus mostly on Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and her. An earth pony mare, the one who’d swiped her tool at the bat, had dropped her trowel to the dirt and was staring so, so intently at Twilight’s little wings.

Twilight felt a chill run down to the dock of her tail. She couldn’t help but flex her wings again, feel the feathers brush her side. Even after flying, she’d already almost forgotten they were there.
As she twitched her primary feathers, the mare’s eyes only widened further. Twilight guessed that perhaps the deer tribe possibly hadn’t ever seen a pegasus around their forest, as any that could have flown through in the past would have been shrouded by the thick overhead canopy. If these earth ponies were born in the area and were disconnected from their pony roots, that could also explain their reaction. But… no. That just didn’t seem correct. That mare’s stare, the stares of the creatures around her… they were remembering. Something bad.

Twilight sighed, but then put on her friendliest smile. She’d just need to show them that she and her friends weren’t a threat to them.

Nearby, Fluttershy cooed one last time at the bat, and with giant flaps of its wings which swirled the leaves around them in a hurricane of displaced air, it took off. The deer took a second to watch it go, then snapped back to the group of ponies and a dragon approaching them. Twilight looked around at the girls and Spike, and then stepped forward with a small clearing of her throat. The deer and ponies glanced between one another. After a few bleats shared amongst them, there was some shuffling, and one deer, a large, muscled buck, stepped forward to greet her. Despite the distance of a few hoof-falls between them, when he politely nodded his head to Twilight, the gnarled antlers nearly scraped her snout.

He grunted some sort of greeting to her.

Twilight racked her brain, thinking through every scrap of information she’d read on the deerfolk and their multiple languages, but this didn’t seem like any she’d heard of before. Even when the buck tried to bleat a few more words her way, it just didn’t ring any bells.

“Oh, um, hello!” she tried. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Would anycreature here happen to now Equuish?”

The buck just stared blankly back at her.

“Uh,” Rainbow Dash started. She seemed to have noticed the crowd staring at her like she was going to eat their brains, and was crossing her hooves protectively across herself. “That seems like a ‘no’. Anypony else know what they’re saying?”

Twilight turned to her friends. She scoured over their faces for any answers, especially Rarity and Fluttershy. Rarity was a socialite and had met all kinds of creatures during her fashion studies, and Fluttershy just seemed like the kind of pony to pull some sort of freaky knowledge out of nowhere. It’s been the case with sewing, at least. But the two of them just shrugged helplessly at her.

“Oooh, I could try some charades! I’m great at charades,” Pinkie said.

Twilight shook her head. “No thank you, Pinkie. I think I know a translation spell that should work. Well, at least in theory. It’s been a while since I’ve used it, and usually I used it on books instead of the spoken word anyway, so I’ll have to modify it a bit. Still, I suppose it’s worth a shot.”

Applejack flicked her lightly with her tail, and tipped her hat, “Hay, we know you got this, Twi. It’ll be easier than apple pie.”

Twilight smiled back at her, then faced the buck before her. He hadn’t moved, still towering tall above her. The muscles of his legs, though, were stiff and taught, and his tiny tail flicked, and Twilight realized that he might only be standing there because he believed he needed to protect his herd from her. If they wanted to part on peaceful terms, or maybe even get some information about where they were, she needed to get this spell right.

Twilight closed her eyes, and envisioned the original version of the spell she planned to use. The shapes and matrices came to her after a bit of internal cataloging, and then it was just a case of modifying it. Granted, that was always easier said than done– spell modification always went more smoothly when one had time to adequately break down the real roots of the original, or at least if they had access to quill and paper or… anything, really. Still, she had used this text translation spell to help her studies many times in the past, and she was fairly confident she understood its structure fairly well. In order to change its foundation to work on the spoken word instead, she’d have to adjust this matrix just so, and add a small dash of another spell on top of it… She lit her horn to prep the spell–

Spike’s claws dug into her back as he threw himself onto her shoulder, at the same time Rainbow Dash’s wing smacked hard into her chest. Twilight flung her eyes open. Spike was shivering atop her, perched on her with his other claws flashing in front of him. Rainbow Dash snorted in her ear. She was in front of her now, and her wings were shielding Twilight from the deer. When Twilight started the spell, the deer had panicked. The entitle crowd had froze still as stone, their huge eyes blank, and the buck–

His antlers were at her throat.

Twilight whinnied. Without thinking she stumbled back on shaky hooves, throwing up a hoof that she hoped would be seen as a placating gesture. The buck allowed her to move without following with his antlers, and when she’d backed up a ways he pulled his huge neck back with a snort. His eyes glinted down at her and her friends, hardened and cold and full of promise.

“Wait, everypony. Er- everycreature,” she stuttered. As slowly and gently as she could, she pulled Rainbow Dash and Spike back to her sides. When her tail flicked she felt it slap against Applejack’s broad chest, so she also waved a hoof behind her. “It’s alright, girls.”

Well, that went worse than she expected. She knew that these deerfolk didn’t trust them much but– she gulped dryly past the lump in her throat, and brought a shivering hoof to her neck. Deer magic from a buck this huge could paralyze her for life with a point-blank shot. And ignoring that, if his antlers were sharp enough…

She sucked in a deep breath. This was fine. She just had to find a way to explain what she was doing without being able to speak. That shouldn’t be too hard.

Once she could no longer hear Applejack whispering curses at her haunches, she stepped forward to try again. If she couldn’t verbally speak, she’d just have to try something visible instead. So she balanced on her back hooves and brought her forelegs up before the buck before her. Using her hooves to mime motions between her mouth, ears, horn, and the crowd of deer and ponies before her, she tried,

“I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. This is a translation spell. It will help me understand you.”

For a second afterwards, she had to awkwardly balance on her right hind hoof, with the other front ones continuously swirling between her horn and the deer, while she waited for any sign they understood.

“Aww, I thought you said we weren’t doing any charades, Twilight. I could have helped,” Pinkie Pie whispered behind her. Rarity shushed her.

There was silence. The giant buck anchored there, his gaze never leaving her. A few times his ears flicked. Twilight was just about to get back down and try to think of something else when he finally nodded. Once, a slow, strong nod, followed by him pointing a hoof to himself.

Twilight believed she understood. She nodded in return to him, waved her hoof between her horn and the buck one last time just in case, then settled back down to prepare.

She completed the spell as quickly as she could manage- which, with her new mana reserves, was actually a breeze. Afterwards she took a step back and tried another shaky smile towards him.

“Hello? Can you understand me now?”

The buck cleared his throat, “Yes. I can. What is your purpose here? I suppose you’re on a ‘mission’?”

He spat the last word with so much venom that Twilight couldn’t help but flinch. Then she tilted her head, and even tried glancing back at her friends to see if they looked any less confused than she did. What the hay was that supposed to mean? Did he know something about why Celestia sent them here? If so, then why would he seem so angry about them trying to seal the dark magic? And if he didn’t know anything about the Seal… honestly that made less sense.
“I mean…” Twilight started “I suppose you could say that. Honestly though, right now we’re just wondering where we are.”

Rarity stepped up with a clearing of her throat, and Twilight let her pass with a sigh of relief. She always was much better at these sorts of things than she was.

“Ah, yes, my dear gentlesta–creature,” she coughed, “You see, my friends and I had quite the incident with a teleportation spell, and now we’re a bit turned around. We were attempting to gather our bearings when we heard some screaming this way.”

The buck snorted. He tossed his head towards a gap in the foliage where, through the dim light of sunset, you could still see the giant bat Fluttershy had tended to bobbing darkly through the clouds.

“Yes. And you happened to miraculously appear just in time to tame that beast,” he grunted. “Coming from the direction of what appears to be a fire within our forest, a fire-breather seated upon your back.”

Spike shriveled back, wringing his claws together. Twilight’s heart panged for him; she hadn’t seen him look so awfully guilty since his greed had transformed him into a giant monster. She opened her mouth, ready to defend him, but before she could there was a hot snort in her ear. With a growl, Rainbow Dash snapped her wings open.

“Hey, wait a second,” she snapped, her voice raspy, “Did you just accuse Fluttershy of bringing that freaky bat-thing here on purpose? She just saved you from that thing!”

The huge buck shook. A low rumbling, like the roar of a distant monster, rattled his chest. After a few seconds, Twilight realized that he was laughing at them.

“Ah, indeed. I don’t deny that. I just find the timing… convenient.”

The fur on Rainbow Dash’s chest bristled as she grunted harsh through her teeth. She raised her wings, and before anypony could say anything she snapped them down to zoom forward, right in the buck’s face.

Agh, no, Rainbow!

With a squeak, Twilight desperately flung out a stream of telekinesis; at the same time Applejack shot forward. She snatched Rainbow’s tail in her teeth then yanked her back with a jerk of her neck, as if she were wrangling an angry bull. Still, the buck apparently didn’t take kindly to her attitude. As Rainbow Dash was ripped back and thumped hard to the dusty ground, the buck crouched low, his antlers shimmering, his muscles rippling. Instantly the crowd behind him caught on to the tension, and where before they stood paralyzed, now they shifted back into battle formation.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight and Applejack hissed at the same time.

Rainbow Dash only hissed back, “He was accusing Fluttershy.”

Twilight instantly put her mind to damage-control. What in Equestria were they going to do now?! They couldn’t fight off a whole army of deer and ponies!

But with a tut, Rarity brushed past Twilight. She took a few full paces toward the mob without the blink of an eye.

“Come now, everycreature,” she chided, her voice high and breathy as if she were talking to a classroom of foals as opposed to a creature twice her size with razors on his head. “Surely we’re all civilized enough to realize that squabbling would be detrimental to all of us? I promise you, sir, we mean you no harm. Our Spikey is no threat, and the fire was a simple accident that’s been resolved. And why in Equestria would we ever think of bringing a monster just to rescue you from it?”

“Oh, don’t mind Gladdy. He’s like this with everybody.”

Twilight’s ears flicked at the new feminine voice. Thankfully, the crowd of deer and earth ponies deflated at the sound of it. They all turned away from Twilight and her friends, then parted so that a small shape could shimmy her way to the front. As it walked through all of them bowed, touched their muzzles down to the dirt and pressed their hooves tightly to their chests with breathy whispers of honorifics. They took a wide berth, parting as if a sea to form neat lines on each side of the doe, splaying out their antlers and hooves to form what was essentially a red carpet for what Twilight automatically assumed was some sort of royal. And as she got close enough to see clearly–

Honestly, Twilight wasn’t sure what she expected. The only time she’d seen anycreature show such respect to another creature was with Princess Celestia; she was a mighty, large, clearly powerful alicorn who raised the sun, and so Twilight’s first instinct was that this doe would look something similar. Surely a towering, gorgeous deer, dripping with ivy and forest magic would walk through. The thought was intimidating, and so Twilight fell to a quick curtsy before even fully processing what she was seeing.

But this doe, when she stepped up next to that buck – Gladdy? Well, next to him she looked positively tiny. Miniscule, even! Where he was a giant dark brown wall of muscle, this doe was petite and thin, smaller than even the fawn Twilight had seen shivering earlier. A few spots even still shone bright against her sandy coat, having not yet faded from her fawnhood. She was a child!

Even still, Gladdy yielded to her. He bowed deep and heavy at her arrival, and with a low grumble allowed her to push forward.

The doe took a dainty step forward and greeted Rarity with a gentle dip of her head. Unlike the cold, hard stare of the buck behind her, the doe’s almond eyes were clear with calm, and her stature held an aura of serenity which was only enhanced by the crown woven over her huge ears. She smiled softly to Rarity, and the multicolored flower threaded into the center of her tiara glimmered in the wan light. She was clearly a royal in this sense, at least, and Twilight cleared her throat and searched her memories for the proper etiquette she should take.

“Hello there,” the little deer greeted. “I’m Princess Hazel. And I take it that you’re the ponies who chased the bat away?”

But before Rarity or Twilight could say anything, Hazel’s expression shifted. One moment she was the picture of beauty and grace, the fawn-queen of an unknown deer kingdom, but then – she snorted. Then giggled. Then started hopping in place. Pinkie Pie started bouncing with her.

“Aaand,” she squeaked, waggling her eyebrows up and down towards Fluttershy (Fluttershy made a sort of peeping noise and ducked behind her mane), “you have magic?! Gladiolus!”

She snapped around so quickly her tiara whipped off her head, hooking onto her right ear for dear life. She zoomed up to the buck, Gladiolus, in a flash, practically throwing herself on top of him; he just leveled his icy stare at her with a low, rumbling grunt.

“What were you thinking?” she snapped. “You know they couldn’t have brought that bat here. It’s been causing us trouble for days, and these lovely ponies have been kind enough to use their gifts to rid us of it.”

Gladiolus didn’t attempt to answer her. Which was just as well, because in a blink she was shimmying in place before Rarity again. Fanning herself with a hoof, she squealed,

“Oh gosh, it has been such a long time since the village has seen any magic-users. Oh, and I’ve got to thank you properly for saving our herd, of course. Please, please let us thank you properly.”

Rarity giggled, in that breathy way she did whenever a stallion came on just a little too strong. “Well, dear, we do appreciate the generous offer of course, but, hm…” she started, and then threw a frantic glance to Twilight.

And, well. That certainly wasn’t what Twilight was expecting. Any of it, at all. Frantically, she started to sort through their current situation in her head once again. It was true that their last shelter had burnt to ashes, and they still weren’t clear on what exactly they were doing– but maybe some of the deerfolk possibly knew about the Seal?

“A-Actually,” Twilight stammered. “Like my friend Rarity said, we do appreciate the offer, but we’re actually trying to find our way to something important at the moment. You wouldn’t happen to know about some sort of Seal, would you? Or maybe some kind of strange , o-or mystical place in the forest?”

Hazel, for her part, did calm down at that. She leaned back from Rarity, a hoof to her chin, and that regal air emanated her once again as she stared off at some distant point and seemed to wrack her brain. When she turned back to Twilight, her ears twitching, her smile was polite – too polite, and a bit confused. Twilight braced herself for the disappointment.

“Sorry, but my herd hasn’t reported about anything magical in these woods for years, and even when things were popping up, I’m afraid it was nothing more than a few enchanted mushrooms or crystals. Still, you’re free to ask any elders if they know of such a place.”

Twilight sighed. Applejack stepped up from behind her and placed a warm hoof to her side.

“Well, that’s a start, at least. And our last attempt at shelter didn’t exactly go too well. Y’all think we should go?”

Twilight smiled at her, then glanced around at her circle of friends. Part of her worried that the elder deer probably wouldn’t know anything, and this detour would cost them precious time. Still, she did need more time and relative safety in order to study the Cosmic Library a bit more. Not to mention… Twilight brought her focus to Rarity and Fluttershy. Rarity was doing well to act poised and proper in front of royalty, and she’d done well so far, but she was covered in ash and filth, and from here Twilight could see her forehooves shaking a bit from exertion. Fluttershy, on the other hoof, would normally have more stamina, but with the stress of the fire and the possibility of a dragon attack, and then everything with the giant bat… Also, now that she thought of it, Spike was only a baby, and had used up a lot of magic. They could all probably use the rest, if nothing else.

Rarity, who had been watching her, seemed to see the decision unfolding on her face. With a prim smile, she turned to Hazel.

“Ah, well we would surely appreciate a bit of food and rest. You’re positive we wouldn’t be an imposition?”

Hazel started bouncing again. “Oh, of course not! You just saved us hours of work chasing that beast off; we have to return the favor.”

Then she cleared her throat. She jutted out her chest, and turned to Gladiolus.

“If you’ll just follow us, our village is just this way. We can see to getting you overnight housing and some traveling provisions.”

Twilight sighed… but had to smile as Pinkie Pie bounced by giggling without another word.

It was just a small detour, and they’d get to the Seal in no time, she told herself.

Chapter Four: Smoldering Questions

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Rarity took a deep breath, and steeled her to the inevitable onslaught to come. For Twilight’s sake.

This deer Princess – Hazel, was it? – while being a royal, didn’t seem to often carry herself with the decorum befitting her title, or at the very least had rarely done so in Rarity’s presence so far. And seeing as poor Twilight was so frazzled with everything going on, leaving Rarity to be the unicorn in Hazel’s focus, she would have to deal with the young monarch's questions and concerns.

Or, at least, that’s what Rarity had expected. So far the group - Rarity and her friends, surrounded by a group of huge-antlered deer guards - had done nothing but walk down the forest path in a stony silence. Twilight would hum to herself every once and a while, staring off into the distance as if lost in deep thought; Pinkie Pie bounced about the crowd and chirped at different deer or earth ponies, most of whom just shrank back from her with a glare, or perhaps a mumble of a response in return; other than that, only faint cricket-song or the croak of a toad interrupted the steady thud of hooves to packed dirt. Hazel hadn’t even looked Rarity’s way again, despite having been absolutely enamored with her unicorn horn a moment ago. She and the huge buck, Gladiolus, simply glanced back and forth between each other, flicked their ears and stubby tails.

To be honest, it was all starting to feel a bit uncomfortable, and Rarity’s hooves were pinching from walking so much farther than she was used to. She was about to break the silence to ask how far this deer camp was, when finally:

“So, Miss…” Hazel started with a tiny cough. She still wouldn’t look her in the eyes when speaking, but Rarity didn’t dare take offense to it; perhaps customs were different in their culture.

She coughed again, and Rarity realized what she was being asked.

“Oh,” she tittered, “It was Rarity, Princess.”

“Well, Miss Rarity, you said before that you had an accident with a teleportation spell? Would you mind elaborating, please?”

Ah. Well. Rarity stumbled a bit. That was a bucket of worms, now wasn’t it? Rarity herself barely understood what exactly had happened hours ago, and before that her memory of events was a muddy blur of rain and patterned skies. Just moments ago Rarity had been ready to answer whatever questions she was able, but for this it would really be best for Twilight to explain. She looked over to call her friend's attention, but–

Oh dear. She hadn't seen Twilight’s eye twitch like that in ages. Never mind that, then.

Hazel had finally turned her head to glance in Rarity’s direction. She hummed, and with a flick of her magic adjusted her frizzed, burnt mane.

“Yes, well, I’m afraid it’s quite a long story, your highness, and I wasn’t the caster of the spell in the first place.”

Hazel flicked her large ears, which sent her tiara stumbling about on her head. She shared another twitchy glance with Gladiolus then, as if sensing Rarity could sense her discomfort, she relaxed her muscles and dropped her stiff posture. She shrugged nonchalantly and stared ahead once more.

“Still. I think it would benefit both of our parties if I was given a bit more information and, no offense meant to our saviors of course, but your… ah, leader? She seems exhausted. Could you or somecreature else tell me a bit more about your journey?”

And there was the dignified manner Rarity had been missing before. Strange. Still, Rarity couldn’t fault her for asking. What little of the story Hazel heard already must have sounded disjointed and confusing at best. Not to mention they probably had quite a bit further to walk; no matter how far they trotted down this road, the forest, deep in twilight, offered no signs of real change.

“Of course, Princess, though you’ll have to excuse the gaps in my knowledge,” she said.

Hazel and Gladiolus both nodded their consent, and Rarity, with only a momentary stumble to try to gather her scattered thoughts, started her account of the day's events. She mostly left out what she remembered of Twilight’s botched spell, considering how little of the tale was comprehensible. Besides, she doubted the deer and earth folk would understand it much better than she did, and… and, well…

Rarity scratched at her coat as if she had a sunburn, or was swiping away rainwater. Her flank tingled and panged.

She cleared her throat and moved on. Thankfully, once she moved on to the explosion of light that had sent them all here, and their trek into the woods and the fire thereafter, her anxiety eased and she managed to finish telling the tale well enough.

“I understand some of it might seem a bit far-fetched,” Rarity laughed. “I’m afraid there are many details even we don’t understand yet.”

Gladiolus only snorted at that, something deep and rumbling. Given the way his antlers were rattling, Rarity’s retelling had even somehow made him angry – though ‘angry’ seemed to be his default state, to tell the truth. And when Rarity turned to Hazel–

Her glittering eyes were the size of fishbowls. Her jaw dropped all the way to her chest. Her petite hooves kept tripping up on the path as she blinked like mad. She rather seemed like a foal on Hearth’s Warming, enraptured in the wonder of the Fire of Friendship. She would have been bouncing up and down again, no doubt, if she didn’t have to lead the herd forward.

Then, with a hum and a clearing of her throat, it was gone. She turned away from Rarity and stared resolutely at the forest ahead.

“I see,” she said, cheerful but politely detached, “My, that must have been quite a shock to all of you, and yet you felt the need to stop and help our humble herd anyway.”

Hazel’s pelt twitched at that, and she swallowed hard. Rarity noticed Gladiolus glare at her for a moment, then he jerked away. Hazel continued:

“Surely you’ll all want to rest. Which is great, because here we are!”

Rarity’s heart leapt into her throat. It took all of her willpower to continue to walk at an expected pace and not start prancing like Pinkie Pie doing the polka because - goodness gracious, they were finally here! At a town! Which just might give her access to a shower! Celestia knew her mane was absolutely wretched and filled with ash, as were her tail and fetlocks, so she could only imagine the wreck that was her made-up face. Oh, and what of her lashes and brows? Were they sizzled right off?! Oh, she needed a mirror, stat! Would these deerfolk maybe even have a spa? They were the heroes of the day, after all, and surely a brave heroine such as herself deserved such treatment.

Or – she scoffed – she would even take a relatively clean puddle right now. What really mattered was that she could finally rest her agonized hooves. She put a little pep into her step as they neared the top of a gentle hill, as did the rest of her friends. Out of the corner of her eye, Rarity saw that even poor Twilight had gained a bit of energy and a tiny smile.

The path underhoof softened further as they climbed, worn down by generations of hooves. At the top of the hill, cutting through the murky shade of the forest, was a squat stone arch decorated with lights made of fireflies of different colors trapped in jars. It made the entrance look quite festive. As they neared the arch, its wan flickering lights, like those of a Hearth’s Warming tree, melted together with the pale blue glow of mushrooms gathering at the path’s edge, washing everything into the color of the ocean at dawn. Bleats of language too far away for Twilight’s spell to work on yet drifted on a chilly breeze, and the smell of cooking mushrooms and baked breads mixed with the stench of ash clinging to Rarity’s coat.

The herd reached the apex of the hill, directly under the curve of that arch, and the deer village unfolded before them. Darling little huts and square cabins sat in tight clusters, decorated with the same buglights and a few gems for accent near the holes cut in their surfaces used as windows. They appeared to be made of the same brick squishing lightly underhoof, with thick ferns and pine needle canopies stung up above the roofs to protect from rain and maintain structural integrity. Around them were dark wooden fences, holing in cute little gardens stuffed to each corner with berry plants, and some other shriveled plants that Rarity couldn’t name. It was all quite quaint and homey, something you’d see in one of Sweetie Belle’s old fairytale storybooks, and Rarity couldn’t help but be charmed. Especially when she saw the statues; towering above the homes were giant statues, cut from mixed media of brick, stone and wood, all depicting different deer with their regal antlers shimmering in the twinkling twilight. When she looked harder, Rarity also noticed some smaller statues of earth ponies mixed in as well, their surfaces not as dulled by time and wind.

“Why, Princess Hazel, it’s absolutely lovely!”

“Yes, Princess,” Twilight said, some of the first words she’d uttered in hours. She stepped up to the monarch and her guard with a polite curtsy. “Thank you for inviting us to your wonderful home.”

Hazel giggled into one of her hooves – then winced at the shriveling glare Gladiolus threw towards her. She gave a cough, then bowed in return.

“Of course. It’s the least we could do since you helped us! Now please, we shouldn’t stand out here all day. I’ll get you to a resthouse for the night, and then I can see about getting your friend a seat with the elders.”

“We’re mighty grateful to you, Miss Hazel,” Applejack said with a tip of her hat, before following along. “And you and the rest of your herd, Mister… er, Gladiolus?”

Gladiolus only snorted at her, “Do not thank me. If you wish to receive even an inkling of my gratitude, you could consider stopping that pink fiend from harassing my people.”

Rarity winced, and slowly turned to see– yes, he was talking about Pinkie Pie. She bounded ahead, out of the reach of a few panicking bleating guards who scrabbled after her. She giggled, bouncing across the brick road from one home to another, in between cowering crowds of fawns and foals who stared at her as if she planned to fry their brains up and devour them in some horrible pony ritual. Given that she was an earthpony, of a race these folk should be quite familiar with considering there were some among their population, it was a bit odd they would be so frightened; then again Rarity considered that she had come bouncing in with a whole group of magical ponies with Cutie Marks, something that, upon inspection, none of these ponies seemed to have. Not to mention that Pinkie Pie, while a dear, could be… well, a little bit too much. Especially when it came to first impressions.

“Pinkie Pie, please,” Rarity tutted, using her new magic to pull Pinkie back to the group. She was so unused to easily picking up large objects in her telekinesis, but Pinkie, despite her wriggling, felt lighter than air.

“Awww, but Twilight gets to do her mission. What about mine?” Pinkie Pie whined as she deflated in Rarity’s grip.

Gladiolus went rigid as stone. “And what is that supposed to mean, pony?!”

Rainbow Dash flapped up next to his ear and snorted at him. “Will you guys calm down? We saved you, for Stars’ sake! She just means that Twilight gets to go talk about nerdy magical stuff with your elders, but she doesn’t get to… well, do whatever Pinkie Pie does.”

Pinkie nodded emphatically, the motion of it rattling up Rarity’s horn. “Yuppers, exactly! Earlier you said something about us being on some sort of mission, and it made me realize that now I am on a super important mission: to make some other of you deer and ponies beside Princess Hazel smile! We’re not so bad once you get to know us, I promise!”

Hazel blinked blankly at that, as did Gladiolus. Rarity couldn’t help but giggle lightly at their expense, though she did feel quite bad about the way Twilight was grinding her teeth and clapping a hoof to her temple.

Behind her, Fluttershy gently stepped forward. Though the poor dear was exhausted, her eyes were stern, trained on Pinkie Pie with a practiced look. “Pinkie Pie, um, I know you’re trying to be nice, but, well… I think you’re frightening them.”

Pinkie’s eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. “Oh no, was I doing that again? I’m sorry.”

As Rarity released her from her telekinetic grip, Princess Hazel trotted ahead and placed a gentle hoof to Pinkie’s shoulder.

“Oh hey, it’s fine! I’m sure my herd just needs some time to get used to you. Please, let me show you how hospitable we can be towards our heroines.”

Then, without another word, only the flick of her tail, the crowd around them dispersed. The guards, besides Gladiolus, melted away into the crowd as they moved, muttering and whispering amongst each other, back to their homes and to what appeared to be some sort of town square at the center of the village. The watching foals and fawns darted away asif having been found with their hooves in a cookie jar, running off to watch the new arrivals from behind corners and underneath covering brush. A few deer and ponies spoke in hushed whispers with Hazel for a moment before trotting off with purpose, their heads and tails perked with hurry and their eyes trained ahead.

“They’re just getting your rooms and meals prepared. This way,” Hazel chirped, waving her hoof to Twilight. “Oh, I’m so excited to see what you’ll think of your lodgings!”

Then she trotted off, Pinkie Pie once again bouncing close behind. Rarity, with a glance to her friends, began to follow steadily. Nopony missed the way Gladiolus brought up the rear with a grunt, his steely eyes trained tightly on them.

They had only made it a few hoof-falls into the village, nearing a petite wooden bridge overhanging the trickle of a stream, when a sharp gasp tore through the quiet mumbling all around.

“By the Maker! How?!”

Rarity snapped around – had that horrid bat returned?!

A deer was standing staring wide-eyed at the edge of a fenced-in area billowing with plants. At his thin hooves the berry bushes and tiny mushrooms were shriveled and grayed, wrinkled and patchy from where some sort of animal had tramped through the grasses. But at the other end, nearest to where Applejack was standing, those same plants were lush with greenery. The mushrooms swelled at their tops, glittering with fresh dew which refracted a beautiful aqua glow. The berries were ripe and round and shining in the bounce light, nearly cracking at the edges with the weight of their own delicious juices. In short, they looked absolutely delectable.

The deer, his jaw nearly to the ground, turned achingly slowly to stare at the newcomers.

Applejack fidgeted, her hoof scraping the stone. She tipped her hat in his direction with a grimace.

“Aw shoot, we, uh, might have forgotten to mention that bit,” she muttered, flicking her eyes to Rarity and Twilight.

It was Twilight who stepped forward and spoke this time, to Rarity’s relief.

“The spell that brought us here was incredibly powerful. For whatever reason, it seems to have infused us with a huge amount of magic. I’m sorry for intruding on your crops, but they really can’t help it.”

Gladiolus snapped his mouth open, a growl in his throat– but the deer opposite just let out a croaking laugh.

“S-Sorry?! Are you kidding? The mushrooms have been underperforming for ages, a-and the berries… I’ve never seen them look this good before,” he stammered.

Pinkie Pie squinted at that, “Huh? But don’t the earth ponies use their magic to make them grow better? That’s how it was in Equestria.”

Before the buck could comment, Hazel stepped forward with a shake of her head. Her tiara rattled. “Like I said, we haven’t had any magic users here in ages, even the ponies. Maybe this ‘Equestria’ of yours is more magical than our land.”

Twilight, her eyes widening, hummed and turned a small circle. Her eyes darted around the village, snapping between the antlers of the deer and the flanks - still blank - of even the adult earth ponies milling about and gawking at their new harvest.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” she muttered. “An earth pony’s connection to the magic of the land is mostly automatic. And even if the surrounding saturation of magic was low, the innate magic within a pony would still manifest a Cutie Mark. At least one of you should have one in something.”

Gladiolus was growling in his throat at this point. Hazel only put up a hoof and shook her head again, her eyes burning a hole into Rarity’s horn, into Twilight’s new tiny wings.

“This is something you’d need to speak to the elders about. They would know more than any other creature.”

Twilight still looked troubled, her brow furrowed and her mane frizzing more by the second, but she nodded resolutely. Before even being asked she continued down the road they’d been following, and with a start Hazel rushed to overtake her and guide them all forward.

As they began their trek once more, Rarity couldn’t help but worry for her friend. The poor dear had been met with one confusing hurdle after another all day; as had they all, Rarity conceded, but Twilight seemed to be taking the stress all upon herself. The new literal weight on the now-alicorn’s shoulders surely didn’t help, and then there was the fact that Twilight had yet to tell them what exactly she’d witnessed that required them all to go on this confusing quest. Earlier when they’d heard the screaming of the herd, why, Rarity hadn’t seen that look on Twilight’s face in ages. And the level of intricacy in design that went in the shield she summoned so instantly, without even thinking… Twilight was beyond scared. Given how she reacted at the sight of Spike, that fear wasn’t just for herself and her new position, but for them all. Rarity needed to support her.

As she finished that thought, Hazel brought their group to a halt. Ahead of them, the house she assumed would be their lodgings for the night towered above them. While not as well-kempt or obviously decorated as the other homes, it seemed structurally sound and was certainly large enough to hold the entire party. Rarity couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed that there were no flairs such as multi-colored lights or beautiful gemstones, but at the very least the cottage would protect them from the chill and give them somewhere protected to sleep.

“Well, here you are,” Hazel chirped. “You all can stay and get comfortable while my herd prepares a meal for you all – now that we have such wonderful crops to make it with,” she added with a wink.

She turned to Twilight. “And as for you, if you could follow me, I can see about getting an audience with the elders.”

A sharp flap pierced the air. Behind Rarity, Rainbow Dash let out an indignant grunt, “Hold on! She’s going all by herself?”

Pinkie Pie bounced up next to her, continuously jumping up and down in the air to match Rainbow Dash’s height. “Yeah! And I haven’t gotten to talk to anydeer yet! How else am I supposed to figure out what you guys’ favorite holiday is?”

Rarity hissed at them all, flicking a desperate glance towards Twilight. “Please, girls, we shouldn’t make a fuss. This could be Twilight’s chance to learn something important.”

“Still,” Rainbow Dash grumbled. “We don’t know these guys, and they keep staring at me like I’m some villain out of ‘Daring Do’. We can’t just have Twilight go off on her own.”

“Oh, um,” someone coughed. Rarity glanced to see Spike, rocking back on his heels and tail, and puffing out his scaled chest in an effort to look as large and brave as possible. She had to fight off a coo at the sight of it, for his sake, especially as he then gently hopped onto Twilight’s back like a daring knight set on rescuing her on her own horseback. “I could go with her. I mean, if the elders don’t like it, don’t worry; I’m so small and quiet, they won’t even hear a peep out of me.”

Twilight winced as Spike’s weight crashed onto her spine, then steadied herself with narrowed eyes. “Spike, girls, I really do appreciate it, but–”

“That would be no problem,” Hazel said, primly dipping down with a thin smile. “And of course the rest of you are no prisoners here. You’re free to wander; I only ask that you don’t enter the large white building at Town Square, or wander outside the village too far alone.”

Pinkie Pie squeaked in joy, then immediately shimmied away towards a group of foals and fawns hiding behind a tree a few hoof-falls away, the foliage behind her blossoming into luscious flowers as she went. Fluttershy calmly followed after her after a curtsy to the guards, and of course Rainbow Dash streaked behind to watch after her friends, shooting back scathing looks between Gladiolus and Twilight the whole way.

Speaking of Gladiolus, his jaw was set and his back muscles rippled with rage. His antlers glimmered in the luster of the new mushrooms, and his hoof pawed the dirt. Applejack, walking past, only tipped her hat to him.

“I can understand you wanting to protect your kin, Mister Gladiolus,” she said, offering him a small smile he didn’t return, “But if you’d just spend a little while with Pinkie and my friends here, I promise you that you’ll see there ain’t nothing to be fretting about. Honest.”

Then she trotted off, a stiff and growling Gladiolus hot on her hooves.

Rarity turned to Twilight and her dear Spikey-Wikey as the two of them prepped to follow along with the Princess. Twilight’s eyes were narrowed with focus and baggy from stress, while Spike just sat staring in awe at the architecture – and the multiple gems – surrounding him.

Gently, Rarity trotted forward and took Twilight’s cheek in her hoof. Twilight blinked as if startled, then drooped down into her touch as they locked eyes. Out of all of them, Rarity couldn’t help but notice that Twilight looked the most exhausted from their journey.

“Good luck, darling,” Rarity chirped. “I hope you find out something about this whole mess. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I simply must ask somecreature about the architectural designs here! Don’t forget that we’re all here for you if you need us.”

Spike gazed around from his spot on Twilight’s back, careful not to ruffle her new wings. Speaking of which– with a grumble he scratched at an itch on his own wings. It was still just so creepy having those things flopping around back there without him meaning to! He figured he’d get used to them eventually, but right now he was in the same boat as Twilight on that front; he wanted to figure out why in Equestria these things popped up in the first place, and finding out where they all were wouldn’t hurt either.

Still, he wasn’t sure exactly how he could help, so he figured his job right now was to try to protect Twilight, or at least stop her from driving herself crazy. And he was serious about wanting to help them however he could. Not only would keeping Twilight calm keep him from getting shaken around like a ragdoll again anytime soon, but he nearly burnt his friends along with a whole forest! He wasn’t sure how his Dragon Code really applied here, but he had to do something to make it right.

So he kept to his word from earlier and stayed quiet as Twilight carried him into a towering building along with Hazel. This must have been the one she told the others not to go into earlier. It was a tall building of wood and brick, stained white. Unlike the honestly pretty ugly decorations on the other buildings, this one was almost completely plain except for a few tiny windows to let in air and sunlight, and, more importantly, racks of antlers being displayed right above the two giant front doors. There were all kinds of different size and shape and color, all lightly rattling in the breeze and shining in the wan sunlight peeking through the canopy of trees. Some of them had cracks running down their lengths, while others were lush and huge, and some even had half of them cracked off down to the base. Spike thought it seemed pretty creepy to him, but he did know that deer shed and regrew their antlers at least once a year, so maybe it wasn’t too bad.

… Or, at least he thought so, until they walked inside to an entire room full of them. Cluttering every wall, overhanging every open doorway, shining in the dull light. He was surprised they hadn’t glued some to the ceiling.

“Gross,” he whispered.

“Spike! Manners,” Twilight hissed back.

“What? It’s true,” he bit back, and Twilight made a motion of zipping her lips toward him. With a grumble he complied, and watched as Hazel trotted to a long hallway at the end of the room.

She nodded her head to them before zipping inside, and after a moment of quiet mumblings inside followed by a loud bleat of multiple deer, her hooves came clopping back inside. With a shimmy and a flick of her tail, she beamed at Twilight, before squinting at Spike as her smile soured to a grimace.

“Okay, good news!” she murmured, even her whisper bouncing from the shivering antlers all around. “Miss Twilight, I’ve been able to secure you a short audience with the elders. As for your little dragon friend, however, erm… well, he’s welcome inside, but he’ll have to stay next to me, and he isn’t permitted to speak to any of them. Sorry.”

Spike started to grumble that he’d already promised he wasn’t going to speak out of turn anyway, but Twilight, a too-wide smile crinkling her face, rattled him harshly against her back. He grunted, and she glared at him with a polite grin.

“No need for apologies, Princess,” Twilight said with a bow. Spike had to pinch his claws to her coat to not go toppling to the floor. “We understand that your elders must be very busy overseeing the herd with you. I promise, there will be no trouble.”

Hazel tittered in return. Her smile, which before was wide and hopeful, squirmed around on her thin face as she darted her eyes about. When she finally met Twilight and Spike’s eyes again, she pawed at the brick below with a bouncing hoof, and her ears flicked around like she was shaking off flies. She laughed again, breathy and strained.

“No, no, of course. Just, um…” she lowered her voice to a barely audible hiss, “try to hurry. And don’t expect too much.”

Before either of them could ask what the hay that meant, Spike yelped as Hazel practically tore him off of Twilight. With a heavy thud he crashed onto Hazel’s back instead, her thin legs wobbling at the weight. He could walk himself but– Hazel sprinted ahead, smashing her tiara into Twilight’s side as she pushed her forward. They scrambled down the wide hall, Spike barely staying balanced with the way Hazel was wiggling, and then she shoved Twi into another open doorway.

The room they were thrown into next was more of a cavern than anything. Spike knew this place was big when he saw it from the outside, but it seemed that most of the huge building was made up of this long hall. A plain, undecorated hall (not even more of those freaky racks of antlers) stretched on in front of them, almost completely empty except for small wooden stools and chairs scooted to the far edges of the room. The vaulted ceiling soared up above them, so high and empty and white that glancing at it made Spike’s stomach churn. Behind them a few huge windows pooled in a twilight glimmer, the pale light stretching and then dying before it could reach the back. Almost half the room was obscured in a grim, foggy shadow.

And at the very back, barely visible in the dark, sitting primly on their haunches or laying breathing heavily on their sides was… well, a bunch of old deer. A mixture of does and bucks, the latter with giant, layered antlers streaking from their heads and rattling in the still air like the aged branches of a dying tree. Glittering, delicious-looking gems hung from thin string from the branches, and the does sported flower crowns which wove around their ears and down their wrinkled necks down to their shaking withers; all kinds of colors smeared together, some of the flowers already old and grayed and crispy on their dulled brown coats, overlaid with fresh bouquets which caught what little light filled the room. They all perched on intricately woven cushions and pillows that Rarity would probably swoon over, looking between one another and whispering harshly in the gloom. Their eyes gleamed bright, refracted and glowed at them from across the hall.

Twilight gulped. Spike shot her a thumbs-up and a small smile as she glanced back at him. Hazel nodded emphatically at her, smiling like crazy even though her nervous tail whipped at his wings.

Then Twilight trotted off to talk to the creepy deer, and Spike was left behind. He sighed. Again. At least this time he wasn’t totally alone in the middle of some dark forest, right? Hazel might be a little energetic sometimes, but that wasn’t too bad. After all, he was friends with Pinkie Pie of all ponies. Plus, he’d never met a deer before, so maybe this was a cool opportunity.

“So uh, you’re the Princess of this herd, right?” he tried.

Hazel jolted, her ears fluttering at the noise and his dragonbreath as if she’d forgotten he was there. Which, Spike didn’t get how she could, considering he was riding on her back and all, and she was still shivering from the weight, but eh, Twilight’d done the same before.

“Oh,” she started, then she brought up a hoof to hum to herself. “Well, I think the translation spell your friend cast might be acting kind of funny here, because that isn’t really the word we use. Though it’s probably the closest translation. I’m more of a… caretaker? Could you understand that?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Spike hummed back. “So, a caretaker, huh? So you look after everydeer? And, er, everypony?”

“Yeah, you could say that. Gladdy might fight off the monsters in the forest, but it’s my job to make sure everydeer is healthy and happy, and have their concerns listened to.”

Spike blinked, thinking. That sort of sounded like a Princess’s duties. At least, that’s always the feeling he got from Celestia, and Luna for as little time as he’s known her; loving, warm, wanting the best for their subjects and holding courts to ensure fair laws were placed into effect. The only difference here seemed to be that Hazel had the word of the elders to take into consideration, but…

Spike flinched at a stern bleat that pierced the dead air from the other side of the room. Twilight looked annoyed, like she did when a snobby unicorn stepped on her hoof without apologizing back in Canterlot, meanwhile a scrawny old buck looked like that same unicorn, mad about a young Twilight mindlessly walking into him with her muzzle stuffed into the pages of a book.

… Honestly, given the whole vibe he was getting from these elder deer, having them around might just make some things harder, not easier. Spike already had his claws full dealing with Twilight and her endless lists and letters; he couldn’t imagine a whole village to watch over.

“Wow, that sounds tough. How do you manage it all?”

At that, Hazel… changed. Wilted. She curled in on herself, nearly sending Spike collapsing to the floorboards, and she huffed in a deep, breathy sigh. Her giant ears smacked flat to the sides of her head, and Spike could swear he saw some of the flowers woven delicately through her tiara start to shrivel and curl.

“Well, I have to,” she said, after another sigh. “Everydeer is counting on me, and I don’t want to let them down.”

Spike, without thinking, started to comfortingly pat her on the withers like he would Twilight. As he did so, his claws gently wove through her short brown coat, brushed the peachy light spots still dusting her flank and back.

Hazel caught his eyes as he flinched back, tearing away his claws as if burned.

“No, it’s okay, thank you for trying to make me feel better,” she said with a tiny grin, “I know I’m young. The herd knows it too. I guess I just try to do my best, so they don’t think they put faith in the wrong doe. What about you?”

Spike started, his jump crushing a grunt out of Hazel. “Huh? Me?”

Hazel nodded with a wince. “Yes. The story your friend told me of Equestria was amazing. What do you do back at your Equestrian home?”

“Ah, well…” Spike rubbed at the back of his head, thinking about what to tell her first. His first thought was of course his title of Number One Assistant to Twilight, but now he’d kind of saved the Crystal Empire, which was a little bit more exciting of a story to tell in a short amount of time. He opened his mouth to start telling her about the library back home when–

Hazel’s ear flicked. And yeah, it’d done that a lot, but this was different. Before it was a nervous twitch, a tic like Twilight’s eye jittering after too much stress and coffee. This wasn’t an involuntary muscle spasm, or tell of her worry, this flick was wide and arching and controlled. Purposeful.

Ahead of Spike, the eternal twilight pooled out into a sweet pinkened honeyglow over the floorboards. As he watched from atop Hazel’s withers, something shifted. Like an optical illusion suddenly transforming into something else before your eyes, or a dot painting coming into quick focus, Spike noticed a bulky shadow he hadn’t seen before. The inky outline of a cluster of broad oak trees twisted, actually rotated and flashed across the light overhanging them. At first he assumed the branches were whipping in the wind, but– no. The movement was too extreme for that.

Spike spun around just fast enough to see a group of those giant guard bucks disappear into the gloomy darkness of the village beyond.

“Spike? Spike? Or– er, sorry, that is your name, isn’t it?”

Spike shook it off. Surely it made sense to keep tabs on some weird newcomers, right?

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Anyway, like I was saying…”

Twilight Sparkle was having a very bad day. Or– no, you know what? ‘Bad’ didn’t begin to cover it. She would stop to flip through her mental thesaurus and find a more fitting alternative, but frankly she was too tired for that right now, and she still had more work to do!

Twilight snorted hotly to herself, and tried her very best to smile at Hazel as they, along with Spike, trotted side by side back towards the home that would be their shelter for the night. She was pretty sure she failed, considering the look Hazel shot her back in return, but she did the best she could considering the circumstances. Honestly, everydeer was lucky she wasn’t just grabbing random creatures by the scruff and shaking them until they barfed out some Stars-darned answers. Really, how hard was it to get an answer to the simplest of questions around here?!

She did at least learn the name of the village they were in: Hartton. Unfortunately, that would be one of the only things Twilight learned from the elders; it was hard enough to get them to even talk to her at all, and when they did finally speak… well, they were just plain rude! Not to mention unhelpful. Not only had the folk of Hartton never even heard of Equestria or the magical dais she and her friends were looking for, but they either didn’t know about or didn’t want to talk about any details regarding the surrounding world.

Just as she feared, Twilight was back to step one, except now she had even less time to study in the Cosmic Library and search for these answers on her own.

Speaking of which, that was next on her list: catching up on research. As soon as she got back to that cabin, she was going to–

“Woah nelly,” Applejack gasped as she opened the door. With a tip of her hat to Princess Hazel, she ushered them all in. “Why don’t y’all sit down for a spell, Sugar? You look like you’re plum about to burst.”

To its credit, the interior of the cabin was quite homey. She thought, with the square exterior, that being inside would feel, well, like being in a stone prison. Thankfully, the warm rugs splayed along the pale wooden floorboards, along with the fire crackling away in the hearth of a cozy reading nook to chase away the eternal midday chill, made the space seem softer and larger than it really was. The buglights twinkling across the walls, refracting in rainbow light off the faces of delicate gems and the split branches of old antler racks, made everything a bit livelier. But–

Twilight shook her head. To her own distracting thoughts, and to Applejack.

“I’ll be fine, thank you. I just need to figure this out.”

“You mean the elders weren’t of much assistance?” Rarity hummed. “That’s a shame. Still, Twilight, surely you should rest.”

Twilight hummed her dissent, and marched off primly as Princess Hazel saw herself off for the night along with a cluster of guards and a promise of a later dinner.

Twilight looked around and found the nearest cushion within her reach. She levitated it upwards and swept it under her with a irritated flick of her horn (which, considering her new power surge, nearly sent the pillow rocketing out of a window at full blast). Tucking it below her rump, she collapsed to the velvety stitches and had to physically fight herself from curling up into the luscious softness and warmth like a kitten; instead, just as Zecora had once shown her, she sat upright on her haunches, crossed her hind hooves, and clasped her front hooves together in such a way that her whole body was one circle, one conduit for the flow of magic and emotion to pour through efficiently.

“There,” she grumbled. “Resting. Now, I really should be going back to the Library.”

Pinkie Pie bounced up with a frown on her face and a crooked tilt to her head. “Huh? Right now? But didn’t you hear that we’re getting food? What if they bring out a super yummy dessert and you’re not here to try it?”

Rainbow Dash zoomed up beside her, cradling her gut with a grumbling frown on her face. “Yeah, Twi. I don’t know about you, but that whole ‘exploding with magic’ thing has me wiped out and starving, and I’m pretty sure you did that twice today.”

Twilight sighed. An ache was rising in her right temple. “I appreciate the concern girls, but I have to do this. Who knows what’s happening to Equestria while we sit here not even knowing where to go or what to do?”

“Gosh, we know that Sugar,” Applejack said. She trotted up and, after a moment of wavering her hoof around as if looking for a place to put it, placed it warmly against Twilight’s withers. Twilight breathed deep, and Applejack’s solid hoof pressed firmly into her coat. “But what will happen to Equestria if you’re too tired out to help anypony?”

And… well, she had a point. Applejack smiled at her, soft and warm, but Twilight couldn’t fully meet her gaze. It was true that her alicorn magic was keeping her going longer than normal - even now, through the frustration, she could feel it boiling inside of her, roiling beneath her skin like a parasitic eel spasming below her flesh; something foreign and new and electric – but she was tired and hungry. More than that, she needed a moment, any moment, to sit and relax so she could possibly gather her thoughts after this disaster of a day. But right now, they didn’t know enough. They just didn’t, and Twilight was – she gulped, the rippling muscles on her back twitching, and her little wings flapping pathetically at her sides in response – the only one who could possibly guide them on this journey.

“Sugarcube? You alright?”

Twilight looked up towards her five best friends and her little brother, her number one assistant. They needed her to do this.

“I have to do this, girls. I’ll come back in a little while, like before, and then I’ll eat and rest. Okay?”

She didn’t wait for an answer.

Twilight couldn’t help but feel a little guilty as she popped into the Cosmic Library in silence, her breath echoing into that vastness and her mane whipping away. Still, she’d just have to apologize later. Right now, she was going to study.

Just as before, Twilight constructed a ticking ball of light to keep time for her. As its flaring light pulsed against her coat, she turned sickeningly on that invisible floor. With a thought, the screens floated in from the edges of the cosmos, and washed the ground below in ghostly light. Twilight flared her horn a bit brighter, and tried her best to push all of her jumbled thoughts and emotions, all of the confusion and frustration, across the mental connection which wove through her horn and all around the stars surrounding her.

Her first thought was of Celestia. She pushed away the thought of the dark vision she’d witnessed earlier before it had the chance to float forward again, and instead she focused on that young image she’d seen of her. So small and scared and pink. Had she had more instruction when it came time to cast the spell that sent her here? No, more importantly, did she know at the time where she was meant to go?!

As those thoughts bounced about the space in an echo of mana, another screen levitated closer from the cluster. Twilight whinnied at her success, and sat down to watch with a pulse of her horn to restart the memory.

Celestia was so young, and she was crying. The sight of it rattled something deep within Twilight’s bones, but she steeled herself and endured.

Nearby, Luna collapsed into the side of a larger mare, her radiant white mane billowing down a gray-black coat spotted with pinks and yellows, like the breaking of dawn. The mare hugged Luna close as the filly sobbed; she screamed her tears into the mare’s coat, heaving and shaking as if she were dying in front of them. The mare, much like Celestia, shook with the effort of keeping her composure. Only the mares’ chins wobbling, the shaking of their withers, the silent drips of tears wetting slick the fur beneath their eyes, betrayed their emotion.

All around, similar scenes played out between different ponies. An earth pony with a brown curly mane that swooped around his head, and a mark of a spoon on his flank, clutched a stallion, mare and little filly so hard as he cried that Twilight thought he might shatter their bones. The whole room, which appeared to be the grand hall of a palace sparkling in the setting sun, was filled with the fog of grief, a heavy weight which tugged at Twilight’s stomach and heart from so very far away.

Eventually, through the crying and coughing, as Luna’s screams turned to gags from her distress, there was the clearing of a throat. Celestia and everypony else whipped around, craned their necks to look up. Atop a set of marbled steps, swirled with the colors of the rainbow, stood — an alicorn?!

An alicorn stood towering over the procession below, her giant charcoal-black wings billowed out as if cradling the entire hall in her cool embrace. Her mane buffeted in a nonexistent wind, and its golden hue sparked with the flickers of galaxies, dripped honeygold ambrosia into a pool wrapped around her gilded horseshoes. The mark on her flank flashed in the refracted light as she moved, showing a large golden disc dipping into the horizon, only to pop out of the other side flaring with streams of light. The shimmering yellow color popped from the circle like the lines of a cartoon sun, then streamed all the way down both hind legs. Her horn, long and elegant, poked from beneath the alicorn’s regal headwear and ended in a glittering starburst.

Twilight’s mind boggled. Her jaw dropped.That didn’t make any sense. Not only had she now learned that Celestia and Luna weren’t born into their alicornhood, but had ascended; now she was face to face with an alicorn which Equestria as well as the entirety of the modern world had no written recollection of. Was she Celestia and Luna’s ruler? Their mentor?

Given the way everypony in the room bowed to her, and Celestia’s eyes twinkled at her sight, that was most likely the case. And. Twilight coughed in astonishment, clapping a hoof to her temple. A-And if that were true, that meant Twilight was one of the only ponies to know of this alicorn’s existence! What an honor, to hold such limited knowledge in her hooves.

Still, Twilight shook as if getting out of an ice bath, and steeled herself. Focus time.

“I know it is difficult,” the alicorn was saying. “But it's time. We must complete Queen Mobius’s spell.”

Luna croaked out a last broken sob as the mare cradling her pushed her gently away from her grasp. Then, without another word, the other groups began to break up as well, as the grief swelling the room crescendoed into a broken silence. One by one the ponies – seven of them counting Celestia and Luna, the same group from the last memory – lined up and gathered to the alicorn with their heads hanging, as if being sentenced to the gallows for some unknown crime.

Then, after a pause, it began:

“From all of us together, Together we’re friends…”

From there, the screen mostly dissolved into a mass of blurred light; even the magic of this place found it difficult to replicate the visuals of such a complex spell being cast by powerful users, and so Twilight squinted as a piercing white light washed pure and cold over the cosmos around her. Alongside the light there’s the cantation spoken aloud, ringing with power as pure mana pours from the alicorn’s throat, as unseen leylines thrum with energy and a music of their own. Then they, too, were eclipsed by the raw power oozing from the alicorn and two fillies, and crescendoed into a ringing silence that echoed endlessly into nothing.

Eventually the spell faded, and Twilight was met with a familiar scene: the stark crack of the magic of teleportation, and Celestia, Luna and their friends stood in that plastered world. This time, though, the screen seemed to zoom, to choose to focus on somepony other than Celestia. It held tight on the stricken face of a skinny gray-blue unicorn, his long curly beard swirling in the billowing aftershocks of the spell. As the seven ponies stared out at the landscape before them, cast ironclad into that pure cold white, he whispered:

“The Frozen South…”

Everything dulled to a muddy black, a fizzle of dark against the light all around, as the memory died away. Before Twilight could call forth another recording or replay the last memory before her, however, another light screen pushed forward. Then another, and another, all whipping past in a sickening blur of motion and color and noise; Celestia and Luna raising the sun and moon; the group hugging each other tight as they cried; the seven young ponies standing upon a verdant field of poppies and luscious grass; one of the group, an earth pony with sweet biscuits on his flank, scuffing at the dirt and erecting a large wooden structure; a crowd of blank-flanked ponies bowing in starry-eyed reverence to the two newly appointed alicorns standing grimacing before them; a town, bustling with activity at the edge of a mountain peak. More and more images flashed by, so fast that the strobing lights burned Twilight’s retinas and churned her stomach, and she had to flinch away before she vomited up what little was in her stomach.

When she looked up again, when the watery blue light dancing behind her eyelids calmed and then solidified, it had stopped again. One final screen, one in a now-long line that stretched away like an endless strip of film tapering off into the ether, hung in a pale beam of light. Celestia and Luna, now looking as they did back in Equestria, sitting side-by-side, their wings wrapped round one another in a clustered field of white stones.

Then it stopped, and Twilight’s timed light spell flickered and faded to nothing.

Twilight hummed to herself. On one hoof, Twilight could almost jump up in joy and scream to the heavens surrounding her; the Frozen South! Finally, oh Stars, finally she had some sense of direction, of where she was meant to guide her friends and fulfill her destiny! But on the other hoof, now she had even more questions than answers! Who was this ‘Queen Mobius Strip’ the strange alicorn had mentioned? According to Celestia’s letter, the spell she cast to send her and her friends to this world was created by Starswirl the Bearded, not anypony else. Though, given the nature of the spell and how little Celestia was able to fully explain before the casting, maybe it made sense that she fudged the truth a little to get her to practice it on her own. But what about what happened afterwards? Why raise the sun and moon after absorbing a previous incarnation of them, and why transform into an alicorn in the first place? Why were Celestia, Luna and her friends all so distraught? And, most importantly, why…

Something trembled deep inside her chest. Her nostrils flared, and her legs wobbled though she couldn’t fully understand why. A chill, so very cold, splashed down her spine and swam in her stomach.

Why did they never go back home?

Previously, Luna had been devastated to leave the mare who Twilight assumed was their mother or other close relative. All of the other ponies, similarly, were stricken when it was finally time to cast the spell and travel to the south. So why, after their duty was fulfilled, didn’t they return to their families? None of those flashes of memory ever showed a single solitary image of that dark speckled mare ever again, or the castle or the alicorn that cast the spell with them. It didn’t even look like they ever even tried to go back.

Why?

Twilight felt sick. Her teeth grinded together. Her breath was short.

Her timer had gone out. It would be best to go back, apologize to her friends and get rid of this hunger so she could think straight. Yeah. Everything would look better when she wasn’t all grumpy and tired. After all, Celestia had believed in her enough that she’d given her – she gulped, hard and tight against her raw throat – alicorn powers. She was prepared for this. She had to be. She would save Equestria. She just needed to take a break.

Twilight rasped in a breath, and teleported back in a flash. And the whole time, that question echoed in her mind:

Why hadn’t they gone back home?

The twilight remained, despite the time. Light of both sun and moon leaked from the canopy above, sparkled against the dew.

Princess Hazel stood her ground.

“No. I don’t allow it, Gladiolus.”

“So you’ll disobey the wishes of the elders just to justify your own fantasy? You’re a fool. A fawn. The Pack will be knocking at our door any day should you allow them to leave.”

“I’m not a fool, and certainly not just a dumb fawn. What if it’s true, Gladdy? What if they’re just trying to save their home?”

“And what if it’s not? Are you prepared to hand your people to a pack of carnivores?!”

“Please, Gladdy. I know I’m young. I know I’m not mom. But I’m doing my best. And I believe them. I want to believe them.”

A scoff. “You want to believe in magic, Ha–”

“And you’ve seen that magic. They have it, and lots of it. Even if they’re lying, there’s no way our herd could fight off two unicorns and a dragon. Has it ever occurred to you that I have more than one reason to be nice to these ponies? To not make them and the Pack angry? I’m not as stupid as you think I am, okay?”

Silence.

“... I know you’re not stupid, Hazel. And… And I hope, for our sakes’ that you’re right, sister.”

…

“I do too.”

That night, bathed in the wan light of their withering sun, the Hartton militia turned back and clustered back into their homes. And, more importantly, they didn’t attack the six ponies and dragon that had come into their camp earlier in the day.

Hazel hoped she had done the right thing.

Chapter Five: Too Much is Never Enough

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Twilight Sparkle sure could be one stubborn little pony, especially considering she had been the one who’d taught Applejack the value of accepting a helping hoof. She wouldn’t lie; seeing Twilight teleport off like that, where none of her friends could follow, had left her a mite annoyed. More than that, though, it had her worried for the mare. It only got worse when she came back all clammed up and barely picking at the hearty broth the deer had offered them, without a word to anypony about what she’d learned.

They did at least get the gal to tell them about the dark magic consuming Equestria, and what exactly they were supposed to be doing on this huge quest the Princess had given them, but given the way Twilight’s eyes darted, the flare to her nostrils, the shiver just barely suppressed at the crest of her mane… she wasn’t lying, and she had no reason to, but there was something else she wasn’t sharing with the group. Something that was eating at her like flies to a cow’s pelt.

Not even Fluttershy could get Twilight talking again once she started meditating for the night, but Applejack was hoping that at the very least Twi would get some quality rest once they’d all settled down for the night. Stars knew the girl needed it. But not only a few minutes into Rainbow Dash’s snoring (after Pinkie Pie had wished goodnight to everypony and everydragon, of course), and Applejack found herself roused by the squeak of floorboards and the gentle clop of hooves. The noise from the other girls she could tolerate - the Cutie Mark Crusaders often had sleepovers down on the farm, after all, so she was accustomed to noise and general tomfoolery - but the continuous pacing Twilight was doing reminded her just a little bit too much of a filly Apple Bloom, nervously prancing outside her door after a nightmare while she milled over whether to wake her or not.

So, with a sigh, Applejack rolled off the plush bed (it was a bit too soft for her tastes, anyhow), and plopped her hat onto her mane. She quietly trotted into the other room, the one with the fireplace still crackling dutifully away to fight the chill.

Twilight was standing near one of the closest windows, her front hooves resting up on its sill as she watched the deer outside mill about. The light from the sun and moon washed over her face, and the wind billowed in the faint bleats of the folk going about their day. Er, night?

Twilight didn’t seem to notice her presence, even when Applejack cleared her throat, and just kept on staring out that square cut into the brick with a wide-eyed frown wormed up on her worry-gaunt face. So Applejack, with a hum, turned and clutched the fire poker in her teeth; she stirred at the wood in a flush of sweet ash and hot air, and smiled behind the grip of the metal as smoke billowed softly up the chimney in fluffy puffs. Then she spat out the poker, flopped to her side on a cushion in range of the fire’s sweet warmth, and cleared her throat again.

“Strange, ain’t it?”

Twilight startled, and jumped up so darn high that Applejack reckoned she might have beaten some sort of flight record. She whipped around as if she’d been burnt, then plastered a quick, wobbling grin on her muzzle as she saw AJ lounging there.

“Oh!” she started. “Applejack. Sorry, I didn’t wake you getting up, did I?”

Applejack stared into the swimming flames, shifted around on the woven cushion as she hummed, “Nah, it’s just a bit strange, is all,” - a bit of a lie, but a little white one born from concern - “sleeping when it’s daylight and the moon’s still shining along with it.”

Twilight’s smile shifted then, curved up into something wry. “Well, that is still the case some early mornings. The Princess’ schedules don’t always match up.”

Applejack gave her a little chuckle at that. “I reckon that’s true. Still, you know what I mean.”

With a sigh, Twilight turned back to the window. As she did, she pursed her lips and flicked at her tail like an ornery mule, and those little chicken wings now grazing her back fluttered out and frizzed as if irritated. “Yeah. I do. And the strangest thing is, the deer here go about their lives as if this sort of phenomenon is normal to their daily life. You know, I mentioned something about it to the elders, and one of them looked at me like I was a crazy pony.”

Applejack let out a snort. Huh. Now that was odd. Even if they were far from Equestria, Celestia and Luna led the heavenly bodies on a set cycle each and every day, and there shouldn’t be a place where both of them should be visible at the same time. And even if that was the case in some remote part of the globe, the moon was cracked and the sun was flickering like a candle; something like that happening in Ponyville would send the flower mares into a frenzy, thinking some sort of apocalypse was befalling them and their gardens. Yet these deerfolk, for all their snorting and lack of general hospitality, weren’t worried in the slightest. If something like this was normal for these folks, what exactly could that mean? Applejack could picture a hoof-full of possibilities as to what was going on with the whole sky situation, all of which were confusing and more than a little world-altering. Some of them – her mind flashed with the thought of broken alicorn horns – were downright upsetting.

Still, Applejack offered her friend a warm smile. “Aw shoot, Twi, we’ll figure this out,” she murmured to her, as the unicorn’s - no, alicorn’s - frown wrinkled even further and her eyes squinted, beaded with sparkles, “Why don’t y’all come on over here and talk it through with me?”

Twilight turned to her then, fully, with her eyes downcast and her bottom lip being chewed all to oblivion. She hesitated for a moment, gaped her mouth open as her mane and frizzy tail stirred in the cool wind billowing from the window. She clopped at her back hooves in a nervous little shimmy - then the dam burst.

“That’s just it, Applejack; there’s nothing to talk over!” she wailed; before she’d been whispering, mindful of her friends sleeping in the other room, but now she ranted, clapped a hoof loudly to the windowsill. “Celestia barely warned me at all as to what was going to happen, and even the Library she gave me keeps giving me more questions than answers. Every time I think I’ve figured something out, there’s always something even worse waiting for me on the other side. While we’re here sleeping, there’s some awful darkness spreading all over Equestria! The spell went wrong as well, and I’m not even sure exactly how, or what that entails. Celestia entrusted me–”

She choked in a feeble gasp, then turned her eyes to her slightly longer horn, to the little wings flapping wildly on her back. She lifted a hoof to brush daintily at the tiny feathers, sparkling in the dusky sun and moonlight filtering in from above. Then, her jaw hanging open, she looked at Applejack, deep and cold and hungry into her eyes; Applejack could tell, from experience, that something difficult and painful was clenched between her teeth, just begging to be spat out, but fear danced in Twilight’s eyes too, raw and powerful.

With a sad smile, Applejack nodded at her. Twilight heaved out a sigh, and after a moment of breathing went on:

“The Princess entrusted me to save Equestria in her place. I… for all I know, Celestia is dead.”

She let the statement hang. It struck Applejack like buckshot, but she didn’t dare flinch, not when this mare was looking to her for strength. She only adjusted the hat on her head and nodded once more for her friend to continue.

“Now everything is on me, but I have no idea what I’m doing!” she whinnied. “I-It’s just so much pressure, and—”

The grip on her wings grew tight, until her hoof strangled the tiny appendages in a snake’s grip. Twilight’s voice was breathy now, panicked; Applejack hadn’t heard her this torn up since the disaster with Mac’s Smartpants doll, and, well… Applejack wasn’t prepared to see this situation go down the way that one did, not with all of Equestria at stake. Not to mention how painful it was to see her friend, her family, so distraught.

With a breath to ground herself, Applejack stood. After she brushed herself off nice and proper, she trotted over, oh so gently moved Twi’s hooves away from her twitching wings, and then scooped the poor gal up into one of the tightest hugs she’d ever given.

“Come on now, Twi, there ain’t no reason to fret,” she said, smiling warmly into the plush of her crest, “Just a little more time in that Astral place you were talkin’ about and you’ll have all this figured out lickety split.”

Applejack felt the hot huff of breath, the snort of air at her neck as Twilight sniffled. “But what if I can’t?”

Applejack shook her head and dragged Twilight even closer in. “Then we’ll all be right here with you the whole way until you can, Sugarcube. Everything will turn out just fine. You’ll see.”

Then she just let Twilight breathe. She didn’t cry, though it was a close thing if the huffing breath and wet eyes grazing the hairs on her shoulders was any indication; she only stood there, cradled softly in Applejack’s hold, doing some breathing exercises she claimed were once taught to her by Princess Cadenza. After a few moments she finally stopped shivering like a newborn foal, and Applejack felt she was secure enough that she could step away. She patted Twi’s withers as she went.

Twilight smiled at her, something small and self-conscious. “Thanks, Applejack.”

AJ only shook her head. “No problem, Sugar. I know you’d do the same for me, if’n the tables were turned.”

It was about this time that Pinkie Pie, having been hiding around the corner for the past few minutes, finally poked her head around the corner with a tiny smile. Sensing how fragile Twilight was, she didn’t bounce her way in or barrel her friend bodily onto the floor. Instead, she gave Twilight a little grin, then stood on her back hooves to wave her forelegs around in front of her.

“Um, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, really, but–” she gave them another wiggle, “Is somepony giving hugs in here?”

Twilight giggled, brushing at her damp eyes with a swipe of her wing. She opened her forelegs up as well and—

And then it was a really sweet, really tight group hug. Applejack couldn’t say she minded all too much, since it got Twilight to smile like that.

Twilight groaned as Celstia’s sun pierced her eyes. She swiped a clumsy hoof over her muzzle, and she sighed as it blocked the light and cast her world once again into darkness. She shimmied down into the soft bed below her, and decided it wouldn’t hurt to sleep for five more minutes. She still felt awful; her mind was swimming with sleep, but it was safe to assume she’d stayed up late into the night studying that spell Celestia had sent her, desperately tried a million more things to finish it properly. Which was her own fault, but surely her friends wouldn’t mind–

Wait. She sniffed, and the delectable warm smell of some sort of pastry hit her nose. It was different than anything Spike normally cooked her in the mornings – was he trying a new recipe? Would he mind if she was a little late to taste-test it? And wait– speaking of late, she couldn’t remember; did she have anything on her schedule this morning? Wasn’t she supposed to go to Sweet Apple Acres and help with the harvest? With a whinny and a sleepy snort, Twilight shot from her covers like a mare possessed: she was going to be tardy to an appointment she made with a friend!

The blanket, too small, caught up in her hooves and strangled her limbs. She squeal-mumbled through her closed mouth as she desperately tried to blink – why in Equestria was it so small? Had she grabbed Spike’s blanket by accident? And her bed seemed so much softer than normal; she hadn’t done anything so why…

… why was somepony giggling at her?

“Wow, Twilight,” somepony laughed, “and I thought my sleep flying was bad. That was just ridiculous.”

“Hawuuh?” Twilight asked, gracefully.

After a moment of blinking and rubbing sleepily at her eyes, the scene around her began to come into focus. Rainbow Dash, a hoof over her giggling mouth, flapped idly in front of her. Beyond her, farther into the room – because they were in a room, a wide one with large windows pouring in chilly air that had her clutching at the woven throw blanket in her lap – her friends milled about the wooden floorboards, their bodies casting wavering, flickering shadows to the white walls decorated with twinkling crystals. Twilight was swallowed up in a heavenly, toasty warmth; when she rolled back over what she realized was a small cushion stuffed below her front hooves, the amber light of a fire crackled a sweet heat over her face.

Oh. Right. She wasn’t home at all. They were all…

Twilight couldn’t help but deflate. It had only been a moment, but for a minute of sleepy confusion she had really, truly believed everything that had happened was actually just some horrible nightmare. That she hadn’t mixed up her friends' destinies and then sent them all into an unknown land. But now she was awake in Hartton, and – Twilight sighed – her wings cramped from where she’d smashed them in her sleep.

“Morning, Twi,” she heard, and she rolled back up in a snap to see Spike standing in front of her now too. He had a crystal in one hand, with deep gouges in it from his sharp dragon teeth. “The deerfolk brought us some food a little while ago, but we didn’t think we should wake you up yet. I hope that’s okay.”

“Yes, darling,” Rarity added, stepping forward with a wooden platter floating in her sapphire magic. “You seemed so exhausted that I simply had to insist that we allow you to rest.”

Twilight brought a hoof to her temple with a yawn. As Rarity floated the plate down to Twilight’s muzzle, she saw it was decorated with a crusty, powdered scone oozing sweet berry juices from a split in its side. Twilight’s stomach rumbled, so with a sigh she tugged it from Rarity’s magic with a bolt of her own, then managed a smile at the other unicorn.

“No, it’s okay. Thank you, Rarity.”

She took an idle bite to appease her and– Oh sweet Celestia that was good! She’d barely eaten any of the stew the deer had given them yesterday, and even what she did had only tasted like dust and ash in her mouth, soured from distraction and stress. She wasn’t exactly feeling peachy this morning (afternoon? evening?), but her talk with Applejack had made her feel a bit better, and frankly, nopony could be grumpy with one of these scones in their mouth. There was a reason that Pinkie Pie, Element of Laughter and party planner extraordinaire, worked at a bakery and always tried to keep some cake on hoof.

Twilight was pulled from her confection-related thoughts with a knock to the cabin’s front door.

Before anypony (or anydragon for that matter) could trot over to open it, it spilled open with a squeal of its old hinges. Hazel stood there, flanked by other deer and those great towering bucks she had as guards. A huge grin was worming up on her face even though it was obvious she was trying to tamp it down, and she shimmied on her petite hooves. A collection of cloth bags slung over her withers slapped at her sides as she bounced, and their buckles clanked together as she wiggled her forelegs with jittery excitement.

Gladiolus was notably absent, which was odd. Even though she’d been awfully distracted lately, even Twilight had noticed that those two were practically glued together at the hip.

Still, she didn’t have much time to ponder that, because Hazel practically jumped into the room with a bleat.

“I come bearing gifts!” she sing-songed, wiggling the packs in their direction. As the other does filed in behind her, Twilight noticed that they, too, carried either small bags or woven packs, stuffed to the brim and nearly popping at the seams with miscellaneous supplies.

Immediately Rarity jumped to her hooves with a breathy, squealing whinny. She shot over to Hazel’ side and pressed her hoof to the pack over her shoulder, gently brushed it against the woven patterns and soft fabric. “Why, Hazel, they’re absolutely lovely. Applejack!”

She snapped, and whirled around to her earth pony friend. Applejack, who had been leaning calmly on the wall at the side of the room, nearly collapsed to the ground as her forelegs buckled in surprise. She dropped the twig of straw she’d been chewing on, and with a blush and a grumble, turned to Rarity in shock. She opened her mouth, most likely to ask what in tarnation was wrong, but before she could–

With the twinkle of levitation and the pop of Rarity’s signature teleportation of fabric, Applejack was pushing back against the weight of a beautiful green travel bag on her withers.

“This one goes just lovely with your eyes, darling,” Rarity cooed. “Oh, and Pinkie Pie, this yellow and blue patterned bag simply has to go to you.”

Pinkie Pie jumped up into the fabric teleportation with a giggle of joy– then fell like a stone as the weight of it hit her back. She adjusted soon enough, being used to carrying around piles of party supplies wherever she went, but as Rarity levitated another saddlepack towards Twilight, she couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow towards Hazel.

“Hold on,” she insisted, pushing back against Rarity’s levitation with a flick of her horn, “Of course we’re thankful for all of this, Princess, but are you sure this isn’t too much?”

Rarity curled back at the touch of Twilight’ magic– then, with a small whinny, seemed to realize just how much she was lugging around in her own magic. She gave a small gasp, and spun on her hooves to face Hazel, meanwhile hefting another huge pack up and down as if feeling it for the first time.

“Yes, Princess, this is awfully generous of you and your people. You’re positive this is no imposition?”

At that– Hazel changed. For just one second, a blink, her huge grin soured into something small and sad – almost angry. Her neck snapped back along with her ears, and her teeth bared as if she were ready to shout… but then it melted away. The fawn sucked in a deep breath, and replaced the wobbling grimace on her face with a prim smile. She ducked to Rarity in a quick curtsy, her ears flapping, something more formal than Twilight had seen from her since they’d met with the elders

Twilight blinked at the rollercoaster of emotions. Did the Princess feel like Rarity had challenged her? Should she apologize on Rarity’s behalf?

But Princess Hazel just carried on, “Of course not, Miss Rarity. I would never give away something if my herd desperately needed it,” and there just might have been a bit of a tang at the end of that.

Rarity, blinking at her social faux pas, ducked even deeper still into a formal bow in return, then gave Hazel a flutter of her lashes, a dashing smile. “Yes, Princess, you would know best. And they are lovely.”

Hazel smiled at that, her pale peach face dying pink and her tail swishing in delight. “Aren’t they? Our craftsdeer are unmatched in their skill. And as for the amount I’m giving you…”

Hazel dipped down, opening the flap of one of the saddlepacks still sung around her neck with a crisp pop of the clasp. Inside a mountain of supplies threatened to spill out onto the floor; what looked to be jars full of the stew they’d eaten last night; similar jars stuffed to the brim with dried fruits and mushrooms; small canteens no doubt filled with water; and, most interestingly, a rolled piece of parchment, crinkled at the edges and browned with age.

“If you really have no idea where you’re going, I would hate for you to go hungry before your quest was over. How would you save Equestria then?” Then, seeing Twilight practically drooling over that tantalizing sheet of parchment and ink, “Unfortunately the map is only of the area around our village,” she bleated with an apologetic smile, unrolling the crispy paper with a flourish; indeed, it was one of the smallest maps Twilight had ever seen – and Twilight had seen maps in books made by the Breezies for Celestia’s sake! It was practically pitiful, and she had to bite her tongue to not say that outright. “But I thought it might at least help with navigating out of the swamps.”

“Swamps!” Rarity and Fluttershy cried at the same time. One of them was noticeably happier about it than the other.

“Yep,” Hazel chirped, “If you’re going to keep traveling in the same direction you came from, then I’m afraid there’s an area of bog surrounding our village on that side.”

As Rarity shot her a pleading look, Twilight pulled the tiny map from the bag levitating in her magic; as she skimmed the inked drawings of trees and worn paths, it was clear that to head South they would, in fact, have to wander through the peat bog. They could go around, but that would cost them precious time – Twilight had no idea how close or far they might be from the Frozen South, so they had to save every precious minute they could. She only hoped that this swamp, unlike Froggy Bottom Bogg, didn’t have hydras lurking around.

“Sorry, Rarity,” she grimaced, and Rarity gave a resolute sigh with a grieving glance towards her already-frizzy bangs, “but it seems like this will be the fastest route. Thank you so much for all of this, Princess.”

Hazel dipped low into another bow in return, and when her head swung back up it was decorated with a wan, kind smile. “Oh, it’s really no problem. I know if my herd was in danger, I could use all the help I could get to ensure their safety again. Not to mention the bat and our crops. Just think of it as repaying a favor.”

Twilight grinned in return, and allowed Rarity to pop her travel bag into place with a quick zap of teleportation. She braced herself for the weight with a snarl of her teeth but– really, it wasn’t so bad. It might hurt her endurance a bit later on, but for now it really was no different from carrying Spike along with her usual saddlebags stuffed to the brim with hardcover books and study supplies. Hay, it might even be lighter than what she used to lug around back in Canterlot during her school days.

“So,” she said, with a shimmy to ensure everything was balanced properly on her withers, “girls, Spike, do you think we’re ready to go?”

Fluttershy and Rarity shot her a look, but before either could say anything, Rainbow was flapping forwards with a wicked grin and a pump of her hoof. “Hay yeah, Twi! No offense, but we’ve kind of been waiting on you all afternoon.”

Hazel trotted forward; with a wave of a foreleg she motioned the bucks behind her to the forefront. They filed into the room, their heads held high, antlers shimmering in the warm light of the hearth.

“You’re free to stay as long as you need,” she said with a smile, “but I understand you’re in a hurry. Whenever you’re ready, the boys and I will escort you to the edge of the bog.”

The walk out of Hartton was much the same as the walk in, if not as terse and full of fear on the deer’s end. It was a bit more melancholic and disappointing to be going so soon; not only had Rarity had access to a lovely outdoor shower, but she’d barely gotten to see any of the village. It was difficult speaking to any of the deer when they were so frightened (not to mention when that great brute Gladiolus was huffing down their necks as if they were nothing more than petty criminals), meaning that it was only the foals and fawn to give them any company, and while they were dears they couldn’t exactly tell them anything of any real importance. Rarity would have just loved to talk to the craftsdeer and ask them about the inspiration behind their designs, but alas.

It didn’t help that they were currently walking out of range of soft grasses and well-trodden paths, and were now headed for muddy, uneven, unknown swampland. Already the recent rain had softened the ground, causing mud to squelch between hoof and horseshoe, so Rarity could just imagine what her fetlocks and tailtip would look – and, urgh, smell – like after trudging through a peat bog.

Still, Rarity kept her head held high. If it was for her friends and Equestria, she would go with only minimal complaint.

So she continued on despite the ache in her hooves as the path below dissolved to hard clay and earth, the grass slick with slimy moisture. The group, still notably lacking Gladiolus, climbed a sheer hill out of the valley containing Hartton, dodging towering, white-barked trees whipping in the wind on either side. Rarity had to push hard against the incline, huffing in breath as she tried to keep her belly fur from scraping against the muck below; her legs shook with the effort, burned with exertion as they reached the apex in a tight huddle, and the ground leveled to a flat plane of mud and scrubgrass. The trees thinned, those that remained being skinny poles which stuck from the peat with tendril-like vines sucking onto their bark and their roots partially unearthed and open to the air. Ahead, far into the horizon, overtop a verdant copse of trees and thick swampland which blotted the earth like a gray-brown stain, a mountain range stuck purple and gray with glory into the air.

Rarity snapped out from her thoughts as she noticed motion from her left. Princess Hazel, while always a bit twitchy much like Pinkie Pie, had started to really fidget sometime over the last few minutes, during the climb. At first Rarity had dismissed it as exertion, or a response to the humidity, but it continued now that the group stopped to rest atop the hill’s apex. Her tiny tail flicked along with her ears as if the dear were being attacked by flies, and she kept shooting her eyes between the nonexistent path ahead, to Twilight, to Rarity herself.

This time Rarity met her eyes as she twitched them over, and stared resolutely as to not let her glance away again. Hazel jumped nearly a hoof-length into the air, her eyes widening, and the skin at her withers leaped. For a moment Rarity hoped that she wasn’t offended by her earlier mistake of questioning her decisions in front of her herd – but no, the deer seemed nervous more than anything.

“Is everything alright, Princess?”

Princess Hazel nodded at first, silently with a tight smile that pinched and wavered at the corners… but after a few more flicks of her eyes, she seemed to deflate. Sticking her ears straight up, baring her teeth with a raspy sucking of breath, she shot to Rarity’s side as soon as none of the herd were looking in their direction.

“Please,” Hazel hissed, her round blue eyes thinning to slits, her chest heaving, and Rarity had to step back with a whinny at the intense fire suddenly emanating from her, “tell me. All that you said about Equestria… was it all true?”

Rarity blinked at her, bewildered. “Why, of course, Hazel. Every word.”

Hazel nodded. Then nodded again. A third time, smashing her eyes shut so very tightly with a whistle of breath.

“Okay,” she said.

Then she turned to the rest of the group. Rainbow Dash was flying a quick, agitated circle in her haste to be moving, while Pinkie Pie bounced up and down to talk to her; Fluttershy was curled into a soft ball on the ground (oh dear, her beautiful tail and her underbelly would be caked with that dreadful mud! Though Rarity reasoned she was used to such things, working with her animals); next to her was Spike, taking the moment to crunch on another gem he’d brought with him; Applejack stood square and strong, another piece of straw in her jaws, bearing the weight of two saddlebags – she’d taken Fluttershy’s while she rested, presumably. And Twilight stood at the front, staring out at that great expanse of earth before them. Her face was screwed up in concentration and worry, and no doubt she was thinking of just how far a journey they had ahead of them.

“We’re here,” Hazel said with a sad smile, motioning between them all – focusing most of all, Rarity noticed, on her Spikey-Wikey. “This is as far as my herd can take you. I wish you luck on your adventure.”

Twilight Sparkle bowed to her one last time, as did Rarity, and they all mumbled thanks as the deer and earth ponies began to trot their way back down the hill.

“Here we go,” Twilight breathed, taking a step into the sucking mud.

With a grimace, Rarity followed her dutifully.

Twilight sighed as she clambered up onto a dry piece of hard land, the first they’d found in quite a while. Even this area squelched beneath her horseshoes, soft and threatening to buckle, but the peat held just so with a damp squish beneath her horseshoes. She flicked her hind hooves to dislodge a heavy, thick clump of mud from her rear right leg, and it sloughed off of her fetlocks with a putrid pop in front of Rarity.

Poor Rarity, who was shivering like a mare possessed, stared down at the new pile of muck like it might rear up and bite her like a snake. While her mane and upper half had fared rather well, just a bit frizzed from the humidity, the rest of her… well, it was just a mess, to be honest. They all were. Her white coat certainly wasn’t helping, though.

“Oh- Oh my goodness, and look at this one!” came a soft cry from a bit farther back, and as Rainbow Dash groaned and clapped a hoof to her forehead, Twilight couldn’t help the smile that fought its way up. At least some of them were having a good time.

A ways back, Fluttershy sat curled into the mud, her hind hooves and haunches stained dull brown by the sludge sloshing around her body as she shook with excitement. Her eyes twinkled bright against the gloom, her tailtip twitched along to some happy beat within the pegasus’ heart, and her wings flared out, shivering down to the very ends of her primary feathers. In front of her was yet another toad, this one clear as glass and barely visible in the mud; its body was translucent and ghostly, giving a window deep into its internal organs. Its heart, shining a brilliant ruby red, thumped and squelched blood through tree-like veins threading all across its body, and Fluttershy grinned wider at every pump of viscera. She rambled on in a rant Twilight could barely keep up with, detailing why and how the creature came to look like this, and what environmental advantages it gained. Next to her Pinkie Pie sat enraptured, her eyes as wide as fishbowls, drinking in every detail as if Fluttershy was revealing to her the very secrets of the universe.

Honestly, as much as it could be thought of as gross (Twilight was pretty neutral to it, after having to perform dissections back in magic school), it was fascinating to see so much foreign fauna. At any other time, Twilight might actually love to sit and listen to her friend talk about animals like this. But now?

At her side Rainbow Dash, flapping over the swamp, dragged a hoof through her bedraggled mane and rolled her eyes. Again.

“Fluttershy,” she drawled, shouting across the distance. “Come on, we’ve gotta get moving! Twilight said we have to go all the way to the Frozen South, remember? At this pace, it’ll take us forever to get there!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Fluttershy cried at once. “There’s just so many interesting animals here. But, oh, I know that’s no excuse.” Her ears snapping back to the sides of her skull, she stirred her wings and started a swift fly across the swamp buffeting below. Pinkie Pie bounced her way behind her, glancing back at the toad and giggling all the while.

With a grimace, Twilight watched as new sprigs of cattails bloomed at every touch of Pinkie’s hooves, as the air glimmered around Fluttershy’s every feather.

“Erm, actually, Twilight,” Rarity murmured beside her. Her voice was fragile and breathy, and Spike stood at her side with a stroke to her mane. “I was meaning to ask you about all of this new magic. I do believe it’s giving me a migraine.”

Twilight nearly slapped herself. Of course she’d told Rarity earlier that she’d teach her meditation techniques to prevent this very problem, but with everything else going on she’d completely forgotten. Honestly, with her friends being so unused to this level of magical power (with the exception of Rainbow Dash, who frequently used her own to perform Sonic Rainbooms), she was lucky that the worst that had happened so far was the overgrowth of plantlife and a bit of a headache.

Twilight chewed her lip and glanced up to the sky– then nearly cursed as, instead of the sun or stars hanging in a specific place in the sky, she was met by those two mutilated heavenly bodies. She wouldn’t be able to use those in order to tell how much time had passed or how much time of day was remaining – instead the world was trapped in a purgatory of twilight that, while useful for travel in some aspects, made wayfinding and timekeeping difficult. She had no idea how long they’d already been trekking, other than her own inner clock telling her it’d been quite a while. Surely they could afford to take a break? Rarity, wincing against her headache, looked as if she needed one, and the others were getting awfully distracted after such a long walk through swampy nothingness.

With a sigh, Twilight nudged at Rainbow’s hovering flank. “No, it’s okay, Rainbow. I know we’re in a hurry, but it’s about time I showed you all a thing or two about reigning in that magic.”

“Oh, would you, Twilight?” Fluttershy muttered. She shot a furtive glance to the mud below her, curdling with fresh algae, sprigs of weeds unfurling at each beat of her wings. “I wouldn’t want to upset these critters’ homes too much.”

Rainbow Dash just scoffed, “Reigning it in? Why would I want to reign it in when I could do this instead?”

As the others crawled up onto the bank, Rainbow Dash coiled back, the muscles in her back coiling with energy. She pulled her hooves tight inwards, towards her center, straightened out her wings in a mighty snap that echoed out in a tiny shockwave of noise and energy that blasted back the grass and rippled the mud all around. She jolted, her wings twitched inwards, her mouth stretched to a grin as a cone of energy built around her front–

Twilight grabbed her in a blast of telekinesis, yanked back as hard as she could without caving in bone. Rainbow Dash coughed against the pressure, then deflated as Twilight pulled her in at her side. She grumbled as Twilight released her over the ground, her hooves impacting the peat with a hollow thud and a squish.

“No, Rainbow!” Twilight spat, bucking back at the energy boiling up in her horn. “That’s exactly what we don’t want. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but those Sonic Rainbooms of yours are loud.”

Pinkie Pie nodded. “Yep, and flashy. And bright. Ooooh, and–”

Twilight gently flicked her tail to Pinkie’s lips. “Exactly. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves more than necessary, especially when we’re in the middle of a strange swamp! At the same time,” she glanced at Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, “we also don’t want all this extra magic to assault our bodies, or overflow, which will happen without a proper release.”

Rainbow Dash blew a quiet raspberry at her. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. So what was your plan?”

With a giddy smile, Twilight thought back to her lessons with Zecora. All the hours spent with the zebra teaching her to touch into the finer forms of internal magic, how the energy flowed throughout each organ, every ventricle within the body down to the extremities. How the mind bent this energy into different forms, moved it and shaped it both within and without at the will of the user, through their cunning and emotional state. In fact, oh, that toad from before would be an excellent model for this, now that she thought about it. Oh, this was so exciting, getting to finally teach her friends about magic theory!

“Guided meditation!” she chirped, clapping her hooves together.

She’d never heard Rainbow Dash groan that loudly before.

Well, that was a disaster.

Twilight heaved out a heavy sigh as she popped into the Cosmic Library. As she materialized within it, as that heavenly light poured over her body, as that ethereal wind chilled her hooves and set her frazzled mane whipping, Twilight could feel her muscles loosening, her mind calming. Clumps of muck sloughed off her billowing hairs, then floated off into that endless abyss to become yet more starstuff.

The girls didn’t really get meditation. Or, well, more accurately Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie really didn’t, and Applejack tried her very best but couldn’t really understand the process. Fluttershy and Rarity, at least, had taken to it like ducks to water, and Spike, always willing to do an activity if it meant being able to sit next to Rarity, had at the very least kept calm and quiet. Rainbow and Pinkie, though…

Urgh. Twilight shivered at the suppressed frustration still streaming through her. Twilight was pretty sure she had cake icing sticking some hairs in her mane together, even though Pinkie Pie didn’t even have any cake!

She could only hope that they had any luck at all on their own. Meanwhile, she’d left them to breathe quietly alone while she did just a little more studying before they really got on the road. It was just that questions were still burning in her mind, rolling over and over – she would hardly be able to rest with his gnawing at her!

The most pressing things: who was Queen Mobius Strip, and what did she have to do with the spell that sent Twilight and her friends here? And, most importantly, why had Celestia and Luna never returned home?

Twilight radiated these thoughts out through the mental link, through the leylines tying the magic pouring from her horn to the endless twinkling stars surrounding her on every side. As she expected, here came the screens; they shifted and shuffled out in the ether, flipping past one another before boiling away into dust and pure magic once again. Multitudes of them were born and then faded, danced on the invisible strumming threads tying this realm together, before settling on… one. A single screen, large and already flashing with neon colors, floated soundlessly across that echoing chasm of space towards her, settled a few hoof-falls away.

Twilight didn’t bother summoning her ticking ball of light; given how bored Rainbow Dash was bound to get, Twilight assumed she only had enough time to safely finish one of these panels before all Tartarus broke out amongst her friends. Instead she trotted over to the flickering screen, rested her haunches down on that invisible floor that stretched on an infinite, yawning distance below her; the chill of it hit her instantly, traveling down her spine all the way up to the tip of her horn with a sharp ping of magic, and then the screen began to play on its own.

A group of six more ponies, some Twilight had never seen before in one of these memories, stood milling about in a cramped cottage. They were smashed together in the musty space, their eyes wide, tails flicking in fear, and even from her place miles and years away from the event Twilight could feel the dust clogging her throat, the sweat dripping from her brow, the panic clinging to her coat. The whole scene reeked of sour panic, especially as the group shifted once more and–

Twilight blinked. Rubbed her eyes. Her stomach flipped over.

A-Another alicorn! Another, different, unheard of alicorn, never discussed before in any of Equestria’s history books. She sat on a tiny chair much too small for her, built for an earth pony. Her huge white wings bent in at awkward angles to fit between the stacks of books and papers littering the room, and her gangly snow-white limbs did the same. Her horseshoes were beaten and dusty, glaring out dully atop a wrinkled piece of parchment stained with blots of darkness. Her glittering eyes, like chips of ice in a frozen ocean, were old and tired and cold, and she shrunk in on herself as if she were a feeble old earth matriarch instead of a mighty goddess; still, as she stared out amongst the six ponies, some pegasi, some earth ponies, some unicorns, they looked to her with their noses flared, their eyes stony and unblinking. They craned their bodies to her, just barely suppressing full bows of respect, and their pelts crawled as if they were envisioning a shadow crawling over their shoulders.

On the large alicorn’s flank was a tiny rainbow-glittered mark: a single, unbroken line intersecting itself in the center. The infinity symbol, also known as the mobius strip.

“It’s not finished,” she said. “Or at the very least it’s not ideal. You won’t like it.”

The mare in front, a pale purple unicorn with a white mane streaked with violet, just shook her head with fervor. “We know we have no choice,” she whinnied, the sound so quiet and broken. “Please, your Highness, the Seal will break any day!”

Queen Mobius snorted, tossed her mane; the flicking ghostly hair, billowing in the wind, knocked over a small stack of books, and for a moment only the clattering of their spines against the floor was all that could be heard.

“Here,” she grunted, and with a flick of her ivory horn, shining with the brilliant glimmer of pale moonlight, the parchment at her hooves flew to the unicorn’s chest. The light of that magic was so strong Twilight had to flinch against it as her whole body was set ablaze, washed white in its glory. “This is your part.”

“M-My part?” the unicorn stammered. “Will you be casting something as well?”

Mobius Strip hummed,and for a moment stopped to stare at the dust motes dancing in the light of her levitation. “Yes. I’ll be giving you all my magic.”

A ripple of gasps ripped through the room, trembled through the ponies one after the other. A pegasus, pink and blue with a helmet of some kind fastened over her mane, whinnied out something profane.

“All of us? All of it? Do you think we’ll be able to–”

“Repair the Seal? With that? No, not even that will be enough. It’s too far gone,” Mobius Strip sighed. Her voice cracked, her great wings shivered. Twitching feathers broke loose, falling crinkled and broken to the ground below. “Nothing will be enough now.”

The ground rumbled, somewhere. The ponies twitched, but said nothing about it.

“So what do we do?” a white and yellow pegasus murmured, her hair flat to the sides of her head. “We can’t give up.”

Mobius held out a long foreleg, then pressed her gilded horseshoe lightly to the parchment held tight against the unicorn’s breast. “With this spell, I will send you back in time.”

Twilight's heart spiked and she jumped up nearly off of her haunches. Still, the Queen continued speaking, so she forced herself to sit back to the cold nothingness and listen as closely as she could.

“Back to a time before the Seal was damaged. Back to the moment it was created. Gifted with my Magic, you’ll now have the ability to move the sun and moon. You can go beyond that, however. If you turn the heavenly bodies back to their base form – pure magic – you’ll have enough magic to reinforce the Seal, make it stronger than it ever was. You can create new, stronger, more efficient bodies in their place. That will buy future generations more time before the damage becomes too great once again; perhaps, if they’re lucky, they can find a permanent solution.”

The longer Queen Mobius Strip continued to speak, the more incensed Twilight became. With every word she lifted up on her haunches; her pulse spiked into her throat, and heat rose to her face because – because that was preposterous! All of it! As the screen flooded her with pale light, Twilight paced an imagined groove into the cosmos themselves.

It was true that the sun, moon, and earth itself all held great importance in the cycle of magic. As magic bled from the earth - was taken and shaped and tainted by ponies and other creatures, by the flora which bloomed on its surface - it was then recycled by the sun and moon, rained back down in energy waves from the cosmos back to the surface, and so on and so forth. Some even believed the sun and moon to be the original sources of magic. To break down such potent magical sources into their base forms and absorb them into a single pony's body, only to then reuse and reshape those sources to be more powerful– that was crazy enough! Even if that were possible, however, that still left the matter of time travel. Twilight had confused herself enough with that whole “Future Twilight” fiasco to know how such travel worked, and this wasn’t it! If the spell were successful, in order to prevent a paradox, which could very well lead to the eventual destruction of the universe itself, the events Mobius Strip described would have had to have already previously happened. She would remember it, even! Unless of course their were alternate universes involved, but of course then that would lead to the question of how to save both universes and not just one–

“Oh, Twilight. As astute as ever.”

Twilight stopped. A chill flew up her spine, her train of thought ground to a halt. She snapped to the screen next to her, and–

And oh. Mobius Strip had been speaking to the unicorn. The unicorn who just happened to also be named ‘Twilight’. Twilight Sparkle had to huff out a laugh, breathe out some of the tension bubbling in her chest: she knew she had a fairly common name, but still. That one was just a little creepy.

“It’s true that the spell doesn’t result in true time or universe travel. You won’t see a previous incarnation of me there… nor will there be any chance of running into your future selves.”

Twilight (the pale past-unicorn version) shook her head once more in Mobius’ direction, squeezed the parchment tight to her chest. “But how is that possible? For that to work, that would mean…”

Mobius Strip nodded toward her. Her white complexion filled the frame, cast the Cosmos in a cold, ghostly shine.

“In a sense, we are changing destiny. Rewriting it. I was not there, you were. And that would mean that…” Mobius stopped, suddenly sucked in a ragged breath. Her whole body shook as a croak coughed from deep in her chest. “That from that point onward, history would be irreparably changed.”

Silence.

Twilight Sparkle’s heart stopped.

On the screen, the unicorn Twilight said something else. Twilight Sparkle didn’t hear it through the pounding of her own heart. The pulse of blood rushing through her veins.

“The instant the spell is cast,” Mobius Strip choked out, “everything you have ever known will cease to have ever existed.”

Chapter Six: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

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A ragged noise croaked out, echoing across that frosty abyss of stars. Twilight shook her head, twitched at her ears. She couldn’t believe it. No, surely– surely she misheard!

Her whole body quaking, Twilight reached out to the mental link tying her to the Cosmic Library. It took her a few attempts – her magic slipped off the matrices like sand in a sieve as she gasped in raspy breath – but eventually she grabbed hold and, with a flick of her horn, replayed the memory.

“The instant the spell is cast everything you have ever known will cease to have ever existed.”

Her knees nearly buckled, but she held fast. She couldn’t panic now; she needed to focus. Think Twilight, think!

That’s it. Twilight whinnied, barked out a laugh that came out sounding more like a sob. She was overthinking this, surely. The memory she had just watched was of the very first attempt of the Ouroboros spell, something which Mobius Strip herself said was being used as a last resort in that timeline. Surely, after presumably multiple generations of ponies, a permanent solution to the breaking of the Seal had been found, or the spell had been modified?

But Twilight thought back to the past versions of Celestia and Luna, their tear-streaked faces screwed up in grieved agony. The screen itself floated up to face her as her mind swirled on the image, flashed a still picture of Luna’s sobbing, snot-covered muzzle over the cosmos.

It felt like her stomach hit the floor. No. No, that– that couldn’t be it, it couldn’t. Celestia had told her so little; this had to be some kind of test.

Her breath thinning, her chest erupting into fire, Twilight flared her horn to life. She grabbed hold of that mental link, the string attaching her invisibly to that image of Luna, and she yanked. She dredged up all of her energy and exploded it outwards across the leyline, her mane whipping in that ethereal breeze in response, and thought: what about the previous uses of the spell?

And with the noise of a shuffling deck of cards, there came the screens: blossoming into being with a twinkle of fantastic light that rivaled the stars, sliding in like an unspooling rollfilm. They– there were…

There were so many.

Twilight’s horn tingled at the feedback, while sickening blurs of color swooshed past her muzzle. Her mouth went dry and stale as hot sand. Her whole body trembled.

Hundreds– no, thousands of ponies sped past her in a smear of noise and light. The sounds of it all pierced her ears, rattled in her skull; the light washed over her body coldly, flickered so intensely Twilight had to squint her eyes. Ponies crying, holding their loved ones, sucking in the magical dew made of the heavenly bodies… continuing on. Never… never going back home.

At some point Twilight had collapsed. Her breathing was ragged, her chest spasming in wild jerks as she fought for air. The invisible ground below chilled her to the bone, and she shook as if she were freezing to death. Fat, hot tears pooled in her eyes – and they didn’t even give her the service of falling. Instead, they bloomed upwards into globs of salt and liquid, drifted off into the cosmos to refract that frosty starshine.

Her mind was swimming. So many thoughts flashed through her head, so fast, almost the same speed as that eternal roll of screens still blurring past. Her parents. Her brother, Shining Armor, and Cadance. All the acquaintances she had made in Ponyville. Luna. Celestia.

They were gone. Dead. Except – no, death would imply their very existence hadn’t been taken from them. They had been erased, evaporated beyond the concept of dust. Twilight Sparkle had failed not only Equestria, but the entirety of Equus, and she’d done so before she could even know it needed saving. Now they… a sob heaved from her throat, her stomach… they were all gone, and she didn’t even have a chance to stop it because Celestia hadn’t told her what to expect and–

– and the screens just wouldn’t stop coming.

How many? How many ponies had tried and failed to save their universe, their timeline? How many ponies, just like her and her friends, like Celestia and Luna, had their homes vanish into nothingness?

With a scream, Twilight burned the screens to nothing. Their golden ashes floated amongst the unyielding stars.

Twilight Sparkle sobbed.

What was she going to tell the girls?

For a moment, the darkness was absolute.

Nearby was a jingle and a grunt of effort, and then, with a sizzling noise, pale yellow light blossomed over the ice in a blinding sphere. It unfolded over Mare, the pale gray pony holding the lantern, and dyed her honey gold beneath the swaying glass. As the light listed, the world swirled in and out of tilting shadow, until Mare brought up a forehoof, coated with thick furs, and stilled it. Inside the fireflies buzzed, flittered about on a carpet of glowing mosses.

Mare was the only thing in the world, then, a lone pony on an island of light. Outside of that bubble lay absolution.

“First Born!” she called out into the darkness, her voice a beacon in the nothingness. “Second! This way, dears.”

First, blinking past the splotches dancing in her vision from the light, toddled towards Mare. She made sure to keep her tail wrapped tight around Second’s withers as they crushed over the ice in their studded horseshoes. Eventually they made it inside the bubble; in an instant light flooded over First, and she could see that she did, indeed, still have her hooves, and no horrible monster pony had eaten them while she was in the shadows.

Mare wiped away Second’s tears with a cloth, with a gentle smile.

“So sorry about that, children. It won’t happen again. Now come. There’s still work to be done.”

First Born thought it was rather unfair that they keep going on, since Second had gotten so scared and was still hiccuping with salt streaming down her face, but she didn’t dare say anything out of turn: the Village still needed to be looked after, after all. So, with a hushed coo, she swished her tail gently over Second’s ruddy cheeks, then turned back to Mare as the pony twirled around with a sway of the light.

The lantern forming a small cone of light which shone gold and white across their path, the three ponies trotted across the chilled earth in silence. Wind whipped, croning out a whistling wail of noise, and it carried small tufts of white and gray fluff that seemed to magically appear inside of the light, build on the lantern’s surface. It collected on First Born’s furs in puffy clumps, then evaporated in tiny streams of steam until only ashy scars were left on her clothing. First just rubbed at the stuff, smearing it into dark stains against the white of her own coat and mane, and stumbled along after Mare with Second in tow – she would hate to get left behind and be swallowed by that abyss of nothingness again.

Eventually, when First’s tiny legs were aching and shivering with exertion and cold, and she was practically dragging Second by her tail, Mare stopped dead. She motioned with a hoof, and the fillies scrabbled forward, chips of ice spraying from their shoes.

They stood on a precipice.

Below them stretched a thick layer of ice, blue and white and coated with a fine coat of frosty snow. It had rolled on endlessly on the way here, a constant glare from the lantern bouncing off of its surface as they trudged – now, a few tail lengths away, it dropped steep into another pit of dark. Cracks webbed across the ground, gashes cut into the eternal white and leaking darkness upwards, then those cracks widened, bulged, exploded until only chunks of ice floated in some inky black soup. The lantern caught on refracted edges of the pool in its radius, twinkled bright on the gently rolling surface like spinning gemstones.

They’d reached the ocean. First Born had never been allowed to see it before now. The way the older ponies talked, she always thought it was some exciting, frothing wake that spewed up spray and was loaded with scary monsters, but this just seemed like more darkness to her. And it was quiet. The only noise was the shifting of waves rippling against the lip of ice, the occasional clack of chunks as they touched the mainland.

First’s mouth puckered. This was supposed to be some important job for her Village, not just more of the same! Be good, be quiet, do chores – she thought this would be something fun! She stomped her hoof to the cold ground with a sharp tink, a ripple of the dark waters nearby.

At the same time Mare huffed out a snort, hot and steaming and grumbling. With a squeak, First jumped back, thinking she was getting in trouble for making such an unexpected noise, or for not respecting the work that fed her Village – then:

“Ach, and now I’ve forgotten the good hooks,” Mare grumbled. She turned to the fillies with a crooked smile. “So sorry, children. Here.”

She fished the lantern off its crook and placed it to the ice below with a tiny ‘tink’ of the glass, its light flaring off the surface in a spark of blinding white for a moment. When it died away, specks of black dancing in First’s vision, Mare stood at the edge of that effervescent dome, her forelegs casting deep scarring shadows into the snow beyond.

“I can make my way without it. First Born, watch after the filly, would you?”

Without waiting for an answer, Mare turned tail and stomped through the frost, crunching away until even the noise of her departure died into bleak nothingness. The wind whistled hollowly against the rippling water lapping at the shore.

First Born stomped at the frosty ground. She could almost scream, but she held her tongue so she wouldn’t get in trouble. Not only did it turn out that the ocean was a boring chore just like everything else, but now she had to watch one of the Foals all by herself! It just wasn’t fair, it–

There was a laugh.

With a snort, First turned and hissed at Second, “Sister, shush! You know we’re not supposed to speak unless spoken to!”

Second Born turned her doe-eyes up to First and shook her head. There were still dark tracks running slick down the snow-white pelt below her eyes. “I-It wasn’t me. I didn’t say anything, I swear.”

First ground her teeth and grumbled lowly in her throat; Foals weren’t to talk back to their elders! But then, bubbling up over the churning waters, bouncing through the glaciers in a watery echo, another giggle broke across the icy wastes. Second’s mouth hadn’t moved.

Her ears twitching around atop her head, First Born spun around. Her heart thudded up into her throat, her tail thrashing – was Mare back? That didn’t sound like her. Who else would be all the way out here? Another Mare or Stallion fishing for the Village?

Eventually she honed in on the sound, and jerked around to where the ocean lay dark and glassy under the light of the lantern. There, poking out of one of the crashing waves was–

First Born sucked in a ragged gasp, spit flying down her muzzle. She shot out her tail and yanked Second Born to her side, shivering.

A seapony! She knew there were monsters out here!

Its big bulbous eyes, large and round as fishbowls, and slitted in the gaze of a predator’s, peeked over the pitch blackness. The lantern’s sweet glow pooled over the thing’s head, casting the reflection from its scales glimmering shining crimson, a pool of blood-red over the snow. A row of fins jutted from the top of its head, paper-thin and translucent, and glowing oh so faintly as if it were made of living moss. It rose up in the sea, water dripping black as tar down its smooth, iridescent body, and it opened its mouth in a gnarled smile – rows of hot-white teeth flashed in the firelight, sharpened to wicked, crooked points.

“Hi!” it squeaked.

Twilight felt numb as she popped back into the swamp by her friends. Her horseshoes squished in the peaty ground below, and the dried, cracking mud caked into her fetlocks started to seep with moisture again, but she didn’t feel any of it. She didn’t say anything either; what was there to say? How could she?

Around her, her friends flinched at the sound of her teleportation. They’d all settled down on a dryer area of land, and were picking at the dirt with their forehooves. Rainbow Dash was flying a tight, lazy circle, her head hung low - when Twilight flashed back in with a sharp crack of magic, Rainbow Dash whipped her head at her with a grimace.

“Finally!” she grumbled, swooping in close. “Hay, Twi, you said you’d be gone for a few minutes. I was getting so bored!”

Rarity, curling up her tail to avoid it splashing in the muck, and no longer squinting at the light from her headache, nudged at Rainbow with a hoof and a tut.

“Rainbow,” she scolded, then turned to Twilight, “Darling, we were beginning to worry. Are you alright? Did you learn something useful?”

And then… then they were all staring at her. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, who had once again been observing toads and dragonflies, stopped their babbling and turned to her with calm, expectant grins. Applejack, settled down to the peat, lifted her hat from her eyes and raised her eyebrows in her direction. Rarity and Rainbow Dash stood directly in front of her, their eyes burning into her as they waited for an answer, while Spike, absolutely caked with mud from toe to tailtip, sat glancing grumpily in her direction a few hoof-falls away.

Twilight’s stomach dropped. They were– they were all looking at her, for an answer, for an explanation, and the one she had… how could she possibly tell them? Applejack, who loved her family, her kin, more than life itself; Pinkie Pie, who was friends with everypony; Fluttershy, whose home was packed with animal friends; Rainbow Dash and Rarity, who had sisters and families to look out for; Spike, who was still just a baby dragon. They… they would all be so broken. Her throat spasmed and croaked, her eyes burned.

Why couldn’t Princess Celestia have told her sooner? Why couldn’t they have had the opportunity to say goodbye, or grieve or– or hay, anything? If nothing else, Twilight could have used her council for how to explain this to them, but– but instead it was all on her, and she didn’t know how in the hoof to break it to them and–

Rarity’s expression had drooped. Fluttershy glanced at her with panic and sorrow in her eyes, her wings fluffing out behind her.

“Twilight?” she muttered.

“I…” Twilight coughed. Her whole body shook. “I can’t…”

In an instant her friends were on their hooves. They all crowded in close, their presence warm all around her as they snuggled in. Rarity leaned up against her side to support her as her knees jiggled, while Rainbow Dash floated up above and placed a dirty hoof gently to the top of her mane.

“Whatever is the matter, dear?” Rarity asked, breathless.

Applejack stood up last, brushing herself off and padding over in a smooth gait. She spat the straw from her mouth, scooped Twilight’s cheek delicately into her hoof, and looked at her full in the face. Her green eyes shone, burning so emerald and deep and kindly into Twilight’s own.

“Twi, Sugar,” she breathed. She smelled like apples. “Remember what we talked about. We’re all here with you.”

Twilight sniffled, drew in a shuddering breath. She did her best to breathe evenly and deeply, the way Cadance had shown her as a foal, and focused on Applejack’s eyes boring into her own. If nothing else, she was here with the greatest friends a mare could ever ask for. If she just focused on this – the rock solid hoof to her cheek, the warm bodies pressed close to her, the pure care and love radiating from every one of her friends as they stared worriedly at her ruddy cheeks… maybe, just maybe, this, all of this – she winced, thinking that she would never be able to have another Ogres and Oubliettes game with Shining and Cadance again, or send her mom that birthday card and bundle of flowers this year– would all be okay. They could get through this together, couldn’t they? So she started, her voice hitching:

“It’s E-Equestria, everypony, th-they– they’re gone, girls.”

The green eyes gazing into Twilight’s own shrunk to pinpricks as Applejack gasped. Everypony went silent and still as cold stone, all the air ripped from them in an instant. Wind whistled hollowly across the swamp, with the only thing to be heard being the soft rippling waves across that muddy water. The reeds whipped, the grass billowed, the leaves in the skinny trees crinkled in the harsh, pregnant silence.

Then Fluttershy whispered, “What?”

Rainbow Dash, still floating above her, furiously shook her head, “What does that mean, Twilight? What do you mean ‘gone’?”

Applejack’s hoof dropped from her cheek like a rock as she wrenched her face away, eyes smashed shut. Still, Twilight couldn’t stop now. They deserved to know, no matter how much her lungs and heart ached with every breath.

“It’s hard to explain…” she wavered, gulping past what felt like glass caught in her throat. “But that spell, the one that brought us here… it was a time travel spell, or something like one; it–”

“Time travel?” Spike asked, from where he sat clutching her left foreleg for dear life. “But we’ve time traveled before. Can’t we just go back?”

Twilight screwed her eyes shut as the heat bubbled back up, as she looked Spike in his hopeful little face. With all her energy, every ounce of it she had left, Twilight forced herself to look at the situation as objectively as she could, to describe the situation as simply and efficiently as possible; otherwise she would break down before she got them all to understand.

“No, Spike. We can’t. We–” her voice broke, and she forced the pieces back together before it could fail completely. “The Equestria we knew is gone. We can’t ever go back. I’m… I’m so sorry.”

It went silent again after that, as if everypony couldn’t understand what she had just told them. It was Fluttershy who started crying first.

Through her first tears, quiet and hot and dripping down her chin, Fluttershy stepped forward and asked, “Y-You’re sure?”

But she didn’t even wait for Twilight’s curt nod to start sobbing. She just wailed into her front hooves, shaking as if she were dying.

Pinkie Pie trotted forwards to sweep the pegasus’ frail body into a hug, her eyes distant and clouded. Her poofy mane, like a stormcloud dissolving, started to fray and flatten at the ends. Above Twilight, Rainbow tilted drunkenly over, then collapsed from the air like a stone; the splash from her hooves rippled up over Rarity’s hooves, staining her curled fetlocks a dark green-brown, but she didn’t seem to notice; her gaze was glassy and far away, her jaw working over and over as if a cow chewing cud. Spike looked up at her with giant, wet eyes, his claws pinching at her foreleg.

Applejack shuddered in the shakiest breath Twilight had ever heard her take before. And then she walked away.

As she slowly trudged through the mud, Rainbow Dash perked up her ears and moved to follow her – but Applejack whipped her tail with a sharp crack, snorted deep and low.

“I reckon I need a few minutes, Rainbow,” she said.

Rainbow creaked open her mouth to say something – then clicked it shut again at Twilight’s glance. This was hard, so very hard, and they needed to respect each others’ methods of coping. Twilight could only hope, as Applejack stomped away from them, that she would be okay at the end of all of this.

That any of them would be okay at the end of all this.

Still, with a gulp against her dry throat, a bob of her head, Twilight reasoned that the only way they could have time to heal is if she made sure they could ever be okay again, had the opportunity to do so – this new Equus and the creatures in it, the girls, Celestia; they were all depending on her to prepare the seal on whatever had ravaged their old world. As much as Twilight wanted to curl up next to Spike and cry for a while, she just didn’t have the luxury. Right now – she sighed, folded her little wings tight against her sides – she needed to focus on their objective while the others couldn’t, otherwise all of this heartache would be for nothing.

So she took everything: the thought that she would never see Owlowiscious or the library again, that she never spent enough time with her parents, that Celestia hadn’t even warned her for hoof’s sake– and she shoved it somewhere deep, deep down. Then, with a clearing of her throat, she turned away from Fluttershy, still sobbing into Pinkie Pie’s mane, and unfolded Hazel’s map in a dry area of dirt in front of her.

Instantly she was taken aback. A gasp ripped from her throat, and she stumbled back from the little crinkled bit of paper as if it could reach out and bite her. Scrabbling towards it with a hoof outstretched, shivering from hoof to horn-tip, Twilight darted her eyes over those etchings of ink with rapt attention. She studied every line, every symbol, every bit of ink gracing the wrinkled surface.

She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but now, with this new information, the map was familiar. Too familiar.

It wasn’t as if Twilight extensively studied cartography, but she’d seen her fair share of maps of Equestria in the past. Hay, before coming to Ponyville she’d even looked at a small map of its surrounding areas, so she wouldn’t get lost and embarrass herself the day of the Summer Sun Celebration. Even if she hadn’t – Twilight twirled in place, and looked out to where that purple-gray mountain range lay towering over the swampy wastes ahead, and sure enough, it was the same height and general shape as the one in her mind’s eye. When they first started trudging through this swamp, in the back of her head Twilight had wondered at how much it reminded her of Froggy Bottom Bog.

That’s because it was Froggy Bottom Bog. Just in a different time period, untamed by pony magic and left to fester in its own chaos.

Her pulse spiking, Twilight glanced at the area around her, from the peaty ground below, dotted with hills and stone, to the mountains they were headed towards and– yes, while her memory of her time in the Bog was fuzzy considering the last time she was there she’d been running for her life from a giant Hydra, the general layout of the place and the adjoining forest added up. This… this was Froggy Bottom Bog, and… Twilight’s stomach lurched. The grassy field they’d come to when they first arrived, that had been Ponyville, once.

Twilight’s blood rushed in her ears. Her hooves went numb, and her wings flailed open in a spray of feathers.

Their objective was in the Frozen South. That was ages away from Ponyville!

Her heart skipping a beat, Twilight curled to the muddy ground; her own breath echoed hot and humid up off the peat as she struggled not to break down.

What was she going to do?! Not only had everything Twilight had ever known been erased to- to nothing, but now this. She knew that Celestia’s casting of the spell had been interrupted by her injury, sending them to an incorrect location, but now she knew that said location was miles upon miles away. Every second the sun and moon- which, yeah, were still busted into pitiful fragments; she hadn’t forgotten that horrible tidbit thank you very much! – remained as they were, and the Seal remained unchanged, their whole purpose for being here was draining away. All of those ponies, so many cycles, all committed to adding their magic to the spell and giving the future generation more time, and it could all be for nothing now! What if something else went wrong as well– something that led to the ponies in the deer village not having Cutie Marks? How long did they have? What if they didn’t make it in time to save anypony?!

They had to make it. She had to make it.

Twilight bit down hard on a scream of frustration and grief. She had to keep it together, stay calm, for everypony’s sake. For now, she tried her best to numb it all, focus on the facts presented to her in the most rational and clinical way possible:

The spell that sent them here had malfunctioned, sending them far away from their goal. So, simple, right? They just had to get a move on and get to the Frozen South as soon as possible. Which just meant they had to focus everything they had on moving forward and never looking back. Easy as pie!

Shuddering, her nose flaring and her tail flicking irritably, Twilight perked up, whipped around, and prepared to tell the girls the news.

–Then she deflated at the sight before her.

Predictably, her friends were… not doing well. Fluttershy had sobbed herself limp and dry, and now hung hollowly onto Pinkie’s front hooves like a broken doll. Pinkie Pie herself stared off into the distance, her eyes blank and so wet, shimmering in the midday light. Her hair was puffy still, but just barely, clinging on to every last curl with everything it had. Rainbow Dash and Rarity sat side by side with Spike, Rarity mumbling something small and croaking between the two of them. Applejack was still gone.

Twilight sighed, her stomach dropping to her knees– then snorted and shook her head. No problem! This was fine, an easy fix. She just had to go get Applejack, and then they could all go cry on the way.

With a nod, Twilight steeled herself and splashed around the boulder Applejack had disappeared behind.

She honestly didn’t know what she expected when she rounded the bend. She’d rarely ever seen Applejack cry before, only a few stray tears burning in her lashes during some – Twilight gulped again, thinking about the way AJ’s face pinched up as she sewed dresses that just wouldn’t sell – emotional moments between their friends. Would Applejack be sobbing like Fluttershy now? The thought was just so… wrong. Applejack was their rock, the mare who cried on the inside; would Twilight see her torn apart by grief now, barely like herself?

Twilight snorted to herself and pushed on. Applejack was there for Twilight when she needed her. If Applejack was falling apart, it was only right that her friends pick her back up again. So she turned the corner and–

Applejack was just… sitting there.

Her hindquarters splashed into the mud, the waves rippling over her coat, Applejack sat still as a lone apple tree in the muck. Her old stetson gripped wrinkled tight to her chest, she stared, her neck tilted to gaze up at the broken discs of sun and moon. Her eyes, dull and reddened but dry, flickered in the wan light like two apple-green candles.

Twilight stopped short. What should she do? What should she say? She’d never had to write a report to Celestia about dealing with a friend’s grief, at least not yet; Twilight was in unknown territory in a number of aspects.

Her voice shaking, she tried, “Applejack?”

“I reckon I don’t rightly feel like talkin’ right now, Twilight,” Applejack drawled simply, slowly, cold as stone. Without looking in Twilight’s direction, those green eyes hardened, turned from wavering and lost to something so, so angry.

Twilight jolted at the growl in Applejack’s voice. She certainly hadn’t expected that. Still, she figured it was to be somewhat expected. Applejack’s entire family, everypony she’d ever known, had been taken from her, and here Twilight was stomping in and ruining her peace. Twilight couldn’t stop though, not now. Not only was it imperative that they get moving again as soon as possible but, so much more than that, Twilight was worried for her friend.

“I–” Twilight stammered, “I understand that you’re going through a lot, Applejack. Please, if you’d just let me help–”

Applejack slammed her eyes shut, followed by her jaw snapping closed in a startling click. She wrenched her neck to the side, away from Twilight, as her tail thrashed in the dirty water like a dying fish. Her ears twitched in all directions, while the skin over her withers flicked along in time with her ragged breath.

“Now Twi, I said I wasn’t in no mood for talkin’. I’d hate to say something I regret.” It came out strained, croaking out of her jaw and wavering as if over gravel.

Twilight almost couldn’t suppress a groan. She knew that Applejack was having a hard time, but so were they all, and the mare had hardly let her get a word in edgewise. Hadn’t they already learned this lesson, together? Sometimes you just had to accept help from your friends, and something like this… they needed to stick together, more than anything. How could they possibly hope to survive this if they didn’t?

So Twilight opened her mouth again: “Applejack, last night you helped me when I was about to fall apart, and you said you knew I would do the same for you if given the chance. Please, just–”

Applejack was standing in a snap. She jerked her head to the side and spat, a frayed piece of wheat flying alongside a loogie to plop loudly into the water below. She stomped, her hooves splashing at every step, until she was nose to nose with Twilight.

She bucked her chest forward until their barrels and snouts were brushing, and stared Twilight full in the face. Her eyes were lined with red, cold and hard.

“You wanna help?” Applejack spat. Then, before Twilight could say anything else: “Then tell me, Twilight. Swear to me that y’all didn't know.”

Twilight’s stomach dropped. Her mouth suddenly tasted sour.

Twilight, with a hot snort, gently brought up a hoof and placed it to Applejack’s chest, softly pressed her away so she could breathe more clearly.

“What? Know what?” Twilight said, calm and quiet and not at all shaking.

“Did Celestia tell you about this? Any of this? Th-That we would have to leave our kin behind some day?”

Twilight felt like she’d been sucked into a black hole. Her heart thudded, dropped into her stomach heavy and cold. She thought about Celestia, regal and tall in the Cosmic Library, her wings splaying out – her feathers stretched wide to hide the sick rot crawling up every vein, every ventricle. She thought about what she had told Twilight: that there wasn’t enough time.

Then she thought of Celestia’s younger face, freckled and framed by baby-pink hair the color of sunset. How, with tears in her eyes, she had said goodbye to her family, wrenched Luna away from that last hug out of necessity. How she’d gone on, left her world behind. Took a young unicorn as her personal student, her protege, and groomed her to become the holder of the Element of Magic, the savior of Nightmare Moon.

‘Not enough time’. Or was it something else? Did that even matter now?

Twilight felt numb. Something ripped apart in her chest, throbbed with every strained breath snorting deep through her nose. Her tail thrashed.

“No. I promise, Applejack, I was just in the dark about all this as you were.” Her eyes met the soupy ground. “Celestia and Luna… they never told me anything...”

Applejack seemed to deflate at that. Her chest, puffed up and rock hard below Twilight’s hoof, decompressed with a heavy rush of air as she sighed. The water below trembled at the contact of her breath.

Applejack’s watery, wavering reflection met her eyes.

“I… well, shoot, Sugar. I just thought…”

Twilight shook her head. Gulped, strained and rocky against her raw throat.

“It’s okay, Applejack. Really,” she said, with a smile. Her reflection still looked so very sad, though. “But there’s something else you and the girls need to know.”

Nopony celebrated when they made it out of the swamp unscathed. Not even Pinkie Pie, who would normally take any excuse she could to party, or Rarity, who would no longer have to worry about holding her tail up out of the mud.

Instead, everypony was silent as they took that last step out of the marsh, as the cool ground underhoof transformed to rough, hard crag that clacked beneath horseshoes.

Ahead, the mountains loomed like a thorn piercing the sky.

Chapter Seven: King of Diamonds

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Monsters! First born knew there were monsters out here!

With a whinny she charged forward, ice spitting at her horseshoes, and shoved herself in front of Second Born. Her legs were shaking, so she forced them to stop. She was the eldest here, and elders needed to be brave. Even if the seapony in front of her did have razor snaggle-teeth and probably was slimy and smelled horrible.

“Hi!” the creature squeaked again, its fangs flashing like pearls in the light of the lantern.

Speaking of– the lantern! First gave another whinny and brandished the lantern in front of her and her sister, the moss inside slapping against the glass and the fireflies buzzing to life with flashes of gold. But that didn’t help; it just glittered off of the seapony’s scales and seared First’s eyes.

Then there was silence. Just the gurgle of the rolling black water, the tink of ice crashing against ice. First, growling and rubbing her eyes, pushed Second further behind her, but…

“H-Hello…” her idiot sister whispered. The sound was almost drowned in the sea, but the monster clearly heard it. It thrashed in the water, spraying up a mist of droplets. It slithered its way up to the ice shelf, plopped its shiny forelegs onto the surface. First was sure this was it, the monster was going to shove its way up onto the abyss of darkness and gobble them up one by one!

Instead its slitted eyes were blown out as they met the lantern’s glow, and it made another noise. A laugh? But monsters didn’t laugh.

“Do you wanna play?” it said. Its voice was oily. Wobbly. Kinda funny, actually.

The thing reared its wavy tail out of the ocean something like a snake breaching the waves, and balanced upon a pair of fire-red tailfins was… a sphere. It was opalescent, shone like a jewel, but it bounced when the monster slapped it onto the frozen earth.

First blinked dumbly as the sphere rolled closer, a tiny rumbling noise as it bumped over chips of ice. Second pressed against her withers, her breath hot against First’s cheek, her eyes and mouth wide.

When it met her hoof, First Born squeaked. She wiggled her fireleg on instinct at the foreign touch grazing her thick shoes, and the sphere went flying back with a funny reverberating noise that itched her ears. It slapped the dark sheet of ocean, then bubbles foamed around it and sucked it into the void.

“Yay!” the monster said. It sank its tail back after the sphere, and then the thing came splashing up from the depths and onto the ice shelf once again. It bounced into the air a few times, then squeaked to a stop at the edge of the lantern’s light, at the precipice of absolute dark.

Second Born jumped after it.

“Wait!” First shrieked. What was Second thinking?! Mare and the other Ponies would be furious if they learned that she endangered herself, endangered a valued part of the whole. A-And they would get mad at First, even though it wasn’t her fault!

Second Born laughed and kicked at the sphere. It landed in the water, and the seapony went to fetch it.

But… wait… this didn’t seem too bad, did it?

The sphere plopped up onto the icy shore once more, and Second scooped the weird thing into her forelegs, splattering her thick furs and probably chilling herself to the bone. That– That was potentially damaging essential survival items that all the Ponies of the herd shared!

But Second was smiling. Second Born, who always was a huge crybaby and was too scared to sleep alone and who always took things so personally.

And… and the ocean trip had been so boring so far, and it was just more chores, and First Born was stiff and achey and Mare had left them all alone and. And that looked… fun.

The next time the sphere rocketed to the surface, it landed at First Born’s hooves.

Two sets of eyes seared into her.

“Are you gonna throw the ball back?” the mons– seapony asked.

So, with a smile, First Born gingerly placed the lantern to the ice. Then she bucked the “ball” with all her might.

And that was how she would make her very first friend.

It was Rainbow Dash who eventually got them moving again.

Everycreature stood huddled at the edge of the bog, their eyes glazed and staring vacantly over the mountains looming ahead. Fluttershy had finally stopped softly weeping, and instead shivered like a withering leaf as she leaned bodily over Pinkie Pie, who occasionally shot her what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile, one that crawled over her face like a dead slug. Rarity, her mascara stained deep into trenches cut down her cheeks, tittered quietly to herself and pawed limply at the mud caked into her fetlocks. Applejack said nothing to any of them, refused to look at any of them, just spat into the shrubby grass and flicked her tail. Spike sat on Twilight’s withers in his familiar spot, and dug his dirty claws into her crest as if she was the only thing keeping him from drowning. Maybe she was.

And ever since she heard the news about the Frozen South, Rainbow had been even more on edge than usual. Flying tight circles, snapping at the feathers of her wings with an audible crack of wind, trotting in place until she dug clods from the earth. Now she soared over the treetops, a rainbow blur hovering above the sickly-looking branches, and her silhouette cut a bleeding shadow across the puny sun and moon. She whipped around, her hair flailing in the high altitudes, and even from here Twilight could tell she was squinting and grinding her teeth.

Then, with a snap of air, she shot down and thudded to the crag below with a sharp clack. Her ears were tight to the sides of her head, still.

“Alright,” she rasped, “There’s a town up ahead, just like Twi said. We should make it there before too long if everypony would get a move on.”

Rarity tutted at her, tapping at her side with a hoof. “Come now, Rainbow, be gentle. We must be given time to grieve.”

Twilight sighed and shook her head, rustling at Spike’s head-spines with her mane. As much as she wanted to side with Rarity, as much as she wanted to pull Fluttershy into a tight hug, time just wasn’t a luxury they had anymore. “No, Rainbow Dash is right. We have a lot of ground to cover, girls. Come on. Maybe the townsfolk will have a place to rest.”

With a flap of her petite wings, she motioned forward with a hoof and started a brisk trot across the rocks. Behind her, five sets of hoofsteps clicking sharp against the stone sounded out – and so did a snort from Applejack, a harsh whisper spat below her breath. Still, she followed, and Twilight took that as a victory.

Eventually the crag underhoof shifted, transformed from a random kaleidoscope of rock and sickly grass to a more even, structured path, with the weeds culled carefully away. The cobbles were slightly softer to the touch of Twilight’s frog, and the rock was smooth, dimpled and scarred by endless impacts. When she leaned down, careful not to jostle a napping Spike (he was just a baby dragon, and needed it after today), she saw the telltale indentations in the shape of horseshoes, accompanied by thinner hoof-falls not unlike those of the deerfolk, as well as thin trenches dug over the years by passing carts. Another road.

She and the girls cantered down that road for Celestia-knows how long. The sun and moon, hanging in broken shards in the heavens, did nothing to help them gauge time. All Twilight knew is that she and the girls were exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and she really, really hoped that this next village would be as welcoming as the deerfolk were after the rescuing of their crops.

So it was with trepidation and a little bit of hope that Twilight crested another rocky hill, and she whinnied with relief when she saw the rickety ends of a fence of some sort. Beyond the thin wooden barrier, colored the sickly white of the bog trees, there was a tiny smattering of houses. Cut from stone, roofed with thatching caked with baked mud, a few hovels stood lonely atop the hillside. From a distance Twilight gazed over the dusty grounds, and could see a hoof-full of ponies and some other ungulate – perhaps an antelope? It was hard to tell from so far away – wandering through.

And– Twilight snorted. Her tail twitched. This was it? With a grunt she fished Hazel’s map from her saddlebags with a zap of levitation, and smashed it to her muzzle. The map clearly stated there was another village here, and to its credit it was drawn much smaller than Hartton but– really? And Twilight had always thought Ponyville was small.

Still, it was a town. That had to be good, right? Maybe they could find a safe place to clean up and rest before their next leg of the journey to the Frozen South. Not to mention that her friends, all mumbling and whinnying quietly behind her, were in need of some time to themselves, in a place that wasn’t wet and muddy and cold. So Twilight fought off everything – the weary ache settling in her bones, the pain in her chest, the thought of the world covered in dark magic – and slapped a smile on her face. She turned to the girls and–

Rainbow Dash flashed past her. The air whipped her mane back with a snap, slapping Spike so hard he flailed awake. One of her wings, splayed open as she zoomed by, clipped her hard in the side, catching her own little wing and wrenching it back in a way it definitely wasn’t supposed to bend.

“Come on,” Rainbow growled. “We’ve already wasted so much time.”

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity snapped, taking a step forward and flicking at the pegasus’ tail with a twinge of telekinesis. Beside her, even Fluttershy hissed out a breathy tut at her.

But Twilight just sighed and placed a hoof to Rarity’s withers.

“No, Rarity, it’s…” she was going to say ‘okay’ but, well… it wasn’t okay! They were all struggling, and it wasn’t fair of Rainbow to act like that. And her tiny wing really did sting now, darn it! But Twilight gritted her teeth, breathed deep through the heat in her chest. It just wasn’t worth it, to fight amongst themselves. They didn’t have the time for it, and Twilight honestly didn't have the heart for it right now. “Fine. We’ll all feel better after we get some time to rest.”

Hopefully.

Rarity whinnied, and brushed back her mane over her mascara-stained face. “If you insist, Twilight. Though I still don’t think she should be behaving so brutishly.”

With that mostly settled, Twilight took a moment to brush her wing (the one that wasn’t currently throbbing) over Spike, the iridescent feathers fluffing gently over his head-spines until his breathing evened and he lulled again into his dragon-nap. Then they set forward, their hooves carrying them past the fence and through a small wooden archway that swayed with a creak in the cool breeze.

As soon as Twilight’s horseshoes struck the road within the tiny town, echoing in the quiet with a muted ‘clop’, all the townsfolk milling about turned to look in their direction. Close up the place was even less impressive, just a cluttered mass of hovels with a few ponies and – actually, they appeared to be a type of goat – trotting around with shaggy coats and mud-encrusted hooves. The nearest goat, tall and gangly and much skinnier than those Twilight had met in the past, audibly bleated in shock as the seven of them shuffled in; its eyes went wide and black as pitch, the horizontal irises blowing out in absolute terror. Twilight thought for a second that they might faint, but instead the creature just stood cowering, shivering harder than even Fluttershy was. Speaking of Fluttershy, the goat seemed to be staring at her, before flicking their eyes to Rainbow Dash, then at Twilight herself, then back. Looking around, many of the other ponies and goats were in the same position, crouched into shivering balls on the ground or brandishing their giant horns like daggers glittering in the twilight.

Well, this was a bad start. These creatures were even more wary of them than the deerfolk were. With a whinny, Twilight galloped forward with a strained smile and gently flared her horn to life – maybe she could cast her translation spell before everycreature completely freaked out?

Around them, the entirety of the little village erupted into gasps and bleats, but Twilight didn't waste any time. She raised her glimmering horn, adjusted the spell to encompass everycreature in a certain radius, put on her most winning smile (usually reserved for the Grand Galloping Gala), and–

–Twilight’s world erupted into pain. A sharp crack rang out, then a lance of fire tore down her horn and rattled in her skull. Her whole body blew back as the spell she was preparing fizzled and sparked in a quick burst of wild magic that singed at her mane, and her teeth clacked together so hard it ached her jaw.

More noise fired across the village, a jumbled mess of sound, but it just rang in Twilight’s ears as she gasped into her chest, flicked at her ears to clear the static biting her forehead. What in the hay was that?! It felt like a failed spell, almost, or backlash from attempting to use too much magic from one’s reserve– but that didn’t make any sense! She could feel the magic thrumming below her skin, practically bubbling up out of her veins, she was filled with so much of it, and she had cast that spell without incident just recently. What in the hoof could have–

Twilight blinked. Vaguely, she was aware of Spike babbling in her ear and her friends pressing up against her on every side.

There was a bloody pebble at her hoof.

Warily, she wiped at her forehead. A thin trickle of red smeared into her fetlocks. She looked up from the dirt, and the first thing she saw was another stone hurtling towards her face. She grabbed it in her telekinesis on pure instinct, then just held it there, trembling in a cloud of magenta. She looked past it. An earth pony was scraping his hoof at the cobbles, digging around a smaller rock to try to dislodge it.

They… they threw a rock at her!

“What in tarnation?!”

“What in the hay was that?!”

“Simply barbaric!”

“She didn’t even do anything to you, you meanies!”

Her friends all crowded around her, pressing close and shoving her back. Fluttershy cooed at her, gently dabbing at her bloody horn with the wispy touch of her wing. But even as they advanced, so did the ponies and goats. Through the mass of bodies overtaking her vision, Twilight saw more of the townsfolk clopping at the ground, chipping harshly at the stone below with their hard hooves. The goats’ horns bobbed dangerously. Rainbow Dash zipped forward, gnashing her teeth, her hooves reeling in the air as if she was ready to start a boxing match. So of course in response Applejack snatched her tail in her teeth and tried to wrench her back into line, but Rainbow wouldn’t have it; she whipped one of her wings back and smacked Applejack in the snout until her jaw went slack and the hairs fell out between her teeth. Then she reared back at the closest goat like was going to buck him in the snout and–

“Girls!”

The shield spell, again, went up without her really even thinking about it. Pure instinct. Nothing but the bubble itself and the stinging of her new horn wound to tell her she’d cast it at all. Rainbow Dash’s horseshoes smacked into the curve of the orb of magic with a meaty thud, and the impact of it rattled back all the way into Twilight’s teeth.

They all turned to her. Again. All of them looking at her, waiting for her to tell them what to do. And the goats glared at her like they wanted to wear her horn strung up on a necklace.

This– she snorted – this was absolutely ridiculous! This is not how this was supposed to go! Any of it! It– it was all–

“Twilight?” Pinkie Pie started, taking a trembling step towards her, and Twilight realized that her face was hot and wet.

More than that, though, her horn sizzled. Magenta blasts of pure uncontrolled chaotic magic spewed from the intertwined bone. Beams like lightning crackled from the tip, spraying off in a fountain of color and noise. The light of it burned her eyes. With a gasp, her chest clenching, Twilight yanked back on the leylines as hard as she could, clamping down with a breath – but they fought back, squirming between her grasp like sand through a sieve. It felt like eels beneath her flesh, and Twilight… Twilight didn’t know what to do. She– she hadn’t lost control like this since Magic Kindergarten.

Pinkie Pie tried to touch her, but Twilight just smacked her hoof away. It was too dangerous right now for any of them to get close.

“Hush. All of you just– just stop it! We’re going. Now!”

With a strangled grunt, Twilight wrangled at the magic pouring from her, desperate to shove it into some sort of positive source; all that raw, untamed energy needed somewhere to go. So in an instant she built the matrices, stacked them properly, and fed the pure chaos into what she hoped was the right direction.

She and her friends disappeared with a ‘pop’.

Nopony said a word. Their horseshoes scraped against the crag with an awful scuffing noise as they dragged their hooves up another incline. Fluttershy coughed the words “hop, skip, and a jump” under her breath as she climbed, her wings tucked shivering to her sides, but other than that all was tense and quiet.

Twilight brought up a front hoof and swept at the sweat beading in her singed forelocks, then winced against the sweet sting as she brushed her aching horn. With a heave, an audible grunt and a crack in her knee-joints, she hauled herself up the rockface and stumbled, exhausted, onto the plateau where they intended to make their camp for the night. For a given value of ‘night’, of course.

And, of course, something new and horrible had to be waiting for them there, too, or her name wouldn’t be Twilight Sparkle.

Her friends spilled out onto the outcropping, and were met with thundering skies. Clouds, heavy and gray as stone, plump with wild thunderstorms, churned overhead here. What light trickled through that great puffy blanket was sickly and yellowed, tingling with magic and ozone that lay sticky on your coat. The pale candleglow, flickering in the breeze like dying fireflies, cast gaunt, deep shadows over the rock, and just barely illuminated where they stood inside of a giant stone valley. Like a gravel bowl, with lethal shards jutting out from the ground at awkward angles, mangled teeth in a monster’s jaw. Already humidity and dew and the trickle of sprinkles began to coagulate into pools in the cracks all around them, the water flat and sharp.

Twilight was surprised that Fluttershy didn’t faint on the spot. Then again, she, as well as the rest of her friends, were probably more focused on the strangers among them.

Yellow-white lightning tore a cloud in two, and in the flash that encapsulated the entire swollen bowl, Twilight saw that some of the rock-teeth were more than just featureless mounds of stone. They were ponies! At that revelation Twilight’s weary mind chugged up to a mile a minute, flashing through different implications and possibilities: crystal ponies! No, these were clearly inanimate. Ponies caught in a horrible curse that turned their flesh to stone, just like when she stared into the eyes of a Cockatrice! No, these ponies didn’t look shocked or confused enough for that. And finally she was struck with a memory: her, sipping tea that was so warm and sweet with just the right bitter tang, sniffing in its herbescent aroma with a sigh as Princess Celestia chattered on about the history of one of the great heroes depicted in the Canterlot Statue Garden.

And that’s what these were, or at least appeared to be. Depictions of heroes, pegasi with wings splayed so that every vein of every masterfully-crafted stone feather caught the glare of electricity.

The thing is, right beside them…

“Diamond Dogs?” Rarity said, looking up at a stone carving of one (bulky and coated with fur, every strand of the hair cut into relief, its neck adorned with a collar that was inlet with real sapphires and rubies which glittered off fractal pings of scattered light). “Well, I can’t say it’s the muse that I would have chosen myself, but the work is absolutely gorgeous. Just look at the cut on those gems!”

“Yeah,” Pinkie Pie giggled, bouncing up to a shadowed Dog in the dark. “Look at this one. So life-like!”

She brought up a hoof, booped it on the nose with a snort and a giggle– then the statue let out a snort and a giggle. As the stone bowl around them stewed into crawling darkness, the shadowy Diamond Dog reared back from Pinkie Pie’s touch. It wiggled its black nose, gleaming like obsidian, and swatted at Pinkie with a massive club paw.

Twilight gasped. Immediately, her fur buzzing on end, she leapt forward with her horn crackling. But the meaty paw, capped with razor claws, just ruffled through Pinkie’s mane as if it were nothing but cotton candy. Beside her, Fluttershy trotted forward and placed a hoof to her withers. Her feathers brushed over Twilight’s horn just like earlier when she was first injured, snuffing it softly.

“No!” she squeaked. She jabbed her hoof into the dark, towards Pinkie and the dog. “Wait. Look.”

Gasping for air, Twilight jerked her head to where Fluttershy was pointing: the Diamond Dog’s rear end. Its stubby tail wagged back and forth, whipping so hard that it slung misty rainwater all over the place. And now that Twilight took a second to notice, its orange tongue was lolling out while it panted with absolute glee, like Winona when Applejack scratched that spot on her belly just right.

“I no statue, pony!” the Dog barked, its voice harsh and trill. “I am friend!”

Twilight heaved out a sigh. Tension oozed from her muscles, and another wild spell unwound from her horn. As the magic, rolling under her skin like a flopping fish, roiled around inside her, she had to think back on every lesson Zecora had ever taught her about control. And, she thought, shame burning hot in her gut, this was humiliating! Not to mention unbecoming of a– of an alicorn. A princess. After everything she learned about friendship, all the lessons, and now she was set to zap anycreature that looked at her ponyfriends wrong!

But at her side, Rarity shuddered at the glistening of the Diamond Dog’s teeth too, and Twilight supposed she couldn’t blame her. Not after what happened last time.

“Well I am Pinkie Pie, and I am friend too!” Pinkie Pie chirped. Her hair poofed up just a bit more, curling like crazy at the edges, and when she smiled it was so bright.

Twilight couldn’t help but grin as Pinkie Pie bounced all around the Diamond Dog blabbering all kinds of questions too fast for it to comprehend, let alone answer. After everything that happened today it was nice to see a friendly face, somecreature that wasn’t automatically terrified or throwing rocks at them all. Even if it was a Diamond Dog.

“Yes! Good!” the Diamond Dog yapped. “I am Fifi!”

And… wait just one hoof-clopping second. Twilight hadn’t cast a spell when she just flared her horn, she was sure of it; it was all untamed magic, given no shape or definition, just raw emotion and energy. Meaning, she definitely hadn’t cast a translation spell onto anycreature - let alone anydog. Yet here… Fifi… was, speaking a respectable, if choppy, version of their Equestrian language. Twilight’s brains churned in her skull. With them being sent back to an approximation of Equestria’s past, that raised a lot of questions linguistically speaking. After all, she had just barely related the deerfolk’s speech to that of an ancient text she’d once studied, and that was just an educated guess. For the Diamond Dogs of all things to speak a more modern vernacular…

“Heeyyy. Equus to egghead,” Rainbow Dash drawled.

In response, Twilight made what was surely a very intelligent-sounding noise, and blinked back to reality to see a blur of cyan hooves being waggled in her face. Also, Spike had jumped off her back at some point and was now brandishing his claws between Fifi and Rarity, though neither seemed to rather notice. Also also, her friends had cluttered together in a clump, a group huddle lacking Pinkie, and were whispering amongst themselves without her. She should probably remedy that.

She scooted in beside Rainbow with a sheepish squee, just in time to dodge yet another loogie and wad of straw shot from Applejack’s snout.

“Am I the only one here with any lick of sense? Them Diamond Dogs tried to truss you up and make you a gem-mule!”

Rarity nodded along, humming vacantly, as her horn dazzled to a diamond sheen. Droplets of rainwater were caught suspended in the sapphire light as if trapped on a spider’s web, then splashed delicately to the smears of mascara still clinging to Rarity’s muzzle. Once the stain had dulled to a hazy gray that you had to squint to really see, Rarity nodded in assent, then shuffled to turn to Applejack, her lips set into a prim line.

“Correct,” Rarity said, quite harshly. “There once was a group of Diamond Dogs who behaved absolutely abhorrently to my friends and I. But of course, anypony with a ‘lick of sense’ would see that Fifi is not one of those same Diamond Dogs, and that we’re in dire need of a place to sleep. Also, it’s raining.”

Applejack laughed. It was not a happy or a friendly laugh. “Not yet it ain’t, you uppity–”

She was quickly silenced by the torrential downpour that broke open the clouds in a rip of static, unloaded over her head like an overturned bucket of water, filled the brim of her stetson to a boil, then flipped that same hat sodden over her eyes.

Well, maybe she was soaked and everything was horrible, Twilight conceded, but at least the rain had stopped those two from arguing before they could start. And it eliminated her need to overthink her overtired brain to dust. Rarity was right. It was raining, and they needed sleep. So, diplomacy with the strangely friendly Dog it was, then.

“Oh! Ooooh! You guys, I made a new friend! A Diamond Dog friend, and I’ve never had a dog as a friend before, unless you count Winona, which, you know, I do, but it’s still a little different you know? Anyway, she says we can stay the night with her Pack if we want!”

Or… maybe one of her amazing friends actually had that covered this time. Twilight couldn’t help but smile, even through the sheets of freezing water slapping down on her back.

“That would be…” she started, her lungs tired and aching from the climb and from everything else, “... that would be just great, Fifi.”

So she willingly led herself and her friends into the den of a pack of carnivores.

It wasn’t the worst mistake she would ever make.

The first Diamond Dog tunnels they’d been in hadn’t exactly been inspiring. Damp, dank, musty mazes dug by paw, lit only by the light of Twilight’s copied gem-finding spell. This time Twilight honestly expected more of the same, just somewhere dry and cool to sleep at best. This, these tunnels… well, it didn’t take her rudimentary knowledge of architecture or Rarity’s babbling about gemstone varieties to be impressed.

The walls around them, instead of imposing and suffocating, were cavernous and spacious, smoothed and painted in welcoming neutral tones. Reinforced with stone and wood, stained with detailed murals and portraits of Diamond Dogs of the past. Paw prints big and small littered the spaces between. Fire crackles warmly from gem-encrusted sconces spaced evenly down the long corridors, flaring out twinkling rays to the cool, cobbled floors below.

Then the halls opened up further, casting visitors into a huge valley not unlike the surface. And just like that stone bowl above, this grand arched hall was packed with statues – only these pieces made those pumice pegasi look puny! Huge intricate undertakings of stonework; the girls gawked at them, Spike licking his lips at the shimmering facets, as they clopped noisily after Fifi’s paws. Twilight especially was intrigued, because the longer her gaze lingered, the more this appeared to be pony history.

First: a cloud studded with diamonds, strung together with ribbons of stone and glass work. Atop it, spires of obsidian surrounded by statuettes of pegasi. Following the cloud were gorgeous busts of some sort of pegasus figureheads, their mings wriggling with captured magical light trapped within crystalline veins. Then, the same cloud , torn in two in an abstract cluster of gleaming gemstones. The same pegasi, their wings replaced with dull slabs of unrefined rock. Life-size statues of pegasi prostrating to a giant Dog, who was clad in probably the most complex ornamental armor Twilight had ever seen (and that was saying something; Prince Blueblood’s father was infamous for his overly-studded saddle that practically blinded everypony who looked his way in court).

And hanging from the domed ceiling, an absolutely humongous chandelier. Swaying pegasi draped from it. But… something was off. These pony statues, like the others, were simply beautiful. Graceful. But not proud, like most depictions of ancient pegasi. Something about the set of their simplified faces, the angle of their wings and legs…

“They’re falling,” Fluttershy breathed in her ear. “A-All of them.”

And Fluttershy was right. The statues’ legs were splayed out, kicking in vain. The artist had captured the wind grazing upwards through every feather as their wings flopped uselessly. The ponies weren’t screaming, their faces were completely blank, but somehow that was almost worse.

Beside her, Rainbow Dash shuddered once from tail to tip. Twilight’s own wings tingled, and when she nervously flapped them, those tiny falling pegasi jingled in their glass typhoon.

“Friends?” Fifif asked. Ahead of them she had stopped at a huge stone archway. Emblazoned into the stone were the words “The King of Diamonds”.

Twilight gulped. You know what, suddenly this didn’t seem like such a great idea. True, fifi hadn’t done anything to harm them and there was nothing wrong with the place. This was just a record of their history, nothing nefarious. But it just brought up too many questions that Twilight couldn’t focus on right now. Plus she just… had a bad feeling. Call it her Twilight Sense.

Still, Pinkie Pie giggled and bounced after fifi, and Twilight resigned herself to the fact that she was probably just being paranoid after a bad few days. She shifted Spike on her withers from where he had groggily slumped over, then followed the girls and Fifi through the darkened cavern. For one moment they were plunged into the pitch black, and the darkness reeked of Dog.Light, crystalline and twinkling, cut a glassy line through that blackness. Twilight was met with yet another huge chamber, and the King.

The girls all gasped. Spike jolted awake with a snort. Twilight’s tail snapped down between her legs as an instinctual whinny shot out of her throat. He, the Diamond Dog King, he was…

“Magnificent…” Rarity whispered.

A giant pit, a sinkhole of epic proportions, tore through the center of the rocky chamber. Within it, resting comfortably on his haunches, the King of Diamonds sat. No, “sat” was too banal of a verb. He radiated.

He was huge. Bigger than the Hydra of the Bogg, than the snoring dragon they’d driven off from Ponyville. His skin gleamed, cold and icy and glimmering. He was no longer just flesh and muscle, if he had ever been, now instead with his whole body crystallized like the ponies of the Crystal Empire. And inside that glassy carapace, wild magic crackled. Lightning and balefire, hot and volatile, pulsed across the hollow of his ribcage.The energy of it prickled Twilight’s pinfeathers. And as for the rest of his blood and other mortal remains – the frog. He was like the glass frog that Fluttershy had been so enamored with. Twilight watched his heart lurch.

The King looked down. Turned his giant carnivore eyes on them. His claws were thick as trees.

Twilight panicked. Her stomach rolled, her whole pelt went hot.She darted her eyes around to all of her friends. Wide-eyed and slack-jawed as she was. Sweet Celestia, what should she do? A shield? Would that read as a show of disrespect and set him off? She could teleport them all out of there again except – argh! – she hadn’t been paying enough attention to the layout of the tunnels. She could bury them all down here, suffocate them all in a rock. The locals around here hadn’t exactly been friendly either! What if–

Rarity dipped into a bow with a smooth smile. Fluttershy collapsed into one beside her with a squeak. One by one the other girls did the same, breathless, Her mind racing, her knees knocking, Twilight took position.

“Y-Your Majesty–” Twilight started.

Pinkie Pie hopped up and squeezed Fifi into a side-hug. “Hiya! I am Pinkie and I am friend!”

Twilight just couldn’t help it – she barked out a raspy laugh. Right now she wasn’t sure if she should thank or curse the universe for the enigma that was Pinkie Pie.

The King laughed too. It was an earthquake of sound.

He grinned, his mouth full of stalactites. “Apologize for surprise. But you are guests. No fear, here.”

He sounded so genuine and his posture was so gentle that Twilight forced herself to relax, her muscles to unwind from knots. Again, here she was viewing all potential future friends as enemies instead. Just because somepony– er, somecreature – looked scary didn’t mean they were bad. Zecora had taught her that. So she fluffed her feathers, cleared her throat and put on her best diplomatic smile once again.

Rarity beat her to the punch. She clopped forward, her eyes clear and glittering, her breath slight. “My oh my! Forgive me if this is overstepping, your Majesty, but you are simply stunning! I can tell you’ve put much effort into maintaining your natural sparkle.”

The King hummed, a shuddering thing, and his cavernous smile grew. His maw creaked open to respond, but before he could Applejack stomped ahead. Her smile was thin.

“Yeah, your Highness, you sure are, uh, shiny and all. And we really do appreciate the hospitality, believe me. But my friends and I are awful tired, and our friend Fifi here said something about a dry place to sleep. That’s all we’re after, then we’ll be out of your fur lickety split.”

Rarity gasped.

Rainbow Dash shook the rainwater out of her mane then grumbled, “Yeah, can we, like, skip to the important bit?”

Rarity gasped even louder. Both she and Twilight winced at their friends’ usual display of uncouthness.

The ground thundered. The entire cavern shuddered with rhythmic thuds – a steady boom, boom, boom of an invisible drum, sprinkling down jagged shards from the vaulted ceiling. Impacts shook up Twilight’s hooves, nearly toppling her over. She spread out wobbling legs to fight the imbalance, and had to stop Pinkie from splatting onto her face with a quick flick of levitation. Gritting her teeth, she shot her eyes up to the King’s fangs. Was it all over? Had that made him angry?

But then she realized that Fluttershy, flapping above her, was… squee-ing? And smiling.

“Awww,” she cooed. “Look at him.”

Twilight followed her gaze and realized that, just like Fifi had been, the King was… wagging his tail. The humongous trunk of crystal smacked against the sides of the pit, rattling vibrations up the crater.

“Yes, yes, friends,” he laughed. “Pack offers boon to all valued guests. Please, step forward.”

Eventually her teeth stopped chattering and her skull stopped rattling long enough for Twilight to share a look with her friends. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie shot her crooked toothy grins, while Rarity only had eyes for the gemstone King. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were glowering like usual, but still they looked to her. And Spike, digging his claws into her spine, just shrugged.

As one, Twilight and her friends stepped before the King of Diamonds.

The rune flared to life.

Too late, Twilight noticed it. Dug into the ground by Diamond Dog nails, studded at the corners of the matrices with magic-imbued crystals, lost under a thick layer of dust and loose pebbles. A rune, circular, intricate, right under their hooves! Twilight’s frog made contact with the trench in the earth at the same time it erupted into ghostly purple fire. The ethereal flames billowed up around them, prickled like static across their flesh and then–

Twilight’s soul was ripped out. At least, that’s what it felt like.

At first all she could feel was the pain. The emotional anguish. Then the flashes came. Like the screens in the Cosmic Library, cold and hard and ripping across her mindsight without mercy. Her, seeing her friends with the wrong Cutie Marks, the wrong destinies, and struggling with all the hope she had to make it right. Casting the spell with Celestia as the alicorn fought against the Rot, waking up in this new world, meeting the deerfolk, learning– learning that everything had been torn away from her without warning. Everything. Everypony.

But for some reason, what stuck with her the most was the sting of that thrown rock as it met her horn.

All of it, all the memories, churned in her head like some boiling enchanted brew. When it finally eased, when the fire was doused, she was left only with hollowness. She panted against the rock, her hot breath puffing back up against her face. Sweat crawled through her mane, clammy and stringy. She bared her teeth with a nicker and shakily looked up in desperate search of the girls.

Fluttershy whimpered in a crumpled ball ahead of her, scraps of purple plumes clinging like ash to her fur. Pinkie Pie crawled on hoof and knee to jer, scooping her up in a soft cuddle, glaring daggers at Fifi; the Dog was still standing, but barely, a grimace on her muzzle. Applejack was standing too, shuddering, hoisting Rarity to her hooves. Rainbow Dash was already snapping her wings, reared up like a bucking bronco. And poor Spike, he had crashed off her back and was huddled beside her now, his little wings crinkled up beneath his scales. With a grunt, Twilight gently unfolded one of her own wings, blanketed it over him.

“What was that?” one of her friends panted. She couldn’t tell which one; her ears were still ringing.

She licked her lips and tasted rust. She must have bit them when she tensed. “A-A mind-reading spell. A really – ugh – potent one.”

Twilight brushed her feathers over Spike’s spines one more time, then turned her glare up to the Diamond King. Her horn crackled. Her stomach was swooping.

“I apologize for that,” a voice said, another voice that sounded like her father’s, but the inflection was so different it took her a moment to realize it was still the King, even with the stalactites rattling. “But it is a rite I require of all who enter my domain.”

Applejack spat. It twinkled with purple dust. “And I reckon lyin’ is some sort of ‘rite’, then?”

The King cocked his head like a puppy. “I assume you refer to my changed diction. As for that, I’m sure my valued subject will explain more as she leads you to the residential tunnels. I was not lying about offering my Pack’s aid.”

Before she could stop her, Applejack let out a harsh whinny, “Yeah, har-de-har, some ‘hospitality’, pokin’ around in our brains without warnin’.”

“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie squeaked. She kept pouting towards Fifi, who wrung her paws with her tail drooped between her legs. “That wasn’t very nice. You didn’t even ask. It’s like making us spill secrets!”

The King ground his teeth. It sounded like an avalanche. “I realize the upsetting nature of the spell I cast. I now also recognize that you have been through much in your time here. To be treated so poorly by those you showed only friendship! And so I offer you peace, and a place to rest, should it still be welcome.”

“And if it isn’t still welcome?” Rarity asked tartly, eyebrow raised.

“The Pack does not keep prisoners. You are free to leave whenever you wish. A guide will be provided to show you to the exterior of our mountain.”

Rainbow Dash snorted. As Twilight turned to her she could practically feel the heat radiate off her. She was snarling, her teeth bared, her tail flicking, her hooves scraping at the packed dirt. Every feather was splayed, twitching.

“Good!” she growled. She snapped her head over, mane whipping, to glare at Twilight. “Come on, let’s get out of here already!”

The girls all snorted their assent, their pelts twitching. But before anypony could move or say anything further, Fifi padded forward. Her ears were drawn back, eyes wide. Even the jangle of her bejeweled collar managed to sound remorseful.

“Wait friends, please,” she whined. Her yellow eyes were only for Pinkie. ‘I’m sorry, and so is my King! But you must understand, if we didn’t conceal our knowledge, or place those runes–

“Then you might actually have to show some trust?” Applejack barked. She tossed her mane, then gave Fifi a dismissive wave. “Forget her, girls. Now come ‘round. I want to talk to y’all, and I’d rather not have too many flies on the barn wall, if you catch my meanin’.”

Everypony gathered in a clump around Applejack. Except…

“Twilight” Spike asked, patting her gently on the snout.

In return, Twilight sighed. The magic ravaged in her chest and stomach and horn, still. A part of her, some distant part, wanted to be furious. Mostly though she just felt numb. And tired. Especially because she had a feeling she already knew what Applejack was going to say.

She shook her pelt, and hobbled her creaky knees to Applejack. “Coming, girls.”

Rainbow Dash didn’t waste any time. “What the hay is there to talk about? They read our minds. That’s just creepy!”

“Yes, a violation of privacy, to be sure,” Rarity hummed.

Applejack heaved a sigh. “I know that. I ain’t too happy about it either. But consarnit, look at us. Look at Twilight.”

Twilight looked at her hooves. She said nothing. The shame burned.

“We’re hurtin’ for a place to hunker down, and that’s fact. Anyhow, the harm’s already been done.”

“If I may interject,” the King began. Fluttershy squealed and ducked deep into Pinkie’s side. “I now know of your hardships… and your noble quest. My apology is true, as is my wish to bring you reprieve. Please, my guests, allow me to show you my sincerity.”

For a long time, nopony said anything. They didn’t even look to Twilight for guidance, which…

Her feathers twitched. She curled and uncurled the aching muscles in her little wings. After a moment, Pinkie Pie nudged at her with a flank.

“I believe them. I think Fifi really is super duper sorry.”

More silence. Twilight’s gut screamed at her, but what choice did they have? It was this or go back out into the cold, rainy unknown. Her horn stung from its fresh wound.

Twilight sighed again. Turned to the King of Diamonds.

“It’s settled, then. Your Highness, we accept your offer.”

Fifi yipped out a squeaky bark, her tail whipping like crazy. The King smiled his cavernous grin.

“Then welcome, my little ponies, to the Pack.”