> Records of Equestria: Elements of Power
>  by Gearcrow
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Part I - Prologue - Legends of Equestria
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





“There are so many kinds of magic.”

“That’s certainly true.”

“Well, where does it all come from? I mean it has to come from somewhere, right?”

“I don’t know, I never really thought about it that way. Doesn’t it just come from us? No, that can’t be right?”

“Can’t it?”

“No, I don’t think so. I mean there’s ambient magic right? Stuff that just kind of floats around.”

“Like the Everfree Forest?”

“No, no, the Everfree Forest is… it’s different. The opposite actually. More like, the seasons not 
changing.”

“Isn’t that just how things are though? I thought seasons changing on their own was unnatural.”

“You would think.”

“What’s so funny?”

“I think we may be the most unnatural things here.”


- Starswirl the Younger and Unknown







Year 1002 of the Era of Harmony (1002 EoH)


The sun hung late in the sky and bathed the wheat fields of Maple Hills in a deep and orange glow. The wind whispered evening secrets as it rippled through the heavy grains, and the whole world seemed sleepy and ready to retire from its labors. Tumble was dragging an empty, yet still very heavy, wooden bucket back to the barn from the chicken coop, and since he wasn’t much larger than the bucket, it was slow going. He stopped for a second to catch his breath and to look at the setting sun. Young as he was, he could still appreciate the majesty of Equestria and the stunning beauty of nature. Many a night, Big Pa would gather everypony on the farm together around the hearth in the great hall and tell stories about the bounties of the earth and the magic that lived in all growing things. Tumble loved his stories. He knew what Big Pa said was real and important. He wasn’t sure why, but he could feel it all the way from his ears down to his stubby little legs. 
He bent his head to grab the bucket again but then stopped. The farm seemed unusually quiet. He cocked his head this way and that to see if he could hear birds or farm animals or even the distant gleeful shrieks of his obnoxious sisters, but aside from the wind in the fields, nothing stirred. Then he felt a warm tingling sensation in his chest and an irresistible urge to turn around and look back across the fields towards the chicken coop and the woods beyond. 
In the field right by the fence, not more than five paces behind him, stood a mare. She was large, much larger than any pony he’d ever seen, and looked strong enough to knock a barn down with a single kick. She looked at him with deeply knowing eyes the color of wet morning grass and smiled. The sight of her made his breath catch and caused his legs to tremble, though not from fear. He couldn’t say for certain why, but he knew instinctively that she meant no harm. The wind tossed her mane and tail, and for a brief moment Tumble could smell the sweet fragrance of apple pie and freshly gathered hay. Her sun dappled coat seemed to emit a warm and comforting glow, and he thought to himself that perhaps she wasn’t a pony at all, but rather one of them nature spirits Big Pa always went on about.
“Hey there, little one.” She sounded like she might have been from Appleloosa, except that somehow Tumble could hear the tilling of fertile soil and the creaking of ancient trees in her voice. He tried to respond, but her presence was so overwhelming that for many long seconds all he could do was open and close his mouth in stunned silence. 
Eventually, he was able to squeak out a very quiet “Hi.”
The otherworldly mare chuckled, a deep and throaty sound that contained the rumbling mirth of a mountain. “It’s a nice farm you got here. You must be real proud of it?” The sound of her kind joy put Tumble slightly more at ease.
“I guess I am. Big Pa says we’re, um, blessed to live on such good land and all.”
The large pony looked down at the dirt under her hooves and Tumble thought she looked an awful lot like his Ma did when she looked at Lil’ Hayseed. There was love in her eyes, like the dirt was special somehow. 
‘Uh, I’m Tumble. Are you a nature spirit?”
The mare looked up at him and laughed. “Maybe a little bit, but mostly I’m just a hardworking earth pony. Like you, I reckon. My name is Applejack.”
Tumble, feeling much more comfortable around her now, squinted at her suspiciously. He was still young, and so, admittedly, didn’t know much about the workings of the world, but he was pretty sure you either were a pony or weren’t a pony.
“How can you be ‘a little bit’ a nature spirit?” he asked. Again, Applejack laughed.
“Well, I guess I’m just an earth pony then.” She leapt gracefully over the fence onto the path and walked right up to him. “Why don’t you grab that bucket, and I’ll walk with you back to the barn.”
Tumble sighed and looked with dismay at the thing, but his Ma hadn’t raised no quitter, so he grabbed the handle with his teeth and began to walk. Surprisingly, the bucket suddenly weighed almost nothing at all. He still had to crane his neck back to hoist it fully off the ground, but he found that he felt both strong and rested despite all the work he’d done that day, and so lifting it really wasn’t very hard at all.
“Well, aren’t you a strong one,” Applejack said with a sly smile on her face. They walked along in silence for a while before Tumble stopped and put the bucket down again. 
“My Big Pa tells stories about an Applejack. He says they’re from long ago when the Princess was still around, but they’re about you, aren’t they? The stories, I mean.” Tumble thought he caught a brief glimpse of sadness in Applejack’s bright green eyes, but she was smiling when she answered.
“Your grandpa is right; those are very old stories.”  
Tumble nodded to himself and felt that he’d understood something important. “Those are my favorite stories,” he said before picking up the bucket and continuing on his way. He didn’t look back, but he knew that Applejack was gone. Still, the bucket was light and easy to lift all the way back to the barn, and when he entered the house, he felt stronger and more well rested than he’d ever felt in his short little life.
Ma was sitting in a large green chair by the fire with Lil’ Hayseed curled up between her legs, sleeping. Big Pa sat across from her in his rocking chair. His eyes were closed, but Tumble knew better than to assume the old pony was asleep. 
Sure enough, as soon as he got close Big Pa opened his eyes and stared at him. “Took you a mighty long time to feed them chickens. It’s already dark.”
Tumble just grinned at him and sat down on the rug in front of the fire. “Sorry, Big Pa. Just lost track of time.” 


-


“Long ago, in the magical land of Equestria, there lived four princesses. They ruled in harmony, each one disposed towards benevolence and compassion. First among them was Princess Celestia and her sister, Princess Luna, immortal alicorns charged with the raising of the sun each morning and the moon each night. Celestia, the elder of the two, governed the day and managed the affairs of their kingdom, while Luna governed the night and the realm of dreams. The third princess, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, ruled the Crystal Empire far in the frozen north. She embodied family and nurtured the love that grows in every creature’s heart, using that power to bring joy to all those she served. Youngest of the four was Princess Twilight Sparkle, who embodied the most powerful magic of all, Friendship, and who kept all the inhabitants of Equestria, as well as the lands beyond, safe from the evil things that lurk in the shadows and conspire in the dark.
“This story is about her—and her friends, of course—because what is the Princess of Friendship without her friends? They were the Elements of Harmony, the pillars of all Equestrian magic. Among them: the mighty Dame Applejack, Element of Honesty, renowned for her herculean strength and great deeds of power; the swift and indomitable Commander Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty, bravest and fastest of all pegasi to ever take to the skies; Prelate Pinkie Pie, Element of Laughter, possessed of otherworldly powers despite being an earth pony and who, more importantly, brought smiles to the faces of all she met; Saint Fluttershy, Element of Kindness, patron to the sick and injured, blessed with the magical ability to heal all ailments of the body and the soul; and Grand Duchess Rarity, Element of Generosity, who ensured that no creature ever wanted for food and shelter. 
“These were the heroes of ages, and they labored tirelessly to ensure the safety, security, and happiness of every living creature. Their legendary exploits would go down in history, and if not for them, there would be neither life nor laughter in the ages to come. This is the story of their greatest battles and their most heartbreaking struggles. This is the story of how the Magic of Harmony would go on to last forever.”
> Part I - Ch. I - An Empress in a Princess’ Dress
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------







“Are you kidding? She’s smart and organized and cool under pressure. There’s nothing she can’t handle.” 


- Unknown







24 Years Before the Ascension (24 BA)


It was a night of portent and a night of wonder. Time held its breath under a frosted sky hung with brightly twinkling stars, and the spirits of the world that was and had been slept, oblivious to the creeping unstoppable momentum of history as it passed by their burrows and brooks. Silence reigned, quivering with anticipation and fear. 
In Canterlot, not a soul stirred. The snow covered streets sparkled under the orange glow of a few struggling oil lamps, desperate in their effort to ward off a chill more ancient than the mountain itself. On one particular corner, hidden in the faded shadow between two such lights, stood a being. She was draped in a cloak that hid her form and face. 
“A child is born,” she said, voice a soft jingling of hope and peace. “She comes to us on winter’s breath, and her name is magic.” On the wind–carried from the dawn of time–the faint and distant thrill of music played, cautiously triumphant, though none had ears to hear it that did not lie in slumber. 
And then, the lights from a nearby home lit, casting its warmth out upon the street, and the shrill cry of a newborn foal spilled out into the night. 
“She comes,” the being said once more. The stars nodded and smiled down at her. They were old and wise and knew things even the being had long forgotten.
“Yes, child,” they whispered. “She comes to calm the storm and rule all nations. She comes to set creation right, and peace will follow after.”
The music changed, and as the foal wept its birthing cry into the cold winter air, a song took shape. It was a song of triumph and light that swelled the being’s heart and brought tears to her eyes. She tried to join the chorus, though her voice was overwhelmed with joy and wavered. 
“The Princess Twilight cometh. Behold…”


Year 100 of the Era of Harmony (100 EoH)


Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic and Princess of Friendship, sat quietly beneath a stained glass window in the Oratory of Kindness. The sun was setting, and its fiery light shimmered against her coat in shifting hues of orange and burnt rose. The subject of the window, a pegasus sitting tall and confident with a halo of singing birds around a delicate white crown, looked down on Twilight with a gentle smile on her lips. Twilight missed her, not because she’d left or passed on, but because for the better part of ten years, they’d hardly spoken a word to each other. 
The Oratory was mostly empty, creeping shadows casting the benches into stark relief against the patterned marble floor. At the edge of her vision, the shadows seemed to shift actively, slithering slowly in unnatural directions. If she closed her eyes, she thought she could hear them whisper. It wasn’t real, of course. If she turned her head to look directly at them, they’d reveal themselves to be mostly stationary, as shadows were meant to be. She let them writhe and ignored them. 
Aside from herself and her shadowy companions, a quartet of young ponies stood off to her left in an alcove. They were chanting an evening hymn, and though their voices were clear and hinted at power, the song itself was soft and echoed pleasingly along the high-vaulted ceiling. Young ponies… Twilight grimaced. They were all at least forty years old, and it was demonstrative that she couldn’t think of them as anything but young. 
There was also a genuinely young unicorn, barely more than a colt, who was moving quietly along the walls, watering the large pots of flowering nightshade and peonies that grew there.
“They sing for you,” Twilight whispered to the window. “Not for me.” With a small and weary sigh, she stood to leave only to notice that the young custodian watering the flowers had stopped and was now looking at her curiously. Twilight smiled–a matronly smile she’d learned from Celestia–and nodded. “You may speak,” she said quietly and with as much kindness as she could muster. “So long as you keep your voice down. I’d hate to ruin their performance.” She gestured towards the singers.
The young unicorn was fit and kept himself well groomed, the latter being a requirement for working in the palace… In the castle, she thought, repeating the old mantra in her head. It’s still a castle. Still, she was glad to see that his livery was clean and well starched and that his badge was polished to perfection. For a custodian, that badge was a simple jeweled brooch shaped to resemble Twilight’s cutie mark–a symbol of his membership in her household–but it gleamed fiercely in the slanted evening light.
“That’s awfully kind of you,” he drawled quietly–just louder than a whisper–, “but I’ve nothing fit to say to a princess.” 
An Apple, Twilight thought, or perhaps not. Some ponies from Appleloosa weren’t actually related to the Apples. A rarity for sure, but not unheard of. 
“You seemed sad is all,” he continued, “and to my shame, I began to wonder what sorrows could weigh on a heart such as yours. I apologize for the impropriety. It isn’t my place to think such thoughts, let alone to voice them.” 
Twilight maintained her smile to show the eloquent colt she didn’t mind. The way he spoke and the twig of pink blossoms on his flank tickled Twilight’s memory. 
“You’re Spring Couplet?” she asked. An Apple indeed, and a promising one at that.
“I am, Your Majesty.”
“Well, young Couplet, to care is nothing to apologize for. I’m touched by your concern.”
The unicorn blushed furiously and looked down at his hooves. “Ah, well, Your Majesty, I wasn’t really concerned so much as… well, that’s to say…” He trailed off and looked back up at Twilight, then finished in the smallest voice, face as red as a beat. “I was just curious.”
“Still,” Twilight said, stifling a giggle to maintain her matronly façade, “it was an expression of kindness, which seems appropriate considering where we are.” She gestured at the room around them. 
“As you say, Your Majesty, it’s just that… well, I was taught to mind my own business and not to intrude on others’ grief. I’d like to think my mother has some wisdom in her, and that always seemed like good advice.” 
“It is good advice,” Twilight said, though it made her sad to do so. Spring Couplet looked so earnest, so willing to try to do what was right. She could imagine him as a foal, listening at the hooves of his mother as she imparted to him the lessons of her short life. Those lessons had likely seemed true and useful to both her and her son, but even a well-weathered life was less complex than most ponies could imagine. Spring Couplet seemed to sense something of what she was thinking because his brow drew down in thought. Twilight had that effect on ponies, more so now than when she was younger. It was a thing of magic, sometimes useful, sometimes not. 
“I suppose…” he said slowly, considering his words. “I suppose it makes assistance difficult. How else would you know when to intervene on somepony’s behalf except to ask? Still, I can’t pretend to know when it’s proper and when it’s not.” 
“Neither can I,” Twilight said, looking back at Fluttershy’s likeness in the window, “but it’s often on my mind.” 
A small smile tugged the corner of Spring Couplet’s mouth. 
“What?” Twilight asked. 
“Does this happen to you often, Your Majesty? Chance meetings and simple conversations turning into little lessons?” 
Despite herself, Twilight laughed. Even that was controlled, not too loud, and it must have been a pleasant sound, because it made her companion blush. “Yes,” she said, “often.” 
The quartet finished their chanting, and the thick silence of stuffy summer evenings settled over the Oratory. With the ending of the song, the shadows seemed to settle a little as well, though Twilight still did her best to ignore those. 
Spring Couplet bowed with a thoughtful expression on his face. “I best return to my work, Your Majesty. Mistress Glimmer would not be well pleased to find me wiling away the time in idle conversation. By your leave?” 
“You have it, young Mr. Couplet. We wouldn’t want to anger Starlight.” A true and unembellished statement. The unicorn bowed once more before returning to the abandoned watering can and his botanical pursuits. 
Twilight watched him for a moment then turned to leave the Oratory, but the singers hadn’t quite left yet, and when they saw that she too was heading towards the door, they all stepped aside and bowed. The bows were not particularly deep, just exaggerated nods of the head, but they were respectful. She knew each of the singers by name. That was becoming more of a challenge as the number of castle residents continued to multiply, but these four had been members of her household for almost twenty years. 
“Your Majesty,” Lilac Melody murmured as she passed. Twilight wanted to stop and share some words of kindness and appreciation for their work, but she was interrupted by the arrival of a cream colored mare with a vibrant red mane and startled looking green eyes. She wore a deep purple sash that matched the flowering green strawberry plant of her cutie mark but clashed horribly with her mane. 
Her continuously startled expression was an unfortunate side effect of eyes that were just a little too large placed in an achingly innocent looking face, but Twilight knew her to be keen of mind and quick to action. She reminded Twilight of a poorly made doll, the saccharine kind Cozy Glow would sometimes buy at Rainbow Falls. 
Strawberry Patch bowed deeply, more so than the singers had, but omitted the customary “Your Majesty” in favor of haste. “They’re ready for you,” she said, falling in at Twilight’s side. 
Twilight sighed and nodded. “I should at least get my cloak.” 
“No need.” Strawberry said, producing the garment from her saddlebag as they left the Oratory. “We won’t have to leave the castle. The guards are all down in the Martial Chamber waiting for you, but I assumed you’d want to meet them wearing this and your crown.” Twilight took the cape with her own magic and draped it around her shoulders, releasing a soft breath as tension she’d not realized was there drained from her shoulders. 
The cloak was a thick fur-lined creation that Rarity had given her for Hearth’s Warming Eve several years prior. She’d told Twilight the white fur–actually pile fabric–, dark ocean-teal silk, and golden embroidery accentuated Twilight’s eyes and mane beautifully, but more importantly it felt impeccably regal, not too gaudy but pretentious enough to seem proper for a monarch. 
Twilight loved the thing. It was warm and comforting like a hug, and she wore it as much as she could for official functions. A comfort blanket, if a one hundred and twenty-four year old princess could be said to need such things. 
Strawberry also pulled Twilight’s crown from the saddle bag and a pair of golden circular wire-frame glasses. Twilight took the crown but frowned at the glasses. 
“Ah yes,” Strawberry said, placing the glasses on the bridge of Twilight’s nose without asking for permission. “Mistress Glimmer said you might be displeased that I brought these. She said you’d lost them, but she found them under a bundle of books in the back of the Blue Room. Wasn’t that lucky?” 
Twilight had left them behind on purpose, not quite willing to destroy a gift, but not wanting to wear them either. She didn’t really need them. Not unless she was reading, and even then, she thought she could see just fine, even if she sometimes got a mild headache after a few hours. She chalked it up to poor lighting. Quite conspiratorially, Starlight had selected the glasses for her with Rarity’s seal of approval. 
“They fit you so well, Twilight,” Rarity had said, pointing out how they matched the cape and how wise they made her look. Twilight thought they made her look scatterbrained and confused. She wasn’t sure why she was so willing to appease Rarity when it came to appearance, but if there was any pony in Equestria to listen to when it came to fashion, she was the one. 
“Thank you,” Twilight muttered, adjusting the slightly off center glasses and fitting her crown–a heavy and raucously ornamental tall-spiked tiara covered in gems–snug to her head. Strawberry pretended not to notice Twilight’s tone of voice, or at the very least, if she did notice, she was too sensible to take offense. Starlight had picked her as a protegee for precisely that reason. Well, it was one of several reasons, but they all reflected well on the mare. 
The Hall of Crested Spears, or the Martial Chamber as most ponies referred to it, was one of the larger ballrooms on the Castle of Friendship’s ground floor. Decades ago, the castle had been made up of mostly purple and blue crystal configured in the partial shape of a tree. As the years crept along, the castle had begun to change, morphing to match the architectural sensibilities of its inhabitants and growing to encompass the now more than three hundred ponies who called the building home. 
It covered a large swath of land next to the School of Friendship, and boasted multiple wings, six stories, and an enclosed courtyard. The building itself no longer looked like a tree, but the calcified crystal that now made up its walls was dotted with evenly spaced windows held in place by intricate tree shaped frames, and many of the load bearing pillars within the castle were shaped and decorated in ways which called to mind branches, leaves, and sprawling root systems. In the center of the expansive courtyard, there now stood a large fountain of purple crystal that looked suspiciously like a much smaller version of the original building. 
All of this was to say that by the time they’d completed the walk from the Oratory of Kindness–located on the fourth floor in the west wing–down to the Martial Chamber, the sun had set entirely, and the moon was peeking up over the horizon. A weathered old pegasus dressed in a smart dark suit with a large purple buttonhole flower on his breast stood outside the ornately gilded doors of the ballroom, clearly waiting for the two of them. 
“Your Majesty,” he said, bowing his head so deeply Twilight thought his graying mane might brush the floor. “These hooligans you’ve seen fit to grant entrance to the palace are gathered within. At Mistress Glimmer’s suggestion, they’ve been provided food, music, and a modest amount of watered down wine. I took the liberty of choosing one of the less expensive vintages and nothing from the Dame’s orchards, of course.” 
Twilight sighed and fought the urge to rub the bridge of her nose. “We’ve been over this before, Kerning, it’s a castle, not a palace, and those hooligans are royal guards. Each and every one of them has earned their place. It’s been years, and I really wish you’d learn to work with them.” 
“If you say so, Your Majesty.” If he felt even the slightest bit chastised by her words, he failed to show it. Between him and Strawberry, Twilight often felt less like a princess and more like an unruly ward who frequently failed to do what was proper. Besides, he was right about the Castle of Friendship. It really did look entirely like a palace now and nothing at all like a castle. The decision to water down the wine had probably been wise too, even if it had been Starlight’s suggestion and not Kerning’s. 
“Announce me,” she said in the least acerbic way she knew how, “please.” 
The stallion bowed once more; a matter of propriety that was entirely divorced from his personal opinion of Twilight. Of all the ponies in her household, he, most of all, could be counted on to do what was precisely proper at all times, nothing more and certainly nothing less. He then turned and pushed open the doors with a strength that seemed at odds with his age. The three entered together; he at the head and Strawberry following closely behind and to the right of Twilight.  
The Hall of Crested Spears had an ostentatious name for a room that offered little in terms of decoration or finery compared to some of the more elaborate dance halls and reception rooms in the Castle of Friendship. The floor, made of the same calcified crystal as much of the rest of the castle, had the appearance of intricately patterned and well-polished marble, and a row of dark coupled columns ran along the walls supporting a narrow mezzanine which spanned the full length of the ballroom. A relatively modest chandelier hung from a gently vaulted and painted ceiling and seemed to cause the room and all its inhabitants to glow softly. 
To the left from where they’d entered, along the wall, a string quintet was performing Spring Rain on a Thracian Morning. Trebles’ opus number forty-two in C major, Twilight thought, pleased to find that she was able to identify the piece. She hadn’t actively studied music history in some time.
The composition was reserved but pleasant, meant to relax without feeling somber. It seemed to work as intended. The ballroom was filled with ponies and a few other creatures as well, and as far as Twilight could see, most of them were chatting amicably while sipping their drinks accompanied by an overall air of light-hearted content. 
Although few among the attending crowd wore armor, they were, to the last, her personal guard. For the better part of the last one hundred years there had been three distinct and official guard forces in Equestria. The Solar and Lunar Auxiliaries of the Canterlot Royal Guard served Celestia and Luna, and the Imperial Guard of the Crystal Empire served her sister-in-law, Princess Cadance. As of five years ago, there were now four. It had been necessary, but it sometimes unsettled Twilight. Still, she felt pride at the trials and tribulations they’d overcome in that time, each one binding them closer to her. 
Today had been the fifth anniversary of their founding, and they looked happy, proud even. Many of them had been drawn from Canterlot and the Crystal Empire, young guards excited at the prospects available to them in a smaller and newer organization. Others were veterans who for some reason or other had decided that their loyalties lay with The Element of Magic and not with any of the other princesses. The remainder were an eclectic assortment of ponies and other creatures, many who had traveled great distances to be there and whose reasons for joining her Guard were as numerous as they were. 
Like the quartet in the Oratory of Kindness, Twilight knew each of them by name. She’d carefully selected each individual for inclusion and had herself overseen the rigorous trials required for entry. The Ponyville Royal Guard, affectionately referred to as The Twilight Guard, were perhaps the most likely of any force in Equestria to be called upon for combat, and they were easily the most well-traveled. She could say, with some confidence, that the one hundred and ninety-two individuals before her were some of the most capable and loyal she’d ever met. 
Only a few ponies nearest to the doors noticed her entrance, but Kerning stepped forward with a look that clearly signaled his intent to rectify that oversight. 
“In this, the one hundredth year of the Era of Harmony,” he intoned, his deep voice reverberating through the ballroom, “you stand before Her Majesty Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, Element of Magic, Ruler of One Fourth of all Equestria, Guardian of Harmony, and the First Star of Six. May Her reign last one thousand years and one thousand more. Kneel.” 
The imperative was unnecessary. Without effort, Twilight knew that the stars in her mane were twinkling brighter. She knew that a soft light had begun to radiate from some indefinable spot immediately behind her while the light everywhere else seemed to dim just a little. She knew that the colors in her eyes seemed to shine and swallow any who looked directly into them. She’d seen the same happen around Celestia, Luna, and Cadance a hundred times before, and had, for many years, assumed it was a spell, some intentional magic used to enhance their presence. It wasn’t, but none of them knew the how or why of it. 
As one, the crowd dropped to their knees and the music ceased. A small part of Twilight still wanted to tell them to stop being silly, to stand up and look her in the eyes, but she didn’t. Not yet at least. The years had taught her that this too was necessary, no matter that she felt like a clown on display. She opened her mouth to address them but stopped herself when she noticed that somepony was indeed still standing. 
Among the group of guards who’d been conversing closest to the door when Twilight entered stood a handsome white unicorn in a dark swallow-tail coat. His pale gray mane was of middling length, with an unkempt ruffled look that could only be achieved through meticulous effort. From appearance alone, he couldn’t be older than thirty, but there was a ruggedness of experience to him that enhanced a face that had surely once been too refined. If Twilight hadn’t known better, she would’ve guessed that he grew up in the Canterlot court. But of course, she did know better. Yes, he looked quite stately and quite experienced–which he was–, but he also looked stunned, and Twilight had to assume that she was the cause. 
“Captain Winter Shield,” she said, filled with a desire for mischief but trying her best to sound innocent. “Formerly of Hope Hollow, I believe?” Captain Winter opened his mouth but clearly struggled to find his words. Twilight couldn’t help herself and nodded to Kerning who turned his attention to the kneeling crowd. 
“Rise!” For a pony without magic, he possessed a wonderful vocal quality that very nearly approached the royal Canterlot voice. The gathered creatures stood, but Twilight kept her attention on Winter and the crowd remained silent. This happened sometimes. Captain Winter Shield had only recently joined her guard, and this was the first time he’d seen her in person. The experience could be quite shocking. 
“Is something the matter, Captain? If there’s something caught in your throat, I can have Kerning fetch you some wine.” A snicker rose among the gathered, but Twilight ignored it. The intention was not to belittle the captain, but rather to provide a good-natured rib. If she remembered his files correctly, the stallion was a clever no-nonsense sort–quick with a joke at his guards’ expense–and she hoped her comment would put him at ease. Sure enough, Winter shook his head and smiled. 
“Ah, Your Majesty, I apologize. It seems I lost my head there for a moment.” His voice was sturdy but contained the jovial lilt common to ponies from Hope Hollow. 
“If you’ve regained it, Captain, you best kneel.” She leaned in closer and whispered so only he could hear. “It wouldn’t do to flout propriety more than we already have.” 
Winter kneeled, one leg forward in perfect form, and bowed his head deeply. “I’m your humble servant, Princess. Please forgive my thoughtlessness.” The crowd murmured in approval. To them, this was how it should be. Twilight, their princess, set apart and above the rest of them. She hid a grimace. She understood the logic of hierarchies, and after all these decades, she’d grown used to it, but it seemed to fly in the face of those things she embodied most strongly. 
The Book of Friendship and the Principles of Harmony, parts of which Twilight had written herself, both dedicated a great number of pages to discussing the equal and inherent value of all creatures. She’d also produced papers on economic equity, political violence, and executive overreach. That last one had left Celestia none too pleased with her. 
A shadow behind Winter wriggled and seemed to smile. “We can’t just dance around with con-artists, make rainbooms in the sky, and expect everything to work out…”
Normally, Twilight tried to ignore the apparitions, but she couldn’t help but mentally hissing at the shadow to be quiet. 
“…we are not enough,” it whispered, voice fading into the distance as it grew still once more. It’s not real, she thought to herself, taking a deep breath. Not real. She had to deal with the world as it was–with Equestria as it was–and do her best from there. 
“You may rise, Captain. Please return to your friends. I have some words I wish to share with you all.” 
Captain Winter nodded. “By your leave, Princess.” 
“That’s an interesting accent,” Strawberry said, watching him as he walked off to join the group of ponies he’d been speaking to when they entered. Kerning grunted dismissively. 
“From some backwater, no doubt. What did you call it, Your Majesty? Hope Hollow? I’ve never heard of it before.”
Twilight sighed. “You’re right, Strawberry, it is an interesting accent. It’s characterized by a relatively closed oral posture and monophthongal vowels in words like ‘face’ and ‘goat’. Sunburst wrote an excellent book on northern Equestrian speech patterns that goes into greater detail if you’re interested. And Kerning, Hope Hollow is a beautiful town. I recommend you visit it sometime. I imagine it’ll do wonders for your disposition.”  
Strawberry smiled at that, but Kerning sniffed and shook his head. “If you say so, Your Majesty. He still seems an ill sort to me.” 
Twilight let herself study the young guard for a moment, ignoring Kerning’s combative response. He’d returned to his group and stood with his shoulder angled towards Twilight. He was smiling and laughing, no doubt the butt of several jokes from his comrades, but his eyes seemed keen, sharp almost, and though he never appeared to look directly back at her, she was certain he kept her in view. 
“I’ll make good use of that one,” she muttered to herself. “Good use.” 
“I believe you had some business with these ruffians, Your Majesty?” 
Twilight sighed and shook her head. “Yes, Kerning, I do. I’d also remind you to watch your tone if I thought it’d do any good. I am still your princess and presumably will be for some time.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” 
She might as well have been speaking to a rock for all the emotion his voice conveyed. She stepped forward, and as she did, Strawberry gestured at the musicians who had ceased playing when Kerning announced Twilight. The quintet knew their job well and began to play a quiet but hopeful tune that Twilight often used as accompaniment during public addresses and official speeches. 
Most of the gathered knew it well, and even those who came from distant lands or were new were now at least familiar with it. They all turned towards her, conversations fading away as they waited for her to speak. 
“First of all,” she said while beginning to weave a dense and complicated spell, “I wish to congratulate all of you on five years of impeccable service. I know these years have been strenuous­­,” she paused to let the crowd laugh at that–strenuous was genuinely an understatement– “but the fact that you’re all standing here now is a testament to not only your strength and courage, but also to the many ways in which you embody the Principles of Harmony.” 
She kept working on the spell as she spoke. Invisible strands of magic bunched around her horn, growing until the bundle popped, blooming into pulsing shimmering threads that made their way through the crowd, searching for suitable recipients. She was glad to see that one of the threads wound itself around Captain Winter’s mind. Unfortunately, the crowd made it difficult to see exactly who else the spell selected, though the nature of the magic ensured she’d find out eventually.
“Though I’m sure many of you came to me in hopes of finding adventure and danger, it is my sincerest desire that in the coming year none of you will be tasked to do more than keep order in a growing Ponyville, and should the need arise, occasionally assist your comrades in Canterlot and the Crystal Empire.” 
It was true. Applejack could quibble about word choice all she wanted, but Twilight spoke from the heart. Did it matter that her desires were futile? Perhaps it would if she were a better pony… but apparently, she wasn’t. She wrapped her justifications around herself like a comforting cloak and finished casting the spell. Seeing that some of the guards shared meaningful looks told her that few of them believed the coming year, or any future year for that matter, would be as mundane as she’d tried to make it seem. That was probably for the best. If Twilight had to keep secrets, at least they’d still be prepared. 
“All that said, I’m honored by your desire to be here,” she continued, forcing herself to smile, “and by the efforts you’ve all already made in my name. I guess I just wanted to say that I am incredibly proud.” She bowed her head to the gathered guards who greeted her words with cheers and applause. Nothing so thunderous as she’d heard at sports events or royal events in Canterlot, but heartfelt and genuine nonetheless. The string quintet switched back to music more suitable for mingling, and the steady hum of conversation picked back up.
Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It had been a long day, a long few years, really. She’d faced Celestia’s disapproval, Rarity’s anger, and Applejack and Luna’s disbelief. It hurt, but Twilight would do what needed to be done. 
“Your Majesty?” Strawberry said, placing a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “You look tired. Perhaps you should retire for the evening?” 
Twilight gave a start at her touch, then chuckled and rolled her eyes. “You know I don’t actually need to sleep, right?” 
“Yes, well, Mistress Glimmer told me to remind you, and again, these are her words, that you tend to get melancholy and grumpy when you don’t.” 
“Besides, Your Majesty,” Kerning added, “I believe you might still benefit from the rest, even if you do not sleep.” 
Twilight grimaced and fought the urge to dismiss them both. They were right. She did need rest and being stubborn did nothing but make her look silly. 
“Fine, but I don’t need babysitters to ensure I get to bed. The two of you may spend the evening as you wish.” Twilight turned and left, and no sooner had she stepped into the hallway than, with a loud pop and a shower of magenta sparks, she teleported herself away from the ground floor and up to her study. Her big, comfortable, perfect study. 
A massive gilded astronomical clock–four strides across–was set into the wall above a crowded blackboard behind a wide desk cluttered with stacks of scribbled-on papers and a few teetering book towers. The clock had been a gift made in jest, but like everything else in the study, it served its purpose well. Bookshelves lined the circular walls of the room, only stopping to make space for an elevated platform next to a series of three exceptionally wide arched windows that stretched from the marbled floor almost all the way to the vaulted ceiling. 
The windows were spider-webbed with delicate gold filigree, and the ceiling was painted in copper tones and teal wherever it didn’t depict lavish and fictional scenes of mythical or historical figures engaged in feats of strength and legendary academic pursuits. Atop the platform were several tables covered in pages upon pages of annotations, all surrounding a massive telescope cast in heavy bronze and bound in wood aimed up at a cluster of particularly colorful and lively stars. 
A fireplace, deep and wide behind the desk and under the blackboard, played host to a smattering of glowing cinders left too long alone and on the verge of death. To the side of the desk, up on a small and meticulously engraved platform, slept a large fish owl with his head tucked under a mottled gray and brown wing, his steady breathing playing like a whispered melody through the room. A smattering of rugs in every shape and color covered large swathes of the floor in a way that seemed intentional but had come about by accident and carelessness, and all over the place, on little stools and on bookshelves and tables, lay curiosities and oddities from across Equestria and beyond. Scrolls, maps, figurines, several bones, skulls, and even some fully assembled skeletons, a few magical artifacts, the list went on. 
Starlight called it messy. Rarity called it a roco-hobo-bohemian hodgepodge, but she meant the same thing. To Twilight it was comfort… or at least it had been. On the other side of the desk from where her owl was sleeping stood a fluted brass tripod supporting a metal latticework cage. Within the cage rested a perfectly smooth orb that appeared to be made of some kind of smoky opaque glass. As Twilight watched it, it changed its shape slowly into a complex polyhedron and back again, emitting a barely audible chime. 
It was an orbuculum. Twilight had made it herself, and as far as she knew, it was the first one to be made since before even Discord could remember. A faint magical aura pulsed from it, washing over her fur, tingling a little like electricity. She ground her teeth and ignored it. Looking at it too long made her angry, both at it and herself. 
“I’ll be done with you soon,” she muttered, turning towards the door to her bedchamber, nestled between two bookshelves. “I’ll be done with you soon, and then I can throw you into the depths of the sea and...” an image of Fluttershy staring at her, eyes filled with condemnation and pain made her almost stumble. She could hate the orbuculum all she wanted, but the orb hadn’t actually done anything. Twilight only had herself to blame. 
“I’m not a bad princess,” she muttered to the empty study, “just a bad friend.” Nopony answered. Her owl continued to sleep.
> Part I - Ch. II - Parish-By-The-Sea
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





“Why protect regular dreams? They’re just dreams?”

“I’d think the tantabus and your own experiences with the moon would have shown you otherwise?”

“Those incidents were different, and you know it.”

“True, they were… but dreams aren’t just a product of your mind, held in isolation. Dreams are a realm of their own, and worse things than your fears can stalk them, if they’re clever enough. There are other things too, old things. I don’t wish to speak of them.”

“Ah, well, thank you for helping a mare sleep easier.”

“If you focus on the training, Rarity, it will not be a problem.”

“Pish-posh. Twilight already taught me how to protect my mind and my dreams.”

“Did she now? We shall see.”


- Princess Luna and Rarity







100 EoH


Seagulls cried out to each other in the gray sky above, slowly circling the shallow shore, periodically diving for the occasional crab or insect. Old, crusted feathers and half buried chunks of rotten driftwood lay strewn about the beach, covered in bunches of brown kelp and stringy algae. Rarity’s normally pristine hoofs sank into the dark spongy sand with every step, and a strong salty breeze was wreaking havoc on her mane. It was dreary and miserable, but Rarity wasn’t prone to letting a little weather get her down, especially on a journey home. Today the crisp tangy air lifted her spirits and gladdened her heart. 
“Whatcha smiling about?” Pinkie Pie asked, bouncing along next to Rarity. The soft sand didn’t seem to be impeding her lift in any meaningful way, and Rarity, for the thousandth time, marveled at her peculiar friend. 
“Oh, nothing really,” she said in her sing-song voice, looking off at the flat ripples of the sea and not at Pinkie Pie, who was grinning slyly and fixing Rarity with lidded mischievous eyes. 
“Well, ok then,” Pinkie said nonchalantly before doing something very unlike herself by not asking any follow up questions. Rarity narrowed her eyes at her friend, immediately suspicious, but said nothing and focused her attention on needlessly straightening her saddle bags. This was a trap of some sort. 
Pinkie started whistling a cartoonishly conspicuous tune, but Rarity ignored her. Then Pinkie started humming, and Rarity continued to ignore her. How interesting all the, uhm, flotsam was to study. Maybe she could find something in it to inspire a new line of beach wear? Pinkie took a massive breath, no doubt preparing to break into song, and Rarity finally broke. She cleared he throat quickly, preempting the song and catching Pinkie’s attention. 
“Why do you ask, dear?” She tried her best to sound merely curious and not as guilty as she felt. Which was ridiculous. Why should she feel guilty at all? She hadn’t done anything wrong and if Rarity happened to be feeling certain things, well, there wasn’t anything wrong about that either. Not that she was, you know, feeling anything particular. Or pining for anypony. Certainly not. If Pinkie was jumping to conclusions, then that was entirely her own problem. 
“No reason,” Pinkie answered, grinning wickedly. “Just thought you might be excited about finally seeing somepony again. Somepony tall and brooding, somepony you haven’t seen in weeks.” 
Rarity felt a hot flush creep slowly up her regrettably pale cheeks and was possessed by an urgent need to change the subject. 
“Pinkie, darling, I’m just excited to be going home. It’s been quite some time you know, and I’m sure both the school and the boutique are in desperate need of my particular touch.” Besides, a small part of Rarity was still furious with that tall and brooding somepony. It was a turbulent and awful mix of emotions she had no desire to confront at this particular moment. 
Pinkie smiled at Rarity. “The school hasn’t needed your touch in years, silly,” she said. “I’m sure Sweetie is doing a super-terrific job, as always. But yeah, I’m happy about going home too.” She pulled a cupcake from her mane with her forelock and stuffed it unceremoniously into her mouth. The mare wasn’t nearly as much of an airhead as the uninitiated often assumed, and she knew well enough when to leave a subject alone. It helped that Rarity and Pinkie knew each other about as well as any two ponies could. 
Rarity, the meticulous journal keeper that she was, had kept close track of every adventure she’d ever embarked on and with whom she’d gone. Pinkie Pie had by far been her most frequent travelling companion. They’d embarked on three hundred and eight friendship missions together, though, admittedly, many of the more recent missions had been of a decidedly non-friendly nature. Of all the Elements, excepting perhaps Fluttershy, Pinkie was her closest friend. The two of them had become remarkably efficient at dealing with even the most rough-and-tumble excursions. 
They continued in comfortable silence for the better part of an hour. Their destination, a quaint harbor town called Parish-By-The-Sea, was clearly visible on the horizon, and Rarity was certain they would reach it well before sundown. On the morrow, they’d have to catch a ship back to Baltimare, but getting into town early would thankfully allow for at least a small amount of rest and relaxation. Rarity glanced with disgust at some of the more ingrained stains on her coat. She was in desperate need of a bath and a glass of wine. A very large glass of wine. 
“Pinkie, do you think there’s any room at that adorable little inn we saw down by the docks? You know, the one with the brick tower and the climbing ivy.” The place had caught her eye on their first pass through Parish and possessed a kind of elegant country beauty. It was marked by an intricately painted sign swinging from well-oiled chains over a red stable door, and Rarity had at once been struck by the fortuitous name stenciled there. The Magic Cellar, in gold letters, under a remarkably accurate depiction of a certain purple princess looking rather drunk. Rarity and Pinkie Pie had both had a giggle at that. 
“I really hope so,” Pinkie said. “I have so much sand in my ears right now, and I could definitely use a wash.” To demonstrate she tilted her head and giggled at Rarity’s appalled expression, as a flood of sand came pouring out of her right ear. 
“I uh, I don’t doubt they’ll have baths for us, but I’m entirely sure your lessons with Discord were meant for things other than disturbing visual gags.” 
“Pfft, have you met him?” Pinkie said, pulling her ear clean off her head and shaking the last of the sand out of it. Rarity rolled her eyes. 
“Please put that back on before we get into town. We attract enough attention as it is.” 
“Fine,” Pinkie said and reattached her ear with and exaggerated screwing motion. “That one’s really hard to do anyway.” Pinkie seemed right about that, as she was clearly out of breath and had turned slightly pale. Rarity decided not to chastise her friend for wasting so much energy and smiled at her instead. 
“Do you want to take a break? We can sit down and eat something if you’d like, and we’d still have plenty of time to reach town before nightfall.” 
“Nah, that’s ok. I’ve got plenty more travel cupcakes, and I can eat while we walk. Let’s go!” Pinkie bounced off towards Parish and Rarity trotted after. 
It took them another hour and a half to reach the town, and Rarity was thrilled about their return to civilization. The two of them had spent the better part of a week mucking about in the wild with not a decent house or well-mannered pony for miles around. While Pinkie definitely enjoyed the outdoorsy parts of their adventures, Rarity could only handle so many days without a proper shower before she started getting irritable. 
Parish-By-The-Sea was a beautiful little hamlet with no more than a few dozen buildings all made of brightly colored bricks, many adorned with shingles or adorable thatch roofs. They may have been well outside the borders of Equestria, but this was a pony town through and through, and Rarity could feel some of her homesickness drain away as they walked down the well-kept cobble streets towards the harbor. 
They attracted plenty of looks and stares, just as they had on their way through the first time. In a town this size, everypony knew everypony else, and strangers were uncommon and fascinating. Also, despite their distance from Ponyville, Rarity was sure the town’s residents recognized them for exactly who they were. The fact that they were covered head to tail in dirt and grime certainly didn’t do them any favors either. 
She was used to this kind of attention, and in any case, it was preferable to the veritable mobbing they experienced whenever they set foot in Canterlot. Rarity smiled at a nervous looking florist who’d stopped midway through her arrangement to gape at them. She looked quite young, but the arrangement she was working on was lovely and spoke of talent. 
Pinkie snatched a pastry from a cart as it rolled by and, with her tail, tossed several gold bits at the startled pony pushing it. To his credit, the old fellow deftly pulled his cap from his head and caught every single one. Pinkie had no doubt overpaid handsomely, but their unique positions did afford them certain, more tangible, benefits. 
There weren’t many ponies out and about this late, and Rarity and Pinkie made their way down to the harbor swiftly and with little interference. They were stopped twice briefly, once by an excited young filly who wanted to know if they were really that Rarity and that Pinkie Pie, and another time by an older stallion trying his best to sell them a set of fancy new saddle-bags. Honestly, the craftsmanship was subpar at best, and Rarity turned him down politely. 
They reached the inn well before sunset and, it seemed, just in time too. Even Pinkie’s regular exuberance was beginning to fade from the long journey, and they were both in dire need of some rest. A robust looking earth pony with a brown coat and a wine glass cutie mark was cleaning several small tables lined up on the street in front of the establishment. The door had been left open, and the sound of a dulcimer drifted out to the street accompanied by the smell of freshly baked bread and roasted vegetables. Rarity’s stomach gave a rather loud rumble that was not at all ladylike. 
The earth pony must have heard her because he looked up from his cleaning duties with a warm smile, ready to greet them. He paused for only a brief second before smiling even wider and welcoming them with a booming and friendly voice. 
“Greetings and welcome to my humble establishment. You can call me Schooner.” He bowed his head deeply as he spoke. “How may I be of service to two distinguished ladies such as yourself?” 
Rarity smiled back, impressed by his polite demeanor but felt a tug of mischief in her chest. 
“Well, we saw your beautiful sign and thought to ourselves that we just had to visit this inn. Didn’t we, Pinkie?” 
Pinkie tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a giggle, and winked at Rarity. “Oh yes, absolutely!” 
The inn-keep glanced quickly at the sign above the door and back at Rarity, smile wavering and beads of sweat forming on his brow. 
“Oh, Duchess, I... ah... no offense is meant. I’m sure you understand. It’s just a jest, a bit of fun you see.” 
“I’m quite sure no ill-will was intended. We’re just having a bit of fun ourselves, Sir Schooner. Pinkie and I both thought the sign was frightfully clever when we passed through Parish the first time.” She smiled to put him at ease, and Schooner looked visibly relieved. 
“Well now, Sir Schooner,” he said, cheeks reddening. “Can’t say I’ve ever been called that before, but I assure you both that I’ll do whatever I can to make your stay a comfortable one. Do you perhaps need rooms for the evening? As far as I know, there’ll be no ships leaving until the morning, and I can guarantee that we provide the finest room and board in all of Parish.” 
Rarity was delighted with their eloquent, and admittedly fetching, host. Pinkie too looked rather appreciative. 
“Thank you. We’d be glad to pay for rooms.” 
“And food!” Pinkie said excitedly. Schooner smiled and nodded. 
“I’ll have Lilypad get your rooms in order, and I assure you Hie... uhm Prelate Pie, we have plenty of food.” He smiled warmly at Pinkie, but Rarity had noticed the slip and frowned. “The best food around, you’ll find,” he continued, “and only the best will do for such famous guests.” 
They followed Schooner into the warm and brightly lit commons of The Magic Cellar. Schooner himself dashed off, presumably to the kitchens, and Rarity and Pinkie sat down at a small table near the exit. While this was no doubt one of the finer establishments they’d been forced to frequent throughout their travels, their penchant for attracting trouble and requiring a quick exit had made such precautions reflexive. 
A young gentlecolt with a dark mane and adorable freckles took their orders, and before long the two of them were indulging in, Rarity had to admit, a delectable spread of salads, oatcakes, and stewed vegetables. A hardier meal than Rarity normally preferred, but such were the demands of adventuring. 
“Why the frowny face, Rarity?” Pinkie asked between mouthfuls of stew. Rarity had not realized that she was frowning and quickly stopped. Eternal youth or not, it did her complexion no good to strain it so. 
“Oh, I just don’t like that awful thing everyone calls you. If ponies insist on referring to us by those ridiculous monikers, they should at the very least get them right.” 
“Aw, don’t be like that, Rares. Schooner seems really nice. I’m sure he doesn’t mean anything by it. And you can’t expect creatures not to be freaked out a little by an earth pony that can do magic.” Pinkie sounded as sincere as always, but Rarity could see the frailty in her smile and the shadow of resignation that crept into her eyes. Imperceptible to others perhaps, but not to her and the rest of the girls. 
“Besides,” Pinkie continued, “‘Hierophant’ isn’t so bad. Yona used to say it was a really honorable title among the Yaks, and most ponies don’t even know what it means anyway.” 
“If you say so.” Rarity wasn’t at all convinced, but she didn’t want to push the issue. They continued to eat, enjoying the cozy atmosphere, and talking about all the things they would do once they finally got back home. The sun set slowly, and the sky grew rosy. 
A darling little filly, the aforementioned Lilypad, whom Rarity had understood to be Schooner’s daughter, appeared by their table. Rarity was about to ask her to fetch Schooner when she noticed that the filly was trying to levitate a small silver tray onto the table. 
“Oh dearie, let me get that for you.” She grabbed the tray and the letter with her own magic and placed it between herself and Pinkie. 
“Dad says it’s for you, Duchess, but he didn’t say who sent it. It just appeared out of thin air when you were eating, uhm, my lady.” 
“Rarity! Rarity, she’s so cute! Can we keep her?” Pinkie was leaning over her plate and the food to get a better look at the filly. She was short, probably no older than eleven, and unlike her dad, she was a unicorn. She had a cream colored coat and a laurel green mane, and she sported a silver sextant for a cutie mark. Her eyes were very large. 
“Pinkie, goodness gracious, will you behave yourself?” She turned back to Lilypad and smiled. “Thank you, dear. Will you let your father know that we quite enjoyed our meals and that we’d like to retire for the evening?” 
“Oh, yes, of course,” Lilypad responded, eyes a-twinkle. 
“And could you have someone send a bottle of wine to my room and maybe get a bath started for me? Oh, and one for Pinkie as well?” 
Lilypad nodded effusively and dashed off. Rarity giggled. She reminded her of Sweetie Belle when she’d been that age. 
“Who do you think it’s from?” Pinkie asked, eyeballing the letter suspiciously. 
“Well, if it ‘just appeared’, as Lilypad said, then I imagine it must be from Twilight.” 
“Ooh, do you think she’s spying on us using that Orbu... that crystal ball thing she has?” 
Rarity rolled her eyes at the pink mare and suppressed a twinge of old anger. “Certainly not. If Twilight were tracking us, she’d hardly need to resort to such parlor tricks.” She gestured to their cutie marks for emphasis, but Pinkie looked unconvinced. 
“If you say so, Rares. You gonna open it?” 
Rarity grabbed the letter and levitated a knife over to cut it open. She’d barely begun when Pinkie’s entire body began to vibrate violently. Rarity immediately flung the letter and the knife onto the table and pushed herself and her chair as far from it as possible. Nothing happened. Pinkie, who hadn’t moved at all, grimaced. 
“Hmm, well at least it didn’t explode. Maybe poison?” She leaned down and sniffed at the envelope. “Doesn’t smell like poison.” 
“Pinkie! A little caution maybe?” Rarity’s heart was still racing. 
“Phooey, it can’t hurt me anyway.” 
Rarity moved her chair back to the table and sat back down. “Well yes, probably not. The rest of us are not quite as indestructible as you and Applejack though.” She conjured up a small shield around the letter and tore it open using just her magic. When no immediate danger presented itself, she took a deep breath and began to read... or at least tried to. The letter was composed of just a bunch of lines and dots, not a single letter.


.... --- .-.. .-.. --- .-- / ... .... .- -.. . ... / -... . .-- .- .-. . / --- ..-. / ... .- .-.. -


Rarity stared at the dots and the lines, then looked at Pinkie Pie who appeared just as confused. 
“This is morse code, isn’t it?” she asked. 
“I think so. But I don’t know how to read morse code. And why would anypony write down morse code? That doesn’t make any sense.” 
Rarity glared at the letter in a vain attempt to force it to divulge its secrets. 
“Still think it’s from Twilight?” Pinkie asked, eyebrow raised. 
“No… No, I don’t. If Twilight wanted to encrypt a letter, she’d use something much less obvious, I think. And for the life of me, I can’t imagine why she’d need to encrypt a letter.” Rarity cast a couple of truth spells and a revelation spell on the letter for good measure but was hardly surprised when the spells yielded no results. “Whoever sent it is a pretty decent magician. Not only did they protect the letter from tampering spells, but they also tracked us, found us, and ported a letter to us with remarkable precision.” 
“Well, I don’t like it.” Pinkie said. “It smells of sneakiness, and ponies who sneak are usually up to no good.” Pinkie scrunched up her nose and tapped her forehead a few times, as she often did when thinking about something. “Maybe Schooner or someone else around here has a book that can transcribe morse code? It’s a harbor town, right. Maybe they use it for their boats and stuff?” 
Rarity was about to reply but noticed their host making his way over. 
“I see you’ve finished your meal,” he said grinning. “Made it all myself. Don’t want to toot my own horn too much, but I did tell you it was the best around.” 
“Oh yes, we really enjoyed it, but I think we might have indulged a bit too much.” 
“Of course.” Schooner nodded and placed two keys on the table. “A bottle of wine has been brought to your room as you requested, my lady. A rich red, excellent vintage if I do say so myself. Would you like a night cap as well, Mrs. Pie? Something a little sweeter perhaps?” 
Pinkie smiled at Schooner, and even Rarity had to admit that his earlier slip of the tongue was probably just that. Rarity fancied herself an excellent judge of character—a century of travel would do that to a pony—and at this point, she felt certain there wasn’t an insincere bone in Schooner’s body. 
“No thanks,” Pinkie said. “I just want to get clean and get some sleep.” 
“Ah well, you’ll both find hot baths and several clean towels waiting for you. Should you need anything else, don’t hesitate to call on me. Good evening to both of you, and may you find rest from your journeys here at the Magic Cellar.” Schooner turned to leave when Rarity remembered what Pinkie had said earlier. 
“Just one other thing, dear. Do you perhaps know somepony who has a book on morse code? It seems we’re in need of one.” 
Schooner raised an eyebrow at the unusual request. “Well, I can’t say we have one here at the inn, but I’ll ask around and see if I can’t find one for you. Should I have it sent to your room if I find one?” 
“That would be wonderful.” 
“Well then,” he said. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” 
“Oh no, you have already been quite helpful.” 
Schooner bowed his head and left, but Rarity could hear him mumbling to himself as he walked away. “Wait till I tell the fellas about this. They’ll never believe me.” 
Pinkie leaned in conspiratorially towards Rarity. “I know something else he can do for me.” She bit her lower lip as she spoke and threw an entirely inappropriate look at Schooner’s hindquarters. 
Rarity blushed deeply. “Pinkie! Need I remind you that you are a married mare!” 
Pinkie winced for just a moment but quickly hid it. Instead, she giggled as she stood and grabbed her key. “Oh Rarity, don’t be such a fuss.” 
Rarity sighed and grabbed the letter and her own key. She hadn’t meant to hurt Pinkie. The words had just slipped out. Rarity thought that maybe she was lucky to have never married. It was one thing for Fluttershy, who’s husband was literally immortal. The same applied to Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who had each other. Cheese Sandwich was absolutely ancient by earth pony standards and hadn’t been able to get out of bed for the better part of a decade now. How he was still alive, Rarity had no idea, but Pinkie had grandchildren at this point who were physically older than she was… it wasn’t an easy thing to deal with, to say the least. 
The rooms at the Magic Cellar turned out to be incredibly cozy. The countryside aesthetic of the dining area infused every nook and cranny. The floor was made of solid polished wood, and the decorations were all suitably minimalistic and rustic. Several oleander blossoms were floating carelessly in a shallow dish of water on her bed stand, and the periwinkle bedspreads smelled fresh and newly laundered. 
The washroom was plenty large, and Rarity was surprised to find that it accommodated a beautiful clawfoot tub filled to the brim with steaming hot water. On the floor next to the tub stood the wine bottle she’d requested—already open to air—with a wide-rimmed short-stemmed wine glass placed upside down over the bottleneck. The water smelled pleasantly of lavender, and Rarity wasted no time pouring herself a glass and sliding into the bath. 
It was simply divine. All the aches of her journey melted away as her muscles relaxed. Most of the grime came out of her coat too, but she was sure a vigorous scrubbing would eventually be called for to get rid of the rest. For now, she just wanted to relax and enjoy the moment. 
She sat like that, sipping her wine, for much longer than she should have. Her eyes were beginning to feel heavy, and some nagging part of her mind reminded her that she still needed to scrub and that falling asleep in a bathtub was ill-advised. She ignored that part of her mind. After all, hadn’t Pinkie told her not to be such a fuss? This was fine, she thought, as she drifted off to sleep.


-


Rarity’s polished hooves stepped silently across the silver sheen of a monstrous lake surrounded on all sides by towering mountain tops capped in snow and shrouded in clouds. The sky was a clear winter gray, and the dark green firs crowding the base of the mountains stood out starkly to her well trained eyes against the granite backdrop. She imagined that she could see every individual pine needle quiver under the weight of this ancient place. Chilly dew clung to her coat and mane, and her deep breaths fogged almost before they left her lips. 
She didn’t know where she was or how it was that she was able to stand on the surface of the lake without sinking, but she did know, instinctively, that this was a place of old power. A pure place. The water was still. The air was still. Her heart was still. She looked around, careful to step gently and to not make any sounds. She could see no other pony or creature, but she felt something, something heavy and ancient. 
As she walked, she saw on the distant shore a gray fog beginning to emerge from between the trees. It coiled and snaked, and when it reached the lake, it began to spread across the surface towards Rarity. She studied the fog carefully. It formed and dissolved into shapes she could almost, but not quite, make sense of. The shapes frightened her, but she resolved to keep walking towards it. It seemed important that she do so, that she not turn around and flee. 
Some distance ahead of her, the lake rippled, and an object bobbed to the surface. Even this far away, she could clearly tell that it was a compass of some sort. It was small–no larger than a quail egg–and completely spherical. The body of the compass was made of brass shaped into intricately interlacing bands and knots. The spindles themselves were contained at the center of the compass in a smaller crystalline orb within the brass meshwork. They were hewn from kunzite, or maybe amethyst, and were surrounded by five pearls that seemed locked in place. 
She marveled at the acuity of her eyesight in this place and wondered about the five pearls. She would have assumed they’d represent cardinal directions, but then there should be only four. Clearly this compass wasn’t meant to navigate anything as mundane as direction. 
The fog continued to encroach upon the lake, and she grew fearful that it might reach the compass before she did. She knew she shouldn’t run, not here. Nevertheless, she hurried her steps. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the compass, ignoring the gray wall advancing towards her as best she could. 
The minutes stretched on in silence. Rarity’s legs began to burn from the distance she’d covered and the pace she was setting, but she had to reach the compass first. She had to save it. Nothing was more important. Her heart began to ache and as she moved closer, to her surprise, the compass began to glow. The light was warm and comforting, and she felt a great reverence overtake her. She stood in the presence of something sacred. 
She felt the ache in her legs soothe and the spring in her step return. The fog seemed less frightening too, though it still churned and boiled. The shapes had become more tangible. She could make out rearing ponies with gaping silent mouths and other more terrible things. It brought to mind the Umbrum, which was a fearful thought. Still, the warm light fortified her spirit. 
Rarity and the misty shapes reached the glowing compass at the same time. This close the purity of the light was rapturous and intoxicating, but the oppressive terror of the fog was desperately trying to match its intensity. She struggled not to buckle under the emotional onslaught. She was the Element of Generosity, and she was not about to let some unpleasant weather get the better of her, no matter how magical or malicious it was. 
She took a deep breath and steadied herself. The compass was within hoof’s reach, and although she feared what would happen when she grabbed it, she knew she had to try. She clenched her jaw and lunged for the compass but so did the shapes in the fog. Rarity’s hoof was first to reach it, and she felt its warmth flow through her leg and spread through her whole body. The sensation was short lived because a moment later the fog crashed down around her, and she had never felt anything so cold and horrible in her entire life. 
She screamed, finally breaking the reverent silence that had lingered over the lake. She was sure she was dying. She could feel her throat and lungs freeze and her heart seize. Her legs kicked and spasmed, fighting desperately to free herself from the fog’s grip, but it had somehow become solid and refused to let go. 
The water beneath her gave way, and she plunged into the depths, pushed towards the bottom by writhing dark tendrils determined to kill her. She tried to shout for help, but the water stole the sound and quickly filled her lungs. She knew this was the end, but she also knew that protecting the compass was far more important than surviving. She gripped it as tightly as she could. Her mind began to numb, drifting in an out of clarity, and the agonizing pain slowly started to fade. Eventually, she felt nothing at all except for the comforting warmth of the compass pressed against her chest. The last thing she heard before death stole her away was a loud knocking sound. 
Rarity sat up straight and panicked for a moment when she still felt cold water all around her. She chided herself for a fool when she realized it was just the tub. Her wine glass was floating between her knees, the water tinged red from the wine still in it when she’d fallen asleep. Good job Rarity. Some protector of Equestria you are, almost drowning in a bathtub. The knocking sound came again, and she realized someone was at the door. 
“I’m coming, just a moment please!” She levitated a towel around her mane and used a little bit of magic to quickly dry and heat herself. A quick glance at the clock told Rarity that it was almost midnight. It turned out to be Lilypad at the door. She looked properly apologetic about knocking at such a late hour but was clutching a small and tattered book to her chest. 
“Uhm, sorry to wake you?” Lilypad was looking at the wet towel around Rarity’s mane and was clearly unsure whether or not she had in fact disturbed Rarity’s sleep. “Dad told me to bring you this.” She held out the little book which read Morse Code for The Seafarer in cursive black print on the blue cover. “He said he got it from one of his sailor friends down at the docks but that it’s ok for you to keep it.” 
“Ah, yes. Thank you, Lilypad.” Rarity had entirely forgotten about the book and the letter as soon as she’d gotten into her bath. For once, she was happy that Twilight wasn’t there. Rarity often got on her case for her absent-mindedness, and she didn’t doubt Twilight would be giving her one of those smug–very not attractive at all–little smiles if she could see her now. 
She levitated the book over to her nightstand and thanked Lilypad one more time. The filly turned to leave, but then stopped with a hesitant look on her face. 
“Yes? Is there something else I can do for you, dear?” Rarity asked. 
“Well, it’s just, you and Mrs. Pie are, like, heroes, aren’t you?” 
The question caught Rarity off guard. “Uhm, well I don’t know about being heroes, but we do try to help when we can.” 
“But you’d stop anything bad from happening to us, yeah?” Lilypad looked very timid, and Rarity frowned with a sense of growing concern. 
“Lilypad, is there somepony doing something bad to you right now? Because if there is, you can definitely tell me.” 
“Oh, uhm, no not really.” Lilypad looked at her hoofs as she spoke, but then she looked Rarity in the eyes, child-like determination painted all over her face. “It’s just good, yeah, that there’s someone out there taking care of the scary things. When I grow up, I want to be strong just like you and Mrs. Pie. Then I could protect Dad, and everypony else as well.” Lilypad nodded once to herself then ran back down the stairs before Rarity could respond. 
What a peculiar little girl, she thought. She wasn’t entirely convinced there wasn’t something going on with Lilypad, but there wasn’t much she could do about it at the moment. Maybe she’d send Rainbow Dash to check on Parish-By-The-Sea once she was home. She closed the door and returned to the washroom, determined to get properly clean and enjoy some real sleep.


-


The sun had long since set over Canterlot. Princess Celestia, who was finding it harder and harder to sleep with each passing year, was lying snug as a bug in her massive four-poster bed, still quite awake. The lamp on her nightstand, at this point an ancient artifact, was casting a soft yellow light over both her and her somewhat questionable reading material. The magazine in question–bearing the ostentatious title The Royal Splash–was undoubtedly one of the seediest and most scandalous tabloids currently in circulation amongst the Canterlot elite. 
Luna and Twilight had both made it quite clear–in their own separate ways–exactly what they thought about The Royal Splash and all its ilk. Twilight, in particular, had expressed a surprising amount of disdain when Celestia had accidentally admitted in passing conversation to her guilty reading pleasure. She’d found her old student’s flustered reactions endearing but was frankly much too old to let the opinions of others stop her from having a good time. At least Cadance thought it was funny. 
The article that currently held her attention with such gleeful ferocity was a long and sordid expose on a quite fictitious love affair between herself and a certain Duke Poppingstomp. The fact that she’d barely exchanged more than a dozen words in person with the Duke did not stop the article from being deeply entertaining, and Celestia couldn’t help but giggle every time it mentioned how the two of them would hide away in various castle cupboards and engage in all sorts of inappropriate lascivious behavior. 
At one point, the article even insinuated that Celestia had bewitched Duke Poppingstomp’s bride-to-be with a slow acting yet deadly curse. The curse would eventually remove the young Miss Nightbloom from their lives and allow them to indulge in their illicit affair free from her presence. Celestia had snorted rather loudly at that part. 
She’d just started reading about the complicated, and very illegal, money games behind the affair when she was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Not even a second later, Luna, not bothering to wait for a reply and looking as composed and disinterested as ever, let herself in. She closed the door behind her and sat down in one of Celestia’s winged armchairs. 
“Sister, I have need of your counsel,” she said. 
Celestia closed her magazine and sat up a little straighter. “You seem distressed,” she said. Even though Luna looked nothing of the sort, Celestia could tell. “I can send for some tea, if you’d like or maybe something a little stronger?” 
“That is quite alright. I do not think this should wait.” There was a slight strain to Luna’s voice that Celestia was unaccustomed to, but she did her best to keep her concern from showing. Luna opened her mouth, but didn’t immediately speak, clearly unsure how to proceed. 
“Rarity had a dream,” she finally said. “Not quite a nightmare, but the quality of the dream was peculiar to me and seemed to be causing her some distress. I attempted to enter the dream to ease her mind, but I found the way barred. I thought at first that she was keeping me out on purpose. I know Twilight has taught her how to close her mind to outside influence, and I’ve helped her a bit myself as well. I cannot blame Rarity for erecting barriers. We have both, after all, struggled with the power of intrusive… dreams in the past. 
“I was content to leave it at that. She is strong, and if she did not feel the need to seek assistance then who am I to force it upon her. But something about the way in which the dream had been made inaccessible concerned me, and the longer I dwelled on it the more I felt certain that some outside force had trapped her and was keeping me out. 
“With some effort, I was able to penetrate her dream, and what I experienced was highly disconcerting. The dream itself remained... hazy to me. I could not see clearly or make out any details. But I was at least certain of the presence of ancient magic, such as I have not felt in many centuries. The force of this magic buffeted me and tossed me about as if to expel me from Rarity’s mind. Celestia, I am not ashamed to say that I felt sickened and frightened at its touch.” 
“I...” Luna hesitated again, before continuing. “I do not believe that the force trying to expel me was the cause of Rarity’s dream, as I sensed something far older and more powerful at the center of her mind. I cannot say what it was, only that the repugnant magic seemed determined to keep me from reaching Rarity. 
“I roused myself from sleep to escape its grasp, but the experience has shaken me. I had always thought myself the ruler of the Dreamscape. The notion that there is some power skulking about in the night strong enough to repel even me is troubling. As for Rarity, it seems as if she awoke shortly after I did. At the very least, I cannot sense her mind in the dreamscape at the moment.” 
Celestia wasn’t sure how to respond. What Luna had told her was definitely distressing, and she was grateful that her sister had come to her to discuss it. But Luna was the expert on dreams, not Celestia, and she didn’t know what advice she could offer that Luna hadn’t already thought of herself. She said as much. 
“Dreams are your domain, Luna. I’m not sure that any insights I provide would be particularly useful.” 
Luna frowned at the floor. “That is not an unexpected response. I had hoped that perhaps something in my description of the magic I encountered would be familiar to you. You have always been a better student of the arcane than I. We should warn Twilight and the others in any case. It seems at least certain that something is moving against the Elements, and I do not like the feel of it in the slightest.” 
Celestia nodded. “I’ll send a letter to Spike in the morning. Rarity won’t be home for at least another week, but perhaps, if you could contact her in her dreams and get a better idea of what she experienced, it might shed some light on the situation.” 
Luna was chewing on her tongue, deep in thought, but stood up to leave. “It is a good thing that Twilight now has her own guard. She was much too flippant about traditional security measures for far too long. It is good she came around.” 
Celestia hid a grimace from her sister. “Let us hope they won’t have much to do.” She waited for Luna to leave before getting out of bed and walking over to her bookshelves. She pulled several dusty volumes from the bottom shelf and placed them on the small reading desk she kept for just such occasions. She started with Arcanum Vol. 3 - Pre-Equestria and was still reading by the time she was due to raise the sun.
> Part I - Ch. III - In the Shadows of Legends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





“It is an easy thing to say you have saved the world. It is quite another to do it.”
“Oh, we've saved the world, beardo. And we can do it again.”


- Starswirl the Bearded and Rainbow Dash







100 EoH


Rainbow Dash was very unsuccessfully trying to sleep. She’d been invited out to Rainbow Falls that day, as she was once or twice a year, to demo for the new Wonderbolt recruits. Never mind that she was technically retired. Never mind that she technically had obligations in Canterlot. She was sure nopony had missed her, probably, and showing the new kids how to really soar was a whole lot more fun than working up new flight patterns with Land Breeze and Mistral. Mistral, especially, had the humor and temperament of a damp rock. 
She shuddered thinking about the hours she might have spent locked in a room with the dour old hippogriff pouring over flight charts and terrain maps. Nope! She was glad she’d escaped that fate. Land Breeze was twice as clever as she was anyway, so they didn’t really need her. She rubbed the back of her head and sighed, unsure why the two of them always insisted she be part of meetings like that. 
Now she was lying on her back atop a small and particularly soft cumulus cloud above Ponyville, counting the stars, and trying not to think about how easy and unsatisfying the maneuvers she’d pulled that afternoon were. She could have pushed herself much harder, but it wouldn’t have been very entertaining for the new recruits to sit there and watch a blurry swatch of blue paint flicker across the sky in barely recognizable patterns. It had been hard to pull back though. She wanted to go faster. Something primal screamed at her to go faster, yearned for it. Sure, it was dangerous, but that was half the fun. 
Maybe Land Breeze and Mistral just wanted to spend some more time with you before you leave them? She groaned at the traitorous thought and rolled over on her cloud. It had been several years since Twilight put her little guard together, and with each passing month, it had made more and more sense to both of them for Rainbow to be in charge of the whole operation instead of working almost exclusively with the Canterlot Royal Guard, as she had for decades now. It had taken some time to find a replacement for her, but today had been the day, her last day. Tomorrow, it was back to Ponyville fulltime to oversee a whole batch of new creatures she barely knew. A small batch, admittedly. Not even two hundred creatures strong. And wouldn’t that be a nice change of pace. 
She still wasn’t sure what the point was though. Rarity and Pinkie Pie were, at that very moment, on their way home from successfully stopping a renegade dragon lord from enslaving a bunch of innocent creatures and setting up his own little enclave on Griffonstone’s eastern borders. They’d done it by themselves, easily, and from what she’d gathered from their correspondence to Spike, it had required no little amount of ‘fisticuffs’, as Rarity liked to put it. What was the point of a Ponyville Guard when two of her friends could dust a group of adult dragons with no more effort than it took Rainbow to clear the sky? It seemed a bit like a waste of time and resources to her, but Twilight was the egghead. If she said she needed them, Rainbow had to assume she knew what she was talking about. 
She rolled over again, trying her best to get comfortable, but just as she was beginning to doze off, she saw something strange. Somepony was watching her, or at least, they were looking up in her direction. She was high enough up that only another pegasus should have been able to easily spot her, but the perpetrator looked like a unicorn. Well, she wasn’t about to let some creep ogle her in the middle of the night, no matter what kind of pony they were. 
She dropped from her cloud into a freefall and didn’t pull up until right before she hit the ground. “Hey, what’s the big idea?” she yelled at the clearly startled unicorn. Rather than back off, however, he just grinned at her. 
“Well now, if it isn’t Commander Rainbow Dash. I thought I saw something moving up there. Wasn’t expecting a national hero though.” 
“Captain Shield?” 
“In the flesh, Ma’am.” The captain looked very pleased with himself, and Rainbow was feeling rather embarrassed about having not only assumed the worst, but also for mistaking him for a ruffian after having recommended him to Twilight. 
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” she asked. “I know you’re running drills tomorrow. It’s the first time I’ll be supervising, and I don’t want to have to clean what’s left of you off of Twilight’s shiny new parade grounds because you were too tired to pay attention.” 
“Ah well, you know how it is, Commander. Nerves. I’m excited to be here and want to make a good impression on the Princess. Maybe it’s making my nights a bit restless.” 
Rainbow did know how it was, but she wasn’t about to let on. “Didn’t take you for the jittery type, Captain. I remember you being cool as a cucumber last year when we had to clean out that hydra infestation in the Everfree.” 
“Yeah, that’s fair, but hydras are a sight less intimidating than Princess Twilight.” His face grew contemplative, and in the dark the effect was rather somber. “I saw her when we were out in the wastes, you know, descending from the heavens, wings like fire, death erupting from her horn with enough force to level mountains. That scared the shit out of me, Commander. No fib.” 
Rainbow hid a frown behind her biggest and cockiest grin. “It scared those changelings a lot worse, I promise you that. Plus, you idiot, it’s not like you’re going to have to fight Twilight. Can you imagine? It’s just you and a bunch of blowhards running drills and trying to show her how studly and useful you are. You’ll be fine.” 
Winter raised an eyebrow and presented her with a much too smarmy smile. “So,” he said, “you think I’m studly? What would the missus think if she heard you say that?” 
Rainbow wrinkled her nose in mock disgust and punched Winter on the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. “Just be happy she isn’t here, or she’d tell you. Come on. I know for a fact that Berry’s is still open. Let’s grab something to drink. Who knows, it might help you sleep.”


-


A shadow stayed still, pressed up against the wall of a small house and holding his breath until long after the Element of Loyalty and the unimportant unicorn she’d been speaking to had left. That had been too close. After making sure no other creatures were about and liable to spot him, he took a deep breath and crawled into the dark crevices underneath a ridiculous building that looked like a cross between a circus tent and a merry-go-round for children. The dark places were his home, but this part always hurt. He smiled to himself. All the pain in the world would be worth it in the end when he was exalted above all others. Outside on the street, an orb of magenta magic floated by, undisturbed and unaware. 


-


Sunlight crept quietly into Twilight’s study, catching motes of dust in sleepy pale rays. A small section of window, propped open by a pair of silver calipers, gave entry to a cool and gentle breeze that tasted of freshly cut grass and lingering morning dew. A large cup of tea–bergamot and lavender–sat steaming next to a pile of financial documents on her desk, and Twilight herself was busy reading through a report on newly hired kitchen staff. It was the kind of report Starlight would have normally handled, but she liked to keep an ear to the ground. It was her castle, after all. 
Paracelsus, her owl, was cleaning remnants of flesh from the bones of a small rodent. A shrew maybe, or a field mouse. Most owls would have swallowed the creature hole, but Paracelsus was particular about his meals. In fact, she was surprised that he’d settled for a rodent at all. He usually only ate fish and spurned even those if they didn’t measure up to his exacting standards. He was a little snooty, for sure, but that hardly bothered Twilight. 
“What do you think, Paracelsus?” she asked, tossing her report to the side. The morning was too nice, and she felt too restless to focus. She needed to stretch her legs and get away from her desk. The thought made her chuckle, and she doubted Starlight would believe she’d come to it on her own. 
The owl looked up from his pile of bones and cocked his head to one side. He was a large and beautiful bird, big enough to lift a filly off the ground if he wanted to. He was clever too, for an owl at least. Clever enough that visitors sometimes felt uneasy around him. Twilight found this silly. He was a calm and reserved creature, and for all his odd magnificence, still only an owl. 
“Should I take the day off?” 
Paracelsus puffed his breast feathers and cooed approvingly before returning to his meal. If it was up to him, Twilight thought, they’d never do any work at all. She’d never had an owl that slept as much as him, and she’d had quite a few. 
She stood up, straightened her disheveled hair with a quick application of magic, and snatched her cloak and, begrudgingly, her glasses from the chair she’d left them on the night before. She poured her tea into a travel cup and stepped out into the empty antechamber of her study. She never held audience there–or in her study for that matter–so the place saw almost no traffic aside from Starlight, Strawberry, Kerning, Spike, and the girls. Not that they visited this part of the castle much. Starlight more than anypony else, but Twilight had made it quite clear she needed someplace just for herself. Neither Discord nor Rarity had quite seemed to catch on though, which was maybe understandable considering their natures. 
Except Discord had caught on. Her steps slowed until she was standing still in the empty chamber, staring at nothing. Discord hadn’t actually dropped in unannounced for several years now, hadn’t re-arranged her books in “reverse order of color”, or swapped all the covers onto books that contradicted the title as much as possible, or replaced her telescope with binoculars, or changed her astronomical clock so it showed the moon in the sun’s place and vice-versa… but that was her own fault, wasn’t it? Twilight couldn’t blame him. Wouldn’t she have done the same? She shook her head and took a deep breath. She had plans and no time for self-flagellating contemplations. She pushed the thoughts aside and left her chambers. 
The castle hallways were buzzing with activity, even at this early hour. Applejack had once told her the place felt more like a beehive than a castle, and the metaphor was both apt and comfortable. The fact that none of the passing creatures paid her any more attention than was necessary for a quick nod of respect–that they all had tasks to attend to and were following elegantly crafted schedules–it felt right and proper to Twilight, like a machine whose parts were all operating in perfect unison. 
Perfect was perhaps too strong a word. Not an hour passed by without some minor crisis rearing its disruptive head, but for the most part, Spike, Starlight, Strawberry, and Kerning were more than capable of putting out any fires less serious than those of a world ending nature. 
Aside from expanding to house her new staff–adding rooms, barracks, and a frankly unnecessary number of kitchens–the castle also seemed more than willing to accommodate Twilight’s personal wants and desires. As she walked, she passed entire wings dedicated to housing her massive and still growing collection of literature. One wing held several labs filled with equipment for chemistry and physics experiments, and another had five entire lecture halls devoted to math, philosophy, and the natural sciences. The School of Friendship was good for teaching, well, friendship and, to be fair, now also offered a comprehensive elementary education, but the castle was the premier destination in Equestria for advanced scholarship. 
Because of this, and because of her penchant for order, Twilight maintained strict rules regarding the use of these facilities. Primarily, her personal kitchen was still only hers, accessible only by Twilight, Spike—though these days he couldn’t actually fit through the door—Starlight, and the rest of the girls. In addition, her personal libraries only permitted those same individuals and, by necessity, Discord. Though, Twilight wasn’t entirely sure she could have kept him out even if she’d tried. Pinkie’s lessons necessitated a safe space, and the library was as good as any, with its myriad protective spells and incantations. Her personal labs, the study, and a few other locations all had physical barricades, magical protections, and carefully maintained visitation lists as well. 
The visitation lists extended to the public spaces as well and usually only included castle staff, the citizenry of Ponyville–she was their princess after all–, and visiting scholars and dignitaries. Though the last group was subject to a vetting process and required approval from Starlight or herself. All in all, it was her castle, in function as well as name. She chuckled and recalled a young and inexperienced alicorn who’d once wished desperately for a chance to play her part. 
“Eat your heart out,” she whispered to herself. 
“We don’t speak to ourselves in public,” Starlight said, stepping out from a hallway to join Twilight as she reached the stairs leading down to the castle foyer. “It frightens the staff.” She was followed by Strawberry, who was hiding a grin behind her clipboard. 
“Aha aha, Starlight. Very funny.” 
The old mare was wearing a purple, pinstriped, double breasted jacket embroidered with the symbol of her office. The outfit came with a hat too, but Starlight never wore it. Twilight tried not to think about how loosely the jacket seemed to fit her, and how thin and frail she looked standing in it, but as always, her thoughts betrayed her.
“Good morning, Princess,” Strawberry said, interjecting before Starlight could respond. “You have a busy schedule today. I took the liberty of writing it down and was on my way to deliver it to your study.” She held up her clipboard to demonstrate. 
Starlight frowned and shook her head. “You could have just sent it with a valet. It’s a schedule, not confidential correspondence.” 
“Since the Princess continues to refuse bringing even a token bodyguard with her during the day, I think it’s best to keep knowledge of her whereabouts at least somewhat restricted. The castle staff are prone to wagging tongues.” 
Twilight and Starlight both chuckled and the latter rolled her eyes. “If you had your way,” she said, “Twilight would be surrounded by a full honor guard everywhere she went, heralded by trumpets, and be draped in more finery than a Saddle Arabian prince.” 
“That’s an exaggeration, and you well know it, Mistress. But there’s nothing wrong with a bit of pomp and circumstance. Especially when it’s expected. The other princesses are always accompanied by their guards, and they wear at least their crowns, collars, and horseshoes wherever they go. No offense,” Strawberry continued, now directing her words at Twilight, “but this pauper princess image you’ve cultivated might be popular in Ponyville, but need I remind you of the frankly slanderous gossip that flies about the court in Canterlot?” 
Twilight laughed at that. The day she started caring what the overweening dignitaries in Celestia and Luna’s court thought of her was the day she retired her crown. As large as Canterlot was, she was still constantly amazed that it contained so much misplaced ego and snobbery. Besides, wearing her cape as she now was, she hardly looked like a pauper. Strawberry blushed but didn’t back down. 
“It is only proper.” 
“Come now,” Starlight said, grinning, “I’m sure there’s plenty to keep us occupied on that to-do list of yours.” 
“Actually,” Twilight said, adjusting her glasses, “I’m taking the day off. Well, some of it anyway.” 
Strawberry’s frown grew deeper, but Starlight perked up. 
“Oh? That’s not very Twilight of you.” 
Sometimes, Twilight thought, having one of your longest and closest friends serve as the head of your household wasn’t worth the constant ribbing, but other times, it was a tremendous comfort. Today, the comment found her in a good mood. 
“Paracelsus convinced me,” she said, giggling at Starlight and Strawberry’s expressions. “I was thinking I’d take a stroll around Ponyville. Maybe eat out for once. It’s been a while, after all.”
“Well, I’m not going to complain about that,” Starlight said, “but let me fetch my parasol first. It may be a cool morning, but that’s never stopped the sun from being a menace before.”
Strawberry sighed fatalistically, but soon enough, Starlight had fetched her parasol–a myrtle green lace-covered thing–and the three of them were on their way.
“Where exactly are we going?” Strawberry asked as they stepped out of the castle gates into the early morning mist, or at least the wispy remnants that still clung to the ground here and there in defiance of Celestia’s morning. It certainly made for a pretty and invigorating scene.
Twilight’s stomach rumbled loudly in response. “I think towards breakfast.” 
Starlight looked at Twilight and chewed her lip. “Not to start an argument, but if you really are just planning to walk around Ponyville willy-nilly, Strawberry might have a point. You could at least bring one guard. Maybe give one of the new ones something to do. That changeling Cercus or Captain Winter Shield both seem like they might relish the opportunity.” 
Twilight shot her a flat look. “At the risk of sounding arrogant, what is a guard or two going to do for me that I can’t do for myself, other than attract attention.” 
“Oh, yes, you’re right. Princess Twilight Sparkle casually trotting around town isn’t going to attract any attention at all. You could at least cast a glamour on yourself.” 
“Starlight, honestly,” Twilight said, slightly frustrated, “it’s Ponyville. I don’t know why you’re so worried some ne’er-do-well is going to stab me if I’m not watched over like a child. I promise, I’ll be fine.”
Starlight snorted at that. “Did you just use the phrase ne’er-do-well unironically?” she asked, eyebrow raised. Twilight blushed but wasn’t about to give Starlight the satisfaction of backtracking.
“So what if I did? It’s a perfectly acceptable phrase.” 
“Maybe for a vapid damsel in one of Rarity’s detective novels.” Starlight was clearly straining to keep herself from laughing. Twilight was about to deliver what she felt was a very scathing retort when she heard Strawberry laughing behind her. Perhaps it was a silly phrase. She held her tongue, sure that any protest would be turned against her, then sighed and shook her head. 
“Aww. Is somepony being sighful today?” Starlight said, patting Twilight on the shoulder. 
“If I’m not mistaken,” Strawberry said, “sighful isn’t really a word.” 
“Actually,” Twilight answered, ignoring Starlight and relishing the opportunity to share an interesting fact, “language is ever changing, and prescriptivist attitudes towards vocabularies and grammar are not only antiquated but also not very helpful. It’s incredibly interesting, really. So long as a meaningful number of a conversation’s participants understand what a word means, given the context of the situation, the word may be considered real.” She smiled and nodded, proud of her little lecture. “Isn’t that a liberating thought?” 
Starlight laughed at that, and Strawberry shook her head, clearly amused with Twilight’s response.  
“It doesn’t really matter,” Starlight said, age having done nothing to reduce her smugness, “because I assure you that sighful is very much a real word.” 
“Hmpf, I guess we’ll see when we get back to the castle and a dictionary,” Strawberry said. Twilight bit her lip and did her best to refrain from telling the young unicorn that Starlight was right. All her decades as a princess had taught her that nopony liked being wrong, no matter how sensible the correcting party’s argument was. It was a silly affectation of silly ponies, in her opinion. 
The path into Ponyville from the Castle of Friendship ran alongside the train tracks from Canterlot. They both crossed over a dam near the castle, then snaked south back towards the river and the town. The road to Ponyville split off there while the train tracks crossed over the river again and passed through a large tunnel in the cliffside before entering Ponyville proper. 
Twilight didn’t often walk to town, but when she did, she was reminded that it hadn’t always been this way. The fact that her presence had literally reshaped the very land itself–most often in quick bursts of unwelcome cataclysmic change–was humbling. Of course, she was very seldom directly responsible, but the reanimated spirit of Grogar hadn’t attacked Ponyville just because he felt like it. Neither had any of the other magical calamities that frequently beset the town done so by happenstance.
As they neared the town, Twilight spotted one of her sentry orbs in the grass next to Sugar Beet’s house. It was perfectly circular and made out of magenta magic, though it was hard to the touch and virtually indestructible. There were one hundred and ninety-nine more just like it spread across town. During the day, they were inert, sleeping somewhere out of the way, but at night, they floated around Ponyville and its outskirts, keeping an eye on things for Twilight and warning her if something was amiss. They were based on the magic she’d used to make the orbuculum, though these ones were far cruder and fulfilled a fundamentally different purpose.
Starlight was not a fan, often arguing for their removal, and Twilight couldn’t blame her. Whenever she saw one, she felt a twinge of guilt inside, but it was a price she was willing to pay if it meant her little ponies stayed safe. If nothing else, it greatly reduced her anxiety.
“Auntie!” 
Twilight looked up from the orb just in time to see a small brown pegasus colt come hurtling through the air towards her. Little Flash Flood threw himself around her neck and gave her the strongest hug his short forelegs could muster. 
Twilight laughed, and so did Starlight, but Strawberry shook her head, no doubt disapproving of the impropriety. Another pegasus, a young mare who appeared to be a few years older, came rushing after Flash Flood, calling his name and looking rather distressed.
When she reached them, she stopped for a moment to catch her breath, taking the opportunity to bow to Twilight and apologize.
“I’m so sorry, Princess. You know how Flash is. He can’t seem to remember what’s proper and what isn’t!” The last part of the statement was clearly directed at the colt who let go and hovered away from Twilight, pouting. Twilight chuckled at that too. He was really quite cute.
“I’m sorry, Auntie.” Flash said, before turning on his older sister. “But she doesn’t mind. Do you?” He turned back to Twilight with the biggest puppy dog eyes she had ever seen. 
“No, of course not,” Twilight said, patting Flash on the head. “And honestly, Jet Stream, you should know better than to worry about things like that.” 
Jet pawed at the ground with a hoof, her periwinkle face reddening. 
“I, well… Mrs. Cake says it’s inappropriate in public. The hugging, I mean, and not calling you Princess.” 
Twilight sighed, annoyed and a bit disheartened, and Flash Flood too looked somewhat deflated. Fortunately, Starlight came to the rescue. 
“Priscilla Cake is a bitter and jealous old crone, and I’d have thought you knew better than to listen to anything she has to say.” 
“Starlight!” 
“What? I’m right, Twilight. Don’t try to deny it.” 
“Yes, well, it’s still not a very nice thing to say in front of the children.” 
Jet Stream was giggling, and Flash had perked up noticeably, ears standing straight up and wings flapping excitedly. 
“Auntie Twilight, what’s a crone?” he asked. 
See, Twilight mouthed, shooting Starlight an admonishing glare, to which the latter simply rolled her eyes. Surprisingly, to both of them, Strawberry was the one who answered. 
“A crone is an old mare who is usually considered ugly, disagreeable, and malicious. I think we can all agree that Mrs. Cake succeeds in each regard.” 
Jet Stream placed her hooves over her mouth and was clearly holding back laughter, but Flash just looked confused, struggling to decipher several of the new words Strawberry had just introduced him to. 
“Anyway,” Twilight said, wanting to steer the conversation in a different direction. It was true that Priscilla Cake had fallen a long way off from the Cake family tree when it came to agreeableness, but she was hardly ugly, and bad mouthing ponies behind their back was a poor precedent to set, regardless. Rainbow Dash might not care, but Applejack would be none too pleased to find that Twilight had encouraged her grandchildren to speak ill of somepony. 
“We were going to go find some breakfast,” she continued, smiling at Jet Stream, “I thought we could visit Anise Seed at Sugarcube Corner, if you’d like to join us?” She’d hoped they would, but as soon as she asked, the two of them blushed and decided that the grass in front of Twilight’s hooves was suddenly very interesting to stare at. 
“Haha, yeah, I mean no, we can’t. I mean…” Jet Stream petered out and Twilight narrowed her eyes at the young mare. 
“Flash?” she asked, turning her attention to the still hovering colt. “Are the two of you perhaps supposed to be somewhere else right now?”
Flash looked panicked, clearly unwilling to lie to his favorite aunt and princess but also not wanting to spill whatever secret the two of them were keeping. Before he could say anything, a deafening boom rang out across the roofs of Ponyville, followed by a rainbow colored shockwave that rattled shutters and knocked at least a few shingles to the ground. Jet Stream and Flash Flood moved as one, diving quickly under a chuckling Twilight and hiding between her legs from the approaching consequences of their actions. 
A second later, a sudden strong wind announced the arrival of Rainbow Dash, who looked both tired and annoyed. She was wearing her navy flight jacket over an orange turtle-neck and had her hair tied up in a medium-length ponytail. Rainbow was a diminutive pony, even by pegasus standards, but she carried herself with so much natural bravado and confidence that she always seemed larger than life. Though she usually wore her reflective sunglasses when she was out and about, she’d elected to leave them hanging off the collar of her jacket, probably because it was hard to stare daggers into your misbehaving grandchildren when your eyes were covered. 
When she spotted them cowering under Twilight, she closed her eyes and sighed, rubbing a hoof against her temple. 
“Hi, Twilight,” she said, ignoring Flash and Jet. 
“Hello, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight answered, laughing. “Can I help you with something?” 
Rainbow rolled her eyes, but then she laughed as well. “Yeah, actually. I seem to have misplaced a couple of snot-nosed kids, which is weird, because I’m pretty sure I remember them promising to help their mom and Applejack in the pear orchard today.” 
Twilight looked down at the siblings, guilty grins on their faces, and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Did they now?” she asked. 
“We’re sorry,” Jet murmured, and though her brother looked as if her confession was the gravest of betrayals, she crawled out from under Twilight and continued. “We just wanted to see the deer. Lieutenant Linden said they were visiting today, and… I’m sorry, Grandma Dash.” 
“Well,” Dash said, landing in front of them, “now that I’m working in Ponyville again, I guess I could take you to see them this afternoon. I’ll be home anyway.” When she saw the hopeful looks on their faces though, she frowned and quickly added “After you help Stormbird and Applejack with the pears. And don’t think you can slack off! I’ll be checking in with your mom to make sure you actually did the work.” 
“Yes, Gramgram!” Flash exclaimed, flying out from under Twilight. 
“Yes, Grandma Dash,” Jet Stream added, much more subdued but still looking somewhat excited. 
“Well?” Rainbow said. “Get going.” 
The two young pegasi nodded their heads and took off back towards Sweet Apple Acres at a remarkable speed. Nothing near as fast as Rainbow Dash, of course, but Twilight wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised to find out that they could outrace almost anypony in Cloudsdale. Given a few years, Flash would be competing against Wonderbolts. 
“Urgh,” Rainbow said, sitting down and taking a deep breath. “I thought I was done with children after Trade Wind left home. They’re the worst, Twilight. Be happy you don’t have any.” 
“I’m sure,” Twilight said skeptically. “That’s why you offered to take them to see the deer even though they were breaking their promise to Applejack. Because you hate them so much.” 
“What the hay, Twilight? I didn’t say I hate them. Just, you know, they’re a lot. Besides, I’m supposed to spoil them. I thought that was the whole point of having grandkids.” She paused and chewed her lower lip. “Stormbird and Trade Wind never got to meet mom and dad, you know. We were already so old when we had them. I don’t want Jet and Flash to miss out on spending time with me and Applejack.” 
Twilight nodded. She knew very well the lengths to which Applejack and Rainbow Dash would go for their family, and she didn’t begrudge them that. 
“So, what’s this about the deer?” she asked, changing the topic. 
“And Linden,” Starlight added. “What’s she doing hanging out at Sweet Apple Acres?” 
Rainbow grinned at that. “Oh, well, she seems to have a crush or something on Trade Wind. Except Trade’s never home, so Linden mopes around the farm on her days off, just in case.” 
Twilight quickly went over the guard’s schedule in her head, and it seemed that Linden did indeed have the day off. Several days in a row, actually. That was curious. 
“Anyway,” Rainbow continued, “she said there was a caravan from her homeland visiting Ponyville today. The kids got curious, I guess.” 
“Oh, that’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Twilight said. 
“Would you like to go visit them, Princess?” Strawberry asked. “It seems like the sort of educational experience you would cherish.” 
“It does, and I definitely do. But first, I need to eat.” Which turned out to be an accurate statement, because as soon as she stopped speaking, her stomach once again growled loudly, much to Starlight and Rainbow’s delight. 
“We were heading to Sugarcube Corner,” Starlight said, “if you want to join us.” 
“Yes,” Strawberry added. “The Princess has decided to take the day off, against my advice. That said, your company, as always, would be appreciated.” 
Rainbow shook her head. “Can’t. I gotta go play babysitter to Twilight’s guards. First day and all.” 
Twilight hesitated at that. She’d taken the day off without really thinking much about it, and until she ran into Jet Stream and Flash Flood, she’d completely forgotten that today was Rainbow’s first day as Commanding Officer of the Ponyville Royal Guard. Would it be better if she returned to the castle grounds with Rainbow Dash? Her friend was tremendously competent, but it might be seen as irresponsible for Twilight to be absent, at least for today. 
“Don’t worry, Twilight,” Rainbow said, having clearly guessed her thoughts. “You’ve only got a hoofful of those meatheads up at the castle. It’s nothing I can’t handle, and if something does go wrong, I’ll just come find you.”
“Are you sure? I feel like I should be there.”
“Relax, Twilight. Go get some food and enjoy your day. I’ve got this.”
Twilight sighed but had to admit that Rainbow Dash was probably right. The whole reason they’d decided on this arrangement was precisely because of how much she trusted her. Well, that and the fact that Rainbow was as qualified for the position as it was possible to be.
“Alright. But promise me you’ll come find me if there are any problems. I know many of the guards served with you in Canterlot, but some of the creatures from outside Equestria might be a bit… uhm, awestruck? Just be mindful, please.”
Rainbow Dash laughed at that and saluted her. “Sure thing, Princess.” She hopped into the air, and before Twilight had time to blink, she was gone.
They looked after her for a few seconds, despite the fact that she’d immediately disappeared from sight. 
“How fast do you think she can go?” Strawberry asked. “If she really applied herself.” 
“Fast enough,” Twilight answered. “Fast enough.” 
They walked the rest of the way to Sugarcube Corner making small talk that Twilight only paid partial attention to. Her mind had traveled with Rainbow Dash. Not because she was worried about the drills, though she was still a little worried, but because of a tugging longing sensation that stretched between Twilight and Rainbow Dash like Equestria’s longest rubber band, growing thinner and less present with distance. So, not like a rubber band at all, she thought to herself. Those eventually snapped. This sensation, this tension, would eventually fade away, and neither Twilight nor Rainbow would feel that anything at all was amiss. Which was true. Nothing was amiss, technically. 
The experience wasn’t unique to the two of them. She assumed it had something to do with being an Element of Harmony, and so all five of Twilight’s closes friends often felt this way when they drew near to one another or went their separate ways. It was an inexact nebulous thing, which frustrated her. Twilight much preferred things that were precise and measurable. As it stood, she could currently tell that Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were all somewhere in Ponyville, and that Pinkie and Rarity were somewhere far away, but even that level of certainty often eluded her. 
It had its downsides too, this strange connection, but Twilight forced herself not to dwell on it. Obsession was a personal fault of hers, and she had already blocked off specific time in her schedule each week to think about and work on this particular problem. 
“Monday and Wednesday night,” she whispered to herself, repeating a now tired mantra, “for three hours but never past midnight, and Sunday morning from five till nine.” 
Though Starlight and Strawberry had no doubt heard her muttering to herself, they were kind enough not to comment on it. It was a regular occurrence, after all. Sometimes, the best defense against an anxious heart was simply to state out loud the process and the facts as they stood. Nopony familiar with her, as the citizens of Ponyville were, ever remarked on how often the Princess spoke to herself in public. She was an alicorn, and a certain amount of eccentricity was to be expected. 
They arrived at Sugarcube Corner to find the place sparsely populated. A young donkey named August was engaged in a quiet chess match with Ember Fords, a smart and mild-mannered earth pony who was married to the current proprietor of Sugarcube Corner. Said proprietor, a short rosy-cheeked pony by the name of Anise Seed, was crouched behind the counter and was placing freshly baked blueberry turnovers into the glass display case. 
Anise Seed was short, well-fed, and full of love for everypony. Her chestnut mane was a curled up tangle that, paired with her brilliant smile, well betrayed her lineage. Her children, Poppy Seed and Vanilla Bean, were currently helping her by bringing more trays of baked goods out from the kitchen. 
When the three of them walked in, Ember Fords raised a hoof in greeting, but said nothing and kept his eyes on the chess board. Likewise, Poppy and Vanilla continued their work with only quick nods in Twilight’s direction. Anise, however, stood up straight and beamed brightly at Twilight. 
“Aunt Twilight! It’s so nice to see you. You too, of course,” she added, turning her smile on Starlight and Strawberry. “Ooh, Auntie, don’t you feel wicked dragging poor old Starlight out of the castle and all the way down here just for a morning snack. Here, dearie, have a seat.” 
In the time it took her to say the words, Anise had pulled up three cushioned chairs to a small table near the counter and guided an amused Starlight over to one of them, all the while making sure the unicorn was comfortable and hadn’t overworked herself and didn’t need a little something extra in her morning coffee for her joints. Was she sure? It wouldn’t be any trouble at all. Twilight and Strawberry sat down as well, and after a laughing Starlight assured Anise that she was really quite fine, they ordered their breakfast. 
Twilight ordered a braided pastry filled with maple custard and covered with pecans. Despite of her hunger, she ate it slowly, watching as Pinkie’s progeny moved about Sugarcube Corner and attended their duties. They baked, cleaned, and helped the occasional customer, most of whom stared openly at Twilight or shot her glances they must have imagined were well disguised. Even after all these years, it was a strange and disorienting thing to look at Pinkie’s granddaughter, a mare who appeared physically older than Pinkie herself, and realize that she had lived a good and full life in what felt like only the blink of an eye to Twilight. 
Anise wasn’t old by any stretch of the imagination, but she had two children grown enough to help her with her work. Four generations under one roof, with one member who didn’t quite fit into the puzzle the way all the rest of them did. Twilight wondered if Pinkie felt the same way she did in moments like this, like she was passing out of time, slowly growing less and less connected to the ponies around them. Maybe not. This was Pinkie’s family, after all. Twilight thought of Cadance and Flurry. She loved them both deeply, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t quite the same. Why wasn’t it the same? Distance? 
What about Starlight or the girls? Well, Starlight was close to her, but there was such a terrible looming expectation there, and the girls were different. Not family, but something else that was hard to define. Spike at least felt tangible to her, near to her in the same way Shining and her parents had, but he was so often away on errands or busy with this task or another. She only had herself to blame for that though, since she was the one who kept sending him away.
She noticed her breath had grown rapid and shallow, so–as she finished her pastry–she counted five things she could see, four things she could touch, three she could hear, two she could smell, and one thing she could taste. She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes. All was well, she told herself. The world was real, and the shadows were silent.


-


The deer weren’t difficult to find, though she’d forgotten to ask Rainbow Dash where they’d set up camp. There was a large meadow north of Sweet Apple Acres and west of the path into town and judging by the direction Flash and Jet Stream had been walking when they ran into them, it seemed a likely location. Sure enough, as they drew near, Twilight spotted a large gathering of caravan wagons. 
They were decorated with flowers and branches that seemed almost to grow out of the wagons themselves and were arranged in a circle so that the area behind them was completely obstructed from view. Many of the flowers and leaves adorning the wagons seemed to glow faintly in the morning light and, more incredibly, were humming a gentle and quiet tune. Twilight found that she quite liked the way the enchantments on the wagons resonated with her horn. The best word she could think of for the sensation was pleasant. She steered her friends towards a gap in the makeshift wall. 
“I’ve never seen flowers like this before. Whatever is making them glow like that isn’t regular magic.” Strawberry’s comment was made with innocent intent, but it rubbed Twilight the wrong way. 
“Just because it isn’t unicorn magic doesn’t mean it isn’t regular magic,” said Starlight. 
“There are many more creatures in the world than just unicorns, or ponies for that matter” Twilight added, trying to sound affable and not reproachful, “and most of them have some magic of their own.” 
Strawberry looked thoughtful for a moment. These were things she already knew but tended to forget. The same was true for Kerning and many other ponies as well. Many of them viewed the world through a very specific lens, and it was hard to shake that sometimes. Twilight was sure Strawberry was about to respond, but as they neared the entrance between the wagons, they were interrupted by a mule deer who planted herself firmly in their way, barring entry to the camp. 
The slate gray deer was tall and regal, with a crown of woven ribes perched between her large ears. The dark green twigs were peppered with ripe berries in red, black, and white that hung down around her head and over her brow. The draping crown framed a pair of large pale eyes, which seemed both coolly confident and fiercely curious. They made her appear at once immensely knowledgeable and entirely innocent. Twilight found the effect quite striking. 
Besides her crown, the deer wore nothing but a leather brace strapped around her front left leg. Twilight couldn’t tell if it served a medical or utilitarian purpose, or if it was simply decorative. There were runes stamped into its edges, and Twilight was both excited and a little bit annoyed by the fact that she couldn’t recognize the script. She did, however, recognize the deer. 
Linden bowed her head deeply towards the ground in a graceful curtsy. When she spoke, her voice was clear and pleasant, like early spring snowmelt running through a mountain brook. 
“Welcome, Starchild,” she nodded towards Twilight’s companions, “and friends.”
“Hello, Linden,” said Twilight, smiling. 
Linden was one of the more private members of her guard, having revealed very little about herself during her years of service to Twilight. Very little aside from an immense talent for healing and the application of force fields and nature-based magic. Twilight had more effective ways of determining trustworthiness and loyalty than a background check could offer, so she felt secure in allowing her guards as much privacy as they desired. 
That said, Twilight was certainly curious. She’d spent some time in Thicket with King Aspen–and later King Bramble–but she knew that Linden and her group weren’t from the Everfree Forest. She didn’t recognize the make of their wagons, nor did their magic feel alchemical, which, as far as she knew, was the only kind of magic the Everfree deer could use. 
Despite the incongruities in Linden’s application, Fluttershy had pushed hard for admittance on the grounds that the essay on healing magic that accompanied it was exemplary. Twilight didn’t know as much about healing as Fluttershy, but she’d been impressed as well and was very happy she’d agreed. The doe had proved her mettle beyond any doubt several times over. 
“This is an impressive gathering,” Starlight said, gesturing to the wagons. “You should have let us know they were coming. I’m sure Twilight would have loved to be here to greet them.” 
“Ah, well, yes. I didn’t want to bother you with this, Princess. It’s a private matter between me and the Seeker of my grove. When she announced her intent to travel here, my people decided to make a pilgrimage of it. I’m Warden of the Circle, you see.” She looked around herself and giggled, a sound like sleigh bells on a winter morning. “And also, it seems, this smaller circle.” She gestured towards the wagons and smiled kindly. “Besides, you live here, Princess. I think they might have come just for that.” 
Twilight noticed that despite her friendly words and genteel demeanor there was something quite solid about her posture, giving the distinct impression that Linden was not planning on letting them pass. Before Twilight could ask her if something was wrong, she continued.
“You’ll have to excuse me for barring the way. It’s not my place to tell a princess where she may or may not go, but one of our does is currently birthing. She chose to do so here among her own, rather than going to the Ponyville hospital. I do not wish for her to be startled or disturbed by your presence, which is, after all, rather… impressive.”
Twilight heard Starlight chuckle and frowned at her friend. Linden looked somewhat surprised by the exchange but didn’t say anything. 
“Don’t worry, Linden. As my snarky friend here just demonstrated, there’s no need for so much formality. We didn’t mean to disturb, and we’ll of course not intrude if you don’t want us to.” 
Twilight’s casual attitude seemed to be putting Linden off her stride a bit. “That’s gracious of you,” she said. 
Twilight decided it was probably best to leave. She was dying to know what a Warden of the Circle was, and what function a Seeker served, but she didn’t want to keep Linden if the birthing doe required her aid. Before she could say goodbye though, Strawberry chimed in with her own question.
“Are you excited to be back with your friends and family again? I imagine it must get lonesome sometimes being away from them here in Ponyville.” There was a slight gleam in her eyes that at first surprised Twilight before making her cross. Strawberry had been less than enthused about the lack of “proper background checks”, as she called it. 
It didn’t matter to her that Applejack and Rainbow Dash had functioned as excellent detectors of deceit and ill-will, in fact, she’d made it quite clear she thought that trusting such serious issues to the providence of poorly understood magical intervention was irresponsible at best and completely idiotic at worst. Neither did it matter to her that Linden had served with distinction for the better part of three years now. Twilight sighed, and Starlight shot her a meaningful glance.
“Of course, I do miss them, and it’s wonderful to see the Seeker and my friends again, but I’m happy to be here. Serving the Starchild is a tremendous honor, and the joy and pride I feel in fulfilling that task eases the longing. Nowadays, I think of Ponyville as my true home.”
Again, Strawberry looked thoughtful, but Twilight had a mind to talk to her sternly when she had time and they were alone back at the castle. 
“We’ve kept you long enough, Linden. I hope all goes well, and if you or your visitors need anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Of course, Princess. May the stars watch over you.” Linden bowed then turned and walked away. Twilight too made to leave when she felt a familiar tug on her heart from somewhere among the wagons. Ah, she thought to herself, perhaps it wasn’t her casual attitude that had put Linden off her stride after all. She forced herself to continue walking, heading back towards the castle and ignoring the faint stretching feeling that called on her to stay. 
“You’re a good friend, Linden,” she whispered under her breath. Her shadow grinned wickedly, but Twilight ignored her and joined in on Starlight and Strawberry’s conversation. They were talking about travel and how difficult it was without magic or flight, which was a fascinating topic that Twilight could easily get lost in. And so, with a deep breath of determination, she allowed herself to do just that, putting hurtful things aside for another time.


-


Fluttershy looked up from the sweat-soaked doe breathing heavily on the blanket before her. Linden had returned to the circle and looked tremendously unhappy. Fluttershy sighed and busied herself with the task at hand, not wanting to look Linden in the eye. 
“I did as you asked, but I don’t think it was right to bar the Starchild from entering our camp.” 
“Mhmm.” Fluttershy said, busy making sure that Thistle, the birthing doe, wasn’t bleeding too badly. After giving some instructions to a bright-eyed fawn who’d been assisting her, she walked over to a cleaning trough to wash her hooves. 
“It… it’s better like this,” Fluttershy said, finally meeting Linden’s accusing gaze. “I needed peace to work, and your friend needs space and privacy.” Fluttershy felt a tightening in her stomach but reminded herself that lies of omission weren’t so bad, no matter what Applejack said. 
Linden raised a skeptical eyebrow but didn’t pursue the issue further. “Will Thistle be alright?” she asked instead. 
“She’ll be fine.” She looked over as her fawn assistant, following Fluttershy’s previous orders, instructed Thistle on how to pace her breathing. “She’s strong, and she’s done this before. I just wanted to make sure the baby was facing the right way and that there weren’t any co… co…” she bit down, took a deep breath, and forced the word out, “complications.” She tried to smile at Linden. Childbirth could be grizzly business, but Fluttershy had always found the process of bringing life into the world a beautiful and sacrosanct thing. 
“You don’t like the Starchild?” Linden’s question sounded a bit too much like an accusation, but Fluttershy felt obliged to answer anyway. 
“I love Twilight very much, Linden. She’s dearer to me than most.” 
“Then why did you not wish to see her? Why have me send her away when by rights and tradition, I should have invited her into our camp?” 
Fluttershy could feel the violent and persistent twitch in her left cheek returning and grimaced at the ground, trying to hide her face while waiting for it to pass. Linden, mistaking the grimace for a response to her question, bowed her head and apologized. 
“I am sorry, it is not my place to challenge a request from the Element of Kindness.” 
Fluttershy waved her hoof dismissively. “No, I’m sorry Linden. I’m not frowning at you. I have ne... nerve damage in my face, and it’s difficult to deal with sometimes.” 
“Is there anything I can do to help? I may not have your talent, but I am an accomplished healer among my people.” The look of genuine concern on Linden’s face touched Fluttershy’s heart, and she did her best to smile as kindly as she could to illustrate how much the offer meant. 
“Thank you, but there’s nothing to be done. It’s an old and magical injury. Trust me. If I can’t heal it, and my husband can’t heal it, it can’t be healed at all.” 
Linden nodded gravely and bowed to Fluttershy. “Thank you for looking after Thistle, and for concerning yourself with our struggles. It is an honor beyond measure to have you walk among us.” 
Fluttershy giggled at the doe’s sincerity. She was a very severe creature. “It was my pleasure.
> Part I - Ch. IV - What You Have Done to the Least of These
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





“The future should be filled with magic
Dreams and wishes brought to life
But the days ahead are dark and tragic
No time for hope when all is strife”


- Spirit of Hearth's Warming Yet to Come







100 EoH


Rarity lay in her bed at home in her room on the second floor of the Carousel Boutique. No… not her bed and not the boutique. This was a better bed. Much better. Luxurious silks and satins caressed every inch of her body, and dappled beams of sunlight–mauve, periwinkle, and gold–danced their slow kaleidoscopic dance across her face. Somepony lay next to her, radiant in every way, mane tossed carelessly across the pillows, beads of sweat pearling on her neck and brow.
This other pony was sleeping. Her soft warm breath tickled Rarity’s face and ruffled a few strands of wayward mane that had fallen across her cheek during the night. A blissful peace swelled in her heart. At that moment she was possessed by an unshakable conviction. This was her true home. Here, all was as it should be. 
“Why do you keep doing this?” 
“What?” Rarity turned around in her chair to look at Fluttershy, who was standing in the middle of her inspiration room. It was much less messy than normal, and instead of patterns, fabrics, and sewing tools, there was a stack of music theory books and several annotated pages of sheet music on her desk.  
“It’s too much, Rarity.” Fluttershy sounded frustrated more than angry. “You don’t have to do this.” 
Rarity scoffed loudly–too loudly–and turned back to her work, but she couldn’t hide the redness in her eyes and the tension in her jaw from her best friend. Next to the books on her desk stood a small frame with a picture of a blushing Twilight Sparkle cheek to cheek with a grinning earth pony. Even though his face had been violently scribbled over with red ink, a flowing evergreen mane and a pristine coral-colored coat were still visible around the edges. 
“It’s a gift,” she mumbled to herself as much as to Fluttershy. No sooner had the words left her mouth than her cutie mark began to grow hot and glow. It only lasted for the briefest moment, not even a second, but her friend noticed. 
“Rarity…” Fluttershy walked up to her and hugged her from behind. “It’s too much.” 
Rarity felt the tears on her cheeks before she even realized she was crying. “It’s a gift,” she sobbed. “How can I say no when all she did was ask for a gift?” 
“Why are you crying?” Sweetie Belle asked, looking at Rarity over the book she’d been reading. Rarity stopped mid motion, teacup halfway to her mouth. Why had she been crying? 
They were sitting in Sweetie’s office at the School of Friendship, enjoying a light lunch and a cup of tea. As busy as they both were, moments like this were rare, though they were becoming more and more common as Sweetie grew older. She was still the principal of Twilight’s school, but she’d been doing the job for so long now that most of her duties had been delegated to a cadre of aids, school functionaries, and teachers. Sweetie really only had to check in every now and again to ensure things ran smoothly and that nothing had gone off the rails. The reality was that Rarity was the busy one, or at the very least, the busier one, and more and more she felt guilty for the times she had to decline Sweetie’s invitations to spend time together. 
“I was thinking about Timber,” Rarity found herself saying. “Did you know Thracians can use magic even though they’re earth ponies?” 
Sweetie sighed and put down her book. “Rarity, earth ponies can use magic.” 
“Yes, yes, I know, but I mean that they can cast spells, like unicorns do. I think it’s somewhat limited, but still.” 
Sweetie Belle looked amused but refrained from laughing. “Yes, I did know. Swift Foot used to demonstrate every time she came to visit Canterlot. Cozy Glow hates it.” 
Rarity grimaced and looked down at her hooves. “Yes, well, Twilight won’t shut up about it,” she said, surprised at the venom in her words. 
“Rarity!” 
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, dear.” Twilight Velvet’s voice was gentle and kind. “That was beautiful.” 
Rarity was seated in a comfortable armchair in the Sparkles’ living room, holding her well-polished guitar. Night Light and Twilight Velvet sat opposite her on their couch. 
“I wanted you to hear it first,” she said. “Twilight asked me to write something for the wedding, and I… I just wanted you to hear it first.”
“Well, I thought it was just lovely,” said Night Light, grinning.
“What was lovely?” asked a voice from the hallway that made Rarity’s blood turn cold. “Oh, Rarity!” Twilight Sparkle said, stepping into the living room shoulder to shoulder with a very tall and very handsome earth pony. His name was Timber Spruce, Prince of Thrace, and most recently, he was Twilight’s fiancé. 
“I didn’t know you were coming over,” Twilight continued. She looked down at Rarity’s guitar and then back up at Rarity with wide eyes and an excited smile. “Did you finish the song?” 
Rarity stared at Twilight for several long seconds. She stared at her large curious eyes, her bright smile, and at her shoulder, which brushed easily against Timber’s. The room around them seemed to dim until the only light was Twilight and everypony else disappeared. She felt her breath catch. She couldn’t do this. It’s a gift, you have to! Her cutie mark burned, and so, she found, did her eyes. She could feel the tears coming. No. Not now. Please, anything but that!
Twilight’s smiling face turned concerned, and that was more than she could bear. Rarity fled. Leaving the guitar behind, she ran. She ran past a startled Twilight and through the Sparkle’s door, and not until she saw Twilight materialize in front of her, did she remember she could teleport. With a loud crack she was gone, and where she went, not even Twilight could find her.
A strong lurching motion rocked her awake from her guilt-ridden dream. She rubbed her eyes and rolled over in her tiny wall-mounted cot. Pinkie was already awake and was brushing her teeth over the steel sink they’d been forced to share. She met Pinkie’s eyes in the mirror over said sink before shoving her face back into her pillow. 
“Morning, Rarity! Did you sleep well? You were, uhm, making noises.” 
Rarity flung her pillow at Pinkie’s head with all the force her newly wakened horn could muster, which was to say, not much. It struck true, but Pinkie just giggled and threw it back. 
“Breakfast is on in ten,” she said. “I know you like to take your time, but I think you’d better hurry. They didn’t make very much yesterday, and that Willow Spark has a super big appetite.” 
Willow Spark was a kirin and one of only two other passengers on the commercial fishing vessel they’d booked passage on. Not many ships travelled between Parish-By-The-Sea and Baltimare, so pickings had been slim.
Rarity sat up and stared miserably at the wall. She hated that dream. If she’d been less prideful, she’d have asked Luna to get rid of it a long time ago. At least, that’s what she told herself. She wasn’t embarrassed, and she certainly wasn’t willing to put up with the rest of the dream just because it started out so… nice. She groaned at her own weakness and pushed herself out of the cot. 
“See you at breakfast,” Pinkie said, smiling at Rarity as she bounced out of their little room. It only took Rarity twenty minutes to get ready, which in her opinion was a blistering pace. She was about to head out to join Pinkie when she noticed the book on morse code sticking out from her bag. She’d neglected it for two whole days. She had several large orders waiting for her when she got back to Carousel Boutique, and she’d been busy drawing up designs and going over the budget reports that Haute Pommel had sent her through Spike. She grabbed both the book and the mysterious letter before leaving. 
Pinkie was on her third helping of pancakes when Rarity stepped into the cramped kitchen. Willow Spark and their other travel companion, an old and rather gruff looking unicorn called Sinker, were nowhere to be seen. 
“It seems I should I worry more about you than Willow Spark, Pinkie. Did you leave any pancakes for me?” 
Without looking up from her own meal, Pinkie pulled a plate covered in a dinged-up cloche over and placed it in front of Rarity, who was just getting seated on the bench across from her. 
“An orange and two pancakes with blueberry syrup. I peeled the orange for you.” 
Rarity smiled tenderly at Pinkie. “Darling, you know me so well.” 
Trying to eat and translate morse code at the same time proved futile, so Rarity downed her meal as quickly as propriety allowed and retired to the deck to see if she could make heads or tails of the letter. She felt suddenly possessed by an urgent need to know what it said and could scarcely believe she’d been so unconcerned with it for two full days. What if it contained some ominous warning or threat? Though the sender really shouldn’t have encrypted it if it was time sensitive, she thought, or they should have at least indicated in some way that time was off the essence. 
For some reason she didn’t understand, there were a multitude of cushioned lounge chairs spread across the deck near the bow. Still, it was a blessing since the fishing operations were primarily handled on the afterdeck, and this allowed the passengers some reprieve from the smell, but Rarity had no idea why the captain felt he needed so many of them. The wizened old pony had seemed genuinely surprised at having even just four passengers for this trip. 
The sky was bright and blue, and the breeze was salty and brisk but not strong enough to be a nuisance. Rarity had brought a large sun hat with her that she cinched tightly beneath her chin—it had been a gift from Fluttershy, and it wouldn’t do to have it fly overboard—and wore a pair of yellow shades as well. She knew she should be using her red sewing glasses which worked excellently for reading, but the sun-glare off the ocean waves was too strong for anything but shades. 
Translating the message turned out to be easier than she’d expected. Her biggest obstacle was simply keeping the letter from blowing away in the wind. 
“Who’s Salt?” Pinkie asked, while glancing over Rarity’s shoulder from the adjacent lounge chair. 
“I haven’t the foggiest idea, Pinkie. I’m not even sure it’s referring to anypony specific. It might just mean… salt?” The message had been short and read as follows: “Hollow Shades beware of salt”, which seemed to Rarity both frustratingly vague and intentionally obtuse. “Whoever sent this has certainly got a flair for the dramatic.” She’d copied down the translation under the original message and placed the letter on the inside of the front cover of the morse code book. “This is useless right now. Best just to hold on to it and give it to Twilight when we get home.” 
Pinkie scrunched her eyebrows together and tapped her mouth with her hoofs a few times. “Maybe we should just go to Hollow Shades and see if anything happens?” 
Rarity gave Pinkie a flat and unimpressed stare. “You can’t be serious.” 
The pink pony shrugged her shoulders and made a non-committal sound. 
“Pinkie, we’ve been away from Ponyville and the others for almost six weeks now. Six weeks! I want to… no I need to go home. And frankly, so do you. You know we get… odd when we’re away from each other for too long.” It was true. It had taken them several years to figure out that their so-called friendship missions always required at least two of them not only because of their unique talents, but also to keep them, well, normal was the only word Rarity knew to describe it. 
The table-map-thing in Twilight’s castle had stopped sending them on missions decades ago, and with no formal structure but Twilight’s discretion and the needs of the citizenry to determine where to go, their missions had grown longer. They’d often travel alone, with a guard contingency, or sometimes with another friend and ally like Capper, Sunburst, Trixie, or even Fizzlepop Berrytwist. Fluttershy had gone on several missions with just Discord for company. 
Years after Twilight’s ascension, Pinkie had travelled to Yakyakistan to assist an aging Prince Rutherford set some things in order and prepare the court for the transfer of power to his son. Yona had come with her. Three months later, Yona had sent a letter to Ponyville asking for emergency assistance. 
They’d found Pinkie in a small shack from which none of the yaks had been able to move her. She’d been drawing intricate circles on the wall with multi-hued crayons that she kept pulling from her mane. She hadn’t eaten for several days and hadn’t responded to any of the yaks who tried to speak to her. 
Twilight had entered the room first, and as soon as she did, Pinkie had flung herself at the confused alicorn, weeping inconsolably. Several weeks of testing had revealed only a handful of concrete things. Firstly, the Elements of Harmony seemed somehow dependent on one another, and proximity was very much a factor. Secondly, this dependency seemed connected to the same magic that granted them their powers and longevity. That was about it. 
Twilight couldn’t say why they fell apart when they were separated for too long, or exactly how long they could be away from each other, or if there was any way to mitigate the effects. They all agreed that it was unfortunate but also agreed that they all loved each other very much and would try to make it work as best as they could. And they had. Incidents had thankfully been few and far between. The one time it had happened to Rarity… she shuddered and pushed the thought away. Twilight called it a curse, and Rarity had to agree. 
Six weeks was not that long, especially when there were two of them, but Rarity wanted very much to return home and feared–rightfully–how long they might get side-tracked if they pursued this mystery alone. 
“Yeah, you’re right,” Pinkie conceded, looking considerably more morose than she usually did. 
“I just thought it might be fun, and...” 
“Darling, what is it?” 
“It’s just hard sometimes, to go home I mean. He... he doesn’t really recognize me anymore.” 
Rarity’s heart melted for her friend, and she grabbed Pinkie in a tight hug. “It’s ok,” she said. “I’m here.” 
“I feel so... so guilty for not wanting to see him.” Pinkie began to weep, and for once Rarity didn’t mind the tears soaking into her mane. “I’m a bad pony!” 
“No, no, hush. You’re a wonderful pony. It’s normal to be scared. You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.” She patted Pinkie’s tangled curls gently and kissed her on the head. Rarity continued to soothe Pinkie as best as she could, and they sat like that for the rest of the morning until long after her friend had calmed down. 
Sometimes, in her darker moods, Rarity felt certain that things would be better another hundred years from now when all their immediate friends and family had passed on and the specter of death didn’t hover menacingly over so many of their heads. And when she thought things like that, it was her turn to feel guilty. She wrestled down the pain in her chest before it paralyzed her, as it sometimes did.
The others all had their unique ways of dealing with, well, everything, and Rarity tried her best to not judge them for it. Applejack seemed permanently locked in a frown, speaking almost as little as Big Mac used to, and Rainbow Dash was barely sober enough on most days to fly in a straight line. Fluttershy was a mess, physically and mentally, and Pinkie suffered such swift and terrible mood swings she might as well be strapped to a roller coaster with a rocket on her back.
And Twilight… Oh, Twilight. Wonderful as their darling Princess was, she was beginning to scare them all just a little. When Rarity caught her in her unguarded moments, she could see in her eyes that same old manic energy from their younger years amplified a hundredfold, unsettling and focused like a lance. There was an unfamiliar intensity to her now that Rarity wished desperately to soothe. She just didn't know how. As for herself, she refused to get dragged down. She couldn’t help anypony if she didn’t keep a clear mind and a positive attitude. For her own benefit, and for the rest of the girls… she just had to soldier on.


-


Winter sat at one of the tables in the dining hall set aside for the guards and stared at his bowl of cold oatmeal. It hadn’t started off cold, and though he felt somewhat guilty about letting anything prepared by Asterope go to waste–that bird could cook something fierce–he just couldn’t get himself to eat. Something had been off ever since the other night during the anniversary celebration, and more and more it was affecting his appetite and his sleep. 
“You’ll get sick if you don’t eat, Captain. At least that’s what I gather from reading pony gastrological texts.” 
The speaker was a massive changeling named Cercus. He was covered in bronze and green chitinous plates and had one short horn on his nose and another longer one that curved forward and down from his brow. Winter had never seen a changeling like him, but he’d been inside Princess Twilight’s Hall of Entomology, and there had been a beetle there, much larger than all the rest, that had looked suspiciously similar to Cercus. He felt somewhat uncomfortable remembering that the beetle had been dead and pinned to the wall by a large needle. 
Winter had only known Cercus for a couple of months now, but he seemed like a reliable fellow, and for all his size and fierce appearance, he was likely the most studious and scholarly of all the creatures in the Twilight Guard. 
“I’ll be fine, Lieutenant. Just feeling a bit queasy is all.” 
Cercus chuckled at that. “Yes, I can certainly understand that. Our new CO has revealed to me the existence of muscles I didn’t even know I had. I’m starting to think her supernatural speed is less a product of magic and more the result of this nightmarish training.” 
It was true that Commander Dash had been running them absolutely ragged since she took over the Guard, but he was certain the disquieting nature of his mood had very little to do with her. He felt proud to say he’d handled everything she’d thrown at them so far, well, everything but the drinking. Thinking back to the first night when she’d taken him down to Berry’s he felt a phantom sickness in his stomach that did nothing to improve his appetite. 
“Yeah, no. It’s not Commander Dash or the training.” 
“What isn’t?” asked Linden, seating herself next to Cercus. 
“The Captain is feeling queasy,” Cercus said, gesturing towards Winter. 
“I can help with that,” the deer answered, “if you’d like me to.” 
Winter laughed and shook his head. “That’s real kind of you, Lieutenant, but no, I’m alright. I’ve just been feeling strange since the anniversary. Maybe I’m still embarrassed about that whole thing with the Princess.” 
Cercus chuckled–a deep a rumbling sound–and nodded. “Ah, yes. That was a good laugh. It is well that the Princess has a sense of humor. I think Princess Luna would not have been so carefree about it.” 
“I saw her the other day,” Linden said. “The Starchild, I mean, not Princess Luna.” 
Winter and Cercus both turned and looked at her. Cercus seemed attentive, waiting for a story, but Winter raised an eyebrow at her. 
“Yes. We all do, frequently. This is her castle.” 
Linden rolled her eyes and finished chewing on a granola bar she’d brought for breakfast. “I mean outside the castle. I was visiting with some of my people who came here on pilgrimage.” 
“Yes,” Cercus said, nodding, “I’d heard of that. That must have been a long and difficult journey. If I’m not mistaken, your people come from across the western sea?” 
Winter stared at Linden in surprise. He’d always assumed she was from Thicket, like most deer he’d met. Linden, in turn, seemed equally surprised with Cercus. 
“I… yes. How do you know that?” she asked. Cercus blushed at that and scratched the back of his head. “Ah, well, ugh, King Thorax used to let me study Chrysalis’ old archives, and they had quite detailed overseas invasion plans. They were mostly contingencies, you see, in case she failed to conquer Equestria.” 
“I see. Well, that’s neither here nor there.” 
Winter agreed. Chrysalis remained a stone statue in the Canterlot gardens, and she’d been there for longer than any of them had been alive. It was foolish to hold any current changelings responsible for the things that had happened during her reign. Well, most of them. There were splinter groups here and there that felt very strongly about the old ways. Sometimes, they made it everypony else’s problem. 
“So, what happened with the Princess,” he asked, wanting to hear the rest of the story. 
“The Saint had come to visit us. She was helping one of our does give birth when suddenly she looked up from her work and told me that the Starchild was drawing near. I assume she possesses some magical ability that lets her know. Strangely, she asked me to prevent the Starchild access to our camp and to send her on her way. I did as she instructed, but it was disconcerting. The Saint denies it, but I think they do not like each other very much." 
Winter was now very invested in the story. Not that he condoned gossip, but information about the private lives of the Elements of Harmony was hard to come by, and if their friendship was on shaky terms, that was a security risk the guards should be made aware of. He was so caught up in the potential dangers of the Elements of Harmony failing that he forgot his oatmeal had grown cold. He took a bite and immediately regretted it. Still, he swallowed the mushy substance with regret. No sense in wasting food. 
Cercus looked thoughtful as well, but before Winter could ask him for his thoughts, he volunteered them. 
“I do not think it is a matter of dislike. There was an incident many years ago, one which I’ve only heard rumors of. I hesitate to share them in case they turn out to be false or exaggerated.” 
His words did nothing to assuage Winter’s curiosity, and he could see that Linden wanted to know as well. Linden, it seemed, was a better creature then Winter, because after a moment she nodded and spoke. 
“That is admirable and correct of you, Cercus. The Principles of Harmony do warn against idle gossip.” The words were proper, but Winter could hear the regret in Linden’s voice. That made him laugh, but he couldn’t fault her. Gossiping was fun, even if the topics were often less than pleasant. 
They ate the rest of their breakfast, making small talk and complaining about the sort of things guards often complained about, and soon enough, they found themselves wandering out on the parade field behind the Castle of Friendship. The sun had yet to peak above the mountains, but the sky was turning rosy, heralding a chilly dawn.
The Twilight Guard was split into four companies, each with a captain and two lieutenants. The companies were further split into five squads made up of eight guards and one sergeant. Morning drills were done on a rotating schedule that often mixed together squads from various companies so as to ensure that the guards were at least passingly familiar with each other and could coordinate with any given unit in case of an emergency. 
This particular morning saw a large number of creatures from Winter’s company on the field and a few from Skarn’s. Skarn herself was a gargoyle of impressive stature, possessed of an almost religious devotion to the Princess. Zealous was the word that came to mind, but Winter liked her all the same. He respected competence, and she more than delivered on that front.
She was leaning against a purple candy-striped pole that was sometimes used for various exercises of speed or agility. 
“Winter,” she said, nodding at him.
“Skarn.”
“Commander Dash isn’t here yet. She’s always early.” 
Winter looked around, and sure enough, all the guards had already lined up, ready for whatever new and insane exercise the Element of Loyalty had in store for them, but said pegasus was nowhere to be seen. Like Skarn had mentioned, Commander Dash was always early. Or, well, seemed to be. They’d only had her as their Commanding Officer for a few days now, so who could really say if this was that uncommon? 
“Maybe she’s, you know…” Skarn held a claw up towards her mouth and mimicked a drinking motion. Linden looked offended, but Cercus nodded, and Winter wished he could say he hadn’t thought the same. 
“As funny as that would be, my dear Skarn,” said a raspy sing-song voice, “I’m afraid you’re quite wrong.” 
An elderly and, by the look of his eyes, severely jaundiced unicorn appeared in front of the gathered guards with the tell-tale crack of teleportation. His coat was gray, he had a scraggly black and white beard, and his cutie mark was an upside down umbrella. He was also wearing a rather bizarre looking jacket made up of mismatching types of fabrics in brown, orange, and green. 
Skarn looked him over with a skeptical look and opened her mouth to say something, but Winter silenced her with a quick motion of his hoof. Skarn might not have recognized the pony, but Winter certainly did, and he suspected this morning’s drills might be the most challenging they’d experienced to date. 
“Now, now, Captain Winter,” said the unicorn with a wicked smirk on his face, “let Miss Skarn say whatever it is she wishes to say. I’m ever so curious.” 
Skarn looked uncomfortable and had apparently decided that expressing distrust or disparaging this strange looking newcomer in any way was not in her best interest, because she remained silent. 
“Not very sporting of you but wise, perhaps.” The unicorn shook his head and turned to face the gathered guards. “Rainbow is taking the morning off for personal reasons.” He rolled his eyes in an exaggerated motion at that but continued. “She asked me to fill in for her today, which I agreed to because I am a genuine and magnanimous friend. Still, it seems like most of you don’t recognize me like this. Perhaps a wardrobe change is in order.” 
And with that, the unicorn clapped his hooves together and seemed to explode outwards, elongating and growing. His legs disappeared, and he began forming new limbs and horns where before there had been none. It was a slow and grotesque display that was certainly meant to disturb them. Even knowing what he was looking at, Winter couldn’t deny that the effect was unsettling. Once he was finished, Discord looked down at the mostly horrified guards and laughed. He snapped his fingers, and a large orb of crackling yellow magic appeared in front of him. 
“Now, this is a little realm of chaos I made just for you. How about we go five at a time and see if you can make it back out unaided.” He bounced the orb against the grass a few times, making it grow with each bounce until it was large enough for a group of them to enter. “Oh, I hope you’re ready, because this will be so much fun.”  


-


The shadow was confused. So much about this place was confusing. Something old and dangerous was crawling around just out of sight, an echo of some sort, he thought. He was dangerous himself, but he’d only just been born… no… reborn? Brought back? The Speaker had called to him from across space and time, and he’d awakened in response. Slowly at first, shifting the dirt of eons off his shoulders, and with tremendous effort, he’d dug his way back to the surface. There he’d found light. That had been unexpected, and in the back of his mind, he’d realized there was something very wrong about that light, not to mention the grass-scented breeze and the twitter of birdsong accompanying it. 
He was inside a construct of chaos, and to him, that was perhaps the most confusing part. It was so pure–only chaos without the malice–and it all reeked of something… no, someone that shouldn’t have been able to exist in this place. It reeked of Harmony. That… that bitch! Of all the impossible horrible things! He gritted his teeth and tried to focus on his task. 
He’d been given a direct command, and the Master of Ceremonies wasn’t about to disappoint. After all, the Speaker had called him first. He’d be the one granted ascension, even if he had to stomp all over the others to get it, and oddly enough, this place was lousy with ichor. He could smell it even over the chaos, even over Harmony’s sugary burning stench. There were godlings here, and he so hoped he’d get to taste them. Orphic chuckled and melted back into the shadow. All he had to do was avoid the old thing and wait, and he was very good at waiting.
> Part I - Ch. V - Salted Wounds Never Fester
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





“Have you been having nightmares too?”
“Yes. Whenever I close my eyes, I’m haunted by those ghastly images!”


- Twilight and Rarity






Rarity wandered east across the sea, passing out of the world on her way into an ancient land. The compass hung around her neck, resting comfortably against her chest and glimmering with the reflected light of the brilliant waves and bright cloudless sky. The wind was strong but warm and carried with it the scent of old books and older ruins. A place of empty steppes and broken roads awaited her. 
The compass’ amethyst needle spun like a whirlwind in its orb, never settling on any of the five pearls. It didn’t matter. She knew where to go. She didn’t know how, but she knew. The world was bright and alive, and though she journeyed to an abandoned place of bygone eons, she marveled at how flush it was with nature’s breath. A primal magic lived there, and it called to her with a beautiful and comforting song. 
“Wait for me,” she whispered. “Wait for me, my sweet morning light.” 
Somewhere, a choir was singing.


-


Late summer in Baltimare was a rainier affair than she remembered. After laying in at Horseshoe Bay, they’d stopped in a small village just south of the city, a green place filled with trimmed hedges, well-kept flower beds, and dark trees heavy with lush foliage. Rarity was glad to be off the boat and away from the ocean. A lady could only do so much to stave off the harsh sun and salty winds of the open sea, and she was partial to the rain anyway. She hadn’t always been, but ponies changed. Or were made to change, she thought. 
They were sitting under a large awning outside a little bookshop turned café. It was small, old, and quiet. Their barista hadn’t spoken to them and didn’t smile, and though Rarity might have found that off-putting somewhere else, it seemed appropriate this morning. The silence was comfortable, and the music of the rain splashing down on the winding gravel path between the storefronts was all the conversation any of them needed. Even Pinkie was unusually subdued. Not sad, she thought, just pensive and relaxed.
Rarity sipped her coffee–black, no sugar–and sighed. The world could be such a beautiful place if one only stopped to appreciate it from time to time. And she did try to appreciate it as often as she could. She didn’t ever want it to feel stale or old, so she tried her best to focus on the little things, the details. She breathed in the wet scent of greenery and stone mingled with the heady notes of her coffee. She tried to really hear the rhythm of the rain and to really see how each drop shattered against the wide thick leaves of a nearby oak tree. She reveled in how, even underneath the awning, the misty air dampened her coat and her mane. A nightmare for her coiffure to be sure, but one well worth it. 
“Do you think it’ll always be like this?” Pinkie asked her. Rarity tried to really look at Pinkie as well, to see her for what she was, an uncommonly wise pony and a kind and patient mother. Rarity loved her dearly, and in that small moment, her heart swelled. How lucky she was to walk through life with friends like Pinkie and the rest of the girls. Despite everything that she’d experienced, she knew her blessings had come in abundance. She wanted the others to know that too. She wanted them to be happy. 
“No, darling, I don’t think it will. The world will change, and we’ll change with it. But that’s not so bad, is it?” She reached across the little table they were sharing and grabbed Pinkie’s hooves in her own. “After all, we’ll always have each other.” 
Pinkie smiled and gripped her hooves a little tighter, and Rarity thought that perhaps her friend looked just a little bit sad after all. 
“I know, I know. But Rarity, look at it.” Pinkie gestured out towards a village made empty of ponies by the weather. “Do you think… never mind. I shouldn’t say. It’s a silly thought.” 
Rarity frowned. Pinkie didn’t usually hold back on account of feeling silly. “Pinkie, we’re on our way home from fighting dragons. I’m sure I can handle whatever it is you have to say. Besides, I’m your friend. I want you to confide in me.” 
Pinkie giggled at that, though it sounded less relaxed–less free–than normal. “Look how empty the streets are. Except for us and her, obviously,” Pinkie gestured at the barista who was reading a book at the counter inside the café. “There’s nopony around, but the trees are so pretty, and so are the flowers and the rain and even the buildings.” 
Rarity was glad to see her friend agreed with her. “Isn’t it though,” she said, releasing a dreamy sigh and fluttering her eyelashes. “Quite divine, I’d say.” 
Pinkie turned her head and looked Rarity dead in the eyes, donning the same serious expression she used with her grandchildren when she wanted them to understand something important. 
“Then tell me, Rarity, if we’re really… immortal,” Pinkie said, hesitating on the word like it tasted particularly bitter, “are we going to walk through towns like this in the long distant future, pretending there’s still ponies living in the empty houses just waiting for the rain to pass by? Are we going to pretend there’s an annoyed barista we can bother for coffee in the shop around the corner or a nice inn keeper ready with a bottle of wine at the tavern by the sea? Even if we still have each other, how’re we gonna deal with that?” 
And to be honest, Rarity wasn’t at all sure. She didn’t know if that would even happen, if they really were immortal, or how they’d deal with Pinkie’s bleak vision if it came to pass, but she did know they had more time than anypony could dream of to figure it out. 
“I don’t know, Pinkie. I don’t have any good answers. Just, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that for a long time yet. I mean, that’d be thousands and thousands of years in the future...” Rarity trailed off for a second as the enormity of that much time weighed down on her tiny pony heart, but she continued on, determined not to let it get to her. “And if that’s what happens, well, we’ll figure something out, wont we? I don’t see how it’s at all helpful to think about it so much. We’re barely over a hundred years old. That’s a problem for our future selves.” 
Pinkie rolled her eyes and laughed. “Rarity, you’re a hundred and thirty. Don’t think I don’t know you’ve been lying to Twilight about your age since the day she came to Ponyville.” 
How dare she! And now when Rarity was trying to comfort her! Well, she thought, taking a deep breath. She was glad enough to see Pinkie’s spirit lifted to perhaps forgive a slanderous statement or two, no matter how misguided. 
“Well,” Rarity sang, “shall we get going? Our train leaves in an hour, and I’m more than ready to be on my way.” 
Pinkie pursed her lips, lost in thought. 
“Darling?” 
“I want to go to Hollow Shades.” 
Oh, for goodness sake! “Pinkieee,” Rarity whined, “we talked about this.” 
Pinkie raised a hoof, forestalling any further complaints from Rarity. “Yes, we did,” she said, “and you were right. It’s super risky, and there’s like a bunch of reasons we should probably just go home, but Twilight doesn’t need us for anything right now, and this–” she pulled the morse code letter from Rarity’s saddle bag and waved it at Rarity “–this is important. You know it is.” 
“Of course, it’s important. I’ll have you know I take mysterious teleporting letters very seriously, especially when they’re written in code! But playing detective with half a deck of cards is hardly to anypony’s benefit, least of all our own.” 
“Rarity, please, I know,” Pinkie said, clearly trying to remain calm and sound reasonable. “I know. But what if it’s something really bad and waiting to check it out means somepony gets hurt?”
Rarity winced at that. Pinkie didn’t usually try to guilt-trip her. Her friend noticed and placed her hooves back on Rarity’s, pressing down gently. 
“I’m scared too…” Pinkie said. “I’m so scared. I’m scared of going home, I’m scared of going to Hollow Shades, and I’m scared of doing nothing at all. But we should. Go, I mean. What if somepony wrote this because they’re in trouble? I mean, why else would anypony send us a secret letter?” 
“Well,” Rarity hesitated, hating that Pinkie was right, “it could be a trap?” It sounded weak even to her own ears, and a little angry voice inside of her grumbled at having lost the argument. 
Pinkie opened her mouth to speak, but Rarity cut her off, putting on a resigned smile. “Yes, yes. You’re going to tell me we should risk it and that helping others is always the right thing to do, blah, blah, etc.” She rolled her eyes and tried not to giggle when she saw Pinkie’s enormous grin. 
“Oh, thank you! Thank you, Rarity!” 
“We’ll go, but we’re going to be as careful as we can, and if I feel strange, and I mean even the slightest bit unusual, or I think you’re acting, uhm, funnier than normal, we’re immediately turning around and heading straight back home. Agreed?” 
Pinkie nodded fervently, mane bouncing wildly around her face, and Rarity couldn’t help but laugh.
“Come now, dear,” she said. “Hollow Shades or not, we still need to catch a train, and lest you’ve forgotten, I’ve got a gift to collect.” 
She walked into the café and grabbed to-go cups for her coffee and Pinkie’s chocolate marshmallow monstrosity, then she cast a domed blue shield for the two of them to use as an umbrella. Love of rain was a fickle thing when faced with the prospect of a drenched coat and the cold that came with it. The walk wasn’t terribly long, but she’d rather reach the outskirts of Baltimare warm, dry, and in good spirits. 
Rarity was very good at shield magic. In fact, when it came to creating and manipulating solid magical objects, she was probably the best there was, princesses and draconequi notwithstanding. Normally, her magic came in a gentle blue aura that matched her eyes and cutie mark perfectly, but when she really put her back into it, her creations took on a more opaque and almost glassy appearance. Her magic umbrella was hardly that, but it looked nice enough and certainly did the trick. 
Pinkie walked along beside her, sipping on her drink but forgoing her usual springy step. They left the coffee shop, and though Pinkie had called a thanks to the barista, the pony in question just waved at them without looking up from her book. Rarity hoped it was interesting. She’d come to learn that being ignored for a book was maybe not always the worst thing in the world. 
The gravel path wound past a few more buildings: a grocer, a farrier with a lineup of hardy looking shoes less useful for a night out than for a slog through the woods, a post office, and disturbingly enough, a butcher’s shop. Maybe there were griffons in town? Rarity scrunched her nose and looked away as they walked by. 
Still, as they moved through and out of the little town, they didn’t see a single other creature. Just plants, rain, gravel, and buildings until the buildings ended. Though Baltimare–and by extension the train station–was only a short distance away, the city was blocked from sight by a scattering of woods and a few large hills. The path was familiar. Though she’d never travelled it before, she’d seen pictures of it in several books and had planned on passing through on their way home. 
A particular breed of flower grew here in the shadows of the mighty maples and oaks. It fed on the nourishing song of the surrounding trees; a whisper Rarity could only hear because Fluttershy had told her what to listen for. The flowers were roses by name, but their dark petals were as small as the bells of a snowdrop, and their bounty presented in an abundance of plum colored rose hip. Unusually colored and tremendously fragrant, these fruits made for some of the most delicious jams, teas, soups, pies, and syrups. 
Rarity knew, and had known for many years, that Mrs. Sparkle had been particularly fond of rose hip soup and had passed that predilection down to her daughter. So, she’d brought with her an empty wooden container, bewitched by her traveling companion to contain within it a multitude of fruit far exceeding its regular capacity. It was a small gesture of kindness to pick some berries– or were they not berries? Either way, it was a small gesture of kindness to bring home a treat for a friend when one had been away for so long. 
That Rarity had spent weeks with her nose buried in Applejack’s books on botany and Pinkie’s baking recipes researching the best wild rose hip in Equestria was of little consequence. After all, she’d overheard Twilight mentioning to Spike how much she missed her mother’s cooking, and didn’t Twilight always say that a friendship was only made of what you brought to it? Really, anypony would do the same. 
“Hmm,” Pinkie hummed, as Rarity magicked bushels of rose hip into the wooden box. “You should probably cast a refrigeration or stasis spell on that thing since we’re taking the long way home.” 
Rarity nodded at the sensible suggestion. The box itself was a flat coffee table item meant to hold dried fruit and nuts in quartered-off partitions. The lid was made of polished wood and thin acrylic glass so that the delicious treats could be seen even when shut. Rarity had pulled it from a moving box stuck all the way in the back of a maintenance closet near Twilight’s quarters in the castle. Twilight had stuck most of the items her parents had passed down to her there, and Rarity remembered very clearly seeing this particular item all those years ago in the Sparkle family residence. 
She felt her hackles stand on edge and suppressed that particularly unpleasant memory and the angry growl that came with it, choosing to distract herself with the task at hoof. 
“I’ll need to seal the thing too, so it doesn’t spill all over the insides of my bags. I’m sure I’ve got a spell for that written down somewhere. I’m a bit busy with the rose hip. Would you grab my notepad for me?" 
“Sure thing!” Pinkie reached a hoof into Rarity’s saddle bag, stretching her arm impossibly deep before sticking her whole head into the satchel and jerking Rarity to the right so she almost dropped the container and the rose hip she was levitating. 
“Pinkie! Careful!” 
“Sorry!” Pinkie called from inside the bag. “I just saw something shiny.” Rarity rolled her eyes. Most of the items in her saddle bag were shiny. 
The pink mare pulled her leg and head back out of the bag and was holding Rarity’s notepad with her forelock. Rarity grabbed it with her magic and read off the sealing spell. 
“Excellent! Always come prepared, that’s what I say.” She frowned after stuffing some more rose hip into the box and casting both of the required spells. She’d picked a lot, but maybe… “Oh, do you think she’ll like it?” Rarity asked, looking up at Pinkie before freezing in her tracks. “Pinkie, what is that?” 
Pinkie was holding a lovely brass chain in her mouth that connected to a circular meshwork of interlacing brass knots. Within this casing was a small crystal orb holding five pearls surrounding an amethyst needle. The needle was spinning slowly, and when Rarity looked closer, she thought that the iridescence of each of the pearls seemed to emphasize a slightly different color. The whole thing was no larger than a quail egg, and the brass cocoon, intricate and beautiful as it was, made it rather difficult to clearly see the crystal, pearls, and needle at the center. 
“It’s the shiny thing I saw in your bag,” Pinkie mumble around the chain. “Isn’t it yours?” 
“I… maybe? I’ve seen this somewhere before, but I don’t remember owning it, and I certainly didn’t pack it for this trip.” 
“So,” Pinkie said, pursing her lips, “magic then?” 
Rarity sighed and sat down, sticking the rose-hip box back in her bag and levitating the chain over to take a closer look. “Yes, it would seem so.” 
Rarity inspected the necklace closely, but she couldn’t remember where she’d seen it before, why she felt inexplicably drawn to it, or why it felt so warm. It seemed to be giving off a familiar scent, something she was sure she hadn’t smelled in a long time and which she struggled to place.
“Oh!” she whined, tossing the thing to the ground and stomping her hooves. “This is going to be a whole thing, isn’t it? The letter, this necklace, going to Hollow Shades. Why can’t magical adventure just leave us alone?” 
Pinkie raised an eyebrow at her and smiled. “Maybe because we’re, you know, the Elements of Harmony?” 
“Yes, obviously!” Rarity said, waving a foreleg in exasperation. “I know that! I just– urgh!” She felt silly for throwing her little tantrum, but this was precisely the kind of tomfoolery she hated. Yes, planned adventures could be diverting and even fun when in the company of friends, but getting blindsided with mystery and inconvenience usually served as a pre-amble for a bigger struggle or fight, and those came with consequences. 
Rarity smiled pathetically at Pinkie. “I don’t suppose you think this is all unrelated?” 
Pinkie shook her head and gave Rarity a one-legged side hug, helping her back on her hooves. “Come on, Rarity, let’s go catch a train. I’m sure Hollow Shades will be a cinch, and then you’ll get to give your present to Twilight who’ll love it and hug you and kiss you and everything will be good. You’ll see.” 
Rarity blushed furiously. “I, well, ah… Pinkie, you know there’s nothing between me and Twilight.” 
Pinkie nodded. “That’s ok. Friends give kisses too.” To illustrate her point, she leaned in and planted a big one on Rarity’s cheek then gave her another hug. Rarity laughed and leaned into her friend. 
“Alright, alright, we’ve delayed enough. Let’s go see when the next train leaves for Hollow Shades.”


-


As it turned out, the next train for Hollow Shades–it was actually the train to Manehattan through Fillydelphia, but it detoured through Hollow Shades–left only a few minutes after they’d arrived at the station, and Rarity was glad they hadn’t missed it since the following one wouldn’t leave for another hour and a half. They’d rushed to the ticket counter and had then been forced to push their way as politely as possible through a crowd of ponies asking them for a picture or an autograph. Rarity had splurged on a private cabin. She wasn’t about to put up with that nonsense the whole ride north. 
She was sitting with her head against the window, tapping her horn rhythmically against the glass as she watched the fields and villages pass by. Once upon a time, the thought of an adoring crowd meeting her wherever she went would have thrilled her. Reveling in the attention, the fame, the glamour, it was precisely the sort of thing she’d dreamt of as a teenager. And, as fate would have it, she’d been granted all of that as a both a hero and a famous fashion designer. Earned it, she reminded herself. Granted made it sound as if she’d been a passive recipient, and not the whirlwind force of style, excellence, and business acumen she knew herself to be. She still liked the attention–if she was honest with herself, she liked it a lot–but sometimes it got to be a bit tiring. 
Pinkie was napping. To Rarity’s surprise, she’d fallen asleep almost as soon as they got on the train. It was still well before noon, and though they’d disembarked early in the morning, Pinkie had slept a full eight hours on the boat and had then consumed her very sugary very espresso laden beverage in its entirety before they were even halfway to the train station. Her surprise had lasted a whole two seconds because, well, it was Pinkie. 
She floated the mystery necklace and the letter from her bags. She’d gone over the letter a hundred times already, so she placed it on the seat next to her and focused on the necklace. Surely, it was a compass of some sort, with its spinning needle and the five pearls laid out in a perfect pentagon around it. But why would anypony ever make a compass with five directions, none of which seemed to point north? 
The construction of the thing baffled Rarity. The crystal orb didn’t look hollow, but the needle was able to spin around inside it without hindrance, and the brass cage that surrounded the orb made it hard to see the needle and the pearls. Additionally, the cage didn’t actually connect to the orb in any way, meaning the compass component was floating at the center of the housing through some scientific or magical method Rarity couldn’t understand. 
More than all of that–Rarity had seen many strange things after all–was the warm feeling and familiar scent the compass exuded. She knew with great certainty that she’d seen this thing before. It was brass, which was only a shade off from gold, so it wouldn’t clash with her white coat and purple mane, but it was such an odd accessory. She wasn’t sure she’d be comfortable wearing it openly. But then, why did she remember doing just that? 
She took a breath and unhooked the well disguised box-clasp before placing the chain around her neck and fastening it under the base of her mane. She let the compass go and when it fell and bounced against her chest, she felt… nothing. Well, nothing spectacular anyway. No flashes of memory or insight returned to her, but the warmth of the thing did spread through her body and made her feel comfortable and loved. At least one of those things was a dangerous thing to feel, but she didn’t want to take the compass back off now that she was wearing it. 
It did feel right, proper even, and she thought that perhaps somepony had made the thing just for her, specifically for Rarity, specifically for this Rarity, and wasn’t that just the strangest thought. She laughed at her silly fancies. She only knew of one other Rarity, and this sort of thing was hardly her cup of tea. No, whatever it was, it was Equestrian through and through. 
Three and a half hours to Fillydelphia, she thought, and another hour to Hollow Shades. Maybe Pinkie had the right idea. Staring at the compass wasn’t likely to generate any epiphanies, and there wasn’t much else to do. She’d already finished the two books she’d brought with her, a mystery novel called In a Lovely Place and some historical fiction titled Timberwolf Runway written by Suri Polomare of all ponies. There was also the book on morse code, but that would’ve been a drab read even if she hadn’t already flipped through most of it. 
Maybe something to eat would do the trick. Trying not to wake Pinkie, she left through the connecting doors and sauntered into the open commons of the trailing first-class cabin. There was a bar there and a few round tables for ponies to sit and dine at. A chandelier hung from the ceiling and the floor was carpeted in red velvet. 
This part of the train was reserved for the wealthiest and most important ponies in Equestria, something that made Rarity roll her eyes. Aside from her dear departed friend Fancy Pants, she found that most of Equestria’s aristocracy were so full of themselves they’d likely pop if somepony stuck them with a needle. But, alas, she was one of them now, wasn’t she? One couldn’t go around with a title like Grand Duchess and claim friendship with one of Equestria’s rulers while also making pretense at being a common pony. Never mind magical powers, immortality, and the actual financial fortune that came with running a successful clothing empire. 
Rarity blew an exasperated raspberry in the air. It was loud enough for several nearby ponies to hear, and she chuckled embarrassedly as they turned to stare at her. She batted her eyelids at them and tossed her mane before walking over to the bar, deciding that maybe she didn’t need food but a drink instead. The bartender smiled and waved at her but gave no indication that he recognized her. Trained indiscretion, surely, but she was grateful for it. 
“Whatever you recommend for day drinking,” she said with a nonchalant wave of her hoof. She took a seat on the barstool nearest the window as far from everypony else as the confined cabin would allow, but of course, privacy was hardly an option. 
The other passengers were now murmuring to each other in quieter more conspiratorial tones than when she had first entered, and it made her want to laugh. How many more years before her legend ballooned beyond her reality to such a degree that ponies no longer recognized her on the street? Twilight had said it might happen eventually. Ponies would just assume the white unicorn they were speaking to maybe sort of looked like the Element of Generosity, but of course, she couldn’t be. Nopony as important as that would just walk around in the open and mingle. Would that be better or worse? 
The bartender was mixing what looked like a martini, and Rarity approved. “Make it extra dirty, won’t you?” she asked the stallion. He nodded and flashed her a charming smile before pulling a jar of olives from under the counter. 
She looked out the window and was delighted to find that the lighting in the cabin allowed her to use it as a mirror for spying on the other passengers. There weren’t many. A few ponies sat around the tables, most of them clothed in the stale drab accoutrements of propriety, many trying poorly to be discreet in their gawking. A relaxed kind of jazzy tune accompanied their droning conversations, though the rumble of the train did a fair job drowning it out. 
As the bartender placed Rarity’s drink on the counter, she noticed a portly young unicorn making his way over. She recognized him from one of Twilight’s masquerades a couple of years ago. Lord Alpine Heights. He wore his dark mane fashionably and sported a honeydew coat and a feathered cap for a cutie mark. She remembered being impressed with his conversational skills right up until he’d been tossed out by Applejack for having made a few too many passes at Rainbow Dash, despite knowing full-well that she was married, not interested in stallions, and eighty-some-odd years his senior. 
Rarity took a sip of her martini–excessively briny, as she’d requested–and turned an icy glare towards the newcomer. He walked with the lethargic gait developed by those who did very little for themselves, and when he spoke, he spoke with a lazy self-assured drawl. “Duchess Rarity! What a delight to run into you here.” 
He was either ignoring her scrunched nose and unfriendly frown, or he was an oblivious oaf. From past conversations, Rarity had to assume it wasn’t the latter–though oaf might very well still apply. 
“I’m dreadfully certain I’ve no desire to speak with you, Mr. Heights. Why don’t you find somepony a little more vacuous to charm in another part of the cabin? I’m sure they’d be much more receptive to whatever it is you think you have to offer.” 
Without missing a beat, Lord Heights took a seat two stools over from Rarity, smiling brightly at her. “Ah, Duchess, you wound me. I’m afraid I’ve left you with a bad impression, though I admit I deserve nothing less. Won’t you grant me a chance to prove I’ve learned from my past indiscretions?” 
She raised an eyebrow at him. Even if the grease in his voice hadn’t almost made her choke, Rarity was current with all the latest Canterlot gossip, and it didn’t paint a flattering picture of the stallion. In addition, there was something about the way he was smiling, the way he looked at her, that made her neck tingle in a very unpleasant way. She wasn’t sure what that was all about, but it made her both weary and curious. 
“And I suppose coming over here and engaging in conversation without first being invited is supposed to aid in that endeavor?”
Lord Heights laughed and shook his head but ordered a drink– “whatever the lady is drinking”–before answering. “I couldn’t very well make amends or apologize without speaking with you first, but would you believe that I was planning on grabbing a drink even before you blessed this cabin with your radiance?”
He was laying it on a bit thick, Rarity thought, but it was hard not to think of him as charming. Still, she was less interested in what he had to say and how he said it than why he was making her hair stand on edge. She felt dry almost. Parched? He leaned up against the counter when the bartender gave him his drink, and it made a soft scratching sound like sand against wood. What in Celestia’s name? 
She squinted her eyes and cast a very discreet revelation spell, but nothing happened. Lord Heights chuckled and sipped his drink, and Rarity wondered if maybe she hadn’t been as discreet as she’d hoped. 
“Be that as it may,” Rarity said, trying to sound unimpressed and indifferent. “I’m not particularly interested in company.” She looked away from the lord and continued to sip her drink, though she kept an eye on his reflection in the window. To her surprise, he downed his whole martini in a single gulp, then looked at the window in such a way that their eyes locked. 
“You carry with you an interesting accessory,” Lord Heights said. As he spoke, his eyes grew pale, and his voice transformed into a raspy whisper. “Where is it taking you, fair Avarice?” 
Great, Rarity thought. Just fantastic! She closed her eyes, placed her drink down, and took a deep breath, then she turned to whatever it was masquerading as Lord Heights and faced it with all the poise she could muster. 
“Do I need to worry about the safety of the other passengers?” she asked, voice so even-keel and steady she might have been reciting measurements to Haute back at the boutique. The thing wearing Lord Height’s face wheezed a scratching and poor imitation of laughter. It sounded awful, like dry wind passing through the eye socket of a sun-bleached skull. 
“That is a precious thing to ask for someone to whom it matters so little,” it said. “Why pretend their so-called lives compare to yours when the liquor of ages and time itself flows through your veins?” 
Rarity had heard crazy from all kinds of villains and ruffians. Two of her closest friends had turned crazy into an artform. This thing wasn’t crazy, it was unhinged, and if Rarity knew anything at all, very dangerous. 
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, placing a hoof over the warm compass. Touching it filled her with a sense of courage and determination. Not that she lacked either–any proper lady knew how to stand strong–but it did seem to boost those feelings. 
It frowned at her, clearly displeased by something. “I promise not to hurt any of these–” it waved a hoof dismissively at the other passengers, “–creatures. I’m really only here for you. Would you like some music?” 
Rarity was genuinely startled when the undercurrent of staticky jazz from the cabin’s gramophone was replaced with crisp and clear violins and cellos. An elegant if somewhat somber melody. None of the other passengers seemed to notice. The bartender continued to clean glasses, and the wealthy ponies at the tables continued to gossip and shoot frequent furtive glances at Rarity and her companion, who appeared to all the world as Lord Alpine Heights.
“I appreciate that,” Rarity said, fighting against her nerves to sound like she was maybe a little bit in control of the situation. “So, mind telling me who you are and what it is you want with me?” 
Its frown deepened and it shook its head. “Disappointing,” it said. Then it looked to the ceiling and called out in quite the unnecessarily dramatic fashion, “Oh, how galling! How dreadful!” Again, nopony seemed to react to the odd display. “Though I hardly expected her to remember the name of one as lowly as myself,” it continued, “I thought she must at least understand, at least remember something!” 
As it monologued, Rarity’s heart grew cold. Its shadow extended out across the floor, flailing about madly. Its skin began to slough off, flopping to the floor and revealing under the Alpine Heights puppet something else. It still looked like a pony, if the pony had been dead for weeks and left out in the desert to dry. Its skin was brown and taut, like tanned leather hide, and its mane and tail were thin unhealthy tangles the color of oxidized copper. It had no eyes, only empty sockets from which some kind of white mineral was slowly trickling. At first, Rarity assumed it was sand, but then she remembered the letter. 
This, at last, caught the attention of the other passengers, who began screaming and fled from the cabin into the adjacent one. It took a moment, as many of them tried to squeeze through the door simultaneously to get out. Rarity didn’t blame them. Even to her, the thing sitting there was horrifying. Eventually, only the bartender remained, staring slack jawed at the two of them. 
Rarity cleared her throat to catch his attention and smiled kindly at him. “Darling, it’d probably be best if you left too. No?” The bartender stared at her for a moment then fled into Rarity and Pinkie’s private cabin instead of following the crowd. Rarity sighed. Hopefully, that wouldn’t become a problem. 
The desiccated thing before her waited patiently as the cabin emptied, though it kept mumbling to itself what a shame it was that she couldn’t remember. Rarity was at least glad it kept its promise to not lash out at any of the other passengers, though there were a multitude of ways this could still end poorly for everypony aboard the train. 
“What do you want with me?” she asked again once the bartender had left. 
The thing was pulled from its inane ramblings and glowered at her. “I’m called Kedir. I was once a master cobbler and a… oh, uhm… a master tailor… a seamstress. Did you know this? I guess not since you’ve forgotten everything else. Oh, Avarice!” It shook its head and wailed, and the action sent salt flying all over the bar and onto Rarity. It stung her skin where it fell, though the sensation was mild. Rarity said nothing, waiting. She’d found that was usually best in situations like this. No need to force a fight if one could be avoided. “I was like you! Beautiful! They desired me, stallions and mares alike. They weren’t really though. He made me that way! I guess after her? And you now!” 
“Well,” Rarity said, frustrated and frightened. “You seemed rather more sane before your disguise melted off. Would you like to put it back on so we can talk like civilized ponies?” It was a foolish thing to say, but she was a bit frazzled and had clearly spent too much time around bad influences like Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie, and Applejack, and Twilight… really, why were all her friends so tactless, honest, and bold? She decided then and there that out of all of them, only Fluttershy had any real sense to her. At least that mare was polite. 
Kedir looked at her with its–her?–empty eye-sockets, expression frozen. So much for not forcing a fight, she thought. The string music continued to play, and Rarity tensed up, ready to teleport away if Kedir lunged for her. Instead, the creature spoke. 
“You should give it to me and let me kill you.” 
“I’m sorry, what?” Rarity asked blinking, completely caught off guard. 
“Harmony is a musical term. Just a musical term. You use it to refer to an equilibrious system which does not decay and in which all parts derive maximal joy and well-being from their designated purpose. Orphic told me that. You should let me kill you. I need to drink what’s inside of you.” 
Rarity ran through her options. She could probably teleport herself, Pinkie, and their bags off the train. It would hurt. Wherever they landed, the difference in momentum would be significant. She could also try her luck attacking Kedir. Her concussive blasts were nothing to sneeze at, but she thought that maybe Kedir was already dead? At least, she was something not quite alive, and blasting her might just make her angry. Rarity had been in enough fights to know that engaging an enemy without knowing what they were capable of could be the last mistake a pony ever made. Teleporting away was the better option. 
She readied herself to cast the spell, but before she could even start, Kedir opened her mouth wide and began to shriek a horrible mind numbing sound. Instinctively, Rarity aborted the teleportation spell and threw herself off her seat. At the same time, she wove a new spell, a cage made of opaque diamond shaped tiles, and slammed it in place around her assailant. As she did so, a white beam of molten salt shot out from Kedir’s mouth, shattering the wall facing Rarity’s now empty stool and searing a hole straight through the cabin wall. 
Rarity tried to teleport again, and again Kedir began to shriek. The wind-up to teleport was short, but not short enough, and Rarity had to transition to another shield spell, this one several layers thick, to keep Kedir’s unusual attack from reducing Rarity to a burning stain on the floor. The beam bounced off her shields and up through the cabin ceiling, tearing another hole in the train. 
Rarity had to think quick. How could she neutralize Kedir, protect the other passengers, and not die herself? She looked over at the hole in the wall and grinned. Ideaaa! She moved a bit to the left and began to cast her teleportation spell again. Kedir didn’t move from her stool, but her head followed Rarity, mouth open and ready to spew liquid death. Rarity had expected as much and brought up her shields, angling them just so and making them slightly concave. When the beam hit her shield, the molten salt slid up against the curved surface and careened backwards with enough force to knock Kedir off her stool and over the bar counter. 
She didn’t wait to see what became of the creature, immediately teleporting back to her own cabin. Pinkie had still been sleeping¬–despite the screaming and magic blasts just one cabin over–but Rarity popping into existence next to her was enough to rouse her. Pinkie rubbed her eyes sleepily, but as soon as she saw Rarity’s face, she bounced out of her seat, eyes alert and body tensed for a fight. 
“I’m going to teleport us off the train!” Rarity yelled, heart beating rapidly. Now that she was away from Kedir, the adrenaline was starting to catch up with her, and it didn’t help that she could still hear the string music. Kedir said she wouldn’t hurt the other passengers, but Rarity knew better than to trust an insane… whatever it was she was. If she was still in a condition to come after her, then Rarity had to assume she’d follow her off the train and hopefully leave everypony else alone. “Can you make sure we don’t die?” 
Pinkie didn’t waste time on questions but nodded and grabbed their saddlebags. For the fifth time, Rarity initiated a teleportation spell… but once again, she stopped before casting it. Why risk Kedir not following her? It’d be difficult, but Rarity thought she could pull it off. She gritted her teeth, planted her hoofs firmly beneath her, and began to cast the spell again. The effort was tremendous, and she was sure at that moment she looked more like a struggling weightlifter than the elegant fashion designer she was, but there was a time and a place for keeping up appearances, and this was hardly it. 
With a groan that turned into a yell when she felt something odd pull on the edges of her spell, she teleported herself, Pinkie, their luggage, the entire bar, and the cabin section it was a part of one hundred yards to the left of the train tracks. The light was blinding, and the deafening cracks of a cabin ripping itself apart and then re-materializing out of thin air stunned Rarity. Her lungs burned, her eyes stung, and her horn ached, but she was pretty sure she’d succeeded. 
Hovering in the air for a split second, she had just enough time to see that the rest of the train was intact and continuing on its tracks before she crashed onto the ground with an unpleasant but surprisingly pliable thud. Debris rained down around her, but most of it bounced harmlessly off of several large multi-hued umbrellas that hung in the air above her head. Pinkie’s doing. 
The mare in question lay next to Rarity, and though Pinkie was essentially impervious to physical harm, she looked spent. Rarity looked down and realized she hadn’t actually fallen to the ground, but rather onto several mattresses bunched together on the grass. The fall had hurt, but at least she hadn’t broken any bones. That was going to take a lot out of Pinkie, and Rarity was scraping the bottom of the barrel as well. She wished she’d brought her sword on this trip, because continuing to fight using only magic was going to be difficult. 
She stood up as best she could on the wobbly mattresses and frowned at them. They weren’t particularly thick–just enough to make her unsteady–and visually, they were an affront to the senses. Most of them were white or gray, and almost all of them were stained. 
“Sorry,” Pinkie whimpered, still lying face down next to Rarity. “It’s harder when I have to go fast. Nicer mattresses take more energy and time, and I spent all the colors on those.” She lifted a weak hoof to point at the umbrellas. “Could have told me you were gonna bring half the train with you.” 
Rarity winced and grimaced guiltily. “Ah, yes, sorry. That was dumb of me.” She jumped down to the grass which provided much better footing. They were in a large field of wildflowers that seemed to stretch along the train tracks for miles in both directions. “You were magnificent, Pinkie, truly one of a kind, but you need to get up, now.” 
Rarity looked around while speaking, trying to spot Kedir among the wooden detritus, metal sheeting, and red velvet carpet that lay strewn all over the surrounding vegetation. The music was still playing, at least to Rarity, so she assumed Kedir must be lying somewhere out there underneath the remnants of the bar. Pinkie pushed herself to her hooves and hopped down from the mattresses, landing next to Rarity, but she was decidedly shakier and had to lean up against Rarity for support. 
“I don’t–” she said, breathing heavily, “I don’t know how good I’ll be in a fight, Rares. I had to slow down time to see what was going on after you–” She stopped talking and focused entirely on breathing, and Rarity chided herself for acting like an impulsive fool. Kedir had her rattled and making mistakes. 
A piece of train exterior shifted nearby, and without waiting to give Kedir a chance, Rarity sent a viciously sharp magic spearhead hurtling towards the metal sheeting. Except, it wasn’t Kedir shifting the metal out of the way but the bartender, who looked bruised and was bleeding profusely from several deep cuts. Buck! She dissolved the spell immediately, and the poor stallion almost fell over from exhaustion and surprise as a shower of white sparkles floated down around him. At least that explained the strange tug she’d felt on her magic when teleporting. She must have accidentally included the stallion in her teleportation spell, though she wasn’t sure how. 
Unfortunately, this meant he was in danger from more than just his bleeding lacerations. Rarity couldn’t risk treating his wounds until she was sure what had happened to Kedir. If she got distracted, the creature might just kill them all. 
“Stay there!” Rarity called. “Lie down! I’ll come over and treat your wounds as soon as I can, but right now, it isn’t safe!” 
The bartender seemed dizzy and confused, and Rarity could hardly blame him. It was a miracle he’d survived the jump to begin with. Still, he laid down on the spot next to the sheeting he’d been pushing out of the way. That worked out well since it might provide him with some protection if things got out of hand. She continued to scan their surroundings. The music was still playing in her head, which made her stomach churn, but nothing else moved. 
Eventually, she felt Pinkie slide down her side to the ground, and Rarity could see that she was clearly struggling to keep her eyes open. This was not an ideal situation, and they needed to do something. She couldn’t just stand there and wait for Kedir to make her move, but it was hard to think with all those damn violins playing in her head. 
“Kedir!” she yelled. “I didn’t take you for a coward!” Honestly, she had no idea what kind of a creature Kedir was–other than utterly mad–but she hoped she might be able to goad her out of hiding. What had the thing said? That Rarity couldn’t remember her? She’d seemed very upset about that. “Alas,” Rarity tried, gambling, “I’ll just have to move on with my life! What a forgettable incident this has been!” 
And then the bartender screamed. The sound curdled Rarity’s blood and made her mane stand on end, but not as much as the sight of him thrashing about as a mound of living highly corrosive salt seared his coat away and burned through his flesh. Rarity had never seen a pony melt before. Her stomach roiled and her knees grew weak, and for a short second her mind froze, unable to process what was happening. Just a second, an eternal stretching second during which she realized that nothing she could do would be enough to save the unicorn’s life. Still, she had to try. 
She leapt into action, trying her best to pull the salt from his body with her magic. She pulled and tossed and still the salt slithered back like snakes through the grass, leaving black streaks of burning vegetation behind. She tried to bubble him, but that just trapped him with all the salt left inside, so she dropped the bubble and tried to teleport him away while leaving the salt behind, but he somehow resisted her spell. White death burrowed into his body, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t isolate it all.
“No, no, no! Come on, Rarity! Come on! Please!” Something burned her cheeks, and for a brief moment she thought it was her turn to melt. Instead, she realized she was crying. Her magic failed as exhaustion swept through her body, and despite her best efforts, her legs buckled beneath her and forced her to sit down. Her horn sizzled, hot to the touch, as she stared at the pile of sludge and bones that had been the bartender. He was clearly dead, and Rarity had been helpless to stop it. She doubled over to throw up, and as she did, the music stopped. 
She looked up, eyes red and muzzle stained with vomit. The salt was coalescing into the shape of Kedir, who stood over the dead pony with an empty-eyed expression of indifference. 
“You did this,” Kedir whispered, sounding eerily calm and collected. “All you had to do was give yourself to me.” 
Rarity gritted her teeth, fury boiling inside her. She was weak, her magic was spent, and her muscles ached, but she would find a way to hurt this creature, to make her suffer. She tried to stand, but Kedir just shook her head. 
“He has said I mustn’t kill you unless you said I could. But soon enough, Avarice. Soon enough.” She reached out a desiccated hoof and struck Rarity hard on the side of the head. For a moment, Rarity’s vision swam as the world around her grew blurry, then the darkness swallowed her whole. 


-


Cheese Sandwich died that evening. Of course, Rarity didn’t know and neither did Pinkie. Back in Ponyville, the ancient earth pony passed surrounded by his son and his grandchildren. Of all the Elements, only Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash were present. Fluttershy said that it was a painless passing for Cheese, but in those last moments, he hadn’t known who he was, nor had he recognized any of his gathered family. 
Though sad for all involved, Cheese Sandwich had lived a long life by earth pony standards. Cheesecake had known this was coming for a long time now, and though his heart ached for the pony his father had once been, he smiled and kissed the old stallion goodbye. Certainly, wherever ponies went when they died, his father would be at peace there, enjoying the rest he’d earned through a life of kindness and joy. Instead, Cheesecake worried for his mother. He wasn’t sure if this would be a relief to her, but he hoped that when she heard the news, she wouldn’t be too sad.
Of all those gathered, only Fluttershy could really see. She greeted Death with a nod when she came for the old pony, and Death nodded back. They knew each other well, and Fluttershy liked to think that they were friends. Death didn’t smile much, but the pegasus knew her to be kind. When the specter left, pulling from Pinkie’s husband the last embers of life, it was Fluttershy alone who wept, though her tears were few. 
And so, that very night, a single letter appeared over a grassy field west of Baltimare. It was addressed to Pinkie Pie and signed by Princess Twilight Sparkle, but nopony was there to receive it, as it gently floated down onto a pile of wood and twisted metal.
> Part I - Int. I - When Once Again I Hold You Near
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





“You look amazing.”

- Rarity






Birds of Paradise cried out above the pearly harbors of Monacolt. The sun danced across the rippling waves from a cloudless sky as the wind carried the salt and pleasure of the sea up across the green coastal hills. On an open marble balcony, wide enough to house twenty ponies at once, Rarity lounged beneath a wide arbor covered in early summer grape vines. The wind played with her mane and her wide-brimmed sun hat, but it was a gentle play filled with warm kisses and endless leisure. 
The balcony was attached to a splendid summer palace which had once belonged to Duchess Diamond Waves. She’d gifted it to Celestia upon her passing, who’d granted it to Twilight Sparkle for use as a summer home, and since it had once belonged to a duchess, Twilight had figured it might as well do so again. Rarity loved it, and she hardly cared that it was a hand-me-down several times over or that she seldom had time to come visit. 
Yes, it was small for a palace–really just a large manor house–but it sat high on the hills facing the sea, and Rarity thought the view was breathtaking. Monacolt itself was clearly visible from her elevated perch–though it nestled a mile or so north on the coast–and this particular balcony granted an uninterrupted view of the bluest sea Rarity had ever seen, dotted with tiny boats and larger ships strung with flags of every color. Down below on the beach, ponies picnicked and ran laughing through the waves. 
How perfect, how luxurious, how absolutely dreadful! Rarity was lying on an intricate three piece chaise lounge with a golden floral pattern and cream colored cushions, and she’d worn her best and flimsiest sun dress, a short breezy thing made of lilac cotton. She was a vision of coastal beauty, a stunning summer temptress, yet the object of her desire had decided not to join her, instead informing her via letter that she was terribly busy with some meeting or other in Canterlot and had been forced to delay her visit. 
It was unfortunate, Twilight had written, but she was sure Rarity would understand. After all, Rarity and Twilight saw each other all the time, and she couldn’t very well put off the Queen of Thrace just to come watch the ocean with a friend. A friend. Apparently, Twilight’s parents were going to be at Canterlot Castle for the day as well, attending all the official functions with their daughter, and lonely and jealous as Rarity was, she couldn’t very well begrudge Twilight the opportunity to spend some time with them. 
Rarity sighed and rested her shaded face on her hooves. A friend. Not for the first time did Rarity wonder if Twilight knew. She must know… right? Rarity had never been particularly subtle. But then again, maybe that was the problem? She wasn’t subtle with anypony, and she was such a flirt­–no point denying it–that she wasn’t sure how anypony was supposed to know when she was being serious. And it wasn’t like she’d actually said anything to Twilight. How could she? 
Twilight was so… so Twilight! So tall, and regal, and bright, and so very fascinating. All these years later, Rarity still wasn’t sure she really understood her. Half the time, Twilight bore the weight of the nation on her shoulders with a truly intimidating level of poise and wisdom, radiating strength and serenity. But sometimes, she’d come completely undone at the seams, sent careening into a neurotic spiral of self-doubt over the slightest and most bizarre trivialities. Only, they weren’t trivialities to Twilight, and so–though it had caught her off guard at first–they’d stopped being trivialities to Rarity as well. 
More than being intimidating though, Twilight was a princess. Rarity chuckled. Twilight was actually an empress. It was a farce to pretend anything else, but for some reason, they all did. Twilight was a princess, and as she’d demonstrated with her letter, she had far more important things to worry about than one silly unicorn’s apparently unrequited feelings. 
Rarity lifted a bell from a table beside her and shook it softly then waited. When the gentle chime failed to materialize a retainer, she shook it a little harder. Still, nopony came to her aid. Rarity only kept a hoofful of staff at the manor, empty as it stood most of the year, but somepony should have been close enough to attend her when she called. 
Well now. She’d have to have a chat with Varnished Tea who ran the place in her absence. He was a distinguished old pegasus whom Rarity had the utmost respect for. He was the very image of stern rigidity, but Rarity found he always erred on the side of propriety and appreciated this about him greatly. That harsh exterior did a poor job of hiding a heart of gold. 
For good measure, she shook the bell a third time. This time the chime warbled loudly, rending the air temporarily with images of wilted flowers and rotting flesh. Then everything was still once more. Rarity shrugged her shoulders. Oh well, she’d just have to track somepony down. After all, she needed some music to accompany her pining melancholy mood. Varnished Tea only played the violin–much too stuffy for such a bright day–but if she wasn’t mistaken, Miss. Frond, the manor’s chef, owned a guitar she didn’t know how to play. Maybe Rarity could take it for a spin herself. 
She trotted into the manor, trying her best to keep a light step. No sense in letting anypony else know of her troubles. She stopped in the hallway and frowned. Varnished Tea was lying on the floor, decaying slowly. The smell was horrendous, and he looked as if he might have been rotting there for weeks. That didn’t seem right? Rarity had only arrived yesterday, and the pegasus had been very much alive then. Why hadn’t anypony else told Rarity he’d died? She’d need to find a new caretaker for the manor. Wait! Wait, this isn’t­– 
The world blinked. 
Awfully rude of him to just lie there though. She shook her head and continued towards the kitchen. Frond would surely lend her the guitar, and Rarity was increasingly feeling a very strong need to play something… something nice. There was a song she’d played–or maybe would play–in the Sparkles’ living room, and it seemed right for the moment. Had somepony been crying then? 
The world blinked. 
Frond had been as dead as Varnished Tea, but at least she’d been decent enough to leave her quarters unlocked. Rarity had brought the guitar back out to the balcony, but sitting there now, watching the sun make its slow arc towards the horizon, she couldn’t remember the tune. 
Somepony had taught it to her, but she couldn’t remember who. Maybe Cozy Glow? No. Applejack? Somepony else was going to teach Rarity the song, and Rarity would play it, and Twilight would smile and thank Rarity, and then Rarity would cry. Like a proper mare, she’d be decent and wait until later that night when nopony could see her. 
The world blinked, and something smelled off. Was Frond brining something in the kitchen? No, wait, Frond was dead. Wait! 
She strummed the guitar. Yes, she remembered the song she would learn. That was good. She felt silly for forgetting something like that. She leaned back in her chaise lounge and began to play, humming to herself that awful horrible tune. She smiled at the sky as it turned to twilight, not really sure why her cheeks were wet and her eyes stung. She played to the purples and the oranges that hung above her, and when the stars appeared, she played to them as well. She really did love this manor.
> Part I - Ch. VI - What Matters Over Mind
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





“Twists and turns are my master plan, then find the elements back where you began.”

- Discord







100 EoH


Some days, to flee the regular chime of the orbuculum in her office and to escape the swirling anxieties of her own mind, Twilight spent time with her friends. She’d invited Applejack and Rainbow Dash for tea that afternoon in the Swan Spring Drawing Room, which was a reception room decorated mostly in white and blue porcelains and marble, and which happened to be Rainbow Dash’s favorite room in the castle.
Though not a library, it held a respectable collection of pulp and adventure novels, and it wasn’t as formal as some of the other reception rooms but was still regal enough to suit the pegasus’ rather expensive tastes. Twilight herself was quite fond of the room, as the colors and décor had a soothing effect on her, and the couches and recliners happened to be some of the softer ones in the castle.
Twilight was sitting in a blue and white pinstriped armchair–glasses resting near the tip of her nose–and was reading a research paper on a new and improved locomotive being developed in Caninia. Across from her, Rainbow Dash was lying on a chaise lounge the same color as Twilight’s armchair with her head resting against Applejack. 
Applejack herself seemed lost in thought and was sipping on a cup of tea from a cart that Kerning had brought them. The tea smelled pleasantly of pears and honey. Every now and again, the earth pony would absentmindedly run her hoof through Rainbow’s unkept mane, eliciting a sigh of content. This was how it often went when Twilight had the two of them over for tea. Much reading on Twilight and Rainbow’s part and not much speaking at all. 
In better times, that had been enough. In many ways, it still was. Today, however, Twilight was filled with the kind of worries and anxieties that no amount of silent company could cure. Two things in particular were eating at her. The first thing was the same thing she always worried about, which was to say her prophetic dreams of doom, the ominous warnings of the orbuculum, and a constant nagging sensation that some awful catastrophe was always just around the corner. The other thing was Rarity and Pinkie Pie.
She put the research paper down on the tea tray and sighed, adjusting her glasses with her hoof. “It’s been eleven days.”
Applejack nodded and sipped her tea. Rainbow Dash kept reading or looked like it anyway, but Twilight was pretty sure she was listening.
“You figure something’s gone wrong, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Since I sent the letter, I haven’t really been able to track them very well using the map. I know they’re somewhere around Hollow Shades, but that’s it. I tried to send another letter a couple of days ago, but they haven’t responded to that either.”
Rainbow put her book down and sat up next to Applejack.
“What’s there to do in Hollow Shades? Besides, the train from Baltimare to Ponyville goes through Canterlot, not north.”
“I can imagine Pinkie wouldn’t be too keen on coming home after hearing about Cheese… maybe? Might be she convinced Rarity to take a detour, but it doesn’t really explain why they aren’t answering your letters.”
“How…” Rainbow hesitated. “How long since they left?”
Twilight grimaced and shifted the research paper around on the tea tray a bit before answering.
“Seven and a half weeks.”
Neither Applejack nor Rainbow Dash seemed terribly bothered by that. At least, not as bothered as Twilight felt. 
“That’s not so bad,” Rainbow Dash said, “right? They’ve got at least a couple of weeks still before, well, you know…”
Twilight disagreed, but only because it felt strange to her that Rarity and Pinkie weren’t answering her letters and had gone north instead of coming home. That said, Applejack was likely right in saying it had something to do with Cheese Sandwich’s death. 
Applejack locked eyes with Twilight, and though Twilight wished she could have hidden her feelings better, her distress was plain for all to see. Applejack nodded and set aside her tea. 
“No worries, Sugarcube. Dash and I can be ready in a few hours. You want me to let Fluttershy know?”
“Yes… please.” 
Before Applejack could get off the couch, the door to the sitting room slammed open to admit a panting young changeling in the livery of a courier.
“Your majesties,” they gasped between breaths, “there’s been an incident in the training grounds. Lord Discord requests your assistance with all haste.”
Twilight felt her frown melt swiftly away, replaced by the placid familiar mask of governance. It came to her unbidden and without effort.
“Lead the way,” she told the changeling. If she had bothered to look back as she left the room, she would have noticed that Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s concerned expressions had not disappeared but rather deepened and were now aimed at her. 


-


Twilight stood on the parade grounds behind her castle looking up at the large yellow orb of magic crackling a few paces above the field. The day was windy, and the sky was streaked with gray foreboding clouds. The guards had been sent back to their barracks, and aside from the offending draconequus and Twilight’s friends, the area behind the castle was devoid of life as far as she could see. Chaos magic didn’t often go wrong. By its very nature, it behaved erratically, so how could you tell if it was doing something it wasn’t supposed to? But when it did go wrong, the consequences tended to be drastic. 
Rainbow Dash was hovering around the orb in conversation with Discord, who looked sheepishly and suitably guilty. Fluttershy was hovering next to him and had placed a hoof on his shoulder in support. Behind Twilight, Applejack was in conversation with Starlight and Kerning. Strawberry had been sent to assure the remaining officers at the castle that all was well. Twilight hoped it really was. 
“Walk me through it one more time,” Rainbow Dash said, scratching the top of her head with her hoof. “This is what? Like, a labyrinth?”
“More like an obstacle course,” Discord said, looking just as confused as Rainbow Dash. “You see, I left a bit of my own power inside, and whenever the guards would enter, that part of me created some challenges for them. I based them on the Elements and everything, and honestly, it was working fine for hours.” 
“Oh,” said Fluttershy, still patting his shoulder, “I’m sure it wasn’t anything you did.” 
“Then what?” Twilight asked, joining in the conversation but trying not to look Fluttershy in the eyes. “What happened, Discord?” 
The chimeric lord of chaos pointedly ignored Twilight, clearly pretending he’d not heard her and couldn’t see her standing there. Fluttershy too was looking at absolutely everything but Twilight. Rainbow sighed and repeated the question. 
“How should I know? That Winter Shield fellow and some others stepped in, and then all of a sudden…” he waved a claw at the orb which was crackling away menacingly, “…this! It felt strange.” 
Rainbow Dash and Applejack, who’d finished her conversation with Starlight and now stood next to Twilight, both shot him unimpressed looks. 
“Strange?” Applejack said. “Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be?” 
“My dear Applejack, of course it’s supposed to feel strange! I meant differently strange, like there was something else in there running interference… maybe. I don’t know!” He tossed his arms up in resignation. “This has never happened to me before.” 
“Something else!?” Applejack asked, incredulous. “And you’re saying you can’t stop the spell?”
“Yes, well,” Discord stuttered, “I only left a little bit of power in there, you know. Maybe it got distracted?” 
Twilight sighed and rubbed a hoof against her horn. She was going to have to strain herself for this one, she could feel it.
“Kerning,” she said, turning back to look at the old pegasus while her friends continued to interrogate Discord. “Would you please fetch two golden pills from the lab in the Folding Archive? They should be in a box marked with an upside down number five over the chemistry station along the west wall.”
“Of course, your majesty. The ones for headaches, yes?” He didn’t wait for Twilight to confirm before bowing and trotting off towards the castle.
Twilight turned back to her friends. “Are Winter and the others in danger, Discord?”
Fluttershy winced at the question, or maybe it was just a facial tick–Twilight couldn’t always tell–, but Discord continued to ignore her until Fluttershy said something too quiet for Twilight to hear.
Discord sneered but turned his eyes on Twilight. When he spoke, however, it was without obvious malice. “I honestly don’t know, Princess.” Well, not much malice anyway. “But yes, they might be.”
That was good enough for Twilight. She took a deep breath and splayed her wings up and out, planting her hooves firmly. Discord didn’t wait, grabbing Fluttershy and teleporting the two of them out of the way. It took Rainbow Dash a second to notice, but when she did, she too flew away from the orb, joining her grimacing wife on Twilight’s left. 
She began to weave a spell, pulling deeply on the three types of magic endemic to her. Her wings, her horn, and her hooves all thrummed and began to faintly glow. She wasn’t very proficient at chaos magic, so that would do her little good here. The magic of the umbrum, however, would certainly do the trick… she hoped. It had a way of weakening or countering chaos. Well, it seemed to weaken almost every kind of magic, but it would do for a dissolution spell strong enough to handle a mishap by Discord.
She braced herself. Shadow magic, or dark magic, or whatever ponies wanted to call it, always took its toll, even in small doses. She focused on the beating of her heart, and in her mind, she whispered to it a list of things that hurt, things that stoked her jealousy, things that raged and begged for hatred, and after only a few seconds, she felt something cold travel up from her chest and into her horn. 
Once, this had been a lengthy process. Now, it scarcely took her more than a couple of seconds. She opened her eyes, which glowed cyan and were leaking purple shadows, and took a moment to steady herself. Her horn hissed and spat with esoteric energy, enveloped in a sickly magenta aura streaked with sparks of curdled magic.
With a final deep breath, Twilight let loose a monstrous blast of energy, all of it focused into a razor-sharp dissolution spell. 
“BEGONE!” Twilight commanded, using every ounce of her Royal Canterlot Voice to instill upon the chaos magic that it was in its best interest to cease its mischief. Her thunderous voice and the raucous crash of her magic slamming into Discord’s orb echoed out across the hills and valleys around Ponyville, and for several seconds afterwards, her ears kept ringing. Unfortunately for all involved, the orb of chaos magic remained where it was, looking no worse for wear. 
Twilight released a frustrated snort and shook her head. That should have worked, and she much regretted that it hadn’t, because a small tightness at the base of her neck already warned of the oncoming headache. 
She turned around to ask her friends for ideas, only to find them standing completely and unnaturally still, unblinking and unbreathing. Discord was still too, though, judging by the tension in his jaw, Twilight could see that he was struggling to move and so was clearly still aware. 
“What…” Had her magic done that? That couldn’t be right. She carefully approached Discord and prodded him with a few trepidatious tendrils of magic. She did the same to Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. This wasn’t the work of a time altering spell, nor did it seem like any regular kind of trap spell since that would have solidified the air immediately surrounding the target. None of them were surrounded by magical auras of any kind, so they weren’t being actively held in place. If there was a culprit, they were very skilled at disguising their magic. Twilight’s friends just seemed… stuck in place. Discord was aware, but the other three seemed dazed, eyes clouded over. 
She sat down, gritted her teeth, then sighed deeply. Time and time again, the universe loved to remind her how little control she actually had. She rubbed her face with a weary hoof. 
“If this wasn’t you, Discord, and I don’t think it was, and it wasn’t me, then I’d have to guess there’s some new outside malicious force meddling in our lives… again…” She sat for a moment, realizing what she’d just said, letting the statement percolate, then grunted with frustration. This was it. The bad thing. Wasn’t it? No sooner had she thought the thought than did an enormous weight seem to settle in her stomach.  
“I just… urgh! Why?! What is it this time?!” She stomped her hooves hard into the grass.  “What do you want?!” She yelled the last into the sky, not expecting a response, and sure enough, her demand was met with silence. Her shadow grinned and shook with laughter, but she ignored it. She needed solutions, not temper tantrums. 
But it was hard not to throw the tantrum. It came to her unbidden, with a fierceness that surprised her. Anger, frustration, and fear roiled around inside her. Her throat felt tight, and her eyes burned with the threat of tears. She’d been on edge for so many months, waiting for something, expecting the worst every morning. And here it was, whatever it was. Surely, Discord’s magic didn’t just malfunction on its own. Surely, her most powerful dissolution spell wouldn’t have failed without some outside interference. 
“Alright, Twilight,” she muttered to herself, struggling to set aside her emotions, “this is just a puzzle that needs solving, and you’re great at puzzles.” She ignored the muscles twitching around Discord’s eyes which she guessed were meant to indicate an eyeroll. 
She ran through a quick mental index of spells that might be responsible and some spells that might unfreeze her friends, but nothing obvious came to mind. The Power of Friendship was useless… right now, she quickly amended in her mind. It was mostly only good for producing large rainbow-colored battering rams of magic and was otherwise too esoteric and unpredictable for intentional use. Either way, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were still absent. 
The only variable was Twilight. She could still move and act, so that meant…. It meant some force or entity wanted to interact with Twilight without interference. Ok, that was something. A frightening something, but something nonetheless. She sighed and took a deep breath. If nothing was going to reveal itself to her, she’d just have to ask. Really ask, and not throw a tantrum. 
“Hello?” she said, as calmly as she could. “I assume, whatever you are, that you want to talk, or you’d have attacked me by now.” 
For a long moment, nothing happened. The wind continued to blow across the training grounds, and the silence lingered. Just when she was about to try again, she spotted something unusual. A small crack had appeared in the air before her. It was tiny, and if Twilight hadn’t been wearing her glasses and been actively searching for something out of the ordinary, she wasn’t sure she would’ve noticed it. She squinted and pushed her face closer to the little crack, trying to see all of it. 
“What are you supposed to be?” she asked the anomaly. It shimmered, and though Twilight was quite sure it wasn’t moving, it seemed slippery in some way she couldn’t really define. She placed a hoof against it and was only mildly surprised to realize it had substance. It was rough, like touching a marred window or mirror. She pushed against it and felt the crack spread. “Hmm… might as well.”
She pushed again, harder, and gasped as the world broke around her, shattering into a million star-like slivers. Her body vanished with the slivers as she plunged forwards and down into a deep well of darkness. She’d have screamed if she still had a mouth, but instead she fell without form or sound until the falling was all there was. When she eventually lost all sense of direction and time, her fear grew less acute, and a soft and broken voice called out to her.
“Do not be afraid, little evening star. All is well.”
Twilight laughed soundlessly. It was a voice she knew well.


-


She stood on the peak of a frozen mountain, overlooking the black fjords of the unexplored north. 
“Are you sure about this?” Celestia called from a ledge further down. The wind tore through the elder princess’ hair, whipping it about like a pennant in a storm, and Twilight had to admit it was a much less dignified image than she usually presented. 
“I’m sure,” she said, though she couldn’t tell if Celestia heard her over the howling gale. She looked down at the thick damp moss beneath her hooves. It flourished even under the iciest patches of days-old snow, sucking life from anything it could, persevering. 
After a moment of silence, Celestia called up again. “You know I can’t help you if something goes wrong, right?” 
Twilight chuckled. She knew. Celestia was her superior in most ways, but not in this. She was the Element of Magic, and she could do things already that Celestia could barely understand. 
“You didn’t have to come,” she called down, loud enough this time to ensure Celestia heard. “I’ve already gathered most of the components for the spell. This is the last one.” 
Celestia placed a hoof against the cliff wall as if considering flying up to Twilight’s perch but hesitated and put it back down. Twilight had made it very clear she needed the space. 
“This is… Twilight, all this over a dream? I won’t stop you, but please reconsider. This is dangerous magic.” 
This time, Twilight laughed out loud. “Most magic is dangerous magic, Princess.” She looked back out over the fjord, smile fading. “I’m sorry, but I have to know.” 
Celestia shook her head and looked away. Twilight didn’t like that Celestia disapproved but gone were the days of craving her old mentor’s constant approval or needing her permission. Twilight was a force unto herself, and what she lacked in wisdom she tried her best to compensate for with knowledge.
The dream had come to her several weeks earlier and had returned every night since. In it, she went on a journey across the world to places she’d never seen or heard of. In these places, she met a voice which spoke to her of things to come, of dangers and tribulations. She could never remember the specifics of it when she woke, but she knew it was important that she find some way to recall the visions. She felt certain this was more than a self-generated recurring dream. Her anxieties had brought her plenty of those over the years, and she could tell the difference. Had she not locked her mind to outside visitation, she’d have asked Luna to confirm, but it would only have been a formality. She knew. 
When one door closed, however, another always opened, and there were other ways, older ways, to ascertain the truth of things. In books so old only magic and spite held them together, she read of objects of power, things meant for communing with the elder forces of the world, for seeing the past and the future, and for ripping aside the vagaries of material reality. 
She yearned to do just that. To reduce the mysteries of existence to quantifiable and documentable facts. Though the spellbooks she’d sought were half-finished messes with faded passages and torn out­ pages, she’d arisen each morning filled with inspiration and determination, and being who she was, she’d reconstructed the spell of crafting needed to make an orbuculum. 
Only one final component was needed, and when she had it, she’d pull the truth from her dreams and into the light of day. She would finally know why this voice haunted her every sleeping hour, why she woke in the middle of the night shivering and covered in sweat, and why she felt so afraid. She’d know.
She took a deep breath and primed her magic. This first part would be simple, a small spell, really. Discord had shown her how to do it, and it didn’t even require the use of chaos magic. Her horn lit up in an off-pink shade, streaked with angry motes of red. It felt unpleasant but not quite painful. Then, a dissonant chime rang out from the tip. Concentrated strife, a note of pure disharmony. It was bait. Bait for creatures who only lived in myth and the furthest reaches of the cold and forgotten world of yesteryear. 
She held her breath and waited as tension built inside her. She imagined Celestia was holding her breath as well. Each second felt like an eternity, stretching out in nervous anticipation, each one afraid to end. The wind howled. The moss drank of the melting snow. The clouds passed by overhead. And Twilight waited.
She felt the wind shift and the temperature drop sharply just before a series of ghastly screams rang out across the dark waters far below. Twilight grinned. She’d been right. As the Windigos soared into the sky before her, she laughed and jumped and whooped with joy. She’d done it! Now, all that remained was to catch one and collect its hopes. But she was Twilight Sparkle, and they were only monsters from legend. How hard could it be?


-


“Is it what you hoped for?” Rarity had asked.


-


Twilight’s left wing had been pulled clean out of its socket, hanging limply by her side. A cut over her eyes had swollen so much she could only barely see. Other things had broken too; ribs, a radius, a tibia, more bones her addled mind had been too concussed to properly account for. Celestia had half dragged half carried the bleeding shattered princess into the map room, and Twilight had been grinning.
Because she was an idiot, she’d been grinning.
She saw herself, as if through smoke stained windows, and she had no mouth to scream with, no legs to wave. She needed to tell the past and broken version of herself that it wouldn’t work, that she’d end up hurting Fluttershy, that Trixie couldn’t be saved, that none of this was worth the cost. The little green vial of Windigo hope that the other version of Twilight had stashed away in her portable pocket dimension would bring nothing but pain.
Somepony had screamed. At the time, Twilight had assumed it was Rarity, and floating above it all, here in the void, she could see that she’d been right. Fluttershy had wasted no time in rushing to her side, ministering to her wounds and broken bones, while Applejack had been forced to physically restrain Rarity from rushing to Twilight’s side and getting in Fluttershy’s way. Rainbow Dash had taken to berating a silent and haunted looking Celestia. 
Twilight’s memories of the event were understandably foggy, and though she knew she had hurt her friends and caused them to worry with her reckless pursuit for answers, she hadn’t realized the toll it had taken on Celestia. 
“Why did she not provide aid against the Spirits of the Everdeath?” the familiar voice asked.
Twilight was still voiceless, but she thought her answer, willed it out. Rainbow Dash had blamed Celestia for standing by, and Twilight had been in no condition to tell Rainbow to back off. 
Celestia didn’t know the proper magic needed to draw hope from the essence of disharmony and entropy, but even if she had known how to cast the appropriate spells and maintain her tether to the material world, she’d have been barred from interfering by ancient foundational laws, forces that had been interwoven with all of reality since the first morning and the earliest breath.
And of course, perhaps most damming of all, Twilight had asked her not to help. Celestia’s student, her beloved protegee, had asked her to stand by and do nothing, and she had honored that wish. 
Is it what you hoped for?


-


She was leaning against Rarity, the two of them huddled together at the center of a massive and impossibly intricate glyph painted onto the cleared floor of one of the library wings in Twilight’s castle. Twilight was a sweaty mess and so was Rarity, though the later was also crying.
“It’s ok,” Twilight whispered. “You don’t have to cry. I’m ok.”
“Damn you, Twilight,” Rarity stammered between sobs. “Damn you.” 
“I’m sorry,” Twilight said, though she didn’t mean it as much as she should have.
“You could have let me do more,” Rarity cried. “I said I’d help you. I wanted to help.” 
“You did,” Twilight said, trying to speak a little louder, though the effort required to do so was tremendous. “I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“What! Like you, you mean?!” Rarity yelled, turning her head to stare into Twilight’s lidded unfocused eyes with the fury of a raging manticore. “Twice, Twilight Sparkle! Twice in the last three days I’ve had to watch you almost die! I won’t do it again!”
Rarity extricated herself from under Twilight’s weight, causing Twilight to collapse to the floor, then wobbled off towards the door on unsteady legs. Twilight could hear the unicorn’s breath hitch as it caught on the occasional sob, but she was too drained to get up and chase after her friend. She couldn’t even turn her head to watch her go, instead focusing on the bluish-gray orb pulsing on the floor before her.
She heard Rarity open the door, then a pause.
“Is it what you hoped for?” 
“Yes,” Twilight whispered. “Yes, it is.” 
Another pause, then the door closed. Nopony else came for Twilight that night, and she fell asleep on the floor, shivering in her own cold sweat.


-


“It is a great object of power,” the familiar voice said.
They were watching a memory in which Twilight, in her laboratory in the castle’s basement, was constructing the brass tripod on which she meant to house the orbuculum. It was an instrument of specific and meticulously measured angles and dimensions, designed to amplify the powers of the orbuculum and allow it to operate on some level even without a direct magic feed from Twilight.
Starlight and Trixie were both keeping her company. Though they were really keeping each other company in Twilight’s vicinity, drinking tea at a table she’d set up just for them. They were laughing and smiling at each other. Starlight was speaking with pride about her daughter, Luster, and Trixie was insinuating that all of Luster’s noteworthy qualities were, in fact, inherited from her great and powerful aunt.
“It’s meant to allow a pony to discern truths,” Twilight thought to the voice, ignoring how little the memory version of Twilight was engaging with Starlight and Trixie. “Esoteric truths, mundane truths, truths about the future and the past. I’d hoped it would help me understand…”
“I know,” the voice said. “Be at peace, little one. I know.”
“Where are we?” Twilight thought. “Is it the well? It doesn’t look like any part of the well I’ve ever been to.” 
“It is,” the voice said. “Though we never called it that.”
Twilight yearned for a quill and scrolls. As always, she was possessed of questions and a relentless need to have them answered, but she was limited in this space. She had no form, and her mind was herded away from some thoughts and directed towards others. It was disquieting and uncomfortable. She didn’t handle her agency being curtailed well under normal circumstances, and this was worse.
“You must trust me,” the voice said, “as you have before.” 
“Then please,” Twilight thought, seeking something, anything, concrete to anchor herself by.
“I am the Echo of Eternity. Once, before the forging of all things, we were friends.”


-


It was pitch black outside. Not a single star twinkled, and the moon was entirely absent from the sky. A grumpy Princess Luna lay prone on the grassy field behind Sweet Apple Acres, and Twilight was doing her best to ignore both her soulful sighing and Applejacks unsuccessful attempts to not chuckle–Applejack didn’t giggle–at the sight of an immortal alicorn princess throwing an admittedly very subdued temper tantrum on her lawn. 
Luna rolled over on her back and once again sighed as loudly and morosely as she could.
“Oh, for!” Twilight groaned, stepping away from the orbuculum and a large pile of gemstones she’d bribed Spike and Rarity to collect for her. “Do you mind, Lulu? I’m trying to peak behind the veil of reality, and you’re making it kind of difficult to focus.”
“Twilight,” Luna said, trying to sound stern and not whiny. “You made me lower all the stars and the moon on the condition that it would only be a brief interlude for my subjects, not a several hour long abstinence from the radiance of my night.”
“Oh, please. Don’t be so dramatic. It’s been an hour and a half, and I promise, if I can’t get this figured out in the next hour and a half, you can have your night sky back.”
“I don’t reckon anypony in town will mind much,” Applejack said, scratching her chin with a massive hoof, “or bother asking questions, but I hope you let the rest of, well, everywhere know you were planning this, or there’s bound to be some, uhm, some confusion.” 
“Yes, obviously,” a blushing Twilight lied, having done no such thing. She silently hoped Spike or Starlight had taken the initiative. Too often, she’d forget that her subjects were actual living creatures and not just numbers in the spreadsheets prepared for her by Strawberry Patch or one of her other aids. It made things… messy was probably the best way to describe it. All those feelings, wants, and unpredictable idiosyncrasies tended to gunk up the gears of even Twilight’s best laid plans.
Focus, Twilight.
She turned back to the orbuculum and placed the tip of her horn against its surface for the twentieth time that evening. A sliver of magic leapt from the grooves in her horn to the orb, anchoring Twilight’s mind to a slumbering mass of probability and possibility. She cast another spell to levitate the gemstones, six similarly cut pieces of various species, into position above the orbuculum. They were representative of the Elements and were supposed to help establish the initial connection safely.
There were four pieces of beryl–red, gold, green, and aquamarine–as well as an amethyst and a piece of ametrine. She arranged them into a pentagon with the ametrine placed at the center, equidistant from the other five gems. She was guessing that she must have locked the gems in place slightly asymmetrically the previous nineteen attempts.
The spell could technically be completed without the barrier the gems provided, but Twilight wasn’t about to leave her mind open and unprotected, not again. She didn’t trust dream barriers, no matter how intricately woven, for something as intense as this. If she tried to complete the connection without the protective spell in perfect position, a seventh gem she’d enchanted to serve as an alarm would flash brightly and chirp loudly at her.
This time, she was pretty sure her measurements were as exact as they needed to be.
“Applejack,” she said, not moving her eyes from the orb, “if you would.”
Applejack sighed and walked up to Twilight. The burly earth pony took a deep breath then knelt down and released it in the form of a soft green mist over the grass by Twilight’s hooves. For the twentieth time that night, roots sprung up from the ground, twining their way around Twilight’s legs and locking her in place. The roots sprouted a few leaves and glowed with a gentle golden light. They served as a final layer of protection, tethering Twilight to one of the three domains of the Equestrian pony tribes and strengthening her connection to the material world.
“This is pretty draining, Twi. Like as not, I’ve only got a couple more tries in me before I’m too spent to keep at it.”
Twilight nodded, still not looking away from the orbuculum. Though her horn was still magically tethered to the orb, eye contact remained an important component of the spell. So far, so good. The alarm gem wasn’t flashing or whistling. Hopefully, it’d stay that way. Luna had stopped her sighing and was watching the spell unfold with a serious and weary curiosity. She had understood all the components when Twilight explained them but admitted she probably couldn’t complete the spell herself.
Obviously, that raised all kinds of questions about who, during the prehistoric times from which this spell was sourced, had possessed the power to forge the orbuculum’s predecessors and wield their power. The implications were as fascinating as they were frightening. Unfortunately, those were questions for another day.
Twilight entered the well. Or tried to, at least. The well was a realm of pure magic placed slightly outside the flow of normal reality. It was the place in which Celestia had elevated Twilight into an alicorn, though Twilight had since learned that her ascension had been an inevitable eventuality and that Celestia had simply helped it along. 
As far as she knew, only alicorns and other elevated magical creatures could fully enter the well. Others could partially enter or bring part of the well into their own minds. This was, frustratingly, something Twilight hadn’t quite been able to wrap her mind around. At least, the particular mechanics of it eluded her. Shining Armor, however, had mastered the technique and had subsequently taught it to several others.
Since the well was a place of pure harmony and serenity, it helped focus the mind and allowed ponies to perform incredible feats of will and strength. For alicorns, entering the well allowed them access to a massive influx of raw magical power. Unfortunately, most spells cast in the well, stayed in the well. Attempting to enter the well now allowed the orbuculum to form a three-way connection between itself, Twilight’s mind, and the unadulterated magical matrix of all Equestria. 
The air around Twilight began to crackle with static electricity, and the few pebbles and loose leaves around her–Applejack kept a meticulous lawn–began to float off the ground. She had to fight the urge to laugh, lest she lose her concentration. As the spell progressed, Twilight could feel within her body a timer alerting her to when she had to activate each next step. The timer was itself an independently maintained spell. 
After five seconds, Twilight compelled the magic in her horn to flow backwards. A thunderous crack rang out across Sweet Apple Acres as a concussive shockwave reverberated out from the orbuculum, almost knocking Applejack to the ground and flattening the prone Luna even further. Twilight herself would have toppled if not for the roots holding her in place. 
Another five seconds passed, and Twilight constructed an intricate web of magic pathways under the meninges of her brain and a matching identical web on the orbuculum. It felt like somepony was squishing the soft insides of her skull with icy hooves from all directions simultaneously, and Twilight felt a blood vessel pop in her left nostril. Her eyesight grew hazy, and the wet feeling on her muzzle told her she was bleeding quite a lot. Still, it was just a nosebleed. She’d be fine. 
Five more seconds passed, and Twilight began to pour as much magic as she could into the orbuculum. She kept at it until her knees grew weak and her stomach lurched. Eventually, the orbuculum was draining her magic of its own volition, and Twilight was helpless to stop it. It was a terrifying experience, but one she’d expected. If her calculations were correct, the orb would stop short of killing her. Though she’d need to rest for a few days to recover. 
Sure enough, after a few more five-second intervals, the orb went dull, releasing Twilight from its grip. The gemstones fell from the air, and the roots around Twilight’s legs retreated back into the earth. She stumbled, then fell forward onto the grass, face smeared with her own blood, but smiling triumphantly.
“Eat your heart out, Starswirl,” she laughed, though the laughter was strained with effort. 
Luna and Applejack both stared at her, eyes wide and mouths agape. 
“Sweet Celestia, Rarity was right. You’ve plum gone mad, Twilight.” 
“I…” Luna hesitated. “Yes, that was alarming to watch.”
Twilight frowned, a bit hurt by Applejack’s comment, but was determined to press on. They’d understand eventually. Rarity too.  
“It’s fine, girls. Just, you’ll see. This will all be worth it.” 
Is it what you hoped for?


-


Twilight didn’t like to keep the lights in The Castle of Friendship turned up very high. There were too many reflective surfaces, too much crystal, and it hurt her eyes. So, she used candles as much as she could and light fixtures that could dim where open fire was inadvisable. Many of the castle staff felt it was perhaps a tad bit gloomy, and other than Rarity, who’d claimed to find the lighting both mysterious and romantic, most of Twilight’s friends seemed to agree. 
Pinkie sometimes complained about it when she was there for lessons with Discord. Applejack didn’t say anything out loud, and neither did Fluttershy, but both of them often frowned or squinted when stepping into a new room, clearly needing time to adjust. Rainbow Dash, the paragon of tact that she was, loudly complained about it almost as often as she complained about Twilight’s rule against flying inside the castle hallways.
That evening, the Twilight of the past was sitting in a small study–not her main office–staring at the orbuculum. A few candles kept her company, but their tiny flames did nothing to chase away the dark shadows that clung to the corners of the room. A harpist she retained by the name of Cat Gut–an unfortunate and prophetic moniker–was playing a somber tune in the corner of the study. Twilight always told her to play what felt appropriate, and apparently, somber was it.
Past Twilight only vaguely heard the tune. She was in communion with the orbuculum, as she had been every night for the past week. She’d never before seen herself in the act, and she thought that it looked very undignified. She appeared addled, eyes glazed over and mouth slightly agape. No doubt, the image of an almost drooling Princess hunched before a pulsing orb in a dark and cramped study surrounded by a few flickering candles was as unsettling to Cat Gut as it was to the ethereal Twilight floating above it all.
“Yikes,” she thought. The Echo of Eternity, though invisible to Twilight, extended something that felt like curiosity against Twilight’s essence. Twilight thought it best not to admit how embarrassing and revelatory it was to view oneself from the outside like this. Instead, she asked a question she already knew the answer to.
“You were here,” she thought, “in the orbuculum. You’re the one who warned me in my dreams and whispered to me on nights like this.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it was the other. I am sorry I could not be clearer. Even here, death limits me.” 
The orb had shown Twilight the future. That was what her dreams had been about, a future so horrible she’d wept the first night the orb spoke to her, the first night the orb had pulled her dreams from the realm of half-forgotten mornings into the realm of the quantifiable. 
These visions, narrated by a voice, spoke of an ageless intelligence that wished to rot the world. The Echo of Eternity spoke of the Windigos as spirits of the Everdeath, and it seemed an apt description of the visions Twilight had seen, a chaotic never-ending decay that stripped every ounce of life, joy, and magic from the world until reality was nothing but a gaping sucking wound. 
Sometimes the voice had been kind, trustworthy, and gentle. Other nights it had been insistent, aggressively so, and harsh, and on those nights, Twilight felt doubt gnaw at her heart. But then the kind voice would return. She understood now. The Echo of Eternity had been that voice, but she said there was another. That made sense, and Twilight wasn’t at all sure why she’d assumed the voices, so different in tone and quality, had belonged to the same entity. When she thought back on it, she’d assumed the voices were just part of the spell, a narration added for clarity.
It horrified Twilight to think that some of the advice she’d acted on could have been actively malicious, provided by something meant to cause her harm. The Echo of Eternity was frightening enough as it was. It was the angry voice that had first suggested the structuring of her guard, but then… the kind voice had agreed? If Twilight had a body, she’d have placed her face in her hooves, frustrated and confused by the whole situation.
Then ice swelled in her chest. A horrible realization clawed through her non-existent body, choking her thoughts. It was the angry voice that whispered to her about the curse that bound the Elements together, that warned her what might happen to her friends, it was that voice and the accompanying nightmares that had driven Twilight frantic, that had driven her to react as she had regarding Trixie… that had made her hurt Fluttershy.
Just, you’ll see. This will all be worth it.
Was it everything you hoped for?
Trust me, I know what I’m doing. 
Twilight fled. Somehow, she forced herself away from the vision, away from the well and the Echo of Eternity. She found herself in her own body again, but this time in a dark place. It felt as if she was stepping on water, and the whole thing seemed vaguely familiar. She’d dreamt this place before, she thought. She also knew she shouldn’t be there, felt it as intensely as she’d ever felt anything. 
A being stood before her, robed entirely in black. She couldn’t see beneath the robes, but she feared what she’d find there if she looked. This was the Echo of Eternity, another thing she simply knew in this place. It lumbered and jolted in strange ways as it walked up to Twilight, and she had the distinct impression that this was a more real, more tangible, version of her longtime hidden companion. 
“What are you?” Twilight asked, leaning back and away from the horrible shade. “Are you… alive?” 
Then a face appeared in the thing’s cowl, a face Twilight would never be able to describe accurately. It was vacant in ways that made the world seem crowded, lonely and drained and so very tired. But something struggled there, Twilight thought. Behind the vacuous emptiness of its eyes, she thought she could see the tiniest glimmer of a sad weak creature trying once again to remember what triumph felt like. 
Its lips parted slowly, and when the Echo spoke, the whisper strained to bridge the void between them.
“Power. I am old power. The remnants of one who was radiant above all others. I am all that is left.”
“I don’t understand. Please, tell me what’s going on! I thought the orbuculum was supposed to show me the truth of things! I made the spell to do just that!”
“You were successful, but not all truths are benign. In reforging the Eye of Knowledge, you invited those who hold the keys. I am one such being, a fragment of what once was. He Who Hungers is another.”
He Who Hungers.
“It is difficult,” the Echo continued, “to be in this place. To speak to you this directly. I brought you here to tell you this. I have ever attempted to intervene in your journey such that you may one day prevail and awaken the Elements of Harmony. I have tried to guide your steps, but so has he. You should know that it is a servant of the adversary that presently fights the will of Discord. I would beseech you to stay your hoof and to refrain from aiding those trapped within.”
Twilight recoiled at that. No, definitely not! Her guards were trapped alongside some eldritch entity bent on their demise, and she was disinclined to abandon them.
“I can’t,” Twilight said. “I can’t leave my subjects in peril on the words of a stranger, a shade no less. This could be some kind of ploy by… I mean… why in Equestria should I trust you now after everything you’ve told me? You say this Everdeath is nefarious and that he means to hurt me, but many of his whispers, his advice, was echoed by you. Why would he warn me of the coming disaster if he himself is its cause?”
“Trust me, Twilight, because I have stood with you since before you were born. I stood with you in ages past when you served as a shining beacon in the void, when you were whole and made worlds in your image, when every breath you took was filled with the promise of harmony and love. Trust me because I have died once already to elevate your glory and will do so again.”
And then, with a fierce snapping suddenness, Twilight found herself standing back on the training grounds in front of a very mobile Discord and several dumfounded friends.
“What just happened?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking slightly dizzy.
Discord looked at Twilight, inspecting her in a way that seemed too analytical, too knowing.
“Yes, Twilight,” he said. “What did just happen?”
> Part I - Ch. VII - To Flee From Things That Hurt
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





“Something is wrong, it's plain to see
This isn't how it's meant to be
And you can’t see it like I do
It’s not the life that’s meant for you”

– Twilight Sparkle






“Curious. You smell like one of them, but you’re not, are you?”
Winter shook his head wildly and stumbled backwards, unsure of where he was. He felt frightened, the bubbling preamble to panic bouncing about in his gut. He looked around, trying to understand, trying to remember what was happening.
Though everything was dark, there was a familiarity to this place. It felt like something… like the calm that settled on him whenever he was doing his breathing exercises or the stillness that came to him when he focused in that particular way Langet had taught him. The well, she’d called it. Except, the well was a state of mind, and this was a place, a twisted rotten place that filled him with discomfort. For just a moment, he thought he heard the sound of a train horn and distant singing, but when he tried to listen closer, the sound was gone.
“Why do you smell like her? Hmmm, no. Why do you smell like one sixth of her? The worst part too. Disgusting!”
“Show yourself!” Winter called, mustering all the command and courage he could, trying to sound like he did when drilling soldiers. It mattered little. The words were absorbed into the silent void as soon as they left his lips.
“You’re some kind of… horse? I’ve noticed most of you are. Strange. Or maybe not, maybe just vanity on her part.” The voice chuckled in the dark.
Winter didn’t respond but stood his ground. Moving seemed risky, and he had to assume that whatever it was, it could see him. Though he was terrified–unnaturally so, he thought–he wasn’t about to give it the satisfaction of backing down.
“My name is Orphic,” the thing said. Its voice sounded awful, like scraping half-settled asphalt off industrial tin-sheets, and it made Winter’s skin crawl. “You should know that even if you survive this, it’ll mean very little. He’s given me a command, and I won’t disobey him. But afterwards…” Orphic laughed a loud unhinged laughter, and Winter was sure he’d never heard anything quite as mad in his whole life. 
He was about to try yelling at the thing again when a snarling beast came lunging out of the dark. It threw itself into the air and closed its jaws around an inky dark figure hovering a little bit in front of Winter. The beast was an amalgamation of creatures, wild horns and fangs everywhere, and more limbs and eyes than seemed right. It shook its head back and forth like a timberwolf trying to snap the neck of its prey. 
The inky figure cried out with Orphic’s voice, though the pitiful noise sounded more shocked than pained. Winter stood stunned, uncertain whether he should run or try to aid the newly arrived creature, though he wasn’t at all convinced it needed any help. 
The choice was taken from him when a chitinous claw grabbed hold of his right foreleg and yanked him up and out of the darkness that he’d been sharing with Orphic. His head broke through something thick and viscous, and when his sight returned to him, he saw that he was floundering in a lake made of black sticky slime.
“Grab his other leg, damn you! He’s fighting me, I need your help.”
It was Cercus voice. He was the one who had grabbed Winter and was dragging him out of the muck up onto a stony shore. Linden too was standing on the stones, and when Winter broke the surface, she reached out to help Cercus pull their sputtering and confused captain to safety.
Once securely on land, Winter tried to thank the two only for his stomach to empty a significant amount of the black watery slop onto the ground. He lay there, convulsing and vomiting as Cercus caught his breath and Linden prodded him with healing magic, likely ensuring nothing was broken. 
When Winter no longer felt he was dying and the poison in his belly had been expelled, he gently pushed Linden away and sat up as straight as he could. They were on some kind of beach, but instead of sand there was only flat obsidian as far as he could see. The dark lake in front of them stretched well beyond sight in every direction, so very possibly, it was an ocean, and not a lake. There were no trees or plants, and the sky was as gray and gloomy as he’d ever seen, except that on the horizon there seemed to be a dark red and yellowish sort of faint glow.
“Are you certain you feel well?” Linden asked.
Winter nodded. “Well enough,” he croaked. “What in Celestia’s name is going on? I… I can’t remember how we got here.” His lieutenants remained silent, and from the looks on their faces, he could tell the same was true for them.
“Linden and I found ourselves wandering this wasteland,” Cercus finally said, “and as far as either of us can tell, we’re on some kind of blighted obsidian plain. I’m pretty sure we’ve been walking for hours, and the only sign of life we’ve spotted was you falling into the… uhm… water here.”
Linden stuck a hoof in the water, but when she pulled it out, the black liquid clung to her hoof briefly before falling off. She shuddered and scrapped her hoof against the stone to make sure none of it remained.
“I don’t think this is water…”
Winter shook his head, which turned out to be a mistake. It was only with great effort that he was able to fight off the dizziness and remain upright.
“It certainly isn’t. You say you saw me fall in? And I assume you rushed over to pull me out as quickly as you could?” The two of them nodded, and Winter sighed. He explained to them about his encounter with the Orphic being and about the creature that attacked it. “I didn’t feel like I was underwater at all, and the encounter certainly lasted much longer than it seems I was submerged.”
“We’ve been enchanted then,” said Linden. “Or cursed, perhaps.”
Cercus nodded at that. “Yes, that seems likely. And likely too that wherever we are it’s nowhere in Equestria.”
Winter laughed grimly then cast a quick spell to dry himself off. “Well, nothing to do but start walking, I guess. Why don’t you pick a direction, Linden? I’d like to get as far from this spot–and Orphic–as possible.”
Linden sighed but nodded. “I think…”
Whatever it was she thought, Winter would never know. Before she could say another word, the surface of the black lake erupted as the monstrous creature that had attacked Orphic was flung into the air. It crashed into the rock, barely missing Cercus but sending all three of them to their stomachs as black slime and obsidian shards rained down on top of them.
Before they could recover, something else followed from the water, slowly rising into the air, and Winter knew beyond doubt that the thing was Orphic. It had a pony’s face, but it was long and chiseled, the head of a statue come alive. 
It had a long straight horn that shone against the darkened sky, and its eyes were brilliant rainbow pools against a marble-white coat. Its lashes and mane were the color of polished gold, and if not for the rest of its body, Winter would have called it beautiful, but in the way a painting was beautiful. There was nothing warm or living in that face, nothing welcoming at all. 
The rest of it was a nightmare. Its torso was emaciated and played host to too many limbs, some of which ended in hooves and others which ended in claws or grotesquely twisted hands. In addition, it had no legs, but its spine extended down into the dark water from the bottom of its open ribcage, dripping dark sludge and quivering constantly.
Linden was first to her hooves and was helping Cercus stand. Winter, already weak from his dip in the water, was struggling. The overwhelming sense of fear that had gripped him certainly didn’t help. The monster on the beach stood up and roared at Orphic so loudly, and with so much rage, that Winter almost fell back down. Between the two creatures, he felt certain today was the day he would die.  


-


Twilight didn’t hate any individual words as such. To hate a word was a silly affectation of silly ponies. A word was just a word. It meant what it meant, and one could either wield it with great effect or deploy it with casual forethought. All of that said, there was a certain word–one that kept returning unbidden to her mind and had done so for many years now–that she was beginning to develop an aversion towards: composure. 
A princess needed to maintain composure. For the sake of her subjects, a princess with all of Twilight’s particular neuroses especially needed to maintain composure. A princess with all of Twilight’s particular neuroses who was also more than a hundred years old and possessed the powers of an alicorn absolutely unequivocally had to maintain composure.
She felt her legs wobble beneath her and laughed nervously, thanking the stars above that none but her closest friends were there to see. The fact that all of their eyes widened in shock was a testament to how rare such outward displays of uncertainty from her had become and how unaccustomed even her friends were to seeing Twilight like this. She laughed again–a quiet frightened sound–and took an involuntary step backwards.  
Her shadow sneered at her, contempt dripping from its voice. “Focus on what matters, you child! You have guards to save.”
She knew that. She knew her trapped guards were the priority, but the weight of Rainbow and Discord’s question hung over her head like an executioner’s blade. What happened? She had to lie. That was the only way out. To lie. Or to ignore the question. To run away from it. 
Fluttershy took a step towards her, head cautiously held forward and low as if she was approaching a wounded animal, and Twilight felt the budding panic that was building inside of her swell and expand. Please don’t ask. Not you. Please!
“Twilight…” she said.
Please don’t…
Fluttershy’s voice was so demure, so filled with genuine concern. Twilight closed her eyes and tried to block out the words she knew would follow, tried to slow her own rapid breathing and by so doing slow down time as well.
“…are you alright?” 
The words, spoken so softly, like a gentle breeze on a spring morning, crashed into Twilight like a mountain slide. They crushed her and ground her up and spat her back out, and there was nothing she could do to stop their onslaught. She opened her eyes again, tears staining her cheeks, and stared at the small broken pegasus who now seemed so alien to her. Ten years of silence shattered by a question that might as well have been a dagger in her heart. Tension reigned, hanging over all of them for what felt like an eternity.
She turned suddenly, and on shaky legs she flung herself towards the pulsing chaos orb. For a brief moment, she heard her friends yell out for her to stop while Discord let out a string of expletives, but then all was still and quiet. Her shadow laughed.
“Why not?” it asked, mocking Twilight as she fell through darkness. “Surely, there’s nothing more frightening in here than your own friends.” Then it continued to laugh, and though Twilight was in shock, her face covered in tears, she had the surprisingly lucid thought that she really hated her own voice. 


-


Twilight Sparkle, unicorn and student to Princess Celestia, had no idea where she was. She stood up on shaky legs that seemed much too long and shook her wings to settle any out of place feathers. Feathers… Wings? With a startled yell, she leapt forward, but sure enough, the strange wings remained attached to her large and unwieldy body.
She took a deep breath and looked around at the desolate landscape. The ground was made of uneven slabs of obsidian, and the sky was gray, covered in washed out clouds. More concerningly, there was something incredibly wrong with her body, and she needed to see precisely what it was. 
She tried to cast a mirror spell, one she’d never really been able to pull off correctly during any of her lessons with the Princess, but when she tapped into her magical reservoirs a flood of power stronger and more intoxicating than anything she’d ever felt before poured forth to manifest in a mirror a league tall that stretched east and west as far as they eye could see. With another frightened yelp, she let go of the spell, mirror fading back into obscurity.
The strange callous looking alicorn she’d briefly glimpsed in the mirror certainly couldn’t have been her. She’d been so tall and regal looking… and she’d been beautiful. Very carefully, pulling on the least amount of magic she could, she summoned another mirror. This one was much smaller, no larger than the stand mirror in her parents’ hallway. For a moment, all she could do was stare. 
“This isn’t right,” she whispered. Her reflection’s lips thinned in a disapproving scowl. 
“This is right,” it responded, and the words were spoken with a confidence and power that seemed entirely unattainable to the young and uncertain unicorn trapped in the alicorn’s body. “I am Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, Element of Magic, Ruler of One Fourth of all Equestria, Guardian of Harmony, and the First Star of Six. Who are you?”
Twilight stumbled back from the reflection, but in this strange place, she shouldn’t have been surprised that it had come alive. Spells could be unpredictable in even the most controlled environments, and this was certainly not the most controlled environment.
“I’m… uhm, I’m just Twilight. I’m Princess Celestia’s student.”
The stern expression on her reflection’s face softened a little, replaced by a look of understanding. 
“I see.” The reflection seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then continued. “And what is that like, just Twilight? Are you happy?”
“I guess,” Twilight said, unsure of how to respond to this bizarre simulacrum. She felt compelled to say more though. 
“The Princess is very kind to me, and I have free access to the royal library. I get to see my parents twice a week, and Shining Armor comes to visit me sometimes during his lunch breaks. Cadance too, though she’s often busy.” 
Her reflection smiled, though the smile seemed somber somehow. “Tell me about Shining Armor.” 
Twilight didn’t like the question. It scared her. “Don’t you know him? You’re me… aren’t you?” 
The reflection laughed bitterly. “In some ways, I guess I am. Tell me about him anyway, please.”
Twilight nodded. “Sure… He’s very kind. Too kind, probably. He’s always looking out for me, but he looks out for everypony, so that’s nothing special. I think sometimes he forgets that he needs to look out for himself too. He’s not dumb, exactly, but he doesn’t always think about things as much as he should. He just kind of rushes headfirst into situations without considering the consequences. He really likes Cadance, but she likes him too, so that’s fine. I know mom and dad are very proud of him.”
Her reflection nodded. “So was I.”
Twilight’s chest began to hurt, and she quickly recoiled from the mirror, releasing the magic holding it in place. She would have had to be a fool and an idiot not to realize something was very wrong. 
“So was I…” she repeated, testing the words in her mouth. They seemed familiar, or rather something about the resigned and distant pain she felt when she spoke them seemed familiar. Yes, as her reflection had said, this was indeed right. Slowly, her life and memories began to return to her, and with the memories came a wry chuckle. “First star of six,” she muttered, “what a joke.” Whatever spell this place had placed on her mind, it could not last. When it shattered, a hundred years of victories, mistakes, and consequences came flooding back to her. A hundred years of loss. 
She growled and shook her head, disgusted with herself. To stumble headfirst into a memory trap without recognizing it or taking precautions was embarrassing and a testament to her frazzled and overwhelmed state of mind. Her growl turned into a choke as the horror of her flight washed over her again. She shut her eyes tight, frantically fighting against the coming tears. Her memories were returning piecemeal and out of order, forcing her to relieve them as they came to her.
“No!” she shouted at the ground, “Please, no!” Fluttershy’s face lingered in her mind like a haunting specter. She heard her distant sobs and Starlight’s wailing cries, begging Twilight to stop, to relent. She saw her own face, contorted in rage and disgust, her eyes burning cyan pools of fire and hate, and the gentle pegasus cowering before her next to Trixie’s withered and twitching body. 
Twilight reared up on her hindlegs and smashed her hooves to the ground with enough force to shatter the obsidian a hundred paces in each direction. The crack rang out like a sonic boom, echoing into the vastness of the strange and empty landscape in a desperate effort to banish her memories.
“Please,” she whispered to no one. “I can’t. Not this.” 
But of course, no temper tantrum ever made a memory go away, and as for guilt… Guilt was a small word used for petty crimes. Twilight was no petty criminal. Others forgave, others understood, others spoke of growth and the healing effect of time, but Twilight knew better. She knew herself to be what others claimed she wasn’t. Guilt was a small word.
She tried to breathe, to ease the tension in her muscles. She needed to figure out where she was. She needed to lock away her own weak feelings and focus on what mattered. Her subjects, her guards. They were in danger, but Twilight was too busy crying and being a pathetic mess to do what she should. Take care of those who need you! Stop being such a child!
“Stop being such a child…” she gritted her teeth and shook her head. A few deep breaths, a moment to gather herself, a whispered admonition and a call for poise. She stood up straight, held her head high, tears wicked away by magic and force of will. She was fine. She was always–and would always–be fine. You weren’t fine when you ran away from your friends like a coward. She snorted at her shadow, but otherwise tried to ignore it. She’d deal with her friends later. First, her guards.
Since the landscape was more or less uniform, and she couldn’t see anything notable except for a faint red glow on the horizon, she began to walk without concern for direction. Her neck was feeling even tighter than before, and the headache she’d feared after her attempt at banishing the chaos orb was beginning to take root at the base of her skull and behind her eyes. She grimaced and briefly wished she’d had the foresight to at least wait for Kerning to return with her medicine before deciding to have a total meltdown.
Possessing no other way to find Winter and the others, she decided to tentatively pull on the magic lines she’d cast back during the anniversary night celebrations. With any luck, they’d have solidified by now, and though the spell’s primary purpose wasn’t necessarily tracking, it was a useful side effect. Though it hurt her head to do so, she tried to focus on the spell and visualized tugging on the invisible threads that extended out from her horn.
To her delight, not just one but three separate threads sprang into existence before her and extended out to her left. She adjusted course and began to follow them. She couldn’t remember if Discord had said how many guards were actually in here, but now she at least knew that three of them, including Winter, had been selected by her spell. Finding them would serve two purposes then. Rescue and identification. After that, she’d only need to find two more.
Ignoring the headache, she began to run. Then, remembering her wings, she launched herself into the air. Twilight wasn’t the fastest flyer. Certainly, she was slower than Rainbow Dash–everypony was slower than Rainbow Dash–and she’d never beaten any of the other four princesses in a race either. But she was still an Alicorn and almost always that was enough. 
From her vantage in the air, she could see a large more polished expanse of black in the distance that stretched out forever like a wave less ocean. She hurled herself towards its shore, and as she drew closer, a nightmarish scene revealed itself to her.
Two creatures were entangled with each other above the dark waters. One was clearly an offshoot of Discord’s power come together as a monster to fight the other thing, and it was the other thing that gave her pause. Its marble-white face, rainbow eyes, and golden mane shone with power and called to mind the old and tattered wall hangings she’d seen in Celestia’s secret library depicting venerated unicorn saints and prophets. The hangings were from a time even before Celestia had been born, and yet, the creature before her seemed older still.
She didn’t need to see the way its torso dripped with dark ooze, or how its many limbs grabbed and twisted greedily in the air for something to strike and tear, to know that this thing was the enemy. She felt it deep in her bones and, travelling up from her stomach like so much bile, its name tumbled from her lips in a frightened whisper.
“Orphic.”
She’d never heard the name before, and she had no idea how she knew it, but as soon as she said it, Orphic turned his head to stare right at her, ignoring the chaos beast chewing on one of its arms. On the shore, beneath the two fighting creatures, she could see Linden and Cercus trying to help a staggering Captain Winter move to safety behind a large block of obsidian jutting straight up in the air.
Orphic, face still and lifeless like a statue, snapped the chaos beast’s neck and tossed it aside, though Twilight very much doubted that would be enough to kill it, since it wasn’t really alive to begin with. Discord would have to reabsorb it, or it would need to be dispelled. The fact that Orphic either hadn’t tried or just hadn’t been able to dispel it was good to know. 
Curiosity burned in her, but she knew she couldn’t waste time on questions. Her guards were in danger, and she needed to put Orphic in the ground quick and figure out how to get them all out of there as soon as possible. She fought the tugging sensation inside her chest–the one she felt when she dreamt her prophetic dreams or interacted with the orbuculum–and instead, head screaming in pain, aimed a massive magic blast straight at the nightmare creature.
Kill it quick, then flee.
The harried thought belonged to a young and frightened librarian, but Twilight Sparkle, Empress of Equestria, obeyed and imbued the magic blast with a word of power and command.
Cease.
The world around them grew still. For a second, nothing that was, had been, or would be, dared to move. Then, her spell, as bright as the sun, tore through the sky with a deafening roar.  
Orphic raised his hand, and though Twilight didn’t sense any magic from it, the air seemed to flicker for just a moment. Her magic struck the hand and most of Orphic’s arm, ripping it out of existence in an instance, but somehow, he’d altered the blast’s trajectory so that it veered off and missed the rest of him. It hit the surface of the lake behind him in a great explosion of water and light, surrounding them all in searingly hot steam, but if Orphic was troubled by the loss of one of his arms, he showed no signs of it.
He opened his stiff jaws, and it seemed a great effort for him to do so.
“Har… mn… y,” it wheezed, pointing at her. And then it laughed and shook its head. “No, diff… rnt… Weak!” A spear of gold materialized in front of Orphic’s gaping mouth and shot towards Twilight with such speed that she barely saw it move. The sonic boom that followed cleared away the steam and stunned her almost as much as the pain of the spear ripping a hole through the base of her left wing. 
Before she could even process what had happened, she’d crashed into the stony shore just a few paces from the rock behind which her guards had taken refuge. She could hear Orphic hack and cough, but the blow to her shoulder and the fact she’d hit her head when she fell left her dazed and confused. She wasn’t sure which direction was up, let alone where Orphic was standing. She tried to flee into the well but felt a sharp sense of tension that kept her in place, and then her cutie mark burned hot for a brief second. 
Dammit!
Despite the pain, she forced her trembling body to stand and to find its bearings. Luckily for her, Orphic seemed completely uninterested in the guards now that she was here. Doubly fortunate, he seemed in no hurry to attack her again. Perhaps the damage he’d dealt was enough for him. Twilight was in no state to put up a serious fight either way. Her magic felt screwy and useless, and she was pretty sure she was concussed. 
“You feel wrong,” he said, and she could hear his voice grow steadier and more beautiful with each word. “I thought you might be incomplete, but it’s something more.” He smiled at her, and then his body began to warp and heal.
His appendages shifted, and his skin grew out until all his bones were covered and the black ooze had disappeared, and before long, a unicorn stood before her. He was taller than her, probably even a little bit taller than Celestia, and the rest of him now mirrored the artificial and antique beauty of his face. 
He really did look just like a marble statue come to life. Everything about him was chiseled and perfect, and if Twilight hadn’t been preoccupied with not bleeding out, remaining standing, and hopefully not dying, she was sure he would have stolen her breath away. But he also felt dangerous and oppressive. It was a feeling she recognized… a feeling of power and dominion.
“Twilight… Sparkle,” he said, slowly, as if testing out each syllable. Then he laughed, and what a deep and joyful laughter it was. “You’re a little bit like me now, aren’t you? Well, isn’t that unexpected.” He shook his head and chuckled as if he’d said something silly or funny, just two old friends catching up after a long time apart.
Twilight risked casting a magical bandage on her wing to stop the bleeding. She wasn’t surprised he knew her name. She’d known his, and anyway, she was the princess. Everypony knew her name.
“Let us go?” she asked, seeing how far she could push her luck. Orphic seemed terribly relaxed for someone intent on murder, but then again, he might just be mad or different enough to make the distinction pointless. Magical entities of unknown origin often were. 
“I was planning to kill you. Not now, but soon. I hadn’t planned on you being here, actually. I hadn’t planned on me being here either, but I somehow got caught up in this inconvenient chaos bubble, and here we are.”
“Implying you’ve changed your mind,” she said through gritted teeth. She really was very dizzy, and she couldn’t figure out why her magic felt wrong. Her reservoirs were plenty full still, but that strange tension was there, keeping her in place, making the magic feel slippery and traitorous. When she tried to tighten the bandage, it resisted her, staying loose around the bleeding. Her shadow remained unusually still and silent, and that seemed concerning as well.
“Not really,” Orphic said. “But I will have to wait. The Speaker won’t mind. He didn’t want me killing you now anyways unless you agreed to let me.” He seemed less than pleased with that stipulation, but nonsensical as it was, Twilight was grateful for it. “But now I don’t want to. You’ve changed. What once was just sugar has begun to ferment, and if I’m to eat you as was promised, you must be again as you once were. Not this twisted half thing with a hoof on each side.” He waved at her with an expression of disgust, but then he grinned.
“Although, this proves I was right all along. She really was the worst hypocrite I ever knew. I wish I could go back and show her this. How much you’re just like me.” 
With a final flick of his horn, he folded in on himself like a water vortex until none of him was left. With a great sigh, Twilight collapsed to the ground, feeling weaker than she had since she’d made the orbuculum. She heard a great tearing sound as the chaos bubble gave out and dissolved around them, and she found herself lying on her parade grounds once more, bleeding all over the well-tended grass.
“Shit,” she mumbled, trying to stand up again. “Some help please.” 
Before she’d finished asking, Linden was by her side, but instead of helping her stand, she firmly pushed her back down to the ground.
“Please, Starchild, stay down. It will make treating your wounds easier. Besides, I suspect you have a concussion. You shouldn’t be standing or walking.”
Perhaps it was the concussion, or perhaps it was the strange tension still clinging to her magic, but before she could stop herself, she sneered at Linden.
“Don’t tell your princess what to do!”  
Linden raised an eyebrow at her and shook her head. “I will ascribe your irritability to the fact that you’re losing an unnatural amount of blood and to the fact that you’ve been poisoned.”
Twilight’s vision wavered, but she blinked to clear it. “Poisoned?” 
“Unless your blood normally looks like that, I’d say Linden is probably right.” 
It was Applejack who spoke. Twilight hadn’t noticed her walk up, but she was standing next to Winter Shield who was leaning against Cercus for support but otherwise looked okay.
Fluttershy flew up next to Linden and began to painfully prod Twilight’s wing, which caused Twilight to hiss and try to pull away. It was only then she noticed what Applejack had meant. Her blood had turned gold, and it was pouring out of her wound with alarming speed.
“Oh,” she slurred, “that’s not right.”
Fluttershy, though not saying anything, had a strange expression on her face that Twilight thought she recognized. The pegasus shot Applejack a meaningful look, and once Discord, Rainbow, Starlight, and Kerning all joined them, the farm pony cleared her throat and asked,
“What happened?”
Twilight saw Kerning hand the pills she’d requested to Fluttershy, but she shook her head and whispered something to Kerning that Twilight couldn’t hear.
“Uhm,” Twilight said, but found she was having a hard time stringing thoughts together. She’d taken much worse beatings in the past and been in significantly better condition. Whatever Orphic had done to her blood, it was really throwing her for a loop. Like a drunk pony, she found herself babbling.
“I did something,” she mumbled. “I’ve never done it before. It changed my magic… I think?” She had done something, hadn’t she? Maybe it wasn’t the transmutation of her blood that had caused her magic to behave so strangely. She tried to remember what she’d done. Something about a word of power? 
“Uh, maybe we should give the Saint and Linden space to work?” Winter said. “The princess doesn’t seem to be in the best of states to talk. We’d be more than happy to fill you in on what happened.” 
Twilight assumed he was talking to Applejack, but her head was swimming so much at this point she could hardly tell where she was.
“I spoke to him.” Her voice sounded distant and weak, as if someone else was speaking to her from the other side of a wall. “I commanded him to cease being. I didn’t even give him a chance to explain. I just wanted him to die… A word of power…”
And this time it was Discord who hissed. She felt his paw on her shoulder, shaking her more roughly than was probably safe. “What?! What did you just say? Twilight!” 
She could hear the panic in his words even through the brain fog, but Fluttershy was on him in a heartbeat and pushed him back, scolding him for treating her patient as he had. And that was the last thing Twilight saw before the darkness took her, Fluttershy admonishing her husband on Twilight’s behalf.
> Part I – Ch. VIII – A Conversation Long in Wait
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





“Everypony always says they'll give you a second chance, but deep down, they never forget.”

– Trixie Lulamoon







EoH 100


Twilight sat in her bed and watched a sparrow peck at a pile of seeds someone had left on her windowsill. The windows of her room had been left partially open, and beams of sunlight spilled onto the white silken sheets and gold embroidered curtains of her massive four-post bed. Everything in her bedroom was tall, and the canopy of her bed seemed to be in a desperate race with all the windows and doors to reach the lofty ceiling. 
The abundance of natural light, a warm wooden floor, and the cream-colored walls with gilded filigree made the space feel breezy and luxurious, and Twilight had always felt she could relax here. Like her office, and despite the regal trappings, it was a bit of a messy place, with ottomans, footstools, and squat bookshelves covered in haphazard piles of books, scrolls, and contraptions.
At the moment, she didn’t feel relaxed so much as resigned and defeated. When she caught her reflection in the windows, she looked like a hospital patient, sickly, with a vacant stare and deep bags under her eyes. A cynical chuckle escaped her lips, and the sparrow stopped its labor to stare at her for a second or two to determine if Twilight was a source of danger. Deciding that she wasn’t, it returned to its food.
To her surprise, when she’d awoken from her injury-induced coma, she had found Captain Winter standing guard in her room. Apparently, though Fluttershy and Linden had both been confident that Twilight would recover soon, he was meant to keep an eye on her and report to them if the Princess suddenly took a turn for the worse and started dying.
Winter had reported all of this when Twilight groggily asked him what he was doing there but had said nothing else since. Not that she minded the silence. Letting the sun dance over her face between the towering evergreens outside her windows while doing nothing at all felt wonderful right then, and so she had let the quiet linger and enjoyed the cooling breeze while she tried to anchor herself to the here and now. But, unfortunately, the time for morning meditations had ended and there was plenty for a princess to do.
She sighed and looked over at Winter. She felt a flash of annoyance at the pained expression on his face, but she pushed it aside and consciously replaced it with gratitude for the concern he was showing her. 
“How are you feeling?” she asked him. Her voice was thin and ragged, like parchment she’d tried to erase over too many times. 
“As healthy as they come, Princess. I just had some bruises. Nothing Linden couldn’t fix in a jiffy.” He held up and flexed a foreleg to demonstrate. “No need to worry about me.”
The implication that she really should be worrying about herself instead–not a lowly guard–reignited her annoyance, but Winter didn’t seem to notice. He studied her with bright and worried eyes, and she found herself feeling exposed, like a puzzle for him to solve. She felt as if she needed to put on clothes for some reason. 
“You do seem better, Princess, but not good. What can I do to help?”
Instead of answering, she looked back at the sparrow. She was a princess. If she needed something, she’d tell him. She didn’t need Winter prodding her as if she were a filly barely old enough to tell a scraped knee from a broken bone. 
He took a cautious step forward, her silence seemingly fanning his worry.
“Princess?”
She felt a sudden urge to punish him for looking at her that way and for speaking to her out of turn, and the thought came to her so fiercely it made her gasp out loud. She felt horrified and defiled that such a thought would leap unbidden into her mind. Whatever vile fragment of herself had generated the idea, it wasn’t who she really was. That’s what she told herself, at least, pretending she didn’t recognize the sensation. Pretending she wasn’t intimately familiar with the desire to command and control. 
Twilight wanted and tried so hard to be a kinder and better ruler than that. She forced the feeling aside, shoving it down into a make-belief strongbox in her mind that she locked with several padlocks and a whole mess of chains. But of course, Winter had noticed her gasp and assumed it was a matter of her condition deteriorating.
“I’ll fetch the Saint,” he said, halfway turning to leave, but Twilight raised her hoof to stall him.
“No,” she whispered, “just some water… please. And bring Lieutenants Linden and Cercus as well.”
Winter paused, clearly considering fetching Fluttershy despite what Twilight had said, and the little strongbox in her mind rattled violently. But then he nodded and saluted her. He turned to leave again, but for a second time, Twilight stopped him.  
“Actually,” she said, “wait for just a moment.” 
She groped around for her magic, feeling like a blind mare fumbling around in the dark for her cane, but eventually she found her reservoir. She wrestled with it for what felt like hours only to finally cast a small and simple spell. It was the same string spell she’d used to find Winter and the rest in the chaos bubble, only slightly modified.
With a chime like a dinner bell, two strings shot from her horn into the palace, and after a few seconds, they pulled taught and chimed again.
“Bring Asterope and Captain Skarn as well,” she said, this time genuinely gasping for air and drenched in sweat from the effort it had taken her to cast the spell.
Winter opened his mouth to say something, no doubt to suggest she refrain from practicing magic in her current state, but a sharp glance from Twilight was enough to make him close it again and hurry on his way. 
As soon as the door closed behind him, Twilight felt her body shiver and release as if she’d been holding her breath, although the opposite was true. She’d been relatively fine–considering her condition–just a moment ago, but as soon as she started talking to Winter, she’d felt something ugly stir inside of her. It was small and weak, and she couldn’t quite define it, but it was there, and it was her. 
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked aloud, and if the sparrow on the windowsill had any answers for her, it preferred not to share.
Shortly after Winter departed–but too soon for him to have returned–someone knocked on the door. She entertained the possibility of ignoring the visitor, but decided she could only allow for so much petulance in one day. The sparrow turned its head to listen and must have decided it had eaten enough, because when the visitor knocked a second time, it spread its wings and flew off.
“Enter,” she tried to call, but it came out more like a frayed croak. The frogs in the royal pond would have been proud. She had hoped that perhaps the visitor was Spike, but that was foolish of her, as Spike wasn’t even in Equestria at the moment.
“Your Majesty,” Kerning said, gracefully bowing and closing the door behind himself in one fell swoop. 
Good.
Stop.
Why? I’m his queen. This is right.
I’m a princess! Stop!
“I hope I’m not disturbing, Princess, but I took the liberty of sending to the kitchens for some food. Just soup, I’m afraid, until you’re spry and healthy again. But I’ve no doubt your chefs will produce something delicious, as always.”
“Hardly something you needed to come all the way up here to tell me. The food would have arrived either way.”
Kerning raised a surprised eyebrow at her but nodded. “True. I come bearing a report from Saint Fluttershy on your condition, but if it pleases Your Majesty, I could return at a later time.”
She must really have sounded as if she were dying for Kerning to suggest postponing a report of any kind, but she shook her head and waved for him to proceed.
He looked at her for a moment, uncertainty clear in his eyes, but then cleared his throat.
“The Saint wanted you to know that due to her ministrations your wing is healing rapidly, and you should be well on your way to full mobility in a couple of weeks. Though she does recommend you try not to fly for the next month or so.”
She was certain Fluttershy had in no way taken credit for how fast Twilight’s wing was healing, but Kerning always assigned praise and blame precisely where it was warranted. He held all creatures to the same account, and such things mattered greatly to him. 
“In addition, she wanted you to know that though she at first thought you’d been poisoned in some matter, it seems that your blood turning gold actually has nothing to do with the creature you fought, but rather seems to be a natural progression of your own changing biology.” He shrugged his shoulders to indicate that he thought that was just as strange as it sounded, but who was he to question the greatest medical mind in Equestria. “Oh, and your concussion was swiftly dealt with on site, so there should be no lingering symptoms.” 
Twilight chuckled, and even that sounded dry and week. “If that’s all true,” she said, looking down at her bed and not at Kerning, “then why do I look, sound, and feel like I’ve got two hooves in the grave already?”
When Kerning didn’t answer, she looked up only to be met with an expression full of pity and concern, and as with Winter and Fluttershy before him, that was more than she could take.
“Leave me,” she said, and her voice this time was strong and full of ice. “Now.” Her last word reverberated through the room despite not having raised her voice. Instead, the air around them seemed to ripple like transverse waves in a pond. Kerning went stiff for a moment, but then he bowed to her and wordlessly backed out of the room.
The question returned, itching at the back of her mind. What’s wrong with me? But she ignored it. She ignored how familiar all of this seemed to her. Just like with her previous violent urges, she shoved the thought into her mind’s strongbox for later. She had things to do and needed to focus, so it could wait.
Her food arrived a short time later, accompanied by an extra pitcher of water on Winter’s orders. Kerning had been correct. It was a pureed vegetable soup of some kind, and it might have tasted wonderful, but every spoonful fell to ash on her tongue, and her throat ached when she swallowed. The water, however, she devoured greedily, even spilling some on the bed. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so thirsty. 
When she finished eating, she tried to read, but the book on her nightstand–a textbook on polar botanicals–failed to keep her attention for more than a few seconds at a time, so she tossed it aside and spent the rest of the hour until Winter returned staring at her wall. She felt she’d composed herself somewhat by the time the Captain finally returned with the others.
It did not surprise her that of the five creatures the spell had chosen, only one of them was a pony. Asterope being selected had been a bit of a shock though. She was a diminutive Ornithian with a chaotic mess of red and green plumage who had managed to join Twilight’s Guard at only eighteen. Twilight suspected some relation to Lix Spittle, perhaps a granddaughter, but had never bothered to look into it. Either way, she was a decent guard and an excellent cook–if a bit strange.
All of them except for Skarn bowed to her with somewhat anxious looks on their faces. The gargoyle, however, dropped to one knee and bowed so deeply her face almost touched the floor. This wasn’t uncommon for Skarn, but it seemed significant that while the guard’s behavior had once been a source of annoyance to Twilight, it now made the box in her mind rattle with satisfaction. 
“Please,” she said, making an active effort to sound gentle and kind, “grab a chair and take a seat. My voice won’t carry, and I have a lot to tell you. If you’ll sit as close to my bed as you can, it’ll make things easier.”
They looked at each other with surprise in their eyes but did as she asked. Winter, Cercus, and Linden seemed most comfortable this close to Twilight, each pulling up seats near the head of her bed. Asterope was clearly ill at ease and unsure of what she was doing there, but once the first three had situated themselves, she grabbed a large pillow and placed it a little to the right and behind of the ottoman Linden was sitting on. Not quite hidden, but with the deer working as a clear buffer between her and Twilight.
Skarn, however, looked distressed. Despite years of protestations, neither Twilight nor anypony else had ever managed to convince the gargoyle of what seemed obvious to the rest of them; that alicorns were not gods. Simple observation was enough to dispel the notion that Twilight possessed either omniscience or omnipotence, and she had never been able to find any evidence that there was anything divine about either her or any of the other four Equestrian alicorns.
Wasn’t the fact that she sat there broken and useless on her bed enough to demonstrate how fallible she was? Never mind that apparently, except for the healing hole in her wing, there wasn’t anything physically wrong with her. Fluttershy had to be wrong about that. Twilight felt like she was dying slowly and possessed all the energy of a damp rag. But she waited patiently, keeping her expression neutral and her eyes locked on Skarn’s, and eventually, the trembling gargoyle knelt down at the foot of Twilight’s bed, which was better than nothing. 
Twilight suppressed a sigh and turned her attention to Winter. “Thank you, Captain.”
Winter nodded. “Of course, Princess.” But then he looked at the other four sitting beside him with a candid and anxious look on his face. “If you’ll permit me,” he continued, “I think I understand why Linden, Cercus, and myself are here, but I had assumed you also wanted to speak to Sledge and Feather Weight. I’m not sure why you had me fetch Skarn and Asterope.” 
Skarn said nothing, but Asterope nodded vigorously as if to confirm that she didn’t know why she was there either, didn’t want to cause any trouble, and should probably be anywhere else. This was frustrating. Winter wasn’t normally nervous around her, and neither were the others, but she guessed she only had her earlier aggressive behavior and currently unpleasant appearance to blame for that.
“Why would you assume that?” she asked.
“Well… uhm, they were the other two guards in the chaos bubble with us.”
She stared at Winter; surprise painted clearly on her tired face. “That’s the first I’ve heard of it. I hadn’t been made aware that there were others in the bubble.”
Linden nodded and shot an accusatory look at Winter. Likely, nobody had been sent to inform Twilight because everyone had assumed that Winter would tell her. The offending Captain looked suitably embarrassed, but Twilight still gritted her teeth and had to school her face to stillness.
“Discord sent us in five at a time,” Linden said. “When the bubble broke, Sledge and Feather Weight materialized farther afield than the rest of us. Strawberry Patch organized a quick search after you had been tended to, Princess. They are well if a bit confused. It seems no harm befell them in the bubble.”  
“That’s good then,” she said. The relief that her oversight had caused no harm was plain in her voice, and she winced at how much she sounded like her younger self. From just behind Linden, she noticed that Asterope had raised her claw in the air like a school child, and Twilight couldn’t help but give a tired chuckle.
“Asterope, you don’t have to raise your hand. You can just speak up if you’d like to say something.”
She lowered her claw back down, and Twilight thought she might be blushing, though her red feathers made it hard to tell.
“If that’s not why you called us here, Princess, then why did you call us?”
Twilight grimaced and took a deep breath. Yesterday’s events had thrown so many things she’d been certain of into disarray. She had imagined herself in control, planning and preparing according to her own design, but of course that control had proven false. Instead, she’d been made to feel like a marionette, puppeteered by competing masters, neither of whom she could trust. One was clearly a monster, but the other–who claimed a nobler purpose–seemed scarcely less terrifying.
“I am going to tell you all a story,” she said, and though her voice was weak and wounded, she felt that once she began to tell it, she would not be able to stop. Though she cast no spell, the lights appeared to dim. As had been the case so many times before, Twilight seemed to almost glow, and she knew none of the guards by her bedside could look away or focus on anything but her.
“Several years ago, I began having dreams.”  


-



EoH 88


Twilight Sparkle liked to think that she was above such things as scowling or being jealous. She was older now, wiser, more mature. It was unbecoming of a princess to scowl, so obviously, she wasn’t. Rarity, however, seemed to be of a different opinion. They were sitting together at a writing table in one of Twilight’s personal libraries, this one near the Shrine of Laugher in the north-east wing of the castle. 
Rarity, normally the consummate lady and professional, was doing a terrible job of stifling a fit of nearly uncontrollable giggles, all the while shooting her taller companion a series of meaningful and sympathetic glances. Twilight ignored her, rising above the need to point out that schadenfreude was not a trait normally considered in line with the Principles of Harmony. Besides, she didn’t actually need to defend herself because she wasn’t jealous!
“Come on!” she cried as Pinkie Pie successfully transformed herself into an airborne candy cane, complete with propellers and wings. “How?!” She waived an agitated hoof at the transmogrified earth pony, face stricken with disbelief. “This is bullsh-”
“My goodness, Twilight!” Rarity interrupted. “Such language.” Though she placed a hoof on her chest to feign offense, the effect was more than a little ruined by a grin she wasn’t even trying to hide. Twilight shot her an unimpressed stare.
“Rarity, I’ve heard you say things that would make a griffon sailor blush.”
“Yes, well,” Rarity said, waving a dismissive hoof, “I’m not a princess now, am I?” The unicorn stuck her nose out, lowered her eyelids teasingly, and smiled that devious little smile she sometimes threw Twilight’s way, and which always made Twilight’s pulse race faster.
Her pulse quickening was a strange thing that sometimes happened around Rarity, but she hadn’t yet been able to figure out why. Rarity wasn’t particularly versed in spellcraft, but she possessed a vast reservoir of magic–though not as vast as Twilight’s own, of course–and Twilight thought that maybe the increased heartbeat was a byproduct of some kind of magical resonance between the two of them. It was a puzzle for another day though, since other more important things were currently demanding her full attention.
“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes. “The point is, I’ve been studying chaos magic for years. I’m the literal embodiment of magic! Yet somehow, Pinkie Pie–who is an earth pony–has mastered this in… what’s it been now? Ten weeks? Ten weeks, Rarity! And I can’t even transform this marble,” she pointed to a small cat’s eye marble lying on the writing table, “into a slightly differently colored marble unless I cheat and resort to regular alicorn magic!”
“Twilight, darling, you’re shouting,” Rarity said, clearly much too calm to be fully grasping Twilight’s desperate plight. “Besides,” she continued, “Pinkie has hardly mastered anything. Most of the time, she’s unable to succeed at the thing she sets out to do, and it does wear her out terribly. Secondly, I thought you established that the Element of Laughter is primarily fueled by chaos magic. So, doesn’t this just make sense? We really should have figured it out much earlier. Remember when she took over Discord’s home, uh, realm, thingy. It seems rather obvious in retrospect, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, Rarity,” Twilight said through gritted teeth. “Yes, it does.” 
“Twilight! Look what I can do!” Pinkie shouted from the area they’d cleared in the middle of the library for her to practice. She dropped from the air, turned into a perfect sphere that violently bounced off the floor before exploding into a cloud of glitter and shimmering confetti. Discord, who was sitting on an upside-down chair off to the side oohed and aahed while applauding the effort with ten sets of hands.
“That’s very nice, Pinkie,” she said, only to hear a small crack as her marble shattered beneath her trembling hoof. She lifted it quickly, lest she accidentally crush the table as well, then stood up, face red, and marched right out of the library. She wasn’t jealous! Rarity’s peal of laughter followed her out into the hallway, making her turn around and yell at the infuriating unicorn.
“I’m not jealous!”
Rarity got up from the table and hurried after her. Twilight didn’t say anything, just let her legs carry her wherever they wanted, and though Rarity was still smiling, there was genuine concern in her eyes. 
“Twilight, dearest. What’s bothering you? Really.”
Twilight looked away, grimacing, and focused her attention on the filigreed wainscot paneling that ran through this particular hallway. “It’s nothing,” she mumbled.
“It’s certainly something,” Rarity said, not meaning to allow for Twilight to be evasive.
“I’ve been having dreams,” Twilight said, hearing immediately how childish it sounded when she said it out loud. Rarity just shook her head dismissively.
“I thought you told me that isn’t possible, that you locked your mind away from that sort of thing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m very vigilant about maintaining my own dream guards, but I always thought sealing your mind completely was a tad bit drastic.”
“I wake up, Rarity, and I know I’ve been dreaming, but I can’t remember exactly about what, just that it’s really important. It comes back every night, and I wake up feeling this sense of dread. It clings to me all day every day, and I can’t shake it. Like a fear of something I can’t see or hear, but that’s always just behind me.”
At hearing the worry in Twilight’s voice, Rarity’s expression faltered.
“When did it start?” she asked.
“I think a few months ago, when I, uh…” Twilight trailed off, embarrassed to continue. She knew it would upset Rarity if she told her what she’d been doing, but she’d come this far, so she might as well dive all the way in. “I had just reopened my research into our nature as Elements. I know you and the girls said to leave it alone, but I had some ideas, and I thought maybe…” she trailed off again.
Rarity sighed deeply, which was almost worse than if she’d just yelled at Twilight.
“Rarity, I need to know! I don’t understand why the rest of you don’t seem to care. We don’t know if we’re all actually immortal or not. We don’t know why we all go cuckoo bananas when we’re away from each other. We don’t even know what the Elements of Harmony actually are!”
“Twilight, we do care, and we do want to know, but not at the expense of your health. Remember last time? You spent years trying to figure this out, and it consumed you. You stayed awake for weeks on end and locked yourself in the dungeon like some mad scientist doing Celestia knows what kind of experiments. You weren’t even eating.”  
Twilight felt sullen about it, but Rarity was right. All she could offer was a weak assurance that she was in fact eating this time around.
“Anyway,” she said, wanting to steer the conversation in a different direction, “that’s when the dreams started, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
Rarity said nothing at first, then nodded slowly. “Well, what do you plan on doing about it? I assume you’ve already thought of something.” 
Rarity was right that Twilight had in fact already thought of something, sort of. “I need some way to access either my dreams or to access the information in them indirectly. I won’t lower the protections on my mind, it’s too risky, but I think I might have found a different way.”
“And what, pray tell, is this other way?”
Twilight couldn’t help but smile, excited about her fledgling plan. If she was right, it would be the solution to almost all of her problems.
“Have you ever heard of an orbuculum?” she asked.


-



EoH 100


Twilight paused. Her throat was burning, and not just because she was thirsty. Speaking the events that had brought her to this point out loud was turning out to be more difficult that she’d expected. She needed the guards by her side to continue to see her as a competent and powerful princess, but in revealing her own missteps and the threats they were all facing, she was making herself seem, well, mortal. And weak.
“Skarn,” she said, and the gargoyle, who was still kneeling but was staring at her now with large attentive eyes, leapt to her feet.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I’m going to need some more water.” She gestured to the empty pitcher on her nightstand. “Could you run to the kitchen down the hall and fill this up. And please hurry back.”
Skarn bowed, hesitantly grabbed the pitcher, and then hurried from the room. The others used the break to adjust themselves and get more comfortable.
“Princess…” Asterope ventured. Twilight nodded at her. “Is it really true that the Prelate can use chaos magic?”
Twilight began to chuckle, but it turned into a cough. Linden was on her in a flash, trying to ensure her health, but Twilight waved her down. 
“I’m fine,” she said, though it apparently did little to mollify the deer or any of the others, as they all looked at her with deep concern in their eyes. Twilight ignored them and addressed Asterope.
“It is true. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”
“Incredible.” It was Cercus who spoke up. “I mean, we’ve all of course seen her do inexplicable things, and there are all those rumors, but to think she can actually wield the forces of creation in such a way. Remarkable.”
“I think you’re both getting caught up on the wrong part of the story,” Winter said, frowning at Cercus and Asterope. Twilight silently agreed. None of them seemed visibly worried about the fact that Twilight had been having ominous and potentially prophetic dreams despite caging her mind, but perhaps they were just waiting to voice their concerns until she had finished her tale. 
Winter turned his eyes back to Twilight. “I… do you really not know if you’ll live forever, Princess?”
Twilight shook her head. “No. Well, it’s true that I’m almost certainly immortal, or at least as much as Celestia and Luna are, but we’re not sure if the other Elements are immortal or just really long lived. We’re in the dark about many things, Captain. More than you’d expect.” They all sat in silence for a moment, waiting for Skarn, but then Twilight felt a wry smile settle on her face. 
“Besides, Captain. It might be that a timberwolf, a curse, or just a regular old assassin gets me long before I need to worry about dying of old age. In fact, it seems much more likely.”
Winter seemed displeased with her joke, as did Linden, but Asterope smiled–no doubt used to gallows humor from growing up around pirates–, and Cercus actually laughed.
“If you truly can live forever, Princess, it’s virtually a guarantee.”
The other three stared at him with various degrees of shock and judgement. Skarn also chose that precise time to knock and re-enter the room. The gargoyle shot the other guards a confused glance, unsure of why they had all turned on Cercus, but she prioritized the needs of her princess and hurriedly brought the pitcher over to Twilight’s nightstand. She then resumed her seat at the foot of Twilight’s bed.  
Cercus seemed undaunted by the tension in the air though. “It’s just simple math,” he said to the others as much as to Twilight. “If one is burdened by an eternal lifespan, then then the odds of dying in an accident, from murder, or just simply getting stuck in some way that only allows for escape through death becomes almost a hundred percent.”
“Although,” he continued, turning fully to Twilight, “your constitution is somewhat robust, Princess. I suspect it would take more than a timberwolf to bring you down. Even a terror such as we faced yesterday was not able to do more than confine you to bed for what I expect will be no time at all.”
“I’m glad you have such faith in me,” Twilight said, grabbing the pitcher and drinking from it straight. She finished half of it in one go and felt mildly better.
“To continue,” she said, forestalling a retort to Cercus from any of the others, “my dreams drove me to seek an answer, and I believed the answer would come in the form of the orbuculum. You’ve all seen it before.” She gestured towards her bedroom door and the study beyond where the orbuculum currently sat on its tripod and chimed. 
“It’s a kind of scrying orb meant for discerning truths about the nature of things, and though it’s esoteric and difficult to use, it does just that. It reveals things. To Cercus point, I almost died procuring the ingredients and casting the various spells necessary to make it, but once I had it in my possession, it did precisely what I wanted, and I foolishly thought the whole experiment a great success.”
Her memories, the visions shown to her by the Echo of Eternity, were still fresh in her mind, and remembering how callously she’d treated her own safety and the disregard she’d shown for the others’ concern made her already grim mood sour even further. Not until Winter gently cleared his throat did she realize she’d been staring quietly at her hooves for several long seconds. 
“What happened, Princess?” Asterope asked. “The orb works, so what went wrong?”
Twilight looked into the eyes of the little chef. She seemed like a child to her, small and frail, with no experience to speak of, and Twilight was about to thrust her into harm’s way. Instead of using her own great power to protect Asterope, she would use Asterope to protect others.
“It is difficult, sometimes, to know what to do with the knowledge you think you have,” Twilight said. “It turned out my dreams were portents of danger. I was having visions at night of a coming end to Equestria and all life. There were voices in the dreams that explained the visions to me and instructed me on what actions to take, and I assumed the voices were born from the orbuculum to guide me to truth and to safety.”
Cercus nodded. “But you speak now as if you know they were not.”
Twilight nodded. “The events I’m about to recount to you I have never told to anyone before. They’re known by only a handful of creatures and will fundamentally change the way you think of me.”
Skarn opened her mouth to protest, but Twilight cut her off.
“No, Skarn, they will. And if they don’t, they certainly should. I’m responsible for many terrible things, and this might very well be the worst of them all.” 


-



EoH 89


Months had passed since Twilight completed the orbuculum and not a night had gone by since from which she hadn’t woken up screaming and covered in sweat. At first, the orbuculum had clarified her nightly visions, revealing to her the coming death of Equestria, but as time passed, the voices in her dreams began to warn her of other things. 
She saw herself grow hard like stone, unmovable and without care. She saw her friends begin to slowly wither like flowers dying and scattering in the wind. Their deaths lasted for decades, and Twilight could only stand by and watch as their bodies decayed until nothing but wraiths remained, echoes of Rarity and Pinkie and all the others that wailed in horrified pain and persisted without purpose or sense of self.
Every night their ghosts begged and chastised and screamed and cried, and in her dreams, Twilight was powerless to help in any way. Sometimes the ghosts would attack her and kill her too, making her one of them. Other times, Twilight lived for millennia in a state of permanent torment, haunted by the same ghosts every second of every day.
Either way, Equestria crumbled and died, and so did the world beyond, followed by all the light in the skies until the very idea of life had been scrubbed from the universe. Only Twilight persisted, a cursed observer, trapped eternally in the cold and hostile void that remained. And so it went, night after night.
But Twilight was Twilight, and she intended to stop her dreams from ever materializing in the real world. She sequestered herself for days on end in her libraries and laboratories, more desperate than ever to figure out if the Elements were actually immortal. And if they weren’t, she needed to find some way to make them so. 
She was sure her visions were telling her that the Elements had to survive for Equestria to survive, which made perfect sense to her. The Elements were meant to protect harmony, and surely that entailed keeping the world from ending. But still the fear gnawed at her, blunting her thoughts, making her more sloppy and more panicked as the months went by. More obsessed.
And then, one night in early spring, Trixie Lulamoon fell sick. She was old, and it was not uncommon for unicorns to develop chronic respiratory illnesses in their later years; the kinds from which one seldom recovered.  
Because she had lived a long and good life filled with friends and loved ones, Trixie took it all in stride, resigned to her eventual fate. And though Starlight, Sunburst, Luster, and all the other ponies of her extended family and friend group were sad, they too understood that it was probably time, and so they set to spending the last few weeks of Trixie’s life in her presence.
Twilight, however–in her current delirious state–, saw this as an opportunity. If she could save Trixie now from what others considered a certain end, then all was not lost. If she could only stop death for a moment, then surely all would be well. Like a pony possessed, she got to work.
She had just returned to her basement laboratory after another extended visit with Trixie. Her twenty-sixth such visit, to be precise. The old showboat had mocked Twilight’s concern and laughed at her attempts to cure her, but she’d obliged the princess when she requested another vial of blood and had smiled patiently when Twilight cast her fifth delving spell in a row. 
Twilight grimaced as she stared at the blood under the enchanted microscope. Useless. Trixie’s illness was one of age and of the lungs. Staring at her blood wasn’t going to help, especially since she already knew what was wrong with the unicorn. Age. Entropy. Decay. All things living deteriorated eventually… well, almost all things living. If Twilight could live forever–if Celestia, Luna, and Discord could all live forever–then there had to be a way to stop it. There had to be.
The voices from the orbuculum echoed in her skull, admonishing and warning and never shutting up! They followed her constantly now, whether she slept or not, whether she was in communion with the orbuculum or not. They fed her obsession and anxieties, urging her on, telling her to try harder and to do more. To never stop. But she was trying. She spent every day trying, and it wasn’t helping. She couldn’t figure this out.
Her vision grew cloudy, and she quickly scrubbed away the tears of frustration that were pooling in her eyes. She couldn’t let her weakness drop onto the exposed microscope slide and contaminate the sample. 
“I’m trying,” she told the voices. “Please, I’m doing my best.” But the voices just grew louder, especially the harsher one. 
No, it said. There are more things you can do. Other things you can try. Stop being weak. Stop being scared. You, of all creatures, should be better. Then the voice, for the first time ever, chuckled, and a tone of mockery crept into it. You, Twilight Sparkle, should be smarter.
Twilight cried out and threw the microscope at the wall so hard it shattered and chipped the stone.
“I’m trying!” she screamed, spit flying from her mouth and tears now flowing freely. She felt a desperate need to laugh and cry and run away, all at the same time, but she was already crying, and she couldn’t run away, so laughter it was. What a joke Princess Twilight was, arguing alone with the voices in her head. She needed to think clearly, but the voices continued to whisper at her fiercely, and it was just so hard to string two coherent thoughts together. She needed air, someplace quiet. 
You are someplace quiet. There’s nopony else here but us.
“Just us,” she said to no one. 
Someone knocked at the door. 
“Enter.”
The valet who had been dispatched to tell Twilight Sparkle that Trixie Lulamoon was finally dying stepped into the cavernous laboratory. It was dark and gloomy, but he could see the far wall was chipped, and on the ground beneath the damage lay some kind of scientific equipment that had been shattered. In the middle of the room stood an alicorn. Not Twilight Sparkle, though. The valet had seen the Princess many times. This was someone different.
This alicorn seemed darker somehow, almost smudged, like an ink stain. Her hair hung to the floor in a straight and tangled mess, and her cold tear-streaked face was illuminated by a pair of eyes that seemed to burn, flickering cyan flames fighting weakly against the shadows all around them. Her wings were longer–spindlier–and seemed set at just the wrong angle, and her horn was longer too and looked sharp like a needle. 
“Yes,” said the thing that almost wasn’t Twilight. 
“It’s Madame Lulamoon. She is passing.”  
She stared at him for a moment, then felt her stomach fall out of her, leaving a clawing sucking hole behind.
“Get Fluttershy,” she growled. 
The valet took an involuntary step backwards, away from the terrifying alicorn. “The Saint has already been notified…” he stammered, but whatever else he had meant to say was interrupted by a roar from Twilight Sparkle that rattled the very foundations of her castle.
“NOW!”
The valet scrambled to flee the room. Twilight watched him go for an eternal second, blood pumping loudly in her ears, then–instead of teleporting–she simply stepped out from her laboratory and into Trixie’s private room in the castle’s hospital wing. At the time, she’d paid it no attention, but in all the years since, she had often tried and failed to replicate the feat.
She saw Trixie lying still on her bed, her eyes closed and her breath slow and shallow. Starlight held her hoof. They both looked so small and fragile. Trixie in particular looked as if a strong breeze could pick her up and carry her out of the window that had been thrown open to let in the warm nighttime air. Others were there too, but to Twilight they all seemed vague and amorphous, shapes that sort of looked like Kerning and Luster and other ponies who at the moment didn’t matter at all.
Without the tell-tale pop of teleportation, nopony there seemed to notice her, but then Starlight looked up, and whatever she saw in Twilight’s face she must not have liked, because without letting go of Trixie’s hoof, she shifted her position so that she was sitting directly between Twilight and their dying friend. 
“Twilight,” she said, voice an urgent whisper. “You leave her alone. It’s her time.” 
The muscles in Twilight’s face felt slack to her. In fact, her whole body felt light and distant. Starlight spoke more words, but they came to her as a buzzing sound, like the wingbeats of so many honeybees, and the world seemed to warp around her until all Twilight could see was the now withering but once great and powerful magician. 
“All things die…” she heard herself say, and even through her tunnel vision, she made note of the suddenly frightened look on Starlight’s face. Twilight wasn’t really talking to Starlight though, nor to anyone else there, but the words left her lips regardless. “But not we. We remain. I will remain.”
You are strong enough to heal the unicorn, to make her young once more. Command her to live, and she will live. By your will, make it so.
“Princess, please have a seat.” It was Kerning who spoke, and he looked at her with a face much softer than she’d ever seen on him before, as if he was coaxing a child. “Let us simply be here with Madame Lulamoon in her final hour. Let us make it one of comfort for her and her family.”
“No,” Twilight began to say, but before she could finish her thought, the door opened to admit Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and a very young mare following close behind Fluttershy that Twilight didn’t recognize. Fluttershy glanced quickly at Twilight but hurried past her to Trixie. Rarity and Pinkie both let their eyes linger on Twilight, and she felt for a moment embarrassed and judged, but it was a brief and quickly disposed of sensation. Pinkie’s eyes were harsh, but Rarity just looked sad, though Twilight couldn’t say why.
Starlight had moved a little out of the way to allow Fluttershy to look over Trixie, but Fluttershy just placed her hoof on Trixie’s and smiled. A faint shimmer–a barely noticeable transfer of magic–passed from the pegasus to the bedridden unicorn.
“She only has a few moments left,” she said, “but I made sure they’ll be painless.”
“Thank you,” Starlight said, smiling as well, though tears were forming in her eyes.
Twilight stared at them, and her brain refused to accept what she saw. Why was everypony so calm about this? How could they all be smiling? Didn’t they understand that if Twilight couldn’t stop Trixie from dying, then what hope did she have of keeping the Elements alive? Some small part of her mind screamed at her that she was being a fool, that her train of thought was illogical and panic induced, that she was spiraling hard. But the orbuculum had been made to speak truths, and it whispered louder that she needed to save Trixie now. 
“Save her,” she said. She took a step forward, and all the haze in her mind seemed to disappear. She saw clearly all those gathered, and how they turned their heads from Trixie to her, how their expressions went from calm sadness and resignation to annoyance, fear, and even anger. But Twilight ignored them. Fluttershy was the healer. She had told the valet to fetch her, and she would use her to do what was necessary.
“Twilight,” Fluttershy said firmly, “I can’t heal age. No one can.”
“I wasn’t asking,” Twilight said, and her voice sounded strange to her own ears, resonant and unusually deep. “You will do as I say, Fluttershy. Save her.”
She heard several gasps from the gathered ponies, and she felt somepony place a hoof on her shoulder and whisper her name, but she brushed it off and took another step towards Fluttershy. The pegasus in question stared her down like a confident mother staring down a misbehaving child. 
“Maybe you should leave,” she said, and Twilight had never before heard Fluttershy sound as cold as she did in that moment. Something inside Twilight flickered and snapped.
Her wings flared open in a crackling blast of magic, and she stomped her hooves onto the floor hard enough to shatter the tiles. “No!” she yelled, and when others attempted to grab her and pull her away, she cast force fields to push the offending parties–Rarity, Pinkie, and Luster–away from her and against the wall. None of the others in the room had strength enough or courage to stand against her.
Ignoring the shouted pleas for her to stop, she grabbed Fluttershy, who now looked terrified, in her magic and slammed her against Trixie’s bed. Kerning, of all ponies, leapt in front of her and placed his hooves against her chest.
“Please, Your Majesty! This is madness!” He sounded desperate, but as with the others, Twilight simply swept him away.
She walked up and placed her face right next to Fluttershy’s.
“Save her,” she said again, and this time Fluttershy shuddered for a moment, and her horrified eyes seemed to glace over briefly.
“O… okay…” she whimpered, and Twilight let her go.
“Twilight! Stop it!” It was Rarity yelling at her. Others were too, but Rarity’s high-pitched plea cut through the rest of the noise.
Ignore her! You must do this. You must!
She shook her head as if trying to shake away a gnat that was buzzing in her ear. They needed peace for this, so she cast a spell and teleported everypony but herself, Fluttershy, and Trixie out of the room. Vaguely she thought she might have deposited them in the throne room, but it didn’t really matter right now.
Fluttershy was visibly shaking as she placed her hooves on Trixie’s body. Her jaw kept tensing, and her eyes seemed to have a hard time focusing. She was moving too slowly.
“Faster,” Twilight growled, forcing Fluttershy’s face closer to Trixie with her magic. Her voice sounded even more grotesque and distorted than it had before. It didn’t matter. Whatever Twilight said, Fluttershy would obey. She could feel it deep in her chest. Her commands were law and could not be ignored.
Fluttershy began to openly weep as the magic of restoration flowed from her hooves into Trixie. Trixie’s body spasmed horribly as she took a too deep gurgling breath, and Fluttershy’s teeth rattled, her eyes rolling back in her head.
Twilight thought she heard someone screaming at her to stop, begging her to let Fluttershy go. She was hurting her! Couldn’t she see that? And she was hurting Trixie! What she was doing was wrong, and she had to stop!
Save her, Twilight. If you don’t, they will all die! 
Again and again, Fluttershy forced her magic into an unresponsive Trixie. Her face had become terribly distorted, and a whistling whining noise was making its way up her throat. A repressed wail of pain held at bay by Twilight’s presence. 
“Twilight….” Fluttershy eventually managed to stutter out. The muscles in her neck bulged from the terrible effort it took, but she turned her face and looked into Twilight’s eyes, and Twilight looked back into her friend’s broken, bloodshot, and desperate face. “Why…?” she whispered weakly. “Y… you’re… hurting… me…”
The other voice kept screaming loudly in her ears, and she could hear that it was crying. Was it the orbuculum? No, it was still whispering at her to save Trixie. Suddenly, something felt tight in her chest, something felt… wrong? A pressure built in her, and for a brief quiet moment the world shifted out of existence, and she found herself standing on dark water in a black and empty space.
A purple unicorn lay on the water before her, weeping violently. She was so small and weak that Twilight immediately felt the need to go to her aid. But when the unicorn looked up and saw Twilight approaching, she cried out in fear and began to quickly crawl away from her using legs that no longer seemed to work. 
“You don’t… you don’t need to run from me,” Twilight said. “I’m here to hel…” but the word died on her tongue and blew away like a failing cinder. The unicorn ignored her, continuing her mad shrieking, all the while clawing at the water with her hooves in a desperate attempt to get away from Twilight.
The well shattered around her, forcing her back into the nightmare that was Trixie’s hospital room. There was Fluttershy, still bound and violated by Twilight’s will, and there was Trixie, her dead body forced rigid by healing magic now corrupted by a profane purpose. For an eternal unbearable moment, Twilight couldn’t find her breath. Then it returned to her like a lightning bolt, and she screamed at the insane horror of what she’d done. The sudden awareness of her actions made her sick, and she retched violently, vomiting all over her front legs and onto the floor.
She wasn’t sure what it was she let go of–what it was she’d been holding–but Fluttershy collapsed to the floor immediately, pulling in deep and ragged breaths as if her life depended on it, and not two seconds later the door to the room exploded inwards with enough force to knock Twilight to her knees, revealing a terrible and furious monster that Twilight vaguely recognized as Discord. 
Instead of killing her on the spot though, which is what her addled mind was sure he would do and what she was certain she deserved, he simply glanced at her, scorn burning in his eyes, before hurrying to Fluttershy’s side. He was followed by a crowd of others.
Starlight rushed past Twilight on her old unsteady legs and flung herself over Trixie’s body, weeping loudly. Pinkie followed Discord to Fluttershy’s side and looked just as furious, staring down Twilight as she passed her. She said nothing to the alicorn though, instead exchanging whispered words with Discord and gently ministering to Fluttershy. 
Twilight wasn’t sure what had happened to the others. Neither Luster nor Sunburst returned, but Kerning was there. He kept a wide berth of Twilight and busied himself trying to comfort the seemingly inconsolable Starlight. The only other ponies that had returned were Rarity and the young mare that had initially accompanied Fluttershy. 
The mare stood in the door next to Rarity for a moment, then hurried past Twilight to join Kerning and not Fluttershy, which would have surprised Twilight if she’d had the presence of mind to consider it at all. Rarity remained in the door. She just stood there, staring at Twilight with grief in her eyes and her mouth slightly open in disbelief. 
Twilight gingerly raised a hoof towards her, an involuntary whimper escaping her lips, and Rarity flinched, taking a step back. Twilight immediately lowered her hoof and looked away. Then she heard Rarity walk towards her, and though a small and foolish part of Twilight silently wished that she would stop and sit with Twilight, checking on her to see if she would be ok, she knew she didn’t deserve it, and was hardly surprised when Rarity’s steps carried her past Twilight and towards Fluttershy.
She stumbled to her hooves, barely able to stand, and made her wobbly way out of the room and into the hallway. No one ran after her. Even the orbuculum was silent. Only the shame of her sin came with her. Her body wandered through the castle like something already dead, her mind a numb buzzing absence in her skull. But her hooves knew where to take her, so she fled from awareness and hid in the dark.
When she finally stopped, she was standing in her private apothecary. She stared, jaw slack and eyes unfocused, at the rows of tiny drawers covering the wall. 
“He… hemlock,” she mumbled, pulling out drawers haphazardly. Yes, hemlock, or maybe castor beans or rosary peas. How much would she need for an alicorn? She had no idea. She quickly lost track of how long she was in there, pulling herbs from tiny wooden boxes and stuffing them in glass vials to boil over red and angry flames, but when she was done, she held in her magic a large beaker filled to the brim with a shimmering clear liquid.
“Okay,” was all she said as she began to drink.
She had barely swallowed two mouthfuls before something crashed into her from the side like a boulder tumbling down a mountain. The orange mass pinned her to the ground, and Twilight was so startled and surprised she tried to fight it off using just her hooves and wings, entirely forgetting about her magic. She snarled and bucked and tried to reach the pool of liquid on the floor next to the shattered beaker, but her assailant refused to let her go.
“Hurry up!” the thing yelled with Applejacks voice, and then Twilight felt something grab hold of her muzzle and pry her jaw apart before ramming a claw down her throat. For the second time that night, Twilight was sick. This time it was brief, since her stomach was mostly empty, but when she was done, she felt so weak she was sure she’d never move again.
Applejack climbed off her with a deep sigh of relief, but Spike, who was almost twice Twilight’s size, just sat down with a loud thud and stared at Twilight. He didn’t look angry at all or relieved like Applejack, just confused and worried. Worried about her. 
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, and the tears that began to flow then burned her like fire. “I’m so sorry.”
Spike just shook his head and ran a claw through her mane but remained silent.
“You should have let me drink it,” she whispered. “I’m a monster. It’s what’s best for everyone.” 
Applejack snorted angrily. “You can take that up with Fluttershy and Starlight,” she said. “They’re the ones who sent us to find you. Fluttershy had Discord fetch Spike, so…” she trailed off, then shook her head and turned her back to Twilight. “They wouldn’t say what you did, but I’ve seen the state Fluttershy is in. I reckon there’s been enough pain and sorrow for one night, but if you ever hurt her again…” She left it at that and walked out of the room. 
Spike sat with her until the sun came up. 


-



EoH 100


The sparrow returned to the windowsill. Why, she couldn’t say. It had already eaten most of the seeds and the rest had been blown off the ledge by the breeze onto the sun-dappled grass below. She said nothing, letting the facts and implications of the story she’d just relayed to her guards sink in. For ten years, she had never once shared the events of that night with anyone. 
Explanations had been made to those who mattered, which was mostly the other princesses and Rainbow Dash, who had been in Canterlot that night, but Twilight had said very little, and during the first few months following the event, she had mostly locked herself in her room and shunned all contact with others. Not once had Fluttershy and Twilight spoken to each other since. For ten years they had generally avoided each other, and when that wasn’t possible, they’d simply not spoken to each other. Except that wasn’t true anymore, was it?
Twilight felt like a monster for it. It made perfect sense that Fluttershy would avoid her attacker, but Twilight should have tried to make restitution somehow… But there wasn’t an apology or act of charity in the universe that could make up for her crime. Not for the first time did she secretly wish that Applejack and Spike had failed to find her that night.
It had taken years, but eventually things between Twilight and her friends had settled into its current strained status quo. There was a distance between them now. Well, at least a distance between Twilight and the others. They still worked together, and aside from Fluttershy, they even spent time together as “friends”, but now they all knew who Twilight really was and what she was capable of. The effortless affection between them had been scrubbed out like a spelling error on a chalkboard, and it really was all Twilight’s fault.  
There had been one tiny, terrible, and shameful comfort to Twilight throughout that decade of self-flagellation. Although things had gone awry and Twilight had behaved in the most despicable way, although she had permanently hurt Fluttershy, at least it had been in the service of a necessary cause. Hadn’t the orbuculum urged her on? And didn’t the orbuculum reveal the truth? Even thinking it now, she was disgusted with herself. 
She had tried to do what was right. That’s what she had secretly told herself when she lay awake in her bed during the many long and lonely nights that followed. It was a despicable justification, but she had no other balm to seek, and she clung to it desperately.
But now, that too had been stripped from her. As it turned out, it was not the orbuculum that had spoken to her. The orbuculum did show her the truth, but only images, and those images had been manipulated by both the Echo of Eternity as well as the very entity of death and destruction the orbuculum had warned her about. She had been tricked as easily as a foal. Why? Because of arrogance? A desperate need for solutions? Either way, her weakness had been her downfall.
She looked from the sparrow to her guards, and if they had been surprised before, now they were stunned. Each one of them sat in silent shock staring at her, but what they thought about the revelation that their princess had committed assault against one of her closest friends, that she could only guess. Except for in Skarn’s case. The gargoyle looked as if someone had rammed a spear through her stomach, but the silence dragged on, thick and heavy. 
Linden finally broke it. “You, uhm, you have more to tell us?” she asked. 
Cercus seemed equally desperate to fill the silence now that Linden had led the way.
“Right,” he said, and it was the shakiest she’d ever heard his voice. “You haven’t really explained what happened yesterday, nor why we five have been specifically summoned… though I am beginning to have my suspicions.” 
Twilight nodded and set her jaw, then told them what had transpired the day before, of her meeting with the Echo of Eternity and what it had told her about the orbuculum and the voices.
“It’s important that you understand all this because everything I’ve done in the last ten years–hurting Fluttershy, yes, but also creating the Twilight guard, and many other things–has been at the bidding of the orbuculum. Or as I now understand, the two entities communicating with me through the orbuculum. This Everdeath successfully fooled me into listening to and following his advise, and while I’m certain of his malignancy, I can’t be sure the Echo of Eternity is acting in our best interest either.”
Admitting it all out loud made her stomach and throat burn, but it was the truth. She’d been played. The Echo claimed benevolence, but Twilight found that her trust was in short supply.
“Your Majesty,” Skarn said, and Twilight wasn’t the only one surprised to hear the gargoyle speak up. “All you’ve done, you’ve done to preserve the world. The Everdeath’s treachery only further proves the need for taking precautions.”
“What I’ve done, Skarn, is despicable,” Twilight said, unable to keep the venom from her voice, “and there is no excuse or rationalization that will ever make it okay.” Skarn drew back and lowered her head, and Twilight sighed, frustrated with her unstable and fluctuating emotions. The locked chest in her mind was still there, rattling away at her.
“The point of all this,” she continued, closing her eyes and steadying her voice, “is that you cannot trust my decisions. Two years ago, the orbuculum granted me a vision that five of the six Elements of Harmony would need protectors, guards. The voice that I now know belongs to the Echo of Eternity provided me with a spell to cast and a time to cast it. It advised that the spell would select five individuals, each of whom would be assigned to one of the Elements. As always, the advise was vague and fragmentary, but I was led to believe that all of this was crucial for the battles that are yet to come.”
The guards all exchanged surprised looks. Even Skarn seemed caught off guard. Asterope looked like someone had just dumped a bucket of water over her head, and Linden’s face had taken on a suddenly sickly hue. Winter chuckled, but she thought it was more from disbelief than any actual humor.
“Your Majesty, what could any of us hope to do for any of you? You’re the Elements of Harmony, and we’re just regular guards.”
“Besides,” Asterope chimed in, sounding slightly panicked, “you said the voices can’t be trusted, Princess. Right? So maybe this is all just a trick too.” She looked at the others for support, and though none of them said so outright, they seemed to agree.
Twilight was about to respond, when somepony knocked on the door. The fact that they didn’t wait for Twilight to invite them in meant it was either Spike, Starlight, or one of the Elements. As it turned out, it was Applejack. She clearly wasn’t paying attention, because she had her mouth half open to speak before noticing the guards gathered around Twilight’s bed.
“Uh, am I interrupting something?” she asked. Twilight shook her head.
“You’re not interrupting, Applejack. We were just about finished anyway.”
“We were?” Winter asked, clearly too surprised to stop himself, which made the corner of Applejack’s mouth twitch up.  
“Well, that’s all good then. I just wanted to check in with you about going after Rarity and Pinkie Pie. With everything that happened yesterday and you being bedridden, I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea.”
“Fluttershy says I’m healing and should be fine to move around in a day or two. I plan on heading out as soon as I’m out of bed.”
Applejack looked Twilight up and down, doubt clear on her face. “I think Fluttershy might need to check again. Just ‘cause she’s never been wrong before doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. You look like somepony dug your corpse up from a not so fresh grave and propped it up using pillows.”
“I’ll be fine,” Twilight said, feeling nothing of the sort.
“Alright,” Applejack said, turning to leave. “If you say so. I’ll let the others know to get ready.”
As soon as the earth pony had closed the door behind her, Twilight turned her attention back to the guards.
“Whether or not the Echo was lying,” she said, pinning each of them down with an earnest and–she hoped–slightly intimidating look, “I am not at liberty to take chances. We will act with care under the assumption that what the Echo said is true.
“Until I can assign you correctly, you will stay in a group and stick with me, which means that you all need to get ready to be on the road sometime in the next couple of days. Winter, Skarn, assign new temporary captains to your companies. Winter, you’ll need to replace your lieutenants as well. For the moment, you will all act as a personal and mostly ceremonial bodyguard. At least that’ll be the official announcement.”
Not one of them looked thrilled about the announcement, and Twilight could see they were all still clearly in shock over her revelations, filled with both questions and doubt. But they were also her guards, well trained and loyal to a fault, so they all nodded and prepared to follow their Princess’ commands wherever they might lead.