Sixes_and_Sevens offered a bunch of either/or prompts. I chose both.
In early March, Sixes_and_Sevens provided a list of prompts he'd gotten from a writing group at his college. Each day presented two prompts, with the idea being to pick one of them and write at least a hundred words each day.
But why settle for just one when you can bring both together?
Planeswalkers, pony and otherwise, are often confused by certain parts of the worlds they visit. Ravnica, the plane-spanning city of guilds, has a lot to unpack in that regard, no part of it more notorious than the Cult of Rakdos.
One key thing to remember about the Cult of Rakdos is that… well, it's a cult. To Rakdos. Who, it cannot be overstated, is an archdemon. The Lord of Riots, the Defiler, the Final Curtain, and other such tasteful sobriquets he’s acquired through millennia of doing exactly what one might expect given those epithets.
The other thing to remember about the Cult is that it is still one of the ten pillars that keeps society on the world of Ravnica standing. In every iteration of the Guildpact, the Cult has been assigned such necessities as mining, the service industry ranging from catering to assassinations, and of course, entertainment. Not just placating the demon and keeping him dormant (or at least amused) in his semi-molten dungeon-palace of Rix Maadi, but also bringing joy and excitement to all the people of Ravnica.
Some people might insist that they prefer their joy and excitement with less blood and sharpened wrought iron, but the revues and other clubs still sell out on a consistent basis.
That's all well and good, says the tourist, but the theory's hard to bear in mind when an unscheduled parade explodes half of Foundry Street. Moreover, they add, there's the question of ponies' involvement in the guild. Ponies throughout the Multiverse are renowned for their empathy, sense of community, and general geniality. And then there are the blood-streaked, cackling revelers with more piercings than sense, cavorting in those horrific spectacles like they were a townwide musical number in a much more idyllic plane.
The best way to understand the Cult, especially how the ponies of Ravnica fit into it, is to consider one recent conversation between two friends.
“Does it not ever bother you,” said Rarity to Pinkie Pie one day at their usual cafe, “all the gore and flames and general havoc? You’ve always struck me as such a sweet mare, and I just don’t understand how you can bear to put up with that sort of thing every night, much less manage it all.”
Pinkie tilted her head and offered a lopsided grin. “Well, yeah. You’ve lived in the lap of luxury your whole life.”
Rarity gave that a narrow look over her wineglass. “And had to work off every zib.”
“Sure, sure." Pinkie paused to take a draw from her mug, which was filled with what she called "punch" and that the narrator refuses to examine in any greater detail. "But you still grew up with money up to your eyeballs in the mansion of one of the most important people in the world. Who, you know, has already lived a lot longer than humans usually do.”
“Miss Karlov has been blessed with considerable longevity, yes. I still grew up in the servants' quarters until I was old enough to be of use to her. I fail to see how that is any more relevant to your job than her bank balance.”
“Like I said, most humans—and ponies, and viashino, and especially goblins—haven’t been blessed that way. Death comes for all of us in time.”
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “I was raised by ghosts more often than the living, Pinkie. I’m the last mare who needs to be reminded of that.”
“Yeah, but that inevitability is what makes life precious. And knowing that your bomb-juggling tightrope act over lava could end in a disaster folks will be talking about all week…" Pinkie trailed off and sighed, her smile much more sedate than her usual manic grin. "You get to go out knowing that you took everything life had to offer until it had to cut you off. You go without regrets.”
That prompted a hint of a smirk. “Other than ‘Dear me, I wish I hadn’t lost my balance,’ I assume.”
Pinkie giggle-snorted at that for several seconds before she could gather herself. “Yeah, other than that. It’s all part of the deeper Rakdos philosophy.”
Rarity silently stared at her for the better part of a minute.
“What?”
“I’m just astonished you were able to say that last part with a straight face.”
“I was being serious!" Pinkie pouted, then paused. "Well, mostly.”
“Pinkie, you are one of the most intelligent Rakdos members I’ve ever seen, and yet I am entirely convinced that you never graduated kindergarten. You’ll pardon me if I don’t put much stock in your philosophers.”
“Sounds like somepony needs to take another trip to the Pinkie Revue.”
“As long as you don’t make me sit in the…" Rarity shuddered at the memory. "Urgh, ‘splash zone’ again. Acid stains are impossible to get out of the surviving fabric.”
The manic grin made its triumphant return. “No promises!”
And Rarity still smiled, because Pinkie was her friend, and life was all the more precious for it.
“The forest terrifies ponies because it can look after itself.”
“I got used to a lot after going to your world, Twi, but I still can’t get over your lack of weather control.”
“Well, not intentional weather control.”
“Turning every dial on the hurricane generator to maximum doesn’t count as ‘control.’”
“Especially not when we’re not even trying to… We’re getting off topic.”
“Sorry. Yeah, the Everfree is one of the few places in Equestria that just… doesn’t listen to pony magic. It’s unnatural.”
“By being natural.”
“To you, sure.”
“Fair enough. Though there’s also all the monsters that inhabit it.”
“Well yeah, but monsters you can deal with. In theory, anyway. Ponies can be pretty tough when push comes to shove.”
“You’re living proof of that.”
“I mean, for good or for ill.”
“Sunset.”
“I know, I know, I’ll put a quarter in the guilt jar when we get back home. But yeah, cornering a pony ends nastily for the monster more often than you think. And hey, even if worse comes to worse, we’re poisonous.”
“I knew that was why you’re all so brightly colored… I know that smirk.”
“What smirk?”
“How much of that did you just make up?”
“One or more things.”
“I swear, the moment I get my fingers back, I’m using them on every ticklish spot you have!”
“Promises, promises.”
“Argh. Okay, just… Look, I’ve been avoiding the question I really want to ask because…”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I admit that once you’re in here, with the heavy foliage and all the mysterious sounds and a much more sensitive nose than I’m used to…”
“Hey. It’s okay to admit you’re scared of the spooky woods. I’m a little nervous too.”
“I just feel like a child. Or some superstitious villager who’s going to ruin the lab of the poor, misunderstood soul who actually wants to learn how the universe works.”
“It’s okay, Twilight. We both know you’re the one cackling that you’ll show them all, with all your dry ice and inaccurately colored chemicals.”
“Yeah…”
“So, you actually want to put the question out there?”
“May as well. Why exactly do we need to go out into the spooky horse woods the horses are afraid of?”
“Pony.”
“Sunset.”
“I will die on this hill, Twilight.”
“That’s what you said when they nerfed your favorite character in that one MOBA.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being passionate.”
“Please just answer the question. The other me was too busy panicking to do more than babble and whinny.”
“Right, like that one long weekend when Spike couldn’t get you to sleep and I found you making distressed ape noises at a whiteboard.”
“Sunset.”
“… Please don’t take this the wrong way.”
“You realize that that’s only going to encourage me to take it the wrong way.”
“So, there’s this… sort of pocket dimension. Thing. It was poorly understood back when I was studying under Princess Celestia and they haven’t exactly learned much more since.”
“Kind of like what you told me about Tartarus?”
“Kind of. Tartarus is firmly attached to Equestria. The Immersturm wanders around the multiverse. Occasionally it bumps up against another world and, well… demons come pouring out.”
“Demons.”
“Usually in unnatural places like the Everfree, where reality has already gone a little… soft and unreliable.”
“Like actual demons. Not just misguided teenagers with enchanted items.”
“There’s a way to repel them, but the wards need to be refreshed, and, well, you need a piece of a demon to make them.”
“I can’t help but notice that we weren’t given any such components.”
“Well, it kind of snuck up on Princess Twilight. Big surprise, Celestia forgot to tell her until about a week before the current wards expire.”
“Is she still crashing on your couch?”
“You kidding? I threw her out last week. If I hadn’t. Equestria probably would’ve been invaded before she said something. I can’t tell if retirement’s been really good or really bad for that mare.”
“So, would I be wrong in assuming that we don’t have any manner of demonic tissue because we don’t need it, given our, ahem, particular experiences with magic?”
“You would not.”
“I see.”
“Twilight? You okay?”
“I mean, the fact that Midnight left enough of a metaphysical scar that I’m considered demonic by the standards of another world’s thaumatology… It’s a lot to take in.”
“Careful! Sorry, I know you’re processing a lot, but those blue flowers are not something to mess with.”
“Duly noted. But all things considered, if you’re still considered demonic after the Friendship Games, I suppose it can’t be that bad.”
“That’s… definitely one way of looking at it.”
“You are considered demonic, yes?”
“Kind of? Apparently the official term after all I’ve been through, good, bad, and timey-wimey is, uh…"
"Sunset?"
"dfc"
"Didn't quite make that out."
"... Deific.”
“… Ah.”
“Don’t read too much into that.”
“I was going to wait until we were done to ask about the wings.”
The coffee shop was little different than any of the others scattered throughout Crystal City. People gathered at the little tables, huddling around their steaming cups to chase away the deepening chill as autumn became winter. Some had a book, some had a phone, some had another person.
Adagio Dazzle had nothing more than a latte and the ratty old purple hoodie she'd planned on burning after her triumphant rise to power. Strictly speaking, she shouldn't have even blown four bucks on the former, but she wasn't willing to admit that level of weakness.
Not yet.
The scrape of a chair pulled her out of her brooding, and she couldn't completely hide her surprise at seeing who sat in the other seat, her own coffee in hand. “You actually came.”
“You sound surprised,” Sunset Shimmer said as she set down her own drink.
“After a lifetime of telling people what to think, it’s odd seeing them do what I want on their own.”
“Well, when you actually try to make friends—“
Adagio held up a hand. “None of that. I didn’t call you because I wanted lessons on pony ethics.”
Shimmer leaned back and crossed her arms. “Then why did you call me?”
“Because you helped kill me.”
That nearly made the girl fall over completely. It definitely knocked out any trace of smugness. “What?”
“What else do you call taking away my immortality? After centuries of life, here and in Equestria, you and your band of loyal apes have left me with a scant six decades to put my affairs in order. Seven at most." Adagio tugged at a lock of her hair. No gray. Yet. "Xubidu knows my looks will last for only a fraction of that time, to say nothing of what you did to my voice.”
Shimmer's look of shock had cooled to something thoroughly unsympathetic as Adagio had gone on. “I’m sorry for refusing to let you become immortal god-queen of this world.”
“Help me out and I may accept that apology.”
The scornful expression that answered her was comparable to one of Aria's more affectionate glares. “Really?”
Adagio rolled her eyes. “I know you were being sarcastic. I’m not Sonata. But you still owe me." She shrugged. "Arguably, you owe me a life debt, but those are for fools and dragons.”
“You know what? Fine." Shimmer rested her head on a fist. "What do you want help with? I should warn you, I’m out of the world conquest game.”
“So am I. You made sure of that." Adagio shook her head. "Given the sheer amount of post-processing we need to make our songs remotely tolerable, I might as well be out of the music game as well.”
“Really?" A more naive creature might have mistaken Shimmer's tone for genuine surprise. "I heard you at the Star Swirled Music Festival. You sounded great.”
“Save it. I have no patience for your equine sympathy. The three of us are exceptionally lucky that Aria knows her away around Insta-Tune, and she reminds us every day. Usually after six hours of gritted teeth and white knuckles around her headphones.
“We, to put it bluntly, suck. After three years of practice with what's left of our throats, we’ve eked out enough improvement that Aria doesn’t audibly weep when she listens to the raw footage." Adagio's gaze fell to her hands. Sure, the skin was smooth now, but she could already picture the liver spots. "And even if we were singing at our peak, we’re still mortal and aging. Best case scenario, Mixed Jigger’s recipe for pharmaceutical lichdom works on us and we keep going until our livers-turned-phylacteries give out.”
“Wait, what?”
“Far more likely, we get out a few notable songs, fade into obscurity, and try to live off the dwindling royalties until oldies stations and TV commercials start milking us for nostalgia. And given the state of the music industry, even that's a long shot. No matter how you look at it, a scant hundred years from now, no one will remember us. The world will forget Adagio Dazzle." Adagio finally tore herself away from images of her own decrepitude and slammed a fist onto the table. "I can not accept that.”
Shimmer looked too dazed to appreciate the dramatic gesture. Fillystine. “Can we go back to Mixed Jigger being a lich?”
“Oh, like you didn’t suspect it.”
It took a shake of her head and a sip of her drink for Shimmer to collect herself. “What exactly do you expect me to do about this? I don’t think anything can restore your siren magic.”
“It can’t. No matter how much magic you bring into this world, there’s no mending a broken heartstone." It hurt to say, but as amusing as it would be to send Shimmer and her lackeys on a wild tuna chase, time was of the essence. "Instead, you are going to help me write my autobiography.”
Shimmer blinked. After a few false starts, she got out, “I… wasn’t expecting that.”
“It wasn't an easy decision for me, but I can’t ask Aria or Sonata to help. They mostly just remember the fights, the food, and the parts that might embarrass me. So I might as well make sure you don’t completely obliterate me." Adagio shook her head, but with a smile. As far as intrusive thoughts went, she much preferred old memories to obsessing over her newly acquired mortality. "I still can’t believe the historians wiped all trace of that fish cult we had in the 14th century.”
Oh, if only she had a camera ready to capture the look on Shimmer's face. “Hang on, you had a fish cult?”
Adagio permitted herself just a touch of smugness. “I’ve had a lot of things over the centuries, Sunset Shimmer.”
That actually got a grin. “You know what? Sure. It’ll be interesting to get history from a primary source. Mind if I bring a few more friends on board?”
“I figured you’d ask that." Typical ponies. Why do it alone when you can bring half a dozen others along? "Go ahead. Just don’t expect me to play nice with them.”
“Just don’t be a complete bitch to the people who are helping you with this. Deal?” Shimmer held out her hand.
Adagio made a show of looking at the limb like it had been dipped in sewage, but Shimmer persisted. She did shake it in the end. “I suppose it’s the least I can do. Just don’t try to push your syrupy pony nonsense on me. We’re collaborators, not friends.”
Shimmer gave a grin Adagio couldn't quite read. “I’ll do what I can.”
Excerpt from Legends on the Hoof: A Field Guide to the Zoologically Dubious, by Dr. Lyra Heartstrings:
Bushwoolie (Mesocricetus amabilis)
Appearance: A bushwoolie is a biped, speculated to be mammalian, standing at roughly 0.4 ponyheights. Mass is unclear, but speculated to be very light for their size, comparable to equivalently sized birds. Bushwoolies are described in the Chronicles of the Magnus1 as having incredibly lush fur, to the point that their necks (if any,) legs (if any,) and arms (which have textual support) can be indiscernible from the rest of their bodies depending on their posture. Bushwoolies come in as many colors as ponies. Whether there is any deeper, more meaningful connection between our two kinds is as yet unclear. 1. See entry for Homo excelsus, p. 89.
History: Mention and depictions of bushwoolies go back millennia; colorful wedge shapes with eyes are an artistic theme stretching almost continuously from the Paleopony Period to verified2 relics from the Discordant Age. The theme continues to a lesser degree in the Two Sisters and Celestial Periods, though decreasingly so, until nearly vanishing in the third century AC. On a hopefully unrelated note, depictions and records of pukwudgies increase along those same timeframes. 2. Verification achieved by asking Discord if he’d done anything to it. Response of “Go away, your insanity has gotten boring” was taken as a negative.
Behavior: Every available source on bushwoolies agrees that they are incredibly agreeable, to the point that they will happily agree that something is false seconds after being assured (and concurring) that it is true. And in both cases, they are sincere in that belief. As such, should you encounter one, please be very careful about what you say to them.
As an example of the risks involved, consider the following excerpt from the explorer Flood Pants’s AC 855 expedition into the jungles of Borneigho:
Must find water soon. Any disease it carries will be better than this thirst. I fear I am becoming delirious. Encountered absurd little fuzzballs upon waking this morning. Not sure what they might have been if my blasted eyes could have focused, but one asked me in halting Ponish if I needed help. I thanked it but assured it a hallucination couldn’t aid me. The whole group agreed they were hallucinations, even if few could pronounce the word. By the time I shook out the last drops from my canteen, they were fading like mist.
Whether or not Sir Pants was truly hallucinating, the risk is clear: A bushwoolie is the philosophy of Haycartes given flesh: It thinks it is, therefore it is. Convincing it otherwise—and it is terribly easy to do so—could be lethal. Evidence suggests that the cooperation between ancient ponies and bushwoolies was in part to protect them from this weakness, in exchange for serving as ponies' manipulators as tactile telekinesis had not yet been developed. If bushwoolies truly are extinct, this vulnerability to doubt may well have been the cause, and we have failed in this ancient, sadly forgotten duty. In this case, let us hope I am mistaken in my understanding of the ancient myths.
When Pharynx had first seen Canterlot, he’d been disgusted. The whole city had flown in the face of every principle of defensive strategy he knew, acting like its advantageous position excused a pathetic excuse for actual fortifications. Over time, he’d come to understand that this weakness was a show of a different kind of strength. “We’re so powerful,” said the gardens and fountains, “that we don’t need to show it.”
That didn’t work out well against overwhelming forces like, as an example, an invading swarm of changelings, but Pharynx still appreciated what they were going for.
He also appreciated the appeal of the castle gardens as a garden. Even he couldn’t spend every waking second planning the hive’s defenses, and he’d come to understand that having something worth defending beyond his fellow changelings could be… well, nice. And the veritable army of gardeners that had to maintain a place as expansive as the one he was walking through represented an impressive logistical challenge. Queens knew he had a hard enough time coordinating patrols.
Speaking of whom…
Pharynx took a moment to consider the statue. The centaur cringed away, cowardice proven at the last and preserved for all to see. The pony grub was trapped in a moment of regret and desperation, the consequences of her actions coming to bite her as she tried to think of something, anything she could say that could get her out of it. He’d imagined an expression like that on captured infiltrators and harvesters more times than he liked to think about. Seeing it on a pony, such a young one at that…
It felt like some modicum of justice.
That left Chrysalis herself, a warrior to the end, lunging forward that she might leave even one more scar to memorialize her.
Pharynx sat before the statue, eyes locked on the queen’s. “Hello, Mother.”
No reaction. She so hated the word, he’d half-expected her to finish the pounce. Or at least berate him for daring to use it.
“Thorax is doing well. Currently has an eggsack bigger than him coming out of his abdomen.” Pharynx held back the shudder. Physical sex was just another variable for changelings, but seeing his little brother halfway through laying the next generation had been… unsettling. Other changelings had been cheering, but then, they were looking forward to playacting pony nuclear families. He didn’t pretend to understand the hive these days; he just protected it.
He shook his head, refocusing on the task at hoof. “The hive is flourishing. Life is returning to the Badlands now that your throne isn’t sucking it dry. Even some monsters we’ve had to… discourage. It’s been a group effort.” He allowed himself a hint of a smirk. “You’d hate it.”
Another pause. Another stretch of silence with no response.
“Looking back… you really were an idiot. Or just a grandstander." Pharynx felt his ears fold back reflextively, but even that didn't merit feedback. So he kept going. "What did you even want, Mother? Not love. Definitly not our well-being or safety. You could have had all of that and more if you’d just come back to us."
Pharynx sighed, the defiant stance dropping with his volume. "We would have welcomed you. Thorax would still abdicate in a second if you had a change of heart. He hates being in charge." He snorted. "Probably why he’s so good at it.
“But you… You lied to us more than the ponies." Pharynx looked up into those glaring, marble eyes. "We were just more prey to you, weren’t we? And you were the predator. The only true predator." He sneered. "So said the parasite."
He jabbed a hoof at Chrysalis's fellow captives. “Look at these two. Just your latest hosts. You’ve got the muscle cowering behind you, and there’s the wide-eyed grub longing for a mother’s love, realizing the mistake she made."
An unpleasant ache Pharynx refused to taste tugged at his hearts. He turned to the grub. “I was in your place once, pony. You’re smarter than me. Took me until I was fully pupated to see the truth.”
And still, even after he looked away without the queen's express permission, nothing.
“You really are sealed up tight, aren’t you? I don’t know if you even heard a word of that. Maybe I should write it down if you ever get out.” Pharynx huffed out a deep breath from mouth and spiracles both. “What am I even doing?”
“Did it help?”
The Prince of Defense definitely did not chirp like a cricket while springing back from Twilight Sparkle. He did glare at her, though. Menacingly. “How long have you been standing there?”
She tilted her head towards one of the topiaries. Pharynx spotted a glint of gold there before it slipped back out of view. Stealthier than a horse in a polished carapace had any right to be. He had to respect it. “A guard let me know about the tall, dark changeling muttering in front of the statue a bit ago. I figured you were having a moment.”
“That’s one way of putting it." The full implications hit Pharynx in the muzzle, followed by his hoof. "Ugh. How many ponies saw that shameful display?”
“Not many. Ponies have been avoiding the statue." Twilight narrowed her eyes, and a hint of irritation slipped into the serene love for all things she was giving off. "Especially after I made it clear vandalizing it wouldn’t be tolerated.”
“Huh." Pharynx turned back to the statue. There were certainly places where a little ooze wouldn't go amiss. "Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Pharynx.”
A pony might roll their eyes. He hissed through his spiracles. “Fine, fine. Your castle, your rules.”
After a moment, Twilight cleared her throat. “So, did it help?”
Pharynx didn't like self-reflection. The aftertaste lingered for hours. “Kind of. I do wish I’d been able to talk to her before…" He waved a hoof towards the statue. "This. Get her to see how much we really did love her. How much we still do.”
“Really?”
He didn't need to look at the pony to taste her surprise. “I don’t expect a lovesack to understand. No offense."
"Some taken?"
"She got us through a lot of tough times. Some of them weren’t even her fault." Pharynx snarled. "But enough were.” He spat at the statue's base, though nothing that would be hard to scrape off.
“So," said Twilight. "What now?”
After one last look, one last confirmation that Chrysalis was well and truly stuck, Pharynx turned around and made for the exit. “Now I go tell Plecia that I did her stupid catharsis exercise. Then maybe I won’t have to attend the feelings forum anymore.”
The sound of hoofbeats from next to him halted. “Wait," Twilight said from behind him. "A catharsis exercise?”
“Yeah." Pharynx turned back to her. He held back the smirk as she winced. Ponies always hated it when he turned his neck that far. "You know, go to Chrysalis and say all the things I won’t let myself say.”
Some new thought distracted Twilight from her nausea. “Did Plecia tell you to say that to Chrysalis, or just to imagine you were saying it to her?”
Any amusement turned to ashes on Pharynx's tongue. He turned forward, refusing to meet Twilight's knowing gaze. “I was never here.”
“My lips are sealed.” Any new smug amusement tasted a lot worse given the source.
“See that they are.” Pharynx assumed the first pony form he could think of and stomped away.
The smile on his own muzzle was just part of the disguise, nothing more.
Getting to Hollow Shades had been a frantic race against time as dark stars aligned and the hungering void threatened to consume all that was pure and good in the world. As such, Twilight had felt the need to throw a bit of royal weight around in getting the Pillars, the Bearers, and Starlight to the Well of Shade as soon as possible, calling in an entire battalion of Royal Guard air chariots to get them all there.
Coming back, under another hoof, was a much more casual affair. Everypony, the charioteers included, was happy to walk back to the nearby train station. (Some of the Pillars wondered why the wondrous transport stopped by the abandoned village of unspeakable cultists. The Bearers understood that train stations were like branches of the Apple family; they’d show up anywhere that held still for long enough.)
They made the trip in companionable silence. At least, they did until Rainbow Dash opened her mouth. “Hey, uh, now that the world isn’t doomed, I have a question about Star Swirl’s hat.”
“Yes?” said Star Swirl.
“What’s with the hat?”
“Rainbow Dash!" Twilight hissed. She dipped her head to Star Swirl. "I am so sorry, sir—”
“Twilight, I spent years working with Flash Magnus and Somnambula." He glanced up at his companions. "I am thoroughly acquainted with the tactlessness of pegasi.”
“Tact is for ponies who worry about the consequences of their actions,” Somnambula said breezily.
Flash Magnus smirked. “Or as we like to call them, cowards.”
They exchanged a hoofbump.
Star Swirl nodded at the proof of his point. “Precisely. Now, as for the matter of my hat—”
"Each bell represents a spell he personally invented," said Twilight, because the topic was Star Swirl and she only had so much self-control, "and making sure they don’t jingle is a constant exercise in magical discipline. Moreover—"
The great wizard's chuckling cut her off midsentence. "Your pardon, Twilight, but..." Star Swirl shook his head. "Celestia actually believed that?"
Twilight ground to halt for a few moments, staring blankly. Once she got moving again, she uttered a "Huh?"
Applejack cleared her throat. "Uh, Twilight? Speakin’ as our generation’s hat pony, y’oughta let the pony with the hat explain it himself."
"Thank you, Dame Apple," Star Swirl said, adding a tip of his hat.
She returned it, albeit with far less jingling. "Tweren’t nothin’."
“Now, the actual reason for the bells is…" Now Star Swirl stopped short, eyes wide. "Oh! That actually reminds me.” He lit his horn, magic billowing out of from him in waves that sent dust and small pebbles flying away. As his entire body glowed, phantasmal clocks surrounded him, emitting a deep, syncopated ticking. Few of the Pillars seemed surprised by any of this, but Twilight and Starlight traded uneasy glances.
The incredible feat ended as soon as it had begun, Star Swirl chuckling as the power dissipated. “Had to tell Clover about this whole mess. Oh, she’s livid she’ll be missing out on all of this. Changed sex five times in one rant; new record for her.”
All of the modern-day ponies shared confused looks. “You mean Clover the Clever?” said Pinkie.
“Of course. One of my most promising apprentices. Even if Izidora Moonbow is—" Star Swirl shook his head. "Oh, but I shouldn’t give away too much there. But one day Clover complained about my popping out of the timestream unannounced at all hours of the day—as if there were any other way to do it—and demanded that I at least bell myself like a cat if I was going to skulk about like one.
“Well, obviously a collar is beneath my dignity, so I devised the hat. Didn’t help with all the times before that when I went to Clover’s relative future, but it’s largely worked out.”
Silence. The Bearers' reactions ranged from confusion to dropped jaws. The guards, for their part, had the patient, thousand-yard stare seen among all armed forces when confronted with matters far beyond their pay grade.
Star Swirl rolled his eyes. “Hmph. I suppose you had to be there.”
Stygian half-trotted, half-stumbled to Star Swirl's side, eyes wide and body trembling. “You… you could have gone to warn me? Stop me?” He stomped a hoof. “Why!? Why did you leave me to suffer? Leave me to ruin everything I worked to create, become everything I hated?”
Star Swirl turned to him and took a deep breath. “I did not then. I do now." He gestured towards the modern ponies, then at the landscape. "Look at what your ruination has led to. Look at this world, overflowing with the peace and light you sought to bring to a single village." He paused as he considered their less than scenic surroundings. "Not the best example at the moment, but I assure you, Stygian, you could not have made a world more in keeping with your vision if you tried. I know you suffered." Star Swirl shut his eyes and sighed. "I know I do not deserve your forgiveness, and I doubt I ever will. But I ask for your understanding. To go back, to alter the course of history from where it has led… I cannot do so in good conscience.”
Starlight cleared her throat. “Yeah, this timeline’s kind of… delicate.”
“And how, exactly, would you know that?” said Star Swirl, pinning her with a glare.
“Weeeell, it’s a funny story." Starlight offered a desperate grin wide enough to make her jaw squeak. "No hats, though.”
“Hmph.” After a pause long enough to turn deeply uncomfortable, Star Swirl grinned. “Then I don’t see how it could possibly be funnier than mine.”
The tension released, and everypony had a good laugh as they settled on the platform.
“But seriously, Starlight Glimmer, if you ever travel through time again…”
The unicorn leaned forward, voice hushed. “How much do you know about Hearth’s Warming? Really know about it?”
Proper Conduct sighed. Didn't even wait for him to say anything before going into the rant. He’d have said the crazies came out during the holidays, but like the rest of Canterlot, he’d come to learn that they could come out of Ponyville at any point on the calendar. The particular crazy on the other side of the table hadn’t just decided to dress up like Star Swirl the Bearded and loiter just far enough away from the palace that it fell to the police rather than the Royal Guard to clean things up. No, there was a Theory involved.
Proper had had plenty of experience with Theories. The students at the Gifted School had them regularly enough that he found himself thinking of the campus as Little Ponyville. But at least those Theories were relatively tame, like “There’s no way they warded the kitchens against this spell,” “The professors are lying about what this spell can do to keep less talented ponies safe,” or the always popular “It’s just autolevitation. How hard can it be?”
In order: They had, they weren’t, and hard enough that a student who hadn’t broken at least one leg by their junior year was considered either a prodigy or an underachiever. Personally speaking, Proper had never felt more grateful that he was an entirely average earth pony than after seeing just how stupid young geniuses could be.
But Theories that got ponies near the palace were cause for concern for more than just the campus ambulance. Those Theories were usually along the lines of “Nightmare Moon is controlling her sister,” “Chrysalis has replaced every princess again,” or the new and exciting “Princess Twilight will force us all to read ten hours a day.”
Whatever the case, all of those Theories reached the same conclusion in the end: “I’m the only one who sees it, so I’m the one who has to stop it.”
And then the police escorted those brave and daring Theorists to the station so they could explain their reasoning in an interrogation room. Or they slipped past the gates and did the same from the palace’s basement cells, but this cape-wearing moron had been lucky enough to avoid that.
“… which was encoded in inscriptions on the back of Celestia’s tiara.”
Speaking of whom, it seemed the presentation had started without Proper. He shook his head and held up a hoof. “Okay, buddy. I’m sure the truth goes much deeper than that—”
Eyes wide with obsession stared back at him. “To levels you can’t even imagine, Officer.”
Proper couldn't hold back the yawn, not that he tried very hard. That didn't even hit the five craziest looks he'd gotten this week. “But it’s late, it’s Hearth’s Warming Eve, and I’d really rather not spend the whole night listening to what the history books aren’t telling me.”
“But—“
A proper sputter. Good. Once the crazies found out ponies weren't willing to play along, they tended to cooperate more. Or they started blasting hole in the walls, but that was what the inhibitor ring was for. “I’ll make it quick: Why were you hanging around the palace?”
“I already explained that. Well, a small part of it.”
“Summarize it. Twenty-five words or less.” Phrasing it like a question on a test usually got a good response.
“Fewer.” Usually, but not always.
Proper rolled his eyes. “You got twenty-four now.”
"Alright," the Theorist said, far more rationally than anything before now. “I suppose the simplest explanation is that I’m supposed to stand around, be conspicuous, and distract the police.”
The two stared at each other for a few moments as Proper processed the information. “What?”
“Starlight is probably doing the same for the Guards, though with Twilight on the throne, she may be able to play the ‘royal student’ card.”
Proper automatically ignored the talk of royal business. Not his concern, not when the suspect had dropped a mask he'd hadn't even suspected. “Distract us from what?”
That just got a petulant stare. “Again, I already explained that.”
Proper loomed up off of his bench, driving his forehooves into the table hard enough to make it groan. “If you don’t answer my question right now—“
“No need to raise your voice. I can summarize the rest.” The unicorn stroked his goatee, his eyes drifting up to the ceiling as he thought. “Long, very interesting story short, there’s a treasure map. An old one. We need to find it, make sure the artifact it leads to is safe, and secure it if it isn’t.”
“Uh huh." Proper sat back down, shifting his mental estimate of the stallion's sanity back down a few notches. Still, now they were getting somewhere. " Who’s ‘we,’ and why can’t you ask the proper authorities for help?”
“Between the three of us, we’ve saved the world…" The stallion's lips moved silently as he thought. "Let’s see, threeish times? Potentially five depending on how you look at it. We’re not used to more… let's say 'institutional' assistance." He blinked and waved a foreleg. "Uh, I’m Sunburst, by the way. Royal Crystaller of Princess Flurry Heart, assistant headstallion at the School of Friendship, probably should have mentioned some of that earlier. Or you should have asked, though I suppose I didn't really give you a chance to do so. Sorry about that.”
Proper’s back itched. He might be making powerful enemies, but he still had a job to do. “And what exactly are you doing?”
A burst of bright purple-pink light blinded Proper for a moment. The station was warded against teleportation, but apparently nopony had told the mares who now flanked Sunburst. He didn't seem at all bothered by the magic flash. If anything, some of the earlier confidence had come back. “Trixie is going to steal the Charter of Equestria,” he said.
“Trixie has stolen it,” added the blue mare, waving a very old looking scroll in her magic.
The pinkish one just lit up her horn, and the next thing Proper knew, he was alone.
As shouts, clanking armor, and even what Proper feared was the panicked voice of Princess Twilight herself filtered into the room, he had a Theory of his own. One he feared would soon be confirmed.
The sun sank into the western sands. Depending on which village one were to ask, this could be attributed to a great riverboat ferrying it across the sky, a giant eagle who held it in his talons, a dung beetle pushing it along for reasons best left unconsidered, or the simple trajectory of its motion, as the camels taught in their great sandstone academies. According to the humped mathematicians, each day saw a new sun crafted by unicorns far to the east and launched in an arc, inevitably plummeting into the far western oceans where it was extinguished.
The sphinx Catshepsut cared little about the true nature of the sun beyond its possible use in a riddle. Her thoughts did tarry briefly on the subject of camels. They always made for entertaining targets; their logical minds struggled with metaphor and wordplay, making each one a delightful display of shattering pride as they succumbed to her brilliance. But she could have her way with them another day. What mattered now was ensuring that her true prize wasn’t lost after that interloper with the blindfold nearly ruined everything.
Yes, their agreement was that Catshepsut would leave the kingdom forevermore. But this was her temple, her lair drawn up from the sands by powers the ponies could not even begin to comprehend. She would gladly relinquish it to them once she was finished, but until that time, she remained in her kingdom, and the compact was unbroken.
Down into the main chamber she plummeted, the souls of less clever ponies glowing like embers to provide what little light she needed. Oh, would that she could have kept Hisan’s, but his spirit, his name, his life… Much as it raised her hackles, the sphinx had to admit that brave little Somnambula had successfully bargained for all of them. Twice over, no less.
Yet Catshepsut could not help but grin as she grabbed a sarcophagus off of a recessed ledge built above the chamber’s ground-level entrance, sunken and hidden such that no pony could hope to see it at ground level. There was still one part of the prince that the little heroine had not named in her dealings. One part she no doubt thought she did not need to. Hisan had been right in front of her, after all.
Catshepsut savored the irony. Hope empowered that little pony, yes, but it blinded her as surely as any length of fabric.
She lifted the lid. The sarcophagus itself was plain; even she had had little time to carve it, much less embellish it. That could come later. What mattered now was the form within, wrapped in linen and preserved with natron. Even through the bandages, one could make out the noble snout, the powerful limbs, the broad wings pressed tight against the body.
Let Somnambula run away with her prize, her prince formed from sand and dander to hold a soul Catshepsut did not need. Let Hisan spend his days wondering why he could never sire an heir with his bride-to-be (That much was obvious; pony hearts were laughably simple puzzles by the standards of a sphinx.) All that mattered was that she had an example of the fate that awaited those who opposed her. For that, the true body was all she needed.
A cartouche of glowpaz upon the sternum was all it took to make the mummy shudder and stir, the mineral’s unique properties endowing it with a mockery of life. The sphinx didn’t have to say anything, her very will enough to guide the desecrated figure onto her back, just as the fitfully glowing spirits gathered around like a herd of lost stars.
Catshepsut grinned. This was a fittingly brilliant solution to the problem. The heroine won, the prince was freed, and she could find another land to terrorize. Everyone won, and she won the most, exactly as it should be.
She spread her wings and left the temple for the last time, her captives in tow. The agreement finally began to weigh on her mind now that she had sincerely abandoned her claim to the place, but that was of little concern. Not when she was already flying south, past the desert and into lands she’d only heard about through story and rumor.
It was time to see just how clever those “zebras” really were.
I start the playback, ears peeled for all the subtle harmonies and other fine points of the instrumental track.
Sure, it’s usually “eyes peeled,” but the visualizer can only tell me so much. Besides, my voice might be wrecked, but my hearing still has the kind of perfect pitch that’s literally made humans weep.
An off note—fine in its own right, but out of place in the composition—makes me pause the playback to correct it, and only then do I register someone trying to beat my door down.
I double-check the sticky notes along the edges of my monitors. No, rent isn’t due, I’m not expecting a grocery delivery or face-to-face meeting with any of my commissioners today. I could have forgotten to write this down, but I’ve gotten a lot better at managing my system with practice. Still, the familiar chill goes down my spine as I think of someone thinking me of as flighty.
Unreliable.
The dumb one.
I’m halfway to the door by the time I even realize I've gotten up.
“Damn it, Sonata, did you forget how doorknobs work again?”
And just like that, all sense of urgency vanishes. I didn’t need any reminders for this one. I knew this day would come from the moment the bitch turned her back on me.
I’m calm as I open the door. I’m calm as I stare into those magenta eyes I used to idolize. I’m calm because I’ve never really stopped thinking about this moment, and I wore out all the fear and anger and sorrow months ago, like the fuzz off a stuffed animal.
“No,” I say to Adagio, “I just had something more important to do.”
She’s surprised. For the briefest moment, uncertainty flickers across her face before she’s back to pretending she doesn’t know the meaning of the word. “Well, drop it. I’ve reached a very promising understanding with Sunset Shimmer. We can go back to Equestria. As ponies, yes, but it’s better than anything this world has to offer.”
Then she walks off. She doesn’t even ask me to follow, doesn’t even command it, certainly doesn't apologize. She just assumes.
And I take a step after her before catching myself and turning back. I do leave the door to my apartment open, and keep my headphones on only one ear.
It takes a few minutes before I hear her boots stomping back down the hallway. “Sonata! Was I not clear?”
“You were.” I don’t even look away from the computer, though I do save the current project and stop trying to do any meaningful work. It’s spiteful, but it’s no less than she deserves. “You’re going back to Equestria. I guess Aria will too. Good for her.”
“I…" I'm not sure if she let her uncertainty slip again or if faking politeness literally just occurred to her. "When I said ‘we,’ I obviously meant all three of us." Well, so much for the last one. "Come on. It’s time to abandon this piece of garbage and go back home.”
I glance back at her. “I am home, Adagio.”
“You can’t be serious.” After a few moments of silence, she walks inside, looks around, and says, “You can not be serious. This? You call this a home? Three rooms no bigger than our trailer?”
“Three rooms I earned. Three rooms I pay rent for." I narrow my eyes. "Three rooms I never actually invited you into.”
“Oh, please. You can barely order fast food on your own. I don’t know what kind of idiot you seduced into putting you up, but you can drop them. I found a way to get us back some magic." She clenches a fist, smiling up at nothing. In her mind, she's already won. Never mind what the rest of the world might think. "From there, it’s a short step to reclaiming immortality.”
It's a pleasure to interrupt her little fantasy. “And you never bothered to check if I had something else to do.”
She stomps over and spins my chair so I’m facing her. Oh, she’s mad now. Sticking her face in mine until those eyes threaten to swallow me up. “Something else to do?”
I stare back. Part of me wants to crumble out of habit. The rest remembers why I can't anymore. "I had to find something to do after you abandoned me."
"In my defense, you were dead weight at the time." It's honestly amazing how she can just say that without any hint of shame or self-consciousness. Or, I now realize, self-awareness. "But please, do let me know what's more important that reclaiming the power that is rightfully yours." Never mind that I wouldn't be the one using it.
I tilt my head towards the monitor. “I paid attention when Aria showed me how to use audio software. I’ve got quite a following on Audionimbus these days.”
Adagio looks at it, raises an eyebrow, and shakes her head. “Sonata. Sweetie. I don’t know if you noticed, but you’re mortal now. You’re going to die in a few decades. Not because of anything you’ll do, just because some key part of your body will wear out and leave the rest of you in the lurch." And, saying every word very slowly, she concludes, "I’m trying to fix that.”
“I know I am." I stand up straight. I've been slumped over practically my whole time here. I actually have to look down a few inches to meet Adagio eye to eye. "And if I have to pick between living forever while listening to you and a few dozen years of freedom, I know which one I want.”
Her eyes go wide. She takes a step back. She never saw this coming. “You... You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do.”
“You’re literally choosing death over putting up with me.”
“Yeah," I say deadpan. "Think about that.”
She snarls and starts trying to circle me. I follow suit. We're pacing a circle into the rug as she tries to think of something to use against me. “Aria—”
“Aria treats prisons like hotels where you check in by punching the receptionist." Last I checked, that was what had happened to her after Adagio had cut us loose. "She’s as sick of this world as you are. I’ve actually found a place for myself without the two of you telling me I’m an idiot five times a day.”
Adagio's next step is a stomp. “Because you are. Because without me—”
“I’ve taken care of myself." It took help, patience, heartbreak... but a few months without that orange pouf in my life did wonders. "Go back to Equestria. Try your dumb plan. Get smacked down by another group of heroes. Just as long as you do it without me.”
She comes to a halt as it hits her. “You’re serious.”
“As red tide." I stop once she's between me and the door. "Now piss off.”
“This is your last chance, Sonata." Like I said, no self-awareness. "If I walk out that door, you’re never seeing me again. You’ll never see Equestria again.”
I shrug. “I know how to contact Sunset Shimmer. Three of her friends are supporting me on Benefacteor.”
I’ll be savoring Adagio’s look as she lost her last bargaining chip for a long time. “B-but…”
“Go on. Go. Walk out the door." I start stomping forward myself, driving her to the doorway. "You say you’ll never see me again? Great! You’re not welcome in my home! If this place weren’t rent-controlled, I’d change addresses just so you couldn’t bother me again!”
She looks frustrated, disgusted... but there's something under the surface. “You’ve just made the biggest mistake of your short, sad life.”
“Did you forget how leaving works? Piss! Off!”
And, for the briefest moment, she actually looks afraid. Adagio. Afraid of me.
She struts out, nose in the air, pretending it didn’t happen. But we both know, and we’ll both remember.
I shut the door and lock it thoroughly. Let her run back to Equestria, or ruin her manicure scratching at my door like a desperate cat. That part of my life is over.
It's over.
It's actually, well and truly over.
As I settle back into my chair, I tilt my head back and take a deep breath. I feel… amazing, actually. I never imagined how I’d handle this fight. I knew it would come, but never how it would go. And now, it’s such a weight off my shoulders that I feel like I’m floating.
The headphones slide back on, and I reopen the project I’d been working on before I was interrupted. The annoying little pitch error is gone, and the whole piece flows in beautiful harmony.
At the top of an ancient mountain, carved into the very stone, stood a shrine to the Element of Laughter. Not the physical object, and certainly not the mare who bore it. No, the shrine revered the concept of the Element of Laughter, evolved from a Hope for a better tomorrow into delight at a better today. Those who made the arduous climb could gather there and meditate on the deeper mysteries of comedy.
The abbot, a wizened earth stallion whose once eye-searing lime fur had faded to the hue and texture of an old pool table beneath his saffron robes, and whose beard was as long and full as his mane wasn’t, sat in the front hall of the shrine. Carved memorials to the greatest jokes and funniest props of all time covered the walls around him, but none had inspired anything close to the gleeful anticipation he now felt. The planets were aligning. The time was almost upon them. The funniest stallion in ten generations would soon grace their humble halls, and Abbot Excellent Fancy wouldn’t miss it for the world.
A shadow flitted across the entrance… from above. Abbot Fancy held back his disappointment. In his eighty years, he’d never seen one pegasus actually bother to make the climb. Filthy cheaters, the lot of them.
Still, he could overlook that for the fulfillment of the prophecy. “Chosen one,” he intoned, offering a rare, gummy smile. “Long have I awaited your arrival. We stand ready to teach you everything we can, to help you realize your potential to its true, fullest extent.”
“Uh…”
Abbot Fancy blinked and squinted. His eyes weren’t what they used to be and pegasi tended towards the slender, but the funniest stallion in Equestria did seem to have a mare’s build. A mare in uniform, with heavy saddlebags and a clipboard balanced on one hoof.
She looked back and forth between it and him, eyes bobbling in a passable if amateurish display. “Sorry, is this not the Temple of Eternal Devotion?”
“What!” The abbot reeled back as though struck and sneered. “You dare intrude upon the Sanctum of Infinite Mirth at this, the appointed hour, with such disrespect?”
The grey mare shrugged her wings. “In my defense, these mountaintop monasteries all kind of blend together after a while. You could at least write your address somewhere for us, like the folks at the Sacred Circle of Undying Benevolence.”
The abbot's fury only grew. “Invoking the sites of our misguided rival faiths. Have you no shame?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You know, I’d expect somepony at the ‘Sanctum of Infinite Mirth’ to have a better sense of humor about this sort of thing.”
The abbot rapped his cane against the floor. He might have smacked her for her insolence, but his knees weren’t in the best shape of his life either. “Fool! There is nothing more serious than Laughter!”
“See, this is exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Enough of this nonsense." Abbot Fancy waved his cane over the intruder with equal parts malice and whimsy, invoking ancient pacts and long-standing setups waiting for their punchline. "With all the power endowed to me by my sacred Element, I curse you to be the butt of every joke, the victim of every mishap, the Schlimazel Eternal!” He rapped his cane against the floor once more, and the deed was done.
“Gesundheit," said the interloper, still blissfully unaware of what forces she had angered. For now. "Also, should you save some of that power for that prophecied hero you were expecting?”
The abbot grinned. It was not a happy grin. “Oh, you may scoff, but I assure you, when you leave this place, your fate will be sealed.”
She sighed. Sighed! Oh how he longed to see that hubris unravel. “We do have a complaint department, sir.”
And so the winged menace turned on a hoof. As if responding to the abbot's wishes, her very next saw her trip on nothing, stumbling about with wings flapping wildly for purchase. Soon, she found herself tumbling rump over teakettle, bouncing off of every wall and the ceiling besides. The collisions eventually sent her right into the path of another weary wanderer—an earth stallion, and thus one who actually bothered to come up the proper way—who had made it into the temple while the abbot had been distracted.
Abbot Fancy winced in anticipation of the impact, but the newer newcomer plucked the pegasus out of the air, turning her momentum into a high-speed tango that ended in a dip, each pony now with a thornless rose in their mouth.
After the orange stallion spat his out, he gave a smile so wide that there could be no doubt that he was the one spoken of in the prophecy. "Wow, you comedy monks sure know how to make a pony feel welcome!"
The mare blinked, ate the blossom off her rose, and offered a lesser grin of her own. "Hey, I know you. You helped Pinkie Pie with Rainbow Dash’s big party a while ago!”
“You’re from Ponyville?" the stallion said as he help guide her back onto all four hooves. "Neat! How's Pinkie?”
“Chosen one!" barked the abbot. "Pay the faithless mare no mind. We must have words; it is vitally important.”
The chosen one barely spared him a glance. “You sure I’m the chosen one? I haven’t seen aerobatics like hers since that one Wonderbolt derby in Locoweed Canyon.”
Abbot Fancy rolled his eyes. “For similar reasons, I am sure. She bears the mark of the Schlimazel Eternal.”
“Gesundheit.”
The abbot felt an eyelid twitch, but he refused to raise his voice to the stallion of prophecy. “Granted, it should have triggered after she left the sanctum.”
The mare tilted her head. “Was that what that curse is supposed to do? I’ve been putting up with that kind of thing my whole life.”
The chosen one frowned, and the spirits of mirth shuddered along with his voluminous mane. “Curse?”
“She profaned this holy site with mention of inferior shrines to inferior concepts," said Abbot Fancy, certain the chosen one would understand given the proper context. He turned to the side and spat. "Loyalty and Kindness, pah!”
“Harmony doesn’t work that way,” said the mare, as though she would know.
Yet, impossibly, the chosen one glared at the abbot. Dust drifted down from the trembling ceiling. “And some place that curses perfectly nice mailmares doesn’t have anything to teach me about comedy." He turned his tail on the temple. "Good day, sir.”
“What?" The abbot struggled to his hooves. "No, wait!”
The chosen one whipped his head back, genuine rage in his eyes and tone. “I said good day, sir!”
“I… This… It doesn’t…" Abbot Fancy looked eyes with the mare glancing back at him as she too edged out of the building. "You! This is all your doing.”
And she reacted with something even worse than the rage of a silly stallion: Pity. “I don’t know if that was funny back when you were young, but you really need to get out more.”
She spread her wings, narrowly avoiding the life-sized bust of Shecky the Green before making it out of the temple. And from the moment she crossed the threshold, she flew off with a grace that brought tears of joy to the abbot's weary, already weeping eyes.
The Bridlewood was a lot bigger than Izzy’s village. The further in Izzy and Sunny went, the darker, damper, and warmer it got, until the latter felt like she was trudging through the sprawling southern jungles spoken of in her father’s notes.
“Are we getting close?” she panted.
“Hmm?” Izzy looked back. She seemed fine, which wasn’t at all fair given what Sunny had read about earth pony magic. Never mind how the only thing that magic had done since she'd entered the deep Bridlewood was make her feel progressively more nervous and unwelcome the further they’d gone. “Yeah, just about! Should be just around this— Aha!”
Sunny didn't get it at first. A different kind of tree didn't seem to merit an "Aha," even if its twisting trunk and broad-reaching branches seemed completely out of place in the forest. But she trusted Izzy, and so she came closer. Only ten paces away did she realize there was a door carved into the thick trunk, much less obvious than anything she'd seen in the village. Still, from there she could make out the windows, the little crevices and folds in the wood that held vials and bottles.
She wrinkled her muzzle, close enough that she could smell unidentifiable odors from the other side of the door. Some ancient carving stared back at her, blending into the wood aside from a few surviving flecks of paint. “… Nice place?”
“You think so?" said Izzy. "It’s always given me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Right. So." Sunny took a deep breath. "You really think this ‘forest witch’ will know something about Old Equestria?”
“You picked an awfully funny time to ask that.”
Another deep breath. Still not the most frustrating exchange she'd ever had with Izzy. “I just want to be sure the trip here will be worth it.”
“Well, everypony in Bridlewood knows that if you’re out of ideas and better options, you go see the witch. And if she agrees that you really need the help, she helps!" After a moment, Izzy added, "Plus she knows everything about everything, so that seems like it’ll be a plus.”
“Well, let’s find out.” Sunny knocked, keeping her hoof well away from the mask. Just to be safe.
The door opened, revealing an indigo unicorn mare in a long, undyed shawl. She was definitely younger than Sunny had expected, just a few crow's feet around her eyes and thin grey streaks hinting at her age. Beyond that, she didn't seem tall so much as stretched, gaunt and lanky like a normal amount of pony trying to occupy too much space.
The forest witch raised an eyebrow. “That was fast. Ponies usually need a lot more prep time before they have the nerve to knock. And I didn’t hear a single bing-bong.”
“I’m not superstitious." Sunny tapped her bare forehead. "Or a unicorn.”
“I’ll grant that you’re not a unicorn. Though just because you can put the horn away doesn’t mean I can’t tell what you are.”
Sunny drew back a step. “What?”
The witch clicked her tongue. “Don’t play dumb. Your type’s never been good at it. Your friend, under another hoof, could teach college courses on the subject.”
“Hi, miss forest witch!” Izzy said with a wave.
“Hi, Izzy." The witch grinned and stepped out of the doorway. "Come in, both of you. I'll make tea.”
The inside was moderately less creepy. Bundles of drying herbs, enough old books to make Sunny's hooves itch... and a genuine cast-iron cauldron in the middle of the floor. But one question stood out in her mind above all others. “Seriously, what did you mean about what I am?”
The witch didn't answer for a bit, focused on the blend of leaves and petals she was assembling. To be fair, her mouth was occupied for a good bit of it. Once she had three cups poured and steeping, she sat at the table by the cauldron. “Becoming an alicorn leaves a mark for those who know what to look for. Even if you stopped halfway." That got another look, like she could see the golden glow in Sunny's heart. "You’ll want to resolve that one way or the other, by the way. Standing on the threshold for too long isn’t good for the soul.”
Sunny filed that away for latter. She knew she could only take so many world-shaking revelations at once; she'd need to pace herself. “You’re certainly more forthcoming than Izzy said you’d be.”
“I do matters of health for free unless the pony really bothers me. That’s just courtesy. But I can't imagine you came to me specifically for that. What did bring you all the way out here.”
“What happened to the old magic? To all the knowledge of old Equestria? How did we lose so much?”
Okay, Sunny admitted internally, pacing herself would be harder than she thought.
Thankfully, the witch took her outburst, looking more amused than anything. “Not afraid to ask the big questions. Good. I just hope you remember the small ones can also be important.”
Sunny looked down, abashed. The witch said nothing more, leaving her to wonder how to fix this. Apologize, obviously, but what could she say? Was she even supposed to say anything? Was this simpler than she was making this out to be? Oh Twilight, was she ruining everything by staying silent?
“I don’t think she needs tea right now.”
Izzy's voice brought Sunny out of her spiraling thoughts. She realized that the ripples in the teacups were coming from her fidgeting hind legs.
The witch nodded. “Probably not, no. Before I tell you, Miss…” She trailed off, giving Sunny a pointed look.
“Sunny. Sunny Starscout." She bowed her head. "Sorry.”
The witch reached out and patted her fetlocks. “Learning from your mistakes is the best apology you can offer to me. Yours and everypony else’s.”
Sunny nodded. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“Good. But before I tell you how the old magic left, I’d like to know how the new got here.”
“Learning to trust one another." Sunny looked to Izzy and smiled. "Looking past our differences and coming together.”
Izzy beamed back, throwing her hooves into the air. “And magic crystals!”
“Yeah, but those weren’t nearly as important as I thought they were.”
The witch nodded. “They rarely are. It’s much easier to turn intangible virtue tangible with an artifact or six, but you need to have the intangible first." After a sip of her tea, she added, "That’s how it worked last time, after all.”
Sunny's smile grew at the hint of past knowledge. “So I passed the test?”
“Test?" The witch looked genuinely confused for a moment before smiling back. "That was gossip. Relax, Sunny. I’m not going to curse you or something silly like that.
“Now. Have you heard of Twilight Sparkle?”
“Of course! Bearer of Magic, Queen of Friendship, the mare who brought the whole world together!”
“Princess of Friendship," said the witch. "They were very particular about that sort of thing. And her title was well-earned. But you hit on the problem she faced: What does the Princess of Friendship do when she has no more nations to befriend?”
Sunny blinked. She hadn't ever considered that. She hadn't thought it would even be possible. “Um… enjoy the ones she has?”
“Perhaps. But that wasn’t good enough for Twilight." The witch stared off into the middle distance. "She was a problem solver. An organizer. Put less charitably, a meddler. She’d already made friends in one other world."
"She what?"
"Later. Knowing how many more were out there, trudging through existence without the guidance of friendship and harmony…" The witch sighed and shook her head. "Well, it probably sounds arrogant now, seeing where it led us, but Twilight believed the next logical step after world peace was a vast network of interconnected worlds, united through friendship and magic.
“So, once her student was secure on the throne, Twilight went out beyond time and space." The witch shut her eyes. "And she never came back.”
Silence fell on the cottage. Sunny said “Oh” and immediately felt foolish for doing so.
“I don’t know if she met her end, if she’s just been lost all this time, or if something even stranger befell her. Either way…" The witch smiled at Sunny, though there was still sorrow in her eyes. "Well, as you’ve discovered, friendship is magic. And when the Princess of Friendship left this world, she ended up taking most of the magic with her. By the time we realized what had happened, there wasn’t enough power left to tell her to come back.
“After that, I don’t know how much of the collapse was Twilight literally ripping the friendship out of the world and how much was panic and fear leading to anger and hatred. Whatever the case, things degenerated from there.” The witch grimaced. “Though the library burnings were definitely meant to spite Twilight. They used to call her Princess of Books, after all.”
“That’s… that’s horrible," said Sunny, forehooves over her mouth. "Why did she have to go, anyway?”
“Have to? She didn't. Choose to? Personally, I blame her predecessors. They put her on the throne too early. She stayed there a good, long while, but she jumped off the first chance she got. After everything she’d had to put up with, who could blame her?" The witch's expression turned sheepish. It looked wrong; that was a muzzle made for looking wiser than everypony else in the room. "Truth be told, I’d thought magic returning meant she had finally come back. I might finally have a chance to apologize.”
Sunny's jaw dropped. “Apologize?” Bits of the story began to come together in her mind.
The witch didn’t seem to hear her. “When she didn’t show up, I figured either I was wrong or she saw the memorial. Assuming it’s even still there. Nopony visits my grave anymore. Not even me.”
“Y-y-y-you’re…”
The witch smirked. Something at her midsection shifted about. The shawl fell to the floor, and she stretched out her wings. “I thought I’d made it fairly obvious.”
Sunny's mouth worked silently for a moment.
"Wow, did you get all three crystals too?" said Izzy.
"Something like that."
“I figured there was a line of succession! An oral tradition!" Sunny thrust her forelegs at the witch like a spokesmare showcasing the latest from Canterlogic. "Not just Luna herself in a cloak!”
Motherflipping Luna her gosh-darn self shook her head. “No, no, those never hold up for long. A century or two at most before everything gets warped beyond recognition.”
Izzy looked back and forth between the two of them. “I feel like I’m missing something.”
Sunny turned to her, dazedly saying, “This is the mare who used to move the moon for a living.”
“Huh. Neat." Izzy turned back to actual, genuine Queen Luna. "I really like the craters.”
The Watcher of Dreams grinned. “Thanks. Though I can’t take credit for the more recent ones.”
Izzy nodded like that was a sane thing a pony might expect to hear every day. “So, what now?”
Sunny took the deepest breath yet in an effort to recenter herself. That was an important question, after all. “How do you feel about rejoining society?”
Luna looked askance at her with hundreds if not thou No, no, Sunny was calm. “You’re not just saying that so another alicorn takes some of the attention off of you?”
“We could use a voice of experience as we rebuild. My dad tried to piece together as much of Old Equestria as he could, but there’s a lot we still don’t know." Inspiration struck, and Sunny grinned. "Like you said, we should learn from everypony’s mistakes, right?”
That got a chuckle out of the living legend. “You ponies. Alright, fine. I tend to do my best work after a long exile, anyway.”
Sunny furrowed her brow. Her knowledge of Luna was admittedly patchier than some other alicorns. “I feel like there’s a story there.”
“You haven’t heard that one? We’ll have to fix that right away." Luna cleared her throat, shut her eyes, and lit her horn. A hazy illusion formed at the center of the table. "Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters…”
The camera panned over a brightly lit studio done up in pastels. Even the host was colored to match, a baby blue pegasus mare with a soft pink mane. “Live from ZBS Studios,” said the prerecorded announcement, "it’s Flock Talk, with Sky Morningtide.”
“Good morning, Zephyr Heights,” said Sky, subdued from her normal early morning cheer. “We’re all still reeling from yesterday’s shocking revelations. Princess Pipp Petals on wires, unicorns and earth ponies in the throne room, the outrageous theft of the Pegasus Crystal…" She shook her head, the very picture of troubled sympathy. "I’m sure you’ve all had a sleepless night. Here to help us make sense of it all is ZBS senior political analyst Vicious Cycle.”
The view switched from the head-on camera to one framing Sky along with the stallion on the couch next to her desk. His dark grey coat and cobalt mane stood out like an ink stain against the set’s gentle palette. “Good morning, Sky, everypony.”
“Vicious, everypony is asking themselves what they should do in light of yesterday’s unthinkable events. Should we come together as a community, reaffirm our bonds as friends, family, and fellow pegasi?”
“A beautiful sentiment, Sky." Vicious sighed and shook his head. "Beautiful but completely wrong.”
“You heard it here, folks. Now, more than ever—" Sky blinked as she registered what Vicious had actually said. "Wait, what?”
“With the royal family’s deceit revealed, the lesson is clear: Trust nopony." Vicious sneered. "Yesterday laid bare a degree of corruption as unthinkable as it is obvious in hindsight.”
Sky leaned over her desk and tried to whisper, though the microphone stuck to her collarbone still picked up every word. “Vicious, what are you—”
The enormous flat screen behind them went from displaying a sunrise over Zephyr Heights to a blurry shot of several equine figures, some clearly without wings. “Princess Pipp’s stream from the throne room showed Queen Haven in clandestine talks with major figures in the earth pony and unicorn communities. What were they planning? Why did Haven cut the stream the moment she realized Pipp’s camera was live?" Vicious stomped the couch cushions for emphasis. "What is the meaning of the object on the unicorn’s horn?”
“It’s a tennis—”
Vicious picked up speed with every question. “Could she have used it to enthrall the earth pony? The royal family?" His fidgeting grew until he started pacing around the set. "Every fugitive from yesterday’s debacle is still unaccounted for; could she still be in Zephyr Heights, consolidating her power?”
“Cut his mike!" Sky looked around the studio. "Somepony, please cut his—”
“The royals lied. The other tribes are invading. We are defenseless. Paranoia isn’t irrational; it’s the only reasonable response. They are out to get you. Yes, you!” Vicious thrust a hoof at the camera, then charged at it, foam dripping from his lips. As he shoved his face into the lens, it was impossible to miss his sclera glowing green. “Do not believe the lie of Harmony! Do not accept the fantasy of Equestria! Alone you are strong! Alone you have power! The darkness consumes all! Hate! HATE! HAAAATE!”
He flew off sideways, tackled away from the lens by a baby blue blur.
The footage returned, centered on a ruffled Sky, huffing for breath behind her desk. “We’re live?” She shook off her haunted look and gave the best smile she could, moving her shaking, red-flecked hooves out of view. “Sorry about that, folks. We’re all a little shaken from last night.” She cleared her throat, one eyelid twitching, before rallying her smile to a half-mad, lopsided grin. “After the break, find out if your favorite smoothie is slowly killing you. This is Flock Talk.”
Thunder boomed from a cloudless sky. The land shuddered from above and below. The sky flashed through colors nothing had ever seen before, and hopefully never would again.
Every creature on the savannah fled for their lives, though few ran in the same direction. Herds scattered every which way, slowly burgeoning intellect abandoned for the speed of fear. Birds plummeted while wracked with indecision. Predators twitched, eyes darting about as their instincts perched on the knife’s edge between fight and flight.
An old he-lion, grizzled from a lifetime of scars and struggle, was the first victim. He slowed even as the rest of the pride ran from the disturbance, wincing as old pains became fresh. His body began to bulge and shift, making him stumble into the dirt. An attempt at a growl, something to scare off the threat, came out as a strangled gurgle.
Then came the tearing sounds of flesh twisting past its breaking point, the snap of bone and the wheeze of air forced from rebelling lungs. The body was long dead by the time it fell still.
That hadn't changed when it rose again.
Blood and fouler fluids oozed from most of the openings in the body. It flopped about aimlessly at first, a confused pile of meat moving like nothing alive could or should, churning the dry earth and its own ruddy filth into a rank mud.
Then the mud joined in, its own flailing unconstrained by the limits of joints and skin. It snatched up grass, dust, even bubbles of air in its blind flailing before settling down and enveloping much of the lion’s body. Only the head and one foreleg, both largely intact despite the inhabitant’s best efforts, remained free of the earthen embrace.
Flies began to settle on the lolling tongue. They stuck there and slowly dissolved, spreading across its surface like melting candies.
The head tilted, slowly drawing the tongue back in and, after a few false starts, smacking its lips.
The legs moved, or were moved. The corpse lurched onward, aimless but inexorable. The tuft of its limp tail trailed color behind it like a paintbrush crafting an abstract masterpiece, or just an oil leak. The color boiled in the sun, leaving hallucinogenic vapors of pure magic.
After night fell, the corpse’s inhabitant learned what its nose was for. The sound of screams split the humid air shortly thereafter.
Fluttershy looked at the cave painting for a long time. To be fair, there was a lot to take in. The central figure was… Well, hoof-applied ochre could only communicate so much, but it still got across the idea of a tangle of limbs, heads, and other appendages. She wasn’t sure if the hoofprints over the sprawling heap of anatomy were part of the design or meant to act as a sort of warding or sealing measure.
The rest of the painting also communicated the intended message very clearly. There were only so many ways to interpret every species imaginable fleeing from the central figure, mouths opened wide. Especially given how some the lower figures either had body parts that seemed out of place, or were missing pieces altogether.
She looked at Discord, who was looking everywhere except the painting. He’d even grown extra heads to do so. Three of them were trying to whistle nonchalantly, all out of tune with each other and themselves. More smoke drifted down to the torch unburning in his lion paw.
“You know…”
Discord jumped like he’d been stung, pulling himself together to focus all of his attention on her. “Yes?”
Fluttershy couldn’t help but smile. “When I showed you my baby photos, I hadn’t expected you to return the favor.”
“Ahem. Yes. Well. It’s not exactly a part of my history that I’m proud of, but you deserve to know it.” Discord finally looked at the painting and winced. “I wasn’t exactly a well-behaved child. Making messes, breaking my toys, sticking everything in my mouth to try to understand it. And, well, when you’re curious and you can grow more mouths—”
A forehoof on his lion paw stopped the babble. Fluttershy idly noted the fine old scars on that paw for a moment before she smiled at Discord. “Honestly? Most foals are horrible little monsters.”
He blinked, removed an ear, and looked through it like a spyglass before wincing and screwing it back on. “I’m sorry, I had something crazier than usual in my ear. What did you just say?”
Fluttershy gave the smirk she'd learned from Discord and used most with him, the one that showed amusement at a mind encountering new vistas of possibility it had never considered. “Discord, I grew up with Zephyr Breeze, was bullied throughout my foalhood, and then I had to foalsit the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I know there can be considerate, thoughtful, empathetic foals. I was one of them. But I also know that most of them aren’t." She flew around the torch and gave him a hug around his neck. "Feeling bad about the way you behaved when you were young means you’ve grown as a person since then. Like the Crusaders.”
His neck snaked out, letting him turn his head upside down to look back at her. “What about your brother or the bullies?”
“I know what I said.”
His head twisted around so she could properly appreciate his grin. “There are days where I worry I might be a bad influence on you.”
“You’re a chaotic influence on me." She patted him on the head. "And I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
“You always know just what to say. Shall we return to our tea?”
Fluttershy nodded. “I’d love nothing more.”
And they vanished in a flash of light, not forgetting the past, but still letting it go.
There are two places in Equestria called “Hollow Shades.” One is the abandoned settlement of forgotten cults and unspeakable rituals, left to crumble until deeds and town have both been forgotten. Here is where the Pony of Shadows made its last stand, and here its memory has been left to rot like so many others.
Then there are the living Hollow Shades, not so much a settlement as a collection of hovels that happen to huddle together in an especially foul stretch of marshy pine barrens in northeastern Equestria. Officially speaking, the region has no name. To give it a name of its own would provide a nucleus to the dread power of the place, one it could use to build itself into an awareness that would make the Everfree Forest look like a quaintly interactive nature hike. Thus, the locals call it by the name of another place, one whose time has come and gone, in the hopes that the land stays relatively well behaved.
The Hollow Shades are not a nice place, nor are they populated by especially nice ponies. Cloud cover that no pegasus dares interfere with blocks out the sun and moon alike. Love and friendship are in short supply, especially now that the local changeling hive has abandoned generations of attempted social engineering to swear allegiance to Hive Thorax, so that they may learn the secrets of reformation.* Some students of sociology, thaumic symbolism, and similar disciplines believe that Flurry Heart’s alicorn domain can be inferred by studying what else the Shades lack. Few return from their field work.
* Thorax would have happily told them without demanding their fealty. However, Queen Labrum is a shameless and incurable drama queen, which is why her hive had been preying on the Shades in the first place.
Going by their logic, Flurry assuredly is not the alicorn of illicit goods. Anything that can’t, shouldn’t, or mustn’t be purchased elsewhere in Equestria can be found in the Shades for the right price. Some call Klugetown the greatest black market in the world. The Shades go through black to the colors on the other side, and that’s just in the art supply store.
One such example of this transpired in one of the town’s larger alleys. (Calling it a street would be giving it far too much credit, and probably get you shanked.) A cart in the shadow of one of the few brick buildings in town vented steam into the overcast sky, most of the greenish tint coming from the luminescent fungi that served as lampposts. Some sprouted from the ground, some adorned the buildings, and one appeared to grow out of the mane of the pony tending the cart.
A figure furtively moved from shadow to shadow, approaching the cart as indirectly as it could. This was less out of caution and more because it was hard to move any other way in the Hollow Shades, even when walking in a straight line. Eventually, the figure resolved itself into another pony, lean where the cart tender was wide, quick where he was slow, horned where he was earthen.
After a few frantic moments looking for danger around and in the cart, the newcomer said, “Greetings. I have need of a… carrot dog.”
“Do you?” The cart tender did not shift his attention from the cart, nor made any motion to procure anything from it. The cart itself did begin rattling until he gave it a smack. “And how should I… prepare it?”
Every meaningful pause came with a quick glance at their surroundings, ears perked for unwary hoofsteps or far more dangerous sounds. The unicorn's next words were no different. “Are you familiar with… Whinny City style?”
That got a phlegmy snort, disgusted as it was disgusting. “I am afraid I am not so… well-traveled as you, friend.” The cart tender said the last word the same way others might say “idiot” or “sewage.” “This humble cart can only offer so much.”
“Of course, of course." The unicorn nodded frantically, shifting from hoof to hoof, never letting himself get comfortable in one spot for too long. "Very well. I am not inflexible, nor am I desperate."
"Of course," the cart tender echoed with no less scorn than before.
"Perhaps… onions?”
With a surprised grunt, the cart tender straightened from his growing slouch. “What you speak of could indeed be procured… for a price.”
That got a solemn nod. “All things have their price. This I know well." The unicorn's sudden confidence vanished like smoke in the breeze. "And, perhaps… relish?”
Now the cart tender looked up, a hard stare peeking out through his stringy mane. “You tread dangerous ground, friend.”
The unicorn flinched back as though struck. “The onions will suffice.”
“They will.” With practiced motions, the cart tender pulled a carrot off the grill, placed it in a warm bun, and slathered it in diced onions until they were on the verge of spilling out. “Six bits.”
“They are yours,” said the unicorn, tossing a drawstring bag to the cart tender.
For a moment, the cart tender hesitated. The world seemed to hold its breath. At last, he nodded and held out the carrot dog. “Then the compact is sealed.” Only then did the unicorn take it in his magic.
Just before the first bite, a bright blue pegasus swooped down, smiling wider than five usual Hollowfolk put together. “Hey, can I get two with ketchup and mustard?”
The cart tender grunted and pulled the squeeze bottles out of their slots. “How goes your sociology thesis?”
“Nearly got it cracked!”
The unicorn rolled his eyes as he skittered away with his lunch. Out-of-towners never could capture the proper spirit of the white market.
The garden might have been beautiful. It was hard to be sure with the mist in the way.
Every now and then there was a hint of something more; a colorful petal, a faint aroma on the breeze, a trickle of water in a fountain. Then the grey veils washed out everything once more, and Celestia was left on the damp cobblestones with nothing but the mist and her thoughts for company.
She wasn’t sure which was worse.
After a while, she realized she’d been sitting on the cobbles for far longer than was reasonable, and she wondered if the mist had seeped in through her ears. Every now and then a coherent thought would peek through, but then she’d blink and her head would be as foggy as her surroundings.
Celestia scowled and tried to focus. Why was she even here? Surely there was a reason. She had far too much to do to just sit in a garden all day. And couldn’t she do something about the mist?
She tried flapping her wings. The mist swirled, the gray on gray somehow different enough from itself that she could see every intricate whorl left in her wake. But the garden still stayed as dreary as ever.
That got a snort. If a little wind wouldn’t burn it off, she knew what would.
Part of her still expected the sun to burn her when she opened herself to it. Still expected it strip away her magic rather than reinforce it. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever not hesitate at least a little before accessing that power, but it was still her birthright, as shown by her mark. So, with a deep breath, Celestia lit her horn and reached up and out.
And she found nothing.
Her eyes shot open, darting about and finding nothing but more gray. Celestia felt her breathing start to speed up, her pulse pounding in her ears as she sought out the sun and kept coming up short. Her wings spread, that she might rise above the blasted mist and find her companion, but she didn’t take off. Ludicrous as it sounded, she feared that if she did leave the path, if she let that get swallowed up, she might never find it again. Like she might tire herself out hovering and fall forever, until there was no pony left to fall, just gray in gray in gray—
“That is quite enough of that.”
Celestia blinked as the mists swirled, writhed, and finally parted for a thoroughly unamused blue filly. The garden stood revealed… and had frankly seen better days. The few blossoms struggled on shrubs that were overgrown or desiccated. The fountain’s trickle was as much from water seeping out through cracks as any intended flow. And many of the cobbles were covered in moss or sunken into the dirt, their winding path almost lost.
She could almost imagine the mist drifting out of her ears. She could see it leave her nose and mouth. “Luna?” she said, her tongue feeling thick and clumsy in her mouth.
Luna marched up to her, a scowl on her muzzle that would probably be less adorable in a few years. Probably. “I told you, Sister. I told you not to try to follow me. I know what I’m doing." She jabbed Celestia in the chest with a forehoof. "You absolutely do not.”
Celestia wasn't entirely sure what Luna meant, but she wasn't going to stand around and be disrespected like that. “I am your older sister and I expect to be respected as such.” She turned up her nose in the manner of the unicorn nobles... though that just made she realize that the sky was clear of suns as much as clouds.
Luna sighed and tugged Celestia's wide-eyed gaze down from that endless, barren blue. “You are going to have to learn that the dream realm does not respect any waking authority, yours or anypony else’s.”
“Dream realm?" said Celestia, blinking the sky out of her eyes. The words opened floodgates of memory, even reshaping the garden around Celestia to better resemble the courtyard of Castle Everfree. "That’s right. Star Swirl had told you about the duties of the dream warden. How the last one had passed on, and how the realm was collapsing.”
“And how I might command the land beyond slumber as I do the moon, yes."
"Yes, yes, of course." Celestia turned and bit into one of the nearby shrubs, revealing it to be a cunningly disguised raisin cake. "I'd love some tea if you're offering, Duke Slumgullion."
A flash of blue made her blink, flush, and swallow. "Er. That is..."
Luna gave a very concerning smirk. The sort that told Celestia her little sister would be absolutely insufferable in the morning. "If nothing else, I must show you how to dream lucidly.”
“Yes. Well." Celestia cleared her throat and marshaled as much dignity and sisterly authority as she could in her frown. Judging by Luna's continuing smug look, it wasn't much. "You were there, Luna. You heard the old stallion go into horrifying detail about the risks involved with dream magic." Her facade crumbled entirely as the heartache flooded in, sharp and fresh as the moment she'd first felt it. "And then he had to force you awake when you first tried to enter this wretched place. Knowing that you were facing it alone…”
Luna nuzzled her once she trailed off. “I am glad you care, Sister, but I wish you had a bit more faith in me. I will not lose myself here again. I promise.”
“You’re the only family I have left, Luna. And my baby sister besides." Celestia lay on the garden path, the better to bring herself eye to eye with Luna. Darn growth spurt. She was already almost as tall as Star Swirl.
“In this realm, I am the one who must protect you." Luna beamed. "Though you will be pleased to hear that the dream realm is no longer crumbling into dull nothingness. I have reshaped it extensively.” She waved a hoof, and the decaying garden slid aside like the background in a mummers' play, revealing a land of stars and mist and countless doors, ranging from bare wood to engraved marble.
To Celestia’s eyes, it wasn’t much better than the garden. At least there was something in the sky. “It is very… you.”
Luna nodded. “As well it should be. Apparently the garden very much fit the old warden. Such metaphors never work well for those who did not make them. And if I am to do this every night…”
“Every night!?” Celestia cried.
Her sister raised an eyebrow at that. “If ponies intend to sleep in comfort, then yes.”
Celestia shuddered. “I do not envy you, Sister.”
“No?" Luna blinked, looking genuinely surprised. "I find it delightful." She smirked. "And Star Swirl will no doubt drill me through it until I am sick of the duty.”
That got a grin and a nod. “That he likely will." Celestia looked around the starry expanse. "How long did I spend seeking you out, anyway?”
Luna stared at her for a few moments before clearing her throat. “Sister, this has all been your own dream.”
"Ah." Celestia had the grace to smile “In that case, I am very glad you are the one taking on this duty, then.”
“I am just glad to find something the great Celestia did not immediately master.”
And sisterly giggles ushered Celestia to her next dream of the night.
Iron Will looked around the throne room. It was definitely impressive, in a very pony way. Nothing in Minos would’ve used this much decorative glass. Not where people could easily reach it, anyway. The water features were nice, if very… straightforward. But to be fair, the throne threw all of his expectations out one of those oversized windows like a poorly prepared senator.
“You’re probably wondering why I called you here,” said Princess Twilight Sparkle.
“That and why you’re sitting in an armchair.” It certainly looked like a comfortable chair, but red upholstery didn't exactly scream regal in any sense Iron Will had ever encountered.
“The throne’s getting refurbished after the... incidents prior to my accession.” The wall behind the princess flickered and spat sparks. Will could see clouds through it before her horn glowed and it restabilized. Twilight cleared her throat. “As is most of the throne room, but I don’t want to delay this visit any longer than I have to.”
Will's eyebrows crept up in surprise. “Didn’t think I was that important. Especially after, you know…” He trailed off, a hand waving in the vague direction of the past.
The princess nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. Which wasn't exactly a good thing. “The ‘Cruise of the Princesses Experience’?”
Her arch tone made him narrow his eyes and snort out a breath. "Never let them see you sweat" didn't rhyme, but it was still good advice. “Iron Will will note that the terms of the cruise were spelled out clearly and explicitly in the paperwork Princess Twilight’s parents signed, and he is prepared to defend that in a court of law.”
Princess Twilight met his glare, wholly unimpressed. “Don’t try to hide behind bluster and illeism with me, mister. I’ve worked with the Great and Powerful Trixie. I know Trixie. Trixie is a frenemy of mine. And you? Are no Trixie.”
Iron Will gritted his teeth. He knew Trixie. They'd crossed paths a few times while they were both of on the traveling performer circuit, and it was possible that one of them influenced the other's routine, though no force in the world would get him to say that any less vaguely. “I thought you were the Princess of Friendship,” he grumbled.
“And I would love to be your friend." Twilight's tone softened, but her expression didn't. "That said, friends don’t exploit friends under false pretenses to build notoriety for an airship cruise.”
Will crossed his arms. He had to admit, he did respect the princess for not relenting in some attempt to butter him up. But he wasn't going to come out and say that in the middle of negotiations, whatever it was they were negotiating. “Now I’m really wondering why you called me here.”
“Because this, right now? This isn't the visit I've been delaying, and I really could use your help for the one I meant." Twilight smirked. "Plus, I know you’re looking for a new market niche. I asked you here to offer one.”
Oh. That was what they were negotiating. Will stroked his goatee. “Iron Will is listening…”
The doors of the throne room burst open, nearly knocked off of their freshly reconstructed hinges. Behind them stood an absolutely immense minotaur bull, with fur the color of live muscle and horns as thick as Twilight's hind legs. Every part of him bulged with vitality and possible thyroid problems... save for the almost dainty powdered wig that barely covered the top of his head.
A pony herald would simply announce their master. Minotaurs did things a little... differently.
“Fillies and gentlecolts, are. You. Ready? To meet the Master of the Maze, the Bulk of the Argument, the Kiiiing of the Minotauuurs!? Well I hope so, because he’s in your town and he’s coming for you. You'd better be wearing your big filly horseshoes, because it's time for some knockdown, drag-out, no-holds-barred diplomacy. So give it up for the one, the only, Angus. The. Whiiiiite!”
The herald backed away from the doorway, arms still pointed to it like a living semaphore. An entire herd of goats filtered in after him, arranging themeslves in a semicircle in front of the throne. before launching into a bleating chorus.
"Aaaaaaangus. Aaaaaaangus."
As the percussion section started in—admittedly well done in both composition and performance—Twilight leaned to the left side of her throne and whispered, “Is this normal?”
“It’s pretty restrained, all things considered," answered Iron Will. He nodded to the herald, who'd sidled over next to him as the performers had set up. "How’s it going, Chuck Meat?”
“Not bad, Head Cheese," said the herald, who was capable of volume control when not acting in an official capacity. They exchanged a fistbump. "Yourself?”
“Can’t complain. Princess, this is my brother, Great Fortitude.”
Twilight held back her initial shock. “The king’s herald is your brother?”
Great Fortitude grinned and slapped Will on the back with an impact that could probably shatter Twilight's spine. “You kidding? Head Cheese here is heir to the throne. Dad’s just letting him get this big-business cowpie out of his system.”
Iron Will crossed his arms and harrumphed. “A good manager is just a good king on a smaller scale.”
“If you still think that," said a deep voice, "you must be doing a good job.”
Both brothers froze and turned to face the throne. An even taller, if more proportional minotaur bull stood among the bowing goats, two sets of horns curving up and forward, framing the crown on his brow. A ring of platinum went through his nose, and an amused look glinted in his eye.
Iron Will swallowed. “How long has the song been over?”
“Not very." Twilight smiled and gave a very carefully calculated nod. "King Angus, it is an honor to meet you in person.”
He returned it. “And you, Princess Twilight. Celestia told me much about you. And if you can get my prodigal son to cooperate with you, it speaks very well of your capabilities indeed. I think this marks a bright new era for both of our nations." His gaze flicked to the side. "Wouldn’t you say, Will?”
The smaller bull straightened up like he'd been shocked. “Um, yeah. I mean, yes, Your Majesty.”
Angus gave a faint grunt of surprise. “Remind me to stay on your good side, Twilight.”
She smiled. "I hope you remember that during the trade talks."
That got a laugh as Angus cracked his knuckles. "Oh, this is going to be fun."
I know this letter will never reach you. Wherever you are now, I doubt even the flames of your ever-faithful dragon can reach you. But the letters you wrote and received form the backbone of my dad’s research. It is because of them that we still remember names like Applejack, Trixie Lulamoon, Luster Dawn, and so many other ponies who did so much for the world. Given all you did, not just in the Twilit Era but in preserving that work so it could inspire us in the modern day, I just wanted to say this:
Thank you.
Thank you for the lessons you recorded. The wisdom of honesty, loyalty, generosity, and all the other virtues that guided you in your own time. I won’t lie, ponykind has had a rough time of it lately, but the future is finally starting to look bright now that we’ve reunited. Thank you especially for the importance of offering one’s enemies a chance to learn from their mistakes. A childhood friend of mine, Sprout Cloverleaf…
Well, that’s a long story in its own right, and one that’s not all mine to tell. But like Starlight Glimmer, he found himself in a bad situation and, thinking he was doing the right thing, nearly doomed us all. Part of me wanted to strike back, especially after I had just restored magic. But I remembered your writings in the Journal of Friendship. I knew what I had to do. And I’m glad I did it. If it weren’t for Sprout…
No, no, that’s definitely another story. One that should published, copied, and saved to the cloud just to be safe. Not written on a sheet of paper I’m just going to burn up. I know my friends all think its silly. (Well, except Izzy. I’ve already had to convince her not to send all her mail that way.) And I know it is, expecting a mundane candle to somehow send something to a mare from the history books.
But I’m doing it anyway. You deserve your share of the credit, after all. Without you, Dad would’ve been just as afraid of the other tribes as the rest of Maretime Bay. So would I. None of this would have happened without you, Princess. So thanks for everything. Wherever you are, I hope you’re with your friends. And I hope Dad’s with you. He probably hasn't stopped talking your ear off since he arrived.
Let him know I love him, and that I'm just as grateful to him as well.
Your studentdisciplefellow alicorn??? Your friend, Sunny Starscout
Predictions and Prophecies listed in Twilight’s magical grip as her mind whirled with the implications of what she’d just realized. The stellar alignment, the lunar banishment, the Elements of Harmony…
There was only one logical recourse.
“Take a note please,” she said to Spike. “To the Princess.”
“Okey-do— hckk!”
Twilight blinked, her train of thought briefly skipping on the tracks. “I… guess she already knows?” It wasn't surprising—Princess Celestia knew almost everything—but the timing was still quite the coincidence.
She expected the fiery belch. The smoke resolving itself into a folded sheet of paper rather than a scroll with the royal seal came as a surprise. “Weird,” Spike said as he unfolded it. “Think Mom wants us to do some shopping for the Celebration?”
“It’s… theoretically possible." Twilight swayed on her hooves and shook her head. Trying to shift gears from the fate of the world to minor errands was a bit much. Once she steadied herself, she realized the room was silent. "Spike? What's it say?”
He didn't answer at first, still staring at the letter in his claws.
"Spike?"
He turned, still wide-eyed and looking at her like he'd never seen her before. “I, uh, princess, you—”
“Right, we still need to get that letter to the princess, posthaste!" Twilight shut her eyes, composing the letter in her mind. “‘My dearest teacher—‘”
“Hold on, Twilight. I think we have a… Contingency Thirty-Two?”
She blinked, old memories coming to the fore. She'd spent many an evening running through the many improbable but not technically impossible disasters that might befall Equestria. The return of Nightmare Moon, for example, was a Contingency Nineteen. “We’re being invaded by hyperevolved apes from another dimension?”
“Oh," said Spike. He double-checked the letter. "Thirty-Three, then.”
Twilight sat down. This was getting to be a bit much. “How many years in the future?”
“She didn’t say. But, uh, she called you—”
Twilight held up a forehoof, rubbing her temples with the other. “Spike, please, one world-ending disaster at a time. We can worry about the potentially catastrophic foreknowledge after we warn Celestia about Nightmare Moon’s return. Deal?”
He nodded as he fetched a quill and parchment. “Yes, Your Highness.”
That got a snicker. Exactly what Twilight needed to lighten her mood. “Yeah, like that would ever happen. Now: ‘My dearest teacher…’”
Twilight arranged her first stargazing session with Luna shortly after the near-disaster of the princess's first Nightmare Night. They agreed to meet the next moon to appreciate Luna's craft. In the wee hours of the late autumn darkness, they made a similar arrangement for a moon after that. Then again and again until the sessions became another treasured part of both mares' social calendars. After Twilight got wings of her own, those moonly meetups became a much-needed way for each alicorn to spend a little time as just a pony.
As with so many other things throughout the multiverse, the real problem came when tequila got involved.
A shot glass danced like a concussed housefly wearing a spent lime wedge, wrapped in swaying, flickering magenta magic until it eventually found the side table. Twilight brought her focus back to the stars laid out above Namepending Castle's air chariot platform, sighing as she lay back in her lounge chair. “You know, I’ve come to an important conclusion tonight.”
“Oh?” Luna held back a grin. A drunken Twilight Sparkle was a delight on a number of levels, most stemming from how she refused to admit she was drunk. The exacting care she took not to slur her words, the devastating wit she could not hold back, the tendency to treat anything and everything as though the fate of the world hung in the balance, all of it and more combined to make her as treasured a drinking partner as she was a friend.
“I tried to put it off as long as I could. Deny it, spin it, rationalize it…" Twilight turned to face Luna with a serious expression that usually foretold the doom of some ancient evil. "I just can’t keep up the charade anymore.”
Luna tried to look sufficiently awed and just managed to avoid bursting into laughter. “This sounds quite momentous. Would you rather share it with your friends first?”
“First off, you’re one of my friends." Twilight thrust a hoof at Luna with such intensity that she nearly fell out of her lounge chair. "I don’t want you to feel any differently.”
“You honor me Twilight," Luna said, dipping her head in sincere appreciation. "Truly you do.”
“But I think it’s time to face facts; we need to kill the Sun.”
Luna blinked, stared at Twilight for a time, then slowly panned her head to one of several bottles of Cabrón they’d emptied over the course of the night. The worm seemed to look back sympathetically. “I admit, I am a poor judge of potent drink given my prodigious tolerance. But I believe you have had enough.”
“Hey, hear me out.”
That got a flat look and an equally deadpan response. “I remind you that I have a thousand years of experience in why this is a fool’s errand.”
“I’m not saying we kill Celestia. Just the sun.” Twilight nodded at whatever agave-soaked logic she had yet to share.
“Ah. Well." Luna held back an "of course" for fear that Twilight might see it as permission. "And your reasoning for this vastly saner proposal?”
Twilight pointed up to the star-strewn sky. “Look. Just… just look." She lay back, spreading her forelegs to encompass the night's splendor. "How anypony could see that and fail to appreciate you, I’ll never understand.”
“Would that there had more ponies like you in those days." Luna's smile slipped as she shook her head. "But trying to force them to appreciate does not end well.”
“So we just kill the sun a little.”
Luna sighed. It was so easy to forget how young Twilight was. “You have been fortunate, my friend. Your foes have all been felled by harmony and guile; your hooves remain unbloodied."
"I punched a changeling at the wedding," Twilight said, shaking out a forehoof. "Mostly blasted them, but one got close enough to bite."
"Even so, trust me when I say that death does not come in installments. One slays irrevocably or not at all. It is a line I hope you will not need to cross any time soon.” Luna sighed. Perhaps it was the drink making her melancholy. Perhaps it was the thought of what defending the realm would do to the gentle mare by her side.
“See, that’s where the medically induced coma comes in.”
Luna blinked and chided herself. She really should just stop having any expectations when it came to Twilight. Maybe then that not-as-gentle-as-previously-thought mare would stop surprising her. “The what?”
Twilight beamed and woozily got to her hooves. “The miracle of modern medicine!" She began to pace, picking up speed with every word. "We put the sun in a quiescent state, and just like that, ponies can properly appreciate your work without making it seem like you’re trying for another coup!”
“I see." She didn't, but telling Twilight that couldn't possibly end well. "And how, pray tell, do we put a star into this medical coma?”
“Oh." Twilight came to halt midstride, looking like she'd walked into a wall before turning to Luna. "I figured you’d know.”
“Did you.”
That got a shrug. “It seems like the kind of thing you’d just happen to know off-hoof.”
“Hmph." Luna's lip twitched, but she refused to smile at this particular folly. "I do not know if I am more flattered or concerned by that statement. Regardless, your confidence is, in this case, misplaced. Ne’er have I had cause to send a star into dormancy.”
“Oh.”
"Indeed."
And for a moment, all seemed well.
Then Twilight grinned and lit her horn. “Wanna find out?”
Luna rose, moved to loom over the younger princess—something which was getting less effective with every moon as Twilight's literal growth into her new power continued—and made a point of quashing the younger pony's magic with her own. That too was getting harder. Thankfully, employing an unquestionable tone of voice was not. “Twilight, I say this with all the authority afforded to me: We are not killing the sun.”
Twilight pouted,. “I already—”
“Nor performing any magical experiments on it in the hopes of turning it off, leaving the question of turning it back on entirely unresolved.”
“Fiiiine.” Twilight rolled her eyes, turning away and sulking in a way uncomfortably reminiscent of Luna's own youth.
However, that reminder also served as inspiration for distracting her from the drunken madness. “Would you like to hear embarrassing stories about Star Swirl the Bearded?”
Twilight perked up like a filly being offered a cupcake. “Would I!”
Laughter filled the night. And, blessedly enough, beams of ill-advised magic aimed at the celestial sphere did not.
Hey, FoME here. Bit of a spoiler, but one of today's prompts is "Write some nonfiction." Given the other prompt, I'm writing some nonfiction about fiction. We begin with a bit of a history lesson:
Many people did not react well to the revelation of Cadence. She’d been made an alicorn for marketing reasons, with little if any consideration for the peripheral demographic of bronydom. As such, Princess Lovebutt completely threw off many elaborately crafted headcanons about the nature of the diarchs, the cosmology of Equestria, and so forth. (Celestia playing the jobber during the wedding’s climax didn’t help either, but that’s another matter.)
I adapted as best I could, which was fairly easily as I was still figuring out what I wanted to do with my ponyfic at the time. I was still working with my original MtG crossover setting, which provided ample opportunities to warp canon however I wanted. (I was also still growing as an author. I like to think I still am, but with hindsight, it’s clear I was back then.)
I expressed the original concept for the planetary dynasts in the Sideboard of Harmony1 short “Spectrometer of Worlds.” (I was lumping stories rather than splitting at the time, which was probably the right move for expository world-building exercises like that one.) The story is part of Pinkie’s ongoing explanation of how Equestria was made, which she knows because in that continuity, she’s the one who made it. This includes the other planets in Equestria’s solar system, which act to stabilize the plane. And since the creation of Celestia and Luna led to the sun and moon, well, these sorts of things cut both ways.
The inspiration for this stems from the Exalted tabletop RPG, a.k.a. the system where you’re Superman, your previous incarnation’s werewolf boyfriend is a guerrilla (and possibly gorilla) sociologist trying to build a better nation in the remote wilderness, your old advisors are astrology-powered fate ninjas working for Heaven’s bloated bureaucracy, they’ve told an entire empire of element-bending Power Rangers descended from your foot soldiers that you need to be destroyed on sight, and reality as you know it is being threatened by at least four other factions from outside of it on top of its own shoddy craftsmanship. There is, as you might imagine, a lot going on there, but my main inspiration was the Incarnae, the gods of the sun, the moon, and the planets.
You can probably see where this is going.
The Maidens of Destiny, the Incarnae of the planets (Mercury through Saturn, because Second Edition Exalted lived and died by the Law of Five Splats,) were each given a variety of other concepts in their divine portfolio, much in the same way that the Unconquered Sun was also god of virtue and perfection and Luna (no relation) was deity of… well, a lot of things, actually. This is what happens when your titanic progenitor holds a battle royale of all potential moon deities in his imagination and only brings the winner into actual existence.
Yeah, Exalted gets weird. Like many White Wolf RPGs, I find it’s a lot more fun to read about than to actually play. But I digress.
Each planetary Incarna informed her respective dynast, with Cadence naturally based on Venus. Venus is associated with the color blue, which actually worked out quite well given Cadence’s cutie mark. Given the color of love (and all emotions) in Magic, I had a nice, neat association between Cadence and the blue-red color pair that I’ve maintained since. This is also why quotes from her in my pony-based Magic cards are attributed to “Cadence, Princess of Serenity.” That is her official title in that long-neglected setting.
And yes, I'm still spelling her name as the word, more easily trademarked variant spelling be damned.
Of course, the problem with introducing those five planets is that I needed to provide a princess for each of them, which was how my entirely reasonable and logical thought process led me to making four alicorn OCs. In my defense, it was 2012. We had no idea who might pop out of the woodwork down the line when it came to horns and wings.
I wanted to maintain a theme, so I looked for words that didn’t just have the same suffix as “Cadence,” but had that suffix even after being translated into Italian. Up to and including “Mi Amore” equivalents, some of which definitely worked better than others.
Mi Finale Temperanza, or simply Princess Temperance, has the most out-of-‘verse screentime of the four. I’ve made use of her as a pony psychopomp outside of the Elementals of Harmony setting (see They Live on in These Parts2) and she does feel like reasonable fit in Equestria. Based on Saturn, the Princess of Endings embodies the balance between white and black mana and acted as a divine psychopomp in those colors years before Athreos3 made it cool. She’d also head the Royal Assassinorum, if such an organization existed. Which it obviously doesn't. It certainly doesn't count any fandom-notable cellists among its empty ranks.
Mi Illusione Prudenza, or Princess Prudence, could arguably be cited as the reason I haven’t messed with that setting more than I have. She’s also the most prolific offscreen presence, which is quite appropriate for a princess based on Jupiter, making her the Princess of Secrets. Prudence heads the Equestrian Time-Space Administration Bureau, the aspect of that continuity I’ve made the most use of since. After all, it’s the aspect most devoted to working with other ponyfic continuities, and thus has feelers in many other stories. It doesn’t hurt that she represents the green-blue mana balance and thus has a fair amount of creator bias working in her favor.
Mi Milite Vigilanza, or Princess Vigilance, got a few moments in the spotlight in the ill-fated My Little Praetor: Phthisis is Magic4. Based on Mars, the Princess of Battle stays in geosynchronous orbit over Canterlot, watching over all of Equestria and ready to dive towards any incursion at a moment’s notice… in theory. In practice, things like changeling infiltration, Diamond Dog slavers sneaking under the border, and similar approaches aren’t easy to spot from that high up, though she might notice the Storm Fleet… assuming she didn’t mistake it for a storm system. Many ponies think she’d serve better on the ground than as a one-mare panopticon, but good luck telling her that. As would be expected of the most militaristic alicorn, she balances red and white mana
Finally, Mi Corriere Divergenza, or Princess Divergence, has never actually been on screen since I came up with her. The conceit is that the Princess of Journeys is Equestria’s wandering diplomat, ensuring its presence in the minds of the other nations and not so subtly reminding them of who they have to thank for the continued operation of the sun and moon. The reality is that her literally Mercurial wanderlust has her criss-crossing the globe as she pleases, which makes it inconvenient to show her in any story that isn’t directly focused on her. She ended up on the butt end of the process of elimination since Exalted’s Mercury is associated with yellow, and ended up balancing black and green mana. At this point, her absence has become a personal running gag. It might be a more widely known one if I’d actually explained this somewhere before now.
Obviously, Season 3 and later canon shot these concepts out of the water, but I still like the idea of Cadence being an honorary quintuplet. (The dynasts are so named because each gives birth to her identical successor when she is ready to pass the torch. Canterlot nobility traces its lineage back to their non-alicorn children. By this logic, Flurry Heart has some interesting implications for Cadence.)
I suppose the takeaway here is to never be afraid to explore the setting, nor to recognize when ideas don’t work out as well as you’d hoped. Though I do still feel I owe Divergence a story at some point…
Doctor Quixote de Cervantes y Caballeron II was many things. An archeologist. A linguist. An employer who was duty-bound to look after the welfare and livelihood of his employees, at least to the extent that they wouldn't find somepony else in need of acceptably capable henchstallions. But above all else, he was a stallion of principle, and one of the principles he held closest to his heart was to never let a slight go unanswered. Thus his seeming obsession with Daring Do. If she would only let him settle the score once and for all, he would gladly wash his hooves of her.
But she just. Didn’t. Quit. Ever since she double-crossed him after learning his true intentions for the Griffon's Goblet, she had been an unrelenting thorn in his side. Thus his principles compelled him to avenge his honor time and again, and time and again, just as he thought he might be free of her, she thwarted him anew and the cycle continued. Learning that she had made a novel series out of their exchanges had merely been yet more insult to his injured pride.
Yet it had also provided opportunity. Reading the series, distorted and exaggerated as it was, offered insight into Daring’s mind. Even the inaccuracies did so in their own way, revealing her biases and beliefs in a way fleeting clashes with the mare never could. Dr. Caballeron could begin planning around Daring Do, anticipating her, preempting her.
Granted, a cunning disguise and a few moments to take photographs of her notes also helped, but he’d have never gotten that opportunity without knowing Daring better than she knew herself. In this way, Dr. Caballeron was confident he would fully, definitively have his revenge.
Sadly, that didn’t mean the rest of the world always cooperated.
“What do you mean, ‘the bridge isn’t there’?”
Biff sighed and pushed back his hat. “Look, boss, we’re here, yeah?”
Dr. Caballeron made a point of looking at the copy of Daring Do’s map, complete with an almost piratical X, then at the corresponding part of the Forbidden Jungles where they were having this conversation. “Clearly.”
“An’ those’re the Cliffs o’ Cama-whatsis, yeah?”
That prompted another exaggerated glance at the landmark that proved they were in the right spot, a hill erupting from the foliage, rising like a petrified tidal wave just before it crested. The stone rose in an arch like some wind-carved natural sculpture in the buffalo lands before suddenly stopping at the apex. The majesty of the natural wonder was only slightly hampered by Rogue and Withers looking over the edge like a pair of tourists on a skyscraper's observation deck. “The Cliffs of Camazotz, yes. Why do I even bother trying to teach you stallions Nacatl if you refuse to use that knowledge?”
“Ain’t my fault my tongue don’t bend that way, boss. Point is, we’re here. They’re here." Biff swept a hoof along the Cliffs and over the empty space beyond. "The bridge ain’t.”
Dr. Caballeron glared at him, then at the peak. Frustrating though it may have been, it was clearly true. The fabled Bridge of Dreams that Daring had been researching led to nothing but a long drop. And, alas, even his principles could not give him a way to revenge himself against geography. Not without much more dynamite than they had brought.
That determined, he took a deep breath and settled for what he could do. “Well then. We will check the slope of the mountain for signs of wreckage, but I will not demand results. This may well be a case where the legends really are nothing more than old stories. We have encountered them before and shall no doubt do so again.”
Biff offered a grin as he followed Dr. Caballeron up the rise. “Least Daring Do’s gonna come up as empty-hooved as we are.”
The doctor allowed himself a nod. “There is that, yes.”
Two days later, as the full moon hung over the Cliffs of Camazotz, Daring Do double-checked her notes by the light of a firefly lantern. She was in the right place, that much was clear. A comparison between the sky and the star chart confirmed that the planetary alignment was in place. And the last piece of the puzzle was still firmly around her neck.
Daring tried not to think too much about that last part as she trotted up the slope. She hated working with other ponies on these missions. Yes, an extra pair of eyes sometimes helped against ambushes, but far more often any other ponies would turn out to be hostages, backstabbers, or just dead weight she’d have to drag around for the whole expedition.
Rainbow Dash had been one of the good ones, but Daring had had no idea just how well connected that mare would turn out to be. Yes, being friends with an alicorn had implied that, but Daring had seen plenty of strange things in her adventures. She’d even had a horn of her own once or twice. Twilight Sparkle had seemed like nothing to write home about.
A cloud drifted past, filling the air with silvery moonlight. The amulet around Daring’s neck matched the glow, steadily cooling in the thick jungle air. She stood at the edge of the Cliffs, watching the other half of the Bridge of Dreams grow into visibility like frost creeping across glass.
But this was no natural rock formation. Crescent-moon and bat-wing motifs covered the guardrails, constellations studded the cobblestones, and great statues of a far more imposing alicorn flanked the entrance into the great city beyond.
The bat-winged sentries on the other side glowered at her, crossing their spears to bar entry. Sure, Daring could have tried flying over them, but that would’ve led to an unnecessary two-on-one dogfight. Maybe something she could use to spice up the book, but she’d gladly avoid any fight she could in real life.
She simply held up the amulet, shining blue in the moonlight, and said “I come in Princess Luna’s name. She has been indisposed for some time, and would have words with the current High Priestess.”
The guards narrowed their eyes, leaning in to examine the amulet. As the seconds dragged on, Daring feared she’d have that fight scene anyway. But in time, they nodded and turned, silently leading the way to the towering temple in the distance.
Twilight wasn’t much, no. But a mission given by Princess Luna herself was enough for even a jaded potsherd duster like Daring to sit up and take notice. Especially if it led to a site sealed in starlight and dream magic that nopony had seen for over a thousand years.
Caballeron would be furious when he read about it, and would assume that she’d laughed at him the whole way there. But the truth was that, amazed as Daring was by the living ancient civilization surrounding her, she didn’t give him a moment’s thought.
Reactions to Twilight Sparkle’s inventions often involved unprecedented sentences in the Wranglish languages. Given that those inventions included a capacitor for energy not native to her universe, a camera drone with a sense of self-preservation, and a self-aware girlfriend for her pet dog, it logically followed that people's thoughts on them were similarly revolutionary.
“Are you doing science or just making the world’s biggest baked potato?”
That logic didn’t make them any less annoying, especially when coming from Rainbow Dash. Twilight crossed her arms and tried to ignore any resemblance the test chamber might have to tubers at any stage of culinary preparation. Which was minimal at best, given how the chamber's main body was a free-standing, enclosed shower stall. “The aluminum foil is a vital and cost-effective component of the thaumic shielding.”
Dash rolled her eyes. “Right, you don’t have a sense of humor while you’re wearing a lab coat.”
Sunset put an arm around Twilight’s shoulders before she could answer. “Hey, maybe don’t antagonize the mad scientist in her sinister lair?” Contrary to what certain people might claim, Twilight could tell Sunset was teasing her and gave her an appreciative smile.
“Ladies, if we could speed this along?” Rarity walked into the lab like she was strutting down a catwalk. Especially impressive given she was actually strutting into a garage full of testing equipment which… wasn’t entirely liberated from certain parts of Crystal Prep that had been named after Twilight’s grandmother. “I know I volunteered for this, but wearing a bathrobe and a smile isn’t exactly my style.” She was actually missing the smile, and pulled the robe's belt a little tighter.
Again, contrary to the beliefs of some, Twilight was socially cognizant enough to tell her friend needed some reassurance. “It shouldn’t take long. And based on earlier trials, you’ll be grateful you have less getting in your way.”
Somehow, Rarity seemed less than reassured. “If you say so, Twilight.”
As the volunteer grabbed her keytaur, Applejack cleared her throat. “So, uh, I don’t wanna sound like the no-nothin’ country bumpkin, but what’re we testin’ here exactly?”
“Yeah, Twilight rambled about the whatever-it-is so fast, I didn’t understand a word she’d said. I mean, who does that?”
The whole group took a long look at Pinkie.
She just looked back, the confused little frown showing no sign she was in on this particular joke. “What?”
Twilight decided it was best to focus elsewhere. “I’m calling it the Thaumic Hyperdensity Chamber. It’s designed to take the magic we radiate when ponying up and reflect back at us, thus augmenting our supernatural capabilities. In theory.”
Fluttershy cleared her throat from her corner. It was getting a little cramped, but she had gravitated to the little alcove practically from the moment she'd come in. And she kept glancing at the partially assembled robot dog head on—
Twilight facepalmed and moved the unblinking metal skull into a filing cabinet she used for spare parts. "Sorry about that, Fluttershy. You had a question?"
The other girl relaxed very slightly, though she was still glancing at the scrap drawer. "Um... why?"
“Mostly to see what happens." Twilight took in her friends' bemused expressions—except Sunset and, oddly enough, Pinkie—and could only say, "What?"
"Right?" said Pinkie.
"I would like to understand how magic behaves in this world, and I don't have to tear it apart to find out how. And given the last test subject…" Twilight glanced at Sunset before clearing her throat. "Well, we want to get some independent confirmation of some unexpected phenomena.”
“Somethin’ screwy happened last time, and y’all wanna see if it happens again, ‘cause that’s science in a nutshell." Applejack nodded. "I got that much. But what all happened last time?”
Twilight shook her head. “Given the psychoreactive nature of magic, it’s best not to say. Expecting that event to happen may increase the probability. We can’t go full double-blind trial—not without the Memory Stone, anyway—”
“We are not restoring the dark magic artifact to lessen experimental bias,” said Sunset, who was probably right on moral grounds. Probably.
“Even so, we can at least go into this with a neutral test subject.”
“I don’t know if I’d describe myself as neutral, but I am willing to see if this can augment my fabulosity. And to model the bathrobe.” Rarity did a twirl. Twilight had to admit, even by her limited understanding of fashion, the robe did seem to balance comfort and elegance well. “Shall we?”
"Let's." Twilight pulled open the shower stall, then carefully unwrapped the layers of aluminum foil with her telekinesis. "Okay, Rarity, whenever you're ready."
Rarity hesitated at the threshold. “So I just… go in and play?”
“Exactly.”
“I see." She took a deep breath and visibly steeled herself. "Here it goes, then.”
Twilight tried not to feel too insulted. Not after the incident with the engine grease. She just focused on reassembling the shielding. "Once I release the foil, you can start."
"Will do, darling."
Once the last layer was back in place, Twilight released her focus and took a step back. The synth line from "The Other Side" started up, Rarity soon adding the chorus. Glimmers of rainbow light peeked out through a few holes in the shielding. Twilight kept one eye on the chamber and one on her latest-model thaumometer (one with no capacitor functionality whatsoever.)
Soon enough, the song cut out midverse, as did the light show. “Oh. Oh my. Oh my!”
Applejack rushed to the front of the chamber, fast enough that Twilight had to jump out of the way. “Rares, you okay?”
“It’s… unusual, certainly, but I believe I'm fine. Twilight, might I ask you…" Rarity trailed off and hummed. "Hang on a moment.”
A bluer glow than Twilight's magic peeled apart the foil and slid the door open. Rarity strode out of the chamber with just as much grace as her entrance, though with twice as many legs and a horn to boot. The retriever-sized unicorn set her keytaur on the stand, robe trailing on her like a terrycloth cape, and looked around the room. "My. This is certainly a novel perspective."
“Huh." Sunset brought a hand to her chin. "Wasn’t just because I’m Equestrian after all.”
“Indeed.” Twilight pulled a clipboard to her and started taking notes.
“Neat!" Pinkie squatted down at Rarity's new eye level. "How’s it feel?”
“Much as it did after we made our way back after that disastrous cruise.” Rarity wrinkled her muzzle. “Though the laboratory is hardly pleasant to an equine nose. You may want to air the place out soon, Twilight.”
“Duly noted.” Twilight did just that, along with another note about the displeased whicker Rarity had made and would likely deny if anyone pointed it out.
“So, when can I expect my hands back?”
Twilight's pencil froze along with most of her entire body. She traded an uneasy glance with Sunset.
“Twilight? Sunset?" Rarity glared up at them, somewhere between an unamused cat and an irate marshmallow. "An estimate would be appreciated.”
“Uh, well, when I did it, I turned back into a human soon after I stepped out of the chamber,” said Sunset, carefully studying the ceiling.
Rarity arched an eyebrow in a way that transcended species. "And by 'soon,' you mean?"
Twilight winced as Sunset cleared her throat and finally admitted. "A few seconds."
The longer the staring went on, the less cute it got and the more Twilight became aware of just how sharp that horn was. “I beg your pardon?”
“I do have a hypothesis," said Twilight, who definitely wasn't hiding behind her clipboard, "but I don’t know if you’ll believe me.”
It shouldn’t have been possible for a dainty unicorn the size of a Shirish setter to radiate so much murderous intent with a single glare, but Rarity found a way. “Try me, darling.”
“W-well, seeing as how our magic is powered by positive emotions and interpersonal connections, it would stand to reason that—”
A stomping hoof cut off the ramble. “Twilight Sparkle, are you seriously telling me that you've created a curse that can only be broken by true love’s kiss?”
Twilight adjusted her glasses and frowned. Mortal peril was one thing, but technical inaccuracy was quite another. “‘Curse’ is a—”
Rarity spun around, magically grabbing Applejack by the collar and pulling her down into a kiss that made Twilight avert her eyes.
At some point, there was a sound like a soft thunderclap, as if air were being shoved away by a suddenly larger body. “I’ve wanted to do that for longer than I’d care to admit.”
Applejack's "Whoa, Nelly!" kept Twilight from turning around. “Uh, you may want to do up your robe there, darlin’.”
“Ah. Yes. Alright, everyone, I'm decent.”
Rainbow Dash snickered. "If that's what you wanna call it."
“For the record," said Twilight, "I was going to say that grounding the charge through any physical and significant emotional bond would work.”
Rarity reddened, but she kept holding Applejack's hand. “Well. Be that as it may, some good still came out of it.”
“No kidding!" Pinkie sprang up behind the two of them, each arm around a different girl's shoulder. "I thought I might have to reschedule your Finally Officially Girlfriends party!”
Dash scowled. “Dang it, Pinkie did win the pool, didn’t she?”
“Hold up." Applejack scowled at the room in general. "Y’all were bettin’ on us?”
In terms of pure decibels, the cleared throat was quiet. In terms of force of personality, it shoved out the possibility of any other sound. All eyes turned to Fluttershy, whose determined stare made Rarity’s earlier expression seem gentle by comparison. “I have been very patient. I would like to pet some ponies now.”
And so the discussion of any wagers that may or may not have been made regarding certain girls’ love lives was tabled in favor of ear scratches.
Some fears never had a chance to take root in those who grew up on farms. Dirt was a prime example. Any potential rupophobes either got over that very quickly or, like Cousin Encore, ran away to a life where they didn’t have to work with soil every day.
Spiders were in the same camp. The trees, the chicken coops, the barns… spiders were going to find somewhere to make their own little homesteads, and they ate several kinds of parasites. Cobwebs outside of the orchard were a minor nuisance, one best answered with a broom and gentle encouragement to set up shop where it’d do more good.
Of course, that didn’t mean Applejack was prepared for seeing Ponish words written in silk strands between the slats of the pigpen’s fence.
She squatted down, tilting her head to make sure she’d seen the message correctly, dew and the light of dawn helping to highlight it. “‘Some pig’?”
Applejack looked back up. The pigs were still asleep at this early hour; she’d only noticed the web out of the corner of her eye while moving between two other chores. “Sorry, Miss Spider. Them pigs is already spoken for. Long-standin’ deal with… truffle hunters.” She felt her muzzle scrunch at the euphemism. Still, never knew when Apple Bloom might be listening. The filly might suspect the truth, but there was no need to tear apart her innocence if it didn’t interfere with work.
A quick search showed no sign of the author beyond the web itself. As such, Applejack shrugged, made a mental note to move her surprisingly literate tenant somewhere more useful, and kept making her way to the chicken coops. The farm wouldn’t take care of itself, and neither would she if she didn’t get a move on. “If I stopped at every weird thing between here an’ th’ Everfree, I’d never get anything done.”
The next day dawned bright, beautiful… and even more verbose.
Applejack tilted her head. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Maybe more praise of one of the pigs, if that’s what it had been. Maybe a more specific order. Definitely not the blend of numbers, letters, and things that weren’t quite either that wrapped around a good half of the pigpen.
Once the chores were done—some things took priority, after all—she brought Fluttershy over to take a look.
“I know it ain’t doin’ any harm,” she said on the trot back to the Acres, “but it’s strange as all get-out an’ I wanna be sure it ain’t leadin’ up to trouble down the line.”
Fluttershy nodded. “I understand. I’ll do my best. Spiders aren’t the easiest creatures to talk to.”
“I guess that makes sense," said Applejack. She'd never given the "talking to animals" business too much thought—she could get the chickens to listen two times out of three and that was good enough for her—but she thought she saw the reasoning. "Too different from ponies?”
“No, it’s just that most of them are very shy.”
Applejack bit her lip for the better part of a minute, keeping an eye on Fluttershy for any sign of a smirk or suchlike. “Y’ don’t say.”
“Oh yes," said Fluttershy, sincere as a politician wasn't. "Web-weaving spiders don’t get out much.”
“Huh.” If Applejack bit her tongue any harder, she might just chop it off.
Fluttershy gave her a sidelong glance. “I am aware of the irony.”
“Oh, thank Celestia.” Applejack let herself breathe again as they passed through the Acres' gate.
Fluttershy started giggling, and Applejack couldn't help join in. But a gasp broke through mid-titter. “Oh my!”
“What—" Applejack reared back once she saw the pigpen for herself. "Land sakes!”
The entire fence was coated in glistening strands. Diagrams, stars, distressing shapes, and every kind of fancy mathematics under the sun seemed poised to swallow the whole drove like a hungry textbook. The pigs themselves were cowering in their pens. Applejack watched as one of the sows poked her snout out, squealed plaintively at her, and ducked back inside.
Fluttershy had taken to the air, surveying the mess from above. “My goodness, I’ve never seen such prolific webbing! Where is your little friend getting all of it?”
A horrible possibility came to mind. Applejack shifted her hat down and glared. “Those hogs’re spoken for, dang it! I ain’t lettin’ no eight-legged freeloader eat into our—”
In hindsight, it may have been a good thing that the whole web lit up with purple light at that point. No telling what Fluttershy might have thought otherwise. As it was, both went silent and shielded their eyes as the glow intensified past the point of pain.
Once the spots cleared from her eyes—and after she told herself she just imagined seeing the bones in her leg—Applejack saw a woozy Twilight Sparkle shaking her head. The unicorn stumbled a few steps, then nodded. “Okay. Proper size, proper number of eyes… That could have gone worse.”
Applejack took a deep breath and asked for strength. Her life had definitely gotten more interesting since the Summer Sun Celebration, there was no denying that. “Do I even wanna know?”
“Long story," said Twilight, who clearly didn't want to tell it. She looked around and wilted. "Did... did nopony notice I’d been gone for two days?”
“Awful busy time for the farm. Ain't had time t' go into town all week.”
“It’s manticore mating season," added Fluttershy. "A lot of creatures are staying in the cottage to keep away from the dominance fights.”
Twilight sighed. “I see. Well, I’d better go let Spike know I’m fine, at least.”
"Twilight!"
Her head perked back up Rainbow Dash swooped down. Pinkie galloped into view, Spike taking a leaping dismount off of her and directly into Twilight's forelegs. "We've been looking everywhere for you!" he said.
Applejack snorted. "Nopony told me."
Dash rubbed the back of her neck the way she always did when she was caught out. "Well, Spike's been looking everywhere for her. I kinda only found out about this ten minutes ago. And hey, Rarity's too busy with some dress order to come out of the shop!"
"I'm on lunch break," added Pinkie. "Mr. and Mrs. Cake and I are figuring out how to work in world-slash-friend-saving breaks if this keeps up."
"Yeah, this coulda gone better." Dash landed, head hanging low. "We really dropped the ball, Twi."
Fluttershy nuzzled the unicorn. “But you’re a terrific, radiant, humble mare, and we're glad we're your friends. Never doubt that.”
“Thanks, everypony." Twilight looked at the pigpen, where wisps of silk still clung to the scorched fenceposts. At least the pigs didn't seem harmed. Spooked, but unharmed. "Still, I don’t think I’m getting a friendship letter out of this one.”
It would be rude to say that if Mrs. Toffee Stickybeak couldn’t live through others, she wouldn’t be alive. It would also be accurate. Her husband worked late most nights in his climb up the corporate ladder, her son attended a very prestigious college on the other side of the country, and her daughter wept with joy the night before she started boarding at Crystal Prep.
All that success gave Mrs. Stickybeak plenty to brag about, but it also left her with an empty nest for most of the day. Soap operas could only fill the void so much, and so…
Well, calling it gossipmongering would be even more rude. And even more accurate. If asked, Mrs. Stickybeak would claim she was just being an attentive neighbor, and probably add something about how most children—nothing like her darlings—didn’t go out and actually talk to people face to face anymore, just like she’d been telling all the people in her MyStable groups.
Besides, most people didn’t have as intriguing a neighbor as Sunset Shimmer. The girl had just shown up out of the blue one day, clearly too young to be living on her own yet doing exactly that. A discrete call to the police had seen them come and go with no indication of dragging the girl out for her own good… which just made her more intriguing. Likewise the concerned check-in that had the girl stonewall Mrs. Stickybeak at her front door for a good ten minutes.
Mrs. Stickybeak had kept a close eye on Sunset for years now. Especially now that, after so long spent barely acknowledging a soul, she was letting other girls her age into her home.
And if, on a lovely April day, the windows should happen to be open for spring cleaning while a poor old lady should happen to lose a contact lens right in front of it…
“I mean, technically, it’s not cannibalism.”
Mrs. Stickybeak froze, then scurried to one side of the narrow little townhouse’s stoop, ears pricked for the voices drifting down from the second floor.
“Really now, Rainbow Dash," groaned a much more cultured, if still very young voice, "must you?”
“I’m not saying Sunset would eat someone. I’m just saying, it wouldn't be as weird if she did it.”
The next groan was definitely from Sunset Shimmer. “Dash, I’m still not comfortable eating cow.”
“Beef, darling.”
“Using Prench doesn’t make it any better, Rarity. The last thing I’d want to do is consume someone who I know is a thinking, talking person, not just someone who should be.”
Mrs. Stickybeak's mind raced as she tried to make sense of that. Was Sunset some manner of extreme animal rights activist? It wasn't entirely out of the question; one of her new friends always seemed to have three or four pets hanging around her.
Rarity made several shocked sounds in quick succession. “Wait, you don’t mean… Cows? Really?”
“I mean, I never knew any cattle personally, but the princess always said they were some of the toughest negotiators she ever dealt with.”
Images of Sunset marching with a protest sign stuttered to a halt as Mrs. Stickybeak tried to take in the new information. "What?" she whispered.
“Hey," said Rainbow Dash, "doesn’t she move the sun and moon?”
"What."
“One would think that would give her a rather commanding position in negotiations.”
“She always hated leaning on creatures like that. At the time, I thought it was because she didn’t have the spine for it, but…" Sunset sighed. "Well, I was awful back then.”
Rarity hummed to herself. “We may have to follow through on Twilight’s idea about a regret jar.”
“Looking back helps me appreciate how far I’ve come since.”
“Speaking from experience, if you try to go forward while looking back, you’re just going to run into something.”
“Why, Rainbow Dash, that was very nearly poetic." Rarity tittered. It was a good titter, the sort that usually needed two glasses of wine as a run-up. "Though one could say she ran into our Twilight, so it wasn’t all bad, hmm?”
Mrs. Stickybeak gladly stopped trying to make sense of what she'd heard earlier. That tone of voice always meant something worth hearing.
“I…" Especially when it made someone like Sunset Shimmer hesitate. "I don’t know what you’re talking about. And she has a boyfriend.”
“Indeed. One conspicuously absent from this cruise she’s so excited about. Whereas you—”
“The peak of the spring season’s coming at Camp Everfree. Timber couldn’t come anyway.”
“Why, Sunset, it’s like you’re afraid of even trying.” Rarity's pout was audible.
“Or maybe," said Sunset, steel in her voice, "just maybe, I don’t want to ruin a friend’s happiness just to catch her on the rebound.”
“… Ah.”
And for a few minutes, there was nothing but the sound of shifting containers.
“You do know she’s bi, right?” said Rainbow Dash.
“Yes, Dash, she's told us all about her fan-crush on Rosette Nebula. And if she and Timber ever do break up naturally and of their own accord, then after a tactful amount of time, if she is open to a relationship, we’ll see what happens.”
“Yeesh. Just saying.”
Sunset groaned. “Can we just get back to spring cleaning? I swear some of this stuff followed me here from Canterlot.”
“The other Canterlot." A heavy thud punctuated Sunset's failure to clarify anything. "Obviously.”
“Yeesh. Touchy.”
“Well, maybe don’t tempt me with what keeps me up at night!” Sunset shouted, loud enough that Mrs. Stickybeak could have heard it from her front porch.
“Does Twilight know that?” Rarity said gently.
“Of course not. What am I supposed to say, ‘I had to get new furniture cleaner because the pine-scented stuff reminds me of your boyfriend’?”
After a moment, Rainbow Dash said, “Rarity, help me out here, is that romantic?”
“I’m not sure myself.”
“Can we please talk about something else? How about Rarity and Applejack?”
“We're doing splendidly, thank you." Rarity cleared her throat. "Even if she doesn’t seem to realize we’re together quite yet.”
“Didn’t you go on a date last night?” said Sunset.
“That’s what I thought," Rarity grumbled. "She seems to think I kiss all of you on the lips after a girls’ night out. I’m thinking of throwing myself at one of the cabin boys on the cruise and seeing how she reacts.”
“I don’t see that ending well.”
“Yes, but I need to see how it doesn’t end well.”
“Have you ever considered, you know, talking to her about this?”
There went the multi-scoff again. “I’ll happily do so after you open up to Twilight.”
“Hey, guys?" Rainbow Dash said with unusual clarity. "How come there’s some lady squatting by the stairs?”
Mrs. Stickybeak froze, slowly turning to see a blue girl staring at her from the stoop, filled wastebasket in her arms. "Er..."
The others stuck their heads out of the doorway. Presumably the white one was Rarity. Going by her flat expression, she already suspected what was going on. Sunset just looked confused. “Mrs. Stickybeak?”
“Aheh." She straightened up and brushed any dust off her dress. "Just, uh, lost my contact lens!”
Sunset narrowed her eyes. “You don’t need glasses.”
“New prescription! If you’ll excuse me.” Mrs. Stickybeak walked away as nonchalantly as she could... which meant an awkward marching gait just shy of a jog.
Still, that didn't mean she'd stopped listening.
“So does she know you’re a unicorn?”
The audible smack likely meant Sunset had facepalmed. “Say it louder, Dash. I think a few houses at the end of the block missed that.”
The opening door made a bell give a cheerful jingle. The cacophony that followed was anything but.
Despite the wide variety of creatures on display, the first thing that struck the pegasus was the amount of iron in the room. Cages, chains, the cane the proprietor was waving at the shrieking, snarling captives, it was like a cut-rate Tartarus in the narrow little shop. The cane glinted in what little of the afternoon sun made it through the gloom of the Hollow Shades. The rest was as dull as the eyes of the quieter creatures.
“I do beg your pardon,” the stallion said after one last smack against a cage. His mane had the color and unhealthy luster of a grease slick, and his coat would probably be a more pleasant shade of yellow if he used a better shampoo. Or possibly any shampoo at all. His voice managed to sound unctuous and sarcastic at the same time. “They usually know better.” He shot the cages a glare with those last words.
“Hmm.” The pegasus had refined the art of noncommittal grunts with several friends and associates. She knew that for the salesstallion, it wouldn’t matter what she said. He’d be too busy focusing on the curve of her muzzle and the sway of her tail.
“May I ask why you’ve come to my—” Something between a screech and a sob interrupted the stallion, provoking another smack of the cages. “My fine establishment?”
“Just browsing for now,” she said.
A touch of skepticism crept in past the flagrant ogling, but definitely didn't stop it. “Very well. But don’t linger too long. The merchandise can get… unruly.”
The merchandise. Not much made her angry, truly angry, but that kind of denigration was near the top of the list. Especially when combined with how he was treating these creatures.
As the pegasus walked among the cages, she took in the stink of chlorine, and of many kinds of urine underneath it. The frayed plumage, dull coats, and peeling scales. The chill of the bars and rough, almost abrasive floors of the cages. At one point, in the proprieter’s blind spot, she convinced one inmate to let her sample a food pellet. Bland, of course, but also fibrous and crumbling at once, so packed with flour and filler that there was barely room for anything even resembling a nutrient.
As she circled back to the front counter, filmy eyes tracked her progress, shining brighter than they probably had in weeks. “I think I’ve seen enough,” she said to the room at large.
“Indeed?” Her tone was dismissive enough that even the stallion could look past his base urges to sense her displeasure. Still, his lips pulled back in what was meant to be a smile. He was clearly out of practice. “And will you be favoring this humble shop with a purchase?”
She looked back and gave a plaintive sigh. “Oh, I would love to take all of them home.”
“You would?" The stallion looked over the cages, as though she'd changed their contents without him noticing. "Orthroi, otyughs, owlbears… And that’s just the ones I can see from here. What could a delicate specimen like you want with so many monsters?”
She strutted back to the counter, keeping a half-lidded glare at him the whole time. “I don’t believe monstrosity is defined by species, but by behavior.”
“A pretty sentiment, but a very dangerous one in this business." After a moment, he narrowed his own eyes, took a step back from her, and said, "You’re not with the Equestrian Society for the Preservation of Rare Creatures, are you? You have to tell me if I ask.”
That just got her to raise an eyebrow. “Why would it matter if I were?”
“There are…" The stallion glanced about, looking for any lingering eavesdroppers. In most places, it would be ridiculous. In Hollow Shades, it was a natural precaution. "Rumors.”
“This is Hollow Shades. There are always rumors.” The mare held back a sigh as her comment made the stallion grow even more frantic. “And if you share them, I may be more interested in making an acquisition.”
Greed won out over paranoia, though given the stallion's ongoing glances at the corner of the room, it might not for long. “Some of my colleagues and suppliers are going silent. Disappearing. No word of what’s happening to them or their stock." He sneered. "The Society is the natural first suspect, self-righteous whiners that they are.”
“I see. And if I were simply concerned for your charges’ well-being?”
“Ha! Yes, says the mare who does not think a monster is a monster." The stallion shook his head an sneered. "They deserve everything they get.”
“Oh, I know there are monsters in the world." The mare tossed her ebon mane, carrying the motion down her spine until it ended in a wiggle around her tornado cutie mark to make sure the stallion's attention was on her. "I used to be one.”
"What?" Only then did the stallion notice the shadow darkening his side of the counter. He looked up and saw nothing casting it. “What?” Then the cage snapped shut around him. “What!?”
The mare continued, examining one gray hoof. “And I know that not every monster has fangs or eyestalks or venom.”
“No,” agreed a deeper voice, the shadow slinking along her and make her give a pleasant shudder as it ran two-dimensional digits along her spine. “Some pull innocent creatures out of their habitats because their body parts are potent reagents, or their meat is a delicacy, or just because somewhere out there, someone is willing to pay for the sake of owning them.”
The shadow reared up, bulked out with shape and substance. And oh, what a sight he was. Mustard-colored fur along his trunk; the scent didn't match, but he smelled like danger, and he knew she loved it. Fluff along one arm, scales on the other, incongruously delicate wings, mismatched antennae, the sheen on that frog leg...
Eris knew she should be paying attention to Serendipity's handiwork. It took all of her willpower not to get lost in those green-on-pink eyes.
Still, she kept enough power to herself that she could get over her infatuation in less than a second, letting her hear his conclusion: “And even putting aside every law you break in the process, no one ever stops to ask the creatures if they want to be owned.”
Serendipity snapped, and every cage but the stallion’s was emptied. “There. Back where they belong.”
“You... You..." The stallion shook with enough rage and fear to reek of both. "You can’t do this!”
“Can’t we?” said Eris, a thin smirk on her lips. “This is the Hollow Shades. Tomorrow, your neighbors will shake their heads at you poking the wrong beehive.”
“And the day after that, nopony here will even admit you existed." Serendipity snarled, revealing teeth unlike anything on Equestria (though any human dentist would instantly recognize them.) "That’s the problem with spurning Harmony. It’s not there when you actually want it.”
Any courage the stallion might have had petered out. He retreated as far as he could and huddled in the far side of his cage. “What are you going to do to me?”
Eris offered her most comforting smile, not that she had many in stock to begin with. “Oh, nothing as bad as you’re imagining. Just giving you taste of what it’s like.”
A portal opened in the cage floor, slowly widening to reveal a ranch full of balding apes and equinoids like surreal parodies of Saddle Arabians. The stallion's eyes widened as he took in both. Then his hooves scrabbled against the remaining iron as he tried to stay away from the portal's dilating edge.
“Don’t worry," said Eris. "They won’t think of you as merchandise.”
Serendipity nodded. “For the next year, they’ll just treat you like an animal.”
No matter how the world changed, no matter what seemingly permanent pillars of society got upended like so many hourglasses, Rarity and Fluttershy still found time for their spa days together. Though even those weren't immune to the changing world, especially when it came to conversation.
“So, how was your… date?”
Fluttershy sighed in a way that had nothing to do with the soothing warmth of the hot tub. “Rarity.”
“I’m sorry, darling. I’m happy for both of you. I truly am." Rarity shook her head. "It’s just taking a while for me to wrap my head around it.”
“I understand. It surprised me when I first realized what we meant to one another." Fluttershy smiled, gaze going up to the ceiling. "And it was very nice. Especially when we tried out each other’s bodies for a while.”
Rarity blinked. She'd thought years of friendship with Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, and even Fluttershy had inured her to strangeness. Evidently, she was wrong. “I’m sorry, you what?”
“Well, it’s like they say. If you really want to understand somepony…” Fluttershy pulled herself out of the tub. As she did, Rarity felt her gaze get drawn to her friend's left hind hoof, cloven as a deer's. “Walk a mile in their hooves.”
Strictly speaking, Canterlot Central Terminal was only two of the three. Yes, it was in Canterlot and a rail line ended there, but the actual central hub of the Equestrian rail system lay at the base of the Canterhorn. The strategic value of being able to deploy disaster relief and defensive troops anywhere in the nation was a fantastic boon, but asking every train route to climb up the mountain was the sort of thing that could send engineers into hour-long rants.
“You okay, Shining?”
Shining Armor sighed as the question forced him out of his nice, distracting train of thought (heh) and back to the floor of Canterlot Central. He’d much rather think about military logistics than his feelings, but some topics were unavoidable when engaged to the Princess of Love. The pink wing spread over his withers helped ease the sting. “It’s just… I was the last to know in all of this.”
Cadence blinked, eyebrows raised. “Really?”
“I didn’t find out Twilight was leaving Canterlot until her chariot was already on the runway. Barely had time to say goodbye." Shining sighed, eyes on the past. "But I was actually proud of her.”
“Because she was pulling her head out of her books?”
Shining grinned. “Well, that and that’s how Princess Celestia usually sets up covert missions." He looked around. There were few other ponies hanging around the arrivals/departures board, but he still leaned in close to Cadence. "You hear it all the time from the spooks: ‘Hey, we’ve got a problem. Here’s a vague description of what’s going on, now go do this even more vaguely related task.'" He pulled back, grinning even wider. "But, you know, more regal.”
She tittered into a hoof. Just seeing her smile helped relieve some heartache. “And the vaguer it is, the more important the mission. That’s how it’s always worked for me." Cadence shook her head. "Remember the time she had me sit in front of a mirror for three days?”
“Officially speaking?" Shining straightened up, adopting a thousand-yard stare he'd refined over many night watches. "No, Your Highness. No, I do not.”
“And that’s why you’re captain of the guard.”
“Oh yeah. I don’t remember half of what I know.” Shining's smile faltered as his mind went back to the earlier topic. “But I really didn’t know Twily wouldn’t be coming back.”
That got him a nudge in his ribs. “You’re making it sound like she’s dead. Ponyville’s only eleven minutes away.”
“It’s still the furthest we’ve ever been from each other. You can’t just turn off being a big brother. Or a parent. Dad’s throwing himself into his work so he doesn’t have to think about his little filly living next to the Everfree.” Shining shuddered. Now that he'd said it, he was imagining what untold horrors Twily might encounter in her new home.
“What about Velvet?” asked Cadence.
“You kidding? Mom’s jealous. Probably wanted a piece of Nightmare Moon herself." Shining frowned. He'd arranged his worries in his mind like soldiers, and the next row in the parade came marching through. "And that’s the other thing; Twilight’s attuned to an Element of Harmony. That’s big Destiny stuff, with a capital D.”
“We always knew she was meant for great things.”
“Yeah, but I figured she’d just revolutionize magic in some lab where she’d be the biggest danger to herself. My little sister fighting monsters and mad princesses like some O&O adventurer?" Shining shook his head. "I never even imagined that.”
Cadence patted him on the withers. “Well, hopefully they’ll be few and far between. And you have to admit, going by the last letter she sent, she’s happier than she’s been in years.”
“It’s not like I was going to try to order her back home. I’m just getting used to her not being here anymore.”
That got a flat look and another poke in the ribs. “It’s been a moon, Shining.”
He could only shrug. “And it’ll be longer until I stop worrying.”
“You, your sister, your father…" Cadence sighed even as she smiled. "I’m marrying into a whole family of worrywarts.”
And there came the one problem recruit bringing up the rear. “That reminds me, you told her about the engagement, right?”
Cadence balked at Shining. “I thought you—“
The arrival board clattered as new information rolled into place, accompanied by a magically projected announcement. “11:32 local now arriving on Track 4.”
“That’s her train!” Shining galloped for the right platform.
He barely noticed the shout behind him. “Shining! Ugh, a whole family of crazy worrywarts.”
The autobiography project was going… acceptably. Adagio was willing to give Shimmer’s little herd of pony-contaminated humans that much. Not all of them were helping, but she didn't want all of them involved anyway. Some had roughly as much brainpower as Sonata on a good day—not that Adagio wanted to waste any more thought on that little traitor—and the one with the hat might not actually know how to write. But between Shimmer, the yellow one, and the purple one’s doppleganger, she had a tolerably competent team of co-authors.
Moreover, they had enough participants that they could rotate whenever Adagio got to be too much for whoever was helping her at the moment. Yes, she supposed it would be in her interest to be a bit less abrasive, but she could only hold back so much when working with her murderers.
“The country was in such dire straits, we barely needed to do anything," said Adagio, lounging on the current one's bed as she waxed nostalgic. "We had people fighting one another just so they could claim credit for the archduke’s assassination.”
Twilight Sparkle had turned a fascinating shade of pale lilac, notepad and pencil limp in her hands. If she hadn't been sitting, her knees might have given out. “That’s… equal parts fascinating and horrible.”
Besides, if Adagio did play nice, she'd miss the looks on their faces. Those were their own reward. Yes, this Twilight Sparkle wasn't the one who'd helped disempower her, but petty revenge on what amounted to her twin was good enough. For now.
Adagio rolled so she was smirking at Sparkle with her chin resting on the back of her hand. “You said that about the last four stories.”
“Because it keeps applying.”
“Flatterer.” Adagio winked and kissed the air for good measure.
Sparkle just sighed and put pencil back to paper. A shame; her fidgeting blushes were even more entertaining than her fear response. “So, you’re claiming responsibility for World War II as well?”
Adagio frowned and sat up. When she put it like that... “In our defense, we didn’t think Stirrope was that much of a powder keg. As far as we knew, Lebensraum was just a demagogue copying a movie star’s mustache. And we certainly weren’t involved in the Manehattan Project.” She shuddered at the memory. None of them had believed what befell Neighpon at first. Then the tests started. “The goal was always conflict, Sparkle, not death. A corpse can’t feel anything. We’d thought the Great War was as bad as you people could get, but then you went and made those. And used them.”
Sparkle nodded at that, flipping through her notes and not paying nearly enough attention to the fact that her species kept setting off nuclear weapons like they were firecrackers. “You do seem to have a tendency to underestimate humanity, for good and for ill.”
Despite gritting her teeth, Adagio had to give that a grudging nod. “You do keep surprising us, even after all these years. I’ve seen humans more virtuous than ponies even claim to be, and more ruthless than the sirens who chased us out of the sea in the first place.”
That got Sparkle to look up with the surprise she should have had towards the bombs. “You’ve never mentioned that part.”
Adagio grinned, leaning back onto her side. If that got her interest... “Because this biography is meant to be about our time on this world." She gave an airy wave. "I cover all of the Equestrian history with Shimmer; she has the context for it.”
“Oh." Sparkle wilted and drew a line through whatever she'd just written down. "That’s… understandable.”
Hook, line... Now came the concerned pout. “Oh, has she not told you much about where she comes from?”
A shake of the head, and Adagio fought to keep her lips still. “Sunset doesn’t like talking about her history, and it’s hard to avoid it when discussing Equestria.”
“Really, now." Adagio stood and sashayed to Sparkle. "You know, I could be persuaded to share some details. Things I’m sure ponies have forgotten." She knelt down, putting them at eye level, and offered the smile she loved using on her tools. "Things they never knew.”
“Uh huh." It didn't usually get a flat stare in response. Adagio was almost impressed. "And what’s the catch for the oh-so-tempting forbidden knowledge? My loyalty? My magic? My soul?”
Adagio snorted before she could stop herself. Ah, nostalgia. “Nothing so crass. I’d just like to… test a few things." She straightened up and tossed back her hair. "I’m something of a scientist myself. And it’s been a long time since I got help on a truly intellectual endeavor.”
Sparkle frowned up at her, a white-knuckle grip on her pencil. “I know you’re manipulating me.”
“Am I?" Adagio strutted back to the bed and flounced down on the edge. "Or have your overtures of friendship finally turned my heart to the light of Harmony?”
“You’re absolutely manipulating me. I appreciate you using more carrot than stick, but this is not the first time someone’s used me as a tool to further their own ambitions.”
Adagio smirked. It was always more fun when they saw it coming. Riskier, but more fun. “This is leading to a ‘but.’”
“But…" Sparkle looked away, biting her lip. "Well, we’re here to record everything you want to tell us, and I hate the idea of letting knowledge go forgotten when there’s an alternative.”
The smirk grew to a full shark-toothed grin, the first one Adagio felt with all her heart in months. “I couldn’t agree more.”
Adagio looked up at the cackling dark angel at the eye of the brewing storm. Vivid, purple bolts of lightning crackled in the sky as chunks of the earth uprooted themselves to orbit the madwoman.
“Well," said Adagio. "That backfired.” Part of her thought she ought to be panicking, but the majority was too stunned to do anything but stare and compose an appropriate score for pipe organ and choir.
Sunset Shimmer massaged the bridge of her nose. “So. Explain to me again how this happened?”
Her tone was enough for Adagio to snap out of it and defend herself. "Firstly, I would like some credit for calling you."
"After you explain what you did."
"It was just a little harmless hypnosis!"
"Harmless," Shimmer echoed, watching as Sparkle cackled and reduced the materials circling her to powder with the power of her will alone.
“I was only trying to make her suggestible! Get some information to use against you!" Somehow, that only made the unicorn glare right at her. Adagio threw up her hands. "It’s a compliment, Shimmer. You’re a worthy enough adversary that I’ll take any avenue to take you down.”
Shimmer took a deep breath and nodded. “So you guided her conscious mind down and Midnight took advantage of the vacancy. Got it.”
Adagio crossed her arms. “You could have mentioned she’d externalized her inner demons.”
“We have an understanding. I don’t blab about her demons, she doesn’t blab about mine. Plus, I didn’t think you’d need to know, because for some reason I'd actually trusted you.” Shimmer punctuated that by jabbing a finger into Adagio's sternum.
She rolled her eyes. “That’s clearly your problem.”
Shimmer shook her head. “You really never learn, do you?”
“Look, I’m the only sane siren in this world. It’s hardly my fault that I’m surrounded by apes and a pony." Adagio offered a winning smile. "So, same time next week?”
Shimmer facepalmed. Sparkle performed the finishing touches on a crystal statuette of Shimmer, "assembled on the molecular level, just for you!" Adagio shrugged. Mammals. Go figure.
Rarity had never thought she’d be the kind of mare who led on young stallions. Certainly not while she was still in her twenties. Then she met Spike and…
Well, it had been love at first sight… for him. Puppy love, infatuation, first crush, it had many names and none of them were what Rarity was looking for. Nor, not to put too fine a point on it, were scales. He was a charming little dear, adorable even, but it simply wasn't meant to be.
Then he offered to help her around the shop. It was a transparent attempt to spend more time with her, but at this early stage in Rarity’s career, she needed every edge she could get. Free labor was one of them. (Nearly free; Rarity was happy to ignore the gem bin being a little less well-stocked after Spike paid her a visit.) Even more so free labor with connections in Canterlot, a willingness and ability to act as a living pincushion, and thumbs.
It was wrong, but the kind of wrong that Rarity fretted about in the back of her mind while doing nothing to make things right. She would make amends when she’d clawed her way further up the ladder and was thus in a position to do so. Until then, she had a capable assistant whenever Spike had the time and inclination—for it was one thing to exploit a child, but quite another to demand he come be exploited—to lend a claw of his own.
Today those claws were holding up the back of a gown as Rarity adjusted its fall. “Now, just a bit more work here and we can—”
Like a few of her more disastrous dates, the lovely time ended because of a tremendous belch on the part of her male companion. Though to his credit, Spike never lost his grip and kept his head pointed away from the gown. “Sorry, Rarity.”
“Letters come when they come, darling. You’d best let Twilight know she’s gotten something from the…” Rarity trailed off. She’d seen enough scrolls from Princess Celestia to recognize the gold wax seal and scarlet ribbon. This missive had neither, instead bound in heliotrope and sealed in fuchsia. And the icon on the seal…
“Is that Twilight’s cutie mark?” It lacked the smaller surrounding stars, but the dodecagram design was unmistakable. On its own, anyway. Seeing it rendered in triplicate—
Rarity caught herself and cleared her throat. “Er, not to pry, of course.”
Spike didn't seem to mind, bless him. “Yeah, probably from Grandma Twinkle." He sighed as he trudged towards the door. "This may take a while. I’ll be back as soon as I can, Rarity!”
She waved after him,. “You’re always welcome, Spikey-Wikey. And thank you as always!” As Rarity watched him go, the symbol on the seal nagged at her memory. Her telekinesis scrabbled for a grip where Spike had before. Blasted line of sight. And her unfocused state of mind didn't help either. “Grandma Twinkle, you say…”
Rarity would never admit it to Twilight, but she hadn't exactly been a frequent patron of Golden Oaks before her new friends had moved in. Mrs. Bleaknicker, the previous librarian, had featured largely in several of Rarity's foalhood nightmares. Even now, she feared being too loud within the tree, lest the old nag rise again just to chastise her.
“Aha!”
But fear paled in comparison to the warm glow of having one's suspicions confirmed.
To her credit, Twilight merely looked up from her own reading with a friendly smile. “Find something interesting, Rarity?”
“I should say so, Duchess!”
Twilight's ears drooped. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes!" Rarity brandished the library's copy of Twerp's Peerage with triumph, held open to a page absolutely festooned with six- and twelve-pointed stars. "I knew there was something familiar about your cutie mark, Twilight, and now my suspicions are confirmed. Just as I knew an elegant, dignified Canterlot mare like yourself must be part of the august nobility.”
"I'm— You're— You don't..." Twilight clamped her mouth shut for a few moments before she sighed. “Well, you’re not completely wrong.”
Rarity arched an eyebrow. “I don’t see how any part of that could be wrong.”
“I know you have a very... romanticized version of Canterlot, but the reality's a lot less glamorous than you may think," said Twilight, clearly just inured to the splendor of her home. "Any family that’s lived in Canterlot for long enough will end up part of a noble house just so the nobles don’t start developing Strapsburg jaws or cloven hooves.”
“Twilight, your great-great-…" Rarity trailed off as she flipped back a few pages. "Well, there a number more greats involved, but your direct matrilineal ancestor is—”
“The Twilight. One of the few legends of the Paleopony Period with solid historical evidence behind her." Twilight rolled her eyes. "Yes. I know. There’s this awful portrait of her up in my parents’ attic. My older brother convinced me she came out of the frame and ate any bad fillies who read under the covers past their bedtime.” She shuddered at her own foalhood boogeymare.
Hold on a moment. “You have an older brother?”
“Never mind. The point is, Grandma Twinkle’s the duchess. Between my aunts, my cousins, the branch houses…" Twilight's gaze went distant for a moment. Conjured shapes flickered in her magic faster than Rarity could track. "I’m maybe twentieth in line for the title.”
“Ah." Rarity flipped back to the modern state of House Twinkle. She had thought the box with Twilight's mark had been a bit small. Scarcely room for a name, even. "Hence why you’ve never brought it up.”
“It’s never been worth bringing up. The only meaningful impact it’s had on my life was my cuteceañera. Technically speaking, it was the social event of the season because of the sheer number of ponies who were obligated to come." Twilight shrugged. "I spent most of it reading in the corner.”
“I see.”
“Disappointed?” The poor dear drooped, dreading the answer.
Rarity moved next to Twilight and offered a friendly nuzzle to reassure her. “Embarrassed. I fear I’ve made a terrible nuisance of myself simply because you’re still the closest thing Ponyville has to nobility.”
“They’re just ponies like you and me. Some are a lot worse.” At least Twilight was able to say that with a smile.
“Let me dream, Twilight.”
“Before I do, I’ve been meaning to talk about my little brother.”
Rarity blinked at the sudden subject change and staggered as Twilight moved away from her. “Whatever do you mean?”
Twilight glared at her harshly enough that for a brief moment, Rarity thought Mrs. Bleaknicker really had made her way back from her retirement in Tallahorsie. “What exactly are your intentions with Spike?”
The plastic, faux-innocent smile on Rarity's lips felt terribly familiar. So did the librarian not being fooled by it. “Ah heh heh…”
There were times when Sunset wished she could ask her friends’ pony counterparts about the early socialization of Princess Twilight. Sometimes it came from simple curiosity; it was hard to imagine what the mare who’d helped Sunset see the light had been like at the beginning of her own journey. Sometimes Sunset just wanted to hear about the times the princess had let slip but refused to elaborate on, like whatever “the Smarty Pants Incident” was.
But oftentimes, she wanted to hold up the two Twilights and make sure that the human’s behavior wasn’t out of the ordinary by Twilit standards. The princess was even less comfortable talking about her counterpart than she was about her embarrassment-checkered past. When human Twilight seemed to forget that interacting with people was an option for days at a time, her pony self was of little help.
Thankfully, that was where her mother came in. Sunset and Twilight Velvet had come to a mutually agreeable arrangement shortly after the younger Twilight’s first retreat into her lab after a lunchtime faux pas had convinced her that all her new friends hated her. A call one way or the other to confirm would get Sunset heading to the garage lab, using the spare key as necessary.
She tried not to think too much about Mrs. Velvet’s knowing grin every time the older woman handed it to her.
Instead, Sunset mentally prepared herself for what she might find in the lab. Twilight was terribly unpredictable when she holed herself up in there. It all depended on why she’d gone in in the first place: shame, inspiration, resentment, pure absent-mindedness… It could be just about anything.
Once Sunset unlocked the door, she knocked on it as she opened it. Startling Twilight had been kind of fun at first, but now that she had telekinesis, that had become a good way to get something heavy and expensive thrown at the startler. “Hey, Twi. You’ve been in here all weekend. Feel like coming up for air?”
Twilight didn’t answer or even turn around. She stood with her back to Sunset before a whiteboard, muttering and occasionally scribbling something in… Well, she was blocking a good chunk of it, but Sunset could see bits of calculus, a flowchart, and what seemed to be a doodle of an Equestrian pony in one corner. A bundle of printed notes hovered next to her in her magic, a page occasionally flipping.
As far as Twilight’s science freakouts went, this was looking like a five or low six on the ten-point scale. Sunset smiled as she looked for a light switch. Even in the middle of the day, the place was gloomy as Tartarus. “Okay, Twilight. Something tells me you haven’t gotten a lot of sleep for the past few days. How about you find a good stopping point and—”
She froze as the other girl finally reacted, turning to glare at her with one eye. One green-glowing, violet-tinted eye. To Sunset's horror, she realized that the other girl's skin tone wasn't just because of the poor lighting; it really had gone darker.
“Do you mind?” she snarled in a tone Sunset had hoped to never hear again. “I don’t usually get to work in physical reality.”
“Midnight." Sunset brought up her fists and immediately felt stupid for trying. For one, telekinesis gave Midnight an arbitrary range advantage. For another, the closest she'd come to actually studying human martial arts was the fencing team. She still held the attempt at a fighting stance; it was better than nothing. "How did you—”
“Oh, don’t act like you don’t know." Midnight rolled her eyes as she turned back to the whiteboard. "I may not say much, but I’ve seen the times your hair smolders or your sclera go dark. Like right now.”
“I…” Sunset took a wary sniff. There was a definite hint of burning hair that hadn't been there before. She let her fists drop and took a deep breath. “I’m not rising to your bait.”
“No idea what you’re talking about," Midnight said with clear disinterest. "I really am in the middle of something. Twily can have the body back after I confirm my suspicions." She gave a dismissive wave. "And before you throw around any more unfounded accusations, it has nothing to do with Equestria, so don’t worry your pretty pony head about it.”
Sunset moved closer, trying to get a look at the project. “What is it, then?”
In a blink, Midnight stood an inch in front of her, eye to eye and close enough for Sunset to feel the heat of the teal flames now licking at the other girl's glasses frames. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just throw you in the vague direction of the door.”
Eye to eye... Sunset took a step back and glanced down. Sure enough, Midnight was hovering a few inches above the ground. She hadn't teleported; she'd just yanked her body in Sunset's way. “You might, might be able to deal with me. But let’s not forget that we all agreed to this so your mom would stop dragging you out of here.”
“That woman…" The flames fell back to embers as Midnight gritted her teeth. "Ugh, fine. That actually makes for a clean segue.” She moved aside, revealing that what Sunset had seen was mostly unerased scraps of earlier work. A family tree dominated the whiteboard, various people circled and annotated. Midnight waved towards it like the world's least enthusiastic game show prize girl. “Behold, the Twilight family legacy.”
Sunset ignored whatever Midnight had to say about herself and looked for the next most recent note. “Twilight Twinkle, tried to blow up the Crystal City Central Bank to get the Federal Reserve to enforce a radioactive currency standard.”
Midnight nodded. “Grandma insisted the right half-life would naturally counteract inflation.”
The branches led back through the centuries, if incompletely. Some vanished in a lack of either data or interest. Breaks in the lines indicated skipped generations, sometimes several. Sunset called out some highlights, if she could call them that: “Dusk Gloss, psychologist, part of the Stampferd Prison Experiment; Black Satin, chemical engineer, tried for crimes against humanity after World War I; Eventide, poisoner, burned as a witch.”
“Or possibly the other way around," noted Midnight. "The translation’s spotty.”
Sunset turned to her. “What is all of this?”
“Like I said, my family legacy. Monsters, madmen, maniacs, we’ve got it all!" Midnight threw up her hands, spun on a heel, and bowed to Sunset. "And here’s Twilight Sparkle, bringing new efficiency to the process." As Midnight straightened back up, Sunset could see tears in her eyes. "Why wait years for a horrific ethical lapse when you can simply slice off the crazy part of your brain and give her her own self-awareness?”
Seeing Twilight cry, no matter what she called herself, tore at Sunset's heart. “Midnight—”
“No, you’re right, ‘crazy’ is needlessly pejorative. Let’s go with your preferred term, it’s much more traditional: Demon." Even as tears started to drip down her cheeks, Midnight twisted her expression into a mad grin. "I’m a raging she-demon, and I’m trapped in this little bone cage with the hapless young witch who summoned me.”
“If you do anything to hurt her, I'll... Um...” Sunset trailed off. How was she supposed to finish that knee-jerk ultimatum?
Midnight sneered. “What, you’ll hurt her worse? Or will you call in the rainbow brigade, however long that takes?" Sunset's phone flew out of her pocket, resting on the whiteboard's marker tray. Midnight leaned against the wall, arms crossed, though wiping her eyes did lessen the impact. "Come on, Sunset, if you’re going to threaten me, give it some teeth.”
Sunset took another deep breath. Impulsive action wasn't going to get her anywhere. “Look. I understand you’re upset—”
“Good for you!” Midnight cooed like a kindergarten teacher, complete with patronizing applause. “I’m sure I have some gold star stickers lying around here somewhere.”
“This isn’t healthy. For either of you.”
“Ha!" Midnight shook her head. "We’re not healthy, little pony. And that includes the two of you.”
The next breath tasted like sulfur and bad life decisions. Sunset clenched her fists, letting the pain of her nails poking into her palms keep her focused. “This isn’t the way to deal with it.”
“And what is? I stay holed up in my little corner of her mind so you can all pretend I don’t exist? Honestly, I’d expect that behavior from her.”
“We stop pretending this doesn't exist when it's not boiling over." Sunset looked at her hands, and the red stain on her skin that had crept down to her wrists. "We talk it out. We consult experts. This isn’t the first time magic has done regrettable things to someone’s mind.”
“But we’re not some desperate camp counselor or self-important intern," said Midnight. "We can’t just make a wish and rainbow it better. We already tried that and the results were less than satisfactory." She moved back to the whiteboard, markers uncapping themselves as she shuffled through her notes. "That’s why I’m researching the long, sordid past that led to the Friendship Games. We need a foundation if we’re going to fix this. Whatever ‘fixing’ it even means.”
Sunset put a still-ruddy hand on her shoulder. Midnight flinched, but didn't shake her off. “Whatever it means, I doubt it involves isolating yourself from the world just to obsess over the problem.”
That got Midnight to shrug away the hand, and to turn back and shout, “Oh, what do you know?”
Midnight had stopped hovering a while ago, so Sunset was free to use all five inches of height advantage she had to loom over the smaller girl. “What do you?”
"E-excuse me?”
“You’ve been working on this all weekend, right? And that’s just while you had control of the body. What have you concluded thus far?" Sunset gestured at everything behind Midnight. "Look at all of this. What are you even trying to prove?”
“I…" Midnight's eyes darted about, her hands fidgeting in a very familiar way. "I mean, I’m still in the preliminary research phase, and this isn’t exactly a problem I can just blast apart into its component quarks." She cleared her throat. "Not that I can do that anymore.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow, trying to ignore the heat crawling up her neck. “Surely you have a hypothesis.”
For a few moments, Midnight said nothing. Finally, at a rate that would do Pinkie Pie proud, she rattled off, “I am everything Twilight fears and hates about herself. All of the thoughts she denies having and the desires she dares not pursue. ‘Midnight’ is a convenient disambiguation; I am Twilight Sparkle just as much as she is. My ancestors didn’t need another world’s magic to go mad, just societal pressure. Desperation. Probably some false accusations from angry villagers." She paused for breath and used it to sigh. "Goodness knows Crystal Prep didn’t prioritize its students’ mental health.
“Twilight buried everything she couldn’t bear to acknowledge about herself, and then her psyche got turned on its head at the Friendship Games, with me on top. You can force me down like you did at Camp Everfree, but you can’t get rid of me without lobotomizing her."
"Okay," said Sunset. "We—"
A pulse of force shoved her away from Midnight, who began to pace. “But that can’t be what’s actually happening!”
Sunset shook her head. Smoldering hair filled her nose again. “Why not?”
“Because then I can’t fix it! Then I can’t free her!" Midnight sprang towards Sunset and grabbed the collar of her shirt. "I shouldn’t exist as a separate personality, Sunset! Twilight is broken because of me, and I can’t go see magic in action to gather data on it without you and the girls blasting me back to square one! And if if you do let me stick around, I clearly cause you to relapse!" She released Sunset and thrust her hands at the other girl. "Have you looked at yourself?"
"I'm aware." It was worse than Sunset had gotten in a long time, yet she didn't feel anything near the anger it usually took to trigger her own transformation. "But—"
"So you'll have to excuse me if I’m eating into Twilight’s social time, but I’m trying to make her fit for human society!” Midnight punctuated that with several deep breaths.
Sunset let her catch her breath. "You done?"
"Yeah." A chair slid into place behind Midnight just in time for her to slump down into it. "I think I needed that."
“Where’s the rest of Twilight?”
“Oh, she can hear this whole conversation. And she’s as surprised as you." Midnight blinked. "Really? I’ve been trying to tell you this in your dreams for months...” She scowled at the apparent reply.
Sunset coughed into a fist. She'd been ignoring it, but her nails were getting worryingly sharp. “Um—”
“Oh, come on! How else were you supposed to interpret us bodily fusing together into a greater whole?”
“Midnight—”
Midnight rolled her eyes and sighed. “Okay, yes, maybe I was being a little melodramatic, but you’re the one who kept all the restraint for yourself, so really, that’s your fault.”
“Hey!" Midnight jumped, and the smoke detector gave a worrying beep before both girls stared it down. Sunset looked back to the other girl and said, "How were you trying to tell her?”
That got her a hand shoved in her face. “Shut that adorable mouth, horse girl. Your intellectual betters are talking.”
Sunset gently moved it aside. “Just because Twilight has a slight lead in our chess games—”
“Seven to three isn’t slight, Sunset.”
“Just because she has a slight lead doesn’t make you my ‘intellectual better.’”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetcheeks." Midnight sprang up and kissed Sunset on the lips.
That left Sunset stunned long enough for the internal dialogue to sort itself out. Especially since she had her own to get through.
All I'm saying is that she's hotter this way.
We can talk about this later.
“In my defense, I thought my intentions were very clear.”
Still tuning back into reality, Sunset wasn't sure who Midnight was talking to. Possibly just addressing the room at large. But it still gave her a good transition point. “How do you feel about starting with the magic of ice cream and laughing at soft sci-fi movies? Then we can broach the subject with the others and some Equestrian experts." She offered her hand. "All four of us.”
After a moment of hesitation, Midnight took it and gave an uneasy smile. “That… sounds nice.”
This went without saying, in the sense that if you did say it, you’d get clipped around the ear. But every year it grew harder to ignore that Granny had outlived all of her siblings, many of her cousins, and a good number of her children. (Anypony who believed Bright Macintosh was her only foal was welcome to browse some of the fine offers at Flimflam Brothers Realty.) And even among the Apples, who saw a hundredth birthday as a sign to think about limiting one’s workday to a mere fourteen hours, she seemed awfully spry for a mare her age.
Some said it was the zap apples, the infamously demanding fruit preserving the one mare who knew how to properly preserve them. Some suspected Celestia, Granny’s longevity being but one part of an unfathomably intricate plot to restore Luna that only looked like coincidence and providence. Some just shrugged; Granny wasn’t the only gracefully aging never-you-mind-year-old in Equestria, even if she was in an increasingly rare cohort.
Whatever their thoughts on the matter, everypony agreed that it definitely wasn’t because Granny was a witch.
That was not to say that witchcraft was frowned upon in Equestria in and of itself. Certain big city unicorns might sniff disdainfully at more down-home forms of applied magic, but hedge mages, storm shamans, seed whisperers, and other ancient mystical traditions thrived throughout the land. They just did it far from academia, which was largely dominated by formally educated unicorns whose unicorn-provided formal education taught them that anypony who wasn’t a formally educated unicorn was superstitious at best and a charlatan at worst. And many had unfortunate reactions to any inconvenient parts of reality that might put that education into question.
As such, Granny Smith definitely wasn’t a witch. Though if she were a witch, she’d be a damn good one. And definitely smart enough not to do anything obvious when Twilight Sparkle or her student were watching.
Granted, every pony has her blind spots, and an Apple’s is as obvious as the central theme of her cutie mark.
“You’ve never heard of the Tooth Breezie?” If the Crusaders' clubhouse had glass in the windows, Sweetie Belle's cry would've shattered them
As it was, Apple Bloom just shook her head as she waited for the ringing in her ears to fade. “Nope.”
“Weird," said Scootaloo. "I thought your family had at least five folksy legends about everything.”
Apple Bloom scrunched her muzzle, opened her mouth, and after a few moments of thought, gave a grudging nod. “Okay, yeah, it does feel like that some days. But I ain’t never heard o’ no Tooth Breezie." She gestured towards Ponyville. "Y’all saw ‘em back when they were goin’ through town. I ain’t sure how a breezie’d even lift that thing.”
“That thing” was Scootaloo’s last foal tooth, a chunk of enamel that barely fit in her frog. (Even with magic accelerating evolution, pony teeth had yet to catch up to ponies’ modern, less abrasive diet.) “It’s just Auntie Lofty giving me a bit, but it makes her and Aunt Holiday happy." Her fond, loving smile went off-kilter. "Besides, it’s a free bit.”
Sweetie scowled. “Way to ruin the magic of foalhood.”
“We’ve been through foalhood," Scootaloo shot back. "What magic?”
That got a roll of the eyes before Sweetie turned back to Apple Bloom. “So what do you do with your foal teeth if you don't put them under your pillow?”
“Give ‘em t’ Granny," she said matter-of-factly. "She always says she’ll do what needs doin’ with ‘em.”
The other Crusaders shared an uncertain look. After an uncomfortable pause, Scootaloo grimaced and said, “What needs doing?”
Apple Bloom shrugged. “That’s for Granny t’ worry about.”
Granny pushed a few foal teeth across the kitchen table. “That’s the last o’ Bloomie’s, I’m afraid.”
“Ah. Shame." The minotauroid creature, crown of fangs nearly touching the ceiling even while seated, picked one up with surprising delicacy for a being with so many sharp points. It rolled the tooth in a palm tiled with incisors. Beneath the constant clacking and absence of lips, its voice was a smooth, unaccented baritone. "You’ve had wonderful ones to offer since that new dentist came into town.”
Granny nodded. “Fine work. ‘Course, I ain’t made many appointments for m’self.” She grinned, letting her false teeth rattle just a touch in her mouth.
The creature chuckled, bits of its yellow-white exterior smacking together like so many rattling dice. “Oh, by all means, do so. It would be wonderful to know a fellow professional got to see my handiwork.”
“Bah. I ain’t spent this long just to show off t’ some unicorn an’ her fancy Canterlot degree." Granny rubbed her forehooves together. "Now we doin’ business or what?”
If it were possible for a being made of teeth to smile wider, it did so. “Of course.”
There really is a Tooth Breezie. Her reasons are her own, as inscrutable as those of any fae creature, but she visits each foal only once and leaves nothing tangible in return.
The Tooth Devil, however, not only accepts teeth for money, but also the opposite, and many other exchanges besides.
You don’t have to be a witch to deal with him, but it helps.
It was hard to tell if the Badlands had suffered in the time without magic. It was hard to tell if they had changed at all. Billowing sand, blistering heat, and arid mesas didn’t seem to care whether the world had magic or not.
And that was before considering the structures still standing.
Hitch did just that, taking in the massive, spiky pylons, like caltrops left by unfathomable giants, stabbing into the sky at every angle imaginable. Then he turned back to the leader of their expedition. “Sunny, don’t you think this is far enough?”
“In the Twilit Era, ponies had explored the whole world! Maybe even beyond!" Sunny spread solid, feathery wings as wide as she could to emphasize her point, her latest notebook still in the aura of her equally tangible horn. "But when we brought the magic back, all we had were three cities on one coastline.”
“Sure, and we’ve done a lot since then. Airship lines, rail, oceanic exploration, you got the ball rolling on all of them." Hitch took a look around the wasteland. "But this is getting too big for one little pony.”
Sunny scowled and moved next to him. She didn't have to look down far to meet him eye to eye, but she still looked down. “Little?”
Hitch rolled his eyes. Who would have thought becoming an alicorn gave a pony a second growth spurt? “You know what I mean. You don’t have to personally reclaim every square inch of Old Equestria. Especially not these square inches.” He pointed at the spikes. Some of them had screaming heads of various creatures impaled through them, thankfully made of the same black metal.
“I’m not saying we build a resort here, but it’s clear there was something important here.” Sunny returned to the towering obelisk she'd been studying before Hitch had spoken up. “I’ve translated enough of the inscription to get that far." She flipped back a few pages and read off her notes: “’This place is a message and a warning. Pay attention to it!’”
"I swear, this will be the senior prom all over again..." Hitch looked to the third member of their expedition. “Zipp, back me up here.”
Zipp shrugged her wings. “I mean, I am curious to see what all the fuss is about.”
That got a groan. “Sunny, even your dad said there are some secrets that should stay buried.”
“It’s not like we’re dealing with the Bewitching Bell here, Hitch." All three shuddered at the memory. The chill was almost refreshing. "We’ll be fine as long as we’re careful. And not knowing the nature of the danger could just make it worse.”
Not knowing…
Zipp's ear twitched. “Did you two hear that?”
“Hear what?” said Sunny, not even looking away from the obelisk. Hitch took another look around, but reluctantly shook his head a few moments later.
Zipp frowned, wings pressing in on her sides. “Never mind.”
“Why is it even taking you this long to translate that?" said Hitch. "I thought you knew Old Ponish like the frog of your hoof.”
“I do, but this is Old Yakyakistani.” Sunny pointed up to the ragged top of the obelisk. “This thing is covered in different Twilit Era languages. The Ponish section probably snapped off and got buried centuries ago. I’m just grateful I don’t have to try to translate the Kirinese above this part. I know maybe four kanji." She jabbed her pencil at him. "Now if you want to get out of here, let me work. This will take forever otherwise.”
Forever…
“Okay, I definitely heard something that time.” Zipp took to the air, head darting in every direction.
Hitch still hadn't, but he wasn't willing to take any chances. “Sunny, we should go.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of ghosts,” Sunny said with a smirk.
“After all we’ve done, all we’ve seen?" Hitch let that hang for a moment, until Sunny's memories came back with enough for a little doubt to creep into her expression. "Yeah. I can absolutely believe there are ghosts out here.”
“Look, I’m almost done with this next line. Yakyakistani has this weird way of conveying negatives, so I had to go back through the sentence." Sunny scowled at him. "Somepony kept making me lose track.”
“Alright. Fine. One last line." Hitch sighed and shook his head. "Some ponies.”
Some ponies…
Zipp came back down, but she didn't need to say anything. Hitch had heard that one as well. “We need to leave," he said. "Just make a charcoal rubbing or something.”
Sunny held up her notebook in her magic and moved a hoof from it to the obelisk, where each deeply inscribed character was the size of the book’s pages. She quirked an eyebrow.
“You know what I mean.”
“Look, I’ve got it figured out: ‘This place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing valued is here.'" Sunny's triumphant smile lasted until she actually processed the message. Then her face to fell to a far more appropriate state of dread. "Oh.”
“Yes. Oh." Hitch gladly started heading back to the airship, followed by the others. "I'm glad we're friends, but some days...”
“Friends…”
Everypony turned at that, letting them see an emaciated figure stumble past the immense spikes. It appeared equine, but skeletally thin and barely moving.
“Somepony’s out here?” said Hitch.
Sunny stowed her notebook and cantered as best she could through the loose sand. “We have to help them!”
Zipp darted ahead of her, blocking her path. “We have to go.”
The figure drew closer. More details became clear through the heat haze. The white, wispy mane and tail. The blank eyes. The coat that blended into the sand, that was so easy to imagine as a richer shade of orange, just like…
Sunny’s jaw dropped. Her magic moved Zipp aside while she took a hesitant step forward. “Mom?”
The pony’s cracked lips peeled back, revealing a gap-filled smile. The mouth moved with constant, inaudible mumbling, but one word carried over on the desert wind. “Yes…”
Hitch snarled. “If that’s not an illusion, I’ll eat my badge. Zipp!”
“Way ahead of you." Sunny was big, but not so big that Zipp couldn't lift her. "Come on, Sunny.”
“No! Mom!" Sunny frantically flapped her own wings, send both of them plummeting back down. Zipp shifted her hold, but Sunny still tried to squirm out of it. "I have to save her!”
“It’s a trap, Sunny!" Zipp grunted as one flailing hoof smacked her in the muzzle. "Agh! Come on!”
“Mom! Mommy!”
Hitch walked up to them, head low. “I’m sorry, Sunny.” And, not for the first time, he delivered a precise blow to the back of her head.
Sunny went limp and would stay that way for the next ten minutes, just like Sheriff Coast Guard had shown Hitch back when he was a deputy. He sighed and knelt down trying to get her on his back.
Going by how the weight suddenly shifted, Zipp had helped reposition her. “She’ll forgive you.”
“Doesn’t make it any easier to forgive myself.” Hitch gave one last look at the apparition, almost close enough to hear its muttering. He shook his head and left the place behind. Maybe this would be enough to get Sunny to relax and delegate more. Maybe it would just give her a new crusade. At least they'd be able to talk it out somewhere cooler.
The Song watched the hosts run. It moved its current host closer to the edge, as close as it could before it could go no further. The signpost was broken, but the barrier proved as strong as ever. Perhaps it hadn’t been during magic’s ebb, but the Song had been weak as well. It had only been able to live on in pony minds, pony hearts, pony throats.
And it could sustain all of those. With infinite patience, the Song kept sustaining its host and turned it back to the center of its power, ready for more hosts to spread it.
On paper, the locker rooms of Crystal Prep were as top-of-the-line as the rest of the building, but there was still only so far one could push the concept of "room full of lockers and benches." When it came to balancing a budget that had to pay for the best of the best in every area imaginable, that usually just meant a fresh coat of high-gloss paint every few years.
Lemon Zest looked over the alternating rows of maroon and indigo lockers, stroking her chin with fingers whose nails wrapped around most of each digit like miniature hooves. "You ever really think about our school colors?"
“This is humiliating,” said Sunny Flare, the ovoid, fuchsia gem embedded in her forehead throwing off sparks of magic in her frustration as she stared at the... the abomination in front of her. “This is beneath me in every way, shape, and form."
Lemon waved a hand in front of the other girl's face to no visible reaction. "Sunny Bunny? You there?"
"Atrocious," Sunny hissed. "In form, function, color—"
"Cool, you were paying attention." Lemon patted her on the shoulder. "Good to know."
The contact got Sunny to tear her gaze away from the object of her loathing. "What?"
"Or not. But still, you're the one who's all about drama and costume design and all that stuff in geostationary orbit over my poor pink head." Lemon swept a hand across the room. "Do these look like hero colors to you?"
Sunny gave her a flat look, one eyebrow raised. “Really?”
“Look, I’ve seen enough teen dramas to recognize a prep school of antagonists when I attend one.” Lemon blinked. "Huh. Kind of obvious when I say it out loud like that."
"Crystal Prep's color scheme has always had elements of hostility, it's true." Sunny scowled. "And I can't believe you're actually perpetuating negative chromist stereotypes about yourself."
Lemon smirked and stuck out her tongue. "Dude, I am the pinkest pinko to ever sympathize with the proletariat and you know it."
"You're intelligent, considerate, and very respectful of emotional boundaries once you actually recognize they're there." Neither of them acknowledged Lemon's gaze flitting to the devices still on Sunny's wrists. "Pink skin's association with bacchanalian tendencies is as baseless as any part of chromism."
Lemon waved it off. "Eh, you're just saying that because you're a weird off-teal that no one knows what to call."
"Aqua," Sunny said with the resigned air of someone who knew she'd be putting up with a running gag for the rest of her life.
"Gesundheit." Lemon held the smile until it became clear that Sunny wouldn't pick it up. She shifted her focus to what the other girl had been glaring daggers at. "So, not happy with the uniform?" Lemon shimmied her hips, letting her own skirt flutter. "Maroon or not, I make this look good."
Sunny returned her attention to her own cheerleading outfit. Despite the name, the top was a different design than Lemon's, opting for cutout shoulders and straight sections of color rather than an asymmetrical swirl like a long-sleeved barber pole. "This is institutionalized objectification and I cannot believe Principal Cadence allows it in what is supposed to be an elite institution.” That said, she started to unbutton her blouse.
Lemon turned away. Yes, PE meant seeing plenty of skin in here, but when it was just the two of them, she could do that much for Sunny. “Can’t help but notice you’re goin’ along with it anyway, Flare Bear.”
“A bet is a bet, and we lost fair and square. No matter how much I may hate it." After a beat, Sunny added, "Which is a lot.”
“I’m still kinda surprised you went along with it in the first place, you know?" Lemon thought back to that fateful day at lunch and the sheer shock of Sunny agreeing to the wager, especially given the terms. "Good to see you take a walk on the wild side, but that is not your usual route.”
“It seemed like a sure bet." Sunny sighed. "Clearly, I underestimated just what is possible in this new, magical world.”
“Yeah, but this was, like, ‘me and Indy back in third grade’-tier doofusing around. You ever hear about the time she broke her collarbone because we thought we could get her into orbit?” Lemon brought a finger to her lips. "You know, there are days when I think Mom only let me play with Indigo because one of us might have killed the other."
A hand on her shoulder got her to turn around. The two of them were emphatically not dating, their friends' frequent jibes aside, but seeing Sunny in the cheerleading outfit made Lemon kind-of sort-of consider unironically—
Sunny's voice broke Lemon out of what was surely madness. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do.”
That got a smirk. “Bold of you to assume I know what I’m doing.”
“It’s what you always do. Sacrifice your dignity for the sake of making someone else smile. Make them forget about what’s bothering them for a while." Sunny tugged at the lycra with clear distaste. "Maybe even help them see it’s not as important as they think.”
Lemon sighed. "You know, you ruin the magic of it when you spell it out like that."
"I'm trying to thank you, you dingus." Sunny would deny any hint of a grin developing as she said that.
"Dingus, were we?" Lemon would testify that Sunny did not laugh at that. One couldn't go to Crystal Prep without knowing the importance of maintaining a reputation, even in this brave new era. “It’s like Principal Cadence says in just about every one-on-one session: Right now, our brains are convinced that, good or bad, everything is the most important thing in the history of ever." Lemon beamed. "But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that nothing is ever as important as it seems. We’re the self-aware skin infection of a mote of dust circling a spark, and if that isn’t hilarious, I don’t know what is.”
Sunny quirked an eyebrow. “Nihilism? Really? Aren’t you an ardent Shimmerist?”
“Dude. Some rando edgy teen horse ran away from her sun god philosopher-queen-teacher-mom, landed here, nearly broke the universe, and became our sun god philosopher-queen-teacher-mom." Lemon threw up her arms, still smiling wide enough to hurt. "How is that not more hilarious and proof that life is intrinsically absurd and has no meaning beyond that which we assign it?”
After a few moments of thoughtful silence, Sunny said, "There are times when you almost frighten me, you know that?"
"I take that as a compliment!"
“Not to break up the symposium,” said Sugarcoat, breaking up the symposium, “but you’re on in five. And you’ll need these.” She held four glittery, yellow pom-poms between her fingers like so many used tissues.
Lemon rolled her eyes and marched over to her. “Yeah, yeah, give ‘em here. You don’t have to be that smug about it.”
“No, I don’t." Sugarcoat made no effort to stop as she moved to Sunny. She looked her over. "No skirt? Really?”
“I can tell myself I’m wearing bike shorts," said Sunny, tearing her pom-poms out of the other girl's grip "It's preserving what dignity I can in all of this.”
That got a shrug. “If that’s what you want to call it. Come on, Sour Sweet strong-armed the film club into recording this game just for you two.”
All three continued down the hallway to Crystal Prep's stadium, no sign of hesitation in any of them. As Sunny had said, a bet was a bet. As Sunny now said, "That would be nice in most other circumstances."
Lemon, meanwhile, had hit the limit of how long she could hold back the question that had been burning in the back of her mind since that fateful day. “Okay, but for real, how did Moondancer fit a dozen full-sized marshmallows in her mouth then recite forty digits of pi?”
And just like all the other times she'd asked, all Sugarcoat said back was, “Science.”
“That’s not an explanation!”
“It’s the explanation you’re getting. Now get out there and cheer on those Shadowbolts. And remember to smile.” Sugarcoat offered her own sadistic grin as an example.
And Lemon and Sunny did just that, because a bet was a bet, and a Shadowbolt always gave it her best effort. Especially when the cameras were rolling.
